Christianity and Ethics Part 14

[4] Peabody, _op. cit._, p. 68.

[5] See Paulsen, _System der Ethik_, pp. 56 ff.; also Troeltsch, _op.

cit._, vol. ii. p. 847.

[6] Cf. Ehrhardt, _Der Grundcharacter d. Ethik. Jesu_, p. 110. 'The ascetic element in the ethics of Jesus is its transient, the service of G.o.d its permanent element.' Cf. also Strauss, _Leben Jesu_, who speaks of 'the h.e.l.lenic quality' in Jesus; also Keim, _Jesus of Nazareth, and Troeltsch_, _op. cit._, vol. i. pp. 34 ff.

[7] John xiii. 15.

[8] _Conduct of Life_.

[9] _Metaphysics of Ethics_, sect. ii.

[10] Schultz, _Grundriss d. evang. Ethik_, p. 5.

[11] Cf. _Ecce h.o.m.o_, chap. x.

[12] This thought has been beautifully worked out by Prof. Denney in _British Weekly_, Jan. 13, 1912.

[13] Luke xv.

[14] Cf. Knight, _The Christian Ethic_, p. 36.

[15] See Haering, _Ethics of the Christian Life_, p. 190.

[16] 'Apocalyptic Element in the Gospels,' _Hibbert Journal_, Oct. 1911.

[17] The question of rewards has been fully discussed by Jacoby, _Neutestamentliche Ethik_, pp. 41 ff.; also Barbour, _op. cit._, pp. 226 ff.

[18] Cf. _Kritik d. prakt. Vernunft_, p. 143.

[19] Kant, _Idem_.

[20] Barbour, _op. cit._, p. 231.

[21] Matt. v. 12, xix. 21, xxv. 34; Luke vi. 23, xviii. 22; Mark x. 21.

[22] Mark viii. 19; Luke ix. 57.

[23] Mark i. 17, ii. 14.

[24] Luke xxii. 29 f.

[25] Mark x. 28-31; cf. Matt. xix. 27-30.

[26] This thought is finely elaborated by Barbour.

[27] Matt. xxv. 21; Luke xix. 17.

[28] Tennyson, _Wages_.

[29] Deissmann, _Light from the Ancient East_, pp. 316 ff.

[30] See also Eph. vi. 5-8; 1 Cor. iii. 14; Rom. v. 2-5, vi. 23, viii.

16.

{164}

CHAPTER X

THE DYNAMIC OF THE NEW LIFE

In the dynamic power of the new life we reach the central and distinguishing feature of Christian Ethics. The uniqueness of Christianity consists in its mode of dealing with a problem which all non-Christian systems have tended to ignore--the problem of translating the ideal into life. The Gospel not only sets before men the highest good, but it imparts the secret of realising it. The ideals of the ancients were but visions of perfection. They had no objective reality. Beautiful as these old-time visions of 'Good' were, they lacked impelling force, the power to change dreams into realities.

They were helpless in the face of the great fact of sin. They could suggest no remedy for moral disease.

Christianity is not a philosophical dream nor the imagination of a few visionaries. It claims to be a new creative force, a power communicated and received, to be worked out and realised in the actual life and character of common men and women.

In this chapter we have to consider the means whereby man is brought into a new spiritual relation with G.o.d, and enabled to live the new life as it has been revealed in Christ. This reconciliation implies a twofold movement--a redemptive action on G.o.d's part, and an appropriating and determinative response on the part of man.

I

THE DIVINE POWER

The urgent problem of the New Testament writers was, How can man achieve that good which has been embodied {165} in the life and example of Jesus Christ? A full answer to this question would lead us into the realm of dogmatic theology. And therefore, without entering upon details, it may be said at once that the originality of the Gospel lies in this, that it not only reveals the good in a concrete and living form, but discloses the power which makes the good possible in the hitherto unattempted derivation of the new life from a new birth under the influence of the spirit of G.o.d. The power to achieve the moral life does not lie in the natural man. No readjustment of circ.u.mstances, nor spread of knowledge, is of itself equal to the task of creating that entirely new phenomenon--the Christian character.

There must be a cause proportionate to the effect. 'Nothing availeth,'

says Paul, 'but a new creature.' This new condition owes its origin to G.o.d. It is a life communicated by an act of divine creative activity.

But while this regenerative energy is represented generally as the work of G.o.d's spirit, it is more particularly set forth as operating through Christ who is the power of G.o.d unto salvation.

There are three great facts in Christ's life with which the New Testament connects the redemptive work of G.o.d.

1. _The Incarnation_.--In Christ G.o.d shares man's nature, and thus makes possible a union of the divine and human. On its divine side the incarnation is the complete revelation of G.o.d in human life, and on the human side it is the supreme expression of the spiritual meaning of human nature itself. Christ saves not by a special act of atonement alone, but emphatically by manifesting in Himself the union of G.o.d and man. In view of the fact of the world's sin, the Incarnation, as the revelation of the divine life, includes a gracious purpose. It involves the sacrifice of G.o.d, which theologians designate by the theory of _Kenosis_. The Advent was not only the consummation of the religious history of the race; it was also the inauguration of a new era. The Son of Man initiated a new type of humanity, to be realised in increasing fullness as men entered into the meaning of the great revelation. 'He {166} recapitulated in Himself the long unfolding of mankind.'[1] Hence in the very fact of the word becoming flesh atonement is involved. In Christ G.o.d is revealed in the reality of His love and the persistence of His search for man, while man is disclosed in the greatness of his vision and vocation.

2. _The Death of Christ_.--Although already implied in the life, the atonement culminates in the death of Christ. Even by being made in the likeness of men Jesus did not escape from, but willingly took up, the burdens of humanity and bore them as the Son of Man. But His pa.s.sion upon the cross, as the supreme instance of suffering borne for others, at once illuminated and completed all that He suffered and achieved as man's representative. It is this aspect of Christ's redemptive work upon which St. Paul delights to dwell. And though naturally not so prominent in our Lord's own teaching, yet even there the significance of the Redeemer's death is foreshadowed, and in more than one pa.s.sage explicitly stated.[2] Here we are in the region of dogmatics, and we are not called upon to formulate a doctrine of the atonement. All that we have to do with is the ethical fact that between man and the new life there lies the actuality of sin, the real source of man's failure to achieve righteousness, and the stumbling-block which must be removed before reconciliation with G.o.d the Father can be effected. The act, at once divine and human, which alone meets the case is represented in Scripture as the Sacrifice of Christ. In reference to the efficacy of the sacrifice upon the cross Bishop Butler says: 'How and in what particular way it had this efficacy, there are not wanting persons who have endeavoured to explain; but I do not find that the Scripture has explained it.'[3] Though, indeed, the fact is independent of any theory, the truth for which the cross stands must be brought by us into some kind of intelligible relation with our view of the world, otherwise it is a piece of magic lying outside of our experience, and {167} having no ethical value for life. At the same time no doctrine has suffered more from shallow theorisings, and particularly by the employment of mechanical, legal, and commercial a.n.a.logies, than the doctrine of the atonement. The very essence of the religious life is incompatible with the idea of an external transference of goodness from one being to another. Man can be reconciled to G.o.d only by an absolute surrender of himself to G.o.d. To a.s.similate this spiritual act to a commercial or legal transaction is to destroy the very idea of the moral life. No explanation, however, can be considered satisfactory which does not safeguard two ideas of a deeply ethical nature--the voluntariness and the vicariousness of Christ's sacrifice. We must be careful to do justice, on the one hand, to the eternal relations in which Christ stands to G.o.d; and on the other, to the intimate a.s.sociation with man into which Jesus has entered. It is the task of theology to bring together the various pa.s.sages of Scripture, and exhibit their systematic connection and relative value for a doctrine of soteriology. For Ethics the one significant fact to be recognised is that in a human life was fulfilled perfect obedience, even as far as death, a perfect obedience that completely met and fully satisfied the demand of the very highest, the divine ideal.

3. _The Resurrection of Christ_.--If the Incarnation naturally issues in the sacrifice unto death, that again is crowned and sealed by Christ's risen life. The Resurrection is the vindication and completion of the Redeemer's work. He who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh was declared to be the Son of G.o.d by the Resurrection. It was the certainty that He had risen that gave to His death, in the apostles' eyes, its sacrificial value. This was the ground of St. Paul's conviction that the old order had pa.s.sed away, and that a new order had been established. 'If Christ be not risen ye are yet in your sins.' In virtue of His ascended life Christ becomes the indwelling presence and living power within the regenerate man. It is in no external way that the Redeemer exerts His influence. He is the principle of life working within the soul. The key {168} to the new state is to be found in the mystical union of the Christian with the risen Lord. The twofold act of death and resurrection has its a.n.a.logy in the experience of every redeemed man. Within the secret sanctuary of the human soul that has pa.s.sed from death to life, the history of the Redeemer is re-enacted. In the several pa.s.sages which refer to this subject the idea is that the changed life is based upon an ethical dying and rising again with Christ.[4] The Christ within the heart is the vital principle and dynamic energy by which the believer lives and triumphs over every obstacle--the world, sin, sorrow, and death itself.

'I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.'[5] All that makes life, 'life indeed'--an exalted, harmonious, and joyous existence--is derived from union with the living Lord, who has come to be what He is for man by the earthly experiences through which He has pa.s.sed. Thus by His Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection He is at once the source and goal, the spring and ideal of the new life.

'Yea, thro' life, death, sorrow, and through sinning, He shall suffice me for He hath sufficed; Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning; Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ.'[6]

Theology may seek to a.n.a.lyse the personality of Christ into its elements--the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But after all it is one and indivisible. It is the whole fact of Christ, and not any particular experience taken in its isolation, which is the power of G.o.d unto salvation. The question still remains after all our a.n.a.lysis, What was it that gave to these events in the history of Jesus their creative and transforming power? And the answer can only be--Because Christ was what He was. It was the unique character of the Being of whom these were but the manifestations which wrought the spell. What bound the New Testament Christians to the cross was that their Master hung there. They saw in that life lived among {169} men, and in that sacrifice upon Calvary, the perfect consummation of the ideal manhood that lived within their own hearts, and of the love, new upon the earth, which made it possible. The cross stood for the symbol of a truth that pierced to the inner core of their souls. 'He bore our sins.' And thus down the centuries, in their hour of shame, and grief, and death, men have lifted their eyes to the Man of Sorrows, and have found in His life and sacrifice, apart from all theories of atonement, their peace and triumph. It is this note of absolute surrender towards G.o.d and of perfect love for man which, because it answers to a deep yearning of the human heart, has given to the mystery of the Incarnation and the Cross its lifting and renewing power,

II