Is Jesus God? Essay

Christianity has been rigid in the self-contradictory allegation that a human being put to death as a malefactor is the origin of God’s life-giving and transforming Spirit. Also, this â€Å"good news† has been reckoned as imbecility to the wise of the world (Morwood 17). The specialty of the Christological fashion of discussing about Jesus dwells in its theological lineament. Christians acknowledge God only as he has been exposed in and through Jesus. All other debate about God can have, at most, provisional significance. In this sense it may be very purposeful and necessary, even a presupposition for the message of Christ. 1 But the way in which God is revealed through Jesus debars even its own presupposition, so that one can only speak about God himself in that at the same time one talks about Jesus. Therefore, theology and Christology, the doctrine of God and the doctrine of Jesus as the Christ, are bound together. It is the goal of theology as well as of Christology to explicate this connection (Morwood 17). On the contrary there is a perpetual debate as to whether Jesus is God? How is Jesus to be understood? Did he stride out of the wilderness 2,000 years ago to preach a gentle message of peace and brotherhood? Or did he perhaps advocate some form of revolution? Or did he instead look for heavenly intervention to establish the kingdom of God? What did it mean for Jesus to be tempted by sin? When did he realize that his mission would end with death upon a cross? Did he view himself as the promised Messiah? Did he understand himself to be both God and man, and what imponderable struggles of the soul would that have meant for him during his sojourn on earth? See: Roberts, Marty. R Scriptures make it clear that Jesus is God (Rockingham). The News & Record Piedmont Triad, NC. 1998. (2) See: Royce, Graydon . That time of year again to wonder: is Jesus God? Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN), 1996. Thesis Statement: This research paper will debate on certain pertinent questions as to whether Jesus is God based on the scripture, church and related teachings. The discussions and recordings of this paper will be limited to the scope of the literature surveyed. Historical Evidences The participation of the man Jesus in the omnipotent Lordship of God over his creation is the crowning aspect of the unity of God and man in Jesus Christ. It has been expounded that Jesus’ unity with God established in his resurrection from the dead with the resulting divine approval of his pre-Easter activity (Rubenstein 23). Its concrete form as personal unity was seen in the dedication of Jesus to the Father as Son. The effect, however, and highest expression of this unity is reached in Jesus’ exaltation to participation in God’s Lordship. Once again, a precise understanding of Jesus’ Lordship can be acquired only in the context of the whole of his earthly activity. Certainly in this question Christology is not restricted to the ministry of the pre-Easter Jesus. 3 Rather, this involves primarily the present reality of the exalted Lord to be revealed in the future. But in order to understand that present reality, we must once again start with the historical Jesus of Nazareth to assure that we do not speak unknowingly of something quite different under the name of Jesus. â€Å"If the conception of his present Lordship cannot be filled out with definite characteristics of his earthly ministry, it is either a worthless schema or an excuse for every possible enthusiasm. † (3) See: Ritschl, A. The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, p. 406. (4) Refer: Martin Kahler, The So-called Historical Jesus and the Historic, Biblical Christ, ed. and tr. by Carl E. Braaten ( Fortress Press, 1964). The pre-Easter Jesus did not proclaim his own Lordship, but the coming kingly rule of the God of Israel whom he called â€Å"Father† (Rubenstein 25). Thus his activity stands in the same line with the Old Testament and Jewish hopes of Yahweh’s kingly rule on earth. To be sure, Jesus spoke of the dawn of God’s Lordship in his own activity. But this presence of God’s future in Jesus’ activity is rightly understood only when one has taken seriously the futurity of the Lordship of God whose imminence Jesus proclaimed. Then its â€Å"presence† is shown as the overpowering by God’s future of all merely present occupations and concerns of men (Rubenstein 23). The future impinges upon the present precisely as future, and thus the future of God’s Lordship announced by Jesus Lordship of God whose imminence Jesus proclaimed. Then its â€Å"presence† is shown as the overpowering by God’s future of all merely present occupations and concerns of men. The future impinges upon the present precisely as future, and thus the future of God’s Lordship announced by Jesus remains wholly distinguished from his own activity, as sharply distinguished as the Father himself is distinguished from Jesus, even though the power of God’s future is already presently active through its announcement in Jesus’ message. If its futurity were forgotten because of this, its present effectiveness would collapse into nothingness.