Leath, J. O.

English

OpenSIUC

JESUS' CONCEPTION OF HIMSELF AND OF HISMISSION ON EARTH.BY J. O. LEATH.FOR a while, historical criticism was centered around the Hfe andliterature of the Old Testament. Many were alarmed, lest thisprecious treasure would be lost to us ; but the process of turningon the light of history has resulted in giving us a body of sacredliterature that is more edifying for religious purposes as well asmore usable. The truth will never hurt in the end.Just now the center of historical investigation is the life andliterature of the New Testament. This means that every possiblelight of history is being turned on the life and work of Jesus withthe desire of arriving at a historical estimate of Jesus' own personalConsciousness. We must not overlook the fact that we have notJesus' own autobiography, neither have we records of his deedsand words taken down by shorthand in his presence while hewas acting and speaking. But what we do have is biographies ofJesus written from one to three generations after his death. More-over, according to Luke's own testimony, and from an examinationof his gospel, we learn that in the composition of his gospel heused written sources ; and, after examining Matthew's gospel, wefind that he did likewise. What we have in our gospels is differentinterpretations of Jesus arising from different religious and socialsituations.I believe that each of Jesus' early interpreters grasped somethingof the significance of his hfe and work; at the same time we mustconcede the possibility that each one misunderstood him in one wayor another. Each interpreted him in the light of his own religiousneeds and the religious needs of the time and situation in whichhe wrote. Hence we should not be surprised, if we find the earlysources differing somewhat among themselves. In the light of mod-G50 THE OPEN COURT.crn scholarship we are surely able to understand Jesus better thanwere his interpreters of any age in the past, by no means exceptingthe first century. The fact is that, according to the representationof our gospels, Jesus was misunderstood by those of his own gen-eration, by not only the people at large, but also those disciples whowere most closely associated with him ; hence we should not besurprised, if he was in a way misunderstood toward the end of thefirst century, when our gospels were written ; in the fourth cen-tury, when our creed was formed ; and in the subsequent ages priorto the days of historical criticism. The fact is that from the firstto the nineteenth century men thought little of the life of theearthly Jesus, but centered their thought on the Christ of glory.Our creed, which took shape under the philosophical speculationof the fourth century and purports to be an adequate statement ofChristianity, mentions only two events in the earthly life of Jesus,—that he was born of the Virgin Mary and suffered under PontiusPilate. It says nothing of the great meaning of his words anddeeds,—freedom, truth, righteousness, brotherhood, love. It wouldbe a too hasty conclusion to say that the historical method has al-ready solved the problems as to what was Jesus' estimate of him-self and of his mission on earth, yet we feel justified in expectingvaluable results from the historical process.When Jesus was on earth, his personal followers seem to haveregarded him as the Messiah in the nationalistic sense, as the onewho was eventually to gather a political following and free theJewish nation from the Roman domination. When he submittedto an ignominious death, his followers thought that God had for-saken him, hence all their hopes for him as Messiah disappeared.They at once sought safety in retreat, or in repudiating him. Assoon as they attained their faith in his resurrection and exaltationto heaven, then they began the process of reconstructing their faithin him as Messiah, and this new faith took the form of belief inhim as the Messiah in the apocalyptic sense, that is, as the Messiah,who would come on the clouds of heaven miraculously ushering inhis kingdom. They at once conceived it to be their duty to makethe people ready for the coming of the Messiah, which they ex-pected to be within their generation. Then they began the processof reconstructing their remembrance of his words and deeds in thelight of their new faith, and the tendency must have been to mag-nify those elements in his life that had an apocalyptic significance.Some circles of early Christians seem to have made less of theJESUS' CONCEPTION OF HIMSELF. G51apocalyptic element than others did. This is true of the Logiasource as opposed to Mark. Well, the fact is that Jesus did notduring the first generation return on the clouds of heaven as theapocalyptic Messiah, nor has he returned yet. So by the end ofthe first century or the beginning of the second, under the in-fluence of Greek philiosophy rather than Jewish Messianism, Jesuswas being interpreted not as the Messiah in the apocalyptic sensewho would return on the clouds of heaven to set up his kingdomon earth, but as the eternal Logos of God who would return toearth in a spiritual sense ; or, if he would return in person at all,it would not be on the clouds of heaven to set up his kingdom onthe earth, but rather to take his beloved followers with him to hisFather's house. This is the point of view in the fourth gospel.And this is the point of view that has had the greatest influencein the later history of the Church down to the present century.What is an adequate statement, based on an historical in-terpretation of sources, of Jesus' estimate of himself and of hiswork? Did Jesus regard himself as a prophet or as the ^Messiah :if the Messiah, the Messiah after what conception? Some haveheld the view that at the beginning of his ministry Jesus hoped tobecome the Messiah in the nationaHstic sense. He began his careeras a teacher, hoping to win the Jewish nation to his point of viewand eventually to lead the people in throwing off the Roman yoke.But when the nation failed to rally to him, and when the shadowsof death began to cross his pathway, he lost hope of becomingthe Messiah in the nationalistic sense and began to claim that,after his death and resurrection and exaltation to heaven, he wouldreturn to earth on the clouds of heaven as the Messiah in theapocalyptic sense. Others have held the view that he began hiscareer as a teacher of righteousness after the order of the OldTestament prophets, not regarding himself as the Messiah in anysense whatever. He hoped to bring about the regeneration of theJewish nation ; but failing to win the people and believing that hisword would triumph in the end, he then for the first time in hiscareer began to think of himself as the Messiah, and that in theapocalyptic sense, who after his death and exaltation to heavenwould return to earth on the clouds to judge the world and set uphis kingdom. Still others hold to Mark's representation of Jesus'consciousness : From the beginning of his career, Jesus was con-scious of being the Messiah in the apocalyptic sense. During theearly days of his ministry, he purposely concealed this conscious-663 THE OPEN COURT.ness presumably for fear that the people would misunderstand him.Toward the end of his life, he unqualifiedly asserted that he was theMessiah in the apocalyptic sense, and, after his exaltation to heaven,would within that generation return to earth on the clouds withgreat power and glory. Still others accept as historical the pictureof Jesus as given in the fourth gospel : From the beginning of hiscareer, he knew that he was the Messiah, neither in the apocalypticnor in the nationalistic sense, but in an ethico-religious and meta-physical sense, as the eternal Logos of God and the divine mediatorof light and life to the world. Others, finally, think that theyfind in Jesus no consciousness of being the Messiah in any sensewhatever; but that, from the beginning to the end of his career, hispurpose was merely to preach inner righteousness and sonship toGod somewhat after the order of the Old Testament prophets;and that whatever Messianic language is attributed to him originatednot with Jesus but with his interpreters.I hardly feel that in the light of all our sources either of theabove interpretations is an adequate historical statement of Jesus'estimate of himself. From the time of his baptism, if not earlier,he had the consciousness of being the Son of God in a unique senseof the tenn. The expression, Son of God, carries both an ethicaland a functional connotation. He regarded himself Son of Godin an ethical sense in that he believed himself loved by the Father.Yes, he regarded himself as the only begotten Son of God in thathe was pre-eminently beloved in the sight of the Father. He re-garded himself Son of God in a functional sense in that he be-lieved there was committed to him by the Father a special office andresponsibility. From the beginning of his career, he felt restingon him the responsibility of self-denial and the leading of othersinto the relation of sonship to the Father that he himself sustained.The fact that, from the beginning, altruism played so large a partin his life and message suggests that he felt a peculiar respon-sibility for the salvation of men from sin. So from the beginningto the end of his ministry, his purpose was to be the Savior of menfrom a life of sin to a life of heart righteousness and sonship to theFather. His program was to induce men to repent of sin andfollow him, to live the kind of a life that he lived, to be dominatedby the same principles that dominated him, to sustain the sameattitude of a son toward God and of a brother toward man thathe himself sustained. He was absolutely sure that he himselfpossessed the secret of correct living and was able to impart theJESUS' CONCEPTION OF HIMSELF. 653secret to others. He believed that correct living meant life,abundant life, eternal life. From beginning to end, his message waspre-eminently ethico-religious, and so sure was his conviction on thesubject of correct relations toward God and man that he regardedhimself as the Lord, that is, the ruler of man's life and conduct.In the light of the ethico-religious message of Jesus, I thinkwe can best approach the subject of his Messianic consciousness.I fail to find the evidence that Jesus at any time of his career enter-tained the ambition of becoming the Messiah in the political sense.His message was ethico-religious rather than political. He ap-proached man as the Savior from sin rather than as a political re-former. Again, I find no convincing evidence of a change of pur-pose in Jesus' program, due to disappointment or else. Further-more, I think that we must accept as historical the view that fromthe beginning to the end of his ministry Jesus did regard himself asthe Messiah. It occurs to me that it would be decidedly an un-historical procedure to deny to Jesus a Messianic consciousness ofsome kind since each of our early sources attributes such a con-sciousness to him. Moreover, it is probably true that the attitude ofJesus toward the Messiaship as set forth in Mark, and taken overby Matthew and Luke, is more nearly historical than the attitude asset forth in the fourth gospel. In the synoptics, Jesus is repre-sented as constantly putting forth the effort to conceal his Messia-ship and restrain any public declaration of it. Not until hisarraignment before the high priest does he publicly confess it. Inthe fourth gospel, however, Jesus is represented as constantly en-gaged in efforts by word and deed to prove his Messiaship andinduce people to accept it. The fourth gospel seems to be an in-terpretation of Jesus made by some of the devout disciples of theapostle John who at the same time were thoroughly saturated withthe Stoic system of philosophy. That they based their interpretationon some memoirs of the apostle John is suggested in one instanceby Jno. xxi. 2L "This is the disciple which testifieth of these things,and wrote these things ; and we know that his testimony is true."The italics are mine. On the other hand, while we must admitthat there is room for the element of interpretation in Mark's por-trayal of Jesus' Messianic consciousness, an interpretation influencedby the Jewish apocalyptic thought, at the same time Mark's repre-sentation of Jesus' determined and constant effort to restrain anycomment on his Messiaship is more in keeping with the point of654 THE OPEN COURT.view, which 1 insist is historically founded, that Jesus' message waspre-eminently ethico-religious rather than Messianic or apocalyptic.Most of the efforts within recent years to write the life ofJesus historically have taken either Mark's point of view with re-gard to Jesus ' Messianic consciousness, insisting that Jesus was aliteralist on the question of the Messiaship, or the point of view,more nearly approached in the Logia of all our primitive sources,that Jesus did not regard himself as the Messiah in any sense ofthe term, but merely as a teacher of righteousness. I insist thatfrom the beginning to the end of his ministry, Jesus did regardhimself as the Messiah in that he regarded himself as the fulfillerof the essence of the Messianic hope. Why should one interpretJesus as a literalist on the subject of the Messiaship, while at thesame time all concede that he was in no sense a literalist on thesubject of observing the law of Moses and other religious institu-tions of Irael ? The criterion of authority in conduct for him wasnot what the law of Moses or the tradition of the Scribes said, butrather what the welfare of humanity demanded. Relentlessly heapplied this straight edge of authority to traditions and institutionshoary with age. He held no brief for any religious institution assuch, but only as it ministered to the good of man. This point ofview led him to repudiate entirely the Mosaic distinction betweenclean and unclean. It led him to lift prayer, fasting, alms-giving,and the observance of the Sabbath clear of a legalistic basis andgive them a spiritual setting. So it occurs to me that it is decidedlyunfair to Jesus to insist that he was a literalist on the subject of theMessiaship while we grant that he was not a literalist in other re-spects. If he possessed spiritual force and originality in the caseof the law and other religious institutions, surely he did in respect tothe Messiaship. Matthew is written from the point of view toprove that Jesus was the Messiah for one reason because his lifein several particulars corresponds to statements made in the OldTestament, but nowhere do our earliest sources represent Jesushimself as substantiating his claims to the Messiaship on the groundthat he literally fulfilled the Jewish Messianic expectations.It seems that Jesus did regard himself as the Messiah in thesense that he brought real salvation to men. Back of all theimagery connected with the Messianic hope, whether of the Messiahin the nationalistic sense or in the apocalyptic sense, was the hopethat God would through a new order of things usher in good toman. Unquestionably, Jesus regarded himself as God's agent inJESUS CONCEPTION OF HIMSELF. 655making this good possible. He disappointed the hope of his fol-lowers that he would be the Messiah in the nationalistic sense.Likewise he disappointed their hope that he would immediatelyprove himself Messiah in the apocalyptic sense. But no one hasbeen disappointed in his ability to bring real salvation to man, tothe Jew as well as to the Gentile, and thereby fultill the spirit of theMessianic hope of Irael as well as of the whole world. Humanexperience has demonstrated that his program of attaching men tohimself and thereby leading them into experience of sonship to theFather brings real salvation from sin. In view of this program,it is probably true that Mark's representation, that Jesus endeavoredto restrain any public confession of faith in him as Messiah, ishistorical ; for he knew that, if they believed him to be the Messiah,they would necessarily regard him as the Messiah literally in thenationalistic sense. No one had ever advanced the idea that theMessiah in the apocalyptic sense would previous to his miraculousappearance on the clouds of heaven sojourn on earth as a man.So Jesus desired that his ethico-religious message have full sway inthe minds of his hearers, not being complicated by the presence ofany aroused political ambitions. It is probably true that at the endof his career he did confess that he was the Messiah. To havedenied it would have been wrong and misleading. He knew him-self to be a greater servant of the Jewish nation and of the worldthan the literalist of either Messianic school hoped of their IMessiahThe synoptic gospels have interpreted Jesus as a literalist onthe subject of the Messiaship. The evangelists regarded him as theMessiah in the apocalyptic sense and expected his return to earthon the clouds before their generation passed away. As alreadysuggested, there is room for the possibility that much, if not all,the Messianic and apocalyptic language attributed to Jesus is dueto the fact that Jesus was being reinterpreted by his followers inthe light of their new faith in him as the Messiah in the apocalypticsense. Yes, it is historically possible, if not probable, that he didnot use as much apocalyptic language concerning himself as is rep-resented in our sources. If he did use those terms, he must haveemployed them generally in a figurative rather than a literal sense.To conclude that he employed them in a literal sense is to someextent to discredit him. To conclude that he did not use them sofreely as he is said to have used them, or that he employed them onlyin a figurative sense, is to interpret the earthly Jesus in this particularin keeping with the glorious fact that he was not a literalist andthat his message was primarily ethico-religious.

Jesus\u27 Conception of Himself and of His Mission on Earth.

https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3637&amp;context=ocj

Jesus\u27 Conception of Himself and of His Mission on Earth.

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

OpenSIUC