Climbing with Christ: a Biblical Evaluation of Christ’s Exemplarity through Mountain Motif

Christ is man’s ontological and moral exemplar. Spiritually following his pattern as he physically ascends mountains in the gospel accounts is a means of spiritually ascending to the heavenly home. Christ fulfills all of the Old Testament speech of ascending the hill of the Lord. He is the answer to the questions posed in Psalm 15:1 and 24:3, “Who shall dwell on your holy hill?” and “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?” And just as he is the answer to those questions, Christ is the way, truth, and life for his people to ascend the hill of the Lord as it says in Isaiah 2:3. “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” This paper proposes the biblical text demands an imitation of Christ in his physical mountain climbing for our spiritual mountain climbing. The result of climbing with Christ is being transformed from one degree of glory to another and being transformed by the renewal of the mind.