Common Sense Christianity by C. Randolph Ross

Author:C. Randolph Ross [Ross, C. Randolph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Occam Publishers
Published: 2010-09-05T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13: Why Jesus of Nazareth?

“Wisdom is justified by all her children.” (Jesus, Luke 7:35)

“Take him yourself and judge him” (Pilate, John 18:31)

If God is in the processes, if God is the context, if God is not a specific interventionist . then how can this Jesus of Nazareth be related to God any differently than anyone else? How can we justify looking to the Christ for meaning any more than looking to Nietzsche or the Buddha or your next-door neighbor? Or your own selfish desires?

In previous chapters we have shown why we cannot identify Jesus either as God incarnate or as a person specially sent or chosen by God. God just doesn’t work that way. Instead, we identify Jesus as “the Christ”, meaning by this that it is he whose life and teachings function as the focus for our understanding of reality. It is he through whom we find meaning in our lives, and in whom we find the key to our understanding of God.

The interpretations of Jesus which we can no longer use -- as God incarnate or as specially chosen -- did have the advantage of making a clear claim about his authority to speak of God and moral truths. But how do we justify now our claim of Jesus’ role as key to our understanding of God, as focus to the whole complex of meaning in our lives?

In traditional language this is the question of authority: the question of the authority of Jesus Christ. But why do we speak of “authority” here? What does it mean in the realm of value and meaning and common sense theology to speak of authority?

The Question of Authority

Usually when we speak of authority we are referring either to the state, that is, the authority of the government vested in certain positions and so in the people who hold those positions, or to the legal authority that derives from ownership or contract. Obviously, this is not the kind of authority that we mean here.

We also commonly speak of someone being an authority on a certain subject, meaning that he or she is recognized as an accepted source of expert opinion in that area.

Or we might recognize the moral authority of an individual, either because of their relationship to us (e.g. parent) or because of something about their life or wisdom.

These three types of authority -- legal, expert, and moral -- were combined in first century Palestine in a way that is foreign to us today. Scripture was the highest authority, of course (within the limits set by Roman law). Legal decisions, whether by local lawyers or the high council in Jerusalem, were in fact interpretations of God’s will as found in the Scriptures. And interpretations were generally made by citing recognized (authoritative) rabbis.

Jesus of Nazareth, however, was neither a member of the high council nor a local official nor a recognized rabbi. Naturally, then, the people who heard him “were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.

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