Back to the Gospels - who was Christ?

Right time to sort this one out... (need to redo the references as they don't seem to make sense... but here is a start on this huge subject...)

As a child being first taken through the gospels at Sunday school in Otford,UK one thing struck me more than anything else about Jesus. I couldn't frame the observation because it was so odd and why it takes this long to get to saying it ... who knows. Anyway the observation is that Jesus never acts upon what we call in the Modern world free-will. Instead everything is done to fulfill the scriptures and propheses. Now that is a very odd idea to a child.

This is an odd idea even to an European adult today but we realise that Jesus was not a Modern human being but deeply embedded in Jewish Middle Eastern culture and tradition of 2 millennia ago. It makes Jesus a far cry from the Modernist interpretation of Him and God also. If He was God - God is all powerful. Why then does Jesus feel the need to follow only the propheses of mortals? If he Created the Universe I'm sure he can decide his future? Modernism and NT conceptions of the Human Being don't mix at all. How Luterism is supposed to be anything to do with Christ becomes a mystery also. Where is the celebration of individuality?

So to sort this out I spent last night reading up in the university library and in particular Sir William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible dated 1873. May as well get the official anti-semitic view.

So what is Christ anyway? Christ comes from Greek Xpistos (as well transcribed pictorially as I can) which is pronounced Christos and is the rendering of the Hebrew word Masiach or Messiah. It means 'annointed'. Kings of Israel like David were Xristos. But it specifically refers to an on going prophesy of a Messiah from the lineage of David that would lead the Jews to liberation (or something like that).

The propheses of the Messiah paint a variety of pictures however. Early Messiahs (before David) were men of peace while the later Messiahs after David were more conquerors, judges and redeemers of sin. Some suffering is present in some Messiahs also. Nowhere though does the OT refer to the Messiah as a divine being - only someone who completes God's work. Jesus had quite a number of propheses to chose from when He painted his own picture of the Messiah, but the becoming Divine is new.

A small point but Jesus as a Man had only an Earthly mother yet Matthew writes the lineage from David via Joseph! who wasn't his father?

The famous terms "o uios tou theou" and "o uios tou anthropou" which mean "son of God" and "son of "man" respectively are titles of the Messiah. They mean exactly what they say and here is the problem because it seems that Jesus referred to himself literally as a mortal man but also a divine being.

So now the "crux" of the point. The logic here is extraordinary and I can't believe this isn't widely considered...

The Jesus was charged with blasphemy. Deut xiii I-II instructs the killing of blasphemers. No where do the propheses say that the Messiah would be Divine. It is his claim to Divinity and not his being the Christ that was the problem.

So if Jesus was not Divine they were only acting in accordance with God's Law and Jesus was rightfully executed.

Yet if Jesus was Divine however then he was wrongfully executed.

But to emancipate sins (at least in the Christian story) he needed to be Divine and suffer the humilition and injustice of wrongful punishment and death. In this way he takes our rightful place on the cross.

So the whole story is a Tragedy of epic proportion and intricate dimension with Jesus acting out the script as written by the prophets. The propheses omitted the detail of Divinity so that when a Divine being was born he was destined to be executed for blasphemy as no-one would believe Him but in so doing complete God's plan of the emancipation from sins.

Thus the Jewish leaders were intricately involved in their own emancipation from sin.

In Isiah ii 1xvi both Heathen a Jew would benefit from the restoration. So it seems that were Jesus a divine being it would have been essential for God's plan to succeed and for Jesus to be executed for the Jewish leaders to have not acknowledged him as such. Yet for the Jews to then take part in the emancipation of sins they would then need to turn around their view and realise their part in God's plan.

Is this really very likely? Are the Jews simply the Deus ex machina of the Christian Tragedy story of Christ which liberates them only from sin and suffering? The other Judas' in the story? Why also was Jesus blindly following the scriptures and evidently failing to do so very well since no-one important and educated believed that he was the Messiah? Riding into Jerusalem on a donkey for example clearly failed to get recognised as the Sign of the Messiah. The fact that the Jews still don't recognise his as the Messiah must raise enormous questions about whether he was the Messiah since it is a Jewish idea. On the other hand what exactly are the Jews waiting for?

"Christians" going it alone and breaking from the Jewish faith seems to be a big problem. I don't undertand the Jewish faith and Christians equally won't understand it so how can we walk away with a half baked idea of a Messiah and hope to understand Jesus who was acting out the ancient Messiah role of a different people a long time ago? There is much work to do and huge questions.

Finally the Trinity. Son of Man and Son of God. Christians make a big deal of this. There is only One God and so there is only One Jesus. I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. Through me, and through me alone etc etc. Thus they argue we all have to be Christians.

I still wonder however if they are missing something here. When Jesus says he is God and Man at once he is not the only one to have said that. It happens a lot in ancient thinking where gods take human form regularly. Indeed the issue of Trinity is not an issue for other faiths because there is no confusion between the "Divine" and "Form". The Absolute, Eternal, Divine is actually demonstrated in every Form. Krishna shows his Universal Form to Arjun in which the whole Universe is present within Him and He is present in everything. Thus Jesus claiming to be the Divine is not miraculous at all from other persepctives. It is only an issue within the Jewish faith where he was punished for such a claim. So its a bit of a hermaneutic circle. If you accept that way of thinking then you accept the internal logic of Christ being the Only One. But if you don't accept the circle then its not an issue.

Can thuis really be explained in Christian terms? I tried in the high street a few weeks ago and as usual each person must follow their own way.