This aspect of Christ's teaching, whicli is specially prominent in the Sj-noptic Gospels, has been repre- sented by some as constituting the essence of His doctrine. T>iit ajiart from the thought that, ac- cording to this view, the ethical teaching of Jesus would mean the enactment of a new code of religion and morality infinitely more difficult than the old which He professed to explain, it is abun- dantly clear from the Synoptists themselves, no less than from the testimony of St. John, that Jesus lays far more stress upon the subject of His own Person than upon any ethical doctrine or set of doctrines. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as distinctly as in that of John, Jesus lays down as the first condition of membership of the Kingdom the duty of accepting His testimony concerning Himself, and of following Him. As we read in the Fourth Gospel that 'to as many as received him ' Jesus ' gave the right to become children of God' (Jn 1'-), so, according to the testi- mony of all four, tlie Kingdom of God is come in the person of the Messiah (Mt 12-» || Lk 11="). The Person of Christ is the centre of the gospel.
A remarkable feature, indeed, of the Gospels is the fact that the essential Divinity of Christ, and even the express doctrine of His Messiahsliip, ap- pear to have been made in His public teaching the subject of gradual development rather than of direct and explicit teaching. Jesus suffered not the confession of His Messiahsliip by the demons whom He cast out of those who were possessed. And although, when He received the first disciples, John and Andrew, Peter, Nathanael and Philip,
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He accepted their confession that in Him they had found the Messiah (Jn 1*'"'"), it was in but few cases that He declared Himself in so many words to be the Christ of God ; as, for example, in that of His conversation with the woman of Samaria (Jn 4-«) ; again when He declared to His townsmen in Nazareth that Isaiah's prophecy of the Messiah as the great preacher and liealer was fulfilled in Himself (Lk 4-^) ; and again when He answered the doubting question of the Baptist, ' Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? ', by pointing to the testimony of His teaching and of His works of mercy (Mt ll^"" || Lk V^--^). For the rest, Jesus allowed the thought of His Bivine claims to grow in the minds of His disciples, and it was not until within a few months of His death that Peter in their name confessed His Messiahship, when Jesus, in welcoming their faith, expressly declared that it liad come to them hy revelation from God. Neverthe- less, throughout His ministry the personal element was the most prominent feature of His teachin";. From first to last He asked of those to wliom He spoke, not faith in doctrines so much as trust in Himself as the Sent of God who alone could reveal the Father's will.
And, notwithstanding the fact that He left the full recognition of His claims to develop gradually in the minds of His disciples. His testimony con- cerning Himself contained implicitly all the ele- ments of a complete revelation of His Divine claims. Tlius He familiarized His disciples with the use of names and titles, as ' Son of Man,' ' He who should come,' ' Son of God,' ' the Sent of God,' 'the Holy One of God,' 'the Christ,' which, they gradually came to recognize as indicative of those claims. (See also Names and Titles of Christ).
3. Witli regard to the Kingdom itself, Jesus spoke of it noio as a present thing, again as that which should be realized in the future. So He said at one time, ' Theirs is the kingdom of heaven ' (MtS'-'"), and again, 'Neither shall they say, Lo here ! or, lo there ! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you' (Lk 17°')- Again He spoke of the Kingdom as future, and that in connexion with the final coming, the Parousia, of the Son of Man ; so in the parables of the Great Supper (Lk 14'^- -*), of the Marriage Feast (Mt 22i-"), of the Ten Virgins (Mt 25'-^'). In this there was no real contradiction, for the central conception of the Kingdom is that of a gradual development, the future growin" out of the present. We recognize this in several con- spicuous parables, and no less in the practical means which Jesus adopted of founding and de- veloping His Church, notably in His choice and training of the Twelve as the nucleus of that society of which the Kingdom should consist. Of the former, the most important in this connexion are the parables of the Sower (Mt IS'-^'jl Mk 4'-=<'|| Lk 8'-'=), of the Seed growing secretly (Mk 4=«-=9), of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven (Mt IS''-**!! Mk 4™-»2). In these the obvious thought is that the Kingdom is already here, but only in germ, a secret, but a present and a growing thing, the com- plete realization of which only the day of the Lord shall declare. The Kingdom is thus not such as the common acceptation of the Messianic hope had led Israel to expect, a thought of which even the disciples found it hard to disabuse their minds — an external condition of society into which they should one day be ushered as a matter of favour- itism or of covenant right, and in which there were places of pre-eminence which could be the objects of earthly ambition, or a condition of tem- poral benefit which could be enjoyed in the future irrespective of spiritual fitness. Instead of this it is a spiritual blessing, the gift of God to receptive souls, for the individual and for the community of believers a condition of heart and life gradually