KINGDOM OF GOD
KINGDOM OF GOD
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that in the time of our Lord neither Plinriaee, nor Sadducee, nor Essene, had any hold of a concep- tion of the kingdom wliich answered to the deep, spiritual, vital import of the idea in OT. The few who cherished more worthy views were to he sought for in the private circles of the pious who talked of these things (Mai 3'"), and 'looked for redemption in Jerusalem ' (Lk 2-"- "). The idea of the kingdom of God in its 8i)iritual meaning had to be recovered, or more properly rfiscovered, in a worldly, legalistic, Sadducean age. To brine it again, with the force of a new revelation, before the minds of men, in union with the call to repent- ance, was the task of John the Baptist. Then, when the time was fulfilled, Jesus came, preticbing the gospel of the kingdom (Mk 1").
II. The Teaching OF Jesus on the Kingdom OF God. — 1. Here we may first glance at the rela- tion of JesoB to His forerunner. St. Matthew informs ns that John came preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, and saying, ' Kepent ye : for ^he kingdom of heaven is at hand ' (Aft 3'). Else- where this expression is not put in the mouth of the Baptist ; but there is no doubt from the tenor of his message, and from the declarations of Jesus regarding him (Mt 11"*""), that the kingdom was the burden of his preaching. Through him a revivification of the idea took place in the minds and consciences of the people, and the greatest commotion was created by his proclamation that the kingdom was just at hand (Mt 3'- •, Mk 1°). But the kingdom announced by John was some- thing very diSerent from the political kingdom of Pharisaic expectation. He revived the terrors, warnings, and predictions of the later OT prophecy, and gave them a forcible and immediate applica- tion to his own times. He struck at the root of the delusion that mere descent from Abraham would avail for entrance to the kingdom; pro- claimed the need of repentnnce and changed conduct as the condition of forgiveness, declared the imminence of judgment, and a sifting of good from bad at Messiah's njii>earance (Mt S'"'", Lk 3''*). The kingdom he announced was ethical in its demands (Lk 3'"'"), was connected with the person of a Coming One, who should execute the work of judgment, and also baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Mt, Mk, Lk), and was immediatelj to be expected. John wa.s fully conscious of his own inferiority, and of the impotence of his water- baptism to elVect a real change of heart in the multitudes who resorted to him, and his hope was therefore placed in this Greater One, who had the baptism of the Spirit (Jn I"'"). The question, then, arises : Was Jesus from the first conscious that He was this Greater One whom John had
Eroclaimed, or did He begin His ministry, as some ave contended {e.g. Colani and Kenan), only as a disciple and imitator of the Ba|itist? That the former view is tlie correct one would be, of course, put beyond doubt, if the intimations of the Fourth Gospel were accepted (Jn l*"-**- *>" 3. 4-* etc.) ; but the Synoptics, also, in their narratives of the relations of John and Jesus at the baptism (Mt 3 •"" and parallels), of the temptations (Mt4''" and parallels), wliich would have no meaning unless Jesus wius consciously entering on Ilia work as Messiah, of the earlv use by Jesus of the title 'Son of Man' (Mk '2'° etc.), and by many other indications, show plainlj' that this is the right view to take. (Haldenspoiger cnn only get over the use of ' Son of Man, which he also accepts as a Messianic title, by arbitrarily a-ssumiiig that all the inciilcnts In which this name occurs took jilaco after Peter's confession — a violent and unwarrantable hypothesis, Selbstheu'iutstsein Jem', p. 25'J). How this consciousness of His Messiah- chip was developed in Jesus is a (juestion which
vol. II. — OL
lies bej'ond our present limits. It was p.ainly there from the period of the baptism, and we have earlier indications of its presence (Lk 2", see below). We take it, therefore, as a datum to start from, that when Jesus be^an to preach the gospel of the kingdom He already knew Hia vocation to be its Founder and its Lord.
2. The relation of the Bapti.st to OT prophecj (Jit 11"-'*), and the historical connexion of Jesus with John, make it evident that, in announcing the approachinfj advent of 'the kingdom of heaven,' Jesus had m view the very kingdom which the prophets had foretold. We have alreadj' seen that this precise expression is not met with in OT (most nearly in Dn 7"-i8.a), but Jesus in many places unmistakably takes over the OT theocratic idea (Mt 8"-" 21" 22'>-«> etc.). This suggests the further question as to our Lord's own customary designation for this divine kingdom. In Mt, with but four exceptions (ch. G" is an incorrect reading), the phrase employed is always 'the kingdom of heaven'; wlKjreas the other Go.spels and the remaining books of NT have uniformly 'the kingdom of God.' Which was Christ's own expression, or did He use both? (so Bruce). The contrast between Mt and the other Gospels, even in parallel pa.s.sages, compels us to suppose that one is more original than the other, and the question is which. Some (as Weiss) prefer • kingdom of God,' but preponderating rea-sons seem to be in favour of the form in Mt. There is reason to believe that the phrase d;:;?* niD^5 (rule [Dalm. Worte Jesu, 11 ff.] of the heavens) was a current expression in Rabbinical circles (see pas.sage» in Lightfoot and Wetstein on Mt 3^ ; and especinlly Schoettgen on Mt U'"); and there is probability in the conjecture that this may have been the form employed by our Lord in His ordinary Aramaic preaching (not necessarily to the ex- clusion of an occasional use of the other), and that, in translating into Gr., the evangelists may either, as in our existing Mt, have retained this Heb. formula, or have (as in Mk, Lk, etc.) ren- dered it by its equivalent, more suitable to Gen- tiles— ' tlie kingdom of God.' This is further supported by comparison with the language of the Lord's Prayer (Mt e"-", Lk 11»). No distinc- tion in meaning of any importance can fairly be established between the two expressions, winch denote the kingdom as, on the one hand, God's, ami, on the other, heavenly in its origin, aims, and end. ' The kingdom of heaven, as appears from the prophecies of Daniel, is the kingdom of the Messiah ; while the Lord's Praj-er teaches us that it is the kingdom of tiod's Spirit, in which the will of man is made conformable to the will of God— a kingdom which comes from heaven, is heaven on earth, and ends in heaven' (Lange on Mt 3').