My Reflection on Jesus Christ's Humanity and Reliance on the Holy Spirit in the Christian Life
Reading through Luke beyond Christmas and Holy Week reminds me that the Gospel truths are to be preached the entire year. Two doctrines I ran across Luke in the KJV Study Bible's doctrinal footnotes are the "Humanity of Christ" and "Holy Spirit in the Life of Christ". Both doctrines teach the fact that while Jesus is 100% God, He was also 100% man during His ministry. It's that unique paradox that would allow Jesus to be able to fulfill the Law to live as a sinless man before He would become the sin sacrifice of the world. Jesus learned obedience, was made perfect and became the Author of eternal salvation unto those who are His (Hebrews 5:8-9).
The humanity of Christ is shown through the fact that He was God in the flesh during the earthly ministry. John 1:14 says that the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus left His throne from Heaven above and allowed Himself to pass through a normal childhood, learned obedience from His earthly parents (stepfather and earthly mother), and lived to fulfill the Law that man couldn't keep to the fullest. 2 John 7 says that anybody who confesses Jesus came not in the flesh is an antichrist. The truth is that Jesus is God with us. That's what the name Immanuel means. It would be that God came among man in the form of man. The eternal Son of God is already preexistent with the Father and the Holy Spirit. 1 John 2:22 also warns that anybody who denies Jesus is the Christ and the Father is an antichrist.
The Holy Spirit plays that role in Christ's incarnation and ministry. Luke 1:35 has the message that the Holy Spirit will come upon Mary and that she will conceive the Son of God in His humanity. Later, the Holy Spirit plays the role of accompanying Jesus in His humanity. The Holy Spirit manifested in the form of a dove to the people after the baptism (Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:10, John 1:32). Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13 narrate that the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. Jesus, though He is fully God, was shown to have human traits, experience temptation as a man, yet He would not sin in order to become the perfect sin sacrifice.
What can be seen in Jesus' humanity is that He doesn't use His supernatural power to battle Satan. Jesus, being God, could still combat Satan in the most supernatural way. Instead, Jesus chose to use the power of the Scriptures to defeat Satan's three temptations. Jesus could've jumped over the pinnacle, have the angels pick Him, and let the people see He is the Son of God. Jesus could've chosen to make the stones into bread and feed the people. Jesus could've had it all easy. Instead, Jesus was in full obedience to the Father. I want to believe that Jesus was scheduled to resist Satan without the use of supernatural powers but by the power of the Scriptures. Also, we must remember that Jesus, in His humanity, truly learned things at the Jewish Temple.
The emphasis of Jesus' humanity is that His powers have been limited. Jesus voluntarily took the form lower than angels (Hebrews 2:7-9). Jesus, in full obedience, voluntarily suspended His omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence to communicate with humanity, to live among humanity, and to live as the perfect sinless human to obey the Law to its fullest. This would also give me clairvoyance of that Jesus can understand this and that because He passed this and that, except that He, being God the Son, never sinned. It's hard to explain the duality Jesus had in His ministry. As a human, He was subjected to limitations yet as the eternal Son of God, He could never sin because God is perfect. This also shows that Jesus can provide victory over sin because He Himself triumphed over it in His humanity.
The application would be that Christians are told to not trust themselves. I ask myself how many times I've sinned by my words, thoughts, and deeds because I try to trust myself. The Bible is full of heroes who failed because they trusted themselves. Noah got drunk, Jacob became a habitual liar and a thief for some time, Joshua made a deal with the Gibeonites, Samson wasted the supernatural strength God entrusted to him, David committed adultery with Bathsheba and later made numbered Israel against God's will, Solomon backslid horribly with multiple infidelities, Jehoshaphat foolishly allied himself with Ahab, Peter was rather impulsive in many of his mistakes, and the rest of the disciples soon fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane. Trusting myself made me do a lot of stuff I shouldn't have done or contradict myself.
If God saved me from my sins then why should I foolishly believe that He left me to fend for myself alone from my sins? If so, it would be ignoring the Holy Spirit who is there to convict of sin (John 16:8). It would be so foolish to think that I myself can truly deliver myself from bad habits that accumulated throughout the years. If God's greatest spiritual giants can fall then why am I arrogantly thinking that I won't?
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