The Individuality of the Life in the Flesh by L. A. HANSEN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 1, 1910

The Individuality of the Life in the Flesh

By L. A. HANSEN

L. A. HANSEN

There is a most emphatic personal and individual tone to Gal. 2:20. This is so in both the positive and the negative of its application in Christian experience. Read the verse again, and note the “I’s” and “me’s” in it: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

Christian experience must be personal; its requirements must be met by individual response. Nothing could be more indicative of this than its demands upon “self.” The gospel call is to “any man” and “every man.” The reward is to “every man according as his work shall be.”

All repentance and contrition for sin, all self-denial and self-sacrifice, find their full expression in “I am crucified with Christ.” All yielding and surrender of the will, all submission and resignation, are found in “not I, but Christ.”

So it is that all realization and enjoyment of spiritual blessings lie in self-appropriation. The exercise of faith must be an individual one. John 3:16 must not be read to mean that “God so loved the world” in general that no one in particular is meant, but rather, that it includes every one in the world, and to the reader, that means “me.” It is a relationship of two.

The demand for a personal experience in the Christian life does not ignore the peculiarities of one’s situation. On the contrary, it especially takes account of them, and makes particular provision for them.

We may possess dispositions that are peculiar; our environment may be unlike that of another, our lot may be harder than his. We may have trials that seem strange and temptations that look uncommon. None of our friends may know what struggles we have, and how hard it is for us to live right.

We may feel that if we could only have been born thus and so; if we could just get out of our own particular surroundings, and be in a more favorable place; or if we could have more congenial people around us, we could live better lives.

But God has taken note of all these things, and has made provision accordingly. Yea, more than this. The very circumstances of our lives will be the means in his hands of perfecting our characters. He has placed us just where we are, because that is the best place for us. And of each one of us is it required that our life be lived just as Jesus would live it were he situated just as we are. It is the privilege of each one of us to say, “The life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.”

“True faith is that which receives Christ as a personal Saviour. God gave his only begotten Son, that I, by believing in him, ‘should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ When I come to Christ, according to his Word, I am to believe that I receive his saving grace. The life that I now live, I am to ‘live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.’”

“The relations between God and each soul are as distinct and full as though there were not another soul for whom he gave his beloved Son.”

Takoma Park, D. C.