In Mark, Jesus is the Son of God because
the Father proclaims him to be such, first at the baptism (Mark 1:11) and then
at the Transfiguration (9:7), but this identity is also affirmed by his
authoritative ministry as he teaches and works miracles with the authority of
God. Nevertheless, Mark presents perhaps the most human portrait of Jesus, who
although a strong, powerful figure nonetheless displays a wider range of human emotions
and needs. Nonetheless, this seemingly low Christology needs to be qualified by
how his divine attributes are consistently narrated, leading Latter-day Saint
scholar Julie Smith to describe Marcan Christology as a “fuller” Christology.
While he is presented as a premier teacher, healer, debater, and leader, the
narrative reveals him as wielding God’s power and identifies him with YHWH, or
Jehovah, of the Hebrew Bible. Nonetheless, Jesus is not forthcoming with his identity
as the Son of God during his ministry, frequently directing recipients of his
miracles not to tell anyone of the great things he has done. At times he seems
impatient with or critical of the frequent failings of his disciples, does not begin
to talk to them about his identity until Caesarea Philippi, and does not allude
to his mission or fate until his passion predictions on the road of Jerusalem.
One interesting feature of the Marcan presentation has particular being upon
our study of the passion narratives: whereas Jesus was a strong,
miracle-working figure I the Galilean ministry, once he arrives in Jerusalem
for his final week, he works no miracles and instead appears as a powerless
figure who has submitted himself not only to the will of his father but also to
human authorities, part of what Restoration scripture calls “descending below
all things” (see Doctrine and Covenants 58;2; 88:6).
With their additions of infancy
narratives describing the divine conception and miraculous birth of Jesus
Christ, Matthew and Luke represent a higher Christology: rather than being
proclaimed the Son of God at the beginning of his ministry as in Mark, in these
two Gospels Jesus’s divine Sonship begins with his conception. Matthew most clearly
describes Jesus as the promised Messiah, or anointed king of Israel, using the
title “Son of David” nine times for Jesus (Matt 1:1; 9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 20:33-31;
21:9; 22:42) as opposed to only three times each in Mark and Luke and a single
reference in John to Christ “being of the seed of David” (Mark 10:47, 48;
12:35; Luke 3:31; 18:38, 39; John 742). This Gospel presents Jesus as a New
Moses, both by comparing the unusual and miraculous childhoods of the two
figures, the division of the body of Matthew into five sections analogous to
the five books traditional attributed to Moses, and Jesus’s expanding upon the
Mosaic law in the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew also emphasizes that Jesus was
the fulfiller of prophecy and, in terms of his salvific work, provides a more detailed
account of his suffering, death, and especially resurrection than Mark does.
Luke’s Christology is even higher than
Matthew’s. In addition to his longer, more developed infancy narrative, which
vividly presents Jesus as the promised Savior, Luke emphasizes that Jesus is
the Son of God, the anointed servant of God, a healing Redeemer, and a compassionate,
merciful figure throughout its text, leading him to omit or minimize the
failings of Jesus’s disciples. Perhaps because of his presumed medical
backgrounds, Luke provides important details about the suffering of Jesus in
the Garden of Gethsemane (at least in the final version of the text as we have
received it) and the reality of the resurrection. And the Jesus of Luke—always loving,
compassionate, and healing—is evident when the Lord heals, teaches, and
forgives during the passion narrative, even in times of great personal duress.
By starting “in the beginning” and
depicting the premortal Jesus as the Divine Word closely identified with God
the father, John exhibits the highest Christology of the four Gospels. As
Jehovah made flesh (John 1:14), in this Gospel Jesus’ divinity is only thinly
veiled, and in contrast to the other Gospels, he frequently refers to himself
as the Son of God. His divinity is symbolically revealed in the seven
miraculous signs that he performs. The Johannine scholar Raymond Brown observed
that the words of Jesus are often poetic or semipoetic, suggesting the
different effect or power that his words had upon their hearers. Yet this
divine Jesus is also exquisitely intimate with those who believe in him, particularly
in the Farewell Discourses after the Last Supper, where, among other things, he
proclaims that he has come to lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).
The Johannine passion narrative, which clearly identifies Jesus as the Lamb of
God, nonetheless minimizes his sufferings and portrays Jesus as fully in
control, needing, for instance, no help carrying his cross and releasing his
own spirit after announcing. “It is finished” (John 19:17, 30). Finally, the disposition
of Jesus’s grave clothes in the empty tomb suggest that he rose form the dead
on his own (as opposed to having been raised by God as in the Synoptics and the
writings of Paul), and Thomas declares that the Risen Lord is, in fact, our
Lord and God (John 20:28). (Eric D. Huntsman and Trevan G. Hatch, Great Love
Hath No Man: A Latter-day Saint Guide to Celebrating the Easter Season [Provo,
Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2023], 261-64)
On Julie Smith on Mark's Christology, see:
Julie M. Smith on Mark's Christology and Jesus as God in the Garden of Eden
See also
High Christology and the Baptism of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels