III. DIVINITY EXPRESSED THROUGH HUMANITY
We would need many lessons to consider every aspect of Jesus’ life. The more we read about Him the more attracted to Him we should be. How could anyone have such a perfect human living? Only by being a God-man. The Lord Jesus was not just a good man; He was a man filled with God. His divinity was expressed through His humanity. This is why we are so struck by the fineness, loveliness, and balance of His humanity. His life cannot be imitated. In order to live the way Jesus did, you must be filled with God. God’s purpose is that man would express God. So He made Adam in His own image and intended that he should eat of the tree of life. If Adam had done so, he would have been a man mingled with God and would have expressed God.
The Gospel of Luke shows us many instances in which the Lord’s divinity was expressed in His human qualities. In 7:11-17 we see the Lord showing pity to a weeping mother by raising up her dead son. Verse 12 says, "Now as He came near the gate of the city, behold, one who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a considerable crowd from the city was with her." This situation was very sad, and no one could do anything to comfort the grieving widow. First she had lost her husband, and now she had lost her only son.
Luke 7:13-15 says, "And seeing her, the Lord had compassion on her, and said to her, Do not weep. And approaching, He touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. And He said, Young man, I say to you, arise! And the dead man sat up and began to speak; and He gave him to his mother." Here we see the Lord’s compassion in His speaking to the widow and touching the coffin. Would you like to touch a coffin with a dead person in it? The Lord was moved to do this by His human compassion. Then His divinity was expressed through that human compassion by raising the young man from the dead. Here we see that Jesus, the God-man, was full of the highest humanity with divinity.
IV. LIVING BY THE FATHER AND BY THE HOLY SPIRIT
The Lord Jesus lived His human life fully by the Father (John 6:57). Although He was God in the flesh, He never took the position of God. He lived as a man for God and with God. In the Gospel of John, Jesus said, "I can do nothing from Myself..I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him Who sent Me" (5:30); "My teaching is not Mine, but His Who sent Me" (7:16); "I do not seek My glory" (8:50); "I always do the things that are pleasing to Him" (8:29b); and "I and the Father are one" (10:30).
The Lord Jesus worked not by His own strength but by the Holy Spirit. He said in Matthew 12:28, "I by the Spirit of God cast out demons." In Luke, He was full of the Spirit, led by the Spirit, and came in the power of the Spirit (4:1; 4:14). From these points, we see that the Lord’s human living was fully in God, by God, with God, and for God.
(Lesson Book, Level 2: The Triune God—The Triune God and the Person and Work of Christ, Chapter 15, by Witness Lee)
