Did Jesus Have Fear Like Us?

DID JESUS HAVE FEAR LIKE US?

Did Jesus have fear like us?

Recently, Pastor Jimmy Evans, preached a guest sermon at Ed Young’s Fellowship Church in Texas, in which he discussed why Christians face fear and how to overcome anxiety in their lives.

Evans said, “Jesus had more fear on His way to the cross than any human being has ever experienced,” Evans explained. “If you’ve ever been fearful of anything, Jesus understands it.”

I get what Pastor Jimmy is trying to do here, he is trying to help us relate to Jesus and make Jesus relatable, however, there is just one problem, it is not biblical. The first grid that every pastor who represents Jesus must do is put what they are saying to God’s people through a biblical test to make sure it aligns with God’s Word.

Jesus tells us in Revelation 22:18 ^“I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, ¹⁹ and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.”

When we represent Christ to others, the Bible must be our sole authority to determine our view, values, and vernacular that we choose to help people relate to Jesus and experience a real relationship with Him.

The Bible tells us in 2 Timothy 1:7, “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”

John the Beloved, said in 1 John 4:18, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”

Jesus was perfect. He was tempted in all ways as us yet without sin.

Jesus embodied perfect love.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say Jesus feared. Yes, he experienced great anguish. Yes, he desired the cup to pass from Him. Yes, he felt the limitations that came with being human but He who knew no sin didn’t sin.

Often Jesus would rebuke the disciples for their worry and their fear and unbelief. He would ask them why they didn’t believe and rebuke them for not believing. He stood against their unbelief, fear, and worry.

I realize we want to make Jesus “human” to the point that He is relatable. I too appreciate the value of real relationship with Jesus and relatability with Jesus but not at the expense of His deity and His perfect holiness. It seems the church continues to try to demystify Jesus for relationship purposes at the expense of forgetting that while He is fully human, He was also fully God. We can’t relate to this; we don’t understand this.

This is why the Virgin Birth is so important. Jesus was not born with a sin nature due to how He was conceived. Many years ago, Rob Bell asserted that the Virgin Birth was not essential to the Deity of Christ. I beg to differ. Without the Virgin Birth, Christ could not have been God. His conception determines the validity of His Deity. Just as His sinless life determines His qualification to be the sinless sacrifice for our sins.

I admire Pastors who attempt to make Jesus relatable but not at the expense of removing Him from his rightful place as God. One of my Professors at Dallas Theological Seminary, Prof Howard Hendricks, use to say about preaching, “To be biblical is easy, to be relevant is easy, but to be biblically relevant is almost impossible.”

But the impossible is our task.

As we look at the life of Jesus there is much that we can relate to. His sufferings were very clear. He sympathizes with our weaknesses and is seated at the right hand of the Father making intercession on our behalf. These things are very relatable and authentic and do not tamper with his Deity.

But to say that Jesus “feared” is to say, “Jesus had a spirit in Him that was controlling Him that was not from God.”

This is not inaccurate, it is heresy. It is heretical. It is unbiblical and very damaging because of the implications it creates and the conclusions it requires regarding His Deity.

Jesus experienced sorrow and anguish but He never gave into anything that would cause Him to sin. The kind of fear we are talking about here is the result of imperfection. We see in the Garden of Eden that after Adam and Eve fell, they hid themselves. Why? They tell God they did so because they were afraid.

Jesus was never afraid.

His desire to die for us was never in question. Yes, He asked that the cup could pass from Him but not His will, but the Father’s will be done. Desiring something to pass from you and fearing what lies ahead are two different sentiments and we must be very careful to rightly divide the Word of Truth, otherwise implications and conclusions that we don’t intend get drawn.

Jesus makes it clear in Matthew 8:26 what He thinks about our fear. He said to the disciples, “’Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?’ Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.”

Jesus is not up in heaven wringing His hands wondering what to do next or wishing you wouldn’t do this or that. He is not fearful. Our fear is just that, ours. Jesus cannot relate to our sinfulness except to say that He has made a way for us to escape.

Be careful trying to make Jesus so human that He can no longer be God in the flesh, otherwise you will have a relatable Savior in this life with no hope for Eternity.

Blessings,

Pastor Kelly