Taking the world as it is, the presence of God in humanity could but bring both peace and trouble; it brought joy to the pure in heart, and bitter hatred and strife to those who loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. The weary and the noble were attracted to Jesus, while the vicious and the self-willed hurled themselves against Him with mad fury; but it was ever so, from the beginning of human history until the present hour. Whenever God has made His approach in human life, the evil-in-heart have opposed Him; they have killed the prophets, and stoned God when He came unto them. In our own day, many who speak beautifully of God in nature, are fiercely angry with Him when He appears among them in a good man; they are willing to believe that God is in that part of nature which soothes their senses, but they are not willing to believe that He is in the man who irritates them by opposing their wicked ways, or by hindering them in their pursuit of ill-gotten gains and illicit pleasures. Therefore, when God in Jesus so fully and perfectly entered society, it is not strange that they put Him to death. However, in killing Jesus they unwittingly exalted Him; in this act they brought to light the heinousness of sin, the inexpressible love of God, and the compassion of the child Jesus for his sinful brothers. It is before the cross, if anywhere, that men are led to repentance; it is there, if anywhere, that the heart is both broken and healed. Before such wondrous love the world may well pause and sing:
"In the cross of Christ I glory, towering o'er the wrecks of time,
All the light of sacred story gathers round its head sublime."
6. Can God die?
Yes, God can die. Three years ago after the Sunday morning service I received a telegram saying, "Mother died this morning at six-thirty. Come!" Now, what did my sisters mean by this information; did they intend to convey the idea that our mother had become extinct? Not at all, they only meant that she had lost the dear old instrument that we had known for so many years in this earthly home. Death never signifies more than this to the Christian. Though we said she was dead, we believed our mother to be more alive than ever. If death is simply the loss of our instrument, the body, then God too can die, for He may lose His body. God died on the cross with His child, because the Father-spirit, no less than the child-spirit, lost His beautiful instrument in which He had walked by the shores of Galilee, teaching and comforting the people. If Jesus would not forsake the Father in the agony of the Garden, we may be sure that the Father did not forsake His child on the cross. As they were united in life they were undivided in death. To think that Jesus any more than the Father was conscious of the pain, is to make Jesus greater than God. The God who creates the body, moment by moment, must know the thrill of every nerve, since they are His own nerves which He shares with His child. Yet it is not the pain nor the indignity heaped upon the Father and His Holy Child that we are here emphasizing, but the fact that He lost the instrument by means of which He had been a living person among men. The disciples scattered in sorrow and bewilderment, when God and His Child Jesus died on the cross. The Father had no form left on earth through which He could continue to speak unerring words of wisdom and love. One year before my mother died she enfolded me once more in her arms and blessed me, saying, "My son, I shall never see you again on earth." Hastening home at the summons of my sisters I looked again on the dear old instrument, but the hand of welcome was not extended, and the lips did not speak. In like manner when the limp body of Jesus was taken from the cross, the lips no longer said, "I and the Father are one, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." Those lifeless hands were no longer outstretched, and pleading, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." Yes, God can die; He can lose His human instruments on earth. He can likewise die to society by being robbed of His highest instruments. If no man, woman, or child in my city would let God come to articulate speech or deed through his body, God would be stone dead in Bridgeport; He would be as dead as the spirits whose bodies lie in our cemeteries. As already indicated, I do not mean, even in that sad event, that God would not still be in Bridgeport as the power of the all-pervading atmosphere, or as the mighty force of the waves that lash our shores. His energy would still be scintillating in the lamps of the white way, and shedding a soft light in the smaller lamps that brighten our homes; His would still be the energy propelling all the thundering mills of industry, and the power sustaining the nerves and muscles that operate the machinery; He would still be present in the blazing sun by day and in the twinkling stars by night; He would still wrap us round, and enfolding us in His great universe He would watch over us by day and brood over us by night; and yet for all this, if we entirely robbed Him of all His human bodies He, as a member of society, would be completely dead in Bridgeport. If in his own life every one killed God, men would then devour one another. As it is, God is partly dead and partly alive in my city, as in all cities; and hence we are sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse to one another. God may be manifestly alive in one person, and nearly dead in the same man's nearest neighbor; and He is more or less dead and alive in the best of us. When God can no longer get to the surface through men's souls, and bodies, and institutions, He is dead in that locality. And when God is dead through the loss of men, society is spiritually dead through the loss of God. The living God is not one who is driven out of His kingdom and reduced to a mere operator of the cosmos. The living God is not one who is persecuted by His children and driven from home while His business is going to rack and ruin. A living God must be active in His universe from center to circumference. Until our bodies are God's obedient instruments there is no kingdom of God. There is not the slightest reason for thinking there is a kingdom of God anywhere in the universe unless God has children somewhere who are permitting Him to live through the instruments with which He enfolds them. Until God is permitted to live in His own bodies, He is dead and His children are languishing.
If the Christian religion were understood and believed and practiced, what a transformation it would work! For instance, if every man, woman, and child in my city rendered perfect obedience to God, then every human body in Bridgeport would become His very own to use, and God Himself would throng our streets. We should meet Him face to face in individuals and crowds. It would be Emmanuel, or "God-with-us" everywhere. All faces would be bright with the wisdom and goodness of God. Every individual would be our Infinite Father and our brother in one. What a rapid human growth would ensue! Every living person would be a window through which the light of God would shine. There would be young minds like the child Jesus in the temple, just waking to the mind of God, and ripe saints and sages flooding the community with God's vaster wisdom and profounder love. Not only would our immediate bodies be cleansed and transformed, but our augmented bodies would be brought into harmony with the divine Will. Our city would become a heavenly abode, and our industries would become the instruments of love and righteousness. We should tap a thousand sources of power that now remain idle, and finding unlimited resources within ourselves and our environments, we would work wonders. While making God's energies our enlarged and purified bodies, we should at the same time turn them into instruments of God's love. If God were permitted to come to the surface perfectly in all our lives, and in all with which we have to do, three years would not pass until people would be making pilgrimages from the ends of the earth to see the city "where God lives."
In a previous chapter I said that God, as a solitary person in the universe, would not mine coal, and run steam engines; but now allow me to say that if there is anything God wants to do it is to get into the railroad business; and if He does not, it will be because men vote Him out. But in shutting God out of railroad corporations, what are we doing? Though not fully aware of it, yet we are really saying, "O God, you may be the energy in the steel rails, you may be the power in the wheels, you may be the expansive force of the steam, you may manage the chemical combinations of the wheat or other cargo, you may furnish us with our bodies, you may do everything but dictate terms of business. If, however, you want to sit at the desk as the senior partner then our answer is, 'Get down and out, O God.' We are glad to have you as our slave and lackey, we are delighted to use you and exploit you, but woe to the man or men who plead your cause in connection with our private business."
Such is the enormity of our sin, and the denseness of our ignorance when we shut God out of our business affairs. If God may not be in our daily enterprises He will not deign to be in our prayer meetings. This is the message of Jesus to all men, to employers and employees alike; this is the will of God, that in and through His children He may make all things vocal with His wisdom, and beautiful with His love. Scholars may look into nerves and brain, but the spirit is fully revealed before the face and not back of it. So the infinite God and Father of our spirits is fully revealed, if at all, in benignant eyes, friendly hands, willing feet, and gracious words. It is the way we grow our bodies, and shape our institutions, and manipulate all the forces of nature that we reveal what manner of spirits we are. If our spirits are evil, then God is denied bodily expression. There is no use saying Lord, Lord, if we do not the things which He tells us.