The Perfect Man

When my daughter was much younger, she thought that the person portrayed in the television show MacGyver, was the “perfect man.” Now she might say there is no such thing, but then and now I’d have to answer that there is one perfect man, only one.

When Adam ate the forbidden fruit and brought sin into the world, perfection ended. Every person since then is tainted, some more than others, but all fall short, even MacGyver. This was not God’s intention. When He created mankind and gave them dominion over the earth, He intended just that. The writer of Hebrews quotes an Old Testament passage about this: “You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of Your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet” (Hebrews 2:7-8).

This was God’s intention, but it didn’t work out like that. We do not see ourselves exercising lordship over all things, and if anything is put under our human subjection, the intent and attitude behind that rule is entirely different from what God intended. Our dominion is exploitive, power-driven, and generally without godly care and protection. We fall short.

Hebrews 2:9 goes on to say the same thing: “For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him.”

Then it points our eyes in a different direction to the One man that changed everything: “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.”

Jesus did what Adam and every other sinful human being could not do; He lived the way God intended human beings to live. He was sinless, the perfect man. Then He tasted death for us so that we, who all our lives live in bondage to fear of death, might have hope (see Hebrews 2:14-15) and be forgiven for our sin and falling short of His desire.

Note four important words in verse 9: “But we see Jesus.” We ruined things, BUT Jesus can undo and repair our mess. WE can see Him, not with literal eyes for the time being though. The Greek word used here is a verb that means we see Him by faith. Faith is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

Jesus is just as real SEEN through the eyes of faith as any solid object is real through physical vision. Yet it must be JESUS who is seen. My brother belongs to a cult that talks about Jesus and uses His name, yet he has never seen the real Jesus. That cult teaches that Jesus is not the perfect God who became perfect man presented in Scripture, but a being who was once an angel, didn’t really die to rise from the dead in a real body, and who deceived his disciples. My brother does not see the same JESUS who is the focus of this verse.

The real Jesus was made a little lower than the angels and is seen by faith, which is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8-9). He is the One who died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day. We behold or look at Him with deliberate intention because He was willing to become less than His creation (angels) to suffer and die for His rebellious creation — you and I. We gaze at Him knowing that He tasted death for us so that we do not have to die ourselves, at least spiritually. Our eternity is secure, made so by this one Perfect Man.

Jesus is already crowned and given honor, although still unseen by us (except by faith). The author of my devotional reading says “If you have ever seen Jesus by the eyes of faith, and ever had a tender affection going out toward Him, you will see Him in glory. But you will never see Him in glory if you have not seen Him in grace. You will never see Him eye to eye in the open vision of eternal bliss, unless you have seen Him now upon earth by the faith of God’s elect in your heart.”

My focus verse this year is Psalm 27:8, “When You said, ‘Seek My face,’ my heart said to You, ‘Your face, Lord, I will seek.’”

I’m grateful that He not only invites me to seek His face, but also provides the faith I need to see Him, the Perfect Man, as I respond to His invitation.