Theologizing the Human Jesus: An Ancient (and Modern) Approach to Christology Reassessed

Many contemporary Christologies, while paying lip-service to the primacy of the human Jesus, devote little attention to the theological status of his humanity. They may be deflected from this task by such factors as preference for experienced-based symbol; the fragmentation of biblical studies and dogmatics; the imperatives of contextual hermeneutics; and the preoccupation with methodology rather than substance. But the human Jesus is only theologically meaningful when viewed on a larger canvas than that of either idealist metaphysics or historical reconstruction. The classical doctrines of the anhypostasis and enhypostasis of Jesus' humanity offer a still useful way of highlighting the primacy of grace, and, contrary to common caricature, do not undermine the density of his human experience. Such an account needs to be supplemented, however, with a robust pneumatology in order to specify the relevance of the human Jesus for revelation, salvation, anthropology, ethics and eschatology.