CHRISTIANITY OR WEAKNESS?
By Edison Driver
Christianity is more than passive goodness. We may call a man “Christian” who is gentle, meek, humble, patient, and kind; but can we say his life is a full one? Are the men whose characters include all these virtues, types of Christ?—They are not. These things are needful; but to make a Christian demands energy, force, life, courage! There is a gentleness that is weakness, and a kindness that is spiritless, and such virtues can not make strong, positive, resistless Christian men. Even Christ’s meekness and gentleness were resistless forces, and His smallest words and least prominent acts were clothed with God’s unveiled power. We can not study enough the divine life in Christ. It was that which made His religion more than sentiment. He was a man clothed in weak, human flesh, yet in Him were seen the strength and glory of His Father. He was good in all gentleness, meekness, humility, patience, kindness; but it was not the lusterless goodness of weakness; for every virtue shone with light and power. In what seem to men the most helpless hours of His life, He had the all-powerful life of the One who sent Him, dwelling in Him by faith; and when He laid down His life, He had power to lay it down, and He had power to take it again. Too long men have taught, or been taught, the gospel of passive goodness—the gospel which may be Gospel or may be weakness. Such religion floods the land and drowns the spirituality of its people. It is the same old story of Israel, clothed with a form without power; where hypocrites could be priests, and base sinners make public prayer for the people.5Such gospel will not do. It is too uncertain, weak, and insufficient. Men expect to see in the representative some of the prerogatives of the represented. Christ has made that possible, even to the weakest. As His Father worked through Him, He works through men. He lives in them, by faith, to will and to do of His good pleasure, giving them marvelous power to give out gentleness, meekness, humility, kindness, and the other attributes of goodness with a force that makes their Source evident to all men. Christianity is honored and the world blessed by such living.