CHAPTER V

THE SECRET OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN THE THOUGHT OF THE PASSION

IN the last period of his life Jesus again uttered parables of the Kingdom of God: God’s vineyard (Mt 21:33-46); the royal marriage (Mt 22:1-14); the servant watching (Mt 24:42-47); the ten virgins (Mt 25:1-13); the talents (Mt 25:14-30).

These parables, in contrast to those about the secret of the Kingdom, contain no secret, but rather they are teaching parables pure and simple, from which a moral is to be drawn. The Kingdom of God is near. Those only will be found to belong to it who by their moral conduct are prepared for it.

The second period contains instead the _secret of the Passion._ Jesus’ utterances, as we have seen, point to a mysterious causal connection between the Passion and the coming of the Kingdom, because the eschatology and the thought of the Passion always emerge side by side, and the Disciples’ expectation of the future is in every case roused to the [pg 125] highest pitch by the proclamation of his suffering.

_The secret of the Passion takes up, therefore, the secret of the Kingdom of God and carries it further._ To the moral renewal which, according to the secret of the Kingdom of God, exercises a compelling power upon the coming of the Kingdom, there is adjoined another factor—_the redeeming death of Jesus._ That completes the penitence of those who believe in the coming of the Kingdom. Therewith Jesus comes to the aid of the men of violence who are compelling the approach of the Kingdom. The power which he thereby exerts is the highest conceivable—he gives up his life.

The idea of the Passion is therefore the transformation of the secret of the Kingdom of God. Hence it is no more designed to be understood than are the parables of the secret of the Kingdom. In each case it is a question of a fact which can be probed no further.

The connection between the thought of the Passion and the secret of the Kingdom of God guarantees the continuity of Jesus’ world of thought. All constructions which have been devised with a view to establishing this continuity have proved insufficient to [pg 126] accomplish what was expected of them. The acceptance of the thought of the Passion means in all cases a complete change in his idea of the Kingdom and in his Weltanschauung. If, however, one places the thought of the Passion in the great context of the secret of the Kingdom of God, the continuity is furnished naturally. The thought of the supernatural introduction of the Kingdom of God runs through the whole of Jesus’ life: the idea of the Passion is merely the fashion in which it is formulated in the second period.

How comes it that the secret of the Kingdom of God takes the form of the secret of the Passion?

Why must the atonement of Jesus be added to complete the moral renewal and the penitence of the community which believes in the Kingdom?

In what sense has the redeeming death of Jesus an influence upon the coming of the Kingdom?

[pg 127]