TTT #3 God is Fully Revealed in Jesus, but the Christ is not Limited to Jesus

This third article in the series “Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now” (TTT) presupposes the content of the first two articles, but reading those previous pieces about God are not prerequisite for reading this one.

How Can We Know God?

One of the basic assertions of Christianity, especially in its traditional Protestant understanding, is that knowledge of God is not due primarily to human effort. Rather, our knowledge of God results from God taking the initiative to reveal Godself to us humans.

God’s self-revelation took place primarily through Jesus of Nazareth, Christians claim. This means that the universal (God) is known primarily through the particular (Jesus) – an assertion that is sometimes called "the scandal of particularity."

This in stark contrast to the ancient spirituality of India—or to late 20^th century New Age spirituality—which emphasizes that God, or some alternative designation such as the Absolute or the Eternal, is universally available to all persons and which, it is often avowed, exists in all persons.

Is there any way that the emphasis on the particularity of traditional Christianity and the universality of Indian religiosity can be brought together?

Perhaps that is possible by realizing that God is fully revealed in Jesus but that the Christ is not limited to Jesus.

Knowing God through the Logos

The first chapter of the Gospel according to John begins with the affirmation of Jesus as the eternal Word. That term is the English translation of logos, a term pregnant with meaning.  

Greek word logos.

In the Greek world before and during the time of Jesus, logos was considered in somewhat the same way as tao (dao) was in China and dharma in India.

So the first chapter of John begins with this statement of great significance: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

What is most significant, and problematic for many people, is the assertion that follows in verse fourteen: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

From this passage we are told that the universal is known in the particular, the eternal is known in the temporal, and God is made known through a single human being.

Further, John 1:18 states, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.” God is fully revealed in Jesus.

Knowing God apart from Jesus

Is the logos, which can be legitimately called the cosmic Christ, limited to Jesus, though? Probably not. Even in the first chapter of John, there are the enigmatic words about the logos being both life and light, the “true light, which enlightens everyone” (v. 9).

Yes, the Word (Christ) became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth, but that Word is the eternal logos, understood, for example, as the tao in China and as the dharma in India.

The light of the logos/Word has enabled the Chinese to speak of Heaven, the Asian Indians to speak of Brahman, the Native Americans to speak of the Great Spirit.

If the Word is the true light that enlightens everyone in the world, there must be some (or considerable) knowledge of God which is not directly related to Jesus of Nazareth—although indispensably related to the eternal logos/Christ.

Not only is God greater than we think, or even can think, by means of the logos knowledge of God is also broader than most traditional Christians have thought through the years.

The Universal and the Particular

Last week I finished the first draft of the second five-page chapter for my next book Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things Every Christian Needs to Know Now. (In spite of suggestions that the title, and even the content, be changed, I am sticking with the original plan, at least for the time being.)

The second chapter is "The Better We Know God, the Broader and Deeper will be Our Understanding of the Universe and Everything in It," and it follows "#1 God is Greater Than We Think, or Even Can Think." At this point I am calling the third chapter "God is Fully Revealed in Jesus, but the Christ is not Limited to Jesus." This topic is related to the difficult subject of the relationship of the particular to the universal.

Christianity has long had to wrestle with what is called "the scandal of particularity," and many have spurned Christianity because of what was considered an unacceptable particularity. Part of the appeal of some New Age religion, which in many ways is a recycling of "old age" religious beliefs of India, is its universality or all-inclusiveness. Although they total less than ten pages, the first two chapters of my new book is about the greatness of God, which is another way of speaking about the universality or all-inclusiveness of God.

But how is God to be known? The first chapter of John deals with that matter. As you know, John 1 begins by talking about the Word, expressed in Greek as logos. That term has the same basic meaning as the tao (or dao) in the religious tradition of China and dharma in the religious tradition of India. And Philo, the Jewish philosopher who was a contemporary of Jesus, linked the Torah with logos.

Thus logos, the Word, is a fundamental concept of the ancient religious traditions of the world. But in a way not seen in China or India and in a way rejected by most of the Jewish people of Jesus' day, the Gospel of John goes on to declare that "the Word became flesh and lived among us" (John 1:14). That is the stupendous claim of Christianity that sets it apart from other religious faiths. The universal was revealed in the particular, in a single Jewish man, Jesus of Nazareth.

But along with this particularity--but not in place of it--there also needs to be a recognition of the universality of God's revelation. It is for that reason I am writing that God is fully revealed in Jesus, but the Christ is not limited to Jesus. I will need to explain more what I am thinking about that in a future posting.