Christus consummator : some aspects of the work and person of Christ in relation to modern thought

Preface

HHHE Sermons in the present volume, with the exception of the last, were preached in Westminster Abbey during my residence in August 1885 and January 1886. I have en¬ deavoured in them to guide others to lines of thought which I have myself found to lead to that sure hope which we can reach through patience and through comfort of the Scriptures. I have added as an Appendix a Sermon preached at Cambridge, which was designed to give a practical application of this teaching.

The broad lessons of the Epistle to the Hebrews appear to me to shew how much that seems to be loss in regard to our religious circum¬ stances proves to be gain by turning our minds from things temporal and provisional to Christ Himself. I sought therefore first to indicate these in a general outline, and then afterwards to point out a little more in detail some special aspects of the Person and Work of Christ which correspond with the wants of our own position.

The delays, the failures, the sorrows which beset the great life of humanity can be borne gladly if we are allowed even from afar to recognise the Presence of Christus Consummator. The things of time are transfigured in the light of eternity.

The last words of the Founder of the Abbey express with pathetic force one side of the Truth. ‘Weep not,’ he said to the Queen sobbing by his side, ‘Weep not my daughter. For I shall not die but live ; and as I leave the land of the dying, I trust to see the blessings of the Lord in the land of the living.’ The vision of that unchang¬ ing order is given to us even here in the Gospel. Father. .., the Lord said of His disciples, This is the life eternal, that they know Thee the only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.

B. F. W.

Divinity School, Cambridge.

May 24th, 1886.

CHEISTUS CONSUMMATOB,

I. Lessons From An Epoch Of Change

I. The trials of a new age.

PAGE

The trials of the Hebrews . .4

Their consolation in wider views of Christ’s Person and

Corresponding trials among ourselves from problems of

criticism, of history, of life ..... 7

Their fruits ......... 9

The revelation of Christus Consuvimator a revelation for

The necessity and blessing of progress in religious thought 13

II. The destiny of man fulfilled by Christ through suffering.

Contrasts of man’s destiny and condition ... 20

These contrasts deepened by experience .... 21

dealt with by the Gospel . . 23

Christ in His humanity made perfect through sufferings 24 His Life the revelation of the virtue of suffering . . 25

the pattern and support of sufferers . . . .27

Transfiguration of suffering through love . .28

The power of suffering . 29

Vlll

Index

III. The King Priest.

PAGE

Man’s need of forgiveness and strengthening .

A priesthood instituted to offer sacrifices and gifts

Levitical institutions .....

The Day of Atonement ....

id.

What was implied in the loss of its consolation

How this loss was repaired by Christ

He is in heaven King and Priest

The power of the double office

Authority ......

Compassion ......

The temptation to cling to earthly symbols

The call addressed to us

IV. The Universal Society.

One symbol of the Day of Atonement unfulfilled

.

We wait for the return of our High Priest from

the

Presence of God .....

•

We are in an attitude of expectancy id.

But we have attained also ....

•

We have entered into a manifold spiritual fellowship

The consolation for the Hebrews

Corresponding help to us

•

id.

The order to which we are admitted heavenly and gracious

The power of the spiritual ....

•

The graciousness of the revelation of Christ .

•

id.

Christies Consummator .....

•

V. The New Covenant.

The conditions of personal service .

The Old Covenant and the New

•

•

The Sacraments of Incorporation and Support

•

•

Peculiarities of the treatment of the Sacraments

in

the

Epistle .......

•

•

id.

Index. ix

PAGE

Two passages bring out characteristic thoughts . . 70

Christians are priests . id.

Christ who was our sin-offering is our Support . . 71

The Christian’s sacrifice fulfilled in Christ ... 72

The Christian’s failures redeemed by Christ ... 74

The victory of the early Christians a pattern for our

warfare . . . . .77 it.

ASPECTS OF THE INCARNATION.

I. The Incarnation a subject for devout study.

Plato’s Vision of Truth . 83

The Vision realised in the Gospel ..... 84

The Truth by which we live must be continuously studied id. The example of the Mother of the Lord .... 85

The Revelation of Godliness an infinite subject of thought 87

1. The spirit in which we study it . . .88

Love quickened by Faith . id.

Unreconciled antitheses ...... 89

The Truth belongs to two worlds .... id.

The sight of the pure in heart . . . .id.

2. The aim of study vital not purely intellectual . 90

3. The blessing of study . 91

Sense of the spiritual quickened by meditation on

the Incarnation . 92

External evils can be borne . id.

The power of wonder given back with the sense of

the dignity of life . 93

The temporal touched by the eternal . . . id.

A long discipline ....... 94

Grace for grace ....... 95

X

Index.

II. The Incarnation and the Creation.

PAGE

The Christian conception of God determined by the

Incarnation, a fact of infinite meaning ... 99

Difficulties mark the direction of progress . . . 100

The tendencies of an age Divine signs .... 101

Prevalent striving after unity ...... id.

False unities move us towards the true .... 102

Imperfect views of the Incarnation . . . . .id.

The breadth of the view in Holy Scripture . . . 103

The Incarnation involved in Creation, not dependent on

the Fall . . 104

This Truth illuminates our conception of God . . 106

of human life ...... id.

of personality ...... 107

of the world . . id.

of the future ...... id.

the Atonement . . 108

It brings a true unity to all things ..... 109

Our system of Theology becomes Theocentric . . id.

In that assurance lies strength for work . . . .110

III. The Incarnation and the Fall.

The original Gospel of Creation . 115

Human development interrupted ..... 116

Two-fold consciousness of a fall . . . . .id.

Is there then a fulfilment of man’s destiny ? . . . 117

The answer of St Paul ....... 118

The answer in part intelligible . . . . .id.

But how can suffering be vicarious and just ? . . . 119

The idea of solidarity : the social life of the family, the

nation, the race ....... 120

Revelation of the value of suffering ..... 122

of self-sacrifice ...... 123

Index.

xi

PAGE

Human experience enables us to understand the suffering

The perfection of the Lord’s humanity .... id.

In Him forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation . . 125

The Gospel answers to the Fall ..... 126

The will of God ........ 127

IY. The Incarnation and Nature.

Consequences of the solidarity of humanity . . . 131

The connexion of Man with Nature .... 132

This truth fully recognised in Scripture .... 133

A double use has been made of it . . . .134

Tendency towards a recognition of a larger life . . id.

Nature waits for man’s redemption sharing in his pain . 135

1. A common life in creation ..... 136

2. This life fulfilled in pain, waste, conflict, incom¬

pleteness . 137

3. This pain the travail-pain of a new order . . 138

Observed progress of humanity .... 139

of nature . 140

The thought of the Incarnation in this connexion most

Our responsibility . id.

Y. The Incarnation and Life.

The results gained . ... . . . . . 147

The widest visions of Truth are for use .... 148

Thought is crowned by action . . . . . .id.

The lessons of the Incarnation reach to the individual . 149

In Christ is the perfection of every possible attainment of

Each man receives from Him according to his capacity . id. The perfect humanity of Christ . . . . .151

No relief from lowering our ideal ..... 152

Xll

Index.

PAGE

The believer gains the mind of Christ . . . .153

‘ Grace for grace’ the law of revelation .... 154

So the Incarnation leads us to realise the unseen . . 155

Thus the individual life gains in importance both as a

whole and in its parts . id.

and we are enabled to bear the burden of its issues . 156

The Incarnation not an event only but a Truth . . 157

The Incarnation reconciles the antitheses of current

Appendix

The vision of Gocl the call of the Prophet.

The Festival of the Holy Trinity . 163

1. The vision of God the call of the prophet . .164

The call of Isaiah ....... id.

Its significance for us ..... 166

Our need of the lesson . . . . . .167

The mystery of God . . . . . .169

2. The vision of God the message of the prophet . 170

The Incarnation a growing message . . .171

It has new meaning for us .... 172

3. The vision of God the chastening of the prophet . 174

Dangers of boldness ... . . .id.

Our duty . 176

CHRISTUS CONSUMMATOR I.

LESSONS FROM AN EPOCH OF CHANGE.

I. The trials of a new age .

II. The destiny of man fid filed by Christ through suffering.

III. The King Priest.

IV. The universal Society.

V. The New Covenant.

W.

This word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain.

Hebr. xii. 27.

THE TRIALS OF A NEW AGE .

T7WERY age which is moved by the Spirit of God feels keenly the searching, chastening power of that Divine Presence. “ He that is near Me,” the Lord is reported to have said, “ is near fire.” And we cannot hope to enjoy the splendour of a fuller, purer light without enduring the pain which necessarily comes from the removal of the veils by which it was obscured. Gain

through apparent loss ; victory through moment¬ ary defeat ; the energy of a new life through pangs of travail ; such has ever been the law of spiritual progress. This law has been fulfilled in every crisis of reformation ; and it is illustrated for our learning in every page of the New Testa¬ ment.

But in no apostolic writing is the truth un¬ folded with such pathetic force as in the Epistle to the Hebrews. And so it is, I think, that that mysterious “word of consolation” appeals to us with a voice of thrilling power in our time of

1—2 i.

Did. in Ps . lxxxviii. 8.

John xvi. 21 f.

Hebr. xiii. 22.

Ghristus Consummator.

i. trial, when the law of progress, the law of fruit¬ fulness through death, seems to be hastening to a fresh fulfilment. The student of that

Epistle cannot but observe that no men were ever called upon to endure greater sacrifices, to surrender more precious hopes, to bear deeper disappointments, than those to whom it was first addressed. Men who had lived in the light of the Old Testament, men who had known the joy of a noble ritual, men who had habitually drawn near to God in intelligible ways, men who had but lately welcomed Him in Whom they believed that the glory of Israel should be con¬ summated, were most unexpectedly required to face what seemed to them to be the forfeiture of all that they held dearest. The letter of

Scripture, the worship of the temple, the expect¬ ations of national triumph, had to be abandoned. The heirs of the patriarchs, when they first felt that they were entering on their inheritance, were compelled, if they remained Christians, to accept the position of outcasts from the ancient commonwealth of God, and to confess themselves followers of One crucified and rejected, Who delayed to assume His throne.

And what then ? They could not but begin to reckon up their loss and gain. The fresh enthusiasm of their early faith had died away in

Hebr. x. 32 ff.

The trials of a new age.

the weary waiting of a lifetime. They had in i. part degenerated because they had not grown. ^ebl* But they were not uncared for in the crisis of their peril. Out of the darkness of the gathering storm, in which the Holy Place was to be for ever swept away, came a voice which interpreted the sad riddles of their fate. Under the

guidance of a nameless apostle, the Hebrews were enabled to see how the sufferings of Christ were not a difficulty in the way of His Messiahship, to be compensated by a visible triumph, but the very pledge of the fulfilment of the destiny of I man in spite of sin; to see how the unbelief of Israel opened the way for the larger unfolding of the world-wide counsels of God; to see how in giving up type and shadow they secured the real¬ ities which these signified; to see how things visible and transitory were replaced by things unseen and eternal ; to see how above the vanish¬ ing grace of the Levitical service rose in supreme and sovereign majesty the figure of the ascended Christ, Priest and King for ever, seated at the right hand of God, infinite in sympathy and power.

Now when we read the apostolic words, and picture to ourselves the sorrows which they illuminated — when we feel that in the portraiture of the perils of early believers we have the record

Christus Gonsummator.

i. of true human struggles, and know that the essential elements of human discipline must al¬ ways be the same — we cannot, I think, fail to recognise in the trials of the Hebrews of the first age an image of the peculiar trials by which we are beset; and so by their experience we may gain the assurance that for us also there is the promise of larger wisdom where they found it in

Hebr. xii. wider views of Christ’s Person and Work, that the removal of those things that are shaken is brought about in order that those things which are not shaken may remain in serener and simpler beauty.

If we look at the circumstances of the Hebrews a little more closely we shall notice that the severity of their trials came in a great degree from mistaken devoutness. They had

determined, in obedience to traditional opinion, what Scripture should mean, and they found it hard to enter into its wider teaching. They

had determined that institutions which were of Divine appointment must be permanent, and they found it hard to grasp the realities by which the forms of the older worship were re¬ placed. They had determined that Christ’s

sovereignty should be openly vindicated by the victorious faith of God’s people, and they found it hard to hold their belief firm against the general unbelief of their fellow-countrymen.

The trials of a new age.

Now in these respects, we cannot, as I said, fail to recognise that the difficulties of the Hebrews correspond with our own. For I am speaking now of the difficulties of those who hold to their first faith, and are yet conscious of shakings, changes, losses, of the removing of much which they formerly identified with it. Many among us, for example, tremble

with a vague fear when they find that that “ Divine Library,” in the noble language of Jerome, which we call the Bible — “the Books” — “ the Book ” — cannot be summarily separated by a sharp, unquestionable line from the other liter¬ ature with which it is connected; that the text and the interpretation of the constituent parts have not been kept free from corruptions and ambiguities which require the closest exercise of critical skill ; that deductions have been habitually drawn from incidental modes of expression in Scripture which cannot be maintained in the light of that fuller knowledge of God’s working which He has given us.

Others again find the historical problems raised by the study of the Bible carried into a wider region. They learn in the turmoil of action, and they learn in the silence of their own souls, that the Faith can no longer be isolated and fenced off from rude questionings as something

^ to

Christas Consummator.

i. separate from common life. They perceive tfcat they must bear, as they can, to see the deepest foundations of truth laid open and tested by im¬ petuous inquirers ; bear, as they can, to acknow¬ ledge once and again that formulas which, in earlier times, seemed to declare the Gospel ade¬ quately, no longer cover the facts of the world as they have been revealed to us in these later days.

And others have a more grievous trial still. As their view of the world is widened ; as they come to understand better the capacities of humanity and the claims of Christ ; as they are driven to compare the promises of the kingdom of God with the present fruits of its sway ; as they feel that they cannot separate themselves from the race of which they are heirs ; as they look upon the light, still after eighteen centuries John i. 5. struggling (as it appears) against eclipse, their heart may well sink within them. We cannot wonder if such are tempted to ask with those of Pet. iii. old times, Where is the promise of His coming ? or to listen with little more than the sad protest of a lonely trust to the bold assertions of those who say that the Faith has exhausted its power in dealing with the facts of an earlier and simpler civilization.

There is not, I believe, one who reads these words — not one who looks with calm, open eyes

The trials of a new age.

upon the spectacle of the world and the nearer vision of his own nature — who has not been stirred by the anxious thoughts which I have indicated, and asked how they shall be met, met not by a strong effort of overmastering will, but with that quiet confidence which is able to welcome every lesson of the discipline of God. And what then shall we say ? How shall we escape the double danger which besets us, of hastily surrendering every position which is boldly challenged, or of rigidly refusing to consider arguments which tend to modify traditional opinion ?

I do not doubt for one moment as to my answer. I bid those who are tempted to accept their trials with the frankest trust, as the condi¬ tions through which they will be brought to know God better. I have been forced by

the peculiar circumstances of my work to regard from many sides the difficulties which beset our historic Faith. If I know by experience their significance and their gravity ; if I readily allow that on many points I wish for fuller light ; then I claim to be heard, when I say without reserve that I have found each region of anxious trial fruitful in blessing : that I have found my devout reverence for every word of the Bible quickened and deepened, when I have acknowledged that it demands the exercise of every faculty with which

Ghristus Consunimator.

I have been endowed, and, that as it touches the life of man at every point, it welcomes, for its fuller understanding, the help which comes from every gain of human knowledge ; that I have found my absolute trust in the Gospel of the Word Incarnate confirmed with living power, when I have seen with growing clearness that no phrases of the schools can adequately express its substance, or do more than help men provisionally to realise some part of its relation to thought and action ; when I have learnt through the researches of students in other fields to extend the famous words of the Roman dramatist, and say “ Ghristianus sum : niliil in rerum natura a me alienum puto ” — “ I am a Christian ; and therefore nothing in man and nothing in nature can fail to command the devotion of my reverent study” — ; that I have found, even in the slow and fitful progress of the Church, which still does move forward, a spring of hope, when I turn, as I must turn from time to time, to take count of the unutterable evils of great cities, and great nations, and whole continents, which wait for atonement and re¬ demption in the longsuffering and wisdom of God. Yes, if, as I have endeavoured to

shew, our trials, the trials of a new age, correspond with those of the Hebrews, the consolation which availed for them, avails for us also. We shall find

The trials of a new age.

in due course, as they found, that all we are i. required to surrender — child-like prepossessions, venerable types of opinion, partial and impatient hopes — is given back to us in a new revelation of Christ ; that He is being brought nearer to us, and shewn in fresh glory, through the “fallings from us, vanishings of sense and earthly things” which we had been inclined to identify with Himself.

There is a picture with which we are all familiar, in which Christ seated in glory is repre¬ sented as dispensing His gifts to the representa¬ tives of suffering humanity. From His hands the slave receives freedom and the sick health : the mourner finds rest in His sympathy, old men peace, children joy. “ Ghristus Consolator ” is indeed an image which touches every heart. But it is not the whole Gospel ; it is not, I venture to think, the particular aspect of the Gospel which is offered by the Spirit of God to us now for our acknowledgment. Sin, suffering, sorrow, are not the ultimate facts of life. These are the work of an enemy ; and the work of our God and Saviour lies deeper. The Creation stands behind Gen. i. 27.

the Fall, the counsel of the Father’s love behind the self-assertion of man’s wilfulness. And I believe that if we are to do our work we must learn to think, not only of the redemption of man,

Christus Consummator.

i. but also of the accomplishment of the Divine purpose for all that God made. We must learn to Eph. i. 10. think of that summing up of all things in Christ, in the phrase of St Paul, which crowns the last aspirations of physicist and historian with a final benediction. We must dare, in other words, to look beyond Christ the Consoler to Christ the Fulfiller. Christus Consolator — let us thank God for the revelation which leaves no trial of man unnoticed and unsoothed — leads us to Christus Consummator.

This thought of “ Christ the Fulfiller” is, as it seems to me, the characteristic teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The author of that marvellous book, speaking to the heart with a pathos to which the prophecy of Jeremiah offers the only parallel in the Bible, shews us in many ways how He through whom God made the world in all the rich variety of its growing life, has been appointed heir of all things ; how He has fulfilled the destiny of men in spite of the inroad of sin, and borne humanity to the throne of the Father ; cc.iv.14ff.; how in the plenitude of royal majesty He appears

ix 24

before God for those whose nature He has taken to Himself; how in Him we have present access to a spiritual society, in which earth and heaven, men and angels, are united in a glorious fellow¬ ship ; how He has given us for our daily support

The trials of a new age.

a covenant and a service, which transfigure the i.

conditions of our conflict into sacraments of a C?:.V111J: b ;

higher order.

These, then, are the four thoughts which I wish to follow out in due succession. They meet our difficulties, as far as I can judge, with messages of widened hope, as they met the difficulties of the Hebrews. They enable us to realise with a personal and present conviction, that the Spirit of God is even now taking of the John xvi. things of Christ, and shewing them unto us ; that we too are living in an age of revelation, and called to listen to a Divine voice.

And if the thoughts seem strange to any, and removed from the familiar circle of religious reflection ; if they require devout patience for their mastering ; if they add an element of infinite interest to the commonest details of life, and therefore claim the tribute of complete self¬ surrender ; let us remember that progress is still, as in the first age, the essence of our faith. We have to gather little by little the fruits of a victory in which Christ has overcome the world. The Hebrews were, as we have

seen, in danger of apostasy, because they failed to go forward. And that we may be shielded from the like peril, the words which were spoken to them are spoken also to us: let us be borne on to Hebr.vi.l.

Ghristus Consummator.

Eom. viii. 37.

John xvii. 3 ; 1 John v. 20.

perfection , not simply “ let us go on,” or even “ let us press on,” as if the advance depended on the vigour of our own effort, but “let us be borne on,” “ borne on” with that mighty influence which waits only for the acceptance of faith, that it may exert its sovereign sway, “ borne on” by Him whose unseen arms are outstretched beneath the most weary and the weakest, “borne on” by Him who is the Way and the End of all human endeavour.

And as we are thus “borne on,” as we yield ourselves, yield every gift of mind and body, of place and circumstance, yield all that we cherish most tenderly, to the service of Him in Whom we are made more than conquerors, let us not fear that we shall lose the sense of the vastness of the Divine life in our glad consciousness of its immediate power. We assuredly shall

not fail in reverent gratitude to our fathers for the inheritance which they have bequeathed to us, while we acknowledge that it is our duty to improve it. We shall not disparage the

past, while we accept the inspiring responsibility of using to the uttermost the opportunities of the present. We shall cling with the simplest

devotion to every article of our ancient Creed, while we believe, and act as believing, that this is eternal life , that we may know — know, as the

The trials of a new age.

original word implies, with a knowledge which is extended from generation to generation, and from day to day, — the only true God and Jesus Christ.

By the pursuit of this knowledge we come to recognise that the difficulties which press us most sorely are really the discipline through which God is teaching us : veiled promises of coming wisdom. We learn through the living lessons of our own experience that the eternal Gospel covers the facts of life, its sorrows, its needs, its joys, its wealth. Through every conflict the Truth is seen in the majesty of its growing vigour. Shakings, shakings not of the earth only but of the heaven, will come ; but what then ? We know this, that all that falls is taken away, that those things which are not shaken may remain.

II. The Destiny Of Man Fulfilled By Christ Through Suffering

w.

Not unto angels did he subject the world to come , whereof we speak. But one hath somewhere testified , saying , What is man , that thou art mindful of him ? Or the son of man , that thou visitest hint ? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels ; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he subjected all things unto him , he left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we see not yet all things subjected to him. But we behold him who hath been made a little lower than the angels , even Jesus , because of the suffering of death crowned \ with glory and honour , that by the grace of God he should taste death for every man. For it became him , for whom are all things , and through whom are all things , in bringing many sons unto glory , to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

THE DESTINY OF MAN FULFILLED BY CHRIST THROUGH SUFFERING.

rTIHE form of the Epistle to the Hebrews is unique among the writings of the New Tes¬ tament. Without preface and without salutation the Apostolic author opens the innermost treasury of God, and brings out things new and old. He boldly re-affirms, with abrupt and majestic elo¬ quence, the glory of the Christian Faith, by dis¬ closing a fuller prospect of the person and the work of Christ. He shews how the manifold lessons of earlier revelation were crowned by the coming of Him who was not servant but Son, the Maker and Heir of the world. He shews how the angels, through whose ministry the Law was given, waited to do homage to Him, proclaimed King of the renovated order. He shews how our