PERFECTION THROUGH EMPATHY
Hebrews 2:10 In bringing many many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.
The first time I read this I was taken back a little. How could the already perfect Almighty God be made more perfect through suffering? We know that Jesus, God’s only begotten Son, is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. So back to the question of how could the perfect Almighty God be made more perfect? Maybe the better question might be what might God have been lacking in his perfection? God had never suffered before. He knew no pain. He didn’t know what it felt like to die or even be human. While he created all things, he hadn’t experienced what he had brought creation into. God could sympathize, but God could not empathize. To sympathize meant that God could feel sorry for humanity, but never knew what it was like to go through what humanity went through to bring about the sorrow. For the perfect creator to be perfect in empathy, he needed to actually experience for himself the sorrow in the life of humanity. God was not sinful or evil. He had never even been tempted to sin or be evil. It was not God’s nature. It was completely foreign to God. He didn’t even desire it let alone do it. Yet, if he was to empathize with his creation, then God would have to go where God had never gone before and this was too become part of his own creation. This is almost more than we can understand both from the standpoint of how he could do it, to why do it.
We must approach this with the constant reminder that we will never be able to understand an infinite God from the perspective of a finite creation. At the very best we need to rely on God himself to reveal to us in ways we can understand himself. We can experience this because we see in John 14:17-23 that God the Father, the Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit live in the Christian. We have God’s presence in us. Well, if we have God’s presence in us then how could God not be able to empathize with us. Well, he still wasn’t his creation, he was just in us. We can be fastened to a parachutist and make a jump, but we were just along for the ride. We didn’t know what it felt like to depend solely on yourself to do all that was required to make the jump and live. While our heart may have been racing, it wouldn’t have been the same as to do it the first time by yourself. God needed to become human if he could become the perfect intercessor for us regarding reconciliation with himself.
In I Peter 1:20 we see that before creation God set aside a plan that would bring reconciliation. God knew all along that if he created humanity with a free will so that we could love God, free will would also make the possibilities for sin. Sin would demand punishment and separation from the righteous holy God. While God desired to show mercy and forgive humanity for our sinfulness, he also had to justify our forgiveness in order to maintain his holiness and righteousness. The desire to love and be loved had put God and us in a predicament that only God could take care of. God would have to become the propitiation or payment for our sinfulness. This would require not just a sacrifice on God’s part, but a perfect sacrifice on God’s part. The Heavenly Father just couldn’t spank Jesus and call it all fine. Sin brought death and only death could sacrifice the satisfaction for the justification of God showing mercy and grace to the point of forgiving as though it never happened. Jesus would have to become a man, and go through all that any other man might experience. This is why it says that Jesus was tempted in every way. Think of a terrible sin and then know that Jesus was attempted to do it. Fortunately for us he never gave into temptation and sinned. If he would have just once, he would have needed a savior himself. Jesus had to live the perfect life as he intended for us and he did it.
The one thing that made Jesus’ incarnation different than any other person was that he did not have the carnal nature. When Adam and Eve sinned against God by wanting their will more than God’s, this nature of rebellion was passed from generation to generation. If Jesus would have come from the sexual relations of Joseph and Mary he would have been born in sin just as we all are. But because the Holy Spirit brought life into Mary, Jesus didn’t have this sinful nature. Jesus still had the freedom to reject the will of the Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit after becoming a human but he didn’t. Even in the Garden of Gethsemane when the thought of the cross was so great, Jesus continued to tell the heavenly Father he only wanted his will to be done. Jesus knew what the horrors of the cross meant. He was about to go through the entire death process with all the humiliation, abandonment, mockery, rejection and of course the pain. He would know what it was like to struggle to breath in that last breath. Jesus would experience it all and because of it he could empathize, now telling the Heavenly Father and Holy Spirit, “I know what it is like.”
Where the perfect Almighty God became perfect was on the cross. He became what he didn’t have to become, and did what he didn’t have to do, in order to redeem what didn’t deserve to be redeemed, the perfect God became the perfect sacrifice! We can’t imagine what it must have been like to go through all that Jesus did for us. It was greater that if we had to become a worm or something else that we see as detestable. Yet Jesus did it willingly, because he loved us and wanted us to have a chance to love him too.
Have you so appreciated the perfect sacrifice of God, as to ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins and to come into your heart? I hope you have. If not here is your chance. All you have to do is ask, and he will quickly forgive you of all your sins and come into your heart. He will never leave you or forsake you. Where sin in your life may continue, the grace of God will continue even more. What you will commit to Jesus he will bring to pass. All you have to do is want it and ask for it!
Prayer: Lord Jesus, I thank you that you are the perfect sacrifice for us and that you died so that we could be forgiven and reconciled to you. You are a wonderful God and Savior. We Love you Jesus!
