3. If, nevertheless, such presentations of the forgiveness of sins secure acceptance as Christian, what is specifically Christian must have been long since, and in many quarters, displaced, before conceptions so little Christian could creep in; or it must have been supposed that the effectiveness of redemption begins only after the misery has already been removed. But this is the less arguable inasmuch as peace of mind presupposes a decrease of sin, and consequently an increase of activity pleasing to God. So that to exhibit this, and to evoke it, would then be no part of the Redeemer’s work. Yet it is possible, on the other hand, that even a truly Christian piety may have come to regard this matter in so unchristian an aspect only because it wished to oppose false conceptions of the way in which the misery is removed by redemption, by setting forth another explanation, which at least makes room for the fact that the activity of the God-consciousness, out of which the decrease of sin arises, is determined by the Redeemer. Coming nearest to this false peace, and therefore attributing the lowest imaginable value to redemption, is the view that an increasing activity of the God-consciousness is possible without any special divine help, developing simply out of the natural state of man; but that, in spite of the inevitableness of sin, sinners would have no right to be at peace regarding the sin still remaining without a special divine assurance about it—so that in essence the Redeemer is represented only as the herald of this divine promise. It does not need to be stated how little historical justification there is for this view in the Christian Church; it need only be remarked how little reason can be advanced for the demand that we should believe in one who does no more than announce forgiveness, and how difficult it is to understand why such an assurance should have been given only after so long a time and in such a way. From this lowest value on, the felt content of redemption grows the greater, the greater the share attributed to the Redeemer in the cessation of the misery as well as in the rise of what approximates state of blessedness.

§ 87. We are conscious of all approximations to the state of blessedness which occur in the Christian life as being grounded in a new divinely-effected corporate life, which works in opposition to the corporate life of sin and the misery which develops in it.

1. This proposition is not to be regarded as a complete statement of specifically Christian piety, since in it no mention is made of the fact that every approximation to the state of blessedness essentially includes a relation to Christ. But it does undeniably express the content of the consciousness of divine grace, as it stands in antithesis to the consciousness of sin. For approximation to the condition of blessedness is the real opposite of the misery, and this approximation is accepted as divine grace in the same sense and degree in which the corporate life in which such elements of experience become ours is posited as due to divine agency. Consequently all further exposition of what is specifically Christian can easily be attached to this proposition. The relation between approximation to blessedness and removal of misery may, it is true, be presented in a twofold way. First, it may be held that not the slightest approximation to blessedness can occur so long as there is even the slightest misery present, which is as much as to say, so long as sin, and with it evil (or vice versa), still occurs in the sphere of human life. This is the view of those who choose to regard the world, even under the influence of redemption, as nothing but a vale of woe; fortunately they never work out their view consistently. This view, according to which (if we take it strictly) all the effects of redemption can be developed only beyond this present life, will not be advocated here, as is at once clear from the wording of the proposition, in which the beginning of blessedness is attributed to the new corporate life simply in virtue of its opposition to the corporate life of sin—the latter still persisting in the sphere of its activity. But further, that conception does not express the truth of the Christian consciousness as it has been witnessed to from the beginning.⁴ Rather, there is always in the God-consciousness, whatever its strength, a blessedness corresponding to that strength; and even in its beginnings this blessedness removes the misery, though, of course, this can arise again with sin, but only to be again removed.⁵ So that we can completely equate the two aspects, and say that the same condition is the removal of misery (when we regard man in his relation to the corporate life of sin), and the beginning of blessedness (so far as he belongs to the new corporate life).

2. In indicating only in a quite general way the place of these approximations in the Christian life we wish to begin with to forestall all one-sided conceptions, which suggest that such approximations can only occur in the form of particular activities or states, and that they are confined, say, to the moments of devotional meditation or ascetic practices. On the contrary, there is an element of blessedness in moments of meditation only when they pass over into thought or act, and in ascetic practices only in so far as they are not properly, or at least not exclusively, ascetic, but are in some way connected with our ordinary vocational activity. The element of blessedness exists just as much in moments of activity proper and of thought proper, though in the former only in so far as they do not proceed from such motives as have their roots altogether in the world-consciousness or in such as satisfy mere civil righteousness; and similarly, it is not present in the latter in so far as they merely develop the world-consciousness: but in both only in so far as they have their ground in the God-consciousness, newly awakened to life. Without this the religious man cannot experience a growing blessedness.

3. If now anyone maintains that our proposition, taken by itself, really applies equally well to all forms of faith, provided only they involve a fellowship, this is true only in so far as thereby there is laid upon them the duty of proving that their corporate life is due to divine agency. But this by no means assumes that there is a difference between the growing blessedness which then began to develop in the Christian fellowship and that which proceeded directly from Christ Himself. We shall come immediately to the point that to regard our corporate life as divinely-created, and to derive it from Christ as a divinely-given One, are the same thing; just so, at that time, to believe that Jesus was the Christ, and to believe that the Kingdom of God (that is, the new corporate life which was to be created by God) had come, were the same thing. Consequently, all developing blessedness had its ground in this corporate life. Just as little can one regard it as an approximation to the Roman Catholic point of view, that this change in the personal state should be ascribed directly to the common or corporate life. We cannot as yet bring out here its real antagonism to the Roman Catholic view; that must wait until we come to describe more closely, on the one hand, the process in detail; on the other, the nature of the community. And so the proposition as such is one which applies equally to the most various conceptions of Christianity. Two things only it excludes. First, the idea that one can share in the redemption and be made blessed through Christ outside the corporate life which He instituted, as if a Christian could dispense with the latter and be with Christ, as it were, alone. This separatism disregards the fact that what owes its origin to divine agency can nevertheless be received only as it appears in history, and also can continue to function only as a historical entity. We can therefore only describe it as fanatical; it can, in self-consistency, only arise sporadically, and so must also continually disappear again. It destroys the essence of Christianity by postulating an activity of Christ which is not mediated in time and space; and at the same time it so isolates itself that what has been achieved in it can have no continuing influence. The second thing excluded is the supposition that, without the introduction of any new factor, and within the corporate life of sin itself, the better individuals could attain to such an approximation to blessedness as would remove the misery. If this idea be taken strictly, then either another purpose must be assumed for the appearance of Christ, quite apart from the blessedness of man (in which case this would, at any rate, not be a religious purpose); or it would have no specific purpose at all (in which case it would be wrong to name anything after Christ). From our standpoint, the only verdict of the Christian consciousness on this supposition must be that it is based upon an inadequate consciousness of sin. For if sin be posited as corporate act and corporate guilt, then, not only is every activity of the individual involved in the production and renewal of sin, however strong an opposition to individual sins it may include, but also every combination even of the relatively best individuals remains only an organization within the corporate life of sin itself. On the other hand, if the supposition is not to be taken strictly, then it may be Christian in the measure in which it regards Christ as a new factor in the situation, and the corporate life as one formed out of the corporate life of sin.

§ 88. In this corporate life which goes back to the influence of Jesus, redemption is effected by Him through the communication of His sinless perfection. 1. At the present time it cannot be maintained that this way of understanding redemption is the only one which is current in the Protestant Church. And we by no means wish to refuse to recognize as Protestant Christians those who do not accept the idea of such a communication, provided only that they trace every approximation to blessedness back to Christ, and seek to find it in a fellowship which makes it a principle that, for redemption, nothing need be sought beyond His influence, and also that nothing in that influence is to be neglected. We, however, hold to this conception as the original one, taken over from the primitive Church into our Church, and at the same time as that which most definitely excludes all sneaking complacence, and alone consorts with the stricter interpretation of the corporate life of sinfulness, as may be clearly seen from what immediately precedes. The two things hang together in the closest way. The less specific and absolute perfection we ascribe to the Founder of the new corporate life, while at the same time expecting nothing new that goes beyond Him, the easier must it seem to us to overcome what demanded of Him no greater equipment. And the less importance we attach to what proceeds from the natural state of man, the less occasion there is to postulate anything specifically different in Him who inaugurates the better state. For the development of the one view—and this is all that is required of a system of doctrine, for that the view should become more generally accepted can be only the result of its presentation—does not require that the other should be refuted, but only that the relation which exists between them should be clearly set forth again at its most significant points. Just as little can there be any question here of proofs in the proper sense. Not, of course, because Protestant theology, as an undertaking within the Protestant Church, itself presupposes the Protestant faith, but because no single modification of it is capable of proof; it is simply a statement with regard to the stronger or weaker impression which one fact makes in comparison with another. Examples of such differences occur everywhere in the field of history, and always so that it is possible for everyone to be firmly convinced that his impression is the right one, while yet no one can prove its rightness.

2. We set aside, then, all thought of proof. Even of proof from Scripture—not only because of the ambiguity of most of its statements, but because in that way we could prove only the assertion that this is the original form of the Christian faith. Even so, what we must not omit here remains difficult enough; and that is, to unfold the way in which this faith originated, along with its content. That is, we must show, without recourse to compulsion by means of miracle or prophecy (which is a thing alien to faith), how the conviction could arise, both originally and now, that Jesus possessed a sinless perfection, and that there is a communication of this perfection in the fellowship founded by Him. For it is obvious that in the certainty regarding these two points (and certainty about the one involves a related and parallel certainty about the other), there is removal of the misery and growing blessedness. First, then, our proposition is by no means to be understood as asserting that at a time when the consciousness of sin was powerfully aroused, both as a personal and as a corporate consciousness, in many minds, it was only necessary that an exceptional moral excellence should be adequately manifested in a public life, for the sinless perfection longed for as the only possible help to be attributed to such an individual—a view which might be expressed by saying that it was faith that made Jesus the Redeemer. For in such faith the arbitrary decision of the believer would have become more marked on every transference of it, since it would not have been supported by the original impression made by His person; and consequently the certainty would have become less. Gradually the thought would more and more have gained ground that another might come, to whom that conception might be transferred with better right. So that in this way there could only arise a decreasing faith in Jesus, and thus an increasing unbelief. And the only remedy for this would be, that the immediate impression made by the community should be such that sinless perfection could be claimed for it, and then, for its sake, for its founder also. It would not be enough even, that the pure and perfect potency of the God-consciousness should have been actually present in Jesus, but faith in it nevertheless only the work of that longing, eager for satisfaction. For even so He would have been made Redeemer by believers.⁶ On the contrary, our proposition depends upon the assumption that the very recognition of that perfection was its own work, so that it is just as possible that in some persons the full consciousness of sin and the longing which goes with it are first aroused by means of that recognition,⁷ as that in others they are already present. It is only in this way, too, that we can regard the founding of the new corporate life as something more than a special act, without which that exceptional peculiarity could still have existed in Jesus. Rather, just as the latter could have been manifested only in act, so the former is its essential work.

If, however, the faith of the later generations, and consequently of our own, is to be the same as the original one and not a different faith—and in the latter case, not only would the unity of the Christian Church be imperilled, but also all references to the original testimonies of the faith—then it must still be possible to have the same experiences; and the recognition of the sinless perfection in Jesus Christ, definitely constraining us to the new corporate life, must in the same way be still His work. But there is given to us, instead of His personal influence, only that of His fellowship, in so far as even the picture of Him which is found in the Bible also originated in the community and is perpetuated in it. Our proposition, therefore, depends upon the assumption that this influence of the fellowship in producing a like faith is none other than the influence of the personal perfection of Jesus Himself.⁸

3. It is no less difficult to expound the second part of our proposition, namely, that in the corporate life founded by Christ there is a communication of His sinless perfection; while we attribute this to no single individual in the fellowship except Christ. For, since those who companied with Christ are no longer with us, and we cannot concede to any group of individuals, however well they may have been selected to complement each other, the right to lay down dogmas, that is, rules of faith or life, with any claim whatsoever to infallibility or enduring validity; since, on the contrary, our historical interpretation is based upon the view that the influence of distinguished individuals upon the mass is to be thought of as declining: where and of what sort are we to suppose this communication to be? If we regard the mass as a whole, it manifestly shares so largely in the general sinfulness, and this at certain times so saliently and in such specially heightened measure, that it is doubtful whether there is less of this sinfulness at any one point rather than another, and whether it might not therefore have been better for the shaping of human affairs if Christianity had not become such a widely spread historical force. Against these objections, brought forward with much plausibility by its opponents, faith alone can prevail; it must consequently assume that all this represents only the non-existence of the new corporate life, and so the existence of the sinful life in which the new really exists but only in hidden fashion. Thus our proposition depends upon the assumption that in the Christian fellowship, outwardly so constituted, there is still that communication of the absolutely potent God-consciousness in Christ as a thing which is inward, and yet, since faith can rest upon nothing except an impression received, capable of being experienced. This experience is made up of two elements, one of which belongs to the personal consciousness, the other to the common consciousness. The former is that the individual even to-day receives from the picture of Christ, which exists in the community as at once a corporate act and a corporate possession, the impression of the sinless perfection of Jesus, which becomes for him at the same time the perfect consciousness of sin and the removal of the misery. And this is already in itself a communication of that perfection. The second element is that in all those aberrations of the Christian Church, however much they may resemble the sinful corporate life, there is still a tendency issuing from that perfection; a tendency which in every manifestation—nay, constantly even in the setting up of the concepts of truth and goodness—falls more or less a prey to non-existence, but which in its deepest inwardness, or as an impulse, corresponds to its origin, and consequently, in spite of all reactions, will also increasingly make itself manifest. And this impulse given by His historical life, an impulse which, regarded from within, is perfectly pure, is, just like the first element, a true and effective communication of the perfection of Christ.

4. In the corporate life of sinfulness sin propagates itself naturally, so that an unhindered potency of the God-consciousness in Jesus cannot be understood simply as a product of that life. This God-consciousness, manifesting itself in this potency, can have come into existence only outside the sinful corporate life. And since the whole human race is included in this sinful corporate life, we must believe that this God-consciousness had a supernatural origin, though only in the sense which has been postulated above.⁹ So, too, in relation to the Redeemer Himself, the new corporate life is no miracle, but simply the supernatural becoming natural, since every exceptional force attracts mass to itself and holds it fast. But in relation to the corporate life of sinfulness, which hitherto had included everything and dominated every formation, the new is something that has come into being supernaturally. The same is true of the passage of every individual from the old corporate life into the new. In relation to the new creation itself such a passage is not supernatural; such effects follow as of course from its nature. But it is something which has come about supernaturally, so far as its relation to the earlier life of this individual is concerned.

To sum up: in this whole matter we posit, on the one side, an initial divine activity which is supernatural, but at the same time a vital human receptivity in virtue of which alone that supernatural can become a natural fact of history. This is the link which connects the corporate life before the appearance of the Redeemer with that which exists in the fellowship with the Redeemer, so as adequately to bring out the identity of human nature in both. And so, in this whole context, the appearance of the Redeemer in the midst of this natural development is no longer a supernatural emergence of a new stage of development, but simply one conditioned by that which precedes—though certainly its connexion with the former is to be found only in the unity of the divine thought.

§ 89. In the sense in which it can be said that sin is not ordained by God and does not exist for Him,¹⁰ the term Redemption would not be suitable for this new communication of a powerful God-consciousness. And so from that point of view the appearance of Christ and the institution of this new corporate life would have to be regarded as the completion, only now accomplished, of the creation of human nature.

1. It requires no further explanation, that the conception of redemption is related in the closest way to the consciousness of sin, and that when it is used as an expression for the complete work of Christ, there is included along with the removal of the misery, which alone is properly described as redemption, a growing blessedness as well. For that reason alone the expression is inadequate, and an unsuitable one in this respect, that a word is used for the whole (the imparting of blessedness) which properly applies only to the beginning of it. But there is no objection to its use if this is understood. For it is certain that in our Christian consciousness the divine grace as such is always thought of in connexion with sin; while sin itself is always conceived of as including our inability to do what our God-consciousness requires us to strive after. So nothing in the divine grace is overlooked if it is described as the removal of sin, in so far as sin is that inability. But if the expression is to be used not only for the effect, but also for the purpose, of the appearance of Christ, in so far as that appearance is ordained of God, then, since we cannot separate it from its connexion with sin and the consciousness of sin, this is only possible in so far as we can regard the consciousness of sin as ordained of God. How far this is possible has already¹¹ been explained, but it now becomes clearer—God has ordained that the earlier insuperable impotence of the God-consciousness shall become for us, as our own act, the consciousness of sin, in order to intensify that longing without which even the endowment possessed by Jesus would have met with no living faculty for the reception of what He communicates. But, on the other hand, that God is not the creator of sin is, not only strictly true, but also the definite teaching of the Church. The ground for this assertion is best expressed in the formula that evil cannot be a creative thought of God. It follows that the term redemption is not so suitable to describe the divine decree as it is to describe the effect of the decree, for the Almighty cannot ordain one thing for the sake of another which He has not ordained. From this standpoint, which is also that of the Church, no better expression apparently can be found for the divine decree than a Biblical one which at the same time indicates the effect as a whole. As everything which has been brought into human life through Christ is presented as a new creation,¹² so Christ Himself is the Second Adam, the beginner and originator of this more perfect human life, or the completion of the creation of man. This at the same time indicates in the most definite way that it was impossible to attain to this higher life out of the natural order which had its beginning in Adam.

2. That this formula is exactly equivalent in meaning to the first, and attributes to Jesus, as the One in whom the human creation is perfected, the same peculiar dignity and character as does the other when it is fully understood, need not be set forth at length. For this Second Adam is altogether like all those who are descended from the first, only that from the outset He has an absolutely potent God-consciousness. With this He enters the existing historical order of human nature, in virtue of a creative divine causality. It follows that, according to the law of this order, His higher perfection must work in a stimulating and communicative way upon the nature which is like His own, in the first place to bring to perfection the consciousness of sinfulness by contrast with itself, and then also to remove the misery, by assimilation to itself. Now this Second Adam, though He does not belong to the former order, but in relation to it has come into being supernaturally, is yet placed in the historical order, and that too as an individual man. So in His whole activity He stands under the law of historical development, and that activity is brought to perfection through gradual expansion, from the point at which He appears, over the whole.

That in this way the creation of man is, as it were, divided into two stages has analogies enough in history,¹³ and also it has always been asserted of the material creation whenever the distinction has been made between a first and a second creation. At the same time this formula serves as a corrective to the confusions which arise only too easily from improper use of the others. How easily the view recurs which was already attacked by Paul,¹⁴ that sin is wholesome, if it is true that it was on account of sin that Christ had to be sent, and so the imparting of blessedness depends upon sin! Moreover, when considered more closely, this formula is a more precise and direct expression of our Christian self-consciousness than the first. For to begin with, certainly the most exact term for the condition outside fellowship with Christ is consciousness of sin and of need of redemption, inasmuch as and so far as this too is ordained by God. But in fellowship with Christ everything which belongs to a sinfulness no longer productive, is also, just for that reason, no longer in the same sense a consciousness of sin, because it is no longer a being fleshly-minded, but simply an incapacity for what has only just come to be; and the consciousness of the Redeemer is the consciousness of One who makes us strong.¹⁵

3. But in the case of this expression also the demand certainly cannot be set aside that here again the conception of creation must be referred back to that of preservation. Not only is the man Jesus called the Second Adam, which can only mean the second Created One, but also all those born again are called the new creation, and thus that is represented as a creation which, quite correctly, we describe as originally a preservation, that is, as a preservation of the ever-prevailing power of Christ for redemption and blessing: but conversely, the appearance of Christ Himself is to be regarded as a preservation, that is, as a preservation of the receptivity, implanted in human nature from the beginning and perpetually developing further, which enables it to take into itself such an absolute potency of the God-consciousness. For although at the first creation of the human race only the imperfect state of human nature was manifested, yet eternally the appearance of the Redeemer was already involved in that. So that, in whatever sense its fulfilment has to be conceived, the unity of the divine decree comes out with equal clearness whether we say that God ordained sin for men relatively to redemption, or that He put human nature under the law of earthly existence in the sense that, just as the sensuous self-consciousness developed first in each individual, while the God-consciousness came only later, and up to a point gradually took possession of the sensuous self-consciousness and subjugated it, so too the God-consciousness in the race to begin with was inadequate and impotent, and only later broke forth in perfection in Christ, from whom it continually extends its authority, and proves its power to bring peace and blessedness to men.

Further, from this standpoint the relation of Christ to those who lived before His appearance, or who are separated by distance from the corporate life inspired by Him—always an important question for Christian thought—becomes clearer. If the first stage in creation is ordained by God only in view of the second, obviously the same must be true of everything that forms part of the same natural order with it. Accordingly, in the ordaining view of God everything which belongs to the first period of the world must have a share in the relation to the Redeemer. At the same time it appears the more natural that this otherwise hidden relation should become specially evident at particular points, which is just the assumption that prompts a search for types and prophecies.

§ 90. The propositions which work out, according to the three points of view given in § 30, the content of the consciousness of grace here presented, also complete the system of Christian doctrine within the limits here prescribed for it.

1. In elaborating, in what follows, this content, we shall hold to these three forms. In itself, there is no objection to the first and original one, and it is obvious that with a method of procedure which is in any degree correct nothing of any significance in Christian doctrine can escape our notice. But it is difficult to see how we are to distinguish between the first, or the direct description of the gracious state of the redeemed, and the second, or the description of what has come into the world through redemption. For this last is simply the corporate life founded by Christ and its relation to that part of the world of men which finds itself excluded therefrom. The gracious state of the redeemed, again, is simply their activity just in this corporate life and the way in which they are affected by the opposition which still exists to it; so that the two spheres seem to be exactly the same. Connected with this is the fact that here it is less clear that the description of the state must come first. For, on the one hand, it is only out of this new corporate life that the communication of the divine grace comes to each individual, and so it seems necessary that this should be recognized first. Yet, on the other hand, the corporate life is made up of the redeemed as such, and it seems impossible to understand if we have not first considered the peculiar quality of these. None the less both difficulties disappear at once when we come to look into the matter more closely. It is true that the corporate life consists solely of redeemed individuals, but it has its significance for the world only through its organization. Considered as an organization it belongs to the second form of presentation. The state of the individuals as such, on the other hand, as contrasted with their state in the corporate life of sinfulness, is to be worked out rather from the first standpoint. And if in doing so we must in a certain sense presuppose acquaintance with the corporate life, yet it is not a dogmatic knowledge of it. Nor indeed can it be maintained that such acquaintance is really presupposed, since that state of grace was called into being, along with the corporate life, or indeed before it, by the first proclamation of the Gospel. Thus both methods of presentation are possible, and can be kept apart, even though mutual relations between them are inevitable.

2. Finally, as regards the divine attributes which are to be dealt with in the last section, it would be a very strong objection to the propriety of our whole disposition of the subject if, after we had completed the argument, there still remained divine attributes which represent a factor in our Christian self-consciousness, yet can be definitely distinguished from those with which we have been dealing. So for the present we refuse to admit this, and on the contrary regard it as a good sign that we have reduced the large number of indefinite terms denoting attributes to a smaller number of clear formulæ, and also have definitely excluded all that is merely speculative. The event must show whether we have really done this. But here we have not only to supply what before was lacking, but also, as we have remarked above,¹⁶ to give their full content (since we are only now for the first time moving in the sphere of the potent God-consciousness) to all those manifestations of the feeling of absolute dependence which could only be indefinitely described in the first part. For in Christianity it is only relatively to the Kingdom of God that we are conscious of the divine omnipotence and eternity, as well as of the attributes which depend upon them. It is another question whether in fact the whole doctrine of God which answers to the Christian faith can be dealt with simply by an enumeration of the divine attributes, and. whether we ought not rather in addition to set forth the significance of the divine decrees. But this question arises only if we take cognizance of other treatments of Christian doctrine. For a proposition indicative of a divine decree is not as such an expression of the immediate self-consciousness. But if we can bring rightly and completely into consciousness what has come into the world through redemption, then we shall thereby have given the content of the divine decrees also.

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Footnotes

1. That this is the sense of Heb. 10¹⁻³ is not open to doubt. ↩

2. Cf. § 85, 2. ↩

3. Cf. § 70, 2 and 3. ↩

4. 1 John 1¹⁶, 1 John 3¹⁴· ²¹, Phil. 4⁴. ↩

5. Cf. § 74, I. ↩

6. Contrary to the claim of Christ, John 15¹⁶. ↩

7. Cf. § 14, 2. ↩

8. Cf. § 14, I. ↩

9. Cf. § 13, I. ↩

10. Cf. § 81. ↩

11. Cf. § 80. ↩

12. 2 Cor. 5¹⁷. ↩

13. Here, too, belongs what has been said above, § 13, 1. ↩

14. Rom. 6¹. ↩

15. Phil. 4¹³. ↩

16. 29, 1 and p. 272. ↩