Dream of a Master Sculptor

In the dream factory of my mind, I saw a Master Sculptor. I, a crude block of human nature sit before Him. On a shelf, I see a chisel with the inscription: DIVINE TRUTH. As He reaches to lift the mallet with the word POWER written on it, I close my eyes . The Holy Spirit then begins His work of shaping me into the image of the divine with many hard blows and sharp incisions.

Christ is the great Sculptor who sculptures every Christian. We develop to the stature of the fullness of Christ by growth in His wonderful grace and knowledge. Whether the perfection is attained here on earth or not, we will be the likeness and glory of God when we awake in eternity. We shall then be like Jesus, and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit will be complete. How beautiful and glorious! For surely eye have not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart conceived our exalted state.

The splendid symbolism of the “bride adorned for her husband,” the “New Jerusalem,” “coming down from God out of heaven,” seen by John in Revelation, gives us some conception of the grandeur of our perfection in Christ in the heavenly realm. We are “complete in Him,” perfect in justification and righteousness imputed, perfect in divine and eternal life imparted, and to be perfect in that sanctifying growth which shall fill out our moral and spiritual stature in the form of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ said to the world, “Follow me.” He spoke as man never spoke. He made no mistakes in judgment, committed no fault in morals. His exemplification of divine life in work and teaching, in trial and suffering, in self-denial and self-sacrifice, finds no parallel in the history of the world and He uttered a doctrine and gave a system of beliefs that is absolutely faultless. Jesus Christ was Perfect God and at the same time perfect man. He became so allied to human nature with all its desires and infirmities that He lived and died with a perfect human experience and a perfect human character.

Our Lord is not a distant figure to be philosophically or aesthetically gazed upon with awe; because He came down to us in concrete form, the “God with us” thereby entering into us that we might enter into Him. Nestled at His feet, we look into the face of a loving Friend who knows and feels our wants and gives to our hungering hearts every needed blessing and grace. We have a living and loving Brother who knows and helps us to study Himself; assisting us in developing into His likeness and following His footsteps under the guidance of His truth and the inspiration of His Spirit.

No other being since time began could have said, “Follow me.” Paul did say, “Follow me as I follow Christ;” but in this injunction, he held up Christ first as our model. No human being, in himself and in light of his own excellence, could say, “Follow me” - that is, in the sense of a design for eternity. Some men and women have lived and died excellent moral examples for the life we now live; but the brighter the light they cast upon the world, the clearer they recognized their own imperfection and sinfulness. The perfect Job said he was a worm’s brother, that he abhorred himself in “dust and ashes” when he came to fully see himself in the justification of God, and the same for the best who have lived. Their lives and characters, under the microscope of God, would magnify into lines of hideous shape and contortion. There are none good, no, not one. The great Apostle Paul said of himself, “no good thing dwells in me.” There has never been one single perfect human model to imitate, and not one, however perfect or perfectly imitated, could have transformed us into characters fit for heaven. Jesus alone could say, “Follow Me,” He alone could say, “Come unto me and learn,” for in the school of Christ the soul could find rest and refreshment from God, wisdom and peace from above. As Teacher and Exemplar Christ eclipses with transcendent glory all the educators of time. He tells and shows us how to live and how to die, and He brings with vivid reality and accuracy the panorama of eternity before our eyes.

In patience, fortitude and bravery, we see the moral transcendent in man when Jesus stood before Pilate, and sweat drops of blood in Gethsemane, and died on Calvary. In toil and in tears we behold Him conquering all things with the stern strokes of love. He illustrated that great truth that sympathy and love alone brings health, hope, and joy to a suffering and degraded world. In all things, He taught us that the real power of the intellect lies in the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom, and in the love of God, which is the end of wisdom. Jesus is “the way, the truth, the life,” and no other finger has ever pointed us across the hills of time to the hills of eternity.

The way of the cross is the only way, the truth of the cross is the only truth, the life of the cross is the only life, and nothing but Perfection incarnate could have ever transformed the cross, the symbol of human iniquity, human shame, and human punishment, into an badge of divine grace, divine honor, and divine justification.

However hampered by the ailments of the flesh or tempted by Satan, or mocked, opposed, and crucified by the world, Jesus Christ lived, worked, and died like God. And, it is the testimony of saints everywhere, that that young Hebrew was above all the Savior of the world. Saints everywhere rest in the certain knowledge that whatever may be the greatness of future men, Jesus Christ, can never be surpassed. No one else can ever issue the universal proclamation, “Come,” and no one else can ever issue the universal commission, “Go.”