IV CHRIST'S MISSION TO THE INNER LIFE THE ultimate mission of Christ was to the A proinner life of man. His ministry there was not in words alone, but in character and action; in what He was and what He did for men; the heart of His message was Himself, His life, His death. The central gospel of this message is the reality and completeness of peace with God through the forgiveness of sins. The forgiveness of sins brings with it the freedom and power of a new inner life of divine righteousness. These four statements may serve to mark out, in a broad way, the line of thought that I wish to follow in this chapter. 89 gramme in outline. The seat of empire. The springs of life. I The Kingdom is within You Christ came into the world to proclaim and establish the kingdom of God among men. The sway of that kingdom extends over every region of our life. But its seat must be within us. It must reach and reconcile and rule that interior region of the heart which lies behind audible utterance and visible action, below social ties and bonds of human fellowship, underneath conscious reasonings and formulated theories, that undiscovered country where the moral sentiments, the religious feeling, the sense of dependence, and the joy or grief of living, have their home. It is there that the real forces of human life are generated. Man is the one creature in the universe in whom the mechanical counts least, and the spiritual counts most. Not only his personal happiness, but also his actual power and efficiency in the world depend upon the condition of his inner life. He could not "live by bread alone," even if he would. Every phase of his existence betrays the presence of an energy, whether for good or for evil, which is drawn from some secret source deep within him, and fed by streams which flow far below the surface of his physical nature. Vitality, in man, is a spiritual force conditioned, but not created, by a material embodiment. A vitometer will never be invented, because there is no instrument delicate enough to take the temperature of the inner life. Even in dealing with bodily disease, the wise physician, while he may make his diagnosis absolute, always recognizes an element of uncertainty in his prognosis. "While there is life there is hope," he says. He might add, "While there is hope there is life." Hope has healed more diseases than any medicine. The life of man is a demonstrated daily miracle. It shows that the physical laws which we know and the physical forces which we can measure, are traversed by spiritual laws which we do not know and spiritual forces which we cannot measure. It proves the reality and potency of that which is invisible and imponderable. forces. The various kinds of energy which are de- Spiritual veloped from heat are not more real, nor more powerful, than the actual working force which is developed in the world from love in the inner life of man. Gravitation itself does no Sin deadens all. The more to insure the stability of the material This is the reason why sin is a power of disorder and death. It is not because it affects the outer life, not because it sows the seeds of physical corruption and decay, not because it brings forth crimes of violence and destruction. It is because it pervades the inner life, because it poisons the streams of human existence at the fountain-head, because it paralyzes the vital energies of humanity. Sin is a separating, secluding, imprisoning power which shuts the soul off from the purifying breath of the divine Spirit and leaves it in a dungeon, to breathe the same air over and over again until it is smothered. Sin is a rebellious, turbulent, tormenting power which destroys the inward peace of the soul, agitates it with restless passion, tortures it with haunting fear. Sin is a selfish, envious, hateful power which takes the very life out of love and makes it impotent for good, a vain dream never to be realized, a beautiful, ineffectual ghost. the seat of disorder. The supreme directness, the triumphant sim- Jesus knew plicity of Jesus as the restorer of humanity to its true order and the bringer of a new kingdom into the world, came from the clearness with which He saw that the world's chief trouble and man's deepest need lie in the inner life. He wasted no strength in polishing the outside of the cups and platters on which man's exterior wants are served. He spent no time in whitening sepulchres. He knew that the seat of real goodness and permanent happiness and divine harmony must be in the inner life. The incomparable service to mankind which was to give Him the eternal chieftaincy in the spiritual life, was a service to the soul. the centre. There can be no real empire of peace unless He sought this deepest region is reached. There must be no nook or corner or crevice of man's life left unexplored, unsubdued, unreconciled; no lurking-place of rebellion; no fountain of discord; no "little rift within the lute, That by and by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all." |