social relations, so is it a net,[1] a great feast,[2] a family[3] into each of which men enter and from which they may be excluded. Its members are seeds scattered over the field of the world; its enemies are the tares sown by the king's enemy.[4] For so true is Jesus to the old terminology that he even reexpresses with new force the conception of King Messiah. He is this king,[5] and, to use the conventional imagery of the prophets, his coming is to be upon the clouds of heaven.[6]
3. This conclusion is confirmed by the position which the kingdom, as an ideal, occupies in relation to the world,[7] as the actual social order. The world is not the demoniacal kingdom supposed by some scholars to have been established by Satan as a sort of counterpart to the Messianic, and from whose agents Jesus won a glorious victory. Such a view finds little foundation in the gospel records. Jesus does, indeed, argue pointedly that his deeds of kindness cannot be taken as substantiating his partnership with Satan—"a kingdom cannot be divided against itself." But, even if it were possible to make this the basis of a Christian demonology, it is exposed to a suspicion of semi-accommodation on the part of Jesus such as does not affect his use of the term "world." By this word Jesus evidently meant the environment within which and out of which his kingdom was to grow. And this environment is not merely physical, it is social. From it he chose his followers.[8] To it, as the ultimate bounds of their activity, his disciples were to go, from its members to win still other subjects of the divine rule.[9] In the midst of its influences his followers were to be left,[10] the light that should
- ↑ Matt. 13:47–50.
- ↑ Luke 14:15 sq.
- ↑ Matt. 23:28, Luke 15:11–32.
- ↑ Matt. 13:24–30, 36–43.
- ↑ Luke 22, 28 sq.
- ↑ Matt. 26:64; Mark 13:26. These apocalyptic sayings are here used as those of Jesus. For a discussion of the possibly composite character of the discourses, see Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, I., 35 sq.
- ↑ δ κόσμος. It is hardly necessary to call attention to the fact that in the English version of the New Testament "world" is the translation of αιών (age) as well. The distinction, however, is not generally difficult to discover.
- ↑ John 15:19.
- ↑ Matt. 26:13.
- ↑ John 17:15.
