Thus do we see that from whatever side we come to the teaching of Christ, we find an exalted doctrine of man. The incarnation itself is a contribution to that doctrine. If we call it “the human life of God” it was a life lived for the sake of man. The Word became flesh and dwelt among men, full of grace and truth, because men needed the message of that Word. The whole life of Jesus was lived for man. He himself said, “For their sakes I sanctify myself.” All those sacrificial phrases that describe the purpose of his coming add glory to human life. The joy that was set before him was the goal of a redeemed humanity. His living for men was simply his teaching about men, made over into concrete terms. In the Parable of the Good Shepherd he gives the revelation of his own attitude toward men. One soul, brought back into right relations with God, makes joy in heaven. It is the Eternal One who is represented as saying, “Rejoice with me.” Men may deny the doctrine of the only begotten Son, but they can scarcely deny that that doctrine leads on to a wondrous doctrine of human worth.
The Cross, viewed in one light, becomes the very climax of the doctrine of man. Theologians have often laid their stress upon some single purpose of the divine sacrifice. One has said that the Cross appeases the anger of God; another that the Cross maintains the majesty of the law; another that the Cross is a moral influence wooing and winning the heart of man to God; another that the Cross is the expression of the Father’s sorrow with the sins and sorrows of his children. But we may surely take one meaning of the Cross to be the divine estimate of man. God’s sense of values must be preserved. He did not send his Son to die for worms of the dust. That idea may fit an extreme mood of spiritual abasement. We may grant all possible condescension in the atoning act of God, but we cannot grant a condescension that dedicates infinite worth to finite worthlessness. Jesus died for men just because men were far more than worms of the dust. If we are to keep that theory of atonement that has long held the heart of the church, we are driven to affirm that the Cross gives us a divine estimate of mankind. No man ever appreciates the worth of himself until he gets the appraisal of Calvary. The dying of Jesus is not out of harmony with his teaching and his living. The whole program is like the garment taken from him on the day of crucifixion; it is woven throughout without seam. Men may decry a doctrine of substitution, but they cannot say that such a doctrine is a slight tribute to human worth. In such a doctrine thorns and nails and spears and all the drama of the Cross are made into tributes to the soul of man.
This carries us on to the biblical teaching of man’s permanent worth. The doctrine of immortality makes its incalculable addition to the doctrine of man. There is a story, for which the writer cannot vouch, that Thomas Carlyle in a mood of pessimism one day wrote this peevish estimate of man:
What is man? A foolish baby!
Vainly strives and fumes and frets!
Demanding all, deserving nothing,
One small grave is all he gets!
Language like this is certainly no contribution to the literature of self-respect. The story proceeds to relate that Carlyle’s wife found this poetic depreciation lying on the table, and that she wrote the following confession and correction:
And man? O hate not, nor despise
The fairest, lordliest work of God!
Think not he made thee good and wise
Only to sleep beneath the sod!
Doubtless the tale is apocryphal. In any case the latter estimate is far nearer to the biblical conception, and it is altogether worthy of a woman’s moral instinct. If man is to live forever, as the climax of Revelation insists, it is quite impossible for him to “think too much” of himself, unless he indulges in comparison of himself with others. An argument for immortality does not fall within the scope of this lecture; but the bearing of immortality, as declared in the Holy Scriptures, on the view that men must take of human nature, touches our purpose in a radical way. A deathless person must respect himself. A deathless person must command the respect of a world—and of God. The doctrine of immortality adds an infinite measure to the doctrine of human worth.
Even the biblical representation of heaven secures a relation to this subject. The abode for immortal life, as well as immortal life itself, may be turned into a human estimate. The book of Revelation declares that the nations shall bring “their glory and honor” into the Eternal City. This can only mean that men shall make some contribution to the eternal life. What they are and what they have done shall fill heaven with added value. The cities of earth shall transport treasures to the Heavenly City. Here, again, we come upon a reason based on the divine sense of values. God will not provide an Eternal Home that is any better than the Eternal Beings for whom he makes it ready. The gem is to be better than the setting. In a certain sense, therefore, jasper walls and pearl gates and gold streets, as seen in the descriptions of heaven, are tributes to human souls. The Bible tells us that “greater than the house is he that built it,” and the Bible would tell us, also, that the occupant of the house is greater than the house. God will provide no everlasting dwelling that is better than the everlasting dwellers. Heaven is made for man, and not man for heaven. The many mansions are tributes to the people that shall live in the Father’s house. The Scriptures are reserved in their revealings of the other land; but their descriptions of celestial glories may be united with those other portions of the Bible that dignify the human spirit and may be taken as standing for the divine valuation of the essential selves of men.
This review of the teaching of the several sections of the Bible has confessedly sought for the words and ideas that exalt the doctrine of man. Allowing all possible discounts, and admitting all possible offsets, the residuum of instruction tending to glorify human nature is significant. We need not wonder that some thoughtful men have affirmed that the chief characteristic of Christianity is the value that it places on man. If we do not accept this statement, we can still declare that the Bible is the supreme Book when judged by its emphasis on human values.
Nor can there be any doubt of the need of this emphasis in our own age. As men crowd more and more into the great centers of population, the tendency will be to hold men cheaply. In former times man was often highly valued because of his rarity. On the far Eastern plains a new face, not being often seen, was regarded with curious interest. Thus Abraham stood in the door of his tent in the heat of the day and welcomed the stranger, because the stranger was an event. But in the modern city the stranger is no longer an event; he is only an episode, or perhaps an incident. We pass him on the dense street, and we do not notice him at all. There are so many of him that, unless we are heedful, we shall come to regard him lightly just because he is hidden by the crowd. When factories grow so huge that men are known, not by their names, but by their numbers, only the scriptural emphasis upon men as such can save human beings from being deemed “hands” rather than souls. If the sin of the countryside is an excessive social interest that makes for gossip, the sin of the city is a social carelessness that makes for indifference. The various problems of our social life wait for their solution upon the Christian doctrine of man. When that doctrine has done its full service, race problems, labor problems, liquor problems, and all their dreadful accompaniments will issue into a righteous and intelligent peace. An immortal son of God, knowing himself, cannot be unjust to another immortal son of God, when once he knows his Brother.