The evolution of Christianity by Lyman Abbott

Author:Lyman Abbott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton, Mifflin, and company
Published: 2013-08-11T16:00:00+00:00

such corruption has taken hold of him that other men say, "Do not go near him, he is so corrupt; leave him to himself;" but Christ comes and stands at the grave and says: "Lazarus, come forth." To be redeemed is to come forth, now, out of that corruption, out of that darkness, into the bright shining of the sun, into the singing of the birds, into the immortal life that is here and now, the life with God and in God. The NewTheology is not the doctrine that men need no forgiveness and no God to forgive them. It is profoundly the reverse; it is the doctrine that sin is wrought into the very fibre and structure of man, that penalty is a part of the sin and must exist so long as sin is there, and that forgiveness is casting the sin out and putting new life in.

And so incarnation is not merely a coming of God to man, it is a dwelling of God in man. Universalism and Unitarianism were the natural, if not the logical and necessary, conclusions of Calvinism. They were bred in the Puritan atmosphere. They grew in the Puritan community. They were Presbyterian in Old England and Congregational in New England. They have never grown out of Methodism. Let the world believe that God is sovereign in any such sense as that man has no sovereignty left, and that whether he shall remain in sin and misery throughout eternity depends wholly upon God, and in no wise upon the individual man, — then whenever the world comes also to believe that God is love, it will inevitably believe also in a universal salvation. Let the world think that God is on his throne apart from man, that what he is doing for men he is doing externally for them, that a great gulf exists between God and man, that they are not of kin, that man's nature is not divine, is indeed undivine, and it will inevitably come to think of the Christ coming to earth as a messenger with an embassage from the sovereign to the rebels, telling them the terms on which humanity may be pardoned. But, on the other hand, let the world and the church come to believe that law and revelation and sin and redemption are all written in man, and it will come to write another word in man, and that word Incarnation, — God coming into one life in order that he may come into all lives; into one human experience, in order that he may enter into all human experiences; Christ the door through which and by which man enters into God and God enters into man. As in the spring the first lily of the season puts its white head above the ground, then drops its head that it may whisper to its seed sisters, saying to them, "Come, come! this is what you are meant to be," so into the darkness of a

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.