Shame and Two Realms

As I continue to ponder whether Jesus experienced shame, there is no denying what the Apostle Paul was careful to describe: 

“God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Jesus had no sin.  That’s the easy part. 
The hard part is to understand what it means that He would “be sin” for us. 
And further, how could He “be sin for us” without experiencing shame?

Any of you who have read more than a few posts I’ve written may recall that I’m fond of analogies.  Even though they all fall apart when pressed, there are things that become easier to understand when I think of them via analogy.  Today’s analogy is iridescence.

The same iridescent fabric is—in fact—one color viewed directly.  But when viewed from one angle the light is interrupted in a way that it appears a different color, say blue.  View it from another angle and it appears another color entirely, say gold.  Is the fabric gold?  Yes, in the moment.  Is the fabric blue?  Yes, to our view at the time.  But is the fabric in its existence changed or just our assessment from the position we view it?  Could it therefore, be iridescent white while simultaneously be gold and blue to two different people from their directional perspectives?  Hold that thought.

Jesus was fully man and fully God…all the time He walked on earth.  That’s a mystery difficult to wrap one’s mind around.  Unless we ponder that His spiritual being is unchanged.  That’s how God the Father sees Him.  Jesus is always God….and existed in heaven before all time and as He remains forever into the future.  Therefore, His eternal view was/ is/and reliably will be spiritual, divine, holy, and righteous.  After all, He’s God.

As He walked upon the earth, though, He was made flesh and His perspective (how He viewed the world) was self-veiled divinity.  Note, however this is not a division in His being which would be heresy.  Jesus was undivided.  His light was self-veiled … “interrupted” in a sense … so that He would see as a man would: through the clear lens of pure humanity, as Adam and Eve were at Creation.  It’s how He could truly feel temptations but not give in to them.  He could see sin coming a mile away, but never do the sinful thing.  He could experience the pain of knowing what death did to His precious creation, feel grief, and even anger at sin and death.  More though, He could feel death personally in His humanity.  Yet God did not die.  Hold that thought, too.

Romans 8 has much to illuminate this idea: “For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.  And so He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.  The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.  Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.  You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.  But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.” (Romans 8:3-10)

Two realms.  Two perspectives.  Same person Jesus Christ who “endured the Cross, scorning its shame” (Hebrews 12:2) but even as His flesh experienced death, “Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit My spirit.” When He had said this, He breathed His last.” (Luke 23:46)

He scorned the shame a crucifixion forced “on” His flesh. 
But His Spirit was untouched. 
He didn’t die as a superhuman,
but fully human with His mind governed by the Spirit in a fully human sense. 
His Spirit never died, though His body did. 
Same undivided Jesus. 
Two realms… the Spirit belongs with God,
but shame, sin, and death belong solely to the flesh. 

Yes, a lot of deep thought, but here’s where the rubber meets the road for us: if you’re “born again,” shame belongs to the old self, not the born again one as you are born of the Spirit.