On Being "a Firsthander"

E. Stanley Jones was a missionary, a theologian, and a prolific writer. In his devotional book titled In Christ he describes the mystical relationship of being in Christ:

"This mysticism of being in Christ is the healthiest and most vital mysticism I know, and I've lived in a land of mysticism [India] the best part of my life. I have never liked the term 'mysticism,' however--it seems too misty! I prefer the term Rufus Moseley used of himself. He said, 'I'm not a mystic, I'm just a firsthander.' Being a firsthander describes the deepest thing mysticism is trying to describe, a firsthand relationship with God. It describes a nothing-betweenness, an immediate contact with God, and deeper, a union with Him that is somewhere between purpose and essence. It is more than having the same purpose with God, but is this side of the same essence. You do not become that ultimate reality, but everything in that ultimate reality becomes yours by surrender and receptivity. You live in union with Him, but He is He and you are you. There are moments when the union is so deep that you can scarcely tell where He ends and where you begin, and where you end and He begins. You never topple over and become lost in the ocean of being. It is a union of communion, not a oneness of being.

"This mysticism, or firsthandedness, of being in Christ and Christ being in us, produces its own particular type. It is different from the God-centered type of union and communion. The God-centered type, not being anchored in history, is liable to wander amid its own states of consciousness, uncorrected by any norm or pattern. It is not more immediate than that which comes through a historical Person, for its own conceptions become the mediator. Uncorrected they are liable to be wrong and give an incorrect view of God.

". . . [We] cannot trust [our] surmises about God; [we] must have God's self-revelation."