John was, Jesus remarked, as great as any human being who ever lived. Yet, he still functioned from within the limited framework where God’s action, rule, or governance was primarily channeled through the official practices of Jewish rituals and institutions: through “the law and the prophets,” as that phrase was then used. But since John, Jesus continued, we no longer “stand on proprieties.” “The Kingdom of the Heavens is subjected to violence and violent people take it by force” (Matt. 11:12). That is, the rule of God, now present in the person of Jesus himself, submits to approaches that
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