New Testament Christological Titles
New Testament Christological Titles
The New Testament is the primary source for Christology. In this section, we shall explore the main Christological titles found in the New Testament, and their implications for our understanding of the identity of Christ. Why are these titles so important? For biblical writers, names convey insights about identity. The terms used to designate Jesus are the outcome of reflection on what he said, what he did, and what was done to him. Each title can be seen as adding a strand of insight to the tapestry of Christology. In what follows, we shall consider six of the main Christological titles of the New Testament, and reflect briefly on their importance.
Messiah
The New Testament's reflections on the significance of Christ are to be set against an Old Testament context. The term “Christ” – so easily treated as a surname – is actually a title, with a range ofmeanings which can only be fully appreciated in the light of the Old Testament expectation concerning the coming of God's “messiah” (Greek: christos). The Greek word christos translates the Hebrew term mashiah, most familiar in its anglicized form of “messiah,” with the root meaning of “one who has been anointed.” Although ancient Israel anointed both prophets and priests, the term came to be primarily reserved for the anointing of a king. Within the context of ancient Israel's strongly theocentric worldview, the king was regarded as someone who was appointed by God. Anointing – that is, the rubbing or covering of someone with olive oil – was thus a public sign of having been chosen by God for the task of kingship.
The term became linked to a set of expectations concerning the future of Israel which focused on the anticipated coming of a new king who, like David, would rule over a renewed people of God. There is evidence that such expectations reached new heights during the period of Roman occupation, with nationalist feelings becoming closely linked to messianic expectations. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has cast much light on such expectations at this time. To designate any first-century Palestinian as “the anointed one” would be to make a powerful and deeply evocative affirmation of the importance of such a person.
The New Testament evidence for the use of this title for Jesus is complex, and its interpretation is open to dispute. For example, some have suggested that the Messiah was a divine figure; others have argued that this is not the case, and that the Messiah was merely one favored and acknowledged by God. However, it seems that a good case can be made for suggesting that the following four statements are plausible:
What, then, is the significance of the term for an understanding of the importance of Jesus? For the purpose of establishing Jesus's relation to Israel, the term is enormously important. It suggests that Jesus is to be regarded as the fulfillment of classical Jewish expectations, and lays the foundations for an understanding of the continuities between Judaism and Christianity. This issue was certainly important in first-century Palestine, and continues to be of importance in connection with Jewish–Christian relations today.
Son of God
The Old Testament used the term “Son of God” in a broad sense, perhaps best translated as “having the characteristics of God” or “belonging to God.” It was applied across a wide spectrum of categories, including the people of Israel in general (Exodus 4: 22) and especially the Davidic king and his successors who were to rule over that people (2 Samuel 7: 14). In this minimalist sense, the term could be applied equally to Jesus and to Christians. Jesus himself does not appear to have explicitly used the term of himself. It is found used in this way elsewhere in the New Testament, especially by Paul and in the letter to the Hebrews. Paul, for example, stated that Jesus had “been declared Son of God” on account of the resurrection (Romans 1: 4).
Paul uses the term “Son of God” in relation to both Jesus and believers. However, a distinction is drawn between the sonship of believers, which arises through adoption, and that of Jesus, which originates from his being “God's own son”(Romans 8: 32). In the fourth gospel and the Johannine letters, the term “son” (huios) is reserved for Jesus, while the more general term “children” (tekna) tends to be applied to believers. The basic notion appears to be that believers are enabled, through faith, to enter into the same kind of relationship as that which Jesus enjoys with the Father; nevertheless, the relationship between Jesus and the Father is either prior to, or foundational for, that between believers and God.
These observations raise an important issue, which must be noted here. Some readers will find references to “Son of God” problematic, on account of the use of exclusive language. The simple solution is to replace the masculine “son” with the more inclusive term “child.” Although this substitution is understandable, it blurs a series of crucial distinctions in the New Testament. For Paul, all believers – whether male or female – are “sons of God” by adoption. The point being made is that all believers enjoy inheritance rights – rights which, under the cultural conditions of the period, were enjoyed only by male children. In view of this major cultural problem, the present work will use the traditional exclusive language forms “Son of God” and “Son of Man” to deal with New Testament Christological titles, in much the same way as the traditional terms “Father” and “Son” are retained in the earlier analysis of the Trinity (see pp. 321–3).
Son of Man
For many Christians, the term “Son of Man” stands as a natural counterpart to “Son of God.” It is an affirmation of the humanity of Christ, just as the latter term is a complementary affirmation of his divinity. However, it is not quite as simple as this. The term “Son of Man” (Hebrew ben adam or Aramaic bar nasha) is used in three main contexts in the Old Testament:
The third such meaning brings out the humanity of Jesus and may underlie at least some of its uses in the synoptic gospels. It is, however, the second use of the term that has attracted most scholarly attention.
The German New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) argued that Daniel 7: 13–14 points to the expectation of the coming of a “Son of Man” at the end of history, and argued that Jesus shared this expectation. References by Jesus to “the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory” (Mark 13: 26) are thus, according to Bultmann, to be understood to refer to a figure other than Jesus. Bultmann suggested that the early church subsequently merged “Jesus” and “Son of Man,” understanding them to be one and the same. The early church thus invented the application of the term to Jesus.
This view has not, however, commanded universal assent. Other scholars have argued that the term “Son of Man” carries a range of associations, including suffering, vindication, and judgment, thus making it natural and proper to apply it to Jesus. The British New Testament scholar George Caird (1917–84) developed such an approach, arguing that Jesus used the term “to indicate his essential unity with mankind, and above all with the weak and humble, and also his special function as predestined representative of the new Israel and bearer of God's judgment and kingdom.”
Lord
The acknowledgment that “Jesus Christ is Lord” (Romans 10: 9) appears to have become one of the earliest Christian confessions of faith, serving to distinguish those who believed in Jesus from those who did not. The term “Lord” (Greek kyrios; Aramaic mar) appears to have had powerful theological associations, partly on account of its use to translate the “Tetragrammaton” – the four Hebrew characters used to represent the sacred name of God in the Hebrew version of the Old Testament, often represented in English as “YHWH” or “Yahweh.” It was regarded as improper within Judaism to pronounce the name of God; an alternative word (adonai) was therefore used. In the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament, the term kyrios is used to translate the name of God.
The Greek word kyrios thus came to be regarded as reserved for God within the biblical literature. The important first-century Jewish historian Josephus records an important incident in which Jews refused to take part in the emperor-cult which was a central part of the civil religion of the Roman empire. They refused to address the emperor as “lord” (kyrios), clearly on account of their belief that this term was appropriate to God alone. The use of the term to refer to Jesus in the New Testament thus draws on this rich tradition of association, implying a high degree of identity between Jesus and God.
This trend is illustrated by a number of passages within the New Testament which take Old Testament passages referring to God and apply them to Christ. Perhaps the most significant such occurrence is to be found at Philippians 2: 10–11, a passage which is clearly pre-Pauline. Here, a very early Christian writer, whose identity will probably remain forever unknown, takes the great Old Testament declaration (Isaiah 45: 23) that every knee will bow to the Lord God and transfers it to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Savior
For New Testament writers, Jesus is the “Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2: 11). This theme is found throughout the New Testament: Jesus saves his people from their sins (Matthew 1: 21); in his name alone is there salvation (Acts 4: 12); he is the “captain of salvation” (Hebrews 2: 10). The basic idea is, at least on the face of it, quite simple: Jesus is the one who saves.
Yet this seemingly simple statement turns out to be rather more complex than it might at first seem. It must be recalled that the New Testamentaffirmations about Jesus Christ are to be set against a Jewish background. And for the Old Testament, there was only one who could save – the Lord God of Israel. The prophets regularly reminded Israel that it could not save itself, nor could it be saved by other nations round about it. It is the Lord, and the Lord alone, who will save, or forgive Israel's sins. This point is made with special force in some of the prophetic writings, such as Isaiah 45: 21–2:
Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the Lord?
And there is no other god apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior.
There is none apart from me.
Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth!
The New Testament use of the word “savior” to refer to Jesus thus turns out to be considerably more significant than a cursory reading might suggest. The title indicates that Jesus of Nazareth is being credited with doing something that, strictly speaking, only God can do.
This theme is also reflected in the gospel accounts of how Jesus healed a paralytic (Mark 2: 1–12). Jesus tells the paralytic that his sins are forgiven, to the outrage and astonishment of the Jewish teachers of the law watching him. Their reaction is one of disbelief: “He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone!” (Mark 2: 7). Underlying this objection is a fundamental belief of the Old Testament: only God can forgive sin. Unless Jesus was God, he had no authority whatsoever to speak those words. He was deluded, or blaspheming. Yet Jesus declares that he does have such authority to forgive, and proceeds to heal the man (Mark 2: 10–11). The resurrection of Jesus demonstrated that Jesus had the right to act in this way, retrospectively validating his claims to authority on earth.
God alone forgives sins; yet Jesus forgives sin. God alone saves; yet Jesus also saves. So what does this say about the identity of Jesus? In the full knowledge that it was the Lord God alone who was savior, and that none other than God could save, the first Christians affirmed that Jesus was savior – that Jesus could save. This was nomisunderstanding on the part of people ignorant of the Old Testament tradition. It was a confident statement of who Jesus had to be, in the light of what he achieved through his saving death and resurrection.
God
The New Testament was written against the background of the strict monotheism of Israel. The idea that anyone could be described as “God” would have been blasphemous within this Jewish context. Nevertheless, the noted Catholic New Testament scholar Raymond Brown (1928–98) has argued that there are three clear instances of Jesus being called “God” in the New Testament, with the momentous implications that this involves. These are:
Given the strong reluctance of New Testament writers to speak of Jesus as “God,” because of their background in the strict monotheism of Israel, these three affirmations are of considerable significance. Many other texts have, of course, been argued to make similar affirmations; these three have been chosen to illustrate the point at issue, partly because there is widespread assent within the community of New Testament scholars concerning their importance in this respect.
To these verses which make statements concerning the identity of Jesus, there may be added a series of important New Testament passages which speak of the significance of Jesus in functional terms – that is to say, in terms which identify him as performing certain functions or tasks associated with God. Several of these prove to be of considerable significance.
Jesus is the Savior of Humanity
The Old Testament affirmed that there was only one savior of humanity: God. In the full knowledge that God alone could save, the first Christians affirmed that Jesus of Nazareth was their savior. For the New Testament, Jesus saves his people from their sins (Matthew 1: 21). Jesus is understood to function as God, doing something which, properly speaking, only God was permitted to do, according to Judaism. A fish came to be a symbol of faith to the early Christians, as the five Greek letters spelling out “fish” in Greek (I-CH-TH-U-S) came to represent the slogan “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.”
Jesus is Worshiped
Within the Jewish context in which the first Christians operated, it was God and God alone who was to be worshiped. Paul warned the Christians at Rome that there was a constant danger that humans would worship creatures when they ought to be worshiping their creator (Romans 1: 23). Yet the early Christian church worshiped Christ as God – a practice which is clearly reflected even in the New Testament. Thus, 1 Corinthians 1: 2 speaks of Christians as those who “call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” using language which reflects the Old Testament formulae for worshiping or adoring God (such as Genesis 4: 26, 13: 4; Psalm 105: 1; Jeremiah 10: 25; Joel 2: 32). Jesus is thus clearly understood to function as God, in that he is an object of worship.
Jesus Reveals God
“Anyone who has seen me, has seen the Father” (John 14: 9). These remarkable words, so characteristic of the fourth gospel, emphasize the belief that the Father speaks and acts in the Son – in other words, that God is revealed in and by Jesus. To have seen Jesus is to have seen the Father – in other words, Jesus is understood, once more, to function as God.
These texts and themes would play a major role in shaping Christian reflection on how best to state the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. The church already knew that Christ was an authoritativeteacher; that he forgave sins; that he was the fulfillment of the hopes of Israel; and many other points. The question they had to face was simple: what conceptual framework allows these insights to be woven together seamlessly? What is the best “big picture” which makes sense of all these components? What map can be drawn which allows all these insights to be positioned? We begin our exploration of this point by considering the patristic attempts to make sense of the identity of Christ.