his divinity. The end of the world is already present in Jesus’ resurrection;
therefore God is revealed in him. In Jesus, God has already appeared on earth. While this concept lacks the precision found in later orthodox Christology, “Jesus’ divinity is already implied in some way in the concep- tion of God’s appearance in him.“18
Having seen that, to Jews of Jesus’ time, his resurrection would have signified divinity, we must ask about the evidence for it. Pannenberg points to the emergence of Christianity, which Paul traced back to the appearances of the resurrected Christ. If the emergence of Christianity can be understood “only if one examines it in the light of the eschatolog- ical hope for a resurrection from the dead, then that which is so desig- nated is a historical event, even if we do not know anything more particular about it.“19
Pannenberg agrees with Paul Althaus that the proclamation of the resurrection in Jerusalem so soon after Jesus’ death is very significant.
Within the earliest Christian community there must have been a reliable testimony to the empty tomb. Pannenberg also observes that in the Jewish polemic against the Christian message of Jesus’ resurrection there is no claim at all that Jesus’ grave was not empty20
In Pannenberg’s judgment, the evidence of
1 Corinthians 15 is reallymore significant than that of the Gospels. He concedes that some legend- ary elements may have filtered into the Gospel accounts. An example is Jesus’ eating fish after his resurrection. Yet, for the most part we have adequate evidence to establish the historicity of the resurrection, which is proof in itself of Jesus’ deity.21
Historical Departures from Belief in the Full Deity of Christ
As the church struggled to understand who and what Jesus is, and particularly how he is related to the Father, some heretical views arose.
16. Ibid., pp. 67-68.
17. Ibid., pp. 68-69.
18. Ibid., p. 69.
19. Ibid., p. 98.
20. Ibid., pp. 100-O I.
2 1. Ibid., p. 89.
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Ebionism
One group, known as the Ebionites, solved the tension by denying the real or ontological deity of Jesus. The name Ebionite, which is derived from a Hebrew word meaning “poor,” was originally applied to all Chris- tians. Later, it was more narrowly applied only to Jewish Christians, and then to a particular group or sect of heretical Jewish Christians.
The roots of Ebionism can be traced to Judaizing movements within the apostolic or New Testament period. Paul’s letter to the Galatians was written to counter the activity of one such group. Judaizers had come to the Galatian Christians and attempted to undermine Paul’s apostolic authority. They taught that inaddition to accepting by faith the grace of God in Jesus, it was necessary to observe all the regulations of Jewish law, for example, circumcision. The Ebionites were a continuation of or offshoot from the Judaizers. Being strongly monotheistic, they focused their attention upon the problematic deity of Christ. They rejected the virgin birth, maintaining that Jesus was born to Joseph and Mary in normal fashion.22
Jesus was, according to the Ebionites, an ordinary man possessed of unusual but not superhuman or supernatural gifts of righteousness and wisdom. He was the predestined Messiah, although in a rather natural or human sense. The baptism was the significant event in Jesus’ life, for it was then that the Christ descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove.
This was understood more as the presence of God’s power and influence within the man Jesus than as a personal, metaphysical reality. In this respect, the Ebionites anticipated dynamic monarchianism with its teach- ing that God was in Jesus influentially. Near the end of Jesus’ life, the Christ withdrew from him. Thus Jesus was primarily a man, albeit a man in whom, at least for a time, the power of God was present and active to an unusual degree. The Ebionites maintained their position partly through a denial or rejection of the authority of Paul’s lettersF3
The Ebionite view of Jesus had the virtue of resolving the tension between belief in the deity of Jesus and the monotheistic view of God.
This reduction of the tension came with a high price tag, however.
Ebionism had to ignore or deny a large body of scriptural material: all of the references to the preexistence, the virgin birth, and the qualitatively unique status and function of Jesus. In the view of the church, this was far too great a concession.
22. Justin Martyr Dialogue with Trypho 47.
23. Origen Against Celws 1.65. For a discussion of the varied types of Ebionite views, see J. F. Bethune-Baker, An Introduction to the Early H&tory of Christian Doctrine (Lon- don: Methuen, 1903), pp. 63-68.
Arianism
A much more thoroughly developed and subtle view sprang up in the fourth century around the teaching of an Alexandrian presbyter named Arius. It became the first major threat to the views implicitly held by the church regarding Jesus’ deity. Because Ar-ianism arose in a period of serious theological reflection and because it represented a much more thorough and systematic construction than Ebionism, this movement had a real chance of becoming the official view. Although it was con- demned by the church at the Council of Nicea in 325 and at subsequent councils, it lingers on to our day in various forms. One large and aggres- sive variety of Arianism in popular form is the movement known as Jehovah’s Witnesses.
A central conception in the Arian understanding of Jesus is the abso- lute uniqueness and transcendence of GodF4 God is the one source of all things, the only untreated existent in the whole universe. He alone possesses the attributes of deity. They cannot be predicated of any other being. Further, he cannot share his being or essence with anyone else. It simply cannot be communicated. Were he able to impart something of his essence to any other being, he would be divisible and subject to change; that is, he would not be God. If any other being participated in the divine nature, it would be necessary to speak of a duality or multiplic- ity of divine beings. But this would contradict the one absolute certainty of monotheism, the uniqueness and oneness of God. Nothing else that exists, then, can have originated as some sort of emanation from the essence or substance of God. Everything other than God has, rather, come into being through an act of creation by which he called it into existence out of nothing. Only God (by which Arius meant the Father) is untreated and eternal. All other existents are created beings.
The Father, however, while creating everything that is, did not directly create the earth. It could not bear his direct contact. Rather, the Father worked through the Word, the agent of his creation of and continuing work in the world. The Word is also a created being, although the first and highest of the beings. He is not an emanation from the Father, but a fiat creation out of nothing. The word
yrvv&o(“beget”), when used in reference to the Father’s relationship to the Word, is to be understood as a figure of speech for TO& (“make”). While the Word is a perfect
24. Athanasius On the CowciL~ of Ariminum and Seleucia 16.
6 9 6 The Person of Christ
creature, not really in the same class with the other creatures, he is not of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in
self-existent. heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
From this followed two other conceptions regarding the Word. First, the Word must have had a beginning. He must have been created at some finite point. The slogan of Arianism therefore became, “There was a time when he was not.” (Yet the Word may well have been created before the existence of time, since he was the means of the creation of time along with everything else created.) It seemed to the Arians that if the Word were coeternal with the Father, there would be two self-existent principles. This would be irreconcilable witb monotheism, which was the one absolute tenet of their theology.
Second, the Son has no communion witb,or even direct knowledge of the Father. Although he is God’s Word and Wisdom, he is not of the very essence of God; being a creature, he bears these titles only because he participates in the word and wisdom of the Father. Totally different in essence from the Father, the Son is liable to change and even sin. When pressed as to how they could then refer to the Word as God or the Son of God, the Arians indicated that these designations were merely a matter of courtesy.
The result of all this was that the Word was given the status of a demigod. He was seen as the highest of all the creatures, greatly tran- scending all others. Yet, in relation to the Father, he was merely a crea- ture. He was an intermediate being between God the Father and the rest of the creation, the agent by whom the Father had created them and continued to relate to them, but not God in the full sense. He might be called God as a courtesy, but he is at most a god, a created god, not the God, the eternal, untreated being. Somewhat less extreme were the semi- Arians, who stressed the similarity rather than the dissimilarity between the Word and the Father. They were willing to say that the Word is similar in nature (or essence) to the Father (d~o~o&rros), but not that he is of the same essence as the Father (b~ooi?alos).
The Arians did not formulate their view upon an a priori philosophical or theological principle. Rather, they based it upon a rather extensive collection of biblical references?
There are two major responses to Arian theology. One is to note that the types of evidence appealed to earlier in this chapter, in substantiating the deity of Christ, are either ignored or inadequately treated by the Arians. The other is to take a closer look at the passages that have been appealed to in support of the Arian view. In general, it must be said that the Arians have misconstrued various biblical statements referring to the Son’s subordination during his incarnation. Descriptions of his temporary functional subordination to the Father have been misinterpreted as state- ments about the essence of the Son.
1. Texts
which suggest that the Son is a creature. Among these are Proverbs 8:22 (in the Septuagint); Acts 2:36 (“God has made him both Lord and Christ”); Romans 8:29; Colossians 1:15 (“the hrst- born of all creation”); and Hebrews 3:2.
2. Texts in which the Father is represented as the only true God. Most
significant is Jesus’ prayer inJohn 17:3: “And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”
3. Texts which seem to imply that Christ is inferior to the Father. The most notable of these is John 1428, where Jesus says, “The Father is greater than I.” The fact that this verse and the one cited in the preceding point are from the Book of John, the most theological of the Gospels, and the Gospel containing the most frequently cited proof-texts for the deity of Christ, makes the argument the more impressive.
4. Texts which attribute to the Son such imperfections as weakness, ignorance, and suffering. One of the foremost is Mark 13:32: “But
25. Athanasius Four Discourses Against the Arians
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It wilI be seen upon closer examination that the passages which seem to speak of Jesus as made or created teach no such thing. For example, the references to Jesus as the “first-born” of creation are assumed by the Arians to have a temporal significance. In actuality, however, the expres- sion “first-born” does not primarily mean first’ in time, but first in rank or preeminent. This is indicated, for example, by the context of Colossians
1: 15,for the following verse notes that Jesus was the means of origination of all created beings. Paul certainly would have qualified this statement (e.g., by writing “all other things” instead of “all things” were created in him) if the Son was one of them. Further, Acts 2:36 does not say anything about creation of the Son. It says that God made him to be Lord and Christ, references to his office and function. This verse asserts that Jesus has fulfilled his messianic task, not that he was created by the Father’s conferring of a particular essence upon him.
John 17:3 must also be seen in context. We must evaluate it in the light
of the numerous other references in this Gospel to the deity of Christ. In
speaking of the Father as the only genuine (O~~@LY&) God, Jesus is
contrasting the Father, not with the Son, but with the other claimants to
deity, the false gods. Indeed Jesus links himself very closely with the
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Father here. Eternal life is not only knowing the Father, but also knowing
the one whom he has sent, Jesus Christ.
John 1428, the passage in which Jesus says that the Father is greater than he is, must be seen in the light of the Son’s functional subordination during the incarnation. In his earthly ministry Jesus was dependent upon the Father, particularly for the exercise of his divine attributes. But when he states that he and the Father are one (John 1030) and prays that his followers may be one as he and the Father are one (John 17:21), he is expressing a great closeness, if not an interchangeability, between the two. Further, the baptismal formula (Matt. 28:19) and the Pauline bene- diction of 2 Corinthians 13: 14 indicate a finking of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in equality; none of the members of the Trinity is superior or inferior to the others.
Finally, the passages referring to weakness, ignorance, and suffering must be seen as statements confirming the genuineness of the incarna- tion. Jesus was fully human. This does not mean that he ceased to be God, but that he took upon himself the limitations of humanity. During the earthly stay of his first coming he genuinely did not know the time of his second coming. This does not mean that he was not God, but that his deity was exercised and experienced only in concert with his human- ity. While the problem of the relationship of his two natures will be closely examined in chapter 34, it needs to be observed at this point that a temporary limitation, not a permanent finitude, was involved. For a short period of time Jesus did not have absolute knowledge and physical ability. Thus, while on earth it was possible for him to develop physically and grow intellectually.
The church, forced to evaluate the Arian view, came to its conclusion at the Council of Nicea in 325. On the basis of considerations such as those we have just cited, it concluded that Jesus is as much and as genuinely God as is the Father. He is not of a different substance or even of a similar substance; he is of the very same substance as the Father.
Having decided on this formulation, the council condemned Arianism, a condemnation repeated by later councils.
Functional Christology
Not all modifications of the doctrine of the full deity of Jesus are found in the first centuries of the history of the church. One of the interesting christological developments of the twentieth century has been the rise of
“functional Christology.” By this is meant an emphasis upon what Jesus did rather than upon what he is. Basically, functional Christology claims to work on the basis of purely New Testament grounds rather than the
The Deity of Christ 699
more metaphysical or speculative categories of a later period of reflec- tion, which are viewed as rooted in Greek thought.
One clear example of functional Christology is Oscar Cullmann’s
Christology of the New Testament.He points out that the christological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries were concerned with the person or nature of Christ.26 These concerns centered on two issues: first, the relationship between the nature of Jesus and that of God; second, the relationship between Jesus’ divine and human natures. These, however, are not the issues with which the New Testament is concerned. Cullmann feels it is necessary to discard these later issues from our examination of the New Testament; if we do not, we will have a false perspective on Christology from the very beginning of our examination. This is not to say, according to Cullmann, that the church did not need to deal with those issues at that later time, or that its treatment of them was improper.
But we must remember that the fourth- and fifth-century church was wrestling with problems resulting from “the Hellenizing of the Christian faith, the rise of Gnostic doctrines, and the views advocated by Arius, Nestorius, Eutyches and otbers.“27 These are problems which simply did not arise in New Testament times.
Cullmann presses us to ask, “What are the orientation and the interest of the New Testament with respect to Christ?” His own response is that the New Testament hardly ever speaks of the person of Christ without at the same time speaking of his work. “When it is asked in the New Testament, ‘Who is Christ?’ the question never means exclusively, or even primarily, ‘What is his nature?’ but first of all, ‘What is his function?“‘**
The church fathers approached the person and work of Christ some- what differently. They had to deal with questions raised by heretics. In
the process of combating these views, which related primarily to thenature of Christ or his person, they subordinated the discussion of Jesus’
work to that of his nature. Thus, the discussions of the church fathers, which took place in a Greek intellectual milieu, were given a quite different cast from the biblical setting. While granting the necessity of these efforts by the church fathers, Culhnann nonetheless warns us to be alert to the shift: “Even if this shifting of emphasis was necessary against certain heretical views, the discussion of ‘natures’ is none the less ultimately a Greek, not a Jewish or biblical problem.“*9
Cullmann’s approach is to use “salvation history”
(Heilsgeschichte) as26. Oscar Cullmann, The Christologv of the New Testament, rev. ed. (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1963), p. 3.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., pp. 3-4.
29. Ibid., p. 4.
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an organizing principle for his examination of the various New Testament
titles for Jesus. Cullmann’s Christology, then, is centered on what Jesus has done in history: “It is characteristic of New Testament Christology that Christ is connected with the total history of revelation and salvation, beginning with creation. There can be no
Heilsgeschichtewithout Chris- tology; no Christology without a
Heilsgeschichtewhich unfolds in time.
Christology is the doctrine of an ‘event,’ not the doctrine of natures.“30 There are two ways in which advocates of a functional Christology interpret its role:
1.
A functional Christology of the New Testament, as opposed to an
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