The call to follow Christ’s example and to walk in His footsteps is so high that there is every reason to wonder, How can sinful men be expected to walk like the Son of God? The answer that most people give is based on human reasoning – it cannot really be expected. The command sets before us an ideal, beautiful but unattainable.

The answer Scripture gives is different. It points us to the wonderful relationship in which we stand to Christ. Because our union to Him stirs within us a heavenly life with all its powers, the claim that we should live as Christ did may be made in downright earnest. The realisation of this relationship between Christ and His people is necessary for everyone who is serious in following Christ’s example.

And what is this relationship? It is threefold. Peter speaks in this passage of Christ as our Surety, our Example, and our Head.

Christ is our Surety. “Christ also suffered for us… who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree.”  As Surety, Christ suffered and died in our stead. He bore our sin, and at once broke its curse and power. As Surety, He did what we could not do, what we now need not do.

Christ is also our Example. In one sense, His work is unique. In another, we have to follow Him in it; we must do as He did, live and suffer like Him. “Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps.” His suffering as my Surety calls me to a suffering like His as my Example. But is this reasonable? In His sufferings as Surety, He had the power of the divine nature, and how can I be expected in the weakness of the flesh to suffer as He did? Is there not an impassable gulf between these two things which Peter unites so closely, the suffering as Surety and the suffering as Example? No, there is a blessed third aspect of Christ’s work which bridges that gulf, which is the connecting link between Christ as Surety and Christ as Example, which makes it possible for us to suffer and die like Him.

Christ is also our Head. In this, His Suretyship and His Example have their root and unity. Christ is the second Adam. As a believer, I am spiritually one with Him. In this union, He lives in me and imparts to me the power of His finished work, the power of His sufferings, death and resurrection. It is on this ground that we are taught, in Romans 6 and elsewhere, that the Christian is indeed dead to sin and alive to God. The very life that Christ lives – the life that passed through death and the power of that death – works in the believer. Thus, he is dead, and has risen again with Christ. It is this thought that Peter utters when he says: “Who His own self bore our sins upon the tree,” not only that we, through His death, might receive forgiveness, but “that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness.”

As we have part in the spiritual death of the first Adam, having really died to God in him, so we have part in the second Adam, having really died to sin in Him. In Him, we are made alive again to God. Christ is not only our Surety who lived and died for us, our Example who showed us how to live and die, but also our Head, with whom we are one, in whose death we have died, in whose life we now live.

These three truths may not be separated from each other. And yet, this happens much too often. There are some who wish to follow Christ’s Example without faith in His atonement. They seek to find within themselves the power to live like Him: their efforts are in vain. There are others who firmly believe in the Suretyship but neglect the Example. They believe in redemption through the blood of the cross, but neglect the footsteps of Him who bore it. Faith in the atonement is indeed the foundation of the building, but it is not all. Theirs, too, is a deficient Christianity, with no true view of sanctification, because they do not see how, along with faith in Christ’s atonement, following His Example is indispensably necessary.

To follow His footsteps is a duty. It is the natural result of the wonderful union between Head and members. It is only when this is correctly understood that the blessed truth of Christ’s Example will take its rightful place. There is nothing that weakens the power of Christ’s Example so much as the thought that we cannot really walk like Him. Do not listen to such thoughts. The perfect likeness in heaven is begun on earth, can grow with each day, and will become more visible as life goes on.

As certain and mighty as the work of Surety which Christ, your Head, completed once and for all, is the renewal after His own image, which He is still working out. Let this double blessing make the cross doubly precious: Our Head suffered as a Surety, that in union with us He might bear sin for us. Our Head suffered as an Example, that He might show us the path on which, in union with Himself, He would lead us to victory and to glory. The suffering Christ is our Head, our Surety and our Example.

And so, the great lesson I have to learn is the wonderful truth that it is in that mysterious path of suffering – in which He worked out our atonement and redemption – that we are to follow His footsteps. The full experience of that redemption depends on the personal fellowship in that suffering. “Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example.” May the Holy Spirit reveal to me what this means.

Prayer: Precious Saviour, how can I thank you for the work You have done as Surety? Standing in the place of me, a guilty sinner, You have borne my sins in Your body on the cross. The cross was my due. You took it, and were made like me, that thus the cross might be changed into a place of blessing and life. And now You call me to the place of crucifixion as the place of blessing and life. There, I may be made like You, and may find in You power to suffer and to cease from sin. Precious Saviour, I confess that I have not fully understood this. Your Suretyship was more to me than Your Example. I rejoiced much that You had borne the cross for me, but too little that I, like You and with You, might also bear the cross. The atonement of the cross was more precious to me than the fellowship of the cross. The hope in Your redemption was more precious than personal fellowship with You. Forgive me this, dear Lord, and teach me to find my happiness in union with You, my Head, and not more in Your Suretyship than in Your Example. And grant that, in my meditations as to how I am to follow You, my faith may become stronger and brighter: Jesus is my Example because He is my life. I must and can be like Him, because I am one with Him. Grant this, blessed Lord, for Your love’s sake. Amen.”