Character 6

       In concluding the previous essay, I made the point that it is not man's place to construct a model of good character, although many have done it and doubtless will continue to do it. In Jer. 10:23, Jehovah through the prophet, stated that "A man's way is not in himself; nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps." In composing these essays on good character, I therefore resisted the urge to draw up a list of personality traits and proclaim, "When these are integrated into one's life, they will develop in that individual a good character." Neither would I assemble such a list from the writings of philosophers, social scientists, and psychologists, which I have often read. What I would do, and it's all I have done, is point to Jesus as the God-given example of good character and encourage everyone to investigate His life and then model yours after Him. After all, that is what we are told to do in I Pet. 2:21, "Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps." The closer a person comes to Jesus' perfect example, the more excellent his character becomes. No one can find a better way, or even one that is comparable.

      In the same context of thought, we are told in Eph. 4:11-13 that God has given us a sure and effec-tual way to bring us to "the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ." The inspired writer might just have said "good character," but instead he used the phrases "mature man" and "measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ." They are, however, synonymous. The words "mature" and "fulness" in this verse refer to the same thing, completeness. Jesus was a complete Man, that is, He possessed a fully developed character, having the substance of God Himself imprinted within Him.

      Let us focus attention for a moment on the word "good" in the phrase "good character." The idea of good is usually considered to be a moral entity in and of itself. But in my own study and insight into the term, I have come to the conclusion that ... something is good if it fulfills whatever God intended for the thing to be and if it contains all that God mean for it to have.  Therefore, a character is good if it makes a person fulfill God's will for an individual and if it contains all that God meant to be there. The passage last considered, Eph. 4:11-13, speaks of "the fulness of Christ." That means that He accomplishmed all that God sent Him to earth to do and that He contained all in His personality that God meant to be there. This has been, and now is, true of no other man. Therefore, Jesus is the ONLY model of good character. Only of Christ does Scripture say that a person should aim to achieve the "measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness" of that person.

      It is indeed proper to make a list of the components of a good character, because it will facilitate the understanding and application of them in one's life. But the list should be drawn from a careful study of Jesus' life as recorded in the New Testament, not from the musings of a philosopher, social scientist, or psychologist. To discover Jesus' attitudes and see how He responded to the varying circumstances of daily life can be accomplished by anyone who will read closely the Four Gospels. As we think about the challenge to develop good character, this is the only course that Christians should think of choosing.

      We have therefore come to the place in these essays where we should start looking at the specific traits of good character. Since the New Testament uses the word only once (in Heb. 1:3), and then in reference to Christ, there is no passage that discusses the subject with direct reference to the word "character." There are, however, several passages that do deal with the subject without using the word and reveal the constituent components we seek. Since Christ is THE model for character, we should expect these passages either to refer to Him or to be the substance of something He taught. In the remainder of these essays two such passages will be considered.

Christian Character 5

Heb, 1:3 ... "He (Jesus) is the radiance of [God's] glory and the exact representation of His nature."

      Please fix your attention on the words "of His nature." They translate the original in Greek, which is upostasewV autou (hupostaseôs autou).  The word upostasewV literally means "reality" or "substance," and in this case refers to the nature of God Himself. When we consider the composition of our bodies, we easily understand that we are made of earthly elements fashioned into flesh and bones and various organs. But what is God composed of? This question would take us far beyond the limit of human capacity. We know that He is not made of material elements, for Jesus said in John 4:24 that "God is spirit." Whatever spirit is (which is God's nature) is what the word upostasewV in Heb. 1:3 refers to; and it says that the character of Jesus perfectly corresponds to it. In other words, character takes shape and is perfected the more the individual is modeled after God. And since John 14:9 says we see God in Christ, the last statement may be rephrased to say: Character is shaped and perfected the more the individual is modeled after Christ.

As I was developing this series of articles, I could have made a list of the qualities that seem to me to constitute and define good character. But I knew that was the wrong way to go about it. It is not my prerogative to make such a decision and bring forth such a list. I believe that no one, not even moral philosophers, have the ability to do it irrefutably. In my study of philosphy, both in university and in private, I have read with interest their various prescriptions for good character. And they are indeed varied, as one rejects the others to replace them with his own.

One example is that of Aristotle (384-322 BC) in his great work called the Nicomachian Ethics. He defines character in terms of what he called "The Golden Mean."

"The qualities of character can be arranged in triads, in each of which the first and last qualities will be extremes and vices, and the middle quality a virtue or an excellence. So, between cowardice and rashness is courage; between stinginess and extravagance is liberality; between sloth and greed is ambition; between humility and pride is modesty; between secrecy and loquacity is honesty; between moroseness and buffoonery is good humor; between quarrelsomeness and flattery is friendship; and between indecisiveness and impulsiveness is self-control."

This seems quite convincing, and if you read no one but Aristotle, you might think that here is a defi-ition of character that can be used to advantage. The only trouble is, if you consult another philosopher, you find that he rejects both Aristotle and others and constructs his own model of character. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), for example, had this to say about Aristotle and his disciples:

"All these were attempts of the Greeks to check their own violence and impulsiveness of charater; more truly they reflected the Greek feeling that passions are not of themselves vices, but the raw material of both vice and virtue, according as they function in excess and disproportion, or in measure and harmony."

This German philosopher, who was an atheist, constructed his own definition of character. A generation later, Nazi ideologists  applied Nietzschean philosophy, and thus was created the monster that disrupted Europe in the 1930-1945 period. One can have "good character" by the Aristotelian standard, or even "good character" by the Nietzschean standard, and yet have a contemptible personality and lifestyle by the Christtian standard. In future articles, the Christian model of good character will be presented,

Christian Character 4

       Early in His ministry, Jesus chose 12 men to be His apostles. They were probably quite ordinary men, for they were from the common occupations of the time and place and included fishermen and a tax collector. They exhibited human frailties and passions such as we do now and which hinder us from achieving exemplary lives. Here and there in the Four Gospels these human problems make their appearance among these men. So we are much impressed when we read in Acts 4:13, "Now as [the Jewish High Council] observed the confidence of Peter and John, and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, [they] began to recognize them as having been with Jesus." Peter and John, formerly simple Galilean fishermen, had not had the advantage of formal training in the rabinic schools of Jerusalem to make them suave, polished men like those before whom they were being tried. But there was something extraordinary about their demeanor that the judges could not help but notice, and the only explanation for it was that they "had been with Jesus."

      For three years Peter, John, and the other apostles had felt the impact of the personality of Christ upon them. That impact had changed them from men who engaged in petty squabbles over rank, who wanted to respond to insult with violence, and who fled their Master in fear in His moment of trial. In short, they had become men of character in the true sense of the word. The impression of Jesus' nature upon them had transformed them into men who wanted to serve others rather than be served, who returned good for evil as a matter of course, and who willingly sacrificed themselves to glorify God. During their time with Jesus they had acquired from Him such qualities as reverence to God, love of truth, purity of mind, courage, self-control, integrity, and all the rest we associate with good character.

    Coming to these qualities that constitute character leads back to Heb. 1:3, where the New Testament, in its solitary use (in Greek) of the word "character," applies it to Jesus. If we are not careful, we will presume to define for ourselves what constitutes character.  As Christians, we should not look to human concensus for such definition, but realize that character is conformity to a high standard that we our-selves do not determine.

      About 25 years ago someone  designed a program called "Character Counts" and promulgated it in schools across the nation. I first became aware of it in August 1999 when it was adopted in the high school where I was a teacher. I was initially enthusiastic about it, because if there is anything we need to instill in our youth, it is good character. It is more lacking in the current generation than it was during the 1990s. But when I looked at the program carefully, I discovered I could not accept the character model it used. It featured one that had been drawn from the human disciplines such as psychology and philosophy. I do not think we can develop our own model, because what might be considered good character by one society would not be judged so by another. Just think of the models used by Nazi Germany, Marxist communism, and radical extremists.

      I was asked by my school in 1999 to introduce in our first teacher in-service the character model to be taught . It was a surprise to many when I rejected the national model and proposed instead the model that has been featured in the New Testament for two housand years.  That is the model centered upon Jesus in what He taught and the kind of life He lived.

Christian Character 3

       The word character is not used a single time in the King James Version and only three times in a translation so recent as the New American Standard. But the idea of what we mean by the term is an essential subject of emphasis in the Bible. The Biblical model of good character is without doubt Jesus, and there is one place which especially demonstrates this with reference to the derivation of our word "character." In presenting Jesus in his roles of supreme Prophet, Creator, and Savior, Heb. 1:3 also states that "He is the radiance of [God's] glory and the exact representation of His nature." Notice the phrase that calls Jesus "the exact representation of [God's] nature," because the two words "exact repre-sentation" translate only one Greek word. And that word is carakthr (kah-RAK-tayr … character), which is the original of the English word character. 

      It's very interesting and very significant that this is the only occurence of the word in the Greek New Testament and that then it is applied only to Jesus. In several other places Jesus is called the eikon (aye-KOHN …image) of God, but this word is often appplied to others also. In fact, in Gen. 1:26, all men are declared to be made "in the image of God." This means we are all endowed with a living spirit that corresponds to the anture of God who gace it, (Gen. 2:7). Of course, Jesus possessed the divine image to a degree we can never attain, but nevertheless we all do have at least a spark of that divine nature within us, (Jas. 3:9). But never of any man except Jesus does the Bible say that he is "the exact representation of God the Father. Any valid and profitable study of character must therefore begin with a careful examination of the Person of Jesus in the Scriptures.

      There is yet more in this phrase of Heb. 1:3 to enlighten us. In 1st Century Koinê Greek, the verb form of carakthr is carasso … (KAH-ras-so … to stamp, impress). It was specifically used to signify stamping coins in a mint with a picture and an inscription. There is little doubt the writer of Hebrews had that precise idea in mind when he aimed at informing his readers about the true nature of Jesus. And when they read this special word, they would have made the precise connection easily.  When the die was stamped into the metal, it left in it a perfect, exact representation of the image and wording on the die. Likewise, when a baby was born in a stable in Bethlehem to Mary, God as the die stamped Himself into that tiny baby of flesh and left therein the exact representation of Himself. This is what Heb. 1:3 is telling us. It also clarifies what Jesus meant in Jno. 14:9 when He said to Philip, "Have I been so long with you, and yet have you not come to know Me? He who has seen Me has seen the Father."

      When we begin to grasp these essential ideas, we are already beginning to develop an idea of what character truly is and why it's so important. Character is not merely a configuration of certain virtues in an individual that gives him moral strength. In its original connotation, which has just been shown in reference to Jesus, character is what is left when one's life has been impacted by the person of Jesus. When God was stamped into human flesh, the character of Jesus was the result; and when Jesus is stamped into the life of an individual, Christian character is the result.