Note (return) — Chapter II

4. In the proclamation and founding of this kingdom, Jesus summoned men to attach themselves to him, because he had recognised himself to be the helper called by God, and therefore also the Messiah who was promised.61 He gradually declared himself to the people as such by the names he assumed,62 for the names "Anointed," "King," "Lord," "Son of David," "Son of Man," "Son of God," all denote the Messianic office, and were familiar to the greater part of the people.63 But though, at first, they express only the call, office, and power of the Messiah, yet by means of them and especially by the designation Son of God, Jesus pointed to a relation to God the Father, then and in its immediateness unique, as the basis of the office with which he was entrusted. He has, however, given no further explanation of the mystery of this relation than the declaration that the Son alone knoweth the Father, and that this knowledge of God and Sonship to God are secured for all others by the sending of the Son.64 In the proclamation of God as Father,65 as well as in the other proclamation that all the members of the kingdom following the will of God in love, are to become one with the Son and through him with the Father,66 the message of the realised kingdom of God receives its richest, inexhaustible content: the Son of the Father will be the first-born among many brethren.