p. 194 | ONENESS WITH CHRIST by Hannah Whitall Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 28, 1882

ONENESS WITH CHRIST.

By Hannah Whitall Smith

(Concluded.)

AND now for the application. First of all the warning, and then the comfort.

The warning I address to the emotional natures among my readers. Dear friends, you are in great danger of being deceived by the very things upon which you rest most confidingly. Your emotions, which are such a joy to you, are likely to become pitfalls. You feel so near Christ and so united to him, that you think it must be real; and overlooking the absolute necessity of Christ-likeness of character and walk, you are building your hopes and your confidence on your delighted emotions and exalted feelings, and think you must be one with him, or you could not have such rich and holy experiences.

Now it is a psychological fact that these or similar emotions can be produced by other causes than a purely divine influence, and that they are largely dependent upon temperament and physical conditions. It is most dangerous, therefore, to make them a test of your spiritual union with Christ. It may result in just such a grievous self-deception as our Lord warns us against in Luke 6: 46–49: “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” Your soul delights, perhaps, in calling him, Lord, Lord, but are you doing the things which he said? for this is the important point, after all, he tells us.

If, therefore, led by your feelings, you are saying in meetings, or among your friends, or even in your own heart before the Lord, that you are abiding in him, let me entreat of you to take home to yourself in solemn consideration, these words of the Holy Ghost, “He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself so to walk even as he walked.”

Unless you are thus walking, you cannot possibly be abiding in him, no matter how much you may feel as if you were.

If you want to know what sort of a walk you will have to be, 1 Peter 2: 20–23 will tell you: “For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? If, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called; because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.”

If, therefore, you follow in his steps, you must be sweet to those who are cross to you; you must bear everything and make no complaints; when you are reviled you must not revile again; you must consent to be trampled on, as Christ was, and feel nothing but love in return; you must seek the honor of others rather than your own; you must take the lower place, and be the servant of all, as Christ was; you must literally and truly love your enemies, and do good to them that despitefully use you; you must, in short, live a Christ-like life, and manifest outwardly as well as feel inwardly Christ-like spirit, and must walk among men as he walked among them. This, dear friends, is what it is to be one with Christ. And if this is not your life according to your measure, then you are not one with him, no matter how ecstatic or exalted your feelings may be. This is my lesson of warning.

The lesson of comfort comes next, and is addressed to the unemotional natures among my readers.

The grief of your life is probably just the fact that you have so few good feelings. You try your hardest to get up the feelings which you hear others talking about, but they will not come. You pray for them fervently, and are often tempted to upbraid God because he does not grant them to you. And you are filled with an almost unbearable anguish because you think your want of emotion is a sign that there is not any interior union of your soul with Christ. You judge altogether by your feelings, and think there is no other way to judge.

Now my advice to you is to let your feelings go, and pay no regard to them whatever. They really have nothing to do with the matter. They are not the indicators of your spiritual state, but are merely the indicators of your temperament, or of your present physical condition. People of very low states of grace are often the subjects of very powerful emotional experiences. We know this from the scenes we have heard of and witnessed at camp-meetings and revivals. I myself had a colored girl once who would become unconscious under the power of her wonderful experiences, whenever there was a revival meeting at their church, who yet had hardly a token of any spiritual life about her at other times, and who was, in fact, not even moral. Now surely, if the Bible teaches nothing else, it does teach this, that a Christ-like life and a walk must accompany any experience which is really born of his Spirit. It could not be otherwise in the very nature of things. But I fear some Christians have separated the two things so entirely in their conceptions as to have exalted their experiences at the expense of their life, and have come to care far more about their emotions than about their character.

A certain colored congregation in one of the Southern States was a plague to the whole neighborhood by their open disregard of even the ordinary rules of morality,—stealing, and lying, and cheating without apparently a single prick of conscience on the subject. And yet their nightly meetings were times of the greatest emotion and “power.” Some one finally spoke

to the preacher about it, and begged him to preach a sermon on morality, which would lead his people to see their sins. “Ah, missus,” he replied, “I know dey’s bad, but den it always brings a sadness like over de meetins when I preaches ’bout dem things.”

I am afraid this paper of mine may bring a “sadness like” over some who will read it. But I cannot help that. The truth must be told, and souls must be warned of their danger, unwelcome as it may be to them at first. And for you, dear friends, who are so devoid of emotions, and are so grieved over it, let it comfort you to know that the vital thing, after all, is character and not emotions, and if you have the first you may well afford to do without the last, if God does not see fit to grant them to you. You are helpless as to your emotions, but character you can have if you will; for God always responds with his divine help to any honest reaching out after righteousness. You can be sweet, and gentle, and true, and upright, and forgiving, and long-suffering, and yielding, and unassuming, and self-sacrificing; you can be delivered from a judging and critical spirit; you can be filled with a Christ-like love for humanity, and with that charity that “suffereth long and is kind;” that “envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”

What you have to do, then, is to let your feelings and experiences go, and turn your attention to your character and your life. Seek to be Christ-like, and not merely to feel that you are. Commit the regulation of your frames and feelings to him, and let him give you such as he sees best for you. Let your only concern be to obey him and walk in his footsteps, for this is the only important thing after all. Your feelings may be a matter of great moment to you, but they are of no account to God, and do not in the least touch the question of your relations with him.

I am sure if you will only look at the matter in a reasonable way, your own common sense will tell you that all I have said is true, and you will see that to be one with Christ is too wonderful, and solemn, and mighty an experience to be reached by any overflow or exaltation of mere feeling. He was holy, and those who are one with him will be holy also. There is no escape from this simple and obvious fact.

When our Lord tried to make us understand his oneness with God, he expressed it in such words as these, “I do always the things that please him.” “Whatsoever he saith unto me, that I do.” “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do; for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear I judge, and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe me not, believe the works; that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him.” The test of oneness then was the doing of the same works, and this is the test of oneness now. And if our Lord could say of himself that if he did not the works of his Father he did not ask to be believed, no matter what professions or claims he might make, surely his disciples must do no less.

It is forever true in the nature of things that “a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” It is not that they will not, but they cannot. And a soul that is one with Christ will just as surely bring forth a Christ-like life, as a grape-vine will bring forth grapes and not thistles.

Not that I would be understood to object to emotions. On the contrary, I believe they are very precious gifts when they are from God, and are to be greatly rejoiced in. But what I do object to is the making them a test or proof of spiritual states, either in ourselves or others, and depending on them as the foundation of our faith. Let them come or let them go just as God pleases, and make no account of them either way. But always see to it that the really vital marks of oneness with Christ, the marks of likeness in character, and life, and walk, are ours, and all will be well. For “he that saith I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.”—Mrs. Hannah Whitall Smith.