To the question of Pilate, 'Art thou the King of the Jews ? ' Jesus ans\\crs, according to Mk 15^, neither yea nor na;/, but reiilies only in the words 'Thou sayestit.' Is this an affirmative? St. Mark certainlyVcMarded it as such (cf. 14''=), but St. Luke
shows under- them ; 'I liir the tl of sed
words were not so if ho had regarded could not have said, ■j:;'i: a claimant to :i\ .■ Iini II ronvicted
first replied evaMxch a- .,a.-iio,i (Is^^'"'), but
that afterwards He liankU aMmid His cKaim to the title of King, tlimi.jli w iih llm reservation that His Kingdom was 'not of this world ' (IS^i"). Even more clearly than in the Synojitists we see in St. John's account a definite purpose : he aims at showing that Jesus was no political usurper, no pretender to the crown, who designed by force of
arms to de Rome, and
Notwithsta
'I'lia! .h Davidn- nn-i giving. To take the Ki countenance, multitude, ti
from the thraldom of lie dynasty of David. ions tendency of the
1, we must .erant that in
.,i,,ill\ will, those of the
i |ll\ nillhflll to fact. ; " --1 le^ioringthe
olic\ oi the violent, who would 1 liy lone (Mt 11'=), He lent no wlicii, after the feeding of the anted to make Him a King, he
932
KING
KINGDOM OF GOD (OR HEAVEN)
betook Himself elsewhere (Jn 6'^). We shall be asked, however, if He did not, on the occasion of His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, carefully organize and carry through a demonstration de- signed to further His roj-al claims. In answer to this it is to be said that St. Mark's account of the episode (11") cannot be taken as historical; and ■we must either accept the narrative of Jn. (12'-*-), according to which the demonstration emanated from His supporters among the people and was only permitted by Him, and which weakens the impression of the incident by its quotation from Zee 9' ; * or else we must abandon the hope of winning from the event any light for our theme at all. Had the Triumphal Entry been of such capital importance and of such a striking character as St. Mark represents, the authorities would cer- tainly have intervened, and the matter would have figured in the trial of Jesus as a count in the indictment [but see ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM].
In the discourses of Jesus we find telling argu- ments, both positive and negative, in favour of the view that He either made no claim whatever to the title of Slessianic King, or that He did so in a most unobtrusive way. To His descent from David, if He gave it credence at all, He did not attach the slightest importance ; indeed, He even sought to convince the scribes that in regarding the coming Messiah as the Son of David they fell far short of the truth. To all appearance He desired to eradicate from the minds of His hearers the prevailing idea of a Davidic ruler, and to sub- stitute for it another Messianic figure, viz. the 'Son of Man,' the 'Man' who, as Daniel (7'") had prophesied, was to come in the clouds of lieaven at the end of the age. This ' Son of Man ' is no eartldy monarch, but a Being of Divine and Iieavenly nature ; not one who by means of a revolution rises from his native obscurity to a throne, but one who descends from heaven to earth. With such a figure dominating the outlook of Jesus, there is no place for a Messianic King. It is thus quite in keeping with these facts that He announces, not that God is about to send forth the Messiah, the Son of David, not that the kingdom of David is at Iiand, but that ' the kingdom of God is at hand.' Tlie inir]3ort of this message has been dealt with fl-uwlirn-:! suliire it t» say here, that the an- nMuuciiiiiiit of :i idsniical catastrophe, of a new jMii, ill wlii. ]i till' cxistiiii; sway of Satan shall be
..truy,.
lie all in all, is intrinsi-
cally incompatible with the idea of a Messianic King standing side by side with the Most High. Nor do the prophecies of Daniel, when rightly interpreted, present us with the figure of a Messiah. Hence xt is by no mere accident that in tli'' \itt.T uices of Jesus the title 'King' i~ ainiliiil \., (I mI ;ilcine: ef. Jerusalem 'the city oi' the .L:i'L'at kin- (Mt 5'^), the parable of tlie Unmerciful .Servant (IS-^) ; and in particular, the parable of the Marriage Feast (22'"-), where the Messiah appears as the King's son. It is only in the description of the Last Judgment (2.5") that the 'Son of Man' appears as King — note the abrupt change vv.^*-"' ; probably, however, we have in tliis passage remi- niscences of some older parable, which had to do with a king and not \vith the Messiah at all. Only on one recorded occasion (Lk 22-'') does Jesus inve.st Himself with the /SoffiXcia, but that is for the future. This occurred, according to Lk., during the Last Supper, — a circumstance which leads us to infer that Jesus did not in any sense regard Himself as being a king in the days of His flesh. What He has in prospect here is simply a participation in the Divine Sovereignty, a preroga- tive guaranteed also to those who accept Him.