CHAPTER XIV

THE AFFIRMATION OF PARDON

We should expect that so concise and so vital a confession as the Apostles' Creed would do something else than gather up odds and ends as it approaches its close. We look to see it come to a head,

as an arrow.

A young theological student said to me, "The Apostles' Creed is not ethical." I replied, "I fear that you think so because you have not studied the Apostles' Creed." Christian faith always rests upon a foundation of practical life. Every affirmation of the Church's faith is the outcome of its experience, is the summarizing of the doctrine it has received as that doctrine has been put through the crucible of its daily life. The theses that Luther nailed on the church door in Wittemberg were not intended as abstract themes for dry theological discussion, or even as a bold attack upon the doctrine of indulgences. They were a summons to a view of life in its relations to God.

Whatever opinion men may have of the theological place of the testimony of the Christian consciousness,

no theological thinking will live that has not the whole man behind it; that is not the product of his heart no less than of his head.

Ritschl begins his great book on the History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation with the recognition of the fact that notwithstanding the existence of sin, the Church has freedom of religious intercourse with God, and at the same time, in the exercise of that freedom, orders its own life in conformity with God's expressed design. This implies a complete moral restoration of the whole man, and is the direct result of the historical revelation of God's purpose of grace in Jesus Christ. Nothing less than this, then, can be the contents of any confession that purports to give expression to the faith of the Church. Men are delivered from sin by Jesus Christ. From this all Christian doctrine starts, and to it as a constant ethical test must it all return.

The incident in our Lord's life that gave rise to the assertion of his power to forgive sins, occurred in the first year of his Galilæan ministry. The disciples had been called, and were settling to their task. Jesus had visited his home at Nazareth and made announcement of his mission to preach the gospel to the poor. He had drawn attention to himself by some notable miracles, like the healing of the nobleman's son and Peter's mother-in-law. As interest in him became

more intense he advanced to the healing of the leper, that the people might see that he was concerned with something more than the externals of life. Leprosy had always been the type of sin and guilt; his cure of it was to show that his mission was not simply to make men comfortable and prosperous. The time seemed to have come for the opening out of the thought of his heart. So we have the man sick of the palsy carried to the roof and let down through the tiling; and then the wonderful cure, with the preparatory statement, "But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins." Bodily healing that leaves the soul unreached and the life unchanged is nothing. His power is, before all, to forgive. The healing is only external witness to an internal cure which brings both access to God and a renewed life.

John the Baptist had preached a searching gospel of repentance, and men were widely troubled. It was clear enough that those who stole should steal no more, and that in the thing in which a man had broken the commandments he should repent. But John felt the need of something deeper and more thoroughgoing. We cannot conceive of the great prophet of the wilderness as being satisfied with men's amending their lives in externals, or being indifferent to the burden which the men whose hearts his words

had searched carried because of the things done in the past. The past has made the man, and no good resolutions can unmake him. We can catch something of the gladness, therefore, as well as the awe, with which John, when taught of God, saluted Jesus: "Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!" It was that for which the world was waiting. He was only the herald. His baptism was of water. The coming One should baptize with the Holy Ghost.

We find Jesus at once assuming this function. Only life can create life. He must awaken in the hearts of men such expectation that they will begin to move toward him. When he says, "Follow me," they must leave their money-changing or their fishingnets; or when he says, "Come unto me," there must be a growing conviction that if they should come, the weary would find rest and the burdened have their burden rolled away. Quickly he finds his opportunity with Nicodemus, and the woman at the well, and the chosen spirits that gather closest about him. He opens the mystery of the new birth and the water of life. He tells how the world through him is to be saved. Incidentally he shows his power over nature, as opportunity offers, that men may be expectant of something more, and when the multitude throngs about the helpless invalid with his four eager and

devoted friends, he looks around, and saying, “That ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins," adds, "Arise, and take up thy bed and go unto thy house." Men felt the charm of this new teacher. They knew their own unworthiness; they were awakened to the conviction of sin; the gracious message of his life opened the way for the manifestation of the power of God. They believed, and according to their faith it was done unto them.

Thus Jesus prepared the way for his Church to take up his work. In proportion as the Church lives out its doctrine, do men come to receive and believe its message. Carlyle's saying is true, "To teach religion, the first thing and the only thing is to find a man who has religion." The disciples took up the theme because they had the proof of its truth in their own hearts. The Holy Spirit witnessed with their spirits that they were sons of God. They were forgiven. They knew it. They had access to God and power to live new lives. So they preached Jesus the crucified Christ, and men were pricked in their hearts and repented; themselves in turn to take up the word, and repeat it to others. This became the form of the perfected message: "Repent . . . that that your sins may be blotted out." From the beginning, those who proclaimed it believed that men may be safely led to