Jesus' Concept of Man

What was central in the thought and religion of Jesus is clear in His recorded sayings; it was His love for the sinful outcasts, the "publicans and sinners" of Jewish society. This is an important and fundamental Christian fact. It reveals that Christ was not only a Teacher ushering in new moral doctrines, but that greater still was His love. His love was the primary revelation made through His words and deeds. Certainly, there are no recorded words of Jesus more characteristic, more incredibly authentic, or more significant as to the index of His mission than: "For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost" (Matthew 18:11) and "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." (Matthew 9:12).

Thus, He intimated that His vocation was that of a Savior or Healer of spiritual disease and suggested the idea that Christianity is a religion of redemption, a religion that announces and applies a new divine power of love as a cure for moral evil. That power He exemplified in His own ministry, effecting pervasive spiritual recoveries among sinners. His compassionate preaching compelled sinners to gravitate to Him in perfect confidence of acceptance and making credible the existence of similar love in the heart of God.

Jesus healed men's bodies as well as their souls. The same compassion that precipitated pity for the sinner caused Him also to bear on His heart the burden of their sicknesses. Some of the best-authenticated narratives in the Gospels are accounts of cures brought about instantaneously on the bodies of sick persons. The stories brilliantly depicted in the synoptic Gospels, all affirming that Jesus had at His command a supernatural divine power.

Apart from their miraculous aspect, the works of Jesus' healing possess permanent significance and lucidly shows the comprehensiveness of His conception of salvation. In His healing ministry, Jesus was the pioneer of Christian philanthropy and lent the sanction of His example to all movements that aimed at social amelioration.

Christ held a high opinion of man.  He affirmed the indefeasible worth of human nature with reference to the poor, the ignorant, the foolish, the immoral, the irreligion, to the amazement and disgust of those belonging to the upper select classes of society. He taught His revolutionary doctrine not as a Rabbi delivering theoretical lectures, but rather, by deliberately associating with those societies considered the nobodies, those low on the social scale, whose worth to God He persistently proclaimed.

The reality and extent of sinners Jesus was well aware of, as He often described them by using the term "lost." He knew that His outcast friends needed saving, but He believed, in defiance of all appearances and assertions to the contrary, that they were worthy of salvation; though lost, they were still lost sons of God.

Yet it is incumbent upon us to realize that the privilege of being sons of God carries with it high responsibilities. It is a great honor to be able to call God our Father. But the grace in which we stand impose high obligations. God's sons must be God-like. We must realize in our character the Christian ethical ideal. It is a very high, exacting ideal as set forth for example, by the Beatitudes, implying a passion for the right, and a willingness even to suffer for righteousness sake. That ideal, not less than God's gracious love to all, is part of Christ's gospel for the world and part of our ongoing ministry.