More from Lohfink
Here’s the next section of Lohfink’s chapter on the Synoptic Problem:
III: The Bible: God’s Word in Human Words
Why the humanity of God’s word? There is a simple answer to this question, and, in fact, [it is] out of the center of our Christian religion: The Word of God is thus human, so our history is arrested with humanity, because God himself became human. We contemplate, what that means. God is not a spectator, staying at the godly tribune, distant from the dirt and blood of the human arena. God has not called out well-meaning words to us from above. He has not pulled the strings of history from above like a performer, making his puppets to dance on skinny strings while leaving himself out of the drama. Rather: God has entered into the darkness, narrowness, and limitations of our history, to become one of us.
He has spoken his divine word. Yet, this word was not merely like our words are. Instead, this Word was his only son. And this Son is not a stand-in, for this God must suffer, but the Son is God himself. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That’s how [lit. “thusly”] John’s Gospel begins. A littler later it then says: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt [made a habitat] among us.”
The Evangelist knew [had known], that one can understand this most sacred of all mysteries. Perhaps it is only as if God has done this? Perhaps he is only playing a form of Divine Theater? ––No! And so it is indeed correctly understood, in describing the Incarnation, he intentionally used a difficult expression. He did not say: “And the word became human,” rather, to be very clear: “The Word became Flesh.”
