Pilotaje, validación y fiabilización de la herramienta

In the quotation that opened this chapter, John of the Cross declared that, with his Son, God, ‘spoke everything to us’ and did so ‘once and for all’. Jesus, of course, did not act alone but gathered around him disciples and then chose the core group of the Twelve. We return below to the founding fathers and mothers of the Church in their once-and-for-all role in mediating normatively to all later genera-tions the self-manifestation of God in Jesus Christ. In that sense we need to modify the statement of John of the Cross and say: in his Son and in the founding figures Jesus gathered around him, God ‘spoke everything to us’.

Apropos of this revelation being unsurpassable and (in some sense perfect and complete), rather than provisional and fragmentary, the prologue of Hebrews announces: ‘Long ago God spoke to our ances-tors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by the Son’ (1: 1–2). Where, in the logic of John’s prologue, the divine revelation communicated through Jesus is full because he is the Word of God, Hebrews attributes the fullness of revelation to his identity as the Son of God. Both John and Hebrews highlight the divine identity of the One who has come ‘from above’

into the world. Paul, however, typically thinks more ‘horizontally’

and historically: Christ’s resurrection from the dead, located within the whole sweep of history since Adam, has initiated and really anticipated the fullness of saving revelation to come when God will be all in all (1 Cor. 15: 20–8).

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Whether we follow the language of John, Hebrews, or Paul, should we then describe this revelation as ‘definitive’—in the sense of its being not merely decisive but even final, totally complete, and something simply over and done with? The use of ‘definitive’ risks, however, playing down the way in which the New Testament when using the language of revelation is heavily slanted towards the future divine manifestation that will be the second coming of Christ.⁵⁵ Thus Hebrews announces that Christ ‘will appear a second time’ to ‘save those who are eagerly waiting for him’ (9: 28). Paul proclaims that ‘the revealing of the Lord’ will be on ‘the day of his final coming’ (1 Cor. 1:

7–8), and reckons ‘the sufferings of the present time’ not ‘worth com-paring with the glory that will be revealed to us’ (Rom. 8: 18). First John, while opening with the witness of the Johannine community to ‘the life’

that ‘was revealed’ in Christ (1: 1–4), proceeds to comfort its readers with the promise, ‘when he [God] is revealed, we will be like him for we shall see him as he is’ (3: 2). First Peter, even though it recognizes that Christ

‘was revealed at the end of the ages’ (1: 20), repeatedly refers to the

‘salvation ready to be revealed in the last time’ (1: 3) and ‘the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed’ (1: 13; see 1: 7). We find a similar tension between past and future revelation in the Letter to Titus.

On the one hand, it rejoices that ‘the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all’ (2: 11). Yet, on the other hand, two verses later it looks toward the future revelation: ‘we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ’ (2: 13).

Add too passages in the New Testament that represent revelation as happening here and now : for instance, the messages that the exalted Christ addresses through the Holy Spirit to seven churches in Asia Minor. The faithful should hear in faith ‘what the Spirit is saying’ to them right now (Rev. 2: 1–3: 22). In Revelation and elsewhere divine revelation comes across as being a living event and reality. The First Letter of John ‘testifies to’ and ‘declares’ here and now what has been revealed (1: 1–3). Paul expounds faith as the ‘obedience of faith’ given to God as he communicates himself through the apostolic preaching (Rom. 16: 26). Through the proclamation of the good news, God’s

‘righteousness is revealed’ to elicit the faith of human beings and

55 See A. Dulles, Models of Revelation (New York: Doubleday, 1983), 228–9.

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bring them into a right relationship with God (Rom. 10: 16–17). In a lyrical passage the apostle portrays faith as responding to what is heard, ‘the word of Christ’ (Rom. 10: 14–17). The good news Paul preaches is nothing less than ‘the [revealing] word of God’ working to bring about faith and keep it alive (1 Thess. 2: 13). The sufferings that characterize Paul’s ministry made the life of Christ ‘visible’ in the

‘mortal flesh’ of the apostle (2 Cor. 4: 11).⁵⁶The heart of the apostolic preaching was the message of the crucified Christ’s resurrection, the climax of divine revelation to which believers responded and continue to respond in faith (1 Cor. 15: 3–11).

To sum up: the New Testament presents the divine self-revelation as something that has happened (past), that is happening (present), and that will happen (future). How can we relate these three sets of affirmation that at first sight seem mutually exclusive? If revelation has been completed in the past, how can it happen today and reach its final fullness in the future? If revelation is also a present event, how can we speak of it as having reached its perfect culmination two thousand years ago?

One frequent false move (1) flatly ignores what the New Testament says about the revelation to come, and (2) alleges that present revela-tion is not revelarevela-tion in the proper sense but only a growth in the collective understanding of that revelation completed and closed once and for all with Christ and his apostles (see Jude 3). Undoubt-edly such a growth in understanding does take place. How could I say otherwise at a time when an interest in John Henry Newman (1801–90) and his writings flourishes as much as ever? His Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine of 1845 espouses the growth in collective understanding and interpretation that tradition has brought. Nevertheless, we would not do justice to tradition if, while accepting the development it has effected toward understanding a past revelation, we denied that it produces an actual revelation of God. In a later chapter we will reflect on the role of the Holy Spirit as the ‘soul’ of living Christian tradition. The witness of the Spirit brings it about that the divine self-revelation recorded in the Scriptures is not only more fully understood but also actualized as God’s living revelation to the Church and through her to the world.

56 On this verse, see M. J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005), 347–9.

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To deny present revelation is to doubt the active power here and now of the Holy Spirit in guiding tradition and mediating the living presence of the risen Christ. This also means reducing faith to accepting some revealed truths inherited from the past, rather than taking faith in its integral sense, as full obedience given to God revealed here and now through the living voice of the good news.

In short, to deny such present revelation of God involves selling short its human correlative, faith.

Of course, if one persists in holding that revelation entails primarily the communication of revealed truths (rather than the personal disclo-sure of God), it becomes easier to relegate revelation to the past. As soon as the whole set of revealed doctrines was complete, revelation ended or was ‘closed’. For this way of thinking, later believers cannot immediately and directly experience revelation. All they can do is remember, inter-pret, and apply truths revealed long ago to the apostolic church.

Those who think this way should learn to appreciate how present revelation (effected through the reading and proclaiming of the Scriptures,⁵⁷ the Church’s worship (‘announcing the death of the Lord until he comes’—1 Cor. 11: 26), and innumerable other means) actualizes the living event of the divine self-manifestation and con-tinues to do so in innumerable contexts and for innumerable people who respond in faith. God is not silent but continues to speak to us.

This ongoing revelation does not add to the essential ‘content’ of what was fully revealed through Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and the sending of the Holy Spirit. As a living encounter with Christ through his Spirit, this divine self-manifestation never stops; yet this encounter adds nothing essentially new to what the apostolic generation came to know through their experience of Christ and his Spirit.

What we need here is a terminology that distinguishes between revelation, (1) inasmuch as it reached an unsurpassable, once and for all climax with Christ and his apostles, (2) inasmuch as it continues and calls people to faith in a living encounter with God, and (3) inasmuch as it will be gloriously consummated in the life to come. In one sense revelation is past (as ‘foundational’), in another it is present (as ‘depen-dent’), and in a further sense it is a reality to come (as ‘future’ or

‘eschatological’). The first and second senses call for comment.

57 See how the Scriptures serve to ‘instruct for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus’ (2 Tim. 3: 15).

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Some speak of (1) as ‘original’ revelation,⁵⁸but I prefer to name it

‘foundational’, a term that echoes New Testament language. According to the Letter to the Ephesians, ‘the household of God’ is ‘built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ himself being the cornerstone’ (2: 19–20). The vision of the new Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation includes a similar image to describe the foundational role of the Twelve in the service of Christ: ‘the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb’ (21: 14). Where ‘original’, as meaning ‘existing from/at the beginning’, seems purely factual, ‘foundational’ adds a sense of the revelation in question being somehow ‘constructive’, normative, and sustaining.

Others speak of (2) as ‘participatory’ revelation.⁵⁹Yet we should recall that the apostolic generation participated in the events that climactically embodied God’s self-revelation: Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, together with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Hence one could talk of the participatory revelation involving the apostles.

In these terms later believers would participate in a participation.

Or should we say that, as regards God’s self-communication in Christ, the apostolic generation participated in a foundational way;

later believers participate in a dependent way—that is to say, in dependence upon these apostolic witnesses? Or perhaps it is simpler and clearer if we distinguish between the foundational revelation communicated to the apostolic Church and the dependent revelation available to all later believers.

The foundational role of the apostles and the apostolic generation included four functions. (1) The summary formulas of preaching recorded in Paul’s letters (e.g. 1 Cor. 15: 3–5), the Acts of the Apostles (e.g. 2: 22–4, 32–3, 36; 3: 13–15; 4: 10–12; 5: 30–2),⁶⁰ and elsewhere in the New Testament (e.g. Luke 24: 34) reflect a primary function of Peter, Paul, and other apostolic witnesses. Their basic message

58 Paul Tillich speaks of ‘original’ and ‘dependent’ revelation (rather than

‘foundational’ and ‘dependent’ revelation) and gives that language his own nuances: Systematic Theology, i (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1951), 126–8.

59 Aylward Shorter has proposed the terminology of ‘foundational’ and ‘par-ticipant’ revelation: Revelation and its Interpretation (London: Geoffrey Chap-man, 1983), 139–43.

60 On these verses, see J. A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles (New York:

Doubleday, 1998), 254–6, 258–61, 284–6, 300–2, 336–8.

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(‘the crucified Jesus has been raised from the dead and of that we are witnesses’) gathered the first Christians. Those who had not seen and yet believed (John 20: 29) depended upon the testimony of the Easter witnesses for their coming, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to faith in and experience of the risen Jesus.⁶¹(2) Believers entered the community through being baptized ‘into’ Christ’s death and resur-rection (Rom. 6: 3–11). Together they celebrated eucharistically the death of the risen Lord in expectation of his final coming (1 Cor. 11:

26). Thus the post-Easter proclamation initiated the liturgical life of the Church.

(3) The apostolic leaders made the normative decision not to impose on Gentile converts the observance of the Mosaic law (Acts 15: 1–30; Gal. 2: 1–21). The resurrection of the crucified Jesus brought the new/second covenant which both confirmed God’s promises to the chosen people (Rom. 9: 4; 11: 29; 2 Cor. 1: 20) and liberated Gentile believers from the obligation of circumcision and other burdens of the law (Gal. 5: 1). (4) Finally, the apostles and other Christians of the apostolic age wrote the Gospels and other New Testament writings, inspired books that perpetually witness to the climax of divine revelation in Christ and to the origins of the Church.

In short, the apostles and their associates shaped once and for all the essential (2) sacramental and (3) moral life of the Church.

Through (4) the books of the New Testament, they left for all subsequent ages of believers a divinely inspired record of the unsur-passable revelation in Christ and its reception in the first decades of church life. Right from the birth of Christianity, through (1) their Easter preaching the apostles witnessed to the climax of God’s self-manifestation which they had experienced in the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, along with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

I sum up these once and for all apostolic functions by speaking of those who witnessed to that ‘foundational’ revelation which took place normatively through a specific set of events and the experiences of a specific set of people. God’s saving word came through the history of Israel, the prophets, and then—in a full and perfect fashion—through Jesus of Nazareth and the experiences in which

61 On this dependence from the apostolic witnesses, see K. Rahner, Founda-tions of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, trans. W. V.

Dych (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), 274–6.

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he and his first followers were immediately involved. Christians experience now God’s self-communication reaching them through the Scriptures, preaching, sacraments, and other means that recall and re-enact the past events and experiences which affected the chosen people, the prophets, Jesus himself, his apostles, and other founding fathers and founding mothers. Thus the mediation of revelation (and salvation) through the Scriptures, the preached word, the sacraments, and other means depends essentially upon accepting the foundational and authoritative testimony about certain past acts of God. Revelation, as believers experience it and accept it now, remains ‘dependent’ revelation. The adjective ‘dependent’ ex-presses a permanent relationship to the apostolic witness, whose faith and proclamation of the gospel sprang from their special, immediate experience of Jesus during his lifetime and as risen from the dead.

The apostolic witness to foundational revelation continues to be determinative and normative for the post-apostolic history of Chris-tians and their experience of God in Christ.

To complete this reflection on past (foundational) revelation and ongoing (dependent) revelation, we need to ask: when did founda-tional revelation end and the period of dependent revelation begin?

The traditional answer refers to the end of the apostolic age. Rightly understood, this response allows for the full reception of revelation by recognizing that the apostolic experience of Christ also included the phase of discernment, interpretation, and expression of that experience. Peter, Paul, and other founding fathers and mothers of the Church spent a lifetime reflecting on and proclaiming their experience of the crucified and risen Jesus and his Holy Spirit.

Collectively and personally they gave themselves to interpreting and applying the meaning, truth, and value of their total experience of Jesus. That experience lodged itself profoundly in their memories to live on powerfully and productively until the end of their lives.

Understood that way, the period of foundational revelation cov-ered not merely the climactic events (the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, together with the outpouring of the Spirit) but also the decades when the apostles and their associates assimilated these events, fully founded the Church for all peoples, and wrote the inspired books of the New Testament. During those years the apostles were not receiving new truths from Christ, as if he had failed to reveal to them everything he wanted to through his ministry, death, and 134 j jesus the fullness of revelation

post-resurrection appearances. Rather they were led by the Holy Spirit to express, interpret normatively, and apply what they had experienced of the fullness of revelation in Christ (John 15: 26; 16:

13).⁶²In these terms the activity of the Spirit through the apostolic age also entered into foundational revelation and its phase of imme-diate assimilation. That age belonged to the revealing and redemptive Christ-event, and did so in a way that would not be true of any later stage of Christian history.

When the apostolic age closed—roughly speaking at the end of the first century—there would be no more founding of the Church and writing of inspired Scriptures. The last period of foundational revela-tion, in which the original witnesses brought into being the visible Church and completed the written word of God, was ended. Through the apostolic Church and its Scriptures, later generations could share dependently in the saving self-communication of God mediated through unrepeatable events surrounding Jesus and his first followers.

All later believers would be invited to accept the witness of those who announced what they had personally experienced of the full divine revelation in Christ: ‘we proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us’ (1 John 1: 2).⁶³

By speaking of faith, tradition, biblical inspiration, the founding of the Church, this chapter has anticipated themes that later chapters will treat. Before moving to such themes, however, we need to complete our account of God’s revelation in Christ by examining the crucifixion, resurrection, and outpouring of the Spirit.

62 On these verses, see Lincoln, Gospel According to John, 411–12, 421.

63 As this verse shows, the period of dependent revelation was already inau-gurated in the experience of those who accepted in faith the proclamation of the original witnesses in the Johannine community—not to mention those who responded in faith to the preaching of Paul (see above).

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6

The Crucified and