When our Lord came it was to a world which was shrouded with the idea
of demons and vindictive spiritual powers. That dark time between
the close of the Old Testament period and the beginning of the New
had been a forcing ground for all such thoughts. The powers of evil
were serried ranks over against the power of God, and in the hands
of those powers of evil Pilate and Herod were mere puppets. St. Paul,
for instance, speaks of the wisdom of God, and then he adds: "Which
none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they
would not have crucified the Lord of Glory" (1 Cor. 2:8). "It was
not of Pontius Pilate and of Herod that Paul was speaking, but of
things far more awful and far more powerful--thrones, dominions,
principalities, and powers--as he calls them elsewhere the world
rulers of this darkness, and at their head is the prince of the power
of the air" (Glover, _Jesus in Experience_, page 1).
Not only on the side of the Jews was this terror of hidden and
revengeful and incalculable powers felt. The Greek-speaking world
had become permeated by Mithraism with its hierarchies of evil
potentates, and as a result men lived in gloom and in a temper
which made the propitiation of the unseen a main element in their
religion. This was swept away not so much by what Jesus said as by
what he was, and the New Testament, as the result, is the most joyous
of books. Our Lord revealed the Father; there was none between the
Father and himself. He was the Door; not only were there no other
doors, but there was no necessity for other doors. He came to give
life and more abundant life. He linked himself deliberately with
those Old Testament Messianic passages which declared that there was
liberty for those who were in bondage. He overstepped the inhibitions
and prohibitions of ecclesiasticism. He took the Jewish law, and,
reaching through the letter to the spirit, he tore off the accretions
which had overlain the original purifying and liberating purpose. He
declared the spiritual manhood of believers and invited those who
cast in their lot with him to take up their great inheritance.
It is in the setting forth of Christ that the New Testament is
self-evidencing. No theory as to its origin and descent is needed
to guarantee its inspiration. The evidence of experience goes to
show that the New Testament has power within itself. It is the
word of God because it effectively conveys the message of God. Its
glow, its simplicity, is due to this, that it was written by men
who had just come through an overwhelming religious experience, an
experience differing in kind but related in each case to the same
supreme Source. In the case of a great work of art we are able to
trace an origin and an evolution. The development may be rapid but
there is demonstrable sequence between the Byzantine art and Giotto,
between Giotto and the great Umbrians. In pure literature the master
does not arise like some volcano from the midst of a plain. He has
his predecessors in form, and his rivals differ only in degree.
But in the case of a religious movement, the first burst is the
most powerful, the first vision the most clear. Every effect must
have an adequate cause. What Cause was it which made of these plain
disciples literary and religious figures of incomparable power and
dignity? Who of mortals can have taught the writer of the Fourth
Gospel the interpretation that he has to hand on to us? The power
of the written Gospel is due to the unique power that was at work
in these men's hearts. After they were gone other Christian writers
arose, better equipped in scholarship, and men of true piety as well,
but they have left nothing that can be mentioned in the same breath
with those narratives of the life of Christ, with the torrent of the
Apostle Paul. Those who were nearest the source received most of the
light. No naturalistic explanation has ever done anything to solve
the riddle of those New Testament writings. An exercised Christian
experience carries the truth. Almost all of those to whom we owe the
New Testament died violent deaths, but their hearts were filled with
singing, and their tribulations were matters only of joy. Base the
inspiration of the Scriptures on their universal and ever youthful
experience, and nothing can move the authority of the Gospels. Rest
it on some theory of verbal inerrancy, and it is shaken by every
negative critic. The vital question with regard to the New Testament
is whether it does or does not reveal Jesus as God in the flesh.
If it does this, then every other question as to the mere harmony
of this account and that becomes almost irrelevant. We can admit
and must admit the human element. God works through personalities,
not through colorless nonentities. Every experienced Christian is a
separate instrument, giving forth a separate tone. And men rejoice in
the New Testament because other men two thousand years ago rejoiced,
and their gladness and release still sound true.
Those who grasp this thought enter into the glorious liberty of the
children of God. To-day all kinds of demons, even though they may not
call themselves such, are supposed to be holding the ground between
the truth-seeker and Jesus. It may be the general dread of life
which always sees the possibilities of doom in to-morrow; it may be
some carrying over into the spiritual sphere of an analogy from the
physical law of causation; it may be some visualizing of the past,
which makes reparation appear to be a prerequisite of any approach
to a new life. Alas, reparation is no longer possible for most of
the moral and spiritual failures, and in any case the kind of man
we have become is a much more important matter than the mistakes
which may come back to us on the selective wings of memory. And then
there are other fears which deal not so much with spiritual things
as with material and personal conditions. Not a few are haunted by
their own suspicious natures. No man is to them wholly spontaneous
or open-handed. The motive behind the generous or the brotherly thing
must be sought, and that motive is invariably found to be something
mean or selfish. How can there be any joy in the heart when there
is this suspicion of one's fellow? And others are dogged by their
anxieties about their own ill health. One's memories of the Riviera
are sufficient to induce one to view Christian Science with a kindly
eye. Those who have had the easiest of lives and endless leisure
in which to indulge their whims cannot use the gifts they have by
reason of the overstrain they would incur! As if life were worth
having on the terms of a constant hypochondria. And others again
are haunted by their fear for their own reputation. They have to
dress in a certain way, walk with a certain gait, live in a certain
type of house, spend money at a certain rate, choose their friends
among those who will be useful to them, speak the safe and colorless
theory when epigram is on their tongue and provocativeness in their
heart--all because they have to maintain a reputation. Yet, _He_
made himself of no reputation, and because He sought only to live in
dependence on his Father He had no fear, no divided mind, no anxiety,
only joy and peace in believing.
Is not the recovery of that joy something that the Christian Church
and the Christians within the church are crying out for. It is so
evidently one of the first-fruits of fellowship with Christ, and how
really rare a gift it is! St. Francis had it because, like the birds
he loved, he leaned only upon God. Some men in war, having given
themselves wholly to a cause that they believed to be of God, learned
the quiet of having the world behind them. We who are burdened about
so many things, so anxious to assume the right attitude, to maintain
the conventional opinion, to insure against every conceivable
misfortune of worldly estate, how can we know the joy of living free,
the release of casting the burden upon the great Burden-bearer? The
stoic taught the Roman to endure by denying the presence of pain.
His strength was in his passive receptivity. But Christ Himself felt
pain, dreaded pain, was distressed by pain in the house of His
friends; and, moved thus by the sombre and unkind things in life,
He yet had an undisturbed peace. If the church is to regain its hold
upon men, it must be composed of joyous Christians. Only then will
there be removed those misapprehensions which have made for such
multitudes the thought of religion the thought of gloom. Only thus
shall we be conquerors through Christ who loved us.