CHRISTIAN SOCIOLOGY.
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elements of truth each can be seen to contain and yet be consonant with the general course of the thought of Jesus?[1]
II.
By the kingdom of God Jesus meant an ideal (though progressively approximated) social order in which the relation of men to God is that of sons, and (therefore) to each other, that of brothers.
1. The point of departure for any interpretation of the term must be the historical expectation of the Jews in the days of Jesus. What that expectation was is now pretty accurately
- ↑ Were it desirable to take the space, it would be possible to give more fully the exegetical process by which the above definitions are rejected and another suggested. It may, perhaps, not be out of place to add a few representative authorities, whose definitions favor the social content. The author of Ecce Homo distinctly calls the kingdom of God a divine society (p. 48). Bruce (Kingdom of God, p. 46) thus summarizes possible interpretations: "It signifies some form of divine dominion. Abstractly reviewed, it might denote the reign of the Almighty over all creation through the operation of natural law; or of the moral Governor of the world rendering to every man and nation according to their works; or of the God of Israel ruling over a chosen people, and bestowing on them power, peace and felicity as the reward of obedience to his divine will. Or it might mean something higher than any of these things, the highest form of dominion conceivable, the advent of which is emphatically fit to be the burden of a Gospel, viz., the reign of divine love exercised by God in his grace over human hearts believing in his love, and constrained thereby to yield him grateful affection and devoted service." He further quotes with approval the words of Keim (Jesu von Nazara, p. 54): "Briefly stated, the religious heaven of Jesus meant the Fatherliness of God for men, the sonship of men for God, and the infinite spiritual good of the kingdom of heaven is Fatherhood and Sonship." Edersheim (Life and Times of Jesus, the Messiah, I, 270) gives a characteristic definition of the term "The rule of God, which was manifested in and through Christ is apparent in the church, gradually develops amidst hindrances; is triumphant at the second coming of Christ; and finally, perfected in the wortd to come," Stead (Kingdom of God, p. 69) regards it as the fellowship of souls, divine and human, of which the law and life are love, wherein the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man as both are embodied in Jesus the Christ, are recognized and realized." Weiss (Biblical Theology of the New Testament, I, 63) does not accurately define the term as used by Jesus, but gives an approximate definition as follows: "What this kingdom of God is, is nowhere expressly said; the idea is regarded as one quite familiar to the people. In fact, no one in Israel, which was from the first to be a kingdom whose supreme Lord and King was Jehovah, could thereby understand anything else than a kingdom in which the will of God is fulfilled as perfectly upon earth as by the angels in heaven." Candlish (Kingdom of God, p. 197) gives us what "may be taken as a basis at least for an exposition of the idea; The gathering together of men, under God's eternal
