Imitatio Christi - is the following Biblical?

[Colo Millz]

Co-Sufferers (Imitatio Christi): Christians are called to participate in the suffering of Christ. Personal suffering is utilized as a means of purification (removing self-will and sin) and spiritual growth. By uniting one's own pain to the Passion, it ceases to be meaningless and becomes a source of grace for oneself and others.

Is this a Biblical understanding?

 

[bob121]

Co-Sufferers (Imitatio Christi): Christians are called to participate in the suffering of Christ. Personal suffering is utilized as a means of purification (removing self-will and sin) and spiritual growth. By uniting one's own pain to the Passion, it ceases to be meaningless and becomes a source of grace for oneself and others.

Is this a Biblical understanding?

Hey Colo Millz, Kiwi in Tokyo here—years of chronic pain have made Phil 3:10 my lifeline. When I choose to unite the ache to Christ’s, it stops feeling pointless and becomes partnership: purging pride, deepening compassion, and reminding me the nails weren’t the worst part—bearing our sin was (Luke 22:44). Biblical, provided we remember our pain participates in, never completes, His finished work (Col 1:24; Rom 8:18). Thanks for putting biblical meat on a hard reality—fellow-partakers, not the punished. Grace to you.

 

[Reluctant Theologian]

Co-Sufferers (Imitatio Christi): Christians are called to participate in the suffering of Christ. Personal suffering is utilized as a means of purification (removing self-will and sin) and spiritual growth. By uniting one's own pain to the Passion, it ceases to be meaningless and becomes a source of grace for oneself and others.

Is this a Biblical understanding?

Matthew 16:24-25:

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.​

​

So, I think yes .. Btw 'Imitatio Christi' literally means 'imitators of Christ' in Latin .. not suffering. The original book De Imitatione Christi (15th century AD) by Thomas à Kempis primarily focuses on private spiritual life and devotion, not just suffering. It was immensely popular in its day.

 

[Colo Millz]

Hey Colo Millz, Kiwi in Tokyo here—years of chronic pain have made Phil 3:10 my lifeline. When I choose to unite the ache to Christ’s, it stops feeling pointless and becomes partnership: purging pride, deepening compassion, and reminding me the nails weren’t the worst part—bearing our sin was (Luke 22:44). Biblical, provided we remember our pain participates in, never completes, His finished work (Col 1:24; Rom 8:18). Thanks for putting biblical meat on a hard reality—fellow-partakers, not the punished. Grace to you.

My dear brother/sister in Christ blessing from God be to you. TYVM

 

[The Liturgist]

Hey Colo Millz, Kiwi in Tokyo here—years of chronic pain have made Phil 3:10 my lifeline. When I choose to unite the ache to Christ’s, it stops feeling pointless and becomes partnership: purging pride, deepening compassion, and reminding me the nails weren’t the worst part—bearing our sin was (Luke 22:44). Biblical, provided we remember our pain participates in, never completes, His finished work (Col 1:24; Rom 8:18). Thanks for putting biblical meat on a hard reality—fellow-partakers, not the punished. Grace to you.

I myself also suffer from chronic pain and know of what you speak. It is a consolation.

 

[RandyPNW]

Co-Sufferers (Imitatio Christi): Christians are called to participate in the suffering of Christ. Personal suffering is utilized as a means of purification (removing self-will and sin) and spiritual growth. By uniting one's own pain to the Passion, it ceases to be meaningless and becomes a source of grace for oneself and others.

Is this a Biblical understanding?

Yes. I just suffer knowing these things, that in this fallen world we have to suffer. And being Christians we suffer the rejection of the world around us. These things are extremely painful and difficult to accept. But accept it we must.

I think with me it's more resignation that ambition to suffer. I simply have to relinquish my will when God calls me to suffer whatever I have to suffer. I pray against it, perhaps, but I try to take my concerns to the Lord. Knowing God can relieve us of suffering and still wills that we suffer is one of the hardest things I experience in life.

But you're right. We have to surrender our will and let God have His way, without rebelling, complaining, or losing our spiritual composure. We aren't trying to achieve some superior level of spirituality--just maintain our spirituality and call to endure what God wills that we endure.

We should not prescribe what suffering anybody else has to suffer. We are all individuals. We should always let God speak first, before we judge what somebody else is going through. We can only judge sin--not circumstances.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

Co-Sufferers (Imitatio Christi): Christians are called to participate in the suffering of Christ. Personal suffering is utilized as a means of purification (removing self-will and sin) and spiritual growth. By uniting one's own pain to the Passion, it ceases to be meaningless and becomes a source of grace for oneself and others.

Is this a Biblical understanding?

My understanding of "imitating" Jesus Christ of Nazareth focuses on His character and not His suffering.
* Love
* Humility
* Service
* Obedience
* Forgiveness
* Patience
* Holiness
* Mercy

Paul did speak about this frequently:

* 1 Corinthians 10:33 – 11:1
"just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved. Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ."

* Ephesians 5:1–2
"Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma."

Blessings

 

[bob121]

I myself also suffer from chronic pain and know of what you speak. It is a consolation.

Thank you for your kindness, The Liturgist. As a fellow chronic pain sufferer, I know exactly what you speak of, and it is a true consolation. My own pain often reminds me that others suffer far more, putting me in a place of humility. May you find even greater relief from your pain. Have a wonderful day/night

 

[bob121]

Yes. I just suffer knowing these things, that in this fallen world we have to suffer. And being Christians we suffer the rejection of the world around us. These things are extremely painful and difficult to accept. But accept it we must.

I think with me it's more resignation that ambition to suffer. I simply have to relinquish my will when God calls me to suffer whatever I have to suffer. I pray against it, perhaps, but I try to take my concerns to the Lord. Knowing God can relieve us of suffering and still wills that we suffer is one of the hardest things I experience in life.

But you're right. We have to surrender our will and let God have His way, without rebelling, complaining, or losing our spiritual composure. We aren't trying to achieve some superior level of spirituality--just maintain our spirituality and call to endure what God wills that we endure.

We should not prescribe what suffering anybody else has to suffer. We are all individuals. We should always let God speak first, before we judge what somebody else is going through. We can only judge sin--not circumstances.

Thank you so much for your deeply honest post, RandyPNW. Your reflection on the spiritual difficulty of accepting suffering and your focus on resignation over ambition truly resonate. It is indeed one of the hardest things we experience in life—knowing God can relieve us, yet willing that we endure.

My own experience with suffering has drawn me immeasurably closer to God, fostering a deeper trust in His will. I believe this process may be part of His loving plan. When we are comfortable, we humans tend to drift far away from Him, feeling we can reject Him entirely—“Why do I need God when everything is well?”

Yet, when we witness or endure great pain, our cries and pleas go to the One who promises: if you believe in my Son, your suffering here and now is real, but it will pass. When you awaken in glory, all will be forgotten.

May the Lord continue to bless you. Have a wonderful day/night.

 

[Always in His Presence]

Co-Sufferers (Imitatio Christi): Christians are called to participate in the suffering of Christ. Personal suffering is utilized as a means of purification (removing self-will and sin) and spiritual growth. By uniting one's own pain to the Passion, it ceases to be meaningless and becomes a source of grace for oneself and others.

Is this a Biblical understanding?

We understand that Christ suffered and died for our sins - the scourging, being nailed to the Cross, having His body pierced for our transgressions brought intense physical pain. I take none of that away, nor do I diminish its magnitude.

Other than that instance -

Was Jesus ever sick or in pain?

Isa 53: A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4 Surely He has borne our ]griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.​

 

[RandyPNW]

We understand that Christ suffered and died for our sins - the scourging, being nailed to the Cross, having His body pierced for our transgressions brought intense physical pain. I take none of that away, nor do I diminish its magnitude.

Other than that instance -

Was Jesus ever sick or in pain?

Isa 53: A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4 Surely He has borne our ]griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.​

Good question. I've long asked that question myself! Personally, I think Jesus' suffering, as prophesied, was the suffering of opposition, or rejection, while he was on earth. Surely he suffered the subtle assaults of jealousy and envy, as well as outright hatred. In their state of backsliding, surely Israel hated any prophet, and especially the Son of God.

Jesus could certainly have suffered accidents caused by others, whether exposure to their viruses, or falling prey to misplaced items, for example. Weather happens to all, to the ungodly as well as to the godly. What we do know is that nothing Jesus suffered was due to his own sin or negligence.

 

[The Liturgist]

Was Jesus ever sick or in pain?

Yes, clearly: fasting for 40 days is possible but uncomfortable, as any Orthodox Christian will tell you. Hence the devil tempting Him.

Insofar as Christ is God incarnate, after He put on our fallen nature in order to redeem and glorify it He would have been vulnerable to any and all forms of human suffering up to and including death, and this is reflected in the Creed.

The rejection of the idea of suffering on the part of Christ is the characteristic belief of Docetism and the related Nestorian and Apthartodocetist belief systems, which separate the divinity of Christ from His human prosopon hypostatically, which means you have one divine person united to the man Jesus only by a shared will.

The latter belief system began to emerge in the writings of Diodore of Tarsus, was expounded upon by Theodore of Mopesuestia and then adopted by Nestorius as a means of justifying his attempt to suppress, with force, the use of the traditional title “Theotokos” found in the writings of his illustrious predecessor in Constantinople, St. John Chrysostom, who was also from Antioch originally, and in other early church fathers; before Nestorius, only the Antidicomarians rejected this title as as a group.

 

[RandyPNW]

Yes, clearly: fasting for 40 days is possible but uncomfortable, as any Orthodox Christian will tell you. Hence the devil tempting Him.

Insofar as Christ is God incarnate, after He put on our fallen nature in order to redeem and glorify it He would have been vulnerable to any and all forms of human suffering up to and including death, and this is reflected in the Creed.

The rejection of the idea of suffering on the part of Christ is the characteristic belief of Docetism and the related Nestorian and Apthartodocetist belief systems, which separate the divinity of Christ from His human prosopon hypostatically, which means you have one divine person united to the man Jesus only by a shared will.

The latter belief system began to emerge in the writings of Diodore of Tarsus, was expounded upon by Theodore of Mopesuestia and then adopted by Nestorius as a means of justifying his attempt to suppress, with force, the use of the traditional title “Theotokos” found in the writings of his illustrious predecessor in Constantinople, St. John Chrysostom, who was also from Antioch originally, and in other early church fathers; before Nestorius, only the Antidicomarians rejected this title as as a group.

You've read the Church Fathers more than me, but insofar as I can tell, yes--the union of God and Christ is an indescribable unity, or perhaps best described in the traditional Creeds. Any attempt to separate the Man from Deity is going to result in a heresy.

And if God revealed Himself in Christ, the man, then certainly he was as vulnerable as any other mortal on earth--only he was directed in a life determined by God to express His only Begotten Son. We don't know how much suffering this entailed, but we're told it was real.

 

[Always in His Presence]

Yes, clearly: fasting for 40 days is possible but uncomfortable, as any Orthodox Christian will tell you. Hence the devil tempting Him.

Fasting is neither sickness nor pain. It can be uncomfortable, but Holy Scripture does not show Jesus ever sick, nor in physical distress before the events of the Atonement.

I’m not separating our Lord’s divinity from humanity as you mentioned from those groups. (never heard of any of them).

The Gospels very much show His humanity in that He ate, He Slept, He was thirsty, He laughed, He wept, He got tired etc...

As our fellow friend @Maria Billingsley very beautifully and accurately stated Scripture calls us to imitate Our Lord's character.

Sickness, pain, disease does not imitate, nor does it honor God, because it is not from God.

The prophet Isaiah plainly states

Isa 53:4
Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
NRSVCE Catholic Edition.​

 

[Fervent]

We have to be careful when it comes to how we speak about suffering, because while there is a call to suffer it is not the goal and we must never confuse the means with the ends. Suffering is an evil to be avoided when possible, but not one to be avoided out of fear. There are moments when we will be called to suffer for the sake of another, and in those moments we must stand tall. We also can look to Christ when we are suffering for solace, knowing that it is a means of drawing closer to Him. But suffering is not the end, and must never be made an end unto itself.

 

[The Liturgist]

Sickness, pain, disease does not imitate, nor does it honor God, because it is not from God.

The point isn’t that the sickness honors God, it is that God, having put on our humanity and having suffered with us, is alongside us and does not just understand but has of his own voilition experienced our suffering, to the point of suffering death, in order to it.

This is why on Pascha we Orthodox sing this Troparion:

Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life!​

 

[RandyPNW]

We have to be careful when it comes to how we speak about suffering, because while there is a call to suffer it is not the goal and we must never confuse the means with the ends. Suffering is an evil to be avoided when possible, but not one to be avoided out of fear. There are moments when we will be called to suffer for the sake of another, and in those moments we must stand tall. We also can look to Christ when we are suffering for solace, knowing that it is a means of drawing closer to Him. But suffering is not the end, and must never be made an end unto itself.

Some of the early and later Christian ascetics took "suffering" to a ridicuous degree. They were viewed as "God's athletes."

I don't personally consider it worthwhile to climb up on a pillar and live there, nor do I think it serves humanity to go off into the wilderness and live in isolation with God and nature.

On the other hand, I think it is commendable when people give things up, whether by choice or by circumstance, and continue to serve God in any way we can. Sometimes we give things up because they aren't healthy. Sometimes we give things up because they are taken from us.

There are many reasons to suffer the loss of things that otherwise might be enjoyable or fruitful for us. However, our good attitude speaks well of our Father in heaven.

Even when God sees fit to make man mute, or deaf, or blind, we must understand that all things come from God--both good and evil. God, however, has only the best intentions. We live in a world contaminated by evil, and God uses our evil circumstances for His good purposes.

Exo 4.10 Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”

11 The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

 

[The Liturgist]

I don't personally consider it worthwhile to climb up on a pillar and live there, nor do I think it serves humanity to go off into the wilderness and live in isolation with God and nature.

I am comforted to know that Anchorites such as Fr Lazarus el Antony are praying for me.

As for the stylites, as an agoraphile, I would happily serve as one, except our society would tragically not permit it. But it is a fact that their consul was sought by the good and the great, including the Emperors of New Rome, and that their blessings helped many Christians in ways both spiritual and temporal.

It is also known that the stylites continue to pray for us even now and miracles are wrought through their intercession, as of the rest of the saints and the choirs of angels, especially our glorious lady Theotokos and ever virgin Mary!

St. Paul the Hermit, Pray for Us!

St. Anthony the Great, Pray for Us!

St. John, St. Symeon, St. Symeon the Younger, St. Symeon the Third, St. Nicetas and all Stylites, Pray for Us!

St. Mary, the Mother of God, Proprietess of Mount Athos, and Joy of All Who Sorrow, Save Us, for the glory of Thy Son, Christ our True God!

 

[RandyPNW]

I am comforted to know that Anchorites such as Fr Lazarus el Antony are praying for me.

As for the stylites, as an agoraphile, I would happily serve as one, except our society would tragically not permit it. But it is a fact that their consul was sought by the good and the great, including the Emperors of New Rome, and that their blessings helped many Christians in ways both spiritual and temporal.

It is also known that the stylites continue to pray for us even now and miracles are wrought through their intercession, as of the rest of the saints and the choirs of angels, especially our glorious lady Theotokos and ever virgin Mary!

St. Paul the Hermit, Pray for Us!

St. Anthony the Great, Pray for Us!

St. John, St. Symeon, St. Symeon the Younger, St. Symeon the Third, St. Nicetas and all Stylites, Pray for Us!

St. Mary, the Mother of God, Proprietess of Mount Athos, and Joy of All Who Sorrow, Save Us, for the glory of Thy Son, Christ our True God!

I have no idea whether these departed saints are praying for us, and to be honest, I don't care. It isn't as though we need an accumulated number of gifted prayers to get us the help we need--Jesus seems sufficient.

As for Mary, she was a sinner just like we are. And I would pray for her, as well, if she was still a mortal on earth. But I feel it is just as vain for us to pray for her in heaven, as it is for her, in heaven, to pray for us on earth.

I know these ascetics proved their commitment to Christ, and that certainly counts for something. Some of them I'm sure were great advisors to any and all who came into contact with them.

We all could learn from their complete commitment, although I don't think it's necessary to be extreme to give our all to God. Paul didn't live in the extreme, and yet his attention to the ministry had its own costs and tolls, proving his own complete commitment.

We don't need to look for suffering. It will find us in the appropriate way and time. To add more suffering by inflicting it upon ourselves is, in my view, foolish. But don't worry--I have nothing but love and respect for those who have gone before and suffered. Your own commitment in the face of your own personal suffering is also something I would admire greatly.

 

[The Liturgist]

It isn't as though we need an accumulated number of gifted prayers

Some of us do.

As for Mary, she was a sinner just like we are.

The Theotokos never committed any act of hamartia; she still required the salvation brought by Her Son, our God, due to ancestral sin, which she received, as evinced by the fact that she was assumed bodily following her repose, being one of a handful of saints, the others including the Holy Prophets Moses and Elias, to dwell in Heaven in body as well as spirit ahead of the General Resurrection, when we will all be raised incorruptible and as many as possible will live together with God in the World to Come.