one long incarnation.+--If now we can turn our thoughts
away for a moment from the individual to the race and think of humanity
as one being, or the expression of one being, we shall read this truth
on a larger scale. All human history represents the incarnation or
manifesting of the eternal Son or Christ of God. The incarnation
cannot be limited to one life only, however great that life may be. It
is quite a false idea to think of Jesus and no one else as the Son of
God incarnate. It is easy to understand the loving reverence for Jesus
which would lead men to regard Him as being and expressing something to
which none of the rest of us can ever attain, but in affirming this we
actually rob Him of a glory He ought to receive. We make Him unreal,
reduce His earthly life to a sort of drama, and effect a drastic
distinction in kind between Him and ourselves. If He came from the
farther side of the gulf and we only from the hither; if we are
humanity without divinity, and He divinity that has only assumed
humanity,--perfect fellowship between Him and ourselves is impossible.
But it is untrue to say that any such distinction exists. Let us go on
thinking of Jesus as Christ, the very Christ of glory, but let us
realise that that same Christ is seeking expression through every human
soul. He is incarnate in the race in order that by means of limitation
He may manifest the innermost of God, the life and love eternal. To
say this does not dethrone Jesus; it lends significance to His life and
work. He is on the throne and the sceptre is in His hand. We can rise
toward Him by trusting, loving, and serving Him; and by so doing we
shall demonstrate that we too are Christ the eternal Son.

To think of all human life as a manifestation of the eternal Son,
renders it sacred. Our very struggles and sufferings become full of
meaning. Sin is but the failure to realise it; it is being false to
ourselves and our divine origin; it is the centrifugal tendency in
human nature just as love is the centripetal. There is no life,
however depraved, which does not occasionally emit some sign of its
kinship to Jesus and its eternal sonship to God. Wherever you see
self-sacrifice at work you see the very spirit of Jesus, the spirit of
the Christ incarnate. I find it everywhere, and it interprets life for
me as nothing else can. Take up any work of fiction, no matter what,
and you will find the author instinctively preaching this truth.