Jesus Christ as only an example will crush you. You'll never be able to live up to it. But Jesus Christ as the Lamb will save you.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the difference between viewing Jesus as an unattainable standard versus as a source of grace and salvation.
Timothy Keller's quote highlights two contrasting perceptions of Jesus Christ: one as a perfect example whose morally unattainable life can lead to despair, and the other as the forgiving Lamb who offers grace and salvation. By recognizing Jesus primarily in the latter role, believers can find hope and solace rather than being crushed by the weight of perfectionism.
In practice
During a sermon discussing faith and grace, one could use this quote to illustrate how to approach the concept of perfection.
Falling in love in a Christian way is to say,'I am excited about your future and I want to be part of getting you there. I'm signing up for the journey with you. Would you sign up for the journey to my true self with me? It's going to be hard but I want to get there.
Only in Jesus Christ do we see how the untamable, infinite God can become a baby and a loving Savior. On the cross we see how both the love and the holiness of God can be fulfilled at once.
All human problems are ultimately symptoms, and our separation from God is the cause.
While your character flaws may have created mild problems for other people, they will create major problems for your spouse and your marriage.
To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.
God's Kingdom is "present in its beginnings, but still future in its fullness. This guards us from an under-realized eschatology (expecting no change now) and an over-realized eschatology (expecting all change now). In this stage, we embrace the reality that while we're not yet what we will be, we're also no longer what we used to be.
The great thing about irony is that it splits things apart, gets up above them so we can see the flaws and hypocrisies and duplicates.
I am convinced that all our attempts to change the letter of the law and to reeducate people have been, and are, merely band-aid solutions for a fatal hemorrhage. The system will never change because our starting point is flawed. The secular view of man can neither give the grandeur that God alone can give, nor can it see the evil within the human heart that God alone can reveal and cure, for atheism implicitly denudes each individual of the grand image God has imprinted upon His creation.
Retirement may be looked upon either as a prolonged holiday or as a rejection, a being thrown on to the scrap-heap.
When our founding fathers drafted the Constitution and Bill of Rights, black people weren't even considered human.
No system of regulation can safely be substituted for the operation of individual liberty as expressed in competition.
God's people are not to accumulate stuff for tomorrow but to share indiscriminately with the scandalous and holy confidence that God will provide for tomorrow. Then we need not stockpile stuff in barns or a 401(k), especially when there is someone in need.
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