It is a well known fact that the Jews expected the old kingdom to be restored and enlarged with the Messiah on the throne in Jerusalem; and R. H. Boll says, “Their expectations and conceptions of the king and kingdom had their origin in these Old Testament prophecies.” (Kingdom of God, p. 25.) “They saw in him that promised Coming One of David’s line who would free his nation from the Gentile’s yoke and reign over the house of Jacob, and through it over all the nations of the earth. For so it was promised.” (p. 26). “The Old Testament prophecies and promises of the kingdom were the theme of our preceding studies.... By such predictions as those was the kingdom-hope of Israel created; and that most justly and nationally. When John the Baptist lifted up his voice in the wilderness of Judea and announced ‘the kingdom at hand’ he used a phraseology which was already common and current among the Jews, and which was perfectly understood by all.” Read that again. If the phrase “the kingdom of heaven” was “common and current among the Jews,” it was a phrase of their own invention, for no Old Testament prophecy contains the phrase. Matt. 3:2 is the first place it occurs in the Bible. Again (p. 34): “But if the Jewish expectations had been utterly wrong (which, as we have seen in our former articles, was not the case), even then a sense of justice would suggest that God would not have left the people under such misapprehension without a clear protest and correction.” Read that again. Does he mean to say, that if God announced a kingdom different from what the Jews expected without telling them so, he did not have a proper sense of justice? Or does he mean that his own sense of justice would suggest that God should have made the explanation suggested? In either case, he crosses himself up; for he says that Jesus began in Matthew thirteen to talk about the mystery form of the kingdom. But Jesus did not give any hint, that as the Jews had rejected him, the kingdom they expected was now postponed and an entirely new sort of kingdom would be presented. And strange to say, he kept on using the term “kingdom of heaven,” without telling them he was now using the term in an entirely new sense. In fact the Jewish idea remained with the disciples up to the ascension of Christ. Now, what about that sense of justice?