What an amazing display of love that God chose to connect to humanity by becoming human and living as one of us. He was fully God and fully human all at the same time. He didn’t empty himself of any of his attributes of deity but He did humbly take on the role of a servant who came to ultimately serve.
By taking on human flesh, He could truly empathize with all of the experiences of being human and yet do so without sin. He knew hunger and also the satisfaction of being fed. He knew warmth and cold, pleasure and pain. He experienced friendship and rejection. He was loved and admired and he was persecuted and brutally slain. He knew firsthand what it was like to be human and to deal with temptation. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Hebrews 4:15
When Jesus came to Earth, he could have come in a great display of powerful Lordship, He could have chosen to be born into a circumstance of wealth, prestige, and honor. He could have made himself handsome and of great stature parading around with a perfect physique. He could have had a grand palace or temple with large armies and servants waiting on him hand and foot. He certainly would have been deserving of such a pampered lifestyle of prestige and ease but that was not his goal. His goal was to come as the most humble servant and to be the sacrificial lamb who would reconcile sin stained humanity back to a righteous, holy God. It was not about Him being glorified as man but being glorified to God on behalf of man. “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."” Mark 10:45
How blessed we are to have the words of Jesus and the acts of his life so accessible through the Bible. Jesus showed us what God the Father was like. He created the only path to God that would atone for our sin and He showed us what it truly looked like to have the heart of a devoted servant and obedient Son. This was how He emptied himself….by becoming deity clothed in humanity. No greater act of love exists.
“When Jesus Christ did something about your sin and mine, He didn’t give us the leftovers. He poured all that made Him God into man so that man would have all of God. There is nothing that belonged to God that man didn’t have when Jesus emptied Himself into man”. - Tony Evans