The Parables of the Kingdom

[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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Now Paul says that through the death of Jesus God triumphed over principalities and powers (Col. ii. 15). We have seen that in apocalypse the final victory over "the kingdom of the enemy" is the coming of the Kingdom of God; and that in the Synoptic Gospels the exorcisms of Jesus are treated as signs of this victory and so of the coming of the Kingdom. Paul adds that His death also was a means of God's victory over the powers of evil. He says further that through the death of Jesus God manifested His righteousness (Rom. iii. 25), and condemned sin (Rom.. viii. 3). But the manifestation of the righteousness of God, and judgment upon sin, are essential elements in the idea of the Kingdom of God. Paul therefore understood that the death of Jesus fell within the Kingdom of God, as a part of the effective assertion of God's sovereign rule of the world.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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There was surely something in the original tradition upon which he could base such an interpretation, and in any case it does provide an explanation for the recorded fact that Jesus declared at once that the Kingdom of God had come, and that He Himself must die. If there is no parallel or anticipation of such an idea in the Jewish background of Christian thought, that is nothing against it. As we have seen, the declaration that the Kingdom of God has come, breaks up, in any case, the old eschatological scheme, and makes room for a new set of ideas. Further, the teaching of Jesus upon the character of God and His attitude to men―His unqualified benevolence and beneficence towards all His creatures, His unlimited forgiveness, His desire to seek and to save the lost―leads necessarily to a new view of what it means for God's righteousness to be manifested, and for sin to be condemned. Our attempt to determine the relationship between the coming of the Kingdom of God and the death of Jesus has led to the necessity for a theology according to which God's opposition to evil is shown in the suffering of its worst assaults, and the condemnation of sin is its self-exhibition as "exceeding sinful" in the presence of the revealed love of God. While formally the new and original element in the teaching of Jesus is that the Kingdom of God, long expected, has come, there is an even more profound originality in the new content given to the idea through His revelation of God Himself.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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Thus the course of events which outwardly is a series of disasters holds within it a revelation of the glory of God, for those who have insight. This is the "mystery of the Kingdom of God"; not only that the eschaton, that which belongs properly to the realm of the "wholly other," is now matter of actual experience, but that it is experienced in the paradoxical form of the suffering and death of God's representative. Behind or within the paradoxical turn of events lies that timeless reality which is the kingdom, the power and the glory of the blessed God.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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So far we have considered predictions which appear to refer to coming events within the historical order. We must now turn to other predictions to which it is difficult to give such a reference.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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First we must notice a group of sayings in "Q" which make use of the traditional eschatological conception of Doomsday (variously called "the Judgment," "the Day of Judgment," or "that Day"). In Mt. xi. 21-22 = Lk. x. 13-14 we read, "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the works of power which happened in you had happened in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes." So far the saying means no more than that the Phoenician cities, whose territory, contiguous with Galilee, Jesus visited, would have been a more responsive public for his work than His own cities; but the saying proceeds) "It will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the [day of] judgment than for you."

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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Again in Mt. x. 15 = Lk. x. 12, any city which does not respond to the appeal of the Twelve is condemned in the words, "It will be more tolerable for Sodom [and Gomorrah] on the day of judgment [or 'on that Day'] than for you." What is the implication of such sayings? The judgment of Judea, as we have seen, seems to be expressed in terms of the horrors of war and social upheaval; but it is impossible to suppose that Tyre and Sidon are promised an easier lot in that impending historical tribulation. They had nothing to fear from Rome. And as for Sodom and Gomorrah, their judgment, in an historical sense, had taken place ages before.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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Again, in Mt. xii. 41-47 = Lk. xi. 31-32, the men of Nineveh, contemporaries of the prophet Jonah, and the Queen of the South, a contemporary of Solomon, are to appear "in the judgment" as witnesses against the Jews who heard and ignored the preaching of Jesus.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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In such passages the idea of the Day of Judgment is to be taken literally and realistically, we are obliged to think of a Great Assize in which individuals long dead, and peoples long extinct, play their part. It is therefore outside the historical order. The intention at any rate of the sayings is clear. The Rabbis counted the men of Sodom among those who had notably "no part in the Life of the Age to Come." Jesus therefore says in effect to His hearers, "Even those whom you consider the most hopeless of sinners are less hopeless than those who refuse to hear the Gospel." Similarly in His reference to Tyre and Sidon He is echoing the prophetic words, "You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore upon you I will visit all your iniquities. ... Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel"? (Amos iii. 2, ix. 7); and the references to Nineveh and the Queen of Sheba are in the same spirit. There is no independent interest in the Day of Judgment as such, or in the fate of Gentiles in the judgment. The time-honored image of a Last Judgment is simply assumed, and used to give vividness and force to solemn warnings.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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There is another group of sayings in "Q" which speak of the Day of the Son of Man.* According to Mt. xxiv. 37-39 = Lk. xvii. 26-27, that Day will be like Noah's Deluge, coming suddenly and unexpectedly upon people thoughtlessly engaged in the ordinary occupations of life. According to Mt. xxiv. 27 = Lk. xvii. 24, it will be like a flash of lightning spanning the whole vault of heaven at once. According to Mk. xiii. 24-26, the sun and moon will cease to shine, the stars will fall from heaven, and all the celestial "powers"** will be shaken, and then "they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with much power and glory." But here this cosmic catastrophe will be preceded by a long series of signs. It is not sudden and unexpected, like Noah's flood. After all the events forecast in Mk. xiii. 14-25 it is safe to assume that people will no longer be eating and drinking, marrying and being married! The two accounts are inconsistent, and of the two we must certainly prefer that of "Q". Our two earliest sources however agree in representing the Day of the Son of Man as a supernatural event, of universal significance. "Q" emphasizes its difference from any historical event. Of any event in history one can say that it happens here or there. Of the day of the Son of Man one must not say "Lo, here!" or "Lo, there! because it is like a flash of lightning visible everywhere at once.***

*The expression "the Day of the Son of Man," corresponding closely to the O.T. expression, "the Day of Jehovah," is implied in Lk. xvii. 24, οὕτως ἔσται ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου [ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ αὐτοῦ], but the actual phrase does not appear in the Gospels. Luke has "the days of the Son of Man" (xvii. 26, and in a passage peculiar to him, xvii. 22). Matthew uses the stereotyped phrase, ἡ παρουσία τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, in various contexts. As the word παρουσία is is peculiar to him, we may reasonable doubt whether it occurred in the original tradition. It seems likely that the original term underlying the variety is "The Day of the Son of Man."
**The δυνάμεις are the discarnate intelligences supposed to inhabit and control the astral universe among the Jews identified with orders of angels. See my book, The Bible and the Greeks, pp. 16-19, 109-111.
***This is perhaps the place to consider a passage peculiar to Luke which has a certain similarity to the "Q" saying before us (Lk. xvii. 20-21); "The Kingdom of God does not come with observation" (i.e. it is not anything you can watch for, as astronomers watch for the conjunction of the heavenly bodies), "nor will they say, 'Lo, here, or there! For behold the Kingdom of God is ἐντὸς ὑμῶν―among you"? or "within you"? The former translation is nowadays almost universally preferred. But (i) ἐντός is properly a strengthened form of ἐν used where it is important to exclude any of the possible meanings of that preposition other than "inside." The only approximation to the meaning "among" which are cited (Xenophon, Anabasis, I, 10, 3, Hellenica, II 8, 19) are not, I think, clear exceptions to the rule. (ii) When Luke means "among", he says ἐν μέσῳ, an expression which occurs about a dozen times in the Third Gospel and the Acts. If he meant "among" here, why did he vary his usage? (iii) If appeal be made to an underlying Aramaic, the prepositions in that language meaning respectively "among" and "within" are distinct, and there is no reason why a competent translator would confuse them. (iv) "Among does not give a logical sense. A thing which is "among you" is localized in space, more or less. On the other hand you cannot say "Lo here, or there!" of that which is within, and the Kingdom of God is said not to be localized in space, because it is ἐντὸς ὑμῶν. This might be understood as the counterpoint of the "Q" saying discussed above: the Day of the Son of Man is not localized in space (or time) because it is instantaneous and ubiquitous; the Kingdom of God is not localized because it is "within you." In other words, the ultimate reality, though it is revealed in history, essentially belongs to the spiritual order, where the categories of space and time are not applicable. There is however another possible meaning. In the Harvard Theological Review, vol. xli, no. 1 (1948), C. H. Roberts argued persuasively on the basis of evidence from papyri and elsewhere, that ἐντὸς ὑμῶν means "in your hands," "within your power." That is, the Kingdom of God is not something for which you have to watch anxiously (οὐ μετὰ παρατηρήσεως), but is an available possibility here and now, for those who are willing to "receive it as a little child." There is, I think, more to be said for the substantial authenticity of the Lucan saying than is generally admitted. But as it is not one of the passages clearly belonging to the oldest tradition, I am not using it in this discussion.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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The purpose or consequence of the coming of the Son of Man is not clearly stated in our earliest sources. The First Gospel gives a short apocalypse (often miscalled the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats*), in which the traditional scene of the Last Judgment is depicted in vivid colors, with the Son of Man as judge. There is however no direct confirmation of this in our other sources.** In Mark xiii. 27, the Son of Man when He comes, "will send his angels and gather the elect from the four winds, from edge of heaven to edge of earth." In "Q" it appears from a comparison of Mt. xxiv. 37-40 with Lk. xvii. 23-35 that the saying about Noah's flood was followed, either immediately or at no long interval, by a double saying in parallelism, of which the second member is identical in the two Gospels, while the first has different forms:

Matthew

"Then there will be two men in the field; one is taken and the other left.
"There will be two women grinding at the mill; one is taken and the other left.

Luke

"On that night there will be two men in one bed; the one will be taken and the other will be left.
"There will be two women grinding together; the one will be taken and the other will be left.***

*Mt. xxv. 31-46. It does not conform to the parabolic type, but belongs to the same class as the judgment scenes in Enoch and other apocalypses. The only parabolic element in it is the simile of the shepherd separating the sheep and the goats, and this is a passing allusion; sheep and goats play no part in the main scene. The climax of the passage is to be found in the two sayings, xxv. 40, 45, which are parallel to Mt. x. 40-42, Mk. ix. 37. The judgment scene was probably composed to give a vivid setting to these settings.
**The same idea recurs in Mt. xvi. 27, but as we shall see, this is a Matthean rewriting of a passage in Mark, which itself is probably less original than a corresponding saying in "Q." In the more original forms of the saying the Son of Man (or Jesus) appears not as a judge, but as advocate.
***Inferior manuscripts of Luke add here the two men in a field; but this is no part of the original text of this Gospel. The Synoptic situation is as follows: Matthew gives the saying "one taken and the other left" directly after the saying about Noah's Flood. Luke interposes (a) a second example of sudden disaster, that of Sodom; (b) the saying "do not come down from the housetop"; (c) the warning example of Lot's wife; (d) the saying "He who seeks to save his soul shall lose it ... " Of these (d) is a floating saying, which crops up in several various contexts in all Gospels; (b) is given by Mark in the apocalyptic discourse, and as we have seen is best connected with the forecast of war.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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The purport of these words is difficult to determine. It is not even clear whether the one taken or the one left has the better lot. The saying has in common with the saying which precedes it the idea of a sudden event overtaking people engaged in the ordinary occupations of life. This sudden event, it is suggested, will make a sharp distinction between the fate of individuals who up to that moment were in close association. If the connection of the two sayings is original, this event will be the Day of the Son of Man, bringing a selective judgment on individuals; but in this case the judgment is not conceived as a Great Assize in a world beyond this, in which communities like Sodom and Tyre, Bethsaida and Chorazin, appear before the Judgment-seat. It is something which supervenes directly upon the everyday life of individuals. If however the two sayings had originally no connection (as is very possible, for even "Q" is admittedly a compilation of originally independent sayings), we should naturally take the saying "one taken and the other left" as a true parable and the question of its application would be an open one.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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Even more clearly parabolic is the other saying which Luke gives immediately after this one, and Matthew appends to the saying about the lightning flash: "Wherever the carcase is, there the vultures will gather."* The idea surely is that there are certain conjunctions of phenomena which are quite constant and inevitable, so that if one is observed, the other may be inferred; but which phenomena are in view we cannot say.

*Mt. xxiv. 28, Lk. xvii. 37. It has been suggested that the ἀετοί are Roman eagles, and that this is a forecast of the war. But though some eagles will eat carrion, the vulture is the bird which characteristically watches for the slain. ἀετός is here probably the vulture, as in some places in the LXX.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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We are left thus with only vague indications of the role which the Son of Man is expected to play "in His Day." It is not made clear that the Day of the Son of Man is identical with the Day of Judgment, though it is natural to suppose that it is; but that the Son of Man Himself is judge is not stated in our earliest sources, nor is the form which the judgment will take place made plain.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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The matter is complicated by the fact that Jesus is represented in the Gospels as using the title "The Son of Man" with reference to Himself. Whether in this they are true to historical fact is a question about which there is still unsettled controversy. It is certainly true that our Gospels show a tendency to insert the phrase "The Son of Man" into contexts when criticism shows that the original tradition made Jesus say "I," and it is argued that whether the expression is used with reference to Jesus Himself it is secondary. Further, it cannot be denied that in unquestionably genuine passages (such as those we have just noticed) Jesus is made to refer to "The Son of Man" without the least suggestion that He is speaking of Himself.

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[John Reece]

The Parables of the Kingdom

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On the other hand we must observe that in all our primary Gospel sources Jesus is identified with the Son of Man. That identification therefore at least belongs to an extremely early stage of the tradition. Moreover, the theory I have mentioned assumes that "The Son of Man" was at some stage a current designation for Jesus, and as such was interpreted into the records of His life and teaching. But we have no independent evidence of any such stage. There is only one passage in the N.T. outside the Gospels in which the expression is so used. In the Gospels themselves it is never used except in the mouth of Jesus. In contrast, we know that the titles "The Messiah" and "The Lord" were current in the Church; yet in the Gospels Jesus is only exceptionally represented as applying either to Himself. The terms most familiar in the Church are recognized as inappropriate in the mouth of Jesus; the term "The Son of Man" which is seldom used in referring to Jesus, is represented as His most characteristic self-designation. This can best be accounted for if He did in fact so describe Himself. If that was so, we can well understand that the growing tradition tended to introduce the term "The Son of Man" into sayings which did not originally contain it. If not, it is difficult to understand why it should have appeared so frequently in saying of Jesus, without penetrating into the narrative. To apply the term "The Son of Man," with its "apocalyptic" and "eschatological" associations, to a living man, is no doubt a paradox; but it is also a paradox to say that the Kingdom of God, itself an "eschatological" fact, has come in history.

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