We typically ask the question the wrong way around: “How much God was in Jesus?” When we begin with this question we start fussing about the virgin birth (or “virginal conception for the sticklers). And we fear that the humanness of Jesus will be pushed aside by all that divine glory. We don’t want a magic Jesus who hovers several inches off the ground and thinks sublime thoughts.
How much Jesus is in God? That’s the right question.
When Jesus urges us to love our enemies and forgive those who wrong us, is he telling us what God is like? When Jesus insists on radical hospitality and compassion for the downtrodden is he defining the heart of God?
The “high christology” of John’s gospel used to bother me. All that “I and the father are one” struck me as arrogant, preachy and exclusionary.
Then I realized that this close association between Christ and Creator allows Jesus to define the heart of God in the most extraordinary fashion.
All of Jesus is in God.
And because that’s so, the highest christology can’t be too high for me.
