Price, Larry: Person & Work Of The Lord Jesus Christ-2001-03 ~ 1 John 4:1

We've been looking together at the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we haven't come to that part where we will deal with the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, but Lord willing, this coming Lord's Day, we'll take up the subject of the work of the Lord Jesus. Obviously, it's a subject much greater than just the time that we have allotted to it, and the time that I'll be here with you, and, uh, it's such a vast subject that I know that for all of eternity we'll still be coming to a better and better understanding of the Lord Jesus himself, and of the wonder of his person, and of the glory of his person and the glory of his work. And yet, I am constantly reminded, even as I am here tonight, of how good it is to be with the Lord's people, and it's a blessing in and of itself. We come apart from the world that's busy and hectic and filled with problems of every sort, and God has designed the assembly that it might be an oasis in that sense, that we can come and be refreshed in our spirits one with another and lift our hearts together in prayer, and look together into the word of God, and think about the Lord Jesus Christ and meditate upon him. And it is always profitable to do that. It's always an encouragement to do that. And so as we look at the, at the person of the Lord Jesus, as we learn some things concerning him, or perhaps just hear things that we already know and have them reconfirmed in our hearts, it'll certainly be a blessing to us. Now, we want to turn first to First John in chapter four, and we'll read from verse one. First John chapter four and verse one. Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits or test the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. And this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come, and even now already it is in the world. As you go through the gospel of, uh, rather, as you go through the first epistle of John, you'll note that you can divide the book by some of the tests that John gives. He gives tests in various areas, the practical test of righteousness, the test of holiness, the test of doctrine, and in that test of doctrine, one of the tests that he puts before us is what do we believe about Jesus Christ? And it's so important to know him and to understand what the scripture has to say about him. That is the touchstone, isn't it? Every false teaching that is out there will err on a number of things, but one thing they will have in common is they will err concerning the person or the work of the Lord Jesus. And actually, when you touch one, you cannot but help touch the other. If you have a deficient view of his work, you really have a deficient view of his person. And if you have a deficient view of his person, you cannot understand the fullness and the adequacy and the sufficiency of his work. So they always go hand in hand together. And no matter what the complicated systems of some of the false religions of the world might be, and the cultic systems that are out there, the one thing that you can always test them on is what do they think about the Lord Jesus Christ? What place do they give him, and what place do they give his work? What is their understanding of his work? Now, we have looked thus far at the Son of God as revealed in the scripture in eternity past, and we saw something of his eternality, the fact that he has existed before all things, his eternal nature is declared in scripture, which shows him to be indeed eternal and uncreated, and therefore deity or God. And then we looked at him as the scripture reveals him in the Old Testament. We saw him revealed in the Old Testament by way of the Old Testament prophecies that pointed to him and pointed to the coming of the Messiah. And they are varied, and they are, uh, different in nature, and yet they predicted such things as his birth, his, the place of his birth, the timing of his birth, the, the virgin that would bear him, and all of these different things concerning his life and concerning his death, concerning his crucifixion, concerning his resurrection, that were God's signposts or God's markers to point out the one that would come and could be identified as God's Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ. We saw him revealed in the Old Testament prophecy. We saw him revealed in Old Testament types, the pictures that God has given us to illustrate the person and work of the Lord Jesus, and the Word of God is filled with God's object lessons, things that were recorded historically, sometimes with people, sometimes with events, sometimes with the institutions and ceremonies of the scripture in the Old Testament that in one way or another point to the Lord Jesus Christ, his person and his work. And we saw him revealed in the theophanies of scripture, at least the one or two that we took time to look at, those pre-incarnate appearances of the Lord Jesus. Before he came into the world to take a body of flesh, he revealed himself by means of certain appearances. Sometimes the appearance decidedly or, or specifically stated as the angel of the Lord, other times appearances that at first appeared human, and yet the encounter proved to be more than just an encounter with a human. It in, it in turn turned out to be an encounter with deity, and the scripture in the context that it's given bears that out as to when that is identified as such. And so we saw him revealed, the Son of God, in eternity past, and we saw him revealed in the Old Testament through those various means. We want to look at him today, or this evening, at his person, and first of all, we want to see his humanity. And it is a very important thing that we understand that the Lord Jesus was truly human. Now again, I want to act, I want to say that we want to be careful that we do not divide the Lord Jesus up into compartments. We want to realize that what the scripture teaches about him is that once he became incarnate, he was not just God or just man, but he was truly God and man. And it wasn't really a mixture of two things becoming one form in that sense. He was both God and man. And so we realize that he had all of the characteristics of man, but without sin. And John gives us the test here concerning those spirits that would confess or that would agree to something. False prophets, he says, have gone out into the world. But every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and the one that doesn't, or the one that confesses not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is not of God. And remember again that when we use those terms there, or the names as we call them, or the titles in verse three, Jesus Christ, it's not just his name, it is to say, in fact, the description of who he is in his person, Jesus, Jehovah saves, Christ, the Messiah, or the anointed one of God. He is the Messiah come in the flesh, his name is Jesus. And when you think of it that way, it makes it a little more pointed, and it helps us a bit to understand more of what John is getting at here, that that one that came in the flesh is not just a Messiah. He was the Messiah, the anointed one of God. That's what Christ means. That's what Messiah. He is the one that God designated and that was anointed of God, and his anointing was different, wasn't it? His anointing was not just like the priests of the Old Testament who were anointed with oil, symbolic of the Spirit of God coming upon them so that they could perform their service for God. His anointing was that anointing that we looked at there at the banks of the Jordan River when he went down into the water and was baptized of John, and as he came up, the Spirit of God descending in the form like a dove, abode upon him, rested upon him, and the Father speaking out of heaven, saying, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, the one in whom is all my delight. And so that one is the Christ. He was marked out as the Christ. He is come in the flesh, the fulfillment of God's plan and God's purpose. It's interesting, isn't it, when we think of the plan of God? The first temptation recorded for us in the scripture, in the order of scripture in the book of Genesis, was that temptation that was put before the woman there in the garden. If you eat the fruit, you will become as gods. And man's desire, ever since his fall, in his own sinfulness, is to be like God, or to become a God, really. And in order to redeem man, God would become a man. God and man. God incarnate in flesh. All of man's striving to be a God, all of man's striving to make himself god, and yet the god who is and was and will be would humble himself and come into the world, take a body of flesh, and be found in fashion as a man. Real humanity. Back up to the book of Colossians, if you would, Colossians chapter one. Colossians. And chapter one and verse twenty. Actually, I think I'd like to read verse nineteen because it's a very, a powerful statement. It says there, it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. And if you were to back up to verse fifteen, you will have at least seven things there concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. seven statements concerning him, and they are summarized, well, they they climax in this statement of verse nineteen, that it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. And it's another way of just saying one hundred percent deity. One hundred percent deity. All fullness dwell, dwelled in him. And then you read these words, and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself, by him I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven, and you that were sometime or at one time alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. Now again, in the book of Colossians, one of the errors that was incipient, it hadn't been systematized yet fully, it hadn't reached its full-blown proportions yet, but the Spirit of God was attempting to nip it in the bud with this teaching that we have in Colossians. Uh, it was one of the teachings that was beginning to take root in that day, that just the body in and of itself was an evil thing, a sinful thing, and a wicked thing. And yet, one of the truths that is brought out in this book is the fact that Jesus Christ had a body of flesh. It was in the body of his flesh, through death, that he accomplished that work of reconciliation that is mentioned in verse twenty and verse twenty one. It was a real body, a real humanity. And rather than the body in itself being evil, that part of the teaching will show that it's not the fact that the body is evil, but sin that dwells in the body. And of course, we'll see as we move on tonight that he did not have that nature of sin. But suffice it to say that he was not just an ephemeral spirit, he was not just a, a, uh, a phantom, if you will. That was part of the teaching that went along here too, that there was these, these, uh, emanations of spirits, and that's sort of what the Christ was. Again, John is going to combat that same teaching. It wasn't just as some of the cults teach today that the Christ was in him, or the Christ came upon him. No, he had a body of flesh. He was the Christ, and he wasn't just some spirit, you see. He was a real, had a real human body, a real flesh and blood body. And that's what's said in Luke chapter twenty four as well. Luke chapter twenty four and verse twenty nine, one of the post-resurrection appearances of the Lord Jesus. Luke twenty four and thirty nine. He said, behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Now, that's a way of just saying it's really the real me. It's the real me. Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me have. Now, this is the, the post-resurrection appearance of the Lord Jesus, or one of them. And you'll notice that they supposed that he had just been a spirit. But verse thirty nine, he says, handle me and see me, a spirit hath not flesh and bones. The absence of blood, of course, he shed his blood, but he had here flesh and bones. And that implies, of course, that before the crucifixion, he had flesh and blood, a real flesh and blood body. We are told in Luke's gospel as well, interesting when you think of it, the perspective of the different writers. Remember, Luke was a physician, and he might be interested sometime, if you want a little different slant to your study, to just go through Luke's gospel and the book of Acts and note the medical terminology that Luke uses. As a physician, he would view things through that particular lens, that lens of his personality, and it often comes up. Luke will describe certain medical situations that occurred. You remember the woman in Luke chapter eight, isn't it, that he says, uh, had suffered many things at the hands of many physicians and didn't get any better, actually grew worse, spent all she had on the doctors, Luke said. Quite a statement for a physician to make. But anyway, uh, Luke chapter two in verse fifty two, Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. Now again, our preface verse, our theme verse, if you will, is that verse that's found in First Timothy three sixteen that says, great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh. And there is no denying the mystery, the difficulty we have in understanding fully the incarnation and what it meant for the Son of God to take that body of flesh, that at the same time that he would incorporate in that body of flesh the fullness of the Godhead bodily dwelling in him, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and yet the development, the real development and normal development of his humanity. He grew in wisdom, and he grew in stature, and he increased in those things. And it certainly is a mystery that is difficult for us to understand, but as with any mystery of scripture in that sense, we simply bow to the revelation of what God's word says, and that which we cannot totally comprehend with our intellect, we do accept by faith the teaching of how, of what God's word says, even if we cannot dissect it and fully understand it. He had normal development in that sense. He suffered and experienced the normal limitations of humanity. We see that again throughout the scripture in Mar- in Matthew chapter four and verse two, You can turn to these if you like, but I'm just going to read a few of the verses. In Matthew four two, he experienced hunger. In John four six, he experienced weariness, he was tired. In John nineteen twenty eight, he was thirsty. We see in the scripture him exhibiting a full range of human emotions. Mark chapter ten verse twenty one, he looked upon one and he loved him. In Mark chapter three and verse five, he looked on them with anger. In Luke chapter thirteen and verse thirty four, he exhibited sorrow. And the scripture brings before us the fact that he had a soul, Matthew twenty six and thirty eight, and a spirit in John chapter nineteen and verse forty. He was truly a man, and yet he was the only one who could ever say on planet Earth, I do always those things that please the Father. John chapter eight and verse twenty nine. Real humanity. And it's one of the truths that we find the Word of God teaching, one of the important ones concerning the person of the Lord Jesus. Now, there are at least four purposes for the incarnation. And by, by incarnation, we simply mean the fact that he took upon him a body of flesh, as it is said in John chapter one and verse fourteen, the Word was made flesh. That's where we get our word incarnate from. It's interesting how many of these words in this study I was able to communicate to some of the young people last Saturday, uh, because they're so closely related to some of the Spanish words that are in their vocabulary, and I'm not that adept at Spanish. I may become more so as the years go, go, go along here, but, um, uh, you know, perhaps the word carne, which is the word for flesh or the word for meat. Well, that's the same basic word that we get our word incarnate from. Means he took a body of flesh. There's another word that I'll mention in a moment as we move along, that I was made aware of the fact that there's a similar word in Spanish as well. But the purpose of the incarnation, at least four. The first one is found in John chapter one in verse eighteen, where we read that no man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him, and the word declared is the same word that we get our word exegesis from. The exegesis of scripture means to bring the scripture out into the open to make it clear where it can be seen, and that's the same Greek word here. It means to lay something out in the open. He hath brought him out into the open. Now, there's sometimes when you study the language of scripture and you look up the original, uh, languages, the Greek, you look up all of the helps that you can get, and you realize that when you've done that, the translators have already done a pretty good job of expressing it about as good as they could anyway, and you've got at your fingertips in your translation the results of men who knew the languages and all of the other things, and and yet it's not a, it's not a waste, is it? But I say that to say that when you come to verse eighteen and you try to dissect this verse and you get to that part which says, the only begotten son who is in the bosom of the Father, the language isn't going to be much help to you there. The truth is, no matter how you slice it, that the fact that he was in the bosom of the father brings out the thought of affection. The bosom is that part that we, in bygone days, would have talked about in our, in our country, wouldn't we? A mother holding the child to her bosom in that place of affection. And the only begotten son, from that place of affection, tells out the very heart of God. Remember, we said as we study the person of Christ and the work of Christ, it isn't just that we might be able to formally systematize the doctrines under the heading of Christology one o one. It's because as we come to understand the truth of who Jesus Christ is, we are seeing what God is like. And when we look at the Lord Jesus Christ, we see what God is like, and he has told out the heart of the Father. And no one ever told him out and brought him out into the open, as did the Lord Jesus when he was here upon the earth. There were intimations of it down through history, what God is like, and yet the full blaze of that revelation in all of its fullness was not known until one day upon planet Earth, the second person of the Trinity became incarnate, lived among men, lived among his creation, and told out and led out into the open, from the very heart of God, what God is like. To the point that he could say to Philip, couldn't he? When you've seen me, you have seen the Father. Look at me, and you have seen the Father. And so the purpose of the incarnation was first to declare God or to show him for who he is. According to First Peter chapter two and verse twenty four, uh, the second purpose of the incarnation was that he might die for our sins. First Peter two twenty four says, who his own self bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we being dead to sins might live under righteousness, by whose stripes ye are healed. Who his own self, in his own body, bore our sins on the tree. He took a body of flesh in order to be able to die the death that he died, the incarnation. Hebrews chapter two and verse seventeen brings out the third reason. It behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. And because of that, he took not on him the nature of angels, but he was made like the s- in the likeness of the seed of Abraham, that is a real human body, and made in the likeness of men, not in angelic form, but like the seed of Abraham. The fourth reason, according to Luke chapter one, verses thirty two and thirty three, is that he might fulfill the Davidic covenant and sit upon the throne of David. And there would be gathered up in him all of those promises that Israel had looked for and longed for down through the ages. That a descendant of David, as impossible as it really was to be fulfilled because of the curse that became attached to the Davidic line, as impossible as it would have been for any human being to fulfill it. Amazing, isn't it, how God works sometimes? You just stand back in awe at you, as you realize how he works. And when you see how he works, it gives you confidence when you face the impossible, which every one of us faces at least once or more in our lifetimes. I mean, here was the very line of David. Satan did everything that he could to destroy, to corrupt that line. People themselves, sometimes not understanding what they were doing, almost brought the whole plan to disaster if it had not been for God working behind the scenes. And when it finally came to a man named Jeconiah, the line had become so corrupt that God said, write that man childless. He will never have a descendant to sit upon the throne from his physical descent, from his physical lineage. Well, the problem with that was he was a direct descendant of David, and that was the line that the king would have to come through. And yet, of course, when you read the genealogies, those sometimes thought to be tedious and monotonous, so and so begot another so and so, um, you realize that what God did was to have the Christ virgin born, so that legally, through the line of Joseph, he would be in that lineage of David, and yet he wouldn't physically be in the line of David, so that he wouldn't have that curse of Coniah upon him, and yet he'd have perfect legal right to the throne. He'd be a real descendant in that sense, a legal descendant, and he would have his physical side of the, of the seed of David through Mary. How God worked. So rather than Satan corrupting the line to the point where it couldn't happen, God just sealed the thing off and said, okay, I'll stop it right here. Nobody else would be able to fall in that line unless one would come along that could be virgin born. Of course, that's the very thing that God intended to do, didn't he? And he preserved the line. And so he was really made of the seed of David. And Romans will bring that out in the very, uh, the very importance of it in relation to the gospel. But not only was he human, he was truly God. And when he took upon him a body of flesh, he never diminished his deity. The fact that he is God. When he voluntarily restricted the usage of his attributes, he didn't diminish those attributes. And it's so important for us to remember that he was not just a good prophet, or a teacher, or a moral person, or a great man, or a sincere. He was not just a role model. Scripture explicitly asserts the deity of the Son of God. We've seen it over and over in John one as we've looked together. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was God. But that's not the only place it's found. You find in John chapter twenty and verse twenty eight these words, John chapter twenty and verse twenty eight, as Thomas answered and said unto him, my Lord and my God. And Romans chapter nine and verse five, and think of who's writing these words now. This is Paul the Apostle, the former Rabbi Saul, Orthodox as he had been, who now writes in Romans nine and verse five, of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. Not only does the scripture explicitly assert his deity in that way, but it applies divine titles to him. For instance, in Hebrews chapter one in verse eight, concerning the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, it says there, but unto the Son he saith, thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom. Unto the Son, he says, thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. Now, if you wanted to turn off a bunch of Jews, you write something like that, if it wasn't true. And that'd be the way to turn them off right at the start, wouldn't it? And yet it was true. And so the writer is pointing to their very scriptures. Amazing, if you go through chapter one of the book of Hebrews, you'll, uh, find it very interesting that, uh, when he wants to point them to the Messiah there, he turns to their own scriptures and what the, what the Old Testament said to point them to the fact of who this one is. And that's just one of the places where divine titles are applied to him. Divine attributes are ascribed to him. While in this book of Hebrews, we read in chapter thirteen and verse eight, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. His immutability, that is his unchangeableness. And over and over the scripture shows those divine attributes, and not only that, but divine works that are pres- are ascribed to him. We saw in Book of Colossians that all things were created by him. He is the creator. We see in Colossians one seventeen, he is the sustainer of the universe. He upholds all things. Hebrews chapter one will tell you the same thing. He upholds all things by the word of his. In Matthew chapter nine, as well as in other places in scripture, forgiveness of sins. What an issue that presented to the Jews, as time and time again, the Christ of God, while he was here on earth, said, thy sins be forgiven thee. And they said, who can forgive sins but God only? This man's committing blasphemy. He is taking to himself divine prerogative. And yet, he would have been committing blasphemy had he not been God come in the flesh. And divine honor is accorded him. Look in John chapter five. John chapter five, by the way, is a place that you, if you're not already familiar with, you should familiarize yourself with when it comes to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is so important in John chapter five for a number of reasons. It was in John chapter five that the Jews were persecuting him, and they sought to kill him. And he gives them answer in verse seventeen and says, my father worketh until now, and I work. Verse eighteen, the Jews sought the more to kill him because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his father, making himself equal with God. Someday you might have somebody come knocking on your door and tell you that Jesus Christ was not truly God, that he was less than God. And one of the arguments that they'll often use and that others often use, is this, well, that, you see, there was a father, and if there was a father, the son is somewhat less. And because he was under the father in that sense, he was less than the father. The father was over him. But the Jews understood perfectly that when he said God was his father, he was making himself equal with God, and they took up stones to stone him, the scripture says, and they sought the more to kill him. And following that, the Lord Jesus gives at least seven equalities, seven ways in that he was equal with God. And I will not list- mention the word equality in each one, but it is the first word. He was first of all, he shows his equality in working, verse nineteen, in knowing, verse twenty, in resurrection, verse twenty one, in judgment, verse twenty two, m in honor, verse twenty three, in regenerating, giving life, verse twenty four. and in self-existence in verse twenty six. But look at the one that he says in verse twenty three, equal in honor, that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father, and he that honoreth not the Son honors not the Father which hath sent him. That's a powerful statement, isn't it? If anyone does not honor the Son, they do not honor the Father. You cannot honor the Father if you do not give the Son the same place of honor. And so anyone that ever comes along and says, yes, we want to honor God, but the Son is less than him, they're not honoring God, they're not honoring the Father, because they're not honoring the Son. And so, in him exists a union that continues even now, that union of those two natures, humanity and deity. Now, we really don't have time to go into it adequately tonight. I really would have liked to taken up the subject of the impeccability of the Lord Jesus, but I will mention just a few things about it. And by the way, that was that other word that I came to found out, find out in the Spanish. I'm not sure exactly what the word is, but it's something like the word peca, or closely related to that, but the word impeccability. Uh, the word impeccability is a word that is associated with the doctrine that means that not only did the Lord Jesus Christ not commit sin, but that he could not sin. Pecibility is the doctrine that says that he could have sinned, although he didn't. Now, everyone that is orthodox in their belief about the Son of God would confess the fact that he never did sin. But there are those that are orthodox in their belief about the Son of God who do not hold to the impeccability of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that as we study the person of Christ as revealed in the scripture, that impeccability is the very result of who he is, of his deity combined with humanity. And we do have to be careful here because sometimes we use illustrations, and they're not always, they're not always, uh, the best, but we do try to, to illustrate these things by, to, to help us understand what the person of Christ was like. The question revolves around this fact. If he was truly human, could he then have fallen into sin? Not that he did sin, but in what way can we say he was truly human if he could not have at least been impeccable, that is, been able to sin? Well, we have to understand that though he was truly human, there was certainly a difference, wasn't there? The Bible says that when we sin, we are tempted and drawn away of our own lust. It's a big problem in the world today, isn't it? uh, we hear over and over today repeated through the media, through the courts, this disclaimer of responsibility. It doesn't seem like it's ever anybody's fault anymore, at least the person who perpetrates whatever the crime is or whatever the grievance is. It's never their fault. It's circumstances, it's this, it's that, they fell into a bad way, they found themselves in a bad situation. Uh, it never seems to be the person's fault anymore. The Bible says when we sin, it's because we are tempted and drawn away of our own lust. There's something with- within us that's like a magnet to metal. But if I might use the illustration with the Lord Jesus, it was as if it was a magnet to wood. There was no attraction there for sin. There's a verse in scripture in John chapter fourteen that says this, in John chapter fourteen and verse thirty, that the devil comes and he has nothing in me. And literally what that means is there's nothing in there that he can find to attach himself. It's like a wood to magnet. He's trying, but he can't find anything to really get a hold of in there. Because you see, theologians would go into the deeper doctrines, and I've read some of them, and when I can stay awake through them, I, I wade through. There was a man named W. G. T. Shedd years ago in the eighteen hundreds who wrote a systematic theology, and I used to read such stuff when I was a li- a little bit younger man, but, uh, he's the one that first formalized the doctrine known as the traducian theory. And what that basically means is that it's just a very elaborate way of stating the truth that Christ inherited the nature that he inherited, not through the bloodline of the father, where the sin nature is passed on, but rather the human side he acquired through Mary, and therefore his human nature was not tainted in that sense by Adam's sin. And whether we hold to the traducian theory or not, as good as it is, we can still take solace in what the scripture says, even in the book of Acts, that holy child, that holy thing that is in thee, the scripture says, God caused it to happen. Real and human, and yet without a nature that was attracted to sin. Sin held no attraction to him. But that brings us right back to the problem then, doesn't it? If sin held no real attraction to him, how then could it be said that he was tempted in all points, like as we are? Well, let's think about it for a moment. He was tempted, according to Hebrews in chapter four, in all points, like as we are, sin apart, that is, without sin or sin apart. He had no sin nature, but what that means is that all of the temptations were an attack from without. He was tested. And we can rest assured that he felt the full force of those attacks. Somebody illustrated it this way. Suppose there were a hurricane to come through a, a section of forest or trees or woods, or a tornado. A tremendous storm was to pass through this forest of trees, and all of the trees except one were felled. Which of the trees felt most the brunt of the storm? Not the ones that got knocked down, because they were downed sometime prior to the complete storm having its effect on them. That's that tree that stood, it's the one that felt the fullest force of the storm. And remember, when it comes to testing, the Lord Jesus was not tested to try to trip him up and to make him fall. He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness during that temptation, and God never tempts anyone to do evil or to commit sin. He was tested to show forth his perfection, to show forth the fact that he was the Messiah of God, and that he would not fall, although he was tempted, as the scripture says, in all points like as we are. Now, don't misunderstand that to mean that because you have a certain temptation in a certain area, that he had exactly the same thing. In all points like as we are, that is, along the same avenues as we are. And in the temptation in the wilderness, you'll note there that the Christ was tempted along the same avenues that Adam and Eve were. The lust of the flesh, the pride of life, and the lust of the eyes. It is along those avenues, though down those a- all temptation always comes along those avenues, although it takes different forms on those avenues, but it always can be categorized under one of those three things: lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life. He was tempted along those avenues, and yet showed himself as one that we can have confidence in, and that was part of the purpose of the testing, wasn't it? When an engineer finishes his masterpiece, like they did up in Jacksonville when they built the, what's locally called the Dames Point Bridge, which is the Napoleon Bonaparte Broward.