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Life and Ministry of Jesus, According to the Critical Method
Life and Ministry of Jesus According to the Critical Method Author:Rudolf Otto Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS. What did Jesus desire? What did he contribute to the world? To understand this, one must set aside all dogmatic and traditional scheme... more »s and investigate the subject in an absolutely historic spirit. Jesus commenced his ministry with the announcement of the coming "kingdom," a subject which was quite familiar and which had already formed the bulk of the Baptist's ministry. He was far from making any new announcement. He knew nothing of a universal and general religion, nothing that might be termed the religion of humanity. His movement was local, temporary and of the most restricted character, proceeding from historical premises, a movement which can be understood only in the light of its own background; a movement which addressed itself to an unique situation. It was certainly not the eternal Gospel, it was a phase of religious culture which passed awaywith the circumstances that gave it birth, the significance of which was clearly pointed out in the preceding chapter. Jesus was thoroughly imbued with the religious faith of his time that at last the long desired restoration of all things was at hand. Descending from above, God was about to shake the heavens and the earth. Old things were to pass away. Everything was to be completely changed, for now the kingdom of God itself was to be realized on earth. At last the protracted complaints which the righteous and the God-fearing had raised from the days of the Psalmist onward, the complaints, the imprecations, and the curses against the destroyer from without, the heathen and the kings of the nations; as well as against the enemies of the saints from within, the haughty, the powerful and the courtly rich—all these were to be hushed. God was to wipe away all tears, and there was to be neither crying nor pa...« less