Is Jesus Superman? Hebrews - Part 5 (Hebrews 2:9-18)

Well, good day. We are in Hebrews chapter 2. I do this a lot at home. It kind of drives my kids crazy, but I mean it every time. This is one of the most important chapters and one of the most exciting ones. And it feels like whichever one you're studying next, that can be the case if you love and understand the scripture.

But before we get into Hebrews 2, the second half of it, I want to read from the London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter 8, called Christ the Mediator, paragraph 2. So if you want to follow along, you can look that one up. I'm reading from the revised English edition. So this is the modern English version. The Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, is truly and eternally God.

He is the brightness of the Father's glory, the same in substance and equal with him. He made the world and sustains and governs everything he has made. when the fullness of time came he took upon himself human nature with all the essential properties and common weaknesses of it but without sin he was conceived by the holy spirit in the womb of the virgin mary the holy spirit came down upon her and the power of the most high overshadowed her thus he was born of a woman from the tribe of judah descendant of abraham and david in fulfillment of the scriptures. Two whole, perfect, and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person without converting one into the other or mixing them together to produce a different or blended nature.

This person is truly God and truly man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and humanity. Amen. Now, the key sentence there is when the fullness of time came, he took upon himself human nature with all the essential properties and common weaknesses of it, but without sin. And you can even see in the verses referenced in the London Baptist Confession of Faith that lists Hebrews 2.14, 16, and 17 next to that paragraph.

And so we have a problem to deal with if we're Christians. I shouldn't call it, I don't mean a problem, but what I mean is that our problem is we need someone to save us, and we need God to save us, but we need someone to save us who is a man, and yet God's not a man, and so there's a problem that that only God could solve for us. And the problem is that we need a representative who can actually be perfect, but we don't have one.

And so Jesus became a man. Well, this is something that's very difficult for people to understand as well. In 1 John 4, I just want to reference 1 John 4, two, he says, by this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And that's in contradiction to verse two, though, so it's really every spirit that does not confess that he's come in the flesh, as well as confessing him as Lord, is not from God.

So it's a very important doctrine of Christianity to be able to say Jesus became a man in all of its essential properties. And that is an extremely hard to understand thing, but even more so, it's, it tends toward us we let me let me rephrase it we tend to think of jesus either only as god or only as man so some people lower him so much this was the uh arian mistake they lower him so much to his manhood that they eliminate the fact that he's God. And in fact, for the Arians, it became impossible to believe he was really God.

An alternative problem that we can have is that we think of Jesus as God and God only, not having two natures. And we think of that in such a way that we start to deny his humanity and the essential properties of it. And sometimes I think we do that out of respect. We don't want to think of Jesus as only a man or a mere man. And so we eliminate some of our language.

We change the way we talk about him so that he becomes, you know, Superman. And what I mean by that is we have a tendency when we talk about Jesus, the man, to treat him instead of like a man with all the common weaknesses that men have, yet without sin, we tend to talk about him as if he was really Superman. And if you don't know who Superman is, and it's a horrible analogy, But Superman was this alien in the movies that was just like a human, but he really wasn't.

And he had all these superhuman properties That not how Jesus was We think of him that way but in reality Jesus was a man just like you and me but he was morally perfect He was without sin He didn have the stain of original sin, and he had no tendency to sin in him in any way. And so Jesus suffered similar to us, though. So this is a harder question than I'm going to answer, but when you start thinking about Jesus as humanity, you need to ask yourself questions like, well, what does it mean to be essentially human?

And what do we experience as humans that is so common that we think of it as essentially human, but it's really not? So we think, you know, each one of us here, if we're at all honest, we think of our sin as essentially human because it is so part of who we are. It is so part of the fabric of our own being in the fabric of our society and culture and world that in our mind, sin is just human.

But as a matter of fact, it's not. Sin was introduced, and there were humans who were not sinful, Adam and Eve. And so, we experience sin as such a normal part of life that we think of it as human, but it's not. So, to call Jesus human is not to call him sinful. And so, that's one of the things that Hebrews 2 is then going to battle, is this idea that for Jesus to be human, that somehow makes him lower than angels in a way that's a bad thing.

And the argument we're going to see in chapter two is that Jesus had to become human. And to deny that actually is to deny that we have a savior. So let's go to Hebrews 2. And we stopped in verse nine yesterday. And there's some interesting phraseology. And then there's a few Old Testament quotes.

And the Old Testament quotes are almost exclusively to longer passages. So I'm going to talk about what's being quoted and do a little summary of it. But but I'm not going to go back and read the whole the whole context of the Old Testament quote, because there's a there's a reason why the author uses them here. And it's not it's not really tricky. You get a sip of water. so in Hebrews 2, remember the author's argument at this point is, you have the old covenant, and you know God, you know the Old Testament, and yeah, there was some exciting stuff going on.

Angels were bringing messages to men. Angels had all sorts of power. Angels were these great beings that are, you know, as far as I think I asked this question in family worship the other night, can angels die? You know, I've never heard of an angel dying. As far as I know, they get created and they don't die the way we do. So there's this sense that angels are bigger and better than men.

And the argument is, but Jesus became a man and that doesn't make him less than angels. So these first century Hebrews were in danger of thinking of Jesus as not as great as angels because he actually made himself lower than angels, which is the language used here. And so the Hebrews author wants the Hebrews and us to know there's a reason why Jesus had to do this thing that made him lower than angels, which is essential to your salvation.

And it should actually bring you rejoicing. So Hebrews 2.9, but we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. Everyone. For it was fitting that he for whom and by whom all things exist in bringing many sons to glory should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the congregation, I will sing your praise. And again, he says, this is him speaking, I will put my trust in him. And again, behold, I and the children God has given me.

So three Old Testament quotes there. And then we'll stop reading for there. And I don't know if we'll get much farther along. But the whole chapter is kind of one block. So if I do get through it and it seems rushed, it's because it's all one thought. So we go back to verse nine, we see a few points.

The first one is Jesus was made lower than the angels. And so if anybody thought that that terminology that I use saying men were lower than angels was inappropriate, this is utterly biblical. It's from Psalm 8. It was quoted earlier, and then it was mentioned again here. And this is to make the point, yes, Jesus was made lower than angels. And it was Jesus.

It even tells us in Hebrews 2.9, namely Jesus. Then he says, crowned with glory and honor, though, because of the suffering of death. And so we're reminded of Philippians 2, 5 through 9, where Paul says to have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. who now see the contradiction here though he or it not really a contradiction I mean see the contrast God showing us Who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped So, basically, remaining equal with God wasn't something that he grasped onto and held onto and wouldn't let go of.

It says, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. So what we have once again is Jesus is God and Jesus became a man. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Now we have Jesus is God. There's nothing about him whatsoever that was not God.

He wasn't a lesser God. He wasn't a demigod or a sub-god. He was simply God. And because of his perfection, he chose to become a man. And he humbled himself to the point of death. He could have become an angel and never died.

There's all sorts of things I guess you could have said he could have done. But he actually humbled himself to become a man who could die and then died a horrible, shameful death. and then it tells us in Philippians 2 9 the same thing the author of Hebrews was saying therefore because he did this because of his suffering and death God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name and then there's there's the famous line about every knee bowing and every tongue confessing which is an old testament proclamation of the Gentiles getting saved. You can check that out another time.

But so in Hebrews 2.9, he says he was crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death. So it's because of his humility that the Lord exalts him and bestows on him the great name. And so Jesus is our example in that way, and it's something that we should meditate on regularly. This is spoken of more often than I just said quotes of it. Jesus's humility should be an example to us.

He who deserved no ill treatment took upon himself ill treatment. He was brutally beaten. He suffered physically. he you know I I've always thought to myself well I guess if I was God and I was going to come save the world I I'd probably at least come when there was air conditioning and and you know refrigeration and all sorts of creature comforts just you know if I'm going to suffer might as well make it make the best of it and then suffer at the end but Jesus Jesus just came to become a man and just to give his life for us.

And so we should meditate on the humility that Jesus has, and then we should imitate that because we don't even deserve the good things that he deserved in the first place. And then there's one last line. It says, so that by the grace of God, this is Hebrews 2.9 still, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. And so we have a reference here to God's grace, which flies in the face of the whole idea of the old covenant.

I've heard people say, well, the old covenant was a covenant of grace also. And I'm here to tell you, no, it wasn't. The old covenant was a covenant of works. You did something, and then you were rewarded with blessing if you did the right thing. And you did something, and you were rewarded, we could say, or you got your wage if what you did was wrong of curses.

It was not a covenant of grace. Now, there's always grace involved because for God to condescend even to reveal himself to us is gracious. I mean, if you wake up, well, we've all woken up today, but if you look outside in a little bit and you see a beautiful sky, that's, to some extent, that's God's grace. It's a gift from God that you don't deserve. But that's not what we're talking about here.

We're talking about God's grace to forgive sins so that you can have eternal life and be treated as if you belong in his presence rather than treated as if you deserve his wrath. and so the author of Hebrews reminds these guys, so that by the grace of God, Jesus did these things so that he might taste death for everyone, and now we're going to talk about tasting death in a moment, but when you taste something, you're taking it in, you're ingesting it, it's fully yours. This isn't like, you know, you went to a tasting and you spit it out. The idea is that he died.

This is not some euphemism for came close to death. Jesus really did die. And this is an important theme because he had to die. And he wasn't just a fake death. There's people that have told me, yeah, he didn't really die on the cross. He came down, like all these weird things.

Jesus Christ died and he had to die so that God could forgive sins. And then he says for everyone, which is a really interesting word because it's a word you have to deal with if you're either a Calvinist like I am, or if you're trying to become one, but you're dealing with the tough verses. This is the verse that somebody might use to say, well, Jesus died for everyone.

So what exactly does that mean Does it mean everyone goes to heaven Does it mean he died for everyone but not everyone goes to heaven That the question you have to ask And what I try to do when I'm reading the Bible is I try to keep reading instead of just taking one verse and saying, here's my like, Arminian silver bullet. Hebrews 2.10 says, for it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist in bringing many sons to glory should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering so when i get to the everyone i see in the next verse it starts to talk about many sons and i think the idea here is is that jesus in some sense tasted death for everyone he he understands what it means to be a man who died but the the everyone in scripture is a reference to everyone he died for. And so in the next verse, we say many sons to glory.

It's not necessarily all people, it's many. And then in 11, we say he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. And so then it gets more specific, it drills down. And so the author of Hebrews is writing to a group of people who are professed believers, and he's going to use language that if you just read it as if he's writing it to the whole world, it might not make sense.

And so, but that is one of the more, that's one of the verses you have to deal with. If you were having a discussion with someone who was, you know, opposed to God's grace and salvation and God being sovereign over salvation, that's the kind of verse that you'll have to deal with to explain what we mean by a limited atonement, or I think some people call it a definite atonement or a particular atonement, that Jesus died only to make atonement for a certain group of people. The alternative, of course, is that Jesus died to make atonement for everyone, but it wasn't effectual for everyone, which I don't mind saying this because it's not blasphemy.

That would make Jesus a loser because that's not true. Jesus is not a loser. Jesus successfully secured salvation for every single individual sinner that he intended to obtain salvation for. And every single individual sinner who will suffer in hell will not be able to say, but Jesus died for me. It's just that simple. And so, but there are times in the scripture where we have to wrestle with the language a little bit.

We have to reconcile the fact that there are some verses that if you read them in isolation would make you think somehow Jesus died for everyone, whatever that phrase means. Obviously, from a 1689 Baptist Calvinistic perspective, I'm going to say that that means he died for all of his elect and he understands their suffering. so back to Hebrews now 2.10 for it was fitting that he for whom and by whom all things exist in bringing many sons to glory should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering so now it gets interesting because who's he for it was fitting that he is the verb and then the subject or that's the subject sorry he is a subject and then there's a couple of positive statements but if we just pull this out for a second it says for it was fitting that he should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering and so when i first read this i thought oh that he is jesus because i just have a that's my kids answer to every question and that that's you know i kind of went there. But no, I think he here is the Father.

He is God. For it was fitting that he should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. So it's saying, for it's fitting that God should make Jesus perfect through suffering. Now, of course, in the Godhead, Jesus and the Father are always working together, and they're always at perfect unity along with the Holy Spirit. So we have to be careful sometimes when we use the words and distinctions, but Jesus made perfect through suffering is what I want to talk about next.

If Jesus was perfect, how can Jesus be made perfect? And so some people would look at this verse and they would say something like, well, Jesus was maybe not perfect and he had to grow into perfection. Or some people would even say Jesus must have sinned and then the suffering he had as a result of his sin actually helped him to become perfect someday.

And I think what we need to do is we need to always be careful when we're reading the Bible that we don't just take words and assume that they mean what they mean to us in every context that we would use them. And we have to be careful that we understand good theology sometimes first before we take that theology and make it. it's good to have good theology that we then apply to other passages that are less clear than to have a unclear passage dictate of our dictate our theology so if i just read this verse i think okay jesus had to be imperfect he had to become perfect using just modern english but But another idea, if you remember in 2 Timothy 3.16, where it says the man of God may be perfect. The idea of being perfect is to be complete, is to have completeness.

And so, I think what we're saying here in Hebrews 2.10 is that it was fitting that God would make Jesus, the founder of our salvation, the beginning and the end of our salvation, that God would make him perfect to be our mediator through suffering. So, it's not that Jesus was imperfect. It's not that he was somehow not impeccable. It's not that he had sin in him and had to become better.

It's that Jesus, as a man, had to still experience the things he experienced as a human being in order to be the compassionate and merciful high priest that we needed. It wasn't because he was lacking. It wasn't because he wasn't the perfect Savior, you know, from every moment. It was because there was a plan that had to be fulfilled. Jesus couldn't just show up on the scene, get killed by Herod as a little baby, and then God say, hey, atonement's ready for people.

That wasn't the decree. That wasn't the plan. And we're going to see why in the rest of the chapter. And so, Hebrews 2.9 is kind of like a thesis, and then the rest of the chapter, the author is going to defend it for us. He says, he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. Okay, so he's saying if we all have one source, meaning God.

God is the one who is the source of Jesus sanctifying us, and he's the source of our sanctification. And so Jesus and us all come from God. We all needed God to be there for us while we're human. And it says that's why he's not ashamed to call them brothers. And so bear with me, because the way this works out, you kind of have to go through it point by point.

So in Hebrews 2.12, it says, Jesus says, I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the congregation, I will sing your praise. So this is a quote from Psalm 22. This is the end of Psalm 22, where Jesus begins. The psalm begins, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And Jesus quotes this from the cross to point people to this psalm, this psalm of suffering that David wrote, that when you read it, it sounds like David must have suffered.

But what Jesus wants us to see is that this is a psalm predicting his suffering and ultimately at the end of his glorification. And as he says in this verse, the Hebrews author says, that is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers. What he's saying is Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers because he's a fellow human being who understands our weaknesses is the key.

And so he quotes Psalm 22. I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. I will sing your praise. So it's a reminder that Jesus is the our brother. He allows us to be called brothers. this is not this doesn't make him less than god this doesn't make jesus you know something he's not it's actually to show us that he had to become human but remember the thesis even though he's become human and he's made lower than the angels he's still greater than the angels in the whole covenant.

Secondly, he quotes Psalm 18 saying, I will put my trust in him. He makes Jesus, in both of these cases, the speaker of the Psalm. Even though the Psalm 18 is about David being delivered by God, and it's a long Psalm, it's great, but you read through it. We're not going to read it now, it's long, but it's at the very beginning. He says, I will put my trust in him. the author of Hebrews is saying this is Jesus speaking.

Jesus the man is proclaiming, I will put my trust in God. It's an example for us, and it's showing us that he's with us. He's with us in our weakness. It's impossible for God to have been separated, but if somehow Jesus could have not trusted God, he wouldn't have been the Savior we needed. He had to trust God as a man, not as a superman. He had to trust God as a man.

He had to do exactly what we all failed to do in Adam. And I think we sometimes forget that he was a real man, and he had to face weakness, and he had all of the difficulties we face, bodily functions failing, getting sick, being hungry. He had to suffer all these things. But he said, I will trust God. And then finally he says, behold, I and the children God has given me, which is a quote from Isaiah 8.

And again, it's a quote that shows us that Jesus actually just sees us as his brothers. He's a fellow human being with us. And he suffered with us and he understands us. And so when he brings many sons to glory, he's bringing his brothers and his sisters to glory. Jesus Christ is coming to the Father with a whole horde of us human beings saying, these are mine.

And they weak like I was but I fulfilled the covenant of works to earn eternal life on their behalf and so I bring them into my covenant of grace and Father you just going to accept them along with me And of course the father doesn do this grudgingly or anything It was all planned. They had from eternity past, but it's just the idea that we are with him and we are like him in his humanity. He's like us in our humanity.

And so we get to one day, one day you will experience what it's like to be a human being, but without some of the incidentals that we have of humanity, which is sin in the fall. We will live without a curse and we will live not under sin and you will still be as human as you are today. I don't know, you know, what things will change. I don't know all the answers, but you're not going to become something else.

We don't become angels. You're not going to get wings. You know, there's none of this stuff that people have come up with that that some of it's kind of cutesy. And I can see where you might get it from the scripture once in a while if you're not reading it very critically. But when you realize that our humanity and then Jesus' humanity is utterly important, you start to want to push those things away when you hear about them. but so it's fitting that jesus was made perfect through suffering and he's not ashamed to call us brothers and then here's here's the why here's the beauty of it here's the this is the point hebrews 2 14 since therefore the children that's us that's everyone who is saved.

Since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death, remember it said that he might taste death, he, Jesus, might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil. Jesus died so that he could then raise again to destroy the works of the devil. The reason the Son of God came into the world was to destroy the works of the devil.

It says in 1 John, he came to destroy the one who has the power of death, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. So now we see why Jesus had to die. It was so that he could resurrect. So people like you and me who have no power whatsoever over death, the only thing we can do is fear it. All we can do is rush to the emergency room if we think we're going to die.

All we can do is try to eat healthier food or work out or buy this book or take this medicine or go to this doctor. All we can do is just try to just make it go as far away as possible. Because inherently, even the most hardened atheist doesn't want to die. Not because these guys necessarily are afraid of hell, but they know death is the end of something.

They don't like it. We fear it naturally, and we should fear it. It's a horrible thing. Death is a horrible thing. Don't let anyone tell you like, oh, well, death's just part of life. It's not. death is an interruption to life and it never existed until we sinned and so what we we had jesus taste death on our behalf so that we didn't have to be slaves to it anymore we're not just ruling our life by well when are we going to die what should we do to make sure we don't die.

We still want to protect life. We still take care of ourselves, but we don't have to fear death because Jesus delivered us from that fear by promising us now that your death isn't the end. Your death will be an interruption to something, and in fact, your death will be your introduction into your time with Christ one day, which is why Paul could say, for me to live as Christ and to die in his game.

He says, I don't know which one to choose, but to be with Jesus is far better, he says, if he had a choice. And he kind of almost reluctantly says, but it's better on your account that I stay, so I will. And so then we get to Hebrews 2.16, for surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. So now anyone who wanted to argue about Jesus dying for everyone earlier on.

He helps the offspring of Abraham. He helps Abraham's children. And it's interesting that he writes this phrase to Jews in the middle of the century where, boom, the gospel opened up to Gentiles. Because it's his way of letting them know and us know, hey, the children of Abraham are God's people, not necessarily the Israelite nation. Those who come to Christ by faith, whom he has tasted death for, who will be resurrected with him to new life, signified by their baptism.

Those are the people who are going to be in heaven, who don't have to fear death, who Jesus has tasted death for, so they don't have to have eternal death. And he says it's not angels that he helps in Hebrews 2.16. the reason why Jesus became a little lower than angels. So before you get all critical, like, oh, he became a man and angels are so much better.

There's a reason. It's so you could be saved. So before you get all judgy, this was required so that you could be saved. And so it's a beautiful thing that he would lower himself. Instead of it being an embarrassing thing that God would become a man. I mean, you look, let's face it.

You look at some of the other religions, their gods are so manlike. It's embarrassing, right? You look at like Greek mythology and these guys are all like fornicating and like doing all this stupid stuff. Like most gods are really stupid And you got all these like all these people carry around their idols And there that one picture of the guy like carrying his idol out of his house during a flood And it like you know, when you have to save your God, cause you, he can't save you, you know?

And so let's face it. A God who is like a man is a problem philosophically and theologically, but a God who became man yet remained God is not a problem. He's actually the only God that exists, and he's the only one that could be a savior for humanity. So, and finally, really, this is a pretty good chapter ending, to be honest. Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, us.

He calls us brothers. Like, this is significant. So when you're sad, when life is hard, when you're suffering, when you're being beaten down even by your own sin, just dwell on the fact that Jesus calls you brother. You're a fellow heir. You're a joint heir with Christ. And you're only a joint heir with him if you suffer with him, according to Romans 8.

But he had to be made like his brothers in every respect. remember, humanity doesn't require sinfulness. He had to be made like us in every respect. He wasn't different than you. He still ate. He still slept. Some of the grosser things that humans all have to go through, he had to deal with all of it.

He was a little baby. He had to have his diaper changed. He had to be like us in every respect. Why? So that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Jesus Christ, because he became a human being, he can have mercy on us.

He can be faithful to carry us along with him because he was a perfect high priest for us. He suffered with us. Hebrews 4 comes into play here, too. We'll reference that next week, probably. But he says he makes propitiation for the sins of the people. He had to be a real human being to satisfy God's wrath for the sins of human beings.

This is something the author of Hebrews is going to flesh out later in the book. But it's just the idea that all these other sacrifices in the Old Testament couldn't cleanse you of your sins. And this was a revolutionary thing to the people here. And so we'll talk about that more when we get to the later chapter. Some dwell on it now. But then verse 18, for because he himself has suffered when tempted, he's able to help those who are being tempted.

So you have, well, I think I want to look at these last two verses more next week or two weeks from now. But Jesus not only can help you with your temptation because he's forgiven your sin. But I think one of the things that the author of Hebrews wants to encourage us in is that because Jesus suffered temptation and yet was without sin, he actually can help you now.

You don't have to sin. Sin is not human. Let me rephrase that. Sin is not essential to your humanity. Sin is an accident we're under because of the curse. You do not have to sin.

You have a faithful high priest who has shown you that a human being can obey God, can be faithful to God. And now he's given you his spirit that you may follow in his steps. So I'm not going to preach sinless perfectionism. We understand that we are in the flesh in a different way where we need to be glorified because of our stain of sin. But we can enjoy much more success over sin than we could before we were saved. and I think much more success over it than we often experience because of our own sinfulness.

So we need to rely on him and trust in him. And remember, when you are suffering temptation, when you get that feeling, there is nothing else I can do but the sin that I'm being pulled to right now. You remember that Jesus suffered temptation as well and never once violated God's law. So praise him, rejoice in him, and rest in him. And I will stop there with Hebrews 2.

And I will see if you guys have any comments or questions. Just wanted to say, great job. That was awesome. kind of preaches itself. This stuff. It does, but just spending the time, I mean, just spending what, 45 minutes just talking about Christ, just talking about this man, Jesus is just, I mean, if you're born again, you're just going to cling to this and love it and dwell on it and meditate on it.

And yeah, so glorious to you. So let's appreciate you. Yeah. He's, he's the best. Amen. Um, I saw a question posed on, there's a guy on YouTube I follow, and he was answering this question.

It kind of sparked my interest, so I listened to it. And the question that was posed to him was this is what he was addressing on his channel At what point in Jesus humanity did he realize that he was God So like if he's a, you know, he's coming, he's, he's born as a, you know, he's a baby. He, uh, he, he grows in, uh, uh, stature and knowledge and he's, you know, he's learning as a man, he's living, he's living as a man at what point, you know, It's interesting to think about.

He was addressing that. Was there a point in which Christ had dawned on him like, oh, wow, I'm God? Was he reading the scroll of Isaiah one day and was like, whoa, this is me? I'll throw that out there for you. My take on it is that he always knew. how could he not know? Um, and it's not like a thing that he had to learn that he was God.

Um, and that's pretty much what the, what the guy was saying as well is that, uh, it's not like it, it needed to dawn upon Christ one day that, that he was, uh, you know, a participant in the hypostatic union. All right. Well, I'll buy here and I'll say that, um, As a true human being, Jesus Christ would have been severely limited in his ability to think thoughts and stuff as a baby.

And just like a baby has to learn to speak and often speaks wrongly as they're learning words, They have to learn what words mean, and sometimes they'll say the wrong word, and they're not sinning. That's just a human thing. My guess is that as a little baby, as he started to form thoughts, he needed language to help understand what the thoughts were.

And it wouldn't have just been inherent that he just knew as a one-year-old, yeah, I'm God. but he certainly knew before he was 12 and was in the temple about his father's business so i would if someone said hey you have to pick a position right now on this um i'd say you know right around when kids are like you know four four years old or so in my experience is when they seem to start having thoughts where they're actually thinking things, not just repeating stuff, where they're actually trying to put together their own thoughts and then apply language to it to communicate that thought. So maybe a little bit before then he might have, and who knows, maybe his parents read the scripture to him at a young age, right? And so he would have heard of himself throughout the scripture, right? but you know i i say again i to me that's that's the superman view of him yeah you know that when he was two years old he was lifting up a car yeah well no that that's not humanity humanity is being a helpless child and actually relying on relying on god through your earthly parents who could have dropped you and killed you to keep you alive.

And so I would argue that it would have been sometime when he developed language, which is really the only way we know someone has thoughts, and would have been able to understand language. Because you don't read the Bible to a one-year-old with the expectation that he'll get saved. you read the Bible to your five-year-old though with the expectation he can take those words he can make them into thoughts and then he can get saved so that would be my argument about it yeah that's good it's a neat question I like those kinds of things they're fun yeah they're interesting to think about I think it goes to what I brought up earlier though that what does it mean to truly be human and let's not make Jesus something different he's a human you know and the analogy I sometimes use which is you know obviously they probably didn't have football then but you know Jesus could have missed a tackle Jesus could have run and not gotten a touchdown he could have fumbled like those things don't have anything to do with moral perfection that's human being stuff. He could have run a race and someone outran him.

And I think sometimes we just make him, again, Superman rather than morally perfect man. Because to us, morally perfect's a category we don't even have. Like, I cannot imagine not sinning. So to hear about Jesus not sinning, it's just kind of like, wow. But like, there's guys all over the place like LeBron James and Michael. There's all sorts of guys that are functionally speaking supermen when it comes to athletic ability and stuff.

I don't worship them. Some people do. But I worship the one who's morally perfect. I don't even know what that looks like. I don't worship a guy who in five years is going to be washed up. Because, you know, he got older.

Yeah. it is amazing how now that I think about it people really worship their the physical idols like that right oh yeah thank you for listening to Be A Berean with your host Michael Coughlin I am a writer at thingsabove.us and I also have a personal website, michaelcoghlan.net. You can contact me by emailing me, michael at thingsabove.us. I hope that you have been encouraged to search the scriptures.