©The Revd Barry Drake M.A.
In September 2000, I wrote the following:
“It is a passionate concern of my own that the Church in all its history seems to have exalted the divinity of Jesus, while making little effort to understand his teaching that ‘we are Gods all of us and sons of the most high’. In quoting the psalmist, Jesus clearly points us towards our divine origin; we are, after all made in God's own image and likeness. I believe that Jesus was asking us to accept this fact in a very literal manner. In pointing to our divinity as human beings, he fully accepted his own divinity. As Christians or Jews, each of us ought to be able to do exactly as he did. If we are able to recognise our own divinity, we must recognise each and every other human person as divine. In doing that, there can never again be the devaluing of individual humans at any scale - especially devaluing of the scale that we have seen in the Shoah.[1]”
At the very beginning of the Hebrew bible in the creation story is the phrase that God created humankind ‘in his own image and likeness’. This phrase is emphasised and later repeated. It seems to have some considerable importance. It seems to imply that humankind is, in some way, divine. In the Christian scriptures, Jesus makes reference to the divinity of humankind, and seems to have an understanding of this aspect of humankind which is rather more literal than the church has taught. What might we understand from this? And how does the ‘divinity of humankind’ fit alongside the Christian teaching about the divinity of Jesus?
It is my view that Jesus gained an awareness of his own divinity as a sudden revelation or insight, and I would place this insight at the point of his baptism. I believe it was this awareness that led to his subsequent ministry. The reaction of Jesus as recorded in the Christian scriptures[2] suggest that this is the case, and further, that the insight that Jesus gained at this point did not in any way set him apart in his own mind from the rest of humankind. I suggest that in coming to terms with his own divinity, made as he was in God’s image, Jesus became aware of the divinity of the whole of humankind, and of the immense responsibility that this brings with it.
Since this view is based in the bible and its teaching, it will be necessary to look at the different ways in which those passages that imply the divinity of humankind have been interpreted by both Jews and Christians over the years. I intend to compare those passages, and their subsequent interpretations, with mystical insights offered by Jews and Christians in their writings in order to show the importance of the concept of ‘divinity’ to an understanding of our relationship with God. When considering the bible, (both the Tanach and the Christian books[3]) I take the traditional (Catholic) view that the books of the bible are inspired by God, and can be regarded as God’s revelation of Godself and our relationship with Him.
For this reason, I intend to set out my own understanding of biblical interpretation with reference to the current broad range of understandings of how the bible is to be understood and studied. At the present time, views on the status, or authority of the bible vary from the extreme conservative, in which the bible is regarded as the ‘Word of God’ in its entirety, ‘inerrant’ in every aspect, through to the extreme liberal position in which the bible is regarded as a useful collection of writings which owe little or nothing to God’s revelation. My own position here is similar to Catholic doctrine which regards the bible as reliable, trustworthy and inspired by God[4].
In order to consider fully the rationale behind my interpretation of the bible, I will need to look at the nature of revelation, both in and beyond the scriptural writings. It is my view that the bible is based on God’s revelation of Godself, and that subsequent revelations or mystical experiences ought to illuminate our understanding of the revelations given in the bible. I would go so far as to suggest that revelations offered through World Faiths other than Judaism and Christianity might prove worthy of study, as, if they are given by the same one true God in whom we believe, they ought not to contradict Jewish and Christian insights and revelations. I hold that the bible is ‘revealed’ or inspired by God, but that the writers have included much that reflects their own personality and point of view. Martin Buber speaks of mystical writing as being akin to an organ which in its own way ‘modifies’ or gives voice to the wind which blows it[5].
During the last few decades, protestant theology and hermeneutics have been influenced most strongly by the work of Bultmann and Barth, who in turn were greatly influenced by the rationalist school, and the philosophers of the Enlightenment. Until very recent times, Evangelical scholars have been in the minority. Poythress points out that:
‘ ….. evangelicals have been less scholarly [than liberals] by any standard. Evangelicals, because of their views on the spiritual and eternal importance of biblical knowledge, have a natural concern to produce suitable popular and semi-popular literature. In addition the triumph of the historical-critical revolution has meant that few evangelicals were allowed to be scholars in the first place.[6]’
He goes on to suggest that this situation has produced something akin to anti-intellectualism in some evangelical circles.
In spite of the above, it is true that there has been considerable negative reaction to theologians of the Bultmannian school from respected scholars from time to time. Of particular note is C S Lewis, in his paper ‘On Fern Seed and Elephants’. I would also offer as an example, the archaeologist and expert on ancient papyri, Sir Frederick Kenyon. Writing in 1948, Kenyon launched an attack on the work of a liberal Christian bishop of that time, Dr. Barnes[7]. Kenyon demonstrated that Barnes had been extremely biased in his use of sources, and had neglected entirely the results of some then recent important archaeological discoveries because they did not suit Barnes’ argument. What concerns me here is that the dating evidence that Kenyon produced for the Christian Scriptures, and which has never since been challenged, is seldom if ever mentioned by scholars even today[8]. Somehow, the rationalist liberal school seem to have led the way for much of the last century[9], sometimes to the detriment of faith in a living God who acts in the world, and interacts with His creation.
This position is changing. There are now a number of respected evangelical scholars, who are not anti-intellectual and who are able to use the critical tools that we now have without compromising their position on God’s inspiration and action in the world[10]. It is this position with which I would largely align myself. As I see the situation, one extreme of biblical criticism seeks to rule out anything supernatural. This is in direct opposition to the evangelical position which holds that God not only interacted with His people in biblical times, but has done so ever since. And this includes belief in prophecy, the working of miracles and all the other supernatural events that occur in the bible.
In addition, liberal protestant scholarship has placed little credence on the accurate reporting of events during the life of Jesus, and indeed the words of Jesus as recorded in the Christian gospels. Bultmann and Barth had much to say about this aspect. It is interesting to note though, that Bultmann’s original thoughts about ‘demythologisation’ (1941) were so widely misunderstood, that he needed to offer not one but two further essays by way of explanation (1952, 1961).
Along with Kenyon and present day evangelical writers, I hold that the gospels were written temporally close enough to the events they record to allow good accuracy. I hold too that the words that Jesus is recorded as having said were so very important to early Christians that these above all would have been correctly reported, if not verbatim, then accurately reflecting the meaning of what he said. I take this view because in the main, the sayings were handed down in a largely non-literate society, and it has been shown that reporting is far more accurate in this kind of culture than in our own literate culture. It is known that the people whom Jesus had addressed and taught during his lifetime were very probably non-literate for the most part[11]. It has also been shown that in a non-literate society, the spoken word is far better remembered than it is in a literate society such as ours[12].
In this study, I aim to show that Christianity has removed the concept of ‘divinity of humankind’ from applying to the whole of humankind and has instead divinised the person of Jesus to the point at which he and he alone is the ‘divine person’ made in God’s image. In so doing, I believe that Christianity has not only done itself a disservice, but has failed to respond to the teachings of Jesus on this point. In taking this line of argument, I intend to show that humankind as a whole is ‘divine’ and that Jesus is himself divine in the same sense that humankind is divine but has a different and more significant place as well.
The Christian scriptures show that Jesus after his death reappears and is in some way different. I intend to show that this ‘post crucifixion’ Jesus is seen by those who met with him as more evidently divine than the pre-crucifixion Jesus that some of his disciples had known. In claiming this, I refer to the statement I made above that I understand the words of Jesus to have been accurately reported - however, I would add a strong caveat here. The biblical Christian writers make no distinction between the revealed words of Jesus as they experienced them after the resurrection of Jesus, and the words that he was reported to have said to his disciples before his crucifixion. As I have said, the post-crucifixion Jesus was very different and his revealed words reflect this difference – this heightened divinity – that his followers encountered in him.
I want to suggest that the post-crucifixion Jesus – the ‘risen glorified Christ’ of the Christians is identical to the ‘Son of Man’ from Daniel, with whom Jesus is often identified, but that this Son of Man is far more than Jesus alone. I will show evidence from mystics[13], from the bible[14] and from commentators that from God’s viewpoint, the whole of humankind is this mythical ‘Son of Man’ both in its origin and in its completion. That is to say, every living human being throughout the whole of time is, or can be[15], incorporated into this ‘Primal Human’, which I believe is, or will be, one with God, and thus fully divine.
The implications for interfaith dialogue are considerable. But these can only come at the expense of a re-thought Christianity, and a re-worked Christology. However, in this postmodern age, there are a number of Christian thinkers who are calling for what they would describe as a lower Christology. As Pittenger puts the question, ‘Is Jesus different in degree or kind?’
I have mentioned above that some of the impetus for this dissertation came from the realisation that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is the biggest hurdle imaginable in any interfaith dialogue.
The Christian concept of ‘the Trinity’ has never been an easy one, and has been and is a stumbling block for any interfaith dialogue. In the main, this is because other faiths understand that Christians see Jesus as being interchangeable with God the father. In fact, there is some justification for this view because this is the way in which many Christians view Jesus. In this, I will be looking at what the bible, in particular Paul, has to say about the person of Jesus. When, for example, Paul says: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death ….” (Phillipians 3:9), is he saying the same as John’s: “Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” (1 John 3:1). Neither of these statements put Jesus in the place of some kind of superhuman in which some Christians see him. This would in any case go completely against the formal teaching of the church, which has always said clearly that Jesus is to be regarded as ‘True Man’. The question I ask here is not, ‘Is the Trinity a reasonable concept?’ but rather, ‘Where are you and I (and Jesus) within the Trinity, made in God’s image as we all are?”
Since the intention of this dissertation is to look at the concept of the divinity of humankind, I will begin by looking at what ‘divine’ and ‘divinity’ might mean. I want to suggest first and foremost that divinity has to do with the attributes[16] of God. These might be some of the attributes of God as we see them in the bible, and in Jewish and Christian tradition: Omnipotence[17]. Creativity. Loving. Keen sense of justice. Peacemaking/peacegiving.
It might seem to be obvious that humankind does not have the first of these attributes. However, what humankind does have is a need for, even a lust for, power. Freudian psychology makes much of this particular human (divine?) attribute. His follower, Jung said:
“Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power
predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other”[18].
I suggest that this aspect of human need is a result of our being made in the image of God – and it is an attribute which is the root cause of our separation from the Godhead. My intention is to look further at this aspect of human divinity in chapter 3 “The Hebrew Bible and the Christian Scriptures”.
Humans are creative. All human beings have a creative urge. It is part of our nature, and once again, I see it as a divine attribute[19].
Love is at the heart of all human relationships. Love is at the heart of the human family. Without love, there would be no future for humankind. And love is perhaps the most important attribute of the God of both Jews and Christians[20]. 1 John 4:15 tells us that ‘God is love’. Love, too is as mentioned above, something which is in tension with the human need for power. It is at the heart of our human existence, and it is right at the centre of the bible’s teaching about God[21].
Justice and peace[22] are something for which humankind has striven throughout recorded history – sometimes with considerable success. Justice and peace are also at the very heart of the Pentateuch, the prophets, and the Gospels. Perhaps the best example of this is Micah 6:8 “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
In Matthew 5:9 from the beatitudes, we have "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” This seems to sum up not only the attitude of Jesus towards peace, but also the teachings that we find in the Pentateuch[23].
If one were to take an atheistic view – that God is nothing more than a projection of our human needs, then the divine attributes I have listed above would certainly be at the top of our list of needs, and their opposites would be seen as neuroses – perhaps even psychoses – which psychiatry might see as attributes which the disturbed mind might project onto the devil. As a believer, I would say that overall, there is good evidence here to speak of the ‘divinity’ of humankind simply because of the divine attributes which we possess. And it is evident that the attributes mentioned above can be used by individuals or by groups of individuals either for the good, or the harming of our fellow human beings, simply because each of those attributes has a dark side to it.
I have stated above that I regard the Tanach and the Christian scriptures as being foundational in my understanding of both Jewish and Christian belief and that I hold it as being fully authoritative in presenting God’s revelation of Godself. For this reason, I am going to look first and foremost at what the bible says about the divinity of humankind.
“God created humankind in his own image” – Gen 1:27. This phrase implies that there is something special – something divine - about the human race. It occurs only three times in the Tanach as a direct reference to the ‘Image of God’, but the fact that it is repeated and emphasised – especially in Genesis 1:27 – suggests that this concept has great significance. Because of the importance of these passages, I quote them here in full[24].
Then God said, "Let
us[25] make humankind in our image, according to our
likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the
birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the
earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." So God
created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and
female he created them. Gen 1:26-27
This is the list of the
descendants of Adam. When God created humankind, he made them in the likeness
of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them
"Humankind" when they were created. When Adam had lived one hundred
thirty years, he became the father of a son in his likeness, according to his
image, and named him Seth. Gen 5:1-3
For your own lifeblood I
will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from
human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for
human life. Whoever sheds the blood of
a human, by a human shall that person's blood be shed; for in his own image[26] God made humankind. Gen 9:5-6
In looking at these
passages, one might note that the second clearly says that Adam’s son is also
made in the image and likeness of God, and the third passage makes it clear
that the whole of humankind, according to the Noahide covenant, remains in
God’s image and likeness. This is
significant as an argument against the understanding that humankind only
existed as God’s image up to the fall.
In addition to the
passages above, the Septuagint carries the book of Ecclesiasticus (also known
as Sirach). Ecclesiasticus 17:3 on the
creation of humankind says: “He endowed them with strength like his own, and
made them in his own image”.
These few references
have brought a great amount of comment and speculation from Christian scholars
and commentators beginning with the early church fathers and continuing through
to later writers. I will look further
at these in subsequent chapters. It is
worth commenting that surprisingly little writing comes from Jews during the
same period. In a later chapter I will
offer some thoughts on the lack of Jewish material. Although the above bible passages are the only ones that refer directly
to humankind being created in God’s image and likeness, there are passages in
the Tanach which directly echo the concept.
Psalm 8 speaks of the
dignity of humankind, and says: “What are human beings that you are mindful of
them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower
than God, and crowned them with glory and honour”. Ps 8:4-5 [27] Another
Psalm which implies the divinity of humankind is Psalm 82. "You are gods, children of the Most
High, all of you nevertheless, you shall die like mortals ….” Ps 82:6 [28]
These then are the bible
references that seem directly to point towards the divinity of humankind. Taking a broader view, it can be seen that
that the entire Tanach supports the view that humankind and life itself, is
sacred and is sacrosanct and could thus be said to be divine. Cairns points to the prophets[29]. Their
endless call for justice claim the justice of God for the whole of humankind,
and not just for Israel. The Septuagint
too is full of injunctions to care for our fellow human being. It is this that leads to one of the best
known Talmudic comments. I refer to R.
Hillel and his statement that the whole of Torah is summed up by the saying:
“Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and never do to anyone else
what you wouldn’t want them to do to you.
The rest is commentary – now go and learn it.” [30]
The sacredness of
humankind, the dignity of every single human life – I suggest the divinity of
every single human being – is right at the centre of the whole of the
Tanach. The thinking is this: If
humankind is divine, then whatever we do to our fellow person, we are doing
that to our God[31].
There is a further
concept in the Tanach which deserves exploration in the connection of the
divinity of humankind. This is the idea
of the ‘Son of Man’.
The phrase ‘son of man’
as it appears in several places in the Tanach ought simply to mean ‘descendant
of Adam’, or perhaps ‘Mortal Man’ as some bible versions have it. This is clearly the usage in, for example
Numbers 23:19 “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor the son of man, that
he should repent”. It is used too as a
form of address by God to the prophet Ezekiel[32].
However, in Daniel, the phrase is used with a very different shade of
meaning. Daniel 7:13 has:
“I was watching in the
night visions, And with the clouds of the sky there was coming one like a son
of man. He approached the Ancient of Days and was escorted before him. To him
was given ruling authority, honour, and sovereignty. All peoples, nations, and
language groups were serving him. His authority is an eternal authority which
will not pass away. His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.”
Later in this chapter we
will see how this phrase is taken and used by Christianity, however it is
important first of all to look at the context and at the quotation from Daniel as
it was understood before the church came into being.
My understanding is that
the Son of Man in Daniel’s vision is, or at least represents, the divinity of
humankind as it is pointed to by the creation story. Raymond Brown cites a number of scholars who regard this view of
the apocalyptic Son of Man as a later development brought about by the
Christian use of the phrase. I find the
argument by Borsch, who looks at Gnostic texts alongside the Christian
scriptures convincing, as he finds in those texts considerable evidence for
Jewish thought before the time of Jesus on the early understanding of the ‘Son
of Man’ in the way I have suggested above.
Fuller sees the vision of ‘one like a son of man’ as ‘a collective
symbol for the elect[33]’ and this seems to me to be the direction to
which mystical revelation points. I
will come back to this.
Daniel is an apocalyptic[34] book.
Apocalyptic is a peculiar genre which is first and foremost of a
revelatory nature, and concerns what might be called the ‘eschaton’ – the
Kingdom of God which is to come. In
short, it is visionary, and it speaks symbolically of a heavenly world rather
than the earthly world that we know. It
is the stuff of the supernatural, and cannot therefore be explained by mere
logic. Jewish thought before the coming
of Christianity simply took apocalyptic at face value and understood it more as
one might understand poetry than anything else. The language is evocative and speaks straight to the heart. The vision of Daniel is a clear allusion to the
creation in which the Son of Man (mortal man, offspring of Adam), is given
authority and honour in the end times.
It is highly unlikely that anyone would have understood ‘The Son of Man’
as seen by Daniel as an individual. The
intention was more probable that humanity as a whole was here taken
symbolically and glorified, or restored to the place it had before the
fall. It is possible that some Jewish
thought associated it with the expected supremacy of Israel, but there is
little evidence for that point of view.
The passage from Daniel,
with all its mystery and symbolism has had great influence on Christianity as
we will see in the following section.
We have seen in the previous section that the concept of humankind ‘made in the Image of God’ is central to the understanding of the Pentateuch. One of the most Jewish of the letters in the Christian books is the letter of James:
“Nobody can
tame the tongue -- it is a pest that will not keep still, full of deadly poison
We use it to bless the Lord and
Father, but we also use it to curse people who are made in God's image …. “
James 3:8-9.
This, it would seem is
the same understanding that we discovered in the Hebrew bible; “whatever we do
to our fellow person, we are doing that to our God”
The Christian scriptures make a great deal of reference to the phrase ‘Son of Man’ which occurs eighty-three times in the books of the Christian scriptures. Seventy-nine of these occurrences are in the four gospels and all of these are in quoted sayings of Jesus which are understood by Christians to mean that Jesus identified himself with the Son of Man in Daniel’s vision. Before looking further at this usage, I want to discuss the idea that we can see in the books of the Christian Scriptures two distinct and different views of the person of Jesus.
It is not difficult to see in the scriptures the historic Jesus who lived with and taught his followers. In addition, we find a different Jesus. Jesus after his death – the Jesus whom Christians describe as risen, ascended and glorified. This is the Jesus of revelation – the Jesus who revealed himself to Paul, to a number of his other followers and to countless Christians through the ages even up to the present day.
Dunn is quite clear that the early church ”seems to have regarded Jesus’
resurrection as the day of his appointment to divine sonship, as the event by
which he became God’s son”.[35]
When Alan Segal[36] tells us that Paul ‘almost explicitly says that
he identifies the mystical Kavod, God’s Glory, with Jesus the crucified
messiah …’ and in support of this quotes 2 Cor 4:6, it seems that in his view,
there is a way of looking at the risen Jesus in an eternal and very Jewish
light. It is fitting to remember that
in the same collection of essays, Monika Hellwig speaks of the concept of
deification or divinisation of the believer which runs through the Eastern
Christian tradition. She goes on to
say: ‘The Glory, or revelation of God is the human person fully alive’[37].
Gerald O’Collins is very clear on this post-resurrection understanding of
Jesus. For him, it is the glorified
risen Jesus and only him that is of importance. He writes:
“Christology properly
began with what we can call the ‘post-existent’ Jesus. After his death he was experienced and
worshipped by his disciples as risen to new life, exalted in glory, and
existing in power and dignity on the divine level.” He goes on to write: “Jesus was ‘adopted’ and became Son of God
only as a result of his resurrection.
Rather the sense that believers began to experience his powerful,
heavenly existence in the aftermath of his resurrection from the dead – as
opposed to the way people experienced Jesus in his earthly existence when he
was born from the house of King David.[38]”
From the above, I argue that the
revealed, post-crucifixion Jesus was a bigger influence on the writers than was
the rabbi who lived and taught among the people. That there is a difference seems clear. Paul says that God: “will
transform these humble bodies of ours into the likeness of his glorious body.” [39] and John tells us that: “what we will be has not
yet been revealed. We know that whenever it is revealed we will be like him,
because we will see him just as he is.[40]” It is
not completely clear from the Christian Scriptures as to whether the difference
between Jesus and other human beings was one based on his glorification, or
whether this difference was there in his lifetime. It was left to the later church to interpret and add to what was
written in the scriptures.
If we hold to the assumption that Jesus has been accurately reported,
then we can say with some assurance that Jesus did use the title ‘Son of Man’
of himself. The question here is, what
did he mean? Christians have understood
that he claimed for himself the entirety of the Son of Man from the vision of
Daniel. The alternative would be that
Jesus was aware of his divinity as a human being – the divinity promised in the
creation story: the divinity in which we all share. Mark 8:38 has: “Those who are ashamed
of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son
of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the
holy angels." This particular
passage suggests that Jesus is anticipating the coming of Daniel’s ‘Son of Man’
in his judgement of those who reject the words of prophets and good teachers.
This line of thought does not hold true for all the ‘Son
of Man’ passages in the gospels though.
It is especially the case in John’s gospel. As an example, John
5:25-27 reads: "Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now
here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear
will live for just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son
also to have life in himself and he has given him authority to execute
judgement, because he is the Son of Man”.
In this, as in many other passages, it might seem that Jesus is claiming
that he, as an individual, identifies with, in fact is, the Son of Man from
Daniel.
However, the idea that Jesus is making a claim to be the “Son of Man” in
its entirety becomes less likely when taken alongside other statements. The passage in John 17:20-23 says:
“I pray not only for
these but also for those who through their teaching will come to believe in
me. May they all be one, just as,
Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that
the world may believe it was you who sent me.
I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we
are one. With me in them and you in me,
may they be so perfected in unity that the world will recognise that it was you
who sent me and that you have loved them as you have loved me.”
This suggests that Jesus is aware of a kind of unity to which the whole
of humankind is called, and that does not fit well alongside any claim for
Jesus and Jesus alone to be ‘The Son of Man’.
Fuller takes the view that as most of the Son of Man sayings are in the
third person, they are simply recollections of Jesus’ teaching about the
apocalyptic Son of Man which became mixed in with his sayings about himself[41].
In John’s gospel, Jesus quotes Psalm 82:6 when he is told: “you, though
only a human being, are making yourself God”.
Here, Jesus answers, "Is it not written in your law, 'I said, you
are gods'?[42] Again,
this does not fit well alongside a claim that he and he alone is the Son of
Man. I suggest that to Jesus, his ‘son of man’ sayings mean that we (together)
are the ‘Son of Man’ that Daniel writes of, although his claim was and still
is, misunderstood as Jesus ‘making himself God’. The context here is that Jesus refers to God as ‘his
father’. McGrath points out that the
meaning of ‘Son of God’ in the Tanach was broad. “ … perhaps best translated as ‘belonging to God’. It was applied across a wide spectrum of
categories, including the people of Israel in general[43]”.
Fuller quotes H.E. Tödt commenting on one particular ‘Son of Man’ saying
(Luke 12:8-9) as follows: “The mystery of this saying lies in the relation which
exists between the fellowship of the disciples with Jesus and their
participation in the salvation with the son of man.” There is thus, he adds, a “soteriological continuity, though not
a christological identity between Jesus and the Son of Man”.
Moses[44] makes close comparison between the ‘Son of Man’
from Daniel and the Christian Transfiguration story. The fact that in the Transfiguration story, a kind of preview of
the glorified Jesus is seen alongside glorified figures of Moses and Elijah
makes any comparison with the ‘Son of Man’ from Daniel point towards the
composite nature of this ‘Son of Man’ figure.
James Moffatt, writing in 1912 was aware of a difference in the way Jesus
is portrayed in what he believed to be the earliest parts of the gospels from
what he sees in the later texts. He
says that “The most casual reader can hardly miss alterations in one or both of
the later synoptic gospels which were plainly due to the growing reverence for
Jesus ….[45] He sees
this progression reaching its peak in John’s gospel which he views as the
latest of the gospels[46]. To me,
this indicates the beginnings of a gradually increasing perception of Jesus
which places him higher and higher as we move chronologically further away from
his own lifetime. Effectively, this
growing reverence, this elevated ‘christological thinking’, serves to place
Jesus further and further out of reach!
A further problem is that of pre-existence. We shall see later that the thinking of Philo and others pointed
to the Son of Man as seen by Daniel as a pre-existent figure being with God
before creation. This attribute is
given to Jesus in John’s gospel and is also seen in the letter to the
Colossians.
“He is the image of the
invisible God, the firstborn of all creation for in him all things in heaven
and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or
dominions or rulers or powers-- all things have been created through him and
for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together”[47].
In John’s Gospel, we have:
“In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the
beginning with God all things came into being through him, and without him not
one thing came into being[48]”.
I will discuss the concept of ‘The Word’ further on in this chapter.
I conclude here that both of these examples come from personal
experiences of the glorified Jesus, rather than from knowledge of him during
his lifetime. Those who have met him in
this revelatory manner claim to have seen him in his divinity, as ‘One like a
Son of Man’, but as one like whom we are destined to become when we enjoy the
fullness of our own divinity[49]. In
addition, they see him as identical with the ‘Primal Man’ – the Adam from
before the fall, who, according to Philo, existed before the creation – an
identity which is not solely for Jesus as an individual, but for us as
humankind. For this reason, I believe
that every one of the above examples from the Christian Scriptures point not to
the divinity of Jesus alone, but to the corporate divinity of humankind which
is yet to be fully realised. I also
conclude that the later writings within the Christian corpus, and the
interpretations that the church began to put upon them were influenced by the
ever-increasing insistence on the deity of Jesus over and against the divinity
of humankind.
At the same time, it is true that the church as a whole has been very
insistent that Jesus is to be regarded as ‘true man’. Since apostolic times there has existed a tension between those
who would strive to put him ‘up there, out of reach’, so to speak, and those
who would want to bring him down to their own level. I will go on to cite mystical and revelatory insights during the
time following the bible to show that understanding of the Christian (and
Jewish) truths concerning the place of humankind is, as yet incomplete. As Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13:12;
“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I
know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
Something of the apostolic attitude may be seen in Paul’s letter to the
Philippians in which he tells us that Jesus “though
he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be
grasped at”. Philippians 2:5 “In the form of God” is, as we have seen in
the Hebrew bible an attribute of humankind “made in God’s image and likeness”. To ‘grasp at’ equality with God is something
we recognise only too well in the world[50]!
Paul is saying specifically that Jesus did not do, or attempt to do any
such thing.
The use of ‘en arch’ as the first two words of John’s gospel suggests that he is writing his gospel in the form of a midrash on Genesis[51]. Borgen points out that Jewish thinkers in the period of the second temple were teaching about something significant prior to the actual creation. He suggests that it is this pre-creation ‘moment’ (one could hardly call it a ‘time’) that John wishes us to consider as ‘The Beginning’. And it is in this ‘Beginning’ that John places his ‘Word’. It is this ‘Word’ that we see in John’s gospel as wholly and entirely identified with the person of Jesus in verse 14 of John’s prologue in which the ‘Word’ becomes human. There seems to be general agreement among commentators that this ‘Word’ – the ‘logoV’ – of John’s prologue is based on the Greek concept of the divine spirit that is found in Stoic and Platonic philosophical thought. Philo of Alexandria is perhaps the most likely source for John’s concept of logoV [52].
There is a big difference between John’s personification and identification of the logoV with Jesus, and Philo’s thought. Philo makes it clear that God’s creative ‘Word’ is there, pre-existent at the very beginning. It is an idea, or a plan that God holds, and right at the centre of this plan is humankind ‘created in God’s own image and likeness’ (Gen. 1:26). And there is no doubt that in Philo’s understanding this means that humankind is Godlike in its divinity[53]. At the same time, Philo is clear that humankind has yet to reach fulfilment. He says:
“And even if there be not as yet any one who is worthy to be called a son of God, nevertheless let him labour earnestly to be adorned according to his first-born word, the eldest of his angels, as the great archangel of many names; for he is called, the authority, and the name of God, and the Word, and man according to God's image, and he who sees Israel[54]”
It seems likely that John has this in mind when he offers the identification between the logoV of contemporary philosophical thought, and Jesus.
We have seen above that John
identifies the logoV so completely with Jesus
that at first sight, he seems to leave little room for consideration of the
divinity of the rest of humankind.
Paul, however seems to have a broader view of what Philo is
proposing. As is the case with John, it
seems clear that Paul takes the view of the pre-existence of a divine plan
before creation begins. Philippians 2:6
makes a similar identification between Jesus, and what John referred to as the logoV.
However, he puts the concept somewhat differently elsewhere – in his first
letter to the Corinthians, he says: “It is
written, moreover, that: 'The first man Adam became a living being” – here
referring to Gen. 2:7, and he goes on to say:
”So the last Adam is a life-giving Spirit. But we should notice that the order is ‘natural’ first and then ‘spiritual’. The first man came out of the earth, a material creature. The second man came from Heaven and was the Lord himself. For the life of this world men are made like the material man; but for the life that is to come they are made like the one from Heaven. So that just as we have been made like the material pattern, so we shall be made like the heavenly pattern”.[55]“
Also in Romans 8:18-29 Paul seems to be making a similar statement about the place of humankind from the viewpoint of its divinity.
I want to suggest that there is a special consideration here that one ought to take into account. We can be fairly certain that neither John[56] nor Paul met with Jesus prior to his death. Both of them, however, claim to have met him in some kind of religious experience at a later time. In each case, they believe that they are speaking of a person they feel they have met and known personally, but at the same time a person who, though still human has been in some way changed and perfected in his divinity. Paul goes on to say in verse 51 of the same passage from 1st Corinthians that:
“We will not all die,
but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the
last trumpet call. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised
imperishable, and we will be changed”.
Similarly, in verse 18 of 2nd Corinthians, he speaks of all of us being transformed into God’s image. He clearly believes that this pre-existent divinity that Philo calls the logoV is not only a pattern or a plan for all of humankind, but a reality which all can expect to attain at the end of the age. Paul sees Jesus not as unique, but as ‘firstborn’ into the divinity which is an attribute of humankind.
For these reasons, I am convinced that ‘The Word’ (logoV) and the pre-existent ‘Divine Man” from Philo, and the apocalyptic ‘Son
of Man’ from Daniel are interchangeable.
While not suggesting common
authorship of the first letter of John and of John’s gospel, I do suggest that
John’s first letter comes out of the Johanine tradition. At the very least this suggests that the
early Christian community was beginning to understand the divinity of Jesus
alongside the divinity of humankind. In
1 John 3:1, we read: “Beloved,
we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we
do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him
as he is”. Whatever the later Christian
church may have made of Jesus, and however highly it exalted him, there was –
and is – an understanding of the divinity of humankind not as being an
exclusive attribute of Jesus, but as something to be shared among the whole of
humankind. An attribute which is here
in and among us, though not fully perfected in us, as yet.
What I am saying here is that there is a vast difference between the Jesus of the synoptic gospels which attempt to tell the handed down stories of the historical Jesus, and Jesus as he is seen through the eyes of Paul and John – and perhaps also the letters of John. This difference is even more evident in the Jesus presented by the writer of the book of Revelation. Bultmann was convinced that many of the sayings of Jesus in the gospels are actually later prophetic writings. He wrote:
"The Church drew no distinction between such utterances by Christian prophets (ascribed to the ascended Christ) and the sayings of Jesus in the tradition for the reason that even the dominical sayings in the tradition were not the pronouncement of past authority, but sayings of the risen Lord, who is always a contemporary for the Church.[57]".
In this, though, one needs to be aware of the conclusion reached by Bultmann, that from his point of view, it was the ‘Kerygma’ or core of the teachings of the church that mattered, rather than what was said by the man, Jesus, or even if it was said. Nevertheless, revealed prophetic teaching is and always has been as important to the Christian tradition as have been the actual teachings of the human Jesus. Jesus was known to Paul and to many others by revelation. It is very likely that words given prophetically – revealed - to the writers of the books of the Christian Scriptures were included as the words of Jesus[58]. A specific example is that of all the sayings of Jesus in the book of revelation. The nature of some of the sayings[59] in John’s gospel lead me to suspect that John is writing sayings revealed to him rather than reporting handed down words.
To summarise my position here, I am saying that there are two versions of Jesus present in the Christian scriptures and tradition – Jesus the man, Jesus the Jew, a rabbi who worked and taught in first century Israel, and who died there – and Jesus the divine being who has appeared to and who continues to be experienced by Christians ever since the death of Jesus the man. This should not present a problem for the Christian, but needs to be recognised and handled with great sensitivity in dialogue with Judaism and other faiths.
In a later chapter, I want to look further at the notion
of truths revealed through religious experience compared with historical
‘facts’. I believe that this is
important as part of an understanding of faith in the climate of
modernism. The entire bible[60] is full of revealed truths, and
whether or not we choose to refer to this collection of revealed truth as
‘myth’ it is central and foundational both to the Christian and the Jewish
faith. In this context, it is important
to be aware of the meaning of the word myth.
When Bultmann was forced to re-visit his work on demythologisation, it
was largely because of popular (and scholastic) misunderstanding of the word
‘myth’. Myth is popularly understood to
mean ‘untruth’. Bultmann defines his
use of the word thus: “Myth is the report of an occurrence or an event in which
supernatural, superhuman forces or persons are at work”[61].
In my view, there are limitations in the application of human language
to supernatural events. These events
‘stretch’ language beyond its normal bounds and lead to writing which contains
‘word pictures’ to try to convey a writer’s mystical experience which is beyond
mere words.
Alongside all of this is consideration of the
development of the way in which Jesus is seen in the early years of
Christianity. James Moffatt held the
view that there was a growing ‘tendency to magnify the person of Jesus Christ’
which reaches its highest level in John’s gospel as I have mentioned above. If this tendency can be seen so clearly in
the Christian scriptures, which span relatively few years, how much further
might this ‘growing reverence for Jesus as the Christ’ be taken in the years
following the writing of those scriptures?
In the very early days of the church, this new Christian faith was exciting. In part the new Christians wanted to throw off the chains of tradition, which itself caused the problem that we call the ‘Council of Jerusalem’ (Acts 15). The church did, however feel a freedom to experiment, and at the same time, it felt less and less the need to listen to the wisdom of its elder brother. The faith that Jesus and his disciples had held dear began to be seen as dry and useless by Christians. At the same time, Judaism, in the desperate times that followed the destruction of the temple in 70 CE was undergoing a period of renewal and reformation. It too had become exciting!
During the first hundred years or so of the church’s existence, there was considerable dialogue and cross-fertilisation between church and synagogue. There were many who were happy to regard Christianity as a Jewish movement[62]. As attitudes on both sides hardened, dialogue was exchanged for polemic. This is clearly seen in Ignatius of Antioch’s Epistles[63] to the Ephesians to the Magnesians and to the Romans (some time before 107 CE). By this time, a Christian view of Jesus had developed which was totally unacceptable to Jews. To the Ephesians, he writes:
“There is one only physician, of flesh and of spirit, generate and ingenerate, God in man, true Life in death, Son of Mary and Son of God, first passible and then impassible, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
He goes on to give Jesus the title Son of Man and Son of God. In the epistle to the Magnesians, he wrote of the pre-existence of Jesus: “who was with the Father before the worlds and appeared at the end of time”. In the epistle to the Romans, he takes the exaltation of Jesus a stage further, and refers to “Jesus Christ, our God”.
Just a few years on, perhaps the middle of the second century, we find a continuation – we might say a progression – in the continued deification of Jesus. Clement of Alexandria, for example, takes a very high view of the divinity of Jesus[64]. The Shepherd of Hermas (139 to 155 CE), a near contender for Christian scriptural canonicity[65], speaks of Jesus as “The Holy pre-existent spirit which created the whole creation, God made to dwell in flesh that He desired”. The Shepherd also identifies the Son of God with the Holy Spirit. It continues with: “The Son of God is older that all His creation, so that he became the Father’s advisor in His creation.”
By the time of Justin martyr (100-165 CE) the Christian attitude was becoming plain. It was beyond doubt antisemitic. A hundred years later, Cyprian’s treatise ‘Against the Jews’[66] showed a very well developed anti-Jewish theology[67]. Central to the deepening division between Christian and Jew was the vexed question of the nature of Jesus. Was he human or divine? And if he were divine, what form did his divinity take? Cyprian himself actually refers to ‘Christ our God’ at one point. Parallel to this question was the Christian concept of the pre-existence of Jesus[68] springing from the identification of Jesus with the apocalyptic ‘Son of Man’ which we looked at earlier.
The question of the nature of Jesus caused a great deal of argument among Christians as well as making any dialogue between Christian and Jew well nigh impossible. The basis of the argument came out of scripture – both Christian and Hebrew, but scripture is subject to interpretation. There was thus a broad span of opinion. The leaders of the church took it upon themselves to resolve the differences and impose upon the church a complete answer. It seems likely when one looks at Cyprian that the church was teaching that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine from some time during the third century. The point here is that if Jesus were fully divine and there is only one God, then Jesus must also be God! This, of course avoids completely the question of the divinity of humankind. Because of this, I suggest that it was at quite an early point in Christian history that Jesus had become so high exalted above the rest of humankind that the church began to lose sight of the place of humankind in God’s plan.
The nature of Jesus was formulated and applied in a succession of credal statements. Athanasius (c. 296 – 373 CE) was responsible for much of the development of Christian thought on the nature of Jesus. The creed of the first council of Nicaea was set down in 325 CE [69]. The work of Athenasius was completed by the work of the Cappadocian fathers. Up to the time of Athanasius, there had been two dissimilar views expressed by different people at different times. One view, which had been around since the first century, denied the divinity of Jesus, while the other saw him as God masquerading as a man – thus denying his humanity[70]. At the time of Athenasius, the followers of Arius saw Jesus as something neither human nor divine – certainly not in any way the same as God. The creeds formulated in the fourth and early fifth centuries offered a Christology which is still held by most of the church today – and this says nothing about the divinity of humankind nor where humankind stands in relation to God and to Jesus[71].
This is not to say that the early church fathers said nothing of the ‘Image of God’ in humankind. Irenaeus (c. 130 – 200) declared that God had created humankind in his image, after his likeness – but that this ‘image’ had in some way been lost or damaged in the ‘Fall’[72]. We have already seen that Genesis 9:5-6 suggests that this is not the case. Nonetheless, the view of Irenaeus was popularly held, and has continued to be held by the Christian church for the most part up to the present time. The present day conservative scholar Hoekma takes this same rigid view.
Professor Hopkins examines the various non-canonical writings of the early church – especially the so-called Gnostic texts. He sees these to be meeting a need for intermediaries less exalted than Jesus. In his examination of the Acts of Thomas, he sees Thomas, the twin brother of Jesus as such an intermediary[73]. Hopkins is clear that the Jesus of history has, by the fourth century become exalted out of reach of ‘mere humanity’.
Augustine (354 – 430 CE) was one of the greatest of the early Christian theologians. His extensive work has had a profound influence on western Christianity right up to the modern era. Augustine was strongly influenced by a number of concepts out of Greek philosophy. One of these was the neo-Platonic idea that humankind is trapped in a kind of bondage to the material world, and the human soul can and should rise above the degradation which matter was seen to be. It is not surprising then, the Augustine writes of the ‘Image of God’ as being applied to the human soul only and not to the entire human being. Augustine writes extensively about the ‘Image of God’, both in his ‘City of God[74]’ and in his ‘ of theTrinity[75]’. He sees in the ‘Image’ a kind of reflection of the Trinity – and in particular, refers to God ‘breathing’ the Holy Spirit into Adam. This ‘breathing’ of God’s Spirit into humankind, Augustine sees as his furnishing humankind with its soul, which he sees as the only divine attribute of humanity. The Holy Spirit is, to Augustine, the Spirit of Jesus as much as it is the Spirit of God, and it is on this reasoning that he sees humankind as a reflection not of God but of the Trinity. Jesus, for Augustine is completely identified with God.
It seems fairly clear from the above, that a process which began within a few years after the death of Jesus resulted firstly in the teaching that Jesus was God, and secondly in the identification with Jesus as the sole contender for the divinity of humankind. Further than this: the whole concept of human divinity – of humankind created in the image of God – became overshadowed by Christian obsession with ‘The Fall’ which somehow destroyed the divine image!
During this formative period in Christian history, the Jewish Rabbis – the Talmudic Rabbis – were re-evaluating, one might almost say re-inventing, Judaism. What did it mean to be a Jew in exile from the land of Israel, with no Temple in existence? Christianity was growing rapidly – both in numbers and in political power. The Rabbis were very observant and well informed as to its teachings. The church was in the process of re-interpreting the scripture of the Septuagint in its own terms. Many passages of scripture came to have a very different meaning to Christians from the understanding of traditional Jewish interpretation[76]. This is a process which began in the Christian scriptures themselves, and continued through the times of the Church Fathers and beyond. Of particular relevance to this paper, we can see that every piece of scripture telling of the divinity of humankind, and of the apocalyptic ‘Son of Man’ was applied by Christians not to humankind as a whole, but to Jesus and to him alone.
I suspect that it is for this reason that the Talmud has comparatively little to say about the whole question of humankind made in the image of God[77]. In Talmudic thought, the emphasis seems to be on the great value to be ascribed to each and every human life because humankind is made in the image of God. Cohen says[78]:
“That the human being
was created in the image of God lies at the root of the Rabbinic teaching
concerning man. In that respect he is pre-eminent above all other creatures and
represents the culminating point in the work of Creation. ‘Beloved is man for
he was created in the image of God; but it was by a special love that it was
made known to him that he was created in the image of God; as it is said, “For
in the image of God made He man” (Gen. ix. 6)’ (Aboth iii. 18).
This fact gives the
human being his supreme importance in the economy of the Universe. ‘One man is
equal to the whole of Creation’ (ARN xxxi). ‘Man was first created a single
individual to teach the lesson that whoever destroys one life, [79] Scripture
ascribes it to him as though he had destroyed a whole world; and whoever saves
one life, Scripture ascribes it to him as though he had saved a whole world’
(Sanh. iv. 5).
Moreover, since men are formed in the divine semblance, they must keep that knowledge always in mind in their relationship with one another. An affront to man is ipso facto an affront to God. R. Akiba declared the text, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’ (Lev. xix. 18), to be an important basic principle of the Torah, and deduced from it the doctrine: ‘You should not say that inasmuch as I am despised let my fellow-man be despised with me: inasmuch as I am cursed, let my fellow-man be cursed with me. L Tanchuma said, If you act in this manner, know who it is you despise, for “in the image of God made He man”’ (Gen. R. xxiv)”
In addition, Urbach
quotes Hillel as saying that the human race – in its entirety – is ‘The Image
of God in the world’[80]. He
refers here to the whole of humankind together, which is very reminiscent of
Philo’s concept of the logoV. Urbach makes it clear that this is an idea which was held by the
later sages. It leads to the
understanding that that killing destroys or somehow diminishes God. It leads too to the view that failure of
humankind to procreate is also an offence!
In summary, then, during
this formative period, Christianity placed so much emphasis on the divinity of
Jesus, that it began to lose sight of the divinity of humankind – and therefore
of the innate value – the sacrosanct nature – of every single human life! Judaism has never lost sight of this most
important principle.
During the middle ages, Christianity became more and more concerned with temporal power, perhaps more so than with its message. By the beginning of the middle ages, usually reckoned from the fifth century, Christianity had firmly established it’s key doctrines, in particular the doctrine of the Trinity, and was largely unanimous in stating precisely what one could and could not believe. By this time, Christianity held a very high Christology – one which put Jesus well out of reach – and although the official teaching was that Jesus is fully human, his divinity made him co-equal and co-eternal with God – he had become divinised to the point at which he was superhuman. From the church’s point of view, it was something to be encouraged. If Jesus were completely out of reach, it would need some kind of mediator to allow the ordinary Christian to relate to him. The church through its hierarchical priesthood took on this function. Attempts were made to make Jesus more human. These were stamped out as being heretical. An early example is the Acacian schism which took place between 484 and 519 CE[81].
It was during the mediaeval period that one of the greatest Christian thinkers, Thomas Aquinas, took his place among the church fathers. In his massive Summa Theologiae he attempted to give the church a complete systematic theology.
His view of the image of God in man is that this is ‘imperfect’, and that Jesus alone bears perfectly and completely the Image of God. Something of his thinking is seen in the following extract from the Summa.
“Reply to Objection 2. The First-Born of creatures is the perfect Image of God, reflecting perfectly that of which He is the Image, and so He is said to be the ‘Image,’ and never ‘to the image.’ But man is said to be both ‘image’ by reason of the likeness; and ‘to the image’ by reason of the imperfect likeness. And since the perfect likeness to God cannot be except in an identical nature, the Image of God exists in His first-born Son; as the image of the king is in his son, who is of the same nature as himself: whereas it exists in man as in an alien nature, as the image of the king is in a silver coin, as Augustine says explains in De decem Chordis (Serm. ix, al, xcvi, De Tempore).” Summa – Part 1:93[82]
Aquinas apart, there is little new thought relating to the divinity of humankind during the whole of the period between Augustine and the reformation, which brings in the beginnings of the modern era.
There were, however a number of significant writings from
Christian mystics. One in particular,
Mother Julian of Norwich, offers us a striking picture of humankind. In chapter 51 of her revelations of divine
love[83],
she offers a vision of a Lord, and a servant.
The Lord asks the servant to go on an errand for him, and the servant
eagerly runs to do the Lord’s will, but falls into a ditch and can no longer
move. Mother Julian sees this as ‘all of
humankind’ – in her explanation of the vision, she says:
“The Lord that sat stately in rest and in peace, I understood that He is God. The Servant that stood afore the Lord, I understood that it was shewed for Adam: that is to say, one man was shewed, that time, and his falling, to make it thereby understood how God beholdeth All-Man and his falling. For in the sight of God all man is one man, and one man is all man.”
There is great similarity between this mystical picture, and the picture of the ‘Son of Man’ in Daniel, restored to his former glory.
She goes on to say
later in the same chapter:
“When Adam fell, God’s Son fell: because of the rightful oneing which had been made in heaven, God’s Son might n