Understanding the ScripturesMcConnell, Francis John
Religion
Understanding the Scriptures
McConnell, Francis John
Bible -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Bible -- Study and teaching
This may seem to some to be a reversal of present-day approach to the
study of the Christ. We may appear to be attacking the problem from the
divine angle rather than from the human. Why not ask what Christ was
rather than what God is? It is indeed far from our purpose to minimize
the rich significance of the humanity of Jesus, but we are trying now
to get the scriptural focus. We do not believe that we can secure that
focus by looking upon the character of Christ as a merely human ideal.
The might of the scriptural emphasis is that Christ is the revelation
of God. We are well aware that ordinary theological debate has centered
on the question as to the extent to which Christ is like God. The Bible
is colored with the belief that God is like Christ. This may seem at
first glimpse to be a very fine discrimination, but the importance of
that discrimination appears when we reflect that mankind is more eager
to learn the character of God than to learn how far a man can climb
toward divinity. In all such discussions as this we proceed at peril of
being misunderstood, but we must repeatedly affirm that important as is
the problem as to the human ideal set forth in Christ, the divine ideal
set forth in him is more significant as explaining the hold of the
Bible on men. Is it not sufficient for us to behold a lofty human ideal
in the portrait of Christ without such emphasis on this ideal as also a
revelation of the divine character? The answer depends upon what we are
most interested in. If we care most for a perfect and symmetrical human
life, we reply that we find that perfection and symmetry in Christ. In
our second chapter we laid such stress upon the importance of the
enlarging human ideal that we have committed ourselves to the
importance of the Christ ideal as a revelation of the possibilities of
human life. But if we take that ideal in itself without any reference
to the character of God, how much enlargement does it bring us? As
members of the human race we can indeed be proud that a human being has
climbed to such moral stature as did Jesus, but what promise does that
give that any other human being can attain to his stature? As a member
of the human race I can be profoundly thankful for a philosopher like
Kant. I can, indeed, dedicate myself to the study of the Kantian
philosophy with some hope of mastering it. I can seek to reproduce in
my life all the conditions that surrounded the life of the great
metaphysician, but I cannot hope to make myself a Kant. Strive as I
may, such transformation is out of the question. I may attain great
merit by my struggle, but I cannot make myself a Kant. The more
intensely I might struggle, the more convinced I would become of the
futility of my quest, and the genius of the philosopher might tower up
at the end as itself a grim mockery of my ambition. So it is with the
Christ if he is not a revelation of the God life at the same time that
he is an idealization of the human life. Viewed as a revelation of
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