Christ Our Example

Continuing the witness of the Gospels to Christ's true humanity, Pastor Martin walks through evidence that Jesus possessed a true human body that hungered, thirsted, grew weary, slept, was strengthened, and ultimately could die. He then turns to the reality of a true human soul, showing it in genuine temptation in the wilderness and in a life of dependent prayer climaxing in Gethsemane. The sermon insists that without a real body and a real soul there is no real Savior, and that the person and work of Christ stand or fall together.

Pastor Martin completes the witness of the Gospels to Christ's true human soul by tracing the actings of his human mind and emotions. Using the analogy of assembling a model from every piece in the box, he insists evangelicals must include the Gospel data showing Jesus learned, reasoned, was ignorant of certain things, and felt the full sinless range of joy, sorrow, anger, zeal, agitation, indignation, and grief. He then applies this with reference to Christ as our sinless Savior and our perfect emotional and mental pattern, urging believers to abandon both stoic restraint and unbridled passion in favor of Christ-shaped humanness.

Drawing especially from Hebrews 2 and 4, Pastor Martin shows that because Christ is truly man he is fully qualified to be a sympathetic high priest who, having suffered being tempted, can succor his tempted people. He then expounds 1 Peter 2 and 1 John 2 to show that Christ as true man is also the perfect pattern and example for believers in the use of body, soul, mind, will, and emotions, as well as in love to God and neighbor. The closing application from 2 Corinthians 3:18 urges Christians to behold the glory of the perfect human Christ in Scripture so that they may be progressively transformed into his image.