Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE QUESTION OF JESUS' SELF-UNDERSTANDING §16.6
was a role in relation to that, rather than an assertion of his own status as such.
Evidently, it was his proclamation of the kingdom which was important; the
identity of the proclaimer was a secondary matter. 227 To push further down that
line would raise the interesting question as to whether Jesus saw faith regarding
God's kingly rule as dependent on faith in him, whether the discipleship to which
he called required a particular belief in Jesus. Or did it simply involve a sharing
in Jesus' abba faith in God as Father and in his mission to live in the light of the
coming kingdom?
On the other hand, our review of the data has underlined the unwisdom of
pitching the discussion in terms of clear-cut titles (the Messiah, the Son of Man,
etc.). Should the discussion not be pitched rather in terms of more amorphous
concepts, of embryonic insights, of roles taken on rather than titles claimed? Are
the indications not more of a man who read/heard his Scripture with eschatological
overtones and who saw there possibilities and patterns which broke through
the more established and traditional categories? In which case, we can begin to
speak more firmly of the man who was remembered as one who above all took
on the role of eschatological spokesman for God. And from that we can deduce,
without strain, something of Jesus' own self-understanding regarding that role —
his conviction of being God's eschatological agent at the climax of God's purposes
for Israel, his sense of intimate sonship before God and of the dependence
of his disciples on him, and his probably strong hope for final acknowledgment
as the man who was playing the decisive role in bringing the kingdom to fulfilment
and consummation.
At a responsibly historical level, can we say more?
227. Cf. Harvey, Jesus 145.
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