13. None Of Me

THE new paganism, which is broadly on the increase. is in one point altogether different from that against which prophets and apostles joined issue: it has no idols.

Metaphorically it has. It is said with good reason, that a mother makes an idol of her child, a wife of her husband. One worships his idol in art and the other in Mammon. But however common it may be to speak in this way metaphorically of an idol, yet all this is something entirely different from the heathen's idolatry, which has visible idols, builds temples and pagodas for them, appoints priests in their honor, burns sacrifices and orders festivals.

Ancient paganism with its visible idolatry was personal; modern paganism soars in vague enchantments.

In Paris and London and, as report has it, in New York, societies have been formed of men and women that hold meetings in pagan-like chapels, and kneel down and mutter prayers before images of idols. But these are not the people who lead the new pagan movement. These, for the most part, are persons who have spent part of their life in heathen Asiatic countries, and now in Europe or America imitate what they have seen in Asia, and in which they took part while there. This is a little oil flame on top of wide waters, and is utterly without significance with respect to the great movement of spirits.

The modern heathen movement, on the other hand, is driven by an entirely impersonal object, has no thought of setting up images of idols. and scorns idolatry proper as it is still known in India, China and Japan.

That which drives this new heathen movement is two-fold; negatively, it is the denial of a personal living God; positively, it is the doting either on vague ideals, or on sensual pleasure and money.

This makes warfare against this new form of heathenism far more painful and difficult than that which Prophets and Apostles waged against idolatrous heathendom.

Of old it was name pitted against name, person against person, image against image.

Not Baal, but Jehovah.

Not Jupiter, but the Lord of Hosts.

Not the image of the great Diana. but Christ, the Image of the Invisible God.

Thus the personal character which heathendom borrowed from visible idolatry compelled the setting up by the side of it an equally personal object of worship.

It was Zion pitted against Basan, Jerusalem against Gerizim, priest against priest, and, in the same way, God, the living God, the eternal and adorable Jehovah, against Moloch and Baal.

Hence the scorn of idols: "ears have they, but they hear not. Eyes have they, but they see not. Mouths have they, but they speak not. They who make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them. But thou, O Israel, trust thou in the Lord" (Psalm 115:6, 9).

But now this fails us.

The modern pagan dotes on humanity, is zealous for art, feels impulse and love for high forms of life, or takes part in the chase after sensual pleasure and wealth, and obeys the spur of passion.

This has the sad result, that they who in other ways are still faithful Christians have too largely abandoned the personal element in their worship of the living God, and in turn dote on the beautiful ideals of love and mercy, of peace and higher good, without feeling any longer that deep, personal cornmunion with the personal, living God, in which lay the power and strength of the faith of our fathers.

Of course it is entirely true that the immortal ideal of love and mercy means nothing else than the expression of Divine attributes; but the trouble is that instead of confessing, God is love, or love is God, one forms an idea of love for himself, turns it into an ideal (behind which the living God is lost from sight), dotes on that creation of his own thought, and becomes a stranger to God.

Apply this more closely to Christ, and you reach the same result.

In the place of an image of an idol, God has set up the Image of Himself in His only-begotten Son, as the Christ is revealed in the flesh.

By this, the idea is repressed, the ideal is relegated to the background, and in the foreground, in clear and transparent light, stands the Christ, the incarnate Word.

All the enthusiasm, wherewith Christianity was carried into the world, sprang from this heaven-wide difference.

With philosophers of Greece and Rome, it was zeal for beautiful ideals, but with the Apostles, it was passionate love for the living Christ, the tangible Image of the living God.

It is this personal attachment of faith to the living Christ in very Person, in which the secret of their power consisted. It was a love of heart to heart, by which the world of that age was won. It was love and affection for the Mediator between God and man, that brought heathendom to its fall.

When Thomas kneels down and exclaims: "My Lord and my God!" there reveals itself all the power of the personal worship of God in Christ by which the Church of Christ became what it is.

But this too is being lost.

First it was weakened by a sentimental holding fast to Christ as man, whereby God, if not forgotten, was obscured in His Majesty.

And now even among Christians it has come to this, that putting aside the Person of Christ, an ideal in Christ is loved, presently to develop into a stronger tie than that to the Person of Christ Himself.

Admiration of the ideal breaks down the faith.

This now is the complaint of the Lord in Asaph's song (Psalm 81: 11) : " They would have none of me. "

It can not be put more personally than this.

They love my creation, they enjoy the world which I called into being, they admire the wisdom which I made to shine as light in the darkness, they dote on love and mercy, the feeling for which I made glow in their heart; but Me they abandon, Me they pass by, of Me they have no thought, to Me they give no personal love of their heart, with Me they seek no fellowship, Me they do not know; my personal converse does not interest them; they have everything that is mine, but they would have none of me.

The complaint is often heard that an acquaintance enjoys what is yours, satisfies himself with your goods, honors your ideas, adorns himself with flowers from your garden, even praises what you do, but remains a stranger to personal attachment, no trace of affection for you is discovered in his heart, no sympathy with you is shown, and of yourself he desires to know nothing.

The reason for this is found all too frequently with the person himself; so that one admires him, honors him, praises his deeds, and yet feels bound to say: he is not a man to invite personal affection.

But of course, with God this does not hold. He alone is adorable, the highest Good, Love itself, in every way loveable, eternally to be desired.

And when in the face of this a complaint comes from God: "they would have none of me," it is a piercing complaint against our heart, against our faith; it expresses deepest feeling aroused by gross misappreciation. "I am the Only One Whom they should desire, and lo, they would have none of Me. They love Me not, they cleave not unto Me with heart and soul. For their personal affection I, their God, am not the potent, all compelling point of attraction."

Here is complaint against the superficiality, vagueness, and unreality of our piety, against the diminished and weakened conception of our religion, against the actual faithlessness of our heart; in brief, against a religious decline which expresses itself in our lack of holy ardor, in the quenched fires of our higher enthusiasm, in the congealing of the waters of holy mysticism.

This is partly a personal wrong, springing from too high an opinion of self, from too potent a self-sufficiency, from lack of dependence and proper trust; but it is also an evil of our times, a common, contagious disease, whereby one poisons the other; an apostasy of the world of spirits, which turns our heart away from the living God.

This must be resisted.

The struggle must be begun against our own heart first, that we may attain again personal fellowship with the living God.

This struggle must be extended over our entire environment, in order to repress all false religion, with its vague ideals, and replace it by personal affection for the living God.

This battle must be waged with enthusiasm and untiring fidelity in our preaching and devotional writings and in ardent supplications, to call the living God back into our personal life.

And then this struggle must be carried out into the world to call it back from fancy to reality, from the idea to the essence, from religion to the Only Object of our worship, from doting on the abstract to the love of the faith that directs itself solely to Him who has revealed Himself in Christ as the personal living God.