Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

“The individual” and “the inner” are key words that appear repeatedly throughout the sixteen lectures. Harnack repeats the expression drawn from Augustine, “God and the soul, the soul and its God,” almost like a mantra. It is evident on its face that a message of Jesus like the one that is here—supposedly—brought out of its shell has nothing to do with the people of God and does not intend to. Harnack reveals that already, in anticipation, in the first lecture: “Jesus Christ’s teaching will at once bring us by steps which, if few, will be great, to a height where its connexion with Judaism is seen to be only a loose one.”¹⁵ Finally, in the tenth lecture, Paul will definitively “deliver” the “Christian religion from Judaism,”¹⁶ for Paul, with his knowledge, confidence, and strength, set this “new religion” “in competition with the Israelitish religion.”¹⁷

The degree to which such idiotic notions are complicit in the calamitous history of the twentieth century need not be discussed here. In any case, it is highly dangerous to separate Christianity from Israel and commit oneself to theological individualism.

Harnack was by no means alone in his narrowing of the message of Jesus to the individual. He was, in fact, representative of a broad current of liberal theology at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. The idea that the reign of God has to do only with individuals and is something profoundly internal was widely accepted at the time, especially in segments of Protestant theology. There were corresponding phenomena in Catholic theology and piety. The motto of countless parish missions, “save your soul!” is very familiar.

The Reign of God Within

There is a saying of Jesus in the gospels that appears to support the internal nature of the reign of God invoked by Harnack and many others. Harnack quotes it several times in his lectures. It is in Luke’s gospel, at the end of a short narrative that prepares us for the saying itself:

Once he was asked by the Pharisees when the reign of God was coming, and he answered, “The reign of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the reign of God is [already] among you [

entos hymōn

].” (Luke 17:20-21)

Most translations today render entos hymōn as “among you” or “in your midst.” The question is whether this does justice to the Greek text. But first a brief word on the form of the whole pericope: in terms of narrative technique the two verses constitute a “chreia,” that is, a genre that creates the necessary narrative framework for an important and decisive saying. The saying, which is the heart of the matter, is placed at the end. Here the saying itself is: “the reign of God is [already] entos hymn.”

But there is no point in pursuing the structure preceding the saying too intensively here. In Luke’s sense of things the Pharisees are apparently asking for signs (portents) of the reign of God, as the disciples in Mark 13:4 ask about signs foretelling the end of the world. Jesus answers that there are no such (visible) signs ahead of time. Why? Simply because the reign of God is already present. Because it already exists there is no point in looking for it “here” or “there” (cf. Mark 13:21).

Of course, the crucial question is how the reign of God is present. The precise meaning of Luke’s Greek phrase in 17:21, entos hymn, is disputed. It could mean “with you” or “between you” or (in view of the textual context) “among you,” “in your midst.” But it can also mean “within your sphere of influence,” “within your power,” “available to you,” “at your disposal.” These latter meanings of entos are found, at any rate, in several passages of the Greek classics, but particularly in a number of ancient papyri.¹⁸ This has a superb application here. Besides, elsewhere Luke always writes “in the midst of” or “among” as en meso. But however we decide this, the point is that Luke wants to say that the reign of God is already here. It has already come. That is why searching for portents is pointless.

But Martin Luther—and this is what makes Luke 17:21 so explosive—translated entos hymn as “The reign of God is within you.” That is also a possible meaning of the words. In that case the text would say: “From outside there is nothing to be seen. But within, in the soul, in human hearts, the reign of God is already present.”