Christology in Hebrews

Anthony Thiselton (The Hermeneutics of Doctrine, 2007) laments the fact that in discussions of Christology, we either end up with the age-old debate of ‘high’ Christology or ‘low’ Christology; or if not end up employing a form of discussion not focused on the “two natures”, but instead the “two languages of man-language and God-language”, which ends up ‘reducing ontological truth-claims into a contrived dualism between empirical events in history and “myth”’ (p.387). He instead recommends a hermeneutical model where we search within the New Testament for the highest possible Christology (including an explicit definition of Jesus Christ as God) while cohering within the same writing with the fullest possible explanation of the humanness of Jesus (one that fulfils in every respect what it means to be truly human). Such a Christology, Thiselton suggests, is found in the book of Hebrews. He states:

“Clearly John and Hebrews are major sources of “high” Christologies. But what is remarkable about Hebrews is that in comparison with other New Testament writings it has both the highest and most deliberate expressions of the humanness of Jesus Christ. [...] It is essential for the writer’s theology of priesthood, representation and mediation that Christ is portrayed as genuinely human, and thereby able to represent humankind in priestly mediation to God, and equally portrayed as sharing in deity to represent God to humankind in prophetic mediation and address. Jesus Christ is both “ascending” Mediator on behalf of humankind and “descending” Mediator on behalf of God. Nevertheless, in effect anticipating the later creeds and Chalcedon, this writer nowhere suggests that Jesus Christ is half-man and/or half-God.” (p.391)

Thiselton goes on to provide examples in Hebrews which reflect the perfect representation of man to God in terms of Jesus’ humanness, and the perfect mediation of God to man in terms of his deity. And this leads in to Thiselton’s key point in this chapter – the hermeneutical horizons in considering Christology are far much more anchored in the “home” horizons of the New Testament itself than in horizons of historical speculations about the development of a “two-stage” Christology into a “three-stage” Christology, or, still less convincing, of the effect of pressures from the Greek world to transpose narrative of the earthly Jesus into mythological or metaphysical terms (p.395). In another words, the ‘home-langauge’ when it comes to discussing Christology still lie in the New Testament Scriptures.