In chapter seven, The Self-Understanding of Jesus, Craig states that “at the center of any Christian apologetic therefore must stand the person of Christ; and very important for the doctrine of Christ’s person are the personal claims of the historical Jesus. Did he claim to be divine?....Who did Jesus of Nazareth claim to be?”
The First Quest for the Historical Jesus
In the Life of Jesus Movement, the scholars strove to find the historical Jesus behind the figure portrayed in the Gospels. Authors like Karl Bahrdt and Karl Venturini rejected Jesus as God who never arose from the dead. D. F. Strauss stated that Jesus never performed miracles. The miracles of Jesus were only myths and legends that the early church attributed to Jesus.
William Wrede invented the “Messianic secret” to answer why according to Mark, Jesus was always commanding people to not tell who he really is. Because Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah, according to Wrede, Mark came up with this ingenious plan why the people were unaware of Jesus’ messianic claims, Jesus always commanded people to conceal his identity.
The real reason, Jesus commanded the people not to disclose who he was because to openly claim to be the Messiah, given the popular image of the Messiah as a military conqueror, would have tended to obscure rather than elucidate the true nature of God’s kingdom and Jesus’ mission.
The first quest to find the historical Jesus failed because the liberal Jesus who went around proclaiming the Kingdom of God never existed but was a projection of modern theology. In the first half of the twentieth century Karl Barth adhered to this view. To Barth what really mattered was not the historical Jesus, but the Christ of faith.
According to Bultmann what could be known about the historical Jesus could be written on a 4 x 6 index card. The Gospels were mythologically colored anyway. The scholar must demythologize the Gospel of the myths the early church read back into them about Jesus being the supernatural Son of God.
The Second Quest for the Historical Jesus
The students of Bultmann disagreed and believed knowing more about Jesus was necessary. John Meier differentiates between the historical Jesus and the person who actually lived. But neither the historical Jesus nor even the real Jesus are for Meier the person who actually lived.
The Jesus Seminar believed that the greatest percentage of the traditions around Jesus “cannot be proven authentic or inauthentic.” John Dominic Crossan, one of the more celebrated members of the Jesus Seminar, advocated that unless material about Jesus was multiply attested it could not be accepted as authentic. Robert Funk, founder of the Jesus Seminar also believed that the historical Jesus was overlaid with the myths of the early church and therefore Jesus had to be demythologized. As it turns out, less than 20% of the sayings attributed to Jesus could be printed in red. The edition of the Gospel published by the Jesus Seminar was called The Five Gospels because the Gospel of Thomas was added.
Bart Ehrman similarly rejected much of the core doctrines of Jesus’ deity.
The Roman historian A. N. Sherwin-White refuted this theories by favorably comparing the Gospels with Roman history proving the historicity of Gospels with external confirmation of the narrated events.
The Third Quest for the Historical Jesus
This quest has been conducted mostly by Jewish scholars. These Jewish scholars have concentrated their attention of the ethical teaching of Jesus showing the continuity with Judaism. When Jewish scholars do consider the personal claims or self-understanding of Jesus, the majority conclude that Jesus did believe himself to be the Messiah, though, of course, they consider him to have been tragically deluded in this opinion.
Defense of Christ’s Divine Claims
Critics refuted the claims of Christ’s divine claim by again advocating that the early church read back into the Gospels these claims. One example of this reasoning was John Hick, a British theologian, who in 1977 wrote The Myth of God Incarnate.
Clearly Jesus claimed to be the Messiah (Christos) in Mark 1:1; John 20:31; Mark 8:27-30; etc. His deeds also proclaimed his belief that he was the Messiah as in his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.
Craig discusses three Christological titles that reveal that Christ knew he was the Messiah, Son of God, and the Son of Man. All three of these titles were used to describe Jesus at his trial in Mark 14:60-64.
In preaching the coming kingdom of God, Jesus perceived himself as Messiah in Matthew 19:28-30. He saw himself ruling over the twelve tribes.
The self-understanding of Jesus as God is also seen in his correcting of the OT law in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 7:28-29, Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to the men of old…” and quoted the Mosaic Law; then he continued, “But I say to you…” and gave his own teaching. For that reason, the eminent Jewish scholar Jacob Neusner in A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, said he would not have followed Jesus in the first-century nor now.
When Jesus prefaced one on his statements, with “Amen, I say to you” he was speaking as God. The OT prophets would say, “Thus says the Lord” and speak for God. But Christ, did not use this formula. He was not speaking for God but as God.
Also, with the casting out of demons, and stating that the kingdom of God has come to you in Luke 11:20, Jesus was aware that he was God which was visibly demonstrated by his exorcism.
Jesus forgiving sin was seen by the Pharisees as blasphemous because only God can forgive sin, and Jesus as God realized this and practiced this (Mark 2:1-12).
Jesus healing ministry reveals his self-understanding that he is God. He did not pray for healing to take place, he just healed. Compare Jesus’ claim to have healed lepers with 2 Kings 5:7 “When the king of Israel read the letter [from the king of Aram concerning Naaman’s leprosy], he rent his clothes and said, ‘Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy?’” Jesus in effect takes God’s place as the healer of Israel.
In Jesus’ prayers, he always prayed “My Father” not “our Father” as his disciples. Additionally, Jesus said that a person’s response to him fixed their eternal destiny in Luke 12:8-9.
Explicit use of Christological titles like Messiah, the Son of God, and especially the Son of Man, combined with implicit Christological claims made through his teaching and behavior indicates a radical self-understanding on the part of Jesus of Nazareth.
In his Practical Application, Craig believes this material can be used more effectively defensively than offensively. That is to say, if the unbeliever says Jesus was just a good man or religious teacher, then confront him with Christ’s claims.