Sin is represented, in apostolic thought, as causing alienation and separation of man from God, with all the bitter consequences flowing therefrom (Ko 5'-, 1 Jn 3», Ja 1"). Though man's being, as man, is rooted and grounded in the Divine Logos (Ac 17"'), yet sinful men are not in spiritual vinion with the holy God as sons in whom He is well pleased, but are alienated from Him and under His wrath and cur.se (Ko 1" 2' 8'- ', Kjih 2', Gal 3'°, etc.). That perfect spiritual union of man with God which the natural head of our human race, the first Adam, failed to attain to, through sin, has, however, been attained to and realized in the Person of Jesus Christ the second Adam, who is the perfect ' Son of man ' and also ' Son of God ' (1 Co I.')"- ■"•<"). As made in the image of God, the form of man furnished a form of being capable of expressing the Divine Logos in fullness of measure. And, in the fullness of time, there ap- peared on earth a man in whom the Divine Logos was incarnate and dwelt in perfect fullness — the man Christ .Jesus (.In 1", I'h '2.'-'). In Him the in- carnation of the Divine Logos receives supreme and perfect individual cxiiression, and union of m.an with (iod is perfectly realized. And the aim and purpose of this incarnation of the Logos in the individual historic personality of the man Christ ilesus is said to be ' the bringing of many sons unto glory' (He 2'") — the bringing into being of a kingdom of redeemed humanity under Christ as King, in which love, the nrinciple of the Divine nature, reigns supreme (Col 1").
The fall of mankind under the power of sin,
with all its bitter consequences, conditioned the task which the perfect Son of man and Son of God, when lie appcareil <m earth, had to undertake an<l accomplish, in onler to bring about reconciliation and ellcct the redemption and restoration of sinful men, and establish the Kingdom of God.
As the representative ami heail of our sinful race vicariously bearing our sins in His body (1 P 2-''') and on His Spirit (Mt 8"), He had to sntler and die, 'the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to (iod ' (I P 3'"). And it is through union with Him by faith that sinful men, alienated from God through sin, become rc<'(incilcd to (iod and cnlcr jirogrc^sively upon that ethical and spiritual union with God which is man's true goal (1 Co 6", 2 Co 5"'-', etc.). Thus, according to the apostolic con- ce|)tion, union of man with (jod, in the ethical and spiritual sense, implied in the relation of sonship to God, is not something already belonging to man in virtue of creation, and persisting in spite of sin, but something to bo attained to and realized through ethical and spiritual process. And for sinful men the only way of attainment is through union by faith with .Jesns Christ the 'one mediator between God and men' (1 Ti 2°). This union with Christ, and thereby with God, realized in the life of Christian faith, is l)rought about by the gracious inlluence of the Holy Spirit in the minds and hearts of individuals, working thnmgh the means of grace, viz. the Word, the sacraments, and pr.ayer.
Kut, while the agency of the Holy Spirit in bringing about this union is emiih.a.sizea and made prominent by the apostolic writers, the individual human personalitj- is regarded, not as purely pas- sive in the process, but as co-oi)erating through free will, at least to the extent of yielding freely to the Spirit's gracious inlluences and allowing the life to be moulded thereby (Ko 8", Ph 2'-- '^ 2 Co 3"). Union with (iod, meiliatcd through the gracious intluences of the Spirit, is thus .set forth by the apostolic writers as essentially of an ethical or spiritual rather than of a mystical kind. It is not an ecstatic rajiture of a Neo- Platonic kind, tending to dissolve the individual personality in a wider whole, though traces of such a conception are not altogether wanting in the apostolic records {c.ff. 2 Co 12-- •■). Kathcr is it an experience of an ethical and spiritual order, the goal of which is not the abs()ri)tion of the individual in (iod, in a kind of Nirvana, but the com|iletion and jicrfecting of all that is of worth ami value in individual jiersonality in loving communion with God througii Christ (Jn Ir'-', Kev 2P). The literature of tlie 1st cent., outside the canon of Scripture, including the epistles of Clement and IJarnabas and perhaps the 'leaching of the Twelve Apu.illes, fragments of Papias, and the Shepherd of Hcrmns, so popular in the Church during the 2nd and 3rd centuries, con- tains nothing new or distinctive bearing on the subject of union with God as compared with the apostolic writings.
Clcmevt has some fine passages about creation (Ep. ad Cor. XX., lix., Ix.) in which a clear distinc- tion is drawn between Creator and creature. God's name, he says, is ' the iirimal cause of every creature' (cli. lix.); and God's immanence in man is recognized (' His breath is in us' [ch. .xxi.]). He recognizes also, in a clear way, tlie mediatorshi]i of (Jhrist, through faith in whom we rise intu union with God, ' looking up to the heights of heaven' and 'tasting ot immortal knowledge' (ch. xxxvi.). He is eloquent, loo, in praise of love as that which ' unites men to (ioii ' (ch. xlix.).