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The UK Bible Students Website Christian Biblical Studies |
Jesus the Grown Man
All Scripture references are to the New International
Version-UK, unless noted otherwise.
The success of Jesus’ mission on earth depended on His being an ‘overcomer’, an achievement which required determination and devotion to His Father’s will in the face of numerous opposing forces.
During His formative years He no doubt encountered opportunities to resist temptation and, by stedfast refusal to succumb to them,
He strengthened His character.
He was prepared by suffering to be a merciful and faithful high priest (Heb. 2:16-18). Heb. 5:8, 9 enunciates the principle that Jesus learned obedience through these experiences.
From this testimony we may reasonably conclude that He was able to be able to be improved upon as to knowledge, ability, and character.
Hence He is set forth as the model for all those who endeavour to
follow in His footsteps, and is the perfecter of our own faith (12:2,
3).
This aspect of Jesus’ humanity is not honestly nor adequately addressed by the doctrine of the Trinity, a construct which imposes limitations on the practical interpretations presented here, and which are affirmed by Scripture read in an unbiased light.
In evading the force of the argument that Jesus was capable of growing in grace and therefore neither omniscient nor omnipotent as the Second Person of the Godhead the doctrine of the Three-In-One erects an unnecessary barrier of mystery, with Jesus the ‘100 per cent Man’ on one side and Jesus the ‘100 per cent God’ on the other. This distortion requires that for the first thirty years of His life Jesus maintain a willing ignorance of the fact that He was actually God the same God who cannot forget.
At the age of twelve Jesus called Jehovah ‘father’ (the begetter; Luke 2:48, 49).
This was not an immature point of view, for He did likewise even after His anointing by the holy spirit at Jordan, when He truly became the Christ and the heavens were opened to Him.
See, for instance, Matt. 11:25, 26; John 1:14; 6:37-40, and others.
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Dec. 2017