The Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith
The Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith
Modern critics read the data of the New Testament differently by consistently making a distinction between what they refer to as the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. By this they mean that the portrait of Jesus that surfaces from the Gospels, primarily the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), is different from the portrait of Jesus that surfaces from the rest of the New Testament.
They contend that the Jesus of history in the Synoptic Gospels gives the portrayal of Jesus' true identity. He grew up with typical human characteristics with a special calling of God (Luke 2:40,52), and He was a prophetic figure similar to John the Baptist (Luke 4:23). But they contend that He never explicitly called Himself Messiah, He silenced those who tried to give Him messianic status (Mark 1:2–25; 8:29–30), and He declared that He was different from His heavenly Father, who knew things about the future that He Himself did not know (Mark 13:32). Jesus knew that He was a special agent of God, but He did not claim that He was anything other than a prophet like those of the Old Testament.
They further contend that the Jesus depicted in the rest of the New Testament is the Christ of faith. The hopes of Jesus' mission were utterly devastated with His execution at the hands of the Roman authorities. But soon the followers of Jesus began to believe that Jesus' mission was not dead because it was alive in their minds and hearts. It was as though Jesus Himself were still alive. And if His mission was not dead, then He really was not only the Messiah of Israel but also the Messiah of all the nations. Jesus was still alive in their minds and hearts and was more exalted than ever, and by faith the early followers declared that He was the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God (Acts 9:22; cf. Rom 1:3–4; Col 1:13–16).
Many modern critics contend that when the authors of the Gospels wrote the story of Jesus' life, they did so from the perspective of faith that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, but with the recognition that the Jesus of history did not make that claim, nor did He understand Himself to be such. When we find evidence of these kinds of claims in the Gospels, they are understood to be the Gospel writers interpolating later beliefs back into Jesus' ministry.