scendent views of His contemporaries than to the more earthly ideals of the earlier prophets.
And yet it is at this very point that the origin- ality of Jesus' teaching is most clearly apparent. To the Jews of His day the transcendence of the Kingdom meant its removal from all contact with present life. Just because their ideal was essenti- ally worldly, involving the hope of earthly triumph and prosperity, did they despair of its realization under existing oonditions, and refer it wholly to the future. To Jesus, on the other hand, the Kingdom was in a true sense present already (Mt 12^, Lk 11", cf. Lk 10'», and comments of Holtz- mann, Neuted. Dieol. i. pp. 217, 218; LkH-"-'' 'The Kingdom of tiod is within you,' or, ' in your midst ' ; also the references to those who are already in the Kingdom, Mt 11", cf. Lk7=», Mk 10", cf. Lk 18'«- ", Mt 23'^ and esp. the parables of the King- dom which represent it as a growth from small beginnings — so the sower, tares, mustard seed, leaven [Mt 13 and parall.], and esp. the seed grow- ing secretly, Mk 4-*"^). Its transcendence is the transcendence of a higher spiritual order (Holtz- mann, I.e. p. 190), which, so far from being incon- sistent witn eartldy conditions, is destined to be realized in and through them. Thus Jesus in- structs Ills disciples to pray for the doing of God's will on earth as it is in heaven (Mt 6"), and declares that wherever men show the (qualities and practise the traits which are characteristic of the heavenly world, there the Kingdom is present in germ (com- pare Mk lO''' with Mt IS*).
The explanation of this change is to be found in Jesus' view of God. At no point had contem- porar3- Judaism departed further from the doc- trine of the OT. The idea of J" as a living God, actively interested in human all'airs, had given place to a concejition purely transcendent. God was thought of as a being remote, inaccessible, mysterious, living in a distant and heavenly world, to be approached only through the mediation of the ceremonial law. In place of this jiurely tran.scen- dent being, Jesus proclaimed a loving Father, pro- foundly concerned in all that atieets His children, watching their all'airs with a tender mterest, in- finitely wise and great indeed, yet inlinitely conde- scending, more ready to give good gifts than earthly fathers to their children (Mt 7"), having a care for Ilia universe so miimte and detailed that not a sparrow falls to the ground without His notice (Mt 10^). To Jesus, as to His contemporaries, God was sttpremely holy ; but, unlike them. He did not hesitate to proclaim this holy God as the model for men's imitation (Mt o"). To Him this world was God's world, anil hence, in spite of all its sin and misery, adapted to be the scene of the realization of Ilis heavenly kingdom. It is in view of such conceptions of the relation of God and man that we must understand Jesus' teaching concerning salvation.
To be saved, according to our Lord, tneans simply to enter upon a life fitted to the children of such a Father — a life whose marks are righteousness, brotherly love, and, above all, trustful dependence upon God ; a life only fully to be realized in the future, when the redeemed shall be relea.sed from earthly limitations, and enter the new conditions of tlie resurrection life (Lk 20**''"'), yet in a true sen.se possible even now for all those who, like Him, have learned to know God as their Father, and, through the life of self-denying service, have entered upon a blessedness which no earthly trial or misfortutie can disturb.
So we find Jesus siicaking of salvation as a present experience, 'lo the sinful woman in the Louse of Simon He declares that her faith hath saved her, and bids her go in peace (Lk 7"*). To Zaccliwiu He says that this day is solvation come
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to his house (Lk 19'). Even in the midst of this present life, with its sorrows and persecutions, tlie rhiUlren of the Kingdom are constantly receiving
food gifts from their heavenly Father (Mt '")• lowever much they may have given up they receive an hundredfold more (Mk 10*'). Through prayer they enter into daily communion with God, and receive the strength and help they need. They have the assurance that no evil can befall them when they put their trust in Him (Mt 6^'"^^). For the earthly fellowship which they have sacri- ficed they receive a .spiritual fellow.ship which is far more .satisfying (^lk IC^ 3*>). From the bond- age of the ceremonial law, with its intolerable yoke, they have entered upon the service of a Master whose burden is light (Mt U*). In the healing of the sick, and especiallj- in the casting out of demons, which is a marlv of their Master's ministry, they see the breaking down of Satan's kingdom, and the beginnings, even on earth, of the era of blessedness which is characteristic of the Kingdom of God (Lk U''" lO'^).
It is in view of sucb a conception that we must understAnd Jesus' teaching in the eschatological discourses. Whatever m.ay be our solution of the critical difficulties involved (for a full discussion see Parousia), we may without hesitation reject the view of those who see in Jesus' teaching simply the echo of the ideaa of contemporary Judaism. Our Lord's view of the King- dom is BO far eschatological that the complete fulfilment of the ideal which He preaches belongrs to the future. But the ideal itself, as essentially moral and spiritual, has a present as well as a future apphcation. To Jesus the hope of the Parousia meant the introduction of no new kind of salvation, but only the complete victory of the principles which He had illustrated in llis own life, and whose embodiment, imperfect and yet real, in the little band of men whom He had gathered about Him, constituted the beginning of His Kingdom. It is indeed in its combination of present and future elements that the originality of Jesus' doctrine of salvation consists. Wendt has well ex- pressed this in his Teaching of Jesu^ when he says that 'the epoch-making advance made by Jesus in His idea of salvation beyond that of the Psalmists and Prophets, as well as of the Jews of His time, consisted in the fact that He not only con- ceived the supreme ideal of salvation as purely supernmndane and supersensuous, — a heavenly, not an earthly ideal, — but also that because of this determination of the ideal He gained a new view of the present world and or the earthly life — a view according to which it is possible for the devout to have even here and now, not merely a certain hope of salvation in the future, but also genuine experiences of salvation in the present ' (ii. p. 1S7, Eng. tr., which, however, gives an inadequate render- ing of the original, i. p. '241 ; cf. the whole passage).