J.I. Packer on the Incarnation

J.I. Packer highlights how Jesus’ incarnate state focused on pleasing the Father’s will.

It was a state of dependence and obedience, because the incarnation did not change the relationship between the Son and the Father. They continued in unbroken fellowship, the Son saying and doing what the Father gave him to say and do, and not going beyond the Father’s known will at any single moment . . .

It was a state of sinlessness and impeccability, because the incarnation did not change the nature and character of the Son . . . Deviation from the Father’s will was no more possible for him in the incarnate state than before. His deity was the guarantee that he would achieve in the flesh that sinlessness which was prerequisite if he were to die as ‘a lamb without blemish or spot’ (1 Peter 1:19).

It was a state of temptation and moral conflict, because the incarnation was a true entry into the conditions of man’s moral life. Though, being God, it was not in him to yield to temptation, yet, being man, it was necessary for him to fight temptation in order to overcome it. What his deity ensured was not that he would not be tempted to stray from his Father’s will, nor that he would be exempt from the strain and distress that repeated insidious temptations create in the soul, but that, when tempted, he would fight and win . . .

- J.I. Packer, “Incarnation,” in New Bible Dictionary (Downers Grove: IVP, 2000), 504.