It is from the point of view of their growing apprehension of G.o.d as moral that we can best understand the ferocity of the Israelite toward the so-called heathen peoples. The boasting of the Israelites over the slaughter of outsiders must be understood from the faith in the moral destiny which the prophets conceived the G.o.d of Israel to hold in store for his people. The reason a.s.signed for cruelties and warfares upon heathen peoples was the abominations practiced by those peoples. Of course it is possible for a student obsessed with the modern doctrine of the economic determinism of history to say that we have in the story of the Hebrew development just the play of economic forces with moral aims a.s.signed as their formal justification. a.s.suming that the narratives of the conquest of Canaan are true, what the Hebrews desired--these economists tell us--was the milk and the honey. They made their so-called advance in obedience to G.o.d an excuse for taking possession of the milk and the honey. Now, he would be blind indeed who would deny that economic values do play their part in wars of conquest; he would be foolish who would deny that wars always do justify themselves by appealing to lofty religious motives, but nevertheless the impact of the Hebrew history upon the life of the world has been a moral impact, due to the belief of the Hebrews that they were instruments in the hands of a moral G.o.d. If we could behold the abominations in heathenism upon which the old prophets looked, we would sympathize quite readily with an impulse which might seem to call for outright destruction. A friend of mine, a man of the most sensitive Christian feeling, once stood on the banks of the Ganges and watched people by the hundreds and thousands going through religious ceremonials, some of which were defiling and others silly. In the midst of the reeking vileness of one scene in particular he said that he felt for the moment an impulse like that of the old prophets to cry out for the destruction of the entire ma.s.s. The situation seemed so dreadful and so hopeless! All this pa.s.sed in an instant to the loftier feeling of compa.s.sion, but the stirring of the more primitive impulse was really moral in its foundation. In any case, the old Hebrew notion was of a G.o.d who would put a growing moral ideal in the first place.
It is not necessary for us to attempt to trace the steps of the growth of the moral ideal for G.o.d. As we have said, that ideal kept pace with the growth of the ideal for man. We must call attention, however, to the fact that the growth of the ideal was in the direction of increasing emphasis upon the responsibilities that go with power. The Hebrew may not have definitely phrased the responsibility, but he nevertheless shows his increasing realization of the obligations resting upon G.o.d.
When we reach the later prophets we discern that his moral obligation upon G.o.d himself becomes more and more a determining factor. There appear glimpses of belief that G.o.d must not only fight for his people, but that he must suffer in their sufferings. It is of little consequence for our present purpose whether the suffering servant of Jehovah of the later Israelitish Scriptures is a group of persons or an individual. The implication is that the suffering is a revelation of Jehovah himself.
Moreover, there appears a widening stream of emphasis on the tenderness of G.o.d"s care for his people. The Hebrew writers comparatively early broke away from the thought of G.o.d as merely philanthropically inclined toward Israel. They did not think of him as bestowing gifts which were without cost to himself. They show him as deeply involved in the life of the nation and as caring for his people with an infinite compa.s.sion.
This enlarging revelation was made clear to the people through the utterances of prophets, the decrees of lawgivers, the songs of psalmists, the interpretations of historians, and the warnings of statesmen. Slowly and surely, moreover, the people attained grasp on the doctrine that the greatest revelation of G.o.d is the revelation in human character itself. They began to look forward to the coming of one who would in himself embody the n.o.blest and best in the divine life, who would gather up in himself all the ideals and purposes toward which the law and the prophets had looked. New Testament revelation as such we leave to the later chapters, but we have come far enough, we think, to warrant us in saying that only he can understand the Scriptures who sees that the chief fact about the Scriptures is the emphasis on the moral nature of G.o.d. Other Scriptures besides that of the Hebrews--we might say scientific, philosophical, extra-Christian Scriptures--have stood for the existence of G.o.d; but none have stood for the existence of such a G.o.d as the G.o.d of the Bible. The salient feature of the Bible is its thought of G.o.d.
CHAPTER V
THE BOOK OF CHRIST
It is of course the merest commonplace to say that the revelation of G.o.d in the Scriptures comes to its climax in Christ. The revelation in Christ gathers up all that is loftiest in the utterances of the Old Testament and gives it embodiment in a human life. It is legitimate to declare that there is little either in the teaching of Christ or in his character that is not at least foreshadowed in the Old Testament. The uniqueness of the Christ revelation consists in the manner in which the separate streams of truth of the law and the prophets and the seers and the poets are merged together in the Christ teaching, and in the fine balance with which the ideal characteristics seen from afar by the saints of the older day were realized in the living Christ. We might justly say that a devout reader of the Old Testament could find rich elements of the Christ revelation even if he should never see a page of the New Testament. The virtue of the New Testament, however, is that all the elements revealed throughout the course of the historic periods of Israel"s career are bound together in the life and character of Christ.
It is no mere epigram to say that if the greatest fact about the Scriptures is G.o.d, the greatest fact about G.o.d is Christ. Any thorough study of the Scriptures must revolve around Christ as its center. If the Scriptures mean anything, they mean that in Christ we see G.o.d. Of course it is open to the skeptic to reply that in all this the Scriptures are completely mistaken; but he cannot maintain that this is not what the Scriptures mean. The Book comes to its climax with an honest conviction that Christ is the consummate revelation of G.o.d. The day when men could charge any sort of manipulation of the material by Scripture writers for unworthy doctrinal purposes is past. We have in another connection said that each of the New Testament books was, indeed, written with a definite aim, but this does not mean that facts and teachings were twisted out of their legitimate significance. That Christ is the supreme gift of G.o.d to men is so thoroughly built into the biblical revelation that there is no digging that idea out without wrecking the entire revelation itself. To maintain anything else would be to do violence to the entire scriptural teaching. The burden of the entire New Testament is that G.o.d is like Christ.
This may seem to some to be a reversal of present-day approach to the study of the Christ. We may appear to be attacking the problem from the divine angle rather than from the human. Why not ask what Christ was rather than what G.o.d is? It is indeed far from our purpose to minimize the rich significance of the humanity of Jesus, but we are trying now to get the scriptural focus. We do not believe that we can secure that focus by looking upon the character of Christ as a merely human ideal.
The might of the scriptural emphasis is that Christ is the revelation of G.o.d. We are well aware that ordinary theological debate has centered on the question as to the extent to which Christ is like G.o.d. The Bible is colored with the belief that G.o.d is like Christ. This may seem at first glimpse to be a very fine discrimination, but the importance of that discrimination appears when we reflect that mankind is more eager to learn the character of G.o.d than to learn how far a man can climb toward divinity. In all such discussions as this we proceed at peril of being misunderstood, but we must repeatedly affirm that important as is the problem as to the human ideal set forth in Christ, the divine ideal set forth in him is more significant as explaining the hold of the Bible on men. Is it not sufficient for us to behold a lofty human ideal in the portrait of Christ without such emphasis on this ideal as also a revelation of the divine character? The answer depends upon what we are most interested in. If we care most for a perfect and symmetrical human life, we reply that we find that perfection and symmetry in Christ. In our second chapter we laid such stress upon the importance of the enlarging human ideal that we have committed ourselves to the importance of the Christ ideal as a revelation of the possibilities of human life.
But if we take that ideal in itself without any reference to the character of G.o.d, how much enlargement does it bring us? As members of the human race we can indeed be proud that a human being has climbed to such moral stature as did Jesus, but what promise does that give that any other human being can attain to his stature? As a member of the human race I can be profoundly thankful for a philosopher like Kant. I can, indeed, dedicate myself to the study of the Kantian philosophy with some hope of mastering it. I can seek to reproduce in my life all the conditions that surrounded the life of the great metaphysician, but I cannot hope to make myself a Kant. Strive as I may, such transformation is out of the question. I may attain great merit by my struggle, but I cannot make myself a Kant. The more intensely I might struggle, the more convinced I would become of the futility of my quest, and the genius of the philosopher might tower up at the end as itself a grim mockery of my ambition. So it is with the Christ if he is not a revelation of the G.o.d life at the same time that he is an idealization of the human life.
Viewed as a revelation of G.o.d"s character the Christ life is the hope of all the ages. Viewed only as a masterpiece of human life it might well be the despair of mankind.
Of course there are those who believe that it is impossible for Christ to be a revelation of the human without also being a revelation of the Divine. We have no desire to quarrel with this position, though we find it more optimistic than convincing. Incredible as it may seem at first thought, the universe might theoretically be regarded as a system ruled over by a Deity who had brought forth a character like that of Christ just for the sake of seeing what he could achieve in the way of a masterpiece, without being himself fundamentally involved in self- revelation. Christ might conceivably be a sort of poetic dream of the Almighty rather than a laying bare of the Almighty"s own life. We find that human authors by an effort of great imagination fashion creations in a sense completely different from themselves. It might be theoretically urged that the character of Christ is different from the character of G.o.d. If this seems very far-fetched, let us remind ourselves then that there are those in the present world who conceive of Christ as the very highest peak of human existence and yet deny that he has any sort of significance as a revelation of the forces back of the world. Such thinkers maintain that Christ is the best the race has to show, and yet affirm that the race is but an insignificant item in the total ma.s.siveness of the universe. The Bible establishes the faith of men against skepticism like this by making the Christ-ideal for G.o.d himself so attractive and appealing.
There are those who proclaim that we do not need any revelations of G.o.d to make then human ideal fully significant--the human ideal stands by itself. Some such thinkers go consistently the full length of saying that they are willing to keep their eyes open to the hopelessness of the universe. They can see nothing beyond this life but total oblivion.
Nevertheless, with their eyes open they will fight on manfully to the end and take the final leap into the dark without flinching. They are very apt to add that their philosophy is the only unselfish one; that the desire of men for any sort of help from conceptions about the Divine is selfishness where it is not sentimentalism. It is fair to say that such doctrines seldom meet large response. The reason is not that men selfishly seek out a G.o.d for the sake of material reward that may come to them, but that they seek him for the sake of finding a resting place for their minds and souls, for the sake of cherishing an end which seems in itself worth while, for the sake of laying hold on a universe in which they can feel at home. If this is selfishness, then the activities of the human soul in its highest ranges are selfish. If it is selfish to long for a universe in which the heart can trust, it is selfish also to enjoy the self-satisfaction with which some of these thinkers profess to be ready to take their leap into the night. As we scan the history of Christianity since the day of the Founder we are impressed that religious organizations as such which arise within Christianity tend to survive in proportion as they make central the significance of Christ as the revealer of the character of G.o.d. We would not for a moment underestimate the importance of those groups of Christians who take Christ merely as a prophet who lived the n.o.blest life and exalted his truth by the n.o.blest death. Many such believers manifest the very purest devotion to Christ. They are his disciples. But the historic fact is that organizations founded on such doctrines alone do not win sweeping triumphs. On their own statement the most they hope to do is to spread the leaven of their doctrine into the thinking of other groups of Christians. Their service in this respect is not to be disparaged, for at all times the more orthodox opinion of Christ, so called, needs the leavening of emphasis on the humanity of Christ. But after all these allowances it is just to affirm that theology which sees only the human in Christ does not come to vast power, and that clearly because the world is chiefly interested in the question with which the entire biblical revealing movement deals, namely, what is the nature of G.o.d?
With that question answered we can best understand the nature of man and the possibility of communion between man and G.o.d.
We may be permitted to pick up the thread of the argument in the last chapter and ask again what moral purposes rule the forces of this world.
It must indeed be an odd type of mind that does not at least occasionally ask what this world is for, and what all this cosmic commotion is about. It is well for all of us to do the best we can without asking too many hard questions, but the queries will at times come up and with the normal human being they are not likely easily to down. We are in the midst of powers which defy our intellects. We do not go far in the attempt to read the secrets of nature around us without discovering that all we can hope to spell out is the stages by which things come to pa.s.s, and the mechanisms by which they fit themselves together. Why they come to pa.s.s is beyond us, except in a most limited sense. The purposes for which events occur in this world are not self- evidently clear. Explanations of purposes only make matters worse; and at any moment this problem of the mystery of the universe may take personal significance in the form of a blow upon the individual which seems to mock all hope of anything worth while in human life. There is nothing more futile than the attempts even of ministers to divine the meanings of afflictions or of those inequalities of lot which attend the natural order. The preachers can encourage us to make the most of a bad lot, but their guesses as to why these things are ordinarily add to our burdens. No, the mind of itself just by contemplation of the things as they are cannot find much light. This enigma has always been before the philosophers in the form of the question as to physical suffering. A number of plausible answers have been made as to the reasons for pain in the present order. Leibnitz said that even the Almighty creating the finite world had to adjust himself to some limitations for the good of the whole; that if some forces are to run in one direction, there must be mutual concession and compromise in the adjustment of manifold other activities; and that all this involves at least apparent stress and injustice at particular points. This sounds well enough, but why the afflictions of the individual who happens to be one of the particular points should be just what they are is a mystery. The upshot is that the ordinary man--the plain man, as we call him--must either give up the whole problem by seeking to forget it, or must rebel against it, or he must find relief in a G.o.d whom he can trust without being able to fathom his plans.
The tragedy of physical affliction is light as compared to the tragedies which arise in any conscience which seeks to take moral duties seriously. To be sure, we live at present in a rather complacent age so far as the struggles of conscience are concerned. The advice of the world is to do the best we can and let the rest go. We are not to take ourselves too seriously. But the long moral advances of the race have come through those who have taken the voices of conscience seriously.
Now, what can a sensitive conscience make of moral duty? a.s.sume that we have before us the exalted Christ ideal, and accept this as the guide of our lives--a.s.sume that we even have hope of some day attaining to that ideal--the distracting question is bound to jump at us: Are we doing enough? Have we sacrificed enough for those in worse plight than ourselves? And what about our past mistakes? Shall we go back and try to undo these? At the very best that might be like unraveling through the night what we have spun through the day. It will not do to dismiss this as unhealthiness or morbidness of mind. William James has shown pretty conclusively that the so-called normal or healthy-minded moral life is apt to be shallow. The great moral tragedy of the race is the distance between the ideal and any possible attainment. We can console ourselves by saying that n.o.ble discontent is the glory of man; but that does not get us far. There is only one way out, and that is to trust that we are dealing with a Christlike G.o.d, that his att.i.tude toward us is the att.i.tude of Jesus toward men. It is impossible to feel that in discipleship with Jesus men were complacent about their own moral perfections on the one hand, or hara.s.sed with self-reproaches on the other. They were advancing toward the realization of an ideal in companionship with One who not only in himself realized the human ideal, but who taught them that all the forces of the world would work together with them in their climb toward perfection, and that G.o.d would be patient with their blunders.
The question as to the character of G.o.d becomes more vital the longer we reflect. The growing conscience of our time demands that two conceptions be kept together--that of power and that of moral responsibility. We cannot hold a person responsible unless he has power; we cannot give a person power unless he is willing to act under responsibility. This realization is fast modifying all our relations to politics, to finance, to industry, even to private duties. We are swiftly moving toward the day when society will insist that any measure of power which has an outreach beyond the circle of the holder"s personal affairs shall be acquiesced in by society only on condition that the holder of that power be willing definitely to a.s.sume responsibility to society. What we demand of men we demand also of G.o.d, and we have the scriptural warrant for believing that these human demands are themselves hints concerning the nature of G.o.d. Now, no one doubts the power of G.o.d. All scientific and philosophic trends are toward the centralization of power in some unitary source. All our study of nature and of society convinces us that there is a unity of power somewhere. If this be true, there must be raised with increasing persistence the question as to whether the World- Power is acting under a sense of moral responsibility. There were days when this problem was not raised as it is now. Men a.s.sumed for centuries that the king could do no wrong; that he could order his people about in the most arbitrary fashion. In our own time we have seen advocacy of the doctrine that the man of wealth is a law unto himself in the handling of the power that comes with wealth. Such mistakes never were really a part of the biblical idea. In shaping the threefold notion of priest and prophet and king to make the people familiar with the functions of G.o.d-sent leadership the strokes of emphasis always fell on the responsibility of the prophet to proclaim his message at whatever cost to himself, of the priest to keep in mind the sacredness of his office, and of the king to rule in righteousness. These demands were inevitably carried up to G.o.d: and in Christ the supreme effort is made to convince us that we can trust in the G.o.d of Christ, though we may not be able to understand him. This is not the place for an attempt at determining the essentials of the Christ career. Some features of that life, however, as ill.u.s.trating responsibility in the use of power can be hinted at here.
Take the story of the temptation. We are not concerned now with the historic form in which the temptation occurred. After the historians have made all the changes in the drapery of the story they choose, the fact remains that the temptation narrative deals with the essential problems of any leader confronted with a task like that of Christ. The Messianic consciousness was a consciousness of power. How should the power be used? Should it be used to minister to human needs like those of hunger? That would promise a quick solution of a sort. The peoples would eagerly rally around the new deliverer. Should there be an attempt to utilize the political machinery of the time? There could be no doubt of the effectiveness of this plan. Should the exalted lofty spiritual state of the Master be relied upon to carry him through spectacular displays of extraordinary might that would capture the popular mind?
Each of these suggestions presented its advantages. Each might have been rightfully followed by some one with less power than Jesus had; but for him any one of them would have involved a misuse of power, and hence he cast them all aside.
The miracles reported of Christ have this for their peculiarity, that they show a power conceived of as divine used for a righteous purpose.
It is significant that practically all the miracles described are those of healing or of relief. The kind of miracle that an irresponsible leader would have wrought is suggested by the advice of James and John to Jesus to call down fire on an inhospitable Samaritan village. The reported reply of Jesus, "Ye know not what spirit you are of," is the final comment on such use of power. Now, after we have made the most of the miracles recorded of Jesus, after we have made them seem just as extraordinary in themselves as possible, their most extraordinary feature is this use to which the power was put; and on the other hand, if we strip the miracles of everything that suggests breach of natural law and make them just revelations of super-normal control over nature through laws like those whose existence and significance we are beginning to glimpse to-day, still we cannot empty these narratives of their significance as revealing a morally responsible use of force. Let us be just as orthodox as we can, the purpose of the use of the forces is the supreme miracle; let us be just as destructively radical as we please, we cannot eliminate from the Scriptures this impression of Christ as one who used power with a sense of responsibility. This revelation is one which the ages have always desired.
We must be careful to keep in mind the connection of the Christ life with what came before it and what has proceeded from it. Here we have the advantage which comes of regarding the Bible as the result of a process running through the centuries. If the Bible were not a library, but only a single book, written at a particular time, we might well be attracted by the n.o.bility of its teachings, but might despair of ever making the teachings effective. There is no proving in syllogistic fashion that Jesus was what he claimed to be, or that he was what his disciples thought of him as being; but when we see a ma.s.sive revealing movement centering on the idea of G.o.d as revealed in Christ, when we see the acceptance of the spirit of Christ opening the path to communion with the Divine, and when we find increasing hosts of persons finding larger life in that approach to the Divine, we begin to discern the vast significance of the scriptural doctrine that in Christ we have the revelation of the Christlike G.o.d.
In this discussion we have been careful to avoid the terms of formal and creedal orthodoxy. This is not because the present writer is out of sympathy with these terms, but because he is trying to keep to the main impression produced by the New Testament. The fundamental scriptural fact is that in Jesus the early believers saw G.o.d; they came to rest in G.o.d as revealed in Christ. This is true of the picture of Christ in the earliest New Testament writings. Modern scholarship has not been able to find any doc.u.ments of a time when the disciples did not think of Jesus as the revealer of G.o.d. If the disciples had not thought of Jesus thus, they would have found little reason to write of him. Now the scriptural authors employ various terms to declare the unique intimacy of Christ with G.o.d. In these expositions Jewish and Greek and even Roman thought terms play their part. Pa.s.sages like the opening sentences of the fourth Gospel, or like the great chapter in the Philippians, are always profoundly satisfying and suggestive in their interpretation of the fundamental fact, but that fundamental fact itself is the all-essential --that in Christ the New Testament writers thought of themselves as having seen G.o.d, and as having gazed into the very depths of the spirit of the Father in heaven. Believing as we do, moreover, in the helpfulness of the creedal statements of the church, we must nevertheless avow that such statements are secondary to the impression made upon the biblical writers by actual contact with the Christ. We must not lose sight of the primacy of that impression as we study our Scriptures. We must not limit the glory of the impression itself by the limitations of some of the explanations which we undertake. Much harm has been done the understanding the Scriptures by speaking as if some of our creedal statements concerning Christ are themselves Scriptures! The scriptural Christ is greater than any creedal characterization of Christ thus far undertaken.
Of recent years an attempt has been made to prove that no such person as Jesus ever existed. The attempt has proved futile, but it has had a significance altogether different from what the propounders of the theory intended. The original aim was to show the contradictions of the testimony concerning Jesus and the inadequacies of the testimony to his existence as an historical Person. The result has been to show that the real significance of the Christ life is not to be found in any particular utterance, or in any specific deed, but in the total impact that he made upon the consciousness of man as suggesting the immediate presence of the Divine. The quality of the Christ life satisfies us in the inner depths as bearing witness to the quality of the G.o.d life. We have no sympathy with the views of the critics just mentioned; but we must say that no matter how the thought of G.o.d in Christ got abroad, no matter how mistaken our thought of the historical facts at the beginning of the Christian era, the belief in the Christlike G.o.d nevertheless did get abroad. There is no effacing that conception from the New Testament.
No matter what detailed changes in the narrative itself radical criticism may think itself capable of making, the door was opened wide enough in the Christ for the divine light to stream through. We said in the last chapter that the most important feature of the biblical revelation is G.o.d himself. We must now say that the supreme fact about G.o.d is Christ.
CHAPTER VI
THE BOOK OF THE CROSS
If the central feature of the Scriptures is their idea of G.o.d, and if the climax of the biblical revelation is Christ, the greatest fact about Christ from the point of view of the Bible is his cross. We say _fact_ advisedly, for we are not dealing with the theories that have sprung up to interpret the meaning of the cross. We are trying to deal solely with the direct impressions which seem to have been made upon the scriptural writers as to the place of the cross in the revealing movement.
We said in the last chapter that the Scriptures reach their climax in the doctrine that G.o.d is in Christ. The cross of Christ carries to most effective revelation the Christlike character of G.o.d. While we are not treating now the various creedal dogmas as to the person of Christ, we must not forget that those dogmas have essayed as part of their task the bringing of G.o.d close to men. The truth embodied in the text that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world is essential to knowing the Scriptures. We have seen that even as a warrior Jehovah was thought of as willing to bear his part of the burdens of the chosen people. We have seen growing the idea that Jehovah was under moral obligation to carry through the uplifting work which he had begun. We have seen prophets attain to glimpses of the meaning of suffering for the divine life, and we have beheld the culmination in the suffering of Christ. In those perplexing phrases of the creeds like, "Very G.o.d of very G.o.d," the aim of the church has been perfectly clear--to guard the scriptural idea that G.o.d was so truly in Christ that the sufferings of Christ were the sufferings of G.o.d. Even when least intelligible the pain of men becomes more easily borne if men can believe that in some real sense their pain is also the pain of G.o.d. That G.o.d is Christlike in capacity to suffer is in itself a revelation of no small consequence.
In the cross of Christ we see exalted with surpa.s.sing power the belief that G.o.d acts out of righteousness in his relation to the universe and to men. It must needs be that Christ suffer. The writers seem unable to escape the conviction that they are beholding the working of divinely inevitable moral necessities. These moral obligations are not to be conceived of as external to G.o.d or imposed on him from outside of himself. In the Scriptures they seem, rather, to be expressions of his own nature. When the writers of theories about the cross lay stress on those profound obligations of G.o.d toward moral law which must be discharged in the work of redemption, the Scriptural basis underneath such theories is the implication that G.o.d, by the very fact of what he is, must act righteously. His power is not his own in such sense that he can act from arbitrary or self-centered motives. The Judge of all the earth must do right, at whatever cost to himself. The Scriptures keep close to the thought of G.o.d as a supremely powerful Being under supreme responsibility in the use of his power. If we can believe the Scripture that in Christ we see G.o.d, and that the bearing, of Christ during his suffering reveals really and uniquely the bearing of G.o.d himself, we have a revelation of the grasp with which moral responsibility holds the Almighty against even any momentary slip into arbitrariness. Sometimes we hear the sufferings of Christ preached as a pattern of nonresistance for men. It is permissible thus to interpret the cross within limitations; but this is not the essential aspect of the cross, as explaining its hold on men. The all-important doctrine as to the use of power is hinted at in the Master"s word that he had but to call for legions of angels if he so chose. Under most extreme provocation the forces of the Almighty held to their appointed task. If the Almighty had been conceived of as a Despot or an Egotist, he would have been expected to resort at once to revengeful violence in the presence of such insults as those of the persecutors of the Son of G.o.d. The Source of all activity can hardly be conceived of as pa.s.sive; but the pa.s.sivity of the Christ of the cross suggests that no outrage by men can divert the almighty power from its moral purpose. This is really a gathering together and lifting on high of the doctrine of the Sermon on the Mount, that G.o.d maketh the sun to shine upon the just and the unjust, and causeth his rain to fall on the evil and the good. That is to say, while the Bible thinks of the cross as laying bare the Almighty"s reaction against evil, it also thinks of that cross as showing a G.o.d who will not be disturbed by any merely "personal" considerations. We behold the Almighty"s use of power for the advance of a moral kingdom. The Almighty is set before us as exerting all his power for the relief of men. The cross makes the profoundest revelation of the moral fixedness and self- control of G.o.d so long as we hold to the scriptural representation. It is to be regretted that many theological theories break away from the Scripture basis and build upon a.s.sumptions which are artificial, not to say unmoral: or, rather, in their striving after system they get away from the atmosphere of moral suggestiveness with which the Gospels and Epistles surround the cross. That G.o.d will do his part in the redemption of men is set before us in the cross. That part can be nothing short of making men yearn to be like Christ and of aiding them in their struggle for the Christlike character. It will be remembered that in the last chapter we called attention to the hopelessness of the Christian ideal viewed as an ideal in itself without a dynamic to help men to realize the ideal. If Christ is only to reveal to us the character toward which men are to strive, we are in despair. That one man has reached such perfection is in itself no promise that other men may reach that perfection. Moreover, the excellence of Christ is not only a moral excellence; or if it is moral excellence, that excellence involves a balance of intellectual attributes which is for us practically out of reach. Now, Christ is the ideal, but the ideal is one toward which we not only labor in our own strength, but one whose attainment by us is an object of solicitude for G.o.d himself. And so we see in the cross a patience which will bear with men to the utmost, and which will reenforce them as they press toward the goal. The glory of Christianity is largely hi the paradox that it sets before men an unattainable ideal and then commands them to attain the ideal. If the cross is nothing but a revelation of an ideal for men, this paradox is insoluble and intolerable. In the scriptural light of the cross, however, we catch the glory not of an abstract ideal, but of a Father"s love for his children --not of the commands of conscience in the abstract, but of the desires of a personal Friend who will lift men as they stumble and fall. The ground for this patience seems as we read to be in the very nature of G.o.d himself. G.o.d has brought men into this world without consulting them, he has dowered them with the terrific boon of freedom, he has set them in hard places; but he has done this out of a moral and loving purpose. He therefore makes more allowances for men than exacting men ever can make for themselves. He puts at the service of men so much of his power as they can appropriate by their moral effort. The Christ of the cross is taught as the truth about G.o.d--the G.o.d who is at once the supremely real and the supremely ideal places his powers at the service of men who would make their Christ-ideal progressively real in themselves.
The power of the Bible over men centers around the teaching that the cross not only reveals G.o.d as morally bound to redeem men, but that it also shows us the divine aim in redemption. Men are to be redeemed by seeking for forgiveness in the name of the moral life set on high by the cross, but the repentant soul is to show its sincerity by devotion to the task and spirit of cross-bearing. The aim of the cross is to bring men together into a fellowship of the cross, in a fellowship of suffering for the sake of the moral triumph to be won at the end. We are accustomed to think of suffering as implying the possibility of joy. The man who can feel keen sorrow can feel keen joy; they who have the power to weep have also the power to laugh. In the final kingdom the weeping shall be turned into joy. But, according to the Scriptures, it is not necessary for the disciples to wait until the consummation before entering into the joy of their Lord. There is an entrance to the divine mind through bearing the cross. Those who desired to learn of Christ as true disciples were expected to take up the cross and carry it daily.
The Master also declared that the disciples were to think of themselves as blessed when they endured persecution for righteousness" sake, for men had persecuted the prophets in all ages. The implication is that knowledge of and sympathy with the prophets came out of cross-bearing like that of the prophets. To use a simple ill.u.s.tration: a student of the careers of the leaders of any reform might gather a ma.s.s of information about the reformers in an outside kind of fashion, as by the study of books, or by visits to the scenes of their struggles. Such a student, however, could not master the inner spirit of a reformer"s life until he himself had battled for some cause at risk to himself. So the man who seeks to bear the cross of Christ is on the path to sympathetic inner knowledge of the spirit of Christ. In our second chapter we called attention to the truth that approach to knowledge of G.o.d is through the doing of the will of G.o.d. Doing of the will, according to Jesus, means much more than just a round of good deeds. It means carrying the burdens which are inevitable in cross-bearing. There is good reason for believing that the very highest step in spiritual learning is taken only through the willingness to bear the cross. In our modern educational systems we lay varying degrees of stress upon the importance of different methods of acquiring knowledge. There is at the bottom of the scale the method of mastering the instruction of the teacher by attention and reflection. There is, next, the method of learning through one"s own experiment--through using microscope or telescope or textbook for oneself. There are, further, the social aids to the quickening of the mind as groups of students study and discuss together. But the deepest knowledge comes as the student feels his sympathy and feeling involved. If he must pay himself out for the acquisition of the truth, or if he must defend his conclusions at great cost to himself, this experience which involves the feeling involves also the sharpening of the intellect. The eyes of the soul are opened to the subtler intuitions. Thus it is in the revelations of the divine purpose in the Scriptures. It is hard to make out how anybody can hope to master a revelation of a cross-bearing G.o.d without himself being a cross-bearer.
In the New Testament narratives of Pa.s.sion Week the Master is reported as winning his surest convictions of the presence of G.o.d and of the victory of his truth at the very instant when he entered into the extreme depths of suffering. In the after days it was when the saints faced stoning that they saw the heavens opening; it was the apostle who had suffered hardships almost too numerous to mention who got the most positive conviction of the reward which awaited him. In the school of Christ the very heaviest stress must fall upon the indispensability of cross-bearing as a means to understanding.
Not only does the biblical revelation see in the cross of Christ the culminating manifestation of the character of G.o.d, and of the purpose of G.o.d in redemption, but it also shows to us the divine method in helping men. We have spoken of those who dwell upon the Master"s nonresistance as a model of pa.s.sivity in the presence of evil. The example of Christ when thus treated is in danger of being misinterpreted. The Christ of the cross was pa.s.sive so far as physical force was concerned; but he was never more intensely active in the higher ranges of his faculties--in self-control and in alertness to the finer whisperings of the spirit.
The Christ"s non-resistance to the physical might of evil is not to be interpreted as acquiescence on the part of the Divine toward the ravages of evil, but, rather, as the divine method of thwarting evil by allowing it to reveal itself. No amount of preaching about the nature of evil can equal in eloquence the self-revelations of that nature as it works itself out into expression. While in a degree the self-revelation of evil put forth against Christ was unique, yet we must remember that the sins which put Christ to death are just those commonest in all time.
Judas was disappointed. He carried spite no more tenaciously than the ordinary heart is capable of treasuring it. Caiaphas desired simply to hold his own position and preserve the peace of his nation. Very likely the type of opinion in the midst of which Caiaphas moved would have p.r.o.nounced that he rendered a disagreeable, but nevertheless necessary patriotic service in his condemnation of Christ. Pilate too meant well, but was afraid of the crowd. His friends may have commended his administrative wisdom in allowing the people to have their own way. It was the play of just such ordinary forces of sin against an extraordinary holiness that made it impossible for the mightiest revelation ever vouchsafed to man to work through the earthly activity of Jesus for more than a few months. The Scripture does not have much to do with abstract sins; with concrete sins of men as we actually find them, it has much to do.
The Scriptures make it very clear that there is something which satisfies G.o.d himself in the work of redemption. G.o.d acts out of moral obligation, out of self-respect, out of love. But he acts always in respect for men as free moral beings. The cross appeals to the free spirit of men to behold the nature of evil, and to flee from that evil toward their redeeming G.o.d. If the redemption is to be a moral redemption, the last detail of the method must be moral. The power of the Almighty must not be used to break down freedom of men. It would be theoretically possible for an almighty power to bring to bear such pressures upon human wills as to crush them, but the strongest representation of the power of G.o.d in the New Testament does not go to the length of hinting at interference with the freedom of men. Men are to be saved as free men or not at all. We might conceivably imagine the Almighty as granting such indubitable vision of the material rewards of righteousness and the material loss of unrighteousness as would irresistibly draw ma.s.ses of a certain grade of men into the Kingdom without a morally free consent to righteousness. Or we might conceive of the Almighty as so weighing this or that factor of environment as to diminish almost to the vanishing point the free choice of men. This kind of compulsion would not be moral. The only compulsions of the cross are those of a moral G.o.d splendidly attractive on his own account.
It will have occurred to some readers by this time that we have said very little about the love of G.o.d in our discussion of the Scriptures, whereas that love is the outstanding feature of the biblical revelation.
Our reply is that we have been trying to be true to the impression made by the Scriptures as to the kind of love which we must think of as expressing the deepest fact in G.o.d"s life. We would not in the least minimize the truth that love is the last word of the scriptural revelation; but in our modern life we are apt to get away from the quality of the love revealed in the Bible. The love of the cross is built upon the righteousness which runs through the Sacred Book from the beginning to the end. A G.o.d of indifferent moral quality might love. The old Greek G.o.ds had favorites upon whom they lavished their affections. A G.o.d might be conceived of as an amiable and well-wishing father, foolishly indulgent toward his children. The love of the New Testament, however, is the love of a Father who dares to appeal to the children to make heroic response; and who shows his own love for them in the lengths to which he will go for them. Moral love will go the full length of heroic self-sacrifice. We cannot help believing that it is the quality of G.o.d"s love, rather than the mere fact of that love, which is the explanation of the power of the biblical teaching.
A friend of mine many years ago wrote a book which he called The Hero G.o.d. The publishers objected to the t.i.tle because they saw in it a touch of sensationalism. No t.i.tle, however, could have more adequately set forth the biblical G.o.d. G.o.d is the hero of the Bible. His heroism appears in growing revelation from the beginning. It shows itself superbly in his willingness to bear the burdens of mankind and in the appeals which he makes for response from men. The picture is of a G.o.d who dares to believe in men and who dares to call on them for the extremes of self-sacrificing devotion, not to himself as an arbitrary Person, but to himself as the center of the moral life which is above all other life worth while. It is open to anyone to object that this biblical picture does not necessarily hold good for G.o.d; but it is hardly possible to object that the picture is not biblical. The picture stands in its own right and makes its own appeal. The only way to test it in life is to yield to its appeal.
If we are asked to account for the power of the Bible, we are at a loss for any one single statement. The most compendious reply is the magnetism of the love of G.o.d as revealed in Christ. This is so broad, however, that it may not make a direct and vivid impression. We may say, then, that one element of the magnetism of the biblical revelation is the magnetism of the appeal to the heroic. Whatever else the Bible may or may not be, it is not a book of soft and easy things. Breaths of the most rigorous life blow across every page. It is made for man in that it calls men to the service of the highest and best. The religious systems which make the fewest and least demands upon their followers most speedily fall away; those that call for the utmost are most likely to meet the enthusiastic response. There is a frank honesty about the biblical appeal which holds a charm for all men in whom there are any sparks of real manhood. The severities of the Christian life are nowhere disguised. Men are never lured on by false pretenses. The path is the path of cross-bearing, and the reward is the comradeship between G.o.d and man as they together work toward the highest goal, a comradeship which of itself brings relief to men burdened with the mystery of the universe and agonized by remorse over sin. This essay is quite as significant for what it has not said as for what it has said. In our omissions we have tried to keep clear the main outlines of scriptural revelation. We have sought to hold fast to principles rather than to discuss details.
We have done this because we have believed that there is more value for religious understanding in pointing out the loftier biblical peaks which give the direction of the whole range than in tracing out pathways through detailed pa.s.sages. Moreover, we have been afraid to employ many theoretical terms lest we blur the quick moral impressions made by the Scripture phrasings. For example, it may be objected that our treatment of the character of G.o.d is altogether inadequate. We have not thus far said a word about the Trinity, for example, or about atonement. The reason is that we believe that any theories about G.o.d must base themselves upon the moral suggestions of the Scriptures; and our business is with these rather than with the theories. The received revelation concerning G.o.d would warrant us in fashioning any theory as to the richness of his inner const.i.tution which might even measurably satisfy our minds. The scriptural atmosphere as to the moral life in G.o.d must, however, be kept in the chief place in all of our theological theories. Atonement must be interpreted chiefly in terms of ethical steadiness if it is to build on a biblical foundation. But the instant we use formal terms like "Trinity" and "atonement" we have taken at least one step away from the Scriptures. Again, we have said nothing about Divine Providence. The Bible is full of instances of providences, but here also we have preferred to let the fundamental moral character of the biblical G.o.d speak for itself. We may have our own belief that there is no scriptural warrant for that separation which obtains in much theology between the processes of G.o.d and the processes of nature. We may admit that the Hebrew had no very systematically framed theory of the processes of nature, but he deemed G.o.d to be in such close touch with nature as easily to control its forces for a good end. In two accounts of the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites we have an apparent contradiction which is at bottom not a contradiction. In one account G.o.d seems to cause the waters to wall up on both sides of the Israelites in defiance of the laws of nature. In another G.o.d accomplishes the drying of the path through the blowing of a strong east wind. The Hebrew would not have troubled himself much with the apparent contradiction, for he would have conceived of G.o.d as the chief factor in either event, and of his purpose as having the right of way. There is thus no great value in discussing specific instances as long as the care of G.o.d for his children is the animating purpose of the entire biblical content. So with answers to prayer--the G.o.d who is willing to go for men to the lengths revealed in the cross will surely answer any prayer worth answering. The essential is to lift prayer up into harmony with the entire revealing and redeeming movement, and to conceive of it as a fitting of the whole life into the purposes of a moral G.o.d. Certain general requirements would always have to be met. Prayer would have really to deal with what is best for the individual, best for those around him, and most in harmony with the character of G.o.d himself. So, again, with the progress of the kingdom of G.o.d on earth--the G.o.d of whose nature the cross is the final revelation can be trusted to do the best possible for the Kingdom here and now. Much debate about the second coming of Christ misses the great moral principles which are the heart of the Christian revelation and loses itself in the incidental forms in which those principles were declared. The best preparation for the coming of the kingdom of Christ is absorption in the principles of Christ and in the spirit of Christ. To get away from these in our search for external and material conditions which are the mere vehicle of the biblical thought is not only to pursue a will-o"-the-wisp, but to injure true spiritual progress. Jesus has given us the spiritual principles which must control the destiny of any society here and now. In the light of the Christ-faith revealed in the cross we must not despair of the redemption of men by the city-full and by the nation-full, for the greatest confidence ever placed in men is the implied trust of the cross of Christ. The Almighty at the beginning paid an immense tribute to the human race when he flung it out into the gale of this existence. In the light of the cross we cannot believe that He expected the race to sink.
In the cross the Christ who revealed G.o.d"s own mind showed the length he was willing to go in confidence that men would finally turn to him with all the powers of their lives. To throw up our hands and say that the world is getting worse and we can do nothing without a speedy physical return of the Christ is to overlook the spiritual forces of the cross.
We have said nothing about immortality. What the Scriptures themselves say is largely incidental. The Master did not allow himself to be drawn into any extended conversation about the details of a future life, but he did give us the G.o.d of the cross. In the presence of that cross we can profess the utmost confidence in the eternal life of the sons of G.o.d, while at the same time acknowledging the utmost ignorance as to any of the material conditions of the future life. It is commonly a.s.sumed that the resurrection of Christ proves that we shall likewise rise, but the rising of Christ does not of itself prove that others shall rise.
The cross, however--showing the extent to which the Divine is willing to go for men--is the ground of our hope. G.o.d will not leave his loved ones to see corruption. In a word, the cross of Christ gathers up all the biblical truth. It is a revelation of G.o.d"s own character, of his hope for men, of the methods by which he seeks to win men, and of the ground of our faith in a right outcome for men and for society.
We may be permitted to summarize by saying that scientific and historical biblical study is a preparation for the knowledge of the Scriptures; that it is exceedingly important that the student approach with the correct preliminary point of view. The revelation of the inner significance, however, does not dawn until there is recognition of the need of obedience to the principles laid down in the Scriptures. And this obedience must be broad enough to include zeal for the uplift of our fellow men in all phases of their lives. Out of righteous living the devoted life, we believe, will see that the greatest fact of the Bible is G.o.d; that the greatest fact of G.o.d is Christ; that the greatest fact of Christ is the cross.