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CHAPTER 1
Ecce Homo
Jesus as the True Anthrōpos and the Nature/Grace Debate
WE BEGIN OUR STUDY by looking at one of the more intriguing passages for developing a christological anthropology: “When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, ‘Here is the man [idou ho anthrōpos]!’ ” (John 19:5). After Jesus’s beating at the hands of the Roman guards, he stands before Pilate once more, and Pilate declares these famous words, which translate into Latin as ecce homo. What could this possibly mean? Did Pilate merely intend to humiliate Jesus with these words, pointing out his pitiable condition? Or maybe Pilate wanted to mock the Jewish leaders, highlighting the inanity of fearing such a wretched figure. Possibly he even sought to elicit sympathy from the crowd, drawing attention to Jesus’s misery to provoke the crowd’s compassion and to prevent further punishment. Interpreters have proposed each of these as a way of understanding ecce homo, viewing the phrase as focusing on Jesus’s miserable condition.
But what if there is more? John is notorious for the subtlety of his rhetoric, often placing words in the mouth of a speaker that have both an obvious, surface meaning as well as a deeper meaning that only comes out upon a closer reading of the text. In one famous example, Caiaphas declares, “It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish” (John 11:50). This statement has a clear, prima facie meaning, one that offers a pragmatic argument for sacrificing Jesus to prevent further harm to the nation, alongside a deeper meaning about his atoning death that only seems obvious to those already familiar with the story. Is it possible that Pilate’s ecce homo is another example of unintentional witness in John? I will argue in this chapter that not only is it possible, but that if we read ecce homo in light of the broader story of the anthrōpos in John, we will see that John uses this incident to portray Jesus as the true human who comes to inaugurate the reality of the new creation. As the anthrōpos, Jesus is the one who fulfills God’s creational purposes for humanity.
However, this way of understanding ecce homo introduces us to a related theological issue. If we say that Jesus is the true telos of humanity, the eschatological end that God had in mind from the beginning, it seems to follow that we must also maintain that this telos is intrinsic to the meaning of humanity. In other words, we cannot fully understand what it means to be human until we have seen true humanity revealed in Jesus. This approach has a number of important theological supporters, yet many worry that such a view conflates what it means to be a human creature essentially (nature) with the ways in which God elevates humanity to a higher telos in Jesus (grace). Said somewhat differently, should we not maintain a distinction between the natural (the essence of what it means to be human) and the supernatural (that which comes as a gift of God’s grace)? If so, as a natural entity, we should be able to understand much of what it means to be human independently of the incarnation, even though the latter remains fundamental for understanding God’s eschatological purposes for humanity. Although this might sound rather abstract, it gets at the heart of what it means to be human. Indeed, the issue has been described, somewhat hyperbolically, as one of the two “hottest debates in theological anthropology.”1 In the second half of the chapter, then, we will need to wrestle with the issues raised by this debate and determine the best path forward.
PILATE’S UNINTENTIONAL WITNESS
As I mentioned, interpreters commonly read ecce homo as merely an ironic statement emphasizing Jesus’s pitiable condition.2 We find a similar comment in 19:14, “Behold your king!” (ESV). There as well Pilate does not seem be offering any theologically robust statement about who Jesus is or why he is significant for the rest of humanity. Instead, he uses irony to make the opposite point: Jesus’s human condition is so low and wretched that the leaders should give him no further thought. Yet, many wonder if this does justice to the full meaning of Pilate’s words. The interplay between “behold the man” (19:5) and “behold your king” (19:14) suggests that more is in view than mere mockery; otherwise the two statements become largely redundant in the narrative.3 Even the introductory “behold” suggests the need for careful reflection. The term inherently calls attention to what follows, but it has also been referred to as “the great ‘Stop-Look-Listen’ signal of the Gospels.”4 If this is the case, then “behold the man” and “behold your king” both call on the reader to pause for a moment of deep reflection about what those phrases might mean. If this is the case, then John portrays Pilate as someone who spoke the truth “accidentally,”5 and ecce homo serves to draw our attention to this deeper truth.6
The Story of the Anthrōpos
Before we explore options for understanding this deeper truth, it will help to appreciate that Pilate’s ecce homo comes as the final piece in a larger motif John has been developing throughout the gospel. Although the term anthrōpos is rather nondescript, John uses it in distinct ways. Indeed, John employs the term far more than the other Gospel authors, frequently in narratives that are particularly important for establishing the identity of Jesus.7
The first uses of anthrōpos occur in the opening chapter, where the individual identified by the term is actually John the Baptist (1:6), the anthrōpos sent from God. Yet even here we catch a glimpse of the true significance of the anthrōpos in the Gospel since John the Baptist comes as witness to the one who will bring light and life to all anthrōpōn (1:4, 9). Then, at the end of the chapter, we find Jesus declaring to Nathaniel that he will someday see the angels of God ascending and descending on the “Son of Man [anthrōpos]” (1:51). This phrase introduces another important theme in the gospels, one that raises its own complex set of issues. For our purposes, though, we can set that discussion to the side. Although many have argued that Pilate’s declaration should be understood in light of the Son of Man sayings in John,8 several scholars have offered convincing arguments to the contrary.9 Rather than seeing Pilate’s anthrōpos as an abbreviated form of “Son of Man,” these scholars rightly contend that the anthrōpos in John has its own significance, albeit one that is clearly related to the Son of Man tradition. Thus, what is important for us to recognize here is that already in the first chapter of John we have a story about a significant individual who will descend from heaven, dwell in the flesh with God’s people, bringing life and light to all anthrōpoi, and who bears the title “Son of Man.”
This story unfolds even more clearly when we turn to those uses of anthrōpos that refer directly to Jesus, many of which raise questions about his identity.10 In John 4, the Samaritan woman identifies Jesus as an anthrōpos who displayed remarkable knowledge (4:29). Although this could seem like a relatively innocuous use of the term, meant only to denote that she had spoken with “some guy,” the intent of the story is to leave the reader wondering, “Who is this anthrōpos?” John returns explicitly to that question in the story of the man healed at the Pool of Bethesda. After being healed, the Pharisees interrogate him, wanting to know, “Who is this anthrōpos . . . ?” (5:12). Then, while the people are debating his identity, the Pharisees challenge the officers for failing to arrest him, to which they responded, “No one ever spoke like this anthrōpos” (7:46 ESV). Shortly thereafter, Jesus declares that he is the anthrōpos who brings truth from God (8:40). In each instance, John uses anthrōpos in the context of questions about his identity while also continuing to associate him with the “light” and “life” he brings into the world.
These themes develop further in the later chapters of John. In front of the Pharisees, the man born blind declares that Jesus is the anthrōpos who restored his sight (9:11), which leads to a debate about whether this anthrōpos is really from God and whether it is possible for a sinful anthrōpos to perform such miraculous signs (9:16). The Pharisees challenge the man born blind, demanding that he declare this anthrōpos to be a sinner (9:24), and the story escalates in the following chapter with the Jewish leaders threatening to stone Jesus for being an anthrōpos who claimed to be God, again raising the question of Jesus’s identity with respect to the Father (10:33). All of this leads to the famous conclusion of chapter eleven, in which the Jewish leaders determine that this anthrōpos who has performed so many miraculous signs (11:47) needs to die in order that the whole nation might survive (11:50; see also 18:14). These latter verses are particularly important for our purposes since they also involve anthrōpos in a statement that functions as an unintentional witness to a greater theological truth.
This brings us to the climactic conclusion of John’s story of the anthrōpos. Throughout the gospel, John’s readers have wrestled alongside the people and their leaders to discern the identity of this anthrōpos who brings light and life to God’s people. Finally, the Jewish leaders hand him over to Pilate, and he demands to know the accusations they have against this anthrōpos (18:29). Then, after Pilate makes several attempts to dodge the situation, he finally brings Jesus back before the Jewish leaders and utters the final anthrōpos in the gospel: “Behold the anthrōpos.” Ecce homo.
The Anthrōpos as the New Adam
Given both this prolonged emphasis on the anthrōpos in John and indications in the text itself that suggest the phrase denotes more than it appears on the surface, scholars have proposed a number of different ways to understand the underlying meaning that John wants his readers to take away from this passage, the most common of which are these:
- It is an abbreviation of Son of Man, and should be understood in light of that tradition in John and the rest of the Gospels.11
- It presents Jesus as a particular instance of broader Hellenistic myths about a heavenly or primordial man who descends from heaven into the lower reaches of the world.12
- It points to Jesus’s full humanity in a context that emphasizes his deity and thus the phrase is an indirect witness to the hypostatic union itself.13
- It is an intratextual reference to some OT text which provides the appropriate background for understanding the reference.
The first three options have drawbacks. I have already mentioned some important criticisms of the Son of Man option. Although John refers to the Son of Man throughout the gospel, he does not use anthrōpos as shorthand for that concept elsewhere.14 It thus seems unlikely that John would expect his readers to discern an appeal to the Son of Man tradition on the basis of this word alone. The second option, which involves seeing Jesus as the heavenly/primordial anthrōpos, might be viewed as conducive to the argument of this book since it would potentially present Jesus as the paradigm of true humanity. Yet Schnackenburg rightly points out that nothing in the context suggests that John has such Hellenistic myths in mind.15 And although John clearly places a high value on the importance of the incarnation, Raymond Bro...
