High Christology or Not?

Mark's Christology is an incredibly interesting topic, and Mr. Watts links to another post and it's sequel wherein somebody will be examining it. Mark's Christology is interesting because in the minds of many it is the first gospel and thereby represents, supposedly the most primitive Christology and the closest we can get to Jesus' self understanding. (But, Matthew really is first and letters written before Mark have a much "higher" Christology.)

Mark's gospel, in my estimation, has a high Christology (whatever that actually means), and in many ways it is more evident than the other synoptic gospels.

If I were to define "high Christology" I would say that it is a Christology which claims that Jesus is not merely a human agent. A high Christology would be one which states or presupposes that Jesus, though human, somehow preexisted with God. J.D. Kirk defines it on his blog similarly.

Low Christology, simply defined says that Jesus is God's agent, but is simply human.

I have two thoughts. Here's one, it is more theological. If high Christology is true, but was known after the resurrection, then it must be understood on the basis of Jesus' earthly life. This means that Jesus' life interprets what it means for him to be God. And then his "merely human" life can be understood as the epitome of divine life.

The second thought is on Mark's gospel, which as I stated, I estimate to teach a clear high Christology.

The gospel's prologue starts with a definitive statement that Jesus' action is a divine action, not that he is God, but that his activity is tied up with God's activity. Then throughout the gospel, the demons knew who Jesus was and identified him regularly as "the Holy One of Israel" and "the son of God." Now, these titles could very well mean something like, "God's king on earth," and they do. But Mark's literary artistry is often overlooked. Outside of Mark himself, only demons pending exorcism and pagans who see Jesus on the cross recognize him as God's Son. This is crucial, literally. People hearing the gospel read would have believed in the resurrection already, so these hints at Jesus' identity would be meant for the audiences' benefit. But what benefit? Every time Jesus is identified as God's Son, the Holy One, or the Messiah in the gospel, he confronts demonic powers ( Mk 8:33).

There is also the incident of the rich young ruler, wherein Mark's Jesus teaches that fidelity to himself is instrumental for seeking life in the age to come over against the Torah. Jesus is not merely announcing God's kingdom, his is establishing it in God's stead.

Mix that with Jesus' confrontation at the temple (Mark 11) wherein he seems to enact God's judgement from Jeremiah 7, and you have a picture of Jesus being recognized by spiritual powers as well as Mark's audience as God's agent of justice in the world. But in Jesus' references to the Hebrew Bible it the Lord who will enact justice by confronting the powers and the Satan. Then at the end of the gospel, Jesus is on the cross, he shouts the cry of dereliction and the soldier notes that Jesus is the Son of God (Mk 15:39). God's confrontation with the powers happened when Jesus died. Of course, the exorcism after Jesus was identified in this passage was to come at the resurrection. The consequence is that Jesus, though not explicitly stated to preexist, is implicitly ascribed God's power and prerogatives in defeating demonic forces.

The consequent to this is that Jesus' acting in direct consort with God leads to an implicit, although clear, high Christology, and an explicit low Christology of divine agency.

*What I did not touch on was that Mark's gospel definitely intends the auditor to see Jesus as the Lord throughout. If early Christians considered "Jesus is Lord" to be a confession of faith, then this shared understanding may lead one to think that the high Christology of Mark is actually explicit. Mark wanted people to see Jesus throughout the gospel as the Lord whose name they called upon and whose way John prepared.