We are to be perfected in goodness, and we have been put right with God. But it is the latter which is primary and causal. It is the consciousness of this which is the essence of religion: "It will not comfort us so much, in our moments of weakness or dying, to be adjured to remember the dignity of our being, as to be pointed to the scene enacted once for all upon the Cross." This is where This is where power dwelleth. But here again one-sidedness brings its own Nemesis. The whole intention is to magnify the work of God: "See what God hath done unto my soul!" But when justification is separated from sanctification, the result is the reverse of what is intended. It is much easier to alter a man's status than to change his character. So far as forgiveness means merely remission of penalty, it is a small thing: it is easy for a juryman to vote for the "acquittal" of a guilty prisoner, if he is never to see any more of him. But if it means, as we have seen it must, a renewal of intimate personal relations, and hence a real change in the character of the sinner (for it is his character which is now the bar to intimacy), then it will be much harder. Mere acquittal is formal; and hence is, to moral experience, no salvation, or at most a very imperfect one. "It says 'Go,' but leaves the prison doors shut." 2 And the suggestion of the "imputation to men of a righteousness that is not theirs implies an atmosphere of artificiality and insincerity which is intolerable. (3) We must turn without further delay to the "inclusive" view, which is to combine the truths one-sidedly expressed by Liberalism and Conservatism. And we can at once lay down two conditions. First, our salvation must involve a change in our character: it must be a change within us. Anything else would be unreal. "The response of the Gospel to the human sense of actual sin and unattainable holiness is not the 1 Atonement and Personality, p. 322. half-grace of forgiveness but the whole-grace of redemption and deliverance." And, secondly, the psychological change required is much more fundamental than any which we could effect for ourselves. For certain purposes, we are accustomed to distinguish between a wider and a narrower use of the term "self." On the one hand, the Self includes everything that is ours, everything which a psychologist might observe in us; on the other hand, we sometimes treat it as an inner Ego, which presides over the whole kingdom of the self, which contemplates the wider self as an object and sees in it some things which it approves and some which it deplores and therefore resolves to change. But the distinction breaks down at this point; for the inner Ego itself needs to "suffer a sea-change." Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Though salvation must take place within the self, it must be initiated from without, for it must go down to the very roots of the will. Bearing these conditions in mind, I believe that we may see that Christian theology has not neglected, but has provided a reasoned account of, the carrying of the lifework of Jesus into effective relation to the lives and characters of men of other races and other times. It is the remoteness of the life of Jesus in time and place from our own lives and circumstances that constitutes the difficulty in understanding how there can really be a living relation between them. If there is any truth in the view of the possibilities of personal influence which we have already taken, we can understand how his personality might have power to transform and mould the characters of those, such as his own disciples, with whom he came into personal contact; and we can even see how, in a fainter way, that influence might be mediated through men like the apostles, who were full of his inspiration, and so reach men such as St. Paul, who had never actually seen him. But with every new generation such influence would 1 Du Bose, The Gospel in St. Paul, p. 102. become less, and to speak of a personal influence exercised across the centuries would be more and more fanciful. And now that the whole episode is wrapped in the mists of history, how can we, inhabitants as we are almost of a different world, both intellectual and practical, in any intelligible sense share the experience of the early disciples? The answer is to be found in the assertion which we have already been forced to make of the divinity of Christ; by which we meant at least that God was in Christ in such sense that the work of Christ was the work of God, and the character of Christ a clue to the character of God. From this certain consequences follow : (a) The historical facts of the life and death of Jesus Christ can only affect the whole universe in so far as they are more than merely historical. They have a genuinely "sacramental" character, being, in the words of the Church Catechism, "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace." They embody a principle which is a structural law of the universe. It is easy to see what principles these historical facts embody. It is the spirit of inexhaustible love of men and readiness for self-sacrifice on their behalf. And the practical meaning of the assertion of the divinity of Christ is that these qualities characterize God Himself,1 and so belong to the very structure of the universe. "What has made Christianity an invincible power in the world has been the conviction that somehow or other the life of love is the best, the divinest, life we can conceive, and, that every one who even for moments knows what it is to lose himself in others is doing what God does eternally." 2 And this is a basis. for the universalizing of the effect of the life and death of Christ on his immediate disciples. "As the flash of 1 Cf. Essays I., V. and IX. 2 Nettleship, Remains, vol, i. p. 105. (Extracts from Letters.) Y the volcano discloses for a few hours the elemental fires at the earth's centre, so the light on Calvary was the bursting forth through historical conditions of the very nature of the Everlasting. There was a cross in the heart of God before there was one planted on the green hill outside of Jerusalem. And now that the cross of wood has been taken down, the one in the heart of God abides, and it will remain so long as there is one sinful soul for whom to suffer."1 The historical facts were, like all historical facts, limited to a particular time and place. The timeless facts for which they stood are equally true for all times and places. (b) Just so far as we do think in terms of Time it is a commonplace of theology that Jesus is alive and is influencing men just as much in the year 1912 as in the year 29. To Christian theology, he not merely died on Calvary, but is alive, and has been ever since the Ascension at the right hand of God in glory. Not that he is merely glorified; his death for men on Calvary is not merely a past and distant episode; the having died is a predicate eternally true of him, and is part of what he now is. The theology of the Atonement has been largely expressed in terms of the Jewish sacrificial system; as, notably, in the Epistle to the Hebrews. In those terms, it asserts that the sacrifice of Christ is not merely something that took place nearly nineteen hundred years ago. It is something which is eternally offered in heaven by the glorified Christ. "He abideth a priest for ever.' (c) It is also a commonplace of theology that the bodily presence of Jesus to his disciples was to be replaced by something at least as real-the presence of his Spirit. That Spirit is the spirit of universal love; and the community of followers of Christ, which ideally should be the whole human race, is the sphere in which the Christ-spirit comes home to the individual. The Church so far as it embodies that spirit is the 2 Cf. above, Essay IV. pp. 193-198. 1 Dinsmore, pp. 232-233. channel of communication between the believer and the living Christ. (Just as "he who has done it unto the least of these, has done it unto Me," so the community and its corporate life and institutions are the means by which Christ acts on the individual.) the individual.) We are not concerned with controversial questions arising out of ecclesiastical divisions: we are only concerned with ideals. Ideally the Church is one, on earth and in heaven.1 The Sacraments, the preaching of "the Word," the personal influence of holy men are means of access to Christ; ways by which the individual Christian of to-day may be brought into the same personal contact with him as the original disciples. 2 Theology, then, has not been blind to the provision made for the extension of the saving work of Christ to modern times. Calvary, it has been said, can only be understood in terms of Pentecost. The work of the Spirit in the Church is an essential part of the theology of the Atonement. But this is not realized. This part of traditional theology is difficult for us to apprehend, because it is expressed in language which does not convey much meaning to the average Englishman, unless he has special ecclesiastical associations. On the one hand, we do not think naturally in terms of the ritual of sacrifice; and, on the other hand, the imagery of two distinct spheres or regions, a heavenly and an earthly, the latter of which is dependent on and in communication with the former, has become unnatural to us, though we have not any alternative imagery at present by which to replace it. The translation of this branch of theology into modern language, it may be hoped, will soon be undertaken. But what we are now emphasizing is, that there is a fairly coherent theology to be translated. 1 Cf. Essay IV. pp. 196-197, and Essay VII. passim. 2 I use these instances by way of illustration only. I am not here suggesting that they are necessary or exclusive means. |