Study guide: Jesus and Christology

📋 Course Outline

1. Historical Jesus and Christ of Faith
2. Jesus as Son and Teacher
3. Jesus as Liberator
4. Miracles and Historical Evidence
5. Development of Christological Doctrine
6. Chalcedonian Two-Natures Doctrine
7. Kenosis and Christological Titles
8. Resurrection and Portraits of Jesus
9. Modern Critical Interpretations
10. Hick and Bultmann on Christ
11. Jesus as Political Liberator
12. Gutiérrez and Liberation Theology
13. Integrating Wisdom Miracle and Liberation
14. Jesus’ Divine Self-Understanding
15. Historical Probability and Theological Adequacy
16. AO2 Arguments and Judgements
17. Scholars and Key Quotations

📖 1. Historical Jesus and Christ of Faith

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Historical Jesus: What can be investigated through historical-critical methods, including his teachings, social context and death.
• Christ of Faith: The living risen Christ encountered through the life of the Church, faith, Scripture and sacraments rather than reduced to historical facts.

★ Must-know

• Albert Schweitzer portrayed the historical Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet who is alien to modern sensibilities.

Further detail

• Rudolf Bultmann argued that the New Testament should be demythologised and that the Christ of faith matters more than historical details.

💡 Memory Hook

Historical Jesus: accessible to historians; Christ of faith: encountered through Church, Scripture and sacraments.

📖 2. Jesus as Son and Teacher

★ Must-know

📌 The title “Son of God” can refer to Israel, the Davidic king or a specially commissioned agent, while “Son of Man” can refer to a human figure, Jesus himself or the exalted figure of Daniel 7.

• In John 9, the healed man moves from calling Jesus “the man” to calling him a prophet, one from God and finally a figure worthy of allegiance, while the authorities become increasingly resistant.

• The antitheses intensify Torah through:

  • anger
  • lust
  • truthful speech
  • non-retaliation
  • enemy-love

Further detail

• Jesus' repeated “but I say” gives his teaching exceptional authority while relocating purity and righteousness into intention as well as outward conduct.

💡 Memory Hook

Sign → recognition → worship in Mark 6 and John 9.

📖 3. Jesus as Liberator

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Liberation Theology: Gustavo Gutiérrez, 1928–2024 - Presents Jesus primarily as the liberator of the poor and oppressed, with the Kingdom of God involving social and political transformation as well as spiritual salvation.

★ Must-know

• In Mark 5:24–34, the haemorrhaging woman approaches Jesus, receives bodily healing, discloses her story publicly and is addressed as “daughter,” restoring recognition and belonging.

📌 Luke 10:25–37 shifts the question from identifying a bounded class of neighbours to becoming a neighbour through mercy.

Further detail

• Matthew 25:40 identifies Jesus with marginalised people by stating that whatever is done for the least of his brothers and sisters is done for him.

💡 Memory Hook

Healing and boundary-crossing mercy → restored bodies, recognition and community.

📖 4. Miracles and Historical Evidence

★ Must-know

• Miracle narratives function by: restoring people to community, dramatizing conflict with oppressive powers, enacting abundance, placing Jesus within Israel's scriptural story

📌 Miracles may contribute to a cumulative portrait of Jesus when they cohere with his teaching and resurrection, but an isolated wonder-working episode does not prove divinity.

📌 Historical evidence about early resurrection belief is distinct from the further theological claim that God raised Jesus from the dead.

Further detail

• Historical enquiry can compare:
  • independent traditions
  • linguistic and Palestinian context
  • the criterion of embarrassment
  • coherence with first-century Judaism

💡 Memory Hook

Miracles can support a cumulative portrait, but isolated wonders do not prove divinity.

📖 5. Development of Christological Doctrine

★ Must-know

• The Council of Nicaea in 325 used homoousios, meaning “of one substance” with the Father, to reject the claim that the Son was created from nothing.

📌 Nicaea argues that if Christ were a creature, worship of Christ would risk idolatry and a creature could not give full participation in God's life.

• The Council of Chalcedon in 451 confessed one and the same Christ as fully divine and fully human.

Further detail

• The Council of Constantinople in 381 continued the clarification of Trinitarian doctrine by distinguishing one divine being from three persons.

💡 Memory Hook

Jesus traditions → worship and resurrection → Nicaea → Chalcedon.

📖 6. Chalcedonian Two-Natures Doctrine

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Chalcedonian Definition: Confesses one person in two natures, united without confusion, change, division or separation.

★ Must-know

• In Chalcedonian grammar, “nature” answers what Christ is, while “person” answers who acts.

• Chalcedonian language qualifies predicates according to nature so that the Son knows divinely and learns humanly, and the divine Son truly suffers humanly without divine nature becoming passible.

• Logical coherence of the incarnation is not evidence that the incarnation occurred, because historical resurrection claims, scriptural testimony and worship provide the warrant for the theological case.

Further detail

📌 The one person can be hungry according to humanity and life-giving according to divinity without assigning these experiences to two independent selves.

💡 Memory Hook

One person answers who acts; two natures answer what Christ is.

📖 7. Kenosis and Christological Titles

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Kenosis: Paul, Epistle to the Philippians, Philippians 2:5–11 - Presents Christ's self-emptying as taking the form of a servant, becoming human, accepting death and refusing to exploit equality with God for advantage.

★ Must-know

📌 Functional kenosis preserves divinity by describing voluntary restraint in exercising divine powers, whereas radical kenosis says that divine attributes such as omniscience are surrendered.

Further detail

• The title “Messiah” evokes an anointed ruler, but Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection reinterpret messiahship through suffering and exaltation rather than straightforward political victory.

• The title “Lord” ranges from respectful address to participation in language associated with Israel's God and must be interpreted within prayers, hymns and scriptural rereading.

💡 Memory Hook

Self-emptying service → genuine human dependence without surrendering divine identity.

📖 8. Resurrection and Portraits of Jesus

📝 Essential Points

• The resurrection proclamation is early: Paul's letters show that exalted claims and resurrection belief did not first emerge centuries after Jesus.

• The resurrection hypothesis has explanatory unity within theism, while naturalistic alternatives may explain parts of the evidence without positing one extraordinary event.

• Resurrection can provide stronger support for unique Sonship than an isolated healing, but moving from resurrection to Chalcedon's precise ontology still requires scriptural and theological reasoning.

• The historical Jesus and Christ of faith are distinguishable but not separable because resurrection faith shaped memories while claiming to respond to Jesus' history.

💡 Memory Hook

Historical evidence assesses what followers believed; theology interprets resurrection as divine vindication.

📖 9. Modern Critical Interpretations

📝 Essential Points

• John Hick presents Jesus as a human being exceptionally open and responsive to God rather than the literal second person of the Trinity incarnate.

• Bultmann argues that the New Testament's mythological world-picture should be reinterpreted so that cross and resurrection confront hearers with judgement and authentic life received in faith. - Rudolf Bultmann

• Schweitzer places Jesus within an urgent vision of God's coming kingdom and interprets his mission and death through an apocalyptic horizon. - Albert Schweitzer

📌 Liberation Theology presents salvation as affecting bodies and social structures, while Jesus' love of enemies and crucified messiahship challenge interpreting him as an armed nationalist revolutionary.

📌 Historical judgement assesses sources and contexts, whereas theological judgement interprets the whole history through resurrection and worship; neither should be disguised as the other.

💡 Memory Hook

Schweitzer stresses apocalyptic strangeness; Hick mythologises incarnation; Bultmann prioritises proclamation.

📖 10. Hick and Bultmann on Christ

★ Must-know

📌 Rudolf Bultmann distinguishes historical reconstruction from the proclaimed Christ who confronts the hearer, arguing that New Testament mythology should be interpreted existentially rather than simply repeated.

📌 John Hick interprets incarnation as mythic language for Jesus’ extraordinary God-consciousness and moral significance, but this can under-explain early worship, resurrection proclamation and the belief that God acts uniquely in Christ.

Further detail

📌 Bultmann’s demythologising seeks meaning in ancient texts rather than contemptuously deleting them, but critics argue that reducing resurrection to proclamation weakens Christianity’s historical anchor. - Rudolf Bultmann

💡 Memory Hook

Hick reframes incarnation as myth; Bultmann reframes Christ through proclamation.

📖 11. Jesus as Political Liberator

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Political liberator: Jesus’ kingdom announcement, temple action and social practices as challenges to Roman occupation, inequality and established power.

★ Must-know

📌 Jesus’ enemy-love, care for outsiders and acceptance of suffering resist describing him as a straightforward armed revolutionary.

Further detail

• Crucifixion demonstrates political consequence more clearly than a complete political programme because Rome could execute a perceived claimant or disturber without that person endorsing violent revolt.

💡 Memory Hook

Political consequence without armed revolution.

📖 12. Gutiérrez and Liberation Theology

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Preferential option for the poor: Gustavo Gutiérrez - Priority to people whose lives and voices are denied, without implying divine hatred of other groups.

📝 Essential Points

• Gutiérrez understands liberation as including freedom from personal sin, fatalism and broken communion as well as unjust social structures.

📌 A merely political Jesus cannot explain reconciliation with God, cross and resurrection, while a merely spiritual Jesus cannot explain embodied healing, wealth teaching and public execution.

💡 Memory Hook

Incarnation → material history becomes a site of salvation.

📖 13. Integrating Wisdom Miracle and Liberation

★ Must-know

📌 Miracles reveal authority through restoration, wisdom creates a socially alternative community, and liberation changes bodies and relationships while Christians interpret it as the action of God’s Son.

📌 Kenosis allows self-giving limitation to disclose rather than conceal divine character, while the cross makes domination an inadequate model of Sonship.

Further detail

• The passages connect Christological themes in these ways:
  • Mark 5 joins healing to public recognition
  • Luke 10 joins Torah wisdom to boundary-crossing mercy
  • Matthew 5 joins authority to inner and social transformation
  • Luke 15 joins God’s character to Jesus’ contested welcome

💡 Memory Hook

Teaching, restoring, liberating: three lenses toward one identity.

📖 14. Jesus’ Divine Self-Understanding

★ Must-know

📌 Evidence supports an exceptional sense of Jesus’ authority and relation to God, but whether this amounted to conscious ontological equality is less historically demonstrable.

📌 Historical method should assess Jesus’ actions cumulatively, including forgiveness, boundary reconfiguration, authority over Torah, kingdom enactment and placing response to himself within response to God.

Further detail

• The Synoptics seldom use the direct metaphysical speech about Jesus’ identity that is characteristic of John.

📖 15. Historical Probability and Theological Adequacy

★ Must-know

📌 Historical probability asks which portrait fits early sources, Jewish and Roman context, execution and the rise of resurrection belief, whereas theological adequacy asks which portrait explains worship, salvation, genuine humanity and divine identity.

📌 The strongest synthesis argues that divine Sonship interpreted kenotically can ground and integrate Jesus’ roles as teacher and liberator while preserving human learning, suffering and solidarity.

Further detail

• The scholars sharpen these questions:
  • Albert Schweitzer presents the historical Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet alien to modernity
  • Hick tests literal incarnation and exclusivism
  • Bultmann tests dependence on recoverable biography
  • Gutiérrez tests socially weightless Christology
  • Bauckham and Ehrman contrast testimony and exaltation

💡 Memory Hook

Historical probability asks what happened; theological adequacy asks what explains worship and salvation.

📖 16. AO2 Arguments and Judgements

★ Must-know

• Miracles are signs within a cumulative case for Jesus’ identity rather than deductive proofs, because disputed testimony, non-divine wonders and the distinction between an event’s cause and incarnation remain possible objections.

• Chalcedon is best treated as coherent grammar that preserves one subject with full humanity and full divinity, rather than as an exhaustive psychological explanation.

• Functional kenosis means self-limitation in servant-form and humility, whereas surrendering divine essence would make the incarnate one no longer fully divine.

Further detail

📌 Jesus was politically consequential and socially revolutionary, but enemy-love, non-violent practice and the absence of an armed programme distinguish him from a straightforward zealot leader.

📖 17. Scholars and Key Quotations

📝 Essential Points

• Gustavo Gutiérrez is identified as the father of Liberation Theology and associated with the preferential option for the poor.

• Rudolf Bultmann is associated with demythologising the New Testament and stressing the Christ of faith.

• Albert Schweitzer is associated with the view that the historical Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet alien to modernity.

• John 1:14 states, “The Word became flesh.”

• Matthew 25:40 states, “Just as you did it to one of the least of these…you did it to me.”

• Matthew 5:44 states, “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you.”

• Mark 5:34 states, “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.”

📊 Synthesis Tables

Major Christological Interpretations

Interpretation	Jesus understood as	Main strength	Main difficulty
Schweitzer	Apocalyptic prophet	Preserves first-century strangeness	May overconcentrate apocalyptic expectation
Hick	Human exceptionally open to God	Avoids contradictions of literal incarnation	Struggles to explain early worship and resurrection claims
Bultmann	Proclaimed Christ confronting the hearer	Prioritises existential faith	Can weaken the historical anchor of Christianity
Orthodox Christology	Divine Son fully human and fully divine	Integrates history, worship and salvation	Must defend the coherence of two natures in one person

Three portraits of Jesus

Portrait	What it explains	Main limitation
Teacher	Parables, ethical teaching and repentance	Under-explains unique authority and worship
Political or social liberator	Conflict, poverty, boundary crossing and public execution	Cannot be reduced to armed revolution or regime change
Divine Son	Worship, salvation, resurrection and integrated identity	Must preserve genuine human limitation and suffering