'In every passage of Scripture where thou findest the Majesty of God, thou also findest

close by His Condescension ( Humility). So it is written down in the Law [Deut. x. 17,

followed by verse 18], repeated in the Prophets [Is. lvii. 15], and reiterated in the

Hagiographa [Ps. lxviii. 4, followed by verse 5].' - Megill 31 a.

The proclamation and inauguration of the 'Kingdom of Heaven' at such a time, and under

such circumstances, was one of the great antitheses of history. With reverence be it said,

it is only God Who would thus b egin His Kingdom. A similar, even greater antithesis,

was the commencement of the Ministry of Christ. From the Jordan to the wilderness with

its wild Beasts; from the devout acknowledgment of the Baptist, the consecration and

filial prayer of Jesus, the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the heard testimony of Heaven,

to the utter foresakeness, the felt want and weakness of Jesus, and the assaults of the

Devil - no contrast more startling could be conceived. And yet, as we think of it, what

followed upon the Baptism, and that it so followed, was necessary, as regarded the

Person of Jesus, His Work, and that which was to result from it.

Psychologically, and as regarded the Work of Jesus, even reverent negative Critics1 have

perceived its higher need. That at His consecration to the Kingship of the Kingdom, Jesus

should have become clearly conscious of all that it implied in a world of sin; that the

Divine method by which that Kingdom should be established, should have been clearly

brought out, and its reality tes ted; and that the King, as Representative and Founder of the

Kingdom, should have encountered and defeated the representative, founder, and holder

of the opposite power, 'the prince of this world' - these are thoughts which must arise in

everyone who belie ves in any Mission of the Christ. Yet this only as, after the events, we

have learned to know the character of that Mission, not as we might have preconceived it.

We can understand, how a Life and Work such as that of Jesus, would commence with

'the Temptation,' but none other than His. Judaism never conceived such an idea; because

it never conceived a Messiah like Jesus. It is quite true that long previous Biblical

teaching, and even the psychological necessity of the case, must have pointed to

temptation and victory as the condition of spiritual greatness. It could not have been

otherwise in a world hostile to God, nor yet in man, whose conscious choice determines

his position. No crown of victory without previous contest, and that proportionately to its

brightness; no moral ideal without personal attainment and probation. The patriarchs had