Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

they may be one as we are.

I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.

In the Christ, the Son of God who becomes the Son of man, there is the revelation of him who is one with the Father, who, being one with the Father, became one with man, and through him humanity is brought into relation with God; and there is the manifestation of the Father with the Son, and there is the coming of the Spirit, that the life of humanity becomes henceforth the life of the Spirit.

The Christ Jesus of Nazareth says, with words that could have no justification in a merely physical process of history; it is better for you that I go away, and the Spirit of truth shall come; he will guide you into all truth, and he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak; he shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and show it unto you.

That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, becomes the fact of history. It is his departure that is the coming of the Spirit and the life of the Spirit: the life which has not its precedent nor its tradition in a physical development; the life which is not merely an object of the acquisition of the intellect; the life which is not variable nor transient, with subjection to the limitations of time

and space, which does not return to mingle with the dust, nor yield to corruption; the life which is eternal.

The relation of the Christ with humanity has an organic character, which does not exist alone in the relations of an external history, and passes beyond the limitations of the finite, in the life of the spirit. There was a repose and a knowledge of things to come that was not of this earth in the words; it is better for you that I go away. The voice that again broke the silence was not of this earth; Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.

This going away was his coming again in the realization of infinite and eternal relations, in the life of the spirit. If the Christ had remained continuously on the earth, it would have been necessarily in an external relation, a relation limited by time and space. It is the fact of his going away, and thenceforth the coming of the Spirit, in the real life, the immortal life, of men, that becomes the evidence of the divine presence and the divine character, and thence transfers the evidence to history. It is here that the skepticism of men is to meet it. It will not be found by running to and fro, and vainly they may listen to voices that say lo here and lo there. It will not verify itself by external pageants. It will verify itself through the life of the Spirit in the history of the world; and as the skepticism of men must meet it there,

so the faith of men shall there have its strength, and thence shall come the sources of an undying life. He says, if any man confess me before men, him will I also confess before the face of my Father in heaven.1

That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, has henceforth the evidence of the Spirit.

There is henceforth the life of the spirit. This is the life that now is and is to come. This is the life of truth and freedom; in this man overcomes the world; the fruition of it is righteousness and peace and joy.

There is henceforth the conviction of the world. There is henceforth the realization of the kingdom of heaven on the earth.

There is henceforth the redemptive life of humanity.

There is the life in which death is overcome, the life of the spirit.

1 The question which the contemporaries of the Christ asked has been repeated in other ages, and by many in this age, "What sign showest thou unto us?" The most significant fact in that age for those who asked this question, then, was the destruction of the temple, and the coming with the new testament of that spirit which dwelt in men. S. John says, the Jews said unto him, What sign showest thou unto us? Jesus said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou raise it up in three days! But he spake of the temple of his body.

CHAPTER VI.

THE CONVICTION OF THE WORLD.

THERE is through the world the conviction of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. The course of the sin of the world is in its alienation and separation from God, and consequent variance and strife. This condition, which appears in the manifold forms of rebellion, of envy, of division, of violence, is a constant fact in the history of the world. In this separation from God is the want of unity and reconciliation and peace. In this, is the source of those false theories of dualism which always involve fatalism, and against which the spirit of man, in its aim toward unity, contends with unconquerable energies. In this, man's life becomes one with nature in its continuous course, but does not rise above it. It is simply an animal existence. It is one with nature as the other of God. In this, there is no freedom. There is no recognition of the ground of unity and reconciliation, as it is found through the mediation of the spirit.

Sin is the alienation of man from God and from humanity, through the assertion of the law of selfishness as the final law of human action. S. Paul

says, sin is the transgression of the law. It is a transgression by man of the law which is the law of his own being, the law of God and of humanity. It involves a variance from the relations of men in their true and normal development, and from the moral constitution of the world, and consequent injury and consciousness of guilt. Sin consists in following ways that are wrong, as in a wrong world, and in rejecting or refusing the recognition of a law or life of righteousness. Through it the will is unfree,1 and is brought into subjection to that which is external, and injury may be done to others in their relations in life. In sin there is the defect and the defeat of personality. It is a malady by which hurt is done.

1 "From the internal point of view there are rudiments and survivals in the mind which are to be excluded from that me, whose free action tends to progress; that baneful strife which lurketh inborn in us is the foe of freedom: this let not a man stir up, but avoid and flee." (Clifford, Lectures and Essays, vol. ii. p. 250.) This is presented not only as the result of experience, but as the resultant of the knowledge of human nature derived from observation. There can be in one way no more clear and incisive description of human sin. The phrase, which will hold its place on historical grounds, as descriptive of those forces which hinder from action that me, is the bondage of sin. Whatever may be our theories, the science of theology asks no more than to be supplied with these postulates; and it may hold that something deeper, yes, diviner in that me, may be traced beneath rudiments and survivals; and still sin is alien to man, as it is an alienation from God, and that baneful strife which is a foe to freedom, which man is to avoid and flee, is another conflict than the struggle for existence on this earth, and out of it is that freedom wrought, which is fulfilled in a life that does not have its consummation in death.

« AnteriorContinuar »