6 Minute Read
Prepare Your Heart
To the best of your ability, get rid of all distractions. Take a few minutes to breathe deeply and quiet yourself in the Lord’s presence. Then, ask the Lord to speak to you in this time. Let Him know that you will listen and make whatever adjustments He will reveal to you.
Read God’s Word
A Verse for Today
Slowly and reflectively read the following verse(s) and listen to what God will say to you through His written Word. Consider writing down any insights He reveals to you.
2 Kings 4:42-44 (CSB): “A man from Baal-shalishah came to the man of God with his sack full of twenty loaves of barley bread from the first bread of the harvest. Elisha said, ‘Give it to the people to eat.’ But Elisha’s attendant asked, ‘What? Am I to set this before a hundred men?’ ‘Give it to the people to eat,’ Elisha said, ‘for this is what the LORD says: “They will eat, and they will have some left over.” ‘ So he set it before them, and as the LORD had promised, they ate and had some left over.”
Reflecting on God’s Word
Someone recently asked me what songs I like in a church worship service. I told them that I love a good mixture of the old and new. Generally speaking, the old hymns provide rich theology, while the newer songs offer a devotional aspect. The older hymns speak about God, and the newer songs speak to God.
But we must always be aware that the songs we sing are not Scripture. The writer might have a flawed or undeveloped theology and write a song that leads us to sing things that do not align with the Bible.
One case in point is the incredible hymn: “And Can It Be That I Should Gain.” It’s a beautiful hymn that calls us to reflect on the unfathomable act of love and grace that God demonstrated when He provided our salvation through His Son. It also leads us to reflect on our unworthiness of such an unspeakable gift.
But there is one line in that song that is not true. Maybe the author didn’t intend to write something heretical, but there certainly needed to be some clarification.
“He left His Father’s throne above,
So free, so infinite His grace;
Emptied Himself of all but love…”
“Emptied Himself of all but love?” Does that mean that He emptied Himself of His deity since He “emptied Himself of all but love”? Some could certainly read it that way.” Maybe the author just couldn’t get this beautiful song to rhyme by saying: “Emptied Himself of all but deity and love…”
My point is that Jesus DID NOT EMPTY Himself of His deity. When He came to earth, He was FULLY God and FULLY human. In other words, He was just as much God as if He were not man, and just as much man as if He were not God.
Now, why am I bringing this point up after choosing 2 Kings 4:42-44 as the verses for today?
If you read those verses again, the Holy Spirit may draw your attention to the two miracles that Jesus performed that were remarkably similar. In 2 Kings 4:42-44, a man came to Elisha with twenty loaves of barley bread and, upon the instruction of Elisha, he gave it to a hundred men, and they ate and had some food left over. In the Gospels, we have a similar account where Jesus fed 5,000 men (Mark 6:31-44) and then 4,000 men (Mark 8:1-9) with an even smaller amount of food, and there was also plenty left over.
When we read those Gospel accounts, we may be tempted to say that Jesus performed those amazing miracles because He was God. And we would be wrong. That same logic wouldn’t apply to Elisha. He wasn’t God simply because he performed the miracle in 2 Kings 4:42-44.
In fact, most of the miracles that Jesus performed in the Gospels had already been performed by prophets in the Old Testament, including raising people from the dead (1 Kings 17:17-24; 2 Kings 4:18-37).
So, what are we to make of this?
I hope you read what I’m about to say, watch the following sermon by Adrian Rogers, and then go back to your Bible to see if what I’m about to say is true. If it is, and I certainly believe I’m right, then it may radically change how you see Jesus.
While Jesus was fully God and fully man when He walked the earth, He lived His life as fully man with His deity in the background. In other words, even though God knows all things completely, Jesus lived His life as a man and had to learn (Luke 2:52). We are even told that while He walked the earth, He had no idea when He was coming back to earth (Matthew 24:36). When Jesus performed miracles, He was doing so as The Perfect Man surrendered to the power of the Holy Spirit.
Since I’m saying that Jesus lived His life on earth as fully man, was He also fully God as He walked the earth?
Yes, a thousand times, Yes! Jesus has always been and always will be God the Son. There has never been a time when He laid His deity aside. But when He came to Earth to make God the Father known and to provide redemption, He placed His deity in the background and lived His life as fully man.
This affects how we are to understand, among other things, the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4:1-11. Wayne Grudem has illustrated it by imagining that we are on a baseball diamond. Satan was the pitcher, and each ball that he threw to home plate was a temptation. Jesus was the catcher. His humanity squatted behind the plate and caught each pitch thrown to Him. Yet, if Jesus had wavered and the temptation might have moved ever closer to becoming sin (the ball got past the catcher), then Jesus’ deity would have been the backstop that would have prevented Him from ever committing a sin. Because, after all, God cannot sin (Deuteronomy 32:4).
Honestly, this is the only way that I can understand how Jesus was tempted, even as the Bible says that “God cannot be tempted” (James 1:13). It seems clear that Jesus was being tempted as fully man, and just as the first Adam (originally without a sin nature) was tempted and sinned in the Garden of Eden, the Second Adam (also without a sin nature) was tempted and remained fully righteous.
The Bible calls Jesus “the second Adam” (Romans 5:12-19; 1 Corinthians 15:45-49). Since the first Adam legally lost his relationship with God (among other things) when he sinned in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3), Jesus had to come back as the second Adam to legally gain back what the first Adam lost.
There is so much more to say about this! But time has run out. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section below. I try to respond to each one.
Spend Time in Prayer
- Ask God to help you to continually cultivate the right thoughts about Him, informed by Scripture.
Going Deeper
If you would like to dig deeper into how and why Jesus came as the Second Adam, consider watching the following sermon by the former pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church, Adrian Rogers:
Sharing
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Matt Ellis is the pastor of First Baptist Church in Polk City, Florida (fbcpolkcity.com)
Matt’s Musings 