A formula, a receipt for Sanctification--can one seriously speak of
this mighty change as if the process were as definite as for the
production of so many volts of electricity?
It is impossible to doubt it. Shall a mechanical experiment succeed
infallibly, and the one vital experiment of humanity remain a chance?
Is corn to grow by method, and character by caprice? If we cannot
calculate to a certainty that the forces of religion will do their
work, then is religion vain. And if we cannot express the law of these
forces in simple words, then is Christianity not the world's religion,
but the world's conundrum.
Where, then, shall one look for such a formula? Where one would look
for any formula--among the text-books. And if we turn to the
text-books of Christianity we shall find a formula for this problem as
clear and precise as any in the mechanical sciences. If this simple
rule, moreover, be but followed fearlessly, it will yield the result
of a perfect character as surely as any result that is guaranteed by
the laws of nature.
The finest expression of this rule in Scripture, or indeed in any
literature, is probably one drawn up and condensed into a single verse
by Paul. You will find it in a letter--the second to the
Corinthians--written by him to some Christian people who, in a city
which was a byword for depravity and licentiousness, were seeking the
higher life. To see the point of the words we must take them from the
immensely improved rendering of the Revised translation, for the older
Version in this case greatly obscures the sense. They are these:
"We all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the
Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as
from the Lord, the Spirit."
Now observe at the outset the entire contradiction of all our previous
efforts, in the simple passive: "_We are transformed._"
We _are changed_, as the Old Version has it--we do not change
ourselves. No man can change himself. Throughout the New Testament you
will find that wherever these moral and spiritual transformations are
described the verbs are in the passive. Presently it will be pointed
out that there is a _rationale_ in this; but meantime do not toss
these words aside as if this passivity denied all human effort or
ignored intelligible law. What is implied for the soul here is no more
than is everywhere claimed for the body. In physiology the verbs
describing the processes of growth are in the passive. Growth is not
voluntary; it takes place, it happens, it is wrought upon matter. So
here. "Ye must be born again"--we cannot born ourselves. "Be not
conformed to this world, but _be ye transformed_"--we are subjects to
transforming influence, we do not transform ourselves. Not more
certain is it that it is something outside the thermometer that
produces a change in the thermometer, than it is