THE THEOCRATIC KINGDOM*
By
GEORGE N. H. PETERS
[* PROPOSITION 39, VOLUME ONE (pp. 256-259.)]
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[Page 256]
PROPOSITION 39. John the Baptist was not ignorant
of the Kingdom that he preached.
The prevailing view, indorsed by a
multitude of eminent theologians, is that John was ignorant of, i.e., did not understand the nature of the Kingdom he proclaimed. Numerous
works proceed to tell us how “low” and “carnal”
John’s ideas were, without perceiving the fatal flaw introduced; without realising that they are actually sapping the very
foundations of inspiration, and giving to infidelity, its strongest weapons
against the divine origin of Christianity.
The ablest writers, under the
preconceived view that a subsequent change was substituted
in the idea of the Kingdom, do gross injustice to John the Baptist. Thus e.g. Ebrard (Gospel History, p. 283) makes John
totally ignorant of the Kingdom and of “the formation
of a compact ‘Kingdom of Christ’” - and “he received no revelation
from God on this matter, but was left to his own conclusions,”
- also making John less “in insight” than any
member of the present church. A multitude of quotations, expressing the same
idea, could readily be gathered.
OBSERVATION 1. Any theory of the Kingdom which makes the first great preacher of the
Kingdom - a preacher specially prepared, sent, and inspired - ignorant of the leading
subject that he was delegated, specifically
commissioned to announce, is not only open to the gravest suspicion, but ought to be rejected as unworthy of God.
OBSERVATION 2. What was John’s conception of the Messiah’s Kingdom? Let
those, who consider John to be
mistaken inform us, and let the reader judge for himself whether it is not the very idea of the Kingdom
embraced in the grammatical sense of the prophets
(Proposition
21), an in a restored
So weak and insignificant is John’s preaching, so Jewish in
its nature and intent, in the estimation of many, that it is passed by without comment,
or even notice, in books where we naturally, from the subject discussed, seek
to find it, as illustrated, e.g. in Edwards’s
His. of Redemption. Books giving a
history of Christ, and including that of John the Baptist, are very careful not
to touch the preaching of the Kingdom, or to inform us what Kingdom he
proclaimed, but waive the whole matter by telling us, in general phrases, that
John endeavoured to prepare the people for the coming Messiah, as exemplified,
e.g. in Fleetwood’s Life of Christ.
Commentators, with lack of fairness and candour, pass by the
real facts (as they will he shown in following Propositions) of John’s
preaching of the Kingdom, and present such a modernised version of the
language, as if that accurately represented John’s belief, that they impose
upon the ignorant and unwary reader, as shown, e.g. in Barnes’s Notes on Matt.
3: 2.
Thus the Baptist suffers from neglect, from the slights of believers, and from
the inserting a meaning into his language that he never for a moment
entertained.
OBSERVATION 3. If John is specially called to preach this Kingdom, and yet labours under delusion,
gross error respecting its nature, we ask, Whom, then,
can we trust? Let the reader ponder these facts: that this John was consecrated to the ministerial office from the womb (Luke 1:
15); that for this purpose he was brought forth beyond the
ordinary course of nature (Luke 1: 18); that he was under such Divine
guidance as (Luke 1: 15), etc.) to be “filled with the Holy Ghost”; constituted “the prophet of the Highest”; “to give knowledge of
salvation”; and
(John. 1: 7) to
be “a witness of the
light”; - and then is it credible, even supposable, that such a Prophet and Witness, thus filled with the [Holy] Spirit, should grossly
blunder in declaring the leading
subject of his
preaching, the Kingdom of heaven? Yet such is the opinion of multitudes,
learned and unlearned, while infidels laugh and sneer at this practically
acknowledged lowering of a divinely
commissioned preacher of the Kingdom. Surely, if this is so, viz.,
that he misapprehended the Kingdom, then upon what does his
credibility as a prophet depend? If mistaken in the most vital part of his mission, why was he not in
error concerning the rest? Now, against all such dishonouring
theories, we take the ground, sustained both by Scripture and the Primitive
Church view, that he was not mistaken
in his preaching; that he knew full
well what Kingdom he was to tender to the Jewish nation, far
better than the multitude which denies its correctness; and that if such a
Kingdom, as he believed in and proclaimed, was not realised, we must allow the Scriptures themselves to assign the
reasons for such a delay. This, indeed, requires faith, but it is a
faith abundantly sustained by facts.
OBSERVATION 4. There is something inconsistent in Neander and others opposing the idea of the Kingdom embraced in the
preaching of John and the disciples, as being an imperfect conception of its nature, etc., and yet in their
development theory, when the world is renewed, they have, to all intents and
purposes, virtually the same notion expressed. Thus e.g. Neander: “The
fine, the end of this development appears to be (though not, indeed, simply as
its natural result) a complete realisation of the Divine Kingdom which Christ
established in its outward manifestation, fully [Page 258] answering to its idea; a perfect world dominion of Christ
and of His organs, a world purified and transformed, to become the seat of His universal Empire.”
Why, then, so strenuously reject and oppose John’s idea of the Kingdom, an
outward visible Kingdom, resulting in a world dominion, etc., if their own
attached notion, in place of it, is ultimately at its consummation to bring
this to pass?
OBSERVATION 5. The reader will find, in looking over authors, interpreters, etc., that
many of them, whilst having much to say about John’s preaching repentance,
omit, as a tender subject beset with difficulties, all allusions to his preaching the Kingdom, although repentance is only
described as a means for attaining to the Kingdom. The greater is sacrificed to the lesser, or else, with their
church-Kingdom theory, prejudging the case, and not knowing how to reconcile
John’s preaching with his special call, etc., they simply let it alone. But other expositors and writers approach the subject
frankly, and candidly tell us what were the views of John, confirming Neander’s opinion (Observation 2). Thus e.g. Meyer (Com. Matt. 3:
2) acknowledges that he did, in his idea of the Messianic Kingdom, embrace “the political element.” The author of Ecce Homo admits that he “meant that the
Theocracy was to be restored.” Reuss (His. Ch. Theol., p. 124) says: “After
all, John the Baptist was still a Jew; he looked for the
brilliant and august inauguration of the Kingdom which he had proclaimed with
so much fervour and devotedness,” etc.. i.e. a Jewish
Kingdom such as the grammatical sense of the prophecies conveyed. Such
testimonies could be multiplied, but these are
sufficient. Others refer to this matter in a half-apologetic tone, a lamely
explanatory manner, that only makes the defect the
more glaring. Thus e.g. Olshausen (Com. Matt. 2: 3) says: “If now we ask in what sense John the
Baptist may have understood the Kingdom, it is most probable that in his relation to the law, he conceived of
it with the generality and indeterminateness of the Old Testament, but without
incorporating with the idea anything false. We may concede a certain affinity between John’s notions of
the Messiah’s Kingdom and those that prevailed among the people.” This extract speaks for itself and
needs no comment, seeing that the “intermediateness”
is with Olshausen and not with John or the Old Testament. Van Oosterzee, (Theol. New Test., s. 7) while apparently
avoiding the main point (i.e. the Kingdom preached by John), refers to his
preaching in this way: “Nevertheless, compared with
the teaching of the Lord and His apostles, is the testimony of John the Baptist
relatively poor, and not essentially raised above the standpoint of the Old
Testament.” We gratefully
and heartily accept of the standpoint assigned to John, and will prove from the
Scripture (not assertion or assumption) that John’s testimony and conception
was the truth, confirmed by covenant and the oath of the Almighty, and therefore relatively and inexpressibly rich.
OBSERVATION 6. Those, of course, who assume that the weakest believer who
now attempts to preach the
As an illustration how recent Roman
Catholic writers treat the subject, ignoring its difficulties pertaining to their
Church-Kingdom view, we present the two following: Dr. Alzog (Unic. Ch. His.,
vol. 1, p. 147), speaking of John, says: “He, unlike
them (i.e. other prophets), did not put
off to an indefinite future the amelioration which he promised, but proclaimed
that the Kingdom of God was already
among men, and that the least in the Kingdom of heaven (i.e. the Church) was
greater than he.” Dr.
Rutter (Life of Jesus, p. 99), after telling us that John
said, “Do penance, for the Kingdom of heaven is at
hand,” pronounces the Kingdom to
be “that inward and spiritual reign which begins here
on earth by faith showing its charity and good works, and which will attain its
utmost completion in heaven by the perfection of charity; a reign which
consists in this, that Almighty God,
having, through Jesus Christ, destroyed the empire of the devil over the hearts
of men, sovereignly reigns there in this life by knowledge and love, and in the
next life by the sights of knowledge and enjoyment of the divine essence, which
constitutes our eternal happiness.” Compare Propositions 19, 20, 21, 22, 37, 41,
etc., and also 90
to 109,. The same view is held by a multitude of Protestants,
although such a Kingdom has no resemblance whatever to the covenanted and oath-bound
one.
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To be continued, D.V.