d
morality.

(_a_) It must, however, be freely admitted that our Lord frequently
employs the sanctions both of rewards and penalties. In the time of
Christ the idea of reward, so prominent in the Old Testament, still held
an important place in Jewish religion, being specially connected with the
Messianic Hope and the coming of the kingdom. It was not unnatural,
therefore, that Jesus, trained in Hebrew religious modes of thought and
expression, should frequently employ the existing conceptions as vehicles
of His own teaching; but, at the same time, purifying them of their more
materialistic associations and giving to them a richer spiritual content.
While the kingdom of God is spoken of as a gift, and promised, indeed, as
a reward, the word 'reward' in this connection is not used in the
ordinary sense, but 'is rather conceived as belonging to the same order
of spiritual experience as the state of heart and mind which ensures its
bestowal.'[20] Though Jesus does not {160} hesitate to point His
disciples to the blessings of heaven which they will receive in the
future, these are represented for the most part not as material benefits,
but as the intensification and enrichment of life itself.[21]

It was usually the difficulties rather than the advantages of
discipleship upon which Jesus first laid stress. He would not that any
one should come to Him on false pretences, or without fully counting the
cost.[22] Even when He Himself called His original disciples, it was of
service and not of recompense He spoke. 'Follow Me, and I will make you
fishers of men.'[23] The privilege consisted not in outward eclat, but
in the participation of the Master's own purpose and work. Still, all
service carries with it its own reward, and no one can share the mission
of Christ without also partaking of that satisfaction and joy which are
inseparable from the highest forms of spiritual ministry.[24]

There is, however, one passage recorded by all the Synoptists which seems
at first sight to point more definitely to a reward of a distinctly
material character, and to one that was to be enjoyed not merely in the
future, but even in this present life. When Peter somewhat boastfully
spoke of the sacrifice which he and his brethren had made for the
Gospel's sake, and asked, 'What shall we have therefor?' Jesus replied,
'Verily, I say unto you, that no man that hath left home, or brethren, or
sisters, or mother, or father, or children, o