rain to fall on the just and the unjust, how much more would He find it in the features and experiences of the inner life (cf. John vi. 44, 45). The prodigal son could arise and go to his father, only because the memory of his father's house, with its riches and its goodness, revived in him; and the publican could beat his breast and cry, "God, be merciful to me a sinner," only because he knew of a gracious God, with whom there is forgiveness (Ps. cxxx. 7). There prevails, therefore, even in the Old Testament, the same law of prevenient grace which in the New Testament speaks to a power of freedom unlost and a susceptibility for God, in order to hasten it heavenwards. Only, this grace is now first revealed in its whole height and depth, and therefore in its full saving power. "All the prophets and the law have prophesied until John from that time the glad message of the kingdom of God is preached" (Matt. xi. 13; Luke xvi. 16). Those earlier : revelations of God were only of a preparatory and predictive nature. They did not help humanity as a whole, they did not entirely help any man; even the best have still remained bad (Tоvnρoí, Matt. vii. 11), and the world as a whole has fallen ever deeper into the power of evil. But now has come the day of the great change, when Satan falls like lightning from heaven (Luke x. 18). Now the fulness of the time has come, the time when God is to visit His people (Luke x. 44), the acceptable year of the Lord, when He has anointed and sent His servant with a glad message to the poor, freedom to the captives, forgiveness to the broken-hearted (Luke iv. 18). And though the heavenly Father has at all times received the penitent sinner, and given strength to those who walk aright, yet the idea of salvation is only now truly and completely realised, when the Shepherd Himself, in His eternal love and faithfulness, has gone forth to seek and save the lost (Matt. xviii. 11 f.; Luke xv. 3 f., xix. 10). § 2. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN AS SALVATION We may therefore say, that the kingdom of heaven which Jesus preaches and brings is itself essentially salvation, is salvation in its objective reality, and in the mode of its accomplishment in time. This perception to which we have been led by our former discussion of the idea of the kingdom, would indeed be worthless if the view attached to the introductory sayings of the Sermon on the Mount by a celebrated scholar was correct, viz. that the fundamental thought of Jesus was directed solely to the awakening of a pious frame of mind, which in its humility before God attains of itself the highest satisfaction, and to such extent, that a mind of this nature as being poor in spirit already possesses the kingdom of heaven, the eternal riches.1 This would make the kingdom of heaven solely the subjective product of humility, of being poor in spirit. But this idea is in itself impossible. Poverty does not produce riches; hunger and thirst, even hunger and thirst for righteousness, do not of themselves suddenly change into satisfaction; there must be presented to them an objective reality which satisfies them. Nor is it difficult to refute that misconception of words of Jesus, which are certainly of the nature of a programme, by a reference to the words themselves, -a misconception which proceeds from the point of view of the pure immanence. We are not justified in taking the second clause in the first beatitude in the sense of a real possession already present, because the promises on which the succeeding beatitudes are based are expressed in the future tense (λnpoνομήσουσιν, παρακληθήσονται, χορτασθήσονται, κ.τ.λ.). The kingdom of heaven, it is said, is theirs; it is destined for them, is even in existence for them; but that does not mean that being poor in spirit is in itself the eternal riches; it is the susceptibility for such riches, and therefore they must be communicated to it by the free goodness of God. Moreover, in many of His parables Jesus puts the nature of the kingdom of heaven beyond all question as a blessing of salvation coming to meet man in objective reality. It is like a hidden treasure which one finds, a pearl of great price which one must purchase; it is a feast which the heavenly householder prepares for the poor, the lame, the beggars from the streets; it is so much a gift of grace, that he who will not receive it as a child (Mark x. 15) will never obtain it. But the kingdom of 1 Thus Baur in his Lectures on New Testament Theology, pp. 62-64. It is here said in so many words that being poor in spirit is the pure feeling of the need of redemption, which as such already contains all reality of redemption. heaven is, as we have found above,1 a gift of salvation in the twofold uniform sense, that it forms at one and the same time the goal of the salvation that is to be sought, and the power of salvation which quickens and qualifies for this seeking. Here stands out in its full significance the development of His first preaching of the kingdom of heaven as at hand, into the double view of a kingdom that has come and one that is still future, such as we have proved it at the beginning. The kingdom of heaven itself must bring us into the kingdom of heaven. The present growing kingdom brings on the future; it is the means of attaining the perfected kingdom. As Jesus says, in the maxim quoted several times already (Mark x. 15), "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of heaven (take it into himself) as a little child, shall in no wise enter into it," où μὴ εἰσέλθῃ. But between the starting-point, in which any one receives the kingdom that has come, and the final point when he is to find acceptance on his part into the future kingdom, lies, as it were, the whole of Jesus' teaching of righteousness, which thus proves itself to be an essential constituent of His doctrine of grace and salvation. No attentive reader of the Sermon on the Mount can fail to notice the violent contradiction which apparently prevails between the introduction and the progress of the address. In the introduction, in particular, the kingdom is connected solely with a childlike acceptance, with being poor in spirit, hungering and thirsting after righteousness; but later in the sermon it is connected with the highest moral conditions, the possession. of a better righteousness than the scribes and Pharisees can show, with a being perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect (Matt. v. 20, 48). The peculiarity of Jesus' idea of the kingdom just alluded to resolves this contradiction. The kingdom in its future perfection naturally presupposes a perfectly righteous people, for how could the eternally Good, the holy God, enter into an uninterrupted blessed communion with any other than such as were perfectly righteous? But the kingdom now in process of growth, beginning as a grain of mustard seed, can be satisfied with the lowest of all requirements, that of pure susceptibility, for it is a living seed and a productive it will itself abundantly supply the righteousness for 1 See above, p. 49 ff. which the poor in spirit hunger and thirst. According to the law of grace, that "to him who hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance" (Mark iv. 25; Matt. xxv. 29), the kingdom of heaven, received as a divine seed, a heavenly productive power, will bring forth in the man the fruit of eternal life, and raise him from one degree of righteousness to another, until he become perfect as his Father in heaven is perfect. Thus Jesus' doctrine of righteousness, with all its strictness, merges into His doctrine of salvation. It is only the negative pole to the positive pole of the doctrine of grace. It is nowhere law in contrast with gospel, but law in the gospel itself. For even that most elementary fundamental demand of the kingdom of heaven, without the fulfilment of which it cannot be bestowed, the condition of being poor in spirit, is not pure demand, but the gospel of the kingdom itself seeks to call forth that longing and susceptibility by holding forth the riches of heavenly love: "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Wonderful gospel of Jesus, admirable not only in its height and depth, satisfying on all sides human need, but also in its simplicity and perfect transparency! The kingdom of heaven is simply the opening of communion with the eternal love. No one acquires this love of himself, still less does he beget it within himself through mere need of love; it is bestowed upon him, it comes to him from heaven, in order to raise him up to its own heaven of love. Of course, it has moral conditions. It does not force itself upon us, but gives itself only to the hearts which open to receive it, and it cannot retain and increase communion with them, unless they let themselves be formed and fashioned by it into its own nature. But these holy conditions are conThey not only aim at the true best of the beloved, at the beatific perfection of the communion of love, but the eternal love itself helps to fulfil them. It works freely in those into whom it enters both to will and to do. From what has been said it is clear that in this chapter on Jesus' doctrine of salvation we have to do essentially with the kingdom in process of growth, as already present and operative. And in order to estimate His saving activity more precisely we have first to give attention to the manner and results of the saving influences, that is, the ditions of love, nay, are proofs of love. way of salvation, then the several outward means by which the kingdom becomes operative, that is, His doctrine of the means of salvation. § 3. THE WAY OF SALVATION, CALLING AND ELECTION If we look beyond the objective fact of the salvation that is embodied in the manifested kingdom of God to the law of its subjective realisation, it is evident that it will begin with a divine offer or invitation, with the " call," as Jesus expressed Himself in a metaphor which has also passed into apostolic usage. It corresponds to the prevenient mercy which is characteristic of the love of God, and not less does it suit the strayed and lost condition of man that the divine salvation does not wait till it is sought. This is the glory of the time of grace that began with the days of John the Baptist, that God comes to meet man as He never did before, and invites him to participate in His saving gifts. In the most beautiful images, now that of a rich, kindly householder who invites to his sumptuous table, first his own distinguished friends, and then the beggars and strangers; and now that of a faithful shepherd, who goes to the furthest wilderness after the strayed lost lamb,-Jesus represents the call of God's grace, whose instrument in Israel He knows Himself to be (Luke xiv. 16-24; Matt. xxii. 1-16; Luke xv. 1-7; Matt. xviii. 12 f.). This call is, indeed, not addressed to all without distinction, "I am come to call sinners, not the righteous" (Mark ii. 17); nor do all those called reach the blessed goal to which they are called, "Many are called, but few are chosen" (Matt. xxii. 16). This is not, however, a divine narrowness of heart or caprice which grants salvation only to some, not to all, but rests on that mutual relation of human freedom and divine grace which we have just established as the presupposition of Jesus' whole doctrine of salvation. If Jesus does not call the righteous, the reason immediately follows: the whole, that is, those who do not feel themselves sick, need not a physician, they have only to recognise themselves as sick, and He will be at their service also. And as to those in the Parable of the Feast (Matt. xxii. 1 f.), who are called, indeed, but not chosen, the parable itself illustrates most clearly that |