dge, let us see what we can
know through a return to the real nature of man as he is, and
especially to the real nature of the new Adam who is Christ, the Son of
God. Man, as both Scripture and his own inner self testify, is made
_in the image of God_, is dowered with freedom to determine his own
destiny, may go upward into light, or downward into darkness. Man thus
made, when put to trial, _failed_, followed lower instincts instead of
higher, and experienced the awful penalty of sin, namely its cumulative
power, the tendency of sin to beget sin, and to make higher choices
ever more difficult. Christ, however, the new Adam, has _succeeded_.
He has completely revealed the way of obedience, the way in which
spirit conquers flesh. He is the new kind of Person who lives from
above and who exhibits the cumulative power of goodness. His victory,
which was won by His own free choice, inspires all men who see it with
faith and hope in man's spiritual possibilities. Castellio declines to
discuss Christ's metaphysical nature, except in so far as His life has
revealed {100} it to us. He sees in Him the Heart and Character of
God, the certainty of Divine love and forgiveness, and the way of life
for all who desire to be spiritually saved, which means, for him, the
formation of a new inward self, a purified nature, a morally
transformed man, a will which no longer loves or wills sin. "Christ
alone," he says, "can heal the malady of the soul, but He can heal it."
"There is," he says again, "no other way of salvation for any man than
the way of self-denial. He must put off his old man and put on
Christ--however much blood and sweat the struggle may cost." Man, he
insists, is always wrong when he represents God as angry. Christ
showed that God needed no appeasing, but rather that man needed to be
brought back to God by the drawing of Love, and be reconciled to Him.

Faith--which for every prophet of human redemption is the key that
unlocks all doors for the soul--is for Castellio the supreme moral
force by which man turns God's revelations of Himself into spiritual
victories and into personal conquests of character. It is never
something forensic, something magical. It is, as little, mere belief
of historical facts and events. It is, on the contrary, a moral power
that moves mountains of difficulty, works miracles of transformation,
and enables the person who has it to participate in the life of God.
It is a passionate le