Article September 25, 1943 Issue

Man Is Complete

ETHEL DANIELS HUBBARD

The word "complete" is a lovely one hinting, as it does, the ultimate of desire, the acme of satisfaction.

To say that man is complete appears an extravagant claim in the light of human history, especially in the glare of the present age, with its tragic inadequacy and failure. Man as defined by the human chronicle, is an amazing paradox of idealism and degradation of heroic behavior and senseless cruelty, of sweet reasonableness and crass stupidity. At no time or place has he ever been presented to humanity as an example of completeness.

It requires more than human annals to portray man as complete in the primary sense of the word, which is defined as, "filled up; with no part lacking." The opening chapter of the Bible, however, presents exactly this picture of man: man made in the image and likeness of God. Obviously, God is absolute, complete, else He could not be Deity. Hence man as God made him is the evidence of entirety of completeness. The life of Christ Jesus was unique in just this respect: it was in no sense fragmentary, unfinished. He presented a whole design, perfect in every detail, "with no part lacking." In the second chapter of Colossians Paul writes, "Ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power."

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