Jesus before Pentecost

Atkinson

• Editorial: Cascade Books
• Año: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781498233651
• Categoría: Theology & Religion
• Categoría: Religion

Jesus before Pentecost studies the history of Jesus' ministry from William P. Atkinson's Pentecostal perspective. This perspective affects both his method and the book's content. In terms of method, Atkinson puts forward a strong argument for looking carefully at John's Gospel, as well as the synoptic gospels, as a reliable historical source for Jesus' life. And in terms of content, his main areas of study follow key Pentecostal interests, summed up in the "foursquare" Pentecostal rubric of Jesus as savior, healer, baptizer in the Spirit, and soon-coming king. The picture that emerges offers fresh insights into Jesus' life: notably, the symbolic meaning Jesus invested in the feeding of the five thousand; the personal cost to Jesus of his approach to healing the sick; the involvement of God's Spirit in his life and in the lives of those around him; and, lastly, his enigmatic predictions of his future coming. Overall, the study is both academically rigorous and warmly engaging. It will appeal to anyone who is seriously interested in Jesus, whether or not they are Pentecostal.

one

Jesus through Different Eyes

Introduction

Years ago when I was at school some children there used to call me “four-eyes.” Youngsters can be mean to each other, but of course you have guessed the truth: I wore glasses and still do. However, I only actually have two eyes! When I look at something through my two eyes, each eye looks from nearly the same place and offers nearly the same perspective. The small differences between each eye’s view allow my brain to perceive a three-dimensional image.

In this book I will look at Jesus through two eyes. I am an academic theologian who teaches at a theological college. Among other responsibilities, I teach a course called “Ministry and Teaching of Jesus.” The course is about Jesus as he was two thousand years ago in a small country near the eastern edge of the Roman Empire. The main source of information for the course is the New Testament, and the main discipline is historical enquiry. So this is one of the eyes with which I look at Jesus in the following chapters: as a theological historian, I consider Jesus then and there rather than here and now.

My other perspective through which I experience Jesus and with which I write is my Pentecostal Christianity. So I write from the perspective of an ardent believer in the unchanging lordship of Jesus, and dare to claim that I experience Jesus in my here and now. My understanding of these experiences is deeply informed by my reading of the Christian scriptures. One of these sacred texts, dear to Pentecostals, declares that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Heb 13:8).1 The Jesus I experience as Lord today is the same Jesus who walked the hills and valleys of Galilee “yesterday.” So, just as my physical eyes are close to each other and offer similar perspectives, I also expect to find a great deal of common ground between what each of my perspectives on Jesus tells me. Moreover, my attempt to view Jesus through both eyes in this book will, I trust, enable me to offer a “three-dimensional” depth to my presentation, in which I hope to contribute to a considered historical basis for present-day Pentecostal devotion to Jesus.2

The first of my two focuses—study of the history of Jesus—demands interaction with the huge amount of literature that has built up concerning the various so-called quests for the historical Jesus, present studies in the area, and inevitably the vast field of literature in studies of the gospels in particular and the New Testament in general, not to mention other key ancient documents from the surrounding culture and the early church. In this respect, I confess that I have only scratched the surface. Those who are experts in the field, and who are kind enough to read this short book, will no doubt find themselves wondering at times, “Why has Atkinson not referred to such-and-such an author?” Nevertheless, I hope that the angle from which I approach the subject offers a fresh and interesting engagement with the topic, sufficient to make up for some shortfalls in broader reading.

The second focus—my Pentecostal perspective and how it affects my research—will influence the contents of this book in three respects. First, it will guide my selection of aspects of Jesus’ life towards those that will be of natural interest to Pentecostals: Jesus’ experience of God by the Spirit; the enabling this brought to his own work; the supernatural elements of that work; and such matters. Second, my Pentecostal focus will affect this study because my current experience of Jesus, I suggest, can help in making an “imaginative leap” to the person and the world that the ancient evidence about Jesus portrays. Third, it will affect the choice of evidence upon which I draw in researching Jesus’ history. I explore these three aspects in the next section.

Jesus through Pentecostal Eyes

Pentecostal Interest in Jesus

It is a relatively common but often inaccurate criticism of Pentecostals that they concentrate too much on the Holy Spirit to the detriment of their interest in Jesus the divine Son.3 Pentecostal theology, for all its rich appreciation of the Spirit, is remarkably centered on Jesus. This can perhaps be seen nowhere more sharply than in the so-called foursquare and fivefold characterizations of the “full” gospel. It is a Pentecostal axiom that one should not “short change” the gospel, watering it down or breaking it up so that only part of it is offered to those in need. The world needs to hear the full gospel offered by God.

This good news centers on the person and ministry of Jesus Christ, and in this regard, Pentecostals have long characterized his significance in a well-known summary. According to the Pentecostal foursquare gospel, Jesus is savior, healer, baptizer in the Spirit, and soon-coming King. In the case of the fivefold expression of this full gospel, Jesus is savior, sanctifier, healer, baptizer in the Spirit, and soon-coming king.4 Despite this variation between foursquare and fivefold patterns, the terms are firmly embedded in the Pentecostal psyche. My own tradition is foursquare, rather than fivefold.5 For this reason, I will focus on the foursquare rubric.

Clearly, these four characterizations represent aspects of Jesus that are of particular importance for Pentecostals: they indicate what Jesus means to Pentecostals. As such, they focus my interest in this book. While there are many other aspects to what Jesus did and said during his mission two thousand years ago, I will explore those aspects that can be clustered around the four terms in question.

What is more, I will not only allow these descriptions of Jesus to guide my choice of study. I will also use these terms as an organizing principle in structuring the book. So I will have four chapters later that are devoted, one each, to these four aspects of Jesus’ impact. The order of these chapters will follow standard Pentecostal expressions of the rubric, in which savior is always listed first and coming king always last. Admittedly, one finds variations on the pattern in between these two terms. One can find baptizer in the Spirit listed before healer.6 Also, one often reads simply of Jesus as coming king rather than the more sharply expressed soon-coming king. I do not wish to lose the classical Pentecostal fervor for the return of our Lord, and so I will have chapters titled “Savior,” “Healer,” “Baptizer in the Spirit,” and “Soon-Coming King.” My choice of order between the second and third elements is somewhat arbitrary but suits my ordering of material.

My decision to use these Pentecostal characterizations as chapter titles does carry risks, I acknowledge. I may fail to engage with truly significant aspects of Jesus’ mission because the study has been “straight-jacketed” by a prior determination to, so to speak, fit Jesus into Pentecostal categories. However, it is worth emphasizing at the outset that it is not my task even to try to identify and discuss every aspect of Jesus’ mission. The size of those books that do seek to do this illustrates the enormity of that task. It certainly has its place. However, this work has a more modest challenge before it: can this Pentecostal focus clarify any particular aspects of Jesus’ mission?7 May certain emphases emerge that could otherwise lie dormant? Could some rebalancing of the picture follow?

To this task later chapters will turn. Each will begin with a presentation of relevant Pentecostal beliefs about Jesus that pertain to the subject under discussion in the chapter. In offering this presentation, I will consistently turn first to my own Elim Pentecostal denomination to source this material,8 only looking further afield for secondary material. This is partly because Elim is an example of a “foursquare” Pentecostal grouping, and partly because, being more familiar with the context of this body of writing than I am with any other, I can read it as an “insider”—a fellow Elim thinker. This will be helpful as I examine how my own tradition articulates its beliefs. However, where material from Elim’s authors can usefully be placed in a wider context, I turn, equally naturally, to other Pentecostal voices. I will do all this by studying beliefs penned in academic and more “popular” books and articles. Beyond this, noting that much articulation of Pentecostal belief in the “pulpit and the pew,” as opposed to the academy, is oral, I will sometimes refer to the impressions I have gained during my more than thirty years of personal experience of engaging in Pentecostal worship, listening to its preaching, and hearing oral testimony.

The Imaginative Leap

I move now from my selection of material to the question concerning possible ways in which a Pentecostal perspective might help in researching the history of Jesus. It might be argued, on the contrary, that my twin focus in this book of historical study and Pentecostal perspective is invalid: history and theology should be kept apart.9 The “pure” study of history should not be “sullied” by an ideology, whether this be theological or otherwise—and for that matter, “pure” theology should not be sullied by “mere” history. However, when it comes to the history of Jesus this is a difficult argument to mount. In fact, I believe that in studies of the historical Jesus, history and theology necessarily do ...

Índice

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Jesus through Different Eyes
• Chapter 2: Savior
• Chapter 3: Healer
• Chapter 4: Baptizer in the Spirit
• Chapter 5: Soon-Coming King
• Bibliography