(3) What had been summarily realized in Christ is progressively realized in those who are 'in Him.' Undeterred by their condition of moral and spiritual death, God, out of the heart of His rich mercy, simply because of the great love He bore to men, has brought them, by one act of regeneration, into the new life of His Son; has 'quickened them together with Christ,' that is, has introduced them, at a definite moment of initiation, into the life which has once for all triumphed over death, and been glorified in the heavenly places; and has introduced them into this life in order that, by the gradual assimilation of its forces, future ages might witness in them all the wealth of the goodness which had lain hid in the original act {100} of incorporation. Meanwhile, while their growth is yet imperfect, God sees those who are Christ's as 'in Christ': imputes His merits to them, so we may legitimately say: that is, sees them and deals with them in view of the fact that Christ's Spirit is at work in them; sees them and deals with them 'not as they are, but as they are becoming.' _This_ doctrine of imputation, instead of being full of moral unreality, is in accordance with all that is deepest in the philosophy of evolution. For are we not continually being taught that in order to take a true view of the value of any single thing, we must view it not as it is at a particular moment, but in the light of its tendency? We must ask not merely 'what,' but 'whence' and 'whither.' (4) It is all pure grace--the free outpouring of unmerited love. The Christians are 'God's workmanship,' His new creation. He, in Christ, had wrought the work all by Himself. They, the subjects of it, had contributed nothing. It remained for them only to welcome and to correspond. This is the summing up of man's legitimate attitude towards God. This is faith. It is at its first stage simply the acceptance of a divine mercy in all its undeserved and unconditional largeness; but it passes at once, as {101} soon as ever the nature of the divine gift is realized, into a glad co-operation with the divine purpose. This then is, in outline, the method of the great salvation, of which the Asiatic Christians had been and were the subjects. [1] On the virtuous aspect of the contemporary empire, see Renan, _Les Apotres_, pp. 306 ff. [2] Rom. ii. 14. [3] See app. note B, p. 255. [4] Is. xxxiii. 14, 15. [5] Cf. app. note C, p. 263, for a similar thought in a contemporary Jewish book. {102} DIVISION I. Sec. 4. CHAPTER II. 11-22. _Salvation in the church._ [Sidenote: _The salvation social_] God's deliverance or 'salvation' of mankind is a deliverance of individuals indeed, but of individuals in and through a society; not of isolated individuals, but of members of a body.