Even in Biblical language, it is natural to credit Jesus with wanting his Incarnation to be repeated in anyone who believed in him. This I am sure was why he used the gruesome symbolism of the need to eat his flesh and drink his blood, to have any part in him. It is a horrible symbolism, and disgusted many of his followers. It is not credible that he would have used it, unless he thought it was crucially necessary to get his message across to us. But which would give the Creator, overflowing with generosity, more pleasure: to have one solitary, lonely, only-begotten son, or countless numbers of them? Even in these terms, the Doctrine of the Trinity is seen to be a man-made formula, maybe an appropriate compromise at the time, but which cut the common man off from God until the Reformation. But in modern thought, when any suggestion that a man or woman might be God-incarnate in this world, would be met with derision; it is safer to use the language of modern psychology. This permits the common man to think he believes in Jesus, without his actions having to be comparable with his. He no longer has to decide whether that uncomfortable saying of Jesus, that anyone who believed in him would do all he had done and greater things still when society had made away with him, was true, or only wonderful make-belief. He can begin in small ways, and then be more daring.
After all, is it not true that, “He who dares, wins”? Or is it most foolhardy advice? Is it safer to say, “No advance, without security”! We need look no further back than the French revolutionary wars that began in 1793; who triumphed at the Battle of Valmy? Who triumphed at the battles of Lodi, Rivoli, and later at Austerlitz? In more modern times, who triumphed at the Battle of Dunkirk, which General Montgomery, as he was then, considered the most shameful defeat the British Army had ever experienced? And what is the likely fate of the dear-old C.of E. when the mildest criticism of the timid gospel she preaches, is simply ignored? In the last hundred years the whole world of the subconscious has been opened up; and the theories advanced probably contain much truth, and even more error. But the C.of E. has not got as far as accepting Evolution & Darwin; and the names of Freud, Jung and Adler are unknown in the C.of E. What view will the Creator himself take of such ignorance and timidity? Or will He simply leave the C.of E. to its well-deserved fate?
Long ago, legend says Abraham had his celebrated argument with the Almighty, when he urged that if even ten righteous men were found in Sodom, that might be enough to avert its destruction? Does there not come a time, when even the Almighty loses his patience? What will happen if He does?
In the maintenance of Law and Order, in the war against Hitler’s tyranny, in the conflict with Islamic extremism, the compassion of Jesus is useless. You need the mailed fist inside the thick velvet glove, to begin with. The love of Jesus is essential to the eventual survival of society; but not in the short term.