God's perfect image of manhood has been completely distorted today by the world, but God is on the move to restore man's identity and purpose in the world through the redemptive work of Christ. In accordance to that, God is calling men to step up to the plate and take up Jesus as their true identity.
When God created Adam as the first man, He created him perfect and complete with the intention of propagating the world with men who would be just as whole and perfect as Adam is. But when sin entered into the heart of Adam, God's plan for perfect manhood was destroyed completely and so men were doomed to fall short of the standard of true manhood.
What is God's perception of the perfect man? Genesis 1:26 and 28 gives us God's complete picture of the whole and perfect man:
"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth...Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
First of all, manhood calls for consecration and wholeness. The Bible tells us that man was made in God's image and likeness, bearing not just His physical form but His holiness. Secondly, manhood calls for perfect leadership as God instituted that man would rule and have dominion over all the earth. Lastly, manhood calls for man to be fruitful and productive. God has meant for manhood to go hand in hand with a maximisation of the treasures and talents that He has bestowed upon all mankind.
Sadly, the world - and even the body of Christ - is full of men who don't meet the call of holiness, leadership or fruitfulness. From the beginning of time, man has failed to fulfill God's mandate of manhood. Adam failed to remain holy by obeying God's Word, he failed to lead his wife Eve away from temptation and he failed to remain fruitful in keeping the Garden of Eden. As men, we too fall in some areas and have thus maligned the image and likeness of God.
The world calls for perfect men who will not fail in the area of holiness, leadership and fruitfulness, but we all fall short. Sure we have charismatic leaders and good men here and there, but no one really meets the standard that God demands. God desires for complete and whole perfection - men who will stand in complete integrity and persevere through hard work in keeping His Word and His will.
It's not that men don't try to meet God's standard. As believers, how we wish that we could meet the standard. Paul says it best in Romans 7:14 (NLT Version), "So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin." No matter how hard we try, we can never meet the standards of true manhood by our own strength. We have failed God once and for all.
But the true and perfect image of manhood was never meant to be earned or attained. It was meant to be given as a free gift made available through the finished work of Christ. Jesus gives men completeness and creates a perfect call of manhood in men making them holy and productive leaders in their homes, churches, workplaces and communities.
Jesus is the perfect image of man. He is the last Adam that finished the work that all of us men have failed to meet, and now all Jesus asks is that we partake in His finished work putting our full faith and trust in Him to meet the standard of holiness, leadership and fruitfulness that was meant for us.
Jesus lived the life we should have lived as men. He stayed holy and pure, He lead the disciples and other people with love, understanding, and full effectiveness in empowering and releasing them to live for God. He was fruitful in pursuing the call for His life and seeing His purpose completed, and of course He was completely sacrificial.
We can not just learn from Christ's life in terms of how to meet God's standard of manhood, but we can also rejoice and partake in His life knowing that we now have His life as ours. 1 Peter 2:24 says, "and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed."
Men can never attain the true and perfect wholeness of being the men God calls us to be by their own strength. But through the empowering of Christ and the leading of the Holy Spirit, we can be set apart, responsible, fruitful, authoritative, gentle, loving, respectful and everything that God calls us to be. God calls us to be empowered by Christ fully atoned for, but also fully enabled to now be transformed from glory to glory progressively being built up into real men who meet God's standards of holiness, leadership and fruitfulness.
