Then the nature of the parable, at once presentini; a picture to the iniml ami pinvokini; to the search for a hidden nieanin;; or application beneath it, would seem to be exactly suited to the ))a;da!roL;ic inelliod of .iesus, which always "alls for some respon- sive effort on the part of man. .md which iirefers to produce its effects not all at once, but rather with a certain suspense ami delay, so that the good seed may have time to serminate and strike its roots more deeiily into the soil.
This natural action of the method of teaching by parables seems so obvious that we mijiht well be content not to seek any further. H\it when wo turn to tlie (iospels, we find there stated a motive for the adoption of this method of teaching which is wholly dilTcreiit. and it must be confessed at first sight somewlial paradoxical. All three Synopti.sts agree in applying to teaching by parables the half-denunciatory passage Is O*-" ; they would make its immediate object not so much to reveal truth as to conceal it — at least to conceal it for the moment from one class while it is revealed to another, and its ulterior object to aggravate the guilt of those from whom it is conrealed. Ami. what is slill more r'-markable, all three Synojitisls a-scribe the use of this quotation to our Lord Him- self, as tliough it really expressed, not merely the result of Ills chosen melliod of teaching, but its deliberate purpose. What are we to make of this? One group of critics would roundly deny that the words were ever used in this manner by our I.oril. Jiilicher (e.ij.) takes his stand on Mk 4-'-' ' with many such parables sjViike he the word unto them, as tlinj tcrre a'-le to hear it.^ which ■would seem to make the method a tender con- cession to slowness of apprehension rather than a means of aggravating it. But, on the other hand, we observe that the (juotatiou is attributed to our Loril in what umst have been the common original of all three Gospels, i.e. in one of our best and oldest sources. Ami wliile such pa.ssages as .In ]2»-ii (where the same i|uolatlon is ajjplied by the evangelist) and Ac 28-^-' (where it is ai)plied by St. l^aul) would show that it was part of the common in-operty of the apostolic age, the fact that it was so would be still more intelligible if the example had been set by our Lord Himself. Nor would it he less but rather more ajipropriate as coming from Hnu, it we regard it as .sunnuing up in a broad way what He felt was ami must be for many of those among whom He moved the final outcome of His iuis.son. 'J'he le.s.son is very similar to that of .In l^*"-"!*. The Son of Man does not need to pass judgment on those who reject Him. His word judges them by an auto- matic proces.s. That which is meant for their life becomes to them an occasion of falling, when from indolence or self-will it makes no impression upon them. This was the actual course of things ; it was a course rendered inevitable by the laws which God had laid down, and which in that .sense might be regarded as designed by Him. And inasmuch as the Son associates Himself with the providential action of the Father, it nught be also spoken of as jiart of His own design. It is so, however, rather in the remoter degree in which, allowing for the contrariaiit action of human wills, whatever is is also ordained, than as directly purposed before the appeal has been made and rejected. It belongs to that department of providential action which
is not priraarj' and due to immeiliate Divine initiative, but secondary or contingent upon human failure.
There is then perhaps sufficient reason to think that the words may after all have been spoken, much as we have tliem, by our l^ord. I?ut grant- ing this, we should still not be forbidilen to surmise that they are somewhat out of place. Siamling where they do they come to us with a shock of siraiige severity, which w.mld be mitigated if they could be j'Ut later in the ministry, where they occur in St. John. The transferi'nce may have been due to the position which the original i)a.s.sage occupies in Isaiah, where it idso serves as a sort of programme of the prophet's mission. There, too, the arrangement m,\y conceivably represent the actual historical order, but it may also rejiresent the result of later experience, which for didactic effect is ])laccd at the beginning of the career rather than at the end.
b. Contents of the Teaching. — There are five distinctive and characteristic topics in the teaching of .lesus —
(1) The Fatherhood of God.
(i) The Kingdom of God.
(.'?) The Subjects or Members of the Kingdom.
(4) The Messiah.
(')) The Paraclete and the Tri-uiuty of God.
With that simplicity which we have seen to be so marked a feature in His teaching, .lesns selects two of the most familiar of all relations to be the types round which He groujis His teaching in regard to God and man — the family and the or- ganized state; God stands to man i]i the relation at once of Father and of King. These two types by no means exclude each other, but each helps to complete the idea derived from the other without which it might be one-sided. At the same time, in different connexions, first one and then the other becomes more prominent. Thus, when stress is laiil ujion the Divine attributes, tiod ap|>ears chietly in the character of Father; when atteiilion is tuiiied to the complex relations of men to Him and to one another, they are more commuidy re- gardid under the figure of a Kingdom.