Jesus in the
Gospels
Introduction to Christology
Introduction
The different gospels have
different answers to the question:
Who do men say I am?” Here’s a
selection of ideas:
The Gospel According to Mark:
God’s Son of Man and Wounded
Healer
The Gospel According to Matthew:
A New Moses, a Higher Wisdom
The Gospel According to Luke Acts: The Spirit-Filled Saviour
The Gospel According to John :
The Word/ I AM
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Mark: Son of Man and Wounded Healer
Mark's gospel is really about the
death of Jesus. It's a passion
narrative with an extended
introduction.
Mark tells the story by thinking
about the death and letting all the
events that lead up to that death
move toward it and through it.
So, it's the death of Jesus that's the
guiding principle to Mark's gospel,
not the life....
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Mark’s Big Question
When Mark writes his gospel, he is
already aware of very different images
of Jesus or beliefs about who Jesus
was....
One is the belief that Jesus is the
Messiah because of the great miracles
And Mark picks up that tradition in a
critical fashion. He does not deny that
Jesus did these miracles, but he sums
up Jesus' miracle activity in the question
at Caesarea Philippi in Chapter 8.
Jesus asks the disciples, "Who do you
think I am?" And Peter "You are the
Christ. You are the Messiah."
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More than a
miracle-worker
And from then on comes a sharp turning point in
the Gospel of Mark that tells the reader that to
believe that Jesus was the Messiah because he
did miracles is not a real understanding of who
Jesus was.
Immediately after the confession of Peter, Jesus
says, "the Son of Man has to suffer and to die."
And Peter says, "This should not happen to
you," and Jesus rebukes him as Satan....
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The “Messianic Secret”
The Gospel of Mark has been discussed
under the question of "the messianic
secret."
The “messianic secret” is that the true
messiahship of Jesus cannot be
recognized in his miracles.
And that the messianic secret of Jesus is
that he is the son of man who has come to
suffer and not the Messiah who is going to
do great miracles.
And that will become clear only at the very
end of the story of Jesus. And it is only the
story of the suffering and the death of
Jesus reveals that the secret of Jesus, and
reveals who Jesus really is.
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Matthew: A New Moses, a Higher Wisdom
This Gospel is concerned with the
position of the early Christian churches
in its relationship to Judaism.
Jesus for Matthew is fully a man from
Israel. Therefore, Matthew traces the
genealogy of Jesus back to Abraham.
But Jesus is not merely the son of
David, but he is the son of Abraham.
And thus Jesus' teaching also is one
that is fully in the legitimate tradition of
Israel's teaching of the law.
So in Matthew, but not in any other
gospel, we have Jesus saying he has
not come to dissolve the law but to fulfill
it. And that no part of the law will
disappear....
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A new Moses, new Torah
Some have suggested that Matthew’s Gospel is organized for
instructional purposes and note that it contains five sermons of
Jesus [5:1-7:29; 9:36-10:42;13:1-52; 17:22-18:35; and 23:1-25:46],
possibly recalling the five books of the Torah.
Jesus is depicted as a new Moses, presenting the definitive,
eschatological teaching about the Torah. Jesus has come not to
abolish the law or the prophets but to fulfill them [Mt 5:17].
The sermon goes on to present six pericopes in which Jesus
employs the recurrent formula, “you have heard it said of old . . . but
I say to you . . .” [5:21,27,31,33,38,43].
The formula indicates the superlative personal authority of the one
whom Matthew has consistently portrayed as embodying and
climaxing Israel’s historical experience of God.
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Jesus: Wise teacher or “Wisdom”?
The Matthean Jesus is linked to the
figure of the Wisdom of God who is
vindicated by her deeds [11:19]. She,
like the Matthean Jesus, is the one
whose yoke is easy and whose
burden is light, and who gives
comfort to those who come to her [Cf.
Mt. 11:19,28-30; Sirach 6:18-37;
24:19-24; 51:23-27].
Jesus brings to bear the authority of
the Wisdom of God – that same
Wisdom who in the books of Proverbs
and Sirach was with God at the
creation, took up her abode in Israel,
dwelt in the Temple, and was
enshrined in the Torah.
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Greater than Solomon
This explains why in the Sermon on the
Mount the Matthean Jesus is able on the
basis of his personal authority (“I say to you
…”) to teach Torah definitively. If the Torah
expresses God’s Wisdom in written form,
then who better to define its meaning than
the perfect son of Abraham? In Jesus
something greater than the Temple is present
[12:6, where according to Sirach 24:10
wisdom has taken up her abode].
The Matthean Jesus is greater than the
prophet Jonah who caused the pagan
superpower of his day to repent [12:41], and
he is greater than Solomon, famed for the
wisdom received from God [12:42].
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Conclusion
To sum up, Matthew’s portrayal of Jesus shows
him as both the recapitulation and climax of
Israel’s long history of relationship with God
Also as one with divine authority to teach God’s
will conclusively. Jesus’ disciples, Matthew’s
church, are to carry this teaching everywhere
with the assurance that the one who has been
given all authority in heaven and on earth will be
with them always until the eschaton is
established in its fullness [Mt 28:18-20]
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Luke: The Spirit-Filled Saviour
Luke portrays Jesus in the gospel in
essentially as a Saviour who is filled with
the Spirit of God, according to the image
of the divine man. The person in whom
divine powers are visible and are
exercised, both in his teaching and in his
miracle doing.
The image of the divine man also belongs
in Jesus' travel narrative. The gospel of
Luke is the only one that has a long travel
narrative of Jesus.... The travel motif has
been a very important motif in antiquity to
describe the life of great divine men,
miracle workers, teachers....
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Divine man… pious martyr
The divine man motif is important even through
Jesus' suffering and death, because Jesus dies
the perfect martyr's death, an exemplary death.
There is no crying, "my God, my God, why has
Thou forsaken me?“
But Jesus dies commending his spirit into the
hands of the father, as a pious martyr really
should do in a suffering death. So the image of
Jesus is one that is fully developed out of the
image of the divine human being....
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Teacher, social critic, reformer
Jesus in Luke's gospel comes across like a philosophic teacher, kind
of like Socrates: he's reasoned, he's dispassionate, he's a critic
sometimes of society but he's certainly concerned about the way his
teachings bear on society.
And in the end he dies very much like Socrates. The death of Jesus
in Luke's gospel is more like a martyr's death, it's much calmer, he
goes inexorably to the cross, knowing that it is what must happen.
Pilate isn't at fault at all. Pilate tries to get rid of the case by sending
Jesus away to Herod.... Pilate isn't the enemy of Jesus, he isn't the
bad guy.
And this may reflect the kind of political concerns of Luke's gospel.
Jesus also isn't a source of concern because he's not a kind of rebel
figure now, rather he's a teacher, a philosopher, a social critic, a
social reformer. He's a good member of the Greco-Roman world.
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John : TASK
Examine the first chapter
of John’s Gospel
Note the various names
of Jesus
How many can you find?
Make an assessment of
the author’s purpose/s
here (in the light of 20:31)
Now write a 300 word
account of “John’s
Jesus.”
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