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Page 30
But a better interpretation of human life's mystery has been given.
Jesus looked over its apparent desolation and confusion and poured upon
it divine light. He taught that it is not the Father's will that even
one should perish. Men are not being ground in an infinite mill, but
they are being refined and purified by the only processes which will
develop in them both strength and beauty. Out of confusion harmony will
come, and out of the battle of the elements peace will dawn at last.
To those who know that pain and sorrow are ministers of strength and
sympathy, that by them narrow horizons are widened and deserts made to
blossom, human life does not seem so confused and terrible as it has
sometimes been pictured. Jesus makes evident the upward movement of the
race, and shows, let me repeat, that it is "under the eye and in the
strength of God." He was made perfect through suffering. The thorns on
His brow tell their own pathetic story. The passion vine above His head,
and beneath His feet, indicate that even His sufferings are not without
a purpose of blessing, and therefore are fully justified.
And now we approach the saddest of all the dark experiences through
which the soul passes,--the mystery of sin. Of its enormity I have
already spoken; but what about its origin, its uses, and its
continuance? The question of its origin Jesus does not even mention. It
is not recognized as having any uses. It may be made an occasion of
good, but it is never ordained in order that good may come. Hardly any
other subject occupies so large a place in the teachings of Jesus. It
was said of Him, "His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His
people from their sins;" and of Him Paul wrote, "God commendeth His love
toward us in that when we were yet sinners Christ died for us."
The terrible blight of moral evil, whatever its genesis, cannot be
explained away. Jesus passed by all other questions and devoted the
largest part of His ministry, as a teacher, to showing how the soul may
escape from the power, and be delivered from the bondage, of sin. This
is the practical problem. As one surveys the race the imperative inquiry
concerns deliverance. What light does Jesus shed upon this mystery? He
shows that sin is an incident in the ascent of the soul, and not an end;
that it is hateful and unnatural; and that all the strength and goodness
of God are pledged to its removal. The soul will be allowed to be in
bondage only so long as is necessary for its complete emancipation.
Moral evil is tolerated at all not because it is a good in itself, but
in order that the soul may learn that its safety and strength are to be
found only in conformity to the will of God.
Jesus reveals the way of escape and thus confers upon the race the
greatest of possible blessings. This he does by the revelation of the
Fatherhood of God, which is not only compassionate but also holy.
Because God is the Father of all souls, when any one ceases to do evil
and begins to do well, or in other words repents, he finds a welcome and
help waiting for him. And Jesus clearly indicates, also, that in the
constitution of the soul, and in the inexorableness of moral law, there
is a deep remedial agency which is ever active, giving no individual
rest until it finds it in God. The tragedy of the cross was preeminently
a revelation. The cross is the manifestation, in terms of human life, of
the passion of the universe and of God. There must be suffering in all
who are good, until sin disappears.
The cross is the revelation of the Eternal God in sacrifice for the
redemption of souls in bondage to selfishness and animalism. Jesus
taught that sin is to be abolished. By means of the revelations of
holiness, the sacrifices of love, the remedial agency in the universe,
and by His own new life the forces of evil are to be broken, and the
soul allowed to enter into its freedom as a child of God. This is not a
subject for definition and dogmatism. The greatest things cannot be
defined, but they may be appropriated. The light, the air, gravitation
and all elemental forces transcend definition. The love of God revealed
on the cross is too holy and too transcendent for "scheme and plan." It
may be accepted in a spirit of worship, but it can be comprehended no
more than the process by which rain and soil are transmuted into
nourishment, and light into physical strength and beauty. The cross is
the pledge of the redemption of the soul through the love and power of
God; and beyond that we have no knowledge except that wherever that
cross has been lifted up men have been drawn unto truth and virtue, love
and brotherhood.
More than poetry and sentiment has found expression in a popular hymn
which thrills with a power which has been verified again and again in
human history:
"In the cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o'er the wrecks of time
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime."
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