opposition?" Historical studies simply cannot answer that question. Keck comes the closest of
anyone by asserting that Jesus crucifixon is the prism "through which one looks into that Reality
called ,,God."
29
He is as he was declared to be and is still declared to be; there has been no
diachronic change to that effect for over two millenium, as per Latourettes own statement made
in 1940. The impress of Jesus has not since lessened but increased; for what other reason, the
present hostility toward Christ and His Church?
Jesus, therefore, is who Nathaniel says He is: "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are
the King of Israel!" (John 1:49). Nathaniel expresses what He perceives and addresses Jesus
accordingly. His very declaration is a stage of awareness advancing from one to another: Rabbi,
Son of God, King of Israel! Nathanael is not deifying Jesus. Jesus is first acknowledged as
Rabbi, then declared "You are the Son of God." The Fourth Evangelist declares light has come
into the world and Matthew, as recorded in Matthew 4:16, dips back into Isaiah 9:1,2, agrees:
"the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." Nathanael, Matthew, and the Fourth
Evangelist are not deifying Jesus; it is what they recognize in Him. This raises an issue that
Larry Hurtado raises in his recent work Lord Jesus Christ in which he takes issue with the view
that "the truth of Jesus messiahship and divinity was revealed by Jesus himself."
30
The key here
is the preposition "by." Truth always self-authenticates itself. An act of compassion, a healing,
a deliverance, a statement that "hits home" are far revelatory more than any self-announcement.
Jesus did not have to promote himself Said colloquially, "What you see is what you get." Peter
recognized Jesus for He is: "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." It is this writers
contention that the early Christians did not divinize Jesus as Vespasian did to himself as he lay
dying: "I must be becoming a God." Paul succintly stated in II Corinthians 5: 19 "God was in
Christ . . ." The crucifixon revealed that to be so, and Keck reminds us of that.
To declare what is apparent is not the same as registering a subjective feeling but a
29
Keck, Op.Cit., p. 113.
30
Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids,
MI; and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans, 2003), p. 5.