If asked what it means to be a man, many would naturally point to the MMA fighter, to one of the grizzly members of the show “Deadliest Catch” or to some extraordinarily gifted athlete. Others would unhesitatingly appeal to the studious and successful man–the doctor, the lawyer, the CEO or the engineer. The more machismo, the more man. The more money, the more mature. Right? However, when we turn to the Scriptures, the picture that God has given us about what it means to be a man is entirely different and far more dynamic than that which most of us would expect.

The picture that God gives us of the measure of a man is that of Jesus–with all of His sinless human perfection, united to the Divine nature of the Son of God. What we discover when we look at Jesus in the pages of Scripture helps us understand, and appropriate into our own lives, the measure of a man:

A man of truth. Jesus is, first and foremost, a man of truth. As God the Son, He is the only who could rightly say, “I am the Truth.” He is the true revelation of the true and living God–namely, God manifest in the flesh. However, as man, He is the truth-loving second Adam. As a man, Jesus learned the Scriptures. If there is one thing that is evident about Christ it is that He was Scripture-saturated. At every point in the Gospel-narratives, Jesus appealed to the Scriptures, prayed the Scriptures, preached the Scriptures, taught the Scriptures and confronted and corrected with the Scriptures. He not only knew what the Bible said, He had a perfect understanding of what every part of it meant. He knew that all of the Scriptures spoke of Him (Luke 4:16-21) and that it was written to Him (seethis and this). He knew that it was the perfect revelation of God’s will for man. Jesus knew that man needed the word of God for redemption, reconciliation and restoration. If we are to be men, we must be men of truth. The more truth-loving, the more maturity in manhood. We become truth-loving, truth-propagating and truth-defending men by fixing our eyes on the Savior. The more we search the Scriptures in order to come to Him, the more we call on Him and the more we meditate on all that we have in Him, the more we will become men of truth. Charles Spurgeon famously noted the way in which John Bunynan had learned this principle from the Savior. “His blood,” wrote Spurgeon, “is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his very soul is full of the Word of God. I commend his example to you, beloved.”

A man of love. It is almost unnecessary to say that Jesus is a man of love. He was in the world because of His great love for His Father and those who the Father had chosen in Him before the foundation of the world and sent Him to redeem. There has only been one man who loved the Lord His God with all of His heart, mind, soul and strength and perfectly loved His neighbor as Himself. He was the perfect model of love. He is what it looks like for the infinitely loving God to be manifest in the flesh. When I was a young Christian, my best friend took me to 1 Corinthians 13 and started to read it. Instead of reading “Love is patient, love is kind…,” he replaced the word “love” with the word “Jesus.” “Jesus is patient and kind; Jesus does not envy or boast; Jesus is not arrogant or rude. Jesus does not insist on His own way; Jesus is not irritable or resentful; Jesus does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Jesus lasts forever” (1 Cor. 13:4-7). We too must learn from our Redeemer what it is to be loving men in the world.

A man of zeal and resolve. It is possible for us to misunderstand what it means that Jesus is a man of love.

Read More