Loofs on the Christology Views of the New Testament

Loofs on the Christology Views 

of the New Testament

Thomas Allen

In What Is the Truth about Jesus Christ? Problems of Christology Discussed in Six Haskell Lectures at Oberlin, Ohio (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913), pages 177-184, Friedrich Loofs presents and discusses five points that show that orthodox Christology does not agree with the New Testament views. Dr. Loofs is a professor of church history at the University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. His discussion of the Christological views of the New Testament follows.

[1] It is a view of vital importance to orthodox Christology that the historical Jesus is the preexistent Son of God. Do we find anything about this in the New Testament? Certainly many New Testament passages assert the pre-existence of Christ; that is, they assert or assume that Jesus did not begin to exist when his earthly life began. “O Father,” Jesus says in the high priestly prayer in the Gospel of John, “glorify me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” (John 17:5.) But where in the New Testament is this prehistoric, yea, this antemundane, Christ called the “Son of God”? Where are we told that he is as such begotten of the Father before the world? In the prologue of the Gospel of John, the pre-existent Christ is not called the “Son” but the “word,” and we are told that “this was in the beginning.” (John 1:1, 2.) Only one passage in the Pauline epistles might be suspected of referring to an antemundane birth of Christ. In Colossians 1:18 Paul calls Christ “the first-born of every creature.” But here the Greek equivalent for first-born only means that he was before every creature and above all creatures. Then the only remaining support of the later doctrine is Jesus’ title “Son of God,” which, as we all know, occurs very often in the New Testament. But in the New Testament it is applied to the historical Jesus, either with reference to his birth out of the Spirit of God, (Luke 1:35.) or because the Spirit came down upon Jesus at his baptism, (Mark 4:11.) or without reference to a date of its entrance because the Spirit of God lived in him, (Rom. 1:3.) or because Jesus was the Messiah, (Matt. 16:16.) or because he stood in a unique position of love toward God. (Matt. 11:27.) The term, “the only begotten Son,” too, only signifies what was mentioned last. For the Greek equivalent for “only begotten” does not mean anything else than unique or peerless. And it was not modern exegesis that first interpreted the term “Son of God” thus. In the first half of the fourth century Marcellus of Ancyra emphatically pointed out that in the New Testament Jesus is called the Son of God only after the incarnation, and not in his pre-existence. And the older apostolic fathers, the so-called first epistle of Clement, dating from about 95 A. D., and the Ignatian letters interpret the term “Son of God” in this manner only.

[2] It is easier to show, secondly, that the idea of the triune God, as dogmatized later, is foreign to the New Testament. We surely find the belief in the New Testament that God was in Christ, and that the Holy Spirit that lives in the single Christians and in the whole community is the spirit of God. That God the Father reveals himself also in the Son and in the Spirit, that is a conviction which is in accordance with the New Testament. But there cannot be the least doubt, nor can we alter the fact, that when  the New Testament speaks of “God,” it is thinking only of the one God whom Jesus called his Father and the Father of the faithful, too. This is shown without the shadow of a doubt by the apostolic greeting: “Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 1:7; I Cor. 1:2; II Cor. 1:1; Eph. 1:1.) And the case is not different throughout the New Testament. In the Gospel of John, in the high-priestly prayer of Jesus, we even read: “This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ.” (John 17:3.) Also the well-known prayerful wish of the apostle Paul: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all”(II Cor. 13:13.) points in the same direction. For the apostle does not speak here about three persons in the one God, but about the love of the one God, and in addition thereto, or better: in connection with it, of the grace of Jesus Christ and the communion of the Holy Ghost.

[3] It is easier still to show that orthodox Christology does not agree with the New Testament views in a third respect. According to the  orthodox Christology, the personal subject, the supreme I, of the historical Jesus is the second person of the holy Trinity. Does the fact that Jesus prayed harmonize with this? Does the circumstance that he said to Mary Magdalene: “I ascend unto my Father and your Father and to my God and your God,” (John 20:17.) harmonize with it? We have seen, indeed, that the self-consciousness of Jesus surpassed the measure of a human self-consciousness. But can we deny that in the whole New Testament a human self-consciousness is the frame in which the inner life of Jesus first comes to our notice? His humility, his obedience, his trust in God cannot be interpreted differently. We shall discuss in the last lecture how this view can be reconciled with the fact that the frame of a human self-consciousness proves to be too strait to make the personality of Jesus intelligible. Here it will suffice to have shown that the orthodox Christology which considers a divine person as the personal subject in Christ does not correspond with the New Testament views. 

[4] The fourth point I wish to mention is, that the experiences of Jesus, like his self-consciousness, are at variance with orthodox Christology. Orthodoxy of all ages was worried by the fact that we are told of Jesus, with regard to his youth, that “he increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.” (Luke 2:52.) Could this be harmonized with the assumption that the real subject of the historical Jesus was the eternal Son of God? Orthodoxy of ancient times considered these two statements as being harmonized by the assertion that the eternal Son of God grew, suffered, and died only according to his human nature. But who will deny that our very self itself is growing during our life? And certainly it sounds very forced to say that the Son of God, who by his own nature could never suffer, suffered nevertheless in his human flesh and in his human soul! Surely such forced constructions are quite foreign to the New Testament.

[5] Fifthly and lastly, I shall have to point out that in the New Testament Jesus, even after his exaltation, appears in such an organic connection with the human race as hardly to agree with orthodox Christology. Especially those very writers of the New Testament who most obviously do not assume that the life of Jesus was a purely human one viz., Paul and John make this very clear. For Paul the risen Lord “is the first-born from the dead,” (Col. 1:18.) “the first-born among many brethren.” (Rom. 8:29.) The faithful, in Paul’s opinion, are predestinated by God “to be conformed to the image of his Son as heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” (Rom. 8:29 and 8:17.) Very similarly we read in the high-priestly prayer in the Gospel of John: “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:16.)  and: “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; (John 17:24.) “that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, . . . that they may be one even as we are one; (John 17:21.) and “Thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me.” (John 17:23.) In Revelation we find the same thoughts. Here the exalted Christ says: “He that overcometh I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my Father in his throne.” (Rev.  3:21) . . .  

These five points show that orthodox Christology does not agree with the New Testament views. And those who are impartial enough to see this are thereby convinced that the old orthodox Christology cannot give us the correct interpretation of the historical person of Jesus.

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