The Uniqueness of ChristSample

1/Unique in his Person: His Humanity (2)

It is commonly argued that Jesus had the power to work miracles because he was God. Actually, this is not the case. The Bible teaches that he performed signs and wonders in his humanity. 

The apostle John says that Jesus became flesh when he dwelt among us (John 1:14). To do this, he had to put off his divine attributes. An obvious one is omnipresence. Humans cannot be omnipresent. We are confined to one place at a time. Another is omniscience. Humans don’t know everything.  

Paul reminds us that Jesus let go of his equality with God and ‘emptied himself’ to be born as a human (Phil 2:6). Theologians call this his kenosis (from the Greek verb ‘to empty’).. Charles Wesley put it best when he wrote that Christ ‘Emptied himself of all but love.’ 

Now how all this could be is impossible to explain. How could someone be truly God and yet truly man? There is no equivalent anywhere and never has been. But somehow, God managed to accomplish it. And as we shall see, it had to be done to secure our salvation.

So how did Jesus perform miracles? He worked them by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is why there is no record of him doing any miracles before the Holy Spirit fell on him at the River Jordan (Matt 3:13-16). 

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah foretold this (Is 61:1-3). Jesus affirmed it at the beginning of his ministry when, quoting Isaiah, he read, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me’ (Luke 4:18-19).

The apostle Peter confirmed it. ‘God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power,’ he declared, ‘He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him’ (Act 10:38).

And the writer to the Hebrews said the same thing (Heb 2:4). 

All this is further proof of Christ’s humanity. Without the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, he could do no signs—which again makes him just like us.

In simple terms, Jesus settled himself completely into our environment and our predicament in order to rescue us from it. As the Bible puts it, he became poor so that we might become rich (2 Cor 8:9).

What next? 

If Jesus needed to be anointed by the Holy Spirit to fulfil his mission, what does this mean for you and me? See Luke 24:49; Act 1:5-8