Featured Forensic Justification of sinners!

I believe this is Jesus living as we should have lived, not seeking the will of the will of his flesh (which woud not include being nailed to a cross) but the will of God. Through his ministry (even at the start) he tells us he was not acting of his own initiative.

 

There is a difference between saying that Jesus always obeyed the Father and saying that Jesus humbled himself and became obedient, even to the death of the cross. The point here is that Jesus was in full submission to the Father, not as some super-human but as man. And as man Jesus fulfilled what we could not. This is a part of the redemption of mankind. The sacrifice, the laying down of his life, the atonement...this does not begin on the cross - it is much more than just moving the "sin debt" from one column on a ledger to another. The cross is the apex of this sacrifice. When Jesus cries "It is finished" he is speaking of redemption as a process - his entire life and ministry on this earth and the cross as it's climax.

You are the one, not I, who said that this humbling ended with the Incarnation. If you changed your mind about that, then wonderful. If you misstated your position, then great. But don't accuse me of misstating what you posted. I do not know what you believe except as you have posted on this forum.

 

I don't believe Jesus was tempted to sin either. The "lusts of the flesh" (or human desires) are not inherently sinful. James tells us sin is conceived when we are tempted and give into temptation to satisfy those lusts. So I believe that Jesus did, in fact, hunger and thirst. I believe that his will was not to die and not to suffer. I also believe he refused to turn the stone to bread because it was not his will but the will of the Father than he came to accomplish.

I do not see how you can legitimately interpret "not my will but the will of the Father" to mean "my will as always been contrary to sin in all forms but now I must be made sin" when the Garden was far from the first time Jesus spoke those words. Add to that Scripture stating that Jesus humbled himself by becoming man, did nothing of his own initiative, and that the work of the Cross was accomplished "through the Spirit" and your definition seems forced.

 

Ok, let's play a game. One of these things is not like the other. Tell me, can you pick which one?

Philippians 2:5-11Have 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. 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.

John 6:35-40 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day."

John 8:25-30 So they were saying to Him, "Who are You?" Jesus said to them,"What have I been saying to you from the beginning? I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world." They did not realize that He had been speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him." As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him.

John 5:25 I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

Hebrews 9:14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

 

I am not in the position to determine what his "greatest humbling" would be. But the point of Christ's ministry was that everyone could live as he lived on earth, except they won't. You have to understand this to understand salvation. Jesus' life on earth was completely as man, submitted to the Father and through the Spirit. Otherwise the cross is meaningless to us. Jesus' perfect obedience cannot be separated from his perfect submission, and this is our example through Christ.

 

We could have done that. That is the point, and the condemnation. We could but we wouldn't. Obedience and submission is not, as Edwards pointed out, outside of our power. It is outside of our will and desire. Jesus had the same nature that we have, but he was without sin.

 

We can't say "Jesus in his deity" and then "Jesus in his humanity". This is neither biblical nor logical.