confidently believe that it was nothing less than Gods supreme disclosure of himself to man. . . .
In him God had acted to redeem those who would receive him."
12
This is the beginning place; no other will do. Dealing with Jesus historically, or
theologically, reduces Him "to what we can manage to conceive, rather than allowing Him to
challenge us to open our minds and hearts to his immensity." The predisposition is to reduce
Christ "to what we can cope with, instead of allowing Him to enlarge our apprehension of his
glory."
13
Any apprehension of Jesus lies within the issue of who He is, not what He is or the
role he has. Apprehending who Jesus is has nothing to do with his being a Jew , prophet, sage or
philsopher. In his commentary on the gospel of Luke, The Compassionate Christ, Walter
Russell Bowie said of Lukes intent: "He wanted to make clear that in Jesus something had
happened which was of crucial importance not only to the Jew but to the Roman and to all
mankind." Bowie made the point: " In Jesus something had been done among men and for
men which had never been accomplished before. There had been prophets and teachers in earlier
times who had been authentic witnesses to spiritual truth. But in Jesus--as the Gospel of John
would say--"The Word became flesh and dwelt among us."
14
Matthew 1:21-23 records: "And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name
Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. . . .,,Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and
bear a on, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which is translated. ,,God with us." Who is
this Jesus? He is God with us.
It was not until Ignatius letter to Ephesus (18:2) that a statement as: "for our God, Jesus
the Christ was conceived by Mary" would be made. Before that time, Matthew, Luke, Mark, and
especially the Fourth Evangelist, understood Jesus in terms of deity and divinity in the sense as
Paul expressed it even earlier that "God was in Christ" (2nd Cor. 5:19). In Luke 7:16, which
records Jesus raising to life the son of a widow, conflicting reactions are reported. "A great
12
John Knox, The Man Christ Jesus (Chicago, IL: Willet, Clark and Co., 1941), p. 100.
13
Alister McGrath, Knowing Christ. Galilee Book (New York: Doubleday, 2002), p. 30.
14
Walter Russell Bowie, The Compassionate Christ: Reflections from the Gospel of Luke (New
York and Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1965), p. 15).