Focus: The Original Man

Text: Mt.8:27

"But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!"

The disciples watched the Lord Jesus Christ subdue a storm by just a word, and they were amazed that the storm obeyed His voice. They saw in their master a different kind of man. He was truly man but a strange one at that. He was the man God originally intended for all men - the original brand of man. He was a man in command of things. Luke puts it this way, "And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! For he COMMANDETH even the winds and water, and they obey him" (Lk.8:25). He arrested and quieted the storm by a word of command. He was a man who controlled the elements.

What manner of man is this? That is the kind of man God intended for all of us. The elements of nature are subject to this kind of man. Demons are subject to Him. This man was not lettered, yet He dumbfounded scholars. Where did He get His knowledge? Who taught Him letters? He was the man who spoke and taught with power and authority, not like the scribes who relied on what others had said. He was original in everything. People wondered at Him. They asked, 'Is He up to 50 years old, and are His brothers and sisters not here with us?' They could not decode or demystify Him. He was a wonder to all. The author of Hebrews links Psalm 8 to Jesus Christ. He was the man of Psalm 8. God has put all things in subjection to Him, including the world to come - the future world, and it is by Him that many sons are brought to glory.

Jesus is the man we all want to be. He is the man we have never been. He is the man God intended for all men to be. Jesus Christ was the kind of man Adam was before the Fall in Gen.3, the kind of man that we have never been - the original brand of man.

Interestingly, that is the kind of man Jesus was, the only difference is that Adam was that man in a perfect environment, and Jesus Christ was also that man, but in an imperfect, sin-infected and sin-infested environment. Also, while Adam sinned in a perfect environment, Jesus Christ refused to sin in an imperfect environment. Jesus Christ was the perfect Adam of God's dreams. 

Paul saw Jesus Christ as the second man and the last Adam. In 1Cor.15:47, Paul says, "The first man is of the earth, earthy: the SECOND MAN is the Lord from heaven," and in verse 45, he says, "And so it is written, The FIRST man Adam was made a living soul; the LAST Adam was made a quickening spirit" (1Cor.15:45,47). 

Jesus Christ is God's kind of man, and by Him and in Him we are now a new creation of a man - a brand new humanity. God wants us to be the Jesus' kind of man.

The world will bow at the feet of such a man. Amazingly, by the new birth we are identified with the man, Christ Jesus. By Him we are divinely touched and supernaturally transformed. People look at you and wonder. They ask, 'Is he not the man born blind, who was begging on the streets? How come he now sees? Who opened his eyes? How, where and when did this happen? Who effected this change in him? How come the man, who could not be chained nor tamed for his insanity, is now sane and sober, and in his right mind?' That is the wonder of having the man Jesus Christ in one's life. He makes all the difference.

It takes a revelation from God to know the man in Christ. Only God can reveal Him. He is a mystery to the onlooking world. The world doesn't know what to make of Him. The world sees in Him someone totally different from who they are used to. Like John the Baptizer when he was born, people will wonder at your kind of person and at who you will turn out to be. 

Public opinion cannot decode your identity or destiny. You are a miracle in display and a marvel to the world.

Imagine the new man you are in Christ thinking, talking, acting, and behaving differently! Everything about you is different from the world's ways. You are not defined or confined by any man's moral yardsticks. You talk and walk differently from the rest of the world. You do things that show who God is. Nicodemus says to Jesus Christ, "We know that thou art a teacher come from God: for NO MAN can DO these miracles that thou DOEST, except God be WITH him" (Jh.3:2). Jesus Christ was a man from God and had God in His life. He experienced and enjoyed the empowering presence of God. The new man in Christ is God-centered and God-oriented. The original man never acts independently of God. He glorifies God in all he says and does. In Christ the journey back to man's original self has begun. We have been justified, we are being sanctified now, and we shall be glorified in the end. Amen!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter