llating. We are in the
world and of the world as other men are, and we share the lot of human
existence. But in addition, we have been given the spirit of power and
love and self-control, not that we may be condescending toward the
world, or try to regulate it as if it were a recalcitrant child, but
that we may be embodiments of the Spirit of God in human affairs through
whom He may accomplish His purposes in the world. In the process,
because His Spirit is in us, men will know that they have seen Jesus.

Thus we may come to understand the life of the people of God, and to
find therein a basis for a true evangelism; and thus we may participate
in the life and teaching of Christ, which are at once our ideal and
pattern of living, and at the same time our judgment.

_Participation in the Crucifixion_

Since the life of the Christian is participation in his own time in the
life of Christ, he must participate also in the crucifixion and death of
his Lord, which were a part of His life. Christ's crucifixion and death
were a natural consequence of His teaching and of the way in which He
lived. The acceptance of the unacceptable, the loving of the unlovable,
inevitably produces the necessity of the Cross, which itself must be
chosen and accepted if the life of love is to be triumphant.

We would like to evade this part of Christian living, if that were
possible. The Cross and all that it represents is the part of the
Christian gospel that we would prefer to skip. The lives of church
people reveal only too clearly how much they wish it were possible to
move directly from the contemplation of the ideal to its actualization,
and to bypass the experience of crucifixion and its meaning for us.
Lovers, for example, would like to move from the contemplation of the
romantic ideal of their love to its realization in their lives. But the
full meaning of their love cannot become available to them except as
they pass through the challenges and crises of their relationship and
die to themselves for the sake of the other. Nor can anyone master a
skill or a field of study except as he moves from the vision of what he
_might_ do, to its realization through the path of self-discipline,
which is a kind of dying to himself and to other values which he might
choose and cultivate.

Jesus Christ affirmed by His teaching and life this principle of
disciplined self-giving. If we would be partakers of His resurrection,
we must be willing to be