“We have become partakers of Christ” (Hebrews 3:14).
One cannot make a study of the New Testament without experiencing something of the nature of a shock, in view of the glaring difference between the Christian life as we customarily live it and the ideal set forth by the Master.
We are to walk as Jesus walked (1 John 2:6). We are to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44). We are to forgive as Jesus forgave — even as He, in the shame and anguish of the cross, looked down upon those who blasphemed while they murdered Him, and forgave (Colossians 3:13). We are to be aggressively kind toward those who hate us; yes, we are actually to pray for those who despitefully use us (Matthew 5:44). We are to be overcomers — more than conquerors (Romans 8:37). Enough! We dare go no further. It would only increase our shame and our pain. We stand indicted.
Why does not the Savior, so tender and so understanding, so loving and so wise, make requirements more in keeping with human nature? Why does He not demand of us what we might reasonably attain? He bids us soar, yet we have no wings. Is there a way out? Yes, there is. Paul found it — we can all find it!
We have been proceeding upon a false basis. We have conceived of the Christian life as an imitation of Christ. It is not an imitation of Christ. It is a participation in Christ.
To proceed on the basis of imitation will plunge us into just the sort of “slough of despond” Paul found himself in when he wrote Romans 7. Only when Christ nullifies the force of my inherent “self-life” and communicates to me a divine life does Christian living in its true sense become at all possible for me. What is impossible to me as an imitator of Christ becomes perfectly natural as a participant of Christ.
Leave A Comment