THE MYSTERY AS TO THE SECRET THINGS

THE MYSTERY AS TO THE SECRET THINGS

At this point the temptation is to ask questions. These may be asked, but they cannot be answered. Here is the sphere in which faith becomes operative, for here the mystery is seen as to its secret things which belong to God. How can there be united in one Person, perfect and complete Deity, and perfect and complete humanity? It is impossible to reply to the "how." Will not these things, however, so contradict each other as to make both impossible? The only answer is that they did not and that through all the life of Jesus, there were constantly manifested the essential and absolute nature of Deity, and the undoubted facts of humanity. There are no essentials of human nature that cannot be discovered in the story of this Person. His spiritual nature is evidenced by His unceasing recognition of God. His mental capacity is manifest in the marvelous majesty of His dealing with all problems. His physical life is seen moving along the line of the purely human in its hunger, its weariness, its method of sustenance, and its seasons of rest. The human will is seen, but always choosing, as the principle of activity, the DIVINE WILL. The emotional nature is manifest in the tears and the tenderness, the rebuke and the anger, gleaming with soft light, flaming as the lightning. The intellectual nature is seen so perfectly balanced, and so wonderfully equipped, that men marveled at His wisdom, seeing, as they said, that He had never learned. Yet moreover, the essentials of Deity are seen. Such wisdom, that the ages have failed to understand perfectly the deep meaning of His teaching. Such power, that through weakness He operated towards the accomplishment of works that were only possible to God. Such love, that attempts to describe it, but rob it of its fairest glory.

And yet again, in this Person, is seen the merging of the Divine and the human, until one wonders where is the ending of the one and the beginning of the other. Denouncing and proclaiming doom upon guilty Jerusalem, the voice is yet choked with emotion, and the face is wet with tears. That is surely human. And yet it is essentially Divine, for while the expression of the emotion is human as all tears are, the emotion expressed is Divine, for none but God can mingle the doom of the guilty with the tears of a great pity.

It would seem as though there were no adequate naming of this Personality, but that created by the combination of the two names in one. He was the GOD-MAN. Not God indwelling a man. Of such there have been many. Not a man Deified. Of such there have been none except in the myths of pagan systems of thought; but God and man, combining in one Personality the two natures, a perpetual enigma and mystery, baffling the possibility of explanation. It may be asked how if indeed He were God He could be tempted in the realm of humanity, as other men are tempted? It may be objected that had He been God, He could not have spoken of the limitation of His own knowledge concerning things to come. When asked to explain these things, the only possible answer is that they do not admit of explanation, but they remain facts, proving His essential humanity; while on the other hand are the undeniable proofs of His Deity, in the activity of raising the dead, and in the matchless wisdom of His teaching, and ultimately in the revelation of God, which has taken hold of, and influenced the whole conception of Deity during the passing of the centuries since His life upon earth.

This mystery and revelation uniting God and man in a Person is the center of Christianity, and is without parallel, and without possibility of explanation by analogy.

It has been objected that this is the creation of the imagination of man. This however is to presuppose the possibility of an exercise of the imagination, to which it is wholly unequal. Imagination can only rearrange known facts. The poems of the poet may be new, and the picture of the artist also, but in each case upon examination they will be found to be new, in their combination and representation of old facts. The union in a Person of God and man is something undreamed of, unknown, until it broke upon the world as a fact in human history.

THE TESTIMONY OF SCRIPTURE

THE TESTIMONY OF SCRIPTURE

"Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall bring forth a son; and thou shalt call His name JESUS; for it is He that shall save His people from their sins. Now all this is come to pass, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, And they shall call His name Immanuel; which is, being interpreted, God with us." Matt 1:20-23

From the great mass of declaration in the New Testament concerning this subject, it will be sufficient to take four principal passages. These will again be divided into, first, annunciations to be reverently read, and received without attempted explanation; and secondly doctrinal declarations to be reverently considered. The annunciations are those of the angel to Joseph and to Mary. In connection with the latter it will be necessary also to read the brief historic statement concerning the fulfillment of the angelic message. The annunciation to Joseph was uttered in these words, "Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall bring forth a son; and thou shalt call His name JESUS; for it is He that shall save His people from their sins. Now all this is come to pass, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, And they shall call His name Immanuel; which is, being interpreted, God with us." (Matt 1:20-23).

In the presence of this mysterious announcement, there can be no fitting attitude of the human intellect except that of acceptance of the truth, without any attempt to explain the absolute mystery. The annunciation reveals the fact that in the origin of the Person of Jesus there was the co-operation of Deity and humanity, each making its own contribution. The annunciation to Mary should be read in close connection with the statement of its fulfillment in history. "And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore also the holy thing which is begotten shall be called the  Son of  God." . . . "And she brought forth her first-born son; and she wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." (Luke 1:35; 2:7). This annunciation and declaration concerned one Person, spoken of in the former as the Son of God, in the latter as "her son." Here are not two Persons but one.

These annunciations are to be read and received without any attempt to explain the central mystery contained within them, which absolutely transcends all human understanding. They must be received, or else the whole superstructure of Christianity totters and falls. It is only by the way of the fact here declared, that it is at all possible to comprehend the great facts which are evident in the whole subsequent work of this Person. To deny the truth of this account of the initial crisis, is to be left to the contemplation of effects, for which no sufficient cause can he found. The stupendous and ever manifest combination in the Personality of Jesus of essential Deity, and proper humanity, is totally without sufficient cause, the moment men have ceased to have faith in the Scripture account of the miraculous conception. That initial miracle cannot be finally explained, but neither can the origin of any form of life be finally explained in the last analysis. Men have come up with explanations of the origin of mankind that take immense faith.

The doctrinal declarations to be considered are those of John and of Paul. That of John is in the introduction to his Gospel. "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us . . . full of grace and truth." (John 1:14) For the sake of the present consideration, the parenthetical declaration "and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father," is omitted. To rightly appreciate the meaning of this statement it is necessary to connect it with the opening words of the Gospel. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1) The passage from the 2nd to the 13th verse inclusive is a statement giving parenthetically the history of the Word from the beginning of the first creation to the beginning of the second. Omitting this passage, verses 1 and 14, read in immediate connection, contain a declaration of the most sublime facts concerning the Person of Christ, and a statement of His coming into relation with the human race in the mystery of Incarnation. In each of these passages there is a threefold statement, and they answer to each other. "In the beginning was the Word." "And the Word became flesh." "And the Word was with God." "And tabernacled among us." "And the Word was God." "Full of grace and truth." This is a statement of the mystery of the Incarnation, a setting in doctrinal form of that fact, announced by heavenly messengers to Joseph and to Mary.

The first statement is full of a majesty and sublimity which flings its light about the pathway, but which cannot be penetrated or perfectly comprehended. "In the beginning was the Word." The phrase "in the beginning" in this connection antedates any other reference to the ages to be found in the sacred volume. By it man is taken back into the infinite and unfathomable reaches of the unmeasuredable. The phrase with which the book of Genesis opens takes man to the beginning of the history of the present order, to those original movements of the Divine mind and power, by which material things originated. The phrase as John uses it, in these opening words, carries the mind yet again beyond those original movements of creation. By its aid the mind of man is introduced to the presence of the Self-existent God. Contemplating the unutterable splendor, whose very light darkens the understanding of the finite mind, the Word is found existing. A word is a means of expression. The word of man is man's method of self-expression. The Word of God is the name here used for that Person in the Trinity, Who is the Divine method of self-expression.

"The Word became flesh." The statement is appalling, overwhelming, out of the infinite distances, into the finite nearness; from the unknowable, to the knowable; from the method of self-expression appreciable by Deity Alone, to a method of self-expression understandable of the human.

In the inscrutable mystery of the Trinity the Son is ever the Medium of self-expression. By this awe-inspiring fact of Incarnation, the office of the Son is not changed. Its method is changed for the sake of man. The movement of the change no human intelligence can follow. It is darkly mysterious with the darkness of a blinding splendor. The conception is too mighty ever to have been born in the intelligence of man. "The Word which was in the beginning . . . became flesh." "The Word was with God." The natural home of the Eternal Son Who was the Medium of self-revelation of Deity was in close fellowship with the Eternal Father. "The Word tabernacled among us," that is, took up His manifest dwelling-place in proximity to the human race, as close as that which characterized His relation to the Eternal Father. He stooped into an actual identification with human nature, and by that stoop lifted human nature into the spaciousness of fellowship with God. He came down to be “with us” also.

This, however, let it be stated in advance, is not the doctrine of Atonement. In the Person of Jesus, God has come into new and mystic relationship with unfallen humanity; and in the life of Jesus, God in relation with unfallen humanity, tabernacles among fallen man. Something more will be necessary to make possible union between the members of a fallen race, and this new Head of an unfallen race. That something more will be accomplished by the way of the Cross to be considered in due course.

"And the 'Word was God." This is a cold hard fact revealed to mankind that many find difficulty accepting. The final declaration is that of the supreme Deity of the Word, and thus the Person of Christ is safe-guarded from any interpretation which would place Him in infinite superiority to the human race, and yet in inferiority to essential Deity. He was God, and yet in His Person there was not all the truth concerning God, for He was with God. He was with God, and yet by no means inferior to the Eternal Father, for He was God. The unity of Deity is marked by the word "God." The diversity is marked by "the Word." The God Who created, Who spoke things into being, the Word was with. In the revelation of Incarnation, the phrase answering this final sentence is "full of grace and truth." This teaches that in the grace or loveliness, and truth or righteousness of the Man seen of John and the rest, there was an outshining of the essential facts of the love and the light of Deity.

In the statement of Paul the same great truths are affirmed in other language. From the passage in Philippians, in which the humiliation and exaltation of Christ are so splendidly set forth, let the words be taken which deal immediately with this fact. "Who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a Servant, being made in the likeness of men." (Phil. 2:6-7) In this passage there is first stated the eternal fact concerning Christ, "existing in the form of God." Then follows the attitude of the mind of the Eternal Word, in the presence of the call for redemption. He "counted not the being on equality with God a thing to be grasped." Then follows the sublime act, through which He came to the level of those needing help. He "emptied Himself taking the form of a Servant, being made in the likeness of men." (Phil 2:6-7) Carefully note three facts in the compass of this brief passage. First it declares the eternal truth concerning Christ. He existed in the form of God, on equality with God. Second, it reveals the position He took, when He came for the redemption of man. He took the form of a Servant in the likeness of men.

In these two there is a contrast. Take the extreme statements, and He is seen as passing from the form of God to the likeness of men; and taking the nearer contrast, He is seen as passing from the Sovereignty of equality to the submission of subservience. He was with God and came down to be with men.

The third fact is the revelation of the attitude of mind, and the act of will, by which this change was wrought. In the presence of a great need He did not hold to, or grasp His right of equality, but for the accomplishment of an Infinite purpose, abandoned this. The action of the will is declared in the sublime and all-inclusive declaration that He emptied Himself. The Eternal Word stooped from the position of an Infinite expression to the limitations of human life.

It is now of the utmost importance to understand what is involved in the declaration that He emptied Himself. There is no warrant for imagining that He emptied Himself of His essential Deity. The emptying indicates the setting aside of one form of manifestation, in which all the facts of equality with God were evidently revealed, for another form of manifestation, in which the fact of equality with God must for a time be hidden, by the necessary submissiveness of the human to the Divine. That which the Eternal Word set aside was a form and this in order that another form might be taken. See Mark 16:12. It is evident, therefore, that a very great deal depends upon the meanings of the word form.

The Greek word only occurs in one other place in the whole of the New Testament. In speaking of an appearance of Christ after resurrection, Mark says, "After these things He was manifested in another form unto two of them, as they walked, on their way into the country." (Mark 16:12) Taking this use of the word for the sake of illustration, it is evident that the change was not in the essential nature or personality, but in the method of manifestation. To the men who walked to Emmaus the same One came, but in a changed form, so that they did not recognize Him, until He willed to reveal His identity. This of course by comparison with the subject now under consideration was but a small change, and yet it serves to illustrate the larger fact.

In the coming of the Eternal Word to the earth for the purposes of redemption, He did not lay aside the essential fact of His Deity. He simply changed the form of manifestation. It would seem clearly evident that the Son of God had forever been the One in Whom God took form, and therefore the One through Whom God was revealed. The Son is always the manifestation of the Father. What the form, what the manifestation was in the past, it is impossible to declare, for it is beyond the comprehension of the finite and the limited. This alone is certain that He was the Word, the Speech, and the Method of communication of the Eternal God. For the redemption of man He laid aside that form, whatever it may have been, and took a new form for manifesting the same God, a form upon which men might look, and through which, in the process of time, they might come to know the Eternal God. If it were possible for a moment to penetrate the mysteries of the past, the Son would be seen within the mystery of the Trinity, as the perpetual Medium of Divine expression, just as the Spirit is the perpetual Medium of Divine consciousness. In the coming to the level of man, and in the taking of a form possible of comprehension by man, it was necessary to bring the illimitable into the range of the limited. He passed from the heavenly to the earthly, from the infinite to the finite, that is, as to the form of expression. This is impossible of final explanation. It is however a mystery revealed, upon which the whole superstructure of Christianity depends. It would seem as though the eternal heavens were for a period emptied of the manifestation of God, though never of His presence, while for the work of redemption, God was manifest in the flesh.

The Word passed from government to obedience, from independent cooperation in the equality of Deity, to dependent submission to the will of God. By the way of the Incarnation there came into existence a Person in all points human, in all essentials Divine, in all points human, that is to say, fulfilling the Divine ideal of human nature, not descending to the level of the degradation of humanity, resulting from sin. The Man of Nazareth was perfect as Man. He was moreover perfect as God, lacking nothing of the powers of essential Deity, except only the heavenly form of manifestation.

THE GREAT MYSTERY-CHRIST

THE GREAT MYSTERY—THE GOD-MAN

"That they may know the mystery of God, even Christ." Col 2:2

The subject of the Incarnation is at once initial and fundamental. All the significance of the crises that follow grows out of this first, and most marvelous mystery. The Lord Jesus Christ is a Person infinitely transcending the possibility of perfect human comprehension. Nevertheless the Scripture declares certain facts concerning Him, which account for His glory(perfection) and His grace, without which He remains an unsolved problem, defying every successive age in its attempts to account for Him. It should at once be admitted that no final words of explanation can be written concerning Him. And yet it is of the utmost importance that so much as has been revealed should be recognized, in order to a comprehension of the true meaning of His mission.

In the later letters of the apostle Paul, notably that to the Colossians, it is evident that he is most anxious that Christian people should know Christ. In declaring this he expresses the thought in the words, "That they may know the mystery of God, even Christ." (Col 2:2) He speaks of Christ as "the mystery of God." It will be of value to understand, through all these studies, the New Testament use and meaning of the word "mystery." That has been most lucidly stated to be "a truth undiscoverable except by revelation; never necessarily (as our popular use of the word may suggest) a thing unintelligible, or perplexing, in itself. In Scripture a mystery may be a fact which, when revealed we cannot understand in detail, though we can know it, and act upon it. . . . It is a thing only to be known when revealed."

In this sense CHRIST IS THE MYSTERY OF GOD (Col. 2:2). Perfect analysis and explanation of His Person is impossible. The fact thereof is declared as to origin, and essential characteristics. These must be recognized, in order to a right understanding of the great subject of human redemption. Having seen, that reconstruction in the region of destruction was utterly impossible, that there was no way, in the wisdom or power of man, for the encompassing of his own restoration, it was to be expected that the Divine method of redemption would be beyond perfect explanation to the sons of men. That which human wisdom cannot plan must necessarily be beyond its power perfectly to understand. Human intelligence is capable of appreciating anything that lies within the range of the working of human wisdom. The intelligence of one man may not be equal to the discovery of the method of transmitting words by electricity without use of wires. When, however, another human intelligence has thought the matter out, this man is able to comprehend the explanation given. It may therefore be argued that while man was not equal in his own wisdom to devising a plan of redemption, he ought to be able perfectly to comprehend the plan of God. Yet this does not follow. In the first case, the whole movement is within the compass of human intelligence. In the second, all human wisdom had been utterly exhausted in its attempt to think of, or to discover a method of salvation, and had failed. The failure moreover, must have continued through all the ages, for the Person of Christ, and the whole scheme of human redemption, is so transcendently marvelous as to demand for their explanation the recognition of their Divine origin. All this is to emphasize a fact that must not be lost sight of in approaching the contemplation of this initial movement of God towards man, that while the great facts are declared, they cannot be perfectly comprehended by human reason; and it is necessary therefore to approach them in the attitude of faith. These statements apply with equal force to the whole mystery of the life, and death, and resurrection of Jesus. The subject is therefore to be approached with holy and submissive reverence. The attitude of the mind in its approach is defined in words spoken long centuries ago for the children of Israel, by Moses the servant of God. "The secret things belong unto Jehovah our God; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." (Deut. 29:29) There are secret things which belong unto the Lord. There are revealed things, which God has made so plain that they may be comprehended, these "belong unto us and to our children." It is the solemn duty of all who desire to know the Christ, that they should diligently study the things revealed, and reverently rest with regard to the secret things. The present article is devoted chiefly to the birth of Christ, as the crisis of Incarnation. There is always the danger of dwelling more upon the birth of the human, than of contemplating that birth as the crisis through which God became incarnate. It is in the latter way however, that the subject is now to be approached, and in the following order, first, the testimony of Scripture; secondly, the mystery as to the secret things; third, the mystery revealed.

COMPLETELY OUT OF HARMONY

COMPLETELY OUT OF HARMONY

Thus in the spiritual fact of his nature, man by the fall has become unlike God, in that his intelligence operates wholly within the material realm, whereas the Divine wisdom is spiritual, and therefore explanatory of all material facts; his emotion acts from wrong principle of self-love, whereas the Divine love forever operates upon the principle of love for others; his will asserts itself upon the basis of the passion for mastery, whereas the Divine will insists upon obedience, through determination to serve the highest interests of others.

What bearing has this then upon the physical fact in human nature? This question may be briefly answered by declaring that the body has become the prison house of the spirit. It deadens the spirit's consciousness, silences its voice, and practically treats it as non-existent. Man provides for physical food, and neglects the sustenance of the spirit. He builds and furnishes a house for his body, while he pays no attention to the ultimate homelessness of his spirit. He takes great care as to the air in which his physical life exists, but provides no atmosphere for the invigoration of his spirit. Wherever this is so, the body itself becomes vulgarized. Man's physical nature can never realize its highest possibilities of beauty, by divorcing it from that which is spiritual.

The sense of spiritual beauty lost, man seeks only the attractiveness of the flesh, and thereby ministers to its own decay and vulgarization. Illustrations from the methods of fashionable women might be quoted, were it not a subject too nauseous. The highest perfection of beauty can only be realized where there is recognition of the supremacy of the spiritual, and the body consequently becomes, not the prison house of the spirit, but its temple. (Rom. 12:1) It follows therefore that the image of God lost in the spiritual, cannot be expressed in the physical.

In this threefold consideration it has been seen that man is out of harmony with God as to motive, method, and manifestation of life. Character being at variance, conduct is antagonistic. Fallen man is a lie. Man was made the shadow of God, for the manifestation of God. Having departed from the true line of light, being separated from the forces of life, instead of shadowing God forth, he has cast the shadow of his depraved personality back upon God, and therefore instead of revealing, hides. (Gen 3:10).

All this serves to demonstrate the fact that there is now no further use for man in the economy of God, no reason for his continuity. There can be no reflection upon the infinite wisdom and justice of God, if so terrible a failure were cast out hopelessly from His presence. The very reason for the existence of humanity is rendered impossible of realization. Broken lenses can but reveal broken lights. The ruined camera can but distort images, and man who was created an instrument for the forth-shadowing of God, is now incapable of doing his work, in that it is impossible for a ruined instrument to reveal, its very ruin consisting in its unfitness for the work of revelation.

There can be no reconstruction within the realm of destruction. If ever this ruined instrument is to be reconstructed, it must be by a process from without. Now let the question solemnly be asked at this point. Is there any reason why man should be redeemed, why the wreckage should be restored, why the instrument should be renewed? If it be declared that the reason is that God still needs an instrument of illumination, it may be fairly averred that He can create a new instrument, abandoning the one that has been a failure. The plain fact which must be faced is this, that there is no reason in the realm of righteousness, or of justice merely, why there should be any redemption provided for lost man. And yet there is a reason, so powerful, so conclusive, and inclusive, that it may be reverently, and yet unhesitatingly affirmed that God is bound to find a way of redemption, and answer the call of a ruined race. That reason lies within the nature of God. It is that He is Love. Because He is Love, He must; and the "must" has in it nothing of the declaration of human claim, but it is the affirmation of faith, based upon profound conviction. The reason of redemption lies in the heart of God.

This is not a statement calculated to create satisfaction in the mind of man with himself. It is hardly a popular doctrine. It cuts from underneath the feet all ground for human boasting. God is not bound to do anything for man. Man has forfeited his whole claim upon God by sin. There is absolutely no reason why the distorted and ruined image should be redeemed or reconstructed. And yet there is a reason and that so powerful, that there can be no escape from it.

"He saw me ruined in the fall,

Yet loved me notwithstanding all."

If God had been other than Love, man must have remained endlessly in the realm of ruin. But the very ruin of man included within it man's spoiling, and man's sorrow, creating a great cry which appealed to the Infinite Love of the Infinite Heart. The call of man in his ruin Love heard, and Love answered, in the gift of Christ, Who is Himself, to traverse the path of pain and suffering, to the final and absolute limit, that out of all this, man might be lifted into the realm where it will be possible to fulfill the initial purpose of his creation, and thus satisfy the purpose of God, which is the purpose of Love.

DEPRAVED WILL

DEPRAVED WILL

In the realm of the WILL as to its governing principle, and activity, man has become utterly unlike God. The motive power behind the action of human will, apart from its relation to the Divine will, is that of desire for mastery. The motive power behind the will of God, dominating its action, is always that of a love which is set upon the well-being of others, and which urges God Himself towards such ministry as shall encompass that well-being. A strong-willed man, as the phrase goes, is one who means to have his own way, whether he is a saint or a sinner that is equally true. He is masterful, and is determined that the wills of others shall yield to his. This, apart from the operation of the grace of God, tends to tyranny. The highest exercises of human will, those which have lifted certain men above the plane of their fellows, have made them conspicuous in human history, and have created the reason why vast multitudes of their fellows have done them homage, have been those of determination to drive a highway through opposing difficulties, in order that men and movements may submit to the dominating desire of such men; how utterly and absolutely unlike the action of the will of God. His will is simple and beneficent, and its very strength lies in the fact that it is set determinately upon the well-being of others. The will of God for man is that he should be the best, and have the best; and that determination creates the mighty force thereof, and yet how little this is really understood. Here again man libels God, by thinking of His will in its mindset and actions, as an enlargement of the will of man. How constantly men think and speak of the will of God as being the determination of an Autocrat, Who insists upon the keeping of His laws. That is perfectly true, but the reason behind the insistence is the reason which creates the will, that namely, of His infinite and never-ending love. The force behind man's will is the passion for mastery. The force behind God's will is the passion of an Infinite Love which impels to service.

In the story of the fall there is the account of the genesis of that which is evil in the will of man. When the enemy said, "Ye shall be as God," (Gen 3:5) he suggested a false conception of God with a selfish outcome, which is the exact opposite of God’s will. There for the first time there was held before man the possibility of being master, and therein lay a scandal upon God with an untrue motive. In effect the enemy said, God has His way and masters you. Take the mastery out of His hands, and be masters yourselves. When Jesus came He said, "the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." (Matt 20:28) In that great statement is a revelation of the truth concerning God. God's mastery is the channel of His service. By insistence on authority He serves all highest interests in human life. Of this man has lost all consciousness. He has but one conception of greatness, that of authority over others, one understanding of the operation of the human will; that of determination to be obeyed.

All this, however, men of darkened intelligence, and prostituted emotion will not believe. There can be no acceptance of such teaching as this, except by those who are restored to relationship with God, and see things from the standpoint of the spiritual.

DEPRAVED EMOTION

DEPRAVED EMOTION

"If ye love them that love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same?" Matt 5:46

It is equally true that man is unlike God in his EMOTIONAL NATURE. The action of man's affection at highest, apart from fellowship with God is selfish. Traced back to the final fact, human love is self-centered in its choice of an object, and in its expression of itself towards that object. Said Jesus to His disciples, "If ye love them that love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same?" (Matt 5:46). In that question there is revealed the very inwardness of depraved human emotion. Man loves such as love him. That fact alone is sufficient to demonstrate man's unlikeness to God. God loves in the very necessity of His Being, and in such way as forever to make impossible the thought of selfishness as a motive. The deepest emotion of man acts finally along the line that will tend to the gratification of desires that are purely selfish. Invariably and inevitably when the capacity for love operates from this center of self, love itself becomes selfish, self-centered, self-inspired, self-considering, and thus destroys itself. God's love is spiritual and sacrificing, and is set upon objects utterly unworthy of love, upon such as have given no reason for love, in that they have hated Him. The love of God is self-emptying, self-sacrificing. Not first for self-enrichment does He bestow gifts (Eph. 4:8), but for the enrichment of those upon whom He bestows them and that happened after He had died in their place. The highest culture of the emotional nature of man, apart from the moving love of God, is debased, in that it is self-centered; and thus in the fact of his emotional nature also, man is unlike God.

LOST SPIRIT-INTELLIGENCE

LOST SPIRIT- INTELLIGENCE

"For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." 1 Cor. 2:11 

As to the one who has chosen his own direction, first, his spirit, which needs to be quickened, is totally unlike the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:11). Falling back upon the analysis of human personality already considered, that namely of intelligence, emotion, and will; man is, in the whole fact, unlike God. Think first of the intellectual side of a man's nature. All are possessed of this, and yet apart from restoration to God, the intellect in its working, and in its achievements, is utterly unlike the working and the achievements of the wisdom of God. For illustration, instead of thinking of an ignorant man, whose intellectual capacity is dwarfed, let the mind contemplate the finest product of education and culture that can possibly be produced, and even then, at its best it is utterly unlike God. This statement does not undervalue the culture of the intellect. It simply asserts that an intellect cultured to all refinement, is nevertheless the degradation of intellect, unless the spirit of man is in harmony and actual fellowship with the Spirit of God. The operation of the human intellect apart from the life of fellowship with God is an operation wholly within the realm of material things. Intellect divorced from Deity, deals only with dust. Take all scientific investigation, and it is but the investigation and tabulation of material things.(Modern evolutionary thought). Indeed science is ever urgent in her declaration that she has nothing to do with subjects that lie beyond this limit of investigation and tabulation of the facts of material life. With splendid daring, and with a most remarkable accuracy, the intellect of man has forced its way back through all the movements of material order, until at last it has come to the protoplasmic germ. Here science stands still, and honestly declares it has no more to say. That is perfectly true, and it is admirably honest that men should confess its limitation. And yet there is infinitely more to say. No man by searching can find out God, but the intellect of man in harmony with God, is instructed by the higher intelligence of God Himself, as to the ultimate fact which lies behind the dead wall, that prevents further investigation, of intellect unilluminated by spiritual communion. Had there been no break with God, no death, no darkening of the intelligence, man would never have stood still at the point indicated. Men, in communion with the spiritual, have declared what lies behind the limit of investigation possible to intellect acting apart from God.

The opening sentence of Genesis, at which man's proud intellect smiles, because it contains a statement too profound for his comprehension, is a revelation of the enlargement of intellect in communion with God. Behind the mighty movements and orderly sequences, which clouded intelligence has been able to observe, intellect inspired discovers the fact which illuminates the mystery, and satisfies the reason, as none other can. "In the beginning God created." (Gen 1:1)

Or to take the statement of Job. "He . . . hangs the earth upon nothing," (Job 26:7) is again to hear a most profound statement, resulting from spiritual insight. The scientist will declare that to be unthinkable, and in his declaration he confesses the truth of the argument. There are things unthinkable to human intellect until it is illumined. And yet the scientist objects because he does not rightly understand. He leads back, and back, and back, until he comes to the simplest form of things material, of which it is possible for his mind to conceive. The spiritually enlightened man then says to him, "In the beginning God created." "He hangs the earth upon nothing." To this the scientist objects that he cannot find foothold on nothing, and by that statement shows his utter ignorance of the declaration of these inspired intellects. In the first declaration the scientist lays his emphasis upon the apparent vacuum or nothingness, which precedes the things which had their beginning. The spiritually-instructed intelligence lays its emphasis upon God Who filled the void, and through the working of Whose energy the new became.

So also with the second quote from Job. Man's intelligence un-illumined, lays its emphasis upon the "nothing." Intellect inspired by communion with the spiritual lays its emphasis upon the "He." It is this God, this "He" that human intellect in its degradation is wearying itself to find, and He never can be found by the unaided working of a degraded intelligence, whose operations are wholly limited within the facts material. The intellect of man, created by God for largest purposes, has become imprisoned within the material realm. God is a Spirit (John 4:24), and the secret at back of all material phenomena is that God has spiritual personality. The mighty wisdom of the eternal God is spiritual. The intellect of man has become materialized, and thus as to intelligence he is unlike God and therefore has real problems with the recorded creation account.

CREATE A GOD

CREATE A GOD

If it is true that man having lost his vision of God, creates gods for himself, by projecting into immensity his own distorted being, it follows therefore that there must be reaction on the character of man himself.

In describing the idols of the nations, the Psalmist makes use of remarkable and suggestive words.

Their idols are silver and gold,

The work of men's hands,

They have mouths, but they speak not;

Eyes have they, but they see not;

They have ears, but they hear not;

Noses have they, but they smell not;

They have hands, but they handle not;

Feet have they, but they walk not;

Neither speaks them through their throat.

They that make them shall be like unto them;

Yea, every one that trusts in them." (Psa. 115:4-8)

This is the declaration of a great principle that a man is always like his God. Having created a god upon the pattern of him, man becomes governed by that idea, and so the process of deterioration goes forward.

The whole fact may be indicated by bringing together a group of Scriptures.

First, the statement of Genesis, "So He drove out the man." (Gen. 3:24) Next the statement from the prophecy of Hosea, "They . . . have made them molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding." (Hosea 13:2)

Third, a declaration of the Psalmist, "they that make them shall be like unto them; Yea, every one that trusts in them." (Psa. 115:8)

Fourth, Paul's description of the condition of the people, who have become idolaters, "having no hope and without God in the world." (Eph. 2:12). Man alienated from God through sin, answered the craving of his nature for God by creating one. He became degraded by his own false conception, and the final fact is that being without God, he is also without hope, suicides amass.

The present article will be devoted to a consideration, first, of the fact that separation from God issues in unlikeness; secondly, of the unlikeness resulting from separation; concluding with a summing up of the position as indicating the call for Christ.

In the fact of his alienation from God, man has lost his own spiritual life, so as material death is the separation of the spirit from the body, so spiritual death is the separation of the spirit from God. The Scripture thought concerning the death of the spirit is nowhere that of cessation of the spirits existence for it can be made alive again, regenerated. Death means cessation of existence only with regard to that which is perishable, the body. The body is but the temporary and probationary dwelling-place of man's spirit. Death for the body means the end of its existence. The death of the spirit consists in its existence, but in separation from that Spirit of God, in fellowship with Whom it is alone equal to the fulfillment of all its essential functions on its path towards perfection (Matt. 5:48; Jude 24). Separated from God, the spirit of man retains its consciousness of great possibilities, without being able to realize and fulfill them. Eyes which do not see, ears which do not hear, the only consciousness of God is that of an intellectual conviction of His existence, and some even deny that, not that of a personal acquaintance with Him.

This statement comes as more than a declaration of a doctrine. It is the expression of an experience. Apart from the miracle of regeneration no man has a true vision of God. Sometimes in boastfulness, and in the attitude of ridicule, men will declare that they do not believe in the existence of God, because they have never seen God. (Modern scientific evolutionary thought).God is present in the orderliness of Nature (Rom. 1:20), in the magnificent and minute beauty of the infinitely great and the infinitely small. Man cannot see Him, only His power and Godhead. To those whose hearts are pure and whose eyes are open, He is to be seen in the face of a little child, and in all the movements of the times. But man, alienated from the Divine life, though dwelling in the place of vision sees nothing. The light shines, but the darkened eye perceives it not. The voice speaks, but the heavy ear hears it not. God is near to every man, but the dead spirit is unconscious of His nearness.

In that wonderful address of Paul to the men of Athens, he said, "Ye men of Athens, in all things I perceive that ye are very religious. For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. What therefore ye worship in ignorance, this I set forth unto you. The God that made the work and all things therein, He, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelled not in temples made with hands; neither is He served by men's hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He Himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and He made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said, " For we are also His offspring." (Acts 17:22-28).

The great statement that He "is not far away from each one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being " has reference not merely to the company of the saints, but to all men. Human life is sustained within the fact of the Divine and all its energy (Col. 1:20). All human force exerted is of God. The very strength in which man rebels against Him, and hinders the coming of His Kingdom, and walks along the way of his pilgrimage, is Divine strength, though prostituted to base uses by the perversion of the will of God. Thus man, walking in the midst of a great light, stumbles and falls in darkness, because he is blind. Man alienated from God is in the place of vision, but sees it not; passes along his pathway surrounded by the infinite music of the voice of God, and yet has no hearing thereof. He is spiritually dead: in the light, but sightless; spoken to, but deaf.

The result of this with regard to man's conception of God is, as has been shown, that he creates the false deities upon the basis of a magnificent but false humanity. Its result in the case of his spiritual nature is inevitably that of deterioration. Having no pattern, and therefore no true understanding of his own being as to its possibility and goal, he appropriates the very energies that were supplied for his progress in such way as to ensure his degradation. Man who does not know God, does not know himself, and is therefore not able to realize the true ideal of life. The final word in the system of Greek thought was expressed in the oft-quoted sentence, "man know thyself." That which is remarkable about the injunction is that these men had discovered the ultimate necessity. What they failed to discover was the way in which men should be able to obey their injunction, and know themselves. No man can know himself who does not know God. Just as man, having lost the vision of God, creates a false deity upon the basis of his own distorted intelligence, so thereafter, he attempts to bring himself into conformity with the false deity, and thus perpetuates the ruin, and ensures the final degradation. In the Divine economy man is a perfect union of spirit and body, which union issues in a mind or consciousness truly balanced, having comprehension of spiritual things, and therefore true understanding of things material. Through sin and the death of the spirit, there has entered into human life discord between spirit and flesh, and the mind is unbalanced in appreciation of values, and clouded in its outlook upon all facts. Discord tends to discord. The instrument created for fellowship with God, in order to the representation of God, itself being out of order, because out of communion with God, is now only capable of expressing distorted truth concerning God, which is the most terrible form of heresy.

In dwelling more particularly upon the unlikeness resulting, the two facts in human nature already referred to must be remembered. Essentially man is spirit. Apparently man is body. That is to say the unseen but essential fact in human life is that of the spirit. The body is at once a medium through which the spirit receives its impressions, and its knowledge concerning material things, and expresses to others spiritual truths. In both of these man has become unlike God. As unfallen man is like God, the essential likeness being in the fact of the spirit, but the revelation of that fact being through the medium of the body; so fallen man, distanced from God, and ignorant of God, is unlike God in the essential fact of his spiritual nature, and therefore fails to give any expression of God thru the medium of his physical being.

GOD LOVE VS. MAN LOVE

GOD LOVE VS. MAN LOVE

"If ye love them that love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same?" Matt 5:46

It is true that man is unlike God in his emotional nature. The action of man's affection at highest, apart from fellowship with God is selfish. Traced back to the final fact, human love is self-centered in its choice of an object, and in its expression of itself towards that object. Said Jesus to His disciples, "If ye love them that love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same?" (Matt 5:46) In that question there is revealed the very inwardness of depraved human emotion. Man loves such as love him. That fact alone is sufficient to demonstrate man's unlikeness to God. He loves in the very necessity of His Being, and in such way as forever to make impossible the thought of selfishness as a motive. The deepest emotion of man acts finally along the line that will tend to the gratification of desires that are purely selfish. Invariably and inevitably when the capacity for love operates from this center of self, love itself becomes selfish, self-centered, self-inspired, self-considering, and thus destroys itself. God's love is spiritual and sacrificing, and is set upon objects utterly unworthy of love, upon such as have given no reason for love, in that they have hated Him. The love of God is self-emptying, self-sacrificing. Not first for self-enrichment does He bestow gifts, but for the enrichment of those upon whom He bestows them. The highest culture of the emotional nature of man, apart from the moving love of God, is debased, in that it is self-centered; and thus in the fact of his emotional nature also, man is unlike God.

PATHS OF THE RUINED INSTRUMENT

PATHS OF THE RUINED INSTRUMENT

"And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsman." "Idols according to their own understanding."  (Hosea 13:2)

Man is a ruined instrument. His view on origins at this point is the unmistakable witness. He nevertheless retains, though in impaired form, the natural elements which constitute the Divine image. There is therefore a constant demand in his nature for that for which he was created. Intelligence is still demanding light. Emotion continues to seek for objects upon which to fasten. Will requires a governing principle, in brief, man demands God. Having lost his knowledge of God, he proceeded to substitute in the place of the dethroned One, other deities. It is unthinkable and impossible that human nature should exist without a god in some form. The most blatant infidel, denying the existence of a Supreme Being, yet worships; and where there is no other object, then man enshrines his own intellect, bows down before that, declaring that he will receive and yield to the things he can comprehend through sight, thus making his understanding the very deity that receives his worship. As a bird cannot fly except in air, and a fish cannot swim except in water, so man cannot exercise the necessary functions of his life except in relation to God.

When man is thus driven to the dire necessity of creating his own deity, there is but one way in which he can do it. The only conception of God that man has is gathered from an understanding of his own personality. This is true even in the case of the most devout believer. It is almost impossible to think of God except by projecting the lines of human personality into infinitude, and this is the true method. The last and highest fact of Divine creation is the spiritual in man, and that is in the image of God. Therefore it is possible to argue back from the final creative movement to the originating Creator. If man is the image of God, he is like God; and that is at once to say that God is like man. The intelligence of Deity is argued from the intelligence of man, so that man, projecting the lines of his own intelligence into immensity, thinks of God. This is true also with regard to emotion, and with regard to will.

This creation of a god upon the basis of man's knowledge of himself lies at the back of the whole story of idolatry. From whence then have come all the ignorance and brutality, and vindictiveness of false gods? Evidently from the fact that the lines projected were in themselves imperfect. Project the ruined man into immensity, and a ruined god is the result, only the ruin is worse than the ruined man. In the magnified man there is magnified evil and intensified failure. That is the history of all idolatry. Man having fallen, demanded a god, and having lost the knowledge of the true God, has projected into immensity the lines of his own personality, and thus has created as objects of worship, the awful monsters, the service of which, in process of time, has reacted in the still deeper degradation of the worshipper. All false deities are distortions of the one true God, and the distorted idea is the result of the ruin of the image of God in man.

Referring to the idolatry of Ephraim, the prophet Hosea declared, "And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsman." "Idols according to their own understanding."  (Hosea 13:2) That understanding being darkened, the idol resulting was a libel upon God.

With regard to idolatry, it may broadly be stated that the Old Testament reveals three great ideas of God embodied within the false systems of religion, all of them based upon a truth, but in the distortion of truth resulting most disastrously. These three ideas may be indicated by the three words, Baal, Moloch, and Mammon. All false ideas of Deity gather around those words. Other gods are mentioned, but they are all subsidiary, and stand for some aspect or attitude of these essential misconceptions.

These ideas moreover, have by no means ceased to be the gods which men worship. The form of the worship may have changed, and the garb of the idol may be different, but all else remains the same. Every human being who is not worshipping the One living God, is worshipping Baal, or Moloch, or Mammon, or all three.

The worship of Baal was essentially the deification of Nature (the sun god), and in that deification there comes at last to be necessary the worship of the central and most marvelous fact in Nature. That fact is the reproductive faculty. All Nature worship which may seem to begin in the innocent and harmless adoration of the beauty and the order of Nature, issues at last in all uncleanness and lasciviousness, and the highest forms of worship come to be acts so foul as to be nameless.

The worship of Baal is the groping of the intelligence after God in Nature, and its search is futile; so that at last the darkened understanding touching the last mystery of power, without being able to discover the final truth, there results the degradation of the whole being.

The worship of Moloch expressed itself in all cruelty, its chief expression being the sacrifice of little children. This is the prostitution of the emotional nature. Hate always lives next door to love. Man magnifying his own emotional nature finds a god who will he appeased by acts of cruelty. As in the worship of Nature there is finally committed all manner of sins and sensualism through the debasement of the intelligence, so necessarily the degraded affectional nature will express itself in lack of love, and therefore in deeds of brutality towards the offspring of man.

The worship of Moloch has by no means ceased. As man today has deified, and worships in fearful form at the shrine of, the central mystery of life, he does so with callous heart and absolute indifference to the ruin wrought. Here are suggested lines of thought which must be followed without the expression of words to aid. Let it only be said that as love is the fairest word in all the vocabulary of human speech, the foulest is lust. Yet both these words are the result or the operation of one capacity. Its operation within the realm of a perfectly informed understanding is indicated by the word love. Its operation within the realm of a degraded intelligence is indicated by the word lust.

Yet there remains the third of these—Mammon. Schleusner has asserted that Mammon was the name of a Syrian deity. Of this however there seems to be no positive proof. The word was one in common use in the East among the Phoenicians, the Syrians, and others, and it stood for wealth, and the power of wealth. Jesus made a most significant and remarkable use of the word. He said, "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." (Matt 6:24). In that statement there is evidence of His intimate understanding of fallen human nature, and of His far-seeing appreciation of all the facts resulting from sin. He did not say, ye cannot serve God and the devil. If He had, for purposes of practical application His word would be almost pointless in this particular age. As it is, with every movement of material progressiveness, His word becomes still more searching, more arresting. The method of the evil one has ever been that of obscuring himself behind some other object of worship. In the dark ages men had a very weird and terrible consciousness of the personality of Satan, and the art of the time depicts him as a monster with hoofs and horns, and all ugliness of countenance. For the purposes of those dark ages, when men were superstitious, because ignorant, such method of appeal proved the subtlety of the foe. In the case of more cultured mental capacity, the foe always hides the ugliness of his being, and today as never before he asks for the submission of man to his sway, by presenting before the vision of man the fascinations of wealth, and the power which wealth commands. The worship of Mammon is the rendering to wealth for the sake of its power, of all that man ought to render to God. In the dethronement of God and the enthronement of man's personal desire as the governing principle behind the activity of his will, man has come to think of greatness as consisting in ability to govern and master other people, the American governing parties today. There is no way by which man may secure more power over other men than by the possession of wealth, and therefore man worships Mammon with all his soul, with his entire mind, with all his heart, because Mammon represents unlimited power.

Thus in the last analysis Mammon is the deification of human will. In projecting himself into immensity, man has magnified a will that insists upon the subservience of others, and so has come to worship a deity whose expression of godhead is mastery, and whose scepter of power is the possession of wealth.

May it not thus be said in brief, that the worship of Baal is the adoration of IMPERFECT KNOWLEDGE, resulting from the darkening of the intelligence; that the worship of Moloch is the adoration of PROSTITUTED EMOTION, resulting from the degradation of the affectional nature; that the worship of Mammon is the adoration of a DEGRADED WILL, resulting from the loss of the true governing principle behind the will of man. All this in its thousand manifestations in the idolatries of the race, and in its continued manifestation in the godlessness of the vast multitudes of the most civilized people, has issued from the fact that man being distanced from God by sin, has become ignorant of God through sin.

Thus all unconsciously out of a terrible ignorance, and, indeed, by that very ignorance, man calls for Christ; calls that is, for the shining of the true Light, in which there shall be the restoration of the true and only God, by which knowledge there shall come a destruction of the false gods, the worship of which has resulted so terribly in the history of the race and the development of religion today.

EMOTION DEBASED

EMOTION DEBASED

"We love, because He first loved us." (1 John 4:19)

To know God is to know love, and to know love is to love. Hence man is created with an emotional nature, ready to act in response to knowledge. The apostle of love declares, "We love, because He first loved us." (1 John 4:19). Herein is a declaration of the origin of love in the consciousness of man. Man knowing God is conscious of His love, and that love of God is the generator of the love of man. The accurate knowledge of unclouded intelligence, inevitably issues in the perfect love of un-degraded emotion. Such knowledge issuing in such love, creates the true governing principle for the action of the ultimate fact of human life, that namely of the WILL.

The doctrine of the freedom of the will is itself only true within certain limitations. There is a sense in which in the very nature of will it cannot be free. Only in lack of reason, or insanity, is there perfect freedom of the will. Man never wills except under the impulse of a conviction. Behind every decision of the will there must of necessity be a governing principle. Man constantly asserts, I will. He never does this, but that he might add to the statement something more. He might, that is to say, declare the reason why he wills, so that the full statement is always, I will, because ------. That which follows the statement because, is the authority that commands the will. In unfallen man the authority behind will is the love of God, which is the outcome of a perfect knowledge of God. Thus the perfect activity of the will of man is always conditioned by submission to the will of God. Herein is a revelation of the meaning of much that Jesus said concerning His relation to His Father, and an explanation of all that He was in perfection of character, in wisdom of teaching, and in beauty of activity.

To this it may be objected that while this is true of human will, it cannot be said that the Divine will is under authority; and yet, that the very will of God is acting under an authority, is precisely the truth. The principle governing the movements of the will of God is that of the perfect communion of Infinite Love and Infinite Light. In the very essential of His being, God is Love (1 John 4:8). It is equally true that He is Light, (1 John 1:5) so that every action of His will is determined by Love, and by the unerring wisdom of Light. Thus let it be definitely stated that God is limited in every action of His will by unlimited Love and that unclouded Light, in which no darkness is. Thus unfallen man wills in response to love, which is the result of knowledge.

In this consideration lies an explanation of the method of the enemy. When man, listening to his suggestion of evil, asserted his will, it was upon the basis of a doubt of the Divine Love, which he had allowed himself to entertain. By that act of self-separation from God, man lost the knowledge of God, which issues in love to God, and creates the true governing principle behind the action of will. Distance from God means the clouding of the intelligence, and therefore the debasement of the emotion, and therefore the degradation of the will. The fact that man's intelligence is clouded is by no means a popular doctrine, and yet human history, equally with inspired revelation, attests the truth of the declaration. Through all the ages, and through all the schools of human thought, man has been engaged in a fruitless search after a final knowledge. Too often man is utterly unconscious of what that knowledge is after which he seeks, and yet the restlessness of human intellect, and its passionate striving, indicate its incompleteness, and its deep consciousness of that incompleteness. Zophar the Naamathite, speaking to Job said, "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?" (Job 11:7)

This most remarkable question in the oldest book in the Divine Library, indicating the consciousness of incompleteness existing among the meditative men of a far gone age is revealing. Yet take that question and ask it in the midst of the vaunted culture of this century, and the implied answer of the age in which Zophar asked, is the actual answer of the present age. Man does not know, nor can he discover God by the unaided working of his intellect, and that because his intellect is clouded, having lost its action with the true light. The hardest thinking of the twentieth century was done in the latter half of the 19th, by men, who, in comparison with other men, were intellectual giants. Let it be granted, as it is almost certainly true, that they were honest in their searching, and the names of them will be sufficient guarantee, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndal, and Spencer. They observed, they collected, they compared, they labored to discover the deepest secrets, and yet what were the conclusions at which they arrived? They claimed to have found, and declared, a certain method discoverable through all natural phenomena, evolution at its finest. They were not able perfectly to explain the very method which they discovered, much less were they able to account for the method as to its origin. Hence, in the 20th century evolution came into popularity. Spencer speaks of being "in the presence of an infinite and eternal energy from which all things proceed." This was a modern day sun god approach to creation changing slime to living organisms. That in itself is a very remarkable discovery, and yet how vague, and inadequate for the satisfaction of the passion of the human intellect for definiteness and absolute truth.

What then have attempted to do is eliminate God from the Creation picture and therefore the human intellect in the most enlightened century of the human race, stops short exactly where man's clouded intellect stopped short in those dim and distant times of Zophar the Naamathite. Man watches still, and in his searching tracks the footprints of Deity, fail to see the Divine, and thereby utterly fail to find God. And yet for an intimate and immediate knowledge of God the intellect of man was created.