For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”
Paul has pointed to Christ as the eternal God and perfect Man in the book of Romans. He lead us through the doctrines of predestination and election, justification and sanctification, the old sin nature and the new creation in Christ, the flesh and the spirit, and law and grace. Paul was most thorough in his outstanding epistle to systematically set out every aspect of Church-age doctrine…so that we have no doubt that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ. But here, for the first time, we come to a section where he introduces a totally new concept…Christ as our example. Paul portrays the life of Jesus as the exemplification of what a godly life should be. He was not only our representative sin-offering, but His life stands as a witness to what a godly life should look like…a life that is lived in accordance with God’s plan for humanity. Whether rich or poor, young or old, male or female, Jew or Gentile, Jesus is held up as the perfect example of a life lived to the praise and glory of God. In a sinful word and hostile environment, Jesus is seen as living His earthly life in the way that God intended mankind to live when God formed man in His own image and breathed into him the breath of life. Jesus indeed demonstrated His zeal for the House of God as exemplified in His life and actions, when he overthrew the tables of the money changers and cried out in fury: You have made My Father’s House into a den thieves. He also demonstrated a Man who had a passion for God…for His food was to do the will of His Father and His joy was to do only those things that He heard from His Father in heaven. Jesus set aside His own desires and needs because of His love for His Father in heaven but Christ also had to suffer the reproaches of men because of His Father, which was due to His relationship to His Father. The insults of those who hated God were transferred as a concentrated loathing onto Christ Himself, for we read that: the insults of those who insult You, fell on Me.’ Jesus was the chosen Servant of God who had to suffer the insults of sinful men, who transferred their insults, loathing and hatred of God onto a hatred, loathing and reproach of Christ. We are not of this world for we have been born-again into a new creation and have been imputed with the nature of Christ. How fitting that we should become imitators of Him…not in what He did for He was truly God, and we are not, but in how He lived. For He was truly Man, and so are we. Jesus lived His life as unto the Lord and for the eternal benefit of all mankind. He only said and did those things that He heard from His Father and suffered insults for His love of God and the people of God. Let us seek to live as He lived…in total obedience to God, only doing those things that we hear from Him, showing a zeal for His Word and a deep love for the Church, which is His Body, knowing that it is fitting a right that we should live as unto the Lord, for His greater glory.
Spiritual Steve 