New Testament Christology

Defines Christology and how it differs from the literalist churches and examines some of the forms New Testament Christology can take.

New Testament Christology, “today lives in the tension between continuity with the church’s doctrinal tradition on the one hand and, on the other, openness to the new experiences and understandings of Christ arising out of the particular contexts of suffering and hope”, (Migliore, 242). One of the central Christian tenets is that Christ cannot be contained within any house of man’s making – nor, by extension, by any literary construct of the Bible or any interpretation thereof. While the literalist churches base their faith upon an absolutist reading of the Bible, the deeper thinking Christians and scholars all observe that God’s words are in the Bible, but not God himself. Therefore, there is more to God than what is in the Bible and being open to new ways of experiencing and knowing God is what forms the center of Christology. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the nature of New Testament Christology and a selection of the manners in which it is approached.