with Rev Dr Chris Walker
Jesus of history, Christ of the Church
A distinction is often made between the Jesus of history and the Christ of the Church’s faith. The implication is that the Church has turned Jesus into a figure, the Christ, that is very different to whom he was as a historical person. The Jesus of history was a man, a prophet, a healer, a teacher whereas the Christ of the Church is the God-man, the second person of the Trinity, no longer a human but divine. The move was from Jesus of the Gospels who announced the reign of God, to the apostles, notably Paul and John, who proclaimed Jesus himself, to the early church who in their councils pronounced Jesus to be one of the three persons of the Trinity and was God as well as man.
In the nineteenth century a number of ‘lives of Jesus’ were written purporting to portray ‘the real Jesus’ without the Church’s additions. Albert Schweitzer at the beginning of the 20th century wrote a famous book The Quest of the Historical Jesus showing that these lives all turned out to represent the perspective and biases of the writers and that the real Jesus was stranger than they portrayed. Towards the end of the 20th century, however, a number of scholars became part of The Jesus Seminar and again sought to write about Jesus getting behind the Church’s additions. While subject to the same criticisms that Albert Schweitzer put forward many years earlier, they claimed that their historical research enabled them to draw the conclusions that they did.
This approach takes a negative view of the Church and its tradition. It fits the individualistic and secular society in which we live in Western nations. It is a very Protestant approach protesting against what are perceived to be the mistaken and self-serving views of the official institutional Church.
The historical research that these scholars engage in is not without its merit. The more we know of the circumstances of the first century in which Jesus lived and the ideas that were around at the time the better. No thoughtful Christian should be afraid of scrutinising the biblical accounts and learning more about the time in which Jesus lived. Nevertheless, was the Church really mistaken in its developing understanding of Jesus? Was it just self-interest that led the apostles and early Church to draw the conclusions they did concerning Jesus?
Biblical scholars themselves now admit that the New Testament was written not just after Jesus’ death but from a post resurrection perspective. Because they proclaimed Jesus as lord, the crucified and risen one, they preserved the memory of Jesus and indeed worshiped him as one with God. Without this conviction the New Testament would not have come to be written. Most of the first apostles died as a consequence of this conviction concerning Jesus being the risen lord. Those scholars who wish to get behind the Church’s understanding of Jesus begin with a denial of the resurrection. This simply could not have happened they hold or needs to be explained by saying it really means that Jesus was raised into the consciousness of the apostles. He lived on in their memory. This of course is very different to what is actually written in the New Testament in which the resurrection is presented as an astonishing but real occurrence. It was not what the first followers of Jesus expected. They were devastated by the crucifixion. Their hopes had been shattered. But when Jesus appeared to them as risen, their despair was turned into joy and their hopes revived – to the extent that they were prepared to die proclaiming Jesus as the risen lord.
Reflection on Jesus – his life and teaching, his death and resurrection- began immediately. The New Testament shows this. The earliest actual writer, Paul, draws on material already familiar to the communities of those who followed Jesus. This material includes such statements as the following, “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on their third day….” (1 Cor. 15: 3-4). He goes on to provide a list of appearances of the risen Jesus. Similarly Paul makes use of a statement that was already in use in writing that Christ Jesus, “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name….” (Phil.:6-9). John commences his thoughtful gospel with the affirmation concerning Jesus Christ, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). The first gospel to be written, Mark’s gospel, opens with the statement, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1).
In reality you cannot remove faith in Jesus as the risen Lord, as one with God, from the New Testament accounts. Conviction concerning Jesus was bound up with their experience concerning Jesus they knew in the flesh. The apostolic faith in Jesus crucified and risen was bound inextricably with the life and teachings of Jesus. People such as Paul and John reflected on the significance of Jesus and wrote what they did. Others preserved their writings as well as the gospel accounts because they saw in them valid and helpful expositions concerning Jesus.
It took the Church some centuries to draw clear conclusions, and put down false ones, about Jesus. They affirmed his full humanity. But they also affirmed his oneness with God, something they had done in worship from the earliest times. So Jesus was man and God. This inevitably is an awkward statement as humanity and divinity are so different. Putting their understanding of Jesus into unambiguous words was not easy. It also meant that their view of God had to expand to speak of God as not just one but as including together Father, Son and Spirit, the Trinity. This church tradition from the Jesus of history, to the proclaimed risen Jesus, to Jesus as part of the Trinity can be revisited and restated as is continually done. Nevertheless its truth stands.
Chris Walker
(National Consultant Christian Unity, Doctrine & Worship)