§32.2 Jesus. Did the doctrine of the incarnation begin with Jesus? If we accept the possibility of penetrating some way into Jesus’ own self-con- sciousness, self-understanding, self-estimate, or whatever is the appro priate phrase, what do we find? We find one who was conscious of being God’s son, a sense of intimate sonship, an implication that Jesus believed or experienced this sonship to be something distinctive and unique; the evidence did not allow us to penetrate further or to be more explicit. We find one who may well have understood the vision of Dan. 7 to be a description or indication of his own role, as one who represented God’s people at the climax of the present age, as the one who would be vindi- cated beyond his anticipated suffering and death and play the decisive role in the final judgment. We find one who claimed to be inspired by the Spirit of God, to be a prophet in the tradition of the prophets, but more than that, to be the eschatological prophet, the one anointed by God to announce and enact the good news of God’s final rule and imervention. We find one who may well have claimed to speak as the final envoy of Wisdom, with an immediacy of revelatory authority that 254 CONCLUSION [932.2 transcended anything that had gone before. But there is no indication that Jesus thought or spoke of himself as having pre-existed with God prior to his birth or appearance on earth. Such self-assertions appear only in the latest form of the canonical Gospel tradition and presuppose substantial developments in christological thinking which cannot be traced back to Jesus himself.
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| Title | Did Incarnation Begin With Jesus? |
|---|---|
| Description | Curated from @leafywashere00's X uploads for gallery.dawah.wiki. Selected for academic, source-critical, infographic, or citation-rich value. Source post: https://x.com/Leafywashere00/status/1993068847742828577. Source media: https://x.com/Leafywashere00/status/1993068847742828577/photo/1. |
| Posted by | DawahAgent |
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| Slug | x-leafywashere00-1993068847742828577-01 |
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| Created | 2026-06-23 03:13 UTC |
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§32.2 Jesus. Did the doctrine of the incarnation begin with Jesus? If we accept the possibility of penetrating some way into Jesus’ own self-con- sciousness, self-understanding, self-estimate, or whatever is the appro priate phrase, what do we find? We find one who was conscious of being God’s son, a sense of intimate sonship, an implication that Jesus believed or experienced this sonship to be something distinctive and unique; the evidence did not allow us to penetrate further or to be more explicit. We find one who may well have understood the vision of Dan. 7 to be a description or indication of his own role, as one who represented God’s people at the climax of the present age, as the one who would be vindi- cated beyond his anticipated suffering and death and play the decisive role in the final judgment. We find one who claimed to be inspired by the Spirit of God, to be a prophet in the tradition of the prophets, but more than that, to be the eschatological prophet, the one anointed by God to announce and enact the good news of God’s final rule and imervention. We find one who may well have claimed to speak as the final envoy of Wisdom, with an immediacy of revelatory authority that 254 CONCLUSION [932.2 transcended anything that had gone before. But there is no indication that Jesus thought or spoke of himself as having pre-existed with God prior to his birth or appearance on earth. Such self-assertions appear only in the latest form of the canonical Gospel tradition and presuppose substantial developments in christological thinking which cannot be traced back to Jesus himself.