It has been commonly held that, when the synoptic gospels have been critically examined, the whole material strictly relevant to the history of Jesus of Nazareth will have been exhausted, and that, whereas the older evangelists and editors of the tradition may be found to be competent historians, no such competence can be credited to the theologians of the New Testament. For theologians are commonly supposed to be moving in a world of their own notions and ideas uncontrolled by any regard for strict historical truth. But, since the theologians of the New Testament vigorously protest against so brutal a dismissal, and since one of them has set his theology in the framework of a clear historical narrative, their claim to be bearing witness to an historical event cannot be wholly disregarded.
The material of the synoptic gospels raised the question whether extraneous theological notions may have moulded the tradition and whether its present form is the result of this theological penetration. The remainder of the New Testament presents an opposite problem. In the synoptic gospels the history seemed at first sight to have preceded the theological interpretation it was found to contain. In the rest of the New Testament it seems at first sight that the theological interpretation not only precedes the history, but almost renders it unnecessary.
Even though it is difficult to suppose that the history recorded by the evangelists was at any time free from Christological significance; even though the simplest actions and words of Jesus appear upon investigation pregnant with messianic content; yet the evangelists write as historians and not as theologians. The form of the tradition may have been moulded by some theological purpose; the original history may even have been conditioned by it; but nevertheless the evangelists attempt only to recount events as they took place. They describe the life, actions and death of a man, at a certain date, in a certain part of the world. Behind this man, inextricably connected with his words and with his actions, with his very person, is God. But the man sleeps, suffers, prays and dies. Whatever else he may be, he is a man.
But can the same be said of the Jesus of the Johannine Writing, of the Epistles of St. Paul, or of the
Epistle to the Hebrews?
These three groups of writings assume the divine sonship of him they call Jesus Christ. The authors of the Johannine writings and
of the Epistle to the Hebrews insist upon this unique relationship to God in their opening words, explaining it by a statement of
his pre‑existence with God. St. Paul, too, is no less ready to assume it, and explicitly concurs, in various parts of his
writings, in the same doctrine. Neither St. Paul nor the writer to the Hebrews, however, sets out to retail the events that had
taken place in Palestine; and, moreover, their writings are singularly lacking even in references to those events. If, when St.
Paul was writing, stories of Jesus were being carefully treasured and passed on from mouth to mouth, it seems strange that only in
one or two places does he definitely quote them. It seems strange also that, while he devotes large portions of nearly all his
letters to an ethic so identical with that taught by Jesus in the first three gospels that that alone would stamp him Christian,
yet he scarcely ever uses the same terminology to express it. Again, can it be supposed that the author of Hebrews derived his
ideas from the Jesus who taught in Palestine?
No doubt he knew something of his life and death. But is he not merely grafting upon the tradition an Alexandrian, semi‑Platonic
philosophy of the Jewish sacrificial system, which is to his mind of far greater importance?
The author of the fourth Gospel apparently set out to write a gospel, a story of the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus.
How is it that no living scholar can confidently claim any part of it, as it stands, to be definitely historical?
Why is it so obviously distinct from its three predecessors?
Like them, it is a narrative of words and doings that testify that Jesus was the Son of God. But it is almost impossible to avoid
the critical conclusion that, although the fourth evangelist depends upon and has made use of records of the words and actions of
Jesus known to us from the synoptic gospels, and also of a wider circle of tradition or information presumably of a similar
character, he has refashioned everything that he has chosen to record in a consistent, literary form.
Far from being composed, for instance, like the synoptic gospels, of short sayings and incidents, the fourth Gospel takes the form
of an almost continuous argument, which passes quite imperceptibly from narration to explanation, so that it is impossible, at
times, to be sure whether the author is recording words of Jesus or commenting upon them.
But this results in a new picture of Christ's ministry.
Where are the short epigrammatic sayings, the semi‑poetic aphorisms, the parables suddenly thrown out after the manner of
the rabbis?
With the exception of Matthew's conflated discourses, and of the great eschatological compilation of Mark (itself almost certainly
editorial, in its present form), the synoptists nowhere suggest that Jesus was wont to preach at great length. Yet the fourth
Gospel is mainly composed of long discourses. And, quite apart from their length, they have a highly distinctive spiral form of
argument, which sets out from a great saying, comments upon it, winds round and round again enlarging on it, and all the time
preserves an admirable sequence, so that it is possible to analyse the whole gospel in paragraphs or chapters, each with divisions
and subdivisions, yet all contributing to the one single purpose of the author. Moreover, the great miracles are included in this
spiral argumentation and serve to draw out more clearly this purpose and design.
Another, and perhaps even more individual feature of the Johannine writings is the use of abstract terms to describe God: 'God is spirit', 'God is love' (I Jn.iv.8, 16.); or to define the mission of Jesus: 'I am the way, the truth, and the life.' (Jn.xiv.6) 'In him (The Word) was life, and the life was the light of men.' (Jn.i.4) ‑ These are metaphorical descriptions which have no parallel in the synoptic gospels. They are usually explained as originating either in an hellenic method of thought, or in the experience of the primitive church, or possibly, since the primitive church comprehended Greeks, in both. Thus Jesus reveals, as the author had already shown in the first chapter of his gospel, the will and purpose of God, and so is named 'the truth'. To give another example, he has striven so hard to give precision to his understanding of God's work for men that, mighty as is that work, it is finally expressed sufficiently in one word itself completely redefined in the process ‑ love. This whole procedure has given rise to the assumption that the author of the fourth Gospel had been fitted for theologizing by a schooling in Greek ways of thought.
On the other hand, there is a statement in the gospel itself, which is frequently taken to provide the key to his writings:
Howbeit, when he, the spirit of truth, is come,
he shall guide you into all the truth. (Jn.xvi.13)
He is accordingly represented as thinker and mystic; a man whose life had been controlled by spiritual communion with God; who knew Jesus Christ first of all in the working of the Paraclete, that other comforter who comes to all 'who believe on his name' and have thereby become 'sons of God, born of the will of the Father' (Jn.i.12 f.). Quite secondary to his knowledge of this Spirit of Christ, it is supposed, were the stories and traditions handed down to him by those who had known Jesus of Nazareth. His mysticism, then, explains both his abstraction, and his use of history. In fact, it is said, it is impossible to understand the Johannine writings except on the basis of the spiritual experience of their author. Where he seems to write history, he is interpreting his experience in terms of history. Though details may appear in some cases to argue his presence at the events he describes, the events are, in fact, entirely subservient to his spiritual motive, and his presence is a spiritual presence, the result of his sense of union with the risen Christ and of communion with the Spirit of the living God.
If the starting‑point for the understanding of the Johannine writings is said to be the Paraclete, the starting‑point for the understanding of St. Paul is similarly said to be his 'Christ‑mysticism'. St. Paul constantly employed an expression that may mean either 'in Christ' or 'by Christ'. This expression is said to explain the intense theological wrestling of his mind as revealed in his letters, a wrestling which proceeds from an overwhelming experience of redemption, justification and sanctification through mystical union with the Spirit of God, whom he names the Christ. He meets with this experience not only in his own heart, but in the hearts of other Christians. His letters are therefore to be explained, not on the supposition that he had constructed a theological system, or that he was developing a philosophical or theological system in which he had been brought up, but that he was struggling to express a mystical experience, and to answer the needs of the early church in terms of it.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews also, an obsession with allegory, learnt from his environment, may have led some Greek‑speaking Jew, conscious that he had encountered the supernatural in his spiritual experience, to explain it in terms of Old Testament sacrificial conceptions based upon the idea of a Priest‑Messiah, and fastened quite superficially to the Jesus of history.
If these impressions of the Pauline and Johannine writings and of the Epistle to the Hebrews are justified to any extent, in each case the actual history becomes secondary, so that these documents apparently present a problem, which is just the reverse of that of the synoptic material. They imply that the historical figure of Jesus; the life that he lived in the flesh; is of little importance in comparison with the experience of the 'Christ‑Spirit' possessed by primitive Christians. In the fourth Gospel, the history of Jesus of Nazareth is simply symbolic of the new spiritual life in Christ; in St. Paul, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, historical allusions are so few and far between that they appear unnatural. In short, in all three groups of writings, any references to Jesus who lived and died in Palestine are perhaps best accounted for as a lapse into that older traditional gospel which, although of little value to men who knew Christ through his Spirit, could not have been entirely unknown to them, 'and which, accordingly, they occasionally, and perhaps quite unintentionally, preserved. Consequently, it has become almost habitual in modern treatment of the New Testament to regard these writings as evidence for the spiritual life of the primitive church, but to deny expressly or by implication their value for the reconstruction of the history of Jesus of Nazareth. This is the logical implication of much recent criticism, although it is not usual to describe it so rigorously, or to draw out so relentlessly what it involves.
When once the centre and authority of religion is found, not in the action or revelation of God in the person of the man Jesus, but in the spiritual experience of those who claim to know Christ in their hearts, the historical life of Jesus is relegated to a secondary place, and ceases to be a necessary dynamic part of religion, so that it is merely retained as the myth in which the spiritual experience of the church is, as it were, focused. The story of a life, of a voluntary death, of a resurrection, merely provides a terminology sufficient for the to him by those who had known Jesus of Nazareth. His mysticism, then, explains both his abstraction, and his use of history. In fact, it is said, it is impossible to understand the Johannine writings except on the basis of the spiritual experience of their author. Where he seems to write history, he is interpreting his experience in terms of history. Though details may appear in some cases to argue his presence at the events he describes, the events are, in fact, entirely subservient to his spiritual motive, and his presence is a spiritual presence, the result of his sense of union with the risen Christ and of communion with the Spirit of the living God.
If the starting‑point for the understanding of the Johannine writings is said to be the Paraclete, the starting‑point for the understanding of St. Paul is similarly said to be his 'Christ‑mysticism'. St. Paul constantly employed an expression, which may mean either 'in Christ', or 'by Christ'. This expression is said to explain the intense theological wrestling of his mind as revealed in his letters, a wrestling which proceeds from an overwhelming experience of redemption, justification and sanctification through mystical union with the Spirit of God, whom he names the Christ. He meets with this experience not only in his own heart, but in the hearts of other Christians. His letters are therefore to be explained, not on the supposition that he had constructed a theological system, or that he was developing a philosophical or theological system in which he had been brought up, but that he was struggling to express a mystical experience, and to answer the needs of the early church in terms of it.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews also, an obsession with allegory, learnt from his environment, may have led some Greek‑speaking Jew, conscious that he had encountered the supernatural in his spiritual experience, to explain it in terms of Old Testament sacrificial conceptions based upon the idea of a Priest‑Messiah, and fastened quite superficially to the Jesus of history.
If these impressions of the Pauline and Johannine writings and of the Epistle to the Hebrews are justified to any extent, in each case the actual history becomes secondary, so that these documents apparently present a problem, which is just the reverse of that of the synoptic material. They imply that the historical figure of Jesus; the life that he lived in the flesh; is of little importance in comparison with the experience of the 'Christ‑Spirit' possessed by primitive Christians. In the fourth Gospel, the history of Jesus of Nazareth is simply symbolic of the new spiritual life in Christ; in St. Paul, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, historical allusions are so few and far between that they appear unnatural. In short, in all three groups of writings, any references to Jesus who lived and died in Palestine are perhaps best accounted for as a lapse into that older traditional gospel which, although of little value to men who knew Christ through his Spirit, could not have been entirely unknown to them, 'and which, accordingly, they occasionally, and perhaps quite unintentionally, preserved. Consequently, it has become almost habitual in modern treatment of the New Testament to regard these writings as evidence for the spiritual life of the primitive church, but to deny expressly or by implication their value for the reconstruction of the history of Jesus of Nazareth. This is the logical implication of much recent criticism, although it is not usual to describe it so rigorously, or to draw out so relentlessly what it involves.
When once the centre and authority of religion is found, not in the action or revelation of God in the person
of the man Jesus, but in the spiritual experience of those who claim to know Christ in their hearts, the historical life of Jesus
is relegated to a secondary place, and ceases to be a necessary dynamic part of religion, so that it is merely retained as the
myth in which the spiritual experience of the church is, as it were, focused. The story of a life, of a voluntary death, of a
resurrection, merely provides a terminology sufficient for the rationalization of spiritual experience. The assurance of the
validity of that experience, which might have been looked for in the historical events, is the spiritual experience itself. It is
no longer necessary to be sure that Jesus Christ was a real man, and suffered and died as a real man may suffer and die: the story
of his passion and resurrection has value only in that it serves to define the way of salvation and enables the much more real
spiritual experience of 'crucifixion of the flesh' and of 'new life in the Spirit' to be analysed and explained. An apparent death
and resurrection would have been from this point of view equally valuable. Indeed, a pure fable, arising, it may be, from
dramatization of the cycle of seed‑time and harvest, would have taught as much.
What importance could a description of trivial actions performed in Palestine have for Greeks bubbling over with a personal and
spiritual knowledge of God?
This conception of the relation of history to spiritual experience is exactly that of the contemporary religions of the Greco‑Roman world. These, the mystery religions, although highly diverse in detail, agreed, in attaching themselves to some story of a hero god or gods. They made no pretence to show the validity of the story as history. They were not for a moment concerned to do so. But they held out the prospect of a salvation which could be attained by means of certain rites and dramatizations of the story of their god, by means of initiation into their 'mysteries' and of communion with their divinity in ecstasy, leading to a knowledge of supernatural things, and, ultimately, to a state of perfection guaranteeing immortality.
The resemblance of these religions to the description of Christianity which has just been outlined, justifies, superficially at least, the assertion of some modern scholars that primitive Christianity, and, in particular, the Christianity which was the result of the work of St. Paul, was neither more nor less than a mystery religion. Not only does this assumption explain the absence in many of the New Testament writings of quotations from the words or actions of Jesus as set forth in the synoptic gospels; not only does it explain the presence in them of the conceptions of salvation, wisdom and knowledge; it provides an adequate explanation of apostolic insistence upon the ceremonies of baptism and communion, and also of the conspicuous success of Christianity in proselytizing the pagan world.
The problem, then, is to discover whether such passages as St. Paul's description of the Second Adam (Rom.v.12‑21), the Johannine assertion that 'the Word became flesh' (Jn.i.4), and the description in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb.v.5‑10) of Christ's sufferings in the days of his flesh, are merely lapses into history on the part of men normally moving in pure Hellenic mystery religion, in which case the great theologians of primitive Christianity are valueless for the reconstruction of the history of Jesus of Nazareth: or whether these passages express the very foundation of their theology, in which case these writings may provide important evidence of the nature of that history.
What significance did St. Paul attach to the coming of Christ in the flesh?
That it was the basis of the traditional gospel, which he himself had received, is clear.
For I delivered unto you first of all,
he writes to the Corinthians,
that which I also received,
how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
and that he was buried,
and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
and that he was seen of Cephas...
(I Cor.xv.3 ff.)
This summary, in which certain modern scholars have recognized the earliest form of the preaching of the gospel in apostolic times, suggests that the death of Christ in the flesh had already, when received by St. Paul, a supreme significance attached to it. The many references to the death scattered throughout his epistles show that he had no wish to disturb the tradition he had received. For instance, he speaks of Jesus Christ:
'Whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, by his blood.' (Rom.iii.25)
'While we were yet weak, in due season Christ died for the ungodly.' (Rom.v.6)
'We were reconciled to God through the death of his Son.' (Rom.v.10)
God ... delivered up ... his own Son for us all. (Rom.viii.32)
Ye were bought with a price. (I Cor.vii.23)
He died for all. (2 Cor.v.15)
Ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood of Christ. (Eph.ii.13)
And you, being dead through your trespasses, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I say, did he (God) quicken together with him (Christ). (Col.ii.13)
Side by side with this continual insistence upon the need for the price that had been paid, upon the need for a death that had done away with the enmity between God and men, there is a continual insistence upon the resurrection: 'If Christ hath not been raised, then is our preaching vain, your faith also is vain.' (I Cor.xv.14) Earlier in the same chapter (I Cor.xv.3‑9) St. Paul enumerates the resurrection appearances, which guarantee his faith. Indeed, so certain is he of the power of the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, that he writes to the Ephesians:
But God ... even when we were dead through our trespasses, quickened us together with Christ (by grace have ye been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus. (Eph.ii.4 ff.)
So far it is clear that St. Paul conceived the death and resurrection of Jesus, which took place once and for all in Palestine, to have supreme significance for men and women. It is thus that Jesus has given them life. But here another and associated conception appears. The life is not merely life given to men who are physically dying; it is life given to men who spiritually are already dead. This resurrection is to be appropriated by them by dying to the sinful flesh with Christ and by living with him:
If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. (Rom.vi.8)
And more, even the manner of Christ's death is used to describe the spiritual
experience of dying with him. St. Paul can speak of being crucified to the world with Jesus, of dying and being buried with him,
not only at baptism, but also day by day. And just as the death is moral, so is the resurrection.
How can he use the history of Christ to illustrate the spiritual experience of himself and of his fellow Christians?
Because that death and resurrection has for him the significance of victory in the moral sphere. The death of Jesus was the
triumph of righteousness over the sinful world: of a righteousness, which, because it could not and would not submit to the world,
died to the world. His resurrection was the action of God by which this righteousness and this victory were ratified.
The death of Christ, then, was an opus operatum: something done once and for all to effect a purpose. It is not merely symbolic of spiritual and moral experience, nor yet a formal act of reconciliation performed by the Son of God, which may be described as a sacrifice. It is both, and more than both. The reconciliation was achieved by the moral perfection of Jesus, the moral perfection of one who might have sinned. The redemption was wrought out in the isolated figure of Jesus. This was the foundation of the theology of St. Paul.
To St. Paul, then, Christ is not merely the pre‑existent Son of God, but the perfect man. His righteousness and his obedience, just because they were a human righteousness and a human obedience, were the dynamic factors in the atoning act of God:
So then as through one trespass the judgement all men came unto to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous. (Rom.v.18, 19)
This is no mere lapse into the language of synoptic tradition.
It is the basis of St. Paul's whole teaching.
Whenever he mentions the death of Christ, he has in mind the death of one who took the form of a servant and humbled himself
during the whole of a life which culminated in his death. The death, indeed, just because it is the culmination of the life, is
used to summarize it.
That is why St. Paul can describe his gospelling of the Galatians (Gal.iii.1) as placarding Christ crucified before their eyes.
That is why the stumbling‑block of the cross (Gal.v.11) is the essential basis of his
teaching.
If this be a truer estimate of St. Paul's attitude to the coming in the flesh than that which led to the
'mystery religion hypothesis', the fact that his writings have been misunderstood must be explained. In part misunderstanding has
been due to a failure to see that he everywhere mingles two complementary though distinct points of view. On the one hand St. Paul
sees the Christians, the members of the Church, over against the Christ. From this point of view, Christ is the revelation (Eph.v.22‑33) of God, pre‑existent with God, and come into the world for the salvation of
men, the bridegroom who left his Father to cleave to his bride that he might become one with her: his death is in this sense an
historical fact making redemption possible. But, just because the bridegroom has become one with his bride, the church, there is
another point of view. Christ is the first‑born of the new creation, the corner‑stone upon which his temple the church
is built, the head of his body the church, the first Christian. In this sense his death is an action that must be partaken in,
imitated, continued by his followers.
Hence St. Paul is an imitator of Christ. (I Cor.xi.1)
Hence the Ephesians are to be imitators of God (Eph.v.1 f.), as beloved
children, walking in love even as Christ loved them.
Hence St. Paul's renunciation of those things, which had been gain to him, was in order that he might
gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: that 1 may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his' sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead. (Phil.iii.8 ff.)
Here knowledge of the risen Christ is definitely regarded as dependent upon and subsequent to the imitation of his life in this world. And later in the same argument this becomes clearer still.
Our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself. (Phil.iii.20 f.)
This conception, indeed, is best explained by St. Paul's own drawing out of an analogy between the Christian life in this world, and that of the Israelites in the desert. (I Cor.x.1‑13) just as the Israelites had passed through the Red Sea, so have the Christians been baptized. In baptism they have left the house of bondage, the servitude of the flesh of sin, and have been brought into intimate contact with God, being fed with manna from his hand, and drinking the water from the rock, Christ. The Christians live by the Spirit. But they are not yet removed from the sphere of temptation. They are still in the flesh, although they have died to its sinful lusts, and they may still be overcome by it. That was exactly, for St. Paul, the position of Christ humiliated in this world. It is through their own humiliation, accordingly, inevitable in the life of the sons of God in a fleshly world that they hope to be finally conformed to his sufferings, and to attain to his resurrection. And so this intolerable position, which must cause suffering in this age, can be described by St. Paul as the filling up on his part of that which is 'lacking in the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church'. This does not mean that there was something lacking in Christ's suffering, but that there was something lacking in St. Paul's. He desires that his body may be, as it were, the arena where the obedience to God may be as wholly displayed as it had been in the passion of Jesus Christ.
St. Paul, then, regards the life and death of Christ from two points of view.
His metaphor of a building is twisted unnaturally by his insistence that Christ is not only the foundation but the architect, and
his whole thought is twisted by his oscillation between these two points of view. For instance, it is a commonplace to say that
justification by faith is a fundamental tenet of St. Paul.
But by whose faith?
The expression, which he frequently uses, means, literally: 'on the basis of faith of Christ Jesus'. In many cases this is clearly
objective, and is rightly translated, 'on the basis of faith in Christ Jesus'. But in others it has a subjective force 'on the
basis of Christ Jesus' faith'. Such a conception, for instance, provides the most natural translation of the otherwise difficult
passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians: 'according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: in whom we
have boldness and access in confidence through his faith'. (Eph.iii.11 f.) It is straining
the Greek to translate, as do the English versions, 'through our faith in him'. St. Paul's 'by faith' therefore meant the faith of
Christians in Christ and through him in God, a faith at once typified and created by Jesus' own faith, who was faithful unto
death.
But, although it is possible for us to analyse St. Paul's conceptions in this way, it must never be supposed that he himself consciously did so. To him faith was one, just as the death of Christ in the flesh and of Christians through his Spirit to the flesh was one. Above all, his conception of Christ's own person was one. It is as wrong to suppose that he ever thought of Jesus merely as a manifestation of the 'image of God', a mere revelation of that redeeming and reconciling Spirit of whose operation his heart had been assured, as it would be to suppose that he could ever think of him simply as a man who was subsequently raised by an act of God to God's right hand. Such analysis belongs to later theologizing. The Christ of St. Paul is one person, so intimately bound up with God that he can be spoken of as the revelation of the unseen God, as pre‑existing with God, as having the truth of God; so intimately bound up with God's action that his life and death are the action of God; so intimately bound up with the new creation that results from that action, that the church of God can be called the church of Christ, and that life 'in Christ' can be spoken of as 'life in God'; but, with all this, so really human that his life is the type of perfect Christian life and the summary of all Christian life; that his faith, his obedience, and his knowledge of God are the first‑fruits and foundation of Christian faith, Christian obedience, and Christian knowledge. Call him 'Son of man', and that is a description of the God who loves; call him 'Son of God', and that is a description of his perfect obedience. Such is St. Paul's Christology. It has no parallel in the mysteries of Greece.
The judgement that represents the Christology of St. Paul as an innovation rests upon a misunderstanding of the whole occasion of his writings. They were evoked, not by any desire to popularize a theory of his own, but by the need of dealing with bodies of Christians already in conscious existence. As he writes he has before him a church consisting of men who know that they have been brought, by the Gospel of Jesus, into contact with the Spirit of God. He names them saints, as men who have been touched by the action of God. His conception of their new life 'in Christ' cannot be founded merely upon an exceptional spiritual experience of his own. It must have been, even though unanalysed, a place of conversion. But it was just this consciousness of the energy of the Spirit operative in himself and in others which could, as he very well knew, lead to an emotional mysticism, if it were not controlled continuously by the actual history in which this outburst of spiritual power had originated. St. Paul is therefore everywhere concerned to force the Christians back upon the foundation of their salvation, to hold them to the history of Jesus, and, extracting the significance from the history, to present it to the intelligence and will of his readers. It is true that it is a spiritual insight, which enables him to extract the significance from the history. He knows Christ no longer in a fleshly manner, that is, as a Jewish reformer, as a revolutionary fanatic, or as a destroyer of the law who had been rightly put to death (II Cor.v.16). Thus had he thought of him when he persecuted the church before his conversion. But now he knows him spiritually. Jesus is not a man who has advanced to union with God; he is lord and saviour. But this spiritual knowledge is a knowledge of Jesus, who was born of the seed of David, and is directed towards him crucified. He claims to know him as he was and is. And as he had known men once as Jews or Greeks, slaves or freemen, now he knows them so no more. He knows them in spiritual fashion to be sinners in need of salvation, and either to be passing to corruption in unbelief or to be heirs of the kingdom of God because they have believed in Jesus. But this spiritual knowledge is a knowledge of living men, of men of flesh and blood. The difference between a carnal and a spiritual knowledge consists in a difference of judgement. So the change from a carnal to a spiritual knowledge of Christ does not mean that the object of his knowledge has changed from the Jesus of history to the Spirit‑Christ. To suppose this would be to make nonsense of his epistles. As he says, his gospel was the placarding of Christ crucified before the very eyes of his hearers, and his determination was to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. His description of the Christians as 'in Christ' can be explained only on the supposition that conversion, if it is to be fruitful, must bring with it a comprehension of the earthly life of Jesus in the flesh and an actual sharing in his obedience to the will of God.
The author of the Johannine writings, like St. Paul, is faced by a riot of disordered religious romanticism. Because the church is evidently controlled by the obedience of Jesus, St. Paul has only to appeal to this obedience for the Christians to understand at once what he means and to find in the church the escape from the anarchy of pagan mysticism; the author of the fourth Gospel, on the other hand, writing at a later date, has to prove that the church is subject to this historical control (I Jn.i.1‑4). When he writes, spiritual romanticism has entered the church, and is there confidently declared to be the essence of the Christian religion. He is therefore less concerned with spiritual romanticism in the world than he is with its appearance in the church; and he is compelled to put forth his whole pastoral and literary energy in order to recover the control of the church by the life and death of Jesus.
In the opening verses of the First Epistle he sets the fellowship of the church upon the foundation of the witness of those who saw and handled the Word of life; and in the chapters that follow, he returns again and again to this historical event. He shows that the life and death of Jesus was not a mere visual or sensual manifestation of something from the supernatural sphere, but, in its very form, a manifestation by which certain unprecedented results were achieved:
Ye know that he was manifested to take away sins. (I Jn.iii.5)
To this end was the Son of God manifested,
that he might destroy the works of the devil. (I Jn.iii.8)
Herein was the love of God manifested in us,
that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world,
that we might live through him. (I Jn.iv.9)
We know that the Son of God is come,
and hath given us an understanding. (I Jn.v.20)
This historical event must condition Christian be?haviour:
Herein is love,
not that we loved God,
but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us,
we ought also to love one another. (I Jn.iv.10, 11)
For this cause the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. (I Jn.iii.1)
Ye know that he was manifested to take away sins;
and in him is no sin.
Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not:
whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither knoweth him. (I Jn.iii.5 f.)
Hereby know we love,
because he laid down his life for us:
and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
But whoso hath the world's goods, and beholdeth his brother in need,
and shutteth up his compassion from him,
how doth the love of God abide in him?
My little children, let us not love in word,
neither with the tongue;
but in deed and truth. (I Jn.iii.16‑18)
Not only is the newly begotten fellowship of sons of God directly created by the coming of Jesus; not only does its continued existence depend upon imitation of his life: but the recognition that he has come in the flesh provides the test of spiritual experience:
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God:
every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus is come in the flesh is not of God:
and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come;
and even now already is it in the world. (I Jn.iv.2 f.)
The church is thus shown to rest not upon spiritual experience, but upon the life and death of Jesus. The Epistle was evidently provoked by the immediate need of refuting inside the church itself a spiritual speculation, which denied the necessity of believing that Jesus Christ had really come in the flesh. That such opinions were current at the time when the Epistle was written is clear from the almost contemporary writings of St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch.
The same controversial purpose is evident in the fourth Gospel. The fact that the author presented theology in the form of a gospel is a declaration that Christianity rests upon the words and actions and death of Jesus. The prologue, which, like the opening verses of the Epistle, places in a cosmological setting the coming of Jesus Christ and the consequent appearance of the fellowship of men newly begotten in him, begins by showing the effect of his entry into the world. He came in order to give to as many as received him the authority
to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on his name:
which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,
but of God. (Jn.i.12, 13)
And the climax of the prologue is the declaration that this coming took the form, not merely of becoming man, for that might occasion a false interpretation, but of becoming flesh: 'the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us' (Jn.i.14). The glory from the Father had been seen and handled by men. So, before the actual narration of the life and death and resurrection is begun, the concrete reality of the coming is insisted upon, together with its necessity for the new creation of sons of God.
The author is, however, not content with his own witness. His gospel is so constructed as to throw into strong relief the witness that was borne to Jesus and by him in the course of the ministry itself. At the beginning of the gospel the Baptist declares him to be 'The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.' (Jn.i.29; cf. 36) At the end the beloved disciple, who at the moment of the death saw him give up the spirit, and saw blood and water flow forth from his side, witnesses:
And he that hath seen hath borne witness, and his witness is true:
and he knoweth that he saith true,
that ye also may believe. (Jn.xix.35)
Between these two testimonies, which enclose the record of the life and death of Jesus, the author inserts a whole series of testimonies, which combine to rivet salvation to the particular history.
And so the work of Jesus, his whole life and death, is not the fortuitous operation of a man, however high his calling, but the working of God:
My Father worketh even until now, and I work. (Jn.v.17)
The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand.
He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life;
but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life,
but the wrath of God abideth on him. (Jn.iii.35 f.)
Throughout the narrative run two contrasted movements.
Jesus consistently declares his creative significance for the world:
the Jews hear him and as consistently reject him.
The whole story is bound together by a series of statements in which the significance of the history is laid bare.
Thus 'I am the bread of life' explains the feeding of the five thousand,
and 'I am the light of the world', 'I am the way and the truth and the life'
expose the significance of the healing of the blind man and of the raising of Lazarus.
But the immediate result is rejection by the hearers.
They take up stones to cast at him, and many even of his disciples go back and walk no more with him. In rejecting him they stand
condemned.
Refusing to see the light, they remain in utter darkness:
And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not:
for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.
He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him:
the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
(Jn..47, 48)
The words and teaching of Jesus, then, are of infinite and critical importance for those who hear them. Yet they lead on inevitably to the supremely important event‑his death. This event, which in the narrative has been foreshadowed throughout the ministry, is solemnly shown to be its completion by the words 'It is finished'; and the author at once writes: 'He bowed his head, and gave up the spirit.' (Jn.xix.30) The death of Jesus is presented as a dynamic action, and elsewhere the author declares the blood, the water and the Spirit which proceed from him to be the necessary foundation of the church (I Jn.v.6, 7). With the resurrection is inaugurated the new creation, for, as at the first creation God breathed into the nostrils of men the breath of life, so the author writes that Jesus, on the first day of the week came and stood in the midst of his disciples and said unto them:
Peace be unto you:
as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.
And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them,
Receive ye the Holy Ghost. (Jn.xx.21 f.)
Thus the foundation of the church is shown to be the actual words, actions, death and resurrection of Jesus who came in the flesh. And it is from him that the Spirit proceeds. (I Jn.iv.2) The coming of the Spirit, indeed, is the final witness which not only testifies that Jesus has come in the flesh, but
will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement;
of sin, because they believe not on me;
of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;
of judgement, because the prince of this world is judged. (Jn.xvi.8 ff)
Moreover,
He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. (Jn.xvi.14)
This is the Johannine gospel, written to defend the Christian religion on the one hand against the Jews who denied that the Christ had come, and on the other hand against those Christians who, in the interests of a free development of life in the Spirit, denied the control of the Jesus of history.
Its author claims to be extracting from the history of Jesus of Nazareth
its true significance. No doubt the form of the Christology, of the discourses, and even of the narratives, has been wholly
recast; recast to such an extent that at no point can we be certain that he gives us any new historical incident or any new saying
of Jesus.
But what has he extracted and laid bare?
He insists upon a victory over the powers of evil actually achieved in the obedience of Jesus, the Son of God, to the will of the
Father who sent him; he insists that this achievement was the creative fulfilment in the flesh of the law and of the Old Testament
scriptures; he insists that the death of Jesus was a voluntary death in which this fulfilment was finally achieved; and he insists
that the opus operatum of the life and death of Jesus requires imitation, and that as a result of it men can in very truth
overcome the world. When all has been said about the method which the author employed in bringing out this significance, is what
he says so different from what Mark had said or from what is involved in the whole material which composed the earlier tradition?
Nor is it otherwise with the other great theologian of the New Testament, the author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Amidst continual emphasizing of the pre existence of Jesus, his work contains more clear references to the story of Jesus of
Nazareth as it was set forth in the synoptic tradition, than all the epistles of St. Paul together. Were there no other primitive
Christian literature in existence, it would be possible to learn from this epistle that Jesus 'sprang out of Judah', that he
preached, and that his words had been handed down by those who had heard him. (Heb.vii.14; i.2; iv.2) The
author regards this teaching as of so great importance that he is afraid lest a later generation may drift away from it, and the
great salvation be neglected. (Heb.ii.1‑3) He refers quite naturally to Jesus as enduring
the contradiction of sinners, and states that his prayers, supplications, strong crying, tears and godly fear achieved his
triumph. He asserts that he died on a cross, in despite of shame, outside the gate; and that God brought him again from the dead
to the right hand of his majesty on high; and, finally, he says quite simply: 'Unto them that look for him shall he appear the
second time without sin unto salvation.' (Heb..3; Heb.v.7‑9; Heb.i.12; Heb..2;
Heb.i.20; Heb.i.2 f.; viii. 1; Heb.ix.28)
Yet, though such references show a thorough knowledge of the tradition, and a thorough sense of its importance, they do not in themselves determine what is the foundation of the writer's thought. He, of course, like nearly all the New Testament writers, is trying to meet and to remedy a specific and critical situation. In his opinion, those to whom he is writing have become dull of hearing and need to be re-taught the 'rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God'. (Heb.v.11 f.) The first principles are the assurance that God has prepared for men a heavenly country or city, to which the Christians may attain by faith, by boldness, and by resistance of temptation. This salvation is assured because Jesus, variously described as the priest after the order of Melchizedek (in order to show the eternity of his priesthood, and therefore of their salvation), or as the great high priest (in order to show the sufficiency of his one shedding of blood), has already penetrated beyond the veil of the sanctuary, into the holy of holies of God. But ‑ and here is the crux of the whole argument ‑ Jesus was himself of the same stuff as those whom the writer claims have been saved by him. His penetration into the holy of holies would have been without effect and without relevance had he not been one with them. The author carefully lays this down before he can proceed at all:
Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood,
he also himself in like manner partook of the same. (Heb.ii.14)
Wherefore it behoved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren,
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God,
to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted,
he is able to succour them that are tempted. (Heb.ii.17)
To this solid foundation he returns again and again in the elaboration of his argument, because upon it depends the possibility of imitation:
Who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God. (Heb.ix.14)
Who, in the days of his flesh,
having offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death,
and having been heard for his godly fear, though he was a Son,
yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered;
and having been made perfect... (Heb.v.7‑9)
We have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities;
but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are,
yet without sin. (Heb.iv.15)
He was faithful to him that appointed him. (Heb.iii.2)
Moreover he reinforces the appeal to his clear picture of Jesus by the appeal to
Old Testament scripture in order to show that Jesus came to do the will of God. (Heb.x.5‑7) Jesus, then, was of the sensuous and mortal nature of man.
Like man, he was tempted.
Like man he prayed, and lived in a state in which faith and obedience and self‑oblation were a matter of choice.
His triumphant priesthood is due to the fact that he was tempted without sin, was faithful unto death, obedient unto death, and
that he made a complete oblation of himself to do the will of God. Precisely in this obedience lay the fulfilment of the Old
Testament scriptures.
This, then, is the same conception of an opus operatum by a man Jesus in the flesh, once and for all, sufficient for the salvation of all men. But, as in St. Paul, men's appropriation of its results depends upon their imitation of, and identification with, his life, and upon their possession of the Spirit by which he lived. Jesus is the author and perfecter of faith, that is, of the faith of Christians. (Heb..2)
We are become partakers of Christ,
if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end. (Heb.iii.14)
It is unnecessary to follow the author in the elaboration of his argument. It is necessary only to point out that he is everywhere making use of a clearly defined picture of the Jesus of history, and that his arguments have no force or relevance apart from their reference to that history. And what was that history to the author? It was a life lived in complete obedience to the will of God, lived unto death in the same obedience. Here is not only the conquest of sin and the assurance of eternal life, but also that which makes sense of the Old Testament because it is its fulfilment.
The theologians of the New Testament, then, are not moving in a world of their own ideas. They are moving upon the background of a very particular history, which is itself shot through and through with theological significance. No doubt it is their own spiritual and moral experience which enables them to appreciate the significance of the history and to lay it bare; no doubt also considerable theological development results from their endeavour to extract its meaning; but neither their experience nor their theologizing has created the history which they are handling, and, consequently, the witness which they bear to it must be taken seriously in any historical reconstruction.
Since this chapter was originally written, very considerable arguments have been advanced for concluding that
the Fourth Gospel and the First Epistle of John are not from the same hand. These arguments were set out fully by Professor C. H.
Dodd in the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Vol. 21; and again in his commentary, The Johannine Epistles, in the Moffat New
Testament commentary. It has not, however, seemed necessary to revise this chapter. Even if the two documents bear unmistakable
marks of different authorship, they are none the less so clearly related to each other that to study them side-by-side is not only
justifiable but necessary.
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