p. 5 | WALKING AS HE WALKED

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · Sep 13, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 37.

WALKING AS HE WALKED.

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 Christ. 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 nor place with Him. Being a Christian, he abides with Christ necessarily. Having made the profession of Christianity, and therefore the profession of abiding in 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 therefore a living, walking contradiction. There is continual dispute between his life and his words, his profession 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 His Father. He said 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 the doing of 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 after His own way; not seeking pleasure in the things which minister to the pleasure 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 opportunity for making gain of a brother's need. But these were not the ways of Christ. He did not thus walk.

Not long since 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 indulgence in 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 his teachers, it was probably true of a like proportion of the church and Sunday-school at large. It certainly revealed a deplorable condition in that particular church; and yet many another church could have made no better showing. It is quite possible that the condition of some is even worse. We know that such conditions prevail 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, Are such professed Christians walking "even as He walked"? Were they not rather following after their own ways, their own wishes, their own carnal desires? Could it be said of such that their meat was to do the will of their Father in heaven, especially after their refusal to abandon such practises? Christ was never found walking in such ways. As they were not walking as He walked, they were not abiding in Him, and as they were not abiding in Him, it is certain that their lives were bearing no fruit for Him and His cause; and if our lives do not bear fruit, then we are to be cut off from Him and the reward that He has in store for those who are faithful to Him. He who has passed through the watery grave is supposed to have buried the "old man" of sin, and to have arisen to walk in newness of life. Anything else is a contradiction, a denial of the profession made. The true child of God must "walk in the light as He is in the light." Then he will have the true fellowship, and the sacrifice of Christ will avail in his behalf. Anything less than that is failure. Anything short of that will bring disappointment and death; and to the disappointment and death to which they go they take with them those who have patterned after their ways. There is a better way, and that is to "walk even as He walked."