The Christ Ideal · 9 of 9

The Christ Life

The question may be asked, Was Jesus a socialist? The answer depends upon what is meant by socialism. Very adverse views are held by different exponents of social philosophy. From the point of view of some, Jesus was the most radical of insurrectionists, in sympathy only with the labourer, unqualifiedly opposed to the rich.

Others deem this view entirely incorrect, and declare that Jesus was the first true individualist. Still others see a truth in both points of view, and have made much headway in the endeavour to free Christianity from salvationism and make it a social, not a personal religion.

There is a basis for all these interpretations. Jesus chose his disciples from among the common people. He mingled with those whom the wealthy despised. He condemned riches, counselling men not to seek money but to serve. He called all men brothers and sisters without regard to family ties. His teaching was based throughout on the principle of justice, equality, the servant as his master, the master as his servant. And if his doctrine were faithfully and quickly applied, it would without question involve society in the most radical revolution the world has seen.

But Jesus was as ready to help the individual, to explain the laws of the new birth, or the spiritual life, as to give counsel concerning society at large. He was a man of peace, not a law-breaker. It is a mistake to suppose that he would have favoured strikes and other external means of coercive social reform. The world cannot be coerced into righteousness. That which is sound and true comes by slow degrees, and Jesus came not to destroy, but to fulfil.

Jesus was indeed radical, but his was the radicalism of the inner life. If we believe him when he counsels men to seek first the Kingdom of God, when he declares that Kingdom to be within or invisible, and that it comes without observation, we cannot also believe those who affirm that Jesus was a social reformer, in the usual acceptance of the word.

Jesus explicitly taught that the Kingdom of God is first spiritual, then social. He condemned those who clean the outside of the cup and the dish, while the inside is full of the fruits of grasping and self-indulgence. He disbelieved in all whitewashing methods, in all external tampering and doctoring of effects. He advised men to begin at the heart of things, first to set themselves right; then the world would be righted. And above all he emphasised the great law of immanent divine activity whereby all phases of human society are carried forward to completion as rapidly as men and women are rightly adjusted within. The social method of Jesus was thus in keeping with the law of growth everywhere exemplified in nature, the change from centre to circumference, from seed to maturity, from the simple to the complex. He took into account the conflicts, slow transformations and progressive changes which must result ere the whole lump of human unregenerateness be leavened. Therefore we may learn what his social gospel implied by close study of nature, by observation of plant and animal life, and the contemplation of our own mental development. By such a study we learn that new ideas gradually work their way from the individual to the social mind, at first combatted, then considered, finally accepted and assimilated: Jesus’s idea of the spiritual Kingdom has been working its way out among men for nearly nineteen hundred years.

Accordingly, Jesus urges his followers first to love God, then to love men. We must first seek and find as individuals, learn the divine instinct, and harmonise with the divine tendency, then broaden our lives socially. For it is not according to human laws that society is to be regenerated. It is by cooperation with divine forces. And we must first learn the law before we can obey it.

When, therefore, you see a man anxiously going forth to coerce and to accelerate, you may know that he has not yet found the Kingdom within. He lacks repose, he lacks trust, therefore he spends his energy in vain.

Yet, as man is a social being the surest external evidence that he has really found the Kingdom is service, a change in his dealings with his neighbours.

This much, then, we can say confidently, that no spiritual growth or moral reform is truly Christian which stops with the individual. Jesus did not come to make men contented in themselves, he was not a mere optimist. He was a lover of humanity, a believer in justice and freedom for all. Therefore the mere individualist, one who seeks his own good, to be free from the ills and annoyances of life, will find small comfort in the Christ world.

Society is an organism. What affects one relates to all. It is therefore my concern if another suffers. It is my duty to quicken the consciences of men to this great fact that society is an organism, one great family, and that all men should elevate their conduct to the dignity of brotherhood.

But can this be done until men are economically free?

The good work can surely begin. Society is an organism already; we do not need to make it such. All men and women are in reality brothers and sisters. Simply to learn this fact, to feel compassion for those who are enslaved, is to make a beginning. And even here and now, in the present social order, one can accomplish much by inspiring the passion for brotherhood. To inspire the passion is to prepare the way for economic liberty, for cooperation instead of competition.

No occupation is so burdensome that it cannot be made an opportunity for the growth of character. No tyrant is so cruel that the oppressed may not display sweetness and love and forgiveness. No prison walls are so narrow as to exclude the Christ, no cell so dark that the light of God may not shine therein.

To postpone the day of beginning until economic or other conditions are favourable is to forget that the Christ life begins in self-dedication, in consecration.

We must be men of character at home before we can be men of God in the social state.

No condition is unfavourable for the display of love.

Every possible situation in the wide, wide universe is an opportunity for fidelity to the Christ.

The ideal day never comes. Today is ideal for him who makes it so.

If there were no adverse conditions there could be no heroic character, and no Christ.

Thus the soul is foremost, matter is secondary. The brotherhood of love must come before the brotherhood of economic freedom.

If Jesus was a socialist, it was first as a believer in spiritual equality.

We must therefore choose between two ideals, the equality of the Spirit and equality of material possessions. For spiritual equality does not necessarily imply an equal distribution of material wealth. There is a diversity of gifts, and men should be free to choose that kind of external life which is most in keeping with the inner ideal.

Again, we must take into account the varying degree of receptivity of seekers after the Kingdom. Some are mere babes in the spiritual realm. Others are giants of spiritual strength. To each is given in the visible world that which corresponds to the inner state of development.

As the inner light is the highest authority for each soul, external standards and attainments are sure to differ. Do not, therefore expect external consistency from the seer.

As each soul is to be prompted from within until the social adjustment shall be complete, it is impossible to organise society in any sort of hard and fast system.

To insist upon an organisation of society such that all should enjoy equality, such that all men should agree, would be to count as naught the law of the inner life upon which Jesus placed so much emphasis.

True freedom is not that which the rulers are compelled to grant because the populace insists. It is liberty of conscience, freedom of thought, unhampered allegiance to the Christ. And no one can take this away.

Each man should freely follow the latest inner prompting, even though it lead to the sundering of firmly established relations and the choosing of new associates.

Man must not be bound by place or time. He must be free to go wherever the Spirit leads.

If any or all of our systems and institutions have their day and cease to be, it should therefore matter little to the Christian philosopher. For the real church is invisible, the real democracy is a spiritual brotherhood.

If Jesus should visit our earth again, we should hardly expect him to ally himself with existing social organisations. He would not become the exponent of any particular scheme of social reform. He would come among us as the man of peace, spreading abroad in all the land a quickening spiritual presence, a life, a love, a power, such that no man who should feel it, or really hear his words, would fail to respond by living a better life.

Therefore the true disciple of Jesus does not waste energy in the attempt to force men into line. He knows that all men will respond if approached aright, that all desired results will follow when the heart has been touched. Therefore he concentrates. Therefore he ceases to be pessimistic, and no longer assails men because of their selfishness. All his efforts are bent upon making men unselfish.

It was the old law, the eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth doctrine, which counseled men to tamper with the surfaces of things. Jesus assured men that they should remove even the cause of anger by sending out love instead. The rich shall suffer according to their sin. We need not inflict a penalty.

“Release and ye shall be released.” The sun shines upon all alike, the good and the evil, without respect to social standing, and each suffers or is made glad according to his life.

In other words, God is just, although the laws of man are not; and we may safely trust the law of divine punishment. The Christ life, then, relates primarily to the spiritual realm; the external world is of secondary consequence.

A man may as truly dwell in the Kingdom of heaven while still in the flesh, as one who has left the flesh life for ever. For there is no future state of perfection into which the good suddenly enter at death. The to-morrow of death is the logical sequence of to-day in the flesh. The only standard by which a man is judged is character, spiritual worth, spiritual consciousness.

If a man awakens to-day to the knowledge of his life with God, he comes into possession of knowledge which death cannot take away.

But if a man is born into the future life in ignorance, he must patiently work his way to heavenly knowledge. The presence or absence of spiritual consciousness is thus the vital fact.

Jesus came to bring this consciousness to light, to quicken the dormant Christ soul in the lives of all mankind. He lived and moved and had his being in that consciousness. From it he sent forth power. From it he uttered living words of wisdom, glad messages of love, which have wrought their work among mankind even until to-day.

He, therefore, is a follower of Jesus who seeks that consciousness and, seeking it, finds and reveals it. In that spirit every man shall know what to do. In that spirit every man shall be guided to the best advantage of society. For from that spirit all life proceeds, and in that world all things have been provided.

First, last, and always, let us therefore return in thought to that memorable scene upon the mountain top, the central figure of which is Jesus, the Christ. Let us live with him through that hour, let us walk away with him and with his followers, considering the effect upon them of the power which his life had carried.

If we are moved to forsake all and go to dwell among the poor in this world’s goods, so be it. But let us recollect that it is not poverty which brings righteousness, and that an even greater mission may open before us among the materially rich. For after all it is the life, and they truly dwell in the Kingdom whose hearts and minds are with the Christ.

“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

In closing our study of the Christ ideal, we must therefore take a larger view of the Kingdom and will of God. That Kingdom is not merely the great creative realm of the Spirit, it is the world of humanity, of humanity as a divine social organism. When we seek that Kingdom, it should be because of an earnest desire to find our place in the social organism, to do the work we are best fitted to do and to do it as well as it can be done. This is the Father’s will, for the Father lives for humanity, not for man alone; Jesus is the elder brother of humanity, not merely the Saviour of the individual soul.

For nearly nineteen hundred years the aristocrats, plutocrats, and potentates, have usurped power in the name of Christianity, and the time has come for this usurpation to cease. Henceforth let no one be called a Christian until his Christianity becomes social. Henceforth let no one be called a follower of Jesus until he begins to realise the law of love.

In times of doubt and sorrow and trouble, it is true, one should seek the inner Kingdom of peace, the love of God, the personal relationship of the Christ, speaking to Jesus as to an elder brother. But the indication that we have truly found rest unto our souls will be the longing to share this peace with our fellows, the deep desire to serve. For there is and can be no monopoly in the Christ world, no competition, no exclusiveness.

Loving, giving, serving—these are the true signs. It matters not so much to whom we give as that we give, and inasmuch as we give to the least of God’s creatures we give unto the Christ. For in the real world all souls are in a sense one, they are in the Christ and the Christ is in them.

In the real world, too, that is, the Kingdom of the soul, all men are immortal. The Kingdom of God is not of this world, in the ultimate sense. It is not limited by the things that perish. It is an eternal spiritual reality. It is the home of justice, where at last all shall receive compensation in accordance with the life they have lived, the wrongs they have endured.

Thus we must have regard for all aspects of the Kingdom. It is for this world; it is to be made practical here and now. It is for the individual; each is to turn to it at need, to find rest and poise and guidance. It is for humanity; our peace and poise are only means to a social end, our guidance is for service. It is for equality of opportunity; the full and harmonious development of all members of society. It is for justice, for righteousness and for love. And because it is at once individual and social, moral and spiritual, it necessarily extends beyond the confines of the present life to that larger domain where the incomplete shall be completed, where the unequal shall be equalised, and where justice shall be the universal law at last.

If you would do your part toward the realisation of that Kingdom, remember that the highest work which any of us can do for the Father is a spiritual work. Be in heart a brother to humanity and all men will feel it, however you are clothed. Begin where you are, work where you are. Simply be true to the best you know. Believe in God. Have faith in humanity. Remember that the old absolutism is passing, that it is even now entrenching itself in the last stronghold—the fortress of commercialism. And remember that, silently and without observation, the forces of life are gathering on the side of the people, that when the people unite they are invincible. Therefore have faith even in the present age. Condemn not; love. Be faithful. Trust. Remember that the Christ came not to destroy but to fulfil.

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

“Peace be unto you.”

“And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”

The End.