ule of the Assyrians, Persians, and finally the Romans, its freedom and
chance for political action were lost, and its political ideals, too,
deteriorated. The Kingdom hope became theological, artificial, a scheme of
epochs of predetermined length and of marvelous stage settings. Yet, even
in this form, it was a splendid hope of emancipation, of national
greatness, and of future justice and fraternity, and it helped to keep the
nation's soul alive amid crushing sorrows.

The people at the time of Jesus in the main held this apocalyptic
conception of the Kingdom. It was to come as a divine catastrophe,
beginning with an act of judgment and resulting in a glorious Jewish
imperialism. Jesus shared the substance of the expectation, but as a true
spiritual leader he reconstructed, clarified, and elevated the hope of the
masses. He would have nothing to do with any plans involving blood-shed
and force revolution. The Hebrew Jehovah became "our Father in heaven" and
this democratized the Reign of Jehovah. The pious Jew expected God to
enforce the ceremonial laws; Jesus had little to say about religious
ceremonial, and a great deal about righteousness and love. Under his hands
the Jewish imperialistic dream changed into a call for universal human
fraternity. He repeatedly and emphatically explained the coming of the
Kingdom in terms taken from biological growth, and his thoughts seem to
have verged away from the popular catastrophic ideas toward ideas of
organic development. These changes--if we have correctly interpreted
them--represent Jesus' own contribution to the history of the Kingdom
ideal, and they are all in the same direction in which the modern mind has
moved. (For a fuller statement of these modifications see Rauschenbusch,
"Christianizing the Social Order," p. 48-68.)

II

So much by way of historical information. Now let us emphasize again that
this social ideal seemed to Jesus so fair and fine that he gave his whole
soul to it. Naturally he would. Since he loved men and believed in their
solidarity, the conception of a God-filled humanity living in a righteous
social order, which would give free play to love and would bind all in
close ties, would be the only satisfying outlook for him. He promised that
all who hungered and thirsted after righteousness would be satisfied in
the Kingdom, and he was himself the chief of these. The Kingdom of God was
his fatherland, in which his spirit lived with God; and with