Pope Leo XIV often quotes St. Augustine. Last year, he said, “Faith is primarily a response to God’s love, and the greatest mistake we can make as Christians is, in the words of Saint Augustine, ‘to claim that Christ’s grace consists in his example and not in his gift.’”
By contrast, New Apostolic Reformation (NAF) teachers teach that the grace of Christ consists in his example.
NAF says that when Jesus worked miracles, he was giving us an example to follow, citing John 14:12: “he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do.” It teaches that Jesus worked miracles to show us what all Christians are supposed to do.
As Dan Mohler puts it, “Jesus modeled the life we were created for.” Bill Johnson of Bethel Church in Redding, California, teaches that Jesus is the “standard” for our own actions: “I’ve got to know what’s possible in my lifetime by following this one who became a man — still God! — but became a man to set an example that could be followed … He performed miracles, wonders and signs, as a man in right relationship to God … not as God. If He performed miracles because He was God, then they would be unattainable for us. But if He did them as a man, I am responsible to pursue His lifestyle.”
Catholics influenced by the NAR have taught the same thing. Sarah Kaczmarek, director of pastoral ministry in the Encounter School of Ministry (ESM), says, “ESM will train, equip and activate you in the supernatural gifts Jesus modeled and intended to be part of the normal life of every disciple.” This is the same idea taught by Mohler: “Jesus modeled the life we were created for.”
ESM tells its students that “Jesus is our standard for what a naturally supernatural lifestyle looks like” because he “models for us perfect dependence on the Holy Spirit” so that we can do the same works he did, and so participate in his “supernatural lifestyle.”
Other Catholics teach this same erroneous doctrine using the phrase “living the lifestyle of Jesus.”
How can the authentic Catholic tradition help us respond to the teaching that Jesus worked miracles as a man to give us an example to imitate?
Let’s go back to what Pope Leo said: “The greatest mistake we can make as Christians is … ‘to claim that Christ’s grace consists in his example and not in the gift of his person.’”
When St. Augustine said this, he was opposing Julian of Eclanum. He accused Julian of teaching that someone could be saved by his own effort by imitating the virtues of Christ:
“You want the grace of Christ to be found in his example, not in his gift, saying that men are made just by the imitation of Christ, not by the giving of the Holy Spirit … If justice comes from the imitation of the just, Christ died for nothing, because there were just men before him too, who can be imitated by those who wish to be just.”
Of course, neither St. Augustine nor Pope Leo was responding to the NAR teaching that Christ worked miracles as a man to give us an example to follow. Nevertheless, their words remind us that Christ brings a unique grace to the human race because he is uniquely God and man, the incarnate Word, “God who gives himself to us.”
The purpose of the Incarnation was not to offer an example so that we could perform greater miracles than Christ’s, or become just by imitating his matchless virtues, but to show us God doing something that humans could not: bringing the unmerited gift of salvation to the human race. The Incarnation was the supreme example of God’s grace at work: the Son of God humbled himself to be born of the Virgin.
And this is how Christians can imitate the example of Jesus. In fact, there is only one place in the Gospels where Jesus said that he was giving us an example to follow. It involved no miracle or mighty deed. It is not John 14:12 but John 13:15. After Jesus washed his disciples’ feet during the Last Supper, he said, “I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.”
St. Peter likewise urged his flock to follow the example of Jesus, not by working miracles but by bearing suffering patiently: “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Pt 2:21).
Speaking of the imitation of Christ, the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls for humble service, not mighty deeds:
459 The Word became flesh to be our model of holiness: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.” … Jesus is the model for the Beatitudes and the norm of the new law: “Love one another as I have loved you.” This love implies an effective offering of oneself, after his example.
520 In all of his life Jesus presents himself as our model. … In humbling himself, he has given us an example to imitate, through his prayer he draws us to pray, and by his poverty he calls us to accept freely the privation and persecutions that may come our way.
Christians should imitate the Lord Jesus not by attempting to work miracles but by recognizing that he did something for us that we will never be able to do. Our life of faith is a response to God’s love. We imitate Christ’s example best by loving as he loved, even if we will never do it as well as he did.
Father Thomas Buffer is the pastor at Columbus St. Cecilia Church.
