The God-Man

“If ever we get hungry to see God, we must look at his picture.” 

“Where is that, sir?” 

“Ah, Davie… don’t you know that, besides being himself, and just because he is himself, Jesus is the living picture of God?” (George MacDonald, Donal Grant).

Jesus shows us God.He is the “living picture” of God that God himself has drawn—“the image (eikon=portrait) of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). "He that has seen me has seen the Father," Jesus said (John 14:9).

So, if you want to know what God is like, look at the picture God has drawn. Read the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—and accompany Jesus as he makes his way through an average, ordinary day. Listen to his words. Take in his wisdom. Observe his actions. Consider his love. This is God—exactly.  Jesus is God–like; God is Jesus–like. 

But that's not the whole story: Jesus also shows us Man[i]and what he can be.

“Know yourself,” Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote, knowing better than anyone of his age that we are unknowable. (“Know yourself,” meant “Known that you do not know.”)  Despite the fact that we know more about ourselves these days than ever before, “What is man?” is still the question.

All the social sciences—anthropology, economics, history, political science, psychology, and sociology—are skewed in their foundational assumptions and thus their conclusions are skewed, for they assume that Man, as he exists today, is the norm, not knowing (or not choosing to know) that modern Man is a caricature of himself—an intellectual, physical, social deviant—one who has strayed from the norm. 

And so, I would suggest, with sincere apologies to Alexander Pope, that the proper study of mankind is not man, but Jesus. If you want to know what authentic man looks like, look at Jesus. He, and he alone, shows us what it means to be a Man in full. 

“Know yourself,” Aristotle suggested. “Sir,” another Greek seeker said to Phillip, Jesus’ apostle, with greater wisdom, “We want to see Jesus” (John 12:21).

David Roper

7.20.18

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[i]Yes, I know. “Man" is gender insensitive, I try to be more sensitive when I’m speaking, but in writing I find that most gender circumlocutions seem awkward and contrived. (Put me down as an old Duffer.) Most people know that Man is a perfectly good English word and has no gender implications at all. By "Man" we mean humanity, the human race, mankind, or "male and female" as in the Creation Story: "So God created manin His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and femaleHe created them" (Genesis 1:27). I capitalize Man to make that point.