Section II.—The Application Of Christ’s Redemption In Its Actual

Beginning.

Under this head we treat of Union with Christ, Regeneration, Conversion

(embracing Repentance and Faith), and Justification. Much confusion and

error have arisen from conceiving these as occurring in chronological

order. The order is logical, not chronological. As it is only “in Christ”

that man is “a new creature” (2 Cor. 5:17) or is “justified” (Acts 13:39),

union with Christ logically precedes both regeneration and justification;

and yet, chronologically, the moment of our union with Christ is also the

moment when we are regenerated and justified. So, too, regeneration and

conversion are but the divine and human sides or aspects of the same fact,

although regeneration has logical precedence, and man turns only as God

turns him.

Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 3:694 (Syst. Doct., 4:159), gives at this

point an account of the work of the Holy Spirit in general. The

Holy Spirit’s work, he says, presupposes the historical work of

Christ, and prepares the way for Christ’s return. “As the Holy

Spirit is the principle of union between the Father and the Son,

so he is the principle of union between God and man. Only through

the Holy Spirit does Christ secure for himself those who will love

him as distinct and free personalities.” Regeneration and

conversion are not chronologically separate. Which of the spokes

of a wheel starts first? The ray of light and the ray of heat

enter at the same moment. Sensation and perception are not

separated in time, although the former is the cause of the latter.

“Suppose a non‐elastic tube extending across the Atlantic. Suppose

that the tube is completely filled with an incompressible fluid.

Then there would be no interval of time between the impulse given

to the fluid at this end of the tube, and the effect upon the

fluid at the other end.” See Hazard, Causation and Freedom in

Willing, 33‐38, who argues that cause and effect are always

simultaneous; else, in the intervening time, there would be a

cause that had no effect; that is, a cause that caused nothing;

that is, a cause that that was not a cause. “A potential cause may

exist for an unlimited period without producing any effect, and of

course may precede its effect by any length of time. But actual,

effective cause being the exercise of a sufficient power, its

effect cannot be delayed; for, in that case, there would be the

exercise of a sufficient power to produce the effect, without

producing it,—involving the absurdity of its being both sufficient

and insufficient at the same time.

“A difficulty may here be suggested in regard to the flow or

progress of events in time, if they are all simultaneous with

their causes. This difficulty cannot arise as to intelligent

effort; for, in regard to it, periods of non‐action may

continually intervene; but if there are series of events and

material phenomena, each of which is in turn effect and cause, it

may be difficult to see how any time could elapse between the

first and the last of the series.... If, however, as I suppose,

these series of events, or material changes, are always effected

through the medium of motion, it need not trouble us, for there is

precisely the same difficulty in regard to our conception of the

motion of matter from point to point, there being no space or

length between any two consecutive points, and yet the body in

motion gets from one end of a long line to the other, and in this

case this difficulty just neutralizes the other.... So, even if we

cannot conceive how motion involves the idea of time, we may

perceive that, if it does so, it may be a means of conveying

events, which depend upon it, through time also.”

Martineau, Study, 1:148‐150—“Simultaneity does not exclude

duration,”—since each cause has duration and each effect has

duration also. Bowne, Metaphysics, 106—“In the system, the

complete ground of an event never lies in any one thing, but only

in a complex of things. If a single thing were the sufficient

ground of an effect, the effect would coëxist with the thing, and

all effects would be instantaneously given. Hence all events in

the system must be viewed as the result of the interaction of two

or more things.”

The first manifestation of life in an infant may be in the lungs

or heart or brain, but that which makes any and all of these

manifestations possible is the antecedent life. We may not be able

to tell which comes first, but having the life we have all the

rest. When the wheel goes, all the spokes will go. The soul that

is born again will show it in faith and hope and love and holy

living. Regeneration will involve repentance and faith and

justification and sanctification. But the one life which makes

regeneration and all these consequent blessings possible is the

life of Christ who joins himself to us in order that we may join

ourselves to him. Anne Reeve Aldrich, The Meaning: “I lost my life

in losing love. This blurred my spring and killed its dove. Along

my path the dying roses Fell, and disclosed the thorns thereof. I

found my life in finding God. In ecstasy I kiss the rod; For who

that wins the goal, but lightly Thinks of the thorns whereon he

trod?”

See A. A. Hodge, on the Ordo Salutis, in Princeton Rev., March,

1888:304‐321. Union with Christ, says Dr. Hodge, “is effected by

the Holy Ghost in effectual calling. Of this calling the parts are

two: (_a_) the offering of Christ to the sinner, _externally_ by

the gospel, and _internally_ by the illumination of the Holy

Ghost; (_b_) the reception of Christ, which on our part is both

passive and active. The passive reception is that whereby a

spiritual principle is ingenerated into the human will, whence

issues the active reception, which is an act of faith with which

repentance is always conjoined. The communion of benefits which

results from this union involves: (_a_) a change of state or

relation, called justification; and (_b_) a change of subjective

moral character, commenced in regeneration and completed through

sanctification.” See also Dr. Hodge’s Popular Lectures on

Theological Themes, 340, and Outlines of Theology, 333‐429.

H. B. Smith, however, in his System of Christian Theology, is more

clear in the putting of Union with Christ before Regeneration. On

page 502, he begins his treatment of the Application of Redemption

with the title: “The Union between Christ and the individual

believer as effected by the Holy Spirit. This embraces the

subjects of Justification, Regeneration, and Sanctification, with

the underlying topic which comes first to be considered,

Election.” He therefore treats Union with Christ (531‐539) before

Regeneration (553‐569). He says Calvin defines regeneration as

coming to us by participation in Christ, and apparently agrees

with this view (559).

“This union [with Christ] is at the ground of regeneration and

justification” (534). “The great difference of theological systems

comes out here. Since Christianity is redemption through Christ,

our mode of conceiving that will determine the character of our

whole theological system” (536). “The union with Christ is

mediated by his Spirit, whence we are both renewed and justified.

The great fact of objective Christianity is incarnation in order

to atonement; the great fact of subjective Christianity is union

with Christ, whereby we receive the atonement” (537). We may add

that this union with Christ, in view of which God elects and to

which God calls the sinner, is begun in regeneration, completed in

conversion, declared in justification, and proved in

sanctification and perseverance.

I. Union with Christ.

The Scriptures declare that, through the operation of God, there is

constituted a union of the soul with Christ different in kind from God’s

natural and providential concursus with all spirits, as well as from all

unions of mere association or sympathy, moral likeness, or moral

influence,—a union of life, in which the human spirit, while then most

truly possessing its own individuality and personal distinctness, is

interpenetrated and energized by the Spirit of Christ, is made inscrutably

but indissolubly one with him, and so becomes a member and partaker of

that regenerated, believing, and justified humanity of which he is the

head.

Union with Christ is not union with a system of doctrine, nor with

external religious influences, nor with an organized church, nor

with an ideal man,—but rather, with a personal, risen, living,

omnipresent Lord (J. W. A. Stewart). Dr. J. W. Alexander well

calls this doctrine of the Union of the Believer with Christ “the

central truth of all theology and of all religion.” Yet it

receives little of formal recognition, either in dogmatic

treatises or in common religious experience. Quenstedt, 886‐912,

has devoted a section to it; A. A. Hodge gives to it a chapter, in

his Outlines of Theology, 369 sq., to which we are indebted for

valuable suggestions; H. B. Smith treats of it, not however as a

separate topic, but under the head of Justification (System,

531‐539).

The majority of printed systems of doctrine, however, contain no

chapter or section on Union with Christ, and the majority of

Christians much more frequently think of Christ as a Savior

outside of them, than as a Savior who dwells within. This

comparative neglect of the doctrine is doubtless a reaction from

the exaggerations of a false mysticism. But there is great need of

rescuing the doctrine from neglect. For this we rely wholly upon

Scripture. Doctrines which reason can neither discover nor prove

need large support from the Bible. It is a mark of divine wisdom

that the doctrine of the Trinity, for example, is so inwoven with

the whole fabric of the New Testament, that the rejection of the

former is the virtual rejection of the latter. The doctrine of

Union with Christ, in like manner, is taught so variously and

abundantly, that to deny it is to deny inspiration itself. See

Kahnis, Luth. Dogmatik, 3:447‐450.

1. Scripture Representations of this Union.

A. Figurative teaching. It is illustrated:

(_a_) From the union of a building and its foundation.

_Eph. 2:20‐22_—“_being built upon the foundation of the apostles

and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone;

in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into

a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together

for a habitation of God in the Spirit_”; _Col. 2:7_—“_builded up

in him_”—grounded in Christ as our foundation; _1 Pet. 2:4,

5_—“_unto whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but

with God elect, precious, ye also, as living stones, are built up

a spiritual house_”—each living stone in the Christian temple is

kept in proper relation to every other, and is made to do its part

in furnishing a habitation for God, only by being built upon and

permanently connected with Christ, the chief corner‐stone. _Cf._

_Ps. 118:22_—“_The stone which the builders rejected Is become the

head of the corner_”; _Is. 28:16_—“_Behold, I lay in Zion for a

foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner‐stone of sure

foundation: he that believeth shall not be in haste._”

(_b_) From the union between husband and wife.

_Rom. 7:4_—“_ye also were made dead to the law through the body of

Christ; that ye should be joined to another, even to him who was

raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto

God_”—here union with Christ is illustrated by the indissoluble

bond that connects husband and wife, and makes them legally and

organically one; _2 Cor. 11:2_—“_I am jealous over you with a

godly jealousy: for I espoused you to one husband, that I might

present you as a pure virgin to Christ_”; _Eph. 5:31, 32_—“_For

this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall

cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh. This

mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the

church_”—Meyer refers _verse 31_ wholly to Christ, and says that

Christ leaves father and mother (the right hand of God) and is

joined to the church as his wife, the two constituting thenceforth

one moral person. He makes the union future, however,—“_For this

cause shall a man leave his father and mother_”—the consummation

is at Christ’s second coming. But the Fathers, as Chrysostom,

Theodoret, and Jerome, referred it more properly to the

incarnation.

_Rev. 19:7_—“_the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath

made herself ready_”; _22:17_—“_And the Spirit and the bride say,

Come_”; _cf._ _Is. 54:5_—“_For thy Maker is thine husband_”; _Jer.

3:20_—“_Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband,

so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith

Jehovah_”; _Hos. 2:2‐5_—“_for their mother hath played the

harlot_”—departure from God is adultery; the _Song of Solomon_, as

Jewish interpreters have always maintained, is an allegorical poem

describing, under the figure of marriage, the union between

Jehovah and his people: Paul only adopts the Old Testament figure,

and applies it more precisely to the union of God with the church

in Jesus Christ.

(_c_) From the union between the vine and its branches.

_John 15:1‐10_—“_I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that

abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for

apart from me ye can do nothing_”—as God’s natural life is in the

vine, that it may give life to its natural branches, so God’s

spiritual life is in the vine, Christ, that he may give life to

his spiritual branches. The roots of this new vine are planted in

heaven, not on earth; and into it the half‐withered branches of

the old humanity are to be grafted, that they may have life

divine. Yet our Lord does not say “I am the root.” The branch is

not something _outside_, which has to get nourishment _out of_ the

root,—it is rather a _part_ of the vine. _Rom. 6:5_—“_if we have

become united with him_ [σύμφυτοι—‘grown together’—used of the man

and horse in the Centaur, Xen., Cyrop., 4:3:18], _in the likeness

of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his

resurrection_”; _11:24_—“_thou wast cut out of that which is by

nature a wild olive tree, and wast grafted contrary to nature into

a good olive tree_”; _Col. 2:6, 7_—“_As therefore ye received

Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and builded up in

him_”—not only grounded in Christ as our foundation, but thrusting

down roots into him as the deep, rich, all‐sustaining soil. This

union with Christ is consistent with individuality: for the graft

brings forth fruit after its kind, though modified by the tree

into which it is grafted.

Bishop H. W. Warren, in S. S. Times, Oct. 17, 1891—“The lessons of

the vine are intimacy, likeness of nature, continuous impartation

of life, fruit. Between friends there is intimacy by means of

media, such as food, presents, care, words, soul looking from the

eyes. The mother gives her liquid flesh to the babe, but such

intimacy soon ceases. The mother is not rich enough in life

continuously to feed the ever‐enlarging nature of the growing man.

Not so with the vine. It continuously feeds. Its rivers crowd all

the banks. They burst out in leaf, blossom, clinging tendrils, and

fruit, everywhere. In nature a thorn grafted on a pear tree bears

only thorn. There is not pear‐life enough to compel change of its

nature. But a wild olive, typical of depraved nature, grafted on a

good olive tree finds, contrary to nature, that there is force

enough in the growing stock to change the nature of the wild

scion.”

(_d_) From the union between the members and the head of the body.

_1 Cor. 6:15, 19_—“_Know ye not that your bodies are members of

Christ?... know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy

Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God?_” _12:12_—“_For as

the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the

body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ_”—here Christ is

identified with the church of which he is the head; _Eph. 1:22,

23_—“_he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him

to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the

fulness of him that filleth all in all_”—as the members of the

human body are united to the head, the source of their activity

and the power that controls their movements, so all believers are

members of an invisible body whose head is Christ. Shall we tie a

string round the finger to keep for it its own blood? No, for all

the blood of the body is needed to nourish one finger. So Christ

is “_head over all things to_ [for the benefit of] _the church_”

(Tyler, Theol. Greek Poets, preface, ii). “The church is the

fulness (πλήρωμα) of Christ; as it was not good for the first man,

Adam, to be alone, no more was it good for the second man, Christ”

(C. H. M.). _Eph. 4:15, 16_—“_grow up in all things into him, who

is the head, even Christ; from whom all the body ... maketh the

increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love_”;

_5:29, 30_—“_for no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth

and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church; because we are

members of his body._”

(_e_) From the union of the race with the source of its life in Adam.

_Rom. 5:12, 21_—“_as through one man sin entered into the world,

and death through sin.... that, as sin reigned in death, even so

might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through

Jesus Christ our Lord_”; _1 Cor. 15:22, 45, 49_—“_as in Adam all

die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.... The first man

Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life‐giving

Spirit.... as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also

bear the image of the heavenly_”—as the whole race is one with the

first man Adam, in whom it fell and from whom it has derived a

corrupted and guilty nature, so the whole race of believers

constitutes a new and restored humanity, whose justified and

purified nature is derived from Christ, the second Adam. _Cf._

_Gen. 2:23_—“_This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh:

she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man_”—here

C. H. M. remarks that, as man is first created and then woman is

viewed in and formed out of him, so it is with Christ and the

church. “We are members of Christ’s body, because in Christ we

have the principle of our origin; from him our life arose, just as

the life of Eve was derived from Adam.... The church is Christ’s

helpmeet, formed out of Christ in his deep sleep of death, as Eve

out of Adam.... The church will be nearest to Christ, as Eve was

to Adam.” Because Christ is the source of all spiritual life for

his people, he is called, in _Is. 9:6_, “_Everlasting Father,_”

and it is said, in _Is. 53:10_, that “_he shall see his seed_”

(see page 680).

B. Direct statements.

(_a_) The believer is said to be in Christ.

Lest we should regard the figures mentioned above as merely

Oriental metaphors, the fact of the believer’s union with Christ

is asserted in the most direct and prosaic manner. _John

14:20_—“_ye in me_”; _Rom. 6:11_—“_alive unto God in Christ

Jesus_”; _8:1_—“_no condemnation to them that are in Christ

Jesus_”; _2 Cor. 5:17_—“_if any man is in Christ, he is a new

creature_”; _Eph. 1:4_—“_chose us in him before the foundation of

the world_”; _2:13_—“_now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far

off are made nigh in the blood of Christ._” Thus the believer is

said to be “_in Christ_,” as the element or atmosphere which

surrounds him with its perpetual presence and which constitutes

his vital breath; in fact, this phrase “_in Christ_,” always

meaning “in union with Christ,” is the very key to Paul’s

epistles, and to the whole New Testament. The fact that the

believer is in Christ is symbolized in baptism: we are “_baptized

into Christ_” (_Gal. 3:27_).

(_b_) Christ is said to be in the believer.

_John 14:20_—“_I in you_”; _Rom. 8:9_—“_ye are not in the flesh

but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in

you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of

his_”—that this Spirit of Christ is Christ himself, is shown from

_verse 10_—“_And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of

sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness_”; _Gal.

2:20_—“_I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I

that live, but Christ liveth in me_”—here Christ is said to be in

the believer, and so to live his life within the believer, that

the latter can point to this as the dominating fact of his

experience,—it is not so much he that lives, as it is Christ that

lives in him. The fact that Christ is in the believer is

symbolized in the Lord’s supper: “_The bread which we break, is it

not a participation in the body of Christ?_” (_1 Cor. 10:16_).

(_c_) The Father and the Son dwell in the believer.

_John 14:23_—“_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_”; _cf._ _10_—“_Believest thou not that I am in the

Father, and the Father in me? the words that I say unto you I

speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me doeth his

works_”—the Father and the Son dwell in the believer; for where

the Son is, there always the Father must be also. If the union

between the believer and Christ in _John 14:23_ is to be

interpreted as one of mere moral influence, then the union of

Christ and the Father in _John 14:10_ must also be interpreted as

a union of mere moral influence. _Eph. 3:17_—“_that Christ may

dwell in your hearts through faith_”; _1 John 4:16_—“_he that

abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him._”

(_d_) The believer has life by partaking of Christ, as Christ has life by

partaking of the Father.

_John 6:53, 56, 57_—“_Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man

and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves .... He that

eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him.

As the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so

he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me_”—the believer

has life by partaking of Christ in a way that may not

inappropriately be compared with Christ’s having life by partaking

of the Father. _1 Cor. 10:16, 17_—“_the cup of blessing which we

bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread

which we break, is it not a communion of the body of

Christ?_”—here it is intimated that the Lord’s Supper sets forth,

in the language of symbol, the soul’s actual participation in the

life of Christ; and the margin properly translates the word

κοινωνία, not “communion,” but “_participation_.” _Cf._ _1 John

1:3_—“_our fellowship (κοινωνία) is with the Father, and with his

Son Jesus Christ._” Foster, Christian Life and Theology, 216—“In

_John 6_, the phrases call to mind the ancient form of sacrifice,

and the participation therein by the offerer at the sacrificial

meal,—as at the Passover.”

(_e_) All believers are one in Christ.

_John 17:21‐23_—“_that they may all be one; even as thou, Father,

art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us: that the

world may believe that thou didst send me. And the glory which

thou hast given me I have given unto them; that they may be one,

even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be

perfected into one_”—all believers are one in Christ, to whom they

are severally and collectively united, as Christ himself is one

with God.

(_f_) The believer is made partaker of the divine nature.

_2 Pet. 1:4_—“_that through these_ [promises] _ye may become

partakers of the divine nature_”—not by having the essence of your

humanity changed into the essence of divinity, but by having

Christ the divine Savior continually dwelling within, and

indissolubly joined to, your human souls.

(_g_) The believer is made one spirit with the Lord.

_1 Cor. 6:17_—“_he that is joined unto the Lord is one

spirit_”—human nature is so interpenetrated and energized by the

divine, that the two move and act as one; _cf._ _19_—“_know ye not

that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you,

which ye have from God?_” _Rom. 8:26_—“_the Spirit also helpeth

our infirmity: for we know not how to pray as we ought; but the

Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which

cannot be uttered_”—the Spirit is so near to us, and so one with

us, that our prayer is called his, or rather, his prayer becomes

ours. Weiss, in his Life of Jesus, says that, in the view of

Scripture, human greatness does not consist in a man’s producing

everything in a natural way out of himself, but in possessing

perfect receptivity for God’s greatest gift. Therefore God’s Son

receives the Spirit without measure; and we may add that the

believer in like manner receives Christ.

2. Nature of this Union.

We have here to do not only with a fact of life, but with a unique

relation between the finite and the infinite. Our descriptions must

therefore be inadequate. Yet in many respects we know what this union is

not; in certain respects we can positively characterize it.

It should not surprise us if we find it far more difficult to give

a scientific definition of this union, than to determine the fact

of its existence. It is a fact of life with which we have to deal;

and the secret of life, even in its lowest forms, no philosopher

has ever yet discovered. The tiniest flower witnesses to two

facts: first, that of its own relative independence, as an

individual organism; and secondly, that of its ultimate dependence

upon a life and power not its own. So every human soul has its

proper powers of intellect, affection, and will; yet it lives,

moves, and has its being in God (_Acts 17:28_).

Starting out from the truth of God’s omnipresence, it might seem

as if God’s indwelling in the granite boulder was the last limit

of his union with the finite. But we see the divine intelligence

and goodness drawing nearer to us, by successive stages, in

vegetable life, in the animal creation, and in the moral nature of

man. And yet there are two stages beyond all these: first, in

Christ’s union with the believer; and secondly, in God’s union

with Christ. If this union of God with the believer be only one of

several approximations of God to his finite creation, the fact

that it is, equally with the others, not wholly comprehensible to

reason, should not blind us either to its truth or to its

importance.

It is easier to‐day than at any other previous period of history

to believe in the union of the believer with Christ. That God is

immanent in the universe, and that there is a divine element in

man, is familiar to our generation. All men are naturally one with

Christ, the immanent God, and this natural union prepares the way

for that spiritual union in which Christ joins himself to our

faith. Campbell, The Indwelling Christ, 131—“In the immanence of

Christ in nature we find the ground of his immanence in human

nature.... A man may be out of Christ, but Christ is never out of

him. Those who banish him he does not abandon.” John Caird, Fund.

Ideas of Christianity, 2:233‐256—“God is united with nature, in

the atoms, in the trees, in the planets. Science is seeing nature

full of the life of God. God is united to man in body and soul.

The beating of his heart and the voice of conscience witness to

God within. God sleeps in the stone, dreams in the animal, wakes

in man.”

A. Negatively.—It is not:

(_a_) A merely natural union, like that of God with all human spirits,—as

held by rationalists.

In our physical life we are conscious of another life within us

which is not subject to our wills: the heart beats involuntarily,

whether we sleep or wake. But in our spiritual life we are still

more conscious of a life within our life. Even the heathen said:

“Est Deus in nobis; agitante calescimus illo,” and the Egyptians

held to the identification of the departed with Osiris (Renouf,

Hibbert Lectures, 185). But Paul urges us to work out our

salvation, upon the very ground that “_it is God that worketh_” in

us, “_both to will and to work, for his good pleasure_” (_Phil.

2:12, 13_). This life of God in the soul is the life of Christ.

The movement of the electric car cannot be explained simply from

the working of its own motor apparatus. The electric current

throbbing through the wire, and the dynamo from which that energy

proceeds, are needed to explain the result. In like manner we need

a spiritual Christ to explain the spiritual activity of the

Christian. A. H. Strong, Sermon before the Baptist World Congress

in London, 1905—“We had in America some years ago a steam engine

all whose working parts were made of glass. The steam came from

without, but, being hot enough to move machinery, this steam was

itself invisible, and there was presented the curious spectacle of

an engine, transparent, moving, and doing important work, while

yet no cause for this activity was perceptible. So the church,

humanity, the universe, are all in constant and progressive

movement, but the Christ who moves them is invisible. Faith comes

to believe where it cannot see. It joins itself to this invisible

Christ, and knows him as its very life.”

(_b_) A merely moral union, or union of love and sympathy, like that

between teacher and scholar, friend and friend,—as held by Socinians and

Arminians.

There is a moral union between different souls: _1 Sam.

18:1_—“_the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and

Jonathan loved him as his own soul_”—here the Vulgate has: “Anima

Jonathæ agglutinata Davidi.” Aristotle calls friends “one soul.”

So in a higher sense, in _Acts 4:32_, the early believers are said

to have been “_of one heart and soul_.” But in _John 17:21, 26_,

Christ’s union with his people is distinguished from any mere

union of love and sympathy: “_that they may all be one; even as

thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in

us;... that the love wherewith thou lovedst me may be in them, and

I in them_.” Jesus’ aim, in the whole of his last discourse, is to

show that no mere union of love and sympathy will be sufficient:

“_apart from me_,” he says, “_ye can do nothing_” (_John 15:5_).

That his disciples may be vitally joined to himself, is therefore

the subject of his last prayer.

Dorner says well, that Arminianism (and with this doctrine Roman

Catholics and the advocates of New School views substantially

agree) makes man a mere tangent to the circle of the divine

nature. It has no idea of the interpenetration of the one by the

other. But the Lutheran Formula of Concord says much more

correctly: “Damnamus sententiam quod non Deus ipse, sed dona Dei

duntaxat, in credentibus habitent.”

Ritschl presents to us a historical Christ, and Pfleiderer

presents to us an ideal Christ, but neither one gives us the

living Christ who is the present spiritual life of the believer.

Wendt, in his Teaching of Jesus, 2:310, comes equally far short of

a serious interpretation of our Lord’s promise, when he says:

“This union to his person, as to its contents, is nothing else

than adherence to the message of the kingdom of God brought by

him.” It is not enough for me to be merely _in touch_ with Christ.

He must come to be “not so far as even to be near.” Tennyson, The

Higher Pantheism: “Closer is he than breathing, and nearer than

hands or feet.” William Watson, The Unknown God: “Yea, in my flesh

his Spirit doth flow, Too near, too far, for me to know.”

(_c_) A union of essence, which destroys the distinct personality and

subsistence of either Christ or the human spirit,—as held by many of the

mystics.

Many of the mystics, as Schwenkfeld, Weigel, Sebastian Frank, held

to an _essential_ union between Christ and the believer. One of

Weigel’s followers, therefore, could say to another: “I am Christ

Jesus, the living Word of God; I have redeemed thee by my sinless

sufferings.” We are ever to remember that the indwelling of Christ

only puts the believer more completely in possession of himself,

and makes him more conscious of his own personality and power.

Union with Christ must be taken in connection with the other truth

of the personality and activity of the Christian; otherwise it

tends to pantheism. Martineau, Study, 2:190—“In nature it is God’s

immanent life, in morals it is God’s transcendent life, with which

we commune.”

Angelus Silesius, a German philosophical poet (1624‐1677),

audaciously wrote: “I know God cannot live an instant without me;

He must give up the ghost, if I should cease to be.” Lowde, a

disciple of Malebranche, used the phrase “Godded with God, and

Christed with Christ,” and Jonathan Edwards, in his Religious

Affections, quotes it with disapprobation, saying that “the saints

do not become actually partakers of the divine essence, as would

be inferred from this abominable and blasphemous language of

heretics” (Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 224). “Self is not a mode of

the divine: it is a principle of isolation. In order to religion,

I must have a will to surrender.... ‘Our wills are ours, to make

them thine.’... Though the self is, in _knowledge_, a principle of

unification; in _existence_, or metaphysically, it is a principle

of isolation” (Seth).

Inge, Christian Mysticism, 30—“Some of the mystics went astray by

teaching a real _substitution_ of the divine for human nature,

thus depersonalizing man—a fatal mistake, for without human

personality we cannot conceive of divine personality.” Lyman

Abbott: “In Christ, God and man are united, not as the river is

united with the sea, losing its personality therein, but as the

child is united with the father, or the wife with the husband,

whose personality and individuality are strengthened and increased

by the union.” Here Dr. Abbott’s view comes as far short of the

truth as that of the mystics goes beyond the truth. As we shall

see, the union of the believer with Christ is a vital union,

surpassing in its intimacy any union of souls that we know. The

union of child with father, or of wife with husband, is only a

pointer which hints very imperfectly at the interpenetrating and

energizing of the human spirit by the divine.

(_d_) A union mediated and conditioned by participation of the sacraments

of the church,—as held by Romanists, Lutherans, and High‐Church

Episcopalians.

Perhaps the most pernicious misinterpretation of the nature of

this union is that which conceives of it as a physical and

material one, and which rears upon this basis the fabric of a

sacramental and external Christianity. It is sufficient here to

say that this union cannot be mediated by sacraments, since

sacraments presuppose it as already existing; both Baptism and the

Lord’s Supper are designed only for believers. Only faith receives

and retains Christ; and faith is the act of the soul grasping what

is purely invisible and supersensible: not the act of the body,

submitting to Baptism or partaking of the Supper.

William Lincoln: “The only way for the believer, if he wants to go

rightly, is to remember that truth is always two‐sided. If there

is any truth that the Holy Spirit has specially pressed upon your

heart, if you do not want to push it to the extreme, ask what is

the counter‐truth, and lean a little of your weight upon that;

otherwise, if you bear so very much on one side of the truth,

there is a danger of pushing it into a heresy. Heresy means

selected truth; it does not mean error; heresy and error are very

different things. Heresy is truth, but truth pushed into undue

importance, to the disparagement of the truth upon the other

side.” Heresy (αἵρεσις) = an act of choice, the picking and

choosing of a part, instead of comprehensively embracing the whole

of truth. Sacramentarians substitute the symbol for the thing

symbolized.

B. Positively.—It is:

(_a_) An organic union,—in which we become members of Christ and partakers

of his humanity.

Kant defines an organism, as that whose parts are reciprocally

means and end. The body is an organism; since the limbs exist for

the heart, and the heart for the limbs. So each member of Christ’s

body lives for him who is the head; and Christ the head equally

lives for his members: _Eph. 5:29, 30_—“_no man ever hated his own

flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, __ even as Christ also

the church; because we are members of his body_.” The train‐

despatcher is a symbol of the concentration of energy; the

switchmen and conductors who receive his orders are symbols of the

localization of force; but it is all one organic system.

(_b_) A vital union,—in which Christ’s life becomes the dominating

principle within us.

This union is a vital one, in distinction from any union of mere

juxtaposition or external influence. Christ does not work upon us

from without, as one separated from us, but from within, as the

very heart from which the life‐blood of our spirits flows. See

_Gal. 2:20_—“_it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in

me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith,

the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave

himself up for me;_” _Col 3:3, 4_—“_For ye died, and your life is

hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall be

manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory._”

Christ’s life is not corrupted by the corruption of his members,

any more than the ray of light is defiled by the filth with which

it comes in contact. We may be unconscious of this union with

Christ, as we often are of the circulation of the blood, yet it

may be the very source and condition of our life.

(_c_) A spiritual union,—that is, a union whose source and author is the

Holy Spirit.

By a spiritual union we mean a union not of body but of spirit,—a

union, therefore, which only the Holy Spirit originates and

maintains. _Rom. 8:9, 10_—“_ye are not in the flesh but in the

Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if

any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if

Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit

is life because of righteousness._” The indwelling of Christ

involves a continual exercise of efficient power. In _Eph. 3:16,

17_, “_strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward

man_” is immediately followed by “_that Christ may dwell in your

hearts through faith_.”

(_d_) An indissoluble union,—that is, a union which, consistently with

Christ’s promise and grace, can never be dissolved.

_Mat. 28:20_—“_lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the

world_”; _John 10:28_—“_they shall never perish, and no one shall

snatch them out of my hand_”; _Rom. 8:35, 39_—“_Who shall separate

us from the love of Christ?... nor height, nor depth, nor any

other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God,

which is in Christ Jesus our Lord_”; _1 Thess. 4:14, 17_—“_them

also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him ...

then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be

caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall

we ever be with the Lord._”

Christ’s omnipresence makes it possible for him to be united to,

and to be present in, each believer, as perfectly and fully as if

that believer were the only one to receive Christ’s fulness. As

Christ’s omnipresence makes the whole Christ present in every

place, each believer has the whole Christ with him, as his source

of strength, purity, life; so that each may say: Christ gives all

his time and wisdom and care to me. Such a union as this lacks

every element of instability. Once formed, the union is

indissoluble. Many of the ties of earth are rudely broken,—not so

with our union with Christ,—that endures forever.

Since there is now an unchangeable and divine element in us, our

salvation depends no longer upon our unstable wills, but upon

Christ’s purpose and power. By temporary declension from duty, or

by our causeless unbelief, we may banish Christ to the barest and

most remote room of the soul’s house; but he does not suffer us

wholly to exclude him; and when we are willing to unbar the doors,

he is still there, ready to fill the whole mansion with his light

and love.

(_e_) An inscrutable union,—mystical, however, only in the sense of

surpassing in its intimacy and value any other union of souls which we

know.

This union is inscrutable, indeed; but it is not mystical, in the

sense of being unintelligible to the Christian or beyond the reach

of his experience. If we call it mystical at all, it should be

only because, in the intimacy of its communion and in the

transforming power of its influence, it surpasses any other union

of souls that we know, and so cannot be fully described or

understood by earthly analogies. _Eph. 5:32_—“_This mystery is

great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church_”; _Col.

1:27_—“_the riches of the glory of this mystery among the

Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory._”

See Diman, Theistic Argument, 380—“As physical science has brought

us to the conclusion that back of all the phenomena of the

material universe there lies an invisible universe of forces, and

that these forces may ultimately be reduced to one all‐pervading

force in which the unity of the physical universe consists; and as

philosophy has advanced the rational conjecture that this ultimate

all‐pervading force is simply will‐force; so the great Teacher

holds up to us the spiritual universe as pervaded by one

omnipotent life—a life which was revealed in him as its highest

manifestation, but which is shared by all who by faith become

partakers of his nature. He was Son of God: they too had power to

become sons of God. The incarnation is wholly within the natural

course and tendency of things. It was prepared for, it came, in

the fulness of times. Christ’s life is not something sporadic and

individual, having its source in the personal conviction of each

disciple; it implies a real connection with Christ, the head.

Behind all nature there is one force; behind all varieties of

Christian life and character there is one spiritual power. All

nature is not inert matter,—it is pervaded by a living presence.

So all the body of believers live by virtue of the all‐working

Spirit of Christ, the Holy Ghost.” An epitaph at Silton, in

Dorsetshire, reads: “Here lies a piece of Christ—a star in dust, A

vein of gold, a china dish, that must Be used in heaven when God

shall feed the just.”

A. H. Strong, in Examiner, 1880: “Such is the nature of union with

Christ,—such I mean, is the nature of every believer’s union with

Christ. For, whether he knows it or not, every Christian has

entered into just such a partnership as this. It is this and this

only which constitutes him a Christian, and which makes possible a

Christian church. We may, indeed, be thus united to Christ,

without being fully conscious of the real nature of our relation

to him. We may actually possess the kernel, while as yet we have

regard only to the shell; we may seem to ourselves to be united to

Christ only by an external bond, while after all it is an inward

and spiritual bond that makes us his. God often reveals to the

Christian the mystery of the gospel, which is Christ _in_ him the

hope of glory, at the very time that he is seeking only some

nearer access to a Redeemer outside of him. Trying to find a union

of coöperation or of sympathy, he is amazed to learn that there is

already established a union with Christ more glorious and blessed,

namely, a union of life; and so, like the miners in the Rocky

Mountains, while he is looking only for silver, he finds gold.

Christ and the believer have the same life. They are not separate

persons linked together by some temporary bond of friendship,—they

are united by a tie as close and indissoluble as if the same blood

ran in their veins. Yet the Christian may never have suspected how

intimate a union he has with his Savior; and the first

understanding of this truth may be the gateway through which he

passes into a holier and happier stage of the Christian life.”

So the Way leads, through the Truth, to the Life (_John 14:6_).

Apprehension of an external Savior prepares for the reception and

experience of the internal Savior. Christ is first the Door of the

sheep, but in him, after they have once entered in, they find

pasture (_John 10:7‐9_). On the nature of this union, see H. B.

Smith, System of Christian Theology, 531‐539; Baird, Elohim

Revealed, 601; Wilberforce, Incarnation, 208‐272, and New Birth of

Man’s Nature, 1‐30. _Per contra_, see Park, Discourses, 117‐136.

3. Consequences of this Union as respects the Believer.

We have seen that Christ’s union with humanity, at the incarnation,

involved him in all the legal liabilities of the race to which he united

himself, and enabled him so to assume the penalty of its sin as to make

for all men a full satisfaction to the divine justice, and to remove all

external obstacles to man’s return to God. An internal obstacle, however,

still remains—the evil affections and will, and the consequent guilt, of

the individual soul. This last obstacle also Christ removes, in the case

of all his people, by uniting himself to them in a closer and more perfect

manner than that in which he is united to humanity at large. As Christ’s

union with the race secures the objective reconciliation of the race to

God, so Christ’s union with believers secures the subjective

reconciliation of believers to God.

In Baird, Elohim Revealed, 607‐610, in Owen, on Justification,

chap. 8, in Boston, Covenant of Grace, chap. 2, and in Dale,

Atonement, 265‐440, the union of the believer with Christ is made

to explain the bearing of our sins by Christ. As we have seen in

our discussion of the Atonement, however (page 759), this explains

the cause by the effect, and implies that Christ died only for the

elect (see review of Dale, in Brit. Quar. Rev., Apr.

1876:221‐225). It is not the union of Christ with the believer,

but the union of Christ with humanity at large, that explains his

taking upon him human guilt and penalty.

Amnesty offered to a rebellious city may be complete, yet it may

avail only for those who surrender. Pardon secured from a

Governor, upon the ground of the services of an Advocate, may be

effectual only when the convict accepts it,—there is no hope for

him when he tears up the pardon. Dr. H. E. Robins: “The judicial

declaration of acquittal on the ground of the death of Christ,

which comes to all men (_Rom. 5:18_), and into the benefits of

which they are introduced by natural birth, is inchoate

justification, and will become perfected justification through the

new birth of the Holy Spirit, unless the working of this divine

agent is resisted by the personal moral action of those who are

lost.” What Dr. Robins calls “inchoate justification” we prefer to

call “ideal justification” or “attainable justification.” Humanity

in Christ is justified, and every member of the race who joins

himself to Christ by faith participates in Christ’s justification.

H. E. Dudley: “Adam’s sin holds us all down just as gravity holds

all, while Christ’s righteousness, though secured for all and

accessible to all, involves an effort of will in climbing and

grasping which not all will make.” Justification in Christ is the

birthright of humanity; but, in order to possess and enjoy it,

each of us must claim and appropriate it by faith.

R. W. Dale, Fellowship with Christ, 7—“When we were created in

Christ, the fortunes of the human race for good or evil became

his. The Incarnation revealed and fulfilled the relations which

already existed between the Son of God and mankind. From the

beginning Christ had entered into fellowship with us. When we

sinned, he remained in fellowship with us still. Our miseries” [we

would add: our guilt] “were his, by his own choice.... His

fellowship with us is the foundation of our fellowship with

him.... When I have discovered that by the very constitution of my

nature I am to achieve perfection in the power of the life of

Another—who is yet not Another, but the very ground of my being—it

ceases to be incredible to me that Another—who is yet not

Another—should be the Atonement for my sin, and that his relation

to God should determine mine.”

A tract entitled “The Seven Togethers” sums up the Scripture

testimony with regard to the Consequences of the believer’s Union

with Christ: 1. Crucified together with Christ—_Gal.

2:20_—συνεσταύρωμαι. 2. Died together with Christ—_Col.

2:20_—ἀπεθάνετε. 3. Buried together with Christ—_Rom.

6:4_—συνετάφημεν. 4. Quickened together with Christ—_Eph.

2:5_—συνεζωοποίησεν. 5. Raised together with Christ—_Col.

3:1_—συνηγέρθητε. 6. Sufferers together with Christ—_Rom.

8:17_—συμπάσχομεν. 7. Glorified together with Christ—_Rom.

8:17_—συνδοξασθῶμεν. Union with Christ results in common sonship,

relation to God, character, influence, and destiny.

Imperfect apprehension of the believer’s union with Christ works

to the great injury of Christian doctrine. An experience of union

with Christ first enables us to understand the death of sin and

separation from God which has befallen the race sprung from the

first Adam. The life and liberty of the children of God in Christ

Jesus shows us by contrast how far astray we had gone. The vital

and organic unity of the new race sprung from the second Adam

reveals the depravity and disintegration which we had inherited

from our first father. We see that as there is one source of

spiritual life in Christ, so there was one source of corrupt life

in Adam; and that as we are justified by reason of our oneness

with the justified Christ, so we are condemned by reason of our

oneness with the condemned Adam.

A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 175—“If it is consistent with

evolution that the physical and natural life of the race should be

derived from a single source, then it is equally consistent with

evolution that the moral and spiritual life of the race should be

derived from a single source. Scripture is stating only scientific

fact when it sets the second Adam, the head of redeemed humanity,

over against the first Adam, the head of fallen humanity. We are

told that evolution should give us many Christs. We reply that

evolution has not given us many Adams. Evolution, as it assigns to

the natural head of the race a supreme and unique position, must

be consistent with itself, and must assign a supreme and unique

position to Jesus Christ, the spiritual head of the race. As there

was but one Adam from whom all the natural life of the race was

derived, so that there can be but one Christ from whom all the

spiritual life of the race is derived.”

The consequences of union with Christ may be summarily stated as follows:

(_a_) Union with Christ involves a change in the dominant affection of the

soul. Christ’s entrance into the soul makes it a new creature, in the

sense that the ruling disposition, which before was sinful, now becomes

holy. This change we call _Regeneration_.

_Rom. 8:2_—“_For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus

made me free from the law of sin and of death_”; _2 Cor.

5:17_—“_if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature_”

(marg.—“_there is a new creation_”); _Gal. 1:15, 16_—“_it was the

good pleasure of God ... to reveal his Son in me_”; _Eph.

2:10_—“_For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for

good works._” As we derive our old nature from the first man Adam,

by birth, so we derive a new nature from the second man Christ, by

the new birth. Union with Christ is the true “transfusion of

blood.” “The death‐struck sinner, like the wan, anæmic, dying

invalid, is saved by having poured into his veins the healthier

blood of Christ” (Drummond, Nat. Law in the Spir. World). God

regenerates the soul by uniting it to Jesus Christ.

In the Johnston Harvester Works at Batavia, when they paint their

machinery, they do it by immersing part after part in a great tank

of paint,—so the painting is instantaneous and complete. Our

baptism into Christ is the outward picture of an inward immersion

of the soul not only into his love and fellowship, but into his

very life, so that in him we become new creatures (_2 Cor. 5:17_).

As Miss Sullivan surrounded Helen Keller with the influence of her

strong personality, by intelligence and sympathy and determination

striving to awaken the blind and dumb soul and give it light and

love, so Jesus envelops us. But his Spirit is more encompassing

and more penetrating than any human influence however powerful,

because his life is the very ground and principle of our being.

Tennyson: “O for a man to arise in me, That the man that I am may

cease to be!” Emerson: “Himself from God he could not free; He

builded better than he knew.” Religion is not the adding of a new

department of activity as an adjunct to our own life or the

grafting of a new method of manifestation upon the old. It is

rather the grafting of our souls into Christ, so that his life

dominates and manifests itself in all our activities. The magnet

which left to itself can lift only a three pound weight, will lift

three hundred when it is attached to the electric dynamo.

Expositor’s Greek Testament on _1 Cor. 15:45, 46_—“The action of

Jesus in ‘_breathing_’ upon his disciples while he said, ‘_Receive

the Holy Spirit_’ (_John 20:22_ _sq._) symbolized the vitalizing

relationship which at this epoch he assumed towards mankind; this

act raised to a higher potency the original ‘_breathing_’ of God

by which ‘_man became a living soul_’ (_Gen. 2:7_).”

(_b_) Union with Christ involves a new exercise of the soul’s powers in

repentance and faith; faith, indeed, is the act of the soul by which,

under the operation of God, Christ is received. This new exercise of the

soul’s powers we call _Conversion_ (Repentance and Faith). It is the

obverse or human side of Regeneration.

_Eph. 3:17_—“_that Christ may dwell in your hearts through

faith_”; _2 Tim. 3:15_—“_the sacred writings which are able to

make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ

Jesus._” Faith is the soul’s laying hold of Christ as its only

source of life, pardon, and salvation. And so we see what true

religion is. It is not a moral life; it is not a determination to

be religious; it is not faith, if by faith we mean an external

trust that somehow Christ will save us; it is nothing less than

the life of the soul in God, through Christ his Son. To Christ

then we are to look for the origin, continuance and increase of

our faith (_Luke 17:5_—“_said unto the Lord, Increase our

faith_”). Our faith is but a part of “_his fulness_” of which “_we

all received, and grace for grace_” (_John 1:16_).

A. H. Strong, Sermon before the Baptist World Congress, London,

1905—“Christianity is summed up in the two facts: Christ _for_ us,

and Christ _in_ us—Christ _for_ us upon the Cross, revealing the

eternal opposition of holiness to sin, and yet, through God’s

eternal suffering for sin making objective atonement for us; and

Christ _in_ us by his Spirit, renewing in us the lost image of

God, and abiding in us as the all‐sufficient source of purity and

power. Here are the two foci of the Christian ellipse: Christ

_for_ us, who redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made

a curse for us, and Christ _in_ us, the hope of glory, whom the

apostle calls the mystery of the gospel.

“We need Christ _in_ us as well as Christ _for_ us. How shall I,

how shall society, find healing and purification within? Let me

answer by reminding you of what they did at Chicago. In all the

world there was no river more stagnant and fetid than was Chicago

River. Its sluggish stream received the sweepings of the

watercraft and the offal of the city, and there was no current to

carry the detritus away. There it settled, and bred miasma and

fever. At last it was suggested that, by cutting through the low

ridge between the city and the Desplaines River, the current could

be set running in the opposite direction, and drainage could be

secured into the Illinois River and the great Mississippi. At a

cost of fifteen millions of dollars the cut was made, and now all

the water of Lake Michigan can be relied upon to cleanse that

turbid stream. What Chicago River could never do for itself, the

great lake now does for it. So no human soul can purge itself of

its sin; and what the individual cannot do, humanity at large is

powerless to accomplish. Sin has dominion over us, and we are foul

to the very depths of our being, until with the help of God we

break through the barrier of our self‐will, and let the floods of

Christ’s purifying life flow into us. Then, in an hour, more is

done to renew, than all our efforts for years had effected. Thus

humanity is saved, individual by individual, not by philosophy, or

philanthropy, or self‐development, or self‐reformation, but simply

by joining itself to Jesus Christ, and by being filled in Him with

all the fulness of God.”

(_c_) Union with Christ gives to the believer the legal standing and

rights of Christ. As Christ’s union with the race involves atonement, so

the believer’s union with Christ involves _Justification_. The believer is

entitled to take for his own all that Christ is, and all that Christ has

done; and this because he has within him that new life of humanity which

suffered in Christ’s death and rose from the grave in Christ’s

resurrection,—in other words, because he is virtually one person with the

Redeemer. In Christ the believer is prophet, priest, and king.

_Acts 13:39_—“_by him_ [lit.: ‘_in him_’ = in union with him]

_every one that believeth is justified_”; _Rom. 6:7, 8_—“_he that

hath died is justified from sin ... we died with Christ_”;

_7:4_—“_dead to the law through the body of Christ_”; _8:1_—“_no

condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus_”; _17_—“_heirs of

God, and joint‐heirs with Christ_”; _1 Cor. 1:30_—“_But of him ye

are in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and

righteousness_ [justification]”; _3:21, 23_—“_all things are yours

... and ye are Christ’s_”; _6:11_—“_ye were justified in the name

of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God_”; _2 Cor.

5:14_—“_we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all

died_”; _21_—“_Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our

behalf; that we might become the righteousness_ [justification]

_of God in him_” = God’s justified persons, in union with Christ

(see pages 760, 761).

_Gal. 2:20_—“_I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no

longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me_”; _Eph. 1:4,

6_—“_chose us in him ... to the praise of the glory of his grace,

which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved_”; _2:5, 6_—“_even

when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together

with Christ ... made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in

Christ Jesus_”; _Phil. 3:8, 9_—“_that I may gain Christ, and be

found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that

which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ,

the righteousness which is from God by faith_”; _2 Tim.

2:11_—“_Faithful is the saying: For if we died with him, we shall

also live with him._” Prophet: _Luke 12:12_—“_the Holy Spirit

shall teach you in that very hour what ye ought to say_”; _1 John

2:20_—“_ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all

things._” Priest: _1 Pet. 2:5_—“_a holy priesthood, to offer up

spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ_”;

_Rev. 20:6_—“_they shall be priests of God and of Christ_”; _1

Pet. 2:9_—“_a royal priesthood._” King: _Rev. 3:21_—“_He that

overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne_”;

_5:10_—“_madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests._”

The connection of justification and union with Christ delivers the

former from the charge of being a mechanical and arbitrary

procedure. As Jonathan Edwards has said: “The justification of the

believer is no other than his being admitted to communion in, or

participation of, this head and surety of all believers.”

(_d_) Union with Christ secures to the believer the continuously

transforming, assimilating power of Christ’s life,—first, for the soul;

secondly, for the body,—consecrating it in the present, and in the future

raising it up in the likeness of Christ’s glorified body. This continuous

influence, so far as it is exerted in the present life, we call

_Sanctification_, the human side or aspect of which is _Perseverance_.

For the soul: _John 1:16_—“_of his fulness we all received, and

grace for grace_”—successive and increasing measures of grace,

corresponding to the soul’s successive and increasing needs; _Rom.

8:10_—“_if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but

the spirit is life because of righteousness_”; _1 Cor.

15:45_—“_The last Adam became a life‐giving spirit_”; _Phil.

2:5_—“_Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus_”; _1

John 3:2_—“_if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him._”

“Can Christ let the believer fall out of his hands? No, for the

believer is his hands.”

For the body: _1 Cor. 6:17‐20_—“_he that is joined unto the Lord

is one spirit ... know ye not that your body is a temple of the

Holy Spirit which is in you ... glorify God therefore in your

body_”; _Thess. 5:23_—“_And the God of peace himself sanctify you

wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire,

without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ_”; _Rom.

8:11_—“_shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his

Spirit that dwelleth in you_”; _1 Cor. 15:49_—“_as we have borne

the image of the earthy_ [man], _we shall also bear the image of

the heavenly_ [man]”; _Phil. 3:20, 21_—“_For our citizenship is in

heaven; from whence also we wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus

Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that

it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the

working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto

himself._”

Is there a physical miracle wrought for the drunkard in his

regeneration? Mr. Moody says, Yes; Mr. Gough says, No. We prefer

to say that the change is a spiritual one; but that the “expulsive

power of a new affection” indirectly affects the body, so that old

appetites sometimes disappear in a moment; and that often, in the

course of years, great changes take place even in the believer’s

body. Tennyson, Idylls: “Have ye looked at Edyrn? Have ye seen how

nobly changed? This work of his is great and wonderful; His very

face with change of heart is changed.” “Christ in the soul

fashions the germinal man into his own likeness,—this is the

embryology of the new life. The cardinal error in religious life

is the attempt to live without proper environment” (see Drummond,

Natural Law in Spiritual World, 253‐284). Human life from Adam

does not stand the test,—only divine‐human life in Christ can

secure us from falling. This is the work of Christ, now that he

has ascended and taken to himself his power, namely, to give his

life more and more fully to the church, until it shall grow up in

all things into him, the Head, and shall fitly express his glory

to the world.

As the accomplished organist discloses unsuspected capabilities of

his instrument, so Christ brings into activity all the latent

powers of the human soul. “I was five years in the ministry,” said

an American preacher, “before I realized that my Savior is alive.”

Dr. R. W. Dale has left on record the almost unutterable feelings

that stirred his soul when he first realized this truth; see

Walker, The Spirit and the Incarnation, preface, v. Many have

struggled in vain against sin until they have admitted Christ to

their hearts,—then they could say: “_this is the victory that hath

overcome the world, even our faith_” (_1 John 5:4_). “Go out, God

will go in; Die thou, and let him live; Be not, and he will be;

Wait, and he’ll all things give.” The best way to get air out of a

vessel is to pour water in. Only in Christ can we find our pardon,

peace, purity, and power. He is “_made unto us wisdom from God,

and justification and sanctification, and redemption_” (_1 Cor.

1:30_). A medical man says: “The only radical remedy for

dipsomania is religiomania” (quoted in William James, Varieties of

Religious Experience, 268). It is easy to break into an empty

house; the spirit cast out returns, finds the house empty, brings

seven others, and “_the last state of that man becometh worse than

the first_” (_Mat. 12:45_). There is no safety in simply expelling

sin; we need also to bring in Christ; in fact only he can enable

us to expel not only actual sin but the love of it.

Alexander McLaren: “If we are ‘_in Christ_,’ we are like a diver

in his crystal bell, and have a solid though invisible wall around

us, which keeps all sea‐monsters off us, and communicates with the

upper air, whence we draw the breath of calm life and can work in

security though in the ocean depths.” John Caird, Fund. Ideas,

2:98—“How do we know that the life of God has not departed from

nature? Because every spring we witness the annual miracle of

nature’s revival, every summer and autumn the waving corn. How do

we know that Christ has not departed from the world? Because he

imparts to the soul that trusts him a power, a purity, a peace,

which are beyond all that nature can give.”

(_e_) Union with Christ brings about a fellowship of Christ with the

believer,—Christ takes part in all the labors, temptations, and sufferings

of his people; a fellowship of the believer with Christ,—so that Christ’s

whole experience on earth is in some measure reproduced in him; a

fellowship of all believers with one another,—furnishing a basis for the

spiritual unity of Christ’s people on earth, and for the eternal communion

of heaven. The doctrine of Union with Christ is therefore the

indispensable preparation for _Ecclesiology_, and for _Eschatology_.

Fellowship of Christ with the believer: _Phil. 4:13_—“_I can do

all things in him that strengtheneth me_”; _Heb. 4:15_—“_For we

have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of

our infirmities_”; _cf._ _Is. 63:9_—“_In all their affliction he

was afflicted._” _Heb. 2:18_—“_in that he himself hath suffered

being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted_” = are

being tempted, are under temptation. Bp. Wordsworth: “By his

_passion_ he acquired _compassion_.” _2 Cor. 2:14_—“_thanks be

unto God, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ_” = Christ

leads us in triumph, but his triumph is ours, even if it be a

triumph over us. One with him, we participate in his joy and in

his sovereignty. _Rev. 3:21_—“_He that overcometh, I will give to

him to sit down with me in my throne._” W. F. Taylor on _Rom.

8:9_—“_The Spirit of God dwelleth in you.... if any man hath not

the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his_”—“Christ dwells in us,

says the apostle. But do we accept him as a resident, or as a

ruler? England was first represented at King Thebau’s court by her

resident. This official could rebuke, and even threaten, but no

more,—Thebau was sovereign. Burma knew no peace, till England

ruled. So Christ does not consent to be represented by a mere

resident. He must himself dwell within the soul, and he must

reign.” Christina Rossetti, Thee Only: “Lord, we are rivers

running to thy sea, Our waves and ripples all derived from thee; A

nothing we should have, a nothing be, Except for thee. Sweet are

the waters of thy shoreless sea; Make sweet our waters that make

haste to thee; Pour in thy sweetness, that ourselves may be

Sweetness to thee!”

Of the believer with Christ: _Phil. 3:10_—“_that I may know him,

and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his

sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death_”; _Col.

1:24_—“_fill up on my part that which is lacking of the

afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is

the church_”; _1 Pet. 4:13_—“_partakers of Christ’s sufferings._”

The Christian reproduces Christ’s life in miniature, and, in a

true sense, lives it over again. Only upon the principle of union

with Christ can we explain how the Christian instinctively applies

to himself the prophecies and promises which originally and

primarily were uttered with reference to Christ: “_thou wilt not

leave my soul to Sheol; Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to

see corruption_” (_Ps. 16:10, 11_). This fellowship is the ground

of the promises made to believing prayer: _John

14:13_—“_whatsoever ye shall ask is my name, that will I do_”;

Westcott, Bib. Com., _in loco_: “The meaning of the phrase [‘_in

my name_’] is ‘as being one with me even as I am revealed to you.’

Its two correlatives are ‘_in me_’ and the Pauline ‘_in Christ_’.”

“_All things are yours_” (_1 Cor. 3:21_), because Christ is

universal King, and all believers are exalted to fellowship with

him. After the battle of Sedan, King William asked a wounded

Prussian officer whether it were well with him. “All is well where

your majesty leads!” was the reply. _Phil. 1:21_—“_For to me to

live is Christ, and to die is gain._” Paul indeed uses the words

“Christ” and “church” as interchangeable terms: _1 Cor.

12:12_—“_as the body is one, and hath many members, ... so also is

Christ._” Denney, Studies in Theology, 171—“There is not in the N.

T. from beginning to end, in the record of the original and

genuine Christian life, a single word of despondency or gloom. It

is the most buoyant, exhilarating and joyful book in the world.”

This is due to the fact that the writers believe in a living and

exalted Christ, and know themselves to be one with him. They

descend crowned into the arena. In the Soudan, every morning for

half an hour before General Gordon’s tent there lay a white

handkerchief. The most pressing message, even on matters of life

and death, waited till that handkerchief was withdrawn. It was the

signal that Christ and Gordon were in communion with each other.

Of all believers with one another: _John 17:21_—“_that they may

all be one_”; _1 Cor. 10:17_—“_we, who are many, are one bread,

one body: for we all partake of the one bread_”; _Eph.

2:15_—“_create in himself of the two one new man, so making

peace_”; _1 John 1:3_—“_that ye also may have fellowship with us:

yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus

Christ_”—here the word κοινωνία is used. Fellowship with each

other is the effect and result of the fellowship of each with God

in Christ. Compare _John 10:16_—“_they shall become one flock, one

shepherd_”; Westcott, Bib. Com., _in loco_: “The bond of

fellowship is shown to lie in the common relation to one Lord....

Nothing is said of one ‘fold’ under the new dispensation.” Here is

a unity, not of external organization, but of common life. Of this

the visible church is the consequence and expression. But this

communion is not limited to earth,—it is perpetuated beyond death:

_1 Thess. 4:17_—“_so shall we ever be with the Lord_”; _Heb.

12:23_—“_to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who

are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the

spirits of just men made perfect_”; _Rev. 21_ and _22_—the city of

God, the new Jerusalem, is the image of perfect society, as well

as of intensity and fulness of life in Christ. The ordinances

express the essence of Ecclesiology—union with Christ—for Baptism

symbolizes the incorporation of the believer in Christ, while the

Lord’s Supper symbolizes the incorporation of Christ in the

believer. Christianity is a social matter, and the true Christian

feels the need of being with and among his brethren. The Romans

could not understand why “this new sect” must be holding meetings

all the time—even daily meetings. Why could they not go singly, or

in families, to the temples, and make offerings to their God, and

then come away, as the pagans did? It was this meeting together

which exposed them to persecution and martyrdom. It was the

natural and inevitable expression of their union with Christ and

so of their union with one another.

The consciousness of union with Christ gives assurance of

salvation. It is a great stimulus to believing prayer and to

patient labor. It is a duty to “_know what is the hope of his

calling, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the

saints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power to us‐ward

who believe_” (_Eph. 1:18, 19_). Christ’s command, “_Abide in me,

and I in you_” (_John 15:4_), implies that we are both to realize

and to confirm this union, by active exertion of our own wills. We

are to abide in him by an entire consecration, and to let him

abide in us by an appropriating faith. We are to give ourselves to

Christ, and to take in return the Christ who gives himself to

us,—in other words, we are to believe Christ’s promises and to act

upon them. All sin consists in the sundering of man’s life from

God, and most systems of falsehood in religion are attempts to

save man without merging his life in God’s once more. The only

religion that can save mankind is the religion that fills the

whole heart and the whole life with God, and that aims to

interpenetrate universal humanity with that same living Christ who

has already made himself one with the believer. This consciousness

of union with Christ gives “_boldness_” (παρρησία—_Acts 4:13_; _1

John 5:14_) toward men and toward God. The word belongs to the

Greek democracies. Freemen are bold. Demosthenes boasts of his

frankness. Christ frees us from the hidebound, introspective,

self‐conscious spirit. In him we become free, demonstrative,

outspoken. So we find, in John’s epistles, that boldness in prayer

is spoken of as a virtue, and the author of the Epistle to the

Hebrews urges us to “_draw near with boldness unto the throne of

grace_” (_Heb. 4:16_). An engagement of marriage is not the same

as marriage. The parties may be still distant from each other.

Many Christians get just near enough to Christ to be engaged to

him. This seems to be the experience of Christian in the Pilgrim’s

Progress. But our privilege is to have a present Christ, and to do

our work not only _for_ him, but _in_ him. “Since Christ and we

are one, Why should we doubt or fear?” “We two are so joined,

He’ll not be in heaven, And leave me behind.”

We append a few statements with regard to this union and its

consequences, from noted names in theology and the church. Luther:

“By faith thou art so glued to Christ that of thee and him there

becomes as it were one person, so that with confidence thou canst

say: ‘I am Christ,—that is, Christ’s righteousness, victory,

_etc._, are mine’; and Christ in turn can say: ‘I am that

sinner,—that is, his sins, his death, _etc._, are mine, because he

clings to me and I to him, for we have been joined through faith

into one flesh and bone.’ ” Calvin: “I attribute the highest

importance to the connection between the head and the members; to

the inhabitation of Christ in our hearts; in a word, to the

mystical union by which we enjoy him, so that, being made ours, he

makes us partakers of the blessings with which he is furnished.”

John Bunyan: “The Lord led me into the knowledge of the mystery of

union with Christ, that I was joined to him, that I was bone of

his bone and flesh of his flesh. By this also my faith in him as

my righteousness was the more confirmed; for if he and I were one,

then his righteousness was mine, his merits mine, his victory also

mine. Now could I see myself in heaven and on earth at once—in

heaven by my Christ, my risen head, my righteousness and life,

though on earth by my body or person.” Edwards: “Faith is the

soul’s active uniting with Christ. God sees fit that, in order to

a union’s being established between two intelligent active beings,

there should be the mutual act of both, that each should receive

the other, as entirely joining themselves to one another.” Andrew

Fuller: “I have no doubt that the imputation of Christ’s

righteousness presupposes a union with him; since there is no

perceivable fitness in bestowing benefits on one for another’s

sake, where there is no union or relation between.”

See Luther, quoted, with other references, in Thomasius, Christi

Person und Werk, 3:325. See also Calvin, Institutes, 1:660;

Edwards, Works, 4:66, 69, 70; Andrew Fuller, Works, 2:685; Pascal,

Thoughts, Eng. trans., 429; Hooker, Eccl. Polity, book 5, ch. 56;

Tillotson, Sermons, 3:307; Trench, Studies in Gospels, 284, and

Christ the True Vine, in Hulsean Lectures; Schöberlein, in Studien

und Kritiken, 1847:7‐69; Caird, on Union with God, in Scotch

Sermons, sermon 2; Godet, on the Ultimate Design of Man, in

Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880—the design is “God in man, and man in

God”; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 590‐617; Upham, Divine Union,

Interior Life, Life of Madame Guyon and Fénelon; A. J. Gordon, In

Christ; McDuff, In Christo; J. Denham Smith, Life‐truths, 25‐98;

A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 220‐225; Bishop Hall’s

Treatise on The Church Mystical; Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ;

Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 145, 174, 179; F. B.

Meyer, Christian Living—essay on Appropriation of Christ, _vs._

mere imitation of Christ; Sanday, Epistle to the Romans,

supplementary essay on the Mystic Union; H. B. Smith, System of

Theology, 531; J. M. Campbell, The Indwelling Christ.

II. Regeneration.

Regeneration is that act of God by which the governing disposition of the

soul is made holy, and by which, through the truth as a means, the first

holy exercise of this disposition is secured.

Regeneration, or the new birth, is the divine side of that change of heart

which, viewed from the human side, we call conversion. It is God’s turning

the soul to himself,—conversion being the soul’s turning itself to God, of

which God’s turning it is both the accompaniment and cause. It will be

observed from the above definition, that there are two aspects of

regeneration, in the first of which the soul is passive, in the second of

which the soul is active. God changes the governing disposition,—in this

change the soul is simply acted upon. God secures the initial exercise of

this disposition in view of the truth,—in this change the soul itself

acts. Yet these two parts of God’s operation are simultaneous. At the same

moment that he makes the soul sensitive, he pours in the light of his

truth and induces the exercise of the holy disposition he has imparted.

This distinction between the passive and the active aspects of

regeneration is necessitated, as we shall see, by the twofold

method of representing the change in Scripture. In many passages

the change is ascribed wholly to the power of God; the change is a

change in the fundamental disposition of the soul; there is no use

of means. In other passages we find truth referred to as an agency

employed by the Holy Spirit, and the mind acts in view of this

truth. The distinction between these two aspects of regeneration

seems to be intimated in _Eph. 2:5, 6_—“_made us alive together

with Christ,_” and “_raised us up with him_.” Lazarus must first

be made alive, and in this he could _not_ coöperate; but he must

also come forth from the tomb, and in this he _could_ be active.

In the old photography, the plate was first made sensitive, and in

this the plate was passive; then it was exposed to the object, and

now the plate actively seized upon the rays of light which the

object emitted.

Availing ourselves of the illustration from photography, we may

compare God’s initial work in the soul to the sensitizing of the

plate, his next work to the pouring in of the light and the

production of the picture. The soul is first made receptive to the

truth; then it is enabled actually to receive the truth. But the

illustration fails in one respect,—it represents the two aspects

of regeneration as successive. In regeneration there is no

chronological succession. At the same instant that God makes the

soul sensitive, he also draws out its new sensibility in view of

the truth. Let us notice also that, as in photography the picture

however perfect needs to be developed, and this development takes

time, so regeneration is only the beginning of God’s work; not all

the dispositions, but only the governing disposition, is made

holy; there is still need that sanctification should follow

regeneration; and sanctification is a work of God which lasts for

a whole lifetime. We may add that “heredity affects regeneration

as the quality of the film affects photography, and environment

affects regeneration as the focus affects photography” (W. T.

Thayer).

Sacramentarianism has so obscured the doctrine of Scripture that

many persons who gave no evidence of being regenerate are quite

convinced that they are Christians. Uncle John Vassar therefore

never asked: “Are you a Christian?” but always: “Have you ever

been born again?” E. G. Robinson: “The doctrine of regeneration,

aside from sacramentarianism, was not apprehended by Luther or the

Reformers, was not indeed wrought out till Wesley taught that God

instantaneously renewed the affections and the will.” We get the

doctrine of regeneration mainly from the apostle John, as we get

the doctrine of justification mainly from the apostle Paul.

Stevens, Johannine Theology, 366—“Paul’s great words are,

justification, and righteousness; John’s are, birth from God, and

life. But, for both Paul and John, faith is life‐union with

Christ.”

Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 134—“The sinful nature

is not gone, but its power is broken; sin no longer dominates the

life; it has been thrust from the centre to the circumference; it

has the sentence of death in itself; the man is freed, at least in

potency and promise. 218—An activity may be immediate, yet not

unmediated. God’s action on the soul may be through the sense, yet

still be immediate, as when finite spirits communicate with each

other.” Dubois, in Century Magazine, Dec. 1894:233—“Man has made

his way up from physical conditions to the consciousness of

spiritual needs. Heredity and environment fetter him. He needs

spiritual help. God provides a spiritual environment in

regeneration. As science is the verification of the ideal in

nature, so religion is the verification of the spiritual in human

life.” Last sermon of Seth K. Mitchell on _Rev. 21:5_—“_Behold, I

make all things new_”—“God first makes a new man, then gives him a

new heart, then a new commandment. He also gives a new body, a new

name, a new robe, a new song, and a new home.”

1. Scripture Representations.

(_a_) Regeneration is a change indispensable to the salvation of the

sinner.

_John 3:7_—“_Ye must be born anew_”; _Gal. 6:15_—“_neither is

circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature_”

(marg.—“_creation_”); _cf._ _Heb. 12:14_—“_the sanctification

without which no man shall see the Lord_”—regeneration, therefore,

is yet more necessary to salvation; _Eph. 2:3_—“_by nature

children of wrath, even as the rest_”; _Rom. 3:11_—“_There is none

that understandeth, There is none that seeketh after God_”; _John

6:44, 65_—“_No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me

draw him ... no man can come unto me, except it be given unto him

of the Father_”; _Jer. 13:23_—“_Can the Ethiopian change his skin,

or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are

accustomed to do evil._”

(_b_) It is a change in the inmost principle of life.

_John 3:3_—“_Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of

God_”; _5:21_—“_as the Father raiseth the dead and giveth them

life, even so the Son also giveth life to whom he will_”; _Rom.

6:13_—“_present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead_”;

_Eph. 2:1_—“_And you did he make alive, when ye were dead through

your trespasses and sins_”; _5:14_—“_Awake, thou that sleepest,

and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee._” In

_John 3:3_—“_born anew_” = not, “altered,” “influenced,”

“reinvigorated,” “reformed”; but a new beginning, a new stamp or

character, a new family likeness to God and to his children. “_So

is every one that is born of the Spirit_” (_John 3:8_) = 1.

secrecy of process; 2. independence of the will of man; 3.

evidence given in results of conduct and life. It is a good thing

to remove the means of gratifying an evil appetite; but how much

better it is to remove the appetite itself! It is a good thing to

save men from frequenting dangerous resorts by furnishing safe

places of recreation and entertainment; but far better is it to

implant within the man such a love for all that is pure and good,

that he will instinctively shun the impure and evil. Christianity

aims to purify the springs of action.

(_c_) It is a change in the heart, or governing disposition.

_Mat. 12:33, 35_—“_Either make the tree good, and its fruit good;

or make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt: for the tree is

known by its fruit.... The good man out of his good treasure

bringeth forth good things: and the evil man out of his evil

treasure bringeth forth evil things_”; _15:19_—“_For out of the

heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications,

thefts, false witness, railings_”; _Acts 16:14_—“_And a certain

woman named Lydia ... heard us: whose heart the Lord opened to

give heed unto the things which were spoken by Paul_”; _Rom.

6:17_—“_But thanks be to God, that, whereas ye were servants of

sin, ye became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching

whereunto ye were delivered_”; _10:10_—“_with the heart man

believeth unto righteousness_”; _cf._ _Ps. 51:10_—“_Create in me a

clean heart, O God; And renew a right spirit within me_”; _Jer.

31:33_—“_I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their

hearts will I write it_”; _Ez. 11:19_—“_And I will give them one

heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the

stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of

flesh._”

Horace Mann: “One former is worth a hundred reformers.” It is

often said that the redemption of society is as important as the

regeneration of the individual. Yes, we reply; but the

regeneration of society can never be accomplished except through

the regeneration of the individual. Reformers try in vain to

construct a stable and happy community from persons who are

selfish, weak, and miserable. The first cry of such reformers is:

“Get your circumstances changed!” Christ’s first call is: “Get

yourselves changed, and then the things around you will be

changed.” Many college settlements, and temperance societies, and

self‐reformations begin at the wrong end. They are like kindling a

coal‐fire by lighting kindlings at the top. The fire soon goes

out. We need God’s work at the very basis of character and not on

the outer edge, at the very beginning, and not simply at the end.

_Mat. 6:33_—“_seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness;

and all these things shall be added unto you._”

(_d_) It is a change in the moral relations of the soul.

_Eph. 2:5_—“_when we were dead through our trespasses, made us

alive together with Christ_”; _4:23, 24_—“_that ye be renewed in

the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, that after God

hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth_”; _Col.

1:13_—“_who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and

translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love._” William

James, Varieties of Religious Experience, 508, finds the features

belonging to all religions: 1. an uneasiness; and 2. its solution.

1. The uneasiness, reduced to its simplest terms, is a sense that

there is _something wrong about us_, as we naturally stand. 2. The

solution is a sense that we are saved _from the wrongness_ by

making proper connection with the higher powers.

(e) It is a change wrought in connection with the use of truth as a means.

_James 1:18_—“_Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of

truth_”—here in connection with the special agency of God (not of

mere natural law) the truth is spoken of as a means; _1 Pet.

1:23_—“_having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but

of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and

abideth_”; _2 Pet. 1:4_—“_his precious and exceeding great

promises; that through these ye may become partakers of the divine

nature_”; _cf._ _Jer. 23:29_—“_Is not my word like fire? saith

Jehovah; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?_”

_John 15:3_—“_Already ye are clean because of the word which I

have spoken unto you_”; _Eph. 6:17_—“_the sword of the Spirit,

which is the word of God_”; _Heb. 4:12_—“_For the word of God is

living, and active, and sharper than any two‐edged sword, and

piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints

and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the

heart_”; _1 Pet. 2:9_—“_called you out of darkness into his

marvellous light._” An advertising sign reads: “For spaces and

ideas, apply to Johnson and Smith.” In regeneration, we need both

the open mind and the truth to instruct it, and we may apply to

God for both.

(_f_) It is a change instantaneous, secretly wrought, and known only in

its results.

_John 5:24_—“_He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent

me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath

passed out of death into life_”; _cf._ _Mat. 6:24_—“_No man can

serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the

other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other._” _John

3:8_—“_The wind bloweth where it will, and thou hearest the voice

thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth:

so is every one that is born of the Spirit_”; _cf._ _Phil. 2:12,

13_—“_work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it

is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good

pleasure_”; _2 Pet. 1:10_—“_Wherefore, brethren, give the more

diligence to make your calling and election sure._”

(_g_) It is a change wrought by God.

_John 1:13_—“_who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the

flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God_”; _3:5_—“_Except one be

born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of

God_”; _3:8_, marg.—“_The Spirit breatheth where it will_”; _Eph.

1:19, 20_—“_the exceeding greatness of his power to us‐ward who

believe, according to that working of the strength of his might

which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and

made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places_”;

_2:10_—“_For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for

good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in

them_”; _1 Pet. 1:3_—“_Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord

Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again unto

a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead_”;

_cf._ _1 Cor. 3:6, 7_—“_I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave

the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything,

neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase._”

We have seen that we are “_begotten again ... through the word_”

(_1 Pet. 1:23_). In the revealed truth with regard to the person

and work of Christ there is a divine adaptation to the work of

renewing our hearts. But truth in itself is powerless to

regenerate and sanctify, unless the Holy Spirit uses it—“_the

sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God_” (_Eph. 6:17_).

Hence regeneration is ascribed preëminently to the Holy Spirit,

and men are said to be “_born of the Spirit_” (_John 3:8_). When

Robert Morrison started for China, an incredulous American said to

him: “Mr. Morrison, do you think you can make any impression on

the Chinese?” “No,” was the reply; “but I think the Lord can.”

(_h_) It is a change accomplished through the union of the soul with

Christ.

_Rom. 8:2_—“_For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus

made me free from the law of sin and death_”; _2 Cor. 5:17_—“_if

any man is in Christ, he is a new creature_” (marg.—“_there is a

new creation_”); _Gal. 1:15, 16_—“_it was the good pleasure of God

... to reveal his Son in me_”; _Eph. 2:10_—“_For we are his

workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works._” On the

Scriptural representations, see E. D. Griffin, Divine Efficiency,

117‐164; H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 553‐569—“Regeneration

involves union with Christ, and not a change of heart without

relation to him.”

_Eph. 3:14, 15_—“_the Father, from whom every fatherhood in heaven

and on earth is named._” But even here God works through Christ,

and Christ himself is called “_Everlasting Father_” (_Is. 9:6_).

The real basis of our sonship and unity is in Christ, our Creator,

and Upholder. Sin is repudiation of this filial relationship.

Regeneration by the Spirit restores our sonship by joining us once

more, ethically and spiritually, to Christ the Son, and so

adopting us again into God’s family. Hence the Holy Spirit does

not reveal himself, but Christ. The Spirit is light, and light

does not reveal itself, but all other things. I may know that the

Holy Spirit is working within me whenever I more clearly perceive

Christ. Sonship in Christ makes us not only individually children

of God, but also members of a commonwealth. _Ps. 87:4_—“_Yea, of

Zion it shall be said, This one and that one was born in her_” =

“the most glorious thing to be said about them is not something

pertaining to their separate history, but that they have become

members, by adoption, of the city of God” (Perowne). The Psalm

speaks of the adoption of nations, but it is equally true of

individuals.

2. Necessity of Regeneration.

That all men without exception need to be changed in moral character, is

manifest, not only from Scripture passages already cited, but from the

following rational considerations:

(_a_) Holiness, or conformity to the fundamental moral attribute of God,

is the indispensable condition of securing the divine favor, of attaining

peace of conscience, and of preparing the soul for the associations and

employments of the blest.

Phillips Brooks seems to have taught that regeneration is merely a

natural forward step in man’s development. See his Life,

2:353—“The entrance into this deeper consciousness of sonship to

God and into the motive power which it exercises is Regeneration,

the new birth, not merely with reference to time, but with

reference also to profoundness. Because man has something sinful

to cast away in order to enter this higher life, therefore

regeneration must begin with repentance. But that is an incident.

It is not essential to the idea. A man simply imperfect and not

sinful would still have to be born again. The presentation of sin

as guilt, of release as forgiveness, of consequence as punishment,

have their true meaning as the most personal expressions of man’s

moral condition as always measured by, and man’s moral changes as

always dependent upon, God.” Here imperfection seems to mean

depraved condition as distinguished from conscious transgression;

it is not regarded as sinful; it needs not to be repented of. Yet

it does require regeneration. In Phillips Brooks’s creed there is

no article devoted to sin. Baptism he calls “the declaration of

the universal fact of the sonship of man to God. The Lord’s Supper

is the declaration of the universal fact of man’s dependence upon

God for supply of life. It is associated with the death of Jesus,

because in that the truth of God giving himself to man found its

completest manifestation.”

Others seem to teach regeneration by education. Here too there is

no recognition of inborn sin or guilt. Man’s imperfection of

nature is innocent. He needs training in order to fit him for

association with higher intelligences and with God. In the

evolution of his powers there comes a natural crisis, like that of

graduation of the scholar, and this crisis may be called

conversion. This educational theory of regeneration is represented

by Starbuck, Psychology of Religion, and by Coe, The Spiritual

Life. What human nature needs however is not evolution, but

involution and revolution—involution, the communication of a new

life, and revolution, change of direction resulting from that

life. Human nature, as we have seen in our treatment of sin, is

not a green apple to be perfected by mere growth, but an apple

with a worm at the core, which left to itself will surely rot and

perish.

President G. Stanley Hall, in his essay on The Religious

Affirmations of Psychology, says that the total depravity of man

is an ascertained fact apart from the teachings of the Bible.

There had come into his hands for inspection several thousands of

letters written to a medical man who advertised that he would give

confidential advice and treatment to all, secretly. On the

strength of these letters Dr. Hall was prepared to say that John

Calvin had not told the half of what is true. He declared that the

necessity of regeneration in order to the development of character

was clearly established from psychological investigation.

A. H. Strong, Cleveland Sermon, 1904—“Here is the danger of some

modern theories of Christian education. They give us statistics,

to show that the age of puberty is the age of strongest religious

impressions; and the inference is drawn that conversion is nothing

but a natural phenomenon, a regular stage of development. The free

will, and the evil bent of that will, are forgotten, and the

absolute dependence of perverse human nature upon the regenerating

spirit of God. The age of puberty is the age of the strongest

religious impressions? Yes, but it is also the age of the

strongest artistic and social and sensuous impressions, and only a

new birth from above can lead the soul to seek first the kingdom

of God.”

(_b_) The condition of universal humanity as by nature depraved, and, when

arrived at moral consciousness, as guilty of actual transgression, is

precisely the opposite of that holiness without which the soul cannot

exist in normal relation to God, to self, or to holy beings.

Plutarch has a parable of a man who tried to make a dead body

stand upright, but who finished his labors saying: “Deest aliquid

intus”—“There’s something lacking inside.” Ribot, Diseases of the

Will, 53—“In the vicious man the moral elements are lacking. If

the idea of amendment arises, it is involuntary.... But if a first

element is not given by nature, and with it a potential energy,

nothing results. The theological dogma of grace as a free gift

appears to us therefore founded upon a much more exact psychology

than the contrary opinion.” “Thou art chained to the wheel of the

foe By links which a world cannot sever: With thy tyrant through

storm and through calm thou shall go, And thy sentence is bondage

forever.”

Martensen, Christian Ethics: “When Kant treats of the radical evil

of human nature, he makes the remarkable statement that, if a good

will is to appear in us, this cannot happen through a partial

improvement, nor through any reform, but only through a

revolution, a total overturn within us, that is to be compared to

a new creation.” Those who hold that man may attain perfection by

mere natural growth deny this radical evil of human nature, and

assume that our nature is a good seed which needs only favorable

external influences of moisture and sunshine to bring forth good

fruit. But human nature is a damaged seed, and what comes of it

will be aborted and stunted like itself. The doctrine of mere

development denies God’s holiness, man’s sin, the need of Christ,

the necessity of atonement, the work of the Holy Spirit, the

justice of penalty. Kant’s doctrine of the radical evil of human

nature, like Aristotle’s doctrine that man is born on an inclined

plane and subject to a downward gravitation, is not matched by a

corresponding doctrine of regeneration. Only the apostle Paul can

tell us how we came to be in this dreadful predicament, and where

is the power that can deliver us; see Stearns, Evidence of

Christian Experience, 274.

Dean Swift’s worthy sought many years for a method of extracting

sunbeams from cucumbers. We cannot cure the barren tree by giving

it new bark or new branches,—it must have new sap. Healing

snakebites is not killing the snake. Poetry and music, the

uplifting power of culture, the inherent nobility of man, the

general mercy of God—no one of these will save the soul. Horace

Bushnell: “The soul of all improvement is the improvement of the

soul.” Frost cannot be removed from a window pane simply by

scratching it away,—you must raise the temperature of the room. It

is as impossible to get regeneration out of reformation as to get

a harvest out of a field by mere plowing. Reformation is plucking

bitter apples from a tree, and in their place tying good apples on

with a string (Dr. Pentecost). It is regeneration or

degradation—the beginning of an upward movement by a power not

man’s own, or the continuance and increase of a downward movement

that can end only in ruin.

Kidd, Social Evolution, shows that in humanity itself there

resides no power of progress. The ocean steamship that has burned

its last pound of coal may proceed on its course by virtue of its

momentum, but it is only a question of the clock how soon it will

cease to move, except as tossed about by the wind and the waves.

Not only is there power lacking for the good, but apart from God’s

grace the evil tendencies constantly became more aggravated. The

settled states of the affections and will practically dominate the

life. Charles H. Spurgeon: “If a thief should get into heaven

unchanged, he would begin by picking the angels’ pockets.” The

land is full of examples of the descent of man, not _from_ the

brute, but _to_ the brute. The tares are not degenerate wheat,

which by cultivation will become good wheat,—they are not only

useless but noxious, and they must be rooted out and burned.

“Society never will be better than the individuals who compose it.

A sound ship can never be made of rotten timber. Individual

reformation must precede social reconstruction.” Socialism will

always be a failure until it becomes Christian. We must be born

from above, as truly as we have been begotten by our fathers upon

earth, or we cannot see the kingdom of God.

(_c_) A radical internal change is therefore requisite in every human

soul—a change in that which constitutes its character. Holiness cannot be

attained, as the pantheist claims, by a merely natural growth or

development, since man’s natural tendencies are wholly in the direction of

selfishness. There must be a reversal of his inmost dispositions and

principles of action, if he is to see the kingdom of God.

Men’s good deeds and reformation may be illustrated by eddies in a

stream whose general current is downward; by walking westward in a

railway‐car while the train is going east; by Capt. Parry’s

traveling north, while the ice‐floe on which he walked was moving

southward at a rate much more rapid than his walking. It is

possible to be “_ever learning, and never able to come to the

knowledge of the truth_” (_2 Tim. 3:7_). Better never have been

born, than not be born again. But the necessity of regeneration

implies its possibility: _John 3:7_—“_Ye must be born anew_” = ye

may be born anew,—the text is not merely a warning and a

command,—it is also a promise. Every sinner has the chance of

making a new start and of beginning a new life.

J. D. Robertson, The Holy Spirit and Christian Service,

57—“Emerson says that the gate of gifts closes at birth. After a

man emerges from his mother’s womb he can have no new endowments,

no fresh increments of strength and wisdom, joy and grace within.

The only grace is the grace of creation. But this view is deistic

and not Christian.” Emerson’s saying is true of natural gifts, but

not of spiritual gifts. He forgot Pentecost. He forgot the all‐

encompassing atmosphere of the divine personality and love, and

its readiness to enter in at every chink and crevice of our

voluntary being. The longing men have to turn over a new leaf in

life’s book, to break with the past, to assert their better

selves, is a preliminary impulse of God’s Spirit and an evidence

of prevenient grace preparing the way for regeneration. Thus

interpreted and yielded to, these impulses warrant unbounded hope

for the future. “No star is ever lost we once have seen; We always

may be what we might have been; The hopes that lost in some far

distance seem May be the truer life, and this the dream.”

The greatest minds feel, at least at times, their need of help

from above. Although Cicero uses the term “regeneration” to

signify what we should call naturalization, yet he recognizes

man’s dependence upon God: “Nemo vir magnus, sine aliquo divino

afflatu, unquam fuit.” Seneca: “Bonus vir sine illo nemo est.”

Aristotle: “Wickedness perverts the judgment and makes men err

with respect to practical principles, so that no man can be wise

and judicious who is not good.” Goethe: “Who ne’er his bread in

sorrow ate, Who ne’er the mournful midnight hours Weeping upon his

bed has sate, He knows you not, ye heavenly Powers.” Shakespeare,

King Lear: “Is there a reason in nature for these hard hearts?”

Robert Browning, in Halbert and Hob, replies: “O Lear, That a

reason out of nature must turn them soft, seems clear.”

John Stuart Mill (see Autobiography, 132‐142) knew that the

feeling of interest in others’ welfare would make him happy,—but

the knowledge of this fact did not give him the feeling. The

“enthusiasm of humanity”—unselfish love, of which we read in “Ecce

Homo”—is easy to talk about; but how to produce it,—that is the

question. Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World,

61‐94—“There is no abiogenesis in the spiritual, more than in the

natural, world. Can the stone grow more and more living until it

enters the organic world? No, Christianity is a new life,—it is

Christ in you.” As natural life comes to us mediately, through

Adam, so spiritual life comes to us mediately, through Christ. See

Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural, 220‐249; Anderson,

Regeneration, 51‐88; Bennet Tyler, Memoir and Lectures, 340‐354.

3. The Efficient Cause of Regeneration.

Three views only need be considered,—all others are modifications of

these. The first view puts the efficient cause of regeneration in the

human will; the second, in the truth considered as a system of motives;

the third, in the immediate agency of the Holy Spirit.

John Stuart Mill regarded cause as embracing all the antecedents

to an event. Hazard, Man a Creative First Cause, 12‐15, shows

that, as at any given instant the whole past is everywhere the

same, the effects must, upon this view, at each instant be

everywhere one and the same. “The theory that, of every successive

event, the real cause is the whole of the antecedents, does not

distinguish between the passive conditions acted upon and changed,

and the active agencies which act upon and change them; does not

distinguish what _produces_, from what merely _precedes_, change.”

We prefer the definition given by Porter, Human Intellect,

592—Cause is “the most conspicuous and prominent of the agencies,

or conditions, that produce a result”; or that of Dr. Mark

Hopkins: “Any exertion or manifestation of energy that produces a

change is a cause, and nothing else is. We must distinguish cause

from occasion, or material. Cause is not to be defined as

‘everything without which the effect could not be realized.’ ”

Better still, perhaps, may we say, that efficient cause is the

competent producing power by which the effect is secured. James

Martineau, Types, 1: preface, xiii—“A cause is that which

determines the indeterminate.” Not the light, but the

photographer, is the cause of the picture; light is but the

photographer’s servant. So the “_word of God_” is the “_sword of

the Spirit_” (_Eph. 6:17_); the Spirit uses the word as his

instrument; but the Spirit himself is the cause of regeneration.

A. The human will, as the efficient cause of regeneration.

This view takes two forms, according as the will is regarded as acting

apart from, or in conjunction with, special influences of the truth

applied by God. Pelagians hold the former; Arminians the latter.

(_a_) To the Pelagian view, that regeneration is solely the act of man,

and is identical with self‐reformation, we object that the sinner’s

depravity, since it consists in a fixed state of the affections which

determines the settled character of the volitions, amounts to a moral

inability. Without a renewal of the affections from which all moral action

springs, man will not choose holiness nor accept salvation.

Man’s volitions are practically the shadow of his affections. It

is as useless to think of a man’s volitions separating themselves

from his affections, and drawing him towards God, as it is to

think of a man’s shadow separating itself from him, and leading

him in the opposite direction to that in which he is going. Man’s

affections, to use Calvin’s words, are like horses that have

thrown off the charioteer and are running wildly,—they need a new

hand to direct them. In disease, we must be helped by a physician.

We do not stop a locomotive engine by applying force to the

wheels, but by reversing the lever. So the change in man must be,

not in the transient volitions, but in the deeper springs of

action—the fundamental bent of the affections and will. See

Henslow, Evolution, 134. Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well,

2:1:149—“It is not so with Him that all things knows, As ’tis with

us that square our guess with shows; But most it is presumption in

us when The help of heaven we count the act of men.”

Henry Clay said that he did not know for himself personally what

the change of heart spoken of by Christians meant; but he had seen

Kentucky family feuds of long standing healed by religious

revivals, and that whatever could heal a Kentucky family feud was

more than human.—Mr. Peter Harvey was a lifelong friend of Daniel

Webster. He wrote a most interesting volume of reminiscenses of

the great man. He tells how one John Colby married the oldest

sister of Mr. Webster. Said Mr. Webster of John Colby: “Finally he

went up to Andover, New Hampshire, and bought a farm, and the only

recollection I have about him is that he was called the wickedest

man in the neighborhood, so far as swearing and impiety went. I

used to wonder how my sister could marry so profane a man as John

Colby.” Years afterwards news comes to Mr. Webster that a

wonderful change has passed upon John Colby. Mr. Harvey and Mr.

Webster take a journey together to visit John Colby. As Mr.

Webster enters John Colby’s house, he sees open before him a

large‐print Bible, which he has just been reading. When greetings

have been interchanged, the first question John Colby asks of Mr.

Webster is, “Are you a Christian?” And then, at John Colby’s

suggestion, the two men kneel and pray together. When the visit is

done, this is what Mr. Webster says to Mr. Harvey as they ride

away: “I should like to know what the enemies of religion would

say to John Colby’s conversion. There was a man as unlikely,

humanly speaking, to become a Christian as any man I ever saw. He

was reckless, heedless, impious, never attended church, never

experienced the good influence of associating with religious

people. And here he has been living on in that reckless way until

he has got to be an old man, until a period of life when you

naturally would not expect his habits to change. And yet he has

been brought into the condition in which we have seen him to‐

day,—a penitent, trusting, humble believer.” “Whatever people may

say,” added Mr. Webster, “nothing can convince me that anything

short of the grace of Almighty God could make such a change as I,

with my own eyes, have witnessed in the life of John Colby.” When

they got back to Franklin, New Hampshire, in the evening, they met

another lifelong friend of Mr. Webster’s, John Taylor, standing at

his door. Mr. Webster called out: “Well, John Taylor, miracles

happen in these latter days as well as in the days of old.” “What

now, Squire?” asked John Taylor. “Why,” replied Mr. Webster, “John

Colby has become a Christian. If that is not a miracle, what is?”

(_b_) To the Arminian view, that regeneration is the act of man,

coöperating with divine influences applied through the truth (synergistic

theory), we object that no beginning of holiness is in this way

conceivable. For, so long as man’s selfish and perverse affections are

unchanged, no choosing God is possible but such as proceeds from supreme

desire for one’s own interest and happiness. But the man thus supremely

bent on self‐gratification cannot see in God, or his service, anything

productive of happiness; or, if he could see in them anything of

advantage, his choice of God and his service from such a motive would not

be a holy choice, and therefore could not be a beginning of holiness.

Although Melanchthon (1497‐1560) preceded Arminius (1560‐1609),

his view was substantially the same with that of the Dutch

theologian. Melanchthon never experienced the throes and travails

of a new spiritual life, as Luther did. His external and internal

development was peculiarly placid and serene. This Præceptor

Germaniæ had the modesty of the genuine scholar. He was not a

dogmatist, and he never entered the ranks of the ministry. He

never could be persuaded to accept the degree of Doctor of

Theology, though he lectured on theological subjects to audiences

of thousands. Dorner says of Melanchthon: “He held at first that

the Spirit of God is the primary, and the word of God the

secondary, or instrumental, agency in conversion, while the human

will allows their action and freely yields to it.” Later, he held

that “conversion is the result of the combined action

(_copulatio_) of three causes, the truth of God, the Holy Spirit,

and the will of man.” This synergistic view in his last years

involved the theologian of the German Reformation in serious

trouble. Luthardt: “He made a _facultas_ out of a mere

_capacitas_.” Dorner says again: “Man’s causality is not to be

coördinated with that of God, however small the influence ascribed

to it. It is a purely _receptive_, not a productive, agency. The

opposite is the fundamental Romanist error.” Self‐love will never

induce a man to give up self‐love. Selfishness will not throttle

and cast out selfishness. “Such a choice from a selfish motive

would be unholy, when judged by God’s standard. It is absurd to

make salvation depend upon the exercises of a wholly unspiritual

power”; see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:716‐720 (Syst. Doct.,

4:179‐183). Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:505—“Sin does not first stop,

and then holiness come in place of sin; but holiness positively

expels sin. Darkness does not first cease, and then light enter;

but light drives out darkness.” On the Arminian view, see Bib.

Sac., 19:265, 266.

John Wesley’s theology was a modified Arminianism, yet it was John

Wesley who did most to establish the doctrine of regeneration. He

asserted that the Holy Spirit acts through the truth, in

distinction from the doctrine that the Holy Spirit works solely

through the ministers and sacraments of the church. But in

asserting the work of the Holy Spirit in the individual soul, he

went too far to the opposite extreme of emphasizing the ability of

man to choose God’s service, when without love to God there was

nothing in God’s service to attract. A. H. Bradford, Age of Faith:

“It is as if Jesus had said: If a sailor will properly set his

rudder the wind will fill his sails. The will is the rudder of the

character; if it is turned in the right direction, all the winds

of heaven will favor; if it is turned in the wrong direction, they

will oppose.” The question returns: What shall move the man to set

his rudder aright, if he has no desire to reach the proper haven?

Here is the need of divine power, not merely to coöperate with

man, after man’s will is set in the right direction, but to set it

in the right direction in the first place. _Phil. 2:13_—“_it is

God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good

pleasure._”

Still another modification of Arminian doctrine is found in the

Revealed Theology of N. W. Taylor of New Haven, who maintained

that, antecedently to regeneration, the _selfish_ principle is

suspended in the sinner’s heart, and that then, prompted by _self‐

love_, he uses the means of regeneration from motives that are

neither sinful nor holy. He held that all men, saints and sinners,

have their own happiness for their ultimate end. Regeneration

involves no change in this principle or motive, but only a change

in the governing purpose to seek this happiness in God rather than

in the world. Dr. Taylor said that man could turn to God, whatever

the Spirit did or did not do. He could turn to God if he would;

but he could also turn to God if he wouldn’t. In other words, he

maintained the power of contrary choice, while yet affirming the

certainty that, without the Holy Spirit’s influences, man would

always choose wrongly. These doctrines caused a division in the

Congregational body. Those who opposed Taylor withdrew their

support from New Haven, and founded the East Windsor Seminary in

1834. For Taylor’s view, see N. W. Taylor, Revealed Theology,

369‐406, and in The Christian Spectator for 1829.