WEST (δυσμή).—In Palestine the direction of the setting sun is also that of the sea, and the West is therefore the source from which rain is generally expected (1 Kings 18:44, Luke 12:54). The observed connexion between western clouds and rain led Christ to remark on the strange inattention to the spiritual trend of the times (Luke 12:56). He attributed such disregard and misrepresentation to self-delusion resulting from insincerity. He recognized that the final stage of imperviousness and impotence had been reached, and that the Kingdom of Heaven required the removal of both teachers and teaching and a re-baptism of religious vision and thought (Matthew 23:36-39, Mark 8:12, John 4:21).
The reference to North, South, East, and West as the equal sources from which the Kingdom of Heaven was to draw its membership, indicated the universal scope of His own relationship to the world. The same truth is suggested in the vision of the New Jerusalem as the city with an equal number of open gates on its four sides (Revelation 21:13). Hence to-day, in the statesmanship of that Kingdom, it is unwise and wasteful to transport to the East the controversies and cleavages of Western Christianity. Only the universal truths of the gospel should be presented to the universal mission field.
G. M. Mackie.