The chief good may be regarded finally in its divine aspect—as the endeavour after God-likeness. In this third form of the ideal the two others—the personal and the social—are harmonised and completed. To realise the perfect life as it is revealed in the character and will of God is the supreme aim of man, and it embraces all that is conceivably highest for the individual and for humanity as a whole. This aspiration finds its most explicit expression in the sublime word of Christ—'Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.'[41] This commandment, unlike so many generalisations of duty, is no cold abstraction. It is pervaded with the warmth of personality and the inspiration of love. In the idea of Fatherhood both a standard and motive are implied. Because God is our Father it is at once natural and possible for us to be like Him. He who would imitate another must have already within him something of that other. As there is a community of nature which makes it possible for the child to grow into the likeness of its parent, so there is a kinship in man with God to which our Lord here appeals.
1. Among the ethical qualities of divine perfection set forth in scripture for man's imitation Holiness stands preeminent. God, the perfect being, is the type of holiness, and men are holy in proportion as their lives are Godlike. This conception of holiness is fundamental in the Old Testament. It is summed up in a command almost identical with that of our Lord: 'Be ye holy, for I am holy.'[42] Holiness, as Christianity understands it, is the name for the undimmed lustre of God's ethical perfection. God is 'the Holy one'—the alone 'good' in the absolute sense.[43]
If God's character consists in 'Holiness,' then that quality determines the moral end of man. But holiness, as the most comprehensive name for the divine moral perfection—the pure white light of God's Being—breaks up into the {142} separate rays which we designate the special moral attributes. These have been grouped under 'Righteousness' (truth, faithfulness, justice, zeal, etc.), and 'Love' (goodness, pity, mercy, etc.), though they are really but expressions of one individual life.[44]
2. In the New Testament Righteousness is almost equivalent to holiness. It is the attribute of God which determines the nature of His kingdom and the condition of man's entrance into it. As comprising obedience to the will of God and the fulfilment of the moral law, it is the basal and central conception of the Christian ideal.[45] It is the keynote of the Pauline Epistles. Life has a supreme sacredness for Paul because the righteousness of God is its end. While righteousness is the distinctive note of the Pauline conception, it is also fundamental in the Ethics of Jesus. It is the ruling thought in the Sermon on the Mount. To be righteous for Jesus simply means to be right and true—to be as one ought to be. But human standards are insufficient. A man must order his life by the divine standard. Jesus is as emphatic as any Old Testament prophet in insisting upon the need of absolute righteousness. That, for all who would share in the kingdom of the good, is to be their ideal—the object of their hunger and thirst. It is a 'good' which is essential to the very satisfaction and blessedness of the soul.[46] It is the supreme desire of the man who would be at peace with God. It involves poverty of spirit, for only those who are emptied of self are conscious of their need. They who, in humility and meekness, acknowledge their sins, are in the way of holiness and are already partakers of the divine nature.
Christ's teaching in regard to righteousness has both a negative and a positive aspect. It was inevitable that He should begin with a criticism of the morality inculcated by the leaders of His day. The characteristic feature of Pharisaism was, as Christ shows, its externalism. If a man fulfilled the outward requirements of the law he was {143} regarded as holy, by himself and others, whatever might be the state of his heart towards God. This outwardness tended to create certain vices of character. Foremost amongst these were (1) Vanity or Ostentation. To appear well in the opinion of others was the aim of pharisaic conduct. Along with ostentation appears (2) Self-complacency. Flattery leads to self-esteem. He who loves the praise of man naturally begins to praise himself. As a result of self-esteem arises (3) Censoriousness, since he who thinks well of himself is apt to think ill of others. As a system Pharisaism was wanton hypocrisy—a character of seeming righteousness, but too often of real viciousness.
But Christ came not to destroy but to fulfil the law.[47] His aim was to proclaim the true principles of righteousness in contrast to the current notions of it. This He proceeds to do by issuing the law in its ideal and perfected form.[48] Hence Jesus unfolds its positive content by bringing into prominence the virtues of the godly character as opposed to the pharisaic vices. Modesty and humility are set over against ostentation and self-righteousness.[49] Single-minded sincerity is commended in opposition to hypocrisy.[50] The vice of censoriousness is met by the duty of self-judgment rather than the judgment of others.[51]
The two positive features of the new law of righteousness as expounded by Jesus are—inwardness and spontaneity. The righteousness of the Gospel, so far from being laxer or easier of fulfilment, was actually to exceed that of the Pharisees:[52] (a) in depth and inwardness. It is not enough not to kill or steal or commit adultery. These commandments may be outwardly kept yet inwardly broken. Something more radical is expected of the man who has set before him the doing of God's will, a righteousness not of appearance but of reality. (b) In freedom and spontaneity. It is to have its spring in the heart. It is to be a righteousness not of servile obedience, but of willing devotion. The aim of life is no longer the painful effort of the bondsman who {144} strives to perform a distasteful task, but the gladsome endeavour of the son who knows and does, because he loves, his father's will. In the Ethics of the Christian life there is no such thing as mere duty; for a man never fulfils his duty till he has done more than is legally required of him. 'Whosoever shall compel you to go with him one mile, go with him twain.'[53] The 'nicely calculated less or more' is alien to the spirit of him who would do God's will. Love is the fulfilling of the law, and love knows nothing of limits.
3. Thus the holiness of God is manifested not in righteousness only, but in the attribute of Love. The human mind can attain to no higher conception of the divine character than that which the word 'love' suggests. The thought is the creation of Christianity. It was the special contribution of one of the innermost circle of Jesus' disciples to give utterance to the new vision of the divine nature which Christ had disclosed—'God is love.'[54] In our Lord's teaching the centre of gravity is entirely changed. The Jewish idea of God is enriched with a fuller content. He is still the Holy One, but the sublimity of His righteousness, though fully recognised, is softened by the gentler radiance of love.[55] Jehovah the Sovereign is revealed as God the Father. Divine righteousness is not simply justice, but goodness manifested in far-reaching activities of mercy and pity and benevolence. A new note is struck in the Ethics of Jesus. A new relationship is established between God and man—a personal filial relationship which entirely alters man's conception of life. To be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, to be, and embody in life all that love means, that is the sublime aim which Jesus in His own person and teaching sets before the world. As God's love is universal, and His care and compassion world-wide, so, says Christ, not by retaliation or even by the performance of strict justice, but in loving your enemies, in returning good for evil and extending your acts of helpfulness and charity to those 'who know not, care not, think {145} not, what they do,' shall ye become the children of your Father, and realise something of that divine pattern of every man which has been shown him on the holy mount.
If the view presented in this chapter of the ethical ideal of Christianity be correct, then the doctrine of an Interims-ethik advocated by modern eschatologists must be pronounced unsatisfactory as a complete account of the teaching of Jesus.[56] The three features which stand out most clearly in the Ethics of Christ are, Absoluteness, Inwardness, and Universality. It is an ideal for man as man, for all time, and for all men. The personality of God represents the highest form of existence we know; and the love of God is the sublimest attribute we can conceive. But because God is our Father there is a kinship between the divine and the human; and no higher or grander vision of life is thinkable than to be like God—to share that which is most distinctive of the divine Fatherhood—His love of all mankind. Hence Godlikeness involves Brotherhood.[57] In the ideal of love—high as God, broad as the world—the other aspects of the chief good, the individual and the social, are harmonised. In Christian Ethics, the problem of philosophy how to unite the one and the many, egoism and altruism, has been practically solved. The individual realises his life only as he finds himself in others; and this he can only do as he finds himself in God. The first and last word of all morality and religion is summed up in Christ's twofold law of love: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.'[58]
[1] Cf. Troeltsch, Die Sociallehren d. Christl. Kirchen, vol. i. p. 37, where the idea of self-worth and self-consecration is worked out.