developed in them by the power of Divine love. So closely i.s future blessedness, the inheriting of the Kingdom, dependent upon present faith and patient persevering eflbrt, that our Lord is careful to warn His disciples that while 'it is ' their ' Father's good pleasure to give ' them ' the king- dom' (Lk 12'=), it is possible for the most highly favoured to come short of it, and ' there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last' (Lk 13» ; cf. Mt 19* 20"'||Mk 10", Mt
2131.32).
4. In this Kingdom the conditions of membership are manifestly of tlie first importance. These are (a) Repentance, and (b) Faith in God and in Jesus Christ wliom He has sent.
Repentance (/xerdi/oia) means a complete and radical change of heart and life, a change so thoroughgoing that it can best be characterized by the word ' conversion,' a turning round. ' Ex- cept ye be converted (trrpix^^re, ' turn '), and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven ' (Mt 18'), is the teaching of Jesus according to the Synoptics, to which His words to Nicodemus in the Fourth Gospel almost exactly correspond : ' Except a man be born again (or 'from above,' &vudev], he cannot see the king- dom of God ' (Jn 3'). Such a complete change as these words imply— ' change of mind' (Mfrctfoia), 'convert,' 'turn round' (iwinTpiipiiv, Mt 13'"), ' new birth ' or ' birth from above ' (yivvT]6^ dvuffef, Jn 3'), is necessary for all, as Jesus shows by ad- dressing His teaching on this theme not only to Pharisees like Nicodemus, but to His own disciples — notably in the parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Mt 18-'"''), in which, in answer to a question of Peter, He likens the condition of all recipients of the Divine formveness to that of a man who owes a debt of ten thousand talents, clearly meaning by that the infinitude of man's obligation to God. So universal and so heinous is sin according to the teacliing of Jesus. Sin springs from the heart (Mt IS^-^oyMk 7'-"--'), from its natural alienation from God, from the infirmity of the fiesh (Mt 26'"|l Mk 14^*). Man is, moreover, tempted to sin by Satan as the author of evil ; thougli Jesus does not teach any special doctrine of sin, or explain how evil first came into existence, but deals only with sin itself as an awful and universal fact. Then, as all are tainted with the universal disease, and as the righteousness which God demands must extend to the whole nature, not merely to word and action but to the heart and motives, it follows that man is lost, unable to save himself, and therefore Jesus descrilses His mission as that of seeking and saving thelost(Mtl8",cf. Lk 19'»). All are thus dependent upon the sovereign pardoning grace of God, and so Jesus says, ' No man can come unto me, excejjt the Father which hath sent me draw him ' (Jn 6"). But that this grace is not restricted in its opera- tion by any hard and fast decree of election, Jesus teaches by the manner in whicli He describes His mission, which is that of seeking the lost ' till he find' them (Lk IS''), and by the universal call which He addresses to the weary and heavy-laden (Mt 11=8).
While we may for convenience' sake distinguiNli between Repentance and Faith, Jesus so presents them as to represent Faith as the source of Re- pentance, the one involving the other and leading to it. Thus, to take one illustration, the re- pentance which in His conversation with Nico- demus He describes as a new birth, is spoken of in the same discourse as the result of an act of faith in Himself, which He likens to the simple look directed by the dying Israelites to the Brazen Serpent whicli Moses lifted up in the wilderness (Jn S"). As Weiss has well put it {Bib. Theol. of the NT, i. 97)—
DOCTRINES
DOCTRINES
' The new revelation of God which is brought in the message concerning the Kingdom of God spontaneously works the re- pentance which Jesus demands. God does not demand that man should meet Him ; He Himself meets man with gracious- ness, and thereby does the utmost that lies in His power to make man capable of the repentance in which He has His greatest joy (Lk ISJ-lii). He does not make Hie revelation of salvation dependent upon the conversion of the people, as in the preach- ing of the prophets ; He will work this conversion by the reve- lation of His grace.*
Thus, in the Gospel of John, Jesus makes faith in Himself the condition of salvation : ' He that believeth hath everlasting life ' ( Jn \^) ; and in line with such declarations is that doctrine, character- istic of the Johannine discourses, which seems to represent faith as knowledge, the acceptance of the testimony of the Son of God (Jn S'*'-). All that this means is that to accept Christ's testi- mony, and to accept Christ Himself as the revela- tion of the Divine grace, is to become a child of God and a member of the Kingdom of God.
Again, Jesus demands not only faith and re- pentance, but insists as strongly as Jolm the Baptist or the prophets of the OP upon tlie im- portance of living proofs of faith, and of fruits meet for repentance (Mt 3»-"llLk 3'^-, Mt 7-'-" II Lk 6"'^). Christ's disciples must prove their con- version and their right to the privileges of the Kingdom of God by their ' moral imitation of their Heavenly Father'; sonship must show itself by tlie family likeness. But as that ideal is far beyond tlie possibility of present attainment, the Christian life is described as a steep and narrow path, to press along wliich requires constant eHbrt and unremitting watchfulness and prayer (Mt 7i3-2> II Lk 13=^ e-"! ; Mt 7"-=' II Lk e"-").