This may mean what through the influence of Professor C. H. Dodd has come to be called realized eschatology, the belief that Jesus had brought the Kingdom to fulfillment in his own person and he was thereby affirming his messiahship.4 It seems to me more probable that Jesus meant primarily though perhaps not solely to declare the possibility of entrance into the Kingdom here and
now by repentance, the acceptance of God's forgiveness, and the assumption of the obligations of discipleship.
«The truth of the Christian faith must, in fact, be apprehended in any
age by repentance and faith.
They proclaimed it not so much as a future event for which men should
prepare by repentance, but rather as the impending corroboration of a present fact: the new age is already here, and because it is here men should repent.
Christians believe that we can not «work» or «earn» our salvation, but only can we enter
Heaven by repentance of sin and trusting in Jesus as our savior who paid for our sins on the Cross.
This eschaton, or end event, can not be hastened or delayed or
changed by repentance or any other human action.
Their mystical metanoia is, therefore, generally
preceded by repentance — and, after all, this is what Peter preached to the people of Jerusalem at the first Pentecost.
Only by repentance, Jesus says, can one be ready for the kingdom, which is now coming with power.
Quite simply, because he had earned
it by repentance.
My pastor preached that «every mountain in our hearts should be ground down
by repentance; every valley filled in by the virtue that makes straight the path for the Lord.»