POSITIONS OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA

Sec. 1. _Introductory._

The Gospel presents itself as an Apocalyptic message on the soil of the
Old Testament, and as the fulfilment of the law and the prophets, and
yet is a new thing, the creation of a universal religion on the basis of
that of the Old Testament. It appeared when the time was fulfilled, that
is, it is not without a connection with the stage of religious and
spiritual development which was brought about by the intercourse of Jews
and Greeks, and was established in the Roman Empire; but still it is a
new religion because it cannot be separated from Jesus Christ. When the
traditional religion has become too narrow the new religion usually
appears as something of a very abstract nature; philosophy comes upon
the scene, and religion withdraws from social life and becomes a private
matter. But here an overpowering personality has appeared--the Son of
God. Word and deed coincide in that personality, and as it leads men
into a new communion with God, it unites them at the same time
inseparably with itself, enables them to act on the world as light and
leaven, and joins them together in a spiritual unity and an active
confederacy.

2. Jesus Christ brought no new doctrine, but he set forth in his own
person a holy life with God and before God, and gave himself in virtue
of this life to the service of his brethren in order to win them for the
Kingdom of God, that is, to lead them out of selfishness and the world
to God, out of the natural connections and contrasts to a union in love,
and prepare them for an eternal kingdom and an eternal life. But while
working for this Kingdom of God he did not withdraw from the religious
and political communion of his people, nor did he induce his disciples
to leave that communion. On the contrary, he described the Kingdom of
God as the fulfilment of the promises given to the nation, and himself
as the Messiah whom that nation expected. By doing so he secured for his
new message, and with it his own person, a place in the system of
religious ideas and hopes, which by means of the Old Testament were
then, in diverse forms, current in the Jewish nation. The origin of a
doctrine concerning the Messianic hope, in which the Messiah was no
longer an unknown being, but Jesus of Nazareth, along with the new
temper and disposition of believers was a direct result of the
impression made by the person of Jesus. The conception of the Old
Testament