Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th CenturiesJones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew)
Religion
Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries
Jones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew)
Mysticism; Reformers
The gravamen of his charge is not that the "opinions" are false, or
that the "history" is unimportant, but that "opinions" and "history"
are taken as substitutes for religion itself, which is and must always
be an actual inward process constructing a new and victorious life in
the person himself. "All fictions, I say, and devices which men
contrive to come to God by are lost labour and vain endeavour _without
a new mind_. Verbal forgiveness and outward imputation of
righteousness are false and vain comforts--soft cushions for the evil
soul--without the creation of a will wholly new, which loveth and
willeth evil no more."[16] The whole problem, then, is the problem of
the formation of a new vision, a new desire, a new will, and Boehme
finds the solution of this deepest human problem in Christ. Christ is
the Light-revelation of God--the shining forth of the Light and Love
nature of the Eternal God. It must not be supposed for a moment that
once--before satisfaction was made to Him--God was an angry God who had
to be "reconciled" by a transaction, or that there was _a time in
history_ when God began to reveal His Heart in a Christ-revelation, or
{194} that when Christ became man, Deity divided itself into sundered
Persons.[17] "No. You ought not to have such thoughts," Boehme says.
The Heart and Light and Love of God are from eternity. Christ has
never sundered or broken Himself away from God; they are not two but
forever One. All the Light and Love and Joy of God have blossomed into
the Christ-manifestation and become revealed in Him. Like everything
else in the universe, Christ is both outward and inward. He belongs in
the eternal inward world and He also has had His temporal manifestation
in the visible world. The Heart of God became a human soul, brought
the fulness of the Deity into humanity, and slew the spirit of the
world.[18] The inward penetrated the outward and illuminated it with
Light.[19] Christ entered into humanity and tinctured it with
Deity.[20] In Him the Heart of God became man, and in the power of the
heavenly Light He wrestled with our wild human nature and conquered
it.[21] Eternity and time are united in Him.[22] He is the wedding
chamber of God and man.[23] He is God and man in one undivided
Person.[24] He is actual God; He is essential man--the God-man, the
man-God, in whom the arms of everlasting Love are outstretched and
through whom humanity is brought into the power of the Eternal God.[25]
It was in this "dear Emmanuel," as he often calls Christ, that "Love
became man and put on our human flesh and our human soul,"[26] and the
full power of Eternal Love stood revealed in time, for "One who is Love
itself was born of our own very birth."[27] The Cross was not a
transaction. It was the culmination of this mighty Love, for "here on
the cross hung God and man"--God's Love springing forth in a soul
strong enough to show it in its full scope.[28]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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