Scripture and God in Christianity

The fact of the matter is that like ancient Christian Fathers, as we shall shortly see, none of these
schools and conservative theological approaches seem to solve the central problem from where
we started i.e. the relationship of Jesus Christ's person with the transcendent, indivisible, impassable,
unique, eternal and One God . These may be good guessworks but are definitely not satisfactory
solutions. The difficulty is that the traditional Christianity has almost always insisted
upon the person of Christ as divine, Second Person of the Trinity, equal in all respects with God
and claimed at the same time his humanity equal in almost all respects except sin with humanity.
Such a position is not paradoxical. It is contradictory in itself. It is difficult to prove such a claim
so fundamental to Christianity in terms intelligible to modern man. Many modern Christian
scholars and theologians seem not ready to deny or denounce the traditional claims and are at a
loss to prove that to modern man. Therefore, they keep on moving in circles, making claims
without logically substantiating them and in the course repeating, in many cases, opinions either
discussed in early centuries or discarded as heretical. In neither case the charges of anthropomorphism
can be denied.
To understand the difficulties involved we need to study the New Testament itself and how its
themes were developed by the Fathers.
Christology and the New Testament:
The central question "What think ye of Christ?" has been answered in a number of different ways
by New Testament writers. He is a Prophet, "And King Herod heard of him...and he said , That
John the Baptist was risen from the dead... Others said, That it is E-li'-as. And others said, that it
is the prophet, or one of the prophets." (Mark 6:14-15) Matthew clearly names Jesus as the
prophet, "And when he was to come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, who is this?
And the multitude said, this is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee." (Matt. 20: 10-11 see
also Acts 3:22; 7:37). 329 In view of passages like these Henry D. A. Major argues that "Jesus was
an absolute Jew in His religion and felt Himself called upon, in the spirit of one of the eighthcentury
prophets (an Amos or a Hosea), to reform that religion. As a consequence He made fierce
attacks upon contemporary Judaism and its leaders, and, like other of the goodly fellowship of
the Prophets of Israel who had preceded Him, He suffered their fate, but at the hands of the Roman
Procurator of Judaea." 330 It was only after his death, contends Major, that some of his enthusiastic
followers "became convinced that Jesus, the prophet of Galilee, was more than a prophet,
and proclaimed their conviction that He was the Messiah, God's Anointed One, the Son of
God." 331 Shirley Jackson Case argues that Jesus was a prophet of God: " The prophet lived in a
relation to God that was essentially a mystical experience. But it was not the type of mysticism
that evaporated in an orgy of emotions. There was a wealth of feeling in the prophetic experience,
but it was of the sort that gave to life a mighty ethical and spiritual drive. Jesus did not lose
himself in God, as though the emotions were an end in itself. On the contrary, the divine seizure
was for the sake of increasing righteousness in the world and contributing to human welfare. Its
end was to be the establishment of the Kingdom." 332 He further argues that "The process of idealization
rapidly gathered momentum. Time dimmed historical memories as death removed those
who had known Jesus in the flesh." 333 So Jesus who was originally a prophet was raised and exalted
to God's right hand. Jeremias, refusing to accept that Jesus was a "Rabbi of Nazareth"
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