Jesus, the Second Man

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Jesus, as God manifest in the flesh, is called “The Second Man” (1 Cor. 15:47), thus the perfect form of redeemed man. As such, He was His Father in manifestation. The Spirit of God in the visible form of a dove was seen by John to descend upon Him. From that time onward, it was the Spirit speaking and acting by Him (Luke 4:14-21). It was the Spirit who took Him to Calvary (Heb. 9:14), and by the Spirit He rose again (1 Pet. 3:18). At the supper table when about to leave His disciples, He said the purpose of His leaving them was that the same Spirit should possess them. This was fulfilled at Pentecost, and the Spirit is spoken of by Paul in Romans 8:11 as dwelling in us.

Thus, if Jesus spoke of Himself as only seeing and speaking and doing what the Father was doing by Him, and doing nothing of Himself, and finally saying that “if you see Me, you see the Father,” then it is now the same of us. Those who see us, see Him! So Paul says, “We have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16); “God works in you to will and do of His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13); Christ, “our life” (Col. 3:4); and John, in his first epistle, caps it all by saying, “As He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). Thus we are “in the light as He is in the light,” we “walk as He walked,” we “know as He knows,” we are “righteous as He is righteous,” we “love as He loves,” we “believe as He believes.” Our humanity is expressing His deity in all the forms of His nature.