When Jesus became a member of the human family through His incarnation, He voluntarily “emptied” Himself of His glory as God. In Philippians 2:5-11 , Paul beautifully described Christ’s self-emptying. In order to be our representative, Jesus Christ gave up the independent exercise of His omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. When He wanted to exercise His divine power, He did so through the mediation of the Holy Spirit.

From the time of His anointing by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:16), Jesus yielded Himself totally to the will of His Father as it was revealed to Him through the Holy Spirit. He performed His miracles in the power of the Holy Spirit — not in His own power. In Matthew 12:28 , for example, Jesus spoke of casting out demons “by the Spirit of God.”

The fact that Jesus died on the cross doesn’t conflict with the truth of His deity. If death were the cessation of existence it would, but since His birth as a helpless baby in Bethlehem, Jesus Christ has never ceased to exist as God or man. Death, as defined in the Bible, is separation. Physical death is the separation of the soul/spirit from the body. Spiritual death is separation from God.

Jesus experienced separation from God during the 3 hours of darkness on the cross. In so doing, He suffered the pangs of hell. This wrung from His lips the cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46). Then, realizing that He had emptied the cup of His Father’s wrath against the sins of mankind, He declared, “It is finished” and “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.” He did all this as a man. Yet all the while He remained fully God (deity). The fact of His deity gave His death on our behalf its infinite value.

While we cannot fully understand the mystery of Christ’s divine-human person, we need to obediently acknowledge that Scripture declares Him fully God and fully man.