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"All

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still future and yet in part and in germ already present. It would seem to follow that His Kingship is already realised in just such a partial and germinal way. things have been delivered unto me any know the Father, save the Son, (Mt. xi. 27, cf. p. 103 n.) implies at least a Messianic Sonship already mystically realised in the present. Moreover, if to His mind, the essence of Kingship is service (Mark x. 42-45), in so much as He was already serving He was already King; in so much as He had not yet performed the supreme service He was as yet uncrowned. That supreme service, that coronation act, as our next section will make clear, was to begin when He should "give His life a ransom for many.'

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THE VALUE OF THE APOCALYPTIC IDEA

The eschatological teaching of our Lord is a simpler, wider, and greater thing than ordinary Jewish Apocalyptic, but for myself I am coming more and more to feel that to water down and explain away the apocalyptic element is to miss something which is essential. Much of the unique moral grasp of the New Testament is in one way directly a result of the eschatological background of the period.

The summits of certain mountains are seen only at rare moments when, their cloud-cap rolled away, they stand out stark and clear. So in ordinary life ultimate values and eternal issues are normally obscured by minor duties, petty cares, and small ambitions; at the bedside of a dying man the cloud is often lifted. In virtue of the eschatological hope our Lord and His first disciples found themselves standing, as it were, at the bedside of a dying world. Thus for a whole generation the cloud of lesser interests was rolled away, and ultimate values and eternal issues stood out before

1 Cf. the interpretation of the words "from henceforth ye shall see," given in Essay V. p. 262 text and note 4.

them stark and clear, as never before or since in the history of our race. The majority of men in all ages best serve their kind by a life of quiet duty, in the family, in their daily work, and in the support of certain definite and limited public and philanthropic causes. Such is the normal way of progress. But it has been well for humanity that during one great epoch the belief that the end of all was near turned the thoughts of the highest minds away from practical and local interests, even of the first importance, like the condition of slaves in Capernaum or the sanitation of Tarsus.

"Men feared," says Schweitzer, "that to admit the claims of eschatology would abolish the significance of His words for our time; and hence there was a feverish eagerness to discover in them any elements that might be considered not eschatologically conditioned. When any sayings were found of which the wording did not absolutely imply an eschatological connection there was great jubilation-these at least had been saved uninjured from the coming débâcle. But in reality that which is eternal in the words of Jesus is due to the very fact that they are based on an eschatological world-view, and contain the expression of a mind for which the contemporary world with its historical and social circumstances no longer had any existence. They are appropriate, therefore, to any world, for in every world they raise the man who dares to meet their challenge, and does not turn and twist them into meaninglessness, above his world and his time, making him inwardly free, so that he is fitted to be, in his own world and in his own time, a simple channel of the power of Jesus."1

But we have something more to learn from Apocalyptic. The conception of evolution has proved so illuminating in every department of thought that it has inevitably distracted men's attention from the fact that, in human history at any rate, the greatest advances

1 Schweitzer, Quest of the Historical Jesus, p. 400.

2 But see remarks on "the unprecedented in Nature," p. 137 fin. 138.

are frequently per saltum. They occur in epochs or moments of crisis, as in the Apocalyptic parable of "the Day of the Lord." The Reformation, the French Revolution, or the rebirth of the Far East in our own time, are conspicuous examples, but in a measure this is no less true of nearly all considerable movements. Such crises, no doubt, are the result of causes which can to some extent be traced, and have been prepared for by a slow and gradual development. But in their realisation they are catastrophic, and take even the wisest by surprise. "As in the days of Noah they were eating and drinking and knew not until the flood came," so it has ever been at "the coming of the Son of Man." In each such epoch we may see a partial Advent of the Christ, but is the Apocalyptic word amiss that Anti-Christ is also then abroad? Such times are times of tribulation, devastation, and demoralisation as well as of deliverance and advance.

And what is true in the history of the great world holds good no less commonly in the inner history of the microcosm of the individual soul-" in an hour when he knoweth not his Lord cometh."

THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE

For the moment our Lord was called to play the part of prophet; one day He would be manifested as the expected Son of Man. We cannot but ask the question whether from the first He had a clear conception how the transition from the one to the other was to be effected, or whether He was content to wait for this to be shown in God's good time, letting "the morrow be anxious for the things of itself." The answer to this question depends on the answer given to a further question, Did He from the first clearly anticipate that His earthly career would end in death? The evidence at our disposal does not allow of a certain

1 Cf. Lake, op. cit. p. 438 ff.

answer being given, but it would seem probable that His realisation of this was progressive, changing gradually from a dim premonition to an absolute certainty, as though the Cross towards which He journeyed cast a shadow, faint at first but darkening at every step.

At any rate, some time before the end, if not from the first, hard facts, the opposition and plots of Scribes and Pharisees, not to mention the lessons of history, must have made it evident. Written broad across the face of history-and not least conspicuously of the history of Israel-is the fact that humanity persecutes its prophets. Written broad across the Gospels is our Lord's clear recognition of this. "So persecuted they the prophets which were before you"; "Ye build the tombs of the prophets and hereby bear witness that ye are the true sons of the men who slew them" "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee." 1

The idealist temper hopes all things, and the story of Gethsemane shows that even to the last He thought it was just possible He might not have to drink the cup; just as the soldier who volunteers for a forlorn hope does so, not expecting, yet just hoping, to return alive.

According to St. Mark, He several times distinctly and clearly foretold His death.2 Critics have suggested that the exact correspondence of some of these prophecies with the details of their fulfilment casts suspicion on their authenticity; perhaps this may be admitted as regards some of them, even perhaps as regards the exact wording of all of them. But a parallel tradition in St. Luke, perhaps derived from Q, guarantees the main fact that He foreboded the end. "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished" (Lk. xii. 50). "Go and say to that fox, Behold I cast out demons and

1 Cf. also Luke xi. 50, “the blood of all the prophets," and Mark vi. 4, “a prophet is not without honour, save," etc.

Cf. Mk. viii. 31, ix. 12, ix. 31, x. 33-34. xiv. 27-28; in nearly all of these passages the Resurrection is also foretold.

perform cures to-day and to-morrow, and on the third day I am perfected. Howbeit I must go on my way to-day and to-morrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem" (Lk. xiii. 32). Such a foreboding, too, is clearly implied in the reply to James and John, "Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?" (Mk. x. 38); in the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen (Mk. xii. 1 ff.); and again in the saying "She hath anointed my body beforehand for the burying" (Mk. xiv. 8).

In this connection scholars have asked why was it that our Lord went up to Jerusalem; was it to preach or was it to die? To those who have studied the psychology of great religious leaders the question is irrelevant as well ask, Why did St. Paul go up to Jerusalem when the Spirit in every city testified that bonds and imprisonments awaited him? The modern reformer may study tactics and opportunities, but the great prophets of old on great occasions follow without questioning the admonition of an inner voice.1

Designated as that Christ whom Prophet, Psalmist, and Apocalyptist had foretold, on whom were concentrated the hopes of Israel; guaranteed by the Divine voice to be that Son of Man at whose manifestation Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the righteous dead were to arise and sit at meat in a new Jerusalem, the centre of a renovated world; He went up to that city of immemorial sanctity with more than a foreboding, with an expectation, that there He was to die. Here is a situation challenging the most searching thought. Can we suppose that as the time drew near He, who felt so irresistibly called to face it by Divine compulsion, had given no thought to find the reason of that death, if haply such should be required of Him. May we speculate as to the line His thought would take?

1 Cf. Acts xvi. 6-9, the admonitions which determined the plan of St. Paul's second missionary journey. The experience known in some religious circles as "leading" is not essentially different though usually fainter in degree.

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