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12 THE PRESENCE OF THE FUTUREin which he interpreted the future success of the Kingdom; the formis wrong but the truth abides. God will rule."The most influential book expounding a noneschatological view isthe frequently reprinted volume on The Teaching of Jesus by T. W.Manson. The Kingdom in its essence is the reign of God in the experienceof the individual soul. In such a personal relationship, questionsabout time-present or future-are quite irrelevant, for the reignof God within the lives of men is independent of temporal andspatial relations." Jesus' conception of God as Father determinedhis conception of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is where God's will isdone 011 earth. Jesus as Messiah realized the Kingdom by utterobedience to God's will. 33 Before Caesarea Philippi, Jesus spoke ofthe coming of the Kingdom; but after Caesarea Philippi, he spokeof the Kingdom as having come and of people entering it. 34 The confessionof Peter at Caesarea Philippi was a recognition that the Kingdomof God had come in his person." The Kingdom of God is apersonal relation between God and the individual." The Kingdommay be said to have come with Jesus, for with him occurred "the firstmanifestation of the Kingdom in the world.":" That is, Jesus was thefirst to experience the full meaning of the reign of God; his missionwas to lead other men into this same experience of the reign of God.It may seem erroneous to interpret Manson's view of the Kingdomas non eschatological, for he has a chapter on "The Final Consummation"in which he says, "The ideas of a Judgment, of the eliminationof evil from the world, and of a blessed immortality for those who areloyal to God in this life-these ideas are necessary corollaries to thecentral idea of the Kingdom. . . . If there is no final victory of goodover evil, the Kingdom of God becomes an empty dream.":" However,as Ernst Percy has pointed out,39 these words about an eschatological31 Ibid., p. 207.S2 T. W. Manson, The Teaching of [esus (1935), p. 135.33 tu«, p. 211.34 Ibid., p. 129.35 Ibid., p. 130.38 Ibid., p. 133.37 Ibid., p. 134.38 Ibid., p. 284. Quoted by permission of Cambridge University Press.39 E. Percy, Die Botschaft [esu (1953), p. 224.