r. Sanday pleaded for
the necessity of a new Christology, it was not because he was primarily
zealous for a novel philosophy, but because like John of old in Ephesus
he was zealous to present Christ to his own generation in terms that his
own generation could comprehend.[15]

IV

Undoubtedly such an outlook upon the fluid nature of the Christian
movement will demand readjustment in the religious thinking of many
people. They miss the old ideas about revelation. This new
progressiveness seems to them to be merely the story of man's discovery,
finding God, here a little and there a little, as he has found the truths
of astronomy. But God's revelation of himself is just as real when it is
conceived in progressive as when it is conceived in static terms. Men
once thought of God's creation of the world in terms of fiat--it was done
on the instant; and when evolution was propounded men cried that the
progressive method shut God out. We see now how false that fear was.
The creative activity of God never was so nobly conceived as it has been
since we have known the story of his slow unfolding of the universe. We
have a grander picture in our minds than even the psalmist had, when we
say after him, "The heavens declare the glory of God." So men who have
been accustomed to think of revelation in static terms, now that the long
leisureliness of man's developing spiritual insight is apparent, fear
that this does away with revelation. But in God's unfolding education of
his people recorded in the Scriptures revelation is at its noblest. No
man ever found God except when God was seeking to be found. Discovery is
the under side of the process; the upper side is revelation.

Indeed, this conception of progressive revelation does not shut out
finality. In scientific thought, which continually moves and grows,
expands and changes, truths are discovered once for all. The work of
Copernicus is in a real sense final. This earth does move; it is not
stationary; and the universe is not geocentric. That discovery is final.
Many developments start from that, but the truth itself is settled once
for all. So, in the spiritual history of man, final revelations come.
They will not have to be made over again and they will not have to be
given up. Progress does not shut out finality; it only makes each new
finality a point of departure for a new adventure, not a terminus ad quem
for a conclusive stop. That God was in Christ recon