The fracture between the Jesus of history and the Jesus revealed constitutes one of the most underappreciated fault lines in contemporary Christian consciousness. While the former is extrapolated through historical-critical methodology, the latter is encountered through divine revelation—a rupture that delineates intellectual apprehension from spiritual awakening. This epistemic tension has not only destabilized individual faith journeys but catalyzed mass defections from Christianity, often under the guise of superficial grievances: ecclesiastical misconduct, doctrinal dissonance, or socio-economic entitlements.
The Jesus of history, situated within first-century Palestine, is a composite reconstructed by textual critics and liberal theologians—perceived as a moralist, revolutionary, or apocalyptic prophet. His presence is domesticated within the framework of historical plausibility. But this limited hermeneutic strips Christ of His divinity, reducing Him to an ethical relic. As Albert Schweitzer warns, “He comes to us as one unknown,” a projection of academic aspiration, not a revelation of divine agency.
In contrast, the Jesus revealed is not accessible through empirical inquiry alone; He is disclosed by the Spirit, understood through the Cross. He is not a passive subject of intellectual fascination but the crucified and risen Redeemer, “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). The Cross is not merely a tragic endpoint in Jesus’ biography—it is the fulcrum of cosmic reconciliation. In the words of John Stott, “Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the Cross.” This Jesus—the Crucified Christ—is the epicenter of Christian revelation, not an accessory to it.
The refusal or inability to discern this Christ has triggered a theological vacuum. Many now abandon Christianity not out of substantive theological disagreement, but due to trivial provocations—tithing debates, clerical scandals, or interfaith humanitarian gestures. One woman, disturbingly, cited free water distribution by a non-Christian sect as her reason for renouncing Christ. Such reasoning reveals not apostasy, but epistemic malnutrition—a Christianity informed by headlines, not revelation.
This absence of revelatory grounding has dire consequences. Even clergy—those anointed to dispense spiritual clarity—have capitulated to despair, some tragically taking their own lives or committing acts of domestic violence. These are not isolated moral failures but symptoms of a deeper theological anemia. As Apostle Paul prayed in Ephesians 1:18, “That the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, that you may know the hope to which He has called you.” Without that enlightenment, despair metastasizes, and ministry becomes a mechanical routine devoid of divine encounter.
Even within ecclesiastical circles, the erosion of revelatory clarity has become palpably disturbing. In a recent and unsettling development, a Roman Catholic priest, formerly ordained in the apostolic succession, renounced Christianity and declared allegiance to traditional idolatry. His justification? A Ph.D. dissertation on indigenous rainmaking rituals led him to conclude that ancestral spiritualities were not only effective but ontologically superior to the Christocentric worldview he once professed.
This intellectual defection is symptomatic of a deeper malaise—the elevation of phenomenological observation over revelatory truth. The priest’s academic expedition into rain invocation practices, rather than enriching his theological imagination, dislodged his Christological foundation. What should have been a comparative engagement with cultural cosmologies became a tragic capitulation to spiritual relativism. His conversion was not an enlightened embrace of heritage, but a regression into metaphysical opacity.
This event is not an isolated anomaly but a cautionary tale. It reveals how academic inquiry, when decoupled from the Cross, can morph into epistemological idolatry. As Karl Barth once warned, “Theology divorced from doxology becomes demonic.” That is, when theological study becomes an end in itself rather than a conduit for divine encounter, it ceases to edify and begins to erode. The crucified Jesus—offensive to the intellect, but salvific to the soul—was eclipsed in favor of ritual efficacy and ancestral symbolism.
This regression also underscores the modern Church’s failure to disciple its intellectual class. When revelation is not deeply internalized, even priests with the most sophisticated liturgical formation become vulnerable to spiritual disorientation. Academic degrees become Trojan horses for syncretism, and pulpits become altars of confusion. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:22).
The priest’s story is a microcosm of a broader trend: an epistemological drift where historicity, tradition, and research supplant revelation, conviction, and the crucified Christ. It is not an intellectual enlightenment but a spiritual eclipse—a departure not just from doctrine, but from the living God.
The crucified Jesus, therefore, is not an elective doctrine—it is the ontological core of the faith. “We preach Christ crucified,” Paul declared in 1 Corinthians 1:23, “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” It is precisely this stumbling block that must be recovered. The Cross is not an optional symbol; it is the site of divine self-disclosure. It offends because it dismantles human pride and reconfigures power as self-giving love.
Contemporary Christianity, particularly in the Global South, is at an epistemological transition point. Its crisis is not cultural or political—it is Christological. Who do we say Jesus is? A historical moralist or the slain Lamb? The answer predicates everything else. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer contends, “A Christology without the crucified Christ is a mythology.” The historical Jesus may elicit admiration, but only the crucified Jesus redeems.
To conflate historical Jesus studies with divine revelation is to substitute facticity for faith. It is to anchor Christianity in archaeological data rather than existential transformation. But the soul does not hunger for data—it hungers for holy spirit-filled deliverance. It is not the carpenter of Galilee that saves, but the crucified and risen One who reigns in glory. “I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore” (Revelation 1:18).
We must, therefore, return to the Cross—not as a theological relic but as a living altar. The Church must re-preach the crucified Christ in all pulpits, for it is there that the veil is torn, the heart awakened, and the sinner transformed. This is not merely doctrine—it is revelation. And until that revelation breaks in upon the soul, Christianity remains a religion among others, not the living faith that it is.
In the end, the crucified Jesus is not simply the culmination of divine disclosure—He is the hermeneutic key to all of history. Without Him, we merely moralize. With Him, we are made new.
This constitutes an epochal juncture for a transformative spiritual encounter. Should you not yet have submitted the totality of your being to the Lordship of Jesus Christ—the crucified Messiah, the resurrected Logos, and the imminently returning Sovereign—tarry no further. He beckons not unto mere religious formalism, but to an ontological union with His personhood. Acknowledge your transgressions, assent in your innermost convictions that He vicariously suffered death and triumphed over the grave for your redemption, and consciously enthrone Him as Saviour and Sovereign over your life.
We emphatically exhort you to affiliate with a doctrinally sound, Spirit-animated ecclesial community where the crucified and glorified Christ is heralded with theological precision and prophetic urgency. Should your residence be proximate to Kogi State, Nigeria, we commend to you Later Glory Kingdom Assembly, Idah—a citadel of truth wherein the unalloyed gospel is proclaimed, the manifest presence of Christ is palpable, and believers are rigorously discipled in the mysteries of divine revelation.
The kairos is upon you. The crucified Christ, eternal in majesty and mercy, awaits your volitional assent.
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
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