Four Principles Underlying the Christian Faith

If the spiritual kingdom proclaimed by Jesus was a disappointment to Jewish expectations, its other attribute of universalism was, in a still greater degree, an offense to Jewish prejudice. The spirit of exclusiveness was a prominent feature in the character of Jews during this time. It had its root partly in pride, partly in a mistaken sense of obligation. The people of Israel had been chosen of God to be a medium through which the entire world would eventually be blessed. This was God’s great purpose in Israel’s election, but the method involved temporary isolation in order to ultimate union in one divine commonwealth. That isolation had one unfortunate result. It led the chosen race to mistake the means for the end, and to regard the outside world with contempt. Israel fell into the mistake of imagining that election meant a monopoly of divine preference. The orthodox religious Jews of Christ’s time detested those who lived outside the gates of the holy city.

To a people with this mindset, a universal religion common to Jews and Gentiles was unacceptable. Yet, it was nevertheless, the religion of Jesus. Suffice it to point out two such sayings as: “You are the salt of the earth,” “You are the light of the world.” This did not sit well with the orthodox Jews who considered others as pagans.

With instinctive discernment of what was involved, the strictly religious fellow compatriots of Jesus earnestly and repeatedly found fault with this part of His public conduct, and so put Him on His defense for the crime of loving the unlovable and the morally unlovely. The words He spoke in self vindication have been preserved, which is not surprising, seeing they are full of poetry and pathos and benignant empathy with erring humanity, and contain the very quintessence of God’s gospel to humanity. These words constitute Christ’s defense made for Christianity in its simplest aspect as the good news of God to a sinful world. Though they are familiar to all readers of the Gospels, I thought it expedient to indicate here the principles underlying them, and which responds to the objections first raised by the Pharisees, since they have numerous followers in all ages, even today.

1) Moral Healing

Christianity aspires to heal moral evil, and therefore it addresses itself to those who stand in greatest need of its help. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor,” Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” Matthew 9:12. Therefore, He intimated that He came to be a physician, and that like every physician, He felt it to be His job to devote His attention to those who most urgently required the benefit of His skill.

If Christianity was merely a philosophy, it might address itself exclusively to the prominent and well-off while disregarding the mass of humanity. If it was one among many religious mysteries, like the sacred rites which the annual festival of Ceres was celebrated at Eleusis, it might in that case also confine its interests to the privileged few, and neglect the many as unworthy of initiation. But professing to be an effectual remedy for the moral diseases of mankind, it must address itself to the world, and be ready to extend its healing power on all, even those burdened with the most loathsome maladies.

2) Redemption always Possible

Christianity has faith in the redemption of human beings, however sunk in sin and misery. Not deceiving itself as to the grave nature of the sins in which it finds men afflicted, yet does not despair of curing them. Many, coldly contemplating mankind from an exalted position, may consider vast numbers of the human race incapable of improvement, and so regard all philanthropic efforts directed towards that end as wasted endeavors. But Christianity, cherishing invincible faith in the moral destiny of humanity, refuses to resign itself to a policy of indifference based on hopelessness, and sets itself to the Herculean task of healing man’s spiritual diseases, declining to despair even in the most desperate cases. So far from despairing, it ever believes in the possibility of the last becoming first, of the greatest sinner becoming the greatest saint. This truth Jesus hinted at when He said, “her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” Luke 7:47, suggesting the correlative doctrine that to whom much is forgiven, the same loves much. In other words, from among the children prone to err, may emerge, when their hearts are properly directed, the most devoted and effective citizens and servants of the divine kingdom. Though to the world, it seems a bold and hazardous assertion, it is one nevertheless which the history of the Church has fully justified.

3) Humanity worth Salvation

Christianity thinks the meanest worth saving. It rejoices over a solitary sinner redeemed. Jesus said, “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” Luke 15:7. With such joy in heaven, and among Christ-like men and women, the Pharisees could not sympathize. It seemed to them that people like the publicans were not worth saving, hardly even worth the time, and in this view many in every age are only too ready to agree with them. But the genius of Christianity is like the good woman in the parable who set value on a single small coin, and could not rest till she found it, and expected all her neighbors to rejoice with her when she had succeeded. “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.” Luke 15:8-9. Jesus Christ set a high value on every creature endowed with a human soul, seeing in him a lost coin bearing stamped on it, however marred, the image of God, a lost sheep capable of being brought back to the fold, a lost son of God who might any day return to his Father’s house.

4) Joy over Repentance

Christianity assumes that God’s attitude towards humanity is the same as that of Christ. Jesus believed and said that there was joy in heaven over a sinner repenting, such as He Himself felt. This, in truth, was His radical defense to those who found fault with Him. To His accusers it was an effective reply, for while the idea of God as He suggested was widely different from that cherished by the Pharisaic mind, yet they could not on reflection quarrel with the doctrine that God is good and ready to forgive, and that it cannot be wrong to be like Him. Yet, the alleged “joy in heaven” is the thing which men have ever found hardest to believe in. Some because they cannot conceive of God having thoughts of any kind, loving or the reverse, Christ’s whole way of representing God, as a Father who cares for His wayward children, appearing to them, too incredible.

Let us trust the word of Christ and believe that He uttered truth when He declared, “there is joy in heaven over one sinner repenting.” Let us go forward with the Good News of the Gospel.