In the charismatic renewal it is often argued that Christians should minister healing and deliverance to others like Jesus ministered to people, in the same “authority” and “power”. But didn't Jesus have authority and power to heal and deliver because he was divine? In a short series I'll explore the significance of the baptism of Jesus in terms of "authority" and "power". How did Protestant theologians Abraham Kuyper, Karl Barth, Jurgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg understand the baptism of Jesus?
In this first pasrt, we'll set the scene: The Jewish expectation of the coming of the Kingdom of God proves important for a proper understanding of Jesus' baptism.
Check also:
- Part 2 (on authority)
- Part 3 (on Power).
The Baptism of Jesus: Authority and Power (1)
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In the
charismatic renewal within the churches it is often argued that believers
should minister to others like Jesus ministered to people, in the same
“authority” and “power”. A recent example is found in Learning to Heal, a “practical guide” by Anglican theologian John Coles, until recently international director of New Wine.[1] The
point of departure for his argument is that to be a Christian involves becoming
more like Jesus, and that this is a process that involves not only “developing
the type of relationship with God that Jesus had”, and “having our lives
transformed by the Holy Spirit so that we increasingly reflect the qualities of
purity and holiness that characterized Jesus’ life”, but also “learning to
minister to others with the same love and power in which Jesus ministered.”[2] He
then goes on to explain this in terms of “authority” and “power” (Chapter 3). When
Christians are to be involved in healing ministry they need to understand that
God gives them authority to carry out
this ministry, and that it is the Holy Spirit who empowers them for this ministry. Both statements he then grounds in
the New Testament account of Jesus being “anointed with the power of the Holy
Spirit following his baptism.”[3]
In order to
investigate this, we will look into contributions to christology and
pneumatology by non-charismatic theologians within the tradition of the
Reformation: Abraham Kuyper, Karl Barth, Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart
Pannenberg. How do they perceive the baptism of Jesus in terms of authority and power?[4]
Obviously, this focus on the
perception of authority and power leaves out other issues relevant to the
baptism of Jesus, for instance the connection to forgiveness of sin and
representation, or the link between Jesus’ baptism and the Christian baptism.
The setting of the scene: Announcing the Kingdom of God
Jesus began
his public work in the context of the proclamation of John the Baptist, as he
applied this proclamation to himself and had himself baptized by John.
The whole
setting is loaded with symbolism, as New Testament scholars (and mostly those
associated with the Third Quest, with their keen eye for the socio-historical
backgrounds) don’t fail to emphasize. When John the Baptist commences his
ministry, it is no coincidence that he lives in the desert, calls for
repentance and baptizes in the river Jordan.
As N.T. Wright puts it,
“anyone collecting people in the Jordan wilderness was symbolically saying: this is the new exodus. Anybody offering water-baptism for the forgiveness of sins was saying: you can have, here and now, what you would normally get through the Temple cult. Anybody inviting those who wished to do so to pass through an initiatory rite of this kind was symbolically saying: here is the true Israel that is to be vindicated by YHWH.”[5]
Jürgen
Moltmann emphasizes how this whole setting is eschatologically charged, and
pointing at the coming Kingdom of God:
“Alles, was Johannes tut, ist symbolkräftig und voller Erinnerung
an die alte Gottesgeschichte Israels. Er tauft die Bußfertigen Israels am
Jordan für den neuen, endgültigen Eintritt ins Land Gottes. Die Botschaft, die
Symbolik und die Taufe des Johannes bilden ein eschatologisches Bußsakrament.
Diese Taufe unterscheidet sich von rituellen Waschungen durch ihre
eschatologischen Endgültigkeit (…) Die Eschatologie des Johannes war die
Naherwartung des Gerichtes Gottes, durch das das Reich der Gottesgerechtigkeit
kommt.”[6]
The baptism
of John the Baptist meant an enacting
of the “new exodus”, the “true return from exile” that first century Jews were
expecting, as YHWH would finally intervene and stand up for his people, defeat
their enemies and dwell with his people, establishing his Kingdom.[7]
Four canonical accounts: Mighty works
The accounts
of the baptism of Jesus can be found in each of the three synoptic Gospels
(Matthew 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22), and the Gospel according to John
mentions the descending of the Spirit on Jesus (John 1:29-34). Matthew, Mark
and Luke each mention how after this event Jesus was either “led by the Spirit”
or “full of the Spirit”, marking this as the beginning of the public ministry
of Jesus. Especially Mark places these events in the context of the Jewish
expectation of the coming Messiah, by beginning his Gospel with a quotation
from the prophet Isaiah, announcing the coming of the Lord (Mark 1:1-3).
Apparently
then, Jesus applies this proclamation of the coming Messiah, bringing the
Kingdom of God, to himself. “Jesus was known (…) as someone who could speak
with power and authority”, N.T. Wright argues, “But it was the sort of things
he said which marked him out in particular”, as he announces the inbreaking of
the Kingdom of God.[8] By
what he said, and by what he did, including his “mighty works” of healing and
deliverance, he claimed that the Kingdom of God had come in him. These “mighty
works” or “works of power” are not to be regarded as “proof” of Jesus’
“divinity”, as traditional theology sometimes has done, Wright argues. Instead,
Jesus was “indeed inaugurating the long-awaited time of liberation (…) the
kingdom of God”.
“From the perspective of a follower of Jesus at the time, his
mighty works will have been interpreted within the context of his overall
proclamation: they would be seen as signs that the kingdom of Israel’s god was
indeed coming to birth.”[9]
This how
Jesus clearly perceived his ministry, Wright argues.
“He never performed mighty works simply to impress. He saw
them as part of the inauguration of the sovereign and healing rule of Israel’s
covenant god.”[10]
The synoptic
Gospels mention that the people witnessing the public ministry of Jesus stand
amazed of his “authority” and “power”(Matthew 7:29; 12:24; Mark 1:27; Luke
4:31; 4:36; 5:26; 6:19), as he inaugurates the Kingdom of God.
The evangelists
use words like paradoxa, things one
would not normally expect, or terata
and semeia, signs and portents, to
refer to the “mighty works” that usher in God’s healing reign.[11]
The words mostly used for “authority” and “power” are exousia and dunameis (see
for instance Luke 4:36 for their distinct use alongside each other).
Raising questions
What then,
in this context of messianic expectation and the inauguration of the Kingdom of
God, is the significance of Jesus’ baptism and the descending of the Spirit on
him?
- Did he receive this authority and this power at this point in his life?
- Or did he have authority already, being the Son of God?
- But if so, did he still need to receive the Spirit then?
- How to perceive this authority and this power, in the context of his public ministry that apparently began with the events at the river Jordan?
Further reading:
In the next weeks, I'll explore the interpretations of Kuyper, Barth, Moltmann and Pannenberg, and in the backs of our mind is the question what all of this could imply for our own involvement in the proclamation of the Kingdom of God:
- Part 2: Authority
- Part 3: Power
- Part 2: Authority
- Part 3: Power
Footnotes:
[1] John Coles, Learning to Heal. A Practical Guide for Every Christian (Milton
Keynes: Authentic Media, 2010; revised reprint 2012).
[2] Coles, 3.
[3] Coles, 39.
[4]
For our exploration we will limit ourselves to the following paragraphs:
Kuyper, Het werk van den Heiligen Geest,
Chapters 5 and 6; Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik
IV/4, Chapter 2, Paragraph II; Moltmann, Der
Weg Jesu Christi, Chapter III, Paragraph 3-6; Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Vols 2 and 3, with a focus on Vol.
2, Chapter 9, Paragraph 2, and Vol. 3, Chapter 13, Part III, Paragraph 1 d.
[5]
N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God,
Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume Two (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 1996), 160.
[6] Jürgen Moltmann, Der Weg Jesu Christi. Christologie in
messianischen Dimensionen (München: Kaiser Verlag, 1989), 108.
[7] Wright, 172, 190.
[8] Wright, 171.
[9] Wright, 190-191.
[10] Wright, 191.
[11] Wright, 188.
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