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T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
August, 1937
WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? [ Continued, from, -page 293]
of Christ, but a great deal is said about His death. The Pauline theology centers not in Bethlehem, nor in Nazareth, but in Calvary; everywhere the atoning sacrifice of Christ is declared to be alike the ground and the strength of Christianity, and the apostle will glory in nothing save the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Evangelic Records it is Christ’s holy Passion on which the emphasis is laid. Two chapters are made to cover thirty years of His life, but thirty chapters are given to the week which ended on Easter morning. C hrist the V ery L ife of the C hristian But, you will be saying, what has this to do with the question: What is it to be a Christian ? My friend, it has everything to do with it. If we would understand Chris tianity, we must understand Christ. If Christianity is only a philosophy, then Christ need only have been a teacher; and if Christianity is only an ethic, Christ need only have been a moralist; but if Chris tianity is a life, it is because Christ is a Saviour. There are other religions which are characterized by profound thought, and which have high ethical standards, but they are all wanting in saving power. Men are drawn to Mohammedanism by fear and to Buddhism by hope, but neither religion is a living reality in thè hearts of its fol lowers, because their founders are dead, and the religions to which they gave rise have no further need of them. But Chris tianity needs Christ for its existence; not a memory of Him, but Himself crucified and risen again. Just because Christ is a Re deemer and a Saviour, Christianity is a life and an experience. When a man becomes a Christian, Christ claims not a part of him, but the whole of him. Christ is the life of every Christian, and he is not a Christian whose life is not Christ. The apostles clearly apprehended this, and taught it. Paul says: “ Christ . . . is our life” ; and, “ It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. 2:20, R. V.) ; and, “ For to me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21). And John says: “ He that hath the Son hath the life ; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life” ( 1 John 5:12, R. V.).
When Jesus said that it was eternal life to know Him, He spoke not of intellectual, but of experimental knowledge, the knowl-' edge that is life. The Christian religion stands over against all religions of forms and duties, as the religion of life and of love, as the religion of personal attachment to Christ, and glad possession of Him. Those who profess to be Christians should know who He is whom they profess, and should know also why and how they have come to be Christians. To acknowledge the fact of Christ in human history does not make one a Christian; neither does giving intellectual assent to His claims, on the evi dence supplied by the Gospels. Many, do this who make no Christian profession. And attachment to a Christian church, by any means whatever, does not make one a Christian, and is no real evidence that one is such. A lady once applied to me for membership in the church to which I was ministering and when I asked her whether she were a Christian, she hotly replied, “That’s my business.” Of course it was her business, and the tragedy was that she was not attending to it. Yes, my friends, the salvation of our souls is our personal business, and we do not attend to it by having our names put on a church roll; indeed, our names have no right to be there until we have attended to it. A Christian church is not a religious club, but is a company of people who have an experimental knowledge of Christ, who know Him to be their Saviour, not merely because the Bible says that He can save, but because they know that He has saved them. Christianity is religion, but all re ligion is not Christianity. All men are re ligious, but not all are Christians. In the deepest heart of even the most degraded there is the sense of his need of Another, a sense which is born of a consciousness of guilt; but that sense, and the many ways in which men endeavor to satisfy it, can never make one a Christian. Eternal life is not hereditary, nor can we obtain it by any effort of our own, but it is the free gift of God through Jesus Christ. C haracteristics of the T rue C hristian The early disciples were called “believ ers” because they trusted the person of the Redeemer, because they “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven.” That is a good definition of a Christian—one who has turned, and now is serving and waiting. We cannot serve God acceptably until we have turned to Him, and we are not likely to look for Him if we have neither turned nor served. It is to be feared that many are trusting to good works for their salvation; and are making serving a substitute for turning. A friend said to me recently that he had been the treasurer of a certain church for a great many years, and he felt sure that that would be put to his credit account at last.' But Christianity is not a matter of debit and credit accounts. “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8, 9). There is, of course, a place for works in Christianity, but not as the ground of our [Continued on page 325]
regarded His death to be, in a very real sense, the consummation of His work. All ' men come under one law, that their death is no part of their activity, but terminates their work; but what puts an end to all other men’s work, was planted right in the center of Christ’s, and was itself part of that work. We by all means contrive to avoid death, but Christ came with the ex press purpose to die. Nor did He regard His sacrifice as merely exemplary, but as atoning. He accepted the Baptist’s description of Him as “ The Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29, R. V.). That word of John’s goes to the heart of the whole matter, for it describes the entire world as sinful, and declares that Jesus is its only Saviour. In the past, great self- sacrifice has been shown by countless men and women, who have gladly died for their family, or their nation, or their convictions; but the death of Jesus is the only one in history for which the claim was ever made, either by the sufferer himself, or by his friends, that it was an expiation for the sin of the world. This is the claim on which Christianity rests. In the cross of Christ, the love of God went beyond all reason and beyond all bounds; there at the cross are declared at once the moral condition of the world and the matchless grace of G od ; deepest depths of degradation and highest heights of holiness. It is the cross which stands at the heart of all history, and which proclaims at once Christ’s sovereignty and our salvation. The gospel is that deposit of truth which tells of the redeeming love of God exhibited in the death of Jesus Christ. When Paul would summarize the message he traveled over the world to proclaim, he says: “ I delivered unto you first of all that which I also re ceived, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3, 4.). Little is said in Paul’s letters of the life
"Ye Must Be Bom Again" By HELEN FRAZEE-BOWER All of my life that I had counted brave And beautiful with grace of wind and sun, Was but a gleaming pathway to the grave, A journey that were better not begun— Had I not heard, above the fall of leaves, Behind the lovely laughter of the rain, Beyond the lure of beauty that deceives, That warning cry, "Ye must be born again." The very joy of living had sufficed To spell my ruin in Eternity, Had I not glimpsed the travail of my Christ, And known His blood-bought ransom was for me. Since when, all beauty and all joy are mine. M y God, I thank Thee for such grace as Thine.
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