CHAPTER III
THE PREACHING OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD
1. The New Morality as Repentance.
IF the thought of the eschatological realisation of the Kingdom is the fundamental factor in Jesus’ preaching, his whole theory of ethics must come under the conception of repentance as a preparation for the coming of the Kingdom. This conception seems to us too narrow a one to apply to the whole extent of this moral-religious proclamation. This is due to the fact that the word repentance as we use it has rather a negative significance, laying emphasis as it does chiefly upon foregoing guilt. It is a far richer conception, however, which the Synoptists express by the word repentance (μετάνοια). It is not merely a recovery which stands in retrospective relation with a sinful condition in the past, but also—and this is its predominant character—it is a moral renewal in prospect of the accomplishment of universal perfection in the future.
Thus “the repentance in expectation of the Kingdom” comprises all positive ethical requirements. [pg 095] In this sense it is the lively echo of the “repentance” of the early prophets. For what Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah mean by repentance is moral renovation in prospect of the Day of the Lord. Thus Isaiah says: “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow” (Isai. 116, 17). It is precisely this Old Testament conception of repentance, with its emphasis upon the new moral life, which one must have in mind in order to understand aright the Synoptical repentance. Both have a forward vision, both are dominated by the thought of a condition of perfection which God will bring to pass through the Judgment. This, in the Prophetic view, is the Day of the Lord; in the Synoptic it is the dawn of the Kingdom.
The ethics of the Sermon on the Mount is therefore repentance. The new morality, which detects the spirit beneath the letter of the Law, makes one meet for the Kingdom of God. Only the righteous can enter into the Kingdom of God—in that conviction all were agreed. Whosoever, therefore, preached the nearness of the Kingdom must also teach the righteousness pertaining to the Kingdom. [pg 096] Hence Jesus proclaimed the new righteousness which is higher than the Law and the Prophets,—for they extend only up to the Baptist. Since the days of the Baptist, however, one stands immediately within the pre-messianic period.
The Day of Judgment puts this moral transformation to the proof: only he who has done the will of the heavenly Father can enter into the Kingdom (Mt 721). The claim that one is a follower of Jesus, or has even wrought signs and wonders in his name, is of no avail as a substitute for this new righteousness (Mt 722, 23). Hence the Sermon on the Mount concludes with the admonition to build, in expectation of the momentous event, a firmly founded structure capable of resisting storm and tempest (Mt 724-27).
The Beatitudes (Mt 53-12) come under the same point of view. They define the moral disposition which justifies admission into the Kingdom. This is the explanation of the use of the present and the future tense in the same sentence. Blessed are the meek, those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the poor in spirit, those that endure persecution for righteousness’ sake, because such character and conduct is their security [pg 097] that with the appearing of the Kingdom of God they will be found to belong to it.
A series of parables illustrates the same thought. Thus the parables of the treasure in the field and of the pearl of great price (Mt 1344-46) show how one must stake all upon the hope of the Kingdom when the prospect of it is held out to him, and must sacrifice all other goods for the sake of acquiring this highest good that is proposed to him.
Thus already in the ethics of the Galilean period we find the “now and then” which accounts for the estimate put upon serving (Mk 1045). As repentance unto the Kingdom of God the ethics also of the Sermon on the Mount is interim-ethics. In this we perceive that the moral instruction of Jesus remained the same from the first day of his public appearance unto his latest utterances, for the lowliness and serviceableness which he recommended to his Disciples on the way to Jerusalem correspond exactly to the new moral conduct which he developed in the Sermon on the Mount: they make one meet for the Kingdom of God. Only, they constitute a climax in the attainment of the new righteousness, inasmuch as they render one meet not merely for entrance into the Kingdom but for bearing rule in it.
We encounter again the Leitmotiv of the Sermon on the Mount in the epilogue to the great parables uttered in Jerusalem. Nothing but the maintenance of the new morality in all relations of life guarantees entrance into the Kingdom. Hence Jesus can say to the Pharisee who agrees to the summary of this new morality as it is expressed in the commandment of love: Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God (Mk 1234). That does not mean that the Pharisee by such a disposition of mind has already well nigh risen to the height of the “morality of the Kingdom.” For if the double commandment of love constituted the morality of the Kingdom, Jesus must have said to him (since he entirely agreed to these commandments): Thou belongest to the Kingdom. The “not far” must in fact be understood in a purely chronological sense, not as denoting some small measure of perfection which the man still lacks. He is not far from the Kingdom of God because he possesses the moral quality which will identify him as a member of the same when after a short space it appears. The “not far” contains therefore the same mixture of present and future tense which we have remarked in the Beatitudes.
Reasoning from our ethical point of view [pg 099] we are inclined to apply the conception of reward to this relation between membership in the Kingdom and the new morality. This, however, does not completely render the thought of Jesus, which had to do above all with the immediateness of the transition from the condition of moral renewal into the super-moral perfection of the Kingdom of God. Whosoever at the dawning of the Kingdom is in possession of a character morally renovated, he will be found a member of the same. This is the adequate expression for the relation of morality to the coming Kingdom of God.
2. The Ethics of Jesus and Modern Ethics.
The depth of Jesus’ religious ethics encourages us to expect that we can find our own modern-ethical consciousness reflected in it. With respect to its eternal inward truth it is indeed independent of history and unconditioned by it, since it already contains the highest ethical thoughts of all times. Nevertheless there exists a great difference between Jesus’ sentiment and ours. Modern ethics is “unconditional,” since it creates of itself the new ethical situation,—the presumption being that this situation will evolve unto final perfection. Ethics is here an end in itself, [pg 100] inasmuch as the moral perfection of mankind comes to the same thing as the perfection of the Kingdom of God. That is Kant’s thought. This self-sufficiency of ethics (which however, exacts a certain resignation in view of the distant consummation) shows that the modern-Christian theory is permeated by Hellenistic-rationalistic ideas and has undergone a development of two millenniums.
The ethics of Jesus on the other hand is “conditional,” in the sense that it stands in indissoluble connection with the expectation of a state of perfection which is to be supernaturally brought about. Thereby its Jewish origin is revealed, and its immediate connection with the Prophetic ethics, in which the moral conduct of the people was conditioned by a definite expectation. Hence, if any parallel at all may be adduced in explanation of the ethics of Jesus, it can be only the Prophetic, never the modern. For in proportion as the latter enters into it the mode of conception becomes unhistorical, Jesus’ ethics being treated as self-sufficient, whereas in fact it is oriented entirely by the expected supernatural consummation.
So there has been created the insoluble [pg 101] problem, that a person thoroughly modern so far as his ethics is concerned should incidentally give utterance to eschatological expressions. But if we once perceive the conditional character of Jesus’ ethics, and seriously consider its connection with the ethics of the Prophets, it is immediately clear that all conceptions of the Kingdom as a growth out of small beginnings, all notions about an ethics of the Kingdom, or about the development of it, have been foisted upon Jesus by our modern consciousness—simply because we could not readily familiarise ourselves with the thought that the ethics of Jesus is conditional.
We make him conceive of the Kingdom of God as if its historical realisation represented a narrow opening through which it had to squeeze before attaining the full stature which belongs to it. That is a modern conception. For Jesus and the Prophets, however, it was a thing impossible. In the immediateness of their ethical view there is no place for a morality of the Kingdom of God or for a development of the Kingdom—it lies beyond the borders of good and evil; it will be brought about by a cosmic catastrophe through which evil is to be completely [pg 102] overcome. Hence all moral criteria are to be abolished. The Kingdom of God is super-moral.
To this height of hyper-ethical idealism the modern consciousness is no longer capable of soaring. History has aged us too much for that. But for the historical understanding of the ethics of Jesus it is the indispensable assumption.
In addition to this, when we think of the Kingdom, our thought stretches forward to the coming generations which are to realise it in ever increasing measure. Jesus’ glance is directed backward. For him the Kingdom is composed of the generations which have already gone down to the grave and which are now to be awakened unto a state of perfection. How should there be for him any ethics of sexual relations, when he explains to the Sadducees that in the Kingdom of God after the great Resurrection there will be no longer any sexual relations at all, “but they will be like the angels of heaven” (Mk 1225)?
Every ethical form of Jesus, be it never so perfect, leads therefore only up to the frontier of the Kingdom of God, while every trace of a path disappears so soon as one advances upon the new territory. There one needs it no more.
We have a prejudice against this conception of conditional ethics. It is an unjustified prejudice if it is due to a suspicion that Jesus’ ethics is thereby disparaged. Exactly the opposite is the case. For this conditionality springs from an absolute ethical idealism, which postulates for the expected state of perfection conditions of existence which are themselves ethical. In our unconditional and self-sufficing ethics we, however, assume that the conflict between good and evil must go on forever, as belonging constantly to the nature of the ethical. Ethics and theology do not stand for us in the same lively relationship as they do with Jesus. The vividness of the colours of the absolute ethical idealism has been faded by history. So, to render the ethics of Jesus unconditional and self-sufficing is not only unhistorical, but it means also the degradation of his ethical idealism.
On one point, however, our ethical sentiment is justified in its prejudice. If ethics has to do only with the expectation of the supernatural consummation, its actual worth is diminished, since it is merely individual ethics and is concerned only with the relation of each single person to the Kingdom of God. The thought, however, that the moral community [pg 104] which has been constituted by Jesus’ preaching must as such be in some way the effective first stage in the realisation of the Kingdom of God—this thought belongs not alone to our ethical sentiment, but it animated also the preaching of Jesus, for he wrought out in strong relief the social character of his ethics. This explains the reluctance one feels to admit that the eschatological idea of the Kingdom of God lay at the basis of Jesus’ preaching from beginning to end, since then one cannot explain how the new moral community which he formed about himself was in his thought organically connected with the Kingdom which was supernaturally to appear.
One glides here unintentionally into a modern line of thought. The idea of development furnishes what we want, allowing us to conceive of the moral community as an initial stage which by constant growth, extensive and intensive, is ever approaching the final stage. The gradually widening circle represents, however, a modern way of viewing history. It is completely foreign to Jesus. Yet even though he cannot have made use of this explanation of ours, the fact that this new community stands in an organic relation with the final stage was for him as [pg 105] certain as for us. But because he expected this final stage as a purely supernatural event the connection was not to be apprehended by human reflection, rather it was a divine secret, which he illuminated only by pointing to analogies in the processes of nature.
CHAPTER IV
THE SECRET OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD
1. The Parables of the Secret of the Kingdom of God.
WE have to do here with the “secret of the Kingdom of God” (Mk 411), which is dealt with in the parables of the sower, of the self-growing seed, of the grain of mustard, and of the leaven. We commonly find in these parables the illustration of a constant and gradually unfolding through which the petty initial stage of a development is connected with the glorious final stage. The seed that is sown already contains the harvest, inasmuch as each seed is devised for the production of plant and fruit. They develop from the seed by natural law. So it is likewise with the development of the Kingdom of God from small and obscure beginnings.
This attractive interpretation of the parables takes from them, however, the character of secrets, for the illustration of a steady unfolding through the processes of nature is no secret. Hence it is that we fail to understand what the secret is in these parables. [pg 107] We interpret them according to our scientific knowledge of nature which enables us to unite even such different stages as these by the conception of development.
By reason of the immediateness with which the unschooled spirit of olden time observed the world, nature had, however, still secrets to offer,—in the fact, namely, that she produced two utterly distinct conditions in a sequence, the connection of which was just as certain as it was inexplicable. This immediateness is the note of Jesus’ parables. The conception of development in nature which is contemplated in the modern explanation is not at all brought into prominence, but the exposition is rather devised to place the two conditions so immediately side by side that one is compelled to raise the question, How can the final stage proceed from the initial stage?
1. A man sowed seed. A great part of the seed was lost on account of circumstances the most diverse—and yet the produce of the corn which fell upon good ground was so great that it restored the seed sown thirty, sixty, even an hundred fold.
The detailed interpretation of the description of this loss, and the application to particular classes of men, as it lies before us in [pg 108] Mk 413-20, is the product of a later view which perceived no longer any secret in the parable. Originally, however, the single points of the description were not independent, but the seed which was lost upon the path, or upon the stony ground, or among the thorns, together with that which the fowls of heaven devoured, constituted altogether a unified contrast to that which fell upon good ground. The manner in which it was destroyed has no importance for the parable. In spite of the description so wonderfully wrought out, this saying of Jesus expresses one single thought: So small, considering all that was lost, was the sowing; and yet the harvest so great!—Therein lies the secret.
2. A man scattered seed upon the ground. He slept, went about his affairs, and concerned himself no further about the seed. Before he realised it the harvest stood already in the field, and he could send his servants to gather it in. How did it come to pass that after the seed was sunk in the earth the ground of itself brought forth the blade, the ear, and the full corn?—That is the secret.
3. A grain of mustard seed was sown; from it sprouted a great shrub, with [pg 109] branches under which the birds of the heaven could lodge. How did it come to pass, since the mustard seed is so small?—That is the secret.
4. A woman added a little leaven to a great mass of dough. Afterwards the whole lump was “leaven.” How can a little leaven leaven a whole great lump?—That is the secret.
These parables are not at all devised to be interpreted and understood; rather they are calculated to make the hearers observant of the fact that in the affairs of the Kingdom of God a secret is preparing like that which they experience in nature. They are signals. As the harvest follows upon the seed-sowing, without it being possible for any one to say how it comes about; so, as the sequel to Jesus’ preaching, will the Kingdom of God come with power. Small as is the circle which he gathers about himself in comparison with the greatness of God’s Kingdom, it is none the less certain that the Kingdom will come as a consequence of this moral renewal, restricted as it is in scope. It is no less confidently to be expected than that the seed, which while he speaks is slumbering in the ground, will bring forth a glorious harvest. Watch not only for the harvest, but watch for the Kingdom of God!—so speaks [pg 110] the spiritual sower to the Galileans at the season of the seed-sowing. They ought to have the presentiment that the moral renewal in consequence of his preaching stands in a necessary but inexplicable connection with the dawning of the Kingdom of God. The same God who through his mysterious power in nature brings the harvest to pass will also bring to pass the Kingdom of God.
Therefore, when it was the season of the harvest, he sent his Disciples forth to proclaim: The Kingdom of God is at hand.
2. The Secret of the Kingdom of God in the Address to the People after the Mission of the Twelve.
Jesus was alone. The Disciples carried the news of the nearness of the Kingdom throughout the cities of Israel. While the people thronged him there came the emissaries of the Baptist with their question. He dismissed them with the answer: the Kingdom stands before the door, one needs only the language of the signs and wonders in order to understand. Turning to the people he speaks of the significance of the Baptist and of his office. With this he lets drop a hint of mystery (Mt 1114, “If you are able [pg 111] to conceive it,” Mt 1115, “he hath ears to hear, let him hear”). John is Elijah, i. e. the personality whose advent marks the immediate dawning of the Kingdom. “From the days of John the Baptist until this moment the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and men of violence take it by force. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John; and, if ye are able to conceive it, this is Elijah, which is to come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Mt 1112-15).
This saying resists all exegesis, for it does not in the least contain the thought that the individuals gain access to the Kingdom by force. What might that mean anyway? In what sense does that come to pass from the days of the Baptist on? The picture which Jesus employs is unintelligible if it has to do with the entrance of individuals into the Kingdom. It remains just as incomprehensible, however, if it is supposed to refer to the realisation of the Kingdom through gradual development. In the first place, the image of an act of violence contradicts the notion of development; in the second place, the beginning of this compelling force must be dated not from John but from Jesus.
It is a question of the secret of the Kingdom of God,—hence the hint: He that hath [pg 112] ears to hear, let him hear. This phrase occurs only in connection with the parables of the secret of the Kingdom and as the conclusion of apocalyptic sayings (cf. the use of the expression in the Apocalypse: 27, 11, 17, 29, 36, 13, 22). Repentance and moral renewal in prospect of the Kingdom of God are like a pressure which is exerted in order to compel its appearance. This movement had begun with the days of the Baptist. The men of violence who take it by force are they which put into practice the moral renewal. They draw it with power down to the earth.
The saying in the speech about the Baptist and the parables of the Kingdom of God mutually explain and supplement one another. The parables bring chiefly into prominence the incommensurateness of the relation between the moral renewal that is practised and the consummation of the Kingdom of God, while the image in the speech after the Mission dwells more upon the compelling connection between the two.
3. The Secret of the Kingdom of God in the Light of the Prophetic and Jewish Expectation.
Jesus’ ethics is closely connected with that of the Old Testament prophets, inasmuch as [pg 113] both are alike conditioned by the expectation of a state of perfection which God is to bring about. But also the secret of the Kingdom of God, according to which the moral renewal hastens the supernatural coming of the Kingdom, corresponds with the fundamental thought of the Prophets. In the case of the Prophets, the relation between the moral reform which they would bring about and the glorious condition which God will bring to pass at the Day of Judgment is not that of a mere temporal sequence, but it rests upon a supernatural causal connection. Godless behaviour brings nearer the Day of Judgment and of condemnation. Therefore, God chastises the people and gives them into the hand of their oppressors. When, however, they determine to reform their ways, when they seek refuge in him alone with trusting faith, when righteousness and truth prevail among them, then will the Lord deliver them from their oppressors, and his glory will be manifest over Israel, to whom the heathen will do service. In that day there will then be peace poured out over the whole world, over nature as well as man.
After the Exile this thought was still operative in the conception of the Law. By the observance of the Law the promised glorious [pg 114] estate will be wrung from God. Not the individual but the collectivity influences God through the Law. This generic mode of thought is the primary, the individual mode is secondary. “Israel would be redeemed if only it observed two Sabbaths faithfully.” (Schabbath 118b. Wünsche, System der altsynagogalen Palästinensischen Theologie, 1880, p. 299). Here we meet with the early prophetic thought in legalistic form.
In general, however, it was the individualistic view which prevailed later. The Law, and moral conduct in general, were only the preparation for the expected estate of glory. The lively generic view of the Prophets was replaced by individualistic and lifeless conception. Eschatology became a problem of accounting and ethics became casuistry.
Jesus, however, reached back after the fundamental conception of the prophetic period, and it is only the form in which he conceives of the emergence of the final event which bears the stamp of later Judaism. He no longer conceives of it as an intervention of God in the history of the nations, as did the Prophets; but rather as a final cosmical catastrophe. His eschatology is the apocalyptic [pg 115] of the book of Daniel, since the Kingdom is to be brought about by the Son of Man when he appears upon the clouds of heaven (Mk 838- 91).
The secret of the Kingdom of God is therefore the synthesis effected by a sovereign spirit between the early prophetic ethics and the apocalyptic of the book of Daniel. Hence it is that Jesus’ eschatology was rooted in his age and yet stands so high above it. For his contemporaries it was a question of waiting for the Kingdom, of excogitating and depicting every incident of the great catastrophe, and of preparing for the same; while for Jesus it was a question of bringing to pass the expected event through the moral renovation. Eschatological ethics is transformed into ethical eschatology.
4. The Secret of the Kingdom of God and the Assumption of a Fortunate Galilean Period.
According to the secret of the Kingdom of God, the coming of the Kingdom is not dependent upon the broad success of Jesus’ preaching. Indeed, he expressly emphasises the fact that the limitation of the circle which performs the moral renovation stands in no [pg 116] relation whatever to the all-embracing greatness of the Kingdom which is to come about by reason of their conduct. It suffices that a scanty part of the seed falls upon good ground—and the overplentiful harvest is there, through God’s power. Not by the multitude but by the men of violence is the Kingdom compelled to appear.
Hence the secret of the Kingdom of God makes the assumption of a fortunate Galilean period entirely superfluous. Jesus can enjoy the expectation of the speedy realisation of the Kingdom even when he experiences the greatest ill[ ]success and when whole districts close themselves against his preaching. They do not thereby delay the coming of the Kingdom of God but only deliver themselves to the judgment, for the Kingdom comes necessarily by reason of the moral renewal of the circle which gathered about Jesus.
The justice of this interpretation of the secret of the Kingdom of God is shown therefore, in the fact that it renders unnecessary, as an explanation of Jesus’ life, an assumption which is otherwise absolutely unavoidable but cannot in any way be historically confirmed.
5. The Secret of the Kingdom of God and the Universalism of Jesus.
So long as the moral renewal upon the basis of Jesus’ preaching is brought into relation with the realisation of the Kingdom through the modern thought of evolutionary development the factor correlative to the perfection of the Kingdom is likewise modern, that is, “humanity as a moral whole.” One attributes then to Jesus’ reflection upon the growth of the new moral community which he founded, foresight of its gradual extension till it embraces the whole of Israel—here, however, the thought of Jesus stops; one may not attribute to him universalistic ideas, for the commission to the Disciples shows that he did not reflect about a moral renewal beyond the borders of Israel. (Mt 105, 6): Go [not] into any way of the Gentiles, and enter not into any city of the Samaritans: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
The preaching of the Kingdom of God is therefore particularistic; the Kingdom itself, however, is universalistic, “for they shall come from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.” The generation which required a miracle shall experience [pg 118] such: The Ninevites shall arise at the Day of Judgment and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, “and here is a greater than Jonah.” Also the Queen of the South shall rise in judgment against the contemporaries of Jesus, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, “and behold, a greater than Solomon is here” (Mt 1241-42).
For the modern consciousness, because it applies to everything the rubrics of evolution, there is an insuperable contradiction between the particularism of the preaching of the Kingdom and the universalism of its consummation. In the secret of the Kingdom of God, however, particularism and universalism go together. The Kingdom is universalistic, for it arises out of a cosmic act by which God awakes unto glory the righteous of all times and of all peoples. The bringing about of the Kingdom, on the other hand, is dependent upon particularism, for it is to be forced to approach by the moral renewal of the contemporaries of Jesus. Salvation comes out of Israel.
6. The Secret of the Kingdom of God and Jesus’ Attitude towards the Law and the State.
Jesus did not declare himself either for the Law or against it. He recognised it simply as an existing fact without binding himself to it. He felt no obligation to decide in principle whether it was to be regarded as binding or as not binding. For him this was a question of no practical importance. The real concern was the new morality, not the Law. This Law was for him holy and inviolable in so far as it pointed the way to the new morality. But therewith it did away with itself, for in the Kingdom which comes into being on account of the new morality the Law is abrogated, since the accomplished condition is super-legal and super-ethical. Up to this point it had a right to last. Whether the Law should also be binding upon his followers in the future was a question which did not exist for Jesus; it was history which first proposed this problem to the primitive Church.
It was the same with regard to the State. The question which was put to him in the Jerusalem days had for him no practical importance. As he replied to the Pharisees’ question, whether one should give tribute to [pg 120] Cæsar, he had no thought of defining his attitude towards the State or determining that of his followers. How could any one be concerned at all about such things! The State was simply earthly, therefore ungodly, dominination [domination]. Its duration extended, therefore, only to the dawn of God’s dominion. As this was near at hand, what need had one to decide if one would be tributary to the world-power or no? One might as well submit to it, its end was in fact near. Give to Cæsar what is Cæsar’s and to God what is God’s (Mk 1217)—this word is uttered with a sovereign irony against the Pharisees, who understood so little the signs of the time that this still appeared to them a question of importance. They are just as foolish in the matter of the Kingdom of God as the Sadducees with their catch-question to which husband the seven times married wife should belong at the resurrection; for they, too, leave one thing out of account—the power of God (Mk 1224).
7. The Modern Element in Jesus’ Eschatology.
“Let it be the maxim in every scientific investigation for one to pursue undisturbed the due course of it with all possible exactitude [pg 121] and frankness, not considering what it may collide with outside of its own field, but following it out, so far as one can, truly and completely for itself alone. Frequent observation has convinced me that when one has brought this task to an end, that which in the midst of it appeared to me for the time being very questionable with respect to other teaching outside, if only I closed my eyes to this questionableness and attended merely to my task till it was finished, finally in unexpected wise proved to be in perfect agreement with those very teachings,—though the truth had presented itself without the least reference to those teachings, without partiality and prejudice for them.”(Footnote. Kritik der praktischen Vernunft. Ed. Reclam, p. 129.)
Kant uttered this profound word at the moment when the correspondence of the notion of transcendental freedom with the practical first occurred to him. The case is the same with the relation of Jesus’ ethics to his eschatology. It is a postulate of our Christian conviction that the ethics of Jesus in its basic thoughts is modern. Hence we come back again and again to the search after the modern element in his ethics, and for this cause we force into the background his eschatology, [pg 122] since it appears to us unmodern. If, however, one resolves to ignore for a moment this interest, which is so deeply grounded in our being and so well justified, and regards the relation of Jesus’ eschatology to his ethics simply for itself, as a purely historical question, the investigation brings to light the astonishing result that the latter (i. e. Jesus’ ethics) is modern in a far higher degree than any one hitherto has dared to hope. Jesus’ ethics is modern, not because the eschatology can be reduced somehow to a mere accompaniment, but precisely because the ethics is absolutely dependent upon this eschatology! The fact is, this eschatology itself, as it is exhibited in the secret of the Kingdom of God, is thoroughly modern, inasmuch as it is dominated by the thought that the Kingdom of God is to come by reason of the religious-moral renovation which the believers perform. Every moral-religious performance is therefore labour for the coming of the Kingdom of God.
As the eschatology in this ethical-eschatological Weltanschauung gradually faded in the course of history, there remained an ethical Weltanschauung in which the eschatology persisted in the form of an imperishable faith in the final triumph of the good. The [pg 123] secret of the Kingdom of God contains the secret of the whole Christian Weltanschauung. The ethical eschatology of Jesus is the heroic form in which the modern-Christian Weltanschauung first entered into history!
CHAPTER V
THE SECRET OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN THE THOUGHT OF THE PASSION
IN the last period of his life Jesus again uttered parables of the Kingdom of God: God’s vineyard (Mt 2133-46); the royal marriage (Mt 221-14); the servant watching (Mt 2442-47); the ten virgins (Mt 251-13); the talents (Mt 2514-30).
These parables, in contrast to those about the secret of the Kingdom, contain no secret, but rather they are teaching parables pure and simple, from which a moral is to be drawn. The Kingdom of God is near. Those only will be found to belong to it who by their moral conduct are prepared for it.
The second period contains instead the secret of the Passion. Jesus’ utterances, as we have seen, point to a mysterious causal connection between the Passion and the coming of the Kingdom, because the eschatology and the thought of the Passion always emerge side by side, and the Disciples’ expectation of the future is in every case roused to the [pg 125] highest pitch by the proclamation of his suffering.
The secret of the Passion takes up, therefore, the secret of the Kingdom of God and carries it further. To the moral renewal which, according to the secret of the Kingdom of God, exercises a compelling power upon the coming of the Kingdom, there is adjoined another factor—the redeeming death of Jesus. That completes the penitence of those who believe in the coming of the Kingdom. Therewith Jesus comes to the aid of the men of violence who are compelling the approach of the Kingdom. The power which he thereby exerts is the highest conceivable—he gives up his life.
The idea of the Passion is therefore the transformation of the secret of the Kingdom of God. Hence it is no more designed to be understood than are the parables of the secret of the Kingdom. In each case it is a question of a fact which can be probed no further.
The connection between the thought of the Passion and the secret of the Kingdom of God guarantees the continuity of Jesus’ world of thought. All constructions which have been devised with a view to establishing this continuity have proved insufficient to [pg 126] accomplish what was expected of them. The acceptance of the thought of the Passion means in all cases a complete change in his idea of the Kingdom and in his Weltanschauung. If, however, one places the thought of the Passion in the great context of the secret of the Kingdom of God, the continuity is furnished naturally. The thought of the supernatural introduction of the Kingdom of God runs through the whole of Jesus’ life: the idea of the Passion is merely the fashion in which it is formulated in the second period.
How comes it that the secret of the Kingdom of God takes the form of the secret of the Passion?
Why must the atonement of Jesus be added to complete the moral renewal and the penitence of the community which believes in the Kingdom?
In what sense has the redeeming death of Jesus an influence upon the coming of the Kingdom?
CHAPTER VI
THE CHARACTER ASCRIBED TO JESUS ON THE GROUND OF HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY
1. The Problem and the Facts.
THE experience at the Baptism signified the inception of Jesus’ messianic consciousness. In the neighbourhood of Cæsarea Philippi he revealed his secret to the Disciples. It was before the High Priest that he first openly made profession of his messianic office. Therefore the messianic consciousness underlay all the while his preaching of the Kingdom of God. But he does not assume on the part of his hearers any knowledge of the position which belonged to him. The faith which he required had nothing to do with his person, but it was due only to the message of the nearness of the Kingdom. It was the Fourth Evangelist who first presented the history of Jesus as if it concerned itself chiefly with his personality.
We cannot estimate how far his real character may have shone through his message, for such as had an awakened understanding. One thing is certain: up to the time of the [pg 128] mission of the Twelve no one had the faintest idea of recognising in him the Messiah. At Cæsarea Philippi the Disciples could only reply that the people took him for a prophet or for Elijah the Forerunner, and they themselves knew no better, for Peter, as Jesus himself said, did not derive his knowledge from the Master’s ministry in work and word, but owed it to a supernatural revelation.
The Synoptical notices must be judged in accordance with this fundamental fact. In the first place, there is a series of Matthean passages which stand at variance with it.
Mt 927-31: In the Galilean parallel to the healing of the blind man at Jericho it is related that two blind men pursued him through the whole village with the cry, “Son of David.” What Jesus means by the warning, “See that no man knows it,” remains indeed obscure.
Mt 1223: After a miraculous healing the people whisper to themselves whether this is not the Son of David.
Mt 1433: After their experience at sea in the boat the Disciples fall down before him saying, “Truly thou art the Son of God.”
Mt 1522: The Canaanitish woman addresses him as the Son of David,—whereas [pg 129] according to Mark she simply falls at his feet and cries for help.
All of these passages are peculiar to Matthew and belong to a secondary literary stratum. For the history of Jesus they have no importance, but a great deal for the history of the history of Jesus. They show us, that is, how the later time was inclined even more and more to depict his life in harmony with the presumption that he not only knew himself to be the Messiah but that others also had this impression of him.
In the second place, it is a question of the speeches of the demoniacs. According to Mk 311 the unclean spirits, as often as they saw him, threw themselves at his feet and addressed him as the Son of God (cf. also Mk 124, Mk 57). It is true, he rebuked this cry and commanded silence. But if we did not have the incontestably sure information that during the whole of his Galilean ministry the people knew no more than that he was a prophet or Elijah, we should be forced to assume that these cries of the demoniacs made the people somehow aware of his true character. As it is, however, we may discern with precision, from the fact that the demon-cries were ignored, how very far men were from suspecting him to be the Messiah. [pg 130] Who believed the devil and the wild speech of the possessed?
In the third place, it is a question of the expression “Son of Man.” If Jesus used it as a self-designation before Cæsarea Philippi, that would constitute in each case a messianic suggestion, for every one must refer this expression of the book of Daniel to the person who was to characterise the last time.
According to Mark, Jesus twice employed this expression as a self-designation before Cæsarea Philippi (Mk 210 and 228), and it occurs in the same sense in a series of passages peculiar to Matthew (Mt 820, 1119, Mt 1232, 40, 1337, 41 and 1613). In judging these passages also one must proceed from the sure ground which is furnished by the reply of the Disciples at Cæsarea Philippi.
Either Jesus had not used this expression up to that time, in which case these Son of Man passages are chronologically anticipated, and constitute a mere literary phenomena.
Or else he had used the expression. Then he must have done so in such a way that no man could suppose that he assumed for himself the dignity of the Son of Man of Daniel.
The problem in the second period is still harder. The Disciples knew his secret, but they dared reveal it to no one. But how [pg 131] about the people? Did they now have a presentiment of the messianic dignity of Jesus?
The problem has to do therefore with three facts:
1. The whole discussion in the Jerusalem days turns in no wise upon the messianic dignity of Jesus, but has to do rather with legal propositions and with questions of the day. Far too little weight has been attached hitherto to the fact that neither the people nor the scribes took up a position towards him as the messianic personality. How different the Jerusalem days would have been if the question which agitated them was: Is he the Messiah—is he not? can he be—can he not? In reality he is merely the unofficial authority of the Galilean people, before whom the scholars of the capital bring their questions of the school, whether with a sincere mind, or with the perfidious intention of destroying his authority.
2. In the second period Jesus had the people about him only for a few days,—from the crossing of the Jordan until his death. During this time he made to them no disclosure about his messiahship, and gave them also no hint which they could and must understand in this sense. The bribed witnesses know nothing of the sort to allege. What is [pg 132] remarkable in their evidence—upon which too little weight has been laid—consists precisely in the fact that they in no wise charge him with wishing to be the Messiah. For them his impious pretention exhausts itself in a disrespectful word about the Temple. Let one picture to himself what the procedure of the trial would have been if the hired accusers had of themselves discovered messianic hints in Jesus’ speeches!
3. From this point one arrives necessarily at the conclusion that up to the last moment he was for the people in Jerusalem just what he was in Galilee,—the great Prophet or the Forerunner, but in no wise the Messiah! There are two facts, however, which do not comport with this.
The entrance into Jerusalem was—according to the common apprehension—a messianic ovation. Therefore the people must have had a presentiment of Jesus’ dignity.
The High Priest put to him the question, whether he were the Messiah. Therefore he knew of Jesus’ claim.
We have here a clear question to deal with: was Jesus regarded in the Jerusalem days as a messianic pretendant or no? One should not obscure this question by speaking of a more or less clear “presentment” in [pg 133] this matter. The “presentiment of the messiahship of Jesus” is a modern invention. The populace would hardly be swayed hither and yon by a dark mysterious presentiment, but rather it must have been a question of belief or unbelief. Whosoever held that he was the Messiah must accompany him through fire and death—to glory. Whosoever held no such faith, but had only a presentiment of such a pretention on his part, must give the signal to stone the blasphemer. There was no third course.
The facts in general speak in favour of the opinion that the people and the Pharisees in the Jerusalem days ascribed to Jesus no messianic pretention,—no more indeed than they did at an earlier period. Only in this case the entrance into Jerusalem, understood as a messianic ovation, remains an enigma, and it is likewise unaccountable how it occurred to the High Priest to question him about his messiahship.
On the one hand the situation must be understood in the way which is commonly assumed. Then one must renounce every hope of an historical understanding of the last public period of Jesus. It will not do to suppose that at the beginning of this period (entrance into Jerusalem) and at the [pg 134] end of it (question of the High Priest at the trial) he was taken for the Messiah, while the Jerusalem days which lay in the interval knew nothing of this claim whatever.
Or else—the entrance into Jerusalem and the question of the High Priest have not been rightly and historically understood. Was the ovation offered to the messianic pretendant? Did the High Priest in his question give utterance to something which all knew? Did he deduce the claim of messiahship from Jesus’ life, activity, and speech?—or did he perhaps learn through betrayal the innermost secret of Jesus, which since Cæsarea Philippi was known only to his trusted intimates?
The problem of Jesus’ messiahship in all its difficulty may be formulated as follows: How was it possible that Jesus knew himself as the Messiah from the beginning, and yet to the very last moment did not give in his public preaching any intimation of his messiahship? How could it in the long run remain hidden from the people that these speeches were uttered out of a messianic consciousness? Jesus was a Messiah who during his public ministry would not be one, did not need to be, and might not be, for the sake [pg 135] of fulfilling his mission! It is thus that history puts the problem.
2. Jesus Is Elijah through His Solidarity with the Son of Man.
What character could and must the people ascribe to Jesus on the ground of his public ministry? That is the question with which we have now to do.
The Messiah and the messianic Kingdom belong inseparately together. Hence if Jesus had preached a present messianic Kingdom, it would have been at the same time incumbent upon him to indicate the Messiah,—he would have had to begin by legitimating himself as the Messiah before the people.
The fact is, however, that he preached a future kingdom. With this the possibility was completely excluded that any one could suppose him to be the Messiah. If the Kingdom was future, so also was the Messiah. If Jesus nevertheless had messianic pretensions, this thought was thoroughly remote from the people, for his preaching of the Kingdom excluded even the least conjecture of the sort. Hence even the cries of the demons did not avail to put the people on the right track.
Conjectures of that sort were rendered completely impossible by the way in which Jesus spoke of the Messiah in the third person and as a character of the future. He intimated to the Disciples as he sent them upon their mission that the Son of Man would appear before they had gone through all the cities of Israel (Mt 1023). In Mk 838 he gave promise to the people of the speedy appearing of the Son of Man for judgment and the coming of the Kingdom of God with power. In the same way at Jerusalem he still spoke of the judgment which the Son of Man will hold when he appears in his glory surrounded by the angels (Mt 2531).
Only the Disciples after the revelation of Cæsarea Philippi, and the High Priest after the “Yes” of Jesus, could trace a personal relation between him and the Son of Man of whose coming he spoke,—for they knew his secret. For his other hearers, however, Jesus of Nazareth and the individual who was the subject of his discourse, the Son of Man, remained two entirely distinct personalities.
Before the people Jesus merely suggested the absolute solidarity between himself and the Son of Man whom he proclaimed.
It was only in this form that his own gigantic personality obtruded in his preaching of [pg 137] the Kingdom of God. Only he who under all conditions confesses him, the proclaimer of the coming of the Son of Man, will be discovered as a member of the Kingdom at the Day of Judgment. Jesus, in fact, will intervene before God and before the Son of Man in his behalf (Mk 838- 91, Mt 1032-33). One must be ready to give up the dearest things to follow him, for only so can one show one’s self worthy of him (Mt 1037, 38). Hence Jesus is grieved when the rich young man cannot make up his mind to give up his riches in order to follow him (Mk 1022), for now he cannot appear for him at the Day of Judgment to insure that he shall be accepted as a member of the Kingdom of God. Still, in the measureless omnipotence of God he finds reason to hope that this rich man will nevertheless find entrance into the Kingdom (Mk 1017-31). If this man, therefore, because Jesus cannot intervene in his behalf, is not sure “to inherit eternal life” (Mk 1017), those, on the other hand who, confessing him and his message, endure death are certain to save their life, i. e. to be found as members of the Kingdom at the resurrection of the dead (Mk 837). Hence in the beginning of the sermon on the mount he pronounces them blessed who [pg 138] for his sake suffer reviling and persecution, because thereby, like the meek and the merciful, they are designated as members of the Kingdom (Mt 511 f.).
From Jesus’ standpoint, this absolute solidarity between God and the Son of Man on the one hand, and himself on the other presented no enigma, for it was based upon his messianic selfconsciousness; he can speak thus because he is conscious of being himself the Son of Man. It was quite different for the people, and for the Disciples before the revelation at Cæsarea Philippi. How can Jesus of Nazareth, in a manner so sovereignly self-confident, proclaim his absolute solidarity with the Son of Man? This assertion forced the people to reflect upon his personality. Who was this whose manifestation mightily extended out of the pre-messianic and into the messianic æon itself, so that God and the Son of Man receive into the Kingdom such as had confessed him, if this confession did not lose its value by reason of the defect of moral worthiness, as he himself once expressly declared by way of warning? Such importance as Jesus claimed for himself belonged to only one personality,—Elijah, the mighty Forerunner,—for his manifestation stretched out of the present into the messianic [pg 139] æon and bound both together. Hence the people held that Jesus was Elijah. In this was expressed the highest estimate which Jesus’ personality could wring from the masses. In this case it is not a question of one of the customary misunderstandings so beloved of the secondary Gospel narrators, but the people could not, from Jesus’ appearance and proclamation, come to any other conclusion about him.
3. Jesus Is Elijah through the Signs which Proceed from Him.
In order to render intelligible the attitude of Jesus’ contemporaries towards himself and his work, we must rid ourselves of two false presuppositions with which we constantly though unconsciously operate. First, the expectation at that time was not fixed upon the Messiah but upon the Forerunner promised by prophecy. Secondly, no one in any way detected this Forerunner in the person of the Baptist. Both of our presuppositions run precisely to the contrary effect, and thereby we spoil our historical perspective.
The appearing of the Messiah in conjunction with the great crisis which he brings about constitutes the supernatural drama which the world awaits. But before the curtain [pg 140] rises there must arise among the expectant sons of men the man who is to speak the prologue of the piece; who then, so soon as the curtain is lifted, associates himself with the celestial personages which conduct the action of the drama. Hence men are in expectancy first of all not for the rising of the curtain and the appearing of the Messiah but for the speaker of the prologue. It was important to signalise the entrance of the Forerunner upon the stage in order to know to what hour the hand of the world clock pointed.
Elijah, however, had not as yet appeared, for the Baptist had not legitimated himself as such. He lacked to this end the display of supernatural power. Signs and wonders, however, belonged necessarily to the epoch which immediately preceded the Kingdom. A general pouring out of the Spirit and prophesying, wonders in heaven and upon earth,—all that was to occur before the Day of God comes. So it was defined by the prophet Joel (328 [sic 228] ff.). Peter in his sermon at Pentecost appealed to this passage (Acts 217-22). One ought to recognise from the supernatural ecstatic “tongues” that one is approaching the end of the days. The crucified Jesus hath God raised up to be the [pg 141] Messiah in the Resurrection, and the Kingdom will soon dawn.
This passage in Joel was therefore applied to the time immediately preceding the messianic age, the time of miracles, in which according to the prophecy of Malachi the Forerunner should appear (Mal 45-6). Moreover, the selfsame refrain unites these two fundamental passages of pre-messianic expectation: Mal 45 is the same as Joel 231—“Before the coming of the great and terrible Day of the Lord.” The Forerunner without miracles in an unmiraculous age was therefore unthinkable.
For the contemporaries the characteristic difference between John and Jesus consisted precisely in the fact that the one simply pointed to the nearness of the Kingdom of God while the other confirmed his preaching by signs and wonders. Men had the consciousness of entering with Jesus upon the age of miracles. He was the Baptist,—but the Baptist, as it were, translated into the supernatural. After the mission of the Twelve, as his emergence and his signs became known abroad together with the news of the death of the Baptist, people said: The Baptist is raised from the dead. Hence the Disciples answered him at Cæsarea Philippi [pg 142] that men took him for Elijah or for the Baptist (Mk 828). Herod as he heard of him would not give up the notion that he was the Baptist: “The Baptist is risen from the dead, and therefore do these powers work in him” (Mk 614).
Also the significance which Jesus ascribed to the signs must have led his hearers to suppose that they were in the midst of the era of the Forerunner. Their significance consisted, namely, in the fact that they confirmed the nearness of the messianic Kingdom. The people ought to believe him for the sake of the signs and repent unto the Kingdom of God.
The signs are an act of God’s grace through which he would make men aware what hour it is. Whosoever does not repent is damned. So it comes to pass with the inhabitants of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum. But whosoever blasphemes against the Holy Ghost and ascribes the signs to the power of ungodliness has no forgiveness in eternity. The scribes from Jerusalem made themselves guilty in Galilee of this offence (Mk 322 ff.). Those, however, who did not harden themselves held that the Kingdom of God stands at the door and that Jesus is the Forerunner, because they had evidently entered [pg 143] the age of signs which the Scripture had prophesied.
4. The Victory over Demons and the Secret of the Kingdom of God.
For Jesus the signs signified the nearness of the Kingdom in a sense still higher than the purely temporal, chronological nearness. By his victory over the demons he was conscious of influencing the coming of it. The secret of the Kingdom of God plays into this conception. The thought is contained in the parable with which he repels the false suspicions of the Jerusalem scribes (Mk 323-30).
The meaning of this parable is, in fact, not exhausted by the thought that the argument that evil spirits do not undermine their own dominion by rising up one against another. In the concluding word we encounter unexpectedly the “now and then” which is characteristic of the secret of the Kingdom of God: “No one can enter into the house of the strong man and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man, and then he will spoil his house.” The casting out of demons, therefore, signified for Jesus the binding of the power of ungodliness and rendering it harmless. Hence this activity, like the moral renewal in the secret of the [pg 144] Kingdom, stands in causal relation with the dawning of the Kingdom of God. Through his conquest of the demons Jesus is the man of violence who compels the approach of the Kingdom. For when the power of ungodliness is bound, then comes the moment when the dominion shall be taken from it. In order that this may happen it must first be rendered harmless. Hence in sending the Disciples upon their mission Jesus not only commands them to proclaim the nearness of the Kingdom, but he also gives them authority over the demons (Mt 101). In that moment of highest eschatological expectation he sends them out as the men of violence who are to deal the last blow. The repentance which is to be accomplished by their preaching, and the overcoming of the power of ungodliness in the demoniacs, work together for the hastening of the Kingdom.
Thus the parables of the secret of the Kingdom (Mark 4), the parable in Jesus’ apology to the Pharisees (Mk 323-30), and the parable in the eulogy of the Baptist (Mt 1112-15) all express the same thought. The two latter correspond even in the drastic image of violent action, whence the notion of “robbery” is common to them both (Mk 327 = Mt 1112).
For Jesus’ consciousness the healing of the demoniacs was therefore a part of the secret of the Kingdom of God. It sufficed for the people, however, to grasp the purely chronological connection.
5. Jesus and the Baptist.
We have seen above that no one could recognise Elijah in the person of the Baptist because his ministry and preaching without miracle did not correspond with the Scriptural representation of the Forerunner’s time. None thought of ascribing to him this office and dignity except—for there was one exception—Jesus! He it was that first gave the people a mysterious hint that this man was the Forerunner: “If ye are willing to receive it, he himself is Elijah, the coming-one” (Mt 1114). He is aware, however, that with this he is giving utterance to an incomprehensible secret which to his hearers remains just as obscure as the word uttered in the same connection about the man of violence who since the days of the Baptist compel the Kingdom (Mt 1112). Hence he concludes both these sayings with the oracular phrase: He that hath ears to hear, let him hear (Mt 1115).
The people, however, were very far from [pg 146] comprehending that this Baptist who had fallen into the hands of Herod could be the prodigious personality who was to stand upon the threshold between the pre-messianic and the messianic age. So the mysterious word of Jesus died upon the air, and the people stuck to the opinion that John was really a prophet (Mk 1132).
The rulers also could reach no conclusion about the personality of the Baptist. For this reason they were worsted in their colloquy with Jesus when they would challenge him for his purifying of the Temple (Mk 1133).
The case was quite the same with the Disciples: they were incapable by themselves of recognising in John the expected Elijah. On the descent from the Mount of Transfiguration they were assailed by scruples about the messiahship of Jesus and about the possibility of the resurrection of the dead which Jesus had touched upon in his discourse. This assumed, indeed, that the messianic era was already present, and this could not yet have dawned, for “Elijah must first come, as the scribes demonstrate” (Mk 99-11). Thereupon Jesus replied to them that John was this Elijah, even though he was delivered into the power of men (Mk 912, 13).
How did Jesus arrive at the conviction that the Baptist was Elijah? It was through a necessary inference from his own messiahship. Because he knew himself to be the Messiah, the other must be Elijah. Between the two ideas there was a necessary correspondence. No one could know that the Baptist was Elijah except he derived this cognisance from the messiahship of Jesus. No one could arrive at the thought that John was Elijah without at the same time being obliged to see in Jesus the Messiah. For after the Forerunner there remained no place for a second manifestation of the kind. No one knew that Jesus took himself to be the Messiah. Therefore in the Baptist men perceived a prophet and raised the question whether Jesus were not Elijah. No one understood in their full bearing the mysterious concluding sentences of the eulogy over the Baptist. Only for Jesus was John the promised Elijah.
6. The Baptist and Jesus.
What was the Baptist’s attitude to Jesus? If he had been conscious of being the Forerunner, he must have surmised that Jesus was the Messiah. One generally assumes this and supposes that he as the Forerunner [pg 148] put the question to Jesus whether he were the Messiah (Mt 112-6). This supposition seems to us perfectly natural because we always represent to ourselves the two characters in the relation of Forerunner-Messiah.
In this connection, however, we forget a perfectly obvious question. Did the Baptist feel himself to be Elijah, the Forerunner? In no utterance before the people did he raise such a claim. They stubbornly recognised in him only a prophet. Also during his imprisonment he can have claimed no such thing, for in Jerusalem the people still held to the same opinion, that he was a prophet.
If somehow or another the presentiment had prevailed that he represented the character of Elijah, how then could men generally get the notion that John was a prophet, Jesus the Elijah? That this was the general view even after the death of the Baptist, is proved by the reply of the Disciples at Cæsarea Philippi.
To view the Baptist’s query under the presumption that the Forerunner is asking whether Jesus be the Messiah is to put the question in a light which is completely unjustified; for whether John took himself to be the Forerunner is not in the least to be proven. Therefore it is also by no means [pg 149] made out that his question referred to the messianic dignity. The people standing by, as they did not take John to be the Forerunner, must have interpreted it in a very different way,—namely, in the sense: Art thou Elias?
The fact is that the usual perspective hides a characteristic detail in this very section, the fact, namely, that Jesus applies again to the Baptist the same designation which the Baptist in his question had applied to him! Art thou the Coming One? asked the Baptist. Jesus replied: If ye are willing to receive it, he himself is Elijah, the Coming One! The designation of the “Coming One” is therefore common to both speeches, only that we arbitrarily refer it to the Messiah in the question of the Baptist. This proceeding, which appears so natural in the naïve perspective, will show itself to be unjustified so soon as one becomes aware that it is in fact only a question of perspective and not of any real standard. For then the phrase “He himself” in Jesus’ reply acquires suddenly an unsuspected significance: “he himself is Elijah,” the Coming One! This reference compels us to understand by the Coming One in the Baptist’s question, not the Messiah, but—as in Jesus’ reply—Elias.
“Art thou the expected Forerunner?”—thus the Baptist through his disciples makes inquiry of Jesus. “If ye are able to receive it, he himself is this Forerunner,” said Jesus to the people after he had spoken to them about the greatness of the Baptist.
By this reference the scene now receives a far more intense colouring. First of all, it becomes clear why Jesus speaks about the Baptist after the departure of the messengers. He feels himself obliged to lead the people up climactically from the conception that John is a prophet to the presentiment that he is the Forerunner, with whose appearing the hand of the world clock nears the fateful hour to which refers the word concerning “him who prepares the way,” and of whom the scribes say “that he must first come” (Mk 911).
John, in fact, with his question was backward in his reckoning of the Messianic time. His messengers seek information about the Forerunner at the moment when Jesus’ confidence that the Kingdom is immediately to dawn was at the highest pitch. He had just sent out his Disciples and given them to expect that the appearing of the Son of Man might surprise them on their way through the cities of Israel. The hour is already far more advanced—that is what Jesus would [pg 151] give the people to understand in his “eulogy over the Baptist,” if they can receive it.
John reached this surmise about Jesus in the same way as did the people. That is to say, as he heard of the signs and deeds of Jesus (Mt 112), there occurred to him the thought that this might be something more than a prophet with a call to repentance. So he sends messengers to him in order to have assurance upon this point.
Herewith, however, the proclamation of the Baptist is put in an entirely different light. He never pointed to the coming Messiah, but to the expected Forerunner. So is to be explained the proclamation about “him that is to come after him” (Mk 17, 8). As applied to the Messiah, the expressions he uses remain obscure. They denote, that is, only a difference of degree, not a total difference in kind, between himself and the person whom he announces. If he were speaking of the Messiah, it would have been impossible for him to employ these expressions, in which, in spite of the mighty difference in rank, he still compares the Coming One to himself. He thinks of the Forerunner as like himself, baptising and preaching repentance unto the Kingdom, only that he is incomparably greater and mightier. Instead of baptising [pg 152] with water, he will baptise with the Holy Ghost (Mk 18).
This cannot apply to the Messiah. Since when does the Messiah baptise? Then, too, the famous pouring out of the Spirit does not occur within but before the messianic era! Before the coming of the great Day of the Lord he will pour out his Spirit upon all flesh, and signs and wonders shall be showed in heaven and on earth (Joel 228 ff[.]). Before the coming of the great Day of the Lord he will send Elijah the Prophet (Mal 45). The Baptist combines these two chief indications of the character of the great events that are to precede the Last Time, and he arrives at the conception of the Forerunner who is to baptise with the Holy Ghost! One sees from this what a supernatural light surrounded the figure of the Forerunner in the current conception. Hence it is that John felt himself so little before him.