486
DOCTRINES
DOCTRINES
John, sufficient materials to enable us to piece together a scheme of the doctrine of Jesus as He taught it and as it was understood by His im- mediate followers.
It appears most convenient to start, as has been suggested by Weiss, with the doctrine of the Ki>i(j- dom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God.
The former of these expressions is peculiar to the Gospel of , Matthew. The latter is more usual in the NT. Bej-schlag sug- gests that the former wiis that which was most favoured by our Lord Himself(');'. (■>>. i. 41'). However that may be, it has for us the special interest tliat, as .\lford points out, it is common among Rabbinical u rilers, a fact which seems to indicate that it was admirably adapted to illustrate the connexion between the current expectations of the Jews and the message addressed to them first by John the Baptist and then by Jesus, to the effect that the promise whose fulfilment they expected was already in course of being fulfilled. It is the natural link between the
theocrati'- ideas, would sufficiently account for the fact that in the other iJosjiels, specially- designed to meet the wants of the GenLiles, to w honi those ideas were strange and unfamiliar, it gave place to the alternative expression, * Kingdom of God.' Practically, howe\er, the two expressions mean the same thing. The earlier form may possibly, as has been suggested, have been by association so closely connected with the national hope of the jews, and with that selfish exclusiveness which led them to regard themselves as in a peculiar sense the elect people of God, as to seem to countenance the old narrow \iews of Messiah's kingdom, to the prejudice of the more spiritual and catholic teaching of Jesus Himself, which impressed itself the more strongly upon His followers the more successfully thev sought to wm' the Gentiles to the faith of Christ. At the same time, they express at most only different aspects of the same truth— Kingdom of Heaven, as the phrase occurs in the Gospels, denoting a condition of things in which God's will is done on earth as it is done in heaveu, while Kingdom of God refers directly and specially to God as the Sovereign of that
Tliis conception is the central point in Christ's teaching, by reference to which its most charac- teristic features may be most conveniently gathered into a connected system— as its relation to the OT, its revelation of the nature and will of God, its teaching as to the nature and person of Jesus Him- self, its doctrine of man, and of God's scheme for man's salvation. This central theme attracts our notice in the beginning of the Gospels. It is the subject of the preaching of the Baptist and also of Jesus, whose message is briefly summed up in the words, ' The kingdom of God is at hand : repent ye, and believe the gospel' (Mk 1"). The Sermon on the Mount itself starts with the idea of the Kingdom of Heaven, and the same thought is the subject of two successive petitions in the Lord's Prayer, ' Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven ' (Mt 5*- '" II Lk 6™, ]Mt 6'" |[ Lk 11"). The fundamental teachings of Jesus naturally group themselves round this central theme.
1. The Kingdom being the true Israel of God, the first point of doctrine that suggests itself con- cerns the King, the Supreme Kuler of the re- generated people. We have thus, as the words ' Kingdom of God ' indicate, to deal first with Jesim' doctrine of God the Father. Tliis, it is to be care- fully noted, is not a new theology. The God whom Chnst reveals is the God of Abraham, Isaac, anil Jacob (Mk \-2^). That ' God is Spirit,' and can be worshipped only ' in spirit and in truth,' was not first taught to the woman of Samaria (Jn 4^). That principle lies at the root of tlie teaching of the Law and the Prophets. Jesus accepted tliis fundamental doctrine, while at the same time He cleared it from those later speculations which tended to make of it a mere abstraction, or to accentuate the idea of the remoteness and incom- municalileness of the Supreme Being. This He did by describing God, just as the Prophets and the Law had done, as infinitely holy, righteous, and loving. As Sovereign of the kingdom of righteousness and love, God makes holiness and
love the essential laws of His kingdom, and com- mands His subjects to be as Himself. In par- ticular, Jesus laid emphasis upon the Fatherhood of God, and taught His disciples to trust implicitly in the Father's care (Mt 6-^-^* || Lk 12--""'), and to Ijelieve that that care extended to the very details of their daily life ; while He e.xhorted them not only to rely upon and claim His compassion and His forgiving love, but to imitate Him in respect of these attributes, that they might ' be the chil- dren of ' their ' Father which is in heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust' (Mt5«; cf. v.-«, Lk 6»-**).
2. But the Kingdom of God, as Jesus proclaims it, resembles the Old Testament theocracy in this, that the Supreme Sovereign reveals His ivill atid rules His kingdom by One whom He has sent and to whom He has delegated His atithority. This, the hope of Israel, is an ideal which is already realizing itself. The prophecy of the Messiah is fulfilled in the person and work of Him whom God has sent. This is therefore tlie keynote of the gospel, that the Christ is come ' to fulfil all right- eousness' (Mt 3'5), to give effect to every part of the constitution of the Kingdom. Tlius Jesus appears as the Divine legislator. In this capacity He not only, as in His parables, explains and illustrates the principles of His government, but, as in the Sermon on the Mount, appears as the authoritative expositor of the Law of God. He announces that He is come not to destroy but to fulfil the Law and the Prophets (Mt 5"), and in this connexion shows that the Law is not satisfied wth the literal and formal obedience of the Pharisees, but extends to thought and motive ; He warns His disciples that, except their righteous- ness shall exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, they cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven (vv.'*-=") ; and in other passages He says that in the Day of Judgment men shall be judged so strictly that they shall give account of every idle word, and even of any neglect on their part of the law of kindness and compassion towards their neighbours (Mt 11^ 25«).