title of W.A. Smart, The Contemporary Christ or in that of Walter M. Horton, Our Eternal
Contemporary."
8
Back in 1949, Martin Dibelius, in his now classical work, Jesus, understood better than
anyone before or since that "History regards Jesus from an entirely different point of view." He
continued, "The less credence one gives to the Christian records and the more one ranks Jesus
movement and message as one among many such in the history of time, the more puzzling
becomes this effect on world history!"
9
He went on to remark: "The viewpoints of faith and of
history cannot be simply combined."
10
In 2000, Leander Keck wrote a book entitled Who Is Jesus? His subtitle is History in
Perfect Tense. On the opening page, he explains his intent: " . . . to speak of history in perfect
tense is to consider the ongoingness of something from the past;"
11
thus the Jesus of the first
century still is. His resurrection assured his continuity into the present and into the future.
Who, then, is Jesus, beyond the categories of past or present? One can very well go to
the gospel of John, the author of which identifies himself as an eye-witness. In John 14:9, Jesus
is reported as saying to Philip, "Have I been with you so long and you still do not know me
Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (English Standard Version). That is an
astounding declaration. One can set along that statement another statement made by Paul in his
letter to the church resident in Colosse, "He is the image of the invisible God . . ." (Col. 1:15).
In the conclusion of the book The Man Christ Jesus (1941), John Knox comments that
the "character and career of the man Christ Jesus" was what led both those who knew Him and
who later comprised the early church to recognize in Jesus "an event of incalculable magnitude
had occurred . . . " It was " . . . an event of such magnitude that those who witnessed it could
8
Jack Finegan, Rediscovering Jesus (New York: Association Press, 1952), p. 50.
9
Martin Dibelius, Jesus. Translated by Charles B. Hedrick and Frederick C. Grant (Philadelphia,
PA: Westminster, 1949), p. 10.
10
Ibid.
11
Leander E. Keck, Who Is Jesus?: History in Perfect Tense (Columbia, SC: University of South
Carolina Press, 2000), p.1