'This plan of Jesus is the most remarkable ever conceived. Rome had united the Mediterranean world by an all-conquering idea of universal polit ical dominion, and men had marveled at the accomplishment of the impossible. Yet how much greater was Jesus' idea of uniting the whole world by the ties of religion into a universal spiritual brotherhood, a union not external, polit ical and selfish, but internal, religious, humanita rian. An invisible kingdom which, planted in a small and obscure country, should expand till it embraced all countries, all men, all time. Such was Jesus' idea of the Kingdom of God. .So original was this plan, so independent of all exist ing thought, that it Could, have come only from God himself. No other than Jesus could have conceived it, no other than Jesus would have at tempted it. Yet Jesus determined upon this plan with full confidence that it was God's will, and with full assurance of its ultimate success. The accomplishment of it lie set about with a resolu. tion which carried him through hardships, isola tion, reproach, opposition, martyrdom.
The evidence does not seem to justify the view that the plan of Jesus underwent modification dur ing his ministry. His methods, of course, changed with the changing circumstances, his presentation of his message progressed with the developing rapacity of his hearers, and his attitude toward the various classes adjusted itself to the aftitude which they assumed toward him. It is true that Jesus did not publicly proclaim his Messiahship until the very close of his ministry, and that even to his most intimate disciples he did not make that claim until the latter portion of his work. But this was not because he was not himself cer tain of his Messiahship. It was due to the fact that if he had at the outset asserted himself as the Messiah, the perverse popular expectation would have demanded its perverse realization, and Jesus would have received no hearing at all for his purely spiritual conception of the kingdom. In every possible way Jesus avoided raising false hopes. He preached the kingdom so that it might appeal to the hearts of men and transform their expectations to accord with the reality. Eiren this method of superlative wisdom did not suc ceed with the Jews as a whole, for when they found Jesus would not fulfill their demands, all but a handful of followers deserted him (John vi: 14, 15, 66). But Jesus' failure to win the nation to an acceptance of the real kingdom could not have been a surprise to himself. It did not need a superhuman knowledge to foresee, at the outset of Jesus' public ministry, that a kingdom and a Messiah such as he contemjilated would ultimately fail of acceptance by the Jews. It must have seemed quite clear to Jesus at the start that the preaching of such a message would end in its re jection and his own death. The Jewish people had conspicuously stained their history with the blood of their great prophets (Matt. xxiii:29-37),
and could their greatest prophet fail to meet a like fate? But even with this probability before him, Jesus went calmly and earnestly about his work of delivering the message and founding the king dom which God had given into his hands.
His method. of procedure was to go about in Galilee, proclaiming the presence of the Kingdom of God, and teaching what were its characteristics, its demands, and its future. In the synagogucs he taught upon the Sabbath, but still more every day in the homes. upon the streets, in the fields. by the seaside. wherever and whenever receptive listeners might be found. He gathered about him self disciples whom he trained to carry his 'mes sage. By his own efforts, which they supplemented, Palestine was made to ring with the Gospel.
And Jesus' teaching was commended to the at tention of men, and impressed upon their minds, by the mighty works which God gave him to do. Extraordinary operations in the physical world were made to illustrate the powers and blessings of the spiritual world. The divine power mani fest in Jesus could heal physical disease, much more could it remove moral disease; it could re store physical sight and hearing, how much morc could.it open the spirit of man to the eternal truths and beauties of God and his universe; it could supply the physical necessities to man, how much more could it give that spiritual sustenance, that righteousness, which the hungering soul craves; it could remove the physical effects of sin, how much more could it purify the soul; it could quiet the raging tvaves of the sea, how much more could it soothe the troubled heart ; it could restore the dead to life, how much more could it renew the moral and spiritual being. These great works were signs to the people that God was with Jesus, that he was the accredited messenger of the Most High. They were the token of God's pres ence among them, and the outflowing of his beneficence to humanity.
Then, too, Jesus' own life was the embodiment of his conception of the kingdom, an ideal realiza tion of God's perfect will for men, and so a con crete and living illustration of his teaching. Here, as in all Jesus' teaching, it is the internal, not the external, which has permanent significance. Jesus became for us an example in the spirit of his life. His perfect trust in God, his absolute per formance of duty, his unswerving adherence to truth, his serious view of life, his indifference to petty things, his vision into the depths of exist ence, his complete devotion to a great cause, his willing sacrifice of himself to serve his fellowmen, his patience in privation. adversity and suffering, his purity of character and motive—in all these and many other respects, Jesus was the personi fication of his own teaching, the pattern of the ideal man, the living example for every sincere sonl.