Summary
Christology: The Person and Work of Christ
Christology is the doctrine of the person and work of Christ. Anyone who has heard the name of Jesus of Nazareth holds some Christology—an understanding of who He is and what He has done. That understanding may be wildly mistaken or wonderfully accurate, but no one who has heard of Him is without one. Jesus pressed the question Himself when He turned to His disciples and asked, "But who do you say that I am?" Matthew 16:15.
The two disciples on the road to Emmaus illustrate how a Christology can be partly right and disastrously wrong at the same time. They confessed Jesus to be "a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people" Luke 24:19, and they acknowledged that the chief priests had handed Him over to be crucified Luke 24:20. Prophet, mighty one, suffering servant—these three components are the very essence of the Old Testament prophetic office, echoed in the description of Moses as one "powerful in his words and deeds" who was rejected by his people (Acts 7:22, Acts 7:35).
Their failure was not in what they affirmed but in what they expected. "We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel" Luke 24:21. Their notion of redemption was political and social—a Messiah who would overthrow Rome. A Messiah who would be killed, rather than kill, was inconceivable to them. Their concern was the Romans, not their own sin, and so the cross could not register as the means of redemption. Their Christology produced a misplaced hope and, in effect, a fake Christ.
The danger can be named in a single word: my. When "my" is placed in front of Christology, the Messiah is recast to fulfill personal expectations rather than to accomplish the Father's saving will. We are tempted to the same error whenever we assume that the work of Christ is, at bottom, to remove our problems and meet our terms. Yet God often allows problems to remain because He uses them to mature us and draw us into deeper dependence on Him. Paul's thorn in the flesh was not removed; instead he was told, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" 2 Corinthians 12:9. Paul learned that when he is weak, then he is strong.
A "my" Christology distorts everything else. We can quietly conclude that God is not all-powerful because He has not removed our trouble; that He is not omnipresent because some corner of life feels abandoned; that He is not omniscient because He seems unaware; that His grace is narrower and His mercy thinner than Scripture says. At the extreme, Jesus is reduced to a good teacher. Each adjustment fashions a Christ who is not the Christ.
The remedy is not a better self-made Christology but His. When Jesus went to the cross, He bore every sin—including the sin of remaking Him into what He is not. The empty tomb is God's trumpet sound that all such sin has been atoned for, washed in the victory of Holy Baptism, with the gates of heaven opened to us. By grace, He keeps pulling us away from every "my" and embracing us with His own person and work—the true Christ, crucified and risen for sinners. For a fuller treatment of this confession from Luke 24, see “Christology” 4-23-23.
Video citations
- “Christology” 4-23-23 — Do you want your Bibles please with me to the 24th chapter of the Gospel of Luke. If you're using a few additional this morning, you're going to find that on page 78 for our study. Luke the 24th…