or entirely satisfactory. It is, however, at
least clear that in his answer to the young man who asked Jesus what he
should do,[14] eternal life is treated as synonymous with the Kingdom
of God. The young man asked what was necessary to inherit eternal
life, and when Jesus told him that he should observe the commandments,
sell all that he had and give to the poor, he was grieved. Jesus then
said, "How hardly will those that have riches enter into the Kingdom of
God." Obviously eternal life and the Kingdom of God are here
identical, and there is no doubt that the Jews expected eternal life in
the Age to Come, not in the Days of the Messiah. Moreover, the
continuation of the narrative--the implied question of Peter, "Lo, we
have left all and followed thee"--introduces the statement of Jesus,
"There is no one who has left home, or brothers, or sisters, or mother,
or father, or children, or lands, for my sake and for the good news,
who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time--houses, and
brothers, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with
persecutions, and in the Age to Come life everlasting." The
distinction here between "this time" and the Age to Come is entirely
Jewish, and shows that in the previous paragraph the Kingdom of God and
eternal life were associated in the mind of Jesus with the Age to Come.

But, it may be said, did not Jesus identify himself {27} with the
Davidic Messiah? Undoubtedly his disciples did so in the circles
represented by Matthew and Luke, but it is doubtful whether the gospel
of Mark represents this point of view, and the question of Jesus to the
Pharisees, how David in the Scriptures could call the Messiah Lord if
he were his son, is pointless, except on the assumption that Jesus did
not regard himself as the Son of David.[15] On the other hand, the
identification of Jesus with the Son of Man, whether by himself or by
his disciples, can in no case affect the question, because the figure
of the Son of Man in Jewish literature is an integral part of the
inauguration of the Age to Come, not of the reign of the Davidic king.

Thus it seems probable that one part of the teaching of Jesus was the
announcement that this age is coming to its end and that the Age to
Come is rapidly approaching, when the Kingdom of God will be
universally realised. Those who wish to pass on into the life of the
New Age must prepare themselves by accepting already the sovereignty of
God a