As a prospector seeks for gold, I sought in the Old Testament for God in the life of man and did not find Him; but no sooner had I reached the New Testament than all was changed. Here was a new country. The prospector was in the midst of that for which he sought. No mountain was ever as rich in gold as the human heart, according to the New Testament, was rich with the indwelling God.
The religion of Jesus in contrast with that of the prophets is like a tree, which Luther Burbank has transformed into a new variety bearing strange and luscious fruit. I wondered that I had overlooked for so long a time the complete cleavage between the two parts of our Bible on this subject. Jesus was truly a Jewish reformer, but to a much greater degree He was a Jewish fulfiller. In revealing God's true oneness with man He completed the prophet's imperfect religious vision, and best of all, made the vision a fact in His own experience. At the same time He began making it a reality in the experience of His disciples.
I told the friend who in a previous meeting had stripped Jesus of all His divinity, that he had very successfully demolished some antiquated psychology, but strange to say had completely overlooked the new psychology which, in my opinion, fully restored Christ's divinity. As to his statement that "Jesus was a good man only," I reminded him that there is no such being. For, each one of us, in so far as he is "only," is a bad man. It requires the oneness of God and man to make a good man. When a human soul is separated from God, he ceases to be a complete person. God and the true self always come or go together; in order to be a human soul, in any worthy sense, one must be both God and man in one. A man severed from God is but the fragment of a man, a limb broken from the tree, a lifeless branch. To touch the living branch of a tree is to touch the tree. The fruit of the branch is likewise the fruit of the tree. That any person can be a "good man only," is an idea contrary to the New Testament and modern psychology.
4. Can modern psychology any longer believe in the Deity of Jesus?
The Scriptures certainly do not teach that Jesus was God only; neither do they teach that He was man only. It is my own deepest conviction that Jesus was very God and very man. Furthermore, I believe this to be the teaching of the Scriptures, and the idea that best conforms to modern psychology. To come to Jesus is to come to God; likewise to come to God is to come to Jesus. He is at once God in man, and man in God. I believe in the God of Jesus, and I believe in the Jesus of God. How modern psychology can avoid believing in both the deity and humanity of Jesus, I do not see. Some who believe in Christ's divinity do not believe in His deity. They say, "Yes, He is divine, He is incomparable, He is altogether lovely; but He is not Deity, because Deity is God Himself." But my thesis is that Jesus was "very God and very man."
To picture this truth to our minds will be our next task. An old-time friend, while reporting to me the installation of a minister whom I knew, said:
"Would you believe it! Mr. G. told the council that he not only believed in the divinity, but that he believed in the Deity of Jesus." Here my friend threw his head back and laughed heartily, expecting me to laugh with him. When he had finished laughing, I told him that I also believed in the deity as well as in the humanity of Jesus; and that if I did not believe in His deity I did not think I should believe in any religion at all. This proved to be quite a surprise to my friend. So to his puzzled look of inquiry I replied:
"And I could make you believe it." As his curiosity deepened at this remark, I asked him,
"Do you know where I first met God—not an emanation from Him, but God; the Will that formed the worlds,—all the God there is?" "No," was his reply. "Fortunately," I answered, "I do. It was in my mother. When I was a little boy the great God at times enfolded me in human arms, and looked into my face through benignant, human eyes, and spoke tender words with a sweet accent. My silent and invisible mother was often so closely identified with God that they would be thinking and feeling the same thing concerning me. At such times the human form expressed their common thought and love; my heavenly Father, no less than my invisible mother, enfolded me with His arms. If in these supreme moments God was not in my mother, then it is useless to look for Him anywhere in the Universe. My mother was different from the non-Christian mothers in our rough frontier. Many times she so loved me in God, and with God, that she became a channel through which God Himself had personal access to me through all the human modes of approach."
I then told my friend of an experience with my mother at church in the little frontier schoolhouse. I was lying on the seat with my head in her lap, tickling my nose with her boa. When the time came for prayers, my mother bowed her head to the desk in front of her. While her lips moved in prayer, I observed that her dear face was troubled. As she was unconscious of my gaze, I continued to look into her sorrowful face. Though but a little child, I fully understood what she was doing, and was able to mark the stages of her progress. My invisible mother was talking with our invisible Father, and the face gradually changed until finally I could tell that her will had merged completely with His will; and then her face, which was primarily His face, became radiant with spiritual beauty. I had seen the dear human face of God, and at the same time it was the face of my mother.