Question: From
the Gospel today why does Jesus appear to deny His divinity? "Why
do you call me good... No-one is good but God alone" (Mark
10:17-27).
Answer: Thank
you very much for your question. This is an fundamental question
which puzzles all who find passages from the Gospel where Jesus tries
to keep quiet about his divinity. It became even a “locus
theologicus” and has a name: “the Messianic secret”.
In
the Gospel, Jesus commands silence in many instances. An example is
Mark 8:29–30: "And he asked them, But who say ye that I am?
Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ. And he
charged them that they should tell no man of him." Jesus also
issues commands of silence after miracles and healings, e.g. in Mark
1:43–45 in the cleansing of a leper: "After sternly warning
him he sent him away at once, saying to him, 'See that you say
nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for
your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.'"
We could include parables and secrets of the Kingdom of God as in
Mark 4:11: "And he said unto them, Unto you is given the mystery
of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all things are
done in parables."
First
there is a difference between denying and not saying or hiding. He is
not denying (that would be lying) but he is acting progressively
(pedagogically). Jesus' intention is pedagogical. In order to
understand how God worked in the History of our Salvation (think of
the Old Testament) and in order to understand how Jesus worked we
should think of an aspect that Blessed John Henry Newman deepened and
presented to us: “development” and “envelopment” as a Divine
pedagogy. God never starts by saying things directly, and clearly,
because we don't have the capacity to receive things as holy as they
are. So he starts by enveloping himself and the deeper truths about
him. Exactly like we do with Children: we tell them things in a
certain way when they are young and the more they grow, the more they
are capable of understanding and bearing what we have to say, so we
open wider the veil, increase information, until they are capable of
handling the naked reality/truth (the process of development).
Jesus'
divinity is not a light matter to be played with or a subject of
debate or arguments. It is the most sacred part of God himself and it
is not offered up to be ridiculed. It should be handled with great
care and respect. It should be handled with purity.
For
the pure and the prepared, God reveals Himself as he is. But in order
to reach that purity and holiness, we need to be purified through a
journey of growth.
This
is why saint John built his Gospel as a journey of purification
through the 6 signs he offers us (chapters 1 to 11), until we reach
the Cross (18-19), and are enable to “enter” into Jesus' Opened
Side.
God
doesn't give his pearls to the swine. And he advises us not to do so.
Objection:
Should we consider a beginner as a “swine”, an impure person to
whom we should hide the knowledge that Jesus is God and the necessity
to believe in that from day one ?
Answer:
Not really, because experiencing his divinity is the first goal in
spiritual life and one needs to know it from day one, even if it is
not experienced yet. One embarks in the journey. It is more for
people who are not opened to receive Faith. (Faith is a Grace)
If
we read carefully saint John's Gospel we will notice various aspects
arround Jesus' Divinity.
-
First we can see that that there are two ways to reach the
Discovery of Jesus's divinity: the first way is to start through
baptism by the mere initial baptismal belief (the Creed), and, at the
end of the Journey, to reach Jesus divinity, by becoming united to
him. Saint John of the Cross describes the grace of the Spiritual
Engagement as a powerful glimpse of Jesus' divinity. St Theresa of
Avila says that in the 7th Mansion, we see what we
believed in while within the previous mansions...
The
Gospel of St John starts with one of the First apostles' affirmation:
Rabbi you are the Son of God (John 1:50-51), and finishes with that
amazing affirmation of St Thomas who was allowed into Jesus' side:
“my Lord and my God” (John 20:28).
- Second:
one can see throughout St John's Gospel that on the journey of
purification (the 6 signs), at each stage people respond to Jesus in
different ways. You have the ones who believe, but you have as well
the ones who don't, who react very humanly, who struggle. This is
intentional in John's mind: he shows the journey of purification, the
struggles, the obstacles to reach that experience of Jesus' Divinity
that he calls: Faith. Faith for him is entering in Jesus, being
transformed in Him, and therefore being able to receive the Holy
Spirit, God's Life (see John 20:30-31).
We
see then the necessity of a journey of purification. We can translate
these following words of Jesus “blessed the pure, they will see
God” (Mt 5) into a more precise statement: “Blessed whoever will
get his heart purified because he/she will See God.” or “your
duty is to become purified in order to see God”. This is why the
Masters of Spiritual life from the very beginning of their teaching
stated that the goal of the monk is to realise his purification (see
Conferences, John Cassian). Let us finally remember as well
that the journey of transformation/purification makes us similar to
God, to Jesus. This is why and how we will be able to see him “as
he is” (1 John 3:2).
Conclusion:
we can't say that the Lord denies his own divinity, but he uses the
divine pedagogy, i.e. he works progressively with whoever is ready
and to the others, he speaks in symbols (parables), fulfilling the
golden rule: not to give pearls to the swine.
In
that passage mentioned in your question, Jesus starts with the
understanding of God as he appears in God's Revelation to Moses.
Notice that Jesus' answer will proceed progressively: he will
question him about his observation of Moses' Law first. Only after
his positive answer will he dare add perfection, the Perfection he is
bringing to the Law. He acted pedagogically.
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