1. The change is not carried out through sexual reproduction.
2. This stage of Evolution, unlike previous stages, is voluntary in that we can accept or reject the offer to move forward.
3. Jesus was not merely the first of these new men; He is the New Man. We become new men ourselves by getting into personal contact with Christ, by catching it through "good infection."
4. Compared with other stages of Evolution, this one has spread at a much greater speed, really like a flash of lightning ("for two thousand years is almost nothing in the history of the universe"). Which brings up an important point regarding Christianity and how far along the religion as a whole really is when we look at it in terms of stages of development...
"In an ordinary birth the baby has not much choice: here it has. I wonder what an ordinary baby would do if it had the choice. It might prefer to stay in the dark and warmth and safety of the womb. For of course it would think the womb meant safety. That would be just where it was wrong; for if it stays there it will die."
So if we're using the illustration of Evolution, this new stage does look different in many ways, but it has happened and is happening all around us.
- You could tell a community of people who have always lived in darkness about light and try to describe how coming into the light would make them all visible because they would all be reflecting the light. They might think that "since they were all receiving the same light, and all reacting to it in the same way (i.e., all reflecting it), they would all look alike. Whereas you and I know that the light will in fact bring out, or show up, how different they are."
- Or imagine you offer a taste of salt to a person who has never known anything about salt, and you describe how people in your country use it to flavor all of their meals and foods. The man might then think that all the foods your people make must all taste the same because the flavor of the salt is so strong that it seems to kill all the other flavors. "But you and I know that the real effect of salt is exactly the opposite. So far from killing the taste of the egg and the tripe and the cabbage, it actually brings it out. They do not show their real taste till you have added the salt."
This is something like how it is with Christ...
"But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away 'blindly' so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up your self, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead."