WALKING AS HE WALKED by S.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 29, 1902

WALKING AS HE WALKED.

By S.

It should be our own test upon our own discipleship. We are told in 1 John 2:6 that “He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.” We can not escape it by saying, that, while we are Christians, we have not yet reached the condition of abiding in Christ. The profession of Christianity is in itself a profession of abiding in Him. One of Christ’s last oral admonitions to His followers was, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch can not bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.” “If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” John 15:4, 6.

It would be impossible to state more clearly than is here stated the fact that the Christian must abide in Christ, and that he who does not has no part or place with Him. Being a Christian, he abides with Christ necessarily. Having made the profession of Christianity, and therefore the profession of abiding with Christ, the duty is perfectly clear. It is to “walk even as He walked.” The one who does not do this denies in his life the profession which his lips have made. He is a living, walking contradiction. There is a continual dispute between his words and his deeds, and he is bound to become an unfruitful branch. The branch which should have borne grapes bears none, or bears wild grapes.

So it is true that the fruit-bearing Christian is the one who abides in Christ, the one who walks “even as He walked.” How did He walk?—He “humbled Himself,” laid aside His own glory, “emptied Himself,” put aside His own will, allowed His own way to be swallowed up in the way of the Father. He says of Himself, “I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.” John 6:38. Again: “I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me.” John 5:30. That His whole being was consecrated to do that will is shown in His declaration: “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.” John 4:34. No particle of self came into the ministry of Christ. That is how He walked; not doing His own will; not following His own way; not seeking pleasure in the things which minister to the cravings of the carnal heart; not “whiling away the time” in amusements. There were then, as there are now, plenty of opportunities for ministering to the sensuous and the frivolous in man; plenty of opportunities for making gain of a brother’s need. But these were not the ways of Christ. He did not thus walk. “He that saith He abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.”

Recently a Sunday-school superintendent in a large city issued an edict that each teacher in the school should pledge himself or herself to abstain absolutely from all such vices as theater-going, card-playing, dancing, and the use of intoxicating drinks. If they were unwilling to do this, he requested their resignations. Out of thirty-five teachers thirty-one said that they indulged in one or more of these vices. They did not choose to abstain from this indulgence; and they did not wish to resign, as some of them had been teaching for many years. As this was true of all but four of the teachers, it was probably true of a like proportion of the church and Sunday-school at large. It certainly reveals a deplorable condition in that particular church; and yet many another church could have made no better showing. It is possible that the condition of some is even worse. We know that this condition prevails in a great portion of the professed church of Christ to-day, especially in what are known as the “fashionable churches.”

Now, the question is, Were these walking “even as He walked”? Were they not rather following their own way, doing their own will, finding their own pleasure? Could it be said of such that their meat was to do the will of God? They had taken upon themselves the name of Christ, thereby professing to abide in Him; but Christ was never found walking in such a way. Because they were not walking as He walked, they were not abiding in Him. But “if a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” There is no escaping the conclusion. If we do not walk as He walked, we do not abide in Him; and if we do not abide in Him, we are cut off.

The promise of the kingdom is not made to those who do their own wills, but to those who do “the will of My Father which is in heaven.” Matt. 7:21. The one who has passed through the watery grave must leave the “old man” of sin, and pleasures of the world, and rise to “walk in newness of life.” Rom. 6:4. Anything else is a contradiction, a denial of the profession made. The true child of God will “walk in the light, as He is in the light.” Then he will have the true fellowship, and the sacrifice of Christ will atone for his transgression. 1 John 1:7. Anything less than that is failure. Anything short of that will bring disappointment and death, and to the disappointment and death to which such go they take with them those who have patterned after their ways. There is a better way, and that way is to “walk even as He walked.”