June 13, 1904

“What Christianity Really Is” Australasian Signs of the Times 19, 24 pp. 288, 289.

ATJ

BY A. T. JONES

IT is entirely too much supposed that Christianity has to do with a sort of etherialised existence, apart from the real occupations and practical things of the every day life. But this is the farthest possible from the truth.BEST June 13, 1904, page 288.1

Christianity belongs in the deepest and widest sense as a vital working force in all that can ever rightly go to make up the sum of the daily human life upon the earth. Christians are true to their name and profession when their practical conduct in all affairs of the daily life demonstrate the all pervading presence and power of the Spirit in uprightness, righteousness, and truth.BEST June 13, 1904, page 288.2

It cannot be denied that the life of Christ in the flesh on earth is the demonstration of Christianity. His was the normal Christian life, the demonstration of what it is easy for every Christian to be. Christ in human flesh put Himself in vital connection with every true and right relationship of human life on the earth. He grew up from infancy to manhood as the children of men grow; He met all that human beings in this world meet as they grow up, “for in all things it behoved Him to be made like His brethren.” “He was touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” He experienced human suffering, for “He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” “He was in all points tempted like as we are, so that in that He suffered being tempted He might also succour them that are tempted.” Nor was it in the spiritual life alone that He met and identified Himself with the daily experience of human life. He worked daily as a carpenter all through the days of His youth and early manhood. This work as a carpenter brought Him into vital connection with mankind in the practical, material things that make up the daily life of the common people. He was just as truly the Saviour of the world when He was sawing boards as He was when preaching the sermon on the mount or walking on the sea. This simply demonstrates that Christianity just as truly and vitally enters into the mechanical or other physical things of daily life as it does into the divinest sermon that was ever preached.BEST June 13, 1904, page 288.3

All this was for our sake—for us. He did it to show to us how we are to do it; to show to us exactly what Christianity is; how all-embracing is the life of faith, and how entirely it sanctifies every occupation as well as every thought of the daily life. It is the daily life of the Christian or else it is nothing to him.BEST June 13, 1904, page 289.1

Such was the Christianity of Christ, and that is the only true kind. Every soul can have it, and every Christian must have it, for only that is what Christianity really is.BEST June 13, 1904, page 289.2