Saturday, January 6, 2024

Thomas Gaston on Acts 2:26 and Mark 1:9-11 and Adoptionism

  

ACTS 2:26

 

“Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” (Acts 2:36 ESV)

 

Luke ascribes these words to Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14), but regardless of whether these words can be attributed to Peter, these words are regarded as pre-dating Luke’s composition of Acts. These words are taken to affirm that Jesus was made Lord and Christ after his resurrection and ascension (Acts 2:32-33). The aorist tense of “made” is ambiguous and does not require that Jesus was made Christ after his ascension. Nevertheless, the logic of the passage would seem to be that the one murdered by the Jewish authorities has now been elevated to this new status.

 

Now this verse says nothing of sonship and so would only be evidence of Adoptionism if “Christ” and “Son of God” are synonymous. Yet in either case, this verse would seem to claim too much, since no one wants to say that Jesus did not claim to be Christ during his lifetime. When Peter says Jesus has been made Christ, he cannot mean that he was not Christ before. This verse comes at the end of Peter’s speech in which he has argued that Jesus fulfilled the promise to David that one would sit on his throne (Acts 2:30) and that this one would sit at the right hand of God (Acts 2:34-35; cf. Ps 110:1). When Peter says that Jesus has been made Lord and Christ, the most plausible reading is that Peter means that Jesus has now fulfilled that promise to David, and fulfilled his status as messiah, by now ascending to be enthroned at the right hand of God. Peter does not mean that Jesus was not the messiah before his ascension, but that his messiahship was fulfilled by his ascension. Nothing like Adoptionism is implied.

 

. . .

 

MARK 1:9-11

 

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:9-11 ESV)

 

It is sometimes argued that Mark presents Jesus as being adopted as Son of God at his baptism. Some measure of credence might be given to this proposal from the fact that a number of heretical groups from the late first or early second century seem to have identified Jesus’ baptism at the moment when an ordinary man became something special, though usually by the descent of a spiritual being into Jesus.

 

The adoption of Jesus as Son of God at his baptism does not find precedent in the Old Testament usage of the phrase “Son of God,” since Jesus’ baptism was not his coronation. Adela Collins argues that “you are my beloved Son” is an allusion to Ps 2:7, and this allusion carries the implication that “God thus appoints Jesus as messiah at the time of his baptism by John.” (Collins & Collins, King and Messiah, 127) However, given that the baptism was not a coronation, and given that none of the other words in the psalm are used, it is not clear how one can securely identify “you are my . . . son” as an allusion. Which words would God have used if he were not alluding to Psalm 2? If Mark was seeking to present an allusion to Psalm 2, he would not have added “beloved.”

 

An allusion to Psalm 2 would have made the baptismal account appear Adoptionist, implying that day was the “today” when God begat Jesus. But the absence of any such allusion, the account is neutral as to Adoptionism. To read God’s declaration from heaven as a statement of adoption goes beyond the text. God does not say to Jesus “I am making you my son” or “today you have become my son” but simply “you are my son,” says nothing about when Jesus became the Son.

 

The only redeeming feature of the Adoptionist reading of Mark’s baptismal record is that Mark’s gospel does not provide any alternative explanation for how or when Jesus became the Son of God. It is simply affirmed that this is the case. (Thomas Edmund Gaston, Dynamic Monarchianism: The Earliest Christology? [2d ed.; Nashville: Theophilus Press, 2023], 269-70, 275-76)