Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

The disciples list a second popular opinion, that Jesus is the prophet Elijah. Here things are clearer. It is said of Elijah in 2 Kings 2:1-18 that he did not die but was raptured to heaven by God. This led to the opinion that in the end time Elijah would come again and appear once more in Israel (Mal 3:23; Sir 48:10). So part of the people of God regarded Jesus as the prophet Elijah, sent by God to introduce the end-time events.

The third position is again unclear. Many said that Jesus was one of the prophets. That, similarly to the second position, could mean that Jesus is another prophet, such as Jeremiah (cf. Matt 16:14), who had been taken up to heaven and has now returned. But probably it simply means that many people thought Jesus was a prophet like those who had appeared in Israel in times past (cf. Mark 6:15).

We may suppose that Mark 8:28 is a fairly accurate reflection of the speculations about Jesus that were circulating in Israel, with all their vagueness and attempts to grope toward the reality of Jesus’ person. Many people must have thought and spoken in more or less these terms. There was also an opinion, appearing in the gospels and elsewhere,² that Jesus was a great prophet. For example, the inhabitants of Nain say, “’A great prophet has risen among us!’ and ‘God has looked favorably on his people!’” (Luke 7:16), or John 7:40-41 reads, “Some in the crowd said, ‘This is really the prophet.’ Others said, ‘This is the Messiah.’ But some asked, ‘Surely the Messiah does not come from Galilee, does he?’” We can see from these texts how divided opinions were. In the mind of the Fourth Evangelist, certainly, one may indeed say of Jesus that he is “the” prophet, because that phrase refers to the end-time prophet per se, the one who, on the basis of Deuteronomy 18:18, was awaited by some groups of Jews.³

Jesus does not seem to have shared the evaluation of his person as that of a prophet, or a raptured and returned prophet, or “the” end-time prophet. We can see this clearly from the fact that after the disciples have listed the people’s opinions (Mark 8:28) he asks them, “But who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:29). Jesus—at least in the narrative—expects a different answer, one not identical with what has been said before, and he receives that answer in Peter’s confession of him as Messiah.

A still clearer answer to our question is the way Jesus estimates John the Baptizer, since for Jesus not even the Baptizer is simply a prophet. Jesus tells the crowd, regarding John:

What did you go out into the wilderness [to the Baptizer] to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and [you have seen] more than a prophet. (Matt 11:7-9)

If even the Baptizer cannot be comprehended in the title “prophet” we may conclude that the same is certainly true of Jesus. And Jesus must have seen it the same way. The Baptizer spoke in his preaching of a Stronger One who would come after him: “I baptize you only with water, but the one who comes after me is stronger than I; I am not worthy to untie his sandals. He will baptize you with fire” (cf. Matt 3:11). That would have been more or less the original wording of the Baptizer’s saying about the “Stronger One.” Many interpreters ponder which of the exalted end-time figures in Judaism the Baptizer may have had in mind, but exegetically speaking that is impermissible. If the Baptizer does not use one of the existing titles of majesty (cf. also Luke 7:19) but only alludes to the one who is to come as the Stronger One—that is, he is unable to describe his mystery in a single concept—that must be respected and we should not attempt to correct it in hindsight.

We may suspect that since Jesus had probably spent a rather long time as a follower of the Baptizer he had at some point applied to himself the prediction of the Stronger One who was to come. And we may further suppose that he tended to avoid existing titles of majesty. As far as the mystery of his person was concerned, Jesus preferred to speak in veiled and indirect terms, just as the Baptizer had done in this regard.