The Gospels' Witness to Jesus

The Jesus of Nicea and Chalcedon

Nicea and Chalcedon are names of places that are significant to the church because of important meetings that were held in these locations. These meetings put in place the wisdom distilled from much controversy and thought regarding the nature of Jesus. The results of those meetings the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition-were the end products of long debate. To understand them we need to go back to find out the questions for which they provided answers.

The early church faced an extraordinary number of challenges. It was an illegal, often-persecuted organization. Its transition from a Jewish sect to a worldwide movement was particularly challenging. In moving from a Jewish background into the wider Roman world, the church moved into an intellectual environment dominated by Greek ideas. This immediately brought intellectual challenges to the church, some of which are reflected in the New Testament. One of these issues that dominated internal Christian debate for some centuries concerned the nature of Jesus. The New Testament, and indeed the early church, was adamant that Jesus was the Son of God.

Now, one thing the Greeks knew for sure was that God does not change. In technical language, they said God is impassible. This meant that He is above the vagaries of random events or emotions. How, then, could the church say that Jesus was God? Jesus lived as a human being. Humans are constantly changing. In fact, even becoming a human was an extraordinary change. As a human, Jesus became tired and thirsty (John 4:6; 19:28). Did this mean that God got tired and thirsty? Moreover, Jesus died! How could God die?

Even today, these are hard questions to answer. In fact, in any given Christian congregation one would no doubt find a wide variety of answers to these questions. What is interesting, though, is that most of the possible answers were already proposed long ago in the early church and many of them proved to be inadequate.

One answer, popular early in the second century, was known as Docetism. Docetism solved the problem of the relationship of Jesus' divine and human natures by ignoring or playing down His human aspect. Yes, the Gospels describe Jesus as getting tired and thirsty, but according to the Docetists, Jesus never actually was tired or thirsty; He only appeared' to be. Jesus never actually suffered and died; He only appeared to suffer and die. In other words, the divine Jesus didn't change.

Docetism was expressed in a variety of ways, but perhaps its most important expression was in the ideas of the Gnostics, most of whom were docetic in some way. Now Gnosticism is a very complex phenomenon that is hard to summarize, but, essentially, it attempted to express Christianity in terms of Greek ideas. Greek thought placed great emphasis on the soul and despised the body. The concept of a bodily resurrection was repugnant to the Greeks (and to the Gnostics), so the concept that Jesus suffered and died was also repugnant to them.

Gnosticism was probably the greatest intellectual threat to Christianity in the second century. We contemporary Christians read about their ideas and think it strange that anyone would believe them, but that is because we do not share the Greek way of thinking that dominated that time period. Gnosticism was a very attractive way of understanding Jesus for many second-century Christians, but the church as a whole rejected it. In response, the church further developed the concept of orthodoxy and authority. Despite difficulties and setbacks, by this time the church was becoming better organized. Its leadership was slowly exerting more control over the churches-including what was taught. The leaders defined as orthodox the beliefs they wished to retain in the church and labeled any other beliefs as heresy. Gnosticism was perceived as heresy, and so Docetism, which was closely related to Gnosticism, also largely ceased to be a serious option for Christians. But this did not mean that the debate over the nature of Jesus had ceased.

Several disputes concerning the nature of Jesus continued to simmer in the church during this time, but the person at the center of the next crucial debate was Arius. Once again, the Greek idea of a supreme and distant God formed the starting point. For Arius, God was too wholly "other" to come into direct relation with men:

We acknowledge one God, Who is alone ingenerate (ayέvvηtov i.e., self-existent,) alone eternal, alone without beginning (avapxov,) alone true, alone possessing immortality, alone wise, alone good, alone sovereign, alone judge of all, [etc).²

As a consequence, Arius said that the Son must be a creature (some- thing made or created). Furthermore, the Son must have had a beginning. Arius summarized this concept with his famous slogan, "There was when he was not." He said that the Son could have no communion with, and no direct knowledge of, His Father because He is distinct from God. Further, the Son must be liable to change and even sin. Then, in what sense could Arius call him the Son of God? Replied Arius: This was but a courtesy title which reflected His greatly superior status above all other creatures.

Arius and his followers proved to be masters of propaganda, and his ideas spread widely. So much so that when Constantine, the first emperor to adopt Christianity, took power, it looked as though there would be a split in the church over the matter. Constantine called a general council of the church to discuss the matter; the council met at Nicea in the year 325. The council rejected the position of Arius and issued a creed, called the Nicene Creed, which made this explicit.'

Nicea's condemnation of Arius did not bring an end to the discussion, however, although full-blown Arianism gradually lost support. Several more councils were held, but at Chalcedon in the year 451 a position on Jesus' nature was taken that was widely accepted thereafter. Known as the Chalcedonian Definition, this formulation distinguished between two natures in Jesus-He was "perfect in Godhead and perfect in Manhood, truly God and truly Man." Although He had two natures, He was only one person.*

All this has taken us a long way from the world of the Gospels. In many respects, the kind of questions the early church asked sprung from considerations alien to the world of early Christians. Yet these early Christians were struggling with real intellectual problems that cannot easily be brushed aside. Questions such as:

• If Jesus was God, did God die when Jesus died on the cross?

If Jesus was fully human, surely He could have sinned. If He had sinned, then would God have sinned?

• Jesus was born a baby and learned what babies learn-to control His limbs, to sit up, to crawl, to walk, to talk. Jesus was fully human and shared the limitations of human knowledge. Although He knew some things not accessible to other humans, He did not know the exact time of the second advent (Matt. 24:36). But how can God have only partial knowledge?

Christians continue to struggle with such questions and generally end up close to the kind of answers given by Chalcedon-Jesus was fully God and fully man. He was one individual, however, not two beings coexisting together.

For many years, voices have been raised questioning whether or not the Chalcedonian Definition is still an adequate description of Jesus, and one would have to admit that some of the fine distinctions that rely on underlying Greek words and concepts do not work as well for us as they did for the church in the fifth century. But even today, the Chalcedonian Definition is still the understanding of Jesus' nature that most Christian groups follow.

Are The Gospels Orthodox?

Now that we have been sensitized to some of these issues, there re- mains one very disturbing question: Are the Gospels orthodox? This question has been asked most urgently of the Gospel of John, which has been accused of being naively docetic. Indeed, it is quite possible to read the Gospel of John from a docetic perspective, and for this reason it was a favorite of Gnostics. In fact, most of the early references we have to that Gospel come from Gnostic writers, and the very first commentary on John was written by a Gnostic writer.

But is John docetic? Only if the Gospel is read selectively. It is true that, of the four Gospels, John most clearly portrays Jesus' divine origins and nature. In John, Jesus is "from above" and returns there. His heavenly Father and He have a close relationship that can be described as one of equality and unity, although this needs to be balanced against those statements in the Gospel that carry within them an element of voluntary subordination.

In John, Jesus says that knowing Him is the same as knowing God. He has knowledge not available to other humans. He says that knowing Him and believing where He comes from and who He is will lead to eternal life. But this strong emphasis on Jesus' divinity is balanced by the fact that the fourth Gospel is also the Gospel that most clearly portrays Jésus' human nature. It is in this Gospel that we hear that Jesus gets tired (John 4:6). He experiences human emotions of love (11:5) and anger (11:33). He will weep at the graveside of a friend, even though He knows He is about to raise him from the dead (11:35). Although He can walk on water and miraculously appear in locked rooms, this is not His customary way of getting around in John's Gospel. Rather, Jesus normally walks from place to place. So He is portrayed as fully human. He goes about in real places and talks to real people. There is something more to Jesus than just His humanity, but He is fully human. Even after His resurrection, He retains His humanity, He can be touched (20:27) and He eats with His disciples (21:9-13).

In summary, then, the Gospel of John shows that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. The same may be said of the other Gospels. They know Jesus' human antecedents. He was born in Bethlehem and grew up in Nazareth. His mother, father, brothers, and sisters are all known. His trade was that of His father, a carpenter. He lived in real towns and among real historic personages. He traveled through Galilee and Judea. He met His death at Jerusalem. All these are experiences of a human.

In the three Synoptic Gospels, there is likewise something more than human about Jesus. He can walk on water. He multiplies a few loaves and fishes to feed a large crowd. He can heal the sick and even raise the dead. He is the Messiah, the Son of Man who will be coming back to earth to judge the living and the dead. Further, He is the one who is raised from the dead and who will return to raise all those who are dead. The Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels is likewise divine.

Yes, the four Gospels are orthodox, and this is just as well because if they weren't, something would have to be done about orthodoxy to bring it into closer agreement with the raw data. But even though the Gospels are orthodox, the Jesus of the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition is not the same as the Jesus of the Gospels. The Jesus of the Gospels does not neatly fit anybody's theories!

The biggest difference between the Gospels and the creeds is the static nature of the creeds. The creeds focus on things that are almost peripheral to the concerns of the Gospel. The Gospels do reveal Jesus as fully human, but apart from recounting His appearances after the Resurrection, there is little concern to demonstrate this. There is more interest in showing that Jesus is more than human, but again, this is not done in the terms used by the creeds. It is done in a more dynamic way, a way that is more personally challenging. The Gospels want us to understand who Jesus is, but even that is not an end in itself. It is important only because Jesus comes to challenge our lives and demand our commitment.

Two major sections of this book have already been devoted to the Gospels' portrayal of Jesus-a view of Jesus as seen from the perspective of one of the Synoptic Gospels is a major component of chapter 12, "The Message of Mark," and a whole chapter in part 5 was devoted to John's portrayal of Jesus.' In the overall assessment of the Gospel's witness to Jesus, there is no need to repeat what has already been said there. But there are two important features of the Gospel witness to Jesus that we have not yet explored in depth. These provide a suitable perspective from which to look at the Gospel's portrayal of Jesus. One is Jesus' favorite description of Himself; the other the way the disciples addressed their Master.

Jesus as the Son of Man

The title "Son of Man" is used frequently in all four Gospels. It is unique, though, as a title that only Jesus uses, and as the one He uses most often. In the Gospel accounts, no individual other than Jesus calls Him the Son of Man, nor is the title a term the other writers of the New Testament use of Him. It is a term that is well-nigh exclusive to Jesus and that conveys something about Himself He considers important.

What, then, is the background of this term? Within the Old Testament, it is most frequently found in Ezekiel, where it is used by God to refer to Ezekiel when He talks to the prophet (Ezek. 2:1, 3, 6, 8; 3:1, 3, 4, 10, 17, etc.). In Ezekiel, "Son of Man" is most likely used to emphasize the prophet's humanity in contrast to God. So confident are scholars of this that the NRSV translates this term consistently as "mortal.""

It is probably the usage in Daniel 7:13 that is more influential on the way the term is used by Jesus, though. Partway through the vision de- scribed in Daniel 7, Daniel looks into heaven and sees the Ancient of Days sitting on a throne. The court sits in judgment (Dan. 7:9, 10). To the Ancient of Days comes one like a Son of Man, who is "presented before him, and given dominion and glory and kingship.... His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed" (Dan. 7:13, 14). Thus, in Daniel 7 the Son of Man is a heavenly figure associated with the judgments of God and the everlasting kingdom.

Outside the Old Testament, there is an interesting usage of the title "Son of Man" in 1 Enoch. In a section of 1 Enoch called the similitudes, the Son of Man is a heavenly figure with characteristics not unlike that of the Son of Man in the Gospels. First Enoch was well known in the first century and is even quoted in the New Testament (Jude 14), but there has been a long debate among scholars whether the references to the Son of Man in the similitudes date prior to the time of Jesus or whether they are later additions to the work made by Christians.

Yet another relevant piece of information is that the Greek for "Son of Man" (huios tou anthropou) could be a translation of an Aramaic phrase (bar [e]nasha), which means "somebody," or "a man."

This background information shows that there is a wide variety of possible meanings that Jesus could have intended by the use of the title. As a result, the text of the Gospels themselves will need to be closely examined to find out exactly what the term means in them. To begin with, it appears unlikely that Jesus is using the term in the sense of "some- body," though there are several places where it could mean nothing more than "I" (Mark 11:19; Luke 7:34; Matt. 8:20; Luke 9:58; 22:48). These appear to be places where Jesus is talking about Himself and says "Son of Man" instead of "I." But this is much more specific than the more gen- eral meaning of "somebody."

Is Jesus wishing to emphasize His humanity by the term? This is the usage found in Ezekiel and in some other Old Testament references (Num. 23:19; Ps. 144:3). But in almost every use of the term, the Son of Man is involved in something that emphasizes the extraordinary nature of Jesus, not His humanity. This is not to deny that "Son of Man" is a designation that means "human." But it has a different emphasis. The title is mainly used to stress two distinctive things-the heavenly nature and importance of the Son of Man and His suffering.

First, the Son of Man has extraordinary authority. He is lord of the Sabbath (Matt. 12:8; Mark 2:27; Luke 6:5); He will come back in the glory of His Father and the holy angels (Matt. 16:27; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26); He will be seen sitting at the right hand of power (Matt. 24:30; Mark 14:26; Luke 21:27); and He will sit on His glorious throne (Matt. 19:28). Jesus has been given authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man (John 5:27). In these passages, the Son of Man represents an extraordinary human who has powers and glory belonging to God Himself and who will come in the future to act as judge of man- kind. Yet, there is another strongly emphasized aspect of the Son of Man in the Gospels.

Second, the Son of Man is a figure of suffering. Several times Jesus warns His disciples that, as the Son of Man, He must suffer (Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22; Matt. 17:12; Mark 9:12). The Son of Man is one who is betrayed (Matt. 26:24; Mark 14:21; Luke 22:22; Matt. 26:45; Luke 11:30). He will die but rise again (Matt. 20:18; Mark 10:33; Luke 18:31).

The ambiguity resulting from the dual concepts of the suffering of the Son of Man and His future glory is nicely captured in the usage of the term found in the fourth Gospel. John 3:14, 15 says that the Son of Man must be lifted up like the snake in the wilderness. The lifting up of Jesus in the fourth Gospel is both His lifting up on the cross and His exaltation to heaven. As with the serpent, all who see Jesus lifted up will be saved. Both John 12:23 and 13:31 speak of the glorification of the Son of Man. This hour of glorification is also the hour of Jesus' death.

In summary, then, the term "Son of Man" is a term of self-description found often on Jesus' lips to convey the essence of who He is. He is indeed human. But He is an extraordinary human who has divine authority and who takes a crucial role in the dramatic events of the end of the world. Yet the way of the Son of Man lies through suffering. His importance lies in the fact that He is willing to serve and to suffer (Matt. 20:28; Mark 10:45).

Jesus as Lord

Although Jesus describes Himself as the Son of Man, His disciples call Him "Lord." This title is one that has a clear secular usage. It is used as one who owns something in Mark 12:9 as the owner of a vineyard; in Luke 19:33 as the owners of an ass; in Matthew 15:27 as the owner of dogs. In particular, it is used as owners of slaves (Matt. 6:24; Luke 16:3) or as heads of a household (Mark 13:35). To call someone "Lord" could also be a very polite form of address used in the Gospels, somewhat similar to an English speaker addressing an important stranger as "Sir." Mary, for example, calls a stranger she has met "Lord" (John 20:15); the workers in the vineyard call their employer "Lord" (Luke 13:8); and the Pharisees call Pilate "Lord" (Matt. 27:63).

The New Testament also reflects another usage of "Lord," however. As they read the Scriptures aloud, the Jews were very reluctant to say the holy name "Yahweh"; instead, they substituted the term “Lord.” In this way, "Lord" became a way to address God and, in fact, almost a name of God. This usage is also found in such places as Matthew 2:15, which says something happened "so that the word of the Lord through the prophets might be fulfilled" and goes on to quote from a prophecy in Jeremiah. Other examples of this kind of use are found in Matthew 3:3, Mark 12:29, Luke 1:9, etc. This usage could be combined with the more customary usage of "owner," as in Matthew 11:25 and Luke 10:21, for example. In these verses, Jesus prays to God as "Lord of heaven and earth." In other words, God is the ultimate owner and master over all heaven and earth.

Thus it is that the title "Lord," like that of Son of Man, has a certain ambiguity to it. It is a title used of deference, of masters and owners, but in addition, it is used as a title of divinity. So when the disciples address Jesus as "Lord," they are recognizing two things—that Jesus is their Master and that Jesus is God.

The Jesus who meets us in the Gospels is not One who presents Himself in the terms of an intellectual puzzle to be solved by the careful wording of a creed. He does not carefully lay out His full humanity and His claims to divinity. Instead, He confronts us with the claim that He is the master of life and death and insists that we make a decision to give our all to Him, to devote our entire life to His bidding. In a word, in the Gospels Jesus comes to us as our Lord.
 

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