God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
In His incarnation, the Son of God assumed a complete human nature – body, soul, mind, and will – into personal union with Himself. He did not assume a distinct human person, since He is already a divine person, but rather He gave personhood to the human nature that He assumed. As a human, Jesus experienced all the ordinary, non-sinful limitations of humanity. He grew and developed. He experienced hunger, thirst, weariness, and the full range of human emotions. His humanity was as integral to His saving work as His divinity. As the true human, the last Adam, He lived out obedience to God through our common humanity as our representative and substitute: through His life, death, and resurrection, He merits salvation for all who are united to Him by faith. As a human, He also serves as our example, providing a model for true human obedience (Luke Stamps).
Since the decisive event of history has already taken place in the ministry, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, all subsequent history is a kind of epilogue, an interval inserted by God’s mercy in order to allow men time for repentance, and, as such an epilogue, necessarily in a real sense short, even though it may take a very long time.
