Christian Being by W. E. HANCOCK

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 13, 1916

Christian Being

By W. E. HANCOCK

Christian Experience — No. 1

Christian Being

W. E. HANCOCK

CHRISTIAN experience has its source and inspiration in Christian being. This is a truth that, in our day, is too often forgotten.

We see with ease what one does; but only God knows what one is. Great acts are not always an index of great character. We read in the Bible of a class of self-deceived persons who will have done many wonderful things, things highly commendable, and will have done them all in the name of Jesus; yet they will not be counted Christians, for Christ will say to them, “I never knew you.”

As long as one can point to a long list of great things that one may have done or may be doing, we do not stop to inquire what one is. We generally estimate a man by what he does. We have no other way of judging; for it is not within the power of human intelligence to know the motive springs of one's actions, however good or bad they may be. This is a secret which belongs to him whose right it is to judge all things, and when the true judgment is rendered, there will doubtless be many surprises.

It is easy to deceive oneself in regard to what constitutes Christian duty. One may go through all the forms of Christian duty, and still be completely destitute of Christ's spirit. It therefore behooves every one who bears the name of Christ to heed the admonition of the apostle, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.” 2 Cor. 13:5.

We are to make a personal examination. To be of value, it must of necessity be a serious, heart-searching examination to see whether, from the soul's depth, we are in the faith. This examination means more than a searching of church records in order to find if our names are written high on the church roll; or to determine whether we have been faithful in church attendance on Sabbath, and in paying tithe and offerings for the support of the work. It is fundamentally a question of being in the faith, and it is an examination in which the Holy Spirit is to be the teacher and the Word of God the rule of examination. This is a primary and all-important question of Christian experience.

The idea of Christian being was the great motive thought of the sixteenth-century Reformation. The principal service rendered to the Christian church by the Reformation was the restoration of the truth of justification by faith to its rightful place in Christian thought and experience. And justification by faith means that man cannot be saved by anything that he is able to do of himself, but only by what he is and may be in Christ. It was this vital truth wrought into the very fabric of Luther's experience that made his life a power in the world. It is this same experience that Christians of this time need in order to make effective the great missionary undertaking of the church. We are making great efforts to do the work that Christ left for us to do; but if we are to succeed, we must learn the secret of abiding in Christ and being like him. Paul says, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.”

This thought finds a central place in all the teachings of Jesus while on earth. The beatitudes all emphasize the relation of blessedness to being. The illustrations used by Christ to represent the Christian's influence in the world are radiant with the thought of the inherent qualities of Christian living. “Ye are the salt of the earth;” “ye are the light of the world;” “I am the vine, ye are the branches,” are some of the figures employed. We are not told to shine, but to let our light shine; we are not to labor to bring forth fruit, but to abide in him and he in us, that we may bring forth much fruit.

Our Saviour's observations about the law show clearly that it is primarily the condition of the heart that determines a man's relation to the law of God. It is not the overt act of killing alone that constitutes murder. We may violate the law against murder without killing a man. It is what is in the heart that God counts. Both Christ and the apostles teach that love is the fulfilling of the law. Love in the heart is greater than faith; greater than the eloquence of orators or angels; greater than the power to remove mountains or to understand mysteries; even like unto God himself, for “God is love.”

We often hear repeated the saying of a great writer: “What you do thunders so loudly in my ears that I cannot hear what you say.” But the Christian ideal goes farther than this. It may be truthfully stated as a Christian proverb, “What Christ is in you is so great in God's sight that he sees not what you do, nor hears what you say.”

All that we can do or say gives us no merit; for it is Christ dwelling within that makes us what we are, and that is responsible for the good we do. Christ is all and in all.

Algeria.