Jesus is human, too
Is Jesus the Son of God? Yes, of course he is! However, we can be so used to affirming and defending this truth that we can forget or neglect the complementary truth that he is human. (Note that Jesus is human still, as well as divine. Having become a man once, he has remained a man forever – as well as being God forever).
For example, how did Jesus resist temptation? Was it as God? Or was it as man? Surely it cannot have been as God, because James tells us that “God cannot be tempted by evil” (James 1:13). So, it must have been as a man. Also, the writer to the Hebrews tells us that in Jesus “we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).
And none of us has ever faced temptation as God, only as a human being. Now, see how encouraging this is. First, Jesus can truly die in our place. He is a proper substitute for sinful human beings, because he is himself a human being but without sin. Second, you don’t have to sin to be truly human! Indeed, there is something unnatural and ‘alien’ about sin. Third, Jesus shows us how to resist temptation, and the same resources that were available to him are also available to us: the word of God, prayer, the Holy Spirit, and the community of faith.