inner aspect, of the message of the Kingdom. The Kingdom means life.

THE KINGDOM AS A GIFT

God's Gift.-The Kingdom is God's gift to men. "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12. 32). What man's task is we are to see later. Here we must note the fact that the message of hope which Jesus brought did not rest upon any thought of man's progress or man's goodness or even man's devotion to a cause. His hope was built upon God. The Kingdom was his Father's gift. Because he believed in such a God, mighty as well as merciful, God of heaven and earth, but also Father of men, he believed that the Kingdom was coming, and called on men to believe and rejoice on all occasions.

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY

Read the Scripture references: Matthew 13. 44-46; 6. 10; 5. 8; Luke 1. 77; 24. 47; Matthew 26. 28; 7. 14, 21; Mark 10. 17, 23, 30; Luke 12. 29-32.

Take the phrase "rule of God" and substitute it for the words "kingdom of God," looking up as many passages as you have time. In some places it will not apply.

If possible, read what is said about the Jewish expectation of the Kingdom in Chapter II of the author's Life of Jesus. Recall what we learned as to Jesus' teaching about God. How far does his doctrine of the Kingdom flow from this?

When we pray, "Thy will be done," do we feel that we are yielding something, or accepting something hard? Why does Jesus think of the rule of God as the highest good of men?

Compare Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom as a good with Paul's declaration that the kingdom of God is “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." How do they differ?

CHAPTER XVIII

THE KINGDOM AS A TASK

THE conception of the Kingdom with which we have started seems at first sight very simple. It is the rule of God, and it is to come upon the earth as a gift of God. If this be true, then there would seem to be nothing for us except quietly to wait for the time of its appearing. But as we study the words of Jesus, there are other and larger meanings that appear.

GIFTS AND TASKS

Two Kinds of Gifts.-We have studied the kingdom as God's gift; man's work is not to make the Kingdom, man's desert is not to bring it. But there are two kinds of gifts and two ways of giving. There are outward gifts which depend simply upon the will of the giver. A wealthy father can give his boy money and all that money will command. He can buy him books, or send him to college, or let him travel. In all this the boy need have no part; it is simply a matter of the father. There are other gifts which cannot be made in that way, and the highest gifts depend quite as much upon him who receives as upon him who gives. No one can give that boy the seeing eye when he journeys, by which alone he will profit. The father can pay his expenses, but whether he gives the boy an education or not depends upon the boy. When it comes to the highest gifts the principle is even more clear. The father's highest gift to his boy is a right spirit and character, but only the boy himself can make such a gift possible.

Inner Gifts. The question, then, is this: Is the Kingdom in Jesus' mind an outer gift or an inner one? There is no doubt that the Kingdom was primarily external in the

minds of the Jews. They thought of the triumph of Israel over her foes, of a day of power and rule and glory. It was not so with Jesus. We have seen what were the gifts of the Kingdom with him. He thought of sins forgiven, of men living in fellowship with God, of the overcoming of evil, of a new and glorious life which he called the life eternal. It was the life of God in the world and in men that he saw. Such gifts depend not merely upon the giver, but upon him that receives. Every such gift is at the same time a demand and a task. The good news of God's gift is at every step a summons to men, a call to give, to do, to strive, to live.

The Cost of Forgiveness.-We may see this principle quite clearly by considering forgiveness as the first gift of the Kingdom. That would seem to be the freest gift that could be bestowed. Does it not depend absolutely and solely upon the giver? Not so with Jesus. Forgiveness is a matter of the mutual relation between God and man. It is a uniting of that which has been broken by sin. It is not canceling a punishment, but forming a fellowship. And that costs. It means repentance; not a momentary remorse, but a hating of sin and a turning to righteousness, the about-face of a man's heart (Matthew 18. 3, 4). God can give himself only as man gives himself. To call men to such repentance, therefore, Jesus conceived to be a chief task (Luke 11. 29-32), and the demand for repentance he held up constantly as the condition of forgiveness and life (Matthew 11. 20-24; Luke 15. 7, 10, 21).

GOD'S RULE AS OUR TASK

The Outward and the Inner Rule. That the Kingdom is a task we shall see most clearly when we go back to our definition of the Kingdom as the rule of God. There are two ways in which God rules in his world. In one case the rule is external and absolute; the obedience is equally absolute. That is in the world of things; the stars that move unerring in their courses can never go astray. The other realm is that of persons; here God's rule must be

within. In this world of persons God rules only as men know his will, and love his will, and freely carry it out in their life. The Jews laid stress upon righteousness as the condition of the coming of the Kingdom, but the Kingdom itself lay elsewhere. With Jesus the doing of the will of God is the very essence of the Kingdom. When he says, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done," he means the same thing; and so also when he bids men seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness. The whole Sermon on the Mount is a witness to this; it is Jesus' call to a higher righteousness of life, and that righteousness is simply the rule of the Spirit of God. Without such righteousness men cannot even see the kingdom of God (Matthew 5. 20). The simple test is whether a man is actually doing the will of God, whether his life is actually showing the fruits of righteousness (Matthew 7. 15-23).

Who Are My Brothers?-Most effectively and simply is the truth brought out in Matthew 12. 46-50. Here Jesus leaves the word "kingdom" and goes back to that picture of the family which most truly represents his thought of God and man and their relation to each other. Some one had reported that his mother and brothers were without and were asking for him. "And he stretched forth his hand towards his disciples, and said, Behold, my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother." Being in the Kingdom means doing the will of God; that is the final test.

ETERNAL LIFE AS A TASK

What Is Eternal Life?-We have seen that Jesus used still another figure to set forth the Kingdom as a gift; he speaks of it as eternal life. Now, eternal life, it is needless to say, does not mean simply unending life. It is quality, not duration, that counts here. Sometimes, indeed, Jesus simply says life. This life, of which men have the beginnings here, is nothing other than fellowship with God, the life in which God gives himself to men. What is the life of God in us? Something given to us?

Yes, but always something lived by us at the same time. No man really has God's love who is not loving his neighbor. No man has God's forgiving grace who is not himself gracious and forgiving. God's great gift of holiness is not a "thing" that is given to us, or something that is done to us, it is something that we have only as we live it. From the very first step this kingship of God is something to be lived out.

The Cost of Friendship.-We see that plainly again, when we think of this Kingdom, or life, as a fellowship, or friendship. A friend means much more than a patron. A patron makes gifts, a friend bestows himself. It may not cost anything to take gifts from a patron; to enter into a friendship always costs something, and may demand everything. Friendship is always mutual; the best and strongest and richest friend always asks something in return even of the man who seems to have little to give. Friendship means fellowship, communion, having something in common. No friendship is so gracious or gives so much as the friendship of God; but it asks also. Every friend must have a place in our life, and this Friend must have the supreme place. He must come in where we keep our ideals, our deepest hopes, our strongest passions, our final purposes. His friendship will shape and form all these. We see at once that the friendship, so gracious a gift, becomes a great task. Nothing so demands a man's whole thought and will and strength as this free gift of the friendship of God.

THE SUMMONS OF JESUS

What He Asks of Men.-All these considerations make clear to us the ethical note in the teaching of Jesus, and how it differed from the teaching of the Jews. Like them, he believed that the coming Kingdom was to be the gift of God; unlike them, he saw that it was also a task for men. He applies this to the individual. Men are not to sit with folded hands, waiting for the Kingdom. It demands eager desire, the hunger and thirst for righteous