We must, according to Paul, imitate Christ in our treatment of one another. This should be obvious, after all, what is a Christian except a follower and imitator of Jesus? However, Paul knows that the principle of doing as Christ has done, and continues to do in us and in the world, must be reiterated often.
Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. Romans 15:7
If we look first at Paul’s final words at its end of this verse, we see that the praise and glory of God is the demonstration of his mercy, love, and grace by those who are his. Our acceptance of one another, which imitates Christ, glorifies God. To not accept one another will be to refuse to glorify God. When the people of God act in harmony with the Father’s heart, which is revealed by the Son, and made possible through the Spirit, his magnificent goodness is shown forth. God is glorified.
For the glory of God is a living human being; and the life of the human consists in beholding God. St. Irenaeus (130-202 A.D.)
Who is the living human being except the person who, in beholding God, has been transformed by that “seeing” to begin to be like the One seen? We are not living until we begin to become like God. All previous existence was sheer deadness. The truly alive human is the one who has the life of Christ within, and that life is expressed in the imitation of Him. In all this, God is glorified.
Essential in our beholding of God, through which we become the living human who glorifies God, is our acceptance of one another. Notice how Paul assumes that bringing glory to God is the chief concern of believers. He urges that we accept one another knowing that in this act of graciousness we fulfill what should matter most to us. It is not the identification of the other’s sin which glorifies God, but the acceptance of the other by God’s grace, that does.
The standard of acceptance to which Paul appeals is the example of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The only way we know true acceptance is through reflecting on our experience of grace before Jesus. And here, unfortunately, is where so many of us may stumble, for we sometimes do not perceive the infinite love and mercy of God that we receive. We may think of ourselves, though admitting we are not perfect, as reasonably acceptable to God. It seems to us that we are fairly good people, and that Jesus does not have to go to as great a length in accepting us as he has to do with others. We esteem our sins as only minor, and the misdeeds of others as severe.
In the gospels, Jesus persistently welcomes, dines with, and receives those who are obviously guilty of disobedience. Instead, it is to the ones who refuse to consider themselves “sinners” that he offers his rebukes. They refuse his healing because they do not consider themselves to be sick.
Only by drawing closer to God do we begin to realize how much sinfulness God has had to forgive in us. Anyone who comes into the Holy Presence will understand that Jesus was right to say it is a log in my eye, and only a speck in the other’s. To imitate Christ is to consider all others easier to forgive and accept than oneself, and thereby accept all others with the reckless abandonment of grace.
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