03.06. Chapter 6

VI. THE PASSION OF CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD Our final study takes for granted all that have preceded it, and is intimately related to the last two. In dealing with the subject of preliminary adjustment we saw that the denial of self issues in the enthronement of the Christ, which includes the appropriation of His redemption and the apprehension of His revelation. In dealing with the subject of the realization of the Christ life we saw that the believer is both Christo-centric and Christospheric. Now it is a necessary outcome of these facts that the measure in which they are realized experimentally, is the measure of the identity of the consciousness of Christ and His Church. If Christ be indeed at the centre of the life; interpreting in the light of essential truth all the things of which the intelligence is conscious, inspiring the emotion so that it acts only in harmony with the love and holiness of God, and by this redemption and readjustment of natural processes, impelling the will; it fol lows that the consciousness of the one so indwelt must harmonize with that of the Indweller. This is the true explanation of the mystery of the Christian Church; revealing the secret of its vision, the inspiration of its emotion, and the nature of its passion. The Church is not an institution organized by the wit and wisdom of man, of which Christ occasionally makes use for the carrying on of His work. That conception of the Church, however modified the form in which it is expressed, is wholly inadequate. The Church of Christ is His very Body, the instrument through which He sees and feels and works in the midst of human history and activity. Therefore the consciousness of Christ is the consciousness of the Church, the consciousness of the Church is the consciousness of the Christ.

It should at once be admitted that the utterance of such a statement, which is that of an apparently logical sequence, causes one almost to blush with shame, because we all know full well how often the consciousness of the Church is not that of the Christ; or to state the fact in the other way, the consciousness of the Christ is not that of the Church. The reason for this is that there are certain responsibilities which being fulfilled, the consciousness of the Church is that of the Christ, but being unfulfilled, Christ is paralyzed in His own Body, be cause the eye is dim, and the ear is heavy, and the hand is nerveless.

While He was yet in the world, in the circumstances of early limitation, He declared, “ I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! “Passing from that period of limited ministry through His passion baptism, He emerged into all the fulness of life beyond His Cross, and baptised into union with Himself by the out pouring of the Spirit a company of believing men and women, in order that they might be come the instruments through which He should continue His work in unstraitened and unlimited circumstances. Yet alas, how constantly we have straitened, limited, hindered Him! I do not propose, however, in this study to dwell upon the fact of these failures and limitations, sorrowful as they are, and demanding serious attention, but rather to speak of the great ideal, in order that we may see the Divine purpose concerning the Church in its relationship to Christ with regard to the Kingdom of God. For the purpose of this study I propose again to take two great statements of the New Testament out of their context, in order that we may consider them in the light of that context. In the second chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians Paul ends a wonderful declaration concerning the nature and theme of the Christian ministry with these words, “ We have the mind of Christ.” In the second chapter of the Philippian letter, he lays upon those to whom he writes as the supreme injunction of his communication this charge, “ Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Notice carefully the two statements, and the difference between them. The first is a declaration, and the second is an injunction. In the first the apostle affirms “ We have the mind of Christ.” In the’ second he enjoins “Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” “ We have the mind,” “ Have the mind.” It at once becomes evident that these passages bring us face to face with the thoughts of resource and responsibility. Resource is indicated in the declaration, “ We have the mind of Christ.”

Responsibility is revealed in the injunction, “ Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” While there is this difference, it is nevertheless true that both passages must be considered, each of them in the light of their context, in order that we may understand either the resource or the responsibility. In the Corinthian letter, in the passage of which this statement is the final declaration, the apostle has been arguing that the Christian message is one of wisdom. These people had separated themselves into small groups around the names of Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and Christ.

He points out that such grouping results from the mistake of supposing that some one emphasis is the whole of truth. In the course of the argument he makes use of the phrase, “ wisdom of words,” which is most suggestive as it reveals the fact that the habit of disputation around words which obtained in the schools of Corinth, had invaded the Christian Church. In contradistinction to the “ wisdom of words,”

Paul speaks of the “ Word of the Cross,” which gathers into the infinite music of its speech all the tones and emphases of Paul, and Cephas, and Apollos. The men of Corinth think of the Word of the Cross as being foolishness, but he declares that it is a wisdom, not of this age, nor of the rulers of the age, but the infinite, the essential Wisdom of God. He then shows that this can only be known by the interpretation of the Spirit of God. As none can know the things of a man save the spirit of the man which is within him, so none can know the deep things of God save the Spirit of God.

These things, however, which could not be seen of the eye, or detected by the hearing of the ear, or discovered by the ingenuity of the heart of man, are revealed to us through His Spirit. Of this line of argument the all-inclusive and final word is, “ We have the mind of Christ.”

*In the Philippian letter he is urging upon his children the necessity for unity of mind and heart and purpose. It is in some senses the most wonderful of all his letters. In the course of it the word sin never occurs, the -flesh is only mentioned to be dismissed, and there is no rebuke save the tender correction of disagreement between Euodia and Syntyche. It is a letter that was written in prison, and yet rises into anthem after anthem, and is bathed in the spirit of praise. In fact it is Paul’s great love letter. Its supreme message is that of calling his children to the true attitude of mind or consciousness, and when he expresses the profoundest desire of his heart for them, in briefest and simplest language he writes, “ Have this mind in you; which was also in Christ Jesus.”

Then immediately, in a passage of stately and sublime grandeur he unveils before them that mind. “ Who being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, He hum bled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the Cross.”

Having thus glanced at the context of the passages, we pause to notice the fact that the word translated mind in the Corinthian passage is not the word which is translated mind in the Philippian quotation. While the words are different, and their intention is different, they are not contradictory, but intimately related, and indeed, complementary. The word made use of in the Corinthian letter is one which refers to mind essentially as understanding, as consciousness, not so much to the mind as an organ of consciousness, as to the knowledge resulting from its use. Indeed, we shall come nearest to the apostolic thought if we interpret the pas sage as meaning that we have the knowledge of Christ, that is to say that all He knows is made over to us, His consciousness is at our disposal. In the Philippian letter the word mind has another value. While it still presupposes the fact of intellectual apprehension, it suggests an activity, and we may interpret the meaning of the apostle by saying that he charges those to whom he writes, to have Christ’s exercise of mind. The distinction between the two words is thus evident. It is possible to have a knowledge which produces no effect, but this charge of the apostle reveals the fact that the knowledge of Christ is active in producing results, and he enjoins his Philippian children to have the exercise of mind of Christ. Thus the two thoughts with which we are brought face to face in the two passages are those first of the essential mind of Christ, His knowledge; and secondly, of the exercise of the mind of Christ, the activity which issues in definite results.

Let us now with great reverence attempt to understand the mind of Christ. The contextual exposition of the first quotation will reveal the fact that the consciousness of Christ is that of the Wisdom of God, the deep things of God, known of the Spirit of God.

It is at once evident that a statement of what these things are can only be made in general terms. The mind of Christ was first the consciousness of the things of the eternal order. His mind was that of truth and grace. I am not now dealing with the subject of the wonderful redemptive work by which He placed grace and truth at the disposal of a ruined race, but with the primary fact that these things were of the essence of His consciousness because they are the deep things of God, the things of the eternal order. So far as finite man is able to encompass an infinite matter, it may be affirmed that the profound essence of the consciousness of God is that of the simplicity of absolute truth, and the sublimity of overwhelming grace. Of Christ the fullest statement of truth is, that He is grace and He is truth. Of that inclusive whole, the part of which we think now, is that His mind was necessarily therefore the mind of grace and truth.

Therefore as He knew these things of the eternal order He also and necessarily knew the order of the eternal things. He knew the meaning of the Kingdom of God as to the principles of His government, and the consequent experience of its administration. To attempt to break this up into such statement as shall enable us to apprehend its suggestiveness is difficult, because practically we have seen so little of the realization of the Kingdom of God in human history, even though nineteen centuries have run their course since its principles were enunciated by Christ, and its beauty manifested in the revelation of His life. It is nevertheless a phrase which is full of music and full of meaning. In our growing apprehension of Christ, we are coming increasingly to understand it.

This, however, for the moment is not our theme, but rather insistence upon the fact that He knew perfectly the whole meaning of the rule of God, and therefore through all that was contrary to it, He saw the essential and eternal and glorious possibility. Here once more we may take the simplest of all illustrations, that of a single human life. When Christ looked at a man He saw everything that other men saw, but infinitely more. He knew what the Kingdom of God established in a human life really meant. He apprehended what the administration of the Kingship of God would mean in all the departments of human personality. That, as I have said, is but an illustration. Carry the thought out into the widest possible area, and it will be seen that Christ stood in the midst of discord, and was the more profoundly conscious of the discord because He heard perpetually the infinite harmony of the eternal music. In the midst of things sadly and awfully out of joint, He felt the pain and agony of it all, because He knew the power and glory of things articulate.

Perfectly acquainted with the deep things of God, the things of His truth and grace, the 146 Christian Principles chaos was the more awful to Him. The sob and the sigh and the sin in the midst of which He lived were the more terrible to Him because He heard the music of the Divine order sounding in infinite anthems through His Spirit. The mind of Christ was the comprehension of the deep things of God, the knowledge of the breadth and beauty and beneficence of the Kingdom of God. The apostle declares “ We have the mind of Christ,” and the statement is staggering and al most overwhelming. The only interpretation of it which brings anything like a sense of relief is that contained in a declaration which we have considered in a previous study, “ Christ in you, the Hope of glory.” Christ’s knowledge is at our disposal, and is ours experimentally in the measure in which we are true to Him, and able to comprehend. There are spacious values and far-reaching meanings, all of which were naked and open to His mind, which we cannot include within the clear consciousness of our finite conceptions. But we know that the things He knows are true, and the measure in which He has been able to interpret these to us is the measure in our minds of the Hope of glory. The mind of Christ is hope in the hour of despair, a song of victory in the midst of battle, a vision of the ultimate in the process of the travail. We turn now to the consideration of the mind of Christ in its exercise, suggested by the charge in the Philippian letter. In the passage already quoted the apostle gives us insight into Christ’s exercise of mind, by declaring the things resulting there from. As with subdued and reverent spirits we see Christ in answer to His mind, laying aside His glory, and stooping to the lowest level of human woe, we come to understand something of His mind exercise. The first consciousness created by such contemplation is that the mind of Christ in the presence of human sin and sorrow is exercised by a profound discontent, born of a vast content. The content of the mind of Christ was that of His perfect satisfaction with the order of the eternal things. That we may put in another way, more within the compass of our everyday speech.

Christ’s content of mind consisted of perfect rest in the will of God, of absolute conviction that that will is good and perfect and acceptable, of unquestioning certainty that if the Kingdom of God be established in a man, in society, in a nation, in a world, in a universe, therein is realized the highest and the noblest and the best. But such content issues necessarily in a profound and awful discontent with everything that is contrary to that good and perfect and acceptable will of God. The discontent is the agony of loyalty in the presence of anarchy, and it issues in a burning, consuming passion to correct all that which is contrary to grace and truth. This passion becomes a tremendous and irresistible impulse, driving the one in whom it burns out into strenuous grappling with the things which are against the Kingdom of God. That is the unveiling of the mind of Christ, given in the apostolic picture of the Passion of Christ 149 Philippian letter. The exercise of Christ’s mind is that of an overwhelming discontent, with all that is unlike God, born of a perfect content with the order of the Kingdom of God. A mind thus exercised inspires a life to the line of activity described in the passage. It is the activity of stripping off all the things of personal right and glory, of bending at infinite cost to sacrificial service, of suffering even death for the restoration of the true order of life. He emptied Himself, laying aside that which was His right in the mysterious and majestic relationships He bore to His Father, and taking upon Him the form of a servant, stooped still lower, passing principalities and powers, the unfallen servants, becoming man; and bending lower yet, shared his death, and that on its basest level, the death of the Cross. For ever flinging off the things of His own right, for ever serving, for ever stooping, for ever suffering, until He entered into a death grapple in the darkness with all the forces which are against the Divine order, and broke their power; until He had laid hold upon the central poison which had spoiled the Kingdom and neutralized it by the infinite pain of His passion. This was the mind of Christ, essentially a mind that knew the Divine order, and rejoiced therein, actively a mind in revolt against every thing which disturbed that order, and became the inspiration of service even to suffering, until the wrong was righted, and the way made for the restoration of the order. The mind of Christ in the exercise growing out of its essence, constituted His passion for the Kingdom of God. In order that we may understand what all this means to the Church as to responsibility, let us first recognize what it actually does mean experimentally as to resource. The first consciousness of the Christ life in the spirit of man is that of a profound content with the will of God. There takes possession of the entire being a sense of peace. That is invariably immediately succeeded by a new discontent. The content is due to the fact that the Christ illumined life has caught the vision of the things of the eternal order. This discontent is due to the fact that this vision of order reveals the tragedy of disorder. There is discontent with things in the personal life, in the home, in the city, in the nation, in the world, that are unlike the Kingdom of God. Such content and discontent demonstrate fellowship with the mind of Christ, the content resulting from His essential mind, and the discontent from His exercise of mind. The charge of the apostle, “ Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,” is a call to the exercises of mind which out of a great peace proceeds in a great war to ward the establishment of the ultimate peace. The Christian man is troubled and restless be cause he is not what he would be. This is the result of his vision of the beauty and the glory of Christ. That vision flashes its light upon all his own life, and gives him to know that there is territory not perfectly subdued to the Kingdom of God. Such consciousness creates a profound and restless discontent which issues in conflict through suffering in order to the establishment of the Kingdom. The more the Christian knows of the mind of Christ, the more he finds himself in hot and fierce rebellion against things in himself which are unlike Christ, — tones, and tempers, and territory, not yet under the perfect sway of the Kingship of God. That discontent is the first evidence of the activity of the mind of Christ in the believer.

That, however, issues invariably in a wider discontent, that namely with everything that is unsubdued in all the circles that surround the individual life. Discontent with things in the home, and in the circle of friendships, which are not submitted to His government. Discontent with everything in the city and in the nation in rebellion against the Kingdom of God.

If we would know what that means we are al ways safe if we take a little child and place it in the midst. The child is ever the key to civic and national life. Are we angry when we look at the slum in which the child has to live? If not, then at best we are but cultured pagans, even though we belong to some organized and visible church of Christ. If there is no hot anger in our hearts in the presence of the conditions in which children are born and live, even in so-called Christian lands, we lack the mind of Christ. Christ in the life, the Hope of glory, is also enemy of all the things which postpone the coming of the glory. And finally, taking the widest and most stupendous outlook of all. The mind of Christ in the believer produces discontent with every thing in the world which is unlike God, and contrary to His Kingdom. It does matter to Christ that people are living in the habitations of cruelty. It does matter to Christ that nations are yet without the knowledge of God which came to men through Him, and therefore have not only not entered into, but have not yet be gun to see the infinite beauty of the order of His Kingship. Does it matter to us? If this Christ life be in us, then our lives are characterized by perpetual restlessness in the presence of the world’s great need. But restlessness is not the ultimate. Discontent itself is of no avail. The restlessness must be curbed and harnessed for endeavour. The discontent must issue in stripping, serving, suffering. The Church of Christ, having the mind of Christ, is for evermore laying aside her own rights and privileges, stooping to sacrificial service, suffering even to death, in order that the Kingdom of this world may become the Kingdom of our God and His Christ.

If our eyes have seen the glory of the Kingdom, and we have the clear vision of the eternal order of things, then as we turn to look at things as they are in the world, at the sin, the shame, the suffering, the heart becomes hot and restless and angry. But that is useless save as the fire becomes a force driving us into the midst of all the disorder, to proclaim the evangel which will breathe new hope into the sad despairing heart of humanity; and to communicate the dynamic which will lift humanity out of the disorder into the peace and glory of the Kingdom of God. My last word as to responsibility has to do, not with the Philippian charge, but with the Corinthian declaration, “ We have the mind of Christ,” and mark the necessity for it. It is indeed quite fashionable to-day to declare that cultured humanity is independent of the Christian religion. It is constantly affirmed that men and women are now refined and beautiful, even though they have turned entirely from Christianity. How is it, it is asked, that so many people are cultured and refined and beautiful and patient and gentle even though they are not Christians? Let me ask another thing.

Having spoken of all that these people possess, what do they lack? They lack the sense of the necessity for worship, because they have lost the spiritual vision. Now that is the supreme tragedy of such life, not merely because human nature devoid of spiritual consciousness is blunted, but because the lack of spiritual vision means the absence of discontent in the presence of the sorrow and suffering of humanity. In place of it there is a content with things as they are, or that baser content, which declines to look upon suffering and sorrow. The content of those who live in the suburbs, and forget the slums; who live in luxury, and forget Lazarus; who command that no sackcloth shall be seen in the presence of the king, as did one of old. That is not Christianity. Christ’s mind brought Him to the slum, brought Him to the sorrow, brought Him to the sin, because it was the mind that knew ¦ the deep things of God. If we should have His exercise of mind, we must have His vision of the infinite and the spiritual. Our responsibility in this connection is that having His mind, we take time to know it.

There is nothing the Church needs to-day more than time for contemplation and meditation, in order to dedication. That I may more force fully apply this conviction to others, let me speak in the first person singular, with all honesty and sincerity. I am often appalled and affrighted in my own life, at the little time —

I will not say which I have, as though I would blame others — at the little time I make for contemplation and meditation. We cannot know any human face perfectly until we gaze upon it, and acquaint ourselves by contemplation with all the facts concerning it; and some of us have grown so busy that our knowledge of Christ is the occasional acquaintanceship with a face that often passes and repasses. God help us to sit down and look. The great word of the Hebrew letter is “ Consider Him.” If amid all the hurry and rush of service we will but take time to gaze in order to know, it will not be time wasted. When we rise from such contemplation the discontent will be more mighty because the vision is clearer, and the anger will be hotter against evil because the sense of God is acuter, and the compassion of the heart will be more tender because the sense of the Christ mind will be profounder. To have the mind of Christ in its essence and its exercise is to know no rest in the presence of sin and sorrow, until God’s day breaks, and His Kingdom is established.