II

But in order to understand the mercy of the Father, one must also understand His judgment, His majesty and holiness, His power. The Kingdom of God, insofar as it is identical with eternal "life," which is communicated as an inner spiritual principle already "in this world," can be regarded as "immanent" to man, as a moral force: the kingdom of God is within us. But at the same time, and above all, it is "transcendental" – externally to the world and opposite to it. It is not the result of man's cultural or ethical activity, nor is it a human kingdom: it is presented as a divine order which is realized and brought about solely by the action of the almighty power of God. Whether modern moralists like it or not, this is the indubitable teaching of Christ; And in order to understand this teaching, even if purely historically, it is necessary to bear in mind both sides of it – moral and eschatological, which are inseparably connected. Likewise

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to the Hebrew prophets, Jesus preaches judgment and salvation, combining both in the gospel of the kingdom, and he understands not only salvation but also judgment more deeply than those who preceded him. The awareness of the boundless power and majesty of God, of the immeasurable superiority and power of the Creator over creation, which filled the prophets of the Old Testament, fills Him to an even greater extent and finds new content in His preaching. This consciousness is often overlooked by those moralists who see in the gospel only morality, whether rational or sentimental, the morality of love without judgment and without force.

All the greatness of filial love and freedom, all the significance of the peace and salvation revealed by Christ, is lost in our eyes if we do not realize His concept of the omnipotence and holiness of the Father. "The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom" is not only in the Old Testament, and if "perfect love casts out fear," then one must understand the meaning of this "fear" in order to understand the perfection of love. Therefore, in connection with the doctrine of the kingdom, we must consider here the doctrine of the holiness of God, of His opposition to the world, and of His judgment over the world.

We have already said that the Jews of Christ's time are often reproached, without sufficient grounds, for the "transcendence" of their concept of God, which was combined with the concept of His "holiness." Of course, Christ understood most deeply the immanent attitude to the world on the part of that omniscient and omnipotent God, without Whose will a hair cannot fall from the head of man. But on the other hand, He had a deeper understanding of His transcendence, His holiness, His opposition to the world. And if in the Gospel of John the inner side of the doctrine of the kingdom, the immanent relationship of God to man in the fullness of perfect love, is most strongly and vividly revealed, then in it the antithesis is most sharply carried out

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between God and the world. But even apart from the fourth Gospel, the Synoptics themselves reveal Christ's teaching about the holiness of the Father and His transcendence in all its fullness, especially in comparison with the teaching of the Pharisees and scribes.

"Hallowed be Thy name" is the first of the petitions of the Lord's Prayer. The Pharisees honored this "holy name" and tried to evade it in their oaths; to Christ, every oath is ungodly. The Pharisees revered the temple, but allowed a market in it, the very sight of which was an insult to the shrine to Jesus. The Pharisees honored the sanctity of marriage, condemned adultery, but allowed divorce; He condemned lust and saw divorce as a violation of the sanctity of marriage. The Pharisees observed ritual purity in the name of the ideal of Levitical holiness; Christ, in the name of the same ideal – "Be ye holy, for I, Yahweh your God, am holy" – condemned inner impurity, impurity of heart and thought. Here was not a contradiction with the "law of holiness," but, on the contrary, the most intense affirmation of the holiness of God in its separation from all worldly things. From this follows all those demands of Christ which terrified the apostles themselves as immeasurable – His demands for renunciation of the world, enmity to the world and all worldly bonds. The beginning of this enmity is in the very holiness of God; and if contemporaries thought that the Messiah brought peace with him, then Jesus says that He brought the sword and division.

The same opposition between God and the world, the kingdom of God and every worldly human kingdom built on enslavement and violence (Mark 10:42), is also expressed in the apocalyptic teaching of Christ in comparison with other apocalypses of that time. The national-political element is banished altogether, and the enemy of the "kingdom" is not the Roman Caesar, not the Roman Empire or any other power, but the "prince of this world," that satanic principle, that spirit of evil which lies at the foundation of the world's enmity with God and opposes the human to the Divine. External domination over the world is acquired by compromise with it, by subordination or worship to what the world serves; To that extent the commandment: "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve" contains not only the condemnation of the service of mammon or lust for power, but also the condemnation of those

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