(2) Jesu^' doctrine of God as Father. — The theo- logy of Jesus set out from the Fatherhood of God. It had been foreshadowed in the OT (Dt 32«, Ps VOL. II. — 23
68=) and later Jewisii literature (Wis 2'*), but was first taught in its unique imi>ortance and fulness by Jesus. It was peculiar to Him because He wsis related as none other to the Father. None but God could know Him, as He alone knew the Father (Mt 11-"^). To Him alone could God apjiear as Father without wrath against sin in Him. This doctrine of God as Father is what was fundament- ally new in the message of Jesus (cf. Bousset, Jcmi Predigt, p. 4 ; Hausrath, NT Times, ii. 146). Through it God appeared everywhere in His love, caring for flowers and sparrows, just and unjust ; beholding .-in and Satan in the world, but stUl declaring it the happy home of Gk>d's children. He here ' broke through, at the most decisive point, the transcendental ascetic spirit of Judaism ' (Bousset, Rclig. Jud. p. 65 ; Baldensperger, 225.; Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, i. cli. 2). This new doctrine of God led to a new doctrine of man's re- lation to Him. If God is Father, then men who come to Him enter into all the liberty of children, but at the same time are lovingly bound to be holy and perfect like God. The confused view of the Pharisees, that the Jew w as partly in national rela- tions to God and partly member of a holy congre- gation, disappears. His blurred hope of partly keeping the Law, partly being resigned to I)iA"ine chastisement, and partly redeemed in a world to come — all resting on merit — is supplanted by a joy- ful gospel of present peace. Instead of the other- worldliness of Pharisaic piety, ^ — an attempt to imitate the transcendent God, — Jesus taught a present joy in a present Father for all men, 'am- huurcz as well as scrite and Pharisee. Here love to God and love to man first met in reality. As the Father in heaven forgives, so men are to forgive ; the latter is the proof of the former. ReHgion and ethics were in perfect harmony. Jesus did teach a certain separation from the world, a selling all to follow Him, a bearing the cross ; but it w as not separation on ceremonial or external grounds ; it was a question of values, a putting the Kingdom of God first that all other things might be added thereto. So sunny and natuial was His relation to the world and common life, that He was at once denounced as a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. Next to the fundamental doctrine that God is our Father, came this second dominating teaching of man's social relation to the world alx>ut him. Here is the great point of dejiartuie from Judaism and the Ghetto, already erected by the Pharisees in Jerusalem, towards Christianity and the gospel of humanity.
2. The Law. — (1) ^Vritten and oral. — This was central for Judaism in the days of Jesus. It was regarded in lx)ih written and oral form a.- coming from God through Moses [Aboth i. ]). It took the place of the God of heaven. Everj- word was inspired, and he who ' gains the Law gains the life of the world to come" (Hilleli. Obedience to Gods Law under the awful Categorical Impei-ative of Sinai, as applied by scribes and Pharisees, was the dominant principle, the yoke ujKjn the neck of the Jews, when Christ api>eared (Ac 15'", Gal 5'). The Oral Law of tradition arose because prophecy ceased ; cases arose not provided for in the 01", and Rabbinical exegesis of the Scriptures sought the cover of ancient names.
(2) Lav: as civil code. — Here especially the OT exegesis and tradition were necessary in using the ; Bible as the source of civil law, when Israel changed from a small pastoral f>eople to l>ecome a world-wide commercial race. The chequered history of centuries under heathen rule broke up many customs, as those of tithes, otierings. Sabbath. Temple service, contact with Gentiles, etc. Hence from Hillel onwards the Pharisees elaborated a
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civil code by means of tradition and exegesis from the Scriptures. The great loss to religion in such a process was in making it largely negative. The Rabbis counted 248 classes of things to be done, and 365 of things forbidden.
(3) Ceremonial law. — This the Pharisees made to touch every detail of human life. They regarded nature and spirit as so related that impurity could pass from one to the other. A bad man's body was impure, and to touch it would bring unclean- ness to another man's soul. Adam's sin extended evil to unclean beasts, and foods, and the dishes holding them. There was no end to this defile- ment and the consequent necessary purification by various kinds of water or by breaking ceremonially the unclean vessels. Twelve treatises of the Mishna deal with this subject. It is said : ' He wlio lightly esteems hand-washing will perish from the earth ' (Sola, 4). Jesus felt the utter superhciality of all this washing of the body while the inner life was unclean. Delitzsch says (Jestts und Hillcl, 1879, p. 23) there is no historical point of departure in the time and land of Jesus for His method of con- trasting the moral with the ceremonial. He here ' turned His back upon the highway of Rabbinical traditions, and opened a path which until then had never occurred to any human heart.'