THE CORE QUESTION FOCUSES UPON the identity of Jesus. Who is this itinerant teacher? Why is he so incongruously called “Mary’s son”? There is little doubt that such a question was beginning to be asked already during Jesus’ own lifetime. It emerged early in Jesus’ ministry, continued steadily, and remains puzzling to us today. “Who do you think you are?” (John 8:53; Augustine, Tractates on John 43.14–15), they asked of him.
Such questioning was a response to the words and deeds of Jesus and not merely made up and projected upon him decades later by ignorant and fanciful disciples. This question always arises necessarily out of concrete meeting and dialogue with Jesus of Nazareth.
Who Does He Think He Is?
Four castings of the same identity question appear in Gospel reports of Jesus. The core question was posed by extremely varied inquirers: by the religious establishment, by civil authorities, by the general populace, and among the inner circle of his disciples:
First, as asked by the religious leaders: Who can forgive sin but God alone? When he healed a paralytic, Jesus said: “Your sins are forgiven.” Some asked: “Who is this man who speaks against God in this way. No man can forgive sins; God alone can!” (Luke 5:21; Calvin, Comm. 14; Novatian, Trin., FC 67:54). Later when he pronounced as forgiven “a woman who had lived a sinful life” (Luke 7:37), “the other guests began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?” (Luke 7:49, italics added; Tertullian, Ag. Marcion 4.18).
Second, as asked by the civil authorities: Is he the beheaded John returning from the dead? Jesus must have made the civil authorities anxious about political succession, legitimated power, order, and authority. Herod jailed and finally beheaded John the Baptist, a relative of Jesus. The theory was being circulated that Jesus perhaps might be John returning from the dead. Herod complained: “I beheaded John. Who, then, is this I hear such things about?” (Luke 9:9, italics added). The question of his identity became an urgent matter for civil order and ultimately the cause of his death.
Third, as asked by the populace: Who is this? Jesus’ identity perplexed the general populace. This became clear at one decisive point—“When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, ‘Who is this?’” (Matt. 21:11, italics added).
Fourth, as asked by Jesus himself to the inner circle: But who do you say I am? A decisive moment in Jesus’ ministry came when he put the question squarely to the disciples: What about each of you? “Who do you say I am?” (Mark 8:29; italics added).
When he told them that he would soon be betrayed, would die, and be raised again, Mark reported candidly that “they did not understand what he meant” (Mark 9:32; Luke 9:45). It was not until the resurrection that his identity was clearly revealed (Chrysostom, Hom. on Matt. Hom 58.1).
The Question Today
This question accompanied the footsteps of Jesus all along the way. It has hardly lost its force today. The same question surfaces for anyone who seriously reads the New Testament texts—“Who is this?” (Mark 4:41). Who can read the New Testament without wondering about this question of Jesus’ identity? It cannot be taken up casually as a purely historical exercise, for to ask “Who is he?” is to ask “Who is God?” and “Who am I myself?” (Ephrem, Three Homilies 50).
This question remains decisive for classical Christian teaching. If it should turn out to be the case that Jesus was quite different from who he said he was, then we might as well end this book here and not bother about its remaining pages. If there is a radical gap between who he claimed to be and who he really was, then little remains of the New Testament witness except burdensome bones of religious trivia. If, on the other hand, it might be possible to demonstrate to fair-minded inquirers that the report concerning Jesus is essentially a truthful recollection, then the consequences of that must reverberate to every dimension of personal and social life (Augustine, Sermons 63.1–3; CG 16–18).
Is it possible to set forth credible evidence that Jesus is the one he is attested to be—the One and Only God become fully human, a historical individual personally uniting two distinct natures, human and divine—so that only this one could be the Expected One worthy of worship? That is the important subject of the study of the person of Christ. Other questions are tiny by comparison (Bede, Hom. on Gospels 16,17). If this proves right, then all else follows; if this proves wrong, then nothing else could possibly avail to make Christianity worth pursuing. If true but undemonstrable, then a heavy cloud hangs over Christian testimony.
This is in fact the decisive question that the New Testament as a whole asks every hearer. The examination of this sort of evidence will occupy us throughout this entire middle section of this study, the heart of this book. It will focus initially upon three key issues: did Christ’s claims about himself correspond with the remembering church’s attestation about him? Did Christ’s living and dying reveal a character and behavior that corresponds with these claims? In what sense did the resurrection constitute a unique validation of these claims? The historical evidence cannot be fairly assessed without probing these three vital questions (Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 4.5–10; Mark 8:29; Matt. 10:32–33).
Claims Made By and About Christ
Jesus did not ask his hearers to accept his moral reflections or philosophical ideas but simply to believe in him (Hilary, Hom. Ps. 1.22–23). His ministry confronted every hearer with the same basic decision: are you ready to live in the presence of the coming governance of God?
He taught that trusting in him would deliver the sinner from sin. Failing to believe in him would leave the sinner so mired in sin as to miss eternal life (John 3:15–18; Cyril of Alex., Comm. on John 2.1).
He did not merely call for faith in the Father apart from the Son, as if distanced from himself. Rather he understood himself to be nothing less than the living embodiment of the Father’s Word (John 12:44–50, 15:1–8; Ambrose, On Chr. Faith 5.10.19–20).
Early in his ministry, when Jesus attended the synagogue of his village of Nazareth, he reportedly read this passage from Isaiah 41:1–2, as recorded by Luke: “‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing’” (Luke 4:18–21; Tertullian, Ag. Marcion 4.8; Ag. Praxeas 11; Calvin, Comm. 16: 230).
The point is unmistakable: Jesus, in Luke’s view, thought that Isaiah was referring to him! The climax of the episode is not Isaiah’s prophecy but Jesus’ response to it. All four Gospels hold that he assented to the recognition that he was the expected deliverer of Israel (Matt. 16:15–20; Mark 8:29–32, 14:62–63; Luke 9:20–22, 24:46; John 11:25–28; Cyril of Alex., Comm. on Luke, Hom. 49). When he preached the coming kingdom of God, he assumed that his own ministry was the inauguration of that governance. Entrance into the reign of God was thought to depend entirely upon how one answers the question—“Who is this one?” “Many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it” (Luke 10:23; Cyril of Alex., Comm. on Luke, Hom. 67).
The Scandal of Self-Reference
It is characteristic of great religious teachers that they are self-effacing. Jesus seems quite different. He was constantly remembered as saying outrageous things about himself, like: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:27). These ring with absurdity unless there is a plausible premise behind them that can help them make sense (Hilary, Trin. 7.33). One of the most shocking aspects of the New Testament is the frequency with which Jesus makes reference to himself, his mission, his sonship, his coming kingdom. No wonder he is regarded as delusional by some amateur psychiatrists whose naturalistic assumptions rule out taking seriously his own explanation of himself.
Compounding the irony, all of this was said by one who most earnestly taught humility and urged others to “become as little children.” Preaching meekness, he warned his hearers against self-centeredness, and when they quarreled over who would be the greatest, he corrected them (Mark 10:35–45; Chrysostom, On the Incomprehensible Nature of God 8.32–33). Either he did not follow his own teaching at all, or there must have been something utterly unique about him that enabled him to teach from a very different premise of authority than anyone else. The most shocking hypothesis is simply to suppose that he was telling the truth about himself and that reports of him were substantially accurate. This is the faith of classic Christianity. Here is the evidence that appears repeatedly in classic sources:
He accepted the ascription of Messiah. Jesus understood himself to be the messiah of historic Jewish expectations. In doing so he transformed the very notion of messiah in accepting that designation.
The most penetrating evidence comes from the earliest written Gospel—according to Mark. Jesus understood his ministry as a sign of the end time: “The time has come.” “The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15; Jerome, Comm. on the Gospels, Catena, CG 1:370).
When asked by the high priest before the Sanhedrin: “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus broke his previous reserve and replied, “I am.” “The high priest tore his clothes. “Why do we need any more witnesses?” he asked. “You have heard the blasphemy’” (Mark 14:61–62; Clement of Alex., Fragments 2).
The most remarkable part of Peter’s confession, “You are the Christ” (Mark 8:29), is not so much that Peter said it but that Jesus accepted the ascription, and “warned them not to tell anyone about him” (Mark 8:30; Origen, Comm. on Matt. 12.10). The Jesus of Mark’s Gospel was not just another prophet, such as Elijah or John, but the one to whom the prophets attested. He was less a sign pointing to the door of life than the door itself (Mark 13:4–37; John 10:7–9; Rev. 3:8; Athanasius, Four Discourses Ag. Arians 1.1–11). We have no earlier or more reliable evidence of Jesus’ proclamation than these Markan sayings (Jerome, Hom. 84).
He accepted the ascription of Son of Man. There can be little doubt that he assumed the title “Son of Man” as particularly definitive of his mission. It was a recognized messianic title from Daniel 7:13, Ezekiel (2:1, 3; 3:1–10; 8:1–12), 2 Esdras 13, and the Similitudes of Enoch. It implied descent from above (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 31–33; Gregory of Nyssa, Ag. Eunomius 3.4; Augustine, Trin. 3.18; H. E. Tödt, The Son of Man in the Synoptic Tradition). After the Pharisees investigated the healing of the man born blind, Jesus asked him: “‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ ‘Who is he, sir?’ the man asked. ‘Tell me so that I may believe in him.’ Jesus said, ‘You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you’ (John 9:35–37; Theodore of Mopsuestia, Comm. on John 4.9.34–37). Either Jesus viewed himself as the Son of Man descended of the Father, or John’s account is irreparably flawed and untrustworthy.
He accepted the ascription of Son of God. Jesus understood himself to have a unique relation of Sonship to God the Father. Much of John’s Gospel focuses upon the intimacy and eternality of that relationship. John remembers Jesus as saying: “I and the Father are one” (10:30; Hippolytus, Ag. Noetus 7.1). The text implies mutual, coeternal accountability, with Father and Son assumed to be distinguishable, one sending and one being sent (Novatian, On Trin. 27).
Jesus explained to Philip: “How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work” (John 14:9–10; Hilary, On. Trin. 7.36–40).
When the seventy-two returned from their mission, Jesus, “full of joy through the Holy Spirit,” Jesus said: “No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Luke 10:21–22; Chrysostom, Hom. on Luke 7; cf. Matt. 28:16–20; John 17:6–26; Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 4.6). John remembers him saying: “All things have been committed to me by my Father” (Matt. 11:27).
Defects of Alternative Explanations
From the earliest time, there have been alternative explanations about Jesus that have been tested and consensually rejected by the believing community: he was not God but was more like God than most of us (Arius); the disciples projected upon a mere man a messianic identity (Ebionites); he was demon-possessed (Jesus’ Pharisaic opponents).
Did Jesus merely share with God a moral intention? This diluted view of his person, that he merely shared an ethical purpose with God, an agreement with God in moral intent, not personal union with God, is found throughout liberal culture-Protestantism (Ritschl, CDJR: 385–90, 442–80). It overlooks passages attesting his sonship and coeternality and equality with the Father.
It is not likely that the unique Father-Son relationship is something that the remembering church later fantasized or manufactured and then projected back upon Jesus after the resurrection, since evidences of the intimate Father-Son relationship appear in the earliest identifiable oral sources that predate the written sources (Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus: 70; F. Hahn, TJC: 295–310; V. Taylor, Mark: 597).
Jesus was distinctly remembered much later by eyewitnesses as having aroused indignation among his adversaries precisely “because he claimed to be the Son of God” (John 19:7; Augustine, Hom. on John, 116). Such an impression cannot easily have been made up, since the motivation to make it up seems wholly lacking and implausible. Jesus as portrayed by John assumed that the encounter with him was indeed an encounter with God. To know him would be to know God. To love or hate him amounted to loving or hating God. Trusting Jesus was trusting God (John 8:19; 12:44–45, 14:1–9; 15:23; Chrysostom, Hom. on John 74).
The “I Am” Statements
At this point we are only beginning to explore the classic arguments that Jesus is God, but it is at least clear that Jesus as remembered in the earliest texts understood himself as the heavenly Son of Man of prophetic expectation, possessing a unique relation of Sonship to God the Father, and accepted the ascriptions of Lordship and Messiah, such that our relation to God hinges radically upon our response to him.
The direct question to Jesus, “Who do you think you are?” was asked by his pious opponents in a conversation that centered on the question of whether Jesus might possibly be crazy (or demon-possessed). When he answered, “I am not possessed by a demon,” he then added a phrase that convinced opponents that he was indeed crazy: “If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” At this his opponents exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed!” They were outraged: “Are you greater than our father Abraham! He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?” (John 8:49–53). Jesus’ answer astonished them: “My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me.” “Before Abraham was, I am!” (John 8:54, 58; Chrysostom, Hom. on John, 55). This caused his shocked hearers to pick up “stones to stone him,” for this is what they perceived their duty to be in relation to blasphemy. Either Jesus was indeed blaspheming against the holy divine name, “I am” (= Yahweh, Exod. 3:14) or he was revealing something about his identity that stands as the central feature of the gospel (Augustine, Tractates on John 49.15).
John’s Gospel is organized around a series of key “signs,” each culminating in an “I am” (ego eimi) statement reminiscent of the declarations of Yahweh. When he raised a dead man he said, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). In giving sight to the man born blind Jesus said, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). When he fed the five thousand, he declared, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35). He later said, “I am the door of the sheep” (10:7) and “I am the good shepherd” (10:10, italics added).
These are extremely immodest statements if applied to an ordinary human subject (Apostolic Constitutions 5.1.7). Jesus did not teach as the prophets taught when they pointed beyond themselves to the source of the divine revelation. Rather he taught and spoke in the first person, as Yahweh had spoken in the form of “I am” in the Exodus account of deliverance. Luther thought that by this means Jesus deliberately used language “to stop all mouths” (Serm. on John 8:12, 1531). The way he taught people is a clue to the remarkable presence he commanded. “He taught as one who had authority, not as their teachers of the law” (Matt. 7:29; Chrysostom, Hom. on Matt. 25).
The Temple guards remarked, “No one even spoke the way this man does” (John 7:46). When he taught in the Temple courts, the religious leaders were amazed and puzzled: “How did this man get such learning without having studied,” to which Jesus answered; “My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me” (John 7:14–16; Augustine, Tractates on John, 29.3–5). Even those of remote Nazareth “were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. ‘Isn’t this Joseph’s son?’ they asked” (Luke 4:22).
Resurrection as Ultimate Validation
His identity was not fully grasped by the disciples until the resurrection. Thomas’ recognition was particularly dramatic. Having been told by the others: “We have seen the Lord!” (John 20:25), Thomas testily replied: “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.’ A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.’ Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’” (John 20:25–28; John Cassian, On the Incarnation 6.19).
Jesus could have rejected this ascription. Rather he received it, chiding Thomas not for his adoration, but for the tardiness of his belief, delayed by the requirement of having to “see.” One who could welcome such an ascription must either be God or deceiver (Chrysostom, Hom. on John 87; Kierkegaard, TC: 40–71). Such claims are not to be found merely in obscure corners of the New Testament or in minor writers. They are found widely throughout all strata of the Gospels and in all Gospels, and they recur in both the early and late epistles. The picture of Jesus that confronts us in the New Testament is too consistent to be fantasized or projected, too unrelenting to be fabricated. These are the claims that we constantly meet on whatever page we read of the New Testament. Turn to most any paragraph of the New Testament and see if you can read it without the premise that God has come in Jesus and the claim that in Jesus we are being met by nothing less than God (Augustine, Sermon 145A).
The resurrected Lord taught that he would return to judge the world at the end time—a prerogative belonging only to God. Matthew’s report of his language is audacious: “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven” (Matt 10:32–33; Chrysostom, Hom. on Matt., Hom. 34.3).
Why Delusion Is an Implausible Charge
All this is very unusual language, especially in the monotheistic Hebraic tradition. It is unconvincing to argue that Jesus did not say these things. They are so extraordinary that it seems implausible that they would have been invented by the disciples and put in Jesus’ mouth decades later. The delusion premise has a major flaw: If the reports were inaccurate, they would be challenged and easily discredited. This would require the witnesses to be quite sure they reported accurately, to avoid being discredited. The traditions reported by synoptic writers could have been contested and corrected by many living eyewitnesses during the period of oral transmission. This is why so much deliberate attention is given in the New Testament to accuracy and credibility of testimony (Luke 1:1–4; Mark 1:1; John 15:27, Acts 1:21–22; 1 John 1:1; Origen, Hom. on Luke 1.6; Chrysostom, Hom. on Acts 1).
These assertions in themselves cannot be considered reasonable arguments for the deity of Christ, but they do require some reasonable explanation, seen from within a community that cares about truth-telling in God’s presence. They defy the premise that Jesus was a great teacher even if he was not the messianic Son he claimed to be, for if he were not the messianic Son, then he surely must have been a deluded and deceptive teacher (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 32–38; Augustine, Trin. 3). It is a bad teacher who fails to tell the truth about himself, especially if the centerpiece of his teaching is himself, his own identity, his Sonship, and messianic mission. If he is in error about that central premise, then how could he be trusted as a teacher about anything else? Some imagine that the best way to communicate with the modern skeptical mind is to speak only of Jesus’ teaching and say nothing of his embarrassing alleged identity as eternal Son. But ironically that fantasy is made unacceptable by Jesus’ own teaching about himself if he is not the One he appears to be.
If he were a man claiming to be God, he would be far more than egocentric—either he must be deluded, or it must be true (Kierkegaard, TC: 26–39). This is an assertion of such incredible, outrageous import that it must be either radically true or radically false. The New Testament does not give the reader the option of just taking a little snippet of its testimony while leaving the scandalous center of it behind (Theodore of Mopsuestia, Comm. on John 6.15.27). Only if he was indeed the Christ, the God-man, can he be considered sane. We do not get the impression from any source that he was delusive in any other way. There is no supporting evidence that Jesus was in any way psychologically imbalanced, as one would expect to find in one purported to be seriously deluded (Tertullian, Ag. Praxeas 22–24; Stott, BC: 28–33). Everything else we know about Jesus leads us to believe that he was honest and not deceptive. It seems implausible that he who resisted deception so strongly in others would himself become so deceptive. Upon examining the record, some may conclude delusion, but it is far more plausible to conclude with the remembering ecumenical consensus that the delusion of Jesus’ detractors was greater than any Jesus might have had about himself.
Scriptural Reasoning About Christ’s Deity
The primitive Christian community had deep roots in Jewish monotheism. With such a heritage, it must have required an extraordinary motivation to confess Jesus Christ as Lord or speak of him without qualification as the one God. The motive would have had to have been powerful enough to overcome rigorous piety and religious training to the contrary.
These witnesses, however, had met him as risen Lord. Only on this eventful and experiential basis were they able to draw the conclusion that he was the heavenly Son of Man, messianic King, Son of God, and indeed truly God (Gregory of Nazianzus, Third Orat. on the Son, Orat. 29; BOC: 500, 592).
No ancient Christian creed fails to confess the deity of Christ, for that would omit the central feature of Christian confession (Athanasius, On the Incarn.; Augustine, CG). Christ is called “God” in the same sense and with the same meaning that the Old Testament applies that address to Yahweh, the one God to whom worship is owed, to whom the divine attributes rightly apply. Accordingly, Jude confessed Christ as “our only Sovereign and Lord,” the same One who “delivered his people out of Egypt” (Jude 4–5; Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 3.6.2, 3.19).
Classic exegetes thought that no argument of itself could finally convert the heart. Rather than by argument, such a conclusion can only be a deep-seated decision of the whole heart and mind, based upon whatever evidences one may be able to bring together to achieve a reliable sense of comprehensive coherence.
Whatever hypothesis best explains the widest range of evidence is the one upon which one may best ground one’s active, risk-laden trust. The classic tradition is not without careful arguments to attempt to grasp and understand what faith knows—that Christ is God (Tertullian, Apology 21). Here they are:
Classic Reasons That Christ Is God
There are five key arguments that flow together in classic Christian teaching to achieve this trust that Christ must be truly God.
IF—the Son is addressed in scripture by ascriptions that could only be appropriate for God;
if the Son possesses attributes that only God could possess;
if the Son does the works that only God could have done;
if the Son is worshiped as God without disclaiming it; and,
if the Son is viewed by the apostles as equal to God;
THEN—Question: where these five streams flow together, do they mutually compel faith to confirm that the Son indeed must be confessed as truly God?
These five arguments recur in classical exegesis of hundreds of New Testament texts.
holiness (“the Holy and Righteous One,” Acts 3:14)
underived being (Col. 1:15)
uncreated eternality (John 8:58; 17:5; “the same yesterday and today and forever,” Heb. 13:8; Heb. 9:14; Hilary, Trin. 9.53)
unsurpassable power (Matt. 28:20; Mark 5:11–15; John 11:38–44)
exceptional knowledge (knowing the hearts of all, Acts 1:24; Matt. 16:21; Luke 68; 11:17; John 4:29, Hilary, Trin. 9.62)
absolute veracity (“the truth,” John 14:6)
eternal love (“that surpasses knowledge,” Eph. 3:19)
Conclusion of the classic Christian consensus: one who is addressed in Scripture by ascriptions that could only be appropriate for God, who possesses attributes that only God could possess, who does the works that only God could have done, who is worshiped as God without disclaiming it; and, who is viewed by the apostles as equal to God—such a one must be God.
The Experiential Argument: Redeemed Lives Require a Redeemer
In addition to the above scriptural and traditional arguments, the consensual exegetes frequently recall a simple but disarming argument from experience—namely, the experience of the faithful community. The disciples experienced a profound consciousness of redemption. How did that experience emerge? It is possible to reason from the influence of Jesus upon redeemed persons to the character of his person as influencing cause. He cannot be less than God himself if he influences persons as Redeemer. If such faith is allowed to search in its own way for who Christ is, the name upon which it insists is God. No name but God is sufficient. No lesser identity will satisfy (Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat. 29, On the Son; Liddon, DL: 152).
This sort of Christology is derived from the fact that people experienced Christ as having the value of God (Ritschl, CDJR: 412–451). No one can reasonably predicate of a mere human being the saving efficacy that is known by the redeemed (Chrysostom, Hom. on John 24.2).
The argument was aptly stated by Wilhelm Herrmann: “This thought, that when the historical Christ takes such hold of us, we have to do with God Himself—this thought is certainly the most important element in the confession of the Deity of Christ…. In what Jesus does to us, we grasp the expression God gives us of His feeling towards us, or God Himself as a Personal Spirit working upon us. This is the form in which every man who has been reconciled to God through Christ necessarily confesses His Deity” (Communion with God: 143; Hilary, Trin. 12.56).
History Itself Vindicates Christ’s Deity
Gregory of Nyssa proposed this threefold demonstration from history, empirically discernible, that God became incarnate in Jesus:
Others after Gregory of Nyssa would make similar historical arguments (Augustine, Salvian, Victor of Vita). Although not a line of reasoning that can stand alone apart from other inferences from holy Scripture, it serves a corroborating function in supporting the conclusion that Jesus had unparalleled effect upon the course of universal history. It is a type of argument that begins with history and shows how actual history reveals the presence and work of the living God (Mark 1:1–11; Eusebius, Proof of the Gospel 9.5).
Christ’s Deity Is the Differential Feature of Christianity
Without the hypothesis that Jesus is God-incarnate it is hard to make sense of any part the New Testament (Calvin, Inst. 2.12; Wesley, WJW 2:352–53). These claims by Jesus and the apostles, taken together, have led Christians to conclude that the valid beginning point for understanding this particular man is plainly and simply that he is truly God while not ceasing to be truly human (Creed of Epiphanius; Council of Ephesus; Council of Chalcedon).
The deity of Christ is the differential feature of Christianity (Augustine, Trin., FC 45:52–58). Even Hegel could discern that “the Christian religion has this characteristic: that the Person of Christ in his character of the Son of God himself partakes of the nature of God” (Hegel, “On Philosophy,” On Art, Religion and Philosophy: 277).
A suffering messiah who is less than God may elicit our pity or admiration, but not our worship. A messiah to whom one cannot pray is not the Christ of the New Testament. If the Messiah is God’s own coming, then Christ is God, according to apostolic reasoning.
Jesus is Lord: What This Means
It is an article of apostolic faith to confess “one Lord” (Credo in unum Dominum, Gk. eis hena Kurion, Creed of 150 Fathers; Apostles’ Creed). What did the lordship of Christ mean?
That Jesus was confessed as “Lord” dates to the earliest known record of Christian preaching. The text that demonstrates the early date of this confession is a prayer of Paul’s of unquestionable authenticity: “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema marana tha” (1 Cor. 16:22a), which means: “a curse be on him. Come, O Lord!” (v. 22b). “That Paul should use an Aramaic expression in a letter to a Greek-speaking church that knew little or no Aramaic proves that the use of Mar (Kurios) for Jesus goes back to the primitive Aramaic church and was not a product of the Hellenistic community” (Ladd, TNT: 431). Just as Jesus had been Mar (Lord) to the earliest Aramaic speaking Jerusalem Christians, so did he quickly become confessed as Kurios among the earliest Greek-speaking Christians (1 Cor. 1:2; 1 Thess. 1:1; Mark 2:28; Didache 10:6; Rev. 22:20; Rawlinson, NTDC: 231–37).
The Aramaic word for Lord (Mar) was primitively applied to Christ in Paul’s poignant, closing salutation to the Corinthians: “Come, O Lord!” (Marana tha, 1 Cor. 16:22). Hence Jesus was called Lord from the earliest known layers of Christian proclamation. This phrase was sufficiently available to the earliest tradition of preaching that Paul could assume that his Corinthian hearers would understand it (Rawlinson, NTDC: 235).
The most frequent designation for Jesus in early Gentile Christianity, “Jesus is Lord” (Kurios Iesous), was the received confession of the Pauline tradition, with over two hundred and fifty references. “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9; 2 Tim. 2:22). “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3; Chrysostom, Hom. on First Cor. 29).
To confess Jesus as Lord after his resurrection was to confess his divinity. Prior to the resurrection Kurios could have meant “teacher” or “master,” but after the resurrection it indicated his present reign in the coming kingdom: “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36; Gregory of Nyssa, Ag. Eunomius 5.3; cf. Phil. 2:9–11). “He really is Lord, not as having step by step attained to lordship, but as having by nature the dignity of being Lord” (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 5.5). Kurios soon came to be used interchangeably with Theos.
In over six thousand instances in the Septuagint, Kurios translates the ancient Hebraic tetragrammaton YHWH, the name for Yahweh (Lord) in the Old Testament. Kurios was not a polite vocative reference to human leadership in the New Testament kerygma. That Jesus is Lord means that he is the One speaking who said: “I am who am,” and “I am has sent me” (Exod. 3:14). This incomparable One (Yahweh, Kurios, Deus) “has nothing for an opposite.” “When asked the opposite of that which ‘is’, we answer rightly that it is ‘nothing’” (Augustine, Faith and the Creed 4.7).
Christ as Kurios is viewed as pretemporal agent of creation (“through whom all things came,” 1 Cor. 8:6; Heb. 1:2–3) and posttemporal agent of consummation (1 Cor. 15:25–28). “Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power” (1 Cor. 15:24; Augustine, Eighty-Three Questions, 69.5). It was this Lord who met Paul personally on the road to Damascus and to whom Paul ascribed worship that belongs only to God. Judgment is the consummating act of his lordship in the final day (Rom. 14:10; 2 Cor. 5:10).
The Lordship of Christ and the History of Religions
The history of religions school has focused upon the correspondence between Christianity and its background in the history of religions. These points of correspondence do not constitute the slightest scandal to classic Christianity, whose testimony has always referred unapologetically to contingent history as the arena of divine redemption. Like Judaism, Christianity has always understood itself as a history of divine-human covenant worked out through a history of salvation.
No creditable ecumenical teacher ever assumed that Christianity was separable from a history of salvation, or from a universal history in which God is never left without witness in the world (Acts 14:17), who is the light that enlightens all who come into the world (John 1:4; Isaac of Nineveh, Ascetic Homily 48), who is known in various and sundry ways in general human history, yet who has come to be finally known in his Son (Heb. 1; Ambrose, On the Sacrament of the Incarnation of the Lord 6:59).
On this premise, the dialogue with world religions has proceeded in classic Christianity. The dialogue is not best understood under the metaphor of a diplomatic negotiation of competing interests of varied cultures. Rather it must inquire into the truth of all attested revelations, including Christianity. If the revelation of which Christianity speaks is only for Christians, then there is no compelling need for dialogue. But that does not square with Scripture. The Great Commission is to go to all nations and proclaim the gospel.
Continuing dialogue with Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism presents a vexing set of challenges to the Christian community to account for its statements about Jesus. Yet in the vital dialogue with world religions, Christians are tempted to dilute the testimony to the universal relevance of Jesus’ coming and instead focus more amiably upon the moral teaching of Jesus or his extraordinary life.
It remains a pivotal Christian assertion that Christ is the truth even for those who do not recognize him as their truth (Barth, How to Serve God in a Marxist Land: 57–58; CD I/2:344). “The world was made through him, yet the world knew him not” (John 1:10; Cyril of Alex., Comm. on John 1.9). He is Savior of all humanity even when humanity does not acknowledge his salvation. He remains the Life of the world even if the world remains in darkness (Gutiérrez, PPH: 12, 16).