and is realized among men. The Apocalypse it is evident belongs primarily to the present world and is a statesman's vision of the divine order of human society. According to the New Testament writers the work of Christ is construed in terms of social life and never in terms of individual isolation. One One may not agree with Ritschl in all of his positions, but he has correctly interpreted the essence of Christianity when he declares that it is primarily social, and that the great truths of religion cannot be understood when applied in isolation to the individual subject, but only when explained in relation to the subject as a member of a community of believers. The social, the collective, the human ideal is preserved throughout the New Testament and this compels us to think of the ideal condition as life in a divine, righteous, human society. The salvation which Christ brings and earth expects "is not finished when a man is forgiven or has obtained peace with God; it is completed only when Christ is all in all-that is when humanity has been built up in all its parts and regulated in all its relations by the ideal of love and sonship that has lived from eternity in the bosom of God.” 2 1 2. Thus the men who are following the program of Christ and are seeking the kingdom of God are seeking to make the Good News known to every creature; they are seeking to save men from sin and to make them like Christ; they are seeking to secure for all men the conditions of a clean, worthy, human and moral life; they are seeking to build on the earth a city after the pattern of the Divine City. Thus also the work of winning men unto Christ and training "Justification and Reconciliation," Chapter I. 'Fairbairn, "Religion in History and Modern Life," p. 254. them in character, the work of building churches and sending out missionaries, the work of taking up stumbling-blocks and making straight paths for men's feet, are all parts of a whole and means to an end, and that end is nothing less than the building up in the earth of a divine-human society. III. THE IDEAL OF THE KINGDOM AND THE The kingdom of God in the Christian conception of things is a great social, collective, human ideal that is as all inclusive as the reign of God and as comprehensive as the nature of man. In this kingdom is gathered up the whole purpose of God in the world, and in this kingdom is realized the highest welfare of man. In this kingdom is contemplated not alone the salvation and perfection of the individual, but the redemption and transformation of the institutions and relations of his life, the family, the Church and the state; in brief the ideal of the kingdom implies a perfect man in a perfect society. The life of the kingdom by its very essence is an active, aggressive, missionary lifethe kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened and as such it is ever seeking to permeate the world and to transform all things into its likeness. This is not all, but this life of the kingdom by its very nature is a creative, organic, organific power -it is no vague and indefinite something or nothing,— but a vital and vitalizing potency-that ever seeks and finds expression in appropriate forms, a life that ever seeks to create around itself a body for its indwelling and expression. "The Bible," said John Wesley, "knows nothing of a solitary religion." Combining these two things this is what we find: In the ideal of the kingdom are found certain great, formative, constitutive, architectonic principles which are at once the creative power, the regulative basis and the determining ideal of a human society. In the life of the kingdom is found an aggressive, all-permeating, ever-organizing potency that seeks to touch and quicken and transform everything into its own likeness. Thus in the inherent quality of life to conform to its type we have the prophecy of the future of mankind; in the organic and social ideal of the kingdom we have the promise and potency of an organized society on earth in which the life of the kingdom is fully realized. The life of the kingdom must touch and penetrate and permeate all realms and relations of life; the life of the kingdom because it is life ever seeks to conform to its type and to create around itself harmonious and appropriate forms. Thus the life of the kingdom at work in the lives and institutions of men ever seeks to transform these lives and institutions into its likeness and to conform them to the ideal of the kingdom. The life of the kingdom has as its sphere of manifestation the various relations and institutions of man's life, the family, the Church and the state, for neither the family alone nor the Church alone-in fact not the family and the Church together-can cover the whole range of life and include all of man's interests. By the nature of the case, therefore, the life of the kingdom must create social and political institutions as well and must manifest its quality through them. The life of the kingdom must either permeate and transform-and if it permeate it must transform-all life in all of its relations whether personal, ecclesiastical, political and social; or the life of the kingdom must be limited in its scope and excluded from some realms of man's lifewhich is nothing else than social atheism and is the abandonment of all real faith in the kingdom of God. The ideal of the kingdom is a social ideal. The life of the kingdom is an all-permeating and all-transforming life. Life by its essential quality ever seeks to conform to its type. Christian men to be true to their faith and their ideal must therefore build a Christian society. This is a truth strangely overlooked by many men who are most earnest in seeking the redemption of the world. And hence it has come about that these men not understanding their real work in the world, and not expecting the Christianization of society through any agencies now at work, have made few efforts to realize the kingdom in the wider provinces of life. IV. THE PERFECT MAN IN THE PERFECT SOCIETY The nature of this task, finally, is revealed in the very nature of Christianity and the very necessities of life itself. There are two ways of looking at this question of man's salvation and perfection, but they both lead to the same conclusion. 1. The spiritual life is not an isolated something existing by itself with no dependence upon any other factors, but it is rather an integral part of life, for the present at least inextricably bound up with all we count most real. It is impossible to isolate the spiritual life and consider it by itself; all life is bound up together, and no part of it can ever be known apart from the whole. The spiritual life can never be presented 1 to us as something single and isolated. "For that which is an abstract, single, and isolated thing, that which is fundamentally out of relation with all else, becomes thereby a cipher, non-existent and without meaning. What reality could it have?" Three things are involved in this which are all important. It follows that what we call religion is "not something apart from life, but in the very midst of it, knit up with the cell and with sex, with all human relations and employments, and tendencies and strivings,-inextricably involved in all. And we shall look for its glory not in a majestic isolation, but rather in its ability to permeate and dominate all life.”2 It follows also that what we call conversion is not an isolated fact or experience to be viewed by itself, but is part and parcel of life itself inextricably knit up with the sum of life's experience. In the significant words of The Independent, commenting upon the striking utterance of the veteran missionary, Timothy Richards: "The point of Dr. Richards' argument is this: That if endeavours after conversion are meant merely to cover the strivings to renew men's hearts devotionally without striving to improve men materially, intellectually and nationally, it would seem that only a small part of the kingdom of God makes headway. It is a fact that 'conversion in regard to material, intellectual, social, national, and international as well as devotional aspects is a conversion towards the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth.""" Any conversion that is real involves the turning of the whole man, and it af 'King, "The Seeming Unreality of the Spiritual Life," p. 28. Ibid., p. 29. 'Quoted by King, Ibid., p. 30. |