Christology
The Nature and Person of Christ
Christology is a field within the larger project of Christian theology that has as its central focus the continuing examination of the nature and person of Jesus Christ, Scholars in this field focus on the letters of the New Testament as well as the canonical gospels to help them determine the complexities of the relationship between Christ's person and his nature and how these connect with as well as differ from the nature and person of God the Father. Christology looks for evidence about the nature of God the Son by concentrating on every detail of both Christ's earthly life and the teachings that he shared with his followers. All of these different foci converge to help scholars -- and indeed all Christians -- to derive a clearer and more complete picture of who Christ was, what his teachings meant, and how Christ is involved…...
mlaReferences
Astley, J., Brown, D., & Loades, A. (2009). Christology: Key Readings in Christian Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Binns, J. (2002). An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rahner, K. (2004). Encyclopedia of theology: a concise Sacramentum mundi. London: Burns & Oates.
Scholas like Bog, Cossan, Meie, and Sandes each into Toah o into Gnostic and othe extacanonical taditions such as Geek novels to daw compaisons and contasts. The ange is compehensive, fom Geco-Roman souces to Jewish and othe Mediteanean souces. Often the pictue of Jesus that emeges is a constuction based on social-scientific and liteay tends.
Thee have been some impotant findings. Fo one, Jesus is undestood moe politically, poclaiming the Kingdom of God as a sociopolitical citique of his Palestinian context. This has given ise to impotant movements such as Libeation Theology in Catholicism. Anothe aea of eseach has shown how Jesus fits the typical pattens of Jewish monotheistic piety. Futhemoe, notions of the Messiah in Second Temple Judaism have been uncoveed that point towad its pevalence and contestation. It is not necessaily clea that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah accoding to the Thid Quest, but moe likely that…...
mlareferences to other Scripture as a guide. Later Vatican councils have confirmed that the ecclesial magisterium is the norm of Scripture, not vice versa. In other words, to protect tradition against Scriptural attack, Scripture is subordinated to the magisterium. This ensures that the Church has control over biblical interpretation. Yet Vatican II returned to place the highest authority in Scripture over the magisterium.
What is important is that the Catholic Church is concerned to preserve continuity with the past through a tradition of faith and its transmission. Without such continuity, the ecclesial identity is questioned along with the historical message of revelation, salvation, and community. Tradition is likewise a defense against heresy. The canon, rules of faith, creeds, papal decrees, and dogmas are vital in the preservation of Church identity. In addition, the Fathers of the Church are considered authorities. Throughout history, the Church has maintained its commitment to the veneration of and reverence for unwritten traditions in addition to the written. Without tradition, there is no universally valid body of faith and teaching to commit oneself to, and therefore no way for God to continue revealing himself in human history. At the same time, tradition and scripture mutually condition one another. They are not contradictory. Both are valid for the whole church and are meaningful expressions of the traditional apostolic faith.
Christology
The Birth of Christ
The gospel writers each contributed their unique perspective as they recorded events surrounding Jesus' birth. Each writer had a specific target audience in mind, and brought to his writings a perspective which was framed by that purpose, and by the writer's particular experience of Christ. The uniqueness of their record in no way changes the fact that their contribution was the work of God's Holy Spirit thorough them, as some scholars have claimed, but rather God used their individual gifts, talents and perspectives in order to create a full record of his Son's birth, life, and message.
Matthew wrote his gospel to the Jews, and the early church which was mostly Jewish converts. His concern was communicating the message of the messiah to the Jewish people. The messiah had been promised in Old Testament scriptures since Abraham's time, and by demonstrating how Jesus was the fulfillment of biblical…...
mlaResources:
The Holy Bible, King James Version. (1964) London: BB Kirkbride Co.
Christology: by Tyron L. Inbody
Jesus of Nazareth and Christology
The author, Tyron Inbody, wants to know in the first chapter if readers know "Jesus" and if they do, which "Jesus" they think they know. There are three approaches to the "historical Jesus" he says - and they are "The Premodern Approach," "The Modern Approach," and the "Postmodern Approach." The Premodern Approach occurred prior to the 18th Century Enlightenment, and in this approach Christians believe that the man whose identity was the "divine savior," the man who came into the world and died on the cross for the sins of mankind, and whose life - and his death and ascension - "opened up the possibility of eternal life for humanity. The Modern Approach has it that "we bring a critical attitude to every document we read," historical "claims" must be carefully analyzed, and third, "faith statements about...Jesus" must be within the…...
mlaReferences
Inbody, Tyron. The Many Faces of Christology. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002.
Christology Book Review
Christ and the creation of Christology
How can so many people look into a portrait of a man, written by 4 different scholar and commoners who portray the man in very similar fashion, and come away with such diametrically opposing viewpoints that the man is rendered almost meaningless? When the man is Jesus Christ and those looking at his portrait are scholars and theologians who do not believe that the biblical claims of Christ are true or an accurate reflection of the man, then the question has found its own answer. he reasoners have come to the table with their own agenda's rather than a scholarly and faith filled attempt to discover the biblical and authentic Christ.
he picture of Christ painted for the world by theologians across the centuries has changed from age to age. After another generation of New estament scholars has produced its portraits, Jesus has become…...
mlaThe remaining essays follow the same arguments. Of the five, the essay which I agreed with most completely was by Rebecca Pentz. An avowed feminist, Pentz discussed her trouble with the churches stand that tended to minimize women, and I believe that she is correct. The communicated message by much church denomination is that women do not have a place in the church order, and this is neither the teaching of Christ, nor the example of the early church. The first messenger of the risen Christ to the apostles was a woman. Jesus went out of his way to communicate the gospel to the Samaritan women who carried the message to her home town. The apostles taught that in Christ, there was neither bond, nor free, Jew of Gentile, male of female. Pentz makes a good point as she ways that authority can be used for someone, with someone, or against someone. In the case of Christology, the scriptural example is that authority is most often used for, and with men and women. But the experiential example within the church is that authority is most often used against women, and for and with men.
The final authors spear to get lost within the theories about Christ, rather than studying Christ himself. James Robinson devotes his essay to discussing non-canonical books and the scholarly theories of contribution to the gospels rather than the gospels themselves. Robinson says "Jesus did not need to be deified in order to receive the honor he deserved" (Robinson, p. 111) In other words, the creation of the deified Christ by the early church was an unnecessary expense of divisive sectarianism. Cobb sums up the Christological approach to Chris. After being a part of deconstructing the traditional theology of Christ, He says "any attempt to fix the meaning of Christ is doomed to arbitrariness and artificiality. Even in the New Testament there is fluidity in its use. In the course of Christian history this fluidity has expanded. Christ is a living symbol, not a proper name of a common noun." (Cobb, p. 141)
Davis, Stephen (ed.) Encountering Jesus: A debate on Christology. Westminster: John Knox Press. 1988
Soteriology and Christology
Soteriology is the study of salvation and Christology is the study of the person and work of Jesus. It is through Jesus Christ that humankind receives salvation; therefore, it is through Jesus Christ that the understanding of salvation must come. Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Anointed One, or a dozen other titles he claims or has been given; what can we know of him? Has there ever been a life more closely studied than the life of Jesus of Nazareth? Brilliant scholars and simple men have spent lifetimes in the quest. Yet, they have not had different material than the authors of the New Testament from which to glean deeper knowledge. Further, they have not agreed upon the interpretation of the words they do have. "There is, thus, a difference between the way in which the first Christians and the later Church…...
mlaWorks Cited
Aldwinckle, Russel F. More Than Man: A Study in Christology. 1976. Michigan: William B. Eerdmans.
Bloesch, Donald G. Jesus Is Victor! Karl Barth's Doctrine of Salvation. 1978. Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon.
Cullmann, Oscar. The Christology of the New Testament. Revised Edition. Trans. Shirley C. Guthrie and Charles A.M. Hall. 1963. Pennsylvania: The Westminster Press.
Elwell, Walter. A. Ed. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology.1984. Michigan: Baker Book House Company.
John's High Christology As iberation Theology
iberation Theology is the movement within the Church that values the overthrow of economic, social and political oppression, whereas John's High Christology is a theological assessment rooted in the divinity of Christ and the need for compassion and love for human beings based in God's love for us and ours for him. John's exposition on union with Christ in chapter 15 states that "You are already clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you" and serves as an admonition to the hearer of the word to value union with Jesus above all or any other kind of union. Indeed, John's Gospel is an example of how this union is the most important one in the whole of Christian experience. Yet, at the same time, John's Gospel does not forbid the theology of liberation or resist…...
mlaLiberation Theology: Instruction on Certain Aspects of the 'Theology of Liberation' Roma Italia
Sigmund PE. 1990 Liberation Theology at the Crossroads: Democracy or Revolution?
Yu J. 1996 Liberation Theology Chronology, MIT.
Womanist Theology
An individual theologian's reflection about the nature of God is not strictly about God alone. Rather, it is intimately bound-up with the theologian's own way of viewing the world. One fairly recent example of this comes from lie Weisel, a Nobel-prize winning writer. Weisel is a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust who has written about how his experiences in the concentration camps have caused him to think differently about God. His experience of seeing people killed and tortured has caused him seriously to question his previous ways of thinking about God. It was his experience that caused him to think of God as unable or unwilling to intervene in human suffering. He recalls watching a young boy hanging dead in the main square of a concentration camp, and he recalls the theological reflection that accompanied the moment. He heard a man from among the crowd ask, "Where is God…...
mlaExcerpts from Slave Narratives," Steve Mintz, ed.; available at accessed 12 December 2002.http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/6.htm;Internet ;
Excerpts from Slave Narratives," Steve Mintz, ed.; available at accessed 12 December 2002.http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/16.htm;Internet ;
Delores S. Williams, "Womanist Theology: Black Women's Voices," Christianity and Crisis (March 2, 1987).
Rausch what is Christology? According to Rausch, Christology is the in-depth study of the question "who is Jesus?" There are many different approaches to Christology, including an analysis of the different names used for Him, and ways Jesus has been depicted in different cultures such as the uniquely Eastern Orthodox conception of Christ as Logos. Christology can also address some of the theological and metaphysical questions related to the nature and role of Jesus. The dichotomy between Jesus as a human and Jesus as the incarnate Son of God is also addressed under the rubric of Christology, according to Rausch. According to Rausch, "popular Christianity today tends to focus on the divinity of Jesus, often at the cost of his humanity," (p. 2). Christology should be developed "from below," meaning that Christologists need to look to scripture and historiography instead of becoming distracted by the diversity with which different cultures and…...
Brown (1994) offers an astute Christological analysis via a close and critical reading of scripture. A close reading allows for the contextualization of each Gospel, to resolve issues like conflicting or inconsistent imagery and anecdotes. With inconsistencies between the Gospels, it becomes imperative to piece together Jesus's core intentions and the meanings behind both His words and His actions. The need to understand scripture historically and linguistically is also apparent in the Brown analysis. In fact, Brown (1994) also points out the importance of historical and cultural context in interpreting Scripture. For example, attributions of "magical action," which is beyond "miracle," corresponds with the Greek "miracle worker" stories during the time Scripture was being codified (Brown, 1994, p. 35). Brown notes that the Gospel portrayal of Jesus's miracles was indeed qualitatively different from either magical powers attributed to Greek "miracle workers" or to similar Levantine pagan concepts.
It may also be…...
Christology: The Identity of Jesus as oth God and Man
In the ible, Jesus identifies himself as both God and man most explicitly in the book of John. In the first book of John, the Apostle John famously writes: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). According to Elwell, statements such as "I and [my] Father are one" (John 10:30) and "before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58) refer to the fact that Jesus is connected to the wisdom of God in the Old Testament, to the Law of God in the Old Testament, yet also to the concept of God-made-flesh in the New Testament.[footnoteRef:1] [1: Walter Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary Theology. 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: aker, 2001), p.241]
Jesus is not merely the embodiment of Mosaic Law,…...
mlaBibliography
Elwell, Walter A. Evangelical Dictionary Theology. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001
Christology
hen confronted by a man who claims that Jesus Christ -- because he was human -- could not also be from God and of God, what should the response be? This paper delves into that topic.
hat is the biblical basis for Jesus' humanity? On page 239 of Christology the author explains that Christ was "sinless and also utterly different from other men"; and his "true humanity is specifically witnessed to as if it might be called in question." He was the Son of God but he also was human, and to show his humanity he was invited to dinner with Levi, "…along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners" (Mark 2:15). His humanity had been prophesized in various passages in the Old Testament. "I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the…...
mlaWorks Cited
Bible Hub. Daniel 7:13 / Mark 2:15 / Luke 1:35 . Retrieved June 4, 2015, from 2011.http://biblehub.com .
Biblia.com. Luke 24:36-43. Retrieved June 4, 2015, from https://biblia.com .
Elewell, Walter A. Christology. Grand Rapids Michigan: Baker Academic, 2001.
Wesleyan Theology. "Catechism / On Christ." Retrieved June 4, 2015, from 2008.http://www.wesleyantheology.com .
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This invocation, accompanying the sign of the cross, marks the beginning and end of every Roman Catholic prayer. It has become synonymous with Catholicism -- a celebration of the crucifix as representative of the lessed Trinity. While, every good Catholic takes this Triumvirate for granted, it is left to theological scholars like Jurgen Moltmann to dissect and analyze the salient features of the Trinity. Is the Trinity a Pneumatological or Christological entity? Is it a combination of the two? Where is God in the scheme of Moltmann's thesis? The theoditic question challenged the omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience of God in his relationship with man. Is this question revisited in relation to Jesus Christ as the carrier of the Holy Spirit during his life on earth? Moltmann presents a clear interpretation of the relationship between Christ and the Holy…...
mlaBibliography
Dabney, D. Lyle. "The Advent of the Spirit: The Turn to Pneumatology in the Theology of Jurgen Moltmann." Asbury Theological Journal 48 (1993): 81-107.
Hume, David. The Theodice Problem. 2002 n.d. God And Science. org. Available. December 7, 2002. http://godandscience.org/apologetics/nogod.html#01
Macchia, Frank. "the Spirit and Life: A Further Response to Jurgen Moltmann." Journal of Pentecostal Theology 5 (1994): 122.
McWilliams, Warren. "Why All the Fuss About Filioque? Karl Barth and Jurgen Moltmann on the Procession of the Spirit." Perspectives in Religious Studies 22 (1995): 176.
Christ Was and How it Relates to His Work
To be a Christian fundamentally means to believe in Christ, in the person of Jesus. There are many different types of Christians, including aptists, Catholics, Evangelicals, and Lutherans.
Christians believe that there is only one God, and that God is a Trinity of God the Father, Christ the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This is not an example of three Gods (tri-theism), nor is it an example of one God changing forms (modalism). Instead, to Christians, God has eternally existed as one essence with three persons.
Since Christ is the second person of the Trinity, Christians believe that Christ has eternally existed as well. Jesus Christ was "God with skin on." He was born of the virgin Mary, lived a sinless and perfect life, was fully man and fully God, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified as a sacrifice for the sins…...
mlaBibliography
McDermott, B.O Word Become Flesh: Demensions of Christology.
Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1993.
McGrath, A. Christian Theology: An Introduction. Cambridge, MA Blackwell, 2001.
Dolan, Jay P. The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985.
Jesus
The four gospel books in the New Testament are the principal foundation of the information regarding the life of Jesus. These books include Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The four books tell the story of the life of Jesus, but from different perspectives. Christian faith depends on the four gospel books that narrate the historical life of Jesus. As a result, if the provisions in these four books are a correct historical account of Jesus, then the faith of Christians is practical. Moreover, if indeed Jesus rose on the third day from the departed, the claim that Jesus is the Son of God is rational. If the claim that Jesus taught the people many things highlighted in the four gospel books, then believing in Him is the only means through which Christians can have everlasting life. Although the gospel books particularly Matthew, Mark and Luke demonstrate the synoptic problem,…...
mlaReferences List
Bible Society in Australia Staff 2008. Holy Bible: New international version. Australia: Bible Society in Australia Incorporated.
Donahue, J., & Harrington, S.J 2002. The Gospel of Mark: Texas: Liturgical Press.
Dunn, J 1985. The evidence of Jesus. Westminster: Westminster John Knox Press.
Green, J., Turner, M 1999. Jesus of Nazareth: Lord and Christ: Essays on the historical Jesus and the New Testament Christology. New York: Wipf & Stock Pub.
Jesus is the Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity. He is fully God and fully man, perfect in both his divinity and humanity. He came to earth to save humanity from sin and bring reconciliation between God and mankind. Jesus is the promised Messiah and Savior, who lived a sinless life, performed miracles, died on the cross for our sins, and was raised from the dead, conquering death and providing salvation for all who believe in him.
One of the key aspects of Christology is understanding the dual nature of Jesus as fully God and fully man.....
Christology: The Nature and Person of Jesus Christ
Introduction
Christology is the branch of theology that explores the nature and person of Jesus Christ. It seeks to understand Jesus' relationship with God, his humanity, his divinity, and his role in human salvation. Throughout history, various theories and perspectives have emerged within Christology, each attempting to capture the complex and multifaceted nature of Jesus' identity.
Biblical Foundations
The primary source for understanding the nature of Jesus Christ is the Bible, particularly the New Testament. The Gospels present Jesus as both fully human and fully divine. He is portrayed as having both human flesh and a....
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