5. CRITICAL BOOK REVIEW (20%)

• The student will write a 7.5–8 page critical review of Jesus According to the New Testament by

James D. G. Dunn. Your goal in reviewing this book is to provide a brief summary and careful

evaluation. A good review should include the following components:

1. Identify the purpose and overall structure of the book;

2. Briefly explain some of the main points of the book. Explain how the book addresses New

Testament issues and differing perspectives of the historical Jesus;

3. Briefly evaluate the clarity and organization of the book; and

4. Evaluate whether this book has provided insight into the subject and achieved its stated

purpose. Does the author satisfy my curiosity about the subject with the questions he raises

and the answers he gives to them? Is the author’s research sound and has it drawn valid

conclusions? Does the author use primary sources? Is the author consistent and logical? Do

biases (and be sure to realize that you, the reader, also have biases) influence the author’s conclusions? Be sure to critically evaluate the book, giving specific examples from the book

and a detailed argument substantiated from primary resources (New Testament itself).

Format for Critical Book Review: Double-spaced, 1-inch margins, Times New Roman 12-point font.

Submissions must be Microsoft Word documents only. The choice of formatting style (e.g., SBL, APA,

MLA, Turabian) is at the student’s discretion, so long as there is consistency. Use inclusive language.

The title page must contain the following: title; student’s name, email address, course name and

number. It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that the instructor receives an electronic submission of the research paper correctly uploaded to Moodle.

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JESUS ACCORDING TO
THE NEW TESTAMENT
James D. G. Dunn
WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY
GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

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Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546
www.eerdmans.com
© 2019 James D. G. Dunn
All rights reserved
Published 2019
28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
ISBN 978-0-8028-7669-0
eISBN 978-1-4674-5254-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dunn, James D. G., 1939- author.
Title: Jesus according to the New Testament / James D. G. Dunn.
Description: Grand Rapids : Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2019. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018024862 | ISBN 9780802876690 (pbk. : alk.
paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Jesus Christ.—Person and offices—Biblical
teaching. | Bible. New Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Classification: LCC BT203 .D859 2019 | DDC 232—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018024862

Home

https://lccn.loc.gov/2018024862

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For St. Paul’s Church,
Chichester, and the Chichester Diocese

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Contents
Foreword by Rowan Williams
Preface
1. Jesus according to Jesus
2. Jesus according to Mark, Matthew, and Luke
3. Jesus according to John
4. Jesus according to Acts
5. Jesus according to Paul: Part 1
6. Jesus according to Paul: Part 2
7. Jesus according to Hebrews
8. Jesus according to James, Peter, John, and Jude
9. Jesus according to Revelation
Postscript
Appendix 1. The Probable Date and Place of Origin for
Documents of the New Testament
Appendix 2. The Life and Mission of Paul
Bibliography
Index of Subjects
Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Texts

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R
Foreword
eaders of the New Testament in Christian congregations
(and among a wider public too) are quite likely these days
to feel a certain amount of bewilderment at the variety and
complexity of what is written on the subject. Those who
venture a little into the scholarly literature, as well as
those who pick up the latest sensational stories in the media
about “lost” gospels and alternative histories, may feel
like echoing Mary Magdalene: “They have taken away my Lord,
and I do not know where they have laid him.” What do we—
what can we—really know about Jesus? Is the New Testament
just the deposit of a confused mass of unreliable traditions,
put together under the iron hand of a narrow church
authority?
Professor Dunn, one of the most respected and prolific
biblical scholars of our time, with a long string of
innovative, comprehensive studies of the New Testament text
to his name, begins with a simple but all-important question
in this book. It is really a commonsensical one: What must
have been going on in the life, and indeed in the mind, of
Jesus for any of the New Testament texts to have been
possible? To ask such a question does not mean that
everything we read in the New Testament is a straightforward
record of events or that the ideas of the first believers are
immediately accessible to us. But it does remind us that the
movement whose writings we read in the canonical Gospels,
Acts, and letters began with the narrative of a specific
historical figure whose words and actions were sufficiently
different from the norm to attract attention.
Like some other scholars in recent years, Professor Dunn
is skeptical about the skepticism that has prevailed in a
fair amount of learned discussion. If certain things had not
been true about Jesus, it is simply very hard to see how

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certain kinds of text and certain kinds of talk would ever
have emerged. Many writers have stressed that there are
aspects of the gospel stories that seem to be preserved even
though the earliest churches did not fully understand them—
like Jesus’s description of himself as “Son of Man” or the
whole way he is remembered as speaking about God’s kingdom.
If he never said a word about how he understood the death he
knew he was risking, it would be hard to see why and how the
quite dense and complicated language used to interpret
baptism and the Lord’s Supper got started. And—most simply
of all, a point well brought out by Professor Dunn—Jesus was
remembered as a storyteller in a way that is not true of any
other figure in the New Testament and that is rare among his
Jewish contemporaries. The parables are among the most
plainly distinctive things in the traditions about Jesus, and
they tell us something of his understanding of the relation
between the everyday and the holy which is still radical.
The New Testament is tantalizing for readers because its
texts are both startlingly different from one another and
startlingly convergent. Just this mixture of difference and
convergence is exactly what should make us pause before
accepting the fashionable idea that what we have in the New
Testament is some sort of unrepresentative selection of
writings which just happened to be acceptable to dictatorial
prelates in the early centuries. With exemplary clarity and
understated scholarly acumen, Professor Dunn traces both the
continuities between these diverse texts and the communities
that used them, and the discontinuities, the local emphases
and sometimes controversial new twists to the story that
developed in some quarters. Many readers will find it
liberating to realize that to believe in the consistency of
the New Testament is not the same as having to suppose that
every writer says the same thing. From the very first, what
happens in and around the figure of Jesus is experienced as
too immense to be communicated in one telling, seen from one
perspective; as the end of John’s Gospel already says so

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eloquently, the world could not contain all that would need
to be said.
So this survey of what the story of Jesus meant in the
first Christian generations becomes a powerful theological
testimony to the scale of the mystery laid bare in those
events. This is a book that will nurture a faith that is not
uncritical but is also being directed constantly back toward
the wonder of the first witnesses. It is as we make that
wonder our own that our faith grows and deepens; Professor
Dunn helps us toward that enrichment of joy, trust, and
gratitude.
ROWAN WILLIAMS

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T
Preface
he Diocese of Chichester, in south coast England, some
years ago launched a splendid tradition. It began with the
intention of preparing the diocese for the Gospel of the year
—first Matthew, then Mark, and then Luke. Somewhat oddly, I
thought, John was never the Gospel for the year. So in
Chichester we broke with the tradition after the third year
and turned first to John and then to Paul.
In 2015, I was invited to lecture in Canterbury, and the
happy thought came to me that I could adapt my Chichester
lectures for Canterbury. The obvious focal point was, of
course, Jesus—the challenge being to sketch out the
different ways in which Jesus was presented by the Gospel
writers. With only three lecture slots to work with, and the
first three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) being so
similar, it made sense to take them together, when their
distinctive features could be brought out by close
comparison. John was sufficiently distinctive in itself to be
considered separately. That left free a third slot. And what
could be better than to start by focusing on what we could
know of the reports, memories, and traditions of Jesus and
his ministry behind the Gospels?
And so emerged a sequence: Jesus according to . . . First,
“Jesus according to Jesus,” then “Jesus according to Mark,
Matthew, and Luke,” and finally “Jesus according to John.”
These lectures seemed to work well, bringing into sharper
focus the distinctive features in each case, indicating how
differently Jesus was remembered and his significance
celebrated.
Then the thought arose: Why not continue the sequence,
highlighting the different impacts Jesus made and the central
role he filled in the writings that make up the New
Testament? And so emerged “Jesus according to Acts,”

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“Jesus according to Paul,” and the rest. Some introduction
was necessary in each case. But the old introductory
questions that begin particular commentaries on the New
Testament writings (Who wrote what, when, and where?) seemed
to be for the most part unnecessary. After all, they usually
do not much affect what we learn from the writings
themselves. But they do help set the writings in their
historical context, and thus also help us understand them
better—especially when the historical situation helps
explain features of the text that we might otherwise
misunderstand. So I have added at the end an indication of
where and when the writings are thought to come from
(Appendix 1). That there is uncertainty in many cases should
not detract from the recognition that the documents were
written at particular times and to serve particular needs.
Also indicated is the probable time line and historical
context of Paul’s mission and writing (Appendix 2), since he
is the principal contributor to the New Testament and since
we have a fuller idea of his mission and writings than that
of any other New Testament author.
And then the further thought came: Why not continue on the
same pathway? The story of Jesus and reactions to him hardly
cease with the end of the New Testament. But to press forward
into the second century and beyond, with chapters such as
“Jesus according to Ignatius,” “Jesus according to
Augustine,” “Jesus according to Luther,” would extend the
project into two or more volumes. And I had to admit that I
lacked the knowledge about such historic writers on Jesus to
do them justice. I also wondered about a final chapter with
contributions from friends in our local church adding their
own brief testimonies, including my own testimony, “Jesus
according to Me.” But to slot our own brief pieces alongside
those of the New Testament writers began to seem rather
vainglorious. So I let that idea slip away too, not without
regret.
Nevertheless, if the present volume has any appeal, there
is no reason why other volumes should not follow, with

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someone else better equipped than me to draw out the
testimony of Christian greats through the centuries. And no
reason why a(nother) volume of brief testimonies from
disciples of today should not follow. After all, everything
we know about Jesus is thanks to the personal testimony of
his most immediate followers. But for Christians, Jesus is
not just a figure of the past. Christians today are disciples
of the present. So why not continue the story of Jesus up to
the present, with everyday believers bearing witness to what
attracts or intrigues them about Jesus? How about it?

11
C
CHAPTER ONE
Jesus according to
Jesus
an we be confident that we are able to get back to
Jesus’s own message and views of himself? John Meier
certainly has no doubts on the subject—and the five volumes
of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus include a
clear and fully worked-out answer.1 Perhaps, however, a
briefer answer will help focus attention on the key features
that enable us to speak with confidence not only of the
impact that Jesus made but also of Jesus’s own understanding
of what he was about. The obvious way to go about it is to
focus on the distinctive features of what the first
Christians remembered about Jesus as recorded by the earliest
evangelists.2 The following pages explore this in three ways:
lessons learned from Jesus, distinctive features of Jesus’s
ministry, and Jesus’s own self-understanding.3
Lessons Learned from Jesus
There are quite a number of emphases and priorities that we
can say with some confidence the first followers of Jesus
attributed to Jesus.
The Love Command
The summation of the love command is recorded by the first
three Gospels.4 Since all three agree on the principal
features, we need cite only Mark’s version:
One of the scribes . . . asked him, “Which commandment is the
first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O
Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart. . . .’ The second is

12
this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is
no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28–31)5
The first quotation comes from Deuteronomy 6:5, the
fundamental creed of Israel, so it would occasion no surprise
to those who first heard and circulated the Jesus tradition.
It is the second commandment that would be something of a
surprise when first uttered. For it comes from a much less
well-known and less-used passage in the Torah: Leviticus
19:18. In early Jewish reflection it is hardly as prominent
as the first—the third clause in a verse that is part of a
sequence regarding personal relationships and obligations.
“You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you
shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt
yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge
against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor
as yourself: I am the LORD” (Lev 19:17–18).
Such esteem for Leviticus 19:18c as the second of the two
commandments that sum up the law of God is exceptional.
Explicit references to Leviticus 19:18 are lacking in Jewish
literature prior to Jesus, and the allusions that exist give
it no particular prominence—though, subsequently, the
opinion is attributed to Rabbi Akiba (early second century
CE) that Leviticus 19:18 is “the greatest general principle
in the Torah.”6 Since the prominence given in the earliest
history of Christianity to the command to “Love your
neighbor as yourself”7 is most obviously attributed to the
influence of Jesus’s teaching, it is probably not unfair to
deduce that the similar emphasis of Akiba attests the same
influence. At any rate, the abstraction and exaltation of
Leviticus 19:18c as the second of the two greatest
commandments can be confidently attributed to Jesus and
strongly attests his influence.
Priority of the Poor

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This priority is most striking in several Gospel passages.
Notable is Jesus’s response to the rich young man, who had
observed all the commandments but lacked one thing: “Go,
sell what you own, and give to the poor, and you will have
treasure in heaven” (Mark 10:21 parr.). Similarly his
commendation of the poor widow who in giving two copper coins
to the treasury had, in Jesus’s perspective, “out of her
poverty . . . put in everything she had, all she had to live
on” (Mark 12:42–44 // Luke 21:2–4). In Jesus’s response
to the Baptist’s question as to whether he (Jesus) was the
fulfillment of (messianic) expectation, the climax in
Jesus’s answer is that “the poor have good news brought to
them” (Matt 11:5 // Luke 7:22). Notable too is the way Luke
begins his account of Jesus’s mission, by narrating Jesus’s
reading from Isaiah 61 in the Nazareth synagogue: “The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to
preach good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18). And equally
striking is Luke’s version of the Beatitudes—the first
being “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the
kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20; an interesting variation of the
version in Matthew: “Blessed are the poor in spirit” [Matt
5:3]). It should occasion little surprise, then, that for
Luke a key feature of the gospel is that it is good news for
the poor: that it is the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the
blind who should be invited to a great feast (Luke 14:13,
21); and Zacchaeus demonstrates his readiness for salvation
in that he gives half of his goods to the poor (Luke 19:8).
Of course, the priority of the poor is a prominent
emphasis within Israel’s own law (e.g., Deut 15:11). But
that the particular concern for the poor so prominent among
the first Christians is to be attributed to the influence of
Jesus’s own emphasis can hardly be doubted. So with the
early concern among disciples in the Jerusalem community for
the poor widows among their members that resulted in the
first formal Christian organization (Acts 6:1–6). The
profound concern for the poor displayed by James attests the
same concern (Jas 2:2–6). The same impression is given by

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the fact that in the Jerusalem agreement—that gentile
converts need not be circumcised—the only other concern
indicated was “that we remember the poor, which,” Paul
adds, “was actually what I was eager to do” (Gal 2:10).
Similarly there can be little doubt as to why Paul gave such
importance to helping the poor among the saints in Jerusalem,
making a special collection for them in the churches that he
had founded, and was willing to risk his own life to bring
the collection to Jerusalem.8 We may be confident, then, that
concern for the poor is one of the priorities that the first
Christians learned from Jesus.
Sinners Welcome
A particular feature of Jesus’s ministry that caused
surprise and shock to his religious contemporaries was his
openness to those regarded as unacceptable in religious
company. According to the first three Gospels, it was one of
the features of Jesus’s conduct that drew criticism from the
“righteous.” Early in his account Mark reports the offense
Jesus caused by his readiness to eat “with sinners and tax
collectors.” “Why does he do this?” complained Pharisees
and scribes. To which Jesus famously replied, “Those who are
well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I
have come to call not the righteous but sinners” (Luke adds
“. . . to repentance”; Mark 2:16–17 parr.). Matthew and
Luke (Q)9 note a similar criticism later: “Look, a glutton
and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!”
(Matt 11:19 // Luke 7:34). But it is again Luke who gives
particular emphasis to this aspect of Jesus’s conduct. He
notes the repeated criticism of Jesus on this point: “This
fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2). To
which Jesus replies with the parables of the shepherd’s lost
sheep and the woman’s lost silver coin: that of course the
shepherd goes in search of the sheep and the woman for the
coin until they find what had been lost (Luke 15:3–10). Luke
alone narrates the parable contrasting the prayers of the

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Pharisee and the tax collector, in which it is the latter who
prays, “God, be merciful to me a sinner,” whose prayer is
truly heard (Luke 18:9–14). And it is Luke alone who
narrates the episode in which Jesus goes to be a guest with
the “chief tax collector,” Zacchaeus, despite the criticism
that Zacchaeus was “a sinner.” The episode ends with
Jesus’s reassurance that salvation has come to this house,
since he (Zacchaeus) also is a son of Abraham (Luke 19:1–
10).
It is hardly surprising, then, that Paul could sum up the
gospel in terms of the great reversal—of God’s love for
sinners. “God proves his love for us in that while we still
were sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). “For just as by
the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by
the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous”
(Rom 5:19). And it was Paul who pressed the logic of the
gospel: that if gentiles are to be classified as “sinners,”
then, of course, the gospel is for them too, justification
being by faith in Christ and not by doing the works of the
law (Gal 2:15–17). It can hardly be doubted that this
extension of the gospel, to gentiles as well as Jews, was the
direct result of the recognition that the good news that
Jesus brought was primarily for sinners.
Openness to Gentiles
Jesus’s commission of his disciples, in effect to join in
his ministry, raises the question whether Jesus himself was
open to gentiles: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter
no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of
the house of Israel” (Matt 10:5–6). But Matthew records
this as in effect simply a (preliminary) phase in Jesus’s
ministry, since he takes more pains to emphasize that Jesus
saw the gospel as for gentiles also. It is Matthew alone who
provides Isaiah 42:1–4 as one of the Old Testament
prophecies that Jesus fulfilled, climaxing in the expectation
that “in his [Christ’s] name the Gentiles will hope” (Matt

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12:21). It is Matthew who adds to the account of the healing
of the centurion’s servant the prediction of Jesus that
“many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs
of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness” (Matt
8:11–12). And it is Matthew who ends his Gospel with Jesus
commissioning the apostles to “Go therefore and make
disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:19). So we can be
confident that Matthew was fully in accord with the early
Christian conviction that the gospel was also for gentiles
and that this conviction was fully in accord with Jesus and
with his preaching and expectation during his earthly
ministry.10
Women among His Close Followers
Somewhat oddly Mark concludes his account of Jesus’s
crucifixion and death by noting that on the edge of the
onlookers were women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of
James the younger and of Joses, and Salome, who had followed
and ministered to him in Galilee, and also “many other women
who had come up with him to Jerusalem” (Mark 15:40–41).11
The oddity, of course, includes the fact that precisely at
this point Jesus’s male disciples seem to have abandoned
Jesus altogether—though John adds that “the disciple whom
Jesus loved” was there with the women (John 19:25–27). Luke
and John earlier both tell the touching story of Jesus’s
closeness to the sisters Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38–42;
John 11). And Matthew and John make special mention of
initial resurrection appearances to Mary Magdalene in
particular at Jesus’s now empty tomb.12 The fact that none
of these appearances are included in what we may regard as
the formal list of resurrection appearances drawn on by Paul
in 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 is presumably just a reminder that
women’s testimony was not given as much weight as men’s. It
is all the more notable, therefore, that, despite what was
regarded as the weaker status of women’s testimony, Matthew

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and John nevertheless give prominence to the appearances to
Mary Magdalene in particular.
That this testimony would have been regarded as shocking
to Jesus’s contemporaries may well have been a factor in
ensuring that the testimony was preserved and given
expression in the written Gospels—a reminder that women were
an important part of Jesus’s disciple group and played a
vital role within it. And should we not see a connection here
with the prominence of women among Paul’s coworkers? That
the ex-Pharisee, previously committed to the maintenance of
Jewish tradition, including the lower status of women, should
after his conversion include many women among his close
colleagues and “coworkers,” a little over 20 percent,13
should probably be regarded as an indication of the often
unmentioned influence of the tradition of Jesus’s ministry
on Paul.
Openness to Children
The key incident recollected by the first three Gospels is
Mark 10:13–16 parr. Notable is the fact, recorded by all
three evangelists, that when people brought children to
Jesus, that he might bless the children, his disciples
rebuked them. Jesus’s own indignant response was, “Let the
children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as
these that the kingdom of God belongs” (Mark 10:14). Mark
and Luke add Jesus’s saying, “Truly I tell you, whoever
does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will
never enter it” (Mark 10:15 // Luke 18:17).14 Given the
notable influence of Jesus on the personal relations of his
disciples, we should probably detect the influence of Jesus
here too in the “household codes” that appear in the later
Pauline letters.15 Such household codes were familiar then,
but notable in Paul’s exhortations is the assumption that
children and slaves would be fully part of the Christian
gathering and could or should be addressed directly. It is
hardly straining the evidence to infer that this too attests

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the continuing influence of Jesus’s mission on his
disciples.
Relaxation of Food Laws
This is one of the most remarkable features of Jesus’s
mission, not least since it cut so sharply across a
traditional Jewish concern for purity. Not surprisingly it is
given extensive treatment by Mark and Matthew (Mark 7:1–23
// Matt 15:1–20). It begins with some Pharisees’ criticism
that Jesus’s disciples “ate with hands defiled, that is,
unwashed.” The Greek word used here (koinos = “common”)
reflects the distinctively Jewish sense of “profane,
unclean, defiled.”16 Jesus responds by citing Isaiah 29:13:
“This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are
far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human
precepts as doctrines.” And from that he draws the highly
critical conclusion: “You abandon the commandment of God and
hold to human tradition” (Mark 7:6–8).
The Jesus tradition continues in both Mark and Matthew, by
further challenging the traditional Jewish concept of purity
(Matt 15:10–20 // Mark 7:14–23). The Matthean version of
the tradition is content to draw a sharp comparison between
inner and outer purity: “It is not what goes into the mouth
that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth
that defiles” (Matt 15:11).17 But in Mark the teaching is
sharper: “There is nothing outside a person that by going in
can defile, but the things that come out are what defile [a
person]” (Mark 7:15). And in the following explanation that
Jesus gives, it is clear that Jesus is remembered as teaching
that what goes into a person cannot defile the person. Mark
makes the point clear by adding, “Thus he declared all foods
clean” (Mark 7:18–19).
We know from Paul that the issue of clean and unclean
foods came alive in the wider gentile mission. The issue
there was whether Jesus’s followers could eat meat that had
been sacrificed to idols (the most common supply of food in

19
the ancient meat markets).18 Paul’s advice was clear:
“Nothing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for anyone
who thinks it unclean” (Rom 14:14). What is intriguing is
that Mark’s version of Jesus’s teaching on the subject of
food purity seems to reflect the strong affirmation of Paul.
In other words, it is in this teaching in particular that we
can see the influence of Jesus’s priorities being further
reflected on by Paul, and the inferences drawn from his
teaching being reflected back into the memory of his
teaching.
The Last Supper or Lord’s Supper
Finally, in recounting what Christianity learned from Jesus,
we should not forget the centrality in the first Christians’
memory and practice of Jesus’s last meal with his disciples
before his death. The first three Gospels make plain how
important that special time with Jesus was for his disciples
(Mark 14:22–25 parr.). We do not know how frequently the
Lord’s Supper was celebrated in the earliest decades of
Christianity. But Paul makes it equally clear that the shared
meal, beginning with the shared bread (“This is my body that
is broken for you”) and ending with the shared cup (“This
cup is the new covenant in my blood”), was explicitly
remembered as a sacred memory initiated by Jesus himself (1
Cor 11:23–26). It sums up as nothing else does that
Christianity is deeply rooted in Jesus’s own ministry
climaxing in his death.
It is striking, then, how much of what was important for
the first Christians can be traced back directly to the
influence of Jesus’s own ministry and teaching.
Distinctive Features of Jesus’s Ministry
For much or indeed most of the twentieth century, primary
attention in scholarship on Jesus was given to what the first
Christians thought about Jesus. Surprisingly little attention

20
or concern was devoted to the impact made by Jesus himself,
to such an extent that it could easily be concluded that
little can now be discerned of the historical Jesus and his
teaching. But the probability that Jesus made an impact on
his first disciples, and that this impact is clearly
indicated in the Jesus tradition, is such an obvious starting
point that any scholarship that denies our ability to speak
with credibility of the teaching and ministry of Jesus would
seem to be unduly skeptical and prejudiced. We have already
noted how much in earliest Christianity can be attributed
with confidence to the influence of Jesus’s conduct and
teaching. Now it can be added that not least of significance
is the fact that there are distinctive features of Jesus’s
ministry that stand out in the accounts of Jesus’s ministry
and that cannot plausibly be said to have originated in later
evaluations of his ministry.
The Kingdom of God
When we read the first three Gospels, it is easy and quite
natural to conclude that proclamation of the kingdom of God
was the principal feature of Jesus’s preaching. Mark
introduces and sums up Jesus’s preaching in precisely these
terms: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has
come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mark
1:15). Matthew and Luke both summarize Jesus’s preaching in
the same terms: Jesus “went throughout Galilee . . .
proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom” (Matt 4:23). Jesus
said to his disciples, “I must proclaim the good news of the
kingdom of God to the other cities also” (Luke 4:43). When
Jesus sent out his disciples in mission, it was to proclaim
the same message: “The kingdom of heaven has come near”
(Matt 10:7 // Luke 10:9). A notable example of his kingdom
preaching is the first item of Jesus’s beatitudes or
blessings: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the
kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20 // Matt 5:3). Also prominent is
Jesus’s claim that his healing ministry was itself a

21
manifestation of the kingdom: “If it is by the Spirit of God
that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to
you” (Matt 12:28 // Luke 11:20). And notable too are
Jesus’s kingdom parables: for example, “[The kingdom of
God] is like a mustard seed” (Mark 4:31 parr.).
It is easy to see, then, that Jesus’s preaching ministry
can be summed up in terms of his proclamation of the kingdom
of God, not only imminent but already in evidence in his
ministry. The kingdom of God (or, of heaven, in Matthew’s
preferred version) is mentioned more than fifty times in the
tradition shared by the first three written Gospels. This
makes it all the more astonishing that references to the
kingdom of God thereafter are so thin. For example, Paul
picks up the theme of inheriting the kingdom of God,19 but
the thought of the kingdom as present and active is hardly a
strong feature of his gospel, as it was of Jesus’s
ministry.20 And, astonishingly when compared with the other
Gospels, the Gospel of John has Jesus referring to God’s
kingdom in only one pericope (John 3:3, 5), though John also
includes Jesus referring to “my kingdom” in his trial
before Pilate (John 18:36). The evidence, then, indicates
that it is highly unlikely that memory and reworking of the
Jesus tradition picked up the emphasis on the kingdom of God
from later Christian interest in the theme. It is much more
likely that Jesus’s emphasis on the kingdom of God was
slackened among his followers thereafter, presumably because
in a Roman Empire alive to threats against its authority,
promotion of any other kingdom could be presented as such a
threat. Jesus’s proclamation of God’s kingdom was not a
theme to be elaborated in Caesar’s empire.
Teacher
Teacher is the most common title used for Jesus in the Jesus
tradition—occurring nearly fifty times. The parallel between
Jesus and his disciples on the one hand and rabbis and their
pupils on the other hand is only partial, but the very fact

22
that the immediate followers of Jesus were known as
“disciples” (mathētēs, from manthanein, “to learn”)
certainly implies that Jesus was widely recognized as a
teacher whose disciples followed him in order to learn.21
Indeed, it is remembered that Jesus was occasionally
addressed as “Rabbi” or “Rabbouni,”22 and Matthew recalls
that Jesus himself saw his relationship with his disciples in
these terms (Matt 10:24–25 // Luke 6:40).
One of the features remembered about his teaching was the
surprising authority with which he taught. He is recalled as
one who provoked surprise and questioning concerning the
authority of his teaching. For example, Mark
characteristically links Jesus’s teaching with his exorcisms
and mighty works: “What is this? A new teaching—with
authority! He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey
him” (Mark 1:27). “Where did this man get all this? What is
this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power
are being done by his hands!” (Mark 6:2). The high priestly
delegation asked him, “By what authority are you doing these
things? Who gave you this authority?” (Mark 11:28 parr.).
Such surprise, even incredulity, is understandable given the
presumably well-enough-known fact that Jesus lacked any
formal training. It is all the more striking, then, that this
emphasis on Jesus as a teacher is not retained among the
earliest churches. Of course, Jesus was remembered as far
more than a teacher in the earliest churches. But that very
fact makes it all the less credible to argue that the
references to Jesus as “teacher” were read back into the
Jesus tradition. The fact that Jesus was widely known as a
teacher during his ministry is one of the most firmly
established features of the Jesus tradition.
Teaching by Parable
It was also one of the most distinctive features of Jesus’s
ministry that he was a parabolist. Stories, illustrations, or
parables were not regular features of passing on traditional

23
teaching within Judaism. So it is rather striking that Mark,
at the end of his parable collection (Mark 4:1–32), sums up
his portrayal of Jesus in these terms: “With many such
parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear
it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he
explained everything in private to his disciples” (Mark 4:33
–34 // Matt 13:34). Indeed, no fewer than forty-six parables
are attributed to Jesus in the shared tradition—some
featuring in all of the first three Gospels, like the sower
(Mark 4:1–9, 13–20 parr.) and the wicked tenants (Mark 12:1
–12 parr.); some probably in the tradition common to Matthew
and Luke, like the parable of the talents (Matt 25:14–30 //
Luke 19:11–27); some unique to Matthew, like the parables of
the laborers in the vineyard (Matt 20:1–16) and the wise and
foolish maidens (Matt 25:1–13); and over a third of the
total distinctive of Luke, including some of the best known,
such as the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37), the lost sheep,
the lost coin, the lost son (Luke 15:1–32), the rich man and
Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31), and the Pharisee and the tax
collector (Luke 18:9–14). So the description of Jesus as a
parabolist is well founded.
What is striking in comparison is that no one else among
the disciples of Jesus or in the earliest churches is
remembered as a parabolist. Paul, for example, is remembered
for some vivid analogies, such as the olive tree with grafted
branches (Rom 11:17–24), but he is hardly remembered as a
parabolist. And, remarkably, John makes no effort to portray
Jesus as a teller of parables; the “I am” sayings,
particularly “I am the true vine” (John 15:1), are as near
as he gets. So it would be very hard to maintain an argument
that the portrayal of Jesus as a parabolist was
anachronistically applied by the first Christians or the
first three evangelists to the Jesus tradition. The only
obvious explanation is that even if Jesus did not initiate a
model of teaching followed by his disciples, we have to
conclude at the very least that he was warmly remembered as

24
one who typically taught by telling parables and that his
parables made a lasting impression on his disciples.
Exorcising Evil Spirits
Exorcism was evidently one of the most prominent features of
Jesus’s ministry. We may note, for example, the accusation
leveled against Jesus that he cast out demons “by the ruler
of the demons” (Mark 3:22 parr.). To which Jesus responded:
“How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided
against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is
divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.
And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he
cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a
strong man’s house and plunder his property without first
tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be
plundered” (Mark 3:23–27 parr.).
At this point Matthew and Luke insert a passage from their
shared source appropriately: “If I cast out demons by
Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they
shall be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that
I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you”
(Matt 12:27–28 // Luke 11:19–20). It is evident, then, that
Jesus was widely regarded as an exorcist.23
According to the first three evangelists, Jesus also
commissioned his disciples to preach and to cast out
demons.24 And, quite unexpectedly,25 when thus sent out, they
seem to have been as successful as Jesus himself (Luke
10:17). It is somewhat surprising, then, that exorcism does
not feature at all in the earliest churches. The term
daimonion (“daemon” or “evil spirit”) occurs sixty-seven
times in the tradition shared by Mark, Matthew, and Luke, but
only six times in John, and occasionally thereafter; but
exorcisms as such are never mentioned again.26 Casting out
demons was evidently not a ministry that the first Christians
exercised, despite having Jesus himself as their precedent.
And if they did, they evidently did not think it worth

25
recording. Either way, it is incredible to infer that
Jesus’s ministry as an exorcist was entirely read back into
the Jesus tradition. Here too we can be confident that Jesus
was known and remembered as a successful exorcist.
Concentration on Galilee
One of the curiosities that any comparison of the Gospel of
John with the first three Gospels can hardly miss is that so
much of John’s account of Jesus’s ministry is set in the
south, in Judea and Jerusalem. In Mark, Matthew, and Luke the
story of Jesus’s ministry is clear. He was baptized by the
Baptist in Judea. But after John was arrested and imprisoned,
Jesus withdrew to the north, to Galilee (Mark 1:14 parr.).
And there he ministered for the bulk of his ministry. It was
only after Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah,27
says Matthew, that Jesus “began to show his disciples that
he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering” there
(Matt 16:21). Luke tells the same story: “When the days drew
near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to
Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). And it is generally recognized that
the passion narrative begins with Jesus’s entry into
Jerusalem (Mark 11:1–10 parr.).
In contrast, John has Jesus going up to Jerusalem several
times in the course of his ministry. John portrays Jesus as
“cleansing the temple” early on (John 2:13–22), followed
by his conversation with Nicodemus while he is still in
Jerusalem (John 2:23–3:10). Jesus lingers in Judea and
ministers effectively in Samaria (John 3:22–4:42), followed
by an apparently brief spell in Galilee (John 4:43–54). In
chapter 5 he is once again in Jerusalem, but in chapter 6 he
is rather abruptly back in Galilee for the great bread of
life discourse. Shortly after that, however, he again goes up
to Jerusalem (John 7:10), and, surprisingly, he never returns
to Galilee thereafter. John in fact highlights the degree of
surprise that his portrayal causes by mentioning the

26
disbelief of the Jerusalem crowd that any good could come
from Galilee (John 7:41, 52).
It is easy to see how the contrast between the first three
Gospels and John came about. For whatever reason, Mark, who
first composed a “gospel” (Mark 1:1), decided to focus on
Jesus’s ministry in Galilee and to portray his trip to
Jerusalem, with his betrayal, crucifixion, and resurrection,
as the climax. In this he was followed by Matthew and Luke,
both using Mark as their template. John, however, suggests
that Jesus in fact made earlier trips to Jerusalem, to take
part in annual festivals, prior to his final journey
climaxing in his passion. The issue is complicated by John’s
transfer of the cleansing of the temple episode to the
beginning of Jesus’s ministry, probably as a “sign” to
indicate the character of his ministry (John 2:18–22). But
that may simply remind us that John saw his attempt to bring
out the significance of Jesus’s mission as different from
and as less constrained by historical detail than the earlier
evangelists. Either way, both bring out distinctives of
Jesus’s ministry as it was variously remembered.
Submission to High Priestly Authorities
We should simply note that Jesus was remembered as in effect
willingly surrendering himself to the Jerusalem authorities.
As we saw in the last section, the first three Gospels make
Jesus’s decision to go to Jerusalem the turning point in
their respective tellings of the story of Jesus. Mark sets
the scene by showing Jesus making a sequence of passion
predictions in (what are now) successive chapters.28 The
third is the most explicit: “The Son of Man will be handed
over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will
condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the
Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog
him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again”
(Mark 10:33–34).

27
What is striking, and can be listed as another distinctive
of Jesus’s ministry, is that Jesus is thus remembered as
going willingly and knowingly to his betrayal and death in
Jerusalem. This is in some contrast to his withdrawal from
danger after Herod’s execution of John the Baptist (Matt
14:13 parr.). The way in which the evangelists set out their
accounts of the good news, beginning with the baptism by
John, subsequently to be executed, and with early warning
indications (such as Mark 3:6), shows that the
characterization of the gospels as “passion narratives with
an extended introduction”29 faithfully represents a ministry
that climaxed in submission to the Jerusalem authorities.
It is not difficult, then, to see these features as
distinctive of Jesus’s actual ministry—none of them first
read back into the Jesus tradition at a subsequent date, but
each of them truly remembered by his disciples, having made a
lasting impact on them, and providing core features of their
retelling of the story of that ministry.
Jesus’s Self-Understanding
Not least amazing is the fact that we can discern Jesus’s
own understanding of his role, and can do so quite clearly
behind what the first Christians subsequently thought of him.
Of course, the Gospels portray Jesus as he was seen in the
light of all that happened in the climax of his ministry and
thereafter. But we have already seen how much of what the
first believers said regarding Jesus’s mission can be
realistically explained only in terms of the impact Jesus
made on his disciples during his mission. And so it is when
we ask what we can know with confidence about Jesus’s own
self-awareness. The evidence can be listed quite concisely.
Jesus’s Baptismal Commission
All the evangelists agree that Jesus began his mission
following his baptism by John the Baptist (Mark 1:9–11

28
parr.). The fact that Jesus was baptized by John, implying
that John was in effect senior to Jesus, was something of an
embarrassment for the first Christians. Matthew indicates
this by adding that John tried to prevent Jesus, saying to
Jesus, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to
me?” He only consents to baptize Jesus when Jesus replies,
“Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to
fulfill all righteousness” (Matt 3:14–15). The point is
that it was too fixed in the first followers’ memory of
Jesus that his mission began after his baptism by John, so
that the event could hardly be ignored.
Fundamental to the earliest memory of that event was the
understanding that it was then that Jesus received the
affirmation of God’s favor and an anointing with God’s
Spirit for the mission that he thereafter lived out. Whether
it was a private commission, as Mark 1:10–11 implies, or
something more public (Matt 3:16–17 // Luke 3:21–22), is
less important than the agreed testimony of all the
evangelists that Jesus’s mission began from a commissioning
that he received from God, his Father, when he was baptized
by John.
“I Came” or “I Was Sent”
Jesus’s sense of being heavenly commissioned (at his baptism
by John) is attested by the number of times when he expresses
that conviction. So, for example: “I have come to call not
the righteous but sinners” (Mark 2:17 parr.); “I came to
bring fire to the earth”;30 “the Son of Man came . . . to
serve” (Mark 10:45 par.).31 Or again: “whoever welcomes me
welcomes . . . the one who sent me” (Mark 9:37 // Luke
9:48); “whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me”
(Matt 10:40 // John 13:20); “whoever rejects me rejects the
one who sent me” (Luke 10:16). Of some interest is the fact
that John elaborates the “sent” tradition,32 indicating one
of the principal roots of his more elaborate Christology. But
it is clear enough that this elaboration is well rooted in

29
the earliest memories of one who at least occasionally
expressed his sense of heavenly commission in these terms. As
a feature distinctive of the Gospels within the New
Testament, its origin can hardly be attributed to the later
believers.
Messiah/Christ
That Jesus was the long-expected Messiah is the direct
implication of the information just noted. The claim is
fundamental to the structure of the first three Gospels,
following the lead of Mark. Although Jesus was initially
hailed by demoniacs as Messiah,33 Mark’s account centers on
Peter’s confession (Mark 8:29) and climaxes in Jesus’s
condemnation by Pilate as “king of the Jews” (Mark 15:9–
26). Because such a claim was liable to be misunderstood (in
terms of political leadership), Mark shows Jesus keeping the
claim quiet (Mark 1:25; 3:12) until (as already noted) he
could explain that messiahship meant suffering and death, but
also resurrection.34 John’s retelling of the story of
Jesus’s mission, in contrast, shows no such inhibitions.35
There is no reason to doubt either that the question whether
Jesus was the long-expected Messiah was raised by and during
Jesus’s mission, or that Jesus understood his mission in
these terms, or that he was crucified as a pretentious
Messiah. What is particularly interesting is that in the
subsequent early Christian usage, “Christ” had already
become a proper name—“Jesus Christ”—even leaving behind
the affirmation “Jesus, the Christ.” This suggests that the
claim that Jesus was (the) Messiah was already deeply rooted
at the beginnings of Christianity and entirely reflective of
the messianic claim that Jesus’s own mission embodied.
Abba
The Jesus tradition is quite clear that Jesus addressed God
as “Father” in his prayers. All five strata of the Gospel

30
material are unanimous on this point.36 There are also good
grounds for the further conclusion that Jesus used the
Aramaic address, “Abba.” The use of this term is explicitly
attested in the Jesus tradition only in Mark 14:36. But since
Matthew and Luke both read the Greek vocative pater at this
point (Matt 26:39 // Luke 22:42), the probability is that
underlying the vocative pater in the other prayers of Jesus
(including the Lord’s Prayer [Luke 11:2]) was the Aramaic
abba.
What is remarkable is that, according to Paul, the early
Christians also used this intimate form of address in their
prayers.37 They attributed it to the Holy Spirit and saw it
as attesting that they too were children, a status shared
with Christ. The fact that the gentile (Greek-speaking)
believers to whom Paul was writing regularly used this
Aramaic prayer form attests how well established this form of
prayer had become in the early churches. And the fact that it
was seen as attesting a sonship shared with Christ is itself
confirmation that the prayer language was knowingly echoing
Jesus’s own usage. In other words, the obvious conclusion is
that the Abba prayer was so cherished among the first
believers precisely because it was remembered as being
Jesus’s own prayer form. It was precisely because “Abba”
was Jesus’s own way of praying that their use of it served
as assurance that they shared in his sonship.
Son of God
It is evident that Jesus was remembered as God’s son by his
disciples more or less from the beginning. They clearly saw
his baptism in the Jordan as the occasion when he was hailed
as God’s “beloved son” by a heavenly voice (Mark 1:11
parr.), perhaps even as the day when he was “begotten” as
God’s son, as a variant text of Luke 3:22 (citing Ps 2:7)
suggests. And the temptation narrative in Matthew 4 and Luke
4 focuses on precisely that status: “If you are the Son of
God” (Matt 4:3, 6 // Luke 4:3, 9). Moreover, demoniacs are

31
recalled as hailing Jesus as God’s son (as in Mark 5:7
parr.).
But did Jesus see himself in these terms? The evidence is
not as strong as we would like. The strongest self-testimony,
Matthew 11:27 // Luke 10:22, is exceptional within the
tradition shared by the first three Gospels. And one can
hardly help wondering whether reference to “the Son” is a
later addition to Mark 13:32 // Matthew 24:36. More plausible
is the evidence of the parable of the wicked husbandmen (Mark
12:1–9 parr.), since, as we have seen, parables were a form
of teaching unique to Jesus. The fact that the vineyard
owner’s son is killed could be a reflection of what
subsequently happened to Jesus, though the absence of a clear
reference to Jesus’s resurrection in the parable itself
suggests that its original telling expressed Jesus’s own
anticipation of the likely outcome of his ministry. But it
does appear that the key point in the trial of Jesus was the
accusation that he had claimed to be “the Christ, the son of
the Blessed” (Mark 14:61). Intriguing is the fact that
Matthew and Luke depict Jesus as not giving a straightforward
positive answer to the accusation (Matt 26:64 // Luke 22:67–
70), but nevertheless it was the charge of blasphemy that was
the ground of Jesus being condemned to death. All this, along
with the “Abba” evidence reviewed above, indicates that it
is certainly more than plausible to deduce that the earliest
Christian belief that Jesus was uniquely God’s son was
rooted in the earliest memories of his mission and death.
The Son of Man
The phrase “the Son of Man” occurs eighty-six times in the
NT. Sixty-nine occur in the first three Gospels, and thirteen
occur in John. Of the remaining four instances, three are
quotations from or allusions to OT passages38 and show no
awareness of the Gospel usage. Only one titular usage (“the
Son of Man”) appears outside the Gospels—in Stephen’s
vision in Acts 7:56. Even more striking is the fact that in

32
all four Gospels the phrase appears only on the lips of
Jesus. He is never addressed or confessed as “Son of Man,”
neither in the Gospel narratives nor subsequently in the
churches’ worship. This is in marked contrast with other
titles for Jesus. Some examples:
Mark 2:10
parr.
“That you may know that the Son of Man has authority
on earth to forgive sins.”
Mark 2:28
parr.
“The Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”
Matt 8:20
// Luke
9:58
“Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests;
but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
Matt 11:18
–19 //
Luke 7:33
–34
“John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say,
‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and
drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a
drunkard.’ ”
The conclusion is obvious: this particular speech usage
was remembered as distinctive of Jesus precisely because that
is what it was. Moreover, the several occasions on which one
evangelist has “the Son of Man” while another has “I”
make it clear that Jesus’s first disciples recognized the
phrase as a self-reference,39 and one that was so distinctive
of Jesus’s own speech that it did not function as a title
for Jesus in the earliest Christology of the churches. That
Jesus may also have been influenced by the great vision of
Daniel 7:13 hardly affects the issue,40 though it is
interesting that subsequent Christology did not make more of
it. Again, the most obvious deduction is that Jesus himself
was more influenced by Daniel 7:13 in the way he envisaged
his ministry working out than were his immediate and
subsequent disciples.
Jesus’s Self-Expectation

33
The testimony of the Gospels is clear: Jesus fully expected
death at the hands of the civil authorities (the Romans), but
he also expected to be vindicated. Mark provides early hints:
the warning that he would be taken away from his disciples
(Mark 2:20) and the surprisingly early indication that the
Pharisees were out to get him (Mark 3:6). But the main weight
of Jesus’s expectation is carried by the three passion
predictions that follow Peter’s confession that Jesus was
the Messiah (Mark 8:29).
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo
great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief
priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days
rise again. (Mark 8:31)
He was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of
Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill
him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”
(Mark 9:31)
He took the twelve aside agian and began to tell them what was
to happen to him, saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem,
and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests
and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they
will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and
spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three
days he will rise again.” (Mark 10:32–34)
The fact that, despite such forewarnings, Jesus’s disciples
seem to have been totally unprepared for Jesus’s betrayal
and arrest (Mark 14:50) hardly diminishes the likelihood that
Jesus himself had at least clear forebodings, even if what
actually happened to Jesus understandably colored their
memory of such predictions or forewarnings (as is likely in
the case of Mark 10:34). For, as we have seen, there is
little reason to doubt that Jesus himself was clear on the
probability that his journey to Jerusalem would end with his
rejection and death. So, here too we can detect clear echoes
of Jesus’s own self-understanding and conception of his
mission.

34
* * *
There has been a tradition of scholarly skepticism stretching
back two generations that very little can be said of Jesus’s
own self-understanding since most or almost all of the
significance attributed to Jesus by the first Christians was
read back by them into the memories of his prepassion
mission. However, we have seen how much of Jesus’s message
can be attributed confidently to Jesus himself. There is in
fact no good reason to deny that what has been reviewed above
was rooted in good and authentic memory that Jesus’s first
disciples largely shared—not only the emphases and
priorities that they learned from him but also the
distinctive features of his ministry that they did not seek
to imitate in their own ministries, and particularly what
were remembered as statements and claims that revealed
Jesus’s own understanding of his mission and of his role. At
the very least, then, we can say that the roots of the
subsequent beliefs about Jesus were well established in what
he was (and is) remembered as having said and how he acted.
Jesus according to Jesus is firmly at the root of Jesus
according to the evangelists.
1. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical
Jesus, 5 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991–2016).
2. The writers of the Gospels are often referred to as
“evangelists” (“evangel” = “gospel”).
3. I have restricted the footnotes to a minimum. For more
detailed discussion, see James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, vol. 1
of Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003). The
content of this chapter has been adapted from this earlier work.
4. Mark 12:28–31 // Matt 22:35–40 // Luke 10:25–28.
5. Unless otherwise indicated, biblical quotations are either
from the New Revised Standard Version or are the author’s own
translation.
6. Sifra on Lev 19:18.
7. Rom 13:8–10; Gal 5:14; Jas 2:8; Didache 1:2; 2:7; Barnabas
19:5; Gospel of Thomas 25.

35
8. Rom 15:25–31; 2 Cor 8–9.
9. Q is one of the sources on which Matthew and Luke drew. For
more on Q, see chapter 2.
10. The equivalent passage in John’s Gospel is John 12:20–26,
though the point is not so clearly made.
11. The parallels in Matthew and Luke are not so full (Matt 27:55
–56 and Luke 23:49).
12. Matt 27:55–56; John 20:11–18.
13. See James D. G. Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, vol. 2 of
Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 571.
14. Matthew includes a variation of the saying earlier (Matt
18:3).
15. Eph 6:1–9; Col 3:18–4:1.
16. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 571n123.
17. Matthew and Luke (Q) also recall Jesus rebuking Pharisees for
counting outward cleanliness as more important than inward
cleanliness (Matt 23:25–26 // Luke 11:39–41).
18. Rom 14:1–15:6; 1 Cor 8–10.
19. 1 Cor 6:9; 15:10; Gal 5:21; Eph 5:5.
20. Rom 14:17; 1 Cor 4:20; Col 1:13.
21. Mathētēs (disciple) is used frequently in the Gospels—
seventy-three times in Matthew, forty-six times in Mark, thirty-
seven times in Luke, and seventy-eight times in John.
22. Mark 9:5; 10:51; 11:21; 14:45; Matt 26:25; John 1:38, 49;
3:2; 4:31; 6:25; 9:2; 11:8.
23. Matt 9:32–34; 17:18; Mark 1:34, 39; 7:26–30; Luke 4:33–35,
41; 8:27–38; 9:42; 11:14–15; 13:32.
24. Mark 3:15; 6:7–13 parr.
25. Cf. Mark 9:18 parr.
26. Outside the first three Gospels, curing someone possessed by
an “unclean spirit,” as an alternative expression, appears only in
Acts 5:16 and 8:7.
27. “Messiah” (= christos in Greek) was the title of Israel’s
longed-for deliverer.
28. Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34.
29. See the discussion of Martin Kähler in the next chapter.
30. Luke 12:49, 51–53; cf. Matt 10:34–36.
31. See also Mark 1:38 // Luke 4:43 (“I was sent”); Matt 11:18
–19 // Luke 7:33–34; Matt 5:17; Luke 19:10.
32. John 3:17, 34; 5:36, 38; 6:29, 57; 7:29; 8:42; 11:42; 17:3,
8, 21, 23, 25; 20:21.
33. Mark 1:24; 3:11.

36
34. Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34.
35. John 1:41; 4:25–26, 29.
36. Q (the source shared by Matthew and Luke)—Matt 11:25–26 //
Luke 10:21; Mark 14:36 parr.; Matt 26:42; Luke 23:34, 46; John
11:41; 12:27–28; 17:1, 5, 11, 21, 24–25.
37. Rom 8:15–17; Gal 4:6–7.
38. Heb 2:6 = Ps 8:4; Rev 1:13 and 14:14 alluding to Dan 7:13.
39. Luke 6:22 // Matt 5:11; Luke 12:8 // Matt 10:32; Matt 16:13
// Mark 8:27; Mark 10:45 // Luke 12:27.
40. Mark 13:26 parr.; 14:62 parr.; cf. 8:38 parr.

37
I
CHAPTER TWO
Jesus according to
Mark, Matthew, and Luke
n a day when we are so inundated with printed material, it
is hard for us to envisage centuries past when there was
no printed material. We are so accustomed to daily
newspapers, often with many pages. We visit bookshops with
shelf upon shelf filled with new and recently published
books. We can consult libraries, sometimes room after room
and floor upon floor of volume after volume. Can we really
envisage what it must have been like in societies when only a
fairly small minority could read for themselves? When there
was so little need to read, when there were so few books and
parchments available to the ordinary person, when it was
enough to be able to make sense of the public notices posted
on public buildings? Of course, the Jewish Scripture (the Old
Testament) was written, and Jewish boys may well have been
trained to read the Torah. The account of Jesus reading from
the Isaiah scroll in the Nazareth synagogue gives us some
idea of first-century Jewish education. But it is a real
question as to how many of Jesus’s closest disciples could
read or read well.
This is the situation we must try to envisage for the
beginning of the Jesus tradition. For about thirty to forty
years the memory of what Jesus had said and done would have
been in oral form. Some scholars in the early twentieth
century thought that the early memories would be of only
single units—particular memories of something Jesus had said
or done. But there is no reason to doubt that memories would
include sequences of teaching or of events. And when stories
of Jesus were told or teachings of Jesus passed on, of course
they would often be in ordered form. So it is no surprise
that when the Jesus tradition began to be written down we

38
find collections of stories and sequences of integrated
material.
The Gospel of Mark was to a large extent structured to
include such sequences. Mark 2:1–3:6 looks like such a
sequence, culminating in what would otherwise be the
surprisingly early climax in the decision by Pharisees and
Herodians to seek to bring Jesus down. In formulating Mark
4:1–34, it looks as though Mark was able to draw on a
sequence of parables, not least to illustrate the theory of
parables that he puts forward (Mark 4:11–12). Again, in
framing Mark 4:35–6:52, it looks as though the author was
able to draw on memories of a sequence of miracles that Jesus
was remembered as having performed round the lake of Galilee.
And there is general agreement among New Testament scholars
that the memories of Jesus’s last week climaxing in his
crucifixion must have already been well established and
ordered before Mark wrote his passion narrative (Mark 12:1–
15:47).
Anyone who looks at a synopsis—that is, a volume in which
the three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) have been set out
in parallel columns1—cannot help but be surprised at how
close the three Gospels are to each other. I often use the
phrase “the same, yet different” to bring out the striking
fact that the traditions being retold in written form in
these Gospels are the same, even when grouped somewhat
differently, edited to some extent and addressed (presumably)
to the different situations and concerns of the three authors
and the communities for which they wrote. Most scholars who
have specialized in the subject agree that Mark was most
probably the earliest Gospel to be written, probably in the
late 60s or early 70s, and that Mark was used by Matthew and
Luke one or two decades later. Indeed, so much of Mark was
reused by Matthew in particular that it is something of a
surprise that Mark was retained as a separate Gospel. The
reason may simply be the strong tradition that Mark had acted
as Peter’s secretary and that it was Peter’s memories and
preaching that he had written down.

39
Here we should include the strong opinion among most
scholars that as well as Mark, the two others of the
threesome, Matthew and Luke, had been able to draw on another
source. This is indicated by the large amount of non-Markan
material in Matthew and Luke that is more or less the same.
The non-Markan material common to Matthew and Luke has become
known as Q, an unimaginative abbreviation for the German
Quelle (source). One of the great and thus far unresolved
debates in Gospel scholarship is how much of Q was already
written. Were Matthew and Luke able to draw on a single
written collection of Jesus’s teaching for their non-Markan
material? Dependence on a written source is clear, in a
passage like Matthew 3:7–10, 12 // Luke 3:7–9, 17. But
elsewhere the agreement between Matthew and Luke can be as
little as 8 percent. So it is quite possible that in a fair
number of cases Matthew and Luke were drawing on differing
oral accounts of the same events and teaching. Here again,
then, the degree of variation in the synoptic material shows
how varied was the Jesus tradition—the same, yet different.
It is quite important to note that whatever form the Q
document took, it was not retained as such. It recounted the
teaching of Jesus, but Jesus was not to be remembered simply
as a great teacher. So Q was valued and its material retained
only as integrated into the written Gospel tradition.
Mark
It was Mark who gave us the written Gospel. Indeed, it was
Mark to whom we should attribute the idea of a “gospel” as
an account of Jesus’s ministry, death, and resurrection.
Prior to Mark, Paul had taken a term that was most used in
the plural in reference to the emperor’s activities.2 Paul
had focused attention on the singular—the good news—and
used it to sum up the good news of Jesus’s death and
resurrection. In effect he was saying to the wider Roman
public that the good news, the gospel, is not about Caesar
but about Jesus.

40
But it is Mark who introduces the term “gospel”
(euangelion) into the Jesus tradition itself. He uses the
term seven times, whereas the longer Matthew uses it only
four times, and Luke and John not at all. What is notable is
that Mark’s use seems to be consistently his own—most
notably in the very opening of his account:
Mark 1:1 “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Mark
1:14–15
“Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God
. . . ; ‘repent, and believe in the gospel.’”3
In Mark’s opening words, in fact, we see the transition
taking place from the gospel as the good news of Jesus’s
death and resurrection to the now more familiar sense of the
gospel as the good news of Jesus’s whole mission, climaxing
in his death and resurrection. It was Mark to whom we owe
that understanding and use of the word “gospel.”
It is worth noting some key features of the Gospel of
Mark, three in particular.
Passion Narratives with an Introduction
In a famous note Martin Kähler described the Gospels as
“passion narratives with extended introductions.”4 This is
particularly true of Mark’s Gospel and helps explain how the
transition in the meaning of the term “gospel” took place.
The appropriateness of Kähler’s description is shown by
various features in the Gospel of Mark:
The lengthy climax, the last week of Jesus’s ministry,
is given such prominence (Mark 11:1–16:8).
The three passion predictions dominate the three chapters
beginning the second half of the Gospel—Mark 8:31, 9:31,
and 10:33–34. For example, Mark 9:31: “The Son of Man
is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill

41
him, and three days after being killed, he will rise
again.”
Most striking are the early anticipations of the
Gospel’s climax: “The days will come when the
bridegroom is taken away” (Mark 2:20); “The Pharisees .
. . conspired . . . against him, how to destroy him”
(Mark 3:6); “The cup that I drink [and] . . . the
baptism with which I am baptized” (Mark 10:39); and the
parable of the vineyard leased to tenants (Mark 12:1–
12).
Kähler’s description is well justified.
The Messianic Secret
At the beginning of the twentieth century, William Wrede drew
attention to a fascinating feature of Mark’s Gospel that he
designated “the messianic secret.”5 The particular features
of the Gospel to which Wrede drew attention and which
provided the justification for his use of the phrase were
numerous and quite striking. Considered individually, they
might not amount to much. But taken together, they build into
a strong case.
An immediately striking feature is Jesus’s commands to
silence—the implication being that Jesus wanted his
activity, or rather the significance of that activity, not to
be known more widely, since presumably it would be heard of
by the authorities, who might intervene sooner than he
wanted.
Mark 1:34 “[Jesus] would not permit the demons to speak,
because they knew him.”
Mark 1:44 Jesus commanded the cleansed leper: “See that you say
nothing to anyone.”
Mark 3:12 “He [Jesus] sternly ordered [the unclean spirits] not
to make him known.”

42
Mark 5:43 “He [Jesus] strictly ordered” those who had come to
mourn the death of Jairus’s daughter that “no one
should know” of her restoration to full active life.
Mark 8:30 Following Peter’s confession of Jesus to be the
Messiah, “He [Jesus] strictly ordered [the disciples]
not to tell anyone about him.”
Mark 9:9 Similarly, following their witness of his transfigured
presence on a mountain, together with Moses and
Elijah, “He [Jesus] ordered them to tell no one about
what they had seen.”
Probably in the same category we should put Jesus’s
repeated desire to remain hidden, away from the crowds—
evident in several passages. Note the following:
Mark 1:35 Very early in the morning Jesus “went out to a
deserted place, and there he prayed.”
Mark 6:45
–46
Jesus “made his disciples get into the boat and go on
ahead to the other side.” After dismissing the crowd,
“he went up on the mountain to pray.”6
Equally striking, for the same reason, is the number of
occasions when Jesus is recalled as healing in private:
Mark 5:37,
40
In the healing of Jairus’s daughter, “He [Jesus]
allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and
John.”
Mark 7:33 “He took [the deaf man] aside in private, away from
the crowd,” and healed him.
Mark 8:23 “He took the blind man by the hand and led him out
of the village” and healed him.
The other striking feature of the Gospel of Mark noted by
Wrede in this connection is the number of occasions when Mark
emphasizes that Jesus gave private instruction to his
disciples.

43
Mark 4:34 “He did not speak to [the crowds] except in parables,
but he explained everything in private to his
disciples.”
Mark 7:17 “When he had left the crowd and entered the house,
his disciples asked about the parable.”
Mark 9:28 Following the healing of the epileptic boy, Jesus
“entered the house,” where “his disciples asked him
privately.”
Mark 13:3 On the Mount of Olives, “Peter, James, John, and
Andrew asked him privately.”7
So Wrede’s highlighting of what seems to be a consistent
emphasis in Mark’s Gospel is well justified.
Mark’s Ending
One of the most striking features of Mark’s Gospel is its
ending. On the Sunday following Jesus’s crucifixion, the
story of the empty tomb is left hanging unresolved. All we
are left with is the promise of the mysterious “young man”
discovered sitting in the empty tomb (an angel or Mark
himself?) to cheer the women who made the disturbing
discovery. The reassurance was that Jesus had been raised
(from the dead) and would go ahead of them to Galilee where
they would see him (Mark 16:7).
And that is about it! The Gospel then ends rather
abruptly. Apparently content with the promise just given, the
women “went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and
amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone,
for they were afraid” (Mark 16:8).
Apparently that is how Mark intended to end his Gospel—a
devastating discovery (the empty tomb); a rather puzzling
promise from a strange, unidentified “young man”; and the
women’s departure from the tomb, not full of joy but fearful
and full of terror! No wonder Mark’s ending was regarded by
some (or many!) as inadequate and attempts were made to
provide a more satisfactory, more positive ending. Both a

44
shorter and a longer alternative ending were added later and
appear in most translations. But they do not resolve the
issue of why Mark himself ended his Gospel in the way he did.
Of course, Mark would have known that the house groups and
congregations where his Gospel was read would themselves know
the fuller story. And perhaps Mark wrote in effect to
encourage such gatherings to carry on the story with accounts
of resurrection appearances and of their own experiences of
the risen Christ. But the way he actually did end his Gospel
remains something of a puzzle.
Matthew
Matthew absorbed almost all of Mark in his Gospel, but by
elaborating it with Q material and rearranging the order and
grouping of the tradition, he produced a quite different way
of telling the good news (gospel) of Jesus.
Structure
The most obvious distinctive features are immediately
apparent. Matthew starts his Gospel by pushing back the
beginning of his account of Jesus from Jesus’s baptism to
his birth (Matt 1–2). And he also provides a better
conclusion (Matt 28:1–20). Again, while Mark emphasized
Jesus’s role as teacher, Matthew has provided more teaching.
Nor should it be missed that Matthew has put Jesus’s
teaching into five “sermons” at Matthew 5:3–7:27, 10:5–
42, 13:3–52, 18:1–35, and 24:2–25:46. What signals the
“sermons” is the way Matthew concludes them:
Matt 7:28 “Now when Jesus had finished saying these things.”
Matt 11:1 “When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve
disciples.”
Matt
13:53
“When Jesus had finished these parables.”

45
Matt 19:1 “When Jesus had finished saying these things.”
Matt 26:1 “When Jesus had finished saying all these things.”
Christology
More striking is the way Matthew develops the Christology of
his Gospel, well beyond that of Mark. For Matthew, Jesus not
only brings wisdom from God, but Jesus himself embodies the
divine presence. This becomes clear in a number of passages
unique to Matthew. Thus most clearly in his opening chapter:
“ ‘The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall
name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us’ ” (Matt
1:23). Bolder still is the way in which Matthew identifies
Jesus with divine Wisdom—Wisdom being the figure that or who
in the book of Proverbs and the wisdom literature of Israel
is a way of speaking of the divine presence. Thus at the
beginning of chapter 11, in a passage again distinctive of
his Gospel, Matthew notes that “John, who was in prison,
heard about the deeds of the Messiah” (Matt 11:2 NIV) and
concludes the following story by quoting Jesus referring to
the distinctiveness of his ministry with the claim that
“[W]isdom is vindicated by her deeds” (Matt 11:19). Equally
striking is the allusion that Matthew has Jesus uniquely
making to a famous passage in Israel’s wisdom literature:
Sir 51:25
–26
“Acquire wisdom for yourselves. . . . Put your neck
under her yoke.”
Matt 11:29 “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.”
The yoke of Wisdom is now Jesus’s yoke! Equally striking is
the fact that whereas Luke 11:49 records Jesus as saying,
“the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and
apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ ”
Matthew 23:34 attributes Wisdom’s words to Jesus himself.
Jesus says, “I send you prophets . . . some of whom you will
kill.”

46
The Fulfillment of Jewish Expectation
Another notable feature of Matthew’s Christology is the
unique extent to which he goes in presenting the coming and
ministry of Jesus as the fulfillment of Jewish expectation.
All the scriptural quotations are introduced with a clear
indication of a prophecy fulfilled—typically, “All this
took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord
through the prophet.”
Matt 1:23 “The virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (Isa
7:14).
Matt 2:15 “Out of Egypt I have called my son” (Hos 11:1).
Matt 2:23 “He will be called a Nazorean” (source is unknown).
Matt 4:14
–16
“The people who sat in darkness have seen a great
light” (Isa 8:23–9:1).
Matt 8:17 “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases” (Isa
53:4).
Matt
12:18–21
“Here is my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved,
with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my
Spirit upon him” (Isa 42:1–4).
It can even be argued that Matthew sought to present Jesus
as a new Moses. This presumably is the implication of the
identification of Jesus with Israel’s exodus from Egypt in
the passage just quoted: “Out of Egypt I have called my
son” (Matt 2:15). The fact already noted that Matthew has
grouped the teaching of Jesus into five blocks suggests that
Matthew wanted his presentation of Jesus’s teaching to be
seen as echoing or fulfilling the five books of Moses. And we
can hardly fail to note the passage, unique to Matthew, in
which Jesus strongly affirms the law.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the
prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly
I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter,
not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all

47
is accomplished. . . . For I tell you, unless your
righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you
will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 5:17–20)
Would Paul have recognized that teaching? Would he have
accepted that teaching? How often I wish I could have
listened in on some of the earliest Christian debates—not
least in this case and in reference to the law and its
continuing validity for Jesus’s followers.
Focus on Israel
Another striking feature of Matthew is that he saw the focus
of Jesus’s ministry to be Israel itself. Particularly
remarkable are the passages unique to Matthew, indicated by
underlining:
Matt 1:21 “He will save his people from their sins.”
Matt 2:6 “From you [Bethlehem] shall come a ruler who is to
shepherd my people Israel.”
Matt 10:5
–6
“Go nowhere among the Gentiles . . . but go rather to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Matt
15:24
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel.”
Matt
19:28
Jesus and his disciples will judge “the twelve tribes
of Israel” (cf. Luke 22:30).
At the same time, we should note Matthew’s own openness
to and affirmation that the mission of Jesus’s disciples
included the gentiles.
Matt 1:3
–6
It should not escape notice that the genealogy of Jesus
at the opening of Matthew’s Gospel includes three
named women—Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth—all of them
gentiles.
Matt 3:9 John the Baptist is recalled as preaching, “Do not
presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our

48
ancestor.’ ”
Matt
8:11–12
Jesus reminds his audience that “many will come from
east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the
kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness.”
Matt
21:43
Matthew ends the parable of the wicked tenants by
warning that “the kingdom of God will be taken away
from you and given” to others.
Matt
22:8–9
The parable of the marriage feast is equally
foreboding, with its warning that those who had
rejected the summons to the wedding feast would be
replaced by others.
Matthew confirms that the gospel is for all nations (Matt
24:14, taking up Mark 13:10) and ends his Gospel with
Jesus’s commission that his disciples are to “Go . . . and
make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:19). Evidently
Matthew did not want it to be forgotten that Jesus saw his
own mission as primarily for his own people. But he was
equally concerned to note that Jesus forewarned against too
much being made of that fact, since the death and
resurrection of Jesus opened the gospel to “all nations.”
Reaffirmation of the Law
We have already noted the strong reaffirmation of the law by
Matthew’s Jesus (Matt 5:17–20). Particularly striking is
his record of warnings made by Jesus against anomia,
“lawlessness.” These warnings occur several times in
Matthew8 and, notably, are unique to Matthew. He certainly
recalls Jesus as refining the law, but he would hardly have
accepted that Jesus abrogated the law of Moses.
In fact, one of the principal features of the Gospel of
Matthew is his record of Jesus reaffirming and redefining the
law in contest with various Pharisees. So the Sermon on the
Mount sharpens the laws on murder (Matt 5:21–22) and
adultery (Matt 5:27–28). He recalls Jesus as redefining and

49
summarizing “the law and the prophets” with the Golden
Rule: “In everything do to others as you would have them do
to you” (Matt 7:12). He records Jesus as on two occasions
summarizing the law in the words of Hosea 6:6: “I desire
mercy, not sacrifice” (Matt 9:13; 12:7). All these are
unparalleled and distinctive of Matthew. Furthermore, Matthew
recalls Jesus as giving higher priority in terms of purity to
what comes out of the mouth than to what goes into the mouth
(Matt 15:17–20). Mark presses home the point by inferring
that “Thus Jesus declared all foods clean,” but Matthew
maintains that Jesus is only relativizing the laws of clean
and unclean. Again Matthew does not hesitate to recall Jesus
as summing up “all the law and the prophets” in the twofold
command: first, to love God with all your being, and second,
to love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:37–40).
Distinctive of Matthew is his recollection of Jesus’s
condemnation of scribes and Pharisees for disregarding the
law and for putting more weight on outward appearance (Matt
23:2–3). His record of Jesus condemning them as “serpents”
and a “brood of vipers” (Matt 23:33) presumably reflects
the tension that must have built up between Jesus’s Jewish
followers and the Jewish teachers. Though we should not
forget Matthew 24:20, where Jesus urges his disciples to pray
in the case of catastrophe, “that your flight may not be in
winter or on a sabbath.” It is hard to escape the sense that
some at least of such passages reflect the tribulations that
Jesus’s disciples faced later in the first century.
Luke
Luke brings home even more clearly than Matthew that the same
story (of Jesus) can be told differently. A vivid
illustration is the fact that it is only Luke who records
some of Jesus’s most enduring parables: for example, the
good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37), the prodigal son (Luke 15:11
–32), the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31), and the

50
Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9–14). Other
features make Luke stand out among the Gospels.
Anointed by the Spirit
Luke emphasizes the Spirit—the underlining indicating
material unique to Luke:
Luke 1:15 Even before his birth: “He [the Baptist] will be
filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Luke 1:35 “The Holy Spirit will come upon you [Mary] . . . ;
therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will
be called Son of God.”
Luke 1:67 “Zechariah [the Baptist’s father] was filled with
the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy: . . .”
Luke 2:25
–27
“The Holy Spirit rested on [Simeon]. It had been
revealed to him by the Holy Spirit.” He had been
“guided by the Spirit.”
Luke 4:1,
14
“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the
Jordan and was led by the Spirit [to be tempted].”
Luke 4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has
anointed me to bring good news to the poor.”
Luke
10:21
“Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said . . .”
(cf. Matt 11:27).9
In this, of course, Luke no doubt had in mind his
intention to write a second volume, narrating the beginning
of the Jesus or Christian movement following Jesus’s death
and resurrection. In that volume, as we shall see, the Holy
Spirit is the most prominent actor, starting with Pentecost,
the inspiring power that drove the early mission of Jesus’s
disciples forward with great success. It is not at all
surprising, therefore, that Luke took the opportunity, in his
own retelling of the gospel story given by Mark, to bring out
just how much Jesus’s own ministry was at the instigation of
God’s Spirit and was endowed with the power of that same

51
Spirit. Notably, Luke did not add many Spirit references to
the Markan account itself, but he certainly took pains to
affirm that the Baptist’s and Jesus’s births were hailed by
the Spirit and that Jesus’s anointing by the Spirit was a
strong feature of the beginnings of Jesus’s ministry.
Mission to Sinners
Equally notable and distinctive is Luke’s emphasis that
Jesus’s mission was to sinners— the underlining again
indicating material only in Luke:
Luke 5:8 Simon Peter says: “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a
sinful man!”
Luke
5:30, 32
In response to criticism that he ate and drank with
sinners, Jesus replies: “I have come to call . . .
sinners to repentance.”
Luke
7:34
“The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you
say, ‘Look, . . . a friend of tax collectors and
sinners!’ ”
Luke
7:37–38
Jesus is anointed by a woman “who was a sinner.”
Luke
15:2
Jesus is criticized by Pharisees and scribes: “This
fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Luke
15:7,
cf. 10
“There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who
repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons.”
Luke
18:13
In the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector,
the latter prays, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
Luke
19:7
When Jesus invites himself to Zacchaeus’s house, the
crowd murmurs: “He has gone to be the guest of one who
is a sinner.”
Of interest here is the fact that Luke does not use the
word “sinner” in his second volume (Acts). So it can hardly
be said that he focused on this aspect of Jesus’s mission

52
because it was such a prominent feature of the earliest
mission of the apostles. Equally striking is the fact that in
the Gospel of Luke the term “sinner” appears much more
often than in the other canonical Gospels.10 So, clearly,
Luke saw this as a very important aspect of Jesus’s ministry
and drew on the Jesus tradition to bring out the importance
of this aspect. Indeed, it appears from Luke’s account that
Jesus made a point of associating with the religiously (and
socially) unacceptable and indeed sought them out. This
practice shows as clearly as anything Jesus said that he did
not see his mission or his responsibility to others to be
determined by the social and religious conventions of the day
—a thought that the religious establishments that sprang
from his mission ought never to forget.
Good News for Gentiles
Another emphasis of Luke is that the good news of Jesus is
also for gentiles. Most notable are again distinctive
features of Luke’s recollection and use of the Jesus
tradition.
Luke 2:29
–32
Simeon’s prophecy regarding the infant Jesus: “. . .
a light for revelation to the Gentiles . . .”
Luke 3:6 Luke makes a point of extending the Baptist’s
quotation of Isa 40:3–5 right to the end: “. . . and
all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Luke 4:26
–27
Luke extends the account of Jesus’s sermon in
Nazareth to remind the hearers that Elijah was sent
only to the widow at Zarephath, and Elisha healed only
Naaman the Syrian.
Luke
10:25–37
The parable of the good Samaritan.
Luke
17:11–19
The healing of ten lepers, of whom only the Samaritan
returns to give Jesus thanks.

53
As with his emphasis on the Spirit, Luke’s Gospel
prepares for the greater emphasis of his second volume,
particularly the commission of Saul/Paul, which Luke
emphasizes three times.11 It was no doubt fundamental for
Luke that the great expansion of the Jesus movement to the
gentiles, which he was to record and of which he himself had
been part, was entirely consistent with Jesus’s own mission.
The comparison of Matthew and Luke raises interesting
speculations as to what the authors would have said to each
other with regard to the other’s version of the gospel.
Frequent Prayer
One of the most interesting features of Luke’s Gospel is the
prominence he gives to the fact that Jesus prayed frequently.
He alone notes that the descent of the Spirit on Jesus came
when Jesus “had been baptized and was praying” (Luke 3:21).
Luke alone notes that after healing a leper Jesus “withdrew
to the wilderness and prayed” (Luke 5:16 RSV). He alone
records that before Jesus chose the Twelve he “went out to
the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to
God” (Luke 6:12). Again it is Luke alone who records that
the conversation leading to the confession of Peter came
“when Jesus was praying alone” and “the disciples [were]
near him” (Luke 9:18). It is only Luke who records that the
transfiguration happened when Jesus “went up on the mountain
to pray”; and that it was “while he was praying” that
Jesus was transfigured (Luke 9:28–29). Only Luke introduces
the Lord’s Prayer by noting that it was as Jesus “was
praying in a certain place” that one of his disciples asked
to be taught “to pray, as John taught his disciples” (Luke
11:1). We might mention also that only Luke tells the
parables of the unjust judge and of the Pharisee and the tax
collector (Luke 18:2–14), both about effective prayer, and
that he introduces the parables by noting that Jesus told
them “about their need to pray always and not to lose
heart” (Luke 18:1). Finally, it is only Luke who records

54
that Jesus introduced his time of prayer in Gethsemane by
urging his disciples, “Pray that you may not come into the
time of trial” (Luke 22:40), and that “in his anguish he
prayed more earnestly” (Luke 22:44).
Of course, Luke also emphasizes that the mission of the
disciples in his second volume was equally marked by prayer—
including, for example, the choice of a twelfth disciple to
replace Judas (Acts 1:24), the appointment of the seven to
assist the apostles (Acts 6:6), the converted Saul of Tarsus
(Acts 9:11), the breakthrough with the gentile Cornelius
(Acts 10:9, 30; 11:5), the commissioning of Barnabas and Saul
to mission (Acts 13:3), and at various points in Paul’s
missionary work.12 It is clear, then, that for Luke
missionary work was impossible to conceive without prayer—as
documented not only by the mission of the earliest church but
also by the mission of Jesus himself.
Jesus as Lord
An interesting if fairly minor feature is the way the
evangelists refer to Jesus as “Lord.” “Lord,” of course,
has a range of denotation, used both regularly in the sense
of “sir” and in reference to God—“the Lord.” In the
Gospels, Jesus is quite naturally described as “the lord”
or “master,”13 or more frequently addressed as “lord” or
“sir.”14 Moreover, “Lord” is the obvious connotation from
the earliest days of the Christian church—“the Lord Jesus”
being a common reference, for example, particularly in Paul.
The implication is that the corollary to Jesus’s
crucifixion, that is, his resurrection and ascension, exalted
Jesus to a status that transformed the polite kyrios,
denoting social recognition of a higher authority, into
Kyrios, with the connotation of lordship, of a heavenly
lordship, where Psalm 110:1 could be taken more or less
literally.15 Luke deserves mention here because he alone
notes that Jesus was first referred to as “the Lord” by one
of his contemporaries, in Luke 24:34. We might even say that

55
the first Christian message accompanied the realization that
Jesus was not gone from them—when the disciples on the road
to Emmaus realized that the person who had walked with them
from Jerusalem was in fact the risen Jesus, and in reporting
it they gave what in effect was the first Christian
confession, “The Lord has risen indeed.”
The Perils of Wealth and Concern for the Poor
Luke is notable for the warnings against the perils of wealth
that appear regularly in his Gospel, usually his own
emphasis.16
Luke 1:53 Mary magnifies the Lord: “he has filled the hungry
with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”
Luke
6:20, 24
The beatitudes in Luke are distinctive: “Blessed are
you who are poor. . . . But woe to you who are rich.”
Luke
12:13–21
The parable of the rich but shortsighted landowner.
Luke
12:33
“Sell your possessions, and give alms” (cf. Matt
6:19).
Luke
16:19–31
The parable of the rich man and Lazarus.
Luke
18:18–25
The sad story of the rich young ruler, unwilling to
give up his possessions (cf. Matt 19:16–24 // Mark
10:25).
Luke 19:1
–10
The story of Zacchaeus, the wealthy tax collector,
climaxing in his giving half of his goods to the poor
and restoring anything defrauded fourfold.
Equally striking is Luke’s concern for the poor— the
underlining again indicating material unique to Luke:17
Luke 1:46
–55
Mary’s Magnificat well sets the tone: God “has
filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich
away empty” (Luke 1:53).

56
Luke 4:18 Jesus reads from Isaiah in the synagogue: “The Spirit
of the Lord . . . has anointed me to bring good news
to the poor” (Isa 61:1–2).
Luke 6:20 In some contrast to Matt 5:3 (“Blessed are the poor
in spirit”), Luke records Jesus as saying, “Blessed
are you . . . poor.”
Luke
14:13
“When you give a banquet, invite the poor.”
Luke
14:15–24
The parable of the great dinner, when the original
guests refuse to come and invitations are issued to
“the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.”
Luke
16:19–31
The parable of the rich man and Lazarus.
Luke
18:22
Again the sad story of the rich young man who failed
to respond to Jesus’s challenge: “There is still one
thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute
the money to the poor.”
Luke 19:8 Zacchaeus’s response to Jesus’s intervention: “Half
of my possessions . . . I will give to the poor.”
Again, rather strikingly, neither the word “poor” nor
the word “rich” appears in Luke’s second volume, the Acts
of the Apostles. So, once again we have to conclude that the
emphasis on the subject in Luke’s Gospel must reflect the
fact that this was indeed one of Jesus’s own major emphases.
On the other hand, we should not fail to notice the concern
shown in the earliest gatherings of Jesus’s disciples in
Jerusalem for those who were being neglected in the daily
distribution from the community of goods (Acts 6:1–6;
referring back to 2:44–45). The letter of James has one of
the strongest passages in the NT on the importance of showing
proper care and respect for the poor (Jas 2:1–7). Nor should
we forget that Paul laid great emphasis on the collection he
was making among the new churches he had established for
“the poor among the saints at Jerusalem” (Rom 15:26)—a
consistent emphasis in Paul’s ministry to try to ensure the

57
unity of all the growing churches (Gal 2:10; 2 Cor 8–9). It
is sobering to remember that it was Paul’s determination to
deliver that collection to Jerusalem that resulted in his
arrest and ended in his death. Such concern for the poor
among Jesus’s disciples was of course well rooted in the Old
Testament. But who can doubt that Jesus was well remembered
by the first Christians as reinforcing that concern and its
priority among believers?
The Role of Women
Finally, it is hardly inappropriate to notice that Luke
highlights the role of women in Jesus’s entry into the world
and among his disciples.
Luke 1:25,
46–55
The prominence given to the mother of the Baptist
(Elizabeth) and the mother of Jesus (Mary) is
striking.
Luke 8:2–3 Only Luke mentions the women who were Jesus’s
backups.
Luke 10:38
–42
Only Luke tells the story of Martha and Mary.
Luke 18:2–
5
Only Luke relates the parable of the unjust judge
giving way to a woman’s badgering.
Luke 23:27
–29
Only Luke reports Jesus’s words to the women who
lamented as Jesus was led to Golgotha: “Daughters of
Jerusalem . . . weep for yourselves and for your
children.”
Here it is well to note the prominence of women among
Paul’s various mission teams. Indeed, as already noted, a
calculation made in regard to Paul’s various colleagues and
associates in mission reveals that about 20 percent of such
colleagues were women—an astonishing fact for its time. The
list of greetings that Paul makes in Romans 16 well
illustrates the point. The point needs some emphasis in view
of the common impression that Paul was antipathetic to

58
women’s ministry. So it should be restated that, in a day
where women’s role in ministry and mission was minimal,
Paul’s mission teams were exceptional. And from where did
Paul gain such a perspective and policy out of keeping with
his times? Where else than Jesus and the example he had set?
* * *
Some important points emerging from what we have seen above
should be underlined. First, the ministry and teaching of
Jesus were not put into writing straightaway, neither during
his ministry nor directly thereafter. But the thirty to forty
years of written silence hardly mean that the memories of
what Jesus had done and taught had been lost or forgotten. On
the contrary, the evidence of the synoptic tradition is that
accounts of what Jesus was remembered as having done and said
circulated and were passed on in various forms and
combinations.
Second, the character of what Jesus had taught and done is
clear from the Jesus tradition in its varied forms. “The
same, yet different” well summarizes the twin character of
the synoptic tradition. In short, the Jesus tradition gives a
clear impression in two directions—the impression/impact
made by Jesus on his first disciples, and the different ways
the memories of Jesus’s ministry were conveyed to new
disciples and churches.
Third, the summary term “gospel” was claimed for the
Christian movement for its central message by Paul, and given
its technical Christian sense by Mark. If “gospel” as a
Christian term is defined by Mark, as the story of Jesus’s
ministry, climaxing in his death and resurrection, then later
uses of the term, as in the Gospel of Thomas, are better
described as a misuse of the term.
Fourth, particularly by framing his telling of the story
of Jesus’s ministry as the unveiling of “the messianic
secret” of Jesus, Mark added a spice to what might otherwise
have been a more pedestrian account. And his ending of the

59
story, leaving the hearer in some suspense, presumably helped
bring a listening audience to their own experience of the
risen Jesus.
Fifth, Matthew’s retelling of the Gospel of Mark shows
how adaptable was the Jesus tradition—how different emphases
could be brought out from the same tradition. In Matthew’s
case the emphases seem to have been to make his Gospel more
appealing to Jewish audiences—the five blocks of Jesus’s
teaching mirroring the five books of Moses, the Wisdom
Christology, the emphasis on Jesus as the fulfillment of
Jewish expectation, the focus on Jesus’s mission to Israel,
and the reaffirmation of the law. It is this sense of
Jesus’s continuity with what had gone before in God’s
leading of Israel that most marks the Gospel of Matthew and
makes it distinctive among the documents of the New
Testament.
Sixth, if Matthew links the ministry of Jesus most firmly
to God’s dealings with Israel in the past, Luke points, with
equal firmness, to the potential of Jesus’s mission for the
gentile world. This is most obvious in his emphasis on the
role of the Spirit, to be continued in his second volume, as
also Jesus’s own openness to gentiles. Distinctive of Luke,
but also of powerful significance for Luke’s wider concerns
evidenced in Acts, are his emphasis on Jesus’s ministry
among sinners, his note that Jesus gave priority to prayer
during his own ministry, Jesus’s concern for the poor, and
the importance of the role of women in Jesus’s ministry.
Jesus according to Mark, Matthew, and Luke comes across as
certainly the same Jesus, but the same Jesus powerfully
impacting different people and different situations. What if
only one Gospel had been treasured by the earliest churches—
giving the impression that there was only one acceptable way
of telling the story of Jesus’s ministry, that there was
only one way in which his teaching could be retained and
passed on correctly? Thankfully, Jesus’s ministry was told

60
diversely from the first, not least in order that the
diversity of its appeal should be maintained.
1. “Synopsis,” literally “seen together.”
2. See further, ch. 5 below.
3. The underlining indicates that the underlined wording is
unique to Mark, who also did not hesitate to add the word elsewhere
to elaborate the Jesus tradition and to bring out the force of the
gospel now set out in his Gospel: Mark 8:35—“Those who lose their
life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it”;
Mark 10:29—“He who has left home . . . for my sake and for the
sake of the gospel will receive a hundredfold.”
4. Martin Kähler, The So-Called Historical Jesus and the Historic
Biblical Christ (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1964), 80n11.
5. William Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien:
Zugleich ein Beitrag zum Verständnis des Markusevangeliums
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1901). English translation:
William Wrede, The Messianic Secret, trans. J. C. G. Greig
(Cambridge: James Clarke, 1971).
6. See also Mark 1:45 and 3:7, 9.
7. Note also Mark 6:31–32 and 9:2.
8. Matt 7:23; 13:41; 23:28; 24:12.
9. See also Luke 1:17; 11:13.
10. “Sinner”—eighteen times in Luke, six in Mark, five in
Matthew, and four in John.
11. Acts 9:15; 22:15; 26:17–18.
12. Acts 14:23; 16:25; 20:36; 21:5; 22:17; 28:8.
13. E.g., Matt 21:3; 24:42; Mark 11:3; Luke 7:13; 10:1, 39, 41;
11:39; 13:15; 17:5, 6; 18:6; 19:8, 31, 34; 22:33, 38, 61.
14. E.g., Matt 8:2, 6, 8, 21, 25; 14:28, 30; 15:22, 25, 27;
20:30, 31, 33; Luke 5:8, 12; 7:6; 9:54, 59, 61; 10:17, 40; 12:41;
13:23; 17:37; 18:41.
15. Note how often Ps 110:1 is referred to or quoted in the New
Testament—more than any other verse from the Hebrew Bible in Greek
translation—Matt 22:44; 26:64; Mark 12:36; 14:62; [16:19]; Luke
20:42; 22:69; Acts 2:34; Rom 8:34; 1 Cor 15:25; Eph 1:20; Heb 1:3,
13; 8:1; 10:12. See also the beginning of chapter 4.
16. The word plousios (rich, wealthy) appears in Luke eleven
times; contrast three in Matthew, two in Mark, and none in John.
17. The word “poor” appears in Luke twice as often as it does
in Matthew or Mark.

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I
CHAPTER THREE
Jesus according to
John
t is natural to assume that the Gospel of John is just
like the other three Gospels contained in the New
Testament. Natural because they are telling the story of the
same life—the ministry of Jesus. But when the Gospel of John
is set out in parallel columns with the other three (Matthew,
Mark, and Luke), it almost immediately becomes evident that
John is different from the others. As already noted, with the
Synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the parallels are very
close. Apart from the two opening chapters of Matthew and
Luke, the degree of overlap in all three, often almost word-
for-word parallels, is very striking. One of the most
interesting experiences of my early days of scholarship was
to underline the parallels between the three Synoptics—red
indicating where Matthew and Luke seem to have copied Mark,
blue for the non-Markan agreements between Matthew and Luke
usually referred to as Q, and yellow for passages distinctive
to each Gospel. That is why they are called Synoptics,
because they can so easily be “seen together.”
But with John it is different. John is telling the same
story, of the same person. But he is telling it differently.
For example, early on John indicates that Jesus’s miracles
should be regarded as “signs,” indicating the significance
of the miracle-worker. So the first miracle recorded, turning
the water into wine (John 2:1–10), is rounded off by noting
that this was “the first of his signs . . . and revealed his
glory” (John 2:11). The following references to Jesus’s
“signs” (John 2:23; 3:2; 4:54) reinforce John’s point that
he was not just telling the story of mighty works performed
by Jesus, but was drawing out the significance of what Jesus

62
did and said.1 In effect, he makes the same point by
regularly attaching long discourses to his accounts of the
miracles performed by Jesus. So, for example, the feeding of
the five thousand leads into the great bread of life
discourse (John 6); the healing of the blind man leads into
Jesus’s speaking about blindness and sight (John 9); and the
raising of Lazarus is integrated with the discourse on
eternal life (John 11).
When John is compared with the Synoptics, a striking
feature is that John contains no real parables; the nearest
is when Jesus is recorded as saying “I am the true vine”
(15:1–6). In fact, it is the “I am” sayings that seem to
function as John’s equivalent to the synoptic parables.
John 6:35 “I am the bread of life.”
John 8:12 “I am the light of the world.”
John 8:58 “Before Abraham was, I am.”
John 10:11 “I am the good shepherd.”
John 11:25 “I am the resurrection and the life.”
John 14:6 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”
John 15:1 “I am the true vine.”
It is a striking fact that these “I am” sayings appear
only in the Fourth Gospel. It is almost impossible to believe
that there were such sayings in the Jesus tradition, sayings
that Jesus was remembered as uttering about himself, and yet
all three synoptic evangelists ignored them completely. Much
the more obvious explanation is that these were sayings
attributed to Jesus by John not because he was remembered as
uttering them, but because they brought out the significance
of Jesus and his ministry like nothing else in the Jesus
tradition, confirming the significance of his ministry and
miracles.

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So the obvious conclusion to draw with regard to John is
that, unlike the authors of the Synoptics, he was not trying
to give a more or less straightforward account of Jesus’s
ministry. Rather, he sought to bring out the significance of
Jesus’s ministry and his death and resurrection. What is
important, when we compare the so-called gospels that
followed in the second and third centuries, is that John
retained the Gospel format, established by Mark, beginning
with John the Baptist and climaxing in Jesus’s crucifixion
and resurrection. But his Gospel is more a reflection on
Jesus’s ministry and on Jesus himself, drawing on the
tradition of Jesus’s miracle working, and in effect
elaborating things that Jesus was remembered as saying to
draw out the significance of the signs and of the revelation
of God that Jesus brought and embodied. The emphases that
John’s Gospel expresses bring out the points he wanted to
make.
Jesus Is Messiah
John is unusual among the evangelists in that he indicates
his purpose in writing his Gospel explicitly, in a brief
paragraph that may well have been the concluding verses of
what can consequently be regarded as the first edition of his
Gospel:
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his
disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are
written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and that through believing you may
have life in his name. (John 20:30–31)
A somewhat curious fact is that John is the only writer in
the New Testament to use the Greek term Messias (John 1:41;
4:25), a transliteration of the Hebrew term “Messiah,”
rather than only the Greek translation, Christos (a term he
uses regularly in his Gospel). The curiosity is that when the
good news of Jesus had already been widely circulated in the
wider gentile world and Christos had become in effect part of

64
a proper name (“Jesus Christ”), it is the last of the New
Testament Gospels that retains the Hebrew term with its
titular sense.
As John 20:30–31 clearly implies, to bring out the
significance of Jesus as the Messiah/Christ was one of
John’s chief concerns:
John 1:41 Andrew “first found his brother Simon [Peter] and
said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is
translated Christ).”
John 4:25
–26
The woman at the well said to Jesus, “ ‘I know that
Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he
comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said
to her, ‘I am he.’ ”
John 7 A debate about Jesus’s significance: the question
being asked by the crowd, “Can it be that the
authorities really know that this is the Christ?”
(7:26), sparks off a debate that continues for the
next two paragraphs (7:26–44).
John 9 The controversy provoked by Jesus’s healing a blind
man, including the response of the authorities who
“agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the
Christ would be put out of the synagogue” (9:22).
John
10:24
“The Jews” ask, “How long will you keep us in
suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly”
(see also 12:34).
John
11:27
Prior to the raising of her brother Lazarus, Martha
confesses: “I believe that you are the Christ, the
Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
John 17:3 Also sums up John’s intentions when he quotes Jesus
as praying, “This is eternal life, that they may know
you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have
sent.”
It is worth repeating that the author of the last of the
Gospels in the New Testament still retains the titular sense
of Christ/Messiah when, as we shall see more clearly later,
Christ had become almost a proper name for Jesus (“Jesus

65
Christ”) when the titular significance of the name (the
Christ or Messiah) had begun to fade. The loss of this
titular significance can be easily understood since in the
wider mission in predominantly gentile territory the Jewish
significance of the title was less relevant and could readily
have been neglected. But for John, still hoping to persuade
his fellow Jews that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, it was
still necessary to emphasize the significance of the title.
It is also worth noting that John does not hesitate to
record that Jesus was hailed to be and recognized as “the
king of Israel,” even though Matthew and Mark recall the
title being used only by the crowds mocking the crucified
Jesus (Matt 27:42 // Mark 15:32).
John 1:49 “Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God!
You are the King of Israel!’ ”
John
12:13
The crowds greet Jesus entering Jerusalem: “Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord—
the King of Israel.” And John goes on to quote Zech
9:9: “Look, your king is coming, sitting on a
donkey’s colt!”
The interesting point is that “king of Israel” was a
dangerously political title to be used of Jesus in a state
controlled by the Romans. John records Jesus’s own
hesitation at the thought of taking on such a role (John
6:15). But he does not hesitate to record that Jesus’s trial
before the Roman governor, Pilate, focused on whether Jesus
was “the king of the Jews” (John 18:33–39). John also
reports that Jesus was abused by the soldiers as “king of
the Jews” (John 19:3), and that the title that the crucified
Jesus bore was an issue between Pilate and the chief priests
(John 19:12–22). The one qualification that John makes is to
record Jesus as responding to Pilate: “My kingdom is not
from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my
followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over
to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here”
(John 18:36). This tension between “king of Israel” and

66
“kingdom of God” (John 3:3, 5; the only other “kingdom”
reference in John) is relatively minor in the Fourth Gospel,
but it is nonetheless of significance and may hint at how
John’s community coped with the destruction of “the kingdom
of Israel” in the latter decades of the first century.
It is even more striking in John’s presentation that
Jesus is shown as fulfilling and in effect superseding other
central features of Israel’s history and religion.
John 1:17 “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and
truth came through Jesus Christ.”
John 1:29 “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of
the world.”
John 2:19
–21
“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise
it up.” The author explains: “He was speaking of the
temple of his body.”
John 4:10
–14
“Those who drink of the water that I will give them
will never be thirsty.”
John 6:48
–58
“I am the bread of life. . . . The one who eats this
bread will live forever.”
John 8:58 “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.”
John 15:1 Alluding to the familiar imagery of Israel as a vine
or a vineyard, Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and
my Father is the vinegrower.”2
There is evidently a tension here—between Jesus as the
one who fulfills Israel’s expectations and also supersedes
them. This presumably reflects the tensions within the Jesus
movement in the late first century, which was confronted both
by the destruction of Israel and of Israel’s temple and by
the increasing hostility of the Pharisees (“the [hostile]
Jews” in John’s terminology). Which way should the Jewish
followers of Jesus turn? This was evidently the dilemma
confronting the author of the Gospel of John. According to
his own usage, there were still many of “the Jews” who were

67
open to the claim that Jesus was the Messiah and to the
claims of his followers—as his presentation makes clear.3
Hence the main purpose of his Gospel, already noted in John
20:30–31, to persuade as many of the author’s fellow Jews
to join him in believing “that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God,” in the confidence of faith “that through believing
[they] may have life in his name.” John may well have
anticipated that there would soon be a parting of the ways
for the believing Jews, but the Jewishness of the Jesus
movement was too fundamental for him to give up without a
struggle.
Jesus Is the Son of God
One of the more remarkable features of John’s Gospel is that
Jesus refers to God as “Father” in it much more frequently
than he does in the Synoptics. The statistics are striking: 3
times in Mark, 8 in Luke, 35 in Matthew, and 100 in John.
Here are a few examples—all statements made by Jesus, and
the references all unique to John:
John 2:16 Jesus protests in the temple: “Stop making my
Father’s house a marketplace!”
John 5:37 “The Father who sent me has himself testified on my
behalf.”
John 6:44 “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who
sent me.”
John 8:54 “It is my Father who glorifies me, he of whom you
say, ‘He is our God.’ ”
John
10:30
“The Father and I are one.”
John 15:1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the
vinegrower.”
This is matched by John’s references to Jesus as “the
Son of God,” again distinctive of John. For example:

68
John 1:34 John the Baptist says: “I myself have seen and have
testified that this is the Son of God.”
John 1:49 Nathanael hails Jesus: “Rabbi, you are the Son of
God!”
John
10:36
Jesus asks “the Jews”: “Can you say that the one
whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world
is blaspheming because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?”
John
11:27
Martha confesses: “I believe that you are the
Messiah, the Son of God.”
And we should recall that John’s expressed intention was
to bring his readers to belief that Jesus was not only the
Christ, but “the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31). Here
we should just add that John is the only evangelist to refer
to Jesus as God’s “one and only son” (monogenēs; John
1:14, 18; 3:16, 18).
Not least, the point of this for John was to emphasize
that Jesus’s mission was authorized by the Father—again a
distinctive Johannine emphasis:
John 3:17 “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn
the world, but in order that the world might be saved
through him.”
John 3:35 “The Father loves the Son and has placed all things
in his hands.”
John 5:19 “The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he
sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does,
the Son does likewise.”
John 5:26 “Just as the Father has life in himself, so he has
granted the Son also to have life in himself.”
John 6:38 “I have come . . . to do . . . the will of him who
sent me.”
John
12:50
“What I speak . . . I speak just as the Father has
told me.”4

69
Here again we see how John has adapted the tradition of
Jesus’s ministry. The earlier evangelists recall that the
term “the Son of God” was used in Jesus’s temptation (Matt
4:3, 6 // Luke 4:3, 9), by demoniacs (Mark 3:11 // Luke 4:41;
Mark 5:7 parr.), by his disciples marveling at Jesus’s
walking on the water (Matt 14:33),5 by the high priest at
Jesus’s trial (Matt 26:63 // Luke 22:70), by the crucified
robber and the mocking officials (Matt 27:40, 43), and in
fearful surprise by the centurion in charge of Jesus’s
crucifixion (Mark 15:39 // Matt 27:54). And from early days
in the postresurrection mission the confession of Jesus to be
“the Son of God” was a natural expression of earliest
Christian faith.6 So the obvious conclusion is that John’s
Gospel reflects this fuller faith and does not hesitate to
depict Jesus as himself laying claim to the title—no longer
simply a temptation to be misused, no longer a status just
recognized by demoniacs, no longer a mission to be dismissed
by Jewish authorities or crucified thieves, but a role
recognized and affirmed by Jesus himself. This should not
surprise us since it was precisely the conviction, not only
that Jesus was God’s Son, but also that in being able to
echo Jesus’s own prayer, “Abba! Father!,” the earliest
believers were affirming that they too were “children of God
. . . heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” (Rom 8:15–
17). Here too, then, John’s portrayal of Jesus shows how
profound was the impact made by Jesus and how that impact
reflected back on the way John remembered and portrayed
Jesus.
Jesus Is the Divine Word
If John’s elaboration of the claims that Jesus is Israel’s
long-expected Messiah, and is indeed the Son of God, was
striking; even more so is the wholly new claim in the opening
paragraph of the Gospel. The astonishing claim is that Jesus
not only spoke the word of God, as had the prophets of old,
but was the Word of God! It is one of the features of John’s

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Gospel that immediately catches the attention—that John
begins not with the first phase of Jesus’s ministry (as had
Mark), nor with his birth (as had Matthew and Luke), but with
the Logos/Word as the divine agent or medium of creation. In
his bolder reflections Paul had come close to this (as in
Phil 2:6 and Col 2:9). It is only with John, however, that we
see in precise words the concept of incarnation, of Jesus as
the incarnation of God’s creative agency specifically
articulated as never before—and with an unexpected boldness
in his opening words.
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. What has come into being in him was life, and
the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the
darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. . . . He was
in the world, and the world came into being through him. . . .
He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept
him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he
gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of
blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but
of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we
have seen his glory, the glory of a father’s only son, full
of grace and truth. . . . From his fullness we have all
received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through
Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has
ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the
Father’s heart, who has made him known. (John 1:1–18)
It is hard for those who have been long familiar with this
passage to appreciate just how exceptional it was when first
written. The Word or Logos was of course familiar to both Jew
and Greek. Those familiar with the Hebrew Bible would think,
for example, of
Gen 15:1 “The word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision.”
Ps 33:6 “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and
all their host by the breath of his mouth.”

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And of course, they would think particularly of the prophets
to whom “the word of the Lord came” on many occasions—as
in
Isa 55:11 God says, “So shall my word be that goes out from my
mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall
accomplish that which I purpose.”
Jer 2:4 “Hear the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob.”
For those more familiar with Greek thought, the idea of the
logos spermatikos, the seed-logos, the creative energy behind
the world, and seeded within the human individual, would be
nothing new. For John it would no doubt have been familiar
that logos could refer both to the word unexpressed and the
word expressed. How better to use it than to underline the
significance of Jesus: Jesus as the embodiment of the mind
and intention of God, as himself expressing what hitherto had
been expressed only in the words of the inspired prophet.
What was only implicit in creation was now expressed clearly.
In other words, John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and lived
among us,” was something totally unexpected and new, making
a wholly mind-blowing claim: that Jesus, as God’s Word, has
expressed what was hitherto the inexpressible and has made
the unknowable known.
We should not fail to note the significance of John’s
formulation in his claim that it is the Word of God that has
been incarnated as Jesus. Not just the creative power of God.
Not just the saving acts of God that have delivered Israel in
the past, but the word of God, the creative and saving power
of God in a rational form that would engage human
intelligence and answer human puzzles and inquiries. The
wonder of John 1:14 is that its claim engages the human
readers and responds at every level of their being, the word-
expressing mind not least.
Jesus Is the Divine Wisdom

72
Somewhat surprisingly, the thought of Jesus as the Word of
God incarnate is not taken up or followed through in the rest
of John’s Gospel—suggesting to some that the prologue (John
1:1–18) was a later addition to the Gospel, perhaps in the
second or third draft of the Gospel as composed by John or by
the group around him. However, in Jewish thought there was a
more familiar way of speaking of God’s interaction with his
creation and his people. This was the figure of divine
Wisdom, familiar at the time of Jesus particularly in the
wisdom literature of Israel’s Scriptures.
Prov 3:19 “The LORD by wisdom founded the earth.”
Prov
8:27, 30
Wisdom cries out: “When he established the heavens, I
was there. . . . Then I was beside him, like a master
worker.”
Sir 24:1,
23
“Wisdom praises herself, and tells of her glory in
the midst of her people. . . . All this is the book of
the covenant of the Most High God, the law that Moses
commanded us.”
Bar 3:9–
4:2
“Hear the commandments of life, O Israel; give ear,
and learn wisdom. . . . She [Wisdom] is the book of
the commandments of God, the law that endures forever.
All who hold her fast will live, and those who forsake
her will die. Turn, O Jacob, and take her; walk toward
the shining of her light.”
The point should not be missed, that the incarnation of
Wisdom in the flesh of Jesus was foreshadowed by the
embodiment of Wisdom in “the book of the covenant” with
Israel, “the commandments of God.”
In John there are many echoes of what was said of Wisdom.
For example:
Wis 9:17
–18
“Who has learned your counsel, unless you have given
wisdom and sent your holy spirit from on high? And thus
. . . people . . . were saved by wisdom.”
John
3:16–17
“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”
He sent his Son into the world “in order that the

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world might be saved through him.”
Sir 15:3 “She [Wisdom] will feed him with the bread of
learning, and give him the water of wisdom to drink.”
Sir
24:21
“Those who eat of me will hunger for more, and those
who drink of me will thirst for more.”
John
4:14
Jesus says to the woman at the well, “Those who drink
of the water that I will give them will never be
thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them
a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
Prov 9:5 Wisdom’s invitation: “Come, eat of my bread and drink
of the wine I have mixed.”
Sir 15:3 “She [Wisdom] will feed him with the bread of
learning, and give him the water of wisdom to drink.”
John
6:35
Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to
me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me
will never be thirsty.”
A striking feature should not be ignored. In Jewish
thought the figure of Wisdom was feminine, the Jews realizing
from early on that the divine could not be limited to a
single gender. The creative power of God, expressed above all
in the human species, cannot be restricted to one form of
that species. “God created humankind in his image . . . male
and female he created them” (Gen 1:27). “Male and female”
is the image of God. So there is no problem in John
expressing the incarnation in female terms. The incarnation
embodies the creative energy of God in creating male and
female. The claim made in John 1:14 could be equally made in
terms of Wisdom: “Wisdom became flesh” in and as Jesus.
John could hardly have been bolder in his claim that
everything the Jewish writers of the Hebrew Bible tried to
express by their talk of the Word of God and the Wisdom of
God had been summed up in Jesus, the incarnate Word, the
incarnate Wisdom of God.
Other Characteristic Emphases

74
John’s creative boldness in his presentation of Jesus was
not limited to his Christology. The incarnate self-expression
of God embodied a revelation of God and from God that had
some very important corollaries for John and for the readers
of his Gospel.
The New Commandment
John 13:34
–35
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one
another. Just as I have loved you, you also should
love one another. By this everyone will know that you
are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 14:21 “They who have my commandments and keep them are
those who love me; and those who love me will be
loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal
myself to them.”
John 15:10 “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my
love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and abide in his love.”
John 15:12
–13
“This is my commandment, that you love one another
as I have loved you. No one has greater love than
this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
It should be noted that Jesus does not hesitate to speak
of his love as conditional. The experience of being loved was
not to provide a cozy embrace that could compensate for the
world’s rejection or hate. The experience of being loved by
Jesus would generate love for one another and express itself
in keeping Christ’s commandments. Here the thought of “love
of neighbor” is focused in love of fellow believer—probably
a reflection of a community under increasingly hostile
pressure.
Individualism
Another notable emphasis in John’s Gospel is his
individualism, focused once again on Jesus. The shepherd
calls each sheep by name (John 10:3–4). Each branch abides

75
in Jesus the vine, tended by his Father the vinegrower (John
15:1–7). Each munches the flesh of the Son of Man and drinks
his blood (John 6:53–58). Most striking is the invitation of
Jesus in John 7:37–38: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to
me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the
Scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow
rivers of living water.’ ” Which Scripture was in mind at
this point is disputed. It may indeed be that the evangelist
had in mind various scriptural passages, including the water
miraculously provided for the Israelites in the wilderness
from the rock (Exod 17:1–6), which Paul referred to as “the
spiritual rock” identified with Christ (1 Cor 10:4). John
may also have had in mind Ezekiel’s vision of the temple
from which flowed the living water (Ezek 47:1–11), a vision
taken up also by other prophets.7 The power of the imagery in
a land well used to drought should not be missed—not least
the ambiguity of whether the heart from which flows the
living water is that of Christ or of the one who believes in
Christ and drinks from the water flowing from Christ.
Worship in Spirit and Truth
A further point worth noting in John’s Gospel is that he
does not hesitate to show Jesus speaking of worship as no
longer tied to a cultic center but as a worship in spirit and
truth. Jesus, speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well on
the subject of worship and on the question whether valid
worship could be offered only in Jerusalem, affirms his
Jewish heritage. But then he adds: “The hour is coming, and
is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father
in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to
worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must
worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23–24). Bearing in
mind that John’s Gospel was written in the post-70 period,
that is, after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple by the
Romans, and that Jesus had already transferred attention from
the temple to himself (John 2:19–21), the words to the woman

76
at the well strongly suggest that the Johannine believers
were finding in these words attributed to Jesus the answer to
the despair that the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple
must have caused to so many.
Silences in John
Another interesting feature of John’s Gospel is what he does
not say or mention. For example, there is no mention in John
of apostles, prophets, or teachers. Rather, we find Jesus
speaking thus:
John 6:45 “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all
be taught by God’ ” (Isa 54:13).
John
14:26
“The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will
send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind
you of all that I have said to you.”
What does that tell us about the pattern of Christianity
and of Christian worship and leadership that John espoused?
John’s Silence about Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
Again, we find in John’s Gospel no mention of Jesus’s
baptism and no mention of the Last Supper. To be sure, one of
Jesus’s extended sermons in John is the great bread of life
discourse. Thus John recalls Jesus as saying, “Those who eat
my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life; . . . for my
flesh is true food and my blood is true drink” (John 6:54–
55). That would seem to be John’s equivalent to the Last
Supper and presumably reflects how the Johannine church or
churches saw their sharing of the eucharistic bread and wine.
But then John has Jesus concluding with the warning not to
put a misplaced emphasis on the bread and wine: “It is the
spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that
I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63).
One can hardly help contrasting this with the theology of
Ignatius, writing only about twenty years later. Ignatius

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seems to be going in almost the opposite direction from John
in his insistence on the centrality of the Eucharist and in
his attempts to reinforce the authority of local bishops. His
letter to the Smyrnaeans is typical of his exhortations. In
Smyrnaeans 7.1–8.2, Ignatius criticizes his opponents:
They abstain from the Eucharist and prayer, since they do not
confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus
Christ. . . . It is fitting to avoid such people and not even
to speak to them, either privately or in public. . . . All of
you should follow the bishop as Jesus Christ follows the
Father. . . . Let no one do anything involving the church
without the bishop. . . . Let the congregation be wherever the
bishop is; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there also is the
universal church. It is not permitted either to baptize or to
hold a love feast without the bishop. But whatever he approves
is acceptable to God, so that everything you do should be
secure and valid.8
Ignatius, of course, was mapping out the way ahead for the
main body of Christianity. But it is quite hard to avoid the
impression that John was reacting to and protesting against
the kind of developments that only a few years later become
apparent in Ignatius. That is, if John’s Gospel was finally
formulated in Ephesus, in the Asia Minor through which
Ignatius was to pass less than a generation later, then it is
quite likely that John was in effect protesting against the
ecclesiology and sacramental theology that Ignatius was to
promote so vigorously not long afterward. This is why John’s
Gospel, with its lack of reference to formally appointed
church leaders, its passing over Jesus’s baptism and Last
Supper, and its warning against misinterpreting Jesus’s
identification of himself as the bread of life, has sometimes
been categorized as a kind of conventicle Christianity—in
effect a protest against the developments that Ignatius was
to advocate. Here it may be significant that while Ignatius
certainly knew and echoed the synoptic tradition on several
occasions, it is much less clear that he knew and regarded
highly the Johannine tradition. Were they set on alternative
forms of earliest Christianity? This is a question worth

78
asking, even when we recall that John was included in the
canon of the New Testament and Ignatius was not.
* * *
In the light of what we have just noted, it is quite hard to
avoid the question: Did John go too far? Even more serious is
the fact that John seems to have appealed more to gnostics
than he did to others. Gnosticism made a sharp distinction
between flesh and spirit, so that the Johannine Christ was
very appealing to them. It was not difficult for them to see
the Johannine Christ in docetic terms, that is, the belief
that Jesus only appeared in the flesh, seemed to be flesh.9
Indeed, the first commentary that we know to have been
written on the Gospel of John was by Heracleon, a
Valentinian.10 So much indeed was the Fourth Gospel capable
of being identified with a gnostic standpoint that the Alogi
(second half of the second century) and the Roman presbyter
Caius (early third century) both ascribed John’s Gospel to
the gnostic Cerinthus. It was Irenaeus, toward the end of the
second century, who rescued John for orthodoxy, so that from
the third century onward John became increasingly the
sourcebook and scriptural keystone of orthodox Christology.11
The debate, however, was not settled, and in the second
half of the nineteenth century it was revived. Most notably
the famous New Testament theologian Rudolf Bultmann argued
that the Fourth Gospel drew on an early form of gnostic
thought, again raising the question: Did John overemphasize
Jesus’s divinity and play down his humanity? The answer in
fact is No! The emphasis in John 1:14 is clear:
The Word became flesh and lived among us,
and we have seen his glory,
the glory as of a father’s only son,
full of grace and truth.

79
It was the “became flesh” that the gnostics could not
stomach. For them the antithesis between flesh and spirit was
too sharp; it was unbridgeable. But this is precisely what
John claims: the Word became flesh. In other words, he makes
a clear and explicit assertion of the historicity and reality
of the incarnation. And the way in which he brought out the
central significance of Jesus’s death was in effect making
the same point: the incarnate Logos did not merely appear in
flesh, but became flesh; and he did not just reascend to
heaven, he first died, really died! In other words, John did
not yield the vital ground to those who wished to increase
the gospel’s appeal to dualists who thought that flesh and
spirit were irreconcilable. In complete contrast, he set out
to preserve his Gospel precisely from the danger of a gnostic
interpretation. The very points that docetism sought to deny
are precisely the points that John sought to affirm: the
reality of the eternal Word’s becoming flesh, and the
reality of his death.12
The fact that John was preserved and became a part of the
canon of the New Testament indicates that the early church
recognized the importance of reexpressing the good news to
reach others outside the normal circles of Judaism. John
indeed shows that one must be prepared to take some risks to
ensure that the gospel is heard to speak to all conditions
and all situations in a world very different from the
Mediterranean world of the first century. So it remains a
very relevant issue, today as then: Who is the best precedent
for today—the Synoptics or John?
1. See also 6:2, 14, 26; 7:31; 9:16; 11:47; 12:18, 37; 20:30. It
was for this reason that C. H. Dodd, in a famous work, The
Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1960), called John 2–12 “the Book of Signs.”
2. Ps 80:8–18; Isa 5:1–7; Jer 2:21; Ezek 15:1–5; 17:1–10;
19:10–15; Hos 10:1–2.
3. John 6:52; 7:11–12, 31, 35, 40–44; 10:19–21; 12:11, 17–19;
12:34.

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4. Here we might note that John adds to the synoptic tradition of
Jesus referring to himself as “the Son of Man” the thought of the
Son of Man descending from heaven—“No one has ascended into heaven
except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man” (John
3:13).
5. Matthew adds to Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi,
“You are the Christ” (Mark 8:29)—“You are the Christ, the Son of
the living God” (Matt 16:16).
6. As in Rom 1:4; 2 Cor 1:19; Gal 2:20.
7. Isa 43:19–20; Joel 3:18; and Zech 14:8.
8. The Apostolic Fathers, trans. Bart Ehrman, 2 vols., Loeb
Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003).
9. Docet, Latin for “it seems.” See also ch. 8 below on 1–3
John.
10. Valentinus (c. 100–160 CE) was the best known and most
successful early Christian gnostic theologian. According to
Tertullian, he was a candidate for bishop of Rome, but when someone
else was chosen he started his own group. He taught that there were
three kinds of people, spiritual, psychical, and material, and that
only those of a spiritual nature (his own followers) received the
gnosis (knowledge) that allowed them to return to the divine
fullness. Those of a psychic nature (ordinary Christians) would
attain a lesser form of salvation, and those of a material nature
(pagans and Jews) were doomed to perish.
11. See J. N. Sanders, The Fourth Gospel in the Early Church: Its
Origin and Influence on Christian Theology up to Irenaeus
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1943).
12. The issue is fought more fiercely in the Johannine letters.
See ch. 8 below.

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I
CHAPTER FOUR
Jesus according to
Acts
n contrast to the Gospels, Jesus appears in Acts hardly at
all. Acts 1:1–5 introduces Luke’s second volume with a
brief account of Jesus after his resurrection, appearing to
his disciples, instructing them and “speaking about the
kingdom of God” (Acts 1:2–3). More to the immediate point,
Jesus tells them to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the
Holy Spirit, repeating the Baptist’s promise that they would
be baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). Surprisingly,
the disciples ask whether the kingdom is to be restored to
Israel (Acts 1:6)—Luke perhaps making the point that the
disciples needed not only Jesus’s resurrection but also the
gift of the Spirit (Pentecost) to transform their thinking.
In response, Jesus sidesteps the question and commissions the
disciples to be his witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea
and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:7–8)—
the agenda that Luke will follow in the rest of Acts. This is
immediately followed by Jesus’s ascension, with the angelic
promise that Jesus would come back in the same way (Acts 1:9
–11).
Then in effect Jesus disappears from the scene, although
much talked about and preached by Peter and the others. He
appears in the vision given to Stephen just before the
latter’s execution by stoning (Acts 7:55–56). Otherwise
Jesus appears again only in reference to Paul. First in the
conversion of Saul/Paul, but including the commission of
Ananias to minister to him (Acts 9:10–16). It is interesting
to note that Luke was quite content to record the
recollection of Paul’s conversion in varied terms, twice,
according to Luke, by Paul himself:

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Acts 9:4
–6
“He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to
him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ He [Saul]
asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The reply came, ‘I am
Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter
the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’ ”
Acts
22:7–8
More or less the same, but continuing with Saul asking
what he should do. He is told to go into Damascus,
where further instruction would be given.
Acts
26:14–18
Again the same question asked, with the addition, “It
hurts you to kick against the goads,” and with a much
fuller commission then and there to take the good news
of Jesus to the gentiles.
It is interesting to compare the commission of Paul with
the commission of Peter. Rather strikingly the great
breakthrough in Peter’s realization that the gospel was for
non-Jews as well (Acts 10–11) is attributed not to a vision
of Jesus but simply to a vision with an unidentified voice
from heaven.1 Likewise with Cornelius—who is given the
vision of an angel (Acts 10:3–7, 30–32). Note also Peter’s
miraculous release from Herod’s prison, attributed to “an
angel of the Lord” (Acts 12:7–11). To be sure, Paul’s
breakthrough in taking his mission to Europe is inspired by a
later vision of “a man of Macedonia” (Luke?) calling on him
to “come over to Macedonia and help us” (Acts 16:9–10).
But Paul also recalls a warning vision of Jesus early in his
ministry (Acts 22:17–19), and for Paul there are later
visions of the Lord confirming his success in Corinth (Acts
18:9) and reassuring him that he will bear witness also in
Rome (Acts 23:11). The contrast between Peter and Paul at
this point is notable, perhaps suggesting not only Luke’s
greater personal knowledge of Paul, but also his own
conviction, and his desire to express this conviction, that
the greater mission to the gentiles was truly inspired by
Christ.
Also notable in Luke’s narrative is how quickly “the
name of Jesus/the Lord/Christ” becomes a feature. The first
mention of what can be called Christian baptism comes at the

83
end of Peter’s Pentecost sermon: it is already established
that those who respond to his message should “be baptized .
. . in the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 2:38). The lame man
is restored to fitness “in/by the name of Jesus Christ”
(Acts 3:6; 4:10). In response the “rulers, elders, and
scribes,” together with Annas the high priest “and all who
were of the high-priestly family” (Acts 4:5–6), charge the
disciples “not to speak or teach . . . in the name of
Jesus” (Acts 4:18; 5:40). Philip proclaims the good news of
the kingdom of God to Samaritans, and many are “baptized in
the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 8:12, 16). The converted
Saul preaches in Jerusalem, “speaking boldly in the name of
the Lord” (Acts 9:27–28). All that is clear and consistent.
Rather unclear, however, is the weight that should be
given to the title “Lord” when applied to Jesus. As already
noted, the problem is that at one end of the range of meaning
“the Lord” is a way of speaking of God. But at the other
end it is a polite form of address to someone higher up the
spectrum of social prestige.2 So, always close to hand when
the title is used of someone is the question as to where in
the range of meaning this usage should be placed. The issue,
already mentioned in chapter 2 above, is posed by Peter when,
in claiming that God had raised Jesus from the dead and
exalted him to heaven, he cites Psalm 110:1: “The Lord said
to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies
your footstool.’ ” From which he immediately concludes that
“God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you
crucified” (Acts 2:34–36). “My Lord” in Psalm 110:1
presumably refers to the king, so the application to Jesus,
who is “exalted at the right hand of God” (2:33), is
certainly well toward the high end of the spectrum, as Acts
2:36 implies, “both Lord and Christ.” And “the Lord Jesus
(Christ)” is a regular reference in Acts;3 for example,
Stephen prays to the Lord Jesus (Acts 7:59–60), Saul
breathes out “threats and murder against the disciples of
the Lord” (Acts 9:1), Peter proclaims to Cornelius that “he
[Jesus Christ] is Lord of all” (Acts 10:36), and Paul and

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Barnabas entrust the converts in Antioch “to the Lord in
whom they had come to believe” (Acts 14:23).
One of the most striking passages in Acts is when Paul and
Barnabas are on mission through Asia Minor, uncertain where
to go next. They had been “forbidden by the Holy Spirit to
speak the word in Asia.” But when “they attempted to go
into Bithynia,” “the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them”
(Acts 16:6–7). “The Spirit of Jesus” is a very unusual
phrase, paralleled only by Philippians 1:19, where Paul
speaks of the assistance/support of “the Spirit of Jesus
Christ” sustaining him through his time of trial.4 Clearly
in both passages the conviction was strong not only that the
power that inspired Paul’s mission was the same power that
had inspired Jesus’s mission, but also that that power had
demonstrated or even taken its character from Jesus and his
mission. Theirs was a continuation of the same mission. The
Spirit that inspired Paul and Barnabas had inspired Jesus,
and the character of Jesus’s mission showed the character of
the Spirit that inspired their mission. It was presumably in
this way that the Christian understanding of God as Trinity
came to expression—the conviction that Jesus was not only
inspired by God’s Spirit but also so demonstrated the
character of the Spirit that the Spirit could be referred to
quite naturally as “the Spirit of Jesus.”
The Sermons in Acts
As interesting as the Lukan narrative is regarding the
developing Christology of the first Christians, the most
interesting developments in the earliest understanding of
Jesus are evident in the speeches and sermons, one of the
most notable features in Acts. There are many brief
references to conversations and brief exchanges, but the
sermons stand out:
Acts 2:14–
36/39
Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost

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Acts 3:11–26 Peter’s sermon in Solomon’s Portico
Acts 4:8–12 Peter’s answer to charges before the Jerusalem
council
Acts 4:24–30 Jerusalem believers’ response to the release of
Peter and John
Acts 7:2–53 Stephen’s defense speech before the Jerusalem
council
Acts 8:30–35 Philip bearing witness to the Ethiopian eunuch
Acts 10:34–
43
Peter’s exposition to Cornelius and friends
Acts 11:4–18 Peter’s explanation of his actions in Jerusalem
Acts 13:16–
41
Paul’s preaching in Pisidian Antioch
Acts 15:13–
21
James’s defense of the turn to the gentiles
Acts 15:23–
29
The Jerusalem church’s message to the new
churches
Acts 17:22–
31
Paul’s sermon in Athens
Acts 20:17–
35
Paul’s parting speech in Miletus
Acts 22:1–21 Paul’s first defense speech in Jerusalem
Acts 24:10–
21
Paul’s defense before the Roman governor Felix
Acts 26:2–29 Paul’s defense before King Agrippa
Acts 28:25–
28
Paul’s final statement in Rome
As with all speeches attested in ancient literature, there
is a question whether they are a true record of what was
actually said on the occasion or simply the work of the

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author’s imagination.5 It is indeed likely that Luke has
crafted his record in accordance with the common practice of
the day. This no doubt is indicated by the relative brevity
of the speeches, which would take only a few minutes to
deliver. Indeed, they are better regarded as cameos, finely
crafted miniatures, rather than outlines or abbreviations. At
the same time, however, in most cases there is an
individuality and distinctiveness of material used, which
points to the conclusion that Luke has been able to draw on
and incorporate tradition—not necessarily any record or
specific recollection as such, but tradition related to and,
in Luke’s considered judgment, representative of the
individual’s views and well suited to the occasion.6 In
fact, the speeches of Acts show clear indications of non-
Lukan material, which was presumably the result of his
investigations and therefore probably provides source
material for earliest Christian proclamation and teaching,
but only if used with care. They represent Luke’s impression
of the episodes and characters he describes, though it is
history and theology seen through Luke’s eyes and reflecting
also his own concerns.
I give as two examples Peter’s speech on the initiating
day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14–36/39) and his sermon to
Cornelius, the Roman centurion (Acts 10:34–43).
Peter’s Pentecost Speech (Acts 2:14–36/39)
There are several indications here that Luke was able to draw
on earlier tradition. The speech is a good example of a
Jewish sermon—a midrash on Joel 2:28–32, with supporting
texts from the Psalms, and with Acts 2:39 (alluding again to
Joel) rounding it off. The eschatology is surprisingly
primitive as compared with the rest of Acts. It is generally
reckoned that Luke himself pulls back from the belief that
the coming (again) of Christ was imminent: he seems to
qualify such expectation elsewhere;7 and in the perspective
of Acts the church seems to be set for a long haul, with an

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eschatology of “the last things” rather than of expectation
that “the end is nigh.”8 So it is noteworthy that Peter’s
speech retains that primitive note of imminent expectation:
the quotation from Joel replaces the Hebrew “afterwards” by
the much more pregnant “in the last days” (Acts 2:17);9 and
Acts 2:19–20 retains the apocalyptic imagery of cosmic
convulsion that heightens the expectation. The impression
given by the passage, that “the great and terrible day of
the Lord” (the day of judgment) was imminent, again
indicates very early tradition.
Not least, the Christology itself seems primitive at a
number of points. The personal name, “Jesus the Nazarene”
(Acts 2:22), “Jesus” (2:32), “this Jesus” (2:36), is
quickly lost elsewhere in the New Testament behind the more
formal “Christ” or “Lord.” Jesus is described in
remarkably undivine language as “a man attested to you by
God,” his success spoken of in terms of “signs that God did
through him” (2:22). “The Messiah” is still a title
(2:31), whereas elsewhere in the New Testament it has become
more or less a proper name, “Jesus Christ.” Quite
remarkable is the depiction of Jesus as the bestower of the
Spirit, consequent upon his exaltation (2:33)—an expectation
that probably reflects the influence of Jesus’s predecessor,
John the Baptist,10 but that hardly appears elsewhere in the
New Testament. In some ways most striking of all, the
resurrection/ascension is cited as evidence that “God has
made him both Lord and Messiah” (2:36). Such an affirmation
was quite likely in the first flush of enthusiasm, but the
implication that Jesus was only made Messiah at his
resurrection was soon excluded by more carefully worded
formulations.11 Given that at the period of Luke’s writing,
Christology was much more developed, it must be judged
unlikely that Luke was attempting to promote these emphases.
It is much more likely that he drew them from traditions or
memories that his inquiry (or common knowledge) had brought
to light.

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The conclusion seems clear, then. However much Peter’s
first sermon owes to Luke’s compositional technique, it is
very likely that he was able to draw on very early sources
for his composition. It remains unlikely that any initial
preaching would have been so brief. But it is not an outline
or a summary: it contains a complete and rounded argument.
Consequently we may imagine Luke carefully inquiring of those
who remembered the earliest preaching of the Jerusalem
church, and crafting the sermon from these memories and from
emphases that had lasted from the earliest period of
Christianity’s beginnings in Jerusalem to his own day.
Peter’s Address to Cornelius (Acts 10:34–43)
The sermon of Peter falls in the second half of the story of
the conversion of the gentile centurion Cornelius. As usual,
it is a fine Lukan cameo; it would take little more than a
minute to deliver. Acts 10:44 suggests, and Acts 11:15 states
explicitly, that the speech had hardly started when the
Spirit intervened. But, as usual with the Lukan speech
cameos, this one is a nicely rounded whole, where nothing
more need be said.
The structure is clear enough. The main body of the speech
(Acts 10:36–43) is built round five scriptural allusions:
Acts 10:34
—Deut
10:17:
God is not partial, a fundamental principle of Jewish
justice, often echoed in early Jewish literature.12
Acts 10:36
—Ps
107:20:
“He sent out his word and healed them.”
Acts 10:36
—Isa 52:7
(less
clear):
“Those who preach peace.” Both texts in Acts 10:36
may well have belonged to an early arsenal of
Christian texts: Ps 107:20 is echoed again in Acts
13:26, and Isa 52:7 is cited in Rom 10:15 as part of
a catena of texts.
Acts 10:38 “Anointed with the Holy Spirit.”

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—Isa 61:1:
Acts 10:39
—Deut
21:22:
“Hanged on a tree.” That this was part of early
polemic against belief in a crucified Messiah may be
implied by Gal 3:13—“Cursed is everyone who hangs
on a tree” (cf. 1 Cor 1:23). This polemic was
possibly part of Paul’s motivation as a persecutor.
Such a play on Deuteronomy is not developed
elsewhere.
These are followed by the familiar rehearsal of Jesus’s
death and resurrection, and an implicit call for belief and
promise of forgiveness. It contains the same Lukan, but also
possibly older, features: Jewish responsibility for Jesus’s
execution (Acts 10:39); the theme of witness thrice repeated
(Acts 10:39, 41, 43); the resurrection as something
“manifest” (Acts 10:40, 41); the mention of Jesus’s name
(Acts 10:43); but now also a more distant, less urgent
eschatology (Acts 10:42), suggestive of a longer time
perspective.
But once again there are primitive features:
1. The Israel-centeredness of the message (Acts 10:36,
42).13
2. “You know,” perhaps implying a Judean audience (Acts
10:36).
3. The setting of John the Baptist and his baptism at and as
the beginning of Jesus’s mission (Acts 10:37; cf. 1:22;
13:24).
4. Jesus is identified as “the one from Nazareth” (Acts
10:38), still needing to be identified, a more weighty
title not yet assumed (cf. 2:22).
5. God anointed him with the Spirit and power (Acts 10:38).
In other words, he is presented as an inspired prophet—a
primitive Christology. The echo of Isaiah 61:1 may
reflect Jesus’s own self-understanding as implied in
Luke 6:20 and 7:22, but is not characteristic of the
heightened Christology of the second generation.

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6. Jesus’s mission of healing is described in restrained
terms (good deeds and exorcisms), and his success is
again attributed to the fact that “God was with him”
(Acts 10:38; cf. 2:22). The description is one that might
have come from the mouth of any sympathetic observer of
Jesus’s ministry. The juxtaposition of this very
moderate portrayal of Jesus with the final confessional
claim of Acts 10:36 (“He is Lord of all”) is striking.
7. The suffering-reversal theme—they put him to death, but
God raised him (Acts 10:39–40)—not yet a doctrine of
atonement. “On the third day” (Acts 10:40) is
unparalleled in Acts, but is already enshrined in the
early confessional formula received by Paul after his
conversion (1 Cor 15:4).
8. That Jesus had been appointed “judge of the living and
the dead” is a distinctive feature. It could be early:
that God had chosen to give others a share in his role as
final judge is reflected in Jewish speculation of the
period in regard to such great heroes as Enoch and
Abel,14 as well as in very early Christian tradition
(Luke 22:30; 1 Cor 6:2); and the identification of Jesus
with the man-like figure (“one like a son of man”) in
the vision of Daniel 7:13–14 would have reinforced the
link in the case of Jesus. On the other hand, the
formulation is remarkably lacking in any sense of urgency
(so also Acts 17:31; contrast Acts 3:19–20), and reads
more like a doctrine of the last things framed in the
light of Jesus’s return having been much delayed.15
9. The scriptural allusions noted above, around which the
speech has been molded, all appear early in Christian
reflection about Jesus and his death, and are not
characteristic of the heightened Christology of
subsequent years.
In addition, Acts 10:34–35 looks like an introduction added
to already existing material to fit it to the context: the

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jump from Acts 10:35 to 36 is rather abrupt (“You know the
message he sent . . .”). It is possible, indeed, that verses
34–35 and 43 have been added to an already fairly coherent
torso.
One plausible hypothesis that takes all the above details
into account is that Luke has molded his cameo on some
tradition of early preaching to gentile Godfearers. This
would explain the slight tension between the more traditional
formulations and the more universal dimension evident in Acts
10:34–35, 36c, 39 (“in Judea and in Jerusalem”), and 10:43
(“everyone who believes”). At all events, it does appear as
though Luke has again followed Thucydides’s practice of
putting “into the mouth of each speaker the sentiments
proper to the occasion,” expressed as he thought the speaker
would be likely to express them, while at the same time he
endeavored, as nearly as he could, “to give the general
import of what was actually said.”
Without going into a lengthy examination of all the
speeches in Acts, we can infer from the brief examination of
these two that they provide a valuable testimony to what the
first disciples believed, preached, and taught in the
earliest days of Christianity. How did Luke gain access to
such material? He probably did not see written versions of
these speeches; that would imply a literary society and
environment that is wholly unlikely for the beginnings of
Christianity. But in the oral society, which we must envisage
for the earliest Christian groups and communities, it is
readily and appropriately possible to envisage the speeches,
sermons, and teaching of leading figures (the apostles)
providing material, themes and emphases, claims and
arguments, which were taken up by those who emerged as
teachers and elders of the individual groups and communities
in their own preaching and teaching. Many of these emphases
and arguments would have been superseded by further
reflection and instruction within these communities and as
the movement they represented spread and developed. We have
seen some examples in the two sermons attributed to Peter.

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But Luke would have had little difficulty in finding older
teachers and elders who could still recall these emphases and
arguments of earlier days, even though the living tradition
of the churches had now left them behind. Consequently we
should not be embarrassed at the claim that the speeches in
Acts give a good historical insight into the earliest
Christian beliefs regarding Jesus.
Jesus according to the Sermons in Acts
So, what are the distinctive features in the way Acts
presents Jesus in the sermons Luke has recorded?
Proclaiming the Resurrection of Jesus
Whereas Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God, the sermons in
Acts proclaim Jesus. Jesus has become the content of the
message; the proclaimer has become the proclaimed. In
particular, the principal focus falls on the resurrection of
Jesus. Again and again it forms the central thrust of the
message, both to Jew and to gentile:
Acts 2:14
–36
Peter before the Jerusalem crowd: “God raised him up,
having freed him from death. . . . This Jesus God
raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses” (esp.
2:24–32).
Acts 3:12
–26
And again: “You killed the Author of life, whom God
raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. . . .
When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to
you, to bless you.”
Acts 4:1–
2
The temple authorities were “much annoyed because
they [Peter and John] were teaching the people and
proclaiming that in Jesus there is the resurrection of
the dead.”
Acts 4:10
–11
Peter testifying before the Jerusalem council: “This
man is standing before you in good health by the name
of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom
God raised from the dead.”

93
Acts 4:33 “With great power the apostles gave their testimony
to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.”
Acts 5:30 Peter again before the Jerusalem council: “The God of
our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by
hanging him on a tree.”
Acts
10:39–40
Peter preaching to the Roman centurion Cornelius:
“They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but
God raised him on the third day and allowed him to
appear . . . to us who were chosen by God as
witnesses.”
Acts
13:29–37
Paul preaching in Pisidian Antioch: “They took him
down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God
raised him from the dead. . . . What God promised to
our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children,
by raising Jesus.” Paul goes on to cite Ps 2:7, Isa
55:3, and Ps 15:10.
Acts
17:18
Some Athenians thought Paul was “a proclaimer of
foreign divinities . . . because he was telling them
the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.”
Acts
17:31
Paul preaching to the Areopagus in Athens: “[God] has
fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in
righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of
this he has given assurance to all by raising him from
the dead.”
Acts
24:21
Paul making self-defense before the Roman governor
Felix in Jerusalem: “It is about the resurrection of
the dead that I am on trial before you today.”
This is all the more striking since in the Acts sermons
hardly any concern is shown for the preresurrection ministry
of Jesus; the only references are in Acts 2:22 and 10:36–39.
More striking still, the actual sermons in Acts contain
remarkably few echoes of Jesus’s own message and teaching.16
It is not an idle question, therefore, to ask: “What is the
continuity between Jesus’s proclamation of the kingdom and
the proclamation in Acts of the resurrection of Jesus?”
Absence of Theology about the Death of Jesus

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An important corollary to the concentration in Acts on
Jesus’s resurrection is the absence of any theology
regarding the death of Jesus. His death is mentioned, of
course, but only as a bare fact (usually highlighting Jewish
responsibility). The historical fact, however, is not
interpreted.17 It is never said, for example, that “Jesus
died on our behalf,” or “for our sins.” There are no
suggestions that Jesus’s death was a sacrifice. The few
brief allusions to Jesus as the Servant (of Second Isaiah)
pick up the theme of vindication following suffering, not of
vicarious suffering as such.18 Similarly, the allusion to
Deuteronomy 21:22–23 in Acts 5:30 and 10:39 (“hanging him
on a tree” [cf. 13:29]) seems to be intended (by Luke) to
highlight Jesus’s shame and disgrace, and so to serve the
same humiliation-vindication motif; to draw the theology of
Galatians 3:13 from these Acts references is to read more
into the text than sound exegesis allows. And even Acts 20:28
(“the church of the Lord [or of God] that he obtained with
his own blood [or with the blood of his own Son]”), not,
properly speaking, part of the evangelistic proclamation,
remains more than a little puzzling and obscure. In short, an
explicit theology of the death of Jesus is markedly lacking
in the proclamation of the Acts sermons.
Here again we are confronted with a striking variation;
for the vicarious sufficiency of the cross is a prominent
feature of Paul’s gospel,19 as it is in 1 Peter and Hebrews,
not to mention Mark 10:45. Whether this feature of the Acts
sermons is a true representation of the primitive gospel or a
reflection of Luke’s own theology is not entirely clear. The
presence of “for our sins” in the gospel handed down to
Paul (1 Cor 15:3) and the fact that Luke omits Mark 10:45, or
at least prefers a significantly different version of the
saying (Luke 22:26), suggest the latter.
MARK 10:45 LUKE 22:26
“The Son of Man came not to be
served but to serve, and to give
“The greatest among you must
become like the youngest, and

95
his life a ransom for many.” the leader like one who
serves.”
One possible explanation is that Luke was somewhat
influenced by the diaspora Judaism of his time that also
sought to play down the concept of atonement by sacrifice;
the Jerusalem temple had been destroyed, and so the Jewish
sacrificial system had been ended. Be that as it may, so far
as the gospel preached in the Acts sermons is concerned, we
have to say that it lacks a theology of the cross and makes
no attempt to attribute a definite atoning significance to
the death of Jesus.
Absence of the Tension between Fulfillment and Imminent
End
Completely lacking in the sermons of Acts is the tension
between fulfillment and imminent consummation that was such a
prominent feature of Jesus’s proclamation of the kingdom20
and that is equally strong in Paul’s message.21 The
parousia, or second coming of Jesus, the nearest equivalent
to the coming of the kingdom of God in Jesus’s message, is
noticeable by its lack of prominence. The sense of its
imminence barely squeezes through Luke’s formulation in Acts
3:20–21, and the day of judgment hardly seems to offer more
than a distant threat—certainly not an immediate crisis such
as Jesus envisaged.22 Also lacking is a strong note of
realized eschatology, the conviction that the last days are
already on us; it is present in Acts 2:15–21 and 3:24, but
otherwise wholly absent.
Here the contrast is utterly astonishing. For Jesus
proclaimed the presence of the end-time blessings and the
imminence of the kingdom as an important part of his
message.23 Likewise, Paul strongly believed that Jesus’s
resurrection and the gift of the Spirit were the beginning
(the firstfruits) of the end-time harvest.24 And for most of
his ministry Paul proclaimed the imminence of the parousia

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and the end.25 Particularly worthy of notice is Paul’s
preservation in 1 Corinthians 16:22 of an Aramaic cry from
the earliest church—“Maranatha, Our Lord, come!” It is
scarcely possible that the earliest communities of believers
in Jerusalem and Palestine lacked this same sense of
eschatological fervor and urgency. Indeed, the community of
goods, to which Luke refers in Acts 2:44–45 and 4:34–37, is
best explained as an expression of this kind of
eschatological enthusiasm—property being sold without much
thought for the needs of a year hence, the assumption being,
presumably, that the Christ would have returned before then.
Consequently, the conclusion seems inevitable that Luke has
ignored or suppressed this element of the early proclamation
and community, presumably because the lapse of time and delay
of the parousia made it less appropriate to recall and
celebrate.
Limited Role of the Exalted Jesus
Despite what we may presume to be Luke’s sense that a long
time gap had opened up between the resurrection and the
parousia of Jesus, and despite his emphasis on the
resurrection of Jesus, there is hardly any role attributed to
the exalted Jesus in Acts. Of course, the exalted Jesus’s
bestowal of the Spirit at Pentecost marked the beginning of a
new epoch of salvation history (Acts 2:33)—indeed “the last
days” (Acts 2:17). And Luke does not hesitate to attribute
to both Peter and Paul the conviction that Jesus would be
judge at the end of days (Acts 10:42; 17:31). Moreover, the
exalted Jesus was presumably thought of as the authorization
behind those who acted “in the name of Jesus,”26 and he
appears in not a few visions.27 But there is nothing of the
rich sense of union between believer and exalted Lord that,
as we shall see, is such a feature of the message of Paul
(and of John). He never uses one of Paul’s favorite phrases
—“in Christ.” And the relation between exalted Lord and
Holy Spirit, which Paul and John handle so sensitively,28 is

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only hinted at in Acts (note Acts 16:6–7). Even more
striking, indeed astonishing, is the total absence from Acts
of the concept and experience of sonship, which was so
central both for Jesus29 and for Paul, who preserves for us
the Aramaic prayer of the early churches, “Abba! Father!,”
and something of the intensity of their experience of a
sonship shared with Christ (Rom 8:15–16; Gal 4:6–7).
God as Subject
Finally under the heading of the proclamation of Jesus in
Acts, we should notice the strong “subordinationist”
element within the sermons of Acts. Only rarely is Jesus
depicted as the subject of the action described; everything
he does, ministry, resurrection, exaltation, etc., is
attributed to God—for example:
Acts 2:22 “Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with
deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did
through him among you.”
Acts 2:32 “This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are
witnesses.”
Acts 3:26 “When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to
you.”
Acts 5:30
–31
“The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus. . . . God
exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior.”
Acts
10:38, 40
“God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with
power. . . . God raised him on the third day and
allowed him to appear.”
The sole reference to the parousia is framed in terms of
God sending the Christ (Acts 3:20). And in the two references
to Jesus as judge it is specifically stated that God
appointed him to this office (10:42; 17:31, where Jesus is
not even mentioned by name). Moreover, on at least two
occasions we should speak more precisely of an
“adoptionist” emphasis within the Acts sermons, where the

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resurrection introduces Jesus to a new status as Son,
Messiah, and Lord:
Acts 2:32
–36
“This Jesus God raised up . . . being therefore
exalted at the right hand of God [Ps 110:1]. . . .
Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with
certainty that God has made him both Lord and
Christ.”
Acts
13:32–33
“What God promised to our ancestors he has fulfilled
for us, their children, by raising Jesus” (quoting Ps
2:7; Isa 55:3; and Ps 15:10).
This agrees very well with other, probably early forms of
Christian preaching (Rom 1:3–4; Heb 5:5), and so very likely
reflects the emphasis of the earliest communities. But it
contrasts markedly with the cosmic view of Christ that we
find particularly in the later Pauline letters and in
Revelation.
Other Emphases of Preaching the Good News in Acts
Other emphases distinctive of the Acts portrayal of the
preaching of the good news of Jesus are also worth noting.
Call for Repentance and Faith
As in the proclamation of Jesus himself, the good news of the
Acts sermons issues in a call for repentance and faith. Here
the diversity is rather interesting. For, on the one hand,
the demand for repentance in Acts is closely parallel to that
of Jesus:
Mark 1:15 Mark sums up Jesus’s preaching: “The time is
fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near;
repent, and believe in the good news.”
Acts 2:38 Peter concludes his Pentecost sermon: “Repent, and be
baptized . . . in the name of Jesus Christ.”
Acts 3:19 Peter speaks to the people after healing the lame

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beggar: “Repent therefore, and turn to God so that
your sins may be wiped out.”
Acts
17:30
Paul concludes his speech to the Areopagus in Athens:
“While God has overlooked the times of human
ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to
repent.”
Acts
26:19–20
Paul’s self-defense before King Agrippa: “I was not
disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared . . .
also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn
to God and do deeds consistent with repentance.”
So the consistency between Jesus’s preaching and that of the
apostles in Acts is clear. But somewhat surprisingly, this is
in marked contrast to the writings of Paul and John
themselves. Paul in fact has little or nothing to say about
repentance as such,30 and John makes no use of the word
whatsoever.
In contrast, however, in the call for faith the similarity
and dissimilarity run in the opposite direction. Luke
regularly refers to the first Christians as “the believers”
or “those who have believed,”31 and this emphasis on faith
as the defining characteristic is closely paralleled by both
the author of the Gospel of John, who uses the verb
“believe” ninety-eight times, and the Pauline letters,
which use the verb and noun nearly two hundred times. But the
call is specifically for faith in the Lord Jesus,32 and this
marks off the gospel in Acts clearly from the gospel of Jesus
himself.
One other aspect of Luke’s presentation of faith in the
earliest communities should perhaps also be mentioned, since
it is so distinctive of Acts and sets Acts apart from the
rest of the New Testament writings. I refer to the way in
which Luke portrays faith in Christ as the effect of miracle
without apparently any misgivings on the point,33 whereas
elsewhere in the New Testament this evangelistic,
propagandist value of miracle is rather disparaged.34

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Promise of Forgiveness, Salvation, or the Gift of the
Spirit
With the call for repentance and faith is coupled a promise—
in Acts usually in terms of forgiveness,35 salvation,36 or
the gift of the Spirit.37 Here the overlap is rather more
extensive with the other proclamations of the New Testament.
Jesus’s preaching held out the offer of forgiveness and
acceptance, and Paul’s idea of justification is not very far
removed from that of forgiveness—though the word
“forgiveness” itself occurs only in Ephesians 1:7 and
Colossians 1:14 in the Pauline writings, and not at all in
the Johannine writings. The idea of salvation (noun or verb)
is frequently attributed to Jesus in the first three
Gospels,38 and is regularly used by Paul,39 though it appears
little in the Johannine writings (seven times). With the
promise of the Spirit the overlap is different. Jesus spoke
very little about the Spirit as such, at least according to
the evidence. Only Mark 13:11 could be taken as a promise of
the Spirit in times of trial. But the Spirit is very clearly
part of the basic gospel message for both Paul and the
Johannine circle.40
Where again Acts is rather remarkable is in the absence of
any ethical corollary to the gospel it portrays. Luke does
imply that believers held together in mutual dependence:
there are no isolated Christians.41 But there is little in
Acts of moral obligation stemming from the acceptance of the
proclamation of Jesus. Most astonishing is the fact that the
word “love” (both noun and verb) occurs not at all in Acts,
whereas it was integral to the messages of Jesus,42 of the
Pauline epistles (108 instances), and of the Johannine
epistles (95 times). Here the contrast is wholly striking.
* * *

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Can we speak of a single gospel in Acts, a common
presentation of Jesus? Can we recognize within the different
sermons reproduced by Acts a regular outline that may be said
to provide a solid core and that we can call the basic or
core proclamation of Jesus by the earliest church, at least
in Luke’s presentation of it? The answer is affirmative. The
most regular and basic elements are these:
the proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus
the call for a response to this proclamation, for
repentance and faith in this Jesus
the promise of forgiveness, salvation, and Spirit to
those who so respond.
The presentation of Jesus (the gospel according to Acts) is
clear, and its flexibility (the same, yet different) well
illustrated.
1. Acts 10:11–13, 15–17, 19; 11:5–9—“a voice.”
2. E.g., in Matt 8:2, 6, 8; 9:28; Luke 9:59, 61; 10:40; 11:1.
3. Acts 4:33; 8:16; 9:17; 11:17, 20; 15:11, 26; 16:31; 19:5, 13,
17; 20:21, 24, 35; 21:13.
4. “The Spirit of Christ” is a phrase used also in Rom 8:9 and
1 Pet 1:11. In the former passage it is quite obvious that “the
Spirit of Christ” is another way of referring to “the Spirit of
God.”
5. Much quoted in discussions on this question are the words of
the Greek historian Thucydides, often regarded as the greatest of
ancient historians: “As to the speeches that were made either
before or during the war, it was hard for me, and for others who
reported them to me, to recollect the exact words. I have therefore
put into the mouth of each speaker the sentiments proper to the
occasion, expressed as I thought he would be likely to express
them, while at the same time I endeavored, as nearly as I could, to
give the general import of what was actually said” (History of the
Peloponnesian War 1.22.1; Benjamin Jowett, Thucydides: Translated
into English, 2 vols., 2nd ed. [Oxford: Clarendon, 1900]).
6. Luke’s own claims regarding his two-volume work should be
given due respect: “I too decided, after investigating everything

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carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account” (Luke
1:3).
7. Notably Luke 19:11; 21:24; Acts 1:6–7.
8. Note, e.g., that the threat of final judgment seems less
urgent in Acts 10:42 and 17:31.
9. Cf. Isa 2:2; Mic 4:1.
10. Mark 1:8 parr.; cf. Acts 1:5.
11. But cf. Acts 13:33; Heb 1:5; 5:5.
12. 2 Chr 19:7; Sir 35:12–13; Jubilees 5:16; 21:4; 30:16; 33:18;
1 Enoch 63:8; Psalms of Solomon 2:18; Pseudo-Philo 20:4; 2 Baruch
13:8, 44:4; as also Paul (Rom 2:11).
13. Cf. Acts 3:25.
14. Jubilees 4:17–24; 1 Enoch 12–16; Testament of Abraham (A)
13:3–10; Testament of Abraham (B) 10; 11:2; 2 Enoch 22:8; 11QMelch
13–14.
15. But cf. 1 Pet 4:5 and 2 Tim 4:1.
16. Cf., however, the references to “the kingdom of God” (8:12;
14:22; 19:8; 20:25; 28:23, 31; also 20:35).
17. Acts 2:23, 36; 3:13–15; 4:10; 5:30; 7:52; 10:39; 13:27–28.
18. Acts 3:13, 26; 4:27, 30; so also 8:30–35.
19. Rom 3:25; 1 Cor 15:3; 2 Cor 5:14–21.
20. See, e.g., Matt 13:16–17 // Luke 10:23–24; Matt 12:41–42
// Luke 11:31–32.
21. Marked particularly by the warfare between “flesh” and
“Spirit” (Rom 8:1–17; Gal 5:16–17), and in the tug-of-war
between “old nature” and “new” (Rom 7:22–25; Eph 4:22–24; Col
3:5–10).
22. Acts 10:42; 17:31; 24:25.
23. See the full discussion in Dunn, Jesus Remembered, vol. 1 of
Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), ch. 12.
24. 1 Cor 15:20, 23; Rom 8:23.
25. See especially 1 Thess 1:10; 4:13–18; 1 Cor 7:29–31.
26. Acts 2:38; 3:6; 4:10, 30; 8:16; 10:48; 16:18; 19:5—and cf.
9:34.
27. Acts 7:55–56; 9:10; 18:9; 22:17–18; 23:11; 26:16, 19.
28. Rom 1:3–4; 8:9–11; 1 Cor 12:3–13; 15:45; John 14:15–16,
26; 16:7–15.
29. See particularly Mark 14:36; Luke 11:2 // Matt 6:9; Matt
11:25–26 // Luke 10:21.
30. Rom 2:4; 2 Cor 7:9–10; 12:21.
31. Acts 2:44; 4:32; 5:14; 15:5; 18:27; 19:18; 21:20, 25; 22:19.

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32. Acts 9:42; 11:17; 14:23; 16:31.
33. Acts 5:12–14; 9:42; 13:12; 19:17–18.
34. Mark 8:11–12; Matt 12:38–39 // Luke 11:29; John 2:23–25;
4:48; 20:29; 2 Cor 13:3–4.
35. Acts 2:38; 3:19; 5:31; 10:43; 13:38–39; 26:18.
36. Acts 2:21; 4:12; 11:14; 13:26; 16:31.
37. Acts 2:38–39; 3:19; 5:32; cf. 8:15–17; 10:44–47; 19:1–6.
38. Mark 3:4; 5:34; 8:35; 10:52; etc.
39. Rom 1:16; 5:9–10; 8:24; 9:27; 10:1, 9–10, 13; etc.
40. See, e.g., Rom 2:29; 8:2, 9, 15; 1 Cor 6:11; 12:13; 2 Cor
1:22; Gal 3:2–3; John 3:5–8; 7:39; 20:22; 1 John 2:27; 3:24.
41. Here is part of the significance of the episodes in Acts 8
and 18:24–19:7.
42. Jesus in fact reduced the claim of God to the one word
“love.” The first and greatest command is “Love God with your
whole being and your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:28–31);
anything that hinders the expression of that love, even the law
itself, is to be set aside and ignored (Matt 5:38–48).

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F
CHAPTER FIVE
Jesus according to
Paul: Part 1
or Christians generally, Jesus, of course, stands at the
center of their faith. And Peter, as Jesus’s principal
disciple, so strongly commissioned by Jesus himself,
according to both Matthew (Matt 16:17–19) and John (John
21:15–17), has always been ranked highly. But for gentile
believers the great hero, as the one who did more to bring
the gospel to them than any other, is Paul—Saul the
persecutor who, encountered by the risen Jesus on the road to
Damascus (Acts 9:3–8), became Paul the apostle, the apostle
of the gentiles. Those familiar with the Acts account of
Christianity’s beginnings will readily recall Paul’s
mission journeys, which dominate the second half of Acts.
Mediterranean maps of the time readily set out these
journeys, often fascinating students when they study them for
the first time.1 Indeed, so much attention can be given to
Paul’s missionary journeys as such that the concern Paul
devoted to establishing the churches he founded can easily be
ignored. It is true that on the first missionary journey
(Acts 13–14) Paul did not stay for any great length of time
at any place in particular, before returning to his
commissioning church in Syrian Antioch (Acts 14:26–28). But
it is easy to miss the fact that thereafter Paul’s mission
focused more on the Aegean, with headquarters first in
Corinth (Acts 18:1–18) and then in Ephesus (Acts 19:8–10).
And his letters, to Corinth in particular, provide rich and
fascinating indications of the challenges he faced and the
way he handled them.
One result of this shift of focus from Syria to the Aegean
was that Paul became more independent and probably more

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remote from the Palestinian center of the new movement. This
is indicated by two developments in particular. One is that
traditional believers in Syria/Palestine became more and more
suspicious that Paul was broadening the appeal of the good
news of Jesus too widely to gentiles and diminishing what
they thought was integral to it, particularly its Jewishness,
and particularly the characteristic Jewish requirement of
circumcision for all would-be proselytes. Intriguing are the
indications, both in Acts and in Paul’s own letters, that
there were those who thought of Paul’s mission as a threat
to what they regarded as fundamental to the message of
Jesus.2
Equally intriguing are the indications that Paul sought to
counter these suspicions by making a collection for the poor
among the saints in Jerusalem.3 So determined was he to
deliver this probably substantial gift that he set aside the
dangers that were evident to him (Rom 15:31), dangers that
were all too quickly confirmed when he was mobbed and
arrested in Jerusalem (Acts 21:27–36). What happened to the
collection that Paul had brought with him? Ironically, Luke
never refers explicitly to the gift brought by Paul, alluding
to it only in Acts 24:17. We can hardly do other than infer
that Luke was embarrassed by the evident failure of Paul’s
attempt at reconciliation with the Jerusalem leadership. His
failure to mention any attempt on the latter’s part to
defend Paul or to assist him in his imprisonment in Jerusalem
is certainly depressingly ominous. Here we see the beginning
of the fracture of Jewish Christianity from gentile
Christianity that in due course resulted in Jewish
Christianity being regarded as a form of early heresy.
The Distinctiveness of Paul’s Gospel
In fact, so much of Paul’s gospel is distinctive, but we
should at least begin by noting some points that can easily
be missed.

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Gospel
The good news of Jesus is summed up in the term “gospel.”
It is too little realized that Christianity owes the term to
Paul.4 The term occurs seventy-six times in the New
Testament. And no less than sixty of these are in Paul—for
example:
Rom 1:1 “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an
apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.”
Rom 1:15
–16
“Hence my eagerness to proclaim the gospel to you also
who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it
is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has
faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
Rom
15:19
“From Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have
fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.”
1 Cor
4:15
“In Christ Jesus I became your father through the
gospel.”
1 Cor
9:14
“The Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel
should get their living by the gospel.”
2 Cor
11:4, 7
“If someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the
one we proclaimed, or if you receive . . . a different
gospel from the one you accepted. . . . Did I commit a
sin . . . because I proclaimed the gospel of God to you
free of charge?”
Gal 1:6–
7
“I am astonished that you . . . are turning to a
different gospel—not that there is another gospel, but
there are some who . . . want to pervert the gospel of
Christ.”
Paul probably derived the term from (Second) Isaiah, where
the verbal form, “preach good tidings,” is used in passages
that evidently greatly influenced both Jesus and his
disciples. In Isaiah 40:9, Zion/Jerusalem is urged to renewed
confidence as being the “herald of good tidings.” Isaiah
52:7 hails the one “who brings good news, who announces
salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’” Isaiah

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60:6 similarly looks hopefully for those who “shall proclaim
the praise of the LORD.” And, most famous of all, Isaiah
61:1–2 prophesies: “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring
good news to the poor . . . to proclaim the year of the
LORD’s favor.”
Luke 4:17–21 indicates that this last passage
particularly influenced Jesus, and we can probably see its
influence in the first of Jesus’s beatitudes (Luke 6:20—
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of
God”). Even more striking is Jesus’s reply to the query
from John the Baptist as to whether Jesus was indeed the one
whose coming the Baptist had announced. Jesus replies that
the answer is evident in what he himself is doing—“the
blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are
cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and [the
climax] the poor have the good news brought to them” (Luke
7:22 // Matt 11:5). Paul too was influenced by the same
passages, as Romans 10:15 shows most clearly, and, as noted
in chapter 2 above, it was Paul who effectively turned the
verb “preach good tidings” into the Christian technical
term, the noun “gospel,” that is, “good tidings.” And it
is thanks to Paul that we have a good idea of how the first
Christians summed up the good news:
I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had
received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the
scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on
the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he
appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to
more than five hundred brothers at one time. . . . Then he
appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as
to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. (1 Cor 15:3–8)
Here, of course, we are not talking about the
distinctiveness of Paul’s gospel. What is distinctive is the
care he takes to make it clear that his gospel was not
distinctive: it was the gospel that he had received when he
was converted. The distinctiveness is that Paul had to make

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this claim and no doubt in effect repeat it often. For he had
not been a disciple of Jesus. And his previous role as a
persecutor of the first believers would have been well known.
As he observes in his letter to the Galatians, when he began
to take the gospel farther into Syria and Cilicia, he was
still largely unknown to the churches of Judea. All they
heard was that “the one who formerly was persecuting us is
now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy” (Gal
1:23).
Paul and the Life and Ministry of Jesus
As we shall see, the really distinctive feature of Paul’s
gospel was the degree to which it focused on Jesus’s death
and resurrection. But first we need to note what appears to
be an equally distinctive corollary: that Paul seems to show
little interest in Jesus’s life and ministry prior to his
death and resurrection. Indeed, if we were dependent solely
on Paul’s letters for our knowledge of the ministry of
Jesus, we would know very little. He certainly knew that
Jesus was a Jew, “born of a woman, born under the law” (Gal
4:4); indeed, that he “was descended from David according to
the flesh” (Rom 1:3–4). He knew that Jesus had brothers (1
Cor 9:5; Gal 1:19). And, of course, he recalls Jesus’s
institution of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:23–26). But
beyond that we have only allusions, to Christ’s “meekness
and gentleness” (2 Cor 10:1), to his “compassion” (Phil
1:8), and to the fact that “Christ did not please himself”
(Rom 15:3).
So it is not unjustified, and for us hardly irrelevant, to
ask whether Paul had much knowledge of and indeed much
interest in the life and ministry of Jesus prior to his death
and resurrection. And in fact, rather embarrassingly, the
evidence is rather limited. The embarrassment is somewhat
ameliorated since, as we shall see, it is quite possible to
deduce that Paul was deeply influenced by Jesus’s teaching.
It is surprisingly true, nevertheless, that only three

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specific traditions are attributed explicitly to Jesus—all
indeed in one letter:
1 Cor 7:10
–11
Paul cites the Lord’s command regarding divorce
(cf. Mark 10:11 parr.).
1 Cor 9:14 “The Lord commanded that those who proclaim the
gospel should get their living by the gospel” (cf.
Matt 10:10 // Luke 10:7).
1 Cor 11:23
–25
The institution of the Lord’s Supper, introduced
rather strikingly: “I received from the Lord what
I also handed on to you.”
There are, however, a number of allusions to or echoes of
Jesus’s teaching in Paul’s paraenesis that are widely
recognized. The most striking include the following (esp. the
words in italics):5
Rom 12:14 “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not
curse them.”
Luke 6:27
–28
“Love your enemies . . . bless those who curse you.”
Matt 5:44 “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute
you.”
Rom 14:14 “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that
nothing is unclean in itself.”
Mark 7:15 “There is nothing outside a person that . . . can
defile.”
1 Cor
13:2
“If [you] have all faith, so as to remove
mountains.”
Matt
17:20
“If you have faith . . . you will say to this
mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will
move.”
1 Thess
5:2, 4
“You yourselves know very well that the day of the
Lord will come like a thief in the night. . . . But

110
you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to
surprise you like a thief.”
Matt
24:43
“Understand this: if the owner of the house had known
in what part of the night the thief was coming, he
would have stayed awake.”
1 Thess
5:13
“Be at peace among yourselves.”
Mark 9:50 “Be at peace with one another.”
Otherwise, nonetheless, we learn little of Jesus’s life
and ministry from Paul’s letters. Indeed, had we only
Paul’s letters, we would know next to nothing about Jesus’s
ministry and teaching, apart from his death and resurrection.
Does this mean that Paul had no real interest in Jesus’s
ministry and was in effect interested only in its climax?
That is hardly likely. These strong echoes of Jesus’s
teaching surely imply that one of Paul’s self-appointed
tasks when he set up a new church was to pass on a
substantial amount of Jesus tradition—Jesus’s teaching to
which he could refer, as just illustrated, when the occasion
demanded. This is confirmed by Paul’s references to the
“traditions” that he passed on to the churches he founded,6
which presumably included basic information about Jesus’s
life and ministry for those to whom Jesus was an entirely
unknown figure. And probably also he passed on a considerable
synopsis of Jesus’s teaching, to which he could refer, as in
the examples just cited.
In addition, we can be confident that when, for example,
Paul said, “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that
nothing is unclean in itself” (Rom 14:14), he was well aware
of the Jesus tradition, probably in the form known to us from
Mark 7:14–23. Or again, it is very hard to read of Paul’s
conflict with his fellow Jewish believers, as to whether it
should be acceptable to eat with (gentile) “sinners” (Gal
2:11–17), without recalling Jesus’s similar conflicts with
Pharisees regarding his readiness to “eat with sinners”

111
(Mark 2:15–17 parr.). And it surely is almost impossible to
believe that when Paul cited the “Abba! Father!” prayer, as
evidence of the Spirit of the Son sent into their hearts (Gal
4:6–7; Rom 8:15–17), he was unaware that this form of
prayer was distinctive of Jesus’s own prayers and that it
was Jesus who began the tradition of so praying. It is highly
probable, in fact, that such passages and the allusions to
Jesus’s teaching refer to and reflect the foundational
teaching that Paul set out when he established a new
congregation.
Finally we should note the element of imitatio Christi
that appears in some of Paul’s exhortation. So in
particular, Romans 13:14: “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Similarly later in the same letter: we ought “not to please
ourselves . . . for Christ too did not please himself” (Rom
15:1–5). To be sure, the reference is primarily to Christ’s
passion (Rom 15:3). But in a context of community fellowship
(Rom 14:1–15:6), where it is “the Christ” who is referred
to (Rom 15:3), and with an echo of his being “a servant of
the circumcised” (Rom 15:8), it is unlikely that many would
think solely of Jesus’s death. Such an appeal to Jesus as an
antidote to communal disaffection is also explicit in 1
Corinthians 11:1 (“Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ”)
and in Philippians 2:5 (“Let the same mind be in you that
was in Christ Jesus”). It is hardly straining either
evidence or probabilities to infer that Paul’s readers would
give content to such exhortations by recalling stories about
and teaching of Jesus.
Similarly we should recall that Paul refers to Jesus as
“a pattern of teaching” (Rom 6:17—“the one to whom you
were handed over as a pattern of teaching”). This suggests
an ethical corollary of baptism understood as a commitment to
a way of living modeled on Jesus’s teaching. A near parallel
would be Colossians 2:6: “as you received the tradition of
Christ Jesus as Lord, walk in him.” This can hardly be
understood other than as an exhortation to Christian conduct
modeled on the traditions of Jesus passed on to new converts.

112
Paul’s urging that those who receive his letter should
behave “in accordance with Christ Jesus” (Rom 15:5) has a
similar implication.
We may infer, then, that when Mark broadened out the
meaning of “gospel” to include the ministry of Jesus prior
to his death and resurrection, he was simply making explicit
what had been implicit in the message that Paul passed on to
his churches when he established them. The good news included
the recollection of the character of Jesus’s ministry and
the content of his teaching, climaxing in his death and
resurrection. The distinctiveness of Paul’s gospel was not
that it was different from the gospel preached by other first
Christians. The distinctiveness was his conviction that the
gospel was also for gentiles.
How then did Paul fill out his understanding of the gospel
with its centrality on the death and resurrection of Christ?
That Christ Died for Our Sins and Was Raised on the Third
Day
As we have seen above, this is how Paul summarized the gospel
that had been passed on to him (1 Cor 15:3).
Atoning Death of Jesus
Certainly the atoning death of Jesus was at the heart of the
gospel for Paul:
Rom 3:24
–25
“They are now justified by his grace as a gift,
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his
blood, effective through faith.”
Rom 5:6,
8
“At the right time Christ died for the ungodly. . . .
God proves his love for us in that while we still were
sinners Christ died for us.”
Rom 8:3 “By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the
flesh.”

113
1 Cor
5:7
“Our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.”
2 Cor
5:15
“He died for all, so that those who live might live no
longer for themselves, but for him who died and was
raised for them.”
Gal 3:13 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by
becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is
everyone who hangs on a tree’” (Deut 21:23).
Behind this lies the theology of sacrifice in ancient
Judaism, made most explicit in the Day of Atonement ritual
described in Leviticus 16. The key point in the ritual was
when the high priest laid his hands on one of the two goats
presented before him, and thereby put the sins just confessed
“on the head of the goat” (Lev 16:21). The goat was then
sent into the wilderness, carrying the sins of the people
away. The clear implication was that those who had committed
these sins were now free from them. There had been an
interchange: the burden of sin transferred to the sinless
one, leaving the one who had committed the sin free of it and
its consequences. That seems to be the theological rationale
of Israel’s sacrifice of atonement, which Paul (and the
first Christians) took over in regarding the death of Jesus
as just such a sacrifice. The point is clearest in 2
Corinthians 5:21: “He who knew no sin, God made sin for our
sake.” For Paul, however, Jesus’s death was not just such a
sacrifice, but was, in effect, the sacrifice to which
Israel’s sacrificial system pointed forward—a claim that,
as we shall see, the writer of Hebrews made the center of his
theology.
The centrality of the death of Christ in Paul’s theology
is further indicated by his use of the phrase “in/through
his blood.”7 This cannot adequately be understood except as
a reference to Christ’s death as a sacrifice, since it was
precisely the manipulation of the victim’s blood which was
the decisive act of atonement.8 Likewise Paul’s talk of

114
Jesus’s death as “for sins,”9 or “for us.”10 Galatians
3:13 has one of Paul’s most striking claims: that “Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for
us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a
tree’” (Deut 21:23). And he also uses the powerful imagery
of “redemption” and “reconciliation,” as again in Romans
3:24 and powerfully in 2 Corinthians 5:18–20.
Jesus Raised from the Dead
Equally fundamental for Paul was the central Christian belief
that God had raised Jesus from the dead. The point could
hardly be clearer than when, as we have seen, Paul summarizes
the foundational Christian belief: “That he was raised on
the third day in accordance with the scriptures,” as
confirmed by the succession of witnesses that he goes on to
cite (1 Cor 15:3–8). Indeed, the whole of 1 Corinthians 15
shows just how fundamental the resurrection of Jesus was for
Paul’s gospel. Those long familiar with the passage probably
find it hard to appreciate what a huge impact it must have
made when first read and listened to. But the fact that Paul
takes such pains to bring home the central importance of that
part of his message surely puts the point beyond dispute. And
Paul does not hesitate to underline the point: “If Christ
has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain
and your faith has been in vain” (1 Cor 15:14); “if Christ
has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still
in your sins” (1 Cor 15:17). He can even speak of Jesus’s
resurrection as fully equivalent to the creation of humanity.
Jesus is “the last Adam” (1 Cor 15:45)—his resurrection,
as beginning a whole new life, beyond death, unique in the
same way that Adam’s creation was unique.
Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of
those who have died. For since death came through a human
being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a
human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive
in Christ. (1 Cor 15:20–22)

115
So it is hardly surprising that elsewhere Paul underlines
the importance of Jesus’s resurrection. Very striking is the
opening paragraph in his letter to Rome when he summarizes
his gospel—“the gospel concerning [God’s] Son, who was
descended from David according to the flesh and was declared
to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of
holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our
Lord” (Rom 1:3–4). Typical of Paul is the conclusion to his
exposition of Abraham’s justification: what had been
“reckoned” to Abraham (righteousness—Gen 15:6) “will be
reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord
from the dead” (Rom 4:24).
According to these passages, the resurrection of Jesus
also indicated his status as “Lord.” As Paul puts it later
in the same letter: “to this end Christ died and lived
again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the
living” (Rom 14:9). Most striking is the climax of
Philippians 2:6–11, usually regarded as a pre-Pauline hymn
quoted by Paul:
Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name
that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bend . . . and every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Not least striking is Paul’s use of Psalm 110:1 to
express the conviction that Jesus, having been raised from
the dead, was now God’s vice-regent: “The LORD says to my
lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your
footstool.’”11 In fact, Paul’s usual way of referring to
Christ is as “the Lord Jesus Christ,” or simply as “the
Lord.”12 The central significance of the resurrection for
Paul’s gospel could hardly be clearer.
With Christ
What was of fundamental importance for Paul was that
believers could not simply affirm these foundational beliefs

116
but could identify with them in a way and degree hitherto
unknown. This is most clearly indicated by Paul’s remarkable
use of compounds that include “with” across his letters13—
for example, “groan together with” (Rom 8:22), “reign
with” (1 Cor 4:8), “suffer with” (1 Cor 12:26), “die
with” and “live with” (2 Cor 7:3), and “participate
with” (Phil 4:14). Most significantly, however, he uses such
compound verbs to describe an actual sharing in Christ’s
death and life: for example, “suffer with” (Rom 8:17),
“crucified with” (Gal 2:19), “buried with” (Col 2:12),
“raised with” (Col 3:1), “live with” (Rom 6:8), and
“glorified with” (Rom 8:17). Since “in Christ” is such a
prominent feature of Paul’s writings, the frequency with
which he uses “with Christ” to express the same sense of a
shared dependence on a common experience of participation in
Christ is often missed. The centrality of the theme to
Paul’s gospel is nowhere more clearly expressed than in two
passages from his letter to Rome:
Rom 6:4
–8
“So then we were buried with him through baptism into
death. . . . For if we have become knit together with
the very likeness of his death, we shall certainly also
be knit together with the very likeness of his
resurrection. Knowing this, that our old nature has
been crucified with him. . . . But if we have died with
Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.”
Rom 8:16
–17
“The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are
children of God. And if children, also heirs—heirs of
God and heirs together with Christ, provided that we
suffer with him in order that we might also be
glorified with him.”14
So it was not simply the belief in Jesus’s death and
resurrection that was central to Paul’s gospel; it was also
the sense that those who responded to the gospel could
realistically share in what was thus proclaimed, could
already experience both a dying of and a dying to their old
self-centered nature, and a new life welling up within and
giving a new goal and motivation to all they did.

117
Justification through Faith in Jesus
One of the striking features of Paul’s theology (and gospel)
is the range of metaphors he draws on.
Metaphors of Sacrifice
In a tradition where animal sacrifice was the characteristic
way of ensuring positive relations with the cult god, it is
natural that the metaphor of sacrifice was so powerful in the
earliest Christians’ attempts to make sense of Jesus’s
death. But Paul also used many different metaphors for the
salvation that his gospel offered and promised. One was
“redemption”—the imagery taken from the buying back of a
slave or war captive, and echoing Israel’s deliverance from
Egypt. So, for example:
Rom 3:24 “They are now justified by his grace as a gift,
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
1
Cor 1:30
“Christ Jesus . . . became for us wisdom from God, and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”
Col 1:14 “In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of
sins.”
Similarly with “liberation” or “freedom.” For example:
Rom 6:18 “You, having been set free from sin, have become
slaves of righteousness.”
Rom 8:2 “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set
you free from the law of sin and of death.”
Gal 2:4 “The freedom we have in Christ Jesus.”
Gal 5:1 “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm,
therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of
slavery.”

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And again with the imagery of “reconciliation”— the
bringing together of two parties at enmity with each other
into a new peace and cooperation. Note particularly the
following:
Rom 5:10 “If while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God
through the death of his Son, much more surely, having
been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.”
2
Cor 5:18
–19
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself
through Christ, and has given us the ministry of
reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling
the world to himself, not counting their trespasses
against them, and entrusting the message of
reconciliation to us.”
It is important to appreciate the metaphorical character
of these images. They are not literal and do not fit easily
together. There is indeed a danger of making one or another
the key and trying to fit the others into it. This has
sometimes happened with the particularly Johannine metaphor
of being “born again or from above” (notably John 3:3–8).
But as with metaphors generally, they are images and not
literal, illustrating an aspect, particularly an experiential
aspect of conversion to Christ.
Metaphors from the Law Court
Historically it was metaphors from the law court in which the
accused person was accounted not guilty or justified that
were most important for Paul. The rediscovery of this theme
became a key feature of the European Reformation. Its
importance for Paul is easily illustrated. For example, in
Romans he sums up his indictment of humankind by quoting
Psalm 143:2: “For ‘no human being will be will be justified
in his sight’ by deeds prescribed by the law, for through
the law comes knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:20). And then he goes
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spell out how his gospel sees acceptance or justification by
God to be accomplished:
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are
now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice
of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did
this to show his righteousness, because in his divine
forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed;
it was to prove at the present time that he himself is
righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in
Jesus. (Rom 3:23–26)
And Paul later recalls the key point when he gives his own
testimony in Philippians 3:8–9:
I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of
knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the
loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order
that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a
righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that
comes through faith in Christ.
As indicated, the image of justification or acquittal is
drawn from the law court. The conviction is that God accepts
the sinner who trusts in him, who throws himself/herself on
God’s mercy, even though he/she is guilty of acting against
God. “Righteousness” in Hebrew thought denoted fulfilling
the obligations that arise out of a relationship; the person
who fulfills such obligations is deemed righteous.15 The
basic Jewish logic or theology was that God, having created
the world, had taken upon himself the obligation to sustain
it. And having chosen Israel to be his people, God had
accepted the further obligation to look after Israel, to be
faithful even when Israel was unfaithful. So, for Israel
God’s righteousness was not essentially punitive but saving.
This is why the term “righteousness” in the Old Testament
is sometimes better translated as “salvation,” or
“vindication.”16 This is the root of Paul’s gospel, as
Martin Luther realized when he read Romans 1:16–17 with
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of God for salvation to everyone who has faith. . . . For in
it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for
faith; as it is written: ‘The one who is righteous will live
by faith’” (Hab 2:4). In other words, God’s acceptance was
not dependent on proving our worthiness (“You are worth
it”), but dependent solely on God’s grace. Abraham himself
was the determinative precedent, as Paul went on to argue in
Romans 4; and Israel’s election, of the “no-people” Israel
as God’s people (Rom 9:25–26), proved the same point.
Faith and Works of the Law
The key point for Paul was that justification, God’s
accounting sinners acceptable despite their sin, was by faith
and was not determined by the individual’s doing the law, or
by “works of the law.” This evidently came home to Paul
through his own experience (the justified persecutor), and
especially through the success of his gentile mission.
Gentiles had received the Spirit/grace of God without
reference to the law. As Paul asks his Galatian converts:
“The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you
receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by
believing what you heard?” (Gal 3:2). Evidently Paul was
confronted with the fact that others (Jewish Christian
missionaries, we assume) had come to his Galatian converts
and had insisted that the latter could not be counted members
of the people of Israel’s God unless they were first
circumcised and observed the Jewish laws of clean and unclean
foods. In response Paul insisted forcibly that justification
was by faith, and by faith alone. This was the argument he
had won in Jerusalem, when the earliest Christian council,
chaired, it would appear, by James, the brother of Jesus
(Acts 15:13–22), agreed that gentile converts need not be
circumcised (Gal 2:1–10). That agreement, however, had been
put in question in the Christian grouping in Antioch, when
“certain people came from James” and insisted that the
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fellowship groups. They had been so persuasive that all the
other Jewish believers, including Paul’s close colleague
Barnabas (you can almost hear the sob in Paul’s writing when
he recalls the incident), had separated in fellowship meals
from the gentile believers (Gal 2:11–14). Hence, Paul’s
condemnation of what he had no hesitation in designating as
“hypocrisy” and “inconsistent with the truth of the
gospel,” and his indignant response:
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we
know that a person is justified not by the works of the law
but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe
in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in
Christ, and not by doing works of the law. (Gal 2:15–16)
Paul’s point is clear. If we bring it up to date, we
might note the equivalent danger of adding something to the
basic summons to faith in Christ as though that something was
equally important as faith—whether episcopacy, an infallible
papacy, believer’s baptism, or biblical inerrancy. Paul’s
point would surely be the same: to make such additions
fundamental to Christianity still subverts the gospel. It is
little wonder that some translators reinforced Paul’s point
by adding “alone” to what Paul wrote in Galatians 2:15–16:
“not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus
Christ, faith alone.”
Unfortunately, in the Protestant theology of justification
that followed from the Reformation, Paul’s point was
somewhat misdirected, Paul’s warning against making
justification depend on “works of the law” being taken as a
warning not to trust in “good works.” To broaden out
Paul’s point as a warning not to trust in good works is one
thing. But if the consequence is that we miss Paul’s actual
point here, that is hardly acceptable. As Galatians 2:11–16
makes clear, what Paul was objecting to was the attempt in
effect to make justification (of gentiles) conditional on
their doing “works of the law,” that is, on the requirement
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live like Jews. As Paul asked Peter in frustrated
indignation: “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and
not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles [gentile
believers] to live like Jews?” (Gal 2:14).
This is the point that has often been misunderstood: Paul
was not abandoning the law or making a total break with the
law. As he says, for example, in 1 Corinthians 7:19:
“Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but
obeying the commandments of God is everything.” Or, as he
points out in Romans 8:3–4: when God sent his Son, “he
condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of
the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to
the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Or, as he noted
earlier in the same letter: since God justifies both
circumcised and uncircumcised in the same way, by the same
faith, “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no
means! On the contrary, we uphold the law” (Rom 3:30–31).
The point, once again, and worth repeating, is that Paul was
not reacting against the law as such or good works as such.
He was reacting against the assumption that gentile believers
must be circumcised and must observe Israel’s food laws.
Which is to say, he was reacting against the assumption that
the gospel was exclusively for Jews and that the gospel
therefore required gentiles in effect to become Jews, by
being circumcised and observing the Jewish food laws. It
still does not mean that for Paul justification was by
anything more than or by anything other than faith. But faith
still needed the law, apart from its specifically Israel
rulings, to guide life. Or, as Paul put it later in his
letter to the Galatians: “In Christ Jesus neither
circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only
thing that counts is faith working through love” (Gal 5:6).
* * *
Justification through faith in Jesus is so central, both to
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faith and in the history of Western Christianity, that it is
well to pause at this point and reflect on it and on all that
it involves and implies for Christianity, today as in crucial
turning points of the past. So we break our study of Paul’s
understanding of the good news of Jesus at this point.
1. See appendix 2 below.
2. E.g., Acts 15:1, 5; 18:12–13; 2 Cor 10–13; Gal 1:6–9; 3:1–
5:26.
3. Rom 15:25–29; 1 Cor 16:1–4; 2 Cor 8–9.
4. As noted in chapter 2 above.
5. See also Rom 12:17 and 1 Thess 5:15 (Matt 5:38–48 // Luke
6:27–36); Rom 13:7 (Mark 12:17 parr.); Rom 14:13 (Mark 9:42
parr.).
6. 1 Cor 11:2, 23; 15:3; 2 Thess 2:15; 3:6.
7. Rom 3:25; 5:9; Eph 1:7; 2:13; Col 1:20.
8. Lev 4:5–7, 16–18, 25, 30, 34; 16:14–19.
9. Rom 4:25; 8:3; 1 Cor 15:3; Gal 1:4.
10. Rom 5:6–8; 8:32; 2 Cor 5:14–15, 21; Gal 2:20; 3:13; 1 Thess
5:9–10; also Eph 5:2, 25.
11. Rom 8:34; 1 Cor 15:25; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1.
12. In Paul’s letters, “Lord Jesus Christ” (in varying order)
occurs nearly 70 times; “the Lord,” more than 140 times.
13. More than half of the forty occurrences appear only in Paul
in the NT.
14. See also Col 2:12–13; Eph 2:5–6; 2 Tim 2:11–12.
15. As most strikingly in 1 Sam 24:17. Similarly Judah’s verdict
on his relationship with Tamar (Gen 38:26).
16. So in NRSV translation of Isa 62:2 and Mic 6:5; 7:9.

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T
CHAPTER SIX
Jesus according to
Paul: Part 2
he importance of Paul’s understanding and teaching on the
theme of justification by faith (alone) was so central and
decisive—both in the beginnings of gentile Christianity and
in the recalling of sixteenth-century Europe “back to the
Bible”—that it is easy to miss or ignore how much richer
and fuller was Paul’s recollection of what Jesus had done
and the extent to which Jesus was at the center of his whole
life and mission. Since the Pauline letters make up such an
important part of the New Testament, it is well worth
spending another chapter to explore the gospel according to
Paul more fully.
Participation in Christ
In Christ/In the Lord
Here is another element in Paul’s theology and understanding
of the gospel and its outworking that can be too easily
neglected. In fact, Paul uses the phrase “in Christ” some
eighty-three times in his letters, and “in the Lord” forty-
seven times.1 This too is a distinctively Pauline feature.
Elsewhere in the New Testament, outside the Pauline corpus,
the phrase occurs only in 1 Peter, which, somewhat
surprisingly, is the most Pauline of the non-Pauline
letters.2 It also should not be ignored that Paul uses these
phrases far more than any of the metaphors that we naturally
draw from his writings. This in turn presumably signifies
that these phrases were at the heart of his understanding and
outliving of the gospel that he proclaimed. Some examples:

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Rom 3:22–24 “There is no distinction, since all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God; they are now
justified by his grace as a gift, through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
Rom 6:11 “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin
and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Rom 6:23 “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of
God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Rom 8:1–2 “There is therefore now no condemnation for those
who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the
law of sin and of death.”
1 Cor 1:4 “The grace of God that has been given you in
Christ Jesus.”
1 Cor 15:22 “So all will be made alive in Christ.”
2 Cor 5:19 “In Christ God was reconciling the world.”
Gal 3:14 “In order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of
Abraham might come to the Gentiles.”
Gal 5:6 “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor
uncircumcision counts for anything.”
Phil 4:19 “My God will fully satisfy every need of yours
according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”
1 Thess 5:18 “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the
will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
Similarly, Paul regularly sends greetings to individuals
“in the Lord” (e.g., Rom 16:8–13):
1 Cor 4:17 Timothy is his “beloved and faithful child in the
Lord.”
1 Cor 9:1 He calls the Corinthians his workmanship “in the
Lord.”
Philem 16 Onesimus is a beloved brother “both in the flesh
and in the Lord.”

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Paul’s gospel can indeed be summed up in just these
terms: (1) God has acted redemptively “in Christ”; (2)
saving grace has been experienced by believers “in Christ”;
(3) believers now live life “in the Lord.” “In Christ”
indicates a bound-upness with Christ, a oneness with Christ.
Paul’s perception of his whole life as a Christ-believer—
its source, its identity, and its responsibilities—could be
summed up in these phrases. It is important to note that this
was not just a matter of belief for Paul. There was
undoubtedly an experiential dimension, an experience of being
caught up with the risen and living Christ. Paul evidently
felt himself (an emotional dimension can hardly be ignored)
to be caught up “in Christ,” to be doing what he did “with
Christ,” sustained and borne along by Christ. We see here an
evident sense of Christ’s living presence as a more or less
constant factor, from which Paul consciously and
subconsciously drew inspiration and strength for all his
activities.
It is interesting to note that Paul can put the imagery in
reverse order—not just believers “in Christ,” but “Christ
in us.” Note, for example:
Gal 2:20 “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who
lives in me.”
Rom 8:10 “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because
of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”
2 Cor
13:5
“Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?”
Col 1:27 “. . . how great among the Gentiles are the riches of
the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the
hope of glory.”
The sense of total engagement with Christ, of Christ as the
life force working in him and through him, could hardly be
clearer.

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Into Christ
Not surprisingly, Paul also speaks on several occasions of
individuals brought “into Christ.” The most notable example
is his talk of converts “having been baptized into Christ.”
For example:
Rom 6:3 “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized
into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”
Gal
3:27
“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have
clothed yourselves with Christ.”
It is difficult to avoid the basic sense of “into,”
implying movement into a location, a movement of
incorporation. So in Romans 6:3, the implication is of
becoming a participant in Christ, as in Romans 5:12–17 the
individual was already a participant in the humanity of Adam.
And the imagery in Galatians 3:27 is correlated with the
accompanying metaphor of “clothing with/putting on Christ.”
To be “baptized into Christ” is to be absorbed into the
persona of Christ. It is hard to escape the implication of
some sort of identification with or a sense of bound-upness
with Christ.
Again, not surprising in view of this common usage, and
indicating what Paul took to be a basic given of his life as
a Christ-believer, is his imagery of the Christian community
as the body of Christ. The thought is not yet of the wide
range of believers as the (universal) body of Christ (even if
only those of whom Paul was particularly thinking, in Asia
Minor and Greece), but of believers gathered in a particular
place like Corinth as the body of Christ in that place—those
“in Christ” bound together as embodying Christ’s presence
in Corinth. This is presumably what Paul was thinking of when
he wrote 1 Corinthians 12:13, speaking of the Corinthian
believers as “all baptized into one body,” in Corinth. The
thought is of those referred to as becoming members of the
body of Christ (1 Cor 12:14–27). That passage underlines the

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privilege and responsibility of those who were members of
that body. Each member of the body had by definition his/her
particular function or “gift,” as Paul puts it. The body
could function properly only when each member fulfilled
his/her particular function, only when each exercised the
gift given to each and for which he/she was responsible (1
Cor 12:8–11). “To each is given the manifestation of the
Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor 12:7). In Paul’s
thinking, the Christian community (the body) could only be
“built up”—a common metaphor in chapter 14 (vv. 3, 5, 12,
26)—when each of the members of the body exercised the
gift(s) given to each, or perhaps more precisely, given
through each.
We will return to what was obviously a major theme for
Paul below. But here we should at least note in passing that
Paul had no conception of an order of priesthood. There were
no priests, no one functioning as “priest” in his churches
(or indeed in any New Testament churches). He used the image
of priestly ministry as a general way of referring to the
service of the gospel (as in Phil 2:25), but also as a way of
characterizing everyday discipleship, the responsibility of
all believers (Rom 12:1).
Like Christ
It is worth noting that Paul saw this relationship to Christ
as a developing one—what came to be categorized as
“sanctification.” The goal of salvation was to become like
Christ:
Rom 8:29 “Conformed to the image of [God’s] Son, in order that
he might be the firstborn within a large family.”
2 Cor
3:18
“Being transformed into the same image from one degree
of glory to another.”
Col 3:10 “Being renewed in knowledge according to the image of
its creator.”

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So, being a member of the body of Christ was neither a static
nor a final condition. In the letters to the Colossians and
the Ephesians Paul includes the idea of growing up “in every
way into him who is the head, into Christ,” so that each
part working properly “promotes the body’s growth in
building itself up in love” (Eph 4:15–16; similarly Col
2:19).
A final thought not to be missed is that such growth
included becoming like Christ in his death. Baptism was
baptism “into his death” (Rom 6:3). As it was necessary for
Christ to die, in order that by his resurrection he might
introduce a life beyond death, so there had to be a sharing
in Christ’s death in order to experience also his life
beyond death, a life that lasts through the death of this
body. For example:
Rom 6:5 “If we have been united with him in a death like his,
we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection
like his.”
Rom
8:17
“If children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs
with Christ—if in fact, we suffer with him so that we
may also be glorified with him.”
Or as Paul expressed his hope and ambition in what was
probably one of his last letters:
Phil 3:10
–11
“I want to know Christ and the power of his
resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by
becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may
attain the resurrection from the dead.”
The Gift of the Spirit
The Gift of the Spirit as the Defining Mark
This again is a rather neglected feature of Paul’s
understanding of the Christian faith. The debate occasioned
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baptism was seen as distinct from and subsequent to
conversion or the beginning of the individual’s life as a
Christian, rather confused the point. But the gift of the
Spirit as the decisive mark of the Christian was crucial for
Paul.
Consider, for example, Paul’s rejoinder to those of his
Galatian converts who were being persuaded that to be
Christian they needed to “do the works of the law” by being
circumcised:
The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you
receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by
believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? Having started
with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? . . . Does
God supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by
your doing the works of the law, or by your believing what you
heard? (Gal 3:2–5)
And his exposition of how Abraham was justified by faith
climaxes with the striking claim: “Christ redeemed us from
the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us . . . in
order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come
to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the
Spirit through faith” (Gal 3:13–14). Similarly he reminds
his Thessalonian converts that “in spite of persecution you
received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit” (1
Thess 1:6). And in a powerful passage in a letter to the
Corinthians he commends the recipients of his letter: “You
show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written
not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on
tablets of stone [like the Ten Commandments] but on tablets
of human hearts. . . . [God] has made us competent to be
ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for
the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3:3, 6).
It is clear from such passages that it was the gift of the
Spirit that Paul saw as marking out those who had responded
positively to his message.
What is often missed, however, is the fact that Paul
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determinative mark of a believer in Christ. Of course, he
understood relationship to the risen Christ as fundamental to
being a believer. He saw baptism in the name of Christ as the
initiation of the Christian life. But the nearest he comes to
providing a definition of a believer in Christ is in terms of
that person having received the Spirit. As he says in his
great “Spirit chapter” in the letter to Rome: “Anyone who
does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him”
(Rom 8:9). Or, as he puts it in more positive terms a few
verses later: “All who are led by the Spirit of God are
children of God” (Rom 8:14). It was their reception of the
Spirit that for Paul made believers members of Christ, of
Christ’s body. He takes up the Baptist’s imagery of the
coming one baptizing in the Spirit as the counterpart and
completion of his (the Baptist’s) own baptism in water (Mark
1:8 parr.): “In the one Spirit we were all baptized into one
body . . . and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1
Cor 12:13). Or consider the somewhat complex application Paul
makes of Moses, coming out from an encounter with the Lord
and putting a veil over his face to prevent its bright
shining from frightening his people, but removing the veil
when he returned to encounter the Lord. Paul applies this to
his present context: “when one [of us] turns to the Lord,
the veil [that obscures the full meaning of the old covenant]
is removed.” And he adds, by way of explanation to help make
his interpretative point: “Now the Lord is the Spirit” (2
Cor 3:16–17). In other words, the equivalent to Moses’s
unveiling to encounter the Lord was, for Paul, the reception
of the transforming Spirit. And he ends the analogy with
equal boldness:
And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the
Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed
into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for
this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:18)
As Luke reminds us, it was the unfettered reception of the
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Christian leadership that the good news was for gentiles as
well, and without any requirement that they should judaize.
The Spirit of Christ
The fact that Paul spoke of the Spirit as “the Spirit of
Christ,” as we saw in Romans 8:9, and equally could speak of
“the Spirit of God,” as in Romans 8:14, should not pass
without comment. For it means that Paul could think of the
Holy Spirit as Christ’s Spirit. Jesus was not simply the
Messiah who was anointed by the Spirit of God, but that
anointing power of God had become so identified with the one
anointed that the Spirit of God could be understood as
Christ’s Spirit. Paul’s letter to Rome was written in about
the year 56 or 57, and presumably this was not the first time
Paul had so identified the Spirit of God with Christ. Which
means that well within thirty years of Jesus’s ministry,
death, and resurrection, God’s Spirit was being thought of
as “the Spirit of Christ.” Similarly in Philippians 1:19
Paul expresses his confidence that “the help of the Spirit
of Jesus Christ” would ensure his deliverance. And the
implication of the fact that Jesus’s distinctive “Abba!
Father!” prayer quickly became the distinctive prayer of
Paul and his fellow Christians, understood as inspired by the
Spirit (Rom 8:16–17; Gal 4:6–7), should not be missed.
What had happened here? Is it simply that Paul was so
confident that Jesus had been anointed and empowered by
God’s Spirit, so that Christ’s ministry attested the
character of the power that had inspired him? In which case
it was as easy to say Jesus’s Spirit as it was to say God’s
Spirit. Was it thus that the Christian concept of God as
Trinity first came to expression? Whatever the precise
historical details, it cannot be insignificant that Paul so
identified the power of Jesus’s mission with the Spirit of
God that he could quite naturally speak of that power as the
Spirit of Christ. Indeed, as we saw in 2 Corinthians 3:12–
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the Spirit. We cannot, of course, infer that Paul had a clear
conception of God as Trinity. But it cannot but be
significant that he could speak of the same spiritual reality
equally in terms of the Lord, the Christ, and the Spirit.
Here again Christian theologizing owes an incalculable debt
to Paul.
First Installment and Guarantee
The gift of the Spirit to new believers was regarded by Paul
as the first installment or guarantee of the whole process of
salvation.3 Alternatively he refers to the Spirit as the
“first fruits” of the harvest of the resurrection of the
body when the whole person will be saved (Rom 8:23). As
Christ’s resurrection was the firstfruits and beginning of
the general resurrection (1 Cor 15:20, 23), so the gift of
the Spirit was the beginning of the process of redemption
that will climax in the resurrection of/from the dead. So the
Thessalonian believers could be grateful “because God chose
you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification
by the Spirit and through belief in the truth” (2 Thess
2:13). The Roman believers are reassured that “he who raised
Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies
also through his Spirit that dwells in you” (Rom 8:11). And
Paul gives his own testimony to the Philippian believers
before the final reassurance:
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and
the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his
death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
. . . The Lord Jesus Christ . . . will transform the body of
our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his
glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things
subject to himself. (Phil 3:10–11, 20–21)
It should occasion no surprise that Paul thought of the
resurrection of Christ in terms of the Spirit: “ ‘The first
man, Adam, became a living being’; the last Adam became a
life-giving Spirit.” And also that he saw the hoped-for

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resurrection of the body in terms of the Spirit—first the
physical body and then the spiritual body (1 Cor 15:42–49).
The final work of the Spirit for Paul was the completing of
the remaking of humankind into the image of the risen Christ.
Charismatic Community
We have already noted that Paul’s most famous way of
conceptualizing the worshiping community of Christian
believers was as the body of Christ. But in addition, we
should not forget that he thought of the congregation of
believers as a charismatic community. That is, the body of
Christians was, like the individual believer, enabled by the
Spirit. The gathered congregation could function as the body
of Christ only because they had been baptized in the Spirit,
and were continually being gifted and enabled by the same
Spirit. Paul spends a principal section of his first letter
to the Corinthians to make this point with some force (1 Cor
12–14). Christ can be recognized and confessed as Lord only
by the enabling and prompting of the Spirit (1 Cor 12:3). It
is the gifts of the Spirit, activated by the Spirit, which
are the effective functions of the worshiping community (1
Cor 12:2–11). It is worth repeating that for Paul it is by
being baptized in the one Spirit that they are all one body,
the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:13). And on he goes to describe
and instruct the community of Corinthian believers in what it
means to be the body of Christ, what it means for the
congregation to have worship prompted and led by the Spirit.
The picture of Corinthian worship, and the worship that
Paul could assume for the Christian gatherings in
Thessalonica (1 Thess 5:19–21) and Rome (Rom 12:6–8), is so
different from most Christian experience of worship today
that it is little wonder that these passages can be largely
ignored by most believers today as referring to a wholly
different age remote from our own. An appropriate question
might well be whether the Spirit of Jesus is as desired and
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evidently were in these early years. If Paul is correct, and
the worshiping congregation can function effectively as the
body of Christ only through the gifts of the Spirit, only as
the Spirit enables members of the congregation to function as
members of Christ’s body, then it is a fair question to ask:
Has modern Christianity, the modern Christian congregation,
missed or lost something that Paul clearly regarded as
constitutive of the body of Christ? There is no need to try
to re-create the Corinthian assembly; would Paul have wanted
that? But the question still remains, and remains troubling.
Have we Christians lost something in our worship that Paul
took for granted as fundamental to being the body of Christ?
Great Expectations
The Parousia and Final Judgment
The hope of Christ’s parousia, his “coming” again, was a
conviction that Paul clearly inherited from the first
believers,4 and it certainly was a prominent feature of his
letters to the Thessalonians. Christ’s expected (soon)
coming again had evidently been a major theme in Paul’s
preaching in Thessalonica (1 Thess 2:19; 3:13). The problem
was that some of the Thessalonian believers had died. It is
evident from what Paul says that others of the Thessalonian
believers feared that those who had died would in consequence
be disadvantaged or even miss out at the parousia (1 Thess
4:15). Paul’s reassurance was that those who had “fallen
asleep” would return with Jesus, when “we who are alive,
who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with
them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the
Lord forever” (1 Thess 4:17). Evidently drawing on the
memory of Jesus’s teaching, Paul reassures his hearers that
“the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night”
(1 Thess 5:2).5 2 Thessalonians begins with a more stark
reaffirmation of the parousia hope—“when the Lord Jesus is
revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire”

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(2 Thess 1:7–8)—and proceeds to a bolder exposition of a
period of tribulation under the rule of “the lawless one,”
before deliverance by the Lord Jesus (2 Thess 2:3–11). The
later letters do not give such attention to the subject. But
Philippians also speaks of “the day of Christ” (Phil 1:6,
10; 2:16), and also echoes 1 Thessalonians 1:10 in speaking
of believers “awaiting or expecting” Jesus’s return “from
heaven” (Phil 3:20).
It should not be forgotten that Paul’s theology of
salvation not only climaxed in the resurrection of the body,
but also included the thought of a final judgment—a final
judgment to which believers would be subject, as would all
humankind. And Christ would be the judge! Paul does not
emphasize this last point very much, but he probably
recognized the clear implications of some of Jesus’s
parables,6 and in his most intense indictment of human
sinfulness in Romans 1–2 he straightforwardly speaks of
“the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus
Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all” (Rom 2:16).
This for Paul was still one of the primary functions of the
law—to serve as the measure of God’s requirement and
judgment. It was “through the law” that “the knowledge of
sin” came. And this would be the measure used in the final
judgment, “so that . . . the whole world may be held
accountable to God” (Rom 3:19). Here again it is striking
that Paul did not think of Christ as solely the Savior, and
God alone as judge. On the contrary, he could speak equally
of “the judgment seat of God” (Rom 14:10) or “the judgment
seat of Christ” (2 Cor 5:10). Indeed, one of his favorite
phrases was “the day of the Lord” as indicating the day of
judgment,7 a prospect which he could confront with some
assurance (1 Cor 3:10–15).
The Tension between Already and Not Yet
One of the most distinctive features of Paul’s understanding
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described as the already/not-yet tension. This was the
twofold conviction: first, that something had already
happened for the believer, and second, that salvation was not
yet complete. This, of course, was a conscious mirroring of
what Paul regarded as the twofoldedness of Jesus’s ministry.
Jesus had already, during his ministry, or should we say, his
first ministry, begun the process of salvation. His death and
resurrection brought into effect through faith the beginning
of the saving process—hence the “already.” But that
process would not be completed until the return of Christ,
“not yet,” but in Paul’s hope, soon. As again he spelled
out his confident hope in his first letter to the Corinthian
believers: “As all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in
Christ . . . Christ the first fruits, then at his coming
those who belong to Christ” (1 Cor 15:22–23).
But in between that beginning and the triumphant climax
was the process of transformation to become like Christ, to
transfer, as it were, from being primarily “in Adam” to
being fully “in Christ.” In between was the process of
being transformed to become like Christ. As Paul puts it most
strikingly in Philippians 3:10–11: “I want to know Christ
and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his
sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I
may attain the resurrection from the dead.”
The fact that he can put knowing “the power of Christ’s
resurrection” prior to “the sharing of his sufferings”
presumably indicates that Paul saw the two as inextricably
intertwined. The “already” was not the complete story or
the complete process, but the “first installment,” which,
as we have seen, was the gift of the Spirit, in itself the
guarantee that the process begun would surely be completed.
So Paul can describe the process as one of being transformed
from one degree of glory to another into the image of Christ
(2 Cor 3:18), of being conformed to the image of God’s Son
(Rom 8:29), “to the body of his glory.”8 There is a
counterpart to reception of the spirit of adoption (Rom
8:15), which is the further act of adoption, namely, the

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redemption of the body (Rom 8:23). The gift of the Spirit is
the reassurance that the process of salvation will be
completed.
Jesus as Lord
As we have seen, Paul does not hesitate to speak of Jesus as
Lord. Of course, he was well aware that kyrios (Lord) was the
Greek translation of the Hebrew, “Yahweh.” But what is
striking is that he was quite happy to take references to
Yahweh and refer them to the Lord Jesus—as in Romans 10:9–
13, citing Joel 2:32: “Everyone who calls upon the name of
the Lord shall be saved.” Very striking too is the fact that
Paul draws on one of the strongest monotheistic passages in
the whole Bible—Isaiah 45:21–23—and uses its final
acclamation, “To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall
swear,” in his great hymn of praise to Christ (Phil 2:6–
11). And in Romans 9:5 Paul’s Greek (or punctuation) can be
taken as Paul referring to Christ as God “who is over all.”
Paul certainly saw God as fully acting in and through Christ.
He freely applied references to Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible to
Christ. “In him,” he did not hesitate to assert in another
hymn, “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col
1:19). Indeed, the hymn begins by hailing Christ as “the
image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation,”
in whom “all things in heaven and on earth were created,”
“created through him and for him. He himself is before all
things, and in him all things hold together” (Col 1:15–17).
Wow! How can we refrain from acknowledging that Paul saw in
Christ the agency of creation itself. It looks very much,
then, that Paul was so convinced that God had acted through
Christ that he did not hold back on some occasions from
identifying Christ with God.
However, when he applied himself to more detail of what
believers could hope for, he expressed himself more
carefully, as we see in 1 Corinthians 15:24–28. This is one
of the most extraordinary expressions of Paul’s confident

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hope—hope not just for the future, but for the final future,
the climax of human history, in which (of course, for Paul)
Christ has the climactic role. But what is most striking is
that the climax is not so much Christ, but God.
Then comes the end, when he [Christ] hands over the kingdom to
God the Father. . . . For he must reign until he has put all
his enemies under his feet. . . . For “God has put all things
in subjection under his feet” [Ps 8:7]. But when it says,
“All things are put in subjection,” it is plain that this
does not include the one who put all things in subjection
under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son
himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things
in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all. (1 Cor
15:24–28)
The really striking feature is that the language Paul uses
for creation in relation to Christ is the same language he
uses for the Son’s relation to God—“subjection”: as “all
things” are put in subjection under God, so Jesus the Son
will also be subject to God. In the end Christ will “hand
over the kingdom” to God. Which must mean that, however
highly Paul revered Jesus, he remained a faithful monotheist.
The climax is God.
The Later Paul
Most scholars think that the later letters attributed to
Paul, particularly the Pastoral Epistles,9 were not written
by Paul himself, but by one or another of those who followed
him. Alternatively, if Paul had survived his imprisonment in
Rome (where Acts ends its account of Christianity’s
beginnings), conceivably he could have written further
letters. In fact, the issue of authorship as such may not be
very important, since we can hardly exclude the possibility
that Paul himself had developed, for example, in his views of
churchmanship to include bishops (episkopoi)10 and deacons (1
Tim 3:8, 12) in the ordering of the churches he had
established. Either way, the Pastorals are probably best

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taken as indicating how the Pauline tradition developed in
the later decades of the first century.
What is more important here is whether the gospel of Paul
and the way in which Jesus was remembered and portrayed in
the Pastorals are any different. The talk is still of
Christ’s predetermined appearing to fulfill God’s purpose
of salvation:
This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages
began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of
our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life
and immortality to light through the gospel. (2 Tim 1:9–10)
Titus 1:2–3 speaks of “the hope of eternal life that God,
who never lies, promised before the ages began” and is now
revealed in the proclamation of Christ. Titus 2:13, however,
raises the intriguing question whether the writer was already
willing to speak of Jesus as God (“our great God and Savior,
Jesus Christ”); or should we rather translate “the great
God and our Savior Jesus Christ”? The issue is perhaps
clarified when we take the full phrase, “the manifestation
of the glory of our great God and Savior”—Jesus’s coming
being seen as the manifestation of the glory of the one God.
The parallel with John 1:14 (“we have seen his glory . .
.”) suggests that both the Pastorals and John were moving in
the same direction in their appreciation of the significance
of Jesus.
The title “Savior” is much more prominent in the
Pastorals than in the earlier Pauline letters, and is used
equally of Christ as it is of God—especially in Titus: “God
our Savior” (Titus 1:3; 2:10; 3:4) and “Christ Jesus our
Savior” (Titus 1:4; 2:13; 3:6). And, interestingly, the talk
of the second appearing has already assumed the more measured
tones of a hope which no longer expects imminent fulfillment.
The audience is charged “to keep the commandment without
spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus
Christ, which he will bring about at the right time” (1 Tim
6:14–15). The day of his appearing is still looked forward

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to, but without any note of urgency (2 Tim 4:1, 8). There is
more concern that lives be lived responsibly “in the present
age . . . while we wait for the blessed hope” to be realized
(Titus 2:12–13).
But otherwise, the Christology is characteristically
contained in what were evidently already well-established
creedal and hymnic formulae, often referred to as “faithful
sayings”:11
1 Tim 1:15 “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners—of whom I am the foremost.”
1 Tim 2:5–
6
“There is one God; there is one mediator between
God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who
gave himself a ransom for all.”
1 Tim 3:16 “He was revealed in flesh, vindicated in spirit,
seen by angels, proclaimed among Gentiles, believed
in throughout the world, taken up in glory.”
1 Tim 6:13 “In the presence of God, who gives life to all
things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony
before Pontius Pilate made the good confession.”
2 Tim 2:8 “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a
descendant of David—that is my gospel, for which I
suffer hardship.”
2 Tim 2:11
–13
“The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we
will also live with him; if we endure, we will also
reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny
us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he
cannot deny himself.”
Titus 3:5–
8
“He saved us, not because of any works of
righteousness that we had done, but according to his
mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by
the Holy Spirit. This Spirit he poured out on us
richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that,
having been justified by his grace, we might become
heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The
saying is sure.”

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This is presumably what is summed up as “the teaching that
is in accordance with godliness” (1 Tim 6:3).
This is probably what we should expect in a second-
generation view of Christ, where faith had become more
established and enshrined in formulae (“faithful sayings”)
which summarized the beliefs at the center of their worship
and which provided the basis for their lives individually and
communally. Here we can see the way still-early belief about
Christ was developing toward the more elaborate and more
carefully defined convictions about Jesus which eventuated in
the classic Christian creeds. That such developments could be
attributed to Paul, or at the very least to the influence of
Paul, is a reminder of just how much earliest Christianity’s
appreciation of Christ owed to Paul.
* * *
It is quite amazing just how much Christianity’s self-
understanding and understanding of Jesus owe to Paul. It is
not just the question, Without Paul, would the Jesus movement
ever have penetrated far into Europe? We might reframe the
same question as, Without Paul, would the Jesus movement ever
have become Christianity as it has been understood for
nineteen centuries? And integral to that latter question is
the issue of the way Jesus was coming to be understood. And
here is where we see the lasting influence of Paul on
Christian theology.
It is first with Paul that the Christian gospel was
summed up and worked out, not in terms of Jesus’s
teaching, but as focused on Jesus’s death as the
decisive atonement for sins, and on Jesus’s resurrection
as the sure promise of a salvation which would be
complete and final.
It is first with Paul that the gospel could be summed up
in terms of a justification and an acceptance by God

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which depended solely on a trust in the gospel and in the
one whom the gospel portrayed.
It is first with Paul that the benefits offered to faith
in Christ could be understood as a participation in
Christ, both in what he did in his death and resurrection
and in living out daily life “with Christ” and “in
Christ.”
It is first with Paul that the gift of the Spirit is
understood to be the defining mark of the Christian.
And it is first with Paul that the hope held out to
believers is not only of Christ’s return, but of
becoming more and more like Christ, until finally
transformed or raised again, as modeled by Christ, the
firstfruits of the final harvest of salvation.
In the later Paul we see the radical redefining of Christ
for a much wider audience carried through—a more conformist
Paul, with his radical edge trimmed and his ecclesiology more
formally structured and amenable to control once he had gone
to his reward. But his own radicalness could not be
forgotten, such had been his influence in spreading
Christianity well beyond Palestine and Syria. His letters
with their often pointed instructions were evidently
considered to be of enduring importance well beyond the
particular churches to which he wrote. And so, almost
inevitably, they were the first and most obvious candidates,
along with the records of Jesus’s ministry, to be included
in the canon which became the New Testament—the beginning of
the Christian Scripture. It remains of first importance for
Christianity that the ecclesiology of the Pastoral Epistles
did not result in these alone of the Pauline heritage being
counted as Scripture, that the enduring impact of the early
Paul was not lost to sight in what is generally known as the
“early Catholicism” of the later New Testament period.
Christian history has put Peter next to Jesus in a Christian
hierarchy of the most influential historical figures in the
originating of Christianity. And Peter’s ecclesiological

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influence is clear in the dominance of Rome in Christian
history. But Paul carries much more weight in the New
Testament canon than does Peter. And next to Jesus, it is the
Pauline heritage which has been the re-creative force in
Christianity, we might even say from the Reformation onwards.
It is the Paul who broke through old boundaries and
encouraged the life of the Spirit to go on bubbling and
bursting forth in new forms and formulae who most serves
Christianity today, as in the mission which he gave his life
to fulfilling.12
1. We could add “in him // whom.” These phrases, for example,
appear consistently (twelve times) in Col 1:14–19 and 2:3–15.
2. 1 Pet 3:16; 5:10, 14.
3. See particularly 2 Cor 1:22; 5:5. Note also Eph 1:14.
4. “The parousia of the Son of Man” was a prominent theme in
the great discourse remembered in Matt 24 (note vv. 3, 27, 37, 39).
5. Matt 24:42–44 // Luke 12:39–40.
6. E.g., the wicked tenants (Mark 12:1–12 parr.), the talents
(Matt 25:14–30 // Luke 19:11–27), the laborers in the vineyard
(Matt 20:1–16), and the rich fool (Luke 12:13–21).
7. 1 Cor 1:8; 5:5; 2 Cor 1:14; 1 Thess 5:2; 2 Thess 2:2.
8. Phil 3:21; cf. 1 Cor 15:49.
9. 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus.
10. Since the first reference in the Pauline letters is plural,
episkopoi in Philippians should probably be better translated as
“overseers” (Phil 1:1). In 1 Tim 3:2 and Titus 1:7, passages
dealing with church order, the reference is singular (episkopos)
and “bishop” would be a more appropriate translation.
11. See also 1 Tim 3:1; 4:9.
12. For further detail and discussion, please see James D. G.
Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1998); and Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, vol. 2 of Christianity
in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009).

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W
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jesus according to
Hebrews
hen we turn to the letter to the Hebrews, it quickly
appears to be a somewhat strange new territory. It is not
just the name, “To the Hebrews.” Why “the Hebrews”? Why
not “to Jews” or “Jews of the diaspora” (scattered round
the Mediterranean)? But more important, we do not know who
wrote the letter. Traditionally it was attributed to Paul,
and was still so in the King James (Authorized) Version of
the Bible published in 1611. But the letter itself gives no
indication as to who wrote it, and guesses, like Barnabas,
have no substantive ground on which to build their answer.
How, then, did it make it into the New Testament canon? Part
of the answer may be that it is generally reckoned to be the
finest Greek composition within the New Testament. But the
principal reason must be that it was making a substantial
impact in many churches round the Mediterranean. Indeed, it
has strong parallels to the thought world of Alexandrian
Judaism, familiar to us from the intertestamental Wisdom of
Solomon and the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo. So
perhaps it was the clearest expression of early Alexandrian
Christianity to emerge in the Mediterranean world, and partly
as a result was widely appreciated around the Mediterranean
churches. Which could suggest that the author was Apollos,
who came from Alexandria and who evidently was proficient in
Greek rhetoric (Acts 18:24). But we are too much in the dark
in all this, and the little patch of light around Apollos
could be misleading. So we simply have to accept that Hebrews
was widely received and influential as a well-considered
expression of earliest Christian belief. In any case, the
view of Jesus presented there has a distinctive character
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synoptic evangelists and the more sophisticated portrayals of
John and Paul.
Whatever the details of its origin and authorship, the
fact remains that the letter became an established part of
the New Testament—and that despite the fact, as we shall see
below, that what we may call its churchmanship is somewhat at
odds with the ecclesiology that became the norm for
Christianity during the second century. In fact, however, the
portrayal of Christ in Hebrews is as rich and as varied as
what we found in Paul’s letters.
Christ as Wisdom
The letter, if it is properly to be called a letter, opens
with a striking assertion, probably drawing on an early
Christian hymn:
In times past God spoke to the fathers through the
prophets
at many times and in diverse ways.
But in these last days he spoke to us through a Son,
whom he appointed heir of all things,
through whom also he made the world,
who is the radiance of God’s glory
and the stamp of his very being,
sustaining all things by his word of power.
Having made purification for sins, he sat down at the
right
hand of the majesty on high. (Heb 1:1–3)
The hymn is a striking expression of Wisdom Christology,
not dissimilar to what we saw in Colossians 1:15–20.
Noticeable is the use of “radiance” (apaugasma), which may
allude to Wisdom of Solomon 7:26, where, in a powerful

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description, divine Wisdom is described as the “radiance of
eternal light” (the only occurrence of the word in the LXX).
The echoes of Philo are even stronger. One of his
tractates, on Genesis 15:2–18, is entitled Who Is the Heir
of Divine Things? The second line of the Hebrews hymn
(“through whom also he made the world”) is very similar to
what Philo says of the Logos (Word) in several passages.1
Philo also speaks of man’s mind or soul as the apaugasma of
the divine Logos.2 And he speaks frequently of the human soul
as receiving a “stamp” of divine power,3 or being itself
the “stamp/impression” of the Logos.4
The point is that in Hebrew thought Wisdom and Logos were
ways of speaking about God’s action upon and within the
world of space-time. It is clear from various passages that
for Philo the Logos was “the reasoning faculty of God in the
act of planning to create the universe,”5 or the archetypal
divine idea which came to expression in creation, above all
of humankind.6 As noted above in chapter 3, part of the
attraction of the term logos was that it could express both
the unspoken word and the spoken word. So the concept of
divine Logos could express what we might refer to both as the
inner intention of God and its expression in action. For
Philo, in other words, the divine Logos was the thought of
God coming to expression—which well explains the attraction
of the term to the evangelist John. On this point one of the
most significant passages in Philo is On Dreams 1.65–66,
where he envisages penetrating as far as possible into the
divine Word, only to realize that in doing so “he does not
actually reach him who is in very essence God, but sees him
from afar.”
Similarly with Wisdom, the much more popular category
among Israel’s wisdom writers. As again, for example, in
Proverbs 3:19: “The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; by
understanding he established the heavens.” The author of the
Wisdom of Solomon (9:1–6) prays:

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O God of my fathers and Lord of mercy,
who hast made all things by thy word,
and by thy wisdom hast formed man, . . .
give me the wisdom that sits by thy throne. . . .
For even if one is perfect among the sons of men,
yet without the wisdom that comes from thee
he will be regarded as nothing.
And Sirach ends with a thought similar to that of Philo on
the Logos: “Though we speak much we cannot reach the end,
and the sum of our words is: ‘He is the all’ ” (Sir
43:27). In other words, Wisdom and Logos are simply ways of
speaking about God’s ordering of creation, and also of
indicating God’s design for humankind in the law.7
Here Christian thinkers need to remember that Israel’s
conception of God was almost as complicated and refined as
the Christian understanding of God. God’s interaction with
the cosmos and with humankind could be spoken of in terms of
God’s Spirit, of divine Logos and divine Wisdom, all the
while recognizing that God as such was always well beyond
human comprehension. As we have seen, Philo makes this clear
when he envisages going as far as he can in his conception of
God, only to realize there is much further to go. The Logos
and Wisdom are as much as it is possible for human beings to
know God; but, of course, there is far more which is beyond
human knowledge and perception. This was precisely why Wisdom
and Logos were so attractive to the first Christian
theologians. Hebrew reflection had found Wisdom in particular
to be an effective way of speaking about God’s interaction
with creation and involvement with his people, without
compromising his transcendence, and without compromising
their belief that God was one. It was undoubtedly this which
prompted the Wisdom Christology in Paul, as we saw in the
hymn Paul quotes in Colossians 1:15–20, and in Hebrews 1, as
also the Logos Christology of John’s prologue (John 1:1–
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Wisdom tradition and Philo’s Logos reflection managed to
maintain a spontaneity and flexibility which the Christian
adaptation of it in Christology quite quickly lost.
God’s Son
That powerful opening of the letter, quoted above at the
beginning of the chapter, moves on immediately to another
powerful affirmation. For it ends by noting that the Son had
become much superior to angels (Heb 1:4). And, as though the
preceding statement did not provide sufficient explanation,
the author adds the explanation of the Son’s superiority
(Heb 1:5–6):
For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you” [Ps 2:7]? Or again, “I will be
his Father, and he will be my Son” [2 Sam 7:14]? And again,
when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let
all God’s angels worship him” [Deut 32:43].
And he proceeds through a sequence of biblical quotations
(Heb 1:7–12) to indicate that the Son is high above the
angels, ending with the climactic question (Heb 1:13): “To
which of the angels has he ever said, ‘Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’?” (Ps
110:1).
Israel’s Psalms had still much more to feed into
Hebrews’ Christology. For, still pursuing the theme of the
Son’s superiority to angels, the author of Hebrews goes on
to reflect on Psalm 8 (Heb 2:5–9)—here drawing in his own
adaptation of the “Son of Man” Christology so familiar from
the Gospels: “What is man that you are mindful of him, or
the son of man that you care for him?” The psalmist had
gloried in humankind’s place in creation, the climax of
creation, “a little lower than the angels,” “crowned with
glory and honor,” with “all things [in subjection] under
their feet” (Ps 8:5–6). In Paul’s use of Psalm 8:6 the
assurance was that by raising Jesus from the dead God had
exalted Jesus, and that God would indeed “put all things in

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subjection under his feet” (1 Cor 15:27). Hebrews notes that
in fact Psalm 8:6 was not true, or should we say, not yet
true, that all things were in subjection to humans. What we
do see, however, is Jesus, “who for a little while was made
lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor
because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of
God he might taste death for everyone” (Heb 2:9). In other
words, it is Jesus who first really fulfills God’s purpose
for humankind as a whole. But he does so (Heb 2:10–13) as
one with those who can be called both his “brothers and
sisters” (Ps 22:22) and his “children” (Isa 8:18).
What Hebrews celebrates, then, is that Jesus shared fully
the reality and frailness of humankind, “so that through
death he might destroy the one who has the power of death,
that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were
held in slavery by the fear of death” (Heb 2:14–15). This
is one of the most powerful passages in Hebrews, not least
since it takes seriously Jesus’s humanness even while
celebrating his superiority over angels. It is one of the
most striking transitions in the document. Having begun by
stressing Jesus’s superiority to angels, the author points
in another direction: “For it is clear that he did not come
to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham” (Heb 2:16).
Angels do not need salvation. It is human beings that need a
savior. That was why “he had to become like his brothers in
every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful
high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of
atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was
tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are
being tested” (Heb 2:17–18). That is why his superiority to
angels is not to the point here. And why, having introduced
the theme of Jesus as high priest, the author pauses to press
home the point that Jesus, “the apostle and high priest of
our confession” (Heb 3:1), was superior also to Moses, the
most highly revered servant of God within Israel’s history
and cult. “Moses was faithful . . . as a servant. . . .
Christ, however, was faithful . . . as a son” (Heb 3:5–6).

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At which point the writer pauses and invites those
listening to the reading of his letter also to pause and to
reflect on their responsibility in receiving such a message.
As the Israelites themselves had failed so badly, in failing
to enter the promised land, so too the listeners to the
letter being read to them should take care not to repeat the
Israelites’ mistake, not to harden their hearts, but to
“hear his voice” (Heb 3:7, 15; 4:7). And only then does the
writer turn to his main theme.
Priest according to the Order of Melchizedek
It is at Hebrews 4:14 that the letter opens up its main
theme. In Jesus, the Son of God, we have a great high priest.
The important thing about the high priest is that he is one
of us. He is not above and unfamiliar with the human
weaknesses which we all experience. Like us, Jesus has been
tested. Yet, unlike us, he is without sin (Heb 4:15). The
usual high priest “is able to deal gently with the ignorant
and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness; and
because of this he must offer sacrifice for his own sins as
well as for those of the people” (Heb 5:2–3). Not so with
Jesus.
For Jesus’s priesthood is different from the regular
priesthood. To make his point the writer goes back once again
to Psalm 110, from which he has already drawn the proof that
Jesus is higher than the angels (Heb 1:13). Not only is Jesus
hailed as God’s Son (Heb 5:5, again citing Ps 2:7), but
Psalm 110:4 also declares him “a priest forever, according
to the order of Melchizedek” (Heb 5:6). Which does not mean
that he was exempt from suffering. On the contrary,
“although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he
suffered; and having [thus] been made perfect, he became the
source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been
designated by God a high priest according to the order of
Melchizedek” (Heb 5:8–10). This is most striking, that
Hebrews recognizes and emphasizes the humanity of Jesus—“he

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learned obedience,” and it was through his suffering that he
was made perfect. The author could hardly stress more clearly
that Jesus had been able to accomplish what he had
accomplished only through his suffering and death.
After another pause to warn against backsliding (Heb 6:1–
8), the author takes up the symbolism of the sanctuary. As
his audience would know, the tent of meeting during Israel’s
wilderness wanderings had had two sections: the holy place
where the priests could enter daily to offer the blood of the
everyday sacrifices, and the holy of holies. Only the high
priest could enter into the holy of holies, and only on one
day in the year, the most sacred Day of Atonement, when he
would sprinkle the blood of the atoning goat on “the mercy
seat” to make atonement “for himself and for his house and
for all the assembly of Israel” (Lev 16:17). It is this
imagery which the writer of Hebrews takes up, seeing the tent
of meeting as an image of heaven, of the very presence of
God. As the high priest entered the holy of holies with the
blood of the atoning sacrifice, so Christ, high priest
according to the order of Melchizedek, had entered heaven,
“behind the curtain” separating the holy place from the
holy of holies, “a forerunner on our behalf” (Heb 6:19–
20), to open the way for ordinary humans to enter, that is,
as will become apparent, to enter on their own behalf.
All this depends on the writer’s understanding of
Melchizedek and of what Scripture says about him. As Genesis
14:18 indicates, Melchizedek was king of Salem, usually taken
to be Jerusalem,8 and “priest of God Most High.” According
to the Genesis account, Melchizedek met Abraham and blessed
him. Significantly Abraham acknowledged Melchizedek’s
priesthood and the blessing Melchizedek had bestowed on him
by giving Melchizedek a tithe, “one-tenth of everything”
(Gen 14:20). The most significant thing about Melchizedek,
for the writer of Hebrews, however, is not only that his name
means “king of righteousness,” and, as king of Salem,
“king of peace” (Heb 7:2). What is more significant is that
the very limited amount of information which Genesis has

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about Melchizedek allows the author of Hebrews to conclude
that the Melchizedek of Genesis 14 was “without father,
without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning
of days nor end of life” (Heb 7:3). It is a very bold
deduction to make: that because Melchizedek’s birth and
death are not recorded in the scriptural history, he can be
counted as symbolizing or representing something eternal. As
a priest, without (recorded) beginning and end of days, he
can represent an eternal priesthood; “resembling the Son of
God, he remains a priest forever” (Heb 7:3). And the fact
that Abraham paid Melchizedek tithes, and received his
blessing, means that all Abraham’s descendants, including
the priestly descendants of Levi, acknowledge that the
Melchizedek priesthood is superior to the Levitical
priesthood (Heb 7:4–10).
With the bit now between his teeth,
the writer goes on to draw out the significance of the
Melchizedek line of priesthood (Heb 7:11–28). In particular,
priests according to the order of Aaron die; their priesthood
is not forever (Heb 7:23). And they have to offer sacrifices
every day, for their own sins as well (Heb 7:27). In
contrast, Christ is a priest, not by virtue of physical
descent (from Levi), “but through the power of an
indestructible life” (Heb 7:16). As Psalm 110:4 affirms,
“You are a priest forever, according to the order of
Melchizedek,” an authorization for Christ’s priesthood
cited twice within a few verses (Heb 7:17, 21), no doubt to
make the point clear. And, unlike the Aaronic priests, Christ
does not need to offer sacrifices every day, for his own sins
as well as for the sins of the people. In contrast, he has
done it, that is, offered sacrifice for the sins of the
people, “once for all when he offered himself” (Heb 7:27).
Having argued his case for claiming that Christ is a
priest—unqualified as not coming from the tribe of Levi, but
qualified by resurrection and ascension for the eternal
priesthood of Melchizedek—the writer emphasizes that this
accords with the promise of a new covenant (Heb 8). The
problem with the first covenant was that the offerings for

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sins had to take place every day in an earthly sanctuary. But
the promise of a new covenant (Jer 31:31–34) includes the
promise that sins will be forgiven once and for all (Heb
8:12). Which means that repeated offerings for sins are now
no longer necessary. The “new covenant” has rendered the
old covenant “obsolete” (Heb 8:13). And the author goes on
to contrast the old tabernacle (and the Jerusalem temple)
with its holy place, and curtained-off holy of holies, with
the real presence of God in heaven, where Christ has entered
in his ascension. He has fulfilled the climactic role of
priest, bringing not the blood of goats and calves, but his
own blood, “thus obtaining eternal redemption” (Heb 9:12).
And whereas the old covenant priests had to offer sacrifices
repeatedly, day by day, year by year, Jesus has entered the
heavenly reality, into the very presence of God, “once for
all” offering his own blood. It is from there that Jesus
will appear a second time, not to deal with sin (he has
already done that), “but to save those who are eagerly
waiting for him” (Heb 9:28).
The author of Hebrews has already made his point, but he
goes on in chapter 10 to drive it home. The essential point
is that since Christ has secured the forgiveness of sins, by
his once-for-all self-sacrifice on the cross, “there is no
longer any offering for sin,” no more need for such
offerings (Heb 10:18). By his death on the cross Jesus has
breached the curtain which had shielded the holy of holies,
the symbolic presence of God, from everyday human eyes. In
consequence, the great climax is that we too, author and
recipients of the letter, now can have confidence to enter
the (heavenly) sanctuary by the blood of Jesus. The curtain
separating the holy place from the holy of holies has been
stripped away. Now we all, no longer just priests, and no
longer just the high priest, can press through into the
heavenly holy of holies, into the very presence of God for
ourselves (Heb 10:19–22). For those whose whole lives and
religious understanding and experience had been built round
the assumption that God is so infinite and holy that only one

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person, and only once a year, could enter his presence,
Hebrews must have been read and listened to with something of
a shock. The writer’s whole point was and is that Jesus has
changed everything. He himself has more than fulfilled all
the requirements necessary to complete the role of priest. In
fulfilling the role of definitive sacrifice as well as that
of sacrificing priest, he has stripped away the curtain that
shielded the presence of God from human eyes. And in doing so
he has opened the way for those previously prevented from
experiencing God’s forgiveness and presence directly for
themselves, has opened the way into God’s very presence.
It is quite a puzzling fact that Hebrews was accepted into
the New Testament canon, at a time when the language and
practice of priesthood were coming back into early
Christianity. What is equally puzzling is the fact that the
Second Vatican Council used Hebrews, of all texts, to expound
the doctrine of a continuing special order of priesthood
within the people of God. To use Hebrews to justify or
explain a Christian priesthood, while ignoring the clear
thrust and argument of the letter as a whole (as does Vatican
II’s Lumen Gentium §28), still seems to me to constitute a
form of eisegesis (reading into the text) and special
pleading which has no justification from tradition. The
letter could hardly be clearer: (1) Jesus’s priesthood is
unique and unrepeatable—only those are qualified who have
“neither beginning of days nor end of life.” That is, only
one qualifies for that unique Melchizedek priesthood—only
Jesus. And (2) because he has opened the way to God, so that
worshipers can approach God immediately and directly, there
is no longer any need for priests to play an intermediary
role—the need for the role Christ played has ended. This is
precisely the wonder and excitement of Hebrews’s argument:
that the worshiper through Christ has immediate and direct
access to the presence of God, without requiring any priestly
intermediation. This is the lasting significance of Hebrews!
Somewhat sadly, it is hard to escape the conclusion that to
return to a system of worship still requiring and dependent

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on priestly mediation would seem to reject Hebrews and in
effect to dismiss it from the New Testament!
The Pioneer and Perfecter of Faith
The author’s argument is more or less complete, so after a
word of encouragement (Heb 10:24–25) and a rather more
frightening word of warning (Heb 10:26–39), he turns to a
final paean in praise of faith and the history of faith. It
starts with a striking definition of faith—striking, not
least, because it lifts readers’ and hearers’ eyes beyond
the usual Christian definition of faith as believing in
Christ. Here faith is defined as “the assurance of things
hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1).
Here is a definition which allows believers in Christ to
acknowledge fellowship with a much wider circle of faith. In
particular, it enables Christians to recognize a continuity
of belief in Christ with a broader or perhaps deeper trust
which those who never knew Christ nevertheless exercised in
relation to God, even if less clearly known than Christ had
made possible. It is worth noting the high respect which
Hebrews shows to this not-yet-Christian faith. Hebrews 11:1
encourages Christians to recognize fully the character and
quality of genuine faith and trust in God where Jesus Christ
has never been known.
The list of honorable mention begins with Abel (Heb 11:4–
6), concentrates naturally on Abraham (Heb 11:8–19) and
Moses (Heb 11:23–29), and runs out of breath already at
Israel’s judges. It climaxes with the recognition, already
implicit in the opening definition of faith, that despite
such impressive faith, their experience fell short, since it
was not yet—and could not yet be—faith in Christ (Heb 11:39
–40). But this roll call of faith was all the preparation
needed for the climax of faith, faith in Christ. The powerful
image is of a long-distance race, which the author and
readers of/listeners to his letter are running, with the
supporting crowd made up of those cited who have already

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completed the race. And the goal, the finishing line, is
already in sight, signaled by Jesus, “the pioneer and
perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was
set before him, endured the cross . . . and has taken his
seat at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2).
Further exhortation climaxes in a contrast between the
mountain in Sinai where Moses encountered God (Heb 12:18–21)
and Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, to which those
addressed in the letter have already come. That is where
“God the judge of all” is, together with “the spirits of
the righteous made perfect,” and also, most important,
Jesus, “the mediator of a new covenant” whose “sprinkled
blood . . . speaks a better word than the blood of Abel”
(Heb 12:22–24). Still more exhortation climaxes in the
thought that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today
and forever”—an enduring mediator and through-way to God
which leaves tabernacle, and temple priest and cult, far in
the past (Heb 13:8). The memory of Israel’s cult provision
of sacrifice for sin does not entice back to that provision,
for it simply pointed forward to Jesus, who “also suffered
outside the city gate in order to sanctify the people by his
own blood” (Heb 13:12). So believers in Jesus should not
allow the ties of family and location to hold them back, but
should be prepared for insult and abuse. They should remember
and take heart from the fact that their primary loyalty is no
longer to a city to which they belong or a tradition to which
they were formerly indebted. “Here we have no lasting city,
but we are looking for the city that is to come”—a new
Jerusalem (Heb 13:14)!
And the writer ends with one of the most powerful parting
blessings in the whole of biblical and Christian tradition:
Now may the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our
Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of
the eternal covenant, make you complete in everything good so
that you may do his will, working among us that which is
pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the
glory forever and ever. Amen. (Heb 13:20–21)

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* * *
When we look at the letter to the Hebrews as we have done, it
is difficult to avoid a feeling of some surprise that the
letter is part of the New Testament canon. The quality of its
Greek and possibly its somewhat exceptional origin in Egypt
(if that is where it came from) presumably played a part.
And, as already noted, we have to assume that it made an
extensive and enduring impact round the Mediterranean
churches—otherwise it is difficult to account for its
acceptance. But apart from that we are in the dark.
The striking thing is that this acceptance must have been
growing and becoming established precisely at the time when,
presumably as a result of the influence of Clement, Ignatius,
and others, the role of the priest was becoming reestablished
in the Christian churches. We have to add: becoming
reestablished despite Hebrews. For if we have properly
understood Hebrews, it would have been most natural to
conclude that the worshipers of Jesus no longer needed
priests. Christ himself was the only priest now needed. All
could go directly, for themselves, into the presence of God.
But, despite Hebrews, the centrality of priests as
intermediaries and essential to effective worship was
reaffirmed in second-century Christianity—and quickly became
established, again despite Hebrews. Quite how Hebrews could
be so prized (as to become canonical) and yet at the same
time could be so ignored (by the reaffirmation that priests
are still necessary for legitimate worship of the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ) is one of the great puzzles
in the early history of Christianity.
What is also so surprising is that early rabbinic Judaism
was at the same time moving in precisely the opposite
direction. With the destruction of Jerusalem and of the
Jerusalem temple (the very heart of traditional Judaism), and
despite the longing for the temple’s restoration (still an
ache in the heart of many Jews), Judaism moved forward in a
new and different direction. The temple ceased to be the

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focus of Judaism. The Torah became the almost exclusive focus
of rabbinic Judaism. The priest lost his central function in
Jewish religion. Now the rabbi took over the central role.
And this was happening at precisely the same time that early
Christianity was turning again to religious belief and
practice in which the priest was central.
This always strikes me as one of the most astonishing
developments of the late first and early second century in
the two religions closest to the heart of Jesus and the first
disciples. Despite its long history of being a temple-
centered religion, with priests and sacrifices so fundamental
to the religion that the religion could hardly be conceived
without priest and sacrifice, Judaism became something
different from the second century onwards—a religion of book
(Torah) and teacher (rabbi), no longer of priest and
sacrifice. In contrast—indeed in complete contrast—
Christianity began with a focus on the word which Jesus
preached and embodied, with priest and sacrifice not at all
at the center; and yet in the second century Christianity
reverted to the concept and practice of religion as focused
on priest and sacrifice. The Lord’s Supper was in effect
transformed from being part of a shared meal into a
reenactment of a priestly sacrifice. Whereas in Judaism
priestly ritual gave way to word expounded, in Christianity
the word became in effect subordinated to the revived
priestly ritual.
One cannot but wonder what the author of the letter to the
Hebrews would have made of it all—and indeed how a Christian
priest today can expound and explain Hebrews without at least
some, and perhaps considerable, embarrassment.
1. On the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel 8; That God Is Unchangeable
57; On the Migration of Abraham 6; On the Special Laws 1.8.
2. On the Creation of the World 146; On the Special Laws 1.8.
3. Allegorical Interpretation 1.61; On the Sacrifices of Cain and
Abel 60; That the Worse Attacks the Better 77; On the Confusion of
Tongues 102; Who Is the Heir? 38, 181, 294.

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4. Allegorical Interpretation 3.95–97.
5. On the Creation of the World 24.
6. On the Creation of the World 139; On Drunkenness 32–33; Who
Is the Heir? 230–31; On Dreams 2.45; Questions and Answers on
Genesis 1.4; Questions and Answers on Exodus 2.122.
7. See further my Christology in the Making, 2nd ed. (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), chs. 6 and 7.
8. Somewhat surprisingly, the author of Hebrews shows no interest
in this point; it is the heavenly Jerusalem in which he is more
interested (Heb 12:22).

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L
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jesus according to
James, Peter, John, and Jude
etters seem to have been the principal form of
communication between the founding leaders of earliest
Christianity and the churches they established. Nor should we
forget that the final book of the New Testament, Revelation,
as we shall see, is in effect prefaced with a sequence of
letters. Since no microphones or recording equipment was
available to preserve the sermons, addresses, or teaching
which brought into existence the churches addressed in these
letters, we are dependent solely on the letters themselves to
gain at least a glimpse of the churches to which they were
written. Equally we have to depend on various echoes and
allusions to gain an impression of the good news in response
to which the churches came into existence. Here we lack the
assistance which Luke’s account of the early spread of
Christianity through the mission of Paul provided in giving
what we might call a two-dimensional perspective on the
Pauline churches. But at least we have the letters of James,
Peter, John, and Jude themselves, and can gain from them a
fuller impression of and insight into Christianity’s
beginnings apart from the Pauline mission, on which, as just
noted, Acts concentrates.
The letters are usually referred to as a group—the
Catholic Epistles. “Catholic” is here used in its basic
sense of “universal,” referring to the letters as not
addressed to a single church or person, as were the Pauline
letters. To avoid possible confusion, they are sometimes
known as the universal or general epistles. However, that
should not detract from the fact that they were written to
particular churches, though the probability is that they were
soon copied and passed on to other churches. As such they

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give a fuller picture of early Christian growth and expansion
than we receive from a traditional overdependence on Acts and
the Pauline letters.
Not least of importance is the information and reminder
they provide of the mission and contribution to church
foundation and growth which the letter-writers made during
the first century. In Christian history, who could name a
more significant group? James and Jude, brothers of Jesus
himself,1 and Peter and John, the other two names which,
beside Paul and James, resonate most richly in the beginnings
of Christianity. It was no doubt this which encouraged
whoever took the initiative to collect the written remains of
these four to ensure that they were not lost. Other names,
like Clement and Ignatius, would soon resonate through the
Mediterranean churches, and their writings would be valued
highly. But they did not belong to the initial period; they
were not founding fathers; they had not belonged to the first
group of disciples of Jesus. It was this nearness to Jesus
which the second generation of Christianity missed and which
made them all the more desirous to preserve whatever writings
they could which ensured their own continuity with and
faithfulness to the good news which Jesus both brought and
embodied.
The Letter of James
The letter begins rather dramatically: “James, a servant of
God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the
Dispersion” (Jas 1:1). Since in earliest Christianity the
other prominent James, the brother of John, was executed by
Herod Agrippa in about 42 CE (Acts 12:2), the only plausible
candidate as author of the New Testament letter is James the
brother of Jesus. He is mentioned only once in the Gospels
(Matt 13:55 // Mark 6:3), but an appearance of the risen
Jesus to James was prominent in earliest Christian memory (1
Cor 15:7), and he seems to have emerged quite quickly as
leader of the believers in Jerusalem itself. In his first

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visit to Jerusalem after his conversion, Paul mentions seeing
only James other than Peter (Gal 1:19). But later on James’s
leadership role is clear in Acts 12:17, and he in effect
chaired the crucial Jerusalem conference deciding what should
be expected of gentile converts (Acts 15:13–21; Gal 2:9).
His leadership role is confirmed in subsequent references
(Gal 2:12; Acts 21:18). All the more interesting, therefore,
is it that in the letter attributed to him, nothing is said
of that close personal relationship which he had to Jesus.
Equally interesting is the fact that the letter is addressed
to “the twelve tribes of the diaspora”—“diaspora”
denoting the “dispersion” of the Jews from Palestine. This
confirms not only that the Pauline mission was reaching round
the eastern Mediterranean, but also that Jewish believers in
a wide scatter of areas were maintaining a direct connection
with the mother church in Jerusalem.
In fact, the letter refers to Jesus on only one other
occasion:
My brothers, do you with your acts of favoritism really
believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? (Jas 2:1)
And it goes on in a powerful plea to those hearing the letter
read to them, that they should respect all who came into
their worship gathering, the poor as much as the well-to-do
(Jas 2:1–7). That gives us an immediate clue as to how Jesus
was remembered in the Jewish diaspora churches and what he
was remembered for. It was not so much his death (and
resurrection) as the concern he had for the poor which he
showed and taught during his ministry. Also relevant here is
the fact that, apart from the two references to the “Lord
Jesus Christ” already cited, the two references to the hope
for “the coming of the Lord” (Jas 5:7, 8), and the advice
on anointing the sick with oil “in the name of the Lord”
(Jas 5:14–15), the other references to “the Lord” are
probably to God.2 That, of course, is itself of no little
interest since it implies that even in what we might refer to
as Jesus’s own family circle, Jesus could be referred to as

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“the Lord” in the same way as God was referred to as “the
Lord.”
It is not at all clear whether this was intended to be a
letter written or dictated by James himself. It begins as a
letter but does not end as a letter. It may then be that
collections or remembrances of James’s teaching were put
together in a quasi-letter format to be circulated among the
Jewish Christian churches. There is an interesting parallel
with the Q material, which most scholars see as one of the
sources drawn on by Matthew and Luke in composing their
Gospels. As we saw (chapter 2 above), the Q tradition could
be incorporated into the full Gospel format set out by Mark,
and a Q document as such was not retained. But the memory of
James’s teaching could not be so retained, so we can be
grateful that it was encapsulated in this way in a letter
format.
The letter itself can be categorized as belonging to the
Jewish wisdom literature, well known to us from Proverbs, and
the intertestamental Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon. The echoes
and occasionally direct quotations particularly from Proverbs
and Sirach are frequent.3 What is interesting is that the
letter of James recalls and draws on Jesus’s teaching in
just the same way, Jesus in effect being recalled as a famous
teacher of wisdom, very much in the tradition of Israel’s
famous wisdom literature. I give examples of the clearest
dependency of James on the Jesus tradition, but there any
many other echoes of Jesus’s teaching.4
JAMES JESUS
Jas 1:5: “If any of you is
lacking in wisdom, ask God . .
. and it will be given you.”
Matt 7:7: “Ask, and it will be
given you; search, and you will
find.”
Jas 2:5: “Has not God chosen
the poor in the world . . . to
be heirs of the kingdom . . .
?”
Luke 6:20: “Blessed are you who
are poor, for yours is the
kingdom of God.”

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Jas 2:8: “You do well if you
really fulfill the royal law
according to the scripture,
‘You shall love your neighbor
as yourself.’ ”
Mark 12:31: “ ‘You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment
greater than these.”
Jas 4:9: “Let your laughter be
turned into mourning and your
joy into dejection.”
Matt 5:4: “Blessed are those who
mourn, for they shall be
comforted.”
Jas 4:10: “Humble yourselves
before the Lord, and he will
exalt you.”
Matt 23:12: “All who humble
themselves will be exalted.”
Jas 5:1: “Come now, you rich
people, weep and wail for the
miseries that are coming to
you.”
Luke 6:24: Woe to you that are
rich, for you have received your
consolation.”
Jas 5:2–3: “Your riches have
rotted, and your clothes are
moth-eaten. Your gold and
silver have rusted . . .”
Matt 6:20: “But store up for
yourselves treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor rust
consumes . . .”
Jas 5:12: “. . . do not swear,
either by heaven or by earth or
by any other oath, but let your
‘Yes’ be yes and your ‘No’
be no, so that you may not fall
under condemnation.”
Matt 5:34–37: “Do not swear at
all, either by heaven . . . or
by the earth . . . or by
Jerusalem. . . . Let your word
be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’;
anything more than this comes
from the evil one.”
Two things are interesting here. One is that the influence of
the Jesus tradition is pretty clear. The other is that the
teaching of Jesus is not recalled as a fixed tradition which
has to be formally attributed. Rather we see that the
teaching of Jesus has been absorbed and become in effect an
integral part of the Christian paraenesis. It is not the
teaching of Jesus respectfully preserved, as it were, in a
glass case, to be paraded on special occasions. It is the
teaching of James, but a teaching which has been impacted,
shaped, and molded by the tradition of Israel’s wisdom
teaching and particularly by the memory of what Jesus taught

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as part of that tradition—perhaps, indeed, as the climax of
that tradition.
So here is the way Jesus was remembered, probably within
his own native community and presumably by his own brother.
It is the day-to-day practicality of the teaching—not great
theological reflection such as we find in Paul and in
Hebrews, but practical everyday counsel on how to live a
humble and a disciplined life, thoughtful for one’s
responsibilities and concerned for others. Without James
there would be the danger of Christianity being seen as a
kind of theological exercise. With James in the New
Testament, however, Christians can never forget that they
belong to an ancient tradition of Jewish wisdom, and that
love of neighbor is as fundamental to the Christian life as
any theologizing about Jesus and the creation of humankind.
The (First) Letter of Peter
Somewhat surprisingly, when it comes to the writings which
make up the New Testament, 1 Peter is something of a problem.
The quality of the Greek makes one wonder whether it was
written by a Galilean fisherman; or should we attribute the
Greek itself rather to Silvanus, the actual letter-writer (1
Pet 5:12)? The relative lack of personal reminiscence of the
life of Jesus, apart from 1 Peter 2:21–255 and 5:1, is
surprising in a letter attributed to his most famous
disciple. So too the strongly Pauline character of the
language and contents of the letter is also rather surprising
from one whose status in Christian memory is entirely
independent of Paul. And the absence of any recollection of
Peter engaged in mission in Asia Minor, apart from the letter
itself, is bound to leave us wondering. On the other hand,
our knowledge of Peter from the Gospels and Acts is still
rather limited, and at the very least the fact that the
letter was attributed to Peter reminds us of how highly he
was esteemed in earliest Christianity. So whether it was
composed or dictated by Peter himself, or used as a way of

167
remembering and celebrating the importance of his role in
Christianity’s beginnings, may be a discussion which we
cannot bring to a clear resolution.
Certainly 1 Peter refers to Jesus far more than does
James. The author introduces himself as “an apostle of Jesus
Christ” (1 Pet 1:1) and greets his readers as “destined . .
. to be sprinkled with his blood” (1 Pet 1:2). He hails
“the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 1:3),
with no attempt at a more Trinitarian formulation. He
rejoices in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
and draws assurance from the sure hope both of Christ’s
future revelation (1 Pet 1:3–9) and of the grace which
“Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed” (1 Pet
1:13). He recalls that his readers were ransomed “with the
precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect
or blemish,” a destiny determined “before the foundation of
the world” but now “revealed at the end of the ages for
your sake” (1 Pet 1:18–20). And a strong theme is the
extent to which Christ’s sufferings can serve as a comfort
and reassurance to the recipients in their sufferings:
Christ’s sufferings leave “an example, so that you should
follow in his steps,” to which is attached a quotation from
Isaiah 53:9 (1 Pet 2:19–23). Those listening to the letter
being read could rejoice in that they were sharing in
Christ’s sufferings (1 Pet 4:13–16).6
The extent to which the faith expressed in the letter is
focused in Christ is clear from the other references to Jesus
in the letter:
1 Pet 2:4
–8
“Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by
mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and
like living stones, let yourselves be built into a
spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus
Christ”; with further quotations from Isa 28:16, Ps
118:22, and Isa 8:14.
1 Pet 3:18
–19
“Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the
righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you

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to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made
alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made
a proclamation to the spirits in prison” (the
disobedient in the days of Noah who perished in the
flood); similarly 4:6.
1 Pet 3:21
–22
“Baptism . . . now saves you—not as a removal of
dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a
good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right
hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers
made subject to him.”
1 Pet 4:10
–11
Believers must speak and serve “so that God may be
glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. To him
belong the glory and the power forever and ever.
Amen.”
The clear sense of Christ as the medium through whom
worshipers can draw near to God, whose resurrection is the
ground of their confidence and hope, and who preeminently
brings glory to God, could hardly be clearer. Also noticeable
is the fact that 1 Peter could use the title “Lord” equally
for Jesus (1 Pet 1:3; 3:15) and for God (1 Pet 1:25; 3:12),
so that the reference in 1 Peter 2:3 and 13 can be taken
either way without concern. And the fact that 1 Peter is the
only New Testament writing apart from Paul that uses the
phrase “in Christ” (1 Pet 3:16; 5:10, 14) should not escape
notice. Even more striking is the fact that the letter refers
to the Spirit who inspired Israel’s prophets as “the Spirit
of Christ” (1 Pet 1:11). And it is 1 Peter which includes
the thought that between his crucifixion and resurrection
Jesus descended into hell to minister there (1 Pet 3:18–19),
a rather puzzling reference which was included in the
Apostles’ Creed but was not retained thereafter.
In dealing with James we listed some notable echoes of the
Jesus tradition, wholly understandable if the letter had
gathered together memories of James’s own exhortations. With
1 Peter we might well have expected the same, but, somewhat
surprisingly, while there are echoes, as we see below, there

169
is little that is as close to the Jesus tradition as we saw
with James. Does this simply indicate a teaching tradition so
well absorbed that much of its distinctiveness has been lost?
One would have expected the followers of Jesus to want to
make the point that their teaching was drawn directly from
Jesus himself. Or were they so conscious of the Lord Jesus’s
daily risen presence with them that they felt no need to
refer back to the specific teaching of his Palestinian
ministry? He was still with them, after all, and his earlier
teaching was entirely adaptable to their own and differing
situations.
At any rate, it is important to note the continuing
influence of Jesus and his teaching in a Christianity already
well established in Asia Minor. The nearest echoes of the
Jesus tradition are as follows:7
1 PETER JESUS TRADITION
1:6; 4:13 Matt 5:12
1:10–12 Matt 13:17
1:17 Luke 11:2
2:12b Matt 5:16b
2:19–20 Luke 6:32 // Matt 5:46–47
3:9, 16 Luke 6:28 // Matt 5:44
3:14 Matt 5:10
4:5 Matt 12:36
4:7 Luke 21:36
4:14 Luke 6:22 // Matt 5:11
5:6 Luke 14:11
5:7 Matt 6:25–34

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Particularly noticeable, however, is the elaborated
meditation on the significance of Jesus’s death (1 Pet 2:21
–25). The passage is principally a reflection on the great
Servant Song of Isaiah 53, and in the New Testament it is the
most powerful expression of the theology which was focused on
Isaiah’s figure of the suffering servant. It is certainly
worth repeating in full:
Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that
you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no
deceit was found in his mouth” [Isa 53:9]. When he was
abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not
threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges
justly. He himself bore our sins [Isa 53:4] in his body on the
cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for
righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed [Isa 53:5].
For you were going astray like sheep [Isa 53:6], but now you
have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls. (1
Pet 2:21–25)
Perhaps most striking is the fact that the author of 1
Peter is not particularly acclaimed. As noted above, he
introduces himself simply as “an apostle of Jesus Christ”
(1 Pet 1:1). And later he exhorts the elders of the
communities to which he writes, calling himself “an elder
and a witness of the sufferings of Christ” (1 Pet 5:1). But
he does not lay claim to any primacy or precedence. All of
which, of course, may tell us more both of how Peter himself
recalled his ministry and of how he was remembered by those
who first cherished his memory and ministry.
1–3 John
The three letters attributed to John clearly belong together
and share the distinctively Johannine characteristics of
John’s Gospel. So it is most natural to take them together.
And the letters may give us the clearest indication of who
wrote both them and the Gospel. Although 1 John does not
indicate its author, both 2 John and 3 John indicate in their
opening words that they were written by John “the Elder.”

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How “the Elder” relates to John the apostle remains
unclear; this lack of clarity presumably explains why it took
some time for the letters to be accepted in the canon of the
New Testament.
One of the most interesting questions regarding 1 John in
particular is why it was written. The most obvious answer is
suggested by 1 John 2:19. There had evidently been something
of a schism in the Johannine community. Some had gone out
from and left the assembly. And the reason was that they
could not, or could no longer, affirm that “Jesus is the
Christ.” For the author that meant that they denied both the
Son and the Father who had sent him (1 John 2:22–23). He
condemns them as “antichrist”—the only use of the term in
the New Testament (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7). The
divisive issue was evidently the belief that “Jesus Christ
has come in the flesh” (1 John 4:2–3; 2 John 7). The
dissenters were presumably of the same mind as those who came
to be known as gnostics, who saw a fundamental antithesis
between matter and spirit; or, more specifically, docetists,
who claimed that Jesus only seemed to come in the flesh.8 For
them a real incarnation, a coming from heaven “in the
flesh,” was actually impossible. So they deduced that
Christ, the heavenly Savior, could only have appeared to be
in the flesh, his humanity only a seeming humanity. It was
this that the Gospel had so resolutely contested: “the Word
became flesh” (John 1:14). And it was the same battle, now
intensified, in which the Johannine epistles were also
engaged.9
To meet the challenge the author suggests a number of
“tests of life” by which the community could discern who
truly belonged to their number: particularly the indwelling
Spirit,10 love,11 obedience,12 and right confession.13 Apart
from the centrality of reaffirming the incarnation, the more
traditional beliefs are reaffirmed:
1 John 1:7 “The blood of Jesus . . . cleanses us from all
sin.”

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1 John 3:5 “He was revealed to take away sins, and in him
there is no sin.”
1 John 3:16 “We know love by this, that he laid down his life
for us.”
1 John 4:9 “God sent his only Son into the world so that we
might live through him.”
1 John 5:6 “This is the one who came by water and blood,
Jesus Christ.”
But 1 John adds further emphases:
1 John 2:1 “If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ.”
1 John 3:2 “When he is revealed, we will be like him, for we
will see him as he is.”
1 John 3:8 “The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to
destroy the works of the devil.”
As already noted, it was a fundamental belief for the
Johannine community that Jesus was the long-expected
Messiah/Christ.14 But more important for the community, as
could be expected from the Gospel, was the reference to Jesus
as God’s Son. For example:
1 John 1:3 “Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with
his Son Jesus Christ.”
1 John 1:7 “The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all
sin.”
1 John 2:23
–24
“No one who denies the Son has the Father;
everyone who confesses the Son has the Father also.
. . . If what you heard from the beginning abides
in you, then you will abide in the Son and in the
Father.”
1 John 4:10 “In this is love, not that we loved God but that
he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning

173
sacrifice for our sins.”
1 John 4:14
–15
“We have seen and do testify that the Father has
sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides
in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God,
and they abide in God.”
1 John 5:5 “Who is it that conquers the world but the one who
believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”
1 John 5:11
–12
“This is the testimony: God gave us eternal life,
and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son
has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does
not have life.”
2 John 9 “Whoever abides in the teaching of Christ has both
the Father and the Son.”
A striking feature of 1 John in particular is the
development of the theme of abiding in Christ, earlier
elaborated in John 15. It was evidently a cherished theme in
the Johannine community, and the writer does not hesitate to
press home its importance. The goal is that they might
“abide” in Christ—for example:
1 John 2:6 “Whoever says, ‘I abide in him,’ ought to walk
just as he walked.”
1 John 2:24 “If what you heard from the beginning abides in
you, then you will abide in the Son and in the
Father.”
1 John 3:24 “All who obey his commandments abide in him, and
he abides in them.”
1 John 4:16 “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in
God, and God abides in them.”15
One of the most striking features of 1 John’s Christology
is that the author takes the theme of the Spirit promised by
Christ in the Gospel, as the Paraclete, the promised
“mediator” or “intercessor,”16 and applies it to Christ
himself. “If anyone does sin, we have an advocate

174
[paraklētos] with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1
John 2:1), the Paraclete in heaven coordinating with the
Paraclete in their midst.
The Johannine letters naturally have many echoes of the
Gospel of John. But more interesting are the echoes of the
synoptic tradition. The concern about the possibility of
being entrapped or “stumbling” (1 John 2:10) may well echo
Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 18:7. “Those who do the will of
God” (1 John 2:17) may well draw on Jesus’s teaching
preserved in Matthew 7:21. 1 John 2:28 seems to echo Mark
8:38. 1 John 3:4 reflects the concern about “lawlessness”
(anomia) so prominent in (and distinctive of) Matthew.17 And
1 John 4:1 shares the concern, again particularly of
Matthew,18 about the danger of false prophets misleading the
followers of Jesus. In other words, the Johannine letters
confirm that the distinctive Johannine way of remembering
Jesus was rooted in the less expansive memories of the
synoptic evangelists. That the echoes are most often of the
(sometimes also distinctive) Matthean memory of Jesus’s
teaching simply confirms that Matthew was the most-used
version of the ministry and teaching of Jesus in the second
century. In other cases the echoes are fainter.19 But that
again may simply remind us that the teaching of Jesus was not
retained in strictly controlled formulation but was evidently
reflected on, elaborated, and applied in the changing
situations of the early Christian communities. The Synoptic
Gospels show that Jesus was not remembered in a static,
closely restricted way, but in constant engagement with the
changing situations of the evangelists themselves and of the
churches for whom they wrote. The Gospel of John shows how
much the Jesus tradition could be reshaped to meet ever new
challenges and opportunities. And 1–3 John confirm how that
living memory of Jesus could inform and instruct on how to
respond to such challenges and opportunities.
Jude and 2 Peter

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We take Jude and 2 Peter together, since a comparison of the
two letters strongly suggests that one was drawing on the
other.20 Most commentators conclude that 2 Peter was drawing
on Jude and should probably be regarded as the last of the NT
documents to be written.
Jude
Jude claims to be written by Jude, “brother of James” (Jude
1). The only obvious “James” is again the brother of Jesus,
who, as noted above, became leader of the mother church in
Jerusalem in the middle of the first century. And Mark 6:3
tells us that Jesus had four brothers, including James and
Judas. It is striking that Jude introduces himself in this
way, rather than by claiming Jesus as his brother. It may, of
course, simply suggest a degree of humility on Jude’s part
as well as indicating the stature of James in the earliest
Christian communities. 1 Corinthians 9:5 suggests that “the
brothers of the Lord” were active in missionary work, and it
is quite possible that Jude’s preaching or teaching was
gathered together in letter form out of respect for him. The
sequence of warning examples drawn from Jewish history (Jude
5–23) certainly recalls a very distinctive Jewish teacher.
Rather differently from James, Jude refers to Jesus six
times, introducing himself as “a servant of Jesus Christ”
(Jude 1), and referring to Jesus regularly as “our Lord”
(Jude 17, 21, 25), but also as “our only Master and Lord”
(Jude 4). In contrast, however, Jude shows few echoes of
Jesus’s teaching. The most evident are:
Jude 4 Warning example of those who deny Christ (cf. Matt 10:33)
Jude 7 Warning examples of Sodom and Gomorrah (cf. Matt 10:15)
Jude 14 The Lord/Son of Man coming in judgment (cf. Matt 25:31)
Jude 15 Judgment on careless speech (cf. Matt 12:36)

176
It is hard to escape the impression that while Jude
certainly was to the fore in affirming and living out of the
Lordship of Christ, he drew his distinctive teaching and
exhortations more naturally from Israel’s history than from
Jesus’s distinctive teaching.
2 Peter
The consensus view of New Testament scholars is that 2 Peter
was not written by Peter. Two features indicate the lateness
of the perspective. One is that the delay of the parousia
(the second coming of Christ) has, for the first time in the
New Testament, become a problem (2 Pet 3:3–12). The other is
that Paul’s letters have become regarded as Scripture (2 Pet
3:15–16), a status elsewhere not attributed to them prior to
the second century. 2 Peter’s dependence on Jude, its
differences from 1 Peter, and the indications just mentioned
of a later perspective all suggest a later attempt to gather
and preserve teaching that could be attributed to Peter and
was held in sufficient esteem to be preserved and used as a
resource for teaching into the second century.
Notably, Jesus is referred to regularly as “our Lord
Jesus Christ” (2 Pet 1:2, 8, 14, 16) or “our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet 1:11; 2:20; 3:18). And, rather
strikingly, the letter opens with a reference to “the
righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet
1:1). The writer seems quite ready to refer to the climax of
history as “the day of the Lord” (2 Pet 3:10) and as “the
day of God” (2 Pet 3:12). But echoes of Jesus’s teaching
are quite faint. Most notable are probably:
2 Pet 1:8 Mark 4:19
2 Pet 1:14 John 21:18
2 Pet 2:1 Mark 13:22
2 Pet 2:6 Matt 10:15

177
Particularly noteworthy is 2 Peter 1:14 with its strong
allusion to John 21:18–19, itself a distinctively Johannine
appendix to John’s Gospel forecasting Peter’s martyrdom.
Also noteworthy is the strong affirmation of 2 Peter 1:16–18
that “we have been eyewitnesses of his majesty,” with
direct allusion to witnessing Jesus’s transfiguration on the
mountain (Matt 17:5). Overall, however, it is difficult to
escape the sense that the memory of Jesus’s ministry has
become rather distant, and the relevance of his remembered
teaching to the different situations now confronting writer
and recipients has become less of a concern. Jesus is still
remembered, as 2 Peter 1:16–18 in particular makes most
clear, but the degree of dependency on his remembered
teaching is quite remote as compared with James and even
Paul. The question of how much Christianity would have lost
if Jude and 2 Peter had not been included in the New
Testament canon invites a somewhat embarrassing answer.
* * *
In a New Testament dominated by the Gospels and the letters
of Paul it is easy to overlook the value of the Catholic
Epistles. Even in churches that read three or four Bible
passages every Sunday, the readings from James, Peter, John,
and Jude rarely feature in the subsequent sermon or
meditation. But they are an important reminder of the breadth
and depth of the founding generation of Christianity. Without
them we would have a far more limited appreciation of the
impact made by Jesus and of the diverse ways in which his
life and ministry, his death and resurrection were remembered
and provided a resource for living, for witness, and for
ministry. Even when relatively neglected by today’s
churches, they represent and embody a rich diversity that was
Christianity from the first, and without regular engagement
with them today’s Christianity would be much impoverished.

178
1. Traditional (Roman) Catholic insistence on the (perpetual)
virginity of Mary, mother of Jesus, would prefer to call James and
Jude “half brothers” or cousins.
2. Jas 1:7, 12; 4:10, 15; 5:4, 10, 11.
3. See Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, vol. 2 of Christianity in
the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 1133, for details.
4.
JAMES JESUS JAMES JESUS
Jas 1:6 Mark 11:23–24 Jas
4:12
Matt 10:28
Jas 1:11 Mark 4:6 Jas
4:14
Mark 8:36–
37
Jas 1:17 Matt 7:11 Jas
4:17
Luke 12:47
Jas 1:22 Matt 7:24, 26 // Luke
8:21
Jas
5:1
Luke 6:24
Jas 1:27 Matt 25:35–40 Jas
5:2
Matt 6:19
Jas 2:10 Matt 5:18–19 Jas
5:5
Luke 16:19,
25
Jas 2:13 Matt 18:28–34; 25:45 Jas
5:7
Mark 4:26–
29
Jas 2:14 Matt 7:21 Jas
5:9a
Matt 7:1–2
Jas 2:15–
16
Matt 25:35–36 Jas
5:9b
Mark 13:29
Jas 2:19 Mark 1:24; 5:7 Jas
5:10
Matt 5:12
Jas 3:1 Matt 23:8, 10 Jas
5:12
Matt 5:34–
37
Jas 3:12 Luke 6:44 Jas
5:14
Mark 6:13
Jas 3:18 Matt 5:9 Jas
5:20
Matt 18:15
Jas 4:10 Luke 14:11
5. The reference is drawn primarily from Isa 53:4–6, 12.
6. See also 1 Pet 1:11; 3:14, 17–18; 4:1, 19; 5:1, 10.
7. Other references that may show the influence of the Jesus
tradition include:

179
1 PETER JESUS TRADITION  1 PETER JESUS TRADITION
1:8 John 20:29 4:8 Luke 7:47
1:22 John 13:34 4:10 Luke 12:42
1:23 John 3:3 4:14 Matt 5:11
2:7 Mark 12:10
(Ps 118:22)
5:5b–6 Luke 14:11
2:17 Mark 12:17
8. See chapter 3, note 9.
9. Ignatius, writing to churches in Asia Minor, probably not very
long after the Johannine epistles were written, fought the same
battle (To the Ephesians 7; To the Trallians 9–10; To the
Smyrnaeans 1–3).
10. 1 John 3:24; 4:1–3; 4:13; 5:6, 8.
11. 1 John 2:5; 3:16–17; 4:7–12, 17–18.
12. 1 John does not use the term “obey” and prefers to speak of
“keeping his commandments” (2:3–4; 3:22, 24; 5:3).
13. 1 John 4:2–3, 15; 2 John 7.
14. 1 John 1:3; 2:1, 22; 3:23; 4:2; 5:1, 6, 20; 2 John 3, 7, 9.
15. See also 2:10, 14, 27, 28; 3:6, 9, 17; 4:12, 13, 15, 16; 2
John 9.
16. John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7.
17. Matt 7:23; 13:41; 23:28; 24:12.
18. Matt 7:15; 24:11; 24:24.
19. E.g., 1 John 2:18 (Mark 13:6–7, 22–23); 1 John 2:22–23
(Luke 12:8–10); 1 John 3:3 (Matt 5:8); 1 John 3:15 (Matt 5:21–22);
1 John 3:22 (Luke 11:9–10); 1 John 4:11 (Matt 18:32–33); 1 John
4:17 (Matt 10:15); 1 John 5:15 (Matt 21:22); 1 John 5:16 (Matt
12:31a); 2 John 7 (Matt 24:4–5); 2 John 10 (Matt 10:13–14).
20. Cf. Jude 6–8 (2 Pet 2:4–10); Jude 12–16 (2 Pet 2:17–18);
and Jude 17–18 (2 Pet 3:1–3).

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T
CHAPTER NINE
Jesus according to
Revelation
he English title “Revelation” is a direct translation of
the Greek term “apocalypse,” denoting the unveiling of
heavenly secrets. An apocalypse can be described as crisis
literature—a response to crisis when other hope has gone,
when, without direct intervention from heaven, there is
little hope for the future. This is how the literature was
born, notably with the book of Daniel, born of the crisis of
Jews exiled in Babylon after the initial destruction of
Jerusalem. And the despair caused by the subsequent
destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in 70 CE found
notable expression in the visions recorded in 4 Ezra.
Revelation can be lumped with the latter, when the
catastrophe of what had happened to the earthly Jerusalem
could find an answer only in heaven and in the fuller purpose
of God. A not insignificant fact is that this is the only
post-70 New Testament writing which indicates that the events
of 70 CE were experienced by Christians as equally
catastrophic as they certainly were for Israel and Jews.
Somewhat ironically, the Jewishness of Christianity is as
clear in Revelation as it is anywhere else in the earliest
decades of Christianity’s existence.
The author has no hesitation in claiming that he was
inspired and that what he wrote was divinely revealed. He
names himself “John” (Rev 1:1, 4; 22:8). Who this “John”
was is not at all clear. He claims to be a sharer in
persecution suffered by his brothers, and apparently he had
been exiled to or imprisoned on the island of Patmos
“because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus”
(Rev 1:9). Later he refers to those slaughtered for their
testimony (Rev 6:9; 20:4), so the situation envisaged is dark

181
and the author’s use of the apocalypse genre wholly
understandable. Since persecution of Christians in Asia1
seems to have increased under the later years of the emperor
Domitian’s reign (81–96), it suggests a date for Revelation
late in the first century.
The Exalted Jesus
The Christology of Revelation is somewhat surprising, though
not when we recall the apocalyptic character of Revelation.
The writing is introduced as “the revelation of Jesus
Christ” (Rev 1:1). The writer, John, records “the testimony
of Jesus Christ,” a favorite phrase with John,2 including
testimony “to all that he saw” (Rev 1:2). The introductory
blessing is “from him who is and who was and who is to
come,3 and from the seven spirits who are before his throne,
and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of
the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth” (Rev 1:4
–5). This ease with which John refers to Jesus and God in
similar language is a feature of his writing. The first
hymnic passage (Rev 1:7) echoes Daniel 7:13 (“he is coming
with the clouds”) and Zechariah 12:10 (“every eye will see
him, even those who pierced him”). And John is the only New
Testament writer apart from the evangelists to refer
Daniel’s vision of “one like a son of man” (Dan 7:13) to
Jesus (Rev 1:13; 14:14). Nor should we miss the powerful
self-revelation of Christ which introduces the letters to the
seven churches: “I am the first and the last, and the living
one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I
have the keys of Death and of Hades” (Rev 1:17–18).
Preceding that, the vision of Revelation 1:12–16, of
Jesus “with a golden sash across his chest . . . his head
and his hair . . . white as white wool, white as snow; his
eyes . . . like a flame of fire, his feet . . . like
burnished bronze . . . and his voice . . . like the sound of
many waters,” draws on the apocalyptic tradition within
Judaism where the glorious angel who appears can be almost

182
identified with God. The echoes of the visions of Daniel
(7:9, 13) and Ezekiel (1:24–27; 8:2), indicated by the
italicized words, are no doubt deliberate. What is striking
is the contrast with such apocalyptic tradition at this
point. For example, in the Apocalypse of Abraham 17:2 and the
Ascension of Isaiah 8:4–5, the glorious angel refuses
worship or to be addressed as “my Lord.” And, not
surprisingly, Revelation follows the same tradition in regard
to the interpreting angel, as is clear particularly in
Revelation 19:10 and 22:8–9. In striking contrast, however,
Jesus is more clearly worshiped in Revelation than anywhere
else in the New Testament. The hymns to the Lamb in chapter 5
are no different in character from the hymns to God in
chapter 4. And in passages such as Revelation 5:13 and 7:10
the Lamb is linked with God in a common ascription of
adoration:
Rev 5:13 “To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be
blessing and honor and glory and might.”
Rev 7:10 “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the
throne, and to the Lamb!”
In other words, the inhibitions about worshiping a glorious
interpreting angel, which John shared with his fellow
apocalyptists, he abandoned in the case of the exalted
Christ, the Lamb of God.
This clearly implies that the seer’s running together of
the descriptions in Ezekiel and Daniel, of God as seen in
vision and of glorious angels, was no accident. His intention
was precisely to say that the exalted Jesus was not merely a
glorious angel or to be confused with one. The glorious angel
was not to be worshiped. But the exalted Christ was! This is
of a piece with the fact, again no doubt deliberate on
John’s part, that both God and the exalted Christ say, “I
am the Alpha and the Omega.”4 Nor does John hold back from
referring to the exalted Christ as “the holy one,”5 knowing
full well that “the holy one” is used frequently of God in

183
the LXX, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament,
often in the expression “the Holy One of Israel.”6
Similarly with his affirmation of Jesus as “King of kings
and Lord of lords” (Rev 17:14, 19:16), a title presumably
fitting for God alone. And some of the descriptions of the
exalted Christ’s relation to the throne in the seer’s
vision seem to imply that the Lamb was sitting on God’s
throne (Rev 3:21; 7:17); it is “the throne of God and of the
Lamb” (Rev 22:1, 3). This should probably be seen as one of
John’s ways of acknowledging the fullest significance and
status of Christ in relation to God without abandoning his
more traditional monotheism. To do so without diminishing the
glory of the one God was possible within an apocalyptic
tradition as nowhere else, since that tradition was quite
familiar with angelic agents of God who embodied the person,
majesty, and authority of God.
The title “Lord” is used mostly of God, with only a few
references to Jesus.7 The references to Jesus as “Son of
God” are even fewer (Rev 2:18; cf. 12:5), something
unexpected in a Johannine document. After the opening verses
the references to “Christ” are almost as sparing,8
including the thought of God and “his Christ” (Rev 11:15;
12:10) and of the saints reigning with Christ (Rev 20:4, 6).
The other principal ways of referring to Christ are also
manifestly derived from Jewish imagery and usage. Christ as
“the Lion of the tribe of Judah” (Rev 5:5) alludes to
Genesis 49:9, and Christ as “the Root of David” (Rev 5:5;
22:16) is an allusion to Isaiah 11:1, 10, both indicating
that for John the apocalyptic significance of Christ is as
the expression of Judah at its best and as the fulfillment of
Israel’s messianic hopes. The familiar early Christian
thought of Christ as exalted to heaven, ruling with God (Ps
110:1) and sitting in judgment, is taken for granted. And the
predictions of catastrophic suffering for believers climax
with the reassurance of the heavenly praise, that “the
kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and

184
of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever” (Rev
11:15). As should not be surprising in apocalyptic
literature, in Revelation the Christology is never
straightforward or simple.
Other distinctive features of Revelation’s portrayal of
Jesus include the curious reflection on the tribulations of
the church depicted as the mother of Christ (Rev 12); the
rather Johannine reference to Christ as “the Word of God”
(Rev 19:13); the thousand-year reign of the martyred saints
with Christ following “the first resurrection” (Rev 20:4,
6); “the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven . . . ,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev 21:2),
that is, the Lamb (Rev 21:9); and the concluding reassurance:
“See, I am coming soon!” (Rev 22:7).
The Letters to the Churches
The letters to the seven churches of Asia are dictated by
Christ and addressed “to the angel of” each church,
represented by a star, while each church is represented by a
golden candlestick (Rev 1:20). Each letter is introduced with
the formula: “These are the words of . . . ,” followed by a
reference to Christ distinctive of each church:
Ephesus: “Him who holds the seven stars in his right hand,
who walks among the seven golden lampstands” (Rev
2:1).
Smyrna: “The first and the last, who was dead and came to
life” (Rev 2:8).
Pergamum: “Him who has the sharp two-edged sword” (Rev
2:12).
Thyatira: “The Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of
fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze”
(Rev 2:18).
Sardis: “Him who has the seven spirits of God and the
seven stars” (Rev 3:1).

185
Philadelphia: “The holy one, the true one, who has the key of
David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts
and no one opens” (Rev 3:7).
Laodicea: “The Amen, the faithful and true witness, the
beginning/origin of God’s creation” (Rev 3:14).
The first four descriptions of Christ recall elements of
the description of the “one like a Son of Man” who appeared
to John in 1:12–18. The latter three are more distinctive—
attributing to Christ “the seven spirits of God” (Rev 3:1)
and “the key of David.”9 Highly distinctive is the
designation of Christ as “the Amen” (Rev 3:14), a
designation which appears only here in the New Testament.10
And Christ is evidently the model for the “faithful
witness” (Rev 1:5; 2:13), a witness-bearing role which John
exemplified (Rev 1:2, 9) and which he encourages from start
to finish.11
Equally distinctive are the judgments made by the one who
dictates the letters, and the power and authority which they
claim. The church of Ephesus is warned that their lampstand
could be removed unless they repent, but Christ promises to
those who conquer that they will be permitted “to eat from
the tree of life that is in the paradise of God” (Rev 2:7).
The church of Smyrna is encouraged in the face of “the
slander on the part of those who say they are Jews and are
not, but are a synagogue of Satan” (Rev 2:9)—an astonishing
condemnation arising from the tensions between Jews and Jesus
believers in Asia Minor. They are promised “the crown of
life” and that they “will not be harmed by the second
death” (Rev 2:10–11). The church of Pergamum is sternly
warned against false teaching and is promised: “To everyone
who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will
give a white stone, and on the white stone is written a new
name that no one knows except the one who receives it” (Rev
2:17). These words are a mysterious but strangely comforting
reassurance. The most fearsome condemnation is made of the
church of Thyatira, who “tolerate” the false teaching of a

186
prophet (Jezebel), but with encouragement to those who have
resisted “the deep things [teachings] of Satan.” The
promise to those who conquer is that they will be given “the
morning star,” presumably a promise that they will have part
in the messianic triumph of Christ indicated in Revelation
22:16.
Almost as fearsome is the condemnation of the church in
Sardis. To the few “who have not soiled their clothes”
Christ promises that they “will walk with me, dressed in
white”; “I will not blot your name out of the book of life;
I will confess your name before my Father and before his
angels” (Rev 3:4–5). The church in Philadelphia is given
the greatest commendation: “you have but little power, and
yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name” (Rev
3:8). Intriguing is once again the condemnation of local Jews
—“those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are
Jews and are not, but are lying” (Rev 3:9)—a further
indication of a devastating breakdown in relations between
new churches in Asia Minor and the much longer established
synagogues. Notably the promise of Christ’s soon coming is
strongly affirmed, as in the climax of the writing (Rev
22:20). And, ironically in view of the breakdown of relations
with local synagogues, and intriguingly for his status, the
exalted Christ promises to make the Philadelphian believers
“a pillar in the temple of my God. . . . I will write on you
the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the
new Jerusalem that comes down from my God out of heaven, and
my own new name” (Rev 3:12). A notable feature is Jesus’s
fourfold reference to “my God.” The author evidently had no
embarrassment in the range of ways he speaks of the relation
between Jesus and God.
The criticism of the church of Laodicea is also rather
devastating, not least because it focuses on the
“lukewarmness” of the Laodiceans and their failure to
realize their own (spiritual) poverty (Rev 3:16–17). The
accompanying invitation is one of the most famous and most
moving:

187
Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my
voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with
you, and you with me. To the one who conquers I will give a
place with me on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat
down with my Father on his throne. (Rev 3:20–21)
In a document which exalts Christ so powerfully, we are
reminded that probably we should not make too much of
Revelation’s portrayal of Jesus sharing the throne of God,
since the conquering saints are also to be given a place on
the heavenly throne. The Christology of the letters of
Revelation is one of the writing’s most intriguing features.
The Lamb of God
The most strikingly distinctive and prominent feature of
Revelation’s portrayal of Jesus, however, is the twenty-
eight references to Jesus as a “lamb” (arnion). So
expressive of Revelation’s view of Christ is John’s
treatment at this point, that it is important to have a clear
grasp of his presentation of the Lamb and of its
christological implications. In particular:
Rev 5:6 “I saw . . . among the elders a Lamb standing as if
it had been slaughtered, having seven horns and seven
eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into
all the earth.”
Rev 5:12 The heavenly host sing with full voice, “Worthy is
the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and
wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and
blessing!”
Rev 6:1 “I saw the Lamb open one of the seven seals . . .”
on the scroll which foretells the future.
Rev 7:14 The persecuted saints “have washed their robes and
made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
Rev 7:17 “The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their
shepherd.”
Rev 12:11 “They have conquered him [Satan] by the blood of the

188
Lamb.”
Rev 13:8 “The book of life of the Lamb that was slaughtered.”
Rev 14:1 “I looked, and there was the Lamb, standing on Mount
Zion! And with him were one hundred forty-four
thousand who had his name and his Father’s name
written on their foreheads.”
Rev 15:3 The saints who have conquered the beast “sing the
song of the Lamb.”
Rev 17:14 The kings allied to the beast “will make war on the
Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord
of lords and King of kings.”
Rev 19:7,
9
The marriage of the Lamb.
Rev 21:9 The bride, the wife of the Lamb.
Rev 21:14 The twelve foundations of the heavenly Jerusalem
inscribed with the names of the apostles of the Lamb.
Rev 21:22
–23
“I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the
Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has
no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory
of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.”
Rev 21:27 “Only those [are in the city] who are written in the
Lamb’s book of life.”
Such animal imagery is familiar in apocalyptic literature,
though not usually in reference to a messiah. But as a
metaphor for one whose death was seen as a sacrifice—the
imagery is introduced in chapter 5, the Lamb “standing as if
it had been slaughtered” (Rev 5:6, 12; 13:8)—it was deeply
rooted in Israel’s sacrificial tradition. The persecuted
saints “have washed their robes and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb” (Rev 7:14) and have conquered Satan “by
the blood of the Lamb” (Rev 12:11). In context, however, it
is not the image of a weak victim which emerges. For the Lamb
is also described as “having seven horns and seven eyes”

189
(Rev 5:6), “horn” being a familiar symbol of royal power,12
and the “seven eyes” alluding to Zechariah 4:10,
symbolizing divine omniscience. And notably it is the Lamb
who takes and opens the scroll which reveals the terrifying
future.13 The choice of arnion for “lamb,” rather than the
more familiar amnos, may also indicate that John had in mind
the sense “ram” as well, since the Lamb of Revelation
shares God’s throne, exercises judgment (Rev 6:16), and
conquers his enemies (Rev 17:14).14 By choosing this term and
its imagery, John was able to hold together the complex
elements of his Christology—the Lamb slaughtered, but the
saints cleansed by its blood; but also the Lamb conquering
Satan and the latter’s allies, and now being praised by the
heavenly host. Equally notable is the willingness to express
the Spirit of God as the seven eyes of the Lamb. The
willingness of John to be so flexible in his portrayal of
Christ serves as a warning that formulations attempting to
express the relation of Christ to God can easily become too
restrictive or imprisoning.
* * *
Revelation is a curious book, hard to appreciate when set
alongside the other New Testament writings. Two things should
be remembered when reading Revelation, or listening to a
reading from Revelation, especially when the reader in a
worship service introduces the reading as (from) “the word
of God.”
One is that Revelation can be fairly described as “crisis
literature.” It was written for churches anticipating or
already suffering from persecution by state authorities. This
was how apocalyptic literature emerged, from the crises
caused by the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple. And
Christians, even in Asia Minor in the late first century,
shared in that experience of catastrophe and persecution.
Nothing else within the New Testament can quite compare with
what Revelation envisages. Even the dismay caused by Jesus’s

190
crucifixion was quickly replaced by the joy of his
resurrection. And nothing that Paul experienced to which he
refers in his letters could match what Revelation portrays.
Which makes it hard for most twenty-first-century Christians
to feel that Revelation was written for them or speaks to
them. Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, or prisoners in Japanese
prisoner of war camps during the Second World War, or those
suffering in the various military catastrophes of the twenty-
first century might well find in the Revelation of John some
source of hope. But for the majority of those reading
Revelation or listening to it being read, how does Revelation
speak to them? How does its portrayal of Christ inspire and
energize them? Is this simply a New Testament writing to be
appreciated for what it tells us about the sufferings of
early Christians in Asia Minor, a writing to be held in
reserve in case it becomes relevant in some future crisis
facing believers in Christ? Crisis literature—retained to
remind us of how some early Christians responded to the
crises which confronted them, and retained to provide some
illustration or guidance on how we could or should respond to
future crises? Is that it?
Second, we should certainly be alert to the danger of
taking Revelation literally. With almost all the rest of the
biblical writings the first rule is that they should be read
literally, to take the meaning most obviously intended by the
words. But apocalyptic literature emerged because there was
no straightforward answer to the crises confronting the
authors. They had to turn to symbols and images and
metaphors, all of which expressed hope but none of which was
intended to be taken literally. Failure to appreciate this
distinctiveness of apocalyptic literature has led to too many
trying to live as though the world of vision and dream was
the real or only world. The key function and character of an
apocalypse like the revelation given to John is precisely the
attempt to look beyond the immediate world for hope to
sustain life when faith is being suppressed in the present
world.

191
And what then should we make of the portrayal of or
reference to Christ in the revelation given to John? We
should not take it literally, of course. Jesus was not a
lamb. The question is rather what the portrayal of Jesus as a
lamb signifies within an apocalyptic scenario. Nor should we
become concerned about trying to correlate all the different
references to Jesus, or to merge them into a single, coherent
Christology. It should not be assumed that the images of
different visions were intended by the author to be
integrated or to be integratable into a single image. The one
thing which really matters, in terms of Christology, is that
in John’s visions Jesus was seen again and again as the key
to making sense of the crises confronting the churches and as
at the center of the hope for a successful resolution of
these crises. It is not the detail that matters—the
sometimes confusing details of the various visions—but the
fact that Jesus remained at the center of the hope. What
matters is that the various crises had not undermined John’s
faith in Christ. On the contrary, it was when John looked
through and beyond these crises, Jesus remained central to
the hope and confidence which John expressed. That was the
heart of “Jesus according to John”—Jesus as the focus of
hope, of sure hope, in the midst of and through whatever
crises the present age throws at us.
1. “Asia” then was the term for today’s western Turkey.
2. Rev 1:2, 9; 12:17; 19:10; 20:4.
3. The same phrase is used of God in 1:8 and 4:8.
4. Rev 1:8; 21:6; 22:13.
5. Rev 3:7; cf. 6:10.
6. The phrase occurs twenty-nine times in Isaiah alone and is
used of God in Rev 15:4 and 16:5.
7. Rev 11:8; 14:13; 17:14; 19:16; 22:20, 21.
8. Rev 1:1, 2, 5; 11:15; 12:10; 20:4, 6.
9. Rev 3:7; cf. 5:5; 22:16.
10. There is probably an allusion to Isa 65:16, where a literal
translation would read “he shall bless by the God of Amen.”

192
11. Rev 6:9; 11:7; 12:11, 17; 19:10; 20:4.
12. As in Dan 7:7–8, 11–12.
13. Rev 5:5, 8; 6:1–17; 8:1.
14. Lambs are used in 1 Enoch 90 as an image for the Maccabeans.

193
W
POSTSCRIPT
Jesus according to . . .
hat a fascinating sequence of testimonies. All of them
indicate how engaging and influential was the figure of
Jesus, and how varied was the impact he made on those who
became his first disciples and who left us written accounts
of that impact made on them by Jesus’s brief life, his
death, and his resurrection. For Christians, of course, one
of the great features of the story of Jesus is that the story
is not yet and by no means finished. The impact Jesus
initially made in the early first century of the present era
continues to exert its influence. Christians today testify
more than willingly that the impact of Jesus is not simply a
sequence of events in history, and not simply of teaching
given twenty centuries ago that has enduring significance and
power. There is the continuing impact, Christians believe,
and experience, the impact of the living Christ, known in
worship and fellowship.
So, as suggested in the preface, it is quite natural to
think of the story of Jesus and of the impact made by Jesus
as by no means finished. And as the impact in the first
century was already quite varied, as indicated in the
preceding chapters, so it is easy to imagine that the impact
made today will be still more, indeed much more, varied than
it was twenty centuries ago. So, why not carry forward the
story of Jesus, and the story of “Jesus according to . .
.”? Such testimonies will never have the power of the first
(New Testament) stories. But in their own way they will
testify to the continuing impact made by the story of Jesus
and by the risen Jesus whom Christians still proclaim today.
So, I ask again, how about “Jesus according to you”?
Since we are all different—as the New Testament writers were
different—our several testimonies will be different too.

194
What a fascinating symphony (and I mean sym-phony) such
witness bearing could or would produce. And what a fresh
challenge and stimulus might such a symphony give to a
generation for most of whom the story of Jesus belongs solely
to the past, the distant past. Jesus for today! Jesus
according to us! Who’s for it?

195
APPENDIX 1
The Probable Date and Place of Origin for
Documents of the New Testament
Palestine Syria Asia Greece Rome
50–
52
1 & 2
Thessalonians
Galatians
53–
55
1 & 2
Corinthians
56–
57
Romans
60–
62
Philippians
Colossians
Philemon
>62 Ephesians?
65–
75
Mark
75–
85
James Luke–
Acts
85–
90
Matthew
c. 90 Jude Pastorals
Revelation
Hebrews
1 Peter
95–
100
John
1–3 John
110–
120
2 Peter

196
Appendix 2
The Life and Mission of Paul
c. 1 BCE–2
CE
Birth in Tarsus
c. 12–26 Education in Jerusalem
31–32 Persecution of Hellenists
32 Conversion
34/35 Flight from Damascus and first visit to Jerusalem
34/35–47/48 Missionary of the church of Antioch
47–48 Jerusalem council and incident at Antioch
49/50–51/52 Mission in Corinth (1 and 2 Thessalonians,
Galatians)
51/52 Third visit to Jerusalem and Antioch
52/53–55 Mission in Ephesus (1 and 2 Corinthians)
56/57 Church building in Corinth (Romans)
57 Final trip to Jerusalem and arrest
57–59 Detention in Jerusalem and Caesarea
59 Attempt to sail to Rome
60 Arrival in Rome
60–62 House arrest in Rome (Philippians, Philemon,
Colossians?)
62?? Execution
Many scholars believe that Ephesians was written by a close
companion of Paul after his death in order to sum up his
mission.
Most scholars believe that the Pastoral Letters (to
Timothy and Titus) reflect later circumstances and were
attempts to indicate how Paul would have responded to later
challenges confronting two of the most important people on
his mission team.

197
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Dunn, James D. G. Beginning from Jerusalem. Vol. 2 of Christianity
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———. Christology in the Making. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
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———. Jesus Remembered. Vol. 1 of Christianity in the Making.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003.
———. The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1998.
Ehrman, Bart, trans. The Apostolic Fathers. 2 vols. Loeb Classical
Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.
Jowett, Benjamin. Thucydides: Translated into English. 2 vols. 2nd
ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1900.
Kähler, Martin. The So-Called Historical Jesus and the Historic
Biblical Christ. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1964.
Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. 5
vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991–2016.
Sanders, J. N. The Fourth Gospel in the Early Church: Its Origin
and Influence on Christian Theology up to Irenaeus. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1943.
Wrede, William. The Messianic Secret. Translated by J. C. G. Greig.
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Wright, N. T. Jesus and the Victory of God. London: SPCK, 1996.

198
Index of Subjects
Abba, 20–21, 128
Abraham, 110, 116, 126, 148–49
Acts, book of, 75–78; Christology, 81–82; gospel, 96–97; sermons,
78–81, 86–88; tradition and, 80–81, 85–86
Adam, 110, 123
Akiba, Rabbi, 3
Alexandrian Christianity, 141–42
already and not yet, 132–33
angels, 145–46, 177–78
apocalyptic literature, 175–76, 177–79, 184–86
Apollos, 141–42
Apostles’ Creed, 165
atonement, 89–90, 107–9, 138, 153. See also Day of Atonement
authority, 12–13, 17–18, 92, 180
baptism, 70–71, 77, 107; into Christ, 122–24; of Jesus, 18–19,
21; Spirit, 125, 126–27, 129–30
beatitudes, 4, 11, 102
body of Christ, 123–24, 129–30
Bultmann, Rudolf, 72
Catholic Epistles, 157–58, 174, 189
Chichester, England, xii–xiii
Christ, Christos, 20, 56, 178; participation in, 111–12, 119–25,
132–33, 138. See also Jesus Christ; Messiah
Christianity, 100, 159, 180–81; Alexandrian, 141–42
Christology, 35–37, 81–82, 84–85, 136–37
Clement, 153–54, 158
creation, 62, 64–65, 110, 134, 143–44, 146
Daniel, book of, 175, 177
Day of Atonement, 108–9, 148
death of Jesus, 89, 124–25, 146, 150; and resurrection, 103–7
docetism, 67, 71, 73
Domitian, emperor, 176

199
education, 27–28
Ephesus, 71, 180
eschatology, 81, 84–85, 90–92
Eucharist. See Lord’s Supper
exalted Jesus, 46, 77, 91–92, 146, 176–79, 182
exorcism, 14–15
Ezekiel, book of, 175, 177
faith, 94–95, 110, 151–53, 185–86; works and, 116–18, 125–26
Father, God the, 20–21, 59–61, 92–94, 128, 134–35
food laws, 8–9, 118
forgiveness, 95–96, 150–51
freedom, 113
Galilee, 15–17
gentiles, 5–6, 38–39, 43–44, 51
gift of the Spirit, 75, 82, 95–96, 123, 125–30, 133, 138
gnosticism, 71–73, 167–68
Golden Rule, 2–3, 40, 67–68, 162
gospel, 96–97; definition of, 29–31, 50, 101–3, 107; of Paul, 29
–30, 89, 100–103, 121, 135–38; Roman Empire and, 29–30, 57–58
grace, 115–17, 212
healing, 33, 84
Hebrews, letter to, 189; author, 141–42; as canon, 142–42, 153–55
Heracleon, 71
high priest, 17–18; Jesus as, 146–47, 147–51
Holy Spirit, 41–42, 51, 184; baptism, 125, 126–27, 129–30; gift
of, 75, 82, 95–96, 123, 125–30, 133, 138; of Jesus Christ, 78,
127–28, 130, 164; as Paraclete, 170
“I am” sayings of Jesus, 54–55
Ignatius, 70–71, 154, 158, 168n9
imitating Christ (imitatio Christi), 106–7, 124–25
impact, of Jesus, xiii, 187–88
incarnation, 62–66, 134, 167–68; humanity of Christ and, 146–48
individualism, 68
Irenaeus, 72
Israel, 38–39, 51, 58–59, 108, 115–16, 144, 153, 184;
Christianity in, 100, 159, 180–81; messianic expectation in, 3,
36–38, 51, 59, 178–79; sacrificial system in, 90, 108–9, 148,
184. See also Judaism

200
James, brother of Jesus, 116–17, 158–59
James, letter of, 49, 158–62, 189
Jerusalem, 16–17, 148, 153; council, leadership, 4, 110, 116–17,
159; destruction of, 68–69, 154, 175, 185
Jesus Christ: baptism of, 18–19, 21; death of, 89, 124–25, 146,
150; as divine Wisdom, 36, 51, 64–67, 142–45; exalted, 46, 77,
91–92, 146, 176–79, 182; Father and, 20–21, 59–61, 92–94,
128, 134–35; as high priest, 146–51; humanity of, 146–48;
incarnation of, 62–66, 134, 167–68; as judge, 85, 92, 131–32;
and the kingdom of God, 11–12, 58–59, 87–88, 90–91; as king of
Israel, 57–58; as Lord, 46, 77–78, 110–11, 121, 128, 133–35,
159–60, 164, 177–78; memories of, 27–28, 50, 82, 162, 165;
mission of, 41–44; Moses and, 37–38, 51; participation in, 111–
12, 119–25, 132–33, 138; passion of, 23–24, 30–31; Pharisees
and, 24, 28, 59, 106; resurrection of, 87–88, 103–7, 109–11,
112–14, 128–29, 138, 164; as Savior, 136; as Servant (of Second
Isaiah 53), 89, 166; signs of, 16, 53–55; as Son of God, 21–22,
59–62, 92, 134–35, 145–47, 169–70; as Son of Man, 22–23, 180;
Spirit of, 78, 127–28, 130, 164; suffering of, 16, 20, 84–85,
133, 146, 147–48, 163; as teacher, 12–14, 33–34, 35; as
Word/Logos, 62–64, 72–73, 143–45. See also Messiah
John, apostle, 158, 167, 175–76
John, Gospel of, 67–71, 171, 189; divine Wisdom in, 64–67;
gnosticism and, 71–73; “I am” sayings in, 54–55; signs of
Jesus in, 16, 53–55; Son of God in, 59–62; Word/Logos in, 62–
64, 72–73
1–3 John, letters of, 167–71, 189
John the Baptist, 17, 18, 75, 82, 84
Judaism: diaspora and, 90, 159; messianic expectation in, 3, 36–
38, 51, 59, 178–79; rabbinic, 154–55
Jude, brother of Jesus, 158, 172
Jude, letter of, 172–73
judge, Jesus as, 85, 92, 131–32
judgment, final, 130–32
justification, 112–18, 138
Kähler, Martin, 30–31
kingdom of God, 11–12, 58–59, 87–88, 90–91
“king of Israel,” Jesus as, 57–58
Lamb of God, 178, 182–84, 186
law, 131–32; food laws, 8–9, 118; Jesus and, 37–38, 39–40, 51;
justification and, 114–16; purity laws, 8–9, 40
Logos, 62–64, 72–73, 143–45

201
Lord, Jesus as, 46, 77–78, 110–11, 121, 128, 133–35, 159–60,
164, 177–78
Lord’s Supper, 9–10, 70–71, 155
love, new command, 2–3, 40, 67–68, 96
Luke, Gospel of, 40–41, 44–46; Holy Spirit in, 41–42; mission of
Jesus in, 41–44; poor and rich in, 47–49; women in, 49–50
Luther, Martin, 115
Mark, Gospel of, 28–34, 189
Mary Magdalene, 6–7
Matthew, Gospel of, 35–40, 51, 171
Meier, John, 1
Melchizedek, 148–49; Jesus in priestly order of, 147–51
memories of Jesus and his teaching, 27–28, 50, 82, 104–7, 160–62,
165–66, 171, 173–74
Messiah, 19–20, 55–59, 81–82, 169–70
messianic expectation, 3, 36–38, 51, 59, 178–79
messianic secret, 31–34, 51
metaphors, 112–14, 119–21, 184
Moses, 126–27, 147; Jesus as new, 37–38, 51
neighbors, loving, Golden Rule, 2–3, 40, 67–68, 162
new covenant, 149–50
oral society, transmission, 27–28, 86
parables, 13–14, 21–22, 28, 40–41
Paraclete, 170
parousia (second coming of Jesus), 90–91, 93, 130–32, 136, 173
passion of Jesus, 23–24, 30–31
Pastoral Epistles, 135–38, 139, 189
Paul, apostle, 4, 8; conversion of, 75–76; gentile mission of, 9,
76–77; gospel of, 29–30, 89, 100–103, 121, 135–38; influence
of, 138–39; missionary journeys of, 99–100, 190; Pastoral
Epistles and, 135–38, 139; and women, 7, 50
Pentecostalism, 125
Pentecost sermon, 77, 81–82
persecution, 126, 175–76, 185
Peter, apostle, 76, 158, 162–63; and his Pentecost sermon, 77, 81–
82; Mark and, 28–29
1 Peter, letter of, 162–67, 189
2 Peter, letter of, 173–74, 189

202
Pharisees, 5, 7; against Jesus, 24, 28, 59, 106; purity laws and, 8
–9, 40
Philo of Alexandria, 141, 143, 144
Pilate, 12, 20, 58
poor, concern for, 3–4, 47–49, 159
prayer, 20–21, 44–45, 106, 128
presence, divine, 35–36, 150–51, 154
priests, priesthood, 149; Christian, 151, 154–55; Levitical, 149–
50, 154; order of Melchizedek, 147–51
prophecy, fulfillment of, 36–37
purity, 8–9, 40
Quelle (Q source), 5, 20n36, 29, 35, 53, 160
reconciliation, 113–14
redemption, 113, 121
Reformation, 114, 115, 117, 139
repentance, 94–95
resurrection, 128–29, 131, 132–33; of Jesus, 87–88, 103–7, 109–
11, 112–14, 128–29, 138, 164
Revelation, book of, 175–76, 185–86; exalted Jesus, 176–79, 182;
Lamb of God, 178, 182–84, 186; letters to churches, 179–82
righteousness, 115–16
Roman Empire, 12, 176; gospel and, 29–30, 57–58
sacrificial system, Israelite, 90, 108–9, 148, 184
salvation, 95–96, 112–13, 128–29, 131–33, 135–36, 138
sanctification, 124–25
Savior, Jesus as, 136
second coming of Jesus, parousia, 90–91, 93, 130–32, 136, 173
Second Vatican Council, 151
sermons, 35, 40, 78–81, 86–88; to Cornelius, 82–86; on the Mount,
40; Pentecost, 77, 81–82
Servant (of Second Isaiah 53), Jesus as, 89, 166
signs of Jesus, 16, 53–55, 55
sinners, mission to, 4–6, 42–43, 106
Sirach, 144, 160,
Son of God, 21–22, 59–62, 92, 134–35, 145–47, 169–70
Son of Man, 22–23, 180
subjection, of creation, 134–35, 146

203
suffering of Christ, 16, 20, 133, 146, 147–48, 163; reversal of,
84–85; Servant and, 89, 166
Synoptic Gospels, xiii, 28–29, 50–51, 189; John’s Gospel and, 53
–55
tabernacle, tent of meeting, 148, 150
teacher, Jesus as, 12–14, 33–34, 35
teaching of Jesus, memories of, 104–7, 160–62, 165–66, 171, 173–
74
Thucydides, 80n5, 85–86
Trinity, 78, 128, 134–35
Valentinus, Valentinian, 71–72
Vatican II, 151
wealth, 47–48
Wisdom, divine, 36, 51, 64–67, 142–45
wisdom literature, 36, 64–65; letter of James as, 160–61, 162
Wisdom of Solomon, 141, 142–43, 144, 160
women, 6–7, 49–50
Word, Logos, 62–64, 72–73, 143–45
works: faith and, 116–18, 125–26
worship, 68–69, 151, 154, 177; community, 129–30
Wrede, William, 31, 33
Zacchaeus, 4, 5

204
Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Texts
OLD TESTAMENT
Genesis
1:27 66
14 149
14:18 148
14:20 149
15:1 63
15:2–18 143
15:6 110
38:26 115n15
49:9 178
Exodus
17:1–6 68
Leviticus
4:5–7 109n8
4:16–18 109n8
4:25 109n8
4:30 109n8
4:34 109n8
16 108
16:14–19 109n8
16:17 148
16:21 108
19:17–18 2
19:18 2–3
Deuteronomy
6:5 2
10:17 83
15:11 4
21:22 83
21:22–23 89
21:23 108, 109

205
32:43 145
1 Samuel
24:17 115n15
2 Samuel
7:14 145
2 Chronicles
19:7 83n12
Psalms
2:7 21, 88, 93, 145, 147
8 145
8:4 22n38
8:5–6 146
8:6 146
8:7 134
15:10 88, 93
22:22 146
33:6 63
80:8–18 59n2
107:20 83
110 147
110:1 46, 77, 93, 111, 145, 178–79
110:4 147, 149
118:22 164, 165n7
143:2 114
Proverbs
3:19 65, 144
8:27 65
8:30 65
9:5 66
Isaiah
2:2 81n9
5:1–7 59n2
7:14 37
8:4–5 177
8:14 164

206
8:18 146
8:23–9:1 37
11:1 178
11:10 178
28:16 164
29:13 8
40:3–5 44
40:9 102
42:1–4 6, 37
43:19–20 68n7
45:21–23 133
52:7 83, 102
53 166
53:4 37, 166
53:4–6 162n5
53:5 166
53:6 166
53:9 163, 166
53:12 162n5
54:13 69
55:3 88, 93
55:11 63
60:6 102
61 3
61:1 83, 84
61:1–2 48, 102
62:2 115n16
65:16 180n10
Jeremiah
2:4 64
2:21 59n2
31:31–34 149
Ezekiel
15:1–5 59n2
17:1–10 59n2
19:10–15 59n2
47:1–11 68

207
Daniel
7:7–8 184n12
7:11–12 184n12
7:13 22n38, 176
Hosea
10:1–2 59n2
11:1 37
Joel
2:28–32 81
2:32 133
3:18 68n7
Micah
4:1 81n9
6:5 115n16
7:9 115n16
Habakkuk
2:4 115
Zechariah
9:9 57
14:8 68n7
NEW TESTAMENT
Matthew
1–2 35
1:3–6 38
1:21 38
1:23 36, 37
2:6 38
2:15 37
2:23 37
3:7–10 29
3:9 38
3:12 29
3:14–15 18
3:16–17 18

208
4 21
4:3 21, 61
4:6 21, 61
4:14–16 37
4:23 11
5:3 4, 11, 48
5:3–7:27 35
5:4 161
5:8 171n19
5:9 160n4
5:10 166
5:11 23n39, 165n7, 166
5:12 160n4, 165
5:16b 165
5:17 19n31
5:17–20 37, 39
5:18–19 160n4
5:21–22 40, 171n19
5:27–28 40
5:34–37 160n4, 161
5:38–48 96n42, 104n5
5:44 104, 166
5:46–47 166
6:9 92n29
6:19 47, 160n4
6:20 161
6:25–34 166
7:1–2 160n4
7:7 161
7:11 160n4
7:12 40
7:15 171n18
7:21 160n4, 171
7:23 39n8, 171n17
7:24 160n4
7:26 160n4
7:28 35
8:2 46n14, 77n2
8:6 46n14, 77n2

209
8:8 46n14, 77n2
8:11–12 6, 39
8:17 37
8:20 23
8:21 46n14
8:25 46n14
9:13 40
9:28 77n2
9:32–34 15n23
10:5–6 6, 38
10:5–42 35
10:7 11
10:10 104
10:13–14 171n19
10:15 171n19, 173, 174
10:24–25 12
10:28 160n4
10:32 23n39
10:33 172
10:34–36 19n30
10:40 19
11:1 35
11:2 36
11:5 3, 102
11:18–19 19n31, 23
11:19 5, 36
11:25–26 20n36, 92n29
11:27 21, 41
11:29 36
12:7 40
12:18–21 37
12:21 6
12:27–28 15
12:28 11
12:31a 171n19
12:36 166, 173
12:38–39 95n34
12:41–42 90n20
13:3–52 35

210
13:16–17 90n20
13:17 165
13:34 13
13:41 39n8, 171n17
13:53 35
13:55 158
14:13 17
14:28 46n14
14:30 46n14
14:33 61
15:1–20 8
15:10–20 9
15:11 9
15:17–20 40
15:22 46n14
15:24 38
15:25 46n14
15:27 46n14
16:13 23n39
16:16 61n5
16:17–19 99
16:21 16
17:5 174
17:18 15n23
17:20 105
18:1–35 35
18:3 8n14
18:7 171
18:15 160n4
18:28–34 160n4
18:32–33 171n19
19:1 35
19:16–24 47
19:28 38
20:1–16 13, 131n6
20:30 46n14
20:31 46n14
20:33 46n14
21:3 46n13

211
21:22 171n19
21:43 39
22:8–9 39
22:35–40 2n4
22:37–40 40
22:44 46n15
23:2–3 40
23:8 160n4
23:10 160n4
23:12 161
23:25–26 9n17
23:28 39n8, 171n17
23:33 40
23:34 36
24 130n4
24:2–25:46 35
24:3 130n4
24:4–5 171n19
24:11 171n18
24:12 39n8, 171n17
24:14 39
24:20 40
24:24 171n18
24:27 130n4
24:36 21
24:37 130n4
24:39 130n4
24:42 46n13
24:42–44 131n5
24:43 105
25:1–13 13
25:14–30 13, 131n6
25:31 173
25:35–36 160n4
25:35–40 160n4
25:45 160n4
26:1 35
26:25 12n22
26:39 20

212
26:42 20n36
26:63 61
26:64 22, 46n15
27:40 61
27:42 57
27:43 61
27:54 62
27:55–56 7n11, 7n12
28:1–20 35
28:19 6, 39
Mark
1:1 16, 30
1:8 82n10, 126
1:9–11 18
1:10–11 18
1:11 21
1:14 15–16
1:14–15 30
1:15 11, 94
1:24 19n33, 160n4
1:25 20
1:27 13
1:34 15n23, 32
1:35 32
1:38 19n31
1:39 15n23
1:44 32
1:45 33n6
2:1–3:6 28
2:10 22
2:15–17 106
2:16–17 5
2:17 19
2:20 24, 31
2:28 23
3:4 96n38
3:6 17, 24, 31
3:7 33n6

213
3:9 33n6
3:11 19n33, 61
3:12 20, 32
3:15 15n24
3:22 14
3:23–27 14
4:1–9 13
4:1–32 13
4:1–34 28
4:6 160n4
4:11–12 28
4:13–20 13
4:19 174
4:26–29 160n4
4:31 11
4:33–34 13
4:34 33
4:35–6:52 28
5:7 21, 61, 160n4
5:34 96n38
5:37 33
5:40 33
5:43 32
6:2 13
6:3 158, 172
6:7–13 15n24
6:13 160n4
6:31–32 33n7
6:45–46 33
7:1–23 8
7:6–8 9
7:14–23 9, 106
7:15 9, 105
7:17 33
7:18–19 9
7:26–30 15n23
7:33 33
8:11–12 95n34
8:23 33

214
8:27 23n39
8:29 20, 24, 61n5
8:30 32
8:31 17n28, 20n34, 24, 31
8:35 30n3,96n38
8:36–37 160n4
8:38 23n40, 171
9:2 33n7
9:5 12n22
9:9 32
9:18 15n25
9:28 33
9:31 17n28, 20n34, 24, 31
9:37 19
9:42 104n5
9:50 105
10:11 104
10:13–16 8
10:14 8
10:15 8
10:21 3
10:25 47
10:29 30n3
10:32–34 24
10:33–34 17, 20n34, 31
10:34 24
10:39 31
10:45 19, 23n39, 89–90
10:51 12n22
10:52 96n38
11:1–10 16
11:1–16:8 31
11:3 46n13
11:21 12n22
11:23–24 160n4
11:28 13
12:1–9 21
12:1–12 13, 31, 131n6
12:1–15:47 28

215
12:10 165n7
12:17 104n5, 165n4
12:28–31 2, 96n42
12:31 161
12:36 46n15
12:42–44 3
13:3 33
13:6–7 171n19
13:10 39
13:11 96
13:22 174
13:22–23 171n19
13:26 23n40
13:29 160n4
13:32 21
14:22–25 10
14:36 20, 20n36, 92n29
14:45 12n22
14:50 24
14:61 22
14:62 23n40, 46n15
15:9–26 20
15:32 57
15:39 61–62
15:40–41 7
16:7 34
16:8 34
16:19 46n15
Luke
1:3 80n6
1:15 41
1:17 41n9
1:25 49
1:35 41
1:46–55 48, 49
1:53 47, 48
1:67 41
2:25–27 41

216
2:29–32 44
3:6 44
3:7–9 29
3:17 29
3:21 44
3:21–22 18–19
3:22 21
4 21
4:1 41
4:3 21, 61
4:9 21, 61
4:14 41
4:17–21 102
4:18 3, 41, 48
4:26–27 44
4:33–35 15n23
4:41 15n23, 61
4:43 11, 19n31
5:8 42, 46n14
5:12 46n14
5:16 45
5:30 42
5:32 42
6:12 45
6:20 4, 11, 47, 48, 84, 102, 161
6:22 23n39, 166
6:24 47, 160n4, 161
6:27–28 104
6:27–36 104n5
6:28 166
6:32 166
6:40 12
6:44 160n4
7:6 46n14
7:13 46n13
7:22 3, 84, 102
7:33–34 19n31, 23
7:34 5, 42
7:37–38 42

217
7:47 165n7
8:2–3 49
8:21 160n4
8:27–38 15n23
9:18 45
9:28–29 45
9:42 15n23
9:48 19
9:51 16
9:54 46n14
9:58 23
9:59 46n14, 77n2
9:61 46n14, 77n2
10:1 46n13
10:7 104
10:9 11
10:16 19
10:17 15, 46n14
10:21 20n36, 41, 92n29
10:22 21
10:23–24 90n20
10:25–28 2n4
10:25–37 14, 41, 44
10:38–42 7, 49
10:39 46n13
10:40 46n14, 77n2
10:41 46n13
11:1 45, 77n2
11:2 20, 92n29, 165
11:9–10 171n19
11:13 41n9
11:14–15 15n23
11:19–20 14–15
11:20 11
11:29 95n34
11:31–32 90n20
11:39 46n13
11:39–41 9n17
11:49 36

218
12:8 23n39
12:8–10 171n19
12:13–21 47, 131n6
12:27 23n39
12:33 47
12:39–40 131n5
12:41 46n14
12:42 165n7
12:47 160n4
12:49 19n30
12:51–53 19n30
13:15 46n13
13:23 46n14
13:32 15n23
14:11 160n4, 165n7, 166
14:13 4, 48
14:15–24 48
14:21 4
15:1–32 14
15:2 5, 42
15:3–10 5
15:7 43
15:10 43
15:11–32 41
16:19 160n4
16:19–31 14, 41, 47, 48
16:25 160n4
17:5 46n13
17:11–19 44
17:37 46n14
17:66 46n13
18:1 45
18:2–5 49
18:2–14 45
18:6 46n13
18:9–14 5, 14, 41
18:13 43
18:17 8
18:18–25 47

219
18:22 48
18:41 46n14
19:1–10 5, 47
19:7 43
19:8 4, 46n13, 48
19:10 19n31
19:11 81n7
19:11–27 13, 131n6
19:31 46n13
19:34 46n13
20:42 46n15
21:2–4 3
21:24 81n7
21:36 166
22:26 89–90
22:30 38, 85
22:33 46n13
22:38 46n13
22:40 45
22:42 20
22:44 45
22:61 46n13
22:67–70 22
22:69 46n15
22:70 61
23:27–29 49
23:34 20n36
23:46 20n36
23:49 7n11
24:34 46
John
1:1–18 63, 64, 145
1:14 60, 64, 66, 72, 136, 168
1:17 58
1:18 60
1:29 58
1:34 60
1:38 12n22

220
1:41 20n35, 56
1:49 12n22, 57, 60
2–12 54n1
2:1–10 53
2:11 54
2:13–22 16
2:16 59
2:18–22 16
2:19–21 58, 69
2:23 54
2:23–25 95n34
2:23–3:10 16
3:2 12n22, 54
3:3 12, 58, 165n7
3:3–8 114
3:5 12, 58
3:5–8 96n40
3:13 61n4
3:16 60
3:16–17 65
3:17 19n32, 61
3:18 60
3:22–4:42 16
3:34 19n32
3:35 61
4:10–14 58
4:14 66
4:23–24 69
4:25 56
4:25–26 20n35, 56
4:29 20n35
4:31 12n22
4:43–54 16
4:48 95n34
4:54 54
5:19 61
5:26 61
5:36 19n32
5:37 60

221
5:38 19n32
6 54
6:2 54n1
6:14 54n1
6:15 58
6:25 12n22
6:26 54n1
6:29 19n32
6:35 54, 66
6:38 61
6:44 60
6:45 69
6:48–58 58
6:52 59n3
6:53–58 68
6:54–55 70
6:57 19n32
6:63 70
7 56, 167
7:10 16
7:11–12 59n3
7:26 56
7:26–44 56
7:29 19n32
7:31 54n1, 59n3
7:35 59n3
7:37–38 68
7:39 96n40
7:40–44 59n3
7:41 16
7:52 16
8:12 54
8:42 19n32
8:54 60
8:58 54, 58
9 54, 56
9:2 12n22
9:16 54n1
9:22 56

222
10:3–4 68
10:11 54
10:19–21 59n3
10:24 56
10:30 60
10:36 60
11 7, 54
11:8 12n22
11:25 54
11:27 57, 60
11:41 20n36
11:42 19n32
11:47 54n1
12:11 59n3
12:13 57
12:17–19 59n3
12:18 54n1
12:20–26 6n10
12:27–28 20n36
12:34 56, 59n3
12:37 54n1
12:50 61
13:20 19
13:34 165n7
13:34–35 67
14:6 54
14:15–16 92n28
14:16 170n16
14:21 67
14:26 69, 92n28, 170n16
15:1 14, 54, 59, 60
15:1–6 54
15:1–7 68
15:10 67
15:12–13 67
15:26 170n16
16:7 170n16
16:7–15 92n28
17:1 20n36

223
17:3 19n32, 57
17:5 20n36
17:8 19n32
17:11 20n36
17:21 19n32, 20n36
17:23 19n32
17:24–25 20n36
17:25 19n32
18:33–39 58
18:36 12, 58
19:3 58
19:12–22 58
19:25–27 7
20:11–18 7n12
20:21 19n32
20:22 96n40
20:29 95n34, 165n7
20:30 54n1
20:30–31 55, 56, 59
20:31 60
21:15–17 99
21:18 174
21:18–19 174
Acts
1:1–5 75
1:2–3 75
1:5 75, 82n10
1:6 75
1:6–7 81n7
1:7–8 75
1:9–11 75
1:22 84
1:24 45
2:14–36 87
2:14–36/39 79, 81
2:15–21 90
2:17 81, 91
2:19–20 81

224
2:21 95n36
2:22 81, 84, 88, 92
2:23 89n17
2:24–32 87
2:31 81
2:32 81, 92
2:32–36 93
2:33 77, 82, 91
2:34 46n15
2:34–36 77
2:36 77, 81, 82, 89n17
2:38 77, 92n26, 94, 95n35
2:38–39 95n37
2:39 81
2:44 95n31
2:44–45 91
3:6 77, 92n26
3:11–26 79
3:12–26 87
3:13 89n18
3:13–15 89n17
3:19 94, 95n35, 95n37
3:19–20 85
3:20 93
3:20–21 90
3:24 90
3:25 84n13
3:26 89n18, 93
4:1–2 87
4:5–6 77
4:8–12 79
4:10 77, 89n17, 92n26
4:10–11 87
4:12 95n36
4:18 77
4:24–30 79
4:27 89n18
4:30 89n18, 92n26
4:32 95n31

225
4:33 78n3, 87
4:34–37 91
5:12–14 95n33
5:14 95n31
5:16 15n26
5:30 87, 89, 89n17
5:30–31 93
5:31 95n35
5:32 95n37
5:40 77
6:1–6 4, 48–49
6:6 45
7:2–53 79
7:52 89n17
7:55–56 75, 92n27
7:56 22
7:59–60 78
8 96n41
8:7 15n26
8:12 77, 88n16
8:15–17 95n37
8:16 77, 78n3, 92n26
8:30–35 79, 89n18
9:1 78
9:3–8 99
9:4–6 76
9:10 92n27
9:10–16 75
9:11 45
9:15 44n11
9:17 78n3
9:27–28 77
9:34 92n26
9:42 95n32, 95n33
10–11 76
10:3–7 76
10:9 45
10:11–13 76n1
10:15–17 76n1

226
10:19 76n1
10:30 45
10:30–32 76
10:34 83
10:34–35 85
10:34–43 79, 81
10:35 85
10:36 78, 83, 84, 85
10:36–39 88
10:36–43 83
10:37 84
10:38 83, 84, 93
10:39 83, 84, 85, 89, 89n17
10:39–40 84, 87–88
10:40 84, 93
10:41 84
10:42 81n8, 84, 90n22, 92, 93
10:43 84, 85, 95n35
10:44 82
10:44–47 95n37
10:48 92n26
11:4–18 79
11:5 45
11:5–9 76n1
11:14 95n36
11:15 82–83
11:17 78n3, 95n32
11:20 78n3
12:2 158
12:7–11 76
12:17 159
13–14 99
13:3 45
13:12 95n33
13:16–41 79
13:24 84
13:26 83, 95n36
13:27–28 89n17
13:29 89

227
13:29–37 88
13:32–33 93
13:33 82n11
13:38–39 95n35
14:22 88n16
14:23 45n12, 78, 95n32
14:26–28 99
15:1 100n2
15:5 95n31, 100n2
15:11 78n3
15:13–21 79, 159
15:13–22 116
15:23–29 79
15:26 78n3
16:6–7 78, 92
16:9–10 76
16:18 92n26
16:25 45n12
16:31 78n3, 95n32, 95n36
17:18 88
17:22–31 79
17:30 94
17:31 81n8, 85, 88, 90n22, 92, 93
18:1–18 99
18:9 76, 92n27
18:12–13 100n2
18:24 141
18:24–19:7 96n41
18:27 95n31
19:1–6 95n37
19:5 78n3, 92n26
19:8 88n16
19:8–10 100
19:13 78n3
19:17 78n3
19:17–18 95n33
19:18 95n31
20:17–35 79
20:21 78n3

228
20:24 78n3
20:25 88n16
20:28 89
20:35 78n3, 88n16
20:36 45n12
21:5 45n12
21:13 78n3
21:18 159
21:20 95n31
21:25 95n31
21:27–36 100
22:1–21 79
22:7–8 76
22:15 44n11
22:17 45n12
22:17–18 92n27
22:17–19 76
22:19 95n31
23:11 76, 92n27
24:10–21 79
24:17 100
24:21 88
24:25 90n22
26:2–29 80
26:14–18 76
26:16 92n27
26:17–18 44n11
26:18 95n35
26:19 92n27
26:19–20 94
28:8 45n12
28:23 88n16
28:25–28 80
28:31 88n16
Romans
1–2 131
1:1 101
1:3–4 92n28, 93, 103, 110

229
1:4 62n6
1:15–16 101
1:16 96n39
1:16–17 115
2:4 95n30
2:11 83n12
2:16 131–32
2:29 96n40
3:19 132
3:20 114
3:22–24 120
3:23–26 115
3:24 109, 113
3:24–25 107–8
3:25 89n19, 109n7
3:30–31 118
4 116
4:24 110
4:25 109n9
5:6 108
5:6–8 109n10
5:8 5, 108
5:9 109n7
5:9–10 96n39
5:10 113
5:12–17 123
5:19 5
6:3 122, 124
6:4–8 111
6:5 125
6:8 111
6:11 120
6:17 106–7
6:18 113
6:23 120
7:22–25 90n21
8:1–2 120
8:1–17 90n21
8:2 96n40, 113

230
8:3 108, 109n9
8:3–4 118
8:9 78n4, 96n40, 126, 127
8:9–11 92n28
8:10 122
8:11 129
8:14 126, 127
8:15 96n40, 133
8:15–16 92
8:15–17 21n37, 62, 106
8:16–17 112, 128
8:17 111, 125
8:22 111
8:23 91n24, 128, 133
8:24 96n39
8:29 124, 133
8:32 109n10
8:34 46n15, 111n11
9:5 133
9:25–26 116
10:1 96n39
10:9–10 96n39
10:9–13 133
10:13 96n39
10:15 83, 102
11:17–24 14
12:1 124
12:6–8 130
12:14 104
12:17 104n5
13:7 104n5
13:8–10 3n7
13:14 106
14:1–15:6 9n18, 106
14:9 110
14:10 132
14:13 104n5
14:14 9, 105, 106
14:17 11n20

231
15:1–5 106
15:3 104, 106
15:5 107
15:8 106
15:19 101
15:25–29 100n3
15:25–31 4n8
15:26 49
15:31 100
16 50
16:8–13 121
1 Corinthians
1:4 120
1:8 132n7
1:23 83
1:30 113
3:10–15 132
4:8 111
4:15 101
4:17 121
4:20 11n20
5:5 132n7
5:7 108
6:2 85
6:9 11n19
6:11 96n40
7:10–11 104
7:19 117–18
7:29–31 91n25
8–10 9n18
9:1 121
9:5 103, 172
9:14 101, 104
10:4 68
11:1 106
11:2 105n6
11:23 105n6
11:23–25 104

232
11:23–26 10, 103
12–14 129
12:2–11 130
12:3 129
12:3–13 92n28
12:7 123
12:8–11 123
12:13 96n40, 123, 126, 130
12:14–27 123
12:26 111
13:2 105
15 109
15:3 89, 89n19, 105n6, 107, 109n9
15:3–8 7, 102–3, 109
15:4 85
15:7 158
15:10 11n19
15:14 110
15:17 110
15:20 91n24, 128
15:20–22 110
15:22 120
15:22–23 132
15:23 91n24, 128
15:24–28 134
15:25 46n15, 111n11
15:27 146
15:42–49 129
15:45 92n28, 110
15:49 133n8
16:1–4 100n3
16:22 91
2 Corinthians
1:14 132n7
1:19 62n6
1:22 96n40, 128n3
3:3 126
3:6 126

233
3:12–18 128
3:16–17 127
3:18 124, 127, 133
5:5 128n3
5:10 132
5:14–15 109n10
5:14–21 89n19
5:15 108
5:18–19 114
5:18–20 109
5:19 120
5:21 108, 109n10
7:3 111
7:9–10 95n30
8–9 4n8, 49, 100n3
10–13 100n2
10:1 103
11:4 101
11:7 101
12:21 95n30
13:3–4 95n34
13:5 122
Galatians
1:4 109n9
1:6–7 102
1:6–9 100n2
1:19 103, 159
1:23 103
2:1–10 116
2:4 113
2:9 159
2:10 4, 49
2:11–14 116
2:11–16 117
2:11–17 106
2:12 159
2:14 117
2:15–16 117

234
2:15–17 5–6
2:19 111
2:20 62n6, 109n10, 122
3:1–5:26 100n2
3:2 116
3:2–3 96n40
3:2–5 125–26
3:13 83, 89, 108, 109, 109n10
3:13–14 126
3:14 120
3:27 122, 123
4:4 103
4:6–7 21n37, 92, 106, 128
5:1 113
5:6 118, 121
5:14 3n7
5:16–17 90n21
5:21 11n19
Ephesians
1:7 96, 109n7
1:14 128n3
1:20 46n15, 111
2:5–6 112n14
2:13 109n7
4:15–16 124
4:22–24 90n21
5:2 109n10
5:5 11n19
5:25 109n10
6:1–9 8n15
Philippians
1:1 135n10
1:6 131
1:8 103–4
1:10 131
1:19 78, 127–28
2:5 106
2:6 62

235
2:6–11 110, 133
2:16 131
2:25 124
3:8–9 115
3:10–11 125, 129, 133
3:20 131
3:20–21 129
3:21 133n8
4:14 111
4:19 121
Colossians
1:13 11n20
1:14 96, 113
1:14–19 119
1:15–17 134
1:15–20 142, 145
1:19 134
1:20 109n7
1:27 122
2:3–15 119
2:6 107
2:9 62
2:12 111
2:12–13 112n14
2:19 124
3:1 111, 111n11
3:5–10 90n21
3:10 124
3:18–4:1 8n15
1 Thessalonians
1:6 126
1:10 91n25, 131
2:19 131
3:13 131
4:13–18 91n25
4:15 131
4:17 131
5:2 105, 131, 132n7

236
5:4 105
5:9–10 109n10
5:13 105
5:15 104n5
5:18 121
5:19–21 130
2 Thessalonians
1:7–8 131
2:2 132n7
2:3–11 131
2:13 128–29
2:15 105n6
3:6 105n6
1 Timothy
1:15 136
2:5–6 136
3:1 136n11
3:2 135n10
3:8 135
3:12 135
3:16 137
4:9 136n11
6:3 137
6:13 137
6:14–15 136
2 Timothy
1:9–10 135
2:8 137
2:11–12 112n14
2:11–13 137
4:1 85n15, 136
4:8 136
Titus
1:2–3 135–36
1:3 136
1:4 136

237
1:7 135n10
2:10 136
2:12–13 136
2:13 136
3:4 136
3:5–8 137
3:6 136
Philemon
16 121
Hebrews
1:1–3 142
1:3 46n15
1:4 145
1:5 82n11
1:5–6 145
1:7–12 145
1:13 46n15, 145, 147
2:5–9 145
2:6 22n38
2:9 146
2:10–13 146
2:14–15 146
2:16 146
2:17–18 146
3:1 146–47
3:5–6 147
3:7 147
3:15 147
4:7 147
4:14 147
4:15 147
5:2–3 147
5:5 82n11, 93, 147
5:6 147
5:8–10 147
6:1–8 148
6:19–20 148
7:2 148

238
7:3 149
7:4–10 149
7:11–28 149
7:16 149
7:17 149
7:21 149
7:23 149
7:27 149
8 149
8:1 46n15
8:12 149–50
8:13 150
9:12 150
9:28 150
10:12 46n15
10:18 150
10:19–22 150
10:24–25 151
10:26–39 151
11:1 152
11:4–6 152
11:8–19 152
11:23–29 152
11:39–40 152
12:2 152
12:18–21 152
12:22 148n8
12:22–24 152–53
13:8 153
13:12 153
13:14 153
13:20–21 153
James
1:1 158
1:5 161
1:6 160n4
1:7 159n2
1:11 160n4

239
1:12 159n2
1:17 160n4
1:22 160n4
1:27 160n4
2:1 159
2:1–7 49, 159
2:2–6 4
2:5 161
2:8 3n7, 161
2:10 160n4
2:13 160n4
2:14 160n4
2:15–16 160n4
2:19 160n4
3:1 160n4
3:12 160n4
3:18 160n4
4:9 161
4:10 159n2, 160n4, 161
4:12 160n4
4:14 160n4
4:15 159n2
4:17 160n4
5:1 160n4, 161
5:2 160n4
5:2–3 161
5:4 159n2
5:5 160n4
5:7 159, 160n4
5:8 159
5:9a 160n4
5:9b 160n4
5:10 159n2, 160n4
5:11 159n2
5:12 160n4, 161
5:14 160n4
5:14–15 159
5:20 160n4

240
1 Peter
1:1 163, 166
1:2 163
1:3 163, 164
1:3–9 163
1:6 165
1:8 165n7
1:10–12 165
1:11 78n4, 163n6, 164
1:13 163
1:17 165
1:18–20 163
1:22 165n7
1:23 165n7
1:25 164
2:3 164
2:4–8 163
2:7 165n7
2:12b 165
2:13 164
2:17 165n7
2:19–20 166
2:19–23 163
2:21–25 162, 166
3:9 166
3:12 164
3:14 163n6, 166
3:15 164
3:16 120n2, 164, 166
3:17–18 163n6
3:18–19 164–65
3:21–22 164
4:1 163n6
4:5 85n15, 165
4:7 165
4:8 165n7
4:10 165n7
4:10–11 164
4:13 165

241
4:13–16 163
4:14 165n7, 166
4:19 163n6
5:1 162, 163n6, 166–67
5:5b–6 165n7
5:6 166
5:7 166
5:10 120n2, 163n6, 164
5:12 162
5:14 120n2, 164
2 Peter
1:1 173
1:2 173
1:8 173, 174
1:11 173
1:14 173, 174
1:16 173
1:16–18 174
2:1 174
2:4–10 172n20
2:6 174
2:17–18 172n20
2:20 173
3:1–3 172n20
3:3–12 173
3:10 173
3:12 173
3:15–16 173
3:18 173
1 John
1:3 169, 169n14
1:7 168, 169
2:1 168, 169n14, 170
2:3–4 168n12
2:5 168n11
2:6 170
2:10 171
2:17 171

242
2:18 167, 171n19
2:19 167
2:22 167, 169n14
2:22–23 167, 171n19
2:23–24 169
2:24 170
2:27 96n40
2:28 171
3:2 169
3:3 171n19
3:4 171
3:5 168
3:8 169
3:15 171n19
3:16 168
3:16–17 168n11
3:22 168n12, 171n19
3:23 169n14
3:24 96n40, 168n10, 168n12, 170
4:1 171
4:1–3 168n10
4:2 169n14
4:2–3 167, 168n13
4:3 167
4:7–12 168n11
4:9 168
4:10 169
4:11 171n19
4:13 168n10
4:14–15 169
4:16 170
4:17 168n13, 171n19
4:17–18 168n11
5:1 169n14
5:3 168n12
5:5 169
5:6 168, 168n10, 169n14
5:8 168n10
5:11–12 170

243
5:15 171n19
5:16 171n19
5:20 169n14
2 John
3 169n14
7 167, 168n13, 169n14, 171n19
9 169n14, 170, 170n15
10 171n19
Jude
1 172
4 172
5–23 172
6–8 172n20
7 173
12–16 172n20
14 173
15 173
17 172
17–18 172n20
21 172
25 171
Revelation
1:1 175, 176, 178n8
1:2 176, 176n2, 178n8, 180
1:4 175
1:4–5 175
1:5 178n8, 180
1:7 176
1:8 176n3, 178n4
1:9 176, 176n2, 180
1:12–16 177
1:13 22n38, 176
1:17–18 176
1:20 179
2:1 179
2:7 180
2:8 179

244
2:9 180
2:10–11 181
2:12 179
2:13 180
2:17 181
2:18 178, 180
3:1 180
3:4–5 181
3:7 178n5, 180, 180n9
3:8 181
3:9 181
3:12 181
3:14 180
3:16–17 182
3:20–21 182
3:21 178
4:8 176n3
5:5 178, 180n9, 184n13
5:6 182, 184
5:8 184n13
5:12 182, 184
5:13 177
6:1 183
6:1–17 184
6:9 176, 180n11
6:10 178n5
6:16 184
7:10 177
7:14 183, 184
7:17 178, 183
8:1 184
11:7 180n11
11:8 178n7
11:15 178, 178n8, 179
12 179
12:5 178
12:10 178, 178n8
12:11 180n11, 183, 184
12:17 176n2, 180n11

245
13:8 183, 184
14:1 183
14:13 178n7
14:14 22n38, 176
15:3 183
15:4 178n6
16:5 178n6
17:14 178, 178n7, 183, 184
19:7 183
19:9 183
19:10 176n2, 177, 180n11
19:13 179
19:16 178, 178n7
20:4 176, 176n2, 178, 178n8, 179, 180n11
20:6 178, 178n8, 179
21:2 179
21:6 178n4
21:9 179, 183
21:14 183
21:22–23 183–84
21:27 184
22:1 178
22:3 178
22:7 179
22:8 175
22:8–9 177
22:13 178n4
22:16 178, 180n9, 181
22:20 178n7
22:21 178n7
OTHER ANCIENT TEXTS
Apocalypse of Abraham
17:2 177
Ascension of Isaiah
8:4–5 177
Barnabas

246
19:5 3n7
Baruch
3:9–4:2 65
2 Baruch
13:8 83n12
44:4 83n12
Didache
1:2 3n7
2:7 3n7
1 Enoch
12–16 85n14
63:8 83n12
90 184n14
2 Enoch
22:8 85n14
Gospel of Thomas
25 3n7
Ignatius
To the Ephesians
7 168n9
To the Smyrnaeans
1–3 168n9
7.1–8.2 70
To the Trallians
9–10 168n9
Jubilees
4:17–24 85n14
5:16 83n12
21:4 83n12
30:16 83n12
33:18 83n12
Philo
Allegorical Interpretation

247
1.61 143n3
3.95–97 143n4
On Dreams
1.65–66 143
2.45 143n6
On Drunkenness
32–33 143n6
On the Confusion of Tongues
102 143n3
On the Creation of the World
24 143n5
139 143n6
146 143n2
On the Migration of Abraham
6 143n1
On the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel
8 143n1
60 143n
On the Special Laws
1.8 143n1, 143n2
Questions and Answers on Exodus
2.122 143n6
Questions and Answers on Genesis
1.4 143n6
That God Is Unchangeable
57 143n1
That the Worse Attacks the Better
7 143n3
Who Is the Heir?
38 143n3
181 143n3
230–31 143n6
294 143n3
Psalms of Solomon
2:18 83n12

248
Pseudo-Philo
20:4 83n12
11QMelch
13–14 85n14
Sirach
15:3 66
24:1 65
24:21 66
24:23 65
35:12–13 83n12
43:27 144
51:25–26 36
Testament of Abraham (A)
13:3–10 85n14
Testament of Abraham (B)
10 85n14
11:2 85n14
Wisdom of Solomon
7:26 142–43
9:1–6 144
9:17–18 65

Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Foreword by Rowan Williams
Preface
1. Jesus according to Jesus
2. Jesus according to Mark, Matthew, and Luke
3. Jesus according to John
4. Jesus according to Acts
5. Jesus according to Paul: Part 1
6. Jesus according to Paul: Part 2
7. Jesus according to Hebrews
8. Jesus according to James, Peter, John, and Jude
9. Jesus according to Revelation
Postscript
Appendix 1. The Probable Date and Place of Origin for Documents of the New Testament
Appendix 2. The Life and Mission of Paul
Bibliography
Index of Subjects
Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Texts