The Perfect Man

Ben asked me this question after we had talked about women who seem to hate men:

“What do you think about men?”

It was a question no one had asked me before… and I had to think long and hard before I could even begin to answer.

There are men I like more than others.  There are men whom I come to dislike when they act badly or are mean-spirited.  I tend to dislike men who are arrogant, and men who put others down. But, overall, I generally tend to like men.

I have noticed a longtime trend in our culture – one of disparaging and disrespecting men. Think of the characters in “The Family Guy,” or in “Beavis and Butthead”, or in many other animated depictions of men in the past thirty years.  Media often represents men, especially fathers, as really stupid and socially inept.  Television sitcoms represent men as bigots and uncouth (think of Archie Bunker and his relationship with Ethel and the rest of his family in “All in the Family”).  These depictions are all intended to make men look bad – and to destroy their respectability – especially in the eyes of young people.

In recent years, men seem to have lost their position as the head of the family – many seem to lack the confidence to lead, and their wives have been more than ready to take on the role of family head and leader.  Women are increasingly strident in voicing their disrespect for their men, and for other men as well.  Women are taking on leadership roles in the family and culture-wide.  Many treat their husbands disrespectfully demanding that the husbands act as their servants.  They insist that the men take more and more responsibility for household chores and childrearing.  Is there room for a man to be a man within the family and within our culture?   Is it seen as necessary by many to emasculate men and to treat them with great disrespect?

I began to think about the biblical basis for the roles of men and women.  From Genesis chapter 1:26, “Then God said, “Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion [authority] over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (28) Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion [authority] over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Before Eve was created, Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden to work it and care for it.  God commanded Adam: “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” (Genesis 2:16) After this, God created Eve from Adam’s flesh (Genesis 2:22) and then brought her to Adam as his helper (Genesis 2:20b, 22).

In the story of the fall of man, it is recounted that the serpent and Eve had a conversation in which the serpent told Eve that God was not only a liar (“You will not surely die.”), but he infers that God is a withholding God – One Who withholds good things like knowledge from His own.  We are told that Adam was with her (Genesis 3:6) which infers that he was privy to what the serpent said and that he saw Eve’s intentions to take and eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree.  Adam failed to protect his wife from the lies of the evil serpent, and he did not prevent Eve from taking and eating the fruit. In fact, it would seem he made no protest at all, instead taking the proffered fruit and eating of it himself.  Adam, the first Adam, failed to exercise the authority he had been given to protect his wife from the wily serpent.  The story continues, and Adam again failed in his role as man/husband.  Instead of responsibility and accountability for the woman who had come from his own body, Adam was a coward (hides from God).  Adam then blamed God Himself (the woman You gave me!), and he blamed Eve when he is confronted by God for his disobedience.  He did not take appropriate responsibility for her failure and his.  It is truly a sad story!  Adam’s model for mankind as to what it is to be a man (even though he was given complete authority and responsibility for the earth and everything in it), is a role model that has played out in very ugly ways over the millennia. Coward. Irresponsible. Refusing to be accountable.  Without integrity. Blaming others for things for which he was responsible. He abdicated His God-given authority.

I thought of how authority is demonstrated and acted upon in the military.  An officer is held accountable and responsible for the actions of those soldiers under him.  If his soldiers do something dreadful, the officer is held responsible for their actions, and often pays a huge consequence for their wrongdoing.

I then thought of the second Adam, Jesus/Yeshua of Nazareth.  As the Son of God, Creator of everything in the entire universe, He has divinely given authority and responsibility for all things (and for all of us).  Jesus, as the second Adam, modeled what a man is meant to be.  He loved, disciplined, taught, led, and called to account those doing evil.  He physically disciplined the rebellious and He protected His own.  When faced with the rebellion and the sins of all mankind, He took responsibility for all that we have done. He was held accountable for the sins of all mankind, and took the just punishment for man’s disobedience and rebellion without trying to shirk it.  He truly was a man to admire and emulate in every way – One to Whom we owe an enormous debt of gratitude.

Ben’s question “what do you think of men?” led me to a place of clarity as to how I see the men in my life. More importantly, my reflections gave me an even greater love for the God/Man, Jesus/Yeshua.  As I thought of my own failures as a human being and their cost to those I love (and myself), and as I thought of Jesus’s willingness to take on my failures as His own, I truly understood just how marvelous and just how wonderful He truly is.