2 Jesus of Nazareth: Assembling the Big Picture
Jesus of Nazareth: assembling the big picture
I was staying with some colleagues in Yorkshire, in the north of England. One evening we went to a nearby restaurant for a meal. A few moments after we had returned home for a cup of tea, a car pulled up outside. One of my colleagues looked out the window to see who our visitor might be. ‘Oh no! It’s Mr Bore and Snore!’ he whispered. The others put their heads in their hands. ‘Pretend we’re not here!’ someone suggested. But it was too late.
It didn’t take me long to work out how the new arrival had acquired his nickname. After giving us an utterly tedious lecture on the economics of the insurance business, he settled down in the most comfortable chair and fell asleep. And snored. In fact, he snored so loudly, we had to move to another room so that we could hear each other speak. This encounter has reminded me ever since that the names we give people tell us a lot about what we think of them.
Names really mattered to the biblical writers. They were seen as expressing who someone was, while being allowed to name someone indicated you had authority over them. In the creation accounts, Adam is allowed to name the animals (Genesis 2.19 –20) because they come under his stewardship. And when Daniel and his companions are exiled to Babylon, they are given new names to indicate they are servants of the state (Daniel 1.7).
But no human being is allowed to give a name to God, as this would imply that we have some kind of authority over God. This point is made clearly in several passages in the Old Testament. Moses wants to know the name by which the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is to be known. And God tells him what name he is to use.
Moses said to God, ‘If I come to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your ancestors has sent me to you”, and they ask me, “What is his name?”, what shall I say to them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’
(Exodus 3.13 –14)
In the same way, Mary and Joseph are not allowed to choose the name of their child. ‘Jesus’ is an anglicized version of Iesous, the Greek form of the Hebrew name Yeshua which literally means ‘God saves’. But the idea of Jesus as a potential saviour was not his earthly parents’ idea. The name was chosen for them and they were authorized to give it to the child, with all it would imply.
Let’s now explore the three particular titles used to describe Jesus in the body of the Apostles’ Creed: ‘I believe in Jesus Christ, [God’s] only Son, our Lord.’ We must not see these three titles – or any others, for that matter – as prisons, designed to trap our thought. Rather, they are the wellspring of reflection, in which our minds, imaginations and hearts are opened up to the richness and joy of God. Pope Francis has reminded Christians how easily we can limit Jesus, reducing him to neat little theological categories. Jesus transcends these. He cannot be imprisoned in a theoretical cage!
Jesus can also break through the dull categories with which we would enclose him and he constantly amazes us by his divine creativity. Whenever we make the effort to return to the source and to recover the original freshness of the Gospel, new avenues arise, new paths of creativity open up, with different forms of expression, more eloquent signs and words with new meaning for today’s world.1
To appreciate Jesus to the full, we need to avoid trapping him in our preconceived categories, which, like old wineskins, are simply not capable of holding him. With this point in mind, let us begin to explore these titles, beginning with Jesus as the ‘Messiah’.
Jesus the Messiah
‘I believe in Jesus Christ’. Most of us treat the name ‘Jesus Christ’ as if it were a forename and surname – like John Doe or Mary Smith. But it’s not. It’s a title: ‘Jesus the Messiah’. The Greek word Christos is a translation of the Hebrew word ‘Messiah’, and this term is deeply rooted in the history and hopes of the people of Israel. Literally, it means ‘the anointed one’ – someone who has been ceremonially anointed with oil in recognition of being endowed by God with special powers and functions. From the outset, the idea of the Messiah was associated with the king, first of all with Saul and then with David. After David’s death, the Messiah increasingly became understood as his successor, someone who would restore Israel to the golden age she had enjoyed under the rule of her greatest leader.
So when would the Messiah come? There seems little doubt that some believed this would happen when the people of Jerusalem returned to Judah after the long period of exile in Babylon. The restoration of the nation of Israel after its long period of exile seemed to suggest that it was on the brink of a new messianic age. We can catch something of this sense of anticipation as we read the great prophecies of deliverance spoken to the exiled people of Jerusalem as they languished in Babylon, hardly daring to hope that they might one day return home.
Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.
A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.’
(Isaiah 40.1– 4)
The people of Jerusalem did indeed return home, as the military and political power of Babylon collapsed. But the Messiah did not come. Things began to go badly wrong. The post-exilic community gradually realized that the prophetic ideals of restoration had not been met and that the coming of the promised Messiah still lay in the future. But when? And how would they know when to expect his coming?
That’s why the appearance of John the Baptist was seen as a turning point. According to the prophets, the coming of God to visit and redeem Israel would be signalled by the advent of a messenger – a trailblazer, who would prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. ‘I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple’ (Malachi 3.1). When John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming the need for national repentance, he created a sensation. Vast crowds flocked to see and hear him.
Yet the appeal of John lay only partly in his message of repentance. More importantly, he declared that he was a herald, preparing the way for the coming of someone much greater than himself. ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit’ (Mark 1.7– 8). So who is this mysterious figure? As if anticipating our question, Mark answers it: ‘In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan’ (Mark 1.9).
Jesus’ ministry took place in the Roman province of Judaea, when fierce nationalist feeling, fuelled by hostility towards the foreign occupying power, seems to have reignited the traditional expectation of the coming of the Messiah. For many, the Messiah would be the deliverer who expelled the Romans, returned Israel to the rightful rule of the Jewish people and restored the line of David.
Jesus of Nazareth seems to have been regarded by some in this political way. The Gospels vividly describe his reception as he entered the city of Jerusalem on what we now call Palm Sunday: the crowds who gathered round him used language and actions – such as strewing the ground with palm branches – appropriate for the coming of a triumphant warrior king.
But Jesus did not see himself as Messiah in this political sense. At no point in his ministry do we find him urging violence or opposition against Rome. Indeed, his criticisms are usually directed primarily against his own people and their failure to honour God. Thus after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matthew 21.8 –11), which seems to be a deliberate messianic gesture, Jesus immediately evicts the money-changers from the temple (Matthew 21.12–13). His concern was to renew and redirect the obedience and faith of Israel towards God.
Furthermore, Jesus was not prepared to accept the title ‘Messiah’ in public in the course of his ministry. Mark’s Gospel should be read carefully to note this point. When Peter acclaims Jesus as Messiah, Jesus immediately tells him to keep quiet about it (8.29 –30). He then explains to his disciples that he must suffer, be rejected by his own people and killed. This is not the kind of Messiah that Israel is expecting! The Jews longed for a conquering king; they did not imagine for a moment that their Messiah would be executed as a common criminal.
Why do we continue to speak of Jesus as ‘Christ’ – the Messiah? Some scholars suggest that, as Christianity expanded in the Roman world and the roots of the faith in Judaism gradually faded from memory, the word ‘Christ’ may have lost much of its original meaning and become a kind of shorthand for ‘Jesus of Nazareth’. ‘Jesus Christ’ became a name like ‘John Smith’ or ‘Jane Doe’. ‘Christ’ was understood as a surname, not as a title.
However, the creeds make it clear that Jesus of Nazareth cannot be fully understood without reference to the history of Israel. The God of Jesus of Nazareth is the same as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This point is emphasized in the letter to the Hebrews, which showcases the great figures of faith of the Old Testament. Jesus represents the point of transition from what was a national religion to a universal faith. Christians see things more clearly on account of Jesus of Nazareth than our Old Testament forebears did; we are able to receive and possess what was merely hinted at in the past history of the people of God. We are privileged to enter into the inheritance which the great figures of faith in the past greeted and welcomed ‘from a distance’.
The creeds move on, and invite us to believe also in Jesus as ‘God’s only Son’. Behind this declaration lies a powerful and energizing vision of a God who does not stand above human history, but enters into it in an engaging and transformational way. Above all, God enters the world in personal form – not as an abstract idea or an invisible force.
Of course, referring to Jesus as the ‘Son of God’ does more than affirm that Jesus is like God: it also makes clear that God is like Jesus. Our God is not one who is hidden from us, as some inscrutable and distant despot. Rather God’s will is made known and his face shown in Jesus of Nazareth. The creeds reassure us that Jesus is the gateway through which we have access to God. There is a God; there is a way to this God; and this way has been made known and made open through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Without in any way losing sight of the fact that Jesus was a human being – who is like us in so many ways – the creeds highlight the fact that there was something fundamentally different about him. Unlike us, he was not a sinner. Traditionally, his identity is explored using the ‘two natures’ framework, which presents Jesus as truly human and truly divine. This often leads Christians to use the pair of titles ‘Son of Man’ and ‘Son of God’ to designate the human and divine aspects of Jesus.
The idea that he is the ‘Son of God’ is not some kind of theological elaboration of the basic New Testament witness. It is already embedded within the New Testament. One of the closing comments made in John’s Gospel is particularly important here.
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
(John 20.30 –31)
John’s Gospel presents us with a series of ‘signs’ – if you like, clues – which point to the full significance of Jesus of Nazareth. We need to look closely at these signs, and ask what they show.
The Gospel accounts of the resurrection of the crucified Jesus are more than a happy ending to a tale of suffering and death. Yes, it is good news that Jesus is restored to those who knew and loved him. But there is far more to the resurrection than this. The resurrection clinches the hints and suggestions seen earlier in the ministry of Jesus, indicating that Jesus had some unique relationship with God.
For Paul, Jesus of Nazareth ‘was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead’ (Romans 1.3 – 4). The humanity and divinity of Jesus are like threads woven together in a seamless fabric; they cannot be separated from each other, because they are both an integral part of the pattern.
The New Testament sees the resurrection of Jesus as a public demonstration of his real identity. People may have thought that Jesus of Nazareth was just a lowly Galilean peasant with a gift for teaching and healing. But his resurrection from the dead makes us see him in a very different light.
The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) hint that Jesus enjoyed this status at least from the time of the beginning of his ministry (e.g. Mark 1.11). Some biblical passages even suggest that Jesus possessed this divine status from the beginning of time (John 1.1–14; Philippians 2.6 –11; Colossians 1.15 –20). At the very least, we may say that the New Testament indicates that there never was a time in his life that Jesus was not already what the resurrection disclosed him to be – the Son of God.
Most of us today find it easiest to start with the assumption that Jesus was a good human being. It’s a natural place from which to begin. And it’s important to note that neither the New Testament nor the creeds call it into question. They may add to the humanity of Jesus by emphasizing that he did not share our sinfulness, but they do not take away from it. As we read the New Testament, we begin to realize that Jesus is more than human. But at no point does the New Testament suggest that he is less than human.
For some reason, a few early Christian writers, however, seem to have believed that it was dishonourable for Jesus to have been properly human. They argued that he may have had the outward appearance of a man, but in reality he was God, through and through. This doctrine is sometimes known as ‘Docetism’ (from the Greek word for ‘appearance’). After due consideration, it was rejected by the Church. For a start, it did not fit at all with the New Testament witness to Jesus as a human being, like us in so many ways – except that he is not a sinner. ‘We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin’ (Hebrews 4.15). Furthermore, it makes Jesus a phantom-like figure – a god who puts on a human costume and merely plays the role of a human being but doesn’t have any meaningful connection with the rest of us.
I once watched a television debate between some British politicians. One, known to be a multimillionaire, tried very hard to present himself as an ordinary person, who knew exactly what it was like to be short of money and live on a limited budget. The audience wasn’t persuaded. They saw a rich man pretending to be poor in order to win their votes, and rumbled him without the slightest difficulty.
But suppose this rich man had given away his fortune. He would no longer have to pretend to be poor; he really would be poor. I’m sure you will immediately perceive the resonance with this New Testament passage: ‘You know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich’ (2 Corinthians 8.9). As we try to make sense of the identity of Jesus of Nazareth, we need to hold fast to the insight that – whatever else he was – he was one of us. Or, to put this another way, he chose to become one of us. This way of speaking is much closer to the ideas and the language of the New Testament, and is central to the doctrine of the Incarnation, often summarized in the statement ‘the word became flesh and lived among us’ (John 1.14). But this is to jump ahead in our discussion.
We’ve established that Jesus is one who teaches with authority; who heals the sick; and who forgives sin. He is someone who seems able to do things that only God is supposed to be able to do, and that only God is allowed to do. Let’s now look at another New Testament title for Jesus, which helps us explore this point further – Jesus as Saviour.
The third title used in the Creeds is that of ‘Saviour’. So what does this mean? The New Testament tells us that Jesus saves his people from their sins (Matthew 1.21); that in his name alone is there salvation (Acts 4.12); that he is the ‘pioneer of salvation’ (Hebrews 2.10). This fundamental belief lies behind one of the earliest symbols of faith used by Christians: a fish. The five letters spelling out this word in Greek (I–CH–TH–U–S) are an acronym of the Greek form of the Christian slogan ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour’.
I was marking some student essays, with a classical music radio station playing in the background. On the hour, the station broadcast a news bulletin. One item was about a woman who had been kidnapped by bandits, and had now been freed after a gun battle with armed police. One policeman died while setting her free. ‘That man was my saviour!’ the relieved woman declared.
It was a great soundbite. But it spoke to me deeply. The essay I had been reading was a student’s rather inadequate attempt to bring out the full significance of the doctrine of redemption. It was a dull essay, poorly written and lacking sparkle. But my real concern was that the essay treated redemption simply as an abstract idea. My student was hopelessly preoccupied with abstract and impersonal theories about the meaning of the cross. As I listened to the news broadcast, a naughty thought went through my mind. ‘That woman knows more about redemption than my theological student!’
Why did I think that? Let me try and explain. It seemed to me that my student was locked into a world of cold logic, fixated on sorting out the consistency of his theology. The rescued woman was trapped, in a hopeless situation from which she could not escape. Her hopes of rescue lay entirely in someone else being willing to take on the bandits, overwhelm them and set her free. It was easy for me to appreciate the hopelessness and helplessness of her situation, and the distress she must have experienced.
Then she was set free. One of her ‘saviours’ died, so that her joy of liberation was tinged with the deep sadness of his death. But she would remember him for the rest of her life. Without his sacrifice, she might well have remained a hostage – perhaps even a dead hostage. This dramatic rescue was a life-changing event. I wondered what the woman felt like as she was led by her liberators from the darkness of the cave where she had been imprisoned into the bright light of day – and freedom.
Now perhaps I was being unfair to my student. But it seemed to me he had missed so much about the Christian vision of salvation, reducing it to some kind of paper transaction. He seemed to have overlooked the deep personal, existential and emotional richness of the great theme of salvation in Christ, hinted at in one of the great Old Testament prophecies: ‘The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival’ (Zephaniah 3.17–18).
Why is this idea of salvation so important? It’s all about the hope of transformation. Things don’t have to be like this. We don’t have to be like this. Something can be done to change us – to break the power of death and sin, and to give us hope and meaning. The New Testament is saturated with the belief that the coming of Jesus changes everything. Jesus is the saviour who breaks the power of sin, and heals the deepest wounds of the human soul.
Yet the Old Testament is emphatic that God is the only one who can save. This point is made with special force in some of the great prophetic writings, especially those dating from the time of the exile in Babylon:
There is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Saviour; there is no one besides me. Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.
(Isaiah 45.21–22)
Only God can save. But Jesus of Nazareth is our Saviour. So what are we to make of the identity of Jesus? Who must Jesus be if he is indeed able to save? As we saw earlier, the resurrection had a decisive influence on Christian thinking about the identity and significance of Jesus. Paul considered that this event demonstrated that Jesus was the Son of God (Romans 1.3 – 4). However, it’s probably fair to say that during Jesus’ earthly ministry his true identity was veiled. The clues were certainly there to be seen: Jesus forgave sins – something that only God was meant to do. But nobody seems to have managed to piece together the various bits of the picture. A modern analogy may help us to make sense of this.
The spring of 2013 saw the publication of a crime novel entitled The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith. Little was known about its first-time author except that he had ‘a background in the army and the civilian security industry’. Several reviewers expressed delight at the book, which they felt breathed new life into a somewhat weary literary genre. Yet there were some puzzles. How could an unknown author write such an assured debut novel? And how had he managed to develop such an extensive appreciation of women’s fashion?
In July 2013 the mystery was solved, thanks to a security lapse at a firm of copyright lawyers. The book had been written by none other than J. K. Rowling, the celebrity author of the Harry Potter series of novels, who had used a pseudonym so she could explore writing detective fiction without attracting any of the usual hype. The moment her true identity was exposed, sales of the novel rocketed.
Robert Galbraith was J. K. Rowling. There were clues in the text for those sharp enough to spot them, and some had already guessed. But no one could really have known for sure until Rowling herself decided to make her authorship public knowledge, confirming the leaked information.
The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth confirmed what the hints and clues of the ministry of Jesus suggested – that he was indeed the Son of God. Or to put this another way, God publicly affirmed the true identity of Jesus of Nazareth by raising him from the dead. This theme is prominent in Peter’s great sermon on the Day of Pentecost: speaking to a Jewish audience, he declares that the resurrection established and proclaimed the true identity and significance of Jesus of Nazareth. ‘God has made him both Lord and Messiah’ (Acts 2.36).
As we saw earlier, Peter’s use of the title ‘Lord’ to refer to Jesus of Nazareth is picked up by the creeds. What do the creeds want us to understand when they refer to Jesus as ‘our Lord’?
Jesus as Lord
The declaration that ‘Jesus is Lord’ is found at several points in the New Testament, often in contexts that suggest it was seen as a basic declaration of commitment to the Christian faith (Romans 10.9; 1 Corinthians 12.3). The early Christians didn’t really have creeds, and a simple statement like ‘Jesus is Lord’ would be regarded as a soundbite summary of what they believed.
Let’s consider what this title tells us about Jesus of Nazareth. ‘Lord’ has two main senses in the New Testament. It may be used to indicate respect, as when Martha addresses Jesus in these verses in John’s Gospel: ‘Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him”’ (John 11.21–22).
However, there are many other passages in the New Testament where Jesus is referred to as ‘the Lord’ – for example, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’ (Romans 10.13). Similarly, the ‘church of God’ consists of ‘those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Corinthians 1.2). The term is here used to acknowledge Jesus’s unique relationship to God, and its momentous implications for believers.
It would be helpful at this point to explore how the word ‘Lord’ was used in the Old Testament. Old Testament writers tended to use a ‘cypher’ of four letters (often referred to as the Tetragrammaton, from the Greek words for ‘four’ and ‘letters’) to represent the sacred name of God, and Greek-speaking Jews often translated this cypher as ‘Lord’. (Modern translations of the Old Testament generally print this word ‘LORD’ in capital letters.)
Let’s get technical for a minute. When the Old Testament was translated into Greek, the Greek word kyrios (‘Lord’) was regularly used to translate the sacred name of God from the Hebrew (6,156 out of 6,823 times, to be exact). This Greek word came to be an accepted way of referring directly and specifically to the God of Israel. The historian Josephus tells us that the Jews refused to call the Roman emperor kyrios, because they regarded this name as reserved for God alone.
Yet the writers of the New Testament had no hesitation in using ‘Lord’ to refer to Jesus. These were not ill-informed or muddled people, ignorant of the Jewish background to the name, but writers like Paul who understood perfectly well the implications of using such a term. They regarded the evidence concerning Jesus, especially his resurrection from the dead, as compelling them to speak of him in this way. Let’s trace a couple of Old Testament prophecies to illustrate.
The prophet Joel tells of a coming period in the history of the people of God in which the Spirit of God will be poured out upon all people (Joel 2.28). On that day, ‘everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved’ (Joel 2.32). This prophecy is referenced in Peter’s great sermon on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2.17–21), which ends with the declaration that ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’ (Acts 2.21). But Peter makes it clear that the ‘Lord’ in question is none other than Jesus of Nazareth, and thus publicly declares the exalted status and identity of the risen Christ.
Another well-known example of this same development is found in Paul’s letters. The prophet Isaiah had spoken of a coming day in which all people would worship the Lord God of Israel. ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear’ (Isaiah 45.23). Paul interprets this prophecy as applying to the risen Jesus:
Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
(Philippians 2.9 –11)
In summary, the New Testament writers were of the view that as God had raised Jesus from the dead, he was to be regarded as having equal status with God. This meant that he too was to be worshipped, and we can see clear evidence of this in the disciples’ response to the ‘Great Commission’ at the end of Matthew’s Gospel: ‘When they saw him, they worshipped him’ (Matthew 28.16 –20).
Thus far, we’ve looked at the compacted understanding of the identity of Jesus of Nazareth set out in the creed’s succinct statement ‘I believe in Jesus Christ, [God’s] only Son, our Lord.’ But there are other ways of speaking of Jesus used in the New Testament that can help us grasp something more of his significance. Let’s move on and look at one of these – the idea of Jesus as a mediator.
Jesus as mediator between God and humanity
Jesus, we are told, is the ‘one mediator between God and humankind’ (1 Timothy 2.5). We’re all familiar with the idea of mediation. A stormy personal relationship, an industrial dispute or an international crisis may all be alleviated by the diplomacy of a ‘go-between’, who has a foot in each camp and so can represent each party faithfully to the other.
Here’s a classic scenario from the late Victorian era. A father and son have a major disagreement about something – it might be the direction of the family business, the woman the son wants to marry or the son’s political views. Tensions soar. A massive row takes place in the drawing room after dinner. The father throws his son out of the family home, and threatens to disinherit him.
Who is going to sort things out? The great mediator in so many family melodramas of this period was the mother. She would plead the father’s case with the son, and the son’s with the father. As the father’s wife, and the son’s mother, she was uniquely placed to gain their confidence and restore the broken relationship.
Of course, things have changed a lot since the Victorian age. For many of us, mediation is about finding a neutral arbitrator in a dispute. We might get into an argument with our neighbours about their dog barking through the night; with a work colleague we believe isn’t doing her job properly; or with a company that fails to deliver an item we ordered. A mediator in any of these instances would be someone both we and the other party are prepared to trust so the dispute may be resolved.
There are, naturally, some important differences between human mediators and Jesus of Nazareth. First, the modern ‘arbitrator’ is someone who can maintain a neutral position. He won’t take sides in the dispute and has no personal interest in it, apart from his desire to get it sorted out. The Victorian analogy of the mother as mediator actually brings us much closer to the Christian understanding of mediation. She is passionately committed to both father and son and wants to reconcile them as an expression of her love. In a not dissimilar way, Jesus, far from being a professional mediator, willingly gives his life to achieve his supreme goal – the reconciliation of God and humanity. Jesus represents God to us, telling us what God is like, explaining that things have gone wrong and that reconciliation is needed, and making it possible for us to renew our broken and damaged relationship with God. That’s what Paul is getting at when he declares that ‘in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself’ (2 Corinthians 5.19).
But there’s yet more. Mediation is, after all, a two-way process. To go back to our Victorian family analogy, the mother represents the father to the son – and the son to the father. Jesus of Nazareth mediates God to us – in word, in deed, and in person. But he also mediates us to God. He pleads our case to God. That’s one of the points that Paul makes in declaring his faith in ‘Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us’ (Romans 8.34).
Now there is a lot more that could be said about the rich imagery and vocabulary that the New Testament uses to express its beliefs about the identity and meaning of Jesus of Nazareth. But we need to move on and reflect on a way of thinking about Jesus that the Christian Church has come to see as a ‘gold standard’ – the best, the most rewarding, the most profound approach to understanding the central figure of the Christian faith. It’s time to explore the idea of incarnation.