_Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are
gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and
the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath
sanctified, and sent into the world, thou blasphemest; because I said,
I am the Son of God_?--John X., 34-36.
The context and argument is this: Jesus Christ has declared that He
will give unto His sheep eternal life; and that no one can pluck them
out of His hand, because He and His Father are one; and the Father
who gives these sheep to His care and keeping is greater than all the
forces that are leagued against them. Thereat the Jews took up stones
against Him, saying: "Being a man thou makest thyself equal with God."
And Christ answers with our text. He refers them back to the Old
Testament, which, He says, declares of the judges of Israel, of the
men to whom the inspiration of God came, that they are divine. "Why,
then," He says, "do you accuse Me of blasphemy because I claim
divinity?" It is impossible to consider this a mere play upon the
word; that Christ uses the word God in one sense in one paragraph
and in another sense in the paragraph immediately following. It is
impossible to conceive that this is a kind of sacred pun. No, no; the
argument is clear and unmistakable. According to your Old Testament
scripture, He says, the men in whom and to whom and through whom the
power and grace of God are manifested are themselves the partakers
of the divine nature. If that is so, if the men of the olden
times, patriarchs and prophets, through whom the divine nature was
manifested--if they are divine, do not accuse me of blasphemy because
I claim for Myself divinity. If in this message, on the one hand,
Christ claims kinship with God, on the other He lifts the whole of
humanity up with Him and makes the claim for them. The religion of the
Old Testament and the New Testament, the religion of Christianity and
of Judaism, is a religion of faith in God. But it is not less truly a
religion of faith in man, and of faith in man because man is a child
of God. And the one faith would be utterly useless without the other.
For faith in God is effective because it is accompanied with faith in
man as the child of God.
And in this faith in man is the inspiration of all human progress.
_Faith_ in man, I say. Faith sees something which the eye does not
see. Faith sees something which the reason does not perceive. Faith
is not irrational, but it perceives a transcendent truth, over beyond
that which the sense perceives. Faith is always intermixed with hope
and with a great expectation, either with a hope because it sees
something which is not yet but will be, or else with a hope because it
sees something which is not yet seen but will be seen. Faith in a man
is not a belief that man is to-day a great, noble character, but it is
a perception in man of dormant possibilities of greatness and nobility
which time and God will develop. It is only the man who has faith in
man who can really interpret man. It is faith in man that gives us all
true human insight. The difference between a photograph and a portrait
is this: the photograph gives the outward feature, and stops there;
and most of us, when we stand in a photograph saloon to have our
picture taken, hide our soul away. The artist sees the soul behind the
man, knows him, understands something of his nature, and paints the
soul that looks out through the eyes. He sees in the man something
which the sun does not exhibit, and makes that something shine on
the canvas. The artist in literature sees an ideal humanity, and
interprets it. Realism in literature does not portray the real man.
Anthony Trollope pictures the Englishman as he is to-day, and society
as any man may take it with a kodak; but Dickens gives Toby Veck and
Tiny Tim; George Eliot, Adam Bede and Dinah Morris. Men say that no
such boy ever lived as MacDonald has portrayed in Sir Gibbie. In every
street Arab is a possible Sir Gibbie; and MacDonald has seen the
possible and shown us what Christianity may make out of a street
Arab. In this perception of a possible in man lies the spirit of all
progress in science. The man of practical science laughs at the notion
of an iron railway on which steam cars shall travel faster than
English coaches. But the man of faith in men, who believes that it is
in the power of men to dominate the powers of nature, builds the road.
The man of practical science laughs at the notion that we can reach up
our hands into the clouds and draw down the lightning. But Franklin
does it. The man of faith is sometimes mistaken, but he is always
experimenting, because he always believes that man to-morrow will
be more than man is to-day or was yesterday. And all progress in
civilization has its secret in this great faith in man as a being
that has a mastery, not yet interpreted, not yet understood, not yet
comprehended in its fulness, over all the powers of nature.
Now, is there any ground or basis for this faith in man? Have we a
right to believe that man is more than he seems to be, as we can see
him in the street to-day? Have we a right to build our institutions
and fabrics on this belief? Have we a right to think that man can
govern himself, or must we go back and say with Carlyle and Ruskin
and Voltaire that the great body of men are incompetent to govern
themselves, and a few wise rulers must govern them? Have we a right to
believe that all the progress that has thus far been made in
science is but an augury of progress far greater, reaching into the
illimitable? Have we a right to say that these portraits of a possible
humanity, this Portia, this Toby Veck, this Tiny Tim, this ideal man
and woman, are real men and real women in possibility, if not in
the actualities of life? Or are we to think of them as simply
phantasmagoria hung up for the delectation of a passing moment? The
Bible makes answer to that question,--the Bible preeminently, but
the great poets and the great prophets of all religions; the Bible,
because the poets and the prophets of the Bible transcend the poets
and the prophets of all other religions. And that declaration is that
man is made in the image of God, and that God dwells in man and
is coming to the manifestation of Himself in growing, developing,
redeemed humanity. Our Bible starts out with the declaration that God
made man in His own image. The poets take the idea up. MacDonald tells
us in that beautiful poem of his, that the babe came through the blue
sky and got the blue of his eyes as he came; Wordsworth, that the
child's imaginings are the recollected glory of a heavenly home; and
the author of the first chapter of Genesis, that God breathed his own
breath into the nostrils of man and made him in the image of God. All
fancy, all imaginings? But, my dear friends, there is a truth in fancy
as well as in science. We need not believe that this aspiration that
shows itself in the pure mind of a little child is a trailing glory
that he has brought with him from some pre-existent state. We need not
think that it is physiological fact that the sky colored the eyes of
the babe as the babe came through. Nor need we suppose that man was
a clay image into which God breathed a physical breath, so animating
him. But beyond all this imagery is the vision of the poet. God in
man; a divine life throbbing in humanity; man the offspring of God;
man coming forth from the eternal and going forth into the eternal.
This is the starting-point of the Bible. Starting with this, it goes
on with declaration after declaration based on this fundamental
doctrine that man and God in their essential moral attributes have the
same nature. It is human experience which is used to interpret divine
experience. According to pagan thought, God speaks to men through
movements of the stars, through all external phenomena, through even
entrails of animals. Seldom so in the Bible, save as when the wise men
followed the star, and then that they might come to a divine humanity.
In the Old Testament God speaks in human experience, through human
experience, about human experience, to typify and interpret and
explain Himself. God is like a shepherd that shepherds his flock.
God is like a king that rules in justice. He is like the father that
provides for his children. He is like the mother that comforts the
weeping child. All the experiences of humanity are taken in turn and
attributed to God. The hopes, the fears, the sorrows, the joys, the
very things which we call faults in men--so strong and courageous are
the old prophets in this fundamental faith of theirs that man and God
are alike--the very things we call faults in men are attributed to the
Almighty. He is declared to hate, to be wrathful, to be angry, to be
jealous; because, at the root, every fault is a virtue set amiss; and
the very faults of men have in them something that interprets the
power and will of God, as the very faults of a boy interpret the
virtues of his father. All through the Old Testament God manifests
Himself through human experience. He speaks in the hearts of men; He
dwells in the experience of men; He interprets Himself through the
life of men; and, finally, when this one selected nation which has a
genius for spiritual truth has been so far educated that there is no
danger that it will go back and worship man, that it will become a
mere hero-worshiper, when it has been so far educated that there is no
danger of that, then Jesus Christ comes into the world--God manifests
Himself in human life.
Who, then, is Jesus Christ? Let John tell us. The Oriental world was
puzzled about the question of the origin of evil. They said, in brief,
a good God cannot make a bad world. Out of a good God, therefore,
there have emanated other gods, and out of these gods other gods,
until at last there came to be imperfect gods or bad gods. And the
world was made, some of them said, partly by a good god and partly by
a bad one; and others by an imperfect god who was an emanation of the
perfect one. Of these emanations one was Life, another was Light,
another was the Word. And John, writing in the age of Oriental
philosophy, uses the phraseology of Oriental philosophy in order that
he might tell mankind who and what Jesus Christ is. "In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was God." God never was an abstraction;
from the very beginning He was a speaking God, a living God, a
manifesting God, a forth-putting God. "The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not
anything made that was made. And this Word became flesh and dwelt
among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father), full of grace and truth." Let me put this into
modern language. What is it but this? From eternity God has been a
manifesting God. When the fulness of time came, God, that He might
manifest Himself to His children, came into a human life and dwelt
in a human life. He that had spoken here through one prophet, there
through another prophet; He that had sent one message in this
direction and another in that; He that had spoken through signs and
tokens, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, in divers
manners and in fragmentary utterances--when the fulness of time had
come, He spoke in one perfect human life, taking entire possession of
it and making it His own, that He might manifest Himself in terms of
human experience to humanity. Or turn to Paul and let me read you this
declaration; "Let this mind be in you which was also in Jesus Christ;
who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with
God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of
a servant, and was made in the likeness of man, and being found in
fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross." What is this, again, but the same
declaration? God desiring to show Himself to humanity, entered into
one human life, became subject to human conditions, shared the
weakness, the wants, the ignorance of humanity, entered into and was
identified with one human life.
Do I say, then, that Jesus Christ was a man like other men? No. But I
do say that in their essential qualities God and man are identical,
and God entered into humanity that He might show to humanity what He
is. I do say, not that Jesus Christ was a man like other men, but that
other men may become like Jesus Christ. I hold a bulb in my one hand
and a tulip in my other. Will any man say to me, this beautiful flower
with all its rich coloring is like this bulb? Oh, no! But let the
sun of God shine long enough on this bulb, put it where it belongs,
subject it to the conditions of life, and this bulb will become like
this flower. Man is made in the image of God. All that is in man
that is not in God's image does not belong to man's nature. Natural
depravity? There is no natural depravity. Depravity is unnatural.
Depravity is contra-natural. It is against the whole law of man's
being. It is never wrong for any creature God has made to act out the
nature which God endowed him with. It is not wicked for a tiger to be
ravening. It is not wicked for a snake to be sinuous. It is wicked for
man to be ravening or sinuous, because it is against the divine nature
that God has put in man. He made man for better things.
God made man in His own image, God coming through successive stages,
manifesting Himself in successive relations of Himself in human
experience, God at last disclosing Himself in one pure, sinless,
typical man in order that man through that humanity might know who and
what God is--and is that the end? Oh, no! That is the beginning,
only the beginning. For what did God come in Christ? Simply to show
Himself? Here is a hospital--all manner of sick; the paralytic, the
fever-stricken, the consumptive. Is it good news to these hospital
bedridden ones if an athlete come in and show them his life, his
muscles, the purity of his lungs, the health of his constitution, and
then goes out? But if he comes in and says, "My friends, if you will
follow my directions I will put into you consumptive ones some of the
strength of my lungs, into you fever-stricken ones some of the purity
of my blood; into you paralytic ones some of the sinew and muscle
I possess--you can become like me," then there is good news in the
message. If God came into the world simply to tell us what God is and
what the ideal of humanity is, the gospel would be the saddest message
that could be conceived, as delivered to the human race. It would add
gloom to the gloom, darkness to the darkness, chains to the chains,
despair to despair. He comes not merely to show divinity to us, but to
impart divinity to us; rather, to evolve the latent divinity which He
first implanted in us. As God has entered into Christ, He will enter
into me. Christ says to me: As I am patient, you can become patient;
as I am strong, you can become strong; as I am pure, you can become
pure; as I am the Son of God, you can become the Son of God. Therefore
His message is the gospel that it is.
Christ is not a man like other men. I can find in the biography of
Jesus no trace of sin. In every other biography, oh, how many traces!
There is no trace of repentance. The Hebrew Psalmist laments his
iniquity. Paul confesses himself to be the chief of sinners. Luther,
Calvin, Melanchthon, Edwards--go where I will, in the biography of
all the saints there are signs of sin and iniquity. Never a trace of
repentance or confession in Christ. In all others we see a struggle
after God. "My heart panteth after thee, as the hart panteth after
water-brooks." "I count not myself to have attained, but, forgetting
those things that are behind, I press forward toward the mark." Never
in the written biography of Christ a trace of that aspiration after
something not yet reached. On the contrary, a great peace and a great
possession. He says: I have come full of life. I have come to give
life. This sinless Christ comes that He may give to us that which
He Himself possesses; that He may take the sin out of our lives and
sorrow out of our hearts, and for the yearning desire give a great,
great peace. I have come, He says, that you might have life. How much,
Lord and Master? Life more abundantly. What kind of life, Lord and
Master? Eternal life. Has He come with that great life of His to give
a little and then stop? Nay, to give all to every one that every one
will take.
I marvel to find Christian men denying that Christ is the type and
manifestation and revelation of the possible divinity in universal
humanity. It is written all over the Bible. What says Christ Himself?
I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it more
abundantly. As the Father has sent Me into the world, even so I send
you into the world. You shall be My disciples. You shall learn of Me.
You shall be My followers, and tread where I have trod. You shall take
up My cross, and suffer as I have suffered. The secret of My life
shall be the secret of your life. Ye shall be in Me. I will abide with
you. Ye shall be as a branch grafted on the vine, drawing the same
life as I have, as out of My very veins. As the Father was in Me, so
I and My Father will come and abide in you. He breathes upon the
disciples and tells them to receive the Spirit that was in Him; and in
His last prayer He prays that they may share His glory, that they may
be one with the Father, as He is one with the Father. Paul takes up
the same refrain and repeats it over and over again. Righteousness in
man is the righteousness of God, God's own righteousness coming out
of God's heart into human hearts. Ye shall be partakers of the divine
nature. Ye shall be joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ, inheriting
all that Christ inherited from His Father. Ye shall have the same
spirit that was in Christ. Metaphor and trope and figure are exhausted
in the endeavor of the apostle to set forth this sublime truth. Christ
is the servant of God. We are the servants of God. He is the Son of
God. We are the sons of God. He is the light of the world. We are
the lights of the world. He is a priest forever. We are priests
perpetually serving in His temple. He is the one eternal sacrifice. We
are to present our bodies a living sacrifice before God. He is dead.
We are to die with Him. He has risen. We are to rise with Him. Already
we sit in the heavenly place with Christ Jesus. We are changed from
glory to glory into His image. We are predestined to be conformed to
that image. We are bid to pray that we may be rooted and grounded in
Christ, and that with Him, we may be filled with all the fulness of
God.
Do I say, then, that I am equal to Christ? Or that I shall ever become
equal to Christ? No! Let me try to make this plain to the child, and
then the rest will perhaps understand it. Here is a great man. He is
a great statesman. He is a great poet. He is a great orator. He is a
great philosopher. He is a great general. He is Bismarck and Gladstone
and Dante and Napoleon and Raphael and Plato all combined in one.
And he has children, and this boy is a statesman, and this boy is a
general, and this boy is an orator, and this boy is a poet, and this
boy is an artist. No one of them comprizes all the genius that was in
his father, but each one has one quality of that father, and all the
boys together reflect their father's nature. No, I shall never be
equal to Christ. But according to the measure of my own capacity,
I may reflect even here and now something of Christ and be really
Christ-like.
Christ is my Master. I acknowledge no other Master than Him. I wish to
follow where He leads. I gladly believe whatever He says. And I have
no other ambition--oh, I wish it were true that I never had any other
ambition!--than to be like Him. But He is my Master because He bids me
follow where He leads, because He gives what I can take, because He
promised what He will yet fulfil. I believe in the divinity of our
Lord Jesus Christ. It is the center of my faith, as He is the center
and source of my life. But I do not believe in the medieval formula
that Jesus Christ is God and man mysteriously joined together, because
to believe that would be to leave me both without an ideal of man
which I might follow, and without a manifestation of God to which I
might cling. In my country home two Christians quarreled. An atheist
went to them and said to one of them, "Your Christ said, 'Forgive
all your enemies and love one another.'" "Yes," he said, "Christ was
divine. He could. I cannot." But there was nothing of moral virtue
that God wrought in Christ that He cannot work in you and me if we
give Him time enough. And, on the other hand, this separation of "God"
and "man" in Christ denies the real manifestation of God to man.
Jesus called His disciples to watch while He wrestled with agony in
Gethsemane, and Dean Alford, speaking on Gethsemane, says this was the
manifestation in Christ of human weakness. No! no! A thousand times,
No! It is the glorious manifestation of that sympathy in God which
wants the sympathy of the feeblest of His followers, as the mother
wants the sympathy and love of the babe on her lap. "Beloved, now are
we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. Only
we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." There are two
things we do not know. Genius is always a mystery, spiritual genius
the greatest mystery of genius, and Christ the greatest mystery of
all. We do not know what we shall be, any more than one who never had
seen a garden could guess what the mold would be when the spring had
finished its work. Those are two things we do not know. But there are
two things we do know. We shall be like Him, and when we are like Him,
we shall see Him as He is. We shall be like no imagination of Him, no
deteriorated or imperfect conception of Him; but when we come to see
Him in all the regal splendor of His character, with all the love, all
the justice, all the purity, all the divine glory which is adumbrated
and shadowed here because our eyes could not look upon it and still
live--when we come to see Him in all the glory of that divine
character, we shall be like Him--_we shall be like Him_.
BROOKS
THE PRIDE OF LIFE
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Phillips Brooks was born at Boston, Mass., in 1835, graduated at
Harvard in 1855 and studied theology at the P.E. Seminary, Alexandria,
Va. He was elected rector of the Church of the Advent, Philadelphia,
in 1859, and three years later to that of Holy Trinity in the same
city. In 1869 he became rector of Trinity Church, Boston, and was
consecrated Bishop of Massachusetts in 1891. He died in 1893. He was
in every sense a large man, large in simplicity and sympathy, large in
spiritual culture. In his lectures to the students at Yale he spoke of
the preparation for the ministry as being nothing less than the making
of a man. Said he:
"It cannot be the mere training to certain tricks. It cannot be even
the furnishing with abundant knowledge. It must be nothing less than
the kneading and tempering of a man's whole nature till it becomes of
such a consistency and quality as to be capable of transmission. This
is the largeness of the preacher's culture." Doctor Brastow describes
him thus: "The physical equipment was symbol of his soul; and the
rush of his speech was typical of those mental, moral, and spiritual
energies that were fused into unity and came forth in a stream of
fiery intensity."
BROOKS
1835--1893
THE PRIDE OF LIFE[1]
[Footnote 1: Published for the first time by the kind permission of
William G. Brooks.]
_The pride of life_.--1 John ii., 16.
John is giving his disciples the old warning not to love the world,
that world which then and always is pressing on men's eyes and ears
and hearts with all its loveliness and claiming to be loved. "Love not
the world, neither the things that are in the world.... For all that
is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and
the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world."