How May a Theologian Justify Referring to Jesus as an Ethical Liberator - Coursework Example

Jesus: The Ethical Liberator OUTLINE I. Introduction II. Work of Liberation Theologians III. The Personal Ethics of Jesus IV. Jesus’s Mission to Bring Happiness to the World V. Conclusion BIOGRAPHICAL SECTION About the authors. “Dr. Kenneth Barker is an author and speaker [who] is one of the original translators of the NIV,…hold[ing] a ThM from Dallas Theological Seminary and a PhD from the Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning.”1 “Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He came to UNC in 1988, after four years of teaching at Rutgers University. At UNC he has served as both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies.”2 “The Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez (born 1928) was known as the father of liberation theology.”3 Christian E. Hauer “…acknowledge[s] happy associations…with field excavation projects of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, and the opportunity to learn from the late Professor Yohanan Aharoni, and from Professors Anson Rainey and David Ussishkin.”4 Helmut Koester devotes his work to the “memory of [his] teacher Rudolf Bultmann.”5 Burton Mack is “…a biblical scholar and historian of religion who has been engaged in the academic study of religion and culture for thirty years.”6 John A. McGuckin is a Professor of Byzantine Christian Studies in the Religion Department of Columbia University and is a professor of Early Church History at Union Theological Seminary.7 Pope John Paul VI was the pope of the Roman Catholic Church in 1967. Jesus was a historical figure who revolutionized the concept of someone who had morals and freed people. By all accounts—according to the works of liberation theologians, the personal ethics of Jesus, and Jesus’s mission to bring happiness to the world—Jesus definitely fit the portrayal of ethical liberator. Jesus played a key role in liberation theology. Liberation theology is a school of thought mainly associated with Roman Catholic theologians in Latin America, who found within the Bible a call to free people from oppression—whether social, political or material. It took off in the 1960s when a group of bishops met and decided that the Third World was suffering at the hands of richer peoples making profits off of them. These theologians were in part inspired by the findings of the Second Vatican Council along with the 1967 Papal encyclical Populorum Progressio.8 The pontiff spoke of people held back by poverty and ignorance and who were seeking fuller growth. He also spoke of the church’s responsibility towards such people. He quotes from Luke 7:22 where the people are told by Christ to go and report what they had seen and heard, i.e., of who Christ was and his message. Apart from papal documents the text mainly used in support of their views is A Theology of Liberation which Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez wrote in 1971. Later he would write in conjunction with Richard Shaull the book Liberation and Change. In A Theology of Liberation he says, “Theology and liberation are terms subject to a variety of interpretations.”9 Does such ‘liberation’ mean that Jesus freed people from the ethical rules of their society? The answer is both ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. He did not come so that people would be free to break the law, rather he has been described as fulfilling the law. In Matthew 5:17, he tells the crowd on the mountain, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them” (New International Version). He goes on to say in Matt. 5:20: “I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” In John 8:31-32, Jesus is talking to his followers whom he tells: “If you hold to my teaching you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” The reaction of his hearers is, ‘Free from what? We aren’t slaves.’ However, Jesus makes it clear that, although they are genuine descendants of Abraham, this does not necessarily give them freedom when they do not display the characteristics of such freedom. He says, rather, that their attitudes and actions show them to be in the clutches of the devil. The context of this passage is revealed soon after Jesus has revealed his own true character in John 8:12, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” The Pharisees, who then challenged him in John 8:13, lived a life bound by many rules. Some were genuinely based upon Godly principles, but others were quite petty and self-imposed. According to them to break one of their rules, however minor, made one a sinner. An example of their attitude can be clearly seen in Matthew 12:1-13. Jesus’s personal ethics liberated people from the shackles of petty legalities. Jesus and his disciples were walking through cornfields and picked at the ears of corn in order to nibble some, something the law allowed according to Deuteronomy 23:25– but this was the Sabbath and what they did was construed as reaping, separating grain and chaff and making a meal, i.e., working on the Sabbath. “Where questions of ritual purity surface in all of the other Jesus movements, the answer is the same: the Jesus people do not keep these codes.”10 This kind of conduct was condemned by the Pharisees. God had said in Exodus 20:8-11 that the Sabbath day was holy and not a day for working. However, the Pharisees had added to this and the Ten Commandments hundreds of strict rules. In John 14:6 there is one of several “I am” sayings of Jesus.: “I am the Way , the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He was rewriting the rules. The Pharisees were of the opinion that the way to heaven was to keep every single one of their petty rules. Jesus went far beyond that. He was uncompromising—that there was only one way and it was his. In Matthew 5:17-18, Jesus speaks of how he hadn’t come to destroy laws, but to fulfill them, to give them back their true meaning. In Romans 8:3-4, Paul, himself a lawyer, points out how useless the law was because of human nature which cannot keep it., but because of the sinless nature of Christ the law, which is really about having a right relationship with God, can be fulfilled. Take the example of the thief on the cross in Luke 23:39-43. He was a criminal and admitted as such. The Pharisees wouldn’t even have allowed him into the synagogue, let alone the temple and heaven, yet Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” “History itself had become a conundrum.”11 This apparent reversal of the normal ethics of 1st-century Jewish society had long been foreshadowed. “Isaiah 24-27 seems more attuned to apocalyptic than prophetic literature.”12 However, in Isaiah 11:1-4 it says of the promised Messiah: “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding , the Spirit of Counsel and of power….with righteousness he will judge the needy.” “The Pharisees were widely known as sincere and pious Jews who were intent above all else on keeping the law that God have given Moses.”13 The passage speaks of the Lord judging not by what He sees (as the Pharisees did), but by what is in a man’s heart. In Isaiah 42 we have a detailed description of ‘the Servant of the Lord,’ i.e. the Messiah, and his role: “To open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.” When Jesus was taken to the temple as an infant by his parents, Simeon quoted Isaiah 52:10 and spoke of Jesus as Savior: “For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people.” Such words can be taken literally – Jesus healed the blind14and people were released from prison by the power of the Spirit15, but this can also refer to spiritual prisons and blindness. Jesus enabled people to see what was really important. The whole Bible has only one theme that is consistent throughout - from Genesis to Revelation – God’s desire for a relationship with his created people. Genesis 1:27 states, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Also, we see in Revelation 22:17, “Come! Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.” A life lived in right relationship with God would free man from so many troubles - that is much more important than keeping rules – and by his sacrificial death, Jesus sought to restore that relationship and so to free man from the consequences of sin. John 3:16 says, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Somehow, even before her son was born Mary was aware of the reason for her son’s coming. Luke records her song of joy in Luke 1:46-55. It might also be called a song of revolution: “…he has scattered those who are proud…he has brought down rulers…he has filled the hungry with good things, but sent the rich away empty” – a reversal of the usual order. A similar reversal is what might be expected in to be found in the opening words of the discourse known as ‘The Sermon on the Mount’: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven….blessed are you when people insult you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you for my sake. Rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven.16 Jesus was to bring happiness into the world. Happiness is something that all men want – but usually they look for it in the wrong way or the wrong place. He describes the ‘poor in spirit’ as those who are unfeignedly penitent, they who are truly convinced of sin, who see and feel the state they are in by nature, being deeply sensible of their sinfulness, guiltiness, and helplessness. The Bible clearly shows that is man incapable of leading a sinless life, from the fall of Adam and Eve17 and with numberless other examples thoughout both Old and New Testaments. In conclusion, it seems then that a theologian is justified in calling Jesus an ethical liberator. He frees man from the constant struggle to keep within the law- but asks him instead to take on the greater law of Christ. Of themselves they know that it is impossible to lead a sinless life. When the disciples ask “Who then can be saved?” Jesus tells them “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”18 Jesus’s followers spent their lives on this earth living out the two commands in Jesus’s Great Commission of Matt. 28:19-20: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The impossibility of leading a life fit for heaven applied to everyone. Their only hope was in Christ according to Scripture. John 1 describes Christ: “In him was life , and that light was the light of men.” “Christology in the New Testament is remarkably fluid and poetically open-ended.”19 In the Book of Acts the Holy Spirit makes it clear to the early church that just as the reality of sin applies to all men, so the possibility of salvation applies too as Jesus made clear when he spoke of God loving the whole world.20 In Acts 10, Luke describes Peter’s vision of the sheet bearing items that under Jewish law were considered impure. Peter is told, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” Christian doctrine teaches that salvation comes because of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Romans 10:13 states, “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,” which is why Jesus can truly be called liberator. Since this is part of the ultimate law, the word of God, then it is the ultimate in ethics too. Later the Roman Catholic Church would perceive the liberation theologians of the 20th century as bringing Marxist ideas into the church. Such bishops were replaced by more moderate men. This was despite the fact that their original inspiration had come from the Vatican and ultimately not from Scripture. When the Scriptures are looked at carefully, Christ’s message is uncompromising. It is freedom with a purpose. Christ has set people free, but it is a freedom which lets love make one serve one another. To this end, Christ’s personal code of ethics shocked and stunned the Pharisees, who expected people to follow the letter of the law—whereas Jesus’s yoke was easy and his burden was light. Christ came to bring happiness and salvation—a true liberator. REFERENCES Barker, Kenneth, Ed. Zondervan NIV Study Bible. Fully Rev. Ed.  Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002. Bart D. Ehrman, Ph.D. http://www.bartdehrman.com/biography.htm. Retrieved 15 November 2009. The Committee on Bible Translation (CBT). http://www.biblica.com/bible/cbt/index.php. Retrieved 15 November 2009. Ehrman, Bart. The New Testament: A Historical Introduction, 3rd Ed. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. The Encyclopedia of World Biography. http://www.bookrags.com/biography/gustavo-gutierrez/. Retrieved 15 November 2009. Gutiérrez, G. A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation. USA: Orbis Books, 2004. Hauer, Christian E., et. al. An Introduction to the Bible: A Journey into Three Worlds, 4th Ed. USA: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1998. Koester, Helmut. History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age, 2nd Ed. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1995. Mack, Burton. Who Wrote the New Testament? The Making of the Christian Myth. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1995. McGuckin, John A. The Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004. Populorum Progressio. http://www.vatincan.va/holy_fahter/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/ hf_p-vi_enc_26031967_populorum_en.html. Retrieved 15 November 2009. Read More