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The Sonship of the Historical Jesus in Christology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
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The church's Christological confession of the uniqueness of J. Christ's relation to God has always been understood to include the historical Jesus. In theory, at least, this is a point at which faith must be vulnerable to historical investigation. To what extent can Jesus' unique relation to God be affirmed on historical grounds? While the church is not limited to believing about Jesus only what he explicitly believed about himself, a certain correspondence is necessary for the credibility of Christology. If there were no evidence that Jesus understood his relation to God to be in any way distinctive it would be difficult to maintain that he was in fact uniquely related to God. Both doctrine and history suggest that the most profitable line of enquiry into this question will concern Jesus' consciousness of sonship. It is a line of enquiry which may in its turn elucidate some of the problems of Christology.
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References
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page 246 note 7 Op. cit., pp. 24–27.
page 246 note 8 Ibid., pp. 16–18.
page 246 note 9 Ibid., p. 22.
page 247 note 1 Ibid., pp. 61f.
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page 260 note 2 This is not a complete essay in Christology and I have assumed the essential validity of the patristic development of a two-nature Christology. On the other hand, the Chalcedonian statement is not itself the starting-point for further reflection; it needs to be continually filled out afresh from a starting-point in the history of Jesus and the apostolic witness.
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