i. Indications of a visible Church.
1. In the teaching and actions of Christ : (a) the Messi-
anic claim and the Kingdom of God ; (6) the body of disciples ; (c) the institution of sacraments
2. In the earliest period of Christian history, ii. Characteristics of the Church.
1. L"nit\' ; (a) essential and transcendental ; tp) taking
outward expression ; (c) imperfect
2. Holiness.
3. Catholicity.
4. Apostolicity : (a) doctrine ; (6) worship ; (c) discip-
Note.— The \
i. Indications of a visible Church. — 1. In the Teaching and Actions of Christ.— («) Relation of Christ to the Messianic Hope and the Kingdom of God. — The idea of a covenant relation between God and man is found in the earliest records of the Hebrew race. Covenants were at first made with indiWduals and families ; but with the beginning of Jewish nationality there is a consciousness of a peculiar relation between the nation and Jehovah. The idea of a national God was, of course, shared by the Jews with all the nations with which they came into contact ; but as their conception of the Deity advanced, and their religion developed through monolatry into a pure monotheism, the idea of Jehovali as a national God passed into the idea of the selection of Israel by the one God of all the earth for a special destiny and special privi- leges. Thus the Jewish religion was a religion of hope, and its Golden Age was in the future. This
CHURCH
national hope became closely associated in thought with the kingiloni, — at first the actual kingdom, and then the kingdom to be restored in the future. After the fall of the actual kingdom, the idea of the future kingdom became, to a great extent, idealized, and in close connexion with it there "rew up the expectation of a personal Messiah. It is not necessary for the present purpose to inquire when this expectation first becomes apparent, or to trace the gi-owth of the Messianic hope in detail. The important fact is that at the time of Christ's birth Israel as a nation was looking for a kingdom of God and a Messianic King. With many, perhaps with most, the expectation may have been mainly that of an independent and powerful earthly kingdom ; but the remains of Jewish literature in the last century before Christ show that the more spiritually minded Jews un- doubtedly looked for a kingdom which would in- deed have Jerusalem for its centre, and of which the faithful Jews would be the nucleus, but which would also be world-wide and spiritual in character. It must also be noticed that the doctrine of a Rem- nant, which had taken strong hold of the Jewish mind since the time of Isaiah, had accustomed them to think of a community of the faithful, within and growing out of the existing nation, who should in a special sense be the heirs of the promises.
The most conspicuous feature in the teaching of Christ, as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels, is un- doubtedly His claim to be the Messiah, and His announcement of the coming of the Kingdom of (iod. In using these terms, He must have intended to appeal to, and to a great extent to sanction, the ideas and hopes of those whom He addressed. And yet it very soon became plain that the king- dom \\ Inch He preached was something very dill'er- ent from anything that the most spiritual of the .lews had conceived. The old Jewish kings had led the people in war, they had judged them in peace, they had levied tribute ; but these functions Christ expressly disclaimed. He would not allow His followers to think of appealing to force (Mt 26'-), He repudiated the idea of being a ruler or a judge of ordinary contentions (Lk 12'^), He ac- cepted the payment of tribute to an alien potentate as a thing indifferent (Mk 12"). But, on the other hand, the great acts which Jeho\ah Himself had performed for the Jewish nation, in virtue of which He Himself had been reganled as their King, Christ performed for a new nation. Jehovah had called Abraham and the patriarchs, and had at- tached them to Himself by intimate ties and covenants, and out of their see<l had formed a nation which He ruled ; and, in the second place. He had given this nation His own law. So Christ called from among the Jews His own disciples, from whom He required an alisolute personal de- votion, and to them He delivered a new law to fulfil or supersede the old (Mt 5"). See, fui'ther, art. Kingdom of God.
What is the relation of the Kingdom of God to the Church .?— The two things are not simjjly iden- tical, and the predominant sense of the Kingdoni in the NT appears to be rather that of a reign than of a realm. But these two ideas are i'i)ni]ilement- ary, and the one imjilics tlic nllnr. Sunu'limes it is hardly possible tod isli null i-li lirlwi-.n ilieni. It maybe true that 'l.y llie \M,rA-- llir Kingdom of God our Lord denotes ikjI so imirli His .lisciples, whether individually or even .i- Iimiihiil: ,i ...lie,' tivu body, as something a\1ihI, iImv ivn-iie - .-i state upon which they enter li;..l.ei i-,,ii. /.'' iiuiuii Del) ; but at the same time the whole liistury ol the growth of the idea of the Kingdom led, naturally, to the belief that the Kingdom of God about which Christ taught would be expressed and realized in a society. The teaching of Christ about the King-