^ When the Kingdom comes in its greatness, it will fulfil every religion and destroy none, clearing away the imperfect and opening up reaches of goodness not yet imagined, till it has gathered into its bosom whatsoever things are true and honest and just and pure and lovely. It standeth on the earth as the city of God with its gates open by night and by day, into which entereth nothing that defileth, but into which is brought the glory and power of the nations. It is the natural home of the good ; as ZwingU, the Swiss reformer, said in his dying confession, "Not one good man, one holy spirit, one faithful soul, whom you will not then behold with God." 2
1. There were two influential tendencies in the time of Christ — the same two that one finds everywhere. There was one class of people who believed the Kingdom of God would come only by fighting for it. They wanted a revolution. They had in them the fire of the old Maccabean days. The Zealots were of this way
^ Scsur Ther^ of Lisieux, 132. 2 .Tohn Watson, The Mind of the Master, ST. LUKE — 23
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of thinking. Barabbas and the two men who were crucified with Christ were very likely men of this insurrectionist type. Judas Iscariot had the revolutionary spirit, and he was bitterly dis- appointed that Jesus did not turn out to be a revolutionary leader, organizing the discontent and unrest of the people into a formid- able force of opposition. Jesus doubtless had the revolutionists in mind when He said : " The kingdom of God cometh not with observation : neither shall they say, Lo, here ! or, There ! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you."
There was another circle of men, who looked for the Kingdom of God to come, not by revolution, but by revelation. They expected some sign from heaven. They looked for a miracle. There would be some catastrophe in the natural world, and God would come in and take possession of things, and His reign would actually begin. Therefore Jesus doubtless had in mind the men who looked for a miracle, as well as the men who wanted a revolution, when He said: The kingdom of God does not come by observation, by watching for it, by identifying it with this or that strange occurrence. It is hidden in the course of things. It grows up in its own silent and unobtrusive way, because it is a part of life, it is the order of the world. It is amongst you, and within you.
In a word, Jesus did not look for the Kingdom of God to come through militaut revolution, with Judas and the Zealots ; nor by miraculous revelation, with the scribes and the Eabbis; but by quiet, steady, invisible evolution. The Kingdom of God was the unfolding order of the world. It was the unfolding growth of the human spirit. It was the response of the one to the other. It was seeing light in the light — seeing more light as the eyes grew stronger and the light grew clearer.
2. What is the relation of the Kingdom of God to the actual world in which we live ? Is it one (1) of independence and detachment, or (2) of antagonism and contradiction, or (3) of interpenetration ? This is no abstract question, but one that vitally affects our attitude towards life's practical duties and problems.
(1) It may be held that the " natural " and " spiritual " orders of existence occupy different planes of activity, between which
ST. LUKE XVII. 20, 21 355
there is no possible point of contact. There is much in the exposition of the principles of the Kingdom as given in the Gospels that would suggest this view. Jesus Himself took no part in the political life of His day; He made no attempt to introduce social or economic reforms into the industrial world; He resolutely declined to interfere in personal disputes ; and He resisted every effort made by His followers to make Him a Euler or King. The Apostles followed Him in accepting the political and social life of the Koman Empire as it was ; they counselled obedience and submission for conscience' sake to the powers that were ; and while they would occasionally demand a recognition of their legal and civil status, they did so only when their oppor- tunity of following out their chosen task of preaching the Gospel was being unlawfully interfered with by hostile authorities bent on a tyrannical suppression of the new faith.
(2) Or it may be afi&rmed that the " kingdom of this world " and the heavenly order revealed by Jesus Christ are in hopeless antagonism, and that the latter can come to its own only by the total suppression or conquest of the former. In favour of this hypothesis, it may be pointed out that many sayings of our Lord seem consistent with it. The antithesis which is drawn by Him between the " world " and His " kingdom " is sharp and impressive, especially in the Johannine discourses, and there again He is followed with no faltering tongue by the first Apostles, and especially by St. Paul.
(3) A deeper consideration, however, will show that both these theories must be set aside in favour of the third. Our Lord preached the gospel of the Kingdom in the world that the world might thereby be " saved " ; i.e., that it might be permeated and leavened, and transformed by the spiritual forces let loose into it. His purpose in coming was not revolutionary, but evolutionary ; in other words. He came not to cast down, but to build up, not to destroy, but to fulfil. The theory that the Christian life is one that is to be lived apart from the secular life has always proved the parent of serious and painful abuses, leading either, on the one hand, to a separation of the Christian community from the rest of mankind, so making it impotent for good, or, on the other, to a schism in the individual life itself, which is the root of all hypocrisies. The only valid and practical theory of spiritual