In each preceding step in the evolution of man the unfolding of the physical basis of life was from below, but the life itself was from above, never from below. Scientists are now practically unanimous in saying that, “There is not a scintilla of evidence that the inorganic or mineral world has ever evolved a plant life.” “To the scientist,” says Darwin, “it is a hopeless inquiry as to how life originated.” “Life from an egg,” is still the latest dictum of science; that is, life only from life.[C] Each of the successive steps or kingdoms has had its type-life. The plant—that is, the physical basis of the plant life—came from the inorganic matter; the animal—that is, the physical basis of the animal life—came from the plant and through the plant from the mineral kingdom; the natural man—that is, the physical basis of the life of the natural man—came from the animal and the kingdoms below it; the spiritual man—that is, the physical basis of the life of the spiritual man—comes from the natural man and the kingdoms below him.
The development from kingdom to kingdom was a natural unfolding; yet the new creature of the next higher order always came through a new birth—a double birth: (1) the birth of the new type-life of the next higher kingdom into the evolutionary order of nature, through the hereditary chain; and (2) the birth of each individual into this type-life.
None of the previous transitions from a lower to a higher kingdom has taken place within historic times. The cradle at Bethlehem flashes a searchlight down the spiral stairway up which man has come from platform to platform, kingdom to kingdom. Here at last we see that the type-life of the kingdom of the spiritual man is born from above into the hereditary chain of evolution. Many times, and in many ways, He declares I am “from above.” He is born a natural man, and yet possesses the life of the kingdom next higher, and proceeds to lift the natural man by a new birth into the kingdom of the spiritual man. He is born the son of man and the son of God, bridging the chasm with His own being.
Again and again He says, “I am the life”; “I have come that ye may have life”; except ye partake of Me “ye have no life in you.” He calls Himself the “bread of life,” “the water of life.” This would all be meaningless were Christ talking about the life of the kingdom of the natural man which all now have and have had.
As the spiritual type-life lifts the natural man into the spiritual kingdom, so the type-life of the natural man lifted the animal into the kingdom of the natural man, and the animal type-life lifted the vegetable, and the vegetable type-life lifted the mineral.
There is no break in the golden thread that runs through all this series of development from the mineral world up to the new creature in Christ Jesus. There is nothing in this last development contrary to nature; it follows along exactly the same laws of natural unfoldment as did the other kingdoms. The law of continuity holds.[D] Christ is born really into the kingdom of the natural man, and the natural man is born into the spiritual kingdom, through Christ, the type-life. In this last stage of man’s ascent, as in the previous ones, nature makes “no leap.” Think not, says Christ, “that I have come to destroy the law; I have not come to destroy, but to fulfil”; I have come to carry on My work in harmony with the processes of the universe. What is law but the method that the immanent God, everywhere and forever, pursues in His work? True, segments of the circle He follows are easily out of the reach of our vision. Huxley tells us that he has no doubt that even on the physical plane, most important work is being done far beyond the reach of the most powerful microscope. He might have said, and kept easily within bounds, the most important work.
The crystal is matter plus the principle of crystallization; so the plant, the animal, the natural man—always the creature of the kingdom below with the plus sign, for a birth is an unfoldment and something more. And so, the Christ life takes the character, the soul, the spirit of the natural man, which have developed through the ages—takes them through a new birth, this time with man’s consent. “Marvel not that I say unto you, ye must be born again.” “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born from above he can not see the kingdom of God” (John iii. 3). Ye are “babes in Christ,” “Ye are new creatures.” We become heirs “of God through Christ,” crying “Abba, Father.” “In love’s hour Eternal Love conceives in us the child of God” through the spiritual type-life Christ Jesus.
Christ could not have been more explicit or more scientifically exact in declaring Himself the type-life of the spiritual man. “I am the door,” “the way,” “the life”; “no man can come to the Father but by Me.” “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life”; he may be a Cæsar leading armies against Pompey, or a Cicero declaiming his matchless orations against Cataline, and yet be dead.
In the inspired picture-history of creation, an Adam is the type-life of the kingdom of the natural man; in the New Testament, Christ is presented in every way as the type-life of the kingdom of the spiritual man. “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual” (1 Cor. xv. 45, 46).