[30] See also Eph. vi. 5-8; 1 Cor. iii. 14; Rom. v. 2-5, vi. 23, viii. 16.
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CHAPTER X
THE DYNAMIC OF THE NEW LIFE
In the dynamic power of the new life we reach the central and distinguishing feature of Christian Ethics. The uniqueness of Christianity consists in its mode of dealing with a problem which all non-Christian systems have tended to ignore—the problem of translating the ideal into life. The Gospel not only sets before men the highest good, but it imparts the secret of realising it. The ideals of the ancients were but visions of perfection. They had no objective reality. Beautiful as these old-time visions of 'Good' were, they lacked impelling force, the power to change dreams into realities. They were helpless in the face of the great fact of sin. They could suggest no remedy for moral disease.
Christianity is not a philosophical dream nor the imagination of a few visionaries. It claims to be a new creative force, a power communicated and received, to be worked out and realised in the actual life and character of common men and women.
In this chapter we have to consider the means whereby man is brought into a new spiritual relation with God, and enabled to live the new life as it has been revealed in Christ. This reconciliation implies a twofold movement—a redemptive action on God's part, and an appropriating and determinative response on the part of man.
I
THE DIVINE POWER
The urgent problem of the New Testament writers was, How can man achieve that good which has been embodied {165} in the life and example of Jesus Christ? A full answer to this question would lead us into the realm of dogmatic theology. And therefore, without entering upon details, it may be said at once that the originality of the Gospel lies in this, that it not only reveals the good in a concrete and living form, but discloses the power which makes the good possible in the hitherto unattempted derivation of the new life from a new birth under the influence of the spirit of God. The power to achieve the moral life does not lie in the natural man. No readjustment of circumstances, nor spread of knowledge, is of itself equal to the task of creating that entirely new phenomenon—the Christian character. There must be a cause proportionate to the effect. 'Nothing availeth,' says Paul, 'but a new creature.' This new condition owes its origin to God. It is a life communicated by an act of divine creative activity.