The
Perfect Man in Jesus Christ.
“We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching
everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To
this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in
me” – Col. 1:28-29.
Eph. 4:13 “... until we all reach unity in the
faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to
the whole measure of the fullness of Christ”.
Paul makes
it very clear the objectives that he as an apostle has. We proclaim Jesus,
admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom. To become perfect in Christ
Jesus, we need to be admonished and taught. He goes further and says: To this
end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.
So, it is the power of Jesus that works in us, when we admonish and teach with
all wisdom. And to the Ephesians Paul writes: until we all reach unity in the
faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to
the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Jesus
served as a model in His life and conduct as a Perfect Man. According to the
Bible what is the profile of a perfect man? Paul gives thanks to God for Jesus
Christ by the fact that it is Jesus Christ who enables us to walk according to
what God tells us. We ought to serve with our understanding the law of God.
According to our knowledge we should act as we know what God's law says, this
is our obligation. But we have the knowledge like Paul that our flesh wants to
obey the law of the flesh. God made us
this way and He knows that we struggle with the desires of the flesh. God is
aware of the fact that we go through this struggle, but he enables each of us
to subdue this to Christ. Glory to God, the Almighty!!
With my
understanding I serve the law of God, says Paul, this is how we must learn to
think once we are living as Christians, if we decided to give our lives to God.
With the understanding, the best I know, I serve my God. AMEN!
Every human
being can submit his nature to the dominion of Jesus Christ, to be subjugated
to Him in everything. When we make consciously this decision that we will not
subdue ourselves to sin and yes, to the Lordship of Jesus, this submission is
voluntary on our part. "Don't you
know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are
slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to
death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?” Ro. 6:16.
The apostle
Paul was teaching the people in Rome, to these new Christians who had not yet
the knowledge of the fact that to whom you present yourselves as servants, him
you obey. In this case, if this is so it becomes obvious we are capable of
choosing whom we want to serve and we have the conditions and ability to
proceed as we choose. A person can decide to obey the sin unto death, or
obedience unto righteousness. One day God confronted Esau and told him: "If you do what is right, will you not
be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door;
it desires to have you, but you must master it" - Gn. 4:7. If I or you
decide we want to go after the seduction of sin, in this case, this seduction
will have dominion over us. We are slaves of sin only if we submit ourselves to
it. We have an option; the right and the ability to choose whom we want to
submit ourselves to. J I want to submit myself entirely to
Jesus Christ. Paul decided that he would do this. He concludes in chapter
eight, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Paul
learned that God offers us a better way.
Life In The Spirit.
"Therefore, there is now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the
Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was
powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by
sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so
he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the
law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature
but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the sinful nature have
their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance
with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires" - Rom.
8:1-5.
That which
is impossible for the law, is possible for our God. He guides us in love and
leads us on our journey in such a way that we can get to the stature of a
perfect man. Paul expresses himself by saying: For what the law could not do in
that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did it by sending his own Son in
the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. Jesus paid the price that was
set against us. He starts the whole subject referring to the fact that there is
no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk after the
fleshy desire. Every human being needs to make a decision whether he wants to
walk in the desires of flesh or not. Once this decision has been made and
declared, we can say as Paul did here.
And then he
leads us to have the consciousness saying: "For
what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature,
God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin
offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous
requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to
the sinful nature but according to the Spirit."
That which was impossible for the law to do in
our hearts, this Jesus did when He died for us; as He enters into our lives he
transforms our hearts, and we begin to walk and live in the Spirit and
according to the Spirit. It is a radical change in life, oh glory! Can you
actually grasp the blessing withheld in this message? “And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in
order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who
do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit”.
Have you
ever tried to visualize yourself as a person that has met the righteous
requirements of the law? Well, in Christ
Jesus you and I have met it!!! Once we live in Christ, we live in the Spirit,
this is the purpose to be lived in the Spirit to meet the righteous
requirements of the law. Verses 6-8 of the same chapter we read: "The mind
of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and
peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor
can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please
God."
When we
follow our own mindset, our thought line is death, but to be spiritually minded
is life and peace. This means according to the laws that rule our spiritual
life, we are dead if we follow our own fleshly mindset. Once we submit our
thoughts and desires to Christ in spirit, the Holy Spirit will lead us to life
and peace: for the Spirit is life and peace. We all have to learn to subdue the
flesh unto the Holy Spirit, who leads us in obedience to Christ. We receive a
new spiritual life when we invite Jesus into our heart as Lord and Savior. All
the apostles started like you and me, learning, slowly growing in their walk
with Christ. In every phase of their life with Christ they learned to grow in
the stature of a perfect man; no one can reach this stature over night, it is a
process.
As we read
carefully the Word of our God, it tells us that Jesus lived without sin, he had
the nature of God, but as a human being he also had to learn. "Although he was a son, he learned
obedience from what he suffered" - Heb. 5:8. If Jesus that was God,
while he was in human form learned obedience how much more you and I must learn
it. And to the Philippians’ Paul writes: "Each
of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of
others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in
very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in
human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and
became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!" - Phil. 2:4-8.
Let us
analyze this text a little bit. The apostle admonishes us to be like Jesus
Christ. He explains to us here that we should not be attentive to what is
properly ours and yes, which is of the other, of our neighbor. We should have
the same feeling that Jesus had. Our attitude should be the same as Christ
Jesus had: “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God
something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a
servant, being made in human likeness.” I understand this passage as, Jesus
could have come here on earth as God, and show off; but, he did not do this.
He, did not make a point of showing how much he could be a hero and so on. He came
to show love. He was brought by love, and came to love, and die because he
loves us.
In other
words, many times instead of repairing errors on others, we will only
understand them if we walk in their shoes. If we would go through all they went
through, we would think different probably. Jesus put himself in our situation
when he took upon himself the very nature of a servant, being made in human
likeness. There was not a single time in the life of Jesus here on earth, where
he decided to take care of his own interests first. He always did what the
Father said and then and once everyone had been served, then he rested. We can
never feel with someone’s situation unless we try to familiarize ourselves with
it. We can never understand the pain of our neighbors unless we bear his burden
with him. None of us can be perfect as Jesus was, but we can learn to walk with
our fellowman and reach the stature of a perfect man; as Jesus teaches us to do
so.
Meaning of
Perfect = adj. What unites all the
qualities, which has no defects; ideal, flawless, excellent. / Complete,
absolute, total. The word perfect according to the dictionary is an adjective
that describes, classifies and characterizes the being or object designated by
the noun. Collins Dictionary says: “Something that is perfect is as good as it
could possibly be”.
Combining
these two concepts: A perfect man according to the dictionary would be
described as "a man who has all the qualities, someone who is as good as
it could possibly be, a perfect man, flawless." I believe Jesus was even more than that,
Jesus was better than any human can possibly be, because we in our sinful
nature cannot be perfect.
In the Lord's Service
I greet you in His Love
Antonina Penner.
Missionary
Masters inTheology..
ISBN- 978-0-9881063-1-4
Copyright 2012/11/26 by: “Ministério Visão de Águias”.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher
