{"id":5624,"date":"2013-12-20T04:38:51","date_gmt":"2013-12-20T09:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=5624"},"modified":"2021-02-01T15:37:15","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T21:37:15","slug":"mark-jesus-is-gods-son-the-messiah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/mark-jesus-is-gods-son-the-messiah\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark: Jesus is God&#8217;s Son, the Messiah"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.turnbacktogod.com\/jesus-christ-praying-wallpapers\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-5629\" src=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-Christ-Praying-Wallpapers-13.jpg\" alt=\"Jesus-Christ-Praying-Wallpapers-13\" width=\"480\" height=\"647\" srcset=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-Christ-Praying-Wallpapers-13.jpg 800w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-Christ-Praying-Wallpapers-13-222x300.jpg 222w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-Christ-Praying-Wallpapers-13-759x1024.jpg 759w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-Christ-Praying-Wallpapers-13-420x566.jpg 420w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-Christ-Praying-Wallpapers-13-460x620.jpg 460w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jesus-Christ-Praying-Wallpapers-13-90x121.jpg 90w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>To follow up on <a title=\"previous post\" href=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/does-mark-teach-that-jesus-is-god\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kruger vs. McGrath<\/a>: in light of <a title=\"previous post on Jesus and God in the gospel of Mark\" href=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/does-mark-teach-that-jesus-is-god\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">what Mark either explicitly says or clearly implies<\/a>, Dr.\u00a0<strong>McGrath is correct<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Not only does Mark\u00a0<em>not <\/em>teach that\u00a0Jesus is God himself, but he <strong>plainly implies that Jesus is\u00a0<em>not<\/em>\u00a0God himself<\/strong>. For Mark, God is someone else, the one who sent, empowered, worked through, raised, and exalted Jesus. Jesus is the human Messiah, the unique Son of God, given unique authority and power, and now uniquely exalted by God.<\/p>\n<p>Against this avalanche of clear assertions of who Jesus is, and clear distinctions between Jesus and his God, <strong>what does Kruger offer?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>That in 1:2, Mark quotes prophecies which predicts the coming\u00a0<em>of YHWH<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>But Mark applies them to John making the way <em>for Jesus<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>See, Mark wants us to infer that Jesus is YHWH himself.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Or, that&#8217;s <em>one<\/em> way to interpret Kruger&#8217;s claim that this &#8220;a very plain way of saying <strong>that Jesus is God coming to visit his people<\/strong>.&#8221; (=Jesus is God, who is coming to visit his people.)<\/p>\n<p>But we might <em>also<\/em> read Kruger as saying that Jesus (i.e. his coming, his public ministry) is God-coming-to-meet-his-people. That is, that God, by means of this unique messenger, is coming to reveal and confront. \u00a0Kruger sounds like he&#8217;s asserting the first, which implies the numerical identity of Jesus and God (something strongly asserted by evangelicals &#8211; but not by Mark), but then he <em>also<\/em> says that given how Mark modifies both of his quotes, they seem to speak three, namely &#8220;of God, the messenger, and the one who is coming in God\u2019s place.&#8221; On this reading, Mark is <em>not<\/em> asserting that Jesus is God himself, but rather that God is<em> uniquely acting through<\/em> Jesus.<\/p>\n<p>It seems to me that Kruger is <strong>having it both ways<\/strong> &#8211; please the evangelicals (Jesus is God himself) but stay true to Mark (Jesus is the unique agent &#8211; Son, Messiah &#8211; of God). Thus,\u00a0<a title=\"Kruger - second post on Mark, responding to McGrath\" href=\"http:\/\/michaeljkruger.com\/does-mark-really-present-jesus-as-god-a-response-to-james-mcgrath\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in his second post<\/a>, responding to McGrath, he says that Mark presents<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Jesus as the fulfilment of OT passages that discuss the coming of God himself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well weaseled! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>He then complains about McGrath&#8217;s reading:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>McGrath offers his alternative interpretation of what Mark is doing here, namely that \u201cJesus embodied the coming of God.\u201d \u00a0Of course, McGrath leaves this concept conveniently vague. \u00a0What in the world does it mean to \u201cembody the coming of God\u201d? \u00a0And why should we think that Mark means this, as opposed to the fact that Jesus is, in fact, the coming of the Lord? It is almost like McGrath wants to get as close to saying that Jesus is God without actually saying it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Eh, no. What McGrath is saying is <strong><em>very clear<\/em><\/strong> &#8211; just as a prophet speaks for God (11:17) and acts as\/for God (11:12-13), so Jesus&#8217;s coming, his whole public ministry, is the coming of God, to his people, to reveal their messiah, and so to reveal more about himself and his will, and to judge them for their unfaithfulness. God is <em>acting through<\/em> his Son. What is unclear about that? It is rather Kruger who&#8217;s been unclear, as explained above.<\/p>\n<p>Kruger urges McGrath to review the work of Larry Hurtado:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Hurtado in particular makes it clear that devotion to Jesus as God was very early within the Christian movement\u2013indeed significantly earlier than Mark\u2019s gospel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Early <strong>worship<\/strong>? Yes. &#8220;As God,&#8221; i.e. thinking that Jesus is God himself?\u00a0<a title=\"post on Hurtado on the early worship of Jesus\" href=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/archives\/4750\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">No<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Contrast <strong>two approaches<\/strong> to Mark. One is to focus on its plain and repeated statements and clear implications, trying to hear it how the original readers would. Another, is to read into it what the author must <em>surely<\/em> be <em>hinting<\/em> at, in line with what one is confident that <em>other<\/em> biblical writings \u00a0and catholic tradition &#8211; or maybe only the latter &#8211; maintain.<\/p>\n<p>Two natures? <em>Homoousios<\/em>? Eternal generation? Three &#8220;persons&#8221; in one &#8220;essence&#8221;? Jesus creating the cosmos?\u00a0No hint of any of these. <strong>The most a catholic can say<\/strong>, it would seem, is that what Mark says is <em>logically consistent with<\/em> these catholic claims about Jesus and God. Kruger, being a Reformed catholic and so not a Roman Catholic, prefers to leave these aside for the vague &#8220;Jesus as divine&#8221; or &#8220;Jesus as God.&#8221; The catholic formulas, he senses, are out of place in a first century text. But the vague evangelical formulas can, if one squints hard enough, be &#8220;seen&#8221; sort of floating around or behind the text &#8211; but not really <em>in<\/em> it. Hence, his hint-hunting.<\/p>\n<p>But doesn&#8217;t it say Jesus is <em>God&#8217;s Son<\/em>, which as Athanasius has taught us, implies that he has God&#8217;s essential nature, and so is as divine as the one God is?<\/p>\n<p>No. The book seems to use the term <strong>&#8220;Son of God&#8221;<\/strong> as equivalent to &#8220;Messiah.&#8221; (14:61) Nor is the author at all worried that Jesus will be misunderstood as &#8220;a <strong>mere man<\/strong>.&#8221; He&#8217;s a real man, of course, but is also God&#8217;s unique Son, the Messiah, powerful in ministry, authorized to interpret the Law and to forgive sins, a heroically obedient Son who goes to his agonizing death and is vindicated by God who raises him, the coming King of the Jews and of the world, raised by God to his right hand, that is, to the number one position under God himself.<\/p>\n<p>Could a <em>man<\/em> do all this?\u00a0Mark thinks so. Do you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Would you think it a <em>disappointment<\/em> <\/strong>if that was &#8220;all&#8221; Jesus turned out to be? Mark makes no attempt to say that Jesus is God himself, and often implies that God is someone else. Do you think that <strong>the very heart of the gospel<\/strong> is that &#8220;Jesus is God&#8221;? Or that God is an eternal Dance of three perfect, mutually indwelling, wholly equal Friends? If so, does Mark <em>fail<\/em> to preach the gospel, in this, the first Gospel to be written?<\/p>\n<p>I would say not. Mark <em>does<\/em> present <strong>the gospel<\/strong>. The Kingdom of God is available, and we have access to it by repenting and confessing that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and so the Lord whom God has appointed over us. He is coming back, to literally rule the world. We must follow him &#8211; there is no other choice. We must imitate him &#8211; there is no other choice &#8211; in all things, especially in respect of our beliefs about God (Mark 12:28-34) and about Jesus himself (Mark 8:27-30, 12:35-37).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To follow up on Kruger vs. McGrath: in light of what Mark either explicitly says or clearly implies, Dr.\u00a0McGrath is correct. Not only does Mark\u00a0not teach that\u00a0Jesus is God himself, but he plainly implies that Jesus is\u00a0not\u00a0God himself. For Mark, God is someone else, the one who sent, empowered, worked through, raised, and exalted Jesus.&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/mark-jesus-is-gods-son-the-messiah\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Mark: Jesus is God&#8217;s Son, the Messiah<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"default","neve_meta_container":"default","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":70,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"off","neve_meta_disable_footer":"off","neve_meta_disable_title":"off","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,15,54,33,38,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-christology","category-debates","category-incarnation","category-monotheism","category-worship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5624"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43045,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5624\/revisions\/43045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}