The completeness of the humanity of Jesus Christ comes out in still another matter, and that is, the relation that He bore to God as a man was the relation of a man, so that God was His God. He himself says to Mary in John 20:17, +"Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto the father: but go unto my brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God."+ The evident meaning of this is that Jesus Christ's relation to God, the Father, was the relation of man. He speaks of God the Father as "My God." Though possessed of all the attributes and exercising all the functions of Deity, Jesus Christ the Son was subordinate to the Father. This explains utterances of our Lord which have puzzled many who believe in His Deity, such utterances, for example, as that in John 14:28, where Jesus says, +"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 question is often asked, "If Jesus Christ is God, how could the Father be greater than He?" The very simple answer to which is; that He, _as the Son_, was subordinate to the Father, equal to the Father in the possession of all the distinctively Divine attributes and exercising all the Divine offices, and as an object of our wholehearted worship, but subordinate to the Father in His office. Jesus Christ's relation to the Father is like the relation of the wife to the husband in this respect, that the wife may be fully the equal of the husband, but nevertheless, the "Head of the Woman is the Man," she is subordinate to the man, just as we are told in the same verse (1 Cor. 11:12) +"The head of Christ is God,"+ i.e., Jesus Christ the Son is subordinate to the Father.
It is evident from what we have read from God's Word, that Jesus Christ in every respect was a true man, a real man, a complete man. He was made +"In all things"+ +"like unto his brethren"+ (cf. Heb. 2:17). He was subject to all the physical, mental and moral conditions of existence essential to human nature. He was in every respect a real man. He became so voluntarily in order to redeem men. From all eternity He had existed "in the form of God" and could have remained "in the form of God," but if He had so remained, we would have been lost. Therefore, out of love to us, the fallen race, as we are taught in one of our texts (Phil. 2:5-8), He +"Counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of man; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross."+ Oh, wondrous love! that out of love to us He should take our nature upon Him, turning His back upon the glory that had been His from all eternity and taking upon Himself all the shame and suffering that was involved in our redemption, and becoming one of us that He might die for us and redeem us! Oh, how wondrous the +"Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through his poverty might become rich."+ (2 Cor. 8:9.) He partook of human nature that we might become partakers of the Divine nature. The philosophy of the divine and human natures of Christ, the philosophy of the New Testament, is a most wonderful philosophy, the most wonderful philosophy the world ever heard, and thank God it is a true philosophy.