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The Perfect Faith
Of Jesus
We often think of Jesus as being the perfect expression of God [which He was] and so the perfect expression of every virtue. We admire His compassion, His courage, His patience, His love, etc. Many times, through, we do not think of Jesus’ perfect faith in God.
This confusion comes in because of misunderstanding the duel nature of Christ or the purpose of His mission.
The Duel Nature Of Christ
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Phil 2:5-7, NASB
The duel nature of Christ is a divine mystery that we will never be able to fully comprehend. [To understand everything about God we would have to be as great as God.] What has been revealed to us is that God the Son - Who is fully and completely God in the Trinity of Unity - agreed to become a human being. When that happened at the conception of Jesus Christ, Jesus had both a divine nature and a human nature. Both these natures existed together without mixing and without confusion. The Bible teaches that Jesus laid aside or emptied Himself of His divine nature when He walked the earth. We will look at the implications of that which are sometimes missed in a moment.
The Mission of Jesus
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Phil. 2:8-11, NASB
So why did God the Son humble Himself by becoming human? As we have written about elsewhere, Adam as the representative of the human race chose to commit High Treason and rebel against God. This placed every human being under a death sentence. The only way to escape this death sentence would be to live a perfect life. Since we now have a sin nature and inherit original sin, this is impossible. Or we could have someone live a perfect life on our behalf and then take our death sentence on himself. The only Person Who could do that would be God Himself.
So then God the Son accepted the mission of becoming human, living a perfect life and then dying on our behalf in order to bring glory to God the Father and redemption to any one of the human race that accepted Him as their Representative.
Here is the part that some people miss: In order for Jesus to be the Representative of the human race, He could not draw on or “access” His divine nature in any way while living on earth.
Perfect Faith
So what does this have to do with Jesus’ faith in God? What is faith in God?
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Heb. 11:1, NASB
We know how this applies to us, but to Jesus? To live a perfect human life, Jesus had to operate in perfect faith. In other words, in His life on earth He had no memory or physical knowledge of His divine nature. Jesus had to take it on faith that He was the Son of God!
During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek. Heb. 5:7-10, NIV
Jesus was not born with the knowledge of being the Son of God or of being the Messiah. He learned those things the same we learn the things of God - by having the Word of God made alive to us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Since Jesus did not have a sin nature [only a human nature] there was no hinderance in His communication with the Holy Spirit; nevertheless, Jesus had to learn the truth about Himself and choose to believe it. Just think how much faith it took to look around at His humble carpenter’s surroundings and believe - without doubt - that He was the One Person in all history to be the Messiah! What an example of perfect faith in God.
Personally I think the prophecies of the Messiah in the Old Testament were more for the Holy Spirit to use to confirm to Jesus that He was the Messiah than for our confirmation of His Messiahship. [Of course, they are that too.] As Jesus learned the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit would quicken to Him, “This is talking about You.” He would accept the word of the Holy Spirit on faith and apply it.
Going one step further, this means that Jesus did nothing on this earth that was not an act of faith in God. Read the Gospels. See all the wonderful things that Jesus did. Then realize that He did and said all those things on faith in the Word of the Holy Spirit quickened to Him as a true human being. The implication is that there is nothing that Jesus did that His followers, in the will of God, could not do. Let that sink in.
Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. John 14:12-13, NIV
So as we read and study the life of Jesus, let us keep in mind that He was operating in faith - perfect faith. He is the example in all things.
...everything that does not come from faith is sin. Rom. 1423, NIV
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