How does God save men? Let Paul answer : "In His mercy He saved us, by the purification of the re-birth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit which He sent out (écéxeev) on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour" (Titus iii. 5, 6). Ör again: "Who hath given to us the service of reconciliation, namely this: that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not reckoning their trespasses unto them" (2 Cor. v. 18, 19). That is precisely what Jesus was doing in His lifetime— proclaiming the unconditional forgiveness of sins, and reconciling the world to God, who was in Him. This is the central truth of the message of Jesusthat He came to reveal to men in His own person the amazing love of God, as of the Father of all. This is the truth for which He was accused of blasphemy, and for which He was put to death-a martyrdom (as Paul describes it), in his own times (rò μaprúpov Kaιрois idious, 1 Tim. ii. 6). And what was the end and aim of it all? Let Paul again answer, in the language of his epistles to the Romans, where he is telling the early Church that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life: for the end and aim of the Gospel is that men might impute themselves to be—νεκροὺς μὲν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, ζῶντας δὲ τῷ Θεῷ, ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ Κυρίῳ ἡμῶν (Rom. vi. 11)—dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Gospel according to Jesus, then, which He Himself preached, and which, according to their lights, His apostles preached after Him, was a gospel of joy, of forgiveness, of new life, of brotherly love, of self-renunciation, of service for man. It brought the prodigal to his Father and left him there, face to face with divine love, needing no mediator to intervene, and no sacrifice to be offered save that of the contrite heart. It revealed the human heart of God in the Divine person of His Son, and glorified human life for ever by showing how divine it may become. But Catholicism has swept the Gospel of Jesus from the scene, has wrapped it up in rites and ceremonies, has forged it into creeds, and has framed a vast engine of political and social power to impose in its stead the doctrines of the Councils, breathing anathema on all who fall not into obedience to her rule. And Protestantism from its thousand chapels every Sunday sets forth another Gospel, a "plan of salvation,” an invention of the theologians, a web of celestial tactics to outwit the devil and to rescue the soul from eternal torments in hell, by the aid of a bloody sacrifice. How utterly foreign to the Gospel of Galilee ! Woe unto you, theologians and bigots, who shut up the Kingdom of Heaven, and make the living words of Christ of none effect, perverting the good news, and leading the minds of men captive in the mazes of your tradition! I CHAPTER VIII The Imitation of Cbrist Was he not branded with all calumny, T cannot be denied that, ever since the dawn of the Christian age, religion-that is religion pure, spiritual, and undefiled-has consisted, consciously or unconsciously, in the imitation of Christ. The reason is not far to seek. Then, as in no previous age, was the character of God revealed in a human person; and the ideal of life thus manifested has remained the great ideal for the life of men. But so soon as we begin to ask about the imitation of Christ as a type of practical religion, on what lines it is to proceed, we are brought up sharply against the various presentations of Christ offered to us in the Scriptures. For, in truth, it is impossible to blend these presentations into a harmonious unity. Christology has never accomplished the task of unification of its multiform conceptions, otherwise the controversial theologians would have been dispossessed of their favourite battle-grounds. But the question must be faced, what is that which is set. before us to imitate? And for the purpose of finding some answer it will suffice here to distinguish four of the leading presentations. (1) The lowly Teacher of Galilee, the Good Shepherd, the Great Physician, the Healer of Souls, as presented in the narratives of the Synoptists. (II) The Logos of the Alexandrian school and the fourth gospel, uncreate from the beginning, cooperant in creation, scarcely to be distinguished from the impersonated "Wisdom" of the later Hebrew literature. (III) The Man from Heaven, who, because of His self-emptying of glory and obedience to death, had after His resurrection been highly exalted and given a Name above every name, as preached by Saint Paul. (IV) The Judge and Mighty Conqueror of the Apocalypse and of the Book of Enoch, coming in awful splendours to execute vengeance on His enemies, and to reign. Which of these is it we are to imitate? The bare statement of the problem furnishes us with the answer. Imitation of the transcendental Logos, of the Highly Exalted Man from Heaven, or of the Apocalyptic Conqueror is unthinkable. It is the Jesus of Nazareth, who walked with men in Galilee, who alone can be set forth for imitation by mortal It is because the Christ is imitable that the imitation of Christ is an obligation on those who profess His name. Let us, then, endeavour to trace the outlines of the teaching of Christ and His apostles in this matter of the imitation. Admittedly all will not be clear. For, while there is much in the teaching which rightly stands to-day as directions for those who would follow Christ, there arises again and again the difficulty that much of His teaching is couched in terms directed to the circumstances of His own environment, to the simple life of the Galilean peasantry amongst whom He moved: and amid our complex civilisation and the compelling limitations of our civic life we are not always sure how far His words apply, or are to be applied. Of one thing we may be certain it is in the spirit of His injunctions and not in their letter that their application is to be held valid. When He said, "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find repose of soul," the words are true for all time and for every age. But when He said, "Whosoever wills to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me" we may reasonably be in some doubt : for the condition "let him deny himself" aπарvηoáσow avròv (Matt. xvi. 24; Mark viii. 34; and Luke ix. 23) needs explanation: and no one has ever ascertained the meaning which the words "take up His cross,” ἀράτω τὸν σταυρὸν αὑτοῦ, would bear in the ears of those to whom it was spoken,' when as yet the cross of Christ had no significance, and when the phrase may have meant no more than : 1 In the version of St. Luke, chap. ix. 23, the injunction is to take up the cross ka' nuépav―" day by day." This very phrase excludes all suggestion of a daily crucifixion. |