What Do You Say That I Did?

In Dr. McGrath's Sunday school class this past Sunday, we moved on from discussing who Jesus was to discussing what he did, and how it relates to the Christian experience usually placed under the heading of "salvation".

We began with the story of a child who, in church on Good Friday, asked her parents why anyone would crucify a 3-month-old baby. Apparently the church's year, celebrating Easter a few months after Christmas, was being taken somewhat too literally. The reason for telling this story is that, for some Christians, if Jesus had died at 3 months old it would apparently not have much of an impact on their understanding of what Jesus had come to accomplish. He had come to die, and between birth and death Jesus was simply "killing time" waiting to die. Any view of the cross that ignores the life that preceded it is going to be problematic.

It is not surprising that some Christians view Jesus in this way. On the one hand, since Paul had not followed Jesus in the pre-Easter period (although he may have become aware of the movement centered on him as soon as it reached Jerusalem, whether before or after Easter), and because he was writing to individuals who could be presumed to have had Christian tradition passed on to them, Paul never fills his letters with stories about Jesus' life. The cross was also the part of the story of Jesus that was potentially the most troubling, and thus the early Christians had had to make it central, and come up with an explanation that would regard the cross as a necessary and intelligible part of God's plan, and so they had found a way of interpreting it as salvific.

Another key focus in the Sunday school class was on what theologians call the "penal substitution" view of atonement. It is problematic for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it is based on a view of justice that no one would otherwise accept. If the U.S., failing to apprehend Osama bin Laden, claimed that it had nonetheless accomplished its mission because they executed some other innocent individual in his place, I doubt if anyone would be happy with this as a resolution of the matter.

It is also a view of the cross that is not found in the Bible. Sure, it can be read into it, but it cannot be found there unless one is already looking for it. For Paul, the key meaning of Jesus' death is summed up well in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15: "one died for all, and therefore all died". That's almost the exact opposite of the popular Evangelical message, "one died instead of all, so that they might not have to die". Even if we conclude that Paul's language of "dying with Christ" is just another way of talking metaphorically about denying ourselves and self-sacrifice, it nevertheless makes clear that the Christian view of "salvation" expressed here is not about Jesus doing something instead of us, but of something that involves us and happens to us and in us. Ironically, while some feel they are glorifying God by making atonement something that involves no action or effort on our part, they've also radically departed from a central component of early Christian belief.

There has never been a single creed defining for all Christians what the cross means. Many have agreed that no one image or metaphor will do justice to its significance. But it certainly is important to ensure that the element of challenge and its transformational effect on our lives is not relegated to the margins or neglected altogether.

Next week we'll begin a new topic, spending some time in the creation stories in Genesis 1-3 and discussing matters of creation, cosmology, evolution and science.

Different Views of Jesus

Today in Dr. McGrath's Sunday School class, we moved beyond our discussion of the varied portraits of Jesus found in the Gospels to begin to answer the question posed in Mark's Gospel, "Who do you say that I am?" Dr. McGrath's own personal answer was to focus on Jesus as crucified Messiah. Historians may debate (as illustrated by the book by Tom Wright and Marcus Borg mentioned in class, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions) how Jesus viewed himself and how various Christian understandings of Jesus developed. But one thing seems clear. Christianity continued, while other messianic movements disappeared after the individual who was their focus was killed, because instead of concluding that Jesus was not the Messiah because he had been crucified, instead they reinterpreted what was meant by Messiah, leaving us with the challenge of following a path that does not lead to our own personal gain. It is the power of that message that has changed countless lives, and it does not ultimately depend on historical reconstruction in detail of all that Jesus said and did.

Other subjects came up which will be the focus of our discussion next time. It is common in a Christian context to speak about Jesus as "God". But what does that mean? When Jesus behaves humanly, is that "just his humanity at work" at that moment? Did God accept human limitations in the incarnation (the term for that being kenotic Christology)? Was Jesus striding the earth getting the answer to every question right?

That last question led to an interesting side debate about whether Superman could get a haircut.

Who Do You Say That Jesus Is?

Today in Dr. McGrath's Sunday school class we began our series on the person of Jesus. We began by briefly discussing what historical study can and cannot do, and our tendency to project our interests and values onto Jesus.

Rather than follow that with a survey of the New Testament writings relevant to the subject, or the creeds, we began by simply bringing up questions that we hope to look at and to which we are seeking answers. Some of the topics that came up include how Jesus understood himself, whether Jesus shared concepts from his time (such as demons), what Jesus was like growing up and formative influences on his life, Jesus' sense of humor (including the question of whether he ever nailed Peter's sandal to the floor).

In talking about the childhood of Jesus, I mentioned the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. I think everyone interested in this topic ought to read it, not because it will give the "inside scoop" about Jesus' childhood, but because as we react (most likely with horror) to the story it tells, it prods us to ask ourselves, "If this isn't how we imagine Jesus' childhood, then how would we imagine it?"

Next week there will be a business meeting during the Sunday school hour, and so we'll resume our study the week after that with an overview of Mark's Gospel.

New Sunday School Topic: The Person of Jesus

After considering a number of other possible topics, we've decided to make the next topic for Dr. McGrath's Sunday School class "Who Is Jesus?" It seems a particularly appropriate topic for the season leading up to Christmas.

This topic will begin on November 30th. We'll begin with the information in the New Testament, but it will be useful to read the Nicene and Chalcedonian creeds in order to have a sense of how historic Christian orthodoxy was defined.


The Nicene Creed

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through Him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
He came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
He became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
He suffered death and was buried.
On the third day He rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and His kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father.*
With the Father and the Son He is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. AMEN.


The Chalcedonian Definition

So, following the saintly fathers, we all with one voice teach the confession of one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father as regards his divinity, and the same consubstantial with us as regards his humanity; like us in all respects except for sin; begotten before the ages from the Father as regards his divinity, and in the last days the same for us and for our salvation from Mary, the virgin God-bearer as regards his humanity; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no division, no separation; at no point was the difference between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single person and a single subsistent being; he is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the same only-begotten Son, God, Word, Lord Jesus Christ, just as the prophets taught from the beginning about him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ himself instructed us, and as the creed of the fathers handed it down to us.

Divergent Birth?

Apologies for the pun in the title, but it seemed the best way to sum up the theme of today's installment in Dr. McGrath's Sunday school class. After a brief introduction of how historical study works, we compared the geographical movements and time frames in the infancy narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

In Matthew, unless one knew otherwise before reading the text, one would assume that the hometown of Jesus' family was Bethlehem, the first geographical setting mentioned. It is hinted that Jesus may be up to 2 years old, since Herod, after inquiring when the star appeared, gave orders for all males two years old and under to be killed. At the very least, Jesus does not seem to have been a newborn. The family is found in a house.

They flee to Egypt, and particularly striking is what happens after that. After Herod's death, they want to return to Judea, and only head for Nazareth in Galilee because they are afraid of Archelaus, Herod's son who ruled over Judea after his death. Going home for Joseph in this Gospel thus meant returning to Bethlehem.

In Luke, the impression given is very different. The family lives in Nazareth, and only go up to Bethlehem for the census. If we ask how long they stayed there, we have a firm basis to draw a conclusion about that. They go up to Jerusalem to take care of Mary's purification, as specified in Leviticus 12. They were thus in Bethlehem for little more than a month after Jesus was born. We're told that once they completed everything required by the Law, after making a very public appearance in the capital of Judea (which it would be hard to imagine them doing in Matthew's Gospel) they return to Nazareth.

The impression given and the historical details seem irreconcilable to someone approaching the text asking historical questions (even without bringing in outside considerations about the census under Quirinius). But while this may raise problems for those arguing to inerrancy as popularly understood, such situations can be good news for historians, since they suggest that the two authors did not collude with one another. It certainly makes clear that the later church did not conspire to assemble a canon that spoke with a single unified voice, reflecting the aims of Constantine or some other authority.

A discussion ensued of how one might make sense of these aspects of the Biblical writings. Next week we'll look at some of the theological content of the stories, including themes and motifs such as the genealogies and the fulfillment of Scripture in Matthew.

Sunday School August 31st 2008

Today in Dr. McGrath's class we continued considering the topic of what the Bible is. The discussion ranged from the topic of whether God still speaks today, and if so what the implications might be for our understanding of the canon, to the importance of historical events for the Christian faith.

Next time, we'll be looking at Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2, which provide an excellent example both of historical difficulties and of the relevance of cultural background to making sense of the Bible. Some of Dr. McGrath's class notes from a course on the historical figure of Jesus that he teaches at Butler University can be found online, and the ones about the infancy narratives are relevant to next Sunday's topic.

If we move at our usual slow pace, we'll still be talking about them at Christmas time, making the topic seasonal as well!