lOMoARcPSD|22015503
THEO201 Notes
Theology Survey I (Liberty
University)
lOMoARcPSD|22015503
THEO201 Notes
3.25.2020
•Jesus was 5’5, partially illiterate, bilingual, and not all-knowing
•The “quests” for the historical Jesus have complicated the question of Jesus’s divinity
•First quest (1800-1900): Sensationalized and selective (NT not reliable – Jesus failed
revolutionary); highly skeptical in how NT should be approached
•No quest (1900-1950): Jesus of history vs. Christ of faith (Bultmann)
•Second quest (1950-1980): Criteria of authenticity and emphasis on dissimilarity
(skeptical); dissimilarity talks about Jesus saying things Jews didn’t say and
Christians
didn’t later say
•Third quest (1980’s-present): rooted in history and culture (recovering the Jewish Jesus)
•Big flaw of first and second quests are that they are very extreme
•Jesus came as a human, an Isrealite
•Jesus was plan A
•The gospels present a multi-layered portrait of Jesus
•The “Gospel” message is bigger than Jesus’s death for personal salvation
•2 facets of Old Testament “gospel”: kingdom victory and Isaiah 61
•Creation -> fall (heavenly and earthly) -> covenants (Abrahamic/mosaic/Davidic/new) ->
Jesus and kingdom -> new creation
•Jesus inaugurates the kingdom of God
•Jesus inaugurates the restoration of creation
•Jesus restores humanity to its vocation (telos) to worship and serve God by governing His
good world
•This good news creates an invitation to humanity to see Jesus as the rightful king of
creation, and to swear faithful allegiance to Him as ruler of creation
•Faith is “the initial and ongoing response of trust in, and obedience to,
Christ” (McKnight). It is “allegiance to Jesus as King” (Bates).
•How does the New Testament portray Jesus as divine?
•Strongest indicators of Jesus’s divinity:
oForgiving sins (Mark 2:5)
oJesus sent “from God”
oJesus as “Lord of Sabbath” (Mark 2:27-28)
oSon of Man coming on the clouds (mark 14:61-64, Daniel 7)
