The Distortion of New Testament Concepts in Modern Theology

First of Two Parts

Let us briefly sketch our present-day situation. The presently dominant theological tendencies originated in Germany and from here coursed throughout the entire theological world. When we speak of “modern” theology, we now mean primarily the existential theology founded by Bultmann and his disciples, which claims to be today’s only feasible theology because it alone allegedly meets the demands of modern man’s world view.

The seriousness of the situation is seen in the fact that this theology exerts tremendous influence on the younger theologians, increasingly determines preaching and religious instruction, tries to control the religious press, radio, and television, and disseminates a popular kind of academic literature that the non-theologian can understand. No doubt it has a strong sense of mission. It feels called to win the unchurched person to Christian faith, convinced that if he is unburdened of untenable dogmatic concepts he will more easily and willingly find the way to the Gospel. But those who believed this have been gravely disappointed, for this theology is, as someone has said, a “theology of empty churches.” Although it has gained wide attention, it has enjoyed little success. Hardly anyone has through it come to a living faith in Jesus Christ.

It is a heartening sign that the Church of Christ has become newly aware of its task and responsibility, and is determinedly opposing “modern” theology’s reduction and corruption of the Gospel. I mention only the writings of Professor Walter Künneth and Dr. Gerhard Bergmann; the declaration concerning Holy Scripture by the European Alliance; the extremely significant Braunschweig theses of 1966; and above all, the tremendous witness at Dortmund of the No Other Gospel movement and the evangelistic endeavors, attended by thousands upon thousands of people, in which the message of salvation is proclaimed with authority through the power of the Holy Spirit.

It is symptomatic of the present situation that even a widely distributed secular periodical like Der Spiegel should issue a series of articles on “Jesus and the Churches.” The series, which aroused great interest, came to the shocking conclusion that it is no longer possible to speak of a “uniform” theology and message. The concluding verdict was that “the Church is schizophrenic.”

The Role Of Church Leaders

Church leaders have long refrained from taking a clear position. They have finally come forward, however, with a number of very diverse comments; with these they are trying to be mediators. Their main concern is to prevent divisions within the churches. Therefore terms like “erroneous teaching” or “heresy” are avoided; identifying the radical higher-critical groups in theology and in the Church for what they really are is likewise avoided. It is undoubtedly clear to the leaders that there can be no “theological pluralism” in the Church, and that pastors and congregations must be given a clear and consistent answer to the confusing questions of the day. But how can this be done?

Bishop Hanns Lilje of Hanover spoke to this problem in an article that appeared in his publication Sonntagsblatt in 1966 under the title, “Avoiding Coercion and Pressure.” As I see it, his comments at best simply repeat what church officialism is saying. It is contrary to the nature of Protestantism, says Lilje, to set up a teaching authority like that of the Catholic Church. In place of such a powerful tribunal that issues final pronouncements, there should be, indeed, brotherly dialogue between representatives of the “modern” theology and defenders of the erstwhile accepted biblical truths. Accusations should stop; there should be a mutual listening and a joint finding of some way to expedite the message of Christ in a changed world.

But Lilje—and here he differs from many other ecclesiastical leaders—has also drawn attention to the limits of such dialogue; they occur, he says, where the kerygma (the basic content of the Gospel) of the New Testament “levels off” into what is merely human and where theology is changed into anthropology. Above all, dissolution of the biblical concept of God means the end of theology as theo-logos (“a word about God”).

No doubt this is true. But now one must ask what should be done about those who have actually overstepped the limits Lilje set. To this the bishop gives no satisfactory answer. Must not the teaching authority of the Church step in here? The justifiable question arises, moreover: What happens if the “brotherly” conversations lead to no end result? This danger is very real, for the “modern” theologians consider only themselves to be Christians “come of age” and consider their task to be leading the immature church members to that awareness which alone, they say, is tenable today. On the other hand, the credally loyal cannot surrender the truths of the faith that they consider valid, and cannot compromise. The path Lilje recommends offers no real and no final solution.

Dogmas Of The Existentialists

As we go on to survey the characteristic tenets of “modern” theology, let us begin with a few general observations.

1. Existential theology rejects the supernatural declarations of the Bible; they belong to a world view that moderns no longer hold.

2. It removes all the so-called mythological concepts from biblical content as no longer binding upon us.

3. It rejects the divine acts of redemption as the foundation of salvation and instead considers the Word proclaimed today to be the determinative redemptive event for us. Thus God’s revelational activity in history loses its meaning.

4. Preaching’s first task according to this theology, is to bring man to a proper understanding of himself In the experience of faith man gains access to a new, “a-worldly,” and hence “eschatological” existence.

5. The exposition of Holy Scripture that is basic to proclamation—so it is said—comes through existential interpretation; this is the hermeneutic principle that unlocks the true meaning of the biblical text. But since the decisive declarations of the Bible refer to the human—especially the Christian—being, exegesis has the task of interpreting the Bible in this context. “Mythological” concepts and ideas are to be interpreted anew in terms of this basic acknowledgment.

6. The insights gained from exegesis furnish the content of preaching and of religious instruction. According to “modern” theology, this has the advantage of no longer requiring people of our day to accept dogmatic statements that stem from an understanding of the world and of existence long superseded and no longer valid.

There can be no doubt that existential interpretation leads not only to the reduction but also to the corruption of the Gospel. It transfers the center of gravity in theology to anthropology. As a result, existentialism not only does not do justice to the doctrine of God and to Christology but also does not do justice to soteriology and eschatology. If existentialism is carried to its final conclusion, then Christian faith becomes a religion of total immanence.

Where The New Theology Leads

What is the consequence of all this for understanding the basic truths of the Gospel?

1. Who is God?

To this question “modern” theology has given several answers, which, since faith in a supernatural personal God can no longer be maintained, are essentially concerned with demythologizing the New and Old Testament affirmations that have been binding until now. It is possible, we are told, to speak only of the “absolute,” the “highest principle,” the “being,” or the “depth of being.” God can also be regarded as merely the ultimate reference point of our existence, a point that cannot be more closely determined.

A radical “no” toward transcendence is said when we say that God can be found only in “human relations,” in person-to-person encounters. In doing this, theology falls into a fatal dependence upon abstract philosophical concepts and ideas that are incapable of comprehending the being and revelation of God as declared in the Bible. And it also comes suspiciously close to being atheism. The magnitude of this danger was evident in a lecture at the Cologne Kirchentag that spoke of a “Theology after the Death of God.” Still more alarming is the fact that in America a group of theologians are propagating a “Christian atheism,” a “God-less Christianity,” under the slogan “God is dead.” Here the biblical doctrine of salvation is reduced to practically nothing, for the depersonalization of God means that man no longer stands over against a living Thou to whom he can be personally related and to whom he can pray. No longer does he experience a heart- and conscience-moving confrontation of the external and holy God, who directs and pardons him and, as he believes, grants him new life by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Although Helmuth Frey has taken no position on “Christian atheism,” in his very noteworthy treatise published last year, Die Frage nach dem Zeugnis von Jesus Christus heute (The Question of the Witness to JesusChrist Today) he has passed the following verdict upon Tillich’s and Robinson’s teaching about God: here “God moves out of transcendence, out of metaphysical realm, out of objectivity, out of conceptualization, out of a distinctiveness from humanity—into a functional reference, into mere relation. He accommodates himself to the bounds, the frame of immanence. God is present only in encounter, in faith and in human fellowship; in short, he is present only in the divine-human and human-human relationship.”

God “happens.” That is all that “modern” theology knows to say about him. The Bible teaches us, however, that God is from everlasting to everlasting, that he dwells in inapproachable light, that he has made himself known in his Word and in his Son Jesus Christ has revealed himself for the salvation of the world. Where this is no longer believed and confessed, it is only one step further to declare that God is dead.

2. Who is Jesus Christ?

The problem of Christ also stands in the forefront of contemporary discussion, and here too current thinking is highly divided.

AND TO THE CHURCH AT LAODICEA, WRITE …

In Parson A’s stone-steepled church

There’s status, very quo.

The wealthy ones are out in force;

It’s where the best folks go.

At Parson B’s progressive church

All the headlines are dissected;

Though they look at Bibles rarely now

With their own times they’re connected.

At Parson C’s they quote the Book

By verses and by chapters,

But seldom know it means their town;

They do not like adapters.

At Parson D’s they sing off-key,

Sing jarring, thumping songs;

The preacher drones, the organ whines—

Though no half-heart belongs.

To every parson’s proudest church

Or humblest little hall

Stern watching angels speak grave words.

Who hears? Who hears at all?

ELVA McALLASTER

Even more than previous New Testament criticism, the methodology of Formgeschichte has intensified the cleavage between the historical Jesus and the Christ of kerygma (apostolic preaching). It begins by acknowledging that the Synoptic records contain testimonies of the faith of the Church. At first this seems to be a very illuminating thought. But it leads to the assumption that in the Gospel we are dealing not only with the eye and ear-witness reports of Jesus’ acts but also, and primarily, with the theology of the Church that took form after Easter. This means, however, that the Gospels give us no unequivocal picture of the life of the Jesus of history. It becomes the task of research, then, to liberate the figure (Gestalt) of Jesus from the later embellishments of the Church.

The question involved, therefore, is: Who really was Jesus of Nazareth and what was his mission? Bultmann, in his book about Jesus, tried to work out an ancient tradition that presents Jesus as a teacher and rabbi who proclaims the Kingdom of God and summons man to total commitment to God. Jesus, however, did not consider himself to be the Messiah. This idea of Bultmann’s was repeated in W. Marxsen’s recently published book, Die Anfänge der Christologie (The Beginnings of Christology). In his later pronouncements Bultmann went so far as to say that the life and ministry of Jesus have no bearing upon faith; only the fact that he came into the world is of actual significance for us. For, as Bultmann argues, “the character of Jesus, the tangible representation of his personality and life, can no longer be known by us.”

Bultmann’s followers did not go quite that far. Yet Ernst Käsemann, who has concerned himself considerably with the question of the historical Jesus, believes it necessary to assert that only a few statements in the Sermon on the Mount, a few statements in his unmasking of Pharisaism, a number of parables, and various scattered gems actually go back to the historical Jesus. Jesus’ teaching, however, as far as we can reconstruct it, manifests the unique sovereignty and majesty of his person and of his appearing.

In his book Jesus of Nazareth Günther Bornkamm expressed himself even more strongly. He acknowledges that through the Synoptic record we see the historical Jesus in all his unmistakable majesty; the purpose of the Gospels, moreover, is not only to proclaim but also to report.

Very revealing also is the major article, “Jesus Christ,” written by Bultmannite Hans Conzelmann, that appears in the latest edition of Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Conzelmann deals thoroughly with the preaching of Jesus but comes to the conclusion that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah, and that he never designated himself either as the Son of God or as the Son of Man. His self-awareness, says Conzelmann, is not apparent in the “christological titularity; this was first appended to him by the teaching of the Church. We are to see him only as a great teacher and miracle-worker who was filled with strong eschatological convictions and saw himself as the “last herald” before the dawning of God’s Kingdom. Faith in him as the Messiah and as the Son of God was first engendered, assertedly, under the impact of his resurrection appearances.

That this view is untenable is clear; we need not argue the fact. But it is shocking that so-called scholarship should present a picture of Jesus that in no way corresponds to the truth. Surely it is completely unthinkable that the early Church in Palestine and also that in Greece had so many ingenious theologians that by interpretation, reflection, and deliberate formulation, they, as Marxsen insists, created out of the humble Jesus of Nazareth the mighty Christ-figure to whom the present Gospels attest.

“Modern” theology ignores a further crucial factor, namely, the operation of the Holy Spirit in formulating the tradition of the Jesus of history. The New Testment repeatedly emphasizes that the authors of the individual books were inspired by the Holy Ghost in the recording of their work; and no less an authority than John specifically points out that it was the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, who recalled to those who were eye- and ear-witnesses of the life of Jesus everything that Jesus taught and did; he revealed all the truth to them and “made it clear.” This does not mean, as Bultmann and his students would say, that a new picture of Jesus was created in the period after Easter; it means, rather, that the person of Jesus was understood in its deepest sense. Full comprehension of Jesus is impossible without the operation of the Holy Ghost. The words and deeds of Jesus were proclaimed, therefore, as acts of divine revelation and salvation.

One final thing must be said in this connection. Essential to a complete understanding of Jesus Christ is the metaphysical setting of his existence. He is the eternal Logos who became flesh, and who after the completion of his earthly redemptive work returned to God, at whose right hand he now reigns in that very glory which was his as the only begotten Son of God from before the beginning of time. This is the witness of John’s Gospel, and also of the hymn to Christ in Philippians 2; they do not convey some gnostic myth of a redeemer but rather bring to expression the true and comprehensive significance of Christ and of the Christ-event. According to Colossians 1:14–20, Christ is the firstborn of all creation, the firstborn from the dead, the Saviour of the world, the Lord in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead and whose redeeming power encompasses the cosmos.

One has a wrong picture of Jesus, then, if he sees him only as an unusual man who in his lifetime fulfilled a special assignment given by God but whose death was the end of his existence. The statement by extremists of “modern” theology that the historical Jesus is not identical with the Christ of the kerygma has no basis in the New Testament witness to Christ. Above all, we dare not allow Christology to be existentially interpreted and thus dissolved.

3. What significance has the Cross of Christ?

The critical premise that in the Gospels we are dealing with the pre-Christian kerygma that includes relatively few genuine words of Jesus and reliable reports of his deeds (Käsemann) has definite consequences also for the events that led to Jesus’ death, and even for the significance of his death. According to many exegetes, the prophecies of Christ’s passion were not spoken by Jesus but were ascribed to him later. And the words instituting the Lord’s Supper are to be thought of not as coming from Jesus but as a legend that prospered in the cult, that is, as a later addition by the Church (Conzelmann).

If we carefully examine the sources dealing with the last chapter of Jesus’ life, we know very little that is absolutely certain in the true historical sense (G. Bornkamm). The gospel reports of Jesus’ trial before the high priest show so little uniformity that a clear picture of the proceedings is impossible. All that is historically certain, perhaps, is that the Sanhedrin let Jesus be arrested, gave him a brief hearing, then turned him over to the Roman officer so that he could condemn Jesus as a political agitator (Lohse). From one Gospel to another, the scene before Pilate, through the addition of more and more legendary features, becomes a full-fledged drama. Jesus’ death, we are told, is the tragic fate of a great man who became a martyr for the truth he took upon himself to espouse. Bultmann explains further that Jesus suffered the death of a political criminal on the cross “because his ministry was misunderstood as something political.”

Where are we led by this modern reconstruction? (1) We do not know how Jesus understood his death. (2) The gospel narratives give us no clear picture of the death and suffering of Jesus. The historical kernel is encrusted with legends. (3) According to Martin Dibelius, the early Christians in their presentation of Jesus’ agony may also have dipped into the passion chapters of the Old Testament. (4) One must even face the possibility that Jesus “collapsed” (Bultmann).

The conclusion to which radical critical investigation has come is frightening. What is there to proclaim, if Jesus’ death has no redemptive significance? To say that Jesus suffered martyrdom as a witness of the faith helps us about as much as saying that Jesus’ death can be compared to the death of Socrates (Bultmann, Conzelmann). Nor does the insistence of existential theology—that the Cross of Christ becomes salvation to us first in the proclaimed Word—have any meaning if it has no foundation in salvation history. If God was not working for the salvation of the world in Jesus’ death, then the preaching of the Cross is robbed of its distinctive content. The fact of redemption is, therefore, prerequisite to proclamation. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. He gave his son as ransom for the sins of mankind. This, as Künneth stresses, is the great reality of redemption. And this fact is the heart of the salvation message in which the universally valid truth is proclaimed: “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin.” Only where this is grasped by faith and confessed is the message of the Cross the power of God.

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