A full discussion of this subject is beyond the scope of this volume.[23] There are, however, two objections which may be taken to the apocalyptic interpretation of Christ's teaching as a whole. (1) As presented by its most pronounced champions, this view seems to empty the person and teaching of Jesus of their originality and universality. It tends to reduce the Son of Man to the level of a Jewish rhapsodist, whose whole function was to encourage His countrymen to look away from the present scene of duty to some future state of felicity, which had no connection with the world of reality, and no bearing upon their present character. It would be surely a caricature to interpret the religion of the New Testament from this standpoint alone to the exclusion of those directly ethical and spiritual {135} principles in which its originality chiefly appeared, and on which its permanence depends.[24] As Bousset[25] points out, not renunciation but joy in life is the characteristic thing in Jesus' outlook. He does not preach a gloomy asceticism, but proclaims a new righteousness and a new type of duty. He recognises the worth of the present life, and teaches that the world's goods are not in themselves bad. He came as a living man into a dead world, and by inculcating a living idea of God and proclaiming the divine Fatherhood gave a new direction and inner elevation to the expectations of His age, showing the true design of God's revelation and the real meaning of the prophetic utterances of the past. To interpret the kingdom wholly from an eschatological point of view would involve a failure to apprehend the spiritual greatness of the personality with which we are dealing.[26] (2) This view virtually makes Christ a false prophet. For, as a matter of fact, the sudden and catastrophic coming of the kingdom as predicted by the Hebrew apocalyptics did not take place. On the contrary the kingdom of God came not as the Jews expected in a sudden descent from the clouds, but in the slow and progressive domination of God over the souls and social relationships of mankind. In view of the whole spirit of Jesus, His conception of God, and His relation to human life, as well as the attitude of St. Paul to the Parousia, it is critically unsound to deny that Jesus believed in the presence of the kingdom in a real sense during His lifetime.[27] 2. If this conception of the kingdom of God be correct we may now proceed to regard it under three aspects, Present, Progressive, and Future--as a _Gift_ immediately bestowed by Jesus, as a _Task_ to be worked out by man in the history of the world, and as a _Hope_ to be consummated by God in the future. {136}