Imitating the Ideal

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 3, 1908

Imitating the Ideal

THERE are those who deny to Jesus Christ his unique position as both Son of man and Son of God, but who emphasize the purity of his character, and hold up his example as worthy of imitation. They are willing to bestow hero-worship upon “the prophet of Nazareth,” and view him as an ideal to be copied, but do not acknowledge his divinity or the necessity of accepting his righteousness as the only basis of perfection of character.

The practical consequence of this kind of teaching, and the vital difference between a merely human effort to imitate the perfect copy and the divine gift of power for righteousness, have been clearly presented in an article by Dr. Louis Matthews Sweet, in the Bible Record for November, from which we take the following paragraphs:—

We are ready to concede all that a reasonable person is likely to claim as to the general tendency of an ideal to get itself embodied in the life of one who admires and pursues it. But the ideal of Christ is not like other ideals,—the embodiment of superiority on the same general plane of existence,—and we protest that merely as an ideal, as a model for our copying, there is full as much of discouragement as of inspiration in the life of Christ.

We have read what Channing has to say about the inimitableness of Christ’s character, and we have put it to the test of honest trial; and there is far more to be learned from the trial than from the famous sermon. Here is an appropriate place for a man to open the New Testament, and soak mind and heart with the character, in all its range and intensity, in all its beauty and elevation, of the Sonship which he would imitate and reproduce. Let him not forget that Christ’s attitude to God was the index, as it was the outcome, of all that he was. To reproduce his attitude to God, it is not enough to tread a chalk-line of outward correctness, to do certain things in a certain way, but to realize in actual fact the spirit and atmosphere of a life which was the outward expression of a mind without a cloud, of a heart without a stain, and of a will in perfect harmony with God. What one of us is competent to this business? To reproduce the Christ life and to embody the Christ spirit, is the Christian’s task; but who can ever come at it in the way of imitation? If sincere and earnest men become discouraged and disheartened in their attempts to obey the law of Moses, what is likely to happen to the man who attempts to imitate Christ? It is along this line that men come to learn the depth of their own need. Those who know

themselves know well that they need and must have a Saviour who will open the way to God, and confirm and reinforce their own wavering and uncertain impulses toward the right. To give them anything else is to mock them with the desert mirage of the unattainable, whereas the prophet promised that the mirage should become a pool of water (Isa. 35:7, marginal reading); the ideal, the actual. To sum up once more: That can not be the essence of Christianity which makes it another yoke of legal bondage by denying the help needed to enable us to carry out the task it lays upon us.

To one who has tasted of the riches of Christ, this humanistic “essence” of Christianity is a very thin and unsatisfactory thing. Christianity is historically and essentially a supernatural and redemptive system. It is a religion, not a philosophy nor an ethic. This does not mean that it is not rational and ethical to the core. Nor does it mean that the life of Christ has no value nor inspiration for the Christian. The life of Christ is the revelation of Christ, without which a knowledge of him would be impossible. It is also the revelation of the life unto which we are saved. To follow him by the outward way of imitation is to attempt heaven with scaling-ladders—the height of the wall is the measure of failure. To follow him by the inward path of self-surrender is to obey the deepest law of our being, and to find that the ideal, and the power to make it actual, flow forth from the same personal fountain of light and life.