Our Likeness in Christ

Background Bible Reading:  I John 4:17

Several times in the First Epistle of John we are told to be like Christ with the phrase “as He is” or “even as He”. (2:6-3:3-3:7-4:17). We are admonished to be like Him in this world and such an identification with Christ precludes any idea of a sinning religion. Matthew 1:21 says, “thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people FROM (not IN) their sins.”

The People:

Sometimes we handle the word too haphazardly or indiscriminately and when we take it out of its context we do injury to the truth. The Apostle in 4:13 identifies to whom he is writing. “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of His Spirit.”

In verse 15 he continues, “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” In our text we read that, “our love is made perfect.” These verses leave no questions as to whom John is writing. They had received His Spirit, they were dwelling in him and him in them and they were made perfect in love.

As in the Sermon on the Mount, it was not to the multitudes that Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”, but to his disciples, according to Matthew 5:1. These were those who knew him and loved him. They did not sit and listen with a critical spirit like the Pharisees but with a heart that was hungering and thirsting after righteousness. We may be full of mistakes and blunders; and be much unlearned; but if we come with a sincere, earnest heart and a boldness to learn of Him we shall never walk away empty. It is to this kind of people that the Apostle John is writing.

The Pattern:

The pattern of our life is given in the words, “as he is”. One has only to look to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, to see what the pattern is. We have a tendency to measure our lives by the wrong standard. Peter writes “As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation (living). Because it is written, be ye holy; for I am holy.”

Here we see that God is not only the standard of holiness but the source from whence it is imparted to his children. John says to be as Christ means that we are to be pure and without sin.

“Every man that hath this hope in him (the hope of being like him when he appears) purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”   This includes purity of intention and cleanliness of the heart.

Christ has provided, in “the propitiation for our sins and the sins of the whole world,” that we can be free from sin, filled with the Holy Ghost and kept by the power of God. We can be as Christ when he said, “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.”

We have the mind of Christ. His disposition was one of mercy, compassion, and the spirit of love. From creation through redemption Jesus never manifested any selfishness. His life was one of selflessness and one that was always given for others.

He made the oceans, seas, rivers, and rippling streams that man and beasts could drink but He Himself was thirsty. He created animals and fields of golden grain for man to eat but He went hungry. He did many miracles but none for Himself. He healed the broken-hearted but He died on the cross with a broken heart.

Paul tells us in Philippians that “He took upon Him the form of a servant,” and lived as an example of servant-hood. The night before He went to the cross royalty did not don Himself with a robe but with a rag. He took a basin and girded Himself with a towel and washed the Disciples feet. He said, in following, “I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.”

He epitomized true humility. He left the throne of glory to come into a world of woe. That condescension is more than man can comprehend. It was, as one stated, the stoop of the infinite to provide the finite with a Savior.

C. S. Lewis graphically illustrated this ’stoop of God’ by stating, “If we could imagine (as human beings), to be willing to lay aside the dignities of our humanness and enter the prison house of some lower form of life, say that of a dog. Yet such an exchange would be much less a sacrifice than the one that Christ made in the incarnation.”

He was obedient to the Father, “I do always those things that please Him.” In His obedience to the Father, He became obedient to the death of the cross.

The Old Testament story concerning Samuel teaches us that obedience is better than sacrifice. John teaches us, “Hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” I John 2:3-4.

Though having already mentioned, His life was one of sacrifice. He was the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. God expects nothing less from us than self-denial and total abandon to His will. This disposition was typified by Abraham when he was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac on an altar. While this offering was the type, Christ was the real, Isaac was the shadow but Christ was the substance.

Many years later, outside the gates of Jerusalem they, in reality, nailed Jesus to the cross. While blackness draped the earth as the sun hid its face and the earth trembles and quakes, the centurion smites his breast and says, “this was the Son of God.”

These are a few of the examples and qualities of the pattern of life that he revealed to us that we should live and by His grace will enable us to do it.

The Place:

We are to live like Christ in this world. In Titus 2: 11-12, the Apostle Paul says that, “the grace of God that bringeth salvation has appeared to all me. Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, IN THIS PRESENT WORLD.”

Luke 1:74-75 says “That he would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, ALL THE DAYS OF OUR LIFE.”

Through Christ we have entered into a new Kingdom. In His High Priestly prayer, Jesus praying to the Father says that, “they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil (one).”

While we live in this world, we love not the spirit of this world. Because, “whosoever will be a friend of the world is an enemy of God.”

J. H. Jowett defines ‘worldliness’ as living life in pursuit of success not holiness, living life on the horizontal level not the vertical level, a life totally centered in self not the Savior.

While on this side of the grave we are to be more and more conformed to His image. Every day we are to be more like Christ. To be Christ-like here is essential to be with Christ over there. The Kingdom within while in this world, is essential for the Kingdom that is yet to come.

The Purpose:

In Ephesians 4:1, the Apostle Paul says that we are to “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.” The word vocation, makes the whole of life a spiritual business. Whatever we do in order to pay our bills, provide for shelter, food, clothing, and any other necessity of life, is considered an AD-vocation. However our Vocation is to live our lives for the salvation of souls, bringing the lost back to Him and in so doing to glorify Christ.

We are called to be His witnesses. The only place a witness is needed is in this present world.

It has been stated that Jesus was the visible expression of the invisible Father and we, as His children, are to be the visible expression of the invisible Christ, “because as he is, so are we in this world.”