CHAPTER XXXI

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AS A SOCIAL IDEAL

Ir is important to remember that Jesus did not originate the term "kingdom of God." It was the current phrase of the Messianic expectation. The kingdoms of the tyrants had succeeded one another on the earth; at last there should come a kingdom of God (Dan 2. 44). It was sometimes called the kingdom of the saints (7. 18). Inasmuch as the divine name was avoided among the Jews from motives of reverence, the word "heaven" being substituted, the phrase "kingdom of heaven" was employed as the equivalent of "kingdom of God." It so appears in the Jewish Gospel of Matthew. It does not refer, therefore, to a condition that should exist in heaven, but always to the great new era that was to be constituted on earth. Jesus, in employing the phrase, was addressing himself to the current belief and endeavoring to give ethical quality to that popular notion. It has been suggested that if he were speaking to our own day he might very well speak of the "republic of God."

§ 1. THE SOCIAL CHARACTER OF THE JEWISH CONCEPTION As we have seen in the study of the prophets, they looked forward to an ideal social state, a reign of righteousness which was to come in this world by the transformation of human relations on the basis of a great justice and love. They generally thought of it as taking place in Palestine, though some of them had a wider vision and believed that it should include all the peoples of the earth. After prophecy came apocalypse, less ethical, more supernatural, but still the Messianic hope retained its social character. There

was to be a mighty cataclysm that should end the present era and usher in the new time with extraordinary celestial phenomena "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood" (Joel 2. 30f.). But the apocalyptic Messianic hope was still for a reconstituted earthly life with the old evils and tyrannies removed (3. 18-21).

The disciples of Jesus always expected that he would reestablish an independent Jewish monarchy (Matt 20. 20f.; Mark 10. 35-37; Acts 1. 6). Even the great Christian apocalypse seems to picture the bright future as a reconstructed earth in which a new Jerusalem would be the capital. It was a walled city with open gates, to which the kings of the earth bring presents, to which the glory of all the nations turns, out of which all violence and falsehood have been cast, and where the ills of humanity are healed at last (Rev 21f.). The Jews, therefore, had a very definite social program. They looked for a great prince who should expel the Romans, overthrow the Herods, put an end to all tyrannies and oppression, bring freedom, peace and prosperity, permit every man to dwell under his own vine and fig tree with none to make him afraid. In such a transformed social order they believed that men would live in amity and justice, and the righteousness of God would prevail.

§ 2. JESUS'S EXPERIENCE of the KINGDOM OF GOD

In such an expectancy Jesus grew up. He shared with his neighbors the golden hope of the golden age. But he more and more realized that it was not necessary to wait for the future in order to have many of the blessings which men so eagerly sought. The righteousness of the kingdom of God anyone could have for himself; and, after all, that was the supreme object for which to strive (Matt 6. 33). He eagerly longed to live the kind of life in Nazareth which men dreamed was to be lived in the coming age; and he attained his object (Matt 5. 6). So far as the reign of God was concerned, the victory of right, truth, and love, the con

quest of evil, crookedness, and hate, Jesus found that one could have it in his own life (Luke 17. 21). The satisfaction of doing God's will, and of knowing that he was doing it, was to him like food to a hungry man (John 4. 34).

Jesus realized that his countrymen were making a grand mistake in looking up to the clouds for the kingdom to come down to them, or looking around for some conquering prince to win it for them. Doubtless he believed that only God could give them the perfect social state for which they and he longed. But there was no need to wait for that divine consummation. The life of the Kingdom could be entered upon at once. The supreme good was attainable by anyone that wanted it. Jesus had achieved it for himself. He knew that anyone who would might have it (Luke 17. 20f.). The whole problem was already epitomized in Nazareth, and Jesus saw it more and more as he grew from youth to manhood. The Nazarenes suffered more from one another than from the Romans. It was the hatreds, the vengeance, the lust, the falsehood, the meanness, the dishonesty of the people of Nazareth that spoiled the life of that town. If the Romans and the Herods with all their crew had been expelled, Nazareth would not greatly have been sweetened. A pure, unselfish family life was needed. A fine chastity, honor, and love in the individual soul were needed. Fair and generous business, right neighborliness, charitable judgment, and above all and as a motive for all a genuine confidence in God-these were the needs of Nazareth. And the people could have all these if they would. There was no need to wait for a Messiah. Probably this was the process of thought by which Jesus was led to recognize that all the hopes of the prophets for a Messiah might be better fulfilled through himself.

When the inevitable objection arose in his mind that righteousness and love do not provide food and clothing he looked around him on the world of nature which seemed to speak to him of an infinite care, and he believed that if people

would ever put first of all the search for righteousness, God could be trusted that all necessary things should be added unto them (Matt 6. 33).

What, then, of the Messiah? Jesus saw that the people did not need a prince but a teacher. He would be their Messiah and prepare them for the kingdom of God. He read the prophets and saw the deeper meaning of their words. The Servant of Jehovah, misunderstood and rejected, yet saving his people in spite of their blindness, was to him the prototype of the leadership which the times demanded. He entered, therefore, upon a mission which was a summons to his countrymen to make ready for a kingdom of God on earth by living as the citizens of such a kingdom ought to live.

§ 3. THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND Eternal LIFE Not only was the phrase "kingdom of God" a common expression which Jesus adopted, but the great phrase "eternal life" was also part of the current Messianic vocabulary (Matt 19. 16; Mark 10. 17; Luke 18. 18). Everybody wanted eternal life. By that they meant that they wanted to live through the present age into that coming age when death and disease should be abolished. Or, if they were to die, they wanted to be sure that they would be raised from the dead to share in the glory of the blessed time (Dan 12. 2; John 11. 24).

Jesus experienced eternal life; that is, he experienced the life that belongs to the kingdom of God. He saw that the common idea of an unending life had no ethical significance. It is not quantity of life but quality that is important. Real life is likeness to God (Matt 5. 48). If one feels toward his fellow men as God feels, and acts toward them as God acts, he has become a sharer of God's life. It was part of Jesus's religious experience to believe that such a life possessed the eternal quality. It was good enough to endure (Matt 19. 29; Mark 10. 30). This is the resolution of his

wonderful paradox, "Whosoever would save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it" (Matt 16. 25).

To put Jesus's paradox in modern speech: The only true life is the socialized life. The law of self-preservation here gives place to the higher law of self-dedication. Jesus believed that one could so preserve himself as to lose everything that was worth preserving, and could so sacrifice himself as to achieve a quality of life that would be indestructible. When we press further in our eagerness to know what this social ideal of living may be Jesus goes to the heart of our problems by laying his emphasis upon motive. All politics, office-seeking, personal ambitions, professional jealousies drop away, and the question remains, What is the yearning desire of a man's inmost heart? If that desire is for the highest welfare of his fellow men, he has attained the social attitude of Jesus, he has entered into eternal living; that is to say, the kind of life that is to be lived in the great coming age may be commenced in the present age.

Jesus did not speak in abstract terms about motives. The type of life to which he summoned men is made clear in repeated specific teachings, all of which lay emphasis upon the motive of high social obligation. Among many may be noted the golden rule of justice (Matt 7. 12), the inner attitudes more important than the outward acts, as the murderous quality of anger, and the duty to love enemies (5. 21f.; 44), the inner chastity (5. 28), the defilements of life (Mark 7. 17-23); the importance of supreme loyalty to the highest good (Matt 6. 33), with its striking demand upon the rich young ruler (19. 16-22); the true neighborliness shown by the good Samaritan (Luke 10. 25-37), and parabolically represented in the last judgment (Matt 25. 31-46); the sacrificial quality of duty shown in the devotion of the Good Shepherd (John 10. 1-21), and of the poor widow (Mark 12. 41-44); the awful negation of these attitudes exhibited by the Pharisees (Matt 23; Luke 11. 29-54); the