There can be no doubt that what occupies the thoughts of a man will characterise him, so that if the Christian desires to have the character of Christ he will have to be occupied with Christ. When the high priest of Israel, and those who were gathered with him, “saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). Unlearned and uninstructed in the things of this world, the disciples of the Lord, as having been in His company, bore a character and possessed a knowledge that was beyond the understanding of the great men of this world. How very wonderful it is that the disciples of the Lord Jesus can still be occupied with Him and, like the disciples of old, bear His features in their testimony to Him before the world.
“Ye should follow His steps”
Simon Peter was intimately acquainted with the Lord’s path on earth, having companied with Him during the few years of His public ministry, witnessing how He endured grief, suffering wrongfully, and taking patiently all the opposition of evil men. It is to such a path the followers of the Lord Jesus have been called, and because “Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps” (1 Peter 2:21). Although we look up to Christ where He is in the glory of God, we have to look back to His path on earth for the example we are called to follow.
Of Christ, the Apostle Peter writes, “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.” How perfect the Son of God was in Manhood on earth! Peter knew Him to be “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,” and had heard the Lord say to His foes, “Which of you convinces me of sin?” (John 8:46). Jesus was indeed the “Lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19), and although we are sinners by nature, God has given to believers a nature that is incapable of sin, and it is for us, as following in the steps of Jesus, to allow the divine nature to express itself. This will only be if we keep the old nature, received from Adam, in the place of death, crucified with Christ. Sin is not a necessity for the disciples of the Lord, but, alas, we have to acknowledge the justice of what James said, “In many things we offend all” (James 3:2) but the nearer to keep to the Lord Jesus the less we shall offend.
There was no guile on the lips of Jesus, nothing ambiguous, nothing but what proceeded from a pure heart, words that conveyed the true feelings of His heart to those who heard Him; and this is what we are called upon to imitate. The natural man so often seeks to take advantage of others by saying something that is calculated to give an entirely wrong impression. This was never found in Jesus, nor should it be found in any who profess to follow Jesus.
All the opposition and wickedness of men but brought out fully the deep perfections of Jesus, “Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judges righteously” (verse 23). What meekness and gentleness were seen in Him as committing all to the hand of His God and Father, knowing that He took account of all, and leaving all with Him, being content to suffer that God’s will might be done. The answer is already given in the glory into which the Son has entered; the full answer will be seen in public display in the coming day. Nature has no desire for such a path, but this is the example for us, and grace will enable us follow in the steps of Jesus.
“Changed into the same image”
The Apostle Peter has engaged us with the steps of Jesus in affliction, suffering and sorrow here, but the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:18 occupies us with the glory of Jesus now shining in His unveiled face in heaven. In this chapter the Spirit of God contrasts the glory that shone in the face of Moses with the glory that shines in the face of Jesus. Israel were unable to gaze on the glory in the face of Moses, so that he had to put a veil over his face when speaking with the people, for it was a glory that demanded from them obedience to the commandments they had engaged themselves to keep, and which they could not keep.
Occupation with the glory of the grace of God that shines in the face of Jesus does not repel us, it attracts us, for we see in that glory what God is in all His goodness, and what the Son of God is as making known to us the desires of the heart of God. This divine glory leaves impressions on the hearts of those who are engaged with it, forming them after Him in whose face it shines. The glory in which the Lord is now has been given to Him from the Father in answer to what He was on earth, and to what He has accomplished, and this is most attractive to those who have learned God’s goodness as made known by the Son.
The glory of the new covenant tells of the grace that has ministered divine righteousness to us, and that has given to us the Spirit of God, who has written Christ upon the fleshy tables of our hearts. God is the author of all this blessing, and Christ is the One through whom, and in whom, we have the blessing. Moreover, all known in “the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God,” and we have “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4-6). How rich and how wonderful are the glories that we see when looking on the face of Jesus.
We cannot be occupied with the glory that shines in the face of Jesus and be unaffected. Occupation with Him where He is will bring us out like Him where once He was. Just as the flower takes it colour from the light of the sun to which it turns, so will the Christian be characterized by the glory of Christ with which he is occupied. This is one of the functions of the Holy Spirit who indwells us, to engage us with Christ in glory, to bring before the heart all the moral features that were once seen in Christ in this world, but which now shine in His unveiled face in heaven.
“Looking unto Jesus”
We have seen how the Apostle Peter turned our attention to the steps of the Lord on earth, and how the Apostle Paul presented the Lord in glory as the One who is able to bring us out in testimony in His own features here below. In Hebrews 12 the writer bids us look to Jesus in heaven, but also desires us to consider Him in His pathway from earth to heaven. We look to Him in heaven as an Object to fill the heart with deep delight, and we consider what He was on earth, the divine Example for us in the race that God has set before us. When we gaze upon the Lord as an object in heaven, it is unbroken joy and delight, but when we think of what He was on earth there is not only deep, deep pleasure, but also rebuke for us on account of our coming far, far short of the example God had given us in His Son.
Here on earth, Jesus had no weights to lay aside, nor was there sin in Him to beset Him, but we have weights, things that may have a right place in the life but which we have given an undue place. There is also sin, and it may be here specially that of unbelief which is the opposite of faith, and which hinders in the path of faith of which Jesus is the “author and finisher.” In considering Jesus we see what the path of faith is, beginning down here in the midst of trials, and finishing in heaven where is “fulness of joy,” and “pleasures for evermore” (Psalm 16:11).
Every step of the path of Jesus was taken in dependence upon His God and Father, and we too are to pursue our way towards heaven with the eye on Him who knew every step of the way we have to tread, having taken the same way before us. In that path, although so great in His Person, He “endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself,” and surely if He endured the opposition of men, we, by the supply of His grace can also endure. There was that for Him which was His alone, for He “endured the cross, despising the shame.” We can know nothing of what He sustained on the cross as He endured God’s judgment for sin, but we can share, in some very small degree, the shame that was so great for Him, and yet could be despised because it was so small in comparison with the awful weight borne in judgment on the cross.
Still, His death was not only that of an offering for sin; He also died a Martyr’s death in the conflict of good against evil, “striving against sin,” and in this conflict He “resisted unto blood.” This is the greatest extent to which any believer can go, and relatively few are asked of God to die for Christ in the conflict of good, few have the privilege of following the Master to this extent Peter was told by the Lord that he would have this privilege (John 21:18-19), Paul desired it (Phil. 3:10), and Stephen and James the brother of John were thus honoured (Acts. 7:60; 12:2). So whatever we may be called to pass through in the discipline of the Father, in heaven we have a blessed Object to engage the heart, and the path of the Lord on earth to encourage in every trial.
“This hope in Him”
If Simon Peter points us to the walk of the Lord Jesus on earth as an example for us, and Paul directs our hearts to the glory of the Lord in heaven to transform our lives, and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews shows that the Lord is both an Object for faith where He is and an Example in trial and suffering to sustain us in the path of faith, the Apostle John encourages us to look forward to the time when the Son of God will appear in glory, for then “we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).
The Father’s love has been made known to us in bringing us into relationship with Himself as children. We need not wait till the day of glory, till we enter heaven, to know the blessedness of this near relationship to God, and the affections that belong to the relationship, for we are children now, and we know God as our Father now. There is however further bliss that awaits God’s children, that which He has in store for us both in the kingdom with Christ, and with His Son in His own house. These things have not yet been seen by mortal eye, but the day is coming when we shall be seen in glory with Christ, and this has been already been made known to us.
There are two things belonging to that day, first, we shall be like Jesus, conformed to His image, with nothing but the divine nature in us, and in the full enjoyment of eternal life. Secondly, we shall see Him, Jesus God’s Son, as He is. John and his fellow Apostles saw Jesus as He was in Manhood, but we did not see Him in this way, in His path of humiliation and service to the Godhead. The world will see Jesus as Son of Man in His coming glory, but will never see Him “as He is.” By faith we see Him now in the presence of the Father, but it will be another thing to see Him in the glory of His eternal Sonship in the Father’s house, as the Lord desired of the Father in John 17:24. These wondrous blessings await us.
God would have us occupied with the blessed hope that is [gone] before, “this hope in Him,” God’s blessed Son. If we are occupied with the Son of God, and of all that God has promised us in association with Him in the coming day, it will indeed purge us from the things of this passing world, and produce within us the same character of divine purity that is seen perfectly in Jesus now. We are passing through a defiled and defiling scene, the scene through which the Son of God once passed, but in passing through it He was altogether pure, utterly undefiled by all around Him. This is the kind of purity that God desires for His children, not the ceremonial purity of the flesh required from Israel, but the purity that belongs to the divine nature made known in His Son.
R. 5.6.70