Jesus The Christ: The Unique One

By John H. Armstrong

The beloved apostle, in writing some of the highest Christological material of the early church, notes that in the incarnation “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). First year New Testament Greek students learn early in their studies that monogeneis (only begotten) is a singularly important term which underscores the uniqueness, or “one of a kind,” of the person of Christ. And in John 1:14 the apostle also speaks of how the disciples “beheld His glory.” Martin Luther got it right when he translated this Johannine term “glory” by the German word “Herrlichkeit”—Lordlikeness! Make no mistake about it, as true Christians have confessed down through the ages, Christ was, and still is, the unique Lord of glory!

But this is not all. In the light of the universal New Testament witness to Christ John adds, in 1:18: “No one has ever seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” Jesus is God the unique one who “explains” the Father. The Greek word used here literally means that Jesus “exegetes” the Father to us. We cannot know God the Father except as Jesus of Nazareth “exegetes” Him to us. Christ is the alphabet by which we read the Father and come to know Him and His divine revelation. In previous days God had spoken to His people through prophets in dreams and visions and with Moses “face to face.” But now, in these “last days” (Heb. 1:1–2), God has “spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things ....” Thus the writer to the Hebrews concludes, “He [i.e., Christ] is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature” (1:3).

This is why the angels of God continually “worship Him,” and the Father says of Christ, “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever” (1:6, 8). And John, reaching the apex of Christological revelation, records Jesus speaking to Philip, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (14:9). Jesus very literally says that He is a “photocopy” of the Father. If you wish to know the Father, to see what the Father is really like, then look at Jesus!

New Challenges, Old Denials

The decade of the 1990s has witnessed a veritable flood of books about the person of Jesus of Nazareth. A. N. Wilson, a British journalist and novelist, gave us a book, which was meant to shock the world, with the simple title Jesus. This work was heralded by talk show hosts and print journalists alike. There is actually nothing new here, just old ballyhooed rejections of Christianity tried in the past. And what American has not seen or heard the radical opposition to the Jesus of Christian confession made by retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong? In his book, Born of a Woman, Spong claims that the doctrine of the virgin birth helped to foster the oppression of women. Before Spong is finished he completely remakes the understanding of Jesus, both His person and His work. The Jesus of Bishop Spong cannot be the Savior, because the Jesus of Bishop Spong is not the Jesus revealed in the New Testament.

All of this has prompted N. T. Wright, one of the leading New Testament scholars of our day, to conclude:

For some reason, this “interest” in Jesus has even reached the level of farce. The British satirical puppet show, “Spitting Image,” which has usually contented itself with lampooning politicians and the Royal Family, finally brought out a “Jesus”-puppet designed to shock and offend. And the well-known American writer Gore Vidal, in a similar vein, published a scurrilous novel about the origins of Christianity, called Live from Golgotha, in which, as the editor of The Times put it, he came across like a smutty schoolboy shouting rude words across the playground. [1]

It is really not a new phenomenon to undermine the person of Christ. Early Christian apologists wrote both scholarly and popular works to answer their Roman and Jewish critics. And from the nineteenth century to the present, scholars from within visible church communions have undermined the person of Jesus Christ. None of this surprises the careful Christian leader. What is new is the way the case against Christ is being made in the last quarter of the present century. Let me explain.

John Hick, editor of The Myth of God Incarnate (1977), argued that the notion of God becoming incarnate must finally, at the end of this century, be rejected as historical fact and accepted only as religious myth. Since the Reformers, Hick argued, dropped the supernatural concept of the sacraments (?), and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century theologians dropped the baggage of a supernatural Bible, now the twentieth century must face the facts. It is time, argues Hick and his cohorts, that we drop the final Christian myth, the incarnation of Christ. Only in dropping this notion will we rescue Christianity for modern use. (Spong argues the same nonsense, wanting to make Christianity more acceptable to modern minds!)

As Robert E. Webber argued cogently, several years after Hick’s edited volume appeared:

Hick’s heresy illustrates the dilemma of modern theology. Unable to verify in any historical or logical way the supernatural assertions of the New Testament, many moderns have resorted to a mythological interpretation of the life and times of Jesus. [2]

The idea is simply this: Myth is a story composed specifically for the purpose of communicating truth. It matters very little if the story is true. In this approach the details of the story need not be taken seriously. In common understanding when people think of myth, what comes to mind is fabrication, or fantasy. In theological usage myth has been seen as valuable in terms of the story line; i.e., in terms of what is being communicated. Regardless, it is argued by those who use this category of thought, the story must never be taken literally.

But there is a better way to understand Christ and to approach the person of Christ theologically. The theologian’s role, historically, was to clarify the Christian faith. To do this true theologians gave priority to expounding the meaning of the Holy Scriptures with the central purpose of strengthening the faith of those who follow Christ.

Modern critics have failed to recognize a simple, but very important, fact. The New Testament plainly provides its own categories for interpreting the person of Jesus. We do, as David F. Wells has cogently argued, significant violence to the actual thought of the New Testament if we supplant the thoughts of its writers to our more congenial and familiar thoughts. [3]

One Christ, Several Christologies?

It has been common, for well over a century, to speak of Jesus as if there are several different persons to be seen within the New Testament itself. Modern Jesus critics have simply brought this method to a new low! How much wiser if they had heeded the counsel of H. R. Macintosh in his classic work on Christ.

That there is a mainstream, that the authors of the New Testament are eventually one in their view of Christ with a unity which is powerful enough to absorb and subdue their differences of interpretation, is not to be lightheartedly assumed. But it is rendered extremely probable by the simple experimental fact that the church has always found it possible to nourish her faith in the Redeemer from every part of the apostolic writings. Further, this natural presumption is vindicated by a closer scrutiny of the facts. Two certainties are shared in common by all the New Testament writers: First, that the life and consciousness of Jesus was in form completely human; second, that this historic life, apprehended as instinct with the powers of redemption, is one with the life of God Himself. In Christ they find God personally present for our salvation from sin and death. Yet in spite, or rather because, of this basal agreement it is the more impressive to contemplate the sovereign freedom with which they surveyed Christ, telling what they saw in books which have been quite justly described as literature, not dogma. Each looked at Jesus with his own eyes; each spoke out of his own mind; and to force their words about Him into a mechanical and external harmony is to simply misconceive the genius of the Christian faith. [4]

Yes, surely we must begin here. The choice between the Jesus of myth and the Jesus who is the historic, supernatural and cosmic Christ, begins with the writings of the Scriptures themselves. We must not force our worldview on the New Testament as if we know better what they meant. Our task rather, is to ask, What was their worldview? And how does their understanding of Christ impact our lives?

Conclusion

This journal is designed to put theology back where it belongs. It is aimed at church leaders, the people entrusted with safeguarding the diet of the flock. One of our more important theologians in this century, writing nearly five decades ago, put the task that we are undertaking in this issue well:

The Church needs to use theology as a check, in order to protect herself against “food-poisoning,” and against the acceptance of worthless and deceptive “food substitutes.” Theology cannot herself create the Divine Food of Life, but she can render yeoman service to the Church, and to the cause of God on earth, by exposing the poverty-stricken condition of Christendom. [5]

The New Testament quite plainly sets before us a Jesus who is truly man and truly God. Whether we believe this or not makes an eternal difference. And this revelation of God, in the person of Jesus, is final. It is also superior to all other revelation(s). There is nothing more vital for the renewal of the church in our time than a rediscovery of the centrality of the person of Christ.

Salvation, ultimately, is seeing the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That is John’s point in the aforementioned quotations from his Gospel (cf. John 1:1–18). Have you seen the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ? If so, you love Him. If you have not seen His glory then all the arguments in the world will not convince you of His importance. The contributors to this issue have seen something. And they love Someone. They write to strengthen your faith, not to promote religious myths.

Solus Christus!

About the Author

John H. Armstrong is president of Reformation & Revival Ministries and serves as editor of Reformation & Revival Journal and Viewpoint: A Look at Modern Reformation & Revival in Our Times, a bimonthly magazine free upon request. A frequent conference speaker, John devotes his energies to the goal of strengthening churches through its pastors and leaders for the purpose of biblical reformation. He is the author/editor of seven books and has contributed to a number of other volumes. He lives in Carol Stream, Illinois, and he and his wife Anita have two adult children and one grandchild.

Notes

1. N. T. Wright, Who Was Jesus? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), vii.
2. Robert E. Webber, “Christ the Victor, Christ the Center” in Eternity magazine, April 5, 1985, 53.
3. Cf. “Christ the Victor, Christ the Center,” which is Webber’s review of David Wells’ important, but sadly out-of-print, book, The Person of Christ (Wheaton: Crossway, 1984).
4. H. R. Macintosh, The Doctrine of the Person of Christ (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1912), 2.
5. Emil Brunner, The Mediator (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1957), 15.