Chapter 6: How to Become Like Christ.
Chapter 6: How to Become Like Christ.
2 COR. iii: 18.
MANY ARE SEEKING the true policy of life. But in all directions there is perplexity and confusion; either men are living at haphazard or are adopting a policy dictated by selfishness and worldly wisdom. On all sides the question is being asked, What is life? Whither is the hurrying current bearing us? How shall we make the best at the short interval between the cradle and the grave? What thread of all the many that offer themselves to our hand will conduct us through the labyrinth with its darkness into the light? "What shall we do?" is a question often put.
The clue to life's aims; the philosopher's stone which will turn everything into gold; the secret of a blessed useful life is to be found much rather in what we are, than in what we do. The Beatitudes with which our Lord opened the great programme of Christianity all turn upon character rather than upon action, and the blessedness which He promises is to the meek, the pure in heart, the peacemaker. The true policy of life, therefore, is to stay just where we are; to believe that to be what and where we are is God's will for us; and to endeavor to be the noblest, sweetest, purest, strongest possible. Not to fret because the sphere is obscure; not to be jealous of the position occupied by others; not to allow the peace of the inner life to be broken by the feverish desire to be something else; but to be quiet, evincing all that nobility of disposition and character which the opportunity and occasion call for. For men to be strong, thoughtful, considerate of women and of the weak, tender to little children, self-controlled, able to command the tides that sweep through heart and thought. For women to be pure and devout, gentle and modest, adorned with the jewels of the meek and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is of great price; and to be this constantly, in days of fog as well as of sunshine, of illness as of buoyant strength; this surely will extract from the roughest and most toilsome path the largest amount of blessedness that this world can give."
John Stuart Mill was accustomed to say that whenever the path of his life was not clear, he was accustomed to ask what Jesus of Nazareth would probably have done under the same circumstances, and that the test never failed to indicate the true course to adopt; and for us there is surely no higher ideal of life than to ask perpetually-what would Jesus do were He in my place? Each one of us must have an ideal by which to mould our life, and there is no such ideal as that presented to us in the life of our blessed Lord. To be like Christ is to know something of the joy and peace that perennially filled His heart.
There is a great necessity that we should be all this, because knowledge depends on character; we know, only when we are willing to do His will. The light of the morning will only illumine our mind when we have followed the narrow path of obedience up the steep ascent of righteousness and truth. Many ask what is the right policy of life with the intention of being nobler and purer so soon as they clearly see how to live. Such are destined to disappointment. The only solution to life's many problems is to begin at once, just where we are, to be what God demands of us, assured that soon we shall learn all that He would teach us.
But how can we become Christ-like? The answer is given in a significant text, which has been illuminated with a new beauty in the Revised Version -" We all with unveiled face, reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory."
We all. There is no monopoly in the religion of Jesus Christ. Its doors stand open for all who will enter. No inner circle, no privileged class, no school of initiates. What was possible for Moses in the old dispensation, and for him alone, is free to us all to the rank and file of the Church as well as to the Apostles, to the eighteenth century as well as the first.
With unveiled face. We are told that Moses veiled his face, partly because the people could not stand its dazzling light, and partly because he wished to hide from them its dwindling glory (verse 13). And his veil was afterwards spread upon the hearts of the Jews, who could not see the spiritual beauty of their own law, because they were hardened. But there must be no veil of prejudice, or unbelief, or permitted sin upon the face which is turned towards the Son of God. With the· clear, undimmed gaze of purity and truth, we must look into His.
Reflecting as a mirror. In the older version, "Beholding as in a glass," which had a helpful and deep significance; but surely this is even yet more helpful, as it is truer to the Apostle's phrase. We are to reflect Jesus as the mirror does the face and movements of the person in whose apartment it stands. Silent and unobtrusive; constantly and faithfully, it reflects every gesture; so the Christian heart should live in daily, hourly fellowship with the face of Jesus Christ. As the eyes of servants are to the hand of their master, so our eyes should be directed towards, and our lives perpetually reflecting, our Lord, whom the world cannot see, but who is ever present to the eye of our faith.
As Jesus looks into our lives, in their pellucid depths He should see His own face reflected. Yea, as God the Father looks down upon us He should see a faithful reflection of His Son. And as the giddy world around casts casual glances at the people of God they should be arrested, not so much by what they say as by the features of the Master which they present. Perhaps each unit in the Church is needed to mirror to the world some trait or feature of Emmanuel. Each believer should daily ask himself, "What do my companions and associates see of Christ in me?" and the supreme test of every action should be, " How can I so conduct myself as to reveal some trait of my Master's character?" Whatever it may cost it should be the ambition of each lover of Christ to transmit perpetually the beauty of the Lord, so that others may admire Him in them that believe.
Ask how Christ is acting; always repeat what He is doing; do nothing of yourself; whatsoever He doeth, do it likewise; make all things of the pattern shown to the eye of faith upon the Mount; act thus, not because you wish to, or like to, or feel pleasure in it, but because you ought, and thus instinctively, and unconsciously you will really become like Christ. The likeness of Christ will pass from the outward act and speech, in which there may be some effort, to the inner temper and disposition of the soul. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ by daily appropriating the grace of His character, and that grace will become indigenous to the soil of your heart. We are transformed. This is the word used of the Transfiguration of Christ. We too shall have a transfiguration; not as His, a sudden and immediate change, but one that will grow on us from day to day, too gradual to be noticed save by comparisons that stretch over years. Act like Christ, and you will increasingly come to think and feel like Him.
But none of this is possible save by the grace of the Holy Spirit. He first implants the desire for the holy life, and leads us to live nearer Christ, and enables us to resemble Him, and works in us the inward temper and disposition. From beginning to end the grace of the Christian life is due to the Blessed Spirit, and when once He takes the soul in hand, there is no fear that the work will retrograde or be dimmed, as the light that faded from the face of Moses; rather it will proceed, by insensible degrees, from glory to glory, and we shall see in each other more and more of the character and beauty of the Risen and Ascended Master.
But there is something yet to be said. The Lord Jesus is in the heart of each believer, by the grace of the Holy Spirit. The perfect image may be in embryo, wrapped up as a forest tree in acorn or seed, but it is certainly present. And each time we are called upon to resemble Christ, to act or speak as He would have done, to reflect Him to men, we have to deal not only with the Christ of the throne, but the Christ of the heart. Let us make way, so that the Christ in us may speak or act through us; so that the image without may be reproduced, not simply by reflection, but by indwelling and outshining.