The centrality of Jesus. All that has been said hitherto is but a preparation for the discussion of the greatest subject that at present occupies the field of faith and morals, that of the personality of Jesus and His significance for mankind. It has been repeatedly pointed out both by friends and foes of the New Theology that the ultimate question for the Christian religion is that of the place occupied by its Founder. Who or what was Jesus? How much can we really know about Him? What value does He possess for the religious consciousness to-day? All other questions about the Christian religion are of minor importance compared with these, and if we are prepared with an answer to these we have by implication answered all the rest. Christianity is in a special sense immediately dependent upon its Founder. No other religion has ever regarded its founder as Christians regard their Master. Christianity draws its sustenance from the belief that Jesus is still alive and impacting Himself upon the world through His followers. Other great religions trace their origin to the teaching and example of some exceptional person; Christianity does the same, but with the added conviction that Jesus is as much in the world as ever and that His presence is realised in the mystic union between Himself and those who know and love Him. If this be true, it is a fact of the very highest importance and one which can neither be passed over nor relegated to a subordinate position. Christianity without Jesus is the world without the sun. If, as I readily admit, the great question for religion in the immediate future is that of the person of Jesus, the sooner we address ourselves to it the better.

Before discussing what theology has to say of Him let us note in general terms what the civilised world is saying, theology or no theology. I suppose the most out-and-out materialist would admit that in the western world the name of Jesus exercises an influence to which no other is even remotely comparable. Perhaps he would even go so far as to admit that there is no name anywhere which means so much to those who hear it. It is not merely that the strongest civilisation on earth reverences that name, but that there is no other civilisation which can produce a parallel to it. The nearest approach to it is that of Gautama, and I think it would be generally admitted that the influence even of this mighty and beautiful spirit has never possessed the immediacy, intensity, and personal value which distinguish that of Jesus. It might be maintained with some show of reason that the civilisation of Christendom, although it is now being copied by non-Christian communities such as Japan, is not necessarily the highest because it happens to be the strongest, and that it is even regarded with contempt by the best representatives of some more ancient faiths. Still that is not quite the point. The point is that the name of Jesus, which stands for a moral ideal which is the very negation of materialism, commands a reverence, and indeed a worship, the like of which no other has ever received in the history of mankind. It is no use trying to place Jesus in a row along with other religious masters. He is first and the rest nowhere; we have no category for Him. I am not trying to prove the impossible, namely, that Christianity is the only true religion and the rest are all false. We shall get on better when that kind of nonsense ceases to be spoken. All I am concerned to emphasise is that somehow Jesus seems to sum up and focus the religious ideal for mankind. His influence for good is greater than that of all the masters of men put together, and still goes on increasing. It is a notable fact that although churches and creeds are losing their hold upon the modern mind, the name of Jesus is held in greater regard than ever. We have heard of a meeting of workmen cheering Jesus and hissing the churches. In our day most people are agreed that in Jesus we have the most perfect life ever exhibited to humanity. It is not only Christians who take this view; everyone, or nearly everyone, does so. Some years ago a book was published which bore on the title-page the question, “What would Jesus do?” The book was not very well written, and I do not think the writer would have claimed that it contained anything original, but it had an enormous sale simply because of its attempt to answer the question on the covers. The most unlikely people bought and read it, people who never went to church and would not dream of doing so. From indications such as these one is justified in asserting that our western civilisation has accepted as true that, no matter who Jesus was, His character represents the highest standard for human attainment. In seeking moral excellence the individual and the race are thus moving toward an ideal already manifested in history. The most effective taunt that can be levelled at inconsistent Christians is that they are unlike their Master. Criticisms of the character of Jesus are now few in number, and usually take the form of declaring that it is impracticable or impossible, not that it is undesirable or imperfect. Some, no doubt, would maintain that perhaps the real Jesus did not answer to the ideal which Christians have formed of Him, but that is another question. Here we are now face to face with the unescapable fact that the greatest moral and religious force in the world is embodied in the name of Jesus, and this by general consent.

The Jesus of traditional theology. But what has traditional Christian theology to say about Jesus? Here we enter a region in which the ordinary man of the world does not live and is never likely to live, but we cannot afford to ignore it. According to the received theology, Jesus was and is God and man in a sense in which no one else ever has been or ever will be. As the shorter catechism has it, following the language of the ancient creeds, “There are three persons in one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory,” and Jesus is the second of the three. This kind of statement cannot but be confusing to the ordinary mind of to-day if only because the word “person” does not mean to us quite the same thing that it meant to the framers of the ancient creeds. Strange as it may seem to some of my readers, I believe what the creeds say about the person of Jesus, but I believe it in a way that puts no gulf between Him and the rest of the human race. This, I trust, will become clearer as we proceed; it seems to me to be implied in any real belief concerning the immanence of God. I think even the Athanasian creed is a magnificent piece of work if only the churches would consent to understand it in terms of the oldest theology of all! But, according to conventional theology, the second person in the Trinity, who was coequal and coeternal with God the Father, laid aside His glory, became incarnate for our salvation, was born of a virgin, lived a brief suffering life, wrought many miracles, died a shameful death, rose again from the tomb on the second morning after He had been laid in it, and ascended into heaven in full view of His wondering disciples. In fulfilment of a promise made by Him shortly before the crucifixion, and repeated before the ascension, He and the Father conjointly sent the third person in the Trinity to endue with power from on high the simple men whose duty it now became to proclaim the gospel of salvation to the world. Jesus is now on the throne of His glory, but sooner or later He will come again to wind up the present dispensation and to be the Judge of the quick and the dead at a grand assize.

There is a sense in which all this is true, but it is commonly expressed in such a way that the truth is lost sight of. Literally understood it is incredible. The only way to get at the truth in every one of these venerable articles of the Christian faith will be to shed the husk, and that we must do without hesitation or compromise. A more accurate historic perspective would save us from the crudities so often preached from the pulpits in the name of Christian truth, crudities which repel so many intelligent men from the benefits of public worship. There never has been the slightest need for any man of thoughtful mind and reverent spirit to recoil from the fundamentals of the Christian creed. Rightly understood they are the fundamentals of human nature itself.

Godhead and manhood. The first in order of thought is that of the Godhead of Jesus. As regards this tenet I think it should be easily possible to show that the most convinced adherent of the traditional theology does not believe and never has believed what he professes to hold. The terms with which we have to deal are Deity, divinity, and humanity. A good deal of confusion exists concerning the interrelation of these three. It is supposed that humanity and divinity are mutually exclusive, and that divinity and Deity must necessarily mean exactly the same thing. But this is not so. It follows from the first principle of the New Theology that all the three are fundamentally and essentially one, but in scope and extent they are different. By the Deity we mean and I suppose everyone means the all-controlling consciousness of the universe as well as the infinite, unfathomable, and unknowable abyss of being beyond. By divinity we mean the essence of the nature of the immanent God, the innermost and all-determining quality of that nature; we have already seen that according to the Christian religion the innermost quality of the divine nature is perfect love. Show us perfect love and you have shown us the divinest thing the universe can produce, whether it knows itself to be immediately directed and controlled by the infinite consciousness of Deity or whether it does not. It is clear, then, that although Deity and divinity are essentially one, the latter is the lesser term and is dependent for its validity upon the former. Humanity is a lesser term still. It stands for that expression of the divine nature which we associate with our limited human consciousness. Strictly speaking, the human and divine are two categories which shade into and imply each other; humanity is divinity viewed from below, divinity is humanity viewed from above. If any human being could succeed in living a life of perfect love, that is a life whose energies were directed toward impersonal ends, and which was lived in such a way as to be and do the utmost for the whole, he would show himself divine, for he would have revealed the innermost of God.

Now let us apply these definitions to the personality of Jesus. Granted that the devotion of Christians has been right in recognising in Him the one perfect human life, that is, the one life which consistently and from first to last was lived in terms of the whole, what are we to call it except divine? In a sense, of course, everything that exists is divine, because the whole universe is an expression of the being of God. But it can hardly be seriously contended that a crocodile is as much an expression of God as General Booth. It is wise and right, therefore, to restrict the word “divine” to the kind of consciousness which knows itself to be, and rejoices to be, the expression of a love which is a consistent self-giving to the universal life. “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him.” General Booth is divine in so far as this is the governing principle of his life. Jesus was divine simply and solely because His life was never governed by any other principle. We do not need to talk of two natures in Him, or to think of a mysterious dividing line on one side of which He was human and on the other divine. In Him humanity was divinity and divinity, humanity. Does anyone think that this brings Jesus down to our level? Assuredly it does not; we are far too prone to be ruled by names. To the ordinary Christian this explanation of the divinity of Jesus may seem equivalent to the denial of His uniqueness, but it is nothing of the kind. I have already devoted some little space to emphasising the obvious fact that it is impossible to deny the uniqueness of Jesus; history has settled that question for us. If all the theologians and materialists put together were to set to work to-morrow to try to show that Jesus was just like other people, they would not succeed, for the civilised world has already made up its mind on that point, and by a right instinct recognises Jesus as the unique standard of human excellence. But this is not to say that we shall never reach that standard too; quite the contrary. We must reach it in order to fulfil our destiny and to crown and complete His work. To stop short of manifesting the perfect love of God would be to fail of the object for which we are here and to render the advent of Jesus useless. Christendom already knows this perfectly well, although it has not always succeeded in expressing it with perfect clearness. “Beloved, now are we sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He (or rather it) shall appear, we shall be like Him.” In our practical religion we all, even the most reactionary of us, regard the divinity of Jesus just in this way. It has no other value. We talk of imitating Him, conforming to His likeness, showing His spirit, and so on. When we want a model for courage, fidelity, gentleness, humility, unselfishness, we promptly turn to Jesus. Even in our relations with God we try to follow His lead; instinctively we range ourselves with Him when we address the universal Father; until we come to creed-making we never think of putting Him on the God side of things and ourselves on another. Catholic or Protestant, orthodox or unorthodox, Unitarian or Trinitarian, we all accept in practice the identity of the divine and human in Jesus and potentially in ourselves. But you make Him only a man! No, reader, I do not. I make Him the only Man and there is a difference. We have only seen perfect manhood once and that was the manhood of Jesus. The rest of us have got to get there.

Jesus and Deity. This brings us to the further question of the Deity of Jesus. As a matter of fact, as I have already indicated, this question, too, has long been settled in practice. If by the Deity of Jesus is meant that He possessed the all-controlling consciousness of the universe, then assuredly He was not the Deity for He did not possess that consciousness. He prayed to His Father, sometimes with agony and dread; He wondered, suffered, wept, and grew weary. He confessed His ignorance of some things and declared Himself to have no concern with others; it is even doubtful how far He was prepared to receive the homage of those about Him. If there be one thing which becomes indisputable from the reading of the gospel narratives it is that Jesus possessed a true human consciousness, limited like our own, and, like our own, subject to the ordinary ills of life. Once again everybody knows this after a fashion. The most determined of so-called orthodox controversialists would hardly try to maintain that the consciousness of Jesus was at once limited and unlimited. To do so would be an impossible feat; if Jesus was the Deity, He certainly was not the whole of the Deity during His residence on earth, whatever He may be now. But, it may be objected, in His earthly life He was the Deity self-limited: “He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant,” etc. Quite so, but see where this statement leads. The New Theology can consistently make it, but it is difficult to see how that newer theology which calls itself orthodoxy manages to do so. Does the self-limitation of Jesus mean that the Deity was lessened in any way during the incarnation? Why, of course not, we should all say; the Deity continued with infinite fulness unimpaired above and beyond the consciousness of Jesus. Then are we to understand that this self-limitation of Jesus meant that the eternal Son, or second person in the Trinity, the Word by whom the worlds were made, quitted the throne of His glory and lived for thirty-three years as a Jewish peasant? I think the dogmatic theologian would have some hesitation in giving an unqualified affirmative to this question, for the difficulties implied in it are practically insurmountable. Was the full consciousness of the eternal Word present in the babe of Bethlehem, for instance? If not, where was it? Questions like these cannot be answered on the lines of the conventional Christology. The plain and simple answer to all of them is to admit that the Jesus of history did not possess the consciousness of Deity during His life on earth. His consciousness was as purely human as our own. Any special insight which He possessed into the true relations of God and man was due to the moral perfection of His nature and not to His metaphysical status. He was God manifest in the flesh because His life was a consistent expression of divine love and not otherwise. But He was not God manifest in the flesh in any way which would cut Him off from the rest of human kind. According to the received theology, Jesus and Jesus only, out of all the beings who have ever trodden the road which humanity has to travel, existed before all ages. We live our threescore years and ten and then pass on into eternity; He was eternal to begin with. He comes to earth with a hoary antiquity behind Him, a timeless life to look back upon; we have just fluttered into existence. Surely any ordinary intelligence can see that this kind of theologising puts an impassable gulf at once between Jesus and every other person who has ever been born of an earthly mother. Certainly it does, the theologian may declare, and rightly so, for that gulf exists; He assumed human nature, but He was eternally divine before He did so, and we are not. I do not need to refute this argument; the trend of modern thought is already doing so most effectually. It is a gratuitous assumption without a shred of evidence to support it. Besides, unfortunately for this kind of statement, the scientific investigation of Christian origins, and the application of the scientific method to the history of Christian doctrine have shown us how the dogma of the Deity of Jesus grew up. It was a comparatively late development in Christianity, and its practical implications never have been accepted, although at one time there was a danger that the winsome figure of Jesus would be removed altogether from the field of human interest and regard. The Jesus of Michael Angelo’s “Last Judgment” is a terrifying figure without a trace of the lowly Nazarene about Him, and yet this was the Jesus of the conventional Christianity of the time. It was through this dehumanising of Jesus in Christian thought and experience that Mariolatry arose in the Roman church. Could anything be more grotesque than the suggestion that the mother of Jesus should need to plead with her son to be merciful with frail humanity? And yet this is what it came to; the figure of Mary was introduced in order to preserve a real humanity in our relations with the Godhead. All honour to those who have called us back to the real Jesus, the Jesus of Galilee and Jerusalem, the Jesus with the prophet’s fire, the Jesus who was so gentle with little children and erring women, and yet before whom canting hypocrites and truculent ecclesiastics slunk away abashed. Upon this recovered Jesus the world has now fixed its adoring gaze, and it will not readily let Him go again.

Divine manhood and Unitarianism. But then, someone will protest, this is sheer Unitarianism after all; you do not believe in the Jesus who is the object of the faith of Christendom, but in one who was only a man among men; you do not think of Him as very God of very God. Not so fast; we are busy with names again. Most of us have a tendency to think that if we can get a doctrine labelled and pigeonholed, we know all about it, but we are generally mistaken. This is not Unitarianism, and I do believe that Jesus was very God, as I have already shown. We have to get rid of the dualism which will insist on putting humanity and Deity into two separate categories. I say it is not Unitarianism, for historic Unitarianism has been just as prone to this dualism as the extremest Trinitarianism has ever been. Like Trinitarianism it has often tended to regard humanity as on one side of a gulf and Deity as on the other; it has emphasised too much the transcendence of God. The sentence quoted above from an orthodox Trinitarian divine about “God’s eternal eminence and His descent on a created world” might just as well have been employed by an out-and-out Unitarian. Modern Unitarianism is in part the descendant of eighteenth-century Deism which insisted upon the transcendence of God almost to the exclusion of His immanence; it thought of God as away somewhere above the universe, watching it but leaving the machine pretty much to itself. Unitarianism in the course of its history from the first century downward has passed through a good many phases. Present-day Unitarianism is preaching with fervour and clearness the foundation truth of the New Theology, the fundamental unity of God and man. But it does not belong to it exclusively, and I decline to be labelled Unitarian because I preach it too. The New Theology is not a victory for Unitarianism. If ever the English-speaking communities of the world should come to be united under a single flag, would it be just and wise to call them all Americans? No doubt some of our American cousins would like to think so, but there is enough of virility and solid worth on the British side of the question to make that description impossible. The title would be a misnomer, and in fact an absurdity. The case in regard to the connection of the New Theology with Unitarianism is not dissimilar. It is only sectarian Unitarians who would try to claim it for their own denomination; the best and most outstanding exponents of Unitarianism would not wish to do anything of the kind, for they know well enough that historically speaking they have not consistently stood for it any more than any other denomination. The New Theology does not belong to any one church but to all. For my own part I would not even take the trouble to try to turn a Roman Catholic into a Protestant. Let every man stay in the church whose spiritual atmosphere and modes of worship best accord with his temperament, but let him recognise the deeper unity that lies below the formal creeds. The old issue between Unitarianism and Trinitarianism vanishes in the New Theology; the bottom is knocked out of the controversy. Unitarianism used to declare that Jesus was man not God; Trinitarianism maintained that He was God and man; the oldest Christian thought, as well as the youngest, regards Him as God in man God manifest in the flesh. But here emerges a great point of difference between the New Theology on the one hand and traditional orthodoxy on the other. The latter would restrict the description “God manifest in the flesh” to Jesus alone; the New Theology would extend it in a lesser degree to all humanity, and would maintain that in the end it will be as true of every individual soul as ever it was of Jesus. Indeed, it is this belief that gives value and significance to the earthly mission of Jesus; He came to show us what we potentially are. This is a great and important issue, which requires to be treated in a separate chapter.