Jesus is not the exclusive property of Christians. Polls reveal that Americans of all faiths view Jesus “overwhelmingly in a favorable light” and that he has “a strong hold on those with no religious training.” Amazingly, nearly half of the country’s non-Christians believe that Jesus was born from a virgin and raised from the dead. Here atheists and Buddhists are active producers and consumers of images of Jesus, who in many respects functions as common cultural coin. Talk to a Hindu and she might tell you that Jesus is an avatar of the god Vishnu. Ask a Jew and you might be told that he was a great rabbi. In a bestselling novel from 1925, Bruce Barton described Jesus as The man Nobody Knows. Today he is the man nobody hates.
– Stephen Prothero, American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon, 11
Tag: christology
Did Jews Expect the Messiah to Rise from the Dead?
The short answer is “No.” N.T. Wright explains why…
But it remains the case that resurrection, in the world of second-Temple Judaism, was about the restoration of Israel on the one hand and the newly embodied life of all YHWH’s people on the other, with close connections between the two; and that it was thought of as the great event that YHWH would accomplish at the very end of the ‘the present age’, the event which would constitute the ‘age to come’, ha ‘olam haba. Nobody imagined that any individuals had already been raised, or would be raised in advance of that great last day…There are no traditions about a Messiah being raised to life: most Jews of this period hoped for resurrection, many Jews of this period hoped for a Messiah, but nobody put those two hopes together until the early Christians did so. – N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 205
Choose-Your-Own Adventure Jesus
At some point in their lives, most Americans have been asked, “Is Jesus your savior?” Though the American Jesus has stripped the historical Jesus of many things (deity, Trinity, truth-telling), the notion that he is a savior still remains in the general consciousness of our nation. Most people that lay any claim to Jesus do so in favor of his morality not his deity.
However, Jesus does not offer us different versions for different desires–human or divine, moral guide or righteous God, healer or comforter. Jesus unequivocally claimed to be God and to be a savior. He is not a choose-your-own-adventure savior. Remember those books? You got to choose the ending by picking a page number for a different scenario. With Jesus we don’t get topick what he is and what he isnt. He is who he is, all or nothing, take him or leave him. To pick and choose is to end up with no Jesus at all, a fictional Christ, made in our own image.
The domestication or nationalization of Jesus has been to embolden Jesus to rise up and overthrow his Father as the dominant person of the Trinity. Separating Jesus from the distant grand-Father, many have chosen to emphasize Jesus’ humanity. He saves us from sickness, from pain, from hurt, from depression, from loneliness, but not from our sin. He is a healer not a sin-confronter, a comforter not a heart-changer.
Interestingly, the Bible does not reserve the title of “Savior” for Jesus alone. It is used repeatedly in the Old testament and New to refer to God the Father. Separating Jesus from God the Father is not an act that Jesus would approve of. In fact, he longed for communion with his Father while he walked the earth.
Long before Jesus was on the planet, God the Father was savior. He was savior to Israel, rescuing them from slavery, oppression, and despair in Egypt. Then from exile, first with the Assyrians then with the Babylonians. Israel wanted God as provider but not as king. A choose-your-adventure approach to God got Israel into crisis.
Inevitably, Israel would cry out to God from exile, recognizing the soul-wrenching pain of separation from God. And God’s mercy got them out. God the Father is savior both spiritual and physical, restoring Israel into his love and rescuing them from deplorable conditions of slavery and exile.
Jesus is a savior in cooperation with, not distinction from the Father. The Father desires that none would perish and so sent Jesus as the mediator of salvation. Yes, we are hurt, broken and in need of comfort. However, these things are the product of personal sin—our own or someone else’s against us.
Jesus came to reconcile us to God, not displace him. His loving sacrifice for sin—an ancient electric chair—was not an accident. It was for you and me, to bring us into his heart-changing, world-renewing agenda. To redeem the creation project he started with the Father and to magnify their creativity, mercy, love and power in making this the best of all possible worlds. The Jesus we would choose is vastly inferior to the Jesus who is.