Doing What Jesus Did?

Can we do what Jesus did? Well, Jesus ate and drank and slept, and we can definitely do all that. Yet, Jesus also died for the sins of the world and rose again in triumph over sin, death and hell, and we definitely can't do that. So the answer to the question is really, it depends. Or, in the words so often delighted in by theologians of the past: ‘we distinguish.’

To distinguish is a good thing. And it's a very helpful thing indeed in the Christian life. We live in an age of soundbites and slogans; but we cannot build out lives on snippets of 280 characters (or fewer). And if we try, we're in danger of going off track, because a short, pithy slogan might contain part of the truth, but at the same time hide something equally important that goes along with it. 

And that's exactly what can happen if we talk about doing what Jesus did without making some careful distinctions. And it can be extreme. In 2006, a man who didn't make these sorts of distinctions drowned in the Atlantic Ocean because he was convinced that if Jesus could walk on water, he should be able to walk on water too. Living by simple slogans can have dangerous consequences. 

So how can we make some careful distinctions to help us think well about doing what Jesus did? Well, back in the 1700s, Thomas Charles, one of the key figures in a major revival in Wales, thought about this question. He was thinking about the need for holiness and how holiness means becoming like Jesus. Holiness, Charles wrote:

consists in possessing the mind that was in Christ, and a conformity to his image. He is the pattern which we are to copy, and the perfect example which we are to imitate. He has in his own person marked the path to glory; and we are to follow in his steps. (Spiritual Counsels, 'Sanctification', pp.67-68)

But Charles knew that he wasn't doing enough by simply pointing people to the example of Christ's life. He had to help them by making some distinctions. Holiness, after all, doesn't mean walking on water. So, he gave his readers a very helpful clarification.

Christ is to be considered in a threefold respect; as Man, Mediator, and God. What he did here on earth, as Mediator and God, is not proposed to us for our imitation ... But as Son of Man he is a bright example to us, and a perfect pattern of every virtue. (Spiritual Counsels, 'Sanctification', p.68).

Now, Charles isn't dividing Christ into three — everything Christ does He does as the God-Man. Rather, he's pointing us to how what Christ did is to be ‘considered’ — so he's telling us that we need to do some thinking about what Jesus has done. Although everything Christ did He did as the God-Man, some of what He did is only possible because He is God. And some things Jesus did He did as part of His unique role as Mediator. So, in the one and undivided person of Christ we see three things: we see God, we see the Mediator between God and us, and we see perfect man. And it's only as we look on Him in this third way that we see where we are called to do as He did. 

So we need to be careful to avoid confusing ourselves and trying to repeat what God the Son did to reveal Himself in the flesh, or to do the work of our Mediator. Christ shows us the perfect example of a sinless, God-glorifying human life, and now, because we have received His work as our Mediator, we can look to His example as the perfect pattern of the type of life God desires for us. But we need to get our looking in the right order: first we see that Jesus is God, then we see Him as our Mediator, and only then do we look at Him as our example of perfect man. If we don't know Him first as God and Mediator, His example will do us no good. For He didn't come to teach us how to save ourselves through a perfect life; He came to live and die and rise as the God-Man in our place, our only Mediator. 

Back in the Reformation, Martin Luther put it like this:

The chief article and foundation of the gospel is that before you take Christ as an example, you accept and recognize him as a gift, as a present that God has given you and that is your own. This means that when you see or hear of Christ doing or suffering something, you do not doubt that Christ himself, with his deeds and suffering, belongs to you. (What To Look For And Expect In The Gospels)

Christ is first and foremost God's gift to us — God Himself who has come in our flesh as our Mediator — and only then in light of receiving that gift can we know Him as our example, as He shows us what a human life in right relation to God looks like. 

That's the way we need to understand any call to ‘do as He did.’ We're not trying to repeat His demonstrations of His deity, nor re-do His saving work as our Mediator. We recognise Him as our Lord and our God, we receive His perfect, finished work as our Mediator with faith, thanksgiving, and joy. And then we see in Him the pattern of a godly life — the perfect pattern of every virtue.