A BETTER WAY | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 9, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 41.

A BETTER WAY.

A CORRESPONDENT questioned the belief of the Outlook in the Divinity of Christ, and that journal replied in its issue of August 3. Beyond stating its belief, it splendidly presents the unprofitableness of purely religious controversy. We have not space for all the article. We quote as follows:—

We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and the express image of His person; that God was in Christ, and that Christ was God manifest in the flesh; and we believe that this was true in such a sense that he who has seen, that is, known, Christ, has seen, that is, known, the Father. Or, if this is not plain enough, we will state it in the exact words of John in the prologue to his Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and ‘the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among ‘us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) ‘full of grace and truth.’” . . . And we also reaffirm the declaration of the editorial that “Jesus Christ is not a substitute for God; He is access to God; and we are to bring to God all our love, and all our worship, and all our surrender, because we no longer worship an unknown God, but God made known to us through His Son;” and we repeat, condensing it, the further declaration that to do this it is not necessary to believe that Christ’s unity with the Father is a metaphysical unity, or to know what the phrase metaphysical unity means, or to form any intellectual conception of the nature of the unity between Jesus Christ and His Father.

Mrs. L. P. Broad has written, and the Kansas Congregational Home Missionary Society has published, the following little story; hundreds of thousands of copies of it have been distributed; and it is reported, apparently authentically, that this little story has led hundreds to begin a Christian life:—

Wi-yu’s father and mother were pagans. She was a little Indian girl. She never heard a word about Jesus until she came to the mission. We were glad to take the children of pagans, even while both parents were living. One day Wi-yu walked up to me and said, “I want to give myself away to you.” I was much surprised, but looked into the little girl’s black eyes, and said, “Why does Wi-yu wish to give herself to me?” “Because,” said she simply, “I love you.” After this they all called Wi-yu my little girl.

One day while Wi-yu sat by my side learning how to hem a pocket handkerchief neatly, I asked her if she loved Jesus, of whom I had been talking to her. “No,” she said, “I do not; but I want to. I want to be a Christian; but I’m too little.”

“But Jesus says, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me.’”

“I don’t know how to go to Him; I don’t know what to do,” said she.

“Wi-yu,” said I, “you must give yourself away to Him.” She looked at me in surprise.

“How can I do that?” she exclaimed.

“How did you give yourself away to me?”

“I came to you and asked you to take me, because I love you.”

“Why do you love me, dear?” She hesitated a moment, and then answered, “I think it must be because you love me.”

“Yes, Wi-yu, that’s just the reason. Now, Jesus has been loving you all this time, while you have not been caring in the least for Him.”

She stopped sewing and sat very still awhile, thinking. I did not say a word, because I knew the Holy Spirit was teaching her. At last she said,—

“Would Jesus be willing for me to give myself away to Him just as I did to you?”

“Certainly, my dear child; that is exactly what He wants you to do. He wants all of you, too. He wants your little feet to run for Him, your lips and tongue to speak for Him, and your whole heart to love Him.”

After some more quiet thinking, Wi-yu knelt by my side and said: “My dear Jesus, I give myself away to you. I give you my hands, my feet, my mouth, my tongue, and my heart; I give you all of myself. Please take me, dear Jesus.” She arose and said,—

“Do you think He heard me?”

“I am sure of it,” said I; “and you will find His answer in your little Testament.” Together we found these precious words in her Indian Testament: “Any one that cometh unto Me, I will not thrust aside.” Believing that Jesus meant just what He said, she from this moment knew that she was His own, dear, saved child.

If no one can be a Christian unless he believes that Jesus Christ is truly God, and that the unity of Christ with His Father was a metaphysical unity, then Mrs. Broad seriously erred. She should have explained to Wi-yu what the phrase “metaphysical unity” means—if she herself knew; we somewhat doubt whether any one does—and should have explained to Wi-yu that she could not be a Christian until she understood. We think that Mrs. Broad was right in her interpretation of Christianity, and that Mrs. Parish is wrong. We do not criticise or controvert Mrs. Parish’s theories; we simply regard them as of no practical importance. We emphatically deny that any theological theories respecting the relation of Jesus Christ to the Father are a condition of acceptance with Christ. We condemn such a misconception respecting the relations of intellectual theories to the religious life as irrational, unscriptural, and pernicious. It is irrational because it substitutes theories about life for life itself; it is unscriptural because it substitutes a medieval and scholastic test of character for the simple test which Christ prescribed, “If ye keep My commandments, ye ‘shall abide in My love;” it is pernicious because it shuts the door of the kingdom of God against the humble, the uneducated, the little children, and because it turns the zeal of men away from doing the work of the Master in simple, loyal service, and incites them to doubtful disputations about words and phrases which have different meanings to the different disputants, and to many mean nothing at all. To be a Christian is not to have a theory about Christ’s relation to the Father, ancient or modern, conservative or liberal; it is to love Him because He loves us, to give ourselves to Him because He has given Himself to us, and to set our feet to run for Him, and our hands to work for Him, and our lips and tongue to speak for Him, because our whole heart loves Him.