Finding Truth Matters, home  >  articles  >  theology  > GENTLEMEN PLEASE! Part 4 CHRIST THE PREEMINENT EXAMPLE OF A MAN

Part 4

Christ, The Preeminent Man

By Dr. Andrew Corbett, 13 June 2026, writing from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

For those who know the true identity and deity of the Christ, it may seem a little unfair to describe Him as the preeminent man. What I will now demonstrate is that the eternal Son of God became a male human being, who started His human life as a zygote (a single cell pre-embryo) in the womb of the virgin, Mary. He was born in the normal way. He grew as a normal child, teenager, and young adult. Yet, as God in the flesh, He had manage His omniscience, omnipotence, and intrinsic glory. Only as the Father directed Him did He exercise any of His divine attributes. As Charles Wesley composed, to look at Christ was view the Godhead veiled in flesh:

1 Hark! the herald angels sing,
  “Glory to the newborn King:
peace on earth, and mercy mild,
  God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
  join the triumph of the skies;
with th’angelic hosts proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”

2 Christ, by highest heaven adored,
  Christ, the everlasting Lord,
late in time behold him come,
  offspring of the Virgin’s womb:
veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
  hail th’incarnate Deity,
pleased with us in flesh to dwell,
Jesus, our Immanuel.

3 Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
  Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
  risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
  born that we no more may die,
born to raise us from the earth,
  born to give us second birth.

But as we shall see, when Christ became incarnate, he really was a one-hundred-percent human man, who was tempted in every way a man could be tempted.

The Incarnation of the Son of God

¶ Consequently, when Christ came into the world, He said,
“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
Hebrews 10:5

“Incarnation” means in the flesh. In reference to Jesus, it is the expression used to describe how the eternal Son of God became a human by His miraculous conception. Paul describes the incarnation of Jesus as God sending His own Son “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” Christ was “in the likeness of sinful flesh” because He was not born with human flesh that was not sinful:

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
Romans 8:3

Luke describes the incarnation of Christ as a supernatural event – in as much as His conception was miraculous, but His development and birth were quite natural. The miraculous often interacts with human beings with a degree of the ordinary and natural.

¶ In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.
And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favoured one, the Lord is with you!”
But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.
And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And behold,
you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His father David,
and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”
¶ And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
¶ And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son,
and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”
And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
And the angel departed from her.
Luke 1:26-38

The Chalcedon Ecumenical Council

It was Scriptures such as these that the ecumenical church council meeting in  451 in Chalcedon, a maritime town located in Bithynia, on the Asian shore of the Bosporus strait, directly opposite Byzantium (modern Istanbul, Turkey) had to resolve. This was the fourth ecumenical Church council. They met October 8th to November 1st (24 days). How could the eternal Son of God become a human man and remain divine? When He became incarnate, did He have both a divine soul and human soul? Was He conscious of His divinity as a newborn? Did He have a divine mind and a human  mind? After He ascended back to the Father, was He still a human?

The Hypostatic Union of Christ – Fully man and fully God.

The Chalcedon Church Council resolved that Jesus was fully God and fully man. Paul wrote that when Christ became incarnate, “He emptied Himself”, the question is- What did He empty Himself of?

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant,
being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:5-8

CHRIST DISPLAYED HUMILITY

Christ could not have emptied Himself of His deity, as some have asserted — and Chalcedon dismissed. But what He did empty Himself of was His glory — and instead “humbled Himself” “taking on the form of a servant”. Thus, Christ demonstrated true manhood which was exemplified in how He served others.

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”
Mark 10.45

CHRIST DISPLAYED COURAGE

But the Apostle also states that Christ’s humbling of Himself also involved Him displaying great courage. All good and true men are courageous – especially when standing up for the truth, and protecting the vulnerable. When Christ preached in His childhood hometown of Nazareth, He drew out from the Old Testament Scriptures how GOD loved Gentiles as well as Hebrews. It took courage to speak this truth because His Jewish who despised Gentiles:

And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha,
and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”
When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.
And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built,
so that they could throw him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, he went away.
Luke 4:27-30

CHRIST DISPLAYED SPIRITUALITY

To be spiritual is to be aware that we are more than just tissue, bone, and plasma. That is, we are a composite of these physical organs, and, what is generally considered to be an immaterial soul (or spirit). With this foundational understanding of who we are, comes an awareness of the transcendent, or spiritual, realm. This is the realm of GOD, angels, heavenly beings, and even evil spirits of darkness. For those who have been redeemed by Christ from the domain of darkness into the kingdom light, their spirituality leads to a growing relationship with GOD made possible through prayer. knowledge of GOD’s Word, and Christ-focused fellowship with other believers. The last of these growth-graces might be misunderstood as merely putting on an outward show of spirituality. But this is not reflective of what genuine godly fellowship with other believers is. To gain a deeper insight into true spirituality, we have no higher example of it that Jesus. Notice from this Matthew 4 passage how Christ displayed true spirituality – even when no-one was watching:

¶ Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him,
“If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But He answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
¶ Then the devil took Him to the holy city and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to Him,
“If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “‘He will command His angels concerning you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”
¶ Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.
And he said to Him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.’”
¶ Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to Him.
Matthew 4:1-11

From this passage we notice that authentic and manly spirituality is being led by the Holy Spirit, occasional times of fasting, resisting temptation to sin, familiarity with GOD’s Word, and even spiritual warfare (not being distracted by the devil who seeks to take your focus away from beholding Christ).

CHRIST DISPLAYED PROTECTION AND GENEROSITY

Can you imagine what it would have been like to live in first century Palestine? There were no hospitals with specialist wards like our modern day hospitals. There were no x-ray machines, computed tomography (CT) scanners, or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines – to quickly and efficiently diagnose a patient’s condition. Some of the simple medical procedures and medicinal treatments we have today for treating what were once life-threatening diseases, injuries, or illnesses – did not exist in the first century. When Jesus was asked by a desperate father to come and heal his young dying daughter, Christ was his only hope. As in-demand and busy as Jesus was, He generously gave of His time to come and heal this father’s daughter. Along the way, a woman with a  discharge of blood that had plagued her for twelve years, realised that Jesus was her only hope as well. For twelve years this woman would have been subjected to community shunning, no prospects of ever marrying or bearing children, and desperate isolation. In a moment when all her hope had seemed gone, Christ gave her a protection from any further societal shunning and humiliation:

And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased.
And Jesus said, “Who was it that touched me?”
When all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!”
But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.”
And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed.
And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”
¶ While he was still speaking, someone from the ruler’s house came and said,
“Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Teacher any more.”
But Jesus on hearing this answered him, “Do not fear; only believe, and she will be well.”
And when He came to the house, He allowed no one to enter with Him, except Peter and John and James,
and the father and mother of the child. And all were weeping and mourning for her, but He said,
“Do not weep, for she is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at Him, knowing that she was dead.
But taking her by the hand he called, saying, “Child, arise.” And her spirit returned, and she got up at once.
And He directed that something should be given her to eat.
And her parents were amazed, but He charged them to tell no one what had happened.
Luke 8:43-56

In both instances, Christ is modelling for men how young girls, and shunned women are to be treated. At the very least, every husband and father of a young daughter should recognise the challenge that Christ presents them with: give what you can, especially your time; and, offer understanding and acceptance to your wife when she is going through a medical crisis.

CHRIST DISPLAYED OBEDIENCE TO GOD THE FATHER

If all a man only ever has is God’s written Word, he has enough to hear what GOD expects of him. Jesus displayed what God expects of every man: obedience.

I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
John 17:4

Almost without exception, there is not a day when I do not pray to God asking Him to help me to obey Him. I want to encourage every man to do the same. God will not ask any other many to do exactly what Christ was commanded by His Father to do. The Father’s will for His Son was revealed nearly 700 years before Christ became incarnate:

¶ Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush Him;/he has put him to grief;/when His soul makes an offering for guilt,/He shall see His offspring; He shall prolong His days;/the will of the LORD shall prosper in His hand./Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied;/by His knowledge shall the righteous one, My servant,/make many to be accounted righteous,/and He shall bear their iniquities.
Isaiah 53:10-11

All of what we have now briefly considered about Jesus endorses our claim that He was the preeminent man. He is the model of chivalry, service, protection, benevolence, strength, meekness, and humility. Put simply, He was what Pilate announced Him to be:

So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!”
John 19:5

Next: The Apostolic Instructions for Men