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. 1:16, 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 7:21). 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 7:22, 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 7:24-27).
The Beatitudes (Mt 5:3-12) 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
13:44-46) 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 10:45). _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.
[pg 098]
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
12:34). 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
12:25)?
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.
[pg 103]
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.
[pg 106]