Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII. THE MESSAGE OF PAUL THE MYSTIC TO THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY. IN using the expression "according to my gospel," Paul felt that he had a message to give which was peculiarly his own, minted in his own mind, and stamped with his own individuality. It was a message which expressed what he had come to know and experience of Christ and of His religion. The fundamental facts which lay at the heart of it being historical, were fixed and unchangeable; but the message itself took shape from his own personality, as water takes the shape of the vessel into which it is poured. What Paul gives us is not a bare record of outward fact, but an interpretation of outward fact in the light of personal experience. The personal equation which enters into his message, and which makes it unlike any other, is that which gives to it its special value. It does not contain the whole truth, but it gives a distinct note, which is needed to make up the symphony of truth. The most personal and distinctive thing in Paul's message is undoubtedly the mystical element which underlies his juridical doctrine of justification by faith. Nor is this grafted on to it, but grows naturally out of it, inasmuch as the relationships involved in the soul's adjustment are spiritual and personal. Breaking up Paul's mystical message into its component parts, we find that it includes the following declarations: 1. That the formative thing in Christian experience is the personal contact of the soul of man with the living Redeemer.--In that supreme moment when Christ was revealed to him, and entered with saving power into his life, the mystical message of Paul was born. The mystical, transcendental Christ was henceforth the only Christ he knew, the only Christ he sought to make...