§ 157. Since the Church cannot attain to its consummation in the course of human life on earth, the representation of its consummated state is directly useful only as a pattern to which we have to approximate.
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The Holy Spirit, as the common vital principle of the Church, is of itself the sufficient reason of this consummation; but, His action being subject to the laws of temporal life, the consummation can only arrive when all opposition is so completely overcome that in the field of His activity nothing in time remains which is hostile; when, that is to say, all the influences of the world upon the Church have exhausted themselves. This implies first of all that Christianity has spread over the whole world,1 in the sense that no other religion survives as an organized fellowship. As long as these antiquated and imperfect forms of religion persist alongside of Christianity, striving to maintain themselves side by side with the Church, their character will be so deeply impressed on their adherents that when these have been captured by Christianity, whether individually or in the mass, they will (even if it be unconsciously) carry over many corrupting elements, which must prove a source of division and error. Now our self-consciousness testifies that in general the origination of faith in the Redeemer is not conditioned by any special circumstance, but depends solely on the common consciousness of sin which can be evoked in all, as well as on the equally universal faculty, due to the sameness of human nature everywhere, of receiving a specific impression from the Redeemer. We therefore cherish the hope that the expansion of Christianity will be accelerated in proportion as the glory of the Redeemer is ever more clearly reflected in the Church itself.2 It is an undeniable possibility that this might take place in the course of human history; yet we cannot forget that during all that time the propagation of the species goes on, and that sin develops anew in each generation. Thus even assuming that the power of sin is being ever more widely and thoroughly repressed, and hence more easily broken, the Church is thus ever anew admitting worldly elements. Thus it is always involved in the conflict described above, and hence is never perfected. In this state it is usually designated the Church militant, because it has not only to stand on the defensive against the world but must seek to conquer the world. Just for that reason, as conceived in the state of consummation it is called the Church triumphant, because all that in this sense was worldly has now been wholly absorbed in it, and no longer exists as its opposite.
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Strictly speaking, therefore, from our point of view we can have no doctrine of the consummation of the Church, for our Christian consciousness has absolutely nothing to say regarding a condition so entirely outside our ken. We have recognized Christ as the end of prophecy;3 which implies that even the Church does not acknowledge any gift of the Spirit enabling her to form a prophetic picture of a future on which (since it lies altogether beyond human experience) our action can exert no influence whatever; indeed, in the absence of all analogy we could hardly understand the picture aright or retain it securely. None the less, these prophetic pictures fill a great place in the Church, and it is incumbent on us, before pronouncing for their exclusion from this exposition, to inquire as to their source. In the first place, reference must be made to the New Testament predictions of the consummation of the Church, all of which we certainly must trace back to prophetic utterances of Christ. Now if these are to be treated by the rules of art, and yet not to be made doctrines proper, but only propositions which we receive on testimony, yet which do not stand in so intimate a relation with our faith as do similar propositions regarding the Person of the Redeemer, we shall hardly be able to give them a place in our Dogmatic, or at least only in so far as they concern the Redeemer and our relation to Him. While, however, these propositions are not doctrines of faith, since their content (as transcending our faculties of apprehension) is not a description of our actual consciousness, the matter takes on another aspect if, abstracting from the fact that they transcend our present conditions, we concentrate on the point that they must contain no reference to anything in our present state due to the influences of the world. That these influences may be restrained, in a higher degree than the mere co-operation of individuals could secure, is the constant object of our prayers; and the consummated Church is accordingly the sphere where such prayer is answered in full measure. Hence this idea of the consummation of the Church is rooted in our Christian consciousness as representing the unbroken fellowship of human nature with Christ under conditions wholly unknown and only faintly imaginable, but the only fellowship which can be conceived as wholly free from all that springs from the conflict of flesh and spirit.