Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

Jesus saw through the polished world of appearances that others raise up around us and the self-deceptions we constantly build up in ourselves. He did not let himself be euthanized. He sees injustice in its destructive power. He knows what manipulation, lies, and violence incessantly bring about in the world. Therefore he is in a position to cry “stop!” His words about the threatened judgment are a shout, a revolt against society’s self-deceptions and unreal pseudo-worlds. Had he spoken only of divine mercy he would have made himself complicit and helped to conceal the real situation in Israel.

Judgment Preached from the Outset

Judgment is a theme in every layer of gospel tradition. It appears in Mark, in the Sayings Source, in the special material of Matthew and Luke, and in the Johannine tradition. In his book on Jesus’ preaching of judgment Marius Reiser took the trouble to calculate the percentage of discourse material on the theme of “judgment” within the Synoptic Gospels.³ The result is astonishing: sayings and parables about judgment comprise seventy-six verses in the Sayings Source (= 35 percent of the discourse material), thirty-seven verses in Mark’s gospel (= 22 percent of the discourse material), sixty verses in Matthew’s special material (= 64 percent of the discourse material), and thirty-seven verses in Luke’s special material (= 28 percent of the discourse material).

Of course, such statistics have ragged edges. It is not always possible to decide clearly what ought to be counted and what should be omitted. Nevertheless, a clear contour emerges: even the apparent truth that Matthew favored the theme of judgment does not change the fact that at least a quarter of the discourse material transmitted as having come from Jesus concerns itself with the theme of “judgment.” The unavoidable conclusion is that Jesus must have spoken about it often.

Certainly the question remains: did he do that from the beginning, or did the theme appear in only a later phase of his preaching? We cannot overlook the fact that Jesus was not simply surrounded by sympathizers and disciples. He had increasing numbers of determined opponents, especially among the theologians. They deliberately sought to slander him. They called him a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of sinners, a eunuch and a demoniac, a possessed Samaritan, an apostate from the faith, an impostor, and a deceiver of the people.⁴ But Jesus did not encounter total acceptance among the ordinary people either. We can see that in the reaction of his hometown, Nazareth (Mark 6:1-6). Could it be that, after an initial period of success, a “Galilean spring,” Jesus encountered increasing opposition and that it was only from that point on that he began to speak of judgment as well?

As attractive as that view is, it has its problems. Certainly we can expect that as Jesus encountered increasing opposition the theme of “judgment” came more to the fore. But it must have been there from the beginning, because it is an integral part of the theme of the reign of God. We see this clearly in the complex of tradition relating to the mission of the disciples. Within the second mission discourse in Luke, based on the Sayings Source, we read:

Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, “Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.” I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town. (Luke 10:8-12)

This text makes it clear that salvation is being proclaimed, and not only proclaimed but becoming reality: the sick are healed, and in just that way the coming of the reign of God appears. But if Jesus’ messengers are not received, the salvation they wanted to bring is reversed into condemnation: the reign of God becomes judgment. It turns into a self-evoked distress. The prophetic sign-actions of Jesus’ messengers reveal the fact as they publicly shake the dust of the city from their feet. In doing so they mean to say, “We are breaking off all connection with you. We are even purifying ourselves of the dust of your town so that in the coming day of judgment it will not cling to us and incriminate us.” The sign-action presupposes that Jesus’ messengers will appear at the coming final judgment to witness against the city in question (cf. Mark 6:11).