THE SYNOPTICS
What remains before us is to see what hints the Synoptics leave us of what the Kingdom would have been like if Jesus was accepted; and then to make some remarks about Revelation.
I am going to give a combined view of the three Reports here, as I did in The Synoptic Gospels Compared.
First of all, there is nothing in the infancy narratives of either Luke or Matthew that deal with the Kingdom except Simeon's prophesy, which predicts the crucifixion; but that is what really was going to happen, not what would have happened if people hadn't been perverse.
There is a hint of something, however, in John's preaching as reported by Luke and Matthew. John seems to indicate that there would be a radical separation in the Kingdom: "Don't tell yourselves, 'We have Abraham for our father'; I tell you that God can make these rocks bear children to Abraham! No, an axe is now at the trees' roots; and every tree that doesn't produce good fruit is going to be chopped down and thrown into the fire to burn!" And, of course, there is the prediction that Jesus would bathe people in the Holy Spirit.
The first indication by Jesus himself of what the Kingdom was to be like was his preaching in the synagogue in Nazareth, as reported by Luke. Jesus opened a scroll to Isaiah, and read,
"YHWH's spirit is on me;
and this is why he has anointed me
to report the good news to the poor.
He has given me a proclamation to deliver;
one of freedom for prisoners of war,
of new sight for the blind;
he has told me to set broken people free
and announce a year of YHWH's favor."
He rolled up the scroll, handed it to the attendant, and sat back down. Every eye in the synagogue fastened upon him.
He began his sermon by saying, "Today that passage is being fulfilled as you listen to it." But the people started to whisper who he was, surprised that claims of divine favor were coming from that mouth."
They couldn't believe it, of course, because they knew him. This was one of Jesus' problems, also mentioned by John, who has Jesus tell the Judeans, "You know me! You know where I am from! But I didn't come by myself."
But what he was saying in this sermon was that the blind would see. And, of course, he actually did cure the blind. What he meant, according to my thesis, was that this would be the normal state of affairs in the Kingdom. And in fact, though the specific act of giving the blind sight seems to have come later, Jesus immediately started going around curing all sorts of people and driving out demons.
These cures, when not looked on as legend, are usually considered as (a) a mark of Jesus' compassion, and/or (b) a sign that he was God. I think, however, that, not denying either of these, Jesus was now inaugurating the "reign of God." That is, he was preparing the people for the time when he would formally declare himself King of Judea (and afterwards the world) by showing people what life was going to be like under his rule.
But Jesus, remember, was not going to take over control of Judea by storm; the Chosen People were to be put to another test like Adam's, in the sense that they had to freely choose him as their King, knowing what they were choosing. And so they had to be made aware not only what life in the Kingdom would be like, but that their King was not simply a successor to David, but God in human flesh.
That Jesus thought that this was too much for the people to swallow at the very beginning explains why he reprimanded the demons who shouted as they were expelled from people, "You are the Son of God!"
Jesus also told many of the people he cured at this point not to reveal that he was the one who had cured them, something a bit surprising, if he was using cures to announce the Kingdom. One possible explanation is that Jesus did not want to be looked on as a miracle-worker; he was telling people the good news--and the good news was that the world was being transformed into a place where sickness, suffering, pain, and death would be no more. That is, it wasn't that Jesus had the power to do this that was important, it was that this was the condition of the Kingdom of God that he was going to head.
But of course, the people really just thought of him as a wonder-worker, and understandably wanted to take advantage of his healing powers when he was around; they weren't really interested in any new Kingdom.
This is also why, I think, Jesus called for people to "change your way of thinking, and believe the good news." (Metanoeite kai pisteuete en te euangelio) The first verb is usually translated "repent," but it means literally what I translated it as. Certainly if Jesus were announcing a complete transformation of the world, people were going to have to make a radical shift in the way they thought about things if they were to be able to believe him.
And so Jesus soon Jesus took the next step in the introduction of the Kingdom: he forgave the sin of the paralyzed man who was lowered through the roof. He evidently saw that the man was more remorseful for sins that he had committed than desirous of being cured of his paralysis (were they related?), and so he seized the opportunity and told the man that his sins were forgiven. This, of course, shocked the Jewish leaders, because "only God can forgive sins."
Jesus answered, "Why are you trying to pick apart what I did? Which is simpler: to tell a man his sins are forgiven, or to tell him to stand up and take his stretcher and walk? But just to prove that the Son of Man does have the power to forgive sins,"--and he turned to the paralyzed man and said, "I tell you, stand up, take your stretcher and go home."
The point, of course, was that saying the one thing was as easy as saying the other, and producing the effect by what one said was as naturally impossible in the second case as it was in the first; and therefore, since the words produced the effect in the second case (which could be seen), why should one doubt that they also did in the first?
This caused even the Judean leaders to wonder; but not for long, because Jesus was doing things that shocked them: eating with tax-farmers and sinners, and not acting like a prophet, whose students fasted. Jesus pointed out that what he was speaking of was a wholly new state of affairs, and you can't put new wine in old skins. And with the incident of plucking grain on the Sabbath, Jesus claimed command even over the Sabbath day, even though he cited precedent for what he was doing. (Note that the other two writers who were editing Mark dropped his little proverb "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." This may be true in a sense, but it detracts from what Jesus is quite clearly trying to get across in this particular place: that he is the Master of the Sabbath, and therefore can do what he pleases on the Sabbath, not simply that you have to use common sense in keeping it.)
The proof that he had command over the Sabbath was given with the healing of the man's shriveled hand in the synagogue on the Sabbath, which Jesus did by simply asking the man to hold out his hand. In this, he accomplished two things: (a) he showed clearly that, if God was with him (and how could he not be if he could make cures like this, especially in a synagogue and on the Sabbath?), he had been given control over the Sabbath; and (b) that the Judean leaders had no grounds to charge him with anything, because after all he didn't do anything to the man; he only asked him to hold out his hand.
But instead of being convinced, of course, the Judean leaders plotted to "ruin" him. The verb here is not "to kill," and so it need not be assumed at this early stage that they actually wanted him dead; disgraced or discredited would do.
At this point, it is appropriate, I think to bring in the Sermon on the Mount; presumably something like a manifesto of the Kingdom would have been stated by Jesus at the beginning, though (certainly as Matthew reports it) the authors probably brought in material from throughout Jesus' public life. But Jesus would have been testing the waters, and seeing how much people could take; and what he found, of course, was that they could not take much, and later he would have to speak in analogies (parables), so that at least some people would be able to understand and the others would not be blameworthy.
When you look at the beatitudes in the light of the thesis I am advancing, they appear quite different from the way we normally think of them.
"It is a blessing for people to be poor, because they have God as their King [Matthew: "they are ruled from heaven"]." Matthew adds, as I said earlier, "in spirit," to restrict this to the poor who do not use their poverty as an excuse for hating God. But think what this means: "You won't be poor much longer, because the Kingdom in which God rules is just about to be established."
And the exordium of the speech continues in the same vein: consider yourself blessed (in the sense of "lucky") if you are suffering, because you are about to be comforted; if you are not assertive ("meek"), because you are the heir of the new Promised Land; if you are hungry and thirsty (for virtue, Matthew adds), because in this Kingdom, you will have all you want; if you are merciful, because you will be shown mercy; if you are pure in heart, because you will see God; if you make peace, because you will be a child of God; and finally if you are oppressed, because you are the subject God rules over.
As I said, probably the actual list was closer to that of Luke, because Matthew tends to classify things according to topic, and Luke simply mentions poverty, hunger (presumably physical hunger), suffering, and oppression. Nevertheless, the idea is the same. Jesus says that those who have what any sane people would call curses are in fact the lucky ones, because these for some reason are the key that opens the gate to the new Kingdom. This is reinforced in Luke by the doom pronounced upon the rich, the full, the happy, and the applauded (which, interestingly enough, Matthew omits--I think on the grounds that Luke's Report if not qualified might give the impression that simply being poor gets one into heaven and simply being rich damns one). And later on, as Jesus meets the rich young man, he remarks at how hard it is for a rich man to become a member of God's Kingdom; harder than for a camel to pass through a needle's eye, though "for God everything is possible."
Why is this? Because the poor, the suffering, the hungry, those whom others trample on, are the ones who see that life as it is now lived does not make any sense, and are predisposed to view the miraculous cures as an actual revolution in the construction of the world, and to listen to Jesus and follow him. On the other hand, the rich, the flattered, the assertive, are people for whom life as it now exists is good and rational, and who are threatened by any change.
But here we have the first of the double entendres that Jesus increasingly makes. The beatitudes would literally occur shortly after Palm Sunday if Jesus were accepted as King, but they still do apply in a different sense, even in our own day, and so do the condemnations. Jesus is not promising to us (or to his listeners either, who would in fact reject him) that in a year or so, all believers' tears would in fact wiped away, but only that this could happen; but if not, after suffering and dying with him, the believers would be members forever of the New Jerusalem, which will only come about when the world itself has gone through suffering and death before God "makes everything new" again.
Jesus points out that his listeners are the earth's salt, which I take to mean its preservative; and they had better be careful not to let themselves go rotten, or there is nothing that can be used to freshen them. They are also the world's light, which has to shine over the world and not be hidden. That is, the news of the Kingdom must be spread by them and not just by Jesus.
Jesus then gives his rules for conduct in the Kingdom; it is to be a question of interior disposition, and not simply external behavior--"not simply" because "not the dot on one I or the cross on one T will vanish from the Law." The willingness to let others take advantage of oneself (which is what these rules boil down to) makes sense in a Kingdom where no one can in fact do harm to another or use another for his own gain, though it is excessively impractical in the world we live in. If someone slaps you on one cheek, and you turn the other, be prepared for a punch. If someone takes your coat and you offer your shirt, your pants won't be far behind.
So I think we have here an indication that in the Kingdom, it will simply not be possible for people to take advantage of each other; and people have to change their way of thinking so that they are (a) not interested in taking advantage of others, and (b) not constantly worried about who is stealing a march on them, and covering their flanks. You can't become a member of the Kingdom unless you forgive your enemies. Why? Because they are going to be just as happy as you will be, and you won't be able to get even with them.
The rule still applies in the spiritual Kingdom; but its sense is different. If we let people take advantage of us, they will take advantage of us, and despise us as weaklings to boot. But the point of doing this as things now stand is that by so doing, we unite ourselves to Jesus crucified, who allowed people to take advantage of him; and so we die with him to rise again with him. In the spiritual Kingdom, we are not to expect justice in this life before death. (I might point out here that this applies only to the individual himself; one must not let harm be done to those one has responsibility for. Thus, a man cannot "turn the other cheek" and allow his wife to be raped, for instance, and a government must defend its people from attack.)
But this injustice one allows, of course, is because of the punishment of mankind for the rejection of Jesus. In the Kingdom Jesus would have established, there would not exactly be justice (because there would be no atonement for sins of the past), but no one, once he is a member, would have to worry again about mistreatment by others.
On that point of atonement, note that Jesus has, before this, simply wiped away people's sins; they didn't have to make reparations for what they had done. And this is what will happen in the Kingdom. The wrong done up to now will not be atoned for; it will simply disappear; and therefore, the members of the Kingdom must be prepared to accept that situation. Paul makes the same point in the letter to the Romans. If you want God to punish the sinner, then you are repudiating the very basis on which you are a Christian: that God has redeemed us by a free gift, not allowed us somehow to "right the wrong" by punishment. --And how few are willing to do this! We can "forgive" if we believe that the person who has wronged us is somehow going to pay for what he has done; but how many of us will entertain the possibility that the person who has done us damage will get off scot free and even suddenly be lifted up to bliss? But that is the Kingdom.
There is no need to do good visibly; the Kingdom is the reward for those who enter it, and what people think of us is nothing, because ultimately each of us will be what we choose to be, not what we are expected to be.
And, of course, not only do we not need to concern ourselves about mistreatment by others, there is absolutely nothing to worry about. In the Kingdom, nothing adverse can happen to anyone. We need not be afraid that God will give us something that we might not like, or even that we will ask for something that might be harmful; God loves us, and he will only give what we would have asked for if we knew everything relevant to what we were asking.
The result of this speech was not that the people caught what he was saying; everyone was astonished at what he said, but because he taught as if he himself were in control, not as if he was interpreting something else, as the Scripture scholars did.
Jesus gives an indication that the Kingdom was not just open to Jews when he heals the slave of the centurion at Capernaum; he also shows his power by healing the slave without ever seeing him, and simply by a word.
But something else is revealed here and elsewhere about the Kingdom: the person's own belief that it will happen is what brings about the cure; and so presumably, it is faith that suffering will actually be abolished that will enable the Kingdom to come into existence. And this makes sense. If people don't believe that Jesus means what he says, but take him as some kind of magician, then they won't accept him as their King except in the sense that any set of people accept a great man as their ruler. But Jesus has to be accepted as the God-King, and not even in the sense that Augustus was regarded as a god-king; Jesus must be accepted as YHWH, ruling not from the sky but in the flesh of this human being.
Jesus also, presumably somewhere in this early period, but after the manifesto of the Kingdom in the Sermon on the Mount, actually brings a few people back to life, like the son of the widow of Nain and the daughter of Jairus. Again, he is proving that he is capable of bringing about the kind of world he has announced. He is giving evidence why people should believe the good news he is reporting.
For the benefit of his students, he stills a storm when they wake him in fear that the boat will be swamped; and expresses annoyance at their skepticism after they had seen all the other things that he had done. Not even his students had a notion that the world was about to be completely transformed.
The incident of the Gadarene (or Gerasene) demoniac shows that, even if non-Jews could participate in the Kingdom, they were certainly not prepared to accept Jesus as their ruler; when they see how he has destroyed the herd of pigs in curing the demoniac, they beg him to leave their land. There is a certain irony here; they doubtless knew the Jews' attitude toward pigs, and were anything but eager to have their way of life altered.
When Jesus heals the dumb demoniac, the Judean leaders try to neutralize what he did by claiming that his power came from the ruler of demons; and Jesus, of course, answers that a kingdom divided against itself cannot survive. It becomes increasingly likely that the religious leaders will not give Jesus a hearing, let alone support; and without them he cannot be chosen as King.
So Jesus warns them about the sin against the Holy Spirit, which cannot be forgiven. This takes on a special meaning in view of my thesis. If they reject him, this will be irrevocable; the promised Kingdom will not occur, and suffering and death will not be wiped away. We will continue to "earn our bread in the sweat of our brow," even though by the Divine ingenuity this will result in our ultimate redemption.
To reinforce the notion that his power is not some special gift or talent he has, but is simply the way things will be, Jesus then names his twelve emissaries, whom he sends to announce the Kingdom, and they, to their joy, find that they too can cure people and drive away demons.
John, now in prison, also tries to bring his own students to recognize who Jesus is, and sends a delegation, and Jesus replies as to what is happening to the blind, the lame, lepers, and the poor, recalling Isaiah's prophesy that Luke has him quote at the beginning of his ministry.
But Jesus was finding himself rejected already in such cities as Chorazin and Bethsaida, in spite of what he had done in them; and he pronounces their doom.
And now when people ask him for evidence (as if he hadn't given it!) to prove that he was the Prince, he makes the ominous statement that the only evidence they will be given is that of Jonah, who was in the whale's belly three days. Mark reports Jesus as saying no evidence will be given, which doubtless Jesus said on one occasion. The Jonah addition in Luke and Matthew might well have come either from some other time, or more likely from some explanation of this to his students.
I suspect that somewhere around this time occurred the Bread of Life speech John reports, where not only the leaders but the ordinary people were alienated from what Jesus was trying to tell them; and so he now seems to resort to ingenuity to fulfill his mission, having seen that open proclamation of who he was and what he was about was closing people's minds rather than opening them. His problem at this point is twofold: (a) the Kingdom must be revealed, so that the people will have been told about it when they finally make their choice, and cannot plead that they were uninformed about what Jesus meant; and (b) somehow, the reluctant Judean leaders must be forced by the people into accepting Jesus.
As events worked out, we can see how Jesus carried this out. The revelation of the Kingdom now took the form of analogies and stories; and by them and by the cures and so on, Jesus gathered a large enough following that, when he chose the Passover to enter Jerusalem on the prophesied donkey, a large enough mass of the people would be on his side in the center of Judaism that the leaders would not dare do anything except acknowledge him as King. The plan was foiled, of course, by Judas, who made the Judeans able to capture Jesus secretly and hold a trial before the people got wind of what happened.
At any rate, it is at this point that Jesus begins speaking in analogies and stories; and the reason is so that people will hear about the Kingdom but not be able to understand it. Why is this? The obvious answer is that then they would not be culpable in their rejection of Jesus. But the thesis sheds, as I said, a different light on this. Jesus must tell the people what the Kingdom will be like, because that is his mission. But if he does so, then in spite of the fact that some will accept it and turn to him, the people as a whole will reject him out of hand, irrespective of the confirming evidence that God was with him (they were beginning to do so already)--and they would do this before even the message could be delivered in its fullness.
Hence, Jesus tells the message in stories and analogies, or in other words in enigmas, so that the people will be told, but will be able still to accept him as King without the bald understanding of what this entailed; and in that way, Jesus could, as it were, trick the people into allowing him to bring about the transformation of the world. It is not that he was lying to them; he was simply presenting the truth in such a way that (a) it was there to be understood by "one who had ears to hear," but (b) it was not such as to inflame passions against him. Those who would reject him could now dismiss him as a riddler.
But this, of course, means that the analogies tell us what the kingdom would have been like if Jesus were accepted. This is not to say that the analogies have only this sense; they apply both to the physical and the spiritual Kingdoms. That is, they are equally applicable to the Kingdom if Jesus is accepted or rejected, but their sense is different in each case. I am only giving the sense that applies to the physical Kingdom, because commentators for centuries have teased out the sense that applies to the Kingdom that actually occurred, which is the spiritual one.
From the analogy of the farmer, we note that the good news has various ways in can be accepted. Presumably, then, even in the physical Kingdom, there would be people who would for various reasons choose not to become members; and also those who did become members would not all be equal, because the seeds reproduce at different yields.
The analogy of the seed that grows secretly shows that this is not something done by the person who enters the Kingdom, but is God's work, independently of any effort on his part.
The mustard seed shows that the Kingdom will spread through the world, even though it seems to have insignificant beginnings; and the leaven illustrates more or less the same thing.
The analogy of the weeds among the wheat is interesting. When applied to the physical Kingdom, it apparently indicates that there will be sinners there, up until the completion of time, when they will be collected and thrown out.
First of all, when is this "completion of time" (syntelei tou aionos lit. "completion of the age")? Presumably, it is the same as the completion of time is now, and I speculate that this occurs at the time Revelation indicates when the impatient martyrs are told to wait "for the complete tally of their fellow-slaves and brothers who were to be killed as they were." That is, it is possible that the Kingdom is supposed to have a certain number of members in it;(1) and when this number is reached, no new development will occur, and there will simply be eternal fulfillment for those who have chosen to accept membership (or in the present order, being rescued from their sins). In the physical Kingdom, there would be no suffering for the members (except perhaps those who sinned after they entered), but there would be an increase in numbers up to the final tally, and then the sinners would be expelled. Presumably, there would be no cataclysm heralding the transformation of the world if the physical Kingdom was actually founded. This point is again made in the analogy of the net that catches all kinds of fish, which are separated in the last day.
The analogies of the hidden treasure and the pearl, of course, simply say that the Kingdom is the most valuable thing that any person could desire, worth giving everything else up for.
The next thing that is significant for our purposes is that of the Syrophoenician woman, who begs to have Jesus cast a demon from her daughter; and Jesus refuses, with the harsh-sounding phrase, "It is not right to take the children's food and give it to dogs," and she makes the clever response about the dogs' eating what falls under the table, at which Jesus yields to her request.
We tend to think that Jesus' cures were exercises in compassion; and certainly this one and that of the centurion were. But this incident shows that Jesus (who no doubt was also compassionate) was curing the Jews for a different reason; he was giving them the "children's food." The thesis makes sense of this. The cures of the Jews were the inauguration of the Kingdom, the way things were normally to be when Jesus was accepted as King. The cure of non-Jews was an act (a) of supererogation on Jesus' part, and (b) one which would tend to undermine what he was doing to the Jews, because it would look (as it has for millennia) as if he simply was using his power out of pity for the afflicted.
When the Pharisees ask Jesus for a sign from heaven, he reprimands them by saying that they already know how to read the signs of the weather in the sky; and therefore, they should know how to read the signs in what he is doing.
Then, on the road to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus reaches the turning-point in his preaching about the Kingdom; he asks who people think he is, and the answer is that most people do not consider him the prophesied Prince of the new Kingdom, but a prophet like John or Elijah. He then asks his students who they think he is and Peter blurts out, "The Prince," with Matthew adding "The Son of the Living God," whereupon Jesus says, "Good for you, Simon Bar-Jonah! Flesh and blood hasn't revealed this to you; it was my Father in heaven!" And Jesus names him, in essence, Prime Minister.
But at this point, Jesus begins to tell the students that he is going to be crucified; because he knows that he has not been able to convince a critical mass in those who have heard him, and the Bread of Life speech (which none of the Synoptics record, of course, but which, as I said, probably started the preaching by analogy) has alienated many who before were willing to listen. And therefore, anyone who comes after Jesus will not simply enter the physical Kingdom, but will have to give up his life, and do what his followers now do, uniting themselves to Jesus in his suffering, and only later rising with him in glory.
He softens the blow of this by the transfiguration, in which he is seen with Moses and Elijah, who, as Luke reports, were talking to him "about his departure" (te exodou autou). What were they saying? Discussing ways in which it could be avoided?
After this, Jesus points out that important positions are nothing in the Kingdom, because presumably there will be no power that one person can exercise over another; we will all be like children; able to interact, but not able to dominate. In the spiritual Kingdom, of course, this childlike attitude of receiving and not being in control enables us to unite ourselves with the obedient, crucified Servant; but in the physical Kingdom, it would be literally the status of everyone, and the rulers would be at the service of their constituents, without having any power over them.
The Kingdom, apparently, will be able to recover those who have sinned and left; the analogies of the lost coin and especially of the lost sheep seem to imply this. That is, in terms of the physical Kingdom, the lost sheep would not refer to those who have not yet entered (since those do not belong to the flock yet), but a sheep which belongs to the flock and then strays.
The command of Jesus to forgive "seventy times seven times" and the analogy of the unforgiving servant, when looked at in terms of the physical Kingdom, imply that all of us will be given the enormous treasure which none of us deserves of being freed from sin, suffering, and death; and since presumably none of us can do any damage to others in the Kingdom, the notion that we are "owed" by others, or that we have a right to "make people pay" for the damage they have done to us, is incompatible with that form of life.
Jesus now extends his commission to seventy students, probably for two reasons: (1) to reinforce the notion that this is not just some special power that Jesus has, but is the condition of the Kingdom itself, and (2) to see if this greater dissemination of the good news can head off the opposition that is becoming increasingly harsh. At their triumphant return, after conquering demons, Jesus says that he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. There is still a possibility for success, apparently. Jesus remarks, "It is a wonderful thing for your eyes to be able to see what you are seeing. In fact, there are many prophets and kings who longed to see what you are seeing, and did not see it, and to hear what you are hearing, though they did not hear it."
In the story of the good Samaritan, the fact instructive for our view of the physical Kingdom is that it was not to be confined to Jews, but even to those they despised.(2)
The analogies of the importunate friend at midnight, the corrupt judge, and Jesus' statement about asking and knocking indicates, perhaps, for the physical Kingdom that persistent prayer on the part of the students might bring it off.
Jesus now denounces the Pharisees and Scripture scholars, essentially for being so wedded to their interpretation of Scripture that they couldn't see what was happening before their own eyes; the fact that some of the traditions were being broken, though they were of no consequence, blinded them to what these traditions pointed toward.
The story of the rich fool who stored everything in his barns, of course, indicates that those who think they can make their way without entering the Kingdom (because they have great possessions) are deluded. Hence, we should not be concerned about what to wear and eat and so on; in fact, in the Kingdom, we won't have to eat at all if we don't want to.
The analogy of the watchful servants suggests that the actual inauguration of the Kingdom would be rather abrupt. Perhaps Jesus was preparing the students for Palm Sunday, which was "make or break" time, given the opposition of the leaders. If Jesus could bring the people with him during this religious festival, then they could perhaps override the Pharisees and Scripture scholars, and the Kingdom would be a fait accompli before anyone could do anything to prevent it.
The analogy of the barren fig tree in Luke indicates that it is possible for even the Judean authorities to wake up to the facts, provided enough cultivation is given them.
The analogy of the wedding banquet shows again that the Kingdom, though originally for Jews, is open to anyone. It also, of course, says that not everyone who is invited will attend, and not even all those who become members will be properly disposed, and will be removed from the Kingdom.(3)
The warning that you must "hate your own father" and relatives would mean that you might have to become a member over the opposition of those you love most; and the only real choice is the Kingdom rather than relatives. Many who have joined monasteries have put this into practice in the spiritual Kingdom; but it would have been that much more tragic in the physical one, watching those one loves die because they would not enter.
The analogy of the prodigal son shows that a virtuous life is not a condition for entrance into the Kingdom; nor is atonement for the past necessary. The father simply welcomes the son, completely ignoring what he has done. This lesson is reinforced by what happens with the brother (who, notice, is not excluded from the household even though he is envious). The story also seems to indicate that one can leave the Kingdom and then return after coming to one's senses. The gates would always be open for travel in both directions.
The analogy of the corrupt manager of the estate seems to show that if a rich person is clever with his resources, he can use them to get into the Kingdom. It seems to counteract the warning that it is harder to enter the Kingdom for a rich man than for a camel to pass through a needle's eye; here Jesus seems to be saying that there is a way you can use money to "buy your way in," as it were.
If this is taken in conjunction with what Jesus says to the rich young man, then the way you do it, apparently, is by giving it away to the poor; they are the "friends" you make for yourselves with filthy lucre.
The analogy of the rich man and Lazarus warns people that you can't count on living the kind of life you now live once the Kingdom is inaugurated. It also contains the warning that looking for proof is futile; because even if someone comes back to life from death, people won't listen to him. It is, of course, significant that the poor man here is named Lazarus (the only time there is a name to any character in the stories), and Lazarus was the one who, according to John, did in fact come back to life (and whose return did not convince the skeptics). When people ask Jesus when the Kingdom will be inaugurated, he says that there won't be the usual outward signs of it; it is already here. This seems to mean that as Jesus was gradually accepted, people would find that they did not get sick and they just kept living; and only after a while would it be evident that the world had been transformed.
Still, there are other indications that it will be obvious when Jesus assumes his power. "The eagles will gather where the body is."
The analogy of the corrupt judge is interesting, not only as indicating that persistent prayer might bring about the Kingdom, but for its last statement. "Still, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" We think of this as the Last Day; but it could just as easily refer to Palm Sunday--and the answer was that he did not find faith on earth.
The analogy of the workers in the vineyard is another indication that the rewards of the Kingdom will not be based on how hard we have worked to get them; we are all going to be invited in, and living in the Kingdom is our reward. And if God chooses to ignore the greater mess that people other than I have made of their lives, who am I to complain?
The analogy of the talents, of course, doesn't deal with life in the Kingdom, but what to do with the good news about it. This is given to each to be spread to others; and it is based on this whether we gain entrance ourselves.
The entry to Jerusalem is the first step toward Jesus' actual acceptance as King; it was, I think, intended so to cow the Judean leaders into accepting Jesus because of the enthusiasm of so many people. The flaw in the plan, however, as John points out, was that they were as afraid of what Rome would do as what the people would do during the festival. Jesus knows this, and weeps over Jerusalem. I suppose the cursing of the barren fig-tree is a symbolic act by which Jesus recognizes that he will not in fact be accepted.
In sparring with the Judean leaders, Jesus does say something revealing about the Kingdom. His answer to the question of the wife who had seven husbands seems to say that in the Kingdom, where people will not die, they will not have sexual needs either. Presumably, we would be able to be with others; but the exclusivity of marriage would be a thing of the past.
Beyond this, what Jesus is doing at this time is warning people not to reject him. The analogy of the evil tenant-farmers shows this. Even the prediction of the end of things, which mixes up the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of time, deals, it would seem, with the real world, preparing the students for the horrors that are to come because of the rejection of Jesus.
There are, then, quite a number of hints from the Synoptic accounts of Jesus' sayings and actions as to what life in the physical Kingdom would have been like. All of them are ambiguous, as I have stressed, and are open to a spiritual interpretation if Jesus is rejected. And these are consistent with what we saw from John.
So it would seem that, if Jesus had been made King, those who chose to do so would have bathed themselves "in the Holy Spirit" and in water, and would have joined the new King, feasting as we now do on his body and blood, but with no hunger, thirst, sexual desire, or sickness; and we would never die. We could sin and leave the Kingdom, but not damage anyone in it without that person's consent; but even if we did leave, we could still reenter if we saw the folly of our ways.
Before repining at what we have lost, consider that in the Synoptics, at least, there is no mention of identity with Jesus and living the life of God himself; and, in fact, apart from the Bread of Life speech, Jesus does not give any indication of this in John's report until the Last Supper, after Judas had left and set the passion events into motion. And even in the Bread of Life speech, one who eats will "live through me," and not, as in the Last Supper, live in me "as I live in the Father and the Father lives in me."
So it is quite possible that in the physical Kingdom, God would be with us in the flesh and walk and talk with us, as he did during Jesus' public life; but the identity with him, and the ability to think the Divine Thought--the Beatific Vision--was not something that was to be part of it.
Thus, the rejection of Jesus brought us, along with the agonies so many of the best of us suffer in this world, the undreamed-of gift of actually being God Almighty; and this self we have created for ourselves by our choices is not only itself, but a cell in that body which is Jesus, so that it both lives its own natural life (as a skin cell in my body does), but also, and foremost, lives the divine life, just as Jesus does. So once again, we have a "happy fault"; just as Adam's lapse brought us Jesus, so our rejection brought us into, not unity with, but identity with him. And even the Kingdom will occur; but now only after the end of human development.
So I think it can be said that the suffering that the world has undergone can make sense--and even, perhaps, more sense than if Jesus had been accepted and the physical Kingdom established.
I should point out in this connection that, given the fact that we are cells in one body, one person's suffering, when offered in behalf of others, might make it possible for the other to achieve a goal that he would not be able to achieve by himself. That is, it might well be the case that in the economy of the present order, where the pathway toward one's goal that does not lead through suffering simply does not exist, that in a given case, the pathway toward a goal would entail so much suffering that the person would reject the goal, or might even choose a self-contradictory goal and be lost. But the suffering of another, offered for him, might open up a pathway of lesser pain that he can choose, just as one part of a body does things to heal other parts.
If that is the case, then suffering is, as has been taught for centuries, not only something that we endure because of the Fall and the rejection of Jesus, but a positive tool to enable others to achieve goals they otherwise wouldn't achieve.
It is only in this spirit that the "self-sacrifice" that Ayn Rand rails so much against not only makes sense but is ennobling. Knowing that ultimately I am going to achieve my goal--and so my suffering here is not actually doing damage to my true self--I can accept this temporary suffering to enable others not to lose courage and to choose goals that they otherwise wouldn't choose for fear of the formidable difficulties in their way. So the self is not destroying itself for the sake of the other, but taking on itself temporarily more of the penalty of our perverseness so that weaker souls can prosper beyond their unaided powers.
And this, of course, is what Jesus did in the crucifixion: enabled us to achieve a goal that was absolutely impossible for us by ourselves; and so the sufferer who offers his suffering for others is uniting himself to Jesus crucified, and is applying the redemptive suffering of Jesus to others in the world.
What this study adds to this is that it was not the per se intention of God, nor of Jesus, that things be this way, but rather it was God's will per accidens, because of the choice of mankind to reject him twice. So Jesus is not the "supreme altruist," who somehow brings about happiness by his own suffering; he is the supremely clever manipulator, as it were, who turns the tables on perversity by using it for the happiness of others. Jesus did not seek his own crucifixion; it was brought upon him against his desire by the free choices of others--even though he freely accepted it, if this was the will of the people.
Thus, people like Nietzsche and Ayn Rand blame Jesus needlessly. Their blame is perhaps well placed on the usual interpretation of what the crucifixion was all about; I think a case could be made that it would be self-contradictory of a loving God to create a world like ours where the nature of things is such that pain and suffering exists in it. And a "plan of salvation" whose purpose is to rid the world of suffering through an acceptance of suffering is also a contradiction.
But suffering as a punishment, and as something temporary that in the last analysis makes no difference (and is necessary--because of the punishment--for achieving one's freely chosen goals), makes it possible to see the horrors of this world in a light that does not explain them away, but still allows them to fit into a rational scheme of things.
I think I still would have preferred the physical Kingdom, even if it meant the loss of the unimaginable gift of identity with God. For that matter, I would have preferred the world in which there had not been a Fall in the first place. But I can accept the world I live in, in spite of the fact that at times I must cringe when I see the dismaying images that daily bombard us on television. In one sense, we are greater because we are in the world of suffering and pain, because we are not only called, but are children of God; and what we will be cannot even be imagined.
Notes
1. Certainly not merely 144,000, which is a symbolic number meaning the square of 12--heaven on earth--and the cube of 10=5x2, or persecution-martyrdom.
2. Times have changed so little. The Samaritans were the ancestors of the Palestinians, and they and the Jews had the same attitude toward each other (for almost the same reasons) as the present-day Jews and Palestinians.
3. If this interpretation of this and other analogies is correct, it seems to argue against those who think that, once one has accepted Jesus as savior, there is no possibility of not being saved. There are several instances where Jesus implies that expulsion from the Kingdom will occur; and this presumably would apply both to the physical and spiritual Kingdoms.
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