'For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for
us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His
steps.'--1 Peter ii. 21.
These words are a very striking illustration of the way in which the
Gospel brings Christ's principles to bear upon morals and duty. The
Apostle is doing nothing more than exhorting a handful of slaves to the
full and complete and patient acceptance of their hard lot, and in order
to teach a very homely and lowly lesson to the squalid minds of a few
captives, he brings in the mightiest of all lessons by pointing to the
most beautiful, most blessed, and most mysterious fact in the world's
history--the cross of Christ. It is the very spirit of Christianity that
the biggest thing is to regulate the smallest duties of life. Men's
lives are made up of two or three big things and a multitude of little
ones, and the greater rule the lesser; and, my friends, unless we have
got a religion and a morality that can and will keep the trifles of our
lives right there will be nothing right; unless we can take those
deepest truths, make them the ruling principles, and lay them down side
by side with the most trivial things of our lives, we are something
short. Is there nothing in your life or mine so small that we cannot
bring it into captivity and lift it into beauty by bringing it into
connection with saving grace? Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an
example. This is the first thing that strikes me, and I intend it also
by way of introduction. Look how the Apostle has put the points
together, as though there are two aspects which go together and cannot
be rendered apart, like the under side and the upper side of a coin.
'Christ also suffered for us,' and so for us says all the orthodox.
'Leaving us an example'--there protests all the heretics. Yes, but we
know that there is a power in both of them, and the last one is only
true when we begin with the first. He suffered for us. There, there, my
friends, is the deepest meaning of the cross, and if you want to get
Christ for an example, begin with taking Him as the sacrifice, for He
gave His life for you. Don't part the two things. If you believe Him to
be Christ, then you take Him at the cross: if you want to see the
meaning of Christ as an example, begin with Him as your Saviour.
'Because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye
should follow His steps.' These are the words, and what God hath joined
together let no man put asunder. With these few remarks I shall deal
with the words a little more exhaustively, and I see in them three
things--the sufferings of Christ our gain, the sufferings of Christ our
pattern, and the suffering of Christ our power to imitate.
And first of all that great proclamation which underlies the whole
matter--Christ also suffered for us. The sufferings of Christ are
thereby our gain. I shall not dwell on the larger questions which these
words naturally open for us, and I shall content myself with some of the
angles and side views of thought, and one to begin with is this: It is
very interesting to notice how, as his life went on, and his inspiration
became more full, this Apostle got to understand, as being the very
living and heart centre of his religion, the thing which at first was a
stumbling-block and mystery to him. You remember when Christ was here on
earth, and was surrounded by all His disciples, the man who actually led
antagonism to the thought of a saving Messiah, was this very Apostle
Peter. How he displayed his ignorance in the words, 'This shall not be
unto Thee, O Lord'; and you remember also how his audacity rose to the
height of saying, 'Why cannot I follow Thee now, Lord? I will lay down
my life for Thy sake,' so little did he understand the purposes of
Christ's suffering and Christ's death. And even after His resurrection
we don't find that Peter in his early preaching had got as far as he
seems to have got in this letter from which my text is taken. You will
notice that in this letter he speaks a great deal about the sufferings
of Christ, which he puts side by side and in contrast with God's
glorifying of His Son. Christ's cross, which at first had come to him as
a rejection, has now come to him in all its reality, and to him there
was the one grand thing, 'He suffered for us,' as though he realises
Christ in all His beauty and purity, and not only as a beautiful teacher
and dear friend. That which at first seemed to him as an astounding
mystery and perfect impossibility, he now comes to understand. With
those two little words, 'for us,' where there was before impossibility,
disappointment, and anomaly, the anomaly vanishes, although the mystery
becomes deeper. In one sense it was incomprehensible; in another sense
it was the only explanation of the fact. And, my friends, I want you to
build one thought on this. Unless you and I lay hold of the grand truth
that Jesus Christ died for us, it seems to me that the story of the
Gospel and the story of the cross is the saddest and most depressing
page of human history. That there should have been a man possessed of
such a soul, such purity, such goodness, such tenderness, such
compassion, and such infinite mercy--if there were all this to do
nothing but touch men's hearts and prick and irritate them into bitter
enmity--if the cross were the world's wages to the world's best Teacher,
and nothing more could be said, then, my friends, it seems to me that
the hopes of humanity have, in the providence of God, suffered great
disaster, and a terrible indictment stands against both God and man. Oh,
yes, the death of Jesus Christ, and the whole history of the world's
treatment of Him, is an altogether incomprehensible and miserable
thing--a thing to be forgotten, and a thing to be wept over in tears of
blood, and no use for us unless we do as Peter did, apply all the warmth
of the heart to this one master key, 'for us,' and then the mystery is
only an infinitude of love and mercy. What before we could not
understand we now begin to see, and to understand the love of God which
passeth all understanding. Oh, my friends, I beseech you never think of
the cross of Christ without taking those two words. It is a necessary
explanation to make the picture beautiful: 'for us,' 'for us'; 'for me,
for me.' And then notice still further that throughout the whole of this
Epistle the comparative vagueness of the words 'for me' is interpreted
definitely. So far as the language of my text is concerned there can be
nothing more expressive, more outspoken, or more intelligible, 'Christ
also suffered for us,' for our realm. But that is not all that Peter
would have us learn. If you want to know the nature of the work, and
what the Saviour suffered on the cross for our behalf, advantage, and
benefit, here is the definition in the following verse, 'Who His own
self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we being dead to
sins should live unto righteousness.' 'For us,' not merely as an
example; 'for us,' not merely for His purity, His beautiful life and
calm death; no, better than all that, though a glorious example it is.
He has taken away our sins, we are sprinkled with the blood of Jesus
Christ; 'for us' in the sense of the words in another part of the
Epistle, 'Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with
corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of
Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,' and if so, we
are living examples of what Christ our Saviour has done for the whole
world.
There is another point I want to speak about in dwelling on the first
part of the text. If you will read this Epistle of Peter at your
leisure, you will see that while with Paul both make the cross of Christ
the centre of their teaching, Paul speaks more about His death, and
Peter more about His sufferings. Throughout the letters of Peter the
phrase runs, and the phrase has come almost entirely into modern
Christian usage from this Apostle. Paul speaks about the death, Peter
speaks of the sufferings. The eye-witness of a Loving Friend, the man
who had stood by His side through much of His sufferings (though he fled
at last), a vivid imagination of His Master's trials, and a warm heart,
led Peter to dwell not only on the one fact of the death, but also on
the accompaniments of that awful death, of the mental and physical pain,
and especially the temper of the Saviour. I shall not dwell on this,
except to make one passing remark on it, viz., that there is a kind of
preaching which prevails among the Roman Catholic Church, and is not
uncommon to many of the Protestant churches, which dwells unduly on the
physical fact of Christ's death and sufferings. I think, for my part, we
are going to the other extreme, and a great many of us are losing a very
great source of blessing to ourselves and to those whom we influence,
because we don't realise and don't dwell sufficiently on the physical
and mental sorrows and agony He went through with the death on the
cross; and one bad effect of all this is that Christ's atonement has
become to be a kind of theological jungle, and I don't know that the
popular mind can have in the ordinary way any better means of the
deliverance of Christ's cross from this theological maze than a little
more frankness and honesty in dwelling on the sorrows and pain of our
dear Lord.
Now a word about the second part. The sufferings of Christ as
represented here in the text are not only for our gain but our pattern,
leaving us an example that we should follow His steps. We are not
concerned here about the general principles of Christian ethics, and I
don't think I need dwell on them at all as being great blessings to us;
and passing from that I would rather dwell on the one specific thought
before us--on the beautiful life, the gracious words, the gentle deeds,
the wisdom, the rectitude, the tenderness, the submission to the Father
and the oblivion to Himself, which characterises the whole life of Jesus
Christ, from the very first up to the agony on the cross. We have looked
to Him as our gain, and as the head and beginning of our salvation, and
now we have to turn from that mysterious and solemn thought and look to
Him as an ideal pattern by which our life should be moulded and shaped.
'Leaving us an example.' Just as Elijah's mantle dropped from him as he
rose, so Christ in going up to the Father fluttered down on the world a
pattern which He had in His sufferings. He goes away, but the pattern
abides with us. 'Leaving us an example.' The word used here is
translated quite correctly. The word example is a very remarkable and
unusual one; it means literally a thing to be retained. You put a
copyhead before a child, and tell him to copy it, and trace it over till
he retains it; or, to come to modern English, you put the copyhead on
the top of a page. What blots, pothooks, and angles you and I make as we
are trying to write on the top of the page of life. See, there is the
pattern. Lo, another man hath written above, and you are asked to make
your life exactly the same, the same angles and the same corners--to
make your life in all respects coincide with that. My friends, we shall
all have to take our copybooks to the Master's desk some day. There will
be a headline there which Christ hath written, and one which we have
written, and how do you think we shall like to put the two side by side?
My friends, we had better do it to-day than have to do it then. There is
the pattern life; the copy is plain. I don't think I need say any more
about the other metaphor contained here. The Divine Exemplar has left us
the headline that we should follow His footsteps, and it is a blessed
thought to know that we are to follow in His own steps. 'What, cannot I
follow Thee now?' said Peter once, and you remember when the Apostle had
been restored to his office, the words of the Saviour were--'Feed My
lambs; feed My sheep; feed My lambs, follow thou Me.' This is also our
privilege. As a guide going across a wet moor with a traveller calls
out, 'Step where I step, or else you will be bogged,' so we must tread
in the steps of the Saviour, and then we shall come safe on the other
side. Tread in His steps, aye, in the steps which are marked with
bleeding feet, for 'He suffered and left us an example.' I will just add
one word, dear friends, to deepen the thought in its impressiveness,
that the cross of Christ it to be the pattern of our lives. It stands
alone, thank God, for mighty power in its relation to the salvation of
the world, and it stands alone in awful terror. You and I are, at the
very worst, but at the edge of the storm which broke in all its dreadful
fury over His head; we love to go but a little way down the hillside,
while He descended to the very bottom; we love to drink but very little
of the cup which He drained the last drop of and held it up empty and
reversed, showing that nothing trickled from it, and exclaimed, 'The cup
which My Father hath given Me have I drunk.' But although alone in all
its mighty power, and though alone in all its awful terror, it may be
copied by us in two things--perfect submission to our Maker, and
non-resistance and meekness with regard to man. There is only one way of
carrying the cross of Christ, which God lays on us all, and that is
bowing our back. If we resist, it will crush us, and if we yield we have
something to endure; and there is but one thing which enables a man to
patiently bear the sorrows and griefs which come to us all, and that is
the simple secret, 'Father, not as I will, but Thy will be done.' Christ
suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow in His
footsteps, and when we patiently do this the rod becomes a guiding
staff, and the crown of thorns a crown of glory.
But my text reminds me that the sufferings of Christ are not only our
gain and our pattern, but they are also our power to imitate--the power
to fight the battle for Christ. Example is not all. The world wants more
than that. The reason for men's badness is not because they have not
plenty of patterns of good. If a copyhead could save the world it would
have been saved long ago. Patterns of good are plenty; the mischief is
we don't copy them. There are footsteps in abundance, but then our legs
are lame, and we cannot tread in them, and what is the use of copies if
we have a broken pen, muddy ink, and soiled paper? So we want a great
deal more than that. No, my friends, the world is not to be saved by
example. You and I know that the weakness and the foolishness of men
know a great deal better than the wisest of men ever did, so we want
something more. Examples don't give the power nor the wish to get it. Is
not that true about you? Don't you feel that if this is all which
religion has given you it stops short? The gospel comes and says, 'If
you love Christ Jesus because you know that He died for you,' then there
will be something else than the copybook. That copy and pattern will be
laid to your heart and transferred there. You will not have to go on
trying to make a bungling imitation; you will get it photographed on
your spirit, and on your character more distinctly and more clearly down
to the very minutest shade of resemblance to the Master, and with simple
loving trust you will go on from strength to strength glorifying God in
your life. They that begin with the cross of Christ, and make the
sacrifice their all in all, will advance heavenward joyously; the cross
and the sacrifice will be the pattern of your pilgrimage here, and the
perfectness of your characters unto the likeness of the Son. The cross
is the agency of sanctification as well as the means of
forgiveness--saving grace to save us from the world, saving grace to
help us everywhere and in everything for our salvation, and saving grace
to help us to conquer our self-will, and saving grace to bind us to Him,
whose abundant goodness and gratitude no man can tell. If we love Him we
shall keep His commandments; if we love them we shall grow in grace, and
not else. None else, my brother, my sister, but the Eternal Exemplar
stands there as our refuge; and if you want to be filled with this
all-saving grace, deep down to the bottom of His tender heart, if you
want to be good, and of pure mind, then you have to begin with that
Saviour who died for you, and trust to the cross for your forgiveness.
Then listen to Him saying, 'Any man who comes after Me, let him take up
My cross'--take it up, mark--'and follow Me.'