Youcat commented through CCC - Question n. 60.

YOUCAT Question n. 60 - Why is Jesus the greatest example in the world?

(Youcat answer) Jesus Christ is unique because he shows us not only God’s true nature but also the true ideal of man.      

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 381) Man is predestined to reproduce the image of God's Son made man, the "image of the invisible God" (Col 1:15), so that Christ shall be the first-born of a multitude of brothers and sisters (cf. Eph 1:3-6; Rom 8:29).    

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Jesus was more than an ideal man. Even seemingly ideal men are sinners. That is why no man can be the measure of humanity. Jesus, however, was without sin. We cannot know what it means to be a man, and what makes man infinitely loveable in the truest sense of the word, except in Jesus Christ, who “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning” (Heb 4:15). Jesus, the Son of God, is the authentic, true man. In him we recognize how God willed man to be.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 359) "In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear" (GS 22 § 1). St. Paul tells us that the human race takes its origin from two men: Adam and Christ…. The first man, Adam, he says, became a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving spirit. The first Adam was made by the last Adam, from whom he also received his soul, to give him life... The second Adam stamped his image on the first Adam when he created him. That is why he took on himself the role and the name of the first Adam, in order that he might not lose what he had made in his own image. The first Adam, the last Adam: the first had a beginning, the last knows no end. The last Adam is indeed the first; as he himself says: "I am the first and the last" (St. Peter Chrysologus, Sermo 117: PL 52, 520-521).        

(The next question is: In what does the equality of all men consist?)