Towards
a Revised Christology
by
Mark Mattison
from
The Making of a Tradition
Now
that we have examined biblical theology, we can develop a systematic
theological approach to the person of Christ.
This approach must do full justice to all the biblical evidence and yet
remain fully practical and relevant to our lives today. Further, no amount of
systematic reflection must diminish our awe and respect of our exalted Savior
or downplay the significance of his sacrificial death for our lives.
Let
there be no mistake: the New Testament does indeed apply the title
"God" to Jesus Christ. This does not mean that Christ is God in the
traditional sense; however, he is called "God".
Several
verses may describe Jesus in this way.
Romans 9:5, 2 Thessalonians 1:12, 1 Timothy 3:16, Titus 2:13, Hebrews
1:8, 2 Peter 2:1, and 1 John 5:20 are all possibilities. However, the Greek in
each case is so ambiguous that scholars and translators are divided over these
verses. There are two verses, however, which certainly call Jesus "God." The original version of
John 1:18, which calls Jesus "the only begotten God," and John 20:28
both make that identification.
Do
these verses contradict what I have written about the Messiah? Further, do they contradict the rest
of the New Testament? According to Acts
2:22, "Jesus of Nazareth was a man...". How can could he be both "God" and
"man"? How can he say "The Father is greater than I" and
"I and the Father are one"?
This
is precisely the question that has plagued the church for two millennia. The
answers have been inadequate because they have been sought with a Graeco-Roman
mindset; Western civilization today is permeated with this Greek world view. As
Greeks, we think in terms of metaphysics; when we ask how Christ can be both God
and man, we are seeking a "scientific" explanation of what Jesus was
made of and how "God substance" and "man substance" can be
combined to make a being who is truly God and truly man. Thus we define the
"divine substance" as being something different from, and better
than, the "human substance." We then seek to explain how this divine
second member of the Trinity can descend to earth and somehow
"become" man.
Already,
however, we are off on the wrong foot. If we define "divinity" and
"humanity" in terms contradictory to each other, we are barking up
two different trees, pulling the person of Jesus in two directions, trying to
explain a mysterious paradox. To overcome this dilemma, we must attempt to
leave behind this Greek mode of thinking and adopt the mindset of the
Palestinian persuasion of the first century.
Jesus'
divinity must be understood in terms of his humanity. According to the Epistle
to the Hebrews, Jesus was like us in all respects except one (2:11-14,17;
4:15); he was without sin. If, in addition, we recognize that Jesus had a
"Godship" or divine status that we do not have, then it logically
follows that the absence of sin and the presence of God-nature is the same
thing. If we understand Jesus' divinity any other way, he becomes less like us,
less human. As Mackintosh writes, "all that is Divine in Christ is human,
and all that is human, Divine".
(John Knox, The Humanity and Divinity of Christ (Cambridge University
Press), 1967, p. 104.)
This
explanation goes a long way in telling us how Christ could be both equal to God
(John 10:30) and yet subordinate to Him (John 14:28) at the same time. The
principle is most clearly seen in John 5:18,19. There, several Pharisees state
that Jesus claimed equality with God. This was not a misunderstanding on the
part of the Pharisees, but a valid understanding of Jesus' claims. Their first
two accusations were true; Jesus was breaking the Sabbath and he was claiming
God as his Father. Therefore, the third statement should also be true, namely,
that he was claiming to be equal with God. But how could this single human
being be said to be equal to God? Jesus himself answers this question in the
very next verse, v. 19:
Jesus gave them this answer:
I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself.
Thus, Jesus is equal to God
by virtue of his complete subordination to Him. To illustrate this principle,
think of a window (Jesus) without stain or smudge (sin). The sunlight (God)
shines through the window. Thanks to the fact that the window is crystal-clear,
utterly transparent, and completely clean, the divine rays of the sun can shine
unhindered through it. No matter where
one looks on the window, all he can see is the sunlight; the selfless window is
completely absorbed by the sunlight. Yet
it does not cease to be a window.
Likewise,
Jesus, by virtue of his obedience (and only by virtue of his obedience) is
divine. This is the idea behind Philippians 2:6-11 in which Christ "did
not consider equality with God something to be grasped" yet "humbled himself
and became obedient.... Therefore God exalted him." It was precisely by
not trying to exalt himself that Christ was exalted. In Christ's full humanity,
there is full deity. It is a moral or functional Godship, not a literal or
metaphysical one.
This tends to run against our
grain, and necessarily so, for we as "enlightened" 20th century
Westerners have inherited the Greek way of thinking. We tend to interpret the
nature of Christ in metaphysical terms, as the use of the Greek word homoousia
shows. The question as to what kind of
"stuff" Jesus is made of, and whether it is similar to or identical
to the "stuff" that God is made of, is a question for the Greek mind
which only concerned the church in the second century and beyond. The later New
Testament writers (such as John and the writer to the Hebrews), who shared the
Hebraic theological world view, thought more in terms of the Jewish halakhic
agency principles, in which "the agent ranks as his master's own
person". (Stated in the Babylonian
Talmud, Nashim 8, and cited by Peter Borgen in "God's Agent in the Fourth
Gospel," Religions in Antiquity, (Goodenough volume, Leiden, Brill), 1968,
pp. 137-148.) A messenger is considered
identical to the person who sent him as long as he accurately says what his
master sent him to say and does what his master sent him to do. So it is with
Christ. As the mediator, the perfect (obedient) human, Jesus acts as God to us
and for us, just as he acts as us to God and for God. Thus, Jesus is
subordinate to the Father in literal, metaphysical terms, but equal to Him in
functional terms. It is only from the viewpoint of later orthodoxy that there
is an irreconcilable difference between Christ's subordination and his
equality.
The
fact that Christ's divinity and humanity function not only side-by-side, but as
one, can be easily detected in the writings of John. Robinson writes:
"In fact the double
entendres of this Gospel, clustering around the 'whence?' of this man, clearly
presuppose that the question can be answered at two levels, neither of which is
to be denied. He is from or out of
He quotes J. E. Davey as
writing that "the Christ of John is actually more human than in almost any
of the other New Testament writings".
( The Jesus of St. John (London), 1958, p. 89.) This is a significant observation,
considering that John appears to be the only New Testament author who
undoubtedly calls Jesus "God."
Obedience
is the key word in all of this. Christ's
obedience, his willingness to make so little of himself, is what made him
divine. John Knox writes that "we
do not experience the humanity and divinity of Christ in ways as separate as
this language suggests; we are aware of them together". (The Humanity and Divinity of Christ, p.
113.) Christ had no superman
characteristic, no divine battery-pack built into his back, no supernatural
immunity to evil. His divinity was his morality, his sinlessness, and he had to
struggle constantly to maintain that divinity.
If Christ were incapable of sinning, then why was he tempted (Mark
1:12)? And if he had some extra-human capability to deal with temptation (such
as being the Creator and Sustainer of life), then how can Paul ask us to
identify with such a being (Phil. 2:5)? The fact that Jesus "made it"
gives me confidence that I, too, can "make it," because he was no
different from me and had no advantages over me. In fact, the only time the
words "divine nature" appear in the New Testament, they are applied
not to Jesus but to us (2 Pet. 2:4)! We are capable of attaining some degree of
"Godship." That is the relevance of a proper Christology. My human
Lord worked with the same material that I work with; he faced the very
obstacles which I face, and yet he overcame them. Therefore, I can follow in
his footsteps.
This
does not mean that Jesus simply happened to be the one who managed perfection,
as if he were the one random arrow that happened to hit the bull's eye. The
virgin birth clearly sets him apart from other men in that he alone was created
without the sin of Adam. As we have seen, Jesus was created as the perfect
human being, sinless, like Adam before Adam sinned. At any time, like Adam,
Christ could have sinned: yet he did not. He maintained that perfection, that
divinity, and thus is the only person who can be a sacrifice for our sins. It
is often said that Jesus had literally to be God to make an effective
sacrifice, but the writer to the Hebrews makes exactly the opposite statement-a
blood sacrifice of the Creator never entered the mind of this writer - the
blood sacrifice of the perfect man was needed to redeem mankind.
"For
this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he
might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he
might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered
when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted"
(Heb.2:17,18).
These
verses sum up this Christology in a nutshell.
Christ is both the basis for our inspiration to conquer sin (2:18) and
the means to cleanse us when we fail (2:17).
This has direct ethical application, whereas a Chalcedonian
interpretation of Christ, with its metaphysical talk of God becoming man, has
little relevance to the Christian life. The Chalcedonian God-man could not have
failed. The New Testament God-man could have failed, but did not.
The
objection will undoubtedly be raised, "But Jesus was more than just a
man." I am not saying that Jesus was just a man, as if I am degrading him;
I am saying, yes, Jesus was a man! Jesus was the man! Jesus was the full and
true man, the sinless human being that you and I were created to be. He was
more human (and thus more divine) than any of us have managed to be. Jesus had red blood in his fleshly veins,
just like you and me (Heb. 2:14). He is different from us in degree, granted,
but not in kind. Jesus Christ was not an
alien from outer space. He was a man,
and now he is an exalted and glorified man because of his Godlike, divine
obedience.