But although the Kingdom was approaching, it was not immediately at hand. All Christ's teaching implies this, though there is nothing in it that requires the thought of long delay. More than once He gave a distinct negative to the expectation that the Kingdom " should immediately appear." He preached repentance and righteousness as its preparation, and He pointed to the powers He was endowed with, through the indwelling Spirit, as a proof of His commission, and, indeed, as an evidence that the Kingdom had "come upon them." Although in its form it might be outward, in its essence it was spiritual. While it was something to be entered in the future, men really entered it now as they accepted Jesus and His teaching — that is, they became members of it, having '* their names written in Heaven," and would be recognised as such by the Son of Man when He came in His glory. He could thus say that the Kingdom of God was within men.^
^ W. L. Walker.
ST. MARK 79
^It is at hand; within one step of us — within one step of earnest purpose and resolute endeavour ! It is here in the common things about us, here, in life's capacity for beauty, kindness, joy ; here in home, friends, and even in the associations of the workaday world, which all are rich in the possibilities of kind and happy life ! Yes, everywhere the Kingdom of God is " at hand " to every one of us. Only learn the meaning of this, and it will lead you into the blessed secret of that still deeper word — " the kingdom of God is within you." ^
^People are always looking for their Kingdoms of God far away. There is always a visionary kingdom glowing in some dim distance of hope or fancy. Your schoolboy reads Bohinson Crusoe, or Mayne Keid's stories of wonderful adventure, till it seems stupid and dull to be living at home, with regular meals and beds to sleep in, and he muses about some possible desert island or far-off wilderness where life might be passed, chiefly in going about with a gun. Men laugh at that — yet are they so much better? Their kingdoms are more prosaic and substantial, but men are just as liable to miss those that are close to them in looking for those which are far away and utterly problematical. This man has a longing to be at the head of his profession. He is just in the rank and file of it, and he wants to make a name. If he could do this, he could sing " nunc dimittis ! " Thus another man, again, likes power — has a faculty for organisa- tion : — to him it seems as if it would be the very " kingdom of God " to become the leader of his party, or to attain some high position in the country. This man has a craving to make some striking discovery in science ; that, to write a successful book ; the other, to paint the best picture of the year.*
(1) The Kingdom of God is at hand individually. Every religion has lived and grown in proportion to the number of those that it has helped to strain beyond the vision of the day, to rise above the standard of the hour. It has lived in the measure of the souls it has made. And souls are never made by conformity. They are made by faith. We are not helped to be our true selves by seeing clearly and at once all that we ought to believe and do. We are helped to the real possession of ourselves by a deeper instinct that can be strengthened into a resolute and courageous purpose because God is behind it — an instinct which will at all costs pluck the good from the very heart of evil. No religion has ever been given in a system. » B. Herford. » Ibid.
8o THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
It grew originally out of the heart, the strength, the soul of a living man. The greatest and truest religion grew out of the life of the greatest and truest Man. There God wrought and strove towards the making of an eternal Spirit, human and Divine, which might work and strive in other hearts for ever.
(2) The Kingdom of God is at hand socially. The result of all human living is social. The social will always grows out of the individual, and always in turn inspires it. The social will can healthily restrain the individual will only because it has first inspired it, and exactly in the measure in which it has inspired it. It restrains us aright when it stirs into life our responsibility towards it, when it makes us feel what we might be and do for it, when it makes us feel what we must not be and do to its hurt. Its restraint is unhealthy only when it would enslave us to its will as if that will were a thing apart from us. And then its will in turn becomes a dead thing, a thing which the living will of man must rebel against and overcome. The truth is that the individual man and human society are so related that the fullest individuality must make the richest and most fruitful society, that society inevitably perishes as individuality becomes meagre and shrunken. The man who is most himself is the man who gives most to society. The man who is a mere reflection of social convention is the man who is helping to make that convention more empty and barren every hour.^