“Greater love hath no man than this that he lay down his life for his
friends.” Yes, there is a greater love, for Christ laid down his life
for His enemies. Study the life of Christ as He lived here below,
see how free He was from the selfish taint of sin which lurks in our
natures, and alas, too frequently is the ruling passions of our lives.
With Christ, others were first in consideration and in service; but
with us, we are the first to be considered and served and others must
wait; then if there is opportunity or time they will be considered and
served. Christ opened the gate of righteousness and the way that leads
to life. This cost Him his own life, the price of it was not only the
suffering and labors of life, but the pangs of the physical, and the
eternal pains of the spiritual, death; for you must know that Christ
tasted the death for every man. We can have no conception of what death
meant to Him and yet He went down to death willingly for you and for
me. What are we doing that we may become human saviours of men, that we
too may suffer and labor for others, that we may die that through our
death others may live? These are vital questions if you and I are to be
known as His humble followers; if you and I are to share His glory with
Him, we must also be with Him in His sufferings and death. “Enter in at
the strait gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads
to death, but strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth to
life; many there be that go in at the former gate of death, but few
find the strait gate of life.”
II. The purpose of Christ’s life and death, was that He might be able
to give life unto others. “Father, the hour is come. Glorify thy son
that thy son also may glorify thee. As thou hast given him power over
all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast
given him.” John 18:1, 2.
We read that “To as many as received him, to them gave He power to
become the sons or the children of God.” It is interesting to notice
that the word translated “power” here, means a great deal more than
power or authority. It has a germinal meaning and has reference to
life. The idea is that Christ plants in us the seed of eternal life and
it grows and takes root in the heart and life of every believer and
they thereby become the children of God. There is therefore the germ of
eternal life just as there is the germ of physical or mortal life. The
only purpose which Christ had in coming into human flesh was that He
might be able thereby to plant in human nature the seed of everlasting
life, which sin had prevented from bearing fruit. So He became one of
us, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, our very brother. The
very life which He lived in the flesh is the pattern for our lives. He
is our example in thought, word, and action. We are to live His life by
letting Christ live in us. As Paul said regarding sin, “It is not I but
sin that dwelleth in me,” so he also said that Christ dwelt in him and
we know that Christ dwelleth in us and that through Him we can do all
things.
We are very prone to think always of Christ’s Divinity and to seek to
explain His life on this basis, this is a great mistake. We are to look
on Christ as also human, a real man: His trials and temptations real;
His limitations as a man, real; His knowledge and experience as a man,
real. Such reflections as these bring Him very near to us and become a
great inspiration to us in that they make His ideal life, a real life;
hence His ideal human life becomes to us a real human life. “He came
that we might have life and that we might have it more abundant.” Our
life, that is our Christ-life, may become abundant in its power, in
its light, in its fruits, if we will walk and talk with Jesus daily.
He is the vine and we are the branches. But in order that the branches
may live and bear fruit, they must abide in the vine. Jesus taught us
that if we obeyed Him, we were abiding in Him. Obedience therefore is
the vital union between us and Christ, the Vine. Disobedience is the
cutting of the branch off from the vine and the branch dies.