The Social Principles of Jesus Part 27

3. Do prophets arise where religion deals with private life only? What is the social value of prophetic personalities?

4. Name men in secular history and literature who have the marks of the prophet. Any in recent times?

5. Does learning create prophetic vision or blur it?

6. Does the ordinary religion today put a man in line for the Cross or for a job as a bank director?

7. Can you think of anything that would bring the Cross back into the life of the churches today?

8. Would vicarious suffering diminish if society became Christianized?

Chapter XII. A Review And A Challenge

_The Social Principles of Jesus Demand Personal Allegiance and Social Action_

DAILY READINGS

First Day: The Social Mission of Christians

Ye are the salt of the earth.... Ye are the light of the world.-Matt. 5:13, 14.

"Jesus speaks here with the consciousness of an historic mission to the whole of humanity. Yet it was a Nazarene carpenter speaking to a group of Galilean peasants and fishermen. Under the circ.u.mstances, and at the time, it was an utterance of the most daring faith-faith in himself, faith in them, faith in what he was putting into them, faith in faith. Jesus failed and was crucified, first his body by his enemies, and then his spirit by the men who bore his name. But that failure was so amazing a success that today it takes an effort on our part to realize that it required any faith on his part to inaugurate the Kingdom of G.o.d and to send out his apostolate."(7)

If the antiseptic and enlightening influence of the sincere followers of Jesus were eliminated from our American communities, what would be the presumable social effects?

Second Day: The Great Initiator of the Kingdom of G.o.d

At that season Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes: yea, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight. All things have been delivered unto me of my Father: and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.-Matt. 11:25-30.

This is one of the most thrilling pa.s.sages in the Bible. It has always been understood as a call to intimate religion, as the appeal of a personal Saviour to those who are loaded with sin and weary of worldliness. But in fact it expresses the sense of a revolutionary mission to society.

Jesus had the consciousness of a unique relation to the Father, which made him the mediator of a new understanding of G.o.d and of life (v. 27). This new insight was making a new intellectual alignment, leaving the philosophers and scholars as they were, and fertilizing the minds of simple people (v. 25). It is an historical fact that the brilliant body of intellectuals of the first and second centuries was blind to what proved to be the most fruitful and influential movement of all times, and it was left to slaves and working men to transmit it and save it from suppression at the cost of their lives.

Then Jesus turns to the toiling and heavy laden people about him with the offer of a new kind of leaders.h.i.+p-none of the brutal self-a.s.sertion of the Caesars and of all conquerors here, but a gentle and humble spirit, and an obedience which was pleasure and brought release to the soul.

These words express his consciousness of being different, and of bearing within him the beginnings of a new spiritual const.i.tution of humanity.

When individuals have really come under the new law of Christ, does Jesus make good?

Would he also make good if humanity based its collective life on the social principles which we have studied?

If the choice is between Caesar and Christ, which shall it be?

Third Day: The Kingdom of Truth

Pilate therefore entered again into the Praetorium, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus answered, Sayest thou this of thyself, or did others tell it thee concerning me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests, delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?

Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?

And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find no crime in him.-John 18:33-38.

All kingdoms rest on force; formerly on swords and bayonets, now on big guns. To overthrow them you must prepare more force, bigger guns. Jesus was accused before Pilate of being leader of a force revolution aiming to make him king. He claimed the kings.h.i.+p, but repudiated the force. To his mind the absence of force resistance was characteristic of his whole undertaking. Instead, his power was based on the appeal and attractiveness of truth. When Pilate heard about "truth" he thought he had a sophist before him, one more builder of metaphysical systems, and expressed the skepticism of the man on the street: "What is truth?" But Jesus was not a teacher of abstract doctrine, whatever his expounders have made of him.

His mind was bent on realities. If we subst.i.tute "reality" for "truth" in his saying here, we shall get near his thought.

Which is more durable, power based on force, or power based on spiritual coherence?

Fourth Day: A Mental Transformation

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of G.o.d, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to G.o.d, which is your spiritual service. And be not fas.h.i.+oned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of G.o.d.-Rom. 12:1, 2.

In the first century the Christians were a new social group, confronting the social order of the Roman Empire with a new religious faith, a revolutionary hope, and a powerful impulse of fraternity. Those who had come out of pagan society still felt the pull of its loose pleasures and moral maxims, and of its idolatry. Paul here challenges them to submit fully to the social a.s.similation of the new group. It involved an intellectual renewal, a new spiritual orientation, which must have been searching and painful. It involved the loss of many social pleasures, of business profit and civic honor, and it might at any time mean banishment, torture, and death. The altar symbol of sacrifice might become a scarlet reality. Yet see with what triumphant joy and a.s.surance Paul speaks.

If a student should dedicate himself to the creation of a Christian social order today, would it still require an intellectual renewing?

Would it cramp him or enlarge him?

Fifth Day: The Distinctive Contribution of Christ

There was the true light, even the light which lighteth every man, coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and they that were his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of G.o.d, even to them that believe on his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of G.o.d. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.-John 1:9-14, 17.

Here is the tragedy of the Gospel story, seen from a long perspective and stated in terms of Greek philosophy. The Light which lighteth every man, the _Logos_ through whom G.o.d had created the _kosmos_, had come to this world in human form, and been rejected. But some had received him, and these had received a new life through him, which made them children of G.o.d. They had discovered in him a new kind of spiritual splendor, characterized by "grace and truth." Even Moses had contributed only law to humanity; Christ was identified with grace and truth.

How would you paraphrase the statements of John to express the att.i.tude of nineteen centuries to Christ?

What has he in fact done for those who have received him?