One book in four parts
One book in four parts
The four parts of this book are all explorations into the colourful identity of Jesus Christ. In Parts I and IV we have considered the witness of the New Testament to Christ, and in Parts II and III the witness of church history to him.
We have been aware throughout that there is a fundamental difference between these two witnesses, and so between the biblical and the historical parts of our study. For Christians believe that Scripture is the written revelation of God, so that it possesses a unique divine authority, whereas the pronouncements of church leaders are the fallible opinions of human beings, however distinguished they may have been.
This difference is deliberately expressed in the structure of the book. Parts II and III (Christ as interpreted by church history) are firmly held within the parameters of Parts I and IV (Christ as presented in the New Testament).
This same difference I have felt obliged to remember whenever I have submitted the cameos of Parts II and III to critical scrutiny. My evaluation of them has often been appreciative (especially in Part III), but has sometimes been negative (especially in Part II). For example, I have felt free to ask questions about, and even express criticism of, the monastic tradition, Christian mysticism, the feudal categories of Anselm’s atonement doctrine, the Enlightenment’s portrayal of Jesus as a merely human teacher, the Latin American Roman Catholic image of Jesus as the tragic victim, with no comparable emphasis on his resurrection triumph, the tendency of liberation theologians to confuse liberation with salvation, and the World Council of Churches’ loss of the imperatives of the Christian mission.
But how dare I express such unfavourable criticisms? Is it not presumptuous to do so? My answer is that yes it would be insufferably arrogant if it were not that God has graciously given us in Scripture a criterion by which to judge all human movements and traditions. In consequence, we must keep returning humbly to the biblical portraits of Christ, and judge ours by them, since they alone are normative.
Inevitably, I have been selective in my choice of church leaders and their views of Christ. But we have no liberty to be selective in relation to the biblical models of Christ, accepting those we like and rejecting those we dislike. The ‘pick and mix’ mentality of our post-modern culture is incompatible with the Christian mind’s view of Scripture. To be sure, it is legitimate to select biblical topics for specialist study (for example, Paul’s view of this or Peter’s view of that), but only in order to clarify what these particularities contribute to the total New Testament portrait of Christ. The goal of such studies is not to remain selective, but to become comprehensive.
Church history’s extraordinary variety of Jesuses, some of them bearing little resemblance to the authentic Jesus of the apostolic witness, constitutes a healthy warning to us today. By all means let us add to Part III, for there is no limit to the ways in which the New Testament Jesus can influence and inspire us. But let us not add to Part II yet more Jesuses, unless we are confident that they can be justified by reference to the New Testament Jesus himself (Parts I and IV).
But how can we come to know the authentic Jesus for ourselves – this incomparable Christ who has no peers?
I end with a story which the late Donald Coggan, former Archbishop of Canterbury, sometimes told (although he was unable to remember its origin):37
There was a sculptor once, so they say, who sculpted a statue of our Lord. And people came from great distances to see it – Christ in all his strength and tenderness. They would walk all round the statue, trying to grasp its splendour, looking at it now from this angle, now from that. Yet still its grandeur eluded them, until they consulted the sculptor himself. He would invariably reply ‘There’s only one angle from which this statue can be truly seen. You must kneel.’