Walking as He Walked

Walking as He Walked

with Study Guide

Joel R. Beeke

Reformation Heritage Books

and

Bryntirion Press

Copyright © 2007 Joel R. Beeke

Published by

Reformation Heritage Books

2965 Leonard St. NE

Grand Rapids, MI 49525

USA

616-977-0599 / Fax 616-285-3246

e-mail: orders@heritagebooks.org

website: www.heritagebooks.org

and

Bryntirion Press

Bridgend

CF31 4DX

Wales, UK

ISBN #978-1-60178-010-2

ISBN #978-1-60178-239-7 (epub)

Second Printing, August 2007

Contents

Preface

1. Jesus’ Crossbearing and Ours

2. Jesus’ Office-bearing and Ours

3. Jesus’ Tears and Ours

4. Jesus’ Endurance and Ours

Study Guide

Preface

When Spurgeon preached his first message in the newly built Metropolitan Tabernacle in March 1861, he made it very clear what he intended to be the major theme of his ministry. His text was Acts 5:42, And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. He lamented the fact that from this message the post-apostolic church soon began a long decline and spoke of ceremonial and church offices rather than the person of our Lord. In our age, Spurgeon affirmed, we too have gone from preaching Christ to preaching doctrines about Christ, inferences which may be drawn from His life, or definitions which may be gathered from His discourses.

Christianity is the Christ of biblical and historical facts. It is a religion of a book authored by men who knew our Savior intimately and were given His inspiration and authority to write about Him. We pass on to our generation and to every single congregation the message they have given to us as the foundation for our lives and the life of our congregations. Paul is our pattern for preaching. He tells the essential facts about Christ, interprets those facts clearly, and then urges men to apply the truth by faith to their lives. The marks of a true ambassador of Christ are telling and interpreting the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and then pleading with sinners in Christ’s stead to be reconciled to God by repenting and receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

In Aberystwyth, on the west coast of Wales in the summer of 2006, one such ambassador from Grand Rapids came once again to our Principality and delivered four addresses on the example of Christ. The impact in print is considerable now. To have heard them delivered in the wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit is even now unforgettable. Dr. Beeke is in a class of his own when it comes to exegetical and ex­pository preaching. He never disappoints. He is always fresh, illuminating, and in­structive. Furthermore, he is not content to be limited by the immediate text but invariably applies it to the wider canvas of Holy Scripture and the range of people listening, converted and unconverted, backsliding Christian and earnest disciple, those who lack assurance and those who know whom they have believed. The result is often a mini-theology on such topics as the person and work of Christ, repentance and faith, marks of spurious faith, the substitutionary character of the cross, and the true message of the gospel. The challenge, application, and constant call for closure with Christ, marks the whole work. The sermons are not only didactic, they are thoroughly evan­gelistic in the biblical sense.

If you believe, as this writer does, that the most urgent need today is for a new reforma­tion and true revival, then what can be said of this book is that it breathes the atmosphere of the Holy Spirit. Naturally, the style is sermonic rather than an academic thesis. But it is so easy to read, immediately impacting, spiritu­ally uplifting, and results in sheer joy and pleasure. Christians of all shades and interests can only be enriched by such material. Young and older will find help here.

—Geoff Thomas

— 1 —

Jesus’ Crossbearing and Ours

The theme Walking as He Walked is drawn from 1 John 2:6, which says that those who abide in Christ should walk, even as he walked. John says that if we truly belong to Christ, our manner of life will conform with Christ’s. If we are not in Christ, we have not yet begun to walk like Christ; but if we are in Christ, we have begun to walk like Christ. In other words, walking as Christ walked is not optional for the Christian; it is what it means to be a Christian. If we are true Christians, we are striving for more Christlikeness and welcome any help along the way.

We will not, of course, fully reach our goal of Christlikeness until we reach heaven. As the Puritan William Fenner pointed out: None of us in this life will walk so purely, so unspottedly, so steadily, so effectually as Christ lived, though this is our goal while running the Christian race (Works, p. 315). Just as an aspiring student of art learns from an experienced artist how to paint, so we learn from the perfect Savior how to walk like Him.

Walking as Christ walked is an inexhaustible theme that encompasses all of the Christian life. There are scores of ways in which Christ calls us to walk, think, speak, and live as He did. Walking as Christ walked means making Jesus’ priorities my own by faith (John 6:38). It means delighting in and keeping God’s law as Jesus did (Ps. 40:8). It means having compassion for others, repaying evil with good, and acting in love (John 13:15; 1 Pet. 2:23; Luke 23:34). It means despising the same pleasures and vanities of this world that He despised, speaking and living the same truths that He spoke and lived, and being led by the same Spirit that led Him (Rom. 8:14).

When I began outlining my first draft of possible ways to address this vast subject, I soon had a list of a dozen or more titles, such as Jesus’ Mind and Our Mind, Jesus’ Peace and Our Peacemaking, Jesus’ Love and Our Love, Jesus’ Mercy and Our Mercy, Jesus’ Servanthood and Our Servanthood, Jesus’ Intercession and Our Praying, Jesus’ Persecution and Our Persecution, and Jesus’ Obedience and Our Obedience. Then, too, I thought about individual chapters that focus on the theme of walking like Christ, such as Ephesians 5, which speaks about walking in Christlike love (v. 2), Christlike light (v. 8), Christlike circumspection (v. 17), and Christlike submission (v. 21). And I thought it would be good to write at least one chapter on how we are not to walk like Christ—for we are not to act as if we are divine or partake of Christ’s incommunicable attributes. In the end, however, I settled on four ways—all resisted by our natural flesh—in which we must strive to be like Christ: (1) crossbearing, (2) office-bearing, (3) tears, and (4) endurance. Becoming like Christ in each of these ways is challenging; yet, if we learn them from Christ, our Christian walk will greatly profit.

The first subject, then, is crossbearing. Certainly there are few subjects more challenging and more avoided than crossbearing. Yet crossbearing is foundational to our Christian walk. Without bearing your crosses after Christ, you cannot be a Christian. Jesus said plainly in Luke 14:27, Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

In Christian discipleship, the cross or cross-bearing is a metaphor for suffering and burden-bearing, and involves the taxing and tasting of the strength of our faith. John Calvin taught that crossbearing is an intimate part of the Christian life. He said that those who are in fellowship with Christ must prepare for suffering. One major reason for this is the believer’s perpetual union with Christ. Because Jesus’ life was a perpetual cross, ours must also include suffering. Through crossbearing, we not only participate in the benefits of Christ’s atonement, but we also experience the Spirit’s work of transforming us into the image of Christ.

Crossbearing tests our faith. Through crossbearing, Calvin said, we are roused to hope, trained in patience, instructed in obedience, and chastened for our pride. Crossbearing is our medicine and our chastisement. Through it, we are shown the feebleness of our flesh and are taught to suffer for the sake of righteousness (Institutes, 3.8.1-9). For all these reasons, crossbearing is critical for us. How do we learn to do it?

Let’s look at the theme of Jesus’ Crossbearing and Ours by considering how Jesus and Simon the Cyrenian carried the cross. Our texts are Mark 15:21, And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross, and its parallel passage, Luke 23:26, And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus. Drawing from these texts, we’ll discuss, first, a cursed crossbearer; next, a coerced crossbearer; then, finally, a conquered crossbearer.

A Cursed Crossbearer

Mark 15 shows us how Jesus’ own people rejected Him, crying out, Away with this man; crucify him. They preferred to release from prison Barabbas, a leading criminal, rather than Jesus.

The verses preceding our text detail how Jesus was cruelly mistreated in Pilate’s judgment hall. Soldiers placed a crown of thorns on Jesus’ head. They slapped His head with a reed, spat upon Him, and mocked Him by robing Him like a king. Then they tore the robe off His bloody back, put His clothes back on, and laid a heavy cross across His shoulders. Jesus was led out of Jerusalem, the city in which God dwelled in the midst of His people. The everlasting Son of God, the only worthy one in Jerusalem, was led out of Jerusalem as an outcast.

Jesus predicted this treatment when He told the parable of the