t was that men were uncertain about God. God was
unintelligible. They did not understand his ideas, either for the
nation or for the individual; God's plans miscarried with such
fatality. Or if he had some deeper design, it was still all
guesswork. It seemed likely, or at least right, that he should
achieve somehow the final damnation of the Gentiles--the Romans, and
the rest of us--but nothing was very clear. In the meantime, if God
was going to damn the Gentiles in the next world, why should not the
Jews do it in this? Human nature has only too ready an answer for
such a question--as we can read in too many dark pages of history,
in the stories of wars and religious persecutions.

The uncertainty about God in Judaism reacted on life and made it
hard.

Even the virtues of men were difficult; they were apt to be
nerveless and uncertain, because their aim was uncertain, and they
wanted inspiration. Of course there are always kindly hearts; but a
man will never put forth quite his best for an uncertainty. There
was a want of centre about their virtues, a want of faith, and as a
result they were too largely self-directed.[19]

A man was virtuous in order to secure himself in case God should be
awkward. There was no sufficient relation between man and God. God
was judge, no doubt; but his character could be known from his
attitude to the Gentiles. Could a man count on God and how far?
Could he rely on God supporting him, on God wishing to have him in
this world and the next? No, not with any certainty. It comes to a
fundamental unbelief in God, resting, as Jesus saw, on an essential
misconception of God's nature; and this resulted in the spoiling of
life. Men did not use God. "Where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also," Jesus said (Luke 12:34); and it was not in God.
Men's interest and belief were elsewhere.

Now the first thing that Jesus had to do, as a teacher, was to
induce men to rethink God. Men, he saw, do not want precepts; they
do not want ethics, morals or rules; what they do need is to rethink
God, to rediscover him, to re-explore him, to live on the basis of
relation with God. There is one striking difference between
Christianity and the other religions, in that the others start with
the idea that God is known. Christians do not so start. We are still
exploring God on the lines of Jesus Christ--rethinking God all the
time, finding him out. That is what Jesus meant us to do. If Jesus
had merely