IT IS A LIFE CONFORMED TO GOD’S PERFECT PATTERN (CON’T)

But the perfection of His character did not consist so much in the negative quality of sinlessness as in the positive one of holiness—a holiness so rare, so wondrous, so unearthly that it compelled His Father to break the silence of heaven three times that He might speak forth His divine appreciation and evaluation of it.

Luke 1:35

“And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”

Matthew 17:5

“While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.”

The God-man’s surpassing perfection is seen again most wondrously in His regal righteousness and His sacrificial love. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” He was despised, persecuted, rejected, and finally crucified by the very ones He came to save yet there was never a trace of bitterness, malice, or revenge in His heart. Even from the cross He prayed for His murderers. He was reviled, yet He showed no trace of retaliation; He suffered unjustly and made no threats of redress. When He drove the money changers from the Temple and spoke the scorching, scathing denunciations of the hypocritical Pharisees, it was but the outward expression of His own regal righteousness. Whether dealing with friend or foe, in mercy or in judgment, Christ Jesus was always the perfect pattern.

1 Peter 2:21-23

“For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.”

But it was in His sacrificial love for men that the perfection of Christ’s character shone forth even more than in His righteous treatment of them. Christ Jesus never pampered or pleased Himself. Though weary and hungry, the soul need of a prostitute in Samaria would detain Him by Jacob’s well while the others went on into town to buy food; His night’s sleep was gladly forfeited that He might talk with the man who feared to come to Him by day; He did not stop short with self-emptying and self-humbling, costly as they were, but kept on giving Himself even unto death, the death of the cross. The perfect pattern is the God-man pouring out His soul unto death in sacrificial love.

John 15:12

“This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.”

The spiritual man is the man who lives his daily life according to the perfect pattern. In Him are to be found the same constituent moral and spiritual elements which were regnant in the character and conduct of the God-man. He has made the will of Jesus Christ the center and the circumference of his life, so he is obedient. He acknowledges that he has no life apart from Christ and takes the Lord Jesus for everything in his inner life, his environment, and his service, and so he is dependent. The spiritual man has crowned Christ, Lord and placed his life entirely under the control of his Master, therefore he is gloriously victorious. He has appropriated Christ as the Life of his life; hence he becomes the partaker of His holiness. The spiritual man has accepted Christ’s commission as one sent into the world to save sinners even as Christ accepted this commission from His Father, so his attitude to all men whether friend or foe is based on Christ’s principles of righteousness and love.

The spiritual man is one who is being conformed to the image of Christ, the perfect pattern. When this has been said, everything has been said. In God’s reckoning there is nothing for man beyond conformity to the image of His Son. Christ is God’s perfection, and to be fully conformed to His image means to be perfect before Him.

The process of conformity is going on day by day in the spiritual man’s life. It is a transformation from obedience to obedience, dependence to dependence, victory to victory, holiness to holiness, righteousness to righteousness and love to love. As the spiritual man gets a larger vision of this perfect pattern through daily study of God’s Word, he takes higher ground along the line of the God-given revelation, so that his life is a continuous growing up into Christ in all things.

2 Corinthians 3:18

“But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.”

Ephesians 4:15

“But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.”

The consummation of this conformity will not be experienced until the Lord Jesus returns to take His own to be forever beyond the presence of sin into the presence of the Savior (1 John 3:2). 

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

This is our destiny. Lord, You have revealed to us that this life is possible! The time is coming when there will be no longer the power of sin, penalty of sin, or presence of sin. Hallelujah!!