MODIFICATIONS IN THK IDEA OF GOD, ETC. 53 



Living God, the source of all life ; He still appears to us as 

 Tuibetidingly just, as well as indescribably tender. But only 

 the teaching- and the life of Jesus Christ can explain to us the 

 apparent contradiction involved in such a conception, and 

 resolve the mystery how a righteous Being can place forgive- 

 ness of sin in the forefront of His deahngs with sinful man. 



I do not propose to enter into the theological questions 

 involved in the solution of this mystery. Suffice it to say 

 that of late they have entered into a new phase, and that this 

 phase is largely conditioned by a belief in the Divine 

 immanence, a fact which is strongly insisted upon by our Lord 

 as reported by the Evangelist tSt. John, and which assumes 

 an importance for a long time unsuspected in the writings 

 of St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. James. This doctrine reposes 

 upon a declaration on the part of our Blessed Lord which 

 may be looked upon as the starting-point of His revelation — ■ 

 UvevfMa 6 deo<i, God is Spirit, or rather Breath* This 

 declaration, it appears to me, has been much misapprehended, 

 and the misapprehension has rested on a confusion of 

 thought as to the meaning of the word spirit. Spirit has 

 usually been represented as that which is opposed to matter. 

 It may be observed that though philosophy presupposes such 

 an opposition, neither Christianity or Judaism even so much 

 as hint at it. In Greek and Hebrew, and perhaps in Latin, 

 spirit means tliat wliicli is breathed, but when applied to God it 

 also involves the idea of Him who breathes it. Thus to the 

 mind of the early Christian God appeared as the subtle, im- 

 palpable, penetrating Essence which lies beneath all that is ; 

 not identified, as the pantheist would have it, Avith Its own 

 creations, not "fusing all the skirts of self" in the Divine 

 Being, but inspiring and controlling Its own creations, 

 and impelling them towards the fulfilment of Its own 

 ultimate purpose. This indwelling Deity is obviously the 

 God brought before us by the Evangelist St. John. The 

 idea is scarcely absent from a single page of his Gospel or 

 his Epistle.t It is the province of theoh)gy to show how the 



* This idea, it may be observed, is Hebrew in its origin. The Euach 

 Elohim is placed in the forefront in the work of creation (Gen. i, 1). And 

 in the account of the creation of man (Gen. ii, 7), though a ditferent word 

 is used, the same idea is preserved. 



t It is the starting-point of both. The Xoyos rjv (was existing, the same 

 idea as is contained in the word Jehovah) irpos tov 6e6v. In Him life is, 

 (fV avTw ^a>i] ia-Ttv). The Xo-yoy is desci'ibed as " leading forth " {i^rjyovfKvos) 

 the Father or Source of life. That is to say, He is the manifestation of 



