THE teaching of Jesus, like much of the prophetic literature of the Old Testament, abounds in metaphor, pictorial expression, and even hyperbole. God clothes the grass of the field, feeds the birds, sends the rain, and causes the sun to rise. Jesus himself is like a physician, a bridegroom, an incendiary. His disciples are fishers of men. The Kingdom is likened to mustard seed, leaven, a valuable pearl, a hidden treasure; it is at hand; people are near it or far from it; one may enter it or be excluded from it. The Gospels are filled with images of this sort, which require interpretation if we are even to begin to comprehend the Gospel. The sayings of Jesus, which refer to the Kingdom of God, are no exception to the general rule. His thoughts concerning the Kingdom clothed themselves in the form of parable, figure of speech, and metaphor: and each man interpreted them as he was able, or as he desired.

Just as every man is apt to find in Jesus his own idealised image, so every man is ready to find in the Kingdom of God his own ideal state. There are two ways of misinterpreting the words of Jesus about the Kingdom. This way, which consists in reading into them our own conceptions of the most desirable social order, is the easier way. The other way, which consists in taking the sayings or some of them au pied de la lettre, has also had its followers in every age.