The Christ Ideal

The precept, “Resist not evil,” has undoubtedly proved more perplexing than any other of Jesus’s commandments. It would seem wise, therefore, to begin our study of the ethics of Jesus with an interpretation of this precept, for if we can prove it to be of practical value the way will be made easy for the application of the other ethical principles.

After all, what is an ideal state? Is it one in which there is nothing to overcome? Perhaps our present existence is nearer the ideal than we suspect, but that its ideality has no meaning for us because we evade the laws whereby its beauty might become manifest.

To the objection that literal obedience to this precept results in a weak altitude and subjects one to the roguery of the world, we at once reply that this is not the fault of Jesus, but is due to a misinterpretation of his teaching. All laws apply under given conditions, and it is as necessary to understand the conditions as to understand the laws. Jesus constantly warns his followers to beware of false prophets, and others who come in sheep’s clothing. He does not bid us open wide the doors to all; but to discriminate and know the false from the true.

We are not merely to assume an unresisting attitude, then let our adversary do what he will. There are situations where it is even wise to agree with our adversary quickly while we are with him in the way, lest haply he deliver us to the judge and the judge to the officer who may cast us into prison. For in this, as in all situations, we must pay the last farthing, we must suffer in exact accordance with our actions.

The old law was of this personal type. It counselled man to return “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” A man was to stand up for his rights and strike back, to meet the action on the plane on which it was given. This is the resisting of evil which Jesus warned men against. Do not, he implicitly said, lower yourself to the level of evil and return evil for evil. Do not try to overcome evil by suppressing it, by fighting it, but “overcome evil with good.” Conquer the lower power by exercise of the higher. For “how can Satan drive out Satan?”

“The law and the prophets were until John: from that time the gospel of the Kingdom of heaven is preached.” The gospel of the Kingdom is the law of love. We are not even to meet love on its own plane, loving only those who love us. There is a higher law of love, namely, to love our enemies, to love even those who despitefully use and persecute us.

The higher law exposes this doctrine for what it really is: the law of selfishness. The old law said: “Thou shalt not kill.” The new law forbade men even to be angry or to think sinful thoughts. The old law applied to external deeds. The new law included even the secret thoughts.

We must bear in mind, therefore, the stress which Jesus laid upon the inner life. From his point of view it was never sufficient to assume the form of goodness, to seem to be pious and to pray. It was necessary to be good, and to do good; and he assured men that the highest goodness never makes a public display. Therefore a man might even give his cloak also and yet be very far from the Kingdom of heaven. For the essential is not the merely external deed but the decisive thought, the intent, the attitude.

The “turn to him the other cheek also,” is an illustration of a principle. I am to treat with love and forgiveness even the thief who comes to steal my coat. If I simply handed him my cloak, be would laugh and accept it in triumph and I should be guilty of consorting with evil. But if I say or do that which conveys love to him who would wrong me, it matters little whether or not I also lose my cloak. I have been true to my spiritual opportunity, and that is the highest purpose of life. I have been true to myself and to my brother, by whom my conduct will not soon be forgotten.

Non-resistance to evil should never be non-activity. I am to take a strong moral attitude, whatever I do. Righteous indignation is an aspiration. It is a step on the way toward the moral life, and is very often inspired by a keen sense of justice and insight into wrong-doing. But it is possible to lift our conduct to a higher plane, to transmute the force which would spend itself against the wrong-doer into positive and impersonal zeal for the right, the true.

It is a different way of overcoming evil. The same energy which would spend itself as hate, must be turned into the gentler but far more effective channel of love. For love is a mighty power, able to master evil, and only by being true to its guidance may we ever hope to win the day for righteousness.

To all who would postpone the day of beginning to practise this precept we must therefore say, If a precept be really a moral law we ought to be true to it here and now even though it be inconvenient. If true, it is eternal, an imperative command, and the effort to evade it is only another excuse for selfishness.

But time is required to realise an ideal. True, Jesus would have admitted that. Many, for example, would be pure, but the flesh is strong and unruly, and one must try and fail, and fail and try. But “blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” And seeing God, that is, perceiving his presence, they shall be made recipients of that power which will transform even the physical life.

It is not easy to inhibit the impulse to strike back. It is long ere the intellect is convinced that the method of love is not only the higher way, but the only sure method of overcoming evil. But blessed are they who know the law, thrice blessed are they who do their utmost to obey it.

The ideal state is not therefore a visible realm. It is that plane of development where the peace of the Spirit has begun to reign, where the impulse to hate and to strike is met by the Christ self which speaks with authority, Peace be still!

Jesus could command that self within him even when the lower self offered all the kingdoms of the world if he would but submit. Thus by precept and by example Jesus taught the way and the truth of the higher life. To overcome temptation, we must first develop that higher centre of power, the Christ within, so that when the temptation comes we may have the power to resist it.

The highest ideal therefore exists for all; and there is a power within us which is impelling man towards it—the evolutionary energy of God. We must recognise love and call out the dormant higher nature in all men with whom we are thrown in contact. We must remember that they are in the throes of their moral evolution, and so have boundless charity.

It is an error to say that the higher law is absolutely right, the lower absolutely wrong. Men are evolving through the lower to the higher. They are trying to be noble and true and good. Their law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was the highest they knew until the Christ came.

The critic may object that all this is due to man’s ignorance and sin, and is therefore wholly wrong. Very true, but from one side only. From the other point of view, it is equally clear that God saw fit to have men evolve through darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge, from bondage to freedom. Therefore, all this has played its part in the divine plan, as we have already noted in a foregoing chapter.

Moreover, the coming of the Christ would be a break in the continuity of law and evolution unless it should come as the natural fulfilment of what had gone before. The whole meaning of the Christ ideal is seen as a relation between lower and higher, as the fruition of ages of search and struggle.

Therefore, when you see men contending and sinning, remember the Christ, the Christ of all moral evolution, the spiritual Messiah whom in their hearts, consciously or unconsciously, all men are seeking. Do not sweep away the old law and leave men nothing to live by. Do not sweep away the statutes and institutions of men. Regard these in the light of their fulfilment, and concentrate all your energies upon the higher ideal. Help men to take the next step. Love them, and neither condemn nor permit yourself to be impatient with those who are plodding along the upward way.

But the fact that the Christ law is a fulfilment of the lower law by no means implies that there is to be a compromise with the lower. No ethical sanction is more imperative than that of Jesus’s ethics. It is the sanction of the inner world as opposed to the outer. Whether passing through the corn-fields on the Sabbath or mingling with his fellow-men in the busy towns and cities, Jesus was unfalteringly true to the inner command, even when it was in entire opposition to the customs of the country. He obeyed one master, and that was always the voice of God in his soul. He who had conquered the lower man knew but one law, the will of the Father. And his entire ethical code may be summarised in the precept, Obey the Father’s will.

What then is the will of God? The will expresses the real nature, the inmost intent. The heart of God is love. God so loved the world that he gave the highest product of his being, the Christ, the perfect embodiment of his will, the heart of his heart. The Christ is the crowning product of the cosmos of righteousness, the goal toward which all the life of the universe has been tending.

To do the perfect will of God is therefore to live the Christ. All other obedience to the Father’s will is at best only an earnest of this its complete fulfilment. Jesus therefore bids men be perfect even as the Father is perfect. The highest duty of each man is the attainment of the Christ, each in his individual life. And if a man knows what this command means, he needs no other precept, for it includes all the rest.

Jesus’s ethical doctrine therefore has the highest possible foundation. It is based on the inner or spiritual consciousness of God’s universe of righteousness, the fact that, through the world-order culminating in the Christ, God reveals his perfect nature. Accordingly the command to do right is an unqualified obligation. It is an eternal law of our existence, unlimited by time, applying under all circumstances and in all places. It has the sanction of the entire nature of God, it is written in the very being of the cosmos. Always and everywhere we are to love. Always and everywhere we are to be unselfish and to serve.

The law of love is not therefore a merely human custom, as the moral law is sometimes said to be. The ethical teaching of Jesus is very far from being a purely empirical product, although it was only given to men after ages of social evolution. We are not to love because it is expedient, nor because others have loved. That is the old law which came up from below and pretends to be love. The new law comes down from above; it is revealed from within.

The ethical teaching of Jesus is in striking contrast to the ethics of evolution, as ordinarily taught. The law of love calls upon us to pursue a very different course from that proffered by pleasure. Pleasure has only the sanction of custom; the law of love has the sanction of God. The Father may sanction pleasure as a step in evolution, but how great is the contrast when the law of self-denial is revealed!

It is needless, therefore, to undertake a detailed study of other moral systems which claim finality, and compare them with the ethics of Jesus. The idealistic or intuitive ethical philosophers approximate to the doctrine of Jesus in so far as the sanction they offer is from within and from above.

We must also keep up on this high level in our thoughts concerning the golden rule. If we regard this rule from below, as a product of social evolution, it easily becomes susceptible of egoistic interpretation. The same rule was laid down by Confucius and other moral teachers long before Jesus declared it to be “the law and the prophets.” It fails to lift conduct to the highest plane unless we view it in connection with Jesus’s law of love. We are not to do as we would that others should do unto us in the personal sense. Any social group could adopt the precept, even a low-grade society, and yet make no progress, if this rule were taken by itself. But in the sense in which the rule is enunciated by Jesus, that which we would that others should do unto us is not that which will work to our advantage simply, but that they should love us even as we were taught to love when Jesus bade us love our enemies.

Give as you would will to see all men giving under similar circumstances, that is, give with regard to the welfare of the entire social organism, not with regard to your own sect or nation. Give as men ought to give to you, for your best good in relation to the best good of all.

Such giving does not necessarily involve that which is pleasant. It is that gift which is meant for a person’s good in the long run, never that which is for temporary pleasure, or the easiest way to be rid of a beggar. It is discriminative, righteous giving, above all, a spiritual gift, a message from soul to soul.