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The Sonship of the Historical Jesus in Christology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Richard Bauckham
Richard Bauckham
Affiliation:
Department of Historical and Contemporary Theology, University of Manchester
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Extract

The church's Christological confession of the uniqueness of J. Christ's relation to God has always been understood to include the historical Jesus. In theory, at least, this is a point at which faith must be vulnerable to historical investigation. To what extent can Jesus' unique relation to God be affirmed on historical grounds? While the church is not limited to believing about Jesus only what he explicitly believed about himself, a certain correspondence is necessary for the credibility of Christology. If there were no evidence that Jesus understood his relation to God to be in any way distinctive it would be difficult to maintain that he was in fact uniquely related to God. Both doctrine and history suggest that the most profitable line of enquiry into this question will concern Jesus' consciousness of sonship. It is a line of enquiry which may in its turn elucidate some of the problems of Christology.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , June 1978 , pp. 245 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1978

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References

page 245 note 1 Jeremias, J., The Prayers of Jesus (London: SCM Press, 1967)Google Scholar; summarised in New Testament Theology I (London: SCM Press, 1971), pp. 61–68.

page 246 note 1 Jesus the Jew (London: Collins, 1973), chap. 8.Google Scholar

page 246 note 2 esus and the Spirit (London: SCM Press, 1975), chap. 2.Google Scholar

page 246 note 3 Prayers, p. 57.

page 246 note 4 New Testament Theology I, p. 65. Vermes, op. cit., p. 211, does not overthrow this conclusion; he cites the only instance in Tannaitic literature of Abba used of God (see below), but for his deduction from it, cf. Jeremias, Prayers, pp. 61f. Ecclus. 23.1, 4; 51.10, cited by Dunn, op. cit., p. 23, are not instances of Abba.

page 246 note 5 Prayers, p. 29.

page 246 note 6 Ibid., pp. 28f. Dunn, op. cit., p. 23, offers no reasons for not accepting it. Jeremias, of course, accepts that ‘God was addressed as pater in Diaspora Judaism, which followed the example of the Greek world here’. He disallows Ecclus. 51.10 (Heb.) because the terminology there derives from Ps. 89.26: Prayers, p. 23 n. 51.

page 246 note 7 Op. cit., pp. 24–27.

page 246 note 8 Ibid., pp. 16–18.

page 246 note 9 Ibid., p. 22.

page 247 note 1 Ibid., pp. 61f.

page 247 note 2 Vermes, op. cit., p. 210.

page 248 note 1 Jeremias, op. cit., pp. 89–91, 97; Hahn, F., The Titles of Jesus in Christology (London: Lutterworth, 1969), p. 307Google Scholar; Brown, R. E., New Testament Essays (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1965) p. 225.Google Scholar

page 249 note 1 Jeremias, op. cit., p. 53, n. 104, p. 62; Lohmeyer, E., The Lord's Prayer (London: Collins, 1965), p. 51.Google Scholar

page 249 note 2 Conzelmann, H., An Outline of the Theology of the New Testament (London: SCM Press, 1969), pp. 103–105Google Scholar; but cf. the comments of Dunn, op. cit., p. 25; Marshall, I. H., The Origins of New Testament Christology (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press), p. 59.Google Scholar

page 249 note 3 Similarly, Dunn, op. cit., pp. 24–26, 38. On p. 36 he argues that Lk. 22.29f. is an authentic saying expressing this distinction.

page 249 note 4 Jeremias, New Testament Theology I, p. 181; cf. Brown, op. cit., pp. 226f.; Lohmeyer, op. cit., pp. 42ff. (though Lohmeyer's use of the sources is insufficiently critical).

page 249 note 5 Here, of course, the argument is reinforced by other evidence that Jesus understood his mission in this way; cf., e.g., R. Fuller, H., The Foundations of New Testament Christology (London: Collins, 1969) chap. 5, with the conclusion (p. 130)Google Scholar: ‘As eschatological prophet he was not merely announcing the future coming of salvation and judgment, but actually initiating it in his words and works.’

page 250 note 1 Manson, T. W., The Teaching of Jesus (Cambridge: CUP, 1943), p. 98Google Scholar; Jeremias, Prayers, p. 53.

page 251 note 1 op. cit., pp. 27–34; cf. also Green, H. B., The Gospel according to Matthew (Oxford: OUP, 1975), pp. 120f.Google Scholar

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page 251 note 3 Op. cit., p. 32.

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page 252 note 2 Jeremias, Prayers, p. 30.

page 252 note 3 A fuller version of the argument of this article would have to consider the question of Jesus’ attitude to the Messianic title (if it was a title) ‘Son of God’, and to investigate the extent to which the early church's use of the title reflects Jesus' consciousness of sonship. On the latest Qumran evidence for the Messianic title, see Fitzmyer, J. in NTS 20 (1973), pp. 391–394Google Scholar. On the various contributory influences on the apostolic church's use of ‘Son of God’, see Hengel, M., The Son of God (London: SCM Press, 1976), pp. 63–66Google Scholar. On pp. 23–41 Hengel has convincingly shown that significant influence from pagan Hellenism can now be ruled out.

page 253 note 1 Dunn, op. cit., p. 26.

page 253 note 2 ibid., pp. 89f.

page 254 note 1 Dodd, C. H., Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: CUP, 1963), Part IICrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dodd, , ‘A Hidden Parable in the Fourth Gospel’, in More New Testament Studies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1968), pp. 30–40Google Scholar; Robinson, J. A. T., ‘The Parable of the Shepherd (John 10:1–5)’, in Twelve New Testament Studies (London: SCM Press, 1962) pp. 67–75Google Scholar; Higgins, A. J. B., The Historicity of the Fourth Gospel (London: Lutterworth, 1960), pp. 67–74Google Scholar; Lindars, B., ‘Two Parables in John’, NTS 16 (1969–1970), pp. 318–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 254 note 2 Cullmann, O., The Johannine Circle (London: SCM Press, 1976), p. 82 and chap.Google Scholar

page 255 note 1 Dodd, ‘A Hidden Parable’.

page 255 note 2 Dodd, , Historical Tradition, pp. 379–82.Google Scholar

page 255 note 3 Of course the Synoptic Jesus also refers to God as ‘he who sent me’: Mt. 10.40; Mk. 9.37; Lk. 9.48; 10.16; cf. Lk. 4.43.

page 256 note 1 cf. Robinson, J. A. T., ‘The use of the Fourth Gospel for Christology today’, Lindars, B. and Smalley, S. S. ed., Christ and Spirit in the New Testament (Moule Festschrift) (Cambridge: CUP, 1973) pp. 69–73.Google Scholar

page 256 note 2 ‘Synoptic Parousia Parables and the Apocalypse’, NTS 23 (1976–1977), pp. 167–169.Google Scholar

page 256 note 3 cf. Brown, R. E., The Gospel according to John (New York: Doubleday, 1966), p. 221Google Scholar, for a suggestion that v. 30 is the original application, to which independent sayings (20b–29) were later attached.

page 257 note 1 ‘The New Testament and the Doctrine of the Trinity’, Expository Times 78 (1976), p. 17.Google Scholar

page 259 note 1 Jesus the Christ (London: Burns and Oates, 1976), pp. 110f.Google Scholar

page 259 note 2 Those who think Jesus' use of ‘Son of man’ has corporate overtones can find this Christological theme explicitly anticipated in Jesus' own self-understanding. Moule, C. F. D., The Origin of Christology (Cambridge; CUP, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues that Paul's understanding of Christ as a corporate, inclusive person is equivalent to understanding Christ as divine.

page 260 note 1 e.g. Baillie, D. M., God was in Christ (London: Faber, 1948), chap. VGoogle Scholar; Hanson, A. T., Grace and Truth (London: SPCK, 1975). chap. II and p. 109.Google Scholar

page 260 note 2 This is not a complete essay in Christology and I have assumed the essential validity of the patristic development of a two-nature Christology. On the other hand, the Chalcedonian statement is not itself the starting-point for further reflection; it needs to be continually filled out afresh from a starting-point in the history of Jesus and the apostolic witness.