The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 368

REGENERATION

328 Professor Gunning's

Man "

(page 28)

" :

little

book,

Jesus Christ

"

is

The Mediator between God and the Mediator equally between the

Jews and the Gentiles; and also between all things that need reconciliation and mediation as between God and man, spirit and body, heaven and earth, time and eternity." ;

This representation contains the fundamental error of the EthiIt interferes with the boundaries which God has set. effaces them. It causes all contrasts finally to disappear. And

cal theology. It

by

this

very thing, without intending

it,

it

becomes the instrument Not under-

of spreading the pantheism of the philosophic school.

may be deeply in love with it. This pandeeply seated in our sinful hearts. The waters

standing this system, one theistic

ferment

is

pantheism are sweet, their religious flavor is peculiarly pleasant. There is spiritual intoxication in this cup, and once inebriated the of

soul has lost

To

its

desire for the sober clearness of the divine

Word.

escape from the witchery of these pantheistic charms, one

needs to be aroused by bitter experience. soul

posed

No

And once awakened,

alarmed at the fearful danger to which

is

this siren

the

had ex-

it.

the contrast between God and man must ?iot cease the conbetween heaven and earth may not be placed upon the same line with that of Jew and Gentile the contrast between the infinite and finite must ?iot be effaced by the Mediator; time and eternity must fiot be made identical. There must be brought about a reconciliatio7i for the sinner. That is all, and no more. " To bring about reconciliation " is the work assigned to the Mediator, and that alone. And this reconciliation is not between time and eternity, the finite and the infinite, but exclusively between a sinful creature and a holy Creator. It is a reconciliation that could not have occurred if man had not fallen, necessitated only by his fall a reconciliation not essential to the being of Christ, but His per accidens, i.e., by something independent of His being. ;

;

trast

;

;

And since the essence of true godliness is based not in the removal of the divinely appointed boundaries and contrasts, but in a deep reverence for the same and on this ground the creature as ;

distinguished from the Creator absolutely distinct from Him,

may

it is

not feel himself one with, but

clear that this error of the Ethi-

cals affects the essence of godliness.

The

early Church discovered this

same principle

in Origen,

and

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