Oneness with Christ

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. GALATIANS 2:20

The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life builds toward a chapter on oneness with Christ. All God’s dealings with the soul, Hannah Whitall Smith says, aim at this: that we should be one with Him, as our Lord prayed on the night before He died.

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. JOHN 17:21

From allegiance to union

She traced the usual course of Christian experience through the story of the disciples. First they woke up to their need. Then they came to Christ and pledged their loyalty. They followed Him, worked for Him and believed in Him — and yet how unlike Him they were. They argued about who was greatest, ran from the cross and misunderstood His words. They knew Christ, as she put it, after the flesh: outside them, their Lord and Master, but not yet their life. Then came Pentecost, and they knew Him within. One will now governed them, and it was His.

Many Christians, she said, recognise the earlier stages in themselves but not the last. They have allegiance and confidence, but not yet union. There are still two wills, two interests, two lives. She put the question in a sequence of four short sentences: “Once it was I and not Christ. Then it was I and Christ. Perhaps now it is even Christ and me. But has it come to be Christ only, and not I at all?”

To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: COLOSSIANS 1:27

Not a feeling but a likeness

Then comes the most important thing she says in this chapter, and one of the most important things she ever said. Many people imagine that oneness with Christ is a feeling — a great emotion of nearness. They look within for it, and if they have delightful religious emotions, they conclude they must be one with Him. Nowhere, she says, is the mistake of trusting to feelings more dangerous. “It is not what we feel, but what we are that settles the question.”

Two people are one when their aims, thoughts and ways are alike, not when they merely feel fond of each other. So oneness with Christ must mean likeness to Christ. She had seen people so ecstatic in their love for Christ that they claimed an intimate union with Him, while showing very few of His traits, and she scarcely knew a sadder sight.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. MATTHEW 7:21

He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked. 1 JOHN 2:6

And then she spells it out with uncomfortable plainness. “If you are one with Christ, you will be sweet to those who are cross with you.” You will bear things without complaint. When reviled, you will not revile again. You will take the lowest place and serve, as He did. You will love your enemies. This, she says, is what oneness means, and no feeling, however ecstatic, can take its place.

Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. MATTHEW 7:17

This is a striking thing to find in the heart of a holiness classic. She was writing among camp meetings where overwhelming emotion was often taken as the sign of the Spirit, and she deliberately set it aside. Emotions, she said, depend largely on temperament and health. Let them come or go as God pleases; the test of union is character.

The Guest in the house

How does one come into this? She begins with a fact, not a feeling. The indwelling of God is already true of every believer, even the weakest.

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 1 CORINTHIANS 3:16

Paul said that to the Corinthians — carnal, quarrelsome and immature. So it is not a new thing we must ask for, but something we must recognise. She pictured Christ living in a house, shut away in a small back room, while the family came and went about their business without a thought for Him. Then someone announces: the Lord is in the house! Will they welcome Him into every room and consult Him about everything? Or shrink from Him and look for a corner to hide in?

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. REVELATION 3:20

Her steps are her usual three. Be sure from Scripture that God dwells in you. Surrender your whole being to be possessed by Him. Believe that He has taken possession, and go on reckoning it, day and night, until it becomes the breath of the soul.

Christ only — and I live

One qualification. Her phrase Christ only, and not I at all expresses a real truth about self-will and self-life. But it should not be heard as though our personality were meant to disappear. Paul says, nevertheless I live. Union with Christ does not erase the person; it restores the person as God meant him to be. It is my will that is yielded, my mind that is renewed, my hands that serve. That is why she can insist in the same breath that oneness shows itself in character, which is always personal.

But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. 1 CORINTHIANS 6:17

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Where are you in her sequence: I and not Christ; I and Christ; Christ and I; Christ only?

2. Test your sense of nearness to Christ by her plain question: are you sweet to those who are cross with you?

3. Name one person with whom your behaviour contradicts your devotion, and ask Christ to live His life toward them through you.

4. Walk through the rooms of your life — work, home, money, leisure — and ask whether the Guest has been welcomed in each.

5. Every day this week, say Galatians 2:20 slowly, as a statement of fact and a surrender of will.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You are already in the house, and I have kept You in a back room.

I open every door to You now. Come into my work and my home, my speech and my silences.

Do not let me be content with warm feelings about You while I remain unlike You.

Live Your life in me, so that I am gentle when others are cross, patient when I am wronged, and glad to take the lowest place. Amen.