The eschatology of the NT being conveyed in this occasional and discontinuous form, we may best understand it by following out the great ideas as they appear first iu one and then in another of tjie main groups of writing.s. The fundameutal question is that of Christ's own mind on the subject. It will he convenient, therefore, to deal with the eschatology /rs< as it appears in Clirist's own words reported in the Gospels, and tlif.n as it is found in the teaching of the several divisions of the NT writings It will thus be seen whether or how far the NT has a consistent doctrine of the Last Things.
I. Christ's Eschatology. — There are questions of criticism to which regard must be had in study- ing the eschatology of the NT. In the case of our Lord's teaching there is the debated question of what is primitive and what is secondary in the records of His woids, with the various tests pro- posed for distinguishing between the one and the other. It is impossible to enter at length into these things here. It is enough to say that the Bubstance of Christ's teaching will be found to be the same whichever of the leading theories of the construction of the Gospels is followed. Its main points belong to the large stream of narrative and discourse wnich is common to the first three Gospels, and in which the most primitive tradition is probably preserved. There is also the question of the relation in which the report of Christ's words given in the Fourth Gospel stands to that contained in the Synoptists. Of this it must soiiice to say that the difference in the form is a reason for taking the two accounts separately ; from which, however, it does not follow that there is an essential ditlerence between them.
In the Synoptic Gospels the eschatology centres in the great idea of the Kinodom of Gk)D (which ■ee). Christ's whole disclosure of the Future has its point of issue in this doctrine of the Divine kingdom and its consummation. In this His teaching connects itself with the large ideas of the OT, carrying them further and fulfilling them.
As the OT, too, in its conceptions of the future knew nothing of the philosophy of the subject and fvirnished no reasoned statement, but followed the logic of experience and the heart, giving no dogma of immortality, but the expression of a living felIo\xship with God which involved the continu- ance of life ; so Christ's teaching lies apart from all theoretic questions, all speculative discussions, all that is of curious interest, and deals with practical relations and broad moral issues. It offers no proof of the reality of a future existence, but presupposes it, and speaks of life as man's destiny. It unfolds the course of the Divine kingdom which had been the object of OT faith and the centre of OT hope. It presents that kingdom as a thing of the actual present, brought to men in and bj' the Teacher Himself, but also as a thing of the future which looks through all historical ful- filments to a completer realization, — a thing, too, of gradual, unobtrusive growth, jet destined to be finally established by a great conclusive event. Christ's whole teaching on the subject of the Last Things, as regards the Church, the world, and the individual, is connected with this lofty OT idea of a new order in which God shall be confessed to be Sovereign, and has regard to it in its primaij deliverances.
Among these deliverances a large place is given to the promise of His own Return. In the OT the consummation of the Divine kingdom was to be brought about by a descent of God to earth, and in certain prophecies it was further connected with the coming of an ideal King, the agent of J ' in the fulfilment of His purpose. So Christ connects the completion of the kingdom with a decisive occur- rence, the great event of His own Parousia (Mt 043. 37. 39^ The time of this new interposition is not declared, it is not known even to the Son (Mt 24^* RV, Mk 13^' RV). But it is to come when the times are ripe for it. and there are prelusive tokens of it. This event of His coming is the burden of the great eschatological discourse in Mt 24. 25. in which there are problems both for criticism and for interpretation. In that discourse two distinct occurrences, the destruction of Jeru- salem and the end of the world, seem to be spoken of as coincident and as near. This is in accordance with the n.ature of biblical prophecy as it is seen in the OT, which brings together iu prophetic per- spective or ' timeless sequence ' events which were widely separated in actual occurrence (Is 8. 9, Zeph, Ob). It does not require for its explanation the affirmation of mistake on Christ's part (Strauss, Kenan, Keim, Weizsacker, S. Davidson, etc.), the supposition of misunderstanding or misreporting on the part of the evangelists (Baur, Colani, De ■yVette, Holtzmann, etc.), the limitation of the whole declaration to the single catastrophe of the fall of Jerusalem and the Jewish state (J. S. Russell, etc. ), the theory of a double coming, or the hypothesis either of a Jewish (Weizsacker) or of a Jewish-Christian (Colani, Keim, Pflciderer, Wendt, Weiffenbach, Vischer, etc.) apocalypse in the discourse. Nor is this form of statement confined to this particular section of the Synoptic Gospels. Sayings of similar import are given else- where (Mk IS*-, Lk 218», Mt lU-^ IG'"- »; cf. also Mk 8»* 9', Lk 9**- "). In these Gospels, too, the Return appears to be an objective event, the ex- pre8.sion given to it being such as goes beyond any figurative description simply of the final victory of principles or the supersession of old forms of religion. In the Fourth Gospel the case is some- what different. It is the coming of the Sjiirit that chiefly appears there, and that m such measure as to suggest to many that only a dynamical coming is in view (Neander, Godet, etc.). Yet a distinc- tion is observed between the coming of the Spirit