George Cross · 33 of 40

II. The Other Side of the Antithesis: Unfolding of the Consciousness of Grace (§§ 86-169) · THIRD DIVISION: THE PERFECTING OF THE CHURCH (§§ 157-63)

The sufficient ground of the perfecting of the church lies in the Holy Spirit as its common life-principle. That perfection implies, on the one hand, the expansion of Christianity over the whole earth and the disappearance of all other religious communions with their opposing and contaminating influences; and, on the other hand, it implies that the church ceases to take the world into itself. That is to say, that the present increasing conflict with sin which is characteristic of the church militant--owing to the consciousness of sin which is continuously being renewed by the propagation of the race--gives place to that condition in which the church has assimilated the world, that is, the church triumphant.

But our Christian consciousness is unable to set forth as its immediate self-expression the condition of the perfected church because it is without analogy in our experience and would exist under conditions entirely unknown to us. Strictly speaking, therefore, there can be no doctrine of that state. Yet the biblical prefigurations of the future life have received so much attention in the church that we are under the necessity of inquiring as to their source. None of the New Testament utterances on this subject can become to us articles of faith to be received on authoritative testimony because, surpassing our powers of apprehension, they constitute no description of our actual self-consciousness, and consequently they may have a place in a doctrinal system (Glaubenslehre) only in so far as they concern the person of the Redeemer and our relation to him.

Now, although faith in the persistence of the human personality after death, or, to use the common expression, in the immortality of the soul, is found universally and prevailed in the time of Christ and his apostles, it is not on that account entitled to a place in Christian doctrine. How, then, came this faith to be united with our Christian religious conscience? There are two possible ways: either it was discovered by intellectual processes and became objective truth, or it was originally given in and with the immediate self-consciousness with or without connection with the fundamental God-consciousness. If in the former way, then the doctrine pertains to the sphere of the higher natural science and depends on scientific investigation. But scientific study on the contrary often gives rise to opposition to the belief in immortality, The so-called rational proofs of immortality are nothing more than attempts to relate this belief to the body of scientific knowledge. To give these arguments a place in our Christian doctrine is to base dogmatics on philosophy. As to the other possibility, while there is a denial of immortality which is connected with atheism, on the other hand there may be a renunciation of personal continuance which springs from a view of Spirit as creative and self-expressive. On this view individual souls may be a product of the transitory action of Spirit and there fore themselves transitory. This is quite compatible with the supremacy of the God-consciousness, the purest ethics, and the highest spirituality. Conversely, immortality may be postulated out of a selfish interest in the sensuous life where morality and religion are only a means to enjoyment. It is evident therefore that faith in personal continuance is not essentially connected with the God-consciousness.

The true Christian ground of the assurance of immortality lies in faith in the Redeemer himself. His confidence in his own personal continuance is seen in his promises of a reunion with his followers. He could say these things only as a human person, and on account of the sameness of human nature in him and in us the same confidence is valid in our case. Faith in the Redeemer demands the immutability of our connection with him. In that life-union with him lies the true Christian assurance of personal continuance. In this way we see that he became the mediator of immortality, not only to those who believe in him, but to all without exception. For if immortality had not pertained to human nature, then a union of the divine being with human nature constituting such a personality as that of the Redeemer would not have been possible.

Faith in the continuance of our personality is naturally accompanied by an effort to represent that state in some of the forms of the imagination. The attempted solution of the problem how to represent the church in its perfection and at the same time the state of the souls of men in the future life, appears in the ecclesiastical doctrine of “last things.” But it is impossible to combine the two in one harmonious representation. The perfection of the church, i.e., an end of development (which comports with the idea of retribution), supposes a state of the individual soul entirely unlike the present; on the other hand, the supposition of a state of the individual soul like the present, i.e., a state of progressive development (which harmonizes with the idea of personal continuance), annuls the perfection of the church.

Accordingly, the doctrines relating to this point are of less value as dogmatic than those already treated. They rest upon our power of anticipation, which is incompetent to construct a harmonious representation of the future state. On that account we cannot ascribe to the confessional articles on this question the same dignity as to those already treated. They may be designated Prophetical Articles. Continuance of personal existence as the abolition of death appears under the representation of the resurrection of the body. The perfection of the church, as conditioned on the one hand by the exclusion of the unbelieving from further influence upon the church, appears under the representation of the final judgment, separation of believers and unbelievers. As contrasted on the other hand with the “church militant,” and implying the exclusion of imperfection in believers, it is presented as eternal blessedness. The condemnation of unbelievers not being a matter of Christian experience is no separate article of faith. Finally the comprehension and necessary condition of the whole is presented under the representation of Christ’s return (§§ 157-59).

FIRST PROPHETICAL ARTICLE: CHRIST’S RETURN

The Synoptists report sayings of Christ before his death to the effect that he will come again at the fall of Jerusalem. Though he is not represented as repeating such promises personally to his disciples in his resurrection communications with them, they were unable to conceive that those promises had been fulfilled. Similarly, after the destruction of the city the literal interpretation of his words was inconsistently retained, and even though in later times Chiliasm has been mostly abandoned, still the view that he will return in person at the end of the present condition of the earth has continued almost universal to the present time. Apart from this literal interpretation we have no biblical guarantee of his personal return or of a universal separation of the good and the bad; and yet no representation of these events is possible, for every attempted definite image of the event dissolves, and in lieu of a physical presence we are able to retain only his powerful activity in relation to world-affairs.

It is evident, then, that the Christian consciousness of union with Christ is not satisfied with his spiritual presence in the church in the midst of our present condition of growth and change. In order to the realization of our personal continuance in union with him and, at the same time, of the perfection of the church, there is predicated an exercise of the sovereign power of Christ that puts an end to the propagation of the race and to the mingling of the good and the bad, so that by one sudden leap the church, heretofore subject to a wavering growth, becomes perfect. Accordingly the second coming of Christ is conceived as a return to judgment, and the permanence of the union of the divine essence with human nature in Christ becomes the guarantee that this nature will not be subject to that dissolution which would result from cosmic forces. Thus the imagery of the doctrine results from the interest in personal continuance, but its certainty rests on the perfection of the church (§ 160).