This says cuttingly that descent from Abraham, that is, belonging to the people Israel, cannot rescue from the approaching judgment. Probably the Baptizer goes much further than that: not only is ethnic membership of no avail, but belonging to Abraham’s faith does not help. Even being part of the history of God with his people will fail to rescue them. The text continues: “Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree that does not bear good fruit [will be] cut down and thrown into the fire” (Luke 3:9). This urgent warning is also directed to Israel, because its background is a familiar comparison in the Old Testament tradition: Israel is “God’s planting,” firmly rooted in the Land. In the Psalms of Solomon, an apocryphal writing from the first century BCE, that line of tradition is drawn out still more: there Israel appears as God’s planting that cannot be rooted out for all eternity.3
And that is precisely what John the Baptizer denies. He turns most sharply against any kind of collective certainty of salvation. Israel has become a collective disaster, and therefore judgment has come on the whole people of God. The axe is already at the root of the trees God has planted, and if Israel does not turn back even the root stock will be dug up. God will place Israel under judgment precisely because it is God’s planting. Every tree in the orchard Israel that bears no fruit will be cut down. And “bearing fruit” is no longer possible without the radical repentance that is offered the people now, with baptism in the Jordan.
Israel needs a new exodus and at the same time a new entry into the Promised Land. Therefore John does not go into the cities and towns, and therefore he does not baptize just anywhere, but where Israel had once crossed the Jordan to enter the Promised Land. The history between God and his people is thus pressing toward a final crisis. Judgment on Israel is about to happen immediately. But that judgment can be transformed into salvation if Israel turns back and bears fruit after all.
Lest there be misunderstanding, let me say here that when I speak again and again of Israel I mean the Israel to which John the Baptizer was then preaching. He was a prophet of Israel—and Israel’s prophets since Amos had all spoken just as severely and without compromise. They had to speak that way. But the Baptizer’s words were received into the New Testament, and therefore they apply also to every Christian and to the church, just as they applied to Israel at that time. If the church does not repent and turn back, the judgment of which the Baptizer once spoke will come on it even today.
John the Baptizer had a multitude of images for God’s hard judgment on his people. One of them is the axe. The judge has already measured for the blow about to fall, and now his arm is swinging back. The axe is about to fall. Another image is winnowing with a shovel, when the cut-up straw and chaff are separated from the wheat. The grain falls directly to the ground while the straw is tossed a little farther away and the chaff is swept away by the wind. The judge already has the full shovel in his hand (Matt 3:12). A third image is that of a firestorm that consumes everything (cf. Luke 3:16). Major fires create storms. All those who experienced the night bombings in World War II know about those. The Baptizer says: Israel will be baptized with “storm and fire,” that is, in a horrible firestorm.4
It cannot be clearly determined whether this fiery judgment of which the Baptizer spoke was identified with the general judgment of the world. In any case it is a judgment on Israel. Repentance and baptism in the water of the Jordan were the sealing, the protection, the only rescue from the judgment by fire.
That makes it clear that the judgment announced by the Baptizer is not a pure imposition of punishment that offers no hope. The Baptizer’s concern, in his preaching of judgment, was precisely for the eschatological gathering of Israel, its repentance, its purification and sanctification, that is, its eschatological renewal. Israel is to bring “fruits” worthy of its repentance (Luke 3:8). And while the chaff is carried away by the wind, the wheat that remains will be gathered into a great granary (Luke 3:17).
And when will all that happen? Right away. The fiery judge already has the shovel in his hand, the axe is already laid to the root of the tree. This is about this generation in Israel.
So John the Baptizer’s eschatology is not only shaped by a worldview; it is decidedly about the people of God. And it is allied with an extreme expectation that it will follow immediately. The judgment is not coming someday, in future times. Nor is it coming in such a way that there is still time to delay anything. It is so near that there is no time left. The people of God must turn back immediately, and that means concretely that every individual must go to the Jordan, confess her or his sins publicly, be baptized in the Jordan, bear fruits of repentance, and so enter into the eschatological Israel.
Jesus and the Baptizer’s Preaching
This whole background must be considered if we are to understand Jesus’ eschatology,5 because Jesus obeyed the Baptizer’s preaching: he let himself be baptized by John in the Jordan. He may even have been the Baptizer’s disciple for a time (cf. John 3:22-30).6 We may assume, then, that he did not subtract anything from the Baptizer’s preaching of judgment. Nor did Jesus deviate from John the Baptizer’s expectation of the nearness of the end. He adopted the Baptizer’s overall eschatological horizon: there is no time left to wait or turn aside; now, today, every individual in Israel must act because God himself is acting now. Characteristic of Jesus’ expectation of the immediacy of the crisis are the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Plain:
Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the reign of God!
Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh! (Luke 6:20-21)
This is about the poor, the hungry, the weeping in Israel, with whom Jesus was confronted every day. It is about the hopeless, the oppressed, the despairing among the people of God who followed Jesus. Jesus calls them blessed—not because their weeping, hunger, and poverty were of any value in themselves, but because God’s intervention is about to take place and because it is especially the hopeless who will experience God’s hope and salvation in a measure beyond all telling.
Jesus is not promising the miserable and the poor a better life after death, which certainly would have been possible within the overall framework of Jewish eschatology in his time. Instead he directs their eyes to the eschatological turning point that is now coming, that will affect all and change everything. He promises the poor and the beaten-down in particular that they will participate in the reign of God.
So Jesus is quite sure: this turning point is at hand. It will gather Israel anew, it will make possible a new society in which the poor have a share in the wealth of the land and the sorrowing participate in the rejoicing of the people of God.
So also with the imminent expectation—an expectation that reaches out toward the true, eschatological Israel under the rule of God. If the beatitudes had only been about consolation to be had after death Jesus would have emptied history of all value and made it nothing but a preliminary stage before the real thing. Then earthly history itself would no longer be the place where God’s salvation takes place.
However, the beatitudes also reveal a characteristic difference between Jesus and the Baptizer. The latter preached judgment—in the hope that a new Israel would arise, as if out of the fire. Jesus, in contrast, preached God’s salvation, the superfluity of the reign of God, which would only become judgment if Israel rejected it. The Baptizer relied on the weight of judgment, on terror of destruction. Jesus counts on the fascination of salvation, the joy of the reign of God. That is not an objection to John or a devaluing of the Baptizer. He was, according to Jesus, the greatest “among those born of woman” (Matt 11:11), that is, the “greatest human being of all.” And yet the very next thing Jesus says is that “the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” With this paradox Jesus marks the breathtaking newness of what is now coming in him. And with this newness of the reign of God, Jesus’ co
ncept of time has also shifted.
The Baptizer’s message is purely one of imminent expectation of the end. The axe is raised but has not yet fallen. But Jesus can say: salvation is here. So he really crossed a threshold that neither the Baptizer nor the whole of the Old Testament could or would cross.
The Proclamation in Mark 1:15
The gospels illustrate this especially in Jesus’ first appearance. That beginning is marked by the proclamation with which Mark summarizes Jesus’ preaching in the first chapter of his gospel: “The time is fulfilled, and the reign of God has come near; [therefore] repent, and believe in the good news!” (Mark 1:15).
First of all: what the evangelist summarizes here is proclamation. Jesus is not just talking about the reign of God. He is announcing it. He proclaims it, and later he has his disciples proclaim it in Israel (Matt 10:7). A proclamation always has a public character. What Jesus says about the reign of God is not apocalyptic secret knowledge but a public address to all Israel.
Furthermore, the beginning of this proclamation is precisely not a call to Israel to repent and believe the Gospel. Rather, repentance, turning back, is a consequence of the salvation that is already present: the time is fulfilled and the reign of God has come near. At the beginning, then, as throughout the Bible, is God’s action, not human action. God has taken the initiative. He alone gives the reign of God. It is the business of the people of God to respond. God’s action makes human action possible.
But the structure of Mark 1:15 shows us still more: biblical scholars have rethought many times what exactly “has come near” could mean. Is it that the reign of God is now closer than it was before in the dimension of linear time? That would inevitably mean that it is still not here. In that case the threshold to the new has not been crossed, and Jesus would have been no different, at least as far as his proclamation about the time of the reign of God was concerned, from the others who had preached “imminent expectation” in Israel.
The problem is solved if we take the first part of the proclamation seriously: “the time is fulfilled.” This opening clause gives the accent and clarifies the question of time. “The time is fulfilled,” of course, appears in the garments of solemn biblical language. But it means nothing different from our expression, “the time has come.” The biblical clothing of the expression indicates that this is about the promises of the prophets: now they are being fulfilled. Paul means the same thing when he writes: “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2). The second clause, “the reign of God has come near,” following the groundbreaking opening statement, cannot mean that the time of fulfillment has not yet really arrived.
It is true that “has come near” contains a “not yet,” but it is not about God’s action; it is about Israel’s response. The people of God, at this moment, has not yet turned back. It is still in the moment of decision for or against the Gospel. Therefore, the reign of God is near but not yet present. It is being offered to the people of God. It is laid at their feet. They are within reach of it; they can reach out and touch it. But as long as it is not accepted it is only near, and people must still pray: “Your kingdom come!” (Matt 6:10).
In the Synagogue at Nazareth
There is no scene in the Gospel that more clearly illustrates this tension between “already” and “not yet” than Jesus’ preaching in the synagogue at Nazareth, as narrated in Luke 4:16-30. Jesus has returned to Nazareth for a short time, and on the Sabbath he goes into the synagogue, is installed as lector, reads a text from the book of Isaiah describing the eschatological restoration of Israel by the Anointed One appointed by God (Isa 61:1-2), and then says, interpreting the prophetic text: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).
What does that mean? Luke means to say that in Jesus’ appearance, his preaching, and his saving deeds the book of Isaiah is now fulfilled, and with it all of Scripture. Now, with the appearance of Jesus, the promised future is beginning. Now is the time of fulfillment!
And who brings this fulfillment? Who is the grammatical subject of the fulfillment, concealed in the passive voice? In the first place it is God himself. God takes the initiative. God fulfills. But at the same time Jesus is the “actant” to be supplied. He too, who is entirely surrendered to the will of God, now through his preaching and his mighty deeds is fulfilling the ancient promises.
But then the story goes on and in doing so betrays more and more clearly that—from Luke’s point of view—it summarizes Jesus’ whole public life and actions. First Jesus meets happy agreement. But then the wind shifts. Suddenly the inhabitants of Nazareth take offense at Jesus. The offense lies in the concreteness of the preacher: “Is not this Joseph’s son?” (Luke 4:22). That is: it is true that everyone prays for and dreams about God’s eschatological action, but in the hour when it actually happens it is evident that people had not imagined it quite this way. Not like this! not so concretely! not right here in Nazareth, and above all, not at this moment!
So Jesus’ hearers prefer to push everything off into the future, and the story comes to no good end. The reign of God announced by Jesus is not accepted. The “today” offered by God is denied. And that, that alone, is why “already” becomes “not yet.”
That Nasty “Today”
It was not only in Nazareth that the “today” of the Gospel was not accepted. Later also, in the course of the church’s history, it has again and again been denied or rendered toothless. The reason was the same as in Nazareth: apparently it goes against the human grain for God to become concrete in our lives. Then people’s desires and favorite notions are in danger, and so are their ideas about time. It can’t be today, because that would mean that our lives have to change today already. Therefore God’s salvation is better delayed into the future. There it can lie, hygienically and snugly packed, at rest, inconsequential.
This process of suppression often intensifies the hope for another world. But it can also turn against the concrete church. There is a particular form of contempt for the church that arises directly out of the delay of Jesus’ “today.” I refer not to skepticism or the hatred of outsiders, but to a contempt for the church that comes from the inmost circles in the church itself and is so destructive because baptized people who were, in fact, called to be witnesses to the presence of God no longer believe that God wants to give his salvation in the here and now of the concrete, offensive church.
What went on in the synagogue at Nazareth continues in the church. Therefore it is necessary to engage constantly with Jesus’ “today,” not only because otherwise what is new about Jesus and the New Testament remains unclear, but also for the sake of the renewal of the church. It cannot be renewed if it does not finally accept the “today” that has come to it. For the New Testament people of God everything depends on whether it can believe again that the promises are meant to be fulfilled already, now, and that God is acting today.
For Jesus, God’s “today” was the center of his existence. There had been imminent expectations in Israel long before Jesus, but the “today” in Jesus’ preaching explodes every kind of such expectation. Jesus knows with the utmost certainty that the promised, longed-for, prayed-for future is here, that the reign of God is breaking forth. That is the only way to understand Jesus’ unbending assurance of fulfillment. That is the only way to comprehend his beatitude addressed to his disciples: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it” (Luke 10:23-24).
It was not only in Nazareth that people took offense at this “today” in Jesus’ preaching. Many other people shook their heads at what they heard, and said, “the world goes on just as ever; nothing has changed, so the reign of God can’t have come!” Jesus answered them: oh yes, something has changed: “if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the [reign] of God has come to you” (Luke 11:20).
For the reign of God does not come as lightning throughout the world, not as a universal spectacle from heaven; it comes into the world like a grain of wheat that grows. In Jesus’ deeds of healing the “today” of the reign of God is already visible and tangible.
The Ultimate Ground for the “Now Already”
Ultimately Jesus’ present eschatology is about who God is. Jesus lives to God in a revolutionary new relationship. For him God is so powerful in his goodness and so present in his power that from God’s point of view there is nothing left to happen. Because Jesus lives in full union with the will of his heavenly Father he knows that when God comes he does not come halfway but entirely. And God does not come at just any time, even in the immediate future; God comes today.
We simply do not do justice to Jesus’ message if we talk as if God gives his basileia, but not entirely at the moment; as if he caused it to dawn, but only bit by bit; as if he revealed it, but only in anticipation. We cannot say all that, any more than we could say that God revealed himself in Jesus, but only in preliminary fashion, only in pieces, and absolutely not wholly and with finality.
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