The Place of Jesus Christ in Christian Theology
The Place of Jesus Christ in Christian Theology
The person of Jesus Christ is of central importance to Christian theology. That is why this chapter is the longest in this textbook. Whereas “theology” could be defined as “talk about God” in general, “Christian theology” accords a central role to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is understood as the “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1: 15), allowing us to see what God is like. There are four basic elements to the Christian understanding of the place of Jesus Christ in theology. The first is historical, whereas the other three other are more explicitly theological in character.
Jesus Christ is the Historical Point of Departure for Christianity
This observation is relatively straightforward. It is a simple matter of historical fact that the coming of Jesus of Nazareth brought the Christian community into being. However, the interpretation of this matter is actually rather more complex. Consider, for example, the question of whether Jesus of Nazareth introduced anything new into the world. For the writers of the Enlightenment, Jesus of Nazareth did little more than republish a religion of nature which was promptly corrupted by his followers, including Paul. Rationalism thus argued that Jesus had nothing that was both right and new to say; where he was right he merely agreed with what sound human reason had always known to be the case, and if he said anything that was new (that is, hitherto unknown to reason) this would, by definition, be irrational and hence of no value.
A very different approach is associated with German liberal Protestantism (see pp. 70–1), especially as this is developed in the writings of Albrecht Benjamin Ritschl (1822–89). Ritschl argued that Jesus of Nazareth brought something new to the human situation, something which reason had hitherto neglected. “Jesus was conscious of a new and hitherto unknown relation to God.” Where rationalists believed in a universal rational religion, of which individual world religions were at best shadows, Ritschl argued that this was little more than a dream of reason, an abstraction without any historical embodiment. Christianity possesses certain definite theological and cultural characteristics as an historical religion, partly due to Jesus of Nazareth.
Important though this historical consideration might be, Christian theology has generally located the significance of Jesus Christ in three specifically theological areas, which we shall note in what follows.
Jesus Christ Reveals God
A central element of Christian theology centers upon the idea of a revelatory presence of God in Christ (see pp. 213–14, 230–1). Jesus Christ is regarded as making God known in a particular and specific manner, distinctive to Christianity. Perhaps the most radical statement of this conviction may be found in Karl Barth's (1886–1968) Church Dogmatics:
When Holy Scripture speaks of God, it does not permit us to let our attention or thoughts wander at random. [...] When Holy Scripture speaks of God, it concentrates our attention and thoughts upon one single point and what is to be known at that point. [...] If we ask further concerning the one point upon which, according to Scripture, our attention and thoughts should and must be concentrated, then from first to last the Bible directs us to the name of Jesus Christ.
This conviction has been central to mainstream Christianity down the ages. As we noted earlier, the writer of the Second Letter of Clement opens his letter with the affirmation that “we must think of Jesus Christ as of God.” The noted English theological writer Arthur Michael Ramsey (1904–88) makes the same theological point as Barth: “The importance of the confession ‘Jesus is Lord' is not only that Jesus is divine, but that God is Christlike.”
This “Christological concentration” has been the subject of considerable debate among those concerned with dialogue between Christianity and other religions, and we shall return to consider its implications at a later stage in this work. Our concern at this stage is simply to note that, as a matter of historical fact, Christian theology has recognized that it is impossible to speak of “God” within the parameters of the Christian tradition without relating such statements to the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the Bearer of Salvation
A central theme of mainstream Christian thought is that salvation, in the Christian sense of the term, is manifested in and through and constituted on the basis of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (see pp. 248–77). It must be noted that the term “salvation” is complex. To assert that “Jesus Christ makes salvation possible” is not to deny that other modes of salvation are accessible by other means; it is simply to insist that, within the Christian tradition, the distinctively Christian understanding of what salvation is can only be realized on the basis of Jesus Christ. We shall explore something of how Christian theology has understood both the nature of salvation (pp. 270–5) and how Jesus Christ is understood to be the basis of that salvation (pp. 251–68).
This central core of Christian belief has been the subject of some concern on the part of theological revisionists, alarmed at its potential implications for dialogue between Christianity and other religions, and we shall return to explore it at the appropriate point in this work. John Hick (1922–2012), for example, finds his pluralist approach to other religions challenged by certain highly distinctive elements of the Christian faith – including the resurrection of Christ, the divinity of Christ, and the Trinity. His proposals to eliminate these in order to facilitate his agenda of demonstrating that all faiths share the same basic features has not been well received. We shall return to this theme in Chapter 17.
Jesus Christ Defines the Shape of the Redeemed Life
A central issue in Christian spirituality and ethics concerns the nature of Christian existence, in relation to both its spiritual and its ethical dimensions. The New Testament itself is strongly “Christomorphic” in its view of the redeemed life – that is to say, it affirms that Jesus Christ not only makes that life possible but also determines its shape. The New Testament imagery of “being conformed to Christ” expresses this notion well.
The more recent rise of “narrative theology” (pp. 113–15) has given especial importance to this point. It has been emphasized that it is the narrative of Jesus Christ which exercises controlling influence over the Christian community. Christian belief, and especially Christian ethics, are shaped by the narrative of Jesus Christ, which gives flesh and substance to otherwise abstract ideas of values and virtues. The story of Jesus thus exercises a controlling influence over Christian thinking about ethics, in that the manner in which Jesus acted is seen as having continuing importance for the church today.