The moral Individual—I - Chambers, Oswald
Individuality
Individuality is the husk of the personal life, it is all elbows; it separates and isolates. The husk of individuality is gods created natural covering for the protection of the personal life, but unless individuality gets transfigured it becomes objectionable, egotistical and conceited, interested only in its own independence. Individuality is the characteristic of a child and rightly so, but if we mistake individuality for the personal life we will remain isolated. It is the continual assertion of individuality that hinders our spiritual development more than anything else; individuality must go in order that personality may emerge and be brought into fellowship with god.
1. Independence
. . . A fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be in the earth. (genesis 4:12 RV )
Individuality is natural, but when individuality is indwelt by sin it destroys personal communion and isolates individuals, like so many crystals, and all possibility of fellowship is destroyed. The characteristics of individuality are independence and self- assertiveness. There is nothing dearer to the heart of the natural man than independence, and as long as i live in the outskirts of my prideful independence Jesus Christ is nothing to me.
Personality, not individuality, is the great christian doctrine, but we misunderstand the teaching of our lord when we confound the natural with the spiritual, and individuality with sin. Independence of one another is natural; independence of god is sin. When natural independence of one another is wedded with independence of god it becomes sin, and sin isolates and destroys, and ultimately damns the life. Positive9 individuality in any form is not only anti- christian, but anti human, because it instantly says, i care for neither god nor man, i live for myself.
Cain stands for positive individuality not as Cain was of the evil one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his works were evil, and his brothers righteous (1 john 3:12 rv). (it is not the act of murder only that is taken into account our lord said out of the heart proceed . . . Murders.
The statements of Jesus at times startle us painfully awake. ) Cain was the first isolated individual; Adam was not an isolated individual. Before the fall Adam was in relationship with god and with the world; when he was driven out from the garden he was still in relationship with the world. Cains sin shattered him into absolute solitariness. Being alone is not solitariness; it is the loneliness with an element of moral dis-esteem in it which is solitariness. There is no comrade for a murderer, he is isolated by the very success of his sin. It is instructive to notice what associates itself with god and what with the sinner: nothing associates itself with the sinner but his sin. The sinner is absolutely solitary on gods earth, and as long as he remains proud in his solitariness he goes against everything that is anything like god; he goes against man, who is likest god, and against the earth, which is also like god, and both man and earth cry out to god against him all the time. The voice of thy brothers blood crieth unto me from the ground (genesis 4:10). For an individual to be isolated is either a sign of sin or of a transition stage, i. E. , a person in the making. The most dangerous stage in a souls development is the no one understands me stage of course they don’t! I don’t understand myself of course you don’t! If this stage develops unduly the boy or girl will find when they get out into the world that they cannot work with others, and they become more and more impossible until the unwholesome idea that they are different from everyone else is knocked out of them. It is well to remember that our examination of ourselves can never be unbiased, so that we are only safe in taking our estimate of ourselves from our creator instead of from our own introspection which makes us either depressed or conceited. The oft-repeated modern phrase self-mastery is mis- leading; profoundly speaking, a man can never master what he does not understand, therefore the only master of a man is not man himself, or another man, but god. Because introspection cannot profoundly satisfy, it does not follow that introspection is wrong; it is right, because it is the only way in which we will discover our need of god. It is the introspective power that is made alert by conviction of sin.
2. Interdependence
And not one of them said that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. (acts 4:32 RV )
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works; not forsaking the assembling of our- selves together. . . . (Hebrews 10:2425)
These two passages serve to indicate the main characteristic of Christianity, viz. , the together aspect; false religions inculcate an isolated holy life. Try and develop a holy life in private, and you find it cannot be done. Individuals can only live the true life when they are dependent on one another. After the resurrection our lord would not allow Mary to hold a spiritual experience for herself, she must get into contact with the disciples and convey a message to them touch me not; . . . But go unto my brethren, and say to them, i ascend unto my father and your father, and my god and your god. After peters denial the isolation of misery would inevitably have seized on him and made him want to retire in the mood of i can never forgive myself, had not our lord forestalled this by giving him something positive to do. . . And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. Immediately you try to develop holiness alone and fix your eyes on your own whiteness, you lose the whole meaning of christian- ity. The holy spirit makes a man fix his eyes on his lord and on intense activity for others. In the early middle ages people had the idea that Christianity meant living a holy life apart from the world and its sociability, apart from its work and citizenship. That type of holiness is foreign to the new testament; it cannot be reconciled with the records of the life of jesus. The people of his day called him the friend of publicans and sinners because he spent so much time with them.
The danger of the higher christian life move- ments10 is that the emphasis is put not on the regenerating power of the grace of god, but on individual consecration, individual fasting and prayer, individual devotion to god. The apostle Paul sums up individual human effort under the guise of religion as things which have a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body (colossi ans 2:23). It is simply individualism veneered over with religious phraseology what has Jesus done for me? I have done it all for myself; i did it by prayer, by fast- ing, by consecration. To reason like that is to put our lord out of it as saviour and sanctifier. We do not come to Jesus Christ, we come to our own earnestness, to our own consecration; what happens when we do come to Jesus is the miracle of a new creation. The christian life is stamped all through with impossibility. Human nature cannot come anywhere near Jesus Christs demands, and any rational being facing those demands honestly, says, it cant be done, apart from a miracle. Exactly. In our modern Christianity there is no miracle; it isyou must pray more; you must give up this and that anything and everything but the need to be born into a totally new kingdom. In these talks we have traced all through the insistence that we are brought up in families, and families form communities, and communities institutions, and institutions are under governments, and governments are answerable to god all for one purpose, that we might develop together. In the external aspects of christianity in civilised life individuality is not lost, but it is not positive,11 it is interdependent. Beware of becoming a positive individual in your christian community, and saying, i must separate myself and start a little place of my own. If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with everyone else who is in the light. Natural affinity does not count here at all.
. . . That they may be one, even as we are one. ( john 17:22)
Christianity is personal, therefore it is unindividual. An individual remains definitely segregated from every other individual; when you come to the teaching of our lord there is no individuality in that sense at all, but only personality, that they may be one. Two individuals can never merge; two persons can become one without losing their identity. Per- sonality is the characteristic of the spiritual man as individuality is the characteristic of the natural man. When the holy spirit comes in he emancipates our personal spirit into union with god, and individuality ultimately becomes so interdependent that it loses all its self-assertiveness. Jesus Christ prayed for our identification with himself in his oneness with the father that they may be one, even as we are one. That is infinitely beyond experience. Identification is a revelation the exposition of the experience. The standard revelation with regard to identification is our lord himself, and you can never define him in terms of individuality, but only in terms of personality. When Jesus Christ emancipates the personality individuality is not destroyed, it is transfigured, and the transfiguring, incalculable element is love, per- sonal passionate devotion to himself, and to others for his sake.