This model is lovable; this model is imitable. He is perfect too, as even those admit who deny His divinity. He practiced all the virtues and to a heroic degree. In Him there is the profound humility that washes the feet of His disciples, but there is no subservience. In Him there is sweetness and gentleness but also a terrific strength that fearlessly drives buyers and sellers out of the temple, that never for a moment quails before His powerful enemies. You will find Him abounding in mercy towards the sinner, be his degradation ever so great; but sin He denounces with a vehemence and energy that are shattering. Hypocrisy in any form He loathed, and His own limpid sincerity could not be doubted even by those who set themselves up to judge and condemn Him.
His motives, too, were perfect. He sought self in nothing He did or taught, but only the greater glory of God. He charged His enemies with acting from human respect, He blamed them for their lipservice of God, He told them plainly that they made a show of divine worship only because they wanted to enrich themselves. They winced under the lashes of His words, which they well knew were true; and when He challenged them to retaliate by accusing Himself of similar faults, they remained silent and faded out of the picture.
Says the Protestant historian Lecky: "It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character, which, through all the changes of nineteen centuries, has inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love; has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments, and conditions; has been not only the highest pattern of virtue but the strongest incentive to its practice, and has exercised so deep an influence that it may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists."
Jesus Christ reveals in His character the holiness of God. God in His divinity was too far exalted above us, and men, even the most perfect, are always insufficient to serve as a pattern. So Jesus lived a Godlike life, could tell us that whoever sees Him sees also the Father, and therefore whoever imitated Him, and in the measure he imitated, would attain most certainly to sanctity.
Jesus is the anvil on which to test the genuineness of all holiness. That virtue is only specious that deviates from its counterpart in Him. He is the way to the Father, and no man can come to the Father except through Him. "Other foundation no man can lay but that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus." In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, and sanctity means a sharing in the very life of God by grace.
Jesus, Model; Jesus lovable; Jesus imitable; Jesus perfect, You have come into the world to sanctify us, to save us. Soul of Christ, sanctify me ... never permit me to be separated from You, for separation from You spells loss of all I hold most dear. Break down every barrier that my sinful and imperfect life has erected, and I will begin again to try to imitate You.