2. The movement 'Back to Christ.' — The question is prominently before the present age. The modern mind asks it with revivea interest. Modern know- ledge in its several departments of philosophy, history, science, has developed along lines and m obedience to principles which appear able to dis- pense with the old theistic axioms. God and Conscience are not so vividly active. And yet, on the other hand, the ancient instinct of the race for communion with God is assertive as ever. It turns for comfort almost exclusively to the Christian tradition. The Christian tradition, however, it is convinced, needs revision ; and here the central necessity is the treatment and true understanding of the Person of Christ. The cry is 'Back to Christ.' It is a cry dear to all who desire a simpler gospel than that set forth in the Creeds ; all who are wearied with speculation on the elements of Christian truth, or are distraught Avith the variety of interpretation offered of it ; all who are eager to embrace the ethics and as eager to abjure what they term the metaphysics of the Christian system. The movement referred to is natural ; and its plea so plausible as to merit attention. The aim is nothing short of recovering the image of the original Founder of the Faith, expressed in His authentic words and acts ; to bring back in all the distinct lineaments of a living Personality the great Teacher whom we now see in the Gospels ' as through a glass darkly.' It seeks by a study of the original records in the light of all the historical and critical aids now open to us, an<l guided by the modern idea of evolution, not only to })ring us face to face with Jesus of Nazareth, to listen to His direct words of wisdom, but to trace all the steps of His spiritual advance, all the steps by which He grew into the Messiah of Israel and the Ideal of humanity, giving the deepest inter- pretation to the prophetic dream of His nation, • Of. Westcott, Gospd o/ Li/c, pp. 295-297.
DIVINITY OF CHRIST
DIVINITY OF CHKIST
4G9
and so lifting it into that hifjher region in wliich tlie freely accepted Cross became the necessary means to the deliverance of man. The ' Jesus of history,' it is argued, has been buried in the 'Christ of dogma'; the Church in handing down the Saviour has presented Him with adoring hands and in idealized form. The more we throw off her encrustments, the nearer we get to the original, the nearer we are getting to the real Jesus, and, in Him, to the truth of our religion.
However natural tlie hope of such minds, it is based on illusion. It pioceeds on erroneous ideas as to what we may learn from the past. ' What has been done,' says the adage, 'even the gods themselves cannot make undone.' All that his- torical reversions can do is to suggest that in the onward movement something precious has been left behind which it were well to recover before going further. There is no such Christ, no such Christianity in the first century as is sought for : a Christ and a Christianity purely invariable and true for all time and in every place. That is a concep- tion which, the more it is studied, the more it will be found to be a pure abstraction to which no con- crete in rerum natura corresponds. The absolute value of the Christian Faith, the real stature of the Christ, cannot be established by merely dropping the historical surroundings or setting of the tradi- tional truth. The old truth that lived spiritually in the minds of those who first livin^ly appre- hended it, and which has pulsated all through the historical process, has to be (iiu,i;h( up aj;:iiii, realized in its essential vitality, :iii'l fonmihacil anew in harmony \v\t\\ the ijiu.lrni spiiil. WC have to ask, Was the Christian Idm iiiv,-ii in itsi'lf 111, al..stractly, and may this, as the iiiir. (ir siiiii iif thi-'. .ucisjiel, be re- , ini (III- coiitiary, u.is the Christian a Life in a tonipany of believers its power in their lives, so that it to an invariable essence except ss of abstraction? Cf., fui'ther.
f the, movement. — The effort
: ' (the phrase is Dr. Fair-
iss in its avowed aim than in
Thvimgh them it yields a
lo;^i.ai progress. We pro-
■ Ml. Ii nsults: (I) a, neto idea
apart, m isi
iliiitrine ; (2) the in- liiiwrni primary and IV ; CM the deepened
bairn's) is import
its subsi(Uar.\- ii-
real contribution
ceed to indicate
of the natiirc nf (.'lii-i.j ,,:,
sistence on the di.st.iiui n,i
variable elements in dmh
consciousness of the extiiil
(1) The same divines who Ii.im' l.u.-ii.l themselves in the search for the Cluist of lii-ioiy have been instrumental in exhibitiiiL' < In i,( im 'iliought on His Person as « ^cocci-.v. Inlli.il -[ili. re of thought they have rigorously apjilieil tlic iilea of develop- ment, not indeed for tlie first time (since John Henry Newman, fifteen years before Darwin's Origin of Species was published, had fascinated their fathers by his use of the idea), but with a more thorough insight than Newman, and with better tests, furnislung in consequence widely ditterent results from his. They are enabled to distinguish between Creed and Doctrine, between articles of faith and the whole process of reflexion, even of a conflicting character, by which articles of faith are reached and defined. By them interest is transferred from the result to the process. The forces entering into the process are minutely analyzed. It is discovered that theology has a history ; that its history is mixed up with general history ; that it has been mouldeii liy a vast deal external to the subject-mat ter of theology; and not only so, but even, as sonn' (notably Harnack) contend, has been substanliallv aii.l i'n its inner modified, if not puivcrtied, iii the process.