Like Christ

yj BIDING in Christ and ivalhvng lihe Christ: these are the two blessings of the new life which are here set before us in their essential unity. The fruit of a life m Christ is a life li?ce Christ.

To the first of these expressions, aUding in Christy we are no strangers. The wondrous parable of the Vine and the branches, with the accompanying command, ‘Abide in me, and I in you,’ has often been to us a source of rich instruction and comfort. And though we feel as if we had but very imperfectly learned the lesson of abiding in Him, yet we have tasted something of the joy that comes when the soul can say: Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I do abide in Thee. And He knows too how often the fervent prayer still arises: Blessed Lord, do grant me the complete unbroken abiding.

The second expression, walking lihe Qhrist, is not less significant than the first. It is the promise of the wonderful power which the abiding in Him will exert. As the fruit of our surrender to live wholly in Him, His life works so mightily in us, that our walk, the outward expression of the inner life, become like His. The two are inseparably connected. The abiding in always precedes the walking like Him. And yet the aim to walk like Him must equally precede any large measure of abiding. Only then is the need for a close union fully realized, or is the Heavenly Giver free to bestow the fulness of His grace, because He sees that the soul is prepared to use it according to His design. When the Saviour said, ‘If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love,’ He meant just this: the surrender to walk like me is the path to the full abiding in me. Many a one will discover that just here is the secret of his failure in abiding in Christ; he did not seek it with the view of walking like Christ. The words of St. John invite us to look at the two truths in their vital connection and dependence on each other. The first lesson they teach is: He that seeks to abide in Christ must ivalh even as He walked. Wo all know that it is a matter of course that a branch bears fruit of the same sort as the vine to which it belongs. The life of the vine and the branch is so completely identical, that the manifestation of that life must be identical too. When the Lord Jesus redeemed us with His blood, and presented us to the J^^ather in His righteousness, He did not leave ns in our old nature to serve God as best we could. No; in Him dwelt the eternal life, the holy divine life of heaven, and every one who is in Him receives from Him that same eternal life in its holy heavenly power. Hence nothing can be more natural than the claim that he that abides in Him, continually receiving life from Him, must aJso 50 walk even as He walked. This mighty life of God in the soul does not, however, work as a blind force, compelling us ignorantly or involuntarily to act like Christ. On the contrary, the walking like Him must come as the result of a deliberate choice, sought in strong desire, accepted of a living will. With this view, the Father in heaven showed, us in Jesus’ earthly life what the life of heaven would be when it came down into the conditions and circumstances of our human life. And with the same object the Lord Jesus, when we receive the new life from Him, and when He calls us to abide in Him that we may receive that life more abundantly, ever points us to His own life on earth, and tells us that it is to walk even as He walked that the new life has been bestowed. ‘Even as I, so ye also:’ that word of the Master takes His whole earthly life, and very simply makes it the rule and guide of all our conduct. If we abide in Jesus, we may not act other. ..se than He did. ‘Like Christ’ gives in one short all-inclusive word the blessed law of the Christian life. He is to think, to speak, to act as Jesus did; as Jesus was, even so is he to be.

The second lesson is the complement of the first: He that seeks to walk like Christ, must abide in Him,

There is a twofold need of this lesson. With some there is the earnest desire and effort to follow Christ’s example, without any sense of the impossibility of doing so, except by deep, real abiding in Him. They fail because they seek to obey the, high command to live like Christ, without the only power that can do so — the living in Christ. With others there is the opposite error; they know their own weakness, and count the walking like Christ an impossibility. As much as those who seek to do it and who fail, do those who do not seek because they expect to fail, need the lesson we are enforcing. To walk like Christ one must abide in Him; he that abides in Him has the power to walk like Him; not indeed in himself or his own efforts, but in Jesus, who perfects His strength in our weakness. It is just when I feel my utter impotence most deeply, and fully accept Jesus in His wondrous union to myself as my life, that His power works in me, and I am able to lead a life completely beyond what my power could obtain. I begin to see that abiding in Him is not a matter of moments or special seasons, but the deep life process in which, by His keeping grace, I continue without a moment’s intermission, and from which I act out all my Christian life. And I feel emboldened really to take Him in everything as my example, because I am sure that the hidden inner union and likeness must work itself out into a visible likeness in walk and conduct, f Dear reader! if God give us grace, in the course of our meditations, truly to enter into the meaning of these His words, and what they teach of a life in very deed like Christ’s, we shall more than once come into the presence of heights and depths that will make us cry out. How can these things be? If the Holy Spirit reveal to us the heavenly perfection of the humanity of our Lord as the image of the unseen God, and speaks to us, ‘so even so ought ye also to walk,’ the first effect will be that we shall begin to feel at what a distance we are from Him. We shall be ready to give up hope, and to say with so many. It avails not to attempt it: I never can walk like Jesus. At such moment we shall find our strength in the message He that ahidetli in Him, he must, he can, also so walk even as He walked. The word of the Master will come with new meaning as the assurance of strength sufficient: He that abideth in me beareth much fruit.

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