THE word evolution, with which modem science has made us familiar, has undergone such a dramatic reversal of fortunes as to give it almost a romantic flavor. A generation ago it was regarded as having a particularly emphatic irreligious meaning, because it was thought to show that anything like an all-wise creator or a rational purpose in the world was quite unnecessary or doubtful. In time, however, the word came to be seen as truly religious in its import; for the fundamental conviction of religion always is that man's destiny is under the guidance of a divine purpose, moving toward some great end; and evolution, even at its lowest terms, always reveals an intelligent purpose, unfolding, according to a progressive rational law, toward some great end.
But more especially it is the Bible that gives to the idea of evolution the sacred meaning of a divine providence. The purpose of God unfolds from the promise of grace, through the law and the prophets, to fulfilment in the glorious Messiah, who brings to light the dispensation of the divine Son, and establishes the kingdom of God on earth. To explain himself and his gospel to his contemporaries, Jesus pointed back over the past and declared that it all looked forward to, and prepared the way for, his coming. He abolished nothing that was real, but brought the true meaning that lay hidden in the past to full expression.
But if Jesus thus fulfilled the past, he inaugurated a new, progressive, historical development for the future. His gospel was like leaven that was to spread throughout the entire lump, or like the seed that was to develop into the blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear. It was to be an unfoldment of the truth in the consciousness of men, moving toward the dispensation of the divine Spirit; and the entire development of Christian history has been under the guidance of the ideals which Jesus presented in his gospel.
