Scripture and God in Christianity

e partially hidden or to be understood in the light of his death and resurrection, to Harnack, "is
desperate supposition. No! his message is simpler than the churches would like to think it; simpler,
but for that very reason sterner and endowed with a greater claim to universality. A man
cannot evade it by the subterfuge of saying that as he can make nothing of this "Christology" the
message is not for him. Jesus directed men's attention to great questions; he promised them God's
grace and mercy; he required them to decide whether they would have God or Mammon, an eternal
or an earthly life, the soul or the body, humility or self-righteousness, love or selfishness, the
truth or a lie." 246 In short, Jesus " leads them to God, not only by what he says, but still more by
what he is and does, and ultimately by what he suffers." 247 Jesus did not have any other creed
than the simple creed of "do the will of God". "How great a departure from what he thought and
enjoined is involved in putting a Christological creed in the forefront of the Gospel, and in teaching
that before a man can approach it he must learn to think rightly about Christ. This is putting
the cart before the horse." 248
Harnack argues that this radical departure from Jesus' Gospel took place during the process of the
Hellenization of the Gospel. It took place when Christianity entered the Greek world, "the Gospel
was detached from the mother soil of Judaism and placed upon the broad field of the Graeco-
Roman Empire. The apostle Paul was the chief agent in accomplishing this work, and in thereby
giving Christianity its place in the history of the world." 249 Though apostle Paul "not only worked
harder but also accomplished more than all the rest put together," he perverted the Gospel of Jesus
by giving new directions to it. "The formation of a correct theory of and about Christ threatens
to assume the position of chief importance, and to pervert the majesty and simplicity of the
Gospel. Here, again, the danger is of a kind such as cannot arise with Jesus' sayings. Even in
John we read: "If ye love me, keep my commandments." But the way in which Paul defined the
theory of religion, the danger can certainly arise and did arise. No long period elapsed before it
was taught in the Church that the all-important thing is to know how the person of Jesus was
constituted, what sort of physical nature he had, and so on. Paul himself is far removed from this
position,- "Whoso calleth Christ Lord speaketh by the Holy Ghost," - but the way he ordered his
religious conceptions, as the outcome of his speculative ideas, unmistakably exercised an influence
in a wrong direction." Harnack concludes observing: "That, however great attraction which
his way of ordering them may possess for the understanding, it is a perverse proceeding to make
Christology the fundamental substance of the Gospel is shown by Christ's teaching, which is everywhere
directed to the all-important point, and summarily confronts every man with his God." 250
Likewise, John Hick contends that "it is extremely unlikely that Jesus thought of himself, or that
his first disciples thought of him, as God incarnate." 251 At another place Hick writes: "it seems
pretty clear that Jesus did not present himself as being God incarnate. He did not present himself
as the second person of a divine trinity leading a human life. If in his lifetime he was called "son
of God," as is entirely possible, it would be in the metaphorical sense that was familiar in the ancient
world. In this sense, kings, emperors, pharaohs, wise men, and charismatic religious leaders
were freely called sons of God, meaning that they were close to God, in the spirit of God, that
they were servants and instruments of God. The ancient Hebrew kings were regularly enthroned
as son of God in this metaphorical sense." 252 He further argues that "From our point of view today
it would require earth-shaking miracles, overturning the whole established secular worldview,
to cause a historical individual to be regarded as being also God." 253 He claims a kind of
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