Conclusion: Diversity in unity
The Four Gospels
1. The Gospel of Matthew: Christ the Fulfilment of Scripture
How thankful we should be that in God’s providence we have four gospels! For Jesus Christ is too great and glorious a person to be captured by one author or depicted from one perspective. The Jesus of the gospels is a portrait with four faces, a diamond with four facets.
What then is the major feature of Jesus according to Matthew? It can be stated in one word: fulfilment. Strongly Jewish in his origin and culture, Matthew portrays Jesus as the fulfilment of the Old Testament. For his Gospel serves as a bridge between the two testaments, between preparation and fulfilment. Consider these words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 13:16–17: ‘Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.’
In other words, the Old Testament prophets lived in the period of anticipation; the apostles were living in the time of fulfilment. Their eyes were actually seeing, and their ears actually hearing, what their predecessors had longed to see and hear. So Matthew does not portray Jesus so much as another prophet, one more seer in the succession of the centuries, but rather as the fulfilment of all prophecy. It was in and with the ministry of Jesus that the long-awaited kingdom of God had come.
First, then, Matthew’s Christ was the fulfilment of prophecy. This is forced on our attention by the genealogy with which the Gospel begins (1:1–17). For Matthew traces Jesus’ lineage back to Abraham, the father of the chosen people, through whom God promised to bless the world, and to David, the greatest of Israel’s kings, who was the exemplar of the great king to come. Thus Matthew gives the genealogy of the royal line. His concern is to show that Jesus was ‘the son of David’ (a title he uses more often than the three other evangelists together), who had a right to David’s throne.
Matthew’s favourite formula is ‘now this took place that it might be fulfilled which was written’. It occurs eleven times. His anxiety is to demonstrate that everything that happened had been predicted and that everything predicted had been fulfilled. In addition, Matthew sees in the story of Jesus a recapitulation of the story of Israel. As Israel had been oppressed in Egypt under the despotic Pharaoh, so the baby Jesus became a refugee in Egypt under the despotic Herod. As Israel passed through the waters of the Red Sea, in order to be tested in the wilderness for forty years, so Jesus passed through the waters of John’s baptism at the River Jordan, in order to be tested in the wilderness of Judea for forty days. Again, as Moses from Mount Sinai gave Israel the law, so Jesus from the Mount of the Beatitudes gave his followers the true interpretation and amplification of the law.
The theme of fulfilment is most clearly displayed in Jesus’ inauguration of the kingdom of God. All four evangelists write that he proclaimed the kingdom, but Matthew had his special emphasis. In deference to Jewish reluctance to pronounce the sacred name of God, Matthew uses instead the expression ‘the kingdom of heaven’ (about fifty times). He also grasps that the kingdom is both a present reality (for the kingdom had ‘come upon’ them, 12:28) and a future expectation (for at the end of history the King would sit on his glorious throne and judge the nations, 25:31–46). In all these ways – in the genealogy, in Matthew’s favourite formula, in the recapitulation of the story of Israel and in his teaching about the kingdom – Matthew’s Christ is the fulfilment of prophecy.
Secondly, Matthew’s Christ is the fulfilment of the law. Jesus seemed to his contemporaries to be disrespectful to the law: for example, breaking the sabbath law, flouting the laws of ritual purification and neglecting the law of fasting. He seemed to be lax where they were strict. But Jesus insisted that he was loyal to the law. Some scholars think that Matthew deliberately portrayed Jesus as the new Moses. For, just as there are five books of Moses in the Pentateuch, so there are five collections of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew’s Gospel, which is a kind of Christian Pentateuch.
At all events, Matthew records these words of Jesus:
‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished...For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt. 5:17–18, 20).
The disciples must have been dumbfounded by these words of Jesus, for the Pharisees were the most righteous people in the world. How, then, could the followers of Jesus be more righteous than the most righteous people on earth? The Master must be joking! But Christian righteousness is greater than Pharisaic righteousness because it is deeper. It is a righteousness of the heart, a righteousness not of words and deeds only, but especially of thoughts and motives (see Matt. 5:21–30). It is in this sense that Jesus was the fulfilment of the law. He took it to its logical conclusion. He looked beyond a superficial understanding of it to its radical demand for heart-righteousness.
Thirdly, Matthew’s Christ is the fulfilment of Israel. This is the most subtle of the three fulfilments. It is possible to read Matthew and miss it. Matthew sees Jesus confronting Israel with a final summons to repent. So Jesus told the apostles that he had been sent ‘only to the lost sheep of Israel’ (15:24) and that they were to go only ‘to the lost sheep of Israel’ (10:6). Later, of course, Jesus’ great commission would open the apostles’ horizons to the Gentile world; now, however, during his earthly ministry, Israel was to be given one more chance. But they persisted in their rebellion. So Jesus wept over the city, expressed his longing to have gathered her citizens under the shelter of his wings, and warned her that his judgment would fall on that very generation, which happened of course in AD 70 (Matt. 23:36–39).
Thus Jesus saw himself as the sole surviving representative of authentic Israel. He alone remained faithful; otherwise the whole nation had become apostate. At the same time, he was the beginning of a new Israel. So he deliberately chose twelve apostles as equivalent to the twelve tribes and as the nucleus of the new Israel. To them the kingdom of God would be transferred (21:43). Moreover, he called this people his ‘church’, a counter-cultural community characterized by the values and standards of his kingdom, as described in the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus also made it clear that this new Israel would be interracial and international, and salt and light to the world. It is especially remarkable that Matthew, the most Jewish of the four evangelists, nevertheless portrays near the beginning of his Gospel the visit of those mysterious Magi, representatives of the Gentile nations, and at its end the commission of the risen Lord to go and disciple the nations. Thus his kingdom community would grow like a mustard seed from tiny, unpropitious beginnings until it fills the earth: ‘I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt. 8:11).
2. The Gospel of Mark: Christ the Suffering Servant
If Matthew presents Jesus as the Christ of Scripture, Mark presents him as the Suffering Servant of the Lord, who dies for his people’s sins. The cross is at the centre of Mark’s understanding of Jesus.
Mark’s Gospel, like the other three, is strictly anonymous. Its author does not disclose his identity, but a very ancient tradition attributes the second gospel to Mark. At the same time, there is known to have been a close association between Mark and the apostle Peter. Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis at the beginning of the second century, called Mark Peter’s ‘interpreter’, who recorded Peter’s memoirs and sermons. Certainly there are more references to Peter in Mark’s Gospel than in the others, and Mark tells more fully and vividly than the other evangelists the follies, foibles and denials of Peter. Some have suggested that this gave Mark a fellow-feeling with Peter, because Mark too had been a failure. If the young man who fled naked in the garden of Gethsemane was Mark (14:51–52), then he also ran away. And during Paul’s first missionary journey he ran away a second time (Acts 13:13; 15:37– 38). But if, like Peter, Mark had denied Jesus, like Peter he had also been restored. For in later New Testament letters we find Mark giving loyal service to both Peter and Paul. For example, ‘Mark...is helpful to me in my ministry’, wrote Paul (2 Tim. 4:11).
Consider now a crucial passage from Mark’s Gospel, which brings together three of his favourite themes, namely who Jesus was, what he had come to do, and what he requires of his followers. This text is a turning point in the Gospel because it was a turning point in the ministry of Jesus. Before this incident Jesus had been fêted as a popular teacher and healer; from now on he warned his disciples of the coming cross.
Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, ‘Who do people say I am?’
They replied, ‘Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’
‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’ Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ.’
Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.
He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. ‘Out of my sight, Satan!’ he said. ‘You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.’
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels’ (Mark 8:27–38).
First, consider who Jesus was. He knew there was a difference between the people’s public perceptions of his identity and the apostles’ private dawning conviction. According to public opinion he was John the Baptist, Elijah or another prophet; according to the Twelve he was not another prophet, but ‘the Christ’, the fulfilment of all prophecy. Matthew adds ‘the Son of God’, probably meaning not that he was the eternal Son, but (as in Psalm 2:7–8) the Messiah.
Immediately after the disciples had made this confession of faith, ‘Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him’ (8:30), but to remain silent and keep his identity a secret. This command to silence and secrecy has puzzled many readers. But it is not hard to understand, for Mark has already given two examples of the command to silence. After curing a leprosy sufferer, Jesus said to him ‘See that you don’t tell this to anyone’ (1:44). And after a deaf-mute had been healed, Jesus ‘commanded them not to tell anyone’ (7:36). But why were they to keep their mouths shut? The reason is that the public had false political notions of the Messiah. For more than 700 years Israel had been oppressed by a foreign yoke, except for a brief and intoxicating period of freedom under the Maccabees. But now the people were dreaming that Yahweh was going to intervene again, that his enemies would be destroyed, that his people would be liberated, and that the Messianic age would dawn. Galilee was a hotbed of such nationalistic expectations.
Jesus was evidently afraid that the people would cast him in this revolutionary role, and he had good reasons for this fear. After the feeding of the 5,000, according to John, the crowd ‘intended to come and make him king by force’ (John 6:15). But he had not come to be a political Messiah. He had come rather to die, and through death to secure a spiritual liberation for his people. So (8:31) once the disciples had recognized him as the Messiah, ‘he then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again’. Further, he spoke ‘plainly about this’ (v. 32), that is, openly and publicly; there was to be no secret about the kind of Messiah he had come to be.
Secondly, consider what Jesus came to do. Mark explains that, once the Twelve had grasped his identity, he laid all his emphasis on the cross. On three more separate occasions Jesus plainly predicted his sufferings and death (9:31; 10:33, 45). Indeed one third of Mark’s whole Gospel is devoted to the story of the cross.
Three phrases in Jesus’ predictions are worthy of special note. First, ‘the Son of man must suffer many things and...be killed’ (8:31, my emphasis). This note of compulsion is introduced. Why must he suffer and die? Answer: because the Scriptures must be fulfilled. Hearing Jesus’ prediction of the cross, Peter was brash enough to rebuke him, so that Jesus turned and rebuked Peter (vv. 32–33). Nothing must be allowed to undermine the necessity of the cross.
The second phrase of note is that it is ‘the Son of Man’ who must suffer. Although ‘son of man’ is the regular Hebrew expression for a human being, and is often used thus in Scripture, it seems clear that Jesus adopted it as a self-designation in reference to the vision of Daniel 7. Here ‘one like a son of man’ (that is, a human figure) came with the clouds of heaven, approached the Ancient of Days (Almighty God) on his throne, and was given authority, glory and sovereign power, so that in consequence all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion, Daniel adds, is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed (Dan. 7:13–14). But now Jesus makes the astonishing declaration that the son of man must suffer. It means that Jesus adopted the title but changed his role. According to Daniel, all nations will serve him. According to Jesus, he would not be served, but serve. Thus Jesus did what nobody else had ever done. He fused the two Old Testament images – the servant who would suffer (Is. 53) and the son of man who would reign (Dan. 7). Oscar Cullmann writes:
‘Son of man’ represents the highest conceivable declaration of exaltation in Judaism; ebed Yahweh (the servant of the Lord) is the expression of deepest humiliation...This is the unheard-of new act of Jesus, that he united these two apparently contradictory tasks in his self-consciousness, and that he expressed that union in his life and teaching.1
The third expression Jesus used in reference to his death is that ‘even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark. 10:45, my emphasis). A ‘ransom’ is a price paid for the release of captives. So Jesus taught that human beings are in captivity (especially to sin, guilt and judgment), and that we cannot save ourselves. So he would give himself as a ransom instead of the many. The cross would be the means of our liberation. Only because he died in our place can we be set free. All this is part of Jesus Christ’s understanding of the cross, according to Mark.
Thirdly, consider what Jesus asks of us. After speaking of his coming death, Jesus called the crowd to him and said: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me’ (8:34). That is, Jesus moved at once from his cross to ours, and portrayed Christian discipleship in terms of self-denial and even death. For we can understand the significance of cross-bearing only against the cultural background of Roman-occupied Palestine. The Romans reserved crucifixion for the worst criminals and compelled those condemned to death by crucifixion to carry their own cross to the place of execution. So if we are following Christ and bearing a cross, there is only one place to which we can be going, and that is the scaffold.
Christian discipleship is much more radical than an amalgam of beliefs, good works and religious practices. No imagery can do it justice but death and resurrection. For when we lose ourselves we find ourselves, and when we die we live (8:35).
Here are three fundamental Marcan themes. Who is Jesus? The Christ. What did he come to do? To serve, to suffer and to die. What does he ask of his disciples? To take up our cross and follow him through the death of self-denial into the glory of resurrection.
All down church history the crucial questions have been christological. They concern the identity, the mission and the demands of Jesus. In seeking to discover these things, we should beware both of public opinion (‘Who do people say I am?’) and of idiosyncratic church leaders (who like Peter are impertinent enough to contradict Jesus). Instead, we should listen to him in his own self-testimony, especially as Mark records his emphasis on the cross. There is no authentic Christian faith or life unless the cross is at the centre.
3. Luke’s Gospel and the Acts: Christ the Saviour of the world
There is a fundamental correspondence between who the evangelists are and how they present Jesus Christ. For divine inspiration shaped but did not obliterate the human personality of the writers. The best New Testament example of this principle is Luke. He is the only Gentile contributor to the New Testament. So it is entirely appropriate that he should present Jesus neither as the Christ of Scripture (as Matthew does), nor as the Suffering Servant (as Mark does), but as the Saviour of the world, irrespective of race or nationality, rank, sex, need or age.
First, Luke was a doctor (Col. 4:14). Consequently he was well educated, a man of culture (writing polished Greek) and a compassionate human being (who presumably will have sworn the Hippocratic Oath).
Secondly, Luke was a Gentile, for Paul distinguished him from ‘the only Jews among my fellow-workers’ (Col. 4:11). So he belonged to the extensive world of the Roman Empire. During at least three periods (the ‘we’ sections of the Acts) Luke accompanied Paul on his travels. He was a man of wide horizons and broad sympathies. Whereas the other three evangelists refer to the Sea of Galilee, only Luke calls it a lake. In comparison with the Great Sea, the Mediterranean, on which he had sailed, Galilee was not much more than a pond.
Thirdly, Luke was a historian. We must take at full value what he writes about his method in his preface to his Gospel. He has written neither myth nor midrash; he claims to have written historical truth. For the events surrounding the birth, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus had been handed down by eyewitnesses. Luke had himself investigated them, and he was now writing them down, so that his readers might know the certainty of what they had been taught and had believed.
When did Luke undertake his own investigations? He was not one of the Twelve, nor was he himself an eyewitness. Later, however, beginning about AD 57, he enjoyed a two-year residence in Palestine. He had arrived by ship with Paul, who soon after was arrested and imprisoned. Then, while Paul was in prison in Caesarea for two years, Luke was a free man (Acts 21:17 and 24:27). How did he occupy himself during this period? We do not know, but it is a reasonable conjecture that he spent the time travelling the length and breadth of the country, visiting the sacred sites associated with Jesus, familiarizing himself with Jewish customs, and interviewing eyewitnesses. These will probably have included the Virgin Mary, now an elderly lady. For Luke tells Mary’s story, and the intimate details of Jesus’ birth and infancy, which Luke shares with his readers, must go back ultimately to her.
This, then, was Luke – doctor, Gentile and historian, well qualified to write his two-volume work on the origins of Christianity, which occupies more than a quarter of the New Testament and which we may approach with confidence in its reliability.
What then is Luke’s message? It is encapsulated in the Nunc Dimittis or Song of Simeon, who claimed:
My eyes have seen your salvation...
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.
(2:30–32)
This reference to salvation for the Gentiles is repeated in Luke 3:6: ‘all mankind will see God’s salvation’. All four evangelists refer to the ministry of John the Baptist and quote from Isaiah 40 about ‘a voice of one calling in the desert’, but only Luke continues the quotation to include the statement that ‘all mankind will see God’s salvation’ (3:6).
First, then, Luke’s message is good news of salvation. ‘Salvation’ is a key word in Luke’s Gospel. He was clear that it included two components. Negatively, it is the removal of guilt (bringing forgiveness). Positively, it is the bestowal of the Holy Spirit (conveying new birth). Both feature prominently in Luke’s two-volume story.
Take forgiveness. Only Luke records Zechariah’s prophecy that his son John would ‘give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins’ (1:77). Only Luke tells how Jesus gave forgiveness to the woman who had anointed his feet with ointment and wet them with her tears (7:48). Only Luke tells the incomparable parable of the prodigal son, who repented and returned home, and was welcomed with hugs, kisses and a celebration party (15:11–32). Only Luke records the great commission in the terms that ‘repentance and forgiveness of sins’ would be proclaimed to all nations (24:47). And only Luke describes how Paul in Pisidian Antioch proclaimed ‘through Jesus the forgiveness of sins’ (Acts 13:38).
The complementary aspect of salvation is the bestowal of the Holy Spirit to bring new birth and new life. Of all the evangelists Luke shows the greatest interest in the work of the Spirit. He portrays Jesus as having been anointed by the Spirit and as exercising his ministry in the power of the Spirit (3:22; 4:1, 14, 18). And it is only Luke who describes the coming of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, and the subsequent development of the Christian mission (Acts 2:1–12; 13:2, etc.).
So these are the two components of salvation. Forgiveness eradicates our past, and the Spirit transforms our future. Peter sums it up at the conclusion of his sermon on the Day of Pentecost, for, to those who repent, believe and are baptized, he promises both forgiveness of their sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). Moreover, this great salvation brings great joy. Luke begins his Gospel with the announcement of ‘good news of great joy’ (2:10) and ends it with the statement that the apostles ‘returned to Jerusalem with great joy’ (24:52). Indeed, throughout both of Luke’s volumes, joy accompanies the gift of salvation, since there is great joy in heaven over even one sinner who repents (15:7, 10, cf. Acts 8:8, 39).
Secondly, Luke’s message is good news of salvation through Christ. This truth is clear in the story of Simeon, for he took the baby Jesus in his arms and spoke of what he had seen. What he actually saw was a baby; what he said he had seen was God’s salvation (2:28, 30), for that is what Jesus was. So Luke tells in his own elegant way the matchless story of Jesus Christ: how he was born of the Virgin Mary in the city of David, to be our Saviour; how he told Zacchaeus that salvation had come to his house that day, adding that the Son of Man had come ‘to seek and to save what was lost’ (19:9–10); how he prayed for the forgiveness of his executioners and promised the penitent criminal on the cross a place in paradise that same day (23:34, 43); and how, having been exalted to the place of supreme authority at God’s right hand, he sent the Holy Spirit and still bestows salvation today (Acts 2:33). Further, because Jesus is unique in his birth, death, resurrection and exaltation, his salvation is also unique. Since in no other person has God become human, died, been raised from death, and been exalted to heaven, there is no other saviour, since no-one else possesses his qualifications. Luke preserves the affirmation of the apostle Peter that ‘salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12).
Thirdly, Luke’s message is good news of salvation through Christ for the whole world. Luke deliberately places at the beginning of each of his two volumes a statement of universality: on the one hand ‘all mankind will see God’s salvation’ (3:6) and on the other ‘I will pour out my Spirit on all people’ (Acts 2:17). Both verses contain the same expression pasa sarx, meaning ‘all flesh’ or ‘all people’. They act as signposts pointing to the story which follows, for Luke depicts Jesus as going out of his way to honour those whom the world despised, to befriend the friendless and to include the excluded.
First, the sick and the suffering. Of course, all four evangelists describe the healing ministry of Jesus, but Dr Luke shows a special interest in it. In 1882 W. K. Hobart’s book The Medical Language of St Luke was published. He listed more than 400 words shared by Luke and the Greek medical writers of the times. Although his case was exaggerated, some evidence remains. As William Barclay has written, ‘instinctively Luke uses medical words’.2 He took a doctor’s interest in symptoms, diagnosis and remedy. It is amusing that, although Mark says that the woman with a haemorrhage had suffered a great deal under many doctors and had spent all her money, yet instead of getting better she grew worse, Luke seems keen to preserve the reputation of his profession and is content to write simply that ‘no-one could heal her’ (8:43).
Secondly, women and children. In the ancient world women were generally despised and oppressed, and unwanted children were abandoned or killed. But Luke emphasizes that Jesus loved and respected both. Only he tells the stories of Elizabeth and Mary, of Mary and Martha, of the widow of Nain who lost her only son (7:11–17), of the women who supported Jesus out of their own resources (8:3), and of the women who watched at the foot of the cross and came early the following morning to the tomb (23:49, 55–56; 24:1). As for children, Matthew and Mark both record Jesus’ invitation ‘Let the little children come to me’, but Luke refers to them as ‘babies’, and adds that Jesus ‘took a little child and had him stand beside him’ (9:47; 18:15–17).
Thirdly, the poor and the oppressed. Luke is more interested than the other evangelists in questions of wealth and poverty. He is concerned for economic equality and affirms that Jesus had been anointed ‘to preach good news to the poor’ (4:18). He tells three parables about money, and portrays the generosity of the early Jerusalem church in sharing their goods with the needy.
Fourthly, publicans and sinners. Both groups were social outcasts: ‘publicans’ (tax collectors) because they were employed by the hated Romans, and ‘sinners’ because they were ignorant of Jewish laws and traditions. But Luke tells us that publicans and sinners gathered round him (15:1), that in spite of criticism Jesus ate with them (5:30; 15:2), and that he was nicknamed their friend (7:34). It was a vivid anticipation of the Messianic banquet.
Fifthly, the Samaritans and Gentiles. Because the Samaritans were a hybrid people, half Jew, half Gentile, descended from the mixed population of the eighth century BC, Jews did not associate with them. But Jesus rebuked James and John for wanting, like Elijah, to call fire down from heaven to destroy a Samaritan village (9:54–55); he told the memorable parable of the good Samaritan, in which a Samaritan did for a Jew what no Jew would ever do for a Samaritan (10:25–34); and he commissioned his people to be his witnesses after Pentecost in widening circles, including Samaria (Acts 1:8). As for Gentiles, Luke was of course one himself. So he traced the genealogy of Jesus back to Adam, and in the Acts he followed the spread of the gospel from Jerusalem the capital of Jewry, to Rome the capital of the world. The chief human actor in this exciting drama was Paul, who was the apostle to the Gentiles and Luke’s hero.
So Luke chronicles the main events of Paul’s three missionary journeys, first evangelizing the Galatian cities, next reaching Europe, and thirdly spending about five years in Ephesus and Corinth. His arrest in Jerusalem, subsequent trials and the dangerous voyage to Rome culminated in his detention there, where he told Jewish leaders ‘that God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles’, and for two whole years ‘boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Acts 28:28–31).
The justification for adding the Acts to Luke’s Gospel in this section is threefold. First, Luke was the author of both books. Secondly, he himself affirmed a fundamental continuity between them, his former work (the Gospel) containing all that Jesus ‘began’ to do and to teach during his earthly ministry (Acts 1:1), and his later work (the Acts) evidently containing all that Jesus continued to do and to teach through his appointed apostles. Thirdly, both books focus on the same message, namely God’s salvation to the whole world through Christ (Luke 2:30–32; Acts 28:28).
These, then, are the parameters of Luke’s two-volume story: salvation (comprising forgiveness and the Spirit), Christ (who by his birth, death and resurrection was uniquely competent to save) and the world he came to save, irrespective of ethnicity, class, sex, age or need. God’s love in Christ encompasses everybody, and specially those who are pushed to the margins of society. He reaches out to touch those whom others regard as untouchable. Luke’s Christ is the Saviour of the world.
4. The Gospel and letters of John: Christ the Word made flesh
Each of the four gospels has a different beginning. Matthew opens with Jesus’ genealogy, tracing his family tree back to Abraham, and Luke with Jesus’ conception, birth and infancy. Mark starts with the ministry of John the Baptist, while John goes right back to the beginning of time: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ (1:1). This personal and eternal Word was also the agent of creation, who had never left the world he had made, and who is the light and life of all human beings.
It was this Word of God, the perfect expression of the Father’s being, who one day ‘became flesh and lived for a while among us’ (1:14). To him John bore witness. It was not a visitation, but an incarnation. He became a human being in Jesus of Nazareth. The paradox is amazing. The Creator assumed the human frailty of his creatures. The eternal one entered time. The all-powerful made himself vulnerable. The all-holy exposed himself to temptation. And in the end the immortal died.
What was John’s purpose in writing his Gospel? He tells us: ‘Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name’ (20:30–31).
Three clear stages are laid down: (1) John selected and recorded certain ‘signs’, (2) in order that his readers might believe in Jesus, and (3) in order that by believing they might receive life through him. Thus testimony would lead to faith, and faith to life.
Indeed, John seems to see his Gospel in terms of testimony to Christ. It is almost as if it is a kind of court scene, in which Jesus is on trial, and a succession of witnesses is called, beginning with John the Baptist who ‘came as a witness to testify concerning that light’ (1:6–7). What was his witness? It was both ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’ (1:29) and ‘he...will baptize with the Holy Spirit’ (1:33). But other witnesses followed, both human and divine. For the Father himself bore witness to his Son through a combination of his words and works (5:31–40, 8:12, 14). His words interpreted his works, and his works dramatized his words. And after his death the Spirit of truth would also bear witness to him (15:26–27).
Many scholars believe that John deliberately assembled seven witnesses in the form of seven major miracles. These miracles are defined both as ‘powers’ (dunameis), because they were expressions of the creative power of God, and as ‘wonders’ (terata), because they evoked astonishment. But John’s favourite word for them was ‘signs’ (sēmeia), because more important than the material phenomena was their spiritual significance. Jesus’ miracles were acted parables, visibly dramatizing his claims through which his glory was revealed (2:11). Each sign contributed to the witnesses John was assembling, to the portrait he was painting.
Miracle 1: Jesus turned water into wine, as a sign of his claim to have inaugurated a new order. The six huge stone water jars, used for ceremonial washing, were seen at the Cana wedding as symbols of the old order, of Judaism. But Jesus turned the water into wine as a sign that in and with his arrival the kingdom of God had come. The same basic truth was elaborated when he cleansed the temple (2:13ff.), when he told Nicodemus of the necessity of the new birth (3:1ff.), and when he offered the Samaritan woman living water (4:1ff). Jesus had introduced a new beginning.
Miracles 2 and 3: Jesus performed two healing miracles, as signs of his claim to give new life. First he healed the son of a royal official in Capernaum (4:43, 54). This was his second sign. Then, at the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem, he healed a man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years (5:1ff.). Following these signs, John records another of Jesus’ discourses in which he claimed that the Father had given him authority to bestow life and to execute judgment. Both judging and life-giving are divine prerogatives (5:24–27).
Miracle 4: Jesus miraculously fed 5,000 people with five barley loaves and two fish, as a sign that he claimed to be the bread of life. The feeding of the 5,000 is the only miracle recorded by all four evangelists, but only John adds the discourse which followed, in which Jesus claimed: ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty’ (6:35). There is a hunger in the human heart which none but Christ can satisfy, a thirst which none but he can quench. The feeding of the crowd was an acted parable of this claim.
Miracle 5: Jesus walked on water as a sign of his claim that the powers of nature were subject to his kingdom authority. When Jesus went up a mountainside to pray, and the Twelve got into a boat to cross the lake, they were overwhelmed by a violent storm. They felt alone and abandoned. But then, in the darkness and the squall, Jesus came to them, walking on the water. They were terrified, but he said to them: ‘It is I; don’t be afraid.’ Even the wind and the water obeyed him (6:16–21).
Miracle 6: Jesus gave sight to a man born blind, as a sign of his claim to be the light of the world. ‘I am the light of the world’, he said. ‘Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’ (8:12). As John relates this story, he draws a contrast between the Pharisees and the man born blind. The Pharisees had their sight, but were spiritually blind, whereas the man born blind had his sight restored to him and at the same time believed.
Miracle 7: Jesus raised Lazarus who had been dead for four days, as a sign of his claim to be the resurrection and the life. In this story the strong emotions of the Word made flesh are revealed. For he both ‘snorted’ with anger and indignation in the face of death (11:33, literally; ‘was deeply moved’ NIV), and ‘wept’ in compassion for the bereaved sisters, Mary and Martha (11:35). He then said: ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die’ (11:25–26). In other words, Jesus is the life of the living and will be the resurrection of the dead. For those who live will never die, and those who die will live again.
So here are the seven signs which John selected, each dramatizing one of his claims. This is the Jesus to whom John bears witness, and in whom we have come to believe. He has inaugurated the new order. He is both life-giver and judge. He controls the powers of nature. He is the bread of life, the light of the world, and the resurrection and the life.
Yet there is another side to John’s witness to Jesus. The seven signs are signs of power and authority, and are all recorded in the first half of the Gospel. In the second half John records signs of humility and of weakness. He begins in the upper room when Jesus took off his outer clothing, wrapped a towel round him, and, kneeling, washed the feet of the Twelve. Above all there was the cross. According to John, although Jesus revealed his glory in signs of power (2:11), the chief means of his glorification was the cross. ‘The hour has come’, he said, ‘for the Son of Man to be glorified’ (12:23).
If John’s purpose in his Gospel is so to witness to Christ that his readers will believe in him and receive life (20:31), his purpose in his letters, to which a brief reference may conveniently be made here, is to take his readers a step further. He writes, ‘to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life’ (1 John 5:13). For it is one thing to receive life; it is another to know that we have received it. So having assembled the seven signs which witness to Christ, John now develops three tests which undermine the false assurance of counterfeit Christians and confirm the true assurance of genuine Christians. He does not mince his words. He identifies three liars. First, whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh is a liar (1 John 2:22). This is the doctrinal test. Secondly, whoever claims to enjoy fellowship with God while walking in darkness lies (1 John 1:6). This is the moral test. Thirdly, whoever says he loves God but hates his brother is a liar (1 John 4:20). This is the social test. Conversely, (1) we know the Spirit of God, because he acknowledges Christ (1 John 4:2; cf. 2 John 9); (2) we know that we know him, because we obey his commandments (1 John. 2:3); and (3) we know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love our Christian brothers and sisters (1 John 3:14). John even assembles three verbs which characterize God’s people: they believe in Christ, they love one another, and they obey his commands (1 John 3:23–24).
5. The fourfold gospel
So far we have gazed at the four faces of Christ, each with a different facial expression. Now we need to affirm that they are not incompatible with one another. As Bishop Stephen Neill wrote, ‘the central message of the gospels is not the teaching of Jesus but Jesus himself’.3 Speaking personally, I find it helpful to detect in the four evangelists four dimensions of the saving purpose of God: its length, depth, breadth and height. Matthew reveals its length, for he depicts the Christ of Scripture, who looks back over long centuries of expectation. Mark emphasizes its depth, for he depicts the Suffering Servant who looks down to the depths of the humiliation he endured. In Luke it is the breadth of God’s purpose which emerges, for he depicts the Saviour of the world who looks round in mercy to the broadest possible spectrum of human beings. Then John reveals its height, for he depicts the Word made flesh who looks up to the heights from which he came and to which he intends to raise us.
No wonder Paul prayed that with all God’s people we might be able to ‘grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ’ (Eph. 3:18) – the dimensions which some of the early church fathers saw symbolized in the shape of the cross.
Several attempts have been made throughout the history of the church to compose a harmony of the gospels. The first seems to have been Tatian, who was converted to Christ when visiting Rome in the middle of the second century, and became a disciple of Justin Martyr. His harmony came to be known as Diatessaron, which was originally a musical term for a four-part harmony. It was a remarkably skilful weaving together of the four gospels, without any editorial additions of his own.4
The next serious attempt to harmonize the four gospels was made by Augustine. His concern was to vindicate them against the slanderous criticisms of pagan philosophers. He systematically compared the evangelists’ accounts of the words and works of Jesus, arguing that there is a genuine ‘harmony’ or ‘consistency’ between them and an absence of ‘discrepancy’ or ‘contradiction’.5
The tension between the one and only authentic Jesus and his four faces as portrayed in the gospels is the theme of a fascinating book entitled Four gospels, One Jesus? by Dr Richard Burridge, Dean of King’s College, London University. Dr Burridge has a vivid imagination, a sincere faith and a devout spirit. He takes up the four ‘living creatures’ of Ezekiel 1:10 and Revelation 4:7, whose faces are said to resemble those of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle, which are respectively the king of all creatures (the human being), of wild beasts (the lion), of domestic animals (the ox) and of birds (the eagle). The church fathers applied these symbols to the four evangelists, to their gospels, and so to the Christ they portray. They are very common in Christian art. Thus Mark’s Jesus is like a bounding lion (‘rushing around and roaring enigmatically, and dying terribly alone’). Matthew’s Christ has a human face (because he is a new Moses, the supreme teacher of Israel who nevertheless rejected his teaching, thus making way for the Gentiles). Luke’s Jesus resembles an ox (because he is the strong, patient bearer of the burdens of the poor, the needy and the outcasts). Finally John’s Jesus is a ‘high-flying, far-seeing, all-knowing eagle’ (because he comes from the heights of heaven to dwell with us on earth and then to carry us with him to glory).
What, then, is the relationship ‘between the four gospels and the one Jesus?’ Dr Burridge answers that we must allow each evangelist to paint his own portrait and tell his own story. We have no liberty either to turn the four into one by ironing out the individuality of each, or to turn the one into four by exaggerating the individuality of each, and so making a composite picture impossible. No, ‘there are four gospels, with four pictures, telling four versions of the one story of Jesus’. And this one story in its four versions remains normative; it is the criterion by which to judge the authenticity of all attempts to reconstruct other Jesuses.6
6. Jesus and Paul
As we move on from the gospels to the epistles, and so from Jesus to Paul, an immediate problem confronts us. Is Paul related to Jesus by continuity or by discontinuity? Beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, a number of scholars have described Paul as ‘the second’, and even ‘the real’, founder of Christianity. He is seen as having corrupted the simple, unsophisticated religion of Jesus into the complicated theologizing we tend to associate him with. Paul called down an anathema on anybody who perverts the gospel of Christ (Gal. 1:6–9); was he guilty of perverting it himself? Albert Schweitzer declared that he saw no discernible continuity between Christ and Paul.7 He called Paul a ‘morbid crank’ who falsified the true gospel by his dogmas. Similarly, in our own day A. N. Wilson has written: ‘If there is any single individual who can be labelled the “originator” of Christianity...it would be Paul.’8 In consequence, a ‘back from Paul to Jesus’ movement developed at the beginning of the twentieth century, and still rumbles on today.
It is of course true that Paul quoted Jesus on only four occasions (1 Cor. 7:10; 9:14; 11:23ff. and 1 Thess. 4:15). It is also true that Paul’s letters contain some surprising omissions. For example, they do not refer directly to Jesus’ baptism or transfiguration, his parables or miracles. Nevertheless, there is abundant evidence, often by allusion rather than quotation, that Paul was familiar with the teaching and the story of Jesus. Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God as both present reality and future expectation, with the implication that we are living in between times, between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’ of salvation. Paul taught the same double perspective. Jesus also claimed to enjoy a unique relationship with God as ‘Abba, Father’, which Paul confirmed by calling him God’s Son (Rom. 1:3–4).
Above all, Jesus stressed the necessity of his sufferings and death, in fulfilment of Scripture, as a ransom for sinners, to be followed by the resurrection. And the cross and resurrection lie at the centre of Paul’s gospel. Because of them, sinners may be justified by faith alone without works, as Paul emphasized and as Jesus also insisted in his parable of the Pharisee and the publican. Jesus also delineated the lifestyle appropriate to his disciples, as he told them to beware of hypocrisy and covetousness, and stressed the priority of love, which does not retaliate, fulfils the law and expresses itself in lowly service. All this is paralleled in the ethical teaching of Paul. W. D. Davies could go so far as to say that ‘Paul is steeped in the mind and words of his Lord.’9 This is hardly surprising, since ‘Christ is the whole subject of Paul’s thought and gospel.’10
If one turns from the teaching of Jesus to his whole life and ministry, his ‘story’, it is evident that Paul was neither ignorant of, nor indifferent to, Jesus’ earthly career. For Paul refers in his letters to Jesus’ birth (Gal. 4:4), his descent from Abraham and David (Rom. 9:5; 1:3), and his human family (1 Cor. 9:5; Gal. 1:19). Paul knew that Jesus was ‘without sin’ (2 Cor. 5:21), gentle (2 Cor. 10:1), humble and obedient (Phil. 2:8), and above all, willing to sacrifice himself for others (2 Cor. 8:9). If Paul knew about Jesus’ life, he particularly knew and stressed his death, preceded by the supper he instituted (1 Cor. 10:16; 11:23ff.), and followed by his burial, resurrection, exaltation and gift of the Spirit. Next, he sent out his apostles to evangelize the Jews first, then the Gentiles, and to gather his people together out of every race (Gal. 3:28). Their mission would fill the gap between his first and second comings. Then he would come like a thief, as both Jesus and Paul taught, to bring his salvation and judgment to completion.
Dr David Wenham has written a comprehensive study of Paul’s use of the sayings and the story of Jesus, entitled Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? 11 His conclusion, after a very thorough survey of the field, was that ‘there is massive overlap’ between Jesus and Paul.12 At the same time there are differences of theological focus which, however, ‘do not represent any fundamental divergence of outlook’.13 Almost all of them reflect the change of situation which had taken place. On the one hand Jesus taught Jewish people in Palestine about his death and resurrection, which lay still in the future. On the other hand, Paul wrote to largely Gentile congregations in the Graeco-Roman world about the cross and resurrection, which had already taken place.
Thus David Wenham has successfully demonstrated ‘that Paul is much better described as “follower of Jesus” than as “founder of Christianity”’.14 As between the four gospels, so between Jesus and Paul, what we find is unity in diversity.
The thirteen letters of Paul
Our argument moves on now from the relationship between Paul and Jesus to a consideration of Paul himself. He shows an extraordinary versatility in his letters, which together account for a quarter of the New Testament. Thirteen letters are attributed to him (excluding Hebrews), only seven of which are generally regarded as indisputably Pauline, namely Galatians, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon and 1 Thessalonians. The most widely questioned are the pastoral letters, although in the twentieth century a vigorous defence of their authenticity has been mounted by a significant number of New Testament scholars. I have attempted to summarize the case for and against Pauline authorship myself, and believe that the variations of style and vocabulary in the pastorals are best accounted for by Paul’s constructive use of a personal amanuensis.15
So for my purpose (which is to survey the whole New Testament) I am going to assume the Pauline authorship of all thirteen letters which are attributed to him. It is not easy to do justice to his witness to Jesus Christ, but once again I hope to show that it is a combination of unity and diversity. I propose to group his letters according to their dating during a period of twenty years, beginning with the first missionary journey (c. 48–49) and ending with his martyrdom in Rome, which may have taken place as late as AD 68. In each of the five groupings Christ is portrayed in a somewhat different light. (This may be tabulated as shown below.)
Approx. date
Period
Group
Letters
Presentation of Christ
48-49
End of 1st missionary journey
A polemical letter
Galatians
Christ the liberator
50-52
During 2nd missionary journey
The early letters
1 & 2 Thessalonians
Christ the coming judge
53-57
During 3rd missionary journey
The major letters
Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians
Christ the Saviour
60-62
During 1st imprisonment in Rome
The prison letters
Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians & Philippians
Christ the supreme Lord
62-67
During release and 2nd imprisonment
The pastoral letters
1 Timothy and Titus, 2 Timothy
Christ the head of the church
7. A polemical letter (Galatians): Christ the liberator
I am numbered among those who believe that Galatians was the first letter Paul wrote. My main reason is that it contains no reference to the epoch-making Jerusalem Council and its decrees which declared that Gentile converts did not need to be circumcised or to observe the ceremonial law. Although the argument from silence is always precarious, Paul’s failure to mention these decrees in Galatians must mean that they had not yet been promulgated. This would date Galatians in AD 49 between the first and second missionary journeys.
Galatians has aptly been named a ‘polemical’ letter, for one senses throughout it Paul’s hot indignation in relation to the false teachers who were troubling the church by perverting the gospel (1:7). Paul pronounces an anathema upon such. Whether they are humans or angels or even the apostle himself, those preaching a gospel different from the original apostolic gospel of grace deserved to fall under the judgment of God (1:8–9). So keenly did Paul feel this need to be loyal to ‘the truth of the gospel’ that he was prepared even to have an embarrassing public confrontation with his fellow-apostle Peter over it (2:11–14).
Probably the key text of Galatians is 5:1 where Paul writes: ‘It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.’ Paul thus portrays Christ as the supreme liberator, and salvation in terms of freedom. What is this freedom?
First, Christian freedom is freedom from the law. Paul writes of ‘the curse of the law’, meaning by this expression not the law itself but the judgment which the law pronounces on those who disobey it. For all those who rely for salvation on observing the law are under God’s judgment (3:10). But Christ has redeemed us from this judgment by becoming a curse for us (3:13). He took our place, bore our curse and died our death. But the Galatians (‘You foolish Galatians!’ the apostle dubs them, 3:1), instead of putting their trust in Christ crucified, were trusting in themselves that they were righteous and were thus setting themselves against the cross. ‘For if righteousness [i.e. justification] could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!’ (2:21). No wonder Paul was determined to boast in nothing except the cross (6:14).
Freedom from the law and its curse, however, does not give us freedom to disobey the moral law or to indulge our sinful nature (5:13). On the contrary, Christian freedom is freedom to serve, not freedom to sin (5:13). In fact, ‘the entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbour as yourself”’ (5:14, cf. 6:2).
Secondly, Christian freedom is freedom from the flesh (sarx), from our fallen, self-indulgent nature. Paul writes in Galatians that even those who have been justified by grace through faith in Christ are involved in an unrelenting conflict between the flesh (our fallen nature) and the Spirit (the indwelling Holy Spirit). The deeds of our sinful nature include immorality, idolatry, hatred, jealousy and selfish ambition (5:19–21). ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control’ (5:22–23). The winner in this internal conflict depends on the attitude we adopt to each. On the one hand, if we belong to Christ, we have ‘crucified’ (that is, radically repudiated) our ‘sinful nature with its passions and desires’ (5:24). On the other hand, we are to ‘live by the Spirit’ and ‘keep in step with the Spirit’ (5:16, 25), that is, follow the Spirit’s promptings, for then the flesh will be subdued to the Spirit, and the fruit of the Spirit will ripen in our character.
Paul’s witness to Christ the liberator in Galatians is that by his cross we can be redeemed from the law’s curse, and that by his Spirit we can be delivered from the power of our fallen nature. As a result, we are no longer slaves, but Abraham’s children and the sons and daughters of God (3:29; 4:7).
8. The early letters (1 & 2 Thessalonians): Christ the coming judge
Paul and his companions visited Thessalonica during his second missionary journey, and his first letter to them was evidently written and dispatched within months, even weeks, of his visit. And his second letter followed soon afterwards. So both letters were addressed to some very new converts. Only recently had they ‘turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God’ (1 Thess. 1:9). Paul’s immediate purpose in the first letter was to defend himself against the slander of those who were saying that he had run away from their city and did not care about the young Thessalonian believers.
His second purpose was pastoral. He loved them as fathers and mothers love their children (1 Thess. 2:7, 11), and was anxious to help those who were in special need. Although he urged them to be ‘patient with everyone’, he singled out three particular categories. They were to ‘warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak’ (1 Thess. 5:14). It seems plausible, as some commentators have suggested, that ‘the weak’ are the sexually weak whom he has exhorted to self-control in 4:1–8; that ‘the idle’ (ataktoi), who were playing truant from work, needed to be admonished, to mind their own business and work with their own hands (4:9–12); and that ‘the timid’ were the bereaved who were overcome with excessive grief (4:13–18).
But the chief emphasis of the Thessalonian letters relates to the coming of Christ to save and to judge. Each of the eight chapters into which 1 and 2 Thessalonians have been divided contains a reference to the parousia (the return of Christ).16 Expectation for the future is an essential ingredient of Christian discipleship, which is characterized not only by faith and love, but also by ‘hope’ (1 Thess. 1:3). And having turned to God from idols, we both serve the living God and ‘wait for his Son from heaven’ (1 Thess. 1:10).
As always, Paul is addressing pastoral problems which he knows only sound doctrine can solve. The Thessalonian letters contain four main eschatological passages, each of which is addressed to a particular group of people.
First, some were grieving in bereavement (1 Thess. 4:13–18). They feared that their dead friends or relatives would stand at a disadvantage when Christ comes, and even forfeit the blessings he will bring. Paul’s answer is to supply a simple eschatological creed, ‘We believe that...and so we believe that...and we tell you that...’ (vv. 14–15): (1) the Lord Jesus himself will come from heaven; (2) the Christian dead will be the first to rise from the dead; (3) God will bring them with Christ; (4) then the Christian living, far from preceding the Christian dead, will be reunited with them and with the Lord; and (5) so we will all be with the Lord for ever. This does not answer all our questions, but it gives us basic information about the return, the resurrection, the rapture and the reunion.
Secondly, some were curious about chronology (1 Thess. 5:1–11). They were evidently apprehensive as to whether they would be ready to stand before Christ at his coming, and they thought the best way to prepare would be to know the date. But this was the wrong solution to their problem. For they knew that the Lord’s coming would be sudden and unexpected (like a burglar in the night), and sudden and unavoidable (like labour at the end of pregnancy). Instead, the right way to prepare is to remember that we are already children of light. Since we belong to the day, we need to keep awake, not to go to sleep. Then we will not be taken by surprise.
Thirdly, some were experiencing severe persecutions (2 Thess. 1:4–10). Their perseverance and faith in the midst of their trials, however, were evidence of God’s righteous judgment. For those who share in Christ’s sufferings will also share in his glory. More than that, God is just and will one day vindicate his people publicly. At the same time he will punish those who wilfully reject the truth, ‘those who refuse to acknowledge God and...will not obey the gospel’ (v. 8, NEB). The alternative destinies of heaven and hell are presented in vivid imagery. On the one hand, the Lord Jesus will be glorified in his people (v. 10). On the other hand, those who have rejected him will be excluded from ‘the presence of the Lord and the glory of his might’ (v. 9, RSV).
Fourthly, some were confused by a rumour that the day of the Lord had already come. Paul refutes this error by unfolding a Christian philosophy of history (2 Thess. 2:1–12). The parousia (the coming of Christ) cannot take place, he explains, until the rebellion (the coming of Antichrist) occurs, and this rebellion will not happen until what is holding it back has been removed. The identity of the restraining influence (v. 6), which is personalized in verse 7, has long occupied the ingenuity of students. But the most probable reconstruction is that it refers to Rome and the power of the state. For ‘what obstacle is there,’ asked Tertullian, ‘but the Roman state?’17 Indeed, every state, being the official guardian of law and order, public peace and justice, is intended by God to restrain evil.
Meanwhile, even during the period of restraint, and before the lawless one (Antichrist) is revealed, ‘the secret power of lawlessness is already at work’ (v. 7a). His anti-social, anti-law, anti-God movement is at present largely underground. We detect its subversive influence in atheism, totalitarianism, materialism, moral relativism and social permissiveness. But one day secret subversion will become open rebellion, when the lawless one is revealed. Then we can expect a period (mercifully short) of political, social and moral chaos in which both God and law are impudently flouted, until suddenly the Lord Jesus will come and overthrow him.
Here then are the three acts in the eschatological drama. Now is the time of restraint, in which lawlessness is being held in check. Next will come the time of rebellion, in which the control of law will be removed and the lawless one will be revealed. Finally will come the time of retribution, in which the Lord Christ will defeat and destroy the Antichrist. This is God’s programme. Meanwhile, the Thessalonians were to stand firm in the teaching they had previously received from the apostle. Whatever their troubles, Paul points them to the coming Christ.
9. The major letters (Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians): Christ the Saviour
During Paul’s so-called third missionary journey, he spent two years in Corinth and three in Ephesus. In both cities he began in the synagogue, and only when the Jews rejected the gospel did he move to a secular venue: in Corinth to the house of Titius Justus and in Ephesus to the lecture hall of Tyrannus.
Busy though these five years were in the exacting ministries of evangelism, apologetics and instruction, at least Paul was not travelling. So he seems to have had time for writing. It was in this period that he wrote his letter to the Romans (whose material he may have tried out in the hall of Tyrannus) and his two surviving letters to Corinth.
The contents of these three ‘major letters’ is full and varied, since each was written in response to particular needs and issues. Nevertheless, it would not be unfair, I think, to identify ‘salvation’ as their dominant theme. Here, for example, are some key texts:
Romans 1:16: ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.’
1 Corinthians 1:21: ‘For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.’
1 Corinthians 15:1–2: ‘...I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received...By this gospel you are saved...’
2 Corinthians 6:2: ‘I tell you, now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation.’
Romans
In Romans, after a brief introduction which focuses on Christ (1:1 – 5), the universal need for salvation is set forth powerfully. First depraved pagans, next critical moralizers, and then self-confident Jews are arraigned, until the whole human race is found guilty and inexcusable (1:18 – 3:20). ‘But now’, Paul continues, with a mighty adversative, ‘a righteousness from God’ (that is, God’s righteous way of ‘righteousing’ the unrighteous) has been revealed in the gospel (3:21–31), to be received by faith alone, as is plain in the case of Abraham (ch. 4). In consequence, having been justified by faith, we enjoy peace with God, we are standing in grace and we rejoice in the prospect of sharing God’s glory (5:1–11).
Two humanities have now been portrayed, one characterized by sin and guilt, the other by grace and faith. The head of the old humanity is Adam, the head of the new is Christ. With almost mathematical precision Paul compares and contrasts them (5:12–21).
Next, Paul responds to two criticisms. In Romans 6 he refutes the slander that the gospel encourages sin. Having been united with Christ (through baptism) in his death and resurrection, although it is not impossible that we go on sinning, yet it is inconceivable that we should. How can we live in what we have died to?
In Romans 7 Paul answers a second criticism, namely that the law is to blame for sin. Instead, Paul blames our ‘flesh’, our fallen human nature. Romans 7 is full of the power of indwelling sin, but Romans 8 is concerned with the indwelling Spirit, through whom alone we can ‘put to death the misdeeds of the body’ and so live (8:13). The apostle also looks forward to the redemption of the created universe (8:18–27) and expresses his unbreakable conviction of our ultimate salvation, since nothing can separate us from God’s love (8:28–39).
Romans 9 – 11 are emphatically not the parenthesis which some readers suppose, but an integral part of Paul’s argument. Throughout the first half of his letter he has forgotten neither the ethnic mix of the church in Rome (‘first for the Jew, then for the Gentile’, 1:16; 2:9–10), nor the tensions that kept surfacing between the Jewish Christian minority and the Gentile Christian majority. Now the time has come for him to address head-on the underlying theological problem. How is it that the Jewish people as a whole have rejected their Messiah? And how did the inclusion of the Gentiles fit in with God’s plan? At the beginning of each chapter Paul makes an emotional statement of his longing for their salvation and of his own continuing Jewishness (9:1–6; 10:1; 11:1).
In chapter 9 Paul defends God’s covenant loyalty on the ground that his promises were not made to all Jacob’s descendants, but to Israel within Israel, the elect remnant. In chapter 10, however, the unbelief of Israel is attributed not to God’s purpose of election (as in chapter 9) but to her pride, ignorance and stubbornness. Then, in chapter 11, Paul looks into the future. He declares that Israel’s sin is neither total (since there is a believing remnant) nor final (since there will be a recovery). His vision is that the ‘fulness’ of both Jews and Gentiles will ultimately be gathered in (11:12, 25). No wonder this prospect leads him to break out into a doxology in which he praises God for the depth of both his riches and his wisdom (vv. 33–36).
With Romans 12 Paul turns from doctrine to ethics. On the ground of God’s mercies, which he has been expounding, he calls for the consecration of our bodies and the renewal of our minds. The choice is between conforming to the fashions of the world and being transformed according to the will of God.
Further, the will of God concerns our relationships – all of which are changed radically by the gospel. Paul treats seven of them: firstly, our relationship to God (12:1–2), then to ourselves in the evaluation of our gifts (12:3–8), and thirdly to one another (12:9–16) in a love which binds the Christian family. Fourthly, there is our relationship to our enemies and to evildoers, which echoes the call of Jesus to non-retaliation (12:17–21) and fifthly to the State in recognition of its God-given authority and ministry (13:1–7). In verses 8–10 Paul reverts to love, emphasizing that love to our neighbour is both an unpaid debt and the fulfilment of the law. This sixth relationship is the more urgent as the last day approaches (13:11–14).
The seventh and final relationship, which Paul treats at considerable length, concerns our behaviour towards ‘the weak’, whose over-scrupulous conscience is not to be trampled on (14:1 – 15:13). Instead, they are to be welcomed into the family as Christ has accepted us.
The most notable feature of Paul’s practical instructions about the weak is that he grounds them on his Christology, and in particular on the death, resurrection and parousia of Jesus. The weak are brothers and sisters for whom Christ died. Christ rose in order to be their Lord, and we have no liberty to interfere with his servants. He is also coming to be our judge; we should not play the role of judge ourselves.
Paul ends this section with a beautiful vision of Jewish and Gentile believers, who are bound by such a ‘spirit of unity’ that ‘with one heart and mouth’ they glorify God together (15:14–22).
The epistle concludes with news of Paul’s travel plans, personal greetings to and from a number of named individuals, a warning against false teachers and a final doxology similar to the letter’s introduction, which alludes to the gospel of Christ, the commission of God, the outreach to the nations and the summons to the obedience of faith (16:1–27).
Romans is the New Testament’s most thorough exposition of salvation, describing its need, its nature and its means, indicating its radical implications in the new multi-racial community, and celebrating Jesus Christ crucified, risen, reigning and coming as the only Saviour.
1 Corinthians
Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is about the same length as his letter to the Romans, but its contents are very different. Romans is an orderly, carefully constructed exposition of the gospel, whereas 1 Corinthians handles an assortment of as many as twenty diverse themes, in which Paul is responding either to pastoral needs he has perceived in Corinth or to questions which the Corinthians have put to him. Each topic is treated with care, however, so that the letter contains some extremely valuable instruction on doctrinal, ethical and social subjects, which local churches still need to ponder today.
Paul begins with an acknowledgment of the ambiguity of the church. He describes it as being simultaneously holy and called to be holy, united (‘the church of God’, v. 1) and divided, complete and incomplete. In particular the apostle is horrified by the factions in the church, and by the personality cult which lies behind them. It leads him to develop the theme of ‘power through weakness’ which is so much needed in our contemporary power-hungry world. Paul saw it at work in the gospel of the cross (1:18–25), in the Corinthian converts (1:26–31) and in himself as a preacher (2:1–5), as he brought a weak message in his own personal weakness, but trusting in the power of the Spirit.
Parallel to ‘power through weakness’ is the principle of ‘wisdom through folly’. Although ‘the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing’ (1:18), it is nevertheless the power and the wisdom of God. And Paul goes on to write about the true wisdom which has been revealed by God through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (2:6–16).
The apostle sees clearly that the Corinthian factions were ultimately due to their mistaken views of both the church and the pastoral ministry. When we have a humble view of the church, we will have a humble view of Christian leadership. So in chapter three Paul gives us a trinitarian understanding of the church as ‘God’s field’ in which God is the farmer, as ‘God’s building’ in which Christ is the foundation, and as ‘God’s temple’ indwelt by the Holy Spirit. If chapter three gives us a picture of the church, chapter four gives us a picture of the pastor (indeed of the apostle first, but in a secondary sense of Christian leaders today). They are ministers of Christ, stewards of God’s revelation, the scum of the earth (v. 13) and the fathers of the church family. Each model is a humbling one.
In the next chapters Paul gives apostolic instruction about disciplining, and even excommunicating, a serious offender (ch. 5); about not taking our Christian brothers and sisters to court (6:1–6); about sexual immorality and the Christian view of the human body (6:7–20); and about marriage, singleness and divorce (ch. 7). The teaching is hard-hitting and straight from the shoulder. Paul makes no concessions to contemporary culture, for he knows that the church is called to be a counter-culture. We are summoned not to feeble-minded conformity, but to radical non-conformity to the world around us.
In chapters 8 and 9 Paul broaches the sensitive issue of our rights and their renunciation. His first example concerns idol-meats. That is, should Christians buy and eat meat which, previous to its sale in the butcher’s shop, had been used in a pagan sacrificial ritual? Would not such meat have been contaminated? As a knowlegable believer Paul was able to declare strongly that there is only one God, that idols are nothing, and that therefore there is no reason for not eating idol-meats. But how should we behave towards a fellow-Christian, probably a recent convert, who does not share this knowledge and therefore has a weak or over-scrupulous conscience? If he sees us eating, he may be emboldened to follow our example against his conscience and so wound it, and even sin against Christ. If my eating will cause my brother to fall into sin, Paul added with characteristic hyperbole, ‘I will never eat meat again’ (8:13). The principle then is plain: knowledge brings freedom, but love limits it, for love is greater than knowledge (8:1; 13:2, cf. 10:23–33).
Paul’s second example is more personal to him, and is opened up in chapter 9. He is an apostle, for he has seen the risen Lord (one of the conditions of apostleship). As such he has a right to marry and to receive support. After all, soldiers, farmers and shepherds do not work for nothing. And the Old Testament law says that oxen might eat the grain they are treading out and that priests in the temple might share in the sacrifices. And as a third argument the Lord Jesus himself commanded that ‘those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel’ (v. 14). So there is no doubt about the principle. But, Paul continues (v. 12b and 15), he has not used his right, nor was he asking for it now. He would rather die than be deprived of his boast that he preached for nothing. Besides, it was not a boast, but a compulsion. ‘Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!’ (v. 16). He makes himself a slave to everyone, in order to win as many as possible (v. 19).
Both examples illustrate the same fundamental principle: although we may have rights, there may be sound reasons for waiving them.
In chapters 10 – 14 the apostle addresses himself to important questions about the life and worship of the church. He begins with a warning from the history of Israel that the visible and professing church may not be the genuine people of God. For all the Israelites had been baptized in the Red Sea, and all had partaken of the same food and drink. In other words, they were all baptized communicant members of the visible church. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and his judgment fell upon them in the desert (10:1–13). After making this vital distinction between the nominal and the real church (which still needs to be made today), the apostle moves on to various aspects of public worship.
First, they must flee from idolatry, as Israel should have done, since participation in the body and blood of Christ is incompatible with pagan idol-feasts and sacrifices. ‘You cannot drink the cup of the Lord’, Paul states, ‘and the cup of demons too’ (10:21).
Next, Paul gives instructions about the public worship of the Corinthians, which was being marred by inappropriate behaviour. The first related to gender. The difficulty we have in interpreting Paul’s teaching is that he combines theological and cultural issues in the same passage. Most of us will agree that questions of length of hair and wearing veils are cultural, in that they may vary in different places and at different times. But Paul’s teaching about ‘headship’ (God–Christ–man–woman) is profoundly theological. Moreover, as between God and Christ, so between man and woman, ‘headship’ is not incompatible with equality.
The second situation Paul addresses is the Lord’s Supper. He is deeply grieved that the Corinthian factions were manifesting themselves even at the Lord’s table, and that class distinctions also appeared, so that some worshippers went hungry while others got drunk. So Paul reminds his readers of the institution of the Eucharist during the Last Supper (11:23–26). He therefore emphasizes the seriousness of eating and drinking in an unworthy manner, and urges the need for self-examination before coming to the table, lest they experience more of the judgment of God.
Next, in chapters 12 – 14 Paul responds to their questions about charismata, spiritual gifts. This passage is an outstanding further example of our theme of diversity in unity. Four times Paul insists on their fundamental unity, as the background against which their diversity can be appreciated. First, they had all received the Holy Spirit, because ‘no-one can say, “Jesus is Lord”, except by the Holy Spirit’ (12:3). Secondly, they had had the same experience of the Trinity, for behind their different gifts and ministries is ‘the same Spirit’, ‘the same Lord’ and ‘the same God’ (12:4–6). Thirdly, after listing nine gifts (others occur in other lists), Paul concludes: ‘All these are the work of one and the same Spirit ...’ (12:7–11). And fourthly, Paul resorts to his favourite metaphor of the human body, which is ‘a unit, though it is made up of many parts...So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized (by Christ) by (or with) one Spirit into one body’ (my parentheses) and, changing the metaphor, ‘we were all given the one Spirit to drink’ (12:12–13).
For the rest of chapter 12 the apostle develops the model of ‘one body, many parts’. All members of the body are useful in different ways. So we must neither despise our own gifts, nor depreciate those of others. The arrogance which says ‘I don’t need you’ and the false modesty which says ‘you don’t need me’ are both destructive attitudes. They undermine the body’s unity-in-diversity. They need to hear the affirmation, ‘Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it’ (12:27).
After considering the danger that diversity may lead to disunity, Paul shows the Corinthians what he calls ‘the most excellent way’. His hymn to love is unparalleled in the literature of the world. Love is greater than tongues and prophecy, greater than knowledge and faith, greater than philanthropy and heroism (13:1–3). It is the greatest thing in the world. Love is patient and kind; it is therefore neither jealous nor boastful, neither proud nor rude, neither self-seeking nor irritable. It rejoices not in evil but in truth. It always protects, trusts, hopes and perseveres (13:4–7). And love lasts for ever (13:8–13). Such love welcomes the diversity of Christ’s body. It is neither resentful nor conceited. It is the essential atmosphere within which spiritual gifts can operate.
In chapter 14 Paul reverts to spiritual gifts and in particular to prophecy, which he declares to be more profitable than tongues because it is intelligible and brings people strength, encouragement and comfort (14:3). This is in keeping with the apostle’s principle: ‘try to excel in gifts that build up the church’ (14:12).
This letter began with the factions which were tearing the Corinthian church apart. By contrast, chapter 15 (its last main chapter, apart from the personal messages of chapter 16) is a magnificent exposition of the gospel which, more than anything else, is calculated to unify the church.
Paul says he wants to remind the Corinthians of the gospel, which he assumes is a universally recognizable message. He had himself proclaimed it to them, and they had received it. More, they had taken their stand on it. And they were being saved by it, so long as they were holding firm to it, since otherwise they would have believed in vain. What was this gospel? It was the apostolic tradition which he had received and passed on. Of first importance in this gospel were four events, namely the death, burial, resurrection and appearances of the Lord Jesus.
Perhaps it would make for clarity, however, if we made explicit what is already surely implicit, namely that these four events are not of equal importance. Of supreme importance, as we know from repeated references in the New Testament, are the death and resurrection of Jesus; the importance of the burial and the appearances is in relation to these. Thus, Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and then was buried to demonstrate the reality of his death. Next, Christ was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and then appeared and was seen, to demonstrate the reality of his resurrection.
Paul goes on to list the main resurrection appearances, official and personal, to groups and to individuals, putting himself at the end of the list. Several things need to be said about the Damascus Road experience.
First, it was a genuine resurrection appearance, and not some kind of vision or apparition. We know this because Paul includes it with the others he lists, and because what was ‘raised’ was what had been ‘buried’, namely his body. In addition, Paul moves directly from ‘he appeared to me also’ to ‘I am the least of the apostles’, for a resurrection appearance was an indispensable qualification for apostleship (see Acts 1:21–22, 25; 1 Cor. 9:1).
Secondly, although it was a genuine resurrection appearance, nevertheless it was atypical because it did not take place during the forty days (like all the others) but after the ascension.
Thirdly, it was the final appearance, having taken place ‘last of all’. Whatever visions of Jesus some people have claimed since then, we should not think of them as resurrection appearances.
Having given his list of appearances, Paul now concludes with an important statement about the gospel (15:11): ‘Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.’
The four pronouns are extremely significant: I, they, we and you. ‘I’ is the apostle Paul and ‘they’ the Jerusalem apostles. ‘We’ is all the apostles together, who preach the same gospel, and ‘you’ is the members of the church of Corinth who have all received it. It is a claim to the unity both of the apostles’ proclamation and of the church’s faith, alongside their diversity of gifts.
The rest of 1 Corinthians 15 is a closely reasoned statement about different aspects of the resurrection: the dire consequences if Christ has not been raised (vv. 12–19); the fact that Christ has risen, setting in motion the eschatological programme (vv. 20–28); more questions about the situation if there is no resurrection (vv. 29–34); instruction about the nature of the resurrection body, combining both continuity with our earthly body and discontinuity (vv. 35–49); an assurance that those who die will be raised and that those who survive till Christ’s coming will be changed, so that death will be swallowed up in victory (vv. 50–57); and a final exhortation to his readers to stand firm and work hard, knowing that, in the light of the resurrection, their labours will not be in vain (v. 58).
2 Corinthians
The apostle’s relations with the Corinthian church (both his visits and his letters) are complicated and need not concern us here. But we note that 2 Corinthians is arguably the most personal of all Paul’s letters, since he needs to defend himself against the many criticisms of those who regarded themselves as ‘super-apostles’ (11:5), although in reality they were ‘false apostles’ (11:13). In contrast to them, Paul delineates the essentials of an authentic Christian ministry.
He begins with a reference to his troubles and hardships. In and through Christ, he declares, he has been experiencing comfort in suffering and even resurrection-life through death (1:3–11). In response to criticism, he now defends his alteration of plans. He had not been guilty of vacillating, of changing his mind in a frivolous or worldly manner, or of saying ‘yes and no’ in the same breath. Such behaviour would have been incompatible with the faithfulness of God and with the truth that all God’s promises find their ‘yes’ in Christ (1:12–22).
This leads Paul on to a general defence of himself and his colleagues as ‘ministers of a new covenant’ (3:6). To be sure, the ministry of the old covenant was attended by a degree of glory; but the ministry of the new covenant is ‘much more glorious’ (3:9), since it is a ministry of the Spirit (not of death), a justifying ministry (not a condemning one), and permanent (not fading away) (3:1–18).
Because we have received this glorious ministry, ‘we do not lose heart’ (4:1, 6), but rather ‘we are always confident’ (5:6, 8). Mind you, there are good reasons why we might lose courage. The first is ‘the veil’, which lies over the mind of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of Christ’s glory (3:12–18; 4:3–4). The second is ‘the body’, our fragile and mortal body that is like a clay jar in which the gospel treasure is housed (4:7). It is utterly impossible for us to solve either of these two problems by ourselves. Only God can remove the veil by causing light to shine into human darkness (4:6). Only God can cause ‘the life of Jesus’ to be revealed in our mortal bodies now (4:10–11) and on the last day ‘raise us with Jesus’ (4:14 – 5:10). No wonder we are of good courage, and refuse to lose heart!
The ministry of the new covenant is also a ministry of reconciliation, and 5:18–21 is one of the most sublime passages in the New Testament on the subject of reconciliation. First, God is its author (‘all this is from God...God was in Christ reconciling...’ vv. 18–19); there can never be any suggestion that Christ took the initiative to wrest reconciliation from a reluctant God. Secondly, Christ is the agent of the reconciliation. In two of Paul’s daring expressions, God refused to count the sins of human beings against them (v. 19), but instead made the sinless Christ to be sin for us (v. 21). Thirdly, we are the ambassadors of the reconciliation, for both the ministry and the message of reconciliation have been committed to us (vv. 18–19), and God is now making his appeal through us, imploring people on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God (v. 20; cf. 6:1–2).
Paul continues his appeal at the beginning of chapter 6, and then goes on to describe his ministry. On the one hand, he is determined to put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that his ministry is not discredited. On the other hand, he is equally determined to commend his ministry in every possible way, by endurance in all his afflictions and by moral qualities such as purity and love. The paradoxes of verses 8 to 10 (e.g. ‘sorrowful, yet always rejoicing’ and ‘poor, yet making many rich’) set over against each other appearance and reality, what he is in the opinion of humans and of God.
Chapters 8 and 9 are devoted to the collection that Paul was organizing among the affluent churches of Greece on behalf of the impoverished churches of Judea. He deploys every possible argument with which to persuade the Greek churches to contribute generously. But the greatest of them all is ‘the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ’. What is that? It is ‘that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich’ (8:9). Paul never forgets Christ; he keeps returning to him, even in the middle of his financial appeal.
In the rest of his letter (chs. 10 – 13), the apostle returns to the defence of his own ministry against the false apostles. He is unsure how heavy-handed he could or should be. Because he is a genuine apostle of Christ, authenticated by his miracles and by his pioneer evangelization of Corinth (10:8; 12:12), part of him wants to assert his apostolic authority. But another part of him is extremely hesitant. He knows that it is much more appropriate to appeal to them ‘by the meekness and gentleness of Christ’ (10:1). At all events his motives are pure. He is jealous for them ‘with a godly jealousy’. He had promised them to one husband, to Christ, but he is afraid that they are being led astray from their ‘sincere and pure devotion to Christ’ (11:1–3).
He feels a fool, for he knows that in his self-confident boasting he is ‘not talking as the Lord would’ (11:17). Yet his opponents are forcing him into it (11:18). So he goes ahead. He lists his Jewish pedigree, and his loyalty to Christ in spite of floggings and imprisonments, not to mention all the dangers he has risked in sea and river, from bandits and enemies, in city and country, in hunger and thirst, nakedness and sleeplessness. And, besides everything else, he has experienced the pressure of his concern for the churches (11:21–33). And then there were his ‘visions and revelations from the Lord’ (12:1). To keep him from becoming conceited because of these, he continues, ‘there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me’ (12:7). It was evidently a physical infirmity of some kind. Although he pleaded three times for its removal, the Lord Jesus told him instead that his grace was sufficient for him, for his power was perfected in weakness. So he learned to rejoice in his weakness, for when he was weak, then he was strong (12:7–10). He has returned to the paradox of ‘power through weakness’. It is one of the main themes of Paul’s Corinthian correspondence. It was true in Christ and in Paul; it is true also in us.
10. The prison letters (Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians and Philippians): Christ the supreme Lord
That Paul was several times incarcerated as ‘a prisoner for the Lord’ (Eph. 4:1, cf. 2 Cor. 11:23) is well known. ‘I am in chains for Christ’, he wrote (Phil. 1:13, 17). Again, ‘remember my chains’ (Col. 4:18; Philem. 10, 13). But not all scholars are agreed either when or where these imprisonments took place. I shall follow the traditional view that he suffered two main periods of detention in Rome, with several years’ freedom between them (Acts 28:30–31).
What it seems reasonable to conjecture is that while in prison, delivered from the feverish activity of his missionary lifestyle, he had extra time in which to meditate. He declared that on one occasion during his first defence no human being came to his support, for everybody deserted him. Nevertheless, he added, ‘the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength’ (2 Tim. 4:16–17). Luke tells us that something similar had taken place before, both after his arrest in Jerusalem (Acts 23:11) and while he was on his voyage to Rome (Acts 27:23). So there is no reason why it should not have happened at other times too. Prison bars could confine his body, but not his soul. It seems that during those years, although he could neither evangelize more cities nor visit the churches, his mind soared into heaven.
Ephesians and Colossians are closely related to one another. Their texts and topics run parallel at several important points. In particular, both express a wonderfully exalted Christology.
In Ephesians 1:15–23 Paul prays that the eyes of his readers’ heart may be enlightened to comprehend God’s incomparably great power which he displayed when he resurrected Christ and set him at his right hand in the place of supreme honour, far above all conceivable rivals. Indeed, ‘God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills everything in every way’ (v. 23).
Colossians contains a similar passage on the absolute pre-eminence of the cosmic Christ, except that it begins with the creation and includes the cross. Identifying Jesus as the visible image of the invisible God, Paul goes on (in opposition to all forms of gnostic dualism) to call him the firstborn over all creation, the agent through whom all things were created and now cohere, and the heir for whom all things were made. He is thus ‘before all things’ in both time and rank. He is head of the body – the church, and the firstborn from among the dead, ‘so that in everything he might have the supremacy’. For God was pleased to have all his fullness both to dwell in Christ and through Christ to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through his blood shed on the cross (1:15–20).
The perspective is almost overwhelming, as Jesus is seen to be the supreme head of both creations, of the universe and of the church.
But there is something more. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are not only objective, saving events; God’s purpose is also that we should participate personally in their reality. Paul affirms this in both Ephesians and Colossians. He writes in Ephesians that God has ‘made us alive with Christ...and...raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus’ (2:5–6).
This union of believers with Christ is even more strikingly expressed in Colossians, where four times the adverb sun (meaning ‘with’) is used: ‘you died with Christ...you have been raised with Christ...your life is now hidden with Christ...you will appear with him in glory’ (2:20; 3:1, 3, 4).
Ephesians and Colossians do not depict the Christian life only on this exalted level, however, as participating in Christ ‘in the heavenly realms’. Both epistles are also known for their down-to-earth exhortations relating on the one hand to the church, God’s new society, whose unity, truth and holiness Paul describes, and on the other to the family or household in which our new life demands new relationships. This is beautifully illustrated in the little letter to Philemon.
The letter to the Philippians also combines great heights of Christological faith with the good works of Christian behaviour. It is widely accepted that the so-called carmen Christi (‘Song of Christ’) in chapter 2 is an early Christian hymn which Paul has borrowed. Whether composed or borrowed does not, however, matter greatly since in either case it enjoys Paul’s apostolic endorsement. In keeping with Jesus’ epigram that ‘whoever humbles himself shall be exalted’, the hymn describes both the depths of humiliation to which the incarnation and atonement took him (‘he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross’) and the heights of exaltation to which in consequence the Father raised him, giving him ‘the name that is above every name’, that is, the rank beyond all others, as implied in the title ‘Lord’, so that every knee should bow to him and every tongue confess him Lord (2:9–11).
As with Ephesians and Colossians, so with Philippians, the supreme lordship of Jesus is not limited to ivory-tower theology. Paul also writes of his own personal commitment to Christ. He draws up a kind of profit-and-loss account. On one side of the ledger he puts everything which could be considered ‘profitable’ – his ancestry, parentage and education, his Hebrew culture, his religious zeal and legalistic righteousness. In the other column he puts ‘Christ’. Then he makes a careful calculation and concludes: ‘I count everything sheer loss, far outweighed by the gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord’ (3:7–8, REB). Moreover this lordship of Christ worked itself out in his everyday living – in joy and gentleness, in freedom from anxiety and inner peace, in a disciplined thought-life and in contentment in all circumstances (4:4–13). Why? Because ‘the Lord is near’ (4:5).
Conviction about the Lord Jesus, highly exalted yet simultaneously near, dominates the prison letters.
11. The pastoral letters (1 Timothy, Titus and 2 Timothy): Christ the head of the church
The authenticity of the pastoral letters to Timothy and Titus has regularly been called into question since F. C. Baur of Tübingen rejected them in 1835. At the same time, during the second half of the twentieth century a considerable number of scholars have rallied to the defence of their Pauline authorship. Those who still reject their genuineness are often quite rude in their evaluation of the letters’ theology, or rather (in their opinion) lack of it. A. T. Hanson, for example, declared that ‘there is a complete absence of unifying theme in them’, even ‘an impression of relative incoherence’.18
Others, however, have a decidedly different opinion. Paul’s overriding preoccupation in all three pastoral letters is with the church. For Christ died ‘to purify for himself a people...’ (Titus 2:14). Consequently, Paul is concerned with the life of the local church and particularly with the church’s responsibility to guard and teach the truth. For he defines the church as ‘the pillar and foundation of the truth’ (1 Tim. 3:15); its foundation to hold it firm and its pillar to thrust it high.
In 1 Timothy Paul gives instruction about sound doctrine, public worship, pastoral oversight, local leadership, social responsibilities and material possessions – all of which are of vital importance to the local church. In his letter to Titus Paul directs him how to select and appoint pastors, and how to relate duty and doctrine in the home and in public life. The second letter to Timothy seems to have been written from prison shortly before Paul was executed. It is probably the most intimate and affectionate of all Paul’s letters. Knowing that his death is approaching, Paul exhorts Timothy not to be ashamed of Christ, but to be conscientious in his life and ministry, to cling in difficult times both to the Old Testament Scriptures and to the apostle’s teaching, and to preach the Word.
Perhaps the text which best sums up the main message of all three pastorals is 2 Timothy 2:2, ‘the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others’. Here are four stages in the handing on of the truth.
First, there is Paul himself, ‘an apostle of Christ Jesus’, whose self-conscious apostolic authority is apparent in his letters. He refers again and again to what he calls indiscriminately ‘the truth’, ‘the faith’, ‘the sound doctrine’, ‘the teaching’ or ‘the deposit’. The clear implication is that a body of apostolic doctrine existed, which he taught.
Secondly, there are Timothy and Titus. They stand between the apostle and the church, in the sense that they represent him and relay his teaching to the church. During the apostle’s personal absence his authority is mediated through his letters. As many as ten times in 1 Timothy and Titus Paul writes ‘teach these things’, ‘command and teach these things’ or ‘give the people these instructions’. They were to pass on faithfully to others the precious truths the apostle had taught them.
Thirdly, there are the true and trustworthy pastors whom Timothy and Titus were to appoint. In both 1 Timothy and Titus Paul lays down the conditions of eligibility they must fulfil. Apart from a consistent character and home life, they must be loyal to the apostles’ teaching and have a gift for teaching it (Titus 1:9; 1 Tim. 3:2).
Fourthly, these pastors ‘will also be qualified to teach others’. This is the true apostolic succession – the transmission of the apostles’ teaching from generation to generation through the New Testament.
In our post-modern era the self-confidence of the Enlightenment has gone, the very concept of objective ‘truth’ is rejected, and all that remains are purely personal and subjective opinions. So it is a relief to listen to the apostle Paul. Not only does he call himself an apostle ‘for the...knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness’ (Titus 1:1), and define the church in relation to the truth, but he describes the false teachers as people who ‘have wandered away from the truth’ (2 Tim. 2:18) and even ‘oppose the truth’ (2 Tim. 3:8). Nothing is more necessary for the life, health and growth of the church than the faithful teaching of the truth.
This rapid overview of Paul’s letters demonstrates conclusively the Christ-centredness of his faith, life and ministry. ‘To me, to live is Christ’, he could say (Phil. 1:21) and again ‘whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ’ (Phil. 3:7). Each letter or cluster of letters, responding to different situations, contributes to a composite picture of Christ – the liberator, the judge, the Saviour, the supreme Lord and the head of the church. Paul does not contradict himself. A rich variety of colourful strands is woven into his tapestry of Christ.
Three more Jewish authors
Having considered the thirteen letters attributed to Paul, we turn to the remaining letters of the New Testament: the letter of James, the letter to the Hebrews, and the two letters of Peter (including Jude which has great similarities to 2 Peter). Paul was the acknowledged apostle to the Gentiles (e.g. Rom. 15:16; Gal.1:16; 2:7), whereas the three letters, whose testimony to Christ we are now to look at (James, Hebrews and 1 Peter), were intended in differing degrees for a Jewish readership. I take James’s letter first because of the alleged disagreement between him and Paul.
12. The letter of James: Christ the moral teacher
This James was one of the Lord’s brothers who, though unbelieving during Jesus’ lifetime, seems to have come to faith through a resurrection appearance (Mark 6:3; John 7:5; 1 Cor. 15:7). He later became the acknowledged leader of the Jerusalem church and of Jewish Christians (Acts 12:17; Gal. 1:18–19). He chaired the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:13–21), and continued to maintain that, although circumcision was not necessary for Gentile converts, Jewish believers should continue to show great respect for the Mosaic ceremonial law (e.g. Acts 21:17–26).
James became known as ‘James the Just’ because of his personal righteousness and godliness. Hegesippus, towards the end of the second century, is quoted as having said: ‘He was in the habit of entering alone into the temple, and was frequently found upon his knees begging forgiveness for the people, so that his knees became hard like those of a camel, in consequence of his constantly bending them in his worship of God.’19
It is not surprising, therefore, because of the holiness of James the Just, that his letter (which is really a tract or treatise), addressed to ‘the twelve tribes scattered among the nations’ (1:1), should focus on living a life that is pleasing to God. What sort of witness, then, does James bear to Jesus? ‘Very little’, some will reply. And it is true that Jesus is named only twice, once in the first verse in which James identifies himself as ‘a servant...of the Lord Jesus Christ’, and on the other occasion when his readers are called ‘believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ’ (2:1). They are also referred to as bearing ‘the noble name’ (2:7), and on the eight or more times when ‘the Lord’ occurs, more often than not it means Jesus (1:7; 4:10, 15; 5:7, 8, 10, 11, 15). But indirectly James witnesses to Jesus throughout. For one of the most interesting features of his letter is the number of times he alludes in a clear way to the recorded teaching of Jesus and specifically to his Sermon on the Mount, as if he had been present and heard it – which is not impossible. There are at least twenty echoes, like inheriting the promised kingdom; the blessedness of peacemakers, of those who suffer for righteousness, and of those who show mercy; questions of wealth and poverty; not speaking evil of others or judging them; and being patient until the Lord comes. It is indisputable, therefore, that James presents Jesus as essentially a moral teacher.
This emphasis leads naturally to the apparent contradiction between him and Paul. Paul taught that Abraham was justified not by works but by faith (Rom. 4:2–3). But James asks here: ‘Was not Abraham our father justified by works?’ (2:21, RSV). The discrepancy looks obvious and led Luther to reject James’s letter as made of ‘straw’. But the New Testament presents the two leaders as respecting one another. James had welcomed Paul’s mission to the Gentiles (Gal. 2:9), and Paul had accepted James’s concern for Jewish feelings (Acts 15:12–30; 21:17–26).
A natural harmony between them emerges when we note that they were responding to different situations, needing different theological emphases. Paul was writing against Judaizers, who taught justification by works of the law; James against intellectualizers who taught justification by ‘faith’ in the sense of barren orthodoxy. Both groups were mistaken. In opposition to Judaizers Paul emphasized justification by faith alone without works; in opposition to intellectualizers James emphasized justification not by the faith of barren orthodoxy (which the demons share and shudder! Jas. 2:19) but by a living faith which is fruitful in good works. Thus both apostles taught the same way of salvation, namely justification by faith unto good works. Paul wrote of ‘faith expressing itself through love’ (Gal. 5:6), and James wrote ‘I will show you my faith by what I do’ (2:18). But Paul stressed the faith that issues in works, while James stressed the works that issue from faith.
The best summary of James’s concerns may be found in 1:26–27, where ‘pure and faultless religion’ is said to have three characteristics: (1) to bridle the tongue, (2) to look after orphans and widows in their distress, and (3) to keep ourselves from being polluted by the world. Here is our threefold ethical duty, namely to ourselves, to our neighbour and to our God. Tongue-control is an index of self-control. The care of widows and orphans is an example of neighbour-love. To keep oneself unstained by the world is the negative counterpart to giving God the worship due to his name. The rest of James’s letter contains challenging variations on this threefold theme.
13. The letter to the Hebrews: Christ our great high priest
The letter to the Hebrews is anonymous, and debate continues about its authorship. Nevertheless, although the author’s identity is uncertain, his purpose is not. He is writing his letter or treatise to a local church of Hebrew Christians, perhaps in or near Jerusalem, in order to stop them from apostatizing. Owing partly to their persecutions (10:32–39), but more specifically to their theological confusion, they are in evident danger of relapsing into Judaism. The author hopes to establish them in Christ by demonstrating his finality.
That the author is well qualified to accomplish his task is evident from his comprehensive knowledge of both the Old Testament and the story of Jesus. He makes something like seventy Old Testament allusions and about twenty-five to the New Testament story. Knowing both intimately, he is well placed to argue the superiority of the New Covenant to the Old and so to show that the new wine has burst the old bottles. His argument is threefold, namely that Christ’s priesthood, sacrifice and covenant are perfect and cannot be superseded.
Before developing this theme, our author introduces it with a brief but magnificent Christological statement. The same God, he declares, who spoke to the fathers through the prophets in many parts and many ways, has in these last days spoken to us in his Son, who is the agent, the upholder and the heir of the creation. As for his person, he is both ‘the radiance of God’s glory’ (ensuring his community of nature with the Father) and ‘the exact representation of God’s being’ (ensuring the distinctness of his person). And this unique Jesus Christ, who has not yet been named, having made purification for sin, sat down at the Father’s right hand. In these ways he, who is superior to the prophets, is superior to the angels as well. It is this exalted Son, unrivalled in the dignity of his person and work, in whom God’s final revelation has been given.
After this introduction the author moves towards his first great theme, which is the superiority of the priesthood of Christ. He affirms that Jesus is superior to both Moses and Aaron. In fact his priesthood is not Aaronic (because he was not descended from Levi) but ‘in the order of Melchizedek’. Melchizedek was a shadowy Old Testament figure who blessed Abraham and whose eternal priesthood is mentioned in Psalm 110:4. The old Levitical priests had to be continuously replaced, because death prevented them from continuing in office, but Jesus holds his priesthood permanently because he lives for ever.
Having established the final supremacy of the priesthood of Jesus, the author comes to the achievement of his sacrifice. For a priest must have something to offer. What, then, did Jesus have to offer? The answer is ‘his own blood’, that is, himself laid down in violent death. So he was the victim as well as the priest, and the author explains the superiority of his sacrifice. Only the high priest might enter the holy of holies; but Jesus has secured access into God’s presence for all his people. Only once a year (on the Day of Atonement) might the high priest enter; but Jesus has secured for us continuous access. Only with the blood of animal sacrifice might the high priest enter; but Jesus entered with his own blood. Only cleansing from ceremonial defilement was secured by the Old Testament sacrifices; but Jesus secured the forgiveness of our sins. Only by regular sacrifices could the people remain clean; but Jesus died once and for all. Point by point our author has shown the fulfilment in Christ of the imperfect foreshadowing of Old Testament ritual.
The writer now introduces his principal theme. It is that this unique priest through his unique sacrifice has established a unique covenant. This new covenant is a ‘better’ covenant (7:22) because it is enacted on ‘better promises’ (8:6). These were foretold by God through Jeremiah (Jer. 31:31–34), and our author quotes them twice. God promises (1) to write his laws on our hearts, (2) to reveal himself to each of us personally, and (3) to forgive our sins, remembering them no longer. These promises of inward holiness, individual knowledge and full forgiveness have been fulfilled through Christ.
Once we have grasped the finality of Christ’s priesthood, sacrifice and covenant, we cannot contemplate any alternative. There can be no question of other sacrificing priests, since through our great high priest we enjoy direct access to God. There can be no question of other sacrifices for sin, for our salvation has been achieved by Christ’s unique sacrifice; our sacrifices are sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. There can be no question of another covenant, for the new covenant is the last covenant, and the better covenant is the best. It will never be superseded. The eternity of our final and perfect salvation fills the writer’s mind. Christ is a priest ‘for ever’, who has made ‘one sacrifice for sins for ever’, and thus established an ‘eternal covenant’, which brings to God’s people an ‘eternal salvation’ (5:9), an ‘eternal redemption’ (9:12) and an ‘eternal inheritance’ (9:15).
Those Hebrew Christians were in danger of backsliding. Exposed to vicious persecution and specious argument, they were wavering in their Christian faith and contemplating apostasy to Judaism. If only they could grasp the absolute finality of Jesus Christ, it is inconceivable that they should drift back.
Having concluded his exposition of the unique person, work and covenant of Christ, our author continues with an exhortation.
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place [i.e. God’s immediate presence] by the blood of Jesus...and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess...And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds...(10:19–24, my emphasis).
It would be difficult to miss the author’s reference to the famous Christian triad of faith, hope and love. And the rest of the letter seems to elaborate it. Certainly chapter 11 focuses on faith, first defining it and then parading before us some of the great Old Testament heroes of faith. But they were people of hope as well as of faith because ‘faith is being sure of what we hope for’ (11:1). Some promises were inherited during their lifetime, yet in another sense ‘none of them received what had been promised’ (11:39), because there are depths to the promises of God which cannot be inherited until the next world. Hence the need for hope, and for the acceptance of divine discipline, as we wait patiently for the fulfilment of the promises.
Chapter 13 touches briefly on aspects of reciprocal love in the Christian family, how we are to be hospitable to strangers, to remember prisoners, to honour marriage, to prefer contentment to covetousness, to respect our Christian leaders, and to go to Jesus ‘outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore’ (13:13).
These Christian privileges and obligations, namely access to God by faith, endurance through hope, and brotherly love in the church family, all issue from the great fact which our author has been at pains to emphasize, namely the absolute uniqueness and finality of our Lord Jesus Christ.
14. The letters of Peter: Christ the exemplary sufferer
It may come as a surprise that I should place Peter under the heading of ‘Jewish authors’, since it was through him that Cornelius, the first Gentile, was converted (Acts 10). But Peter ‘had been given the task of preaching the gospel to the Jews’ (Gal. 2:7), and it seems clear that in his first letter he has Jewish readers principally (though not exclusively) in mind. He refers to them as belonging to the ‘diaspora’ in five provinces of Asia Minor, and he alludes to ‘Gentiles’ as a separate group (2:12; 4:3). His vocabulary is similarly suggestive as he refers, for example, to our ‘inheritance’ (1:4), the call to be holy (1:6–7), and the blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish (1:2, 19). His many quotations from the Pentateuch, Psalms, Proverbs and Prophets also indicate that he is very familiar with the Old Testament.
Peter’s opening doxology praises God that he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1:3). And this living hope sustains us, however fierce the opposition to Christians may be. Although Peter handles many other topics in his first letter, his main emphasis is on Christian behaviour in the face of persecution. The words ‘suffer’ and ‘suffering’ occur seven times in relation to Christ and nine times in relation to Christians.
So far as we know, there had as yet been no official edict proscribing Christianity and Christians. Nevertheless, the opposition Peter’s readers were experiencing was severe (4:12) and widespread (5:9). It seems that the storm-clouds of more serious and systematic persecution were darkening the horizon. Local outbursts had begun. How should Christians behave in these circumstances? What is the Christian attitude to undeserved suffering? Christians were not to retaliate; that much was clear. But Peter went further than that. His first letter contains six passages on suffering: each expresses a different admonition, and each points his readers to Christ.
1 Peter 1:6–7: As they endure all kinds of trial, they must remember that suffering tests, strengthens and purifies their faith, as fire does gold. This will result in glory to God when Jesus Christ is revealed.
1 Peter 2:18–25: This paragraph relates particularly to Christian slaves whose masters are not considerate but harsh. They must bear unjust suffering. Why? Because suffering is part of the Christian calling. Christ had left them an example of non-retaliation, so that they might follow in his steps.
1 Peter 3:8–18: When suffering for what is right, Christians must not be frightened, but rather set Christ apart as Lord in their hearts, and always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks them to give a reason for their Christian hope. Suffering gives opportunities for witness.
1 Peter 4:1–6: Peter here emphasizes the physical nature of persecution. It is suffering ‘in the body’. It was for Jesus; it may be for us. Then let us remember that ‘he who has suffered in his body is done with sin’. Since suffering has a sanctifying influence on us, we should welcome it more readily.
1 Peter 4:12–19: We are not to be surprised by painful trials, as if something strange were happening, but rather to rejoice that suffering gives us the privilege of sharing in the sufferings of Christ and so of participating in his glory (4:13; cf. 1:11; 5:1; and Luke 24:25–26).
1 Peter 5:10–11: We must remember that we have been called to God’s eternal glory in Christ, but that to suffer a little is necessary first, for suffering is the path to glory, as death is the path to life.
The coming glory is one of the leading themes of Peter’s second letter, whose authenticity is still defended by some scholars. In chapter 2 he describes false teachers in vivid terms and warns that God’s judgment will fall on them. In chapter 3 Peter argues with scoffers the certainty of Christ’s return (vv. 3–7) and then attributes its delay to God’s mercy (vv. 8–10). But the day of the Lord will come and will usher in a new heaven and new earth.
So what kind of people should we be, as we prepare (v. 11)? We should make every effort to be found ‘spotless, blameless and at peace with him’ (v. 14), on our guard against false teachers (v. 17), and growing ‘in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’ (v. 18).
Conclusion: Diversity in unity
Even this brief survey of the New Testament literature (except for the book of Revelation which we will consider in Part IV) has been enough to reveal its variety. It is diverse in its writers (at least nine were involved), in its literary forms (gospel, chronicle, letter, treatise and apocalypse), in the topics addressed according to local needs, in its theological emphases and in its presentation of Jesus.
Yet this same New Testament lays claim to a unity of message. The same gospel of Christ, according to Paul, was proclaimed by all the apostles and believed by all the church (1 Cor. 15:11). Again ‘there is one body and one Spirit...one hope...one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all’ (Eph. 4:4–6). And the so-called ‘biblical theology movement’, which held sway in Europe during and after the Second World War, laid emphasis on this. A. M. Hunter in Britain, for example, could write that ‘there is a growing recognition of the essential unity of the New Testament and of the need for synthesis’,20 ‘a unity that transcended and dominated all diversities’.21
Another influential book from that era was The Riddle of the New Testament by Edwyn Hoskyns and Noel Davey. The ‘riddle’ concerned was the relation ‘between the historical figure of Jesus and the exuberant faith of the church’.22 After carefully weighing up the evidence, Hoskyns and Davey concluded that ‘all the varied New Testament material concentrates upon, and has its origin in one, single, isolated historical event’, namely ‘the life and death of Jesus’.23
But during the last years of the twentieth century the pendulum swung in the opposite direction, towards an emphasis on diversity. It was partly a reaction against artificial harmonizations, although it also revealed that some New Testament scholars take what Oscar Cullmann called ‘an almost sadistic pleasure’ in finding apparent discrepancies!24 We were told that now there was no such thing as ‘biblical theology’; there were only a number of mutually incompatible ‘biblical theologies’. The apostles’ names were turned into adjectives, and scholars wrote about a ‘Lucan’ or ‘Pauline’ view of some doctrine, or a ‘Petrine’ or ‘Johannine’ position, as if they were mutually exclusive. One of the most outspoken critics of attempts to unify the New Testament witness is Professor James Dunn of Durham University. In his book Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An enquiry into the character of Earliest Christianity, he wrote that there is no uniform concept of orthodoxy in early Christianity. There is not one gospel, he continues: there are at least four – one of John, another of the Synoptic gospels, and two more in the Acts and Paul. ‘Any attempt to find a single, once-for-all, unifying kerygma is bound to fail.’25 At the same time, Professor Dunn does concede that there is a ‘unifying element’ in the New Testament, namely ‘the unity between the historical Jesus and the exalted Christ’.26 But in the light of his whole book this is a minimal and rather grudging concession.
How should we respond? We must emphatically agree that we have no liberty to manipulate biblical texts into an artificial harmony; that we may not iron out apparent discrepancies; and that we must allow each New Testament author to say what he does say. And when we do this, tensions will remain. But we have also seen from our survey that the four gospels complement each other; they do not contradict each other. Nor do Jesus and Paul. Nor are Paul’s thirteen letters self-contradictory. Nor do the more distinctively Jewish books (James, Hebrews and 1 Peter) strike a discordant note. Even Paul and James do not preach a different gospel. All the New Testament authors find their unity, as Professor Charlie Moule has written, in ‘devotion to the person of Jesus Christ – the historical Jesus acknowledged as continuous with the one now acknowledged as the transcendent Lord’.27
Bishop Stephen Neill, as updated by Dr N. T. Wright, in The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861–1986, brought together its unity and diversity: ‘The event of Jesus Christ is far too great to be caught and held in one interpretation and one only.’ So the church gathered together into the New Testament canon ‘many different streams of tradition and interpretation...The startling thing about all these traditions is their unity; they all relate to one event, which must have been staggeringly great, and to one Person, who must have been unlike any other person who has ever lived.’28
And again: ‘It is the view of many competent scholars today that all the fragments of Christian tradition which we possess in the New Testament bear witness with singular unanimity to one single historical figure, unlike any other that has ever walked among the sons of men...’29 ‘The principle of unity is there, in the towering originality and spiritual force of Jesus of Nazareth.’30
We in our generation can do no more than endorse from our conviction and experience the witness of the New Testament to Christ. This witness is both united and immensely variegated. But this is exactly what we would expect to find if we believe in the double authorship of Scripture, namely that it is the Word of God spoken through human words. Its unity is due to the one divine mind from which it comes, and its variety to the many human minds through which it was spoken. We pay our tribute to the original Jesus, the Jesus of the New Testament witness, who is the incomparable Christ.