When the natural man becomes the spiritual man, the great change is
described by Christ as a passing from Death unto Life. Before the
transition occurred, the practical difficulty was this, how to get into
correspondence with the new Environment? But no sooner is this
correspondence established than the problem is reversed. The question
now is, how to get out of correspondence with the old environment? The
moment the new life is begun there comes a genuine anxiety to break with
the old. For the former environment has now become embarrassing. It
refuses its dismissal from consciousness. It competes doggedly with the
new Environment for a share of the correspondences. And in a hundred
ways the former traditions, the memories and passions of the past, the
fixed associations and habits of the earlier life, now complicate the
new relation. The complex and bewildered soul, in fact, finds itself in
correspondence with two environments, each with urgent but yet
incompatible claims. It is a dual soul living in a double world, a world
whose inhabitants are deadly enemies, and engaged in perpetual
civil-war.
The position of things is perplexing. It is clear that no man can
attempt to live both lives. To walk both in the flesh and in the spirit
is morally impossible. "No man," as Christ so often emphasized, "can
serve two masters." And yet, as matter of fact, here is the new-born
being in communication with both environments? With sin and purity,
light and darkness, time and Eternity, God and Devil, the confused and
undecided soul is now in correspondence. What is to be done in such an
emergency? How can the New Life deliver itself from the still-persistent
past?
A ready solution of the difficulty would be _to die_. Were one to die
organically, to die and "go to heaven," all correspondence with the
lower environment would be arrested at a stroke. For Physical Death of
course simply means the final stoppage of all natural correspondences
with this sinful world.
But this alternative, fortunately or unfortunately, is not open. The
detention here of body and spirit for a given period is determined for
us, and we are morally bound to accept the situation. We must look then
for a further alternative.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account