I’m probably going to regret this one, but here goes…
Someone here was talking, and said (in effect) that Jesus was perfect. My understanding is that he is supposed to be free of sin, but I never heard before that he was necessarily “perfect”. I thought he was supposed to be “fully man” or something.
Do the major Christian denominations hold that Jesus is/was perfect?
Please stick to the topic, and answer within the accepted teachings. Or start your own thread.
We learned that Jesus didn’t want to die, and prayed that it wouldn’t happen before he was arrested. This illustrated that he was a man (human, that is), and had human fears to overcome. That he did proves how much he loved mankind.
I looked in the mirror today/My eyes just didn’t seem so bright
I’ve lost a few more hairs/I think I’m going bald - Rush
“Without sin” does not mean “perfect” in the sense that you’re thinking. Nowhere does the Bible, nor Christian religions, teach that Jesus was a straight A student, a 3-letter athlete at Bethlehem High, with 20/20 eyesight and great teeth. He did get angry, he did show despair, and it seems clear that he got frustrated with the Apostles from time to time.
“Perfect” is a pretty heavily loaded word. Ask ten people what their idea of a perfect person is, and you’ll probably get 12 different answers. Suffice to say, Jesus never sinned, and his nature was both divine and human.
“I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms.” -The Secret of Monkey Island
I remember hearing two neighbor ladies talking, when I was a kid, describing how Jesus must have been exactly six feet tall because he was “perfect.”
Even as a kid, I wasn’t sure how they came to the conclusion that a first century Jewish man attained a height that was “perfect” (if you call it that) in English measure (not to mention the issue that he would have towered over his peers at that height and no one mentions that in the NT).
There is nothing in traditional Christian teaching that addresses the physical attributes of Jesus–certainly not as doctrine.
This reminds me of sketch I saw on an old Comedy Central show called the Vacant Lot:
Jesus is holding a pathetic excuse for a spice rack and is being berated by his High School woodshop teacher, “You should be ashamed…you, the son of a carpenter!”
He’s also accused of cheating by his fellow members of the swim team: “There has to be something in the rule book about walking!”
Elmer J. Fudd,
Millionaire.
I own a mansion and a yacht.
Remember the episode where a very beautiful woman was among a race of ugly people? The
woman, to us, was pretty. To the people that surrounded her, she was hideous. My point is that the concept of “perfect” is subjective.
Anything can be moved outside the realm of “perfection” if you interpret or set up an off set of circumstances.
The life of Jesus Christ, I believe, was set up to show, among other things, a level of (the word isn’t quite what I’m looking for) perfection in the world that God made. By God’s parameters (it’s His world after all) the life that was lead was…well…perfect.
The argument that Christ showed anger is not overly valid because to give a being an emotion and then assume it should not be used is a bit wacky. The temple anger was over merchants. That much usually gets told. What hardly ever is told is what the merchants were selling - many were selling animals for sacrifice. They were offering a quick religous fix if you will. It’s akin to a guy sitting outside of a Catholic church with wind up Jesus dolls barking “wind Him up and watch Him pray - only 4 dollars”. It would be very offensive to a person coming to or leaving from a worship service.
That’s just my four cents…
There are three kinds of people: Those who can count and those who can’t.
To answer the question, you have to ask what you mean by ‘perfect’ and what a perfect human being would be.
Does a perfect human being know all things? If they did, then they would be omniscient and have the mind of God. Did Jesus know how many moons orbit Jupiter? Did he know differential calculus or rocket science? And even if the most literal of Christians answers yes to these questions, then did Jesus know all these things as an infant? As a fetus? As a zygote?
Besides, the gospels mention times when Jesus displayed ignorance (cf. Mk 5:30; 13:32).
The literal meaning of ‘perfect’ is ‘completed.’ But if a human being grows and learns, then that means they weren’t perfect.
If you mean, without fault, then you have to define ‘fault.’ Orthodox Christianity teaches that Jesus was without sin. But, you can have a fault and still be without sin.
Did anyone see the picture of the new, multicultural Jesus? The copy I saw was in the newspaper, so the resolution wasn’t too good, but to me, he looked like
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Jimi Hendrix!
I thought the perfect man would live forever and ever, in everlasting glory, at the right hand of the Father, and all that stuff.
A friend tells me of his Catholic education, when a nun was trying to impress upon her charges the difference between celebrating a birthday and observing the anniversary of someone’s birth. “We don’t celebrate the birthdays of dead people” she informed them.
“Hey! What about Jesus’ birthday?” they all said in something approaching unison.
“HE’S NOT DEAD!” stated the nun.
“Oh, yeah,” the children replied, as a decade of doctrinal teaching floated out the classroom window.
As for me, when I was in second grade and struggling with math, I got the notion that Jesus, being the Son of God and all, must have known everything from the moment of His birth. My late mother, one of the most Catholic women to walk the Earth in the last, pre-Apocalyptic days, quickly set me straight – He was as human as the rest of us. That always satisfied me.
Did Mary experience labor pains? Women are supposed to have them because of Eve eating that fruit./
I think the older dogma goes, she didn’t have original sin (per the immaculate conception of her by Anne), so she didn’t go through that (she didn’t suffer from A and E’s sins). Not to mention that she didn’t go through normal birth-- we all know, thanks to St Bridgit, that at the birth the child just sort of appeared on the ground, leaving her, ahem, unbroken.
Oh, and about Christ being “man…All man”, check out Leo Steinbergs “The Sexuality of Christ in the Renaissance, and Modern Oblivion”, which deals with the ‘overt’ treatment of Christ’s humanity in art.
You know, just this morning I was wondering “When did Jesus realize he was divine?” I mean, the churches don’t dwell a whole lot on baby Jesus learning to speak and calling his brothers “poopy-head”, but I chuckle when I think of baby Jesus in a state like Stewie from “Family Guy”
“Mary, get in here and remove this soiled rag from my bottom! Don’t you realize I’m the Son of God, you foolish woman?”
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
