By Schubert Ogden
Whether or not Jesus himself demanded faith in his word, or decision with reference to his ministry, this is undoubtedly the demand placed upon its hearers by the Jesus-kerygma of the earliest church – as precisely kerygma.
For the earliest witnesses, if not already for Jesus himself, the sheer fact of Jesus's word and ministry is the decisive saving act of God now being represented as such through their own witness of faith. Thus, in representing what he said and did without explicit christological qualification of him himself, in his own person, they nevertheless represent the occurrence he enacted as the eschatological occurrence.
19 May 1997