Christianity and Ethics: A Handbook of Christian Ethics

by Archibald B. D. Alexander

CHAPTER IX

THE STANDARD AND MOTIVE OF THE NEW LIFE

In every system of Ethics the three ideas of End, Norm, and Motive are inseparable. Christian Ethics is unique in this respect that it presents not merely a code of morals, but an ideal of good embodied in a person who is at once the pattern and inspiration of the new life. In this chapter we propose to consider these two elements of the good.

Christ as Example.—The value of 'concrete examples' has been frequently recognised in non-Christian systems. In the 'philosopher king' of Plato, the 'expert' of Aristotle, and the 'wise man' of the Stoics we have the imaginary embodiment of the ideal. A similar tendency is apparent in modern theories. Comte invests the abstract idea of 'Humanity' with certain personal perfections for which he claims homage. But what other systems have conceived in an imaginative form only, Christianity has realised in an actual person.

The example of Christ is not a separate source of authority independent of His teaching, but rather its witness and illustration. Word and deed in Jesus are in full agreement. He was what He taught, and every truth He uttered flowed directly from His inner nature. He is the prototype and expression of the 'good' as it exists in the mind of God, as well as the perfect representative and standard of it in human life. In Him is manifested for all time what is meant by the good.

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1. If Christ is the normative standard of life it is extremely important to obtain a true perception of Him as He dwelt among men. But too often have theology and art presented a Christ embellished with fantastic colours or obscured by abstract speculations. Recently, however, there has been a revival of interest in the actual life of Jesus. Men are turning wistfully to the life of the Master for guidance in practical matters, and it is beginning to dawn upon the world that the highest ideals of manhood were present in the Carpenter of Nazareth. We must therefore go back to the Gospels if we would know what manner of man Jesus was. The difficulty of presenting the Man Christ Jesus as the eternal example to the world must have been almost insurmountable; and we are at once struck with two remarkable features of the synoptics' portrayal of Him. (1) The writers make no attempt to produce a work of art. They never dream that they are drawing a model for all men to copy. There is no effort to touch up or tone down the portrait. They simply reflect what they see without admixture of colours of their own. Hence the paradox of His personality—the intense humanness and yet the mystery of godliness ever and anon shining through the commonest incidents of His life. (2) Even more remarkable than the absence of subjectivity on the part of the evangelists is the unconsciousness of Jesus that He is being portrayed as an example. We do not receive the impression that the Son of Man was consciously living for the edification of the world. His mental attitude is not that of an actor playing a part, but of a true and genuine man living his own life and fulfilling his own purpose. There is no seeming or display. Goodness to be effectual as an example must be unconscious goodness. We are impressed everywhere with the perfect naturalness and spontaneity of all that Christ did and uttered.[1]

The character of Jesus has been variously interpreted, and it is one of the evidences of His moral greatness that each age has emphasised some new aspect of His {148} personality. In a nature so rich and complex it is difficult to fix upon a single category from which may be deduced the manifold attributes of His character. Two conceptions of Jesus have generally prevailed down the centuries. One view interprets His character in terms of asceticism; the other in terms of aestheticism.[2] Some regard Him as the representative of Hebrew sorrow and sacrifice; others see in Him the type of Hellenic joy and geniality. There are passages in Scripture confirmatory of both impressions. On the one hand, there is a whole series of virtues of the passive order which are utterly alien to the Greek ideal; and, on the other hand, there is equally prominent a tone of tranquil gladness, of broad sympathy with, and keen appreciation of, the beautiful in nature and life which contrasts with the spirit of Hebrew abnegation. But, after all, neither of these traits reveals the secret of Jesus. Joy and sorrow are but incidents in life. They have only moral value as the vehicles of a profounder spiritual purpose. To help every man to realise the fullness and perfection of his being as a child of God is the aim of His life and ministry, and everything that furthers this end is gratefully recognised by Him as a good. He neither courts nor shuns pain. Neither joy nor sorrow is for Him an end in itself. Both are but incidents upon the way of holiness and love which He had chosen to travel.

2. Everywhere there was manifest in the life and teaching of Jesus a note of self-mastery and authority which impressed His contemporaries and goes far to explain and unify the various features of His personality and influence. It is remarkable to notice how often the word 'power' is applied to Jesus in the New Testament.[3] Whether we regard His attitude to God, or His relation to others, it is this note of quiet strength, of vital moral force which arrests our attention. It will be sufficient to mention in passing three directions in which this quality of power is manifest.

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(1) It is revealed in the consciousness of a divine mission. He goes steadily forward with the calmness of one who knows himself and his work. He has no fear or hesitancy. Courage, earnestness, and singleness of purpose mark His career. He is conscious that His task has been given Him by God, and that He is the chosen instrument of His Father's will. Life has a greatness and worth for Him because it may be made the manifestation and vehicle of the divine purpose.

(2) His power is revealed again in the realisation of Holiness. Holiness is to be differentiated, on the one hand, from innocence; and, on the other, from sinlessness. Innocence is untried goodness; sinlessness is negative goodness; holiness is achieved and victorious goodness. It was not mere absence of sin that distinguished Jesus. His was a purity won by temptation, an obedience perfected through suffering, a peace and harmony of soul attained not by self-suppression, but by the consecration of His unfolding life to the will of God.

(3) His power is manifested once more in His Sympathy with man. His purity was pervasive. It flowed forth in acts of love. He went about doing good, invading the world of darkness and sorrow with light and joy. It is the wealth of His interests and the variety of His sympathy which give to the ministry of the Son of Man its impressiveness and charm. With gladness as with grief, with the playfulness of childhood and the earnestness of maturity, with the innocent festivities and the graver pursuits of His fellow-men, with the cares of the rich and the trials of the poor, He disclosed the most intimate and tender feeling. His parables show that He had an open and observant eye for all the life around Him. To every appeal He responded with an insight and delicacy of consideration which betokened that He Himself had sounded the depths of human experience and knew what was in man. Humour, irony, and pathos in turn are revealed in His human intercourse.

But while Jesus delighted to give of Himself freely He knew also how to withhold Himself. There can be no true {150} sympathy without restraint. The passive virtues—meekness, patience, forbearance—which appear in the life of Christ are 'not the signs of mere self-mortification, they are the signs of power in reserve. They are the marks of one who can afford to wait, who expects to suffer; and that not because he is simply meek and lowly, but because he is also strong and calm.'[4]

The New Testament depicts Jesus as made in the likeness of men, whose life, though unique in some of its aspects, was in its general conditions normal, passing through the ordinary stages of growth, and participating in the common experiences of mankind. He had to submit to the same laws and limitations of the universe as we have. There was the same call, in His case as in ours, to obedience and endurance. There was the same demand for moral decision. Temptation, suffering, and toil, which mean so much for man in the discipline of character, were factors also in the spiritual development of Christ. Trust, prayer, thanksgiving were exercised by the Son of Man as by others; confession alone had no place in His life.

3. The question has been seriously asked, Can the example and teaching of Jesus be really adopted in modern life as the pattern and rule of conduct? Is there not something strangely impracticable in His Ethics; and, however admirably suited to meet the needs of His own time, utterly inapplicable to the complex conditions of society to-day? On the one hand, Tolstoy would have us follow the example of Jesus to the letter, and rigidly practise the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, even to the extent of refusing to resist wrong and possess property, and of holding aloof from all culture and enterprise, and the interests of life generally. On the other hand, philosophers like Paulsen and Bradley, perceiving the utter impracticableness of Tolstoy's contentions, yet at the same time recognising his attitude as the only consistent one if the imitation of Christ is to have vogue at all, are convinced that the earthly life of Jesus is not the model of our {161} age, and that to attempt to carry out His precepts consistently would be not only impossible but injurious to all the higher interests of humanity.[5]

But this conclusion is based, it seems to us, upon a two-fold misapprehension. It is founded upon an inadequate interpretation of the life and teaching of Christ; and also upon a wholly mechanical understanding of the meaning and value of example.

(1) What was Christ's ideal of the Christian life? Was it that of the monk or the citizen?—the recluse who meditates apart on his own salvation, or the worker who enters the world and contributes to the betterment of mankind? Is the kingdom of God a realm apart and separate from all the other domains of activity? Or has Christianity, according to its essence, room within it for an application of its truth to the complex relations and manifold interests of modern life? Both views have found expression in the history of the Church. But there can be little doubt as to which is the true interpretation of the mind of Jesus.[6]

(2) But, again, what is meant by the 'imitation of Christ' has been also misconceived. Imitation is not a literal mechanical copying. To make the character of another your model does not mean that you are to become his mimic or echo. In asking us to follow Him, Christ does not desire to suppress our individuality, but to enrich and ennoble it. When He says, on the occasion of the feet-washing of His disciples, 'I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you,'[7] obviously it was not the outward literal performance, but the spirit of humility and service embodied in the act which He desired His disciples to emulate. From another soul we receive incentives rather than rules. No teacher or master, says Emerson, can {152} realise for us what is good.[8] Within our own souls alone can the decision be made. We cannot hope to interpret the character of another until there be within our own breasts the same moral spirit from which we believe his conduct to proceed. The very nature of goodness forbids slavish reproduction. Hence there is a certain sense in which the paradox of Kant is true, that 'imitation finds no place at all in morality.'[9] The question, 'What would Jesus do?' as a test of conduct covers a quite inadequate conception of the intimate and vital relations Christ bears to our humanity. 'It is not to copy after Christ,' says a modern writer, 'but to receive His spirit and make it effective—which is the moral task of the Christian.'[10] Christ is indeed our example, but He is more. And unless He were more He could not be so much. We could not strive to be like Him if He were not already within us, the Principle and Spirit of our life, the higher and diviner self of every man.

What is meant, then, by saying that Christ is the ideal character or norm of life is that He represents to us human nature in its typical or ideal form. As we behold His perfection we feel that this is what we were made for, this is the true end of our being. Every one may, in short, see in Him the fulfilment of the divine idea and purpose of man—the conception and end of himself.[11]