But the reality and completeness of our Lord's human nature comes out
not only in the fact that He had a human parentage and a human body:
we are also clearly taught that, while as God he possessed all the
attributes and exercised all the offices of Deity, as a man He was
subject to human limitations.
1. _He was subject to the physical limitations which are essential to
humanity._ In John 4:6 we read that Jesus Christ _was weary_. The words
are +"Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on
the well: and it was about the sixth hour."+ But God is never weary.
We read explicitly in Isa. 40:28 +"Hast thou not known? Hast thou not
heard? The everlasting God, Jehovah, the creator of the ends of the
earth, fainteth not, neither is weary."+
We are told in Matt. 8:24 that _Jesus Christ slept_. But God never
sleeps. We read in Ps. 121:4, 5, +"Behold he that keepeth Israel
shall neither slumber nor sleep. Jehovah is thy keeper: Jehovah is thy
shade upon thy right hand."+ By comparison of these two verses, we
see distinctly that Jehovah never sleeps. Yet Jesus did sleep, so while
He was Jehovah, He was not Jehovah only. He was man as truly as He was
God.
In Matt. 21:18 we read that _Jesus Christ hungered_; in John 19:28 we
read that _Jesus Christ thirsted_; in Luke 22:44 we read that Jesus
Christ _suffered physical agony_, His agony was so great that He was
on the point of dying with agony; and in 1 Cor. 15:3 we read that
"_Christ died_," that His death is an essential part of the Gospel.
Paul says in this passage, +"For I delivered unto you first of all
that which I received, how that Christ died for our sins according to
the scriptures."+ It was no merely apparent death, it was a real
death. It was no "illusion." Our salvation depends on the reality of
His death. "Christian Science" cuts the very heart out of the Gospel.
We are oftentimes asked was it the human nature of Jesus Christ that
died or was it the divine nature that died. It was neither the one nor
the other, natures do not die, a person dies. It was _Jesus_ who died,
the Person who was at once God and man. We are told in so many words in
1 Cor. 2:8, that they +"Crucified the Lord of glory,"+ and we saw
in the last chapter that the "Lord of Glory" is unquestionably a divine
title. It was the one Person Jesus who was at once human and divine,
who died upon the cross of Calvary.
2. _He was also, as a man subject to intellectual and moral
limitations._
We read in Luke 2:52, +"Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature and
in favour with God and man."+ As we are told here that He grew in
wisdom, He must have been more perfect in wisdom after He grew than
He was before He grew, and as He grew in favour with God and man, He
must have attained to a higher type of moral perfection when He grew
than He had attained to before He grew. While in the Babe of Bethlehem
God was incarnate, nevertheless He was a real babe and grew not only
in stature, but in wisdom and in favour with God and man. _As a man_
He was limited in knowledge, He Himself says in Mark 13:32, +"But
of that day and that hour+ (i.e., the day and the hour of His own
return) +knoweth no man; no, not the angels which are in heaven,
neither the Son but the Father."+ Of course, His knowledge was
_self-limited_: to set an example for you and me to follow in His
steps, He voluntarily _as man_ put away His knowledge of the time of
His own return.
Furthermore still, we are definitely and explicitly taught in Heb. 4:15
that Jesus Christ was +"In all points tempted like as we are."+
But in bearing this in mind as being clear and complete proof of the
reality of His humanity, not only physical but mental and moral, we
should also bear in mind what is stated in the same verse, that He was
tempted "Apart from Sin," i.e., that there was not the slightest taint
or tinge of sin in His temptation, not one moment's yielding to it in
thought or desire or act. Nevertheless, He was tempted and overcame
temptation in the same way that we may overcome it, by the Word of God
and prayer. He Himself voluntarily placed Himself under the essential
moral limitations that man is under in order to redeem man.
3. _He was also, as a man, subject to limitations in the way in which
He obtained power and in which He exercised power._ Jesus Christ
obtained the power for the Divine work that He did while here upon
earth, not by His incarnate Deity, but by prayer. We read in Mark
1:35, +"And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose up and
went out, and departed unto a desert place, and there prayed."+ And
we read also that before He raised Lazarus from the dead, called him
forth from the tomb by His Word, that He lifted up His eyes to God and
said, +"Father, I thank thee that thou heardest me,"+ showing
conclusively that the power by which He raised Lazarus from the dead
was not His inherent, inborn, Divine power, but was power obtained
by prayer. It is mentioned not less than twenty-five times that He
prayed. He obtained power for work and for moral victory as other
men do, by prayer. He was subject to human conditions for obtaining
what He desired. He obtained power for the divine works and miracles
which he wrought by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. We read in Acts
10:38, that +"God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost
and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were
oppressed of the devil; for God was with him."+ And we are taught,
furthermore, that He was subject during the days of His humiliation to
limitations in the exercise of power. He himself said just before His
crucifixion and subsequent glorification, in John 14:12, +"Verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do
shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; for I go
unto my Father,"+ the evident meaning of which is, that during the
days of His flesh there was a limitation to His exercise of power, but
after His glorification, when He was glorified with the Father with
the glory which He had with Him since the world was, there would be no
limitations to the exercise of His power, and therefore, that we, being
united, not to our Lord Jesus in His humiliation, but in His exaltation
and restoration to His divine glory, will do greater works than he did
during the days of His humiliation.