DOES GOD HAVE A BODY, AND COULD HE BECOME A MAN?
_Was Jesus God or a good man only?_
_Can modern psychology any longer believe in the Deity of Jesus?_
_Where does Jesus belong in the religious, social, and thought
world?_
1. Introductory statement
Thus far our discussion of God has been largely in relation to physics.
At last, however, we are ready to consider Him on a higher plane.
Our knowledge of both God and man is incomplete until we see their
oneness in Jesus and in the kingdom which Jesus proclaimed. In the life
of Jesus, God and man are viewed from a higher spiritual level. The
world lies broken into fragments until these fragments become united in
the Christ type of life. Then the body, the human mind, God, and the
whole material universe coordinate to make one beautiful whole.
Starting with the Scriptural idea that all things proceed from Wisdom,
or God, then strictly speaking, God is the only person in the universe
who has a body of His own. All other spirits live in His bodies. This
is necessarily so if all the way from its simplest elements to its most
highly organized forms, nature is but the expression of the divine Will.
As we have already shown, the human body is but a part of universal
nature,--the finest part, the blossom. Therefore, what we call the human
organism is primarily God's. Not only is it the very finest bit of His
_workmanship_, but it is His to _use_, unless His child, the man soul,
robs Him of His own. In these highly specialized parts of nature God has
not merely one, but billions of bodies,--all the bodies there are. The
Infinite Mind would find one such body utterly inadequate. With but one
bodily form He would be incomparably worse off than an organist with but
one finger. If God could come to articulate speech and deed through but
one physical instrument, He and all His family might well despair. If as
the Scriptures teach, however, each and every physical body is His very
own, in which and through which He may live, then every condition is
provided for a God humanly personal and infinitely satisfying. He may be
as local and personal as our parents or neighbors. Though greater than
all, He is yet in all and through all,
"Center and soul of every sphere,
Yet to each loving heart how near!"
Not only is God lovingly present to every Christian heart, but at the
same time He is personally revealed by every human form through which He
is permitted to live and love and serve. The pity of it all is that we
so often prevent God from using His own body, in which we too live, by
causing it to express in word and deed that which is contrary to His
thought and love.
Before we take up the subject of the Incarnation, it may be well to
consider what is meant by the trinity.
2. The idea of the trinity and how it came about
When we say that God is a trinity we do not mean that there are three
Gods. There is just one God who, as we have repeatedly said, is a Loving
Intelligent Will.
The idea of the trinity came about in this way:
The early Christians were so deeply impressed by Jesus, and so warmly
attached to their Master, that they instinctively adored and worshiped
Him; for, somehow, He brought God to them even as He brought them to
God. Yet the Christians, like the Jews, strenuously opposed the worship
of more than one Divinity. Their stout opposition to Polytheism provoked
the retort from their heathen neighbors that Christians should not be so
particular about the number of Gods, because they worshiped at least
two, a Father God and a Son God,--and three, if they added a Holy Spirit
God. So it is not strange that the Christians, to justify their own
conduct, were driven to a profound study of Deity. And though they made
some grave mistakes, nevertheless they discovered some vital truths
concerning the nature of personality which greatly enlarged and enriched
their conception of God. It must be remembered that in the early
Christian centuries many thought of God as something very remote and
placid, like a sea of bliss; being infinitely happy and self-contained,
He was at perfect rest. Such a One would not contaminate Himself by
being identified with nature or man. To the Christian Gnostics and Jews,
the idea that God became incarnate and suffered death on the cross was
repugnant. Some believed that it was beneath God even to create a world
like ours. They, therefore, attributed creation to lesser divinities.
However, in the third century Origen stoutly maintained that God must
have created the world. Yet so eminent a man as Origen believed that He
created it for "tainted souls."
After much study, the Church Fathers arrived at the conclusion that God
was somehow Three in One, a sort of society within Himself,--and they
were right. For without something like a social experience in one's
self, it is impossible to be a person at all. This is equally true of
God or man. To be a person one must know himself, and this he could not
do if he were not able to keep company with himself. The pen with which
I am writing is not a person because it has no capacity for
self-communion. But because I hold _fellowship_ with myself I am a
person. Since every human being keeps company with himself more than he
does with all other persons put together, may God have mercy on him if
he is bad company, if he is not safe to be left alone with himself. A
tree may stand alone in infinite solitude, companionless; but for
better, for worse, a man must forever remain in his own company,
hearing praise or condemnation from his own heart. How is this possible,
unless there is something in a man's individual experience that
resembles society? In self-knowledge, as in all knowledge, there are the
_knower_ and the _known_. When we commune with ourselves we are, at the
same moment, the subject and the object of our own experience. The self
that sees may fittingly be called the father of our personality, and
with equal propriety the self that we see may be called the begotten of
our personality. Thus something resembling father and son is experienced
in our first step toward self-knowledge. Whether the capacity to be our
own subject and object amounts to much or little, it was this that the
Fathers saw and rightly attributed to God.
Furthermore, there is yet another step to be taken in the act of coming
to true self-knowledge. By what power does one determine that the person
with whom he communes is himself? There is something in our experience
resembling a third person, one who recognizes both subject and object
and bears witness that they are one. The reader may say, "I can see the
first and the second, but I cannot see the third." The self that sees
the first and the second is the third. This power by which we complete
the unity of our being is by no means trivial, as some may think. There
are abnormal personalities who successfully achieve the subjective and
objective in their experience and keep up an abnormal communion with
themselves from morning till night, who cannot witness true. So they
insist that they are "General Jacksons" or "Jesus Christs" or great
"railroad magnates." Their personalities have broken down, not because
they lack self-consciousness, but because they lack the power of coming
to unity. A perfectly sane person, therefore, is subject, object, and
witnesser all in one. If God were not this kind of trinity He would not
be a person at all.
To grasp so clearly the significance of personality was a great
spiritual achievement. The Church Fathers did more than they realized;
they described the elements inherent in all personalities. They saved
God to the intellect and to the affections by bringing Him out of remote
obscurity into the blazing light of moral and spiritual personality. God
is personal because He is triune; that is, because He is complex enough
to keep company with Himself and to know Himself. If the reader asks
"What does all this amount to for us?" my answer is, "It amounts to the
difference between a personal God and the deity who is an 'immobile
placid sea of bliss.' In the second place it shows the difference
between the God who is a Loving Intelligent Will and the materialist's
god who is no more than a blind Samson. It also discloses the essential
likeness between all personalities, however much they may differ in
development."
If I were asked to put my finger on the greatest weakness in present-day
thought I should unhesitatingly point out the subject of personality.
Men are falling down like ten-pins before the intellectual difficulties
of believing in a personal God; and many of them are even doubting the
spiritual personality of man. And this is largely due to the fact that
they are unable to form any mental picture of personality. One of the
beautiful surprises for this generation is that the Fathers in working
out the personality of God found the only conception of personality that
is true to universal experience. They did not realize that they were
analyzing the human spirit as well as God, because their thought was
wholly on Him. But they saw God through their own personalities, and if
they had not borne God's image they never could have analyzed the
personality of God. In this generation we turn their analysis of God
upon ourselves and find that it tallies perfectly with our experience.
We at last see that the triune, or personal, man soul is the child of
the triune, or personal, God Soul; and thus a deeper bond is established
between the Father and His child.
The use to which the Church Fathers put this analysis of God's
personality was both fortunate and unfortunate. It was fortunate because
it enabled them to continue their belief in the deity of Jesus and, at
the same time, their belief in the oneness of God. They were still able
to oppose polytheism, and yet come to Jesus as the fountain of divine
blessing. They worshiped God in the face of Jesus. In other words, they
believed in a genuine Incarnation. This was fortunate beyond all
calculation. Just how fortunate it was we shall have to illustrate to
the best of our ability when we come to the subject of Incarnation. Thus
far I have not discussed the Incarnation, neither have I had Jesus in
mind while considering the trinity. For in whatever sense God is a
trinity, He was such before Jesus was born.
Before discussing the divinity of Jesus we must briefly call attention
to the unfortunate use which the Fathers made of their analysis of the
personality of God. They thought they had solved the question of
Christ's divinity when they took this objective element in the
experience of God and clothed it with flesh. Though they denied that
these distinctions in God were properly named by the word person, yet
they admitted their inability to think of a better term. Then they so
wrenched God's personality apart as to send His objective self, which
was simply an element in His experience of self-consciousness, into the
world to be the Messiah. And though they stoutly maintained that these
three elements in God were indivisible, yet God's subjective self could
stay far away in heaven while His objective self could go to earth as a
man. At the same time each of the three elements in God's experience of
self-hood could perform all the functions of a full personality. This
was doing the worst possible violence to the personality of God; and it
has wrought confusion from that day to this. As we have already seen, it
takes these three elements in God's experience to make Him any person at
all. The common use made of the subjective, objective, and witnessing
elements in the personality of God is pure Tri-Theism, regardless of how
they are united. God does not have three personalities that can be
scattered about in the universe.
The idea that God's objective experience can go off on a journey, or
that it can return to heaven while His witnessing experience in turn
goes to earth, leaving the subjective and objective in heaven, is
religious illiteracy. Neither God nor any part of God ever goes or
comes. The triune, or personal God, is never far enough off to come
anywhere. There is no place in the universe where for a moment He is
not. He is always the Father, and Creator, and Intelligent Will in whom
all creation lives, and moves, and has its being. The _second element_
in God's own act of consciousness did not become incarnate in Jesus; the
conscious God Himself entered the life of man.
The baptismal formula, "In the name of God the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit," has no reference to the triple element in God's
self-consciousness. It beautifully represents the three ways that we are
to look at God, if we are to see Him in the fulness of His glory. First,
we think of God as He is in Himself, and as He must be to His own
infinite thought. Second, we think of Him as He has expressed Himself in
nature, in humanity and, best of all, as He has revealed Himself in His
obedient Son Jesus. Third, we think of God as the still small voice
within, the Soul of our souls, the One to whom we speak when we have
shut the door; the one to whom we whisper our deepest secrets, and ask
Him if He loves and forgives us. Beyond the fact that the trinity
constitutes God a person, it has nothing to do with the deity of Jesus.
How God became incarnate is another question; a question to which we
now gladly address ourselves.
3. Was Jesus God or a good man only?
At a meeting of city ministers, addressed by one of their own number,
the speaker took from Jesus the last shred of divinity. According to
this minister, Jesus was a prophet sent from God, and the best of men,
but nothing more. A progressive Jewish rabbi asked if this were not the
present attitude of all intelligent ministers, and whether they did not,
for the sake of expediency, leave the pew in ignorance of their real
belief. In the opinion of the rabbi, Jesus was one of the greatest of
Jewish reformers, but not the founder of Christian religion. His
contention was that Paul founded the Christian Church on a peculiar,
psychic experience which came to him on his way to Damascus.
"The Divinity of Jesus" was then assigned to me as a topic for the next
meeting. Naturally, I turned to the Scriptures to see what they had to
say concerning the relation of God to man. Though expecting to find on
this subject a marked degree of difference between the Old and New
Testaments, yet I was wholly unprepared for the facts as they appeared.
Before presenting my findings, I asked the rabbi to consider whether
Jesus was a "Jewish reformer," or a Jewish fulfiller,--it being my
conviction that He was the latter. I then stated that, having examined
the Old Testament on the relation existing between God and man, I
failed to find a single passage recognizing God within the human life;
and that no greater surprise than this had come to me in my recent study
of the Scriptures. In the Old Testament, the nearest approach to the
immanence of God in the soul was the following:
"I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh," and "Is not my dwelling with
the humble in heart?" But even here the divine Spirit was only _upon_
them or _with_ them. Never, so far as I could discover, did He dwell
_in_ them. In some twenty-four hundred verses, God was represented as
sustaining many beautiful and terrible relations to men. This
relationship was symbolized by birds, beasts, and natural elements, to
the very limit of the imagination. After the most solemn warnings and
attractive promises, God would depart from His people for a season and
then return with rewards and punishments according to their
faithfulness. He scrutinized their inmost thoughts; in fact, He did
everything except enter their lives.
On turning to the New Testament, however, I found a startling contrast.
God dwelt not only in the hearts but in the bodies of men. "For know ye
not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth
in you? Yea, ye are the temple of the living God." "Know ye not that
your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?" "Walk in the Spirit and ye
shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh." Jesus said, "He that hath
seen me hath seen the Father; how sayest thou, show us the Father?
Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?" "The
Father abiding in me doeth His works." "In that day ye shall know that I
am in the Father and ye in me, and I in you." "If a man love me he will
keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him,
and make our abode with him."
As a prospector seeks for gold, I sought in the Old Testament for God in
the life of man and did not find Him; but no sooner had I reached the
New Testament than all was changed. Here was a new country. The
prospector was in the midst of that for which he sought. No mountain was
ever as rich in gold as the human heart, according to the New Testament,
was rich with the indwelling God.
The religion of Jesus in contrast with that of the prophets is like a
tree, which Luther Burbank has transformed into a new variety bearing
strange and luscious fruit. I wondered that I had overlooked for so long
a time the complete cleavage between the two parts of our Bible on this
subject. Jesus was truly a Jewish reformer, but to a much greater degree
He was a Jewish fulfiller. In revealing God's true oneness with man He
completed the prophet's imperfect religious vision, and best of all,
made the vision a fact in His own experience. At the same time He began
making it a reality in the experience of His disciples.
I told the friend who in a previous meeting had stripped Jesus of all
His divinity, that he had very successfully demolished some antiquated
psychology, but strange to say had completely overlooked the new
psychology which, in my opinion, fully restored Christ's divinity. As to
his statement that "Jesus was a good man only," I reminded him that
there is no such being. For, each one of us, in so far as he is "only,"
is a bad man. It requires the oneness of God and man to make a _good_
man. When a human soul is separated from God, he ceases to be a complete
person. God and the true self always come or go together; in order to be
a human soul, in any worthy sense, one must be both God and man in one.
A man severed from God is but the fragment of a man, a limb broken from
the tree, a lifeless branch. To touch the living branch of a tree is to
touch the tree. The fruit of the branch is likewise the fruit of the
tree. That any person can be a "good man only," is an idea contrary to
the New Testament and modern psychology.
4. Can modern psychology any longer believe in the Deity of Jesus?
The Scriptures certainly do not teach that Jesus was God only; neither
do they teach that He was man only. It is my own deepest conviction that
Jesus was very God and very man. Furthermore, I believe this to be the
teaching of the Scriptures, and the idea that best conforms to modern
psychology. To come to Jesus is to come to God; likewise to come to God
is to come to Jesus. He is at once God in man, and man in God. I
believe in the God of Jesus, and I believe in the Jesus of God. How
modern psychology can avoid believing in both the deity and humanity of
Jesus, I do not see. Some who believe in Christ's divinity do not
believe in His deity. They say, "Yes, He is divine, He is incomparable,
He is altogether lovely; but He is not Deity, because Deity is God
Himself." But my thesis is that Jesus was "very God and very man."
To picture this truth to our minds will be our next task. An old-time
friend, while reporting to me the installation of a minister whom I
knew, said:
"Would you believe it! Mr. G. told the council that he not only believed
in the divinity, but that he believed in the Deity of Jesus." Here my
friend threw his head back and laughed heartily, expecting me to laugh
with him. When he had finished laughing, I told him that I also believed
in the deity as well as in the humanity of Jesus; and that if I did not
believe in His deity I did not think I should believe in any religion at
all. This proved to be quite a surprise to my friend. So to his puzzled
look of inquiry I replied:
"And I could make you believe it." As his curiosity deepened at this
remark, I asked him,
"Do you know where I first met God--not an emanation from Him, but God;
the Will that formed the worlds,--all the God there is?" "No," was his
reply. "Fortunately," I answered, "I do. It was in my mother. When I was
a little boy the great God at times enfolded me in human arms, and
looked into my face through benignant, human eyes, and spoke tender
words with a sweet accent. My silent and invisible mother was often so
closely identified with God that they would be thinking and feeling the
same thing concerning me. At such times the human form expressed their
common thought and love; my heavenly Father, no less than my invisible
mother, enfolded me with His arms. If in these supreme moments God was
not in my mother, then it is useless to look for Him anywhere in the
Universe. My mother was different from the non-Christian mothers in our
rough frontier. Many times she so loved me _in_ God, and _with_ God,
that she became a channel through which God Himself had personal access
to me through all the human modes of approach."
I then told my friend of an experience with my mother at church in the
little frontier schoolhouse. I was lying on the seat with my head in her
lap, tickling my nose with her boa. When the time came for prayers, my
mother bowed her head to the desk in front of her. While her lips moved
in prayer, I observed that her dear face was troubled. As she was
unconscious of my gaze, I continued to look into her sorrowful face.
Though but a little child, I fully understood what she was doing, and
was able to mark the stages of her progress. My invisible mother was
talking with our invisible Father, and the face gradually changed until
finally I could tell that her will had merged completely with His will;
and then her face, which was primarily His face, became radiant with
spiritual beauty. I had seen the dear human face of God, and at the same
time it was the face of my mother.
I called my friend's attention to the fact that once upon a time the
invisible God said to the invisible Clara Barton:
"Clara, let us go out onto the battle-field where the poor soldier boys
languish and die;" and Clara responded to His thought and love. Then the
invisible God and the invisible Clara Barton went to the battle-field in
God's body, because Clara had no body exclusively her own. So, when that
form bending over the soldier boy wiped away the dust and blood and
pain, while whispering of home, of mother, and of God, it was the
Father, as much as it was Clara Barton, who was performing the deed; and
He, not less than she, was visibly and humanly present. The ministering
hand was as truly His instrument as it was hers; while the stronger will
and deeper love were the Father's. Before Clara Barton thought of it,
the Father, knowing all and feeling all, suggested to her the kindly
deed; nor did He stop loving the soldier boy when she began.
Again addressing my friend, I said:
"It is impossible for me to understand you. You have always believed God
to be immanent in all nature; you have seen Him in sticks and stones and
stars; but you now fail to recognize Him in His highest, His only
instrument through which He is capable of coming to articulate speech
and deed. How I pity your poor helpless God who is buried fathoms and
fathoms out of sight. He can neither see, nor hear, nor breathe; nor can
He walk or talk. But you see, _my_ God can get clear to the surface in
audible word, and visible deed. When my God finds a good, clean
Frenchman, He begins talking and writing French. If you doubt this,
either you are not familiar with French literature, or else you do not
know God. Under similar conditions God speaks all the languages. How
beautifully and abundantly He has spoken through the German and English
tongues! While in Greek and Hebrew, God has uttered mighty words of
wisdom, and has filled the earth with His glorious paeans. Human wisdom
alone could never have spoken thus. If we but have eyes to see and
hearts to feel we shall realize that all about us God is getting to the
surface through devoted Christians. When the true preacher lifts the
souls before him into the will of God, he sees a divine expression upon
their faces; and if he is spiritually wise, he will realize that for the
time being these are the dear human instruments of God, as truly as they
are the faces of human spirits; and when he has poured out his soul in
behalf of some great cause of God for which he would be willing to die,
he will find someone with outstretched hand ready to meet him and
willing to cooeperate, if need be, even unto death, and then it is his
privilege to know that, while shaking hands with a brother spirit, he
was at the same time shaking hands with the infinite God. In these rare
experiences of ours, the invisible God no less than the invisible man
has come to outward expression, and this He would always do, if our
wills were not contrary to His will. Our feeble and infrequent
inspiration is but intermittent incarnation, while full incarnation is
permanent inspiration.
"Why," I asked, "should you hesitate to think of Jesus as God and man?
If the Father-Spirit and the child-spirit were thinking and willing the
same thing, which one came to expression through the words and acts of
the body? If A and B were lifting an object, would it be truthful to say
that A was lifting it? The visible form that lived and taught by the
shores of Galilee was as truly God as it was man, unless the
child-spirit did not know and do the Father-Spirit's will. Sometimes a
whole congregation of wills express themselves joyfully and forcefully
through one written resolution. God never speaks an audible word, except
through one of His bodies in which He has enfolded a child-spirit. When,
however, the child-spirit rebels against the Father, and causes the
instrument to speak or act vile things, the Father is dumb. His child
has robbed Him of His body. We have grown so accustomed to this form of
robbery that we naturally think of human spirits as having bodies all
their own, while we conceive of God as a vague, disembodied influence.
We speak of God as sending men, forgetting that He never sends a man
anywhere without sending him in His own body and accompanying him with
His own spiritual Presence. And that which the messenger says is not
worth hearing if it fails to express the Father's thought and will. The
God who, through beautiful chemical energies, makes the ear, hears; and
the God who makes the eye, sees; and He who makes the lips, speaks.
Either God knows the thrill of nerves, or else He has an infinite amount
to learn. Why then should we say that Jesus was only a good man, when
the body was God's very own, and the guiding will was that of the
Father? A man is all God except the invisible human spirit; and in the
case of Jesus, even the human spirit rendered such filial obedience that
the Father, for once in human history, got to the surface through His
own instrument in a steady flow of luminous words and loving deeds. If
the composite life of Jesus were named after its major elements, then
Jesus should be called God. However, as that would be both confusing and
false, we state the truth as it is, and say that Jesus was both God and
man, that is, a God-filled man, or a God-man."
"Oh well," said my friend, "if you mean it that way!"
"Did I not tell you," I replied, "that you would believe it? The trouble
with you is that you forget it. You should be proclaiming it from the
housetop that God has got clear to the surface in human form, and that
men have clasped His hand, and heard His voice, and seen His face."
In the life of Jesus, religion reached a new and distinct stage of
development. It was in Him that the essential _oneness_ of Deity and
humanity first became clearly manifest. To the friends of Jesus, God was
no longer a disembodied spirit. The Christian's God is clearly the God
of Israel, but He is the God of Israel become human and visible. The
world has been slow to grasp the meaning of Christ's life and teachings.
To maintain the uniqueness of Jesus, it has denied the universality of
the truth which He proclaimed: namely, the organic and moral oneness of
God and man. If the union of God and man as realized in Jesus was so
beautiful, a similar union between God and all men would be equally
beautiful. That God desires such a union with all His children there can
be no doubt; and that He is inspiring His disciples with the glorious
hope of its accomplishment is equally certain. Yet for the present, even
the most devoted followers have not nearly attained unto the fulness of
the stature of Jesus; but some glad day they shall be wholly like Him
whose image they already unmistakably bear. This is the Christian's
noblest hope.
If God has ever united His personality with that of even one man, then
there is a way of doing it. And if there is a way, what finer goal is
possible, than that such a union between God and every man be
consummated? Really, that is what the Christian Religion is about. Not
only may God and every man be similarly united, but the sin of man alone
can prevent such a union from taking place. If there were no sin or
rebellion in a man's heart, he would instantly become a God-man on the
plane of his present human development; and as he "Advanced in wisdom
and stature, and in favor with God and men," he would be a God-man on a
higher level. If the human side of the Christ has continued thus to
grow for more than nineteen hundred years, on what altitudes of
knowledge He is a God-man by this time, we can but faintly surmise. And
with the possibility of a complete purging from sin, and the possibility
of an infinite growth in wisdom, we, too, may yet be God-men on what
would now seem to us dizzying heights; we shall ever be attaining "Unto
the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." No matter what
one's conception of the trinity in God's personality may be, God is
capable of uniting with every man in the same way that He united with
the man Jesus. If we prefer to believe that God had an Eternal Son who
came to clothe himself in a man, the problem of union would in nowise be
changed. A Son-God, if He existed either in the Father or out of the
Father, could not be less than a person, and the manner of uniting
Himself with a man would be the same. My interest in the metaphysics of
the trinity is that it gives us a firm grasp on the personality of God
and the personality of man. I rest on the fact that the Personal God
became incarnate and still seeks the souls of men for his
dwelling-place. I further believe that when we do not read a later
metaphysics into the Bible, the Scriptures wholly support the more
modern conception. In the beginning was the Logos, Word, or Wisdom.
Wisdom was with God from the beginning; that is, God was always Wisdom,
and not a material thing. All things were made by Wisdom, or God. Life
was in God, and God's life was the light of men; and though it was
shining into the darkness the darkness apprehended it not. The God who
is wisdom, and not matter, was in the world, and the world was made by
Him, but it knew Him not. Finally Wisdom, or God, became flesh, and
tabernacled among us, and we discerned His glory, a glory as of an
only-begotten with a father, full of grace and truth. The author seems
to me to believe that the Personal God became incarnate, and that the
one in whom He dwelt, in contrast with other men, looked like an only
son of a father.
Notwithstanding this glorious possibility, there is always a tendency
for religion to revert to a lower type; and this tendency is
particularly noticeable just now. Not being able to believe in the
divinity of Jesus according to the old metaphysics, multitudes are
ceasing to believe in Him as Emmanuel,--or "God with us." At a time like
this, when a forward movement is the only hope of saving our great
material structure from becoming another Tower of Babel, a retrograde
movement is lamentable. What we especially need is a new interpretation
of Jesus, followed by a finer devotion to Him, and a whole-hearted
commitment of ourselves to His ever-widening program. God is becoming
altogether too hazy and inarticulate, at a time when the consciousness
of His holy Presence is especially needed, if we are to shape and
sustain a civilization that is quadrupling itself in weight and extent
by reason of the growth and application of material knowledge. Any
quickening of God that is to be highly beneficial must result in His
further advent into human lives and human institutions after the pattern
of Jesus.
That a mere God of nature is insufficient was forcibly brought home to
me while I was watching a circus performer throw daggers and toss balls.
The performer, placing a man against a wide board, some ten feet
distant, hurled a bunch of daggers into the board on either side of the
man, each time missing him by only one or two inches. Then he began
tossing balls until the air seemed full of them, and not one ball fell
to the ground. Having witnessed with amazement his great dexterity,
these thoughts occurred to me:
"I wonder what he is like when he talks? If he is married what does his
wife think of him? If he has children how do they feel toward him? Or if
he is a single man, what would I think if he should wish to marry my
daughter?" I then realized that I knew absolutely nothing about him
except that he was a dexterous machine. Then falling into a homiletical
mood I thought of the great skill of God. "How wonderfully _He_ can toss
balls, and strew the milky way, and hurl Pleiades and Orion! Before such
infinite skill the performance which I have just witnessed is
ridiculous." Then the thought forced itself upon me, "What would God be
like if He were to talk? What kind of a person should we find Him to be
if He walked our streets, and engaged in business, and sat at the table
as one of the family circle?" I then realized that if God could only
toss balls and direct atoms we should really know nothing whatever of
His character. If He were no more than the uniform power of nature's
laws He would too closely resemble gravity, or electricity, to be
satisfying to His children. The human heart demands that, in addition to
all this, God be individual, and spontaneous, like other persons whom we
know, and with whom we hold fellowship. We enjoy seeing our friends run
machines, but what an awful life it would be if every person in the
world gave no heed to anyone or anything except the machine which he
uniformly and incessantly operated! What a monstrous and oppressive idea
it is to think of God, silent as a sphinx, spending an eternity with His
mind so riveted upon the operation of His machine-world that He has
neither time nor capacity for anything else. If such a God had time to
think of it, He surely would envy the little child who can prattle, and
laugh, and sing.
Fortunately this higher demand upon God is fully met in the religion of
Jesus. For while our Father is a wonder-worker and a world builder, at
the same time He has myriads of human bodies through which He can live a
thoroughly social life. He is the most social Being in the universe; His
desire and capacity for social relations are unlimited. He does not
willingly leave one individual outside the circle of His friends. All
His work in nature is for the purpose of providing instruments and
conditions for a family of free children, among whom He may live as the
free and adorable Father. It is no wonder that men cease to pray, when
in their thought God is divorced from everything individual and social.
When men conceive of God as the mere operator of the cosmos, their
highest concern is to keep out of the way of the machine. It never
occurs to such men that God is able to treat them as sons, after the
most personal and human manner. It is only in the laws of nature that
His actions are mechanically uniform. In social relations His moods and
actions change to suit the feelings and conduct of His sons and
daughters. In _nature_ God sends the rain and sunshine on the just and
the unjust alike, but in _human-nature_ He smiles or frowns according to
each individual's deserts. In Jesus, God might say, "Come unto me," or
He might make a whip of cords and drive the people out of the temple.
Prayer does not cause God to change His wise and loving purpose, but it
does determine _how_ He shall execute His holy will. If the conduct of a
child does not change the father's actions toward him, then the father
is both foolish and immoral. Men should learn that God is even greater
in humanity than He is in nature. For in the one, He is uniform power,
while in the other, He is Father, Redeemer, and Friend. In the world of
wills, God is individual and human. And His inner communion with us is
greatly intensified and clarified when there is added to it His audible
voice from without. The voice of God speaking to us through human lips
awakens the voice of God within us. How wonderfully clear was the Divine
Voice in men's hearts when God spoke to them through Jesus! Likewise
when the apostle Paul went to a new community, it seemed to receptive
minds that God had come to town; and they were wholly justified in
thinking so, for though God had been there all the time, powerfully
through nature's laws and feebly in their darkened hearts, yet for the
first time God was within their city in clear articulate speech, wooing
them to Himself. This not only made God seem real to them, but it made
it easy for them to believe and be baptized. Though able to rejoice for
a time, yet heaviness soon came upon them after Paul's departure,
because God too seemed to have departed from their midst. Neither were
they mistaken in this, for God had no instrument remaining through which
He could make Himself so humanly real to them, after His devoted and
tried servant had gone away. As a result of Paul's early departure there
would follow unbelief and conduct unworthy of Christians. To meet this
sad state of affairs in the mission churches, God would write them a
letter, or better still, make them another visit in Paul.
Once there was brought home to me in a very beautiful and unexpected
manner the Christian truth about God's essential oneness with humanity.
Weary from my afternoon calls, I had just returned home. Entering the
side hall that was already dark, I saw through the door slightly ajar my
little son and daughter at play. Philip, eight years old, was building
up blocks on the floor, while Esther, two years younger, was standing
under the electric light with both arms raised as high as she could
stretch them over her head. Seeing her dramatic position, and the
unusual look on her face, I remained silent in the hall knowing that
something was coming. With intense feeling she said:
"Oh, Philip! of course we would kiss God!" To which Philip replied:
"Oh, you couldn't kiss God. He is a spirit. Why, God is in you,--and in
me."
Still standing in her dramatic position with the light shining full on
her face, she began lowering her arms slowly, and as her expression of
comprehension deepened she said:
"Oh well then, Philip, if God is in you and in me, if we were to kiss
each other we would kiss God."
"Yes, that is right, you would," was his response. Then said she:
"Let us kiss God." He arose promptly, and the children, throwing their
arms tightly around each other, kissed God.
If ever there was a glad father I was one. Standing there in the dark
hall I thought:
"God bless the dear children, they have the evangel. That is the very
essence of the Christian religion, 'Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least
of these ye did it unto me.'"
Of course we all realize that there are certain proprieties which adults
must observe, but what could be more beautiful than for a little brother
and sister so to recognize God in each other as to be able to kiss Him?
The idea here involved, if carried out in every relation of life, would
be the Kingdom of God realized. Furthermore, there is no other way of
making the Kingdom of God a reality, either on earth or in the life
beyond. Doubtless God never will be seen outside the bodies which He
provides for Himself and His children to use in common. However, we
shall have more to say about that later.
A Christian woman has beautifully related an incident which brought to
her Christ's idea and experience of religion. Said she:
"It was my custom to retire each day to my own room for devotion. On one
occasion when my heart was deeply oppressed my prayers seemed all in
vain. Nevertheless, I continued to plead, 'O Lord Jesus, reveal thyself
to me.' After awhile there came a rap at my door. It was the maid
seeking comfort. She had broken a choice piece of china. But I drove her
away rather harshly, saying, 'You know you are not to bother me at this
hour.' Then I continued, 'O Lord Jesus, reveal thyself.' After more
fruitless prayer, my little girl came sobbing for comfort as she had
broken her first doll. I even drove _her_ away saying, 'My child, you
must not disturb your mother now.' After resuming what seemed to be a
useless petition, there came to me a suggestion as distinct and forceful
as if spoken. 'Inasmuch as ye did it not unto the least of these ye did
it not unto me.' I arose from my knees, unlocked the door, and went out.
In the kitchen I found the maid sullen and angry, to whom I spoke
comforting words. Seeing the light come to her face, I went on to find
my little daughter. From under the grapevine where she had already cried
herself to sleep, I picked her up; and after kissing her and wiping the
tear stains from her cheeks, I told her that I would get her another
dollie,--one ever so much nicer than the first. Having comforted others
for His sake, and for their own sake, my soul was filled with
inexpressible peace! And once more something spoke to my innermost
being, 'Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these ye did it unto
me.'"
Let no one draw the conclusion that her habit of devotion was worthless,
for it is not very likely that all this peace and revelation would have
come to her if she had been less inclined to pray. The intense desire of
her prayer, coupled with the unpleasant incidents of the day, brought to
her the fuller truth.
Though a minister may not neglect his sermons, yet there have been times
when I have grown so desperate in my effort to prepare a vital message
that I have thrown down my insipid and stupid manuscript to go out and
find some needy, suffering person whom I could bless in His name.
Whenever I have done this I have found God and my soul and a sermon.
5. Where does Jesus belong in the religious, social and thought worlds?
When the God Soul and the man soul unite, they so lift nature's forces
up into personal life that the universe no longer lies in broken and
confused fragments. Jesus is at the center of all things because all
things center in pure personal life. In Him, the Father-spirit, the
child-spirit, and nature's forces were so correlated as to be newly
manifest; the child was completing himself in the Father, and the Father
was fulfilling Himself in the child, while nature was serving as the
common instrument of both. Separate the God Soul, the man soul, and
nature's forces, and no one of them is revealed. Unite them as they were
in Jesus and the meaning of all three appears. Christ's type of life
brings all reality into accord because it combines everything into a
composite, personal life.
If you wish to know God in the most perfect way, go to Jesus; if you
care to know man as he should be, go to Jesus; if you would look upon
God, man, and nature's forces in one radiant, wooing personality, go to
Jesus. If it is the purpose of religionists, sociologists, and
philosophers to trace reality to its highest form of expression, let
them go to Jesus. Yes, let all men go to Jesus with their wealth of
technical knowledge which they have gained in the wide fields of
research; and in His presence, their treasures, like precious gems, will
scintillate with a divine light. This conjunction in Jesus of all
streams of reality makes Him the light of the world. In the same way,
and for the same reason, every person would be the light of the world if
the child-spirit rendered an obedience to the Father equally loving and
intelligent. But this is the tragedy,--who has rendered such obedience!
It is the belief of many of us that Jesus was never disobedient, even as
a little child. Though it were admitted that this could not be proved,
still it would remain a fact that as Jesus "Increased in wisdom and
stature, and in favor with God and man," His filial obedience identified
Him with the Father. The oneness of Deity and humanity was so certainly
achieved in Jesus that no one can rob him of His glory nor of His place
as the Messiah. He was the first to open wide the door to God; yea more,
He was the door. In Jesus, we come face to face with the personal God
and with our Elder Brother who lived in God. In Him, the perfect God was
living in man, and the perfect man was living in God, while unitedly
they were living among men as a visible member of society.
Taking the world as it is, the presence of God in humanity could but
bring both peace and trouble; it brought joy to the pure in heart, and
bitter hatred and strife to those who loved darkness rather than light
because their deeds were evil. The weary and the noble were attracted to
Jesus, while the vicious and the self-willed hurled themselves against
Him with mad fury; but it was ever so, from the beginning of human
history until the present hour. Whenever God has made His approach in
human life, the evil-in-heart have opposed Him; they have killed the
prophets, and stoned God when He came unto them. In our own day, many
who speak beautifully of God in nature, are fiercely angry with Him when
He appears among them in a good man; they are willing to believe that
God is in that part of nature which soothes their senses, but they are
not willing to believe that He is in the man who irritates them by
opposing their wicked ways, or by hindering them in their pursuit of
ill-gotten gains and illicit pleasures. Therefore, when God in Jesus so
fully and perfectly entered society, it is not strange that they put Him
to death. However, in killing Jesus they unwittingly exalted Him; in
this act they brought to light the heinousness of sin, the inexpressible
love of God, and the compassion of the child Jesus for his sinful
brothers. It is before the cross, if anywhere, that men are led to
repentance; it is there, if anywhere, that the heart is both broken and
healed. Before such wondrous love the world may well pause and sing:
"In the cross of Christ I glory, towering o'er the wrecks of time,
All the light of sacred story gathers round its head sublime."
6. Can God die?
_Yes, God can die._ Three years ago after the Sunday morning service I
received a telegram saying, "Mother died this morning at six-thirty.
Come!" Now, what did my sisters mean by this information; did they
intend to convey the idea that our mother had become extinct? Not at
all, they only meant that she had lost the dear old instrument that we
had known for so many years in this earthly home. Death never signifies
more than this to the Christian. Though we said she was dead, we
believed our mother to be more alive than ever. If death is simply the
loss of our instrument, the body, then God too can die, for He may lose
His body. God died on the cross with His child, because the
Father-spirit, no less than the child-spirit, lost His beautiful
instrument in which He had walked by the shores of Galilee, teaching and
comforting the people. If Jesus would not forsake the Father in the
agony of the Garden, we may be sure that the Father did not forsake His
child on the cross. As they were united in life they were undivided in
death. To think that Jesus any more than the Father was conscious of the
pain, is to make Jesus greater than God. The God who creates the body,
moment by moment, must know the thrill of every nerve, since they are
His own nerves which He shares with His child. Yet it is not the pain
nor the indignity heaped upon the Father and His Holy Child that we are
here emphasizing, but the fact that He lost the instrument by means of
which He had been a living person among men. The disciples scattered in
sorrow and bewilderment, when God and His Child Jesus died on the cross.
The Father had no form left on earth through which He could continue to
speak _unerring_ words of wisdom and love. One year before my mother
died she enfolded me once more in her arms and blessed me, saying, "My
son, I shall never see you again on earth." Hastening home at the
summons of my sisters I looked again on the dear old instrument, but the
hand of welcome was not extended, and the lips did not speak. In like
manner when the limp body of Jesus was taken from the cross, the lips
no longer said, "I and the Father are one, He that hath seen me hath
seen the Father." Those lifeless hands were no longer outstretched, and
pleading, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will
give you rest." Yes, God can die; He can lose His human instruments on
earth. He can likewise die to society by being _robbed_ of His highest
instruments. If no man, woman, or child in my city would let God come to
articulate speech or deed through his body, God would be stone dead in
Bridgeport; He would be as dead as the spirits whose bodies lie in our
cemeteries. As already indicated, I do not mean, even in that sad event,
that God would not still be in Bridgeport as the power of the
all-pervading atmosphere, or as the mighty force of the waves that lash
our shores. His energy would still be scintillating in the lamps of the
white way, and shedding a soft light in the smaller lamps that brighten
our homes; His would still be the energy propelling all the thundering
mills of industry, and the power sustaining the nerves and muscles that
operate the machinery; He would still be present in the blazing sun by
day and in the twinkling stars by night; He would still wrap us round,
and enfolding us in His great universe He would watch over us by day and
brood over us by night; and yet for all this, if we entirely robbed Him
of all His human bodies He, as a member of society, would be completely
dead in Bridgeport. If in his own life every one killed God, men would
then devour one another. As it is, God is partly dead and partly alive
in my city, as in all cities; and hence we are sometimes a blessing and
sometimes a curse to one another. God may be manifestly alive in one
person, and nearly dead in the same man's nearest neighbor; and He is
more or less dead and alive in the best of us. When God can no longer
get to the surface through men's souls, and bodies, and institutions, He
is dead in that locality. And when God is dead through the loss of men,
society is spiritually dead through the loss of God. The _living_ God is
not one who is driven out of His kingdom and reduced to a mere operator
of the cosmos. The living God is not one who is persecuted by His
children and driven from home while His business is going to rack and
ruin. A living God must be active in His universe from center to
circumference. Until our bodies are God's obedient instruments there is
no kingdom of God. There is not the slightest reason for thinking there
is a kingdom of God anywhere in the universe unless God has children
somewhere who are permitting Him to live through the instruments with
which He enfolds them. Until God is permitted to live in His own bodies,
He is dead and His children are languishing.
If the Christian religion were understood and believed and practiced,
what a transformation it would work! For instance, if every man, woman,
and child in my city rendered perfect obedience to God, then every human
body in Bridgeport would become His very own to use, and God Himself
would throng our streets. We should meet Him face to face in
individuals and crowds. It would be Emmanuel, or "God-with-us"
everywhere. All faces would be bright with the wisdom and goodness of
God. Every individual would be our Infinite Father and our brother in
one. What a rapid human growth would ensue! Every living person would be
a window through which the light of God would shine. There would be
young minds like the child Jesus in the temple, just waking to the mind
of God, and ripe saints and sages flooding the community with God's
vaster wisdom and profounder love. Not only would our immediate bodies
be cleansed and transformed, but our augmented bodies would be brought
into harmony with the divine Will. Our city would become a heavenly
abode, and our industries would become the instruments of love and
righteousness. We should tap a thousand sources of power that now remain
idle, and finding unlimited resources within ourselves and our
environments, we would work wonders. While making God's energies our
enlarged and purified bodies, we should at the same time turn them into
instruments of God's love. If God were permitted to come to the surface
perfectly in all our lives, and in all with which we have to do, three
years would not pass until people would be making pilgrimages from the
ends of the earth to see the city "where _God_ lives."
In a previous chapter I said that God, as a solitary person in the
universe, would not mine coal, and run steam engines; but now allow me
to say that if there is anything God wants to do it is to get into the
railroad business; and if He does not, it will be because men vote Him
out. But in shutting God out of railroad corporations, what are we
doing? Though not fully aware of it, yet we are really saying, "O God,
you may be the energy in the steel rails, you may be the power in the
wheels, you may be the expansive force of the steam, you may manage the
chemical combinations of the wheat or other cargo, you may furnish us
with our bodies, you may do everything but dictate terms of business.
If, however, you want to sit at the desk as the senior partner then our
answer is, 'Get down and out, O God.' We are glad to have you as our
slave and lackey, we are delighted to use you and exploit you, but woe
to the man or men who plead your cause in connection with our private
business."
Such is the enormity of our sin, and the denseness of our ignorance when
we shut God out of our business affairs. If God may not be in our daily
enterprises He will not deign to be in our prayer meetings. This is the
message of Jesus to all men, to employers and employees alike; this is
the will of God, that _in_ and _through_ His children He may make all
things vocal with His wisdom, and beautiful with His love. Scholars may
look into nerves and brain, but the spirit is fully revealed _before_
the face and not back of it. So the infinite God and Father of our
spirits is fully revealed, if at all, in benignant eyes, friendly hands,
willing feet, and gracious words. It is the way we grow our bodies, and
shape our institutions, and manipulate all the forces of nature that we
reveal what manner of spirits we are. If our spirits are evil, then God
is denied bodily expression. There is no use saying Lord, Lord, if we do
not the things which He tells us.