(_a_) It must, however, be freely admitted that our Lord frequently employs the sanctions both of rewards and penalties. In the time of Christ the idea of reward, so prominent in the Old Testament, still held an important place in Jewish religion, being specially connected with the Messianic Hope and the coming of the kingdom. It was not unnatural, therefore, that Jesus, trained in Hebrew religious modes of thought and expression, should frequently employ the existing conceptions as vehicles of His own teaching; but, at the same time, purifying them of their more materialistic associations and giving to them a richer spiritual content. While the kingdom of God is spoken of as a gift, and promised, indeed, as a reward, the word 'reward' in this connection is not used in the ordinary sense, but 'is rather conceived as belonging to the same order of spiritual experience as the state of heart and mind which ensures its bestowal.'[20] Though Jesus does not { 160} hesitate to point His disciples to the blessings of heaven which they will receive in the future, these are represented for the most part not as material benefits, but as the intensification and enrichment of life itself.[21]
It was usually the difficulties rather than the advantages of discipleship upon which Jesus first laid stress. He would not that any one should come to Him on false pretences, or without fully counting the cost.[22] Even when He Himself called His original disciples, it was of service and not of recompense He spoke. 'Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.'[23] The privilege consisted not in outward éclat, but in the participation of the Master's own purpose and work. Still, all service carries with it its own reward, and no one can share the mission of Christ without also partaking of that satisfaction and joy which are inseparable from the highest forms of spiritual ministry.[24]
There is, however, one passage recorded by all the Synoptists which seems at first sight to point more definitely to a reward of a distinctly material character, and to one that was to be enjoyed not merely in the future, but even in this present life. When Peter somewhat boastfully spoke of the sacrifice which he and his brethren had made for the Gospel's sake, and asked, 'What shall we have therefor?' Jesus replied, 'Verily, I say unto you, that no man that hath left home, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or lands, for My sake and the Gospel's sake, but shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses and brethren, sisters and mothers, and children and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.'[25] Now, while this is a promise of wide sweep and large generosity, it is neither so arbitrary nor material as it seems. First, the words, 'with persecutions,' indicate that suffering is not only the very condition of the promise, but indeed an essential part of the reward--an element which would of itself be a true test of the sincerity of the sacrifice. { 161} But, second, even the promise, 'An hundredfold now in this time,' is obviously not intended to be taken in a literal sense, but rather as suggesting that the gain, while apparently of the same nature as the sacrifice, will have a larger spiritual import. For, just as Jesus Himself looked upon all who shared His own devotion as His mother and brethren; so, in the deepest sense, when a man leaves father and mother, renouncing home and family ties for the sake of bringing his fellow-men to God, he seems to be emptying his life of all affectionate relationships, but in reality he is entering into a wider brotherhood; and, in virtue of his ministry of love, is being knit in bonds stronger than those of earthly kinship, with a great and increasing community of souls which owe to him their lives.[26] The promise is no arbitrary gift or bribe capriciously bestowed; it is the natural fruition of moral endeavour. For there is nothing so productive as sacrifice. What the man who yields himself to the service of Christ actually gives is life; and what he gets back, increased an hundredfold, is just life again, his own life, repeated and reflected in the men and women whom he has won to Christ.