The life of Jesus, as seen in Jesus personally when here on earth, was altogether different from the life of every other man, for there was at every moment rising up to God the fragrance that had been foreshadowed in the pure frankincense of the meat offerings of the daily sacrifice, and of every other meat offering where a burnt offering or a peace offering was brought to God. Although there was in the life of Jesus that which was unique because of who Jesus was in His Person and mission, there was also that which can be manifested in the lives of His people. This is one of the great triumphs of God, for Satan no doubt thought that the life of Jesus was finished when he led on the great men of this world to crucify the Son of God, but God, through His saints, has continued in this world the lovely life of Jesus that gives Him holy delight and brings glory to His Name.
Jesus on Earth
Each Gospel brings out its own peculiar presentation of the life of Jesus. If Matthew presents Him as the “the son of David, the son of Abraham,” the life of Jesus is brought before us in this way, but there is also in Him and His ministry that which directs His disciples to manifest the features of moral beauty that were so perfectly seen in Him. What royal dignity marked all the steps of Jesus, and as being in His kingdom His own are to follow His steps, to “be the children of your Father which is in heaven,” yea, to be “perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:45, 48).
Mark shows that Jesus is the perfect Servant, answering “straightway” to the will of God in all things, and although He is unique in this, God would also have this character of Jesus seen in the lives of all He has called to serve Him in this world, a privilege that belongs to every saint of God, even as the Apostle Paul exhorts, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Rom. 12:1).
In Luke, Jesus is the Seed of the woman, the perfect Man, the One of whom the prophets had spoken, and God’s Anointed to preach the Gospel to the poor. How rich was the divine grace towards sinners that we seen in Jesus, the good Samaritan who cared for those who fell among thieves, and Jesus could say to the man who had asked Him who his neighbour was, “Go, and do thou likewise” (Luke 10:37). This reply to the lawyer made known something of the life of Jesus, and also showed what should mark those who desire to live His life.
John’s Gospel truly shows what was unique in the life of Jesus, and this because of who He was as the only-begotten in the bosom of the Father, a place that He can share with no other for it is His place as the eternal Son of God. No man had seen God at any time, but the only-begotten, who every dwelt in His bosom has made Him known. John shows that there is much that is uniquely the Son’s. Not only has He life in Himself because of who He is as God (John 1:4), but this has also been given to Him because He has become Man (John 5:26). He is the One who communicates life, to whom all judgment is committed, and who shall bring all the dead out of their graves. Every step of the life of Jesus manifested the divine dignity that was conscious of having such things given to Him of the Father, and of who He was as the eternal Son of the Father.
Although we see so much in John of what was unique in the life of Jesus, we also see that we are brought into relationship with the Father in association with Jesus. We are the friends of Jesus, His Father is our Father and His God our God, and He gives to His own His joy, and His peace, and soon we shall share His glory and see Him as He is in the Father’s house. These wonderful blessings have been given to us that we might bear fruit for God in this world, that is that we might come out here in the life of Jesus, manifesting the same precious traits that He manifested, so that we might be His disciples indeed, and that God might be glorified in us (John 15:8).
God was seen perfectly as He is in His nature in His Son in this world, for there was the complete and full revelation of God in the only-begotten Son of God, yet it is written, “No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells in us, and His love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12). Does not this teach that the life that was seen in Jesus, in which God was perfectly revealed, is to be seen in His own in this world? It may be in a very imperfect way we manifest the life of Jesus, yet that life is seen in those who have the divine nature given to them of God.
What was seen in Paul
Paul, in 2 Corinthians 3 had been writing of the glory of the new covenant, the glory of the grace of God, and in verse 18 wrote of the privilege of the saints in looking into the glory that shines unveiled in the face of Jesus. As occupied with Jesus in His glory we “are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” If we are to come out in this world in the life of Jesus we must be occupied with Jesus where He is in the glory above. In chapter 4 Paul also writes of “the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ” (verse 4), and of “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (verse 6).
As ministers of this wonderful Gospel of the glory of Christ and of God, Paul and his companions must “by manifestation of the truth” commend themselves “to every man’s conscience in the sight of God” (4:2). This could only be by manifesting the life of Jesus. Jesus had been in Himself the perfect expression of all that He said, even as we read, “even the same that I said unto you from the beginning. The servant of the Lord is expected to be like his Master, expressing in his life what he ministers, and this Paul ever sought to do.
For Paul and his fellow labourers there was much opposition, but this only brought out the features of Christ, They were “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest” in their bodies (verse 10). The Apostle did not view these persecutions to which he was subjected as some mischance, but rather as directly allowed of God, for he writes, “For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake.” Enemies might persecute the servants of the Lord for Jesus’ sake, for the testimony that they bore, but God allowed it so that His servants might manifest the life of Jesus, and this in mortal flesh (verse 11).
Here then are two things that enable the saints and servants of the Lord to come out like Him in this world, first, being engaged with Him in His glory; secondly, passing through times of affliction and persecution, bearing about in their bodies the dying of Jesus, that is suffering bodily trial as well as other kinds of testing. We may not be called upon to suffer persecution after the manner in which Paul and early saints suffered, or as others in other lands suffer today, but God may allow other kinds of trial to come so that the dying of Jesus may be ever before us, and this that the life of Jesus might be manifested in our flesh that is subject to death. It is indeed wonderful that eternal life should be seen in bodies that are subject to death.
Capacity and Power
There is sometimes a good deal of talk among religious people about living the life of Jesus, but such are often ignorant as to how this can be done. It is impossible for the natural man to live the life of Jesus, and simply because he has neither the capacity nor the power to do so. There was manifested in Jesus a life that belonged to heaven, and only those who have received this life from Jesus are able to manifest it. It was not a life that appealed to the men of this world that was seen in Jesus, for even the leaders of Israel, priests, Pharisees, Sadducees and elders, hated the Son of God, and hated Him without a cause. His life was the very antithesis of theirs: they lived for themselves, but He lived to do the will of His God and Father.
Isaiah wrote concerning Jesus that there was no beauty in Him that Israel desired. Only those who were born of God had the capacity to discern the beauty that shone in the life of Jesus, for His holy and devoted life were seen by such as were born of God in all that He was personally, in all His works, and in His words. It was this discernment in Simon Peter that caused him to say to the Lord when the disciples were challenged by Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go, Thou hast the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). Without the capacity to appreciate the beauty of the life of Jesus, how could there be the desire to live the life of Jesus? So often when men speak of living the life of Jesus they are ignorant of what the life of Jesus really was and is.
It is only through those who have, through faith in the Son of God, been given the eternal life that is in Him, that the life of Jesus can be seen in testimony before men. Moreover, the power for the expression of the life of Jesus lies in the Holy Spirit, and only those with a living faith in the Lord Jesus have received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Those who do not belong to Jesus cannot manifest His life, “if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Rom. 8:9). So that to manifest the life of Jesus we must be born of God, we must have eternal life in the Son of God, and we must have the indwelling Spirit of God.
Faith in the Son of God
We have seen that faith is needed for the reception of eternal life, but faith is to be in constant activity in our lives. There are many things that would hinder our expression of the life of Jesus, and these must be set aside. The flesh and the world are two of the things that hinder our manifesting what Jesus is, and to meet these dangers the Apostle Paul brings before us the cross of Christ. In Galatians 2 the cross is viewed as setting aside all that Paul is as a man after the flesh, where he wrote, “I am crucified with Christ” (verse 20), and those who would live the life of Jesus must constantly recognise this solemn truth, even as the Apostle goes on to say, “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Gal. 5:24).
Having said that he was crucified with Christ, Paul goes on to say, “nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” If Paul could view himself as dead in relation to the flesh, he was also able to take account of himself in a new life, even the life that was expressed because Christ was in him. As regards his life practically, that which all could take account of, he lived as having his eye on the living Son of God in heaven, and it was this that enabled him to manifest before men the life of Jesus.
Living with the eye on the Son of God, in constant dependence upon Him and His resources, is to abide in Him, and as we abide in Him He will abide in us, and it is in this way that the One who abides in us is manifested in testimony for Him in our walk and ways. As we abide in the Son of God we shall draw upon the heavenly and spiritual resources that are in Him, for without these resources it is impossible to live for Him in this world.
In Galatians 6, Paul writes, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world” (verse 14). We need to see the true character of the world, in all its aspects, if we are to manifest the life of Jesus, for the world is an evil system in deadly opposition to God and His people. It is shown as a grave danger to the “young men” in God’s family, even though they had overcome the wicked one (1 John 2:14–17). If we would see the world in its true character we must look at the cross, for there it was exposed in all its dreadful hatred to God and His Son. The world is very attractive to the flesh, appealing to the pride and desires of the flesh, but its true character is seen in what it did to Christ.
Faith not only sees the world as exposed, and brought to an end before God in judgment, but the man of faith is prepared to take his place with Christ as sharing the hatred and malice expressed towards Him in the cross. It is our faith that gets the victory over the world (1 John 5:4), and those who have part in this victory are those whose eye rests on the Son of God, as Paul shows in Galatians 2, and as the Apostle John shows in the words, “Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:5).
It is a very blessed privilege to be able to appreciate the lovely, holy life of Jesus as we read the Gospels, and how great the privilege of being able, in some little measure, to manifest that same holy life, a life of love, righteousness, holiness, obedience and subjection to God’s will, but we must possess this life by faith before we can show it to others in testimony for God, we must be in constant touch with the Son of God as abiding in Him by faith, we must allow the Holy Spirit to have His way with us, while refusing what is of the flesh and of the world. May we therefore be in constant exercise before God, ever seeking to appreciate and to live the life of Jesus.
R. 10.7.70