Science claims to be investigating the material world, and to be leaving human events out of consideration. But in my opinion when one studies human events, and in particular theology which is the study of human religious events, it is still true that an interpretation is only a description. If it is objected that theology is the study of the Divine, I venture to suggest that studying the Inscrutable, as opposed to His works, is not likely to get very far. The early Church, and indeed Bishop Gore in the 19th Century, may have thought the Creeds were immortal truth. But I think it is nearer the truth to say they were codifications of the general experience of Christians at the time they were drafted. And experience changes, even if the Church refuses to modify its dogma. So my opinion is that any interpretation of the Passion is merely an interpretation, and one person may find one description more helpful, and another person may find another. And a Church is unwise, in these days of falling attendance, to turn away potential believers because they see things slightly differently from lovers of tradition, like myself. But it is not sensible to deny the crucifixion ever took place.
Or could it be that the supreme truth for us is that Jesus’ greatest achievement lay not so much in what he did, as in what he was; that in him man’s evolution reached its culmination, because he set our spirits free? That in his three brief years of Ministry and one week of Triumph and Passion, all the countless ages of Evolution reached their fulfilment? He himself knew nothing of evolution, and would never have described the significance of his life in that way; he described it in terms of fulfilling the Law and the Prophets, which meant that his thought was largely confined to the relatively parochial thought of the Jewish nation at that time. Hence his mistaken notion that he would be returning soon. So if evolution culminated in him, he was unaware of being its culmination. But it is not so for us, and may be a better description than fulfilling the Law and the Prophets; inasmuch as evolution takes in its stride the clash of Empires which are themselves relatively parochial in comparison with it. And after all, Canon Raven, regius professor of Divinity at Cambridge, said much the same thing in his Riddell Lecture to Durham University in 1936: that Christ fulfilled Evolution. There is no disrespect in saying Jesus was unaware of his greatest achievement; most of us are in the same position. The good we do is largely by example; and few of us ever know the influence our example has exerted on others. Nor does it belittle him to say that History since has been the working out of that achievement. It even makes sense of the European wars of the 20th century, and shows us in proportion the limited relevance of other religions. Even better it gives hope for the future, inasmuch as the Divine purposes are unlikely to be thwarted by the dying screams of bigotry and ignorance. This is not to say it is the Creator’s preferred description, because His ways are higher than ours. But it is enough for us that there is a grander conception in the design than we can conceive, which makes it highly improbable that His will could be so thwarted, provided we all do our duty. We might even hear less from the clergy of the C.of E. of what Jesus said and did 2000 years ago in the different social conditions that then pertained.
Note:- Gamaliel’s speech is much abbreviated and paraphrased.