The Mystery of His Deity

"The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." (Mark 1.1)

"Whereas Providence has adorned our lives with the highest good: Augustus, and has in her beneficence granted us and those who will come after us a Savior who has made war to cease and who shall put everything in peaceful order, with the result that the birthday of our God signalled the beginning of Good News for the world because of him, herefore the Greeks in Asia Decreed that the New Year begin for all the cities on September 23 and the first month shall be observed as the Month of Caesar, beginning with 23 September, the birthday of Caesar." (Roman Decree in honor of Emperor Augustus in Asian Temples)


We often think of the deity of Jesus Christ as a religious statement. And it certainly is that! However, it is much more than that. Mark's gospel refers to Jesus as both "Christ" and as "Son of God." As Christ he stands in opposition to the religious elites ruling in Jerusalem. As Son of God he stands in stark opposition to imperial Rome. Mark is engaged in an ideological war with both the Jewish hierarchy in Jerusalem and their Roman overlords. As Mark tells the story, Jesus has come to bring a new kingdom, a kingdom of God that challenges the supremacy of the ruling powers! But who is this Jesus to make such an audacious claim? Well, Mark says, he is "Christ" and "Son of God." And for the orginal hearers that was a potent and dangerous claim and a powerful and radical statement. Is it for us as well?

The Christian terminology of "good news" regarding the "Son of God" is a radical symbolic counter-claim to the imperial veneration of the Roman Emperor. It is anti-imperial rhetoric in the service of a subversive counter-claim, a claim calling for the veneration of a humble Jewish man named Jesus. Who is the true son of God? Augustus on his imperial throne or Jesus hanging on the imperial cross? How would we have answered that question?

In Mark's gospel it is no less a figure than the Roman centurion, that said of Jesus, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15.39) How ironic! Think of it. A soldier of the imperial armed forces testifies that Jesus is the Son of God. This was a man that had been brought up on the ideology of empire in which the Emperor Caesar Augustus was God and his reign the beginning of good news for the world! As the divine Son of God the Emperor was destined to establish the kingdom of Rome in the world. However, at the cross of Jesus this soldier realized that his Emperor had no clothes. And thus the centurion committed blasphemy and treason by daring to name another as Son of God, a victim of imperial violence no less!

I wonder if we really realize what it means to call Jesus the Son of God. It is much more than just a nice devotional exercise. It is nothing less than a subversive claim that can get an individual in trouble with the powers that be in any society. To call Jesus the Son of God effectively strips all other leaders, both political and spiritual, of ultimate authority. To call Jesus the Son of God is the beginning of a life of freedom from all forms of imperial domination. Such freedom ultimately puts us in opposition with all the many forms of unfreedom in our world. Do we understand what such freedom entails and if so do we actually desire it?