Wm. Temple: The Self-Assertive Christ of the Fourth Gospel

O Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know thy Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leadeth to eternal life; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.
~ Collect for the Fifth Sunday of Easter (BCP pg. 173)

William Temple’s Readings in St. John’s Gospel is a wonderful commentary on the Fourth Gospel.  The short introduction is itself worthwhile.  I freely admit that I have a great love for this gospel.  It is a preference I share with Temple: “Let the Synoptists repeat for us as closely as they can the very words He spoke; but let St. John tune our ears to hear them.”  However, for all its beautiful imagery, spiritual comfort, and theological profundity, St. John’s Gospel has in the modern era been a book that has caused no small amount of squirming discomfort and even antipathy for some.  There are various “problems”: the long stretches of dialogue can be repetitive, Jesus often seems cryptic, the unflattering language about “the Jews” has been used as justification for anti-Semitism, etc.  Perhaps most problematic are the exclusive claims of Jesus as recorded in this gospel.  There are numerous examples, but probably the most significant is John 14:6: I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father, but by me.  It’s not hard to see why such an exclusive claim would make us modern Christians uncomfortable.  The last thing we want is to be seen as narrow-minded and intolerant.  Intolerance is, of course, the one thing modern, secular society will not tolerate.  I remember several years ago seeing a priest on television say that she believed Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life for her personally, “but that doesn’t mean he is for everybody.”  More recently, none other than the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church has been criticized for hedging on the question of whether Jesus is really the only way to God.  It just doesn’t sound nice! 

Be that as it may, from the perspective of Christian doctrine, these exclusive claims are undeniable.  It is not just St. John’s Gospel, but the whole of the New Testament that asserts the utter uniqueness of Jesus Christ, the God-Man.  The Incarnation, the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, is the central event in the story of humanity, the hinge of history, “the culmination of the ages” and “the fullness of time”, to borrow St. Paul’s language.  Accordingly, as St. Peter preached at Pentecost, “there is no other name under heaven whereby men can be saved.”  This does not mean, however, that Christians should be narrow-minded or arrogant; quite the contrary.  Neither should we feel obligated to dismiss all other claims to wisdom and truth, for all truth is God’s truth.  Concerning John 1:9, There was the light, the true light, which enlighteneth every man – coming into the world, Temple comments:

“From the beginning the divine light has shone.  Always it was coming into the world; always it enlightened every man alive in his reason and conscience … and this is what is fully and perfectly expressed in Christ.  So it may be truly said that the conscience of the heathen man is the voice of Christ within him – though muffled by his ignorance.  All that is noble in the non-Christian systems of thought, or conduct, or worship is the work of Christ upon them and within them.  By the Word of God – that is to say, by Jesus Christ – Isaiah, and Plato, and Zoroaster, and Buddha, and Confucius conceived and uttered such truths as they declared.  There is only one divine light; and every man in his measure is enlightened by it.”

And so we may believe that others may come to God in ways we would not immediately recognize or acknowledge as “Christian”, and yet to the extent that anyone comes to God, it is by and through Christ, the Word of God, the “one divine light.”  To claim otherwise, that Christ is just one option among many paths to God, is a clear rejection of the gospel as presented in the New Testament and the whole of the Christian tradition. 

In summary, as Temple ably states in the introduction:

“We may meet the complaint that in this Gospel the Lord is presented as self-assertive.  Certainly we must admit that if the claims which He here makes are not true they are intolerably arrogant.  If He is a very good man completely surrendered to the Spirit of God, He cannot, without offence, speak as the Johannine Christ speaks.  But if He is God come in the flesh He not only may, He must proclaim Himself as the fount of salvation.  Love, not self-concern, demands that He should call men to Himself as alone the revelation of the Father.  At the same time, it is appropriate that He should do this either when He is expressly challenged, as the religious leaders at Jerusalem challenged Him, or in conversation with His intimate disciples; and it is precisely in these circumstances that the Fourth Gospel presents Him as making these claims … If, when all is said, any still feel a trace of self-assertion in the sense which involves moral defect, it may be held that the Evangelist has imported into his record of what the Lord said some of his own devoted eagerness.  But I find no reason for recourse to such a plea.  Those who admit, and wish to proclaim, all that the Lord is here represented as saying about Himself, will feel gratitude, not resentment, that the words are recorded; those who do not admit their truth are bound to resent, or at least to regret, their presence in this profoundly sympathetic presentation of the Lord.”

Peace of Christ.   

Wm. Temple, on 'The Cleansing of the Temple'

Reflections on John 2:13-22, from William Temple's Readings in St. John's Gospel.

"The first visit to Jerusalem since the ministry began.  His coming means a purge.  So it is always, not less with the shrine of our hearts than with the Jewish Temple.  The place which should be ordered with the reverence appropriate to the dwelling-place of God is cluttered up with worldly ambitions, anxieties about our possessions, designs to get the better of our neighbours ... 

It is a tremendous scene.  The Lord dominates the multitude by the righteousness of His energy and the energy of His righteousness!   And at once there is that division among those who witness the scene, which St. John records as being the almost invariable result of the words and actions of the Lord ...

The Lord had exercised authority, but also He had made a claim which demanded vindication.  He had called the Temple my Father's house ... What are His credentials?  What evidence can He give that He really holds the divine commission which He has apparently executed?  Vain enquiry!  When God speaks to either the heart or the conscience He does not first prove His right to do so.  The divine command is its own evidence, and the heart or conscience that is not utterly numbed by complacent sin recognizes its inherent authority.

Yet He offers a sign; it is a sign which only those whose hearts are already His will be able to accept (xx, 29); but that is essential to His whole purpose, which positively forbids the winning by irresistible proof of unwilling adherents to His cause." 

Wm. Temple: "There is the Church"

This past Tuesday was not only Election Day, but also the feast day of William Temple in many Anglican Church calendars.  This is a happy coincidence, given Temple's advocacy for a truly Christian social vision (there is an excellent post over at the blog Catholicity and Covenant that contrasts the broadness of his vision with the poverty of our current political discourse).

William Temple was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1942 until his death in 1944.  A gifted teacher with an infectious laugh and an encyclopedic knowledge, he seemed to be a respected authority in nearly everything.  He was also one of the principal leaders of the early ecumenical movement, a fact for which I find him  particularly interesting.  This is because I claim the title of ecumenist as integral to my identity.  I think the same may be said of Temple. Here he is from a sermon given at the opening of the ecumenical Edinburgh Conference of 1937 on Faith and Order (which he chaired):

"But I know that our division at this point is the greatest of all scandals in the face of the world; I know that we can only consent to it or maintain it without the guilt of unfaithfulness to the unity of the Gospel and of God himself, if it is a source to us of spiritual pain, and if we are striving to the utmost to remove the occasions which now bind us, as we think, to that perpetuation of disunion."

That disunion was obviously a source of "spiritual pain" to Temple, laboring as he did to bring about greater understanding and genuine union among the various scattered branches of the Church.  In typically Anglican fashion, he viewed his own tradition as having a special vocation to this ecumenical calling.  The Anglican church has long sought to provide a via media, a middle way of being the Church which claims the best of both Protestant and Catholic tradition in a comprehensive vision.  This is difficult (as the present troubles of the global Anglican Communion readily testify), and often the Anglican way devolves into mere compromise for the sake of peace, rather than comprehensiveness for the sake of truth in all its richness.  Even in such a state, however, Temple responded to critics thus: "We have learnt from a full experience that nearly always peace is the best way to truth."  And given the vision before us (i.e. humanity in all its diversity made one in Christ's holy, catholic Church), should we not expect this way to be difficult?

I find my own ecumenism well summarized below.  In one of his essays on the subject, Temple wrote:

"The unity of the Church of God is a perpetual fact; our task is not to create it but to exhibit it.  Where Christ is in men's hearts, there is the Church; where his spirit is active, there is His Body.    The Church is not an association of men, each of whom has chosen Christ as his Lord; it is a fellowship of men, each of whom Christ has united with Himself. ... We could not seek union if we did not already possess unity.  Those who have nothing in common do not deplore their estrangement.  It is because we are one in allegiance to one Lord that we seek and hope for the way of manifesting that unity in our witness to Him before the world. ... It is not by contrivance and adjustment that we can unite the Church of God.  It is only by coming close to Him that we can come nearer to one another."

Here is wisdom.  Ours is to exhibit the unity which already exists but is hidden beneath the internal and secondary disputes which we so love to magnify.  Temple certainly did not seek to whitewash or brush aside the significant differences in practice and theology held by the various churches; his was not a "lowest common denominator" vision of the Church.  But even those differences pale in significance with the real unity we possess in Christ.  It is there; we must find ways to embrace it, for ourselves and the world.

Peace.


(Incidentally, I've so far mostly read about William Temple.  I'd like to read the man himself, but I'm not sure where to start.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.)