Jesus’ Prayers and Genuine Humanity

And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

The Son is the holy child conceived by the Holy Ghost. Sonship includes a real human beginning and life.

And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.

Jesus increases in wisdom and stature. The incarnation includes authentic development.

Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:

Peter openly calls Jesus a man through whom God performed mighty works.

Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

Humanity does not exclude deity: the Father dwells in Jesus and performs the works.

And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

Jesus’ human will recoils from suffering yet submits without sin to the divine will.

7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; 8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;

Hebrews locates prayer, tears, suffering, and learned obedience in His authentic incarnate life.

But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.

The Son’s human experience includes limited knowledge, while the Spirit dwelling in Him remains the omniscient God.

Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.

The Father is greater in relation to the Son’s humbled human position and mission, not because Jesus is a lesser deity.

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;

The one God mediates through the man Christ Jesus, who truly represents humanity.

5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

The One in God’s form genuinely takes servant form, enters human likeness, obeys, and dies.

For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

All divine fullness dwells bodily in the same Christ whose human life prays, learns, suffers, and obeys.