at it in relation to the love of God--a view of it
which gives it another character altogether. Nor has John any great
conception of forgiveness--a man, he thinks, may win it by "fruits
worthy of repentance" (Luke 3:8). Here again Paul is the pioneer in
the universal Christian experience that fruits of repentance can
never buy God's forgiveness. That is God's gift. That forgiveness
may cost a man much--an amended life, the practices of prayer and
fasting and almsgiving--John conceives; but we are not led to think
that he thought of what it might cost God. John has no evangel, no
really good news, with gladness and singing in it (1 Peter 1:8).

When we return to the teaching of Jesus, we find that he draws a
clear and sharp line between right and wrong. He indicates that
right is right to the end of all creation, and wrong is wrong up to
the very Judgement Throne of God (Matt. 25). He views these things,
as the old phrase puts it, "sub specie aeternitatis", from the
outlook of eternity. Right and wrong do not meet at infinity. There
is no higher synthesis that can make them one and the same thing.
Everything with Jesus is Theocentric, and until God changes there
will be no very great change in right and wrong. Partly because he
uses the language of his day, partly because he thinks as a rule in
pictures, his language is apt to be misconstrued by moderns. But the
central ideas are clear enough. "How are you to escape the judgement
of Gehenna?" he asks the Pharisees (Matt. 23:33; the subjunctive
mood is worth study). It is not a threat, but a question. There
yawns the chasm; with your driving, how do you think you can avoid
disaster? He warns men of a doom where the worm dies not and the
fire is not quenched; a man will do well to sacrifice hand, foot or
eye, to save the rest of himself from that (Mark 9:43-48). But a
more striking picture, though commonly less noticed, he draws or
suggests in talk at the last supper. "Simon, Simon, behold Satan
asked for you to sift you as wheat, but I prayed for thee, that thy
faith fail not; and thou, when thou comest back, strengthen thy
brethren" (Luke 22:31, 32). The scene suggested is not unlike that
at the beginning of the Book of Job, or that in the Book of
Zechariah (chap. 3). There is the throne of God, and into that
Presence pushes Satan with a demand--the verb in the Greek is a
strong one, though not so strong as the Revised Version suggests.
Satan "made a push to have you."