No.34 Referenced from ~ Part1 - Chapter 4 - Consideration 4 The divine historical Jesus-R
Regarding the development of faith in the apostles, the mainline theological view that the apostles' initial faith, which was a respect for Jesus, a non-divine teacher, developed into a faith that deified Jesus, is a natural view. On the other hand, as this paper has considered, it is also natural to see the development of the apostles' faith as moving from an initial faith based on amazement at the divine Jesus as described in the Gospels to the next stage of certainty that Jesus is Christ the Savior. Which is correct? The above consideration of the kerygma makes it clear that the second stage of faith was gaining certainty in Jesus. If Jesus was merely a religious teacher, it would be unnatural for people to go from respecting Jesus to suddenly being convinced that he was Christ. Therefore, it is reasonable to see that Jesus was not merely like a teacher when he was with his disciples, but was already divine being. |