Author: William Laurence Sullivan
Publisher: Theclassics.Us
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 74
ISBN-13: 9781230316277
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER V. Chr1st's Concept1on Of The K1ngdom. "C* VERY rightly ordered investigation into the message 'of Jesus must begin with the "Kingdom of heaven (God)." The "Kingdom" is the constant theme of Christ's preaching, from the first utterance of His public ministry, "The Kingdom of God is at hand," to the last words spoken before He left the supper-table for the mount of Olives: "Verily I say unto you, I will no more drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God" (Mark. xiv. 25); or as Luke has it, "I will not drink from henceforth of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall come" (Luke xxii. 18). This fundamental certainty we possess, that Jesus announced the kingdom, and that the kingdom, with the conditions for entering it, is the sum and substance, the soul and essence of His preaching. If we know the original meaning of the Kingdom, we shall know Jesus. With the object of bringing as much light as possible to bear upon this Gospel-theme, I will give a brief sketch of its history in Jewish thought. The Jews emerged from the exile with a new and profoundly important belief. This was that the world is under the dominion of a personal devil, Satan, who fights against God and oppresses God's elect; and that this era of evil will continue until Messiah comes to cast down Satan, to destroy evil, and to establish the kingdom of God. Some preparation there was doubtless for this belief in the apparently pre-exilic idea of Yom Yahwe--the day of Yahwe. But the distance between the earlier notion of the "Day," and that of the "new heavens and the new earth," of pseudo-Isaiah, or the "Malkuth" of Daniel is very great indeed. The old "Day of Yahwe," was nearly always conceived simply as the...