Who was Jesus really? Not just who do Christians think Jesus was or who do I think Jesus was, but who did Jesus himself think he was?
The question of the identity of Jesus is a question that continues to spark incredible interest among people. Last Monday night I went to Borders Books and Music in Montclair after our elder meeting, and I found 65 different books about Jesus in the religion section. All but one of those 65 books argued that Jesus really existed, but each book presented a different portrait of who Jesus was. Just a sampling of different titles illustrates this diversity: Jesus the Magician, Jesus the Heretic, Jesus Symbol of God, Rabbi Jesus, Jesus One Hundred Years before Christ, the Changing Faces of Jesus, and Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium.
Who was Jesus really? How did Jesus view himself?
Last week we started a new four week series called Common Questions About Jesus. In this series we’ve been looking at some of the most basic questions people today have about Jesus. Last week we looked at the question of whether Jesus really existed and we saw that the historical evidence for the existence of Jesus is compelling. However, just because someone actually existed doesn’t mean that everything people believe about that person is true. Over time myths and legends can develop about a person that have nothing to do with who that person really was. A great example of that is St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. No one doubts that Patrick really existed, that he was a historical figure who lived in Ireland in the fifth century. However, the idea that he drove all the snakes out of Ireland was a much later legend that developed hundreds of years after Patrick’s death. Some have wondered if the same thing might be true of Jesus. Certainly Jesus really existed--the historical evidence is simply too overwhelming to deny that--but was Jesus really who Christians have historically claimed he was?
Today we’re going to look at who Jesus thought he was. To do this I’m first going to give you a brief overview of historical research into the life of Jesus. Then we’ll look at a few of the contemporary portraits of Jesus that have been offered as an alternative to the traditional Christian view of Jesus. Finally we’ll look at one event from Jesus’ life that demonstrates for us how Jesus viewed himself.
1. An Overview of Jesus Studies
First I want to give you a brief overview of historical research into Jesus. This overview helps us understand why there are so many books about Jesus today and why they all differ from each other so much. There have been basically three quests or movements that have tried to research the life of Jesus from a purely historical perspective.
The first quest for the historical Jesus began with an 18th century skeptic named Hermann Reimarus. Reimarus’ goal was to destroy the Christian faith at its root by demonstrating that the Jesus Christians believed in was not the Jesus of real history (Wright 16). Reimarus was a deist who came to the four New Testament gospels skeptical of anything supernatural. First quest historians like Reimarus focused on Jesus’ example in the New Testament gospels. They purged Jesus of all Jewishness, and what was left was a teacher who provided a good moral example and who gave good advice. There were no Bible believing Christian historians involved in the first quest, and that first quest ended when scholars pointed out that the Jesus of the first quest looked a lot like the first quest historians themselves.
The second quest--also called "the new quest"--for the historical Jesus started in the early 20th century with a German scholar named Rudolf Bultmann. Bultmann and his followers were extremely skeptical about the historical value of the four gospels in the Bible: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The focus of this second quest was on the sayings of Jesus because they thought all the actions of Jesus found in the New Testament were creations of the later Christian church. There were no Bible believing Christian historians in the new quest. The new quest is represented today by the Jesus Seminar. Perhaps you’ve read about the Jesus Seminar the last few years in Time, Newsweek or seen their members interviewed on TV. The Jesus Seminar is a group of about seventy New Testament scholars who meet twice a year to discuss historical research into the life of Jesus. Most of the Jesus Seminar scholars have doctorates from Claremont Graduate School, Vanderbilt, and Harvard, so they don’t represent a cross-section from all the major American universities. In fact, entirely absent are historians from such schools as Duke, Princeton, Yale, and University of Chicago, and so forth. Since the focus of the new quest is on the sayings of Jesus, the Jesus Seminar began their work in the early 1990s by voting on the authenticity of the various sayings attributed to Jesus in the four gospels. They concluded that only 18% of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the four New Testament gospels actually go back to Jesus himself. The other 82% they believer were invented by the later Christian church (Hays 4). In fact, one critic of the Jesus Seminar says, "What the members of the Jesus Seminar have done, in effect, is merely to offer us an anthology of their favorite Jesus sayings" (Hays 7). The new quest for the historical Jesus tries to eliminate what they think of as "Christian distortion" in the Gospels. One participant of the Jesus Seminar told Newsweek, the Jesus Seminar is attempting to "rescue Jesus from the spin doctors who wrote the gospels" (Woodward 49). So anything in the Gospels that seems to reinforce what Bible believing Christians believe about Jesus is automatically viewed as non-historical and untrue. The new quest also minimizes the Jewish context of Jesus. There are lots of New Testament scholars who represent the new quest, though it seems to be losing steam these days.
Finally, there’s also a third quest for the historical Jesus. The vast majority of these third quest scholars are not Bible believing Christians, though a few of them are. These historians are much more optimistic about the reliability of the New Testament gospels, and thus much more hopeful of gleaning genuine historical data from the New Testament itself. Third quest historians accuse "new quest" historians of being overly distrustful--even paranoid--of the New Testament gospels. They also accuse the Jesus Seminar of turning Jesus into a talking head by just focusing on the sayings of Jesus (Hays 6). Third quest historians--again most of whom are not Bible believing Christians--focus on the actions of Jesus. They emphasize the Jewish context of Jesus, insisting that we can’t truly recover a historical understanding of Jesus without understanding him in his first century Jewish context. There’s a growing body of historians who are part of this third quest. In fact, the New Testament guild of scholars and historians is currently divided between new quest scholars and third quest scholars. It’s almost as if the two groups speak an entirely different language.
So that’s a crash course in the historical study of Jesus. Each of the 65 books I found at Borders Books fits within one of these three quests for the historical Jesus.
2. Contemporary Portraits of Jesus
Now let’s look at a few of the contemporary portraits of Jesus that some of these historians have offered as an alternative to the traditional Christian view of Jesus. This is just a sampling of the more popular and widespread portraits, the kind that you read about occasionally in Newsweek and Time. I’ve purposefully avoided some of the more bizarre and outlandish portraits, though they’re out there as well.
We start with the view of Jesus as an "Enlightened Liberal." This approach is representative of many first quest historians. Ernest Renan’s 19th century book The Life of Jesus is a great example of this view. Renan presents Jesus as a wise and gentle teacher of moral truths who emphasizes the loving Fatherhood of God (Boyd 32). The Jesus Renan ends up with is a White Ango-Saxon liberal Protestant Jesus, a Jesus who would’ve fit in well with the enlightened establishment of late 19th century America. In fact, Renan’s Jesus looks a lot like Ernest Renan himself.
Then there’s Jesus the "failed prophet." This view is usually associated with the famous medical missionary and theologian Albert Schweitzer. Schweitzer’s criticisms of the first quest brought that first quest to an end and eventually birthed the new quest. Schweitzer pointed out that Jesus proclaimed the impending coming of God’s Kingdom. To Schweitzer, that meant that Jesus believed that the world was going to end any day. According to Schweitzer, Jesus grew disillusioned when the world didn’t end as he thought it would, and in his despair Jesus instigated his own arrest and execution hoping to force God to bring an end to the world as we know it. In Schwetizer’s mind, Jesus was an ethical teacher and a compassionate person who wrongly believed that the end of the world was imminent. Schweitzer admired Jesus’ courage and willingness to lay down his entire life for what he believed, but according to Schweitzer Jesus was wrong.
Now undoubtedly Albert Schweitzer was a wonderful humanitarian. His philosophy of reverence for human life led him to seek to serve the human race. He won the 1953 Nobel Peace Prize, and his work as a medical missionary was truly heroic. But the Jesus Schweitzer ends up with in many ways reflects his own values and disillusionment. Schweitzer’s giving away of his own life parallels his own understanding of a disillusioned Jesus laying his life down to try to bring God’s kingdom to the earth. In the end, Schweitzer’s Jesus looks a lot like Schweitzer himself.
More recently, we’ve seen the rise of Jesus "the Cynic philosopher." This view has especially become associated with John Dominic Crossan, the co-chairman of the Jesus Seminar. Now the Cynics were a Greek school of philosophy that existed around the same time Jesus lived. Cynics lived their lives protesting the social status quo, and they traveled around as wandering peasants, begging for food and showing contempt at the establishment. The Cynics often displayed contempt for people (Horsley 70-71), which is why they were nicknamed "dogs." The keynote of the philosophy of cynicism was self-sufficiency and radical individualism. Basically the Cynics were first century hippies who lived in countercultural protest of the Greco-Roman establishment.
Now there’s no actual historical evidence that any Jewish people ever embraced this Greek philosophy (Charlesworth 17). According to Princeton historian James Charlesworth, there’s not even any evidence of the existence of Cynicism in Palestine when Jesus lived there. But that hasn’t stopped Crossan and others from viewing Jesus as a Jewish Cynic philosopher. In fact, one of the most telling statements from John Crossan’s biography of Jesus is when he says Jesus was a hippie in a world of Augustan yuppies (Crossan 421). That appears to me to say far more about John Crossan than it does about Jesus. You see, Crossan was once a Roman Catholic priest, but he found his radical views about Jesus and his desire to get married to be too much for the Roman Catholic Church, so he resigned from the priesthood. The countercultural, hippie, Cynic philosopher Jesus looks suspiciously like John Crossan himself.
Finally, there’s Jesus the mystic. This view is associated with Marcus Borg, one of the more moderate members of the Jesus Seminar. Borg’s written a lot of books about Jesus, including his book Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. According to Borg, Jesus didn’t view himself as the Messiah or the unique Son of God, but he viewed himself simply as a spiritual person. Borg likens Jesus to other mystics in other cultures throughout history like Buddha. Again, Borg’s Jesus looks a lot like Marcus Borg.
There’s a common thread in all these contemporary portraits of Jesus that are offered as alternatives to the Christian view. ALL CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS OF JESUS REFLECT THE VALUES OF THE AUTHOR AND DRAW SELECTIVELY FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT. In every case the portrait of Jesus presented reflects the values already held by the author. This is why many people have likened the quest for the historical Jesus as being like someone looking down into a deep well for Jesus, seeing their own reflection from the well water, and then mistaking that reflection for Jesus.
Now to be fair, this observation is also true about Bible believing Christian books about Jesus. The books Christian scholars and historians write about Jesus also reflect their own values and beliefs about Jesus. I’m sure my presentation of Jesus reflects some of my values and assumptions as well. But there is one key difference: Bible believing Christian scholars and historians draw from the entire New Testament, not selectively from bits and pieces. The question is which view is able to account for the most data.
So we’re back to our original question: Who did Jesus think he was?
3. How Jesus Viewed Himself (Mark 11:12-18)
In our few minutes remaining I want to look at one event from Jesus’ life that I think shows us who Jesus believed himself to be. The event I want to look at is found in Mark 11:12-18. This event is Jesus’ controversial action in the Jewish temple, traditionally called "the cleansing of the temple."
I chose this event for two reasons. First, virtually all New Testament scholars and historians agree that Jesus really did drive the money changes from the temple (Wright 405). There is as close to a consensus as you can find in New Testament studies that this event actually occurred. Even the skeptical Jesus Seminar admits that this event as actually occurred (Funk, 175). In fact, a third quest historian from Duke University named E. P. Sanders says that Jesus’ action in the temple is the most historically certain event from the entire life of Jesus (Sanders 61-75). So I chose this event because virtually everyone agrees that this event really happened.
I also chose this event because most scholars also think that Jesus’ action in the temple is what led to Jesus’ arrest and execution by the Romans. Now this event is found in all four gospels, but I chose Mark’s version because Mark widely believed to be the earliest gospel written, and thus the closest to the actual event.
Let’s look at the story together in Mark 11:12-18. It’s hard for us to comprehend just how important and significant the Jewish temple was to the people of Israel in Jesus’ generation. The Jewish temple was believed to be the center of the universe, because it was believed to be the place where heaven and earth came together (Wright 407). The temple was also thought of as the only place where cleansing from defilement and forgiveness of sin could be found because the temple is where sacrifices were offered to God. The temple also had enormous political significance, because whoever controlled the temple also controlled the nation of Israel (Wright 411). The first Jewish temple had been built centuries earlier by King Solomon to consolidate his legitimacy as the genuine heir to King David. That temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, and a second temple--the temple we read about here--had been built mostly by King Herod, the Roman government’s puppet king over Israel. Herod rebuilt the temple to try to get people to acknowledge the legitimacy of his kingship. Whoever controlled the temple had a claim to be the true king of Israel.
Now we typically read this story as Jesus trying to reform dishonest practices in the Jewish temple. We usually think of money changers as charging inflated prices, and making themselves rich by exploiting the worshippers who came to the temple to buy animals to sacrifice. That might have been happening, but I’m not convinced that’s what led to this action. After all, Jesus drove out both the buyers and the sellers, which would seem odd if the sellers were victims.
One clue to understanding Jesus’ action in the temple is the cursing of the fig tree in vv. 12-14. Jesus doesn’t have anything against fig trees, but the cursing of the fig tree is a symbolic statement of judgment against Israel. The fig tree here stands for the nation of Israel, and the fact that it’s covered with leaves but has no fruit is a symbol of everything that had gone wrong with the nation of Israel in Jesus’ generation. Israel had lost their vision to be God’s light to the nations--including God’s light to the hated Romans--and they were instead obsessed with their own independence. By cursing the fig tree, Jesus is pronouncing judgment on the nation of Israel for abandoning that calling.
When Jesus drives out the buyers and the sellers in the temple he temporarily causes the temple sacrifices to cease. I think Jesus is symbolically showing that the Jewish sacrificial system has become obsolete and that the temple will soon to be destroyed (Wright 415). N.T. Wright, widely viewed as the leading Jesus historian in England, calls this an acted out parable of judgment, just as the cursing of the fig tree was. In chapter 13 of Mark Jesus will spend time teaching his disciples about the future destruction of the temple.
I think this view is strengthened when we look at the context of the two Old Testament verses Jesus quotes. His statement about the purpose of the temple being a "house of prayer for the nations" comes from Isaiah 56:7. We usually focus on the prayer part of the quote, but in the context of Isaiah 56 the emphasis is on the nations part of the phrase. Isaiah 56 is about God’s desire for the Jewish temple to be a place where foreigners from all the nations can come to learn about and worship God. God’s intent for the temple was to be a light to the foreigners--including the Romans--but Israel in Jesus’ generation has lost this vision.
Jesus’ description of the temple as a "den of robbers" comes from Jeremiah 7:11. We usually equate the robbers with the money changers, but it’s very important to note that the Greek word translated "robbers" here always means "a person who robs by force or violence" (Louw and Nida 57.240). So it’s not describing a person who cheats you, but someone who hits you over the head, sticks a knife in your ribs, and forces you to hand over your money. Furthermore, robbers didn’t rob people in their den because the den was considered their hideout, their place of security and safety (Garland 439). So the Jewish temple had become a hideout for violent people who were robbing others outside of their den, the temple. The context of Jeremiah 7 is Jeremiah’s prediction that God was about to use the Babylonians to destroy the first Jewish temple because the people of Israel had turned their backs on God. By quoting a judgment prophecy about the first temple from Jeremiah, Jesus is looking forward to the destruction of the second temple, this time by the Romans instead of the Babylonians.
What I think Jesus is saying is that God intended Israel and Israel’s temple to be a light of God’s truth to all the nations, but they’ve lost that vision and become obsessed with taking back their land from the Romans by force. So Jesus isn’t cleansing or reforming the temple, but he’s pronouncing God’s judgment on the temple, announcing its future destruction. Just forty years later, the Jewish people would revolt against the Romans, trying to violently take back their land, and that revolt would result in the Roman armies destroying the Jewish temple.
Now again, virtually all New Testament scholars agree that this actually happened and that this is what led to Jesus’ execution. What can we conclude from this event about who Jesus believed himself to be? I think from this action we can come to at least three conclusions. These conclusions, I believe, are devastating to all the contemporary alternative portraits of Jesus.
The first conclusion is this: JESUS’ ACTION IN THE TEMPLE DEMONSTRATES THAT HE BELIEVED HIMSELF TO HAVE AUTHORITY OVER THE JEWISH TEMPLE.
It’s hard to even imagine Jesus the enlightened liberal, Jesus the failed prophet, Jesus the Cynic philosopher, or Jesus the religious mystic viewing himself as having authority over the Jewish temple. N.T. Wright claims that this event demonstrates that "Jesus perceived himself to be not merely a prophet like Jeremiah, announcing the Temple’s doom, but the true king" who had authority over the temple (Wright 417). This means Jesus viewed himself in royal terms, terms along the lines of King David and King Solomon from the Old Testament. By doing this, Jesus was saying that King Herod was a pretender, that Jesus was the true king of Israel. This is why followers of Jesus ever since have called Jesus their Lord.
Second, JESUS’ ACTION IN THE JEWISH TEMPLE PREDICTS THE FUTURE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE.
If this event really does symbolize the eventual end of the temple sacrifice--as I’m convinced that it does--and if it really does go back to Jesus--as the vast majority of New Testament historians acknowledge that it does--then we have a historical example of Jesus predicting an event that wouldn’t occur until about forty years later. This casts Jesus into the role of a prophet, as someone who has supernatural insight into what God was doing in his day and who foretold future judgment coming upon Israel. It’s hard to imagine Jesus the enlightened liberal, Jesus the failed prophet, Jesus the Cynic philosopher, or even Jesus the mystic having that kind of supernatural prophetic insight.
So as well as being Israel’s true king, this event suggests that Jesus saw himself as God’s prophet. This is why Christians ever since this event have viewed the future as held by Jesus himself.
Finally, JESUS’ ACTION IN THE JEWISH TEMPLE LOOKS FORWARD TO THE CREATION OF A NEW KIND OF WORSHIPING COMMUNITY.
Just as the time of the fig tree has come to an end, so also the time of the temple has come to an end. Throughout his ministry, Jesus has presented himself as a kind of alternate temple. Many of Jesus’ healings were of people who were considered defiled and thus unfit to even enter into the temple. Yet Jesus cleansed them and healed them apart from the temple. The temple was considered to be the place where worshipers could find forgiveness of sins, but Jesus offers forgiveness of sins apart from the temple, simply by saying, "Your sins are forgiven." These actions of healing and forgiveness suggest that Jesus viewed the temple as obsolete, no longer important to what God was doing.
Jesus looked forward to the creation of a new kind of worshipping community, a community centered around him and his teachings. This new kind of worshiping community would truly be a light to the nations. It would be a place of forgiveness and healing. It wouldn’t be a community that had to meet in a building, but wherever Jesus’ followers gathered together in his name, they’d experience the presence of Jesus with them.
By presenting himself as an alternative to the Jewish temple, Jesus was presenting himself as Israel’s true priest. Instead of relying on the Jewish priests to offer sacrifices on your behalf and then telling you that your sins were forgiven, Jesus himself offers forgiveness from his own life. Instead of offering some animal sacrifice, as the true priest Jesus offers himself in his death to bring about cleansing and forgiveness to those who trust in him.
Ever since Jesus did this followers of Jesus through the centuries have viewed Jesus as the source of forgiveness and cleansing from sin and failure.
It’s hard to imagine Jesus the enlightened liberal, Jesus the failed prophet, Jesus the cynic philosopher, or Jesus the mystic viewing himself in this way. So this is one event from Jesus’ life that virtually all Jesus scholars agree really happened. If we can be sure about anything from the historical life of Jesus, we can be sure this event in the Jewish temple really took place and that it was this event that led to Jesus’ execution. Yet this event is very difficult to explain from the perspective of all the alternative portraits of Jesus flooding into our local bookstores.
This event suggests that Jesus views himself as Israel’s true KING, Israel’s true PROPHET, and Israel’s true PRIEST. In short, Jesus’ action in the temple demonstrates that he believed himself to be the MESSIAH. The anticipated Jewish messiah was believed to be Israel’s true king, true prophet, and true priest. The only way to make sense out of Jesus’ action in the temple is with messianic categories, as king, prophet, and priest. Now this doesn’t prove Jesus was right about seeing himself in this way, but it does demonstrate from a virtually undisputed event that he did in fact believe himself to be the Messiah.
Conclusion
So who did Jesus think he was? That’s an even more important question than who do we think he is, or who does the Jesus Seminar think he is, or who do Christians think he is? Jesus believed himself to be the culmination of all of Israel’s hopes and dreams, he believed Israel’s long awaited day had finally arrived in his life, and he exercised his kingly authority by stopping the sacrifice in the temple, he exercised his prophetic authority by predicting the temple’s destruction, and he exercised his priestly authority by looking forward to the creation of a new kind of worshipping community.
Sources
Boyd, G. 1995. Cynic Sage or Son of God? Bridgepoint Books.
Charlesworth, J. H. 1994. "Jesus Research Expands with Chaotic Creativity" in Images of Jesus Today. Trinity Press International.
Crossan, John Dominic. 1991. The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. Harper Books.
Funk, Robert, ed. 1994. The Gospel of Mark, Red Letter Edition. Polebridge Press.
Garland, David E. 1996. Mark, The NIV Application Commentary. Zondervan Publishing.
Hays, Richard. 1994. "The Corrected Jesus." First Things 43 (May, 1994).
Horsley , Richard. 1994. "Jesus, Itinerant Cynic or Israelite Prophet?" in Images of Jesus Today. Trinity Press International.
J. P. Louw and E. Nida. 1989. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains. New York Bible Society.
Sanders, E. P. 1985. Jesus and Judaism. Fortress Press.
Woodward, Kenneth. 1994. "The Death of Jesus" Newsweek, April 4, 1994.
Wright, N. T. 1996. Jesus and the Victory of God. Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 2. Fortress Press.
