The Greatest Man Series

Ivan Maddox has pointed out that there have only been three perfect people in

this world, and they were Adam, Eve, and Jesus Christ, who is called the second

Adam. So two Adam’s and an Eve make up the total population of that mini list of

people who were perfect. That list is quickly reduced to one when we make the list

consist of those who stayed perfect by never sinning. Jesus, by the process of

elimination, becomes the only person to survive on the list of people who have

been perfect and who have stayed perfect all of their lives.

Each of the three who started perfect did so because they were direct creations

of God, and did not come by means of human reproduction only, as did all other

humans who have ever lived. Adam was a direct creation, and Eve was made from

his body by supernatural creation. Jesus came from a mother, as have all others,

but He had no natural father, but was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and so was

created by a combination of the supernatural and natural. The fact that Jesus was

the only man to ever live that never fell out of fellowship with God because of sin

in His life is basis enough to call Him the greatest man who ever lived. But there is

far more that makes Him worthy of that title.

Charles Jefferson in his book The Character of Jesus gives a list of great

people in history who were all very different from each other. He then writes,

“What characteristic is common to all? In such a heterogeneous company is it

possible to find any mark which makes them akin? It is possible, and the quality

which is common to all is an extraordinary capacity for achievement. These men

all did things, enduring things, so that the world was not the same after they had

gotten done with it. They carved statues or painted pictures or led armies or ruled

states or composed music or framed laws or wrote poems or made discoveries or

inventions which enriched the lives and homes of men. They achieved something

worth while. They made a mark on the mind of the world. The product of their

genius is an imperishable possession of our race.”

In the light of that paragraph we must ask, “What did Jesus leave or achieve?”

We have no great books from His pen. We have no art or sculpture, or any

physical creation or invention from Him. He never led an army to any victory,

nor did He ever lead a government. His greatness is not like the greatness of any

other man, but it is greater than that of any other man. Charles Lamb said, “ "If

Shakespeare was to come into this room, we should all rise up to meet him; but if

Christ was to come into it, we should all fall upon our knees." We honor the

greatness of others, but we worship the greatness of Jesus, for His is the greatest

of greatness. We cannot minimize the awesome impact of the teachings of Jesus on all of

history. His Sermon of the Mount has been praised by most all the religious

leaders of the world, but it is not as a teacher that Jesus is the greatest of men, for

there have been many great teachers. Jesus was great in a different way than

other great people have been great. He was great at being a man. He was the

greatest human being that ever lived. He was not great just because of what He

did, but because of what He was. Others became great because of the things they

were able to create, or deeds they were able to accomplish, but Jesus became

great because He was the only man in history who was everything that an ideal

man could be. He was the ultimate man, for He was what God intended man to be,

and what man will be when history ends and eternity begins with all of the

redeemed being like Jesus.

Jefferson points out that all other great men in history were great at what they

could do or produce, but they were not great as people. Their manhood was

defective. Alexander the Great was great as a general, but as a man he was

pathetic. He was a man of anger and drunkenness, and in a fit even killed his own

friend. Other great generals, like Napoleon, were also, in spite of their gifts of

leadership, pygmies as men. They were immoral in many ways and were not

examples to follow for the good life. Even the great men of the Bible were far from

ideal. God used them and blest them out of His grace and not because they were