“Basic Christianity, Part 53” by Romans
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We are continuing in our Series, “Basic Christianity.” Tonight, we are continuing in the review and examination of our Christian walk, as a facet of Basic Christianity. We are going to continue our acrostic review of the phrase, “By Growing in Grace,” in regard to our following in the steps of Christ. For the word “By,” we have covered thus far the letters B and Y. And, we completed all the letters in the words “Growing” and “In.”
We are now completing the word, Grace, “G” was for “Go to Church,” “R” for “Redeem the Time,” A was for “Abstain From All Appearance of Evil,” “C” was for “Conquer Temptation:” Tonight we look at the letter “E” which stands for “The Examples of Christ.” Unlike previous installments in this sub-series, I will not be sharing Commentaries limited to a single verse. Rather, I will be citing multiple verses from Torrey's Bible Dictionary's article on “The Examples of Christ,” for a more thorough and diversified review of the subject.
“Holiness. Christ is holy. We are called to conform to it. We read in 1 Peter 1:15-16: “But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.”
Albert Barnes writes of this, “But as he which hath called you is holy - On the word called, see the notes at Eph_4:1. The meaning here is, that the model or example in accordance with which they were to frame their lives, should be the character of that God who had called them into his kingdom. They were to be like him.
There is Cross-reference: Matthew 5:48 from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Albert Barnes says of this: “Be ye therefore perfect ... - The Saviour concludes this part of the discourse by commanding his disciples to be “perfect.” This word commonly means “finished, complete, pure, holy.”
Originally, it is applied to a piece of mechanism, as a machine that is complete in its parts. Applied to people, it refers to completeness of parts, or perfection, where no part is defective or wanting. Thus, Job Job 1:1 is said to be “perfect;” that is, not holy as God, or “sinless” - for fault is afterward found with him (see Job 9:20; Job 42:6); but his piety was “proportionate” - had a completeness of parts was consistent and regular.
He exhibited his religion as a prince, a father, an individual, a benefactor of the poor. He was not merely a pious man in one place, but uniformly. He was consistent everywhere. See the notes at that passage. This is the meaning in Matthew. Be not religious merely in loving your friends and neighbors, but let your piety be shown in loving your enemies; imitate God; let your piety be “complete, proportionate, regular.” This every Christian may be; this every Christian must be.”
Let's go back to the verses in Peter's First Epistle: “So be ye holy in all manner of conversation - In all your conduct. The meaning is, that since God is holy, and we profess to be his followers, we also ought to be holy. Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy – (from Leviticus 11:44). This command was addressed at first to the Israelites, but it is with equal propriety addressed to Christians, as the professed people of God.
The foundation of the command is, that they professed to be his people, and that as his people they ought to be like their God. It is a great truth, that people everywhere will imitate the God whom they worship. They will form their character in accordance with his. They will regard what he does as right. They will attempt to rise no higher in virtue than the God whom they adore, and they will practice freely what he is supposed to do or approve.
Hence, by knowing what are the characteristics of the gods which are worshipped by any people, we may form a correct estimate of the character of the people themselves; and, hence, as the God who is the object of the Christian’s worship is perfectly holy, the character of His worshipers should also be holy.
And hence, also, we may see that the tendency of true religion is to make people pure. As the worship of the impure gods of the pagan moulds the character of the worshippers into their image, so the worship of Yahweh moulds the character of His professed friends into His image, and they become like him.”
Next, Jesus set us an Example of obedience to His Father that we are to follow: John 15:10: “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.”
Of this Alexander MacClaren writes, “Note that Christ here claims for Himself absolute and unbroken conformity with the Father’s will, and consequent uninterrupted and complete communion with the Father’s love. It is the utterance of a nature conscious of no sin, of a humanity that never knew one instant’s film of separation, howsoever thin, howsoever brief, between Him and the Father.
No more tremendous words were ever spoken than these quiet ones in which Jesus Christ declares that never, all His life long, had there been the smallest deflection or want of conformity between the Father’s will and His desires and doings, and that never had there been one grain of dust, as it were, between the two polished plates which adhered so closely in inseparable union of harmony and love.
And then notice, still further, how Christ here, with His consciousness of perfect obedience and communion, intercepts our obedience and diverts it to Himself. He does not say, ‘Obey God as I have done, and He will love you’; but He says, ‘Obey Me as I obey God, and I will love you.’ Who is this that thus comes between the child’s heart and the Father’s? Does He come between when He stands thus? or does He rather lead us up to the Father, and to a share in His own filial obedience?
He further assures us that, by keeping His commandments, we shall continue in that sweet home and safe stronghold of His love. Of course the keeping of the commandments is something more than mere outward conformity by action. It is the inward harmony of will, and the bowing of the whole nature.
It is, in fact, the same thing (though considered under a different aspect, and from a somewhat different point of view), as He has already been speaking about as the ‘fruit’ of the vine, by the bearing of which the Father is glorified. And this obedience, the obedience of the hands because the heart obeys, and does so because it loves, the bowing of the will in glad submission to the loved and holy will of the heavens-this obedience is the condition of our continuing in Christ’s love.
He will love us better, the more we obey His commandments, for although His tender heart is charged towards all, even the disobedient, with the love of pity and of desire to help, He cannot but feel a growing thrill of satisfied and gratified affection towards us, in the measure in which we become like Himself. The love that wept over us, when we were enemies, will ‘rejoice over us with singing,’ when we are friends.
The love that sought the sheep when it was wandering will pour itself yet more tenderly and with selector gifts upon it when it follows in the footsteps of the flock, and keeps close at the heels of the Good Shepherd. ‘If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love,’ so we will put nothing between us and Him which will make it impossible for the tenderest tenderness of that holy love to come to your hearts.
The obedience which we render for love’s sake will make us more capable of receiving, and more blessedly conscious of possessing, the love of Jesus Christ. The lightest cloud before the sun will prevent it from focussing its rays to a burning point on the convex glass.
And the small, thin, fleeting, scarcely visible acts of self-will that sometimes pass across our skies will prevent our feeling the warmth of that love upon our shrouded hearts. Every known piece of rebellion against Christ will shatter all true enjoyment of His favour, unless we are hopeless hypocrites or self-deceived.
The condition of knowing and feeling the warmth and blessedness of Christ’s love to me is the honest submission of my nature to His commandments. You cannot rejoice in Jesus Christ unless you do His will. You will have no real comfort and blessedness in your religion unless it works itself out in your daily lives.
That is why so many of you know nothing, or next to nothing, about the joy of Christ’s felt presence, because you do not, for all your professions, hourly and momentarily regulate and submit your wills to His commandments. Do what He wants, and do it because He wants it, if you wish that His love should fill your hearts.
And, further, we shall continue in His love by obedience, inasmuch as every emotion which finds expression in our daily life is strengthened by the fact that it is expressed. The love which works is love which grows, and the tree that bears fruit is the tree that is healthy and increases. So note how all these deepest things of Christian teaching come at last to a plain piece of practical duty.
We talk about the mysticism of John’s Gospel, about the depth of these last sayings of Jesus Christ. Yes! they are mystical, they are deep-unfathomably deep, thank God!-but connected by the shortest possible road with the plainest possible duties.
‘Let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous.’ It is of no use to talk about communion with Jesus Christ, and abiding in Him, in possession of His love, and all those other properly mystical sides of Christian experience, unless you verify them for yourselves by the plain way of practice.
Doing as Christ bids us, and doing that habitually, and doing it gladly, then, and only then, are we in no danger of losing ourselves on the heights, or of forgetting that Christ’s mission has for its last result the influencing of character and of conduct. ‘If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love, even as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.'”
Still regarding our own following Jesus' Example of obedience, we read in 1 John 2:5-6: “But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.”
Matthew Henry writes, “Love must and will keep the word of God; it enquires wherein the beloved may be pleased and served, and, finding he will be so by observance of his declared will, there it employs and exerts itself; there love is demonstrated; there it has its perfect (or complete) exercise, operation, and delight;
and hereby (by this dutiful attendance to the will of God, or Christ) we know that we are in him, we know that we belong to him, and that we are united to him by that Spirit which elevates and assists us to this obedience; and if we acknowledge our relation to him, and our union with him, it must have this continued enforcement upon us: He that saith he abideth in him ought himself to walk even as he walked.
The Lord Christ was an inhabitant of this world, and walked here below; here he gave a shining example of absolute obedience to God. Those who profess to be on his side, and to abide with him, must walk with him, walk after his pattern and example. The partisans of the several sects of philosophers of old paid great regard to the dictates and practice of their respective teachers and sect-masters;
much more should the Christian, he who professes to abide in and with Christ, aim to resemble his infallible Master and head, and conform to his course and prescriptions: Then are you my friends if you do whatsoever I command you, (see John 15:14).”
Jesus left an Example of Love for us to follow: John 13:34: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”
Of this, The Sermon Bible says, “The new commandment has been once for all uttered—the new law is given; and each generation, at whatever point of the advance to its fulfilment God may have ordained its place, is bound by it equally. Every individual Christian lives under the force of that law, and is responsible to Him for obedience to it.
Such obedience is, in fact, each generation’s portion of that upward work into fulness of love, which the Holy Spirit is carrying on in the whole race. And the same may be said of every individual Christian; his obedience to Christ’s law of love is his contribution towards the universal recognition of that law, in God’s good time.
No generation, no man stands alone. Even the humblest may contribute something, and all are bound for their own lives, and for God’s great work, to do their utmost in the matter.
II. Now, our Saviour has not left this, His new commandment, in mere abstract vagueness; He has fixed it on us, and brought it home to our consciences by a definite and specified pattern: "As I have loved you, that ye also love one another."
Of what kind was His love to us?
(1) It was a self-denying love.
(2) It was a boundless love.
(3) It was a love of gentleness and courtesy.
If we would love one another as He loved us, there is but one effectual instrument, but one genuine spring of such love. No mere admiration will effect it; no mere sensibility will call it forth; no romance of benevolence will keep it up; it can come from nothing but faith in Him; that faith which purifies the heart.
It alone is powerful to dethrone self in a man by setting up Christ instead, and until self is put down within, there can be no real presence of love, and none of its genuine fruits; until Christ reigns in a man’s heart there can be no imitation of His love, for it will never be understood by me till I behold it as a personal matter; till I measure its height by the depth of my unworthiness of it, its vastness by my own nothingness.”
The Apostle Paul admonishes us to follow Jesus' Example of Love in Ephesians 5:1-2: “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.”
The Preacher's Homiletical writes of this, Ephesians 5:1: “Followers of God.—Revised Version says “imitators.” St. Paul gathers up all duties into one expression, “imitation of God,” and urges them on his readers by a reminder of their high birth laying them under obligation, and rendering their copying easier.
Ephesians 5:2. Walk in love.—“Love must fulfil all righteousness; it must suffer law to mark out its path of obedience, or it remains an effusive, ineffectual sentiment, helpless to bless and save.”
The Life of Love — I. Is an imitating of the divine life.—“Be followers of God: … walk in love.”
Though God is infinitely beyond us, and lifted above all heights, we are to aspire towards Him. When we contemplate His glorious perfections we are more deeply conscious of our limitations and sins, bend before Him in lowly awe, and seem to despair of ever being able to approach to anything within ourselves that can be like Him.
Nevertheless God is the pattern of all excellence, and we can attain excellence ourselves only by imitating Him. The ideal character is ever above and beyond the seeker, growing more beautiful, but seeming as distant as ever. The life of God is the life of love—love is the essence of His nature and the crowning glory of all His perfections. The chief way in which He is imitable by us is in that direction: to love God is to be like Him.
Our life, in all its impulses, outgoings, and accomplishments, must be suffused and penetrated with love. As the soul opens to the inflow of God’s love and is filled with it, it becomes like God. Loving God is allowing God to love us. The love of God is the most transcendent revelation of the gospel.
II. Is befitting the relation in which the believer is divinely regarded.—“Followers of God, as dear children” (in Ephesians 5:1). God is our Father, and He loves us. That is enough; but how much is implied in that, who can tell? To realise the divine Fatherhood is to become acquainted with the love of God. When we discover we are dear to Him our hearts melt, our rebellion is conquered, we seek His forgiveness, we revel in His favour, we exult in His service.
III. Is a love of Christ-like sacrifice.—“As Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us” (in Ephesians 5:2). The offering of Christ as a sacrifice for the sins of men was acceptable to God, and came up before Him as a sweet-smelling savour, because it was the offering and sacrifice of love. The life of love is the life of obedience; it is eager to serve, and it shrinks not from suffering.
Nothing can be love to God which does not shape itself into obedience. The trials which love cheerfully undergoes in its ministry of love to others and in obedience to the will of God are often transformed into blessings. There is a legend that Nimrod took Abraham and cast him into a furnace of fire because he would not worship idols;
but God changed the coals into a bed of roses. So it will ever be. The obedience that leads to the furnace of fire will find in the end that it is a bed of roses. The life of loving sacrifice will issue in eternal blessedness. Lessons.—The life of love is—1. The highest life. 2. The happiest life. 3. The life most fruitful in usefulness to others.
IV. The solidarity of mankind in Christ furnishes the apostle with a powerful lever for raising the ethical standard of his readers. The thought that we are “members one of another” forbids deceit. Self is so merged in the community that in dealing censure or forgiveness to an offending brother the Christian man feels as though he were dealing with himself—as though it were the hand that forgave the foot for tripping, or the ear that pardoned some blunder of the eye.
The Christ loved and gave; for love that does not give, that prompts to no effort and puts itself to no sacrifice, is but a luxury of the heart—useless and even selfish. The Church is the centre of humanity. The love born and nourished in the household of faith goes out into the world with a universal mission.
The solidarity of moral interests that is realised there embraces all the kindreds of the earth. The incarnation of Christ knits all flesh into one redeemed family. The continents and races of mankind are members one of another, with Jesus Christ for Head.
Ephesians 5:2. “And walk in love.” The Nature, Properties, and Acts of Charity. I. The nature of charity.—1. Loving our neighbour implies we value and esteem him. 2. Implies a sincere and earnest desire for his welfare and good of all kinds in due proportion. 3. A complacence or delightful satisfaction in the good of our neighbour. 4. Condolence and commiseration in the evils befalling him.
II. Properties of charity.—1. Love appropriates its object in apprehension and affection, embracing it, possessing and enjoying it as its own. 2. It desires reciprocal affection. 3. Disposes to please our neighbour, not only by inoffensive but by an obliging demeanour. 4. Makes a man deny himself—despising all selfish regards—for the benefit of his neighbour. 5. To be condescending and willing to perform the meanest offices needful or useful to his friend.
III. Acts of charity.—1. To forbear anger on provocation. 2. To remit offences, suppressing revenge. 3. To maintain concord and peace. 4. To be candid in opinion and mild in censure. 5. Abstain from doing anything which may occasion our neighbour to commit sin, or disaffect him towards religion, or discourage him in the practice of duty.— Barrow.”
Jesus left us an Example of Humilty for us to follow: Phippians 2:5-8: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”
Albert Barnes writes of this: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus - The object of this reference to the example of the Saviour is particularly to enforce the duty of humility. This was the highest example which could be furnished, and it would illustrate and confirm all the apostle had said of this virtue.
The principle in the case is, that we are to make the Lord Jesus our model, and are in all respects to frame our lives, as far as possible, in accordance with this great example. The point here is, that he left a state of inexpressible glory, and took upon him the most humble form of humanity, and performed the most lowly offices, that he might benefit us.
But made himself of no reputation - This translation by no means conveys the sense of the original According to this it would seem that he consented to be without distinction or honor among people; or that he was willing to be despised or disregarded.
He humbled himself - Even then, when he appeared as a man. He had not only laid aside the symbols of his glory, and become a man; but when he was a man, he humbled himself. Humiliation was a constant characteristic of him as a man. He did not aspire to high honors; he did not affect pomp and parade; he did not demand the service of a train of menials; but he condescended to the lowest conditions of life.
The words here are very carefully chosen. In the former case, when he became a man, he “emptied himself,” or laid aside the symbols of his glory; now, when a man, he humbled himself. That is, though he was God appearing in the form of man - a divine person on earth - yet he did not assume and assert the dignity and prerogatives appropriate to a divine being, but put himself in a condition of obedience.
For such a being to obey law, implied voluntary humiliation; and the greatness of his humiliation was shown by his becoming entirely obedient, even until he died on the cross.” Jesus said, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own...
but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also” (John 15:18-20).
At this time in America, with rare exception, Christians are not being called upon to be obedient unto death. This is not true of our brothers and sisters in Christ living in many countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Russia and various parts of Asia. Persecution, rejection by one's family, religion, government and culture, and martyrdom are not uncommon.
They are living and dying in accordance with what Jesus said in Mark 8:35: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.” We may one day find ourselves confronted as Cassie Bernall was; she was a student at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, known to be a Christian by her classmates.
She was confronted in the cafeteria, and asked by one of the two students who were shooting and killing her teachers and classmates if she still believed in God. With a gun pointed to her head, she responded, “Yes,” and she was killed. Being willing to die for God, to die rather than deny or disobey God, and to die for the Gospel's sake, is also one of the Examples that Christ set for us.
All of the Examples that Christ set for us, that I shared tonight, are just the first half of the Examples that are listed in Torrey's Dictionary. Rather than minimizing my review and examination of them, tonight, and speed through them, we will, God willing, complete the list next week. I hope as many of you who are reading or hearing this Discussion can join me for that.
This concludes this Evening's Discussion, “Basic Christianity, Part 53.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on October 6th, 2020.
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