CHAPTER IV.
AN EVANGELICAL MYSTIC.
AN evangelical mystic is one in whose scheme of thought the cross is central. He is one, as James Hinton expresses it, "who has learned on Calvary the secret of the universe." He looks upon all things in the revealing light of the cross. To his anointed eyes"One Spirit--His,
Who bore the platted thorns with bleeding brow,
Rules universal nature."He sees, as the Rev. J. R. Campbell remarks in a recent sermon, "all creation signed by the cross." This gives to nature a new meaning. When seen to be the work of Him who died upon the cross, it is brought into relation with the divine purpose of redemption.
To the evangelical mystic the cross is central also in God's revelation to man. In it all the converging lines of promise and prophecy meet; from it the light of life, with which the whole earth is yet to be filled, radiates. Upon the dark
background of human sin it reveals God's eternal love as the secret of the universe. It furnishes the key to the revelation of God in history; declaring in letters that can be read from the stars, that the new order which is being brought in has universal redemption for its final end. In the glory of the cross the present stands transfigured, and the future becomes radiant with hope. Because at the centre of all things is seen "the Lamb who is in the midst of the
throne," there is the serenest optimism regarding the final issue of the age-long conflict between the forces of darkness and light.As an example of a Christian mystic who was not evangelical, we might take William Law, the greatest of the English mystics. He rejected with contempt the whole system of evangelical theology. The God whom he worshipped and served was the God whom Christ has revealed; but the moving why of Christian service, which is found in the cross, he strangely ignored. In his Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, he distinctly repudiates the evangelical faith in the
words, "To have a true idea of Christianity we must not consider our blessed Lord in our stead, but as our representative, acting in our name, and with such particular merit as to make our Joining with Him acceptable unto God." From these words it is clear that it is not in the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, but in the "satisfaction of self-surrender" which that sacrifice evokes, that Law found the ground of human salvation. He mistook sanctification for justification; the ground of salvation for its evidence. He also ignored the revelation of Christ in the written word. He says, "If you ask where and how Christ is to be found? I answer, In your heart, and nowhere else." Here a half truth is put for a whole truth. It is the clause "nowhere else" to which exception is taken. That Christ is to be found in the heart is not to be disputed; for there He ever abides, although, alas! often unknown. One of the recently discovered sayings of Christ reads, "So see Me in yourselves as one of you sees himself in water or in a mirror." But
Christ is to be seen elsewhere than in the heart. He is to be seen in the gospel story; and many who have not been able to find Him in their hearts have found Him there.Jacob Boehme, on the other hand, whose philosophy Law adopted and popularised, was an evangelical mystic. A common form of salutation in his letters to friends was, "The open fountain in the heart of Christ Jesus refresh and illumine us ever." In his practical writings he is as emphatic as Paul in his determination not to know anything among men save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. "There is no grace," he says, "whereby we can come to adoption save simply in the blood and death of Christ. In Him alone hath God appointed to be a throne of grace in His own love, which He hath set in Him in the sweet name Jesus (from Jehovah). He is the only sacrifice God accepted to reconcile
His anger." He adds, however, "But if the sacrifice is to avail for me, it must be wrought in me. The Father must communicate or beget His Son in my desire-of-faith, so that my faith's hunger may apprehend Him in His word of
promise. Then I put Him on in His entire process of justification, in my inward ground, and straightway there begins in me the killing of the wrath of the devil, death, and hell, from the inward power of Christ's death." His dying words were, "O Thou Mighty Lord Sabaoth, save me according to Thy will. O Thou crucified Lord Jesus Christ, have pity on me, and receive me into Thy Kingdom."The mystical life of the Quakers has been Christian but not Evangelical. The inner light which they have followed has come from Him who lighteneth every man coming into the world; but they have ignored the light of the historical Gospel, and of the Christ of history. They have sought immediate access to God; but they have not sought it by the new and living way of the rent veil of the Redeemer's flesh. They have looked upon the blood of Christ which saves, as the spirit of Christ which men receive into their hearts; but they have not looked upon the blood shed upon Calvary as the manifestation of divine suffering love for the purpose of producing in men the spirit of Christ. And because they have failed to connect subjective experience with objective fact, they have been shorn of propagating power.1
Paul's mysticism was both Christian and Evangelical. It drew its inspiration from the cross. It was rooted in fellowship with a Saviour who was crucified on Calvary, who rose from the dead, and who still bears the print of the nails. His mysticism, as Professor Bruce truly says, "was all his own"; and was not borrowed from any foreign source.2 There is no evidence whatever that Paul was acquainted with Philo, the father of religious mysticism. His mystical life came from his relation with Christ; and especially from his relation with Christ as his crucified Redeemer. It found the fulness of its realisation in identification with Christ in His passion, so that it was transacted over again in him.
1 It should be said that this charge does not hold true with respect to most of the early Friends. Dr. Rufus M. Jones, one of their latest advocates, claims, and with good reason, that they "did not minimise the importance of the Scriptures, or of the historical Christ and His work for human redemption. The Christ who enlightened their souls was, they believed, the risen and ever-living Christ--the same Person who healed the sick in Galilee and preached the gospel to the poor under the Syrian sky, and who died for our sakes outside the gate of Jerusalem. One of the great fruits of the Incarnation and Passion, according to their view, was the permanent presence of Christ among men in an inward and spiritual manner, bringing to effect within what His outward life had made possible" (Social Law in the Spiritual World, pp. 167, i68).
2 St. Paul's Conception 0/ Christianity, p. 224. 121
This is the truth taught in the great classic text of evangelical mysticism found in Gal. ii. 20, in which Paul lays bare the secret of his inner life. He there affirms, " I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me; and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me." In these pregnant words we have the main parts of a chain of symbolism in which Paul sets forth the successive stages of the Christian life. Four distinct stages of mystical experience are portrayed; and these are followed by an explanation of the ground out of which this mystical experience grows.I. Crucifixion.--The statement, " I have been crucified with Christ," certainly means, "Christ was crucified for me; He died for me upon the cross, so that I have now become dead to the law." But it means more than that. It means, "By His crucifixion I have been crucified." The sacrifice of Calvary was not merely something accomplished for Paul; something wrought out for him; it was something accomplished in him; something inward and vital. Looking back, he saw two men crucified on the cross, Christ and himself; looking within, he saw a man in whom the sacrifice of the cross had been transacted. The words in which the idea of self-crucifixion are expressed may be the language of poetry, yet they are the record of a conscious and distinct experience. To the cross of Christ Paul's old sinful, selfish nature had been nailed. It had died a bitter and humbling death. As the result of this inward crucifixion of himself, Paul had become "crucified to the world and the world to him." Henceforth he bore not only upon his body the marks of the Lord Jesus; he bore also upon his soul the inward stigmata which belong to everyone who had been crucified
with Christ.The mystics have sometimes made this identification with Christ in His crucifixion a literal thing. It is recorded of Heinrich Suso, the German mystic, that he wore an under-garment of leather into which a hundred and fifty sharp
nails were fashioned, and upon his neck he bore a cross of wood driven full of spikes. As his flesh was pierced and lacerated, he constantly cried out in agony, "Alas, gentle God, what a dying is this!" Could there have been a greater travesty on the inward crucifixion which God demands, and which Paul experienced? The flesh is to be crucified, not literally, but in "the passions and lusts thereof" (Gal. v. 24). It is the sinful self that deserves and needs crucifying. Into every Christian life crucifixion must come. "One desire alone doth God allow," says St. Juan of the Cross, "that of obeying Him and carrying the cross." Or, we may put it thus, one desire alone doth God allow, that of being crucified with Christ. When crucified with Him, the prints of the nails which we will bear will be the marks of sacrifice endured in His name and through His power.2. Death.--The idea of crucifixion carries with it the idea of death; for death is the inevitable result of crucifixion. The crucified soul becomes identified with Christ in His death; Christ's death is "mystically acted" in him; through Christ's death he has died, his old sinful nature having given up the ghost. He has become dead to the law, dead to sin, dead to the world. In other words, the objective fact of Christ's death has become to him a subjective experience. Therefore, in saying, "I have been crucified with Christ," Paul means, "I have died with Christ through crucifixion "--died legally and spiritually. "In his deadness to the law-- the result of faith in Christ--was also deadness to sin." 1 The idea of the Christian being "dead with Christ" to the law and to sin is a common one with Paul. He is "dead to the law through the body of Christ" (Rom. vii. 4); he is told to reckon himself "to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus" (Rom. vi. II). To the Colossians Paul writes, "Ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (iii. 3). He
reminds the Ephesians that they were "dead through their trespasses and sins" (ii. I). In all these references there is a suggested contrast between being dead in sin and dead to sin. The death in sin is something from which the Christian
is delivered; the death to sin is something which he experiences. The woman who gives herself up to pleasure is said to be "dead while she liveth" (I Tim. v. 6)--she is a moving tomb; her life is a living death. It is also said that "the mind of the flesh is death" (Rom. viii. 6)--it holds within it the seed, the potency of death. The life of the unrenewed man is a living death, the life of the Christian is a dying life; the one lives to die, the other dies to live. Pertinent to this thought are the words of Archbishop Leighton, "whose wishes to live after death must die before death comes."The story is told of a Franciscan monk who was stubborn and self-willed, and refused to obey the rules of the order. His associates dug a deep grave, and placed him in it, in an upright position. As they filled in the earth they asked, "Is your self-will dead yet?" There was no response. When the earth reached his shoulders the question was repeated. Still there was no response. When it reached his lips he was asked, "Are you dead now?" He meekly answered, "I am dead." The sign that any man is dead is that he has ceased to struggle. He is dead when he has surrendered his will completely to the will of Christ.
1 Toy's Judaism and Christianity, p. 209.
The figure of death must not, however, be taken too literally. It is not to be pushed to the extreme, to which Molinos pushes it in the remark, "Happy is that state of soul which has slain or annihilated itself." The death of our sinful nature is not the result of an act of moral suicide, nor does it end in the annihilation of self. It is Christ who slays it. It receives
its death wound the moment it is nailed to His cross. It is then under sentence of death, and is as good as dead. It may be compared to a tree, the bark of which has been cut all around, and which is virtually a dead tree; and hence
may be spoken of as if it were already dead. That the death struggle is often long and painful, is shown in a chapter from the life of Tauler. When he was at the height of his popularity, swaying vast crowds with his marvellous eloquence, one day a stranger from Switzerland, who sat in the audience, came up to him at the close of the service, and said, "I want to confess to you." He was not long in the presence of the stranger before he felt that he had need
to confess to him. He opened his heart to him, telling him that his life had been a failure, and that beneath a self satisfied exterior he concealed a hungry heart. He had not found the centre of rest; and he said, "What must I do?"
"You must die, Herr Tauler." "Die?" said he. "Yes, you will never get the true sense of power until you die to your own." For two years Tauler was silent. He took his part in the work of the convent, but never went beyond its walls. When his fellow-monks were asked the reason of his silence, they laughingly replied, "Oh, poor fellow, the devil's clawing him a bit, that's all," or, " Spiritual pride, Lucifer's sin, Lucifer's sin ! " Yielding to the importunity of his friends, at last he agreed to preach. The church was filled with an eager, expectant throng. But Tauler could not utter a single word. As the vast audience waited breathless, he stood up before them, hiding his face in his hands and sobbing. His discomfiture and humiliation were complete. The people began to cast reproach upon their fallen idol. A month after,
when he had recovered himself, he asked permission to preach. This time he began talking to the poor people who had gathered around him, and preaching sermons of the heart. Soon his fame spread, and the people flocked to hear
him; for the spirit of the Lord was upon him to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to bring stout-hearted rebels to the feet of Christ. Herr Tauler was now dead; he had died to his own power, that the
power of Christ might rest upon him.Let those who would be dead to self, like Tauler, pray in the words of "The Golden Legend":
"If my feeble prayer can reach Thee,
0 my Saviour, I beseech Thee,
Even as Thou hast died for me,
More sincerely
Let me follow where Thou leadest.
Let me, bleeding as Thou bleedest,
Die, if dying I may give
Life to one who asks to live;
And more nearly,
Dying thus, resemble Thee."3. Burial.--Elsewhere Paul adds another link to the chain of symbolism, in which the successive stages of the Christian life are expressed. Speaking not as a literalist, but as a mystic, he says, "We were buried with Him" (Christ) "through baptism unto death" (Rom. vi. 4). As crucifixion results in death, so death is followed by burial. When the burial is said to take place by baptism, the term baptism is evidently used as a metonymy, implying that the terms are exchanged, so that the sign is made to stand for the thing signified. The baptism is ceremonial, the burial is spiritual. The baptism is the outward sign of a union with Christ, so close and intimate that the baptized believer is said to be
"buried with Him." Having become dead to the world, he now lies in a spiritual tomb buried to the world. His self-life which was crucified with Christ unto death is now put out of sight, buried in His grave.4. Life. -- Returning to the text in Gal. ii:20, we find the man who was crucified, dead and buried, exclaiming, "Nevertheless I live." Here is a paradox which no logic can explain. The crucified man is alive--very much alive.
He has been "quickened from the dead." He has died to live. Never for a moment has he lost the sense of identity and continuity. He lives in the flesh a human individual life. He does not separate himself from the world of men around him. Yet, while living in the flesh, h does not live after the flesh. His body, t temple of God, and the organ through which his life is expressed, he does not dishonour. But it is very much in the way. It is "a body of death "--a corpse hanging aroun4 the neck of the soul, impeding the freedom of its movements, and hindering it in many ways from
attaining the fulness of its life. The living thing is his soul, which Christ has quickened.In his preface to Theologia Germanica, Luther describes the object of that book to be, to set forth "how Adam is to die, and Christ to live in us." The way to life is said to be through death, or rather through the conquest of death by life. The root of sin is self-will; and the soul becomes alive unto God only when self-will has been destroyed. And this is Paul's doctrine.
But Paul goes a step further, declaring, "It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me." There is here a contrast between the past and the present. The negation, the cessation of one form of life, has taken place. It is not the former self that lives. That self has been displaced by another. An act of inward substitution has taken place. A new centre of
moral self hood, or moral personality, has been formed. The highest self-realisation has been attained--life has been enthroned, not dethroned. What has taken place is "an annulling of the life of self, and of all selfish desires and impulses; or a blending of my will with the mind and will of Christ, so absolute that, in a sense, my private, particular self may be said to have become extinct, and my being to be absorbed and lost in His life." 11 Fundamental Ideas of Christianity, Principal John caird, vol.ii. p. 230.
It is a profound saying of Plato, that "God holds the soul attached to Himself by the root." The root of attachment is the "I," the centre of personality. When the "I" is attached to God, a fusion of life with life takes place; and that condition of complete self-surrender is reached, expressed in the words:
"Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them Thine."By the root of his being Christ took hold of Paul. He became within him a new self; so that He thought through Paul's mind, loved through his heart, and acted through his will. He was the active principle of his life; the inward power that controlled his outward deeds. The bold words of Catherine of Genoa--" I find no more me; there is no longer any other I, but God "-- may therefore be justified if taken in a moral sense. The great German Reformer was wont to
point to his heart and say, "Luther is not here: he has moved out, Christ lives here."When Paul was able to say, "Christ liveth in me," a great transformation took place. Paul the Apostle was a different man from Saul of Tarsus. He lived above himself. He lived a higher and holier life than he could ever have lived had he not felt the contagion of Christ's spirit, and had not Christ taken possession of his heart. From the time that the touch of Christ's love made him live, a new relationship was established between him and Christ, and out of that new relationship had come a new character. His heart indwelt by Christ had become the presence chamber of a king. There was a reciprocal indwelling in which the mightier spirit prevailed, and that oneness of affection was reached, where
"Heart to heart in concord beat,
And the lover is beloved."It is in this oneness of love with Christ that Dr. Sanday finds the key to Paul's experience.
An Eastern parable tells of one who came to the door of his beloved and knocked. "Who is there ? " asked a voice. The reply was, " It is I," to which the voice made answer: "This house will not hold both thee and me." The lover went out into the desert to fast and pray. After a year of solitude and self-examination, he knocked again. "Who is there?" again asked the voice. "It is thyself," was the reply. The door was opened. The door is at once opened when Christ is welcomed to occupy the heart alone, that He may create within it a new consciousness, and establish within it a new centre of authority. He will brook no rival. All of life must be ruled by His sovereign will. The heart into which He enters must be possessed by Him wholly and for ever. A permanent condition is implied in the word "liveth." It is not merely " Christ is alive in me," but He "liveth in me"; dwelling in me, as Bishop Moule has said, "not as a guest precariously detained, but as a master resident in his proper home." He has come to go no more out for ever.
5. Resurrection. -- The soul that Christ quickens rises from the grave in which it was buried, to walk with Him in newness of life. "If we have been united (literally, grown together) with Him by the likeness of His death, we shall be also by the likeness of His resurrection" (Rom. vi. 5). Paul links together the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection life of the Christian. He looks upon resurrection not only as a historical fact authentic and irrefutable, but as a figure of spiritual life, and also as the power by which that life is produced. He desires that Christians might know Christ "and the power of the resurrection" (Phil. iii. 10); that is, that they might know Him in the fulness of experimental knowledge, and in the power which His resurrection exercises. Resurrection is with him more than a doctrine, it is an experience; it is more than a far-off hope, it is a present reality; it is more than a comforting belief, it is a vitalising principle. It is not enough to know about the resurrection of Christ : His resurrection power must be experienced, and the soul lifted out of weakness into strength, out of sorrow into gladness, out of death into life. To know the power of His resurrection is to experience that which answers to it; it is to be raised up with Him to a life
resembling His; it is to feel the touch of His warm, vivifying influence, so that the better nature will sprout through the clods of earthliness, and expand and blossom in the sunshine of His love.6. Ascension. -- In Paul's completed chain of symbolism, ascension has a place. With fine insight Professor Bruce speaks of him as "urging Christians to complete the process of mystical identification with Christ by ascending with Him into heaven." 1 In this way we are to interpret his words, "If ye then were raised together with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things which are above, not On the things which are upon the earth" (Col. iii. 1,2). The immortal hope is to be a tonic, not an opiate. Having been raised with Christ, Christians are to aspire after heavenly things. Life is to become an ascent. Worldly ambitions are to fade out; earthly honours are to be no longer sought. The soul is to ascend above all unworthy aims and ideals. Instead of gravitating earthward, it is to soar heavenward. It is to overcome the downward pull of the flesh by the upward push of the divine power working within. "As fire ascending seeks the sun," it is to ascend into its native element, and enter into the glory of the heavenly life.
1 St. Paul's Conception o/ Christianity, p. 219.
This ascent of life is not only "with Christ," it is also through Christ. It is accomplished in His company and through His power. He at once leads the way, and gives the power that upholds us in our upward flight. We thus see that the whole process of Christ's redemption is repeated in every Christian. His whole nature is crucified; through crucifixion
he dies unto sin and is freed from its condemning and enslaving power; he is buried to the world and lives a hidden life; he is quickened from the dead and stands upon his feet a man new made; he ascends into the heavenly life, in the glory of which he is transfigured. It is within the soul that all these experiences take place. Crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension are all facts in the life of the spirit; and they are all realised through the union of the believing soul with Christ.7. The explanation of this mystical experience.--In Gal. ii. 20, Paul makes clear the way in which the moral transformation which he describes takes place. He says of himself: "That life which I now live in the flesh I live in
faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." The life now lived, which is so different from that which was once lived, is a life that has faith for its foundation, love for its inspiration, and Christlikeness of
character for its end. The Christ with whom he inwardly identified himself, and with whom his life is indissolubly bound up, is the Son of God who out of love gave Himself for him; and the faith by which he lives, the faith from
which his new ethical experience springs, is a faith which has for its object the Christ who loved him unto death --pouring out His life on Calvary for his redemption.By identifying the Christ of experience with the Christ of history, Paul connects the mystical Union of the believer with Christ with the historical union of Christ with men. The Christ with whom the believer is mystically united is the Christ who once lived here among men; the Christ with whom He is crucified is the Christ who was crucified for him; the Christ with whom he dies is the Christ who died in his room and stead; the Christ with whom he is buried is the Christ who became for him a tenant of the tomb; the Christ with whom he is risen is the Christ who for his justification rose from the dead; the Christ with whom he ascends into the heavenly life is the Christ who for his sake ascended into heaven itself that He might fill his life with His saving power. In a word, the Christ with whom he identifies himself
subjectively in all that he experiences, is the Christ with whom he identifies himself objectively in all that He did on his behalf.But Paul goes a step further, and bases the ethical life of the Christian upon what Christ has accomplished for him as his Saviour. It is because Christ died that he dies; it is because Christ lives that he lives. The dying to sin and living to God do not take the place of Christ's sacrifice, they are the results of it. To say that "Christ's death is died by believers rather than theirs by Him" (so John Scott Lidgett), is to reverse Paul's thought. What ought to be said is that "believers die Christ's death, because Christ has died their death." (So Dr. James Denney.) From a look at the Crucified One come death to sin and life to righteousness. The great evangelical motive which lies behind every life which has "its fruit unto holiness," is revealed in the words, "the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died: and He died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again"
(2 Cor. V. 14, 15).
In Paul's theology the subjective and objective sides of truth do not exclude each other. If there is anything which he makes clearer than another, it is that the mystical life is generated by faith in the redeeming Son of God. His mysticism is grounded in the external; it is rooted in the soil of a historical revelation. He would have accepted the motto of the mystics, Our salvation is in the life of Jesus Christ with us," provided only that the distinction between the substance and ground of salvation was not rubbed out. The substance of our salvation is undoubtedly in the life of Christ within us, but its ground is the Christ without us; and it is by faith in the life that He lived and the death that He died that His life is inwrought within our hearts.Paul seeks to safeguard the doctrine of grace by showing that from the revelation of Christ to us will come the revelation of Christ in us; that the appropriation of the benefits of His sacrifice will be followed by the acceptance of
the obligations which we owe to Him as the sacrificer; that along with the identification of ourselves in what He did and suffered will come the inward identification with Him as the life of the soul. Through this inward experience Christ will be made real; apart from it He remains only a name. Inward and personal this experience is; but it is not esoteric in its nature. It comes to all who bring themselves into vital relation with Christ.It is the fashion to point approvingly to the fruits of the mystical union, while making no acknowledgment of the source from which they spring. "You have various lives of Christ," says John Ruskin, "German and other, lately provided among your severely historical studies--some critical and some sentimental. But there is only one light in which you can read the life of Christ--the light of the life which you now live in the flesh, and that not the material but the won life--" nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." This is a true testimony; but it must not be forgotten that the victorious life in the light of which Ruskin would have us read the life of Christ has for its hidden principle faith in the Christ of history, who loved sinful men and for love's sake gave Himself for them in all that He did and suffered.
Throughout the Christian centuries the cross of Calvary, on which our blessed Redeemer has died, has ever been acknowledged to be the source of the power by which the inner fruits of Christian experience and the outer fruits
of Christian service have been produced.