3. Jesus_&_the_Identity_of_God.mp4
3. How_Shame_Defined_God_s_Identity.m4a
This academic analysis argues that New Testament writers consistently included Jesus within the unique divine identity of the one God, using the highest terms available in Second Temple Judaism. The author demonstrates this "Christology of divine identity" by focusing on how early Christians read the Old Testament, particularly Deutero-Isaiah (Isaiah 40–55), which powerfully asserts God's uniqueness as Creator and Sovereign. Crucially, this inclusion meant that the humiliation and exaltation of Jesus, epitomized by the cross, became the definitive revelation of God's identity, transforming monotheism into a christological monotheism. Examples from Philippians, Revelation, and John show that Jesus’s suffering and subsequent lordship fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy of the Servant, revealing a God whose identity encompasses both transcendent majesty and radical self-giving love.
A common assumption holds that the Christian concept of a "crucified God" was a radical, shocking break from the strict monotheism of ancient Judaism. The image of the one, all-powerful Creator dying a shameful death on a Roman cross appears to be a profound and irreconcilable contradiction.
This view, however, misses the subtle and revolutionary theology developed by the very first Christians. As theological scholar Richard Bauckham has shown, the earliest followers of Jesus didn't see his story as an abandonment of their monotheistic faith, but as its ultimate fulfillment and revelation. Here are four surprising insights, rooted in a deep and creative reading of the Hebrew Scriptures, that reveal how they understood the very identity of God in the cross of Christ.
A common but misleading argument holds that the belief in Jesus's full divinity evolved over centuries, heavily influenced by Greek philosophy. Bauckham’s analysis shows, however, that the New Testament writers included Jesus within the unique identity of the one God of Israel from the very beginning.
This concept is what Bauckham terms a "Christology of divine identity." This wasn't a metaphysical claim about divine "nature" or "substance"—categories that would dominate later Greek philosophical debates. Rather, it was a profoundly Jewish claim about identity and function. For Second Temple Judaism, God’s unique identity was defined by what He alone does. By ascribing to Jesus the unique, non-delegable roles of God—sole "Creator of all things and sovereign Ruler of all things"—the earliest Christians were identifying who Jesus is in relation to the one God of Israel. He wasn't a second, lesser god, but was understood as belonging "inherently to who God is."
This early conviction forces us to confront the central paradox of the early Christian faith: How can the ultimate humiliation of a slave's death reveal the identity of the all-powerful God? For the first-century Jewish mind, the scandal of the cross was not primarily metaphysical (how can the immortal die?). The true shock was one of status: how could the ultimate Lord, the Sovereign Ruler, willingly take on the form and fate of a slave?