Speech Acts and Jesus

Meditating on the Word made flesh

“Speech act” is a phrase used to describe and differentiate the various ways we use language. A bread-and-butter speech act is an assertion, such as “the tree fell down.” This is how we typically convey information to one another. By contrast, a question does not convey information, it seeks information. For example, you may ask “did the tree fall down?” Questions and assertions are different kinds of speech acts. Commands are different yet: “cut down the tree” doesn't make an assertion or ask a question; it commands an action.

Sometimes the very act of speaking accomplishes something, not by asserting or questioning or commanding, but merely by being uttered under a certain set of conditions. For example, the phrase written in a will - “I give and bequeath my 2002 Ford F-150 to my daughter” - is not an assertion, or a question, or a command. The phrase itself has the effect of making the gift of the truck to my daughter, under the circumstances of my death and the execution of my will. This type of speech act is called a “performative.”

The first act of God’s creation involves a speech act: “And God said, “Let there be light; and there was light.” Genesis 1:3 (RSV-CE). The Hebrew is even more striking: “God said ‘Light!’ and there was light.” God chose to create everything by speaking.

What type of speech act was God’s utterance, “Light!” in Genesis 1? It was not an assertion: God was not conveying information to Himself, that such-and-such is true. Nor was He commanding Himself to do something. He certainly wasn’t asking Himself a question. Instead, He was uttering a performative, a special performative that created light where there was nothing.

It is significant that in God’s creative activity His word preceded and caused reality to come into being. In our case we take reality as given, and talk about it. We assert that some pre-existing fact is so, or ask whether it is so, or command some other actor to make it so. Performatives are unusual speech acts, for us, and when we do speak them they deal in concepts, like a switch in ownership of the Ford truck in the example above. We don’t have the power to speak a piece of cheese or a block of wood into existence, much less the entire universe.

It is fascinating that Jesus is called the “Word” of God, in the gospel of John, evoking the creative word of God in the first chapter of Genesis:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” John 1:1-3. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1.

Jesus is God’s chosen means of communication with mankind. After explaining that the Word was God, and was with God in the beginning, and that God created everything through the Word, John explains that the Word was made flesh. John 1:1-3, 14. Given the explicit link in John 1 between Jesus and the creative word of God in Genesis 1, you might wonder whether Jesus ever spoke in the same performative way that God spoke in Genesis 1.

At least one statement Jesus made leaps to mind: “And He took bread, and when He had given thanks He broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘this is My body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.’ And likewise the chalice after supper, saying, ‘this chalice which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.’” Luke 22:19-20. The Apostle Paul explains that “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” 1 Corinthians 10:16.

Jesus’ statement is a performative: by the utterance of His words He makes the bread His body and the wine His blood. He creates a new reality by speaking it into existence, just as the Father did during the six days of creation. And by saying “Do this in remembrance of Me” He was not just commanding His apostles to do something well within their power as human beings: eating bread, drinking wine, and remembering their last supper with Jesus. The word “this” in the phrase “do this” referred to the totality of what Jesus did by His words at the last supper: miraculously converting bread into His body and wine into His blood of the new covenant. He was filling His apostles with the power to “do this” - a miracle. Christ’s utterance, “do this,” was both a command and a performative. It made possible the act it commanded.

When Jesus said “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” Matthew 5:3, He was not just reporting on a set of facts, by means of a simple assertion. He also was uttering a performative, causing a new state of affairs to come into being. Jesus was uttering words in His creative capacity as God, words that change the order of the universe and declare a new reality. The Beatitudes, taken as simple assertions, contradict our understanding of ordinary reality. Those who mourn are not “blessed,” in our ordinary experience. Those who are persecuted are not counted as “blessed,” either. Matthew 5:4, 10. The Beatitudes function as more than confounding assertions. They also function as performatives that create the state of blessedness they declare. The poor in spirit are blessed because Christ declared them blessed, and His word accomplishes its purpose.

Jesus’ name means “God saves.” In a sense, Jesus is the ultimate performative, God’s ultimate speech act. God uttered the name of Jesus, “God saves,” and it is not just a report of facts by way of an assertion. The Word of God creates the reality He Himself declares. His name has the power to save us. John 3:17-18.