One reason that Jesus so often spoke of God in the third person is that he did not want to appear unto men as God, but he wanted to appear as a man just like one of us, as we read in Philippians 2:5-8, NIV:
5. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6. Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7. but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!
Jerry Hayes explains it this way:
Many times the question is asked, "If Jesus was Father God why did he not just say so?" The answer to this question is so completely summed up in Philippians 2:5-8. He was humble. He did not think it a good thing to flaunt his deity before men. He did not choose to appear better than man, although he was better than all men for he was the creator of all men. He choose, instead, to have all men appear better than himself.
When Jesus spoke of the Father it was always in a way that distanced his own identity from that of Father God. This action was in keeping with his character of not appearing as God, although he was. Concerning this very subject Jesus made the following promise: "These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall not more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father: (John 16:25). Paul referred to this same event of revelation when he wrote unto Timothy, "Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen" (1 Timothy 6:15-16).
At the time of this great revelation may we all bow low at his feet and whisper in hushed tones of adoration the confession of Thomas, "The Lord of me and the God of me!"
William Arnold
