For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps…Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree,…that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness.
—1 Peter 2:21, 24
The call to follow Christ’s example is so high that there is every reason to wonder, How can sinful men be expected to walk like Jesus? The answer that most people give is: “The command sets before us an ideal that is beautiful, but unattainable.”
The answer Scripture gives is different. It points us to the wonderful relationship in which we stand to Christ. The realization 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 wrote in the above passage of Christ as our Surety, our Example, and our Head.
Christ is our Surety. Christ suffered and died in our stead. He bore our sin, and broke its curse and power. As Surety, He did what we could not do.
Christ is also our Example. His suffering as my Surety calls me to a suffering like His as my Example. But is there not an impassable gulf between these two things, the suffering as Surety and the suffering as Example? No, there is a blessed third aspect of Christ’s work that is the connecting link between Christ as Surety and Christ as Example.
Christ is also our Head. In this, His surety and His example have their unity. As a believer, I am spiritually one with Him. In this union, He imparts to me the power of His sufferings and death and resurrection. The very life that Christ lives works in the believer. Thus, he is dead, and has risen again with Christ.
To follow in His footsteps is a duty. Because it is a possibility, it is the natural result of the union between Head and members. It is only when this is understood that the blessed truth of Christ’s example will take its right place. I have to gaze on His example so as to know and follow it. On the other, I have to abide in Him, and open my heart to the blessed workings of His life in me. As surely as He conquered sin and its curse for me, He will conquer it in its power over me. Because my Surety is also my Head, Christ as Example must and will be the rule of my life.