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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/24153-h.zip b/24153-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cc6b94a --- /dev/null +++ b/24153-h.zip diff --git a/24153-h/24153-h.htm b/24153-h/24153-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..85f4677 --- /dev/null +++ b/24153-h/24153-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3760 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Gloria Crucis</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.headingsummary { margin-left: 5%;} + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Gloria Crucis, by J. H. Beibitz</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Gloria Crucis, by J. H. Beibitz + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Gloria Crucis + addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 + + +Author: J. H. Beibitz + + + +Release Date: January 3, 2008 [eBook #24153] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GLORIA CRUCIS*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1908 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by +David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>GLORIA CRUCIS</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">addresses +delivered in lichfield cathedral</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">holy week and good friday</span>, 1907</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +THE REV. J. H. BEIBITZ, M.A.<br /> +<span class="smcap">vice-principal of the theological +college</span>, <span class="smcap">lichfield</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.<br /> +39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON<br /> +NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA<br /> +1908</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>All rights reserved</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center">MATRI</p> +<h2><!-- page ix--><a name="pageix"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +ix</span>INTRODUCTION</h2> +<p>These addresses, delivered in Lichfield Cathedral <a +name="citation0"></a><a href="#footnote0" +class="citation">[0]</a> in Holy Week, 1907, are published at the +request of some who heard them. It has only been possible +to endeavour to reproduce them in substance.</p> +<p>The writer desires to express his obligations to various works +from which he has derived much assistance, such as, above all, Du +Bose’s <i>Gospel in the Gospels</i>, Askwith’s +<i>Conception of Christian Holiness</i>, Tennant’s +<i>Origin of Sin</i>, and Jevons’ <i>Introduction to the +History of Religion</i>.</p> +<p>To the first and the last of these he is especially indebted +in regard to the view here taken of the Atonement.</p> +<p>It seems to him that no view of that great and central truth +can possibly be true, which (i) represents it as the result of a +transaction between the Father and the Son, which is ditheism +pure and simple; or which (ii) regards it as intended to relieve +us of the penalty of our sins, instead of having as its one +motive, meaning, and purpose the “cure of +sinning.”</p> +<p>So far as we can see, the results of sin, seen and <!-- page +x--><a name="pagex"></a><span class="pagenum">p. x</span>unseen, +in this world and beyond it, must follow naturally and +necessarily from that constitution of the universe (including +human nature) which is the expression of the Divine Mind. +If this is true, and if that Mind is the Mind of Him Who is Love, +then all punishment must be remedial, must have, for its object +and intention at least, the conversion of the sinner. And, +therefore, the desire to escape from punishment, if natural and +instinctive, is also non-moral, for it is the desire to shirk +God’s remedy for sin, and doomed never to realise its hope, +for it is the desire to reverse the laws of that Infinite +Holiness and Love which governs the world.</p> +<p>Yet this must be understood with one all-important +reservation. For the worst punishment of sin, is sin +itself, the alienation of the soul from God, with its consequent +weakening of the will, dulling of the reason, and corrupting of +the affections. And it was from this punishment, from this +“hardest hell,” which is sin, or the character +spoiled and ruined by sin, that Christ died to deliver us.</p> +<p>It follows that it is high time to dismiss all those theories +of the Atonement which ultimately trace their origin to the +enduring influence of Roman law. There is no remission of +penalty offered to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The +offer which is there held out to us, is that which answers to our +deepest need, to the inmost longings of the human soul, +“the remission of our <i>sins</i>.”</p> +<p><!-- page xi--><a name="pagexi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xi</span>The idea of a penalty owing to the “justice” +of God is a thoroughly legalistic one, the offspring of an age +which thought in terms of law. It deals throughout with +abstractions. The very word “justice” is a +general notion, a concept, the work of the mind abstracting from +particulars. Justice and mercy are used like counters in +some theological game at which we are invited to play. +“Penalty,” again, is a term which serves to obscure +the one important fact that God, as a Moral Person or, rather, as +the One Self-Existent Being, of Whose nature and essence morality +is the expression, can only have one motive in dealing with +sinners, and that is, to reconcile them to Himself, to restore +them to that true ideal of their nature, which is the Image of +Himself in the heart of every man. Who can measure the pain +and anguish which that restoration must cost, to the sinner +himself, and (such is the wonderful teaching of the Cross) to +God, the All-Holy One, Who comes into a world of sin in order to +restore him?</p> +<p>There is no room here, at all events, for light and trivial +thoughts of sin. That charge might be levelled, with more +excuse, at the view that sin only incurs an external penalty, +from which we can be cheaply delivered by the sufferings of +another.</p> +<p>And theories of the Atonement which centre in the conception +of penalty are often only modifications of the crude and glaring +injustice of the Calvinistic view. The doctrine of a kind +of bargain between <!-- page xii--><a name="pagexii"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. xii</span>the Father and the Son, while it +revolts our moral instincts, at the same time logically leads to +the purely heathen notion of two gods.</p> +<p>There are two main principles which are essential to a right +understanding of the Atonement: (1) The oneness of Christ both +with God and with humanity. In regard to neither is He, nor +can He be, “Another”; (2) the death of Christ was the +representation in space and time of a moral fact. It +happened as an “event” in history, in order that that +moral fact, of which it was the embodiment and symbol, might +become a fact in the spiritual experience of mankind. That +death was more than a symbol, because it was the actual means by +which that which it represented might be, and has been, in the +lives of all Christians accomplished. These two principles +the writer has, with whatever degree of failure or inadequacy, +endeavoured to embody in the following addresses.</p> +<p>And yet the Atonement, which is, in the broadest aspect of it, +Christianity itself, is a fact infinitely greater and higher than +any mere theories of it. For it is nothing less than this, +the personal action of the living Christ on the living souls of +men. That his readers and himself may experience this +action in ever-increasing measure is the prayer of him who, as he +fears, too greatly daring, has endeavoured to set forth, yet once +more, “The Glory of the Cross.”</p> +<h2><!-- page 1--><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +1</span>GLORIA CRUCIS</h2> +<h3>I<br /> +THE GLORY OF THE CROSS</h3> +<blockquote><p>“God forbid that I should glory save in the +Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”—<span +class="smcap">Gal.</span> <span class="smcap">vi.</span> 14.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There are at least two reasons, unconnected with Holy Week, +why the subject of the Cross of Christ should occupy our +attention.</p> +<p>1. The first reason is, that the Cross is commonly +recognised as the weak point in our Christianity. It is the +object of constant attack on the part of its assailants: and +believers are content too often to accept it “on +faith,” which means that they despair of giving a rational +explanation of it. Too often, indeed, Christians have +proclaimed and have gloried in its supposed irrationality. +To this latter point we shall return. But in the meanwhile +it is necessary to say this: all language of harshness towards +those who attack the doctrine of the Atonement is completely <!-- +page 2--><a name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 2</span>out +of place. For the justification of their attacks has very +often come from the Christian side. In former times, far +more commonly than now, the sacrifice of Christ has been +represented as a substitutory offering, necessary to appease the +wrath of an offended God. It used to be said, and in some +quarters it is said to-day, that the sins of the human race had +so provoked the Divine anger that it could be appeased by nothing +short of the destruction of mankind. In these dire straits +of mankind, the Sinless Son of God presented Himself as the +object on which the full vials of the Father’s wrath should +be outpoured. God having been thus placated, and His wrath +satisfied, such as believe in this transaction, and rest +themselves in confidence upon it, are enabled in such wise to +reap its benefits that they escape the penalty due to their +transgression, and are restored to the Divine favour.</p> +<p>Now this is the crudest representation of a certain popular +theology of the Atonement. With some of its features +softened down, it is by no means without its adherents and +exponents at the present day. But when its drift is clearly +understood, it is seen to be a doctrine which no educated man of +our time can accept. We may consider four fatal objections +to it.</p> +<p>(<i>a</i>) It is true that there is such a thing as “the +wrath of God.” It is not only a fact, but one of the +most tremendous facts in the universe. It is a fact <!-- +page 3--><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>as +high as the Divine purity, as deep as the malignity and foulness +of sin, as broad as all human experience. It is impossible +to construct a theistic theory of the world which shall leave it +out. The nature of the fact we shall investigate at a later +point. But we can say this at once. It cannot be such +a fact as is represented by the theory under review. For +that represents the wrath of God as a mere thirst for vengeance, +a burning desire to inflict punishment, a rage that can only be +satisfied by pain, and blood, and death. In other words, we +are driven to a conception of God which is profoundly immoral, +and revoltingly pagan. If we are rightly interested in +missions to the heathen, are there to be no attempts to convert +our fellow-Christians whose conception of God scarcely rises +above the heathen one of a cruel and sanguinary deity? Not +such, at least, is the New Testament doctrine of Him Who is God +and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.</p> +<p>(<i>b</i>) There is no moral quality which we esteem higher +than justice. Fairness, equity, straight dealing are +attributes for which all men entertain a hearty and unfeigned +respect. There is no flame of indignation which burns +fiercer within us than when we conceive ourselves, or others, to +be the victims of injustice. But what are we to say of a +view of the Atonement which represents God Himself as being +guilty of the most flagrant act of injustice that the mind of man +has ever conceived, the <!-- page 4--><a name="page4"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 4</span>infliction of condign punishment upon +a perfectly innocent Person, and that for the offences committed +by others? It is a further wrong, and that a wrong done to +the offenders themselves, that they are, in consideration of the +sufferings of the righteous One, relieved of the merited and +healthful punishment of ill-doing.</p> +<p>(<i>c</i>) A third defect of this theory of the Atonement is, +that it is profoundly unethical. The need of man is +represented as being, above all, escape from penalty. +Whereas, at least, the conscience of the sinner himself is +bearing at all times witness to the truth that his real necessity +is escape from his sin, from the weakness and the defilement of +his moral nature, which are of the very essence of moral +transgression. We are now dealing with the matter from the +moral standpoint; but we have to support us the authority of the +earliest proclamation of the work of the Christ: “He shall +save His people from their sins,” not from any pains or +penalties attached to their sins. Relief from punishment is +not the Gospel of the New Testament, it is not a gospel at +all.</p> +<p>(<i>d</i>) Finally, the idea of a transaction between the +Father and the Son is clean contrary to the fundamental Christian +doctrine of the Unity of God. Once locate justice in the +Father, and love in the Son, and view the Atonement as the result +of a bargain, or transaction between the Two, and once more we +are left with a doctrine not Christian, but <!-- page 5--><a +name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span>heathen and +polytheistic. There is unhappily little doubt, that the +doctrine of the Holy Trinity suffers, just as that of the +Atonement, even more from its defenders than from its +assailants. Properly understood, that doctrine is the +vindication of the complete fulness of the personal life of the +One God. Too often it is so held, and so preached and +represented, as in this case, that monotheism is tacitly +abandoned in favour of ditheism or tritheism. It needs to +be plainly said, that the transaction theory is inconsistent with +the trinitarian doctrine. The Three Persons are so called +in our Western theology owing to defects inherent in human +thought and speech. To set one over against the other as +two parties to a contract, is to found a theory upon those very +defects. The Miltonic representation of the Father and the +Son is Arian; the popular view is, more often than not, a belief +either in two gods, or in a logical contradiction.</p> +<p>To sum up, the view of the Atonement with which we have been +occupying ourselves, is opposed to the fundamental moral +instincts, and to the Christian consciousness, both as it finds +expression in the New Testament, and as it reveals itself in the +best minds of to-day. And this type of theory, although +without some of its coarser features, is by no means +extinct. There is all the more need then, in spite of all +that has been so well done in this direction, to exhibit the +Atonement as the supreme vindication <!-- page 6--><a +name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 6</span>of those +instincts which are the witness of the Divine in man. There +is laid on all who would preach or teach Christianity to-day to +show that Calvinism, and all that is touched with the taint of +Calvinism, is not the doctrine of the Atonement which is taught +in the Bible or held by the Church. But, as nothing can be +built on negations, there is an even greater and more imperative +need to exhibit the truth of the Atonement in its beauty and +majesty and transcendent moral power.</p> +<p>2. The second of our two reasons for the choice of the +Cross of Christ as our subject, is the failure on the part of +those who believe in it, trust in it, and even build their lives +upon it, to realise the true vastness of its meaning. We +are too apt to regard the Cross as one of the doctrines of our +religion, or as supplying a motive to penitence, or to Christian +conduct. Our view, when we are most in earnest, is +one-sided, limited, parochial. We must rise, if we would +really understand the Cross, to the height of this conception: +that it contains in itself the answer to the problem of human +existence, and of our individual lives. The secret of the +universe, of our part of it at least, that tiny corner which is +occupied by the human race, was revealed in that supreme +disclosure of the Divine Mind which was made on Calvary. It +was a disclosure necessarily given under the forms of time and +space, else it could not have been given to us at all. But +it transcends <!-- page 7--><a name="page7"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 7</span>all forms and limitations, and belongs +to the spiritual and timeless order, which is also the +Real. But it is a disclosure which requires the thought and +study, not of one generation only, but of all. It can never +be exhausted. There is no view of it (including even that +miserable caricature which we have just considered) that is +altogether without some elements of truth. There is no view +which embodies the whole of the truth. Each generation is +meant to read that secret of God, which was uttered to mankind +from the Cross of the Christ, a little more clearly than its +predecessors. No theology of the Atonement which is not +both new and old, can be a true theology. It must be old, +because the disclosure was made under the form of historic facts +which belong to the past. It must be new, because each age, +in the light of the progressive revelation of God, interprets the +disclosure under the forms of its own experience, scientific, +moral, spiritual, which belongs to the present. +“Therefore is every scribe that is instructed unto the +kingdom of heaven, like unto a householder which bringeth forth +out of his treasures things both new and old.”</p> +<p>But the present point is, that we should realise the +far-reaching significance of the disclosure of God made on and +from the Cross. Human history is like a long-drawn-out +drama, in which we are actors. How long is that drama, +stretching back beyond the long years of recorded history to our +dim forefathers, <!-- page 8--><a name="page8"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 8</span>who have left their rude stone +implements on the floors of caves or bedded in the river drift, +the silent witnesses of a vanished race. And how short is +that little scene in which we ourselves appear, while, +insignificant as it is, it is yet our all. And we ask, we +are impelled to ask, what is the meaning of the whole vast +drama? What is the meaning of our own little scene in +it? No questions can be compared in interest and importance +to these two. And the answer to them both, so we shall try +to see, was given once in time from the Cross. That is one +of the chief aspects under which we shall regard the Cross of +Christ, as the key which unlocks the mystery of human existence, +and of my existence. There is no more majestic or pathetic +conception than that of the veiled Isis. But the Cross is +the removal of the veil, the discovery of the Divine Secret.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>Before, however, we proceed to our main subject, it will be +well to set first before our minds a few elementary +considerations.</p> +<p>The existence of God appears to be necessitated in order to +account for two things: (i) the appearance of control in the +universe; (ii) the facts of moral consciousness.</p> +<p>(i) It seems impossible to get rid of the ideas of +direction and control. If we regard the world as it exists +at the present moment, as one stage in an age-long process, then +at least δυναμει the facts +which <!-- page 9--><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +9</span>now appear were contained in the earliest stage of +all. Man appears with his moral and spiritual nature. +Then already the moral and the spiritual were somehow present +when the first living cell began its wonderful course. +το πωτον ου +μεν σπέρμα +αλλα το +πέλειον. All +movements have converged towards this end, and the co-ordination +of movements implies control.</p> +<p>This then is our first reason for our belief in God. We +live in a universe which seems throughout to manifest evidence of +direction and control.</p> +<p>(ii) But I have much surer and more cogent evidence +within myself. Whence comes that ineradicable conviction of +the supremacy of righteousness, of the utter loveliness of the +good, and utter hatefulness of the evil? I am not concerned +with the steps of the process by which the moral sense may have +developed. The majesty of goodness, before which I bow, +really, sincerely, even when by my acts I give the lie to my own +innermost convictions, that is no creation of my +consciousness. Nor do I see good reason to believe that it +has been an invention of, or growth in, human consciousness +during the slow development of past ages. There is +something deeper in my moral convictions than an outward sanction +wondrously transmuted into an internal one. Moreover, in +the best men, those who have really developed that moral faculty +which I detect, in beginning and germ, as it were, in myself, I +see no abatement in reverence for <!-- page 10--><a +name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 10</span>the +ideal. Rather, the better and saintlier that they are, the +keener do they feel their fallings off from it. A moral +lapse, which would give me hardly a moment’s uneasy +thought, is capable of causing in them acute and prolonged +sorrow. The nearer they draw to the moral ideal, strange +paradox, the farther off from them does it ever appear, and they +from it. It is an apostle who writes, “Christ Jesus +came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the +chief.” Nor can I discover any tolerable explanation +of all this, except that the guiding and directive power in the +world, reveals itself in the moral consciousness of men, and with +growing clearness in proportion as that consciousness has been +trained and educated, as the moral ideal.</p> +<p>I find myself then, when my eyes are opened to the realities +of the world in which I live, confronted with the facts of +directive control and of the moral ideal. If I seek for +some interpretation and coordination of the facts, I am +compelled, judging of them on the analogy of my own experience +(which, being the ultimate reality I know, is my only clue to the +interpretation of the ultimate reality of the universe) to regard +them as the activities of a Person, Whom we call God. +Certainly to call the Ultimate Reality a Person, must be an +inadequate expression of the truth, for it is the expression of +the highest form of being in the terms of the lower. But it +is an infinitely more adequate presentation, than to <!-- page +11--><a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +11</span>represent that Reality as impersonal. For +personality being the highest category of my thought, I am bound +to think of God as being Personal, if I would think of Him at +all. I can be confident that though my view must fall far +short of the truth, it is at least nearer to the truth and heart +of things than any other view I can form. It is in fact the +truth so far as I can apprehend it: the truth by which I was +meant to live, and on which I was made to act.</p> +<p>But the question of questions remains—What is the +relation of the Person Whom I call God to my own personal being, +to my spirit? And, in answering this question, popular +theology makes a grave and disastrous mistake. It regards +that Person as being isolated from all other persons, in the same +way as each of us is isolated from all other persons. God, +that is, is viewed as but One Person among many. Now, +without inquiring as to the truth of this conception of +personality, as being essentially an exclusive thing, we may at +least say this, following the teaching of our best modern +thinkers, as they have followed that of St. John and the Greek +Fathers, that God is as truly conceived of as being within us, as +external to us. His Throne is in the heart of man, as truly +as it is at the centre of the universe. No view of God is +tenable at the present day which regards Him as outside His own +creation. His Personality is not exclusive, but inclusive +of all <!-- page 12--><a name="page12"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 12</span>things and all persons, while yet it +transcends them. And as He includes us within Himself, as +in God “we live and move and have our being,” so also +He interpenetrates us with His indwelling Presence as the life of +our life.</p> +<p>To this point we shall presently return, for it is the keynote +of all modern advance in theological knowledge, so far as that is +not concerned with questions of literature, history, +archæology, and textual criticism. But we are +concerned to notice now, that this recovered truth of the +immanence of God in our humanity, affords the full and sufficient +explanation of that dark shadow which lies athwart all human +lives. That shadow has loomed large in the minds of poets, +thinkers, and theologians. The latter know it by the name +of sin. But what is sin save the conscious alienation and +estrangement of man from the Divine Life which is in him? +And if this be true, we can now see clearly why sin, moral +transgression, always makes itself felt as a disintegrating force +both without and within the individual life. Without, it is +for ever separating nation from nation, class from class, man +from man. Within, it produces discord and confusion in our +nature. And both results follow, because sin is the +alienation from the Divine Life, which is both the common element +in human nature which binds man to man by the tie of spiritual +kinship; and also the central point of the individual life, the +hidden and sacred source and <!-- page 13--><a +name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>fountain of +our being, which unites all the faculties and powers of our +manhood in one harmonious whole.</p> +<p>Now the Cross of Jesus Christ is the overcoming of this +disastrous estrangement and alienation. It is the victory +of the Divine life in man. That is the most fruitful way in +which we can regard it. The Cross stands for +conquest—the triumph of the Divine Life in us over all the +forces which are opposed to it. And in this lies the glory +of the Cross; that which made the symbol of the most degrading +form of punishment—that punishment which to the Jewish mind +made him who suffered under it the “accursed of God,” +and which to the Roman was the ignominious penalty which the law +inflicted on the slave—the subject of boasting to that +apostle who was both, to the very heart of him, a Jew and also a +citizen of the empire.</p> +<p>The object of these lectures is to show how this is indeed the +meaning of the Cross. There, in Him Who was the Son of man, +the Representative and the Ideal of the race, the Divine Life +triumphed, in order that in us, who are not separate from, but +one with Him, it may win the like victory.</p> +<p>We fight against sin, and again and again succumb in the +struggle. But as often as with the opened eye of the soul +we turn to the Cross of Jesus, we behold there the victory, our +victory, already won. Already, indeed, it is ours, by the +communication to us of the <!-- page 14--><a +name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>Spirit of Him +Who triumphed on the Cross. It only remains for us, by the +deliberate act of our whole personal being, our will, our reason, +our affections, to appropriate and make our own the deathless +conquest won in and for our humanity on the Cross.</p> +<h3><!-- page 15--><a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +15</span>II<br /> +THE HISTORICAL AND SPIRITUAL CAUSES OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST</h3> +<blockquote><p>“Him, being by the determined will and +foreknowledge of God given up, through the hand of lawless men, +ye affixed to a cross and slew.”—<span +class="smcap">Acts</span> <span class="smcap">ii.</span> 23.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>St. Paul places this in the very forefront of that gospel +which, as it had been delivered to him, so he in his turn had +delivered to the Corinthians, that “Christ died for our +sins.” Neglecting all, deeper interpretations of +this, it is at least clear that in the apostle’s mind there +was the closest and most intimate connexion between the death of +Christ and the fact of human sin.</p> +<p>Now it is important to remember that that connexion was, in +the first place, an historical one.</p> +<p>Christianity is a religion founded upon facts. In this +is seen at once a sharp distinction between our religion and that +which claims the allegiance of so many millions of our +race—the religion, or better, perhaps, the philosophy of +the Buddha. Certainly there is such a thing as a Christian +philosophy. For we cannot handle facts without at the same +time <!-- page 16--><a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +16</span>seeking for some rational explanation of them. The +plain man becomes a philosopher against his will. In its +origin our Christian theology is no artificial, manufactured +product. It is rather an inevitable, natural growth. +Neither the minds of the earliest Christian thinkers, nor our own +minds, are just sheets of blank paper on which facts may impress +themselves. Scientists, some of them at least, while +repudiating philosophy put forth metaphysical theories of the +universe. Theology is simply the necessary result of human +minds turned to the consideration of the Christian facts. +But it makes all the difference which end you start from, the +facts or the theory: whether your method is à posteriori +or à priori; inductive or deductive; scientific or +obscurantist. And Christianity follows the scientific +method of starting with the facts. In this lies the +justification of its claim to be a religion at once universal and +life-giving. It is universal because facts are the common +property of all, although the interpretation placed on those +facts by individuals may be more or less adequate. It is +life-giving, because men live by facts, not by theories about +them; by the assimilation of food, not by the knowledge how food +nourishes our bodies.</p> +<p>Following, then, the Christian, which is also the scientific +method, we now set out in search of the facts, the historical +causes which brought about the death of Christ.</p> +<p><!-- page 17--><a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +17</span>Now these causes appear to have been, mainly, these +three: prejudice, a dead religion, and the love of gain and +political ambition.</p> +<p>1. Prejudice may, perhaps, be best defined as the +resolution to hold fast to our belief, just because it is our +belief; to adhere to an opinion, and close our eyes to all that +has been said on the opposite side. Now nowhere and at no +time has prejudice exerted a more absolute dominion over the +minds of men, than it did in Judæa in the first century of +our era. The people had inherited a traditional conception +of the Messiah, from which they could not imagine any deviation +possible. He was the Deliverer and the Restorer predestined +of God. He would throw off the hated foreign yoke, and make +the people of God supreme over all the nations of the +earth. It was for a long time doubtful whether Jesus of +Nazareth intended to claim the position, and to enact the part of +the Messiah. “How long keepest thou our soul in +suspense?” was the question put to Him as late as the Feast +of Dedication, 28 <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, the year +before He suffered. But, finally, the people found +themselves confronted with a type of Messiah differing <i>toto +caelo</i> from the accepted traditional type. The kingdom +of God, which meant the Divine rule over the souls of men, was at +least not such a kingdom as they were looking for, as they had +been taught to expect. There is a long history in the +gospels of the gradual rise of a popular hope, more <!-- page +18--><a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>than +once seeming to have attained its eagerly longed-for goal; but at +last doomed, and conscious that it was doomed, to bitter and +final disappointment. And it turned to hatred of Him Who +had aroused it from a long and fitful sleep of centuries. +“Crucify Him” was now their cry. Jesus was put +to death on the legal charge of being “Christ, a +King,” a provincial rebel. He really died because He +was not “Christ, a King,” in such sense as He had +been expected to be. Thus the first historical cause of the +death of our Lord was prejudice, inveterate and ingrained, in the +minds of the people.</p> +<p>2. The second historical cause of the death of our Lord +was the existence in His day and place of a dead religion. +This is, when we consider the meaning of the phrase, the +strangest of paradoxes, the existence in fact of a logical +contradiction. For religion is in its essential nature a +living thing, for the very reason that it is part of the +experience of a living person. As experience is not merely +alive, but the sum of all our vital powers, it is ever growing, +both in breadth and in intensity. So far then as we are in +any true sense religious men, our religion, as part and parcel of +our experience, must be alive with an intense and vigorous +activity, growing in the direction in which our experience +grows. Hence a dead religion is a logical contradiction, as +we have said. But, as truth is stranger than fiction, so +life contains anomalies and monstrosities which simply <!-- page +19--><a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 19</span>set +logic at defiance. A dead religion is indeed a monstrum, +something portentous, which refuses to be reconciled with any +canons of rationality. But it exists—that is the +astonishing fact about it; and it found its almost perfect +expression and embodiment in the normal and average Pharisee of +our Lord’s time. There are three characteristic +features about a dead religion, and all of them receive a perfect +illustration in the well-known picture in the gospels of +Pharisaic religion.</p> +<p>(<i>a</i>) It tends less and less to rest on experience, +and more and more to repose upon tradition. It is academic, +a thing on which scribes may lecture, while the voice of the +scholastic pedant with blatant repetitions overpowers the living, +authoritative voice within the soul. “They marvelled, +because He taught with authority, and not as the scribes. A +fresh (not new) teaching, with authority!”</p> +<p>(<i>b</i>) It removes the living God to an infinite +distance from human life. Religion is a matter of rules, of +minute obedience to a code of morals and of ceremonial imposed +from without, not of a fellowship of the human with the +Divine. In fact, God is banished to a point on the far +circumference, and the centre is occupied by the Law. He is +retained in order to give authority to that Law, as the source of +sanctions in the way of rewards and punishments. In short, +the idea of the living God degenerates into the necessary +convention of an ecclesiastical tradition.</p> +<p><!-- page 20--><a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +20</span>(<i>c</i>) Closely connected with this second +feature is the third characteristic of a dead religion—its +inhumanity. When men substitute obedience to a code for +service of the living God, it is no wonder that the +truth—the central truth of religion—fades rapidly +from their minds, that the service of God is identical with the +highest service rendered to our fellow-men. “This +commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God, love his +brother also.” This explains why the Pharisee held +aloof from the outcast and the sinner. They might be left +to perish—it mattered not to him.</p> +<p>Now, all through the Gospel history our Lord appears as +standing in absolute and sternest opposition to the dead religion +of the Pharisees. He could make no manner of terms with +it. He acted against it. He denounced it at every +point. He rebuked them for “making the commandment of +God of none effect” by that tradition which they loved so +dearly. He brought the idea of a living God into closest +touch with the actual lives of men. He deliberately +consorted with publicans and sinners. And, finally, He +condemned, in set discourse, the whole system, traditional, +Godless, inhuman, with scathing emphasis. Christ died, not +only because His words and acts ran counter to the prejudice of +the people, but because He spoke and acted in opposition to the +dead religion of the Pharisees.</p> +<p>3. The third historical cause of the death of Christ +<!-- page 21--><a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +21</span>was the love of gain and the political ambition of the +Sadducees. Their hatred, indeed, would have been powerless +if our Lord had not already provoked the enmity of the people and +of the Pharisees; but that enmity, in turn, without the +unscrupulous intrigues of the Sadducees, a small but most +influential section, would never have proceeded to its fatal and +murderous issue. The Pharisees gave up the conflict in +despair: “Perceive ye that ye prevail nothing? +Behold, the whole world is gone after Him.” It was +the Sadducean High Priest who gave the counsel of death. +“It is expedient that one man should die for the +people.”</p> +<p>We must remember that the Sadducees represented the +aristocracy of Judæa, and that, as resulted necessarily +from the nature and constitution of the Jewish state, was an +ecclesiastical aristocracy, an hierarchy. They are the +party denoted several times in the New Testament by the term +“the High Priests.” The nearest analogy to +their position is supplied by the political popes and bishops of +the Middle Ages. Their interests were political rather than +spiritual. A considerable amount of independence had been +left to the Jews in their own land. The Sanhedrin, the +native court, exercised still very considerable power. And +the Sadducean minority possessed a predominating influence in its +consultations. What political power could be wielded in a +subject state of the Empire was in their hands. <!-- page +22--><a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +22</span>Incidentally, a large and flourishing business was +conducted under their control and management in the very Temple +Courts, in “the booths of the sons of Hanan.” +Our Lord struck a blow at their financial interests when He drove +out these traders in sacrificial victims and other +requisites. But, much more, and this was the head and front +of His offence, by His influence with certain classes of the +people, and by the danger thus presented of a popular movement +which might arouse the suspicion of the imperial authorities, and +lead to very decisive action on their part, He threatened the +political position of the Sadducean aristocracy. So with +complete absence of scruples, but with great political sagacity, +Caiaphas uttered the momentous words, an unconscious prophecy, as +St. John points out, at that meeting of the Sanhedrin when the +death of Jesus was finally resolved upon.</p> +<p>Thus the main historical causes of the Crucifixion were these +three, prejudice on the part of the people, a dead religion on +the part of the Pharisees, love of gain and political ambition on +the part of the Sadducees.</p> +<p>We may see then how absolutely true St. Peter was to the facts +of the case. “Him . . . through the hand of lawless +men, ye affixed to a cross and slew.” God was not the +cause of the death of Jesus Christ, as in popular and ditheistic +theory, forgetting “I am in the Father, and the Father in +Me.” The <!-- page 23--><a name="page23"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 23</span>real causes of His Death were the +definite sins of lawless, of wicked men. God’s part +was a purely negative one. He held His hand, and allowed +sin to work out to its fatal issue. The Resurrection, +indeed, is the sublime act of God’s interference, at the +most critical point in all human history, at the one point +supremely worthy of such Divine interposition, in order to +finally and completely vindicate the cause of moral +goodness. But up till then, sin was allowed to have its own +way, to display fully its malign character, to reach its ultimate +result in the Death of the Sinless One.</p> +<p>But behind the historical causes of our Lord’s death, +were deeper and spiritual causes. “Him being by the +determined counsel and foreknowledge of God delivered up. . . +.” God foreknew the result. There is no +difficulty here. But in what sense can He be said to have +“determined” it?</p> +<p>The answer leads us to a consideration of decisive +importance. God works by law, in the spiritual, no less +than in the physical region. The Death of the Christ, at +the hand of lawless men, came about in virtue of the working of +those laws. As we have said, sin is the alienation and +estrangement of man from the Divine life which is in him, and by +virtue of which he is man. Now, in the human character of +Jesus Christ, we see, for the first time, the perfect, genuine, +uncaricatured humanity, in which the human will is at every point +in absolute agreement and fellowship <!-- page 24--><a +name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span>with the +Divine Will. Shortly, He represents the complete and +absolute contradiction and antithesis of sin. It could not +have been, that that Life should have been realised in a world of +alienation from the Divine, without the result, which followed as +necessarily and inevitably as any of the physical happenings of +nature, of the death of the Sinless. “He became +obedient unto death.” A deeper meaning lies in these +words of St. Paul, which contain the whole secret of the +Atonement. But, for the present, we may understand them to +mean, that death was the natural issue of the Life of perfect +obedience lived in a world permeated by the spirit of +disobedience. Thus we gain a clear knowledge of the manner +in which the death of Jesus Christ happened in accordance with +the determined counsel of God. That which takes place, in +the spiritual or in the physical world, as the result of the +working of those laws of God which are the constant expression of +His will, may be said to have been determined by Him.</p> +<p>There is a yet more profound meaning in the Death of Christ as +the result of sin, than any which we have as yet considered: that +Death is the outward sign and sacrament of an inward and +spiritual fact. When we sin we are, in a measure +proportioned to the deliberateness and heinousness of our sin, +doing to death the Divine life, the Christ within us. That +which happened once on Calvary is renewed <!-- page 25--><a +name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>time after +time in the inward experience of men. The outward fact is +an historical drama representing an ever-repeated spiritual +tragedy. Daily, by the hands of lawless men, by ourselves +in our moments of wilfulness and disobedience, Christ is being +put to death. There is no sin which, in its measure and +degree, is not a rejection and crucifixion of the Christ.</p> +<p>The Cross of Christ, viewed in the light of its historical and +spiritual causes, is (i) the revelation of the malignity of +sin. There we see our favourite sins stripped of all +pleasing disguise, and revealed in their true horror, and +cruelty, and selfishness. The Incarnate Son of God put +Himself at the disposal of sinful men, and His violent and +shameful death was the result. There is the true meaning of +the sins in which we delight. (ii) It reveals the +disastrous result of sin, the death of the Divine Man within each +one of us. There is no sin which is not an act of spiritual +suicide.</p> +<p>It will not then be altogether in vain, that we have now +considered the causes of the Death of Christ if, in the +“solemn hour of temptation,” we, remembering the +Cross, and Him Who died thereon, and why He died, “stand in +awe, and sin not.”</p> +<h3><!-- page 26--><a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +26</span>III<br /> +THE CHRISTIAN AND THE SCIENTIFIC ESTIMATE OF SIN</h3> +<blockquote><p>“Christ died for our sins.”—I +<span class="smcap">Cor.</span> <span class="smcap">xv.</span> +3.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Nothing is more characteristic of Christianity than its +estimate of human sin. Historically, no doubt, this is due +to the fact that the Lord and Master of Christians died “on +account of sins.” His death was due, as we have seen, +both to the actual, definite sins of His contemporaries, and also +to the irreconcilable opposition between His sinless life and the +universal presence of sin in the world into which He came. +But it is with the Christian estimate of sin, and with the facts +which justify it, that we are now concerned.</p> +<p>Briefly put, Christianity regards sin as the one thing in the +world which is radically and hopelessly evil. Pain, +physical and mental, is evil no doubt, but in a different +sense. Without going deeply into the intensely difficult +problem of animal and human suffering, we may at least say this: +that he would be a bold man who would undertake to say, viewing +<!-- page 27--><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +27</span>the moral results of suffering in human lives, that all, +or the majority of the instances of pain which we observe, come +under the head of those things “which ought not to +be,” that is, are, without qualification or extenuation, +evil. But this is precisely the statement which +Christianity makes with regard to sin. Of one thing only in +the universe can we say that it “ought not to be,” +and that one thing is moral evil. Perhaps then, broadly and +roughly, the Christian standpoint may be summed up in four words, +“sin worse than pain.”</p> +<p>Of old, St. John wrote that “if any man love the world, +the love of the Father is not in him.” In its outward +aspect, the world has greatly changed since these words were +written. And yet they are as true in the twentieth century +as they were in the first. The world has adopted Christian +language and manners and modes of thought. But always and +everywhere it is to be detected by its antagonism to the +Christian estimate of sin. The spirit which accuses +Christianity of gross exaggeration in this respect, is the very +spirit of the world. Now, as in days of long ago, when +torture and death hung on the refusal to scatter a few grains of +incense before the statue of Cæsar, the same eternal choice +is presented to a man, Christ or the world? Which estimate +of sin are you going to make your own, the world’s, as a +lamentable mistake, or failure, or necessity; or the Christian, +“worse than any conceivable pain”? It <!-- page +28--><a name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 28</span>is +not a matter of academic interest, but an intensely vital and +practical one, affecting a man’s whole outlook upon +life. Which is right—there is the clear and definite +issue raised—the Christian estimate, or the world’s +estimate of sin? Is it worse than a blunder, a misfortune, +a fault? Is it something interwoven into the very structure +of our present stage of existence? Or, is it an alien and +flagrant intruder into a world where it has no business, which is +so constructed that, sooner or later, wilful transgression meets +with the direst penalties? There is no question as to what +is the Christian estimate of sin. Christ or Cæsar? is +the issue still presented. But, we wish to ask, is there +any reason for believing that the Christian estimate is +true? I bring forward three reasons, based respectively on +experience, on conscience, on the ultimately similar views of the +origin and nature of sin given by science and in the Bible.</p> +<p>1. First, then, consider the argument from +experience. It is very easy and tempting to use the +language of exaggeration. But probably we are not saying +more than would be admitted by nearly every one, when we make the +assertion that a very large part of the misery and suffering +which exists in the world is traceable, directly or indirectly, +to human sin. We are not dealing with the results of their +own sins upon offenders, though these are in some cases +conspicuous enough. But that the world is <!-- page 29--><a +name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>full of human +lives, often wrecked, more often partially stunted and spoiled, +in most cases falling short of the full measure of vitality and +happiness to which they might have attained, is a statement not +admitting of denial. And I think we are still on secure +ground when we say that at the root of a very large proportion of +these failures is some one of the myriad forms of sin and +selfishness. The strange thing, the bewildering and +baffling, although, as I believe, not wholly inexplicable thing, +is that men in a very large number of cases suffer on account of +sins for which they are in no sense responsible. But the +fact remains of the close connexion which experience shows to +exist between human sin and human suffering. It is +impossible to prove wide assertions, but a strong case could +undoubtedly be made out for the statement that sin is a more +prolific source of misery and failure in human life than all +other factors put together.</p> +<p>2. Next, we turn to the witness of conscience, of our +moral reason. The main point here is that so often brought +forward, of the uniqueness of remorse. I may make a foolish +blunder. I may do some hasty and ill-considered act, and in +consequence suffer some measure of inconvenience, or perhaps +experience a veritable disaster and overthrow of my hopes. +But in either case, though I may feel poignant regret, I am as +far as possible from the experience of remorse, save in so far as +my blunder may have involved <!-- page 30--><a +name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>neglect of +some duty, or a carelessness morally culpable. But when I +have committed a sin, then it would be a most inadequate +description of my state of mind to call it regret. I suffer +from that intense mental pain which we have learnt to call +remorse, the constant and relentless avenger which waits upon +every transgression of the moral law. And when, leaving my +own experience, I interrogate the experience of men better than +myself, above all, that of the saints of God, I meet with the +same phenomenon a thousandfold intensified. And I have a +right in such a matter to accept the witness of the +experts. A saint is an expert in spiritual things, and his +evidence in spiritual matters is as cogent and trustworthy as +that of the biologist or geologist in his special field of +experience.</p> +<p>So far, then, as the witness of the moral consciousness goes, +both in myself and in those who have in an especial degree +cultivated their moral faculties, it bears out the contention +that sin is the only thing which can be described as absolutely, +without qualification, evil.</p> +<p>3. The same result follows from the consideration of the +origin and nature of sin.</p> +<p>Here we have two sources of information—modern science, +and the account given in the Book of Genesis. To my mind, +the enormously impressive thing is that these two sources, +approaching the same subject from entirely different points of +view, <!-- page 31--><a name="page31"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 31</span>find themselves at last in agreement +on the main issue.</p> +<p>(<i>a</i>) According to the teaching of science, then, +man is the result, the finished product, of æons of animal +development. He is, in fact, the crown and so far ultimate +achievement of an age-long evolution. He falls into his +natural place in zoological classification as the highest of the +vertebrates. But also, in man we find moral faculties +developed to an immeasurably greater extent than in those animals +which stand nearest to him in physical development. It is +the possession of these, above all, which constitutes the +differentia of man. And it is this possession which makes +man, alone of all animals, capable of sin. For sin is +simply the following out of the instincts and desires of the +animal, when these are felt to be in opposition to the dictates +of the peculiarly human, the moral nature. Men have said +that the only Fall of Man was a fall upwards. They have +given an entirely new meaning to the medieval description of the +first transgression as the “felix culpa.” But +this would seem to involve confusion of thought. The first +emergence of man as man, the appearance on this planet of a moral +being, at once involved the possibility of sin. That, the +rise of man did necessarily include. An animal follows the +bent and inclination of its own nature. For it, sin is for +ever impossible. For it, there can be no defeat, no fall, +for the conditions of conflict are absent. But <!-- page +32--><a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>the +actual occurrence of sin is quite a different thing from the +appearance of a being so highly exalted as to be capable of +sinning; so constituted as to experience the dread reality of the +internal strife between flesh and spirit, the battle between the +lower and the higher within the same personal experience. I +can never act as the animal does, because I possess what the +animal does not—a moral nature, which I can, if I will, +outrage and defy. No animal can be either innocent or +guilty. Moral attributes cannot be assigned to it.</p> +<p>This result follows. When I sin, I am indeed doing what +I alone can do, because I am a man. But also, I am, by that +very act, contradicting my nature, violating the law of my +well-being. The possession of a moral nature makes me +man. Sin is just to act in defiance of and in opposition to +that nature. Sin, then, is the only possible case in the +universe, falling under our observation, in which a creature +<i>can</i> contradict the law of its being. Science has at +least given the final refutation of the devil’s lie that +sin is natural to man. It is the only unnatural thing in +the world. It is not non-human, like the actions of +animals. The age-long history of the race can never be +reversed. I cannot undo the process which has made me man, +and act as the non-moral animal. My sinful actions, my +transgressions, are just because they are, and just in proportion +as they are, immoral, for that very reason, and in that very +measure, inhuman, not non-human.</p> +<p><!-- page 33--><a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +33</span>Much more might be shown to follow from this most +important consideration. But here we adduce it for this +sole reason, that science may be allowed to bear its witness, a +most just and passionless, and an unconscious and tacit witness, +to the truth of the Christian estimate of sin.</p> +<p>(<i>b</i>) Nothing, at first sight, could be more +different from the scientific account of the origin of sin, than +that account of it which is given in the third chapter of the +Book of Genesis.</p> +<p>There we have, to put it shortly, the most profound spiritual +teaching in the form of a story, a piece of primitive Hebrew +folk-lore. The Divine Wisdom made choice of this channel to +communicate to man certain great truths about his nature, +realities of the highest plane of his experience, where he moves +in the presence of God and realities unseen, unheard. And +we can discern at least some of the reasons for the choice of +these methods.</p> +<p>The most adequate revelation of the origin of sin which has +ever been made to man, must (we are almost justified in saying) +have been made to us in some such form as this for the following +reasons.</p> +<p>(i) Truth expressed in the form of a story is thereby +made comprehensible to men of every stage of culture. +“Truth embodied in a tale, shall enter in at lowly +doors.” At the door of no man’s mind, who is +spiritually receptive, will it knock in vain. To simple and +to wise, to the unlearned and the learned, <!-- page 34--><a +name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>to the young +and to the old, it appeals alike. This form of instruction +alone is of universal application.</p> +<p>(ii) Truth thus conveyed can never become obsolete. +Scientific treatises in the course of a few years become out of +date, left far behind by the rapidly advancing tide of +knowledge. Moreover, if we can imagine it possible that in +the ninth century <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, an account +could have been composed, under some supernatural influence, in +the terms of modern thought, it would have had to wait nearly +three thousand years before it became intelligible, and then, in +a few decades, or centuries at most, it would in all probability +have become once more incomprehensible or, if not that, then at +least hopelessly behind the times.</p> +<p>The form of a story, as in the case of our Lord’s +parables, alone ensures that truth thus conveyed shall be +intelligible to all men at all times. To object to the +form, to scoff at or deride it, is as unintelligent as it would +be, for example, to disparage the sublime teaching of the parable +of the Prodigal Son on the ground that we have no evidence for +the historical truth of the incidents.</p> +<p>Moreover, when we place this and the similar stories we find +in the early chapters of Genesis side by side with the Babylonian +myths with which they stand in some sort of historical +relationship, we can trace in the lofty moral and spiritual +teachings of the former, as contrasted with the grotesque and +<!-- page 35--><a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +35</span>polytheistic representations of the latter, the +veritable action of the Spirit of God upon the minds of +men. Modern research has, in fact, raised the doctrine of +inspiration from a vague and conventional belief to the level of +an ascertained fact, evidenced by observation. Just as a +scientific man can watch his facts under his microscope or in his +test tubes, so such comparison as has been suggested, between +Genesis and the cuneiform tablets, enables us to watch the very +fact, to detect the Divine Spirit at work, not superseding, but +illuminating and uplifting the natural faculties of the sacred +writers. But we now turn to the spiritual teaching +enshrined in this particular story.</p> +<p>(i) First, we have the fundamental truth that man is +made capable of hearing the Divine Voice. Not once in the +distant past, but to-day, and day by day, the Voice of God is +heard speaking within the depths of consciousness as clearly and +as decisively as of old it sounded among the trees of the +garden.</p> +<p>(ii) But, secondly, other voices make themselves heard +by us, and woe to us if we listen to them.</p> +<p>There is the voice which bids us gratify our animal +appetite. The woman “saw that the tree was good for +food.” I am conscious of the strength of bodily +desires. Let me seek nothing, from moment to moment, but +the satisfaction of my inclinations. There is the voice +which bids us gratify the desire of the eyes. She +“saw that the tree was pleasant to <!-- page 36--><a +name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 36</span>the +eyes.” The world is full of beauty. Let me make +that my end, the satisfaction of the æsthetic sense; let me +rest in the contemplation of that beauty, which was made for me, +and I for it, precisely in order that I might not find repose +there, but might be led thereby to Him Who made this scene so +fair that His dear children might be drawn to Himself, Who is the +eternal and uncreated loveliness.</p> +<p>There is, lastly, the voice which bids us gratify the desire +of the mind. Eve “saw that the tree was to be desired +to make one wise.” I desire to know. Let me +indulge this desire at any cost, even if it mean the filling of +my mind with all manner of foul and loathsome images. It is +all “knowing the world.” We forget, poor fools, +that mere knowledge is not wisdom, and that there is a knowledge +which brings death.</p> +<p>The desires of the body, the eyes, the mind, are good and +healthful and holy in their proper place and sphere. +Through these we reach out to the life and love and knowledge of +God. And yet, if gratified against the dictates of that +clear-sounding, inner, Divine Voice, they are precisely the +materials of sin and death. To gratify them against the +dictates of the moral and spiritual nature is to exclude oneself +from the garden of God’s delight, from the health and joy +of the Divine Presence. We know it. We have learnt it +by saddest experience of our own. To sin against the voice +within is to find oneself separated <!-- page 37--><a +name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span>from God; the +ears of the soul have become deaf to the warnings of conscience, +the eyes of the soul blind to the vision of the glory and +holiness of God.</p> +<p>Is it wrong to say that such teaching as this can never be +outgrown? That, as time goes on, as the spiritual +experience of the race and of the individual grows and broadens, +still new lessons may be found to be contained in it?</p> +<p>The Bible adds to the teaching of science that without which +that teaching is incomplete. It bids us know and feel and +recognise the Divine Presence within us and, in the light of that +ultimate truth of ourselves, realise something of the appalling +grandeur of the issues of common life. But, different as +are the forms in which their respective lessons are conveyed, +science and the Bible unite their testimony to that of experience +and conscience, that the Christian estimate of sin, and not the +world’s estimate of it, is the right one.</p> +<p>And the teaching of experience, conscience, science, and the +Bible receives its final confirmation in the Cross of Jesus +Christ. Henceforth sin, all sins, our sins, are to be +estimated and measured in the light of the fact that sin brought +about the death of the sinless Son of Man. Sin is the real +enemy of ourselves and of the race. It is the destruction +of the true self, the Divine Man in every son of man.</p> +<p>We need, for ourselves, to strive to attain to the <!-- page +38--><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +38</span>genuinely Christian estimate of sin. “Had +they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of +Glory.” But we have the Cross lifted up before our +eyes and when, in the light of that, we begin to hate and dread +sin worse than pain, then we shall have begun to make some real +advance towards becoming that which we long to be, and all the +time mean and aspire to be—Christians, disciples of the +Crucified.</p> +<h3><!-- page 39--><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +39</span>IV<br /> +THE MEANING OF SIN, AND THE REVELATION OF THE TRUE SELF</h3> +<blockquote><p>“In this we have come to know what love is, +because He laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay +down our lives for the brethren.”—1 <span +class="smcap">John</span> <span class="smcap">iii.</span> 16.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It is important that we should arrive at some clearer +understanding of the nature of sin. Let us approach the +question from the side of the Divine Indwelling. The +doctrine of the Divine Immanence, in things and in persons, that +doctrine which we are to-day slowly recovering, is rescued from +pantheism by holding fast at the same time to the Christian +doctrine of the Trinity. God the Transcendent dwells in +“all thinking things, all objects of all thoughts” by +His Word and Spirit. The Word, the Logos, of which St. John +speaks, is the Eternal Self-Expression of God, standing as it +were face to face with Him in the depths of His eternal +life. “In the beginning the Word was with +God.” He is the Eternal Thought of God, Who includes +within Himself this and all possible universes. And the +Spirit, One with the Father and the Word, gives to the <!-- page +40--><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +40</span>Thought of God its realisation and embodiment in what we +call things. And that realisation of the Thought of God by +the Spirit of God is a progressive realisation—</p> +<p>1. In inorganic nature, as power and wisdom and +beauty.</p> +<p>2. In organic beings, as vegetable and animal life.</p> +<p>3. In men, as the higher reason, including our moral and +spiritual nature.</p> +<p>The long process of evolution is thus the progressive +realisation of the Thought of God now becoming the Word, the +expressed Thought of God. And this realisation is from +within, a growing manifestation of God <i>in</i> created +things. And its climax was reached in the Incarnation +when</p> +<p>4. The Word became flesh; the Thought of God perfectly +embodied in our humanity. And now this same progressive +revelation of God is continuing on the higher plane into which it +was uplifted at the Incarnation. The work of the Spirit is +to form within the members of Christ’s Body, that Body +which is constituted by His indwelling, the Mind and the Life of +God Incarnate. “He shall take of Mine and shall show +it unto you.” So we get</p> +<p>5. The work of the Spirit of Christ within the Church, +extending the Incarnation.</p> +<p>“He,” writes St. Paul, “gave Him [Christ] as +Head over all to the Church, which is His Body, the <!-- page +41--><a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +41</span>fulness of Him Who at all points in all men is being +fulfilled.”</p> +<p>The application of this to our present subject is as +follows. The animal life in us, and the Divine life in us, +are both alike due to the indwelling God, both alike are +manifestations of His Presence. But they are manifestations +at two different levels of being. What follows?</p> +<p>The animal nature is good; the moral and spiritual nature is +good. What do we mean in this connexion by +“good”? We mean, they are the results of the +action of Him Whose Will is essential goodness.</p> +<p>The peculiarity of human life is, however, the conflict +between these two elements of man’s nature—the lower +and the higher. Neither as yet, <i>from the human +standpoint</i>, is good or bad. Moral attributes belong +only to the will, which we may provisionally call the centre of +man’s personality. For man is a personal being, and +as such stands apart from God.</p> +<blockquote><p>God, Whose power brought man into being,<br /> +Stands as it were a handsbreadth off, to give<br /> +Room for the newly made to live,<br /> +And look at Him from a place apart,<br /> +And use His gifts of mind and heart.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Man alone can bring into existence the morally good or the +morally bad. And the materials of his choice are presented +by the co-existence within him of the lower and the higher. +Sin is the choice by the will of the lower, when that is felt to +be in conflict <!-- page 42--><a name="page42"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 42</span>with the higher. It is the +resolution, previous to any action, to satisfy the desires of the +animal, when these are known to contradict the dictates of the +moral and spiritual nature.</p> +<p>Here we pause to notice a point of great importance for clear +thinking on this subject. The conflict we have spoken of is +that described by St. Paul as between the flesh and the +spirit. Now the flesh is not equivalent to the body. +The works of the flesh are by no means necessarily sensual sins; +they include strife and envy. The flesh, the animal within +us, is not to be identified with our physical organisation.</p> +<p>Now we are drawing near to the very heart of the matter. +What is it which distinguishes the lower nature from the higher, +the animal from the Divine in us, the flesh from the +spirit? The distinction lies in the objects to which the +desires of each of these natures are directed.</p> +<p>The animal, predominantly, desires the good of self: the +Divine, the good of others.</p> +<p>This we must now expand. There is nothing morally wrong +in the self-seeking of the animal. Moral +evil—sin—only arises when two conditions are +fulfilled.</p> +<p>The self-seeking desire must be felt to be in contradiction to +the unselfish dictates of the higher nature.</p> +<p>The will, having this knowledge more or less <!-- page 43--><a +name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>clearly +before it, chooses to give effect to the lower rather than to +subordinate it to the higher. We may express the same truth +somewhat more accurately.</p> +<p>The material of human sin is the co-existence of the animal +nature and the Divine Nature within us.</p> +<p>The occasion of sin is the conflict between the two.</p> +<p>The conditions of sin are two—knowledge and freedom; +knowledge of the antagonism between the desires of the two +natures, and freedom to give effect either to the one or to the +other.</p> +<p>The actual fact of sin is the movement of the will, making its +choice in favour of the lower in opposition to the higher.</p> +<p>These two corollaries follow:—(i) Sin belongs only to +the will, not to the nature. “There is nothing good +in the world save a good will.” And the converse is +true: there is nothing sinful in the world save a sinful +will.</p> +<p>(ii) Sin does not lie in the act, but in the movement of +the will, of which the act is but the outward symbol. We +must carefully distinguish between sin and temptation. No +temptation is sinful, however strong and however vividly +presented to the mind. Sin only comes in when the will +makes the choice of the worse alternative. A sin in thought +is an act of inward choice, the deliberate indulgence of, the +dwelling with pleasure upon, the temptation presented <!-- page +44--><a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>to +us. But if I am only prevented by circumstances or by fear +from embodying the wrong choice of my will in action, I have, in +the sight of God, committed that sin. If I have made the +wrong choice, and am deterred by the faintest of moral scruples, +as well as, perhaps, by other considerations, from carrying it +out, I am really, although in a less degree, guilty.</p> +<p>Now we can fall back upon our main thought. The animal +matter is essentially self-regarding. This is not +(<i>a</i>) the same thing as to say that all actions of all +animals are self-regarding. I see no difficulty in +believing that there may be adumbrations of the moral and +spiritual in animals below man, if the animal life is the +manifestation, on a lower plane, of the same Word Who is the Life +of nature and the Light (the higher reason and spiritual life) of +man. Nor (<i>b</i>) is it the same thing as to say that the +desires of the animal nature are selfish. For selfishness +is a moral term and, as we have seen, moral attributes are +inapplicable except to a wrong choice of the will.</p> +<p>These self-regarding impulses of the animal nature are due to +the fact, that that nature is the result of the age-long struggle +for existence. These impulses have secured the survival and +the predominance of man.</p> +<p>But man is more than a successful animal. He is made in +the image of God. In him, the Word is <!-- page 45--><a +name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span>revealed, not +as life only, but as light. In an altogether higher sense +than can be predicated of any part of creation below man, he is a +sharer in the Divine life.</p> +<p>Now that Divine life is the very life of Him Whose very +essence and being is Love. God is Love. What does +this mean? It has never been better expressed than in the +following words: “God is a Being, not one of Whose thoughts +is for Himself. . . . Creation is one great unselfish thought of +God, the bringing into existence of beings who can know the +happiness which God Himself knows” (Dr. Askwith). +What happiness is that? It is explained, by the same +writer, as the happiness which is found in the promotion of the +happiness, that is, in the largest sense, the well-being of +others.</p> +<p>We can now see the reason of the antagonism between the animal +and the Divine in ourselves, the real meaning of the Pauline +antithesis between the flesh and the Spirit, the old man and the +new.</p> +<p>We are to “put off the old man.” He is old, +indeed, beyond our imaginations of antiquity, for he is the +product of the hoary animal ancestry of our race. Our +progress as successful competitors in the struggle for animal +existence, has been the waxing stronger of the old man day by +day.</p> +<p>To put on the new man, is to continue our evolution, now a +conscious and deliberate evolution, on an entirely different +plane. It is to subdue the self-<!-- page 46--><a +name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 46</span>regarding +impulses, in obedience to the movements of the Divine life within +us, which bids us deny ourselves—not some particular +desire, but our own selves—and to seek the good of others; +to seek and, seeking, surely to find, “the happiness which +God Himself knows.”</p> +<p>To put on the new man is synonymous, in St. Paul, with putting +on Christ. For He is the perfect revelation of the Divine +in our humanity.</p> +<p>He is this perfect revelation of the Divine self-sacrifice in +His Incarnation, when “He became poor for our sakes,” +when “He emptied Himself.” So the Incarnation +is, it may well be, but the climax of the Divine sacrifice +involved in creation, when God limited Himself by His +manifestation in “material” things; involved, we may +say with greater certainty, in the creation of man, who can, in +some real sense, thwart and hinder the Divine Will.</p> +<p>He is the revelation of the Divine in us, in the whole course +of His earthly life. “Christ pleased not +Himself.” “He went about doing good.”</p> +<p>And, above all, He is that revelation in the supreme act of +love and sacrifice upon the Cross. “In this have we +come to know what love is, because He laid down His life for +us.” We have come to know love, in its supreme +manifestation of itself, for ever the test, the standard of all +true love; and in coming to know love, we have necessarily come +to know God. The Cross is the perfect self-utterance and +disclosure <!-- page 47--><a name="page47"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 47</span>of the Mind of God, the crowning +revelation of His Word. And in coming to know God, we have +come to know ourselves. For the true self of man is the +self conformed perfectly to the Divine Life within him.</p> +<p>Thus the Cross of Jesus Christ is the crowning revelation of +man, as well as of God. There, side by side with humanity +marred and wrecked and spoilt by sin, which is selfishness, we +see man as God made him, as God meant him to be, clothed with the +Divine beauty and glory of self-sacrifice.</p> +<p>In the Cross we see ourselves, our true selves, not as we have +made ourselves, but our real and genuine selves, as we exist in +the Mind of God.</p> +<p>In the light of that wonderful revelation, we can recognise +that which is Divine and Christ-like in us, that spirit which +bids us seek not the things of self, but the things of others, +“even as Christ pleased not Himself.”</p> +<p>All this may be summed up in one short phrase, which goes +near, I believe, to express the innermost reality of the +Christian religion. Christ, the Son of man, is the true +self of every man. To follow Him, to be His disciple, in +thought, and word, and deed, is to be oneself, to realise +one’s own personality. In no other way can I attain +to be myself.</p> +<p>Thus the Cross is the supreme revelation of the Divine Life in +man. And now we shall go on to see how it brings to us, not +merely the knowledge of <!-- page 48--><a name="page48"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 48</span>the Ideal, but also, what is far +more, the very means whereby the Ideal may be realised in and by +each one of us.</p> +<p>We have dealt with the Cross as illumination; we now approach +its consideration as redemptive power.</p> +<h3><!-- page 49--><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +49</span>V<br /> +THE GREAT RECONCILIATION</h3> +<blockquote><p>“God was in Christ reconciling the world +unto Himself.” 2 <span class="smcap">Cor.</span> +<span class="smcap">v.</span> 19.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Such considerations as we have had before us, are of far more +than theoretical interest. They are of all questions the +most practical. Sin is not a curious object which we +examine from an aloof and external standpoint. However we +regard it, to whatever view of its nature we are led, it is, +alas, a fact within and not merely outside our experience.</p> +<p>And so we are at length brought to this most personal and most +urgent inquiry, What has been the result <i>to me</i> of my past +acts of sin? I have sinned; what have been, what are, what +will be the consequences?</p> +<p>The most hopelessly unintelligent answer is, that there are no +results, no consequences. It behoves us to remember that we +can never sin with impunity. This is true, even in the +apparent absence of all punishment. Every act of sin is +followed by two results, though probably a profounder analysis +would show them to be in reality one.</p> +<p><!-- page 50--><a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +50</span>(i) Whenever I sin I inflict a definite injury on +myself, varying with the sinfulness of the sin; that is, with its +nature and the degree of deliberation it involved. I am +become a worse man; I have, in some degree, rejected and done to +death the Divine in me, my true self. Every sin, in its own +proper measure, is both a rejection of the Christ within, and +also an act of spiritual suicide.</p> +<p>Again (ii), each sin, once more according to the degree of its +guilt, involves separation from God. And, as union with God +is life, it follows that sin is, and not merely brings +death. That is the death of which the outward, physical +death is the mere symbol. It is death of that which makes +me man—the weakening of my will, the dulling of my +conscience, the loss of spiritual vision. Hereafter, it may +be, all this will be recognised by me as being death indeed, when +I see how much I have missed, by my own fault, of the life and +happiness which might have been mine in virtue of that unbroken +communion with God, for which I was made.</p> +<p>These two results may be regarded as the penalties of sinning; +more truly, they are aspects of sin itself. We can hardly +be reminded too often that the worst punishment of sin is sin +itself. The external results of sin, where such occur, are +not evil, but good; for the object for which they are sent is the +cure of sin. “To me no harder hell was shown than +sin.” If hell is this separation from God, this +veritable and only <!-- page 51--><a name="page51"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 51</span>real death, then hell is not an +external penalty inflicted upon sin, but is involved in the very +nature of sin itself. Or, it would be still more accurate +to say, the constitution of the universe (including ourselves) +being what it is, and the nature of sin being what it is, these +results necessarily follow.</p> +<p>Now, the universe is not something which God has created and +then, as it were, flung off from Himself, standing for ever +outside it, as it is for ever outside Him. The universe, at +each moment of its existence, is the expression, in time and +space, of the Divine Mind. What we call its +“laws,” whether in the physical or the spiritual +sphere, are the thoughts of the Mind of God: its +“forces” are the operations of the Will of God, +acting in accordance with His thoughts: material +“things” are His thoughts embodied, that is, Divine +thoughts rendered, by an act of the Divine Will, accessible to +our senses.</p> +<p>Now we are in a position to understand both what is meant by +the Wrath of God, and the manner in which it acts.</p> +<p>By the expression, “the Wrath of God,” we are to +understand the hostility of the Divine Mind to moral evil: the +eternal antagonism of the Divine righteousness to its +opposite. We are not now dealing with the question of the +real or substantive existence of evil. But revelation amply +confirms and enforces the conviction of our moral consciousness +that, with a hatred beyond all human measures of hatred, God <!-- +page 52--><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +52</span>hates sin. It is hardly necessary to add, that +that eternal and immeasurable hatred and hostility of the Divine +Mind towards sin is compatible with infinite love towards His +children, in whose minds and lives sin is elaborated and +manifested. In fact, all attempts to reconcile the Wrath of +God with His love seem to be utterly beside the mark. They +only serve to obscure the truth that the Divine Wrath is itself a +manifestation of the Divine Love. For if sin is, as we have +already seen, in its very essence, selfishness, and if Love is +the very Being of God—if He is not merely loving, but Love +itself—then the Wrath of God, His hostility to sin, is His +Love viewed in one particular aspect, in its outlook on moral +evil, in its relation to that which is its very opposite and +antithesis. Hell and Heaven, separation from God and union +with Him, are alike expressions of the Eternal Love, which, +because it is love, burns with unquenchable fire against all +forms of selfishness and lovelessness.</p> +<p>This is the true, the ultimate reason why, in a universe which +is the expression of the Mind of God, we cannot sin, and never +have sinned, with impunity.</p> +<p>From these two fundamental truths—</p> +<p>(<i>a</i>) The universe is the expression of the Mind of +God;</p> +<p>(<i>b</i>) God is love,</p> +<p>There follow, by a natural and inevitable law, the two results +which accompany every act of sin.</p> +<p><!-- page 53--><a name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +53</span>(<i>a</i>) The destruction of the true self, the +Christ, the Divine Life within man.</p> +<p>(<i>b</i>) Separation from God, which is death. We +separate these results in thought; but it will now be +sufficiently obvious that they are, in fact, one.</p> +<p>Is this taking too serious a view of sin? I do not think +that this can be maintained in view of our whole preceding +argument.</p> +<p>But are we taking too serious a view of little sins, of sins +which spring from ignorance, of the sins of children?</p> +<p>We have already seen that knowledge and freedom are both +necessary to constitute an act of sin. If ignorance is +complete, then complete also is the absence of sin. For sin +lies not in any material act, but in consciousness and +will. The will alone can be sinful, as the will alone can +be good. And it is entirely consistent with our standpoint, +to admit the existence of an almost infinite number of degrees of +sinfulness.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>Now we reach this immensely important result. We having +sinned, our supreme need is forgiveness. The Gospel of +Jesus Christ is a Gospel for this precise reason, that it meets, +as it claimed from the beginning to meet, this uttermost need of +men. Its offer is, always and everywhere, the forgiveness, +the remission of sins.</p> +<p>But what are we to understand by forgiveness? <!-- page +54--><a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 54</span>The +forgiveness which is offered to us in the name of Jesus Christ is +not, and our own moral sense ought to assure us that it could not +be, the being let off punishment. “Thou shalt call +His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their +sins,” not from any external pains or penalties of their +sins. To be saved from sin, is to have sin brought to an +end, abolished within us. It is the recovery of the true +self, the restoration of that union with God which is, here and +now, eternal life. In other words, understanding the Divine +Wrath as we have seen reason to understand it, forgiveness must +mean to cease to be, or to cease to identify ourselves with, that +in us which is the object of the Divine Wrath. In short, +forgiveness is, in the great phrase of St. Paul, reconciliation +with God.</p> +<p>How, then, is forgiveness or reconciliation to be +obtained? The answer which the apostle gives is this: +“God was in Christ reconciling the world to +Himself.” Let us try to see what this means.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>There can only be one way of ceasing to be the object of the +Divine Wrath, and that is by identifying oneself with it; if we +may use the catch-phrase, by becoming its subject instead of its +object. This means that, so far as is in our power, we must +enter into the Divine Mind in regard to sin, and our own sins in +particular. Up to the limit of our power, we must make that +Mind our own <!-- page 55--><a name="page55"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 55</span>mind, we must hate sin, and our sins, +as God hates them.</p> +<p>There is one word in the New Testament which expresses all +this, and that is the word only partially and inadequately +translated “repentance.” The word thus +represented is +μετανοια, and +μετανοια is exactly +“a change of mind.” It really means the coming +over to God’s side, the entire revolution of our mental +attitude and outlook with regard to sin. The word stands +for self-identification with the Wrath of God, with the Divine +Mind in its outlook upon sin. That change of mind is itself +reconciliation, forgiveness, remission of sins. And that +which alone makes +μετανοια and, +therefore, forgiveness, possible, is the Death of Jesus Christ +upon the Cross.</p> +<p>For that Death is the perfect revelation, in the only way in +which it could be interpreted to us, that is, in terms of our +common human life, of the Wrath of God, the Divine hostility to, +and repudiation of sin. For the Death of Christ was the +complete repudiation of sin, by God Himself, in our +manhood. The Incarnate Son laid down His life in the +perfect fulfilment of the mission received from the Father. +“He became obedient unto death.” He died, +rather than, by the slightest concession to that which was +opposed to the Divine Will, be unfaithful or disobedient to that +mission. “He died to sin once for all.” +His Death was His final, complete repudiation of sin. And +thus it was the absolutely <!-- page 56--><a +name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>perfect +revelation of the Divine Mind in regard to sin.</p> +<p>This is the truth which underlies all the utterly misleading +language about Christ’s Death as a penalty, or about Christ +Himself as the Ideal Penitent. Both penalty and penitence +imply personal guilt and the personal consciousness of +guilt. Both conceptions destroy the significance of the +Cross. Only the Sinless One could die to sin, could +perfectly repudiate sin, could perfectly disclose the Mind of God +in relation to sin.</p> +<p>The Death of Christ was indeed, as we have seen, the result of +His perfect obedience in a world of sin, of disobedience. +The historical conditions under which He fulfilled His Mission, +necessitated that His repudiation of sin should take the form +which it did actually take. We may be sure, too, that He +felt, as only the Sinless Son of God could feel, the injury, the +affront, the malignity, the degradation of sin. It is the +sense of this which has given rise to the modern idea of Christ +as the Penitent for the world’s sin. But if we are to +understand the word in this sense, then we are entirely changing +its meaning and connotation. And we cannot do this, in +regard to words like penitent and penitence, without producing +confusion of thought. It is time, surely, that this +misleading and mischievous fallacy of the penitence of Christ +should be finally abandoned by writers on the Atonement.</p> +<p><!-- page 57--><a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +57</span>But, so far, we have only seen that the Death of Christ +to sin, His repudiation of sin to the point of death, is the +complete revelation of the Divine Wrath, the Divine Mind in +regard to sin. If we could only make all this our own, then +we should have actually attained to the changed mind, the +μετανοια, which is +reconciliation with God.</p> +<p>Now, it is a most significant fact that, in the New Testament, +repentance is ever closely coupled with faith. Faith, in +its highest, its most Christian application, is not faith +<i>in</i> Christ, in the sense of believing that the revelation +made by Christ is true, but in the strange and pregnant phrase of +St. Paul and St. John, faith <i>into</i> Christ. And by +this is meant entire self-abandonment, the utter giving up of +ourselves to Christ. To have faith into Christ is the +perfect expression of discipleship. It is the supreme act +of self-surrender by which a man takes Christ henceforth to be +the Lord and Master of his life. It implies, no doubt, the +existence of certain intellectual convictions; but the faith +which rests there is, as St. James tells us, the faith of the +demons “who also tremble.” In the full sense, +faith is an act of the whole personal being. And as the +will is our personality in action, we may say that faith into +Christ is, above all, an affair of the will.</p> +<p>But thus to surrender oneself to Christ, to make Him, and not +self, the centre and governing principle of our life is, in other +words, to make His Will our <!-- page 58--><a +name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 58</span>will, His +Mind our mind. St. Paul is exactly describing the full +fruition and final issue of faith when he says of himself, +“I live, yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in +me.”</p> +<p>Faith <i>is</i> self-identification with the Mind of +Christ. And that Mind is the Mind of Him Who died to sin, +Who by dying repudiated sin, and revealed His implacable hatred +of and hostility to it, which is the hatred and hostility of God, +in our manhood, to the moral evil which destroys it.</p> +<p>Thus the man, who, by the supreme act of faith into Christ, +has made Christ’s Mind his own mind, has thereby gained the +changed mind, the +μετανοια, in regard to +sin, which is the ceasing to be the object of God’s wrath, +because it is the being identified with it. He is, +henceforth, reconciled to God. The state of alienation and +death is over. In Christ he, too, has died to sin. +The false self, in him, has been put to death. With Christ +he has been crucified. With Christ he lives henceforth to +God, in that union and fellowship with Him, which is the life +eternal, the life which is life indeed. His true self, the +Christ in him, is alive for evermore in the power of the +Resurrection.</p> +<p>That is the final issue, the glorious consummation, of +faith. But so far as faith is in us at all, so far as daily +with more complete surrender we give ourselves to Christ, and +take Him for our Lord and Master, the process, of which the +fulfilment, the perfect end, is <!-- page 59--><a +name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +59</span>reconciliation, union, resurrection, eternal life, has +begun in us. And He Who has, visibly and manifestly, +“begun in us” that “good work,” will +assuredly “accomplish it until the day of Jesus +Christ.”</p> +<p>But something more yet remains to be said. Every theory +of the Atonement in the end must come to grief, which is based +upon the assumption that Christ is separate from the race which +He came to redeem, or the Church, which is the part of humanity +in actual process of redemption. Professor Inge, in his +work on <i>Mysticism and Personal Idealism</i>, has justly +denounced the miserable theory which regards human personalities +as so many impervious atoms, as self-contained and isolated +units. This popular view is theologically disastrous when +the Atonement is interpreted in the light, or rather the darkness +of it.</p> +<p>As the Son of man He is the Head of the human race, “the +last Adam” in the language of St. Paul. No mere +sovereignty over mankind is denoted by that title. He is +that living, personal Thought of God which each man, as man, +embodies and, with more or less distortion, represents. He +Who became Incarnate is, as He ever was, the Light which +lighteneth every man coming into the world.</p> +<p>It was because of this, His vital and organic connexion with +the race, and with every member of it, that He could become +Incarnate, and that His sufferings and triumph could have more +than a pictorial, <!-- page 60--><a name="page60"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 60</span>or representative, or vicarious +efficacy. His work of redemption was rendered possible by +His relation, as the Word, to the whole universe, and to +mankind.</p> +<p>It was because of this, that He could become “the Head +of the Body, the Church.” Former ages interpreted the +Atonement in the terms of Roman law. It is the mission of +our age to learn to interpret it in terms of biology. We +are only just beginning, by the aid of modern thought, to +discover the true, profound meaning of the biological language of +the New Testament. “As the body is one, and has many +members, so also is the Christ.” Not, let us mark, +the Head only, but the Body. The Church is “the +fulness of Him Who at all points, in all men, is being +fulfilled.” The words tell us of an organic +growth. “I am the vine, ye are the +branches.” Can any terms express organic connexion +more clearly than these?</p> +<p>It is our Head, to Whom we are bound by vital ties, in the +mysterious unity of a common life, Who has repudiated sin by +dying to it. By personal surrender to Christ we make His +Mind our own; but we are enabled to do so, because, in so doing, +we are attaining to our own true mind, we are entering into the +possession of our own true selves, we are “winning our +souls,” realising the Christ-nature within us. By +faith and sacraments, that which is potentially ours becomes our +own in actual fact.</p> +<p>In simpler language, and in more familiar but not <!-- page +61--><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>less +true words, we who are members of Christ’s Body, in all our +weak attempts after repentance and faith, are not left to our own +unaided resources, but are at every point aided and enabled to +advance to final, complete reconciliation and union by the Spirit +of the Christ working in us.</p> +<p>He is no merely external reconciler. He reconciles us +from within, working along with our own wills, to create that +changed mind which is His own Mind revealed upon the Cross for no +other reason than that it might become our mind, the most real +and fundamental thing in us, that “new man, which is being +renewed after the image of Him Who created him.”</p> +<h3><!-- page 62--><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +62</span>VI<br /> +REDEMPTION</h3> +<blockquote><p>“Ye shall therefore be perfect, as your +Father in Heaven is perfect.”—<span +class="smcap">Matt.</span> <span class="smcap">v.</span> 48.</p> +<p>“Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver from the body +of this death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our +Lord.”—<span class="smcap">Rom.</span> <span +class="smcap">vii.</span> 24, 25.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>We have studied the meaning of reconciliation through the +Cross. We have said that to be reconciled to God means to +cease to be the object of the Wrath of God, that is, His +hostility to sin. We can only cease to be the objects of +this Divine Wrath by identifying ourselves with it, by making +God’s Mind in regard to sin, and our sins, our own +mind. The Cross gives us power to do this. For it +reveals to us in the terms of humanity, that is, in the only way +in which it could be made intelligible to us, the Divine Mind in +its relation to sin. By faith, which is personal surrender +to Christ, His mind thus revealed becomes our mind. Thus we +attain to “repentance,” in the New Testament sense of +the changed mind and outlook upon sin. And the motive power +to faith and repentance is supplied by our union with Christ.</p> +<p>But all this is not yet enough. We have not exhausted +<!-- page 63--><a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +63</span>the glory, the full meaning of the Cross. If this +were indeed all, the work of our salvation would be +incomplete. For I may indeed have, in Christ, died to sin; +in Him I may have repudiated it; but the task of life still lies +before me to be fulfilled, and that task is nothing short of +this: the complete putting off of sin, the complete putting on of +holiness, the final achievement of that union with God which is +life eternal.</p> +<p>For this I was made. “Ye shall therefore be +perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Our +Lord is not, in these words, enunciating a rule of perfection for +a few saintly souls. He is laying down the law, the +standard of all human lives. To fall short of this, is to +fall short of what it means to be a man.</p> +<p>The proof that this is so, is to be found in our own +consciousness, bearing its witness to these words of Jesus +Christ. The one most constant feature in human life is its +restlessness, the feeling of dissatisfaction which broods over +its best achievements, the attainment of all its desires. +That very restlessness and dissatisfaction is the witness to the +dignity of our nature, the grandeur of our destiny. We were +made for God, for the attainment of eternal life through union +with Him. No being who was merely finite, could be +conscious of its finitude.</p> +<blockquote><p>Spite of yourselves ye witness this,<br /> + Who blindly self or sense adore.<br /> +Else, wherefore, leaving your true bliss,<br /> + Still restless, ask ye more?</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 64--><a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +64</span>“Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart +knoweth no rest, till it find rest in Thee.”</p> +<p>Then look at the other picture. Side by side with the +glory of our calling, place the shame and the misery of what we +are. My desires, my passions are ever at war with the true +self, and too often overcome it. “I see another law +in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing +me into captivity to the law of sin and death which is in my +members.” And so there goes up the bitter cry, +“Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body +of this death?”</p> +<p>Now the Cross of Jesus Christ is the Divine answer to this +great and exceeding bitter cry of our suffering, struggling, +sinful humanity. For the Cross is not merely an altar, but +a battlefield, by far the greatest battlefield in all human +history. That was the crisis of the conflict between good +and evil which gives endless interest to the most insignificant +human life, which is the source of the pathos and the tragedy, +the degradation and the glory, of the long history of our +race. It is the human struggle which we watch upon the +Cross: the human victory there won which we acclaim with endless +joy and exultation. Man faced the fiercest assault of the +foe, and man conquered.</p> +<blockquote><p>O loving wisdom of our God!<br /> + When all was sin and shame,<br /> +A second Adam to the fight<br /> + And to the rescue came.</p> +<p><!-- page 65--><a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +65</span>O wisest love! that flesh and blood,<br /> + Which did in Adam fail,<br /> +Should strive afresh against the foe,<br /> + Should strive, and should prevail.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Man conquered man’s foe, and in the only way in which +that foe could be conquered, the way of obedience. +“He became obedient unto death.” The Death was +in a real sense the victory, for its only meaning and value +consisted in its being the crown and culmination of His life-long +obedience. The Resurrection itself, in one aspect of it, +was but the symbol, the “sign,” of that victory which +was already achieved upon the Cross.</p> +<p>But what has this to do with us? It cannot be too often +repeated, that it has nothing to do with us, if Christ be merely +“Another,” separate from us as we are, or imagine +ourselves to be, separate from each other. That which He +took of the Virgin Mary, and took in the only way in which it +could have been taken, by the Virgin Birth, was not a separate +human individuality, but human nature; that nature which we all +share. It was in that nature that He faced and overcame our +enemy.</p> +<p>Here we pause to note a difficulty based on a +misunderstanding. If Christ were a Divine Person, working +in and through human nature, if that humanity which He assumed +were itself impersonal, then how could He have had a human +will? And, after all, is an impersonal human nature really +human? That is the difficulty, and the very fact <!-- page +66--><a name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>that +we feel it as a difficulty, is a proof that we have not yet +grasped that conception of the Divine Nature which underlies the +belief in the Incarnation. God and man are not beings of a +different order. The humanity of every man is the +indwelling in him of the Word Who became flesh. Each one of +us is a shadow, a reflection of the Incarnation. In Jesus +Christ God came; and, it would be equally true to say, in Him +first, man came. All human nature, I believe it would be +true to say all organic nature, pointed forward to the +Incarnation as its fulfilment, as the justification for its +existence.</p> +<p>Thus, when it is said that the human nature of Christ was +impersonal, what is meant is, impersonal in the modern and +restricted sense of personality. The phrase is useful, when +explained, to guard against the idea, which is contrary to the +very principle of the Atonement, that the Son of man was just one +more human soul added to the myriads of human souls who have +appeared on this planet. He Who became Incarnate is the +true self of every man, the very Light of true personality in all +men. As a matter of fact, He was more truly humanly +Personal than any of the sons of men, and all the more truly +humanly Personal, because He was Divinely Personal, the Word in +the image of Whom man was made.</p> +<p>The immense significance of these truths in regard to our +redemption is this, that a separate individuality <!-- page +67--><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +67</span>cannot be imparted to us, but a common nature can. +And that nature which the Eternal Word assumed of the Virgin +Mary, and in which He conquered sin and death, is communicated to +us by His Spirit, above all, in the sacraments of Baptism and the +Holy Communion. Here is the heart of the Atonement.</p> +<p>That victory over sin and death is mine, and yet not +mine. That is the splendid paradox which lies at the very +root of Christianity. It is mine, because I share in that +Human Nature, which by its perfect obedience, the obedience unto +death, “triumphed gloriously” upon the Cross. +It is not mine until, by a deliberate act of my will, in +self-surrender to Christ, I have made it my own. By grace +and by faith, not by one of these without the other, we become +one with Him Who died and rose again. It is faith, the hand +of the soul stretched out to receive, which accepts and welcomes +grace, the Hand of God stretched out to give.</p> +<p>These great thoughts we will pursue in our next address. +But meanwhile, we have at least seen that the Cross is both +victory and attainment: victory over the sin by which I have been +so long held in bondage; attainment of all I can be, all I long +to be, all I was made by God to be. “Thanks be to God +through Jesus Christ our Lord.”</p> +<h3><!-- page 68--><a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +68</span>VII<br /> +REDEMPTION (<span class="smcap">Continued</span>)</h3> +<blockquote><p>“He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My +blood, hath life eternal.”—<span +class="smcap">John</span> <span class="smcap">vi.</span> 54.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>We were made for holiness, union with God, eternal life. +These are but different expressions for one and the same +thing. For holiness is the realisation of our manhood, of +that Divine Image which is the true self, expressing itself and +acting, as it does in us, through the highest of animal +forms. That perfect self-realisation is not merely +dependent upon, but is union with God, at its beginning, +throughout its course, and in its final consummation. And +the life of self-realisation or holiness, which is the life of +union with God, is eternal. Eternal life is not, as in the +popular idea of it, an endless and wearisome prolongation of mere +existence. Primarily, the idea is of the quality, not the +duration of life. In the teaching of the New Testament, +eternal life is a present possession of Christians. +“These things I write to you, who believe on the Name of +the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal +life.” Being as it is a moral and spiritual <!-- page +69--><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +69</span>reality, it is outside time and space. It is +unaffected by “changes and chances.” It is for +ever beyond the reach of the temporal processes of decay, +corruption, death. Here it manifests itself in service, +that service of our fellows which is the service of God. +Hereafter, it will be manifested in higher and more exalted forms +of service. “Have thou authority over ten, over five, +cities.”</p> +<p>Now all this, the consummation and glorious fruit of our +humanity, holiness, union with God, life eternal, we see already +realised in Jesus Christ, the Son of man. We see it +realised, as we have learnt, not in a separate, solitary, +individual, isolated life, but in that common nature which +“for us men and for our salvation” He assumed of the +Virgin Mary.</p> +<p>All that is in Him was in Him first, in order that it might be +in us. And this is the important point: it can only be in +us by virtue of our union with Him. That union He describes +under the vivid and forcible metaphor of eating His flesh, and +drinking His blood. “He that eateth My flesh, and +drinketh My blood, hath life eternal.” His flesh and +blood—a common Jewish phrase for human nature—is +precisely that common nature which He assumed, in which He died +to sin, which He raised from the dead and exalted to the Right +Hand of God, and which He imparts to us, by His Spirit given to +dwell in us for evermore.</p> +<p><!-- page 70--><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +70</span>The doctrine of the Atonement is incomplete, it is +irrational, until it is completed by the doctrine of the Spirit, +the Giver of Life. As He is the source of life in all +living organisms, so He is in Christians the source of the +Christ-life. He comes to dwell in us, not simply as the +Spirit, but as the Spirit of Christ—the Spirit Who first +created, and then “descended” to abide in the Perfect +Manhood. That gift of the Spirit of Christ as the +indwelling source of the life of Christ, and the means of the +Presence of Christ in us, is the characteristic gift of the New +Dispensation. It is His work to make us ever more and more +partakers of Christ, to be perpetually feeding us with His flesh +and blood.</p> +<p>And, as we are about to speak of the Holy Communion, it is +well to insist first on this, that the work of the Spirit in +there feeding us with the flesh and blood of the Son of man is a +continuous process. It is of the very essence of what is +meant by being a Christian. “If any man have not the +Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” The sixth +chapter of St. John’s Gospel is not a mere prediction of +the Eucharist. It is the revelation of that principle of +which the Eucharist is an illustration. Our Communions are +the supreme moments, the crises, in a process which is for ever +going on, the feeding of us, by the Spirit, with the flesh and +blood, the holy and victorious manhood, of the Redeemer.</p> +<p><!-- page 71--><a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +71</span>What relation, then, can this spiritual process have to +the material substances, to the bread and wine which are used in +the Eucharist? This question at once opens out into the +larger one, as to the relation between matter and spirit. +Now, that question could not be dealt with at all satisfactorily +without undertaking a vastly larger task than we are prepared for +at the present moment. We should have to ask, What is, +after all, meant by “matter,” and what by +“spirit”?</p> +<p>But something may be achieved on a much humbler scale. +It will suffice for our present purpose to concentrate our +attention on a remarkable fact which seems to underlie all our +experience. And we will approach the statement of this fact +by first recalling the familiar definition of a sacrament, which +fastens upon the union of the outward and visible with the inward +and invisible as being the essence of what is meant by a +sacrament. Now, the fact we have in view is this: +<i>every</i> outward object in the world is, in this respect, a +sacrament. What we seem to see is everywhere spirit working +through what we call “material” objects. That +sacramental principle of the universe is the very principle which +underlies our Lord’s parables of Nature. Speaking +more accurately, we see in “matter” (1) the means of +the self-revelation of spirit; (2) the instrument by which spirit +acts.</p> +<p>The human organism may serve as a type of this. <!-- +page 72--><a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +72</span>Here is a spiritual being, the Ego, in its will, its +thoughts, its affections, invisible, and it makes its presence +manifest, and it acts, through the material manifestation and +instrument of itself, the body. To believers in God, nature +itself, in its deepest reality, is the revelation of the Divine +Presence, and the instrument of the Divine action. A +beautiful sunset is a veritable and genuine sacrament. In +the light of this profound truth, of matter as the manifestation +and instrument of spirit, we are enabled to see how futile was +the ancient dispute concerning the number of the +Sacraments. In view of the fuller and larger knowledge +which has come to us, this, like so many other objects of +theological strife, ought before this to have been consigned to +the limbo of forgotten controversies.</p> +<p>But in all this we have been, in fact, interpreting the whole +universe in the light of the Incarnation. For that is the +supreme sacrament of all, the very type and complete embodiment +of the sacramental principle. There we see the Divine +manifesting Itself through, and using as the instrument of its +action, a Human, a “material” Body.</p> +<p>The Eucharist thus for the first time becomes +intelligible. It is only one particular illustration, +although a most momentous one, of the universal sacramental +principle, of which all things else in the world are also +illustrations. There we have the Spirit manifesting itself +and acting, <!-- page 73--><a name="page73"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 73</span>as always and everywhere, wherever +“matter” is found; but in a particular way, and for a +particular purpose.</p> +<p>The bread and the wine are the material substances which He +uses at the critical moments in His perpetual action of feeding +us with the flesh and blood of the Son of man. And these +elements were obviously chosen, “ordained by Christ +Himself,” for their most significant symbolism. There +is no truer philosophy of the Eucharist than that which is +contained in the familiar words of the Church Catechism, which +speak of “the strengthening and refreshing of our souls by +the Body and Blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the bread and +wine.” That wonderful, and in itself essentially +sacramental process, by which the organism lives by the +incorporation and assimilation into its own substance of other +substances which we call foods, is the exact analogue of the way +in which our true, spiritual manhood lives by the incorporation +and assimilation of the manhood of Christ, that manhood which is +holy, which exists in the Divine Union, which has perfectly +realised eternal life in the complete dying to sin, and the +complete putting on of holiness.</p> +<p>The Eucharist is, in the broadest sense, the final act in the +drama of our salvation. It is the means by which, by His +own appointment, all that Christ achieved <i>for</i> us upon the +Cross, the repudiation of, or dying to sin, the realisation of +perfect obedience, <!-- page 74--><a name="page74"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 74</span>obedience unto death, comes to be +<i>in</i> us, is made all our own.</p> +<p>But it is most important that we should ever remember that +this truth has two sides.</p> +<p>(i) It is Christ Who saves us; that is, Who is the +actually putting away of sin, attainment of holiness, union with +God, eternal life, by what He does in us. “Christ +<i>for</i> us” finds its perfect fulfilment and end in +“Christ <i>in</i> us.”</p> +<p>(ii) Yet, Christ does not save us apart from +ourselves. Else the Eucharist would be degraded to the +level of some heathen, magical charm. We must will and +intend the putting off of sin, and the putting on of +holiness. We must recognise, and this is a truth of +experience, our complete inability to attain this without +Him. That will, and that recognition, are the repentance +and faith which constitute the necessary contribution on our part +to the work of Christ for our salvation.</p> +<p>Our Communions are the most important moments in our +lives. Each marks a distinct and definite stage in the +fulfilment of the purpose of God for us, the fulfilment in us of +all that is meant by the Death and Resurrection of the +Lord. We ought to come, therefore, not only after due +preparation, with repentance and faith, but also with hope and +joy; not to perform a duty, but to receive the best gift which +God Himself can bestow upon us—that gift which is the +perfect conquest of sin, the complete realisation <!-- page +75--><a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 75</span>of +holiness, union with God, eternal life; the fulfilment of every +aspiration, the accomplishment of every dream, the achievement of +every glory, the crown, the consummation, the attainment of our +manhood in union with Jesus Christ the Son of man.</p> +<h3><!-- page 76--><a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +76</span>VIII<br /> +THE SACRIFICE</h3> +<blockquote><p>“For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and +the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the +purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, +who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself to God, purge your +conscience from dead works to serve the living +God?”—<span class="smcap">Heb.</span> <span +class="smcap">ix.</span> 13, 14.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>No Christian doctrine is more commonly misunderstood than that +of the sacrifice of Christ. This misunderstanding arises +from ignorance as to the meaning of sacrifices in the ancient +world.</p> +<p>Sacrifice is one of the earliest and most widely spread of all +human institutions. Behind the laws regulating sacrifice in +the Old Testament there lies the long history of Shemitic ritual +and religion. These sacrificial rites were not then +introduced for the first time. They formed part of the +inheritance of the Israelites from their far-off ancestors; an +inheritance shared by them with the Ammonites and Edomites, and +other kindred and neighbouring nations. They differed from +these not in matter or form, but in the loftier moral and +spiritual tone which formed the peculiar and distinguishing mark +of the Hebrew religion, and in which we to-day can <!-- page +77--><a name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +77</span>clearly trace the actions in the minds of men of the +Spirit of God.</p> +<p>It follows that it is hopeless to attempt to understand the +sacrificial teaching of the Old Testament without some grasp of +the meaning of sacrifice in the ancient world. Failure to +attain this has led to the idea that the sacrifice of Christ must +mean the appeasing of an offended Deity by blood and death. +But this view of sacrifice is not merely a heathen, but a late +and debased heathen conception. “Shall I give my +first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin +of the soul?” was the cry of the King of Moab, and it marks +the lowest depth into which the pagan idea of sacrifice had +sunk. It is a genuine instance of deterioration in ethnic +religion. The primitive view was far loftier and more +spiritual than this.</p> +<p>Recent researches, dependent on the comparative method, into +the earliest forms of religion have brought to light two +principles which underlay the conception of sacrifice, and which +to a great extent can be discerned more clearly in the most +ancient period than in later times. Now these two +principles which, taken together, constitute the primitive theory +of sacrifice, which make up the fundamental idea of it, however +little prehistoric man may have been capable of giving distinct +and logical expression to them, were these:</p> +<p>1. Death is necessary to the attainment of the fulness +of life.</p> +<p><!-- page 78--><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +78</span>2. Man is, by his very nature, capable of sharing +in, becoming a partaker of, the Divine life.</p> +<p>The earliest known form of sacrifice is the killing of the +sacred animal of the tribe, the animal which was held to be the +representative of the tribal god, followed by the sacred tribal +meal upon the victim. There, in this earliest <i>totem</i> +rite, we have already implicit the two great ideas of sacrifice, +the communion of man with God by actual participation in the +Divine life (the feast on the sacrifice), and that this communion +is rendered possible by the death of the sacred victim.</p> +<p>These ideas were very largely obscured in ancient times by the +conception of sacrifice as a gift, a tribute, or a +propitiation. But these ideas, though they bulk largely in +modern minds unacquainted with the recent researches of +specialists in comparative religion, were, in fact, of later +growth. They are accretions which, by a very natural and +intelligible process, have overlain the oldest and really +fundamental ideas which lie at the root and origin of +sacrifice.</p> +<p>These two ideas were, however, present all through, in what we +might perhaps call (without committing ourselves to any +psychological theories) the racial subconsciousness. They +were always there, ready to be evoked by the appropriate +stimulus, whenever applied. They constituted the real +essence and meaning of the ancient mysteries, which from <!-- +page 79--><a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +79</span>800 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> downwards formed so +important a part of the real religion of the ancient world, and +which have left their mark on the language of St. Paul and other +early Christian teachers. These mysteries, roughly and +broadly speaking, were of the nature of a religious +reformation. They represented the discarding of the +propitiatory idea in favour of the original meaning of sacrifice +as communion.</p> +<p>These earliest notions of sacrifice really underlay the +sacrifices of the Old Testament, especially in the case of the +peace offerings. But, in these, we become conscious of a +third element, the conviction that sin is a barrier to the Divine +Communion. When the worshipper, in the sin-offering, laid +his hands upon the head of the victim, he was, by a significant +action, repudiating his sin, and presenting the spotlessness of +the victim as his own, his own in will and intention +henceforth. The blood was sprinkled upon the altar as the +symbol of the life offered to and accepted by God; it was +sprinkled upon the worshipper as the sign of the communication to +him of that pure Divine life, by virtue of his participation in +which man can alone approach God.</p> +<p>All this can be summed up in one word, +“symbolism.” All the value of ancient +sacrifices, including those of the Old Testament, lay wholly in +the moral and spiritual truths which, in a series of outward and +significant actions, they stood for and symbolised. <!-- +page 80--><a name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +80</span>To attach objective value to that which was external in +the Old Testament sacrifices, or even to the outward +accompaniments of the Supreme Sacrifice, the Death of Jesus +Christ upon the Cross, is to be guilty of a relapse from the +Christian, or even the prophetic spirit, into the late and +debased pagan idea of sacrifice, from which the ancient mysteries +of the Eastern and Greek world were a reaction. Certainly, +the outward sufferings of our Lord should sometimes form the +subject of our thoughts as a motive, and one of the strongest +motives, to penitence and love. But to lay such stress on +these as to exalt them into the real meaning of the sacrifice of +Christ, as constituting its value as a sacrifice, to regard them +as in some way changing the Mind of God towards us, is contrary +to the whole spirit of the New Testament. What the real +teaching of the gospels is in the matter, is made plain by two +significant facts.</p> +<p>(i) While it is quite clear that the inspired writers +regard the Death of Christ, and the Christian life, as being, +each of them, in a real sense, a sacrifice, direct sacrificial +language is applied sparingly to the former, but without stint or +hesitation to the latter. This is a point which has been +strikingly brought out by Professor Loftus in his recent work on +<i>The Ethics of the Atonement</i>.</p> +<p>(ii) While devoting a large portion of their narrative +to the account of the Death of Christ, they exercised a very +great and marked reserve as regards <!-- page 81--><a +name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>the physical +details of the Crucifixion. In this respect the gospels are +in harmony with the earliest Christian representations, as +distinguished from the repulsive realism in which the medieval +artists revelled.</p> +<p>To ask, then, in what sense the Death of Christ was a +sacrifice, is to ask how far that Death realised the moral and +spiritual truths which underlay the ancient institution of +sacrifice, and to which all sacrifices ultimately pointed.</p> +<p>1. The first of these ideas, as we have seen, is that +death is necessary to the fulness of life, that life can only be +won by the surrender of life. That ancient conception +constitutes the fundamental teaching of Christ: “He that +willeth to save his life, shall lose it, and he who willeth to +lose his life . . . shall save it unto life eternal.” +And of that great truth, which is nothing less than the formative +principle of the Christian life, the Cross was the supreme +expression “Herein have we come to know what love is, +because He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down +our lives for the brethren.”</p> +<p>The laying down of life, self-sacrifice, of which the Cross is +the highest manifestation, alone brings life, alone is +fruitful. “Except a grain of corn fall into the earth +and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much +fruit.”</p> +<p>Selfishness, whether as self-assertion or self-seeking, is +essentially barren and unproductive, both in <!-- page 82--><a +name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>regard to the +lives of others and our own lives. Only so far as we are, +in some real sense, laying down our lives for others, denying +(not that which belongs to us, but) ourselves, for their sake, +can we hope to influence other persons for good, to be the cause +of moral fruitfulness, of spiritual life in them. And for +ourselves, we only win the fulness of our own lives, so far as we +lose them in the lives of others, so far as we identify ourselves +with their joys, sufferings, interests, pursuits, well-being; for +our lives are real, and rich, and full exactly in proportion to +the extent to which they include the lives of others.</p> +<p>And the Death of Christ ceases to be an unintelligible +mystery, when it is regarded as the consummation of His Life of +self-sacrifice. “Christ also pleased not +Himself.” “He went about doing +good.” And at last, in the fulfilment of a mission +received of the Father for the good of men, His brethren, He +crowned the Life, in which self-pleasing was not, by His Death, +the necessary result, as we have seen, of His carrying out that +mission in a world of sinful men. For Himself, that Death +was, so He willed, the portal to the glory of the +Resurrection. And the fruits of His uttermost +self-sacrifice are still, after all these centuries, being +gathered in, as in innumerable souls brought back from the +darkness of sin into the light of the Divine Life, “He sees +of the travail of His soul, and is satisfied.”</p> +<p>2. But what answers, in the Death of Christ, to <!-- +page 83--><a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +83</span>that in regard to which the death of the victim served +but as a means to an end, the sacred meal of communion? The +sacrificial principle has been laid down by the writer of the +Epistle to the Hebrews, “without shedding of blood, there +is no remission.” Blood to the modern mind speaks of +death, and usually of a violent and painful death. To the +ancient mind, heathen or Israelite, blood stood for and +symbolised life. “The Blood makes atonement by the +Life that is in it.” Man can only be made at one with +God, can only have “remission of sins”—the +barrier which sin interposes to communion with God can only be +removed, he can only be restored to that Divine fellowship for +which he was made—by actual reception into himself of the +Divine life, of the life of Him Who, being God, became man, in +order to impart His own Divine Life to our humanity which He +assumed. And Christ’s Life only then became available +for men, capable of being imparted to each man, when it had +passed through Death to Resurrection. If the grain +die—only if it die first—“it bringeth forth +much fruit.” “If I go not away, the Comforter, +the Paraclete, will not come unto you.” Only by +virtue of that “going away” of Christ, which includes +His Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, could the Spirit which +indwells His glorified manhood, come to impart the life of Christ +to the members of the Body of Christ. Pentecost is the +final consummation of man’s atonement and redemption.</p> +<p><!-- page 84--><a name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +84</span>We may still more briefly summarise these two +fundamental principles which constitute the sacrificial aspect of +the Death of Christ.</p> +<p>1. Christ died, not that we should be excused from +offering, but that we might be enabled to offer the one +acceptable sacrifice to God, that is, the sacrifice of ourselves +in that service of God which is the service of our +fellow-men.</p> +<p>2. Christ died, in order that we might receive His +Divine Life into ourselves, through the indwelling Spirit of +Christ bestowed by the Ascended Lord.</p> +<p>Thus the Death of Christ is not merely a sacrifice, one out of +many, or (as has been so mistakenly taught) simply the last of a +series. It is rather the one sacrifice which alone realises +the ideas of which all other so-called sacrifices were but the +faint adumbrations. As the one true sacrifice it stands at +the end of an age-long spiritual evolution. In the physical +evolution, the first protoplasmic cell was not man, though it +pointed forward to man, and implied man. So the +<i>totem</i> feast and the old Jewish rites, were not truly and +genuinely sacrifices, though both pointed forward to and implied +the realisation of sacrifice in the Death of Christ. That +Death was the fulfilment of the universal human aspiration, the +assurance of the truth of that ancient dream of mankind, that man +was capable of being, and might attain to be “partaker of +the Divine nature.”</p> +<p>And this whole teaching of ancient ritual as fulfilled <!-- +page 85--><a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +85</span>and accomplished on the Cross of Jesus Christ, is summed +up for us in our Christian Eucharist where on the one hand we, in +union with the sacrifice of Christ, “offer and present +ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and +living sacrifice “to God; and, on the other hand, by eating +the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of man, become +partakers of Him Who, in the words of St. Athanasius, “was +made man, that we might be made God,” became partaker of +our human nature, in order that we might realise the end of our +manhood, by being made partakers of His Divine Life.</p> +<h2><!-- page 86--><a name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +86</span>THE DEVOTION OF THE THREE HOURS</h2> +<h3>I<br /> +INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS</h3> +<p>The object with which we meet here can be expressed in a +Pauline phrase of three words, it is “to learn +Christ.”</p> +<p>But, in those three words, there is contained, in the manner +of St. Paul, a wealth of meaning. To learn Christ is +clearly an affair of the intellect, in the first place. It +quite certainly, in this sense, does not mean merely to +accumulate information regarding the words and acts of our +Lord. St. Paul himself is singularly sparing of allusions +to the history of Christ, if we exclude from that His Death, +Burial, and Resurrection. The phrase, in fact, describes +that kind of knowledge to which a detailed study of the +Saviour’s Life is related as means to an end, the +knowledge, namely, of Christ’s character, of His Mind and +Will. Such knowledge is not to be acquired in one hour or +in three. It is, it ought to <!-- page 87--><a +name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>be, the +life-long object of a Christian man to gain it in an +ever-increasing measure of fulness and accuracy. But the +last words of the Lord, the seven sayings from His Cross, +constitute a special and in some measure unique disclosure of His +Mind and Will. And, therefore, to meditate upon them, as we +are now proposing to do, will be to advance one stage further, +and a distinct stage, in the process of “learning +Christ.”</p> +<p>1. But we do well to remind ourselves, at the very +outset, that our aim is not merely intellectual, but also +practical. There is no real gain arising from the knowledge +of Christ’s Mind and Will, save so far as that knowledge +enables us to make that Mind and Will our own mind and our own +will. <i>That</i> is the very meaning of Christian +discipleship. “Let this mind be in you, which was +also in Christ Jesus.”</p> +<p>2. The end thus set before us is one capable of +attainment by all. The individual, indeed, cannot hope to +realise that end completely by himself. The embodiment of +Christ’s Mind and Will is the supreme task and the final +achievement of the whole Body of Christ. The purpose of the +long development of the Church on earth is, that “we should +<i>all</i> (not <i>each</i>) arrive at a perfect man, at the +measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ.” +The whole Church, the Body in its completeness, is meant to +reflect back in the eyes of the Father, the moral glory of the +Son of man. Each individual has been <!-- page 88--><a +name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>called into +membership in the Body, in order that he might reflect some one +of the scattered rays of that glory; might embody in himself one +aspect of the infinite perfection of the Son of man. So +would each of us truly “come to himself,” realise all +that he is capable of becoming.</p> +<p>That progress of the Body of Christ towards its goal is +described by St. Paul as being a growth of the Christ +Himself. He is “at all points in all men being +fulfilled.” There is a true and important sense in +which the Incarnation is as yet incomplete, in which the +life-history of the Church is its growing completeness. Our +individual task is the realisation in ourselves of that part of +the Christ life which we, individually, have been created to +embody.</p> +<p>3. It will be useful to sum up the Character, the Mind +and Will of Christ, in a single phrase. Consider how He +impressed His contemporaries. What was it which they saw in +Him, who knew Him best, and had been united to Him by close ties +of comradeship and discipleship? In one word, what they saw +was Sonship. “We beheld His glory, as of an +Only-Begotten from a Father.” The Mind and Will of +Christ are the perfect realisation of the Divine Sonship in our +humanity.</p> +<p>But what is the meaning of God’s Fatherhood and +man’s sonship? The ultimate truth of the +relationship, the truth which underlies all such conceptions as +care, love, obedience, is community of <!-- page 89--><a +name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 89</span>nature. +Our human nature is really akin to the Divine. We are sons +of God because our spiritual life is of one piece with His as +derived from it. Baptism introduces no new element into our +nature. By sacramental union with the Only Begotten, the +Ground and Archetype of all sonship, it enables us to realise +that which is in us, to actually become that which, potentially, +we are. It gives us “power to become children of +God,” to attain the meaning of our manhood, to regain our +true selves.</p> +<p>4. Baptism gives power, all sacraments give power, but +in such wise that that power is useless, even, <i>in a sense</i>, +non-existent, till we make it ours by deliberate exertion, by +co-operation of mind and heart and will with the Divine in +us.</p> +<p>The end of our living, to become truly and completely the sons +of God, is to be attained by the joint action of two +factors—</p> +<p>(1) The Spirit of Christ conforming our minds and wills +more and more to the likeness of Christ.</p> +<p>(2) The co-operation of our whole personality with the +work of the indwelling Spirit.</p> +<p>Our meditations this morning on the Seven Words in which +Christ made some partial disclosure of His Mind and Will, will +form some part of that co-operation, one little stage in the +accomplishment of our life-long task.</p> +<h3><!-- page 90--><a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +90</span>II<br /> +THE FIRST WORD</h3> +<blockquote><p>“Father, forgive them; for they know not +what they do.” <span class="smcap">St. Luke</span> +<span class="smcap">xxiii.</span> 34.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>1. Here we are watching the behaviour of the Son of God, +the Ideal and Ground of Divine Sonship in humanity.</p> +<p>Is this supreme example of forgiveness an example to +<i>us</i>? Is it not something unnatural to humanity as we +know it?</p> +<p>We must recall, from a former address, the distinction which +we then drew between the animal in us, with its self-assertive +instincts, and the Divine in us, that which constitutes us not +animal merely, but human, of which the very essence is the +self-sacrifice of perfect love. Christ came to reveal God +in our manhood. And I need this revelation, just because +the animal in me has won so many victories in the past over the +Divine, because in me the spiritual fire habitually burns so low +and dim.</p> +<p>It is a very different thing to say that forgiveness of all +serious injury is a hard thing. It is hard, but not +impossible. That which makes it to be possible <!-- page +91--><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 91</span>is +the serious intention of discipleship, co-operating with the +indwelling Spirit of Christ transforming us into His +likeness.</p> +<p>To assert, on the other hand, that forgiveness of serious +wrong is impossible, is to ignore the fact that He Who uttered +these wonderful words is the true self of me, and of every man +who breathes. He Who hung on the Cross, and spoke these +seven words, is the Son of man, the Representative to all ages, +to all varieties of human character, of true humanity.</p> +<p>2. Christ-like forgiveness is no weak thing, but the +strongest thing in the world.</p> +<p>Yet, for its true effect to be produced, its true character +must be recognised. No suspicion of cowardice or impotence +must cleave to it. The man who being obviously able to +resent an injury, and not lacking in the capacity of resentment, +yet for Christ’s sake forgives, exercises on earth no +inconsiderable share of the moral power of Christ. God now, +as of old, “has made choice of the weak things of the +world,” those things which the world accounts weak, +“to confound the strong.” “The +meek” still “inherit the earth.”</p> +<p>We are dealing, all through, with the injury which is +personal, with the resentment which is the reaction of the +individual against unprovoked wrong. Personal resentment we +are bidden to relentlessly crush out—“to turn the +other cheek” is the command of Christ. But the +Christian man will recognise <!-- page 92--><a +name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 92</span>that the +interests of the social order are not to be disregarded. +These interests, and those of the offender himself, will +sometimes demand that the wrong, even if it primarily affects +ourselves, shall not go unpunished. Again, no one can be in +the full sense a Christian, that is, a fully developed man, or a +man on the way to the full development of his nature, who is +without the capacity of moral indignation, in whom no flame is +kindled by the oppression of the weak.</p> +<p>What the Christian moral law does demand of us, is the +complete suppression of the merely personal anger which sometimes +burns so fiercely in us when we receive unmerited insult or +injury. That kind of anger belongs to “the +flesh,” is part of the defensive equipment of the animal +nature. Before we can in any sense be Christ-like, the +spirit must win many hard-won victories over its ancient foe.</p> +<p>To say “I will forgive, but I can never forget,” +is only to conceal from ourselves the defeat of the spiritual +man, the Christ in us.</p> +<p>3. But carefully note the reason appended to the prayer: +“they know not what they do.” That is true, +with every variety of degrees and shades of truth, of every +sinner. It was true, clearly, of the soldiers then +performing their duty: it was less true, but still in a real +sense it was true, of the Pharisees, of the High Priests, of the +Roman judge. It is true, but to a far less degree, even of +us, that when we sin, we “know not what we do.”</p> +<p><!-- page 93--><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +93</span>Sins are, in the language of St. Paul, works of +darkness. That is the element in which alone they can +exist. Sin is a huge deception. The very condition of +its existence is the concealment of its true character. All +this is summed up in that experience which we call +“temptation.” We are so familiar with sin, the +atmosphere we breathe is so infected with it, we have given way +so many times in the past, that it needs the objective revelation +of the Cross to bring home to us the real horror and malignity of +sin. It has been finely said, “Sin first drugs its +victims before it consumes them.” We, too, or some of +us, have known the strange petrifying, hardening effect of sin on +the conscience.</p> +<p>Great, then, is our need that we should pray that the +revelation of the Cross may more and more come home to us; great +our need to pray for an ever fuller measure of that Spirit of +Christ, Whose first work it is “to convince the world of +sin,” to make men realise its true character and its +inevitable issue.</p> +<h3><!-- page 94--><a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +94</span>III<br /> +THE SECOND WORD</h3> +<blockquote><p>“Verily I say unto thee, To-day thou shall +be with Me in Paradise.” <span class="smcap">St. +Luke</span> <span class="smcap">xxiii.</span> 43.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>We judge of any power by the results which it effects. +We gain some knowledge of the power of steam by its capacity to +drive a huge mass of steel and wood weighing twenty thousand tons +through the water at the rate of twenty knots an hour. +There we have some standard by which we can gauge the force which +sends our earth round the sun at twenty-five miles a second, or +that which propels a whole solar system through space. But +we may apply the same method, of estimation by results, to the +powers of the moral and spiritual worlds. Judged thus, it +was indeed a stupendous power which was exerted by Christ from +the Cross. For what result can be more amazing than the +reversal, at the last, of the character slowly built up by the +habits of a lifetime? It is, of course, useless to +speculate on the antecedents of the robber (not +“thief”) who turned to our Lord with the words, +“Jesus, remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy +kingdom.” We know only what is implied by <!-- page +95--><a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 95</span>the +word “robber” or “brigand,” and the fact +that he had joined, with his fellow-sufferer, in the mockery of +our Lord. But the words thus addressed by him to Christ, in +their context, represent the most wonderful +“phenomenon” of human life, a genuine and +thorough-going conversion. And the power which wrought that +stupendous result was the patience and forgiveness of Jesus +Christ. The weak things had, as so often since, confounded +the strong. In His matchless forbearance, in the prayer for +His executioners, the royalty of Christ our Lord was disclosed, +and the “title” over His head was vindicated.</p> +<p>1. First then, we learn from the Second Word the Mind +and Will of God towards penitence. There is no interposing +of delay. Forgiveness is instantaneous. No pause +intervenes between the prayer for pardon, and the pardon +itself. But, that instant response was to genuine +“change of mind,” not to the repentance which is +merely regret for the past, still less to a cowardly shrinking +from a deserved punishment, but to a definite act of the +man’s will, repudiating sin, and ranging himself on +God’s side. The rejection of sin, the identifying of +self with God’s attitude towards it, that, we have seen, is +alone, in the New Testament sense of the word, repentance.</p> +<p>2. The penitence of the robber, on analysis, discloses +the three familiar elements—</p> +<p>(<i>a</i>) Contrition is obviously implied in the whole +action.</p> +<p><!-- page 96--><a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +96</span>(<i>b</i>) Confession—“we receive the +due rewards of the things which we wrought.”</p> +<p>(<i>c</i>) Amendment—in the separation of himself +from those with whom he had hitherto joined in reviling +Christ.</p> +<p>Now it is worth noting, that our Catechism bids us examine +ourselves not about our sins, but about our repentance; +“whether they truly repent.” We are meant to +ask ourselves—</p> +<p>(<i>a</i>) Is our contrition real? And here, for +our comfort, we remember that God accepts as contrition the +sincere desire to be contrite.</p> +<p>(<i>b</i>) Have we made such a painstaking +self-examination as to ensure our making a good confession? +“If we confess our <i>sins</i>” (separate, detailed +sins, not our sinfulness in general terms), “He is faithful +and just to forgive us our sins.”</p> +<p>Have we used “sacramental” confession, according +to the teaching of the Prayer Book, that is, when our conscience +told us that we needed it?</p> +<p>(<i>c</i>) Is our resolution of amendment a clear and +honest one? What sins are there, some of whose results we +are able to modify or in part reverse (false impressions, +untruths, acts or words of unkindness)? God is generous in +forgiveness. Surely we are bound to be generous in our +amendment. There is a sense in which the results of sin +abide beyond possibility of recall. Yet I believe that the +instinct which bids us “make up for” a hurt inflicted +on a beloved person, <!-- page 97--><a name="page97"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 97</span>is a Divine instinct in our nature, +and one which we are to carry into the region of our relation to +God.</p> +<p>3. We notice another important truth as regards the +Divine forgiveness. It has nothing to do with the removal +of punishment, the release from penalty or consequence of +sin. The forgiveness of the robber was immediate and +complete. But he had still to hang in agony, and there +awaited him the frightful pain of the crurifragium, the breaking +of the legs by beating with clubs.</p> +<p>The sooner we learn the two great truths about the punishment +of sin, the better.</p> +<p>(<i>a</i>) Punishment is inevitable. It is a +necessary result of the constitution of the physical and moral +universe, of the working, in both regions, of those laws which +are the expression of the Divine Mind.</p> +<p>(<i>b</i>) Punishment is remedial. Many Christian +theologians have fallen far below Plato’s conception of +God, as One Who can only punish men with a view of making them +better.</p> +<p>Think of one of the punishments of repented sin, the haunting +memories of past evil. In this case, both principles are +very clearly discernible. Each recollection may be made the +means of a renewed act of rejection of sin, and thus become an +opportunity for the deepening of repentance.</p> +<p>And what disclosure does this second word contain of the Mind +and Will of God in us, as manifested not towards, but by +ourselves? Our lesson is <!-- page 98--><a +name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 98</span>the prompt +recognition and welcome of any, even the slightest signs of +amendment. It may be our duty to punish. It is always +our duty to keep alive, or to kindle, the hope in an offender of +becoming better. In that hope, alone, lies the possibility +of moral amendment. There is the golden rule, laid down by +St. Paul for all who have to exercise discipline over others, in +words which ring ever in our ears—“lest they be +discouraged.”</p> +<h3><!-- page 99--><a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +99</span>IV<br /> +THE THIRD WORD</h3> +<blockquote><p>“Lady, behold thy son.”<br /> +“Behold thy mother.”</p> +<p><span class="smcap">St. John xix.</span> 26, 27.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In this Word we see the Son of God revealed as human son, and +human friend, all the more truly and genuinely human in both +relations, because in each and every relation of life, +Divine.</p> +<p>1. The first lesson in the Divine Life for us to learn +here is the simple, almost vulgarly commonplace one, yet so +greatly needing to be learnt, that “charity,” which +is but a synonym of the Divine Life, “begins at +home.”</p> +<p>Home life is the real test of a person’s +Christianity. There the barriers with which society +elsewhere hedges round and cramps the free expression of our +individuality, no longer exist. We are at liberty to be +ourselves. What sort of use do we make of it? What +manner of self do we disclose? Would our best friends +recognise that self to be the person whom they admire? If +we are to be Christians at all, we must begin by being Christians +at home.</p> +<p><!-- page 100--><a name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +100</span>At home, and beyond the limits of home, one great +Christian virtue stands out as the supreme law of social +behaviour—that is, for a disciple—the virtue of +consideration for others.</p> +<p>In the midst of torturing physical pain, in the extreme form +of that experience, of which the slightest degree makes us +fretful, irritable, self-absorbed, our Lord calmly provides for +the future of His mother and the disciple whom He loved.</p> +<p>What is required of us is not high-flown sentiment, but the +practical proof of consideration, that we have really learnt the +first lesson of the Christ-life, to put others, not self, in the +first place. The proof, the test, is our willingness to put +ourselves to inconvenience, to go without things, for the sake of +others. If in such a little matter as so ordering our +Sunday meals as to give our servants rest, as far as may be, and +opportunity for worship, our practical, home Christianity breaks +down, then we must not shirk the plain truth, there is in us +<i>nothing</i> of the Spirit of Him Who spoke the Third +Word. On the other hand, the readiness with which we do +yield up our comforts is a proof—nothing short of +that—a proof of the indwelling of God in us. +“In this we know that He abideth in us, from the +Spirit”—the Spirit of the Christ—“which +He hath given to us.”</p> +<p>2. We notice, in the second place, that Christ’s +proof of friendship is the assignment of a task, the giving of +some work to do for Him. “Behold thy <!-- page +101--><a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +101</span>mother.” We are His friends, as He Himself +has told us. “No longer do I call you slaves, for the +slave is one who knows not what his master is doing; but you I +have called friends.” St. John had forsaken his +Friend:</p> +<blockquote><p> a torchlight +and a noise,<br /> +The sudden Roman faces, violent hands,<br /> +And fear of what the Jews might do,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>had been too much for the disciple’s courage and the +friend’s devotion.</p> +<blockquote><p>And it is written, I forsook and fled:<br /> +That was my trial, and it ended thus.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But St. John had returned. There he is, in his true +place, beside his Master and Friend.</p> +<p>We too have forsaken, sometimes denied, the same Master and +Friend. We too with true repentance have returned, and are +struggling to take up the old allegiance. What is the +proof, where is the assurance for which we long more, perhaps, +than for anything else in the world, that our repentance has been +accepted, that we are once more in the number of those whom He +calls His friends?</p> +<p>There is one decisive test. Upon all His friends He lays +some task. If we have anything to do for Jesus Christ, then +we may assure our hearts. Our desertion has been +forgiven. He has spoken to us the words of peace, +“Behold thy mother, thy brother, thy son.” For, +let us not forget, all work for others, for the bodies, the +minds, the souls of our brethren <!-- page 102--><a +name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 102</span>in the +family of God, is capable of being raised from the level of +professional drudgery, and of becoming the direct service of +Jesus Christ.</p> +<p>To work for Christ is the real foretaste of heaven, far +removed from the sensuous imagery of some modern hymns. +“Be thou ruler,” there is the supreme reward, +“over ten cities.”</p> +<p>If we are doing any work for Christ, i.e. for others for +Christ’s sake, and as part of our service to Him, willingly +and cheerfully, then we have the final and convincing proof that +we are indeed forgiven, that the offer of renewed allegiance has +been accepted, that we have been restored to His Friendship.</p> +<h3><!-- page 103--><a name="page103"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 103</span>V<br /> +THE FOURTH WORD</h3> +<blockquote><p>“Eloi, Eloi, lama +sabachthani.”—<span class="smcap">St. Matt.</span> +<span class="smcap">xxvii.</span> 46; <span class="smcap">St. +Mark</span> <span class="smcap">xv.</span> 34.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There are three peculiar and distinguishing features of this +fourth word which our Saviour uttered from His Cross.</p> +<p>1. It is the only one of the Seven which finds a place +in the earliest record of our Lord’s life, contained in the +matter common to St. Matthew and St. Mark.</p> +<p>2. It is the only one which has been preserved to us in +the original Aramaic, in the very syllables which were formed by +the lips of Christ.</p> +<p>3. It is the only one which He is said to have +“shouted” +(εβοησεν), under the +extremity of some overpowering emotion.</p> +<p>In fact, we are here at the very heart of the Passion. +In this dread cry I see something of the height of the Divine +love, something of the depths of my own sin.</p> +<p>The meaning of this dread “cry” is not perhaps so +difficult to understand as some have thought. It is to be +found in the entire reality of that human nature <!-- page +104--><a name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +104</span>which the Son of God assumed—not merely a human +body, but a human consciousness like our own; in the thoroughness +with which He identified Himself with every phase of our +experience, the knowledge of personal sin alone excepted.</p> +<p>In this identification more was involved than we commonly +think. Sin cannot be in a world of which the constitution +is the expression of the Mind of God, without introducing therein +a fatal element of discord, confusion, and pain. To all +consequences of sin the Saviour necessarily submitted Himself, by +the mere fact of His entry into a world which sin had +disordered. In respect of the external consequences, this +is abundantly clear. We have seen, and it is, in fact, +obvious, that His sufferings and Death were the result of the +actual sins of men. But there were, it is important to +remember, internal sufferings attributable to the same +cause. We are at once reminded of His tears over the doomed +city, doomed by the persistent refusal to recognise the Divine +voice. But we are here on still deeper ground. The +true explanation of the fourth word is to be found in that great +principle which St. Paul has laid down in a familiar, but little +understood, sentence: “the sting of death is +sin.”</p> +<p>The simplest and most obvious meaning of these words is that, +whatever be the physiological meaning and necessity of human +death, its peculiar horror and dread, that which makes death to +be what it is <!-- page 105--><a name="page105"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 105</span>for us, is to be found in sin, in +the separation of man from God.</p> +<p>Now that horror consists, ultimately, in the fact that death +is the analogue, or, in New Testament language, the +“sign,” of what sin is—separation. If sin +is, essentially, the violent and unnatural separation of man, by +his own act, from his spiritual environment, death is clearly the +separation—and, <i>as our sins have made it</i>, the +violent and unnatural separation of man from all that has +hitherto been his world. It may be, that the final, +extremest pang of death is the supreme moment of agony, when we +feel that we are being made to let go our hold on reality, are +slipping back into what, in our consciousness of it, must appear +like nothingness, the mere blank negation of being. Here, +then, we have the explanation of this awful cry. He Who +came “for our salvation” into a world disordered by +sin, willed so to identify Himself with our experience, as to +realise death, not as it might have been, but as man had made it, +the very sign and symbol of man’s sin, of his separation +from God. That moment of extreme mental anguish wrung from +His lips the Cry, not of “dereliction,” but of faith +triumphing even in the moment when He “tasted death” +as sin’s most bitter fruit, “<i>My</i> God, why didst +Thou forsake Me?”</p> +<p>What this view involves is briefly</p> +<p>(i) Death is an experience natural to man.</p> +<p><!-- page 106--><a name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +106</span>(ii) Sin has added to this natural experience a +peculiar agony, a “sting.”</p> +<p>(iii) This “sting” is an experience of utter +isolation at some moment in the process of death, the feeling +that one is being violently rent away from one’s clinging +hold of existence.</p> +<p>(iv) This “sting” is due to the disorder sin +has introduced into the constitution of the world and of man.</p> +<p>(v) In virtue of this, death has become the +“sign” in the “natural” world of what sin +is in the spiritual.</p> +<p>(vi) Our Blessed Lord so utterly identified Himself with +our experience, with the internal as well as with the external +consequences of our sin, as to undergo this most terrible result +of man’s transgression.</p> +<p>(vii) And He felt the full agony of it as realising, +what none but the Sinless One could realise, the horror of sin as +separation from God.</p> +<p>In a word, the Cry represents the culmination of our +Lord’s sufferings, a real experience of His human +consciousness.</p> +<p>The experience was “objective,” as all states of +consciousness are. Our sensations are as objective as +“material things.” It was, as we have just +said, real: inasmuch as the only definition of reality is that +which is included in personal experience.</p> +<p>Thus understood, this fourth word teaches us at least two +valuable lessons.</p> +<p>1. It discloses to us the Mind of Christ, which is to +<!-- page 107--><a name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +107</span>be our own mind, in its outlook upon human sin. +We, if “the same mind” is to be in us “which +was also in Christ Jesus,” must hate sin, and our sins, not +because of any results or penalties external to sin, but because +sin separates us from God, our true life. The worst +punishment of sin, is sin itself. Into depths which make us +tremble as we strive to gaze into them, Christ our Lord descended +to deliver us from that deadly thing which is destroying our +life. That appalling Cry burst from His lips, that we might +learn to fear and dread sin worse than any pang of physical +pain.</p> +<p>2. This Word, again, discloses the Mind of Christ, true +Man, in its relation to God. He possessed fullest +self-consciousness both as God and as Man. Thus He Himself +alone knew, in their absolute fulness, the joy and the strength +which come from the communion of man with God. That joy and +that strength, in the measure in which we can attain to their +realisation, are to be the goal of all our striving. Thus +this Word has for us more than a merely negative teaching. +Not only are we to shrink from that which destroys union with +God. We must seek far more earnestly to make that union a +greater and a deeper reality. This end we can achieve by +making our prayers more deliberate acts of conscious communion +with that Person Who is not merely above us, but in us, and in +Whom “we live, and move, and have our being.” +We must all make the confession <!-- page 108--><a +name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 108</span>that we +have not yet nearly realised all that prayer might be to us, if +only we were more energetic, more strenuous, more utterly in +earnest, in our attempts to pray. It is by prayer that we +are to attain to our complete manhood, to “win our +souls,” to become our true selves.</p> +<blockquote><p>For what are men better than sheep or goats,<br /> +Which nourish a blind life within the brain,<br /> +If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer,<br /> +Both for themselves, and those that call them friend?<br /> +For so the whole round world is, every way,<br /> +Bound with gold chains about the feet of God.</p> +</blockquote> +<h3><!-- page 109--><a name="page109"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 109</span>VI<br /> +THE FIFTH WORD</h3> +<blockquote><p>“I thirst.”—<span +class="smcap">John</span> <span class="smcap">xix.</span> 28.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This is the only utterance of our Blessed Lord in which He +gave expression to His physical sufferings. Not least of +these was that intolerable thirst which is the invariable result +of all serious wounds, as those know well who have ever visited +patients in a hospital after they have undergone a surgical +operation. In this case it must have been aggravated beyond +endurance by exposure to the burning heat of an Eastern +sun. This word, then, spoken under such circumstances, +discloses the Mind of the Son of God, perfect Man, in regard to +physical pain.</p> +<p>1. Notice then, in the first place, the majestic calm of +this word. It was spoken in intensest agony, yet with +deliberation, exhibiting the restraint of the sovereign and +victorious will of the Sufferer. “After these things, +knowing that all things had now been accomplished, He saith [not +‘cried’], I thirst.” We cannot be wrong +in reading this marvellous word in the light of that strange +passage in the Epistle to <!-- page 110--><a +name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 110</span>the +Hebrews, where the writer tells us that Christ, “although +He was Son, yet learnt He obedience by the things which He +suffered.” How are we to reconcile this with the +moral perfection of our Lord’s humanity? We can only +do so, by applying the Aristotelian distinction between the +potential and the actual. The obedience of the Son of God, +existing as it did in all possible perfection from the first +moment of His human consciousness, yet existed, prior to His +complete identification of Himself with all our human experience, +as a potentiality. It became actual, in the same way as our +obedience can alone become actual, as a result of that +experience, and, above all, in consequence of those sufferings +which were part of that experience. In this sense He +“learnt obedience,” where we too must learn it, in +God’s school of pain.</p> +<p>Therein lies the answer, as complete an answer as we can at +present receive, to the problem of pain. While that problem +is, beyond doubt, the most perplexing of all the questions which +confront us, the real difficulty lies, not in the existence of +pain in God’s world, but in the apparent absence, in so +many instances, of any discernible purpose in pain. In +itself, pain does not, or at least should not, conflict with the +highest moral conception which we can form of the character of +God. But purposeless pain, if such really occur anywhere in +the universe, is hard indeed to reconcile with the revelation of +the Highest <!-- page 111--><a name="page111"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 111</span>as Infinite and Eternal Love. +The real answer to the problem lies in our gradually dawning +perception of the high purposes which pain subserves.</p> +<p>It is well, then, to remind ourselves of the teaching of +natural science in regard to the function of pain in the animal +world. There, at least, it has originated, and has +survived, only because of its actual use to the possessors of +that nervous system which makes pain possible. It serves as +a danger signal of such inestimable value that no race of +animals, of any high degree of organisation, which could be +incapable of suffering pain, could for any length of time +continue to survive. Pain here, at any rate, so far from +being purposeless, owes its existence to the purpose which it +subserves.</p> +<p>Ascending higher in the scale of being we see, as has been +recently pointed out, that the progress of human civilisation has +been very largely due to the successful efforts of man to resist +and to remove pain. The most successful and progressive +races of mankind are those which inhabit regions of the world +where the conditions of life are neither so severe as to paralyse +all exertion, or even to preclude its possibility, nor so +favourable that men can avoid the pain of hunger or of cold +without strenuous and unremitting effort. The stimulus of +pain has been the means of perfecting the animal nature of man, +and the secret of those victories which he has won over the +inclement or dangerous forces of the material <!-- page 112--><a +name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>world, and +which we call, in their totality, human civilisation.</p> +<p>And thus we come in sight of a great law, “perfection +through suffering.” And the revelation of the Cross +is the exhibition to us of this law acting in the higher reaches +of man’s existence, in the moral and spiritual regions of +his life. As the animal has gained its victories in the +past, so the spiritual is advancing towards the final triumph of +man, along the same path, of healthy reaction stimulated and +necessitated by pain.</p> +<p>For wherein lies the triumph of the spiritual nature, save in +its complete and sovereign control over all the other elements in +our complex being? The spiritual man is not the man who has +starved his physical or intellectual being; but the man whose +whole nature, harmoniously developed in the whole range of its +varied gifts and powers and faculties, is altogether brought +under the mastery of that which is highest in him, that spirit in +which he is akin to God, the wearer of the Divine Image. +The saintliest, loftiest characters of men and women have been +the fruits of this discipline.</p> +<p>We see the final demonstration of the purpose of pain in Him +Who “learnt obedience by the things which He +suffered.” This one word which tells of physical +suffering, tells also, as we have already seen, of the victory +gained over it by His human Spirit. It was by the reaction +of that Spirit under sharpest <!-- page 113--><a +name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 113</span>bodily +pain, that the moral perfection of the Son of man ceased to be +potential, and became actual. So it is with us, so at least +it may be in ever-increasing measure, when pain is accepted and +met in the way in which Christ accepted and met His pain, not in +the spirit of useless and wild rebellion against the laws of the +universe, nor in that of a blind, fatalistic, and unintelligent +fatalism, which calls itself resignation. We may, hence, +learn to look beyond and behind pain to that great law of +perfection through suffering which takes effect, as it were, +spontaneously in lower forms of life; but which, in the realm of +the moral and the spiritual, demands the co-operation of the +human mind and will.</p> +<p>2. We may see also, in the fifth word, the revelation of +the attitude of the Son of God towards His own body. That +attitude, and hence the only genuinely and characteristically +Christian attitude, may be best described as the mean between the +pampering of the body, and its savage neglect in the interests of +a <i>false</i> asceticism.</p> +<p>As at first He put aside “the slumberous potion +bland” and willed “to feel all, that He might pity +all,” so, now His task is over, He craves, and accepts, +alleviation of His bodily pain. It is a wonderful +illustration of the true, the Christian way of regarding the +body. The human body is essentially a good and holy +thing. Those sins which we call “bodily,” like +all sins, have their origin in the <!-- page 114--><a +name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 114</span>rebellious +will. They are only distinguished from other sins, because +in them the will uses the body, and in other sins other God-given +endowments of our nature, in opposition to the eternal goodness +which is the Will of God. We cannot too often remember, +that “good” and “evil” are terms +applicable to the will alone.</p> +<p>That splendid gift of the body has been given to us, in order +that in it, and through it, we might “glorify God”; +that is, do His Will, the only thing utterly worth doing. +<i>Therefore</i>, we have to keep our bodies “fit,” +fit in all ways for their high and holy purpose. There is +the law, the standard of all Christian self-discipline. +Think of the glory of the prospect which it holds out to us, of +the development and destiny of the body. Think of the care +which we should bestow upon it, of the awful reverence with which +we should regard this (in the Divine intention) splendid and +perfect instrument for the fulfilment of the Will of God. +For what reverence can be too great for that which the Eternal +God chose as the tabernacle in which He should dwell among men, +as the instrument by which He should do the Father’s Will +on earth?</p> +<p>Of all the religions of the world it is the religion of Jesus +Christ alone which bids us “glorify God” in the body, +that is, do His Will in and by that glorious instrument which He +has created and redeemed for His service.</p> +<p><!-- page 115--><a name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +115</span>3. Finally, we may remind ourselves, very +briefly, that we, in our own day, may share the blessedness of +the Roman soldier who relieved the sufferings of Christ. +“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these My +brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”</p> +<p>As Christians, we <i>must</i> have <i>some</i> ministry to +fulfil towards the suffering members of Christ’s +Body. In the parable of the sheep and the goats, the +eternal destiny of men is shown to depend, in the last resort, +upon the manner in which they have performed, or failed to +perform, this ministry. The complexities of modern life +call for careful thought in regard to the manner in which we are +to fulfil this duty, but they cannot relieve us of it. +Somewhere or other in our lives we must be diligently relieving +the necessities of others, ministering to their needs of body, +mind, or spirit. Else—there is no shirking this +conclusion—we are simply failing in the most characteristic +of all Christian virtues; we are far removed from the Mind of Him +Who “went about doing good”; we are on the way to +hear that final condemnation, “Because ye did it not to the +least of these My brethren, ye did it not to Me.”</p> +<h3><!-- page 116--><a name="page116"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 116</span>VII<br /> +THE SIXTH WORD</h3> +<blockquote><p>“It is accomplished.”—<span +class="smcap">St. John</span> <span class="smcap">xix.</span> +30.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>1. What had been accomplished? In the first place, +that work which Christ had come into the world to do. All +that work may be resumed in a single word, +“sacrifice.” The Son of God had come for this +one purpose, to offer a sacrifice. Here is room for serious +misunderstanding. The blood, the pain, the death, were not +the sacrifice. Nothing visible was the sacrifice, least of +all the physical surroundings of its culminating act. There +is only one thing which can rightly be called sacrifice—or, +to put it otherwise, one sacrifice which alone has any worth, +alone can win any acceptance in the sight of God—and that +is, the obedience of the human will, the will of man brought into +perfect union with that Divine Will which is its own highest +moral ideal.</p> +<p>The perfect obedience of the human will of Christ to the +Divine Will, could only be realised—such were the +circumstances under which the mission received of the Father was +to be fulfilled by Him for the good of man—by His +faithfulness unto death. “He became <!-- page +117--><a name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +117</span>obedient unto death,” because in such a world +perfect faithfulness must lead to death. But the death of +Christ was no isolated fact, standing out solitary and alone from +the rest of His ministry. It was not merely of one piece +with, but the natural and fitting close of the whole. The +death of uttermost obedience was the crown and consummation of +the obedient life. On the Cross, He was carrying His +life’s work to its triumphant close. His Death was, +itself, His victory.</p> +<p>This victorious aspect of the Passion is that on which St. +John chiefly dwells. The “glorification” of the +Son of man, His “lifting up,” was the whole series of +events extending from the Passion to the Ascension. So the +first Christians loved to think of the Cross, not as the +instrument of unutterable pain, but as the symbol of their +Master’s triumph. It is this feeling, this +apprehension of the Johannine teaching on the Passion, which +accounts for the late appearance of the crucifix. Even +when, at last, the actual sufferings of the Saviour are depicted, +we are still far removed from medieval realism. There are +no nails—the Saviour is outstretched on the Cross by the +moral power of His own will, steadfast and victorious in its +obedience. The Sacred Face is not convulsed with agony, but +is turned, with calm and benignant aspect, towards men whom He +blesses. The earliest representations of the Passion, as we +have noticed before, are far nearer to the spirit of <!-- page +118--><a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +118</span>the gospels, that of St. John above all, than those of +the Middle Ages.</p> +<p>2. But the ministry itself was but the consummation of +the age-long work now “accomplished.” +Throughout the whole course of man’s history, in the entire +spiritual evolution, whose first steps and rude beginnings we +trace in the burial mounds of prehistoric races, He Whose lips +now uttered that great “It is accomplished” had been +the light of men, never amid thick clouds of error and cruelty +and superstition wholly extinguished. In every approach of +man to God however dimly conceived of, the Word, the Eternal Son, +had been offering Himself in sacrifice to the Father.</p> +<p>So here, in the perfect act of the moral obedience of a human +will, is that to which all sacrifices not only pointed forward +but, all the time, meant, and aimed at, and symbolised, as men so +slowly and so painfully groped after, felt their way to God, +“if haply they might find Him.”</p> +<p>“It is accomplished”—the true meaning of +sacrifice, of all religion, heathen and Jewish, is attained and +laid bare.</p> +<p>Thousands of years of human development reach their climax, +find their issue and their explanation in these words.</p> +<p>3. In its teaching, this sixth word ascends to the +heights, to the mysterious and ineffable relationships of the +Godhead—which are the inner reality <!-- page 119--><a +name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 119</span>and meaning +of all morality and religion—and it descends to the depths, +to the lowliest details of the most commonplace life.</p> +<p>All work, for the Christian, is raised to the level, to the +dignity of sacrifice. Once and for all we must rid +ourselves of that idea which has wrought so much mischief, that +sacrifice necessarily connotes pain, loss, death. +Essentially our sacrifice is what essentially Christ’s +sacrifice was, the joyous dedication of the will to God, the +Source and Light of all our being.</p> +<blockquote><p>The daily round, the common task,<br /> +Will furnish all we need to ask.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>All work is sacred, or may be so, if we will. For all +work has been consecrated for evermore by the perfect obedience, +that is, the perfect sacrifice of the Son of man, the Head of our +race. There is no task which any Christian, anywhere, can +be called upon to do, which cannot be made part of that joyous +service, that glad sacrifice, which, in union with that of Jesus +Christ our Lord, we, one with Him in sacramental union, +“offer and present” to the Father.</p> +<h3><!-- page 120--><a name="page120"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 120</span>VIII<br /> +THE SEVENTH WORD</h3> +<blockquote><p>“Father, into Thy hands I commend My +spirit.” <span class="smcap">St. Luke</span> <span +class="smcap">xxiii.</span> 46.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The consummation of sacrifice, the union of the human will +with the Divine, leads to the perfect rest in God.</p> +<p>1. We have tried to deal with the Seven Words as +constituting a revelation of the Divine Sonship of +humanity. From this point of view it is significant that +the first and the last begin, like the Lord’s Prayer, with +a direct address to the Father.</p> +<p>The service of the Christian man is that of a son in his +father’s house, of a free man, not of a slave. The +Fatherhood of God is the very key-note of the Christian view of +life and of death. In both alike we are the objects of the +Father’s individual care and love; in both we bear the +supreme dignity of “the sons of the Most High.”</p> +<p>That dignity belongs inalienably to our human nature as +such. Baptism conveys no gift alien and <!-- page 121--><a +name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 121</span>extraneous +to our manhood. Rather, that union with the Only Begotten +Son is not an addition to, but the restoration of our nature by +Him in Whose Image it was created. United thus to the +Eternal Son, we are placed in a position to realise the +possibilities of our being, to become that which we are +constituted capable of becoming. That is the true answer to +the question, how can we be made children of God by Baptism?</p> +<p>And through work, and prayer, and suffering, we are to grow +into, and perfectly realise, our Divine sonship.</p> +<p>2. These dying words of the Son of God breathe no spirit +of mere passive resignation. That is the spirit of the +Oriental fatalist, not of the son conscious of his sonship, of +his heirship. Even the Lord’s Death was not the +yielding to inexorable necessity, to the inevitable working of +the laws of nature. It was, if anything in His Life was, +the deliberate act of His conscious Will. “I +commend,” rather, “I commit My Spirit.” +“I lay down My life . . . therefore the Father loveth +Me.”</p> +<p>Submission to the Will of God is not necessarily a Christian +virtue at all. What is Christian is the glad recognition of +what manner of will the Divine Will is, how altogether +“good, perfect, and acceptable,” how infinitely +righteous, and holy, and loving; the doing of that glorious Will +with mind, and heart, <!-- page 122--><a name="page122"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 122</span>and will, and body; the praying with +all sincerity and intention that that Will, which is the +happiness and joy and life of all creatures, may increasingly +“be done, as in heaven, so on earth”; the free and +glad surrender, in life and death, to that Will which is the +perfection and consummation of our manhood.</p> +<p>3. Such an attitude of our whole being, which is what is +meant by being a Christian, can only be ours by virtue of the +Spirit of the Son of God dwelling and working within us, and +moulding us into His perfect Likeness. In Him alone we can +come to our sonship, to that which is from the first, +potentially, our own. “Ye are all sons of God, +through faith, in Christ Jesus; for as many of you as were +baptised into Christ did put on Christ.” Work and +suffering, life and death, can only be borne, and lived, and +endured by us in the spirit of sonship, so far as we are actually +“in Christ.”</p> +<p>Let us pray that the Mind and Will of the Son of God, +disclosed to us in these Seven Words, may be ours in +ever-increasing measure. They can be ours, if we are in +Him, and He in us.</p> +<p>The foundation fact of the Christian life, that which alone +makes it possible, is our union, through sacraments and faith, +with Christ; our actual sharing in His Life, imparted by His +Spirit to the members of His Body. We are meant to be ever +drawing upon the infinite moral resources of that Life by +repeated <!-- page 123--><a name="page123"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 123</span>acts of faith. For, as with +all other gifts of God, so it is with this, His supreme gift; we +only know it as ours—it is, in a real sense, only truly our +own—in proportion as we are using it.</p> +<h3><!-- page 124--><a name="page124"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 124</span>X<br /> +ADDRESS ON EASTER EVE</h3> +<blockquote><p>“We were buried, therefore, with Him through +baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised from the dead +by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of +life.”—<span class="smcap">Rom.</span> <span +class="smcap">vi.</span> 4.</p> +<p>“I delivered unto you, among the first things, that . . +. He was buried.”—I <span class="smcap">Cor.</span> +<span class="smcap">xv.</span> 3, 4.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>St. Paul lays extraordinary and, at first sight, inexplicable +stress, on the fact of our Lord’s Burial. It is +certainly strange that, in the second of these two texts, he +mentions it as constituting, along with the Death of Jesus Christ +for our sins, and His Resurrection on the third day according to +the Scriptures, the foundation truths of the apostolic gospel, as +being one of those “first things” of the Christian +religion which, as he had “received,” so had he +“delivered” to the Corinthians.</p> +<p>This extreme importance attached by St. Paul to the Burial of +Christ, can only be explained by the mysticism of the great +apostle. To him the outward facts, however wonderful and +striking in themselves, are of value only as “signs,” +as representing great moral and spiritual realities. To +him, as to every man who thinks soberly and steadily, the +internal is <!-- page 125--><a name="page125"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 125</span>“real” in a sense in +which the external is not: thought has a reality denied to +“things.”</p> +<p>The real meaning of Christ’s Burial is the mystical +meaning, that meaning which was brought home to the minds of the +early Christians by the picturesque and symbolic ritual of +baptism. The man who had, by faith, accepted Christ as his +Lord and Master, was baptised into His Death; that is, in Him he +died to the old life. His submergence beneath the baptismal +waters, the very likeness of the Burial, was the assurance and +the sealing of that death. As truly as the man who is dead +and buried is cut off for ever from the life of this world, so +was the baptised separated, once and for all, from the old +heathen life with all its associations. As clearly did his +emergence from those waters show forth his actual participation +in the Lord’s Resurrection. He had not merely left +the old life behind, he had from that moment entered upon the new +life, the “life of God”; that is, the life which +henceforth had God for its foundation, its centre, and its goal; +the life of moral health and sanity; the life which was to be, in +all its relations, open and clear and undismayed; the life +“in the Light.”</p> +<p>1. The first thought, then, of Easter Eve must surely be +one of profound sorrow and humiliation. We ought to be +bowed to the very earth with self-abasement by the thought that +we have been, so many times in the past, untrue to our +baptism.</p> +<p><!-- page 126--><a name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +126</span>Soldiers of Christ, we have denied our Lord. +More, ours has been the guilt, not of Peter only, but of +Judas. Too often we have betrayed Him for the veriest +pittance of this world’s good.</p> +<p>We have missed the glory of the Risen Life. All the +magnificent language of the Epistle to the Ephesians, the +quickening with Christ, the raising together with Him from the +dead, the enthronement in Him in the heavenly places—all +this was written of Christians in this life. All this might +have been true of us, and is not; for, worse than Esau, we have +bartered away an incomparably more magnificent heritage.</p> +<p>What remains for us to do on this Easter Eve but, with truest +penitence, with utter loathing of self, and utter longing for Him +Who is our true self, to cast ourselves at the Feet of +Christ?</p> +<p>2. But the second thought of Easter Eve is one of +boundless hope. But remember, hope can only begin at the +Feet of Christ. For Christian hope has evermore its +beginning and its ground in humility. We only find safety, +comfort, joy, encouragement, as we lie, prostrate in penitence, +before our Redeemer. It is clear, is it not, what we mean +by all this? We are, simply and naturally, to kneel before +our Lord, and acknowledge to Him all our untruth, all our +disloyalty, all the manifold failures of our service. And +the very fact that we can do this sincerely and honestly, is the +earnest of all good things to come in <!-- page 127--><a +name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 127</span>us. +If only we can make this genuine and heartfelt confession, there +is no degree of moral recovery beyond our reach.</p> +<p>For on Easter Eve we try to realise once more that greatest of +Christian truths, the <i>power</i> of Christ’s +Resurrection. The power which was manifested in the +Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the power which is +universally present in nature and in mind, which is the reality +behind all forces of nature, which all forces reveal. It +has been finely said, that “the opening of a rose-bud and +the Resurrection of Jesus Christ are facts of the same order, for +they are equally manifestations of the one force which is the +motive power of all phenomena.”</p> +<p>We see that power in the glories of the opening spring; we are +conscious of it in ourselves, in every good resolve, every upward +aspiration. There comes to us the inspiring thought, that +the physical and the moral Resurrection alike, in nature, in +ourselves, in Jesus Christ, are different manifestations of one +and the same power. Was the Resurrection of the Lord a +mighty fact, the greatest of all the facts of history, a +transcendent and astonishing miracle? The power which +wrought it is in me; the same wondrous fact, the same stupendous +miracle, if I will, may be accomplished in me.</p> +<p>That was the very meaning of my Christian calling—that +“as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the +Father,” so I, by the self-same power, might be <!-- page +128--><a name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +128</span>raised from the death of sin, and enabled “to +walk in newness of life.” The Death, the Burial, and +the Resurrection of Jesus Christ are not merely historical facts, +external to me: they are meant to be spiritual facts in my own +experience, in the experience of all Christians. And +spiritual facts are beyond measure greater in value and meaning +and influence than those historical facts which happened in space +and time, in order to serve as signs and symbols of the inward +and eternal realities.</p> +<p>So let us come to our Easter Communion, not only in the spirit +of penitence, but in the spirit of undying and unconquerable +hope. There is no limit to that which the power of God, +symbolised, embodied externally, in the Resurrection, may effect +within us, in the region of our moral and spiritual life. +Or rather, there is no limit to the exercise of the Divine power, +save that which we ourselves impose upon it, by our failure to +correspond with it. Now as ever it is true, true of the +work of God’s grace upon our souls, as of the healing power +of Christ over the bodies of men, that “according to our +faith” it shall be done to us.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">william brendon +and son</span>, <span class="smcap">ltd.</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">printers</span>, <span +class="smcap">plymouth</span></p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote0"></a><a href="#citation0" +class="footnote">[0]</a> Some of them also in the Parish +Church of Colton, Staffordshire.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GLORIA CRUCIS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 24153-h.htm or 24153-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/1/5/24153 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Gloria Crucis + addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 + + +Author: J. H. Beibitz + + + +Release Date: January 3, 2008 [eBook #24153] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GLORIA CRUCIS*** + + +Transcribed from the 1908 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +GLORIA CRUCIS + + +ADDRESSES DELIVERED IN LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL +HOLY WEEK AND GOOD FRIDAY, 1907 + +BY +THE REV. J. H. BEIBITZ, M.A. +VICE-PRINCIPAL OF THE THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE, LICHFIELD + +LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. +39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON +NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA +1908 + +_All rights reserved_ + +MATRI + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +These addresses, delivered in Lichfield Cathedral {0} in Holy Week, 1907, +are published at the request of some who heard them. It has only been +possible to endeavour to reproduce them in substance. + +The writer desires to express his obligations to various works from which +he has derived much assistance, such as, above all, Du Bose's _Gospel in +the Gospels_, Askwith's _Conception of Christian Holiness_, Tennant's +_Origin of Sin_, and Jevons' _Introduction to the History of Religion_. + +To the first and the last of these he is especially indebted in regard to +the view here taken of the Atonement. + +It seems to him that no view of that great and central truth can possibly +be true, which (i) represents it as the result of a transaction between +the Father and the Son, which is ditheism pure and simple; or which (ii) +regards it as intended to relieve us of the penalty of our sins, instead +of having as its one motive, meaning, and purpose the "cure of sinning." + +So far as we can see, the results of sin, seen and unseen, in this world +and beyond it, must follow naturally and necessarily from that +constitution of the universe (including human nature) which is the +expression of the Divine Mind. If this is true, and if that Mind is the +Mind of Him Who is Love, then all punishment must be remedial, must have, +for its object and intention at least, the conversion of the sinner. And, +therefore, the desire to escape from punishment, if natural and +instinctive, is also non-moral, for it is the desire to shirk God's +remedy for sin, and doomed never to realise its hope, for it is the +desire to reverse the laws of that Infinite Holiness and Love which +governs the world. + +Yet this must be understood with one all-important reservation. For the +worst punishment of sin, is sin itself, the alienation of the soul from +God, with its consequent weakening of the will, dulling of the reason, +and corrupting of the affections. And it was from this punishment, from +this "hardest hell," which is sin, or the character spoiled and ruined by +sin, that Christ died to deliver us. + +It follows that it is high time to dismiss all those theories of the +Atonement which ultimately trace their origin to the enduring influence +of Roman law. There is no remission of penalty offered to us in the +Gospel of Jesus Christ. The offer which is there held out to us, is that +which answers to our deepest need, to the inmost longings of the human +soul, "the remission of our _sins_." + +The idea of a penalty owing to the "justice" of God is a thoroughly +legalistic one, the offspring of an age which thought in terms of law. It +deals throughout with abstractions. The very word "justice" is a general +notion, a concept, the work of the mind abstracting from particulars. +Justice and mercy are used like counters in some theological game at +which we are invited to play. "Penalty," again, is a term which serves +to obscure the one important fact that God, as a Moral Person or, rather, +as the One Self-Existent Being, of Whose nature and essence morality is +the expression, can only have one motive in dealing with sinners, and +that is, to reconcile them to Himself, to restore them to that true ideal +of their nature, which is the Image of Himself in the heart of every man. +Who can measure the pain and anguish which that restoration must cost, to +the sinner himself, and (such is the wonderful teaching of the Cross) to +God, the All-Holy One, Who comes into a world of sin in order to restore +him? + +There is no room here, at all events, for light and trivial thoughts of +sin. That charge might be levelled, with more excuse, at the view that +sin only incurs an external penalty, from which we can be cheaply +delivered by the sufferings of another. + +And theories of the Atonement which centre in the conception of penalty +are often only modifications of the crude and glaring injustice of the +Calvinistic view. The doctrine of a kind of bargain between the Father +and the Son, while it revolts our moral instincts, at the same time +logically leads to the purely heathen notion of two gods. + +There are two main principles which are essential to a right +understanding of the Atonement: (1) The oneness of Christ both with God +and with humanity. In regard to neither is He, nor can He be, "Another"; +(2) the death of Christ was the representation in space and time of a +moral fact. It happened as an "event" in history, in order that that +moral fact, of which it was the embodiment and symbol, might become a +fact in the spiritual experience of mankind. That death was more than a +symbol, because it was the actual means by which that which it +represented might be, and has been, in the lives of all Christians +accomplished. These two principles the writer has, with whatever degree +of failure or inadequacy, endeavoured to embody in the following +addresses. + +And yet the Atonement, which is, in the broadest aspect of it, +Christianity itself, is a fact infinitely greater and higher than any +mere theories of it. For it is nothing less than this, the personal +action of the living Christ on the living souls of men. That his readers +and himself may experience this action in ever-increasing measure is the +prayer of him who, as he fears, too greatly daring, has endeavoured to +set forth, yet once more, "The Glory of the Cross." + + + + +GLORIA CRUCIS + + +I +THE GLORY OF THE CROSS + + + "God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus + Christ."--GAL. VI. 14. + +There are at least two reasons, unconnected with Holy Week, why the +subject of the Cross of Christ should occupy our attention. + +1. The first reason is, that the Cross is commonly recognised as the +weak point in our Christianity. It is the object of constant attack on +the part of its assailants: and believers are content too often to accept +it "on faith," which means that they despair of giving a rational +explanation of it. Too often, indeed, Christians have proclaimed and +have gloried in its supposed irrationality. To this latter point we +shall return. But in the meanwhile it is necessary to say this: all +language of harshness towards those who attack the doctrine of the +Atonement is completely out of place. For the justification of their +attacks has very often come from the Christian side. In former times, +far more commonly than now, the sacrifice of Christ has been represented +as a substitutory offering, necessary to appease the wrath of an offended +God. It used to be said, and in some quarters it is said to-day, that +the sins of the human race had so provoked the Divine anger that it could +be appeased by nothing short of the destruction of mankind. In these +dire straits of mankind, the Sinless Son of God presented Himself as the +object on which the full vials of the Father's wrath should be outpoured. +God having been thus placated, and His wrath satisfied, such as believe +in this transaction, and rest themselves in confidence upon it, are +enabled in such wise to reap its benefits that they escape the penalty +due to their transgression, and are restored to the Divine favour. + +Now this is the crudest representation of a certain popular theology of +the Atonement. With some of its features softened down, it is by no +means without its adherents and exponents at the present day. But when +its drift is clearly understood, it is seen to be a doctrine which no +educated man of our time can accept. We may consider four fatal +objections to it. + +(_a_) It is true that there is such a thing as "the wrath of God." It is +not only a fact, but one of the most tremendous facts in the universe. It +is a fact as high as the Divine purity, as deep as the malignity and +foulness of sin, as broad as all human experience. It is impossible to +construct a theistic theory of the world which shall leave it out. The +nature of the fact we shall investigate at a later point. But we can say +this at once. It cannot be such a fact as is represented by the theory +under review. For that represents the wrath of God as a mere thirst for +vengeance, a burning desire to inflict punishment, a rage that can only +be satisfied by pain, and blood, and death. In other words, we are +driven to a conception of God which is profoundly immoral, and +revoltingly pagan. If we are rightly interested in missions to the +heathen, are there to be no attempts to convert our fellow-Christians +whose conception of God scarcely rises above the heathen one of a cruel +and sanguinary deity? Not such, at least, is the New Testament doctrine +of Him Who is God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. + +(_b_) There is no moral quality which we esteem higher than justice. +Fairness, equity, straight dealing are attributes for which all men +entertain a hearty and unfeigned respect. There is no flame of +indignation which burns fiercer within us than when we conceive +ourselves, or others, to be the victims of injustice. But what are we to +say of a view of the Atonement which represents God Himself as being +guilty of the most flagrant act of injustice that the mind of man has +ever conceived, the infliction of condign punishment upon a perfectly +innocent Person, and that for the offences committed by others? It is a +further wrong, and that a wrong done to the offenders themselves, that +they are, in consideration of the sufferings of the righteous One, +relieved of the merited and healthful punishment of ill-doing. + +(_c_) A third defect of this theory of the Atonement is, that it is +profoundly unethical. The need of man is represented as being, above +all, escape from penalty. Whereas, at least, the conscience of the +sinner himself is bearing at all times witness to the truth that his real +necessity is escape from his sin, from the weakness and the defilement of +his moral nature, which are of the very essence of moral transgression. +We are now dealing with the matter from the moral standpoint; but we have +to support us the authority of the earliest proclamation of the work of +the Christ: "He shall save His people from their sins," not from any +pains or penalties attached to their sins. Relief from punishment is not +the Gospel of the New Testament, it is not a gospel at all. + +(_d_) Finally, the idea of a transaction between the Father and the Son +is clean contrary to the fundamental Christian doctrine of the Unity of +God. Once locate justice in the Father, and love in the Son, and view +the Atonement as the result of a bargain, or transaction between the Two, +and once more we are left with a doctrine not Christian, but heathen and +polytheistic. There is unhappily little doubt, that the doctrine of the +Holy Trinity suffers, just as that of the Atonement, even more from its +defenders than from its assailants. Properly understood, that doctrine +is the vindication of the complete fulness of the personal life of the +One God. Too often it is so held, and so preached and represented, as in +this case, that monotheism is tacitly abandoned in favour of ditheism or +tritheism. It needs to be plainly said, that the transaction theory is +inconsistent with the trinitarian doctrine. The Three Persons are so +called in our Western theology owing to defects inherent in human thought +and speech. To set one over against the other as two parties to a +contract, is to found a theory upon those very defects. The Miltonic +representation of the Father and the Son is Arian; the popular view is, +more often than not, a belief either in two gods, or in a logical +contradiction. + +To sum up, the view of the Atonement with which we have been occupying +ourselves, is opposed to the fundamental moral instincts, and to the +Christian consciousness, both as it finds expression in the New +Testament, and as it reveals itself in the best minds of to-day. And +this type of theory, although without some of its coarser features, is by +no means extinct. There is all the more need then, in spite of all that +has been so well done in this direction, to exhibit the Atonement as the +supreme vindication of those instincts which are the witness of the +Divine in man. There is laid on all who would preach or teach +Christianity to-day to show that Calvinism, and all that is touched with +the taint of Calvinism, is not the doctrine of the Atonement which is +taught in the Bible or held by the Church. But, as nothing can be built +on negations, there is an even greater and more imperative need to +exhibit the truth of the Atonement in its beauty and majesty and +transcendent moral power. + +2. The second of our two reasons for the choice of the Cross of Christ +as our subject, is the failure on the part of those who believe in it, +trust in it, and even build their lives upon it, to realise the true +vastness of its meaning. We are too apt to regard the Cross as one of +the doctrines of our religion, or as supplying a motive to penitence, or +to Christian conduct. Our view, when we are most in earnest, is +one-sided, limited, parochial. We must rise, if we would really +understand the Cross, to the height of this conception: that it contains +in itself the answer to the problem of human existence, and of our +individual lives. The secret of the universe, of our part of it at +least, that tiny corner which is occupied by the human race, was revealed +in that supreme disclosure of the Divine Mind which was made on Calvary. +It was a disclosure necessarily given under the forms of time and space, +else it could not have been given to us at all. But it transcends all +forms and limitations, and belongs to the spiritual and timeless order, +which is also the Real. But it is a disclosure which requires the +thought and study, not of one generation only, but of all. It can never +be exhausted. There is no view of it (including even that miserable +caricature which we have just considered) that is altogether without some +elements of truth. There is no view which embodies the whole of the +truth. Each generation is meant to read that secret of God, which was +uttered to mankind from the Cross of the Christ, a little more clearly +than its predecessors. No theology of the Atonement which is not both +new and old, can be a true theology. It must be old, because the +disclosure was made under the form of historic facts which belong to the +past. It must be new, because each age, in the light of the progressive +revelation of God, interprets the disclosure under the forms of its own +experience, scientific, moral, spiritual, which belongs to the present. +"Therefore is every scribe that is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, +like unto a householder which bringeth forth out of his treasures things +both new and old." + +But the present point is, that we should realise the far-reaching +significance of the disclosure of God made on and from the Cross. Human +history is like a long-drawn-out drama, in which we are actors. How long +is that drama, stretching back beyond the long years of recorded history +to our dim forefathers, who have left their rude stone implements on the +floors of caves or bedded in the river drift, the silent witnesses of a +vanished race. And how short is that little scene in which we ourselves +appear, while, insignificant as it is, it is yet our all. And we ask, we +are impelled to ask, what is the meaning of the whole vast drama? What +is the meaning of our own little scene in it? No questions can be +compared in interest and importance to these two. And the answer to them +both, so we shall try to see, was given once in time from the Cross. That +is one of the chief aspects under which we shall regard the Cross of +Christ, as the key which unlocks the mystery of human existence, and of +my existence. There is no more majestic or pathetic conception than that +of the veiled Isis. But the Cross is the removal of the veil, the +discovery of the Divine Secret. + +* * * * * + +Before, however, we proceed to our main subject, it will be well to set +first before our minds a few elementary considerations. + +The existence of God appears to be necessitated in order to account for +two things: (i) the appearance of control in the universe; (ii) the facts +of moral consciousness. + +(i) It seems impossible to get rid of the ideas of direction and +control. If we regard the world as it exists at the present moment, as +one stage in an age-long process, then at least [Greek text] the facts +which now appear were contained in the earliest stage of all. Man +appears with his moral and spiritual nature. Then already the moral and +the spiritual were somehow present when the first living cell began its +wonderful course. [Greek text]. All movements have converged towards +this end, and the co-ordination of movements implies control. + +This then is our first reason for our belief in God. We live in a +universe which seems throughout to manifest evidence of direction and +control. + +(ii) But I have much surer and more cogent evidence within myself. +Whence comes that ineradicable conviction of the supremacy of +righteousness, of the utter loveliness of the good, and utter hatefulness +of the evil? I am not concerned with the steps of the process by which +the moral sense may have developed. The majesty of goodness, before +which I bow, really, sincerely, even when by my acts I give the lie to my +own innermost convictions, that is no creation of my consciousness. Nor +do I see good reason to believe that it has been an invention of, or +growth in, human consciousness during the slow development of past ages. +There is something deeper in my moral convictions than an outward +sanction wondrously transmuted into an internal one. Moreover, in the +best men, those who have really developed that moral faculty which I +detect, in beginning and germ, as it were, in myself, I see no abatement +in reverence for the ideal. Rather, the better and saintlier that they +are, the keener do they feel their fallings off from it. A moral lapse, +which would give me hardly a moment's uneasy thought, is capable of +causing in them acute and prolonged sorrow. The nearer they draw to the +moral ideal, strange paradox, the farther off from them does it ever +appear, and they from it. It is an apostle who writes, "Christ Jesus +came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief." Nor can I +discover any tolerable explanation of all this, except that the guiding +and directive power in the world, reveals itself in the moral +consciousness of men, and with growing clearness in proportion as that +consciousness has been trained and educated, as the moral ideal. + +I find myself then, when my eyes are opened to the realities of the world +in which I live, confronted with the facts of directive control and of +the moral ideal. If I seek for some interpretation and coordination of +the facts, I am compelled, judging of them on the analogy of my own +experience (which, being the ultimate reality I know, is my only clue to +the interpretation of the ultimate reality of the universe) to regard +them as the activities of a Person, Whom we call God. Certainly to call +the Ultimate Reality a Person, must be an inadequate expression of the +truth, for it is the expression of the highest form of being in the terms +of the lower. But it is an infinitely more adequate presentation, than +to represent that Reality as impersonal. For personality being the +highest category of my thought, I am bound to think of God as being +Personal, if I would think of Him at all. I can be confident that though +my view must fall far short of the truth, it is at least nearer to the +truth and heart of things than any other view I can form. It is in fact +the truth so far as I can apprehend it: the truth by which I was meant to +live, and on which I was made to act. + +But the question of questions remains--What is the relation of the Person +Whom I call God to my own personal being, to my spirit? And, in +answering this question, popular theology makes a grave and disastrous +mistake. It regards that Person as being isolated from all other +persons, in the same way as each of us is isolated from all other +persons. God, that is, is viewed as but One Person among many. Now, +without inquiring as to the truth of this conception of personality, as +being essentially an exclusive thing, we may at least say this, following +the teaching of our best modern thinkers, as they have followed that of +St. John and the Greek Fathers, that God is as truly conceived of as +being within us, as external to us. His Throne is in the heart of man, +as truly as it is at the centre of the universe. No view of God is +tenable at the present day which regards Him as outside His own creation. +His Personality is not exclusive, but inclusive of all things and all +persons, while yet it transcends them. And as He includes us within +Himself, as in God "we live and move and have our being," so also He +interpenetrates us with His indwelling Presence as the life of our life. + +To this point we shall presently return, for it is the keynote of all +modern advance in theological knowledge, so far as that is not concerned +with questions of literature, history, archaeology, and textual +criticism. But we are concerned to notice now, that this recovered truth +of the immanence of God in our humanity, affords the full and sufficient +explanation of that dark shadow which lies athwart all human lives. That +shadow has loomed large in the minds of poets, thinkers, and theologians. +The latter know it by the name of sin. But what is sin save the +conscious alienation and estrangement of man from the Divine Life which +is in him? And if this be true, we can now see clearly why sin, moral +transgression, always makes itself felt as a disintegrating force both +without and within the individual life. Without, it is for ever +separating nation from nation, class from class, man from man. Within, +it produces discord and confusion in our nature. And both results +follow, because sin is the alienation from the Divine Life, which is both +the common element in human nature which binds man to man by the tie of +spiritual kinship; and also the central point of the individual life, the +hidden and sacred source and fountain of our being, which unites all the +faculties and powers of our manhood in one harmonious whole. + +Now the Cross of Jesus Christ is the overcoming of this disastrous +estrangement and alienation. It is the victory of the Divine life in +man. That is the most fruitful way in which we can regard it. The Cross +stands for conquest--the triumph of the Divine Life in us over all the +forces which are opposed to it. And in this lies the glory of the Cross; +that which made the symbol of the most degrading form of punishment--that +punishment which to the Jewish mind made him who suffered under it the +"accursed of God," and which to the Roman was the ignominious penalty +which the law inflicted on the slave--the subject of boasting to that +apostle who was both, to the very heart of him, a Jew and also a citizen +of the empire. + +The object of these lectures is to show how this is indeed the meaning of +the Cross. There, in Him Who was the Son of man, the Representative and +the Ideal of the race, the Divine Life triumphed, in order that in us, +who are not separate from, but one with Him, it may win the like victory. + +We fight against sin, and again and again succumb in the struggle. But +as often as with the opened eye of the soul we turn to the Cross of +Jesus, we behold there the victory, our victory, already won. Already, +indeed, it is ours, by the communication to us of the Spirit of Him Who +triumphed on the Cross. It only remains for us, by the deliberate act of +our whole personal being, our will, our reason, our affections, to +appropriate and make our own the deathless conquest won in and for our +humanity on the Cross. + + + +II +THE HISTORICAL AND SPIRITUAL CAUSES OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST + + + "Him, being by the determined will and foreknowledge of God given up, + through the hand of lawless men, ye affixed to a cross and slew."--ACTS + II. 23. + +St. Paul places this in the very forefront of that gospel which, as it +had been delivered to him, so he in his turn had delivered to the +Corinthians, that "Christ died for our sins." Neglecting all, deeper +interpretations of this, it is at least clear that in the apostle's mind +there was the closest and most intimate connexion between the death of +Christ and the fact of human sin. + +Now it is important to remember that that connexion was, in the first +place, an historical one. + +Christianity is a religion founded upon facts. In this is seen at once a +sharp distinction between our religion and that which claims the +allegiance of so many millions of our race--the religion, or better, +perhaps, the philosophy of the Buddha. Certainly there is such a thing +as a Christian philosophy. For we cannot handle facts without at the +same time seeking for some rational explanation of them. The plain man +becomes a philosopher against his will. In its origin our Christian +theology is no artificial, manufactured product. It is rather an +inevitable, natural growth. Neither the minds of the earliest Christian +thinkers, nor our own minds, are just sheets of blank paper on which +facts may impress themselves. Scientists, some of them at least, while +repudiating philosophy put forth metaphysical theories of the universe. +Theology is simply the necessary result of human minds turned to the +consideration of the Christian facts. But it makes all the difference +which end you start from, the facts or the theory: whether your method is +a posteriori or a priori; inductive or deductive; scientific or +obscurantist. And Christianity follows the scientific method of starting +with the facts. In this lies the justification of its claim to be a +religion at once universal and life-giving. It is universal because +facts are the common property of all, although the interpretation placed +on those facts by individuals may be more or less adequate. It is life- +giving, because men live by facts, not by theories about them; by the +assimilation of food, not by the knowledge how food nourishes our bodies. + +Following, then, the Christian, which is also the scientific method, we +now set out in search of the facts, the historical causes which brought +about the death of Christ. + +Now these causes appear to have been, mainly, these three: prejudice, a +dead religion, and the love of gain and political ambition. + +1. Prejudice may, perhaps, be best defined as the resolution to hold +fast to our belief, just because it is our belief; to adhere to an +opinion, and close our eyes to all that has been said on the opposite +side. Now nowhere and at no time has prejudice exerted a more absolute +dominion over the minds of men, than it did in Judaea in the first +century of our era. The people had inherited a traditional conception of +the Messiah, from which they could not imagine any deviation possible. He +was the Deliverer and the Restorer predestined of God. He would throw +off the hated foreign yoke, and make the people of God supreme over all +the nations of the earth. It was for a long time doubtful whether Jesus +of Nazareth intended to claim the position, and to enact the part of the +Messiah. "How long keepest thou our soul in suspense?" was the question +put to Him as late as the Feast of Dedication, 28 A.D., the year before +He suffered. But, finally, the people found themselves confronted with a +type of Messiah differing _toto caelo_ from the accepted traditional +type. The kingdom of God, which meant the Divine rule over the souls of +men, was at least not such a kingdom as they were looking for, as they +had been taught to expect. There is a long history in the gospels of the +gradual rise of a popular hope, more than once seeming to have attained +its eagerly longed-for goal; but at last doomed, and conscious that it +was doomed, to bitter and final disappointment. And it turned to hatred +of Him Who had aroused it from a long and fitful sleep of centuries. +"Crucify Him" was now their cry. Jesus was put to death on the legal +charge of being "Christ, a King," a provincial rebel. He really died +because He was not "Christ, a King," in such sense as He had been +expected to be. Thus the first historical cause of the death of our Lord +was prejudice, inveterate and ingrained, in the minds of the people. + +2. The second historical cause of the death of our Lord was the +existence in His day and place of a dead religion. This is, when we +consider the meaning of the phrase, the strangest of paradoxes, the +existence in fact of a logical contradiction. For religion is in its +essential nature a living thing, for the very reason that it is part of +the experience of a living person. As experience is not merely alive, +but the sum of all our vital powers, it is ever growing, both in breadth +and in intensity. So far then as we are in any true sense religious men, +our religion, as part and parcel of our experience, must be alive with an +intense and vigorous activity, growing in the direction in which our +experience grows. Hence a dead religion is a logical contradiction, as +we have said. But, as truth is stranger than fiction, so life contains +anomalies and monstrosities which simply set logic at defiance. A dead +religion is indeed a monstrum, something portentous, which refuses to be +reconciled with any canons of rationality. But it exists--that is the +astonishing fact about it; and it found its almost perfect expression and +embodiment in the normal and average Pharisee of our Lord's time. There +are three characteristic features about a dead religion, and all of them +receive a perfect illustration in the well-known picture in the gospels +of Pharisaic religion. + +(_a_) It tends less and less to rest on experience, and more and more to +repose upon tradition. It is academic, a thing on which scribes may +lecture, while the voice of the scholastic pedant with blatant +repetitions overpowers the living, authoritative voice within the soul. +"They marvelled, because He taught with authority, and not as the +scribes. A fresh (not new) teaching, with authority!" + +(_b_) It removes the living God to an infinite distance from human life. +Religion is a matter of rules, of minute obedience to a code of morals +and of ceremonial imposed from without, not of a fellowship of the human +with the Divine. In fact, God is banished to a point on the far +circumference, and the centre is occupied by the Law. He is retained in +order to give authority to that Law, as the source of sanctions in the +way of rewards and punishments. In short, the idea of the living God +degenerates into the necessary convention of an ecclesiastical tradition. + +(_c_) Closely connected with this second feature is the third +characteristic of a dead religion--its inhumanity. When men substitute +obedience to a code for service of the living God, it is no wonder that +the truth--the central truth of religion--fades rapidly from their minds, +that the service of God is identical with the highest service rendered to +our fellow-men. "This commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth +God, love his brother also." This explains why the Pharisee held aloof +from the outcast and the sinner. They might be left to perish--it +mattered not to him. + +Now, all through the Gospel history our Lord appears as standing in +absolute and sternest opposition to the dead religion of the Pharisees. +He could make no manner of terms with it. He acted against it. He +denounced it at every point. He rebuked them for "making the commandment +of God of none effect" by that tradition which they loved so dearly. He +brought the idea of a living God into closest touch with the actual lives +of men. He deliberately consorted with publicans and sinners. And, +finally, He condemned, in set discourse, the whole system, traditional, +Godless, inhuman, with scathing emphasis. Christ died, not only because +His words and acts ran counter to the prejudice of the people, but +because He spoke and acted in opposition to the dead religion of the +Pharisees. + +3. The third historical cause of the death of Christ was the love of +gain and the political ambition of the Sadducees. Their hatred, indeed, +would have been powerless if our Lord had not already provoked the enmity +of the people and of the Pharisees; but that enmity, in turn, without the +unscrupulous intrigues of the Sadducees, a small but most influential +section, would never have proceeded to its fatal and murderous issue. The +Pharisees gave up the conflict in despair: "Perceive ye that ye prevail +nothing? Behold, the whole world is gone after Him." It was the +Sadducean High Priest who gave the counsel of death. "It is expedient +that one man should die for the people." + +We must remember that the Sadducees represented the aristocracy of Judaea, +and that, as resulted necessarily from the nature and constitution of the +Jewish state, was an ecclesiastical aristocracy, an hierarchy. They are +the party denoted several times in the New Testament by the term "the +High Priests." The nearest analogy to their position is supplied by the +political popes and bishops of the Middle Ages. Their interests were +political rather than spiritual. A considerable amount of independence +had been left to the Jews in their own land. The Sanhedrin, the native +court, exercised still very considerable power. And the Sadducean +minority possessed a predominating influence in its consultations. What +political power could be wielded in a subject state of the Empire was in +their hands. Incidentally, a large and flourishing business was +conducted under their control and management in the very Temple Courts, +in "the booths of the sons of Hanan." Our Lord struck a blow at their +financial interests when He drove out these traders in sacrificial +victims and other requisites. But, much more, and this was the head and +front of His offence, by His influence with certain classes of the +people, and by the danger thus presented of a popular movement which +might arouse the suspicion of the imperial authorities, and lead to very +decisive action on their part, He threatened the political position of +the Sadducean aristocracy. So with complete absence of scruples, but +with great political sagacity, Caiaphas uttered the momentous words, an +unconscious prophecy, as St. John points out, at that meeting of the +Sanhedrin when the death of Jesus was finally resolved upon. + +Thus the main historical causes of the Crucifixion were these three, +prejudice on the part of the people, a dead religion on the part of the +Pharisees, love of gain and political ambition on the part of the +Sadducees. + +We may see then how absolutely true St. Peter was to the facts of the +case. "Him . . . through the hand of lawless men, ye affixed to a cross +and slew." God was not the cause of the death of Jesus Christ, as in +popular and ditheistic theory, forgetting "I am in the Father, and the +Father in Me." The real causes of His Death were the definite sins of +lawless, of wicked men. God's part was a purely negative one. He held +His hand, and allowed sin to work out to its fatal issue. The +Resurrection, indeed, is the sublime act of God's interference, at the +most critical point in all human history, at the one point supremely +worthy of such Divine interposition, in order to finally and completely +vindicate the cause of moral goodness. But up till then, sin was allowed +to have its own way, to display fully its malign character, to reach its +ultimate result in the Death of the Sinless One. + +But behind the historical causes of our Lord's death, were deeper and +spiritual causes. "Him being by the determined counsel and foreknowledge +of God delivered up. . . ." God foreknew the result. There is no +difficulty here. But in what sense can He be said to have "determined" +it? + +The answer leads us to a consideration of decisive importance. God works +by law, in the spiritual, no less than in the physical region. The Death +of the Christ, at the hand of lawless men, came about in virtue of the +working of those laws. As we have said, sin is the alienation and +estrangement of man from the Divine life which is in him, and by virtue +of which he is man. Now, in the human character of Jesus Christ, we see, +for the first time, the perfect, genuine, uncaricatured humanity, in +which the human will is at every point in absolute agreement and +fellowship with the Divine Will. Shortly, He represents the complete and +absolute contradiction and antithesis of sin. It could not have been, +that that Life should have been realised in a world of alienation from +the Divine, without the result, which followed as necessarily and +inevitably as any of the physical happenings of nature, of the death of +the Sinless. "He became obedient unto death." A deeper meaning lies in +these words of St. Paul, which contain the whole secret of the Atonement. +But, for the present, we may understand them to mean, that death was the +natural issue of the Life of perfect obedience lived in a world permeated +by the spirit of disobedience. Thus we gain a clear knowledge of the +manner in which the death of Jesus Christ happened in accordance with the +determined counsel of God. That which takes place, in the spiritual or +in the physical world, as the result of the working of those laws of God +which are the constant expression of His will, may be said to have been +determined by Him. + +There is a yet more profound meaning in the Death of Christ as the result +of sin, than any which we have as yet considered: that Death is the +outward sign and sacrament of an inward and spiritual fact. When we sin +we are, in a measure proportioned to the deliberateness and heinousness +of our sin, doing to death the Divine life, the Christ within us. That +which happened once on Calvary is renewed time after time in the inward +experience of men. The outward fact is an historical drama representing +an ever-repeated spiritual tragedy. Daily, by the hands of lawless men, +by ourselves in our moments of wilfulness and disobedience, Christ is +being put to death. There is no sin which, in its measure and degree, is +not a rejection and crucifixion of the Christ. + +The Cross of Christ, viewed in the light of its historical and spiritual +causes, is (i) the revelation of the malignity of sin. There we see our +favourite sins stripped of all pleasing disguise, and revealed in their +true horror, and cruelty, and selfishness. The Incarnate Son of God put +Himself at the disposal of sinful men, and His violent and shameful death +was the result. There is the true meaning of the sins in which we +delight. (ii) It reveals the disastrous result of sin, the death of the +Divine Man within each one of us. There is no sin which is not an act of +spiritual suicide. + +It will not then be altogether in vain, that we have now considered the +causes of the Death of Christ if, in the "solemn hour of temptation," we, +remembering the Cross, and Him Who died thereon, and why He died, "stand +in awe, and sin not." + + + +III +THE CHRISTIAN AND THE SCIENTIFIC ESTIMATE OF SIN + + + "Christ died for our sins."--I COR. XV. 3. + +Nothing is more characteristic of Christianity than its estimate of human +sin. Historically, no doubt, this is due to the fact that the Lord and +Master of Christians died "on account of sins." His death was due, as we +have seen, both to the actual, definite sins of His contemporaries, and +also to the irreconcilable opposition between His sinless life and the +universal presence of sin in the world into which He came. But it is +with the Christian estimate of sin, and with the facts which justify it, +that we are now concerned. + +Briefly put, Christianity regards sin as the one thing in the world which +is radically and hopelessly evil. Pain, physical and mental, is evil no +doubt, but in a different sense. Without going deeply into the intensely +difficult problem of animal and human suffering, we may at least say +this: that he would be a bold man who would undertake to say, viewing the +moral results of suffering in human lives, that all, or the majority of +the instances of pain which we observe, come under the head of those +things "which ought not to be," that is, are, without qualification or +extenuation, evil. But this is precisely the statement which +Christianity makes with regard to sin. Of one thing only in the universe +can we say that it "ought not to be," and that one thing is moral evil. +Perhaps then, broadly and roughly, the Christian standpoint may be summed +up in four words, "sin worse than pain." + +Of old, St. John wrote that "if any man love the world, the love of the +Father is not in him." In its outward aspect, the world has greatly +changed since these words were written. And yet they are as true in the +twentieth century as they were in the first. The world has adopted +Christian language and manners and modes of thought. But always and +everywhere it is to be detected by its antagonism to the Christian +estimate of sin. The spirit which accuses Christianity of gross +exaggeration in this respect, is the very spirit of the world. Now, as +in days of long ago, when torture and death hung on the refusal to +scatter a few grains of incense before the statue of Caesar, the same +eternal choice is presented to a man, Christ or the world? Which +estimate of sin are you going to make your own, the world's, as a +lamentable mistake, or failure, or necessity; or the Christian, "worse +than any conceivable pain"? It is not a matter of academic interest, but +an intensely vital and practical one, affecting a man's whole outlook +upon life. Which is right--there is the clear and definite issue +raised--the Christian estimate, or the world's estimate of sin? Is it +worse than a blunder, a misfortune, a fault? Is it something interwoven +into the very structure of our present stage of existence? Or, is it an +alien and flagrant intruder into a world where it has no business, which +is so constructed that, sooner or later, wilful transgression meets with +the direst penalties? There is no question as to what is the Christian +estimate of sin. Christ or Caesar? is the issue still presented. But, +we wish to ask, is there any reason for believing that the Christian +estimate is true? I bring forward three reasons, based respectively on +experience, on conscience, on the ultimately similar views of the origin +and nature of sin given by science and in the Bible. + +1. First, then, consider the argument from experience. It is very easy +and tempting to use the language of exaggeration. But probably we are +not saying more than would be admitted by nearly every one, when we make +the assertion that a very large part of the misery and suffering which +exists in the world is traceable, directly or indirectly, to human sin. +We are not dealing with the results of their own sins upon offenders, +though these are in some cases conspicuous enough. But that the world is +full of human lives, often wrecked, more often partially stunted and +spoiled, in most cases falling short of the full measure of vitality and +happiness to which they might have attained, is a statement not admitting +of denial. And I think we are still on secure ground when we say that at +the root of a very large proportion of these failures is some one of the +myriad forms of sin and selfishness. The strange thing, the bewildering +and baffling, although, as I believe, not wholly inexplicable thing, is +that men in a very large number of cases suffer on account of sins for +which they are in no sense responsible. But the fact remains of the +close connexion which experience shows to exist between human sin and +human suffering. It is impossible to prove wide assertions, but a strong +case could undoubtedly be made out for the statement that sin is a more +prolific source of misery and failure in human life than all other +factors put together. + +2. Next, we turn to the witness of conscience, of our moral reason. The +main point here is that so often brought forward, of the uniqueness of +remorse. I may make a foolish blunder. I may do some hasty and +ill-considered act, and in consequence suffer some measure of +inconvenience, or perhaps experience a veritable disaster and overthrow +of my hopes. But in either case, though I may feel poignant regret, I am +as far as possible from the experience of remorse, save in so far as my +blunder may have involved neglect of some duty, or a carelessness morally +culpable. But when I have committed a sin, then it would be a most +inadequate description of my state of mind to call it regret. I suffer +from that intense mental pain which we have learnt to call remorse, the +constant and relentless avenger which waits upon every transgression of +the moral law. And when, leaving my own experience, I interrogate the +experience of men better than myself, above all, that of the saints of +God, I meet with the same phenomenon a thousandfold intensified. And I +have a right in such a matter to accept the witness of the experts. A +saint is an expert in spiritual things, and his evidence in spiritual +matters is as cogent and trustworthy as that of the biologist or +geologist in his special field of experience. + +So far, then, as the witness of the moral consciousness goes, both in +myself and in those who have in an especial degree cultivated their moral +faculties, it bears out the contention that sin is the only thing which +can be described as absolutely, without qualification, evil. + +3. The same result follows from the consideration of the origin and +nature of sin. + +Here we have two sources of information--modern science, and the account +given in the Book of Genesis. To my mind, the enormously impressive +thing is that these two sources, approaching the same subject from +entirely different points of view, find themselves at last in agreement +on the main issue. + +(_a_) According to the teaching of science, then, man is the result, the +finished product, of aeons of animal development. He is, in fact, the +crown and so far ultimate achievement of an age-long evolution. He falls +into his natural place in zoological classification as the highest of the +vertebrates. But also, in man we find moral faculties developed to an +immeasurably greater extent than in those animals which stand nearest to +him in physical development. It is the possession of these, above all, +which constitutes the differentia of man. And it is this possession +which makes man, alone of all animals, capable of sin. For sin is simply +the following out of the instincts and desires of the animal, when these +are felt to be in opposition to the dictates of the peculiarly human, the +moral nature. Men have said that the only Fall of Man was a fall +upwards. They have given an entirely new meaning to the medieval +description of the first transgression as the "felix culpa." But this +would seem to involve confusion of thought. The first emergence of man +as man, the appearance on this planet of a moral being, at once involved +the possibility of sin. That, the rise of man did necessarily include. +An animal follows the bent and inclination of its own nature. For it, +sin is for ever impossible. For it, there can be no defeat, no fall, for +the conditions of conflict are absent. But the actual occurrence of sin +is quite a different thing from the appearance of a being so highly +exalted as to be capable of sinning; so constituted as to experience the +dread reality of the internal strife between flesh and spirit, the battle +between the lower and the higher within the same personal experience. I +can never act as the animal does, because I possess what the animal does +not--a moral nature, which I can, if I will, outrage and defy. No animal +can be either innocent or guilty. Moral attributes cannot be assigned to +it. + +This result follows. When I sin, I am indeed doing what I alone can do, +because I am a man. But also, I am, by that very act, contradicting my +nature, violating the law of my well-being. The possession of a moral +nature makes me man. Sin is just to act in defiance of and in opposition +to that nature. Sin, then, is the only possible case in the universe, +falling under our observation, in which a creature _can_ contradict the +law of its being. Science has at least given the final refutation of the +devil's lie that sin is natural to man. It is the only unnatural thing +in the world. It is not non-human, like the actions of animals. The age- +long history of the race can never be reversed. I cannot undo the +process which has made me man, and act as the non-moral animal. My +sinful actions, my transgressions, are just because they are, and just in +proportion as they are, immoral, for that very reason, and in that very +measure, inhuman, not non-human. + +Much more might be shown to follow from this most important +consideration. But here we adduce it for this sole reason, that science +may be allowed to bear its witness, a most just and passionless, and an +unconscious and tacit witness, to the truth of the Christian estimate of +sin. + +(_b_) Nothing, at first sight, could be more different from the +scientific account of the origin of sin, than that account of it which is +given in the third chapter of the Book of Genesis. + +There we have, to put it shortly, the most profound spiritual teaching in +the form of a story, a piece of primitive Hebrew folk-lore. The Divine +Wisdom made choice of this channel to communicate to man certain great +truths about his nature, realities of the highest plane of his +experience, where he moves in the presence of God and realities unseen, +unheard. And we can discern at least some of the reasons for the choice +of these methods. + +The most adequate revelation of the origin of sin which has ever been +made to man, must (we are almost justified in saying) have been made to +us in some such form as this for the following reasons. + +(i) Truth expressed in the form of a story is thereby made +comprehensible to men of every stage of culture. "Truth embodied in a +tale, shall enter in at lowly doors." At the door of no man's mind, who +is spiritually receptive, will it knock in vain. To simple and to wise, +to the unlearned and the learned, to the young and to the old, it appeals +alike. This form of instruction alone is of universal application. + +(ii) Truth thus conveyed can never become obsolete. Scientific treatises +in the course of a few years become out of date, left far behind by the +rapidly advancing tide of knowledge. Moreover, if we can imagine it +possible that in the ninth century B.C., an account could have been +composed, under some supernatural influence, in the terms of modern +thought, it would have had to wait nearly three thousand years before it +became intelligible, and then, in a few decades, or centuries at most, it +would in all probability have become once more incomprehensible or, if +not that, then at least hopelessly behind the times. + +The form of a story, as in the case of our Lord's parables, alone ensures +that truth thus conveyed shall be intelligible to all men at all times. +To object to the form, to scoff at or deride it, is as unintelligent as +it would be, for example, to disparage the sublime teaching of the +parable of the Prodigal Son on the ground that we have no evidence for +the historical truth of the incidents. + +Moreover, when we place this and the similar stories we find in the early +chapters of Genesis side by side with the Babylonian myths with which +they stand in some sort of historical relationship, we can trace in the +lofty moral and spiritual teachings of the former, as contrasted with the +grotesque and polytheistic representations of the latter, the veritable +action of the Spirit of God upon the minds of men. Modern research has, +in fact, raised the doctrine of inspiration from a vague and conventional +belief to the level of an ascertained fact, evidenced by observation. +Just as a scientific man can watch his facts under his microscope or in +his test tubes, so such comparison as has been suggested, between Genesis +and the cuneiform tablets, enables us to watch the very fact, to detect +the Divine Spirit at work, not superseding, but illuminating and +uplifting the natural faculties of the sacred writers. But we now turn +to the spiritual teaching enshrined in this particular story. + +(i) First, we have the fundamental truth that man is made capable of +hearing the Divine Voice. Not once in the distant past, but to-day, and +day by day, the Voice of God is heard speaking within the depths of +consciousness as clearly and as decisively as of old it sounded among the +trees of the garden. + +(ii) But, secondly, other voices make themselves heard by us, and woe to +us if we listen to them. + +There is the voice which bids us gratify our animal appetite. The woman +"saw that the tree was good for food." I am conscious of the strength of +bodily desires. Let me seek nothing, from moment to moment, but the +satisfaction of my inclinations. There is the voice which bids us +gratify the desire of the eyes. She "saw that the tree was pleasant to +the eyes." The world is full of beauty. Let me make that my end, the +satisfaction of the aesthetic sense; let me rest in the contemplation of +that beauty, which was made for me, and I for it, precisely in order that +I might not find repose there, but might be led thereby to Him Who made +this scene so fair that His dear children might be drawn to Himself, Who +is the eternal and uncreated loveliness. + +There is, lastly, the voice which bids us gratify the desire of the mind. +Eve "saw that the tree was to be desired to make one wise." I desire to +know. Let me indulge this desire at any cost, even if it mean the +filling of my mind with all manner of foul and loathsome images. It is +all "knowing the world." We forget, poor fools, that mere knowledge is +not wisdom, and that there is a knowledge which brings death. + +The desires of the body, the eyes, the mind, are good and healthful and +holy in their proper place and sphere. Through these we reach out to the +life and love and knowledge of God. And yet, if gratified against the +dictates of that clear-sounding, inner, Divine Voice, they are precisely +the materials of sin and death. To gratify them against the dictates of +the moral and spiritual nature is to exclude oneself from the garden of +God's delight, from the health and joy of the Divine Presence. We know +it. We have learnt it by saddest experience of our own. To sin against +the voice within is to find oneself separated from God; the ears of the +soul have become deaf to the warnings of conscience, the eyes of the soul +blind to the vision of the glory and holiness of God. + +Is it wrong to say that such teaching as this can never be outgrown? +That, as time goes on, as the spiritual experience of the race and of the +individual grows and broadens, still new lessons may be found to be +contained in it? + +The Bible adds to the teaching of science that without which that +teaching is incomplete. It bids us know and feel and recognise the +Divine Presence within us and, in the light of that ultimate truth of +ourselves, realise something of the appalling grandeur of the issues of +common life. But, different as are the forms in which their respective +lessons are conveyed, science and the Bible unite their testimony to that +of experience and conscience, that the Christian estimate of sin, and not +the world's estimate of it, is the right one. + +And the teaching of experience, conscience, science, and the Bible +receives its final confirmation in the Cross of Jesus Christ. Henceforth +sin, all sins, our sins, are to be estimated and measured in the light of +the fact that sin brought about the death of the sinless Son of Man. Sin +is the real enemy of ourselves and of the race. It is the destruction of +the true self, the Divine Man in every son of man. + +We need, for ourselves, to strive to attain to the genuinely Christian +estimate of sin. "Had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord +of Glory." But we have the Cross lifted up before our eyes and when, in +the light of that, we begin to hate and dread sin worse than pain, then +we shall have begun to make some real advance towards becoming that which +we long to be, and all the time mean and aspire to be--Christians, +disciples of the Crucified. + + + +IV +THE MEANING OF SIN, AND THE REVELATION OF THE TRUE SELF + + + "In this we have come to know what love is, because He laid down His + life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren."--1 + JOHN III. 16. + +It is important that we should arrive at some clearer understanding of +the nature of sin. Let us approach the question from the side of the +Divine Indwelling. The doctrine of the Divine Immanence, in things and +in persons, that doctrine which we are to-day slowly recovering, is +rescued from pantheism by holding fast at the same time to the Christian +doctrine of the Trinity. God the Transcendent dwells in "all thinking +things, all objects of all thoughts" by His Word and Spirit. The Word, +the Logos, of which St. John speaks, is the Eternal Self-Expression of +God, standing as it were face to face with Him in the depths of His +eternal life. "In the beginning the Word was with God." He is the +Eternal Thought of God, Who includes within Himself this and all possible +universes. And the Spirit, One with the Father and the Word, gives to +the Thought of God its realisation and embodiment in what we call things. +And that realisation of the Thought of God by the Spirit of God is a +progressive realisation-- + +1. In inorganic nature, as power and wisdom and beauty. + +2. In organic beings, as vegetable and animal life. + +3. In men, as the higher reason, including our moral and spiritual +nature. + +The long process of evolution is thus the progressive realisation of the +Thought of God now becoming the Word, the expressed Thought of God. And +this realisation is from within, a growing manifestation of God _in_ +created things. And its climax was reached in the Incarnation when + +4. The Word became flesh; the Thought of God perfectly embodied in our +humanity. And now this same progressive revelation of God is continuing +on the higher plane into which it was uplifted at the Incarnation. The +work of the Spirit is to form within the members of Christ's Body, that +Body which is constituted by His indwelling, the Mind and the Life of God +Incarnate. "He shall take of Mine and shall show it unto you." So we +get + +5. The work of the Spirit of Christ within the Church, extending the +Incarnation. + +"He," writes St. Paul, "gave Him [Christ] as Head over all to the Church, +which is His Body, the fulness of Him Who at all points in all men is +being fulfilled." + +The application of this to our present subject is as follows. The animal +life in us, and the Divine life in us, are both alike due to the +indwelling God, both alike are manifestations of His Presence. But they +are manifestations at two different levels of being. What follows? + +The animal nature is good; the moral and spiritual nature is good. What +do we mean in this connexion by "good"? We mean, they are the results of +the action of Him Whose Will is essential goodness. + +The peculiarity of human life is, however, the conflict between these two +elements of man's nature--the lower and the higher. Neither as yet, +_from the human standpoint_, is good or bad. Moral attributes belong +only to the will, which we may provisionally call the centre of man's +personality. For man is a personal being, and as such stands apart from +God. + + God, Whose power brought man into being, + Stands as it were a handsbreadth off, to give + Room for the newly made to live, + And look at Him from a place apart, + And use His gifts of mind and heart. + +Man alone can bring into existence the morally good or the morally bad. +And the materials of his choice are presented by the co-existence within +him of the lower and the higher. Sin is the choice by the will of the +lower, when that is felt to be in conflict with the higher. It is the +resolution, previous to any action, to satisfy the desires of the animal, +when these are known to contradict the dictates of the moral and +spiritual nature. + +Here we pause to notice a point of great importance for clear thinking on +this subject. The conflict we have spoken of is that described by St. +Paul as between the flesh and the spirit. Now the flesh is not +equivalent to the body. The works of the flesh are by no means +necessarily sensual sins; they include strife and envy. The flesh, the +animal within us, is not to be identified with our physical organisation. + +Now we are drawing near to the very heart of the matter. What is it +which distinguishes the lower nature from the higher, the animal from the +Divine in us, the flesh from the spirit? The distinction lies in the +objects to which the desires of each of these natures are directed. + +The animal, predominantly, desires the good of self: the Divine, the good +of others. + +This we must now expand. There is nothing morally wrong in the +self-seeking of the animal. Moral evil--sin--only arises when two +conditions are fulfilled. + +The self-seeking desire must be felt to be in contradiction to the +unselfish dictates of the higher nature. + +The will, having this knowledge more or less clearly before it, chooses +to give effect to the lower rather than to subordinate it to the higher. +We may express the same truth somewhat more accurately. + +The material of human sin is the co-existence of the animal nature and +the Divine Nature within us. + +The occasion of sin is the conflict between the two. + +The conditions of sin are two--knowledge and freedom; knowledge of the +antagonism between the desires of the two natures, and freedom to give +effect either to the one or to the other. + +The actual fact of sin is the movement of the will, making its choice in +favour of the lower in opposition to the higher. + +These two corollaries follow:--(i) Sin belongs only to the will, not to +the nature. "There is nothing good in the world save a good will." And +the converse is true: there is nothing sinful in the world save a sinful +will. + +(ii) Sin does not lie in the act, but in the movement of the will, of +which the act is but the outward symbol. We must carefully distinguish +between sin and temptation. No temptation is sinful, however strong and +however vividly presented to the mind. Sin only comes in when the will +makes the choice of the worse alternative. A sin in thought is an act of +inward choice, the deliberate indulgence of, the dwelling with pleasure +upon, the temptation presented to us. But if I am only prevented by +circumstances or by fear from embodying the wrong choice of my will in +action, I have, in the sight of God, committed that sin. If I have made +the wrong choice, and am deterred by the faintest of moral scruples, as +well as, perhaps, by other considerations, from carrying it out, I am +really, although in a less degree, guilty. + +Now we can fall back upon our main thought. The animal matter is +essentially self-regarding. This is not (_a_) the same thing as to say +that all actions of all animals are self-regarding. I see no difficulty +in believing that there may be adumbrations of the moral and spiritual in +animals below man, if the animal life is the manifestation, on a lower +plane, of the same Word Who is the Life of nature and the Light (the +higher reason and spiritual life) of man. Nor (_b_) is it the same thing +as to say that the desires of the animal nature are selfish. For +selfishness is a moral term and, as we have seen, moral attributes are +inapplicable except to a wrong choice of the will. + +These self-regarding impulses of the animal nature are due to the fact, +that that nature is the result of the age-long struggle for existence. +These impulses have secured the survival and the predominance of man. + +But man is more than a successful animal. He is made in the image of +God. In him, the Word is revealed, not as life only, but as light. In +an altogether higher sense than can be predicated of any part of creation +below man, he is a sharer in the Divine life. + +Now that Divine life is the very life of Him Whose very essence and being +is Love. God is Love. What does this mean? It has never been better +expressed than in the following words: "God is a Being, not one of Whose +thoughts is for Himself. . . . Creation is one great unselfish thought of +God, the bringing into existence of beings who can know the happiness +which God Himself knows" (Dr. Askwith). What happiness is that? It is +explained, by the same writer, as the happiness which is found in the +promotion of the happiness, that is, in the largest sense, the well-being +of others. + +We can now see the reason of the antagonism between the animal and the +Divine in ourselves, the real meaning of the Pauline antithesis between +the flesh and the Spirit, the old man and the new. + +We are to "put off the old man." He is old, indeed, beyond our +imaginations of antiquity, for he is the product of the hoary animal +ancestry of our race. Our progress as successful competitors in the +struggle for animal existence, has been the waxing stronger of the old +man day by day. + +To put on the new man, is to continue our evolution, now a conscious and +deliberate evolution, on an entirely different plane. It is to subdue +the self-regarding impulses, in obedience to the movements of the Divine +life within us, which bids us deny ourselves--not some particular desire, +but our own selves--and to seek the good of others; to seek and, seeking, +surely to find, "the happiness which God Himself knows." + +To put on the new man is synonymous, in St. Paul, with putting on Christ. +For He is the perfect revelation of the Divine in our humanity. + +He is this perfect revelation of the Divine self-sacrifice in His +Incarnation, when "He became poor for our sakes," when "He emptied +Himself." So the Incarnation is, it may well be, but the climax of the +Divine sacrifice involved in creation, when God limited Himself by His +manifestation in "material" things; involved, we may say with greater +certainty, in the creation of man, who can, in some real sense, thwart +and hinder the Divine Will. + +He is the revelation of the Divine in us, in the whole course of His +earthly life. "Christ pleased not Himself." "He went about doing good." + +And, above all, He is that revelation in the supreme act of love and +sacrifice upon the Cross. "In this have we come to know what love is, +because He laid down His life for us." We have come to know love, in its +supreme manifestation of itself, for ever the test, the standard of all +true love; and in coming to know love, we have necessarily come to know +God. The Cross is the perfect self-utterance and disclosure of the Mind +of God, the crowning revelation of His Word. And in coming to know God, +we have come to know ourselves. For the true self of man is the self +conformed perfectly to the Divine Life within him. + +Thus the Cross of Jesus Christ is the crowning revelation of man, as well +as of God. There, side by side with humanity marred and wrecked and +spoilt by sin, which is selfishness, we see man as God made him, as God +meant him to be, clothed with the Divine beauty and glory of +self-sacrifice. + +In the Cross we see ourselves, our true selves, not as we have made +ourselves, but our real and genuine selves, as we exist in the Mind of +God. + +In the light of that wonderful revelation, we can recognise that which is +Divine and Christ-like in us, that spirit which bids us seek not the +things of self, but the things of others, "even as Christ pleased not +Himself." + +All this may be summed up in one short phrase, which goes near, I +believe, to express the innermost reality of the Christian religion. +Christ, the Son of man, is the true self of every man. To follow Him, to +be His disciple, in thought, and word, and deed, is to be oneself, to +realise one's own personality. In no other way can I attain to be +myself. + +Thus the Cross is the supreme revelation of the Divine Life in man. And +now we shall go on to see how it brings to us, not merely the knowledge +of the Ideal, but also, what is far more, the very means whereby the +Ideal may be realised in and by each one of us. + +We have dealt with the Cross as illumination; we now approach its +consideration as redemptive power. + + + +V +THE GREAT RECONCILIATION + + + "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." 2 COR. V. 19. + +Such considerations as we have had before us, are of far more than +theoretical interest. They are of all questions the most practical. Sin +is not a curious object which we examine from an aloof and external +standpoint. However we regard it, to whatever view of its nature we are +led, it is, alas, a fact within and not merely outside our experience. + +And so we are at length brought to this most personal and most urgent +inquiry, What has been the result _to me_ of my past acts of sin? I have +sinned; what have been, what are, what will be the consequences? + +The most hopelessly unintelligent answer is, that there are no results, +no consequences. It behoves us to remember that we can never sin with +impunity. This is true, even in the apparent absence of all punishment. +Every act of sin is followed by two results, though probably a profounder +analysis would show them to be in reality one. + +(i) Whenever I sin I inflict a definite injury on myself, varying with +the sinfulness of the sin; that is, with its nature and the degree of +deliberation it involved. I am become a worse man; I have, in some +degree, rejected and done to death the Divine in me, my true self. Every +sin, in its own proper measure, is both a rejection of the Christ within, +and also an act of spiritual suicide. + +Again (ii), each sin, once more according to the degree of its guilt, +involves separation from God. And, as union with God is life, it follows +that sin is, and not merely brings death. That is the death of which the +outward, physical death is the mere symbol. It is death of that which +makes me man--the weakening of my will, the dulling of my conscience, the +loss of spiritual vision. Hereafter, it may be, all this will be +recognised by me as being death indeed, when I see how much I have +missed, by my own fault, of the life and happiness which might have been +mine in virtue of that unbroken communion with God, for which I was made. + +These two results may be regarded as the penalties of sinning; more +truly, they are aspects of sin itself. We can hardly be reminded too +often that the worst punishment of sin is sin itself. The external +results of sin, where such occur, are not evil, but good; for the object +for which they are sent is the cure of sin. "To me no harder hell was +shown than sin." If hell is this separation from God, this veritable and +only real death, then hell is not an external penalty inflicted upon sin, +but is involved in the very nature of sin itself. Or, it would be still +more accurate to say, the constitution of the universe (including +ourselves) being what it is, and the nature of sin being what it is, +these results necessarily follow. + +Now, the universe is not something which God has created and then, as it +were, flung off from Himself, standing for ever outside it, as it is for +ever outside Him. The universe, at each moment of its existence, is the +expression, in time and space, of the Divine Mind. What we call its +"laws," whether in the physical or the spiritual sphere, are the thoughts +of the Mind of God: its "forces" are the operations of the Will of God, +acting in accordance with His thoughts: material "things" are His +thoughts embodied, that is, Divine thoughts rendered, by an act of the +Divine Will, accessible to our senses. + +Now we are in a position to understand both what is meant by the Wrath of +God, and the manner in which it acts. + +By the expression, "the Wrath of God," we are to understand the hostility +of the Divine Mind to moral evil: the eternal antagonism of the Divine +righteousness to its opposite. We are not now dealing with the question +of the real or substantive existence of evil. But revelation amply +confirms and enforces the conviction of our moral consciousness that, +with a hatred beyond all human measures of hatred, God hates sin. It is +hardly necessary to add, that that eternal and immeasurable hatred and +hostility of the Divine Mind towards sin is compatible with infinite love +towards His children, in whose minds and lives sin is elaborated and +manifested. In fact, all attempts to reconcile the Wrath of God with His +love seem to be utterly beside the mark. They only serve to obscure the +truth that the Divine Wrath is itself a manifestation of the Divine Love. +For if sin is, as we have already seen, in its very essence, selfishness, +and if Love is the very Being of God--if He is not merely loving, but +Love itself--then the Wrath of God, His hostility to sin, is His Love +viewed in one particular aspect, in its outlook on moral evil, in its +relation to that which is its very opposite and antithesis. Hell and +Heaven, separation from God and union with Him, are alike expressions of +the Eternal Love, which, because it is love, burns with unquenchable fire +against all forms of selfishness and lovelessness. + +This is the true, the ultimate reason why, in a universe which is the +expression of the Mind of God, we cannot sin, and never have sinned, with +impunity. + +From these two fundamental truths-- + +(_a_) The universe is the expression of the Mind of God; + +(_b_) God is love, + +There follow, by a natural and inevitable law, the two results which +accompany every act of sin. + +(_a_) The destruction of the true self, the Christ, the Divine Life +within man. + +(_b_) Separation from God, which is death. We separate these results in +thought; but it will now be sufficiently obvious that they are, in fact, +one. + +Is this taking too serious a view of sin? I do not think that this can +be maintained in view of our whole preceding argument. + +But are we taking too serious a view of little sins, of sins which spring +from ignorance, of the sins of children? + +We have already seen that knowledge and freedom are both necessary to +constitute an act of sin. If ignorance is complete, then complete also +is the absence of sin. For sin lies not in any material act, but in +consciousness and will. The will alone can be sinful, as the will alone +can be good. And it is entirely consistent with our standpoint, to admit +the existence of an almost infinite number of degrees of sinfulness. + +* * * * * + +Now we reach this immensely important result. We having sinned, our +supreme need is forgiveness. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a Gospel for +this precise reason, that it meets, as it claimed from the beginning to +meet, this uttermost need of men. Its offer is, always and everywhere, +the forgiveness, the remission of sins. + +But what are we to understand by forgiveness? The forgiveness which is +offered to us in the name of Jesus Christ is not, and our own moral sense +ought to assure us that it could not be, the being let off punishment. +"Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their +sins," not from any external pains or penalties of their sins. To be +saved from sin, is to have sin brought to an end, abolished within us. It +is the recovery of the true self, the restoration of that union with God +which is, here and now, eternal life. In other words, understanding the +Divine Wrath as we have seen reason to understand it, forgiveness must +mean to cease to be, or to cease to identify ourselves with, that in us +which is the object of the Divine Wrath. In short, forgiveness is, in +the great phrase of St. Paul, reconciliation with God. + +How, then, is forgiveness or reconciliation to be obtained? The answer +which the apostle gives is this: "God was in Christ reconciling the world +to Himself." Let us try to see what this means. + +* * * * * + +There can only be one way of ceasing to be the object of the Divine +Wrath, and that is by identifying oneself with it; if we may use the +catch-phrase, by becoming its subject instead of its object. This means +that, so far as is in our power, we must enter into the Divine Mind in +regard to sin, and our own sins in particular. Up to the limit of our +power, we must make that Mind our own mind, we must hate sin, and our +sins, as God hates them. + +There is one word in the New Testament which expresses all this, and that +is the word only partially and inadequately translated "repentance." The +word thus represented is [Greek text], and [Greek text] is exactly "a +change of mind." It really means the coming over to God's side, the +entire revolution of our mental attitude and outlook with regard to sin. +The word stands for self-identification with the Wrath of God, with the +Divine Mind in its outlook upon sin. That change of mind is itself +reconciliation, forgiveness, remission of sins. And that which alone +makes [Greek text] and, therefore, forgiveness, possible, is the Death of +Jesus Christ upon the Cross. + +For that Death is the perfect revelation, in the only way in which it +could be interpreted to us, that is, in terms of our common human life, +of the Wrath of God, the Divine hostility to, and repudiation of sin. For +the Death of Christ was the complete repudiation of sin, by God Himself, +in our manhood. The Incarnate Son laid down His life in the perfect +fulfilment of the mission received from the Father. "He became obedient +unto death." He died, rather than, by the slightest concession to that +which was opposed to the Divine Will, be unfaithful or disobedient to +that mission. "He died to sin once for all." His Death was His final, +complete repudiation of sin. And thus it was the absolutely perfect +revelation of the Divine Mind in regard to sin. + +This is the truth which underlies all the utterly misleading language +about Christ's Death as a penalty, or about Christ Himself as the Ideal +Penitent. Both penalty and penitence imply personal guilt and the +personal consciousness of guilt. Both conceptions destroy the +significance of the Cross. Only the Sinless One could die to sin, could +perfectly repudiate sin, could perfectly disclose the Mind of God in +relation to sin. + +The Death of Christ was indeed, as we have seen, the result of His +perfect obedience in a world of sin, of disobedience. The historical +conditions under which He fulfilled His Mission, necessitated that His +repudiation of sin should take the form which it did actually take. We +may be sure, too, that He felt, as only the Sinless Son of God could +feel, the injury, the affront, the malignity, the degradation of sin. It +is the sense of this which has given rise to the modern idea of Christ as +the Penitent for the world's sin. But if we are to understand the word +in this sense, then we are entirely changing its meaning and connotation. +And we cannot do this, in regard to words like penitent and penitence, +without producing confusion of thought. It is time, surely, that this +misleading and mischievous fallacy of the penitence of Christ should be +finally abandoned by writers on the Atonement. + +But, so far, we have only seen that the Death of Christ to sin, His +repudiation of sin to the point of death, is the complete revelation of +the Divine Wrath, the Divine Mind in regard to sin. If we could only +make all this our own, then we should have actually attained to the +changed mind, the [Greek text], which is reconciliation with God. + +Now, it is a most significant fact that, in the New Testament, repentance +is ever closely coupled with faith. Faith, in its highest, its most +Christian application, is not faith _in_ Christ, in the sense of +believing that the revelation made by Christ is true, but in the strange +and pregnant phrase of St. Paul and St. John, faith _into_ Christ. And +by this is meant entire self-abandonment, the utter giving up of +ourselves to Christ. To have faith into Christ is the perfect expression +of discipleship. It is the supreme act of self-surrender by which a man +takes Christ henceforth to be the Lord and Master of his life. It +implies, no doubt, the existence of certain intellectual convictions; but +the faith which rests there is, as St. James tells us, the faith of the +demons "who also tremble." In the full sense, faith is an act of the +whole personal being. And as the will is our personality in action, we +may say that faith into Christ is, above all, an affair of the will. + +But thus to surrender oneself to Christ, to make Him, and not self, the +centre and governing principle of our life is, in other words, to make +His Will our will, His Mind our mind. St. Paul is exactly describing the +full fruition and final issue of faith when he says of himself, "I live, +yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me." + +Faith _is_ self-identification with the Mind of Christ. And that Mind is +the Mind of Him Who died to sin, Who by dying repudiated sin, and +revealed His implacable hatred of and hostility to it, which is the +hatred and hostility of God, in our manhood, to the moral evil which +destroys it. + +Thus the man, who, by the supreme act of faith into Christ, has made +Christ's Mind his own mind, has thereby gained the changed mind, the +[Greek text], in regard to sin, which is the ceasing to be the object of +God's wrath, because it is the being identified with it. He is, +henceforth, reconciled to God. The state of alienation and death is +over. In Christ he, too, has died to sin. The false self, in him, has +been put to death. With Christ he has been crucified. With Christ he +lives henceforth to God, in that union and fellowship with Him, which is +the life eternal, the life which is life indeed. His true self, the +Christ in him, is alive for evermore in the power of the Resurrection. + +That is the final issue, the glorious consummation, of faith. But so far +as faith is in us at all, so far as daily with more complete surrender we +give ourselves to Christ, and take Him for our Lord and Master, the +process, of which the fulfilment, the perfect end, is reconciliation, +union, resurrection, eternal life, has begun in us. And He Who has, +visibly and manifestly, "begun in us" that "good work," will assuredly +"accomplish it until the day of Jesus Christ." + +But something more yet remains to be said. Every theory of the Atonement +in the end must come to grief, which is based upon the assumption that +Christ is separate from the race which He came to redeem, or the Church, +which is the part of humanity in actual process of redemption. Professor +Inge, in his work on _Mysticism and Personal Idealism_, has justly +denounced the miserable theory which regards human personalities as so +many impervious atoms, as self-contained and isolated units. This +popular view is theologically disastrous when the Atonement is +interpreted in the light, or rather the darkness of it. + +As the Son of man He is the Head of the human race, "the last Adam" in +the language of St. Paul. No mere sovereignty over mankind is denoted by +that title. He is that living, personal Thought of God which each man, +as man, embodies and, with more or less distortion, represents. He Who +became Incarnate is, as He ever was, the Light which lighteneth every man +coming into the world. + +It was because of this, His vital and organic connexion with the race, +and with every member of it, that He could become Incarnate, and that His +sufferings and triumph could have more than a pictorial, or +representative, or vicarious efficacy. His work of redemption was +rendered possible by His relation, as the Word, to the whole universe, +and to mankind. + +It was because of this, that He could become "the Head of the Body, the +Church." Former ages interpreted the Atonement in the terms of Roman +law. It is the mission of our age to learn to interpret it in terms of +biology. We are only just beginning, by the aid of modern thought, to +discover the true, profound meaning of the biological language of the New +Testament. "As the body is one, and has many members, so also is the +Christ." Not, let us mark, the Head only, but the Body. The Church is +"the fulness of Him Who at all points, in all men, is being fulfilled." +The words tell us of an organic growth. "I am the vine, ye are the +branches." Can any terms express organic connexion more clearly than +these? + +It is our Head, to Whom we are bound by vital ties, in the mysterious +unity of a common life, Who has repudiated sin by dying to it. By +personal surrender to Christ we make His Mind our own; but we are enabled +to do so, because, in so doing, we are attaining to our own true mind, we +are entering into the possession of our own true selves, we are "winning +our souls," realising the Christ-nature within us. By faith and +sacraments, that which is potentially ours becomes our own in actual +fact. + +In simpler language, and in more familiar but not less true words, we who +are members of Christ's Body, in all our weak attempts after repentance +and faith, are not left to our own unaided resources, but are at every +point aided and enabled to advance to final, complete reconciliation and +union by the Spirit of the Christ working in us. + +He is no merely external reconciler. He reconciles us from within, +working along with our own wills, to create that changed mind which is +His own Mind revealed upon the Cross for no other reason than that it +might become our mind, the most real and fundamental thing in us, that +"new man, which is being renewed after the image of Him Who created him." + + + +VI +REDEMPTION + + + "Ye shall therefore be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is + perfect."--MATT. V. 48. + + "Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver from the body of this + death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord."--ROM. VII. + 24, 25. + +We have studied the meaning of reconciliation through the Cross. We have +said that to be reconciled to God means to cease to be the object of the +Wrath of God, that is, His hostility to sin. We can only cease to be the +objects of this Divine Wrath by identifying ourselves with it, by making +God's Mind in regard to sin, and our sins, our own mind. The Cross gives +us power to do this. For it reveals to us in the terms of humanity, that +is, in the only way in which it could be made intelligible to us, the +Divine Mind in its relation to sin. By faith, which is personal +surrender to Christ, His mind thus revealed becomes our mind. Thus we +attain to "repentance," in the New Testament sense of the changed mind +and outlook upon sin. And the motive power to faith and repentance is +supplied by our union with Christ. + +But all this is not yet enough. We have not exhausted the glory, the +full meaning of the Cross. If this were indeed all, the work of our +salvation would be incomplete. For I may indeed have, in Christ, died to +sin; in Him I may have repudiated it; but the task of life still lies +before me to be fulfilled, and that task is nothing short of this: the +complete putting off of sin, the complete putting on of holiness, the +final achievement of that union with God which is life eternal. + +For this I was made. "Ye shall therefore be perfect, as your Father in +heaven is perfect." Our Lord is not, in these words, enunciating a rule +of perfection for a few saintly souls. He is laying down the law, the +standard of all human lives. To fall short of this, is to fall short of +what it means to be a man. + +The proof that this is so, is to be found in our own consciousness, +bearing its witness to these words of Jesus Christ. The one most +constant feature in human life is its restlessness, the feeling of +dissatisfaction which broods over its best achievements, the attainment +of all its desires. That very restlessness and dissatisfaction is the +witness to the dignity of our nature, the grandeur of our destiny. We +were made for God, for the attainment of eternal life through union with +Him. No being who was merely finite, could be conscious of its finitude. + + Spite of yourselves ye witness this, + Who blindly self or sense adore. + Else, wherefore, leaving your true bliss, + Still restless, ask ye more? + +"Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart knoweth no rest, till it +find rest in Thee." + +Then look at the other picture. Side by side with the glory of our +calling, place the shame and the misery of what we are. My desires, my +passions are ever at war with the true self, and too often overcome it. +"I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and +bringing me into captivity to the law of sin and death which is in my +members." And so there goes up the bitter cry, "Wretched man that I am! +who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" + +Now the Cross of Jesus Christ is the Divine answer to this great and +exceeding bitter cry of our suffering, struggling, sinful humanity. For +the Cross is not merely an altar, but a battlefield, by far the greatest +battlefield in all human history. That was the crisis of the conflict +between good and evil which gives endless interest to the most +insignificant human life, which is the source of the pathos and the +tragedy, the degradation and the glory, of the long history of our race. +It is the human struggle which we watch upon the Cross: the human victory +there won which we acclaim with endless joy and exultation. Man faced +the fiercest assault of the foe, and man conquered. + + O loving wisdom of our God! + When all was sin and shame, + A second Adam to the fight + And to the rescue came. + + O wisest love! that flesh and blood, + Which did in Adam fail, + Should strive afresh against the foe, + Should strive, and should prevail. + +Man conquered man's foe, and in the only way in which that foe could be +conquered, the way of obedience. "He became obedient unto death." The +Death was in a real sense the victory, for its only meaning and value +consisted in its being the crown and culmination of His life-long +obedience. The Resurrection itself, in one aspect of it, was but the +symbol, the "sign," of that victory which was already achieved upon the +Cross. + +But what has this to do with us? It cannot be too often repeated, that +it has nothing to do with us, if Christ be merely "Another," separate +from us as we are, or imagine ourselves to be, separate from each other. +That which He took of the Virgin Mary, and took in the only way in which +it could have been taken, by the Virgin Birth, was not a separate human +individuality, but human nature; that nature which we all share. It was +in that nature that He faced and overcame our enemy. + +Here we pause to note a difficulty based on a misunderstanding. If +Christ were a Divine Person, working in and through human nature, if that +humanity which He assumed were itself impersonal, then how could He have +had a human will? And, after all, is an impersonal human nature really +human? That is the difficulty, and the very fact that we feel it as a +difficulty, is a proof that we have not yet grasped that conception of +the Divine Nature which underlies the belief in the Incarnation. God and +man are not beings of a different order. The humanity of every man is +the indwelling in him of the Word Who became flesh. Each one of us is a +shadow, a reflection of the Incarnation. In Jesus Christ God came; and, +it would be equally true to say, in Him first, man came. All human +nature, I believe it would be true to say all organic nature, pointed +forward to the Incarnation as its fulfilment, as the justification for +its existence. + +Thus, when it is said that the human nature of Christ was impersonal, +what is meant is, impersonal in the modern and restricted sense of +personality. The phrase is useful, when explained, to guard against the +idea, which is contrary to the very principle of the Atonement, that the +Son of man was just one more human soul added to the myriads of human +souls who have appeared on this planet. He Who became Incarnate is the +true self of every man, the very Light of true personality in all men. As +a matter of fact, He was more truly humanly Personal than any of the sons +of men, and all the more truly humanly Personal, because He was Divinely +Personal, the Word in the image of Whom man was made. + +The immense significance of these truths in regard to our redemption is +this, that a separate individuality cannot be imparted to us, but a +common nature can. And that nature which the Eternal Word assumed of the +Virgin Mary, and in which He conquered sin and death, is communicated to +us by His Spirit, above all, in the sacraments of Baptism and the Holy +Communion. Here is the heart of the Atonement. + +That victory over sin and death is mine, and yet not mine. That is the +splendid paradox which lies at the very root of Christianity. It is +mine, because I share in that Human Nature, which by its perfect +obedience, the obedience unto death, "triumphed gloriously" upon the +Cross. It is not mine until, by a deliberate act of my will, in self- +surrender to Christ, I have made it my own. By grace and by faith, not +by one of these without the other, we become one with Him Who died and +rose again. It is faith, the hand of the soul stretched out to receive, +which accepts and welcomes grace, the Hand of God stretched out to give. + +These great thoughts we will pursue in our next address. But meanwhile, +we have at least seen that the Cross is both victory and attainment: +victory over the sin by which I have been so long held in bondage; +attainment of all I can be, all I long to be, all I was made by God to +be. "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." + + + +VII +REDEMPTION (CONTINUED) + + + "He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath life + eternal."--JOHN VI. 54. + +We were made for holiness, union with God, eternal life. These are but +different expressions for one and the same thing. For holiness is the +realisation of our manhood, of that Divine Image which is the true self, +expressing itself and acting, as it does in us, through the highest of +animal forms. That perfect self-realisation is not merely dependent +upon, but is union with God, at its beginning, throughout its course, and +in its final consummation. And the life of self-realisation or holiness, +which is the life of union with God, is eternal. Eternal life is not, as +in the popular idea of it, an endless and wearisome prolongation of mere +existence. Primarily, the idea is of the quality, not the duration of +life. In the teaching of the New Testament, eternal life is a present +possession of Christians. "These things I write to you, who believe on +the Name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life." +Being as it is a moral and spiritual reality, it is outside time and +space. It is unaffected by "changes and chances." It is for ever beyond +the reach of the temporal processes of decay, corruption, death. Here it +manifests itself in service, that service of our fellows which is the +service of God. Hereafter, it will be manifested in higher and more +exalted forms of service. "Have thou authority over ten, over five, +cities." + +Now all this, the consummation and glorious fruit of our humanity, +holiness, union with God, life eternal, we see already realised in Jesus +Christ, the Son of man. We see it realised, as we have learnt, not in a +separate, solitary, individual, isolated life, but in that common nature +which "for us men and for our salvation" He assumed of the Virgin Mary. + +All that is in Him was in Him first, in order that it might be in us. And +this is the important point: it can only be in us by virtue of our union +with Him. That union He describes under the vivid and forcible metaphor +of eating His flesh, and drinking His blood. "He that eateth My flesh, +and drinketh My blood, hath life eternal." His flesh and blood--a common +Jewish phrase for human nature--is precisely that common nature which He +assumed, in which He died to sin, which He raised from the dead and +exalted to the Right Hand of God, and which He imparts to us, by His +Spirit given to dwell in us for evermore. + +The doctrine of the Atonement is incomplete, it is irrational, until it +is completed by the doctrine of the Spirit, the Giver of Life. As He is +the source of life in all living organisms, so He is in Christians the +source of the Christ-life. He comes to dwell in us, not simply as the +Spirit, but as the Spirit of Christ--the Spirit Who first created, and +then "descended" to abide in the Perfect Manhood. That gift of the +Spirit of Christ as the indwelling source of the life of Christ, and the +means of the Presence of Christ in us, is the characteristic gift of the +New Dispensation. It is His work to make us ever more and more partakers +of Christ, to be perpetually feeding us with His flesh and blood. + +And, as we are about to speak of the Holy Communion, it is well to insist +first on this, that the work of the Spirit in there feeding us with the +flesh and blood of the Son of man is a continuous process. It is of the +very essence of what is meant by being a Christian. "If any man have not +the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." The sixth chapter of St. +John's Gospel is not a mere prediction of the Eucharist. It is the +revelation of that principle of which the Eucharist is an illustration. +Our Communions are the supreme moments, the crises, in a process which is +for ever going on, the feeding of us, by the Spirit, with the flesh and +blood, the holy and victorious manhood, of the Redeemer. + +What relation, then, can this spiritual process have to the material +substances, to the bread and wine which are used in the Eucharist? This +question at once opens out into the larger one, as to the relation +between matter and spirit. Now, that question could not be dealt with at +all satisfactorily without undertaking a vastly larger task than we are +prepared for at the present moment. We should have to ask, What is, +after all, meant by "matter," and what by "spirit"? + +But something may be achieved on a much humbler scale. It will suffice +for our present purpose to concentrate our attention on a remarkable fact +which seems to underlie all our experience. And we will approach the +statement of this fact by first recalling the familiar definition of a +sacrament, which fastens upon the union of the outward and visible with +the inward and invisible as being the essence of what is meant by a +sacrament. Now, the fact we have in view is this: _every_ outward object +in the world is, in this respect, a sacrament. What we seem to see is +everywhere spirit working through what we call "material" objects. That +sacramental principle of the universe is the very principle which +underlies our Lord's parables of Nature. Speaking more accurately, we +see in "matter" (1) the means of the self-revelation of spirit; (2) the +instrument by which spirit acts. + +The human organism may serve as a type of this. Here is a spiritual +being, the Ego, in its will, its thoughts, its affections, invisible, and +it makes its presence manifest, and it acts, through the material +manifestation and instrument of itself, the body. To believers in God, +nature itself, in its deepest reality, is the revelation of the Divine +Presence, and the instrument of the Divine action. A beautiful sunset is +a veritable and genuine sacrament. In the light of this profound truth, +of matter as the manifestation and instrument of spirit, we are enabled +to see how futile was the ancient dispute concerning the number of the +Sacraments. In view of the fuller and larger knowledge which has come to +us, this, like so many other objects of theological strife, ought before +this to have been consigned to the limbo of forgotten controversies. + +But in all this we have been, in fact, interpreting the whole universe in +the light of the Incarnation. For that is the supreme sacrament of all, +the very type and complete embodiment of the sacramental principle. There +we see the Divine manifesting Itself through, and using as the instrument +of its action, a Human, a "material" Body. + +The Eucharist thus for the first time becomes intelligible. It is only +one particular illustration, although a most momentous one, of the +universal sacramental principle, of which all things else in the world +are also illustrations. There we have the Spirit manifesting itself and +acting, as always and everywhere, wherever "matter" is found; but in a +particular way, and for a particular purpose. + +The bread and the wine are the material substances which He uses at the +critical moments in His perpetual action of feeding us with the flesh and +blood of the Son of man. And these elements were obviously chosen, +"ordained by Christ Himself," for their most significant symbolism. There +is no truer philosophy of the Eucharist than that which is contained in +the familiar words of the Church Catechism, which speak of "the +strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of +Christ, as our bodies are by the bread and wine." That wonderful, and in +itself essentially sacramental process, by which the organism lives by +the incorporation and assimilation into its own substance of other +substances which we call foods, is the exact analogue of the way in which +our true, spiritual manhood lives by the incorporation and assimilation +of the manhood of Christ, that manhood which is holy, which exists in the +Divine Union, which has perfectly realised eternal life in the complete +dying to sin, and the complete putting on of holiness. + +The Eucharist is, in the broadest sense, the final act in the drama of +our salvation. It is the means by which, by His own appointment, all +that Christ achieved _for_ us upon the Cross, the repudiation of, or +dying to sin, the realisation of perfect obedience, obedience unto death, +comes to be _in_ us, is made all our own. + +But it is most important that we should ever remember that this truth has +two sides. + +(i) It is Christ Who saves us; that is, Who is the actually putting away +of sin, attainment of holiness, union with God, eternal life, by what He +does in us. "Christ _for_ us" finds its perfect fulfilment and end in +"Christ _in_ us." + +(ii) Yet, Christ does not save us apart from ourselves. Else the +Eucharist would be degraded to the level of some heathen, magical charm. +We must will and intend the putting off of sin, and the putting on of +holiness. We must recognise, and this is a truth of experience, our +complete inability to attain this without Him. That will, and that +recognition, are the repentance and faith which constitute the necessary +contribution on our part to the work of Christ for our salvation. + +Our Communions are the most important moments in our lives. Each marks a +distinct and definite stage in the fulfilment of the purpose of God for +us, the fulfilment in us of all that is meant by the Death and +Resurrection of the Lord. We ought to come, therefore, not only after +due preparation, with repentance and faith, but also with hope and joy; +not to perform a duty, but to receive the best gift which God Himself can +bestow upon us--that gift which is the perfect conquest of sin, the +complete realisation of holiness, union with God, eternal life; the +fulfilment of every aspiration, the accomplishment of every dream, the +achievement of every glory, the crown, the consummation, the attainment +of our manhood in union with Jesus Christ the Son of man. + + + +VIII +THE SACRIFICE + + + "For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer + sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how + much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit + offered Himself to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve + the living God?"--HEB. IX. 13, 14. + +No Christian doctrine is more commonly misunderstood than that of the +sacrifice of Christ. This misunderstanding arises from ignorance as to +the meaning of sacrifices in the ancient world. + +Sacrifice is one of the earliest and most widely spread of all human +institutions. Behind the laws regulating sacrifice in the Old Testament +there lies the long history of Shemitic ritual and religion. These +sacrificial rites were not then introduced for the first time. They +formed part of the inheritance of the Israelites from their far-off +ancestors; an inheritance shared by them with the Ammonites and Edomites, +and other kindred and neighbouring nations. They differed from these not +in matter or form, but in the loftier moral and spiritual tone which +formed the peculiar and distinguishing mark of the Hebrew religion, and +in which we to-day can clearly trace the actions in the minds of men of +the Spirit of God. + +It follows that it is hopeless to attempt to understand the sacrificial +teaching of the Old Testament without some grasp of the meaning of +sacrifice in the ancient world. Failure to attain this has led to the +idea that the sacrifice of Christ must mean the appeasing of an offended +Deity by blood and death. But this view of sacrifice is not merely a +heathen, but a late and debased heathen conception. "Shall I give my +first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of the +soul?" was the cry of the King of Moab, and it marks the lowest depth +into which the pagan idea of sacrifice had sunk. It is a genuine +instance of deterioration in ethnic religion. The primitive view was far +loftier and more spiritual than this. + +Recent researches, dependent on the comparative method, into the earliest +forms of religion have brought to light two principles which underlay the +conception of sacrifice, and which to a great extent can be discerned +more clearly in the most ancient period than in later times. Now these +two principles which, taken together, constitute the primitive theory of +sacrifice, which make up the fundamental idea of it, however little +prehistoric man may have been capable of giving distinct and logical +expression to them, were these: + +1. Death is necessary to the attainment of the fulness of life. + +2. Man is, by his very nature, capable of sharing in, becoming a +partaker of, the Divine life. + +The earliest known form of sacrifice is the killing of the sacred animal +of the tribe, the animal which was held to be the representative of the +tribal god, followed by the sacred tribal meal upon the victim. There, +in this earliest _totem_ rite, we have already implicit the two great +ideas of sacrifice, the communion of man with God by actual participation +in the Divine life (the feast on the sacrifice), and that this communion +is rendered possible by the death of the sacred victim. + +These ideas were very largely obscured in ancient times by the conception +of sacrifice as a gift, a tribute, or a propitiation. But these ideas, +though they bulk largely in modern minds unacquainted with the recent +researches of specialists in comparative religion, were, in fact, of +later growth. They are accretions which, by a very natural and +intelligible process, have overlain the oldest and really fundamental +ideas which lie at the root and origin of sacrifice. + +These two ideas were, however, present all through, in what we might +perhaps call (without committing ourselves to any psychological theories) +the racial subconsciousness. They were always there, ready to be evoked +by the appropriate stimulus, whenever applied. They constituted the real +essence and meaning of the ancient mysteries, which from 800 B.C. +downwards formed so important a part of the real religion of the ancient +world, and which have left their mark on the language of St. Paul and +other early Christian teachers. These mysteries, roughly and broadly +speaking, were of the nature of a religious reformation. They +represented the discarding of the propitiatory idea in favour of the +original meaning of sacrifice as communion. + +These earliest notions of sacrifice really underlay the sacrifices of the +Old Testament, especially in the case of the peace offerings. But, in +these, we become conscious of a third element, the conviction that sin is +a barrier to the Divine Communion. When the worshipper, in the +sin-offering, laid his hands upon the head of the victim, he was, by a +significant action, repudiating his sin, and presenting the spotlessness +of the victim as his own, his own in will and intention henceforth. The +blood was sprinkled upon the altar as the symbol of the life offered to +and accepted by God; it was sprinkled upon the worshipper as the sign of +the communication to him of that pure Divine life, by virtue of his +participation in which man can alone approach God. + +All this can be summed up in one word, "symbolism." All the value of +ancient sacrifices, including those of the Old Testament, lay wholly in +the moral and spiritual truths which, in a series of outward and +significant actions, they stood for and symbolised. To attach objective +value to that which was external in the Old Testament sacrifices, or even +to the outward accompaniments of the Supreme Sacrifice, the Death of +Jesus Christ upon the Cross, is to be guilty of a relapse from the +Christian, or even the prophetic spirit, into the late and debased pagan +idea of sacrifice, from which the ancient mysteries of the Eastern and +Greek world were a reaction. Certainly, the outward sufferings of our +Lord should sometimes form the subject of our thoughts as a motive, and +one of the strongest motives, to penitence and love. But to lay such +stress on these as to exalt them into the real meaning of the sacrifice +of Christ, as constituting its value as a sacrifice, to regard them as in +some way changing the Mind of God towards us, is contrary to the whole +spirit of the New Testament. What the real teaching of the gospels is in +the matter, is made plain by two significant facts. + +(i) While it is quite clear that the inspired writers regard the Death +of Christ, and the Christian life, as being, each of them, in a real +sense, a sacrifice, direct sacrificial language is applied sparingly to +the former, but without stint or hesitation to the latter. This is a +point which has been strikingly brought out by Professor Loftus in his +recent work on _The Ethics of the Atonement_. + +(ii) While devoting a large portion of their narrative to the account of +the Death of Christ, they exercised a very great and marked reserve as +regards the physical details of the Crucifixion. In this respect the +gospels are in harmony with the earliest Christian representations, as +distinguished from the repulsive realism in which the medieval artists +revelled. + +To ask, then, in what sense the Death of Christ was a sacrifice, is to +ask how far that Death realised the moral and spiritual truths which +underlay the ancient institution of sacrifice, and to which all +sacrifices ultimately pointed. + +1. The first of these ideas, as we have seen, is that death is necessary +to the fulness of life, that life can only be won by the surrender of +life. That ancient conception constitutes the fundamental teaching of +Christ: "He that willeth to save his life, shall lose it, and he who +willeth to lose his life . . . shall save it unto life eternal." And of +that great truth, which is nothing less than the formative principle of +the Christian life, the Cross was the supreme expression "Herein have we +come to know what love is, because He laid down His life for us, and we +ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." + +The laying down of life, self-sacrifice, of which the Cross is the +highest manifestation, alone brings life, alone is fruitful. "Except a +grain of corn fall into the earth and die, it abideth alone: but if it +die, it bringeth forth much fruit." + +Selfishness, whether as self-assertion or self-seeking, is essentially +barren and unproductive, both in regard to the lives of others and our +own lives. Only so far as we are, in some real sense, laying down our +lives for others, denying (not that which belongs to us, but) ourselves, +for their sake, can we hope to influence other persons for good, to be +the cause of moral fruitfulness, of spiritual life in them. And for +ourselves, we only win the fulness of our own lives, so far as we lose +them in the lives of others, so far as we identify ourselves with their +joys, sufferings, interests, pursuits, well-being; for our lives are +real, and rich, and full exactly in proportion to the extent to which +they include the lives of others. + +And the Death of Christ ceases to be an unintelligible mystery, when it +is regarded as the consummation of His Life of self-sacrifice. "Christ +also pleased not Himself." "He went about doing good." And at last, in +the fulfilment of a mission received of the Father for the good of men, +His brethren, He crowned the Life, in which self-pleasing was not, by His +Death, the necessary result, as we have seen, of His carrying out that +mission in a world of sinful men. For Himself, that Death was, so He +willed, the portal to the glory of the Resurrection. And the fruits of +His uttermost self-sacrifice are still, after all these centuries, being +gathered in, as in innumerable souls brought back from the darkness of +sin into the light of the Divine Life, "He sees of the travail of His +soul, and is satisfied." + +2. But what answers, in the Death of Christ, to that in regard to which +the death of the victim served but as a means to an end, the sacred meal +of communion? The sacrificial principle has been laid down by the writer +of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "without shedding of blood, there is no +remission." Blood to the modern mind speaks of death, and usually of a +violent and painful death. To the ancient mind, heathen or Israelite, +blood stood for and symbolised life. "The Blood makes atonement by the +Life that is in it." Man can only be made at one with God, can only have +"remission of sins"--the barrier which sin interposes to communion with +God can only be removed, he can only be restored to that Divine +fellowship for which he was made--by actual reception into himself of the +Divine life, of the life of Him Who, being God, became man, in order to +impart His own Divine Life to our humanity which He assumed. And +Christ's Life only then became available for men, capable of being +imparted to each man, when it had passed through Death to Resurrection. +If the grain die--only if it die first--"it bringeth forth much fruit." +"If I go not away, the Comforter, the Paraclete, will not come unto you." +Only by virtue of that "going away" of Christ, which includes His Death, +Resurrection, and Ascension, could the Spirit which indwells His +glorified manhood, come to impart the life of Christ to the members of +the Body of Christ. Pentecost is the final consummation of man's +atonement and redemption. + +We may still more briefly summarise these two fundamental principles +which constitute the sacrificial aspect of the Death of Christ. + +1. Christ died, not that we should be excused from offering, but that we +might be enabled to offer the one acceptable sacrifice to God, that is, +the sacrifice of ourselves in that service of God which is the service of +our fellow-men. + +2. Christ died, in order that we might receive His Divine Life into +ourselves, through the indwelling Spirit of Christ bestowed by the +Ascended Lord. + +Thus the Death of Christ is not merely a sacrifice, one out of many, or +(as has been so mistakenly taught) simply the last of a series. It is +rather the one sacrifice which alone realises the ideas of which all +other so-called sacrifices were but the faint adumbrations. As the one +true sacrifice it stands at the end of an age-long spiritual evolution. +In the physical evolution, the first protoplasmic cell was not man, +though it pointed forward to man, and implied man. So the _totem_ feast +and the old Jewish rites, were not truly and genuinely sacrifices, though +both pointed forward to and implied the realisation of sacrifice in the +Death of Christ. That Death was the fulfilment of the universal human +aspiration, the assurance of the truth of that ancient dream of mankind, +that man was capable of being, and might attain to be "partaker of the +Divine nature." + +And this whole teaching of ancient ritual as fulfilled and accomplished +on the Cross of Jesus Christ, is summed up for us in our Christian +Eucharist where on the one hand we, in union with the sacrifice of +Christ, "offer and present ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a +reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice "to God; and, on the other hand, +by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of man, become +partakers of Him Who, in the words of St. Athanasius, "was made man, that +we might be made God," became partaker of our human nature, in order that +we might realise the end of our manhood, by being made partakers of His +Divine Life. + + + + +THE DEVOTION OF THE THREE HOURS + + +I +INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS + + +The object with which we meet here can be expressed in a Pauline phrase +of three words, it is "to learn Christ." + +But, in those three words, there is contained, in the manner of St. Paul, +a wealth of meaning. To learn Christ is clearly an affair of the +intellect, in the first place. It quite certainly, in this sense, does +not mean merely to accumulate information regarding the words and acts of +our Lord. St. Paul himself is singularly sparing of allusions to the +history of Christ, if we exclude from that His Death, Burial, and +Resurrection. The phrase, in fact, describes that kind of knowledge to +which a detailed study of the Saviour's Life is related as means to an +end, the knowledge, namely, of Christ's character, of His Mind and Will. +Such knowledge is not to be acquired in one hour or in three. It is, it +ought to be, the life-long object of a Christian man to gain it in an +ever-increasing measure of fulness and accuracy. But the last words of +the Lord, the seven sayings from His Cross, constitute a special and in +some measure unique disclosure of His Mind and Will. And, therefore, to +meditate upon them, as we are now proposing to do, will be to advance one +stage further, and a distinct stage, in the process of "learning Christ." + +1. But we do well to remind ourselves, at the very outset, that our aim +is not merely intellectual, but also practical. There is no real gain +arising from the knowledge of Christ's Mind and Will, save so far as that +knowledge enables us to make that Mind and Will our own mind and our own +will. _That_ is the very meaning of Christian discipleship. "Let this +mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." + +2. The end thus set before us is one capable of attainment by all. The +individual, indeed, cannot hope to realise that end completely by +himself. The embodiment of Christ's Mind and Will is the supreme task +and the final achievement of the whole Body of Christ. The purpose of +the long development of the Church on earth is, that "we should _all_ +(not _each_) arrive at a perfect man, at the measure of the stature of +the fulness of the Christ." The whole Church, the Body in its +completeness, is meant to reflect back in the eyes of the Father, the +moral glory of the Son of man. Each individual has been called into +membership in the Body, in order that he might reflect some one of the +scattered rays of that glory; might embody in himself one aspect of the +infinite perfection of the Son of man. So would each of us truly "come +to himself," realise all that he is capable of becoming. + +That progress of the Body of Christ towards its goal is described by St. +Paul as being a growth of the Christ Himself. He is "at all points in +all men being fulfilled." There is a true and important sense in which +the Incarnation is as yet incomplete, in which the life-history of the +Church is its growing completeness. Our individual task is the +realisation in ourselves of that part of the Christ life which we, +individually, have been created to embody. + +3. It will be useful to sum up the Character, the Mind and Will of +Christ, in a single phrase. Consider how He impressed His +contemporaries. What was it which they saw in Him, who knew Him best, +and had been united to Him by close ties of comradeship and discipleship? +In one word, what they saw was Sonship. "We beheld His glory, as of an +Only-Begotten from a Father." The Mind and Will of Christ are the +perfect realisation of the Divine Sonship in our humanity. + +But what is the meaning of God's Fatherhood and man's sonship? The +ultimate truth of the relationship, the truth which underlies all such +conceptions as care, love, obedience, is community of nature. Our human +nature is really akin to the Divine. We are sons of God because our +spiritual life is of one piece with His as derived from it. Baptism +introduces no new element into our nature. By sacramental union with the +Only Begotten, the Ground and Archetype of all sonship, it enables us to +realise that which is in us, to actually become that which, potentially, +we are. It gives us "power to become children of God," to attain the +meaning of our manhood, to regain our true selves. + +4. Baptism gives power, all sacraments give power, but in such wise that +that power is useless, even, _in a sense_, non-existent, till we make it +ours by deliberate exertion, by co-operation of mind and heart and will +with the Divine in us. + +The end of our living, to become truly and completely the sons of God, is +to be attained by the joint action of two factors-- + +(1) The Spirit of Christ conforming our minds and wills more and more to +the likeness of Christ. + +(2) The co-operation of our whole personality with the work of the +indwelling Spirit. + +Our meditations this morning on the Seven Words in which Christ made some +partial disclosure of His Mind and Will, will form some part of that co- +operation, one little stage in the accomplishment of our life-long task. + + + +II +THE FIRST WORD + + + "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." ST. LUKE + XXIII. 34. + +1. Here we are watching the behaviour of the Son of God, the Ideal and +Ground of Divine Sonship in humanity. + +Is this supreme example of forgiveness an example to _us_? Is it not +something unnatural to humanity as we know it? + +We must recall, from a former address, the distinction which we then drew +between the animal in us, with its self-assertive instincts, and the +Divine in us, that which constitutes us not animal merely, but human, of +which the very essence is the self-sacrifice of perfect love. Christ +came to reveal God in our manhood. And I need this revelation, just +because the animal in me has won so many victories in the past over the +Divine, because in me the spiritual fire habitually burns so low and dim. + +It is a very different thing to say that forgiveness of all serious +injury is a hard thing. It is hard, but not impossible. That which +makes it to be possible is the serious intention of discipleship, +co-operating with the indwelling Spirit of Christ transforming us into +His likeness. + +To assert, on the other hand, that forgiveness of serious wrong is +impossible, is to ignore the fact that He Who uttered these wonderful +words is the true self of me, and of every man who breathes. He Who hung +on the Cross, and spoke these seven words, is the Son of man, the +Representative to all ages, to all varieties of human character, of true +humanity. + +2. Christ-like forgiveness is no weak thing, but the strongest thing in +the world. + +Yet, for its true effect to be produced, its true character must be +recognised. No suspicion of cowardice or impotence must cleave to it. +The man who being obviously able to resent an injury, and not lacking in +the capacity of resentment, yet for Christ's sake forgives, exercises on +earth no inconsiderable share of the moral power of Christ. God now, as +of old, "has made choice of the weak things of the world," those things +which the world accounts weak, "to confound the strong." "The meek" +still "inherit the earth." + +We are dealing, all through, with the injury which is personal, with the +resentment which is the reaction of the individual against unprovoked +wrong. Personal resentment we are bidden to relentlessly crush out--"to +turn the other cheek" is the command of Christ. But the Christian man +will recognise that the interests of the social order are not to be +disregarded. These interests, and those of the offender himself, will +sometimes demand that the wrong, even if it primarily affects ourselves, +shall not go unpunished. Again, no one can be in the full sense a +Christian, that is, a fully developed man, or a man on the way to the +full development of his nature, who is without the capacity of moral +indignation, in whom no flame is kindled by the oppression of the weak. + +What the Christian moral law does demand of us, is the complete +suppression of the merely personal anger which sometimes burns so +fiercely in us when we receive unmerited insult or injury. That kind of +anger belongs to "the flesh," is part of the defensive equipment of the +animal nature. Before we can in any sense be Christ-like, the spirit +must win many hard-won victories over its ancient foe. + +To say "I will forgive, but I can never forget," is only to conceal from +ourselves the defeat of the spiritual man, the Christ in us. + +3. But carefully note the reason appended to the prayer: "they know not +what they do." That is true, with every variety of degrees and shades of +truth, of every sinner. It was true, clearly, of the soldiers then +performing their duty: it was less true, but still in a real sense it was +true, of the Pharisees, of the High Priests, of the Roman judge. It is +true, but to a far less degree, even of us, that when we sin, we "know +not what we do." + +Sins are, in the language of St. Paul, works of darkness. That is the +element in which alone they can exist. Sin is a huge deception. The +very condition of its existence is the concealment of its true character. +All this is summed up in that experience which we call "temptation." We +are so familiar with sin, the atmosphere we breathe is so infected with +it, we have given way so many times in the past, that it needs the +objective revelation of the Cross to bring home to us the real horror and +malignity of sin. It has been finely said, "Sin first drugs its victims +before it consumes them." We, too, or some of us, have known the strange +petrifying, hardening effect of sin on the conscience. + +Great, then, is our need that we should pray that the revelation of the +Cross may more and more come home to us; great our need to pray for an +ever fuller measure of that Spirit of Christ, Whose first work it is "to +convince the world of sin," to make men realise its true character and +its inevitable issue. + + + +III +THE SECOND WORD + + + "Verily I say unto thee, To-day thou shall be with Me in Paradise." + ST. LUKE XXIII. 43. + +We judge of any power by the results which it effects. We gain some +knowledge of the power of steam by its capacity to drive a huge mass of +steel and wood weighing twenty thousand tons through the water at the +rate of twenty knots an hour. There we have some standard by which we +can gauge the force which sends our earth round the sun at twenty-five +miles a second, or that which propels a whole solar system through space. +But we may apply the same method, of estimation by results, to the powers +of the moral and spiritual worlds. Judged thus, it was indeed a +stupendous power which was exerted by Christ from the Cross. For what +result can be more amazing than the reversal, at the last, of the +character slowly built up by the habits of a lifetime? It is, of course, +useless to speculate on the antecedents of the robber (not "thief") who +turned to our Lord with the words, "Jesus, remember me when Thou shalt +come into Thy kingdom." We know only what is implied by the word +"robber" or "brigand," and the fact that he had joined, with his fellow- +sufferer, in the mockery of our Lord. But the words thus addressed by +him to Christ, in their context, represent the most wonderful +"phenomenon" of human life, a genuine and thorough-going conversion. And +the power which wrought that stupendous result was the patience and +forgiveness of Jesus Christ. The weak things had, as so often since, +confounded the strong. In His matchless forbearance, in the prayer for +His executioners, the royalty of Christ our Lord was disclosed, and the +"title" over His head was vindicated. + +1. First then, we learn from the Second Word the Mind and Will of God +towards penitence. There is no interposing of delay. Forgiveness is +instantaneous. No pause intervenes between the prayer for pardon, and +the pardon itself. But, that instant response was to genuine "change of +mind," not to the repentance which is merely regret for the past, still +less to a cowardly shrinking from a deserved punishment, but to a +definite act of the man's will, repudiating sin, and ranging himself on +God's side. The rejection of sin, the identifying of self with God's +attitude towards it, that, we have seen, is alone, in the New Testament +sense of the word, repentance. + +2. The penitence of the robber, on analysis, discloses the three +familiar elements-- + +(_a_) Contrition is obviously implied in the whole action. + +(_b_) Confession--"we receive the due rewards of the things which we +wrought." + +(_c_) Amendment--in the separation of himself from those with whom he +had hitherto joined in reviling Christ. + +Now it is worth noting, that our Catechism bids us examine ourselves not +about our sins, but about our repentance; "whether they truly repent." We +are meant to ask ourselves-- + +(_a_) Is our contrition real? And here, for our comfort, we remember +that God accepts as contrition the sincere desire to be contrite. + +(_b_) Have we made such a painstaking self-examination as to ensure our +making a good confession? "If we confess our _sins_" (separate, detailed +sins, not our sinfulness in general terms), "He is faithful and just to +forgive us our sins." + +Have we used "sacramental" confession, according to the teaching of the +Prayer Book, that is, when our conscience told us that we needed it? + +(_c_) Is our resolution of amendment a clear and honest one? What sins +are there, some of whose results we are able to modify or in part reverse +(false impressions, untruths, acts or words of unkindness)? God is +generous in forgiveness. Surely we are bound to be generous in our +amendment. There is a sense in which the results of sin abide beyond +possibility of recall. Yet I believe that the instinct which bids us +"make up for" a hurt inflicted on a beloved person, is a Divine instinct +in our nature, and one which we are to carry into the region of our +relation to God. + +3. We notice another important truth as regards the Divine forgiveness. +It has nothing to do with the removal of punishment, the release from +penalty or consequence of sin. The forgiveness of the robber was +immediate and complete. But he had still to hang in agony, and there +awaited him the frightful pain of the crurifragium, the breaking of the +legs by beating with clubs. + +The sooner we learn the two great truths about the punishment of sin, the +better. + +(_a_) Punishment is inevitable. It is a necessary result of the +constitution of the physical and moral universe, of the working, in both +regions, of those laws which are the expression of the Divine Mind. + +(_b_) Punishment is remedial. Many Christian theologians have fallen +far below Plato's conception of God, as One Who can only punish men with +a view of making them better. + +Think of one of the punishments of repented sin, the haunting memories of +past evil. In this case, both principles are very clearly discernible. +Each recollection may be made the means of a renewed act of rejection of +sin, and thus become an opportunity for the deepening of repentance. + +And what disclosure does this second word contain of the Mind and Will of +God in us, as manifested not towards, but by ourselves? Our lesson is +the prompt recognition and welcome of any, even the slightest signs of +amendment. It may be our duty to punish. It is always our duty to keep +alive, or to kindle, the hope in an offender of becoming better. In that +hope, alone, lies the possibility of moral amendment. There is the +golden rule, laid down by St. Paul for all who have to exercise +discipline over others, in words which ring ever in our ears--"lest they +be discouraged." + + + +IV +THE THIRD WORD + + + "Lady, behold thy son." + "Behold thy mother." + + ST. JOHN XIX. 26, 27. + +In this Word we see the Son of God revealed as human son, and human +friend, all the more truly and genuinely human in both relations, because +in each and every relation of life, Divine. + +1. The first lesson in the Divine Life for us to learn here is the +simple, almost vulgarly commonplace one, yet so greatly needing to be +learnt, that "charity," which is but a synonym of the Divine Life, +"begins at home." + +Home life is the real test of a person's Christianity. There the +barriers with which society elsewhere hedges round and cramps the free +expression of our individuality, no longer exist. We are at liberty to +be ourselves. What sort of use do we make of it? What manner of self do +we disclose? Would our best friends recognise that self to be the person +whom they admire? If we are to be Christians at all, we must begin by +being Christians at home. + +At home, and beyond the limits of home, one great Christian virtue stands +out as the supreme law of social behaviour--that is, for a disciple--the +virtue of consideration for others. + +In the midst of torturing physical pain, in the extreme form of that +experience, of which the slightest degree makes us fretful, irritable, +self-absorbed, our Lord calmly provides for the future of His mother and +the disciple whom He loved. + +What is required of us is not high-flown sentiment, but the practical +proof of consideration, that we have really learnt the first lesson of +the Christ-life, to put others, not self, in the first place. The proof, +the test, is our willingness to put ourselves to inconvenience, to go +without things, for the sake of others. If in such a little matter as so +ordering our Sunday meals as to give our servants rest, as far as may be, +and opportunity for worship, our practical, home Christianity breaks +down, then we must not shirk the plain truth, there is in us _nothing_ of +the Spirit of Him Who spoke the Third Word. On the other hand, the +readiness with which we do yield up our comforts is a proof--nothing +short of that--a proof of the indwelling of God in us. "In this we know +that He abideth in us, from the Spirit"--the Spirit of the Christ--"which +He hath given to us." + +2. We notice, in the second place, that Christ's proof of friendship is +the assignment of a task, the giving of some work to do for Him. "Behold +thy mother." We are His friends, as He Himself has told us. "No longer +do I call you slaves, for the slave is one who knows not what his master +is doing; but you I have called friends." St. John had forsaken his +Friend: + + a torchlight and a noise, + The sudden Roman faces, violent hands, + And fear of what the Jews might do, + +had been too much for the disciple's courage and the friend's devotion. + + And it is written, I forsook and fled: + That was my trial, and it ended thus. + +But St. John had returned. There he is, in his true place, beside his +Master and Friend. + +We too have forsaken, sometimes denied, the same Master and Friend. We +too with true repentance have returned, and are struggling to take up the +old allegiance. What is the proof, where is the assurance for which we +long more, perhaps, than for anything else in the world, that our +repentance has been accepted, that we are once more in the number of +those whom He calls His friends? + +There is one decisive test. Upon all His friends He lays some task. If +we have anything to do for Jesus Christ, then we may assure our hearts. +Our desertion has been forgiven. He has spoken to us the words of peace, +"Behold thy mother, thy brother, thy son." For, let us not forget, all +work for others, for the bodies, the minds, the souls of our brethren in +the family of God, is capable of being raised from the level of +professional drudgery, and of becoming the direct service of Jesus +Christ. + +To work for Christ is the real foretaste of heaven, far removed from the +sensuous imagery of some modern hymns. "Be thou ruler," there is the +supreme reward, "over ten cities." + +If we are doing any work for Christ, i.e. for others for Christ's sake, +and as part of our service to Him, willingly and cheerfully, then we have +the final and convincing proof that we are indeed forgiven, that the +offer of renewed allegiance has been accepted, that we have been restored +to His Friendship. + + + +V +THE FOURTH WORD + + + "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani."--ST. MATT. XXVII. 46; ST. MARK XV. 34. + +There are three peculiar and distinguishing features of this fourth word +which our Saviour uttered from His Cross. + +1. It is the only one of the Seven which finds a place in the earliest +record of our Lord's life, contained in the matter common to St. Matthew +and St. Mark. + +2. It is the only one which has been preserved to us in the original +Aramaic, in the very syllables which were formed by the lips of Christ. + +3. It is the only one which He is said to have "shouted" ([Greek text]), +under the extremity of some overpowering emotion. + +In fact, we are here at the very heart of the Passion. In this dread cry +I see something of the height of the Divine love, something of the depths +of my own sin. + +The meaning of this dread "cry" is not perhaps so difficult to understand +as some have thought. It is to be found in the entire reality of that +human nature which the Son of God assumed--not merely a human body, but a +human consciousness like our own; in the thoroughness with which He +identified Himself with every phase of our experience, the knowledge of +personal sin alone excepted. + +In this identification more was involved than we commonly think. Sin +cannot be in a world of which the constitution is the expression of the +Mind of God, without introducing therein a fatal element of discord, +confusion, and pain. To all consequences of sin the Saviour necessarily +submitted Himself, by the mere fact of His entry into a world which sin +had disordered. In respect of the external consequences, this is +abundantly clear. We have seen, and it is, in fact, obvious, that His +sufferings and Death were the result of the actual sins of men. But +there were, it is important to remember, internal sufferings attributable +to the same cause. We are at once reminded of His tears over the doomed +city, doomed by the persistent refusal to recognise the Divine voice. But +we are here on still deeper ground. The true explanation of the fourth +word is to be found in that great principle which St. Paul has laid down +in a familiar, but little understood, sentence: "the sting of death is +sin." + +The simplest and most obvious meaning of these words is that, whatever be +the physiological meaning and necessity of human death, its peculiar +horror and dread, that which makes death to be what it is for us, is to +be found in sin, in the separation of man from God. + +Now that horror consists, ultimately, in the fact that death is the +analogue, or, in New Testament language, the "sign," of what sin +is--separation. If sin is, essentially, the violent and unnatural +separation of man, by his own act, from his spiritual environment, death +is clearly the separation--and, _as our sins have made it_, the violent +and unnatural separation of man from all that has hitherto been his +world. It may be, that the final, extremest pang of death is the supreme +moment of agony, when we feel that we are being made to let go our hold +on reality, are slipping back into what, in our consciousness of it, must +appear like nothingness, the mere blank negation of being. Here, then, +we have the explanation of this awful cry. He Who came "for our +salvation" into a world disordered by sin, willed so to identify Himself +with our experience, as to realise death, not as it might have been, but +as man had made it, the very sign and symbol of man's sin, of his +separation from God. That moment of extreme mental anguish wrung from +His lips the Cry, not of "dereliction," but of faith triumphing even in +the moment when He "tasted death" as sin's most bitter fruit, "_My_ God, +why didst Thou forsake Me?" + +What this view involves is briefly + +(i) Death is an experience natural to man. + +(ii) Sin has added to this natural experience a peculiar agony, a +"sting." + +(iii) This "sting" is an experience of utter isolation at some moment in +the process of death, the feeling that one is being violently rent away +from one's clinging hold of existence. + +(iv) This "sting" is due to the disorder sin has introduced into the +constitution of the world and of man. + +(v) In virtue of this, death has become the "sign" in the "natural" +world of what sin is in the spiritual. + +(vi) Our Blessed Lord so utterly identified Himself with our experience, +with the internal as well as with the external consequences of our sin, +as to undergo this most terrible result of man's transgression. + +(vii) And He felt the full agony of it as realising, what none but the +Sinless One could realise, the horror of sin as separation from God. + +In a word, the Cry represents the culmination of our Lord's sufferings, a +real experience of His human consciousness. + +The experience was "objective," as all states of consciousness are. Our +sensations are as objective as "material things." It was, as we have +just said, real: inasmuch as the only definition of reality is that which +is included in personal experience. + +Thus understood, this fourth word teaches us at least two valuable +lessons. + +1. It discloses to us the Mind of Christ, which is to be our own mind, +in its outlook upon human sin. We, if "the same mind" is to be in us +"which was also in Christ Jesus," must hate sin, and our sins, not +because of any results or penalties external to sin, but because sin +separates us from God, our true life. The worst punishment of sin, is +sin itself. Into depths which make us tremble as we strive to gaze into +them, Christ our Lord descended to deliver us from that deadly thing +which is destroying our life. That appalling Cry burst from His lips, +that we might learn to fear and dread sin worse than any pang of physical +pain. + +2. This Word, again, discloses the Mind of Christ, true Man, in its +relation to God. He possessed fullest self-consciousness both as God and +as Man. Thus He Himself alone knew, in their absolute fulness, the joy +and the strength which come from the communion of man with God. That joy +and that strength, in the measure in which we can attain to their +realisation, are to be the goal of all our striving. Thus this Word has +for us more than a merely negative teaching. Not only are we to shrink +from that which destroys union with God. We must seek far more earnestly +to make that union a greater and a deeper reality. This end we can +achieve by making our prayers more deliberate acts of conscious communion +with that Person Who is not merely above us, but in us, and in Whom "we +live, and move, and have our being." We must all make the confession +that we have not yet nearly realised all that prayer might be to us, if +only we were more energetic, more strenuous, more utterly in earnest, in +our attempts to pray. It is by prayer that we are to attain to our +complete manhood, to "win our souls," to become our true selves. + + For what are men better than sheep or goats, + Which nourish a blind life within the brain, + If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, + Both for themselves, and those that call them friend? + For so the whole round world is, every way, + Bound with gold chains about the feet of God. + + + +VI +THE FIFTH WORD + + + "I thirst."--JOHN XIX. 28. + +This is the only utterance of our Blessed Lord in which He gave +expression to His physical sufferings. Not least of these was that +intolerable thirst which is the invariable result of all serious wounds, +as those know well who have ever visited patients in a hospital after +they have undergone a surgical operation. In this case it must have been +aggravated beyond endurance by exposure to the burning heat of an Eastern +sun. This word, then, spoken under such circumstances, discloses the +Mind of the Son of God, perfect Man, in regard to physical pain. + +1. Notice then, in the first place, the majestic calm of this word. It +was spoken in intensest agony, yet with deliberation, exhibiting the +restraint of the sovereign and victorious will of the Sufferer. "After +these things, knowing that all things had now been accomplished, He saith +[not 'cried'], I thirst." We cannot be wrong in reading this marvellous +word in the light of that strange passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, +where the writer tells us that Christ, "although He was Son, yet learnt +He obedience by the things which He suffered." How are we to reconcile +this with the moral perfection of our Lord's humanity? We can only do +so, by applying the Aristotelian distinction between the potential and +the actual. The obedience of the Son of God, existing as it did in all +possible perfection from the first moment of His human consciousness, yet +existed, prior to His complete identification of Himself with all our +human experience, as a potentiality. It became actual, in the same way +as our obedience can alone become actual, as a result of that experience, +and, above all, in consequence of those sufferings which were part of +that experience. In this sense He "learnt obedience," where we too must +learn it, in God's school of pain. + +Therein lies the answer, as complete an answer as we can at present +receive, to the problem of pain. While that problem is, beyond doubt, +the most perplexing of all the questions which confront us, the real +difficulty lies, not in the existence of pain in God's world, but in the +apparent absence, in so many instances, of any discernible purpose in +pain. In itself, pain does not, or at least should not, conflict with +the highest moral conception which we can form of the character of God. +But purposeless pain, if such really occur anywhere in the universe, is +hard indeed to reconcile with the revelation of the Highest as Infinite +and Eternal Love. The real answer to the problem lies in our gradually +dawning perception of the high purposes which pain subserves. + +It is well, then, to remind ourselves of the teaching of natural science +in regard to the function of pain in the animal world. There, at least, +it has originated, and has survived, only because of its actual use to +the possessors of that nervous system which makes pain possible. It +serves as a danger signal of such inestimable value that no race of +animals, of any high degree of organisation, which could be incapable of +suffering pain, could for any length of time continue to survive. Pain +here, at any rate, so far from being purposeless, owes its existence to +the purpose which it subserves. + +Ascending higher in the scale of being we see, as has been recently +pointed out, that the progress of human civilisation has been very +largely due to the successful efforts of man to resist and to remove +pain. The most successful and progressive races of mankind are those +which inhabit regions of the world where the conditions of life are +neither so severe as to paralyse all exertion, or even to preclude its +possibility, nor so favourable that men can avoid the pain of hunger or +of cold without strenuous and unremitting effort. The stimulus of pain +has been the means of perfecting the animal nature of man, and the secret +of those victories which he has won over the inclement or dangerous +forces of the material world, and which we call, in their totality, human +civilisation. + +And thus we come in sight of a great law, "perfection through suffering." +And the revelation of the Cross is the exhibition to us of this law +acting in the higher reaches of man's existence, in the moral and +spiritual regions of his life. As the animal has gained its victories in +the past, so the spiritual is advancing towards the final triumph of man, +along the same path, of healthy reaction stimulated and necessitated by +pain. + +For wherein lies the triumph of the spiritual nature, save in its +complete and sovereign control over all the other elements in our complex +being? The spiritual man is not the man who has starved his physical or +intellectual being; but the man whose whole nature, harmoniously +developed in the whole range of its varied gifts and powers and +faculties, is altogether brought under the mastery of that which is +highest in him, that spirit in which he is akin to God, the wearer of the +Divine Image. The saintliest, loftiest characters of men and women have +been the fruits of this discipline. + +We see the final demonstration of the purpose of pain in Him Who "learnt +obedience by the things which He suffered." This one word which tells of +physical suffering, tells also, as we have already seen, of the victory +gained over it by His human Spirit. It was by the reaction of that +Spirit under sharpest bodily pain, that the moral perfection of the Son +of man ceased to be potential, and became actual. So it is with us, so +at least it may be in ever-increasing measure, when pain is accepted and +met in the way in which Christ accepted and met His pain, not in the +spirit of useless and wild rebellion against the laws of the universe, +nor in that of a blind, fatalistic, and unintelligent fatalism, which +calls itself resignation. We may, hence, learn to look beyond and behind +pain to that great law of perfection through suffering which takes +effect, as it were, spontaneously in lower forms of life; but which, in +the realm of the moral and the spiritual, demands the co-operation of the +human mind and will. + +2. We may see also, in the fifth word, the revelation of the attitude of +the Son of God towards His own body. That attitude, and hence the only +genuinely and characteristically Christian attitude, may be best +described as the mean between the pampering of the body, and its savage +neglect in the interests of a _false_ asceticism. + +As at first He put aside "the slumberous potion bland" and willed "to +feel all, that He might pity all," so, now His task is over, He craves, +and accepts, alleviation of His bodily pain. It is a wonderful +illustration of the true, the Christian way of regarding the body. The +human body is essentially a good and holy thing. Those sins which we +call "bodily," like all sins, have their origin in the rebellious will. +They are only distinguished from other sins, because in them the will +uses the body, and in other sins other God-given endowments of our +nature, in opposition to the eternal goodness which is the Will of God. +We cannot too often remember, that "good" and "evil" are terms applicable +to the will alone. + +That splendid gift of the body has been given to us, in order that in it, +and through it, we might "glorify God"; that is, do His Will, the only +thing utterly worth doing. _Therefore_, we have to keep our bodies +"fit," fit in all ways for their high and holy purpose. There is the +law, the standard of all Christian self-discipline. Think of the glory +of the prospect which it holds out to us, of the development and destiny +of the body. Think of the care which we should bestow upon it, of the +awful reverence with which we should regard this (in the Divine +intention) splendid and perfect instrument for the fulfilment of the Will +of God. For what reverence can be too great for that which the Eternal +God chose as the tabernacle in which He should dwell among men, as the +instrument by which He should do the Father's Will on earth? + +Of all the religions of the world it is the religion of Jesus Christ +alone which bids us "glorify God" in the body, that is, do His Will in +and by that glorious instrument which He has created and redeemed for His +service. + +3. Finally, we may remind ourselves, very briefly, that we, in our own +day, may share the blessedness of the Roman soldier who relieved the +sufferings of Christ. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of +these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." + +As Christians, we _must_ have _some_ ministry to fulfil towards the +suffering members of Christ's Body. In the parable of the sheep and the +goats, the eternal destiny of men is shown to depend, in the last resort, +upon the manner in which they have performed, or failed to perform, this +ministry. The complexities of modern life call for careful thought in +regard to the manner in which we are to fulfil this duty, but they cannot +relieve us of it. Somewhere or other in our lives we must be diligently +relieving the necessities of others, ministering to their needs of body, +mind, or spirit. Else--there is no shirking this conclusion--we are +simply failing in the most characteristic of all Christian virtues; we +are far removed from the Mind of Him Who "went about doing good"; we are +on the way to hear that final condemnation, "Because ye did it not to the +least of these My brethren, ye did it not to Me." + + + +VII +THE SIXTH WORD + + + "It is accomplished."--ST. JOHN XIX. 30. + +1. What had been accomplished? In the first place, that work which +Christ had come into the world to do. All that work may be resumed in a +single word, "sacrifice." The Son of God had come for this one purpose, +to offer a sacrifice. Here is room for serious misunderstanding. The +blood, the pain, the death, were not the sacrifice. Nothing visible was +the sacrifice, least of all the physical surroundings of its culminating +act. There is only one thing which can rightly be called sacrifice--or, +to put it otherwise, one sacrifice which alone has any worth, alone can +win any acceptance in the sight of God--and that is, the obedience of the +human will, the will of man brought into perfect union with that Divine +Will which is its own highest moral ideal. + +The perfect obedience of the human will of Christ to the Divine Will, +could only be realised--such were the circumstances under which the +mission received of the Father was to be fulfilled by Him for the good of +man--by His faithfulness unto death. "He became obedient unto death," +because in such a world perfect faithfulness must lead to death. But the +death of Christ was no isolated fact, standing out solitary and alone +from the rest of His ministry. It was not merely of one piece with, but +the natural and fitting close of the whole. The death of uttermost +obedience was the crown and consummation of the obedient life. On the +Cross, He was carrying His life's work to its triumphant close. His +Death was, itself, His victory. + +This victorious aspect of the Passion is that on which St. John chiefly +dwells. The "glorification" of the Son of man, His "lifting up," was the +whole series of events extending from the Passion to the Ascension. So +the first Christians loved to think of the Cross, not as the instrument +of unutterable pain, but as the symbol of their Master's triumph. It is +this feeling, this apprehension of the Johannine teaching on the Passion, +which accounts for the late appearance of the crucifix. Even when, at +last, the actual sufferings of the Saviour are depicted, we are still far +removed from medieval realism. There are no nails--the Saviour is +outstretched on the Cross by the moral power of His own will, steadfast +and victorious in its obedience. The Sacred Face is not convulsed with +agony, but is turned, with calm and benignant aspect, towards men whom He +blesses. The earliest representations of the Passion, as we have noticed +before, are far nearer to the spirit of the gospels, that of St. John +above all, than those of the Middle Ages. + +2. But the ministry itself was but the consummation of the age-long work +now "accomplished." Throughout the whole course of man's history, in the +entire spiritual evolution, whose first steps and rude beginnings we +trace in the burial mounds of prehistoric races, He Whose lips now +uttered that great "It is accomplished" had been the light of men, never +amid thick clouds of error and cruelty and superstition wholly +extinguished. In every approach of man to God however dimly conceived +of, the Word, the Eternal Son, had been offering Himself in sacrifice to +the Father. + +So here, in the perfect act of the moral obedience of a human will, is +that to which all sacrifices not only pointed forward but, all the time, +meant, and aimed at, and symbolised, as men so slowly and so painfully +groped after, felt their way to God, "if haply they might find Him." + +"It is accomplished"--the true meaning of sacrifice, of all religion, +heathen and Jewish, is attained and laid bare. + +Thousands of years of human development reach their climax, find their +issue and their explanation in these words. + +3. In its teaching, this sixth word ascends to the heights, to the +mysterious and ineffable relationships of the Godhead--which are the +inner reality and meaning of all morality and religion--and it descends +to the depths, to the lowliest details of the most commonplace life. + +All work, for the Christian, is raised to the level, to the dignity of +sacrifice. Once and for all we must rid ourselves of that idea which has +wrought so much mischief, that sacrifice necessarily connotes pain, loss, +death. Essentially our sacrifice is what essentially Christ's sacrifice +was, the joyous dedication of the will to God, the Source and Light of +all our being. + + The daily round, the common task, + Will furnish all we need to ask. + +All work is sacred, or may be so, if we will. For all work has been +consecrated for evermore by the perfect obedience, that is, the perfect +sacrifice of the Son of man, the Head of our race. There is no task +which any Christian, anywhere, can be called upon to do, which cannot be +made part of that joyous service, that glad sacrifice, which, in union +with that of Jesus Christ our Lord, we, one with Him in sacramental +union, "offer and present" to the Father. + + + +VIII +THE SEVENTH WORD + + + "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit." ST. LUKE XXIII. 46. + +The consummation of sacrifice, the union of the human will with the +Divine, leads to the perfect rest in God. + +1. We have tried to deal with the Seven Words as constituting a +revelation of the Divine Sonship of humanity. From this point of view it +is significant that the first and the last begin, like the Lord's Prayer, +with a direct address to the Father. + +The service of the Christian man is that of a son in his father's house, +of a free man, not of a slave. The Fatherhood of God is the very key- +note of the Christian view of life and of death. In both alike we are +the objects of the Father's individual care and love; in both we bear the +supreme dignity of "the sons of the Most High." + +That dignity belongs inalienably to our human nature as such. Baptism +conveys no gift alien and extraneous to our manhood. Rather, that union +with the Only Begotten Son is not an addition to, but the restoration of +our nature by Him in Whose Image it was created. United thus to the +Eternal Son, we are placed in a position to realise the possibilities of +our being, to become that which we are constituted capable of becoming. +That is the true answer to the question, how can we be made children of +God by Baptism? + +And through work, and prayer, and suffering, we are to grow into, and +perfectly realise, our Divine sonship. + +2. These dying words of the Son of God breathe no spirit of mere passive +resignation. That is the spirit of the Oriental fatalist, not of the son +conscious of his sonship, of his heirship. Even the Lord's Death was not +the yielding to inexorable necessity, to the inevitable working of the +laws of nature. It was, if anything in His Life was, the deliberate act +of His conscious Will. "I commend," rather, "I commit My Spirit." "I +lay down My life . . . therefore the Father loveth Me." + +Submission to the Will of God is not necessarily a Christian virtue at +all. What is Christian is the glad recognition of what manner of will +the Divine Will is, how altogether "good, perfect, and acceptable," how +infinitely righteous, and holy, and loving; the doing of that glorious +Will with mind, and heart, and will, and body; the praying with all +sincerity and intention that that Will, which is the happiness and joy +and life of all creatures, may increasingly "be done, as in heaven, so on +earth"; the free and glad surrender, in life and death, to that Will +which is the perfection and consummation of our manhood. + +3. Such an attitude of our whole being, which is what is meant by being +a Christian, can only be ours by virtue of the Spirit of the Son of God +dwelling and working within us, and moulding us into His perfect +Likeness. In Him alone we can come to our sonship, to that which is from +the first, potentially, our own. "Ye are all sons of God, through faith, +in Christ Jesus; for as many of you as were baptised into Christ did put +on Christ." Work and suffering, life and death, can only be borne, and +lived, and endured by us in the spirit of sonship, so far as we are +actually "in Christ." + +Let us pray that the Mind and Will of the Son of God, disclosed to us in +these Seven Words, may be ours in ever-increasing measure. They can be +ours, if we are in Him, and He in us. + +The foundation fact of the Christian life, that which alone makes it +possible, is our union, through sacraments and faith, with Christ; our +actual sharing in His Life, imparted by His Spirit to the members of His +Body. We are meant to be ever drawing upon the infinite moral resources +of that Life by repeated acts of faith. For, as with all other gifts of +God, so it is with this, His supreme gift; we only know it as ours--it +is, in a real sense, only truly our own--in proportion as we are using +it. + + + +X +ADDRESS ON EASTER EVE + + + "We were buried, therefore, with Him through baptism into death; that + like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so + we also should walk in newness of life."--ROM. VI. 4. + + "I delivered unto you, among the first things, that . . . He was + buried."--I COR. XV. 3, 4. + +St. Paul lays extraordinary and, at first sight, inexplicable stress, on +the fact of our Lord's Burial. It is certainly strange that, in the +second of these two texts, he mentions it as constituting, along with the +Death of Jesus Christ for our sins, and His Resurrection on the third day +according to the Scriptures, the foundation truths of the apostolic +gospel, as being one of those "first things" of the Christian religion +which, as he had "received," so had he "delivered" to the Corinthians. + +This extreme importance attached by St. Paul to the Burial of Christ, can +only be explained by the mysticism of the great apostle. To him the +outward facts, however wonderful and striking in themselves, are of value +only as "signs," as representing great moral and spiritual realities. To +him, as to every man who thinks soberly and steadily, the internal is +"real" in a sense in which the external is not: thought has a reality +denied to "things." + +The real meaning of Christ's Burial is the mystical meaning, that meaning +which was brought home to the minds of the early Christians by the +picturesque and symbolic ritual of baptism. The man who had, by faith, +accepted Christ as his Lord and Master, was baptised into His Death; that +is, in Him he died to the old life. His submergence beneath the +baptismal waters, the very likeness of the Burial, was the assurance and +the sealing of that death. As truly as the man who is dead and buried is +cut off for ever from the life of this world, so was the baptised +separated, once and for all, from the old heathen life with all its +associations. As clearly did his emergence from those waters show forth +his actual participation in the Lord's Resurrection. He had not merely +left the old life behind, he had from that moment entered upon the new +life, the "life of God"; that is, the life which henceforth had God for +its foundation, its centre, and its goal; the life of moral health and +sanity; the life which was to be, in all its relations, open and clear +and undismayed; the life "in the Light." + +1. The first thought, then, of Easter Eve must surely be one of profound +sorrow and humiliation. We ought to be bowed to the very earth with self- +abasement by the thought that we have been, so many times in the past, +untrue to our baptism. + +Soldiers of Christ, we have denied our Lord. More, ours has been the +guilt, not of Peter only, but of Judas. Too often we have betrayed Him +for the veriest pittance of this world's good. + +We have missed the glory of the Risen Life. All the magnificent language +of the Epistle to the Ephesians, the quickening with Christ, the raising +together with Him from the dead, the enthronement in Him in the heavenly +places--all this was written of Christians in this life. All this might +have been true of us, and is not; for, worse than Esau, we have bartered +away an incomparably more magnificent heritage. + +What remains for us to do on this Easter Eve but, with truest penitence, +with utter loathing of self, and utter longing for Him Who is our true +self, to cast ourselves at the Feet of Christ? + +2. But the second thought of Easter Eve is one of boundless hope. But +remember, hope can only begin at the Feet of Christ. For Christian hope +has evermore its beginning and its ground in humility. We only find +safety, comfort, joy, encouragement, as we lie, prostrate in penitence, +before our Redeemer. It is clear, is it not, what we mean by all this? +We are, simply and naturally, to kneel before our Lord, and acknowledge +to Him all our untruth, all our disloyalty, all the manifold failures of +our service. And the very fact that we can do this sincerely and +honestly, is the earnest of all good things to come in us. If only we +can make this genuine and heartfelt confession, there is no degree of +moral recovery beyond our reach. + +For on Easter Eve we try to realise once more that greatest of Christian +truths, the _power_ of Christ's Resurrection. The power which was +manifested in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the power +which is universally present in nature and in mind, which is the reality +behind all forces of nature, which all forces reveal. It has been finely +said, that "the opening of a rose-bud and the Resurrection of Jesus +Christ are facts of the same order, for they are equally manifestations +of the one force which is the motive power of all phenomena." + +We see that power in the glories of the opening spring; we are conscious +of it in ourselves, in every good resolve, every upward aspiration. There +comes to us the inspiring thought, that the physical and the moral +Resurrection alike, in nature, in ourselves, in Jesus Christ, are +different manifestations of one and the same power. Was the Resurrection +of the Lord a mighty fact, the greatest of all the facts of history, a +transcendent and astonishing miracle? The power which wrought it is in +me; the same wondrous fact, the same stupendous miracle, if I will, may +be accomplished in me. + +That was the very meaning of my Christian calling--that "as Christ was +raised from the dead by the glory of the Father," so I, by the self-same +power, might be raised from the death of sin, and enabled "to walk in +newness of life." The Death, the Burial, and the Resurrection of Jesus +Christ are not merely historical facts, external to me: they are meant to +be spiritual facts in my own experience, in the experience of all +Christians. And spiritual facts are beyond measure greater in value and +meaning and influence than those historical facts which happened in space +and time, in order to serve as signs and symbols of the inward and +eternal realities. + +So let us come to our Easter Communion, not only in the spirit of +penitence, but in the spirit of undying and unconquerable hope. There is +no limit to that which the power of God, symbolised, embodied externally, +in the Resurrection, may effect within us, in the region of our moral and +spiritual life. Or rather, there is no limit to the exercise of the +Divine power, save that which we ourselves impose upon it, by our failure +to correspond with it. Now as ever it is true, true of the work of God's +grace upon our souls, as of the healing power of Christ over the bodies +of men, that "according to our faith" it shall be done to us. + +WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. +PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{0} Some of them also in the Parish Church of Colton, Staffordshire. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GLORIA CRUCIS*** + + +******* This file should be named 24153.txt or 24153.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/1/5/24153 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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