Review Essay, Keeping the Balance
Jesus reveals our spiritual alienation But doesn’t this present us with a difficulty? “Understanding a person requires knowing something about a person” and, as Williams explains, “Jesus as he was is hidden from view, available only according to the impression he made on disciples and believers who do not pretend to be dispassionate”. But whatever else may be said, the gospels do contain certain historical reports that facilitate us with some important personal knowledge about Jesus. Something highly significant that emerges is the fact that, not only is Jesus presented as sinless, He actually pronounces forgiveness of sins directed against God (implying his deity)—rather extraordinary things for a religious Jew, very much conscious of the distinction between a defiled humanity and a holy God. On examining the accounts, it would seem that, in the end, the only good reason we have for rejecting this testimony is “the difficulty of believing that Jesus forgave as he did”, for if that is the case, then “what are we to make of him”? We might have lived with our own “imperfection”, but Jesus’ sinlessness and His assessment of our own spiritual state are hard things for us to swallow. “He places the whole question of the relationship between God and ourselves in the most serious conceivable moral context”. It becomes apparent that our own moral condition is at the root of our intellectual perplexity. “There is an epistemological difficulty”, Williams concedes, “there is a problem of religious knowledge, but it is generated by a spiritual condition”. The demands on the heart have intensified. “If there is a God to be known through knowing Jesus, God cannot be known without a certain attitude to Jesus”. More must be said about that attitude.
Jesus brings our actions to judgement Williams’ discussion goes on to consider how the portrayal of Jesus as “the man of action”, united in the will and the word of God, “reveals the inner fragmentation of our lives”, illuminating our true condition and pressuring us to acknowledge our need for inner healing and forgiveness. We have a problem successfully harmonizing action and knowledge. “What we morally ought to do or to be, we find ourselves unable to do or to be”. Jesus does not.
Category: In Depth, Spring 2006
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