"The resurrection of Jesus is not the central datum of Christianity. The central point, from the earliest times, was God's intervention in history, the coming of his rule."

"Although the followers of Jesus who continued his preaching after his death certainly made Jesus' role a part of that preaching, as we have outlined, the pattern of their preaching remained the same as it had been for Jesus: God's rule is coming, and under the rule there will be salvation for those who have already begun to act accordingly and to put their trust in God. A new element was added by the idea that salvation had become possible above all through the death of Jesus. By this death God had reconciled himself with those who remained, who had been attached to Jesus and who relied on God for their salvation. This is in outline the way in which the earliest Christian preaching developed.

Two things require our attention in this development. Firstly, there was continuity between what Jesus preached about the coming of God's rule and the preaching of a number of his followers on the same thing after his death.

Secondly, just like the preaching of Jesus, the preaching of the first of his followers to continue his work after his death was concerned chiefly with God's actions and not with those of Jesus. In both cases, it was primarily about theology and not Christology. Following Jesus, the first Christians taught that God was engaged in bringing about a turning point in history, in fact that he had definitely intervened in history by sending a final messenger to announce that turning point. The central point was God's final act of intervention in the history of the world. That is theology with far reaching consequences for ethics. Christology, for Jesus and his disciples, and for those who took up his preaching after his death, was subsumed into this theology. Originally the idea of Jesus' resurrection only had a place within the subsumed theology. It is true that immediately after Jesus' death all those of his followers who continued his preaching believed in this resurrection as an expression of their faith that God had acknowledged the truth of his last prophet. But it was not a central element in the first Christian theology. It was important above all (a) as an expression of their trust that God had sanctioned the work of Jesus on earth; and (b) as a way of making it easier to imagine the role which Jesus still had to fulfil as judge and saviour in the coming definitive breakthrough of God's rule.

True, Jesus` followers only continued their theological preaching of Jesus after his death in a form in which Jesus` unique role as the messenger sent by God, his death and resurrection were constitutive elements. They did not revert to the Jewish apocalyptic tradition without Jesus. What they continued was a theological preaching in which God was regarded as acting through Jesus` earthly work, including his death and resurrection. To that extent faith in the resurrection of Jesus was an integral part of early Christian theology. And certainly their confidence that Jesus had risen and been exalted was one of the factors that helped his followers to continue his theological preaching. Belief in the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus was a catalyst for the earliest history of the church; it gave Christians the strength and inspiration to preach and act. Nevertheless, as Marxsen said, we must stick to the point that "the resurrection of Jesus is not the central datum of Christianity". The central point, from the earliest times, was God's intervention in history, the coming of his rule…

The conviction that Jesus, on the basis of his resurrection, shares the authority of God has been taken over by Mt from the early church. The early Christian christological hymns that are preserved in the NT already testify to this (cf. Eph 1,20-23; Phil 2,6-11; Col 1,15-20; 1 Pet 3,18-22). Jesus` rising from the dead and his elevation to God's right hand are two sides of one and the same dynamic event (cf. Rom 1.4; 8,34, and others). The resurrection terminology expresses the event from its starting point, namely death; the elevation motif looks at the event from its end point, the word of God. For the early church, the elevation of the Risen Jesus means that he takes part fully in God's unlimited power of salvation. That is why he is called "Lord"… In the resurrection event, God not only snatches Jesus away from the power of death, but moreover He raises him, that is to say He lets him share in the fullness of His Lordship, in His kingly authority. That is why the Risen Lord can say: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me". His authority knows no bounds, for it is the power of God Himself. This word of authority forms the foundation and the presupposition for the following word. Because Jesus is henceforth "Lord", clothed with God's authority, he can command a task that knows no boundaries in time and space (v. 19- 20a). Because all power is given to him, the Risen Jesus can promise support to his disciples until the end of time. No single human being can command such a world-wide mission nor promise such an all-abiding support without grossly overestimating itself. Only the divine authority of the Risen Lord can legitimise and found something like that."…

Between Easter and the Parousia, God's Lordship is exercised through the lordship of Jesus Christ. The universality of God's authority is fittingly evoked by the four-fold "all"; all authority, all nations, all that I have commanded you, all days. The horizon becomes broad. The moment breaks through all boundaries of time and space. The disciples need not fear the storms of history that will break over the church, for the Risen Lord will be present with them, not only now, but always and in all circumstances, until the eschatological completion of the world."

Resurrection in the New Testament: Festschrift J. Lambrecht,
Peeters (October 2002), pages 50-142

THE APOCALYPSE OF THE SPIRIT-PARACLETE
Fulfillment of the promised divine eschatological instruction

 
 









  "It's better to tell you after Realization that I am the Holy Ghost – no doubt. I am the one about which Christ has talked."

The Paraclete Shri Mataji

"The teaching of the Paraclete, as the continuation of Jesus’ teaching, must also be understood as the fulfillment of the promise of eschatological divine instruction" Stephen E. Witmer, Divine instruction in Early Christianity

"Jesus therefore predicts that God will later send a human being to Earth to take up the role defined by John .i.e. to be a prophet who hears God’s words and repeats his message to man."
M. Bucaille, The Bible, the Qur'an, and Science

"And when Jesus foreannounced another Comforter, He must have intended a Person as distinct and helpful as He had been."
F. B. Meyer, Love to the Utmost

"The Paraclete has a twofold function: to communicate Christ to believers and, to put the world on trial"
Robert Kysar, John The Meverick Gospel

"But She—the Spirit, the Paraclete...—will teach you everything."
Danny Mahar, Aramaic Made EZ)

"Grammatical nonsense but evidence of the theological desire to defeminize the Divine."
Lucy Reid, She Changes Everything

"The functions of the Paraclete spelled out in verses 13-15... are all acts of open and bold speaking in the highest degree."
David Fleer, Preaching John's Gospel: The World It Imagines

"The reaction of the world to the Paraclete will be much the same as the world’s reaction was to Jesus."
Berard L. Marthaler, The Creed: The Apostolic Faith in Contemporary Theology

Bultmann calls the "coming of the Redeemer an 'eschatological event,' 'the turning-point of the ages."
G. Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

"The Paraclete equated with the Holy Spirit, is the only mediator of the word of the exalted Christ."
(M.E. Boring) Benny Thettayil, In Spirit and Truth

"The divine Paraclete, and no lessor agency, must show the world how wrong it was about him who was in the right."
Daniel B. Stevick , Jesus and His Own: A Commentary on John 13-17

Stephen Smalley asserts that "the Spirit-Paraclete ... in John’s Gospel is understood as personal, indeed, as a person."
Marianne Meye Thompson, The God of the Gospel of John

"The Messiah will come and the great age of salvation will dawn (for the pious)"
Eric Eve, The Jewish context of Jesus' Miracles

"The remembrance is to relive and re-enact the Christ event, to bring about new eschatological decision in time and space."
Daniel Rathnakara Sadananda, The Johannine Exegesis of God

"The Spirit acts in such an international situation as the revealer of 'judgment' on the powers that rule the world."
Michael Welker, God the Spirit

The Paraclete's "appearance means that sin, righteousness, and judgment will be revealed."
Georg Strecker, Theology of the New Testament

"While the Spirit-Paraclete is the true broker, the brokers they rely on are impostors."
T. G. Brown, Spirit in the writings of John

"The pneumatological activity ... of the Paraclete ... may most helpfully be considered in terms of the salvific working of the hidden Spirit."
Michael Welker, The work of the Spirit

"The pneuma is the peculiar power by which the word becomes the words of eternal life."
Robert Kysar, Voyages with John: Charting the Fourth Gospel

"The gift of peace, therefore, is intimately associated with the gift of the Spirit-Paraclete"
Francis J. Moloney, The Gospel of John

"This utopian hope, even when modestly expressed, links Jesus and the prophets to a much wider history of human longing."
Harvey Cox, The Future of Faith

"Because of the presence of the Paraclete in the life of the believer, the blessings of the end-times—the eschaton—are already present"
Robert Kysar, John

"They are going, by the Holy Spirit’s power, to be part of the greatest miracle of all, bringing men to salvation."
Robert E. Picirilli, The Randall House Bible Commentary

"The Kingdom of God stands as a comprehensive term for all that the messianic salvation included... is something to be sought here and now (Mt. 6:33) and to be received as children receive a gift (Mk. 10:15 = Lk. 18:16-17)."
G. Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament