Jesus Christ: Saving Parable of God

Shelley Schoepflin Sanders

July 20, 2000

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Jesus
Christ
Savior
Conclusion
Endnotes

Jesus is the answer
For the world today;
Above Him there’s no other –
Jesus is the Way.

The words to this popular Christian camp song were once a perfect synopsis of my personal Christology. They poetically summarized my conviction that Jesus Christ was the all-inclusive answer to every problem or question that humanity would ever face. Jesus would give meaning to life, because he was the Way to know God. Jesus would forgive your mistakes and give you courage and strength. Above all, perhaps, Jesus would make you happy.

My understanding of Jesus is quite different today. I no longer think that Jesus is the answer for every human in the world, although I do think he can be the answer for some people. I have gradually moved outside the bounds of my evangelical Protestant Seventh-day Adventist Christian heritage, first by reading theology on my own, and second by studying theology at the fairly liberal Vanderbilt Divinity School. The main issue that draws me to study theology is the question of Christology, that is, Who is Jesus, and what does it mean to say that he is Christ and Savior? This paper will summarize my current approach to this question, with the explicit caveat that my understanding of Jesus is continuing to evolve. It should be clear at the outset that this is my personal working Christology—it is not intended to be a statement for a general Christian community. Indeed, one of the primary criteria I use to construct my Christology is my personal experience, which of course is unique to me. This said, however, I do write for a particular audience. Because my parents and my brother have expressed both interest in and concern about my developing understanding of Jesus, I will address this paper to them.

Although I set out to explain who Jesus is, and what it means to say he is Christ and Savior, I must acknowledge from the outset that what I mean by “Christ” and “Savior” will probably be different than what my family means. Indeed, the very task of this paper is to redefine the words “Christ” and “Savior” to make them fit my experience of Jesus. I will begin by explaining that I see Jesus as a human being who had a very special sense of God’s will. I will then seek to clarify what it means to describe Jesus with the ontological category “Christ” and the functional category “Savior.” When I say that Jesus is Christ, I mean that Jesus is ontologically a parable of God. When I say that Jesus Christ is Savior, I mean that the parable Jesus Christ functions as a conduit to help believers find relationship with God, existential meaning, and freedom from the structures that perpetuate oppression.

Jesus

The Christian faith is rooted in Jesus, a Galilean Jew who lived about 2000 years ago. In order for believers today to understand what God was doing in the life of Jesus, it’s important to understand (as well as we can) what this man, Jesus of Nazareth, actually said and did. In general, I accept the methods of historical and literary criticism that are employed by most “historical Jesus” scholars as they seek to understand Jesus’ words and actions.1 I have tried to build a Christology that is in continuity with my understanding of Jesus of Nazareth. Through the texts, I see Jesus of Nazareth as a human person with a special sense of God’s will, but I do not understand him to be a divine being.

The gospels suggest that Jesus was a man with a special sense of God’s will. Jesus’ strong sense of God’s will is apparent in his choice to act and speak about God’s will during his public ministry. Jesus understands God’s will to be a new “kingdom of God,” where sins are forgiven, the sick are healed, and God’s table of fellowship is open even to tax collectors and sinners (Mk 2:5,11; 2:15). Jesus not only acts out God’s will by forgiving, healing, and eating with sinners, but he also speaks about the will of God “with authority” (Mk 1:27 NRSV).2 Using parables, he teaches his followers about God’s kingdom. Jesus’ strong sense of what God wills for humanity is evident in his public ministry, where his actions and words make him a living parable of the kingdom of God.

Although I see Jesus as a man who had a special openness to the will of God, I do not see him as fundamentally different from any other human being. First, I do not believe Jesus claimed to be divine, and second, I believe the synoptics provide evidence that Jesus got tired and made mistakes like any human being. I read the few synoptic intimations that Jesus might have thought of himself as divine (e.g., when he forgives the paralytic’s sins Mk 2:5; c.f. Mt 9:1-8 and Lk 5:17-26) as manifestations of Jesus’ conviction that human beings should be agents of God’s will. I read the claims that Jesus makes in the gospel of John as interpretations of the Johannine community; I consider them to be part of what I will call the parable of Jesus Christ.

Not only do I not believe that the synoptics portray Jesus as divine, but I find that they portray him as a human being who got tired, made mistakes, and shared the flawed prejudices of his culture. One example of Jesus’ humanness is the time he went to Tyre, apparently hoping to get away from the crowds. The gospel of Mark says, “He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there” (Mk 7:24). According to the account, Jesus can’t rest alone for long, however, for a Syrophoenician woman soon comes, begging him to cast a demon from her daughter. Jesus initially refuses brusquely, calling the gentile woman a dog: “‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs’” (Mk 7:27). The woman’s witty and daring reply changes Jesus’ mind, however, and acts as a rebuke: “‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs’” (Mk 7:28). At this, Jesus changes his mind, “‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter’” (Mk 7:29).3 This story suggests that Jesus got tired, and that sometimes he even acted selfishly, refusing to allow God’s spirit of healing to work through him. Furthermore, Jesus seems to have held some of the prejudices that other Jews of his time held toward Gentiles. The Syrophoenician woman not only calls Jesus to return to active ministry, but she upsets his prejudice against gentiles by suggesting that they too ought to enjoy a share of the bread of God’s kingdom. Rather than picturing an infallible, divine Jesus, I believe the synoptic gospels show a Jesus who, although he is following the will of God, sometimes gets tired and makes mistakes.

Before I leave the subject of Jesus of Nazareth, I want to say something about my understanding of the resurrection accounts. First, I don’t believe that the resurrection itself, if it occurred, should be taken as proof of Jesus’ divinity. An infinite God is certainly capable of restoring a human being to life, and indeed Christian tradition holds that God will at some point resurrect all of us. Second, I don’t rule out the possibility that Jesus was literally resurrected to a new life, because ruling it out would amount to denying God the power to do such a thing. In the end, however, I must admit that I find it difficult to believe that Jesus was literally raised from the dead. My experience of death is that it is final; I do not personally know of other resurrections. Since I believe that Jesus was a human being like me, and since in my knowledge human beings are not resurrected, I do not believe that he was resurrected.

I understand the resurrection accounts in the light of the Adventist Great Disappointment of 1844. As you recall, the Adventists believed that the prophesies in Daniel and Revelation indicated that Jesus’ second advent would occur on October 22, 1844. When Jesus didn’t come, they were terribly disappointed, and they sought an explanation. Some of the Adventists wound up deciding that October 22, 1844 was an important date in history, but that instead of being the day of Jesus’ second coming, it was the day when Jesus moved from the Holy to the Most Holy place in the heavenly sanctuary. I have come to see this doctrine as the Adventists’ way to explain away a very painful and confusing event, while still maintaining faith in God. Similarly, it seems plausible that Jesus’ disciples may have developed the idea of Jesus’ resurrection as a way to explain his painful and confusing death. They didn’t want to say that Jesus had left them, and indeed they felt that they could continue on in the spirit of his teaching about God. The resurrection may have been the best method they had to describe their continuing commitment to Jesus’ message and their sense that, in spirit, he was still with them. Because I want my Christology to be in continuity with Jesus of Nazareth, I will have to construct an understanding of Jesus as Christ and Savior that does not depend upon Jesus’ resurrection or his divinity, but does acknowledge him as a person with a special sense of God’s will.

Christ

Now that I have given my understanding of Jesus of Nazareth, I will attempt to explain what it would mean to say that this same Jesus is Christ and Savior. I hesitate to use the titles “Christ” and “Savior” to describe my experience of Jesus, because I fear that what I mean by “Christ” and “Savior” is quite different from what other Christians mean when they use these titles. However, since I am writing within the Christian tradition, and since Christians understand Jesus as Christ and Savior, I will try to explain what those words have to mean to me if I am to say that Jesus is Christ and Savior.

For me, the title “Christ” refers to Jesus ontologically, while the title “Savior” refers to Jesus functionally. In other words, I use the term “Christ” to describe who Jesus is through faith and the term “Savior” to describe what Jesus does as Christ. Of course, there is always a connection between Jesus Christ’s being and his function, but I separate them here for the purpose of discussion.4 This section, then, will describe who Jesus Christ is for me: His ontological identity is as a parable of God.5
My ontological designation of Jesus Christ as parable of God is somewhat different than the traditional ontological designation of Jesus Christ as one being with two natures: divine and human. In contrast to traditional Christologies, my Christology does not claim that Jesus as Christ is ontologically divine. There are three reasons for this, but the third is by far the most important. First, I do not claim divinity for Jesus Christ because I do not believe that this claim stands in continuity with the claims made by Jesus of Nazareth. Second, I do not claim divinity for Jesus Christ because, in contrast to traditional Christologies, my Christology does not maintain that the saving work of Jesus Christ requires him to be divine. Third, and most importantly, I do not experience Jesus Christ as either ontologically divine or ontologically human. As I will explain in the paragraphs that follow, I experience Jesus Christ’s very essence as the essence of a parable of God.

What do I mean when I say that Jesus Christ’s very being is as parable? I mean that I experience Jesus Christ as parable. I have never experienced a physical encounter with the historical, embodied person Jesus of Nazareth. If I had, I would say that Jesus’ very essence is the very essence of humanity: I would say that ontologically, he is human. However, I have not had such an encounter. Moreover, I have never had a spiritual experience in which I felt the presence of an entity that I could name as Jesus Christ.6 If I had, I would have to try to explain the fundamental nature of the being that I encountered. In this case, I might say that the essence or nature of Jesus Christ was Spirit. However, I have not had such an encounter.

Instead, my encounter with Jesus Christ comes through the encounters of others. Others, such as the gospel writers, have experienced Jesus as a historical embodied person, whose very essence was human. Still others, like the Johannine community, and Julian of Norwich, have experienced Jesus Christ as a spiritual presence, whose very essence was spiritual, or even divine. Both of these types of experiences might be termed “first order” experiences, because in them the essence of Jesus was experienced directly by a community or an individual.

In contrast to these first order experiences, my experience of Jesus Christ might be termed a “second order” experience. I have not experienced any direct encounter with Jesus either as historical person or as spirit. Rather, I have simply read about Jesus Christ as experienced by others. In my mind, I have mulled over all the experiences of Jesus Christ that I have read and heard, and I have created a construction of Jesus Christ. This construction in my mind comes from the gospels, writings of certain mystics, writings of theologians, and stories shared by people I have known. It includes stories of Jesus healing people, Jesus being both divine and human, and Jesus rising from the dead. All of these stories of the tradition are synthesized by my mind into an imagination or interpretation of Jesus Christ. For me, then, Jesus Christ exists in his very essence not as human or as spirit, but as an idea, a construction in my mind.

Before I go on to say how this construction is a parable of God, and what that parable tells me, I need to say that I do not consider my construction of Jesus Christ to be a weak or worthless thing. First, when I name Jesus as Christ and accept him as a parable of God, I take a step in faith. I trust that all the traditions that have contributed to my imagination or construction of Jesus have some core truth. I choose to wrestle with the truth of this parable, just as Jesus’ followers chose to wrestle with the truth found in his parables about the kingdom of God.

Second, one might be tempted to say that Jesus Christ has no value if he is not literally “real” to me. However, no one would deny that Jesus’ parables of the lost coin, the mustard seed, and the yeast in the dough tell us something about God and God’s kingdom without being literally true. Just so, I see Christianity’s many different stories about Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection as important parables that tell us about God and God’s kingdom, without necessarily being literally true. These stories about Jesus, mediated through gospels, mystics, theologians, and my own personal friends and family, form together a construction in my mind that is Jesus Christ, parable of God.

Savior

Jesus Christ as parable of God helps me understand many things about both humans and God, but I will focus here on how this parable of God, Jesus Christ, can function as Savior of humanity. I said above that the term “Christ” describes who Jesus is through faith, while the term “Savior” describes what Jesus does as Christ. Indeed, an understanding of Jesus Christ that does not include some idea of him as Savior seems almost worthless. What made Jesus so special to the early community, and indeed the main reason they began to understand him as divine, is that he somehow made God’s salvation present to them.7

Two questions immediately arise when we begin talking about Jesus Christ as Savior. First, What do we need to be saved from? And second, How does Jesus save us? I will suggest that humans today need to be saved from two things: 1) As individuals, we need salvation from existential isolation and meaninglessness; 2) As a community, we need salvation from structures of evil that we ourselves have put in place. Jesus Christ can save us from these two evils not through any power of his own, but by acting as parable to connect us with the Saving God.

Although traditionally Christians have believed that Jesus Christ saves humanity from eternal damnation, I have proposed that we need salvation from two quite different evils. It seems to me that if God created human beings as embodied, then God places great value on our human earthly lives. Therefore, God ought to provide some method of salvation that can occur in the here-and-now, not just a promise of future improved life. Jesus’ understanding of the will of God affirms the idea of a this-worldly salvation, for he preaches that “the kingdom of God is among you” (Lk 17:21). In order for the kingdom of God to be fully realized, God needs to save us from both the individual problems of isolation and meaninglessness and the community problem of oppressive power structures.

Let’s deal first with the individual problem of isolation and meaninglessness. As a human being in the 21st century, I experience a real sense of isolation. I often ignore my innermost thoughts and feelings in the busy-ness of everyday life, and even when I take time to recognize them, I have trouble articulating them in a way that others can understand. There are times when I feel that I am all alone with only myself for company in the vastness of the whole universe. In addition to this existential isolation, I am in constant danger of falling into an abyss of meaninglessness. My human life seems utterly insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe. I feel as though the universe will march on in its own incomprehensible order whether or not I participate, and therefore I feel that my life is meaningless.

How can Jesus Christ as parable mediate God’s salvation for such a state of existential isolation and meaninglessness? When I accept the parable of Jesus Christ as truth, I realize that I am not alone in the universe. Strange as it may seem to me in my current context, Jesus had a real connection not only with other human beings, but with God. The story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane is a story about existential isolation. Here, Jesus’ three best friends fall asleep, and Jesus feels as if he is all alone. However, Jesus refuses to wallow in isolation. Instead, he cries out to God, calling God “Abba, Father” (Mk 14:36). This cry, which names God as Jesus’ Father, is an affirmation that Jesus is not alone. This cry conveys the fundamental truth that Jesus, like all human beings, is part of an intimate parent-child relationship with God.

Many of the Christologies that contribute to my construction of Jesus Christ as parable also affirm this idea that human beings are beings in relationship with God. For example, the idea that Jesus, as the Second Adam, is both divine and human suggests that human beings were created for, intended for, union with God. The idea that the divine is somehow present in the human Second Adam suggests that fulfilled human nature is designed to be connected with the divine. Our very being is a being in relationship with God. God is with us, and we are with God.

This Christology of the Second Adam, together with Jesus’ struggle in the garden, are two parts of the parable that is Jesus Christ. This parable contains an essential truth about the relationship between humanity and God. The parable of Jesus Christ reminds me that even when my sense of isolation is the greatest, I must insist that God is my Parent-Creator—I must hold onto my identity as a being in relationship with God. The parable of Jesus Christ saves me from existential isolation by exemplifying my true identity as a being in relationship with God.

It is important to note here, however, that in the strictest sense it is not Jesus Christ, the parable, who saves me from existential isolation. Rather, the salvation is from God. It is God who created me, and God who ordered things so that I am fundamentally related to God in such an intimate way. Jesus Christ as parable exemplifies this relationship, and reminds me of it, but only God causes that relationship to truly exist.

Jesus Christ as parable also provides an answer to the struggle against meaninglessness, but because the answer to meaninglessness turns out to be the same as the answer to my second major problem, I will begin by presenting that second problem. Liberation theologians of the last few decades have pointed out that human beings need to be saved from the structures of evil that we ourselves create. Human beings oppress one another by creating systems such as capitalism, racism, and patriarchy. These systems keep power and resources in the hands of the privileged, while a marginalized group of people struggle to survive. For example, while North Americans flourish in a booming capitalistic economy, their neighbors in Central and South America struggle to eke out a living by working at factories owned by North Americans. The structures that make Central and South America poor compared with North America are not easy to understand. Many of us who are oppressors feel the need for salvation from the structures of oppression. We do not want to marginalize our fellow human beings, to treat them as if they have no worth, to limit their educational opportunities, to prevent their children from receiving basic health care. And yet, the very structures that we ourselves have created make it difficult for us to stop oppressing others.

Since these structures of evil exist in our modern world, it’s clear that Jesus Christ as parable has not completely saved us from them. In fact, I am not sure that the parable of Jesus Christ can lead us to engage the power of God to save us from these structures of evil. If Jesus Christ as parable can save, however, he will do so by showing us a better way to live.

The story of Jesus’ life is the story of struggle against evil. Jesus acted out the will of God by working to actualize the kingdom of God on earth. Through God’s power, Jesus healed the sick and fellowshipped with the victims of societal structures—tax collectors and sinners. Jesus’ actions did not change the structures of evil immediately, but they did begin to change the thinking of many of the people of his day. Upper class people who liked Jesus’ intelligent, witty teaching were surprised by his choice to associate with the lower class. Some were so threatened by God’s kingdom of egalitarianism that they plotted to stop Jesus’ ministry by killing him. Jesus’ life suggests that one way to combat the structures of evil is to subvert them by one’s actions.

If we followed the truth found in the parable of Jesus Christ, we would work hard to provide health care, food, and education to the underprivileged in our own country and abroad.8 More than that, we would invite the underprivileged into our homes, and visit them in their homes, sharing with them the table of fellowship. This is the will of God as revealed through the parable of Jesus Christ.

I suggested earlier that Jesus Christ’s answer to the societal structures of evil was the same as his answer to the problem of existential meaninglessness. I believe that human beings find meaning in helping create the kingdom of God here on earth. Just as Jesus Christ worked in his public ministry to make people’s lives better, so we today can find meaning in working for and fellowshipping with the underprivileged.9

Conclusion

This, then, is my Christology: Through faith, Jesus of Nazareth becomes the ontological Jesus Christ, parable of God. Through the power of God, this parable of God can save us from existential isolation by showing us that we are fundamentally related to God. Moreover, Jesus Christ as parable can save us from both meaninglessness and the structures of evil by calling us to work for the kingdom of God on earth.

Endnotes

1) Defining “Jesus research” is an immense project. Basically what I mean is the process of trying to understand what Jesus said by comparing texts using current exegetical methods such as historical criticism.

2) All Scriptural quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

3) My interpretation of this story as a moment of learning for Jesus grows out of my reading of several feminist authors over the past few years. Unfortunately, I cannot locate the reference, although I believe the idea was first put forward either by Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza or by Rita Nakashima Brock.

4) Roger Haight makes this point repeatedly in his excellent book, Jesus: Symbol of God.

5) I think I first saw Jesus called a parable of God in Sallie McFague’s book Models of God, but I think I am interpreting what this means somewhat differently than she did.

6) Instead, if I had to name the being I experience in occasional moments of spiritual transcendence, I would name that being as Ground or Creator-God/dess.

7) In light of the pluralism of world religions, my claim is that Jesus can save, not that Jesus is the only way people experience salvation. In fact, the idea that Jesus is the only savior has been used to justify some of the very structures of evil from which we seek salvation (e.g., the evil of colonialism).

8) I’m suggesting here a model for Jesus Christ as Savior for oppressors, not for the oppressed. As a White, middle-class North American, I qualify more as an oppressor than as an oppressed person. Others have taken on the task of writing theologies for the oppressed.

9) I’m suggesting that this is a potential source of meaning, not that it is the only source of meaning. I wouldn’t want to say that the structures of evil are necessary in order for human beings to have meaningful lives.