The Child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him. - Luke 2:40
Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. - Heb 2:16
Theologians like to talk about things that provide explanations about who God is and what He’s like. These are called his ‘attributes’. One of those attributes is that God cannot change. This attribute is called ‘immutability.’
If God were to change, that would mean that He is either improving in some area, or He would be growing less perfect in some area. Either of these would imply that He is responding to a standard of righteousness or perfection that is outside of Himself—and that standard would then be God.
And so, simply put, God cannot change if He is to be God.
And yet, the Bible teaches us that Jesus changed both physically and spiritually. Luke tells us that Jesus ‘continued to grow’. This is His physical change. He was born like any other infant, and He grew like any other child. He went through the toddler years. He had an 8th birthday. He played in the street like any other ten year old. He grew, and to all those around Him, He was like any other young boy.
Luke also tells us that He grew spiritually. The statement that He ‘became strong, increasing in wisdom’ is related to His spiritual life. Jesus learned things about God. He grew up, learned to read, studied God’s Word, and increased in wisdom along the way. His wisdom was, of course, more than those around him (the story that follows this passage in Luke 2:41-51 makes that clear). However, His wisdom grew by the grace and favor of God.
And so we are left with a conundrum. God cannot change, or He would be improving. Jesus is God. Jesus changed and grew in wisdom and stature. What do we make of this?
These passages highlight the glorious reality that Jesus really did become a real person. He didn’t just ‘inhabit a body’, but He truly became a man. In His human nature, Jesus grew. He increased in wisdom. God’s grace was upon Him.
In His divine nature, these things were unnecessary. But because He was fully man, as well as fully God, Jesus was able to grow and change in His human nature. In a very real way, God grew up.
Now, of course, there’s a logical difficulty here. How can one person have two natures? We don’t have the answer for HOW that can happen, and to be honest, no one ever has understood it completely.
But we do have the answer for WHY it happened. God reveals to us in Scripture that the purpose of having Jesus be fully man and fully God was so that He could be ‘made like His brothers in all things.’ Jesus grew and learned in order to be like us—to understand our weaknesses, our struggles, our confusion. Jesus was fully man in order to be our Emmanuel—God has truly been with us.
But that’s not all. Jesus became fully man for one other reason, also. He became fully man in order to become the propitiation for our sins as our faithful High Priest. He took God’s wrath for us, bore the penalty of our sin on the cross, and died in our place as a real man. His humanity allowed Him to take our place, carry our debts, and provide us with His life.
We can’t possibly understand the ‘HOW’ of this truth, of course. But we can see and understand and rejoice in the ‘WHY’. God has come to us. He understands the pains of this life. He lived it. And He completed that life by dying on a cross with my sins on His shoulders.
And so if things are challenging this Christmas, and you find yourself hurting, remember, Jesus understands. He’s been there, and walked through trials all the way to the cross so that He can be your High Priest and bring you to His Father.
