LECTURE I
THE KINGDOM OF FREEDOM
"And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness during forty days, being tempted of the Devil."—S. Luke iv. 1.
Our Lord, in accepting for Himself the title of the Messiah, or the Christ, claimed that it was His function to inaugurate upon earth the Kingdom of God. Whatever else might at that time be believed about the Messiah, this at least was universally held, that the Messiah, when He came, would inaugurate upon earth the Kingdom of God. That is the task of the Lord's ministry; that is the task to which we, as His followers, are pledged; and at this time when the civilisation, which for nearly two thousand years has been under the Christian influence, has culminated in as great a catastrophe as has ever beset any civilisation, Christian or Pagan, it is well for us to go back and ask, What are the fundamental principles of the Kingdom which Christ founded, what the method by which He founded it, and what are the principles and methods which He rejected?
There were various anticipations of the way in which the promised Christ would do His work; but broadly speaking there were two main types of expectation. There were those who supposed that the Messiah when He came, would rule in the manner of an earthly ruler, establishing righteousness by the ordinary methods of law and political authority, and this expectation undoubtedly derived some colour from the way in which Isaiah had envisaged the coming Christ:[#]
[#] Isaiah ix, 6, 7.
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful-Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with judgment and with righteousness from henceforth, even for ever."
It is a king ruling upon the throne of David that is suggested; and while it is only the most foolish literalism which will say that the Prophet himself was committed to such a view, it was natural enough for those who read his writings to conceive of the Messiah as acting after that fashion.
The people went into captivity; and when they returned, it was not to any realised Kingdom of God upon earth, but rather to difficulties greater than had ever confronted them before, until at last Antiochus Epiphanes initiated the great persecution whose aim was to stamp out altogether the worship of Jehovah, setting up as he did in the very Temple Court at Jerusalem the altar of Zeus, on which swine were sacrificed—"the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not." Out of the fiery furnace of that persecution comes the glowing prophecy of Daniel. What is the answer which he conceives God as giving to the blasphemer Antiochus? It is nothing less than the divine judgment and the mission of the divine Deliverer:[#]
[#] Daniel vii, 9, 10, 13, 14.