The Perfect Man

                                                  Fully God...Fully man

   This study is a beautiful unveiling of God’s eternal purpose: the Perfect Man

    revealed in Jesus Christ and His life being formed within His people!
   Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man!
   By being fully God, He has the power to forgive sins and offer eternal life!
   By being fully man, He understands our struggles and pain!

   From the beginning, God intended humanity to bear His image, express His nature

   and exercise His righteous dominion throughout the earth. Although Adam’s

   disobedience obscured that purpose, God never abandoned it. In Jesus Christ,

   His eternal intention appeared in fullness. Christ came not only to forgive humanity

   but to reveal the perfect humanity God intended from the beginning.

    He is the complete revelation of humanity in harmony with God—the Man in whom

    the Father’s image, will, character, authority, and pleasure are perfectly expressed.

    In Him, we see sonship without alienation, authority without corruption,

    holiness without coldness, strength without cruelty, and love without compromise.

   Genesis 1:26–27 (AMP)

   God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.”

   He gave humanity dominion over the creatures of the earth and created mankind

   in His own image, male and female.

   Humanity was created to reveal God’s heart, reflect His righteousness,

   administer His will, and cultivate the earth beneath His gracious authority.

   Adam was not appointed to rule independently. His wisdom, strength, and purpose

   were to flow from continual communion with the One whose image he bore.

   Genesis 2:15 (AMP)

   The Lord God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden

   to cultivate it and keep it.

   Adam’s stewardship involved more than tending vegetation. He was entrusted
   with guarding the sacred order of divine relationship.

   Through obedience and communion, the garden would remain a place where
   God’s Presence governed human life.

   When Adam disobeyed, humanity’s expression of the divine image became
   distorted. Dominion became domination. Fellowship gave way to fear.

   Responsibility surrendered to accusation.
   Nevertheless, God did not abandon His purpose.

  The promise of redemption was also the promise of restored humanity.

   John 1:14 (AMP)

   The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we saw His glory—the glory

   belonging to the one and only Son from the Father—full of grace and truth.

   The eternal Son did not merely appear to be human. He entered human existence.

   He was born, nurtured, tested, opposed, wearied, grieved, tempted, rejected,

   and put to death—yet remained entirely faithful to the Father.

   The incarnation reveals the value God places upon humanity. His answer to fallen

   human nature was not annihilation but redemption through union with His Son.

   Christ entered humanity’s condition without entering its rebellion.

   Hebrews 4:15 (AMP)

   We have a High Priest who understands and sympathizes with our weaknesses,

   having been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sin.

   His perfection was demonstrated under the full pressure of human testing.

   He obeyed where Adam disobeyed. He trusted where humanity doubted.

   He loved where others hated. He forgave while suffering injustice and remained

   aligned with the Father even when obedience led to the Cross.

   John 19:5 (AMP)

   Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe,

   and Pilate said, “Behold, the Man!”

   Pilate spoke more profoundly than he understood. Standing before the world

   was the Man who had perfectly fulfilled the Father’s will.
   He wore a crown of thorns, yet possessed the authority of heaven.

   He appeared powerless before earthly government, yet upheld all creation.

   The world judged the Perfect Man unworthy to live.
   God judged Him worthy to receive all authority in heaven and upon earth.

   Divine perfection is not measured by outward success, political power,

   material abundance, or public approval. It is the complete alignment of human

   life with God’s nature and will! His wounds did not diminish His perfection.

   They revealed it!

   Matthew 3:17 (AMP)

   A voice from heaven declared,
   “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

   The Father’s declaration came before Jesus began His public ministry.

   Divine pleasure was not a reward for miracles or visible accomplishment.

   It rested upon the Son and His unbroken fellowship with the Father.

   Jesus lived from identity rather than striving to obtain it. Satan’s temptation

   challenged that identity by suggesting that He prove through independent

   action what the Father had already declared.

   Matthew 4:4 (AMP)

   Jesus answered that man shall not live by bread alone,

   but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

   The Perfect Man refused to use divine power for self-validation.

   He trusted the Father’s word, submitted to the Father’s timing,

   and embraced the Father’s way.

   True maturity is revealed when a person no longer acts independently

   to prove who he is.

   John 5:19 (AMP)

   The Son can do nothing independently, but only what He sees the Father doing;

   whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.

   Jesus’ dependence upon the Father did not indicate weakness.

   It revealed the perfection of their union. Every word, action, miracle,

   rebuke, embrace, and moment of silence proceeded from communion.

   The Perfect Man was perfectly responsive!

   John 12:49 (AMP)

   Jesus declared that He did not speak on His own authority, but that the Father

    who sent Him instructed Him concerning what to say and how to speak.

    • He could stop for one suffering woman while a crowd surrounded Him.

    • He could sleep during a storm while experienced fishermen panicked.

    • He could remain silent before false accusers and speak tenderly to a person

      overcome by shame.

    • He knew when to withdraw and when to confront because His life
      was governed from above rather than controlled from around Him.

   Matthew 5:48 (AMP)

   You are to be perfect, growing into complete maturity of godliness in mind
   and character, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

   Christ’s perfection was most fully manifested through love.

   His love was not sentimental indulgence. It was holy, discerning, and transforming.

   Jesus received sinners without approving sin. He extended mercy without

   denying righteousness. He touched lepers, welcomed children, restored outcasts,

   honored women, and wept with grieving friends.

   Yet the same love confronted religious hypocrisy and overturned systems
   of exploitation. In Christ, tenderness and authority were never enemies.
   Grace and truth were never divided.

   Luke 23:34 (AMP)

   Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

   Jesus did not merely instruct others to love their enemies.

   He loved His enemies while they crucified Him.

   The Perfect Man revealed the mature, undivided expression of the Father’s heart.

   Romans 5:19 (AMP)

   Through one man’s disobedience many were made sinners; through the
   obedience of the One, many will be made righteous.

   Adam and Christ represent two contrasting humanities.

   Through Adam’s disobedience came sin and death.

   Through Christ’s obedience came righteousness and life.

   Jesus is the last Adam because He brought the old Adamic order to judgment.

   He is the second Man because He became the Head and source of a New Creation!

   1 Corinthians 15:47 (AMP)

   The first man was from the earth, made of dust; the second Man is from heaven.

   Christ entered the earth bearing the life of heaven. He demonstrated humanity

   governed by the Spirit, filled with divine life, and submitted to the Father’s will.

   Philippians 2:8 (AMP)

   And after He was found in terms of His outward appearance as a man,

   He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the Father to the point of death,

   even death on a cross.

   His obedience was not forced submission.

   It was the voluntary surrender of perfect love.

   The cross was not an interruption of Christ’s perfection;

   it was its supreme manifestation.

   He overcame evil through self-giving love, unwavering obedience,

   and resurrection life.

   John 19:30 (AMP)

   When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!”

   And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.

   This was not the exhausted cry of a defeated victim. It was the proclamation

   of completed obedience. The Father’s appointed work had reached its fulfillment.

   Sin had been confronted, reconciliation accomplished,

   and the way into restored fellowship opened.

   2 Corinthians 5:19 (AMP)

   God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting people’s

   trespasses against them, and He entrusted to us the message of reconciliation.

   The Perfect Man did not come merely to demonstrate a standard humanity

   could never attain. He came to unite humanity with Himself,

   carry it through death, and raise it into newness of life.

   The Gospel is not humanity struggling to imitate Jesus through independent effort.

   It is the announcement that God has acted in Christ to create a new humanity.

   Acts 2:32–33 (AMP)

   God raised Jesus to life. Exalted to the right hand of God, He received from the
   Father the promised Holy Spirit and poured out what the witnesses saw and heard.

   The resurrection was the Father’s vindication of the Son and the beginning

   of the New Creation. Jesus arose in incorruptible resurrection life.

   Death no longer had dominion over Him.

   Perfect humanity had entered the glory of God.

   Acts 2:36 (AMP)

   Let all the house of Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus,

   whom they crucified, both Lord and Christ.

   The Man rejected by earthly rulers was installed in heavenly authority.

   The Son of David received His promised throne within the everlasting

   dominion of God.

   Hebrews 2:9 (AMP)

   We see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels,

   crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death,

   so that by God’s grace He might taste death for everyone.

   Humanity’s intended destiny is already realized in Him.

   A Man sits upon the throne. The One who rules heaven and earth

   bears glorified humanity within the presence of God.

   The Resurrection did not remove Jesus from His humanity.

   It glorified that humanity and revealed the destiny of a Redeemed Creation.

   Ephesians 2:14–15 (AMP)

   Christ Himself is our peace.

   He made both groups one and destroyed the dividing wall of hostility

   so that in Himself He might create the two into one new man, establishing peace.

   The Perfect Man is not the end of God’s purpose but the beginning

   and Head of a corporate New Humanity!

   At the cross, Christ confronted the divisions and hostilities that kept

   humanity alienated from God and from one another. In the One New Man,

   Jew and Gentile are reconciled.

   Religious superiority, ethnic hostility, social rank, and cultural division lose

   their governing authority.

   Galatians 3:28 (AMP)

   There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female,

   for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

   The New Creation (humanity) is not built upon nationality, economic status,

   political identity, or denominational tradition. Christ Himself is its Life.

   Jesus alone is the complete and flawless revelation of the Father,

   yet He is forming a people who corporately express His fullness

   throughout the earth!

   Ephesians 4:11–13 (AMP)

   Christ gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers

   to equip His people for the work of ministry and to build up the Body of Christ

   until all attain the unity of the faith, the knowledge of the Son of God,

   and mature manhood, reaching the measure

   of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

   This declaration is central to understanding the Perfect Man.

   Paul does not envision isolated believers becoming spiritually impressive.

   He sees the whole Body growing into the fullness of its Head.

   Christ is already perfect. The development is taking place within His people.

   The Church is being brought from spiritual infancy into mature sonship.

   Immaturity is marked by instability, division, self-promotion, susceptibility

   to deception, and dependence upon personalities.

   Maturity is revealed through truth, love, discernment, mutual service,

   and every member functioning under Christ’s direction.

   The goal of ministry is not to make congregations permanently

   dependent upon ministers.

   Ministry is given to equip the saints until the life and work of Christ

   operate throughout the entire Body.

   A ministry succeeds when the saints are equipped to reveal Christ!

   Galatians 4:19 (AMP)

   My little children, I am again experiencing the pains of labor until Christ

   is completely and permanently formed within you.

   Paul’s concern was not simply whether believers possessed religious knowledge.

   His desire was that Christ’s nature become visible in their understanding,

   relationships, and conduct. Christ may be present in one's life while His character

   remains insufficiently formed in daily expression.

   Spiritual gifts can operate where maturity remains incomplete.

   Knowledge can increase while love remains underdeveloped.

   The formation of Christ is the inward work of the Holy Spirit,
   bringing the believer’s thoughts, desires, responses, and relationships
   into agreement with the life already received.

   Romans 8:29 (AMP)

   Those whom God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed

   to the image of His Son, so that Christ would be the firstborn

   among many brothers and sisters.

   God’s purpose is not merely to bring people into heaven after death.

   His purpose is to conform them to Christ.

   Grace does not merely cancel the past.

   It creates a new future by forming the Life of the Son within His people!

   Philippians 2:5 (AMP)

   Have this same attitude in yourselves that was also in Christ Jesus.

   The mind of Christ is more than supernatural insight.

   It is the inward disposition of the Son—the willingness to abandon selfish
   ambition and serve others in love.

   Jesus knew that He had come from God and was returning to God.

   He knew His identity was secure, He could kneel and wash His disciples’ feet.

   John 13:14–15 (AMP)

   Jesus told His disciples that if He, their Lord and Teacher, had washed

   their feet, they also should wash one another’s feet,

   following the example He had given them.

   The Perfect Man demonstrates that genuine authority does not need

   to protect its status. Kingdom authority serves, restores, and builds.

   It does not manipulate people or conceal ambition beneath religious language.

   Humility is not denying what God has placed within us.

   Humility is refusing to use His gifts for self-exaltation.

   Colossians 1:18–19 (AMP)

   Christ is the Head of the Body, the Church.
   He is the beginning and the firstborn from the dead, so that He would
   have first place in everything for it pleased the Father that all fullness

   The Church does not produce the fullness of Christ.

   It receives and expresses His fullness.

   No single believer, congregation, or ministry can display the whole measure

   of Christ independently. One member may reveal compassion, another wisdom,

   another courage, another generosity, and another spiritual discernment.

   Yet all are necessary for the healthy expression of the Body.

   Colossians 2:9–10 (AMP)

   In Christ all the fullness of Deity dwells bodily,

   and in Him you have been made complete.

   Our completeness is found in union with Christ!
   Everything humanity requires for reconciliation, righteousness, wisdom,
   holiness, authority, and life is present in the Son.

   This is why division contradicts the revelation of the Perfect Man.

   Unity does not require uniformity, but it does require shared submission
   to the Head.

   John 11:35 (AMP)

   Jesus wept.

   The perfect man must not be confused with someone who never experiences

   weakness, grief, limitation, or struggle. Jesus wept! He became weary!

   He experienced anguish and was deeply moved by suffering.

   His perfection was not emotional detachment.

   It was faithful love within genuine human experience.

   Spiritual maturity does not make believers less human.

   It restores humanity to its proper relationship with God!

   Mature believers may grieve, yet they do not grieve without hope.

   They may experience weakness, yet they discover Christ’s strength

   within that weakness.

   2 Corinthians 12:9 (AMP)

   The Lord declared that His grace is sufficient and that His power

   is perfected in weakness.

   The perfecting of the saints does not always appear as outward triumph.

   Sometimes Christ is most clearly revealed through patience in affliction,

   forgiveness under accusation, faithfulness in obscurity,

   and love that continues without recognition.

   Hebrews 5:8–9 (AMP)

   Although Jesus was the Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered,

   and having been made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation

   for all who obey Him.

   This does not mean Jesus moved from sinfulness into holiness.

   He was always without sin. Rather, His perfect sonship

   was fully demonstrated through lived obedience.

   Suffering did not create His character.

   It revealed and completed the course of His obedience!

   God also uses trials to mature His people.

   He does not delight in pain, nor is every form of suffering directly sent by Him.

   Yet nothing surrendered to Christ is wasted.

   Through the Holy Spirit, suffering can become a place where endurance,

   compassion, discernment, and unwavering trust are formed.

   Maturity is often revealed by how faithfully we love

   when obedience becomes costly.

   Matthew 28:18 (AMP)

   Jesus declared that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to Him.

   Christ recovered the authority forfeited through sin.

   He does not wait to become King. He reigns now!

   Ephesians 1:20–21 (AMP)

   God raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand

   in the heavenly places, far above every rule, authority, power, and dominion,

   and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age
   to come.

   His throne does not await future earthly validation.

   The Father has already enthroned Him!

   His Kingdom advances as truth is proclaimed, the Holy Spirit transforms lives,

   and His people embody the ministry of reconciliation.

   Christ exercises authority differently from the rulers of this age.

   The kingdoms of the world maintain power through coercion, fear,

   violence, and control.

   Christ conquers through righteousness, sacrificial love, spiritual power,

   and the transforming revelation of truth!

   The Church reveals the Perfect Man when it exercises authority

   in the spirit of the Lamb.

   2 Corinthians 5:17–18 (AMP)

   If anyone is in Christ, that person is a new creation.
   The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

   All these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself

   through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

   The Perfect Man produces a reconciled people who encourage others
   to be reconciled! The Church cannot faithfully proclaim reconciliation

   while nurturing hostility, prejudice, unforgiveness, and rivalry.

   Its message must become visible in its relationships!

   • Former enemies must be able to share one table.

   • Differing people must learn to honor one another.

   • Wounded people must discover forgiveness,
   • Authority must serve restoration rather than domination.

   2 Corinthians 5:20 (AMP)

   We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His appeal
   through us; on behalf of Christ, we urge people to be reconciled to God.

   Believers do not announce an uncertain possibility.

   They proclaim God’s completed reconciling action in His Son

   and invite humanity to enter its reality.

   Ephesians 5:25–27 (AMP)

   Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her so that He might sanctify

   and cleanse her, presenting her to Himself in glorious splendor,

   without spot or wrinkle, holy and blameless.

   • The Church is described both as the Body of Christ and as the Bride of Christ.

   • The Body emphasizes shared life and function.

   • The Bride emphasizes covenant love, devotion, purity, and union.

   • The Bride’s perfection is not self-produced.

   • She is cleansed, nourished, cherished, and prepared by the Bridegroom!

   The Perfect Man is forming a mature Bride—
   not an abandoned people waiting to become relevant, but a glorious Church

   learning to live in faithful union with Him. Her glory is His life revealed within her!

   She does not replace Him or act independently from Him.

   She shares His heart and participates in His purpose.

   The Bride becomes ready as the nature of the Bridegroom

   becomes visible in her.

   Colossians 3:4 (AMP)

   When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed
   with Him in glory.

   Christ is presently the life of His people, although that life may remain hidden

   beneath mortal weakness and misunderstood by the world.

   What is inwardly present is destined for open manifestation!

   The glory of the Head will be revealed in His Body.

   1 John 3:2 (AMP)

   Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been
   fully revealed. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him,
   because we will see Him as He is.

   The hope of seeing Christ is also the hope of transformation.

   The Church does not merely wait for an external event.

   She lives beneath the present transforming power of His revelation.

   2 Corinthians 3:18 (AMP)

   As we behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces,

   we are being transformed into His image from one degree of glory

   to another through the Lord, who is the Spirit.

   Every true revelation of Christ changes the beholder!

   What we behold, we become equipped to express.

   Ephesians 4:15–16 (AMP)

   Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Christ,

   who is the Head. From Him the whole Body is joined and held together,
   growing and building itself up in love as each individual part does its work.
 

   Growth within the Perfect Man involves the entire life of the believer

   and the Spiritual Body of faith!

   Truth without love produces hardness.

   Love without truth produces instability.

   In Christ, truth and love become one harmonious expression of the Father.

   To grow within Christ is to move from:
    • Self-preservation into self-giving love,

    • Competition into mutual honor,
    • Religious performance into living communion,

    • Independence into Covenant relationship.

    • Offense into forgiveness,
    • Control into Spirit-led authority,

    • Spiritual childhood into mature discernment,
  

   The measure of maturity is not how many spiritual experiences

   someone can describe. It is how fully Christ’s life, character, wisdom,

   humility, and love govern that person’s relationships and actions.

   Colossians 1:27 (AMP)

   God chose to make known the glorious riches of this mystery among the nations:

   Christ in you, the hope of glory.

   The hope of glory is not humanity attempting to reach God

   through religious achievement.

   It is Christ sharing His own Life with humanity.

   Everything necessary for maturity is contained within that indwelling Life.

   The heart must yield to the Holy Spirit. False identities must be surrendered.

   • The mind must be renewed.
   • Wounds must be healed.

   • Relationships must be reconciled.

   • Gifts must be awakened,
   • Love must mature.

   Yet throughout this transforming work, Christ Himself remains the source.

   We are not becoming independent versions of perfection.

   We are being perfected through participation in the Perfect One!

   Colossians 1:28 (AMP)

   We proclaim Christ, warning and instructing everyone in all wisdom,

   so that we may present every person mature and complete in Him.

   The mature Church will not point to itself and declare,

   “Behold what we have accomplished.”

   It will reveal Christ so clearly that the nations may behold the Man—

   the crucified, risen, reigning, reconciling, and glorified Son of God!

   Jesus Christ is the Perfect Man, and He is bringing His Body

   into the unity, maturity, and fullness of His own Life.

   God’s original purpose has not failed!

   The image obscured in Adam has been perfectly revealed in Christ

   and is being formed within a New-Creation people.

   • The Father is bringing many sons into glory.

   • The Holy Spirit is forming Christ within His people.

   • The Church is growing into the full measure of her Head.

   • The Divided are becoming one new man.

   Humanity’s true image stands revealed in Jesus Christ!
          **Behold the Man!**

   What a glorious declaration:

   Christ is not merely the example before us—
          He is the Life within us!

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