Quotes from Larry W. Hurtado

Note also Paul's portrayal of this meal as a corporate participation (koin?nia) in Jesus' body and blood (1 Cor 10:15-16), which further testifies to the centrality of Jesus in this ritual event.

In John 7:37-39, the author explains Jesus' statement about "rivers of living water" as anticipating the reception of the Spirit by believers, which would be made available only after Jesus was "glorified.

Jesus is pictured as warning his followers that they will be hated by all "because of my name" (Mark 13:13) and will suffer persecution "on my account" (Matt 5:11). First Peter 3:13-16 urges believers to be unafraid of suffering for their faith, to "reverence Christ as Lord" and

repeatedly refers to believers as those who testify to and suffer for "the word of God and the testimony of Jesus" (Rev 1:2, 9; 6:9; 12:17; 19:10; 20:4). I trust that it is not necessary to illustrate the point further here.

Yet in all the various presentations of Jesus' significance, "God" holds the overarching and crucial place. "God" is certainly not thrust into the background or sidelined. Indeed, as I indicated in an earlier chapter, Jesus' significance is typically expressed with reference to "God," and all the christological titles and claims of the NT really boil down to the one claim that Jesus is truly the unique expression and agent of "God.

God" explicitly features in christological expressions such as "Son of God," "Image [eik?n] of God," "Lamb of God," God's "Servant [pais]"; and in some other titles "God" is obviously implicit, e.g., (God's) "Messiah/Christ," (God's) "Word," and "the Son.

Paul refers to "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor 4:6 NRSV). Colossians 1:19-20 (NRSV) asserts that "all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell" in Jesus and through him God works to "reconcile to himself all things." In a cluster of christological claims in Hebrews 1:1-4, Jesus is presented as the surpassing eschatological revelation of "God," as constituted by "God" to be "heir of all things,

that all creation will be required to acclaim ("Jesus Christ is Lord"), this acclamation in turn redounding to "the glory of God the Father" (Phil 2:9-11).

this authority assigned to Jesus to dispense or send the Spirit is particularly important in reflecting what he calls a "divine christology," Jesus understood as in some real sense participating in the authority and roles of "God.

Thomas in John 20:28, "my Lord and my God," must be read in the larger context of GJohn, including the statement by the risen Jesus just a bit earlier in the narrative that he ascends to "my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (20:17 NRSV).

Along with statements in this material that "the Father" will give or send the Spirit-Advocate (14:16, 26), we have other statements that Jesus himself will send the Spirit (15:26; 16:7). In 15:26 there is an interesting link of Jesus and "the Father" in jointly sending forth the Spirit, with Jesus portrayed here as promising the Advocate, "whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father" (NRSV).

of each writing (e.g., Rom 1:7; 8:3; Titus 1:1, 4; 3:4-7) makes it clear that each author thinks of "God" and Jesus as both uniquely linked and also distinguishable.

This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he [Jesus] has poured out this that you both see and hear" (Acts 2:32-33 NRSV, emphasis mine).

the Jesus of this passage refers to his (pre-incarnate) sharing in divine glory (17:5, 24) and speaks of himself and the "Father" as co-inhering such that they are "one" (17:21). But the prayer form of John 17 makes it clear that Jesus and "God" are also distinguishable and that Jesus is subordinate and subservient to the purposes of "God." One of the repeated claims in the passage is that Jesus has been sent forth by "God" (17:8, 18, 21, 23, 25).

17:3 defines eternal life concisely as knowing two figures: "the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying 'Abba, Father!' " (Gal 4:6).36 Not

Romans 8:9 we have an equally strong statement. Indeed, in two consecutive sentences in this verse, Paul directly refers to the divine Spirit as also "the Spirit of Christ." "But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his." In

This connection is such that "the Spirit of the Lord" (3:17) is the means by which Jesus is revealed as glorious to believers and also how Jesus is powerfully present in their lives.

Fatehi proposed that Paul's link of the Spirit and the risen Jesus should be understood as "a dynamic identification," the Spirit acting to communicate Jesus' presence, power, and glory to believers and Jesus in some real way "actually present and active through the Spirit."44 This seems to me to be a cogent characterization.

There is another astonishing instance of this apparent retrojection of Jesus into the OT in John 12:37-41, where Isaiah's vision of "the Lord" exalted and enthroned (Isa 6:1-5) is declared to have been a vision of Jesus' glory.

Likewise, the linkage of Wisdom with Torah in Sirach 24 and Baruch 3–4 simply makes the claim that Torah is not an arbitrary or parochial set of rules but instead reflects this one God's greater purposes in creation. That

By contrast, the growth of Christianity in its first three centuries, the most crucial period, was largely by a combination of the power of persuasion, whether in preaching, intellectual argument, "miracles" exhibiting the power of Jesus' name, and simply the moral suasion of Christian behavior, including martyrdom. Granted,

The OT deity was the "demiurge" (d?miourgos, "worker" or "craftsman"), whose act of creating the world of sense and matter was intended simply to provide himself with a sphere in which he could rule and a domain

which he could hold captive the souls of the children of light.13