Jesus Christ: Who Is He?

Irish Jesuit Province

Jesus Christ: Who Is He?Author(s): Hugh KellySource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 76, No. 904 (Oct., 1948), pp. 449-456Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20515875 .Accessed: 14/06/2014 11:21

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JESUS CHRIST?WHO IS HE? By HUGH KELLY, S.J.

THE historical Ufe of Christ?especially the three years of His

pub?c ministry?is fiUed with imp?cations and chaUenges which

pose inescapably the supreme question: Who is He? Is He

what He claims to be? His teaching so profound and new, given with such a note of authority; His miracles done with such abundance and

ease; the claims He made as to His dignity and nature?at first dis

creetly, but towards the end of His life more clearly?nearly every

thing we know about His life and career stimulate in the highest

degree the desire to know the truth about Him. The chief effort of

the teaching activity of the Church, of its councils, doctors,

theologians, especially in the first centuries, was to give an answer to

the question : Who is Christ? The answer could not be exhaustive, could not sound the fuU depth of the mystery of Christ, which tianscends the human reason. But it could be accurate as far as it

went; it could state the essential features of the mystery; it could safe

guard it against false interpretations; it could give an explanation rich

though not complete of the unsearchable riches of Christ.

It is true to say that the chief subject of Christ's teaching, His chief

doctrine and message, is Himself. "

I am the truth." "

I am the fight of the world." The great system of Catholio theology is but the ex

pounding of Christ?His PerspnaUty, His Incarnation, His mission of

teaching and redemption, the eternal life He came to give and the

means by which He makes h available to the world.

The first question which Christ at the beginning of His public career suggested to His contemporaries was?art Thou the Messias? ** Art thou he that is to come or look we for another?" The question

had just been asked of John the Baptist?who had rejected it with

vehemence and energy, as his response indicates. Attention was soon

turned on Christ, especiaUy after the testimony given to Him by the

Baptist, whose reputation stood so high with the people. The manner

in which Our Lord met that inquiry is at first sight strange and

puzzling. It would seem to be the obvious thing to answer yes, at once. But He does not answer yes, even when the question was asked

with a passionate eagerness which we think He must have found hard

to disappoint. "

The Jews therefore came round about Him and said

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IRISH MONTHLY

to Him : How long dost Thou hold our souls in suspense? If Thou be the Christ tell us plainly

" (St. John, x, 24). The attitude of Christ

is not simple because the situation was not simple. He does not give a direct answer; at first He does not wish to be saluted as the Messias;

He chides the demons and those He healed because they wished to make Him known.

" And He strictly charged them that they should

not tell any man of Him "

(St. Mark, viii, 30). The reason for this

strange behaviour was that the notion of the Messias had come to be falsified and corrupted. It was now generally understood in a sense

very different from that which it had in the prophets and which Christ had come to fulfil. Owing to a variety of causes, historical and moral, certain features in the complex idea of the Messias had come to be so

emphasised that they came to overshadow and obliterate other and

truer features. The Messias had come to be understood as a national

saviour, who was to deliver His people from their enemies and oppres sors and lead them in triumph into a state of prosperity. This triumph

was to be something external, material, sensational. It was to be a

restoration of the kingdom of Israel, but to a greater height of glory than it had even under David or Solomon.

But Christ had come to reveal a Messias who was to inaugurate a

spiritual kingdom; whose victory would be over man's interior

enemies, over his passions, over the enemies of his soul. The true

Messias was one who was to be meek and humble, who was to secure

His triumph by suffering and humiliation. To have accepted at once

the title of Messias would have been to involve the gravest misunder

standings; would have been to arouse desires of worldly glory, pros

perity, enjoyment which were simply incompatible with the life Christ

was to introduce. It is often said of certain poets and artists that they have to make their own public; that they have to educate their con

temporaries up to their own artistic level. With due reverence we may

apply the saying to Christ; He had to purify or eliminate a false con

ception and to restore the true features of a humble suffering Messias, of one who

" shall not contend or cry out; neither shall any man hear

His voice in the streets. The bruised reed He shall not break; and

smoking flax He shall not extinguish (St. Matthew, xii, 20). The economy of revelation and restraint which Christ manifested in

this delicate task is full of wisdom and patience and prudence. His

general method of procedure was to accept or assume certain titles

which were certainly messianic, but which had not been so prominent

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JESUS CHRIST?WHO IS HE?

and consequently had not been so overladen with misunderstandings and misinterpretations. The chief of these was the title Son of Man, which is used sixty-nine times in the Synoptic gospels alone. The

formula is used in different senses. "

In certain contexts," says Dom

Graham (The Christ of Catholicism; Longman, 1948; p. 154), "

the

meaning seems to pass from being an emphatic * I

* to that of a per

sonal appellation; while designating Jesus it simultaneously manifests

the powers with which He knows Himself to be invested and the

mission which He claims as His. In other words, the * Son of Man

*

has become a messianic title." The title was deUberately vague, and

emphasised His human nature. But He employed it often in connec

tion with His highest offices and dignities. "

And you shaU see the

Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the power of God and coming with the clouds of heaven

" (St. Mark, xiv, 62). And with the signifi

cance of greatness was joined, as the notion was more fuUy

expounded, the idea of suffering, and thus the true features of the

Messias began to be discerned. "

And He began to teach them that

the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the

ancients and by the high priests and the scribes; and be kiHed and

after three days rise again "

(St. Mark, viii, 31). But how disturbing and unwelcome was this prospect of a humble

and suffering Messias, how opposed it was to aU the prejudices and

hopes of even the best can be judged by the reception it met with from the Apostles, that select public He had been educating so carefuUy to

be able to receive His ideas. "

And Peter taking Him began to rebuke

Him, saying Lord be it far from Thee; this shaU not be unto Thee "

(St. Matthew, xvii, 22). Here again Peter spoke for the rest?as he did in the confession of Christ's divinity. The Passion taught them

nothing, but rather plunged them deeper into despair; and it required the teaching of the risen Saviour to open their eyes to see what had

been written of Himself so long ago by the prophets. "

Ought not

Christ to have suffered these things and so to have entered into His

glory?" (St Luke, xxiv, 26) He said to the two disciples to whom He

gave that wonderful scripture lesson on the road to Emmaus on the first Easter day. Here then, line by line, are drawn the features of the

Messias de?neated by Isaias and the other prophets?the Messias who was to conquer by His sufferings, and the figure is described as the Son of Man.

But the revelation of Christ about Himself went immeasurably 451



IRISH MONTHLY

deeper 4han that He was the Messias or the Son of Man. He was

something greater than the Jews had expected or imagined. Hence the significance of St. Peter's answer at Qesarea Philippi :

" Thou art

Christ the* Son of the Living God." The true dignity of Christ was

recognised by His Apostles, who had been taught it not by flesh and

blood, that is human wisdom, but by the revelation of Our Father Who is in Heaven. The title Son of God was not a messianic one; it was given to those who were singled out for God's special favours. The application of it in that usual sense would have no special signifi cance for Christ and certainly would not have required an inspiration of the Father. As applied to Christ it has its uniquely literal sense; it

conveys the genuine and ultimate truth about Him. He is something

incomparably more than priest, prophet, teacher, king; He is all these

in a supreme way because He is the eternal, only begotten, Son of the

Father.

With the express purpose of establishing this vital truth, St. John

wrote his gospel a generation after the Synoptists. But the truth is

clearly conveyed also in the Synoptists. Obviously such a revelation

required the greatest delicacy; a premature assertion would have

shocked and scandalised those who believed in the unity of God but

had not come to the knowledge of the Trinity of Persons. A direct

affirmation of His divinity would have defeated His purpose. But by a series of discreet revelations, by claims and assertions suggestive without being shocking, the great mystery is gradually unfolded. The

Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath; He changes and completes the

law with supreme authority; He forgives sin; He is greater than the

Temple; He claims a devotion, a love and a service which no creature

could claim; He promises a universal presence and assistance which

only God could give; He speaks of God as His Father in a sense that

is completely distinctive; He is the Son, one with the Father in word

and work. The evangelist will say at the beginning of his gospel : " We have seen His glory; the glory as it were of the only begotten of

the Father full of grace and truth "

(St. John, i, 14). It is most sig nificant that at the Passion when He is on trial before the Sanhedrim

and Pilate all the political and minor religious charges are dropped as

being evidently false, and He is condemned for making Himself the

Son of God. Each of the four evangelists record that He claimed that

title and was condemned for claiming it (St. Matthew, xxvi, 63; St.

Mark, xv, 60; St. Luke, xxii, 70; St. John, xix, 17).

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JESUS CHRIST?WHO IS HE ?

The priests and rehgious leaders had understood His message before this, as is clear from the great parable of the lord of the vine

yard which He spoke in the Temple after Palm Sunday, and which was directed primarily to the priests. The parable conveyed briefly the spiritual history of Israel?the vineyard which God had planted and cared for, and from which He wished to draw His just returns.

He sends servant after servant to collect His fruits, but they are ill

treated and sent away empty-handed by the husbandmen whom the

master put over the vineyard. "

Then the Lord of the vineyard said :

What shaU I do? I wiU send My beloved Son. It may be when they see Him they wiU reverence Him

" (St. Matthew, xx. 13). The priests

did not need to have the parable explained. The vineyard was Israel;

they were the wicked husbandmen; the servants were the prophets whom they had rejected; and the last messenger who now came to

demand God's rights was the only-begotten Son. The parable tells

prophetically how they received Him. "

And laying hold of Him they killed Him and cast Him out ?f the vineyard

" (St. Mark, xii, 8). The

issue was clear between Christ and them; their sin would be done in

full Ught. It is significant that this parable is given by the Synoptists. The revelation which is made indubitably but without special

emphasis by the Synoptists is the express purpose of the fourth gospel. " But these are written that you may be?eve that Jesus is the Christ,

the Son of God; and that be?eving you may have Ufe in His name "

(St. John, xx, 31). The prologue, which is a doctrinal statement of the

life and meaning of Christ, expresses the mystery clearly, in the terms

which have been received by the Church as the official statement of

the mystery. **

In the beginning was the Word; and the Word was

with God; and the Word was God?and the Word was made flesh

and dwelt amongst us and we have seen His glory, the glory as it were

of the only-begotten of the Father fuU of grace and truth."

That Jesus Christ was not merely a prophet or the Messias, but that He was something immeasurably greater, is the message of the New

Testament. His supreme revelation is not precisely a doctrine but

Himself; by revealing Himself, the Son of God made man, He has

revealed Christianity. He is the author and finisher of the Faith, at once its motive and object. It is that fact which gives its unique character to Christianity. No other re?gious teacher has made such a

claim. Re?gious teachers have claimed, at the most, to be the mouth

piece of God, His prophets, commissioned to speak His message in

453



IRISH MONTHLY

the world. But there was one religious teacher who proclaimed Him

self to be the only-begotten Son of God equal to the Father, or rather

one with Him, To the expounding and defence of this revelation the

main effort of the teaching authority of the Church was directed until

the theological exposition was established at the Council of Chalcedon

in 451 A.D., when the main lines of Christology were formulated.

Much of the work of exposition was called out by the necessity to

refute heresy; because the mystery was the main object of attack from

heretics from the beginning. Some denied the humanity of Christ; He

had only assumed an apparent or phenomenal body; he was an appa rition. Others denied that He was really God; He was only a man

highly favoured by God, greater than Moses but of his class. Others

again denied that the two natures, the divine and the human, were

really distinct; He was a composite or amalgam of the divine and the

human, but was neither of them specifically. Against these false in

terpretations the true doctrine was developed and expounded with ever fuller clearness.

The first concern of the Church was to safeguard both the divinity and the humanity. Jesus Christ was a man, conceived and born of a

human mother, flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone, Who grew and

developed like other children, passing through the normal stages of

human growth. He had a full human nature; body and soul, with their full endowment of powers, intellect, will, imagination. He had a

full complement of human emotions, sensibilities, feelings, needs. His

humanity is clearly seen in the gospels. He eats and sleeps; He is

hungry and thirsty; he is glad and sorrowful; He is indignant, dis

appointed, grateful, moved to tears, to admiration, to pity. He was

a complete man with the full range of human powers and feelings. He

shared all necessary human qualities; He was like us in all things

except in sin and the weaknesses which resulted from sin.

He was then man, truly and completely?but He was more than man. He claimed to be the Son of God, one in nature with the Father and equal to Him. We have already seen some of the ways in which this tremendous claim was made; and that it was the explicit charge on which He was put to death. That he is God and man is the teach

ing of the gospels, which all Christians believed from the beginning; but how He can be both; how the one Person can be truly God and

truly man is the Mystery of Jesus which the Church alone elucidates

truly. The briefest statement of the mystery is the first: "The Word

454



JESUS CHRIST?WHO IS HE ?

was made flesh." The Word is the Second Person of the Blessed

Trinity, the Son of the Father begotten from aU eternity, God of God,

Light of Light, to Whom the Father has given the complete Divine

Nature which makes Him equal to the Father. This Divine Person

at a moment in time assumed a complete human nature in virtue of

which He is from that moment also man. As God then He is eternal

and infinitely perfect; He Uves the Divine life, a life without change or

succession, that eternal now into which is gathered supereminently aU

the intensity of existence, a Ufe without past or future, a Ufe of infinite

activity and happiness. As Man He Uves a human life?one of change, succession, emotion, experience, in conditions of time, place and

matter.

Two natures and two Uves?but one Person. That is at once the

explanation and the mystery of Christ. He is a Divine Person, Who has assumed a complete human nature, by reason of which He is now

man for ever. That Person then through his Divine Nature is eternal,

equal to the Father, was with the Father before creation. That same

Person was made flesh, was born of a human Mother, grew, suffered

and died. We must say that His Mother is the Mother of God

because she is the Mother of a Person. CathoUc teaching has always guarded these two points in the mystery, the unity of Person and the

duaUty of nature. Without entering into phUosophical questions we

may say that a person is one who is sui juris, who is the subject to

whom his actions are attributed and who is responsible for them.

Notions, Uke person, nature, substance, were taken over from Greek

philosophy and given a true but analogical application to God.

Jesus Christ is thus a Person, Who is the subject of His acts and is

responsible; Whose acts are human or Divine according as they are

done by His human or Divine Nature; but they are His acts, the acts

of a Divine Person. It is He who acts. Pointing to the Child in the

crib at Bethlehem or to the Man dying on the cross at Calvary, we

can and must say that is God, that is the Person Who made the world.

We could not say that He made the world with the hands which

manipulated the hammer and axe in the workshop at Nazareth; but

we must say that they are the hands of Him Who created. The acts

of His human nature are human, His acts of love, compassion, sorrow,

joy; but they are the acts of a Divine Person and as such are of infinite

dignity and worth. The Word was made flesh, became man without

ceasing to be God. We cannot express the mystery by saying that

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IRISH MONTHLY

Jesus Christ was a man who was adopted by God, or a man who became God; because from the first moment of its existence His human nature was assumed by the Word. We must say that God became man. The Church's explanation safeguards the mystery and

explains it adequately, but not exhaustively; it still remains a Divine

mystery transcending human reason, which is accepted on Divine Faith and not on human study and speculation.

St. Thomas speaks of the Incarnation as the miracle of miracles; and P?re Lallement, S.J., says that after the Incarnation there is noth

ing more to wonder at in creation. All is supremely great in this

mystery; the motives from which it came; the virtues by which it was

achieved; the effect which is the God-Man; the purpose and aim. "God Who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in times

past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all in these days hath spoken to us by His Son

" (Heb., i, 1). Jesus is the Word of God uttered

from all eternity in the Divine generation; and uttered, as it were, in

His human nature by the Incarnation, in terms of human life and

thought, as far as these were adequate to express an infinite utterance.

He is the last revelation of the Father; not last merely in time, not

merely the last up to date which might be superseded. He is the final,

complete, achieved utterance of God in the world. The God-man is

Himself the supreme testimony and message of God's power, mercy, wisdom and, most of all, love. When at the last supper Philip asked

for a final vision of the Father, some impressive theophany, Jesus

says : "

Have I been so long with you and have you not known Me?

Philip, he that seeth Me seeth the Father also "

(St. John, xiv, 9). He

is Himself the vision of the Father; His words and deeds, His activity are the Father's. And when he speaks like this He means incom

parably more than St. Paul means when he says : "

I live now not I;

but Christ liveth in me "

(Gal., ii, 20). He does not speak of a moral

or accidental unity of Grace but of a unity of nature by which He and

the Father are One in Divine life and operation.

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Article Contentsp. 449p. 450p. 451p. 452p. 453p. 454p. 455p. 456

Issue Table of ContentsThe Irish Monthly, Vol. 76, No. 904 (Oct., 1948), pp. 433-480The Ethics of Journalism and Publicity [pp. 433-439]Agriculture in Northern Ireland [pp. 440-448]Jesus Christ: Who Is He? [pp. 449-456]The Novels of Bruce Marshall [pp. 457-463]Evidence and Evolution. V: Notes on Some Recent Books [pp. 464-471]Clontarf [p. 471-471]Letters and the Land [pp. 472-475]Some Recent BooksReview: untitled [pp. 476-477]Review: untitled [pp. 477-478]Review: untitled [pp. 478-479]Review: untitled [pp. 479-480]Review: untitled [p. 480-480]

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Jesus Christ: Who Is He?