CHRIST in the Bible
The
foundational document of the Christian Church is the Bible, the canonical books
of the Old and New Testament. The task of Christian Theology especially
systematic theology is to go beyond the Bible to inquires meaning and significance
of Jesus Christ for people living in various context but the foundation
material for all Christian theology is the Bible itself.
The
Gospel of highlights the significance of the person and work of Jesus Christ,
also the writings of St. Paul has rich Christology. Old Testament cannot be
ignore as it is the background of the New Testament.
The
Many Faces of Christ in the Bible
The Plurality of the Biblical
Testimony
Apart
from the Bible there is no comprehensive information available regarding Jesus
Christ as it contains myriad of pictures, images and testimonies to his person.
Biblical Christology is to be considered as “lived” Christology rather than a
schematized doctrine as it is mainly in the form of story. The four stories
gospel not only added the richness of the overall stories but also created
problems such as contradictions between various details related to the same
story. The most popular approach to biblical Christological involved the
various titles given to Jesus Christ. There is an Old Latin saying ‘nomen est nomen’ which means ‘name is
an omen’. Clearly various titles given to Jesus serve that function. Thus there
is a Christology of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Various Christological
Trajectories
Reginald
H.Fuller in his Foundation of New
Testament Christology suggested three stage division- Palestinian Judaism,
Hellenistic Judaism and Hellenistic Gentiles. The Palestinian Church, the
earliest church phase focus on the past word and works of Jesus and his future
coming in glory. The Second stratum, Hellenistic Judaism transformed the
primitive work exalted Lord and Christ; there was more interest in Jesus
function as Savior than his being and personhood. The last stage, Hellenistic
Gentiles mission Christology was conceived in a three stage framework-preexistence,
incarnation and exaltation.Here in Fuller scheme the sharp division between
Palestinian and Hellenistic spheres has been questions and Greek influence was
present in Israel during the centuries before Jesus birth.
Helmut
Koester proposed four Christological trajectories that arose independently in
different Christian circles in the years between Jesus death and the Writings
of the New Testament.
The
first trajectories is the idea of Jesus as Son
of Man and coming Lord. Focusing on eschatology which is future oriented
preaching (Mk.13 and Mt.25; Pauline-1 Thes.4). The eschatological minded
communities look forward to the coming of the world end, there was a sharp
separation between Jesus followers an society.
The
second trajectories is the idea of Jesus as miracles
worker. It looks in Jesus public life especially miracles, exorcism
depicted as powerful divine man (Acts 2:22, Mk.1:23-25). This trajectories
emphasized on individual Christian rather than the coming eschatological
transformation.
The
third trajectories is wisdom Christology. This trajectories looked at the
public life of Jesus as a teacher, an envoy of wisdom rather than a miracle
worker (Mt.11:25-30, Lk.11:49-51, Jn.1:1-18; Col.2:6-23). This can be called as
‘parable tradition’ or ‘theological school model’.
The
last and fourth trajectories by Koester model is attention to Jesus as
crucified and raised from the dead. Early creedal formation such as 1
Cor,15:3-8, liturgical tradition 1 Cor.11:23-26 highlights this. This is also
called as ‘Pascal Christology’ (refer to the Passover, the feast in which
sacrificial lambs were slaughtered). It was promoted by Paul in 1 Cor.5:7
depicting Christ as the ‘Passover Lamb’ also gospel writers in the phrase ‘Lamb
of God’ (Jn.1:29, 36).
James
Dunn in his book Unity and Diversity in
the New Testament argues that rather than trying to identify a single
Christology of the Gospels we should acknowledge and affirm that the New
Testament contains several legitimate pictures and theological interpretations
of Jesus and we should cherish the plurality of pictures.
Paul
and John are considered as ‘more
theological’ and the Synoptics have their own terms and regarded as ‘historically more reliable’. But the
New Testament traditions concerning the person and work of Jesus must given
more important than arguing for the priority of what.
Oscar
Cullman in his book ‘The Christology of
the New Testament’ classified the various titles given to Christ in four
main categories-
- Jesus earthly work: prophet, servant, high priest.
- Future work; Messiah, Son of man.
- Present Work: Lord, Savior.
- Preexistence: Word, Son of God, God
Ferdinand
Hahn’s ‘Titles of Jesus in Christology:
Their History in early Christianity’ focused on fewer titles: Son of Man,
Lord, Christ, Son of David, Son of God.
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