5. The Analogy in Natural Life: Speaking of this analogy between the natural and spiritual worlds, in the matter of different kinds of life conforming to the type, Mr. Drummond says: (But before quoting let me call attention to what I have before said of using a variant phraseology on the part of Christian writers whose ideas, in part at least, we can accept, and the phraseology we of the new dispensation would use. I have said in subdivision 2 of this Lesson, that the idea of being born of the spirit may be put in various terms, in terms that have direct reference to the Holy Ghost, or terms may be used that refer to the Christ, or the Christ-life, it is in this last form that Mr. Drummond expresses the idea of the spirit-life in man):
"What goes on then in the animal kingdom is this—the bird-life seizes upon the bird-germ and builds it up into a bird, the image of itself. The reptile-life seizes upon another germinal speck, assimilates surrounding matter, and fashions it into a reptile. The reptile-life thus simply makes an incarnation of itself. The visible bird is simply an incarnation of the invisible bird-life.
"Now we are nearing the point where the spiritual analogy appears. It is a very wonderful analogy, so wonderful that one almost hesitates to put it into words. Yet Nature is reverent; and it is her voice to which we listen. These lower phenomena of life, she says, are but an allegory. There is another kind of life of which science as yet has taken little cognizance. It obeys the same laws. It builds up an organism into its own form. It is the Christ-life. As the bird-life builds up a bird, the image of itself, so the Christ-Life builds up a Christ, the image of Himself, in the inward nature of man. When a man becomes a Christian the natural process is this: The living Christ enters into his soul. Development begins. The quickening life seizes upon the soul, assimilates surrounding elements, and begins to fashion it. According to the great law of conformity to type this fashioning takes a specific form. It is that of the Artist who fashions. And all through life this wonderful, mystical, glorious, yet perfectly definite process, goes on "until Christ be formed" in it.
"The Christian life is not a vague effort after righteousness—an ill-defined pointless struggle for an ill-defined pointless end. Religion is no disheveled mass of aspiration, prayer, and faith. There is no more mystery in Religion as to its processes than in Biology. There is much mystery in Biology. We know all but nothing of life yet, nothing of development. There is the same mystery in the spiritual life. But the great lines are the same, as decided, as luminous; and the laws of natural and spiritual are the same as unerring, as simple. Will everything else in the natural world unfold its order, and yield to science more and more a vision of harmony, and religion, which should complement and perfect all, remain a chaos? From the standpoint of revelation no truth is more obscure than conformity to type. If science can furnish a companion phenomenon from an every-day process of the natural life, it may at least throw this most mystical doctrine of Christianity into thinkable form. Is there any fallacy in speaking of the embryology of the new life? Is the analogy invalid? Are there not vital processes in the spiritual as well as in the natural world? The bird being an incarnation of the bird-life, may not the Christian be a spiritual incarnation of the Christ-life? And is there not a real justification in the processes of the new birth for such a parallel?
"Let us appeal to the record of these processes.
"In what terms does the New Testament describe them? The answer is sufficiently striking. It uses everywhere the language of biology. It is impossible that the New Testament writers should have been familiar with these biological facts. It is impossible that their views of this great truth should have been as clear as science can make them now. But they had no alternative. There was no other way of expressing this truth. It was a biological question. So they struck out unhesitatingly into the new field of words, and, with an originality which commands both reverence and surprise, stated their truth with such light, or darkness, as they had. They did not mean to be scientific, only to be accurate, and their fearless accuracy has made them scientific.
"What could be more original, for instance, than the Apostle's reiteration that the Christian was a new creature, a new man, a babe? Or that this new man was "begotten of God," God's workmanship? And what could be a more accurate expression of the law of conformity to type than this: 'Put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him?' Or this, 'we are changed into the same image from glory to glory?' And elsewhere we are expressly told by the same writer that this conformity is the end and goal of the Christian life. To work this type in us is the whole purpose of God for man. 'Whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.'"[A]
[Footnote A: "Natural Law in the Spiritual World," pp. 293-6.]
6. The End of the Matter—We Shall Be Like Him—Conformed to the Divine Image: That is the end then, for the spiritually born man—he will be conformed into the image of God—conformed to the type of the Spirit-life that has taken up his abode in him. How long shall it take? Who knows? And what shall it matter? The important thing is that it shall be done. The important thing for us men is that the spirit-birth takes place; that union with God be formed; the ages may wait upon the growth, and full fruitage of that event. It may take aeons of time to make a man, longer to make Super-man; but the eternal years are his who is born of the Spirit; and again I say the important thing for us men is to have that Spirit-birth, and then are we sons of God; and while it doth hot appear what we shall be, for the height and glory of that is beyond our human vision, ultimately we shall be like him, and see him as he is, and be conformed to the Christ image, that is to say, to the Divine nature—unless one shall sin against the Holy Ghost.