If Jesus had had an indwelling with mankind as well as with God, it might have disabled him from being the Messiah. He would inevitably have sought to make his kingdom embrace this other person; and his kingdom would probably have resembled Augustine’s City of God: living beside the City of Rome, nourishing it and sustaining it, but being different from it. He only had God, so it had to be other worldly.
What do we mean by the Universal Christ? We all know what we mean by the historical Jesus, even if it is difficult or impossible to understand him. But what do we mean by the Universal Christ? Do we mean the Spirit who in our imaginations at least dwells in us: even though it may be a great fantasy on our part to think it is the spirit of Jesus? It can be fantasy, as is shown by the revolting conduct of many who have claimed this incomparable benefit (as Cranmer calls it). How can the men who conducted the Inquisition, began the Counter Reformation, and welcomed the Thirty Years War claim that the spirit of Jesus continued to dwell in them? We all make mistakes; but there comes a time when a man has either to acknowledge his mistake, and abandon his conduct, or part company with God. It is fairly obvious that they parted company with God. We all need to have a spirit within us; if we do not, then we are nonentities, mere ciphers. If we reject the spirit of God, graciously offered to us, then we may have to make do with a distinctly less attractive spirit. The spirit of Egotism, the spirit of Money, of ruthless Ambition, or the spirit of Murder. There are plenty of less attractive spirits, than the spirit of Jesus.
Or do we mean the Word of God: that the whole of creation was designed to be the setting for the Saviour’s birth, and life? That the laws revealed by science, and the spiritual laws guiding men’s conduct, were designed solely to reveal the one perfect life that has ever been lived? “All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made”. Erasmus wrote, “In the beginning was the conversation”. He suggests creation was the interplay of two minds, not one; which is mirrored by the view of the German General Staff that the proper way to conduct War was to have a marriage of minds between the Army Commander and his Chief of Staff. Why should not the historical Jesus be the Word of God emptied of everything except his immortal spirit? So that if he was faithful to the spirit within himself, he would struggle towards perfect union with the Creator. If he was faithless to the spirit within himself, he would get hopelessly lost in the labyrinth of the secular world. He would forget whom he was.