By Schubert Ogden
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1. The resurrection of Jesus, according to Marxsen, is "one interpretation among others" (141 et passim). But isn't the resurrection something real -– a reality? No, Marxsen answers, the resurrection is an interpretation of a reality. He speaks of this reality variously as "one's having-been-summoned-to-faith by Jesus," or "one's own having-come-to-faith." More rarely, he speaks of God as the one who has summoned one to faith through Jesus (146). But it is fair to say, I think, that what he intends to refer to as the reality of which the resurrection is an interpretation is the twofold reality that I hold to be the object of the experience underlying the constitutive christological assertion. This comes out clearly enough when he makes, in his own way, the traditional distinction between extra nos and pro nobis, even while protesting against any separation of them (146). Significantly, he makes clear that the result of separating them is that what is in reality a "confession of the extra nos" thereby becomes merely a "report" (146).
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3. The other point where I see an important difference from Marxsen is that, as free as he tries to make faith even from metaphysics, he fails to make it free enough from empirical history\! When he says, for example, "what is always at stake is the faith brought by the historical Jesus" (150), or when he speaks of "the offer of Jesus, to accept God as Father, to go through life with him, freed from the sins of the past, also freed from the powers oppressing us in this world" (145), he is evidently referring to the _empirical_\-_historical, as distinct from th{_}e_the _existential_\-_historical, Jesus_._ At any rate, he nowhere makes clear that he is _not_ doing this, by pointing out, e.g., that the Jesus who is, indeed, the only thing that isn't interchangeable is the Jesus who summons one to faith (150). This, in turn, is connected with the fact that he talks about the obedience of Jesus himself (148) and implies that the risk of accepting Jesus' offer is the risk of one's own way's eventually ending as his did, on the cross (145). As over against his claim that "the cause of Jesus" is "what Jesus was \[_sic\!_\] concerned with" (150), he is evidently referring to the empirical-historical, as distinct from the existential-historical, Jesus. At any rate, he nowhere makes clear that he is not doing this, by pointing out, e.g., that the Jesus who is, indeed, the only thing that isn't interchangeable is the Jesus who summons one to faith (150). This, in turn, is connected with the fact that he talks about the obedience of Jesus himself (148) and implies that the risk of accepting Jesus' offer is the risk of one's own way's eventually ending as his did, on the cross (145). As over against his claim that "the cause of Jesus" is "what Jesus was \[sic\!\] concerned with" (150), I should want to stress that what faith means by "Jesus" is the one through whom God decisively calls one to open oneself to _God's_ love, etc. Whatever Jesus may have been concerned with, the only Jesus with whom Christian faith is concerned is the Jesus who decisively represents the gift and demand of _God's_ love, and hence is the explicit primal source authorizing trust in _God's_ love and loyalty to it as authentic human existence. Thus, when one asks to whom one has really opened oneself when one accepts the call made in a Christian sermon, the answer, as Marxsen says, is indeed Jesus (see 145). But this is not because or insofar as certain empirical-historical claims concerning Jesus are true; it is because, regardless of the truth or falsity of any such claims, what is meant by "Jesus" in any appropriate Christian sermon IS the one who is the explicit primal authorizing source of the self-understanding to which every such sermon summons its hearers. |
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