^ Whatever may have been the original grounds of the faith of the great majority of Christian people, their faith has been verified in their own personal experience. They trusted in Christ for the remission of sins, and they have been liberated from the sense of guilt; for deliverance from sin, and the chains of evil habits have been broken or loosened, and the fires of evil passion have been quenched or subdued. They trusted in Christ for a firmer strength to resist temptation and to live righteously, and the strength has come. They have received from Him — they
* G. J. Romanes, Thoughts on Religion, 157.
484 THE UNCHANGING CHRIST
are sure of it — a new life, a life akin to the life of God. They have been drawn into a wonderful personal union with Christ Himself ; " in Christ " they have found God, and have passed into that invisible and eternal order which is described as " the kingdom of God." Whatever uncertainties there may be about the his- torical worth of the four narratives which profess to tell the story of Christ's earthly ministry, their faith in Him is firm, because they know by their experience that the Living Christ is the Lord and Saviour of men. . . . For Christian faith it is enough to know the Living Christ; a knowledge of Christ "after the flesh" — in His place in the visible and earthly order — is not indispensable. But for the perfect strength and joy of the Christian life we must know both the Christ who lived and died in the Holy Land eighteen hundred years ago, and the Christ who, ever since His resurrection, has been saving and ruling men.^
2. It is necessary in these days to lay some stress upon the fact that Jesus Christ is still a living force and available for human needs. There has been one evil result of recent historical criticism of the Gospels. Men have too often come to the con- clusion that Jesus Christ is some Person buried away in the infinitely distant past, and that they have to go back and grope for Him there if they would discover Him at all. Now, that is not so. The real cry of the Christian Church is not " Back to Jesus Christ." It is no question of going back. The real cry is, " "We would see Jesus, and see Him now, and hear Him speak in the language of to-day." And the real need of the Church and of the world to-day is to come into touch with what is called some- times the living Christ. The Christ of to-day must be One who has become part and parcel of our human environment, who is still a force, the effect of which we can feel for ourselves — a Christ who is for us not merely a memory, not merely a sacred figure with a halo round it that we can bow down before in reverence, but a power that touches us, and that we can touch, and of which we can have real and experimental knowledge.
It seems to be specially necessary to-day to insist on what was so evident to the Apostolic Church — that the living, loving, miglity saving Presence of wliich believers were conscious was no other than the Jesus who had lived, taught, wrought, and died on earth. There are not a few on the one hand who hold ^ R. W. Dale, Tlie Living Christ and the Four Gospels.
HEBREWS XIII. 8 485
firmly the trustworthiness of the gospel story, and find help, comfort, and hope in the facts there recorded, but to whom the living Christ is a vague abstraction. Let them but bring together the historical reality and the personal experience, let them realize that the grace of God that here and now saves them is the same Jesus whose words and works the Gospels record, and surely there will be a clearer vision of, and a closer communion with, and a richer communication from, the Saviour and the Lord. Some there are on the other hand who are conscious of the guidance, enlightenment, and inspu'ation of the Divine Presence, whom they call the living Christ; but they do not make their consciousness as distinct and attractive and compelling as it might be if the object of their faith appeared to them in the full and clear reality of the historical Jesus. The mystical and the historical, to use current terms, in the Christian apprehension must be blended if the Christian experience is to be as vdde and deep as it may become. Thus the living Christ will make the historical Jesus a present reality, and the historical Jesus give to the living Christ a distinct content.
^ Let time bring with it what it may, we are assured of Christ's fidelity. Let other hopes die out in disappointment, the hope of my spirit endures. Let me learn what painful lessons I may about my feeble purposes and uncertain heart ; broken with penitence, sad and ashamed at so many resolutions unfulfilled, w^eary with wicked and fruitless wandering from His good care, I shall find Him ready as ever to pardon, gracious as ever to restore. In temptation we learn strange and humbling lessons about our- selves ; the lusts we thought subdued " conceive and bring forth sin " ; we fall ; but He is the same, calm as ever to soothe, strong as ever to subdue. Our wisdom sometimes proves our folly ; but Christ is wise as ever to teach us, ready again to guide our erring thoughts. "Yesterday" we found Him precious; when for the first time we stood by the graveside He comforted us, "the resurrection and the life." He is the same " to-day," solacing our newest grief. " Yesterday " we heard His voice ; His name was on the lips of those who spoke to us the Word of God. The teachers have gone, or we have outgrown them. But He is still the same ; if the teachers are gone, the Truth is with us. The living Word of God, who speaks from the lips of counsellors, is Himself our Counsellor. What changes need we now fear? We may be troubled, but we cannot be daunted ; surprised, but not