The Christian Life a Participation Not an Imitation

In the first chapter of Bone of His Bone F. J. Huegel writes:

"Now my thesis is this: we have been proceeding upon a false basis. We have conceived of the Christian life as an Imitation of Christ. It is not an Imitation of Christ. It is a Participation of Christ. 'For we are made partakers of Christ' (Heb. iii. 14). There are good things in Thomas A. Kempis' Imitation of Christ, but the basic idea is false to the principles that underlie the Christian life. To proceed on the basis of Imitation, will plunge us in just the sort of slough of despond Paul found himself in when he wrote Romans vii.

"We are not what Christ would have us to be; the Sermon on the Mount does not find expression in our attitudes; sin as a principle is still rampant in our lives; we are not free from envy, pride, self-love, and lust of pleasure; the mountain of secret selfishness still crushes us and in spite of all our efforts remains immovable; there is little joy, so little freedom of spirit, none of that rapture which so characterized the primitive Christians; we agonize, and bleed, and struggle, -- but failure dogs our footsteps. What is the matter? We are proceeding upon a false basis. We are attempting to do what the Saviour Himself never expected us to do. The Christian life is not an Imitation.

"The great dilemma of which we have been speaking resolves itself into most simple terms when we grasp this distinction between Imitation and Participation.

"For, what is impossible to me as an imitator of Christ, becomes perfectly natural as a participant of Christ. It is Only when Christ nullifies the force of my inherent 'self life,' and communicates to me a Divine life, that Christian living in its true sense, is at all possible for me. I must be born again. 'The flesh profiteth nothing.' Without Jesus I can do nothing. I must live in Him and, renouncing my own life, find in Him a 'new life.'

"Now to this 'new life,' the Christian requirements, so incomprehensible and unattainable while we move in the realm of the 'flesh-life,' are all simple. They are nothing more nor less than statements regarding its modus operandi. The Sermon on the Mount so far from cramping in any way this new life, is simply a statement of the way it operates.

"The trouble is, we have not listened to Jesus. He tells us that we must abide in Him as a branch in the Vine. Matthew v, vi, vii, without John xv, would be like so many freight cars without an engine, or like a whale without water, or a bird without air.

"In that upper-room interview, the Master, knowing that it was His last opportunity to impress fundamentals upon His disciples, places the supreme emphasis upon this mystical union, this spiritual oneness with Himself of all believers--this sublime fact of participation. 'Abide in Me and I in you.' Our failures only confirm the Saviour's Word, for He said: 'Without Me ye can do nothing.'

"No, we are not called upon to imitate Christ. The truth of the matter is, there would be little virtue after all in that sort of thing. Paul said so, in effect, in the oft-quoted 1 Corinthians xiii--the love chapter. It could only be a wooden, artificial thing. Even here Jesus would say: 'The flesh profiteth nothing.' Some years ago in the country where I was doing missionary work, this sort of thing was carried to its nth degree, when a zealous devotee had himself crucified, literally nailed to a cross where his parents found him dead, when they came to his rescue. The Church rightly does not acclaim that sort of thing, and yet theoretically she proceeds, in the case of vast multitudes of her children, upon this false basis of Imitation.

"The Christian is not called upon to strain over a role as an actor would agonize over lines poorly learned. The Christian life in the thought of God is infinitely more blessed and compelling. 'We are made partakers of Christ' (Heb. iii. 14) . Exceeding great and precious promises are given us, 'that by these we might be partakers of the Divine Nature' (ii Pet. i. 4). The Believer is grafted into the Trunk of the Eternal Godhead. 'I am the Vine, Ye are the Branches.'

"'The riches of the glory of this mystery--Christ in you the hope of glory' (Col. i. 27)."