, .¦:':¦' .. ': i^S# ¦:¦"¦ W«»S .-•¦¦¦ .!v> ;.'.:V", '¦ 'Y^LE"WIMII¥HI&SinrY« DIVINITY SCHOOL TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY THE TEACHING OF JESUS THE Teaching of Jesus, HANS HINRICH WENDT, D.D., ORD. PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY, HEIDELBERG. 3franalateti fog Rev. JOHN WILSON, M.A., MONTREUX, SWITZERLAND. IN TWO VOLUMES. Vol. II. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 1892. \The Translation is Copyright by arrangement with the Author.] CONTENTS. THIRD SECTION PREACHING OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN GENERAL Chap. VI -continued. PAGE Relation of Jesus' Idea of the Kingdom of God to the Revelation of the Old Testament, . i I. Recognition and non - recognition of the authority of the Old Testament, ....... I 2. Fulfilment of the law and the prophets, .... 7 3. Opposition to the Jewish treatment of the Old Testament, . 29 4. Attitude towards the Old Testament in the Johannine discourses, 35 Chap. VII. The Conditions of Membership of the Kingdom- of God, ....... 48 I. Trustful reception of the kingdom of God, ... 48 2. Repentance, ....... 54 3. Renunciation of earthly goods, ..... 58 4. Hindrances to entering the kingdom of God, ... 74 5. The aid of Divine grace, ... ... 78 6. Exclusion of the unreceptive, ..... 80 7. Religious and moral character of Jesus' view of the conditions of membership of the kingdom of God, .... 88 8. Condition of obtaining blessing according to John iii., . . 91 9. Moral conditionality of faith according to the Johannine dis courses, ....... 95 10. Faith influenced by God according to the Johannine discourses, . 103 11. Being from God or from the devil according to the Johannine discourses, . . . . . . .114 FOURTH SECTION. THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS TO HIS MESSIAHSHIP. Chap. I. The Person of the Messiah, . . . .122 I. Place of Jesus' personal testimony to His Messiahship, . . 122 2. The Messiah as the Son of God, . . , , 124 VI CONTENTS. FAGS 3. Sonship to God in relation to sonship to David, . . . 130 4. Human limitation, . . . • • .130 5. The Messiah as the Son of man, . . . . 139 6. The relation of Jesus to God according to the Johannine dis courses, ....... IS1 7. Pre-existence of Jesus according to John xvii. 5, viii. 58, . 168 8. Creaturehood of Jesus according to the Johannine discourses, . 178 9. The harmony of the Divine and human consciousness of Jesus, . 182 Chap. II. Vocation Work of the Messiah, . . . 184 1. Renunciation of kingly rule, ..... 184 2. Prophetic work of teaching, ..... 188 3. Miraculous help and healing, ..... 191 4. Limitation of His work to Israel, .... 197 5. Kingship of Jesus according to the Johannine discourses, . 201 6. Life-bringing message according to the Johannine discourses, . 203 7. Execution of judgment according to the Johannine discourses, . 211 8. Position of miracles in the Johannine discourses, . . 213 9. Extent of the work of Jesus according to the Johannine dis courses, . . . . . . .215 Chap. III. The Necessity and Significance of the Death of the Messiah, . . . . . .218 1. Development of Jesus' ideas as to sufferings, . . . 218 2. Relation of His death to His Messianic vocation-work ; His death as a ransom and a covenant-sacrifice, . . . 223 3. Relation of His death to the forgiveness of sins, . . . 239 4. His conflict of spirit in Gethsemane, and dying words on the cross, ........ 246 S. Significance of the death of Jesus according to the Johannine discourses, . . . . . . .251 6. Relation of the view taken by Jesus as to His sufferings and death to the Old Testament Jewish view of the sufferings of the godly and of the Messiah, ..... 262 Chap. IV. The Heavenly Future of the Messiah, . . 265 1. Resurrection after three days, ..... 265 2. Reunion with the disciples in the course of their earthly life, . 269 3. Coming again to judgment, ..... 274 4. Heavenly life of Jesus according to the Johannine discourses, . 287 5. Intercession in heaven and sending of the Spirit according to the Johannine discourses, ..... 289 6. Coming again to the disciples according to the Johannine discourses, ....... 294 CONTENTS. Vll PAGE 7. Future reunion with the disciples in heaven according to the Johannine discourses. Relation of the Johannine idea of the present judgment to the synoptical idea of the future judgment, 303 Chap. V. Conduct required in Men towards the Person of the Messiah, ...... 307 1. Attachment to the person and teaching of Jesus, . . 307 2. Partaking of Jesus' body and blood, . . . .316 3. Faith in Jesus according to the Johannine discourses, . . 329 FIFTH SECTION. THE OUTLOOK OF JESUS UPON THE EARTHLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. Chap. I. The Circumstances and Events of the Future, I. Period of the earthly development of the kingdom of God, 2. Future extension of the kingdom of God, 3. Future association of the disciples, . 4. Future persecutions of the disciples, 5. Future judgment on the Jewish people and Jerusalem, . 6. Future of the Church according to the Johannine discourses, 34034o34S 35i3563603^7 Chap. II. The necessary Conduct of the Disciples in the Future, ....... 375 1. Fidelity and watchfulness, ..... 375 2. The disciples' call to preach, ..... 377 3. Farewell admonitions in the Johannine discourses, . . 381 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 1. Survey of the contents of the teaching of Jesus, . . , 384 2. Significance of the teaching of Jesus, , 388 3. Tradition of the main synoptical sources, , , . 398 4. Tradition of the discourses of Jesus in the fourth Gospel, , 401 NOTE. This translation, which has been carefully corrected by Professor Wendt, may be called to some extent a new and revised edition of the work. Some alterations have been made, and the interesting note, p. 70, Vol. II., is new. The translator regrets that one or two slips occur, which the reader will please to correct, e.g., — Page 158, Vol. I., line 8, for " expresses much more than," read " corresponds much more to.'' Page 192, Vol. I., line 21, for "our," read "your." Page 217, Vol. I., after the last sentence on page, supply the sentence: " In the blessedness of that future life lies the reward destined, and in a manner stored up, by God for the just — a reward whereby He will recognise and requite the true right eousness which is pleasing to Him (Luke vi. 23 ; Matt. vi. 1-6, 16-18 ; x. 41 ; Mark ix. 41)." Page 253, Vol. I., line 11, for "attributed," read" denied." Page 363, Vol. I., line 6 from foot, after "Jesus commanded," insert the words, "and the idea of God which He pro mulgated." THIRD SECTION. PREACHING OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN GENERAL— continued. CHAP. VI. RELATION OF JESUS IDEA OF THE KING DOM OF GOD TO THE REVELATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. I. In course of the discussion in the preceding chapter, we have been already led to indicate briefly the consciousness of Jesus in regard to the relation of the kingdom of God, as taught by Him, to the kingdom of the Old Testament promises. The idea of the kingdom of God already required that Jesus should base, upon a certain conception of the relation of the kingdom to the Divine revelation of the Old Testament, His certainty that He truly preached this kingdom of God. This certainty was, on the one hand, founded on the assurance that the kingdom, as He viewed it, stood in fundamental harmony with the Old Testament revelation of the character, will, and saving grace of God, and with the Old Testament promises of the salvation to be accomplished in the latter day. On the other hand, it was founded on a definite explanation and justification of the actual difference of the kingdom in His sense from that VOL. II. A 2 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. depicted in the Old Testament revelation. At first sight it might seem the most methodical way, in a treatise on the teaching of Jesus, to begin with an account of its relation to the traditional elements of the Old Testament revelation, and then proceed to give an account of His own revelation of the kingdom, as founded on the former, which it renovated and extended. But a closer consideration shows that this is not the proper and practical way. For Jesus Himself did not frame His conception of the kingdom of God only after attaining, and on the ground of attaining, a full and complete knowledge of the relation to be adopted towards the Old Testament revelation. Nay ; for although He proceeded upon a conviction of the truth of that Old Testament revelation, and although He had continual regard to it as a determining factor of His development, yet He did not acquire and develop His conception of the true nature and advent of the kingdom of God merely out of the Old Testament, but from His own immediate experience of a revelation of Divine grace in Himself. Thus, by comparing the contents of the new revelation in Himself with that recorded in the Old Testament, He could rightly judge how far the latter possessed enduring truth and value, and how far it was superseded and extended by the new and higher revelation of which He was the medium. Thus also, in our account of the teaching of Jesus, we must indeed proceed upon the knowledge that He took for granted the general truth of the Old Testa ment revelation, and found in it the conscious founda tion for His doctrine of the kingdom of God ; but we HOW FAR JESUS RECOGNISED O.T. AUTHORITY. 3 can only gain a full and accurate understanding of the utterances in which Jesus indicated His relation to the Old Testament revelation, when we have formed an idea of the peculiar contents of His view of the kingdom of God. In a preliminary exposition of the utterances of Jesus in regard to His relation to the Old Testament, one may already presuppose and employ definite ideas in regard to the contents of His view of the kingdom of God. We find an indication of the view entertained by Jesus of the Old Testament revelation, first of all in the fact that, in many cases, He ascribes Divine authority to the written word of Scripture, both when dealing with adversaries and when establishing and defending His own doctrine. He reproached the Pharisees because, in their zeal for observing cere monies to the neglect of neighbourly duties, they set aside the commandment of God in favour of human tradition (Mark vii. 8-13), and fulfilled the smaller matters of the law to the neglect of the weightier (Matt, xxiii. 23). And when the Sadducees, founding their arguments on a Mosaic statute, sought to make the resurrection-hope appear absurd, He replied that they did not know the Scriptures ; and, in quoting the book of Moses, He referred to it as the Word of God (Mark xii. 24, 25). Not only did He combine two commands of the Pentateuch into the double commandment of love to God and our neighbour, in the case where the question of the scribes expressly required that He should give the greatest command ment contained in the Old Testament (Mark xii. 28-31); but also, when the rich man asked what he 4 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. should do to inherit eternal life, He referred him to the decalogue as a summary of the Divine commands (Mark x. 19). Also, in the narrative of the rich man and Lazarus, He speaks of Moses and the prophets as the media of the revelation of the Divine will upon earth, to whom men must give heed in order to escape rejection by God in the life to come (Luke xvi. 29, 31). He defends Himself against the re proach that He and His disciples broke the Sabbath, by referring to the Scripture record of what David did, when, being hungry, he ate the shewbread along with his followers (Mark ii. 25 f.). He also pointed to the work prescribed by the law to the priests in the temple (Matt. xii. 5), and to that word of God in the prophets : "I will have mercy and not sacrifice" (Matt. xii. 7). He founded His command in regard to the indissolubility of the marriage-bond upon the Divine decree at creation in regard to the union of man and woman (Mark x. 6 ff.). And He condemned the greedy traffic in the temple by an appeal to the word of Scripture, that the house of God would be called the house of prayer for all peoples (Mark xi. 17). He expressly declared that His ministry and the dispensation of blessing which He was establishing, was in harmony with the prophetic promises of the latter-day dispensation which God was to bring in (Luke iv. 17-21; Matt. xi. 5); and He based His assurance of His Messiahship and the necessity of His sufferings on the fact that the Old Testament promises found their fulfilment in Him (Mark ix. 12 ; xii. 10 f., 36 f. ; xiv. 21, 27, 49; Luke xxii. 2>l)- In one instance, namely, at His last solemn entrance into HOW FAR JESUS RECOGNISED O.T. AUTHORITY. 5 Jerusalem (Mark xi. i ff.), He Himself arranged the external circumstances to make them correspond with a Messianic prophecy (Zech. ix. 9), and to make the fulfilment of that prophecy clearly manifest. But along with those appeals to the Divine authority of Scripture, we find passages in which JesuS, directly or indirectly, indicated a divergence of His teaching from that of the Old Testament. In the great discourse in regard to the true nature of righteousness, He adduces a series of examples, to bring out the difference of the righteousness which He taught from the inferior kind prescribed to "them of old time ; " and He emphatically sets His own authority, not only over against that of the scribal traditions, but also over against that of the Old Testament legislative records (Matt. v. 21 ff.). In the controversy concerning Sabbath observance, He certainly appeals to the Scripture account of David's mode of conduct towards the established ritual ; but at the same time He lays down a general principle in regard to the purpose of the Sabbath, from which a wider consequence is deducible than the mere right to break the Sabbath ordinance in an exceptional case and under urgent necessity. He claimed the right freely to determine how and in what measure the Sabbath is to be used for the good of man ; and, accordingly, He declared Himself Lord also of the Sabbath, thus repudiating for Himself and His disciples an absolute subjection to the Sabbath ordinance sanctioned in the Old Testament law (Mark ii. 27 f.). Immediately after reproaching the Pharisees because they set aside the Divine command 6 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. in favour of human tradition, He lays down the principle that nothing which passes into a man from without can defile him, but only what comes out of the heart (Mark vii. 156".). But this principle virtually invalidated the whole mass of the Old Testament legislation, which had reference to defile ment through external influences and conditions. And by appealing to the Divine command given at creation in regard to marriage, He established His deliverance in regard to the Mosaic precept concern ing the putting away of a wife, declaring that it was only given on account of the hardness of men's heart, and was not in accordance with God's own will in respect to marriage (Mark x. 2 ff.). In addition to all these utterances, which indicate a divergence between the kind of righteousness which He taught and that of the Old Testament revelation, we have also the fact that He cannot have overlooked the difference between the benefits of the kingdom of God as He proclaimed them and the hopes of the future which were conveyed by the prophetic writings. And, in emphasising the fulfilment of the Old Testa ment promises through His ministry, He must have been conscious of a very important difference, from an external point of view, between those promises and this fulfilment ; nor did He by any means hold out the prospect to His disciples that the Old Testament would find even in the future a realisation that would be literally exact in all particulars. How can we reconcile this clear expression of con scious freedom towards the Old Testament revelation in the Holy Scripture, and this open divergence of FULFILMENT OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. 7 His teaching from the contents of Scripture, with the fact that Jesus at the same time appeals to the authority of the Old Testament revelation, and has made the neglect of it a reproach to His opponents ? This has at first the appearance of inconsistency or arbitrariness on the part of Jesus, as if, in spite of reserving for Himself freedom of divergence from the Old Testament revelation, He yet appealed to its authority, where it was convenient for Him, or where He could argue e concessis with others. We must inquire how this apparent inconsistency was recon ciled in His consciousness, and wherein He found the inner right, in spite of His own open divergence from the Old Testament revelation, to claim its Divine authority as testimony for Himself. 2. Jesus Himself has given a compendious general declaration in regard to His relation to the Old Testament revelation, in that saying in the Sermon on the Mount whereby He makes the transition from the introductory beatitudes to the special exposition of the theme of His discourse : " Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil" (Matt. v. 17). This saying is followed by the emphatic assertion that, until heaven and earth pass away, one jot or tittle should not pass from the law without fulfilment (ver. 1 8 f. ). Thereupon He declares that the righteous ness of those who enter the kingdom of heaven must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (ver. 20) ; and then He shows, by several examples, how the commandments laid down by Him for the members of the kingdom of God are other and 8 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. greater than those given to " them of old time " (ver. 21 ff.). We must endeavour to understand the first saying (ver. 1 7) so as to find in it the groundwork of the sayings which follow, and the solution of their apparent contradictions. The main question is, how the idea of " fulfilling " (¦n-Xrjpovv) is here to be interpreted. The idea, which in its etymological sense is applicable to the filling of a hollow vessel to repletion, denotes, in its secondary application, to declarations first of all, and usually their fulfilment through a corresponding practical realisation. In other words, it signifies, in reference to sayings which express a hope or promise, a fulfilment by the actual accomplishment of the object, or condition of things, hoped for or promised (e.g. Luke iv. 21, etc.); and, in reference to sayings which imply a wish or command, it denotes their fulfilment through the practical realisation of the wish, or carrying out of the command (e.g. Rom. viii. 4 ; xiii. 8). Can such a fulfilment by practical realisa tion be meant in our passage, where it-Xrjpovi/ is spoken of in connection with the law and the prophets ? We may first consider the fulfilment which Jesus was conscious of accomplishing for the Old Testament promises, inasmuch as He knew that He was the promised Messiah, and that the kingdom of God, announced and established by Him, was the realisation of the prophetic hope of Israel. If we considered the passage in question apart from its connec tion, this explanation would certainly appear the simplest and readiest, since the "law and the pro phets " can quite well be taken together as witnesses FULFILMENT OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. 9 to the Old Testament hopes and promises (cf. Matt. xi. 13). But the connection of our passage tells decidedly against this interpretation. For throughout the remaining portions of this discourse, the fulfilment of the Old Testament promises, which Jesus Himself indicated, and which He effected by His teaching and ministry, is not treated. The discourse is occupied thenceforth only with the true righteous ness whereby men must fulfil the will of God, and with the relation in which the commands of Jesus, in regard to this righteousness, stand towards the legal ordinances hitherto enjoined, and to the methods of righteousness hitherto recognised, The subsequent portion of the discourse appears to favour the other signification, viz. that the "fulfil ment" of the "law and the prophets," referred to in our passage, means the fulfilment of the Old Testa ment revelation of law through the complete practical performance of the revealed will of God. " Law and prophets" can certainly be taken together as expressing the vehicle of the Old Testament revela tion of the will of God (cf. Matt. vii. 1 2 ; Luke xvi. 29, 31), in so far as the Mosaic revelation of law was expanded and expounded by the prophets. And since, in the words which immediately follow, it is just the necessity of the complete and exact practical fulfilment of the law by the members of the kingdom of God which is emphasised by Jesus (vers. 18-20), it seems to be a thought quite suited to the connection, that Jesus should make that declaration as to the law and the prophets the introduction to His teaching of the highest practical IO RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. righteousness. He Himself had come for the pur pose of bringing about the complete practical fulfil ment of the Old Testament revelation of the will of God.1 But weighty considerations present them selves against this explanation. If in ver. 17 the practical fulfilment of the Old Testament law is meant, we must also afterwards, in vers. 18 and 19, understand the law, whose indefeasible authority and strictest observance Jesus teaches and com mands, as the Old Testament law in its historically existing elements. But could Jesus so unreservedly say that the historically existing elements of the Old Testament revelation of law remained of inviolable authority for Himself and His disciples ? Could He mean that His disciples must perfectly fulfil the law in that sense, or that He had Himself come for the purpose of fulfilling it in that sense ? Would not His words, if used in this sense, stand in evident contradiction to His consciousness, elsewhere so frequently and plainly expressed, of His own and His disciples' freedom in regard to the whole domain of the ceremonial legislation prescribed in the Old Testament ? Would they not especially stand in irremediable antagonism to the further utterances of Jesus which immediately follow in this very discourse, where He opposes to the commands of the Old Testament law His own higher precepts, which do not merely carry forward and expand, but which directly abrogate, at least in part, those earlier commands? (Matt. v. 38 ff.). If in ver. 17 we are to understand the idea of the "fulfilment" 1 Cf. B. Weiss, Matthdusevangelium, p. 148. FULFILMENT OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. II in this sense of the practical accomplishment, we must either conclude that those words, vers. 17-19, in spite of their appearing to have been derived, like the other portions of the Discourse on Right eousness, from the Logia-source, yet could not have been spoken by the historical Jesus, who knew Him self to be the Lord of the Sabbath, who taught His disciples that nothing which cometh into a man from without defileth him, and who opposed His own legislative authority to the authority of the Old Testament law ; or we must conclude that Jesus, in vers. 17-19, understood by law something other and higher than the simple historically - delivered form of the Old Testament revelation of the will of God, although no sure ground for such a different acceptation of the idea of the law has been given in the text. In these circumstances, does not the question force itself upon us, whether, in this very saying of Jesus in ver. 17 in regard to the "fulfilment" of the law and the prophets, for which He had come, that idea of a higher and more perfect form of the law than the one already given is expressed, — an idea which otherwise, unsupported by the text, must be presupposed and supplied by us ? In addition to this there is one other consideration, which, while it proves the incompatibility of the meaning of this "fulfilment" with the practical ac complishment, at the same time leads to the only suitable and necessary explanation. In the discourse of Jesus, the idea of " fulfilment " is set in opposition to the idea of " abrogation." But the practical per formance of the precepts of the law is by no means 12 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. the exact logical opposite of the abrogation of the law. The abrogation of the law means the abolition or the impairing of the validity of the law as a rule for one's self or for another. It is a function which is the opposing counterpart of the legislative function, and which is authoritatively executed through the organ of legislation. As little as practical obedience to a law is identical with the establishment or main tenance of the validity of the law, so little is the practical transgression of a law an abrogation of the law ; for the law instituted by the legislative author ity, even when it is disobeyed, remains valid as the standard for judging the merit or the blame of the practical conduct. Also the true logical opposite of the idea of the "fulfilment of the law," in the sense of the practical performance of its precepts, would be the idea of transgression (rrapafiaiveiv) or neglect (dcpiivai) of the law. But to the idea presented in the text we are discussing, viz. that of the abrogation of the law, only such an idea can be logically opposed as denotes an exercise of legislative author ity. Can the idea of "fulfilment" in that passage bear such a sense ? The idea of fulfilment, not only as applied to other expressions and manifestations of the spiritual life (cf. John xv. n ; Acts xiv. 26 ; 2 Cor. x. 6 ; 1 Thess. ii. 16), but also as applied to sayings, can indicate a completion which consists in the said utterance or manifestation being brought to a conclusion, to the highest possible condition, or to a form corresponding to the idea at its best. Where, according to the connection, the "fulfilment" of the law must mean FULFILMENT OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. 1 3 an exercise of legislative power, there is implied a definitive completion of the promulgation of the law. In order perfectly to understand the exact meaning in which Jesus indicates as His task such a fulfilment of the Old Testament law, we must bear in mind that, in the consciousness of the Jews in the time of Jesus, the "binding" and "fastening" of the law appeared in the foremost rank as that exercise of " legislative authority" which was opposed to the "abrogation" of the law. The law was instituted by God once for all ; it was ministered by angels, and mediated by Moses; and this law was to remain inviolate. But those "who had set themselves in Moses' seat" (Matt, xxiii. 2), the Pharisaic scribes, who regarded themselves as the custodians and authorities of the law, sought only to make it their task to " bind " and "make fast" the law as delivered, and to establish, down to the minutest points, its meaning and value by their explanation and specialisation, and thus to draw a hedge around it. This interest of theirs for the strictest "binding" and "fastening" of the law, could be widely removed from zeal for its real pract ical performance. The Pharisaic scribes, as Jesus said Of them, bound heavy burdens and laid them upon men's shoulders, whilst they themselves would not move them with one of their fingers (Matt, xxiii. 4). Now, if Jesus declared it His task not to destroy "the law and the prophets," but to bring them to fulfilment, He makes it clear, by substituting this latter idea for the "fastening" or "binding" aimed at by the scribes, that He sought to indicate His own relation to the law and the prophets, not only as one 14 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. opposed to a pure rejection of the Old Testament revelation of law, but also as opposed to the officious zeal which the Pharisaic scribes thought they required to exercise towards the law. He meant that, in the law and the prophets, He recognised a genuine reve lation of the will of God, and therefore He did not feel Himself called upon simply to destroy its value for others ; but He signified at the same time that He nevertheless would not leave merely as it was the expression of this earlier revelation of the Divine will given in the law and the prophets. He would not only explain and establish that revelation in detail, after the manner of the scribes, but He would rather bring it to a higher and more perfect form, in which the idea of this Old Testament revelation of the Divine will should find a perfectly adequate expres sion. Were not the law and the prophets, then, a per fectly adequate expression of this idea ? Had Jesus sought to abstract the idea of the Old Testament revelation of God's will merely from the historically existing form of this revelation in the law and the prophets, without possessing another means of know ing it, He would, of course, have had again to recog nise the actual contents of the law and the prophets as the quite adequate expression of this idea which He had derived from them. But His consciousness showed that He was a true prophet and revealer of God, from the very fact that He found in Himself, in that most certain revelation of which He was the possessor, a sure vantage-ground from which to judge of what, in the historically given form of the law and the prophets, really corresponded to the true will of FULFILMENT OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. 1 5 God, and what was only an imperfect expression of that will. He judged the law and the prophets, not according to the standard of an idea derived from themselves, but according to the standard of an ideal, of which He had the certainty that it was the right leading idea of that true revelation of the will of God. His own conception of God, His knowledge and experience of the fatherly goodwill of God, furnished Him with this idea. In so far as He had, on the one hand, expanded and deepened, just from the suggestion and constant guidance of the Holy Scriptures, His own knowledge and inner experience of the character, will, and grace of God, and as He had permanently assimilated from the Scriptures such words as harmonised with the revelation which He had personally experienced, and which afforded a valuable confirmation of that revelation, He had thereby the certainty that the law and the prophets were a true revelation of God, and that their authority was by no means to be simply abrogated. On the other hand, however, so far as He nevertheless found in the law and the prophets an abundance of contents which did not agree with the revelation of which He had inward certainty, and which afforded to Pharisaic Judaism a foundation for a perverted zeal for external legality and earthly hopes, He was led to conclude that the true revelation of God did not exist in perfect form in the law and the prophets, and that it was His peculiar task to set forth in perfect form the revelation of the Divine will. In this sense He could say that He had not come to destroy the law and the prophets, but to " fulfil." 1 6 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. If we are to understand the saying of Jesus (ver. 17) in this way, it furnishes ground whereby the following utterances of the discourse (vers. 18, 19) become in telligible as words of Jesus Himself, and their appar ent contradiction of the further sayings (ver. 20 ff.), in which Jesus sets His own precepts in opposition to the earlier commands, disappears. The certainty of Jesus, that He would not destroy the authority of the commandments of God for men, that He was rather called to bring in a true and perfect know ledge and fulfilment of the Divine will, and that the knowledge of the Divine will as taught by Him, even so far as it annulled and altered many particular parts of the Old Testament law, yet did not really destroy that Old Testament law, but in its leading idea was identical with it, and only presented such a consummating form of it as confirmed the Old Testament revelation of the will of God as a whole,-^that certainty enabled Him to declare that the " law " of God had an inde feasible existence, and required a strict practical fulfilment from those who wished to be members of the kingdom of God (ver. 18 f.). The thought that this "law," whose inviolable authority and strictest fulfilment He declared was yet not simply the Old Testament law in its historically given form, but a perfect ideal form of the Old Testament law as He taught it, was not then an unexpressed supposition added by us to that declaration, but was plainly laid down from the fact that this declaration was sub ordinated to that other saying, that He was come, not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil. For FULFILMENT OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. 17 the connection with this saying made it self-evident that He could not mean that the law in its hitherto existing form had permanent authority and observ ance (since, in point of fact, He regarded that form as not yet perfect), but only the law in its perfect form, for whose establishment He declared Himself called. It was also necessary, however, just because He meant that perfect form of the law, that He should immediately append to His statement as to the in violable authority of the law and the necessity of its strictest fulfilment, the declaration that the righteous ness He had in view as required for the kingdom of God, must be far greater than that taught and prac tised by the scribes and Pharisees, and He subjoined the statement as to wherein lay the difference between this perfect law and the hitherto prevailing form and idea of the law. In the same sense, and with the same justice with which Jesus, in course of this further exposition of His perfect law, could declare as to the principle, " All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them," that "this is the law and the prophets" (Matt. vii. 12), He could also in our passage, at the beginning of the discourse, describe the precepts of righteousness, whose strictest observance is required in the kingdom of God, as the " law," as the old law revealed through Moses and the prophets, and recorded in the Holy Scriptures. For the command expressed in that principle (Matt. vii. 12), to exercise a ministering love which interprets and seeks to satisfy even the unuttered wishes of others from the analogy of one's own needs and wishes, also cannot simply be vol. 11. B 1 8 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. derived from the actual historical form of the Old Testament revelation in the law and the prophets, as their sum, or as their fundamental principle. When Jesus nevertheless indicated this command, corre sponding to His own highest conception of the Divine law of love, as the contents of the law and the prophets, He judged the law and the prophets, not according to an idea derived from their historical form, but according to an ideal which He recognised as the leading principle of the Old Testament revela tion. It was to the law, which perfectly corresponded to this governing idea of the Old Testament revela tion, that His declaration applied, that no jot or tittle of the law would go unfulfilled, and that greatness in the kingdom of God turned upon the degree of perfection with which a man himself fulfilled the least command ments, and taught others to fulfil them (Matt. v. 1 8 f.). But we need not so limit the significance of that saying of Jesus (Matt. v. 17) in regard to His relation to the law and the prophets, as to find in it merely the expression of His relation to the Old Testament revelation of the will of God. If, from what follows in the discourse, where Jesus sets His precepts of righteousness in opposition to the righteousness hitherto taught and practised, the idea is precluded that in the declaration at the beginning in regard to His relation to the law and the prophets, He only viewed the contents of those vehicles of revelation in the light of their foretelling the expected blessing of the latter day, it is not, however, precluded that He viewed the law and the prophets in their quite FULFILMENT OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. 1 9 general aspect as revelation, containing, as they cer tainly did, also the revelation of the Divine will, which was of primary concern for Him in relation to His purpose in what followed of the discourse. And if, from the circumstance that Jesus, in ver. 17, speaks not merely of the "law," but of the "law and the prophets,'' we cannot conclude that, along with the Old Testament legislation, He had also the prophetic promises in view, — since, as has already been re marked, the "law and prophets" can be regarded conjointly as the vehicles of the Old Testament revelation of God,1 — nevertheless the fact that Jesus added to His first declaration, that He was not come to destroy the law and the prophets, the other object less and quite general statement, that He was not come to destroy but to fulfil, plainly shows that it was not merely in reference to the Old Testament 1 The disjunctive particle "or" in the sentence, "Think not that I am come to destroy the ' law or the prophets,' " proves only that Jesus has not here regarded the " law and the prophets " as an indivisible unity. It is true that in Greek this "or" is wont to be inserted in negative statements where, in positive sayings, " and " would be used ; cf. e.g. John viii. 14. Yet the logical ground for this lies in the fact that the negative expression of two ideas coupled with "and" would only certainly express the negation of those two ideas in their combination, but not the negation of each idea where they occurred separately. Therefore in negative expressions the disjunctive "or" is used in order precisely to denote that the negation applies to each idea without reference to their combination, whilst also in negative expressions, the "and" is retained where the two combined ideas are regarded as an indivisible unity. The latter is, e.g., the case with the coupled ideas occp% x.a.1 oiifia. (Matt. xvi. 17 ; Gal. i. 16 ; I Cor. xv. 50), or /Spaoiz x-xl nom; (Rom. xiv. 17). In the saying under consideration (Matt. v. 17), it is also expressed by the "or" that, of those two elements of Scripture, the law and the prophets, Jesus would destroy neither the one nor the other. But we can hereby conclude nothing in regard to the relation in which the law and the prophets are spoken of: whether they are specially considered as the Old Testament revelation of law, or in a more general relation. 20 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. revelation of law, but in reference to that revelation in its quite general aspect, that He was conscious of being called, not for its destruction, yet at the same time not for its simple maintenance and confirmation, but for its fulfilment, and the establishment of a form of it quite corresponding to its highest idea. Jesus has indeed, in His teaching in regard to the kingdom of God, taken up one and the same relation to the whole Old Testament revelation of God, and there fore He might feel the necessity of showing that His relation to the Old Testament law — which He was not come to destroy — was not an exception to His general attitude to the Old Testament revelation, but was rather an application of the quite general rule that He was not come to destroy but to fulfil. The conception of God and of Divine blessings which Jesus taught, had the same relation to the Old Testament revelation as His doctrine of righteous ness to the Old Testament law. He indeed found a real foundation for it in the Old Testament ; He found it attested there in a series of utterances which appeared to Him to confirm and verify His own knowledge, and which gave Him the assurance that His doctrine did not stand related to that previous revelation of God as a mere innovation. But, at the same time, He found in the Old Testament an abundance of ideas in regard to the character of God, and in regard to the blessings promised by God, and needing to be striven after by men, which did not accord with His own knowledge of the true character of God and of His blessings ; and He knew that He was called and authorised to perfect that conception FULFILMENT OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. 2 1 of God and of His blessings which was not wrought out with full consistency and clearness in the Old Testament. Thus that saying of Jesus, in regard to His having come not to destroy but to fulfil, also indirectly indicates His consciousness in regard to His attitude toward the Old Testament promises of the kingdom of God and of the Messiah. But in saying this we need not alter the already established meaning of the idea of "fulfilment," nor exchange the meaning of " a completion in a form perfectly corre sponding to the idea " for that of " fulfilment through an exact practical realisation." Jesus " fulfilled " the Old Testament promises and hopes in reference to the blessings of the Messianic latter day analog ously to the way in which He fulfilled the Old Testament law ; that is, He did not abolish them, He did not represent them as simply false and unfounded illusions, which should find no fulfilment, yet, at the same time, He did not simply maintain them intact in their actual form, nor did He teach men to expect a literal and complete fulfilment of their whole tradi tional form ; but He understood and expounded them according to the idea which He Himself recognised as the true one, and which He deemed the leading one in all the Old Testament promises, though it here found only an imperfect expression. So also He was certain of bringing about and exhibiting the practical fulfilment of the Old Testament promises. He fulfilled them, not according to the imperfect form in which they existed in the Old Testament, but according to the perfect form in which He under stood their true idea, just as His practical fulfilment 2 2 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. of the law of God was a fulfilment according to the leading idea which He Himself understood, and which He brought to complete manifestation. In the saying (Matt. v. 17), however, the question is not in regard to this practical fulfilment, but to that perfect understanding and manifestation of the "law and the prophets." This saying (Matt. v. 17) stands in a mutually supplementary relation to that utterance of Jesus — ¦ expressed in the two connected parables of the new cloth on the old garment, and the new wine in the old skins — in regard to the relation of the righteous ness taught by Him to the traditional form of the Old Testament Jewish righteousness (Mark ii. 21 f.). What gave occasion to this utterance was the question as to why His disciples did not take part in the traditional customs of fasting, like the disciples of the Baptist and the Pharisees. He first replied to this question, that it did not become His disciples to fast then, whilst, in fellowship with Him, the bringer of glad tidings of the kingdom of God, they enjoyed a happy season, like the bridal attendants at the time of marriage, but afterwards, when this season of happiness had ended, they would indeed fast (Mark ii. 18-20). Whilst in this answer He declared the unsuitableness of fasting on His disciples' part at that present time, only because of the peculiar circumstances of the time, which called for no expres sion of a sad spirit towards God, He yet recognised the relative suitableness of fasting, even for His disciples, so far as it was the expression of a sad spirit in sad circumstances. But yet the question put FULFILMENT OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. 23 to Him was not thereby settled in regard to its final motive. For those who propounded this reproachful question by no means regarded or prescribed fasting as an expression of a sad spirit, and therefore were not satisfied with the acknowledgment made by Jesus of a relative propriety in fasting. They regarded fasting as a branch of the traditional form of righteousness which was founded in the Old Testa ment law, and developed through the Pharisaic traditions. They thought that this traditional form of Old Testament Jewish righteousness ought at all events to be strictly kept by those who wished to lay claim to a perfect righteousness in doctrine and practice ; and therefore they looked upon the non- fasting of the disciples of Jesus as a sign that they practised an inferior righteousness to that of the Pharisees and John's disciples. With reference to this motive of the question as to why the disciples did not fast, both those parables — in which He declared the relation which, in principle, existed between the righteousness taught by Him and that of Old Testament Jewish tradition — are added by Jesus. The main thought which He sought to set forth clearly in those two parables was this, that what has the fresh vitality of something new cannot be fitly bound up into a harmonious whole with what has the decay of age. The parable of the unfulled cloth, which, if sewed upon an old garment, tears asunder from the old cloth which surrounds it, and so the rent is only increased, was designed to show that a synthesis of the new and vigorous with the old and weak would not effect a real improvement and restoration, but the 24 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. old would rather, by the force of the new addition, be brought to greater dissolution. But the second supplementary parable of the new wine, which, when poured into the old skins, would rend them, and be itself lost, was designed to furnish this addi tional thought, that, in such a synthesis, the new itself would not attain its proper condition. If Jesus wished to apply this thought to the righteousness which He taught His disciples, the presupposition for this application lay in His conviction that He required to teach and impart to His disciples such a righteousness as, in relation to the traditional Old Testament Jewish righteousness, was something new, and contained a new originative force. From this presupposition it was also deducible that it was not fitted merely to be joined like a patch to the Old Testament Jewish righteousness, if adopted and otherwise left intact ; for thereby no enduring whole would be established. But the righteousness which He taught His disciples required to be, according to His consciousness, a new whole : " new wine in new skins" (Mark ii. 22b). Therefore a particular mode of practice, such as the fasting in question, could not be proved justifiable and necessary to Himself and His disciples from its being a branch of the traditional Old Testament Jewish righteous ness, but only from its fitting in, according to its nature, as a branch of the new whole — the rio-ht- eousness which He was called upon to teach and establish. If we regarded in an isolated way the thought expressed by these connected parables, we might FULFILMENT OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. 25 draw the conclusion that Jesus had radically re jected the old, in order, as far as possible, to give sole and unmixed currency to the new, which He sought to bring in. Yet such a conclusion would ill accord with the fact that Jesus, as closely as possible, connected His teaching with the earlier revelation recorded in the Old Testament, and so often emphasised and made use of the authority of the Old Testament Scriptures. In order, there fore, to explain this fact, we must ever keep stead fastly in view that the thought conveyed in those connected parables finds its complement in that saying of Jesus (Matt. v. 17), that He was not come to destroy but to fulfil. Whilst Jesus declined to accept the traditional form of the Old Testament Jewish righteousness as a whole, and whilst He rather claimed, in His teaching concerning righteous ness and the kingdom of God in general, to produce a new and consistent whole, yet at the same time He maintained the consciousness of the inner connection, in regard to their ruling idea and their directing purpose, between this new formation, which He had introduced, and the old one which He renounced. On the other hand, however, that saying (Matt. v. 1 7) receives a valuable elucidation, corresponding to our previous explanation, from those two parables. The " fulfilment " or accomplishment of the law and the prophets, which is set in opposition to their aboli tion, might indeed be understood in the sense of the addition of some amount of teaching and precept in order to reach that professed accomplishment. Even the Pharisees and scribes could approve of a fulfil- 26 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. ment of the law in this sense, and in point of fact they themselves sought to establish the law by their traditions; for this was consistent with that "bind ing" of the law which they made their great task. But Jesus neither meant nor aimed at a fulfilment in this sense. It was not by quantitative extension, but by qualitative renewal, that He designed to bring the law and the prophets to fulfilment. In consciousness and in aim He retained the idea of the old, and did not produce what was absolutely new ; but He sought to bring the imperfect expression of that idea to perfection, by retaining part of the traditional form of this expression as valid, and by rejecting another part as without worth, whilst still another part was changed or replaced by what was quite new, accord ing as this was required by the uniform idea of the whole. To those who regarded only particular and external details, this procedure in regard to the form of the Old Testament revelation might appear merely an arbitrary partial destruction of it ; and certainly the Pharisaic scribes thus regarded it. But in spite of this appearance, Jesus Himself could maintain the certainty that He did not destroy but fulfil the law and the prophets, since the personal revelation experienced by Him had made Him aware of the true idea of the Old Testament revelation, and in it He recognised the essential connection existing between the old and the new. By a reference to this attitude, which Jesus was clearly conscious of maintaining towards the Old Testament revelation, as well as by His correspond ing employment of the words of Scripture in par- FULFILMENT OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. 27 ticular instances, we can also understand the declaration of Jesus : " Therefore every scribe who has been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a -householder, who brings forth out of his treasure things new and old" (Matt. xiii. 52). In His view it was not impossible for one to be both a scribe and a disciple of the kingdom of God. The knowledge which was gained by a right study of Scripture, and that which was learnt as a disciple of the kingdom of God, would, on the contrary, mutually enrich each other. Jesus had so experienced it Him self, and, according to His view, it must be so in the case of all other members of the kingdom of God. If any one understood and searched the Old Testa ment Scriptures in the light of the knowledge derived from personal connection with the kingdom of God, he would thereby gain treasure which would confirm and increase his own store. He remains in posses sion of the old, which he recognises as of enduring worth ; yet he is not limited to the old, but along with it he has a valuable new possession. And thus the treasures which, like the rich householder, he imparts to others, are both new and old — new, because of the attainment of the new revelation of the kingdom of God ; and old, because of the retention of the earlier revelation of God, which is similar in nature and value to the new revelation.1 1 Matthew has placed this saying (xiii. 52) at the close of his great parable-discourse, and so suggested the idea that it refers to the fore going parables, whether to the substance of the teaching given in those parables, or to the form of the parable-teaching in general. When one knows, however, that the groundwork of this whole parable-discourse lies in Mark iv. 1-34, where this closing saying, given by Matthew, is 2 8 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. Since Jesus saw, in His gospel of the kingdom of God, the fulfilment of the Old Testament revelation of God, and in the present form of the kingdom, the blessed realisation of the ideal hoped for by prophets and saints (Luke x. 23 f. ; Matt. xiii. 17), He could judge that every member of this kingdom of God as such had a superior position to that of all who stood only on the ground of the earlier revelation, even of the most eminent representatives of the older revela tion. In this sense, after declaring that John the Baptist was more than a prophet, and the greatest of all of woman born, and that he was the Elias pro mised as the immediate forerunner of the kingdom of God (Matt. xi. 9 ff.), He added that nevertheless one comparatively little in the kingdom of God was greater than he (ver. IK5).1 For even the Baptist omitted, and that Matthew on his part has, here as elsewhere, added to the discourses in Mark other sayings from the Logia, apparently related to them in substance, we can well understand that Matthew thought that he required to put at the close of this parable-discourse such a saying of Jesus as expressed His own teaching in the form of a compari son ; but we do not feel obliged to interpret that imported saying with reference to the parable-teaching of Jesus. With such a reference, the most important and characteristic conception of the parable, namely, that of the scribe, whereby Jesus here, as nowhere else, denotes Him self, will be meaningless. This conception receives a proper interpreta tion only according to our exposition given above, where we make the saying refer to the investigation and explanation of the Holy Scriptures. If, on the ground of other sayings of Jesus in regard to the relation of His doctrine of the kingdom of God to Old Testament Scripture, we should consider what Jesus meant by a scribe who at the same time has become a disciple of the kingdom of God, it would at once be obvious what must be understood by the old and the new. 1 In the words, Matt. xi. 1 1 : 6 Se pmcporepo; in -cy $a.aiksic$ ran ovpanuii) p-M^un aural ion'u, the comparative fiix,p6rspo; cannot refer to John. For if o piixportpos is understood as the subject absolute, and h rii faaiKiitf. t. oip. is connected with the predicate, then either the thought is sug gested, that he who in general respects is smaller than John, is greater than he in the kingdom of God,— which is illogical, since the being FULFILMENT OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. 29 stood outside of the kingdom of God in hopeful expectant prediction of the dispensation of grace which the members of the kingdom of God had received and possessed at that present time (vers. 12 and 14). 3. The way in which Jesus established and made good His relation to the earlier revelation of God smaller in general respects must include the being smaller in the king dom of God ; or the thought is suggested, that he who in all other respects, except in regard to the kingdom of God, is less than John, is greater than John in the kingdom of God, — which is absurd, since the being less in earthly respects cannot of itself be a reason for superiority to John in the kingdom of God. If, however, the more definite designa tion in Tfi ficta, t. oiip. is connected with 0 pazaoTspos, the thought is then suggested, that he who in the kingdom of God is less than John, yet, absolutely considered, or in all other respects, is greater than John, — a thought which stands in direct opposition to the manifest intention of the words of Jesus, since Jesus in the first place here considers the Baptist not as already belonging to the kingdom of God, but represents him as simply the last of the prophets of the preparatory and expectant period (ver. 12 ff.) ; and since, secondly, He does not consider the being less in the kingdom of God as any reason for superiority to another who is greater in the kingdom of God, but He rather regards the belonging to the kingdom as the ground of an absolute superiority to all others who do not belong to it. The comparative ftixo&Ttpoc, with which the more definite designation is 1 vi fiao. r. oip. is to be connected, can accord ingly have reference only to the remaining members of the kingdom of God. Nevertheless it is not at all equivalent to the superlative ; for it does not denote the one who stands at the lowest position in the kingdom of God, but it denotes any one who is among the less in the kingdom of God, i.e. one comparatively small in the kingdom of God. The expression is used because all members of the kingdom of God as such are great, and because some can only be spoken of as comparat ively little. Cf. Kiihner, Ausfiihr. griech. Grammatik, ii. p. 20 f., with the cited example, Odyss. vii. 156: 'Exisyos, og ly a.iiix.as duhpay irpoyiiiioTtpo; m», "the oldest among those who were all comparat ively young." Cf. also the comparatives, Matt, xxiii. 11 ; 1 Cor. xii. 22 f. ; xiii. 13. When Jesus says that among those born of women no greater has arisen than John the Baptist, the contrast that follows, viz. that one comparatively little in the kingdom of God is yet greater than he, makes it evident that by " those born of women " Jesus means all men up to that time, up to the advent of the kingdom of God, but that He excepts the members of the kingdom of God, though they also are born of women. 2,0 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. contained in the Old Testament Scriptures, appears to me one of the grandest proofs of the geniality, the clearness, and the moral purity of His insight and judgment, and a remarkable indication of how high above His contemporaries He stood, and how free He kept Himself from the influence of the prevailing spiritual tendency in His people and time. We must keep in view how the Old Testament Scriptures were regarded and used in the contemporary Judaism.1 The Jews' assurance, that the true revelation of God is contained in Scripture, was expressed by their deriva tion of the letter of Scripture from miraculous inspira tion, and in its investment with the greatest holiness and authority. But the idea and the pretension that they really held fast to, explained, and followed the Old Testament Scripture in full and in the strictest way, were nevertheless connected with a great illusion. In reality, the religious ideas and legal precepts of Pharisaic Judaism represented a stage of advancement in opposition to the form of the Israelitish religion attested in the Old Testament, — an advancement which certainly in a great measure found its starting-point and foundation in that earlier form, but which deviated just as widely from other elements and tendencies contained in that earlier form. The Jews of Jesus' time deluded themselves in regard to those facts. Whilst seeking to explain with finest casuistry and to observe one portion of the Divine commands contained in the Old Testament, they over looked and disregarded others; and whilst seeking with the utmost pains to keep the letter of Scripture, 1 Cf. vol. i. p. 37. OPPOSITION TO JEWISH TREATMENT OF O.T. 3 1 they set themselves in manifold ways in opposition to the spirit and aim of the Scripture words. And then they took up the allegorical mode of interpretation as a means of importing their own peculiar thoughts into Holy Scripture, and of apparently drawing them from it. When they were tired of the dry letter, they thought by means of the cup of allegorical interpreta tion to draw out the spirit of Scripture. The method of explaining the text, or, more correctly, the free expansion of the thought of the text, which the Palestinian scribes applied in their Haggada to the non-legislative parts of Holy Scripture, was used also by Philo with reference to the law ; and he as well as they maintained the appearance of having done no injury to the written word, but of leaving it intact, and more fully bringing out its value. We must make comparison with this Jewish way of regarding and treating Holy Scripture, in order to get a right impres sion of the wonderful spiritual superiority of Jesus' view of the Old Testament revelation. Where do we find with Him a trace of that servile letter- worship, of that casuistical subtlety and pedantic punctilious ness ? Where, too, do we find Jesus endeavouring to import His own peculiar thoughts into the Old Testa ment text, and, by means of allegorical interpretation, seeking to indicate their foundation and verification in the Old Testament?1 Was He not also able to 1 As a solitary example of the free interpretation of an Old Testament saying by Jesus, the passage, Mark xii. 26 f., might be cited, where by His appeal to the saying of God to Moses, " I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," He seeks to show that the resurrection-hope, whose absurdity the Sadducees wished to prove by a reference to the Mosaic law, was yet substantiated just by a Divine 32 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. make it appear as if He quite retained the "old garment," and only gave it a new and bright look by means of some additions and ornaments ? How well He would, by aiming at such an appearance, have met the requirements and taste of His Jewish con temporaries, Palestinian as well as Hellenistic ! But how entirely He kept Himself from such an illusion of Himself and others. He was clearly aware that His doctrine of the kingdom of God did not perfectly harmonise with the actual historical contents of the law and the prophets ; and He gave expression quite plainly to this knowledge, without seeking to make the difference appear smaller than it was in reality. His assurance that the Old Testament contained a true revelation of God, was not founded on the idea that all the words of Scripture were of equal value, and must be regarded as having the same absolute authority ; and His consciousness that He Himself acknowledged the Old Testament revelation of God, was not dependent upon the possibility of His showing the accordance of His doctrine in its collect- saying attested by Moses. But the truth is that Jesus did not interpret this saying of Scripture as a direct attestation of the resurrection-life, thereby importing into it something quite foreign (see the explanation at vol. i. p. 221 ff.), but He finds, in the religious relation of God's propriety in the patriarch, which is actually indicated by that saying of Scripture, a premiss laid down for the validity of the resurrection-hope on the part of the godly. We can only say that He has understood this religious relation of propriety in a deeper and more comprehensive sense than was originally intended in the Old Testament words. The use of Scripture in the passage, Mark xii. 36 f., is of quite another kind. If here also we, according to our critico-historical understanding of Ps. ex., judge that Jesus has found in the words of the psalm a sense different from that of the original, yet Jesus Himself, following the, to Him, valid supposition of the Davidic authorship of that psalm, only indicated such a meaning of the words of the psalm as appeared directly warranted by their tenor. OPPOSITION TO JEWISH TREATMENT OF O.T. 33 ive contents with the recorded contents of Scripture. He possessed the spiritual freedom to discern the imperfection of the Old Testament Scripture, and to set His own doctrine in a position of superiority to that of the Old Testament ; and He possessed the devout historical sense, in spite of the necessary divergence of His doctrine from that of the Old Testament, to understand the connection between the two, and to appreciate and uphold that which is permanently true in the Old Testament Scripture. He based His certainty of the continuity of His doctrine with the Old Testament Scripture, not upon an external harmony presented with more or less pains and skill, but upon an accordance as to the leading religious idea and aim. He was able with prophetic penetration, not grounded upon critico- historical knowledge in regard to the origin of the. Old Testament Scripture, to discern and to use those utterances which sprang from a religious view akin to His own. Indeed, it was primarily with reference to the explanation and judgment of the Old Testament Scripture that there was truth in the declaration whereby the evangelist proved the impression made by the preaching of Jesus on the people : " He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes " (Mark i. 22). How difficult it became, however, in the after- times of the Christian Church, to understand and preserve the relation indicated by Jesus between His teaching and that of the Old Testament ! , . In the case of Paul, we find a grand endeavour to maintain the development-relation between the revelation of the Old VOL. 11. 34 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. and the New Covenant, although even his application of the Old Testament Scripture in particular cases did not keep free from the methods of the Rabbinical interpretation, and although his view — resting upon the Pharisaic axiom of the legal character of the Old Testament religion — that the legal dispensation was instituted by God episodically, in order that, through its inadequacy to secure saving blessings, it might be a pedagogue to bring men to the dispensation of grace revealed through Christ, did not attain the clearness and truth of the view held by Jesus, viz. that the Divine revelation which He brought in already existed in the law and the prophets, but not in perfect form, and therefore required to be perfected by Him. But advancing further into the apostolic age, how little was Christianity in a condition to combine, as Jesus did, the recognition of the revelation-significance of the Old Testament with inward freedom in regard to the letter of the Old Testament, and with the con sciousness of possessing a more perfect revelation ! In Gnosticism, where the difference between Christian knowledge and Old Testament Jewish knowledge was plainly recognised, it was supposed that the Old Testament, as a whole, required to be treated as a pseudo-revelation, without having a perception of the historical connection of the revelation given in Christ with that of the Old Testament, and the growth of the former out of the latter. Those, however, who held fast to the revelation-significance of the law and the prophets, thought that they had no need to recog nise any distinction between the Christian revelation and that of the Old Testament, but that all Christian ATTITUDE TO O.T. IN JOHANNINE DISCOURSES. 35 knowledge needed to be imported into the Old Testa ment ; for they thought that the Old Testament, as a whole, whether in a literal sense or as interpreted in an allegorising way after the analogy of Philo, was to be claimed as a witness to Divine revelation of the highest value for Christians, and that they had to see in Jesus Himself, as the fulfilled of the Old Testa ment prophecies, only a decisive attestation of this Divine revelation already perfectly embodied in the contents of the. Old Testament. At what a unique elevation does the attitude of Jesus to the Old Testa ment revelation appear, when we compare it with this incapacity of post-apostolic Christendom to attain a view of the Old Testament which accorded with the real historical development. 4. We must keep all this in view in order rightly to estimate the fact that in the discourses of the fourth Gospel an attitude of Jesus towards the Old Testament is expressed which is similar neither to the Rabbinical nor Philo's, neither to the Pauline nor the Gnostic, nor any other post-apostolic treatment of the Old Testament, but has its analogy only in the position assumed by Jesus towards the Old Testa ment as attested in Mark and the Logia. In the Johannine discourses of Jesus, also, His perfect in ward freedom towards the letter of the Old Testament law is attested. His saying to the Samaritan woman, that in the time that was coming, and that was indeed already present, the true worship of God would be confined neither to Jerusalem nor to any other places since the Father seeks worship in spirit and in truth 2)6 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. (John iv. 21, 23 f.), went to the root of the matter in regard to the order of worship founded on the Old Testament law, just as the saying of Jesus (Mark vii. 156°.) in regard to the impossibility of defilement through external influences, abolishes the principle of the Old Testament Levitical purifications. But this freedom towards the Old Testament revelation does not here imply an ignoring and rejection of it in the Gnostic way : " the Scriptures cannot be broken " (x. 35). Moreover, this recognition of the truth and value of the Old Testament revelation was not connected with an endeavour after an artificial accommodation of the actual difference by means of allegorical and typo logical interpretation of the Old Testament words. The use of the Old Testament Scripture in detail consisted here rather in the fact that Jesus, with genial touch, was able to draw from Scripture such sayings as were truly attestations of the teaching presented by Him, and of the one-sided perversity of the Jewish view (e.g. v. 17; vi. 45; vii. 22 f. ; x. 34 ff.).1 Also the recognition of the revelation- value of the Old Testament Scriptures as a whole was here based on the fact that Jesus already found the idea of God — which had become certain to Him from an inner revelation, and which He revealed to others for their welfare— already expressed in the Old Testa ment Scriptures ; and He knew that in that idea lay the principle of a right understanding of the Old Testa ment, in opposition to that ignoring of the true sense and purpose of the Scriptures with which, in spite of all their scribal learning, He had to reproach the Jews. 1 Cf. L. J. i. p. 295. ATTITUDE TO O.T. IN JOHANNINE DISCOURSES. 37 In this sense we must understand that, in the words spoken at the purification of the temple, " Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (ii. 19), He meant by that new temple which He pledged Himself to set up at a short interval, not another, but this same temple of whose destruction the Jews were apprehensive. He was conscious of the power creatively to establish a new form of worship instead of the old.1 But He also knew that the new form which He set up was not something foreign and different, but was just the old, which He, according to its true idea, brought to a state of renewal. According to His view, the matter did not stand as it outwardly appeared, viz. that the Jewish hierarchy were the conservatives, and He the de stroyer ; but the Jews were rather " they who over threw the temple," i.e. they destroyed the worship of God founded on the Old Testament revelation, since they did not allow it to be carried out in a way corresponding to its true idea ; whilst, on the contrary, in the new form of worship which He set up, He brought that very idea to its true form, and in this way raised up again " this temple." 2 1 Cf. vol. i. p. 323, and L.J. i. p. 251 f. 2 When, in Mark xvi. 58, it is said that at the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrim, false witnesses accused Him of saying, " I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another not made with hands," we need not suppose that in this designation of the new temple as another there is any distortion of the actual words of Jesus recorded in the Johannine source, nor that this altered form of the words precluded the sense which we found above in the Johannine form of the saying. If, instead of a ruined house, a new one has been built after the plan of the old, the new one may be either described as the old house restored, inasmuch as it has been built according to the idea of the old, or as another house, because it has been built instead of the demolished one. In the latter case the agreement of the new with the 38 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. This saying is next supplemented by the words which Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman in reply to her question as to the right place for worshipping God: "Ye worship ye know not what; we know what we worship : for salvation is of the Jews " (iv. 22). The significant point is not only that, along with His reference to the spiritual worship of the new dispensa tion which should take the place of prayer at Jeru salem, Jesus still recognises that only the Jews, not the Samaritans, truly knew the object of worship, that is, God. Above all, the grounds on which He declared that only the Divine knowledge as held by the Jews was the true one, are important. The fact that the perfect Divine salvation proceeded from the Jews, that is, was manifested among the Jews on the ground of the conditions realised among them, is presented as proving that declaration. For this fact, which results old as to plan is not made prominent, but yet it is also not precluded. Again, the fact that the tenor of the words given in Mark denotes the contrast between the temple made with hands, and not made with hands, does not stand in contradiction to the sense in which we understood the Johannine form of the saying. For if Jesus thought of the new form of the worship of God which He would establish instead of that used by the Jews, He thereby meant in reality a worship of God in spirit and truth instead of the concrete cultus used by the Jews and confined to the temple-spot (John iv. 21-24), and so far those attributes of the old and of the proposed new temple were justified in the sense of Jesus. But Jesus could regard just this spiritual worship on the ground of the prophetic sayings in the Old Testament as corresponding to the true idea of the Old Testament worship (cf. Mark xi. 17 and Acts vii. 48 ff.). When the charge brought against Jesus is described as false (ver. 57), we must, so far as we take the Johannine form and meaning of the words as authorit ative for the actual saying of Jesus, regard the falsity as contained in the fact that Jesus was reproached of having declared that He Himself would destroy the existing temple, whilst He really indicated the Jewish hierarchs as its destroyers — or better still, in the fact that in general a depreciatory, blasphemous, and revolutionary tendency towards the temple of Jerusalem was ascribed to the saying — a tendency which in reality was wholly foreign to Him. ATTITUDE TO O.T. IN JOHANNINE DISCOURSES. .39 from the revelation and promises imparted to the Jews, attests the authenticity of that Divine revelation given to them, and thereby proves the truth of their corresponding knowledge of God, and the falsity of the knowledge and worship of God on the part of all who deviate from the revelation given to the Jews, or who do not fully recognise its truth. For Jesus this proof- fact is not problematical or merely something to come ; it is something already present and realised in Himself. In the certainty that He, in His person and activity, presented a revelation of Divine grace which was closely connected with the Old Testament revelation of which it is the consummation, He finds the ulti mate and decisive proof of the truth of the Old Testament revelation. This same consciousness — of being the medium of the complete revelation of Divine grace — which gave Him authority and power to transform the Jewish worship, and to prescribe and introduce spiritual worship, harmonizing with the perfect knowledge of God and confined to no par ticular place, instead of that worship which the Jews practised at Jerusalem, contained at the same time for Him the highest ground of proof of the truth of the Jewish revelation and worship, since He knew that the revelation received by Himself was intimately connected with that Old Testament revelation. Finally, the saying of Jesus at the end of chap. v. has to be considered, where He appeals to the testi mony of God to the Divine origin of His mission which is contained in the Holy Scripture, and where, along with the assurance that He Himself rightly com prehended and truly expressed the Old Testament 40 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. revelation, He joins the complaint that His Jewish enemies — professed students and guardians of the Scriptures— culpably failed to recognise and follow the Divine revelation contained in Scripture. After appealing to the present testimony involved in His own works, given to Him by the Father (ver. 36), He points to the testimony which the Father had given to Him in the past, that is, to the Divine testimony contained in the Holy Scriptures (ver. 27a). One would have expected that the Jews, who were proud of their possession and knowledge of Scripture, would have understood and prized this testimony of Scripture ; yet, as a matter of fact, they had, according to Jesus' reproach, " neither at any time heard the voice of God, nor seen His shape," that is, they had never recognised anything of the real revelation of God in the Holy Scriptures, and had not " the word of God dwelling in them ; " that is, they had not received that Divine revelation into their inner spirit (vers. 37^ and 38a)1 even when they 1 The words (ver. 376), "Neither have ye heard His voice at any time, nor have ye seen His shape," accord strictly with the connection of the thought only if they are understood as an utterance of reproach in reference to the misunderstanding of the revelation given in the Holy Scripture. For already in ver. 37a, when Jesus spoke of the testimony of God given to Him in the past, He must have meant the Scripture revelation, which He must similarly mean afterwards in ver. 38, where He speaks of the word which the Jews had not dwelling in them ; and then further on, in ver. 39 ff., He speaks expressly of the Scripture reve lation. We hold as untenable the objection of Weiss (in Meyer's Com mentary at that passage), that, though doubtless the voice of God speaks in Scripture, yet it is impossible to see His shape therein, and therefore the words must be understood as a non-reproachful saying, thus : the Jews whom He addressed had experienced no special prophetic revela tion for themselves, either by Divine verbal announcement or by vision. But the hearing of the Divine voice in Scripture also takes place, not in a literal, but a figurative sense ; and just as validly as we can hold this ATTITUDE TO O.T. IN JOHANNINE DISCOURSES. 41 had so far understood it in an external way. This reproach is the reverse side of the consciousness of Jesus that He Himself "had heard the voice of God and seen His shape," and had inwardly received and retained this Divine revelation. The fact that the Jews did not believe on Him, the sent of God, proved to Him that the Divine revelation given in the Scripture remained till then essentially unknown and strange to them (ver. 38^) ; for the knowledge and recognition of that earlier revelation would have necessarily brought them to know and recognise His to be a figurative expression, can we hold that other, that God's shape is seen in Scripture. By both these figurative expressions it is meant that a true Divine revelation is perceived, and a true idea of God is obtained in Scripture. The article is wanting at tpav/js xiirov and il&os auxov, as is frequently the case in similar expressions (Winer, Gram- matik d. neut. Sprachidioms, § 19, 2), since Jesus not only means to say that the Jews did not recognise the Divine revelation given in Scripture in so far as its presents the special testimony to Him meant in ver. 37, but quite generally He meant that they had never perceived the voice of God in Scripture, nor seen His shape. When we keep in view the figurative sense of this expression, " to hear the voice of God," and " to see the shape of God," and when we know that in both expressions the recognition of the true Divine revelation contained in the Holy Scripture is meant, it is also clear why the saying in ver. 38 is not sub joined with a third ovri, but with x.a\ — ovk. The Tio'yo? of God in Holy Scripture is certainly not any third object alongside of His voice which is to be heard in Scripture and His shape that is to be seen, so that a simple declaration of three co-ordinate members is here given. But the >.iyo; of God, the word of His revelation, is the plain designation of what is previously indicated as God's audible voice and His visible shape. The progress of the thought, therefore, does not depend on the newness of the object of knowledge, but lies in the fact that, instead of a process of knowledge directed to the revelation of God in Scripture, there is now indicated a process of inward reception and retention directed to that same object. Thus the main thought has two branches, in which, first, the knowledge and then the inward possession on the part of the Jews, in regard to the revelation given in Scripture, is disputed by Jesus. The former of these branches is given again in a twofold figurative expression. By this logical relationship, which has to be noted, it was quite precluded that the saying in ver. 38 should be introduced by an oiirs. 42 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. Divine mission. : From this parenthetical (and there fore in ver. 37^ asyndetical) saying subjoined by way 1 According to the analogy of the connection of thought here in vers. 36-38 must also, in my opinion, be explained the saying viii. 16-19, where Jesus, following the legal principle that the witness of two persons must be held as true, appeals to His own testimony which He bore to Himself, and then to that which the Father bore to Him, and where, when the Jews asked Him where was the Father who bore witness to Him, replied that they knew neither Him nor His Father, and if they had known Him they would know His Father also. The witness of the Father, which Jesus means, is that contained in the Holy Scripture. Jesus here, as in v. 36 f., sets this alongside the testimony given by the whole course of His own ministry ; and here, as in v. yjb and 38, He charges it against the Jews that, in spite of all their scribal learning, they had attained no real perception and knowledge of the Father in the Scripture. Certainly this idea, that Jesus refers to the testimony of God contained in the Old Testament Scripture, does not come out so plainly here as in v. 37, since He does not use the perfect tense here as He does there. But if this perfect tense serves to make the reference to the Old Testament revelation clear, yet it is by no means necessary ; for this testimony of God could quite as well be designated a present one, inasmuch as it is at present contained for the Jews in Holy Scripture. That Holy Scripture is the revelation and testimony of God in a special sense, was a thought quite current among the Jews, and when Jesus appeals to the testimony of the Father, He might count upon the Jews being able to understand without any explanatory addition that He meant a testimony given in Holy Scripture. The assertion of the Jews that they did not actually understand this, and their question as to where was His Father to whom He appealed (ver. 19a), were not grounded on their not noticing that He meant the testimony of God contained in Scripture, but on the fact that, on the one hand, they did not accept His designating the God revealed in Scripture as His Father in a special sense ; and that, on the other hand, by their mere external understanding of Scripture, and their incapacity to understand the real revelation of God in Scripture, they would not acknowledge that the Scripture testimony of God was really a testimony of God to which Jesus could appeal for the attestation of His calling. Only by thus explaining the saying viii. 16 ff. according to the analogy of v. 36-38, that is, by interpreting the declared witness of the Father as the testimony of the Old Testament Scripture, do we find in that saying a satisfactory sense. To interpret this witness of the Father as the witness of God contained in the works of Jesus, is unsatisfactory. For, first, this reference to His works must have been precisely expressed (as at x. 37 f.), since it could not have been so intelligible to the Jews from the first as the undefined reference of the testimony of God to the testimony contained in- Scripture. But, secondly, it would be a great harshness of thought if ATTITUDE TO O.T. IN JOHANNINE DISCOURSES. 43 of reproach, — namely, that those Jews had really understood and inwardly received nothing of the Divine revelation in Holy Scripture in general, — Jesus returns to the declaration on which the con nection of His discourse depended, viz. that Scrip ture presents a Divine witness which attests His Divine mission. He says to the Jews that they searched the Scriptures because they thought that they had in them eternal life, i.e. the direction for the certain attainment of eternal life (v. 39a). The Scriptures indeed contained this direction ; but yet the idea of the Jews, that they had correctly under stood it and had already reached the assurance of attaining eternal life, was merely suppositious and unfounded;1 for the Scriptures directly attest the truth of the Divine mission of Jesus ; but the Jews would not come to Him in order that, in dependence on Him, they might attain eternal life (vers. 29° and 40). So also their searching of Scripture in order to Jesus not only, as at x. 37 £, set the witness given in His works along side of the witness given in His words, but if He sets His own personal testimony over against the testimony contained in His own works as the testimony of a second person, namely, God. This harshness disappears if the testimony of God meant by Jesus is the testimony con tained in Scripture ; in contrast with this, the personal testimony of Jesus is, of course, not His testimony given to Himself in His words, in so far as it is to be distinguished from the testimony contained in His works, but His verbal testimony in regard to Himself, so far as it was backed by His ministry, accomplished through a Divine commission and Divine power. That Jesus, in dealing with the Jews, appealed to the double testimony contained in the Holy Scriptures and His own utterances, quite corresponds to the way in which He personally attained the com mencement and development of His religious and Messianic conscious ness, namely, through the co-operation of the Divine revelation which spoke to Him from the Holy Scripture, and a revelation bearing witness within Himself. 1 On this meaning of the words on ifiels ioxiin is ttbtuTic £aqii aXusioit ijcuv, cf. vol. i. p. 245. 44 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. attain eternal life was a mere external and specious thing ; for they did not understand and follow the actual directions of Scripture for this purpose. Jesus now declares the reason why, in spite of their study of Scripture, they did not allow themselves to be directed to Him and would not acknowledge His Divine mission ; it lay in their want of true love to God, in their striving after recognition from men instead of after recognition from God (vers. 41-44). But He then resumes His main thought, that He has the testimony of Scripture on His side, and that it tends to the condemnation of His Jewish opponents : " Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father : there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me ; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words ? " (vers. 45-47). To what testimony of Scripture, and specially of Moses, did Jesus here appeal ? Did He mean a particular prophecy, and perhaps specially the Messianically-interpreted saying, Deut. xviii. 15, as to the prophet to be raised up ? We must not only consider that in this case the testimony and writing of Moses in regard to Jesus, which He states in a general way, really would have been merely an isolated thing in relation to the complete body of the Mosaic legislative doctrine ; but especially also that this prophetic testimony could by no means directly attest the Divine mission of Jesus. That it refers to one to be sent by God in the future, was acknow ledged by the Jews ; but the question was, if Jesus ATTITUDE TO O.T. IN JOHANNINE DISCOURSES. 45 was the Sent One here meant. This decisive question could not be answered by a simple appeal to the words of the prophecy itself. The reference of Jesus to Moses had a true meaning and a real demonstrat ive power only if He meant such a testimony of Moses as could attest that He, Jesus, was in reality the person of whom the words of the prophecy spoke, the mediator of the perfect blessedness of God in the latter day. We must also understand those words of Jesus, from v. 37 forward, as an expression of His consciousness that He Himself, in His teaching and ministry, stood in inward agreement with the Divine revelation of the Old Testament, which was to be found in the Mosaic law and the Holy Scriptures in general. He finds the clear traces of the revelation, of which He is the embodiment, in the Old Testament, even in the Mosaic law. He knows that on His part He neither alters nor abrogates the Scripture, but that He alone rightly understands it, and He alone, by His teaching, brings out rightly its value. As for the Jews, with all their study of Scripture, they had not attained the true understanding of the Old Testa ment revelation, since they were not animated by true love to God. But if we now ask wherein then, in harmony with the mode of view of Jesus elsewhere expressed in the Johannine discourses, must the foundation of this consciousness of Jesus be held to consist, — the consciousness, namely, that He had on His side the testimony of Scripture and the Mosaic law, and that His teaching and ministry corresponded to the Old Testament revelation,— we cannot certainly give the answer that the plain 46 RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION. external agreement of His teaching with the whole historically given contents of the Old Testament law, and of the Old Testament religious ideas in general, must be regarded as the ground of that consciousness. How would such an answer agree with the fact, that it was just the Jesus of those Johannine discourses who contrasted with the Jewish worship of God at Jerusalem the right worship of God in spirit and in truth, which would be confined to no particular place ? The ground of that con sciousness must be regarded as consisting in the same view, according to which Jesus, in ii. 19, can designate the new temple, which He pledges Him self to rear, not as a different one, but as a renewal of the one then existing. In other words, it con sisted in the assurance that His teaching, even if it did not agree with the whole external conformation of the Old Testament revelation, yet harmonised with the inner idea of it — that is, the idea which He, on the ground of His own internal revelation, had recognised as the leading and true idea of the Old Testament Scripture as the peculiar Divine revela tion in the Scripture. We find a true explanation of the words of Jesus in the discourse, John v., as to His relation to the Old Testament revelation only if we understand it in the same sense in which we must understand the saying of Jesus, Matt. v. 17, as to His coming not to destroy but to fulfil the law and the prophets.1 ^From the explicit recognition of the Divine revelation of the Old Testament in these passages, John iv. 22 and v. 37 ff. (cf. x. 35), it follows that the words, x. 8, " All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them," must not be interpreted ATTITUDE TO O.T. IN JOHANNINE DISCOURSES. 47 The view of the relationship of the teaching of Jesus to the Divine revelation of the Old Testament, given in the discourses of the fourth Gospel, is the product of the same spirit which governs the view of this relationship in the synoptical discourses of Jesus. There is no imitation of the synoptical expressions, but certainly there is harmony in the fundamental mode of view. Where in the post-apostolic period do we elsewhere find such an apprehension of this grand mode of view of Jesus ? and in connection with what other known view and use of the Old Testament as a harsh Gnostic rejection of all teachers and pretended media of revelation who preceded Jesus. On the other hand, the ordinary inter pretation applied to the foregoing Pharisaic leaders of the people does not rightly correspond to the tenor of the words, which refer quite generally to all who came before Jesus, and not only to those who most recently preceded Him. The Baptist would have been among the teachers who recently preceded Jesus. The common fault of these interpretations lies in the presupposition that those who have come before Jesus must be referred to the earlier teachers and leaders of the people. This presupposition results from the erroneous idea that John x. 1-16 contains only one allegorical deliverance of Jesus in regard to His relation to the Church and to other Church leaders which is some what illogically carried out. If, on the contrary, we recognise in vers. 1-5, with the explanatory additions vers. 7-9 and in ver. 10 ff., two independent mutually complementary parables, and if, in accordance with the explanation given in vers. 7 and 9, we find the meaning of the first parable in the fact that Jesus is related to the saving good which men seek after, even as the door of the sheep-fold to the sheep, to whom it affords the only effectual entrance (cf. the note, vol. i. p. 129), it then follows that the saying, ver. 8, does not contain a condemnation of the earlier teachers and leaders of the people, but of all those who before Jesus sought to usurp the Messianic salvation. The word has also a special reference to pseudo-Messiahs and their followers. Jesus opposes Himself to these with the consciousness of being the sole medium of approach to salvation. While the concluding words, "but the sheep did not hear them," had no truth as applied to the earlier teachers and leaders of the people, since many of these had great influence and many followers, they are quite intelligible by our explanation; for here the sheep do not mean the Church, but the saving good, which men cannot gain without the mediation of Jesus. 48 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. in post-apostolic Christianity would we explain this view presented in the Johannine discourses, if we would not admit that it is the spirit of the historical Jesus Himself which here finds voice out of the records of His disciple ? CHAP. VII. THE CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 1. The preaching of the kingdom of God by Jesus was directed towards the establishment of this king dom. Therefore His teaching as to the nature and advent of the kingdom of God, in which the Old Testament prophecies found their perfect fulfilment, was connected with instruction in regard to the con ditions of membership of the kingdom, and with urgent calls to fulfil these conditions (cf. Mark i. 15). Wherein did He find these conditions ? That which in Jesus' view primarily determined those conditions, was the idea that God, as the Father, was ready in spontaneous forgiving love to impart His mercy to those who desired it (Luke xii. 32), and that the saving benefit of the kingdom of God was a gift of grace for which men can give no corresponding recompense. " Freely," as a gift, men receive the gracious message in regard to the kingdom of God and a place of membership in the kingdom (Matt. x. 8). They must only "put faith in the message" (Mark i. 15) and use violence in order to take possession of the offered kingdom, for "the violent take it by force" (Matt. xi. 12). When Jesus contrasts the prophetic period of promise TRUSTFUL RECEPTION. 49 and expectation ending with John the Baptist, with the present realisation of the kingdom of God, He uses this strong figurative expression of violence and seizure, which in their peculiar meaning were applied to the unjust, forcible appropriation of others' goods, not, of course, because He finds the point of analogy in the injustice and violence, as if men could appropriate a share in the kingdom of God in opposition to the Divine will, but because He sought to lay stress upon the necessity of urgent energetic laying hold of a good to which they can make no claim. It is of no avail, in regard to the kingdom of God, to wait idly, as in other cases men may take a waiting attitude in regard to a gift, nor does it avail to seek laboriously to earn it ; but it does avail energetically to lay hold of and to retain it. It is ready as a gift of God for men, but men must direct their desire and will towards it. In this sense Jesus uttered that saying in regard to the kingdom of God being for children and for men of childlike spirit, when His disciples were unwilling that children should be brought that He might touch and bless them. " Suffer the children to come to me, and forbid them not : for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever receiveth not the kingdom of God as a child, shall in no wise enter therein" (Mark x. 13 ff.). The disciples did not permit the children to come because these appeared to them too small and insignificant, and too destitute of personal qualities and merits of their own, to have any claim to be favourably regarded by Jesus. But in this very respect of having no claim, so that they VOL. II. Li 50 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. could offer nothing, but only wish to have something, Jesus finds the ground for the children being per mitted to come to Him, that He might show them His love and give them His blessing. For in this un pretentious receptivity He recognises the necessary condition which must exist in all who will enter the kingdom of God. Not the reception of the kingdom of God at a childlike age, but in a childlike character, He declares to be the indispensable condition of entering the kingdom of God ; and under this child like character He does not understand any virtue of childlike blamelessness, but only the receptivity itself (which is the notion impressively emphasised by Him), on the part of those who do not regard themselves as too good or too bad for the offered gift, but receive it with hearty desire. But He also seeks, not merely to bring the receptivity of children for earthly goods, as, for example, for the gifts of their parents, into comparison with the receptivity which adults must manifest towards the gifts of the kingdom of God ; but He speaks of a receptivity which the children exhibit even in regard to the kingdom of God, and He declares this kind of receptivity for the kingdom of God to be universally necessary. He means that the children have the same unpretentious receptivity in reference to the kingdom of God which is characteristic of them generally, since they have not yet any other posses sions on which their hearts are set, nor any other qualities in which they can at all pride themselves ; thus they are susceptible subjects for the preaching of the kingdom of God, and are quickly filled with TRUSTFUL RECEPTION. 5 I desire to be endowed with the blessings of the kingdom by God's fatherly hand. Only one who lets such a desire after the kingdom of God awake in his mind, and entertains such trust in the gracious bestowal of it by God, — only one who does not inten tionally put away from him and slight this kingdom, and who does not think that he can and must first earn it by his own doings, — only one who receives it like a child, can participate in its blessings. In the same sense Jesus has declared that the gracious tidings of the kingdom of God are also designed for sinners. He rejoiced when " publicans and sinners," people who on account of their open sins were despised and shunned, sought His fellow ship and desired to hear His preaching of the king dom of God (Mark ii. 14 ff. ; Luke xix. 1 ff.). He found the special work of His vocation just in " seek ing and saving the lost" (Luke xix. 10); and the reproach which the Pharisaic scribes brought against His intercourse with open sinners, He repelled with the words, " The whole have no need of the physician, but the sick : I am not come to call the righteous but sinners" (Mark ii. 17). In these words He left quite untouched the question whether any were truly righteous in His sense ; at any rate the Phari sees were not recognised by Him as truly righteous. He has only said that His calling of men to the kingdom of God was not designed for such as were righteous, since these were already "whole," and in their truly righteous fulfilment of the Divine will already possessed the favour of God, were already members of the kingdom, and consequently did not 52 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. require the message of saving grace. He meant that His message of grace rather aimed at making sinners— who were not yet in true blessed fellowship with God — partakers of the salvation which they needed, and accordingly that He must, in the very first place, give the gospel call to great sinners, who need salvation most. He judged that these gross sinners, " publicans and harlots," so far as they had a longing desire after the blessings of Divine grace, and penitently strove rightly to fulfil the will of God, were acknowledged by God and speedily entered His kingdom (Matt. xxi. 31 ; Luke xviii. 10-14), and the tears of penitence and gratitude with which the outcast sinner washed His feet in the house of the Pharisee, were recognised by Him as a proof of the greatness of the forgiving grace of which she had already begun to partake (Luke vii. 36-48).1 By this declaration and procedure He prepared a special stumbling-block for the pharisaically- minded Jews. For, according to their legal apprehension of the religious relation of God and men, they held the principle that Divine saving blessings could only be bestowed on men as a reward for a previously per formed righteousness, and that the perfect Divine blessing of the latter day could only be partaken of by those who had earned a title to it by their right eousness, whether they were speedily satisfied with their external ceremonial righteousness, and imagined themselves certain of the Divine reward which they could claim ; or whether, like Paul, they vainly wearied themselves in trying perfectly to fulfil the law, and 1 Cf. Log. %<„L.J. i. p. 79 f. TRUSTFUL RECEPTION. 53 therefore were tormented with disquieting doubts as to their obtaining salvation. This fact, that Jesus was " a friend of publicans and sinners " (Matt. xi. 19), was a cause of their scornfully withdrawing from Him. Jesus, on the other hand, in accordance with His view of God, knew that God in His love procured salvation even for lost sinners (Luke xv. 8-10), and that as a father He joyfully welcomed the penitent son (Luke xv. 11-32), and that He was ready to be stow His kingdom upon those who could make no claim for it on account of their actions. He has sought to illustrate this thought by the parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard hired at different hours of the day, who, in spite of the different amount of work done, received nevertheless the same reward, since in His kindness the Master wished that even those who, on account of their smaller amount of work, could claim no high reward, should receive the same as He had promised to the others (Matt. xx. 1-16). The objection which was made from the legal standpoint to such unmerited giving, only sprang from the jealousy of an " evil eye." Thus God in His bounty will bestow the same great gift of His kingdom upon those who have long striven after it, as upon those who began to follow Him at the last hour ; so the last shall be made equal (ver. 1 6) to the first, without men being able ungratefully to find fault with this gracious will of God, as if it did not become Him to let grace prevail over law.1 1 The saying, Matt. xx. 16, " So the last shall be first, and the first last," to which Jesus makes this parable lead up, has here a different meaning from that of the saying, Matt. xix. 30 ( = Mark x. 31), which is almost identical verbally. The latter, according to the connection, does 54 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. 2. The thought of Jesus, that even sinners are called to the kingdom of God, and that men need not have previously wrought a complete righteousness in order thereby to earn the kingdom, did not, however, imply that they may remain sinners if they would enter the kingdom of God. To the idea of the kingdom, of the state of ideal fellowship between God and His people, as promised by the Old Testa- not indicate an equation of the last with the first, but an inversion of the relation between the last and the first ; cf. on Log. § 51, L.J. i. p. 183 f. Matthew has found, in the similarity of sound in the two sayings, the occasion of appending our parable to his rendering of the section, Mark x. 28-31, where the subject of the discourse is the rich reward which every one will find in renunciation for the sake of the kingdom of God ; and he has already, by this arrangement of the parable, connected its significance with the equivalent reward which those who work in different measure upon earth will obtain from God hereafter. If we sought to interpret the parable in an allegorising way, it appears self- evident, indeed, that the working in the vineyard of the Master must be interpreted of the work which is done by one who is a member of the kingdom of God. But not only is the allegorising interpretation of the parables of Jesus in general unjustifiable, it even leads in this case, if consistently carried out, to absurd consequences (e.g. if the work in the vineyard of the master mean simply the work in the kingdom of God, how could it be explained that those hired for this work would be dismissed from the service and fellowship of the Lord : " take thy wages and go " ?) ; but, according to that mode of interpretation of the parable, a thought results which does not harmonise with the other teaching of Jesus. For Jesus elsewhere decidedly expresses the idea that the mem bers of the kingdom of God will certainly receive from God hereafter a different measure of reward according to the different measure of their works upon earth (Matt. xxv. 14 ff. ; cf. Mark x. 29-31, 40). If, in this parable, we give up the allegorising interpretation and seek the one main thought — whose importance was to be vividly presented by this narrative, and which should then, in spite of other relations in its details, be referred to the kingdom of God — in the concluding utterance of the master in the parable, to the labourers who murmured on account of his kindness bestowed upon others, we are thereby necessarily led to regard as the intended application of the parable, not that the members of the kingdom of God will all receive the same reward hereafter, but that the kingdom of God itself will be bestowed as an equally great gift of grace from God upon all who are effectually called to it, without respect to the greatness of their works previously wrought outside of the kingdom, and REPENTANCE. 55 ment prophets, the true righteousness of the people of God pertained as an element quite as necessarily as that of God's full bestowal of grace upon His people ; and thus the certainty which Jesus emphatic ally held, that the kingdom of God, with all its saving benefits, is a gift of Divine grace which men only require trustfully to receive, by no means precludes His earnest exhortation to perform the that, on account of such sovereignty of Divine grace, no exceptions are admitted which are based on the legal mode of dealing with men. For this application alone accurately harmonises with Jesus' mode of view otherwise. It cannot be objected that by this interpretation the begin ning of the parable narrative would be rendered meaningless. The narrative is here, as elsewhere, so conducted by Jesus, that from the imagined circumstances it not only appears natural, as what might happen in real life, but that under these circumstances the main thought intended might stand forth with the greatest clearness (cf. above, vol. i p. 136 ff). Jesus required in this parable, not only to represent the last to whom the unmerited kindness of the master was shown, as those who had least of all worked for him, since in this way only was there natural occasion given to the other workers for a comparison with their own reward, and for objection to the way in which the master manifested his kindness ; but He also required especially to represent the first workers as those who had fully performed their work and fully earned their reward. This last circumstance, which is always an insuperable difficulty for the allegorising interpretation, was here as essential for the clear presentation of the point of the parable as the analogous description of the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son (cf. above the note on p. 199 f., vol. i.). If the first workers had been described as incapable and lazy, so that the full reward would not really have been earned by them, they would not have appeared as proper representatives of the legal standpoint, and the repelling of their grumbling objection would have left unanswered the question if the really diligent worker, who has quite fulfilled his duty, cannot demand that workers who have merited less should not be put on an equal footing with themselves as to reward. Whilst Jesus so shaped the parable that in it this latter question was also answered, and the problem — if men ought to murmur when a master, out of grace to one who has no corresponding merit, gives him as much as another who has fully earned what is given — was virtually solved, He leaves quite undecided the other question, if there are actually any per sons who, as the Pharisees thought, could, through perfect previous ful filment of the commandments of God, justly lay claim to the kingdom of God as their recompense. 56 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. righteousness of the kingdom of God in order to become and to remain a member of this kingdom. In giving His parable of the Feast to which the beggars of the streets were brought in, whilst those originally invited, who would not immediately come, were for ever excluded (Luke xiv. 16-24), He appended as a supplement the parable of the Marriage-feast, from which the guest was excluded who had not on a wedding - garment (Matt. xxii. 11 ff.).1 As the guest certainly did not earn the feast by putting on the wedding-garment, though he put himself in a worthy condition for the feast which was gratuitously provided ; so every one who would participate in the blessings of the kingdom of God must have the disposition corresponding to the nature of this kingdom. According to the consciousness of Jesus, a true desire after the kingdom of God was inseparable from the earnest endeavour, after the righteousness of the kingdom ; and as the childlike readiness to receive the kingdom of God, which He indicated as the right condition for entering therein, was by no means regarded by Him as a mere passivity, but as an active desire, and taking hold of the offered blessings, so He regarded this readiness also as directly a moral disposition, as a readiness to obedience towards God. Only the man who not merely hears, but practically performs the will of God, is to be called blessed as a member of the kingdom of God (Matt. vii. 21, 248".; xxi. 28-32; Luke xi. 28 ; cf. Mark iii. 35), and, according to the measure of carefulness with which one apprehends, 1 Cf. Log. § lad and e, L.J. i. p. 132 ff.; and see the note, vol. i. p. 127. REPENTANCE. 57 obeys, and teaches to others the least commands of God, is adjudged his greatness as a member of the kingdom of God (Matt. v. 19 f.). Accordingly, Jesus enjoins, as the condition of entrance into the kingdom of God, repentance, that is, change of mind, turning of the mind from sin to the fulfilment of the will of God (Mark i. 1 5 ; cf. vi. 12). It is the same injunction to penitent return, which the prophets formerly laid down as the condition of obtaining the Divine favour, and which latterly John the Baptist had proclaimed as the preparation for the approaching Messiah. But now with Jesus the same idea had a yet fuller meaning. For the idea of sin which men must put away is essentially conditioned by the idea of righteousness which corresponds to the will of God. In so far as Jesus had also an idea of the righteousness whose realisation avails in the kingdom of God, not only higher than that of the Pharisaic Jews, but also than that of the prophets, and even of John the Baptist, the conversion enjoined by Him had a higher and more comprehensive meaning than that in which it was hitherto understood. Thus His exhortation to conversion was directed, not only to those who had hitherto lived in gross sin, but generally and to all (Luke xiii. 3 and 5) ; and in accordance with the knowledge that the external ceremonial legalism, as it was taught and practised by the scribes and Pharisees, was not at all the true righteousness of the kingdom of God, it was specially directed to the proud spiritual leaders of the people, who were satisfied with their false righteousness, and, on account of their unreadi- 58 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. ness to repentance, it took the form of a warning of judgment (Luke xi. 29 ff.). For whoso does not obey the call to conversion, remains shut out from the kingdom of God, and must come into judgment (Luke x. 12-15; xu- 57~xm- 9)-1 3. If true repentance means a complete turning away from all modes of conduct which were opposed to the righteousness of the kingdom of God as taught by Jesus, the exhortation to repentance would involve the exhortation to a complete renunciation of earthly goods. For since the righteousness of the kingdom of God consists in such an absolute trust in God, that earthly troubles and sorrows- are accepted with humble submission to the will of God (Matt. xi. 28 ff.), and in such unlimited love to men that a man denies and humbles himself, and sacrifices his own goods, in order to serve a brother and promote his welfare, then the complete application of the mind to the righteousness of the kingdom of God, and the withdrawal from all that conflicts with this righteous ness, is impossible without a renunciation in principle of the eager pursuit and retention of earthly goods for their own sake. When Jesus speaks of this renunciation which He Himself and His disciples must practise for the sake of the kingdom of God, the proviso nevertheless holds good that, viewed from the right standpoint, whence the fatherly love and the special future attainment of blessedness in heaven are known, that renunciation does not at all appear as a real renunciation, since only the false and transi- 1 On the inner connection of the passages, Luke xii. 54-59 and xiii. 1-9, with each other cf. Log. § 18, L.J. i. p. 125 ff. RENUNCIATION OF EARTHLY GOODS. 59 tory good things are given up in order to obtain and retain the true eternal riches. In the rule, " Whosoever will save his life shall lose it ; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it" (Mark viii. 35), He has most vividly expressed this fundamentally valid idea with reference to the pledging of the highest of earthly goods, viz. the earthly life. But yet the proviso contained in this fundamental idea does not prevent the renunciation of earthly goods — so far as these are seen and felt from an external point of view as valuable and enjoyable — being difficult and painful, and costing an inner conflict. On this very account Jesus has laid the most decided and clearest stress upon the necessity of this renunciation for all those who belong to the kingdom of God. The way which leads to life is strait, and passes through a narrow gate ; that is, the eternal life of the kingdom of heaven cannot be won with ease, but only with strong effort, and the renunciation of all which does not accord with the kingdom of God (Matt. vii. 13 f.). As little as a slave can serve two masters at the same time, since, as he belongs legally to both, in obeying the commands of the one who claims his services, he must neglect the orders of the other, can one at the same time " serve God and Mammon" (Luke xvi. 13). The righteousness which involves obedience to the Divine will, which claims the man wholly, does not admit of his at the same time making earthly goods his idol, or of loving them for their own sake, and following their enticements. Whoever seeks to win the highest good, the blessings 60 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. of the kingdom of God, must be ready to forego all lower goods, like the man who sold all his posses sions to purchase the field which contained the treasure he had found ; or as the merchant who, for the sake of one goodly pearl, parted with all that he had (Matt. xiii. 44-46). In the Logia-passage, Luke xiv. 25-35 (cf- Matt. x. 37-39), 1 Jesus has given a specially sharp expression of the greatness and absoluteness of this renunciation which is required from all those who wish to become His disciples, and members of the kingdom of God. A man must separate himself from his nearest relat ives : " If a man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and brothers, and sisters, yea, and his own life, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke xiv. 26). He must willingly take upon himself the loss of earthly life under the severest sufferings : " Whosoever does not take up his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple" (ver. 27). In this saying which has been handed down to us in essenti ally the same form by Mark also (viii. 34), not only the endurance of sufferings and loss of life in general, but the willing acceptance of the painful and shameful death of a criminal, is required. In Christian usage of speech, the taking up and bearing of the "cross" has acquired a very diluted figurative significance, since it is applied to the enduring of sufferings of every kind, even very insignificant ones. But when we conceive what a very real significance the cross had in the time of Jesus as the Roman instrument of execution, we must, in order to make the peculiar 1 Cf. Log.% 17, L.J. i. p. 122 ff. RENUNCIATION OF EARTHLY GOODS. 6 1 meaning of that saying of Jesus quite plain to our ears, translate it into our idiom in some such form as this : " Whosoever follows me not to the scaffold, cannot be my disciple."1 Then, as Jesus further emphatically states, this necessary painful renuncia tion of what is dearest and most precious must be thoroughly made, and no one must think of getting off with any feeble half-measure. As it is vain for one to undertake to build a tower without possessing the means for its thorough accomplishment, or for a king to enter upon a war who can call up only half the necessary troops in order to encounter a strong equally civilised enemy (vers. 28-32) ; so it is vain for one who seeks to become a member of the kingdom of God, to make only partially the re nunciation which is the condition of attaining that object: "Whosoever does not deny himself all that he hath, cannot be my disciple" (ver. 33). Alongside of this Logia-passage we can place the sayings of Jesus from the Gospel of Mark, in which Jesus commands that a man should cut off his hand and pluck out -his eye if they give offence, that is, occasion to sin ; since it is better to enter into life maimed, than, possessing all members of the body, to be cast into hell (Mark ix. 43-48 ; cf. Matt. v. 29). To this utterance is 1 If it were supposed that the figurative expression " cross " were only proleptically put into the mouth of Jesus by the evangelist, since it must have been first used after Jesus Himself had borne His cross and had died on the cross, then we should proceed on the presupposition that at our passage (and Mark viii. 34) the " cross " must have borne just the weakened "figurative'' sense of suffering in general. The expression of Jesus, however, only receives its full force when the word " cross " is not taken in a figurative but a literal sense. Jesus needed to use the word in this literal sense, when seeking to indicate that His disciples must net avoid even the violent death awarded to eVil-doers. 62 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. added as a fundamental principle the figurative say ing in regard to the necessity of all being " salted : " "for every one must be salted with fire. Salt is o-ood ; but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned? Have salt in yourselves" (Mark ix. 49 f.).1 These words emphasise the truth that this painful renunciation must be made by all, and must never cease to be made. For salt is indi cated as the biting and .pungent means of purification ; and just as fire, whose effect, from the analogy in which it stands with the effect of salt, is described as "salting," so conversely the effect of salt is well described as "burning." Whoever does not con-< tinually perform in himself this painful purification by renouncing all that injures the pureness of his fulfilment of the will of God, loses his strength and his worthiness. In what sense must we understand these uncom promising words of Jesus ? How did He regard their practical fulfilment ? Looking first at those words of the Logia, Luke xiv. 26, 27, 33, where Jesus declares quite generally, without any condition annexed, the necessity of His disciples separating 1 The words, ver. 49^, xal iraaa. Svola ak\ AhmSmereii, I hold, with Tischendorf, Westcott, and Hort, as a secondary addition to the genuine text, since they are wanting in s B L A, whilst D and several cursive MSS. have these alone (iraaa. -/dp 6vai», etc.), instead of the words va; ydp arvpl ahiadYiatTat, so that our textus receptus, as in so many other cases, presents a combination of the original reading with an occidental secondary reading. In the Logia also, at the conclusion of the passage in regard to the necessity of renunciation taught by Jesus, a saying in regard to salt is recorded with the same sense as that of our saying in Mark (Luke xiv. 34; cf. Matt v. 13; see Log. § 17 d, L.J. i. p. 124). But we need not suppose a scribal connection between these two recorded forms of the words of Jesus ; cf. i. p. 193 ff., specially p. 201 f. RENUNCIATION OF EARTHLY GOODS. 63 from their dearest relatives, enduring the extremest sufferings, and renouncing all possessions, we must hold that, nevertheless, He has there left understood the same condition as is expressly denoted in the exhortations we have quoted in regard to the excision of hand, or foot, or eye (Mark ix. 43 ff.), viz. that the possessions in question are an occasion of sin, and that they could only be retained in violation of the duties incumbent in the kingdom of God. It does not follow from Jesus' mode of view, elsewhere expressed, that intercourse with earthly relatives, earthly goods, and the earthly life as such, is irrecon cilable with the righteousness required in the kingdom of God, and that these must, under all circumstances, be renounced for the sake of the kingdom of God. The same Jesus who, in opposition to the Pharisaic scribes, inculcated, by an appeal to the original Divine command, the duty of active manifestation of filial love to aged parents (Mark vii. 10 ff.), and declared the duty of the faithful maintenance of the conjugal relation to be absolute (Mark x. 1-12 ; Matt. v. 31 f.), cannot at the same time have meant and taught that the dissolution of all relations to one's nearest relatives had any value in itself, and was required for the sake of the kingdom of God. He who taught His disciples to pray to the heavenly Father even for the bread pertaining to the susten ance of earthly life, and trustfully to expect the bestowal of all needed earthly blessings (Luke xi. 3 ; Matt. vi. 25 ff.), and who gave offence to His country men because He neither practised nor commanded His disciples to practise the ascetic mode of life, in 64 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. which the Pharisees and John the Baptist, with their disciples, supposed that a special manifestation of earnest piety was given (Mark ii. 18 ff. ; Matt. xi. 19), cannot meanwhile have taught that earthly goods and the earthly life as such were irreconcilable with the kingdom of God, and must ascetically be foregone. To the view expressed elsewhere by Jesus of the relation of earthly goods and life to the blessings of the kingdom of God, and of the nature of the right eousness to be maintained during the earthly life, corresponds much more the statement that earthly life and earthly goods can be retained and used in the service of God for the purpose of showing true beneficence, since a man can and ought to show himself worthy of the heavenly riches promised him in the faithful use of the earthly riches entrusted to him (Matt. xxv. 14 ff; Luke xvi. 10-12); and even so the earthly relationships with other men may be sought and uprightly maintained, for the purpose of manifesting that love by which a man must show himself a true child of the heavenly Father. But yet this statement does not in Jesus' view exclude, but rather presupposes, the idea that all retention and use of earthly life and earthly goods must not be made for their own sake, but must ultimately be directed towards the promotion of the righteousness of the kingdom of God, and rendered back in that. way. Even so the formation and maintenance of the bonds of earthly relationship must be sought, not merely for their own sake and for the earthly enjoy ment they yield, but must be used for the greatest possible fulfilment of duty in the kingdom of God. RENUNCIATION OF EARTHLY GOODS. 65 But this subordination in principle of the maintenance of earthly life, earthly goods, and earthly relationships, for the purpose of the performance of the true righteousness of the kingdom of God, requires not only that the maintenance of earthly life, earthly goods, and earthly relationships, in all single cases, must be connected with unselfish renunciation in every way which is required by true love to men and true humble submission to the ordinances of God, but also that the disciple of Jesus must be ready, when circumstances call for it, to surrender his greatest and dearest treasure, to sever himself from his nearest relatives, to resign all his earthly possessions, and, finally, even to sacrifice his earthly life in the most painful way, in order rightly to fulfil his duty in the kingdom of God. Jesus has sought to emphasise this in those sayings which so categorically command the hatred of relatives,1 the taking up of the cross, the 1 The strange conception of hatred given in Luke xiv. 26, which is weakened by Matt. x. 37, cannot mean the inclination of the will and desire towards the injury of the other, since Jesus had absolutely forbidden the cherishing of hatred in the mind, and since even the sin or hatred suffered at the hand of another must not at all be regarded, according to the view of Jesus, as a reason for doing or wishing him injury. But hatred can here only signify the inclination of the will towards separation from the other, as the contrary of natural love, which inclines to the formation or retention of fellowship with the loved person or object. We must consider that Jesus, according to the context, does not seek to indicate a course of action on the part of His disciples whereby they may do evil to others, but such as constitutes a painful sacrifice for themselves. It is presupposed that every one is bound to his nearest relatives by the strongest natural affection, and, accordingly, finds in fellowship with them a source of enjoyment Jor himself. But for the sake of the kingdom of God he must be able to forego this enjoyment, being ready to accept such complete separation from his nearest relatives as in other circumstances might appear hatred. Jesus does not confine Himself merely to the idea of separation, but employs the term hatred, since a merely external separation, whereby the inward VOL. II. E 66 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. laying down of the life, the renunciation of all posses sions, and the cutting off or plucking out of the most important bodily members. In order justly to estimate these sayings, we must first keep in view that Jesus did not give them with reference to a period such as ours, wherein His ideas and precepts have attained a widespread recognition and sway in the world, and, for the most part, have become a possession of the general culture, and wherein it is therefore exceptional for one to come into a position in which he must undergo external suffering and sacrifice for the sake of his Christian testimony and the fulfilment of his duty. He spoke with reference to a period in which He had to bring in His ideas and precepts as new truths for humanity, and consistently to maintain and promote them in profound opposition to the prevailing traditions and deep-rooted prejudices and customs. This introduc tion and carrying into effect of truth so new, could not be done without severe conflict. In His clear fore sight of this necessary conflict (Luke xii. 49-53 ; Matt. x. 34-36),1 in which He was prepared to pledge His own life, Jesus judged with perfect justness that will and wish still clings to the aforesaid fellowship, was not quite what He meant to 'enjoin upon His disciples (cf. Luke ix. 59-62). By the idea of hatred He seeks to indicate, with the utmost clearness, the inclination of the will towards that separation. That Jesus, in selecting the expression as a characteristic designation for the inward act of renunciation, might have abstracted from the signification of a sinful hostile wish to injure, is proved by His analogous application of the ideas of violence and force in the passage, Matt. xi. 12, where these ideas are used only so far as they denote energetic seizure and appropriation, but not at the same time the unlawfulness of this seizure (cf. vol. ii. p. 48). 1 Cf. Log. § 17a, L.J. i. p. 122 f. RENUNCIATION OF EARTHLY GOODS. 6j only those were qualified to be His disciples who were determined, even as He was, to give up all for the gospel, and, like Him also, to go to the cross. As it would be a total negation of the historical understanding, if, in regard to the words of Luther, " Have done with thy body, goods, honour, child, and wife ; let them go ! " x we were to say that they could only, have a figurative meaning, because, taken literally, they would be too severe, and, in that literal sense, they would have no just practical application to many by whom they are now sung in Divine worship; so it would be a feeble unhistorical misinter pretation of those words of Jesus, which form the original of that saying of Luther, were we to judge that He could not have meant them in their full and peculiar signification. We must interpret the words according to the ideas of the time of conflict, in which such great external sacrifices for the gospel's sake must be regarded as necessary and normal, though, in the peaceful period that succeeds the victory, they appear only a possibility and exception. We shall afterwards see that, on account of His idea of the comparative shortness of the further earthly develop ment of the kingdom of God, Jesus did not regard this period of necessary external conflict for the cause of the gospel as one of transition to a long after-period of undisturbed peace, but as filling up the whole future time until His second coming. For that very reason, however, it was precluded that, in glancing forward to future generations of His Church, He would de- Nehmen sie den Leib, Gut, Ehr, Kind und Weib, Lass fahren dahin ! 68 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. clare the renunciation, which He enjoined upon His disciples in reference to the immediately approaching period of conflict, to be only necessary under the extraordinary circumstances which marked the com mencement of the Church. In the second place, however, we must once more bear in mind the method of Jesus in seeking to pre sent His general rules and precepts by such examples as brought out the thoughts intended with the greatest clearness in the briefest compass.1 Here, where He meant to indicate the renunciation which a disciple of His must be ready to make unconditionally, He neither sought to set up the precept as to the re nunciation of earthly goods merely in a general way, and thereby to leave room for the possibility that some would blink the extreme consequences of this precept, and think that they would not require to put it into practice, nor did He seek in a casuistical way to give a detailed application of the rule to all possible particular circumstances ; but He sought to set forth with the greatest possible brevity and clearness the whole range of His precepts, and therefore indicated the necessity of such sacrifices as were the greatest and most difficult to men on earth. Even though He was quite well aware of the possibility that, under certain circumstances, the members of the kingdom' of God must retain and use earthly goods and relationships, just in order by these to accomplish their duty in the kingdom of God, He could still, in seeking to indicate with the greatest possible clearness the greatness of the renunciation in principle which 1 Cf. vol. i. p. 130 ff. RENUNCIATION OF EARTHLY GOODS. 69 had to be made for the sake of the kingdom of God, leave out of account these special circumstances. For the rule as to renunciation in principle — namely, that all earthly goods should be absolutely subordinated to the kingdom of God, and that the pursuit and reten tion of earthly goods for their own sake must be renounced for the sake of the righteousness of the kingdom of God — suffers no real exception even where the earthly goods and relationships are ex ternally retained and used for the purposes of the kingdom of God ; only that renunciation is not so clearly apparent under these circumstances as when earthly goods and relationships are externally given up for the sake of the kingdom of God. In accordance with this view of the general pre cepts of Jesus in regard to renunciation, we must also explain the precepts given 'by Him to indi viduals. According to Mark x. 1 7 ff, when the rich man inquired of Him the conditions of obtaining eternal life, and declared that he had observed the Divine commands of the Old Testament, Jesus called upon him to sell all his possessions and give them to the poor, and follow Him. The Logia (§ 6) report certain cases where He required of some who would or should have joined themselves to Him, that they should sever themselves fully from their home and their relatives (Luke ix. 57 ff). To the scribe (cf. Matt. viii. 19) who proposed to follow Him in course of His wanderings whithersoever He went,1 He 1 We cannot, I think, understand the words of the scribe as meaning that he was rightly aware of the life of continual wandering led by Jesus, arid meant that he would follow Him in all those wanderings wherever they might lead, so that Jesus in His reply only confirmed the correct- 70 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. replied that He had not where to lay His head, thus emphasising the fact that whoever would follow Him must renounce his home (Luke ix. 58) ; also to the man whom He had Himself called upon to follow Him, but who wished to postpone his obedience to the call until he had " buried his father," He uttered the saying, " Let the dead bury their dead," that is, let them who, in the spiritual sense, are dead, per form to their relatives those external works which yet only pertain to the perishing body,1 "but go ness of this idea in regard to His wandering life ; but the scribe, having met Jesus on the way, declared that he would follow Him to the end of His journey, wherever it might be. Jesus thereupon says to him that He has no such end in view, but was a homeless wayfarer. 1 The words, " Suffer me first to go and bury my father " (ver. 59), probably do not mean that the man wished to bury his father who was already dead, but that he wished to put off becoming a follower of Jesus until he should have buried his father, who at that time was still alive. After the natural bond which still united him to his parents' house was dissolved in the way of nature, he would devote himself to the new task in connec tion with the kingdom of God. I have been prompted to this interpretation by the following communication in the Feuille religieuse du canton de Vaud (1879, p. 476 ff.), to which Pastor L. Monod, of Lyons, has called my attention. A missionary in Syria, M. Waldmeier, there relates that an intelligent and rich young Turk, whom he had advised at the close of his education to make a tour to Europe, had answered, " I must first of all bury my father." As that father had hitherto been in the enjoy ment of good health, the missionary expressed surprise at the sad intelligence of his death. But the young man hastened to set his mind at rest in regard to his father, and explained that he only meant that one must before all things devote himself to the duties owed to his relatives. If in this same sense the form of expression, " would first bury my father," was used by the man who was called to be a disciple, the answer of Jesus loses the appearance of harshness which is otherwise attached to it, and gains a very striking and significant sense. When, in place of all the other considerations that bound him to his paternal home, the man mentioned the burying of his father, which, on the one hand, postponed to an indefinite future the required severance from his home, and which, on the other hand, indicated a duty apparently so weighty that all further contention in regard to his refusal appeared to be precluded, Jesus, however, did not, in the given circumstances, recognise the alleged duty to be one which gave the man a right to RENUNCIATION OF EARTHLY GOODS. 7 1 thou and preach the kingdom of God " (ver. 60). To the man who offered to follow Him, but wished first to take farewell of those in his own house, he answered, " No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God;" that is, as little as one who keeps his gaze averted from the place where he has to work with his hand is fit for the plough, so little is one fit to work in the kingdom of God who keeps clinging with his thoughts and wishes to those things which do not belong to the kingdom of God (ver. 62). In these cases we have immediate application of the strong general commands in regard to renunciation which Jesus gave in the Logia-passages, Luke xiv. ' 26~3 3- But still we must guard ourselves from infer ring from these cases, which have been handed down to us just because of their striking character, that, in all cases, those who desired to join themselves to Jesus as disciples, were called upon by Him so to separate themselves from possessions, home, and relatives. Not only must we consider that Jesus appeared to have intended for those particular men the special task of becoming like Himself and the twelve heralds of the kingdom of God, a task for whose full and shirk the duty of preaching the kingdom of God to which he was now called. In the view of the speaker, the alleged reason — that he should bury his father — directly represented all the other reasons why he should not quit his home, and indirectly it made those other reasons appear as weighty duties of filial piety. Jesus, on the contrary, found it character istic that the other specified a duty that was to be performed for the dead, and not for the living. The " burying of the dead " appeared to Him a figurative and comprehensive designation for all acts which have reference, not to the life, but to the death of men ; not to their soul, but to the perishing body. In this sense He says, " Let the dead (those who are destitute of true life) bury their dead." 72 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. devoted exercise such a renunciation of earthly posses sions and earthly relationships was certainly needed, just as Jesus had imposed it upon Himself; but we also especially consider that we have no knowledge whatever of the special circumstances which, accord ing to Jesus' judgment, rendered it incompatible to retain their possessions, and return to their relatives. Jesus had without doubt good reason for the sup position that at that particular point of time no really pressing filial duty in regard to this matter was in cumbent upon this man, who wished first to go and bury his father. Even if the alleged reason were not a mere pretence in order to put off indefinitely his following after Jesus, but if that father were really dead, Jesus would have had good reason to characterise as "dead" the relatives who, powdered with dust and ashes, were wailing in that house of mourning, into whose midst the son, who had been called to preach the kingdom of God, was not to return. So He well knew the reason which led Him to judge that the desire of that other to say farewell to his home-circle was not a sealing of his determina tion now fully to devote himself to the service of the kingdom of God, but rather an expression of such a sad inward craving and hankering after the old life as was incompatible with the joyous and energetic re solve to fulfil his allotted task in the kingdom of God. The saying of Jesus in regard to voluntary celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of God, must be under stood on the same principle. When His disciples exclaimed, in view of the commands which He laid down in regard to marriage, that it would be RENUNCIATION OF EARTHLY GOODS. J2 better not to marry,1 He answered that this saying of theirs certainly did contain a truth, even though all were not in a position to receive it in the right sense. There were some who were eunuchs from birth ; there were others who had been made eunuchs forcibly by men ; but also there were some who had made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God (Matt. xix. n f.). Jesus means the voluntary renunciation of marriage, which He denotes by the strong expression of self-emasculation, not because He intends actual castration, but because He seeks to indicate, not a mere renunciation of the marriage- relation whereby the non-nuptial gratification of the sexual instinct, or the inward desire after nuptial or other gratification of the sexual instinct, is reserved, but a voluntary continence as complete as in the case of eunuchs. Jesus was Himself conscious of being such a " eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of heaven," in respect of His recognising celibacy as a duty entailed upon Him by His vocation in the kingdom of God. But the like celibacy for the same object is, in Jesus' judgment, practised also by other mem bers of the kingdom. The cautiousness of His mode of expression is the more noteworthy here, the more it contrasts with the severe form in which He otherwise puts His precepts concerning renunciation. He designates the voluntary abstinence from marriage, not as a duty either of general validity, or as one in cumbent on some, but He only states the fact that there are those who will practise this abstinence for 1 On the probable occasion prompting this utterance of the disciples, cf. Log. § 50, L.J. i. p. 182 f. 74 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. the sake of the kingdom of God. And He knows also that this saying cannot be understood in the right sense by all, certainly not only because this abstention will appear to them too great and impos sible a task for the sake of the kingdom of God, but because they do not understand the full meaning and compass of this abstinence so far as it will have place and value in the kingdom of God, and be cause they do not estimate the conditions under which alone this abstention can be held as a real duty in the kingdom of God. But the danger of such a misunderstanding does not preclude that Jesus should yet state the fact, according to its right sense. God has given grace to some, so that they are able to understand the true meaning of that abstinence to be practised for the sake of the kingdom of God (ver. 1 1). For them the saying of Jesus is designed, that thereby they may make a right application of it. "He that is able to receive it, let him receive it" (ver. 12^). 4. As, in order to participate in the kingdom of God, such a turning of the heart to the righteous- \i J ness of the kingdom is necessary as is founded upon a complete turning of the heart from sin, and as implies a complete renunciation of the pursuit and retention of earthly goods for their own sake; so Jesus knew that only a few prove themselves re ceptive in regard to the message of the kingdom, and fulfil the conditions required in order to become members of the kingdom of God. Men prefer to cling to their formerly accustomed life, since it is easier and more agreeable to them than the new HINDRANCES TO ENTERING THE KINGDOM. 75 righteousness which the kingdom of God demands : "No man, having drunk old wine, straightway desireth new ; for he saith, The old is better " (Luke v. 39). There are only a few who find their way through the narrow door which leads unto life (Matt. vii. 14). "Many are called, but few are chosen" (Matt. xxii. 14); that is, of the many to whom the admonition comes to enter into the king dom, only a few will be recognised by God as worthy of participation in it, not by any means because the admonition was not sincerely meant, and because God arbitrarily selects a limited number to bestow upon them His saving grace, nor because the few chosen have rightly earned that grace by their previous deeds, but only because they resolve to appropriate to themselves the qualities corresponding to the will of God, and belonging to the nature of the kingdom (Matt. xxii. iiff). From the analogy of the seed scattered by the sower — which bore no fruit, not only where it fell upon the hard highway, but also on stony ground, where it found no suffi cient soil for striking root, and among the thorns which choked the growing plant, though in the two latter cases it had at first the appearance as if a fruit- bearing plant would develop itself — Jesus explained how His preaching of the kingdom of God remained without effect in different kinds of men, not only in those who show themselves unreceptive from the first, but also in those who immediately receive the preaching, and appear to let it have effect in them selves, but who yet do not receive and follow it with such earnestness and energy that they will even 76 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. endure trials for the sake of the kingdom of God, and are able to withstand the allurement of earthly goods (Mark iv. 3-9; cf. v. 13-20). The wisdom of God, that is, the wise method in which He lets His promised grace be proclaimed and brought in, is only "justified," that is, recognised to be just, by those who are " children of wisdom," that is, who in their character and disposition correspond to the Divine will, whilst it remains hidden from those who do not obediently submit themselves to it, but criticise it according to their own pleasure (Luke vii. 35).1 As Jesus knew that the Pharisees, who carried obedience to God upon their lips and paraded their external righteousness before men, as to knowledge of God and attainment of His kingdom came short of gross sinners who let themselves be moved to sincere repentance (Luke xvi. 15; xviii. 9-14; Matt. xxi. 28-32) ; so He also declares that the knowledge of the gift of absolute blessing and power existing in the kingdom of God is hidden from the worldly wise and prudent, since, in their contentment with their worldly wisdom, they remain unreceptive of this highest and most precious knowledge, whilst it is revealed to "babes" (Luke x. 31). Especially He perceives that earthly riches make it hard for men to be receptive of the message of the kingdom of God, because the rich man is prone to seek his highest good in his earthly treasures (Luke xii. 16 ff), because he readily imagines, on account 1 Cf. the connection of this saying with the preceding discussion of Jesus in regard to the treatment of the Baptist and Himself by the Jewish people in the Logia-passage, Luke vii. 29 ff. ; cf. Matt. xxi. 28-32 ; xi. i6ff. (Log. § 4c and d, L.J. i. p. 76 ff). HINDRANCES TO ENTERING THE KINGDOM. jy of his consequence before men, that he is also great and pleasing in the sight of God, and because he therefore with difficulty resolves to practise the re nunciation in principle of earthly goods which is necessary for the sake of the kingdom of God. " How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God ! " said Jesus to His dis ciples, when the rich man went to Him, announcing his desire to obtain eternal life, and to fulfil the commands of God, and yet unable to determine to sacrifice his earthly riches for the sake of the kingdom of God (Mark x. 23). And when His disciples marvelled on account of that saying, He repeated to them the same thought in more general and more pointed terms : " Children, how hard, is it to enter into the kingdom of God ! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God ! " (ver. 24 f.). The general statement that it is hard to enter into the kingdom of God, proves that Jesus knew that what He regarded as a hindrance to enter ing the kingdom, did not merely apply to some in dividuals, but to all men in different degrees. All possess or strive after earthly riches, and find a satis faction in them ; all must renounce these earthly goods in order to enter the kingdom of God, and this re nunciation is hard for all. But in the case of the rich man this renunciation is greatest, and therefore most difficult, yea, considering what human nature is, it is impossible, because for one who enjoys great earthly felicity in the possession of great earthly goods, renunciation of these goods and of that felicity 78 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. means so great a change, that it is inconceivable by human power, and in a natural way. 5. " With men it it impossible, but not with God ; for with God all things are possible." Such is the solution which Jesus finally gives of the difficulty which He at first represents as insoluble (ver. 27). The miracle which must appear impossible to accom plish by mere creature or human power, viz. that a rich man should voluntarily yield up all his earthly goods, God by His almighty power can accomplish. As Jesus knew that His disciples, in the conflicts and trials which they had to surmount as members of the kingdom of God, could trust in Divine assistance to supplement their feeble creature strength, and could invoke this help in prayer (Mark xiii. 1 1 ; xiv. 38 ; cf. Luke xi. 4) ; so He also judges that for those who would enter the kingdom of God, Divine power is ready to enable them to fulfil the conditions of entrance. Therefore no one is excluded from the kingdom of God necessarily through the weakness of his natural power or the difficulty of the circumstances in which he stands. It is more difficult in some cases than in others to effect an entrance ; but even where the difficulty appears insurmountable, it can be mar vellously overcome by the Divine power which is offered. Just on this account Jesus does not from the first regard even the rich man who comes to Him as one who is lost for the kingdom of God ; but He hopes that, in spite of his riches, the rich man will resolve to renounce all that he has. Jesus gives no hint as to a theory of how He con ceives the powerful help of God as reconcilable with DIVINE GRACE TO HELP. 79 man's own voluntary effort and with human responsi bility ; and we must, in our historical treatment, guard against bringing in such a theory. His own personal experience gave Him the immediate certainty that the graciously bestowed possession of Divine power and revelation did not nullify, but rather called for, the full energy and exertion of His will for the realisation of the righteousness required by God, and that, con versely, the consciousness of this energetic endeavour of H is own after the fulfilment of the will of God, did not exclude the consciousness of being moved and filled with wonderful Divine power, and it did not exclude, but rather prompted, devout humble thank fulness for this Divine gift of grace. But, on the ground of this personal experience, He was also certain, in regard to all others, that the earnest energetic appli cation of the will to the righteousness of the kingdom of God, and the possession and active working of Divine power in man, did not stand in opposition to one another, but were mutually dependent on each other. It was absolutely far from His thought that God could arbitrarily withhold His assisting power from any, since this thought did not correspond with His view of God as the Father who was characterised by spontaneous love. The idea that the finite power of man did not suffice to enable him to perform the divinely required conditions of entering and remain ing in the kingdom of God amid all the temptations arising from the possessions and evils of the world, contained for Him no reason for giving up in despair in view of the special difficulties of these conditions, or of excusing those who did not overcome these 80 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. difficulties, because He knew that the assisting power of God was available for those who will only pray for it and use it. 6. But the view of Jesus, that the message of the saving grace of the kingdom is designed for all who need it (Matt. xi. 28), and that all to whom this mes sage is imparted have also the power to perform the conditions of entrance into the kingdom of God, since God Himself vouchsafes them His power for this purpose, stands over against His statement that from those who hold themselves unreceptive of the message of the kingdom, and refuse to fulfil the conditions required for entering into the kingdom, its saving grace shall henceforth be judicially excluded. In the proverbial saying, "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you ; and more shall be added. Whoever hath, to him it shall be given ; and from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath" (Mark iv. 24 f.), Jesus finds the expression of the rules which apply to those who show receptiveness or unreceptiveness in regard to the preaching of the kingdom of God. He does not mean that the bless ings of the kingdom will be bestowed in strictly equivalent measure on those who have performed corresponding service, for this would be opposed to other clear sayings, in which He lays direct stress upon the necessity of trustful, childlike reception and seizure of the kingdom of God, and the accessibility of the kingdom even for sinners who are penitent But He did mean that only he who, by true repentance,,; % manifests receptiveness in regard to the preaching of the kingdom of God by a determined withdrawal EXCLUSION OF THE UNRECEPTIVE. 8 1 of the will from sin and from earthly goods, and an application of the will to the righteousness and saving grace of the kingdom of God, experiences the blissful influence of this preaching, and partakes of the saving benefit of the kingdom of God, not in a measure merely corresponding to his service, but in a richly superabundant measure ; and that, on the contrary, to those who do not show such receptiveness, not only will no saving grace be given, but, for the future, the very possibility of obtaining that grace will be im paired or wholly removed. It happens to those who do not straightway resolve to obey the call to the kingdom of God, because they cannot let themselves be drawn away from their worldly interests, as it did to the guests invited to the feast, who, when they would not come at the time fixed by the giver of the feast, were definitively excluded from it, and ought not to reckon upon afterwards finding their place ready for them (Luke xiv. 16-24). According to this view, Jesus judges that, to those who show themselves unreceptive, the gracious mes sage of the kingdom of God is afterwards withheld. He warns His disciples against giving that which is holy to the dogs, and casting pearls before swine ; that is, offering the treasure of the gospel of the kingdom of God to those who, through their impurity of heart, misunderstand and despise it ; since thus to give away what is holy and valuable is not only useless in regard to them, but is in itself a blameworthy and dangerous undervaluing of what is holy (Matt. vii. 6). He charged His disciples, when sending them forth to spread the tidings of the kingdom of God, that, where VOL. 11. f 82 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. they and their message were not received, they should go forth thence, and shake the dust from their feet as a sign of dissolving all further fellowship (Mark vi. n ; Luke x. 10 fi). With the inhabitants of His native town — Nazareth — who, on account of His hav ing grown up among them, and on account of their intimate knowledge of His early position and kindred, treated Him unkindly and despitefully, He could not impart the saving blessings which He brought to others (Mark vi. 1-5), and He referred them to the example of Elias and Elisha, who had formerly to give miraculous help, not to many of their neighbours the Israelites, but to some trustful foreigners (Luke iv. 2 3-2 7). 1 To the Sanhedrists in Jerusalem, who themselves gave evidence that they possessed no power of judging as to the mission, whether it was from God or not, of such a man as John the Baptist, He refused to state the nature and source of the authority whereby He undertook to cleanse the temple (Mark xi. 27-33). And so He approved the statement that, in God's decree, His doctrine remains withheld from those whom, in opposition to the twelve and the wider circle of His followers, He characterises as "those who are without" (Mark iv. 11 f.), even although they, prompted by external motives, thronged around Him. His teaching by parables, which, for all those who have admitted into receptive hearts the mystery of the kingdom of God (ver. 1 1), was a means of rendering the mystery intelligible, at the same time, in the case of those who were inwardly impervious to the preaching of the kingdom, tended 1 Cf. the original connection, Log. § 34*, L.J. i. p. 166 f. EXCLUSION OF THE UNRECEPTIVE. 83 to debar that preaching from them, in so far as," while they heard the narratives appealing to the sphere of earthly life, it occasioned their mishearing the designed instruction in regard to the kingdom of God. Thus there could appear to be a punitive hardening of heart for those unreceptive hearers who "stood without," and a fulfilment of the prophetic words of judgment, that " seeing they may see, and not perceive ; and hearing they may hear, and not understand ; lest at any time they should be con verted, and their sins should be forgiven them" (Mark iv. 1 1 f. ; cf. Isa. vi. gi.). The thought is quite un tenable, that the same Jesus who called to Him all the labouring and heavy laden, that He might give them rest (Matt. xi. 28), who knew that He was sent to seek and save the lost (Luke xix. 10), who pro claimed the joy of God over sinners who repented (Luke xv. 8 ff), and who was able, with admirable skill, to fashion His teaching so as to be in the highest degree intelligible and impressive for all, yet repelled some who came to Him with desire after the saving grace of the kingdom of God and with attention to His preaching, that He intentionally hid from them the meaning of His message of mercy, and designed His teaching only as a secret doctrine for the initiated. But that apparently harsh judicial sentence of Jesus is quite intelligible to us in the later period of His ministry, when already the message of grace had been caused by Him to resound through the whole land, when all could know that His teaching related to the kingdom of God, to the saving grace, but at the same time to the necessary righteousness of this kingdom, 84 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. and when He now recognised it as His task to devote Himself to the further training and instruction of the circle of His disciples, who had gathered round Him with trust and earnest desire.1 They whom He designated as " those standing without," were not such as were excluded by Him, in spite of their seeking to become His true disciples, but such as had culpably excluded themselves, by not joining themselves to the company of His disciples with genuine desire for grace and righteousness. With reference to these culpably unreceptive ones, He could declare it as the result of a Divine punitive decree, that, while they externally heard His preaching, they yet failed to understand its true sense, because it was now no longer directed to them, but only to the receptive circle of the disciples. In the same sense we must understand His utter ance, wherein He thanks God because, whilst He has hidden His salvation from the wise and prudent, it has been revealed unto babes (Matt. xi. 25 ; Luke x. 2 12). It would certainly be just as wrong if we icf./../. i. P. 33- 2 When it is said, " I thank Thee, O Father, . . . that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes," that hiding from the wise and prudent is formally as much the object of the thanksgiving of Jesus as this revelation to the babes. According to the meaning, however, these two co-ordinated objects of thanksgiving do not stand simply on the same footing ; but the thanks refer peculiarly to only the second object mentioned, whilst the first brings in a circumstance which emphasises the thankworthy significance of the object indicated in the second place. The expression has, as to its syntax, to be understood just as, for example, the passage in Isa. xii. 1, "I thank Thee, Jehovah, that Thou wast angry with me, (and) Thine anger is turned away, and Thou comfortest me " (cf. LXX., where the copulative x«/stands just as in our passage) ; or Rom. vi. 17, " God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin ; but ye have become obedient from the heart," etc. Cf. also Matt, xviii. 21. In order rightly, in these EXCLUSION OF THE UNRECEPTIVE. 85 supposed that these words meant that God arbitrarily veils His salvation from the wise and reveals it unto babes, so that the former as such are necessarily and without blame given up to destruction, as if we sought quite to explain away the idea that this veiling to the one and revealing to the other depended on the power and influence of God. In the connection of the passage it by no means lay in Jesus' way to indicate fully the grounds or conditions of obtaining salvation. He wishes to extol the greatness of the grace of God, which He Himself knew, and which in His gospel He imparted to others, — to all the weary and heavy laden (Matt. xi. 27-30); — and He desires to thank God because this message of mercy is under stood and accepted (Matt. xxi. 16 x) just by babes, by men of little earthly culture and knowledge, whilst it still remained strange and unintelligible to the worldly wise and prudent. The character of His address to God occasioned that Jesus did not here take account of the knowledge of salvation on the part of the uncultured in the aspect wherein men receive it with moral decision, but in the aspect wherein God imparts it according to His gracious pleasure. But, on the other hand, it was thereby occasioned that the con trasted fact as to the wise and prudent, the scribes and Pharisees who vaunted themselves of their great knowledge (cf. Rom. ii. 178".), remaining strangers, in cases, to understand the logical relation of the thoughts, we must reverse the co-ordination, by subordinating to the peculiar object of the thanks giving that which is formally placed as the first object of the thanks, by giving it the form of a dependent clause introduced by "after" or "whilst." 1 Cf. Log. § 37a, L.J. i. p. i69f. 86 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. experience, to that saving knowledge, should not here be taken account of as being the result of the guilt of the wise and prudent, but as the result of a Divine sentence, a blinding caused by God. For the idea of such a blinding caused by God has certainly validity for Jesus ; only He considered it not as an unmerited sentence, but as a punitive sentence on those who had no desire for the salvation and for the righteousness of the kingdom of God, and who there fore unreceptively slighted the gospel message. It was also a self-evident presupposition for Jesus that the wise and prudent, by guiltily slighting the gospel when it was presented to them, had brought them selves the veiling of the gospel by God, since from him who has not even that which he has shall be taken away. The fact that Jesus had no occasion, from the connection of that address to God, to speak of the guilty conduct of the wise and pru dent, does not preclude His having presupposed it according to the mode of view manifested in other places. But we cannot attribute to Jesus the idea that God, without all long-suffering towards one who does not immediately decide to obey the gospel call, with draws from him conclusively for all the future the possibility of knowing the gospel and receiving the salvation proclaimed in it. As the declaration of Jesus, that He Himself withheld His message of grace from those who did not, with trustful receptive ness, join themselves to His disciples (Mark iv. 11 f.), finds an important complement in His sorrowful address to Jerusalem, " How often would I have EXCLUSION OF THE UNRECEPTIVE. 87 gathered thy children, as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings, and ye would not ! " (Luke xiii. 34) ; so also His thought that God debars the entrance to His kingdom to those who will not immediately come (Luke xiv. 16-24), nas an important complement in the assurance that God still gives, even to the impenitent, a respite, in which the possibility remains of their turning and yielding their wills to His saving grace (Luke xiii. 6-9 ; cf. xii. 57-59). But this regard to the long-suffering of God nevertheless does not, in Jesus' view, preclude the idea that the respite granted by God has its limits, and that, on the other hand, the culpable neglect of the offered grace can attain such a degree as is followed by a definitive judg ment of God. For so is it to be understood when Jesus declares that the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost finds no forgiveness for ever, since it involves eternal guilt (Mark iii. 28 ; Luke xii. 10). All sins of mankind will be forgiven them, inasmuch as man kind have, through weakness and error, allowed themselves to be drawn into sin, and inasmuch, on the other hand, as God is ready in His fatherly love to receive again to Himself the penitent, in spite of the sins they have committed. But whoever, with full consciousness and choice of will, refuses and despises the eternal blessing offered by God, — His Holy Spirit, which is the principle of the eternal life of blessedness in man, — not because he misunder stands this Divine Spirit in its saving value, but in spite of the fact that he could and should have known it in its full saving value, the same will be delivered up definitively by God to judgment. The 88 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. thought that, even for those who wilfully resist the mercy of God, an endless possibility of a change of will, and therefore of obtaining mercy, remains in reserve, was foreign to the mind of Jesus. Whoever, in view of the decision to be made by him between earthly welfare and eternal blessedness, does not, with full determination, choose the eternal life of the kingdom of God and sacrifice earthly welfare, the same would be excluded from eternal life, and the everlasting judicial destruction (Mark ix. 43, 45, 47 f.) proclaimed by the prophets (Isa. lxvi. 24) would befall him. 7. On the basis of the Matthew- Logia and Mark's Gospel we might now briefly formulate, in the follow ing way, the view of Jesus in regard to the conditions of membership of the kingdom of God. Men will obtain a part in the kingdom of God, if they trustfully receive the saving grace of the kingdom, and will earnestly perform its righteousness. The. kingdom of God is a gift of grace, which men do not require to earn by previous proportional works, but which, on the contrary, is prepared even for sinners. But men do not obtain it unless they inwardly and fully turn from all that is opposed to this kingdom, and do not resolutely implant themselves in the kingdom, unless men prize its benefits higher than all worldly goods, and unless they make the greatest and most painful sacrifice for the sake of the righteousness of this king dom. The more that men have allowed their mind to be fettered by earthly goods, the more difficult will it be for them to fulfil these conditions. But to none is their fulfilment impossible, since God vouchsafes RELIGIOUS AND MORAL CHARACTER OF JESUS' VIEW. 89 His miraculously-operating power to those who desire it. But whosoever does not determine to obey the exhortation given him to enter the kingdom by performing the necessary conditions, from him the possibility of entering will be judicially removed. The peculiar greatness and historical significance of this view of Jesus of the conditions of participation in the kingdom of God, must be found in the fact that Jesus has, on the one hand, kept Himself entirely free from the legal mode of view, according to which every bestowal of blessing on the part of God implies a corresponding service on the part of men. Jesus has rather expressed with all possible emphasis the idea, corresponding to PI is assurance of the fatherly love of God, of the free-grace character of the bless ings of the kingdom of God. On the other hand, however, He has at the same time maintained with all possible earnestness the moral character of the kingdom of God, and has emphasised the im possibility of becoming or continuing a member of the kingdom of God, without implicit obedience to the will of God, to be performed with the whole energy of will. In the freedom on Jesus' part from the legal mode of thought, is shown the whole distance of His religious view from that of Pharisaic Judaism. If we afterwards find the Apostle Paul standing at a similar elevation of religious view, and maintaining it in a fully -formed theory against the Pharisaic - Jewish pretensions, we must not fail to keep in mind that Jesus was still the Master and Paul the scholar. It would be to turn history upside down, if, on the presupposition that Paul was 90 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. the original propounder of the idea of the free-grace character of the Messianic salvation, it were held that the sayings of Jesus handed down in our Gospel sources, which plainly present this idea, are " Pauline," and if their origination by Jesus is laid under suspi cion. In the offence which Paul at first took against Christianity this very point was involved, namely, that Jesus had appeared proclaiming a message. of mercy even for publicans and sinners, and had ex pressed ideas as to the conditions of membership of the kingdom of God which stood in virtual opposi tion to the Pharisaic axioms ; but Paul at a later period, when he had become a disciple and apostle of Jesus, knew that he was called to maintain, against the Jewish view, the whole extent of this gospel of Jesus, as he estimated it from the standpoint of one who had been a Pharisee. But little as Jesus re garded the relation of men to God, and the conditions of obtaining Divine blessing in a moralistic - legal mode, He did so in an earnestly moral way. Through this moral earnestness it was precluded that He should lay such a one-sided exaggerated stress upon the influence of Divine grace, that the attainment of membership of the kingdom of God should be regarded deterministically as depending only upon a mechanical process inwrought by God. For Jesus there was no contradiction between the religious and the moral mode of view, between devout thankful recognition and acceptance of the gracious influence of God and energetic exercise of man's own volition and activity. The inner harmony of both these modes of view and of conduct, and the necessity of CONDITIONS OF BLESSING ACCORDING TO JOHN III. 9 1 their connection, were guaranteed for Him by His view of the moral character of the Divine fatherhood, and by His own consciousness of the identity of a truly devout and a truly moral thinking and volition, which at one and the same time are inwrought by God, and effected by one's own energy in accordance with the will of God. 8. Of all the discourses of the fourth Gospel, the one which chiefly has reference to the question as to wherein the conditions of membership of the king dom of God consist, is the conversation of Jesus with Nicodemus (iii. 1-2 1). Jesus here at the outset declares, in the only passage in the fourth Gospel where the conception of the kingdom of God is directly mentioned, that a complete new birth taking place from the commencement, and indeed a birth from the Spirit of God, is indispensably necessary in order both to seeing (that is, experiencing) and to entering the kingdom of God (vers. 3 and 5).1 1 I here repeat my conjecture expressed in L. J. i. p. 261, that the mention, in ver. 5, of water along with Spirit as the power in producing the necessary new birth, did not belong to the original record of the discourse, but is an addition by the evangelist in redacting the source of the Johannine sayings, because throughout the following words, refer ence is made only to the operation of the. Spirit for the purpose of generating the new life, whilst the co-operation of water, mentioned in ver. 5, remains unexplained and without reference in the connection of the passage. But my explanation given above of the whole passage is not dependent on the correctness of this conjecture. For if the desig nation of water as a co-operating condition in order to regeneration arises out of the original form of the discourse, we must explain it in regard to the inner moral purification, whose production through God's purifying power belongs quite as essentially to the nature of the kingdom of God as the production of the Divine eternal life of grace, and is indis- solubly connected with the operation of the Divine Spirit. But appar ently the redacting evangelist has added the idea of water in ver. 5 with direct reference to the Christian baptism of water. 92 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. He wishes to emphasise the fact that to the nature of the kingdom of God belongs the possession of a Divine form of life, which as such can by no means be generated and developed from the creature form of life, but must be produced through the immediate operation of God, as spirit from His Spirit (ver. 6). But these sayings of Jesus do not at all mean that the condition of membership of the kingdom of God only lies in the experience of the peculiar higher influences of God, and not also in a moral religious disposition of the will of men themselves. For the continuation of the conversation leads Jesus directly to the further thought, which He had in view from the first in answering the appeal of Nicodemus (ver. 2), namely, that He Himself had been sent by God in order to become the medium of eternal life,1 that is, just the life which is to be produced through regenera tion from the Spirit of God, and which consists in Divine spirit ; and He here indicates faith in Him, the Son sent from God in order to give life, as the decisive condition of obtaining eternal life (vers. 1 5- 18), and He specially emphasises the moral nature and foundation of this faith (vers. 19-21). This morally founded disposition of faith, which He represents as the condition of obtaining saving bless ing, has plainly analogy with the moral - religious disposition, which, according to the synoptical dis courses of Jesus, forms the condition of membership of the kingdom of God. But the thought to which Jesus at first gives expression, that the life belonging to the kingdom of God is such a higher supernatural 1 Cf. on the connection of thought of the discourse, vol. i. p. 246. CONDITIONS OF BLESSING ACCORDING TO JOHN III. 93 life that man could not generate or attain it for him self, but must be born to it of the Spirit of God, has to be placed in analogy with the view attested by the synoptical discourses of Jesus, that the eternal life of the kingdom of God is a heavenly life which is produced by the power of God, and does not bear the sensuous nature of the earthly life (Mark xii. 24 f.). The Divine nature and foundation of this eternal life is also here, in the conversation with Nicodemus, emphasised in opposition to the Jewish- Pharisaic view, that the life of blessing in the kingdom of God is, according to its proper nature, a continuation of the earthly sensuous creaturely life, only with miraculously increased earthly prosperity. Now, the idea peculiar to the Johannine discourses of Jesus, in regard to the foundation of the eternal life of blessedness already in the present time on earth, is certainly also expressed at the beginning of the conversation with Nicodemus, because the new birth is there represented, not as one in the future, but as a necessary experience in the present. That this Johannine idea does not stand in exclusive opposition to Jesus' mode of view as otherwise pre sented to us, I have sought already at an earlier point to show in detail.1 It is only to be noted here that at all events the thought that eternal life — the essence of the blessings in the kingdom of God — is of Divine supernatural character and origin, and cannot be produced by man himself, but must be vouchsafed by God, is in thorough accordance with the idea contained in the synoptical discourses of 1 Cf. vol. i. p. 248. 94 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. Jesus, and furnishes no answer at all to the question, wherein lie the subjective conditions for obtaining this eternal life by men ? But in the answer to this question given in the further course of the conversation with Nicodemus, where faith in the Son sent by God is mentioned as the condition for obtaining eternal life, there never theless comes to light a characteristic mark, which recurs elsewhere in the discourses of the fourth Gospel, of the view of the condition of obtaining blessing, which appears to betoken a significant differ ence of the Johannine view from that of the synoptical ideas, which we have been hitherto considering. Man's attitude of faith, which is represented as a con dition of obtaining saving blessing, must be directed immediately to the Messiah. This personal reference of faith to the Messiah is manifestly connected with the fact that generally in the discourses of the fourth Gospel, which, in the Johannine source, were origin ally set down as discourses of the concluding period of Jesus' ministry, instead of the teaching of Jesus in regard to the kingdom of God in general, His testimony to His own Messiahship occupies the fore ground. But as Jesus' idea of His Messiahship does not stand in contradiction to His preaching of the kingdom of God in general, so also the faith required by Him in His Messianic person is only seemingly different from the disposition which is commanded iti the synoptical discourses of Jesus as the general con dition of membership of the kingdom of God. But this is not the right place to determine positively and exactly the relation of the Johannine to the synoptical MORAL CONDITION ALITY OF FAITH. 95 commands. When we come to take up, in our next main section, the personal testimony of Jesus to His Messiahship, as He has given it according to the Matthew-Logia and Mark's Gospel, we shall also have to discuss at the close the disposition which Jesus, so far as He made known His Messiahship, has re quired of other men towards His Messianic person. That will be the right place to ascertain in how far the command in regard to faith in Jesus, which is so prominent in the Johannine discourses, has analogies in the synoptical discourses. We shall there also, if we consider more exactly the meaning of this required disposition of faith, be able to obtain a decided judg ment as to how this faith in Jesus is related to the general conditions of membership of the kingdom required in the synoptical discourses. 9. While reserving this later inquiry, we have here, however, still to take the following point into con sideration. In many Johannine sayings of Jesus we meet with statements bearing upon the ultimate grounds on which faith in Jesus is rendered or with held. These statements do not form parts or con sequences of the personal testimony of Jesus to His Messiahship, but are expressions of a general view as to the capacity of men for moral-religious actions, and of the dependence of those actions upon higher Divine or anti-Divine influences. Those statements are thus analogous to the synoptical utterances of Jesus, formerly mentioned by us in regard to the grounds of the receptivity or non-receptivity of men towards His message of saving blessing. We shall first inquire if this analogy implies a real harmony of 96 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. view ; the fact that the same problem in general is treated of here, as well as there, affords us ground for discussing these Johannine statements at this point. In the Johannine discourses we can distinguish two series of statements, in regard to the foundation of the believing and unbelieving deportment of men towards God's Son, sent to bestow eternal life upon men. In the one series, the moral attitude of the man towards the righteousness required by God is taken as the source of that faith or unbelief. To this class belong the words at the close of the Nicodemus discourse, in which Jesus indicates as the ground of the strange fact that men " loved darkness rather than light," and, through this unbelief, have rendered themselves liable to judgment (iii. 1 8), because their works were evil ; " for every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved (that is, should be manifested in their evil character and condemned) ; but every one that doeth the right (ttjv akrjOeiav) 1 cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest (that is, recognised in their righteous character) that they are wrought in God " (iii. 20 fi). The meaning is : because the Divine revelation of grace aims at the true moral integrity of men, and brings evil-doing as such plainly to knowledge, there fore those who are of unrighteous disposition feel themselves repelled from it, but the righteously dis posed are drawn to it. In the existence of the evil disposition man has a natural impulse to resist the revelation of grace, because he seeks to avoid the ignominy of the condemnation of his conduct contained 1 Cf. vol. i. p. 257. MORAL CONDITIONALLY OF FAITH. 97 in it, and the pain of renouncing this conduct required by it ; whilst, on the contrary, the right-living man has from this very attitude an interest in trustfully be taking himself to the revelation of grace, because the recognition of the Tightness and worth of his right eous acts, which he here finds, brings him joy and satisfaction. In the same sense Jesus says, on the one hand, in the passage vii. 7, that the world hateth Him, because He testifies of it that its works are evil ; and, on the other hand, in the passage xviii. 37 •, that because He is come to bear witness to the right (the aXrjQeia) in the world, every one who is of the truth (that is, who belongs according to his nature to moral rectitude), hears His voice. Then we have here to consider the words in which Jesus explains the fact that His Jewish adversaries, in spite of their study of the Holy Scrip tures, yet would not believingly come to Him, the medium of eternal life attested by these very Scrip tures : " I receive not glory from men. But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in yourselves. I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not : if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive glory one of another, and the glory that cometh from the only God, ye seek not?' (v. 41-44). In opposi tion to His consciousness of not striving after human glory, but of only aiming, in upright love to God, after what is pleasing to God, and of employing His whole activity in God's service and commission, He makes the complaint that the hostile Jews were not filled and led by this true love to God, but with zeal for human VOL. 11. G 98 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. glory ; in this egoistic attitude of mind on their part He finds the reason, while they were unable believ- ingly to receive Him. It was not because He did not truly execute His Divine commission, nor because they had not the possibility of recognising the truth of His Divine mission, but only because they were filled with zeal for human glory instead of true zeal for God, that, in spite of the manifest testimony to the truth of His Divine mission given in the Holy Scriptures (vers. 39, 45 ff), they would not and could not believingly come to Him, whilst they would will ingly receive another who should come with a Divine commission, provided, of course, that he would meet and satisfy their desire after human glory. In the same sense and in immediate continuation of this line of thought,1 Jesus says, vii. 17 : "If any man willeth to do the will of God, he shall know of the teaching whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." In the bent of the will to the fulfilment of the will of God, He sees the necessary presupposition for a knowledge of the Divine character and significance of His teaching. Finally, to this class of sayings belongs the answer of Jesus to the Pharisees, when, in regard to His declaration that He had come for judgment into the world, that they who see not might see, and that they who see might become blind (ix. 39), they asked Him if they were blind also (ver. 40) : " If ye were blind, ye should have no sin : but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth" (ver. 41). Jesus here uses the idea of seeing and blindness in a doubles 1 Cf. L. J. i. p. 230 f. MORAL CONDITIONALLY OF FAITH. 99 sense (just as in the sayings, Mark viii. 35, He uses the idea "soul" or that of " death" in Luke ix. 60), and both times in a transferred sense, namely, the one time as meaning the possession or the want of natural earthly knowledge and wisdom, the other time of the possession or want of the knowledge leading to the Messianic salvation. In the saying, ver. 39, He means to say that His ministry tends to disclose the knowledge of salvation to the worldly ignorant, but to exclude it from the worldly wise. For this declara tion was based on His experience that His preaching of Divine grace found acceptance with the unlearned, whilst the highly educated, especially the Pharisaic scribes, despised this highest and most valuable knowledge,* because they felt satisfied in their worldly culture and knowledge. He now applied this judg ment from experience to the Pharisees who accom panied Him, and who deprecated their being classed among the " blind " who lacked true knowledge ; if they had been of the number of the worldly ignorant, they would have been accessible to the knowledge of salvation presented by Him, and would not have brought upon themselves the guilt of rejecting it ; but the fact of their belonging to the worldly wise, and taking their stand with conscious satisfaction upon the knowledge they possessed, was the basis of their persistent rejection of the true knowledge of salvation. It is very worthy of attention that Jesus gives this conclusion a different turn from what was to be expected from the foregoing words. We would properly expect the application of the general declara tion given in ver. 39 to the question of the Pharisees, I0O CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. to have been a simple continuation of the paradox somewhat as follows : " If ye were blind, ye would- have no blindness; but because ye now say, We see, your blindness remains ; " or with a construction remov ing in the conclusion the paradox of the twofold figurative conception, as follows: "If ye were blind, ye would have attained the knowledge of eternal life; but because ye now say, We see, your blindness to eternal life remains." That Jesus, instead of con tinuing the thought in a way immediately to be expected, brought in at the conclusion the conception of sin, which would be lacking in the questioners if they were blind, but which, whilst they declare they see, remains to them, is a proof that He expressly wished to lay stress upon the fact that remaining blind in reference to the knowledge of salvation was not a necessary consequence of the possession of worldly knowledge, but was a sin which was based on a culpable preference of the worldly knowledge which leads to honour and advantage before men, to the knowledge of God's gracious will which was offered them and was therefore possible for them. Alongside of this explanation of the bringing in of the conception of sin into the present passage, we must put the saying of Jesus in the farewell discourse, where He infers the persecutions which His disciples will experience for His name's sake from the fact that the persecutors did not know Him who had sent Him (xv. 21), and then He proceeds : " If I had not come and spoken to them, they had not had sin ; but now they have no cloke for their sin" (ver. 22). The ignorance of God, and the enmity thence resulting i i MORAL CONDITIONALLY OF FAITH. IOI against Him whom God had sent and His disciples, were sinful, so far as the possibility of true knowledge was given in the preaching of Jesus. For, under this presupposition, the ignorance is a wilful one, arising out of motives of self-seeking and hostility to God. This series of sayings, in which partly the general bent of the will towards the rectitude required by God is represented as the ground of faith, and the evil bent of the will as the ground of unbelief, and partly the special striving after honour before men and their contented clinging to their own earthly knowledge are represented as the cause of their unbelieving ignorance of the Divine salvation, appears to us directly intellig ible in the mouth of Jesus when we take Jesus' mode of view attested by our other sources as the standard of judging. The opponents whom Jesus reproaches in the passages, v. 41 ff. and ix. 41, because, through their want of love to God, their striving after human glory, and their pride of earthly knowledge, they were unbelieving, are the same teachers and leaders of the people whom He, according to our sources, reproaches because they honoured God with their lips, while their heart was far from Him (Mark vii. 6), because they slighted the commands of God in cling ing to their own human tradition (Mark vii. 8 ff), and because they did all their works in order to be seen of men (Matt, xxiii. 5 ; Mark xii. 38 f.). In regard to them, He declares that God's justifying acknowledg ment is refused to the Pharisees, who vaunted them selves of their excellences before God, whilst the consciously guilty but penitent publican is acknow ledged by God to be just (Luke xviii. 9ff), and that 102 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. they who, whilst outwardly conformed to the will of God, were not really ready to fulfil it, came behind the publicans and harlots in attaining the kingdom of God (Matt. xxi. 28-32), and that the blissful know ledge of the Divine grace which was revealed to babes (Luke x. 21) was hidden from the wise and prudent. So those general statements, that only the morally disposed could understand and receive Jesus' preach ing of Divine grace, whilst in the unmoral disposition of the will lay the ground of unbelief (John iii. 20 f. ; vii. 7, 17; xviii. 37), stood only apparently in con tradiction to the sayings recorded in our other sources, in which Jesus lays stress just upon the fact that His message of grace was directed to sinners (Mark ii. 17; Luke xix. 10), and proffers participation in Divine saving grace to those who have hitherto been gross sinners (Matt. xxi. 31 ; Luke vii. 47 f. ; xix. 9). For, on the one hand, in these synoptical utterances the proviso and command hold good, that sinners, in order to enter the kingdom of God, must cease to be sinners, by obeying the call to repentance. The wisdom of God is only known and appreciated by the " children of wisdom," who in their character and con duct correspond to and follow the Divine wisdom (Luke vii. 35) ; and gross sinners (ver. 29 ; Matt. xxi. 31) must, through repentance and obedience to the Divine commands, become " children of wisdom " in order to attain that knowledge of the Divine wisdom. On the other hand, throughout these Johannine dis courses, it is never said that there is any need of a measure of righteousness already performed in order to understand and receive the message of saving MORAL CONDITIONALLY OF FAITH. IO3 grace, but only that the presently existing moral or unmoral disposition of will is the condition of the susceptibility of faith, or of culpable continuance in unbelief. Whether it is possible for a man, when he has hitherto lived an evil life, to change his inward disposition and to turn to right living in obeying the gospel message, is a special question upon which no decision can here be expressed. Even if there is such a possibility, yet the general thought of those Johannine utterances remains intact. Without doubt, it has so happened in historical reality that with the great mass, as with the spiritual leaders of the Jewish people, the peculiar ground of the misunderstanding, slighting, and hostile attitude towards Jesus' message of grace, lay in an inward disposition which He judged as unmoral and sinful, and that a true receptiveness Tor His preaching was only present in a few, who were animated with an earnest inward endeavour after fulfilling the will of God. The few "lost" sinners who were found of Jesus, and who allowed themselves to be drawn to repentance and salvation, were represented as only exceptions in relation to the great whole of the circle of disciples who gathered around Jesus. But we must also bear in mind that, in Jesus' view, the Pharisees, who paraded their external righteousness, were inwardly much more estranged from and opposed to the will of God, and were there fore much less accessible to the preaching of Jesus in regard to salvation and the righteousness of God, than those hitherto gross sinners who were ready to give heed to His call to repentance and to salvation. 10. Alongside of the sayings we have been con- IO4 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. sidering in regard to the causes of faith and unbelief on the part of men, there occurs, in the Johannine discourses of Jesus, yet another series of utterances, whose common characteristic is that faith or unbelief is described as the result of men's belonging to higher powers, or their dependence on the influences of such powers ; so that it appears not so much a free responsible acting on the part of men, as rather the necessary product of a constitution originally received or of foreign influences experienced. First of all, in the discourse given in chap, vi., Jesus describes believers as a gift which He receives from the Father, and their faith as something which God grants them, and which, without this Divine granting, could not be accomplished. "All that the Father giveth me shall come unto me" (ver. 27)- "This is the will of Him that sent me, that of all which He hath given me I should lose nothing " (ver. 39). " No man can come to me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him" (ver. 44). "It is written in the prophets, They shall be all taught of God. Every one that hath heard from the Father, and hath learned, cometh unto me" (ver. 45). " No man can come unto me except it be given unto him of the Father" (ver. 65). The declaration occurring in the first two passages (vers. 37 and 39), that believers are a gift of God, returns in the prayer (chap, xvii.): "Thou gavest Him authority over all flesh, that whatsoever Thou hast given Him, to them He should give eternal life " (ver. 2). " I manifested Thy name unto the men whom Thou gavest me out of the world : : Thine they were, and Thou gavest FAITH AS INFLUENCED BY GOD. 105 them me " (ver. 6 ; cf. vers. 9 and 24). Secondly, Jesus declares, in the colloquy with the hostile Jews in chap, viii., that they had sprung from beneath, from this world, from the devil, and therefore had no understanding of and no faith in Him who had sprung from above, from God. "Ye are from beneath, I am from above; ye are of this world, I am not of this world" (ver. 23). "Ye do the things which ye have heard from your father" (ver. 38). "Ye do the works of your father (ver. 41). "If God were your Father, ye would love me ; for I came forth and am come from God. . . . Why do ye not understand my speech ? Even because ye cannot hear my word" (the thoughts I convey) (ver. 42 f.) — that is, ye do not understand my uttered words (XaXia), while ye ever misinterpret, in a mere natural external sense, my words, which are meant in the inward spiritual sense, since ye have no capacity of understanding the thoughts of my words, the sub stance (X070?) of what I say. " Ye are of your father the devil, and the lust of your father it is your will to do" (ver. 44). "He that is of God heareth the words of God : for this cause ye hear them not, because ye are not of God" (ver. 47). Closely related to these utterances are the words in the fare well discourse of Jesus, where, in regard to His disciples, just as in regard to Himself, He declares that their origin is not of this world, but of God. " If ye were of this world, the world would love you ; but because ye are not of this world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you" (xv. 19). "The world hated them 106 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" (xvii. 14; cf. ver. 16). These sayings undeniably convey the impression of being in accordance with a dualistic mode of view, such as was characteristic of the great Gnostic schools of the second century, which supposed a distinction between two sorts of men, who, on account of their diversity of origin, and of the conditions of their nature, of necessity comported themselves differently towards the revelation of Divine grace. The one class originated from the nether regions, from the sensuous world, and from the devil, as the evil principle of the created universe, and, as such, necessarily remained unbelieving. The others, on the contrary, in spite of their life in the finite world, were not mere sensuous creatures, but beings en dowed with a higher spiritual equipment from the heavenly world, from God, and, as such, necessarily tended towards the heavenly good. But we ' must inquire if this first impression proves correct, when we consider the cited passages not in an isolated way, but when we inquire what meaning they present from the connection and the discernible motives which have occasioned the declaration as to faith and unbelief, which at first strikes us as strange. And in so far as we must test, by their relation to the mode of view recorded in the two other main sources, the possibility of those utterances being able historically to proceed from Jesus, we do not say according to their form merely, but according to their essential meaning, then it is clear for us, in view of our earlier comparison of the synoptical sayings of FAITH AS INFLUENCED BY GOD. 107 Jesus in regard to the conditions of membership of the kingdom of God, that at all events it would lead to a distorted judgment if we sought to set those Johannine utterances in contrast with such synoptical ones as bring out that Jesus' message of salvation is designed for all who need it (e.g. Matt. xi. 28 ff). Parallels are not wanting in the Johannine discourses for those synoptical invitations of the Saviour to all who desire Him (e.g. vii. 37 fi). But with these Johannine passages with which we have been occu pied, we must evidently bring those other synoptical ones into comparison, in which the receptive or un receptive disposition of men towards the message of salvation is similarly traced up to higher influences, and in which, therefore, it similarly appears as if the possibility of obeying the gospel message were not given in the same measure to all men who hear it. First, in regard to the utterances in John vi. 27 and 39, it must be held that the reason why Jesus describes believers as a gift to Himself from God lies in this, that His own mode of dealing with those who believingly come to Him, namely, His reception of them all, and His care that none of them should be lost, is expressly regarded by Him as a duty which He must exercise in regard to God. He has come, not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him (ver. 38) ; and inasmuch as believers, as such, are directed to Him by God, they are a charge committed to Him by God, which He must most faithfully fulfil. The same motive has occasioned a similar mode of expression at the beginning of Jesus' prayer as high priest (xvii. 2 and 6) ; for here also 108 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. it lay in His way to regard His dealings with believers as the work of His calling which was assigned Him by God, and which He had now accomplished. In the further course of His prayer, He twice repeats this statement in regard to His disciples ; on the one hand, He does so in passing on to His intercession that they might be preserved in the revealed truth which had been received by them (ver. 9), since an intensifying motive for this inter cession lay in the fact that the disciples belonged to God, and therefore they were thrown on God's care, and that Jesus had not drawn them to Himself of His own accord, but had received them from God to reveal Him unto them. On the other hand, He repeats it at the close of the prayer, in expressing the wish that the disciples might be united with Him in the life of heavenly glory (ver. 24), since the thought that they are a possession given to Him by God makes His wish for the permanent retention of this possession in His fellowship appear the more justified and urgent. In all these passages there is no intention whatever of giving a theoretic explanation in regard to the pro duction of faith. When Jesus piously regarded His disciples as a peculiar possession and gift of God, this did not preclude the free volition of His disciples in attaining their faith, but thereby there was only a motive established for the faithfulness of Jesus, and for the mode of dealing which He asked of God for His disciples. This pious mode of regard was thoroughly possible, even though it were presupposed that faith or unbelief was an act of free moral choice of will on the part of man. As little as the donation FAITH AS INFLUENCED BY' GOD. 109 of the disciples to Jesus means that they were placed by Him under constraining influences, against which they could offer no opposition, even by unbelief (cf. the "son of perdition," xvii. 12, falling into perdition, although he belonged to the number of those given of God to Jesus), so little does the idea of the pertaining of the disciples to God, and their being bestowed by God, express anything in regard to whether and how far their free will was concerned in the origin of their faith. It stands otherwise with the sayings, vi. 44, 45, 65, where the bestowal by God, not of the believing disciples upon Jesus, but of faith upon the disciples and the impossibility of acting faith without this Divine endowment, is brought into prominence. For here we find an explanation of the production of faith. But it must be well noted that, according to the con nection of the passage, the object of this explanation is not to affirm the impossibility of faith for some, but rather the possibility for all of the faith which is so apparently paradoxical and difficult. When the Jews who misunderstood Him met His claim to be the heaven-sent mediator of eternal life for all believers (vers. 35-40), with the indignant demand as to how He, whose earthly extraction they knew, could claim such a heavenly origin (ver. 41 fi), Jesus said that His being a revelation from heaven could only indeed be understood and recognised by one who himself had experienced an analogous revelation from God and felt drawn thereby to Him, the perfect embodiment of revelation. The negative statement, that no one could come to Him unless the Father drew him (ver. IIO CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. 44), is the preparation for the positive declaration that every one who has heard and learnt of the Father comes to Him (ver. 45), and in this idea of hearing and learning of the Father is involved the human self-activity wherein lies the condition of experiencing that Divine revelation. Jesus does not suppose a mechanical influence of God upon men ; He pre supposes that the teaching and inwardly enlightening manifestation of the heavenly Father is ready for all those, but for only those, who will hearken and give heed to His voice. Therefore the reference of Jesus to the impossibility of faith without being taught of God, which He made in reply to the mis understanding, unbelieving Jews, does not imply a resigned assertion of the fact that the contemporary Jews were necessarily unbelieving, since that Divine teaching influence was withheld from them, but rather it implies a reproach against the Jews that they were unbelieving because they did not allow themselves to be drawn and taught by God, and it included a direction as to the way in which alone they could attain to understanding and faith in regard to Him. In the same sense the resumption of the thought in ver. 65 is to be understood. Here also Jesus does not intend to bring out the independence of faith on man's own responsible will, and thus to represent the unbelief of those who now turn from Him (vers. 60 fi, 64) as a destiny against which neither they nor Himself could do anything; bat He means that, through the merely finite condition; and inward disposition of man, faith is impossible, and that the unbelief of men is a consequence of FAITH AS INFLUENCED BY GOD. 1 1 1 their ungodliness. The case is the same, however, with the inner revelation of God, whose possession Jesus here describes as necessary as the pre-condition of faith, as it is with the revelation of God contained in the Holy Scriptures of which He says, v. 27 > that they testify of Him and direct men to Him. When He there represents the unbelief of the Jews in Him as a proof of the fact that they had never understood nor received anything of this Divine revelation given in the Holy Scriptures (ver. 37 fi), He regarded this fact, not as a ground of excuse for the unbelieving, but as a ground of complaint against them, because He knew that the ultimate cause of not understanding the existing revelation of God lies in the evil inclination of the will (ver. 41 ff). Similarly, in the passage we have been treating, the presupposition holds good that the non-possession of the inner revelation to be granted by God, which alone enables men to believe on the mediator, is not the consequence of an arbitrary denial by God of this gift, but the consequence of a culpable unreceptiveness on the part of men. This presupposition is misunderstood if the Johan nine passages in question from chap. vi. are considered apart from the supplementing they receive from other utterances in the Johannine discourses, namely, from all those already-mentioned passages which lay stress upon the conditionality of unbelief through men's evil inclination of will to disobey the Divine com mands. For the Johannine sayings of Jesus, as for the synoptical, however, it is inadmissible to draw wide conclusions from particular words regarded . in 112 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. an isolated way, before we are certain that no other- words of Jesus are recorded whose meaning serves to supplement and explain them. No doubt we must not artificially adjust utterances that are opposed in meaning ; though we must certainly remember that Jesus did not speak scientifically, but popularly, and that, therefore, where He has, from the connec tion of the passage, had occasion to bring out one special point of view, He was not wont expressly to state all other points of view essential for a com plete systematic account, in order to obviate possible conclusions of a one-sided and false nature. Nor need we ascribe to Jesus, as He appears in the Johannine discourses, any complicated psychological theory as to how the moral conditionality of faith is related to its conditionality through Divine influences. He had also an assurance, resting on immediate personal experience, that man can only perform all goodness so far as God enables him, and that only he experi ences these Divine influences who seeks with moral earnestness to correspond to the will of God. The truthful working which gives man the impulse to turn believingly towards the revelation of grace given by God, Jesus declares to be "wrought in God," so that in its Divine origin and nature lies the ground of its conducing to the further revelation of God (iii. 21). On the other hand, He says in the parable of the Vine that the heavenly Father, who is compared to the husbandman, takes away every unfruitful branch, and purifies every fruitful one that it may bring forth more fruit (xv. 2). This is only another expression of the same thought which, according to our synop- FAITH AS INFLUENCED BY GOD. I 1 3 tical sources, He has indicated by that proverbial rule, that to him who hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he has (Mark iv. 25 ; Matt. xxv. 29). Every influence of God leading to salvation presupposes in man a susceptible moral disposition. In special analogy with those sayings, John vi. 44 f. and 65, which emphasise the impossibility, without the inward teaching influences of God, of attaining saving faith, stand those sayings from our other sources, where Jesus combines the reference to the insurmountable difficulty of entering the kingdom of God with the reference to God's almighty power (Mark x. 23-27), and where He teaches His disciples, in view of the temptations which threaten to shake the steadfastness of their confession of Him, to trust in the support of God, and to pray for this support (Mark xiii. 1 1 ; xiv. 38). The general idea is the same here as in those Johannine passages, namely, that where man's own finite power does not suffice for the fulfilment of the conditions for obtaining blessing in the Messianic kingdom, God by His power can and will supplement human inability in so far as man is only ready to receive the assisting grace of God. The difference between those Johannine and the synoptical sayings, consists in the fact that the former passages describe, as something quite general, the inability of man to fulfil the conditions of salvation without the inward Divine influences, whilst in the synoptical passages a special reference to the assisting influences of God is given in regard to the circum stances in which the fulfilment of the conditions of VOL. 11. H 114 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. membership of the kingdom is specially difficult. But this difference implies no contradiction. When Jesus in His preaching usually, in accordance with its practical aim, simply presupposes the ability of man to fulfil the conditions required by God for participa tion in His kingdom, and only in reference to certain difficulties indicates the necessity and readiness of the help of God, it was not thereby precluded that occa sionally, as the general difficulty presented itself to Him of men's understanding and attaining through their earthly thoughts and efforts the heavenly grace proclaimed by Him, He should also lay stress upon the general incapacity of men, without Divine en lightenment and strength, to procure salvation. 1 1. But is not our affirmation that, according to the mode of view displayed in the Johannine discourses, the fulfilment of the faith-condition in order to attain salvation was in its final ground possible to all men, and that the non-possession of the Divine influences requisite to this faith depended on a culpable unre- ceptiveness, contradicted by the utterances in chap. viii., in which the unbelieving disposition of the Jews was pronounced a proof of their origin from beneath, from the world, from the devil, in contrast to the origin of Jesus and His disciples (xv. 19; xvii. 14, 16), not from the world, but from God ? Is not the unbelieving enmity against Jesus' preaching of salvation here declared to be the necessary conse quence of a virtual nature and disposition on the part of unbelieving men, as the consequence, not of their own culpable conduct, but of their being involved in the great metaphysical opposition between the God BEING FROM GOD OR FROM THE DEVIL. 115 of heaven and the powers of darkness ruling over the world ? We must not allow ourselves here to be led astray by the use of the idea of being from or of some one or something, and of being a child in relation to a father. For these ideas are used in another sense than the one common to us, in a sense which is not at all supposed by us only for this case, but which is rather founded in the Old Testament usage of language, and attested in the synoptical discourses of Jesus as well as elsewhere in the New Testament. They denote the belonging of one to another, to a principle represented as personal or real, in respect of moral disposition and tendency. The spiritual rela tionship or moral adherence is not thereby necessarily regarded, however, as a consequence of the fact, that the existence of the one naturally depends on the other. Through the idea of the origin of the one from the other, and of being a child in relation to the other, there is directly indicated only the actual condition of moral adherence, not indeed as transit orily existing, but as permanently prevailing. The question as to the original basis of this actually existing adherence is not answered through this idea. When Jesus, in the discourse, John viii., disputed the assertion of His Jewish opponents that they were the children of Abraham, because in their deadly hatred against Him who was sent of God to proclaim the truth they used the very opposite conduct from Abraham's (ver. 39), He does not therefore deny that they derive their physical origin from Abraham ; but He seeks to bring out that this physical origin on Il6 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. which they lay the whole stress, and which appears to them a guarantee of their right relationship to God, is nevertheless no test of their being children of Abraham. Whoever is estranged from and opposed to the moral nature and tendency of Abraham, has just on that account ceased to be a child of Abraham, and made himself a child of another.1 In a way analogous to this explicit explanation of what consti tutes true filiation to Abraham as father, we must also understand the filiation to the devil as opposed to filiation to Abraham, and the filiation to God corre sponding to this. Jesus did not judge the hostile unbelieving Jews, and, on the other hand, Himself and His disciples, according to their physical nature and origin, but according to their ethical inclination and relationship. In this mode of view, the mere possession of an earthly life created by God, and the mere physical kinship with the people of the Divine revelation and promises, did not make a man a true child of God, as the Jews thought when they claimed God as their Father (ver. 41). But whoever conducts himself in opposition to the will of God, proves just on that account that he belongs merely to the world, and does not participate in the true character of God, but is a child of the devil, who is the principle of the evil and opposition to God in the world. Conversely, however, they who fulfil the will of God belong as children to Him, and are not really of the world, although, according to their physical nature, they have 1 We may compare Paul's usage in pronouncing as children of Abraham, not those who derive merely their physical origin from him, but those who are his adherents and kindred by faith (Gal. iii. 7 ; Rom. iv. 1 1 ff.), or from their possession of the promises (Rom. ix. 7 f.). BEING FROM GOD OR FROM THE DEVIL. I 1 7 their origin in, and belong to, the world. For this moral acceptation of the idea of filiation no more striking analogy could be adduced than that of the exhortation of Jesus recorded in the Matthew- Logia, to love even enemies and persecutors, and thereby to become the sons of their Father in heaven, who causes His sun to shine upon the evil and the good (Matt. v. 45). Man becomes a child of God by showing conduct corresponding to the character and will of God. Whilst, then, when fatherhood and filiation or extraction are spoken of in the natural sense, it is self- evident that the production and continuance of this relation as to origin and kinship are independent of the will of the begotten one, who is only a passive product in the origination, and has afterwards to reckon upon the existence of this relationship as a given unalterable fact, the like is not self-evident when the fatherhood and childship or extraction are spoken of in that ethical sense. Then the idea is warranted, that one can, by his own responsible conduct, make himself the child of a certain father, or can lose a certain filial relationship. The objection cannot be urged against this, that nevertheless, in the discourse in question, John viii., the evil unbelieving conduct of the Jews was represented as just the result, but not as the cause, of their origin from the devil instead of from God : " If God were your Father, ye would love me" (ver. 42) ; "He who is of God, receiveth the words of God ; ye therefore receive them not, because ye are not of God " (ver. 47). For in these words the question is specially in regard to the cause of the Jews' hostility, and want of understanding and faith I 1 8 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. in regard to Jesus, the mediator sent by God to reveal salvation. Jesus seeks to express that this conduct on their part towards Him is not an isolated, casual, or mistaken one directed against Him as an isolated human person, but that it is grounded in an inward inclination which was general and 'fundamental, which was evil, Satanic, and directed against God. But this declaration leaves the question quite unsettled as to wherein lies the cause of this general evil inclination of mind, and it would be thoroughly contrary to the reproachful upbraiding tendency of the discourse, if the presupposition were imputed to Jesus that the un believing Jews were blamelessly subjected to this evil inclination through their original natural constitution. It is to be explained in the same way, when Jesus, chap. x. 25 ff., with reference to the Jews who de manded of Him an open explanation of His Messiah- ship, and whom He pointed to the testimony contained in His works, declared, " Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep ; my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." Only, if we dis sever these words from their connection, and leave unnoticed the supplementary and explanatory sayings contained elsewhere in the Johannine discourses, can we draw the conclusion of regarding one portion of mankind from the first as His sheep, who, as such, would believe, whilst, in the case of the others, unbelief was a necessary consequence of the unalterable fact that they were not of His sheep. Jesus, in perfect harmony with His mode of view deducible from the synoptical sources, means that only those who join themselves to Him as disciples, gain such a judgment BEING FROM GOD OR FROM THE DEVIL. 1 1 9 of His ministry as will lead them to a believing recognition of His significance as Messiah. One cannot first reach the knowledge of His Messiahship in order afterwards to become His disciple ; but one must first become His disciple, and allow himself to be taught by Him in regard to the true nature of the salvation of God and of the righteousness required by God, in order to understand that the manifest attestation of His Messiahship is already given in His words. As Jesus, according to the Mark- source, could say, at an advanced stage of His ministry, that His instruction in regard to the kingdom of God was only intended for, and in telligible to, His disciples, whilst it remained veiled to those " standing without " (Mark iv. n f.); so here He could declare that the hearing and understanding of His voice, that is, according to the connection, the understanding of the testimony He had hitherto given in regard to His Messiahship, was only possible to His sheep, that is, His disciples. But it is equally unjustifiable, with regard to these Johannine utter ances as with regard to that saying in Mark, if the thought were brought in that those " standing with out," or not belonging to the sheep of Jesus, were, through no fault of their own, excluded by an original decree from the circle of Jesus' disciples and from the possibility of understanding His words. If we seek to answer, in the sense of the Johannine discourses of Jesus, the question wherein lies the ultimate reason why those Jews did not belong to Jesus' " sheep," we must say, in connection with iii. 19 : because their works were evil, and because they shunned and hated 120 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP OF KINGDOM. the reproof of their works given by the revelation of Jesus. Finally, however, we would also ask, how those Johannine words, in which the unbelief of the Jews in regard to Jesus was pronounced a result of their being children of the devil, are related to the synop tical sayings in which their unbelief is represented as a result of a blinding wrought by God, or by Jesus in accordance with the will of God? (Luke x. 21 ; Mark iv. n fi). In external appearance there is a great' difference here ; but whoever considers the relation in which, according to the Old and New Testament mode of view in other places, the influences of the devil stand to the will and working of God, where the same temptations could be equally ascribed to God and to the devil, will guard against inferring, from" the appearance of contradiction in the cases in question, an essential opposition of view. The same unbelieving conduct can be represented by Jesus at one time as a proof of being the children of the devil, in so far as He considers it in respect to its fundamentally evil and God-opposing nature ; and at another time it can be declared by Him to be the result of an obscuration: willed and wrought by God, in so far as He regarded the diminution of the possibility of faith, and their becoming obdurate in unbelief, as judicially decreed by God on account of a culpable unreceptiveness. Because of the reference made to the devil as the per sonal principle of the evil God-opposing conduct of men since the beginning of human history (John viiL 44), the mode of view of the Johannine discourses was not made more dualistic than that of the synoptical dis- BEING FROM GOD OR FROM THE DEVIL. 121 courses of Jesus. For the latter also contain sayings which, in accordance with the popular Jewish idea, suggested the dualistic existence of a Satanic kingdom separate from God (Mark iii. 23 ff). But the im portant thing is that, along with this, Jesus expresses, both in the Johannine and the synoptical discourses, an idea of the fatherly love and power of God, in accordance with which He Himself, and all who would unite with Him as His disciples and members of the kingdom of God, could absolutely trust in the perfect attainment of heavenly bliss unimpaired by any de moniac powers.1 If we consider collectively these sayings of the Johannine discourses of Jesus in which the ultimate grounds of believing and unbelieving conduct are mentioned, and do not merely single out some par ticular sayings, and use them in order to wider inferences, we shall be led to the conclusion that on this point also the Johannine discourses of Jesus stand in no contradiction to the synoptical. Here also Jesus has judged, from His assurance founded on His yiew of God and His personal experience, that the conditionality of the religious life by God, and the exertion of the will in the service of God, are not mutually exclusive, but rather assist and supplement each other. Just because the perfect inner unity sub sisting between the religious and moral mode of view was a self-evident presupposition for Him, He could in particular cases, where He gave expression to the one mode of view, show Himself so uncareful that the other also should be taken into account. 1 Cf. vol. i. pp. 163 ff., 296 f., 317. FOURTH SECTION. THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS TO HIS MESSIAHSHIP. CHAP. I. THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. I. According to Jewish expectation, the Messiah was to be the Mediator sent of God for the establish ment and direction of the kingdom of blessing in the latter day. Just in accordance with the special way in which the nature of this kingdom was regarded, was the view necessarily taken of the nature of the Messiah, so that He might appear rightly to corre spond to the task which, in accordance with the idea formed of Him, lay before Him. So also the idea, which Jesus entertained and expressed of the character of His own Messianic person, stands in indissoluble mutual relationship to His idea of the nature of the kingdom of God. In Himself, in His own inner experience, He learnt what was the nature of the true kingdom of God, and He set Himself as the example whereby others might learn the nature of this kingdom. On the other hand, His conscious ness of perfectly corresponding to the nature of the kingdom furnished the certain groundwork of His assurance of being the Messiah, and likewise He regarded His teaching as to the general nature of the PLACE OF JESUS TESTIMONY TO HIS MESSIAHSHIP. 1 23 kingdom of God as the true means of leading others to the conclusion that He, as the perfect represent ative of this kingdom, must be the Messiah. Jesus allowed Himself, as we have already seen, to be openly acknowledged as the Messiah for the first time at the close of His ministry (Mark x. 46- xi. 10), and He avowed the same Himself (Mark xiv. 61 fi). But ever since His baptism He had borne within Himself the consciousness of His Messiahship, which, through the conflicts imme diately following His baptism, He had won as a secure possession. Only from the steadfastness of this consciousness are the wonderful certainty and consistency of His judgment and teaching in regard to the kingdom of God intelligible. And if He also, during the main period of His ministry, inten tionally declined the designation of Messiah, and forbade His disciples openly to apply it to Him, when for the first time they recognised Him as Messiah (Mark viii. 31), it is not therefore precluded that His occasional sayings in regard to Himself, from the beginning of His ministry onwards, should have been produced by the consciousness of His Messiahship, and, in their real significance for those who under stood the nature of the kingdom of God proclaimed by Him, made known His claim to be the Messiah of this kingdom. Whilst we would now consider more closely this opinion of Jesus in regard to Himself, we must place His sayings in regard to His Messianic person before His utterances in regard to His Messianic task and His significance for the welfare of men. For He did not first, from the knowledge of 124 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. His Messianic mission, conclude that special qualities of His person were unique, and that He stood in a peculiar personal relation tQ God ; but, on the con trary, His consciousness of a peculiar personal relation to God furnished the sure groundwork for the know ledge of His Messianic mission. The consciousness of special personal qualities, which He possessed in His special fellowship with God, first gave Him the assurance, as well of the capacity as of the obligation, to undertake and carry through the Messianic mission for the welfare of other men. 2. Jesus knew that God was His Father.1 We should quite turn aside from the path set before us, on which we seek to follow the ideas of Jesus based upon His own sayings recorded in the Matthew- Logia and the Gospel of Mark, if we ascribed to the paternal and filial relation which Jesus regarded as existing between God and Himself, a character different in principle from the paternal and filial relation which, according to His teaching, exists between God and the members of His kingdom. If Jesus in prayer called God Father, just as He taught His disciples to address Him by that name, and if He spoke by turns of His Father and their Father, or of the Father in general, He must thereby have awakened in His hearers the idea, which we have to regard as according to His intention, that He stood to God in a filial relation of such a kind as applied also to all His disciples, that is, that He was the object of the fatherly, grace-bestowing love of God, and that, on His part, He maintained a 1 Cf. vol. i. p. 191. THE MESSIAH AS THE SON OF GOD. 1 25 deportment of filial loving trust and obedience to wards God. We should likewise deviate from the ground of our historical sources, if, in fear of dogmatic consequences, we overlooked the fact that Jesus — not often, indeed, but on certain occasions — designated Himself in distinction from all others as "the Son of God " in a pre-eminent sense. According to the Logia, when His disciples had returned from their mission, He rejoiced in their success over the demons, and promised them the possession of unlimited supre macy over all hostile hurtful powers, and the certain inheritance of the future life of blessedness in heaven (Luke x. 17-20). He thanked God because He had vouchsafed this revelation of grace to babes (ver. 21), and then added : " All things are delivered to me of my Father : and no man knoweth what the Son is, but the Father ; and what the Father is, but the Son, and He to whom the Son will reveal Him " (ver. 22 ; cf. Matt. xi. 27).1 From the context it is clear that He means Himself as the Son of God, who was per- 1 Cf. Log. § ga and b, L. J. L p. 90 ff. We must translate the words, Luke x. 22, tic tar is 6 v'Ui and tis tens 6 irarqp : "what (not who) the Son is," and " what (not who) the Father is," since the question there is not, who among many others the Son (or the Father) is, but what character or significance the Son (or the Father) has. Cf. Mark iv. 41 ; viii. 27 and 29 ; John i. 19 and 22, where, in all the places, the questions are not directed towards ascertaining the person as such (whether it is Jesus, or John, or any other person known or unknown), but to ascertain ing the character and significance of the person (whether He is a prophet or the possessor of any other position or endowment). The Greek employs in these cases, not the neuter, but the masculine of the interro gative pronoun, since that would make the meaning of the question to be, To what general category of objects or substances does the subject in question belong ? whilst the masculine brings into prominence that it is the character or position of a person which is in question. The meaning of Luke x. 22 is also quite rightly rendered in the somewhat different form given in Matt. xi. 27. 126 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. fectly known and understood in His character only by God, as He on His part knew the Father as to character in a unique way. This full unique mutual knowledge on the part of the Father and the Son is not fortuitous, but stands in necessary connection with their Fatherhood and Sonship ; for the love which binds them together as Father and Son gives them such an understanding of one another, as could not be possessed by others who do not stand in this relation. The knowledge connected with this love is also not regarded as merely theoretical, but, as the context shows, it is the basis of a further loving intercourse. Since the Father as such perfectly knows the Son, He imparts to Him all that He knows to be necessary for the blessedness and re freshment of the Son ; and since the Son as such perfectly knows the Father, He also perfectly under stands the love and gracious beneficence of the Father, and follows Him in upright trustfulness and devotedness (Matt. xi. 28 ff). Mark has recorded, in the Discourse concerning the Future (chap, xiii.), that Jesus declared, in reference to the term of the advent of final blessedness after the period of tribu lation for His disciples: "Of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father" (ver. 32). There is no doubt that by "the Son" Jesus here means Himself, and that in the notion of Sonship He thinks of God as His Father. But the Son is also to be taken account of here in so far as, in accordance with the idea of a Son, He is connected with the Father in the closest fellowship of participation and comprehend THE MESSIAH AS THE SON OF GOD. T2 7 sion, so that primd facie it was to be expected that He would have knowledge of the purpose of the Father in regard to the time of the consummation of blessedness. For only in this way is there a real upward gradation of thought obtained, when Jesus rises from the exclusion of the angels in heaven from the knowledge of that point of time, to the exclusion even of the Son from that knowledge. Moreover, we must remember the parable of the Undutiful Husband man (Mark xii. i ff), who first maltreated the servants sent by the lord of the vineyard, and afterwards his only and beloved son (ver. 6). Here we have not a direct self-designation of Jesus. But, from the manifest reference of the parable to Isa. v. i ff, where the house of Israel is compared to a vineyard care fully planted by God, but remaining unfruitful, and from the words which Jesus adds to the- parable (ver. iofi), it is clear that He sought to give the parable an application to the leaders of the Jewish people who neglected their duty towards God, and that He inserted the narrative of the sending of the son after the sending of the servants, because He knew that He was Himself related to God as such an "only and beloved Son," and because He sought to attach to His rejection by the chief priests a guilt analogous to that of the rebellious conduct, related in the parable, of the husbandmen towards the only son of the lord of the vineyard. Finally, at His appearance before the Sanhedrin, Jesus answered in the affirmative the solemn question of the high priest as to whether He were the Messiah, " the Son of the Blessed " (Mark xiv. 6 1 fi). 128 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. In regard to those places where Jesus calls Himself "the Son of God," and through this title claims for Himself a position before God which He alone received before others, we yet cannot straightway conclude that the filial relationship to God must here be viewed in quite a different way, and on a different basis, from that where Jesus speaks of the sonship of all members of the kingdom of God. Rather the places cited, especially the Logia-passage, Luke x. 22, plainly indicate that the filial relation is here also regarded as the relation of loving fellowship existing between the Father and the Son. In the fact that God manifests to men a free spontaneous love which is not limited by the legal point of view, even as a father to his children, lies the reason why Jesus regards God as the Father quite in general ; and, in the fact that the members of the kingdom of God do His will with loving obedience and trust, and are like God in ethical nature, lies the reason why Jesus regards them as sons of God. He has thus regarded Himself as "the Son of God," Kar egoxnv, since He knew that this mutual relation of loving intercourse subsisted between God and Himself in unique per fection. On the one hand, He knew Himself filled with a power which did not spring out of this world, but which God in fatherly love imparted to Him out of His Divine essence. He felt Himself as the possessor of the Holy Spirit — whose bestowal by God for the purpose of His Messianic vocation was manifested to the eye of His spirit at baptism (Mark i. 10)— when He preached the advent of the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke iv. 18-21), and when He attacked THE MESSIAH AS THE SON OF GOD. 1 29 and subdued with superior power the maleficent work of the demons (Mark iii. 27; Matt. xii. 28; Luke xi. 20).1 Thus to the Pharisaic scribes, who declared His casting out of devils to be itself a demoniac work, He could point out that such a blasphemy was not directed against Him, the man, but against the Holy Spirit of God working in Him (Mark iii. 29 ; Luke xii. io).2 He knew that the Father had given all things into His hands (Luke x. 22 ; Matt. xi. 27) ; that is, according to the context, that God had granted Him a victorious supremacy over all hostile, hurtful powers, not indeed in the way of His remaining un molested by the troubles and trials of the earthly life, but in the way of His receiving no injury to His true heavenly blessedness from earthly burdens and con flicts, and also that He could enjoy refreshing rest under all earthly yokes through submission to the will of God (Luke x. 18-20; Matt. xi. 28-30).3 On the other hand, He knew also that He fulfilled the com mands of God in perfect filial obedience, and in His own loving acts resembled the working of God. If we now consider His word, that men ought to manifest a love like the love of God, and so to become sons of the heavenly Father (Matt. v. 44 fi),4 we can understand how, in the consciousness of a perfect spirit of love in accordance with the will and character of God, He could be certain of being, tear i^o^v, the Son of God, since He wholly fulfilled the conditions which were set before others in order to their becoming sons of God. 1 Cf. Log. % lib, L.J. i. p. 101. 2 Cf. Log. § 14c, L.J. i. p. 1 14 f. 8 Cf. Log. § 8, L. J. i. p. 90 f£ ; and see vol. i. p. 229 ff. * Cf. vol. i. p. 194 f. VOL. II. I I30 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. ¦ It is hereby made clear that it would be wrong to suppose that, by this self-designation as " the Son of God," Jesus only sought to assert His Messianic vocation. Primarily, He wished by this title to in dicate His quite peculiarly close and pure fellowship with God, and in accordance with His idea the title would have had no truth, if He had not in the first place meant the perfect existence of this personal fellowship of love. Certainly it is true that Jesus, in His consciousness of being in the sense referred to " the Son of God," had a firm basis for His conscious ness of being called to the Messiahship. Here lay for Him the significance of the revelation received at baptism, that the knowledge was then imparted to Him that, as the Son having perfect fellowship of love with the Father, He was the Messiah; and in the filial relation to God, which He as "the Son" was called to teach to other men, consisted the true nature of the promised Divine kingdom of grace.1 3. In order rightly to estimate this thought of Jesus, we must consider what relation, for the con sciousness of His Jewish countrymen, the title of Son of God had to the notion of the Messiah. In the fact that the Old Testament passages, 2 Sam. vii. 14; Ps. ii. 7 ; lxxxix. 27 f, in which the theocratic king of Israel was designated the Son of God, were inter preted of the future Messianic king, lay the reason for this title of Son of God being considered as specially belonging to the Messiah. Various passages in the Gospels, where the title is added in apposition to the notion of Messiah, show that it was regarded as a 1 Cf. vol. i. p. 101. SON OF GOD AND SON OF DAVID. 131 special attribute of the Messiah (Mark xiv. 61 ; Matt. xvi. 16; John xi. 27; xx. 31).1 But this title was nevertheless neither a direct designation of the Messianic dignity, nor did it bring into prominence that characteristic of the Messiah on which the Jews in the time of Jesus laid the chief stress. The direct designation of the Messiah was just the name Messiah itself, i.e. Anointed (Xptcn-o'?). And the weightiest characteristic which the Jews found ex pressed in this name " Anointed " was this, that He was the king of Israel (Mark xv. 2, 18, 26, 32 ; Matt. ii. 2 and 4; John i. 50), and indeed the Son of David who was to restore the kingdom of David (cf. especi ally Mark x. 47 f. ; xi. 10 ; Luke i. 32 ; John vii. 42 ; Ps. of Sol. xvii. 5, 23 ; 4 Ezra xii. 32)." In relation to this most essential characteristic of the Messiah, the traditional attribute " the Son of God " denotes only an incidental notion of very indefinite contents. For we certainly need not suppose that, for the Jews in the time of Jesus, or at least for the Jewish scribes, this title of " the Son of God " had a definite invari able sense as applied to the Messiah. On account of 1 The passages, Matt. iv. 3 and 6, where the devil, in order to cast doubt on the Messiahship of Jesus, thus addresses Him, " If Thou be the Son of God," etc., and Mark iii. 11, v. 7, where the demons, in order to indicate His Messiahship, address Him as the Son of God, cannot be held by us as proofs of the general Messianic significance of this title in the time of Jesus ; for the devil, or the demons, here used the title because it contained,^?- the consciousness of Jesus, the special designa tion and basis of His Messiahship. They sought to bring into doubt, or openly to proclaim, what Jesus inwardly thought of Himself. — From the Jewish literature of the time of Jesus, the passages, Enoch cv. 2 ; 4 Ezra vii. 28 f. ; xiii. 32, 37, 52 ; xiv. 9, can be cited as proofs of the designation of the Messiah as the Son of God (Schiirer, Gesch. d.jiid. Volkes, ii. p. 443 ; trans'l., Div. II. vol. ii. p. 158). 2 Cf. Schiirer, Gesch. d. jiid. Volkes, at the place cited. 132 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. the great width of meaning — which has become quite strange to our modern use of speech — in which the notion of son was generally used by the Jews, the title of " Son of God " might also have, with reference to the Messiah, a general application, which would by different persons be understood in a more particular sense in different cases. In general, it denoted that the Messiah specially belonged to God, and the title was used to characterise the Messiah in reference to His significance as God's mediator in the establish ment and direction of the future kingdom of grace. But it could refer at one time specially to the idea of the miraculous appointment and mission of the Messiah by God, and at another time specially to His election through the love of God and His endowment with Divine power and help. At one time the physical side of the filial relation could rather be regarded, and at another the ethical, without, how ever, the one side being, through any definite theory, emphasised as solely important whilst the other was excluded. We must see the peculiar significance of, as well as the advance made in, Jesus' idea of the Messiah, by the fact that, from the moment of His baptism, He continued to hold as the primary designation of the Messiah, expressing the peculiar Messianic character, this attribute of the Messiah which, according to the traditional view of the Jews, was secondary and vague in contents ; and indeed He thereby understood the filial relation as a relation of mutual loving intercourse between Father and Son. In His devout mode of view He judged that, in this title of the Messiah, which gave expression to His SON OF GOD AND SON OF DAVID. 1 33 deepest fellowship with God, His weightiest charac teristic must be indicated which furnished the ground for all His other features and attributes. Where He was aware that this characteristic of the Messiah was realised in His own person, He did not, as the temptation - narrative shows, make the assurance of His Messiahship depend upon whether He found the other traditional characteristics of the Messiah meeting, in their traditional sense, in His own person. He had rather the assurance that all these character istics could exist in the Messiah only in such a sense as fitted the full realisation of His filial fellowship with God, and were based thereon. According to the Jewish idea, the Messianic king was also " Son of God;" according to,Jesus' idea, "the Son of God' as such was the Messianic king. The consciousness of Jesus of the difference between His own and the Jewish idea in regard to the basis and essence of the Messiahship, is very plainly evident from the question which, according to Mark (xii. 35-37), He once propounded while teach ing in the temple at Jerusalem : " How say the scribes that the Messiah is the son of David ? David himself has said in the Holy Ghost, The Lord hath said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand, till I put Thine enemies under Thy feet. If David himself call Him Lord, how is He then his son?" Jesus proceeds here from the traditional idea, which to Him and to all contemporary Jews appeared self- evident, and whose ground He had no occasion in His calling to criticise, that Ps. ex., according to its inscription, was written by David, and that "the 1 34 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. Lord " of whom David said that Jehovah made Him sit on His right hand, and would subdue all His enemies for Him, was the Messiah. Under this pre supposition He finds, in the fact that David himself speaks of the Messiah not as his son, but as his Lord, a proof that what formed the ground and essence of the significance of the Messiah was, not His being the son of David, but something else, something much higher. In the view of Jesus this could only be the relation of the Messiah to God, His Divine sonship. We must bear well in mind that the question of Jesus did not mean — how the Messiah, who as such was the son of David, could still at the same time, accord ing to the words of the psalm, be David's Lord ? but rather — how the Messiah, who, according to the words of the psalm, was David's Lord, could yet, according to the teaching of the scribes, be David's son ? Jesus did not, like the scribes, consider the Davidic sonship as the self-evident and clearly significant principle of Messiahship, and then that the belonging of the Messiah to God was a point open to question; but He regarded as the essential and clear principle of Messiahship, such a connection of the Messiah with God that it exalted Him as Lord even over David ; and He seeks to emphasise the fact that, under these circumstances, the Davidic sonship could contribute nothing for the peculiar foundation or enhancement of the Messianic dignity, but must rather be so understood that the higher sonship constituting the essence and dignity of the Messiah should not thereby suffer. Certainly we must not regard the question of Jesus as indirectly impugning SON OF GOD AND SON OF DAVID. 1 35 the Davidic sonship of the Messiah. For if He so understood the higher dignity of the Messiah attested by the words of the psalm, that it was incompatible with the external Davidic descent of the Messiah, He must have regarded it as also incompatible with the human nature and origin of the Messiah in general, since an origin still lower than the Davidic would have presented a yet greater contrast to that dignity. But since Jesus undoubtedly did not regard humanity in general as inconsistent with the dignity of the Messiah, He could also consider the Davidic origin as such as not incompatible with the Messianic dignity. It is thus by no means precluded by the question of Jesus that He knew Himself to be a descendant of David. He also, before His last entrance to Jerusalem, accepted the address, " Son of David" (Mark x. 47fi); and although this title without doubt indicated, not a mere descendant of David, but the Messiah, so it was thereby presupposed as self- evident that the Messiah was plainly a descendant of David, and Jesus would hardly have referred this title to Himself if He, had not found it verified by His physical descent from David in accordance with the promise. And even keeping out of account all the other New Testament sayings in regard to the Davidic origin of Jesus, the testimony of Paul (Rom. i. 3), that Jesus Christ, according to the flesh, was sprung of the seed of David, is so decided, that we have no right to doubt the reality of the Davidic descent of Jesus. But the important thing is, that as Jesus nowhere else in the sayings handed down to us has made use of the consciousness of His Davidic 136 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. descent in order to support His Messianic claims, so in the passage, Mark xii. 35 ff., He has intentionally represented the Davidic sonship as something with out importance for the Messianic dignity. If in His sense we would answer the closing question, " David himself calls Him Lord; how is He then his son?" we must perhaps say : in spite of His standing (on account of His unique relation of nearness to God) far higher in dignity and significance than David, and of being regarded by David himself in prophetic prevision only in reference to that religiously based dignity, nevertheless the Messiah is David's son, because, according to Divine promise, He was to arise out of the lineage of David, and because this human sonship to David cannot prejudice His filial relation to God, on which His peculiar Messianic dignity depends. But this is quite a different view of the Davidic sonship of the Messiah from that of the scribes. For with them the Davidic sonship of the Messiah by no means meant only such a natural descent from David as was of indifference for His peculiar character and work, but rather such a com munity of blood and nature with David as made Him just such a king and founder of the kingdom as David, and as thereby established His Messianic worthiness. A son of David in this scribal sense Jesus neither was nor wished to be ; for a Davidic sonship of this kind would, according to His view, have prejudiced the higher dignity which the Messiah, according to the words of Scripture, must possess as David's Lord. 4. But however clearly and strongly impressed upon Jesus was the consciousness of His fellowship HUMAN LIMITATIONi 1 37 with God,, wherein He found the strong basis of His power, the firm ground of His Messianic vocation, He was nevertheless very far from wishing to conceal the interval separating Him as man, with creaturely limitations, from the infinite God. His consciousness of sonship much rather directly called for the frank humble recognition of the infinitely superior power, wisdom, and goodness of God the heavenly Father. His certainty of being endowed with higher super natural gifts and faculties, and of being able to win miraculous victories for men over noxious powers in His work of love and grace on behalf of men, was not for Him a motive of exalting Himself and of relying upon His own superior power, but a motive for glorifying God for this revelation of grace and bestowal of power (Luke x. 21 fi), and of indicating to others that they too, through trust in God and prayerful appeal to His help, could obtain the same miraculous help as Himself (Mark ix. 23, 29). His certainty of being personally led by the love of God, and of being able to overcome all evils by the power of God, was connected with the consciousness and knowledge that He must adjust His will to the will of God even where it ran counter to His earthly well-being and His earthly ideas and desires (Mark xiv. 36; Matt. iv. 6fi). His certainty of having a uniquely perfect insight into the gracious will of God, with reference to the establishment of His kingdom already in the present time on earth, and of its con summation in the future heavenly glory, and of being Himself the sole mediator of present and future bliss for all other men, was connected with the acknow- 138 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. ledgment that not He, but the Father only, knew the day and hour of the heavenly consummation of the kingdom of God (Mark xiii. 32), and that similarly it was not His part, but that of the Father only, to point out to His disciples the place belonging to them in the heavenly state of perfection (Mark x. 40). From the few utterances of this kind, we perceive that Jesus, whilst conscious of knowing the Divine plan as a whole, yet did not therefore claim to possess a foreknowledge of the carrying out of this gracious plan in its details. Finally, in spite of His conscious ness of obediently fulfilling the will of God, and of being the object of the Divine love and goodwill, He has yet emphasised the difference between His moral nature and that of God. When the rich young man, who had entire confidence in the blamelessness of his own course of life, wished to ascribe to Jesus also the possession of moral goodness, Jesus declined the designation of "good Master" in these words: " Why callest thou me good ? none is good save one, that is, God" (Mark x. 18). He did not thereby mean to say absolutely that He felt Himself guilty of having transgressed the will of God; but He certainly gave expression to the thought that finite man, as such, has never personal goodness as a com plete possession, but that he could be ever engaged only in the endeavour after its attainment, mainten ance, and extension amid ever new tasks and conflicts. Whilst by this thought He wished to lead that rich young man to see that he also could not be regarded as already completely good, but that he would have to maintain and carry on his endeavour after good- THE MESSIAH AS THE SON OF MAN. 1 39 ness amid new and greater tasks than those he had hitherto performed, He exemplified in Himself and disclaimed for Himself a complete goodness. Also He knew that He Himself was but engaged during His earthly life in an unceasing conflict for the realisation of the ideal of personal goodness, whose perfect realisation is solely to be seen in God. 5. Since Jesus, while conscious of His Messiahship, yet felt Himself thoroughly human, and neither in His humanity nor in the finite limitation and weak ness thereby involved found a hindrance to His inward filial fellowship with God, on which He based His Messiahship, nor, on the other hand, saw in His relationship to God and His Messianic dignity a reason for deeming Himself exalted above human weakness and its consequences ; and since He rather judged that, according to the rule which in general held good for the kingdom of God, the Messiah also had pre-eminently to maintain His trustful obedience to God amid suffering and sacrifice : therefore He could find in the expression, " the Son of man," a specially appropriate characteristic designation of Himself, which He frequently employed. On the one hand, the expression " Son of man," on the ground of Old Testament usage, indicated the man as a member of the human race, and specially indeed in distinction from God, or, as spoken by God, in order to emphasise the finite lowliness and weakness inherent in man as such, according to his origin and nature (Num. xxiii. 19; Ps. viii. 3; Job xxv. 6; Isa. li. 12 ; Ezek. ii. 1, 3, etc. ; Dan. viii. 17; cf. Mark iii. 28). On the other hand, according to 140 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. Dan. vii. 13, the people of the Most High, to whom God would vouchsafe an everlasting kingdom, were seen by the prophet under the form of a son of man, in contradistinction from the world-kingdoms, which appeared in the form of beasts ; and, in connection with this passage, the expression " Son of man " might also be understood as the title of the Messiah. When, in the figurative-sayings of the book of Enoch (chaps, xxxvii.-lxxi.), the Messiah is repeatedly desig nated by this name, we need neither see in this the trace of an influence already Christian, nor need we regard this employment of the name as one wholly singular on the ground of Judaism. On the contrary, it is not at all improbable that the representatives of the Jewish scribal teaching and apocalyptic at that period, so far as they bestow pains above all upon the special Messianic outline of the picture of the future Divine kingdom, in their exposition and appli cation of that passage in Daniel, interpreted that representative of the future kingdom who appeared "like a Son of man" as the Messiah, and could employ and understand the expression " Son of man" as the title of the Messiah, especially where, through the context, a reference was given to that passage in Daniel.1 On the other hand, it is quite evident from our Gospel reports that this expression was not familiar to the great mass of the people as a title of the Messiah, and that Jesus, in applying this designation to Himself, did not thereby announce His 1 Cf. Schiirer, Geschichte d. judischen Volkes, ii. pp. 443 and 626 (transl., Div. II. vol. ii. p. 158, and vol. iii. p. 69); Baldensperger, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu, p. 76 f. THE MESSIAH AS THE SON OF MAN. 141 Messianic claim in a simple and, to a superficial understanding, in a clearly intelligible way. It is easy to be understood why this title for the Messiah could have no popular value. In the vision of Daniel, the opposition expressed in the context to the beasts-forms leads one to think, in regard to the idea of Son of man, not so much of the weak transient nature common to man and beast as creatures, but rather of what made Him Godlike in distinction from the beasts (Gen. i. 26 fi). From the Old Testament usage elsewhere, however, the idea of Son of man leads us to think of the creature weakness of man as opposed to the Divine nature. Therefore the general designation of Son of man does not appear as a char acteristic and honourable title for the Messiah. For even when the Messiah was represented as a man of human Davidic origin, His title would not be selected, in order to emphasise the fact that He resembled other men, and was similarly weak and frail, but that He stood in a specially near relation to God, and therefore bore such characteristics above other men as raised Him above the ordinary effects of human creaturehood and weakness. Now it was just this element of character which, in spite of the passage, Dan. vii. 13, hindered the Jews from adopting the expression "Son of man" as the popular title for the Messiah, that was the decisive reason with Jesus why He found this title especially significant for the Messiah, and was willing specially to apply it to Himself. He used the expression be cause, according to Dan. vii. 1 3, it could be understood as the designation of the Messiah, but not like the 142 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. Jews, in spite of the fact of its elsewhere denoting man as a member of the weak creature race of men, and thus appeared peculiarly unsuitable as a title for the Messiah, but just becaztse the expression designated man as a frail creature. For it expressed no contra diction and no difficulty for Him, that the possessor of the Messianic dignity, and of all characteristics connected with this dignity, and founded on filial fellowship with God, was yet at the same time a mere human creature, whose creaturely weakness and lowliness would not be miraculously removed or compensated through His Messianic significance. According to His knowledge of the nature of the kingdom of God, it was rather necessitated that the earthly, creaturely weakness and lowliness should come out with special clearness for the purposes of His Messianic calling, and therefore it now appeared to Him as a testimony of the Holy Scriptures for the confirmation of this knowledge which He had, and as a guide for others to the same knowledge, when the Representative of the kingdom of God was denoted in Dan. vii. 13 by an expression which laid stress just upon His nature as man and a creature. Whilst in the idea " Son of man " He saw an ex pression of the connection of those two elements of character, the Messianic dignity and human weakness, He gave that expression a deeper meaning than that of Dan. vii. 1 3 as referring to the Representative of the people of God, and as it was understood in the Jewish scribal teaching and apocalyptic as the title of the Messiah. Even in regard to this point of His teaching, Jesus no doubt found a basis in the Old THE MESSIAH AS THE SON OF MAN. 1 43 Testament and in the religious tradition of Judaism of His time ; but, by a skilful and original connection of thought, He widened that already existing idea and gave the old form new contents, which for His con temporaries were at first strange and surprising. He evidently, also, did not employ the title " Son of man" so regularly to designate Himself, as to make it sink into a mere synonym for the first person of the personal pronoun, which had no meaning for His hearers in the particular cases. But the passages recorded for us in the Matthew-Logia and the Gospel. of Mark, in which this title is used by Jesus, show that He intentionally employed this title where it stood in a fundamental relation of thought to the contents of His sayings. In the first place, He designated Himself by this name when He spoke of Himself as about to come in the future in heavenly glory for the execution of judgment on the world, and the establishment of the perfected state of the kingdom of God (Luke xii. 40; xvii. 22, 24, 26, 30; xviii. 8; xxi. 36; Matt. xxv. 31; Mark viii. 38; xiv. 41). The name was here fitted to furnish a justification for His claiming the highest Messianic function for Himself, — the frail human creature, — since, according to the words of Dan. vii. 13, it was to be one "like a Son of man " who should appear in heavenly glory, and should be invested with Divine power for the establishment of the everlasting kingdom of God. This purpose of the title comes out with special clearness in the words of Jesus to the high priest at His final trial, where it appears remarkable that, to the question whether He were the Messiah, the Son 144 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. of the Blessed, He answered : "I am : and ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven " (Mark xiv. 62). In here introducing the idea of the Son of man there was neither an inappositeness of the answer in relation to the question put, nor does it express that, for the consciousness of Jesus, the idea Son of man was equivalent to that of Son of God ; but, by employing this idea, Jesus gives a compendious justi fication for His affirming that He was the Messiah and the Son of God. When the chief priest and the Sanhedrists regarded it as blasphemy that this obscure man wanted to claim that lofty, Godlike dignity (ver. 63 fi), Jesus expressed, by His reference to the words in Daniel in regard to the Son of man, that Pie just corresponded to the Divine words of promise, when, in spite of His being an obscure man, He was the possessor of the Divine glory and power of the Messiah. In the second place, Jesus applies this name to Himself when He brings out the necessity of earthly privation for Himself as Messiah (Luke ix. 58), of ministry, of suffering, and of death (Mark viii. 31 ; ix. 9, 12, 31 ; x. 33, 45 ; xiv. 21, 41). Here, also, it is the paradox of the co-existence of Messianic dignity with human lowliness, which He represents in designating Himself as Son of man, as corresponding to the prophetic words concerning the Messiah ; for if the Messiah was to appear as the Son of man, He must, in a specific way, personally represent the earthly poverty, weakness, and frailty of a member of humanity. Also, in the few remaining places in which this THE MESSIAH AS THE SON OF MAN. 1 45 self-designation of Jesus is recorded, the thought of the co- existence of the Messianic dignity with lowly human nature has been the standard one. When, on the occasion of the scribes condemning as blasphemy His pronouncing forgiveness of sins upon the para lytic, since no one can forgive sins but God (Mark ii. 7), He met them with the declaration that " the Son of man has power upon earth to forgive sins " (ver. 10). He, by using this name, expresses that although He was a humble finite man, yet, as God's representative on earth, He could claim the Messianic function of declaring the forgiveness of sins, since the Messianic possessor of Divine power was to be just a " son of man," a weak finite man. When, to the declaration that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath, He further added the conclusion, " The Son of man is also lord over the Sabbath " (ver. 28), the idea " Son of man " in the conclusion is plainly correlated to the idea " man " in the premiss. These two ideas, however, are not regarded as equivalent, but as standing towards each other in a relation of gradation, since to be Lord of the Sabbath is some thing higher than to be the purpose of the Sabbath. " The Son of man " is that human creature who has been called to be the Messiah. Whilst Jesus felt Himself to be this " Son of man," He judged that if man in general, in spite of his creaturehood, has such dignity that the Sabbath could be regarded as a means to his purpose and welfare, so He Himself, as the Son of man, is lord over the Sabbath ; that is, in spite of His being man, He possesses full Messianic authority to determine, as lord, the right employment VOL. 11. k 146 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. of the Sabbath. Also when Jesus based His refusal to give another sign than that of the prophet Jonas on the words, " For as Jonas was for a sign to the Nine- vites, so is the Son of man also for this generation " (Luke xi. 30), the same principle lies at the basis of the use of the name " Son of man." When the Jews would not recognise the Divine authority and nature of the work of Jesus without an extraordinary Divine sign to verify it, He declared that just in His despised human nature and work He would be a sign from God to them, namely, a sign of the Messianic judgment impending for them, even as Jonas was a messenger of judgment sent by God to the Ninevites.1 When He used the expression " Son of man," He denoted that He was a weak human creature, and yet at the same time He remembered the prophetic word, which showed that the Messianic dignity would belong to one " like a son of man." Therefore, in spite of His frail humanity, He could represent Himself as "greater than Jonas" (ver. 32). As in these passages Jesus used the title " Son of man " because it contained a justification of His claim to high Messianic authority, although but a finite creature, so He used the same title in other places, because it contained an explanation of His applying to Himself, in spite of being conscious of the Messianic dignity, such designations as were applicable specially in reference to human nature, When, in opposition to the ascetic mode of life of the 1 That the sign of Jonas must, in the connection of the Logia-passage, bear this signification, and that the meaning brought in by Matthew (xii. 40) in regard to the resurrection of Jesus cannot be held as authentic, see on Log. § \7.d, L.J. i. p. 103. THE MESSIAH AS THE SON OF MAN. 147 Baptist, He stated the fact that " the Son of man was come eating and drinking" (Matt. xi. 19), He used this title because, on the one hand, He did not seek to represent Himself as an obscure man, but, in the consciousness of His Messianic dignity, to set Him self alongside of the Baptist as Elias (ver. 14) ; whilst, on the other hand, He seeks at the same time to prove by this name that, for Him as Messiah, eating and drinking was not a procedure to be wondered and offended at, but a natural and intelligible one, since, according to the word of the prophet, the Messiah is just a Son of man. So also with the saying (Luke xii. 10) : " To every one who speaketh a word against the Son of man it shall be forgiven him ; but to him who blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him." Here also Jesus wishes, on the one hand, to designate Himself by an expression which does not characterise Him as ordinary man, but in reference to His Messianic dignity, since the unpardonableness of blasphemy directed against the Holy Ghost was made so much more significant from the fact that alongside of it He declared the possibility of pardon for a word directed, not against an ordinary man, but against even the possessor of the Messianic dignity ; on the other hand, by using the name " Son of man," He wishes at the same time to give the reason why blasphemy directed against Him as the Messiah finds forgiveness, namely, because the Messiah is still only a human creature, to blaspheme whom cannot involve the same eternal guilt (cf. Mark iii. 29) as to slight the Spirit of God. Everywhere we observe the same signification I48 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. which Jesus with peculiar pregnancy expressed, or rather implied, by the name " Son of man." In none of the places cited could we substitute for that name the simple personal pronoun, or the direct name of Messiah, or that of the " Son of God," without losing an element of essential moment for the connection of the thought. Inasmuch as the name, when not used with direct reference to the passage in Daniel, was also not directly recognisable as the designation of the possessor of the Messianic dignity, but must be first of all regarded as designating a member of the frail race of men ; and inasmuch as the name, even when applied to the Messiah, is not directly and necessarily to be understood in the deep sense, with reference to the weak humanity of the Messiah, wherein it is used by Jesus, — it may well be said that He, by the use of this name, did not give His hearers a clear statement, but directly raised a problem which should incite them to reflection and the exercise of their own judgment. On the other hand, by this self-designation He did not seek, however, merely to propound a riddle, whose solution was known, and would continue to be known, only to Himself. By this name He did not wish merely to bring into prominence and intensify the paradox involved in the co-existence of His weak, lowly humanity and His lofty Messianic dignity, but rather sought to explain and solve it. The use of the name was a solution of this paradox given in nuce, through reference to the testimony of the Old Testament Scripture.1 1 This pregnant significance of the self-designation of Jesus as " Son of man " is clearly evident only if we have regard to the record of Mark's THE MESSIAH AS THE SON OF MAN. 1 49 The expression " the Son of man," by which Jesus designated Himself, stands in analogy and in sup plementary relationship to His self-designation as "the Son of God." Both names have value for the consciousness of Jesus in so far as they involve direct views of the characteristic relations of His person to His nature and work, — the one a view of the relation of His person to God, the other a view of its relation to the human race. If, through His self-designation as Son of God, He gives expression to His lofty con sciousness of standing in an inward fellowship of love with God as His Father, so, by designating Himself as "Son of man," He expresses His lowly conscious ness of at the same time being a weak finite man, like other men, who was not exempt from the specific manifestations and experiences which belong to frail humanity. As Son of man, who is at the same time Son of God, He feels Himself the same in kind with all true members of the kingdom of God, for these are Gospel, and of the Matthew-Logia, as reconstructed from our first and third Gospels ; and it may be held, both as a peculiar proof of the correctness of our estimate of these scources, and as a testimony to the high trustworthiness of the records of the words of Jesus, that in them this self-designation of Jesus is only given where, according to the connection, there is occasion to use it in its peculiar meaning. For the later Gospel tradition has not retained this peculiar meaning, and apparently the name is there regarded as a normal designation of Jesus to denote His Messiahship ; it is certainly given in some passages where it would be appropriately used in the sense of the oldest sources, namely, where Jesus speaks of His future coming in heavenly glory : Matt. x. 23 ; xvi. 28 (cf. Mark ix. 1) ; xix. 28 ; xxiv. 30 (cf. Mark xiii. 26) ; but it is given in other passages, where that original meaning certainly does not occur : Matt. xiii. 37, 41 ; xvi. 13 (cf. Mark viii. 27 : fit) ; Luke vi. 22 (cf. Matt. v. 11 : ifiou) ; xxii. 48. So also at the passage, Luke xix. 10 (cf. the saying, Matt, xviii. 11, which does not belong to the original text of Matthew), the insertion of this name is to be ascribed to the Evangelist Luke, although the relative narrative-portion as a whole (the account of Zaccheus) may certainly have been derived from the Logia-source. 150 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. all sons of men who are at the same time sons of God. But since, with emphatic articulation, He designates Himself as the Son of man and the Son of God, He nevertheless expresses that, along with that likeness in kind, He is aware of His pre-eminence, of being the One above all the others, the represent ative of the kingdom of God, the Messiah. The name " the Son of man," just as that of " the Son of God," had significance for Him, as an indirect de notation of His Messianic calling and His Messianic dignity. It was occasioned by Old Testament expressions that the one name as well as the other was by the Jews also recognised as an attribute of the Messiah, and accordingly, when adopted by Jesus for Himself, they could be understood as an announce ment of His Messianic claim. But we must bear well in mind that nevertheless the name " Son of man," just as little as the name "Son of God," was viewed by the Jews as the characteristic attribute of the Messiah, which essentially indicated the expected mode of appearance and work of the Messiah. Therefore it also involves no contradiction if we say that Jesus reserved the open announcement of His Messiahship until just at the close of His earthly ministry, and yet that He had previously, not indeed often, yet repeatedly on given occasions, designated Himself as " Son of man," or as " Son of God." For both these self-applied titles could certainly awaken in the hearers the question if Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, and could for the intelligent be an indication of the true sense of His Messianic claim. But so long as these titles did not appear in direct JOHANNINE RELATION OF JESUS TO GOD. 151 connection with the express claim to be the son of David, their Messianic significance was not obvious to the Jews. For the Jewish consciousness the special signification alike of the Messianic attribute "Son of God" and of that of "Son of man" was conditioned by the presupposition of the most weighty and unchanging feature of the splendid and powerful kingly sway of the Messiah. For the consciousness of Jesus, on the other hand, the sure ground of His Messianic dignity in the kingdom of God lay in the fact that He was the Son of God, so far as the filial relationship to God, characteristic of all members of the kingdom, was fully realised in Him. Hereby it was occasioned that He could apply the title " Son of man " to Himself in the full sense in which it denoted the bearer of a frail finite human nature ; for He knew that His Divine Sonship was not only alto gether compatible with His humanity, but it required to be manifested by Him amid special conditions of human lowliness. 6. With this whole consistent view of Himself on the part of Jesus, which stands in inward relation to His idea of the nature of the kingdom of God, as we find it attested by the Matthew- Logia and the Gospel of Mark, we have now to compare His view of Him self as contained in the discourses of the fourth Gospel. Here it is important, above all, that we explain the sayings of the Johannine discourses by themselves and from their connection, and do not consider them from the first in the light in which the evangelist who has redacted the Johannine source has 152 THE PERSON. OF THE MESSIAH. set them.1 If we follow this rule, the one specially striking difference we meet — viz. that in the Johannine discourses the Messianic self-testimony of Jesus stands in the foreground of the record, whilst in the synop tical discourses, apart from those which concern the closing period of Jesus' ministry, it comes only briefly and occasionally to light — finds a ready explanation. For these Johannine discourses, from the first sayings at the cleansing of the temple, as I have several times already brought out, exhibit evident signs of having all originally belonged to the closing period of Jesus' ministry, and have only by the redacting evangelist been distributed over the whole period of the ministry. So soon as we firmly grasp this know ledge, we can, in accordance with the standard of the testimony of our other sources, no longer regard as unintelligible and unhistorical the general fact that the Messianic self-testimony of Jesus is placed so strongly in the foreground. The question is only whether this personal testimony of Jesus, according to the sub stance of the thought, is in harmony with that found in the accounts of the synoptical discourses. At the central point of Jesus' view of Himself, according to the Johannine discourses, stands His claim to be "the Son of God," Kar ifjofflv (v. 17, 19 ff. ; vi. 40; x. 36 ; xiv. 13 ; xvii. 1). To this claim, which forms the foundation for His further claim to have a unique significance for salvation, Jesus gives special emphasis and manifold particular detail ; against this claim, also, was levelled the specially pointed objec tion of His Jewish opponents, who taxed Him with 1 Cf. L.J. i. p. 288 ff. JOHANNINE RELATION OF JESUS TO GOD. 1 53 blasphemy on account of it (cf. v. 17 ff. ; x. 30 ff). Before we inquire as to the exact sense in which this claim to Divine sonship in the Johannine dis courses is meant, we must first consider the signifi cance of the fact that here also the personal Messianic testimony of Jesus, whilst He avoids the direct title of Messiah, is generally concentrated upon the assertion of His unique and perfect filial relation to God. Cer tainly this fact appears without significance so long as it is assumed that for the Jewish consciousness also the idea of the Son of God was equivalent to the idea of the Messiah. But when it is made clear that though the Jews certainly understood the title "Son of God" as a traditional attribute of the Messiah, they yet by no means found the essential principle and significance of the Messiahship in the filial fellowship of the Messiah with God, but in His splendid and powerful Davidic kingship, then, in the emphasising and specialising of this idea of filial fellowship with God, and in the founding of all Messianic claims of Jesus solely on this Divine sonship, we already recognise a very remarkable accordance between the Johannine per sonal testimony of Jesus and that which meets us in the accounts of the synoptical sources throughout, and specially in the question of Jesus as to the Davidic sonship of the Messiah (Mark xii. 35 ff) in opposi tion to the prevailing Jewish view. Very character istic in this respect is the conversation, John x. 24. ff., where the Jews press Jesus with the appeal that He should no longer keep them in suspense, but declare plainly if He were the Messiah ; to which Jesus answered, that He had already declared it to them, 154 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. but they did not believe. The appeal of the Jews was occasioned by their having heard from Jesus in His previous discourses such expressions in regard to His special significance as seemed to them to be indeed intimations of His Messianic position, but which still did not amount to a direct expression, or a plain paraphrasing, of the Messianic claim. On the contrary, Jesus Himself was conscious of having already fully and plainly announced to them His Messianic claim. For while He declared His filial sonship with God, which was attested by His works (ver. 25$), He expressed in regard to Himself what, according to' His consciousness, amounted funda mentally and essentially to the Messiahship. The assertion of His most close filial fellowship with His Father is now repeated by Him with the greatest '\ decision (vers. 30-38). But He gives no other de- claration in regard to His Messiahship ; for whoever | did not understand and recognise His claim to be the Son of God, and did not find therein expressed the essential designation of the Messiah, the same would not recognise or rightly understand thought He had assumed the direct title of Messiah. If we have firmly grasped this general and very weighty point of the agreement of Jesus' view of Himself in the Johannine discourses with that given in the synoptical, viz. that Jesus based His Messianic dignity solely on His filial fellowship with God, we must now inquire further, if then the special character of this filial fellowship is represented in the discourses of the fourth Gospel in the same way as in the sayings recorded in the other sources. We have } JOHANNINE RELATION OF JESUS TO GOD. 1 55 seen above that, according to these other original accounts, Jesus has regarded His sonship with God as homogeneous in principle with the Divine sonship which all other members of the kingdom of God should have ; in other words, it is a fellowship of love with God in which God, as the Father, grants His eternal welfare, and the man, as son, trustfully and obediently receives and obeys the will of God ; only that Jesus knew that this filial relationship to God was realised in Himself in a unique perfection, and He therefore regarded Himself as the Son of God, mt e%oyr\v. In the Johannine discourses of Jesus, on the contrary, very many sayings of Jesus give the appear ance of the Divine sonship of Jesus being represented in another manner : as no doubt also manifesting itself in a mutual relation of love between God and Jesus in His Messianic work on earth, but neverthe less as primarily resting on a peculiarly physical and local fellowship of Jesus with God, which had existence already before the earthly life of Jesus, and therefore now also conditioned His earthly life; and accordingly the sonship of Jesus does not strictly represent such a relation to God as all the disciples should have fundamentally, but rather such a one as distinguishes Jesus fundamentally from all His disciples. In these discourses Jesus says of Himself that He did not originate from this world, nor from beneath, like His Jewish adversaries, but from above (viii. 23 ; xvii. 14, 16) ; that He had come down from heaven, and would go up to heaven (iii. 13 ; vi. 32 fi, 38, 50 fi, 58) ; had proceeded, and was come, from God (viii. 42 ; xvi. 27 f. ; xvii. 8); had been sent from God the I56 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. Father (iii. 17; iv. 34; v. 23 fi, 36-38, and numerous other passages). This heavenly origin and mission is meant by Him when, in opposition to the Jews, who found in His known earthly origin a proof bearing against His Messiahship (vii. 26 fi, 40-42), He Himself knows His own origin, of which they were ignorant : " Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am : and I am not come of myself, but He that sent me is true, whom ye know not. But I know Him: for I am from Him, and He hath sent me" (vii. 28 fi; viii. 14). So He knows that in His work on earth He is commissioned by God (iv. 34; v. 36 ; vi. 27 ; x. 25 ; xii. 49 ; xvii. 4) ; He gives His announcement concerning heavenly things, not as what He freely imagines, but as what He Himself immediately perceives. He speaks what He knows, and testifies of what He has seen (iii. 11); He alone has seen the Father (vi. 46), and He speaks what He has seen of the Father and what He has heard from the Father (viii. 38, 40; xv. 15). He stands continu ally in this fellowship with the Father, so that, on the one side, His Father knows Him (x. 15) and loves Him (v. 20; x. 17; xv. 9; xvii. 23, 24, 26), never leaves Him alone (viii. 29 ; xvi. 32), shows Him all things which Himself does (v. 20), communicates the words of teaching (vii. i6f. ; xii. 49 fi; xiv. 10,24; xvii. 8), does the works in Him (xiv. 10), gives Him all that belongs to Him the Father (xvi. 15 ; xvii. 10), a power that is greater than all (x. 29),1 makes Him 1 According to the best attested reading : 0 irarJip fiov S lilaxh /mi that His "flesh," or " the flesh and blood of the Son of man" (ver. 53), was a food for men sufficing for everlasting life— signifies that He as a weak human creature was the indispensable medium of obtaining eternal life.1 This declaration of Jesus was occasioned 1 Cf. L.J. i. p. 298 f. CREATUREHOOD OF JESUS IN JOHN. l8l by the Jews thinking that they could, by their mur muring reference to His creaturehood, to His well- known human origin (ver. 41 fi), confute His previously asserted pretension that He, the Son of man, furnished the food which ministered to eternal life (ver. 27), and that He Himself was, in a still truer sense than the manna in the desert, the bread that had come down from heaven and ministered life (ver. 32 ff). For against this objection He most emphatically urged the necessity of a trustful acceptance just of this His creaturely-human condition. He certainly did not regard this creaturely side of His being, His " flesh," as something valuable in itself. It is well to notice that He did not declare of His " flesh," or His "flesh and blood," as He previously did of Himself as a whole, that it had come down from heaven, since such a declaration would have involved a contradiction in thought. But in reference to His "flesh," or His "flesh and blood," He now repeats only the claim that it was food necessary to men for obtaining eternal life. And that He ascribes this saving significance to His " flesh," not as such, but only inasmuch as it is the vehicle of the Divine Spirit and the medium for men of the message which tends to life, He clearly expresses at the close in the words : "It is the spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing : the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life" (ver. 63). In this statement He does not by any means nullify or weaken the paradoxical declaration, that men must assimilate His flesh and blood in order to attain to life; but He gives that declaration such an explanation as makes 1 82 THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. its justness clearly appear. For if men recognise the essence of His Messianic significance in the fact that He brings a message originating from the Divine Spirit and tending to eternal life, they will find in His creaturely-human nature nothing contradictory of His saving significance, nor will they even regard it as something indifferent and superfluous, but will rather recognise and prize it as the necessary organ of imparting His message to men, charged with the spirit of God and ministering eternal life. Thus this discussion by Jesus in John vi. serves for the con firmation and explanation of the thought which He elsewhere briefly expresses by His self-designation as " the Son of man." For when He brings out, by the assumption of this name, that the co-existence of His weak creaturely humanity with His Messianic dignity must be right and necessary, since it corre sponds to the prophetic word of Scripture as to the representative of the Messianic kingdom appearing as the Son of man, He shows by this discussion in John vi. that, not only because of the authority of that word of Scripture, but also on account of the intelligible real significance of His human nature for His Messianic preaching activity, He declares the necessity of this His creaturely humanity for His Messiahship. 9. By our survey of the utterances of Jesus in regard to His Messianic person, it has been established that, according to all our sources, even according to the discourses of the fourth Gospel, Jesus' judgment as to His own nature stands in close inner mutual DIVINE AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS. 1 83 relation to His idea of the nature of the kingdom of God. The relation between God and men, deter mined by the idea of God, which He taught men to recognise as the essence of the kingdom of God, He knew to be perfectly realised in His own person, and in this consciousness He possessed the sure guarantee that He was the Messiah of the kingdom of God. His perfect consciousness of sonship towards God, however, blended without difficulty with His con sciousness of being a feeble human creature. No where has He, by a theory of a dogmatic kind, given an explanation of how this twofold paradoxical state ment, that He is " the Son of God " and " the Son of man," can be reconciled. The co-existence of the relation to God denoted by the former name with the relation to mankind indicated by the latter, was assured to Him by His own immediate experience ; therefore He did not inquire into and prove the possibility of this co-existence, but He simply declared its actuality. But we can yet plainly perceive that in His by no means natural, but purely spiritual and ethical, view of God, and in the religious-ethical mode of view — according to which He recognised as the true and proper life only the ethical being and activity through God's help and for God, and just on account of which He was able to regard the natural human conditions as a means of the development and manifestation of the true Divine life — He possessed the certain principle of harmony for His Messianic self-conscious ness as the Son of God and the Son of man. J 84 VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. CHAP. II. VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. The general idea of the Messiah, which was equally authoritative for the Jews as for Jesus, was, in accord ance with His mission, that of the agent divinely commissioned to establish and bring in the kingdom of grace of the latter day. We must inquire how Jesus, in conformity to His special idea of the nature of the kingdom of God, determined the peculiar nature and limits of the task of His vocation as Messiah. 1. For the Jews in the time of Jesus all the detailed ideas in regard to the Messiah's vocation work were conditioned by the certainty, founded in the Old Testament promises and denoted in the name itself of Messiah, that the Messiah would be a king exercis ing kingly functions. Not only in the case where the external prosperity and political power of the expected kingdom were set in the forefront, but even where the moral-religious nature of the kingdom and the object of the Messiah to establish and maintain the holiness and righteousness of the people of the latter day were strongly emphasised, as, for example, in the Psalter of Solomon, did the essential task of the Messiah appear to be His kingly rule, His victory over the enemies of God and of God's people, and His judicial authority over the members of the king dom.1 But to this view of the Messiah's vocation- task Jesus set Himself in very noteworthy opposition. Certainly,, at His last entrance to Jerusalem, He 1 Cf. the quotation given above, vol i. p. 79, from the Psalms of Solomon. RENUNCIATION OF KINGLY RULE. 1 85 accepted the acclamation of the attendant crowd who hailed " the kingdom of their father David " as coming in with Him (Mark xi. 10), and, at His trial before Pilate, He answered affirmatively the question whether He was the king of the Jews (Mark xv. 2). For here it was of importance that He should openly avow His claim to be the Messiah expected on the ground of the Old Testament promises : therefore He had to take that Old Testament Jewish title of the Messiah to Himself. But as He knew that He announced and realised the kingdom of God in a higher sense than that in which it was promised in the Old Testament and was expected by the Jews, so He also claimed for Himself, only in an adapted sense, the Old Testament Jewish title of Davidic king as applied to the Messiah. Certainly in His view also, on the ground of the whole previous tradi tion, it belonged originally to the essential character istics of the Messiah that He should reign as king. But after the impartation to Him, at His baptism, of the consciousness that, in His pure and perfect filial relationship to God the highest positive basis of His Messianic dignity was given, in the inward conflict which then succeeded in regard to the assertion of His Messianic self-consciousness, He definitively put away, as what was wrong and Satanic, the Jewish ideal of the earthly sway of the Messiah which met Him with tempting allurement. On the basis of our Gospel-sources we cannot hold it justified when it is explained that Jesus, at that post-baptismal period, only put away the incitement to acquire earthly kingship through unworthy means, but afterwards, at 1 86 VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. least at the commencement of His ministry, held fast the expectation of being raised amid miraculous Divine manifestations to the Davidic throne that belonged to Him, by the people who should believingly acknowledge Him as the Messiah.1 For not only has Jesus nowhere, in the discourses handed down to us, attributed to Himself the functions of kingly rule, nor anticipated them in the future, but He has set the work to which He felt Himself called as the Messiah, in express opposition to the functions of kingly rule. He said to His disciples: "Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them ; and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you ; but whosoever would become great among you, shall be your minister : and whosoever would be first among you, shall be servant of all. For verily the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister" (Mark x. 42 ffi). Since He declared that loving ministry for others was the highest duty incumbent upon all members of the kingdom of God, by observing which they would become true sons of the heavenly Father (Matt. v. 44 fi), He Himself also, in accordance with His consciousness of being "the Son of God," and of having as such the call to establish the kingdom of God, must have recognised it as a necessity of His mission that He should in a specific degree give loving service for others, that is, use a deportment opposed to the characteristic deportment of kings. 1 Cf. B. Weiss, Handbook of Biblical Theology of New Testament RENUNCIATION OF KINGLY RULE. 187 So long as a measure of external earthly prosperity and political power was regarded as of essential moment in the ideal of the kingdom of God, it must also have appeared a necessary function of the Messiah that, in order to attain and secure this prosperity and power, He should reign as a king, exercise power and authority, and receive tribute and service, since then the kingly rule itself appears the essential service which the Messiah is to perform as commissioned by God on behalf of His kingdom. So soon, however, as every idea of prosperity and glory, power and splendour, of an external and political kind was eliminated from the ideal of the kingdom of God, and the essence of the kingdom was only sought in the pure realisation of the relation of men to God, corresponding to the fatherly character of God, in His reception of all gracious manifestations of God leading to everlasting heavenly life, and in His fulfilment of the will of God in genuine inward righteousness, the fitness of the kingly sway of the Messiah for the pur pose of setting up and establishing the kingdom of God also disappeared. Therefore we cannot say that it was possible for Jesus, along with His specific minister ing functions, which He actually performed as His Messianic task and predicated of Himself, to strive also to obtain kingly functions as belonging to His Messianic dignity ; for such an endeavour would, in view of the general character of the kingdom of God, have been an inconsistency. In the temptation-period succeeding His baptism, He altogether put away the idea of kingly power and sovereignty for Himself as Messiah, since He perceived that to aim at any kind 1 88 VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. of kingly power and sovereignty was irreconcilable with His Messianic vocation of establishing the true kingdom of God, and would be a serving of Satan and not a serving of God. He knew that He was not called to be "a judge and divider " over men in worldly affairs, and that not merely in forcible ways, in opposition to existing authorities, but also not even where men sought voluntarily to invest Him with judicial power (Luke xii. 14). Certainly He applied to Himself the titles Anointed and King, because He had the assurance that the Old Testament pro mises of the Davidic kingdom of the latter day found in Him their highest fulfilment, and because He knew Himself to be really the first in the kingdom of God, not only in order of time, but also of rank, and the Mediator of saving grace to all other members of this kingdom. But He did not deem that, as this promised king, He had to exercise a kingly sovereignty, but such a self-sacrificing service as corresponded to the object of the establishment of the kingdom in the form which He perceived to be the true one. 2. He considered it as His task first of all to be a teacher. Nothing would be more erroneous than to conclude from this fact that He did not, or at least not from the commencement of His public work, feel that He was the Messiah. For He regarded His work of teaching just as the necessary means for realising the kingdom of God, and therefore as the proper form of His Messianic activity. Mark vividly depicts for us in the section, i. 14-39, His first advent as preacher in Galilee ; how, by His powerful teach ing in the synagogue at Capernaum, He had filled PROPHETIC WORK OF TEACHING. 189 His hearers with astonishment (vers. 21 fi, 27), how He would not let Himself be induced, however, to tarry longer in that city, but went from place to place to preach everywhere (ver. 38 fi; cf. vi. 6b; Luke viii. 1 ; x. if.). And such teaching, partly with the object of spreading His gospel as widely as pos sible in the Jewish country, partly with the object of more precisely instructing the narrower circle of His disciples, who had joined themselves to Him with trust in His message, remained to the close of His career the main element of His work. In accordance with this calling to impart the word which was to be efficacious in other men for the establishment of the kingdom of God, He has compared Himself to the sower, who scatters the seed which was afterwards to yield fruit (Mark iv. 3 ff, 26 ff). Inasmuch as He bore the inward consciousness that He taught, not out of His own human fancy, but in virtue of a true Divine revelation, He declared Himself to be a prophet. Not only did He declare that saying in Nazareth, " A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house " (Mark vi. 4), and the ironical utter ance over Jerusalem, "It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem" (Luke xiii. 33), with refer ence to the verification of these rules in His person, and so included Himself here under the general notion of prophets ; but He also mentioned the Scripture word in which the Old Testament prophet testified to his own anointing with the Holy Ghost and being sent to preach (Isa. lxi. 1 fi), as attaining fulfilment in Himself and His preaching (Luke iv. 18-21), and so 190 VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. in a very remarkable way He substituted the spiritual anointing of the Messiah to the prophetical office of teaching for His anointing to the kingly office. He certainly was also conscious of being one higher than the Old Testament messengers of revelation, and greater than Solomon and Jonah (Luke xi. 31 f). For He knew Himself to be the possessor of a perfect knowledge of the character of God, which no one had hitherto attained, but which He now was called and resolved to impart to other men : " No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and He to whom the Son will reveal Him" (Luke x. 22).1 Thus He knew Himself as a teacher of a unique sort and signifi cance, and could in this sense, forbid His disciples to allow themselves to be styled " Rabbi" and "leader:" for One was their teacher and One was their leader, even He, and all they were brethren (Matt. xxiii. 8, 10). On the ground of His perfect knowledge of God, He regarded Himself as called to fulfil the law and the prophets, that is, by means of His teaching to bring the true idea of the previous Old Testament revelation to perfectly corresponding expression (Matt. v. 1 7),2 and as called to proclaim the fulfilment of the prophetic promises for all who were needy and willing (Luke iv. 18-21 ; Matt. xi. 5), to invite sinners to the saving benefit of the kingdom of God (Mark ii. 17; cf. Luke xix. 10), and as God's representative on earth to pronounce forgiveness of sins to those who trust in the saving grace of God (Mark ii. 10; cf. ver. 5). In view of these contents of His teaching, how- 1 Cf. above, p. 125 £ " Cf. above, p. i2ff. PROPHETIC WORK OF TEACHING. 191 ever, He could also declare that by His teaching He not only enriched men's knowledge, but imparted to them the possession of the saving good which He preached. For if, through His revelation, they gained the knowledge of the fatherly character of God and of God's readiness to receive penitent sinners into His gracious fellowship, and to bestow upon them the eternal life of heavenly bliss, this knowledge gave them the blissful confidence that they themselves also were objects of the fatherly love and grace of God, and enabled them to feel that all earthly evils and sufferings were no longer really injurious, but trans formed themselves into comforting blessings of Divine grace. In this sense Jesus, in connection with the reference to His uniquely perfect revelation of the character of God, said to His disciples that He had given them dominion over all hostile powers, and nothing could in any wise injure them (Luke x. 19) ; and He called to Himself all the weary and heavy laden, that they might learn of Him to transmute, by meekness and genuine humility, their heavy yoke into a light one, and, amid earthly sufferings, to enjoy a true inward refreshment (Matt. xi. 2 8-30). x 3. This last expression of Jesus, however, manifests His consciousness of being a teacher for other men, not only by His spoken words, but also by the example of His own actions. His whole practical activity, which He exercised along with His work of teaching, was regarded by Him as an essential part of the work of His calling, because it indirectly belonged to His work of teaching, and was a necessary 1 Cf. vol. i. p. 229. 192 VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. means for its illustration and confirmation. He once designated the substance of His practical work as " casting out devils and performing cures " (Luke xiiii 32). From His first appearance at the sea of Galilee He employed Himself as a physician of the sick, not for remuneration, but in spontaneous loving benefi cence, and not with a variety of professional remedies, but with the simplest natural helps, as of the hand and the spittle ; but at the same time with firm trust in the powerful, wonder-working help of God. Thus, in particular, He let Himself be invested with the special task of subduing the demoniac powers, which He, in accordance with the mode of view of His contemporaries, presupposed in special forms of bodily and spiritual sickness ; J but here also He did not employ magical charms and incantation-formulas of a superstitious kind, but only trustful prayer for God's healing power (Mark ix. 23, 29). By this kind of activity, even better than by words, He could, on the one hand, illustrate and render intelligible the right- ! eousness necessary for the kingdom of God, the duty of sure trust in the love and power of the heavenly Father, and of the exercise of unselfish, spontaneous, helpful love towards brethren ; and, on the other hand, ¦ He could at the same time give direct proof of the truth of the message of grace which He preached. For in the higher Divine power with which He overcame^ the demoniac agencies, and in the happiness and wel fare which He was able to substitute for distress and need, those who attended to His preaching of the kingdom of God could recognise the signs of the 1 Cf. vol. i. p. 165. MIRACULOUS HELP AND HEALING. 1 93 realisation of the kingdom (Matt. xi. 5 ; Luke iv. 18-21 ; xi. 20). Had He, as well as the great mass of His Jewish compatriots, expected the Messianic kingdom as a kingdom of external prosperity and splendour which was to be miraculously established, in accordance with the letter of the prophetic promises, He must certainly have had the consciousness of being able, by His healing of the sick, to present only a very imperfect realisation of this ideal. And again, had He regarded the kingdom of God as a merely other worldly heavenly one, He would not have been able to regard the relief which He brought to earthly distress as the saving good of this kingdom. Since, however, He regarded the kingdom of God as one to be consummated indeed in the heavenly Hereafter, but yet as one already set up on earth, and since, among the Divine saving benefits of the kingdom, He reckoned also the means and good things pertaining to the earthly life in the measure which God regarded as necessary and helpful, He could also look upon the loving endeavour to remove the earthly sufferings of other men as part of the righteousness of the kingdom of God, and specially as a mode of activity incumbent on Him as Messiah, and in the results which followed this loving activity, exercised with trust in God, could find specific proofs of the blessed influences which characterise the Messianic period. It is well, however, to consider that if Jesus had undoubtedly the conviction of being able by the power of God to bring to the trustful (cf. Mark i. 40 fi; v. 36; vi. 5 fi ; vii. 20; Matt. viii. 10, 13) VOL. II. N 194 VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. miraculous help for earthly distress, He yet by no means saw, in the external miraculous mode of work ing as such, the characteristic means of accomplishing His Messianic task. He rather recognised the danger of men being drawn away, in their astonishment at the external miraculous nature of His works, from a regard for their religious foundation and significance, and of men's failing to strive to obtain from Him the true salvation of the kingdom of God in their striving after a miraculous obtaining of external benefits from Him, or the removing of external sufferings and burdens. Therefore He desired that such acts of helpfulness, by word and hand, which He Himself deemed miraculous, should not be publicly known .1 (Mark i. 44 ; v. 37 ff. ; vii. 33 ff. ; viii. 23 ff. ; Matt. ix. 30) : they should only be known, so far as they were miraculous, to those who, on the ground of their ^J trustful reception of His message of the kingdom of God, could also gain a right judgment of the miracu lous Divine manifestations of grace and power in His kingdom. And so to the Pharisees who wished to make their recognition of His Divine mission de pendent upon their being shown by Him a sensible ;| sign from heaven, He flatly denied the fulfilment of their desire : " Why doth this generation seek a sign2M Verily I say unto you, There shall be no sign given unto this generation" (Mark viii. nfi). The sole ; sign which He promised to the unbelieving sign- seekers, was a sign of quite another kind from what they meant, not an externally miraculous one, pleasing to their mind, but the sign of Jonah, namely, that He should appear among them as a preacher of judgment MIRACULOUS HELP AND HEALING. 1 95 sent from God, even as Jonah by his preaching of judgment was a sign to the Ninevites (Luke xi. 29 fi).1 He thus purposely sought to preclude that men should base their faith in Him and His preaching on His miracles, since He judged that a faith so based was not a genuine one, and did not correspond to the true character of the kingdom preached by Him. From this plainly evident mode of view of Jesus, we can conclude that His answer to the question of the disciples sent by John the Baptist to ask if He were the Coming One, that is, the promised Messiah, " Go and tell John what things ye see and hear ; the blind see, and the lame walk ; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear ; the dead are raised, and the poor have the gospel preached to them" (Matt. ix. 4 f.),2 cannot mean an appeal to His miracles, which present the actual proof of His Messiahship. The reference of Jesus also to the preaching of the gospel to the poor, which had no miraculous character, serves to show that, in the previous reference to the results of His work, He did not see in the externally miracu lous aspect of His work, but in its aspect as bringing salvation to the needy, the element which character ised His work as Messianic. He sought to emphasise the fact that, so far as His work procured for men true salvation and true freedom from all burdens and trials (cf. Luke x. 19; Matt. xi. 28 ff), a true fulfil- 1 On Matt. xii. 40, see Logia, § \id, L. J. i. p. 103. 2 Luke has sought, by the narrative as to the healing of the multitude, which Jesus had undertaken "in that hour" (vii. 21), to confirm the reference of the words of Jesus to His openly-manifested miracles. But the comparison of the parallel passage in Matthew shows that the narrative of the healing of the multitude does not stand in the Logia- report. — Cf. Log. § 4a, L. J. i. p. 72 f. 196 VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. ment was given in it of the prophetic promises of the salvation of the Messianic time ; therefore He desig nated the saving influences that went out from Hira by such conceptions as those by which Old Testament prophecy vividly depicted the blessings of the latter day (Isa. xxxv. 5 f . ; lxi. 1; cf. Luke iv. 18 ff.). Thereby, however, He did not think of a mere literal fulfilment of the Old Testament promises, so far as they referred, according to their verbal tenor, to a miracu lous removal of earthly wants and sufferings and an establishment of external prosperity and salvation, but He thought of a fulfilment in the way (of consum-i mating and adopting the true idea of the Old Testa ment promises) which corresponded to His general attitude to the Old Testament revelation.1 The Old Testament ideas, that the blind would receive sight, the deaf would have their ears opened, and the lame would leap, had so far gained a general and transferred meaning for Him.2 In His answer to John's message He would certainly think also of the healing influences which He sought, in love and trust in God, to bring to the sick ; but He did not think of these alone, nor did He think of them in so far as they were mani- 1 Cf. above, p. 19. 2 In Z. /. i. p. 72 f. (Log. § 4a), I have given my opinion that the references to the cleansing of the lepers and the raising of the dead did not apparently belong to the original form of the saying of Jesus, because the prophetic descriptions of the salvation of the latter day con tain no corresponding promises. The above-given explanation of the saying of Jesus is not, however, altogether dependent on our holding as non-authentic this reference to the cleansing of the lepers and the raising of the dead. As Jesus could understand in a spiritual sense the idea of the blind receiving sight (cf. Mark iv. 12 ; Luke x. 23 c ; John ix. 39 ff.), so He could also speak of the unclean being made clean (cf. Mark vii. 15 ff.) and the raising of the dead (cf. Luke ix. 60) in a transferred and spiritual meaning. LIMITATION OF HIS WORK TO ISRAEL. 1 97 festations of His miraculous power, but so far as they were manifestations of the general Divine blessing which He proclaimed and imparted to men. 4. Jesus devoted His Messianic activity only to the people of Israel, not at all because, in spite of a wish to the contrary, He had become checked by external circumstances in the extension of His work, but because He saw this limitation of His activity to be a necessity founded on His special vocation, and therefore He limited it on principle. In the first period of His ministry, when He sought to extend as far as possible His message of the nearness of the kingdom of God, in order to afford to as many as possible the opportunity and invitation to enter the kingdom, and when, knowing His own limited power, in view of the greatness of the field of work, He made the Twelve His messengers to aid Him in extending His message (Luke x. 2 ff. ; cf. Mark iii. 14; vi. 7ffi), He gave these disciples the express commission not to go on the highways of the Gentiles nor into the Samaritan cities, but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. x. sf.).1 That they were to confine their preaching of the kingdom of God in all the future to the Jews in Palestine, was by no means enjoined upon them ; but in the present, whilst they were only employed as aids to Jesus' own vocation - work, the restriction which He made a point of duty 1 Cf. L. J. i. p. 85 f., Log. § 7a. For the understanding of this saying of Jesus it is important to consider that the Logia-discourses, to which it belongs, do not refer to the later apostolic calling of the Twelve, as it appears according to the account of " our first evangelist," but rather to the sending out of the disciples in the lifetime of Jesus, as Luke clearly reports it. I-98 VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. in the case of His work applied also to them. Also when Jesus, in the later period of His work, passed* the limits of Palestine and went northwards to the region of Tyre and Sidon (Mark vii. 24, 31), He by no means publicly manifested His activity in this region, but only sought to gain rest for the private instruc tion of the smaller circle of His disciples (Mark vii. 24; cf. ix. 30 fi). The help which He allowed Himself to impart to the strongly - trusting Syrophenician woman (Mark vii. 25 ff), was an exception whereby He expressly reserved the rule usually binding Him. We must not infer from this, however, that Jesus altogether represented the kingdom of God as one intended only for the people of Israel, and attributed to His Messianic work no significance reaching beyond the bounds of this people. Not only did the Old Testament promises of the blissful state of Israel in the latter day always embrace the idea, that the influences of that state would extend to other nations by their attaining through the medium of Israel to the true knowledge and worship of God (cf. Amos ix. 12; Isa. ii. 2 ff. ; xix. 23 ff. ; Micah iv. 1 ff. ; Zeph. iii. 9 ; Zech. ii. 11 ; viii. 22 fi ; xiv. 16 ff. ; Jer. iii. 17 ; xvi. 19 ff. ; Ezek. xxxvi. 36 ; xxxvii. 28 ; Isa. xiii. 1 ff. ; xlix. 6; li. 4 fi) ; and this universalistic widening of the Messianic expectations, whereby Israel's prerogatives should -rj remain absolutely safe, was rather enhanced than diminished in the views of later Judaism,1 so that already by this tradition Jesus would be led to the thought of a significance of the kingdom of God and 1 Cf. Schiirer, History of the Jewish People, ii. pp. 420 and 454 £ Transl., Div. II. vol. ii pp 130 and 172. LIMITATION OF HIS WORK TO ISRAEL. 1 99 of His own Messianic work also for the extra-Israel- itish world. But His peculiarly high ethical appre hension of the character of God and of His kingdom, and of the conditions of participation in this kingdom, contained in itself the presuppositions out of which the idea of the universal destination of the blessed ness of the kingdom for all mankind must follow as a consequence. And that Jesus Himself must con sciously have drawn this consequence, is plainly discernible from some of His utterances, of which we have yet to speak in a later passage. But the knowledge that the blessedness of the Messianic kingdom must extend beyond the limits of Israel, leaves the question open as to whether the Messiah was to commence at once with this extension. From Jesus' mode of judging and of acting, which was so admirably regulated throughout, we can quite under stand that in His clear recognition of the design of the kingdom of God to overpass the limits of Israel, He still did not find it His personal mission to go directly into the wide world to work for the estab lishment of the kingdom, but rather first to lay a firm basis for the kingdom among the people whom He recognised as the organs of a true revelation which held the promise and preparation of this kingdom, and as therefore also called to participate foremost of all in its realisation. Certainly it was not after long reflection and doubt, but by an immediate impulse which, in the increasing prevision of the approaching close of His ministry, formed itself into a clear sense of duty, that He concluded that only in this limita tion He manifested Himself to be the Master, and 200 VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. could frame His Messianic work into a successful whole. Jesus confidently reckoned upon His work resulting in bringing the kingdom of God to a sure condition, which should be the basis of a successful further development. The certainty of this result was indissolubly connected with His assurance of being the Messiah sent from God. He did not allow Himself to be staggered by the hindrances and failures which He found in His work ; but, on the contrary, His immovable assurance of His Messiah- ship, and of the truth of the kingdom of God as preached by Him, produced the confidence that, in spite of all these hindrances and failures, His work would yet attain to glorious success, and the kingdom of God preached by Him would attain to mighty results. The parables which Mark records in chap. iv. are beautiful expressions of this confidence of Jesus in the success of His work. In the parable of the Sower, whose grain, when it fell upon many kinds of unfavourable soil, could not grow to the fruit-bearing ear, but, when it fell upon good ground, brought forth thirty, sixty, and an hundred-fold (vers. 3-8), He expressed that while His word finds among many hearers no acceptance, or one that is only superficial or transitory, and therefore has no real success, it yet produces rich results in all those who manifest a true receptiveness. By the parable of the seed from which, after it has been sown on land, gradually, without the sower observing or contributing anything further, puts forth the blade and then the fruit-bearing ear (vers. 26-29), He expressed His certainty that His KINGSHIP OF JESUS ACCORDING TO JOHN. 201 teaching, even when its results cannot immediately be observed, is yet not in vain, but, as a force gradually working on in silence, leads to the hoped-for result. Finally, in the parable of the Mustard-seed, which, from being the smallest of seed-grains, develops into the greatest of garden -herbs (vers. 30-32), He emphasised the fact that the slender beginning of the kingdom of God, Which He established through His work of teaching, did not preclude, but rather laid the foundation for an immense future extension of this kingdom. 5. How do the utterances of Jesus in regard to His vocation-work, as contained in the discourses of the fourth Gospel, stand related to the views of Jesus in regard to the nature and extension of His Messianic work recognisable in the Matthew-Logia and the Gospel of Mark ? We have first to consider that here also Jesus has assumed the same attitude of rejection towards the traditional Jewish view of the essential vocation- work of the Messiah, which we perceive to be specially characteristic according to what is recorded in the other sources. All through He did not claim or look forward to the functions of an earthly king. Only at His final trial did He declare His kingly dignity, since then He had plainly to acknowledge His claim to be the Messiah promised in the Old Testament and expected by the Jews. But He here straightway appended to His self-designation as king, such an interpretation as makes it plain that He nevertheless meant a kingship of quite another kind than that which 202 VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. the Jews ascribed to the expected Messiah : " My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants, would have fought to prevent my falling into the hands of the Jews : but now is my kingdom not from hence. . . . I am a king. For this was I born, and thereto am I come into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth (aXij0eia). Every. : one which is of the truth heareth my voice " (xviii. 36 fi). The kingly dignity which He claims for Himself springs not out of this world, that is, it has not its foundation and origin in the world, inasmuch as it does not rest upon power or possession of an earthly kind, and is not acquired by inheritance or transmission from other men nor from His own human arrogation. It springs (for thus, according to Jesus' view, we must state the positive contrast) from God : it rests upon the power and supremacy which God has given Him, and is transmitted to Him from God as His mission. Whilst a kingship springing from the world would manifest itself in His possess ing subalterns who would serve Him for earthly objects and protect Him against earthly danger and violence, His kingship arising from God manifests 1 itself in His testifying to the truth (that is, not the truth which correctly corresponds to reality, but the right conduct, which correctly corresponds to the duty prescribed by God),1 and thereby He gains as disciples all those who, according to the ethical principles and inclination of their character, have an understanding of the ethical contents of His preach ing. The negative side of this saying of Jesus before 1C£ vol. i. p. 257. LIFE-BRINGING MESSAGE ACCORDING TO JOHN. 203 Pilate, that His kingdom was not of this world, reminds us immediately of the rejection of the tempta tion to strive for earthly kingship which, according to the tradition recorded in Matthew and Luke, was performed before His entrance upon His mission. The positive interpretation, however, which He gives of His Messianic kingship in this saying — that it is presented in His preaching of the truth and in the understanding and obedience which He finds for this preaching from other men — perfectly accords with the way in which Jesus has understood His Messianic mission according to our synoptical sources. 6. In the discourses of the fourth Gospel Jesus repeatedly designates the work of His vocation as a preaching which He carries out on the ground of a Divine revelation, in order to make known to men the character and will of God. Looking back upon His finished work, He says in His high-priestly prayer ; " I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou hast given me out of the world " (xvii. 6) ; " The word which Thou hast given me have I given them, and they have received it" (ver. 8) ; "I have given them Thy word" (ver. 14). Similarly, on earlier occasions, He declared that His Father, who had sent Him, had given Him the commission what to say and what to preach (xii. 49) ; that He might preach what the Father had taught Him (viii. 26, 28, 38; xv. 15); that He might proclaim right conduct (the aXrjdeia), which He had heard from God (viii. 40) ; and no one could accuse Him of sin (viii. 45 fi). The latter saying cannot, from the actual connection and con trast, mean that no one could accuse Him of the 204 VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. commission of a sin, but only that no one could accuse Him of the teaching of a sin, since He was in a perfect sense a preacher of right, of the righteousness. He testified to the ungodly world through His teach ing that its works were evil (vii. 7) ; but He gave His disciples by His word and example the precept of the right exercise of love, which forms the sub stance of the new righteousness taught and manifested by Him (xiii. 15, 34; xv. 10, 12, 17). "Ye call me Master and Lord," said He to His disciples : " and ye say well ; for so I am " (xiii. 13). Jesus also certainly expressed most decidedly the consciousness that He brought for men more than a new teaching and knowledge. To the statement of Nicodemus, that He was a teacher come from God (iii. 2), He replied by indicating that, for mem bership of the kingdom of God, men required a new life originating from the Spirit of God (ver. 3 ff.), and by declaring that He was sent from God for the bestowal of eternal life upon believers (ver. i6fi; cf. vi. 40). 1 " As the Father raiseth the dead and quick- eneth them, even so the Son also quickeneth whom He will" (v. 21). He was come to bestow life and abundance, that is, the richest saving benefits (x. 10; cf. ver. 28). He is the resurrection and the life, that is, the true and sole mediator of the resurrection-life f one believing in Him would live, even though He died ; and every one living and believing in Him should not die for ever (xi. 25 fi). But this statement, that He brings eternal life to believers, does not indi cate, according to the Johannine discourses, a second 1 Cf. vol. i. p. 246 f. LIFE-BRINGING MESSAGE ACCORDING TO JOHN. 205 independent mode of Messianic activity of Jesus along with His work of revealing and teaching the truth, but only the peculiarly high significance of His work of teaching and of the influence connected with it. For through His word, through His truth-revealing preaching, He brings to men eternal life. The inward reason why Jesus, in the middle portion of the conversation with Nicodemus, after He had referred to the necessity of the birth by the Spirit of God, and before He had designated Himself as the mediator of this Divine life, spoke of His testimony to heavenly things on the ground .of His own experience (iii. 11-13), lies just in the fact that He sees in this testi mony the means whereby He imparts eternal life to men (v. 14 fi), namely, to all those who receive His witness with trustful recognition. The same view becomes evident from other expressions. Jesus says, whosoever heareth His word, and believeth on Him that sent Him, has everlasting life, and does not come into condemnation ; but has passed from death unto life (v. 24) ; it is the Spirit that quickeneth : the words which He spake to His disciples are spirit and life (vi. 63) ; whoso keepeth His word will not see death for ever (viii. 51); the commission to preach which the Father has given Him, that is, the preaching committed to Him by the Father, is eternal life (xii. 49 fi); the Father has given Him authority over all flesh, whereby He should give eternal life to all whom the Father has given Him ; but this is life eternal, that they should know the Father as the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (xvii. 2 fi). 206 VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. The meaning of these utterances, however, is not that the word itself, or the knowledge attained through the word, is, as such, eternal life, so that every one who receives the word with intelligence just therein enjoys already the possession of eternal life. But the meaning is, that His preaching is the sole and neces sary means of attaining the eternal life,1 and is so, indeed, inasmuch as, by unfolding the true knowledge of God, and of the right conduct (the aXrjdeia) corre sponding to the will of God, it serves to free men from sin, which prevents their fellowship with God, and is the cause of their sickness and death. In accordance with this connection of the thought, He says to the Jews in chap, viii., that if they did not believe on Him they should die in their sins (vers. 21, 24); but if they abode in His word, that is, manifested a permanent faith in His preaching, and thus became truly His disciples, they would know the truth, and the truth would make them free (ver. 31 f.) ; for whoso committeth sin is the servant of sin ; but only the son remains permanently in the house, that is (in its application) : only he who is freed from the bondage of sin, and sq the man who has attained sonship with God, gains possession of eternal life (ver. 34). In the same sense He replied to the question of Thomas as to the way to reach the destination to which He Himself was departing, and to which His disciples were to follow Him : "I am the way, and the truth, and the life ; no one comes to the Father but by me" (xiv. 5 fi). He, and He alone, leads men to the heavenly fellowship with God, because He teaches 1 Cf. vol. i. p. 243 f. LIFE-BRINGING MESSAGE ACCORDING TO JOHN. 207 them the right, that is, the right obedience to the will of God, and hereby helps them to gain eternal life. So also He says in chap. xv. — in following out the figure of the vine-stock, whose fruit-bearing branches God, as the husbandman, purges, that they bring forth more fruit — that His disciples were already clean through the word which He had spoken unto them (ver. 3), that is, they were already brought into a moral state corresponding to the will of God ; and Pie then exhorts them to abide in Him, that is, to let His words abide in them, and to keep His commandments concerning the exercise of love, since by so doing they would obtain from God the fulfilment of all their prayers, along with perfect joy and a complete salva tion (vers. 7, 10-12, i6fi). And in His high-priestly prayer He refers to His having Himself hitherto kept and guarded His disciples in the name of the Father, that is, in the revealed knowledge of the character of God ; and He prays that now, when He is leaving them, the Father may continue this preservation of the disciples ; not that He may take them out of the world, but that in the world He may keep them from the evil and sanctify them in the right, that is, keep them thereby in fellowship with Himself, that He may preserve them in right conduct : the word of the Father was right conduct, that is, the truth-revealing message of God which He, Jesus, had delivered to His disciples, and with which He might have also preserved them in the future, was the true guide to the right conduct which sanctifies men, that is, places them in fellowship with God (xvii. 11-17)- In all these sayings the mediatorial significance of Jesus 208 VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. for the obtaining of life is so represented, that by His word of teaching He directs men to the right and godly conduct in which lies the condition of gaining eternal life. Because Jesus based His value for salvation upon His preaching, it was first of all occasioned that He should emphasise the weighty importance of the brief period of His earthly life for the purpose of being - the medium of salvation to others. Thus He admon ishes the Jews to use the short time in which He yet was with them in order to let Him lead them to salvation ; when He departed from them, they would seek Him and should not find Him (vii. 33 f. ; viii. 21 ; xii. 35 fi). So also He felt in Himself the con straining impulse to utilise the term of life afforded Him in the task given Him by God : "We must work the works of Him who sent us, while it is day: the night cometh, wherein no man can work. So long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world " (ix. 4fi). But then it is occasioned by His thus basing His saving significance upon His teaching that He requires faith on the part of men as the necessary; prerequisite for obtaining salvation. For His word does not effect the impartation of salvation in a mechanical or magical way ; and since, for the purpose of obtaining salvation, it is important, not only that there be a true knowledge of God and of eternal life, and of the righteousness commanded by God, but rather that there be a right conduct corresponding to this knowledge ; so the mere external intellectual apprehension of His word is not enough, but the trustful and permanent inward recognition and prac- LIFE-BRINGING MESSAGE ACCORDING TO JOHN. 209 tical following of His preaching is requisite (cf. e.g. v. 24; viii. 31 fi, 51).1 In manifold figures Jesus indicates the unique and irrevocable saving significance which He knew His preaching to have for men. To the woman of Samaria at the well, He said that He could give her better water than that which she drew from the foun tain, even living water: "Whoso drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst ; but ' the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up to everlasting life" (iv. 14; cf. vii. 38). He required the Jews, not to labour for the meat which perishes, but for the meat which endures to eternal life, which He, the Son of man, gives them (vi. 27). And then when, in reference to the miraculous feeding with manna, which Moses had furnished to their forefathers in the desert, He designated Himself as the true bread from heaven and bread of life, because whoso partakes of Him should nevermore hunger and thirst, and should live for ever (vers. 32-35, 48-5 ia, 57, 58) ; and when Pie further, in paradoxical style, represents His flesh and His blood as the true meat and the true drink, the partaking of which is necessary for obtaining eternal life (vers. 51^, 53-56), — it is clear, from the solution of these enigmatical words given at the close, that He ascribes to Himself and His flesh and blood, that is, His creature nature, this saving significance, inasmuch as in His earthly creature life He is the bearer of a verbal message which originates from the Spirit of God (ver. 63).2 He further designates Himself the 1 Cf. above, p. 92. 2 Cf. above, p. 179. ff. VOL. II. O 2IO VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. light of the world ; whoso follows Him shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life (viii. 12; cf. iii. 19-21; ix. 5; xii. 35 fi, 46), that is, since to follow a light is more than merely to see and recognise a light : whoever manifests true obedience towards His truth-revealing preaching, to him the enlightening influence of this knowledge would lead to his attaining blissful life. Also by the comparison of Himself to the door leading into the sheepfold, through which must pass whoever would gain posses sion of the sheep, since the sheep will not follow one who penetrates in by another way (x. 1-9), He ex presses this thought, that the possession of eternal life is only obtained by one who employs His media tion.1 The consciousness of Jesus, brought out in all these Johannine sayings, of the nature and uniqueness of His mediatorial significance for men, coincides with the thought of that word handed down in the Matthew- Logia, in which Jesus declares that only He Himself, as the Son, and those to whom He will reveal it, has the knowledge of the Father, and in which He then calls all the labouring and heavy laden to Himself, that they may learn of Him, and find true solace and refreshment (Luke x. 22 ; Matt. xi. 27-30). And the circumstance, that the full expression of this con sciousness of Jesus of His unique mediatorial signific- 1 ance meets us in the Matthew - Logia only at this place, ought by no means to be held as a ground of proving that the repeated expression of this conscious-jj ness in the discourses of the fourth Gospel have no 1 On this meaning of the parable, see vol. i. p. 128 f., and ii. 46 f. EXECUTION OF JUDGMENT IN JOHN. 211 historical probability. We must rather hold it as evident that the presence of this consciousness of Jesus is indissolubly connected with the assurance of His Messiahship, and that if, according to the indica tions given in themselves, we relegate, to the closing period of the earthly ministry of Jesus, the sayings derived from the Johannine sources, the repeated expression of this consciousness of His Messianic task and significance is thoroughly intelligible historically. 7. It is but the result or the reverse side of this consciousness of Jesus of His unique mediatorial significance, that He also claims for Himself several times the office of executing judgment on the earth. "The Father," He says, "judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son" (v. 22, 27); " For judgment am I come into the world, that they who see not may see, and those who see may become blind " (ix. 39). For since He knows Himself to be the sole mediator of true life for men, He can also declare that all those who will not partake through Him of this blissful life, just therein experience judgment, whereby they sink into death. As His preaching of Divine truth is the means of bestowing salvation, so it is also the means whereby He executes judgment ; for through the fact that this preaching shows men the true way to attain salvation, it also directly, without any need of a special judicial sen tence, establishes the guilt of those who through unbelief will not take this path which He points out. In this sense Jesus says : "If any man hear my sayings, and keep them not, I judge him not : he that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my sayings, hath 2 12 VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. one that judgeth him : the word that I spake, the same shall judge him" (xii. 47).1 But inasmuch as Jesus knows that this unbelieving rejection of His word, which leads to judicial death, is not occasioned by Himself, who, on the contrary, is ready to give salvation to all, but only by the guilt of unbelievers themselves, He can also say that it is not He on His part who executes judgment, but that the unbelieving condemn themselves through unbelief. " God has not sent Plis Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him should be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and that men have loved darkness rather than light" (iii. 17-19). "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth Him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment ; but hath passed from death unto life" (v. 24). The reference, contained in this saying, of the idea of the Messianic judgment to the inward event, accomplished even during the earthly present, of exclusion from true salvation, is peculiar to the Johan^ nine discourses, and stands in clear analogy to the similarly specific Johannine stamp of the idea of, eternal life, to the blissful condition in which believers will already share even in the present life.2 But even 1 That ver. 47b ( = iii. 17) and the concluding words of ver. 48 (is rri toxaryi kfitpa) appear not to belong to the original form of this part of the discourse, but are interpolations of the redacting evangelist, vid. L. J. i. p. 278 f. 2 Cf. vol. i. p. 242. POSITION OF THE MIRACLES IN JOHN. 213 though this application of the idea of judgment does not occur in the synoptical discourses of Jesus, yet the thought is by no means foreign to them, that Jesus in His preaching brings doom to the unbelieving and further exclusion from salvation (cf. Mark iv. 1 1 fi ; Luke x. 21) ;J and we see still later that Jesus' idea, attested in the synoptical Gospels, of His future coming again to judgment, has its proper foundation in the assurance of Jesus, that just in accordance with men's present attitude to Him as the Messiah would their final sentence to weal or woe be pro nounced. 8. Very significant is the fact that also in the fourth Gospel the marvellous works of Jesus are not represented as the weighty and decisive proofs of His Messianic work. In this relation the mode of view expressed in the fourth Gospel is in principle distinct from that prevailing in the passages which form the historical framework of the discourses, where the proof for the Messiahship of Jesus is primarily founded in His miracles.2 Whoever is able to read the great discourses of the fourth Gospel without the preconceived idea that its contents are as a matter of course to be interpreted according to the mode of view given in the historical portions of the Gospel, must perceive that these discourses are not only wholly dominated by the positive view that in the truth-manifesting preaching of Jesus consists His saving Messianic work, and in it lies the proof of His Messianic significance, but also that those discourses by no means ascribe an independent significance to 1 Cf. above, p. 79. 2 Cf. L. J. i. p. 238 ff. 2 14 VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. the miracles alongside of that of the teaching. Jesus indeed appeals to His "works," which were given Him by the Father, and which present the testimony to His Divine mission and the justness of His Messianic claim (v. 36; x. 25, 32, 37 fi; xiv. iof; xv. 24). But this general notion of the " works " is by no means synonymous with the special notion of the miraculous "signs;" it rather receives its precise .1 definition in the Johannine discourses from the fact that the appeal to the "words" is interchanged with the appeal to the " works," and, indeed, so interchanged • that Jesus sometimes represents His "words "quite alone, as well as in other places, His "works," as the evidence for His Divine mission and Messianic significance (vi. 63 ; cf. ver. 68 ; xvii. 7fi), and some times brings in the one idea instead of the other which has just been used : " The words that I speak | to you, I speak not of myself : but the Father, who dwelleth in me, doeth His works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me : or else believe me for the very works' sake" (xiv. iof.; cf. viii. 28). The "works," to which Jesus appeals, are the works of His vocation quite in general ; therefore, instead of the plural expression, the singular form, "the work," sometimes occurs (iv. 34; xvii. 4). This \ vocation-work of Jesus, however, is specially a work of preaching ; therefore that interchange of the notion of the works with that of the words can take place. •';,' Certainly under the " works " can also undoubtedly be understood Jesus' loving acts of healing the sick, which have such blissful results (cf. v. 17; vii. 21). But the important thing is that significance is not POSITION OF THE MIRACLES IN JOHN. 2 15 ascribed to these works of healing because they have a miraculous character, but because they resemble in kind the loving, life-giving works of God (v. 17 fif. ) , aim at the welfare of men (vii. 23), and as such " good works from the Father" (x. 32) are subordinate to the general work of Jesus' preaching, which has reference to the revelation of God's character and will. Therefore the same significance as belonged to these works of healing, was also given to other forms of His work of preaching which bore no miraculous character. The desire of those who would make the recognition of Jesus' Divine mission and of His saving significance dependent on seeing outward " signs," was just as much rejected, according to the Johannine as accord ing to our other sources. The sign which, after the temple-cleansing, He promised to the chief priests, viz. if they destroyed that temple, He would raise it up in three days (ii. 19), and the sign which He declared as given, after the analogy of the miracle of the manna in the desert, viz. that He Himself was come as the true life-ministering bread from heaven (vi. 30 ff.), are signs of quite a different kind from what the sign-seekers meant. Here occurs the same meaning of the notion " signs " as in the Logia-sayings, in which Jesus, to those seeking a sign, only promised the sign of the prophet Jonas (Luke xi. 29) ; instead* of the externally-miraculous signs after which the Jews in their perverse mind aspired (cf. 1 Cor. i. 22), Jesus put such signs as were not miraculous in appear ance, but were certainly true evidences and tokens of His Divine. calling and authority. 9. The blissful mission of Jesus had reference, 2l6 VOCATION WORK OF THE MESSIAH. according to the discourses of the fourth Gospel, to the " world " (iii. 16-19; vl- 33> 51 > vm- I2 .' ix. 5, 39 ; xii. 46 ; xvi. 28). But yet this is not meant directly in the universalistic sense of His Messianic work having reference, not only to the Jews, but to all mankind. For the idea of world is not thought of in contrast to limitation to one definite people, specially to the Jewish people, but only in contrast to God, by whom Jesus, as the Son, is sent and commissioned (cf. specially xvi. 28); and the aim of Jesus' activity is also denoted by this idea in an equally indefinite way (without answering the question as to a national or universal-human purpose), as in the words of Jesus recorded in the Matthew- Logia, that He was come to cast fire on the earth (Luke xii. 49). In this applica tion of the idea of world the universalistic reference of the ministry of Jesus is only indirectly intimated, inasmuch as this general idea would be certainly avoided if in a particularistic- Jewish sense an exclusive reference to the people of Israel were ascribed to this Messianic salvation. How far, then, do we find limits laid down for His ministry elsewhere in the Johannine discourses ? We must answer that here, just as in the synoptical discourses, not only by the general religious view of Jesus is the presumption given for the idea of the universal aim of His message of salvation, but that this idea itself is even expressed in some places (which we shall afterwards have more particularly to consider), but only in the anticipatory prospect, on the part of Jesus, of the future further development of His Church after His own departure from the world. The information in regard to Jesus having already in EXTENT OF THE WORK OF JESUS. 217 His lifetime displayed a successful work in the country of the Samaritans (iv. 39-42), is not derived from the source of the Johannine discourses, but is an addition of the evangelist who edited that source. For it stands in manifest contradiction to the words — recorded in the source — which Jesus spoke to His disciples after His conversation with the Samaritan woman (ver. 32-38), and which only present a super ficial appearance, as if Jesus referred to a work which He purposed immediately to undertake among the Samaritans (ver. 35), whilst they actually attest that Jesus indeed perceived, from the intelligent desire with which those Samaritans had recognised in Him the prophet, and had sought His instruction (ver. 19-24), the ripeness of even the Samaritans for His message (ver. 35 f.) ; but yet He was aware that, not He Himself, but His disciples after Him, would gather in this ripe harvest (ver. 37 fi).1 So also when, according to the Johannine sources, certain Greeks, who had come to the feast at Jerusalem, desired to see Him, their wish, which, like the interview with the Samaritan woman, appeared to Him a token of the desire even of the extra - Jewish world after the message of salvation brought by Him, was yet only made the occasion for thinking upon His own approaching death, which must first take place in order that the influences proceeding from Him might be able to extend beyond the bounds of Israel (xii. 20 ff): "The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it 1 Cf. L.J. i. p. 265 f. 2l8 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. abideth by itself alone : but if it die, it beareth much fruit" (ver. 23 fi). After He has been lifted up from the earth, He can draw to Himself all, not only the Jews, but also the seekers of the extra- Jewish world (ver. 32). He looked forward to a mighty further extension of the influences going forth from Him; but yet He was aware that His personal lifework on earth must be accomplished within comparatively narrow limits, and fie judged that His death, which, according to human view and outward appearance, was to bring His work to a sudden termination, would be the means of successfully extending the effect of His vocation-work. To the question with which we above introduced our discussion of the utterances of Jesus as to His Messianic work given in the Johannine discourses, we can now give the well-grounded answer that, in their view of the nature and extent of the vocation-work of Jesus, a striking agreement subsists between the Johannine ideas and those of our synop tical source-accounts. CHAP. III. THE NECESSITY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. 1. As Jesus did not regard the external significance and slowness of His success as a discouraging token of the inadequacy and defectiveness of His Messianic activity, but rather as being necessarily conditioned by the nature of the kingdom of God, so also the ignominious death of a criminal to which, at the close of His brief ministry, He was delivered by the hostile DEVELOPMENT OF IDEA OF SUFFERING. 219 leaders of the Jewish people, and which implied from an external mode of view the shipwreck of His pre tended Messianic efforts, could be viewed as service able to the purpose of the realisation of the kingdom of God on earth, and therefore as necessarily belong ing to His Messianic calling, and as tending to stamp it as truly successful. How this knowledge of the necessity and value of His death was gradually developed in Him, we cannot now circumstantially trace, since our sources do not afford the material for it. But on the ground of the knowledge which, by means of the accounts in our Gospel-sources, we obtain in general as to the develop ment of Jesus and the inner connection of His ideas, we may safely assume that Jesus, at the beginning of His ministry, by no means so clearly saw the necessity of the painful death which He was actually to experi ence, as He evidently did at the closing period of His ministry; but yet, on the other hand, the general thought of the necessity of His suffering did not emerge during the course of His ministry, or at its close, as a new and strange element in His conscious ness. The idea that the members of the kingdom of God must, for the sake of the heavenly blessings of salvation, practise renunciation of earthly happiness and wellbeing, and, in their dutiful exercise of love in serving one another, must humble themselves, were from the first indissolubly connected with the collect ive view of Jesus in regard to the nature of the kingdom of God, of the respective value of earthly and heavenly blessings, and of the true nature of righteousness. And if Jesus yet from the first under- 2 20 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH, stood His Messiahship, not in a vague general way, but in definite reference to the kingdom of God to- be taught and established by Him, wherein the true filial relationship to God and the filial conduct towards God should be fully and clearly manifested, He must also from the first have been clear of this, that it belonged to His mission to give true proofs of this resignation of earthly goods for the sake of the heavenly, and of this unselfish self-sacrificing service and self-humbling in favour of others. The inward reconciliation of the resolution as to this renunciation and this self-denial on the one hand, and the tradi tional ideal of the Messiah on the other, must have been attained by Him already during the temptation- period immediately after His baptism. Thereafter He immediately began His renunciatory, self-consum ing ministry, His homeless wandering, His loving, helpful teaching and healing, without aiming at favour or reward, His voluntary endurance of toil and want* of mockery and contempt, in the consciousness that what, from an earthly point of view, was renunciation and humiliation, was just what constituted His great ness and glory. This voluntary renunciation of the pursuit and retention of earthly goods and wellbeing for their own sake, and this readiness to serve otherSj, shown amid self-denial and self-sacrifice, were only different in degree, not in nature and in principle, from the undertaking of specific sufferings for the sake of His calling in reference to the establishment of the kingdom of God, since the avoidance of such sufferings would be at the cost of the denial of His calling and the neglect of the duty of His calling. In this sense DEVELOPMENT OF IDEA OF SUFFERING. 221 we can say that, from His very entrance upon His Messianic career, the necessity of suffering in His calling was a settled conviction in the mind of Jesus. But the knowledge of this general necessity of suffering, and the implicit resolve eventually to yield up even His life for the vocation, was not necessarily connected from the first with definite ideas in regard to the nature and amount of the renunciation and suffering necessary for the vocation. It could even coexist with the joyful hope of such a success for the Messianic message of grace, that the Messiah should attain, not certainly to royal earthly prosperity and splendour, but yet to gratitude and recognition from men, and that He should be spared, not certainly the duty of continued toil, service, and renunciation, but yet the experience of specially hard sufferings and persecutions leading to death. The knowledge of the necessity of suffering of the particular nature and intensity which actually fell to His lot, can only have developed gradually in Jesus in the course of His ministry. The longer and the more definitely He grew conscious of the fact, that He should find for His message of the kingdom of God a right understanding, permanent acceptance, and inspiring love on the part only of a very few, that, on the contrary, the great mass of the people would meet Him with indifference and neglect (cf. His pronouncing of woes, Luke x. 13-15), or would crowd about Him with merely external motives and hopes, without inward under standing and without truly devout moral earnestness, and that the leaders of the people would be the bitter 222 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. enemies of His person and His teaching, and in their anxious care for their own power and authority would make every effort to obstruct His influence and to thwart His success, — the knowledge must have been forced upon Him with increasing clearness, that He could not hope for a peaceful regular expansion of His teaching and of the establishment of the kingdom of God thereby, but that, on the contrary, fearful con flicts and persecutions lay before Him, and that His life must be yielded up in the cause of the kingdom of God. His remembrance of the fate of so many of the earlier prophets, who had been slain by the leaders of the Israelitish people (Luke xiii. 33 f. ; cf. xi. 47 ff.), and His observation of the tragic end, transpiring even then, of the work of the Baptist, who had been sent by God as the Elias for the preparation of the Messianic kingdom, and whom men had yet treated according to their own ungodly caprice (Mark ix. 1 2 fi), must have confirmed His certainty that a similar prophet's fate was in store for Himself. As He set out upon His last journey to Jerusalem, with ; the clear assurance that the deadliest hatred there awaited Him, and yet at the same time with the resolve that now, when He had gained a little circle \ of appreciative adherents, He would openly announce His Messianic claim, He undoubtedly had the clear foresight that this would be the pathway to death (Mark x. 32 ff; Luke xiii. 32 ff.). But whilst this foresight of the catastrophe that threatened Him awoke and strengthened, He yet ever retained the conviction that in the conflict that lay before Him the kingdom of God could not be crushed, but would DEVELOPMENT OF IDEA OF SUFFERING. 223 rather attain to victory, and that His death, for the sake of His Messianic calling, would not bring detriment, but rather furtherance to the kingdom of God. Since, on the one hand, the general principle held good for Him that no might of the enemy could injure the members of the kingdom of God (Luke x. 19), but God would make it turn out for their salva tion, yea, even earthly injury would be made to result in their true welfare, and since His assurance of the Messianic vocation received from God was subject to no vacillation or doubt, He could also, in reference to the most dreadful earthly fate which threatened Him as Messiah, maintain the trustful assurance that men could not so deal with Him in opposition to the will of God and in opposition to the object of His Messianic calling, but that, if God allowed this to happen to Him at the hands of men, it would be necessary and full of blessing for the Messianic purpose of the establishment of the kingdom of God. Yea, the more we consider how greatly this trustful view of Jesus in regard to His death ran counter to all external appearance, the more noble appears the calm certainty with which Jesus repeatedly gave expression to this view. 2. Mark relates that, from the point of time when the disciples by the mouth of Peter recognised Him as Messiah, Jesus spoke to them frankly and repeatedly of the necessity of His sufferings, His rejection by the elders and the chief priests, and of His being put to death1 (viii. 31 fi; ix. 9, 12, 31 ; x. 32 ff. ; cf. Luke 1 In regard to the reason for the bringing in at this particular point of time of the announcement of the sufferings of Jesus, see above, vol. i. p. 387. 2 24 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. xvii. 25). When Peter, because of this strange and incomprehensible announcement of suffering (cf. ix. 10, 32) began to rebuke Him, Jesus on His side repelled him with the words of rebuke: "Get thee behind me, Satan : for thou savourest not the things that are of God, but those that are of men " (viii. 32 f). Just because Peter's protest arose not from pure personal interest for the welfare of Jesus, but from an interest for His Messianic significance and activity, to which rejection and putting to death by the heads of the people of the promise seemed to stand unalterably opposed, Jesus recognised in it a temptation which at that juncture was dangerous, certainly not for Himself, but for His disciples on whom He had turned His look (ver. 33). Whilst Peter meant to express a specially ideal conception of the Messiah and a specially devout trust in God, when he set up the assertion that the Messiah ought not to undergot;] earthly sufferings and persecutions, but should be borne forward by God to miraculous deliverance and victory, Jesus declared that this idea was one which corresponded, not to the thoughts of God, but to the thoughts of men. For whoever rightly recognised the character of God and of His kingdom, and of the true righteousness in the kingdom, must judge that even the Messiah could not seek His greatness in the kingdom of God in the increase and unimpaired main tenance of earthly welfare and prosperity, but must manifest it in the abandonment of all earthly goods, even of earthly life, for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. In this sense Jesus connects, with the an nouncement of His own earthly sufferings, the teaching RELATION OF HIS DEATH TO MESSIANIC WORK. 225 for all His disciples, that whoever will follow Him must take up the cross, that is, must not be afraid of the ignominious and violent death of the martyr, since the possession of true life is forfeited by striving to retain the earthly life, whilst the true life is saved by yielding up the life for the sake of the gospel (ver. 34 fi). Hereby Jesus lays down a general rule for all members of the kingdom of God, and by it He also judges Himself and explains His own sufferings and death. When He declared (ver. 31) the neces sity of His sufferings and of His. being put to death, He meant not only that this fate was unavoidable in spite of its incompatibility with His Messianic calling, but that it was decreed by God because, on account of the nature of the kingdom of God which He was to set up, it formed part of His Messianic calling. The conviction of Jesus, that His impending suf ferings would be the source of a mighty furtherance of the kingdom of God on earth, finds first of all remarkable expression in a saying recorded in the Logia: " I have come," says Jesus, "to cast fire upon the earth ; and what will I if it be already kindled ? I have a baptism to be baptized with ; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished ! " (Luke xii. 49 fi). He knew that He was called to bring a new energy and movement into the world, which mightily seizes and draws everything towards it, as a hurled fire brand, which, wherever it falls, kindles a flame which expands into a vast sea of fire. As yet He sees nothing of the mighty conflagration to be produced by the brand which He throws; the fire shines as yet within narrow bounds. Whilst, however, He is vol. 11. p 2 26 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. filled with the ardent desire that the bright flame may break forth, He yet knows that this will not be possible without a previous conflict with the oppos ing elements. Therefore, along with the extended success which will certainly result from His work, the suffering impending for Himself looms up before the eye of His mind. He feels Himself urged to the. speedy accomplishment of this baptism of suffering, not by any means that Pie may merely get over the pain of it, but rather in order that through the con flict in which He shall suffer and fall, the cause for which He suffers may be furthered, and the fire hurled by Him on earth may break into a mighty flame. The assurance of Jesus (which in this LogiarJ passage is only expressed indirectly through the progress of the thought), that His baptism of suffer ing would not serve to destroy His work, but would rather further it, was still more clearly expressed by Him in the passage in Mark, where, in connection with the admonition to His disciples not to seek their greatness and superiority, like the great ones of the world, in the exercise of sovereignty and power over others, but in loving humility and service of others, He says of Himself: "For the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Mark x. 45). It is noteworthy that here also Jesus sets His own service and the giving up of His life in analogy with the mode of action which His disciples should exercise. He Himself acts in accordance with what is the general rule in the kingdom of God. But this THE DEATH OF JESUS AS A RANSOM. 227 thought is by no means in His consciousness con tradictory of the other thought that His own mode of action benefits the other members of the kingdom of God, and has a blissful significance for the welfare of the kingdom of God as a whole. For inasmuch as the general rule of the kingdom of God prescribes loving service on behalf of others, the Messiah, whose special vocation referred to the establishment of the kingdom of God among men, by His obedience to that general rule, would perform such a ministry of love, as would attain a blissful significance for the kingdom of God as a whole. But now how far does Jesus in this passage imply that the approaching surrender of His life to death has a saving signific- ence, and pertains to the great mission of service which as Messiah He exercised on behalf of others ? We must first of all hold that the designation of the surrender of His life as a surrender for the ransom of others, is manifestly conditioned by the previous utterances in regard to the lordship and authority exercised by the earthly great ones, and the service to be exercised by the members of the kingdom of God, inasmuch as the idea of ransom, whereby the freedom of a slave is bought, has also a reference to the relation ship of service. As Jesus seeks to characterise His procedure in the sharpest contrast to that of earthly rulers, who subdue and dominate others, He says of Himself, that not only does He not suffer Himself to be ministered to, but He rather ministers for others, and even gives His own life in order to free many others from a state of servitude. In this surrender of His life for the purpose of ransoming others 2 28 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. lies the highest proof of His unselfish purpose of service.1 1 In regard to the explanation of the word I remark the following. The word hvrpos has at all events first and generally the signification, " ransom-price,'' i.e. the means of purchasing freedom, whether this means of purchase consist in real money or in any other valuable gift or performance. So the LXX. have also used the word to translate different Hebrew words which denote this idea of "ransom" (rr?X3, Lev. xxv. 24, 41 ; ifla, Num. iii. 46, 51 ; p"|S, Ex. xxi. 30; D^"T3, Num. iii. 49; cf. "i^rtO, Isa. xiv. 13). That the word 133, which properly means "pro tective covering," is also in several places rendered by -Kxnpus (Ex. xxi. 30; xxx. 12; Num. xxxv. 3 if.; Prov. vi. 35; xiii. 8), is easily to be explained, from the fact that the means of protection in certain cases can be as well taken in the sense of a means of deliverance (e.g. Ex. xxi. 30; cf. Ps. xlix. 8f. ; Job xxxiii. 24). In consideration of this usage of the LXX., I cannot, however, hold it as correct when A, Ritschl (Lehre von der Rechtfertigwig u. Vers. ii. p. 68 ff., 3rd ed.), and, following him on this point, G. Runze (remarks on Mark x". 45 in the Zeitschr. J. wissensch. Theol. 1889, p. 148 ff.), consider it certain that the word hvrpos in our passage is to be interpreted by, and in the sense of, the Hebrew word 133. If the Septuagint \irpos consistently 1 expressed the Heb. 133, the case would be different ; but as this is not so, we must in our passage, in so far as we would have regard to the use of Aramaic on the part of Jesus, first of all presuppose that Jesus used such an Aramaic word as indicated the idea of "ransom-price," just as -Kvrpoa does ; and only if in this most direct and simple explana tion we reached a sense which did not fit in with the connection of the passage, and did not correspond with Jesus' mode of view elsewhere given, should we have to bring the more remote possibility into account. Now, it appears to me, as I have said above, that the con nection of our passage makes specially for the signification of " ransom- price," so far as the idea of buying for others freedom from servitude 5 stands in expressive contrast to the idea of the subjection and servitude of others. That by the supposition of such a meaning of "ransom- price," a meaning arises out of the whole passage which harmonises ; very well with the mode of view of Jesus as we otherwise know it, I will set forth more fully above. On the signification of ^.irpas, however, our understanding of the meaning and reference of the following words dvrl iroh\as are essentially dependent. The preposition dni serves to indicate the idea of exchange ; and either in the signi fication of " instead " it denotes the entrance of a thing or person in the place of another who fails or ceases (so Matt. ii. 22 ; Luke xi. 11 ; John i. 16; 1 Cor. xi. 15 ; Jas. iv. 15), or in the signification of "for" it denotes the remuneration of an action or gift by an equiva lent doing or giving (so, e.g., Matt. v. 38 ; Rom. xii. 17 ; Heb. xii. 16: THE DEATH OF JESUS AS A RANSOM. 229 But in what sense can He have meant the service- relationship of many others, and the significance of His own yielding up of life as a means of purchasing the freedom of many from their state of service ? If, in answering this question, we do not allow our judgment to be directly influenced by the remem brance of the ideas of the apostles, and the dogmatic theories of later Christianity in regard to the saving significance of the death of Christ, but first seek to obtain an explanation of the saying in question, merely in connection with Jesus' own ideas, as ¦credibly recorded for us elsewhere in the Gospels, and specially with His own utterances elsewhere in regard to His Messianic task and significance, we find, as it seems to me, its nearest analogy, and 1 Pet. iii. 9). How necessary it is to keep these two senses separate may be shown by one example from Heb. xii. 2 : dsrl rq; irpoxa/iisw icapac iiriftusis eravpoii, where the meaning "instead" gives a wrong sense, whilst the true sense is that Jesus has endured the cross in order to obtain, as a reward for this suffering, the joy set before Him. If, now, Xvrpos is understood at our passage in the sense of the Heb. "133 as "means of protection," the dsri must, of course, be taken in the first signification "instead," and cannot bring the words «»t! irtiKhus into relation to the object of giving, but only to the subject of the giving or the coming ; for then the sense cannot be, He gives His life as a means of protection, instead of giving many other persons, but only, He gave His life as a means of protection, instead of letting many others (vainly) seek to give such a means of protection (cf. the explanation of Ritschl and Runze). If, on the contrary, we hold the meaning of Corpus to be " ransom-price," it is self-evident that the &sri must be understood in the second signification as "for," and the words dsri iro-Khus are imme diately connected with -Kvrpos, since the idea of the ransom requires a reference, expressed or understood, to a person or thing, for whose deliverance the ransom-price is paid ; i.e. in this case the meaning of Jesus' words cannot be, He gives His life as a ransom instead of many others doing, or trying to do it, whence, however, it still remains doubtful who or what is made free by the ransom ; but the sense must be, He gives His life as a ransom for many, i.e. as a means whereby He obtains the deliverance of many. 23O SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. therefore its best explanation, in that other saying of Jesus, which He has given in the full consciousness of the unique significance of His person for men resting upon His perfect filial relation to God: " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart : so shall ye find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matt. xi. 28-30). The analogy of this saying to that which we are considering, consists in the fact that here, as there, Jesus brings in the signification of being able to free men from the pressure of a servile condition;? and, on the other hand, that in this Logia-passage He ascribes this saving significance for others to His course of action, specially as it was manifested in regard to earthly sufferings and hardships ; and, in our passage in Mark, He similarly views His vocation-! work spent in self-humiliation and service, in so far as it finds its highest manifestation in His earthly suffering and death. Now, in view of this analogy,'! we may first of all conclude that, in our passage in Mark, the servile relation, from which He declared many would be freed by the surrender of His life as a ransom, was regarded by Jesus as the same in kind with that oppressive condition of toil and burdening mentioned in Matthew, which He promises to trans mute into rest and refreshment by the imposition of His easy yoke : He meant the condition of oppres sion by and servitude on account of earthly sufferings, and also specially on account of death.1 This thought, ' Cf. vol. i. p. 230. THE DEATH OF JESUS AS A RANSOM. 23 1 that His life-work tended to deliver men from harm and suffering, was for Him a direct and necessary one. For as the Messiah He was called, according to the prophetic promises, " to proclaim release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, and liberty to them that are bruised" (Luke iv. 19). But we can therefore also conclude that Jesus regarded the realisation of this deliverance of others from their sufferings by means of His acts, or His sufferings, in the same way in Mark as in that Logia-passage : He meant the inward deliverance from the pressure of sufferings, which He taught from the example of His own course of action. He did not externally remove the sufferings, burdens, and bondage of men ; but He showed them how, by a knowledge of the loving fatherly character of God and of the heavenly life of blessing to which men are called by God (cf. Luke x. 20-22), men may overcome by upright submission and patience the earthly sufferings sent by God, so that those trials cease to be really evil and hurtful (Luke x. 19), and rather become means of blessing and of inward strengthening. So also, by the voluntary God -consecrated sacrifice of His life to sufferings and death, He delivers from their bondage to suffering and death many, namely, all those who will learn of Him ; He teaches them by His example to raise themselves inwardly, through pious humility and assurance of salvation, and so to transform death from being a dreaded foe to a means of salvation. This inward deliverance from sufferings and death is regarded by Jesus, not as a mere imaginary figur ative thing, but as the true and highest deliverance, 232 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. because it manifests itself as such when man looks upon earthly sufferings and earthly death from the standpoint of God and the heavenly life.1 But, then, can this service rendered by Jesus for others, by His teaching and enabling them, by the example of His voluntary God-consecrated life-sacri fice, to become inwardly freed from the pressure of earthly sufferings and of earthly death, be considered as a ransom given for them ? Does the work of Jesus stand as the fit equivalent of the blessing sought through means of it, or does His life stand as the fit equivalent of the many who will be delivered through the sacrifice of His life, as must be the case if His death can rightly be styled the ransom-price of their deliverance ? And who could be regarded as the personal potentate or taskmaster to whom the many are in bondage, and who would receive that ransom-price in order to let them free ? Neither the devil nor God could be the receiver of this ransom ; it must be Death, who yet cannot be regarded as a real personality ; and, indeed, according to our explanation it was not at all an external, but an inward freedom from the dominion of death, which was meant, and which is accomplished in the con sciousness of men. Does not this explanation make shipwreck on this impossibility of strictly carrying out in that way the idea presented under the concep- 1 This explanation accords essentially with the results of Ritschl's explanation ; only, as it seems to me, it reaches this result in a shorter way. Also the analogy of the passage, Job xxxii. 23 f., is thoroughly available for this explanation, in so far as it is there assumed that the mediating angel, who perhaps can deliver men from death, will effect this deliverance through His preaching of the truth. THE DEATH OF JESUS AS A RANSOM. 233 tion of the ransom ? Over against this question is to be set the assertion that the incorrectness of this explanation of the passage cannot be proved from the impossibility of perfectly carrying out this idea of ransom, but rather conversely, from the explanation of the passage which is established as the correct one by the connection of the passage itself and the analogy of Jesus' utterances elsewhere, we infer that it is wrong to attempt so to interpret the idea of the ransom, as if it were not used in a figurative, but in a literal sense. Church tradition has no doubt always proceeded, in explaining this passage, upon the assumption that if Jesus here deemed His life- sacrifice as the payment of a ransom, this thought must be carried out in all relations. But this assumption must be disputed. It is by no means a praiseworthy preciseness of explanation, but rather the transgression of a weighty hermeneutical principle, if it is sought to interpret, in all relations, such a figurative conception as that of the ransom, in its application to an event bearing upon the establish ment of the kingdom of God. We need only inquire into one point of the comparison, on account of which the illustrative figurative expression was used, whilst it must be said at the outset, that, from the great difference of circumstances which come into con sideration in the establishment of the kingdom of God, from those under which a ransom requires to be paid among men, a further detailed application of the comparison would lead to absurdity. But this one point of resemblance to that which is effected in human relation by the payment of a ransom, lies 234 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. in the deliverance from bondage which Jesus effects by His self-sacrifice. If Jesus employs the figure of the ransom on account of this main point, that the ransom is a means of deliverance, He could leave quite out of account the circumstance that a ransom, i in human transactions of that kind, stands as the equivalent for the objects or persons to be ransomed, | and, in exchange for these, passes over into the possession of the person to whom the payment is made. In so far as Jesus entertained this great thought that the martyr-death, to which He went forward on behalf of His beneficent teaching, must itself prove a most important means of teaching, since it was the greatest and most decisive proof of the pious and dutiful conduct by which He, during His whole public ministry, manifested Himself as the first and the perfect member of the kingdom of God, and clearly exhibited the meaning and truth of His message of the kingdom of God, it was no longer for Him a vague foreboding, but a well-founded | pious certainty, that what men designed to do for the destruction of His work and its results, would in reality tend to further His Messianic work, and definitively to establish the kingdom of God upon earth. In this sense, after He had, to the Jewish chief priests, represented, in the parable of the re bellious Vine-dressers, the guilt of their rejection of the messenger of God and the impending judgment of God for this guilt (Mark xii. 1-9), He applied to Himself, by prophetic foresight, the words of the Psalm : " The stone which the builders rejected has THE DEATH OF JESUS AS A COVENANT-SACRIFICE. 235 become the head of the corner ; this is the Lord's doing, and it is wonderful in our eyes" (ver. iof. ; Ps. cxviii. 22 fi). If the chief priests now slighted Him and removed Him out of the way, He would not thereby be really set aside, but rather become, by the decree of God, the sure foundation-stone of the building of the kingdom of God. In the same assurance, however, He also declared to His disciples at the last supper the significance of His approaching death. Here we have not as yet to inquire in what sense He designated, at the institution of the last supper, the bread and wine as His body and blood, and, as such, offered them for the use of His dis ciples, but only to ask how the sayings are to be under stood, which He uttered on this occasion in regard to the significance of the sacrifice of His body and blood in His death. Mark has recorded these sayings in the following form : " This is my body ; . . . this is my blood of the covenant which is shed for many " (xiv. 22, 24). Paul, on the other hand, gives it as follows : " This is my body . . . for you ; this do in remem brance of me ; . . . This cup is the new covenant in my blood ; this do ye, as often as ye drink it, in remem brance of me" (1 Cor. xi. 24 fi).1 To which of these two texts the greater originality is to be ascribed, can scarcely be determined. The points of essential moment for the meaning are, however, given in harmony in both places, namely, that Jesus ascribed to His death partly in general a saving significance 1 Cf. L. J. i. p. 344. On the original form of the text in Luke, which was determined by its relation to a portion of the Logia, and became extended by later interpolation in accordance with the Pauline text of the words of the last supper, see Log. § jftb, L.J. i. p. 172 f. 236 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. "for," that is, in favour of, His disciples (or for many) ; partly, again, a more special explanation or reference was given to this saving significance when He designated His blood as the "blood of the Covenant " (or the cup as the " new covenant in His blood"). By these last words Jesus set His death in analogy to the sacrifice, which, according to Ex. xxiv., Moses offered in solemn confirmation of the legal covenant between Jehovah and the people of Israel. The Old Testament account tells that Moses, after receiving the revelation of the law of God, built an altar, and assembled all the people for the offering of a burnt-offering and thank-offering (vers. 1-5) ; He sprinkled one-half of the blood of the slain oxen upon the altar (ver. 6) ; but with the other half, after the reading of the law, and after the solemn assurance of the people that they would obey this law, he sprinkled the people, saying, " This is the blood of the covenant, which Jehovah hath made with you concerning all these words" (ver. 7fi). Now, since Jesus knew that the promise of the prophet Jeremiah (xxxi. 30 ff.) — of the new covenant with the people Israel, which Jehovah would establish in the coming period of blessing, instead of the covenant made with the fathers- was fulfilled through His preaching and founding,; of the kingdom of God, He declared, in the words at the last supper, that His death was a sacrifice, which served for the definitive ratification of this new covenant, even as that sacrifice offered by Moses did for the ratification of the old covenaut. What par ticular meaning and purpose then had this covenant- THE DEATH OF JESUS AS A COVENANT-SACRIFICE. 237 sacrifice ? When one considers that in the Old Testament account throughout there is no reference made to the sins of the people, but that it is much rather expressly characterised as a burnt-offering and thank-offering, we must judge that this sacrifice was meant to be a valuable offering to God, whereby the grateful assent of the people to His revealed law was expressed, and whereby the covenant -relation granted by Him was sealed. The sacrifice was meant both to testify in principle and in form the promise of the people to keep obediently the ordin ances of God, and in a manner to bind God also, on His side, to regard the covenant as concluded, and to maintain its ordinances and promises, — not, of course, in the sense of the offerings of the people to /God, which sealed the ratification of the covenant, being an equivalent for His relations and saving benefits that had been received, or were further to be expected. So also Jesus, in declaring His own death to be the sacrifice of the new covenant, re garded that death as a valuable and well-pleasing offering or service to God, whereby the new and perfect relation of fellowship and blessing between God and men, denoted in the conception of the kingdom of God, would be brought to an established condition. He thereby regarded His death as virtual obedience to God, in which the conduct required by God of the members of His kingdom was represented as fulfilled, and accordingly He also viewed His death as a pledge that God would on His side keep faithfully to this gracious relation, and would perform His promises of blessing to the members of the 238 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. kingdom. So far as Jesus made the purpose of His Messianic work on earth as a whole refer to the establishment of the kingdom of God, and so far as He viewed His death, which He accepted on behalf of His Messianic work in devotedness to God and in love to men, as the final culmination of His work, the completed proof of what He had declared and wrought in His teaching and life, He could ascribe to His death in a special sense the significance which be longed to PI is work as a whole : the significance of accomplishing the establishment of the kingdom of God for the benefit of men. Thus He could declare that His blood was the blood of the new covenant which was shed for many, that His death was a sacrifice offered to God in the promulgation of the new covenant, and for the purpose of the permanent ratification of this covenant — a sacrifice whose bene ficial influences would bring blessing to many, namely, j to His disciples as the members of the kingdom of God. Whilst in the saying as to the "ransom" He denoted the saving significance of His death, inas much as His death was efficacious as an instructive example to the members of the kingdom of God to deliver them inwardly from the power of death, He in the words at the last supper indicated this saving significance, inasmuch as His death is efficacious towards God as a valuable service rendered to God, in order to determine Him to faithfully maintain the blissful fellowship He had promised, and to vouchsafe His salvation to the disciples. He thought of a reward — to follow, not according to a legal standard, but according to the inexhaustible goodness and ITS RELATION TO THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 239 grace of God — for the sacrifice offered by the founder of the new covenant with blessings to the members of this covenant. Already in the Old Testament legislation there stood the promise of God to reward, with mercy to thousands, the faithfulness of those who kept the covenant (Ex. xx. 6) ; how could not Jesus, with His still higher idea of the mercy and faithfulness of God, entertain also the certainty that God would superabundantly repay, with blessing to thousands, namely, to all members of the community of His kingdom, the perfect obedience of His beloved Son, the pure manifestation of the righteousness of the kingdom of God in the death of the Messianic preacher and founder of this kingdom ? 3. By His disciples in the apostolic period, who, through the continual repetition of the supper insti tuted by the Lord in remembrance of His death, continued in lively remembrance of His words spoken at the institution of the supper, this thought of Jesus, that His death served as the sacrifice of the new covenant, and would be rewarded with Divine bless ings to the covenant community, has not only been accepted and handed on, but has also been remodelled in the particular relation of their giving to His sacri ficial death a special significance for the forgiveness of sins to those who trustfully join themselves to Jesus. His blood was to be poured out, not only on behalf of His disciples in a general way, and for the confirma tion of the new covenant, but it was to serve to insure this covenant for sinners, so that, in spite of their sins, even they could trust in the availability of the covenant, and the receiving of saving benefits. 24O SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. Paul, who has expressed with special emphasis this view of the saving virtue of the death of Christ, and has made it the foundation of His whole gospel, was conscious that the preaching of Christ's having died for sinners was not a doctrine peculiar to Himself; which he represented in distinction from the early apostles, but a doctrine which was handed down to him by the early Christians, and which he taught in common with them (1 Cor. xv. 3). Certainly for him also the weightiest authority for this doctrine lay in the words of Jesus at the last supper, since he regarded it as self-evident that the saving virtue of the death of Christ here denoted by the conception, " for you," referred to the point in which the Church above all needed this saving virtue, that is, for their sins. And so already the author of our first Gospel has himself added the words, "for the forgiveness of sins," to the words of Jesus at the last supper (Matt. xxvi. 28), certainly not in the consciousness that this was a free addition, but in the conviction, founded on the apostolic tradition, that hereby that was only explicitly denoted which was implicitly said in the declaration of the blood being the blood of the new covenant shed for many. I believe also that this interpretation and appli cation of the words of Jesus is quite justifiable from the standpoint of the Christian Church. For when Christians receive the thought of Jesus that God in His grace rewards, with blessings to the Church, the obedience of Jesus manifested in His death, and if, on account of the greatness and purity of the obedience rendered by Jesus, and on account of the infinitude ITS RELATION TO THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 24 1 of the grace of God, they hold as inexhaustible those blessings founded on the death of Jesus, so, in their knowledge, occasioned by their continual conscious ness of guilt, that all manifestations of Divine grace to them depend on sin-forgiving grace, the manifesta tions of Divine grace founded on the death of Jesus also refer primarily to the forgiveness of sins, and they find the peculiar value of the thought of these beneficial effects of the sacrificial death of Jesus in the fact that men who are troubled by the conscious ness of their sins gain on account of the death of Jesus a heightened confidence in the sin-forgiving grace of God. But from this application, made by the Christian Church, of the thought of Jesus, we must now, however, in our purely historical treatment of the teaching, strictly distinguish the contents of the thought expressed by Jesus Himself. Jesus Himself has, neither in the words at the last supper nor elsewhere, expressed this special reference of the saving significance of His death for the benefit of the forgiveness of sins. We must not confound the idea that sin hinders fellowship between men and God, a*nd that all men are and continue to be in need of the forgiveness of their sins by God in order to become partakers of the Divine blessings in God's kingdom, with the idea that in the death of Jesus lies the means for the existence of the sin-forgiving grace of God towards sinners ; and from the indubitable certainty that Jesus taught that former idea,'1 we must not straightway conclude that He must also have held this latter idea. When Jesus, at an earlier period of 1 Cf. vol. i. p. 2 iof. vol. 11. Q 242 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. His teaching, referred to the forgiveness of sins, He then by no means spoke of His own mediating significance for the reception of this grace (cf. Mark ii. 5; Luke vii. 47fi ; x. 4; xv. 1 1 ff . ; Matt, xviii. 2 3ff); but when, in these words at the institution of the last supper, He declared the significance of His death as a means of blessing, He then gave no ex press reference to the forgiveness of sins. And also we must not say that in this sense it is yet self- evident that the blissful sacrificial significance of His death, which He designated in general terms, bears to be applied specially to the forgiveness of sins. For not every sacrifice, with which beneficial effects given by God for men are connected, is a sin and guilt-offering, and indeed the sacrifice of Moses at the solemn ratification of the legal covenant, to which Jesus made special reference, as we have already remarked, is not designated a sin or guilt-offering, but a burnt and thank-offering-. And as little as that Old Testament promise of God — that the faithfulness of those who keep the covenant will be rewarded with mercy to thousands — presupposes that these thousands are such unfaithful members of the cove nant, that, on account of their sins, they are in quite a special way dependent upon that gracious recompense of the fidelity of others, so little did Jesus need to have employed the general thought that His death will be rewarded by God with blessings to His Church with special reference to the bestowal of the forgive ness of sins upon His disciples. Therefore, if we would settle what was the original thought of Jesus, we must expressly leave it in the generality in which He ITS RELATION TO THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 243 . expressed it, and must decidedly bring out that the special reference of the beneficial effects founded on the death of Jesus to the blessing of forgiveness, though also indirectly included in the general declara tion of Jesus, was yet first of all expressed after wards by the company of His disciples. It is quite inadmissible, however, to introduce into the system of thought of Jesus the theory afterwards formed in the Christian Church, that in His sacri ficial death He rendered an equivalent for that which God remitted of human punishment or required from man as the condition of salvation, and thereby en sured the necessary presupposition for the continued existence of the sin-forgiving and beneficent grace of God towards men. That the reference of Jesus, in His words at the last supper, to the sacrifice offered by Moses at the ratification of the legal covenant in accordance with the general meaning which the Old Testament sacrificial offerings have, and in accordance with the special significance which belongs to this covenant-sacrifice according to the connection, cannot justify the ascription of that theory to Jesus, need not here be further enlarged upon. But even the indica tion of the fact that already in the time of Jesus the idea of the expiatory significance of sufferings for guilt, and of the substitutionary significance of the excessive sufferings of the righteous for the sins of others, was familiar to rabbinical Judaism,1 cannot make it entirely probable that Jesus regarded the 1 Cf. Weber, System der alt-synagogalen palastin. Theologie, p. 314. Schurer, Geschichte des judischen Volkes, ii. p. 466(transl., Div. II. vol. ii. p. 186). 244 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. saving significance of His death as mediated in this way. To us the knowledge of the rabbinical idea is very valuable for the explanation of some apostolic utterances regarding the saving significance of the death of Jesus. But Jesus Himself always con fronted the religious and moral views of the Jewish scribes with wonderful independence and consistency of judgment, and only recognised and accepted so much of these as accorded with the certain and uniform view of God which was in conformity with His revelation. But this idea of the vicarious signifi cance of His sufferings for the expiation of the sins of other men, whereby God gains the possibility of for giving their sins and bestowing His saving benefits, did not duly harmonise with Jesus' view of God. He who first conceived and saw with perfect purity and clearness the conception of the fatherly, spontaneous, forgiving love of God, did not limit this conception by the idea of the necessary interposition of His own service in order to establish the forgiving love of God.: for sinners. To Him it appeared from the beginning a thought obviously and necessarily connected with : the right knowledge of God, that God is uncondition ally ready to forgive sins to the penitent sinner who longs after fellowship with God and the salvation of God. And we need not suppose that at the close of His life He altered this certainty, of which He gave the most admirable expression in the parable of the Prodigal Son, into the idea that the penitent son returning to the Father could only certainly find forgiveness and salvation with the Father if a son . who had remained in the paternal house and in ITS RELATION TO THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 245 obedience to the Father, had first engaged himself for 'that lost brother in service and innocent sufferings, and so had given satisfaction to the righteousness of the Father. We would do flat injustice to Jesus, if we ascribed to Him this kind of idea of the necessity of His death for the foundation of the sin- forgiving grace of God, without having the slightest support for it in the sayings handed down from Him. But whilst we are thus aware that this theory in explanation of the saving value of the death of Jesus, which attained a wide extension in the Christian Church, was quite foreign to the consciousness of Jesus Himself, we must also guard against jumping directly to the conclusion that Jesus Himself ascribed to His death no peculiar saving significance at all for His disciples. But as Jesus claimed for His works in general the significance, that He, as the Messiah, standing in perfect filial fellowship with God, first and alone brought to other men the knowledge of the fatherly loving character of God, of the eternal life of blessedness, and of true righteousness, and as He regarded this significance of His work, not as in significant and non-essential, but as fundamental, and indispensable for obtaining the life of blessedness, in which the promised mediatorial significance of the Messiah for the Divine salvation of the latter day finds its grandest realisation ; so, as we have above seen, He was able in a quite special way to conceive of His death as a part of this work of preaching which tended to the salvation of men. And further, in the words at the last supper, He declared His death to be such a sacrifice as would form a sure seal, 246 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. of blissful import for His disciples, on the new covenant of the kingdom of God, — not in the idea that God needed this sacrifice in order that His saving grace might have existence, but yet in the assurance that His obedience, ratified by His death, because of the actual value which it has in God's eyes, would also become an actually operative motive for God to ratify PI is gracious will in the case of His disciples. The idea of this beneficial significance of His death for His disciples was, for the consciousness of Jesus, the presupposition for His being able to speak of the necessity of His death. For, according to His whole view of the world, this necessity could not have the sense that, under the present circum stances, it was an inevitable necessity to which even the Messiah must bow ; but it must rest on such an ordinance of God as was required by the purpose of the salvation of the kingdom of God. 4. So great an effort of the energy of His pious will did it cost Jesus to hold firm — in opposition to all external appearance, to all human calculation, and to the judgment of His disciples as well as His enemies — the view founded on trust in God, viz. that His death was a beneficial and necessary arrangement of God, we see from His inward conflict in Gethsemane (Mark xiv. 33-36). The value of His obedient and trustful acquiescence in the will of God directed to His death was not impaired but rather strengthened by the fact that He had to keep true to this acqui escence amid a full feeling of the severity of this destiny of death, not only of the fearfulness of the sufferings that were to light upon His person, but THE INWARD CONFLICT IN GETHSEMANE. 247 also of the greatness of the contrast in which, to all earthly view, the ignominious, premature conclusion of His life stood to His Messiahship and the success of His Messianic work. Certainly, even at an earlier period, since He had acquired a clear foresight of His impending martyr-death, Jesus had experienced and inwardly fought down the assault of human feelings and considerations which tended to shake His trust ful pious acquiescence in sufferings and death. In Gethsemane, however, this assault was most power fully felt, and the inward conflict of Jesus became known even to His trusted disciples, who at that time still lacked understanding in regard to the significance and severity of that hour. Only if the inner life of Jesus is viewed as standing out of all analogy to that of other men, can it be supposed that the clearness of the knowledge already previously expressed by Him as to the saving value and the necessity of His death must have sheltered Him from this hard conflict in Gethsemane, or that the fact of this hard conflict in Gethsemane furnished a proof that previously the idea of the saving significance and necessity of His death was but once or twice, and at the best only transiently, expressed by Him, but that He could not have admitted those ideas as permanent and clear com ponent elements of His religious consciousness and His instruction to His disciples. For a catastrophe, when immediately imminent, works upon human feeling with far other power than it did when viewed at an earlier period as only threatening and drawing near. The clearness of perception, gained at an earlier period, that the catastrophe was beneficial and 248 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. necessary, and the determination, achieved and held fast at an earlier period, because of its beneficial significance and necessity, not to shun it in a faint hearted way, but rather voluntarily and trustfully to submit to it, certainly served, at the decisive moment when the catastrophe was about to be realised, to facilitate the maintenance of this determination, but by no means caused the maintenance to follow as a matter of course, and without a struggle. For Jesus in Gethsemane the question was no longer if He must at all drink the cup of suffering, or if He, as Messiah, must not be saved from it ; the question was, if just this cup, which was held out to Him, was necessary-, just at this moment, or if God would not still let this cup pass from Him, and would deliver Him at that hour from mortal danger ? We must suppose Him void of all human feelings if we would not understand that, even though He had already previously gained and expressed the judgment born of steadfast, childlike trust in God, viz. that His death-sufferings for the sake of the gospel of the kingdom of God would in any case be beneficial for Himself and His work, yet now once more He was moved with terrible anguish at the incalculable magnitude of the torments which lay before Him, and, with anxious questioning as to whether the most dreadful kind of death was necessary for Him, and whether His separation from His voca tion-work already at that point of time would be bene ficial at a time when, according to human estimation, the conditions for the right advancement of His work and for a right understanding of His death-sufferings were not present even among the nearest circle of His DYING WORDS ON THE CROSS. 249 disciples. Even in Gethsemane, Jesus was not over come by the assault of these feelings and thoughts ; here also His humble acquiescence in the fatherly will of God held its ground, and He now, with calm decision, could give Himself into the hands of the betrayer and the officers, and before the tribunal was able with kingly dignity to make a confession of His Messianic claim, which brought upon Him the utmost derision and the most dreadful death, and with immovable patience He bore the torments which the wickedness and cruelty of men inflicted on His soul as well as His body. Also the exclamation of Jesus in His death-agony on the cross, " My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" (Mark xv. 34), must neither be interpreted as meaning that He had at last lost the hope, hitherto entertained, of a miraculous earthly deliverance by God, and had thus become confounded in regard to God and His Messianic ideal, nor even as meaning that He had fallen under the strange consciousness of experiencing punishment at God's hands, such as did not belong to Him, the innocent One, but only to guilty men. For, with the one as with the other signification, we should import into the words of the Psalmist, which Jesus appropriated, a quite new thought. By the being forsaken by God, for the reason of which He made anguished inquiry, the Psalmist meant the being forsaken by the help of God in regard to the sufferings and persecutions under which he languished. That he did not under stand the abandonment by God as an absolute one, is attested by the fact that he still regarded God as his God, that he addressed Him in prayer, and that in 250 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. course of the Psalm the ever more strongly increasing hope arises that he will at length be heard and delivered by God, and will yet be able to offer praise for this in the church. In the mouth of Jesus these words of the Psalm must have arisen out of the deepest despondency, as, along with His bodily strength, He felt the failing of that energy of the spirit which had hitherto inwardly upheld Him in view of sufferings, and which had been for Him the pledge of His fellowship with God. But this abandonment by God, which He experienced, was also for His consciousness not a complete deprivation of His fellowship with God in all respects ; and the anguished question, why God had left Him without. help, was also in His sense not an expression of entire loss of trust in God, but only a form of ardent desire and pleading supplication tliat God would once more grant Him His power and assistance. It would be a one-sided interpretation of the saying, if we brought out the one point that Jesus testifies His abandon ment by God, and if we understood this notion of abandonment in a completely general and absolute sense. There is at the same time the other point to be emphasised, that Jesus, even in the most dread extremity of death, firmly stayed Himself on God as His God ; and when He no longer inwardly enjoyed the blessing of fellowship with God, yet He was only filled with ardent longing for the power and exaltation of this fellowship, as He had at other times experi enced it. He who wrestles with death with such pious longing upon his lips has not fully lost his God, but rather presupposes a still abiding relationship to Him. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH IN ST. JOHN. 25 1 5. According to the discourses of the fourth Gospel, also, Jesus set His death in the closest relation to His Messianic calling, and the blissful effect which He ascribed to His work as a whole He especially attributed to this greatest act in it. He deemed, first of all, that His death was the highest proof of the unselfish loving interest with which He tried to minister blessing to His people. So He compares Himself to the good shepherd, who, in contrast to the hireling who is uninterested in the flock, and therefore leaves them in the lurch in the hour of danger, rather lays down His own life for the welfare of the sheep (x. 11-18). And so He repre sents His death-sacrifice as a specific example of the nature and intensity of the love, in which His disciples should resemble Him : " This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (xv. 12 fi). We must, however, in order more definitely to determine the sense in which the death of Jesus refers to the welfare of His people, have nothing to do with the allegorising interpretation of the comparison to the good shepherd, who gives himself up to the wolf; we would thereby only arrive at an arbitrary importation into the words of Jesus of our own thoughts otherwise obtained. The methodically correct explanation is, that, emphasis ing only one point of the comparison, we say : As the good shepherd, amid the dangers which arise for himself and the flock, rather sacrifices his own life than allows the sheep to be destroyed, so Jesus also, amid the hardships and conflicts w-hich arise to 252 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. prevent His carrying out the purpose of salvation for men, is ready to yield up His own life on behalf of the salvation of His people. But if we further ask, in how far the circumstances under which He yields up His own life, imperil the welfare of His people, and how far the sacrifice of His life contributes to preserve the welfare of His people, we shall be led to the simple answer by referring to the system of thought occurring elsewhere in the discourses' of the fourth Gospel : Jesus made it the aim of His whole calling on earth to lead men, by means of H is truth - revealing teaching, to eternal life ; but His work and its saving purpose were violently opposed by wicked, godless men who were under the dominion of the devil, and who sought to put Him to death on account of His preaching (cf. v. 18; vii. 19 ff. ; viii, 37, 40 ff. ; x. 31 ff. ; xv. 23-25) ; He could have saved His life if He relinquished and disowned the task of His vocation committed to Him by God, that is, His revelation-preaching, and thereby 1 abandoned His life-purpose of hoping to obtain the eternal life of blessedness for men ; but He acted otherwise, in the greatness of His love He gave up His own life to be the means of winning the life of blessing for men. His death also ministered to the welfare of His people, inasmuch as the work of His calling as a whole subserved that purpose, and as He must pay with his death for the exercise and accom plishment of His calling, whilst a timid withdrawal from the work of His calling would indeed save His life, but would stultify the saving purpose for whose realisation Pie was sent. In view of this connection SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH IN ST. JOHN. 253 of the thought, Jesus has also so strongly emphasised the spontaneity with which He yields Himself to death : " No man takes 1 my life from me, but I lay it down of myself ; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again" (x. 18). For He was conscious that this life-sacrifice is a free moral act in the way of His calling ; He did not consent to a mere inevitable destiny, but He voluntarily suffered death, since He expressly declined to take the possible way of saving Himself from death. But this voluntary acceptance of death was occasioned by His duty in His vocation. The commission which He knew He had received from His Father led Him on to accom plish His blissful work on behalf of men with loving self-sacrifice even to the yielding up of His life (x. 1 8b).2 1 Even if, according to ^13, jjpts is to be read instead of ai'pti, we must yet translate it in the present tense, for the perfect is there used, as it is several times elsewhere in the Johannine sources (cf. L.J. i. p. 301 ff.) in the sense of the Hebrew perfect, where the reality of a transaction or of a fact is to be indicated without reference to a definite time or only in its relation of precedence to another transaction or fact. In the above case, Jesus does not seek to declare, only with reference to the time which lay behind Him, that as yet no man has taken His life ; nor does He seek to make this statement with reference only to the present, but quite generally without reference to any definite time, and, indeed, so that the negation of the mere passive suffering of death at the hands of others appears as the preceding fact, whilst the fact of His own spontaneous surrender of life is made to follow. 2 The concluding words of ver. 18, raiirns rvjs iuro^s thafios irapd rou irarpk fiov, could not refer to the immediately preceding saying, in which, Jesus has regard to the surrender of His life in so far as He accomplished it by means of His freedom and the power granted to Him ; for the idea of freedom and power does not include the idea of a commission to which, however, the demonstrative pronoun points. Those concluding words could only refer back to the whole preceding account of the calling for which He had come (ver. 10), and of the devoted disposition in which He exercised this calling (ver. 11. ff). Of this His disposition in His calling He makes the twofold assertion in ver. 18, that He exercises it unconstrainedly, in moral freedom and power, and that He has a commission thereto from God. Cf. xiv. 31. 254 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. . But this thought of Jesus, that, in order to exer cise fully the beneficent work of His calling, He did not even avoid death, which threatened Him on account of this vocation-work, is now supplemented by the thought that His death is also a direct branch1 of His ministry. For since, by His preaching in general, Jesus effectively worked for the welfare of man, and indeed, directly through His preaching of the righteous dutiful conduct (the c\\rj&eia in the sense which we have repeatedly defined), His voluntary sacrifice of His life, as being the recognisable model for others of pious fulfilment of duty, formed an immediate part of His blissful preaching for others.' This thought was signified when Jesus set up His loving self-devotion as a model to His disciples of the love which they on their part must manifest (xv. 12 f.), and which would result in their gaining perfect enjoyment of blessing, and the granting of all their prayers on God's part (vers. 10 f. 16 fi). Still'more plainly, however, was this thought brought out in the words : " The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me ; but the world shall know that I love the Father, and so work as the Father has commis sioned me" (xiv. 30 fi).1 Here Jesus expresses that, in the mortal sufferings which lay before Him, there was a conflict in store for Him which might lead Him away to become unfaithful to His love to God, and His obedience to His calling in regard to God; inas much as He deemed these mortal sufferings to be an 1 On the concluding words in ver. 31, iytiptaSi, ayuftis isriuka, see L.J. i. p. 281. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH IN ST. JOHN. 255 assault of Satan.1 It appeared to Him an undoubtedly certain fact, of which He therefore spoke as of some thing already accomplished and actually realised, that the tempter had gained nothing in this assault : the prince of the world had nothing in Him, that is, He, Jesus, in this temptation so perfectly kept His obedience to God and His fellowship with God, that Satan, the governing power of the ungodly world, obtained no part in Him, and no power over Him at any point.2 In this certainty that He shall overcome in this impending conflict, He does not, however, treat it as a properly superfluous difficulty which might have been spared to Him; but He finds its purpose, 1 Cf. above, vol. i. 164. 2 The words, xal is ifiol oix 'ix,a ouiis, do not mean that the devil, on account of the sinlessness of Jesus hitherto manifested, possesses nothing of his own in Him, so that he cannot now justly bring Him into the power of death, if Jesus did not voluntarily surrender Himself to it. For, according to this meaning, the mortal suffering of Jesus would only be taken into account inasmuch as it was unmerited because of the previous righteousness of Jesus, and was not properly due to Him, but not inas much as it was itself the weightiest proof of the righteousness of Jesus. Taken thus, however, the words would not stand in an inner relation of thought to the immediately following and contrasted designation of the purpose of the mortal suffering of Jesus, namely, that the world should know His love to God and His obedience toward the commission of God. According to that meaning strictly applied, we must expect in the sequence of the thought that His mortal suffering was designed for the deliverance of others from the power of the prince of the world, since this thought would explain why, in spite of His not belonging to the devil, He was now in reality coming under the power of the devil. The continuation actually given, however, shows that those words — the prince of the world has nothing of his own in me — refer to His victorious repulsion of the temptations, through which Satan now sought to bring Him in His mortal sufferings into his power. The present t%ti is used just like the present 'ip%-rat, namely, instead of the future of a coming event, which was viewed as quite certain. Cf. the perfect, iyu stsixytxa ros xiofiou, xvi. 33, where the victory over the world, which is to be won in the impending conflict, is regarded as an already settled fact. 256 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. which God willed, in the fact that the world should recognise the greatness and purity of His love to the Father, and of His obedience to His Father in His calling. His death also was the means of conveying a beneficial knowledge to the world. The same thought we must further find expressed in the words of the high-priestly prayer, where, after the petition that God would preserve His disciples in the world from the evil, and would sanctify them in the truth, namely, in His revelation, which is truth (xvii. 15 ff), He follows up with the saying: "for them (i.e. on their behalf) I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth" (ver. 19).1 Jesus here says that the sanctification or consecration to God which He accomplishes for Himself tends to produce an analogous consecration to God in His disciples. Both the connection with the foregoing 1 words, in which He designated the righteous conduct (the d\r)8eia in contrast to the evil) which is founded 1 The is d\-i\hia at the end of ver. 19 must, in spite of the want of the article, be understood just like is rri d~hv\hia, ver. 17, i.e. by this addition to aais if/iaafiinoi it should not be said that the sanctification was to be given to the disciples, truly and not merely apparently, but that it was to depend on the dhiDtia, which in ver. 17 is designated as the foundation of their becoming sanctified, and as the contents of the revelation-word of God. This interchange of the dxiihia with and without the article, in spite of the idea retaining the same meaning, we find also at viii. 44 (is tj) dhyhia oux, 'iaryix-ts, on cvx iaris aKriatia ia avrS) ; viii. 45 ^ (T''''J d-h'/jOitas "hiya . . . dtiihias hiyu), and 3 John 3 f. (is d~h-t\foicp irtpiirarti; . . . is t-j5 dhYiatiif irtpiirarovsra) ; cf. also 2 Thess. ii. 12 f. (iriariiaants ryi d-KriQiicf. . . . iriarti d'Anllsias). This interchange between the use and the omission of the article is possible with the notion aK%hia, when it means right conduct in opposition to sin, because the particular right conduct which Jesus reveals, and which He seeks to establish in the hearts of His disciples, is identical with the right conduct in general. The notion hxaioavsvi can be similarly used with and without the article (Matt. v. 6 and 10). SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH IN ST. JOHN. 257 on the revelation of God, as the basis of the consecra tion, and also the special prominence given in the following words to this foundation of the consecration, leave no room for doubt that Jesus also regarded His own consecration to God as resting on the righteous conduct which corresponds to the perfect revelation of God. Now, if He also had the consciousness of having kept and sanctified Himself (cf. xv. 10) in the loving fellowship with God through His quite faithful fulfilment hitherto of His duty in the calling committed to Him by God, so in this utterance of the farewell- prayer He yet plainly makes special reference to the manifestation of obedience to His vocation which now lay before Him amid mortal conflict (xiv. 31), to which, on account of its special intensity, He ascribes in a special sense a sanctifying significance. To this same consecration of Himself to God, however, He attributes the purpose that His disciples also might be consecrated to God in righteousness. We should wholly sever ourselves from the circle of thought elsewhere attested in the Johannine discourses, if we regarded the attainment of this purpose as effected through any other means than His instructive example, which impelled the disciples to just such a faithful and dutiful mode of conduct — corresponding to the revela tion of God and conserving fellowship with God — as they observed in Jesus and specially in His sacrifice of His life. But this pious maintenance of love to God and obedience to God even amid the hardest conflicts (xiv. 30 fi), this faithful, dutiful conduct, retaining fellowship with God, serves also, according to Jesus' vol. 11. R 258 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. view, to bestow upon men an already present con sciousness of bliss in spite of all earthly misery. So Jesus finally can also ascribe to the conduct which He manifests in His mortal sufferings, the signifi cance of its teaching His disciples to gain for them selves a peaceful consciousness of bliss amid earthly trials. At the end of His farewell-prayer, in which He gave them His admonitions and promises for the future, He intimated to them the hardness of the separation which now lay before them, and the perse cutions which further threatened them, and at the same time the continuance of their blissful fellowship with Him and the Father. He said to them:; "These things have I spoken unto you, that in me (that is, in union with me and in obedience to my commandment, cf. xv. 5-10) ye might have peace; in the world ye shall have tribulation : but be of good cheer ; I have overcome the world " (xvi. 33). The overcoming of the world which Jesus here expresses of Himself does not consist in an elevation above the world to the eternal heavenly life which He experi enced as the sequel of His earthly life, but in the inward overcoming of the evils and conflicts of the world which He exhibited during His whole earthly life, and which He should manifest in the highest measure in His impending sufferings. He speaks of this inward overcoming of the world as of an already accomplished fact, since its future fulfilment appeared, in view of His steadfast determination thereto, as something already complete. But that He now makes this overcoming1 of the world, which He accomplishes in His person, a valid motive of en- SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH IN ST. JOHN. 259 couragement to His disciples in view of the tribula tions, which on their part they should experience in the world, is again only intelligible to us by means of this thought, that the example of His own inward overcoming of the world, through which, in spite of mortal suffering, He finds perfect peace and perfect joy, will enable His disciples, in the same way as Himself, to overcome the world, and to procure them selves perfect peace and joy. Thus we are here again led to the same view, which we formerly found in the words recorded in Mark (x. 45), that He gave His life as a ransom (that is, a means of deliverance) for many, and which occurs in the saying in the Matthew-Logia, that by His example of humble sub mission to the will of God He was able to bring rest and refreshment to all heavy-laden ones who would learn of Him (Matt. xi. 28 ff). Since Jesus thus understood His suffering and death as an essential part of His vocation-task, and as a significant branch of His revelation -preaching, which He knew He was called to impart to men for their salvation, He could gain the assurance that the blissful influences proceeding from Him to man kind would not be nullified by His death, but rather extended, as the dying of the grain of wheat in the ground is the means of a rich produce of fruit (xii. 24). And as He ascribed to His work of preaching in general the significance that thereby eternal life would be granted to the believing, but judgment would be ratified to the unbelieving world, so He could specially declare of His mortal suffer ings, as being the completion of His Messianic work 260 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. of preaching, that through them this wOrk of judg ment and that saving influence would be brought to completion. In this sense we must understand the words with which, when the desire of the Hellenic pilgrims to see Him brought His impending death vividly before His mind's eye (xii. 20 ff), He grappled with and overcame His inward emotion (ver. 27a).*' He will not pray to His Father to be saved from this hour of His mortal suffering presented to His Spirit, for He recognises the purpose for which He has come to this hour, and He prays the Father, that He would fulfil this purpose, namely, that the name of God, that is, the knowledge of the character and will of God, whose revelation and glorifying forms the purpose of His earthly calling (cf. xvii. 4, 6-8), might now be glorified in His death (xii. 27^ and 28a). And in the assurance that this prayer would be granted, He now indicates the significance and in fluence of His death : " Now is the judgment of this world ; now shall the prince of this world be cast out, and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, shall draw all unto me" (vers. 3 if.1; cf. xvi. 10 fi). The power and dominion of the devil would be broken, the prince of the world would be cast out of the world, when the wicked and unbelieving men (cf. viii. 41, 44) who adhered to the devil and fulfilled the will of the devil should be given over to judgment, and at the same time the holy will of God would come to realisation. That Jesus here regarded His death not 1 On the episode inserted by the redacting evangelist, vers. 28^-30 ; cf. L. J. i. p. 278. On the interpretation similarly given by the evangelist, ver. 33, which does not correspond to the sense grounded on the wording and connection of ver. 32, cf. L.J. i. p. 254. SIGNIFICANCE QF THE DEATH IN ST. JOHN. 26 1 as an isolated act of experience, which on account of its peculiar nature had also peculiar effects, but that, as we have previously explained it, He regarded it as a specific manifestation of His work of preaching, to which He made His Messianic task and saving significance in general refer, is clearly evident because of His bringing in, immediately after this declaration as to the significance of His death, the exhortation to use the light so long as one has the light (xii. 35 fi), and because, when He designated Himself as this light sent into the world, He connected with the verbal teaching committed to Him by God the same effects on the one hand judging, on the other hand leading to eternal life (vers. 44-50), as He formerly designated the effects of His death.1 Whilst in the discourses of the fourth Gospel the inward connection of the death of Jesus with His general Messianic work is made clearly prominent, and the saving significance of His death is under stood according to the analogy of the saving signi ficance of His Messianic work of teaching as a whole, there is absent here, just as in the synoptical dis courses, an expression of the thought that Jesus, by His mortal sufferings experienced by Him as inno cent, and borne by Him in pure obedience, has established a special foundation for the gracious will of God to the forgiveness of sins. The absence of this thought is the more remarkable, since not only does the evangelist who redacts the Johannine sources 1 On the original connection of the words xii. 44 ff. with ver. 35 f. which is broken up in the most disturbing way by the interpolation, vers. 36^-43, pointing back to the redacting evangelist, cf. L.J. i. p. 236 f. 262 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. put into the mouth of the Baptist the declaration that Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (i. 29, 36), but since also the author of the First Epistle of John, who must have been identical with the writer of the source of the Johannine dis courses, on his part presents this idea, which was so early and strongly implanted in the apostolic circle of thought, namely, that the saving significance of Christ was meant specially to refer to His mediation in regard to forgiveness of sins for men ( 1 John ii. 2 ; iv. 10). In the fact that the apostolic writer of the source of the Johannine discourses does not give this idea as uttered by Jesus Himself, and in this point also agrees with the synoptical reports of the teaching of Jesus, we ought not to see an accidental omission, '] which, in accordance with the contents of the First Epistle of John, we would be justified in simply supplying, but we must find in it a characteristic proof that the author of this Johannine source, with all his freedom in formally shaping the words of Jesus, yet did not simply construct the contents of the thought according to His own mode of view, but has rendered them on the ground of true recollections of the utterances of the historical Jesus Himself. 6. Our opinion, derived from the different gospel- sources, that the ideas of Jesus in regard to the necessity 'and saving significance of His sufferings and death were in inner harmony with His ideas of the nature and significance of His Messianic work in general, and with His collective religious view of God and His kingdom, must now, however, be still sup- JEWISH VIEW OF SUFFERINGS OF THE JUST. 263 plemented by the affirmation that this idea, of the necessity and saving value of the most dreadful sufferings and death, could only arise from this collect ive religious view, namely, the idea of the purity of the fatherly loving will of God, and of the distinction between the true eternal welfare of men and external earthly happiness, and of the inward righteousness manifesting itself in helpful love to men. We must recognise in this idea a specially new and character istic element of the teaching of Jesus which could not have belonged to the Old Testament Jewish religious view, since this did not possess the necessary condi tion for establishing it. It is certainly true that, even to the Old Testament Jewish consciousness, on the ground of the experiences which individuals and the people of Israel in general had made, the idea of the suffering of the just was not wanting: and as the Christian Church afterwards, in the impressive delineations of this suffering given in Ps. xxii. and Isa. liii., saw prophecies of the suffering of Christ, so Jesus Himself also without doubt had already found in these Scriptures a foundation for His idea of suffering and a confirmatory testimony to its truth. But yet we must not mistake the great difference between the Old Testament view of the suffering of the just and that of Jesus in regard to His own* suffering. There the just man suffers in spite of his being just ; his suffering is a great riddle which some times awakes the anxious question as to the Why and the How long, and the despairing idea of the arbitrary estrangement of God, and is sometimes explained from the idea of vicarious suffering of the innocent for 264 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH. the guilt of others, but which yet always finds its proper solution in the thought that a state of doubled earthly prosperity follows earthly suffering. The idea of Jesus of the necessity of suffering even for one who stands in perfect love and blessed fellowship with God, since earthly blessedness is not the true blessedness, and since a true piety is impossible without renuncia tion and stooping to minister to others, is unknown to the Old Testament. If later Judaism is also occupied with the idea of the suffering Messiah,1 it is yet true that this idea not only remained as a theological theory of particular Rabbins and at the time of Jesus was remote from the religious consciousness of the Jews, but especially also that the sorrows of the Messiah, which were supposed by the Jews to be possible, and which He must suffer at the head of His people in the time of conflict against the world- powers for the establishment of the Messianic king dom, and through which He would press on to victory and glory, are quite different in their kind from the sufferings which Jesus experienced at the hands of the leaders of the people, and to which He, judged externally, succumbed in death. In this idea that the earthly life-sacrifice of the Messiah was His necessary and greatest act, whereby His vocation-work was to be perfectly completed, and whereby, in spite of all outward appearance, the success of His work was not destroyed but confirmed, Jesus has drawn the highest consequence of His collective religious view. It would not be historically right were we to say that 1 Cf. Schiirer's History of the Jewish People, p. 464 ff. (transl., Div. II. vol. ii. p. 184); Baldensperger, Selbstbewusstseittjesu, p. I20ff. THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. 265 for His whole teaching this idea of the crucifixion formed the pivot as it did for the preaching of Paul (cf. e.g. 1 Cor. ii. 2 ; Gal. iii. 1 ). So far as we can judge from our sources, Jesus, only at the close of His ministry and only to the narrower circle of His dis ciples, gave instructions in regard to the necessity of His death, and only in particular significant utterances brought into prominence the beneficial value of His death, for the community of His disciples. But certainly this idea formed the culminating point of His teaching, which could only have risen to this height, where such a foundation existed as is laid in His collective teaching as to the kingdom of God. CHAP. IV. THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. 1. Along with the assurance that His death would result, not in the destruction, but rather in the strengthening and furtherance of His Messianic work, Jesus united the confident trust that His death would not bring real annihilation to His person, but rather heavenly life. This trust was not a manifestation of His special Messianic consciousness, according to which He, on account of His unique Messianic sig nificance, also held in prospect a unique victory over death ; but it was simply occasioned by the fact that He applied to Himself the view of salvation which He preached to others. For to His collective view of the kingdom of God belonged, as an essential element, the idea of the eternal heavenly life as the only true and enduring Good, for whose sake men 266 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. must give up all earthly goods, and to which His earthly death just formed the passage.1 So Jesus, according to Mark's account, at the close of the first announcement of His sufferings and death, repre sented, as of universal application, the rule according to which He judged His own surrender of life and gaining of life, and declared of His disciples : " Whoso- i ever will save his soul (i.e. his life) shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it " (Mark viii. 35). To this certainty of Jesus that through His earthly death He would reach the eternal heavenly life with God, is to be referred the assurance which, according to Mark's account, He conjoined with the announcements of His death, that after three days He would rise again (Mark viii. 31 ; ix. 31 ; x. 34 ; cf. ix. 9). Ecclesiastical tradition from earliest times has certainly interpreted these predictions of His rising again as of His appear ances after death to His disciples on earth. But though we easily understand that the Christians after wards saw in these appearances, which were held by them as certain facts of experience, the glorious fulfil ment of those sayings of Jesus, we must judge that these sayings originally and directly conveyed only the thought that Jesus would after the briefest delay be awakened from death to the heavenly life with God. When Jesus conversed with the Sadducees, on the sub ject of the resurrection in general, He set the earthly- sensuous view of the resurrection-life which was hypo- thetically supposed by the Sadducees, in opposition to this true view that those who were risen from the dead 1CL voLi. p. 215 ft". RESURRECTION AFTER THREE DAYS. 267 would be as the angels in heaven (Mark xii. 35). We must assume a similar resurrection-idea, when Jesus speaks of His own rising from the dead. Nor are we led away from this resurrection-idea by any accompanying utterance which at all points to a future appearance of Jesus to His disciples on earth. In the continuation of the prediction of His mortal sufferings and rising again, Jesus rather appends only that general rule of the necessity of saving the life by losing it (Mark viii. 35), which merely expresses this assurance, valid for Jesus as for all His disciples, that earthly death would be the means of their attaining eternal heavenly life. It is, moreover, to be remembered that in the oldest church testimony concerning the appearances of the risen Christ, viz. the discussion of Paul in 1 Cor. xv., the two ideas of the resurrection of Jesus and of His appearing are quite distinguished from one another; His resurrection (or awakening) is regarded as His rising up from the dead to the heavenly life by God in quite the same way as the rising which Christians are to expect for their departed ones, so that accordingly the conclusion can be drawn from the reality of the resurrection in the case of Christ to the possibility of the resurrection in general (vers. 12-18), and the certainty of the resurrection of all belonging to Christ can be also based upon the certainty of the resurrection of Christ (vers. 20-22); but the repeated appearances of Christ to His dis ciples after His death are accepted as a ground of knowledge of the reality of His having risen from the dead to the heavenly life with God (vers. 5-8). Even had the disciples of Jesus seen no miraculous appear- 268 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. ances of the risen Lord after His death, it would have still been possible for them to be convinced of the fulfilment of His predictions of His resurrection, in accordance with the general teaching of Jesus as to the eternal life of the members of the kingdom of God, in spite of earthly death and in accordance with the special application which He Himself expressly made of this teaching to Himself. At all events, we must conclude that the object of Jesus in the predictions of His resurrection was to produce in His disciples' mind after His death the conviction of His continued heavenly existence, without needing still to attest it by special miraculous appearances.1 We must measure the significance of these predic tions of Jesus of His resurrection after three days, by comparison with the views which, among the Jews and so also among the disciples of Jesus, were the traditional and prevalent ones. 1 The want of distinguishing between the ideas of the resurrection and of the appearing as risen, is the fundamental error of the discussion whereby W. Weiffenbach, in the closing section of his work, der Wiederkunftsgedanke Jesu, Leipzig, 1873, seeks to prove that Jesus Himself did not foretell on the one hand His resurrection, and on the other His parousia; but only in general predicted the approaching victorious reinstatement of His person after His death ; whilst the disciples referred the sayings which involved these general thoughts partly as supplementary to the appearances they saw of the Risen One, partly to a return of Jesus to be expected in the future ; and, in accord? ance with these distinct references, they afterwards gave more definite expression to those sayings. All the grounds of proof which Weiffenbach adduces for the assertion that Jesus could not have definitely predicted' His resurrection after three days, namely, the despair of the disciples immediately after the death of Jesus, their being taken completely by surprise at His appearances, and their partial scepticism in regard to these, do not in reality militate against Jesus having predicted His resurrection after three days, but only against this prediction having been, according to the understanding of Jesus and the disciples, the promise of a reappearance upon earth. RESURRECTION AFTER THREE DAYS. 269 According to the Jewish idea, the soul of the dead person arrived in Sheol, and even though the advanced Pharisaic Jewish doctrine taught a resurrec tion of the just, yet this awakening from the kingdom of the dead was yet expected in the distant future, whether to a participation in the Messianic kingdom on earth or to the general world-judgment at the end of all things.1 Now, Jesus Himself has not gainsaid the thought that even He Himself would be led down through death to the kingdom of the dead (cf. Luke xxiii. 43) ; but as He had the general certainty that the just, who recognised that they belonged to God as their Father, must, on account of the indissoluble relationship, in spite of Sheol, attain to the heavenly resurrection-life with God (Mark xii. 26 f.),2 so He judged that, as the Son standing in closest fellowship with God, He would, not after an immense period, but after the shortest interval, arise out of Sheol to the heavenly life. Three days are for H im, on the ground of a customary use of speech (cf. Hos. vi. 2 ; Luke xiii. 32 ; John ii. 19), an expression for a very brief interval.8 2. Inasmuch as Jesus had not only the assurance 1 Cf. vol. i. p. 71 ff. 2 Cf. vol. i. p. 22 1 ff. s That only Mark has the form of expression "after three days" (viii. 31 ; ix. 31 ; x. 34), whilst the reports in all the parallel passages have the form "on the third day" (cf. also Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 4), is a specially characteristic sign of the priority of Mark and of the verbal exactness with which He renders the apostolic tradition which stands as His authority. How could the form of the expression in the prophetic words of the Lord have been changed from " on the third day," if it was thus originally recorded, into the other form " after three days " in the Christian Church, in which men were aware of the appearance of Him who rose from the dead on the third day after His death ? 270 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. of His own reawakening from the dead to the heavenly life, but also assumed that His disciples would attain the eternal heavenly life, He reckoned also upon becoming reunited to them in the heavenly state of perfection of the kingdom of God. Both according to the Matthew-Logia and also according to the Gospel of Mark, at the last supper with His disciples He gave them, in prospect of His death, the assurance of this future heavenly reunion : " Verily I say unto you, I will no more drink of the fruit of the vine, till that day when I drink it new with you in the kingdom of God " (Mark xiv. 25 ; cf. Luke xxii. 29 f.).1 But has He also presupposed the prospect of an earlier reunion in some form with His disciples during the course of His further life on earth ? Mark relates that Jesus at His last visit to Gethsemane with His disciples said : " All ye shall be offended because of me : for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee" (xiv. 27 fi). Neither can it be said that in these words Jesus referred to His appearance in Galilee as one risen from the dead, nor, if we assumed this sense of the words, can we judge that they were put into the mouth of Jesus ex eventu, because of the appearances seen by the disciples. For, on the one hand, the words by no means clearly indicate the thought that the disciples would meet with Jesus in Galilee and see Him;2 if the reference to the future appearances in 1 On the sense in which Jesus speaks of "eating and drinking" in the kingdom of God, cf. vol. i. p. 220. 2 Observe how in Mark xvi. 7, where reference is so made to these words, that they must be understood as the presupposition of the future REUNION WITH HIS DISCIPLES. 27 1 Galilee were intended, it must be rather the coming of Jesus to the disciples in Galilee that is expressed than His going before them. On the other hand, the connection points to the conclusion that the original meaning of the words is by no means that Jesus would arrive before His disciples in Galilee after His resurrection, and then wait for them, but rather that He would accompany them to Galilee as their leader going before them (cf. the leading of the disciples by Jesus going before them on the way from Galilee to Jerusalem, Mark x. 32). The shepherd goes before as the leader of the sheep (cf. John x. 4) ; if he is struck down, the sheep are terrified and dispersed ; if He rises up again, the sheep are gathered anew under His leadership. The figure of the shepherd and the sheep, which Jesus found in the words of Scrip ture, gave occasion for His representing the trustful reunion of the disciples to Him after surmounting the period of terror and flight which was now imminent for them, under the figure of their regathering under the leadership of Him as the Risen One. If, as we have seen in the previous chapter, Jesus nevertheless had the confidence that His death would result in teaching and in blessing for the disciples, and thereby in the establishment and extension of His Messianic work as a whole, He must also have assumed that His disciples, after their first terror and despair on account of His death, would soon recover themselves, and, in accordance with the instruction received from appearances of Jesus, also this addition is made : " there shall ye see Him." Without this or a similar addition the words are not intelligible in that sense. 272 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. Him, attain a true view of His death, and would thenceforth cleave trustfully to Him as risen to the heavenly life after His earthly life. This reunion with His disciples, according to which they would again follow Him in joyful trust, whilst He, from His heavenly resurrection - life, would lead and protect them, would, He supposed, according to our text, take place in Galilee at the time of their return from Jerusalem, the city of the murder of the prophets and the Messiah. Not as scattered and discouraged fugitives would they return to their Galilean home, the main seat of His ministry, but as united to Him and led by Him in spite of His death. That Jesus regarded this reunion to His disciples as effected;; through His appearances as one risen from the dead, we cannot conclude, at least from the verbal form of this expression as reported by Mark. If we seek to know the original meaning of this expression, we are rather led to assume a form of fellowship between the Risen One and His disciples analogous to that which is meant in that other saying which was afterwards handed down in the community of the disciples, as a promise given by Jesus when He appeared after His resurrection : " Lo, I am with you all the days, even to the end of the world" (Matt, xxviii. 20). It appears to me that we must take in another sense the saying which perhaps originated from the tradition of the Matthew- Logia, whereby Jesus estab lished the assurance that the prayers of the disciples would be heard : " For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt, xviii. 19 fi). Did Jesus here REUNION WITH THE DISCIPLES. 273 think of a sojourn among His assembled disciples after He was risen in a form visible or invisible, immediate or somehow mediated by the Holy Ghost ? The form of words contains no sort of indication of the future heavenly resurrection state of Jesus, which would make such a miraculous union with His own in all places possible ; according to the form of the words, Jesus expresses — quite generally and with reference also to the present, in which He is still regarded as living on earth — the declaration that He will be everywhere among those who, even in the smallest companies, are gathered in His name. But how can He have meant this ? In the closest analogy to this saying stand those other utterances of Jesus, wherein, regarding an act which is done in acknowledgment of His name and teaching, He simply says that it is done to Himself : " Whosoever receiveth one such child in my name, receiveth me " (Mark ix. 27) > " Whoso heareth you, heareth me " ( Luke x. 1 6) ; " Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me " (Matt. xxv. 40). Of course Jesus did not in these sayings mean that He was united in a miraculous way with His disciples, so as to consider Plimself identical with them ; but He seeks concisely to express that such an act done to another has the same value in God's eyes and the same blissful results for the doer as if it had been done to Him. In this sense the expression in our passage has also to be understood where, accord ing to the connection of the passage, Jesus is only occupied in establishing the assurance that the united prayer even of the smallest company of His disciples vol. 11. s 274 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. will find a hearing with God. An assembly of two or three in His name, that is, in acknowledgment of Him, as being His true disciples, has in God's eyes the same value as if He Himself, the Messiah, was in the midst of them ; and a prayer in this assembly will then have as certain an answer as if Jesus Himself were the petitioner. In this sense the saying has force, not only for the period after His resurrection from the dead, but also already for the period of His earthly life. It is certainly very explicable that, for the disciples of Jesus who had become aware of His heavenly resurrection -life and their own fellowship with the Risen One, that saying of Jesus had also acquired a sense in reference to this real fellowship with the risen Lord. But yet we need only establish the original meaning of the saying in the way we have indicated. 3. If we must therefore judge that Jesus, whilst in deed expressing to His disciples the certainty that He would reawaken from the approaching state of death to the heavenly resurrection life after the briefest interval, yet did not give the promises of His subse quent appearance to His disciples for the confirma tion of the fact of His having risen again, we must now also add that, according to the harmonious testi monies of the Matthew-Logia and the Gospel of Mark, He repeatedly and decidedly announced that He would one day appear in heavenly glory on the earth for the inauguration of the consummated blessed ness of the kingdom of God. The discussion of the questions as to how near or distant He considered the term of this return, and how definitely or in- COMING AGAIN TO JUDGMENT. 275 definitely He indicated it, as also what events He regarded as the tokens and pre-conditions of the return, I may relegate to the later section in which I have to treat, in their connection, of the utterances of Jesus concerning the further development of His Church on earth. Here, where we shall specially discuss the sayings of Jesus in regard to Himself, we have now to take into consideration the fact itself, as declared by Him, of His second coming, of which Jesus in any case generally so speaks as if His disciples and His other contemporaries would yet experience it. According to the accounts given by Mark, Jesus for the first time clearly announced His second com ing, when, after the acknowledgment of His Messiah- ship by His disciples, He spoke of His death and resurrection, and then added the rule binding upon them all that they must follow Him to a martyr-death on the cross (Mark viii. 34 fi). As the basis of the thought that it depended on whether they clung to Him and His teaching, even to the sacrifice of life in order to save their true life, for whose loss the whole world could supply no compensation (ver. 36 fi), He referred to the fact of His coming again, and to the principle according to which He would then carry out His decision as to the life of blessedness for individuals : " For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man be ashamed, when He shall come in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. . . . Verily, verily, I say unto you, there are some standing here, who shall not taste of 276 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. death, till they see the kingdom of God coming in power" (viii. 38; ix. 1). Manifestly He has here regarded His own future coming in glory as coincid ing with the coming of the kingdom of God in power, that is, with the coming in of the perfect state of the kingdom of God, when it will be brought out of its present lowly and obscure form into the glorious heavenly form. And in this important work of the development of the kingdom of God, He has ascribed to Himself, as invested with heavenly glory and power, the role of deciding in regard to the definite attainment of salvation by His disciples, according to the standard of fidelity with which they have acknow ledged and manifested on earth their discipleship to Him. He has likewise, in the Logia- discourse, whose fundamental part is recorded in Luke xvii. 22-xviii. 8 ; and xxi. 34-36,1 represented His second coming as a certain future fact, Which would break in upon mankind while busied with earthly affairs and- interests, like a sudden catastrophe, like the Flood in the time of Noah or the annihilation of Sodom in the time of Lot (Luke xvii. 26-30, 34), and would bring a great judgment upon them, whereby those who have faithfully continued as the Lord's disciples will be received into the consummated blessedness (ver. 34 f. ; xxi. 36 ; xviii. 6-8), but the others will be left behind and delivered to perdition (xvii. 35 ; xix. 27;* cf. xiii. 26 fi). The universal publicity with which this appearance will take place, and the significance of x Cf. the reconstruction, Log. § 33, L.J. i. p. 160 ff. 2 Concerning the small independent parable referring to the Parousia, Luke xix. 12, 14, 15a, 27, which Luke has amalgamated with the parable of the unfaithful servant into one whole, cf. Log. § 33?, L.J. i. i64f. COMING AGAIN TO JUDGMENT. 277 this event for all mankind living at that time, is expressly set forth by Jesus. Not in a lonely desert and not in a secret chamber will the Son of man appear, but " as the lightning goes out of the east and shineth into the west" (Matt. xxiv. 26 f. ; Luke xvii. 23 f. j1 xxi. 35). The judicial doom will then, how ever, not at all alight only on mankind outside of the circle of disciples, but also on all those of the disciples themselves who have let their heart be surfeited with earthly lusts and cares, and so have lost the purity and strength of their life ; for " wheresoever the carcase is, thither will the eagles be gathered to gether" (Luke xvii. 27 > xxl- 34-)- The same view on the part of Jesus of His second coming, and of the final judgment connected with it, forms the presup position of the parables given in the Logia and the Gospel of Mark, in which Jesus exhorts His disciples to such constant vigilance and fidelity as is necessary and safe for servants who, with girt loins and burning lamps, must await the Lord returning at the unknown hour of the marriage-supper (Luke xii. 35-38), or as is necessary for the householder who knows not the hour when the thief shall break into his house (Luke xii. 39 fi), or for the servant whom his master has made ruler over his household for the period of his absence (Luke xii. 42-46), or for the bridal virgins who have to receive the bridegroom in the night-time with lamps (Matt. xxv. 1-12), or for the servants and the porter, to each of whom their lord, in travelling abroad and about to return at an indefinite time, had appointed his respective work (Mark xiii, 1 See Log. § 33a, L.J. i. p. 160. 278 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. 22-37)-1 Whilst Jesus in these parables, in accordance with their peculiar teaching purpose, only lays stress upon the decisive significance of His second coming for His disciples, He makes it evident, in other places, just as in the utterances of the Logia-discourse, Luke xvii. 22 ff, that He by no means ascribes a signi ficance to these events only for His disciples. He expresses the assurance that even His enemies, who now slight Him and purpose to destroy Him, shall then see and reverently acknowledge Him as Messiah clothed with Divine glory. When He was exhorted to leave the Galilean district, because Herod sought to kill Him, and when He had answered with bitter irony that He must in any case depart, because Jerusalem had a monopoly as the murderess of the prophets (Luke xiii. 31-34), He added the saying for all His enemies who wanted to get rid of Him : " Behold, your house is left unto you " (that is, I leave you and trouble you no further) ; " I say unto you : Ye shall see me no more till the time cometh, when ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord" (ver. 35)/ So likewise at His final examination before the high priest, when He had affirmatively answered the question, if He were the Messiah, the son of the Blessed, He added the proud word : " And ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven" 1 Regarding the grounds on which we must judge that in the dis course, Mark xiii., the description of the second coming of the Son of man, vers. 24-27, is not to be regarded as part of an authentic discourse of Jesus, but as part of the small Jewish- Christian apocalypse, which Mark in chap. xiii. has inwoven into a genuine discourse of Jesus, see L.f. 1. p. 18 f. 2 Cf. Log. § 21, L. f. i. p. 135 f. COMING AGAIN TO JUDGMENT. 279 (Mark xiv. 62). But so also in that description, recorded in Matt. xxv. 31 ff., and apparently derived from the Logia, of the final judgment which He would accomplish at His second coming in heavenly glory, Jesus expressed the reference of this judgment to all heathen people with whom His disciples should come in contact. It appears to me to be well to consider that He here by no means declares that He would execute upon all men who had ever existed, and who should then be awakened from death, judg ment according to the standard of their good and evil deeds in general, but that He attributes to Himself the judicial function with reference to the peoples living at His return to the earth and gathering about Him then, and He declared his judicial decree to apply with reference to the conduct which these peoples shall have manifested indirectly towards Himself. Directly their friendly or unfriendly con duct had reference only to His disciples ; but they had thereby indirectly taken up an attitude towards Himself, without their being aware of it ; for what they had done or refused to do to the least of His brethren, that they had done or refused to Himself (vers. 40, 45). x Therefore, if we keep to the utterances of Jesus Himself, we can neither say that He set His second coming in prospect only for His disciples, nor has He attributed to Himself the execution of the general world-judgment over mankind of all ages. But He considered that, in connection with His 1 On this original meaning of the description, which has become partly obscured through small additions and alterations of our first evangelist, but which is yet clearly recognisable as a whole from the account of Matthew, cf. Log. § 53, L.J. i. p. i86ff. 280 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. return there would be a judgment upon all those men who had come into relationship to Him and the king dom of God, directly or indirectly, as His disciples and friends, or as His enemies.1 According to the nature of this practically manifested relationship, He would become for them the medium of the heavenly life of bliss or of judicial perdition. How is this idea of Jesus of His future return in heavenly glory for judgment to be explained in connection with His mode of view and judgment as to Himself elsewhere given ? We cannot be satisfied with the explanation that Jesus had just retained an element here of the Old Testament Jewish view of 1 The declarations of Jesus, that it would be more tolerable for Sodom and Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment, than for the cities which had slighted His own and His disciples' message (Luke x. 12, 14), and that the Ninevites, who formerly repented at the preaching of Jonah, and the Queen of the South, who came from the utmost ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, would rise up in. judgment together with the generation of the Jewish contemporaries of Jesus, and would condemn them because of their impenitence (Luke xi. 31 f), show clearly that Jesus assumed that the great judgment at the end of the world would, at His second' coming, alight quite universally even upon the men of past generations, who would all, good and bad, rise to judg: ment. But they cannot at all prove that Jesus attributed to Himself the judicial sentence upon those past generations. For these declarations are only meant to emphasise the fact that, at the day of judgment, the greatness of the guilt which the Jewish contemporaries of Jesus brought upon themselves by their rejection of the greatest revelation of grace, would be set forth by comparison with the conduct of those earlier men, who stood in opposition to a far inferior revelation. But by whom those early generations would be judged at that day, those passages declare nothing. And it is by no means obvious that we should supply the thought that Jesus regarded Himself as this judge, because He other wise claimed for Himself the judicial function at His second coming. For if we consider the inner motives of this idea of Jesus in regard to His future execution of judgment, which I shall immediately discuss in the text further on, we cannot declare it as fortuitous, but as well- grounded, that Jesus everywhere attributes to Himself a decisive signi ficance at His second coming only with reference to such men as had come directly or indirectly in contact with Him and His preaching. COMING AGAIN TO JUDGMENT. 28 1 the externally glorious character and the externally miraculous and brilliant appearance of the Messiah and the Messianic kingdom. Whilst in general He transformed in a spiritualising way the externalistic ideas of the Messiah and the Messianic kingdom, and conceived the idea of His Messiahship as already existing and resting upon His perfect filial relation ship with God, and the idea of the kingdom of God as already realised and in course of development in an invisible way through the experience of blessing and the righteous conduct of His disciples, He yet retained those external traditional expectations in so far at least as He certainly hoped for their fulfilment in the form of His future glorious return. Against this declaration we must set the fact, that it does not harmonise with the uniformity and consistency with which Jesus always elsewhere conceived His own mode of view and maintained His relation to the Old Testament and Jewish religious mode of view. The mere fact that a certain idea had been handed down and was attested in the Old Testament was not a deciding motive for His retaining that idea, unless He was conscious of its standing in an inwardly founded relationship to that collective view of God and His kingdom, which had been assured to Him by the revelation which He had Plimself experienced, and which was in harmony with the true idea of the Old Testament Scriptures. A twofold coming of the Messiah was taught neither by the Old Testament nor by Jewish tradition. But the Old Testament prophecies of the one advent of the Messiah for the establishment of a kingdom of God upon earth, which 282 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. was represented in an externalistic - sensuous way, Jesus regarded as fulfilled by His Messianic mission upon earth, and certainly not in a defective way so that it needed a yet further completion, but in such a perfect way that the very highest idea of those predic tions was realised. The idea of Jesus as to His future return was also not at all grounded on His having in prospect the future literal fulfilment of the Old Testa ment Jewish expectations of the external earthly pro sperity and splendour of the Messianic period. The Christians of the post-apostolic period certainly found in this idea of the second coming of Christ a welcome foundation upon which to bring in to the Christian views and hopes of salvation the whole body of the sensuous chiliastic expectations after the analogy of the Jewish Messianic hopes. But Jesus Himself has not at all connected with the idea of His second coming the thought of a glorious kingdom to be then set up on earth. He regarded His second coming only as a means in order to bring in the judgment which was to exclude from a share in the heavenly benefits of the kingdom of God all those who would not join themselves to the Messiah and His kingdom ; and, on the other hand, in order to transfer His true disciples from the earthly life, in which their fidelity and their hearty confession of Him were proved, to the perfect heavenly state. He did not adopt this thought from the Old Testament or from the Jewish tradition, but it was an original conception in distinction from the traditional mode of view. He undoubtedly saw an important testimony to this thought of His future return in heavenly glory in Daniel's account of One COMING AGAIN TO JUDGMENT. 283 coming in the form of the Son of man, to whom Divine power and an everlasting kingdom was com mitted ; but we must certainly say that this passage in Daniel would not by itself alone have verified for Him His second coming after His first coming had already been realised on earth, if He had not also recognised this second coming as standing in a necessary inner relation to His whole mode of view and judgment of Himself. For Jesus the idea of His second coming to execute judgment and to consummate salvation, was equivalent to the certainty of the continuance of His Messianic significance in the kingdom of God in spite of His death. His certainty that He would rise again from the dead to the heavenly life, was not, as has been above remarked, an expression of His special Mes sianic consciousness, but only a result of the fact that He regarded the hope of the heavenly life, which was valid for all members of the kingdom of God, as valid also for Himself . But the idea of His second coming was immediately determined by His special Messianic consciousness. Since He had this peculiar view of the realisation of the kingdom of God, that it was accomplished through a process of development, inasmuch as the kingdom of God had already upon earth attained a true existence, and was growing, but did not attain the goal of its development except in the heavenly life beyond, — and since, on the other hand, He regarded His own Messiahship as standing in full relation to the kingdom of God as its end, in other words, that He was the Mediator appointed by God for the realisation of this kingdom, — so it appeared 284 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. to Plim as a thought necessarily connected with His Messiahship, that even that great stride in the development of the kingdom of God — the transition from its first condition on earth brought about amid persecutions and oppression to the heavenly condition of perfection — would not be accomplished without Him, the Messiah. As, in opposition to the tendency of Judaism at that time, He considered the final resurrection - life of individuals as not essentially independent of the blessings of the kingdom of God, but rather as the consummation of those blessings,1 so He ascribes also to Himself as Messiah the full significance as Mediator for attaining the heavenly life in the perfect condition of the kingdom of God. At the beginning of His Messianic activity, in accord ance with the presupposition that the contemporary generation would still see the end of the world and the entrance of the future heavenly Kon, He may also have entertained the idea that He Himself, as the Messiah still living upon earth, would be the means of accomplishing the transition of His disciples from the present aeon to the future one. But then, as He gradually gained the knowledge that an early violent death was awaiting Him at the hands of men, He yet held fast the conviction that by this annihilation of His earthly activity His Messianic co-operation, as commissioned by God for the inbringing of the heavenly state of perfection for the members of the kingdom of God, could not be annulled. This convic tion found expression in the declaration of His return from His resurrection - life in heaven, in order with 1 Cf. above, vol. i. pp. 72 ff. and 224, COMING AGAIN TO JUDGMENT. 285 Divine authority to accomplish the work incumbent on Him as the Messiah. According to His idea, this work was not a new Messianic function, which went side by side with His Messianic work exercised on earth through His teaching, but was only the carrying out of the consequences of this His earthly Messianic work. Since He regarded His Messianic preaching of the kingdom of God as the necessary means for men of attaining eternal life as members of the kingdom of God, so He must also have regarded the final decision as to who should be received to bliss at the inauguration of the perfect state of the kingdom, as being dependent on the attitude which individuals have adopted towards Him and His gospel. That in declaring His return to judgment He was only concerned with the establishment of this latter general thought, is proved from the fact that He neither gave His judgment a reference to those generations of men who did not in general stand in contact with Himself and His disciples, nor did He enter into details as to how at the judgment the particular acts and thoughts of men would be miraculously known and correspondingly recompensed. He did not ascribe to His judgment any kind of independent position alongside of the judgment of God, nor did He suppress or oppose the idea of the judicial and retributive authority of God Himself, the Searcher of hearts, in favour of the idea of His own return to judgment (Matt. x. 28 ; xviii. 35 ; Luke xiii. 6-9; xvi. 15). Rather did He see in His own judgment only the medium and the expression of the 286 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. just judgment of God with reference to participation in the perfect heavenly welfare of the kingdom of God. Therefore He did not view this thought of His return to judgment as standing at all in contra diction to the thought of which He gave the freest expression in other places, namely, that God already in the present time decides in regard to men's future attainment of bliss, in accordance with the state of their hearts as He perceives it. He declared that the names of His disciples are already inscribed in heaven, that is, their future participation in the heavenly life is already certainly determined (Luke x. 20), that they already possess a reward, laid up for them in heaven with the Father, for their individual acts done in true righteousness (Matt. vi. 1-6, 16-18, 19 fi), and that to grant seats on the right hand and the left in His glory lay not with Him, the Messiah, but that the highest rank alongside of the Messiah in the kingdom of glory would be shared in by those for whom it is prepared, that is, for whom it is decreed by God (of course not in an arbitrary way, but in accordance with His Divine knowledge of their worthiness) (Mark x. 37-40). But also, on the other hand, when, on saying farewell to the twelve, He transferred to them His Messianic authority (Luke xxii. 29), that is, His call to preach and establish the kingdom of God, He did not hesitate to promise that they should in future sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (ver. 30). For inasmuch as He regarded them as the continuers of His Messianic work, He required also to recognise in their case, also as in His own, a similarly decisive significance HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. 287 for the final salvation of those to whom they preached the gospel. 4. In the discourses of Jesus in the fourth Gospel, we meet, in the first place, clear parallels to those synoptical utterances, in which Jesus expresses the certainty of His awakening from death to the heavenly life with God. He knows that He is giving up His life that He may receive it again (x. 17 fi; xii. 25), and that this life which He receives is better than the one which He gives up. Therefore He says, before His departure from His disciples, that if they loved Him they would rejoice that He was going to the Father, because the Father was greater than He, and could give Him unapproachable .power and glory (xiv. 28). Therefore He also speaks of His death not directly employing this idea of death itself, but with such equivalent expressions as to bring plainly out the significance which earthly death would have for Him in bringing Him to the heavenly life with God : He refers to His death as His departure to the Father who had sent Him (vii. 23 '• xiv. 12, 28 ; xvi. 5, 10, 28 ; xvii. 11, 13), as the hour of His being glorified (xii. 23), as His being lifted up from the earth (xii. 32).1 On the one hand, He regards His death, inasmuch as it was the highest act of His ministry as a whole, whereby He glorified God on the earth (xvii. 4), as also a specific glorifying of the 1 This idea of being lifted up should not here be interpreted accord ing to the gloss of the redacting evangelist, ver. 33, of the lifting up in crucifixion, but according to the wording and connection only of the heavenly glorifying indicated in ver. 23 (cf. Isa. Iii. 13). Cf. L.J. i. p. 254. 288 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. name of God (xii. 28a),1 and as a being glorified in Himself, the Son of man, through this glorifying of God in Him (xiii. 31 fi);2 on the other hand, He expected that this glorifying of God accomplished in His word and definitively in His death would now be followed by a heavenly glorifying of Himself, which would be received from the Father as the reward decreed and kept for Him from eternity (xiii. 32; xvii. 5, 24).3 A real difference between these Johannine refer- < ences of Jesus to His approaching transition from the earthly to the heavenly life, and the synoptical utter ances of Jesus regarding His resurrection after three days, could only be found in the point that these Johannine utterances lack such an intimation of the descent into Sheol after death, as is indirectly given in that designation of the interval " after three days."* But yet this thought of the descent of Jesus into the realm of death before His awakening to the heavenly life, does not at all form a point of independent significance in the synoptical sayings of Jesus. It was no concern of Jesus to lay stress upon the point that He would certainly arrive in Sheol, but only on the point that He would certainly be delivered out of it, and that at the shortest delay. Just on that 1 Cf. above, p. 259. 2 On the meaning of the aorist form ioo^dodri at this place, cf. L.f. 1. p. 302. 3 On xvii. 5 and 24 cf. above, p. 168 ff. 4 That the saying of Jesus in regard to His building again of the temple in three days, ii. 19, cannot have been according to its original sense a reference of Jesus to His resurrection on the third day, as the redacting evangelist says in ver. 2 if., cf. L.J. i. p. 251, and vol. i. p. 323. INTERCESSION IN HEAVEN. 289 account, however, when He sought impressively to indicate the certainty of reaching the heavenly life through earthly death, Pie could leave quite unregarded the idea of the previous sojourn in Sheol after death. He could only bring into prominence the essential point for His view and instruction, without, however, thereby excluding the idea of the descent into Sheol which, in accordance with the Jewish mode of view, He and His disciples regarded as belonging to the idea of earthly death. 5. The thought of Jesus, however, that in spite of His death He would remain in relation and fellowship with His disciples, finds significant and manifold expression in the discourses of the fourth Gospel. Whilst seeking in the farewell discourse to prepare and strengthen His disciples for the approaching separation, whose significance they certainly did not yet suspect, He finds the true consolation in the assurance that His return to His Father would turn out for the welfare, not only of Himself, but also of His disciples (xvi. 7), inasmuch as, in spite of His outward separation from them, He would yet remain helpful and united to them. He promises them that, by His intercession with God for them in the heavenly life, He would contribute to the bestowal of all bless ing upon them. So He exhorts them thenceforth to pray to the Father, or to Himself in His name, as they had not done hitherto, that is, to pray with reference to their being His disciples (xiv. I3fi; xvi. 24) j1 and He promises them full granting of all such prayers, since He Himself will accomplish the fulfilment of the 1 Cf. vol. i. p. 250. VOL. II. T 29O THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. petitions (xiv. 13 fi); and in His name, that is, with reference to Him because they are His disciples, the Father will grant them whatever they shall ask (xvi. 23). 1 This He says, not as if the Father needs such mediating intercession in order to grant good things to His disciples ; rather, when He refers the disciples to the full knowledge of the fatherly character of God, He will not speak of His own intercession for them, since the Father Himself loveth the disciples, and therefore gives them all blessing of His own free impulse (xvi. 26). 2 Nor does He seek to suggest the thought 1 It is to be noticed that Jesus says of Himself, that He will bring about (iror/ioa, xiv. i3f.) what they ask, but of God, that He will give them what they ask (xv. 16 ; xvi. 23). We need not, however, explain the accomplishment by Jesus of what is prayed for, in the sense of His continuing on earth His ministry through His disciples (B. Weiss in Meyer's Commentary at this passage), since it is not justifiable to limit the prayers of the disciples in the name of Jesus, as to which a quite general promise was given, xiv. 13 f., to their prayers with reference to their ministry ; their prayers for blessings quite in general, which they are to obtain in the name of Jesus, in accordance with the revelation received by Him, must rather be meant. As Jesus immediately connects the promise, that He would bring about the answer, with the declaration that He is going to the Father (ver. 12), and as, in the words directly following, He promises to His disciples His intercession with the Father for the sending of the Holy Spirit (ver. 16) ; so the bringing about of the answer, which Jesus declares to be of Himself, must be explained as meaning that He will be helpful to His disciples through His inter cession with the Father for the bestowal of the blessings prayed for from the Father. 2 The apparent contradiction between the saying, xvi. 26, " I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father on your behalf," and the earlier declara-,, tions, xiv. 13 f. and 16, in which Jesus has directly set forth His influence with the Father for the fulfilment of the prayers of the disciples, and His intercession with the Father for the sending of the Spirit, cannot be solved by the explanation that the intercession promised in chap. xiv. refers to the period before the sending of the Spirit, but that in the passage xvi. 26 th period after the sending of the Spirit is spoken of, when the disciples, on account of the possession of the Spirit, will not need the intercession of Jesus. For the declaration xvi. 26 is not founded, in ver. 27, upon the reference to this future possession of the Spirit by the disciples, but on a reference to such a state of things as is expressly INTERCESSION IN HEAVEN. 29 1 that He would be the independent holder of blessings in the heavenly life, which He could give them apart from the will and working of the heavenly Father, since He rather possesses only what the Father has and what He obtains from the Father (xiv. 28 ; xvi. 15); but He only seeks impressively to bring out that the intercessory interest and work on behalf of His disciples, which He has hitherto exercised on earth, is not lost with death, but is rather enhanced on account of the still more immediate fellowship with God, upon which He enters in heaven. His disciples indicated as actually existing at that present time : " For the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I am come from God " (cf. xvii. 7 f., where this faith of the disciples is designated, not as one that is to exist in the future, but as one already existing). It is to be noticed that Jesus, in xvi. 26, does not simply say that He will not make intercession with His Father for the disciples, but it is said, " / say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you." Jesus by no means excludes the fact of His intercession ; only He will now make no reference to this fact in promising the hearing of prayer to His disciples (ver. 26). The reason appended by Him shows, however, that it is not at all because His intercession is a matter of course, and because His disciples know of it already, that He will not speak of it, but because this speaking of His intercession is not neces sary in order to inspire His disciples with right trust in the hearing of their prayers on the part of the Father. In chap. xiv. He spoke to them of His intercession in order thereby to encourage them to trust ; for the thought that He is helpful for them as their intercessor with the Father can bring them comfort, when otherwise the thought of His departure and of the ceasing of His intercession for them would awaken sorrow. On the other hand, in the passage xvi. 26, where He wishes to indicate the strongest motive which guarantees to the disciples the hearing of their prayers, namely, the love of the Father for them, He can quite well say that He is silent in regard to His own intercession for the disciples as a motive for the hearing of their prayers. We can formulate in the following way His idea in regard to His heavenly intercession : He indeed regards it as actually existent in the future, but not as necessary for the purpose of favourably inclining the will of God to the disciples ; and He indeed assumes that the thought of His heavenly intercession will be comforting to His disciples on earth, but not that it is indispensably necessary to them for their assurance of salvation. 292 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. shall lose nothing, but shall rather gain more, by His advancement. So He promises to them in particular His interces sion with God for the sending of the Holy Spirit as their advocate (xiv. 16). Hitherto He, Jesus, had Himself counselled and instructed them, and rendered the due testimony before the world. But now when He is leaving them, and they are to testify for Him, they will nevertheless not be left to. their own resources ; but in His room they will receive the Holy Ghost as another advocate, who shall abide with them for ever (xiv. i6fi), and shall do all for them which He, Jesus, has hitherto done for them. He shall bring Jesus' words to their remembrance (xiv. 26; xvi. 14), as the Spirit of rectitude (of the aXrj0eia) He would instruct them in the right conduct (xvi. 13), and render them capable of giving a right testimony to Him before the world (xv. 26 fi) ; that is, of. giving convincing testimony to the fact that the world, by its unbelieving rejection of Jesus, is in unrighteousness and sin ; that, on the contrary, He, Jesus, has fulfilled righteousness, and by His death has entered upon the heavenly life with the Father, and that the rejection, which He now experiences from the world, by no means implies the annihilation of His work, but that rather by His death His saving work shall be brought to completion, and Satan's power and supre-' macy over the world shall be virtually broken (xvi. 8-1 1 ). We must explain Jesus' course of thought in rela tion to the sending of the Spirit, in His last discourses, as a result and expression of His trustful conviction I' if-il-" SENDING OF THE SPIRIT IN JOHN. 293 that His death, which, according to outward appear ance, brought arrest and ruin upon His work, would yet prove the fitting means of making His previous work completely influential and permanent in His disciples. For, in accordance with this general con viction, He could understand the thought that, after having hitherto been the instructor and counsellor of His disciples, and having externally influenced, and in a manner tutored them, His departure would now form a stage of progress for them in bringing them to independent inward understanding and application of all that He had furnished to them. He saw that, without His outward departure from them, this inward gain and progress could not be made by them. But since He also knew how immature they yet were, and how incapable of maintaining and setting forth the revelation received from Him, and how many things were still unspoken which might have been communicated for their instruction, but which they could not yet comprehend (xvi. 12), He gained the certainty that, nevertheless, His death would result in their inward progress, and formed the confident hope and promise that God by His Spirit would work in them in order to this inward progress. According to this chain of thought, Jesus judged that, if He did not leave His disciples, the Holy Ghost would not come to them as their advocate (xvi. 7) ; according to this chain of thought, however, He did not speak of any sort of new or miraculous manifestations and revelations of the promised Spirit, which should pro ceed independently alongside of the work of Jesus hitherto exercised in revealing and imparting the 294 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. teaching of revelation and salvation,1 but He thought of the influences of the Spirit as rather standing in immediate connection with His own work of teaching, with the object of fully disclosing His Messianic work to the consciousness of the disciples, and of strengthen ing them in its right use. 6. With this thought, however, that His departure would result in His disciples receiving the Holy Spirit, and that He Himself, as the Risen One, would make intercession with God for the sending of this Spirit, Jesus connects that thought in the farewell prayer that He Himself would return to His disciples, j reveal Himself to them, and abide continually with them : "I will not leave you orphans ; I will come unto you. Yet a little while, and the world beholdeth ". me no more ; but ye behold me : because I live, ye shall live also. In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me : and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and manifest myself to him. ... If a man love me, he will keep my word : and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him" (xiv. 18-23). " A little while, and ye behold me no more; 1 The closing words of xvi. 13, xal rd ip%of&ira dsayyihu ifiis, are certainly an addition of the evangelist in redacting the Johannine source, since this thought, that the Spirit would be efficient in the disciples as a faculty of prophecy of future events, has no support in the adjoining context of the passage, nor does it occur elsewhere in the Johannine ¦; farewell discourses. But to the evangelist of the post - apostolic generation, this function of the Holy Ghost in the Christian Church must have appeared too important to be passed over in silence. Cf. L. J. i. p. 281. COMING AGAIN TO HIS DISCIPLES. 295 and again a little while, and ye shall see me. . . . Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice : ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come : but when she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for the joy that a man is born into the world. And ye therefore now have sorrow : but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh away from you. And in that day ye shall ask me nothing" (xvi. 16-23). Are these words of Jesus to be understood as pre dictions of such outwardly visible appearances among His disciples after His death as the company of the disciples afterwards were certain of having seen ? It must at all events be acknowledged that the fulfilment did not strictly correspond to the prediction. For in these words Jesus does not express a coming in sight and appearance for once or several times, to be followed by a speedy departure and vanishing, but a continual coming and abiding, such as should remove the orphaned condition of the disciples, and fill them with abiding joy. But also this coming and appearance was promised by Him, not only to the disciples to whom He directly spoke, but quite in general, and without limitation as to time, to every one who keeps His commandments as a genuine disciple, and who loves Him and accordingly will be loved by Him and the Father (xiv. 21); and He thinks of this coming to the disciples and abiding in them in indissoluble connection with the coming and 296 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH., indwelling of God (xiv. 23). But He Himself designates His mode of speech in the consoling promises which He gives His disciples in reference to the period after His departure, as a "speaking in figures" (xvi. 25), and also manifests His conscious ness of having spoken, with expressions which appear to indicate an ordinary outward occurrence, of higher events to which these expressions apply in a figurative sense.1 When we consider this, we shall, in regard to the utterances, in which He promises to return to 1 In the saying, xvi. 25, ravra is irapoifiiaic "kthaK*ix.a bfiis, the rairn cannot refer to the foregoing promise of the hearing of prayer, ver. 23 f. ; not only do the plural forms raira and irapoifJaic militate against this, but especially the circumstance that this promise of the hearing of prayer furnishes no really figurative form of expression. Nor does the ravra, refer to the one parable of the travailing woman, ver. 21, which forms only a secondary link in the greater foregoing chain of thought, but to this foregoing chain of thought as a whole. All that Jesus has previously communicated to His disciples for their consolation, in regard to the coming of the Spirit as their advocate, and to His own return to see and be seen by them, was according to His consciousness figuratively spoken. It cannot be objected that the contrast stated by Jesus in ver. 25$, "The hour cometh, when I shall no more speak to you in figures, but I shall tell you plainly of the Father" shows that the speaking in figures, to which Jesus above refers, must have been a speaking of the Father (zi. Weiss in Meyer's commentary on this place). The plain speech concerning the Father, which He will impart to His disciples when He comes again, so far resembles the previous discourse of Jesus in figurat ive forms of expression, inasmuch as the purpose of the communication, here as there, is to fill the disciples with assurance of salvation, and to encourage them to trustful prayer. But while He seeks to contrast the veiled figurative form of speech, which He must use in order that His communications to His disciples may be really intelligible and com forting, with the unveiled knowledge in which they afterwards will be certain of God's blessings for them, He can no longer designate Himself as the object to which His future unveiled teaching would refer, but only the Father Himself, because (as we shall afterwards more definitely bring out in the text) He regards the clear knowledge of His Messiahship on the part of His disciples as well as of His life in heaven, in spite of His earthly death, not as the consequence, but as the presupposition, inwrought by the Holy Spirit, of His return to the disciples, and being seen again by them, whilst the consequence of this, His return to them, will be, that they shall attain the full knowledge of the fatherly character and will of God. COMING AGAIN TO HIS DISCIPLES. 297 His disciples and be seen by them after a short period of separation, be forced to the explanation, that He thought of such a permanent spiritual reunion with His disciples as would make Him in their con sciousness living in spite of His death, and near in spite of earthly separation.1 This assurance of Jesus — that His disciples, even though at first after His death they might be overwhelmed with sorrow, and might believe that, losing Him outwardly, they had totally and altogether lost Him, would neverthe less soon regain their confidence, would become certain of His life in heaven in spite of His earthly death, and so would attain to a fuller, stronger, and more joyful understanding of His previous revelation- preaching — is immediately connected, as I have already remarked, with His conviction of the bene ficent saving significance of His death, alike for His disciples and His work. But He could express this very thought in this form, that He would reappear to His disciples, after a short period, in which He would have wholly disappeared from them (xiv. 19 ; xvi. 16) ; but the world would see Him then (xiv. 19); for the appearance which He means will not be for the 1 The expression "at that day" (xiv. 20; xvi. 23, 26) cannot prove that Jesus only thought of the few days of His appearance as the Risen One, and not of a continuance of His abiding spiritual reunion with His disciples. The idea of a day certainly does not denote simply the time in general ; but Jesus spoke of the day on which the thing promised by Him should come to pass, so far as this day exhibited the characteristic of the period which was to commence with it. As Jesus in xvi. 25 f., in prospect of the future period meant by Him, first speaks of an "hour" and then of the "day," the idea of the "day" in the cited passages has quite the same meaning as the idea of "hour" in the passages iv. 21, 23; v. 25. As we infer from the connection, a period of time is not directly, but certainly it is indirectly indicated. 298 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. bodily eye, but only for the eye of the spirit and of faith.1 Yet, on the other hand, Jesus did not think of a merely subjective inward idea of the disciples, such as had no corresponding reality ; but He was certain that, as exalted to the heavenly life with God, He would stand in real fellowship with His disciples, who would then be inwardly joyful ; therefore His saying that they would see Him, corresponds to the other saying that He would Himself come to them (xiv. 18), and would see them (xvi. 22). He reckoned upon such fellowship with His disciples, and such participation in their work from out of His heavenly resurrection-life, as once before, after His conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, in prospect of the ripe harvest to be after wards gathered in by the disciples in lands beyond Judaea, He expressed it by the words : " Already the reaper receiveth wages and gathereth fruit to life eternal, that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together" (iv. 36). The fact which He here views in spirit, that His disciples will be the reapers after Him who is now the labourer (cf. ver. 37 fi), does not mean for Him, that He will be without the reaper's joy ; but He will have that joy together with His disciples. As we have to explain 1 It would not be correct to say that in our interpretation the huiith which would take place for the disciples has a different meaning from that of the Qtapsis which would not be predicable of the world ; the former being meant of a spiritual, the latter of an external bodily seeing. The idea of seeing has rather been transferred from that of sense-per- ception to the non-sensuous spiritual apprehension, and accordingly means apprehension or perception quite in general. It was true of the world, that neither by sense, nor, like the disciples, spiritually, would they perceive Jesus. Cf. the idea o'pds, xiv. 9 (0 kapaxa; ifts iupaKtt rw iraripa). COMING AGAIN TO HIS DISCIPLES. 299 the thought of Jesus as to this twofold joy, simply from His idea of His continued personal existence in heaven after His earthly death, and of His continued living participation in the success of His disciples, thereby rendered possible, and that without bringing in the idea of His future indwelling in the disciples by means of the Holy Ghost ; so also the thought of Jesus in the farewell discourse, that He could speedily return to His disciples, even though we do not understand it as a prediction of His externally visible appearance to His disciples, but as a promise of His spiritual reunion with them, yet must not be identified with the other promise of the farewell discourse, that, at His intercession, the Father will send the Holy Ghost as their abiding advocate. His own promised return to the disciples stands rather in a relation of effect to the promised sending of the Spirit; since His disciples, not by their own power, but by the power of the Spirit, which God sends them, should speedily after His death inwardly rally and take courage, should remember all His words and attain the joyful conviction of the truth and the right of His Messianic cause in spite of the world's scepticism and rejection of Him, therefore they should also know their reunion with Him as the living One in heaven. The correct ness of this view of the relation of His reunion with His disciples to the promised sending of the Spirit, is confirmed, not only by the fact that Jesus, in both passages of the farewell discourse where He gives the promise of this reunion, makes that promise follow that of the sending of the Spirit, and makes the former appear as an enhancement of the latter (xiv. i6fi, 300 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. i8ff ; xvi. jff, i6ff), but especially also by the fact that He does not represent the knowledge on the part of His disciples of His Messianic nature and signifi cance as the gradually attained result of His appear ance, but rather as a fact simultaneously accomplished along with the fact of His coming to them, and being seen by them. Not only does He say positively that they should then know that He was in the Father and they were in Him and He in them (xiv. 20), but also negatively, that they would ask Him nothing (xvi. 23). Unintelligible as was this latter utterance if it referred to such appearances as would tend to restore the disciples' trust in the Messiahship of Jesus, and to establish their faith in His heavenly life in spite of His earthly death, and little as it there fore accorded with the traditional appearances of the risen Jesus, it is directly intelligible if it refers to the spiritual reunion of the disciples with the risen Lord, which is the consequence of their restored, and now for the first time firmly and inwardly grounded, trust in His Messiahship and His indissoluble fellowship with the Father and with His disciples on earth. Certainly Jesus did not mean that the religious knowledge of His disciples should then be generally completed, and that therefore they would gain in no respect an increase of their knowledge through their reunion with Him. Much rather, as He supposed, that this inward reunion with Him would enhance His disciples' joy, so that they would then pray to the Father in His name, and receive all things (xvi. 23 fi) ; so He also says expressly, that He would no more speak to them in veiled figures, but would tell them COMING AGAIN TO HIS DISCIPLES. 30 1 with perfect plainness in regard to the Father (xvi. 25). But the characteristic point in this declaration of Jesus is just that He indicates the teaching that is to be then given as something in regard to the Father only. When, on the ground of their instruction by the Holy Ghost, the disciples recalled His words to memory, and had become convinced of the truth of His Messiahship in spite of His death, and when they had thereby regained union with Himself as raised up to the heavenly life, then this inwardly experienced and assured reunion with Him would fully unfold for them the clear knowledge of God as the Father. The perfect knowledge of the nature of the Father, namely, of the fatherly love of God to them, in accord ance with which they need no intercessor with the Father (ver. 26 fi), will be given to them by the know ledge of the eternal life of bliss> whose possessor they knew Him to be, and which they also sought and obtained from God as a possession which tended to continual and perfect joy. The meaning which we have recognised in these Johannine utterances of Jesus in regard to His coming again to His disciples soon after His death, is the same as that which we found above in the words of Jesus, related by Mark, at the time of His going to Gethsemane : His disciples would be like the scattered sheep whose shepherd had been smitten down ; but after He should have risen, He would, as their Shepherd going before them, lead them to Galilee (Mark xiv. 27 fi). These utterances, recorded in two distinct written sources quite independent of each other, serve in a very remarkable way to explain 302 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. and confirm each other. In both places, Jesus, in figur ative expressions, indicates the thought that He, as the Risen One, should again enter into a fellowship with His disciples, of which they would become conscious, and which they would trustfully maintain. Like that saying in Mark, these utterances of the Johannine farewell discourses could not have been supplement*! arily put into the mouth of Jesus ex eventu, because of His appearances to His disciples as risen from the dead ; for in that case another and more definite form- in accordance with the appearances, would have been given them. But certainly they have been inter preted ex eventu in the Christian Church till the present time, that is, their fulfilment has been sought in the few transient appearances of the Risen One after His death, related by the apostolic Church, whilst yet, in their original sense, they refer to a permanent spiritual union of the disciples on earth with their Master in heaven. But the fact that in the farewell discourses of the fourth Gospel these utterances of Jesus have been preserved in such verbal form as still permits of the original sense being clearly seen, and that, moreover, neither in these discourses nor in our other written sources are such utterances of Jesus conveyed as predict transient appearances of Jesus to His disciples after His death, is a most highly sig nificant indication of the original apostolic value of these farewell discourses of Jesus in the fourth Gospel. That in them we find a still fuller and clearer ex pression of the prescience of Jesus as to the new and increased assurance of faith in Him as the Messiah living in heaven, which the disciples would attain HEAVENLY REUNION WITH THE DISCIPLES. 303 soon after the first period of terror after His death, than the expression of it in those brief words recorded in Mark, cannot surprise any one who supposes that these farewell discourses have been written down by the most trusted disciple of Jesus, who had the maturest understanding of the words, and therefore retained the fullest remembrance of it. In relation to what is conveyed as to the last words of Jesus by our other sources, viz. the Matthew-Logia (§ 39) and Mark's Gospel, these farewell discourses of the fourth Gospel certainly appear to us very long ; but in relation to what Jesus must have really sought to impart to His disciples for exhortation and consolation on the last evening when He saw His separation from them to be imminent, they may be regarded as merely a brief compressed summary. The general view, however, of the effects of the death of Jesus on His disciples, out of which the comforting predictions and promises in these Johannine farewell discourses have sprung, is, as I believe that I have shown, quite the same as that which is plainly attested for us in our other sources. 7. Finally, in these farewell discourses the thought of Jesus also finds expression, that He would in the future be united with the disciples in the heavenly life. According to the view of Jesus, which is brought into special prominence in the Johannine discourses, that the blessing of which He is the medium is eternal life, of which believers indeed already partake on earth, and which endures as truly eternal life in spite of earthly death, the prospect necessarily resulted for Him, that He who was now 304 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. to ascend through death to the heavenly life, would be afterwards in heaven together with His disciples. In order to impart comfort and trust to His disciples, He points them to the heavenly mansions which awaited them : " In my Father's house are many mansions ; if it were not so, I would have told you : I go to prepare a place for you ; 1 and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also" (xiv. 2 fi). The coming again to the disciples, 1 In xiv. ib we must keep to the simplest view of the connection of the words, viz. that 'in iroptiofiai, etc., is dependent on niros as vpCis as the statement of contents of what has been said. We do not therefore require, however, to regard the whole clause as a question which refers to an unrecorded saying of Jesus. Neither this idea of a question nor the explanation of 'in iropsvo/xai, etc., as expressing the reason why, would have been adopted except with a view to preclude the contradiction suggested in the hypothetical saying of Jesus, ver. ib, that He is going away to prepare a place for His disciples, which appears to be not-actual, whilst He then, in ver. 3, expresses the presupposition that He is actually going away, and will prepare a place for His disciples. But this apparent contradiction is by no means greater or harder than in the case of viii. 15 f. (iya ov xpiua ovaisa' xal ids xpisa Ss iya, ij xpiais ii tp.ii dhyl)iv'/i iarts) ; cf. also the relation of xvi. 26b to xiv. 16 (see the note on p. 290 f.). A statement which, regarded from a certain point ofviewis correct, may be nullified or limited when considered from another point of view. When Jesus first expresses that He need not say to the disciples that He goes away in order to prepare a place for them, the governing idea is, that it is not necessary first to make room and readi ness for the attainment of heavenly bliss by the disciples, but in this respect the possibility of their attaining heavenly bliss was ready with out His further co-operation. But in expressing this, the thought arises to His consciousness that still His going away was not without relation to the attainment of heavenly bliss by the disciples. For He considers His death as a weighty means for their attaining bliss, and He has the consciousness that He will be truly helpful to them for this purpose in His heavenly resurrection-life by His intercession to God for them. So far, however, as He admits the thought, that His departure will aidin bringing to actual realisation for His disciples the possibility of their heavenly bliss, founded on the readiness of the many mansions, He can also regard the declaration as true, that He goes to prepare a place for His disciples, and He can introduce it in this sense as a presupposition eventually valid (ids cum conjunct, aor.). HEAVENLY REUNION WITH THE DISCIPLES. 305 which He here means, cannot, as shown by the connection, be His return to a spiritual union with them during their future earthly existence, but only a return, whereby they shall" be raised up from their earthly life to participation in His life in the heavenly mansions. It is very noteworthy that Jesus, in these Johannine sayings, represented His co-operation in transferring His disciples from the earthly to the heavenly life, as conditioned and preceded by His return to them, and that here also, as in the synop tical utterances, He so speaks of this second coming, as if those disciples, who were then present with Plim, would witness it on earth. He also expressed His confident hope of reunion with His disciples in heaven, at the close of the farewell- prayer, in the words : " Father, I will that they whom Thou hast given me " (that is, the company of my disciples) " be with me where I am ; that they may behold my glory, which Thou hast given me : because Thou hast loved me before the foundation of the world " (xvii. 24). On the other hand, in the discourses of the fourth Gospel there is no expression of the thought of Jesus, that in His future second coming He would execute a judgment, whereby both the reception of His faithful disciples to heavenly bliss and the rejection of His unfaithful disciples and enemies should be decided.1 For the thought of this future judgment, 1 The reference to this future judgment in v. 28 f. is plainly an interpolation of the evangelist in redacting the Johannine source, just like the closing words in vi. 39, 40, 44, 54, and the is ryi la^dry hftipa at the close of xii. 48 (cf. L. J i. pp. 248 ff, 267, 279). It is to be noticed how, in the account, v. 28 f., the judgment of the Messiah is regarded as universal, extending over all the dead and those re awakened from their graves, and as taking place in accordance with the VOL. II. U 306 THE HEAVENLY FUTURE OF THE MESSIAH. brought out in the synoptical discourses, there has manifestly been substituted in the Johannine dis courses the variously expressed thought that a judicial division is already in the present effected by the preaching of Jesus, inasmuch as they who lend a believing ear to this preaching already attain the possession of eternal life, whilst those who show an unbelieving spirit towards this blissful preaching, are thereby already judged and excluded from blessing (iii. i8f. ; v. 22, 27; ix. 39; xii. 48). J But the very presence of this substituted thought in the discourses of the fourth Gospel shows that we can by no means speak of an essential difference on this point between the Johannine and the synoptical modes of view. For the peculiar fundamental thought of the utterances of Jesus, recorded in the synoptical sources in regard to His coming again to judgment, is that the position which men assume to Himself and His preaching will be decisive for their attainment of heavenly welfare, and that this decisive significance of Him for the heavenly welfare or the final doom of men will be clearly manifested at that epoch when the transition shall take place from the earthly development to the heavenly consummation of the kingdom of God. Just this fundamental thought, however, is also standard of good or bad deeds in general (cf. Rev. xx. 12 f). The original view of the future judgment, brought out in the synoptical utterances of Jesus, in which alone the source of this thought in the collective view of Jesus is obvious, the view, namely, that His judgment would extend over all men who have come into relation with Him as the Messiah, and that His sentence would be passed upon each in accordance with the attitude assumed towards Him, is here quite wanting. 1 Cf. above, p. 211. UNION TO THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. 307 expressed in the Johannine utterances in regard to the present attainment of eternal life or the experience of judgment, in accordance with the position assumed towards the preaching of Jesus. If we take into account the significant light cast on the synoptical sayings of Jesus regarding His future judgment, by the fact that Jesus at the same time speaks of the already existing certainty of the heavenly life and Divine reward for the disciples, we must certainly judge that the sayings which occur in the discourses of the fourth Gospel in regard to the already existing execution of judgment are by no means an inapt spiritualising modification of the real ideas of Jesus in regard to His future judicial office, but rather an interpretation and explanation of the inner meaning which these ideas had for the consciousness of Jesus Himself. CHAP. V. CONDUCT REQUIRED IN MEN TOWARDS THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. 1. That Jesus, in the consciousness of His Messianic significance and work, required that men should adopt a definite attitude toward His person, and re garded this attitude as the condition of their obtaining heavenly welfare, has been clearly brought out in our foregoing study of the Messianic self-testimony of Jesus, especially His utterances in regard to His future return to judgment. We must now seek more closely to determine the sense in which Jesus made this requirement, and its relation to His requirement 308 CONDUCT REQUIRED TOWARDS THE MESSIAH. of the general conditions of participation in the kingdom of God. As Jesus, from His initial message that the king dom of heaven was at hand (Mark i. 15), gradu ally, and at first only in the narrowest circle of His disciples, advanced to the clear divulgence of His consciousness of being the Messiah, the repre-. sentative and mediator of the kingdom of God, so His earlier demand, that men should fulfil the con ditions of participation in the kingdom of God by repentance and trust in the tidings of salvation, became narrowed down afterwards to the demand that men should unite themselves to Him as the Messiah, and cleave fast to Him in trust. Mark, who alone in his narrative takes accurate account of the progress of the preaching of Jesus from the first message in regard to the kingdom of God in general to the later divulgence of His Messiahship, also clearly attests a progress — intimately connected with the former — in the demands of Jesus in regard to the necessary saving conduct. According to Mark's account, Jesus, from the time of the disciples' confes sion, speaks of the conduct required of His disciples as a conduct to be shown in regard to His person. He requires, as a condition of participation in the heavenly life, that men should take up the cross and follow Him (Mark viii. 34; cf. Luke xiv. 27); that for His sake and the gospel's, men should be ready to sacrifice earthly life, earthly goods and relationships, and perseveringly to bear the persecuting hatred of men (Mark viii. 35; x. 29; xiii. 9, 13); that they should not be ashamed of Him and His words before \ UNION TO THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. 309 men (Mark viii. 38 ; cf. Matt. x. 32 fi). He ascribes the greatest value to an action which has reference to His name, even though, in external appearance, it was quite small and insignificant (Mark ix. 37, 41 ; cf. Matt, xviii. 20), and says that a friendly action shown to Him has the same value as an act toward God Himself, who sent Him (Mark ix. 37). He declares that whoever comes into hostile collision with Him, whether as the- assailant or the assailed, would certainly fall and come to destruction : " Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken ; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder " (Luke xx. 18). He accounts every one blessed who shall not be offended in Him (Matt. xi. 6). But we need not suppose that Jesus, in requiring union to and confession of His person, has added, to the general conditions elsewhere laid down for partici pation in the benefit of the kingdom of God, a new condition of independent significance, whereby the series of these conditions would be completed in their full extent. But Jesus only takes account of His own person as the medium of the preaching of the kingdom of God, and what He regards as the condition of attaining salvation is only the trustful reception of the salvation preached by Him and the resolute performance of the righteousness required by Him. But as He is conscious that He brings the message of the kingdom of God, not at all as one among others, but rather as the Messiah, the sole perfect possessor and mediator of the blissful know ledge of God (Luke x. 22 ; Matt. xi. 27), so He can call men to union with Himself, with His person 3IO CONDUCT REQUIRED TOWARDS THE MESSIAH. (Matt. xi. 28), and can represent this union as the condition of their obtaining salvation. But this union to His person, as to its contents, is nothing else than adherence to the message of the kingdom of God brought by Him; and the confession of Himself, which He requires to be made openly and persever ingly even amid renunciation and sacrifice of life, does not mean a confession of His Messianic person such as may stand side by side with His Messianic teaching, but rather such a confession of His teaching as finds comprehensive expression only in the acknowledgment of His person as the Messiah, the revealer of God, and the mediator of Divine salva tion. That this really was Jesus' mode of view, we learn, not only from the fact that He sometimes designates Himself and the gospel, or Himself and His words, as the proper point of adherence for the fidelity and confession of His disciples, thus explaining by the added impersonal reference to His gospel the fore going personal reference to Himself (Mark viii. 35, 38 ; x. 29), but also from a series of other sayings of Jesus, in which He judges of the relation and conduct of other men to His person just from the attitude they have adopted to His preaching. First of all, He has laid emphatic stress upon the fact that the nearest and closest external relation to His person merely as such has no value, but that only the acceptance of and obedience to His words form the basis of true fellow ship with Him. When His mother and His brethren would have taken Him away from His absorbing and UNION TO THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. 3 1 I wearing activity, because they thought that He was beside Himself (Mark iii. 21), He repelled them with the question : " Who is my mother and my brethren ? " and then glancing at the hearers of His instruction, who sat around Him, He said: "Behold my mother and my brethren ! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and my mother" (vers. 33-35). The exclamation of the woman in the crowd, " Blessed is the womb which bare Thee, and the breasts which Thou hast sucked," was transformed by Him into the statement, " Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it" (Luke xi. 27 fi). He declared that, not every one that says to Him, " Lord, Lord," but only they who do what He saith, shall enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. vii. 21 ; Luke vi. 46),1 and that those who at the day of judgment may claim . the closest natural relationship to Him, will not be owned by Him if they are doers of unrighteousness (Luke xiii. 26 fi). He indeed accepted the homage and love expressed to His person by the sinner in the Pharisee's house (Luke vii. 36 ff), because He saw in this manifestation of love the natural expression of gratitude for the grace which through Him was bestowed upon this sinner (ver. 41 ff). He also defended the disciple in Bethany, who, shortly before His death, poured the precious ointment from the alabaster-box upon His head, from the reproach of unjustifiable prodigality ; because, under the peculiar circumstances of that particular time, the wish, prompted by the presentiment of His departure; to 1 Cf. Log. §21, L.J. i. p. 69. 312 CONDUCT REQUIRED TOWARDS THE MESSIAH. bestow some gift from among her costliest possessions upon His person, as a natural expression of warm and true affection, was preferable to a cold calculating parsimony in favour of the poor, who were always with them (Mark xiv. 3-9). But at an earlier period, in the same village of Bethany, He commended the restful attention of Mary to His teaching, rather than busy exertions in giving service to His person in an external way (Luke x. 38 ff). For there was no need of the many things which Martha provided;; but Mary had chosen as her portion the one thing of which there is truly need for men. It would be to mistake the judgment of Jesus as to this occurrence in Bethany, if we so characterised the difference between the conduct of Martha and Mary as to make the former the representative of active love, and the latter the representative of a trustful devotion to the preached gospel, whereby all her own acts are forgotten. For Mary's hearing attitude must not at all be regarded as in opposition to the practical conduct corresponding to the teaching ; and as little must Jesus' teaching, to which Mary listens, be regarded as such a preaching of the gospel as did not directly include the preaching of the practical right eousness of the kingdom of God. Jesus would have ascribed no value at all to the hearing of His words, did it not lead to the fitting practical conduct at the right time (cf. Matt. vii. 21, 24 ff; Luke vi. 47 ff).1 The difference between the conduct of Martha and Mary is rather to be stated thus, that the former was busied in regard to the person of Jesus in external activity 1 Cf. Log. § 21, L. J. i. p. 69 f. UNION TO THE PERSON OF THE MESSIAH. 313 for His external welfare, but the latter devoted herself to His preaching with inward understanding of the true purpose of His life and work, and with the wish to let this purpose have full scope in herself. This inward devotion to His preaching, Jesus prizes more highly than that kind-hearted external activity on behalf of His person. In accordance with this fundamental view, that k is the inward attitude to His preaching that has peculiar worth and decisive importance, Jesus could declare that, inasmuch as His disciples were His associates and successors in the work of teaching, to hearken to them was equivalent to hearkening to Him (Luke x. 16), and the friendly or hostile treat ment of them was a friendly or hostile treatment of Himself (Matt. xxv. 40, 45). For a mode of conduct towards the person of the disciples in so far as it was done on account of the teaching which they, as well as He, announced, was a mode of conduct directly exercised towards His person. According to the same mode of view, Jesus magnanimously judged the procedure of the man of whom the disciples related that he cast out devils in the name of Jesus, but they had forbidden him, because he did not follow after Jesus : " Forbid him not : for there is no man that shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our part" (Mark ix. 38-40). That man's successful work, performed in Jesus' name, was regarded by Jesus as a token of such a friendly attitude toward Himself as was inwardly determined, and could not on a sudden be exchanged for hostile 314 CONDUCT REQUIRED TOWARDS THE MESSIAH. opposition. On an earlier occasion, with reference to the Pharisees, who indeed had not actively gone against Him, but who had depreciated His work with words of hatred, He uttered the saying, " He that is not with me is against me ; and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth abroad" (Matt. xii. 30) ; for He has here sought to bring out, that not merely the hostile act, but even the hostile word, and indeed the mere abstaining from friendly assent and co-operation, has a hostile significance, inasmuch as this abstinence is an expression of the hostile spirit, which is the important matter (cf. vers. 33-37). Now, He could express this judgment of opposite , tenor, "He that is not with us is on our part," inasmuch as in that case, where the taking of a side in favour of His cause was not shown in external adherence to Him and the circle of His disciples, it was, nevertheless, in the inward sense an actual fact, and manifested itself in referring the work to His name. The principle according to which Jesus judged was the same in both cases — He regarded the attitude of the inward heart to His preaching, and not the outward conduct toward His person, as the standard of whether a man belonged to Him or not. So also, finally, He judged with leniency of those who opposed His person, when the motive of the hostile conduct did not lie in conscious opposition to His revelation - preaching. When admission and a place of rest were denied Him in a Samaritan village, because He was going in the direction of Jerusalem, He met with stern rebuke the Elias-like zeal of the sons of Zebedee, who wished to punish with fire from UNION TO THE PERSON" OF THE MESSIAH. 31 5 heaven this insult shown to their master (Luke ix. 52-56). And, making a striking distinction between His person and the cause, whose representative and revealer His person was, He declared that a word spoken against the Son of man would find forgive ness, but the blasphemy directed against the Holy Ghost would not be forgiven (Luke xii. 10). By the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost He understands the expression of a hostile spirit against the Divine power on the ground of which He exercised His work in announcing and spreading the gospel ; who ever sets himself in hostile opposition to this Divine revelation-power, definitively excludes himself from Divine saving grace. On the other hand, such a hostil ity against His person as does not arise from conscious resistance to this Divine revelation-power in Him, is indeed a culpable fault, but is not an offence leading to everlasting perdition. For though His person is the Messiah, yet the Messiah, in spite of His being the medium of the Divine saving revelation, is never theless a Son of man, and transgression against this human person as such is not comparable in blame worthiness to transgression against the Divine revela tion-power whose representative He is. The way in which Jesus judged of the conduct which other men must exercise and have exercised towards His person, bears witness to the deep ethical inwardness of His mode of view, according to which He did not attribute significance to His person as such, but only to the Divine Spirit by which He spoke and worked, and according to which He ascribed all value, not to the attitude towards Him- 316 CONDUCT REQUIRED TOWARDS THE MESSIAH. self which exists in outward appearance, but to that which rests on the inner spirit. And it shows at the same time how, along with His extremely elevated Messianic self-consciousness, His genuine piety kept Him free from all personal vanity. Certain as He was that He alone was the mediator of the. true knowledge of the heavenly Father and the bringer of the true salvation for men, and confidently as He demanded the resolute and enduring union of other men to His person as the condition of their attaining salvation, He yet by no means sought to be anything in Himself as man, and as little strove after any other recognition from men than that which referred to His saving message, to which He knew Himself called of God. 2. When, in His consciousness of Messiahship, Jesus demanded the union of men to His person, in so far as it was the vehicle of the truth-revealing and salvation-bringing preaching, and' when, as we formerly saw, He regarded His self-resignation to death in fulfilment of His calling as a specific branch of His work of preaching, and therefore ascribed to His death a specific saving significance for His disciples, it is intelligible that, in view of His death, He should change His general requirement of be longing to and acknowledgment of Himself and His gospel to the more special requirement, that His disciples should come into a relation to Him as the dying One, and should recognise and use for them selves the saving significance of His death. In con sidering this connection of thought, we have in any case obtained a general principle for understanding PARTAKING OF JESUS BODY AND BLOOD. 317 the fact that Jesus at the last supper invited His disciples to a transaction, whereby at that time, and, according to Paul's tradition of the words, also in future repetitions, they should attest their own in timate fellowship with His person as yielded up to death. But the special ritual form, which Jesus gave to the transaction in reference to this purpose, was determined by the special form in which, at the last supper, He understood and sought to make plain the saving significance of His death for His disciples. He pronounced His death to be a sacrifice, and indeed, in analogy with the covenant-sacrifice pre sented, according to Ex. xxiv., by Moses, the sacri fice of the New Covenant, an offering well-pleasing to God, whereby the new saving relation between God and men, indicated in the notion of the kingdom of God, would be sealed.1 Now, it was not at all strange for the Jewish consciousness, that, along with the presentation of an offering to God, a rite should be associated, whose purpose was the clear manifesta tion of the community of the offerer with the offering. In that Old Testament covenant-sacrifice, Moses had only sprinkled half the blood of the animals upon the altar, and thereby performed the peculiar sacrifice to be offered to God ; the other half of the blood, how ever, he sprinkled on the assembled people, with the words : " Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words" (Ex. xxiv. 8). This sprinkling was not at all meant to serve the purpose of an atonement or purification 1 Cf. above, p. 235 ff. 3 18 CONDUCT REQUIRED TOWARDS THE MESSIAH. for sin, since in connection with this whole "burnt- offering and thank-offering" (ver. 5) there is no question whatever of an expiation of sins ; but the sprinkling was designed to bring the assembled people into a manifest relation to the sacrifice, so that it would be evident that this was the community for whom the offering was to be presented, who virtually signified by this offering their consent to the covenant, and who now expected from God the beneficent results of the covenant sealed by the sacrifice. In the same sense, in connection with thank - offerings, sacrificial meals had place among the Israelites, which, though in their customary use they were in many ways divested of their peculiarly religious significance, yet originally were meant ex pressively to represent the community of the offerer with the offering (cf. 1 Cor. x. 18). Whilst Jesus referred to that transaction of Moses, whereby in the covenant-sacrifice the covenant people were brought into community with the sacrificial blood, but whilst He changed the rite of sprinkling, as being less appropriate and significant, according to the circum stances, for the essentially equivalent rite of the sacrificial meal, and whilst He was at the same time influenced by the thought of the Passover meal, which was for the Israelites a meal of thank ful remembrance of the beginning of the deliverance of the people by God, He instituted a sacrificial meal in connection with His sacrificial death (Mark xiv. 22-24; : Gor. xi. 23-25).1 His disciples were 1 We must not be satisfied with representing one single Old Testa ment analogy as determinative of the ordinance instituted by Jesus, but PARTAKING OF JESUS' BODY AND BLOOD. 319 to partake of His body offered, and His blood shed, for the covenant-sacrifice, in order by this partaking to confess His sacrificial death, and to acknowledge themselves as His Church for whom the New Covenant must recognise the connection of this ordinance with the various Old Testament types above cited. It is not the way with great spirits to limit themselves in their transactions and arrangements to the simple imitation of something that has been or that now exists ; but, even where they found upon something actually existing, and take it for a model, they nevertheless are able with freedom and geniality to dis tinguish the essential substance from the non-essential form, and, along with the particular elements adopted by them, to combine such new ones as will form one whole practically corresponding to the altered circumstances. That, in the institution of the Supper, Jesus primarily thought of the covenant-sacrifice of Moses, and of the accompanying act of sprinkling the people with the blood of the sacrifice, is evident from the reference of His words to the words of Moses in that act. But that He did not adopt the rite of sprinkling, but instead of that the rite of the sacrificial meal, is to be regarded as a proof of His genial, practical regard, whereby He not only saw the essentially identical significance of the two rites, and therefore the possibility of putting the one in place of the other, but saw also how much more significant was the common meal than the sprinkling, the former of which brought out much more strongly the desired communion of the partakers with the sacrifice, as also the mutual connection of the partakers, and at the same time brought the transaction into a significant analogy with the Jewish Passover feast. For this latter analogy manifestly coincided in His mind with that of the sacrificial meal. In the sacrificial meal, they ate only of the flesh of the sacrificed animal, they did not also drink of its blood. The giving of the blood to the disciples, however, was of importance for Jesus in reference to Ex. xxiv. 8. But not only was the Supper made externally like the Passover feast by the giving of the cup along with the partaking of the flesh, but especially a great real similarity to the Passover feast was based on the fact that Jesus appointed that this Supper should be observed by the disciples in future in remembrance of Him, even as the Passover was celebrated in remembrance of the deliverance of Israel from the Egyptian bondage. Yet it is not justifiable to explain this institution of Jesus merely from the analogy of the Passover feast. For the Passover feast, at least for the consciousness of the Jews in the time of Jesus, was not a sacrificial meal, but a religious feast of remembrance ; whilst the significance of the Christian Supper as a sacrificial meal connected with the sacrificial death of Christ, is attested by Paul (1 Cor. x. 18 ff.) in the most decided way. And the direct reference made by Jesus to Ex. xxiv. must not be overlooked. 320 CONDUCT REQUIRED TOWARDS THE MESSIAH. was sealed through this covenant-sacrifice, and who laid claim to the blissful effects of this sacrifice ; and they were in the future to repeat this sacrificial meal in remembrance of Him, in order thereby ever anew to set themselves in communion with Him as the offered One, and to recognise the beneficial signifi cance of this sacrificial death for themselves. In this sense also Paul, the oldest apostolic witness for the Christian feast of the Lord's Supper, understood the ordinance; he sets it in analogy with Jewish and heathen sacrificial meals, which are not profane feasts without significance, but by which one's participation in the sacrifice itself, and one's connection with the sacrificing community and fellowship with God are signified (i Cor. x. 16-22); and he designates it as a showing forth of the Lord's death which would involve an offence against the body and blood of the Lord worthy of punishment, if it was not carried out with real appreciation of the significance of His sacri ficial death (1 Cor. xi. 26 ff).1 1 I cannot agree with the explanation of Weizsacker, Apostolisches Zeitalter, p. 598 f., that, according to the interpretation of Paul, and, in conformity with that, according also to the original meaning of Jesus, only the second part of the transaction has a reference to the death of Jesus, whilst in the first part the bread is simply a type of the presence of Jesus without reference to His death, either of His personal presence in the sense of Matt, xviii. 20 ; John xiv. 18 f., 23 ; or, with Paul, in the sense of the Church forming the body of Christ. Certainly in the words, " This is my body" (Mark xiv. 22), or " This is my body for you" (1 Cor. xi. 24), the reference to the death is not directly expressed ; and, on the other hand, it is also plain that Paul has given the partaking of the bread at the Supper a special reference to the membership of the partakers to the body of Christ which is composed of the Church (1 Cor. x. 17). But the plainly expressed reference to the death of Jesus in the second part of the transaction appears to me to find a sufficient historical explanation, only if the whole transaction has the signifi cance of a sacrificial meal. Only in connection with this well-known PARTAKING OF JESUS BODY AND BLOOD. 32 1 In the knowledge that Jesus regarded the meal instituted for the community of the disciples as a sacrificial meal connected with His sacrificial death, lies also the key to understanding how He could designate the actual bread and the actual wine simply as His body.1 For from this knowledge arises the necessity of strongly maintaining that the body and blood of Jesus, which are here under consideration, are His earthly body which was nailed to the cross, and His earthly blood which was poured out on the cross. If, in manifest contradiction to the tenor of Jesus' words, which mention the blood poured out, we substituted, instead of the earthly body and blood .rite of the sacrificial meals could Jesus have been led to contrive a ritual meal for His disciples in reference to the sacrificial significance of His death, and only thus could this rite have been directly intelligible in meaning to His disciples ; but to this sacrificial meal the eating of the sacrificial flesh belonged as an essential element. When Paul gives the partaking of the bread a reference to the body of Christ, which- is composed of the Church, that reference is founded on the presupposi tion that the whole transaction of the Lord's Supper is first of all and directly the sacrificial meal, whereby men are brought into communion with the offered body and blood of Christ (1 Cor. x. 18). From this pre supposition he draws the conclusion that, as a sacrificial meal, the Lord's Supper has the significance, that the partakers become thereby partici pators in the Church of Christ, for whom the sacrifice was presented, and participators in the sacrifice itself, which was offered for the Church (ver. 17 f). This double significance belonging to the Lord's Supper as a sacrificial meal was already indicated by Paul in ver. 16, only in the Hebraising rhetorical mode of expression he has attached one side of the significance to one side of the transaction and the other side of the significance to the other side of the transaction (cf. the same dividing form of expression, Rom. iv. 25 ; x. 9 fi). 1 The remark that Jesus, in speaking Aramaic, would not express the copula in the words of institution, is very true, but contributes nothing to the explanation of the problem involved in this copula. For it is still only our copula which can remain unexpressed in Hebrew and Aramaic, and so it remains an open question for us how this copula, which, though not expressed'is to be supplied, must be understood. VOL. II. x 32 2 CONDUCT REQUIRED TOWARDS THE MESSIAH. of Jesus, which were really given in death, His glorified heavenly body, or, still more generally, the heavenly spirit-life of the Risen One, with which the disciples should be incorporated by participation, we should thus give up the whole idea that the question is about the sacrificial meal connected with the sacrificial death of Jesus. It further results, however,' from the above - mentioned knowledge, that the partaking of the body and blood of Jesus is not regarded as an end in itself, but as a means to an end. For every sacrificial meal as such is a symbolical transaction, in which the partaking does not take place for its own sake, but is a means of testifying the communion which the partakers have with the offered sacrifice. Hence we can directly infer in what sense Jesus in this transaction could have presented bread and wine instead of His body and blood given in sacrifice, and could yet also declare that this was His body and His shed blood. Since the essential purpose of the transaction, which had importance for the consciousness of Jesus, was the communion which His disciples should have with His sacrifice, in other words, their inward recognition of the value and saving significance of His death, and of that not merely as a physical process, but as a perfect act ot obedience to God ; and since the partaking of His body and blood was designed to have only the sense of a symbolical testifying of their fellowship with His sacrificial death, He could — because in the special manner and circumstances of His sacrificial death a partaking of the real sacrificial flesh was obviously excluded — vicariously substitute other food, PARTAKING OF JESUS* BODY AND BLOOD. 323 inasmuch as He ascribed to it by His explanatory word the same significance for the consciousness of all partakers as His body and blood had in the sacrificial meal. So long as we proceed from the idea that, in the partaking of His body and blood indicated by Jesus, the question is in regard to such a participation in His heavenly nature as is directly in itself a blissful possession for His disciples, it makes, of course, a fundamental difference for the value of the meal whether the bread and the wine are the mysterious miraculous media, or only the illustrative symbols of this higher nature of Christ of which the disciples are to partake for their welfare. But if we recognise that the meal appointed by Jesus, even supposing that in it the disciples partook in a miraculous way of the body and blood of Jesus really offered up on the cross, was yet only a symbolical transaction, wherein an inward recognition and appreciation of the sacrificial death of Jesus were expressed by the external partaking of the offered body and blood, so we will judge that, in meaning, value, and effect, this symbolical transaction will in no respect suffer a change, though, instead of the elements peculiarly applicable to the purpose of this symbolical transaction, other elements are employed, to which, in accordance with the accompanying interpretation or previous agreement, the same significance and reference is given for the whole of the symbolical transaction. If on this ground Jesus did not hesitate to give to the mere actual food the significance of His body and blood given in sacrificial death, so that, in accordance 324 CONDUCT REQUIRED TOWARDS THE MESSIAH. with this interpretation expressed by Him, the whole transaction acquired the meaning and value of a real sacrificial meal in reference to His approaching sacrificial death, we must certainly recognise in this judgment and procedure of Jesus a remarkable testimony to His splendidly free and spiritual mode of view, which had respect to the inner meaning, and did not regard the external appearance as essential. But yet we cannot say that, in His idealistic judging of the value and significance of the external elements and acts from the idea on which they depended or with which they were connected, Jesus went much further here in the institution of the Supper than He has done in other cases. Only we must not seek analogies for His view, as here expressed, in the parables, in which, sometimes, in the brevity of the expression the objects compared to each other are apparently designated as identical with one another (e.g. Mark iv. 15 ff), for there the comparison has a somewhat different sense from what it has in our case. But the nearest analogies lie in the above-mentioned declarations of Jesus which refer to the attitude and conduct of men towards His person, since here the same general mode of view as occurs in the case in question has also occasioned a similar form of expression. When Jesus declares that those who sat around Him hearing His teaching were His mother and brothers, whilst every one that doeth the will of God was His brother, and sister, and mother (Mark iii. 34 fi) ; or whosoever receiveth a child in His name, receiveth Him (Mark ix. 37) ; or whoso heareth His disciples, heareth Him (Luke x. 16) ; or what has been PARTAKING OF JESUS' BODY AND BLOOD. 325 done to the least of His brethren has been done to Him (Matt. xxv. 40, 45), — no one supposes that we must assume some miraculous transformation or indwelling in the case of those persons in order to the truth of these declarations of Jesus. For it is obvious that these sayings do not refer to the literal being of the persons, and do not affirm the essential identity of these persons with the natural relatives of Jesus, or with Himself, but 'that they are declarations as to value, whereby a relation to Him, which from an external point of view constitutes no kinship to Him, is yet according to its inner value designated as the closest relationship of propriety to Him, and whereby an act, which externally considered has no relation to His person, yet according to its inner value is compared to an act directly rendered to Himself. These declarations of value have their justification in the fact that, because Jesus, in regard to all relations and actions of other men to His person, finds the standard of value, not in the outward relation to His outward person as such, but in the relation of the inward spirit to the Divine teaching which He conveyed ; these declarations of value appear, how ever, in the form of declarations of a simple identity of being.1 1 Examples of the same form of expression are found in the declara tion regarding the widows mite, " This poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury" (Mark xii. 43), where not the being actually greater, but the being greater in true value, is indicated ; and the word of Jesus on the cross to His mother and the beloved disciple, "Woman, behold (i.e. here is) thy son," and "behold thy mother" (John xix. 26 f.). I may also point out that the Greek language lacks a word which exactly corresponds to our notion " value," where this notion does not only denote the money or mercantile value, but more generally the significance which a person or thing or transac- o 26 CONDUCT REQUIRED TOWARDS THE MESSIAH. The matter stands similarly in regard to the institution words of the Supper. According to the form of words, Jesus designated the food to be partaken of, which, externally considered, is merely bread and wine, as identical with His body and blood offered as a sacrifice. He seeks thereby to express the thought that the partaking of this bread and wine has the same value and significance as the partaking of His offered body and blood in a sacrificial meal referring to His sacrificial death. The ultimate ground of this declaration of identity lies in His knowing that the thing of importance and value was not the external partaking of His outward body and blood, but the tion has as a " good," or as a means of obtaining good, or as a cause of important effects. The lack of a word for this notion meets us frequently in the New Testament, where various circumlocutions are used to supply the idea. The notion of price can be used as a circum locution (Col. ii. 23), or that of profit (Mark viii. 36 ; John vi. 63 ; 1 Cor. xiii. 3), or that of power (Gal. v. 6). But the idea simply of being may also occur, where yet no judgment in regard to real existence, but only in regard to value, is intended. When Paul, Gal. vi. 15 and 1 Cor. vii. 19, says, "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything," he meant the same thing as he expressed in Gal. v. 6, " Neither circum cision nor uncircumcision availeth anything," namely, " Neither circum cision nor uncircumcision has any value-" (cf. the alternation of the expression, I Cor. xiii. 2, ovhis sifii, and ver. 3, ovist atpiAovptai). So also the thought, that one thing has the same value as another thing, can be expressed by saying that the one thing has become the other; cf, Rom. ii. 25f., where Paul uses three different circumlocutions for our idea of value : " Circumcision verily profiteth (i.e. has value), if thou keep the law : but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is become (i.e. acquires the same value, or want of value, as) uncircum cision ; therefore, if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for (i.e. recognised as of the same value as) circumcision?" To the category of these latter circum locutions for the notion of value, belong also the above-cited declarations of Jesus. In the words of institution of the Supper we can substitute for the notion " value " that of " significance," because the question is in regard to the value of the objects used in a symbolical transaction ; for " significance " specially is the value of words or symbolical transactions, on which their effect is founded. PARTAKING OF JESUS' BODY AND BLOOD. 327 inward recognition (which the outward partaking symbolically expressed) of the religious fulfilment of obedience in the yielding of Himself up to death. For it must thus have appeared quite indifferent to Him, whether, the symbolical attestation of this inward recognition was shown in His real external body and blood, or in some other substituted elements. If we understand in this sense the institution of the Supper by Jesus, it appears as a member which has grown naturally out of the mode of view of Jesus as a whole. Jesus, at the close of His life, by no means set alongside of the requirement of adherence to His preaching as the medium of revelation and salvation, the further requirement of an external ritual act, whereby men should in a mysterious way come into a relation with His nature; but He specialised the general requirement of trustful and obedient adherence to His teaching as the requirement of trustful recognition of His death, inasmuch as He recognised in His death a specific manifestation of His beneficent Messianic vocation-work of teaching. From the way in which He appointed the external attestation of this inward recognition of His death, He in a magnificent way proved His unconcern for the outward appear ance of things, and His superiority to an external estimation of their value. That He contrived this recognition of His death in the outward form of a ritual symbolical transaction after the manner of a sacrificial meal, and that Pie appointed the repetition of this ritual meal in remembrance of Himself after the manner of the recurring Passover feast, is certainly to be explained, above all, from the fact that He could, 328 CONDUCT REQUIRED' TOWARDS THE MESSIAH. by this symbolical and liturgical fixation, in the briefest and surest way illustrate to their intelligence and stamp upon their memory the view of His death which He wished His disciples to entertain. When we consider how little the disciples were then, on the last evening of their being together with Jesus, in a position to enter into the thought of His imminent violent death, far less to attain a true appreciation of the inward necessity and saving value of this death, we shall admire it as a masterpiece of wisdom as to teaching, that Jesus, under these circumstances, did not enter upon a theoretical explanation of the significance of His death, which, through the defective understanding of the disciples, would have slipped away without lasting result ; but that Pie instituted this rite of a sacrificial meal, whose general significance , was intelligible to His disciples, and which afforded them for all the future a sure position in order clearly to conceive the view of His death intended by Jesus. In point of fact, this institution of Jesus exercised on the mode of view of the apostolic Church an influence whose significance can hardly be overrated. Not only were the common feasts of the Lord's Supper an important means for the disciples, at a time when a strong independent organisation was as yet lacking, of maintaining the consciousness of their fraternal connection and Church unity ; but they also served, above all, to establish, as steadfast tradition in the Christian Church, the idea of the death of Jesus, not merely as a cruel fate that had befallen Him in spite of His Messiahship, but rather as a sacrifice offered by Him on behalf of His people — the sacrifice of the FAITH IN JESUS IN JOHANNINE DISCOURSES. 329 new covenant. The view as to the saving signifi cance of the death of Jesus which was developed in the Christian Church, even Paul's idea regarding it, was without doubt primarily influenced by the transac tion of the Lord's Supper, which, as a sacred legacy of the departing Lord, was observed and continually. repeated along with His significant words in all circles of the Christian Church. And it may well be asked if the watchword of the cross, i.e. of the saving significance of the death of the Messiah for His own, — so highly esteemed by the apostles, — which was an offence to the Jews and foolishness to the heathen, would have been retained in the post-apostolic Church of the second century, even as to the few echoes of it which we actually find, if the confession of the sacrificial significance of the blood of Christ, in accordance with Jesus' institution of the Supper, had not been liturgically fixed in Christian worship. 3. The fact that the discourses of the fourth Gospel, in accordance with their original connec tion with the closing period of the ministry of Jesus, bring strongly out the consciousness of the Messianic significance of Jesus, finds its proper correlate in the fact that in those discourses the dis position of men, which involves the condition of their participation in eternal life, appears from the first as a disposition in relation to the Messianic person of Jesus. The general notion under which this disposition is most frequently designated is that of faith in the Son sent by the Father (iii. 15, 16, 18; vi. 29, 35, 40; vii. 38; viii. 24; xi. 25 fi ; xii. 36, 46). But with this 33O CONDUCT REQUIRED TOWARDS THE MESSIAH. notion of faith other notions are also interchanged, which partly illustrate this believing disposition in a figurative way, and partly bring out different aspects of it. Jesus required that men should come to Him (v. 40; vi. 35, 44 f, 65), and follow Him as men follow a light (viii. 12 ; cf. iii. 21), or as sheep follow the shepherd who goes before (x. 27), or as the servant follows his master and is with him (xii. 26) ; that they should receive Him (v. 43), love Him (viii. 42; xiv. 15, 21, 23 fi; cf. iii. 19), be in Him, and abide as the branches in communion with the vine (xv. 4-7; cf. xiv. 20; xvii. 21); He desires that He should also be lifted up, i.e. recognised in His God-given dignity (iii. 14 fi; viii. 28) ;x and He 1 In regard to the notion of the "lifting up" at both these passages, cf. L. J. i. p. 254, note. If we do not inquire as to the sense in which the evangelist who redacted the Johannine source understood this notion (in accordance with his gloss, xii. 33), but as to the original sense — which is historically intelligible from the connection of the respective passages — in which it could have been used by Jesus at those places, it follows that the notion has there a significance quite analogous to that in xii. 32 (cf. xii. 23 and Isa. Iii. 13), i.e. that it refers to the exaltation to heavenly glory, but, according to the connection, not to this exaltation so far as it is realised by God, but so far as it is recognised on the part of men. At the place (iii. 14 f.) in the Nicodemus-conversation the connection of the thought must be stated in the following way. In vers. 11-13, Jesus appealed to His own experience of heavenly things, because He, and indeed He alone, had immediate intercourse with heaven. In accord ance with this unique experience in regard to the heavenly life of blessing, He is the sole mediator of a similar miraculous experience for other men, namely, for all those who trustfully recognised this His heavenly significance (vers. 14 and 15). In this respect He resembles the serpent lifted up by Moses. The point of resemblance lies, not in the being externally lifted up above the earth, but (reserving all the possible differences in other respects) in the fact that as that serpent lifted up by Moses bestowed life on those looking up to it, even so Jesus bestows life on those who exalt Him, i.e. who trustfully acknowledge Hun in His heavenly elevation (which, according to ver. 13, He will not merely attain in the future, but which He already possesses). The progress of the thought between vers. 14 and 15 lies, not in the necessary FAITH IN JESUS IN JOHANNINE DISCOURSES. 33 1 declares that, according to God's will, all should honour Him, the Son, even as they honour the Father (v. 23). Along with these requirements, and partly in direct explanatory connection with them, stand such declara tions as show that even in these Johannine discourses the disposition indicated as to be shown towards the person of Jesus is, according to its peculiar nature, regarded as a disposition towards His teaching, and that the faith required in it consists in nothing other wise than in trustful and obedient recognition, reception, and following of the teaching which revealed God, showed the right, and was the means of salvation, and which forms His Messianic vocation. Jesus desires that, as the condition of eternal life, men should hear His word and believe on Plim who sent Him (v. 24), that men should abide in His word (viii. 31) and keep His word (viii. 51) ; He reproached the Jews because they disbelieved and despised His word (iii. 12 ; v. 47 ; viii. 27> 45 fi > xu- 47 fi)- He inculcates upon His disciples with impressive repetition the declaration that love to Him consists in keeping His commandments, His words (xiv. 15, 21, 2 3fi); and He declares, in connection with the parable of the Vine and the Branches (xv. 1 ff), that the abiding of the disciples objective fact that the lifting up of Jesus (on the cross) was first indicated in ver. 14, and then that the command as to the subjective requirement of faith in Him for the purpose of obtaining life, followed in ver. 15 ; but the objective fact of the unique heavenly exaltation of Jesus is already indicated in ver. 13 ; in ver. 14 follows the requirement of the subjective recognition of this His heavenly position ; and in ver. 15 it is added that such a recognition has the effect of the granting of eternal life. The notion of the elevation (ver. 14) is implied in ver. 15 in the notion of faith. 332 CONDUCT REQUIRED TOWARDS THE MESSIAH. in fellowship with Him, which would be for them the condition of all fruit-bearing, i.e. of all right practical conduct (ver. 4fi), and all reception of blessing from the Father (vers. 2, 7, 11), consisted in the keeping of His words and commandments. It is very note worthy how, in regard to the fellowship, at first quite generally and figuratively designated, in which the disciples should continue towards His person, Jesus Himself here in the continuation of the discourse adds the requisite explanation. Their abiding in Him, which was to be as inward and steadfast as the abiding of the fruit-bearing branch in the vine, He more precisely defines as an abiding of His words in them (ver. 7), and as a keeping of His commandments (vers. 10, 14) ; and His abiding in them, which corre sponds to their abiding in Him (ver. 4fi), He more closely defines as their abiding in His love, i.e. as their continually being loved by Him (vers,- 9f, 14). As this comprehensive commandment, in whose keep- in?- their abiding- in Him consists, and the condition of His continual love to them lies, He lays down the requirement of such a love as He exercises towards His disciples, a love which yields up life as a sacrifice, and spontaneously imparts all things (vers. 12-17). It is only when this explanation, given in the continuation of the discourse, is overlooked, that it can be supposed that the abiding of the disciples in Him and His abiding in them was understood in the sense of a mystical, natural, or sentimental fellowship with Him, and indeed with Him in His heavenly being. But when, on the contrary, the explanation of Jesus Himself is considered, we perceive that Jesus chose FAITH IN JESUS IN JOHANNINE DISCOURSES. 333 that general and figuratively illustrative expression of abiding in each other, in order, in the first place, to designate the desired fellowship with His disciples as an inward and intimate, in opposition to an outward one, but that He sought to have this intimate fellow ship apprehended as a fellowship of mutual love, which was manifested on the part of the disciples in the fact that they recognised in Him and voluntarily received from Him what He regarded as the fundamental principle of His Messianic significance, and as the aim of His Messianic work, viz. His revelation- teaching, and His loving as the living representa tion of this teaching. In the farewell prayer of Jesus, the just explanation of the intimate fellow ship with Him and the Father, for which He entreats His disciples (xvii. 21), is given in the foregoing declarations, in which He prays that, in the name of the Father, the disciples whom the Father has given to Him, the Messiah, may be kept (ver. nfi), that is, kept in the revelation - teaching, of which He is the medium for the salvation of men (ver. 3), and which He through His work on earth has delivered to the disciples (vers. 6-8, 14). For their holding fast to this revela tion, which contains the truth (the aX^6eia), is what maintains them in devoted fellowship with the Father (ver. 17). Finally, from the same mode of view we have to understand how Jesus places, in the discourse of chap. vi., the command that men should partake of His flesh and blood in order to become participators of eternal life (vers. 51-58). The figurative notions of 334 CONDUCT REQUIRED TOWARDS THE MESSIAH. eating and drinking are here occasioned by the fact that, in reference to the admonition of Jesus that they should labour for the meat afforded by Him and enduring to eternal life (ver. 27), the Jews had sought a sign from Him after the manner of the miracle of the manna (ver. 30 fi), and in connection with this He had designated Himself as the true bread from heaven, which suffices for eternal life (vers. 32-35). That which is first of all striking, is that Jesus afterwards gives to this eating, that is, reception and inward assimilation ot Himself, a special reference to His flesh and blood, that is, to the creaturely, human side of His nature. But we have already seen above1 in what sense He here ascribes a necessary significance for salvation to His flesh and blood ; how, on account of the objection of the Jews, who held His well-known human origin as a proof against His Divine saving significance (ver, 41 fi), He was led to emphasise the indispensable value of just this creature side of His nature, and how at the close of His discourse He laid emphatic stress upon the fact that His creature nature, His flesh, had not as such the value He claimed for it, but so far as it was the vehicle of the life words filled by the Divine Spirit, and leading to eternal life (ver. 63). So also the required eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood does not signify in any way an outward or miraculous inward union with His human person as such, but it means an inward reception and assimila tion of the teaching whose vehicle His human person is. Mysterious as these words of Jesus as to the 1 Cf. above, p. 179. FAITH IN JESUS ACCORDING TO JOHN. 335 eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood sound when they are considered in an isolated way, they become quite intelligible to us when we consider them in connection with the explanatory words, ver. 63, and with the sayings of Jesus elsewhere recorded for us in regard to the saving significance of His person, and in regard to the conduct to be shown towards His person. They imply anything but the requirement of a mystical union of the disciples with His glorified heavenly nature ; they are rather the energetic declaration of the fact that Jesus based His saving significance entirely upon the word of teaching, which He, as man, exercised upon earth, and that He regarded the necessary disposition of other men towards Him as consisting in the inward recep tion of this teaching exercised by Him on earth as man. But just because, according to the consciousness of Jesus, the believing recognition which He required for Himself is applicable to His teaching, which He knew He had not created of Himself, but which He. had received as a trust and commission from God (viii. 28 ; xiv. 24), He could also judge with perfect confidence that the disposition in relation to His person did not refer peculiarly to Him, but rather to God. The saying with which the public dealings of Jesus with the Jews are closed in the Johannine discourses, is the clearest expression of this sense in which He understood all His previous high claims in regard to the believing conduct to be shown to Him : " He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on Him that sent me; and he that 336 CONDUCT REQUIRED TOWARDS THE MESSIAH. seeth me seeth Him that sent me. ... I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, He gave me a commission, what I should say and what I should speak ; and I know that His com mission is of eternal life (that is, is the sole means of obtaining eternal life) ; whatsoever I speak, therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak " (xii. 44 f. and 49 fi). So He can declare that whoso receives Him, receives God, who sent Him (xii. 20); and that if one, in keeping His words, brings forth much fruit, that is, displays a practical activity corre sponding to His commandments, and so becomes His true disciple, just hereby the Father is glori fied (xv. 8) ; on the other hand, whoso hates Him, hates His Father also (xv. 23 fi). And so He knows that it is no empty vainglory which is ex pressed in His lofty claims ; the Father has glori fied Him, in His having been made the medium of the Divine revelation ; and so He seeks the honour and recognition of the Father when He re quires recognition for Himself and His teaching (viii. 54 ; cf. ver. 49). Thus we ascertain "that the fundamental view, by which the Johannine sayings of Jesus in regard to the right disposition towards His person which is necessary for obtaining salvation are governed, is the same as that which is found in the synoptical discourses ; the required attachment to His person must really be attachment to the teaching of which His person is the medium. The same peculiar combination of a lofty self-consciousness with true humility meets us here even as there, — a combination FAITH IN JESUS ACCORDING TO JOHN. 337 which is rooted in the conviction of Jesus, that as Messiah He has the greatest and most beneficent significance for men, not in Himself, but through the call and power of God. When, however, we consider this difference, that in the discourses of the fourth Gospel the injunctions as to a believing attachment to Jesus are placed much more in the foreground, and have found a much more varied ex pression, than in the synoptical discourses, we must, on the other hand, also consider that in the more copious application of these Johannine injunctions there is a supplementing of the defect of the synoptical sayings in regard to the general con ditions of membership of the kingdom of God. And certainly this supplementing is by no means different in kind. According to the Matthew-Logia and the Gospel of Mark, as we have seen above (Section III. chap, vii.), the conditions of member ship of the kingdom of God, required by Jesus, consist in the determination, on the one hand, trustfully to receive the salvation of the kingdom of God; and, on the other hand, to perform with penitence the required righteousness of the kingdom of God. But when, in the Johannine discourses of Jesus, instead of this disposition towards the salvation and the precepts of righteousness of the kingdom of God, a disposition towards the Messianic person of Jesus appears to be enjoined, yet such a definite description is given to this disposition that its inner identity with the former is evident. For inasmuch as the disposition to be adopted towards Jesus is designated as faith, that vol. 11. Y 338 CONDUCT REQUIRED TOWARDS THE MESSIAH. is, not as a mere intellectual assent, but as a volun tary recognition of His saving significance, and not as a laborious earning and service, but as a trust ful receptiveness of the salvation provided through Him, and inasmuch as it is emphatically promised that all who come to Jesus with desire for salvation will find the fullest rest in Him (iii. 16; vi. 37; vii. 37 fi), the requirement of this believing disposition is essentially the same in kind as the exhortation addressed to all who desire it, even to sinners, to trust in the message of the salvation of the kingdom of God (Mark i. 15; Luke xii. 32); to lay hold of the kingdom of God (Matt. xi. 12) ; and to receive it in a childlike way (Mark x. 14 fi). But inasmuch as the disposition to be shown towards Jesus is desig nated as such a holding fast of His words and com mandments, that one becomes thereby free from sin (viii. 24, 31 fi), and manifests the love which He Him self taught and manifested (xv. 10-17), the require ment of this moral disposition is essentially the same in kind as the exhortation to the application of the will, in repentance and renunciation, to the exercise of the perfect righteousness of the kingdom of God. If we but hold fast to the presupposition, which proves itself all through to be the right key to the under standing of the discourses of Jesus in the fourth Gospel, that these were originally, in the apostolic source, set down as the discourses pertaining to the closing period of His ministry, when Jesus made open proclamation of His Messianic claims, and thereby gave to His earlier general preaching of the kingdom of God a pointed concentration FAITH IN JESUS ACCORDING TO JOHN. 339 on His Messianic person, so we recognise a perfect inward harmony upon this point also be tween the contents of the teaching of Jesus attested in the Johannine and in the synoptical discourses. FIFTH SECTION. THE OUTLOOK OF JESUS UPON THE EARTHLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. CHAP. I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF THE FUTURE. i. As Jesus had the assurance that His Messianic work for the establishment of the kingdom of God would be successful, and that even the violent removal of His Messianic person would not nullify or im pede the continuance and further development of His Messianic work, but would rather, according to God's decree, establish and further it, ideas in regard to this further development of the kingdom of God on earth after His death must also have occurred to Him. The formation of these ideas was determined by two factors : on the one hand, by His general view of the nature and coming of the kingdom of God ; on the other hand, by His experiences of the reception of His Messianic preaching and of the treatment of His Messianic person on the part of men. It was also owing to the nature and origin of these ideas, in regard to the further earthly development of the kingdom of God, that the sayings in regard to this PERIOD OF EARTHLY DEVELOPMENT. 34 1 point, that have been handed down to us, belong for the most part to the later period of His ministry, in which, through the ever nearer prospect of His death, thoughts as to the continued existence of the Church after His death were forced upon Him, and in which the progressive experiences of His own ministry disclosed to Him an ever clearer view of the fate in store for His disciples. The general view of Jesus as to the nature and com ing of the kingdom of God, occasioned His regarding the further earthly development of the kingdom of God not as something permanently remaining, but as transitory, as a preparatory state which should be exchanged for the perfect heavenly state. His absolute certainty that the earthly development of the kingdom of God would lead to this heavenly goal, and the significance which He ascribed to this thought for the coherence of the view of the kingdom of God, found its expression in the fact that He did not regard this goal as one lying at an infinite distance, with which His disciples had no need practically to occupy themselves, but rather as one comparatively near, for which the disciples must be prepared from the first. He did not indeed claim the possession of a revealed knowledge as to the time of the appearing of this heavenly perfection of the kingdom of God. Rather, when His nearest disciples asked when the judgment expected at His return at the end of the world should take place (Mark xiii. 4a), He gave the explicit answer: Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father (ver. 32). 342 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. Certainly this saying belongs to His best attested words ; for never would it have occurred at a later time to apostolic or post-apostolic Christianity to put such an acknowledgment of limitation as to know ledge into His mouth. He also exhorted His dis ciples to keep in view the possibility of His unex pectedly late return, as much as the possibility of His unexpectedly early return (Mark xiii. 35 ; Luke xii. 35-46; Matt. xxv. 1-12). But, with the proviso of this indefiniteness of His knowledge. He yet mani festly presupposed that it would be the generation, existing in His time which should earlier or later see the close of earth's history, and He has nowhere shown the presentiment that centuries and millenniums . could pass till the end should come. When, in order to encourage His disciples to unceasing prayer for the final consummation of salvation (Luke xxi. 36 ; xviii. i),1 He narrated the parable of the Unjust Judge, who, from no other motive than simply and solely because he was led to it by the continual prayer of the poor widow, avenged her of her adversary (Luke xviii. 2-5), He drew the conclusion from the parable thus : " Shall not God avenge His own elect, who cry day and night unto Him, and shall He not bear long with them ? I tell you He will avenge them speedily" (ver. 7 fi). He gave the still more definite expression, " Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, who shall not taste death, till they see the kingdom of God coming in power" (Mark ix. 1); and always gave His admonitions in regard to con- 1 On the connection of these passages, cf. Log. § 331c and d, L.J. 1. P- 162 f. PERIOD OF EARTHLY DEVELOPMENT. 343 stant readiness for His future return a direct refer ence to His then present disciples, without thinking of future generations. It is also very significant that, along with His instructions and admonitions which relate to the violent death of His disciples, and their voluntary sacrifice of life for His sake and the gospel's (Mark viii. 34 fi ; xiii. 12 fi ; Matt. x. 28, 29 ; Luke xiv. 26 fi), there is an almost total lack of sayings which refer to the occurrence of their natural death. Only in the instances of the covetous man whose life God required by night (Luke xii. 15-21), and of the rich man and poor Lazarus (Luke xvi. 19-31), is there reference made to the transforming significance which natural death has for men's destiny. Else where the thought of the importance of death, and the admonition to keep in constant readiness for the certain, and yet, in regard to the time, uncertain com ing of death, is, in the teaching of Jesus, as in the apostolic literature, supplied by a reference to the importance of the second coming of the Messiah, and the injunction to be always ready for its unex pected coming. This is to be explained from the fact that, in view of the presumed nearness of the Parousia, natural death did not seem to come into consideration as the rule for men. It would certainly be quite justifiable to explain that' Jesus, in His prospect of the future development of the kingdom of God, viewed and spoke of what in reality lies far apart as being near to each other in perspective. In order to be precise, we must only add that Jesus had no consciousness that this nearness was only apparent and in perspective, and did not 344 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. correspond to the real circumstances. On the other hand, however, we must overcome the offence aris ing from Jesus being here in error, by recognising that In His idea of the nearness in time of the transition of the kingdom of God to the heavenly state of perfection, lay the psychological presupposition for His remaining free from all speculations in regard to the further earthly development of the kingdom of God in future generations under quite new and continually changing circumstances, from speculations for whose right exposition a certain foundation was afforded Him neither by His general view of the nature and coming of the kingdom of God, nor by the special experiences which He Himself made during His earthly ministry. It was not accidental, indeed, that as "the Son" He had no knowledge of the day and hour of His future heavenly return (Mark' xiii. 32), and He by no means required to feel this want of knowledge to be a defect which was peculiarly unbecoming for Him as the Son. The fact that He derived His whole knowledge of the nature and coming of the kingdom of God from the fact of His filial relationship to God, which was known by Him among the deepest principles of His person ality, rather occasioned His not possessing a know ledge (underivable from this revelation fact) of the further earthly development of the kingdom of God and of all the occurrences and changes occurring in this earthly development. But all uncertain con jectures, hopes, and fears with regard to the course of the development of the kingdom of God on earth, in unknown future periods of the world's history, were FUTURE EXTENSION OF THE KINGDOM. 345 far from occupying the mind of Jesus, because, in view of the intensity of His trust in the heavenly state of perfection of the kingdom of God, He thought the close of the period of the earthly development of the kingdom comparatively near. 2. Once, when He spoke to His disciples of the troublous period of His return, and exhorted them to ceaseless prayer to God for the final attainment of salvation, He uttered the words : " But when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth ? " (Luke xviii. 8). This question cannot express uncertainty as to whether on His return He shall find, among those who do not belong to the company of His disciples, recognition as the Messiah sent from God to bring the final judgment and the consummation of salvation; for He assumed that His second coming would take place in such a miraculous way, in heavenly power and glory, that all, even His enemies, must immediately know and acknowledge Him (cf. Mark viii. 38; xiv. 62; Luke xiii. 35; xvii. 23 fi). That question can only denote an uncertainty as to whether at His return He should find such disciples as would, in spite of the foregoing troubles, hold fast to their faith in and fidelity to Him. But in opposition to this one utterance, which seems like that of a pessimistic doubt on the part of Jesus as to the' permanent continuance of the success of His Messianic work on earth, there stand in our evangelical records other utterances, which attest the fact that He trustfully expected that the kingdom of God, like the mustard-seed and leaven, would, in spite of its small beginning, attain to a great extension, and to an 346 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. importance powerfully influential in other regions (Mark iv. 30-32 ; Luke xiii. 18 ff.) ; and just in conse quence of His baptism of sufferings, which He should experience as the Messiah, a mighty fire would be kindled by Him with the firebrand cast upon the earth (Luke xii. 49 fi).1 On the ground of His own experience of the reception of the gospel on the part of men, He was certainly aware that it would always be comparatively few, only the minority, who would take the way to life (Matt. vii. 13 fi ; cf. Mark iv. 2-9) ; and He plainly foresaw that His disciples, like Him self, would always be hated and persecuted for the sake of the gospel (Matt. x. 24 fi ; cf. Mark xiii. 13). But yet His trust in a further increase of the king dom of God, surprisingly great in relation to its very small beginning, was not precluded by this knowledge. Jesus also admitted the thought of an extension of the kingdom of God beyond the limits of Israel. We have already seen that the limitation in principle to the people of Israel, which He imposed upon Himself, was by no means incompatible with this thought of a later universalistic extension of the kingdom.2 Both the Old Testament promises of the blissful relation of the Messianic state to all peoples, and the insight of Jesus into the significance and consequences of His views of God and the kingdom of God, which led directly to the removal of the thought of a particular istic limitation of the saving purpose of God and of the prizing of external national conditions of obtaining salvation, must have opened up the prospect for Him 1 Cf. above, p. 225. 2 Cf. above, p. 148. FUTURE EXTENSION OF THE KINGDOM. 347 of a future conveyance of His gospel also to the extra- Israelitish world. Moreover, on the one hand, His experiences of the unbelieving rejection which the majority of the people of the promises, and especially the teachers and leaders of this people, showed towards the revelation given through Him of the Divine purpose of salvation, and towards the realisation of the Divine promises of salvation (Mark xii. 1-9 ; Luke xiv. 15-24) ; and, on the other hand, His experience of the trustful receptivity with which some non - Israelites met Him (Matt. viii. 5-10; Mark vii. 27-29), must have confirmed for Him the certainty of that prospect. So, along with the threat against His countrymen, who stood externally nearest Him, but who persisted in their evil disposition, that in future, at His second coming, they would be disowned by Him and excluded from participation in the consummated kingdom of God, He conjoined the saying full of promise for the heathen : " And they shall come from the east and from the west (from the north and from the south), and shall sit down to meat in the kingdom of God: and, behold, there are last that shall be first, and there are first that shall be last" (Luke xiii. 26-30).1 And when to the Syro- phenician woman who besought His healing power for her daughter, He gave the answer, " Let the1 children first be filled " (Mark vii. 7), He indicated by this "first" that the limitation of the Messianic salvation, according to which He deemed that He must yet deny His help to the woman, was not one that held good for all the future, but was 1 Cf. the connection, Log. § 10c, L.J. i. p. 131 f. 348 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. only imposed during the present period of commence ment. It would be a false conclusion, if, in the opposition against which Paul had at a later period to contend with the authorities of the early Church at Jerusalem, in order to obtain recognition of His mission to the heathen, we found a proof that Jesus Himself could not have indicated to His disciples a future admission of the heathen into the kingdom of God. In the later conflicts between Paul and the early Church, the question was not the general one, if the Messianic salvation would be also shared in by non-Israelites? but rather, under what conditions admission into the Messianic Church and participation in the Messianic salvation would be adjudged to the heathen ? That in regard to this question Jesus gave His disciples a definite instruction, and, indeed, one corresponding to the view of Paul, is not recorded in our Gospel sources, and we by no means make a supplementary presupposition, if, on the ground of the genuinely recorded words of Jesus, we suppose that He looked forward to the general fact of the kingdom of God being in the future thrown open also to the heathen. We must quite admit that this foresight of Jesus had the indefinite character which was occasioned by the fact, that the problem of the reception of the heathen into the kingdom of God did not come into practical consideration by Jesus Himself in the present, and even for His disciples in the nearest future, in which they required to apply their work of teaching, first of all to the people of the promises, and also by the fact that Jesus did not think of future periods of the ft jp... , » It FUTURE EXTENSION OF THE KINGDOM. 349 further earthly development of the kingdom of God, wherein the preaching of the gospel to the heathen world would constitute the main task of the Church. Not only did He not prescribe for His disciples any definite principles and methods as to later missions to the heathen, but, as it seems, He had in view no expressly undertaken mission to the heathen. Subse: quent gospel tradition only carries back the clear command as to such a mission to the risen Lord (Matt, xxviii. 19 ; Luke xxiv. 47), but has not found it expressed in such words spoken by Jesus during His earthly life as the older Gospel sources have recorded.1 The description of the final judgment of the heathen nations (Matt. xxv. 31-46), who would receive their reward or punishment not at all accord ing to their acceptance or rejection of the gospel, nor according to their acknowledgment or denial of the Messiah, but according to their friendly or unfriendly practical treatment of His disciples, shows that Jesus indeed thought of a spreading of His disciples into the heathen world, but still not of such a great mission of His disciples to the nations as would occasion that the final decision in regard to the salvation or the rejection of the Gentiles would turn upon their attitude towards this mission brought to them. And the saying of Jesus to His disciples at the last supper, that they, to whom He committed His kingdom which He had received from His Father, would be 1 That word, Mark xiii. 10, " And the gospel must first be preached to all peoples," is so clearly detached from the surrounding connection of the thought, that it cannot be regarded as belonging to the genuine recorded elements of the discourse of Jesus contained in Mark xiii. Cf. L.J. i. pp. 10 and 40. 350 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. beside Him in His kingdom sitting on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Luke xxii. 29 f.),1 indicates that He viewed the activity of His disciples, and therefore also their future judicial function, as primarily extending to the people of Israel. Also, when Jesus spoke of a coming of the heathen from the east and west to participate in the salvation of the kingdom of God, it appears that He was thereby thinking of an ingathering of some heathens, perhaps comparatively many, who were athirst for salvation and full of trust, to the community of His disciples, which, as a whole, consisted of native Israelites. We can thus quite well understand how that afterwards the early apostles, whilst regarding the people of Israel as the sphere allotted to them, yet, according to the tradition of the Acts of the Apostles, which in its main outlines is by no means untrust worthy, easily resolved in individual cases, in which the call thereto came to them under special circum stances in Palestine itself, to admit non- Israelites as members of the Messianic Church, whilst it would be a quite new and difficult problem for them to say if such an expressly undertaken mission to the heathen as that of Paul, in which no sort of union with the religious and national community of the Jews would be required, were allowable.2 Certainly in the teach ing of Jesus the general presuppositions were given for the justification, in the circumstances in which it appeared practical in apostolic times, of a mission to ] Cf. Log. § 39c, L.J. i. p. 173. 2 Cf. my detailed examination in the prosecution of Meyer's com mentary on the Acts of the Apostles at Acts x. 1 f. and xv. 1. FUTURE ASSOCIATION OF THE DISCIPLES. 35 1 the heathen in the Pauline sense ; and so it is also intelligible to us that, according to the testimony of Paul (Gal. ii. 6-9), the pillars of the early Church, after discussing the problem in principle under the proviso of their own call, which was also recognised by Paul, to preach the gospel to the circumcision, allowed themselves to decide for the recognition of the Divine right of Paul's mission to the heathen. But, pre supposing the already - mentioned existence of the words of Jesus handed down in their circle, the early apostles were not from the beginning clearly conscious of these consequences of the teaching of Jesus. 3. A hard and fast organisation of His disciples, whereby they became a community, externally bounded and inwardly articulated, was not contemplated and predetermined by Jesus. Even the peculiar designa tion as " Church " (itacXTjaia) appears not to have been applied by Him to the company of His disciples.1 As, during His earthly life, He did not sever Himself and His disciples from the fellowship of the Jewish nation and religion, though He had the fullest consciousness of the inward superiority which they, as members of the realised kingdom of God, had over all who stood outside of the kingdom (Matt. xi. 11; xvii. 25 fi), so He found no occasion, with regard to the future so far as it was discernible by Him, to contemplate an external separation of His disciples from the fellowship of the Israelitish nation 1 On Matt. xvi. 18 f. and xviii. 17 fi, which cannot be held as authentically recorded words of Jesus, cf. Log. § 28c, L. J. i. p. 155 f., and Log. § 47, L.J. i. p. i8of. 352 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. and religion. In the parable of the Tares among the Wheat (Matt. xiii. 24-30),1 He based the warning in regard to attempting, in the desire to establish a pure Church of the kingdom of God, to undertake an external separation of all evil elements, whilst men have by no means the ability to distinguish exactly the genuine and good elements from the spurious and bad. In the supplementary parable of the Good and Bad Fish in the net (Matt. xiii. 47 fi),2 He referred His disciples to the judgment of God, which in future, according to sure tokens, would accomplish the necessary separation of the evil elements from their mixture with the good elements of the kingdom of God. The disciples were to be united among themselves by brotherly love ; they were not to endeavour to exalt themselves one above the other, and to indicate their superiority one over another by titles, but to seek their greatness in loving humility, ready to serve each other (Matt, xxiii. 8-12 ; Mark ix. 33-35 ; x. 42-44). Now, it is certainly true that the fulfilment of this universal duty of love is in itself thoroughly compat ible with an organisation subserving the purpose of the whole body, cf such a nature that leaders and led, overseers and followers, would be distinguished. But Jesus confined Himself to the inculcation of that moral-religious duty upon His disciples, and did not lay stress upon the necessity of regular relations of a legitimate kind of superintendence and subordination among His disciples. So far as He thought of the further unfolding of the kingdom of God as a whole 1 Cf. Log. § 44a, L.J. i. p. 178 f. 2 Cf. Log. § 44b, L.J. i. p. 179. FUTURE ASSOCIATION OF THE DISCIPLES. 353 on the ground of the Jewish religious community, He could represent the members of the kingdom as a free society, bound together by no external rule, but only by inward attachment to Him and His gospel, by trust in the fatherly love of God, and by manifestation of brotherly love to one another, according to the character of the free and only morally and religiously conditioned society in which during His life His disciples were united with Him as their Master, and thereby with one another. Certainly Jesus laid the basis of a future organisa tion of His disciples, in the fact of His constituting the twelve — whom He had drawn into specially near personal relationship with Himself, and already, during His own earthly ministry, had made special organs of His preaching (Mark iii. 14) — as in a pre eminent sense the continuers of His work for the period after His earthly death.1 We cannot say that He had chosen these twelve from the first only with this object, that in future they should continue His 1 For calling in question the historicity of this apostolate of the twelve as it has been lately attempted again by W. Seufert, Der Ursprung und die Bedeutung des Apostolates in der christlichen Kirche, Leiden 1887, p. 14 ff., there is to my mind no critically justifiable occasion whatever. Apart from the testimony of Mark, which, for one who has recognised the priority of the Gospel of Mark to our first and third Gospels, and his drawing upon an older, apparently Petrine series of narratives^ also is of vast importance, Paul in i Cor. xv. 5, as well as the passage Acts vi. 2, in the section Acts vi. and vii., based apparently on a very old written source, give evidence for " the twelve." Only it is to be firmly maintained that the notion of the " apostle," which in the later period became the longer the more limited to the twelve disciples chosen and sent forth by Jesus, by no means, according to the consciousness of the older period, coincided with the notion of the twelve. The notion of the twelve was a much wider one, embracing all who devoted them selves according to their calling to the extension of the Christian gospel. VOL, II, Z 354 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. work after His death, and that their mission during His lifetime had only the significance of a previous exercise of their future calling.1 But even during His earthly life the twelve were meant to be His regular attendants, to represent a settled branch of the kingdom - of God, clearly recognisable by other men, and to help Him, the Messiah, in spreading the message of the kingdom of God when He found His own individual power for work insufficient (Luke x. 2). Thus Jesus sent them — though perhaps, according to the Logia- tradition, not them only, but a wider circle of followers — in the first period of His ministry to carry the message, that the kingdom of God was at hand, into all the districts of Palestine, thereby to call the attention of all Israel to the general sense and object of His work (Mark vi. 7-13 ; Luke x. 4-1 1). But the more clearly He became conscious in course of His work of the necessity and near approach of His death, the more must these nearest disciples have gained the significance of being vicegerents of His teaching and work after His death, and His special instruction of them must have had reference to their special preparation for this their future calling (cf. Matt. x. 26 fi). At His departure He appointed the kingdom which He had received in charge from the Father to them, who had continued faithfully with Him amid the trials of His vocation (Luke xxii. 28 fi),2 since, in spite of His clear foresight 1 Our first evangelist, Matt. x. 5 ff., has already given the mission- discourse of Jesus a reference, transferring the original sense alike of the records of Mark and the Logia to the future apostolic calling of the twelve after the death of Jesus. Cf. Log. § 7 a, L.J. i. p. 85. 2Cf. Log. §39f, L.J. i. p. 173. FUTURE ASSOCIATION OF THE DISCIPLES. 355 of their being erelong sifted by Satan and of their taking offence (Luke xxii. 31 ; Mark xiv. 27-31), He had the sure hope that they would regain the stead fastness of their trust and confession of Him. But as the Messianic dignity, which He was conscious of having received from the Father, was not a dominion of an earthly kind, which was manifested in the receiving of service from others, but meant His call to the performance of the greatest service for others, to the preaching and impartation of the kingdom, while putting His whole earthly life in peril (Mark x. 42-45) ; so the authority which He bequeathed to the twelve had, according to His consciousness, only the signifi cance of continuing, in imitation of Him, the Messianic work for the establishment of the kingdom, of God, but had not the significance of an external position of supremacy which they were to assume among the members of the kingdom of God. So Jesus gave to Simon, whom He called first along with his brother Andrew to be His special follower, in order to make them "fishers of men" (Mark i. 16 fi), the sur name of Peter, " man of rock," to express that, on account of the greatness and liveliness of his trust in Jesus' preaching of the Messianic kingdom, he would have the significance of a steadfast foundation for the kingdom of God (Mark iii. 16; cf. Matt. xvi. 18) ;l and at the last supper, in spite of His foreseeing Peter's sudden fall and denial in the approaching hour of temptation (Mark xiv. 29 fi), He charged Peter that, when recovered from his fall, he should strengthen 1 Cf. Log. § 47, L.J. i. p. i8of. 356 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. his brethren (Luke xxii. 32).1 But of course the words cannot mean that this significance for the com munity of the kingdom of God, ascribed to Simon, referred, as Jesus understood them, to an official leadership of the Church as a whole, and an official prerogative over all other members. 4. Frequently and emphatically Jesus declared that hatred and persecution would be the fate of His disciples in the future upon earth. As He regarded His own sufferings and death as the manifestation of the rule which holds universally in the kingdom of God, that men must take up the cross and stake their lives for the sake of the gospel (Mark viii. 34 f.) ; so, on the other hand, in the experience which He Himself had of the deadly hostility of men towards His preaching of the kingdom of God, He found the sure basis for inferring analogous experiences which His disciples would have on account of the kingdom of God. " The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord ; it is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord : if they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his house hold?" (Matt. x. 24 fi). When Jesus had the assur ance that the sufferings which He Himself underwent would be a means of furthering the kingdom of God, the idea did not occur to Him that His own sufferings on account of the kingdom of God would be sufficient ; but in connection with these He looked forward also to a period of suffering for all His disciples. In this sense, along with His saying that He had come to 1 Cf. Log. § 394 L.J. i. p. 174. PERSECUTIONS OF, THE DISCIPLES. 357 kindle a great fire on the earth (Luke xii. 49), He joined, not only a reference to His own baptism of suffering, which He should first acccomplish (ver. 50), but also a reference to the great conflict that was im pending for His disciples : " Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I am not come to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother- in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household" (vers. 51-53; Matt. x. 34-36).1 He means to say that in the impending conflict, those who are connected together by the closest earthly relationship will take sides against each other. But the fact that His Messianic work would awaken such an embittered conflict, whilst men nevertheless supposed that it would bring them only peace and salvation, would not arise from the members of the kingdom on their part creating and fostering discord and enmity, but from their being hated and persecuted by the enemies of the kingdom of God on account of the gospel of the kingdom which they professed, followed, and preached. The exhortation of Jesus at the last supper, " But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip : and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one " (Luke xxii. 36),2 is to be explained from His foresight of the impending period of persecution for His disciples. Jesus sets the necesssity of buying a sword in contrast to the freedom from all want hitherto enjoyed by His 1 Cf. Log. § 17a, L.J. i. p. 122 f. 2Cf. Log. §39*, Z./. i. p. 174. 358 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. disciples in their work as His messengers (ver. 35), and bases His exhortation on a reference to the doom which was now about to befall Himself, whereby He should die the death of a transgressor (ver. 37); because He saw that now, with the catastrophe that would overwhelm Himself, a period would begin for the disciples, when they should no longer be peaceful and without harm, as hitherto, but should exercise their mission in His service amid conflicts and persecutions. According to the account of Mark, He replied to the two sons of Zebedee, who, in order that they might sit on His right and left hand in His glory, pledged themselves to drink of the cup of which He drank, and to experience the baptism with which He was baptized, that they should indeed partake of this cup and this baptism of suffering (Mark x. 37-39). And when His four trusted disciples inquired of Him at the Mount of Olives as to the signs going before the great judgment announced by Him (Mark xiii. 1-4), He referred only to the sign of conflicts and persecutions which they should experience on account of their faith (ver. 5 fi, 9, 11-13, 21-23, 28 fi):1 "Ye shall be delivered up to councils ; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten : and ye shall be brought before 1 With regard to the discourse, Mark xiii., I would refer to my detailed criticism, L.J. i. p. ioff., which I hold to be thoroughly sound. The exegetical reasons which call for the separation of the passages, vers. 7~9«, 14-20, 24-27, 30 f., from the adjoining parts of the discourse, and indicate the originally independent connection of the two series of sayings which thus result, namely, in part the different character of the leading views in each series, and in part the references (contained in the sayings themselves) of particular parts of the discourses to one another, are positively convincing to one who at all allows himself to examine the state of the matter in an unprejudiced way. PERSECUTIONS OF THE DISCIPLES. 359 rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony for them. . . . Now, the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son ; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake : but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved" (vers. 9, 12 fi). The period which lay before the disciples, "the days in which the bridegroom would be taken from them," would be a time of sorrow for them (Mark ii. 20), when they would be filled with the ardent but vafn desire to see the days of the Son of man, that is, to experience, at least for a short time, somewhat of the blessedness of the heavenly state of perfection that would come in with the return of the Messiah (Luke xvii. 22). Just on account of this intentness of their desires upon the Messiah who was to appear for salvation, they were in danger of putting illusory faith in false Messianic appearances. Many would appear in the name of Jesus and call themselves the returned Messiah Jesus (Mark xiii. 6), and many would appear as pseudo - Messiahs and pseudo - prophets, and set themselves in opposition to Jesus as the true Messiah (ver. 21 fi); and these, like the former, would apostatise many. But the appearance of these false Messiahs would lack the decisive tokens of the appearance of the true Messiah, namely, the miraculously universal publicity of His appearing to execute the final judgment (Mark xiii. 21; Luke xvii. 23 fi; Matt. xxiv. 26 fi). Jesus thought of this period of conflict and tribula tion for the Church as standing, on the one hand, in 360 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. connection with His own sufferings and death (Luke xii. 50-53 ; xvii. 25) ; on the other hand, He has regarded it as so preceding His Messianic return, that His disciples could see in it a sure token of His nearness (Mark xiii. 28 fi). The apparent contradiction of this indication of time disappears if we consider that Jesus proceeded from the presupposition that His return would occur comparatively soon after His death. He did not at all seek to hold out the prospect of special persecutions for the first period after His departure from the world, and then again special tribulations immediately before His second coming, and between these a period of comparatively tranquil and peaceful development of indefinite duration ; but He supposed that the whole previous period of the earthly development of the kingdom of God would be a period of persecution and trouble for His disciples for His sake and the gospel's. But on account of His idea of the comparative shortness of this period, and of the essential, though not exclusive, continuance of the development of the kingdom of God on the ground of the Israelitish people, He gave His description of the impending troubles such a historical colouring as corresponded to the circum stances existing in the land of Judea in His own time (Mark xiii. 9, 21 fi). 5. As Jesus promised to His disciples a final blessed deliverance after the period of sufferings and persecutions ; so, on the other hand, He prophesied a dreadful and destructive doom for His unbelieving Jewish contemporaries after the period of their pre sent impenitent living in earthly well-being. He JUDGMENT ON THE JEWISH PEOPLE. 36 1 pronounced woes upon the places on the Sea of Galilee which had formed the main scene of His ministry ; for Tyre and Sidon, those heathen cities, on which the Old Testament prophets threatened dreadfully destructive judgments of God, it would be more tolerable at the day of judgment than for Chorazin and Bethsaida ; and Capernaum, that city exalted to heaven, that is, to the proudest position of power and glory, would be cast down to Hades, that is, to the deepest destruction (Luke x. 13-15). He declared that He had been sent to preach judg ment to PI is contemporaries, as Jonah formerly to the Ninevites, and that to the wicked generation, which demanded a sign of the Divine character and origin of His work in order to faith, no other sign would be given than this Jonah-sign, that is, than this His appearance with the message of judgment (Luke xi. 29-3 1).1 While the Jews of His time rocked them selves in security with the thought that the great Divine judgment upon the people of Israel belonged to the past, and that further judgments of God could only touch the heathen people who were hostile to Israel (cf. Matt. iii. 7 ff), Jesus refers to the example of the demon of sickness, which, after it has gone out of the man, but finds again a predisposition in him, returns to him with sevenfold power, so that the last state of the man is worse than the first ; so would it be with that evil generation : the judicial punishment, from which they supposed they had become for ever free, would break in again with intensified force, be cause in their sinfulness they provoked the return of 1 Cf. above, p. 194. 362 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. judgment (Matt. xii. 43-45).1 Apparently in connec tion with the saying of a Jewish-apocalyptic writing, in which retribution is threatened against the present generation for all the deeds of blood perpetrated since the murder of Abel against the preachers of piety sent by God, Jesus gave the assurance that this generation would indeed experience a great visitation of punishment (Luke xi. 49-5 1).2 To those who related to Him the murder of the Galileans during the offering of sacrifices in the temple, and who saw in this dreadful fate the sign of specially great guilt on the part of the murdered ones, He replied, that unless they repented they should all experience a similar doom (Luke xiii. 1-5). In order to show how near was the judgment that threatened them, and how short the day of grace granted them for repentance, He told them the parable of the Barren Fig-tree, which the owner of the vineyard wished to have hewn down, but to which, on the appeal of the husbandman, he grarited a brief respite in order to a new but final trial of fruitfulness (Luke xiii. 6-9). He rebuked those who were so skilled in prognosti cating from clouds and wind the coming weather and the future external appearance of the sky and the earth, because they were incapable of estimating the significance of the present time, and discerning in it the signs of coming judgment (Luke xii. 54-56) ; 1 Regarding the connection, disturbed by Luke (xi. 24-26), of this parable of the demon returning with increased power with the threaten ing of judgment in the words as to the Jonah-sign, cf. Log. § 12^ and e, L. J. i. pp. 101 and 104. Regarding the idea of the agency of demons, implied here, see vol. i. p. 166. 2 Log. § 1 3/£, L.J. i. p. m f. JUDGMENT ON THE JEWISH PEOPLE. 363 and He exhorted them to infer, from their own con duct in earthly affairs, what should be their proper conduct in view of the threatened judgment ; for example, if one is brought as a debtor by his creditor before the judge, he must use the last possible respite in compounding with his creditor, lest otherwise he incur on the part of the judge the infallibly allotted imprisonment until he shall fully pay the debt (Luke xii. 57— 59).1 So He especially proclaimed a Divine judgment upon Jerusalem, the murderess of the prophets, the, city which He wept over, which He so often sought to allure to Himself, but which would not come, and from whose eyes the things that be longed to her salvation remained hidden (Luke xiii. 34; xix. 41 fi). At His last sojourn in Jerusalem He set before the chief priests the parable of the Husbandmen, who shirked their duty to their lord, and dealt wickedly with his messengers, yea, even with his only and beloved son, in order to make a profit for themselves out of the vineyard, but upon whom their lord comes with destructive punishment (Mark xii. 1-9) ; and when His disciples pointed out to Him the greatness of the temple-buildings, He replied that there would not be one stone of this temple left upon another which should not be thrown down (Mark xiii. 1 fi). In what relation, according to the idea of Jesus, did this judgment, threatened upon His impenitent Jewish contemporaries, and specially upon Jerusalem, stand to the persecutions and to the final deliverance 1 Regarding the connection of the contents of this passage (Luke xii. 54 59) with those of Luke xiii. 1-9, cf. Log. § 18, L.J. i. p. 125 ff. 364 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. which He predicted to His disciples? Did He think of a punishment to come in the form of a political catastrophe upon the Jewish people and the Jewish capital, which would occur in the period of the further earthly development of the kingdom of God, and would be in a contemporaneous and real connection with the tribulations lying before the disciples in that period ? Or did He think of a definitive Divine judgment, which He Himself as the returning Messiah would bring in for the deliverance of His disciples from their earthly troubles, apd with which the period of heavenly perfection would begin ? When we consider that Jesus in general, in His foresight of the circumstances and events of the future, presupposed the comparatively near advent of the final consummation of the kingdom of God, and when we see that, in some of His threatenings of judgment upon the contemporary Jewish genera tion, He quite plainly speaks of the "judgment" or "day of judgment" in a special sense, that is, of the final decisive Divine judgment at His return (Luke x. 12, 14; xi. 31 fi), whilst otherwise these threatenings of judgment in their motives and character yet quite resemble the other predictions of judgment, — we must conclude that Jesus, in these predictions of a judgment upon Israel, did not at all mean a single penal judgment which would come upon them in course of the further earthly develop ment of the kingdom of God, which would be dis tinct from the great final Divine judgment, but He meant just this final judgment, which would in a quite special measure befall the Jewish people and JUDGMENT ON THE JEWISH PEOPLE. 365 destroy them, because by their unbelieving rejection of the Messiah they had incurred quite special guilt. We cannot make an exception here of the judgment threatened by Jesus upon Jerusalem. The words of Jesus recorded in the discourse (Mark xiii.) rather serve specially to confirm the fact that He repre sented the judgment upon Jerusalem, as also the final judgment at PIis return. When He prophesied to His disciples the complete destruction of the temple- buildings (Mark xiii. i fi), and they asked Him concern ing the time and the signs when " these things " should be fulfilled (ver. 3 fi), He answered them by referring to the conflicts and persecutions which lay before them on account of their faith in the Messiah (vers. 5 f, 9-13, 21-23), which would be the sign that His return was even at the doors (ver. 28 fi), and by emphasising the uncertainty of the point of time of His return, and the consequent necessity of con stant readiness for it on the part of His disciples (vers. 32-37). This answer is plainly and simply related to the question put, only if in the con sciousness of Jesus the predicted destruction of the temple at Jerusalem was a part of the final judgment, which would take place just at His return, for the deliverance of the members of the kingdom of God. Jesus did not seek to indicate merely a future dis continuance of the earthly temple and its worship, when the time of the heavenly consummation of the kingdom of God would begin. But while, beneath the splendid outward show of the temple-buildings and temple-service, He saw a deep inward corruption, and found a wide contradiction between the Divine 366 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. design of the temple and the reality which had arisen through the guilt of men (Mark xi. 15-17), his idea of the future discontinuance of the temple had to be changed to the idea of a destroying judg ment of God upon the temple. It was certainly quite justified when, in the dreadful catastrophe which in the Judaeo-Romish war befell the Jewish people, and Jerusalem especially, the Christian Church afterwards saw a remarkable fulfil ment of the judgment predicted by Jesus on His Jewish contemporaries. No doubt the generation which He threatened with penal judgment for their unbelieving and immoral conduct experienced this fulfilment of His words a few decades after His death. But, so far as we inquire into the original system of thought of Jesus Himself, we must con clude that He thought of the threatened judgment in a different way from what was evolved in that Jewish war, in the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple ; He did not mean a political catastrophe to be brought about by human hands, but the final judgment of God to be brought about by the returning Messiah.1 1 Our understanding of the above-indicated idea of Jesus has become obscured by the fact that in our Gospels such prophetic words are also put into the mouth of Jesus as plainly refer to the political events of the Judaeo-Romish war and the destruction of Jerusalem. But it is easy to perceive that these words of evident prediction of the political events of the Judaeo-Romish war are not authentically referable to Jesus. The prophecy (Mark xiii. 7-9*2, 14-20), in which wars and natural calamities are indicated as the beginning of the "troubles," and then the "abomination of desolation" in a place where it ought not, is foretold, troubles at whose coming those who were in Judea should flee in haste to the mountains, forms along with vers. 24-27 and 30 f. a small original independent apocalypse, whose portions were outwardly interpolated by Mark into the connection of the discourse of FUTURE OF CHURCH IN JOHANNINE DISCOURSES. 367 6. When we seek to collate, from the discourses of the fourth Gospel, the ideas of Jesus there recorded in regard to the further development and fate of His disciples on earth in the period after His death, we first of all remark, that no doubt we miss direct utter ances of Jesus regarding the comparative shortness of this coming period, and regarding the consequent uncertainty of the time of it close, but also that no hints occur, which, in opposition to the system of ideas of Jesus recorded in the synoptical sources, indicate a longer future development of the Church under quite new circumstances. Rather, in the only place in which reference is directly made to the second coming of Jesus to bring in the heavenly state for His disciples, just as in the synoptical sayings, the disciples addressed appear to be those to whom the Lord should return upon earth, in order to take them up to Himself in the heavenly life (xiv. 3), and all that is elsewhere expressed as presentiments and predictions of Jesus regarding the earthly future of His Church stands, as we shall see, under this tacit presupposition, that essentially similar external circumstances remain for the disciples as were actually existent in the time of Jesus. Jesus expresses the certainty that in consequence Jesus regarding the future which he authentically records, while they really stand in no inward relation to it (cf. L. J. i. p. 10 ff., and see the note above on p. 358). In reproducing the Mark-discourse so composed, Luke (xxi. 20-24) fr°m ms subsequent standpoint has made much more directly prominent the reference to the Jewish war than was done in the mysteriously hinted words of Mark. But similarly the clear prediction of the siege and destruction of Jerusalem (Luke xix. 43 f.) is without doubt to be judged as an amplifying addition by Luke to the words of Jesus— recorded in the Logia— spoken at His last entry to Jerusalem. 368 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. of His death His disciples would not only experience an inward furtherance, inasmuch as, after the first period of painful grief for His loss, they would, under the influence of the Divine Spirit, quickly attain a joyous confidence in Him, a deepened understanding of His teaching, a renewed, indissoluble, inward fellow ship with Him, and an increased courage to give public testimony for Him (xiv. 16-21, 26 fi ; xv. 26 f. ; xvi. 7-2 3),1 but they would spread themselves more widely abroad. In His farewell prayer He asks, not only on behalf of His disciples who now surround Him, but also for all who in future should believe through their word (xvii. 20). Not, indeed, on this occasion, but several times . on earlier occasions, He expressed the prevision that non- Israelites would also in the future obtain participation in the salva tion preached and imparted by Him;2 just as, according to the synoptical accounts, it is specially the trustful longing receptivity with which some non- Israelites met Him, which opened to Him this perspective of the future extension of His blissful working beyond the limits of Israel. No doubt, in the words to the Samaritan woman, that salvation proceeds from among the Jews, we can hardly find an indirect expression of the thought, that the Messianic salvation, which, in accordance with prophecy, attained manifestation among the Jews, because of the con- L Cf. above, p. 292. 2 That the mission of Jesus to the '' world " is not to be directly under stood in the sense of a universalistic intention of His Messianic work, and that, according to the genuine records of the Johannine source of the sayings, Jesus Himself did not work outside of the limits of Israel during His earthly life, see above, p. 216. FUTURE OF CHURCH IN JOHANNINE DISCOURSES. 369 ditions afforded by them was not designed merely for the Jews. But certainly, in His words to the disciples after His conversation with that woman, who intelli gently listened to and questioned Him, He expressed His discernment of the ripeness of the Samaritans also for the Messianic message, and His prevision of the future rich harvest-work of His disciples on this field (iv. 35-38).1 Similarly, in the wish which reached His ears, of the Hellenistic pilgrims to the feast, viz., that they might see Him (xii. 20-22), He found an occasion to glance forward to a further extension of His blissful influences, which would indeed begin only after His own life was ended ; the grain of wheat must be cast into the ground and die, if it was to bring forth much fruit (ver. 24) ; and when. He was exalted from the earth to the heavenly life He could draw all, not Israelites only, to Himself (ver. 32). Also in connection with the parable of the Shepherd, who fully cares for His flock, and pledges His life for the sheep, He made reference to a future increase of the company of His disciples from a different circle than that for which He laboured at first, and from which He first gained disciples : " And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold : them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd" (x. 16). Clear as it is that these sayings have throughout retained the universally preserved character of such an antici patory foresight as lacks the knowledge of the special circumstances of the future, and that His 1 Cf. on this passage, L. J. i. p. 265 f. On the meaning of the Hebraistically used perfect in ver. 38, see L. J. i. p. 302. VOL. II. 2 A 370 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. utterances throughout have not received the form of definite commissions to His disciples to a mission outside of the Jewish people, in this respect they quite resemble the utterances of Jesus recorded in the reports of our synoptical sources concerning the future relation of the Church to the heathen. Also these Johannine sayings contain no sort of intima tion in regard to the special problems of the mission to the heathen, which afterwards agitated the apostolic generation. With the presupposition of these Johan nine words of Jesus, even as of those synoptical ones, it is intelligible to us that the original disciples of Jesus, even a John, could at a later time call in question the right of the method of the mission to the heathen followed by Paul ; but it is also intelligible, that they came to the conclusion of recognising Paul's evan gelisation of the heathen as based on a Divine commis sion, and to give him and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship (Gal. ii. 6-9) ; and intelligible that, when at length, by the great chastisement that came upon the Jews, God brought to an end the original call of the early apostles to preach the gospel to the people of the promises, even a John would find His further vocation in continuing to work for the gospel on heathen-Christian ground. According to the Johannine discourses, Jesus regarded the members of the narrower circle of disciples, who had been His regular attendants, and had surrounded Him at the last supper, as the speci ally called organs for the further extension of the Church. They whom He had chosen out of the world and drawn into His fellowship (xv. 16, 19), who FUTURE OF CHURCH IN JOHANNINE DISCOURSES. 37 1 from the first had been and remained with Him (xv. 27 ; cf. vi. 67-69), whom He loved and had made His friends (xiii. 34; xv. 9-15), and who had loved Him in return (xvi. 27) ; to whom He had imparted the whole revelation received by Him from God (xv. 15 ; xvii. 6, 8, 26), and who had received Him with faith as the revealed sent by God (xvi. 27; xvii. 6-8, 25); whom He regarded as a gift given Him by God (xvii. 2, 6, 9, 24), and had carefully guarded and kept, permitting none of them to be lost except the " son of perdition" (xvii. 12), — these should be the continuers of His work on earth after His death. They would enter into His labour, and after the sowing which He had acomplished they would have the reaper's reward (iv. 36-38) ; they would exercise the same work as He, but in greater measure (xiv. 12). At His departure He said that He sent them into the world, as God had sent Him into the world (xvii. 18). But these Johannine discourses of Jesus also lack every indication of an official superiority of these His nearest disciples within the Church as extended in the future, and in general they lack an ordered organisation of the disciples in the future ; even this notion of " Church " (eic>c\ricria) is wanting. Also Jesus here reckons, not upon an external, but only an inward separateness of the disciples from the world, from the fact that they hold fast the revelation received from Him (xvii. 15- 17); He did not reckon upon their external, but their inward unity among themselves, from the fact that they remained in fellowship with Him and the Father (xvii. 21-23). Further, also, according to these Johannine dis- 372 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. courses, Jesus foresaw that His disciples would, on the part of other men, experience a hatred analogous to the deadly hostility which Pie H imself experienced from the world. At His departure He foretold to His disciples this certain fate which they had to expect upon earth, so that when it came they might remember His words, and not take occasion to become confused in their trust in the Messianic salvation because of the apparent contradiction between this fate and their saved state (xvi. i, 4). He announced to them: " If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own : but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, there fore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you ; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not Him that sent me" (xv. 18-21). " They shall put you out of the synagogues : yea, the time cometh, that who soever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me" (xvi. 2 f). It is well to note how the persecutions here announced to the disciples were designated in quite general terms, wherein Jesus could infer them directly from His own experiences, without any prophetic reference to special future events and circumstances. The one specialising feature is, that the disciples would be put out of the synagogues. But this very feature is FUTURE OF CHURCH IN JOHANNINE DISCOURSES. 273 but a characteristic witness to the fact that here, as in Mark xiii. 9, the continuance of the Jewish environ ment and circumstances, amid which Jesus had lived, is essentially presupposed for His disciples in future. In conclusion, impressively as it is brought out in the discourses of the fourth Gospel, that a judgment would come upon the unbelieving, who did not receive the saving message of Jesus (iii. i8f. ; v. 22, 27 ; ix. 39 ; xii. 48), little allusion is anywhere made here to the impending judicial calamities of the Judaeo-Romish war, and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. The judgment which is foretold is throughout the Divine judgment, whose execution is committed to the Messiah, — an everlasting judgment, which the unbelieving themselves already incur in the present, in their not being willing to receive the blessing of eternal life : a judicial punishment in the form of a political catastrophe is not thought of. The sayings of Jesus, conveyed in the Johannine discourses, regarding the further future development of His Church on earth, stand, with all independence in detail and form, in striking agreement, in regard to their contents as a whole, with the utterances of Jesus recorded in the synoptical sources, and this agreement, in addition to other marks, gives a most highly signi ficant testimony for the origin of the Johaninne dis courses. Almost more characteristic still than the harmony in regard to what Jesus, on the basis of His general religious views, and His experiences made upon earth, positively predicted concerning the future of His Church, is the harmony in regard to what He did not say, that is, in regard to the lack of predictive refer- 374 CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS OF FUTURE. ences to such special developments and facts of the future as were not deducible from the general nature of the Church, and from the continued existence of the present surrounding circumstances. In order to estimate the peculiarity of the Johannine discourses on this point, we must consider how obvious it appeared to the latter evangelical tradition, that Jesus should have given definite prophecies and instructions with regard to future events and circumstances (cf. Mark xiii. 14-20; Matt, xviii. i7f. ; xxii. 7; xxiii. 35; xxviii. i9fi ; Luke xix. 43 fi ; xxi. 20-24; xxiv- 47-49), and what store the author of the fourth Gospel set by bringing out pre intimations mysteriously foretold by Jesus in regard to particular future facts as specific proofs of His miraculous faculty of knowledge (cf. ii. 21 fi ; vi. 64; vii. 39; xii. 33; xiii. 11 ; xviii. 19; xxi. 18 fi, 22 fi). Shall we then assume that this evangelist, miraculously overpassing the level of the historical understanding, which he occupied in common with his post-apostolic contemporaries, was able of himself fortuitously to shape the utterances of Jesus with regard to the future, so that they have received the same general stamp as the words of Jesus attested by our other oldest sources ; or shall we not rather recognise in this genuine stamp of the utterances recorded by him, a further proof that he did not of himself freely shape the discourses of Jesus in his Gospel, but has rather reproduced them according to an apostolic written source which rested on authentic historical reminiscences ? NECESSARY CONDUCT IN FUTURE. 375 CHAP. II. THE NECESSARY CONDUCT OF THE DISCIPLES IN THE FUTURE. 1. The admonitions given by Jesus to the disciples in prospect of the further development of the kingdom of God on earth after His death, as to how they should comport themselves in this future, are identical in principle with the injunctions which He set up in general as the conditions of membership of the kingdom of God. From these general injunctions we can distinguish those admonitions only in so far as, instead of the conduct whereby men become His disciples and members of the kingdom of God, Jesus partly, and indeed specially in connection with His predictions of the future, enjoined a conduct whereby those who had become His disciples and members of the kingdom of God should remain what they had become, and should attain to participation in the final salvation which He, as the Messiah returning from heaven, would introduce. Whilst the conditions of entrance into the kingdom of God lay in men's seizing with trustful resolution the saving benefit of the kingdom of God preached by the Messiah, and with earnest repentance turning from all that is incompat ible with the true righteousness of the kingdom, the conditions of remaining in the kingdom and of attaining to participation in the final salvation at the return of the Messiah consist in the disciples maintain ing with unswerving fidelity their faith in the Messiah and their hope of the heavenly salvation, and allowing themselves to be drawn back by no allurements and dangers from the exercise of the righteousness of the 376 NECESSARY CONDUCT OF DISCIPLES IN FUTURE. kingdom of God. Jesus gave special application of this thought to the special circumstances, needs, and difficulties which He foresaw for the future. But since His ideas of the future are comparatively general and indefinite, His admonitions with regard to this future always retain a comparatively general character. So far as Jesus brings into consideration the uncertain duration of the impending period of the earthly development of the kingdom 'of God, His urgent admonition to His disciples is directed to their constant readiness for the sudden arrival of His second coming. In several parables — of the servants, whose Lord is to return at an indefinite time from a feast or from a journey (Luke xii. 35-38, 42-46 ; Mark xiii. 34) ; of the householder, who does not know the hour of the nocturnal attack of the thief (Luke xii. 39 fi) ; of the bridal virgins, who, with burning lamps, had to expect the bridegroom coming at an uncertain hour to the marriage (Matt. xxv. 1-12) — He illustrated and established the command to His disciples, to conduct themselves, from the first and always, with true prudence, so that at His sudden coming He might find them in the right state, and neither at the first, in secure trust that He will tarry a long while, to put off till later the making of themselves ready, nor, because of His unexpected delay in coming, let themselves fall from their first readiness. Under the figurative notion of watchfulness, which in connection with the parable of the Servants set to keep the door He commands to His disciples (Mark xiii. 33-37 ! cf. Luke xii. 35-38 ; xxi. 36), nothing more is to be THE DISCIPLES' CALL TO PREACH. 377 understood than under the more general notion of readiness. His disciples are " watchful " in regard to His second coming, if in steadfast consciousness of the certainty and importance of this blissful future event they rightly perform the duties committed by God to them as members of His kingdom (cf. Luke xii. 42 fi; Mark xiii. 34). If, with the means at their present disposal, they would wisely insure their heavenly welfare, just as the wise householder in the parable does in his way in order to his future earthly welfare (Luke xvi. 1-9), they must use in faithful work the earthly goods entrusted to them, because such fidelity finds rich reward (Matt. xxv. 14-29 ; Luke xvi. 10-12).1 They must take heed lest their hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares for the support of life (Luke xxi. 34), that is, lest their mind be taken up with the enjoyment of earthly goods, and their vigilant and faithful endeavour after the things of the heavenly life be relaxed. 2. So far as Jesus regards His disciples as the organs of the future extension of the kingdom of God, He admonishes them with fearless openness to pro claim what they had heard from Him. Though He Himself in part devoted His teaching activity only to their narrow circle, and withheld it from the greater multitude, this withholding was not an ultimate end, but only a means to the end, whereby the preaching of the tidings of the kingdom of God by the well - prepared disciples would be the more generally promulgated. In this sense He says to > Cf. vol. i. p. 235 f, and Log. § 26, L. J. i. p. 143 ff. 378 NECESSARY CONDUCT OF DISCIPLES IN FUTURE. them : " There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed ; and hid, that shall not be known : what I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light ; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the house tops" (Matt. x. 26fi;x cf. Mark iv. 21 fi). But they must give their testimony, not only through the word, but through the example of their practical conduct: "A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid" (Matt. v. 14). The greater the superiority which, as members of the kingdom of God, they possess and claim over other men, the more will men notice them, and eventually remark their weakness. They must be the salt which provides purification and seasoning for other men ; but they lose their significance, and become quite worthless, if they intermit the attention to themselves which serves to maintain their own inner power and purity, and so will be like salt that has become insipid (Luke xiv. 34 f. ; cf. Mark ix. 50). The directions which Jesus gave His disciples on the way, when He sent them to spread abroad the tidings of the nearness of the kingdom of God (Mark vi. 7-1 1 ; Luke x. 1-1 1 ; Matt. x. 5-1 6),2 were meant directly only for that one mission of His disciples during His lifetime; and it would be quite unjustified if one were to regard the local limitation of the work, which He prescribed to His disciples on that occasion (Matt. x. 5fi), as one valid for all the future. But yet we can certainly say that these 1 Concerning the original connection of this Logia-passage, cf. Log. § 14b, L. J. i. p. 113. 3 Cf. Log. %7,L.J i.p. 84 ff. THE DISCIPLES' CALL TO PREACH. 379 directions, so far as they referred to the mode of conduct of the disciples on their mission-tour, were regarded by Jesus as of standard authority, not only for this one mission, but for the mission - work generally which His disciples should exercise as His agents and representatives, and so indirectly also for their call to the work of spreading the gospel after His death. The instructions quite correspond to the conduct which Jesus Plimself exercised in His work of preaching the kingdom of God. He says to His disciples : " Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves : be ye therefore wise as serpents, and guileless as doves" (Matt. x. 16). The task was a difficult and dangerous one ; therefore it demanded from the disciples the utmost prudence ; that is, ability to exercise such vigilant, provident, tactful judgment, as rightly to conform to the circumstances of the time, and to find the fit means for the purposes of their task and purposes attainable with the given means. But the virtue of prudence must never degenerate into the vice of cunning and craftiness, such as does not avoid even bad means, lies, and fraud, so far as these appear fit for the purpose according to the circumstances. Their prudence must rather be united with purity, that is, with perfect freedom of mind from all evil thoughts and aims, which impair the true righteousness. The special instructions which Jesus then gives them as to what they should or should not take with them on the way, and how they shall conduct themselves on entering into a city and a house, express in the form of illustrative examples1 1 Cf. vol. i. p. m f. 380 NECESSARY CONDUCT OF DISCIPLES IN FUTURE. the general injunction that they should devote them selves to their calling with full power and undivided interest, allowing themselves to be taken up about nothing which ministered to their personal comfort, being only filled with zeal for bringing the purpose of their mission to the utmost possible realisation, spontaneously imparting the message of salvation to all, but not needlessly wasting their time and strength upon those who show themselves unreceptive. The rule, that they should allow themselves to be supported by those to whom they preach the gospel, because the workman is worthy of his livelihood (Luke x. 7 ; Matt. x. 10), Paul has also recorded as an ordinance given by Jesus (1 Cor. ix. 14). But this rule is supplemented by the direction that the disciples should eat what is set before them, and not change their lodging (Luke x. 7 and 8$) ; that is, without dainty regard for their comfort to put up with what is given to them ; and that as they themselves had freely received the message of salvation, they should freely impart the same to others (Matt. x. 8). Their work of preaching ought not to be made a means for their gaining earthly goods for themselves ; they should regard the means of earthly support, which they received from others in course of their work, as a means for carrying on this work. Finally, inasmuch as Jesus foresaw that His disciples would experience troubles and persecutions for His sake and the gospel's, He addressed to them the warning to take heed to maintain their fidelity to Him amid these perils, and to endure to the end (Mark xiii. 9, 13). His requirements that all who follow Him FAREWELL ADMONITIONS IN JOHN. 38 1 should be ready to take up the cross (Mark viii. 34 ; Luke xiv. 27), to renounce their nearest relatives and all their possessions, yet even to yield up their life (Luke xiv. 26, 28-33), have, as we have already remarked,1 their direct reference to the period of His disciples' conflict (Luke xii. 51-53), which He sup posed would occupy the whole of the comparatively short duration of the further earthly development of the kingdom of God. The disciples were not to be afraid of men, whose hatred they would experience just as their master did (Matt. x. 24-26) ; they were not to fear those who kill the body, but Him who had power to destroy soul and body in hell (Matt. x. 28). They were to beware of being led astray by false Messiahs and prophets (Mark xiii. 5fi, 21-23). But they were to pray to God unceasingly, that by the sending of the Son of man, the true Messiah, He would bring them deliverance from dangers and distresses, in which they stand (Luke xxi. 36; xviii. 1 and 7). 3. The farewell discourses of Jesus in the fourth Gospel are, as to their main contents, words of admonition, comfort, and prayer, which Jesus uttered in prospect of His immediately near departure to His Father, and of the period of His disciples' remaining alone upon the earth, which should then begin. It is so far true, that the main contents of these farewell discourses lend themselves to a comparison with the synoptical sayings of Jesus in regard to the deport ment which the disciples should observe in the future. 1 See above, p-65- 382 NECESSARY CONDUCT OF DISCIPLES IN FUTURE. The admonition of Jesus to His disciples, that they should abide in Him, as the branch must abide in the vine, if it would bring forth fruit (xv. 4-7) ; and His instruction that this abiding in Him, and in loving fellowship with Him, must consist in obedience to His words and commands, namely, His command in regard to love (vers. 9-17) ; His prayer to the Father that He would keep the disciples in the revelation which they had received through Him, the Son (xvii. 1 1-13) ; and, through their holding fast to this revelation, that He might guard them from the evil in the world, and keep them in devoted fellowship with Him, so that thereby they might attain to participation in the heavenly glory (ver. 24) ; further, His commission to the disciples, that they should testify for Him in the future (xv. 27) as His messengers to the world (xvii. 18), and that, through their loving work and fellowship among themselves, they should give men the proof of their adherence to Him as His disciples (xiii. 34 fi), and His own mission from God (xvii. 21, 23); finally, His appeal that they should take no offence at the persecutions that lay before them (xvi. 1), but should call to mind His foretelling to them of this fate (xv. 20 ; xvi. 4) ; to maintain courage and confidence by a trustful regard to Him and His Father (xiv. 1, 27 ; xvi. 33), and that they should seek by prayer from God all blessing even to the attainment of perfect joy (xiv. i3fi ; xv. 16; xvi. 23 fi), — these utterances of the Johannine farewell- discourses give the clear proof that the mode of view of these discourses on these points also is in full agreement with that of the synoptical discourses. FAREWELL ADMONITIONS IN JOHN. 383 These farewell words do not need a further exposition here, because that, so far we have already more particu larly considered them, when the general ideas of Jesus, on the one hand of the righteous conduct required of the disciples, and their right fellowship with Him as the Messiah, and on the other of God's manifestation of saving blessing towards them, were given expres sion to in those farewell words. CONCLUSION. COMPREHENSIVE VIEW OF THE CONTENTS OF THE TEACHING OF JESUS. i. After having considered in succession the particular parts of the teaching of Jesus, we must in conclusion take a comprehensive survey of the whole. The basis of the teaching of Jesus was the know ledge that God is the Father, His Father and the Father of men in general, altogether animated by a sentiment of fatherly love. This knowledge had for Him the significance of a revelation, of which He was immediately conscious through the experiences of His inner personal life, and of which He found the con firmation in the words of the Old Testament scripture — a revelation which was not disclosed to Him suddenly in a - passing moment of His life, but of which He bore the germ in Himself and gradually unfolded since the awakening of His consciousness, and which in its perfected form became the enduring possession of His whole life. From this knowledge of God as the Father, which was assured to Him by revelation, He derived, on the one hand, His idea of the saving benefit -which God was ready to bestow on men : that the true and perfect form of this saving 384 SURVEY OF THE TEACHING OF JESUS. 385 good does not reside in the transient earthly life and its external goods, but in the everlasting heavenly life of the future aeon ; but that God, even as to the present earthly life, lets the pious participate in external and spiritual blessings, so far as it is necessary and beneficial for them, and preserves them from all that tends to the injury of their true life of blessedness. From that knowledge of God He on the other hand derived His idea of the righteousness in which men have to fulfil the will of God : that the existence and value of this righteousness depends only on the inward disposition, and that the truly pious disposition must be manifested towards God in absolute child like trust, and in the prayer arising from such trust, and towards men in unlimited, spontaneous, beneficent love, which forgives injuries after the manner of God. In these ideas, which Jesus entertained of God, of the true saving good and of the true righteousness, lay the elements of His view of the kingdom of God./' The significance of the revelation given to Him in^ baptism was, that He then recognised that the state of perfect blissful fellowship between God and His people, promised by the prophets, finds its highest ideal realisation where God, as the Father, conducts men to their true goal of heavenly blessedness, and where men fulfil the will of God in true inward righteousness. The realisation of the kingdom of God understood in this way was a thing already present and yet also future : its beginning was already given in Jesus Himself, and in the circle of the disciples attached to Him ; but the goal of its development lay in the heavenly life of the future vol. 11. 2 B 386 VIEW OF CONTENTS OF TEACHING OF JESUS. seon. Whilst Jesus proclaimed this kingdom of God, and called upon men to enter it, He indicated as the conditions of membership of it, not a measure of previous work of service, but the trustful reception of the salvation bestowed by God, but at the same time the energetic determination to perform the righteousness required by God, with absolute with drawal of the mind, dismayed by no outward sacrifice, from all that is opposed to the kingdom of God. Jesus regarded Himself — who was in a perfect way what other men ought to become, the Son of God, although He was at the same time a weak human creature — as the Messiah, that is, as the Mediator sent by God to establish the kingdom of God among men. He found His Messianic task, which answered to their purpose, not in using or striving after the functions of kingly rule, but, as a prophetic teacher, in making known His revelation from God and the kingdom of God, and at the same time giving the. example of His God-trusting and loving walk, and thus imparting to other men the true knowledge of the kingdom of God, in accordance with which they could attain the perfect life of blessedness in this kingdom. But as the prospect opened to Him that a violent termination would speedily ensue for His earthly work as Messiah through the hatred of men, He laid hold of the trustful thought that even His death, according to God's plan of salvation, formed a necessary means for the furtherance and confirmation of His Messianic work, inasmuch as it would be a most efficient part of His preaching, which inwardly frees and blesses men, and, as pure fulfilment of SURVEY OF THE TEACHING OF JESUS. 387 obedience to God, represents a sacrifice offered at the institution of the new covenant, which God would reward with blessing to the Church of the new cove nant. .But He was also convinced that the violent death inflicted upon Him by men would not destroy nor hinder the continuance of His true life in fellow ship with God, and the full accomplishment of the Messianic calling entrusted to Him ; that He would arise after the briefest interval from death to the heavenly life with God, and, at the close of the present earthly seon, would return to the earth as Messiah, in order, by executing the final judgment with Divine authority, to transfer the disciples to the life of heavenly bliss. Inasmuch as He held this idea of the Messianic significance of His person, He also required a believing attachment to His person as the condition of attaining salvation. But inasmuch as He based the whole Messianic significance of His person just on His revelation - preaching, a mere relation of external nearness to His person was of no account with Him ; the true connection with His person, which he wished, was a trustful reception of, and practical obedience to His Messianic preaching. In accordance with His idea of the character of the kingdom of God in general, and with the experiences which He Himself made in course of His Messianic work on earth, He finally formed His presentiment of the further earthly development of the kingdom of God after His death. He gave no predictions as to particular future events and new circumstances that were to take place ; but as He presupposed that the generation contemporary with Him would witness the 388 VIEW OF CONTENTS OF TEACHING OF JESUS. close of the present earthly aeon, and that during this period His disciples would live under essentially the same external circumstances as in the time of His own earthly life, He, on the one hand, expressed His con fidence that the kingdom of God, during this earthly period that was still to come, would from its small beginning develop vastly further, but also, on the other hand, His anticipation that this further development would take place amid conflict and difficulty, and that the members of the kingdom would experience the persecuting hatred of other men, as He, the Messiah, had done. He required from His disciples with reference to this future, ceaseless fidelity, sincere and unselfish work for the extension of the kingdom of God, and courageous endurance, and readiness for death amid persecutions and sufferings for the kingdom of God's sake. 2. I abstain from giving a dogmatic view in regard to the contents of the teaching of Jesus, that is, a judgment in regard to the truth and scientific sound ness of His religious view of God and the kingdom of God ; for such a dogmatic judgment could only be here given as an assertion, but could not find its, proper establishment. I similarly refrain from seek ing to estimate the historical significance of the teaching of Jesus from the standpoint of the general history of the human spirit and culture ; for such an estimate also, if not merely given in the form of general assertions, would presuppose not only an accurate consideration of the incomparably grand influences which the teaching of Jesus has exercised and still exercises on the moral and religious and SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TEACHING OF JESUS. 389 general spiritual development of mankind, but also a comparison with other great religious and philosophic systems which stand in analogy, in regard to character and influences, to the teaching of Jesus, and which have come into a more or less contrasted or concurrent relationship to it. I confine myself to bringing out only very briefly some points of view for the historical judgment of the teaching of Jesus, to which we have directly referred already in our foregoing account of the historically recognisable contents of the teaching, and in which we now at the close give only a comprehensive rdstime" of what we have noticed in detail already. We must first of all recognise the grand inner unity of this teaching. Little as Jesus has sought to bring out in systematic statement the uniform connection of His teaching, the fact of it plainly meets us when we attempt, from His particular utterances recorded for us and given according to the occasion, to reconstruct the picture of His mode of view in whole. We certainly cannot suppose that He carried about with Him a system of His teaching elaborated in detail with reference to all possible applications, however small, and, in the particular case of an appeal made or question put to Him, that He only brought forward a part of His system of doctrine of which He was already clearly conscious. Rather, as to many details and applications of His teaching, He certainly at first, from given occasions and inducements, became conscious, with natural faculty of judgment, of what ought to be said and done in right correspond ence to the circumstances. Just on this account we 390 VIEW OF CONTENTS OF TEACHING OF JESUS. can also speak of a development of His views during the period of His Messianic work, since the pro gressive experiences which He made, furnished Him with motive and material for a progressive formation and application of His doctrine. But we must still, at the same time, recognise that this activity of judg ment, which was constantly advancing and producing something new, had its basis in a general view which as to principle was securely settled, of which, as a whole, He was conscious in spirit, and whose form, so far as we are able to judge from our sources, did not change or develop during the brief period of His public Messianic activity. This collective view, which He held in principle, was far from being a sum of doctrines, which existed alongside of each other, and of which it could be asked if these or those details wrere essential or not. It was rather one doctrine, a consistent view of the right ideal relation between God and men, thoroughly pervaded by the idea of God as the loving Father. With this idea of God a definite idea of the significance of the world and the destiny of men, of what was good and what was evil, and of what was beneficial and what was injurious for men, of the nature and task of the Messiah and the Messianic Church, was indissolubly connected in the consciousness of Jesus. Just on this account it is also possible to indicate the teaching of Jesus in a few theses, without being afraid of any essential incompleteness ; for so far as the idea of God as the Father, and the general ideas derived from it of the genuine saving good and the true righteousness of the kingdom of God and of the Messiah, are indicated SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TEACHING OF JESUS. 39 1 in their main outlines, it is essentially a matter of indifference how briefly or how amply the sub stance of the particular recorded thoughts of Jesus is expressed, which is yet only the detailed form and application of those organically connected views. But certainly we have to recognise a special great ness of mental activity on the part of Jesus, in the fact that He has not been satisfied with merely establish ing in a general form that fundamental, collective religious view, but that, so far as the opportunity was in manifold ways afforded to Him, He rather, with ¦unswerving consistency, Himself carried out this collective view and applied it in detail. With men, the clearness and unity with which they grasp the general principles of their knowledge and work do not always go hand in hand with steadfast consistency in the carrying out and application of these principles. In the case of men who creatively, or as reformers, introduce new ideas, in opposition to an existing tradition, it appears to us almost self-evident that, without being themselves aware of it, they show in greater or less measure such influences of this early tradition as are inconsistent in relation with their characteristic new ideas. Let us think only of Augustine or of Luther ! In the case of Jesus, on the contrary, we seek in vain for such inconsistencies. Certainly, as a matter of fact, His teaching not only was and continued to be in an eminent degree conditioned by the Old Testament Jewish view, on whose soil it sprang up ; but Jesus Himself, with full consciousness and with a sense for historical develop- 392 VIEW OF CONTENTS OF TEACHING OF JESUS. ment, which notably overpassed the customary mode of view of His contemporaries, maintained and emphasised the inner connection of His new revelation with the revelation hitherto recognised by the people of Israel. But nowhere did He give, effect to this recognition in principle of the foregoing Divine revelation at the expense of the clear and consistent carrying out of those principles, which formed the essence of His own revelation-message. Partly He assigned to those parts of the tradition, which were not in accord with His own revelation, such an altered significance and limited regard, as to obviate their disharmony with PIis revelation, e.g. the Old Testa ment laws of worship or the Jewish ideas of angels and demons, and partly He simply set them aside and declared them inadmissible, e.g. the idea of the earthly glory and political power of the Messiah and His kingdom, or the Levitical laws of purification. On the other hand, He as clearly discerned, as with frank openness He expressed, the positive conse quences of His teaching, where it was of importance that He should plainly bring them out. The more we examine the whole extent of the sayings of Jesus^ which is recorded in the trustworthy earliest sources, the more we find ourselves forced to recognise that the teaching of Jesus is really like a work of one cast. So we can well judge that if we consider the teach ing of Jesus merely in regard to its general character as a great system of thought, it is admirable on account of its leading fundamental views, certainly not in a scientific systematic way, but in the way of SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TEACHING OF JESUS. 393 popular instruction, and in its carrying out and application, given, according to the occasion, in practical life, and in this respect it is on a par with the most complete philosophical and religious systems of thought which have been founded by men. But more important for us than this unity and con sistency, is the fact that the teaching of Jesus is so purely religious, the product of the most intense re ligious interest unmixed with other interests. Domin ant as was Jesus' idea of God for the whole contents of His teaching, yet the peculiar theme of His teach ing was not God, but the kingdom of God, that is, an ideal religious relation of fellowship between God and men. On the idea of the fatherly character of God, the certainty of Jesus as to a blissful related- ness of God to men, which meets men's inmost wishes and needs, was directly based, just as was the necessity and value of the most compre hensive religious adoration of God on the part of men. In His teaching Jesus concentrates His aim upon the setting forth of this religious relation. It was of no importance for Him to give a complete view of God in all possible relations; He presup posed that the heavenly Father possessed the highest features of character which His perfection and exalta tion above the world and men guaranteed ; but He abstained from all merely scientific theological or philosophical speculations upon these sides of the Divine nature. He was certain that the world as a whole and in detail was conditioned by God, be cause this certainty formed the presupposition of His absolute trust in the gracious direction of men 394 VIEW OF CONTENTS OF TEACHING OF JESUS. by God; but it was as far from His mind to frame a cosmological theory to explain and definitely to represent the creation and preservation of the world by God, as to engage in a scientific inquiry into the details of the constitution and course of the world created by God. He used the traditional ideas of the constitution of the world and applied to it His religious view, or used it for the illustration of this religious view by means of parables ; but they were not at all independent objects of His investigation and teaching, but remain quite as accidentals in the contents of His teaching. The purely religious view and teaching of Jesus was, at the same time, one that was moral through and through. Jesus viewed the religious relation of fellow ship between God and men as a relation of a moral kind, since He regarded the dealings of God with men, not as conditioned by the legal principle of formal righteousness, but by the moral principle of fatherly love ; and He regarded the pious conduct of men to wards God, not as conditioned merely by a mercenary motive, but primarily by the motive of a sentiment of duty founded on the Divine manifestations of grace. He judged the value of all works of piety, not by their outward appearance and quantity, but, from the moral standpoint, merely by the character and intensity of the inward motive on which they depended ; and He included in the pious righteousness of the kingdom of God a moral conduct of the most comprehensive kind towards one's fellow-men. For the conscious ness of Jesus' moral ideas and precepts had certainly not at all an independent value alongside of the re- SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TEACHING OF JESUS. 395 ligious ; they were rather for Him directly religious ideas and precepts, because they appeared to Him wholly conditioned by the character and will of God, and the religious relation of men to God. But the significant point is just this, that because He regarded the character and will of God as so perfectly moral, Jesus also viewed the right religious relation between God and men as a purely moral one, and regarded the moral conduct of men towards one another as an obvious and essential branch of the religious conduct. And we can certainly say that the deepest basis of this significant emphasising of the moral character of God lay in the eminently moral character of Jesus Himself, in His feeling of the absolute value of moral duties, and in His ex perience of the absolute Divine power of the moral life. But along with this moral tendency, how free Jesus has kept His teaching from admixture with political or other practical and social interests ! Distinctly as He recognised that the gracious manifestations of God were shown even in the earthly human life in manifold earthly blessings, and that, on the other hand, genuine piety had to be practically manifested in social human life, in loving regard for the earthly needs and wishes of others, and little as He regarded men's fulfilment of duties as members of the State as being in opposition to their fulfilment of duties to God, yet He consistently abstained from searching for the special means of furthering the earthly welfare of men, from reorganising the special forms of society and mutual intercourse of men according to their 396 VIEW OF CONTENTS OF TEACHING OF JESUS. earthly ends, and from representing a certain kind of social and political order as identical with the kingdom of God, or as inseparable from it. In accordance with His knowledge of God, He knew that earthly well-being as such did not belong to the true nature of the kingdom of God, but a higher welfare to be perfected in heaven, and not certain outward forms of conduct as such, but an inward righteousness ; and so He regarded it as the task of the Messiah to lead men only to the attainment of the true heavenly blessedness and the true in ward righteousness of the kingdom of God, but not to amalgamate any kind of outward endeavours for earthly ends with His Messianic task. The decisive reason for the uniquely lofty intensity and purity of the religious, and indeed moral-religious character of the teaching of Jesus, is everywhere shown in the fact that Jesus not only in general made the idea of God, but specially the idea of the moral fatherhood of God, the principle of His collective thought and aim ; and this principle He has carried out with marvellous consistency. Just herein we found also the basis of the epoch-making advance of His teaching in relation to the Old Testament Jewish religious teaching. We cannot regard this advance as immaterial because Jesus found a mani fold foundation in the Old Testament Jewish religion', both for that leading principle and for the separate elements of His religious view. The existence of this foundation was nevertheless the necessary con dition for the teaching of Jesus being able to originate as a branch of a, for us, intelligible historical develop- SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TEACHING OF JESUS. 397 ment, and that it could be successfully operative. Along with this, however, there remains the great and thoroughly original revelation - work of Jesus that He brought into prominence from among the traditional elements of the Old Testament Jewish religion, and carried fully out those elements, whence there resulted, as to the religious view, a new uniform whole, which more purely and perfectly corresponded to the specific religious interests. Both Pharisaism and Alexandrinism were extensions of the Old Testa ment religion ; but in comparison with them, with the Pharisaic legalism and the Philonian speculation, the greatness of the teaching of Jesus, its simplicity and inwardness, its purely religious, and at the same time deeply moral character, shine forth with special clear ness. The highest thing we have to say of Jesus, how- everVTs~that^dtli~~Hjrri^t^acning and life wexe-pen- fectly blended. His teaching rested on His own inner experience; His works and sufferings, on the other hand, were a vivid representation and a grand attestation of His teaching. Thus He was more than a mere teacher of a new religion ; He was at the same time the perfect representative of the religious relationship to God which He taught. In this inward harmony of holy teaching and living, He moved in the presence of His disciples, and we can well comprehend that from the short space of time during which they were with Him, although they were able to understand and hold fast only a little of the contents of His teaching, which struck them at first as something so new and strange, yet they 398 VIEW OF CONTENTS OF TEACHING OF JESUS. /retained the indelible impression of having seen and [experienced in their midst in His human appearance 'the perfect revelation of God, — an impression which | the apostolic writer of the discourses of the fourth Gospel has summed up in the words : " The revela tion became flesh, and tabernacled among us ; and we beheld His glory, a glory as of the only-begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. For out of His fulness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John i. 14, 16, 17).1 3. In our foregoing account we have sought to gain a view of the teaching of Jesus at first from the Gospel of Mark and the Matthew-Logia alone, that is, from those elements in our three Gospels which, from the marks contained in these Gospels themselves of literary relationship and connection, betoken them selves as the oldest traditional records of the teaching of Jesus recognisable by us. Consequently we have not only abstained from using such elements of the synoptical Gospels as are to be regarded partly as secondary formations from the redaction of both those main sources, partly as additions on the ground of obscure later tradition, but we have also allowed the material recorded in the fourth Gospel to have no influence on our representation of the organism of the teaching of Jesus as a whole, or on the detailed treat ment of the particular members of this whole. 1 On the connection of the thought of this passage, which the re dacting evangelist has interrupted by the interpolation of ver. 15, cf. L.J. i. p. 2i9ff. TRADITION OF THE SYNOPTICAL SOURCES. 399 The recorded tradition of the teaching of Jesus in both these main sources, the Gospel of Mark and the Matthew - Logia, is certainly still subject to many questions and doubts. Since the Gospel of Mark is no immediate report of an eye- and ear-witness, and in its very composition shows manifold traces of an earlier tradition that has been worked over, it is necessary to use critically the contents of this the oldest of our Gospels, and to abstain from using some portions of it, especially of the parousia - discourse, because they are recognisable as later additions to the original tradition. The Matthew- Logia, on the other hand, have been preserved for us, not directly, but only in the twofold redaction of our first and third evangelists, and out of these redactions are discerned only in part with tolerable certainty, but in part also merely with a certain probability. Alike with refer ence to that criticism of Mark's Gospel as with reference to this reconstruction of the Matthew- Logia, the opinions of scholars, even when they are agreed on the essential questions, show manifold divergencies in the details. But if we cannot once succeed in fix ing with perfect certainty the substance of the oldest apostolic tradition as to the words of Jesus as worked over in our Gospels, we must, of course, still more fail in arriving at indubitable certainty as to the original wording of the sayings of Jesus Himself. But, on the other hand, it is true that the questions and the dubietv which here remain do not affect the whole, and the essential, but only small and external points, in regard to which it is by no means important to have infallible knowledge. In regard to the contents 400 VIEW OF CONTENTS OF TEACHING OF JESUS. of the original teaching of Jesus, on the whole we can, in my opinion, gain a quite certain view from the clearly recognisable main elements of the oldest tradition in our synoptical Gospels. I hope I have proved by this work that the view of the teaching of Jesus unfolded from the Gospel of Mark and the Matthew- Logia is a quite self-consistent one, whose particular parts stand in organic connection with one another and with the leading principle of the whole, and that it is at the same time throughout a historic ally and psychologically intelligible view. The fact that the Gospel of Mark, so far as it appears to rest on the basis of an older source, and the Matthew- Logia, so far as they can be sifted with simple literary- critical judgment from our first and third Gospels, supply such a material of the teaching of Jesus as combines into a view of the teaching as a whole, so inwardly consistent and so historically and psycho logically intelligible, furnishes a splendid proof that in these the oldest known traditions we possess really genuine and historically valuable traditions. (The idea that the severely critical consideration of the Gospels, which examines these writings according to the same principles as other written historical sources, would render problematical the historical figure of Jesus, or at all events would derogate from the ideal loftiness and purity of His life and teaching, we must at this day pronounce as simply obsolete. Critical inquiry has led, though not immediately in its first attempts, yet gradually and in course of time, to results whereby the historical picture of Jesus has lost nothing, but only gained. If we now, in the case TRADITION OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 40 1 of our synoptical Gospels, make a distinction which on the whole is possible between older tradition and later redaction — a distinction which is the gradually acquired possession of the gospel criticism of our century, there thus meets us from out this older tradition a clear and life-like historical picture of Jesus, and such a picture as lets us perceive the full greatness of this historical phenomenon, teaches us to understand its epoch-making influence on the history of human religion and civilisation, and explains the unique saving religious significance which the Chris tian Church attributes, and ever shall attribute, to it. If, on the contrary, we abstract from the critical investigation of the Gospels, and would use the contents of the first three Gospels without distinc tion for our knowledge of the historical figure of Jesus, we should neither obtain such an inwardly consistent nor such an historically and psychologic ally intelligible picture of the life and teaching of Jesus. 4. I have next set the particular parts of the picture of the teaching of Jesus, derived from our main synoptical sources, by way of comparison alongside of the' corresponding parts of the picture of the teaching as furnished by the great discourses of the fourth Gospel. Here I have proceeded from the not un founded presupposition that in these discourses occur portions, of an older apostolic source, which the fourth evangelist redacted, and has expressly set in an historical framework, which, however, so far as it can be regarded as a source for the teaching of Jesus, must not be explained according to the elucidation vol. 11. 2 c 402 VIEW OF CONTENTS OF TEACHING OF JESUS. and interpretation of the redacting evangelist, but only by itself. It was only a consequence of this pre supposition that I have considered these discourse fragments, not as originally belonging to the whole period, but only to the close of the public ministry of Jesus, because they all, from the sayings at the temple- cleansing and the interview with Nicodemus forward (if we do not go by the chronological data of the evangelist, but by the indications contained in the discourses themselves), most plainly point to the closing period of the ministry of Jesus. From the com parison, carried out under this presupposition, of the contents of the Johannine discourses of Jesus with the contents of His teaching recognised in the main synoptical sources, a most highly significant harmony results upon all points, not, indeed, in regard to the form and details, which rather show diversity, but certainly in regard to the implicit religious view and mode of judgment. This harmony is all the more noteworthy, because it is manifested at the very points of the teaching of Jesus which did not belong to the substance of the Christian teaching in post-apostolic times, but rather are characteristic elements of the teaching of Jesus recognisable from our oldest synoptical sources, for which the Christian Church generally of the post-apostolic times had no true understanding. I may first recall His mode of judg ing and using the Old Testament, with its peculiar combination of pious recognition of the value of the early Divine revelation, and of the free cancelling, arising from the consciousness of His own superiority, of those elements of the early revelation which did TRADITION OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 403 not accord with the true knowledge of God.1 Then there is the idea of the existence of the Messianic salvation to be established in the present time on earth, and yet not merely in the present time, but to be perfected in the future in heaven.3 Again, there is the agreement of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus as to His perfect, morally and religiously based filial relationship to God with the consciousness of His limited creaturely-human nature ; 3 the relation of the Messianic vocation-work of Jesus to His God- revealing preaching, which led to the saving good of men, and the rejection of the thought that outward miraculous signs were the specific manifestations of the saving significance of the Messiah ; 4 the relation of the saving significance of the death of Jesus to the completion of His work of preaching, and the lack of a reference of this saving significance of the death to the forgiveness of sins ; 6 the prediction, not of transi ent external appearances of Jesus to His disciples after His death, but of a permanent spiritual reunion with Him during His further earthly life ; 6 and the requirement of such a believing adherence to His Messianic person as consisted essentially in a trustful and obedient reception and following of His revela tion-teaching. Finally, we recall the lack of such predictions and instructions of Jesus for the future of His Church as referred to definite new circumstances and events of the future, and are intelligible, not as simple inferences of Jesus from the continuously * Cf. above, p. 35 ff. 2 Cf. vol. i. p. 4°3 f-, and see p. 256, note. 8 Cf. above, p. 178 ff. * Cf. above, p. 213 ff. 5 Cf. above, p. 262. ' Cf. above, p. 302 f. 404 VIEW OF CONTENTS OF TEACHING OF JESUS. existing general character of His Church, and from the experiences which He Himself made amid the circumstances of the present.1 All these character istic thoughts, which are attested by the discourses of Jesus in the fourth Gospel, were quite foreign to the circle of ideas of post - apostolic times in reference to Jesus and His teaching; we can point to parallels or foundations for them nowhere in the post-apostolic Christian literature ; but the sole yet thorough-going analogy for them lies in the original teaching of Jesus, as it is attested for us in the Gospel of Mark and the Matthew- Logia. With what other wise known tendency of post-apostolic Christianity shall we bring the author of these Johannine dis courses of Jesus into connection, if we will not assume that He drew upon a genuine apostolic tradition ? Shall we rather assume the miracle of an enigmatical unknown writer of the post-apostolic generation being capable by his own speculation of reaching again, in his artistically imagined discourses of Jesus, the specific altitudes of the real historical mode of view of Jesus, than assume that this harmony of the Johannine discourses with the synoptical tradition was occasioned in a natural and historically intel ligible way by its origin from a good apostolic tradition regarding the teaching of Jesus ? More over, the author of the fourth Gospel, as a genuine representative of the post-apostolic generation, pos^ sessed no understanding of those characteristic points of the harmony of the discourses supplied by him with the historical mode of view of Jesus, and betrays 1 Cf. above, p. 367 ff. TRADITION OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 405 this lack of understanding, partly by his historical setting, partly by all kinds of little glossarial additions. Just on account of these additions of the evangelist, in whose light we are at first accustomed to read the discourses of Jesus, the remarkable harmony of the contents of the thought of these Johannine discourses with those of the synoptical sources as a rule are not obviously apparent. On the other hand, however, it is not only generally possible to abstract from this interpretation of the evangelist, and to inquire after the original meaning of the words of Jesus, but we are forced to make such an abstraction and distinction, just from the fact that the wording and connection of the given discourses of Jesus stand in manifold direct contradiction to that interpretation of the evangelist. If we will not merely reckon with the accident of the evangelist, in course of his free composition of the discourses of Jesus, having chanced upon just such thoughts as harmonised with the mode of view of the historical Jesus that had already become unintelligible for him, and having fortuitously avoided the ex pression of such thoughts as he himself otherwise represented in accordance with his post - apostolic apprehension of the character, works, and teaching of Jesus, we are forced to the explanation that the fourth evangelist may have used a source which conveyed to him a trustworthy tradition regarding Jesus. Would we then deny the evident fact that these discourses of Jesus in the fourth Gospel, manifold as are the points of contact which they show in the details of their contents with the synoptical tradition, yet exhibit on the whole a picture very differently 406 VIEW OF CONTENTS OF TEACHING OF JESUS. grouped and producing a very different collective ex pression from the synoptical discourses and sayings of Jesus ? We need by no means deny this fact, for we can fully explain it from our collective view of the fourth Gospel. Its explanation lies first of all in the fact that these discourses of Jesus have without doubt under gone a peculiar formal stamp, first, from the original apostolic writer in accordance with his individual mode of view and style ; but, secondly, from the fact that they have been set by the redacting evangelist in a light foreign to their original sense, and have also received from him a chronological distribution, according to which they appear to belong to the whole period of the public ministry of Jesus. From the latter circumstance has arisen that difference from the synoptical teaching, which at first appears so important and decided, viz. that here in the Johannine discourses Jesus from the first sets the announcement and defence of His own Messianic consciousness so strongly in the foreground. But so soon as we explain these Johannine discourses of Jesus from themselves, instead of from the redacting of the evangelist, and accordingly perceive that they were all originally written as discourses given in the closing period of the work of Jesus, this point of difference loses its significance ; for at the close of His ministry, even according to the testimony of our other sources, Jesus no longer kept back the announce ment of His Messianic consciousness, but rather expressly brought it into prominence, and just by that means caused the offence on the part of the Jewish hierarchy which brought about His violent death. Discourses of Jesus from this closing period must TRADITION OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 407 therefore, if they rest on a historical foundation, show a different character from that of the discourses which are recorded for us in connection with the rest of the time of Jesus' ministry. I have taken pains to point out that, apart from the formal difference (not essential for the contents of the thought) of the Johannine discourses from the synoptical, the difference is really only a quantitative one, consisting in the measure of the emphasising and detailing of the thoughts relating to the Messiahship of Jesus, and is perfectly explained just by that chronological connection of the Johannine discourses with the closing period of the life of Jesus. On the one hand, I have sought to indicate that the Messianic self-judgment of Jesus, which is attested for us by the Gospel of Mark and the Matthew- Logia, coincides in its essential contents with that of the Johannine discourses, and is by no means less as to extent or claims than the latter. Only we do not find it so detailed there as here in the Johannine discourses; but if we seek to render intelligible for us the sense of the short utterances of Jesus which are recorded in the main synoptical sources, we are clearly referred to the same connection of thought as lies plainly before us in fuller detail in those Johannine discourses. On the other hand, I have sought to show that the general views of Jesus as to God and the kingdom* of God, attested by the discourses of the Gospel of Mark and the Matthew- Logia, are by no means lacking in the circle of thought of the Johannine discourses. The ideas of Jesus regarding the fatherly goodwill of God towards men, the future heavenly goal of bliss for His disciples, and their present experiences of perfect 408 VIEW OF CONTENTS OF' TEACHING OF JESUS. blessing from God, of the fulfilment of the will of God, not in external ritual services and forms, but in genuine reverence of spirit, in trust and prayer, and in intense ministering brotherly love, occur here quite as decidedly as in those other sources, and, indeed, with the same characteristic opposition to the Jewish mode of view as there ; certainly not in such manifold detail, but, in place of that, partly in such pregnant and striking formulation, that Christendom has always loved to indicate in Johannine words the specifically Christian main thoughts in regard to the character and will of God, and in regard to the consciousness of blessing, the worship of God, and the exercise of love on the part of Jesus' disciples. From these grounds, also, as it appears to me, the treatment of the contents of the thought as given in the Johannine discourses of Jesus, will neither suffer loss nor be brought into a false and heterogeneous association, from the fact of our having dealt with its particular branches in connection with those branches of the synoptical teaching which correspond to them according to subject, and in such arrangement as we directly and without any regard to the Johannine dis courses recognised as the organic arrangement corre sponding to the synoptical material. I believe that even if one sought to give an account of the contents of the teaching of the Johannine discourses of Jesus without regard to the synoptical records, one would require to give no essentially different arrange ment. Though the Messianic self-judgment of Jesus comes more strongly into the foreground in these Johannine discourses than in the synoptical, yet TRADITION OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 409 certainly all Jesus' judgments in regard to the relations of His Messianic person to God and to men, His ideas in regard to His Messianic saving significance, the necessary nature of PIis Messianic working and suffering, and His Messianic heavenly life and work after the completion of PIis earthly work, and, finally, His requirements in regard to the believing deportment which the disciples were to manifest towards Him, rest upon such general ideas of God, of the highest blessings of God, and of the true righteousness of men, as correspond to the synoptical views of Jesus regarding the character of the kingdom of God, and which one must have recognised in their peculiar character and value, in order to be able to know the peculiar character of Jesus' personal Messianic testimony. But certainly this great substantial agreement be tween the contents of the teaching in the Johannine discourses and that of the Gospel of Mark and the Matthew - Logia only follows if the presupposition holds good, that the discourses of the fourth Gospel rest on an older source, and are not to be explained according to the framework and interpretation of the fourth evangelist, but solely from themselves. I know well on how little acceptance this weighty presupposition can at present reckon on the part of evangelical theologians of all shades, and therefore how little the results reached under this disputed presupposition will appear evident to most. The traditional axiom as to the inner unity of the fourth Gospel appears to most theologians so strong, that it appears self-evident to them to interpret the whole 4IO VIEW OF CONTENTS OF TEACHING OF JESUS. contents of the Johannine teaching of Jesus according to the thoughts which are manifestly those of the evangelist in his historical passages and in his glossarial additions. Nevertheless, I entertain the confident hope that this prejudice will gradually, though perhaps not easily or speedily, disappear, and that the recognition of the necessity of a dis tinction between the apostolic source redacted by the fourth evangelist and his own additions, between the original meaning of the source -passages and their secondary interpretation by the evangelist, will steadily make way. For the reasons which re quire this distinction are so numerous and plain, that they cannot be overlooked in the long run ; they may still, indeed, be a long time ignored ir. favour of the traditional axiom, but they will not thereby be put out of existence. To those who fear that something essential might be lost from the picture of the life and teaching of Jesus, which they deem valuable and necessary, if the whole fourth Gospel without distinction is not regarded as an apostolic source, I might answer that it is not at all a question as to what is valu able and necessary in this picture of the life and teaching of Jesus, but only as to what, according to the original tradition, is presented as the really his torical substance of this picture. The picture of the historical working and teaching of Jesus, which we gain from the unprejudiced examination of the syn optical records, is simply incompatible with the view that the Johannine picture of the working and teaching of Jesus, as drawn in the historical parts of the fourth TRADITION OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 4 1 I Gospel, is also a correct one. I doubt not that this incompatibility, and therefore the impossibility of holding that the fourth Gospel, as a whole, is genuine apostolic tradition regarding Jesus and His teaching, will gradually obtain recognition from all those who sincerely aim at attaining the knowledge of the historical reality. But this recognition will be the more readily and willingly decided upon, when it is known that this is by no means equivalent to a rejection of the whole contents of this Gospel as an historical fiction, and to a mistaking of. the value of such elements in it as convey the. impression of a true historical record, just as the recognition of the post-apostolic composition of our first Gospel can go hand in hand with a full recognition of the weighty apostolic tradition contained in this Gospel. When, following the manifest traces occurring in the body of the fourth Gospel itself, we seek the older source which the post-apostolic evangelist has worked over, we have before us in the contents of this source, which are on the whole recognisable, a tradition which stands to the recognisable tradition in our synoptical Gospels in a relation, not of dependence, but certainly of inward agreement, which can claim like the latter to be held as apostolic, and in the highest degree valuable for our historical knowledge of the teaching of Jesus. It is only an indefinite, not a clear impression, according to which the Christian laity feel that the peculiar value of the fourth Gospel does not depend on the specially great miracles, but on the specially deep and significant discourses of Jesus which are here set down. This indefinite 412 VIEW OF CONTENTS OF TEACHING OF JESUS. impression, however, becomes a well-founded opinion, when we combine with the open recognition of the post-apostolic composition of the Gospel the knowledge of the authentic apostolic source which the writer has worked over. Those, however, who are inclined from the first to slight all such separation with reference to the fourth Gospel as a critical " half measure," may yet bring themselves to the consciousness that it rather implies just a further development of critical inquiry, when we advance from the determination of the post- apostolic origin of the fourth Gospel to the question as to its source. So long as one holds fast the assur ance that this Gospel is a directly apostolic work, the question as to the source naturally does not come into consideration, and all the traces of dis harmony which form the evidences of the use of a foreign source, must either be overlooked or more or less skilfully explained away. But so soon as the post-apostolic origin of the Gospel is recognised, the question as to the source of the Gospel takes its right place. This question may still be left at first unre garded ; but sooner or later it must yet be approached, and the traces contained in the Gospel itself, which point back to an older tradition that has been used, must be sought to be estimated as such. In answer ing this question in detail, much truer results may be come to than those which I have succeeded in attain ing ; nevertheless, I believe that the main result of my critical investigation will be the longer the more confirmed, viz. the recognition of the dependence of the great discourses of this Gospel on an apostolic TRADITION OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 413 source, which originates from the same author as our Johannine Epistles, and which we can yet with toler able certainty distinguish from the historical editing of our fourth evangelist. In conclusion, however, I might set forth the fact, that our recognition of the essential contents of the teaching of Jesus as little depends on the previous settlement of this Johannine problem, as it does upon the definite conclusion of our critical inquiries con cerning the precise extent of the Matthew-Logia or the number of the Logia agrapha of Jesus, which can yet to a certain degree be indicated. Just on that account I have sought, in my treatment of the con tents of the teaching of Jesus, to deal with the material to be taken from the Johannine discourses on an independent footing alongside the synoptical material, in order to leave the recognition of the con tents of the teaching attested by the synoptical sources quite independent of the acceptance of my critical view of the fourth Gospel, and in order by the com parison of the synoptical and Johannine connection of thought, as placed independently side by side, to show that the synoptical is not altered or extended in the essential points by the Johannine. The final reason for holding that for our recognition of the teaching of Jesus the previous settlement of all critical questions is comparatively a matter of in difference, lies in the magnificent inner unity of the teaching of Jesus, which I have sought above to bring to light. If the preaching of Jesus consisted of a sum of particular truths, it would indeed be of the greatest importance to fix precisely as to its 414 VIEW OF CONTENTS OF TEACHING OF JESUS. details the contents of this teaching, so far as Jesus has given it. But since the preaching of Jesus is an organic unity in regard to religious views whose governing principle involved in the idea of God, and whose characteristic exposition and application have been recorded in harmony in all the sources, therefore it is comparatively a matter of indifference for our understanding of the whole of the teaching of Jesus, whether or not we can determine the authen ticity of this or that particular detail and application of the collective view of Jesus. Certainly it has for us a great interest, and it is our weighty scientific task to investigate with all our resources with the greatest possible precision the extent and contents of the oldest traditions concerning the teaching of Jesus, even in regard to the most insignificant points, for the knowledge of the whole. But we can already be glad in having the certain knowledge of the whole in its essential substance, although our investigation of the details is not yet definitely concluded. INDEX OF TEXTS CITED IN THIS WORK. ( The numbers printed in black type indicate the most important texts. ) Matthew. VOLUME AND PAGE. ii. 2, 4, . . ii. 131. ii. 22, . . ii. 228. iii. 4-6 : see Mark i. 4-6. iii. 7-12 : see Luke iii. 7 ; and ii. 361. iii. II : see Mark i. 7f. iii. 16 f.: see Mark i. 7f. iv. I-ll, . i. 102, 163 ; ii. 131, 137. iv. 17 : see Mark i. 9-1 1. iv. 19 : see Mark i. 17. v. 1, . . . i. 108. v. 3-12 : see Luke vi. 20-26. v. 3, . . . i. 160. v. 13 : see Luke xiv. 34 f. ; Mark ix. 50. v. 14, . . i. 119; ii. 378. v. 15 f. : see Mark iv. 21 v. 17, . i. 141, 231, 264; ii. 7ff., 11, 18, 19, 22,25, J9°- i. 271 ; ii. 7ff. ii. 7ff., 57. 1.231,264,381 ; ii. 7ff., 57- i. m,268, 274 f., 337, 339 f.; ii. 5, 6. i. 112, 131, 268, 311, 328, 337. 346- 25 f. : see Luke xii. 58 f. 27 f., . . i. 158, 268,352,354. 29, . . i. 134, 269, ii. 61. v. 18, v. 19, v. 20, v. 21 f., v. 23 f., v. 30 : see Mark ix. 43 v. 31 f., . . i. 3531; ii. 63. ^ 33-37. • >¦ 134, 269 ff. . v. 38, . . ii. 10, 228. v. 39-41, . i. 112, 132 ff., 348 ff. v. 42, . . i. 132. v. 43 f., . . i. 193, 330ff., 335, 35°. 360, 364; ii. 129, 186. v. 45, . ¦ i- I54,«l92f-. J96, 202. 330,338; "-"7,129. 186. Matthew. volume and page. v. 46 f., . . i. 196, 331, 338, 344; ii. 169. v. 48, . . i. 184, 192, 193, 201, 273- vi. 1-4, . . 1. 112, 134, 192, 196, 257, 265, 273 ; ii. 169, 286. vi. 5f., . . i. 112, 134, 192, 257, 265, 274, 348 ; ii. 286. vi. 7, . . i. 300. vi. 9-13 : see Luke xi. 2-4. vi. 14 f. : see Mark xi. 25. vi. 16-18, . i. 112, 192, 257, 265, 274 ; ii. 286. vi. 19-34, . i. 267 ; ii. 169. vi. I9f., . i. 214, 217; ii. 169, 286. vi. 21, . . i. 158. vi. 22 f. : see Luke xi. 34 f. vi. 24 : see Luke xvi. 13. i. 156 f., 171, 202, 206, 234, 290 ; ii. 63. i. 192, 234, 290 ; ii. 63. i. 234, 290, 371, 381. i. 141, 274, 282, 345. i. 140, 274. i. 144, 274, 337. i. 144, 155, 282 : ii. 81. i. 141, 144, 214, 232, 301. i. 118, 214, 232, 301. i. 196, 210, 214, 232, 301. i. 114, 141, 343 f.; ii. 9, 17- i. 144, 217, 282, 370; ii- 59, 75, 346. i- 144, 155. 275. 276. i. 118, 145, 154, 275. i. 381; ii. 56, 311 f., 381. i. 121, 154; ii. 56, 312. VI. 25-30. vi. 31 t; vi. 33. • vii 1, - vii 2, - vii 3-5. vii. 6, . vii. 7f., . vii. 9f., . vii. 11, . 13 f-. vii. "5. • vii. 16-20, vii. 21, . vii. 24-27, 416 INDEX OF TEXTS. Matthew. volume and page. vii. 29 : see Mark i. 22. viii. 2-4 : see Mark i. 40-44. viii. 5-13, . i. 292 ; ii. 193, 347. viii. I if.: see Luke xiii. 28 1. viii. 16: see Mark i. 34. viii. 19 f. : see Luke ix. 57 f. viii. 21 f. : see Luke ix. 59 f. viii. 23-27: see Mark iy. 35-41. viii. 28 : see Mark v. 2-5. viii. 29 : see Mark v. 7. ix. z-& : see Mark ii. 1-12. ix. 9-13 : see Mark ii. 14-17. ix. 14-17 : see Mark ii. 18-22. ix. 22 : see Mark v. 34. ix. 23-25 : see Mark v. 36-43. ix. 30, . . ii. 194. ix. 37 f. : see Luke x. 2. a. I : see Mark iii. 14 f. ; vi. 7. a. sf., . . i. 144 ; ii. 197, 354, 37S. a. 7 : see Luke x. 9. a. 8, . . . ii. 48, 380. x. 9f. : see Mark vi. 8f., and Luke x. 4-7- x. 14: see Mark vi. 1 1, and Luke x. iof. a. 15 : see Luke x. 12. a. 16, . . i. 116, 155; ii. 378, 379- x. 17-22: see Mark xiii. 9-13. x. 23, . . ii. 149. x. 24 f., . i. 1 1 8, 398 ; ii. 346, 356, 381. a. 26 f. , i. 140; ii. 354, 378, 381. x. 28, . i. 156, 157, 202, 217; ii. 285, 343, 381. x. 29-31, . i. 192, 202, 206, 295. x. 32 f., . . i. 191 ; ii. 309. a. 34-36 : see Luke xii. 51- 53- x. 37 f. : see Luke xiv. 26 f. a. 39, . . i. 141, 156L, 217, 228; ii. 60. x. 41, . . i. 196, 277. a. 42 : see Mark ix. 41. xi. 4f., . . ii. 4, 190, 193, xi. 7-9, . i. 88, 97,98, 155; ii. 28. xi. 10, . i. 68. xi. 11, . i. 84, 97; ii. 28, 331. xi. 12, . . i. 84, 273 ; ii. 9, 29, 48, 66, 338. xi. 14, . i. 84, 97, 373 ; ii. 147. xi. 16-190, . i. 84, 88, 89, 98, 116; «• 53. 64, 76, 84, 310. xi. ig!i: see Luke vii. 35. xi. 21-23: see Luke x. 13-15. xi. 24 : see Luke x. 12. xi. 25 f. : see Luke x. 21. xi. 27 : see Luke x. 22. xi. 18-30, . i. 144, 157, 159, 160, 230. 251, 342, 390 ; ii. 58, 80, 83, 85, 107, 126, 129, 191, 195, 210, 230, 259, 310. Matthew. volume and page. xii. 1-4 : see Mark ii. 23-26. xii. 5, . . i. 313 ; ii. 4. xii. 6f., . . i. 328; ii. 4. xii. 8 : see Mark ii. 28. xii. iof.: see Luke xiv. 3-5. xii. 12 : see Mark iii. 3, 4. xii. 22-24: see Luke xi. 14-16, and Mark iii. 22. xii. 25 f. : see Mark iii. 23-26. xii. 27 f. : see Luke xi. I9f. xii. 28, . . i. 371 ; ii. 129. xii. 29 : see Mark iii. 27. xii. 30, . . i. 142 ; ii. 314. xii. 3 1 : see Mark iii. 28 f. xii. 32 : see Luke xii. 10. xii. 33, . . i. 118 ; ii. 314. xii. 34f., . i. 158, 276; ii. 314. xii. 35, . . i. 144. xii. 36 f., . i. 276; ii. 314. xii. 39 : see Luke xi. 29 f. xii. 40, . . ii. 146, 195. xii. 41 f. : see Luke xi. 31 f. xii. 43-45, . i. 119, 167; ii. 362. xii. 46-50 : see Mark iii. 31-35. xiii. 1-9 : see Mark iv. 1-9. xiii. II : see Mark iv. 11. xiii. 12 : see Mark iv. 25. xiii. 13-15 : see Mark iv. 11 f. xiii. 16 f. : see Luke x. 23 f. xiii. 17, . . i. 374 ; ii. 28. xiii. 19-23 : see Mark iv. 14-20. xiii. 24-30, . i. 128 ; ii. 149, 352. xiii. 31 f. : see Mark iv. 31 f., and Luke xiii. 19. xiii. 33 : see Luke xiii. 21. xiii. 37, . . ii. 149. xiii. 41, . . ii. 149. xiii. 44-46, . i. 126, 212 ; ii. 60. xiii. 47 {., . i. 128; ii. 352. xiii. 52, . . i. 116 ; ii. 27. xiii. 54-58 : see Mark vi. 1-5.' xv. 1 f. : see Mark vii. 1-5. xv. 3-6 : see Mark vii. 8-13. xv. 7-9 : see Mark vii. 6 f. xv. II : see Mark vii. 15. xv. 14, . . i. 118, 145, 280. xv. 15: see Mark vii. 1 7. xv. 16-20 : see Mark vii. 18-23. xv. 21-28 : see Mark vii. 24-30. xvi. I : see Mark viii. 1 1. xvi. 2 f. : see Luke xii. 54-56. xvi. 4 : see Luke xi. 29. xvi. 6 : see Mark viii. 15. xvi. 7 : see Mark viii. 16. xvi. 12, . . i. 368. xvi. 13 : see Mark viii. 27. xvi. 14 : see Mark viii. 28. xvi. 16 : see Mark viii. 29. xvi. 17, . . ii.T9"T xvi. i8f., . i. 170; ii. 351, 355. INDEX OF TEXTS. 417 Matthew. VOLUME AND PAGE. xvi. 20 : see Mark viii. 30. xvi. 21, 23 : see Mark viii. 31-33. xvi. 24 : see Mark viii. 34. xvi. 25 : see Mark viii. 35. xvi. 26 : see Mark viii. 36 f. xvi. 27 : see Mark viii. 38. xvi. 28: see Mark ix. 1. xvii. 9-12 : see Mark ix. 9-13. xvii. 14-18 : see Mark ix. 14, 27. xvii. 20, . . i. 233. xvii. 22 f. : see Mark ix. 31. xvii. 24-26, i. 119, 194, 232, 315; "• 35i- xvn. 27, . . i. 311, 315. xviii. 1-5 : see Mark ix. 33-37. xviii. 6f.: see Mark ix. 42, and Luke xvii. 1 f. xviii. 8 f. . see Mark ix. 43-47. xviii. 10, . i. 163, 345. xviii. 11, . ii. 149. xviii. 12-14, i- 192, 345. xviii. 15, . i. 337, 345. xviii. 17 f., i. 345; ii. 351, 374. xviii. 19 f., . i. 191, 214, 232, 300; ii. 272. xviii. 20, . ii. 309, 320. xviii. 21 f., i. 337, 347; ii. 84. xviii. 23-34, >• 121, 195, 197, 211, 308, 330, 364 ; ii. 242. xviii. 35, . i. 192, 212, 308, 330, 337, 347, 364 ; ii- 285. xix. 3-8 : see Mark x. 2-9. xix. 9, . . i. 353 f. xix. 10-12, . ii. 73. xix. 13-15 : see Mark x. 13-16. xix. 16 f.: see Mark x. 17 f. xix. 18-22 : see Mark x. 19-22. xix. 23 : see Mark x. 23. xix. 24 : see Mark x. 25. xix. 26 : see Mark x. 27. xix. 28 : see Luke xxii. 30. xix. 29 : see Mark x. 29 f. xix. 30 : see Mark x. 31. xx. 1-15, . i. 195, 197; ii. 53ff. xx. 16, . . i. 140 ; ii. 53ff. xx. 17-19 : see Mark x. 32-34. xx. 20-23 : see Mark x. 35-40. xx. 25-28 : see Mark x. 42-45. xx. 29-34 : see Mark x. 46-52. xxi. 1-8 : see Mark xi. 1-8. xxi. 9 : see Mark xi. 9 f. xxi. I2f. : see Mark xi. 15-17. xxi. 16, . . ii. 85. xxi. 21 f. : see Mark xi. 27-33. ' xxi. 23-27 : see Mark xi. 27-33. xxi. 28-3IS, i. 121, 195, ii. 56, 76, 102. xxi. 3l£, . i. 371 5 »• 52> 56, 76, 102. xxi. 32, . . i. 85, 88, 98 ; ii. 56, 76, 102. -4 VOL. II. •Matthew. volume and page. xxi. 33-41 : see Mark xii. 1-9. xxi. 42 : see Mark xii. 10 f. xxi. 43, . . i. 371. xxii. i-io, . i. 127 ; ii. 56, 374. xxii. 11-13,. i. 127; ii. 56, 75. xxii. 14, . . i. 142, 398 ; ii. 75. xxii. 16-21 : see Mark xii. 13-17. xxii. 23-28 : see Mark xii. 18-23. xxii. 29 : see Mark xii. 24. xxii. 30 : see Mark xii. 25. xxii. 31 f. : see Mark xii. 26 f. xxii. 35-40 : see Mark xii. 28-31. xxii. 41-46 : see Mark xii. 35-37. xxiii. 2f., . i. 278, 280; ii. 13. xxiii. 4, . . i. 144, 278, 280; ii. 101. xxiii. 5, . . i. 278, 279, 339; ii. 101. xxiii. 6 f. : see Mark xii. 38-40. xxiii. 8, . . i. 337 ; ii. 190, 352. xxiii. 9, . . i. 192, 337; ii. 352. xxiii. 10,. . ii. 190, 352. xxiii. 11,. . i. 340; ii. 29, 352. xxiii. 12,. . i. 141, 340 ; ii. 352. xxiii. 13-15, i. 278 f., 280. xxiii. 16-22, i. 16, 278, 280, 311. xxiii. 23,. . i. 327, 351; ii. 3. xxiii. 24,. . i. 278, 327. xxiii. 25 {., . i. 278, 327. xxiii. 27, . i. 116, 278. xxiii. 29-32 : see Luke xi. 47 f. xxiii. 34-36: see Luke xi. 49-51 ; and ii- 374- xxiii. 37 : see Luke xiii. 34. xxiv. 1 f. : see Mark xiii. I f. xxiv. 3 : see Mark xiii. 3 f. xxiv. ' 4 f. : see Mark xiii. 5 f. xxiv. 6-8 : see Mark xiii. 7_9a- xxiv. 9f. : see Mark xiii. 12 f. xxiv. 13 : see Mark xiii. 13. xxiv. 15-22: see Mark xiii. 14-20. xxiv. 23-25 : see Mark xiii. 21-23. xxiv. 26f., . i. 116, 154; ii, 277, 359. xxiv. 28 : see Luke xvii. 37. xxiv. 29-31 : see Mark xiii. 24-27; and ii. 149. xxiv. 32 f . : see Mark xiii. 28. xxiv. 34 f. . see Mark xiii. 30 f. xxiv. 40 f., . i. 113; ii. 277. xxiv. 42 : see Mark xiii. 33. xxiv. 43 f. : see Luke xii. 39 f. ,> , xxiv. 45-51, i. 127; ii. 277. xxv. 1-13, . i. 121, 127, 136; ii. 277, 342, 376. xxv. 14-30, . i. 128, 195, 216, 235 ; "• 54. 64, 377- xxv. 29, . . i. 140; ii. 113. xxv. 31, . . ii. 143, 279, 349. xxi. 32 f., . i. 116, 279. xxv. 34, . . i. 170, 279. xxv. 35-40, . i. 277, 338 ; ii. 273, 279, 313 1; 325, 349- ' 2 D 4i8 INDEX OF TEXTS. Matthew volume and page Mark. volume and page. xxv. 41-45 ,. ii. 279, 313 f„ 325, 349. iii. 4, . . . i. 156, 316, 322. xxvi. 6-13 : see Mark xiv. 3-9. iii. II f. . . i. 166 ; ii. 131. xxvi. 24 : see Mark xiv. 21. iii. 14, . ii. 197, 353. xxvi. 26-28 : see Mark xiv. 22, 24 ; and iii. 15, . i. 166. ii. 260. iii. 16, . ¦ ii- 355- xxvi. 29 : see Mark xiv. 25. iii. 21, . . 1. 239 ; ii. 311. xxvi. 31 f. ; see Mark xiv. 27 f. iii. 22-26, . i. 117, 163, 166, 373; xxvi. 37 f. : see Mark xiv. 33 f. ii. 121, 373. xxvi. 39 : see Mark xiv. 36. iii. 27, . i. 117, 297 ; ii. 129. xxvi. 41 : see Mark xiv. 38. iii. 28, . i. 271 ; ii. 87, 139. xxvi. 45 : see Mark xiv. 41. iii. 29, . ii. 87, 129, 147. xxvi. 53, . i. 1 63: iii. 31 f.,. i- 133, 239- xxvi. 60 f. see Mark xiv. 57 f. iii- 33-35, i. 133, 239, 338 ; ii. 56, xxvi. 63-66 : see Mark xiv. 61-64 311, 324. xxvii. 11 : see Mark xv. 2. iv. if., . i. 108 ; ii. 27. xxvii. 29 : see Mark xv. 18. iv- 3-9, ¦ i. 109, 120, 126, 168 ; xxvii. 37 : see Mark xv. 26. ii. 76, 189, 200, 346. xxvii. 42 : see Mark xv. 32. iv. 11 f., . i. 109; ii. 82 f., 83, 86, xxvii. 46 : see Mark xv. 34. 119, 120, 196, 213. xxviii. 19, • ii- 349, 374- iv. 14-20, i. 125 ; ii. 76. xxviii. 20, . 11. 272, 374. iv. 21, . . iv. 22, i. no, 118, 126; ii. 378. i. 1 10, 140 ; ii. 378. Mark. iv- 24, iv. 25, . . i. no, 140 ; ii. 80. i. no, 140 ; ii. 80, 113. i. 2, . i. 67, 68. iv. 26-29, i. 118, 154; ii. 189, 209. i. 4, . . . i. 86. iv. 30-32, i. 118, 155; ii. 189 i. 5. . . . i. 86, 87. 200 f., 346. i. 6, . i. 84. iv. 33 f-,- i. no. i. 7f-,- . i. 86 f, 211. iv- 37, 40, - i. 289, 294 f. i. 9-1 1, . . i. 99, 255 ; ii. 128. iv. 41, . . ii. 125. i. 12 (., . . i. 101. v. 2-5, . i. 166. i. 14, . . . i. 173 ; ii. 188. v. 7-20, . . ii. 76, 131. i- 15. • . i. 173, 211, 289, 381 f., v- 34, • i- 293- 389 ; ii. 48, 57, 308, v. 36, . i. 289 ; ii. 193. 338. v- 37-43, • ii. 194. i. 16 f., . • ii- 355- vi. 1-3, . ii. 82. i. 21,. . . ii. 188. vi. 4, . . ii. 82, 189. i. 22, . . . i. 168 ; ii. 33, 188. vi- 5, • • ii. 82, 193. i. 23-27,. . i. 166 ; ii. 188. vi. 6, . ii. 189, 1 93. i- 37 f-, • ¦ i- 133, 389; "• 188. vii. 7, i. 166, 388 ; ii. 197, 354, i- 39, ¦ • . i. 389 ; ii. 188. 378. i. 40 f. , . ¦ ii- 193- vi. 8-10,. i. 279, 378. i- 43 f-, • . i. 171, 311, 356 f. ; ii- vi. II, . ii. 82, 378. 194. vi. 12, ii. 57. ii. 1-11, . . i. 21, 210. vi. 15, i. 67, 68. ii. 5, . . . i. 210 ; ii. 190, 242. vi. 20, i. 257. ii. 7, . . . ii. 145. vii. 1-5, . i. 282. ii. 8, . . . i. 158. vii. 6f. , . i. 159, 278, 282; ii. 101, ii. iof., . . i. 210 ; ii. 145, 190. 347- ii. 14 f. , . - ii- 5'- vii. 8-13, i. 90. 171, 279, 282, ii. 17, . . 1. 117, 141, 257 ; ii. 102, 190. si, 327, 352; ii. 3, 63, IOI. ii. 18, . . i. 311 ; ii. 22, 64. vii. 15, . i. 141, 201, 204, 282 ; ii. 19, . . i. 117; ii. 22, 359. ii. 6, 36, 196. ii. 21 f, . . i. 85, 117, 126, 129, 156, vii. 17, . i- 283. 239 J ii- 22, 24, 64. vii. 18, . i. 201, 283; ii. 33. ii. 23 f., . ¦ i- 313- vii. 20-23, i. 158, 159, 283, 327 ; ii. ii. 25 f., . . i. 171, 313 ; ii. 4. 193- ii. 27, . i. 141, 314 ii. 5. vii. 24-26, ii. 198. ii. 28, . i. 315 ; ii. 5, 145 f. vii. 27, . i. 118, 145; ii. 347. INDEX OF TEXTS. 419 Mark. vii. 28-30, vii. 31, . vii. 32-36, viii. 1 if., -viii. 15, . viii. 16, . viii. 17, . viii. 23-26, viii. 27, . viii. 28, . viii. 29, . viii. 31, . vm. 32, viii. 33, viii- 34, vi". 35, viii. 36 f., viii. 38, . ix. 1, . . ix. 9, . ix. n-15, ix. 17 f.,. ix. 19, . ix. 22, . ix. 23, . ix. 28 (., . ix. 30, . ix. 31, . ix- 33-35, ix. 36 f., . ix. 38 {.,. ix. 40, ix. 41, . ix. 42, . ix. 43-48, IX 49, ix 5°, X. 2-9, X. 11 f., X. 13 {-, A. 15, X. 17, X. 18, A. 19, VOLUME AND PAGE. »¦ 198, 347. ii. 198. ii. 194. i- 'SS, 271 ; ii. 194. i. 143, 367 f. i- 368. i. 158. ii. 194. i- 386 ; ii. 125, 149. i. 67 f., 68. i. 65, 386 ; ii. 125. i- 213, 387 ;ii. 123, 144, 223, 225 f., 266 f., 269. i. 387 ; ii. 224. i. 164, 165 ; ii. 224. ii. 60, 61, 225, 275, 308, 343, 356, 381. i. 141, 156, 157, 217 228, 403 ; ii. 59, 99, 266, 267, 308, 310. i. 214 ; ii. 326. i. 141, 162 ; ii. 143, 276, 309, 310, 345. i- 271, 370, 383, 398; ii. 149, 276, 342. ii. 144, 223, 266. i. 68, 88, 89, 97, 213, 217, 373 J ii- 4, 144, 222 f. i. 166. i. 294. i. 166, 291. i. 291, 294, 300 ; ii. 137, 192. i. 294, 300; ii. 137, 192. ii. 198. i. 213 ; ii. 144, 223, 266, 269. i. 114, 141, 340; ii. 352. i. 277, 344, 358 ; ii. 273, 309, 324- ii- 273, 313- i. 141 ; ii. 313. i. 196, 250, 277 ; ii. 309. i- 344- i. 134, 167, 344, 370; ii. 61, 63, 88, 370, 381, 383- ii. 62 f. i. 118, 145, 155; ii. 62f., 378- i. 171, 353; ii. 46, 63. i. 353 ; ii. 63. ii. 49, 338. i. 115, 381 ; ii. 49 f., 324- i. 370 ; 11. 69. i. 185 ; ii. 138. i. 251, 264; ii. 4. Mark. volume and page. x. 21, . . i. 370 ; ii. 69, 169. x. 23-25, . i. 370, 381, 383 ; ii. 77, "3- x. 27, . . i. 184, 201 ; ii. 78, 113. x. 28, . . i. 239 ; ii, 54, 58. x. 29, . . i. 214, 338 ; ii. 54, 308, 310. x. 30, . . i. 217, 239, 243 . x. 31, . . i. 140; ii. 53 f. x. 32, . . ii. 222 {., 271. x. 33 f., . . i. 213 ; ii. 144, 222, 223, 266, 269. x- 37-39, ¦ i- H3 ; ii- 286, 358. x. 40, . . ii. 54, 138, 286. x. 42-44, . i. 104, 141, 340, 358, 368; ii. 186, 352, 355- x. 45, . . 1. 104, 143, 156, 340, 342, 358 ; ii. 144, 226, 228, 259, 355. x. 46-51, . i. 65 ; ii. 123, 131, 135. x. 52, . . i. 293. xi. 1-8, . . ii. 5, 123. xi. 10, . . i. 65 ; ii. 123, 131, 185. xi. 15 f., . . i. 25, 278 ; ii. 366. xi. 17, . . i. 312; ii. 4, 38, 366. xi. 22 f. , . . i. 289, 291, 294, 300. xi. 23, . . i. 158, 233, 289, 300. xi. 24, . . i. 214. xi. 25, . . i. 192, 212, 300, 308. «¦ 27-33, ¦ i- 88; ii. 82, 361. xi. 30, . . i. 88, 371. xii. 1-9, . . i. 120, 398 ; ii. 127, 234, 347, 363. xii. iof., . i. 398; ii. 4, 127, 235. xii. 13-16, . i. 355 f. xii. 13-37, ¦ i- 21, 355. xii. 17, . . i. 141, 355. xii. 18-23, • i- 219. xii. 24, . . i. 202, 214, 219 f.; ii. 3, 93- xii. 25, . . i. 162, 219 ; ii. 3. xii. 26, . . i. 170, 171, 184; ii. 31, 269. xii. 27, . . i. 141, 220 ff. xii. 28, . . i. 287 ; ii. 3. xii. 29 (., . i. 159, 184, 264, 287; ii. 3. xii. 31, . . i. 264, 287, 325, 334; ii. 3. xii. 33 (., . 1. 329- xii- 35-37, • i- 65, 125, 171, 277; "• 32, 133, 136, 153. xii. 38-40, . i. 90, 113, 278, 279, 300, 339 ; ii. 101. xii. 41-44, • i- »3, 239, 277 f.; ii. 325- xiii. 1 {., . ii. 35s, 363, 365. xiii. 3 (., . ii. 341, 365. xiii. Sf., . ii. 358, 359, 365, 381. 420 INDEX OF TEXTS. Mark. xiii. 7f-, xiii. 9, • xiii. 10, . xiii. n, . xiii. 12, . xiii 13, ¦ xiii 14-20, xiii. 21-23, xiiixiii. 24-27, 28 f., xiii 30 (., xiii. 32, • xiii.xiii. 33, ¦ 34-36, xiii. 37- xiv. 3-9, xiv. 21, . xiv. 22-24, xiv. 25, xiv. 27 f., xiv. 29 f., xiv. xiv. 33-35,36, - xiv. 38, XIV 41, . xiv 49, ¦ xiv 57 f-, xiv 61 f., xiv 63 f., XV. 2, XV. 18, . XV. 26, XV. 32, XV. 34, • xvi 7- xvi 58, - volume and page. ii. 366. ii. 213, 308, 358, 360, 365, 373, 38o. ii- 349- i. 238, 251; ii. 78, 113, 358. i. 338 ; ii. 343, 358. i. 217; ii. 308, 346,358, 380. ii. 358, 366, 374. ii. 358, 359, 360, 365, 381. ii. 149, 278, 366. i. 1 1 8, 155; ii. 358, 360, 365- ii. 366. i. 162, 192, 201, 397 ; ii. 126 f., 138, 341, 344, 365, 376. ii. 278, 376. i. 125, 146, 301 ; ii. 342, 365, 376, 377. i. 146 ; ii. 365, 376. ii. 312, 367. ii. 4, 144. ii. 235 ff, 318 ff., 320. i. 217, 221, 370, 383 ; ii. 270. ii. 4, 270, 301, 355. "¦ 355- ii. 246. i. 184, 191, 201, 208, 301, 304; ii. 137, 246 ff. i. 141, 160, 237; ii. 78, H3- 11. 143, 144. ii. 4. ii- 37, 38- i. 65, 271 ; ii. 123, 127, 131, 144, 279, 345. 11. 144. i. 65 ; ii. 131, 185. ii. 131. ii. 131. i. 65 ; ii. 131. ii. 249. ii. 270. ii- 37- Luke. 1. 32, . . . 11. 131., "• 4i-5o, - i- 95 f- iii. 7, . . . i. 85. iii. 7-9 : see Matt. iii. 7-10. iii. 16 : see Mark i. 7 f. iii. 21 f. : see Mark i. 9-1 1. iv. 1-13: see Matt. iv. 1-11. Luke. volume and page. iv. 17-21, . i. 67, 373 ; ii. 4, 8, 128, 189, 190, 193, 196, 231. iv. 23, . . ii. 82. iv. 25-29, . i. 118 ; ii. 82. iv. 32 : see Mark i. 22. iv. 33-36 : see Mark i. 23-27. iv. 41 : see Mark i. 34. iv. 42-44 : see Mark i. 37-39. v. 10: see Mark i. 17. v. 12-14: see Mark i. 40-44. v. 17-26: seeMarkii. 1-12; and i. 21 1. v. 27-29 : see Mark ii. 14 f. v. 31 f. : see Mark ii. 17. v. 33-38: see Mark ii. 18-22. v. 39, . . i. 119, 156; ii. 75. vi. 1-4 : see Mark ii. 23-26. vi. 5 : see Mark ii. 28. vi. 9 : see Mark iii. 4. vi. 13 : see Mark iii. 14. vi. 18: see Mark iii. II. vi. 20, . i. 108, 134, 160. vi. 22, . ii. 149. vi. 23, . . i. 196. vi. 24-26, . i. 134. vi. 27 f. : see Matt. v. 44. vi. 29 f. : see Matt. v. 39-42. vi. 31 : see Matt. vii. 12. vi. 32 f. -. see Matt. v. 46 f. vi. 34, . . i. 331. vi. 35 : see Matt. v. 45. vi. 36 : see Matt. v. 48. vi. 37 f. : see Matt. vii. I f. v;. 39 : see Matt. xv. 14. vi. 40 : see Malt. x. 24 f. vi. 41 f. : see Matt. vii. 3-5. vi. 43 f. : see Matt. vii. 16 f. ; xii. 33. vi. 45 : see Matt. xii. 34 f. vi. 46 : see Matt. vii. 21. vi. 47-49 : see Matt. vii. 24-27. vii. 2-10, . i. 292. vii. 19 f. : see Matt. xi. 2 f. vii. 21, . . ii. 195. vii. 22 : see Matt. xi. 4 f. vii. 23 : see Matt. xi. 6. vii. 24-26 : see Matt. xi. 7-9. vii. 27, . . i. 68. vii. 28 : see Matt. xi. n. vii. 29 f., . i. 88, 98; ii. 76, 102. vii. 31-34: see Matt. xi. 16-19. vii. 35, . . ' ii. 76, 102. vii- 36-39, • ii- 52, 311. vii. 40-43, . i. 121 ; ii. 311. vii. 47 f, , . i. 211; ii. 52, 102^,242. viii. I, . . i. 389 ; ii. 189. viii. 4-8 : see Mark iv. 1-9. viii. 10 : see Mark iv. 11 f. viii. 11-15 : see Mark iv. 14-20. viii. 16 : see Mark iv. 21. viii. 17 : see Mark iv. 22. INDEX OF TEXTS. 421 Luke. volume and page. viii. 18 : see Mark iv. 24. viii. 19-21 : see Mark iii. 31-35. viii. 22-25 : see Mark iv. 35-41. viii. 26-37: see Mark v. 1-17. viii. 48 : see Mark v. 34. viii. 50 ; see Mark v. 36. viii. 51-56 : see Mark v. 37-43. 1-5 : see Mark vi. 7-1 1. 8 : see Mark vi. 15. x. 10-32, . ii. 224. x. 18-21 : see Mark viii. 27-30. x. 22 : see Mark viii. 31. x. 23-27 : see Mark viii. 34 ; ix. 1. x. 37-42 : see Mark ix. 14-27. x. 44 : see Mark ix. 31. x. 46-48 : see Mark ix. 33-37. x. 49 f. : see Mark ix. 38-40. 52-55«,55*, ¦ x. 57f., . x. 59 {.,. x. 61, . x. 62, I, . . 2, . . 11- 315- i. 160. i. 155 ; ii. 69, 70, 144. i. 144 ; ii. 66, 99, 196. i. 144 ; ii. 66. i. 145 ; ii. 66. i. 338 ; ii. 189, 378. 144, 389; 354. 11. 197, x. 3 : see Matt. x. 16. a. 4-8, . a. 9, . . x. iof., . x. 12, x. 13-15. A. 16, A. 17, . x. 18, . 19, X. 20, X. 21, X. 22, A. 23 f., . . X. 27 f. : see X. 30-37, X. 31, ¦ ¦ X. 36, • - X. 38-42, . xi 1,. . . xi 2,. . . xi 3, ¦ ¦ • xi 4,- ¦ • xi 5-8, ¦ • xi 9-13: se ii. 242, 354,, 380. i. 389 ; ii. 354. ii. 82. i. 170; ii. 58,280,364. ii. 58, 221, 280, 361, 364. «• 273, 313, 324- i. 166; ii. 125. i. 116, 154, 226, 229, . 232, 297, 374, 390; ii. 129. i. 165, 214, 226, 251, 374,390; ii. 191,195, 223, 231. ii. 125, 129, 231, 286. i. 229, 230, 374; ii. 84, 102, 120, 137, 213. ii. 125, 128, 129, 163, 166, 190, 210, 231, 30Q. i. 374, 390 ; ii. 28, 196. see Mark xii. 30 f. i. 113, 334. ii. 76. i- 335- ii. 286, 312. i. 302. i. 192, 200, 212, 381. i. 234 ; ii. 63. i. 212, 237, 309; n. 7s- i. 137, 216, 300. see Matt. vii. 7-1 1. Luke. VOLUME AND PAGE. xi. 31 f. 14-16, . i. 166. 17 f. : see Mark iii. 23-36. 19, . . i. 374. 20, . . i. 374 ; ii. 129, 193. 21 1. : see Mark iii. 27. 23 : see Matt. xii. 30. 24-26 : see Matt. xii. 43-45. 27 f., . . ii. 56, 311. 29f.,. . i. 171 ; ii. 58, 146, 195, 215, 361. i. 171 ; ii. 58, 146, 190, 280, 364. 33 : see Markiv. 21. 34f.,. . i. 119. 39 : see Matt, xxiii. 25. 40 f. : see Matt, xxiii. 26. 42 : see Matt, xxiii. 23. 43 : see Mark xii. 38 f. 44 : see Matt, xxiii. 27. 46 : see Matt, xxiii. 4. 47 f.,. . i. 278, 281 ; ii. 222. 49-51, . i. 170, 171, 278; ii. 362. 52 : see Matt, xxiii. 13. I : see Mark viii. 15 ; and i. 368. 2 f. : see Matt. x. 26 f. 4 f. : see Matt. x. 28. see Matt., a. 29-31. see Matt. x. 32 f. . ii. 87, 129, 147, 235, 315. see Mark xiii. 11. i- T33, 153; »• 188- i. 215, 216 ; ii. 343. i. 113, 156 f., 201, 215f., 234 ; ii. 76, 343. 22-28 : see Matt. vi. 25-30. 29 f. : see Matt. vi. 31 f. 6f. : 8f. : 10, , II {.: 13 f-, 15, • 16-22, 3',32, 33 f- 35-38 xu. 39, 40, . 42-4647, • 48, . 49 f-. 51-53. 54-56, 57, • 58 f.. i-5, 6-9, i. 212, 234, 290. . i. 144, 192, 210, 212, 289, 381 ; ii. 48, 338. see Matt. vi. 20 f. . i. 145; ii. 277, 342, 376. . i. 119 ; ii. 277, 342, 376. . ii. 143, 277, 376. see Matt. xxiv. 45-51. . i. 119, 195. - i- 142, 195- . i. 144 ; ii. 66, 216, 225, 346, 357, 360. . ii. 66, 357, 360, 381. i. 119, 154; ii. 362 f. . ii. 58, 87, 362. . i. 119; ii. 58, 87, 363. . i. 242 ; ii. 57, 362. . i. 121, 362 ; ii. 57, 58, 87, 285. 422 INDEX OF TEXTS. Luke. volume and page. xiii. 10-17, . i. 155, 166, 316. xiii. 18 f., . i. 126, 155, 375; ii- 346. xiii. 20 i., . i. 126, 156, 346, 368, 375 ! "¦ 346- xiii. 24 : see Matt. vii. 13 f. xiii. 25: see Matt. xxv. 10-12. xiii. 26 {., . ii. 276, 311, 347. xiii. 28, . . i. 118, 217, 370, 383, 398 ; ii. 347- xiii. 29, . . i. 183, 217, 221 ; 11. 347. xiii. 30, . . i. 140, 398 ; ii. 347. xiii. 31, . . i. 368 ; ii- 278. , xiii. 32, . . i. 144, 166; ii. 192, 222, 269. xiii. 33, . . i. 171; ii. 189, 222. xiii. 34, . . i. 116, 155, 398; 11. 87, 278, 363. xiii. 35, . . i. 125 ; ii. 278, 345. xiv. 1-6, . i. 316. xiv. 7-10, . i. 119, 340. xiv. 11, . . i. 141, 340. xiv. 12-14, . i. 196, 338, 343. xiv. 16-24, . i. 127, 398; ii. 56, 81, 87, 347- xiv. 26, . . i. 156, 358; ii. 60ffi, 62, 65, 71, 343, 381. xiv. 27, . . ii. 60ff., 62, 303, 381. xiv. 28-32, . ii. 61, 71, 381. xiv. 33, . . ii. 33, 62 ff. xiv. 34 ff., . i. 118, 155 ; ii. 62, 378. xv. 4-7 : see Matt, xviii. 12-14. xv. 8-10, . i. 127 ; ii. 53, 83. xv. n-32, i. 121, 127, 197 ff., 199; ii. 53, 242. xv. i8f., . i. 371. xvi. 1-9, . i. 123, 124, 128, 138, 195, 235 ; ii. 377. xvi. 9, . . i. 216. xvi. 10-12, . 1. 128, 142, 215, 217, 236 ; ii. 64, 377. xvi. 13, . . i. 119, 195 ; ii. 59. xvi. 15, . . i. 159, 201, 216, 265, 341 ; ii. 76, 285. xvi. 16 : see Matt. xi. 12-14. xvi. 17 : see Matt. v. 18. xvi. 18, . . i. 353, 354. xvi. 19-28, . i. 341 ; ii. 343. xvi. 22 f., . i. 162, 168, 216, 223. xvi. 29-31, . ii. 4, 9, 343. xvii. if., . i. 344. xvii. 3f. : see Matt, xviii. 15 f., 21 f. xvii. 5L, . i. 233, 291. xvii. 7-9, . i. 119, 195, 263. xvii. 10, . . i. 125, 195, 263, 341. xvii. 20 i., . i. 366, 372. xvii. 22, . . i. 213, 301 ; ii. 143, 276) 278, 359. xvii. 23 f . : see Matt. xxiv. 26 f. xvii. 25, . - . i. 213 ; ii. 224, 360. Luke. volume and page. xvii. 26-30,. i. 170; ii. 143, 276. xvii. 31 : see Matt. xiii. 15 f. xvii. 33 : see Matt. x. 39. xvii. 34 !., . ii. 276. xvii. 37, . . i. 155 ; ii. 277. xviii. I, . . i. 301, 342, 381. xviii. 2-5, . i. 124, 138, 301 ; ii. 342. xviii. 7, . . ii. 276, 342, 381. xviii. 8, . . i. 301 ; ii. 143, 276, 342, 345. xviii. 9-14, . i. 113, 141, 265, 308, 342 ; ii. 52, 76, 101. xviii. 15-17 : see Matt. x. 13-16. xviii. 18: see Mark x. 17 f. xviii. 20-22 : see Mark x. 19-21. xviii. 24 f. : see Mark x. 23-25. xviii. 27 : see Mark x. 10-27. xviii. 29 f. : see Mark x. 29 f. xviii. 31-33 : see Mark x. 32-34. xviii. 35-43 : see Mark x. 46-52. xix. 1-9, . ii. 51, 102. xix. 10, . . ii. 51, 83, 102, 149, 190. xix. 12-27 : see Matt. xxv. 14-30. xix. 28-36 : see Mark xi. 1-8. xix. 38 : see Mark xi. 9 f. xix. 41 f., . ii. 363. xix. 43 f., . ii. 367, 374. xix. 45 f. : see Mark xi. 15-17. xx. 1-8 : see Mark xi. 27-33. xx. 9-16 : see Mark xii. 1-9, xx. 17 : see Mark xii. iof. xx. 18, . . ii. 309. xx. 20-25: see Mark. xii. 13-17. xx. 27-33 '• see Mark xii. 18-23. xx. 34-36 : see Mark xii. 25. xx. 37 f. : see Mark xii. 26 f. xx. 41-44 : see Mark xii. 35-37. xx. 45-47 : see Mark xii. 38-40. xxi. 1-4 : see Mark xii. 41-44. xxi. 5 f. : see Mark xiii. 1 f. xxi. 7 : see Mark xiii. 3 f. xxi. 8 : see Mark xiii. 5 f. xxi. 9-1 1 : see Mark xiii. 7 f. xxi. 12-17: see Mark xiii. 9-13; and i. 238 f. xxi. 19 : see Mark xiii. 13. xxi. 20-24 : see Mark xiii. 14-20 ; and ii- 367,. 374- . xxi. 25-28 : see Mark xiii. 24-27. xxi. 29-3 1 : see Mark xiii. 28 f. xxi. 32 f. : see Mark xiii. 30 f. xxi. 34, . . i. 116, 158, 301; ii. 276 f., 377. xxi. 35, . . i. 237 ; ii. 277. xxi. 36, . . i. 301 ; ii. 143, 276, 342, 376, 381. xxii. 14-35,- i- H4- xxii. 18 : see Mark xiv. 25. INDEX OF TEXTS. 423 Luke. VOLUME AND PAGE. xxu. 19 : see Mark xiv. 22-24. xxii. 22 : see Mark xiv. 21. xxii. 25 : see Mark x. 42. xxii. 26 {., . i. 114, 340. xxii. 28, . . ii. 354. xxii. 29, . . i. 192, 370, 383; ii. 270, 286, 350, 354. xxii. 30,. . i. 217, 221, 370, 383; ii. 270, 286, 350. xxii. 31, . . i. 116, 164; ii. 355. xxii. 32, . . ii. 356. xxii. 34 : see Mark xiv. 30. xxii. 35 {., . ii. 357. xxii. 37, . . ii. 4, 357. xxii. 40 : see Mark xiv. 38. xxii. 42 : see Mark xiv. 36. xxii. 43 f. : see Mark xiv. 33 f. xxii. 46 : see Mark xiv. 38. xxii. 48, . . ii. 149. xxii. 66-71 : see Mark xiv. 61-64. xxiii. 3 : see Mark xv. 2. xxiii. 35 : see Mark xv. 32. xxiii. 38 : see Mark xv. 32. xxiii. 43, . ii. 269. xxiii. 46, . i. 161, 169. xxiv. 47, . ii. 349, 374. xxiv. 49, . 1. 255, 374. i- 13, • 1. 14,. i. 15, . i. 16 {., i. 19, . i. 20, . i. 22, . i. 29, . i. 36, . i- 50, ii. 13- ii. 19 18 iii. I f., iii- 3, iii. 5, iii. 6, iii. 7, iii. 8f., iii. 10-12, iii. 13, . iii. 14, . iii. 15, . iii. 16, . John. ii. 161. i. 23, 259, 261 ; ii. 398. i. 23 ; ii. 398. i. 261, 323 ; ii. 228, 398. ii. 125. i. 67, 68. ii. 125. ii. 262. ii. 262. ii. 131. i. 25, 323. i. 24, 146, 323 ; 11. 37, 46, 288, 374. i. 260 ; ii. 91, 92, 204. i. 174, 246, 271 ; ii. 91, 204. i. 174, 246; ii. 91. i. 142, 246 ; ii. 92. i. 246. i. 119, 154, 246. i. 25, 246; ii. 156, 205, 330. i. 246; ii. 155, 166, 167, 179, 33i- oo„ i. 171,246; ii. 179, 330< 331- i. 243, 246; ii. 205, 330, 331, 3.29- i. 243, 246; ii. 166, 204, 216, 329, 338. John. iii. 17, iii. 18, 111. 19, . iii. 20 f. , . iii. 21, . iv. 14, . iv. 19 f., iv. 21, . iv. 22, iv. 23, . iv. 24, . iv. 32, . iv. 34, • iv- 35, • iv. 36, . iv- 37, iv. 38, • iv. 39-42, v. 1-16. v. 17, V. lb, v. 19, V. 20, V. 21, V. 22, v. 23, v. 24 f., v. 26, v. 27, V. 28 {., V. 30, V. 33-35 V. 36, V. 37 f., V. 39, V. 40, V. 41-44 V. 45-47 vi ¦ 14 f-, VOLUME AND PAGE. i. 142 ; ii. 92, 156, 212. i. 246, 248 ; ii. 92, 96, 166, 212, 216, 306, 329, 373- i. 25, 146, 147, 247 ; ii. 92, 96, 119, 210, 212, 330, 373- i. 147, 247, 260; ii. 96, 102. i. 247, 260 ; ii. 92, 112, 330. i. 147, 243, 249; ii. 209. ii. 217. i. 320 ; ii. 36, 38, 297. ii. 38, 46. i. 161, 203, 286, 320, 404 ; ii. 36, 38, 297; i. 142, 161, 203, 286, 320 ; ii. 38, 217. i. 146. i. 146 ; ii. 156, 157, 214. i. 25, 147 ; ii. 217, 369. i. 25, 147 ; ii. 217, 298, 369, 371- i. 25, 142 ; ii. 217, 298, 369, 37'- i. 25, 147 ; ii. 217, 369, 371- ii. 217. i. 321 ; ii. 204. i. 203, 205, 214, 215, 321, 322 ; ii. 36, 152, 153. 159- ii. 153, 252. i. 271 ; ii. 152, 157, 178. i. 203, 271 ; ii. 156. i. 204, 206, 248; ii. 156, 204. ii. 211, 306, 373. ii. 156, 178, 331. i. 243, 248, 256, 271, 404 ; ii. 205, 209, Zl't, 297, 331. i. 203, 243, 248, '256 ; ii. 157. i. 199 ; ii. 211, 306, 333, 373- i. 256 ; ii. 305. i. 256 ; ii. 157- i. 85, 89, 146. i. 23 ; ii. 40, 42, 156, 214. ii. 40, 42, 45, 46, in, 158. i. 35, 244 ; ii. 40, 98. ii- 43, 330. ii. 44, 97, 101, no, 330. ii. 44, 98, 331. i. 67, 69. 424 INDEX OF TEXTS. John. volume and page. vi. 27, . . i. 146, 249 ; ii. 156, 179, 181, 209, 334. vi. 29, . . ii. 329. vi. 30 f.,. . ii. 215", 334- vi. 32f., . i. 171 ; ii. 155, 181,209, 216, 334. vi. 35, . . i. 146, 247 ; ii. 109, 180, 329f., 334. vi. 37, . . ii. 104, 107, 338. vi. 38, . i. 107 ; ii. 155. vi. 39 [., . . i. 256; ii. 104, 107, 305- vi. 40, . . 1. 243 ; ii. 109, 152, 204, 305, 329. vi. 41 {., . . ii. 109, 181, 334. vi. 44 f., . . i. 256; ii. 104, 109, 113, 305, 330. vi. 45, . . ii. 36, 104, no, 163, 167, 330. vi. 46, . . ii. 156, 167. vi. 47, . . i. 243, 248. vi. 48-58, . i. 171 ; ii. 155, 180ft"., 209. vi. 51, . . i. 203; ii. 180ff., 209, 216, 333 f. vi. 53 f.,. . i. 243, 247, 256; ii. 180, 209, 305, 333 f. vi. 55 f., . . ii. 180 ff., 209, 333 f. vi. 57, . . ii. 180, 209, 333 f. vi. 58, . . ii. 155, 209, 333 f. vi. 60 {., . . ii. no. vi. 62, . ii. 168. vi. 63, . . i. 23, 241 ; ii. 168, 181, 205, 209, 214, 326, . ^ 334# vi. 64, . . ii. no, 374. vi. 65, . ii. 104, 110, 113, 158, 330- vi. 67-69, . i. 23, 65 ; ii. 214, 371. vii. 7, . . ii. 97, 102, 204. vii. 15, . . i. 23, 90, 321. vii. 16 (., . ii. 156, 178. vii. 17, . . ii. 98, 102. vii. 18, . . ii. 157. vii. 19 {., . ii. 252. vii. 21, . . i. 322; ii. 214. vii. 22-24, • i- 170, 205, 323; ii. 36, 215. vii. 26 f., . i. 23, 65; ii. 156. vii. 28 f., ii. 156. vii. 33 f., . i. 23, 25; ii. 208, 287. vii- 37 f-, i- 23, 24, 146, 147, 243, 256 ;ii. 107,209, 329, 338. vn. 39, . . i. 24, 256 ; ii. 374. vii. 40-42, . i. 65, 67, 68, 69; ii. 131, 156. vin. 12, . . i. 23, 146 ; ii. 210, 216, 330. viii. 14, . . i. 25 ; ii. 19, 156. John. volume and page. viii. 15, . . ii. 162. viii. 16-19, . ii. 42 f. viii. 21, . . i. 25 ; ii. 206, 208. viii. 23, . ii. 105, 155. viii. 24, . . ii. 205, 329, 338. viii. 26, . i. 24 ; ii. 203. viii. 28, . ¦ ii- 157, 178, 179, 203, 214, 330, 335. viii. 29, . ii. 156, 157. viii. 31 f., i. 260 ; ii. 206, 209, 331, 338. viii- 34-36, ii. 206. viii. 37, . ii. 252, 331. viii. 38, . ii. 105, 156, 158, 203. viii. 39, . ii. 115 ff. viii. 40, . i. 260; ii. 156, 158, 203, 252. viii. 41, . ii. 116, 260. viii. 42, . ii. 117, 155, 158, 178, 33°- viii. 43, . ii. 105. viii. 44, . . i. 165, 170 ; ii. 120, 158, 256, 260. viii. 45 f., i. 260; ii. 203, 256, 331. viii. 47, . ii. 105, 117, 158, 163. viii. 49 f. , ii. 157, 336. viii. 51, . i. 248 ; ii. 171, 205, 209, 33i- viii. 52 f., ii. 172. viii. 54 f., ii. 157, 172, 336. viii. 56, . ii. 171 ff. viii. 57 f. , ii. 168. 171 ft, 172. ix. ^, . i. 242. ix. 4f., . . i. 147; ii. 208, 210, 216. ix. 39, . i. 142; ii. 98 ff., 196, 211, 216, 306, 373. ix. 40, . . ii. 98. ix. 41, . . ii. 98ff., 101, 196. x. 1-5, . . i. 120, 128 ff., 129; ii. 47, 210, 271. x. 3-5, - - i. 155 ; ii. 271. A. 6, . i. 109. x. 7ff., . . i. 128 ff. ; ii. 47. x. 8, . . . ii. 46, 47. x. 9, . . . i. 128 ff. ; ii. 210. x. 10 ff., . i. 128 ff, 147 ; ii. 204, 207, 253. • x- II-I3, • i. 120, 128ffi, 155, 156; ii. 251. x. 14 f., . . i. 147. x. 15, . 1. 156; ii. 156, 157. x. 16, . . i. 147 ; ii. 207, 369. x. 17, . i. 156; ii. 156,287. x. 18, . . ii. 251, .287. x. 24, . . ii- 153- x. 25, . . i. 24; ii. 118, 154, 156, 214. x. 26 f., . . i. 147; ii. 118, 153, 163, 330- x. 28, . . i. 147, 243 ; ii. 204. INDEX OF TEXTS. 425 John. volume and page. John. x. 29, . ii. 156, 164, 178. xiv. 7, . . x. 30, . ii. 153, 154, 157, 163. xiv. 9, x. 31. • ii- 153, 163, 252. xiv. iof., . x. 32, . i. 24; ii. 165, 178,214, 215- xiv. 12, . x- 33. • ii. 164. A. 34-36, - ii. 36, 152, 164. xiv. 13 f. , . *• 35, • ii. 36, 46. x. 37 f., . i. 24 ; ii. 42, 157, 165, xiv. 15, . . 214. xiv. 16 f., . xi. 9f., . i. 119, 319 f. xi. 25 f.,. i. 244, 248 ; ii. 204, 329. xiv. 18 f., . xi. 27, . ii. 131. xii. 20-22, ii. 217, 260, 336, 369. xiv. 20, . xii. 23, . ii. 179, 218, 287, 330. xiv. 21, . xii. 24, . i. 119, 154 ; ii. 218, 259, 369- xiv. 23, . xii. 25, . i. 142, 156, 157, 249 ; xiv. 24, . ii. 287. xiv. 26, . xii. 26, . ii- 330. xiv. 27, xii. 27, . i. 159 ; ii. 260. xiv. 28, . . xii. 28, . ii. 260, 288. xiv. 30, . xii. 29 f., ii. 260. xiv. 31, . . xii. 31, ¦ i. 165 ; ii. 260. XV. I, xii. 32, . i. 24 ; ii. 218, 260, 287, XV. 2, 330, 369- xv. 3, . . xii. 33, • ii. 287, 330, 374. xv. 4, . . xii. 34, . i- 65. xii. 35 <¦> i. 23, 119, 147; 11. 153, xv. 5 f., . . 208, 210, 261, 329. xv. 7, . . xii. 36^-43, ii. 261. xii. 44 f. , i. 23 ; ii. 261, 336. xv. 8, . . xii. 46, . i. 147 ; ii. 210, 216, 261, xv. 9, 329- XV. 10, . xii. 47 f., i. 24 ; ii. 212, 305, 306, 331, 373- ; xii. 49, . ii. 156, 178, 205, 261, XV. II, . . 336. XV. 12, . xii. 50, . i. 244; ii. 157,261,336. xiii. 10, . i. 119. xiii. 11, . ii- 374- xv. 12-17, . xiii. 12-15, i- 23, 115, 357, 358; 11. xv. 13, . . 204. xv. 14, . . xiii. 16, . . i. 119. xv. 15, . . xiii. 17, • i. 360. xiii. l8f., i- 23. xv. 16, . xiii. 20, . . i. 23, 142, 360. xiii. 21-30, i- 359- xv. 17, xiii. 31-33, . ii. 288. xiii. 34, . i. 357, 358, 359 ; ii. 204, xv. 18, . . 371, 382. xv. 19, . . xiii. 35, . . i. 360. xiii. 37 f., ;- js6- .. „ XV. 20, . xiv. 1, . i. 159, 318 ; 11. 382. XV. 21, . xiv. I-27, i. 158. XV. 22, . xiv. 2, i. 146, 249, 318; ii. 304. xv. 23, . . xiv. 3, . i. 250, 318 ; ii. 304, 367. xv. 24 f., xiv. 4f., ii. 206. xv. 26, . . xiv. 6, i. 146, 250, 260, 361 ; ii. 206. xv. 27, • VOLUME AND PAGE. ii. 300. ii. 157, 298. i. 24; ii. 156, 157, 178, 214 f. i. 318; ii. 159, 179,287, 290, 371. i. 250, 318 ; ii. 152, 289, 290, 382. ii. 330, 331. i. 244, 252, 318 ; ii. 290, 292, 299, 304, 368. i. 146 ; ii. 294, 297, 300, 320. ii. 157, 297, 300, 330. ii. 159, 295, 330, 331. ii. 159, 296, 320, 330, 331 ii. 156, 178, 331, 335. i. no, 318; ii. 292, 368. i. 251, 318 ; ii. 382. ii. 179, 287, 291. i. 164, 165 ; ii. 254, 257. ii. 253, 254, 257. i. 147 f. ; ii. 331. i. 155 ; ii. 112, 332. ii. 207. i. 155; ii. 330, 332 f., 382. ii. 258, 332 f. i. 250 : ii. 207, 330, 332, 382. i. 147 ; ii. 336. ii. 156, 332 f., 371,382. i. 360; ii. 157,204, 207, 254, 257, 258, 332, 338, 371, 382. i. 251 ; ii. 12, 207, 332. i. 357, 360 ; ii. 204, 251, 254, 332, 338, 371- i. 358, 360 ; ii. 204. i. 156, 332, 359- i. 358 ; ii. 332. i. 120, 359 ; ii. 156, 203, 371. i. 250, 318 ; ii. 254, 290, 370, 382. i. 358, 360 ; ii. 204, 332, 338, 382. i. 250 ; ii. 372. i. 250 ;ii. 105, 114, 158, 370, 372. ii. 372, 382. ii. 100, 372. ii. 100. ii. 252, 336. i. 24 ; ii. 214, 252, 336. i. 252, 260; ii. 292 ff., 368. ii. 292 ff., 371, 382. 426 INDEX OF TEXTS. John. xvi. 1-4, ¦ xvi. 5, • • xvi. 6-22, . xvi. 7, • ¦ xvi. 8, . . xvi. 9, • • xvi. 10, . . xvi. 11, . . xvi. 12, . . xvi. 13, ¦ • xvi. 14, . . xvi. 15, ¦ xvi. 16, . . xvi. 20, . . xvi. 21, . . xvi. 22, . . xvi. 23, - - xvi. 24, . . xvi. 25, . . xvi. 26, . . xvi. 27, . . xvi. 28, . . xvi. 32, - • xvi. 33, • xvii 1, . . xvii 2, - . xvii 3, • • xvii 4, • • xvii 5, • ¦ xvii 6, . . xvii 7, - - xvii 8, . . xvii 9, • • xvii 10, . . xvii 11,. . xvii 12,. . xvii 13, • • xvii 14, . . xvii 15,. . xvii 16,. . xvii ¦ 17 f; ¦ xvii . 18, . . xvii . 19, . . VOLUME AND PAGE. i. 250 ; ii. 372, 382. ii. 287. i. 158 318. i. 252,318; ii. 289, 293, 300, 368. i. 318; ii. 292. ii. 292. ii. 260, 287, 292. i. 165 ; ii. 292. ii. 292. i. 252, 260; ii. 292, 294, 368. i. 252; ii. 179, 292 ff., 368. ii. 156, 179, 291. ii. 295, 297, 30c. ii- 295. i. 120 ; ii. 296. i. 159, 251 ; ii. 296 ff. i. 203, 250, 318; ii. 290, 295, 296, 297, 300, 368, 382. i. 250 ; ii. 289, 382. i. 109, no; ii. 296, 297, 301. i. 203, 250, 318 ; ii. 290, 291, 297, 301, 304. n- 155, 159, 216, 371. ii. 216, 287. i. 251 ; ii. 156. i. 250, 251,318; ii. 255, 258, 382. ii. 152, 168, 170. i. 243 ; ii. 104, 107, 178, 205, 371. i. 244, 361 ; ii. 333. ii. 156, 214, 260, 287. ii. 168, 170, 288. i. 361 ; ii. 104, 107, 165, 203, 260, 333, 371. ii. 178, 214, 291, 333, 37i- i- 24; ii. 155, 156, 165, 178, 203, 260, 333, 371. ii. 105, 108, 371. ii. 156. i. 203 f. ; ii. 159. 207, 287, 330, 382. i. 24 ; ii. 159, 165, 371. ii. 287, 382. ii. 106, 114, 158, 203, 333. i. 204 ; ii. 207, 256, 371. ii. 106, 114, 158. i. 204, 260 ; ii. 165, 207. 256, 333, 37L ii. 165, 371, 382. i. 204, 260; ii. 256. 165, 333, 165, John. xvii. 20, , xvii. 21, . xvii. 22, , xvii. 23, , xvii. 24, , xvii. 25, . . xvii. 26 f., . xvii. 28, . . xviii. 8f., . xviii. 19, xviii. 36-38, xix. 26 f. , . xx. 31, . xxi. i8f., . xxi. 22 {., ii. 5, . . iii. 22 ff., vi. 2, . vi. 14, vii. 2 ff. , . vii. 4, vii. 38, . vii. 48-50, vii- 53, ¦ x. Iff., . xii. 15, . xiv. 26, . xv. 1 ff. , . xx. 35, . i- 3, • • ii. 8, . . ii. 1 7 ff. , ii. 25 f., . iii. 21-26, iv. 4, . iv. 11-17, iv. 25, . v. 1-11, . vi. 17, . vii. 7-25, viii. 4, . viii. 6, . viii. 14-16, viii. 17-27, viii. 28-39, ix. 7f., . ix. 31, . x. 5, . . x. 9 f. , . VOLUME AND PAGE. ii. 368. ii. 157, 159, 330, 333, 37i, 382. ii. 157, 159, 178. ii. 105, 156, 157, 159, 37i, 382. i. 249 ; ii. 105, 108, 156, 171, 288, 305, 371, 382. i. 203 ; ii. 371. ii. 105, 156, 159, 371. i. 305. i. 24 ; ii. 374. n- 374- i. 260 ; ii. 97, 102, 202. ii. 325. ii. 131. ii- 374- ii- 374- Acts. i- 255- i. 216. i. 67. »• 353- i. 324. 1. 324. i. 216. i. 51. ii. 38. i. 51. ii. 350. 1. 163. ii. 12. ii. 350. i. 260. Romans. ii- 135- i. 200. ii. 85. ii. 326. i. 207. i. 42. ii. 116. ii. 321. i. 208. ii. 84. i. 43, 207 f. i- 254, 363 ; ii. 8. i. 245, 254. i. 207, 208, 254, 298. i. 208, 254. i. 208. ii. 116. i- 374- i. 42. ii. 321. INDEX OF TEXTS. 427 Romans. VOLUME AND PAGE. xii. 17, . • ii. 228. Philippians. xiii. 8-10, xiv. 17, . xv. 8f., . ¦ |. 363 ; ii. 8. VOLUME AND PAGE • i. 407 ; ii. 19. • i. 260. iii. 16, • • i-,3-74- Colossians. i Corinthians. - 1. 407. i- 22, . . - ii. 215. ¦• 13, i- 30, . . - i. 245. 1. 27, . 1. 245. ii- 2, . . - n. 265. "¦ 23, . 1. 326. ii. 10-16, • i- 254. iii. 4, - i. 245, 408. iv. 20 f., • 1. 407. v- 5, - - . i. 166. 1 Thessalonians. v. 6f., . v. 8, . . vi. gf., . . i. 368. ¦ i. 260. ¦ i. 406. ii. 12, ii- 16, . i. 406. • i- 374 ; "¦ 12. vii. iof., vii. 19, . ¦ ;- 353- - ii. 326. 2 Thessalonians. ix. 14, . . ii. 380. i- 5, ¦ ¦ . i. 406. x. 16-22, • «- 3i8 f., 321. ii. 10-12, . i. 260, 406 ; ii. 256. xi. 15, . . ii. 228. xi. 23-25, . ii. 235, 321. Hebrews. xi. 26-32, xii.. 3-1 1, xii. 22 f., . ii. 320. - i. 254. . 11. 29. - ii. 326. ii. 2, . . xii. 2, . i. 51. . ii. 229. xiii. 2f., xii. 16, . . ii. 228. xiii. 6, . . i. 260. xiii. 13, . - ii. 29. James. xv. 3, . . ii. 240. i. 5, . . • i- 254. xv. 4, . ¦ ii. 269. iii. 15-17, ¦ ;- 255- xv. 5-8, . • "• 267, 353. iv. 15, . . ii. 228. xv. 12-18, ii. 267. xv. 50, . i. 406; ii. 19. 1 Peter. 2 Corinthians. i. 4, . . in. 9, . ii. 170. . ii. 229. x. 6, . . ii. 12. x. 14, . i- 374- i John. xii. 7, . i. 166. i. 6, . . . i. 261. ii. 2, . . . ii. 262. Galatians. iii. 9, . ii. 161. i. 16, . . ., iii. 14 f., • i- 253. 11. 19. iv. 1-6, . . ii. 262. ii. 6-9, . . »• 35», 37a iv- 7-9, ¦ ¦ i- 364- iii. 1, . . ii. 265. iv. 10, . ii. 262. iii. 7, . . ii. 116. iv. 12 f., . . i. 364 ; ii. 161. iii. 10, . . i. 42, 207. v. 1, . . . i. 364; ii. 161. iii. 19, . . i- 5i- v. 4, . . ii. 161. iii. 21-25, - i. 43, 207. v- II-I3, • i- 253. iii. 26, . . i. 207. v. 18, . ii. 161. iv. 1-3, . . i. 43, 207. iv. 4-7, . . i. 207 f. 3 John. v. 1, . v. 6, . . . i. 207. ii. 326. 3f-, • • . ii. 256. ¦ v. 14, . . V. 21, . . i- 363- i. 406. Revelation. V. 22-25, i. 254. sx. i-io, • i- 74- vi. 15, . . ii. 326. 1 KX. 12 {., . ii. 306. MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH