Chapter 23—“The Kingdom of God Is at Hand”
“Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of
God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at
hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.”
Mark 1:14, 15
.
The Messiah’s coming had been first announced in Judea. In the
temple at Jerusalem the birth of the forerunner had been foretold to
Zacharias as he ministered before the altar. On the hills of Bethlehem
the angels had proclaimed the birth of Jesus. To Jerusalem the magi
had come in search of Him. In the temple Simeon and Anna had
testified to His divinity. “Jerusalem, and all Judea” had listened to the
preaching of John the Baptist; and the deputation from the Sanhedrin,
with the multitude, had heard his testimony concerning Jesus. In Judea,
Christ had received His first disciples. Here much of His early ministry
had been spent. The flashing forth of His divinity in the cleansing of
the temple, His miracles of healing, and the lessons of divine truth
that fell from His lips, all proclaimed that which after the healing at
Bethesda He had declared before the Sanhedrin,—His Sonship to the
Eternal.
If the leaders in Israel had received Christ, He would have honored
them as His messengers to carry the gospel to the world. To them first
was given the opportunity to become heralds of the kingdom and grace
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of God. But Israel knew not the time of her visitation. The jealousy
and distrust of the Jewish leaders had ripened into open hatred, and
the hearts of the people were turned away from Jesus.
The Sanhedrin had rejected Christ’s message and was bent upon
His death; therefore Jesus departed from Jerusalem, from the priests,
the temple, the religious leaders, the people who had been instructed
in the law, and turned to another class to proclaim His message, and to
gather out those who should carry the gospel to all nations.
As the light and life of men was rejected by the ecclesiastical
authorities in the days of Christ, so it has been rejected in every suc-
ceeding generation. Again and again the history of Christ’s withdrawal
from Judea has been repeated. When the Reformers preached the word
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