When the Lord Jesus was on earth He was perfect in character but not
improvement, only man remains incomplete. In Genesis God is recorded as saying: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (1.26a). Man was created in God's image and according to His likeness. "Likeness" refers to external form; it does not refer to internal quality. Adam, when created, became a living soul. He did not have God's Spirit in him. Hence, at this stage he was unfinished and incomplete. Adam was still in need of God himself to be his inward nature as was represented by the tree of life.
From the beginning of Genesis to the time of the Lord Jesus, no one had ever before attained to God's required standard of man. Adam looked like God in appearance, but he was not like God in character. The effect of his fall was to "fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3.23), thus forfeiting God's image. And so has it been with all who have followed Adam. Before the birth of our Lord Jesus there was not one typical or normal person in this world. No matter how the sages of the past disciplined and improved themselves, they failed to attain this goal. All fell short before God. It is by this, therefore, that we may understand the difference between the New and Old Testaments. The Old Testament shows that man has not attained to God's purpose, while the New Testament tells us that God's desired man is completed.
Thank God that the man whom He had longed for but had never before seen on earth is now seen and presented in the New Testament. That man, of course, is Christ. The one whom God had sought out for so many years is now finally found in the person of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus is the truly typical, normal man. He does not represent men but is himself the representative man. He is the Man whom God has always been after.
One—Resurrection 1. The need of resurrection. When the Lord Jesus was on earth He was perfect in character but not absolute in power. Our Lord's power was restrained. Therefore, His thirtythree years of living on earth are incomplete unless He is resurrected. This is beyond our comprehension. Yet this is a tremendous event that requires revelation. Why must the Lord be raised from among the dead? Because during His days on earth He was restricted by time and space. For people to find Him they must go to His presence. They might even have to uncover the roof of a house to get to Him (see Mark 2.1-4). They had to press through the thronging multitude in order to merely touch His garment (see Mark 5.24-27). The Roman centurion was an exception. Of all men, he alone had an "unthronging"