Overcoming the curse—Part 1 (KT 8)

The humans cannot overcome the curse on our own. The curse turned God’s intended control upside down. Humans, in the power of their souls, were meant to rule physical creation (including their own bodies). But when Adam turned dominion into subjugation by trusting in the physical and worshiping it, the human soul became a slave to that which it was supposed to rule. We, therefore, needed a rescuer whose soul was capable of maintaining trust in God for Truth, Goodness, and Beauty (TGB). We needed a rescuer who, despite the pressures and attempted dominance of cursed human essence, would not succumb to sin. We needed God to rescue us. We needed Jesus.

The first thing to affirm is that Jesus is, in fact, God. The Bible answers that clearly. John 1:1 tells us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Some may wonder whether the Word refers to Jesus. A few verses later, John 1:14 confirms it: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Further confirmation is found in Colossians 2:9, where Paul declares, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” Hebrews 1:3 echoes this truth: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” Jesus himself said, “Before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58). And in Titus 2:13, Paul speaks plainly of Jesus as God: “We wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

So the connection is clear. But why did Jesus have to be God?

Humans were made in the image of God. One way that image stands out is in our parallel structure: like God, humans have essence (who we are), power (the abilities that emerge from that essence), and motivation (the desire to satisfy our longing for TGB). God’s essence is his TGB. His power is love—the always and only giving of self to benefit relationship. That power flows directly from his essence: TGB produces the power of love. Similarly, human power (physical movement) is produced from human essence (the body/physical creation). But our motivation, meant to drive us toward TGB, can be misdirected. Since TGB originates in God, we must look to God for its fulfillment. However, Adam’s rejection of God in favor of trusting in the physical for satisfaction upended the intended order. The soul became enslaved to the flesh. Instead of growing in satisfaction and relationship, we lost both. No human, enslaved to the flesh, can reverse that course. Only God, whose soul is perfectly aligned with his TGB essence and who acts only and always in love, has the power to resist the influence of evil and maintain unwavering trust in God. The Rescuer, then, had to be divine.

Some might think it was easy for Jesus to resist sin—that he simply relied on his divine power and therefore faced no real test. But that view misunderstands both the reality of his temptation and the depth of his incarnation. The temptation he faced was real precisely because he took on full humanity. It may be hard to grasp that our holy God took on cursed flesh. Was Jesus’s flesh truly cursed? The Bible says yes. Romans 8:3–4 (HCSB) tells us:

“What the law could not do since it was limited by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in flesh like ours under sin’s domain, and as a sin offering, in order that the law’s requirement would be accomplished in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

The Essential Bible makes this idea even more clear:

"The law couldn’t produce true righteousness in us, because our flesh—our physical nature under the curse—made it powerless. So God did what the law could not: he sent his own Son into the world, taking on flesh like ours—flesh that was under sin’s curse. And as a perfect sin-offering, Jesus resisted every fleshly desire and then put that flesh to death. In doing so, he condemned sin within the very kind of body sin had ruled in others—breaking its power over our human essence. He did this so that the law’s true purpose—righteous, love-based living—could be fulfilled in us, as we live not by the cravings of the flesh, but by the guidance of the Spirit."

Jesus had to enter the same cursed essence we are trapped in because only by taking on our nature could he redeem it from within. He experienced hunger, tiredness, grief, pain, and temptation. He focused fully on his humanity. But in doing so, he gave up certain infinite characteristics. Philippians 2:5–7 explains:

"Let this way of thinking shape your life together—the same mindset that was in the Anointed One, Jesus: though he was in very essence God, he did not cling to his divine nature’s infinite characteristics or use equality with God for his own sake. Instead, he set that advantage aside, taking on the nature of a servant and entering fully into our human condition."

Not employing his infinite characteristics allowed Jesus to live as fully human. Humans are body/soul combinations. To think, for example, humans use both body (the brain) and soul (the mind of the psyche). By contrast, angelic or demonic spirits think within their souls apart from a material body. But even they are limited. God, though also spirit, is infinite and unlimited. He thinks within his soul, but without any limit.

Jesus could not be both unlimited in thought (as God) and limited in thought (as human). To fully embrace his human role and demonstrate dependence on the Father, Jesus gave up the use of certain infinite characteristics he held as God—omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence:

Omniscience:

• Matthew 24:36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

• Luke 2:52 “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.”

• Mark 5:30 “At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, ‘Who touched my clothes?’”

Omnipresence:

• John 11:21 “‘Lord,’ Martha said to Jesus, ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’”

Omnipotence:

• John 4:6 “Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well.”

In giving up these infinite characteristics, Jesus showed that as a human, he had to depend on the Father:

• John 5:19 “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”

• John 8:28 “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.”

• John 5:30 “By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.”

• John 12:49–50 “For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”

Jesus not only had disciples, but modeled discipleship by being a disciple—a follower—of the Father. A disciple is like an apprentice. Think of apprentices in 19th-century England: they didn’t just learn a skill; they lived with the master to be shaped by him. Three stages marked that apprenticeship:

1. Be with the master. Apprentices in England lived with the master to observe and learn. Jesus modeled this dependence. Luke 5:16 says, “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” John 8:29 says, “The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.”

2. Become like the master. To become like the master meant not just learning the trade, but loving it—internalizing its beauty. Jesus likewise aligned his affections with the Father:

• Luke 2:52 “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.”

• John 4:34 “‘My food,’ said Jesus, ‘is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.’”

3. Do what the master does. With that grounding, the apprentice began to reflect the master’s work:

• John 5:19 “The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing.”

• John 12:49 “The Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.”

Jesus’s life—fully God, yet taking on full humanity—secured the first step in breaking the curse. He lived a sinless life. He depended on the Father. He did not give in to the enslaving power of human essence. Only with that victory in hand could he proceed to the next stages of redemption—the cross, the resurrection, and the rescue of all creation.