The person of Jesus Christ

Question 1

KEY TERM - Jesus and a teacher of wisdom

Answer 1

Jesus was a teacher providing guidance and advice on application of law to moral problems. He is often described as Rabbi which was a term of respect but culd also be used for educated teachers who interpreted the law surrounded by followers
Jesus taught of forgiveness and repentance – and spends much of his time with the weak, poor, and outcast. This is the vision of healing, bringing God and all of humanity back together – the wisdom of Good news.
the direct moral message of Jesus’ teachings are extensively concerned with love

Question 2

FOR - Jesus and a teacher of wisdom

Answer 2

Sermon on the Mount – extends blessings to the poor and minority groups and stresses the message of Agape Mathew 12

Jesus spoke on moral issues and the importance of love, self sacrifice, concern for the poor, importance of honesty, justice, peace his method of moral education was done with controversial or surprising stories designed to get his listeners thinking about their own preconceptions

Jesus has consistent and core principles: Forgiveness, redemption & love (agape). (Luke 15:11-32 SPEC – Parable of the Lost Son - Parable of the lost son – Son asks for inheritance money early and disrespects father. However comes to realisation that he has done wrong and the father forgives son

Question 3

AGAINST - Jesus and a teacher of wisdom

Answer 3

Atheists highly critical (Hitchens) : Jesus was not a wise moral teacher as if only the non-sinners have the right to punish then how could an imperfect society ever determine how to prosecute offenders

Question 4

KEY TERM - Jesus as only the teacher of wisdom

Answer 4

Jesus is aware of God’s will and God’s willingness to act is not unique to Jesus but is found in Moses, Jeremiah. Not a unique figure with a unique figure in salvation.

Question 5

FOR- Jesus as only the teacher of wisdom

Answer 5

Christianity without the incarnation (God in Jesus) becomes one of the many religions that each perceives God in a different way. Helps a person transform from self-centeredness to love-centeredness. Jesus embodied love – he doesn’t have to be literally God to do this

Jesus as a metaphorical incarnation in Hick’s words remains close to God and inspiring for the world today as an example of how to live a moral life.
-This provides a universally acceptable understanding of Jesus which retains the ethical message of Christianity

Question 6

AGAINST- Jesus as only the teacher of wisdom

Answer 6

However this means that Jesus perhaps has no real authority, as he is just another teacher on the earth, with no magical connection to God

Hick interprets salvation as personal change but this is different from salvation from sin and death and lacks the message of political and social change, phrases like ‘‘eternal life’’ are lost in Hick’s version.

CS Lewis: If Jesus was just a man he would noy be a great moral teacher as he would instead be a madman/lunatic

Question 7

KEY TERM - Liberator

Answer 7

There is certainly evidence that Jesus was a political liberator who posed a challenge to political authority and wanted to overthrow them

Question 8

KEY TERM - Political Liberator

Answer 8

There is certainly evidence that Jesus was a political liberator who posed a challenge to political authority and wanted to overthrow them

Question 9

FOR- Political Liberator

Answer 9

Jesus did suggest a coming revolution or conflict:
‘’ I did not come to bring peace but a sword’’ Matthew 10:34

Jesus’ followers had weapons which they used to defend themselves in Gethsemane against the arresting authorities.

Bible links to Jesus to revolution and a bringer of Gods justice the son of David captures this sense, Jesus was hailed as coming in the name of the Lord when Jesus was arrested he was labelled King of the Jews and put to death for some civic crime not a religious one, the Romans may have executed him as a possible revolutionary

Question 10

AGAINST - Political Liberator

Answer 10

Clashes with typical depictions as a loving and caring person

Jesus tried to escape when he realised that people would try to make him king

Did not resist arrest which suggests that he is more concerned with inner purity rather than outward force

Question 11

KEY TERM - Religious revolutionary

Answer 11

Jesus was Jewish and held the Passover festival as important with its link to the Exodus narrative of liberation form slavery, Jesus went to Jerusalem to celebrate it and was coming to the city at a time of violent revolution as the population of the city swelled with religious pilgrims

Question 12

FOR - Religious revolutionary

Answer 12

Aslan identifies this as a key moment signifying much about Jesus, when Jesus enters Jerusalem riding a donkey greets a crowd singing and shouting ‘‘Hosanna!’’
-Aslan claims that this had been orchestrated by Jesus and followers to send a message that the long awaited messiah and King of the Jews had arrived to free Israel from bondage.

Question 13

AGAINST - Religious revolutionary

Answer 13

Aslan’s book Zealot: the life and times of Jesus of Nazereth is controversial, some say it is selective and manipulative and misrepresentative

Instances in the Gospels where Jesus is observed to reject violent tendencies:
- Stops his disciples from defending him with violence
-If Judas was linked to violent revolutionaries then his decision to hand Jesus over might be because Jesus wasn’t radical enough.

Jesus said that he had not come to abolish the law or the prophets but to fulfill them. He was trying to develop peoples understanding not replace it

Question 14

KEY TERM - Spiritual liberator

Answer 14

Jesus was seen as a liberator to help minority groups in society. The liberation that Jesus brought was less about reforming the authorities and more about preparing people for the new kingdom

Question 15

FOR - Spiritual liberator

Answer 15

Mark 5-24 – 34 a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years would have been outcast from society as she would not have been able to take part in synagogue worship as her blood would have made her ritually unclean according to the law
-Her faith caused her healing
-Her faith in Jesus makes her liberated from the spiritual aspects of her illness

Luke 10-25-37 The Good Samaritan
-The Samaritans were not trusted by Jews because of historic issues. They were seen as traitors who let down the Jewish people.
-Sets an example of how everyone is equal and we should be kind to everyone.

Question 16

KEY TERM - Relationship between Jesus and God

Answer 16

Are God and Jesus distinct from each other

Question 17

FOR - Relationship between Jesus and God

Answer 17

Jesus’ two natures termed as a hypostatic union -belief that Christ is both fully human and fully God, indivisible and two natures united in one person.

Homoousias – the same substance

To save humanity from sin Jesus had to be divine and human. This is because only God has the redemptive power to redeem humans from sin, but had to be human otherwise would not feel any pain and crucifixion on the cross would be meaningless

Apollinariniams - Word replaced the human mind and soul with a divine one without taking on the fallible human nature

Question 18

AGAINST - Relationship between Jesus and God

Answer 18

Jesus was distinct from God as he was human. Humans are finite and mutable and have a very different order of existence from an immutable infinite God.
-To different to be the same

Paul wRote in his letter to the romans that humans have a sinful corrupting nature, if Jesus became human wouldn’t he become corrupted.

Rejected as a heresy

Question 19

KEY TERM - Did Jesus know he was divine

Answer 19

Scientia Visionis: Knowledge from the Divine – Beatific vison – Jesus has the same knowledge as God BUT then would know the future (not full human experience)
Scientia Infusa: aware of divinity but not at front of the mind (Rahner- onion analogy) Conscious but does not know inner self fully
Scientia Experientiae: Human knowledge – Jesus gained knowledge through experience the same as

Question 20

FOR - Did Jesus know he was divine

Answer 20

Rahner: If Jesus had full awareness of Gods divinity he could not have been called human: Onions have many layers of skin so maybe Jesus’ human self awareness was the top layers and the deeper layers were his divine unconsciousness the expression of fear in Gethsemane or uncertainty in the desert

Jesus intuitively knew of his divine reality and that he had a unique relationship with the Father and a mission of Salvation. His basic awareness of his sonship did not mean observing the presence of God as if Jesus was facing an object separate object rather it was a self consciousness and self presence in which he was intuitively aware of his divine reality.’’

Question 21

AGAINST - Did Jesus know he was divine

Answer 21

Gerald O collins: Difficult to undertake any study of the inner world of being dead or alive so trying to make sense of Jesus’ inner experience is particularly challenging especially as he left no writings of his own.

Question 22

KEY TERM - Miracles

Answer 22

In New Testament Jesus is shown as a miracle worker healing the sick, driving out demons, walking on water recreating sight etc. These miracle stories undoubtedly remain important to Christians today

Question 23

FOR- Miracles

Answer 23

Miracles are the only things that God can do which reinforces the message that Jesus is the son of God

Walking on water (Mark 6:47-52 – SPEC) – Jesus walked on water to help his disciples in a storm

John 9:1- 41 – Jesus heals a man who has been blind from birth
- This happened so the works of God could be displayed within him and points to the power of God working in him

Jesus’ miracles unite people of minority groups and when steps on the boat brings calm which gives them a foretaste of the kingdom
- Strengthened by healing of blind man not about faithfulness but disability
- Action of healing linked to a wider meaning and the kingdom

Question 24

AGAINST- Miracles

Answer 24

Hume; We have no present-day direct experience of miracles ourselves and therefore it is impossible to trust the accounts of Jesus walking on the water or any other miracle given by New Testament writers even if they did believe in them completely.

Schillebeeck - Jesus’ miracles have a spiritual or metaphorical meaning for today rather than just a liertarl one about a past remarkable event.
-Perhaps Jesus is the source of calm in daily life and perhaps people need to allow him to step into their lives and not live in fear of the troubles they face