Thus the gospel was concentrated in the person of Jesus; the hope of the Kingdom receded and became eventually only another name for «heaven,» the other world, the state of bliss beyond death, or, as in Thomas Aquinas, a term for the divine theodicy in general — though in truth this interpretation really emphasized a
fundamental element in the whole
biblical conception, in Jesus» teaching as elsewhere — and thus an intellectual
concept of the person of Jesus tended to become central for Christian doctrine, theology, and devotion, rather than the person of God, his sovereignty and his redemptive will, his wisdom and his love.