Completing Witherington’s Christology of Jesus

I finished Ben Witherington III’s The Christology of Jesus.  In this post, I’ll highlight what Witherington says on page 276:

“Material in the Synoptics hints that Jesus had a transcendent self-image amounting to no more than a unique awareness of the Divine.  If, however, one means by divine awareness something that suggests either that Jesus saw himself as the whole or exclusive representation of the Godhead or that he considered himself in a way that amounted to the rejection of the central tenet of Judaism, (i.e., monotheism), then the answer must be no.  Jesus clearly prayed to a God he called abba, which excludes the idea that Jesus thought he was abba.  Jesus’ affirmation of monotheism seems clear (e.g., Mark 10:17-18; Matt. 23:9).”

What I expected when I picked up this book was for Witherington to argue via scholarly argumentation that Jesus viewed himself as God.  That would give strength to C.S. Lewis’ Lord-liar-lunatic trilemma, which states that Jesus either was God as he claimed, or he was a liar or a madman, and, since the latter two were not the case (since Jesus said and did things that were good and that made a degree of sense), we must conclude that he was God.  But Witherington did not argue that Jesus saw himself as God.  He contended that Jesus may have regarded himself as a shaliach, a person with divine authority; that Jesus viewed himself as a special son of God in the sense that he was the Messiah (for the Davidic kings were considered sons of God); that Jesus believed his death would atone for sins; and that Jesus thought he was wisdom incarnate.  But those were different from Jesus viewing himself as God.

But would the Lord-liar-lunatic trilemma still work, since, even in Witherington’s scenario, Jesus had an exalted conception of himself?  That depends on how unusual such a conception was in ancient Judaism.  Jesus was not the only one who was regarded as a shaliach, nor was he the only person who thought he was the Messiah.  Jesus also may not have been unique in believing that his death would atone for people’s sins, for there was a belief in ancient Judaism that the death of the righteous could bring vicarious atonement.  Witherington does argue that Jesus was unique in seeing himself as wisdom incarnate, but I don’t see why that would be an unthinkable leap from Jesus’ other exalted conceptions of himself.  Jesus could have easily gone from viewing himself as the shaliach and as the Messiah, to seeing himself as wisdom itself.  And, just because Jesus saw himself in such terms, that doesn’t mean he was accurate, for others in ancient Judaism made exalted claims about themselves.  Were they right?

(UPDATE: I wrote this post a while back, and I’ve already turned Witherington’s book back into the library.  As I think back, I don’t remember if Witherington talked much about people who had an exalted SELF-conception in ancient Judaism.  Rather, if my memory is correct, he discussed exalted conceptions that people had about others—-that another person could be a shaliach, or could die for others’ sins.  My impression is that Witherington still felt that these conceptions were relevant to how Jesus saw himself, however, and that Jesus’ exalted self-conception was not unusual in light of these conceptions that were floating around in his day.)

In my posts on The Christology of Jesus, I have mentioned Witherington’s conclusions, without really going into how Witherington arrived at them.  Witherington does attempt to establish through scholarly argumentation that Jesus said and did certain things that are recorded in the synoptic Gospels.  My impression is that, most of the time, he does this by relying on a criterion of embarrassment, which states that the early church would not have invented embarrassing things about Jesus, and thus those things were authentic to Jesus himself.  For example, Witherington regards Jesus’ claim to have authority over the Sabbath in Mark 2 to be historical, for the early church would not invent Jesus making the blooper that Abiathar was the high priest during David’s flight, when Ahimelech was the priest.  That means that Jesus historically believed that he had (an unprecedented?) authority over the Torah.  Witherington believes that Jesus historically saw himself as the eschatological Son of Man, for Jesus tells Jewish authorities in Mark 14:62 that they will see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven (I draw here from the KJV’s language).  According to Witherington, the early church would not have invented this, for those Jewish authorities technically did not see Jesus on the right hand of power coming in the clouds of heaven.  For Witherington, there is good reason to conclude that Jesus historically had an exalted self-conception, or Christology.

Tentative Thoughts on Witherington and Whether Jesus Was an Apocalyptic Prophet

What stood out to me in my latest reading of The Christology of Jesus was Ben Witherington III’s discussion on page 194 about whether or not Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet.

Witherington believes that Jesus’ worldview had apocalyptic elements, such as the notion that Satan fell from heaven and possibly parts of Mark 13.  But, in an overall sense, Witherington doubts that Jesus had an apocalyptic worldview, which Witherington defines as “a view that the world’s end was necessarily imminent and that this world’s structures were so inherently corrupt and evil that they were unredeemable” (page 194).  Why?  First, Jesus presumed the “ongoing existence” of the family.  Second, Jesus did not “condemn Roman rule or taxation”, which “does not comport” with the view that Satanically-supported empires are afflicting God’s people.  Third, Jesus is not calling for “perseverance until some future time when God will act”, but rather is “proclaiming good news that God is even now intervening in history.”  Fourth, Jesus’ parables resemble wisdom literature, not apocalyptic literature.

But Witherington does acknowledge that eschatology was a significant feature of Jesus’ message.  Does that mean that Witherington acknowledges that Jesus believed in an impending eschaton, or end-times intervention by God to overthrow evil and set up his kingdom?  Perhaps not, for Witherington on page 193 states that, in eschatology, there can be a long denouement after the crucial events.  Witherington states that the messianic age preceding the end of the world is “an age that in the relevant Jewish literature can last for a considerable period of time before the ‘end of the world’ (cf. Syr. Baruch 24-30, 4 Ezra 7.29f., 1 Enoch 91-93)” (page 193).  Could Revelation 20 fit that category, even though it is Christian literature?  It envisions the Messiah and certain saints ruling for a thousand years, before the last judgment and the new heavens and the new earth.  I guess the question then would be: When is the millennium?  Will it be a future event, or did it start with the resurrection of Christ?  I tend to go with the former, but amillennialists and post-millennialists go with the latter, as they treat Christ’s millennial rule as more spiritual than something literal and physical on earth.

Witherington believes that John the Baptist was proclaiming an impending wrath, however.  For Witherington, was that an eschatological wrath that would immediately precede a new beginning and renewal?  Or was it simply the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., which was not followed by renewal?

Regarding Witherington’s reasons that Jesus did not have an apocalyptic worldview, I am not entirely convinced by them.  I think a case can be made that Jesus and the early church thought that the end was near.  The family would be ongoing and would cause Christians trouble, until the end.  Jesus did not condemn Roman rule or taxation, but that could be because he believed that the fulfillment of God’s kingdom was imminent, and so why worry about whether Jews should pay taxes to the Romans?  (Witherington likewise says that Jesus regarded taxation as unimportant in light of God’s kingdom, but my impression is that Witherington does not define God’s kingdom as God soon bringing the present world system to an end.)  Jesus did exhort his disciples to endure until the end.  And, while Jesus did preach good news that God even now was intervening in history, and Jesus most likely saw the Kingdom of God as present in his own ministry, that does not preclude him believing that God would soon bring the present world order to an end.  Perhaps Jesus believed that he was starting the process of ending Satanic dominion over the earth, a process that God would soon complete.  And that is good news, for those who repent.  Is this totally like Jewish apocalyptic?  Not necessarily, but maybe Jesus drew from elements of apocalyptic while diverging from apocalyptic in areas.

I write this, however, not knowing Witherington’s overall views regarding Jesus’ eschatology.  Witherington wrote a book on that subject, which I have, but I haven’t read it yet.  Plus, I have more of The Christology of Jesus to read.  So there is some speculation on my part about what Witherington thinks.

Jesus as Shaliach

I’m continuing my way through Ben Witherington III’s The Christology of Jesus.

So what did Jesus believe that he was, according to Witherington?  In my reading so far, Witherington is open to the notion that Jesus saw himself as God’s Shaliach, which was an “agent, someone endowed with divine authority and power, the very authority and power of the sender” (page 51).  Witherington refers to Larry Hurtado’s point that early Judaism applied a concept of divine agency to “everything from personified divine attributes, to patriarchs, to special angels” (page 51).  My impression is that Witherington also holds that Jesus viewed himself as pre-existent, for Witherington argues that Jesus thought that he was Wisdom incarnate.

Witherington regards as historical certain Gospel passages in which Jesus nullifies or claims to supersede parts of the Torah, such as the Sabbath and the dietary laws.  Consequently, Witherington concludes that Jesus regarded himself as special.  But Witherington holds that Jesus had reasons for going against the Torah: because Jesus thought that the Kingdom was breaking into human history, bringing a new situation, and because Jesus felt that he had to disregard purity rules in order to reach out to sinners as a spiritual physician and bring them to repentance.

4/24/2012 Links

I’ve been reading a lot of excellent posts these last few weeks.  Here, I want to share some of them with you (if you haven’t read them already).

1.  Messianic Jew Derek Leman talks about Rachel Held Evans’ controversial post, 15 Reasons I Left Church.  Derek refers to an e-mail that he received, which said (and Derek changed some parts to respect the person’s anonymity):

“At the local university I am completing some classes in Judaism and loving them. Then I attend my local church and things that never bothered me before are suddenly a terrible disappointment. In a recent sermon, the pastor unfortunately used the typical theme of Jewish faithlessness in contrast to Christian faithfulness. His complete lack of skill in exegeting the scriptures, in realizing the authors themselves were Jewish, and that anti-Judaism is nowhere to be found in a skillful reading of the New Testament is alarming.  In another recent Bible discussion, many of the members gave smug answers about the harmfulness of the Law and the superiority of ‘grace,’ as they understand it. I felt so out of place here. This is the first time I have come to feel like a stranger in my own church. I am afraid I don’t fit within Christianity anymore, but my faith in Jesus has not diminished at all. Why can’t churches see Messiah for who he is? How can a person whose eyes are opened to these things remain?”

This made me think some about my own church’s approach towards the Hebrew Bible and Judaism.  (My church is PCUSA.)  Like other churches that I have attended, my current church criticizes the Pharisees (see my post here), and it sometimes treats the Hebrew Bible as inferior to the New Testament.  At the same time, both the Pastor and the Pastor Emeritus have said that God’s hand was in the creation of the modern state of Israel, albeit they didn’t say this in a fanatical Christian Zionist way.  Moreover, I think that our Bible study through Margaret Feinberg’s Scouting the Divine was a positive step, for Feinberg demonstrated knowledge and appreciation for laws in the Hebrew Bible, such as the Sabbath, gleanings, and the land rest.  Some people in the group were using that as a platform to promote blue laws, which (as someone who spent time in Seventh-Day Adventism) frightened me somewhat.  But Feinberg’s book definitely encouraged us to see the Torah positively.

2.  The Christian Heretic shared a journal entry that she wrote when she was a Christian in college.  She said:

“My Chi Alpha friends loved me when I was ultra-spiritual and rebuked me when I wasn’t.  So I sort of went into pseudo-spiritual.  I did all the right things, said the right words, but my motivation was to make friends, not just to get to know God.  He was the fringe benefit.  Here at home, my friends at church seem so shallow and superficial.  Whenever I get together in a social gathering, it’s all rowdy, fun and games, crazy, not too much hint of a serious side.  In both situations, I feel I have compromised my relationships with God for the relationships of people.  I keep searching for the perfect friend.  One who has all the qualities listed earlier.

“People just aren’t like that, though.  Every human being on this earth puts conditions on their love for one another.  ‘I love you because you seem spiritual.’  ‘I love you because you’re wild and crazy and like a good time.’  ‘I love you because you are my daughter.’  No person can love all the various facets of an individual.  A person loves, not another person, but certain sides of his personality that are compatible with their own.  Only God can love the whole person.”

I identified with wanting a deeper relationship with God that was hard to find amidst the evangelical fun-and-games, and also desiring unconditional love, which is hard to get in this world.

3.  Nick Norelli criticizes Bart Ehrman’s remark that “Apart from fundmanetalists and very conservative evangelicals, scholars are unified in thinking that the view that Jesus was God was a later development within Christian circles”.  Nick appeals to Larry Hurtado, a scholar who argues on the basis of cultic devotion that Jesus was exalted early on in Christian history, meaning that a relatively high Christology is early rather than late.

4.  Rodney shares what he thinks about being in churchrelevance.com’s Top 200 Church Blogs.

5.  Kate Elizabeth Conner talks about the two times that she adored Jerry Falwell when she was a student at Liberty University.

To Whom Do I Pray?

I read Randy Olds’ Praying To A Triune God this morning.  Randy Olds was once in the Armstrong movement, which believed that God was a family consisting of Father and Son.  Now, he’s a Trinitarian.  Soon after his conversion to Trinitarianism, he wondered what effect his new-found belief would have on his prayer life.  “To whom do I pray?” was the question he asked himself.

I’ve asked myself this same question many times during the years, and I’ve gotten different answers, from myself and from others.  There have been seasons in my life when I have prayed to Jesus, maybe because I pictured Jesus as the gentle shepherd whom Protestants liked to depict (an idea I did not get from my Armstrongite background), or I was drawn to Jesus the healer, or I liked the concept of an incarnate God experiencing suffering, rejection, and limitations like other human beings, myself included.  God the Father seemed to me to be too distant, too remote, too vague, and too firm!  He sent Jesus to suffer and die, but Jesus was the one who voluntarily came down to earth and laid down his life.  Jesus sacrificed himself for me!  I needed the sweet, sappy religion of non-Armstrongite Christianity, the sort that emphasized “JESUS!”  and plain old-fashioned “LOVE!”  You know, the sort of Christianity that Armstrongism liked to mock.

At other seasons in my life, I’ve had problems with praying to Jesus as if he were God, or God Number Two.  These have been the seasons in which I’ve been drawn to Judaism, with its belief that God is one.  In these times, I could identify with the Jews who had problems praying to a white Jesus with long brown hair and a beard as if he were the supreme God, especially those who were martyred for their belief in monotheism.  I was drawn to depictions of Jesus as a good Jew, who valued the Torah and believed in Israel’s shema, which affirmed that God is one.  This Jesus may have been an agent of God and a servant of God—even the Messiah.  But he was not the same as God.

Some people in my family believed we could pray to either God the Father or Jesus.  Others said we should pray to the Father only, yet do so in Jesus’ name.  People in my family who were in touch with their Jewish ancestry tended to recoil from praying to Jesus, preferring instead to pray to the Father.

One thing I liked about Randy Olds’ post is that he gives Scriptural evidence that the believer can pray to Jesus.  He states:

“Regarding praying directly to Jesus, in John 14:13-14 Jesus tells His disciples that whatever they ask Him in His Name he will grant, but then in John 16:23-24 He tells the disciples that whatever they ask the Father in Jesus name will be granted. In 2 Corinthians 12:8, Paul apparently pleaded directly to Jesus to have the Thorn in His flesh removed. The grammar in 1 John 5:11-15 seems to imply that whenever we ask anything of the Son, He hears us. Another passage of interest regarding praying directly to Jesus is found in Acts 7:59-60 when Stephen was stoned, and he cried out “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” Although not conclusive, I think that the majority of these scriptures would indicate that praying directly to Jesus is supported, and I can find no scripture directly advising against it.”

I wonder if James McGrath addresses these verses in his book, The One True God, for one of his arguments is that the New Testament does not advocate praying to Jesus, since only God should be the recipient of prayers.   

In terms of whom I talk to nowadays in my prayers, I guess I talk to both the Father and Christ.  Sometimes, I introduce my prayer with “Father,” and I end up talking to Jesus somewhere in the middle!  My Christology is a little murky these days, in the sense that I’m somewhat of a unitarian, yet I still believe that Jesus is a divine sort of figure, who represents God the Father and possesses many of his characteristics.  Jesus as an expression of the Father’s wisdom makes sense to me right now, in light of Proverbs 8:22ff. and early Christian thinkers such as Justin Martyr and Tertullian: God has wisdom, and he fashioned that wisdom into a separate being, the Logos, who created the universe and later became Jesus Christ. 

But my Christology is not set in stone, for I can spot problems in it.  What’s it do to God’s claim that he alone stretched out the heavens (Isaiah 44:24)?  Does a denial that Jesus is eternal God entail treating him as a creature, meaning that praying to him is worshipping the creature rather than the creator (Romans 1:25)?  But, wait a second, Jesus as Logos was the creator (John 1; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2)!  Yet, Philo called the Logos created and uncreated, affirmed he was the creator, called the Logos a “second God,” and yet also believed in one true God.  So go figure!  If a first century thinker such as Philo could simultaneously hold all of these different ideas within his belief system, why couldn’t John, or the authors of Colossians and Hebrews?

But, at the present time, none of this really goes through my mind when I pray to Jesus.  For some reason, praying to a figure who hasn’t been around forever doesn’t make much sense to me.  But I still pray to Jesus at times, thinking mostly about his earthly ministry, his role as a good shepherd, and his activity as my personal savior, cleansing me from sin and its penalty.

The Shepherd of Hermas’ Christology

Johannes Quasten, Patrology, vol. I: The Beginnings of Patristic Literature, from the Apostle’s Creed to Irenaeus (Westminster: Christian Classics, 1983) 99-100.

The Shepherd of Hermas was an influential Christian document from the first-second centuries C.E. The church fathers were divided over its divine inspiration (see “Hermas”).

Quasten quotes Parable 5:6:5-7 of the Shepherd of Hermas, which pertains to the work’s Christology:

The pre-existent Holy Spirit which created all things did God make to dwell in a body of flesh chosen by himself. This flesh, in which dwelt the Holy Spirit, served the Spirit well in all purity and all sanctity without ever inflicting the least stain upon it. After the flesh had thus conducted itself so well and chastely, after it had assisted the Spirit and worked in all things with it, always showing itself to be strong and courageous, God admitted it to share with the Holy Spirit; for the conduct of this flesh pleased him, because it was not defiled while it was bearing the Holy Spirit on earth. He therefore consulted His Son and His glorious angels, in order that this flesh, which had served the Spirit without any cause for reproach, might obtain a place of habitation, and might not lose the reward of its services. There is a reward for all flesh which through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit shall be found without stain.

Quasten comments: According to this passage the Trinity of Hermas seems to consist of God the Father, of a second divine person, the Holy Spirit, whom he identifies with the Son of God and finally the Saviour, who was elevated to be their companion as the reward of his merits. In other words Hermas regards the Saviour as the adopted son of God as far as his human nature is concerned.

To be honest, I’m having a hard time understanding the Shepherd’s Christology. Here’s what I’m getting: There’s a Holy Spirit, who is the Son of God, and he created all things. God made this Spirit dwell in a body of flesh, the human Jesus. That flesh cooperated with the Spirit by keeping itself pure. God therefore rewarded this flesh.

The translation Quasten uses says that God “consulted His Son and His glorious angels,” and that somewhat stumped me, for it seems to imply that God asked his angels and the Holy Spirit who’d possessed Jesus’ flesh whether or not he should exalt Jesus, the human being. But my translations on BibleWorks (Lightfoot and APE, whatever that is) offer something different. Lightfoot has, “He therefore took the son as adviser and the glorious angels also…” This implies that the passage means God exalted the human Jesus to the status of adviser.

Yet, not so fast! In Hermas’ Parable 2:5:6-7, the master (God) consults his son on whether or not he should exalt the righteous servant to be the son’s co-heir. In Hermas’ Parable 5:5:2, the servant is identified as the Son of God. So I guess God has two sons: the Holy Spirit who dwelt in Jesus’ flesh, and Jesus the human being.

The Shepherd of Hermas’ Christology reminds me of Nestorianism, which was considered a heresy at the fifth century Council of Chalcedon. Nestorianism is the view that two separate natures (the divine and the human) dwelt inside of Jesus Christ. According to Nestorians, Jesus’ body (including all that made him a human being, such as his flesh and human soul) was something that clothed God the Word, Jesus’ divine nature. And the two were separate: Jesus’ human nature didn’t know when the Son of Man would return (Mark 13:32), for example, but his divine nature did, being omniscient (see Theodoret the Nestorian vs. Cyril the Monophysite). Similarly, the Shepherd of Hermas treats the human Jesus as a container for the Holy Spirit, the Son of God who created all things.

In a vague sense, the Shepherd of Hermas also reminds me of the heresy that “Christ” came upon the human Jesus at his baptism. But I’m not sure if I’d go that far. For one, the Shepherd of Hermas never says that the Holy Spirit came upon the human Jesus at his baptism. Still, I do wonder how the book would handle Mark 1:10, which presents the Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove when he was baptized. I mean, if the Shepherd of Hermas thinks that Jesus’ divine nature was the Holy Spirit, whom he defines as the Son of God who created the universe, then when would the Shepherd place that Holy Spirit taking his residence within Jesus: at his birth? At his baptism? As far as I know, he doesn’t say, but I do wonder.

Second, the heresy that “Christ” came upon the human Jesus at his baptism also said that the “Christ” left Jesus right before his crucifixion. That would indicate that the divine “Christ” did not suffer. But I’m not sure if the Shepherd of Hermas would say that, since he maintains that the Son of God suffered trials and purged the sins of the people (Parable 5:6:2-3). But who knows? He seemed to believe that there were two sons of God: the Holy Spirit who created all things and came to inhabit Jesus, and Jesus the human being who cooperated with the Holy Spirit. Is he talking only about the latter when he says the son suffered, or does he think that the Holy Spirit suffered too, being a part of Jesus?

In any case, the Shepherd of Hermas has an interesting trinity, if I’m understanding his Christology correctly. You have God the Father, the Holy Spirit who created all things, and Jesus, who was exalted because of his obedience to the Holy Spirit who inhabited him. According to Quasten, the Shepherd thinks Jesus became part of the Godhead at his exaltation.

The Incarnation: Orthodoxy is Confusion!

Felix Taylor of Post-WCG Life and Theology has a great post, Guess What I found on Youtube.com???. Felix found the episode of The John Ankerberg Show in which Ankerberg interviews religious teacher Garner Ted Armstrong.

So far, I’ve watched the first three parts, which relate to the incarnation. Would be that both sides handled this complex issue with the least dose of humility, but, alas, they don’t. Ankerberg and his audience act like anyone who doesn’t see it as they do is a gross heretic.

Basically, Armstrong teaches that Jesus was the creator God, who was transformed into a flesh and blood human being. For him, Jesus died, meaning that no part of him was alive when he was in the tomb. Moreover, Armstrong maintains that Jesus had the same type of fallen human nature that we all do, which indicates that he could have sinned.

Ankerberg takes this to mean that Armstrong denies Jesus’ divinity in the flesh. For Ankerberg, God is immutable, unchangeable, immortal, and sinless. Because Jesus was God even while he was human, he had all of the prerogatives of deity that he possessed before his incarnation, including omnipresence. He had to have these things, else God changed, which he cannot. But Ankerberg maintains that Jesus hid or chose not to use some of those attributes (particularly omnipresence). And how’s he respond to the notion that Jesus died, something that’s impossible for God? He says that Jesus’ human part was dead during his three days and three nights in the tomb, whereas his divine part was still alive.

That reminds me of something I heard at a Seventh-Day Adventist church. We were discussing the incarnation, and everyone assumed that Jesus had a divine part and a human part. I asked about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane: At some point, Jesus disagreed with God’s plan, since he asked God to take the cup from him. Did that mean there was tension within the Godhead? Everyone in the Bible study class responded that Jesus’ human part disagreed with God, whereas his divine part did not.

Does this make any sense at all? It makes Jesus look like a split personality. Jesus is Jesus, right? He’s one being, not two in one. Plus, what’s all this “part” stuff? Jesus is fully divine and fully human, according to Chalcedon’s definition of orthodoxy. Then how can there be parts?

I don’t know as much about early Christianity as I should, but I remember discussing Nestorianism with a friend at Harvard, whose field of study was the church fathers. Nestorianism is a heresy. According to my friend, it teaches that Jesus had two natures, divine and human, which were like an apple and an orange in a bag. Orthodoxy teaches, however, that Jesus was a unified person, not someone with a split personality. If that definition is true, then my SDA friends and Ankerberg sound like Nestorians.

Interestingly, all sorts of people claim to have THE orthodox perspective on Jesus’ incarnation. On the Christian dating site that I visit, a Princeton graduate said that Jesus had a sex drive, and anyone who says the opposite is a docetist, a heresy maintaining that Jesus only appeared to be a human but actually was not one. “But Jesus couldn’t lust,” other Christians respond. “He was God.”

The problem is that Jesus was divine and human, and those things are mutually contradictory. Divinity means immutable and immortal. Humanity means changing and dying. And people try to handle this contradiction in all sorts of ways. One heresy said that Jesus’ mind was divine, whereas his body was human. The side that became orthodox responded that this can’t be true, since it implies that Jesus wasn’t a true man–with a human mind. Even many evangelicals have appealed to Philippians 2:6-7 to argue that Jesus emptied himself of his divine attributes. Other evangelicals then retort that this means Jesus was not fully God, which can’t be true, since Colossians 2:9 is clear that “in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (NRSV).

God can’t change, and yet, in the Scriptures, we see aspects of Jesus that are clearly mutable. Hebrews 5:8-9 says: “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him[.]” “Learned”? “Made perfect”? Those words imply that Jesus became something he wasn’t before. In short, he changed.

Jesus aged. That implies change. He died and rose again with a new body. That’s change! “But Jesus was God, and God doesn’t change. See Malachi 3:6!” True, and Hebrews 13:8 says that Jesus Christ “is the same yesterday and today and forever.” And, yet, the Bible presents Jesus changing.

Could Jesus sin? We read that it’s impossible for God to lie (Titus 1:2–though the Greek word “apseudes” may just mean that God is trustworthy), so does that mean there was not the slightest possibility that Jesus could sin? Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” What’s the point of Jesus being tempted, if he absolutely could not sin? That makes the temptation pretty pointless, doesn’t it, if not non-existent?

Was Jesus fully dead? Well, Jesus said he was in Revelation 2:8, as Garner Ted argues. But here we may have a case of clashing proof-texts. Romans 4:24 says that God raised Jesus from the dead, which implies that an external power needed to resurrect Jesus, who was as dead as a doornail. And yet, Jesus says in John 2:19, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Doesn’t that indicate that Jesus could resurrect himself? Didn’t part of him need to be alive for this to happen?

And then there’s omniscience. God knows everything. Did Jesus? Matthew 24:36 says, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” “But that just means that Jesus’ human part didn’t know, whereas his divine part did.” WHATEVER! Jesus was Jesus. Either he knew or he didn’t.

The issue is complex, and different people can use proof-texts to buttress conflicting positions. Personally, I’m not going to judge someone else for trying to make sense of this issue in a way that differs from my own approach (whatever that is). And I think that the “orthodox” position is as weak and confusing as other views.

But some may say that the orthodox position is crucial. “The martyrs gave their blood for it!” Who cares?! I didn’t ask them to do that! They were closed-minded, as were the people who put them to death.

Jesus’ Nature

At church this last Sunday, the priest once more discussed the nature of Jesus. According to him, Jesus did not find out that he was God at any particular point in his life; rather, he always knew about his divinity, even as a baby, for being God implies the possession of omniscience. He characterized the view that Jesus learned about his divinity as an old heresy. As far as the priest was concerned, Jesus didn’t need to learn anything, for he knew everything throughout his life.

The priest tried to explain away the biblical passages in which Jesus seems to learn. According to him, when Jesus was asking questions in the temple (Luke 2:46), he wasn’t seeking information that he did not know. Rather, in typical Socratic fashion, he was asking questions to make the doctors think. Like the rabbis, Jesus sat while his pupils (in this case, the doctors) stood. For the priest, when Luke 2:52 says that Jesus grew in wisdom, that doesn’t mean that he was learning new things. Rather, it indicates that people were teaching him as he submitted to their tutelage. The priest asserted that Jesus already knew how to make a table, but he let Joseph teach him and did things Joseph’s way out of respect for his father.

The priest has a point about Jesus in the temple. I can envision Jesus asking questions to learn more about the Bible, but I can also understand if one would have a problem with Jesus “learning” from the religious establishment. I personally think that the rabbis taught some good things, but the Gospels often present the scribes, Pharisees, and priests as the bad guys. Why would Jesus want to learn their doctrine as he went about his Father’s business? Maybe he sought to understand the doctrine of his opponents so he could refute it when he grew up.

The priest’s second point is quite a stretch, in my opinion. Luke 2:52 doesn’t merely state that Jesus let people teach him. It affirms that Jesus grew in wisdom. If he grew in wisdom, then his understanding was not always perfect, otherwise there would have been no need for growth.

There is a view that Jesus emptied himself of several divine attributes when he became a human. Philippians 2:7 says that he ekenosen, or emptied himself. People who believe like the priest interpret the verse to mean that Jesus became a person of no reputation, not that he lost his divine attributes. But there are other passages that affirm that Jesus did his miraculous works through his Father, not his own ability (John 5:19, 30; 8:28; Acts 2:22). In becoming a man, Jesus made himself utterly dependent on God for his wisdom and power.

Or at least this is one view in the New Testament. Many scholars contend that Matthew tries to make Jesus appear more divine in his telling of one of the stories. In Mark 5:25-34 and Luke 8:43-48, the woman with an issue of blood touches Jesus’ garment, prompting Jesus to inquire, “Who touched me?” Jesus does not ask this question in Matthew’s version (Matthew 9:20-22). Perhaps Matthew was thinking, “Jesus wouldn’t ask this. He already knew who touched him. He was God, after all!” Or (for more conservative believers) he could have thought, “Look, Mark and Luke were just presenting Jesus as asking a rhetorical question. He wasn’t seeking new information! But, to avoid any confusion, I’ll just omit the question in my version. I want to make clear that Jesus was God.”

Sometimes, the same book can present different Christologies. As we saw above, there are passages in John’s Gospel in which Jesus is utterly dependent on the Father for wisdom and power. At the same time, John 2:19 says that Jesus was responsible for his own resurrection, for it states that Jesus will raise his own body after three days. This is in contrast with Paul, who affirms that God raised Jesus from the dead (Romans 4:24). Maybe one can reconcile the two ideas by saying that God gave Jesus the power to resurrect himself.

The New Testament itself contains a complex approach to Christology, so I’m reluctant to dismiss someone as a heretic just because he doesn’t phrase the issue in a certain way. And there are people from all sorts of perspectives who toss around the label of “heretic.” Some say that Jesus was fully human, so he had sexual desires and lacked omniscience as a child. For them, any other view of Jesus is docetism, the belief that Jesus only appeared to be human but really wasn’t (since he was fully divine). Personally, I trust the priest more than Protestant renegades on what the church fathers considered orthodox. At the same time, I don’t support explaining away biblical passages to make them conform to the “orthodox” perspective. I embrace the Bible in all its complexity, as I try to learn from its different facets and nuances.

My Church on the Nature of Jesus

The priest at the Catholic church that I attend spoke about the nature of Jesus in his last two sermons. There are two issues that I want to discuss:

1. Last Sunday, the priest said that Jesus did not become God; rather, he always was God, is God, and ever shall be God. According to the priest, no one can become God–either one has that specific identity or one does not. For him (and, presumably, for the Catholic Church), divinity is not something that one can earn or obtain through maturity.

I’m not going to get into diverse ideas about Christology, but I do have a question about the priest’s claim that people cannot become God. When I was at DePauw, I took a class about Christianity, and we discussed the Arian controversy. My professor said that one of the slogans of the “orthodox” camp went like this: “God became as we are, that we might become as God is.” What exactly did orthodox Christians mean when they said that humans can become like God? Do they mean looking like God, or resembling God in goodness, or being like God in immortality, or what exactly?

Indeed, I John 3:1-3 also says that Christians have the hope of becoming like God. It says, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure” (NRSV). What does this passage mean?

Another point: As my readers may know, I grew up in an offshoot of the Worldwide Church of God, which taught that Christians will become divine beings as part of the “God family.” In The Journal, a newspaper that publishes articles by people in the Church of God movement, someone argued that there are similarities between the Worldwide Church of God’s traditional positions and those of the Eastern Orthodox Church. One example he presented was that both believe humans can become God (or God-like). Is this statement an accurate characterization of the Eastern Orthodox Church?

2. On New Year’s Day, the Feast of the Circumcision, the priest said that Jesus was all-knowing at the time of his circumcision. He disputed the claim that Jesus’ circumcision was meaningless because he did not remember it as an adult. For him, Jesus assumed pain throughout his life, from his birth to his circumcision, and he was fully aware of his pain during that time. The priest contended that Jesus’ awareness even as an infant was due to his divine nature, which is aware and knowledgeable.

What the priest said reminded me of the Infancy gospels, in which baby Jesus actually talks in complete sentences (and child Jesus can get rather vicious!). I’m not sure if I’d go as far as the priest did, since Philippians 2 seems to present Jesus as laying aside several divine prerogatives in becoming a man. There are Christians who believe as I do, but those who say they cling to the “orthodox” position assert that Jesus had all of the divine attributes throughout his life. For them, he even had omnipresence, but he chose not to use it (I think that’s their contention). It’s interesting how creeds these days are as much a test of orthodoxy as the Bible in conservative Christian circles.