The Real Christ

There is, however, a perfect portrayal of the real Christ, the Christ of actual fact, in all of His many characteristics and complete love, holiness, zeal, and glory. That portrait is from God's own Word, the Bible. It is found in the preview of the coming Christ given to the Old Testament prophets, and in the life, ministry, and words of the Lord Jesus Christ as He actually moved among men, as documented by His disciples in the books of the New Testament. We have a threefold objective in studying the real Christ: • That we may see Him in all His moral glory: The glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, and we may therefore admire and love and glorify Him as we ought. • That we may become like Him when we see Him, or as 2 Corinthians 3:18 puts it: We all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit. • That in Him we may have a standard for our own conduct, or as John puts it in our third text: He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked (1 John 2:6).