Alike

[mukk_in]

1 Kings 22:4 (Berean Study Bible)

I am as you are

"A man may not reach out to an unseen, superior God. But he may always reach out to a fellow man for help. A man may feel nothing for an invisible deity without infirmities and pain, but he'll always find something in common with a fellow man. Jesus of Nazareth was not just God but also a man. He was just like us. He was born of a woman, had flesh and blood, walked among men, and was betrayed by some of them. He was in love, needed companionship, knew pain and suffering, hunger and poverty, and joy and despair. Christ did not defeat sin as God but as a man. He did not defeat death and the grave as God but as a man. He succeeded in doing what the first man Adam failed to do, attaining perfect manhood. Do you think you can be a better man than He? I invite you to measure yourself up to Him. If you end up short, would you ask your fellow Man, Jesus of Nazareth, for help? I pray that you do."

That was a sermon that I preached from a pulpit somewhere in America many decades ago. Evangelical preaching that ignores the humanity of Christ ignores the essence of the gospel that Jesus was a man who came to save men like He.

 

[Sabertooth]

As For Me, Maranatha! Singers (1982)​

 

[Bramblewild]

I Kings 22 is the account of the King Ahab and King Jehoshaphat going to war together against Syria. It has nothing to do with the humanity of Christ; in fact, II Chronicles has this to say about Jehoshaphat after that battle:

19 Jehoshaphat the king of Judah returned in safety to his house in Jerusalem. 2 But Jehu the son of o Hanani the seer went out to meet him and said to King Jehoshaphat, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the LORD? Because of this, wrath has gone out against you from the LORD. 3 Nevertheless, some good is found in you, for you destroyed the Asheroth out of the land, and have set your heart to seek God.”

So, God told Jehoshaphat that he was wrong to lend his aid to Ahab, because certainly Ahab was a wicked king who hated God.

But more than that, your spin on Jesus is wrong.

Bethel Church: Bill Johnson’s Destructive Kenosis Doctrine Denys the Deity of Jesus

And here we must be careful not to go beyond what Scripture says. Jesus did not empty Himself of His divine attributes—no such attributes are mentioned in the verse, and it is obvious in the gospels that Jesus possessed the power and wisdom of God. Calming the storm is just one display of Jesus’ divine power (Mark 4:39). In coming to earth, the Son of God did not cease to be God, and He did not become a “lesser god.” Whatever the “emptying” entailed, Jesus remained fully God: “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9).

...

Jesus never ceased to be God during any part of His earthly ministry. He did set aside His heavenly glory. He also voluntarily refrained from using His divinity to make His way easier. During His earthly ministry, Christ completely submitted Himself to the will of the Father (John 5:19).

Everything about your sermon excerpt is wrong. Jesus being a man is an important doctrine, but if that is all he was, then that does no one any good.

In Genesis, we are told of a time God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Right before Abraham killed his son, God stopped him and provided a ram as the sacrifice.

At the cross, God sacrificed God. God the Father sacrificed God the Son. If Jesus was not God, then his death was no different than the hundred or even thousands of other people the Romans crucified.

 

[Bramblewild]

In His divine person, Christ is the essential image of God and even of the Father. He is in the Father, and the Father is in Him, in the unity of the same divine essence (John 14:10).7 He is with the Father (John 1:1).8 In the distinction of His person, He is God’s essential image (Col 1:15, Heb 1:3). In His incarnation, He becomes the representative image of God to the Church (2 Cor 4:6).9 Without Christ, our understanding could not make any approaches to the divine nature, and God Himself would continue to be the invisible God to us. But in the “face of Jesus Christ,” we see His glory.

This is the original glory of Christ that was given to Him by His Father, and which we can behold by faith. He alone declares, represents, and makes known to both men and angels the essential glory of the invisible God—His attributes and His will. Apart from Christ, a perpetual, comparative darkness would have been on the whole creation, especially that part of it here below.

Owen, John; Roth, Jason. The Glory of Christ: In Modern English (pp. 43-44). Christian Classics for the Modern Reader. Kindle Edition.