Jesus Christ for Contemporary Life. Don Schweitzer

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Jesus Christ for Contemporary Life - Don Schweitzer


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of the Chalcedonian Definition regarding the presence and relationship of divine and human natures in Jesus’ person have been particularly influential for subsequent Christologies. Until the Enlightenment these provided the basic presuppositions for many Christologies. Even today they are affirmed officially by most churches. Yet the differences between the Gospel portrayals of Jesus and the technical terminology of these affirmations and the equally great difference between their terminology and content and contemporary thought3 make them controversial and subject to wide-spread criticism.

      What follows will examine the christological developments leading to the affirmations of Nicaea and Chalcedon, tracing their roots, noting their continuities and discontinuities with what can be known historically about Jesus and with the early church’s faith in him as the risen Christ. The conclusion will examine how the process leading to Nicaea is continued in a theological development begun by Karl Barth, in which the affirmations of Chalcedon became a basis for rethinking the nature of God in light of Jesus Christ.

      The Impact of Jesus’ Resurrection

       on How Jesus Was Understood

      Within two decades of Jesus’ resurrection this kind of reverence seems to have become widespread within the early church.

      Developing in the first two decades after Jesus’ resurrection, this affirmation of Jesus’ distinction from and yet closeness to God sowed seeds that, through sustained debate over Jesus’ relationship to God, would eventually culminate in the doctrinal affirmations of Nicaea and Chalcedon. It was the Johannine understanding of Jesus as the pre-existent Word that particularly provided impetus for this development. Here the understanding of Jesus as the Son of God and the personification of divine wisdom blossomed into a notion of Jesus’ pre-existence as the Word of God. While notions of Jesus’ pre-existence may be found elsewhere in the New Testament, Johannine Christology was a dramatic development in the clarity and emphasis with which this was expressed.


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