CONSCIOUSNESS OF CHRIST. The term is used to describe how Christ in His life on earth thought of His own person and vocation.

I. The Sources of Knowledge

Can one obtain any dependable knowledge of Christ’s self-consciousness? There are those who would say that this is concealed in the mystery of Jesus’ relationship with the Father. But conscious being may be known through its expression in behavior. The record of the gospels is that of a real man, who by the whole course of His words and deeds revealed at least something of how He thought of Himself. An attempt to discover this from the record is both legitimate and essential to any valid understanding of the Person of Christ.

Others question whether one can recapture Jesus’ words and deeds with sufficient accuracy for this task. We do not know for certain the ipsissima verba of the Lord. Variations between parallel accounts show that the evangelists can only be said to give us the gist of what Jesus said, prob. in original Aram. But even the accuracy of their record as to essential meaning is questioned by the form critics, who regard the record as expressing the faith of the Early Church rather than the actual events that occurred or words that were spoken. There is little doubt that the material was seen in relation to the life of the Church when the evangelists wrote; but it is fallacious to argue therefore that the words and deeds recorded do not give us an accurate picture of the historic Jesus. The impression of that life was indelibly etched on the memory of his young disciples; thirty or even fifty years would not erase it. Perhaps one cannot recapture the exact words of the Master, but the words may be trusted to give a true picture of His personality, and in particular of the way He thought of Himself.

II. Information from the Synoptic Gospels

A. His words and deeds. Central in Jesus’ life and teaching was His proclamation of the kingdom of God (called in Matt, on most occasions, the kingdom of heaven). John the Baptist had called to the nation, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 3:2). Jesus took up the same message when He began His ministry (Matt 4:17; Mark 1:15). References to the kingdom recur constantly through the gospels (fifty in Matt, sixteen in Mark, forty in Luke). The concept is not of a territory, but of a sovereignty, the rule of God over His people. Jesus often spoke of the kingdom in eschatological terms, the reign of God to be established at the last day (Matt 25:31, 34). His disciples should pray for the coming of the kingdom (Matt 6:10; Luke 11:2), which will be a time of reward for the faithful and of judgment for the wicked (Matt 8:11, 12; 13:24-30, 37-43, 47-50; 22:1-14; 25:1-13; Luke 13:28). In other places, the Lord’s words seem to view the kingdom as imminent (Matt 10:23; 16:28; Mark 9:1; Luke 9:27; 10:1), or as already brought into existence (Matt 11:12; Luke 16:16; 17:21). Though John was before the kingdom (Matt 11:11; Luke 7:28; 16:16), yet Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the prophets will be found therein (Matt 8:11; Luke 13:28). Jesus evidently thought of the kingdom in eschatological terms, but at the same time as a kingdom which in Him had already come. The force of the perfect tense ἤγγικεν (“has drawn near,” Matt 10:7; Mark 1:15), and the aorist ἔφθασεν (“has come,” Matt 12:28) make this clear.

It is seen that Jesus’ teaching of the kingdom as not only a coming, but also a present, reality involved consciousness of His own Messianic function. The evidence that the kingdom of God had come was that Jesus cast out demons by the finger of God (Luke 11:20). It was what His disciples saw and heard of Him that brought to fulfillment the prophets’ longings (Matt 13:16, 17). His words and works of mercy were themselves the answer to John’s query concerning the Messiah (Matt 11:2-6). He said that men determined their eternal destiny through their attitude to Him (Matt 10:32, 33; Luke 12:8, 9) and to His disciples (Matt 10:14, 15, 42; 25:31-46). Therefore He demanded devotion to His own Person, not merely His words (Matt 10:37-39; Mark 8:35).

That He was conscious of a divine authority resting upon Him may be seen in His ethical teaching, as in the repeated phrase, “You have heard that it was said...but I say to you...” (Matt 5:17-48), and in His public preaching, such as when He announced His mission in terms of the words of Isaiah 61:1, 2 (Luke 4:18-21).

He also showed an inner awareness of a purpose behind His death. He set His face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51) because as He said, “it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33). But his going is not a mere resignation to death; it will be through death that He will continue His eschatological ministry (Luke 13:32-35). The form critics insist that the explicit soteriology of Mark 10:45 and 14:24 (also Matt 20:28; 26:28) comes from the thought of the Early Church, not from Jesus’ words; but more prob. the strangely perplexing, but clearly remembered words of the Lord led to the development of the thought of the Early Church. When He said He would give His life as a ransom for many, He showed an inner conviction that His death had a redemptive purpose, in some way substituting for others (ἀντὶ̀ πολλῶν) and that His blood would be shed on behalf of many to ratify the (new) covenant anticipated by Jeremiah 31:31-34.

B. The titles applied to Christ by Himself, or accepted when used by others, indicate much as to His consciousness of His own person and mission:

1. Prophet. Many who heard Jesus preach and saw Him heal regarded Him as a prophet (Matt 21:11, 46; Mark 6:15; 8:27, 28; Luke 7:16) including His disciples (Luke 24:19). But did Jesus think of Himself as a prophet? He spoke of Himself thus on two separate occasions (Mark 6:4; cf. Luke 4:24; 13:33) and certainly He fulfilled a prophet’s role in telling forth God’s message, the role of the authoritative final Prophet (“But I say to you...” ἐγὼ̀ δὲ̀ λέγω ὑμῖν). Bultmann speaks of Jesus’ “prophetic self-consciousness” (Tradition, p. 153). Dodd lists fifteen prophetic characteristics in Jesus’ ministry (Mysterium Christi, pp. 57-65). Fuller finds the key to Jesus’ self-understanding in the eschatological prophet (Foundations, pp. 125-131). With Cullmann, however, we would think that the concept of the Prophet expressed not so much what Jesus thought of His person and work as “an opinion about his person which was widespread among the people during his lifetime” (Christology of the NT, p. 49).

2. Lord. It is evident that people called Jesus Κύριος, Lord, and that in His view such use demanded implicit obedience (Matt 7:21; Luke 6:46). Once He used the term directly of Himself (Mark 11:3); on another occasion He referred to Himself as Lord indirectly in quoting Psalm 110:1 with reference to the Messiah as son of David (Mark 12:35-37 and parallels). While the word is sometimes little more than an honorific title for “Teacher,” our Lord’s use of Psalm 110 suggests that He saw in the title something of His Messianic dignity.

3. Servant of God (’Ebed Yahweh, παῖς Θεοῦ). This term relates to the four “Servant Songs” (Isa 42:1-4; 49:1-7; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12). While Jesus never used the term as a self-designation, it seems clear that from His baptism (when the voice from heaven cited Isaiah 42:1, with reference also to Psalm 2:7) Jesus was conscious that He had to fulfill the ’ebed Yahweh role. Matthew speaks of Isaiah 42:1-4 as fulfilled in Christ’s ministry (12:18-21). Although the first servant song makes no reference to the servant suffering, it may well be from the other servant songs that the thought of the required suffering was added early to Jesus’ consciousness of His work. Twice He spoke of baptism in connection with His coming death (Mark 10:38f; Luke 12:50). His prophecy of coming days when the bridegroom would be violently taken away (Mark 2:20) recalls Isaiah 53:8. After Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus prophesied His death three times (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33f.); similarly in the parable of the wicked tenants (Mark 12:1-12). His words in Mark 10:45, discussed above, mirror the central theme of the servant songs, that of the servant representing and taking the place of the people, and make clear allusion to Isaiah 53:5. In the Upper Room He quoted Isaiah 53:12, saying, “what is written about me has its fulfillment” (Luke 22:37). The ’ebed Yahweh was the one in whom God established a covenant to the people (Isa 42:6; 49:8), and the one who “poured out his soul to death...and bore the sin of many” (Isa 53:12). Did Jesus not see Himself in this role when He said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (Mark 14:24, and parallels)?

4. Messiah. Jesus rarely used the title “Christ” of Himself (Matt 23:10; Mark 9:41), but two places where others used it of Him are significant. The first is Peter’s confession, “You are the Christ” (Mark 8:29; cf. Matt 16:16, Luke 9:20). Jesus’ reply as recorded by Matthew, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father...” lays His specific imprimatur upon Peter’s words. Mark and Luke do not record this, but join Matthew in Jesus’ enjoinder to secrecy which in itself implies acceptance. Immediately then He spoke of His sufferings and death. Peter, not understanding, rebuked Jesus (Matt 16:22; Mark 8:32), earning His, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” It seems specious to argue as Fuller does (Foundations, p. 109) that the intervening command to silence, the Passion prediction and the mutual rebukes are later insertions not in the original narrative, thus changing these words into a vehement rejection of the Messianic title Peter applied to Him. Clearly Jesus accepted the title, Messiah, but reinterpreted it in terms of the suffering servant.

The other occasion was when the high priest asked “Are you the Christ?” (Mark 14:61; cf. Matt 26:63; Luke 22:67). In Matthew and Luke Jesus’ reply, “you say that I am,” may perhaps be interpreted as non-committal (so Cullmann), but in Mark it is indisputably clear, ἐγώ εἰμι, I am. All three gospels record that it was on this testimony of His own lips that He was condemned.

5. Son of David. Jesus never used this Messianic title directly of Himself, but the title was proffered to Him by blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:47f.) and the Canaanite woman (Matt 15:22), and implied in the cry of the crowd at the triumphal entry (Mark 11:10). Probably its nationalistic overtones made it less acceptable in Jesus’ own thought of His mission, and this underlies His questioning in Mark 12:35-37.

6. Son of God. Jesus never called Himself by this full title in the synoptics, and spoke of Himself simply as “Son” rarely (Matt 11:27; 24:36; Mark 13:32). But He constantly called God His Father in a unique sense (e.g. Matt 7:21; 10:32, 33; 15:13; 16:17; 18:10, 19, 35; 20:23); only the Son fully knows (έπιγινώσκει) the Father, and only the Father the Son (Matt 11:27; Luke 10:22). His words in the Temple at the age of twelve, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49) suggest that His filial consciousness dawned very early.

7. Son of man. This was the title Jesus constantly applied to Himself. Its significance is not merely “man” (as in Num 23:19; Pss 8:4; 146:3; Isa 56:2) or “representative man” (as, possibly, in Ezekiel). The origin is rather from Daniel’s vision of the Messianic figure, “one like a son of man” (Dan 7:13f.), a phrase popularized by Enoch (c. 70 b.c.) who wrote of the Son of man as a divine, superhuman, preexistent figure hidden alongside God, but ready to march forth in powerful judgment against God’s enemies, and exaltation of the righteous. Jesus used the title in three main connections: (1) general statements about His life and mission, (2) with reference to His sufferings and death, (3) with reference to His parousia and the coming judgment. Numerous examples of the third type demonstrate that the eschatological picture was part of Jesus’ thought of the “Son of man,” but His constant use of the phrase also with reference to sufferings and death shows that, for Him, the Son of man was also the Servant, who would attain His place of ultimate power through His self-sacrifice as representative of all mankind (Mark 8:27-31).

III. Information from the Fourth Gospel

John’s gospel was written with a specific Christological purpose, “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (20:31). For this reason, and on account of its late origin, many will not accept the words of Jesus recorded in it as authentic; certainly the portrait of Jesus therein is in many ways different from that in the synoptics, and it is prob. true that the author desires to give the inner significance of Jesus’ words rather than an exact verbal recollection. But allowing for that, in general John makes explicit and public only what is already implicit and private in His self-consciousness as shown by the synoptics.

Thus in place of the “Messianic secret” of Mark, in John His disciples recognize Him from the start as the Christ (1:41). He reveals Himself to the Samaritan woman as the Messiah (4:25, 26), and there is continuous public questioning and controversy as to whether He is the Christ (7:26-31, 41f; 9:22; 10:24; 12:34). But more central to the fourth gospel is the phrase “Son of God.” Seventeen times Jesus calls Himself “Son,” or “Son of God”; thirty times He says, “my Father.” There was an ever-present consciousness throughout His ministry, of a unique relationship with the Father (5:19f; 6:57; 8:29; 12:49). His Sonship implied subordination (5:19f; 12:49; 14:28); all that He did was in obedience to the Father (10:18; 14:31; 15:10); His supreme authority was the gift of His Father (5:26; 13:3). But it was more than a consciousness of close communion and dependence during the earthly life of Jesus; He was the preincarnate Son “whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world” (10:36); He is the Son whom the Father will raise to share again in the eternal glory (17:1, 5). See also Jesus Christ.

Bibliography H. P. Liddon, The Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (1885); A. M. Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology (1898), 334-372; P. C. Simpson, The Fact of Christ (1900); C. F. D’Arcy, “Consciousness,” HDCG (1906); A. E. Garvie, Studies in the Inner Life of Jesus (1908); P. T. Forsyth, The Person and Place of Jesus Christ (1910), 35-133; H. R. Mackintosh, The Doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ (1913), 5-35; A. E. J. Rawlinson, The NT Doctrine of the Christ (1929), 238-264; R. Bultmann, Theology of the NT, I (1952), 26-32; G. Vos, The Self-Disclosure of Jesus (1954); L. Morris, The Lord from Heaven (1958), 26-43; O. Cullmann, The Christology of the NT (1959); W. Barclay, The Mind of Jesus (1960), 139-157; R. H. Fuller, The Foundations of NT Christology (1965), 102-141; E. G. Jay, Son of Man, Son of God (1965), 19-51.