Incarnation in Luke-Acts and in John?

Last updated on: December 28, 2008 at 1:27 pm by James F. McGrath

Incarnation in Luke-Acts and in John? 2008-12-28T13:27:00-05:00 James F. McGrath

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Today in my Sunday School class, in which we’re currently surveying the Gospels as part of the “Jesus” topic of the “When Christians Disagree” series, we reached Luke’s two-volume work. Luke’s Gospel differs in lots of interesting ways from the others, but its Christology is particularly interesting, since Luke is usually dated to the late first century (it vies with the Gospel of John for last place in the order in which the Gospel are thought to have been written), yet it has the most human depiction of Jesus in the New Testament. It thus illustrates that the development of Christology was not in a straight line, from Mark to John, as it were.

In short, Luke’s Gospel does not view Jesus as “God incarnate”, but rather as a human being filled and empowered by the Spirit of God, as well as being exalted to heaven after the resurrection. There is no sense that Jesus pre-existed his earthly life, nor that he was the incarnation of a pre-existent divine person who knew all things and was perfect. Rather, we are told that “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke 2:52). If we ask how Jesus performed the miracles he did, we are told it was because he was “filled with the Holy Spirit” (e.g. Luke 4:1, 14).

This apparent contrast with the Gospel of John is shocking, but it is perhaps all the more striking when we note that the Lukan Jesus can be contrasted not only with the Johannine Jesus, but with the claims some made for another character in Luke-Acts. He is the only person in Luke’s two volume work said to be viewed by some as the incarnation of one of God’s powers. I am referring to Simon Magus, about whom we are told in Acts 8:10 that some claimed “This man is the divine power known as the Great Power.”

I suspect that few readers of Luke-Acts notice the contrast with the Gospel of John, since the tendency of most Christians is to read everything else in the New Testament not only through the lens of John’s Christology, but through the lens of later Nicene and Chalcedonian orthodoxy. But if we take away those filters, there is simply nothing in Luke-Acts that would lead us to the conclusion that its author viewed Jesus as the incarnation of a pre-existent person.

What happens if we reverse the filters? In other words, what happens if instead of reading the Gospel of Luke through the lens of John, we read the Gospel of John with Luke’s portrait in mind, and seek to keep John’s Christology in line with Luke’s rather than vice versa? In fact, it is possible to understand the Gospel of John as likewise presenting Jesus as a “man of the Spirit”, a mystic, or in some such other category.

I’ve long wanted to do a study comparing the depictions of the Sufi mystic Mansur Al-Hallaj with the Johannine Jesus. Al Hallaj was famous for having said “I am the Truth” and having been hung or crucified for it. Al Hallaj’s own life, as well as the stories about him, were probably inspired by John’s portrait of Jesus, but they nonetheless provide an interesting example of how John can be interpreted.

The story is told of an orthodox Muslim who participated in the execution of Al Hallaj, and subsequently had a dream in which he saw the martyr being welcomed into heaven. Confused by this, the individual asked why this should be so, when Pharaoh claimed to be God and was condemned for it. The answer God is supposed to have given is that Pharaoh thought only of himself and nothing of God, while Al Hallaj thought only of God and nothing of himself. The first person “I” of God was thus understood by the Sufis to represent not an abrogation of divine status, but a removal of the mystic’s own ego so that God’s own “I” can come through uninterrupted.

If we approach John’s depiction of Jesus with this “mystical model” in mind, we can indeed make sense of it along these lines. Jesus is said to “embody” the divine Word (John 1:14), which is probably synonymous to the Spirit descending and remaining on him (John 1:32). Jesus seems to recall not only descending from heaven as the Son of Man, but perhaps also ascending (John 3:13). And even while he speaks at times with a divine “I”, he also humbly says that he does nothing of his own authority, that he is a man who heard the truth from God (John 8:40), and refers to the Father as “the only true God” (John 17:3).

If we already had in mind that Jesus is a human being inspired by God’s Spirit, a mystic, would the Gospel of John persuade us otherwise? Perhaps what it is most important to note is that there is nothing that is obviously superior, in terms of taking the diverse New Testament writings seriously as authoritative Scripture, about one or the other. This is why the development of and debates about Christology continued for so many centuries, and show no sign of abating today. The New Testament offers many perspectives, and simply by reversing the priority we give to this one or that, we can end up with a very different impression.

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