ill '#' ',,:? i : ' - '-- X m 9K '^V <: V -' THE KINGDOM OF GOD. PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB, FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH, LONDON, .... HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. DUBLIN, .... GEORGE HERBERT. NEW YORK, .... SCRIBNER AND WELFORD. THE KINGDOM OF GOD; OR, CHRIST'S TEACHING ACCORDING TO THE SYNOPTICAL GOSPELS. BY ALEXANDER BALMAIN BRUCE, D.D. PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT EXEGESIS IN THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW; AUTHOR OF "THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE," "THE HUMILIATION OF CHRIST," ETC. ETC. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. 1889. 8 1.5 30 87? TO OLD STUDENTS OF GLASGOW FREE CHURCH COLLEGE AS A MEMORIAL OF HOURS SPENT IN THE STUDY OF THE WORDS OF CHRIST THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. THE first ten of the fifteen chapters contained in this volume appeared a few years ago in the pages of the Monthly Interpreter. They have been carefully revised and brought down to date. The remaining five chapters, with the Introduction, appear here for the first time. This book is a first instalment of a projected work on the leading types of doctrine in the New Testament concerning the Good that came to the world through Jesus Christ, whereof the plan is briefly outlined in the last section of the Introduction. A. B. BBUCE. GLASGOW, September 1889. CONTENTS. CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. SECTION PAOK I. The sources, 1 ii. Luke's variations, 14 in. The motives of Luke's variations, . . . . . 28 iv. The synoptical type of doctrine, 38 CHAPTER I. CHRIST'S IDEA OF THE KINGDOM. Two opposed tendencies, . . . . . . . 43 Senses of the expression : The Kingdom of God, .... 46 Idea suggested by prophecy, . . . . . . . 47 The mysteries of the kingdom, 49 Words of grace, .......... 50 Effect of Christ's preaching, ........ 51 To whom Christ preached, 53 Significance of Christ's attitude towards social abjects, ... 54 Sayings involving universalism, ....... 55 Sayings of apparently contrary import, 56 Spirituality of the kingdom : the kingdom of Heaven, ... 58 The kingdom in outline, . ..... 59 CHAPTER II. CHRIST'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE MOSAIC LAW. Reticence of Christ, . . . 63 Think not I came to destroy, ....... 64 Destroying by fulfilling, . . . . . . . 65 Scale of moral worth, ......... 66 Straws showing the stream of tendency, ..... 68 ix CONTENTS. Silence concerning circumcision, 68 The things that defile, 69 The statute of divorce, ......... 71 The Sabbath, 72 Made for man, 74 Summary, ............ 79 The least in the kingdom greater than John, . .... 80 John's doubt of Christ, 82 Christ's method of working, ........ 83 CHAPTER III. THE CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE. Repent and believe, 85 Repentance as conceived by Christ and the Baptist, ... 86 Repentance no arbitrary requirement, ...... 89 Disciples called on to repent, 90 The cities of the plain, 93 Faith the chief condition of admission, ...... 94 Signifies a new departure, ........ 95 Christian universalism, ......... 96 Typical narratives showing Christ's estimate of faith. ... 97 The woman who was a sinner, . . . . . . . 97 The psychology of faith, . . . . . . . .100 The Roman centurion, . . ...... 101 The Syro-Phcenician Woman, 103 " Faith Alone," 107 CHAPTER IV. CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF GOD. The divine Father, 109 The new element in Christ's idea, 110 God's Fatherhood in relation to men in general, . . . .111 The providential aspect, . . . . . . . .111 The gracious aspect : parables in Luke xv., ..... 112 Universalism involved, . . . . . . . . .114 God's Fatherhood in relation to disciples, . . . . .114 The providential aspect, . . . . . . . .115 Value of Christ's doctrine on, . .... 119 Parables of The Selfish Neighbour and The Unjust Judge, . .120 The gracious aspect, . .122 Parable of The Blade, the Ear, and the Full Corn, . . .124 The Fatherhood of God still imperfectly comprehended, . . 127 CONTENTS. xi CHAPTER V. CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF MAN. PAGE The doctrines of God and of man ever kindred, .... 128 Significance of Christ's attitude towards the poor and the depraved, 129 Immortality, ..... 131 Social salvation, . . . . . . . . . . 132 Ideal and reality, . . . . . . . . . 133 Human depravity in Christ's teaching and in scholastic theology, 134 The "Lost," 136 Zacchseus, . . . . . . 137 The lost sheep of the house of Israel, 138 True and false holiness, 140 Why Christ addressed Himself to the humbler classes, . . 142 The Two Debtors, 143 The Lost Sheep and the "Lapsed Masses," 143 The people of the land, .... 145 CHAPTER VI. THE RELATION OF JESUS TO MESSIANIC HOPES AND FUNCTIONS. Had Jesus a Messianic idea ? . . . . . . . 148 His idea a transformed one, . . . . . . . 149 Its nature, . . . . . . . . . . 150 He claimed to be this Messiah, ] 53 The proof, 153 Genesis of Christ's Messianic consciousness, 158 Did Jesus ever doubt His Messiahship ? 161 Aids to faith in His Messianic vocation, 162 His Messianic consciousness free from ambition, . . . . 164 CHAPTER VII. THE SON OF MAN AND THE SON OF GOD. "Was the Son of M an a current Messianic title ? .... 166 Its use in the Book of Enoch, . . . . . . . 167 Old Testament source of the title, ...... 169 Its use in the Gospels, 171 The texts classified, 172 The unprivileged man, ........ 172 Xll CONTENTS. PAGE The sympathetic man, . 173 The apocalyptic aspect, 174 Future glory and present humiliation, 175 An incognito, .......... 177 The title Son of God, 178 The official sense, . . . . . . . . . 178 The ethical sense, ......... 179 The filial consciousness of Jesus analysed, ... . 180 The metaphysical sense, . . . . . . . 184 The two titles in relation to the doctrine of the kingdom, . . 186 CHAPTER VIII. THE UIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE KINGDOM NEGATIVE ASPECT. Criticism an inevitable task for the Christ, . . . . 187 The task faithfully performed, 188 Yet temperately, . . . . . . . . . 189 And with discrimination, . . . . . . . . 190 Origin of Rabbinism, 191 The process of degeneracy, ....... 192 Examples of fencing the law, 193 Multiplication of rules, . . . . . . . . 194 Arts of evasion, ......... 196 The Sabbath laws : Erubin, . . 197 Neglect of the great commandments, . . . . . . 198 Externalism, 199 Spiritual vices of Rabbinism, ....... 200 Pharisaic righteousness outside the kingdom, .... 203 The strait gate and the narrow way, 205 CHAPTER IX. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE KINGDOM POSITIVE ASPECT. The righteousness of God : its contents, 207 Right thoughts of God, 208 The rabbinical God, 209 Perfect as the Father in heaven, , . . . . . . 211 J Filial righteousness : characteristics, 213 Righteousness of discipleship, ....... 217 Imitation of Christ, 219 Righteousness of citizenship, . . . . . . . 221 Parables of The Treasure and The Pearl, 222 The three aspirants, 222 CONTENTS. Xlll PAGE Perfection, 223 Parable of Extra Service, . ....... 225 Parable of The Labourers in the Vineyard, ..... 226 General reflections, 226 CHAPTER X. THE DEATH OF JESUS AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE. The doctrine of the cross, 231 First lesson : for righteousness' sake, 231 Second lesson : for the unrighteous, 235 A ransom for the many, ........ 236 The temple-tax, 239 Third lesson : dies in love to men, ...... 243 Mary of Bethany, 244 The wastefulness of love, 245 Fourth lesson : for the remission of sins, 246 The new covenant, 247 The new era, 249 Characteristics, 250 The Holy Supper, 251 CHAPTER XL THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. The kingdom of God an ideal craving embodiment, . . . 252 The choice of the twelve, 253 "My Church," 254 Election, how to be understood, 256 The sacraments : Baptism, ....... 257 The Trinitarian formula, 258 The Holy Spirit in Christ's teaching, 259 The nature of the Church, 260 On this rock : Peter, 261 The Church Christian, 262 The Church and the kingdom, 264 The righteousness of the kingdom realized therein, . . . 266 Training of the apostles, . ....... 268 Christ's promise and prophecy conditional, .... 271 Is the Church a failure ? ... 271 XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XII. THE PAROUSIA AND THE CHRISTIAN ERA. PAOE Conflicting texts 273 A lengthened history anticipated by Christ, .... 274 Parables of Growth, 275 A delayed Parousia, ......... 276 Exhortations to Watch, 278 Parable of The Upper Servant, 278 A Gentile day of grace, ........ 280 The times of the Gentiles, 283 The other class of texts, 284 The coming of the Son of Man, 285 Three kinds of coming, 287 The eschatological discourse, ....... 288 Of that day knoweth no one, 289 Variations in synoptical reports, ...... 291 CHAPTER XIII. THE HISTORY OF THE KINGDOM IN OUTLINE. Chequered character of the history, 293 Optimistic parables : Mustard Seed and Leaven, . . . 294 The reverse side : parable of The Sower, ..... 294 Parable of The Tares and The Drag Net, 296 Parable of The Children in the Market-place, .... 299 Parable of The Great Supper, 300 Rejection of the Jews : relative parables, ..... 302 Christ's predictions of His resurrection, 304 Their meaning, 305 "Destroy this temple," 306 Import of the saying, ........ 307 CHAPTER XIV. THE END. The ideal will be realized, 311 Purity by separation, 312 Three judgment programmes, ....... 312 Judgment of Christendom, . . . . ' . . . . 312 Judgment of antichristendom, 313 Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, 314 CONTENTS. XV PAGE Judgment of heathendom, ... ..... 315 This judgment purely ethical, 317 " Eternal " punishment, 318 Eternal sin, 319 The everlasting fire not prepared for man, 321 Christ's doctrine of election, 322 Rewards and punishments, ........ 323 Judgment according to natural law, ...... 325 Pictorial representations of eternal statas, ..... 326 The true object of dread, 327 CHAPTER XV. THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST. "Back to Christ," 328 The Christian revival, 331 Gospellers, 331 The Shorter Catechism, 333 A Christian primer, 334 Church creeds : what to do with them, 335 Reunion, 337 New apologetic, .......... 339 Can we know Christ ? 340 INDEX, 342 CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. SECTION I. THE SOURCES. THE first three Gospels, from their homogeneous character called synoptical, differ widely from the fourth ; as in other respects, so also and very specially, in the account which they give of our Lord's teaching. And there can be little doubt that, as compared with the fourth Gospel, the synoptical Gospels present that teaching in its original form. To the question, What did Christ really teach ? What were the very words He spoke ? the answer must be sought in the first place from them. Their reports are more indisputably apostolic in their ultimate source, and to all appearance much less influenced by reflection on the part of the writers. But the question may be raised, even in reference to the Synoptists, whether they can be regarded as giving a perfectly trustworthy report of the sayings of Jesus. Even if they did not, their report of these sayings would still form an interesting subject of study. But it is obviously important to know how far the best sources A 2 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. extant are reliable ; for the supreme desire of all Christians is to know exactly the mind of the Master. It would inspire great confidence in the synoptical records to be assured that they were compiled by certain of the men who " had been with Jesus." These men were eye and ear witnesses of Christ's ministry ; they knew much if not all that He said and did, and they could be trusted to tell honestly and with substantial accuracy what they knew. But there is no sufficient evidence that any one of the first three Gospels, in the form in which we have them, proceeded from the hand of an apostle. The most that can be said is, that their reports are based on apostolic traditions, preserved either orally or in written form. That these traditions, originating ultimately, without doubt, in apostolic preaching, had, before our Gospels were written, assumed a comparatively stereotyped form, is apparent from the extensive resemblance in the synop- tical accounts both in substance and in style. The literary relations subsisting between these Gospels are such as to make it probable, if not certain, that written accounts of Christ's words and deeds were pre- viously in existence, and were accessible to the evan- gelists. From the preface to the third Gospel, it may be inferred that there had been considerable activity in the production of such accounts, and that at the time Luke wrote, evangelic collections had been multiplied to such an extent, as to create embarrassment to one who aimed at giving in moderate compass a full narrative of the more important facts in the life of Jesus. How many documents Luke used in the compilation CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. 3 of his Gospel cannot be known ; but two sources, at least, of outstanding importance, seem to have been at his command, and to have supplied the main body of his narrative one a collection of sayings, the other a collec- tion of narrations similar in contents to the second Gospel. By a comparison of his Gospel with the other two, the inference is suggested that these two sources form the basis of all three synoptical Gospels. Whether we should identify the collection of narrations with the Gospel of Mark, or distinguish it therefrom as an original Mark, is a question on which critics are divided ; but there is general agreement of opinion as to a book similar in contents to Mark forming the basis of the common matter of the first three Gospels relating to the deeds of Jesus. Whether, again, the collection of sayings used by Luke was identical in contents and form with that used by the first evangelist, is a matter of dispute ; but the extensive similarity between the first and third Gospels in their respective reports of Christ's sayings, leaves little room for doubt that they either drew from one source, or from sources so kindred in character as to suggest the conjecture that they were different editions of the same original writing, formed under different influences. Eecent criticism recognises in these two sources of the synoptical tradition the " Mark " and " Matthew " of Papias, the former either to be identified with the canonical Mark, or to be regarded as its original, and resting on the preaching of Peter as its ultimate autho- rity ; the latter written by the Apostle Matthew, and forming the basis of the canonical Matthew. Critics differ in their interpretations of the statement of Papias 4 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. as to the character and contents of the two sources, some contending, e.g., that the book of Logia, said to have been compiled by Matthew, contained nothing but sayings, while others argue that it must at least have contained such brief narratives as were necessary to make the sayings intelligible. In like manner it is disputed whether Mark consisted only of narrations, or did not in its original form contain more of Christ's words than are found in canonical Mark, e.g. the Sermon on the Mount. 1 But we shall not err greatly if we say that the two sources differed in their characteristics at least : the one being predominantly a collection of sayings, the other chiefly a collection of narrations. What mainly interests us is the collection of Logia. What would one not give to have that book which the Apostle Matthew wrote, just as he wrote it ! But the wish is idle ; the only course open to us is to make ourselves acquainted with its contents at second-hand through the writings of the two evangelists, who have drawn so freely from it, comparing their reports one with another so as to arrive at a probable conclusion as to the original form of the sayings recorded. Attempts have been made to reconstruct the Logia from the synoptical Gospels ; 2 but such attempts can be little more than ingenious conjectures. We cannot at this date resurrec- 1 For information as to the present state of opinion on these questions, readers may consult the Introductions to the New Testament by Weiss and Holtzmann. Weiss thinks the main source of apostolic tradition was the Logia, which he thinks contained many narrations as well as sayings ; Holtzmann contends for an Urrnarkus as the main source. 2 Vide Wendt's Die Lehre Jesu, Erster Theil. CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. 5 tionize a lost apostolic document ; all that is possible for us is to make ourselves acquainted with extant reports of our Lord's words, and when these vary, to do our best to determine which version is primary and which secondary. It does not take long study of the first and third Gospels to be satisfied that if their authors did really use a common source in reporting the words of Jesus, they have made respectively a very different use of it. It is, indeed, not easy to understand how such diversity could exist in reports based on the same document. Compare, e.g., the two reports of the Sermon on the Mount. How strangely divergent on the whole, and yet too similar in detail to admit of any doubt that they are different versions of the same discourse. One of two inferences is inevitable. Either one of the reporters (or possibly both) has taken considerable liberties with the source, or the source existed in different recensions, arising in different circles, and under different influences. Either supposition is possible ; in either case the causes producing the diversity might be to a large extent the same, only operating in different ways. In case the variations were due to the evangelists, we should have to acknowledge the action to a considerable extent of editorial intention, guided by possibly ascertainable motives. If, on the other hand, the variations arose gradually in copies of the Logia in the possession of different persons, before they came under the eye of the evangelists, then we may conceive them creeping in insensibly under the action of motives of which the agents in producing variation were hardly conscious. 6 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. The latter view is adopted by Weizsacker in his recently published work on The Apostolic Age. His idea of the matter is to this effect. Collections of Christ's sayings began to be formed, not in a historical spirit, but simply to meet the practical needs of disciples desirous of guidance in life. It was recorded that on this point and on that the Master spoke thus and thus. Thus groups of sayings arose, ever increasing as time went on. But the purpose aimed at not being the preparation of an exact historical record, but the instruc- tion of the faithful, comments, glosses, explanations grew up simultaneously, and gradually became mixed with the words of the Lord. "The tradition was from the first not mere repetition, but was bound up with creative activity. And, as was natural, this activity increased in course of time. Explanations became text. The single word became multiplied with the multitude of its appli- cations, or the words were connected with a definite occasion and shaped to suit it." J In this way, according to this writer, many, if not all, the variations in the reports of Christ's words are to be accounted for. The conscious editorial activity of the evangelists he seems inclined to reduce to a minimum. For the wide divergence of Luke's report of the Sermon on the Mount from that of Matthew, he is not disposed to make the evangelist responsible. He is of opinion that Luke found the Sermon in that form in his source. Even the Pauline, universalistic, element in Luke's Gospel he seems willing to impute not to Luke personally, but to the spirit of a school within Palestine 1 Das Apostolische Zeitalter, S. 406. CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. 7 and the Jewish Church, originating in the influence of such men as Stephen and Barnabas. It is the product and witness of a universalism independent of Paul within the bosom of Hebrew Christianity. This new view is certainly a great improvement on the tendency-criticism of the Tubingen school, headed by Baur, and it probably contains a large amount of truth. In the way indicated arose, in all likelihood, variations in the reports of Christ's sayings which were a datum for the evangelists. But it is not at all unlikely that a certain number of the existing variations are due to the evangelists themselves. It is a nowise inad- missible supposition, that they so far exercised their discretion in the use of their sources as to make the material serviceable to the edification of those for whose special benefit they wrote acting not in a spirit of licence, but with the freedom of men who believed that it was more important that their readers should get a true impression of Christ than that they should know the ipsissima verba of His sayings. Thus may be accounted for alterations of words and phrases occur- ring in the documents, and omissions of material found there not deemed suitable for his purpose by the com- piler. To take one or two examples. In Luke's version of the Sermon on the Mount there are two verbal varia- tions from Matthew's text : the substitution of %/M 7re\dyt, rfj? OaXdaa-rj^ ; Luke : et? TTJV 0d\ao'(rav). There is a passion in these words which is allowed to evaporate in the milder version of the third Gospel. Luke xviii. 17:" Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall in nowise enter therein." This is Luke's equivalent for Matthew's stern word of rebuke addressed to ambitious disciples : " Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom." Think of future apostles being spoken to in that manner 3 Luke xii. 51:" Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth 1 I tell you, Nay ; but rather division " (StayLte/Hoyzoz>, in place of Matthew's sword /j,d%cupav, x. 34). As an offset to these examples of subdued expression may be cited a case in which Luke's report intensifies the severity of one of Christ's hard sayings. For the word : " He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me ; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me" (Matt. x. 37). Luke has : " If any man come to Me and hate not his 20 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" (xiv. 2 6). Which of the two forms is the original ; and if Matthew's be, whence this solitary example of intensified expression in a Gospel whose general tendency seems to be to make prominent the mildness and amiability of Jesus ? I incline to the view that Matthew's form is the more original, and that in Luke's report we have an exception to his rule requiring to be accounted for. And the most probable account seems to be that the word " hate " reflects the actual experience of the Church. Matthew's form gives the theory of Christian discipleship as quietly spoken by the Master into the ears of his companions, before the great conflict his mission was destined to originate had properly begun. Luke's gives the experience of Christian disciples when faith in Jesus was found to create profound alienations within families, unbelieving members cherishing bitter hatred against members that had become believers ; and believers, if not hating unbelieving relatives, being com- pelled by their faith to assume such an attitude towards them as bore to the world's eye, and possibly to their own feeling at times, an aspect of hatred. Nothing divides and alienates so completely as earnest divergence in religious belief and practice. The word " hate " in Luke's report of the Lord's logion bears testimony to this truth. Probably he found it in his sources. II. Luke's omissions. By an omission is meant not merely a certain saying or discourse of Christ given by Matthew and not found in Luke's Gospel, but a saying or discourse with which the compiler of his source, or CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. 21 Luke himself, was acquainted, but which for some reason was omitted by either the one or the other. The dis- tinction between a non-appearance and an omission is important. The former presupposes ignorance, and tends to throw doubt on the authenticity of an unreported saying. The latter is intentional; and when the intention is discovered, the absence of a particular saying from the record given in one Gospel does not weaken the testimony to its genuineness borne by another Gospel in which it is found, but rather tends to confirm it. The position of matters then is : one evangelist knew and reported, another evangelist knew, but for an assignable reason did not report. That Luke was not ignorant of all he does not report, may in some instances be demonstrated. A notable and instructive example may be found in the omission from his Gospel of the materials contained in the long section of Matthew's Gospel, chap. xiv. 22 xvi. 12, to which in the main corresponds Mark vi. 45-viii. 27. These materials belonged to the common synoptical tradition, with which there is every reason to believe Luke was acquainted. And by inspection of his narra- tive at the place where the gap occurs we can detect traces of intentional omission. At the beginning of the omitted section we find Jesus, after the feeding of the five thousand, alone praying (Matt. xiv. 23 ; Mark vi. 46); at the close of it comes in the narrative of the conversa- tion at Csesarea Philippi (Matt. xvi. 13 ; Mark viii. 27). Luke connects the praying with the conversation thus : " And it came to pass as He was alone praying, His disciples were with Him ; and He asked them, saying, 22 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. Whom say the people that I am?" (ix. 18), so, as it were, bringing together the two edges of the gap, and giving apparent continuity to a fragmentary narrative. The materials contained in this demonstrably intentional omission will be found very instructive as to the motives of omissions, and of variations in general. Luke's omissions of teaching material are extensive, and of serious import in connection with an attempt to give a connected account of the doctrine of Christ. 1. The anti-Pharisaic utterances of Christ are very much curtailed. The sections relating to alms-giving, praying, and fasting in Matthew's version of the Sermon on the Mount are not found in the third Gospel. We miss also the encounters between Jesus and the Pharisees regarding washing of hands and divorce. The great anti- Pharisaic discourse in Matt, xxiii. likewise disappears, or dwindles to a couple of verses, in which the speaker warns His hearers against the ostentation of the scribes, who walked in long robes, loved salutations in the market- places, and chief seats in the synagogues, and against their detestable hypocrisy in cloaking robbery of the defence- less with long prayers (Luke xx. 46, 47). Some of the material of this discourse, indeed, is to be found elsewhere (Luke xi. 37-52); but important portions, such as the section referring to the immoral casuistry of the Eabbis in connection with oaths (Matt, xxiii. 16, 22), are entirely lacking. The effect of these omissions is, that from Luke's Gospel alone it would be impossible to present a complete view of Christ's moral criticism of the prevalent religion ; in other words, of His doctrine of righteousness on its negative side. CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. 23 2. The sayings of Jesus bearing on the meaning of His own death are very imperfectly recorded in the third Gospel. Jesus taught His disciples four lessons on that subject, contained in as many texts, which are either not found at all in Luke, or very partially reported. The first lesson was given at Csesarea Philippi, where Jesus taught His disciples that His death would be the result of His moral fidelity, and so far from being a peculiar event, was only one instance of a law according to which all who live faithfully must bear a cross. Luke's report of the words which form the basis of this doctrine is very defective (ix. 22-24, cf. Matt. xvi. 22-25). 1 The second lesson was conveyed in the words : " The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for the many " (Matt. xx. 28; Mark x. 45). This saying does not occur in Luke, nor the story of the ambitious request of James and John in connection with which it was uttered. The third lesson was given on the occasion of the anointing in Bethany, when Jesus declared that wherever the gospel was preached in the whole world, Mary's deed would be spoken of to her honour, implying an affinity between her act and His own in laying down His life. The whole of this beautiful story, lovingly narrated by Matthew and Mark, has, to our surprise, been omitted by Luke. The last lesson was taught in the words spoken at the insti- tution of the supper : " This is My blood, shed for the 1 To be noted is the omission o.f the rebuke administered to Peter for opposing his Master's purpose to meet death at Jerusalem. On this Pfleiderer remarks : " He (Luke) is everywhere the man of peace, who will remove every dark shadow from the sacred personalities of the primitive Church." Urchristenthum, S. 585. 24 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. remission of sins" The vital phrase : " for the remission of sins," is wanting in Luke's version. These omissions, assuming acquaintance with the material omitted, are perplexing. How are they to be explained ? Shall we say that Luke was not a theologian, but a moralist, and that therefore we must not be surprised if we find not in his pages a special doctrine of atonement, but only a general doctrine of grace or mercy ? 3. Luke's Gospel contains no words of Christ referring to the Church. According to Matthew, Christ made a very important declaration on that subject at Csesarea Philippi, pointing to the founding of a religious society to be identified with His name, and indicating its relation to the kingdom of God which had been the main theme of His preaching. As the passage in question is not found in Mark, it may legitimately be inquired whether this is to be regarded as an intentional omission on Luke's part. In any case, the fact remains that the section concerning the Church is lacking in his Gospel, and that he supplies no materials for a doctrine on that subject expressly taught by the Master. 4. It is not necessary to do more than simply state that we miss in Luke's Gospel nearly the whole of the utterances in which, according to Matthew's report of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus defined His attitude to the Mosaic law. 5. Among the surprises of Luke's Gospel is the absence from its pages of the gracious invitation : " Come unto Me, all ye that labour." Can it be that the evan- gelist, who seems to take delight in presenting Jesus in word and deed as the Gracious One, passed over that CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. 25 beautiful word, having it before his eye in his sources ? I have stumbled on a hypothetical solution of this pro- blem which I shall explain in the following section. If there be anything in it, it will show in at least one instance a very close connection between Luke's omissions and his additions. III. Luke's additions. These are sufficiently extensive to have made it necessary to make room for them in the narrative by reducing the matter taken from the common tradition, and to have raised the question, for a compiler who desired to keep his narrative within moderate limits, what could best be spared. They have for the most part a common character, being nearly all fitted and presumably intended to bring into view the benevolence or loving-kindness of Christ. The earliest within the period of the public ministry, the account of the discourse in the synagogue of Nazareth (iv. 1630), may be said to furnish the keynote of the whole. The words Jesus spake on that occasion the evangelist characterizes as " words of grace." All, or nearly all, his additions to the stock of evangelic traditions may be said to be reports either of " words of grace " or of acts of grace. To the latter head may be referred the raising of the son of the widow of N"ain (vii. 11), and the healing of the woman who had a spirit of infirmity (xiii. 10). The gracious reception given to the woman who was a sinner (vii. 36-50), and to Zacchaeus the chief publican (xix. 1), exhibit in a signal manner Christ's humane bearing towards persons belonging to proscribed classes. The Samaritan incidents, the rebuke of the proposal to call down fire from heaven (ix. 51), and the healing of 26 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. ten lepers, one being a Samaritan, and he the only grateful one (xvii. 11), exhibit the same benignant spirit towards a people treated by the Jews as pagans. The words of grace, preserved alone by Luke, are many and beautiful, comprising the parables of the two debtors, the good Samaritan, the great supper ; the three parables concerning the finding of the lost, and that of the Pharisee and the publican. For the sake of these words and works of grace, Luke might well deem himself justified in leaving out of his narrative materials of a different character already well known, or of less value at least for those whose benefit he had specially in view ; such as severe words against the patrons of counterfeit righteousness, duplicate miracles teaching the same lesson, and incidents or sayings liable to be misunderstood, or that might tend to obscure the very grace which he made it his business to magnify, like that of the Syro-Phcenician woman. It may be taken for granted that for all these addi- tions Luke found vouchers among his sources. It seems not improbable that he modified sayings by added glosses or substituted expressions, but there is not the slightest reason to believe that he invented logia. How far his editorial liberties might go, we may learn from one of his additions not yet referred to the mission of the seventy. Even such a critic as Weiss is inclined to think that this mission did not take place, but that Luke simply attached it as a heading to the second of two versions of the instructions to the twelve which he found in his sources. I do not deem a second mission of some kind so improbable as some imagine. Our CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. 27 Lord's word, " the harvest is plenteous, but the labourers are few," shows His anxiety for an increase in the number of sympathetic evangelists. It is therefore likely that He would send out more if they were forth- coming ; and that they were, appears from the account of the three aspirants in Luke ix. 5762. He might send them forth as they presented themselves, not waiting till a large number had been accumulated, but despatching them piecemeal two and two. Tradition may have made the number thus sent out amount to the symbolical seventy, and transformed a mission in detail into a solemn mission of the whole at one time, accom- panied by such instructions as Luke records. This is conceivable ; that it is what actually occurred, I do not say. But suppose the fact were that there was no mission but that of the twelve, and that the mission of the seventy is an invention of Luke, or of those to whom he owed his information, the point to be noted is that for this " invented " mission there are no invented instructions. The instructions are simply a repetition in substance of those given to the twelve. If Luke furnished unhistorical settings for some sayings of Jesus, this was the limit of his editorial licence : he reported no sayings which he did not believe to be in substance genuine logia of the Master. This we observe to be the case where, as in the instance before us, we have the means of controlling him, and we may con- fidently assume that it is his way where he reports words not elsewhere found. 1 1 Luke's care in preserving valuable sayings left orphans through, his omissions, by affiliating them \vith favourite utterances to which 28 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. SECTION III. THE MOTIVES OF LUKE S VARIATIONS. As the long section, Matt. xiv. 22-xvi. 12, supplies us with the most probable instance of intentional omis- sion on Luke's part, an analysis of its contents may form a suitable introduction to a study of the causes or motives of the variations specified in the foregoing section. It contains (1) a storm on the lake of Gennesaret, a second of the kind (xiv. 25-33); (2) an encounter between Jesus and the scribes in regard to neglect of ceremonial ablutions (xv. 120); (3) the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman (xv. 21-28); (4) the feeding of 4000, a second incident of the kind (xv. 32-38) ; (5) the demand of the Pharisees with the Sadducees for a sign from heaven (xvi. 1-12). The five sections reduce themselves to three classes : two duplicates, two encounters with the representatives of current religion, and one example of apparent limitation of sympathy within the bounds of the chosen people. The categories under which they are thus they become as adopted children, can be illustrated from his version of the Sermon on the Mount. By the omission of the section, Matt. v. 38-42, concerning the law of retaliation (" an eye for an eye "), the ethical maxim " resist not evil " and its concrete examples : if one smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the left ; if one take thy coat, let him have thy cloak also become orphaned. They are too good to lose. What does Luke do 1 He brings these sayings under the head of the great law of love : " Love your enemies," etc., which appears in his version of the Sermon as the sum of all ethical precepts. By this device all that is valuable is preserved. That it is an editorial device appears from the repetition of the precept : " Love your enemies " (vi. 27, 35). In this instance we see Luke showing himself careful of words, careless of original historical connections. CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. 29 grouped suggest the probable motives of omission. Omis- sions of the first class are very intelligible, and we can easily conceive the evangelist making them without a moment's hesitation. He may, however, have had two thoughts before finally deciding on the other omissions. For some of the words spoken by Jesus on the occasions to which the omitted sections refer are very remarkable, e.g. these : Ye have made the commandments of God of none effect by your tradition; and not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, lut that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. These utterances, so pregnant with moral significance and revolutionary in tendency, must have possessed deep interest for a man of Pauline sympathies like Luke, and one would imagine also for the readers he had chiefly in view. Why, then, does he pass over the narrative in which they occur ? No more likely answer suggests itself than that the encounter it records belonged to a local and temporary controversy between Jesus and the representatives of traditional religion in Judsea, which, however fierce in spirit and tragic in result, appeared to the evangelist of secondary importance to the permanent interests of the Christian faith. These conflicts were to him but the morning mists through which the Sun of righteousness had to clear His way to meridian splendour. If this motive was at work, it would account not only for the two omissions in the passage now under considera- tion, but for the disappearance from Luke's Gospel of large masses of material relating to the same general subject The plain-spoken working out of the principle, that not that which goeth into the mouth defileth, might bring into play a feeling of delicacy as a subsidiary motive 30 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. for omission in connection with the earlier of the two incidents. The appearance of a grudging, unsympathetic attitude towards the pagan world, presented by the behaviour of Jesus towards the Syro-Phcenician woman, in all proba- bility supplied at least one motive for the omission of that pathetic story. The evangelist shrank from record- ing anything that might create in the minds of his readers the false and injurious impression that the Author of the Christian faith was animated by anti - Gentile prejudices. This motive may have been assisted by another the feeling that the incident in question might be omitted without loss of anything valuable, as virtually a duplicate. For the story of the centurion, as related in Luke's Gospel, is so constructed as to present the good features of the kindred story of the woman of Canaan without its drawbacks. An excessive humility is ascribed to the centurion, which in effect echoes the sentiment : " We Gentiles are dogs" Then the intercession of the elders of the Jews takes the place of the entreaties of the disciples for the distracted Syrian mother. Finally, the compliance of Jesus, and His unfeigned admiration for the faith displayed, appear with their value undi- minished by any preliminary hesitations. 1 From this group of omissions, as above explained, com- bined with the prevailing character of Luke's additions, we may draw this general inference : that the third evangelist, having supreme regard to the religious edifica- tion of his readers, omitted matter which appeared com- paratively useless, unprofitable, or liable to be misunder- 1 Luke vii. 1-10. CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. 31 stood, to make room for matter tending to exhibit Christ in the fulness of His grace as the friend of sinners, publicans, Samaritans, and even Gentiles. Now, if this motive influenced him in any part of his work as the compiler of a Gospel, it is not unreasonable to assume that it would influence him throughout. In other words, we may trace the influence of a regard to edification, not only in omissions and additions, but also in modifications of sayings by alterations in expression. In the notes appended to the samples of such alteration given in the foregoing section, suggestions as to possible motives of change are tentatively offered. These may be reduced to two main heads : the style of Christ's sayings adapted (1) to existing habits of thought and expression on religious topics ; and (2) to the sentiments of reverence and love towards the person of Christ cherished by writer or readers, or both. How far changes of this sort originated with Luke, and how far they were a datum for him in his sources, cannot be determined. The question of importance for us is, To what influence are existing variations due ? When we have ascertained these, we are furnished with the means of determining with a measure of exactness the primitive form of the words of Christ. That both the forms of influence just specified, that of the religious life of the Church in general, and that of the idea of Christ cherished by believers in particular, can be traced in Luke's report of our Lord's sayings, must, I think, be conceded. Of exceptional interest for the student are the indications belonging to the latter category. Eeading Luke's Gospel with a critical eye, one 32 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. obtains a very vivid idea of Christ as he conceived Him, and loved to contemplate Him, and to present Him to the view of others. He is full of grace, ever revealing itself in word and deed. He is the sympathetic friend of the sinful, such as she who came into Simon's house, of publicans like Zacchneus, of Samaritans, of Gentiles like the centurion of Capernaum. He is the Lord. He is possessed of unlimited divine power, and works miraculous, astonishing cures by the very finger of God. He is Him- self divine ; the inversion of the order of the temptations in the desert seems due to a desire to make this pro- minent. Christ's last word in Luke's narrative is : " Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." When that word had been spoken, it was meet that temptation should cease. His fellowship with His Father is uninterrupted and unclouded even in the hour of death. The bitter cry on the cross : " My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ? " is replaced by : " Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." That the character and public conduct of Jesus had a stern side Luke knows, and does not altogether conceal, but he keeps it well in the back- ground. He reduces the withering exposure of Phari- saism to a minimum, and seeks to soften the seeming asperity of the little he retains by representing Christ, when uttering the words reported, as in friendly relations with the criticized class. The free-spoken words are the table-talk of Jesus sitting at table as the guest of mem- bers of the Pharisaic fraternity. Luke thus makes Jesus appear as a genial, wide-hearted man who shuns nobody ; eating to-day with publicans and " sinners," to-morrow with " holy " people, but speaking His mind frankly in all CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. 33 companies with royal freedom. 1 He tones down words that seem to be spoken with passionate vehemence, such as that concerning the millstone, and the other in the same discourse to ambitious disciples concerning the necessity of a radical change of spirit in order to admission into the divine kingdom. He does not allow his beloved Lord to appear either as a bitter controversialist or as a pitilessly severe Master. Nor does his Gospel supply even a plausible pretext for the allegation that the founder of the Christian faith was a man of narrow Jewish prejudices. The story of the woman of Canaan is left out, and the hard word, " Let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican," given by Matthew in connection with his second reference to the Church? is not found in his pages. Tor the immediate needs of the section of the Church for which Luke wrote this picture of Christ may have been wisely drawn, and he is not to be blamed for the bias he manifests. Nevertheless, it remains true that the Christ thus presented is a partial, one-sided one, and that the per- manent needs of the Church and of the Christian faith demand that the sterner side of passionate, relentless abhor- rence of counterfeit sanctity, as exhibited in the Pharisees, and of selfish ambition intruding into the kingdom of God, as exhibited in His own disciples, should be fully shown. Therefore we have reason to be thankful that the par- tiality of one evangelist is supplemented by the healthy realism of another, who seems to have thought that the 1 Vide Luke vii. 36, xi. 37, xiv. 1. 2 Matt, xviii. 17. The presence of this word in this passage may have been the reason why this second allusion to the Church is also omitted by Luke. C 34 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. character of Christ could look after itself, and that his business was to state facts, however apparently ungenial. That Matthew had his bias may be true ; that he had a less clear insight into the grace of Christ than Luke is probable ; it certainly does not receive from him the same broad, effective delineation. But it must be con- ceded that the face of Jesus, as he shows it, is very real and life-like. And that face inspires us with trust and admiration ; trust in His humanity, admiration for His heroic moral fidelity. There He stands, the sympathetic people's Friend, the wise Master, the fearless Prophet the genuine Jesus of Nazareth. Luke is par excellence the evangelist of grace. But why, then, does he omit matter peculiarly evangelic, e.g. the gracious invitation, " Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden " ? I should be sorry to think it was from ignorance, for that might tend to throw doubt on the authenticity of one of the most charming of all the evangelic logia. But if Luke knew the saying, is his omission of it not quite unaccountable ? The problem has exercised the critics, and various explanations have been suggested. Weiss thinks that Luke passed the passage over because he found the transition from the previous context too abrupt. 1 Holtzmann is of opinion that Luke stumbled at some of the expressions, such as the epithet raTrew/o?, humble, applied to Jesus, and i>705 and fyopriov, as savouring of legalism, and suggest- ing ideas of bondage and burdensomeness incongruous with the Gospel. 2 But supposing these words were dis- 1 Das Matthaus-Evangelium, in loc. 2 Die Synoptischen Evangelien, S. 147. CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. 35 tasteful to him, one does not see why he could not substitute for them others more evangelic, as he did in his report of the Sermon on the Mount. Accordingly Wendt, who in his reconstruction of the book of Logia, assumed to be a source for Luke, includes the gracious invitation, confesses himself unable to offer any explana- tion of its omission. " This section," he remarks, " Luke has passed over without any perceptible good reason. The words form a very suitable, one may even say necessary, continuation of the foregoing discourse/' l When such scholars fail, it may seem presumptuous in any one else to hope to succeed. Nevertheless I will venture to throw out the thought which has occurred to me. It seems to me, then, that Luke found in his source, at the place where the gracious invitation occurs, probably written on the margin, as illustrative examples, the three incidents recorded in Luke x. 25 42, xi. 1-13 : the Good Samaritan (x. 2537), Martha and Mary (x. 38-42), and the lesson on Prayer, in answer to the request of the disciples (xi. 113). These incidents occupy much the same place in Luke's Gospel that the gracious invitation occupies in Matthew's. In both, the passage beginning with "I thank Thee, O Father," forms the preceding context, only that Luke appends to that passage, as given by Matthew, the saying : " Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see," placed in the first Gospel in a different connection. 2 After the gracious invi- 1 Die Lehre Jesu, Erster Theil, S. 92. 2 Matt. xiii. 16, 17, in connection with the parables. Luke gives it in connection with the results of the evangelistic mission of the Seventy (x. 23, 24). 36 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. tation in Matthew's Gospel come the sabbatic incidents : " disciples plucking ears of corn," and " man with withered hand" (xii. 1-14). These Luke, following the order of Mark, disturbed in Matthew's record, records at an earlier stage in his Gospel, so that he passes on directly from the lesson on Prayer to the discourse on Blasphemy, which in Matthew follows immediately after the above- named sabbatic incidents. The three incidents reported by Luke in the place occupied by the gracious invitation in Matthew's Gospel have, moreover, all this in common, that they exhibit Christ as a Teacher, and there is no other perceptible link of connection accounting for their being placed side by side. But Christ appears as a teacher in many other passages in the Gospel ; why should these three be selected and formed into a group by themselves, as woodcuts, so to speak, illustrating the " Come unto Me " ? If there is anything in my hypo- thesis, it must be because these incidents illustrate the salient points of Matthew's Logion. And I think on exa- mination this will be found to be the case. The salient points in the Logion are the Scholar's Burden the persons invited to Christ's school are the " labouring and heavy laden ; " the Teacher's Meekness : " I am meek and lowly in heart ; " and the Rest-bringing Lesson : " Ye shall find rest unto your souls." The characters brought before us in the three incidents of Luke are all in diverse ways burdened ones. The burden of the lawyer was an arti- ficial Eabbinical system ; the burden of Martha, happily escaped by Mary, is the cares of life ; the burden of the disciples is unfulfilled spiritual desire, struggling for utterance, despairing of satisfaction. The meekness of CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. 37 the Master is conspicuous in all three instances : in the first He meekly instructs one who comes rather asking captious questions than in the humble guise of a true disciple ; in the second He soothes the irritable house- wife with a gentle " Martha, Martha ; " in the third He enters with deep human sympathy, as well as with super- human wisdom, into the spiritual perplexities of disciples. And in each case a rest-giving word is spoken. To the lawyer is taught the infinitude of duty, neighbourhood wide as the world, whereby the spirit is allowed to escape like a bird from the cage of artificial restriction into the boundless atmosphere of Humanity. To Martha is hinted the supreme worth of the kingdom, the theme of all the Teacher's discourse ; whereby earthly cares are put into their proper place of subordination. To the disciples is given a form of prayer which they can use till they have outgrown the need of it, and a parabolic instruction in the art of waiting for good earnestly desired but long withheld. What Luke does, therefore, is to give us a substitute for Matthew's gracious invitation. Instead of making Christ say, " Come, ye burdened ones, to My school, and I will give you rest," he conducts us into Christ's school, and shows Him in the act of giving, with the meekness of wisdom, rest-bringing instruction to burdened spirits. It may be asked, indeed, What hindered him from giving both the invitation to school and the samples of work going on in the school ; pointing to the one as the inscription over the door, offering the other as induce- ments to enter ? If the gracious invitation was in the text of his source, and the illustrations on the margin, 38 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. how natural to retain the text and add to it by intro- ducing the marginal comments ! Or did comments over- lay text, hiding it from view, rendering it illegible ? Conjectures are idle. One thing only seems probable, that the saying, " Come unto Me," was a nucleus around which gathered gradually these beautiful stories illustra- tive of Christ's method as a teacher. The alternative hypothesis, that the stories came first, and that the invitation was abstracted from them, is possible, but unlikely. 1 SECTION IV. THE SYNOPTICAL TYPE OF DOCTRINE. The scope of the study which goes by the name of New Testament Theology may be variously defined. It may be vaguely and comprehensively regarded as an attempt to ascertain and set forth in order the views to be found in the various groups of New Testament books on all manner of religious and theological topics. With so 1 Pfleiderer regards Matt. xi. 28-30 as a free citation out of Sirach li. 23, where the Divine Wisdom invites the ignorant to come to her and dwell in the house of instruction. There is a certain resemblance in some of the expressions which led me, in reading this apocryphal book some years ago, to make a marginal reference to Matt. xi. 28-30. Pfleiderer expresses the opinion that in future we will have to fami- liarize ourselves with the thought that the light rays of the Gospels have not come so directly from the one point of the historical person of Jesus as to the unaided eye of the Church, in virtue of a natural optical illusion, seemed to be the case, but have emanated also from the creative geniality or inspiration of the evangelists, and are often to be traced only indirectly to the common light-fountain in the Spirit of Jesus. It will be a while before we reconcile ourselves to the view that we have to thank Matthew, rather than Christ, for the Gracious Invitation. CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. 39 wide a range it is apt to become a rather pointless and wearisome exercise. There is one mode of looking at this department of theological inquiry which, if not exhaustive, has at least the merit of definiteness and unflagging interest, that, viz., which makes it have supreme reference to the main drift and raison d'etre of the literature to be studied. "Why is there a New Testament ? Because Jesus Christ came into the world an epoch-making personage in the history of religion and revelation. The question of sovereign importance there- fore is, What is the significance of the new epoch ? what is the good Christ brought to men ? The Highest Good it must be, if Jesus be indeed the Christ, the fulfiller of the promises and hopes of foregoing ages. What, then, is the summum lonum ? The New Testament contains the answer to the question, and New Testament theology has for its chief, if not sole problem, to ascertain what the answer is. It may therefore be defined as the study of the leading types of doctrine concerning the things freely given to us of God in Jesus Christ. Leading types I say, for the New Testament writings do not all present the gift of divine grace under precisely the same point of view. Four types may be distinguished, not of course antagonistic or mutually exclusive, rather closely related; yet distinct, and capable of being associated with certain books. These types have objective and not merely subjective value ; they are more than modes under which particular writers apprehended the truth, deriving their colour from personal idiosyncrasy and peculiar experience, though these elements have their place. They are different 40 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. aspects of the same thing, having a relative independence, and exhibiting Christianity under distinct relations of resemblance or contrast to other forms of religion. The four types may be described by these titles: The Kingdom of God, The Righteousness of God y Free Access to God, Eternal Life. The first is the designation under which the benefit accruing from the advent of Christ appears in the synoptical presentation of our Lord's teaching; the second is the name for the same thing found in the Pauline Epistles ; the third indicates the chosen point of view of the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews ; the last is the watchword of the Fourth Gospel We are concerned in the present work with the first of these four types, our task being to give a succinct account of the teaching of Christ as recorded in the first three Gospels. The doctrine of Christ in these Gospels is the doctrine of the kingdom of God. Under this category all may be ranged ; there is no other entitled to be placed above it, or that does not easily find a place under it. The ethical teaching of Christ is very important, and some have given it the first place, and made the doctrine of the kingdom subordinate and secondary. 1 But the ethics of Jesus are the ethics of the kingdom, setting forth the laws by which its subjects are to guide their lives. The function of Christ as Redeemer is a still more important category, and it might seem as if the most appropriate general description of His teaching would be one giving prominence, as He did Himself, to the fact that He came to " save the lost " the doctrine of salvation. But even 1 So Banr, in Vorlesungen vker neuiestarnertilidie Theologie. CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. 41 this heading falls naturally under the doctrine of the kingdom. The doctrine of salvation shows the way by which men enter into the kingdom. Christianity has been described as being, not a circle with one centre, but an ellipse with two foci; the doctrine of the kingdom being one of the foci, the doctrine of redemption the other. But no indignity is done to Christ's redeeming work by including it as a particular under the general head of the kingdom ; rather is its fundamental import- ance thereby signalized. No higher idea can be formed of salvation than to make it consist in citizenship in the divine commonwealth; nor can Christ's importance as Saviour be more conspicuously magnified than by repre- senting Him as one to whom citizens owe their admission to the privilege. I have no hesitation, therefore, in regarding the kingdom of God as an exhausii\e category. THE KINGDOM OF GOD; OK CHRIST'S TEACHING ACCORDING TO THE SYNOPTICAL GOSPELS. CHAPTER I. CHRIST'S IDEA OF THE KINGDOM. THE KINGDOM OF GOD : what did Jesus mean by that expression ? In all that relates to the significance of Christianity, two tendencies of thought have ever revealed themselves in the Church one to magnify the new element in it, the other to reduce the new element to a minimum ; on the one hand, to emphasize the affinity of the Christian religion to that which went before in the history of revelation ; on the other, to emphasize the distinctness. The minimizing tendency has ever had on its side the majority. It has its representatives among living theologians in reference to the question now before us. The most recent writer, e.g., on the life of Jesus says : " What this kingdom is Jesus has nowhere expressly stated ; He treats the notion as one current among the people. It is therefore quite perverse to regard it as an idea invented by Jesus, and to attempt to construct it 43 44 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. out of His sayings. Historically viewed, Jesus can have meant nothing by it save what arose naturally out of the peculiarity of His people and its ways of thinking." ] I should be very much surprised as well as disappointed if this were true. All the leading writers of the New Testament Paul and the authors of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Fourth Gospel betray in their writings an intense consciousness that some great and new thing had come into the world through the mission of Christ. Paul makes Christ the bringer in of a new creation. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews represents the Christian era as the era of the Better Hope through which we draw nigh to God, in contrast to the Levitical religion which kept men standing at an awful distance. In the Fourth Gospel the distinction between the new and the old dispensations is broadly indicated by the declaration : " The law was given by Moses ; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." We should certainly expect to find the great Initiator not behind His apostolic interpreters in insight into the nature and ultimate outcome of His mission. Without claiming for Him omniscience, we 1 Weiss, Leben Jesu, i. 444, 445 (vol. ii. pp. 65, 66, Clark's transla- tion). Students of the works of this distinguished theologian must be on tlieir guard against his bias as an interpreter. His great merits as a critic may lead to indiscriminate discipleship in a sphere in which he is weak and unsatisfactory. His great fault, or at least one of his glaring faults, is an extreme anti-Tiibingen bias, a tendency to deny the very fact-basis of the Tubingen theory, reducing all to a colourless neutrality, in place of the extreme antagonisms of Baur. The universalism of Jesus is grudgingly admitted. Even that of Paul is toned down ; and on the whole, one wonders how a world- wide Christianity ever grew up out of such beginnings, the initiators having so little of the spirit of the new era. CHRIST S IDEA OF THE KINGDOM. 45 should at least credit Him with the deep, far-reaching spiritual vision of a unique religious genius. This is also demanded by words of His own, of indubitable authen- ticity ; such as those which represent John the Baptist as less than the least in the kingdom of heaven, and compare the movement with which He Himself was identified to a new garment and a new vintage. It would require some great epoch - making novelty in religious thought and life to justify such utterances. It is true, indeed, the name employed by Jesus for the new thing is old. It indicates an attitude less anta- gonistic to the earlier rudimentary forms of religion than that of Paul, who is consciously and intensely opposed to legalism, and of the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who is earnestly bent on asserting and evincing under every aspect the incomparable superiority of Chris- tianity to the Levitical religion. It expresses affinity rather than antagonism, introducing a new world with the least possible shock to old associations. But the choice of it was due to wisdom, not to limitation of know- ledge. It was natural and suitable at the initial period of the new age, yet fit for permanent use. It was not a transient name, expressive of a hope that was destined to prove a dream a restored theocratic kingdom of Israel, cherished by one who was under the influence of the old world that was about to pass away. It was a felicitous suggestive name for the blessing of the New Testament, used with full consciousness of its significance, expressive of eternal truth, and to be reverted to through- out the Christian ages for instruction and inspiration. Nothing can be at once more necessary and more 46 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. legitimate than the endeavour to ascertain by a close study of Christ's words and actions in what sense He used this title. It is necessary, for the title in itself is a form capable of much meaning, but expressly conveying little. It signifies some form of divine dominion. Ab- stractly viewed, it might denote the reign of the Almighty over all creation through the operation of natural law ; or of the moral Governor of the world rendering to every man and nation according to their works ; or of the God of Israel ruling over a chosen people, and bestowing on them power, peace, and felicity as the reward of obedience to His divine will. Or it might mean something higher than any of these things, the highest form of dominion conceivable, the advent of which is emphatically fit to be the burden of a gospel, viz. the reign of divine love exercised by God in His grace over human hearts believ- ing in His love, and constrained thereby to yield Him grateful affection and devoted service. Which of all these was present to Christ's mind can be ascertained only by a study of His words and deeds. The first two are excluded by the simple consideration that the kingdom Christ proclaimed was represented by Him as coming. They do not come ; they are always here and everywhere in all possible fulness. The choice lies between the other two, which are subject to the law of growth. The theo- cratic kingdom comes as Israel becomes a righteous nation, and grows proportionally prosperous. The king- dom of grace comes as men open their hearts to the benignant love of God, and experience in increasing measure its peace-giving, renewing influence. Which of these, then, was it whose approach Jesus proclaimed ? CHRIST'S IDEA OF THE KINGDOM. 47 We must search the Gospels to determine. As either alternative is possible, the question is not to be settled by offhand assumptions. It may be that Jesus had in view, at least in the early period of His ministry, simply the theocratic kingdom of Hebrew prophecy and popular expectation, a politico-ethical commonwealth, differing from the multitude only in placing the ethical element before the political as its indispensable condition ; but the mere use of the expression " the kingdom of God " is no proof of this. The only legitimate and satisfactory course is to try to ascertain which hypothesis fits best into the particular statements and general drift of the evangelic history. Our Lord is represented as opening His ministry with the announcement, " The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand." 1 The fact seems to favour what we may call the Judaizing hypothesis. The " time " referred to, it is natural to suppose, is Israel's time of merciful visitation, and the " kingdom " the realization of Israel's hope as depicted by the prophets. But even on this view the question at issue is not settled. For, on any hypothesis, Israel had a vital and prior interest in the kingdom now declared to be at hand ; and as for the prophetic ideal of the kingdom, it is not quite so simple a matter to determine as one may at first be inclined to think. The general strain of Hebrew prophecy seems indeed to point to such a state of things as Zacharias longed for: Israel delivered out of the hands of her enemies, and serving God without fear, and amid prevalent prosperity. 2 Yet there are stray 1 Mark i. 15. 2 Luke i. 74. 48 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. utterances here and there which suggest the doubt whether this idyllic picture was ever to find a place in the realm of reality. There is, e.g., the ominous word, uttered towards the close of the prophetic period, which not obscurely hints that God's kingdom might come not merely so as not to be the monopoly of Israel, but even so as to involve for her a doom of reprobation. The prophet Malachi represents Jehovah, in disgust at the Pharisaical, heartless service of an ungodly race, exclaim- ing : " Oh that some one would shut the temple doors, that ye may no more kindle in vain a fire upon Mine altar ; " and declaring, " for from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same, My name shall be great among the Gentiles ; and in every place incense shall be offered unto My name, and a pure offering : for My name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts." 1 Here it is no more all the nations coming to Jerusalem with gold and incense in their hands, as in Isaiah's bright vision, 2 but the temple shut up and forsaken, and an acceptable worship offered to God in every place where human souls are found worship- ping the true God in spirit and in truth. Those who, like the father of the Baptist, waited for the consolation of Israel in Christ's time, might overlook such passages, but we are not to suppose that Christ Himself was blind to them. He had an eye for overlooked texts, a mind that could appreciate forgotten or neglected truths, a spiritual insight that could discern the undercurrents of 1 Mai. i. 10. The rendering in the Authorized Version makes the text contain a charge of mercenariness against the priests. 2 Isa. Ix. CHRIST'S IDEA OF THE KINGDOM. 49 prophetic thought. Withal He was a most original interpreter; this we must ever remember if we would understand His teaching. He was, to an inestimable extent, original in every way. He was original as a thinker and actor, not the mere creature of historical development. He was likewise original as an exegete and as a fulfiller of Scripture. He was not the slave of Old Testament texts, which it 'was His official duty as Messiah to fulfil. He brought out of His treasure things new as well as old ; He spiritualized, idealized the utter- ances of the prophets, and He fulfilled them by filling them full to overflowing, bringing to the world in Him- self and His teaching more than it is possible to find in all Old Testament prophecies put together, apart from the light shed on them by the gospel history. Many things in that history point to the deeper mystic sense of the phrase now under consideration as the true one. Some of these can conveniently be men- tioned here. First, there is the very term " mystery " applied by Jesus to the kingdom in explaining to His disciples the parable of the Sower. " A mystery," it has been well remarked, " is a truth revealed for the first time by Jesus only, and by the Spirit of God who continues His work, and unknown to previous generations : we see, then, by that very term, that the idea which presents itself to our study will contain characters absolutely new, and which it will require special instruction to enable us to seize and comprehend." 1 The comparison of the scribe instructed in the things of the kingdom to a house- 1 Keuss, Theologie Chre'tienne, i. 174. D 50 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. holder who bringeth out of his treasure things new and old, points in the same direction. The parable, a familiar story of natural life, is the old ; the new is a truth relating to the kingdom which the parable embodies. The expression " the kingdom of grace," so familiar to us, nowhere occurs in the Gospels, and even the word " grace " (%dpi,s) in the Pauline sense is of rare occur- rence. The latter is, however, found once in Luke, in his account of Christ's preaching in the synagogue of Nazareth, where it is said : " All bare Him witness, and wondered at the words of grace l which proceeded out of His mouth." 2 The reference is to the substance of the discourse, not to its manner. We can well believe that there was a peculiar charm in the speaker's manner, but it sprang from His heart being filled with enthusiasm for the mission on which He had been sent. The grace of manner had its source in the grace that lay in the message. He had come to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim the accept- able year of the Lord. The words of the prophet quoted and descanted on take us involuntarily into a higher region than a restored theocratic kingdom of Israel. There can be no doubt how the evangelist regarded them, and in what sense he called them " words of grace." He has taken the scene in the synagogue of Nazareth out of its true historical place, and set it in the forefront of his Gospel, to signify that the mission of Jesus concerned men's souls, and that it concerned all men. That scene, as it stands there, stamps Christ's whole ministry with the attributes of spirituality and universality, proclaims 1 f'Trl rol; "hoyot; 7% %KpiTO$. 2 Luke iv. 22. CHRIST'S IDEA OF THE KINGDOM. 51 it to be throughout a ministry of love to all the sinful, sorrowful sons of men. True, the evangelist's thought is not necessarily the thought of Jesus ; and in transferring that scene from its true place, late in the evangelic history, he may be conveying a false impression as to the views and hopes with which the Herald of the kingdom began His ministry. But the presumption, to say the least, is the other way. The frontispiece of Luke's Gospel makes for the hypothesis that the doctrine of the kingdom from the first moved on a higher plane than that of vulgar expectation. 1 The nature of Christ's preaching may be inferred from the effect of it on the minds of those who welcomed it. The disciples of Jesus conducted themselves as men who had received good news. They fasted not, they resembled rather a bridal party going to a wedding feast, according to the testimony of their own Master. Did their joy spring from the hope that the theocratic kingdom was about to be restored to Israel, and unrighteousness, misery, and the Eomans expelled from the Holy Land ? In that case we should have expected the disciples of the Baptist to share the joy, for their thoughts admittedly ran in that direction. But they did not: it was the marked difference in habit and temper between the two discipleships that gave Jesus occasion to make the striking comparison of His own disciples to a bridal party. Whence this difference ? Why were the followers of Jesus like people going to a wedding, and 1 The scene in the synagogue of Nazareth has the same typical significance in Luke's Gospel that the Sermon on the Mount has in Matthew's. On this point, see my Galilean Gospel. 52 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. the followers of John like a band of pilgrims faring towards a holy place, doing penance for their sins ? It must have sprung from totally diverse conceptions of the kingdom whose approach both Masters proclaimed, imbibed from the teaching of those Masters. Jesus and John used much the same form of words, but they can- not have meant the same thing. We know what John meant when he spoke of the kingdom. He meant the people of Israel converted to righteousness, and in conse- quence blessed with national prosperity. And that being his ideal and aim, he was a gloomy man, and those who were about him became infected with his gloom. For he saw too soon and too well that the conversion of Israel to righteousness was a very improbable event. And so, despairing of the nation, and hoping only for the salvation of a small remnant, he began to talk of a winnowing-fan to separate wheat from chaff, and of an axe of judgment to hew down the worthless tree. In the mouth of one in this grim, desponding mood, the announce- ment of the approaching kingdom was a message of doom rather than of hope ; it was awful tidings rather than good tidings, for the greater number at least, and indeed for all ; for who could tell who should be able to stand the King's keen scrutiny, " who may abide the day of His coming ? " All one could do was to labour painfully at self-reformation, fasting, praying, scrupulously cleansing body and soul, humbly trusting he might have a chance of standing at Jehovah's dread appearing. From the joy of Christ's disciples, we infer- that He meant something different. He did not expect national repentance, though He desired it, and faithfully worked for it ; therefore He CHRIST'S IDEA OF THE KINGDOM. 53 never despaired. He did not come merely making a legal demand, and commanding men to be righteous under penalties. He came as one conscious that he had a message to proclaim that would help men to be good and happy. Therefore He was glad and hopeful, and all who came near Him felt His presence as a warm summer sun. Another significant indication of the nature of the kingdom Jesus preached may be found in the kind of people to whom He principally and by preference addressed His invitations to enter. He preached the gospel of the kingdom to the poor ; * He defined His mission by such sayings as these : " I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners ; " 2 " the Son of Man is come to seek and to save the lost." s He threw the gates of the kingdom open to all comers irrespective of ante- cedent character, even if they had been really as bad as the Pharisees deemed those whom they branded as "publicans and sinners." Many morally disreputable persons responded to His call. This fact was in His view when He uttered the remarkable saying : " From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." ^ Publicans, sinners, harlots, the moral refuse of society, such were the persons who in greatest numbers and with greatest earnestness pressed into the kingdom, 1 Matt. xi. 5. 2 Matt. ix. 13. 3 Luke xix. 10. 4 Matt. xi. 12. Some take the statement in a bad sense, as im- plying that the people were seeking the kingdom in a worldly spirit, bent on setting up a political kingdom, irrrespective of ethical conditions. This view is unsuitable to the connection of thought. 54 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. a phenomenon astonishing to reputable, "righteous," religious people. The kingdom of God was being made a cave of Adullam, whither every one that was in distress or deep in moral debt resorted. The city of God was being taken possession of by " dogs," whose proper place was without ; it was, as it were, being stormed by rude, lawless bands, and taken from those who thought they had an exclusive right to it. What a violence ! what a profanation ! Perhaps so ; but one thing is clear : those persons who by their passionate earnestness were storming the kingdom would not suppose that they had any right to it. They listened to Christ's call, because they gathered from His preaching that the kingdom was a gift of grace, meant, in fact, God's sovereign, unmerited love to unworthy men, blessing them with pardon, and so gaining power over their hearts. And they felt that it did gain power, and that the dominion was real. Forgiven much, they loved much. Christ also was aware of the fact, and that was one of His reasons for seeking citizens of the kingdom in such a quarter ; and that He did seek them there, for such a reason, shows very plainly what His idea of the kingdom was : a kingdom of grace, in order to be a kingdom of holiness. The attitude of Jesus towards the social abjects is in many ways significant. It implies, as we shall see, a new idea of man ; but what I wish now to point out is the tendency it indicates towards universalism. This part of Christ's public action, as the records show, created much surprise, and provoked frequent censure. This is not to be wondered at. It really meant an incipient religious revolution. It manifested a disregard for conventional CHRIST'S IDEA OF THE KINGDOM. 55 social distinctions, involving a principle which might one day be applied on a much wider scale, in the form, viz., of a disregard of distinctions not merely between classes within the bounds of the chosen people, but between races and nations ; Jew and Gentile being treated as one, both needing salvation, neither having any claim to it, and the Gentile being not less capable of it than the Jew. In maintaining sympathetic relations with the " publicans and sinners," Jesus said in effect : " The kingdom is for them too ; it is for all who need it and make it welcome. It opens its gates, like ancient Eome, to all comers, on condition that they conduct themselves as good citizens, once they are within its walls. From east, west, north, south, let them come ; they shall not be refused admit- tance." The jealous guardians of Jewish prerogative did well, therefore, to take alarm at this novel interest in the lost sheep of Israel, whom they themselves had abandoned to their fate. The universalistic drift revealed in Christ's love for the low and lowly found expression in many of His words. I refer to such as these : " Ye are the salt of the earth ; " " ye are the light of the world ; " " the field is the world." l The human race is regarded as the subject of the salting and enlightening influence of the children of the kingdom, and the field to be sown with the word of the kingdom ; so that we are not surprised to find one 1 Of course it is open to criticism to raise doubts as to the genuineness of such sayings. Weiss thinks the interpretation of the parable of the Tares, in which the last of the above sayings occurs (Matt. xiii. 38), does not proceed from Christ ; and one of his argu- ments is, that He could not have said so absolutely " the field is the world." Vide his Matthaus-Evangelium, in loc. 56 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. Gospel closing with the injunction from the Master to His disciples : " Go ye therefore, and teach all nations ; " and another with a similar command : " Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation." There is a width of horizon in such utterances that is totally irreconcilable with the hypothesis that Jesus was merely a patriotic Jew, whose sympathies as well as His work were confined to His countrymen, and whose aim was to make Israel first a righteous nation, and then a free, prosperous kingdom. But we may be reminded that there are things in the Gospels pointing in a contrary direction, which imply either that Christ's teaching and action were not self- consistent, or that the evangelists do not give us a reliable record of His ministry. They are such as these : the refusal of Jesus to grant the prayer of the woman of Canaan, on the ground that His mission was to Israel ; the exclusion of Samaria from the sphere of the mission on which the twelve were sent ; and such apparently contemptuous expressions towards pagans as those in the Sermon on the Mount : " When ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do," " after all these things do the Gentiles seek ; " the still more offensive term " dogs " employed with the same reference in the inter- view with the Syro-Phoenician ; and the direction given to the future ministers of the kingdom to treat an obstinately impenitent offender " as an heathen man and a publican." It is not a very formidable array of counter-evidence. When Jesus said : " I am not sent save to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," He did certainly speak seriously. He did regard Himself, in His individual capacity, as CHRIST'S IDEA. OF THE KINGDOM. 57 a messenger of God to the Jewish nation exclusively, unless when good cause could be shown for making an exception. But that is a very different thing from regarding the kingdom of God, in its essential nature and ultimate destination, as a matter in which Jews alone had any interest. Assuming that the kingdom was destined to universality, it might still be the wisest method for founding a universal, spiritual monarchy to begin by securing a footing within the boundaries of the elect people ; and that could be done only by one who devoted his whole mind to it, determined not to be turned aside by outside opportunities, however tempting, or by random sympathies, however keen, with sin and misery, beyond the Jewish pale. The utterance in ques- tion only shows the thoroughly disciplined spirit of Jesus in abiding at His own appointed post. As He was willing to be the corn of wheat cast into the ground to die, that through death there might be great increase, so He was willing to be God's minister to the Jews, as the best preparation for a future ministry among the Gentiles. The other particulars above referred to hardly need explanation. The direction given to the disciples not to go to the Samaritans is sufficiently explained by their spiritual immaturity. The two allusions to pagan prac- tice in prayer have no animus in them : they are simple statements of fact brought in to illustrate the speaker's meaning. There is certainly an animus in the term " dogs," but it is not an animus of hatred. It was used to experiment on the spirit of the person addressed. One who really hated the Gentiles would neither have taken the trouble to make the experiment, nor been so 58 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. gratified with the result. As for the saying last quoted, the possibility of misapprehension is precluded by the familiar facts of Christ's personal history. We know what the publicans were to Him ; and if He felt towards the heathen in like manner, they were to Him objects not of aversion or contempt, but of humane, yearning compassion. One fact more I mention, as surely indicating the spiritual character of the kingdom Jesus preached. It is the alternative name for the kingdom of frequent occurrence in the first Gospel. Mark and Luke call it the kingdom of God. Matthew almost uniformly calls it the kingdom of heaven. The expression suggests the thought that the kingdom is an ideal hovering over all actual societies, civil or sacred, like Plato's Eepublic, to be found realized in perfection nowhere on this earth, the true home of which is in the supersensible world. 1 In all probability, the title was used alternatively by Jesus for the express purpose of lifting the minds of the Jewish people into a higher region of thought than that in which their present hopes as members of the theocratic nation moved ; just as, in addressing censors of His con- duct in associating with publicans and sinners, He spoke of the joy in heaven over a sinner repenting to gain an entrance into their minds for the conception of a love in His own heart whereof as yet they had not so much as dreamed. There is no reason to doubt that the phrase belonged to the vocabulary of Jesus, though a writer already quoted confidently affirms that it cannot have belonged to the apostolic tradition, in other words, was 1 So Baur. CHEIST'S IDEA OF THE KINGDOM. 59 not employed by Christ. 1 The opinion carries no weight, for it is a mere assertion, but it is very interesting as an indirect testimony on the part of its author that the designation in question does not fit well into his theory as to the nature of the kingdom Jesus proposed to found. The argument is : " The kingdom was to be the fulfilment of theocratic hopes, therefore it cannot have been called by Jesus the kingdom of heaven. That name must have come in when the hope of a restored kingdom of Israel was seen to be a dream." Strange that this unhistorical name should occur in the first Gospel, the most theocratic of all the four ! It would be a mistake to suppose that, in using this name, Jesus meant to banish the kingdom from earth to the skies, from this present life to the future world. As He presented it, it was very lofty in nature, yet near men, yea in their very hearts ; there if anywhere. It concerned men here and now ; all men eventually, Israelites in the first place, as they were the people of the old election, and the Herald of the kingdom was their countryman. It was to become a society on earth, 1 Weiss, Lehrbuch der Biblischen Theologie des Neuen Testaments, S. 47. Jost, Geschichte des Judenthums, i. 397, says that what the wise in Israel in the time of our Lord aimed at was simply the highest piety of life, the union in modes of feeling and action which was called the kingdom of heaven, though they did not express their meaning clearly ; and that Eabbinical expressions concerning the so-called King Messiah were all of later date. If this view be correct, the phrase "the kingdom of heaven" was current then, and had a purely ethical or spiritual meaning. Jost represents the "kingdom of heaven" of Jewish theology as a refuge to the devout from the degradation of the temple - worship by unworthy high priests, and from the bondage under which the people sighed, and as such as a pioneer to Christianity. 60 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. ever widening in extent, for a kingdom is a social thing ; it could not fail to become such if it met with any reception from those to whom it was proclaimed, for the spirit of the kingdom is love, and impels to fellow- ship. It was the highest good of life, the hidden treasure which men should willingly buy with all their possessions, the precious pearl for which all else should be gladly exchanged. It was accessible to all : to the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the social outcasts, and the depraved ; not to them exclusively, but to them very specially, as most needing its blessings and most likely to welcome them. It was spiritual. The conditions of admission, the sole conditions so far as appears, and as I shall hereafter try to prove, were repentance and faith, or in one word receptivity readiness to make the kingdom welcome. It was associated with, may almost be said to have consisted in, a certain doctrine of God, and a kindred doctrine of man. " Briefly stated, the religious heaven of Jesus meant the Fatherliness of God for men, the sonship of men for God, and the infinite spiritual good of the kingdom of heaven is Fatherhood and Son- ship." * It was all this from the beginning of Christ's ministry. Jesus did not begin to cherish and utter these gracious, spiritual, universal thoughts in the later sorrowful days of His public ministry, after painful experience had taught Him that the aim with which He started was a generous patriotic delusion. The career He ran was not this : The Nazarene prophet goes forth from His home full of youthful enthusiasm, bent on realizing the hope which prophecy had nursed, with 1 Keim, Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, 54. CHRIST'S IDEA OF THE KINGDOM. 61 this as His watchword and programme first, the king- dom of God and His righteousness ; next, food and raiment, or in one word, prosperity. First a righteous nation, then a people free and happy. He goes about preaching the approach of the kingdom in this sense, and dispensing benefits especially to the poor and the sick with Messianic bountif ulness. The people, especially in the northern province, receive Him and His doctrine and His benefits with enthusiasm. They welcome the kingdom, and they hail Him King. But their pro- gramme is not His ; it is His inverted. They desire political independence and temporal well-being first and unconditionally, and as much righteousness as can be made forthcoming after that. This once made manifest, at the Capernaum crisis, Jesus enters emphatic dissent, and the charm is gone. The multitude melts away ; and the eyes of Jesus are opened. It is all over with the dream of a theocratic kingdom of Israel with Himself for its King. What awaits Him, He now sees, is not a throne but a cross. If He is to have a kingdom, it must be one of a different sort. He seeks it meantime with sad heart in the formation of a separate society gathered out of Israel ; and gradually His mind opens up to the great inspiring thought of spiritual dominion, gained through death over human hearts, not in Judea only, but in all lands. 1 Far other was the actual course of Christ's history. His greatest thoughts were present to His mind, in germ at least, from the first, though they underwent development in correspondence with outward 1 This is substantially the scheme worked out by Weiss in his Leben Jesu. It involves new interpretations of many texts. 62 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. events. He had a spiritual, universal kingdom in view the day He preached the Sermon on the Mount, as the opening sentences clearly show. He expected a tragic end at the time when He defended His disciples for the neglect of fasting. If it seem unnatural that one capable of entertaining such wide-ranging ideas, and visited with such gloomy forebodings, should devote Himself with singleness of heart to the limited and also thankless task of the regeneration of Israel, it will be well to remember that Hebrew prophets had done much the same thing. Isaiah and Jeremiah went forth in God's name to preach to their countrymen righteousness, with small hope of bringing them to repentance ; nevertheless they did their duty faithfully and nobly, at all hazards to them- selves, as their recorded prophecies amply attest. CHAPTEE II. CHRIST'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE MOSAIC LAW. THE first impression produced by a perusal of the Evangelic records with reference to this topic, is one of surprise at the reticence of Christ regarding a subject of such importance. We might have expected Him to say distinctly whether Jewish law and custom were to prevail in the kingdom that was coming ; whether, e.g., the rite of circumcision was or was not to be observed in the new era. Yet throughout the whole range of His utterances, as recorded in the Synoptical Gospels, Jesus does not once mention circumcision. While maintaining silence regarding that particular rite of fundamental importance in the old covenant, Jesus on one or two occasions expressed Himself in general terms concerning His relation to the Mosaic Law, and that in a manner which does not seem to harmonize with the idea of the kingdom sketched in the last chapter. The chief of these utterances is the well-known passage in the Sermon on the Mount, in which the Preacher declares that He is come, not to do away with the Law and the Prophets, but rather to fulfil them. He speaks as if He were conscious that an opposite rdle would be expected of Him, and desired as early as 63 64 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. possible to correct the misapprehension. " Think not I came to destroy." With solemn emphasis He goes on to affirm that while heaven and earth last, the minutest particle of the law shall remain valid, till all things be accomplished. Then, as if to ensure for the declaration a permanent lodgment in the minds of His hearers, He asserts the inferiority of the destroyer of any existing laws, however unimportant, to the man who inculcates and keeps the laws great and small; and the little esteem in which the one is held in the kingdom of heaven in comparison with the other. 1 The whole passage seems to teach that the laws of Moses, without exception or distinction, are to be observed while the world endures. Hence Baur, despairing of interpreting the words in accordance with what he believed to be the real attitude of Jesus, comes to the conclusion that they do not give a correct account of what the Speaker said, and sums up his discussion of them in these terms : " As Jesus did not in fact confirm the ritual law, and as, on the other hand, if He did not intend to confirm it, He could not have expressed Himself in such a way as to its enduring validity, the only course left us is to assume that His words received from the evangelist a Judaistic bias which they had not as they came from His mouth." 2 There are, however, some features of this same utter- ance, even as it stands, which provoke reflection, and suggest the doubt whether our first impression of its meaning be correct. Does not the repudiation of an intention to destroy imply a consciousness that the effect of His work is to be such as may appear a destroying in 1 Matt. v. 17-20. 2 Neutestamentliche Theologie, S. 55. CHRIST'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE MOSAIC LAW. 65 the eyes of many ? Then why say of one who by word or deed sets aside any of the commandments that he is the least in the kingdom of heaven ; instead of saying of him, as of the Pharisee, that he cannot enter the kingdom: the position taken up by the conservative party in the Apostolic Church when they said to the Gentile Christians, " Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved." ] It seems as if it were not a question of mere destroying, but rather of the right way of doing it, and as if the attitude of the Preacher were something like this : He was aware that His appearance on the stage of history might bring about a crisis in reference to the law, and inaugurate a new era in which much would be changed. But He was conscious at the same time that He came not in the spirit of a destroyer, full of headlong zeal against rude imperfect statutes and antiquated customs, but rather in the spirit of profoundest reverence for ancient institutions, believing that everything in the law, down to its minutest rules, had a meaning and value in the system of religion and morals to which it belonged, and not doubting that the least important of the commandments could not, any more than the most weighty, pass away till their pur- pose had been fulfilled. Coming in this spirit, He felt entitled to repudiate abrogation as an aim, whatever of that nature might come in the way of necessary effect. He had no taste for the work of a mere destroyer, no inclination towards the vocation of a legal reformer demanding the abolition of this or the other particular statute or custom as no longer useful, no sympathy with 1 Acts xv. 1 . E 66 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. the iconoclastic zeal which rushes passionately at abuses, bent on demolishing, and heedless what may come in the idol's place. For those who pursued such an occupation He had not unqualified esteem, though they might be very conscientious ; nor did He think they would take a high place in the kingdom of God. Were the question put, " Who is the greatest in the kingdom ? " He would certainly not say, the mere reformer or destroyer. He should esteem him the least, whoever might be the greatest : greater than him He should account the man who honestly did all things enjoined, and taught others to do them. Him He called great in the kingdom. Great, but be it observed not even he is called the greatest. That place is reserved for one who not merely does the commandments and teaches respect for them, but fulfils them, realizes in Himself all their meaning, and only so, if at all, brings about the annulment of any. Thus we get an ascending scale of moral worth. The Pharisee, the man of form, who cares more for the little than for the great commandments, has no moral worth, and is not in the kingdom at all. 1 The reformer who has a keen eye for abuses, who is impatient of laws whose utility is doubtful, and urgently calls for change where he thinks it is greatly needed, is of some worth ; he is in the kingdom, though not occupying a high place there. The man who spends not his energies in attacking abuses, but puts his heart into all duties, and so redeems from formality the minutest details of conduct, and teaches others so to live, is of greater worth ; is not only in the kingdom, but a person of consideration there. 1 Matt. v. 20. CHRIST'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE MOSAIC LAW. 67 Finally, he who not only does, but fulfils, that is, by his life-work inaugurates a new time that shall be the ripe fruit towards which the old time with its institutions was tending ; and so satisfies the hearts of the children of the new time, that without formal abrogation much that belonged to the old shall be allowed eventually to fall quietly into desuetude : this one is the greatest in the kingdom, the man of absolute moral worth. This interpretation of the remarkable saying in ques- tion is at least legitimate, if not the only one conceivable. It is an interpretation, doubtless, which but for the light of subsequent events, we might not have thought of. The idea of a distinction between doing and fulfilling, or of a fulfilling which may at the same time be more or less an undoing, is one we take not out of the mere words, but out of history. We know that there is a fulfilling which is at the same time an undoing at all critical periods, and we bring our knowledge as a help to the interpretation of words spoken by one who has proved to be the greatest of all Initiators, and conclude that the very claim to fulfil involves a virtual intimation of eventual antiquation to a greater or less extent. More than this we cannot make of the solemn declaration on the Mount. We cannot learn from it what in Law or Prophets should, in being fulfilled, be at the same time annulled. By the nature of the case, such information was excluded, because to give such information, and say, e.g., " Circumcision must ere long pass away," would have been to belie the position taken up, and to exchange the high vocation of a fulfiller for the comparatively low vocation of a reformer. For the same reason we ought 68 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. not to expect explicit information of that kind a list of laws marked like trees in a forest to be cut down anywhere in Christ's teaching. The utmost we can look for are hints, incidental indications showing like straws in what direction the stream of tendency was flowing. Such indications are not wanting; indications which confirm the interpretation given of the text in the Sermon on the Mount, and help us also to determine for ourselves in what respects Christ in fulfilling was at the same time to annul. The very silence of Christ concerning the fundamental rite of the old Covenant is, as Eeuss has remarked, very significant. Its import is, indeed, ambiguous ; it might be held to mean that Christ never thought of calling in question the perpetual obligation of circumcision. But it is hard to credit this while reading the golden sentences wherewith the Sermon on the Mount opens, and in which are set forth the requirements for citizenship in the kingdom of heaven. The qualifications specified are exclusively spiritual. The Beatitudes take us away into an entirely different world from that of ritualism. We can hardly imagine Jesus uttering these words : Blessed are the poor, the meek, the pure, the peace- makers, the persecuted, with the mental reservation, " provided always that they be Israelites and circum- cised." We cannot help feeling that the kingdom must be wider than Israel, and its blessings independent of merely external and ritual conditions. The rite by which men became members of the theocratic common- wealth is quietly ignored. Another significant hint that in the new kingdom the CHRIST'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE MOSAIC LAW. 6 9 ceremonial law at least was destined to fall into desuetude, may be found in the words spoken by Jesus when His disciples were blamed for neglecting customary ritual ablutions before eating : " Hear me, all of you, and understand : there is nothing from without a man that going into him can defile him, but the things which proceed out of a man are those that defile a man." 1 By this emphatic utterance Jesus in effect, as Baur remarks, declared the observance of the Mosaic laws of purifica- tion to be something morally indifferent. It is true, indeed, that the fault imputed to the disciples had not been disregard of the Mosaic ritual law, but neglect of the traditions of the elders relating to ablutions which were designed to form a hedge about the law, and ensure its strict observance. But it is manifest that the word addressed to the people enunciates a principle whose range of application is much wider than these traditions, and which, when it has got a firm hold of the popular mind, must in the end lead to the non-observance of the Mosaic laws of purification, as well as of the rules super- added by the Rabbis. That it was taken in this wide scope in the Apostolic Church, and specially in the circle of which Peter formed the centre, may be inferred from the reflection appended by the second evangelist to the explanation of His own saying given by Christ to the disciples : " This He said, making all meats clean." 2 It has, however, been maintained of late that the saying of 1 Mark vii. 14, 15. Matthew's version (xv. 10, 11) is less emphatic. 2 Mark vii. 19, last clause, according to the approved reading, which substitutes xotQitiuv for 70 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. Jesus to the multitude is parabolic, and that it must be understood as referring throughout to things belonging to the physical sphere. The things that proceed out of a man are not, as in the subsequently given interpretation, moral offences, but matters discharged from the body whether in health, in diseases like leprosy, or in death. These, not the eating of forbidden meats, defiled in the Levitical sense, and it was against the defiling influence of these that the Mosaic rules of purification were directed. The effect, therefore, of Christ's saying was to condemn the Pharisaic additions as plants which God had not planted, but to confirm the obligation of the Mosaic laws of purification as of divine authority. 1 This is ingenious but not convincing. If Christ meant to tell the multitude that ceremonial defilement pro- ceeded from matters discharged from the body, not from the kind of food taken, it is difficult to see why in the subsequent conversation with His disciples He gave a spiritual turn to the thought, and made the things which proceed out of a man, evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, and the like. Why not rather .explain to them, the future apostles, His exact position on the topic raised by Pharisaic criticism, viz. that what He condemned was simply Eabbinical additions to Mosaic rules, and that He believed in the perpetual obligation of the latter ? The reference to the moral evils proceeding from the heart lifts the whole subject above the level of ceremonialism, and irresistibly conveys the impression that, in the view of the Speaker, the only cleanness and uncleanness that are real and worth minding are 1 Weiss, Leben Jesu, ii. S. 116. CUEIST'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE MOSAIC LAW. Vl those which arise from morally right and wrong feelings and actions. A third straw showing the direction of the stream of tendency may be found in the word spoken by Jesus in Peraea towards the close of His ministry concerning the Mosaic statute of divorce : " Moses out of regard to the hardness of your heart suffered you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so." l It was a distinct declaration that this particalar law was a con- cession on the part of the Jewish legislator to a rude moral condition, and a departure from the primitive ideal. In Mark's narrative, the conversation between Christ and His captious interrogators is so arranged that there is less of the appearance of calling in question the authority of Moses than in Matthew's version of the incident. The first evangelist makes Christ, in answer to His interrogants, at once announce the original law of marriage as ordained by God at the creation, whereby Moses seems to be set in antagonism to the Creator, as ordaining an inferior law, though not without excuse in the moral condition of his people. In the account given by the second evangelist, on the other hand, 2 Jesus meets the question put by the Pharisees with another, What did Moses command you ? It is possible that He meant thereby to hint that Moses had given more than one law on the subject, regarding the primitive law in Genesis as his, not less than the law in Deuteronomy. In that case He merely appealed from Moses to Moses ; from what Moses allowed under pressure of circumstances, to what Moses must have known, if, as all Jews believed, he was 1 Matt. xix. 8. 2 Mark x. 2-9. 72 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. the author of the five books, and doubtless approved as the ideally perfect law concerning the relation of the sexes. Nevertheless, assuming Mark's version to be the more accurate, and the drift of Christ's argument to be as indicated, the fact remains that the Deuteronomic statute regulating, and by implication sanctioning, divorce for other reasons besides adultery, was explicitly declared to be a statute " not good," adapted to the sklerokardia of Israel. And as that statute did not stand alone, but was only a sample of many of the same kind, the general position was virtually laid down that the whole Mosaic civil code was far from perfect, and consequently could not be permanently valid, but must pass away in that kingdom where the sJclerokardia is removed, and is replaced by the " new heart." ] From these indications of Christ's attitude towards the ceremonial and civil laws of Moses, we pass to inquire what position He assumed in reference to what we are wont to call the "moral" law, that is, the Decalogue. The interest here concentrates on the institution of the weekly rest, which, some think, ought to be included in the same category as circumcision, maintaining also that it was actually so regarded by Jesus. I shall here go into the question so far only as is necessary to ascertain how far the latter allegation is correct. And I begin with the observation that it is antecedently unlikely that Jesus would treat circumcision and the Sabbath as in all 1 See on the above topic, Weiss in his Leben Jesu, and also in his two works on the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. He contends for the accuracy of Mark's version, and does his utmost to minimize the significance of Christ's words as a criticism on Mosaic legislation. CHRIST'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE MOSAIC LAW. 73 respects of the same nature. They were certainly not so treated under the law. For though circumcision was of fundamental importance in the covenant between Jehovah and Israel, yet it was not thought necessary to put it among the Ten Words ; whereas the law of the Sabbath does find a place there along with precepts generally admitted to be ethical in their nature, and therefore of perpetual obligation in their substance. Why is this ? Apparently because circumcision con- cerned Israel alone, whereas in the Ten Words it was intended that that only should find a place which was believed to concern all mankind. The Decalogue wears the aspect of an attempt to sum up the heads of moral duty, put in a form, and enforced with reasons, it may be, adapted to the history and circumstances of the chosen race, but in their substance concerning not Jews only, but men in general. Speaking of the Decalogue as the work of Moses, we may say that from it we learn what in his judgment all men ought to do in order to please God, and live wisely and happily. And we can see for ourselves that circumcision and the Sabbath are in important respects entirely different institutions. Cir- cumcision was purely ritual, a mere arbitrary sign or symbol, a mark set on Israel to distinguish and separate her from the heathen peoples around. But the Sab- bath was essentially a good thing. Eest from toil is good for the body, and rest in worshipful acknowledg- ment of God as the Maker and Preserver of all is equally good for the spirit. Eest in both senses is a permanent need of man in this world, and a law pre- scribing a resting day as a holiday and holy day is a 74 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. beneficent law, which no one having a regard to human wellbeing can have any wish to abrogate. Turning now to the Gospel records : do we find Jesus speaking of the Sabbath as, say, of ritual washings i.e. as a thing morally indifferent, whose abolition would be no real loss to men ? We do not. On the contrary, we find Him invariably treating the institution with respect, as intrinsically a good thing ; and His quarrel with the Pharisees on this head was not as to observance, but as to the right manner of observing the law. The Pharisees made the day not a boon, but a burden ; not a day given by God to man in mercy, but a day taken from man by God in an exacting spirit. Having this idea of the weekly rest in their minds, they naturally made it as burdensome and irksome as possible, not a delight, but a horror, giving ridiculously minute definitions of work, and placing the merit of Sabbath-keeping in mere absti- nence from work so defined, apart altogether from the nature of the work. With this Pharisaic idea of the Sabbath, and the manner in which it was worked out in practice, Jesus had no sympathy. He conceived of the institution, not as a burden, but as a boon ; not as a day taken from man, but as a day given to him by a bene- ficent Providence. This idea He expressed in a remark- able saying, found, curiously enough, only in Mark, but doubtless a most authentic apostolic tradition : " The Sabbath was made on account of man, not man on account of the Sabbath." l He meant to say that God appointed the Sabbath for man's good, and that it must be so observed as to realize the end originally contem- 1 Mark ii. 27. CHRIST'S ATTITUDE TOWAEDS THE MOSAIC LAW. 75 plated ; men must not be made the slaves of the Sabbath, as they were by the Pharisaic method of interpreting and enforcing the statute. This being His meaning, He consistently said, the Sabbath was made for m an, not the Sabbath was made for Jews, so giving the saying a uni- versal character. One who so thought of the institution could have no interest in its abolition. He would rather desire to extend the benefit, and He would favour only such changes as might be needful to make the benefit as great and as wide-reaching as possible. Accordingly, Jesus did not propose to abolish the beneficent institute. He did, indeed, claim lordship over the Sabbath - day. But He claimed it not with a view to abolition, but in order to give full effect to the principle that the Sabbath was made for man, that is, for his good, and to emphasize the true motive of observance, love, the supreme law of His kingdom. In other words, Christ's claim of lordship was a claim of right to humanize the Sabbath, in opposi- tion to the Pharisees who had jRdbbinized it, and made it a snare to the conscience and a burden to the spirit. An esteemed writer has given an entirely different interpretation to the saying recorded by Mark, according to which Christ meant to draw a distinction between the laws that are of permanent validity and those that are transient, including the Sabbath in the latter category. The permanent laws are those which are an end for man, the transient are those which have man for their end. The former set forth man's chief end the moral ideal ; the latter are merely means subservient to some tem- porary human interest. 1 I gravely doubt the soundness 1 Kitschl, Die Entstehung des Altkatholischen Kirche, S. 30. 76 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. of the construction thus put on our Lord's words. And as for the distinction taken between two sorts of laws, it depends on the respect in which a law has man for its end, whether it be of a temporary character or otherwise. If a law have man for its end, in the sense of having for its aim his highest wellbeing, then it is not transient, even on the principle enunciated by the author referred to, for in that case it is at the same time an end for man. The moral ideal and man's highest happiness coincide. On this view there is no good reason for the Sabbath passing away. It is made for man, doubtless, but not in the sense in which the statute of divorce was made. The latter was an accommodation to man's moral weak- ness, the former was instituted to promote man's physical and spiritual wellbeing, and it is fitted to serve that end in perpetuity. The kingdom of God therefore cannot frown on the Sabbath as it must frown on the concession made by Moses to the rude moral condition of Israel in the matter of marriage. It must regard the day of rest with favour, even if it looked on it as an outside institu- tion, and not of strictly ethical contents ; wherever the spirit of the kingdom prevails, the general desire will be, not for its abolition, but for its retention. Christianity Countenances the Sabbath just as, and on the same general ground that it discountenances slavery. Even as, though not formally condemning slavery, yet being hostile to it, as injurious to the moral dignity of man, the Christian religion surely tended towards its abolition ; so, though not formally decreeing the perpetuating of a seventh day rest, yet being favourable to it as promotive of man's wellbeing, the Christian religion surely tended from the CHRIST'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE MOSAIC LAW. 77 first towards the perpetuation and the extension of the blessings it conferred throughout the world. Quite in accordance with the view I have given of our Lord's attitude towards the Sabbath was the manner of His defence against the Pharisaic charge of Sabbath- breaking. He did not admit that He and His disciples were Sabbath-breakers, but took up the ground that their conduct was in accordance with the Sabbath law rightly interpreted. The correct view of the Sabbath being that it was meant to be a boon, not a burden that it was made for man's benefit the right observance was that which best promoted the end aimed at man's good ; the wrong that which frustrated the design, and turned a boon into a burden. In applying this principle to His own works of healing, Jesus said : not, It is permissible to do any sort of work on the Sabbath, for the law is no longer binding; but, It is lawful to do well on the Sabbath. 1 In defence of His disciples, who, according to current ideas, had been guilty of working in rubbing the ears of corn (it was a kind of thrashing !), Jesus reminded the fault-finders of God's word : " I will have mercy and not sacrifice," and told them that had they laid to heart the divine oracle, they should not have condemned the guiltless. 2 It remains to add that Christ's favourable attitude towards the Sabbath becomes all the more significant when it is contrasted with the free position He took up in reference to the civil and ceremonial law. Had He, as some think, been an indiscriminate conservative, treat- ing with equal reverence all parts of the Mosaic system, i Matt. xii. 12. 2 Matt. xii. 7. 78 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. His respect for the day of rest would have been no argument in favour of its perpetuity. That institution might have been doomed, notwithstanding, to pass away, like circumcision, with the old Jewish world to which both alike belonged. But when we find one who could freely criticize venerable customs resting on the authority of the Hebrew legislator, in the light of the new era, so careful to clear Himself of all suspicion of irreverence towards the fourth commandment, we cannot help feeling that the rest therein enjoined does not altogether belong to the old world about to pass away, but is worthy to find a place in the new order of things. There may be a sense in which, as Paul taught, the Sabbath belonged to the era of shadows ; but there must be a sense also in which it belongs to the era of spiritual realities. Of the other precepts of the Decalogue Christ ever spoke respectfully as enjoining duties incumbent on all ; as when He said to the young ruler, " If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments," l enumerating the first four of the second table to illustrate His meaning. But, while recognising the perpetual obligation of these com- mandments, He preferred to sum up duty in the one comprehensive word Love : " Love God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself." On these two com- mands, said He, hung all that the law required and the prophets taught. 2 The originality of the saying lay not in the mere words, for they occur in the Pentateuch, but in the new emphasis put upon it. Because of that Jesus was, and claimed to be, a fulfiller, in the pregnant sense, of the Decalogue in particular, as of the law and prophets 1 Matt. xix. 17. 2 Matt. vii. 12, xxii. 37-40. CHRIST'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE MOSAIC LAW. 79 in general. In the Sermon on the Mount He illustrated the sense in which He claimed to be a fulfiller by taking up successively several precepts of the Decalogue, and insisting, in connection with each, not on the outward act of obedience only, but on conformity of inward dis- position to the principle embodied in the precept. The law said, " Thou shalt not kill," and when men abstained from taking away each other's lives, the law, as a code for the government of a nation, was satisfied. But the Preacher said, " Whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment ; " l so interdicting not only murder but hatred, not only violent deeds but wicked passions. Thus He transformed a law of the Decalogue into a law of the divine kingdom. The result of our inquiry then is this : Christ came to fulfil the law of the Ten Words by going back with new emphasis on its great underlying principle love to God and to man; He came to fulfil the meaning, and not immediately, but as foreknown eventual result, to annul the obligation of the ceremonial law by putting substance in place of shadow, spiritual reality in place of ritual emblem ; He came to antiquate the civil law by removing the skier oJcardia, and raising up a race who should be able to order their lives according to a higher ideal. All this He did, however, after the manner of a prophet rather than after the manner of a legislator. He came not to be a rival to Moses, but to originate a new life which should be self-legislative. When we consider the manner in which the hints, whereon the foregoing induction is founded, were given, 1 Matt. v. 22. 80 THE KINGDOM OF QOD. we see how truly Christ could say : " I came not to destroy." They were uttered for the most part in self- defence. It seems as if, had He been left alone, He would have been content to introduce the new life, and leave it to create for itself congenial habitudes without giving any indication what these were to be. As it was, He said no more than was barely necessary to defend Himself against accusers. In spite of much provocation, at the very last, He counselled the people to give heed to the teaching of the scribes who sat in Moses' seat, bidding them only beware of their practice. He would not on any account be irritated into becoming a stirrer up of discontent, or an agitator against existing customs, or a hot-headed leader of zealots bent on overturning an ancient social and religious system. All things con- sidered, therefore, the conclusion, well expressed by Baur, must be accepted as just, that while Jesus introduced into some of His expressions what might form the ground of an opposition on principle, not only against the pre- scriptions of the Pharisees, but even against the continued absolute validity of the law, He did not wish to come to an open breach, but left the development of the opposition already existing in implicit form, to the spirit of His doctrine, which must of itself lead eventually thereto. In view of this conclusion, we are able to understand that saying of Christ concerning the Baptist, which has been somewhat of a puzzle to interpreters : "Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist ; notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." l We are i Matt. xi. 11. CHRIST'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE MOSAIC LAW. 81 not obliged to have recourse to the ingenious construc- tion put by Chry sos torn on the last part of the sentence : " I, Jesus, who as yet am less than John in public esteem, am greater than he in the kingdom of heaven, though not in the judgment of the world." Keeping in mind the great word in the Sermon on the Mount, wherein the Preacher defined His relation to the legal o economy, and expressed His judgment in reference to diverse types of character, we have no difficulty in seeing the truth and point of this saying, viewed as a declaration that one occupying a comparatively humble place in the kingdom of heaven was greater than John, supremely great though he was in his own line. For John was in tendency and temper a destroyer, not indeed with reference to Mosaic institutions, but with reference to the actual religious life of his time. He lived the life of a hermit in the wild, taking no part apparently in the temple services, through an uncon- querable disgust at prevailing hypocrisy. He denounced the Pharisees, whom he saw on the outskirts of the crowd that gathered around him by the Jordan, as a generation of vipers. He declared that the axe was already at the root of the tree, ready to hew down an unproductive vine. He proclaimed the approach of one who with fan in hand should separate wheat from chaff, and burn the chaff in unquenchable fire. And when the coming One had come, and had been long enough at work to show the manner of His working, John, now a prisoner, doubted whether He were after all the Man he had looked for. Why ? Because he saw no axe or fan in His hand. He heard reports of deeds of mercy, Tt 82 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. and of gracious words spoken unto the poor, but he heard no reports of deeds of judgment. This was too genial a Messiah for his taste. The method of Jesus was also too leisurely for the prophet's ardent tempera- ment. Assuming that He had the same general end in view as himself a kingdom of righteousness He was far too tolerant in His spirit. John desiderated an immediate crisis or catastrophe. Separate the good from the bad, destroy the bad and make the good, like Noah's family, the nucleus of a new godly nation. Simple, thoroughgoing programme, most satisfactory to a prophet's earnest temper ! But no such programme did Jesus seem to have. He went about in Galilee doing all the good He could, and left the religious world of Judaea, of whose hollowness He was well aware, to go its own way. Therefore John stood seriously in doubt of Him. And this doubt of John's is one of the most convincing proofs that his kingdom of God and that of Christ were not the same thing. There can be no greater mistake in the interpretation of the Gospel history than to explain away that doubt, or to minimize its significance. It is an index showing how wide apart in idea and spirit w r ere the two great ones, who nevertheless were fellow- workers for God and righteousness among their people. That Christ did not under-estimate its significance the saying now under consideration proves. He divined what was passing through the prophet's mind when he sent the message of inquiry, and He said in effect : " John is great, none greater of his kind, a true hero of moral law, who has braved the wrath of earth's mighty ones, and told them their duty, regardless of conse- CHKIST'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE MOSAIC LAW. 83 quences. I deeply honour him, though he now stand in doubt of me. Yet John is a one-sided defective man. Strong in zeal, he is weak in love ; strong in denuncia- tion of evil, he is weak in patience towards the sinful ; strong in moral austerity, he is weak in the social sympathetic affections. In these respects any one in the kingdom of heaven animated by its characteristic spirit of love and patient hope is greater than he." In so speaking of John, Christ, it is hardly necessary to remark, did not mean to shut him out of the kingdom, though an impression to the contrary constitutes for many the chief difficulty of the saying. Possibly the use of the comparative the less in the kingdom indicates a desire to avoid the appearance of such an intention. But even taking the comparative as having the force of a superlative, the exclusion of John from the kingdom is to be understood simply in the sense that John had not identified himself openly with the movement of which Jesus was the centre. That was a simple matter of fact. John was intensely interested in the kingdom ; he had laboured for it as a pioneer ; he had announced its near approach ; he prayed daily for its coming. But his conception of the kingdom differed so widely from the kingdom as it actually appeared in the person of Jesus and the society that gathered around Him, that he was not able to give the reality a hearty welcome ; he stood aloof, a doubting, puzzled spectator, wondering what it might all mean. So understood, Christ's judgment of the Baptist con- firms our interpretation of the text in the Sermon on the Mount, and throws light on the attitude of the 84 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. Messianic King towards established law and custom. The Inaugurator of the new era declined the part which His forerunner had assigned to Him declined to adopt as his insignia the axe and the fan, and to come before the world as the embodiment of divine disgust and fury. He preferred to appear as One " full of grace and truth.' He knew well that the axe and the fan were needed, but He did not believe in the Baptist's method of reaching the desired end. His way was not that of reform but of regeneration, not of judgment but of mercy, not of impatience and intolerance and rupture, but of quiet, silent influence, leading slowly but surely to the new creation, bringing it in noiselessly, gradually, like the dawn of day. Ultimately the kingdom was to bring about much more extensive change than John was prepared for ; but the means were to be, not the axe and the fan, but the vital force of a new life, the fermenta- tion of the new wine. The bottles of Judaism must burst some day, but what need for passionately tearing them to pieces ? The wine will do the work, in good time, of itself. CHAPTEE III. THE CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE. THE second evangelist represents our Lord as commenc- ing His public ministry in Galilee with the announce- ment, " The kingdom of God is at hand : repent ye, and believe in the good news." l Kepentance and faith were thus at the outset declared to be the conditions of admission into the kingdom. What did Christ mean by the words, and why are the things denoted indispensable to citizenship ? The doctrine of Jesus on repentance and faith, especi- ally the former, can be fully understood only when we have become acquainted with other parts of His teaching, particularly His doctrine concerning God, man, and the righteousness of the kingdom. The contents of the idea of repentance must depend on the views set forth on these cardinal topics. If God be a Father, then repent- ance will mean ceasing to regard Him under any lower aspect ; if man be a being of infinite importance as a moral subject and son of God, then repentance will mean realizing human dignity and responsibility ; if the right- eousness of the kingdom be spiritual and inward, having reference not merely to outward acts but to motives, then the summons to repentance will be a call not merely to 1 Mark i. 15. 85 86 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. a life for moral ends, but to self-criticism, so as to discern between true and false righteousness. For the present, our inquiry must refer more to form than to matter, to principles rather than to details. These, after all, are the chief points ; for when we have settled the general nature of repentance, as Christ preached it, the particulars can be filled in afterwards without difficulty. On this subject, as in reference to the idea of the kingdom, there is a marked difference in tone and drift between Christ's teaching and that of the Baptist. Both use the same form of words, but they do not mean the same thing. The one instance of divergence is the effect of the other. Christ's conception of repentance springs out of His new thoughts concerning the kingdom of heaven. "When heaven and earth move towards each other, as in Christ's preaching of the kingdom, then on the part both of God and man must the Nay give place to the Yea, anger to love, fear to joy, shame to right action ; and in festive attire, not in mourning weeds, all that has affinity for the Divine goes to meet the approaching God, proud to be or to become like Him." ] The contrast between Jesus and John is specially apparent at two points. There is first an inwardness in Christ's doctrine that is wholly lacking in John's. To perceive this, we have only to compare the Sermon on the Mount with the directions given by the Baptist to publicans, soldiers, and others, who inquired what he would have them do. 2 The Sermon, which considered 1 Keim, Jesu von Nazara, ii. 77. 2 Luke iii. 10-14. This is one of Luke's additions, but doubtless he had a voucher for it in his sources. The particulars supplied in THE CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE. 87 positively is an exposition of the righteousness of the kingdom, may be regarded negatively as an aid to self- criticism and exhortation to repentance. With this view it bids men look into their hearts, and examine their affections and the motives from which apparently good actions spring. John, on the other hand, directed atten- tion merely to outward conduct, admonishing penitents to practise neighbourliness, honesty, contentment with their wages. It was enough, if the coming kingdom was merely the restored theocratic kingdom of Israel, a secular kingdom, only more virtuous than usual. In a kingdom of this world the ruler can take cognizance only of external acts. If the people abstain from stealing, violence, lying, adultery, they are in the eye of law a righteous nation ; and they are treated as such even by the moral order of the world, for every nation which practises these and kindred virtues is found to prosper. The fact that Christ turned the thoughts of His hearers from acts to dispositions, shows conclusively that He had in view a kingdom of another and higher description, " not of this world." The other point of contrast is that repentance as John preached it was an affair of details, while as Christ preached it, it was a matter of principle, a radical change in the chief end of life. John came preaching in the wilderness of Judsea, saying, " Eepent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." He meant, " Alter your ways wher- ever they are amiss, for the great, dread King is near." these verses as to the counsels given by John to inquirers may be accepted at the very least as a true reflection of the impression which John's preaching had made on the popular mind. 88 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. His call resembled a summons to the population of a city to which the monarch is about to make a royal visit, to remove all nuisances out of the way, and to put on holiday attire, and turn out into the street to give their sovereign a worthy reception. But Christ called men to more than a reform of this or that bad habit, even to a radical change of mind, consisting in the recognition of the kingdom as the highest Good, and the most important subject that could engage their attention. " Seek ye first," He said, " the kingdom of God, and His righteousness ; " * meaning, " Hitherto ye have been living as if life were no more than meat, and the supreme question for you has been, What shall we eat, what shall we drink, wherewithal shall we be clothed ? Henceforth let a loftier aim guide you, even to be citizens of the Divine kingdom, and to have a character becoming members of that holy commonwealth." The form of the exhortation shows that the kingdom the Speaker had in view was not the theocratic kingdom of popular expecta- tion. In that case He would have said, Seek ye first the righteousness of the kingdom, and only in the second place its temporal advantages ; for the people were seeking the kingdom in the national sense already, their only fault being that they put the material and political aspects of it before the moral. That was in effect what the Baptist said. He assumed that his hearers desired the coming of the kingdom, and bade them prepare for it by repentance and the culture of right conduct, lest its coming should prove to them the reverse of a blessing. Christ, on the other hand, was conscious that He had in 1 Matt. vi. 33. THE CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE. 89 His eye a kingdom for whose advent the average Jew did not long, which, nevertheless, would be a priceless boon to all who received it. Therefore He said not merely, Seek the righteousness of the kingdom, but, Seek the kingdom itself and its righteousness. And the call, as already said, was a summons to a radical repentance, a true ^erdvoia, a change of mind not in reference to this or the other department of conduct, but in reference to the funda- mental question, What is man's chief end and chief good ? Thus understood, the call to repentance issued by Jesus is seen to be no arbitrary requirement, but the indication of an indispensable condition of citizenship. If the kingdom be the highest conceivable object of human aims and hopes, it ought to be regarded and treated as such ; and if men have not been hitherto doing that, to ask them to do it is, in other words, to summon them to repentance. And this being the meaning of the summons, we further perceive why it should be addressed to all, as it was by Jesus. For it is certainly not the way of men anywhere to make the kingdom of God of Christ's gospel their chief end and chief good. For the many material goods, " food and raiment," are the first objects of desire. " After these things do the Gentiles seek." After these things, it is to be feared, the majority of Israelites sought more than after righteousness, even in the lower sense of right conduct, justice, truth, honesty. There was there- fore an urgent need for repentance even from the Baptist's point of view ; and if his call had been generally responded to, it would have brought about an immense improvement in the actual state of things. 90 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. How much greater was the need of repentance if man's chief end was to seek the righteousness and the kingdom / Christ preached, a righteousness of the heart, a kingdom ( of filial relations with God ! How rare the men even in Israel who cared supremely or at all for these high matters ! With such a high ideal of life, we are not surprised to find Christ preaching repentance even to His own dis- ciples at a late stage of His intercourse with them. The admonition to seek first the kingdom had been addressed principally if not exclusively to them, towards the com- mencement of the Galilean ministry ; and towards its close their Master found it necessary to give them this more stern one : " Except ye turn, and become as the children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." J The term employed to denote the moral change is new, 2 but the thing insisted on is the same, even a radical change of mind with regard to the chief end of life. It may indeed appear that in this case it is rather the correction of a special fault, pride or ambition, that is pointed at, than the great revolution of an initial spiritual crisis ; a conversion in detail rather than in principle. Such special conversions or repent- ances are to be . looked for in the course of religious experience, even in those who have already undergone * radical renewal ; for after the new principle of life has been adopted, it has to be worked out in all departments of conduct ; and while this is being done, conflicts with 1 Matt, xviii. 3. 2 (rTpocQqTt. The compound eiriorptQa occurs three times in Luke's Gospel ; twice in i. 16, 17, and in xxii. 32. In Acts the verb and the corresponding noun are used to denote the conversion of Gentiles from Paganism to Christianity. THE CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE. 91 old habits of thought and feeling and action are almost certain to occur. It was to such a conversion in detail, in the experience of Peter, Jesus alluded when, with reference to that disciple's sin of moral cowardice in denying his Master, He said, " When thou. hast turned, strengthen thy brethren." 1 And we can hardly bring ourselves to believe that Jesus seriously considered any- thing more than such a conversion necessary in the case of men who had been so long with Him, even when their sin was not, like Peter's, one of infirmity due to a surprise, but a rooted evil disposition breaking out into unseemly manifestations. And yet we may not shut our minds to the graver alternative. Christ speaks too strongly to have in view merely the correction of a particular fault. He obviously regards childlikeness not as a graceful accomplishment of the citizen of the kingdom, but as an indispensable requirement. In saying, Be childlike, He is only saying in a new way, Give the kingdom the first place. And when we con- sider the matter, we see that ambition for distinction in the kingdom is only another way of committing the common sin of putting the kingdom in the second place. The many do this by giving food and raiment the first place in their thoughts. The disciples, in forsaking all for the kingdom, rose above the vulgar form of worldli- ness. But when they became supremely concerned about their place in the kingdom, they were guilty of world- liness in a more refined form. They made the interests of the kingdom second, and their own standing therein first. Thus we see that Christ's demand for the unpre- 1 Luke xxii. 32. 92 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. tentiousness of childhood is only a new proof that in His view repentance consisted in a change of mind, to the effect of exalting the kingdom to the place of supremacy. We may also find in it a significant hint as to the true nature of the kingdom and its righteousness. A kingdom of God so conceived of as to give rise to ambitious passions is not such in reality, but a kingdom of this world. The utmost devotion to such a counterfeit does not amount to compliance with the demand, Seek first the kingdom. For that there is needed not only zeal but pure motive ; and the kingdom is there only where zeal and motive coalesce, zeal excluding impurity of motive, and purity of motive guaranteeing the due measure of zeal. The kingdom of God is a kingdom of love from which selfishness in every form is excluded ; not merely the mitigated selfishness of concern about animal wants, but the intenser though subtler selfishness of egotism and vainglory. Hence it follows that there may be much religious activity, making a great display of zeal and gaining golden opinions, which has no relation to the kingdom of God, except it be one of antagonism, and no more makes us children of the kingdom than does the struggle for existence amid the secular call- ings of life. The struggle for religious name and church place and power may be more respectable than the struggle for physical livelihood, but it is not less, but rather more, ungodly. It deepens our reverence for Christ as a spiritual Teacher that He said this quite plainly, and even with passionate emphasis ; not slurring over the vices of disciples, while loudly denouncing the vulgar worldliness of the multitude. THE CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE. 93 Of this also, however, He was wont to speak faithfully, as we learn from His bitter complaint against the inhabit- ants of the towns lying along the shores of the Galilean lake among whom He mainly exercised His ministry. It was to the effect that they repented not, though such mighty works had been done among them as might have moved even Tyre and Sidon and Sodom to repentance. 1 The charge is significant as confirmatory of the view I have given of the sense in which Christ used the word. The inhabitants of the plain of Gennesareth are not accused of being sinners like the men of Sodom ; that ancient city is rather referred to as the extreme instance of sensual wickedness, in comparison with which the people by the Galilean Sea might justly deem themselves exemplary. What then was their fault ? It was that the mighty deeds of the Christ had not led them to give the kingdom its place of supremacy. They had been much interested in these deeds ; they had followed the Doer with eager curiosity and intense admiration ; they had even been willing, according to an intimation in the fourth Gospel, to make Him their King, and so set up the Messianic kingdom. 2 Still they remained essentially as they had been before, greatly more concerned about food and raiment than about righteousness and the kingdom of God in the true sense of the words. Their state was that so graphically depicted in the words Christ is represented as addressing to the multitude at Caper- naum by the fourth evangelist : " Ye seek me, not because ye saw the signs, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled ; " " Busy not yourselves about the 1 Matt. xi. 20-24. 2 John vi. 15. 94 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. food that perisheth, but about the food that endureth unto eternal life." J From such words, as from those addressed to the disciples at a later date, the plain inference is that repentance as preached by Jesus was a very high requirement indeed, with which few complied in a manner He deemed satisfactory. Though mentioned here in the second place, after repentance, faith was in reality the first and chief con- dition of admission to the kingdom in the teaching of Jesus. Faith was a great word with Him, and through Him it became a great word in the New Testament literature, the watchword of the era of grace, so that it might also be called the era of faith. Christ was Him- self emphatically a man of faith. He lived a life of perfect holiness by faith in His heavenly Father. He wrought His miracles by faith. He demanded faith in others as the condition of His ability to work miracles for their benefit. He regarded faith as an almighty power by which not only He but any of His disciples could do wonders, and without which nothing great could be accomplished. He was grieved by manifesta- tions of unbelief or weak faith ; from exhibitions of strong faith He derived intense pleasure. He had unbounded confidence in faith's virtue within the moral sphere as a recuperative influence, raising the fallen, sanctifying the sinful, restoring peace to the troubled conscience. He commended trust in their heavenly Father to His followers as the best religious service they could render, and as an infallible specific against fear and care. 1 John vi. 26, 27. THE CONDITIONS OF ENTEANCE. 95 All this was significant of a new departure. The pro- minence given to faith denotes a new way of conceiving the kingdom. " Bepent," the Baptist's watchword, suits one idea of it. " Believe," Christ's watchword, suits and implies another and very different one. " Eepent " is the appropriate word when the kingdom is conceived of as the reward of legal righteousness ; " believe" is the more appro- priate word when the kingdom is conceived of as a gift of grace to be conferred on all who are simply willing to receive it. In the one case the message to be delivered to men is, " Conform your lives to the law, that you may hope to obtain the honours of membership in the holy commonwealth;" in the other it is, "The kingdom of grace is here, God is come to dwell among men in the plenitude of His love ; make the kingdom welcome, and it will make you welcome." To comply with this invi- tation, and to receive the kingdom as offered, is to believe ; faith needs no better definition : it consists in spiritual receptivity. And the kingdom being such as described, not a mere kingdom of law in which God appears making demands, but first of all, a kingdom of grace in which God ' appears freely bestowing benefits, it is clear that recep- tivity is not only a suitable attitude, but an indispensable one. The kingdom being a gift, the one thing needful is that it be received. This indispensable requirement is happily one within the reach of all. The gospel of a kingdom so conceived as to require only faith, is a gospel for the million. The announcement that the kingdom was approaching, made by the Baptist, was a gospel or good tidings only to the few who were righteous, or who had strength of will to reform their lives in obedience to 96 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. a mere legal demand. Christ's announcement of a king- dom that had simply to be received, was a gospel for all ; for sinners not less than for saints, for them even chiefly or very expressly. He came, as He Himself said, signalizing this fact, "not to call righteous ones, but sinners ; " He came calling sinners, not " to repentance " merely, according to the expanded form of the saying as given by Luke, 1 but generally to participation in all the benefits of the kingdom. If we must add an interpretative gloss to the original word, the more appropriate one would be "to faith." For the kingdom of Christ's Evangel was such that what men had to do first of all was to receive it as a boon, and sinners had the best reasons for being ready to do that. The adoption of faith as the new watchword was, moreover, a prophecy of Christian universalism. A Divine kingdom addressing itself to faith is likely not only to go down to the lowest moral depths of Jewish society that it may raise the low and lost to heavenly heights, but also to overleap the geographical boundaries of Palestine and become a world- wide phenomenon. The word " repent " holds out little hope to those outside the pale. It is spoken most fitly to a covenanted people for whom God had done much, and from whom therefore He demands much. The preacher of repentance by the banks of the Jordan thinks naturally only of the children of Abraham, and his summons refers exclusively to theocratic privileges and obligations. But when one comes preaching faith, He may readily have the Gentiles 1 Luke v. 32. The tig ftsTxvoiav of Luke's text is a false reading in the other Gospels introduced for the purpose of assimilation. THE CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE. 97 in view. For though they too have abundant cause for repentance, they have sinned in ignorance, and are more fitly objects of compassion than of wrath. They need grace, and if they are to have any part in the kingdom, their first duty will be to believe in grace, and possibly they may develop no mean capacity for believing. Why should not the Preacher of a kingdom addressing itself to faith have these thoughts present to His mind ? Nay, how could He fail to have the Gentiles in His view if He realized the import of His own programme ? The Gospel history supplies abundant evidence that Christ fully understood the scope of His doctrine of faith in all directions. Specially significant in this con- nection are the three narratives, of the woman " who was a sinner," the Eoman centurion, and the woman of Syro- Phoenicia. 1 The first shows Christ's estimate of the power of fait;h as a redemptive force ; the other two reveal His consciousness that before faith all barriers of race, rite, or election must go down. The woman who entered into Simon's house Jesus assumed to be a great sinner ; nay, held her proved to be, by the very intensity of her love to Himself as exhibited in her remarkable behaviour. From the great love He inferred a great need of forgiveness. Yet He had perfect confidence in the power of faith to " save " her, to make her happy and good. " Thy faith hath saved thee," He said to her at parting; "go into peace." In what had just taken place He saw the process of salvation begun, and even virtually completed. Faith in the good tidings we may 1 Luke vii. 36-50 ; Matt. viii. 5-13 ; Luke vii. 1-10 ; Matt. xv. 21-28 ; Mark vii. 24-30. G 98 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. assume she had heard Him preach, for " faith cometh by hearing," had led her to believe in the forgiveness of sins, and to cherish hope of being able by Heaven's help to live a useful, pure life for the future. The very sight of Him had been a gospel to the heart of this fallen one, revealing an infinite depth of tender, pure sympathy with the like of her which touched the remnants of true womanhood in her, and made sensual impulses seem hateful. And now here she was in His presence, suitable occasion offering, her heart bursting with gratitude for benefit received, and demonstrating by a series of extra- ordinary actions her pure though passionate affection for her Saviour. What better evidence could one desire of faith's power than the moral transformation actually effected : a sinner turned into a penitent, a harlot into a devotee ; the shameless one raised above the shame which keeps men from doing noble actions, and become a heroine who can defy conventional proprieties at the bidding of the heart ? Here was a last one become first: in the very first passages of her new life leaving Simon the Pharisee far behind his behaviour towards his guest, compared with hers, seeming cold and mean. It was with these things in view that Jesus declared, surely not without reason, that faith had saved that woman. True, the new life was only begun, and there were many risks ahead. Many conversions are only temporary, and early enthusiasms are too often followed by lamentable falls. Jesus knew all that full well ; but He was not a Pharisee, therefore He deemed it better to speak a generous word than to offer cold advices, to sympathize than to caution. He believed that faith, and what faith feeds on, redeeming THE CONDITIONS OF ENTKANCE. 99 love in God and man, is the best preservative against apostasy, and that when it fails no other influences will be of much avail. Nor did He send the penitent away with that cheering sympathetic word, from mere motives of prudence. He spoke from conviction, as cherishing strong hopes for the future of the erring one. He saw no reason in the evil past for despair. He believed it possible for great offenders permanently to forsake wicked ways and rise to great heights of sanctity. He even expected such, once changed, to rise highest. Therefore it was that He spent so much of His time among the outcasts. He expected to find there the best citizens of the kingdom. The motto, " Much forgiveness, much love," was part of His apology for His sympathetic relations with the class of which the w r oman " who was a sinner " was a sample. The confidence He expressed in her case was not the result of a momentary generous impulse. It embodied a fixed principle on which He acted all through His ministry. " It is faith that saves, it can save the lowest, it can save them most conspicuously," such was the cheering, hopeful creed of Jesus Christ. In the light of that creed we understand why Jesus said so much less about repentance than about faith. He believed that faith would do the work of repentance, that indeed it bore repentance in its bosom. And when we recall His definition of repentance, we perceive that the fact is even so. Eepentance means a change of mind consisting in the recognition of the kingdom as the chief end of man. But faith, we have found, means the recep- tion of the same kingdom as the highest good, the sum of all blessedness bestowed on men as a free gift from 100 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. God. Evidently, then, the reception of the boon by faith is the most direct way to the goal aimed at in repentance, the exaltation of the kingdom and its interests to the place of supremacy. And the repentance thus brought about is altogether wholesome ; not legal but evangelic, not compulsory but spontaneous ; not a habit of sadness as if doing eternal penance for the past, but a turning of the moral energies in a new direction in cheer- fulness and hope, letting the dead past bury its dead. In this way, not after the rueful manner of the Baptist circle, would Jesus have His disciples repent. What He said to the palsied man, He virtually said to all : " Courage, child, thy sins are forgiven thee." ] He summoned penitents not to fasting but to service, such as that of the women who followed Him and ministered to Him of their substance. 2 She that had been a sinner probably joined that company, and that was the way by which she entered into peace. In the cases of the Roman centurion and the woman of Syro-Phcenicia, the faith manifested, though in both instances eliciting the admiration and praise of Jesus, was less obviously of the kind that " saves." The benefit sought in both cases was physical, and the faith exercised in seeking it seems rather a capacity for uttering bright sayings, and the eulogy called forth appears to be homage done to genius under another name. There is certainly something to be learned from these narratives concerning the psychology of faith as conceived by Jesus. Obviously He did not regard faith as an isolated faculty separate from reason, and still less as opposed to reason, but 1 Matt. ix. 2. 2 Luke viii. 1-3. THE CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE. 101 rather as a function of the whole mind exercised on religion. Those whom He accounted great in faith were thus likely to be interesting people, in all respects far from commonplace either intellectually or morally ; and in fact it is evident that all the three chief characters in the incidents under consideration, the sinful woman, the centurion, and the Syro-Phoenician, were as far as possible from being commonplace. There was an element of genius and heroism in them all; a talent for doing uncommon actions, for thinking great thoughts, for uttering sparkling, witty words. And the truth is, whatever prejudice may exist to the contrary, faith is always a heroic quality, by no means a prosaic home- spun virtue likely to be most conspicuous in persons of dull minds, and characterized by moral mediocrity. As to the physical nature of the benefit, Jesus did not view it in isolation any more than the faculty of faith. His idea seems to have been, that as faith in its acting main- tains solidarity with all the mental powers, so all its acts are in solidarity with each other. Capacity to believe in one direction implies capacity to believe in all directions. While intellect was conspicuously active in the cen- turion and in the Syro-Phoenician woman, faith in the ethical and religious sense also revealed itself in no ordinary degree. The saying of the centurion, besides indicating deep humility, showed strong faith in the power and the will of the Divine Being, as represented by Jesus, to interpose in the world's affairs as a helper of men in their needs. It is true, any one not inclined to think well of Pagans might very easily detract from 102 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. the merit of the striking word which compared Christ to a general or imperator, by representing it as the com- bined product of Eoman military discipline and Eoman religious superstition. 1 But the centurion's faith is thus made less remarkable in one aspect, only to become more significant in another direction. If Christ's praise was exaggerated, it but the more conspicuously evinces his philo-Pagan spirit, and raises the hope that the generous eye of Heaven may detect traces of faith in the hearts of benighted heathens dimly groping after the true God, where narrow-souled men judging by dogmatic tests would discover none. We may safely assume, however, that the praise, while generous, as was always Christ's way, was in the main deserved. In that case the centurion's faith, as that of a Pagan, for such we may regard him, even if, as is probable from Luke's narrative, 2 he had become a Jewish proselyte, possesses peculiar value as foreshadowing the universal destination of the kingdom. Here on heathen soil, so to speak, is a faith which on Christ's own testimony eclipses any to be seen in Israel. It is a melancholy, although not a surpris- ing fact, as it concerns Israel. Here is a people which has had a very long and careful training in religion, and has busied itself very much with religion. And the result is that the faith-faculty has almost died out within it ; has been killed out by Eabbinism, which can believe in no new revelations, but only in old revelations overgrown by the moss of centuries. There is a better chance of learn- 1 Weiss characterizes the centurion's idea as "certainly very superstitious " (Leben Jesu, i. p. 425). 2 Luke vii. 5. THE CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE. 103 ing what faith can be and do by going outside the Jewish pale. Verily a thing of evil omen for the elect race. For if the kingdom addresses itself to faith, and if faith be forthcoming among Pagans more readily than among Israelites, will it not forsake the sacred soil and step forth into the Gentile world, going where it meets with a hearty welcome ? The reflection forces itself on our minds, and it is nowise unlikely that it suggested itself to Jesus and found expression in the words : " Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven ; but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out." l The truth that the gospel is for the world is not expressed here as Paul expressed it. The kingdom does not go to the Pagans, the Pagans come to the kingdom, localized in the Holy Land. But the day - dawn of Christian universalism is manifestly here. In the case of the Syro -Phoenician woman the dawn grows brighter. Here also there is a double interest, a personal interest connected with the unfolding of a striking human character, and the didactic interest con- nected with the fact that the heroine was a Pagan. We all feel the charm of the story. The pathos, humour, and meekness blended together in the pleadings of this Syrian mother for her afflicted daughter conquer every Christian heart. Had the narative told that Jesus persisted in His refusal, it would have been hard for 1 Matt. viii. 11. This saying is given by Luke in another con- nection (xiii. 28, 29), and we cannot be sure that Matthew places it in its original position. But as it stands in his Gospel it suits well the occasion. 104 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. us to have borne it. But there was no risk of that happening. Not that Jesus was not in earnest in the declaration made to His disciples that His vocation was to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He meant that seriously, and then and always acted on it. But faith made all the difference. Faith anywhere and everywhere must be respected. Jesus accordingly did respect faith in this instance, and in the light of His ultimate com- pliance with the woman's request, His rule of conduct becomes modified thus : Israel my ordinary care, with exceptions made in favour of faith. In Christ's own lifetime the exceptions were few, but these exceptions, and the one before us in particular, were prophetic of a time when the exception would become the rule. For Christian universalism was immanent in the Syro- Phoanician's faith ; therein lay its profound religious significance. When she said meekly and wittily, "We are Gentile dogs, yet there is a portion even for the dogs of the household crouching below the family table," she expressed by implication her belief that the barrier between Jew and Gentile was not insurmountable, that election did not exclude the outside world from all share in Divine compassion, that Heaven's grace could not possibly be confined within certain geographical bound- aries. She said in effect what Paul said afterwards, " God is not the God of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles also ; " with him, she ascribed to God's love a length and breadth wide as the world. Her faith filled up the deep ravine of Pagan unworthiness, and levelled the mountain range of election which separated Jews from Gentiles, and made a straight way for the kingdom THE CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE. 105 with its blessings even into Syro-Phoenicia. All this Jesus understood, and all this He had in view in granting the request. His ultimate compliance was not a merely exceptional favour to a Pagan out of regard to a most unusual spiritual insight. It was a virtual proclamation that before faith all partition walls must fall, that wher- ever there is recipiency the blessings of the kingdom must be communicated, irrespective of race, rite, or peculiar privilege. It was an anticipation of the position taken up by the Apostolic Church in Jerusalem/when, in deference to undeniable facts, its members said, " Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life." In their case it was a reluctant acknowledgment in which deeply-rooted prejudice yielded to the force of events. One may feel disappointment that in this respect there is the appearance of a resemblance between their attitude and that of Jesus on this occasion. It is natural to wish that His universalism had been as pronounced and as undeniable as that of Paul, by the side of which his reluctant yielding to the pressure of importunate faith wears an aspect of provincial narrow- ness. But that could not be. However like Paul in spirit and conviction, Jesus could not but be more reserved in utterance and in action. Eespect was due to the law of development. Bright day is ushered in by the grey dim dawn. It was good and wholesome that the day of grace should thus gradually steal on. The public action of Jesus was guided by this consideration. In confining His activities to Israel, He was exercising a self-restraint which was a veritable part of His earthly humiliation. How real the self-restraint was, appears 106 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. from the heartiness and even eagerness with which exception was made on good cause shown. In the case of the Syro-Phoenician woman, as in the case of the Eoman centurion, it would have been very easy for an illiberal churlish Jew to have minimized the merit of the words spoken. It is always easy to put a sinister con- struction on the conduct of people we dislike. Good qualities may be turned into their opposites: humility into impudence, genial wit into mere pertness. Christ saw in that woman nothing that was not there ; never- theless He saw what He was very willing to see ; what no scribe, rabbi, or Pharisee would ever have discovered. It was once asked with reference to Himself, " Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ? " That He was not inclined to ask, " Can any good thing come out of heathendom ? " His admiring exclamation, " woman, great is thy faith ! " very sufficiently demonstrates. Though He did not say it, He doubtless felt that here again was a faith the like of which was not to be found in Israel. The remark might have been made with even more justice than in the case of the centurion. Faith was a scarce commodity in Israel in any form ; and what there was of it was of a homeward-bound character faith in a grace available for the chosen race, but not for those beyond the pale. Here, on Pagan soil, on the 1 Matt. xv. 28. Mark's version is less gushing : " For this saying go thy way " (vii. 29). The meaning is the same. The gush comes out in action : " The devil is gone out of thy daughter." It is noticeable that the harshness of Christ's refusal is softened in Mark's account by the introduction of the words : " Let the children first be filled" (vii. 27). This sounds like an echo of Paul's : "To the Jew first, and also to the Gentile." THE CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE. 107 contrary, was a faith remarkable not only for its bright- ness and strength, but for its spiritual enlightenment and width of horizon ; accepting as a truism what to the ordinary Jew seemed all but incredible, that there was hope in God even for Gentiles. After the foregoing observations, it can hardly be necessary to point out that, in the view of Christ, faith was not only the necessary but the sufficient condition of admission to the kingdom. " Faith alone " was a motto for Christ not less than for Paul. Faith alone with reference to repentance, because including it ; faith alone with reference to circumcision and the like externalities, because rendering them utterly meaningless. Faith alone sufficed in the case of the Syro-Phoenician mother and her daughter. The mother came to Jesus a Pagan, and she returned to her home a Pagan, yet with a blessing for herself and for her afflicted child. It is true, indeed, that faith obtained, apparently, only the dog's portion, a crumb of healing for a diseased body. Might it not suffice for that, yet fail to obtain the full benefits of citizenship in the holy commonwealth without the aid of some supplementary qualification, such as, for example, circumcision ? No, for there is solidarity in the benefits procurable by faith, as well as in faith's actings. The law of solidarity prevails all round. The soul exerts all its energies in believing ; faith's individual acts all hang together ; God's gifts to faith go in a body. If anything is given, all is given. Faith makes the dog a child, and gets a share not only of the crumbs below the table, but of all the viands on the table. That is the law of the kingdom. Eecipiency is the sole require- 108 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. inent. External conditions can have no place in reference to the Highest Good. Existing restrictions are only economical and temporary, and a sign that the era of spiritual reality is not yet come. The behaviour of Jesus towards the Pagans mentioned in the Gospels shows that He was of this mind. CHAPTER IV. CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF GOD. IN passing from the Old Testament to the Gospels, we find God spoken of under a new name. The Jehovah of Israel is replaced by the Divine Father of men. An ancient reading of Matt. xi. 27, of earlier date than the oldest of extant manuscripts, made Jesus claim to be the revealer of God in His paternal character. "No man knew the Father save the Son." The claim is valid, independently of doubtful readings of evangelic texts. The " only-begotten " was the first effective exegete of God as Father. He declared Him so that the name Father took its place in human speech as the Christian name for the Divine Being. The declaration was an essential part of the doctrine of the kingdom. The title Father is the appropriate name of God in the kingdom of grace, for it is the kingdom of fatherly love. The doctrine was not absolutely new ; like every other Christian doctrine, it had its root in the Old Testament. But it was new in emphasis. It was also new in respect to the relation the name Father was employed to express. In Old Testament dialect the epithet expressed a relation of God to the chosen nation, or to its earthly sovereign, Jehovah's vicegerent. Israel or Israel's King was God's 109 110 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. Son. But Christ placed God in a paternal relation to individuals, and represented Him as the Father of the human spirit. It was in one sense a doctrine as old as Genesis, where it is taught that man was made in God's image. But it was the old doctrine with a marked difference. The man made in God's image, of the Book of Origins, is an ideal man untainted by moral evil. But Jesus said : God is the Father of men, sin notwith- standing. 1 He said this not merely with reference to the best men in whom moral evil appeared in the most mitigated form, the people of culture and character, but even with reference to the most depraved and degraded. The God He preached is Father not only of those who by His grace have become citizens of the Divine king- dom, but also of those who are without. The doctrine concerned both sinners and saints, and was proclaimed to all on highway or in market-place, irrespective of social or moral antecedents. But the Fatherhood of God, as announced by Jesus, while having reference to all, does not necessarily mean the same thing for all. God cannot, any more than an earthly parent, be a Father to His prodigal children to the same effect as to sons who dwell in His house and regard Him with trust, reverence, and love. The full benefit of Divine Fatherhood can only be experienced where there is a filial attitude and spiritual receptivity. The will to bless may be in the Father's heart, yet be 1 The idea that God is the Father of the just man occurs in the Wisdom of Solomon ii. 16-18 : " He blesseth the end of the just, and boasts that God is his Father. Let us see if his words be true, and let us try his end. For if the just be the son of God, He will take his part, and deliver him from the hands of his foes." CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF GOD. Ill frustrated by unbelief or alienation. Hence, in studying the doctrine of God's paternal love, we must have regard to moral distinctions. We must ask ourselves what it means for sinners, and what for saints ; for men in general on the one hand, for the children of the kingdom on the other. We shall find that the words of Jesus supply us with materials for answering both questions. The Fatherhood of God in both relations has two aspects, a providential and a gracious ; the one referring to the temporal interests of men, the other to the higher interests of the soul. The paternal Providence of God over all is taught in that word in the Sermon on the Mount, in which the Father in heaven is represented as making His sun rise upon evil and good, and sending rain on just and unjust. 1 This part of Christ's doctrine is not so much a new revelation as a reversion to a simple truth of natural religion. Nature itself teaches men to think of the Maker and Sustainer of the world as a parent who gives to his children their daily bread. The Vedic Indians, with this thought in their mind, worshipped Dyaus-pitar, the heaven-Father. They felt their dependence for the things they chiefly sought after, food and raiment, on the elements ; and without clearly distinguishing between creature and Creator, they looked up to the sky, and adored the Power that sent them sunshine and showers in due season. On the other side of God's universal Fatherhood, Christ's teaching rises far above the level of man's unassisted thought. The natural man, because he seeks chiefly material good, does not much meditate on God's 1 Matt. v. 45. 112 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. paternal care for his spiritual wellbeing. This aspect comes into full view only when men begin to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness as the first goods of life. Jesus taught that God cares with paternal tenderness for the souls of those who utterly neglect the chief end and the chief good. His teaching on this subject is an essential part of His doctrine of the king- dom. It does not declare the truth concerning God's relation to the citizens of the kingdom which forms the crown of His theology, but it sets forth a truth the belief of which tends to make men become citizens. The locus classicus for this part of Christ's revelation of the Father is the fifteenth chapter of Luke's Gospel containing the parables concerning the finding of the lost, and especially the last of the three parables the Prodigal Son. There God appears as One who takes pleasure in the repentance of sinners such as the repro- bates of Jewish society, because in these penitents He sees prodigal children returning to their Father's house. By these parabolic utterances Jesus said to all, however far from righteousness, God loves you as His children, no more worthy to be called sons, yet regarded as such ; He deplores your departure from Him, and desires your return ; and He will receive you graciously when, taught wisdom by misery, you direct your footsteps homewards. It is not allegorizing exegesis to take this meaning out of the parables. Jesus was on His defence for loving classes of men despised or despaired of, and His defence in part consisted in this, that His bearing towards the outcasts was that of the Divine Being. He loved them as a Brother ; God loved them as a Father. CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF GOD. 113 Even if these parables had never been spoken, the fatherly love of God to the lost ones must still have appeared an obvious corollary from Christ's own be- haviour towards them. The new doctrine of God was involved in the new line of conduct ; and the three parables concerning finding the lost, even if not genuine, truly reflect the spirit of that conduct and its religious significance. 1 God was proclaimed to be the com- passionate Father of the sinful by deeds more emphati- cally than by the most pathetic and beautiful words. The much-blamed sympathetic intercourse of Jesus with the publicans and sinners of Israel, said to all who could understand : " The most depraved of men is still a man, my brother, my Father's child ; therefore I love him, and am fully assured that God loves him as I do." Doubt- less converts to discipleship from these classes did understand. They felt instinctively that the God of Jesus was a different Being from the God of the Phari- sees, who scorned and repelled them ; not a God of merely negative holiness keeping aloof from the sinful, but One who desired to make others partakers of His holiness ; not a merely righteous God, but good as well as righteous, the one absolutely Good Being, benignant, gracious, delighting to bestow favours ; not the God of a clique or coterie, the head of the Pharisaical party or of 1 Weizslicker (Untersuchungen, S. 177) regards the parables in Luke xv. and xvi. as an appendix to the first of the group, that of the Lost Sheep, which Luke has in common with Matthew (xviii. 12, 13). In proof he points to the fact that in chap. xvii. Luke goes on to Christ's discourse on Offences, the connection in which the parable occurs in Matthew's Gospel. This is a shrewd observation. H 114 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. the Eabbinical schools, but the God of the populace and the profane rabble, with whom a penitent publican had a better chance of acceptance than a self-complacent religionist who studied the law day and night and scrupulously observed all prescribed rules. " These things," this Father-God, was revealed to the " babes," though hidden from the wise and understanding ; hidden from them because they desired not such a divinity, but rather one like unto themselves, priding himself on his holiness, and jealously guarding it from tarnish by isolation. This Father-God who loveth even the unholy, whom Jesus preached by word and still more impressively by action, is another sign that the coming kingdom is not national but universal. This God cannot be the God of the Jews only, any more than He can be the God of a Pharisaic party within the Jewish nation. The Gentiles also are His children. He may seem to have neglected them hitherto, but the neglect can only have been compara- tive. Now that Jesus has come revealing the Father, the period of neglect manifestly draws to a close ; the time of merciful visitation for the Gentile world is at hand. Passing now from the universal aspect of Divine Fatherhood to the more special, we find that a paternal Providence for the citizens of the kingdom was very strongly asserted by Jesus. He told His disciples that they need have no concern about temporal interests ; their Father in heaven would take charge of these ; their part was to devote themselves in filial dutifulness and trust to the service of the kingdom. " Be not anxious," He said to them, " saying, What shall we eat, CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF GOD. 115 or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed ? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye need all these things. But seek ye. first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." ] That is, Let your care be the kingdom, you yourselves will be your Father's care. It is a distribution of duties between a Father and His children. The children are to devote themselves to the kingdom and righteousness of their Father, for so these are named in the reading adopted above, which is intrinsically probable though found only in the Vatican manuscript. Devotion to the kingdom so conceived becomes an easy task. For children love to serve their Father ; subjects who are also sons do the King's will with enthusiasm. On the other hand, they are relieved from all anxiety concerning themselves. For the Divine Father and King will provide for His children. He careth for all, even for His prodigal children who are unthankful and evil ; how much more will He care for dutiful children who do His will, and devote themselves to those interests which He regards as of supreme importance ! The same distribution of duties between Father and children underlies the Lord's Prayer. First come peti- tions for the advancement of the kingdom, implying that that is the main object of solicitude for the petitioners ; then follow petitions for personal wants daily bread, pardon of shortcomings, and protection from evil, spring- ing not out of anxiety, but out of an assured confidence that these boons will be granted. The import of the 1 Matt. vi. 31-33 ; Luke xii. 29-31. 116 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. prayer is : Father in heaven, our heart's chief desire is that Thy name be glorified, and we give ourselves to the service of Thy kingdom, and the doing of Thy will, trusting that Thou wilt remember all the wants of us Thy children. This paternal care of God for His servants, so patheti- cally taught by Christ, is the necessary complement of the entire self-consecration which is the cardinal virtue in the ethical code of the kingdom. Those who are required to seek the kingdom and its righteousness with their whole heart are men living in the body, needing food and raiment and other things of like nature for the preservation of their natural lives ; and if they are not to be preoccupied with cares about such matters, or to permit such sordid solicitudes to take their thoughts off higher concerns, there must be some one else to look after their physical needs. There must be a Providence over them taking charge of temporalities, even as in military organization there is a commissariat department whose business it is to find the soldier in food and clothing, while he does not trouble himself about the affairs of life that he may please him who hath enlisted him for military service. 1 Christ taught 'His disciples that the commissariat department was in the hands of their heavenly Father, so that they had but to play the part of soldiers found in everything they need. This doctrine, so clearly stated in the passage above quoted from the Sermon on the Mount, He repeated as occasion required. When, for example, He sent forth His disciples on the Galilean mission, He gave them instruc- 1 2 Tim. ii. 4. CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF GOD. 11? tions which might be summarized in these two precepts, " Care not ; " u Fear not." l Be careful about nothing, food, raiment, lodging, not even about a staff; be not anxious as to what ye shall say, or how to say it when placed in trying positions : it shall be given unto you in that hour what ye shall say. Fear not; ye will doubtless sometimes be in circumstances fitted to inspire fear, involving peril to your lives. Yet fear not for your bodily life ; fear only one thing, the death of your souls through unfaithfulness in yielding to the tempter who whispers, " Save thyself ; prefer personal safety to duty." As for your bodies, why fear for them ? Should the worst come, you are not really harmed, and your Father will provide that the worst come not so long as you are needed for the work of the kingdom. The hairs of your head are numbered by Him who careth even for valueless sparrows. To this effect did Jesus exhort the apprentice evangelists. It is unnecessary to ask, Who is the unnamed object of fear who is distin- guished from the foes that seek to stay the progress of the kingdom by killing the bodies of its apostles, as one who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna ? Who else can the ghostly foe be but the evil spirit who goeth about tempting men to prefer their personal interests to the Divine ? But why then is he not named ? That he may be all the more an object of dread. Fear ye, said Jesus in effect, the nameless secret foe who seeks your ruin by tempting you to play the coward and deserter instead of the man and the hero. God also might be described as the Destroyer, in so far 1 Matt. x. 19, 28. 118 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. as He judicially gives over to perdition those who act the part of apostates and traitors. But so to have spoken of God would have been bad policy and bad rhetoric, when the Speaker desired to lodge in the minds of His disciples the idea of God as a Father, as the antidote to all fear. To exhibit God as an object of infinite dread is a poor way of preparing men to receive Him as an object of unbounded trust. Moreover, the proper object of fear is not the judicial damnation, but that which leads to it, temptation to apostasy. The point on which we are to bring to bear all our faculty of horror is that at which the first Satanic suggestion is whispered, " Save thyself : self-preservation is the first duty ; why risk property, name, life, in a mad enterprise ? " During the time He was with them, Jesus found cause for renewing the exhortations, " Fear not," " Care not," to His disciples. In the twelfth chapter of Luke we find such a counsel against anxiety lying like a pebble on a gravel-bank which may have strayed from its original position in the evangelic history, but whose intrinsic value remains undiminished. " Fear not, little flock : for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." 1 The situation is so described as to make clear how great is the temptation to fear. The disciples are, in relation to the world, a small flock of sheep, few in number, insignificant in influence, and helpless as sheep in the midst of devouring wolves. Nevertheless, with reference even to such an apparently desperate situation, they are exhorted not to fear, but to be assured that their Father will not suffer them 1 Luke xii. 32. CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF GOD. 119 either to lose the kingdom, the chief object of their quest, or to fall victims to hostile powers. These and other words of Jesus setting forth God's paternal care for those who serve Him, are utterances full of poetry and pathos, the bare reading of which exercises a soothing influence on our troubled spirits in this world of trial, sorrow, and care. Yet we are tempted to regard them as a romantic idyll having the rights and value of poetry, but standing in no relation to real life. Christ's whole doctrine of a Father-God may appear to us the product of a delicate religious imagination and a child-like loving heart which went through life dreaming a pleasant dream, and scarce conscious of collisions with hard unwelcome experiences. Some may think the world has outgrown the doctrine. " We are of age," writes one, " and do not need a Father's care." ] Others, the majority, little inclined to adopt this haughty tone, find the doctrine very welcome, if only it were true. It is a spring in the desert of life, nevertheless is not life a desert all the same ? It may be ; but whatever the facts are which seem to justify this pessimistic view, they were perfectly familiar to Jesus. His doctrine of Divine Fatherhood did come from the heart ; it was as far as possible from being the dry scientific utterance of a scholastic theologian, and scholastic theology has shown its consciousness of the fact by treating the doctrine with neglect. But Jesus uttered the doctrine with full know- ledge of all in experience that seemed to contradict it, and earnestly believed it, all that notwithstanding. He knew how much there is to tempt men to say : Provi- 1 Heine, Sammtliche Werke, v. 140. 120 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. dence is anything but paternal, if indeed there be a Providence at all ; for has not every man to be his own providence, finding for himself food and raiment and all things needful as best he can, and endeavouring the while not altogether to forget higher matters ? And He spoke words fitted to lay such doubting thoughts arising out of sombre experience. How vividly He conceived the mental state of the careworn, appears from Luke's version of the counsel against anxiety, which might be thus paraphrased : " Seek not what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, neither be ye as a ship raised aloft on the billows of a troubled, tempestuous sea." l But it was not alone by a stray word such as this, preserved by the third evangelist, 2 that Jesus showed His intimate acquaintance and deep sympathy with the trials of faith to which the servants of the kingdom are liable. From the lessons He taught His disciples on Perseverance in Prayer, it appears how well aware He was that God often shows Himself so little like a Father, that those who trust in Him are tempted to think Him rather like a man of selfish spirit who cares only for his own com- fort, or like an unjust judge who is indifferent to right. Such precisely are the representations of God as He appears in the two parables of the Selfish Neighbour and the Unjust Judge? The relevancy of the parables requires that these characters should be regarded as 1 Luke xii. 29, K 2 It is impossible to decide whether we have here an explanatory gloss on the counsel against anxiety, or an utterance of Jesus in its original form. The striking character of the expression is in favour of the latter view. 3 Luke xi. 5-8, xviii. 1-8. CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF GOD. 121 representing God, not as He is indeed, but as He seems " to tried faith. It is thus tacitly admitted by Jesus, that far from giving His children what they need before they ask or when they ask, God often delays for a lengthened period answers to prayer, so as to present to suppliants an aspect of indifference, heartlessness, unrighteousness. The didactic drift of the two parables is : You will have to wait on God, to wait possibly till hope deferred make the heart sick, but it is worth your while to wait, " for the Lord is good to them that wait on Him, to the soul that seeketh Him." Man can be compelled to hear by importunity and incessant knocking. God is not a man to be compelled, yet it may be said that the apparent reluctance of Providence can be overcome by persistent prayer which refuses to be gainsaid or frustrated, con- tinuing to knock at the door with an importunity that knows no shame, 1 and assailing the ear of the judge with outcries in a temper that will not be trifled with, and an attitude almost threatening. 2 In other words, with full consciousness how much there is in the world which seems to prove the contrary, Jesus asserted the reality of a Paternal Providence continually working for the good of those who make the kingdom of God their chief end. And this faith is the distinctively Christian theory of the Universe. Christians believe that the kingdom of heaven is a chief end for God as well as for themselves, and that He makes all things subservient to its interests. 1 duailiuot, shamelessness, is ascribed to the petitioner in the earlier parable. 2 The unjust judge aifects to be afraid lest the widow at last should strike him : 'foot 122 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. This faith gives them victory over all sordid solicitudes, and enables them with cheerfulness and hope to leave all their personal concerns in the hands of their Father. While assuring His disciples of God's care for their temporal wants, Jesus did not neglect to teach them the still more important truth that their spiritual wellbeing was an object of tender solicitude to their heavenly Father. This indeed hardly needed to be taught expressly. The higher care is implied in the lower. God cares for the bodies of His children, that they may give themselves without distraction to that service of the kingdom which is the very life and health of the soul. Nevertheless, Jesus deemed it expedient to make the higher aspect of God's paternal providence the subject of special declara- tions. One such may be found even in the promise that food and raiment would be provided, which is so expressed as to include a reference to the higher goods of life. " All these things shall be added unto you." If food and raiment be an addition, there must be a portion to which they are added. That portion consists of the kingdom and its righteousness, chiefly sought, and surely to be found. What Jesus thus taught indirectly though most forcibly, He directly declared when He said : " Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." He gave a similar assurance by introducing into the model prayer petitions for the pardon of sin, and for protection from temptation and from the power of moral evil. 1 The two parables already 1 It seems best to take rot/ K-ovypov as referring, not to the Evil One, but to evil in the abstract. The petition thereby gains the widest comprehensiveness. CHKIST'S DOCTKINE OF GOD. 123 referred to bear, if not exclusively, at least inclusively, on spiritual interests. The later parable relates to the public interest of the Divine kingdom. The earlier must be supposed to embrace within its scope all the petitions of the Lord's Prayer to which it is appended, the peti- tions relating to pardon and protection from evil, not less than that relating to daily bread. From the sentence with which the lesson on prayer, recorded in the eleventh chapter of Luke, ends, we should naturally infer that the Holy Spirit as a sanctifying power is supposed to be the chief object of desire. Criticism may indeed find in the remarkable expression a tinge of Paulinism. But grant- ing that we have here a Pauline modification of Christ's words, the promise of the Holy Spirit put into the mouth of Christ by Luke is nothing more than an assurance that the prayer for protection from temptation 1 shall be answered. The temptations chiefly to be dreaded are those which solicit us to sacrifice primary interests for secondary, righteousness for physical wants ; and we are kept from yielding to such by the Divine Spirit dwelling in us, and imparting to us a single eye, a pure heart, a generous, noble devotion to the kingdom and its interests. It is important to observe, that while giving these various assurances to His disciples that God would attend to their spiritual welfare, Jesus did not lead them to expect that in this sphere there would be no occasion for exercising the virtue of patience. On the contrary, it is 1 In the best texts of Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer, the clause d'h'hoi pvffxt qpx; dno TOV TTOVYIOOV is wanting. It qualifies the previous clause by explaining in what sense temptation is to be deprecated, and is therefore implied even when not expressed. 124 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. clearly implied in the parable of the selfish neighbour, that the delays which make God assume so untoward an aspect take place in connection with all the objects referred to in the Lord's Prayer : the advancement of the kingdom, daily bread, the personal spiritual necessi- ties of disciples. Hence we learn that even the Holy Spirit may not be given at once in satisfying measure to those who earnestly desire it, though sure to be so given eventually. The heavenly Father may for a season appear unwilling to grant to those who seek first the kingdom, even that which they most value righteous- ness, sanctity, complete victory over evil. This is a familiar fact of Christian experience, and the fact im- ports that personal sanctification is a gradual process. The Holy Spirit is given in ample measure to all earnest souls, but not even, to the most earnest without such delays as are most trying to faith and patience. This fact, plainly implied in the lessons on prayer recorded by Luke, is directly recognised in the parable of the Blade, the Ear, and the Full Corn, 1 preserved by Mark alone. The parable may be held to refer in the first place to the Divine kingdom viewed collectively, and in that view it has an important bearing on the question whether Jesus expected the kingdom to pass throuph a lengthened period of development. But nothing forbids us to regard the parable as applicable likewise to individual experience. The kingdom comes in the individual as well as in the community ; and the lesson we learn from the parable, is that the kingdom comes as ripe grain comes gradually passing through stages analogous to 1 Mark iv. 26-29. CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF GOD. 125 those in the growth of corn : stages that cannot be over- leapt, that no amount of earnestness will avail to super- sede ; that are indeed most marked in those who are most earnest, and who ultimately exhibit the Divine life in its highest measure of energy and beauty. This is a great truth still not well understood, which it much concerns earnest seekers after God to lay to heart. 1 Some insight into it is needful to enable Christians at the critical period of their spiritual life, that of the green ear, to believe in the Fatherhood of God in its highest aspect. Failing to grasp the law of gradual sanctifica- tion, they will be tempted to think that God does in the highest sphere what Jesus declared no earthly father would do in the lower sphere of physical life, viz. mock His children by giving them stones when they ask for bread, and so prove to be in truth no Father at all. And if we doubt the reality of God's Fatherhood in the realm of grace, what will it avail us to believe in His Fatherhood in ordinary providence ? If we doubt His willingness to give us the bread of eternal life, what comfort can it afford us, who desire that bread above all things, to believe that He is willing to give the bread 1 The parable above referred to contains the clearest statement of the truth that the law of growth obtains in the kingdom of God to be found in the New Testament. It is very doubtful whether this truth, in relation either to the individual or to the community, was grasped by the apostles (not excepting Paul), not to speak of the Apostolic Church in general. This consideration is the best guarantee for the genuineness of this logion recorded by Mark alone. Its absence from the other Gospels may be due to the fact that it teaches a truth in advance of the ideas both of the evangelists and of those for whose benefit they wrote. Pfleiderer (Das Urcliristentlium, S. 370) recognises the originality of the parable. 126 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. that perisheth ? Nay, if we let go the one faith, how can we retain the other ? If we deny the Fatherhood of God in grace, how shall we believe in a paternal Providence ? Along with faith in God as the Father of our spirits, will not faith in Him as the Provider for our bodies fade out of our hearts, and leave us with no better creed than that of a godless world every man for himself ? That the kingdom of God comes as a spiritual posses- sion, only gradually, even when earnestly sought as the highest good, the history of Christ's disciples suffices to prove. The devotion of these men to the kingdom was intense from the beginning, but it was ignorant and impure. Even at a late period they were so unacquainted with the nature of the kingdom that they could quarrel about places of distinction in it, and their motives were so corrupt that their Master found it necessary to speak of conversion as a condition of their obtaining the humblest place in the Divine commonwealth. The initial ideas of the Twelve were conventional. They accepted current ideas of the kingdom, and of righteous- ness, and of God ; and poured the new wine of their \enthusiasm into old bottles. This is ever the way with religious novices. There is plenty of zeal, but little spiritual discernment. Conventional orthodoxy is ini- [plicitly adopted as the truth, all conventionally holy causes are fervently espoused, and all current religious 'customs are scrupulously observed. The Twelve were sincere seekers of the kingdom ; but they had to seek it not merely in the sense of serving its interests, but in the sense of striving to find out its true nature, and the CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF GOD. 127 nature of its laws, and of its Divine Euler. They were Jews to begin with, and the task before them was to become Christians in their thoughts of God, and of all things Divine. It was for this end that " Jesus ordained twelve, that they should be with Him." l He invited them to take His yoke upon them, that He might teach them the mysteries of the kingdom, and reveal unto them the Father. The former function He performed by uttering deep truths, many of which are recorded in the Gospels ; the latter not so much by word as by life. He showed the Father by unfolding Himself. To see Him was to see the Father, to understand His spirit was to tnow the Father's inmost heart. According to the testimony of the fourth Gospel, the companions of Jesus were slow learners in this department of their spiritual education. " Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us," 2 Philip is made to say on the eve of the Passion. It seems a libel on a fellow-disciple. Yet, after all, the alleged ignorance is perfectly credible. Has not Christendom been slow to learn the revelation of the Father ? Have we not yet to learn it, by accept- ing the Jesus of the Gospels as an absolutely true and full manifestation of the Divine Being, and believing without reserve that He and God are in spirit one ? A thoroughly Christian idea of God is still a desideratum, and when the Church has reached it, the kingdom of God shall have come in power. 1 Mark iii. 14. 2 John xiv. 8. CHAPTEE Y. CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF MAX. EVERY doctrine of God has its congruous doctrine of man. A consistent pantheism, for example, regards man as insignificant, not distinguishable from nature, not generically different from the beasts. The Christian idea of God, on the contrary, is naturally associated with high views as to the dignity and worth of human nature in its ideal, if not in its actual condition. For as God cannot be the God of the dead but of the living, so neither can He be the Father of beings not intrinsically superior to the brutes. His children must be made in His own image, and possess the inalienable dignity of personality constituted by the possession of reason and freedom. Accordingly Jesus taught a high doctrine con- cerning the dignity of man. He said with unexampled emphasis : A man is a man, not a mere human animal ; he is a being of infinite importance to God, and ought to be such also to himself and to his fellows. He quaintly hinted the deep truth by asking such thought-provoking questions as these : Is not the life more than meat ? 1 How much is a man better than a sheep ? 2 What shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? 3 1 Matt. vi. 25. - Matt. xii. 12. 3 Matt. xvi. 26. 139 CHEIST'S DOCTRINE OF MAN. 129 Jesus taught His new doctrine of man more empha- tically by His public action than by these or any other kindred words. In His invitations to enter the kingdom, He addressed Himself very specially, as I have already had occasion to remark, to the poor, to those who were in bad social repute, to the labouring and heavy-laden, the children of sorrow and care. This did not mean that He was animated by class partialities, and desired to set one part of society against another ; the destitute against the wealthy, the profligates against well-conducted citizens. As little did the new interest in people of humble rank signify that Jesus regarded poverty as a virtue, of itself a passport into the kingdom of heaven. Some indeed have thought otherwise. " Pure Ebionism," says Eenan, " that is, the doctrine that the poor alone shall be saved, that the kingdom of the poor is about to come, was the doctrine of Jesus. . . . Poverty remained an ideal from which the true lineage of Jesus never broke away. To possess nothing was the true evangelic state ; mendicity became a virtue, a holy state." 1 This may be a slightly plausible, but it is certainly a mistaken judgment. With equal plausibility might it be main- ' tained that, according to Christ's teaching, publicans and harlots were as such fit subjects of the divine kingdom. The truth is that poverty and sorrow were not, any more than bad character, positive qualifications for citizenship, but merely conditions that were likely to act as predis- posing causes, preparing men to listen with interest to the announcement that the kingdom was at hand. The prominence given to the poor in the Gospel of the f 1 Vie de J&us, pp. 179, 183. 130 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. kingdom, in so far as it had theoretic significance, and was not the spontaneous expression of compassion, marked the value set by Jesus on man as man. The poor represent man stripped of all extrinsic attributes of honour, and reduced to that which is common to all mankind. On this naked humanity the world has ever set little value. It begins to interest itself in a man when he is clothed with some outward distinction of wealth or birth or station. A mere man is a social I nobody. Christ, on the other hand, highly valued in man only his humanity, accounting nothing he could possess of such importance as what he himself was or , might become. " What is a man profited," He asked, " if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own life ? " The life declared to be so precious is that in man which makes him a man the life of a spirit con- versant with things divine and eternal. For the pre- servation and health of this higher life, Jesus taught, the lower animal life and all possessions should, if need were, be sacrificed. By the interest He took in the depraved, Jesus still further accentuated His doctrine as to the value of human nature. " Honest poverty " has a certain worth appreciable even by those who set their hearts on pos- sessions. But what shall be said of humanity stripped not only of outward goods but even of character ? That it is still humanity, replied the " friend of publicans and sinners," with latent spiritual powers capable of develop- ment, with the solemn responsibilities of moral agents, with features of the divine image not yet wholly effaced 1 Matt. xvi. 26. CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF MAN. 131 and that may be restored. He did not deny the degrada- tion , or utter sentimental apologies for the sin ; but He did deny the irrecoverableness. He hoped for those of whom the world despaired, the world of culture as represented by philosophers like Aristotle and Celsus ; the world of sanctity as represented by contemporary Pharisees. And because He hoped, He laboured, seeking as a physican to heal sick souls, as a shepherd to recover straying sheep. Out of this high doctrine of the dignity of human nature springs the doctrine of immortality. That doctrine needed no separate announcement. Man in Christ's teaching is so great a being that he inevitably projects himself into eternity. The present world cannot hold him. The anthropology of Jesus also contains the germs of all manner of social improvements in the earthly life of man. It has been alleged, indeed, that by its other- worldliness Christ's teaching breeds indifference to tem- poral interests. " The aim of Christianity," remarks Eenan, "was in no respect the perfecting of human society, or the increase of the sum of individual happi- ness. Men try to make themselves as comfortable as possible when they take in earnest the earth and the days they are to spend on it. But when one is told that the earth is about to pass away, that this life is but a brief probation, the insignificant prelude of an eternal ideal, to what good embellish it ? One does not think of decorating the hovel in which he is to remain only for a moment." * But connect the doctrine of the life to come with its proper root, man's dignity as possessor of 1 Marc Aurele, p. 605. 132 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. personality and filially related to God, and there is no risk of the present life being overlooked. Man's dignity holds true in reference to both worlds, and must be respected in all relations. Each man must treat himself now as becomes a man, and must be so treated by his fellow-man. Noblesse oblige. The " children of the resur- rection " must conduct themselves as becomes the heirs of a great destiny. It is therefore to be expected that, except when under the influence of morbid moods such as manifest themselves occasionally in all religions, believers in a future life will be as mindful of present human interests, physical and social, as the adherents of the modern religion of humanity, in which the divine Father and the heavenly home are discarded, and only earth and man retained. It does seem indeed as if a creed which says, " This life is all, therefore make the most of it," ought to make the most of it. But there is no small risk under this new creed of men growing weary in well-doing, through deadly doubt as to the worth of human life. While one generation says, " This life is all, let us make the most of it for ourselves and others," the next may go on to say, " This life is all, therefore it does not much matter how it is spent. Misery, vice, injustice society is full of them ; but no matter, it will all soon end for any individual victim." The tendency of Christ's doctrine of man to make for social improvement is apt to be overlooked because of the indirectness of its method of working. The method of Christianity is to work by idealism, not by agitation ; as a regenerative influence, not as a movement of reform. fit does not say slavery is wrong, and follow up the CHRIST'S DOCTKINE OF MAN. 133 assertion by an agitation for abolition and by stirring up ' servile insurrection. It says : " A slave is a man, and may be a noble man," and leaves the idea to work as a leaven slowly but surely towards emancipation and free- dom. To ardent reformers the method may appear slow, and those who use it chargeable with apathy. On thisj very account the Baptist doubted the Messiahship of j Jesus. Jesus was in no hurry to renovate the world. I He let it go on in its bad way, and meantime did all the j good He could. To the fiery reformer, the slow, indirect j method of the Eegenerator seemed most unsatisfactory. Nevertheless the slow method turned out in the long-run to be the surest. To value human nature in its ideal is one thing, to take flattering views of its real state as seen in the average man is another. Jesus did the former ; He did not do the latter. The interest He took in the poor, the suffering, the depraved, was not sentimental. These classes were not pets of whose condition He took an indulgent, partial view, deeming the poor the victims of wrong, and the sinful good-hearted, though weak-willed people. He was under no illusion as to the average moral condition of mankind. He saw clearly that few realized their moral responsibilities, and conducted them- selves as became sons of the Father in heaven ; and He spake as one well aware of the fact. He compared men as He found them to wandering sheep, lost coins, prodigal sons : l expressions certainly implying grave departure from the requirements of the moral ideal. It is therefore a serious mistake to suppose that Christ's view of human 1 Luke xv. 134 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. nature in its actual condition was, to use a theological term, Pelagian. Baur puts a strained meaning on certain of His words, when he says that, according to the teaching of the parable of the sower, it lies with man himself to come into the kingdom of God, in his own will, his own natural capacity and receptivity. 1 A similar false impression, formed from stray utterances, seems to have dictated the remark made by Mr. Mill in his Essays on Religion : " According to the creed of most denominations of Christians (though assuredly not of Christ), man is by nature wicked." 2 Christ's authority might be cited for much that is said in the creeds on the subject of human depravity. He saw in human lives all around Him the evidence of sin's corrupting, deadening, enslaving power. Yet it must be admitted, on the other hand, that Christ's way of speaking concerning human depravity was in important respects unlike that of scholastic theology. The way of this theology is to take all Bible terms as used with scientific strictness, and thereon to build the edifice of dogma ; forgetful that the Bible to a large extent is literature, not dogma, and that its words are fluid and poetic, not fixed and prosaic. Thus the natural man is held to be " dead " as a stone is dead. Christ's view was more sympathetic, hopeful, and kindly. He saw in the sinful something more than death, depravity, and bondage some spark of vitality, some latent affinity for good, an imprisoned spirit longing to be free, a true self victimized by Satanic agency, that would fain escape from thrall. On this better element 1 Geschichte der Christlichen Kirche, i. 34. 2 Three Essays on Religion, p. 10. CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF MAN. 135 He ever kept his eye ; His constant effort was to get into contact with it, and He refused to despair of success. Most significant in this connection are the words in which He compared the multitude, whose spiritual destitution moved His compassion, to an abundant harvest waiting to be reaped. 1 The comparison implies not only urgency, but susceptibility. The grain is ready to be reaped. The people are ready to receive any one who comes to them in God's name with a veritable gospel on his lips, and an honest human love in his heart ; the evidence being the way they crowded around Jesus Himself. A recent writer on the life of Jesus remarks that the words are parabolic, and that the term harvest was not applicable to the spiritual sphere ; in that region it was seed-sowing, not harvest-work, that was in request. 2 This is simply a superficial explaining away of the words. The very point of interest in the saying is that Jesus does mean to say there is an abundant harvest waiting to be reaped among the masses. Doubtless it was a harvest not visible to the professional religious guides of Israel, any more than to modern commentators. What was apparent to them was merely the ignorance, the vice, the sordid misery of the million ; not a harvest, but a heap of rotting weeds exciting aversion. The harvest existed only for the eye of a faith whose vision was sharpened by love. Therein precisely lay the difference between Jesus and the Eabbis. Where they saw only useless noxious rubbish, He, with His loving, hopeful spirit, saw useful grain ; not mere sin, but possibilities of good ; not utter hopeless depravity, but 1 Matt. ix. 37. 2 Weiss, Lelen Jesu, ii. 119. 136 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. indefinite capabilities of sanctity. There an extensive harvest for the kingdom might be reaped, in conversions of profligates into devotees, of moral outcasts into exem- plary citizens, of ignorant men into attached disciples. No wonder the religious guides of Israel misunderstood the sinner's Friend ! How could they fail to misunder- stand the conduct of a man whose thoughts of the people they heartlessly abandoned to the fate of an untended flock were so generous and hopeful ? It was so much easier to call Him a bad man than to comprehend a love in which they had no share ! Sympathy and hope were expressed in the very terms which Jesus employed to describe the moral degeneracy of those whose good He sought. The remark specially applies to the term " lost " so often used by Him with that view. It is a word expressive of compassion rather than of judicial severity. It points to a condition falling far short of final irretrievable perdition. To express that state the middle voice of the verb a-TroXXu/u is sometimes used ; * but the neuter participle TO aTroXwXo?, applied by Jesus to the objects of His loving care, denotes rather a condition of peril like that of a straying sheep, or of waste like that of a lost coin, or of thoughtlessness ending in misery like that of a wayward youth. The lost ones have wandered unwittingly from the fold ; they are living in forgetfulness of the chief end of man ; they are children of passion, obeying fitful impulse, and impatient of moral restraints. But they are lost sheep that may be brought back to the fold ; they are lost coins possessing value if only they could be found ; they are 1 Vid. John iii. 16. CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF MAN. 13V lost sons of God, with filial memories and filial feelings buried in their hearts which will rise to the surface when want and woe have brought them to their senses. In the story of Zacchseus A the epithet seems to express a relation to society rather than a moral condition. As applied to the chief publican, it describes the state of one who is a victim of social ostracism. There is nothing in the narrative to show that he was a bad man. They called him a " sinner," but that was due to popular prejudice. He was a publican, and rich ; and no further evidence of guilt was needed. What he states con- cerning himself is very much to his credit. For one occupying the position of a tax-gatherer to give half of his goods to the poor, and to restore fourfold what he may have taken from others in excess, argues no ordinary virtue. It has indeed been supposed that Zaechseus spoke of what he meant to do in future, rather than of what he had been in the habit of doing. But he spoke in self-defence against evil insinuations, and his words would carry weight only if they not merely expressed purposes formed under a sudden impulse, but stated actual undeniable facts. That they did so is a natural inference from his eager desire to see Jesus. Evidently his remarkable behaviour springs from something deeper than curiosity. He has a history which explains the interest he feels in the Man who has the courage to be the publican's friend. He sees in Jesus one who does not believe all the evil things said of an unpopular class, and regards it as possible that good may be found even among publicans. Not that he claims to have a faultless 1 Luke xix. 1. 138 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. record ; he admits that he has sometimes yielded to the strong temptations connected with his calling. But he has repented of the wrong, and has made strenuous efforts to do justly and to love mercy. This man is not a lost sheep in the moral sense ; in love of righteousness he is one among a thousand. But he is still a social outcast, and the Son of Man saves him by giving him brotherly recognition, going to be the guest of one whom most shunned as a leper. 1 Sometimes Jesus used the term "lost" as a synonym for " neglected." So, for example, in the instructions to the disciples in connection with the Galilean mission, in which they were told not to go into the way of the Gentiles, or into any city of the Samaritans, but to go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel? The mission had its origin in compassion for the multitude, who appeared to the eye of Jesus as a flock of sheep without a shepherd, scattered and faint. The pathetic description implies blame, but blame not of the people but of their professional religious guides, who had neglected their duty and had laid themselves open to the charge brought by the prophet Ezekiel against the shep- herds of Israel in his day : " The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away ; neither have ye sought that which was lost." 3 Their neglect made the mission necessary. The harvest was great, but the labourers were few. Of professional 1 Vid. Sermon on Zacchxus by Robertson of Brighton, 1st series. 2 Matt. x. 5, 6. 3 Ezek. xxxiv. 4. CUEIST'S DOCTRINE OF MAN. 139 religious officials priests, scribes, rabbis there was no lack; and if they had been counted, the number of labourers would not have been small. But they had no sincere human sympathy with the people, and therefore Jesus left them out of account as not available for the harvest work; thus by implication pronouncing a very severe censure on them. It was a very significant judg- ment as coming from Him. On some men's lips such a judgment would not amount to much. It is not unusual for enthusiastic promoters of special movements to ignore all but their own associates, and practically to limit what they call "the Lord's work" to that which is being carried on under their direction. This way of speaking is often the utterance of an offensive egotism, and it is always indicative of weakness. But in Christ were no egotism and vanity such as too often reveal themselves in the character of religious zealots. He was ever ready to recognise work done for the good of men, even when the agents stood in no close relation to Himself. His disciples might wish to reserve a monopoly of casting out devils for such as belonged to their company; but if devils were indeed cast out He was satisfied, it mattered not by whom. " Forbid him not," l He said, with refer- ence to an attempt to establish such a monopoly, so throwing His shield over all whose aims are good, however eccentric their methods. Yet He who spake that tolerant word said also " the labourers are few," so virtually asserting that the whole established machinery for the cure of souls in Israel was useless. It was a just judg- ment, however severe. The parties animadverted on did 1 Mark ix. 39. 140 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. not even pretend to be labourers in Christ's sense. Their business was to attend to the sacrificial ritual, to copy and comment on the Scriptures, to study and teach the law. Those who neglected the feasts, and were ignorant of the law, they dismissed from their thoughts with a malediction. Reflecting on these false shepherds of Israel and their heartless indifference, we perceive that the prayer Jesus exhorted His disciples to offer up for the increase of labourers cannot have had in view the mere multiplication of persons professionally occupied with religion. It is rather a prayer for increase of the number of men imbued with the Christian spirit of hopeful, helpful love, and might be paraphrased thus : " Father in heaven ! pour out on the world the spirit of sympathy. Now that spirit is rare. In this land of Israel it is almost confined to the little company gathered around the Son of Man. We believe that Thou takest pleasure in the moral recovery of the lost, that the fortunes of the poor, the suffering, and the erring are not indifferent to Thee. In this faith we rejoice, by this faith we are impelled to seek those who have strayed, and to do good to all as we have opportunity. Let this inspiring faith, and this enthusiasm of love, prevail more and more, till all men believe in the heavenly Father, and sin and misery have been banished from the earth." The prayer, thus interpreted as involving a hidden allusion to the prevailing inhumanity of those who passed for good, implies a new idea of holiness, and throws light on the nature and extent of human depravity. " True holiness," it virtually teaches, " consists in love. Nega- tive holiness, which carefully keeps aloof from the CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF MAN. 141 unholy, is a counterfeit. Selfishness is the root of sin ; and it reaches the lowest degree of turpitude when it is associated with religion. To be religious without love is to be at the farthest possible distance from God and true righteousness. Therefore the shepherds of Israel who pride themselves on their virtue and sanctity, and despise the sensual irreligious multitude, are more truly lost than the sheep they neglect, by reason of that very neglect." Tested by the law of love, all men come grievously short. The term " lost " embraces the whole human race. All have gone astray, each one in his own way and in his own measure. Selfishness is universal, and men are so accustomed to it that it hardly appears to them evil. How different was the view of Christ ! In one of His most striking parables a rich man is sent, at his death, to the place of torment for no other apparent reason than because he lived in this world a selfish life, enjoying his comforts and heedless of the misery of his fellow- mortals. 1 The epithet TTO^/JO? in another part of His teaching is applied to the average earthly father viewed simply as one who falls short of the divine standard of charity, and allows a certain measure of selfishness to enter into his dealings with his children. 2 f O 77-01/77/305 was His name for the Evil One, Satan ; 8 yet He deemed it not too strong a term to apply to men who, while incapable of diabolic wickedness such as giving their children a stone for bread, are not always proof against the temptation to sacrifice their children's interests to their own pleasures. Nothing could more clearly show 1 Luke xvi. 19. 2 Luke xi. 13. 3 Matt. xiii. 19, 29. 142 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. how serious was the view Jesus took of human depravity, than the application of so strong a term to a form of selfishness not uncommon. The fact that Jesus, while acknowledging that His mission was to the whole of Israel, yet addressed Himself specially to the humbler classes, points to a policy deliberately adopted for definite reasons. These reasons were chiefly two : belief in the greater receptivity of those classes to the blessings of the kingdom, and expectation of intenser devotion to its interests. Jesus took into account the tendency of wealth, happiness, and moral respectability to hide from their possessors their true character, to fill them with self-complacent thoughts, and to make them indifferent or contemptuous towards the grace of God. Therefore He turned to those who were exposed to no such temptations, in hope to find among them less pride, prejudice, self-delusion, more insight into the truth of things, a deeper sense of the need of pardon, a hunger of the soul for righteousness worthy of the name. That such considerations influenced Him, we learn from certain of His sayings. In explaining the parable of the Sower, He mentioned the deceitfulness of riches as one of the hindrances to f ruitfulness. 1 After His interview with the young ruler who inquired concerning eternal life, He sadly remarked, " How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God ! " 2 He meant to express a similar feeling in reference to the " righteous " when He said, " I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." On His defence for the crime of consorting with those whom the exemplary shunned, He thereby intimated to 1 Matt. xiii. 22. 2 Mark x. 23. CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF MAN. 143 His accusers that He called " sinners " because they were more ready than the righteous to acknowledge their faults, and to welcome the good news of God's pardoning love. That Jesus also called the sinful because He expected converts from that class to make the best citizens, we learn from the parable of the Two Debtors viewed in con- nection with its historical setting. 1 On that occasion, also, He was on His defence for His sympathetic relations with social reprobates, and the gist of His apology was the greater the forgiveness, the greater the love, and there- fore the better the citizen, the test of good citizenship being devotion. " Which of them will love him most ? " He asked ; and his host, on principles of common sense, could only reply : " I suppose that he to whom he for- gave most." Then said He in effect : " That is why I have relations with such as this woman. I seek such as will love me, not with cold civility as you have done, but ardently after the manner of this penitent. Such I find not among the ' righteous,' but among the ' sinners.' " This policy of Jesus, to be fully understood and appre- ciated, must be looked at in connection with the peculiar religious condition of Jewish society in His time. Viewed in the abstract, and conceived of as applicable indis- criminately to all communities, it may appear well intended, but mistaken. One may not unnaturally ask, " Is it to be inferred that had Christ lived in our day and country, He would have expected to find the best dis- ciples among what we are accustomed, from the ecclesi- astical point of view, to call the 'lapsed masses,' composed largely of persons who, without any breach 1 Luke vii. 36-50. 144 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. of charity, may be described as weeds ? That they should not be neglected is of course right ; that converts may be, and have been made among them, even in large numbers, cannot be denied ; that a few very exceptional Christians, like Bunyan, have come from their ranks is cheerfully admitted ; but surely the action of Jesus does not imply that it is the duty of the Church deliberately to turn its attention to that part of society as the most hopeful field ? " I do not care to answer these questions too confidently in the negative, lest the judgment should be but the superficial verdict of Pharisaism in a modern guise. I certainly believe that there are many more unpolished diamonds hidden in the churchless mass of humanity than the respectable church-going part of the community has any idea of. I am even disposed to think that a great and steadily increasing portion of the moral worth of society lies outside the Church, separated from it not by godlessness, but rather by exceptionally intense moral earnestness. Many, in fact, have left the Church in order to be Christians. I also believe in an indefinite power of moral reaction even in the most depraved, though it is unhappily only too rarely exempli- fied. Christ has taught us to hope for wells of water springing up unto everlasting life from below the rocky surface of inveterate evil habits. Yet, withal, there is a wide difference between Britain in the nineteenth century and Judaea in our Lord's day. In the professedly religious portion of society there is more of the salt of real righteousness, and in the outer fringe of the churchless probably less susceptibility to good influence. The strictly religious Jews in Christ's time were a compara- CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF MAN. 145 tively small coterie. Their righteousness was, moreover, as we shall see, a thoroughly artificial system, too elaborate and too unreasonable for ordinary mortals to practise. The Pharisees stood in a relation to the popu- lace somewhat similar to that of the monks in the Middle Ages to the laity. To the esoteric brotherhood, in both cases, the world without appeared very unholy. And there was, in truth, much licentiousness among the uninitated ; for an artificial system of morals is ever very demoralizing, not only among those who accept it as their rule of life, but among those also who refuse to be bound by it. The latter deeming themselves fully justi- fied in disregarding its arbitrary requirements, do not stop there, but indulge in indiscriminate transgression. But the Jewish populace who knew not nor kept the precepts of the scribes, Am Haarez, " the people of the land," as they were contemptuously called, were by no means so bad as their self - righteous censors accounted them. 1 Among them probably were many who were not Pharisees, mainly because they were comparatively simple and unsophisticated, who were therefore not the worse but the better men because they had remained inaccessible to Pharisaic influences. Such might be open to influence of a truly wholesome kind like that which Jesus brought to bear on the " lost," and might supply the raw material 1 According to the tradition of the scribes, the Am Haarez, like the Samaritan, was a person with whom no dealings should be had. They said : " Bear no witness for him, take none from him, reveal to him no secret, entrust nothing to his charge, make him not treasurer of monies for the poor, associate not with him on a journey." He was excluded from sharing in the resurrection. Vid. Weber, System der alttynayoyalen Paldstinischen Theologie, p. 43. K 146 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. out of which could be formed excellent citizens of the divine commonwealth. It was with this conviction that He devoted so much of His time and attention to them. His example is fitted to inspire a most hopeful view of the redeemableness of mankind. Apart altogether from His teaching, His public action is itself a gospel of hope, rebuking cynical despairing views of human depravity, saying to us : " Give up no man as irrecoverably lost," reminding us that much spiritual susceptibility may slumber in most unexpected quarters, and bidding us look for the most aggravated types of moral degeneracy from the divine ideal of manhood, not among the irreligious, but among the inhumanly religious. CHAPTER VI. THE RELATION OF JESUS TO MESSIANIC HOPES AND FUNCTIONS. less important than the question as to the attitude of Jesus towards the Mosaic Law, is the inquiry in what relation He stood to the Messianic hopes current among the Jewish people in His time. The inquiry has two aspects, one referring to the extent of our Lord's sym- pathy with prevailing Messianic ideas, the other to His claim to be the Messiah. The two topics are closely related, but they may, to a certain extent, be looked at apart. Even if Jesus had not claimed to be the Christ, He would still have had to adjust Himself to a concep- tion shared by nearly the whole of His countrymen, based on Hebrew prophecy, and received as a sacred inheritance from the Fathers. A priori it was to be expected that Jesus would have His Messianic idea. For the ideas of a Messiah and a kingdom of God were kindred, and one who made the latter theme the burden of his preaching could not fail to have a Messianic theory and belief. The two subjects were closely associated, not only in Hebrew prophecy, but in the nature of things. 147 148 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. What, then, was the position taken up by the Herald of the kingdom on this burning question ? The opinion of Dr. Baur on the point is well known. In his view, the Messianic idea had no vitality for Jesus. The pro- phet of Nazareth was a purely ethical teacher, who would gladly have ignored a hope with which at heart He had no sympathy, and which He knew to be a delusion. But being a Jew, He was obliged to recognise the national expectation, however distasteful to His own feelings, and speak as if He regarded it as important ; nay, He was compelled reluctantly to let Himself be taken for the Messiah, as the indispensable condition of success on Jewish soil in an attempt to introduce a new universal religion. The truth of this view must be acknowledged to the extent of admitting that there was much in the conven- tional Messianic idea with which Jesus was not in accord. His habitual reticence regarding His own claims to be the Christ is sufficient evidence of the fact. That reti- cence might be adduced as a proof that His conception of the kingdom was peculiar ; for King and kingdom correspond, and divergent thoughts as to the nature of the one imply an analogous divergence in reference to the other. It shows that Christ's idea of the kingdom must have been different even from that of the Baptist ; for the preacher of repentance practised no reserve on the subject, but spoke openly of a Coming One whose shoe-latchet he was not worthy to unloose. But the point insisted on now is the significance of that reticence as an index of Christ's position in reference to the Messianic hope. It betrayed a consciousness that His RELATION OF JESUS TO MESSIANIC HOPES. 149 thoughts thereon were not those of the Jewish people, giving rise to a natural unwillingness to say much on a subject on which it was difficult to speak without being misunderstood. It did not, however, imply, as Baur imagined, that Jesus had no Messianic convictions, but merely adapted Himself prudentially to those of others. It is not credible that He would be guilty of such insin- cerity, any more than that such a policy, if adopted, could be successful. Had the Messianic idea in every form been void of all validity for His mind, He would certainly have discarded it and taken the consequences. For the sincere man, religious beliefs current in his time, which he cannot accept, must either be rejected or transformed. The Messianic faith of Israel could not be absolutely rejected, because it contained elements of truth, and therefore the only possible alternative was transforma- tion. Christ's position in reference to it can be partly understood through our own in reference to an idea of vital significance in Christian piety. It is essential to a religion bearing Christ's name that it be evangelic, for that is only to say that it must conform to the teach- ing and spirit of our Lord as exhibited in the Gospels. Yet the term has been so often associated with a legal spirit in theology and life, that one earnestly minded to follow the Master feels the need either of a new word or of a very discriminating use of the old one. Even so was it with the Master Himself in regard to the Jewish hope of a Messiah. The word expressed a faith in a bright future for the world, which no one not given over to atheistic pessimism would consent to part with. Never- theless, in current use it was so mixed up with idle dreams, 150 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. ambitious passions, false opinions, and sham sanctities, that one wishing to hold fast his belief in the divine reality was under the necessity of breaking with tradition, and rediscovering the truth for himself ; and having found it, of uttering his thoughts concerning it, as one conscious of isolation. "We may conceive of Jesus as going forth to His public ministry with transformed ideas both of the Messianic office and of the Messianic kingdom. His spiritual nature determined the form of the Messianic idea, gather- ing up as by elective affinity the congenial elements of Old Testament prophecy. Ample materials for such a transformation were to be found in texts which suggested the notion of a gentle, missionary, suffering Messiah gaining power by meekness, by His wisdom giving light to the world, bearing the sins and miseries of men by sympathy as a burden on His heart. The first evangelist, who has taken pains to illustrate his narrative by pro- phetic citations, quotes some of these texts, giving pro- minence to that which describes the Messiah as one who shall not strive nor cry, and who also shall not break the bruised reed or quench the smoking flax. 1 The oracle is introduced in connection with directions given by Jesus to the sick people whom He healed, that they should not make Him known. This retiring habit in one possessing such powers seemed to the evangelist very remarkable. And so indeed it was. It was utterly contrary to the spirit of the world, which pursues the policy of self-advertisement and self-assertion with a view to gratify personal ambition, and works by ostentation and 1 Matt. xii. 18-21. The quotation is from Isa. xlii. 1-4. RELATION OF JESUS TO MESSIANIC HOPES. 151 conflict ; by the one seeking public applause, by the other striving to overcome obstacles, It was this way the brethren of Jesus desired Him to adopt when they counselled Him to go up to Judtea to show His works, reckoning it foolish in one who had it in His power to become celebrated to remain in obscurity. 1 But such counsel, whether given by the god of this world or by its children, Jesus ever declined to follow. He would not strive, but when His acts or words provoked hostility, as ii\ the instance recorded by Matthew before citing the prophetic oracle, He withdrew from the scene. Neither would He cry or lift up His voice in the streets, follow- ing the methods of those who hunt after fame ; He rather took as much pains to hide His good deeds as others took to make theirs widely known. Yet He was ever willing to do deeds of kindness ; when suffering multitudes gathered around Him in season or out of season, He healed them all. His was a spirit of gentleness, humility, and sympathy : of gentleness towards opponents, of humi- lity in shunning vainglorious display, of sympathy shown in pity for the sick and in patience with spiritual weak- ness. Such were the attributes of Jesus. Such were the attributes of the Servant of Jehovah, as described by the prophet, which made Him God's well-beloved and elect One, and proved that God's Spirit was in Him. The evangelist was struck with the correspondence ; and with true insight discerned in the character of Jesus, as revealed in His actions, the fulfilment of the oracle. We cannot doubt that the significance of the prophetic utter- ance was as apparent to Jesus Himself as to His disciple, 1 John vii. 3, 4. 152 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. and that it was one of the ancient texts from which He drew His idea of the Messiah. In a Messiah of the type therein sketched Jesus could earnestly believe. No other type of Messiah could have any attractions for Him : not the political Messiah of the Zealots, whose one desire was national independence ; not the Messiah of common expectation, who should flatter popular prejudices and make himself an idol by becom- ing a slave ; not the Messiah of the Pharisees, himself a Pharisee, regarding it as his vocation to deliver Israel from Pagan impurity ; 1 not even the austere Messiah of the Baptist, who was to separate the good from the evil by a process of judicial severity, and so usher in a kingdom of righteousness. The Messiah devoutly to be longed for, and cordially to be welcomed when He came, in His view, was one who should conquer by the might of love and truth ; who should meet the deepest wants of man, not merely gratify the wishes of Jews, and prove a light and a saviour to the whole world ; who should be conspicuous by patience and hopefulness rather than by inexorable sternness, a humane, universal, spiritual Messiah, answering to a divine kingdom of kindred character, the desire of all nations, the fulfilment of humanity's deepest longings, therefore not destined to be superseded, but to remain an Eternal Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. 1 Montet (Essai sur les Origmes des Partis Sadaceen et Pharisien, p. 247) remarks of the Messiah described in the Psalterium Salomonis, which was purely Pharisaic in spirit : " We are tempted to say that he (Messiah) is a separatist Pharisaic king, who will deliver Israel from Pagan imcleanness." The remark rests on the words : pvvsTott qpAs civo dKccdoipaioc; k^dpuv fisfifaw (xvii. 51). RELATION OF JESUS TO MESSIANIC HOPES. 153 Such a Messiah Jesus not merely believed in, but claimed Himself to be. The claim finds expression in many of His recorded words, and underlies the whole evangelic history from beginning to end. It is implied in the announcement of the kingdom as present. It is implied also in the titles Son of Man and Son of God, which, as we shall see, sprang out of a Messianic con- sciousness. It is indirectly asserted in such sayings as these : " I say unto you, that in this place is One greater than the temple ; " 1 " Behold, a greater than Jonas is here ; " 2 " Behold, a greater than Solomon is here." a It lurks in the title " Bridegroom " 4 applied by Jesus to Himself, a title applied by the prophets to Jehovah in relation to the covenant people, and teaching that in Him to whom it is given the soul finds its Lord and the fulness of spiritual bliss. It was involved in the tacit acceptance by Jesus of the epithet " the Coming One " employed by the Baptist in his doubting message to describe the Christ. 5 It found utterance in the prophetic discourse on the irapovoria in the solemn declaration, " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away." 6 Specially significant is the text in which, after condemning the Pharisaic lust for titles of honour, Jesus, gives His disciples the counsel : " Be not ye called Eabbi, for one is your Master, and all ye are brethren." 7 There can be no doubt who the is : the word finds its interpretation in the 1 Matt. xii. 6. 2 Matt. xii. 41. 3 Matt. xii. 42. 4 Matt. ix. 15. 5 Matt. xi. 3. 6 Matt. xxiv. 35. 7 Matt, xxiii. 8. The words o Xpioro; are a gloss. 154 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. fact that the Speaker stood in the relation of Master to His hearers. This claim to be the one Master, taken in connection with the condemnation of pretensions to Mastership, can escape the charge of inconsistency only on the supposition that He who makes the claim is conscious of being an exceptional person who without arrogance may say to men : " Learn from Me," * take Me as your supreme teacher and guide in religion. Similar reflections apply to Christ's mode of enforcing lessons of humility by prescribing Himself as an example ; as on the occasion when the sons of Zebedee advanced their ambitious request, when He said : " Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant ; even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister." 2 This was spoken out of the consciousness of being the first in the kingdom king by right, though servant by choice ; and the implied claim is accentuated from being uttered in connection with a rebuke of ambitious passions. In one notable instance Jesus asserted His superhuman greatness even in the very act of limiting it, viz. when He declared His ignorance of the last day, saying, " Concerning that day, or that hour, no one knoweth, neither angel in heaven, nor the Son, absolutely no one, save the Father." 3 Nescience is here professed in a manner involving a claim to a very high position in the scale of being, superior to that of angels, subordinate only to that of the Supreme. Jesus proclaimed Himself to be the Messiah by ascribing to Himself Messianic functions. Thus we find 1 Matt. xi. 29. pdt)eTS XTT spot. 2 Matt. xx. 28. 3 Mark xiii. 32. RELATION OF JESUS TO MESSIANIC HOPES. 155 Him in many utterances representing Himself as the Judge of the world ; as in the saying, " The Son of Man is about to come in the glory of His Father, with His angels, and then shall He give to every one according to his works." 3 Baur, while admitting the fact as indis- putable, resolves the judicial action of Jesus into a purely ethical process. Jesus judges men by His doctrines, which are the fundamental laws of the divine kingdom, because according to the attitudes they assume towards these, men divide themselves into two morally distinct classes. He judges them by His own person, because He is the concrete embodiment of the absolute worth of His teaching. Baur doubts whether Jesus ever spoke of His judicial function in such terms as those in which He appears promising to the twelve seats of judg- ment beside Himself in the Tra\i