Egotism, of the wildest and most extravagant kind. Either it would have taken the form of reckless arrogance, or insufferable and condescending conceit. Again it is obvious he was not like that.
In my opinion the only hypothesis that works is that despite of his awareness of his closeness to God, what motivated him to put his beliefs into practice was something quite different. My guess is that he felt the same compulsion that we all feel to put our fantasy worlds into practice. If you believe that God exists as the living reality of the invisible world, and if you believe that you love him with passionate intensity, as he did, how can you help wanting to put your beliefs into practice? You have no other way in which to convince the world that your beliefs conform to reality, and are not just delightful day-dreams. In psychoanalytical language this is putting your fantasy world into practice. I can see no reason why the laws governing Christ's mental processes should have been any different from the laws governing the minds of the rest of us; just as I can see no reason why the biophysics and biochemistry of his body should have been any different.
It is only as one begins to understand the limited means available with which he tackled the problems facing him, and what those problems looked like through his eyes, that one begins to have a true measure of his greatness. This is the reward for daring to think like a creator: one is allowed some insight into the workings of his mind. It is an awe-inspiring thing to have some insight into the Creator's mind.
Let us consider what it was that He achieved. In religious terms Christ is said to have redeemed mankind, reconciled us to God, atoned for our sin by taking it upon himself. I am not however interested in religious descriptions of his achievement, because these descriptions cut no ice with the average secular man. How can his achievement be described in secular language? The Church…