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Foreign Religious Series 
 
 Edited by 
 R. J. COOKE, D. D. 
 
 Secohd Series. i6mo. cloth. Each 40 cents, met. 
 
 DO WE NEED CHRIST FOR 
 
 COMMUNION WITH GOD ? 
 
 By Professor Ludwig Lemme, of the University 
 of Heidelberg 
 
 ST. PAUL AS A THEOLOGIAN 
 
 (two parts) 
 By Professor Paul Peine, of the University of Vienna 
 
 THE NEW MESSAGE IN THE TEACHING 
 
 OF JESUS 
 
 By Professor Philipp Bachmann, of the University 
 
 of Erlangen 
 
 THE PECULIARITY OF THE RELIGION 
 
 OF THE BIBLE 
 
 By Professor Conrad Von Orelli, of the University 
 of Basle 
 
 OUR LORD 
 
 By Professor K. Miiller, of the University of Erlangen 
 
The New Message in 
 the Teaching of Jesus 
 
 By 
 PHILIPP BACHMANN 
 
 Professor of Theology in the University of Erlangen 
 
 NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 
 CINCINNATI : JENNINGS & GRAHAM 
 
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 » \ wo Ooplos rteciivvtou I 
 
 Copyright, 1907, by 
 EATON & MAINS. 
 
THE QUESTION 
 
 In times of old Israel was fruitful in re- 
 ligious vitality. Holy seers and singers, 
 pious women, God-inspired heroes formed 
 the living power of its history. The whole 
 Israelitish nationality was governed by the 
 thought of God — early it willingly suffered 
 to be impregnated by it; and early again it 
 w^as unwillingly subdued by it. But the re- 
 ligious life in mutual conditionality was 
 here most intimately connected wath the life 
 of the nation. At decisive turns of national 
 and political development piety and religious 
 belief are therefore also in the most vital 
 commotion. As a matter of course centuries 
 of rest and relaxation follow. The religious 
 power without always becoming wholly 
 extinct, loses nevertheless some of its fer- 
 vent immediateness, some of its former in- 
 exhaustible depth. Thus changed, ebb and 
 flow, in Israel's religious development. The 
 tide is the hour of living production. From 
 hidden sources come new benefits. Who- 
 
6 The New Message 
 
 ever draws from them, brings fresh Hfe. 
 The ebb brings new tasks; what the tide 
 brought up, it collects, preserves, works up. 
 In the place of production comes reproduc- 
 tion; the new is conserved, finally it be- 
 comes old, being long possessed, and the 
 times gradually become ripe for the prophet, 
 for the genius, who is to lift himself up and 
 the times with him to a new development. 
 
 Jesus descended from Israel's soil. One 
 can hardly think too realistically of this, 
 how much he was inwardly connected with 
 the religious peculiarity of his people and 
 their laws of development. He grew up 
 under the influence of the ancient, sacred 
 authorities of his people, the Scripture, the 
 cult, the entire religious order of life and 
 mode of thinking. These influences were 
 especially strong about him. For according 
 to its general nature the time of Jesus be- 
 longed on the whole to the more conserva- 
 tive and reproductive periods of Israel's his- 
 tory of religion. The synagogues were 
 above all the places where the religious life 
 of the Jews was moulded and fostered ; in the 
 synagogue, however, ruled the scribe and 
 he was the keeper of tradition. No public. 
 
The Question 7 
 
 or any paid office gave him so much influ- 
 ence. The scribes were in themselves pri- 
 vate persons Hke others ; not a few of them 
 made their hving by the work of their 
 hands. But they differed from others by 
 their theological professional training. They 
 devoted close study to the Holy Scripture. 
 They understood, what the common man in 
 the time of Jesus did not understand, the 
 Hebrew, the language of the Old Testa- 
 ment; and through these scribes he was 
 obliged to have the Scripture, which he 
 wished to hear, translated into the Aramaic 
 vernacular. The religious lectures in the 
 schools were not exclusively by them, yet 
 for the most part this instruction was in their 
 hands. On the basis of the Old Testament 
 law they made the law for the time being. 
 As spiritual guides they often came into very 
 close relationship with the individual. With- 
 out their help he was unable to apply con- 
 scientiously to the different conditions of life 
 the intricate injunctions of the law and the 
 '^traditions of the elders." Those of Israel's 
 youth who were mentally aspiring, attended 
 their lectures. Thus they had the oppor- 
 tunity to exercise an influence in all direc- 
 
8 The New Message 
 
 tions. And they exercised it throughout in 
 the sense of a strict obedience toward that 
 which in religious matters was considered by 
 the fathers in virtue of the Scripture as 
 lawful and as law. The light and shade of 
 their activity came from their most peculiar 
 method. True, they had to succumb to the 
 movements with which Judaism in general 
 had to submit in religious matters since the 
 extinction of the prophetic spirit; but they 
 also helped at the same time that such move- 
 ments appeared as the highest and only au- 
 thority. Though they presented something 
 new in their treatment, it appeared as 
 ancient and demanded respect. Thus the 
 time when Jesus appeared, was under the 
 sign of the rule of the old. Jesus also 
 worked in the manner of a scribe. He 
 taught in the schools from the Scripture, 
 gave pastoral advice as to good and evil; 
 and gathered a circle of studious hearers 
 around him. As a result he was also hon- 
 ored with the title of the scribes, "Rabbi." 
 He was called by the people "Master" (Mark 
 5. 35; Luke 17. 13); "Rabbi" by his dis- 
 ciples (Mark 4. 38; John ir. 8) and evert 
 by the members of the body of the scribes 
 
The Question 9 
 
 (Matt. 8. 19; 12. 38; Luke 11. 45; John 3. 
 2). Jesus did not object to this address 
 (see Matt. 19. 16-19) ; he even found it 
 in harmony with his character (John 13. 
 13; Matt. 23. 8). 
 
 Thus with many traits of his appearance 
 he could be classified with that which ex- 
 isted, and it was his own expressed in- 
 tention to let alone the venerable, ancient 
 foundations of the whole. ^Think not that 
 I am come to destroy the law, or the 
 prophets" (Matt. 5. 17). Yet, the picture 
 of Jesus did not fully and always fit in that 
 setting. The scribes themselves did not find 
 him up to the mark ; because he was not edu- 
 cated according to their rules ; he was only 
 a self-taught person (John 7. 15). His 
 teaching had not the traditional origin ; and 
 it lacked also the traditional manner. How 
 could he, who had not the stamp of the 
 school, be at home in mere traditions? Jesus 
 did not attend the lectures of the rabbis, 
 which necessarily means at the same time — 
 by all connection with the old — that he had 
 nevertheless and from the beginning in him- 
 self something that was independent, fresh, 
 and immediate. When he stepped forth 
 
lo The New Message 
 
 from his retirement, the people recognized 
 his influence in the sentiment : "He teaches 
 as one having authority and not as our 
 scribes" (Matt. 7. 29). What new doctrine 
 is this? (Mark i. 2y,) Such recognition of 
 the new, as it did not exist before, referred 
 not immediately and altogether to the word 
 of this scribe, but to the deeds accompanying 
 his word; "for with authority commandeth 
 he even the unclean spirits, and they obey 
 him" (Mark i. 2y), But it concerned also 
 his word. It was felt that this teacher need- 
 ed no authority such as the schools conferred 
 through its learning which was obtained and 
 preserved through centuries. By a power 
 immediately belonging to himself he secured 
 for his word a place in human hearts. 
 
 Wherein did this power consist ? It was the 
 power of his independent personality; but 
 it was also the peculiar character of his 
 preaching, which, because convincing, ear- 
 nestly aroused the heart and conscience. He 
 not only spoke as one differing from those 
 whom they usually heard, but he also spoke 
 something different from what they usually 
 heard, differing so much in all this that oc- 
 casionally Jesus had to emphasize the great 
 
The Question ir 
 
 contrast between the authoritative old and 
 the freshly flowing new: "No man also 
 seweth a piece of new cloth on an old gar- 
 ment, else the new piece that filled it up 
 taketh away from the old, and the rent is 
 made worse" (Mark 2. 21). 
 
 The nature of the future work of his 
 disciples Jesus comprised once in the rule: 
 "Every scribe which is instructed into the 
 kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that 
 is an householder, w^hich bringeth forth out 
 of his treasure things nezv and old'' (Matt. 
 13. 52). Things new and old; this means 
 here in the widest sense — authoritative and 
 personal, traditional and newly received, ac- 
 quired and experienced, common and indi- 
 vidual. But Jesus himself was such a scribe 
 instructed into the kingdom of heaven, the 
 highest among all, the most faithful to tra- 
 dition and at the same time the most produc- 
 tive, the end and the beginning in one. Thus 
 he carried in his inward treasure things old, 
 which he had from others and shared with 
 others, and things new, which originally 
 and solely belonged to him. The clear ques- 
 tion then is: Where does the independence 
 of Jesus begin ? 
 
12 The New Message 
 
 What is the New, which separates him 
 from his surroundings? We seek it in 
 his teaching. But is not this a mistake 
 from the start? Does not the productive 
 power of Jesus consist in his personahty, 
 in the carrying out of a personal Hfe filled 
 by God with greatness and purity and fire? 
 Is not this more important and more orig- 
 inal than the ideas and thoughts which filled 
 him? The present time has a special eye 
 for this side of the life of Jesus. But it is in 
 danger of running into opposition with 
 reality by tearing asunder the teaching and 
 the person of Jesus. In opposition to simple 
 historical reality, we repeat, for those first 
 disciples who lived entirely in the immediate 
 contemplation of the personality of Jesus, 
 felt themselves bound to him because they 
 had to confess: "Thou hast the words of 
 Eternal Life" (John 6. 68) ; and Jesus him- 
 self bound with all emphasis to his sayings 
 those who wished to be his disciples and 
 through him raised to salvation (Matt. 7. 
 24). His word is the seed of the kingdom 
 of heaven (Mark 4. 14), for it is spirit 
 and life and the power of sanctification 
 (John 6. 63 ; 17. 17). But even with a gen- 
 
The Question 13 
 
 era! psychological reality, that separation 
 and opposition does not agree; for a per- 
 sonal life, just as It IS purified, harmonious 
 and Independent In Itself, has not Its roots 
 outside of the thoughts, cognitions. Ideas of 
 man, but In them, though not exclusively In 
 them. And this applies to Jesus In a special 
 degree. To be sure, his word came entirely 
 from the depths of his life purely and strictly 
 grounded In God; but the manifold fullness 
 of his personality, all his humility and all his 
 courage, grew up also In the truth which 
 filled him and revealed to him God, himself 
 and the kingdom of God. His whole soul 
 lived in the inner word with which he appre- 
 hended this, and In the outer word, In which 
 he spoke of It. His speech Is the revelation- 
 side of his nature; and whoever approached 
 him, must take him at his word. When 
 therefore, the question is raised. What Is the 
 new in Jesus, we are permitted to seek It, not 
 merely naturally, but first of all In his teach- 
 ing, Newton revealed the laws of gravita- 
 tion ; Kant understood the conscience as the 
 categorical Imperative of pure duty; Paul 
 presented the idea of justification by faith — 
 hut what new thing did Jesus teach lis? 
 
II 
 
 THE INSUFFICIENT ANSWER 
 
 Belief in the one living God was for a 
 long time the peculiar distinction of Judaism 
 above other nations. It expressed this belief 
 in such form that it asserted a unique com- 
 munion-relation between God and itself. 
 Even the history of the first Christian church 
 shows that it was very hard for many a 
 born Jew to divest himself of the idea that 
 one must be a Jew in order to be assured of 
 the goodness of God. Christianity has fun- 
 damentally overcome this natural barrier of 
 religion. On this account it is sometimes 
 asserted that the originality of its founder 
 consisted in this, that he taught that God is 
 the shield and keeper not of one people but 
 of all men ; with him God is no respecter of 
 persons. In those circles in which scientific 
 mode of speculation is preached, this con- 
 ception is laid aside, especially when it im- 
 agines that the significance of Jesus is cre- 
 ated by that thought. But, as seems to be, it 
 has its great after-effects elsewhere. It is 
 
The Insufficient Answer .15 
 
 quite natural. Christian belief in God grew 
 out of the Jewish; but of the differences 
 between the two, the universalist idea of 
 the Christian is most obvious. Judaism 
 was a national religion. Christianity is a 
 world religion. It must therefore be that its 
 founder who effected this progress, is a his- 
 torical character. One thing also is undoubt- 
 edly correct in this conception : From Christ, 
 and from no other did early Christianity re- 
 ceive courage to offer itself to the heathen 
 world, to the cultured and the barbarous. 
 Paul is indeed an organ, even the chiefest of 
 all for this progress, but he was not its 
 author. But the ruling New doctrine, which 
 Jesus taught, is not expressed by that 
 thought. True, Jesus taught that the world 
 is the field in which God soweth his seed of 
 the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 13. 38) ; he 
 prophesied that the kingdom of God should 
 be taken from the Jews and be given to the 
 Gentiles (Matt. 21. 43; 8. 11- 19). But the 
 idea of an international religious communion 
 as the ideal of the future, is already met 
 with in the Old Testament (Isa. 25. 6; 49. 
 6; 60. 3; Micah 4. i seq. ; Zeph. 3. 9; Hag. 
 2. 6, 9 ; Zech. 2. 1 1 ) ; it is not even wholly 
 
1 6 The New Message 
 
 foreign to rabbinic Judaism, and has on the 
 other hand in the teaching of Jesus so Httle 
 of the strain, that in the conflict between 
 Jesus and Judaism, it only cooperated in so 
 far as it included the rejection of Israel, that 
 is, its exclusion from the world-embracing 
 peace of God. Inaccurate observation could 
 in our days even lead to the result that uni- 
 versalism was entirely foreign to Jesus ; that 
 it is far away from forming the nucleus of 
 his teaching. 
 
 The mistake with which we had thus far 
 to deal has its origin, not so much in certain 
 facts from the life-picture of Jesus, as in 
 uncertain expressions, which his personality 
 brings to bear upon us. From a mistaken 
 minimizing of some real traces of his life, 
 there arose in the period of the Aufkldrung 
 or "illumination" and still arises a different 
 conception of the new teaching which he 
 brought. Again and again it must be em- 
 phasized that Jesus closely connected religion 
 with morality. He did it in the sense that 
 no piety is of any value which is lacking in 
 good works. Most keenly did Jesus express 
 this principle when, on the one hand he had 
 to deal with the conflict between the sacred 
 
The Insufficient Answer 17 
 
 ceremonies in the cult concerning the hand 
 and mouth, and on the other the simple 
 every-day work of love. He denied to the 
 former all worth and considered only the 
 good deed. The praise of the Samaritan 
 who has no part in the sacred sacrificial cult 
 of Israel, but saves him that fell among the 
 thieves, is at the same time a condemnation 
 of the priest, who had behind him a holy 
 day's work in "the service of God," but re- 
 fuses to help the distressed (Luke 10. 20- 
 29). To do good sanctifies the Sabbath 
 rather than strict ritual (Matt. 12. 7). Not 
 the cry, "Lord, Lord" leads into the kingdom 
 of heaven, but the exercise of love, meekness, 
 mercy, peace (Matt. 7. 21). 
 
 In all this imperishable truths are given 
 to us. But whoever infers from this sub- 
 ordination of the cultic work to the good 
 deed, that Jesus merged the religious in the 
 moral, and that this is his real merit, obtains 
 a perfect caricature of him. Those cere- 
 monies were a mere manifestation, the mere 
 garb of religiousness. Criticism on such 
 can therefore also take place in the interest 
 of a purification of religion instead of be- 
 coming an argument for that conception. 
 
[1 8 The New Message 
 
 It is not even correct to say, that according 
 to Jesus the promotion of the morally good 
 in the world is the proper participation in 
 the kingdom of God. For, in the first place, 
 Jesus is a preacher of religious certainty; 
 every moral ideal which he teaches, is de- 
 rived from that. Good is that which is done 
 in imitation of God, evincing religious be- 
 lief in him, in working out a deep sense of 
 divine adoption (Matt. 5. 48). Had Jesus 
 taught as the Aufkldrung or "illumina- 
 tion" often imagined, had he really elimi- 
 nated the mystic, condemned the withdrawal 
 of piety to monastic retreats and put the 
 true love to man, or even the service of 
 culture in the forefront, certainly, in the 
 surroundings in which he lived and in the 
 entire historical movement into which he en- 
 tered, this were something perfectly new, 
 something unheard of, and our questions 
 were soon answered. But the real Jesus has 
 not the least to do with the notion that be- 
 neficence not prayer is the characteristic of 
 the true Christian fashioned after Jesus. 
 
 Thus far we have swung round the utter- 
 most circle beyond which are notions which 
 must be rejected from the start, provided 
 
The Insufficient Answer 19 
 
 one will come to the point. We are not the 
 only ones who reject them; any competent 
 judge will do so. But within that circle 
 there is still room enough for very different 
 views; and the present time is the least 
 unanimous concerning what propositions 
 shall be agreed upon. Yea, its whole inner 
 confusion is connected with this, that in the 
 question — what new teaching has Jesus 
 given to the world — it cannot obtain a uni- 
 form point of view. 
 
 In his Wesen der Religion (1903) 
 Bousset described the position of Jesus 
 within the religious historical development 
 of humanity and especially of Israel. Ac- 
 cording to him Jesus freed religion from the 
 national and ceremonial, but also from be- 
 lief in the letter — not by violent destruction 
 of the old, not by tenet and theories, but by 
 unchaining a new spirit of inwardness and 
 personality. His piety embraced a less as 
 against the sum of a thousand single deeds 
 and single acts, with which Judaism had 
 connected the worship of God ; which by be- 
 ing simpler, was at the same time deeper. 
 Such piety rests on the fear of the almighty 
 God; but from it rises victorious trust in 
 
20 The New Message 
 
 God as the Father, Creator, Upholder and 
 Preserver of our higher spiritually personal 
 existence, the gracious friend of sinners; 
 and it exhausts itself in moral fruitfulness, 
 which comes from the expectation of judg- 
 ment before the eternal Judge. Moral, re- 
 deeming religion — to state it in the full clear- 
 ness and simplicity of its nature^ — that is the 
 originality of the preaching of Jesus. In 
 its center "stands belief in the deliverance 
 and unchaining of the good will through the 
 forgiveness of sins.''^ Quite a number of 
 recent descriptions of the teaching and per- 
 son of Jesus move in a like sphere of 
 thought. Otto praises Jesus of Nazareth 
 as the awakener of inward piety and the dis- 
 coverer of moral personality.^ Julicher 
 teaches that Jesus gave to the world a new 
 ideal of morality ; unselfish love, and a new 
 ideal of piety, joyous belief in the Father in 
 heaven.^ Harnack also belongs here.* He 
 distinguishes — wholly in the sense of our 
 inquiry on the preaching and ideas of Jesus 
 — things which he had in common with his 
 
 1 Bousset, Jestis, 1904, p. 79. 
 
 2Leben und Werken Jesti, 1905. 
 
 3 Das Messianische Selbstbewusstsein Jesus, 1903. 
 
 * Wesen des Christenthums, 1900, p. S3 seq. 
 
The Insufficient Answer 21 
 
 contemporaries, and things which were 
 peculiar to him. The latter are the really- 
 valuable in him. And it is in this that by- 
 divesting himself of everything particular 
 and legal, he led men to God and taught 
 them to live in him as their Father; to 
 bring about in this communion of their 
 soul with God the theocracy; to lift them- 
 selves up to inner strength and a world- 
 overcoming independence in the certainty 
 of the forgiveness of sins ; to perceive in life 
 and death the hand of the living God and his 
 providence; to make humility before God 
 the source of everything good in pure love 
 to men. In his new knowledge of God, 
 which did not exist before, consists the pe- 
 culiar life-content, which Jesus asserts of 
 himself under the idea of divine Sonship. 
 Less easily than those mentioned above, 
 Pfleiderer gets over the fact that Jesus en- 
 riched his self-consciousness with the full 
 realization of ideas of his Messiahship and 
 as judge of the world. But he also sees the 
 real importance of the person of Jesus in 
 this, that he proclaimed the ideal of the 
 government of God^ in the hearts of his chil- 
 
 iThis was also the everrectirring idea of Renan. — Editor. 
 
22 The New Message 
 
 dren and in the fellowship of his Kingdom.* 
 The idea of perfect spiritually moral religion 
 is accordingly the new teaching. But this 
 in so far as it advanced to clearness and 
 power was an anticipation and impulse al- 
 ready dormant in humanity in general.^ 
 
 What have all these conceptions in com- 
 mon? Humanity was a long time already 
 on the way seeking God; but Jesus dis- 
 covered him for humanity and expressed in 
 his teaching that which he found, whom he 
 found. By that he revealed to humanity 
 what genuine belief in God is and what true 
 love is ; showed it in its full purity and gave 
 it to humanity for an everlasting possession. 
 He is accordingly that organ through which 
 humanity made the most decisive advance 
 in the development of its relation to God, or, 
 more correctly, obtained the height of per- 
 fection. The new which Jesus brought lies 
 therefore in the sphere of the subjective or 
 inner conditionality of humanity. It there- 
 by remains though one closes not his eyes 
 to the discernment that all advances of his- 
 
 1 Die Entstehung der Christenthums, 1905, p. 61 seq. 
 
 2 Das Christusbild des urchristlichen Glaubens in reli- 
 gionsgeschichtlichen Beleuchtung, 1903. 
 
The Insufficient Answer 23 
 
 tory, and therefore all that is effected by 
 Jesus, took place under the inspiration of a 
 divine life. 
 
 It is true, that in Jesus Christ the reve- 
 lation of God consummated itself, but this 
 revelation is the awakening of perfect piety 
 of heart in man. With these fundamental 
 ideas the discussed conception comes forth 
 from the isolation in which we have thus 
 far considered it, as one diffused at pres- 
 ent, and to the final point of a long series 
 of opinions concerning Jesus which, in spite 
 of all variety, agree in this, that the dis- 
 tinguishing mark of Jesus relating to his 
 teaching, is comprised in the doctrine of 
 the purification of the moral or religious 
 idea of humanity. Thus Schleiermacher 
 measured the perfection of the teaching of 
 Jesus by this, that he actively expressed in 
 it his original and creative divine conscious- 
 ness with the intention that it should be ap- 
 propriated by men.^ There exists a chasm be- 
 tween Schleiermacher's theology and that of 
 old "illumination." He knew better than this, 
 and the newest theology following his traces 
 knows how to appreciate the creative power 
 
 1 Der Christliche Glaube, p. 103. 
 
24 The New Message 
 
 which emanates from Jesus; also to seek 
 reHgion not in correct ideas of the human 
 mind about God, but in hearts moved by the 
 spirit of God, the spirit of love. Neverthe- 
 less, there is something in common between 
 him and the old illumination which bridges 
 this chasm. It lies in the direction which 
 engages us. For even the "illumination" of 
 the eighteenth century recognized the im- 
 portance of Jesus in this that he developed 
 and transformed the religious possession of 
 humanity. In his Education of the Human 
 Race (p. 58) Lessing himself calls Christ 
 the first trustworthy, practical teacher of the 
 immortality of the soul. But in the main 
 this is only an arbitrary limitation, a taking 
 out of a single sentence from a comprehen- 
 sive conception which Bretschneider thus 
 expressed : "With reference to his teaching, 
 Jesus retained the general religious teach- 
 ings of the Old Testament and confirmed 
 them; and changed and rejected only such 
 statements which were hurtful to morality, 
 or would prevent the essence of religion, es- 
 pecially the merit of sacrifices, of the many 
 daily prayers, of Levitical purification, the 
 burdensome ceremonial service, resting on 
 
The Insufficient Answer 25 
 
 tradition, and the narrow, bigoted notion of 
 the Jews, that God is their natural God who 
 loves them only and hates all other nations. 
 In the main he confirmed and purified the 
 doctrine of God as Spirit, who is to be wor- 
 shiped in spirit, as Father of all men; who 
 wishes to bless all, give life to all; of his 
 wise providence ruling all men; of immor- 
 tality and moral retribution on this side and 
 on the other side of the grave; and taught 
 at the same time, a virtue which is to come 
 from a pure source — the love to God and 
 man and which is founded on the natural 
 disposition of man, is able to develop the 
 humane or, if one will, the divine in man 
 without ascetic aberration."^ Finally — with 
 all his opposition to the mere rationalism of 
 the ''illumination" — we must here also men- 
 tion Herder. As he understands Christ he 
 meant to fashion men of God, who from pure 
 motives promoted the welfare of others and 
 self-suffering ruled as kings in the kingdom 
 of truth and goodness.^ 
 
 Who could deny the truth in all this! 
 Christendom will always insist that we must 
 
 1 Handbuch der Dogmatik, ii, p. 153. 
 
 2 Ideen zur Philosophic der Geschichte, xvii, introduction. 
 
26 The New Message 
 
 seek in the word of Jesus the norm 
 for religious service in spirit and in truth, 
 and it will never cease to derive from it liv- 
 ing impulses in that direction. But we must 
 not forget the question, whether the new 
 which Jesus brought, is already described 
 exhaustively, yea, whether in that which 
 Jesus taught in that direction, something 
 really and fundamentally new, is given at 
 all. There is a method of consideration 
 which the second form, of this question, 
 also, not only puts but at once denies. It is 
 that of modern Judaism which strives after 
 an ethical deepening of the religious life yet 
 retains the connection with the ancestral 
 faith. With a certain pride the boast is 
 made that the religious development of Is- 
 rael received no impression from Jesus of 
 Nazareth ; yea, that it did not even need It. 
 The picture we are told which the New Tes- 
 tament gives of rabblnism which was con- 
 temporaneous with Jesus, Is wrong and oiie- 
 sided; this rabblnism has actually In Itself 
 quite sufficient forces of religious Inward- 
 ness and civilization; to all the much-ad- 
 mired sayings of the Nazarene on the spir- 
 ituality and simplicity of religion and a' 
 
The Insufficient Answer 27 
 
 religion of love parallels could be adduced 
 from the Jewish ideas of that time and its 
 literature. Finally this critique goes so far 
 as to show that Jesus was not very original, 
 yea, that in many respects he was a product 
 of the overstrainings and doubtful aberra- 
 tions of this inner- Jewish development ; that 
 he represents no new type at all/'^ 
 
 The controversy concerns the contrast 
 between Jesus and scribism, not Judaism in 
 general. Alongside of scribism many re- 
 ligious movements existed in Judaism at 
 that time. There was not wanting a sub- 
 tilizing enlightenment, nor a popularly naive 
 distortion of religion to an empty exter- 
 nality, childlike, cherishing fantastic and fa- 
 natical hopes of the future. Over against 
 this scribism was the theologically guarded 
 and regulated religion. We know this reli- 
 gion from the vast literature of the Talmud 
 and like productions. In them is deposited in 
 bee-like manner all the additional religious 
 matter, namely, the revelation of God in the 
 
 1 The latest effort of such a proof on the Jewish side is by 
 Dr. J. Eschelbacher, Das Judentum und das Wesen des 
 Christenthums (Schriften der Gesellschaft zur Forderung 
 der Wissenschaft des Judentums) , Berlin, 1905. [See also 
 The Jewish Encyclopedia, Article Jesus. — Editor.] 
 
28 The New Message 
 
 law and the prophets which rabbinism ap- 
 propriated from the theological and religious 
 movements in different centuries. From 
 thence came the parallels between the words 
 of Jesus and rabbinic statements referred 
 to before, which are to refute the origin- 
 ality of Jesus. They certainly exist and 
 are related to the linguistic form, to the way 
 of forming ideas, to the thoughts them- 
 selves. But in not a few instances this con- 
 cord loses its force, because the Jewish-rab- 
 binical material for comparison is evidently 
 of later origin than the word of Jesus. Thus, 
 for example, surprising proofs from ancient 
 Jewish prayers can indeed be collected for 
 the Lord's Prayer ; but the traces of their ex- 
 istence belong to the second century A.D. 
 In other cases the individual statement in 
 the mouth of the rabbi shows, at the first 
 glance indeed, a very strong resemblance to 
 the word of Jesus ; but a closer examination 
 perceives an essential difference of ethico- 
 religious force between both.^ 
 
 1 This refers, for example, to the word of rabbi Hillel (75 
 B.C.-io A.D.) : "What is hateful to thee, do not unto 
 thy neighbor." Hillel is said to have called this " the 
 whole law." This word is usually quoted as parallel to 
 the word of Jesus in Matt. 7. 12. But what a difference! 
 
The Insufficient Answer 29 
 
 But for our part we should not go so 
 far as to deny every inner relation between 
 Jesus and scribism where the originality 
 is not entirely on the side of Jesus. Jesus 
 during his early development must have 
 lived so isolated, as in fact he did not, 
 that he could not have heard and learned 
 something from rabbinism which was found 
 everywhere. And this would have been so 
 void of the spirit that it could not otherwise 
 but coin the gold committed to it in such 
 alloy that of the original precious metal 
 hardly a trace were to be perceived. Even 
 the New Testament itself, which on the 
 whole gives a very horrible picture of rab- 
 binism, teaches us in this sense. In Nico- 
 demus it certainly shows an inwardly dis- 
 posed scribe (John 3. 1-9). The lawyer, 
 also, of whom Luke 10. 25 speaks, was a 
 rabbi. To the question of Jesus as to the 
 way of salvation, he gives a clear answer 
 and is praised by the Lord. Even in his 
 severe address against the scribes and Phari- 
 sees (Matt. 23), Jesus — for the time being 
 
 Hillers nile says: Never do anything to thy neighbor, 
 namely, nothing bad. Jesus said : Do always something 
 to thy neighbor, but plainly good. 
 
30 The New Message 
 
 at least — considers their teaching as still 
 being a guide to piety. All this is good, but 
 the New Testament shows also something 
 else. It shows that Jesus could well solve the 
 theological problems of the rabbis (Matt. 
 22. 15-40), but that on the other hand, they 
 had no understanding for his deep and deep- 
 est thoughts (Matt 22. 41 ; John 3. 10). It 
 shows that that very lawyer had no concep- 
 tion how to apply practically his beautiful 
 knowledge (Luke 10. 29). It shows no less 
 that scribism had lost the right estimate of 
 essential and non-essential things (Matt. 23. 
 23). They had the law and the prophets; 
 but under the hand of the scribes it was the 
 consummation of the prophetical spirit which 
 resulted at last only in deadening forms of 
 intrinsic law, continually commented upon. 
 Extrabiblical sources confirm this view 
 as to negative result. The exactness of the 
 nature of true piety and morality was ren- 
 dered coarse in rabbinism. In none of the 
 scribes do we meet with a personality in 
 which the religious idea, in its original purity 
 and creative depth and in its directing en- 
 ergy, had been apprehended and expressed 
 with such instructive power concerning the 
 
 J^i 
 
(The Insufficient Answer 31 
 
 iemancipation and separation of the essential 
 and non-essential, as in Jesus. There deep, 
 sinking words form an exceptional phenome- 
 non. In Jesus the expression of living belief 
 in God and of love forms the rule, the whole. 
 To scribism appertained religious serious- 
 ness in a high degree ; but its demeanor and 
 teaching lacked cheerfulness and simplicity. 
 
 In the controversy before us we cannot but 
 declare that Jesus is clearly distinguished 
 from contemporaneous scribism and that he 
 represents a new phenomenon. He is thus 
 marked off first of all by the peculiar creative 
 power of his personality. But as a matter 
 of course, this peculiarity also shows itself in 
 his teaching; and for this we need not seek 
 long. We find it in the boundlessness with 
 which he radiates love into all distances of 
 humanity and into all depths of self-denial ; 
 in the inexorableness of moral energy with 
 reference to his demands for a God-related 
 disposition; in the certainty with which he 
 binds the communion with God — not to re- 
 ligious intellectual refinement — ^but to child- 
 like simplicity of the heart. The rabbis and 
 he both spoke of the Father in heaven and of 
 love to one's neighbor ; but Jesus meant this 
 
32 The New Message 
 
 and that in an entirely different, in a more 
 direct, sense than they did. 
 
 But with this result we are not yet at the 
 end of our question. In the distance between 
 Jesus and the scribes as representatives of 
 the rehgious thought in Israel, there works 
 a factor common tO' both. He and they were 
 spiritually fed on the fruits of the inner his- 
 tory of the old covenant, the Old Testament. 
 One can indeed inquire into the relation of 
 Jesus to the rabbis by asking whether he did 
 not intend to reduce religion free from all ac- 
 cessories to the simple, great characteristic 
 features, which Israel's prophecy had 
 stamped it. For matchless, indeed, in the 
 whole history of the mental life of humanity 
 is this phenomenon in the religious develop- 
 ment of Israel. With quiet certainty, with 
 all zeal against perversion and abuse, with 
 instinctive power these heroes of the Holy 
 Spirit rise and release the simple, clear, liv- 
 ing ideal of sincerest fear of God, of pure, 
 earnest morality from the multifariousness 
 of transmitted customs, from superstitious 
 distortion and wanton perversion. They 
 know God as the mighty Lord, the everlast- 
 ing friend, the merciful Father of Israel 
 
The Insufficient Answer 33 
 
 ^(Isa. 63. 16), and they wait for a time when 
 the earth shall be full of the knowledge of 
 the Lord, of this Lord, as the waters cover 
 the sea. Every practice of the cult, ever so 
 carefully done, is of no value to them; yea 
 it is sin in their estimation, unless it is ani- 
 mated by living obedience to the holy will of 
 God (Isa. I. 10-17). With glad faith they 
 bind the bond between the Lord, who dwells 
 in the high and holy place, and those who 
 are of a contrite and humble spirit (Isa. 57. 
 15). They praise the happiness of the 
 people and of the individuals who have found 
 their refuge in God's comfort and mercy 
 (Isa. 12. 1-6; 40. 31). Kind love for the 
 distressed and justice to all is in their eyes 
 the ornament of the pious (Micah 6. 8). In 
 a regeneration of the deepest character 
 they see the salvation of the future (Jer. 31. 
 31 ; Ezek. 36. 26 seq.). If this is the peculiar 
 greatness of the preaching of the prophets 
 and, if, on the other hand, with the views of 
 modern and older theologians before stated, 
 the compass or contents of the teaching of 
 Jesus is exhausted, the looked-f or definition 
 of the relation between Jesus and the scribes, 
 now follows. His independence over against 
 
34 The New Message 
 
 them is rooted in this, that he was able to 
 renew with sympathetic power, the prophet- 
 ical, fundamental thoughts. This conclusion 
 is certainly comprehensible. 
 
 But, from another direction, we get into 
 greater trouble. Is not then the new which 
 Jesus taught merely a renewal of the old? 
 Wherein differs the teaching of Jesus as 
 something new from the teaching of the 
 prophets? If there exists no clear and 
 worthy answer to that, the question is very 
 pertinent whether we do not wrong those 
 worthies of the old covenant by the sole 
 prominence given to Jesus as the true seeker 
 and knower of God ? Jesus indeed absolves 
 us from such a mistake ; he asserted nothing 
 less than the immense distance between him- 
 self and the prophets before him; for *^all 
 the prophets and the law prophesied until 
 John," and "among them that are born of 
 women there hath not risen a greater than 
 John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that 
 is least in the kingdom of heaven [which 
 Jesus announces] is greater than he" (Matt. 
 11.11,13). 
 
 But wherein consists this greater, this 
 new? The theologians, whose school we 
 
The Insufficient Answer 35 
 
 have thus far attended, would presumably 
 not approve of it, if we should say : the new 
 consists in this, that Jesus, stronger by far 
 than those prophets, yea, exclusively em- 
 phasized the relation of God to the indi- 
 vidual. The prophets do not entirely rid 
 themselves of a glance at the nation and the 
 limitations connected with it. Jesus, how- 
 ever, awarded to each individual soul of man, 
 in whatever body it was, an infinite value, 
 by relating to that very individual God's 
 purpose of salvation. According to this in- 
 dividualism, the sense of personality, were the 
 real new things in the teaching of Jesus. But 
 this boundary between Jesus and prophecy 
 is in the first instance only valid in a limited 
 degree. The Psalms, this poetical echo of 
 the prophetic revelation of God, very clearly 
 show that even in that Old Testament piety, 
 the certainty of an immediate relation of the 
 individual with God strongly existed, and 
 Jesus also declared that the union of the 
 pious in a congregation ever so little is also 
 the place of a special work of God's work of 
 grace and of himself (Matt. 18. 19). 
 
 Nevertheless there exists a perceptible dif- 
 ference here also between Jesus and the 
 
36 The New Message 
 
 prophets. But in the second place it is not 
 wrongly referred to, that this difference has 
 its basis in the different times. When the 
 prophets spoke, Israel was a nation with a 
 political present and future, a common- 
 wealth; when Jesus spoke, it was a pre- 
 eminently religious community. As a matter 
 of course there the whole, here, however, the 
 individual, came to the foreground. Such 
 being the case, the new in Jesus is then 
 not his most original work, but the form 
 conditioned by outward circumstances 
 which, for good or evil, his preaching must 
 assume. Jesus could not possibly have so 
 aroused the conscience of the Roman 
 procurator, at least with reference to the 
 religious and moral regulation of the life 
 of the Jewish people, as the prophets once 
 did the native kings. Thus his authority 
 naturally turned to the individual. Whether 
 this should be accounted to him as special 
 merit may perhaps be doubtful. Yea, some 
 have even pointed out that in this we may 
 see a certain restriction with Jesus; quite 
 different from him the prophets knew to 
 assert the fear of God as the leaven of public 
 life. 
 
iThe Insufficient Answer 37 
 
 It is clear that on this way we do not get 
 very far. On this account one can under- 
 stand that many seek the solution in a funda- 
 mentally different direction. They deny that 
 Jesus taught something very special and 
 original ; in the main they consider his teach- 
 ing as mere renewal of the best prophetical 
 thoughts. But nevertheless Jesus appears 
 to them as new, as never before existing, 
 creative, original in the highest sense. For 
 no one like him has ever filled those thoughts 
 with the vigor of life and converted that life 
 into holy reality. Every chasm between 
 thought and deed is overcome in him; not 
 like ourselves did he have to toil up from 
 contrasts to perfect God-inwardness; for 
 ever and ever, and fully and wholly, it filled 
 him with purity and power. 
 
 We are far from finding fault with this 
 matter of fact. For to everyone who de- 
 voutly brings before his eyes the life-picture 
 of Jesus in its real and full content, it has 
 something humiliating and at the same time 
 uplifting; it overcomes his heart. But the 
 more seriously must we ask whether from the 
 basis of the hitherto existing assumptions, 
 the retreat to this last position can really be 
 
38 The New Message 
 
 accomplished without defeat. For thus far 
 we have worked from that point of view of 
 consideration which the "modern/' "Hberal/' 
 "negative/' or with whatever more or less 
 appropriate name it may be called, this very- 
 theology assigns to us. It teaches us to seek 
 out in Jesus — ^in his word or in his person — 
 the, for the first time, perfect realization of 
 complete religion. We have already ex- 
 amined above whether and in how far, in 
 face of certain objections on the part of the 
 Jews, this point of view can be asserted, as 
 if the religious thought which Jesus ex- 
 pressed were nothing original. But we must 
 now remember another, more serious, ob- 
 jection from that quarter. Modern Jewish 
 criticism on Jesus and his relation to rabbin- 
 ism, that is, on the life-picture which the 
 most recent Protestant theology sketches of 
 Jesus, expresses itself thus: "The Nazarene 
 was in the beginning impregnated by the 
 serious and pure thoughts of God, as rabbin- 
 ism also' represented them ; but gradually his 
 inner consciousness became disturbed; he 
 adopted the Messiah-idea; got into fanciful 
 expectation of the future, and the more Juda- 
 ism withdrew from him on that account the 
 
•The Insufficient Answer 39 
 
 more he got himself into an inner excite- 
 ment, that he forgot the differences between 
 God and man and assigned to himself a place 
 and work at the right hand of God." It is con- 
 sequently denied that Jesus was able to retain 
 in himself the purity and depth of the God- 
 idea to the end; his Messianic claim is ex- 
 plained as a darkening, which refers to his 
 person as well as to his teaching; he thereby 
 gave cause for the Christ-belief with all its 
 sequences. In short, Jesus denotes in reality, 
 in the very peculiarity of his personal de- 
 meanor, a painful obscuring of the pure 
 knowledge of God. The new in him is, 
 therefore, alas! something little pleasing. 
 
 Thus Jewish criticism. Can modern the- 
 ology resist it for its conception ? We must 
 answer this question unth all emphasis and 
 seriousness in the negative. This theology 
 also knows and cannot deny, that Jesus 
 ascribes to himself a very peculiar position 
 in the kingdom of God ; that he spoke of his 
 resurrection and coming again in glory ; that 
 he made the claim once to judge the world. 
 It knows his word : "I am — namely Christ, 
 the Son of the Blessed — and ye shall see the 
 Son of man sitting on the right hand of 
 
40 The New Message 
 
 power, and coming in the clouds of heaven'' 
 (Mark 14. 62). By way of criticism it does 
 indeed what it can to minimize the sum total 
 of the testimony of Jesus in this respect ; but 
 it fails to eradicate it radically. And why 
 does it wish to be released from that testi- 
 mony? I believe that none of the theo- 
 logians mentioned before, and many others 
 beside them, will or can seriously complain 
 when we answer: Because they are con- 
 vinced that that claim of Jesus is not opposed 
 by a corresponding reality. According to 
 their conception Jesus is historically acting 
 in a very quick and fruitful manner, more 
 fruitful than any other hero of history, but 
 he sits not in personal and unique activity 
 on the right hand of God and he comes not 
 to judge the world. What task is now be- 
 fore them? This: to explain how Jesus 
 could arrive at that bold, strange idea con- 
 cerning himself, without their troubling the 
 purity and simplicity of his humanity and 
 belief in God. But this problem is unsolvable 
 and a certain feeling, the impossibility of 
 solving it, has called forth efforts to explain 
 the Messianic self-testimony of Jesus in gen- 
 eral as a later fiction. One might almost 
 
The Insufficient Answer 41 
 
 say with bitter jest, that on no point is that 
 modern theology so harmonious as on this, 
 how the Messianic self-consciousness of 
 Jesus is to be understood. We hear it on all 
 sides ; this consciousness was a form in which 
 Jesus had to imagine himself, because no 
 other idea existed in Israel by means of 
 which he could make intelligible to himself 
 and others his unique calling — to be teacher 
 and representative of a perfect religion ; but 
 when fate was threatening and held out pros- 
 pects of his own personal destruction, he 
 clung to the Messianic hope, and, by its appli- 
 cation to himself, he stamped the conviction 
 that his word and his activity are imperish- 
 able. In short, the conviction of the divinity 
 of his causey he coupled with the auxiliary 
 notion of the divinity of his person. That is 
 the kernel, this is the shell ; that the lasting 
 essence, this the perishable form; that the 
 world-receiving truth, this the fatal error of 
 Jesus. Well, let it be so ; but then the harm- 
 lessness with which many understand this 
 Jesus is entirely inexcusable. How? Jesus 
 had to take to his help that Messianic notion, 
 in order to proclaim the greatness of his 
 cause. And why? Because it existed in 
 
42 The New Message 
 
 Israel ? But Jesus worked out a very differ- 
 ent Messianic hope from that which existed 
 in Israel; one so widely antagonistic, that 
 he was condemned to death by the Jews be- 
 cause of this opposition and for no other 
 reason. So little familiar was this Messiah- 
 picture at that time in the sphere in which 
 Jesus moved, that not even the God-enlight- 
 ened prophet, John the Baptist, could ac- 
 commodate himself to it without victory 
 over himself. And could Jesus, only in this 
 way, bring the conviction of his unique call- 
 ing into a certain form of thought ? But he 
 had for this conviction the setting of proph- 
 etism — a clear, grand, living phenomenon — 
 which would have been sufficient for his self- 
 characterization, if his calling needed this, to 
 express the essence of the perfect fear of 
 God and the love of God. How ? Must he 
 put himself by the side of God, to assert his 
 word as God's word? But in truth it be- 
 longs already to the foundations of every 
 mental greatness of a man, that he is able 
 to distinguish between person and object. 
 Religion, however, has directly a proof of 
 its genuineness in that the more it receives 
 of God, and the higher the calling with 
 
The Insufficient Answer 43 
 
 which it is entrusted, the more earnestly and 
 surely and strictly does it experience the dif- 
 ference between God's greatness and man's 
 lowliness. Beyond these simple facts none 
 of those modern efforts can bring us to ex- 
 plain the Messianic self-consciousness of 
 Jesus, no matter how much it may seem to 
 summon ever so great psychological skill 
 and sensitiveness. This Jesus had rather to 
 be delivered from himself, and modern the- 
 ology has finally rendered him this perfect 
 service. Heretofore we restricted ourselves 
 into seeking the nevv^ in Jesus of Xazareth 
 in the full purity and simplicity of his per- 
 sonal life-contents, in order not to suft'er him 
 to become a mere disciple of the prophets; 
 this road is now impassable for us. 
 
 Consequently the matter now stands thus : 
 We started from a certain supposition and 
 assumed hypothetically, that the new in Jesus 
 consisted in this or was limited to this ; that 
 he developed religion to perfect imvardness, 
 truth and morality. We endeavored to up- 
 hold this supposition against objections 
 which were raised this way or that way ; but 
 every path which we took for this purpose 
 finally led us into the dark. One cannot 
 
44 The New Message 
 
 understand Jesus as a great and new phe- 
 nomenon in itself, still less as the center of 
 the history of religion, so long as one accepts 
 another view of his historical activity than 
 that expressed in the alleged supposition. 
 And yet Jesus himself was definitely sep- 
 arated from everything which went before 
 him and from everything which follows him. 
 Wherein then lies the new doctrine which 
 he taught ? 
 
Ill 
 
 THE TRUE ANSWER 
 
 What did Jesus really teach? "The time 
 is, fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at 
 hand: repent ye, and believe the gospeF' 
 (Mark i. 15; Matt. 4. 17). For the 
 understanding of this word one must cling 
 to the idea "kingdom of God," and to 
 define its content according to the sense 
 of Jesus in contradistinction to the common 
 Jewish notions thereof. This work is im- 
 portant and is remunerative. But it must 
 also not be overlooked that in his preaching, 
 when speaking of the kingdom of God, 
 Jesus does not come forth as with a per- 
 fectly new matter, but he supposes in his 
 hearers an idea and elementary notion 
 thereof. It may be that the idea needed 
 correction, but it nevertheless existed. The 
 emphasis therefore, in that scripture sen- 
 tence is not at all on the object of the 
 statement, but on the statement itself: "a^ 
 hand'' is the kingdom of God. With much 
 emphasis this very statement runs through 
 
46 The New Message 
 
 the entire preaching of Jesus. It appears in 
 the height of his activity; with it he sends 
 his disciples into the cities and villages of 
 the Jews (Matt. lo. 7). Its sound is heard 
 in the solemn hours of the last days of Jesus, 
 and becomes a comfort and blissful hope 
 (Luke 21. 31). Certainly "at hand'' by no 
 means denotes plainly it is here. It denotes 
 as much as "come nigh.'' And this does not 
 preclude the petition for its real and final 
 coming (Matt. 6. 10). This "being near" 
 can even protract itself and offer yet the 
 opportunity to exercise one's self in expecta- 
 tion and longing. And yet it is a word of 
 very great weight, this "it is at hand." For 
 it says, "that the kingdom of God" — who 
 knows how long and how far it has been dis- 
 tant from Israel, that it is now in motion 
 and has now overcome this distance, so much 
 so that it is immediately before the door; 
 that a thin covering has only to fall off and 
 its full glory be seen in the midst of the 
 world. Yea, the thought can increase to 
 the immediate certainty, that the kingdom 
 of God is here; that it broke in with force 
 (Matt. 12. 28 and 11. 12, in which place it 
 must be translated : the kingdom of heaven 
 
The True Answer 47 
 
 sets In with force) — so energetically the no- 
 tion of the decisive advancement of the 
 kingdom of God is contained in that "at 
 hand." Is this now a nevv^ teaching? No. 
 For teaching is something theoretical, a 
 statement on conditions remaining the same, 
 which are not yet fully perceived, or which 
 are to be defined clearly, or appropriated by 
 the older generation to the thought of the 
 younger. That word denotes nothing of 
 the kind. That sentence is a statement that 
 in the great world of realities, of the highest 
 realities, something has changed ; something 
 new, great, glorious has come to pass and 
 comes to pass. This is no teaching, but a 
 message. A new message of the great deeds 
 of God — this is the new in the teaching of 
 Jesus. That on the strength of that, men 
 may and must change, deepen, familiarize 
 their knowledge of God ; that they may have 
 to transform and purify their moral concep- 
 tions in accordance with the new knowledge, 
 all this to be sure is necessarily associated 
 with it. 
 
 On this account Jesus adds also to the 
 message the appeal: "Repent," that is, 
 change your disposition and believe the gos- 
 
48 The New Message 
 
 pel. But Jesus would have never made these 
 new demands had he not been in a position 
 to give them a living relation to the new 
 message, which fell from his lips. Hence all 
 those difficulties which we dealt with above 
 vanish because we had adopted a supposition 
 in which that word "is at hand" had not been 
 fully appreciated. Now, however, the dif- 
 ference between Jesus and rabbinism be- 
 comes clear and great at the same time. The 
 scribes had also spoken of the kingdom of 
 God; in many respects they differed from 
 Jesus, but this is not the most important ; the 
 most important was that they knew nothing 
 of it and had nothing to say; that now, just 
 now, this kingdom of God makes its be- 
 ginning with power. Furthermore, Jesus 
 also stands out clearly enough from the 
 prophets. They spoke in general, at least not 
 as yet, of a kingdom of God ; but though the 
 word was foreign to them, they nevertheless 
 had in them a living hope of a future in 
 which God would be present in Israel as 
 helper. But it was only a hope, and Peter 
 strikingly points out how they had to be 
 satisfied to read in this who knows how dis- 
 tant a future (i Pet. i. 10-12) ! Jesus how- 
 
The True Answer 49 
 
 ever comes forth and proclaims : *^The time 
 is fulfilled." Thus that simple observa- 
 tion frees us from serious difficulties which 
 formerly seemed insuperable. And concern- 
 ing the last and highest, the supernatural 
 self-appreciation which Jesus bestowed upon 
 himself — it may yet possibly clear up in its 
 harmony with Jesus's purest humility and 
 simplicity, when we consider a little closer 
 this his new message. 
 
 ''The kingdom of God is at handf' In 
 our consideration we get the advantage over 
 the perplexed question — what this kingdom 
 is and what individual signs are contained in 
 its idea, and how they adjust themselves, by 
 drawing the simple inference, that in the 
 kingdom of God, God himself exercises his 
 active sovereign-presence. Where the king- 
 dom of heaven is not, God is not, or, is at 
 least not so present as he is in his kingdom. 
 This is perhaps a bold thought but it is un- 
 avoidably contained in that sentence. Our 
 idea of God and already also that of the 
 Jews, could and certainly can surrender the 
 thought of God not as present and efficient 
 everywhere. But when we wish to think 
 with Jesus, we must distinguish this omni- 
 
50 The New Message 
 
 presence of God from a special kind of his 
 existence in the world. It consists in this 
 that he is present not merely as Lord, ruler 
 and preserver of life, but as Redeemer, 
 Helper and miracle-worker. With rejoicing 
 Israel knew itself from times of old, as the 
 sphere of such special gracious activity of 
 God, and Jesus fully confirmed this claim; 
 for the God, of whom he speaks, he knows 
 and affirms as the God of the forefathers of 
 Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Ja- 
 cob in a sense in which he offered not him- 
 self as God to any other nation and their 
 ancestors (Matt. 22, 32). Thus the world 
 separates into two uneven parts; the large 
 one when, to speak with Paul, God suffers 
 the nations to walk in their own ways, not 
 without leaving himself a witness (Acts 
 14. 16) ; and the smaller, when God puts in 
 motion redeeming- forces of a new, incom- 
 prehensible kind. But the message of Jesus 
 urges us farther on. For in this narrower 
 sphere it places over against the present 
 when God has drawn near, a past in which 
 God, in spite of all, is still far off, relatively 
 distant, and was only about to come near to 
 Israel from such a distance. As concerns 
 
The True Answer 51 
 
 space and time, the attitude of God toward 
 his world differs ; but the message of Jesus 
 says that now and in Israel is the time and 
 the place where this attitude of God ex- 
 presses itself most peculiarly and vitally in 
 its singular manner, that now the kingdom 
 of God is at hand. Once more then: not 
 what must change and become new in men 
 in the depths of their minds, but that some- 
 thing changes and becomes new from God ; 
 this is the nucleus of the message of Jesus. 
 Thus far we have moved in very general 
 statements concerning this remarkable new 
 work in and of God. It is fascinating to 
 follow the development of this new message 
 in the preaching of Jesus. When Jesus 
 preached in Nazareth, his native town, he 
 gave as it were, a commentary to that mes- 
 sage of the arrival of the kingdom of God. 
 From the prophet Isaiah he read: "The 
 Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he 
 hath anointed me to preach the gospel to 
 the poor ; he hath set me to heal the broken- 
 hearted; to preach deliverance to the cap- 
 tives, and recovering of sight to the blind; 
 to set at liberty them that are bruised; to 
 preach the acceptable year of the Lord/' 
 
52 The New Message 
 
 and added^ being himself moved by this pow- 
 erful promise: "This day is this scripture 
 fulfilled in your ears" (Luke 4. 18-21). This 
 — "it is fulfilled'' — springs from the like- 
 energetic certainty to that of "is at hand." 
 Thus that present nearness and presence of 
 God also consists in this, that that which now 
 takes place, or commences to take place, is 
 that which was promised by the prophet. 
 But can one command the blind that they 
 see? No. Therefore it is also not the de- 
 mand of a new human attitude, the longing 
 of a self-deliverance with which God now 
 comes to man. But God has decided now 
 to do something on his part which he did not 
 before; to perform great deliverance-deeds 
 and works of healing on them that are 
 bruised and miserable. In quite the same 
 sense Jesus answered the doubting or urging 
 John in the message of the deliverances 
 which now take place and are to take place 
 (Matt. II. 5). This power of help is the 
 violence with which the kingdom of heaven 
 now advances (Matt. 11. 12). From this, 
 that Jesus delivers those miserable demoniacs 
 from their tormentors, every one can per- 
 ceive that the kingdom of God is come 
 
The True Answer 53 
 
 (Luke II. 20). The kingdom of God is 
 therefore the strong finger which God lifts 
 up to drive away the enemies ; it is the help- 
 ing hand which he stretches out to save the 
 corrupted; it is the power, the victorious 
 war with which God comes upon the palace 
 of the "strong man/' the prince of this 
 world, to wrest from him his spoils (Luke 
 II. 19). The kingdom of God is the re- 
 demption which bids every one to whom it 
 comes to gladly lift up his head (Luke 21. 
 28) ; it is the banquet which God prepared 
 long ago and now gives, to gather the 
 hungry and wretched that they may enjoy 
 it (Matt. 22. 2). Jesus passes through the 
 country and wherever he is, help and salva- 
 tion spring under his hands; but whatever 
 he does, it is only as it were in illustration of 
 his message of the kingdom of God; a few 
 fragments from the totality of a compre- 
 hensive divine deed of salvation. Of what 
 kind it is can be more clearly defined. In 
 the beginning of his ministry, according to 
 John 3, Jesus had that nocturnal conversa- 
 tion with Nicodemus. There the question 
 was likewise of the kingdom of God. But 
 God manifests not his highest energies in 
 
54 The New Message 
 
 outward life but in this — that he grants the 
 spirit of regeneration. With this thought a 
 new series of pictures and revelations opens. 
 The kingdom of God is the water of life 
 which God now suffers to bubble, to quench 
 the thirst forever; it is the bread of life 
 from heaven to keep off death (John 6. 32 
 seq.) ; a good fruitful seed which God scat- 
 ters over the field of the world (Matt. 13. 
 24 seq.) ; the leaven which is mixed into the 
 meal of the human race (Matt. 13. 33). 
 And, if one wishes to include the whole in a 
 narrower compass, let him say: the new, 
 which God does sow in order to realize that 
 approach of himself and of his kingdom, is 
 this — that he gets ready to bring about the 
 precious sum of promises which Jesus prom- 
 ised in the beatitudes of the Sermon on the 
 Mount (Matt. 5. 3-12). The highest treas- 
 ures of his life and his love God has kept 
 under lock and key till then; now he opens 
 them up and a fullness of help, consolation 
 and blessing runs through the poor world 
 to redeem it — this is the meaning of the 
 new message which Jesus brings. 
 
 There may be a view of God and the 
 world to which such a thought may be unin- 
 
The True Answer 55 
 
 telligible. That God moves from a *not 
 yet!' to a ^nowT; that he himself passes 
 through the difference of darkness and mani- 
 festation, of silence and speech, of design 
 and deed, of quiet looking on and energetic 
 grasping, is very inconceivable. It knows 
 indeed a progress, but this belongs entirely 
 to humanity; its ability to embrace God in 
 himself increases, not however the desire of 
 God to come out of himself. And, even if 
 this were so, it is still no new relation which 
 he gives to the world, but even the one, orig- 
 inal and unchangeable, that of being the 
 mental life-foundation of the world. But 
 though the view opposed to this may com- 
 prise ever so many difficulties — this changes 
 nothing of the fact, that Jesus expressly 
 uttered it, yea, that he inseparably connected 
 it with the new message which he brought. 
 
 But, may this message really be considered 
 as new and as peculiar to Jesus ? Thus we 
 must ask once again. For according to the 
 record of Matthew, John the Baptist already 
 preached before Jesus : "Repent ye ; for the 
 kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3. 2) . 
 With this we stand indeed on firm, historical 
 ground ; for according to Jesus's own word, 
 
56 The New Message 
 
 the special greatness of the Baptist consisted 
 in this, that he was allowed to proclaim that 
 message immediately before himself (Matt. 
 II. II, 14). But when John declared that 
 after him a mightier one shall come, he may 
 well have had the feeling, that in his mouth 
 that message will have an entirely different 
 meaning than in his own. And when Jesus 
 commenced his ministry, John felt such a 
 great distance between his own thoughts and 
 the work of Jesus, that he asked : ^*Art thou 
 he that should come, or do we look for an- 
 other ?'' Despite these facts, it cannot be 
 doubted that an inner harmony exists be- 
 tween the main thought of the message of 
 John and that of the message of Jesus. The 
 Baptist too had to proclaim it as a something 
 new that God had entered upon a de- 
 cisive forward-movement. But two causes 
 prevent us from regarding the message of 
 Jesus as a mere imitation of the Johannean. 
 The Baptist proclaims the nearness of the 
 kingdom of heaven, because he knows that 
 ^^mightier" is on the way; Jesus, how- 
 ever, because he is himself this ^^mightier" ; 
 that means, the Baptist proclaims it as one 
 to be expected very shortly, Jesus as a work 
 
The True Answer 57 
 
 of God now becoming realized. The mes- 
 sage of the former establishes the final close 
 of prophecy ; that of the other the beginning 
 of its fulfillment. This is the one difference. 
 And the other: the Baptist and Jesus, both 
 proclaim a double content of the divine for- 
 ward-movement, judgment and grace. But 
 the Baptist emphasized judgment, Jesus em- 
 phasized grace. Thus the message of Jesus 
 remains new and independent even in the 
 face of that of his most immediate prede- 
 cessor; in this direction it comes also not 
 from man, but from God. 
 
 Yes, from God ! That God has arisen to 
 permeate the world with the powers of his 
 salvation and to save it, can only enter into 
 the mind of a man to whom God had re- 
 vealed it. Teachings concerning God can 
 be invented by man; messages of new in- 
 tentions and acts of God, should they not be 
 fraudulent, must come from God himself; 
 and these considerations lead us to make 
 plain also that last, thus far not yet explained 
 subject, the question as to the personal dig- 
 nity which Jesus claims. Whoever is trust- 
 ed by God with a new message to the world, 
 is a prophet. If Jesus's message was the 
 
58 The New Message 
 
 highest of all, he is also the highest among 
 the prophets. But he claimed to be more 
 (Matt. 1 6. 15 seq.). He called himself the 
 Messiah ; he ascribed to himself the power to 
 have authority over the keys of the kingdom 
 of heaven (Matt. 16. 19), and spoke of his 
 future divine glory including the judgment. 
 Before we were in inner distress over against 
 this fact; can we now understand it better? 
 This was the message which Jesus had to 
 bring, that God sends new powers of healing 
 into the diseased world, and that on this ac- 
 count the kingdom of heaven now begins on 
 earth, of which the world till then had noth- 
 ing but longing and in the most favorable 
 case among the Jews only hope. 
 
 And what are these powers of love ? They 
 flutter not in secret spell through the air, but 
 are comprised in him who could call himself 
 the physician, who healed the sick. With a 
 glance at the coming son of Mary, whom his 
 own child, born unto him in his old age, is to 
 serve as herald, Zacharias rejoices: "God 
 hath visited and redeemed his people'' (Luke 
 I. 68). This son of Mary goes through 
 Israel and a gracious message comes from 
 his mouth. But from his hands and even 
 
The True Answer 59 
 
 from his garment (Matt. 9. 21) flows the 
 power of healing ; from his depths arises the 
 spring of new Hf e ; in his blood is dissolved 
 the great debt of humanity. Thus he was 
 the highest among all messengers of God 
 and yet, at the same time, more than a mere 
 messenger ; for that divine message requires 
 not only a mouth which proclaims it, but 
 also a hand which executes it ; and this up- 
 lifted finger of God, the stretched-out hand 
 against the stronger, the bread of life and 
 light of life, is he, he himself, his own mes- 
 senger, the Messiah and Saviour. But, if he 
 was this, he could also demand with all 
 energy to be considered as more than a 
 prophet. The setting and space of a mere 
 humanly earthly life is too narrow for the 
 mediation of a fundamental, continual, di- 
 vine help ; it expands with inner necessity to 
 heavenly power and eternal divine power; 
 ^nd we understand that he, who dies on the 
 cross, is sure of ascending to the right hand 
 of God. But in that case the Messianic testi- 
 mony of Jesus is understood, not as an un- 
 necessary form, but as a revelation of the 
 innermost secret of the message of God 
 which he gave us. 
 
6o The New Message 
 
 We endeavored to define the new in the 
 teaching of Jesus. The way which we first 
 took led us past the goal; the newness of 
 Jesus, compared with scribism and the proph- 
 ets disappeared under our hands; and not 
 only the newness of his teaching but the 
 purity of his personal life was endangered. 
 We then saw that we could not confine the 
 new teaching of Jesus to this and not es- 
 pecially seek in this, that he revealed unto 
 us a new ideal of the fear of God; conse- 
 quently, we returned again to the beginning 
 and conceived it more deeply, and, behold, 
 everything became more definite and regu- 
 lar, when we perceived that the new teaching 
 of Jesus lies in the message which he brings, 
 that God arose to transform the world to a 
 kingdom of heaven through Jesus of Naza- 
 reth. Indeed, the relation of Jesus to the 
 scribes around him, to the prophets before 
 him, to the message of God beside him, yea, 
 his relation to himself, is clear and true, be- 
 cause the new of his teaching is comprised in 
 the simple news: ''For God so loved the 
 world, that he gave his only begotten Son, 
 that whosoever helieveth in him should not 
 perish, hut have everlasting life/' 
 
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