Person and Work of Christ

Who is Jesus Christ? What did he do for us? These questions mark the starting point of Christology.

Jesus himself once raised the cardinal question,

"Who Do Men Say I Am?" Since the New Testament times to the twenty-first century, these questions
have been main concern of Christian theology. Christian theology, therefore, can be rightly termed as
an effort to addresses the mystery behind Jesus Christ: his nature, actions, and person, as it appears
in the New Testament. Christology or the doctrine of the person and work of Christ acts as the
fulcrum of all other Christian doctrines and practices belonged to Christianity.

Christology is primarily concerned with the identity of Jesus and raises several questions such as how
does Jesus is both human and divine at the same time and what he is meant to us today. Moreover,
Christology is linked to several theological disciplines. It defines our understanding of God and his
nature. Soteriology requires an understanding of Jesus' nature. The same is true for subjects such as
Ecclesiology, and Trinitarian theology, or the study of God and the Holy Spirit in the Trinity. Above all,
the most important of its place locates in relation to the life of the believers and Christian
mission. Recognizing who Jesus is, what he did and why — these are essential to knowing him. Only
then may we believe in Jesus and have eternal life (John 3:11-21).

During the New Testament period, the proclamation of the

apostles focused on life, messages, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Their initial concern was
to proclaim the message of salvation that was available in the name of Jesus "to the end of the
earth." They had proclaimed Jesus as the God incarnate and the only name available on earth to
receive salvation (Acts 4:12). The proclaiming the good news of salvation among the Jews and
gentiles raised the question of Christ's identity - his divine nature, humanity and relationship to God.
Thus, the Apostles' writings have referred to the divinity and humanity of Jesus. For instance, the
Apostle John asserts the humanity of Jesus and writes to his readers, "Every spirit that acknowledges
that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus
is not from God" (1 John 4:1-6). Paul and Peter also concur with the issue of Jesus' divinity and
Humanity. According to these teachings, the Apostles held that Jesus was both divine as well as
human and asserted Christ's relation to God - his equality with God and supremacy over all creation.
For instance, the Apostle Paul in his letter to Philippians refers to Christ's equality with God and his
authority over all other names (Phil. 2:6, 10-11; cf. Col. 1: 15-17). Similarly, another significant
element in Christological debate was nature of salvation Jesus has wrought through his life, suffering,
death and resurrection. In later centuries this question became a prominent theological issue that
raised several controversies and Christological formulations.

As we look closely into the New Testament writings, we find multiple Christologies, rather than just a
singular explanation of life of Christ and mission of Christ on the earth. These Christologies are found
in the four Gospels and the Epistles and vary according to the life situations of the communities in
which they evolved. Similarly, the soteriological concerns were also seemed differing according to
the life situation of the recipients which proves the essential nature of contextualisation and the
plurality of Christologies. Moreover, throughout the history of Christianity,

theologians have raised fundamental

questions regarding the person of work of Christ: his heavenly origin, his divinity and humanity, his
life and ministry on earth, his death and resurrection and so on. To deal with such issues, various
Church Councils had been met and discussed the nature of Christology threadbare that also created
many Christological controversies. Such controversies again in turn helped to crystalise more
Christologies that endeavoured to explain the person and work of Christ later centuries. It is obvious
that in every period of history, Christology has been shaped by the needs and concerns of the
context. Moreover, a close reading of the New Testament and Christian history will show us that
Christology always is normed by soteriological requirements. Thus, Christological developments have
been arisen throughout the centuries of Christian history and been formed into major doctrines in
Christian doctrinal system.

In this work, we briefly track the development of the doctrine of the Person and Work of Christ from
the New Testament times to the twenty-first century. The initial pages look at Jesus in the context of
the Kingdom of God, his teaching and practices in relation to the poor and exploited sections of the
first century Jewish Palestine from the Synoptic Gospels. In the second section of the book, we
explore the Christological titles discussed by the NT writers and Christian communities which
elaborate Christ's heavenly origin, equality with God the Father and his saving work on earth. In the
following section, we endeavour to explore the Christological discussions by various church fathers in
the Patristic period regarding the divinity and humanity of Jesus and their implications for Christian
life and mission. We also discuss major Christological creeds developed in the history of Christianity
and the schools of theologies (the Antiochene and Alexandrian Schools of theology) that had
developed in the third and fourth centuries and their Christological contributions to Christian
theology. These Christological formulations provide us a taste of what was the nature of Christology
in those Christian eras and offer us with models for comprehending the person of Christ. In another
section, we look at the Christological developments in the Medieval and Reformation periods and a
few theologians of those times such as Thomas Aquinas, Matin Luther and John Calvin and their
Christologies. In the following section, we discover various views of the atonement of Christ
proposed by theologians during the span of several centuries and try to understand their
implications.

Then we come to the modern period and the Christological developments in the European continent.
The emergence of the Enlightenment thinking and the scientific development had given rise to the
Liberal theology in contrast to previous periods and generated diverging liberal views of the person
and work of Christ. Many theologians from 18th to 20th centuries had questioned the divinity of
Jesus and portrayed him as a human being and mere messianic claimant. Simultaneously, a number
Christologies had also emerged in reactions to the Liberal picture of Christ which are discussed in the
fifth section.

The eighth section discusses the Christological development from Indian context since 18th century.
A number of Indian Christian theologians and their Christological contributions have been presented
that had been emerged in the religio-cultural and socio-political context of India.

They have addressed various issues - Hindu philosophy, popular religiosity, dialogue, social and
economic conditions of Dalits, tribals, women and other weaker sections of society - and formulated
Christologies. This section also presents a few Asian theologians and their Christologies to get a
glimpse of Asian Christological developments. The final section deals with various third world
Christologies that emphasise liberation models. Liberation Christologies of a number of theological
movements such as the Latin American Liberation theology, Black theology, Feminist theology and so
on are discussed here. They provide us with various models of contextual practices that may enable
us to involve in emancipation of the downtrodden sections of the majority world.

This book, Concise Notes on Person and Work of Christ has been written and presented keeping in
mind the struggles of the Bachelor of Degree (BD) students of the Senate of Serampore College and
the Master of Divinity (M.Div) students of Asia Theological Association (ATA) in their courses, Person
and Work of Christ and Christological Issues through Centuries respectively. I have found both
students and teachers alike encounter great difficulty in collecting relevant academic resources to
study and digest the topics presented in their respective Christology syllabus. The topics that are
discussed in this book are specifically follow the entries of BD and M.Div syllabuses of above-
mentioned courses. The topics are treated in simple and lucid language but also in academic format.
They have been taken from my personal teaching notes collected and refined for the last few years,
along with more relevant materials added to make it a book form. I hope that this brief presentation
of Christological development through centuries can be a hand-book of Christology for students
and teachers alike.

Section 2

Jesus in His Context

Social and Economic Context: The most significant characteristics of Jesus' ministry in relation to the
kingdom of God was his deep involvement with the sociopolitical and economic life of his own
people. Unlike other religious leaders and renewal movements which 'separated' themselves from
people and depicted God in exclusive terms, Jesus introduced the reign of God as an 'open' stream
which would accommodate even 'sinners,' 'outcasts, and gentiles and introduced a God who was
merciful and gracious to all. Jesus had not only applied kingdom ideals fully in his particular culture
with its political, religious and economic complexities but he was also fully involved in his context.

The Jewish society of his time was divided into various groups determined by three basic elements:
power, privilege and prestige. The rich groups mainly included the wealthy high-priestly clans, the
Herodian family, the older Jewish aristocracy and the prosperous merchants who controlled much of
the economic life of the country. However, the overwhelming majority of the populace belonged to
lower-stratum groups' who inhabited largely in rural areas and which included peasants, artisans,
labourers and slaves.

They were characterised by their absolute poverty. Ptochoi, the Greek word used for the poor in the
New Testament denotes the people who were hungry and thirsty, had only rags for clothes and
lacked lodging or hope. Roman rule had direct economic consequences which had a huge impact on
the Jewish social world. It added a tax burden upon the ordinary people, who were already paying
temple tax and other forms of tithing required by the law. This resulted in increasing debt for the
poor and in the confiscation of land belonging to the marginal farmers, followed by arrest, torture
and slavery of the family. Further, Roman rule perpetuated injustice and was chronically oppressive
and brutal. Such a situation of sharp social differences created unrest, conflict and even rebellion by
slaves and very poor peasants from rural areas.

However, Jesus accepted the outcasts of society and was frequently found associating with the poor.
Jesus never looked on possessions per se as evil but for him wealth was a dangerous substance. In
many of his sayings it is personified as Mammon (which in the Aramaic of Jesus' day meant simply
'possessions' and could also mean evil).

He emphasized the impossibility of serving both God and money in his parable of the rich man and
Lazarus (Lk 16:19-31). In Jesus' teaching, wealth functioned as what the idols did in the eyes of
ancient Hebrew prophets in that it seductively draws people away from total allegiance to God.
Moreover, Jesus declared that wealth makes it impossible to enter the kingdom; "It is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Mk
10:25).

At the same time Jesus clearly stated that God has a special interest for the poor, a teaching that
builds on God's care of the poor in the OT. He said, "Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of
God" (Lk 6:20). Jesus introduced himself to be anointed to bring good news to the poor, release to
prisoners, sight for the blind and release for the oppressed.

He fully enacted these elements his ministry; he provided sight to the blind and releases those who
are bound and oppressed by casting out demons. The call of Jesus to his listeners was radical shift in
their approach to wealth, "do not invest on earth - do invest in heaven." But this teaching was also
accompanied by another equally radical promise,

"Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these [material] things shall be yours as well"
(Mt 6:33).

Political Context:

As we turn to the New Testament, Jesus carried out a ministry that was diametrically opposite to the
political and ethnic context and violence that was perpetuated by various groups. First of all, the
violent interaction between Jewish population and the Roman imperial powers that occupied
Palestine were vicious. The religious ideology and the temple politics mixed together to become a
deadly cocktail for killing and destruction.

The Jewish revolutionary groups who were perpetuating violence for self-rule brought bloodshed
and untold miseries to common people. By any reading, that was a violent society, with frequent
public violence and explosive crowd reaction. Ordinary persons did not have any rights.

The Romans determined the conditions of life in Galilee where Jesus lived and carried out his
mission. In the decades before Jesus was born, Roman armies marched through the area, burning
villages, enslaving the able-bodied, and killing the infirm. Romans appointed the young military
strongman Herod as king and installed Herod's son Antipas, to rule over Galilee. Roman governors
such as Pontius Pilate appointed and deposed the high priests who ruled Judea from their base in the
Jerusalem Temple.

For generations both before and after the ministry of Jesus, the Galilean and Judean people mounted
repeated revolts against the Romans and their client rulers, the Herodian kings and Jerusalem high
priests. The Romans believed that their own national security depended on the subjection of other
peoples and the extraction of tribute, which was a symbol of humiliation as well as a source of
revenue. They were afraid that any sign of weakness, such as failure to punish a revolt, would invite
further insurrection. The Roman armies purposely devastated the countryside, burned villages,
pillaged towns, and slaughtered and enslaved the people. As the Roman historian Tacitus has a quote
of a Caledonian chieftain exclaim, "[The Romans are the plunderers of the world...If the enemy is
rich, they are rapacious, if poor, they lust for dominion. Not East, not West has sated them.... They
rob, butcher, plunder, and call it 'empire'; and where they make a desolation, they call it 'peace." The
Gospels portrayal of Jesus' crucifixion is an example in which the slow, torturous public execution of
rebels in prominent places designed to terrorize the surviving population into acquiescence in
Roman domination.