The high priest is shocked because Jesus has not only answered in the affirmative (yes, he is the Messiah, Son of God), he has declared that as the Son of Man who comes with the clouds (a clear allusion to Dan 7:13) he will sit at God’s right hand (an allusion to Ps 110:1: “Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool”). The statement is shocking indeed, for Jesus has implied that he will sit at God’s right (a place of honor) on God’s throne, sharing in God’s authority, which includes judging the enemies of God. This is a rather exalted self-understanding, and its claim to authenticity is very strong.
It is in the light of material such as this that distinguished Princeton New Testament professor Dale Allison Jr. can say, “We should hold a funeral for the view that Jesus entertained no exalted thoughts about himself.”15 As we have ourselves, Allison mostly focuses on the Synoptic Gospels, dealing with materials that almost all critical scholars accept as authentically reflecting Jesus’ teachings.
What Paul and Other New Testament Writers Say
Before concluding this chapter we should ask what other first-century writers had to say about Jesus. We are especially intrigued by the testimony of Paul, whose letters predate the Synoptic Gospels by a couple of decades and so reflect very early beliefs about Jesus. What was it about Jesus that so moved the Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, “Hebrew of Hebrews”?
There can be no doubt that before his conversion to the Jesus movement, Saul was a devout Jewish monotheist. There was nothing pagan about him. There would have been no openness to the idea that God could somehow have taken up residence in a human being. What Christology, or messianic hope, Saul may have entertained would likely have been the hope that God would some day raise up a gifted man from the line of David, a man who would restore Israel’s fortunes, drive the Romans from the Holy Land and bring about peace and justice for all. But I doubt very much that Saul the Pharisee would have understood such a Messiah as in some sense God in the flesh.
Yet, several times in his letters Saul—who adopts his Roman name Paul—applies to Jesus texts that refer to Yahweh. Let us explain. When in his letter to the Christians of Rome, Paul says, “For, ‘every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved’” (Rom 10:13), he has quoted Joel 2:32 (noted in italics). In the context of Paul’s argument, “Lord” refers to Jesus (as is clear in Rom 10:14–17). Humans cannot call on the name of the Lord (Jesus) unless the good news is proclaimed, that is, the “preaching of Christ” (v. 17). What is important to note is that the Lord of whom Joel the prophet speaks is Yahweh, the God of Israel. Paul’s knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, as well as the Greek translation, assures us that he knows full well what he has done.
In his letter to the Christians of Philippi (in Macedonia) Paul says that though Jesus “was in the form of God,” he “humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:6, 8). Therefore, “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (2:9–11). What is remarkable is that the words found in italics are taken from Isaiah, where Yahweh, the God of Israel, says of himself, “By myself I have sworn, from my mouth has gone forth in righteousness a word that shall not return [void]: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear’” (Isa 45:23). The passage from Isaiah reappears in Paul, this time quoted fully in Romans 14:11. Here again the context suggests that Paul understands the Lord, to whom every knee will bow, once again to be none other than Jesus, who “died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Rom 14:9).
Other Yahweh texts cited in Paul’s letters appear to be applied to Jesus, some quoted (e.g., Num 16:5 in 2 Tim 2:19; Isa 40:13 in 1 Cor 2:16; Jer 9:24 in 1 Cor 1:31 and 2 Cor 10:17; Ps 24:1 in 1 Cor 10:26), others alluded to (e.g., Deut 32:21 in 1 Cor 10:22; Mal 1:7, 12 in 1 Cor 10:21; Ps 47:6 in 1 Thess 4:16). In an important and learned study of these passages and others, David Capes wonders how Paul could have held to a higher Christology than to apply to Jesus Old Testament passages that refer to God himself.16 The implication is that Paul—a strict Jewish monotheist—believed that Jesus was in some sense God.
The author of Hebrews, who is thoroughly Jewish in perspective and tradition, begins his letter by saying, “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Heb 1:1–2). This Jewish author places Jesus in a category of his own. God has in the past spoken to his people “by the prophets,” but in the last days he has spoken to his people “by a Son.” This clearly implies that Jesus is no ordinary prophet. Far from it; Jesus is the “heir of all things” and it is through Jesus that God “created the world.” This is an astounding claim.
Has the author of Hebrews implied that Jesus is perhaps an angel of some sort? Not at all. The author of Hebrews asserts that Jesus is “much superior to angels” (Heb 1:4). He demonstrates this claim by asking,
For to what angel did God ever say, “Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee”? Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son” [cf. Ps 2:7]? And again, when he brings the first-born into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him” [cf. Deut 32:43, according to the Greek version]. (Heb 1:5–6)
The angels are God’s messengers and servants (“winds” and “flames of fire”), but of his Son God says, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, the righteous scepter is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, thy God, has anointed thee with the oil of gladness beyond thy comrades” (Heb 1:7–9, quoting Ps 45:6–7). As does Paul in his letters, so the author of Hebrews has applied to Jesus an Old Testament text that speaks of God.
Summary
All four Gospel writers give us essentially the same Jesus: an extraordinary, divine figure who makes extraordinary claims of authority, whose purpose is not to serve himself but to serve—indeed, save—all of humanity. Could such an idea arise from nothing more than a theologically-driven legend? And, if so, who gave it this shape?
The Jesus movement grew out of Jewish soil, a soil that was committed to monotheism and rejected pagan notions of divine men. Exalted Christology—both implicit and explicit—is deeply rooted in the tradition; it won’t do to say that exalted ideas about Jesus, placed on his lips, entered the tradition from non-Jewish sources at a very early stage. Paul is himself a guarantor against such a theory, the man who was a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, a zealot for the Law of Moses and a persecutor of the Church. But when he encountered the risen Jesus he began to speak of him in very exalted terms, even applying to him Old Testament texts that in their original context spoke of Yahweh, the God of Israel. None of this came from pagan ideas, which he would never have accepted. It came from his experience of Jesus, reinforced by the Jesus tradition itself, with which he became familiar as he matured in his new faith.
The exalted view of Jesus, or what is usually called high Christology, originated in the sayings and deeds of Jesus himself. It did not originate in some post-Easter gradual development, perhaps under the influence of Greco-Roman paganism. Such a proposed scenario strikes us as highly doubtful. Is it credible that four first-century Gospel writers, of whom at least two, if not three, were Jewish, arrived at such an understanding of Jesus—if he were nothing more than a Galilean holy man, prophet and teacher? Jews would hardly invent a story about a divine man, and a friend of sinners and tax collectors at that. Greeks and Romans would hardly invent a story about a suffering savior, especially if he is supposed to be divine. A crucified Son of God? Nonsense! The antiquity, coherence and—we might say—implausibility of the tradition compel us to conclude that it was Jesus himself who entertained exalted thoughts, not later followers.
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