DIVINE IN THE HUMAN

DIVINE IN THE HUMAN

“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matt. 5:48

This consideration demonstrates without need of argument that man being restored to the likeness of God in Christ, is therefore restored to the essential possibility and purpose of his own being. Referring once again to that analysis of human personality, which was considered in the earlier articles, INTELLIGENCE, EMOTION, AND WILL, it will be seen how in becoming like God, man becomes himself in all the spaciousness of that primal in­tention. The INTELLIGENCE having passed from underneath the eclipse which was the result of sin is able to set all things in their true perspective, and to value them in their right proportion. Not in measure or degree, but in method and direction, the human intelligence now apprehends with the Infinite Intelligence. In this realm, as in every other, all things have become new. The new understanding of God has issued in a new appreciation of man and of all that creation which is apparent to the mind, but which is now known to be a window through which the Infinite is seen; and which, consequently is of less value than that which it reveals. The feverish restlessness resulting from limitation ceases, as the mind recognizes that beyond all natural phenomena there exists the one Eternal Verity, of which all phenomena are but the transitory expressions.

The EMOTIONAL NATURE having been freed from its degra­dation now operates in conformity with the Divine Love. Affections are set upon the things above the upper things, the dominant, and the eternal. Every movement of love is henceforth conditioned by the relation of the object to God, and all its operation seeks the highest good of the loved one.

The WILL is restored to its relation to the true governing principle. It does not cease to be, and therefore its activity is not discontinued. Now however instead of choosing and deciding upon the false basis of rebellion against government, it perpetually elects to act under the compulsion of that Eternal One, Whose essence is Love. Thus by redemption man becomes a being, whose will decides in answer to the impulse of pure affection, in the light of unclouded intelligence. The center and throne of personality being thus restored to the true Divine order, all the powers and capacities conditioned can be directed and employed at their highest and their fullest. The sense of beauty, expressing itself in music, or in art, becomes dominated by that unswerving holiness, which is the character of love. Wherever this is so, all discords cease, and harmonies are perfected; all that is grotesque and untrue is corrected by the lines of undeviating loveliness, and the colors of undimmed beauty. The capacity for investigation is now enlarged, and science emerging from the mists of mere hypotheses, affirms with actual accuracy of statement, for which she has so long sought, and yet been unable to discover. At this point again the understanding of all that lies in the future for man is necessarily limited, but it may surely be affirmed that "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report," (Phil. 4:8) in human nature as we know it, will not be lost in the hereafter, but rather found and fulfilled in all power and perfection.

The present application of this consideration is that even today the measure of man's appropriation of the redemption in Christ Jesus, is the measure in which, what he is in the essential of his Divinely created being is realized and ennobled and through such realization and ennoblement man is seen to be Godlike. The expression of this likeness here, as in the former case, will be found in the consecration of man's own redeemed personality to such cooperation with God as shall move towards the future perfect unfolding of the DIVINE IN THE HUMAN (Matt. 5:48).