The first day of the rest of our lives, until the Lord comes back. Amen.
This morning, I am going to share on the humanity of Christ.
As I began considering this and thinking about it, I was a bit overwhelmed that we are touching something very sacred: the humanity of our Lord Jesus. So, I want to say a prayer this morning to help us.
Lord, as we come this morning to You, Lord, we are totally dependent on You. Lord, we feel so inadequate, particularly in this matter, Lord Jesus, of Your humanity.
Lord Jesus, we thank You this morning that You have rent the veil. You have provided the means by which we can enter in, even into Your presence. We thank You, Lord Jesus, that You have provided the Holy Spirit, by whom He can bring us clarity and a real seeing, a revelation of Who You are. Lord, not just an understanding, but a real seeing, a real revelation.
Lord, this morning, I just want to come, and we all want to stand, Lord, under that open heaven. Lord, we pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the anointing to be able to speak and to be able to receive. Lord, we come to You saying this morning, “We would see Jesus.”
Lord, bless this time, we pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, when we come to the Lord Jesus Christ, He is the Son of God, and He is the Son of Man. His title as Son of God shows us the relationship that He has with God the Father. The Son of Man shows us the relationship He has with humanity, with man, with you and me. He became a man.
When He was incarnate, He did not lose His deity, but it does say that He emptied Himself. So what does that mean? It means He set aside His glory and the attributes of His deity.
Now, we know He set aside His glory because the Lord, in John 17, said, “Father, restore unto Me the glory that I had with You.” Also, He set aside His attributes as deity. Just one example: He was no longer omnipresent as a man. As God, He is everywhere; but as a man, He limited Himself to time and space, like we are. He is like us.
The miracles that our Lord performed were not out from Himself. He did not do them out from Himself because He was deity, and deity has all power. But the power that He had came through the Holy Spirit from the Father, and He expressed it as a man in His humanity. So He was able, as a man, to express the power of God on this earth.
In His humanity, while He was Son of Man, He was totally dependent on heaven. He was totally dependent on the Father. He lived a life of absolute dependence.
Now, brothers and sisters, that is what is so hard for us. We are so independent-minded. Our human nature, our fallen human nature, is a very independent nature. But the Lord, as man—that new humanity, brothers and sisters—became totally dependent on His Father and the Holy Spirit to speak to Him. That is how He humbled Himself as a man.
I will say it another way: whatever He did, whatever He said, it was not out from Himself or His self-life. It was always from the Father and through the power of the Holy Spirit. His self-life was a pure self-life, but it was not His resource for His actions and His life.
In John 5:19, the Lord Himself said:
“I can do nothing out from Myself;
but what I see the Father do, whatsoever things the Father doeth,
these I also do.”
That is a principle by which He lived all of His life. And that is the life to which the Lord has called us: to learn that very simple life of complete dependence.
Knowing Christ in His humanity is absolutely vital for the Christian life. Without the fact and truth of the reality of the perfect humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, we really cannot live the Christian faith.
Only the perfect man, such as Jesus was, can deliver man from his guilt and the power of sin. Only Christ, as a perfect man, could become God’s Lamb, the perfect spotless Lamb. Only that perfect man in Christ Jesus, that perfect humanity, could cause us to be reconciled to God.
If Christ was not the perfect man, you would not have an open heaven today. You would not have fellowship with God. You would be without hope in this world.
In our Lord Jesus Christ, as man, there was no sin in Him. He was perfect—a perfect man in every way. And this is very important: He was the man God intended Adam to be. He was the man God intended Adam to be. He was the man He intended for all of us to be. He was the man He intended that you and I be.
At His ascension, He did not put off His humanity. He went back to the throne as the Son of Man, and He sits at God’s right hand. You know that song we sing: “We have a man in glory.” There is a man in glory. He triumphed as a man.
When you are born again, born of the Spirit, Christ comes into your life. Now, we say that. We talk to our children about Christ coming into your heart, to accept Him into your heart. Well, brothers and sisters, sometimes I do not know that we truly appreciate what that means and what has happened in our lives when we say that Christ has come into our heart.
It is that triumphant humanity that has come into your heart. It is that perfect humanity that has come into your life. Christ has come into your life. That means that perfect humanity is also there, but it is in Christ. It is not in your old self-life; it never will be. It is always in Christ. But Christ is in you, and that is the life available to us, brothers and sisters.
As I thought about this, I said, “Lord, forgive me how little I take advantage of that life, that perfect life, that perfect humanity that is in me.”
It is a life upon which we will learn, as we grow in Christ, to depend rather than upon ourselves.
So, what is the purpose of humanity? I will read a couple of Scriptures. Genesis 1:26:
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”
You know, after His image and likeness means after His character, after His nature, after His likeness. No other creation had this quality. Even the angels were not made in His image and after His likeness. Man was a very special blessing to the Lord, and there was great intent in his creation.
In Genesis 5:2, it says:
“Male and female created He them, and blessed them,
and called their name Adam.”
The humanity of man was not deity. But man became a special vessel, created to be an expression of God, an expression of His character and His heart, and to be able to express His heart and mind. That is a very special purpose for which you and I were created.
We know this because Christ, the perfect man, said, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” In other words, Christ, as perfect man, is the One able fully to bring forth the image of God to us, to reveal it to us, and to express God to us. But that life is in you and me.
Later, the apostle Paul said, “It pleased God to reveal His Son in me.” Now, that is amazing, is it not? God has created you that He might reveal His Son in you: this perfect humanity of our Lord Jesus.
This was God’s heart, brothers and sisters. Humanity has not received the life like the angels have. We are created after the image and likeness of God.
Brothers and sisters, I was touched by how precious man is to God. You are precious to the Lord Jesus—a precious vessel. We know that. We have just had this table. We know He gave His life for us. He even paid the price for our sins that we might be reconciled to God. That is how precious He is to us.
Even after man fell, He did not just do away with Adam. Remember, He gave them coats of skins as a covering so that He could still have fellowship. But even that fellowship was clouded, brothers and sisters, because of the fallen nature of Adam.
Let us look at the history of humanity a little bit. We need to see clearly that we today have a fallen humanity, but we also have that perfect humanity in Jesus Christ.
Let us look at Psalm 8:4-6. This is where the first mention of “son of man” is in the Bible. This is where we see that term, “son of man.”
“What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?
And the son of man, that Thou visitest him?
For Thou hast made him but little lower than God,
And crownest him with glory and honor.
Thou makest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands;
Thou hast put all things under his feet.”
This is the place, the position, which Adam had before his fall. This was his original condition, the original place God intended for him. We know Christ becomes the real fulfillment of all this, but it was Adam’s in the very beginning.
Before Adam fell, God intended that he would mature and grow. He had this humanity from God, but that humanity needed to grow and mature into fullness. And how was he going to do that? By voluntarily taking of the tree of life—in other words, fully depending on the tree of life.
For Adam’s humanity to become full and to enter into the glory God intended for it, he would have to become totally dependent on the tree of life. But Adam was tested in this. He was warned about not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
But Adam chose to live an independent life, a life not depending on God or the tree of life, but on his knowledge of good and evil. Brothers and sisters, what a tragedy. What a tragedy.
But today, do we not find ourselves wanting to live an independent life sometimes? I say this with the blood of Jesus Christ: sometimes we are very independent, not depending on God but on ourselves.
Adam failed, and that failed humanity—the human nature in Adam, that failed nature—was passed on to all future generations. I think we know that. It was passed on even to you and me. We know this because Adam’s firstborn, Cain, killed his brother. Adam’s failed humanity, brothers and sisters.
This humanity never improved. It got worse and worse. The knowledge of good and evil did not help them; it just condemned them. It progressively got worse until God could bear it no more. The depravity of man got so bad that it increased beyond the point of no return.
Kenny mentioned the airplane, the lift and the drag, and all of that last week. But also, when you take off in a commercial airliner and start down the runway, you get up to a certain speed and reach the point of no return. You have no choice. You can no longer shut the engines down because you have started to lift off. All you can do is add power and go on. That is called the point of no return.
Brothers and sisters, humanity reached its point of no return. Genesis 6:5-6:
“And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth,
and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart
was only evil continually.
And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth,
and it grieved Him at His heart.”
The Lord was grieved in His heart and said:
“I will destroy man whom I have created
from the face of the ground.”
That is the nature of that old man that, brothers and sisters, unfortunately, is still with us. I will talk more about that.
So God flooded the earth. You remember the story. He destroyed all mankind and the creatures, except for Noah and his family. It says Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Think of that. I do not know how many millions of people were on the earth at that time, but only one man and his family were found righteous before God.
Now, what do I mean by righteous before God? It is because he believed God and obeyed God. He built the ark, and by the ark, which represented Christ, it became his salvation.
Brothers and sisters, it is amazing how depraved the humanity with which we are born is. No matter how good a person you might be, that nature is still there. Even the good things—the Lord says they are as filthy rags when you compare them to the humanity of Jesus Christ.
The Old Testament testifies to the failure of this humanity. When you see the history of mankind in the Old Testament, you finally come to the book of Malachi, that last book. And what does it show us?
It shows us the remnant, the ones who still knew God or knew about God. Everybody had fallen away, but there were still some who believed in God. Yet certainly they were falling away from God, and Malachi is such a judgment upon God’s people.
The Lord says in Malachi, “If I am your Father, where is My honor?” You are not honoring Me as your Father. “I am your Master, but you do not fear Me. You offer offerings to Me that are polluted. They are stained. They are of no value.”
Then He says, “Listen to this: I have no pleasure in you. I have no pleasure in you.” That is the tragic story of the Old Testament. As it closes in Malachi, humanity has not attained; humanity has failed. You have to stamp it with the big word failure. You know, God has this big stamp, and He says, “Failure”—the whole history of mankind in relation to God.
So what does this say to us? In humanity there is an evil heart of unbelief. We see it in ourselves at times. It has become a hardness of heart. Man’s heart became hardened, and hardened, and hardened again.
It was hardened against the Word of God. It was hardened against the word of the prophets. It was hardened against the revelation God had given. With all the revelation given, man was still hardened. Even Christ Himself—man hardened his heart against Him.
What we learn at the end of the Old Testament is that humanity has gone beyond the point of no return. God has said, “You have so hardened your heart. You have said no to My ways. There is no remedy.” That is what it says.
In order to appreciate the humanity of Christ, we need to see our humanity, that old humanity we inherited from Adam. Even what we would consider good in ourselves, in our flesh, God sees as filthy rags.
The apostle Paul saw it in himself. Kenny just went through Romans 6, 7, and 8. Paul was a Christian, but he looked at himself and tried to deal with that self-life, that defiled humanity. He tried to reform it. He tried to control it. He came to his wits’ end and, in desperation, cried out:
“O wretched man that I am!
Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?”
Have you gotten to that point in your Christian life? “O wretched man that I am!” Brothers and sisters, we need to see that. But we do not need to end with that.
He said, “Who can deliver me from this body of death?” Then his answer was, “I thank God through Jesus Christ.” That is where he found the perfect humanity, brothers and sisters.
That is what the New Testament is all about. The New Testament brings in the new humanity God is after. He brings it to us in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the final and full type of the humanity that God is going to have.
It is a tremendous thing here in Christ, brothers and sisters. All that belongs to the perfection of man is found in Jesus Christ. If you want to see perfect humanity, you need to look at Jesus Christ. Thank God He came to this earth as a man to show us what perfect humanity is and that we can have it through simple faith.
He has become the humanity that represents all God wants in man. In 1 Corinthians, it says that the first man was Adam, and he failed. We have failed. In him there was no hope.
But then Christ came as the last Adam. That tells you something. If Christ came in humanity as the last Adam, He represented Adam and all of that defiled humanity. And what did He do with that last Adam, representing this fallen humanity? He took it into death with Him on the cross.
That is what He has done with this old humanity. He took it with Him into death, and He ended the Adamic race. Whether you know it or not, He ended the race in God’s eyes. It is over. It is gone. It is obliterated. It is no longer there. Thank God for that. It is something God has done. You cannot do it, but God has done it.
The Adamic race has ended in the last Adam, our Lord Jesus. But there is more. God is not going to try to reform Adam. He just puts him away in death. But there is more.
It also says Christ came as God’s second man—God’s second man, the new perfect humanity. Christ becomes the man God intended Adam to be. This second man rises from the dead triumphant over death.
The Word says that you are in Christ. When you accept Jesus Christ, He does come into your heart, but you are also put into Christ. So you and your fallen humanity were taken to the cross in Christ and put away.
I do not know if you realize you are dead, but you are. That old humanity is dead in Christ. You look inside, and it may seem very active, but you look at Christ, and that is where you are. It is dead, brothers and sisters. An amazing spiritual thing has taken place. You have gone to the cross in Jesus Christ. Hallelujah.
When you really see your humanity, you say, “Thank You, Lord. I agree with You, Lord. You needed to put this thing away. It is terrible.”
But, brothers and sisters, just as you went into death with Christ on the cross, you rose again in Christ as He rose from the grave. It says in the Word that you became a new creation in Him. You have become a new creation, a new humanity in Christ. It is in you, that humanity. The second man is in you.
That explains a lot about Galatians 2:20, where Paul says:
“I have been crucified with Christ;
and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me:
and that life which I now live in the flesh
I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God.”
That perfect humanity is in you. The whole of humanity, the old fallen nature, has been put aside, and the new humanity has been brought in by Jesus Christ. He is the firstborn among many brethren. So now He is the firstborn of this new humanity, and now you have been born into it as well.
Now, here is the problem. You know already that you have that old humanity with you. It has been done away with in Christ, but it has to be made practical in your life. That is a progressive thing.
How is it ended in you, brothers and sisters? It is ended in you through the discipline of the Holy Spirit and the work of the cross in your life, as He begins to cut away that old nature in you. He reveals it to you in some aspect of your daily life. He says, “That is the old man.” And you say, “I agree with You, Lord. He is dead, and I put him off.” That is how it is practically worked out.
In other words, I think I said this a long time ago: you are becoming what you already are in Christ. You are becoming what you already are in Christ. That is a mystery, really, but it is spiritual. It is from God, and it is God’s way. You are becoming what you already are in Christ. Thank the Lord for that.
Remember this, though: you will never find that new perfect humanity in yourself, in your self-life. It is always in Christ. That is why it says you have to keep your eyes on Christ, on Jesus, brothers and sisters. If you keep your eyes on yourself, it will be tragic.
Was it Paul Bunyan who wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress? Remember Christian? He was out in the field raking the mud. He kept looking down at the mud, and this golden glory was above him. But he always kept looking at the mud, looking for something good, and it was right there all the time. He just would not lift up his head to look at it.
That is just a little example of the life we are living today. It is a great transformation that God is doing in our lives. He is transforming us into the image of Christ. That is why the Lord said He wanted to bring many sons to glory. He is committed to that. He is committed to bringing you to glory.
What does that mean? It means to bring you to the fullness of Christ that is in you, to be transformed into His image. Paul said it very clearly: “It is not I; it is Christ.”
In Ephesians 4:22-24, he says:
“That ye put away, as concerning your former manner of life,
the old man, that waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit;
and that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind,
and put on the new man,
that after God hath been created in righteousness
and holiness of truth.”
Put off, put on. It is like a cloak: put off, put on. It has been done in Christ, but He says, “Put that coat off. It is no good. It has holes in it. Put on the new one.”
Let us look at the new humanity in Christ. This was really my burden. The rest of it was needed to really see this new humanity in Christ. I pray that the Lord will open our eyes. I know my speaking is poor, but may the Lord open our eyes to see this new humanity in Christ.
Apart from sin, Christ is one of us. He is like us. He is touched with the same feelings that we have. He experienced the same infirmities that we experience. It says that in all points He was tempted like we are tempted, and so He is able to help those who are tempted. That is our Lord Jesus.
When you look at His miracles, they reflect the compassion and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Was He not always merciful?
I remember the widow of Nain. I think it is in Luke. Her son was being carried through the city. He had passed away, and they had him upon a platform as he was being carried through the city. The Lord looked at that situation, and it says He had compassion. It touched His heart.
He was so compassionate. He went and touched that platform, and the young man was brought back to life. Oh, how desperately that widow woman needed her son, and the Lord brought him back to life. That was the compassion of our Lord’s heart. It just touched Him.
I think of the ten lepers. The Lord was just passing by. He did not go to them; they started crying out to Him. He turned around, and we remember that He healed all ten lepers. He was so compassionate. He went up, touched them, and healed them. Nobody wanted to touch a leper, but He did.
Look at our Lord’s heart. Nine went away. One returned and worshipped Him, recognized Him, and bowed down to Him. What did the Lord say? “Where are the other nine?” Do you not see? Our Lord’s heart was wounded. He had reached out in a mighty way and delivered these ones from such a great disease. It represents sin in our lives. He delivered them, and they did not return to Him. He was hurt, and He pointed it out.
His heart was revealed in the parables. I think of the prodigal son. We all know that story. The prodigal said, “Dad, I want my inheritance now. I am going away.” He went away, wasted it all, and it was all gone. He was living among the pigs, eating the corn cobs fed to the pigs. Finally, he woke up and saw his condition.
He said, “I will go back to my father. I will just be a slave in his house. They are a lot better off than I am.” So he went back. What did the father do? He saw him in the distance. I do not know how long he had been gone, but he must have been looking over the horizon every day. Then he saw his son.
Did he just wait there in indignation, waiting to admonish his son? No, he ran up to him. He grabbed him, hugged him, and received him. He received him with joy and had a feast. He forgave him and even restored him to his former place, brothers and sisters. That is the heart of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Think of His physical life on earth. I will read these because I have to move along. He was born a helpless baby. As a child, He submitted Himself to the authority of His parents. He was hungry. He became thirsty. He worked, and He became weary. He had to rest and sleep like we do. He suffered physical pain. He learned a trade: carpenter, His father’s trade. He worked at that trade for fourteen years.
In His moral life, how moral was our Lord Jesus? He always had a sense of duty about Him—an unswerving sense of duty. What did He say at twelve years old, when He was found in the temple with the teachers and His father and mother questioned Him? “Why did You do this to us?”
He said, “Do you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” An unswerving sense of duty. He was conscious of right and wrong. He knew the pressures of temptation and resisted them. Satan tempted Him in the desert, and He overcame.
He loved the Father. He had a life of self-denial, even at Calvary. He denied Himself and said, “Father, not My will, but Thine.” That perfect humanity. He was always sincere and a very courageous man as He faced the hatred of the Pharisees and scribes.
He was always humble. We can never forget at the Lord’s table how the disciples were arguing about who was going to be first in the kingdom, and the Lord humbled Himself, the perfect man, and washed the feet of those imperfect disciples. The perfect man humbled Himself.
Emotionally, He experienced joy and sorrow, wonder and surprise. He expressed love and anger. Remember, He became indignant with the Pharisees. He called them vipers and sons of the devil. But it was righteous. It was a righteous indignation—something that I do not know that in our old humanity we could ever have. I know we could not.
He felt the pain of disappointment. Oh, how the disciples disappointed our Lord. But He was faithful. He loved them to the end. He wept over Jerusalem. He wept at Lazarus’ grave.
Mentally, He grew in wisdom and stature. That is what the Word says: He grew in wisdom and stature. He learned like we do. His mind developed as ours do. Now, they say we use about ten percent of our minds—maybe. I am sure His was one hundred percent. A perfect mind—the most brilliant mind ever on this earth.
As He grew, He became aware that God Himself was His Father. Joseph may have taken care of Him on earth, but He realized that God was His Father. As I mentioned a moment ago, at twelve He said, “Do you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” It was not carpentry He was talking about.
He did learn. In that same incident, when they went back to the temple and found Him there, what was He doing? It says that He was listening to the teachers and asking them questions. It says they were amazed at His understanding and answers.
Brothers and sisters, He knew that Old Testament. He learned. As a man, He was not omniscient—which means all-knowing. As I read the Gospels, I say, “Boy, it sure appears He was all-knowing,” but He was not. Just as I said a moment ago, He learned. He was asking questions and learning.
Also, He acted on the information that He received. For instance, at the death of John the Baptist, He departed into a desert place. When He heard of Lazarus’ death, He waited two days. So it was based on what He was hearing.
It is a mystery: the Son of God, the all-knowing One, the omniscient One; and yet, as Son of Man, His knowledge was limited. Remember when Jesus was talking to the disciples concerning the end day? Jesus said, “No one knows, not even the Son, only the Father.” So it was limited.
He learned from the Word and the revelation that the Father gave to Him. In Ephesians, Paul prayed that we would have the spirit of wisdom and revelation. Think about that: He always had the spirit of wisdom and revelation upon Him. It was always there.
Later, Paul said to the Galatians, “I went up by revelation.” He had received revelation through the Spirit. So the spirit of wisdom and revelation was always on our Lord Jesus. He always was in unclouded communion with the Father, totally dependent on the Father.
As I said before, He said, “I can do nothing without the Father. What the Father does, I do.” That was His life.
He was without sin. We know that. He had a sinless human nature. What we see in Christ is human nature as God intended it to be. He had no consciousness of sin in Himself. He was without sin.
I read this from Scroggie, and brothers and sisters, this really touched my heart. I got a glimpse of this perfect humanity. I am going to read it, and I hope the Lord will enlighten it in your heart as He did in mine the day I read it.
Scroggie said this: “He never apologized for anything, because He did not need to. He never said He was sorry for anything He did or said.” Oh, how often I have to say, “I am sorry.”
“He never admitted He made any mistake, because He did not.” But how many do we make? “He never showed any sign of regret or remorse for misused or lost opportunity.” Oh, brothers and sisters, there are opportunities we lose sometimes.
“He never exhibited any consciousness of guilt.” There was none there. Brothers and sisters, is that not wonderful? Oh, one day we will experience that same thing: no consciousness of guilt. But it is necessary for us now because of the old man.
“He never acknowledged sin in Himself, and so He never asked for forgiveness.” We have to, do we not? “He never had an evil thought. He never felt the pain of an accusing conscience. He never manifested any trace of healed emotional scars, nor memory of defeat.”
This is the new humanity that lives in you. Think of that. There is new humanity that lives in you. Oh, when it says we need to live by the life of Christ, how much we need to, brothers and sisters.
You can never have it apart from Christ. We want to possess it in our old self-life, but God is not going to do that. You are always only going to find it in Christ. But, brothers and sisters, thank God we are being transformed.
Just as Adam was tested, our Lord Jesus, in His humanity, was tested. Remember, when He was baptized, He was anointed by the Holy Spirit for His public ministry. Then the Spirit led Him into the desert, and He was forty days there, fasting before God in communion with the Father.
Brothers and sisters, He was preparing to meet Satan head-on. As you read the temptations of Satan, you see that he was trying to get Christ to act out from Himself, out of that self-life, to act for Himself, to be self-dependent, to be self-serving. That was Adam’s failure, brothers and sisters.
Satan tempted Christ. He was hungry, and he said, “Make the bread.” Christ would not do it unless the Father told Him to. He would not do it. Satan wanted Him to act in His own power to provide for Himself.
He tempted Christ to prove that He was the Son of God, remember, by jumping off the pinnacle and having the Lord come and save Him if He was the Son of God. He would not do it. Nothing out from Himself.
He tempted Christ with all the kingdoms of the world—all its riches, power, fame, and fortune. The Lord denied it all. He overcame, brothers and sisters. Oh, we see today—it is very easy to see—men grasping for power, grasping for fame, grasping for fortune. That is the self-life.
Christ, the second man, the new humanity, prevailed over Satan. He was tempted in every way, yet without sin.
I love Darby’s assessment of this. I am only interpreting what Darby said, because when you read Darby, sometimes you have to read it ten times to finally get it. But anyway, this is my interpretation of what our dear brother said: He had bound the strong man, and He went out in the power of the Spirit into Galilee. Many received and responded to His Word. He was spoiling the strong man’s goods. I like that.
Look at His humanity at the Lord’s Supper. It was the Passover meal, and soon He Himself was going to become the Passover Lamb. What did He say? “With great desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.” That was His heart.
He just wanted to be with them at this crucial hour of His life. He wanted to be in fellowship. He received consolation from just being with them. Imagine that. You know how cantankerous they were. They were arguing about who was going to be first, who would sit at His right hand and His left hand.
As I mentioned before, the Lord humbled Himself and washed their feet. What humanity in our Lord Jesus Christ. He washes your feet, brothers and sisters. He washes your feet.
Look at His humanity at Gethsemane. The sufferings of Christ are in two parts: one in Gethsemane and the second on the cross. The one in Gethsemane was His fight against Satan and the power of death, and the fear of death, which is mighty and powerful. The second was on the cross, where He had to undergo God’s judgment upon Him on our behalf for our sins.
In Gethsemane, we see the perfect dependent man. He is in fellowship with the Father as He is praying. He faces Satan, who has the keys of death. This is necessary, brothers and sisters, because man, in our old humanity, is in bondage to death through the fear of death.
Hebrews 2:14-15:
“Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood,
He also Himself in like manner partook of the same;
that through death He might bring to nought
him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
and might deliver all them who through fear of death
were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”
That bondage had to be broken, brothers and sisters. It was finally accomplished on the cross. But He had to face Satan and that great power and oppression of all the satanic forces upon His soul.
He took Peter, James, and John, and we see His humanity. He said, “I want you to be here. I am going a little farther, but I want you to pray.”
Then He said, “My soul is overwhelmed. My soul is overwhelmed.” Have you ever had your soul overwhelmed? There have been a few times in my life where I felt my soul was overwhelmed, but nothing anywhere near the extent of the pressure our Lord was feeling.
He said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow unto death.” He felt the very power of death upon Him, brothers and sisters, and He wanted those three to pray for Him.
He went a little farther and was before the Father. He faced Satan and the great power of death. The full force of death and the fear of death was upon Him, brothers and sisters. Satan was trying to crush His soul at that point.
Also, as He was before the Father, He had to consider what He would face when God judged Him for the sins of man on the cross of Calvary.
It says, brothers and sisters, that He was in deep anguish of soul. This anguish was so profound that He began to sweat drops of blood. That battle was so intense. The Father even had to send angels to help Him through this. That is how powerful it was.
We know the atmosphere was so oppressive that the disciples could not pray. They fell asleep. Finally, He cried out—this is His humanity—“Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.”
He was before the Father three times, and in triumph He finally said, “If it is not possible, Thy will be done.” It was settled. It was settled. He rebuffed all the power and force of the fear of death that came upon Him. He overcame as a man, not by His deity.
Look at the cross and His humanity. The Lord suffered at the hands of man. What did He suffer? Violence, hostility, unrighteousness, desertion, denial, betrayal, forsaking. That was all a deep sorrow to the Lord’s heart.
He did not laugh it off, brothers and sisters. He did not just shake it off. It was a deep sorrow in His heart. In His physical suffering, brothers and sisters, Roger went into this a few weeks ago out of Psalm 22:
“Many bulls have compassed me:
Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.
They gape upon me with their mouth,
As a ravening and a roaring lion.
I am poured out like water,
And all my bones are out of joint:
My heart is like wax;
It is melted within me.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd;
And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws;
And Thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
For dogs have compassed me:
A company of evil-doers have enclosed me;
They pierced my hands and my feet.
I may count all my bones.
They look and stare upon me.”
That was His physical suffering, brothers and sisters. But in His perfect humanity, the Lord on the cross said, “Forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.” I do not understand that, brothers and sisters, but that is what He said. The humanity of our Lord Jesus.
And the thief on the cross—one reviled Him, but the other said, “No, no. Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” Imagine that. Imagine the Lord, in all of this perfect humanity, saying, “Here is one I need to reach out to,” in the midst of the cross. He said, “You will be with Me in paradise.”
Brothers and sisters, we are all sitting here. I think we are all believers. We will be with Him in paradise. Praise the Lord. Or, if He comes soon, we will meet Him at the throne. This is our Lord Jesus.
In that ninth hour, darkness came across the whole earth. It was because God could no longer look upon His Son, because He began taking on all the sins of mankind. Brothers and sisters, it says something that to this day I still do not understand: as He went through that process, He became sin itself, and God’s judgment fell on our Lord Jesus Christ.
This must have been like battery acid to His soul. I cannot think of anything more horrible. God had turned away, and for the first time in all of eternity, He experienced separation in His soul from the Father’s presence. He had never known anything in all eternity except communion with His Father. Now, in time as a man, He was deprived of that.
Only One who had experienced such communion could know the depths of such suffering. Darby put it like this: the depths of the Lord’s suffering could only be measured by the joy of unbroken communion He had known with the Father.
We cannot grasp those depths, brothers and sisters, or the horrors that He faced in that condition. In His humanity, He cried out:
“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
That is His humanity, brothers and sisters. But thank God, He triumphed. Finally, He cried, “It is finished.” He declared, “It is finished.” The work of redemption was done.
“And into Thy hands I commit My spirit.” Oh, brothers and sisters, His communion with the Father had been restored. He would go into death, but He would rise again.
Brothers and sisters, the story does not end at the cross. Praise the Lord, He rose from the dead. He walked on this earth for forty days, revealing Himself. He ascended back to the Father from the Mount of Olives, and that man, that humanity, sits upon the throne today at the right hand of the Father.
He has double glory. He has the glory as the Son of God, which He had before He became man. He also has the glory of the Son of Man, the perfect humanity, the glory that belongs to Him.
Then, on the throne, brothers and sisters, this man was anointed, and that anointing oil fell down on one hundred and twenty believers at Pentecost. They were amazingly quickened into the body of this new man.
So this new man is Christ the Head and Christ’s church, the body of Jesus Christ, of which we are a part.
Brothers and sisters, I know I have not in any way done anything adequate in sharing on the humanity of Christ. I do pray, though, that the Lord would, in the days to come, really touch each one of us with the spirit of revelation, that we could see Him in His humanity—the perfect man, that perfect man who is now in you and me and desires to be expressed in our lives.
Christ is the last Adam and the second man.
Pilate said, “Behold, the man.” Behold the man. This morning, may we behold the man.
Lord, we come to You. Lord, we have to say, Lord, it is only by revelation that we can really see Who You are—that perfect humanity in which we now have a part.
Lord, how blessed we are. Lord Jesus, only You could bear our sins on Calvary’s cross. You were the spotless, perfect Lamb, and You died for us—for that imperfect humanity, Lord.
Lord, we just want to glory in Your work on Calvary’s cross and in what You have done. There is a man in the glory. Amen.