Part 9 (2/2)

1. The Human Jesus.

2. The Divine Jesus.

3. The Winsome Jesus.

The Human Jesus

<u>G.o.d's Meaning of ”Human.”</u>

Jesus is G.o.d becoming man's fellow. He comes down by his side and says, ”Let's pull up together.” Jesus was a man. He was as truly human as though only human. We are apt to go at a thing from the outside. G.o.d always reaches _within_, and fastens His hook there. He finds the solution of every problem within itself. When He would lead man back the Eden road to the old trysting place under the tree of life He sent a man. Jesus takes His place as a man and refuses to be budged from the human level with His brothers.

That word human has come to have two meanings. The first true meaning, and a second, that has grown up through sin, and sin's taint and trail. The second has become the common popular meaning; the first, the forgotten meaning. It will help us live up to our true possible selves to mark keenly the distinction. The first is G.o.d's meaning, the true. The second is sin's, the hurt meaning. Constantly we read the effect and result of sin into G.o.d's thought as though that were the real thing. This is grained in deep, woven into the adages of the race. For instance, ”To err is human, to forgive divine.” Yet this catchy statement is not true, save in part. To forgive is human--G.o.d's human--as well as divine. Not to forgive is devilish. It is not human to err. It is possible to the human being to err, as it is with angels, but, in erring, man is leaving the human level and going lower down.

To understand what it means to say that Jesus is human we must recall what human meant originally, and has properly come to mean. Man as made by G.o.d before the hurt of sin came had certain powers and limitations. His powers, briefly, were, mastery of his body, of his mental faculties, and powers in the spirit realm so lost to us now that we cannot even say definitely what they are. And mastery means poised, mature control, not misuse, nor abuse, nor lack of use, but full proper use. Possibly there were powers of communication between men in addition to speech unknown to us. Then, too, he had dominion over nature, over all the animal creation, over all the forces of nature, and not only dominion, but fellows.h.i.+p with the animal creation and with the forces of nature: dominion _through_ fellows.h.i.+p.

He had certain limitations. Having a body was a limitation. The necessity for food, sleep, rest, and for exertion in order to move through s.p.a.ce acted as a constant check upon his movements and achievements. He could not go into a building except through some opening. The law of growth, of such infinite value to man under his conditions, was likewise a check.

Only by slow laborious effort and application would there come the discipline of mental powers and the knowledge necessary to life's work.

<u>The Hurt of Sin.</u>

Now, in addition to these natural limitations sin has made other changes.

It has lessened the powers and increased the limitations. There has been immense loss in the power over the forces of nature, though now, by slow and very laborious efforts, after centuries, much is being regained.

Instead of fellows.h.i.+p there has been an estrangement between man and the lower animals and between man and the forces of nature. All of this has immensely added to man's limitations, though it is true that most men do not know of what has been lost, so complete has the loss been.

The natural limitations have been added to. Sin affects the judgment. It brings ignorance and pa.s.sion, and they affect the judgment. There results lack of care of the body, improper use of the strength, and ignorant and improper use of the bodily functions. Then come weakness and disease and shortened life, not to speak of the misery included in these and the enjoyment missed. In the chain of results comes the toil that is drudgery.

Not work, but excessive work, more than one should do, with less strength than one should have. Work itself under natural conditions is always a delight. But through sin has come strain, tugging, friction, unequal division. The changes wrought in nature by sin call for greater effort with less return. Toil becomes slavish and grinding. Then poverty adds its tug. And sorrow comes to sap the strength and take away the buoyancy. And then man's inhumanity to his brothers and sisters. These are some of the limitations added by sin and ever increasing.

<u>Our Fellow.</u>

Now, Jesus was human; truly naturally human, G.o.d's human, and then more because of the conditions He found. The love act of creation brought with it self-imposed limitations to G.o.d. And now the love act of saving brings still more. G.o.d made man in His own image. In His humanity Jesus was in the image of G.o.d, even as we are. Adam was an unfallen man. Jesus was that and more, a tested and now matured unfallen man, and by the law of growth ever growing more. Adam was an innocent, unfallen man up to the temptation. Jesus was a virtuous unfallen man. The test with Him changed innocence to virtue.

In His experiences, His works, His temptations, His struggles, His victories, Jesus was clearly human. In His ability to read men's thoughts and know their lives without finding out by ordinary means, His knowledge ahead of coming events, His knowledge of and control over nature, He clearly was more than the human _we_ know. Yet until we know more than we seem to now of the proper powers of an unfallen man matured and growing in the use and control of those powers we cannot draw here any line between human and divine. But the whole presumption is in favor of believing that in all of this Jesus was simply exercising the proper human powers which with Him were not hurt by sin but ever increasing in use.

Jesus insisted on living a simple true human life, dependent upon G.o.d and upon others. He struck the key-note of this at the start in the wilderness. Everything He taught He put through the test of use. He _was_ what He taught. As a man He has gone through all He calls us to. He blazed the way into every thicket and woods, and then stands ahead, softly, clearly calling, ”Come along _after_ Me.”

He was a normal man, G.o.d's pattern unchanged. All the powers of body and mind and spirit were developed naturally and _held in poise_, no lack of development, no over development of some part, no misuse of any power, nor abuse, but each part perfectly fitting in and working naturally with each other part.

He experienced all the proper limitations of human life. He needed food and sleep and rest and needed to give His body proper thought and care. He was under the human limitations regarding s.p.a.ce and material construction.

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