M8
KIXGDOM OF GOD
KINGDOM OF GOD
luiles to this representation are found in the psalms which depict tlie sull'crings that fall upon the godly (Ps5-14. 22, etc.), and in the historical exani[)les which show it to be a universal law that the righteous must suH'cr at the hands of the wicked, iis well as with and for them [e.g. Joseph, Moses. David) ; but the Lsaianic conception goes beyond all others in attributing to these sufferings of the Servant an expiatory character, and connecting them with the sin-ollering (Is SS'"-" ; cf. Zee 13'- '). As respects the future form of the kingdom of God, it is always represented, in characteristically OT fashion, as reaching its triumph in conjunc- tion with a restoration of Isr. or tlie remnant of it (Is 6", Am 9''" etc.), purified by judgment, converted and reunited (e.g. Ezk 37, Kos 1"), and with a revival of the earlier institutions (Is l**"", 4) ; while the nations, brought to the knowledge of the true God by the displays of His power and mercy, are either incorporated with the chosen people as sharers of their privileges (Ps 87), or Decome worshippers and tributaries of J" (Ps 72'°- "• ", Is 60, Mai 1" etc.). But the sense of the surpassing greatness of the reality constantly tends to break throuijh the literalism of these forms, and to mould them into new shapes (Is 2^- ', Jl 3'*'^', Ezk 47, etc.). The one thing sure on the verge of every horizon is — ' The kingdom shall be J"3' (Ob '^).
There is, however, one other respect in which we can see, in this prophetic period, a distinct pre- paration for the NT idea of the kingdom of God. In the earlier stages of the theocracy, nation and Church — if we may so speak — were one. The Israelite was a member of the theocracy in virtue of birth and circumcision. The religious conscious- ness and the national consciousness were part of the same inseparable whole. But in the progress of Isr. history we observe a development which forms the necessary transition to the more spiritual idea of the kingdom in NT. It is the idea of the Church ifithin the Church — of the true and spiritual Isr. in the midst of the natural Isr., who form a distinct, or at least distinguishable, body by themselves. There are earlier intimations, but in the form we have here especially in view, the growth of this idea belongs more particularly to the last dark days of the national history, when it became clear to prophetic eyes that Isr. as a people was doomed to destruction, and the efforts of the prophets were directed to gather out a remnant who might maintain the witness to God till better times came. A marked stage in this transition is seen in the ministry of Isaiah, who, when his message was rejected, gathered round him the little band of his own disciples, and sealed up the testimony in their midst (Is 8"'", cf. Mai 3''). It is this 'ecclesia invisiblis of the Old Covenant,' as Oehler calls it, — this 'ecclesiola in ecclesia,' as Delitzsch names it, — which may be regarded as the germ of the Church-idea proper. W. R. Smith perhaps states it better than any. ' The formation of this little community,' he says, ' was a new thing in the history of religion. Till then, no one had dreamed of a fellowship of faith dissociated from all national forms, maintained without the exercise of ritual services, bound together by faith in the divine word alone. It was the birth of a new era in OT religion, for it was the birth of the conception of the Church, the first step in the emancipation of spiritual religion from the forms of political life — a step not less sisnificant that all its consequences were not seen till centuries had passed away' (Prophets of Israel,
The collapse of the Jewish state in Isr. and Judah seemed to have laid the hope of the kingdom of God in ruins ; but events proved that this hope was now strong enough to live on its own account.
and the Bubi/luniaii Exile only tended to its fnithel enlargement and strenytliening. Torn from theil roots in their own land, without holy city, temple, sacrifices, the people were taught that the accept- able worship of J" was not tied to any one place, or dependent on a fixed priesthood or ntual ; brought into contact with the world, in a geo- graphical respect, to an extent they had never been before, they gained a new view of the exten- sion of the world in space, which carried with it an extension of their idea of the time involved in the Divine plans. A new element entered the thoughts of the Jews at this period which never afterwards left it — an enlarged sense of the scale of things in space and time, the effect of which is seen in the enlarged scale of vision of tijo Bk. of Daniel (whatever its date), and even of the reveries in such apocalyptic compositions a,s the Bk. of Enoch. More than any book of OT the prophecy of Daniel gave definite shape and direc- tion to the conception of a kingdom of the God of heaven, granted by the Ancient of Days to one like unto a son of man, who comes to receive it with tlie clouds of heaven, which kingdom was an e\erlasting dominion that could not be destroyed (Un 7''"'*, cf. ch. 2"; 'son of man' as opposecl to ' beasts' ; human, not bestial). The interpretation of this symbol as referring to a kingdom 'given to the saints of the Most High ' (7^- ") need not ex- clude a Messianic reference ; this, at least, is most generally held to be the source of the title ' Son of Man' as used by our Lord (found also in the Bk. of Enoch 46^ 48^ etc., both references prob- ably of Christian origin). This kingdom of God in Dn wliicli is to succeed the last of the four world kingdoms, and break in pieces all the others (2S4.35.«-«; cf. 7" "), is of supernatural origin, of holy character, strictly universal in its scope, and endures for ever. The other writings of post-ex. Judaism (Bar, Ps.-Sol, 1 Mac, pseudo-Sibyllines, etc.) never rise to the height of these older representations, and mostly fall far below them into tame generalities, borrowed from passages in psalms and prophets, without any outlook towards the saving of the Gentiles, or discernment of the need of a spiritual conversion of the people. The Messiah, so far as He is brought into view at aU, appears only to destroy the wicked, and establish His kingdom with the righteous (cf. Candlish, Kingdom of God, pp. 88-117 ; Stanton, Jewish and Christian Messiah, passim). We are thus taken back to the return from exile imder Zenib. and the outburst of genuine prophecy connected there- with (Hag, Zee), and to the strains of Mai a century later, as the period of the last great utterances on the kingdom of God in OT. 'These add little to the features already sketched, beyond the note of warning and expectation of the coming of the Messenger of the Covenant to His temple, preceded by the sending of Elijah, with wliich Malaclii closes (3' 4°). It is difficult not to feel, though centuries intervene, in passing from OT to NT, as if the evangelist had taken up his pen precisely where Malacni laid his down. The chief phenomena of these intervening centuries — so far as they are not absolutely a blank to us — the rise of scribism, of the synagogue worship, of the Jewish sects, the Maccaboean struggle, the dis- persion, the fu.sion of Greek and Jewish thought in Alexandria, — yield little directly for the develop ment of the idea of the kingdom of God, though in many indirect ways their inttuence was pro- found, sometimes in narrowing and despiritualiz- ing the conception, and giving it a Pharisaic and political complexion, and again, through the syna- gogues and contact with Hellenic culture, pre- paring the way for a freer and more universal religion. The one fact which stands out clear \a