The Man of Sorrows Isa 53:3

[Reformingstudent]

Did Jesus ever have or felt depressed ? If not would that make Him more than human and if so, would that make Him less Divine? The bible says He was tempted just as we are and I assume that means even in His mind and emotions as well as in His body. Heb 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted just as we are, yet without sin. Isa 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as it were a hiding of faces from Him, He being despised, and we esteemed Him not.
Is there anyone who never gets depressed at one time or another? Didn't even Paul at one time get depressed? Just wondering if it could be possible for one who is truly God in the flesh have feelings of depression as we do. I know that His depression, if in fact He ever suffered in that way, could not be the same as ours though as He being God did not have sinful flesh as we do.

 

[py3ak]

[KJV]Matthew 26:38[/KJV]. Part of having a complete human nature is having a passible emotional life --an emotional life that can be affected by what happens, even by the physical condition we are in. There is nothing sinful in being creaturely in this way: the question is what we do with these emotions, whether they function as they should. But I would say that "trouble", turmoil, dread, horror and sorrow are all supremely appropriate emotions in the face of the imminently impending betrayal and torture from men, and mainly from the outpouring of God's wrath.

 

[Hippo]

The precise implications of the incarnation are a real minefield, all we can really do is understand that he was both truly man and truly God at the same time, and that he did not sin.

I doubt that Jesus ever felt depressed as he never doubted his father or his victory, but he did face what would appear to be dread at what he was facing and some believe that his human nature was evidenced by a lack of perfect knowledge.

What we know for sure was that he never sinned.

 

[MW]

Samuel Rutherford's Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners explains this exceptionally well:

"Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name." John 12:27-28.

In the complaint, we have the Lord's troubled soul. This holy soul thus troubled was like the earth before the fall, out of which grew roses without thorns, or thistles, before it was cursed. Christ's anger, his sorrow, were flowers that smelled of heaven, and not of sin. All his affections of fear, sorrow, sadness, hope, joy, love, desire, were like the fountain of a liquid and melted silver, of which the banks, the head spring, are all as clear from dross as pure crystal. Such a fountain can cast out no clay, no mud, no dirt. When his affections did rise and swell in their acts, every drop of the fountain was sinless, perfumed and adorned with grace; so as the more you stir or trouble a well of rose water, or some precious liquor, the more sweet a smell it casts out; or, as when a summer soft wind bloweth on a field of sweet roses, it difuseth precious and delicious smells through the air.

There is such mud and dregs in the bottom and banks of our affections, that when our anger, sorrow, sadness, fear, does arise in their acts, our fountain casteth out sin. We cannot love, but we lust; nor fear, but we despair; nor rejoice, but we are wanton and vain and gaudy; nor believe, but we presume. We reft up, we breath out sin, we cast out a smell of hell, when the wind bloweth on our field of weeds and thistles. Our soul is all but a plat of wild corn, the imaginations of our heart being only evil from our youth. Oh that Christ would plant some of his flowers in our soul, and bless the soil, that they might grow kindly there, being warmed and nourished with his grace! If grace be within, in sad pressures it comes out. A saint is a saint in affliction, as a hypocrite is an hypocrite; and every man is himself, and casts a smell like himself, when he is in the furnace. Troubled Christ prays. Tempted Job believes, Job 19:25. The scourged apostles rejoice, Acts 5:41. Drowned Jonah looks to the holy temple, Jonah 2:4.

Christ's affections were rational; reason startled at fear, but reason and affection did not outrun one another. Grace did so accompany nature that he could not fear more than the object required. Neither were his affections above banks. He saw the blackest and darkest hour that ever any saw. Suppose all the sufferings of the damned, for eternity, were before them in one sight, or came on them at once, it should annihilate all that are now, or shall be in hell. Christ now saw, or foresaw, as great sufferings as these, and yet 1. believed, 2. prayed, 3. hoped, 4. was encouraged under it, 5. suffered them to the bottom with all patience, 6. rejoiced in hope, Psalm 16:9. Now our affections rise and swell before reason. 1. They are often imaginary, and are on horseback and in arms at the stirring of a straw. 2. They want that clearness and serenity of grace that Christ had, through habitual grace following nature from the womb. 3. We can raise our affections, but cannot allay them, as some can make war, and cannot create peace. It is a calumny of Papists that say that Calvin did teach there was despair, or any distemper of reason, in Christ, when as Calvin saith, He still believed with full assurance.

Christ had now and always the grace of peace, as peace is opposed to culpable raging of conscience. First, he never could want faith, which is a serenity, quietness, and silence of the soul and assurance of the love of God. Secondly, he could have no doubting, or sinful disturbance of mind, because he could have no conscience of guilt, which could overcloud the love and tenderest favor of his Father to him. Christ never needed pardon; he needed never the grace of forgiveness, nor grace to be spared. God spared him not. God could exact no less blood of him than he shed; but he received an acquittance of justification, never a pardon of grace. But concerning the peace which is opposed to pain, and sense of wrath and punishment for the guilt of our sins, so he wanted peace, and was now under penal disturbance and disquietness of soul.

 

[staythecourse]

Let's list his sorrows:

1. came unto his own and his own did not recognise him
2. Had dealt with them 4000+ years and although they sinned he was going to have to pay for all of them (past sins)
3. He was going to pay for all future sins (mine included) and I wasn't going to love him as I had not even been born!
3'. The shepherd will be struck and the sheep will be scattered.
4. "Have I been this long with you and you do not know me, that I am in the father and the father in me?"
5. I tell you the truth one of you will betray me!
6. My God my God Why have you forsaken me!


That's off the cuff. I know you all can add more.