“I AND MY FATHER ARE ONE.”
By Phillip Giddings
In these days when a sentiment has sprung up placing a difference between Christ and God, this truth, “I and My Father are one,” is most timely, and should be emphasized. This oneness, of course, is not in person, but in purpose, in object, in action, in interest. It is a oneness like that which Christ prayed should be seen among His disciples: “That they may be one, even as we are one.” John 17:22. The unity Paul wished to see among his brethren was of this kind—unified consentience—that knew no divisions, no schisms,—“That ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” 1 Cor. 1:10. There was always union of mind, of word, of deed, between the Father and the Son. Before the worlds were made, they were one. When the time came to call the worlds into existence and make man, they were one. Heb. 1:2. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Gen. 1:26. In the plan of salvation relative to man’s fall, again they were one: “The counsel of peace” was “between them both.” Zech. 6:13. However, there is an idea in the world to-day that God is a tyrant who needs to be restrained by Christ. This sentiment maligns His character, for “God is love.” It was God who “so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. And being one with the Father, Christ came, willingly, to convey to man the Father’s good will, identified with His. “Lo, I come,” He said; “in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God.” Ps. 40:7, 8. Christ’s coming here, then, expressed equally the love of the Father and of the Son. It was not God who needed to be reconciled to us; for He had only thoughts of peace and amity toward us. It was on our side that reconciliation was necessary, because we were at enmity against God. Rom. 8:7. And see the condescending love in the arrangement, “to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.” 2 Cor. 5:19. But Satan, malicious and cunning, if he can not get us to slight both the Father and the Son will endeavor to cause us to slight one (he cares not which) while we attempt to regard the other. And so it was in the days gone by; he made the Jews imagine they loved God, while they hated His Christ unto death. Paul says, “I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.” Acts 26:9–11. And all this because he “was zealous toward God” (Acts 22:3); and “in all good conscience,” too. Acts 23:1. But he was wrong, his “good conscience” notwithstanding. A person may be “in all good conscience” in a thing, and still be very wrong; for conscience in many things is the result of early training; and if our training has been erroneous, a conscience established thereby must be wrong, and should be rectified by the Scriptures, which “are profitable for doctrine”—right doctrine—and “for correction,” or amendment of doctrine not right. 2 Tim. 3:16. In the Jewish days, Satan made those men slight Christ for God. To-day, finding that will not do, he reverses his tactics, and makes men slight God for Christ. A case in point: A gentleman said the other day, “You Adventists look to God, but we look to Christ.” Another remarked, “We have nothing to do with God now; we deal with Christ only. So we don’t look to God’s law, but to Christ.” But a man can have no dealing with Christ apart from a connection with God; for Christ says, “No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him.” John 6:44. Nor could a man have any dealing with God apart from Christ, for the adequate reason that “no man cometh to the Father, but by Me.” John 14:6. It is so arranged that to avoid one—either of the two—is to avoid both; for “I and My Father are one.” What Looking to Christ Includes.
But he who really looks to Christ, looks to the law of God; “for Christ is the end”—that is to say, the object—“of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” Rom. 10:4. Indeed, that is the only way to look at the law; elsewhere we see only its shadow, with which the Jews wearied themselves in vain. But to say a man can be a Christian,—have Christ in him as the hope of glory,—while he continues in wilful transgression, is to make Christ a partner of that sin! He who looks to Christ, looks to the law of God, not as the means to, but as the result of, salvation. Christ came to call sinners to repentance. Mark 2:17. Repentance of what?—Of sin surely; and “sin is the transgression of the law.” Therefore, all who answer to Christ’s call must, of necessity, come to repentance,—a sorrow for, and turning away from, their sin. In other words, they must cease their disobedience of the law of God.5 Paul said, “I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, . . . testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” Acts 20:20, 21. Both go together—the law and the Gospel, God and Christ. Wherever we find the keeping of “the faith of Jesus,” there we also find the keeping of “the commandments of God.” See Rev. 14:12. For faith does not abolish, but establish, the law of God. Rom. 3:31. We affirm that keeping the commandments of God is the result of the faith in Jesus; the two are as inseparable as heat and sun. But there is a class of religionists to-day, who, ignoring God or substituting Him for Christ, as the Jews ignored Christ for God, virtually crucify the law of the Father, as the Jews crucified Jesus. Said the Jews,—the chief priests, scribes, Pharisees, and the people,—“Away with this man!” “Crucify Him!” “Release unto us Barabbas.” “Now Barabbas was a robber.” These others cry out, “Away with the law of God! Away with the Saturday,—the seventh day,—the Sabbath of the Lord thy God! Release unto us the first day of the week, Sunday.” Now, Sunday was the pagans’ day! “And thus,” as Mr. Andrews, in his “History of the Sabbath,” aptly puts it, “the Mohammedans and the Romanists crucified the Sabbath, as the Jews and the Romans crucified the Lord of the Sabbath,—between two thieves, the sixth day and the first day of the week”—the Mohammedan Friday and the apostate Sunday. “I and My Father are one.” “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.” John 5:19. “My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me.” John 7:16. “For I have not spoken of Myself; but the Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.” John 12:49. Can we then conceive of the Son’s teaching any doctrine contrary to that of the Father? Is it not then true when Christ says: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled”? Matt. 5:17, 18. And does it not become us seriously to take heed to the 19th verse, that cautions “whosoever”—that means anybody—“whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven”? “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 and My Father are one.” New Amsterdam, British Guiana.