Perhaps I can illustrate the difference between human ethics and a life that is according to God’s New Testament economy by telling you about the teaching of certain missionaries in China years ago. Some missionaries clearly said that the Bible and Confucius teach the same thing. They pointed out that both the Bible and Confucius teach the honoring of parents and the submitting of wives to their husbands. These missionaries also said that both the Bible and Confucius teach humility, honesty, integrity, faithfulness, and other such virtues. I first heard this when I was in elementary school. Later, as a teen-ager, I began to say to myself, “Since the Bible and Confucius teach the same thing, why was it necessary for the missionaries to come to China? If there is no difference between the teaching of the Bible and the teaching of Confucius, then there is no need for the missionaries to teach us the Bible.”
By the Lord’s mercy, I was saved at the age of nineteen. I was still bothered by the question concerning the difference, if any, between the teachings of the Bible and those of Confucius. I still wanted to know the difference between the human virtues taught by Confucius and the virtues of Christians taught in the Bible. For a number of years I did not know the difference. After nearly ten years of studying the Bible, my eyes were opened to see the all-inclusive Christ. I began to see Christ as the center and circumference of God’s New Testament economy. Then I began to differentiate between the human virtues taught by Confucius and the Christian virtues taught by the Bible. I came to realize that the human virtues taught by Confucius are the product of human effort. Those virtues do not have anything of God essentially. But the genuine Christian virtues taught by the Bible are not the result of human effort. On the contrary, Christian virtues are the product of the divine life lived out through the believers. Furthermore, the Christian virtues are related essentially to the divine nature. What a difference there is between human virtues as the product of human effort and Christian virtues as the product of the divine life and nature within us!
We may illustrate the difference between the human virtues taught by Confucius and the Christian virtues taught by the Bible by comparing brick with gold. As we examine brick, we may find nothing wrong with it. But if we compare brick with gold, we shall see that there is a tremendous difference between the two. In a similar way, there is a great difference between human virtues and Christian virtues produced by the divine life and nature.
It is tragic that most Christians, including Christian teachers, have not had a clear view of the difference between mere human virtues and genuine Christian virtues. The virtues taught by Confucius and other philosophers are nothing more than human. Those human virtues do not have anything of the divine essence. They have nothing to do with God’s life and nature, much less with God Himself.
The Christian virtues taught by the Bible are very different from mere human virtues. The difference is that the nature of Christian virtues is the nature of God. Concerning this, Peter says in his second Epistle that we have become partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). Therefore, Christian virtues are the product not of outward effort but of an inward nature, the divine nature that we have received through regeneration. The Christian virtues are related essentially to the divine life, the divine nature, and God Himself.
Humanly speaking, for the good of society, we all must care for ethics, morality, behavior, and character. For the sake of a proper human living in society we must emphasize these things. Nevertheless, with respect to living God and expressing Him, mere human virtues are of no avail. Rather, they become a frustration to living and expressing the Lord.
If we would live God and express Him, we need to see that it is necessary even for the natural human virtues to be terminated. This termination is necessary for the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The beginning of the gospel implies the termination of all things other than God Himself.