Parish Papers. Norman Macleod
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moral beauty itself! But unless the history we possess of Jesus is untrue, and He was, therefore, no historical but a mere ideal person—or if He was a real person, as represented in the gospel, yet not divine—we cannot defend His character without losing our own. For we have seen how He certainly represented Himself as one with God—as one who alone knew God and truly revealed Him—as one who demanded the same honour and love from man as were due to God—who required men to be willing to part with their dearest friends, even life itself, rather than with Him—who asserted His right to assign to mankind their eternal destinies according to the relationship in which each man stood to Him—who, when standing before an earthly judge, crowned with thorns, insulted by the rabble, with every sign of weakness, and as if literally forsaken by God and man, did not abate one jot or tittle of His claims, but asserted them in all their magnitude, announcing His return to the world in glory as its mighty Judge; and much more to the same effect. Now, can any man, we ask, of common honesty defend such a character as this from the charge of wilful imposition and daring blasphemy, unless what He asserted was true? With reference to all the good words or deeds which His professed friends may claim for Him, yet so long as He falsely claims to be divine, we are constrained to reject Him, as the Jews did, and to say with them, "For a good work we stone thee not, but because thou, being a man, makest thyself God!" It is not possible, therefore, to fall back on Christ's character, if we reject Christ's divinity; for His character was manifest untruth, and His claims an unprincipled deception!
4. Can we preserve the character of the apostles? That, too, has hitherto been considered worthy of our respect and regard. Never did men leave such a record of moral teaching, and such an impress of a holy life behind them, a life so pure, wise, loving, so suited, in every respect, to bless mankind, and to make a heaven below in proportion as it is received. In these men we can detect no trace of avarice, ambition, or selfish aims of any kind. They lived, laboured, and died, that the world should become better and happier, and they have so far succeeded that civilisation can never more be separated from their names. But what was the substance of their teaching, and the one grand object of their existence? I again reply, without fear of contradiction, it was to persuade mankind to trust and love Jesus Christ as God! The first Christian teacher who died a martyr's death resigned his spirit into the hands of this Jesus, as his Lord in glory; and the last and oldest apostle who first knew Him as his friend, represented Him as the Alpha and the Omega, the King of kings and Lord of lords. But if He was not this, how can the character of those teachers be defended? As Jews they could not be ignorant of the being and attributes of God, nor as men of the earthly life and history of Jesus; yet they professed to preach Jesus as divine, and to work miracles in His name! They could not possibly have been themselves deceived, and must therefore, if their faith was vain, have attempted to deceive others. Common sense rejects every other explanation. Anyhow, they were the successful heralds of an idolatry which, we may boldly affirm, will never leave the world, and of a blasphemy whose praises will never be silent on earth. Their character must perish with that of their Master!
5. What, then, have we left us? The morality of the New Testament? No! for all that is peculiar to its morality are the duties which spring out of the assumed relationship of Jesus to mankind. The gospel morality of supreme love to Jesus becomes _im_morality, if Jesus is not one with God. Prayer to Christ, personal communion with Christ, personal attachment to Christ, hymns of praise to Christ, abiding through faith in Christ, advancing the kingdom of Christ, labouring for Christ and keeping His commandments—in one word, that whole life of the Christian towards God and man, every portion of which is permeated by Christ as the sunlight fills the atmosphere, can never be separated from the morality of the New Testament.
Nor can we any longer rely upon Old Testament facts, or on anything there revealed regarding God, as distinct from what could have been discovered without such a revelation, if our faith has been shaken in the facts and the characters of the New Testament. He who can reject the Christ of the New Testament, must necessarily reject the God of the Old; and he who cannot rely on the apostles, cannot possibly rely upon the prophets. All must be given up, and the Bible become a mere curious record of falsehood.
6. Is this all? Enough one would think! But can we even fall back on God? What evidence has any man of the existence of a living personal God, stronger than what he possesses of a living personal Saviour? Can any revelation of God during the past, and recorded in history, be received as worthy of credit, if this alleged history of Jesus is rejected as unworthy? If the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not the only living and true God, where is the true God to be found? If Jesus neither knew Him truly, nor truly revealed Him, who can do either? And when, moreover, we have thus lost faith in the character of Jesus and of His apostles, from what better evidence of moral character or moral design on earth can we henceforth reason upwards as to the moral character of a Divine Being?
In what position do we thus find ourselves? The Church of Christ must be given up as a great falsehood, a huge idolatry, a society of weak, deluded, or bad men. The character of its early founders, and the Person to whom it owes its name, must, for the same reason, be abandoned. The Old Testament can form but a feeble barrier to the flood which has thus swept away the New, with all which has arisen out of the assumed truth of its history. And thus each man, cut off from the past, is left to discover a God for himself, from evidence which, to satisfy him, must necessarily be more overwhelming than that which he rejects, and on which the faith of the Christian Church has rested for eighteen centuries. Can any man be satisfied with such a basis of religion as this? Having rejected God as revealed in Jesus, can he peril his soul in peace on the God discovered by himself? Having fled from Christianity as a religion whose foundations are insecure, can he repose with confidence in the building which he himself has reared? Or, if he moves at all, must he not gradually slide into universal scepticism, and conclude that, since he cannot believe in Jesus, he can believe in no one else—that if deceived by Him he may be deceived by all—that if there is no such Person as the Divine Son, there is no such Person as the Divine Father—that if he must be without Christ, he must necessarily be without God!
He may, indeed, in such a case, profess to believe in a God; but is He the living and true God, or one who is but the product of his own mind, the shadow cast by his own human spirit? Oh! hear the words of Him who is truth itself: "Ye believe in God, believe also in me;" "All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him;" "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!" May the Lord's last prayer be answered in us: "Father, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he may give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."
IV.
WHAT IF CHRISTIANITY IS NOT TRUE?
Now to prove the Christian religion untrue, or to prove that the evidences on which it rests are insufficient, is a more difficult task than some of its opponents appear to imagine, if we may judge from the boastful language in which they record their supposed achievements.
Let it never be forgotten, that the Christian religion is founded upon certain alleged historical facts that must be disposed of before it falls.[A] The holy temple of a loving soul filled with the glory of Christ is spiritual, but it is nevertheless based upon facts as on foundation-stones, the chief corner-stone being Jesus Christ the personal Saviour, "who was dead and is alive, and liveth for evermore!" Without these facts Christianity could not exist. The duty, for example, of supremely loving and devotedly serving Jesus Christ, implies the truth of other facts, such as the fulfilment of prophecies, miracles, the life and character of Jesus, His atoning death, resurrection, &c., all of which establish His claims to our faith. But in addition to these, and as their evidence also and result, there is the experience of the whole living Church, derived from faith in Jesus as the resurrection and the life.
[Footnote A: Neander, in his preface to his "Life of Christ," quotes from Niebuhr what he calls "the golden words of one of the greatest minds of modern times." "The man," says Niebuhr, "who does not hold Christ's earthly life, with all