orded, that "they all forsook him, and fled" (Mark 14:50)? No
hint of dread that his work might indeed be undone? What pain must
that have involved? What is the value of the Agony in the Garden, of
the cry, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani" (Mark 15:34)? When we have
answered, each for himself, these questions, and others like them
that will suggest themselves--answered them by the most earnest
efforts of which our natures are capable--and remembered at the end
how far our natures fall short of his, and told ourselves that our
answers are insufficient--then let us recall, once more, that he
chose all this.

He chose the cross and all that it meant. Our next step should be to
study anew his own references to what he intends by it, to what he
expects to be its results and its outcome. First of all, then, he
clearly means that the Kingdom of Heaven is something different from
anything that man has yet seen. The Kingdom of Heaven is, I
understand, a Hebrew way of saying the Kingdom of God--very much as
men to-day speak of Providence, to avoid undue familiarity with the
term God, so the Jews would say Heaven. There were many who used the
phrase in one or other form; but it is always bad criticism to give
to the words of genius the value or the connotation they would have
in the lips of ordinary people. To a great mind words are charged
with a fullness of meaning that little people do not reach. The
attempt has been made to recapture more of his thoughts by learning
the value given to some of the terms he uses as they appear in the
literature of the day, and of course it has been helpful. But we
have to remember always that the words as used by him come with a
new volume of significance derived from his whole personality.
Everything turns on the connotation which he gives to the term
God--that is central and pivotal. What this new Kingdom of God is,
or will be, he does not attempt fully to explain or analyse. In the
parables, the treasure-finder and the pearl merchant achieve a great
enrichment of life; so much they know at once; but what do they do
with it? How do they look at it? What does it mean to them? He does
not tell us. We only see that they are moving on a new plane, seeing
life from a new angle, living in a fuller sense. What the new life
means in its fullness, we know only when we gain the deeper
knowledge of God.

He suggests that this new knowledge comes to a man from God
himself--flesh and blood do not reveal i