Discipleship and Belief in Jesus as Lord from Jesus to the Hellenistic Church

Abstract

The Church to which we are permitted to proclaim the Gospel is no longer the Palestinian Church of the time of Jesus, for whom the real goal of life was to pass safely through the judgement of God. Neither is the Church any longer that of the time of Luther, weighed down by its consciousness of sin and the medieval fear of judgement. Today the message of forgiveness of sins answers a question which, to a large extent, has disappeared from the consciousness of modern man. The modern world is, however, similar in many ways to the Hellenistic world into which the Christian message entered with the proclamation of Paul. The unity of heaven and earth, as it had been perceived in the classic period, is destroyed for the Hellenistic man. The world for him is controlled by powers and forces to which he has been handed over helpless. Ananke or Heimarmene (Fate or Destiny) determines everything and the action of the individual is incapable of altering their established course. The ever-repeated movement of the heavenly bodies, once conceived as the expression of divine harmony, awakens now the concept of a giant machine which mercilessly completes its revolution, deaf to the cries of men. Of course, the Stoic seeks to flee back into the old harmony between God and the world and for that reason declares the whole world to be his polis. But even he knows that everything in this polis is determined by the great powers, their mighty armies, and their modern weapons and no longer by his individual decision. Thus the desires and longings of the Hellenistic man are concentrated upon liberation from the demonic powers of this world and upon participation in the upper, godly world.