The meaning of Jesus in the early church is nothing less than the whole meaning of the whole New Testament. The burden of Jesus’ preaching seems to have been the proclamation of the kingdom of God.
Jesus Lord and Christ by John Knox (current)
The Man Christ Jesus
Never Spake Man As This Man
The most important, because the most inclusive, of Jesus’ characteristic ideas is undoubtedly his conception of the kingdom of God. I have referred to the prominence of the kingdom of God in the teaching of Jesus.
Greater Love Hath No Man Than This
No one else holds or has held the place in the heart of the world which Jesus holds. At the very outset I should call attention to the significance, with reference to the personal character of Jesus, of the teachings of his which we have already briefly considered.
This Man Hath Borne Our Griefs
This would have been through his vivid, imaginative appropriation of the memories of Jesus’ companions. It is with this meaning of Jesus’ humanity in the thought of the man who after Jesus dominates the New Testament that we are now concerned.
Surely This Man Was the Son of God
The center of this event was the character and career of the man Christ Jesus. For the light of the knowledge of the glory of God was in his face.
Christ is Lord
He Was Remembered - Chapter 1
Now when we speak of the meaning of Jesus in the early church, we have both of these senses in mind. To the reality and importance of this shared remembrance the very existence of the Gospels bears witness.
He Was Remembered - Chapter 2
In the Synoptic Gospels Jesus is said to have spoken of the Son of Man no fewer than 69 times [38 times when parallel passages are disregarded], but the evangelists themselves make no use of the term. For as the lightning cometh forth from the east and shineth even unto the west, so shall be the coming of the son of man. The eschatological significance of the phrase "son of man" in such passages cannot be denied, but many deny the authenticity of the.
Indeed, his having so spoken of the Son of Man and of himself would virtually assure that the early church would think of him in that way. According to Otto, Jesus thought of the heavenly Son of Man as thus corresponding to, in a real sense identical with, himself. He was in a mysterious way aware of a future identity between his own person and that of the Son of Man.
He Was Remembered - Chapter 3
One difficulty grows out of the presence of something in Jesus’ teaching, namely, a certain strenuous and. Here, I suggest, appears the value of the distinction we have made between the positive and negative elements in the problem of. His expectation of this act of God may well account for his not dealing with this part of the ethical problem.).
Jesus is concerned with the absolute, pure will of God without compromise in view of the conditions of. The word "repent" is of the greatest importance in this passage and throughout Jesus’ remembered teaching, for it is the answer to the. For what else is the meaning of Jesus’ constant use of the analogy of the family to set forth the realities of God’s.
He was Known Still: Chapter 4
The earliest surviving defense" of the fact of the resurrection is that of Paul in I. But they had spoken only of appearances, it was recalled, not of the empty tomb. The Bible is not itself the revelation of God; it is the record or report of the revelation.
Morrison’s discussion of the concreteness of revelation and of its inseparable connection with the community. Because of the events summed up and designated in the term "Christ" (that is, Jesus remembered and still known), the whole situation of man in his relation with God (and therefore with himself and his fellows) had been profoundly changed. No reader of the New Testament can miss the fact that such in very truth he was.
He Was Interpreted - Chapter 5
34;Jesus is Lord" was not the conclusion of a syllogism; it was a fact given in the life of the. And indeed, so far as belief in the radical significance of the resurrection is concerned, there is more than enough to support this assumption. It appears then that for Paul at least belief in the preexistence of Christ was not the result of a progressive exaltation of the earthly life.
But the epistle is quite unlike the Fourth Gospel in the emphasis it places upon the reality of the humanity. As to the manner in which the nature and status of the risen Jesus were conceived in the early church, both by Paul and by others, we can feel greater assurance. The Christology of the early church is most important because it leads us to the Christ of the early church.
He Was Interpreted - Chapter 6
The breath of the divine was in him and the law of God was written in his heart. This is the understanding of human nature which is presupposed in all the profounder parts of the New Testament. Of the many terms used for sin in the Old Testament some suggest a failure to.
He satisfied the requirements of the law for us; he paid a penalty we could not pay. The Spirit is spoken of as the "earnest" (vastly more than a promise) of the salvation, which in its fullness is still in the future. In the same way the church might have been spoken of as the "earnest of the kingdom.
On the Meaning of Christ
The Fact of Revelation
Now as we think of the knowledge of God that has been vouchsafed to us, can we deny that it has its origin in some way in Christ. I can understand when you speak of the Father and when you speak of the Holy Spirit. Suddenly there broke in upon me with overwhelming power a realization of the awful beauty and the sheer immediacy of God.
Is it possible to deny that a new kind of human community came into being in the middle years of the first century. The principal reason for seeking the union of the churches is in order that this existing unity of the. Belief in the revelation of God in Christ is a necessary implication of the Christian life itself.
The person is the center of the event and also of the community -- the event occurs around him and the community is formed around him. But the community is both the locus of the event and the place where alone the person is remembered and still known. To be sure, it was only in the community that the meaning of the event was realized and thus it was.
Back of the church, even though also present in and with it, stand the person and the event. But just because event is thus inclusive, it is only through the event that one can gain any true impression of the person. The greatness of any individual is the greatness of the event of which his life is the center.
The Event and Its Parts
A member of the Christian community will, simply in virtue of that fact, see it as. Likewise the resurrection and the coming of the Spirit and perhaps also the creation of the community might be conceived of as a single element. It is one pole in the most decisive phase in the development of the event, the other pole being, of course, the resurrection.
The one known as the divine center of the church’s life is the very one who is also remembered. In the same way the creation of the church is an element in the event, for the church is in a true sense its human side. The church, as we have been using the term, is nothing less than one side of the event itself.
The Event and the Person
It was happening around them, and at least one phase of the event was still to occur. The figure of the Messiah is absent altogether from the Books of the Maccabees, Judith, Tobit, I Baruch,. Hence it follows that in Jewish prophecy and apocalyptic the Messiah was no organic factor of the kingdom.
But even he is important because of the role he is to play in the final event. What is the meaning of the event which we have witnessed and of which we have been made a part?". The Prophet, according to the Christians, was not the Messiah, but the herald of the Messiah.
Event and the Gospels
Christians to involve a disparagement of the value of the Gospels and hence to raise an acute religious question. To be sure," they go on to say, "we are interested in the life and thought of the early church, but this is not the matter of most vital concern to us. The first of these is the fact that the response of his disciples to Jesus and to all that happened in connection with him is as truly a part of the event as any other element in it.
The second fact about the event which I have referred to as particularly relevant to our discussion of the value of the Gospels is closely related to the first. This is the fact that the resurrection is as truly a part of the event as the career and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It had been "transfigured." The suggestion is often made that the transfiguration scene in the Synoptic Gospels represents a resurrection appearance of Jesus brought back into the story of the earthly life.
The Event and the Miracles
Indeed, the resurrection is most significant not because it is a miracle in and of itself, but because it is a mighty sign and symbol of the. The doubt that the miracles occurred need not rest upon any a priori denial of the possibility of miracles. Paul’s conception of the significance of the earthly life would have been vitiated by such a doctrine.
The miraculous is, by and large, an aspect of Jesus’ career as seen in retrospect and in the light of the resurrection. The miracles mark the reading back into earlier stages of the event of what is, after the resurrection, recognized to be the meaning of the whole. And yet what Christian would want the story of the birth of Christ told otherwise.
