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 21:33-46); the royal marriage (Mt
22:1-14); the servant watching (Mt 24:42-47); the ten virgins (Mt
25:1-13); the talents (Mt 25:14-30).
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?
[pg 127]