7. - Titus 1: 2-3
". . .Yes, it is eternal life that God, who cannot lie, promised before the beginning of time, 3and now in his own good time he has brought his word to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior." [NEB/NIV]
...Note the reference to "God our Savior." The term "Savior," throughout the epistles, is applied in the vast majority of cases (cf. 1 Tim. 4:10) to God, and only in a small minority to Christ Jesus. The immediate agency in the present time has been God, revealing his Son and the redemptive activities of that Son. Thus, to the minds of men like Paul and his successors, including the writer of Titus, there is a primary sense of God being the "Savior" and providing them with his gospel.
1. Silences in passage/challenge to a historical Jesus:
Jesus proclaimed salvation through him, and his role as Savior was witnessed at Calvary, and in his rising from the tomb.
2. Relevancy within context:
The passage is a greeting in a personal letter, which is for the most part not about salvation. As such, I wouldn't expect a lot of detail in this passage. For an expectation for more detail about Jesus' role as Savior, I would consider passages that refer to Jesus' death and resurrection also. However, since it is a summation of sorts, I think Doherty's expectation has some validity here.
3. Related information in other early writings:
Something Doherty doesn't mention is that in the very next verse Paul refers to Christ Jesus as "our Savior". Actually in the authentic epistles, Savior only appears once, in Phil 3:20, and it refers to Jesus. In the epistles not considered authentic, God is called Savior 6 times and Jesus is 5 times. So, for Paul God is the Savior, but so is Jesus.
But what about a historical role as Savior?
First, Paul repeatedly stated that it was the actions of Christ's death and resurrection which enabled salvation to happen--a salvation which the scriptures reveal comes through faith in it for all men, Jews and Gentiles alike. From this perspective Paul stated Jesus' role in that salvation plan clearly: It was as the sinless sacrifice from God. As far as the historical aspect is concerned, I agree that he doesn't provide much. However, his philosophy doesn't require it.
Further, he never states that this death occurred somewhere other than earth nor in a time long ago. Had that been the case, such a silence seems very odd indeed. Doherty's kind of spiritual realm in which earth-like events take place is highly speculative. (For a critical review of Doherty's "spiritual realm" as a place in which earthly events occurred, the reader may wish to check out Bernard Muller's work here: http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/djp1.html It has been updated in reply to the initial responses by Doherty and Richard Carrier).
Doherty says there were no witnesses to the crucifixion, in contrast to 1 Cor 2:8, which says there were witnesses: rulers of this age. Paul says that the witnesses hadn't understood that they crucified the Lord of Glory. Since the 20 verses which precede the mention of those witnesses are clearly contrasting the wisdom humans have on their own with the wisdom they received from God, it is likely that the "rulers of the age" who hadn't understood, were also humans, and were not demons, as Doherty has suggested elsewhere. "This age" appears to refer to the time in which Paul was living, in contrast with Doherty's claim that Paul's references are "leaving no room for any role that Jesus might have played in recent salvation history."
Though it is debated and considered an interpolation by many, 1 Thess 2:14 says that the Jews "killed" the Lord Jesus. 1 Tim 6:13 puts Jesus in front of Pontius Pilate and many witnesses, making the "good confession", presumably of his role as the Christ (the Messiah who is to save the Jews), though it too is considered unPauline by many.
It is true that Paul doesn't refer to the empty tomb, which leaves the possibility of a spiritual resurrection. However Paul does mention that Jesus was buried on two occasions: 1 Cor 15:4 and Rom 6:4. And though he doesn't mention Calvary, he does mention that his death was a paschal lamb sacrifice (1 Cor 5:7), which could point to Jerusalem since that was the place many journeyed to for the Passover celebration. More directly Paul says that the Jews stumbled over a stumbling block (meaning Christ) in Zion, a name for Jerusalem (Rom 9:33). In Rom 11:26 Paul says that Christ came from Zion as a deliverer. As noted before, the author of Hebrews says that Jesus endured the cross (12:2) by suffering "outside the gate" (13:2), which would be "near the city" as Gjohn states (19:20). It is almost certain the author of Hebrews was referring to Jerusalem. He was comparing Jesus' sacrifice by which he said in the prior chapter enabled believers to come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to the earthly sacrifices, which happened just outside the camp, and were offered at the temple in Jerusalem. In so doing the author writes that Jesus ALSO suffered outside the city gate.
Paul and the authors of Hebrews, 1 Clement, 1 Peter all depict Jesus as being obedient to God in accepting his fate of crucifixion. The strong implication is that he knew he was to be the Savior. 1 John attributes to someone a promise of eternal life, though it is not clear whether this is referring to a teaching by Jesus on earth, after resurrection, or God through the scriptures.
4. Conclusion
Paul did consider God to be the Savior, whose plan of salvation could be found in scripture. However, he also considered Jesus to be the Savior by means of his own death, via human rulers, in Jerusalem, in "this age", followed by burial and resurrection. Other early writings support this concept of a Jesus who lived, and who willingly took on the sacrificial role of Savior, though it is true that there is little attribution to him as having proclaimed a salvation role to others.
|
