He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.
Yes, truly, Christ was a planetary manifestation of Deity, a revelation to the human race, the highest and simplest it has yet had; a revelation in the only form accessible to man, a revelation in the full-bodied form of humanity.
Little conception had they in those days of the whole universe as we know it now. The earth was the whole world to them, and that which revealed God to the earth was naturally regarded as the whole Cosmic Deity. Yet it was a truly divine Incarnation.
A deity of some kind is common to every branch of the human race. It seems to be possessed by every savage, overawed as he necessarily is by the forces of nature. Caprice, jealousy, openness to flattery and rewards, are likewise parts of early theology. Then in the gods of Olympus—that poetic conception which rose to such heights and fell to such depths at different epochs in the ancient world—the attributes of power and beauty were specially emphasised. Power is common to all deities, and favouritism in its use seems also a natural supposition to early tribes; but the element of Beauty, as a divine attribute, we in these islands, save for the poets, have largely lost or forgotten—to our great detriment. In Jehovah, however, the Hebrew race rose to a conception of divine Righteousness which we have assimilated and permanently retained; and upon that foundation Christianity was grafted. It was to a race who had risen thus far—a race with a genius for theology—that the Christian revelation came. It was rendered possible, though only just possible, by the stage attained. Simple and unknown folk were ready to receive it, or, at least, were willing to take the first steps to learn.
The power, the righteousness, and other worthy attributes belonging to Jehovah, were known of old. The Christian conception takes them for granted, and concentrates attention on the pity, the love, the friendliness, the compassion, the earnest desire to help mankind—attributes which, though now and again dimly discerned by one or another of the great seers of old, had not yet been thrown into concrete form.
People sometimes seek to deny such attributes as are connoted by the word 'Personality' in the Godhead—they say it is a human conception. Certainly it is a human conception; it is through humanity that it has been revealed. Why seek to deny it? God transcends personality, objectors say. By all means: transcends all our conceptions infinitely, transcends every revelation which has ever been vouchsafed; but the revelations are true as far as they go, for all that.
Let us not befog ourselves by attempting impossible conceptions to such an extent that we lose the simple and manifest reality. No conception that we can make is too high, too good, too worthy. It is easy to imagine ourselves mistaken, but never because ideas are too high or too good. It were preposterous to imagine an over-lofty conception in a creature. Reality is always found to exceed our clear conception of it; never once in science has it permanently fallen short. No conception is too great or too high. But also no devout conception is too simple, too lowly, too childlike to have an element—some grain—of vital truth stored away, a mustard seed ready to germinate and bud, a leaven which may permeate the whole mass.
I would apply all this to what for brevity may be called Human Immortality. It is possible to think of that rather simply; and, on the other hand, it is possible to confuse ourselves with tortuous thoughts till it seems unreal and impossible. It is part of the problem of personality and individuality; for the question of how far these are dependent on the bodily organism, or whether they can exist without it, is a scientific question. It is open to research. And yet it is connected with Christianity; for undoubtedly the Christian idea of God involves a belief in human immortality. If per impossible this latter could be authoritatively denied, a paralysing blow would have been struck at the Christian idea. On the other hand, if by scientific investigation the persistence of individual memory and character were proved, a great step in the direction of orthodox theology would have been taken.