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it, as future. 'Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven' (Mt S^°). 'Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the'world ' (Mt 25*0 • More-over, a very large portion of His teaching is concerned with the manner of the establishment of the Kingdom in the last days, and with the sublime events by which it is to "be ushered in and established.

The time of the Consummation, Jesus declared, was unknown even to the SonCMk IS^^j ^ but it would be heralded by various signs — persecution, apostasy, the preaching of the gospel throughout the world (Mt 24) . Upon this would follow the return of the Son of Man, who would come in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory (243" 2531; cf. Mk 14^2). The immediate purpose of the Return is to sift the righteous and the wicked, to execute judgment upon the enemies of God, and to gather together the elect from the four winds (Mt 2429ff.). Thereafter there is estab-lished a Kingdom which cannot be moved, in which the blessed enjoy all that is promised them, in the love of God. The scene appears to be laid on earth (Mt 6'*). So far as the picture is elaboratedj it is by utilizing the tones and the colours of earthly expenence, as well as familiar forms of dignitjj, power, and enjoyment (Mk 10*" 1425, Mt gu). At the same time the spiritual blessings are of course the chiefest (Mt 5^), and the transfiguration of the natural is suggested in a significant particular (Mk 12^).

(iii) Relation of the two aspects of the Kingdom. — ^There are three main views as to tne relation of the two sets of utterances about the Kingdom; they may be distinguished as the traditional, the liberalj and the eschatological.

(a) According to the traditional view, both groups of sayings are authentic, and are easily combined into a consistent whole. Jesus could say that the Kingdom was present in respect that it had come, and future in respect that it had not yet fully come in power and glory. Its history falls into two stages, one of which is now under the dispensation of the Spirit, the other to come in stupendous acts of judgment and mercy at the Second Advent.

(6) The liberal view of modem theology is that the escha-tological outlook of Jesus was borrowed from, or accom-modated to, temporary forms of Jewish thought, and that the valuable and enduring element Is the conception of the ICingdom as entering into the life of mankind in this world, growing in range and power, and destined to permeate society and all its institutions with its Divine spirit. From this ^oint of view the Second Coming, the central event of the History, is to be understood as a spiritual return which has been takingplacein theevents of history from Pentecost down to the present hour. Similarly the Last Judgment is interpreted as a continuous process which runs parallel with the history of nations and churches. That this view has some support in the Fourth Gospel must be admitted. The return of which Christ there speaks with much fulness is the mission of the Spirit, and the Judgment which is before the mind of the Evangelist is almost always the judgment which issimultaneous with character and conduct. There may even be claimed for it some support from the Synoptic teaching — as in the dating of the Return ' from now' (Mt 26"), and the distinction of 'days of the Son of Man ' (Lk 17^), and also in the association of the Second Coming with the destruction of Jerusalem (Mt 24). But on the whole it must be said that the attempt to impute the purely spiritual conception to Jesus is unhistorical. It may be argued that His sayings are examples of prophecy, and that theology has a warrant to recast prophetic sayings in new forms . But it can hardly be gainsaid that Jesus thought of the Return as a definite event, visible and impressive, which would challenge the attention of all mankind, and involve acts that would revolutionize the order of our world.

(c) Some modem scholars hold that the distinctive teach-ing of Jesus was that the Kingdom was a supernatural Kingdom, to be established by Divine power at His Second Coming, and that the references in the Gospels to a present Kingdom, with a gradual development are either illusory or unauthentic (J. Weiss, Die Fredigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes). On this view Jesus claimed to be the Messiah only in the sense that He looked forward to becoming the Messiah. He was, like John the Baptist, a forerunner, but with the difference that the future Messiah to whom He bore witness was the Jesus of the Second Advent. The textual evidence which supports the view that Jesus foimded a present Kingdom, of God on earth before His death is discounted on the ground that an event which is imminent may be intelligibly said to be present. Thus the confession at CsBsarea Philippi is to be taken prolepti-cally: it merely meant that Peter believed that He was the Messiah designate, or the heir to the office. * Jesus departed

JESUS CHRIST

this life with the consciousness that the Kinedom was not yet established' (J. Weiss). The parables which speak of a gradual development of the Kingdom of God are ex-plained either as having been interpolated or as teaching a different lesson. But this accentuation of the escha-tological aide of our Lord's teaching is hardly likely to be accepted, as Schweitzer claims, as an assured result of criticism. If even in the OT the Jewish State was some-times conceived of as the present Kingdom of God, and if the Rabbinical theology sometimes spoke of the Kingdom of God as a power to be yielded to now, it is difficult to see whyjesuashouldnot have entertained the similar conception which iscontained or implied in the texts quoted. Above all, it is impossible to beueve that Jesus, who taught that the highest blessings are enjoyed in communion with God, did not hold that the Kingdom was present among those who experienced His love and who obeyed His wllT

B. The Heavenly Father and His Children. — It may be doubted if the teaching of Jesus is most satis-factorily set forth under the forms of the Kingdom. The diflficulty even of the traditional conception, the doubts as to the correctness of this conception which have been referred to, and also the transitoriness of types of political constitution, suggest that the organizing idea may better be sought In another sphere. As a fact the central conceptions of His reUglous and ethical teaching are borrowed not from the political, but from the domestic sphere. When it Is said that 'one Is your Father,' and that 'all ye are brethren' (Mt 23*- »), we have the de-scription of a family. To the writer it therefore seems that the teaching is best expounded under the rubric of the Heavenly Father and His children, or the holy family, and in what follows we shall con&ne ourselves mainly to the elucidation of the heads of this gospel of Divine and human love.

(1) The Heavenly Father. — Christ could take for granted in His hearers the elements of the knowledge of God set forth in the OT, as one God, all-powerful, aU-wlse, all-holy, aU-good. This splendid spiritual inheritance He enriched by the content of His doctrine of God as the Heavenly Father. The name, indeed, was not new. Even the Greeks spoke of Zeus as the father of gods and men; while in not a few OT passages God is hkened to and even named a Father. For the Greeks, however, the Fatherhood of God hardly meant more than that He was the God of Creation and Providence, while in OT thought God, as Father was the protecting God of Israel, or the Father of the Messianic King. On the hps of Jesus the name meant that God was the Father of Individual men, who lavished upon each the utmost resources of a Father's wise and tender care. It may, in fact, be said that if we study human fatherhood at its best, note every lovely and gracious feature which is realized or adumbrated in an earthly home, and then attribute these in perfected form to the heart and the will of the Almighty, we discover the heads of the teaching of Jesus concerning God.

The relation of an earthly father to his children Involves at least seven points — to him they owe their existence, from him they borrow his nature and likeness, he provides for their wants, he educates and disciplines them, he holds intimate Intercourse with them, he is graciously disposed to forgive their offences, and he makes them his heirs. AU this, now, Jesus has afSrmed of God in relation to men. The first two points — that it is He that made us, and not we ourselves, and that we are made in His image — were articles of OT doctrine which He did not need to emphasize; though it may be pointed out that His conception of the infinite value of the Individual soul had its roots in His belief that man bears the image of the Heavenly Father. The other points mentioned are quite explicitly emphasized.

(a) God provides for the wants of His children. He is aware of their bodily wants (Mt 6^): the God who feeds the fowls and clothes the liUes will not suffer His children to be in want. This, in fact. Is deduced directly from the idea of fatherhood. ' If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much

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