THE STATE OF THE CHRISTIAN AS CONSCIOUS OF THE DIVINE GRACE
§ 91. We have fellowship with God1 only in a living fellowship with the Redeemer, such that in it His absolutely sinless perfection and blessedness represent a free spontaneous activity, while the recipient’s need of redemption represents a free assimilative receptivity.
- This is the basic consciousness that each Christian has of his own state of grace, even where the most dissimilar views of Christianity prevail. The consciousness of one who in no degree relates the potency of the God-consciousness which he finds in himself to Jesus is not Christian at all; while, if he does so relate it, but without in any degree recognizing the contrast noted in our proposition, then, since he finds in himself, not merely no sin, but not even imperfection, and is altogether spontaneous and independent in his activity, he must have left the state of grace behind him, and have himself become a Christ. If, on the other hand, a man relates his state, as touching fellowship with God, to Jesus, but without finding in himself any living receptivity for Him, then he certainly believes in Christ in so far as he assumes Him to possess a saving influence, but as yet he does not find himself a recipient of grace, for he cannot have experienced any change through Christ. For there can be no change in a living being without his own activity; hence, without such activity—that is, in a purely passive way—no influence exerted by another can really be received. Or again, if a man’s own activity were one of opposition, if it were simply resistance, then the grace would necessarily have been imparted against his will, that is, by compulsion, and so would not be blessedness. Thus all real vital fellowship with Christ, in which He is in any sense taken as Redeemer, depends on the fact that living receptivity for His influence is already present, and continues to be present. And this holds true equally for every moment and degree; for, once arrived at the limit, the connexion would necessarily break off of itself.
But it cannot be denied that our proposition leaves plenty of scope for the most various interpretations of this relationship, provided they all keep within the limits laid down. One man may regard the relationship as absolutely the same at all moments, so that all the influences already felt in no way alter its character; another may believe that in the recipient of grace there gradually arises a co-operative self-activity, so that the new Ego considered in its self-identity is a self-active entity and more and more develops itself in that character, and only the person as such, considered as the subject of change, is the seat of pure receptivity; for which reason he is conscious of the potency of the God-consciousness as something constantly his own, though of course derived from Christ. Indeed, if we go back to the distinction between the personal self-consciousness and the common consciousness and accept our proposition as expressing the common Christian consciousness, but add that every adult Christian can and ought to be conscious of himself personally as free and self-active in the Kingdom of God, while at the same time he has only become such within the corporate life whose consciousness is rightly defined in our proposition—this view also would lie within the limits stated. But, of course, these views are not all equally current in the Church.
- If then a statement such as we have given is equally valid for all elements, however widely they may differ, within the corporate life founded by Christ, it indicates only one possible division of our subject-matter. We must first explain how in virtue of this consciousness we conceive the Redeemer, next how we conceive the redeemed. The order fixes itself, for whatever in the state of the Christian contrasts with his former state in the fellowship of sinfulness can only be explained by the influence of the Redeemer. Hence the content of this section falls into two divisions. To the first belong all propositions concerning Christ which are immediate expressions of our Christian self-consciousness. If any teaching concerning Christ is given in other treatments of Protestant doctrine, but not here, that omission is not an arbitrary judgment on our part but sure internal evidence that such teaching is lacking in purely dogmatic content, and for that reason possessed only of a subordinate explanatory or subsidiary value (for if it could have come in under our plan, it would assuredly by our method have found a place for itself). The second division must contain all propositions which directly describe the relation of grace to sinfulness in the human soul, and this as mediated by the entrance of the Redeemer. This division was, above,2 marked off from the second section; accordingly, we must include here everything by means of which the individual obtains and takes a share in the Christian fellowship—only, however, so far as it is regarded as his personal quality or mode of action.