p. 8 | Inherited Traits by R.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 26, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 21.

Inherited Traits

By R.

This talk of what we have inherited from our parents is but evidence of the common acceptation of the law of like begetting like, of the harvest being in accord with the sowing.

And oftentimes it is disheartening to know that we will be in a measure what our parents were—we inherit some of their traits of character. It seems at first glance unfair. Yet as we become familiar with the great law, we realize it is inevitable. Nevertheless, is there no release from our inheritance?

Some things of our parents we are glad to see reproduced in us. But from others we fain would be free. Is there no surcease from these unenviable things? If the father has eaten sour grapes, must the children's teeth be set on edge?

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” By our birth in the flesh we conform to the flesh that begot us. The color of our hair and eyes, the contour of body and the cast of the countenance are all established by this fleshly birth. Even the trend of the mind and the impulses of the heart have come to some extent in the same way. But as these last are subject to training and daily influence they may be greatly changed and transformed as the days go by until individuality is strongly marked.

But one thing is unchangeable by training or education of the mind alone. The flesh can beget only flesh. It is subject to sin, it is destined for death. Must I inherit this sinful flesh from my parents?—Yes. Must I from them come into this legacy of death?—Yes, again, sad tho it be.

But there is a way of escape, not through my inheritance in the flesh, for in this natural world I get nothing but what the flesh, this human nature, has. But there is One whose nature is not sinful, but sinless, and who offers to make me His spiritual son. He offers through the spiritual birth to beget me into the realm of spirit, and I shall inherit His traits of character, and shall partake of His spiritual nature. His Spirit is to be sent into my life “as a divine power to overcome all inherited and cultivated tendencies to evil, and to impress His own character” upon me, His child.

This He offers to every sinful man and woman and child in this broad world. He offers it to you and to me. What shall we do about it? Shall we go on with the sinful traits that daily strengthen in us? Or shall we submit to Him? Shall we die to sin and live anew to Him? O the blessed privilege of getting rid of the old burden of sin and guilt! O the blessedness of the freedom from the old ways which we find in Him! O soul for whom He died, take Him as your holy inheritance.

The world has stood these thousands of years. Our foreparents have gathered a long series of tendencies of evil through the ages which they must inevitably pass on to us. Weakened and stunted by the inroads of sin upon the human race, our heritage in the flesh is faulty in the extreme. Each of us has felt its weakness.

Jesus Christ is equal with God. For all

the days of this world's history and back into the ages of eternity He has shared with God the divine floods of holiness, life, and power. Unhindered, unchanged, enduring even the strain of His years on earth in the flesh, Jesus Christ offers to transmit to us His own exalted, vigorous, pure, eternal nature. Have we felt its power? Have we partaken of the power of His endless life? The opportunity is so great, so wonderful, so easy of accomplishment that not one of us can afford to pass it by. It is our privilege to

“Rise to walk in heaven’s own light, Above the world and sin, With heart made pure and garments white, And Christ enthroned within.”

God visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him, because they allow the natural law to work without hindrance or interruption. But He shows mercy unto thousands of those who love Him and keep His commandments because they allow the spiritual to come in and transform the unholy traits—“the iniquities of the fathers”—and implant in the soul the very traits of God Himself, the inwrought character of the Son of Man, the Holy One of God.