92. See Isaiah 55:8; Romans 11:33; Matthew 6:9 KJV.
93. For a few of those twenty times, see Deuteronomy 32:6; Isaiah 63:16; Jeremiah 3:19. For more on God as King, see Marc Zvi Brettler, God Is King: Understanding an Israelite Metaphor (Sheffield, UK: JSOT, 1989).
94. The one exception is Matthew 5:35, but this echoes Psalm 47:7.
95. Rev. 19:7, 9, 21.
96. No wonder three of the Gospel writers skipped this story (only John told it).
97. We owe Craig Keener for this insight.
98. Augustine, “Homilies on the Gospel of John,” in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff (New York: Christian Literature, 1988) 7:57.
99. John 2:6.
100. John 2:5.
101. Mark 9:7.
Chapter 12: The Human Jesus
1. Douglas John Hall, The Cross in Our Context: Jesus and the Suffering World (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2003).
2. Einstein’s actual quote: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world” (Albert Einstein, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, ed. Alice Calaprice [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011], 12. Originally published in an interview with G. S. Viereck, “What Life Means to Einstein,” Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929).
3. Gerald O’Collins is the theologian who gives this subject the most serious attention. See his Jesus: A Portrait (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2008), 44ff.
4. See Matthew 7:3–5; see also Luke 6:41–42.
5. “Rabbi Tarfon said, ’I wonder if there is anyone in this generation who knows how to accept reproof. For if one says to another: “Remove the chip of wood from between your eyes,” he would answer: “Remove the beam from between your eyes!”’” (Talmud, Arakin 16b). As quoted in Barry W. Holtz, Finding Our Way: Jewish Texts and the Lives We Lead Today (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2005), 155.
6. Matt. 6:28.
7. Louis Jacobs, Jewish Preaching (Portland, OR: Vallentine Mitchell, 2004), 181.
8. Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus and the Word, prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock, introduction, http://media.sabda.org/alkitab-2/Religion-Online.org%20Books/Bultmann,%20Rudolf%20-%20Jesus%20and%20the%20Word.pdf.
9. Confirmed in a personal e-mail from John H. Armstrong, December 30, 2011.
10. Mark 4:37–38.
11. Mark 14:33–34.
12. Matt. 4:2.
13. Mark 1:41; 8:2.
14. John 11:35–37.
15. “When taking on the human condition, he claims no special exemption and treatment; he shares it all with us. He now knows at firsthand what it is to be human—with all our limits, including the final limit of death. As one of us, he can experience and love us” (O’Collins, Jesus: A Portrait, 48).
16. Mark 15:23.
17. Matt. 19:24.
18. Matt. 6:2.
19. Thanks to Craig Keener for this thought.
20. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, ed. G. H. Von Wright, trans. Peter Winch (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 78, 78e.
21. Matt. 25:21.
22. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, trans. Thomas Common, The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, 11 (New York: Macmillan, 1911), 45.
23. While some scholars believe that the eighteen measures were later rabbinic material, they very well may have represented the mind-set during Jesus’ day.
24. G. K. Chesterton, “On the Comic Spirit,” in Generally Speaking: A Book of Essays, 2nd ed. (London: Methuen, 1930), 176.
25. See the Charles Wesley hymn “Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild.” For the words, see John Richard Watson, ed., An Annotated Anthology of Hymns (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 180. The term used for Jesus’ meekness was also applied to rulers who showed compassion; thus it doesn’t mean wimpy. It can mean power expressed mercifully, when applied to persons of power.
26. Matt. 3:7; 9:4, 12–13; 23:1ff.; John 8:44.
27. John 2:15.
28. Matt. 17:17; Mark 3:5; 7:18; 8:16–18; 9:19; Luke 13:6–9; 22:38; 24:25; Mark 11:13–14.
29. Mark 1:43; 3:12; 5:43; 8:30.
30. Luke 4:22; Matt. 11:29.
31. Luke 7:31–35.
32. Mark 2:15–17; Luke 5:33.
33. Mark 3:29.
34. Mark 9:42.
35. Mark 13:26–36.
36. Matt. 23:24–25.
37. Matt. 7:6; Luke 10:10–11; Matt. 21:31. For a commentary on these texts and other examples, see The Humor of Christ by Elton Trueblood (New York: Harper & Row, 1964).
38. Matt. 12:27; 23:2–4; Mark 7:9; 15:2; Luke 13:32.
39. Luke 13:32.
40. Matt. 15:27.
41. Matt. 22:22; Luke 20:26, 40.
42. Luke 22:15 NLT.
43. Mark 14:26.
44. See Psalm 149:3; 150:4. There is an apocryphal gospel called the Acts of John that tells of the disciples making a ring around Jesus and dancing. See “The Acts of John,” in The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation, ed. J. K. Elliott (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 318–20. See also sections 94–96 in the original 1924 edition as reprinted in “Gnostic Scriptures and Fragments: The Acts of John,” The Gnostic Society Library, http://www.gnosis.org/library/actjohn.htm.
45. Luke 19:41; John 11:35. A third time was at Gethsemane (Heb. 5:7).
46. John 11:18.
47. Sweet and Viola, Jesus Manifesto, chap. 9.
48. See Leonard Sweet, “The Nerve of Failure,” Theology Today 34 (July 1977), 143–49.
49. Matt. 11:20–21.
50. Luke 9:51.
51. Matt. 23:37.
52. Heb. 4:15 ceb .
53. Paul said that a person can be angry without sinning (Eph. 4:26).
54. See Paul Ekman’s classic research as described on his website, “Dr. Paul Ekman: Cutting-Edge Behavioral Science for Real World Applications,” http://www.paulekman.com.
55. 2 Tim. 4:2.
56. Mark 11:14.
57. Mic. 4:4.
58. Gen. 1:22.
59. “Intelligent Design Theory—Squeezing Common Sense out of Science, Creation, Noah’s Ark and Jesus Christ,” http://www.intelligentdesigntheory.info/god_and_the_size_of_the_universe.htm.
60. See Genesis 2:15.
61. Matt. 7:17.
62. Matt. 7:16.
63. See Matthew 18:6.
64. Gilbert K. Chesterton, “On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family,” in his Heretics (New York: John Lane, 1909), 179.
65. Matt. 2:16–18.
66. Luke 10:25–37.
67. John 9:33–37; 10:35–45.
68. See Thomas J. Norris, The Trinity: Life of God, Hope for Humanity: Towards a Theology of Communion (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2009), 81. He is quoting Klaus Hemmerle, Wie Glauben im Leben geht (München: Verlag Neue Stadt, 1995), 224.
69. An alternative translation of “Let the little children come to me, . . . for it is to such of these that the kingdom of heaven belongs” (Matt. 19:14 nrsv).
70. John 1:12.
71. Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46. See also Isa. 56:7.
72. 1 Cor. 6:19.
73. John 2:19.
74. Acts 5, with thanks to Nazarene pastor James Spruill for helping us make this connection.
75. Matt. 23; John 8:44.
76. Heb. 13:8.
77. John Eldredge, from the front cover of Mark Galli, Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamed God (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008).
78. Dodd, The Founder of Christianity, 46 (see intro., n. 6).
79. See Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), esp. chap. 3.
80. John 17:1.
81. Ps. 51:15.
82. Luke 1:46–55.
83. Luke 1:46, 52 mof fatt.
84. Matt. 26:30.
85. See Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46. Jes
us was likely praying/singing Psalm 22 (Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani) from the cross.
86. Luke 22:32.
87. Heb. 7:25.
88. Mark 1:35.
89. Mark 6:46.
90. Mark 9:28–29.
91. Matt. 17.
92. Mark 14:32–41.
93. Vance Havner is quoted as saying, “If we don’t come ’a-part’ and spend time with God, we will ’come apart’ emotionally and spiritually.” See the preface to Vance Havner, When God Breaks Through: Sermons on Revival, ed. Dennis J. Hester (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2003), 11.
94. Ps. 121:1 ASV.
95. Matt. 4.
96. H. Richard Niebuhr, The Meaning of Revelation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 72. (Originally published New York: MacMillan, 1941, 100.)
97. Matt. 17.
98. Matt. 5–7.
99. Matt. 15.
100. Matt. 28. See Terence L. Donaldson’s Jesus on the Mountain: A Study in Matthean Theology (Sheffield, UK: JSOT Press, 1985).
101. One thinks here of Moses on Pisgah or Dante climbing Mount Purgatorio to reach paradise.
102. This is what the Greeks called the kataskapos or the “looker-downs.”
103. See Job 38.
104. Matt. 4:12–13; 9:1.
105. John 2:12.
106. See Nick Page, What Happened to the Ark of the Covenant? and Other Bible Mysteries (Colorado Springs: Authentic, 2007), 128. “He was known as, and we still talk about, Jesus of Nazareth. But Jesus from Capernaum was the man who really made an impact.”
107. Four disciples had houses at Capernaum: Simon and Andrew (Mark 1:29) and James and John, the sons of Zebedee (Mark 1:20). It may have been that James and John were cousins of Jesus. Peter and Andrew were from Bethsaida, to the north of the lake.
108. See Page, “Where Did Jesus Live?” in What Happened to the Ark of the Covenant? and Other Bible Mysteries, 123–28.
109. Mark 2:1–4.
110. Isa. 9:1–2 NLT.
111. For Jesus’ description of Capernaum’s stubbornness as worse than Sodom’s, see Matthew 11:23–24.
112. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, VIII, 32, as quoted in Norris, The Trinity, 100.
113. Matt. 11:29.
114. 2 Cor. 8:9 NLT.
115. Matt. 12:43.
116. Luke 8:33.
117. Rev. 1:9.
118. See Philippians 2:7–8.
119. Phil. 2:8.
120. 2 Cor. 4:7; authors’ paraphrase.
121. Gen. 9:9–10.
122. For a discussion on the spiritual implications of the wilderness experience in the life of a Christian, see Viola, From Eternity to Here, pt. 2, “An Eternal Quest: The House of God.”
123. Ps. 150:6.
124. See Genesis 1:20–24.
125. Gen. 6:19–22.
126. Hos. 2:20–21.
127. Ex. 23:11–12.
128. Ps. 148:7–12; Rev. 5:13.
129. Isa. 11:6–9; 65:25.
130. See Talmud, Sanhedrin 98a. “I was watching in the night visions, and behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him” (Dan. 7:13). See also Zechariah 9:9.
131. Ogden Nash, “Barnyard Cogitations,” in his The Bad Parents’ Garden of Verse (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1936), 28.
132. Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:10; John 1:32; Luke 3:22. A dove, of course, is a poetic name for a white pigeon.
133. Mark 1:13. The wild beasts that Jesus Himself created long beforehand served Him in the desert by accompanying Him there. Thus, Jesus was not alone during His wilderness trial.
134. Rev. 5:5; John 1:29.
135. Matt. 10:16.
136. Matt. 10:29.
137. Matt. 21:2, 7 NLT.
138. Mark 11:3 KJV.
139. Matt. 12:11; Luke 14:5.
140. John 2:15.
141. Rom. 8:19–23.
Chapter 13: Jesus’ Trial and Crucifixion
1. Erich Sauer, The Triumph of the Crucified (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951), 32.
2. John 19:41.
3. John 18:1 NRSV.
4. In Jesus Manifesto, we demonstrated that Bethany was the Lord’s favorite place on earth. Jesus spent the last evenings of His life in Bethany.
5. Mark 14:33–34 niv; see also Psalm 43:5.
6. Luke 22:42.
7. Matt. 26:39.
8. Luke 22:42. Joseph Ratzinger links Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane as well as His prayer on the cross to the text of Hebrews 5:7 (NIV): “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission” (Jesus of Nazareth, Part Two, Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection [San Francisco: Ignatius, 2011], 162ff ).
9. Ps. 16:5; 116:13; 23:5.
10. Ps. 11:6; 75:8; Isa. 51:17; Jer. 49:12–16.
11. Mark 10:38; John 18:11.
12. 1 Cor. 10:16.
13. Matt. 26:13; authors’ paraphrase.
14. Gen. 3.
15. Luke 22:47–48.
16. Mark 14:1–11.
17. Mark 14:3–9.
18. Matt. 27:33; Mark 15:22, 29–30.
19. Deut. 21:22–23 NLT.
20. See Karl Barth’s Deliverance to the Captives, trans. Marguerite Wieser (New York: Harper, 1961).
21. Luke 23:43.
22. While the church is holy and without blame before God, every member is still fallen and in need of transformation.
23. Luke 23:2NIV(see footnote a).
24. See Matthew 27:11.
25. John 18:38–19:22, esp. 19:19.
26. Matt. 27:37.
27. Matt. 27:24.
28. This is made explicit in John 19.
29. John 19:22.
30. Jesus has redeemed us with His own blood. See 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 and Romans 12:1–2.
31. Phil. 2.
32. THEFIRST WORD: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34). THESECOND WORD: “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). THETHIRD WORD: “[Jesus] said to His mother, ’Woman, behold your son!’ Then He said to the disciple, ’Behold your mother!’” (John 19:26–27). THEFOURTH WORD: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34). THEFIFTH WORD: “I thirst!” (John 19:28). THESIXTH WORD: “It is finished!” (John 19:30). THESEVENTH WORD. “Father, ’into Your hands I commit My spirit’” (Luke 23:46).
33. Luke 23:34.
34. Ibid.
35. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 238.
36. John 20:22–23.
37. Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son: A Meditation on Fathers, Brothers, and Sons (New York: Doubleday, 1992).
38. John 19:26–27. Raymond E. Brown, in The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave: A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels (New York: Doubleday, 1998), 1021, argues that there is a testamentary quality to Jesus’ speech from the cross.
39. Matt. 10:37; 8:22; Luke 14:26.
40. Along with this semiotic understanding of Jesus as the new Adam birthing the church, we can also see the conception of the church in the moment of His death. Len suggests that when John says Jesus “gave up his spirit” (Matt. 27:50 NIV), it does not mean He died. Rather, it means that with the creation of this new relationship between John and Mary, Jesus poured out His spirit on them, and at the foot of the cross, sprayed and bathed in the water and blood that spewed from His side, the church universal was conceived. The church, pregnant with the blood and sacrifice of Jesus, became Spirit-breathed and born to resurrection life at the time of Pentecost.
41. Mark 1:29–31.
42. Mark 16:1.
43. The contrasts can be so striking that one scholar who loves to provoke believers, John Dominic Crossan, in his controversial book Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (Sa
n Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994), argues a startling thesis with which we don’t agree but which illustrates the power of Markan contrasts. Mark is a mystery, Crossan reminds us, stating that we know no Mark in early church history. Mark’s gospel is so partial to women that Crossan suspects the nameless woman of this text to be in fact the real Mark, the author of the gospel. He theorizes that “in remembrance of her” is the author’s way of leaving behind a coded signature of authorship.
44. Matt. 26:6.
45. Mark 1:40–44.
46. Prov. 27:9.
47. “Spikenard” was the favorite perfume of antiquity. It got its name from the spikelike shape of the root and spiny stem of the herb plant that was found high up in the Himalayan mountains. The Greeks and Romans loved the smell of this rare unguent (perfume and ointment were virtually indistinguishable) so much that they willingly paid the expense of having nard shipped long distances. The best spikenard was imported from India in sealed alabaster boxes, costly containers that were opened only on very special occasions. The cost of the perfume was three hundred denarii. Since one denarius a day was a worker’s usual salary, this one jar of perfume represented one laborer’s salary for almost a year—or in today’s money, almost forty thousand dollars. If denarii were translated into pieces of silver, Jesus was crucified for one-tenth the cost of this perfume. In Jesus’ circles this kind of extravagance—a year’s salary for one moment of luxury—was unheard-of.
48. John 12:3 NIV.
49. Mark 10:37.
50. John 12:8. It is generally held that chronos time is more or less “clock time”––hours, minutes, etc. Kairos is time as experienced by someone. It often means the opportune time, the right time, the important time. Chronos looks at time quantitatvely while kairos looks at time qualitatively. However, some scholars argue that this isn’t technically accurate. Regardless, it doesn’t take away from our point.
51. Matt. 26:15.
52. John Charles Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospel of John (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1896), 348.
53. The anointing of Jesus is a much-disputed account in scholarly circles. The woman was unnamed in three out of the four gospel accounts. Only John named her as Mary of Bethany. Luke named her a sinner. While Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts depicted the woman as pouring oil upon Jesus’ head, both Luke and John depicted her pouring it upon Jesus’ feet. Witherington noted (John’s Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995], 207) that the differing focus serves a symbolic purpose in line with each writer’s theology: the anointing of the head symbolizes kingship while the anointing of the feet symbolizes Jesus being glorified in death. In Matthew, Mark, and John, the disciples were outraged at the use of the perfume. In Luke, Simon wondered and was told a parable, not found in the other three. Both Matthew and Mark named Simon “the leper.” Luke named the Pharisee only as Simon. John’s account was without name. The patristic church believed that the woman in Luke 7 was Mary Magadalene. Scholars disagree vigorously on whether the gospel accounts describe three anointings (as believed in the Eastern churches), two anointings (as believed by some scholars), or one anointing (as believed by others). Those who subscribe to the one-anointing, as does Len, call attention to the possibility of a variously described oral account, written differently for variant audiences, and as seen in different perspective by the writers. Those, like Frank, subscribing to the two anointings believe that the Luke account occurred earlier in Jesus’ ministry and the other anointing later in Bethany. (See Frank Viola’s From Eternity to Here, chap. 8, for a reconstruction of one of the accounts.) Whatever you choose, there is the issue of why she anointed His feet in John but in Matthew and Mark, His head. The John passage agrees with Luke. For the purposes of this theography, we have rendered a semiotic reading of the text, calling attention to the truth of Jesus the Messiah and the truth of His identity. Because a semiotic reading is more interested in drawing upon the truth found in the story and not an empirical nailing-down or historical fact-finding, we have striven to view the anointing of Jesus as a revelation of important truths that Jesus would have us understand about His identity and His mission.
Jesus Page 46