The divine life : its development and activities

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Contents

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/ Some minor purposes Christ accomplished

by His coming 11

CHAPTER I Some minor purposes Christ Accomplished by His

Coming.

Lo, I come to do thy will, God." (Heb. 10:9.)

THERE is one great, infinitely great, event in the world's history, one towards which all preceding history points forward and from which all subsequent events are dated — the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. For what purpose did he come ? There must have been a necessity great enough to warrant, to require, such an event.

In answering this question we may first consider some subsidiary, collateral, purpose which he did accomplish.

It is said that he came to teach. He was a teacher, a Master teacher. "Never man spake like this man," was the amazing reply of those who were sent to entangle him in his talk. But one amazing fact is that he never uttered one new truth. Not one truth did he ever speak that was not the common property of mankind as recorded in the Bible, the Old Testament Scriptures as we have them now, and that they then had. But the surprising thing was his mastery of those truths, and his speaking them as if they were his own original utterances. In fact they were. They were truths that he had caused to be recorded centuries before in their scriptures. It is true that he said, "A new commandment I give unto you." But it was only the example of love that he was giving that was new. Observe, he says, "As I have loved you." They were f amiHar with the law of love. When a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, saying, "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus asked him what was written in the law. The lawyer answered by quoting from the book of Deuteronomy, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself." Jesus said, "Thou hast answered right, this do and thou shalt live." They were familiar with the law but the new exemplification of it was new to the world.

Again, his example is spoken of as the great purpose that he came to serve. It is true that he set a perfect example. His life must have been sinless, or by his death he could have atoned for no sins but his own. But in many particulars his example should not or cannot be followed by us. He was infinite in wisdom, in heart discerning, in power. He could condemn hypocrisy, Pharisaism and other sins in the concrete ; but we cannot, for we do not know the hearts of men as he knew them. He could forgive sins. We cannot, we have not the right. He wrought miracles, even to raising the dead. We cannot, we have not the power. The world had better examples of righteous living then than they had ever followed.

There was Enoch, who walked with God "And was not for God took him." There was Noah and his family. There was Abraham, "The friend of God." There was Isaac, who was a type of Christ in his willingness to be offered up as a sacrifice in obedience to his father. There was Daniel against whom no fault is recorded and whose righteousness was manifested by the expressed consciousness of his sinfulness as he says, "And while I was praying and confessing my sins and the sins of my people," and so on. There were many more, even those whose conduct has been criticised, who seem to have been more highly esteemed of God than their critics.

But the content of Christ's example has never been fully grasped, as, indeed, it can hardly be, by the finite mind. One who had never seen a watch might look at the outside of it and think it to be very simple, very easy to pattern after but when the watch is opened and its complicated structure, its content, is revealed, the difficulty of copying it is seen.

So with the life of Christ. Within the apparently simple exterior there is a complexity of detail that only an inspired writer could outline and the most profound intellect could explain.

But this may be touched upon at another time. Again there are his wonderful works for the relief of suffering. But he did not need to become incarnate to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers or even to raise the dead. He had as much power before his incarnation as when he was in the flesh. He could have healed any disease or relieved any human suffering without leaving his home on high. He was moved with compassion at human suffering and relieved it as any of us would have done or would do if we had the power. But there was another object in view, another object attained, that of proving his character and establishing his claims as the Son of God. "The works that I do in my Father's name they bear witness of me." There was nothing that he did while he was in the flesh that he could not have done without taking on that robe of flesh.

But the great, what we may call the supreme, subsidiary purpose for which he came to earth in the form of man, was to make an atonement for sin so that God could be just and yet to justify, to treat as just or innocent, those who would come to him through Chrrist, or accept that sacrifice that Jesus Christ made on Calvary. But the atonement of Christ is the offense of the cross. There is no doctrine, and even in this age of the world I am not ashamed of the term "doctrine," or I may say, no truth recorded in the scriptures of truth that is more hard for human nature to receive than the declared truth of the atonement of Christ. It is so humihating to human pride, so opposed to human choice, to depend for salvation upon the atonement of Christ that many will not receive the truth. And yet its necessity is founded in the very nature of things. The whole patriarchal dispensation had reference to it, the whole Jewish dispensation was founded upon the fact that satisfaction must be made to Divine Justice before sins could be forgiven or men could be at peace with God. The sacrifice of Abel was a type of the one on Calvary. All of the sacrifices in the whole Jewish dispensation were but the types of the great Antitype, him who was made an "offering and a sacrifice for sin."

No truth was more the object of prophecy in the Old Testament, no truth more emphasized in the New, than that Christ was ofifered up as an offering and a sacrifice for sin. The doctrine is not simply Paul's. It is more emphatically the teaching of Him who said that he came "Lutron anti pollon," a sacrifice, instead of, in the place of, many.

If the doctrine of the vicarious sacrifice of Christ as an atonement for sin is not a truth it is impossible for God to express his thoughts to men, or for the Greek language to convey a definite idea.

One difficulty in accepting this truth is the difficulty of perceiving why it should be true. This difficulty arises from an inadequate conception of the scope of God's government.

There are unnumbered millions of sentient beings who have never been clothed with the vestments of the flesh, beings who existed before the material universe was brought into being. All must be and are under the government of God. Have all submitted to that government as loyal subjects? Evidently not. Christ says, "I

The Divine Life: Its Development and Activities IS

beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." And he had his myriads of followers. There are wicked spirits in the vniiverse. How did they become such ? God never made a wicked spirit any more than he made a wicked man. He made beings, spirits and humans, innocent ; but their character must be determined by their own voluntary choice. God never made a wicked being as such. They make their own characters. That is the case with men. In the very nature of things this must be the case with unincarnate beings. They become wicked by following the selfish impulses of their own natures. But God must be just. He is supreme and every being must be subservient to him. "Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne." As a necessary consequence rebellion against God's authority was punished, or, at least, for the good of those yet innocent the prime mover of sedition with all his followers was excluded from heaven and sent to "The place prepared for the Devil and his angels." This view is not simply Miltonic ; it is scriptural, reasonable, and in some of its phases, in accordance with human experience. On the occasion of that revolt in heaven, we may imagine God as saying to himself, or to the constituents of his being, "Let us make man in our likeness." For the developing of a race of beings that should be immune from temptation or above its power when they should come to their final state, he constructed the entire physical universe. This unverse was designed as the home of a race of beings "A little lower than the gods." Those beings were clothed with material bodies, thus subjecting them to a new discipline for developing stronger characters in righteousness.

There are temptations of the flesh that are not incident to pure unincarnate spirits. All of this physical universe was constructed with reference to the training of this new race of beings. But if one of these beings transgressed the law of God, the same consequences must follow as followed the transgressions of unembodied spirits, or God would be unjust. Sin must be followed by penalty in the physical universe as it was in the unseen world of spirits. If God punished the "Angels who kept not their first estate," he must do the same for man. I speak of Justice. That is not a merely arbitrary idea of God. It is inherent in his nature as God, and its exercise is absolutely essential for the highest interest of all of his creatures.

Now, whether this view be correct or not, there are legions, myriads, of spiritual beings, both good and bad, who were and are to be witnesses of God's dealings with the race of beings which he brought into being. So God's righteousness must be vindicated before angels and men. Justice must be administered, or the government of God would be despised and anarchy would result in all the universe of seen and unseen beings.

But "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." How then can any one escape the consequences? The problem was too deep for the jurists of old. God solved the problem, it was by the vicarious sacrifice of Christ.

So Jesus died,

"Making His soul an offering for sin;

Just for unjust, and innocence for guilt ;

By doing, suffering, dying unconstrained.

Save by omnipotence of boundless grace.

Complete atonement made to God appeased ;

Made honorable His insulted law,

Turning the wrath aside from pardoned man ;

Thus truth with Mercy met, and righteousness,

Stooping from highest heaven, embraced fair Peace

That walked the earth in fellowship with Love."

Thus the greatest subsidiary purpose for which Christ came was accomplished.

The supreme purpose for which he came must next be considered.

Chapter II

The Supreme Purpose For Which Christ Came Into The World.

" I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly."

These remarkable words of Christ have not generally been fully understood. What does He mean by saying that He was come that they might have life? He was not addressing dead corpses, nor was he speaking of those who were physically dead, or in the sense in which we usually speak of the dead. He evidently did not mean that he would restore to physical life those who were in their graves. They were not his sheep. Those of whom he spoke were those who followed him, loved him, his disciples. The question again recurs, What does he mean ? For an answer we must go back to Gen. II. God breathed into Adam the breath of life and he became a living soul. That was the impartation to our first parent of life from God, God's own life. But God said that if he, Adam, ate of the forbidden fruit that he should die. Satan said that he should not die. Which told the truth ? According to the popular, the common conception, Satan told the truth and God told the wrong story. Adam did not die a physical death for nearly a thousand years afterward. Did God then tell a wrong story? No. "Let God be true, though every man be a liar." The truth is that God was speaking of the Eternal life principle that God imparted when He breathed into Adam "The breath of life and he became a living soul."

Adam was already a human being, he had animal, even more, he had the human life principle already. But added to this God imparted to him of His own life. That was eternal life, eternal in the sense that it never had a beginning and would never have an end. It was the impartation of God's own life principle. That was the life of which God spoke when He told Adam that he should die the day he disobeyed. When Adam received that life from God he was a child of God. Our children are our children because we have imparted to them of our own life. When God imparted to Adam his life, Adam was a child of God. He then was a partaker of the Divine nature and not until then. Parents impart of their lives to their children. God imparted of His life to our first parents.

It is necessary here to observe that this life principle is not simply different as to duration, continuance, it is different in kind. Its nature is different, it produces different results from the merely human life.

Anything that has life will produce results according to the life principle it contains. There may be millions of protoplasmic cells so nearly alike that no microscopic, no chemical test could detect the difference. Yet one in its development would produce a toadstool, another an oak.

No two of millions might develop in the same way or produce like results. But each one produces results according to its own peculiar life principle. Conversely, each product partakes of the life principle of the parent. I may repeat a thought here for emphasis. When God breathed into Adam the breath of life and he became a living soul, He imparted to him the principle of the God life that would develop Godlike character and produce the fruits of holiness. Godlike living.

It was this life of which God spoke and warned Adam, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Satan said, "Ye shall not surely die." Which told the truth? Upon the surface of things Satan told the truth, for, as said before, Adam lived for many years after that. But God was speaking of the God inbreathed principle of eternal life, God's own life imparted to him. That life went out. In the sense of the God imparted life Adam was dead. And that was death in the supreme sense, the separation of the soul from the body is called ■death by way of accommodation ; there is no better term, perhaps, to employ. But that God given life was life in the supreme sense, its extinction was death in the supreme sense. In that sense Adam was dead. God told the truth. And now what followed? No created being can impart to its offspring a kind of life that itself does not possess. Adam could not impart to his offspring the principle of the God life, the eternal life, for after his transgressions he did not have it. This is the philosophy of the fact that Paul expresses, "In Adam all died." His posterity would have life of a kind, but not that kind that was of God, the principle of eternal life. If his offspring ever had that kind of life it must be by direct impartation from God. And so it came about that "In Christ must all be made alive."

That men might be made alive in that sense was the supreme purpose for which Christ came, suffered, died and rose again. After Christ had accomplished his work, God could be just and the justifier, or would be able to treat as just or innocent all who would come to him through Christ. Adam was innocent when God imparted to him that life. By accepting the work of Christ we may be treated as innocent. Accepting that life we become the children of God in a new and unique sense. We are then the children of God because He has imparted his own life to us and we are his children as those to whom we impart life are our children. "But as many as received him to them he gave power to be- ■come the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

Then we are in no semi-fictitious mythical or mysterious sense, but really, truly, actually, the children of God and partakers of the Divine nature.

So Christ says, "I am come that they might have life."

But there are so many in these days who insist that independently of Christ we are by natural birth the children of God that we need to insist upon what Christ himself and the inspired writers say on this subject.

But Christ makes the declaration above in no equivocal terms. It was not necessary for him to impart a life that they already had. He must have meant something entirely different from the natural life. He refers to eternal life as he elsewhere says, "I give unto my sheep eternal life." Paul says the gift of God is eternal life, or changing the order for clearness. Eternal life is the gift of God. It is the imparting of a new life principle. Note again where he says, "She that liveth to pleasure is dead while she liveth." So is every one. Again, "To be carnally minded is death." It is spiritual death, and what I wish to emphasize in this connection is that the spiritual nature is the man. The material body is but an appendage attached to the real man for a specific but temporary purpose. Again, "Thou hast a name to live but art dead." There is nothing figurative, mythical or mysterious about these words. They but express a literal truth for, so far as the divine life is concerned, they were dead. They are dead as Adam was dead after his transgressions. And again, writing to the Ephesians, Paul says, "You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." The word "quickened" means the bringing to life. Paul speaks of himself as among those who had been dead. He says "Even when we were dead in sins hath he quickened," or given life to.

Other passages might be quoted of the same import, but perhaps these are sufficient. But it cannot be too strongly emphasized that those who accept Christ, those who have been born again, born of water and of the Spirit, are literally, truly and in no figurative sense, the children of God. As such they will go on developing according to the life principle that is in them and animates them.

To recapitulate in a few words, God imparted to Adam of his own life, eternal life. Adam sinned and that life went out. He died as God said that he would. Losing that life he could not impart it to his offspring. That death constituted the Fall of Man. Its effect upon posterity was death in the supreme sense — Spiritual death. "In Adam all died." If any of his posterity ever were to receive that life it must be by direct impartation as Adam received his life. It was that life, eternal life, that Christ came to impart. "I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly." That more abundant life may be the result of years of development, and may be considered later.

Chapter III

The Mystery of how One Life can be United With Another.

"How can tJicsc things he?" (John 3 :3.)

The circumstances in which these words were spoken are famihar to all. A Jewish rabbi came to Jesus bynight to learn of his teachings. He was a learned man, a member of the Sanhedrim, the most learned body of men in Israel and the court of final resort among the Jews for all questions civil as well as ecclesiastical. He was, too, evidently sincere. He pays Jesus the compliment, "We know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do the miracles that thou doest except God be with him." Jesus answered and said unto him, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus is puzzled and asks, "How can a man be born when he is old?" Jesus does not answer his questions except to repeat the mystifying assertion, "Except a man be born of water and the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." After further conversation that learned rabbi is still more mystified and asks, "How can these things be?"

And so the question arises, "Is it possible that a new life principle can be imparted to a life already existing?" Jesus did not try to explain the mystery, he continued to assert the fact. In nature we cannot explain the mystery, we cannot even explain the mystery of a single life.

Philosophers, scientists, as well as others, have tried in vain to tell what life is. But the fact remains. Life is. As has been stated there may be millions of protoplasmic cells, each with its own distinctive life principle, and each producing different results. Each develops according to the life that animates it. And not only this, but each form is animated by at least two distinct life principles. Without this union it cannot develop, but remains as if dead. The ovum in the ovary of the plant has life, its own kind of life. But it must remain as if dead until the male life principle is imparted to it. Then it has potency, it can develop according to the combined life of both. The same is true in the animal creation. The ovum in the ovary of the female is inert, incapable of growth until the male life is imparted to it. Then it can develop and it will be in accordance with the combined lives. The outcome will partake of the nature of both, though one or the other is likely to predominate.

The union of three life principles in the Deity is not more hard to understand than that of two in human beings. The latter we know to be a fact though beyond our comprehension. We need not quarrel with the doctrine of the Trinity of God with any more reason. The fact is that the law of the impenetrability of matter does not hold in the realm of spirit.

The life of God could and did unite with that of Adam and then he was of the image of God. When he lost that life he lost the feature that made him Godlike as well as the power to perpetuate in his posterity Godlikeness.

There was left simply the mere human element, and as Paul says, "That in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." That is the basis of the doctrine of original sin. It is sin in posse, but nofin esse. It is not actual sin that has been committed, but a certainty that when one is of the ability to know good and evil he certainly will commit sin. It is in his nature. A young lion may never have injured any one, but he has a nature that

The Divine Life: Its Development and Activities 2S

will naturally lead him to kill when he has the opportunity or necessity. It is in his nature. It is simply that self and self interest are naturally predominant. He is influenced by those things that are most nearly connected with himself. So he is likely, yes, certain to "transgress," or cross the boundaries of the great commandment, the Law of love. When the God life is united with the human, there results the Divine life. There is a new nature with a new incentive. Then we can truly say with the apostle, "Now are we the sons of God and it doth not appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is." There is a great deal said these days as if all the human race were the children of God. That term may be applied in a kind of loose, conventional way, but it is likely to be fatally misleading. What is the status of a "child of God" who has not been "born of God?" Taking the teachings of Christ for it, he is outside of the kingdom and can never enter it.

Christ was not speaking to an outcast vagabond when he said, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God." Nicodemus himself was no exception, "Ye must be born again.'' What is a new birth but the beginning of a new life within?

In this connection it may be well to remark that when a person is new born he is not full grown. What a wise, benevolent arrangement it is that physically we come into the world as infants. What a cold, hardhearted world this would be without the influence of the little ones. The helplessness of infancy, the beauty of childhood, what wonderful influence for good. So with the new born in the kingdom of God. Those who are older have a great opportunity, a great privilege in the way of encouraging, assisting, those who are younger in the way than themselves. How Christ treated his disciples ! How beautiful, almost pathetically beautiful, was his relationship with his disciples ! They were really, truly, his followers, his children, his disciples, with the emphasis on the word disciple, or learners. How often were their weaknesses, or ignorance displayed and how often they made mistakes ; and yet with what tender solicitude he bore with them, led them, instructed them in his way, by way of developing them in Godlikeness. It is his way now. When one is "born of God" he may yet be but a mere child in that life. But there are infinite reaches of growth, development, before him.

Hostile criticism may be very wide of the mark. Ignorance, weakness, heredity, the influences of early environment and other circumstances may operate to make a very poor showing of a divine life. But, after all, if one has the life principle it will, eventually, produce its effects. Such a life has "the eternal years" before it.

But the question has arisen as to infants who have not, of course, consciously, intelligently, accepted Christ. Are they the subjects of salvation? The question is not hard to answer. While Adam was innocent God freely volunteered to impart to him of his own life. He would without doubt do the same for infants taken away in their innocence, "For of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Again the question may arise as to those who lived and died beforeChrist came to make an atonement for sin. But here, again, the answer is apparent. In the ■councils of God and to the knowledge of all sentient beings who were concerned, the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world. The promise of the United States government to pay $10 or any other sum of money is as good as the gold. The promise of God to send a Redeemer was as good as its fulfillment until the proper time should come for that fulfillment.

If Abel had been asked as he knocked at the gate of heaven by what right he claimed admission he could have replied, "By the atonement of the Son of God to be offered on Calvary four thousand years hence." He had accepted that work of Qirist by offering- up sacrifices which were the types of the great, the efficient, sacrifice. ?o of every other mortal who by faith in the promise accepted the sacrifice.

A question here may be pertinent. What must liave been the suffering by which that Antitype redeemed that promise, paid the price and justified the faith of all the faithful of the preceding centuries? The humiliation of limiting himself to human degree, laying aside the g'ory that he had with the Father before the world was, the rebuffs he met from those he came to save. Note the limited conceptions of his nature, and real dignity of him even by his closest followers, not his sorrow as he looked upon the desolations that in the near future were to come upon his loved city and people, note the bloody sweat, the garden agony, the nails, the spear. What finite mind can grasp the price paid by the Infinite Son of God for man's redemption !