HERALDS OF GOD
on to the Gospel of the Cross—was implicit in every word the preachers spoke.
But they went further. For they declared that in these two shattering events, now seen to be one, the Kingdom of God had broken in with power. Its consummation still lay out of sight, waiting for the fulness of the time and the completion of the purposes of God; but the new epoch foretold by the prophets had actually dawned. From the realm of the invisible beyond, the one far-off divine event had suddenly projected itself into history. What had formerly been pure eschatology was there before their eyes: the supernatural made visible, the Word made flesh. No longer were they dreaming of the Kingdom age: they were living in it. It had arrived. This was the essential crisis of the hour.
They went still further. The death and the resurrection of Jesus, they said, were nothing less than God in omnipotent action. What assailed the crowds in the streets of Jerusalem at Pentecost was no abstract scheme of salvation; nor was it the story of a spiritual genius who had gone about continually doing good, uttering beautiful thoughts about the divine Fatherhood and the whole duty of man, and founding a new religion. It was the stupendous tidings, dwarfing all other facts whatever, that the sovereign Power of the universe had cleft history asunder, travelling in the greatness of His strength, mighty to save, "We do hear them speak in our tongues," they cried, "the wonderful works of God." This was the apostolic
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