Footnote 56:[(return)]
The Acts of the Apostles is in this respect a most instructive book. It as well as the Gospel of Luke is a document of Gentile Christianity developing itself to Catholicism; Cf. Overbeck in his Commentar z Apostelgesch. But the comprehensive judgment of Havet in the work above mentioned (IV. p. 395) is correct: "L hellenisme tient assez peu de place dans le N.T. du moins l hellenisme voulu et reflechi. Ces livres sont ecrits en grec et leurs auteurs vivaient en pays grec, il y a donc eu chez eux infiltration des idees et des sentiments helleniques, quelquefois même l imagination hellenique y a pénetre comme dans le 3 evangile et dans les Actes. Dans son ensemble le N.T. garde le caractere d un livre hebraique. Le christianisme ne commence avoir une litterature et des doctrines vraiment helleniques qu au milieu du second siecle. Mais il y avait un judaisme celui d Alexandrie qui avait faite alliance avec l hellenisme avant meme qu il y eut des chretiens."
Footnote 57:[ (return) ]
The right of distinguishing (b) and (c) may be contested. But if we surrender this we therewith surrender the right to distinguish kernel and husk in the original proclamation of the Gospel. The dangers to which the attempt is exposed should not frighten us from it for it has its justification in the fact that the Gospel is neither doctrine nor law.
Footnote 58:[ (return) ]
Therewith are, doubtless, heavenly blessings bestowed in the present. Historical investigation has, notwithstanding, every reason for closely examining whether, and in how far, we may speak of a present for the Kingdom of God, in the sense of Jesus. But even if the question had to be answered in the negative, it would make little or no difference for the correct understanding of Jesus' preaching. The Gospel viewed in its kernel is independent of this question. It deals with the inner constitution and mood of the soul.
Footnote 59:[ (return) ]
The question whether, and in what degree, a man of himself can earn righteousness before God is one of those theoretic questions to which Jesus gave no answer. He fixed his attention on all the gradations of the moral and religious conduct of his countrymen as they were immediately presented to him, and found some prepared for entrance into the kingdom of God, not by a technical mode of outward preparation, but by hungering and thirsting for it, and at the same time unselfishly serving their brethren. Humility and love unfeigned were always the decisive marks of these prepared ones. They are to be satisfied with righteousness before God, that is, are to receive the blessed feeling that God is gracious to them as sinners, and accepts them as his children. Jesus, however, allows the popular distinction of sinners and righteous to remain, but exhibits its perverseness by calling sinners to him and by describing the opposition of the righteous to his Gospel as a mark of their godlessness and hardness of heart.
Footnote 60:[ (return) ]
The blessings of the kingdom were frequently represented by Jesus as a reward for work done. But this popular view is again broken through by reference to the fact that all reward is the gift of God's free grace.
Footnote 61:[ (return) ]
Some Critics—most recently Havet, Le Christianisme et ses origines, 1884. T. IV. p. 15 ff.—have called in question the fact that Jesus called himself Messiah. But this article of the Evangelic tradition seems to me to stand the test of the most minute investigation. But, in the case of Jesus, the consciousness of being the Messiah undoubtedly rested on the certainty of being the Son of God, therefore of knowing the Father and being constrained to proclaim that knowledge.
Footnote 62:[ (return) ]
We can gather with certainty from the Gospels that Jesus did not enter on his work with the announcement: Believe in me for I am the Messiah. On the contrary, he connected his work with the baptising movement of John, but carried that movement further, and thereby made the Baptist his forerunner (Mark I. 15: πεπληρωται 'ο καιρος και ηγγικεν 'η βασιλεια του θεου, μετανοειτε και πιστευετε εν τω ευαγγελιω). He was in no hurry to urge anything that went beyond that message, but gradually prepared, and cautiously required of his followers an advance beyond it. The goal to which he led them was to believe in him as Messiah without putting the usual political construction on the Messianic ideal.
Footnote 63:[ (return) ]
Even "Son of Man" probably means Messiah: we do not know whether Jesus had any special reason for favouring this designation which springs from Dan. VII. The objection to interpreting the word as Messiah really resolves itself into this, that the disciples (according to the Gospels) did not at once recognise him as Messiah. But that is explained by the contrast of his own peculiar idea of Messiah with the popular idea. The confession of him as Messiah was the keystone of their confidence in him, inasmuch as by that confession they separated themselves from old ideas.
Footnote 64:[ (return) ]
The distinction between the Father and the Son stands out just as plainly in the sayings of Jesus, as the complete obedient subordination of the Son to the Father. Even according to John's Gospel, Jesus finishes the work which the Father has given him, and is obedient in everything even unto death. He declares Matt. XIX. 17: 'εις εστιν 'ο αγαθος. Special notice should be given to Mark XIII. 32, (Matt. XXIV. 36). Behind the only manifested life of Jesus, later speculation has put a life in which he wrought, not in subordination and obedience, but in like independence and dignity with God. That goes beyond the utterances of Jesus even in the fourth Gospel. But it is no advance beyond these, especially in the religious view and speech of the time, when it is announced that the relation of the Father to the Son lies beyond time. It is not even improbable that the sayings in the fourth Gospel referring to this, have a basis in the preaching of Jesus himself.
Footnote 65:[ (return) ]
Paul knew that the designation of God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was the new Evangelic confession. Origen was the first among the Fathers (though before him Marcion) to recognise that the decisive advance beyond the Old Testament stage of religion, was given in the preaching of God as Father; see the exposition of the Lord's prayer in his treatise De oratione. No doubt the Old Testament, and the later Judaism knew the designation of God as Father; but it applied it to the Jewish nation, it did not attach the evangelic meaning to the name, and it did not allow itself in any way to be guided in its religion by this idea.