Reverencing Jesus in prayers, hymns, and other devotional actions may
be so familiar a part of Christian life and worship that we may not
realize how much it was an innovation in the historical setting in which
it first appeared. To be sure, in the larger Roman religious
environment of the early first century A.D. there were many deities and
divinized human figures, all of whom received worship of various types
in the general populace. But the Jesus-movement (which became
“Christianity”) emerged in the more specific setting of ancient Jewish
tradition, in which the exclusivity of the one biblical deity was of
paramount concern. In Jewish practice, public worship, including
especially sacrifice, was to be restricted solely to the God of Israel,
and it was considered idolatry to worship any other figure. The many
gods and deified heroes of the larger Roman world were regarded in
Jewish tradition as false and blasphemous. In this context, the
inclusion of Jesus in the worship practices of the early circles of the
Jesus-movement was a remarkable and, indeed, unique development.
This gave earliest Christian devotion a distinctive “dyadic” shape,
with God and Jesus both featuring centrally in beliefs and worship.
Over against the polytheistic pattern of the larger pagan world, early
Christian teaching advocated an exclusivity, with solely one God, and
this same exclusivity applied to the one Lord Jesus. In the context of
ancient Jewish tradition, the duality in early Christian beliefs and
devotional practice was also distinctive. The duality did not comprise a
di-theism of two deities, however. Instead, Jesus was reverenced in
his relationship to God “the Father,” as the unique Son of God, the
Image of God, and Word of God, who had been exalted by God to be Lord of
all creation.
It is also important to note that this development happened quite
early and quickly, and was more like a volcanic explosion than an
incremental process. Already, in the earliest Christian texts, the
undisputed letters of the Apostle Paul, we see reflected a body of
christological claims and beliefs, and a pattern of devotional practices
that are more taken for granted than explained. This indicates that by
the time of these letters (from ca. 50 A.D. and thereafter) all these
phenomena were familiar features of the religious life of circles of the
Jesus-movement, both in the various diaspora cities where Paul founded
his congregations and also in the Jewish homeland. So, for example, in
these letters Paul refers to Jesus as God’s unique “Son,” indicating a
distinctively close relationship of Jesus with God (e.g., Galatians
2:20; Romans 1:4, 9; 8:32. He also still more frequently refers to
Jesus as “Christ” (= Messiah), indicating Jesus’ role and status as the
agent of divine redemption (among many examples, Romans 1:1, 8, 21.
Moreover, some two-hundred times Paul refers to Jesus as “the Lord”
(Greek: Kyrios) who has been exalted to supremacy over all
things by God (e.g., Philippians 2:9-11). In these texts, for believers
in particular, the exalted Jesus is their Lord to whom they owe
obedience and reverence.
Moreover, Paul’s letters also reflect the understanding of Jesus’
crucifixion as part of the divine plan of redemption, and foretold in
the Old Testament scriptures (e.g. Romans 3:21-26; 4:24-25; 1
Corinthians 15:1-7). Already by the time of these Pauline letters,
believers had been searching their scriptures and discovering
foreshadowings of Jesus in them. As well, Paul’s letters show the
belief that Jesus had been designated from before creation, and, indeed,
had been “pre-existent” and was the agent through whom all things were
created (e.g., 1 Corinthians 8:4-6).
In addition to these titles and christological claims, Paul’s letters
also reflect a developed devotional practice in which Jesus was
integral and central. This included, for example, the invocation and
ritual confession of Jesus in early Christian circles. We see this
reflected in Paul’s reference to the confession “Jesus is Lord” and to
the ritual invocation of Jesus: “Everyone who calls on the name of the
Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:9-13). In this statement we have a
biblical expression (“call upon the name of the Lord”) that originally
referred to the invocation and worship of God, adapted here to designate
the invocation of Jesus (e.g., Genesis 13:4; 21:23; Psalm 116:4, 13).
Indeed, Paul refers to believers simply as “all those in every location
who call on the name of our Lord Jesus” (1 Corinthians 1:2), and this
ritual acclamation of Jesus as Lord is also reflected in 1 Corinthians
12:3. Note also Acts 2:21. Moreover, Paul also refers to this
invocation or acclamation of Jesus in an Aramaic expression in the
concluding lines of his letter to the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians
16:22). The expression used here, “Marana tha,” (“Our Lord,
come!”), reflects the ritual appeal to the risen Jesus as “Lord” in
circles of Aramaic-speaking Jewish believers as well as his own
Greek-speaking churches. Paul does not translate the Aramaic expression
here, probably because he had conveyed it to the Corinthians earlier in
his time with them. Similarly, in other texts Paul refers to the
practice of addressing God prayerfully in the Aramaic expression “Abba”
(“Father,” Galatians 4:6; Romans 8:15). Paul apparently used these two
Aramaic expressions and practices, one addressing God as “Father” and
one addressing Jesus as “Our Lord,” to give verbal links between his
Greek-speaking converts and the devotional practices of their
Aramaic-speaking brothers and sisters.
To cite other devotional practices, the early Christian initiation
rite, baptism, was from the first distinguished from other water rituals
such as the baptism of John the Baptizer by being done “in Jesus’ name”
(e.g., Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5). This likely meant that those who
were baptized called upon Jesus by name as part of the ritual, and were
thereby marked as belonging to him. Unlike many other water rituals,
early Christian baptism was a one-time rite of initiation into Christian
fellowship, which was identified specifically with reference to Jesus.
Early Christian circles also typically had a shared meal as part of
their gatherings. In a text where Paul addresses some problems about
this meal in the Corinthian congregation, he refers to it as “the Lord’s
supper,” and connects it specifically with Jesus’ redemptive death and
his future return (1 Corinthians 11:17-34, especially v. 20). He also
likens this corporate meal that honors Jesus to the sacrificial meals in
honor of pagan deities, the cup and bread of the Christian meal
comprising a sharing (koinōnia) in the blood and body of Christ. As
a further indication of the strong liturgical meaning of the Christian
meal, he demands an exclusivity of believers, who are to desist from all
such pagan rites and participate only in “the table of the Lord” (1
Corinthians 10:14-22).
In other early Christian texts, we have references to ritual healings
and exorcisms done “in the name of Jesus,” which likely means that they
too involved calling upon the risen Jesus to effect these deeds (e.g.,
Acts 3:6; 16:18). As noted already, the Gospels portray Jesus as
himself a healer and exorcist, and the early Christian healing and in
one sense exorcism practices are a continuation of his ministry. But,
whereas the Gospels accounts have Jesus healing and exorcising without
invoking any other name or power, the early Christian practice of
invoking Jesus by name means that his name and power were regarded as
the power by which they were able to perform these acts.
As further reflection of the high and central place of Jesus in the
early Christian circles, notice the dyadic formula of greeting in Paul’s
letters, “grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ” (Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 1:2). Similarly,
he refers to “the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the
Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 1:1). These formulae link God and
Jesus uniquely as the sources of grace and the basis of the churches.
Paul’s letters also typically conclude with a benediction from Christ,
as in 1 Thessalonians: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you”
(1 Thessalonians 5:28, with slight variations also in Philippians 4:23;
Galatians 6:18; 1 Corinthians 16:23; Romans 16:20, and there is also
the triadic benediction in 2 Corinthians 13:10). These expressions at
the beginning and ending of his letters are now commonly thought to be
Paul’s use of phrases that originated in group worship settings, and
Paul appears to have used them to fit his letters for reading in the
churches to which the letters were sent. On this basis, these
expressions also give us glimpses of how Jesus was included with God in
liturgical practices of greeting and blessing in early Christian
circles.
Indeed, Paul’s letters also reflect the practice of including Jesus
in prayer-appeals as co-recipient with God, as in 1 Thessalonians, “Now
may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to
you.” And Paul continues with a prayer-wish that “the Lord” (Jesus) may
cause the Thessalonian believers to increase in love and be
strengthened in holiness (1 Thessalonians 3:11-13). In another letter,
Paul refers to his own repeated prayer-appeals directly to Jesus to
remove an affliction (2 Corinthians 12:8). In still another context,
where he directs the Corinthian church to discipline an erring believer,
Paul refers to pronouncing judgment “in the name of the Lord Jesus,”
and to acting “with the power of our Lord Jesus” (1 Corinthians 5:3-5).
This apparently involved a ritual expulsion of the offender from the
church, but the point here is that the authority and power of the ritual
is ascribed to the risen Jesus.
In all of these beliefs and devotional practices (and still others)
the risen and exalted Jesus is central, and is joined with God as unique
focus of faith and co-recipient of reverence. Note, for example, how
Acts refers to the church in Antioch “worshipping the Lord” (Jesus), who
is then depicted as speaking through Christian prophets, directing that
Paul and Barnabas should be commissioned for the ensuing
mission-travels related in the ensuing chapters (Acts 13:2-3). In a
vision-scene, the book of Revelation portrays heavenly worship of God
(“he who sits on the throne”) and the risen Jesus (“the lamb”) jointly,
which likely reflects the sort of dyadic worship pattern long familiar
to the author (Revelation 5:9-14). To underscore the chronological
point here, this body of beliefs and practices clearly emerged and
became familiar features of circles of believers within the scarcely two
decades between Jesus’ crucifixion and the earliest of Paul’s letters.
Indeed, we should probably judge that this remarkable development
emerged within the very earliest years, perhaps more accurately within
the earliest months, after Jesus’ death, ca. 30 A.D. For prior to the
experience that produced his profound religious re-orientation, Paul
(then a zealous Pharisee) was a determined opponent of the young
Jesus-movement seeking, in his own words, to “destroy” it (Galatians
1:13-16; Philippians 3:4-6). Paul refers to the “Damascus road”
experience that produced his remarkable change in his religious stance
as a “revelation” of Jesus as rightfully God’s unique Son (Galatians
1:16). This suggests that the core content of the experience was a
radical revision of his view of Jesus in particular, whom Paul may
initially have regarded as a false teacher and perhaps even as accursed
by God. Now Paul’s revelatory experience is commonly dated within one
to two years after Jesus’ crucifixion. So, already at that point, in
the earliest years after Jesus’ crucifixion, this young Pharisee, who
professes to have been exceptionally zealous for his ancestral
tradition, found the young Jesus-movement sufficiently offensive to
generate his outrage and his efforts to oppose it strenuously.
As to what may have generated his outrage, it is a reasonable
proposal that the sort of strong claims about Jesus and the devotional
practices that are reflected in his letters were at least one factor.
That is, initially he likely found these christological claims and
practices to be blasphemous infringements on the exclusivity of the one
God that all Jews were expected to maintain, but his revelatory
experience led him to embrace the very stance that he had opposed. In
his sense of being specifically called to conduct an evangelical mission
to gentiles, Paul seems to have felt a distinctive role. But in the
core christological beliefs and devotional practices reflected in his
letters, Paul was neither distinctive nor creative. Instead, he
reflects beliefs and devotional practices that he accepted as part of
his religious re-orientation from opponent to proponent of the gospel
message.
One of the factors that generated this remarkable devotion to Jesus
in earliest Christian circles was, of course, the impact of the
historical figure, Jesus of Nazareth. During his own lifetime he
generated and became the leader of a movement that was identified
specifically with him. Jesus was regarded by his immediate followers
and more widely as an authoritative teacher, a healer exercising
miraculous power, a prophet sent from God, and perhaps God’s Messiah.
But he also generated opposition. With the collusion of the Jerusalem
temple authorities, Jesus was executed under the authority of the Roman
governor. This appears to reflect the judgement that he claimed to be,
or at least was acclaimed by his followers as, the Messiah-king, which
amounted to sedition against Roman rule. On the other hand, his
followers especially, but also others such as those who sought his
favour in healing, revered him, as reflected in the many Gospels scenes
where supplicants approach him. But there is no indication that this
reverence included the sort of devotional practices that we see
reflected in Paul’s letters. In short, although Jesus became the
polarizing issue for followers and opponents already during his earthly
activity, and was even held to be Messiah by at least some of his
followers, he was not given the remarkably high level of reverence that
appears to have erupted quickly and early after his crucifixion.
So, additional factors and forces must have played a role in
generating what was an unprecedented “mutation” in Jewish devotional
practice. Indeed, it is likely that self-identifying Jews could have
given Jesus the sort of devotion that we have noted only if they
believed that God demanded it. The conviction that God had exalted
Jesus to a supreme status and now required him to be reverenced
accordingly is reflected in texts such as a passage in Paul’s letter to
the Philippians, which declares, “God highly exalted him [Jesus] and
gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of
God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11). Similarly, the Gospel of John
makes the claim that God requires “that all may honor the Son just as
they honor the Father,” and that “anyone who does not honor the Son does
not honor the Father who sent him” (John 5:23). So, how could early
believers have come to this remarkable conviction?
At the earliest stage, we should probably posit powerful experiences
as a factor. These likely included visions of the risen and exalted
Jesus, perhaps prophetic oracles declaring his exaltation, and also a
fervent searching of scriptures to find the meaning and validation of
their experiences. As noted already, Paul certainly claimed that his
own affirmation of Jesus’ high status was generated in an experience
that he took to be a divine revelation. The early encounters with the
resurrected Jesus such as those recounted by Paul to the Corinthians
likely conveyed more than simply the joy that he had been made alive
again (1 Corinthians 15:1-8). Those who had these experiences seem to
have been convinced that Jesus’ resurrection also included his
installation as Lord over all things. This seems reflected, for
example, in Paul’s linkage of Jesus’ resurrection and his supreme rule
in a passage in 1 Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:20-28).
But the exaltation of Jesus to such a lofty status did not involve
any diminution of the primacy of God. In fact, practically every
christological claim in the New Testament texts is at the same time a theo-logical
statement. It is, for example, God who raised Jesus and installed him
as supreme Lord. Jesus did not displace God in the beliefs and
devotional practices of early believers. Instead, as noted already,
their beliefs and practices formed a dyadic pattern involving both the
one God and the one Lord, and their reverence of Jesus was understood as
obedience to God, and to the glory of God.
For further reading:
Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2003). French edition: Le Seigneur Jésus Christ: La devotion envers Jésus aux premiers temps du christianisme. Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2009.
