Having, in our numbers for March and April, sought to present Christ as a test, and Christ as a victim, we shall now, in dependence upon divine guidance and teaching, proceed to consider Him, as
THE MODEL,
to which the Holy Ghost seeks to conform every true believer. This will give great completeness to our subject, and open up a wide field of thought to the christian reader. God has predestinated His people to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Rom. 8) But how, it may be asked, can we ever be formed after such a model? How can we ever think of being conformed to such an image? The answer to these inquiries will unfold, still more fully, the blessedness and infinite value of the truth which has already passed before us. If the reader has followed the line of thought we have been pursuing — if he has experimentally entered into it, or if it has entered into him, in the power of the Spirit of God — if, in a word, he has made his own of it, he will see, and feel, and own, that in himself, by nature, there is not a single atom of good, not one point on which he can rest his hopes for eternity. He will see that, so far as he is concerned, he is a total wreck; and, moreover, that the divine purpose, as revealed in the gospel, is not to reconstruct this moral wreck, but to erect an entirely new thing. Of this new thing, the cross of Christ is the foundation.
The reader cannot ponder this too deeply. Christianity is not the old nature made better, but the new nature implanted. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3) “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.” 2 Cor. 5.
The effect of the mission of Christ to this world was to prove, as nothing else could have proved, man’s totally irremediable ruin. When man rejected and crucified the Son of God, his ease was proved to be hopeless. It is of the deepest importance to be thoroughly clear as to this. It solves a thousand difficulties, and clears the prospect of many a dark and heavy cloud. So long as a man be possessed with the idea that he must improve his nature, by any process whatever, so long he must be a total stranger to the fundamental truth of Christianity.
There is, alas! a fearful amount of darkness and error abroad, in the professing Church, as to this simple truth of the gospel. Man’s total ruin is denied or reasoned away, in one way or another; and the very truths of Christianity as well as the institutions of the Mosaic economy, are made use of to improve fallen nature and fit it for the presence of God. Thus the true nature of sin is not felt; the claims of holiness are not understood; the free, full, and sovereign grace of God is set aside; and the sacrificial death of Christ is thrown overboard.
The sense of all this makes us long for more earnestness, power, and faithfulness in setting forth those old foundation truths which are constantly affirmed and maintained in the New Testament. We believe it to be the solemn duty of every writer and every speaker, of all authors, editors, preachers, and teachers to make a firm stand against the strong current of opposition to the simplest truths of divine revelation, so painfully and alarmingly apparent in every direction. There is an urgent demand for faithfulness in maintaining the standard of pure truth, not in a spirit of controversy, but in meekness, earnestness, and simplicity. We want to have Christ preached as a test of all that is in man — in nature — in the world. We want Christ preached as a victim, bearing all that was due to our sins; and we want Him preached as a model on which we are to be formed, in all things.
This is Christianity. It is not fallen nature trying to work out righteousness by keeping the law of Moses. Neither is it fallen nature striving to imitate Christ. No; it is the complete setting aside of fallen nature, as an utterly good-for-nothing thing, and the reception of a crucified and risen Christ, as the foundation of all our hopes for time and eternity. How could the unrenewed sinner get righteousness by keeping the law, by the which is the knowledge of sin? How could he ever set about such a work as “The imitation of Christ?” Utterly impossible. “He must be born again.” He must get new life in Christ, ere he can exhibit Christ. This cannot be too strongly insisted upon. For an unconverted man to think of imitating the example, or walk in the footsteps of Jesus, is the most hopeless thing in the world. Ah! no; the only effect of looking at the blessed example of Jesus is to put us in the dust in self-abasement and true contrition; and when from this place we lift our eyes to the cross of Calvary to which Jesus was nailed, as our surety, our sin-bearer, our divine substitute, we see pardon and peace flowing down to us through His most precious sacrifice; then, bat not until then, we can calmly and happily sit down to study Him as our model.
Thus, if I look at the life of Jesus, apart from His atoning death — if I measure myself by that perfect standard — if I think of working myself into conformity to such an image, it must plunge me in utter despair. But when I behold that perfect, spotless, holy One bearing my sins in His own body on the tree — when I see Him lying in His death and resurrection the everlasting foundation of life, and peace, and glory for me, then, with a peaceful conscience, and liberated heart, I can look back over the whole of that marvelous life and see therein how I am to walk, for “He has left us an example, that we should follow his steps.” Thus, while Christ, as a test, shows me my guilt; Christ, as a victim, cancels that guilt; and Christ, as a model, shines before the vision of my soul, as the standard at which I am to aim continually. In a word, Christ is my life, and Christ is my model; and the Holy Ghost, who has taken up His abode in me, on the ground of accomplished redemption, works in me for the purpose of conforming me to the image of Christ. True, I must ever feel and own how infinitely short I come of that lofty standard; still, Christ is my life, though the manifestation of that life is sadly hindered by the infirmities and corruptions of my old nature. The life is the same, as the Apostle John says, “Which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.” (1 John 2:88Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. (1 John 2:8).) We can never be satisfied with aught less than this, namely, “Christ, our life — Christ, our model.” “For me to live is Christ.” It was Christ reproduced, in the daily life of Paul, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
This is true Christianity. It is not flesh turned religious and leading a pious life. It is not unrenewed, fallen, ruined nature trying to recover itself, by rites and ceremonies, prayers, alms, and vigils. It is not the old man turning from “wicked works” to “dead works” — exchanging the gin palace, the theater, the gaming table, and the race course, for the cloister, the pew, the meeting house, or the lecture haft. No, reader; it is “Christ in you, the hope of glory;” and Christ reproduced in your daily life, by the powerful ministry of God the Holy Ghost.
Be not deceived! It is of no possible use for fallen nature to clothe itself in forms of piety. It may do so — it may betake itself to the attractive appliances of ritualism — to sacred music — pious pictures — sculpture — architecture — dim religious light — it may scatter, in princely profusion, the fruits of a large-hearted benevolence — it may visit the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shed on all around the sunshine of a genial philanthropy — it may read the Bible and go through every form of religious routine — it may even attempt a specious and hollow imitation of Christ — schoolmen may discipline it, quietists may subdue it, mystics may enwrap it in their cloudy reveries, and lead it into quiet contemplation, with nothing to contemplate — in short, all that religion, morality, and philosophy can do for it and with it, may be done, and all in vain, inasmuch as it still remains true that, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” — “It cannot see or enter the kingdom of God” — “ye must be born again.”
Here lies the deep and solid, the divine and eternal foundation of Christianity. There must be the life of Christ in the soul — the link with “the Second Man, the last Adam.” The first man has been condemned and set aside. The Second Man came and stood beside the first, He proved him and tested him, and showed out, most fully, that there was not a single ingredient in his nature, his character, or his condition which could be made available in that new creation, that heavenly kingdom which was about to be introduced — that not a single stone or timber in the old building could be worked into the new — that “in the flesh dwelleth no good thing” — and, finally, that the ground must be thoroughly cleared of all the rubbish of ruined humanity, and the foundation laid in the death of the Second Man, who, in resurrection, has become, as the last Adam, the Head of the new creation. Apart from Him there is, and can be, no life. “He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” 1 John 5:1212He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. (1 John 5:12).
Such is the conclusive language of Holy Scripture, and this language must hold good, in spite of all the reasonings of those who boast themselves in their liberal and enlightened views—the compass of their intellectual powers—and the breadth of their theology. It matters but little indeed what men may think or say; we have only to hearken to the word of our God which must stand forever, and that word declares, “Ye must be born again.” Men cannot alter this. There is a kingdom which can never be moved, and, in order to see or enter this heavenly kingdom, we must be born again. Man has been tried in every way, and proved wanting, and now, “Once, in the end of the ages, hath Christ appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Heb. 9:2626For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:26).
This is the only ground of life and peace, and when the soul is firmly settled thereon, it can find its delight in studying Christ as its model. It is done with all its own poor efforts to obtain life, pardon, and the favor of God; it flings aside its “deadly doings;” it has found life in Jesus, and now its grand business is to study Him, to mark His footsteps and walk therein — to do as He did, to aim always at being like Him; to seek, in everything, to be conformed to Him. The great question for the Christian, on all occasions, is not, “What harm is there in this or that?” but, “Is this like Christ?” He is our divine, pattern. Are husbands exhorted to love their wives? It is “As Christ loved the church.” What a model! Who can ever come up to it? No one; but we are still to keep it before us; and thus we shall enter into the truth of those lines of our own poet,
“The more thy glories strike mine eyes,
The humbler I shall lie,
Thus while I sink, my joys shall rise
Immeasurably high.”
The christian reader will, at once, perceive what a wide field of practical truth is opened up by this closing point in our subject. What an unspeakable privilege to be able, day by day, to sit down and study the life and ways of our Great Exemplar — to see what He was — to mark His words, His spirit, His style — to trace Him in all the details of His marvelous path — to note how “He went about doing good” — how it was His meat and His drink to do the will of God, and to minister to the need of man. And then to think that He loves us, that He died for us, that He is our life, that He has given us of His Spirit to be the spring of power in our souls, for the subjugation of all that is of the old root of self, and the producing, in our daily life, the expression of Christ.
What mortal tongue can unfold the preciousness of all this? It is not living by rules and regulations — it is not in pursuing a dead round of duties — it is not in subscribing to certain dogmas of religious belief — no; it is union with Christ and the manifestation of Christ. This, we repeat, and reiterate, and would impress upon the reader, this and nothing less, nothing different, is true, genuine, living Christianity. Let him see that he possesses it, for if not, he is dead in trespasses and sins; he is far from God, and far from the kingdom of God. But if, on the other hand, he has been led to believe on the name of the only begotten Son of God; if as a consciously ruined and guilty sinner he has fled for refuge to the blood of the cross, then, in very deed, Christ is his life, and it should be his one unvarying object, day by day, to study his model, to fix his eye on the headline and aim at coming as near to that as possible. This is the true secret of all practical godliness and sanctification. It is this which alone constitutes a living Christianity, and it stands in vivid contrast with what is commonly called “a religious life,” which, alas! very often resolves itself into a mere dead routine, a rigid adherence to lifeless forms, a barren ritualism, which, so far from exhibiting aught of the freshness and reality of the new man in Christ, is positively a distortion of nature itself. Christianity brings a living Christ into the heart, and into the life. It diffuses, thus, a divine influence all around. It enters into all the relations and associations of human life. It teaches us how to act as husbands, as fathers, as masters, as children, as servants. It teaches us not by dry rules and regulations, but by setting before us, in the Person of Christ, a perfect model of what we ought to be. It presents to our view the very One who, as a test, left us without a single plea, and, as a victim, left us without a single stain, and who now, as our model, is to be the subject of our admiring study, and the standard at which we are ever and only to aim. It does not matter where we are or what we are, provided Christ be dwelling in the heart, and exhibited in the daily life. If we have Him in the heart and before the eye, it will regulate everything; and if we have not Him, we have nothing.
We shall here close our paper; not, surely, because our theme is exhausted, but because it is inexhaustible, and further because we believe that the Spirit of God alone can open the subject and apply it, in living power and freshness to the soul of the reader, and thus lead him into a higher type of Christianity than is ordinarily exhibited, in this day of widely extended and worldly profession. May the Lord stir up all our hearts, to seek greater nearness to Himself, and more faithful conformity to Him, in all our ways! May we be enabled to say, with a little more truth and sincerity, “Our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto his body of glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”