15. Jesus’ Proclamation and the Proclamation About Jesus

 

15. Jesus’ Proclamation and the Proclamation About Jesus

At this point in our search for the Way of Jesus, we arrive at an important historical distinction.

We have been asking:

What did Jesus proclaim?

We have also been asking:

What kind of life did Jesus invite people to live?

The Gospel traditions consistently place the Kingdom of God near the centre of Jesus' proclamation. Scholarly discussions of the historical Jesus widely recognize the Kingdom as a central feature of his message.

But after Jesus' death, another proclamation emerged:

Who was Jesus?

What did his death mean?

What did his followers believe God had done in raising him?

What did it mean to call him Messiah, Lord, or Son of God?

These questions became central to the proclamation of the early Christian movement.

The two proclamations are closely related.

But they are not identical.

Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom.
His followers proclaimed Jesus in relation to that Kingdom.
Both belong to the history of Christianity.
But they should not be confused.

Jesus' Proclamation

The historical traditions present Jesus announcing God's Kingdom and calling people to respond.

The basic pattern is familiar:

The Kingdom of God is near.

Repent.

Trust God.

Love.

Forgive.

Pray.

Follow.

Live under God's reign.

The Kingdom is therefore not simply one doctrine among many.

It provides the framework within which Jesus' other teachings make sense.

Repentance is a response to the Kingdom.

Love is the character of people who live under the Kingdom.

Forgiveness is the practice of people who have received God's mercy.

Prayer asks for God's Kingdom to come.

Faith is trust in God.

Discipleship is the decision to walk the Way.

Jesus' proclamation therefore contains both announcement and invitation.

He announces something about God.

And he calls people to live differently because of it.

What Happened After Jesus?

Jesus' death created a crisis for his followers.

The one whom they had followed had been executed.

The Kingdom he proclaimed had not appeared in the manner they expected.

Yet the earliest Christian traditions testify that his followers came to believe that God had raised him from the dead.

That conviction transformed their proclamation.

They did not simply continue saying:

“The Kingdom of God is coming.”

They increasingly proclaimed:

“Jesus is the Messiah.”

“God has raised Jesus.”

“Jesus is Lord.”

The earliest Christian evidence is already very early. Oxford scholarship identifies 1 Corinthians 15:3 as evidence that, soon after Jesus' death, his disciples were proclaiming him as the Christ—the Messiah—and interpreting his vindication by God in light of his resurrection.

Something important has therefore happened.

The message has not simply disappeared.

It has been reinterpreted through what the disciples believed had happened to Jesus.

From “The Kingdom” to “Jesus and the Kingdom”

This does not mean that the early Christians abandoned Jesus' Kingdom proclamation.

Rather, they increasingly understood Jesus himself as inseparable from the Kingdom.

The one who proclaimed God's reign became the central subject of the proclamation.

This development can already be seen in the New Testament.

The Kingdom remains present in Christian proclamation, but Jesus' identity becomes increasingly central.

The question changes from:

“What is God doing?”

to include:

“Who is this Jesus through whom we believe God is acting?”

The two questions eventually become inseparable within Christian faith.

But historically they should still be distinguished.

Why the Distinction Matters

Why does this distinction matter?

Because if we immediately read everything Jesus says through later Christian theology, we may lose sight of what Jesus himself was proclaiming.

For example, if we begin with later Christian doctrines about Jesus and then read the Gospel traditions backwards through those doctrines, we may unconsciously assume that every statement Jesus makes is already functioning as a later Christian confession.

But the historical question is different.

We want to ask:

What did these words mean in the ministry of Jesus?

What was Jesus asking people to understand?

What was Jesus asking them to do?

What did Jesus mean by the Kingdom?

What did repentance mean in that context?

What kind of life did he call people to live?

Only after asking these questions can we responsibly examine how his followers came to understand him.

This is not an attempt to separate Jesus from Christianity.

It is an attempt to understand the historical movement from Jesus to Christianity.

Jesus as the Subject of Christian Proclamation

The transformation becomes particularly visible in the language of the early Christian communities.

Jesus had proclaimed the Kingdom.

After Easter, the disciples proclaimed Jesus as the risen Messiah.

Jesus had announced God's reign.

The disciples announced what they believed God had done through Jesus.

Jesus had called people to follow.

The disciples called people to faith in Jesus.

Jesus had taught people about God's forgiveness.

The disciples increasingly proclaimed forgiveness in connection with Jesus' death and resurrection.

Thus the centre of proclamation shifts.

Not necessarily from one completely different message to another, but from:

Jesus' proclamation of God's reign

toward:

the proclamation about Jesus and his significance for God's reign.

This is an important distinction.

The Resurrection Changes the Question

From the perspective of historical reconstruction, the resurrection is especially important because the earliest Christian proclamation is inseparable from the disciples' conviction that God had raised Jesus.

Historically, we can distinguish two questions.

The first is:

What did Jesus proclaim during his public ministry?

The second is:

What did his followers proclaim after his death?

The first question belongs primarily to the historical Jesus.

The second belongs to the history of early Christianity.

Christian faith brings the two together.

Historical study must nevertheless distinguish them.

This distinction does not require the historian to decide whether the resurrection actually occurred as a theological or supernatural event. Rather, it recognizes the historical fact that the disciples very soon proclaimed Jesus as risen and Messiah, and that this proclamation became foundational for the emerging Christian movement.

From Jesus' Teaching to the Church's Confession

The early Christian proclamation therefore represents not merely repetition but interpretation.

The disciples were asking:

What does Jesus' death mean?

What does his resurrection mean?

Who is Jesus in God's purposes?

What does it mean that the one who proclaimed God's Kingdom was crucified?

What does it mean that God raised him?

These questions generated christological reflection.

The proclamation about Jesus grew.

Titles were applied to him.

Scriptural traditions were reread in relation to him.

His death was interpreted.

His resurrection became central.

His followers' understanding of his identity developed.

This process belongs to the history of Christianity.

It should neither be denied nor simply projected backward into every aspect of Jesus' earthly ministry.

Two Questions That Must Remain Together

The historical study of Jesus therefore requires two questions to remain in conversation:

What did Jesus proclaim?

and

What did Jesus' followers proclaim about Jesus?

The first protects us from losing Jesus beneath later theological interpretation.

The second protects us from pretending that the history of Christianity stopped with Jesus' own words.

We need both.

Without the first, we may lose the historical Jesus.

Without the second, we may fail to understand how Christianity actually emerged.

This Is Not an Argument Against Christian Faith

It is important to state clearly what this distinction does not mean.

It does not mean that the later Christian proclamation is false.

It does not mean that the resurrection is unimportant.

It does not mean that the titles applied to Jesus by early Christians are merely inventions.

It does not mean that Christian theology should be discarded.

Those are theological and historical questions that require their own careful treatment.

The purpose here is narrower.

We are trying to recover the Way of Jesus.

For that purpose, we must first hear Jesus in his own historical setting before asking how later Christians interpreted him.

The distinction is therefore methodological rather than dismissive.

To recover the Way of Jesus is not to reject what Christianity came to say about Jesus. It is to return first to the one whose life and teaching gave rise to those later proclamations.

The Way Before the Theology About the Way

This distinction is especially important for the argument of this manuscript.

We began with a search for Jesus' own teaching.

We discovered the Kingdom.

Then repentance.

Then the Father.

Then love.

Then righteousness.

Then neighbour.

Then Sabbath.

Then forgiveness.

Then prayer.

Then faith.

Then discipleship.

These concepts form a coherent vision.

They show us what Jesus was calling people to see and how he was calling them to live.

Only after recovering this pattern should we ask how the Christian community came to interpret the significance of Jesus himself.

The sequence is therefore:

Jesus → Kingdom of God → Repentance → Way of Life → Discipleship

and then, historically:

Jesus' death → Resurrection faith → Proclamation about Jesus → Early Christian theology

The two movements belong together.

But they should not be collapsed.

The Proclamation and the Person

There is also a deeper theological question here.

Jesus proclaimed something.

But eventually the person who proclaimed it became part of the proclamation itself.

That is one of the most remarkable developments in early Christianity.

The messenger became part of the message.

The teacher became the subject of teaching.

The one who announced God's Kingdom became the one whose identity was proclaimed as central to God's saving work.

This is precisely why the historical distinction matters.

It allows us to appreciate the development rather than simply erase it.

We can see the movement:

Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom.

Then:

His followers proclaimed Jesus as Messiah and risen Lord.

And eventually:

Christian theology reflected systematically on who Jesus is in relation to God, salvation, humanity, and the Kingdom.

Each stage belongs to the history of Christianity.

Returning to the Way

Yet our present study began with a different question:

What is the Way of Jesus?

The answer that has emerged is not primarily a list of doctrines.

It is a way of seeing and a way of living.

Jesus announces God's reign.

He calls people to turn.

He reveals God as Father.

He teaches love.

He forms character.

He expands the neighbour.

He restores the purpose of religious practice.

He teaches forgiveness.

He teaches prayer.

He calls for trust.

And finally:

Follow me.

The Way therefore begins with vision and ends in practice.

See differently.

Understand differently.

Trust differently.

Live differently.

Become different.

This is the historical Jesus whose proclamation gave rise to the later Christian proclamation about Jesus.

The Two Proclamations Together

The relationship between the two can finally be expressed in a simple way:

Jesus proclaimed God's Kingdom.
His followers proclaimed Jesus as the one they believed God had raised and exalted.
The first tells us what Jesus announced.
The second tells us how his followers came to understand him.

The task of historical study is not to choose one and erase the other.

It is to understand the relationship between them.

And for anyone seeking the Way of Jesus, the first task remains indispensable:

Listen to Jesus before speaking about Jesus.

That is where our journey began.

And now, having followed the major themes of his teaching, we are ready to return to the central question:

What does it finally mean to walk the Way of Jesus?

The answer brings the entire journey together in the conclusion:

Walking the Way of Jesus.