The Christian consciousness rejected the last word ; but adopted and hallowed the other two, which stood for human, not Divine service. They appear in ' deacon ' and ' liturgy ' respectively : the third word is left embedded in idolatry. — See, further, below, § 5.
(3) Christ has made religion moral in its char- acter, because He is pre-eminently the Saviour from sin. Religion under other auspices may mean almost anything but a moral conflict and victory. It may even, as in various Asiatic beliefs, spread its sanction over immorality. And even where there is a high ethical standard, as in Confucianism, goodness is rather a codified substitute for religion than the vital substance of it. Nowhere but in Christianity is love for God identified with a passion for real righteousness and inmost cleansing. Not that there is no teaching to this end in the OT. On the contrary, it is the main burden of the prophets. And John the Baptist stood in the true succession when he turned religion into the terms of a repentant and reconstructed life. But it too easily became a means to an end, so that personal
righteousness became subsidiary to national rights. And goodness became so degenerate in the chair of the scribes that their ideal was not so much rectitude as correctitude.
But the religion of the Sermon on the Mount breathes out a holiness which consumes every lesser thing, and carries the moral imperative into the inmost recesses of the soul. It is a remarkable thing that Jesus brought so few charges of sin against the irreligious j)eople. If one might ven- ture on a reason, it is that sin itself, i.e. the en- thronement of self against God, meant so much to Him that He let other things pass in order to strike at the Prince of this world (Jn 12^' 16"). His life and spiritual i^resence have made men conscious of sin without the aid of any catalogue of transgres- sions. On the other hand, Christ's conception of molality was always warm and positive, on the ground that ' no virtue is safe that is not enthusi- astic' (Seeley, Ecce Homo, ch. i. ). Every token of self-abandonment in humility, faith, and love drew forth His admiration, whether it was the quiet confidence of the centurion (Mt 8^"^-, Lk 17^^-), the moral enthusiasm of the young ruler (Mk 10"'''-||), the sacrificial giving of the poor widow (12'*'-^i|), or the overflowing repentance of the woman who wept at His feet (Lk 7^^"^')- Every human trait that escaped the imprisonment of self was in the eyes of Jesus the material of true religion. And it was a radiant goodness, unconscious and un- laboured, in the early Christians that chiefly arrested the attention of the world.
(4) Christ has made religion individual in its responsibility, because He is the Lord of all. Re- ligion always tends to congeal into a system. There is, of course, a solidarity of mankind, of which religion must take note, of Avhich indeed it is an expression. Sin is a common inheritance, and redemption, too, is a universal fact. It is on this truth that the gospel of Jesus rests. But starting from this truth the gospel lays a test and an obligation on individuals as such. There is no safeguard in being a son of Abraham or a disciple of Moses without giving personal credence, allegi- ance, and service, ixovov viaTeve is the keyword by which the individual escapes from ' an evil and adulterous generation,' and all that threatens the full exercise of personality. From the beginning Jesus kept the multitude at the distance of a strait gate and a narrow way, which can be traversed only by one at a time, by the giving of the will, and the crucifying of the self. And what is true of entrance to the Kingdom holds good of its final appointments. Punishment will be proportioned to knowledge and reward to fidelity. With all that He Himself brought, Jesus did not allow men to take anything for granted, but bade them ' watch, as if on that alone hung the issue of the day.'
(5) Christ has made religion spiritual in its essence, because ' the Lord is the Spirit ' (2 Co 3") as God is Spirit ( Jn 4^). Religion is apt to become a mere sediment of observance, a shell from which the life has departed. It certainly was so in the days of our Lord ; it threatens to be so still. The words in vogue among the Greeks were Xarpeia and dpricTKeia, the latter word being translated ' re- ligion ' in Ac 26^ and Ja 1-^'-, the former ' service ' in Jn 162, Ro g-* 12^, He 9^- «. But they only con- noted rites of worship and sacrifice : they were old bottles which could not be entrusted with the new spirit of Christianity. St. James uses Op-qaKeia almost ironically when he says that ' pure religion and undefiled is visiting widows in their affliction and keeping one's self uspotted from the world. ' St. Paul (Ro 12^) takes up Xarpela and dvaia with equal scorn, qualifying the former word with XoyiKr] and the latter with fcDo-a, before allowing them to be applicable to Christianity.
RELIGION
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 493
It was in this way tiiat Christ Himself had dealt witii the prayers and alnisyiviny of pious Jews (Mt 6'"*) ; and the whole tendency of professional separatism among the Pharisees (cf. Pro Ckristo et Ecrlcsia). His Father ' sees in secret,' and 'seeks those to be his worshippers who worship in spirit and in truth' (Mt G-*, Jn 4--'). By resting religion on spirituality, and giving free access by the Spirit to the Father (Ko 5^, Eph 21**), the whole basis of the sacrificial system was undermined and sacer- dotalism became an anachronism.