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‘Christ also suffered for us … the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.’
1Pe_2:21-25
I. The Exalted Christ is the perfect pattern to His Church.—
(a) He suffered for us—should we not, therefore, willingly follow in His footsteps, and, as His disciples, bear the cross? But to be fashioned like Him we must look well into the holy passion of our Saviour, that we may be changed into the same image, ‘and be made conformable to His death.’
(b) Christ suffered though perfectly innocent. He suffered the just for the unjust (1Pe_2:22). We are sinful, and yet called upon at times to suffer wrongly and ‘for conscience’ sake’ (1Pe_2:19); and Christ has left us an example of this.
(c) Christ suffered patiently (1Pe_2:23). The word of the prophet was fulfilled. ‘He opened not His mouth.’ There was no word reviling or threatening. How this example shames some of the best Christians!
II. The Exalted Christ is the complete Redeemer of His Church (1Pe_2:24).
(a) The offering of Christ is here regarded in its atoning aspect. He has reconciled us to God (Isa_53:5; Col_1:14).
(b) The offering of Christ is also regarded in its sanctifying efficacy. ‘That we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness.”
III. The Exalted Christ is the faithful Shepherd of His Church (1Pe_2:25).
(a) Man is as a strayed and lost sheep. What a picture is this of the natural man! Here St. Peter doubtless recalls the inimitable parable of our Lord recorded in St. Luke’s Gospel—the Pauline Gospel, as it has been called—but from this evidently all within the knowledge of St. Peter, even if not recorded in the Gospel of St. Mark, where His influence is traceable.
(b) Christ is the true Seeker of the lost sheep, the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls.
Illustration
‘It is Christ’s glory that He is the image of His Father; it is our glory to be like Him. St. John says: “We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him.” It is one of the eternal purposes of the Divine Mind that every redeemed sinner shall at last resemble in holiness the Saviour Who redeemed Him; “whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate”—to what? Was it that we should live careless, ungodly lives for a few years here on earth, and then to go in that carelessness, and ungodliness to heaven? No. The destiny which God has determined for every true Christian is: “to be conformed to the image of His Son.” That Son is not to stand alone in the universe; the same Scripture says, He is to be the Head of a large family all like Him, “the Firstborn among many brethren.” For this purpose the Holy Spirit is sent down into our hearts, not simply to lead us to Christ, and to bring us through faith into union and fellowship with Him, but to work day by day within us to mould us into His likeness. And we ourselves too are commanded to labour after conformity to Him. We are to be followers of Him, to have the same mind in us that was in Him, and so to walk even as He walked.’