Four Phases of the Work Of Jesus Christ

Four phases of the work of Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ, the Jewish teacher of the 1st century A.D., whom Christians claim to have been the prophesied Messiah and the Saviour sent by God to all people. Christ was originally a title rather than a proper name. The word means "the anointed one" or "the Messiah" (Greek, Christos; Hebrew, Mashiakh). Jesus is an ordinary proper name, the Greek equivalent of Joshua, which means "Jehovah is salvation." Christian definitions of Jesus as Saviour gradually moved beyond regarding him as the Messiah and ended by understanding him to be the Incarnation of God's eternally begotten Son.

The New Testament supplies nearly all the evidence for a historical reconstruction of Jesus' life and fate and for the earliest Christian interpretations of his significance. There is, however, some evidence concerning Jesus' life and teaching outside the New Testament. The apocryphal Gospels purport to give information about Jesus, and a number of sayings of Jesus (agrapha) survive that are not found in the canonical Gospels. The writings of the Jewish historian Josephus contain a disputed but possible reference to Jesus. Nevertheless, the New Testament is regarded as the only reliable source.

The four Gospels present the story of Jesus as the message of salvation. (The first three Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—are called "synoptic" because of their similar treatment of Jesus' life.) The Gospels are not biographies and make no distinction between the events they narrate and the interpretation those events are thought to bear. But they are the basis for modern attempts to reconstruct the Jesus of history and always have been fundamental to Christian theologians in defining the Christ of faith.

Mark is the oldest of the four Gospels (about 65 A.D.). Matthew and Luke were written about 20 years later, using as sources Mark and a hypothetical collection of Jesus' sayings known to modern scholars as Q (for German Quelle, meaning "source"). John, the Fourth Gospel, is usually dated about 90 A.D. Matthew, Luke, and John also appear to be using special materials from either written or oral traditions. The four Gospels differ considerably from one another, both in what they include and in the order in which they present the stories about Jesus. From a critical point of view it is impossible to harmonize completely the four accounts.

The Beginning of Jesus' Ministry. In contrast to the synoptics, John tells us that Jesus' ministry began in both Galilee and Judaea. After gaining disciples from John the Baptist (1:35-51), Jesus performs his first miracle by changing water into wine at a marriage in Cana of Galilee (2:1ff.). He enters Jerusalem and expels the merchants from the Temple (2:13-22). His ministry in Jerusalem draws the Pharisee Nicodemus to him (3:1-21). John the Baptist bears final witness to Jesus (3:22-30), who then departs for Galilee, passing through Samaria and encountering the woman at Jacob's well (4:1-42). In Galilee he heals an official's son (4:46-54). Jesus returns to Jerusalem, where he heals a paralytic at the ...