Personality—II - Chambers, Oswald
Self-Realization versus Christ-Realization
Self-realization is a modern phrase be moral, be religious, be upright, in order that you may realise yourself. Nothing blinds the mind to the claims of Jesus more effectually than a good moral life based on the disposition of self-realisation. Paul says, if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that are perishing: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving . . . (2 Corinthians 4:34 RV). The issue is not with external sins and wrongdoing, but with the ideal of self- realisation, because it is this disposition that divides clean asunder from all Jesus Christ stands for. In using bible terms, remember they are used from gods standpoint, not mans. From mans standpoint, self-realisation is full of light and wisdom; from gods standpoint, it is the dark night of the soul. Romans 7 describes the giving way of the foundations of self-realisation.
1. Separate self-consciousness
The notion that we conceive of ourselves as separate from everyone else is erroneous, it is the rarest thing unless we have done wrong, then immediately we realise not our oneness with others, but our separateness. The guilty man is the one who wants to be alone, the man who is right with god does not; neither does a child. Separate self-consciousness is the realisation that i am other than what i see and am troubled by all that is not me. The i of sepa- rate self-consciousness is the manifestation of sin; the final curse of a disobedient soul is that it becomes a separate, self-conscious individual.
God did not create Adam holy. He created him innocent, that is, without self-consciousness (as we understand the word) before god; Adam was conscious of himself only in relation to the being whom he was to glorify and enjoy. Consciousness of self was an impossibility in the garden until something happened, viz. , the introduction of sin. To begin with Adam was not afraid of god; he was not afraid of the beasts of the field, or of anything, because there was no consciousness of himself apart from god. Immediately he disobeyed, he became conscious of himself and he felt afraid i heard thy voice in the garden, and i was afraid . . . (genesis 3:10); he had ceased to be a child and had become a sinner. That is why our lord says we have to become children all over again. Through the miracle of regeneration we are placed back into a state of innocence. Sin kills the child out of us and creates the bitter sinner in us. In other words, gods right to me is killed by the incoming of my self-conscious right to my self i can do without god. Sin is not a creation, it is a relationship set up between the devil (who is independent entirely of god) and the being god made to have communion with himself. Disobey god, separate yourself from him, and you will be as god, knowing good and evil (genesis 3:5 rv; see genesis 3:22). The entrance of sin meant that the connection with god was gone and the disposition of self-realisation had come in its place. Our lord never denounced wrongdoing and immorality so strongly as he denounced self- realisation. Have you ever been puzzled by his attitude to the people of his day why he told the chief priests that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of god before you? He could not have meant that social sins were not abominable: he was looking at something we do not see, viz. , the disposition at the basis of right and wrongdoing. If either my goodness or my badness is based on the dispo- sition of self-realisation, i am anti-Christ. Modern culture and much of the higher christian life19 type of teaching goes on the line of perfecting my natural individual self until i am in such a condition that god will say, now you have done so well i will call you my child. Could anything be more alien to the new testament? Our lords teaching is always antiself-realisation. He that findeth his life shall lose it . . . Why do we ignore what Jesus said? When we come across something we don’t like we say we dont understand it; it is too plain not to be understood. Jesus Christ says that the relationship to himself is to be supreme. . . . And he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. We know experimentally what it is to be born again, but we do not think along that line, consequently barriers come in the way, e. G. , self-conscious piety, sanctimonious sincerity. Anything that makes me conscious of myself or of my experience is of the nature of sin and brings the bondage of self- consciousness. In a religious person self-conscious- ness dresses itself up in the guise of piety; you cant be pi without feeling self-conscious. The truly godly person is one who is entirely sanctified, and he or she is never sanctimonious, but absolutely natural. The characteristic of a saint is freedom from anything in the nature of self-consciousness. Our lord was conscious of only one thing i and my father are one.
2. Solidarity in Christ
If i am prepared to have the disposition of self- realisation destroyed and the disposition of christ- realisation put in its place, i get to the bedrock of identification with the death of Jesus, and there begins the possibility of my being something which will show my gratitude for his redemption. Identification with the death of Jesus is a most powerfully practical experience. The dominating principle at work now is towards Christ-realisation; experimentally it means that i am ruled by the very disposition of Jesus. Once we are reinstated in the life of god through the redemption self-consciousness gets feebler and feebler until it disappears altogether, and we are conscious only of personality as a means of knowing god. The beginning of the christian life is characterised by an abomination of self-interest; it is what the lord said to me and what i said to him; it is a stage through which many a life goes, but it is not in agreement with the life jesus pictures, not the life of a child. There is never any trace of self-conscious sainthood in abandonment to Jesus, there is only one consciousness
Jesus only, Jesus ever,
Jesus all in all i see.
Some people are everlastingly badgered by self-consciousness, full of nervous troubles, but let Something like war or a bereavement strike the life and all the morbid self-interest is gone, and the abandonment of concern for others marks the begin- ning of real life. That is an ordinary natural law and has nothing to do with the spirit of god. Apply it to what our lord teaches about discipleship he makes abandonment to himself the condition (see Luke 14:26). Whenever our lord talked about the relation of a disciple to himself it was in terms of mystical union: i am the vine [not the root of the vine, but the vine itself], ye are the branches. We have not paid enough attention to the illustrations Jesus uses. This is the picture of sanctification in the individual, a completeness of relationship between Jesus Christ and myself. Pharisaic holiness means that my eyes are set on my own whiteness and i become a separate individual. I have the notion that i have to be some- thing; i have not, i have to be absolutely abandoned to Jesus Christ, so one with him that i never think of myself apart from him. Love is never self-conscious. We are one with god only in the manner and measure we have allowed the holy spirit to have way with us. The fruit of the spirit is the fruit of a totally new disposition, the disposition of Christ-realisation. Instead now of self-realisation, self-consciousness and sin, there is sanctity and spiritual reality, bringing forth fruit unto holiness.