Author: Jack Kilcrease

Jack Kilcrease is a Lutheran lay theologian and member of Our Savior Lutheran Church (LCMS). He is currently a member of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod’s Commission on Theology and Church Relations. Jack was born in Texas, but grew up in Oregon. He went on to receive a B.A. from Luther College and an M.A. from Luther Seminary. He earned his Ph.D. in Systematic Theology and Ethics from Marquette University in 2009. Jack’s theological work explores the gift of God’s self-donation in Jesus Christ. He is the author of several books including the most recent volume of the Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics series on Holy Scripture and the forthcoming Justification by the Word (Lexham Press). Jack is currently Associate Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at the Institute of Lutheran Theology’s Christ School of Theology. He is also an Assistant Adjunct Professor teaching philosophy at Aquinas College. Jack lives in beautiful West Michigan with his lovely wife, Bethany, and his two energetic daughters, Miriam and Ruth. When he’s not thinking about theology—and even when he is—Jack enjoys running, hiking, and hanging out with his family and cat. He’s passionate about BBQ, whiskey, jazz, movies, and theological discussion.
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The Son of God’s Incarnational Epic

The Incarnational Arc of Creation

Even in the midst of judging the old creation and its mangled narrative, God begins anew. He speaks forth a new narrative of creation through his gospel promise (Gen. 3:15). God’s promise is effective speech; creation gains its identity from its story. Thus, in order to redeem creation, God had to speak forth a new story. The historical narrative of redemption culminated in Christ’s recapitulation of the old creation (Rom. 5; 1 Cor. 15) and its transcendence in the resurrection. 

Every act of human rebellion within the biblical narrative meets with both an act of judgment and an act of grace. God’s possibilities are not exhausted by those established in his protological order and law. These are hardwired into creation as an expression of the eternal divine will, but they do not exhaust the divine will. God is not merely the necessary being of the philosophers, but as Eberhart Jüngel puts it, God is the “more than necessary being.”1 

The new creation does not negate the old creation, but envelops it, and incorporates it into itself. The new creation’s incorporation of the old creation into itself is analogous to the eternal Son’s incorporation (enhypostasis) of an impersonal human nature into his center of identity (anhypostasis). In this way, the tragic narrative of the Fall becomes a subplot in the comic story of redemption.

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The Eucharistic Miracle of Christ’s Substantial Body and Blood Given For Us

The Augsburg Confession affirms the ancient and medieval consensus of the Catholic Church that Christ’s flesh and blood are substantially present in the Eucharist: “Of the Supper of the Lord they teach that the Body and Blood of Christ are truly present, and are distributed to those who eat the Supper of the Lord; and they reject those that teach otherwise.” This affirmation of the substantial presence of Christ’s flesh and blood in the Lord’s Supper was integral to the Lutheran Reformation from the beginning. 

In On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Luther is critical of the practice of communion in one kind (i.e., the pre-Vatican II practice of withholding the cup from the laity), transubstantiation, and the the Mass as a sacrifice for the living and the dead. Nevertheless, unlike most of the other reformers, Luther is quite clear that there is a Real Presence based on his canonical, catholic, and evangelical principle. This real substantial presence was the overwhelming catholic consensus of the ancient Church from its inception….

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The New Heavens and the New Earth: The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

The resurrected people of God will dwell in the New Heaven and New Earth. Contrary to popular Christian piety, the Bible does not envision humans floating away from the temporal order to an immaterial and disembodied heaven. Rather, Revelation describes the New Jerusalem as coming down from heaven (Rev. 21:2). The presence of God fills all creation as a cosmic Temple paralleling the way the Lord had earlier filled the Tabernacle/Temple. St. John records that the New Jerusalem, which will be like an arboreal Temple (i.e., a new Eden), will have no Temple. Rather, God and the Lamb will be its Temple (Rev. 21:22).1  

Heaven is the Direct Presence of God

In this sense, it is not so much that humans leave earth for heaven, but that heaven and earth merge. Heaven is not a separate ontological realm, or physical created space. Instead, it is simply the unmediated presence of God. Daniel describes the ascension of the Son of Man as movement into the presence of the Ancient of Days (Daniel 7). Hebrews reinforces this point by noting that Jesus’s ascension into heaven is one into the presence of God (Hebrew 9:24). In the same epistle, the author reminds readers that heaven “is not a part of this creation” (Heb. 9:11). In other words, heaven is God’s direct and unmediated presence; it is not a distinct created realm.    

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The New Heavens and the New Earth: Annihilation or Renewal?

As St. Paul shows in 1 Corinthians 15, the risen Christ is the prototype for the new humanity. He exemplifies the “spiritual body” (soma pneumatikon)1 that believers will enjoy after their resurrection and judgment in the new heavens and the new earth. What God has prepared for the redeemed transcends human comprehension (1 Cor. 2:9). Therefore. for the most part, we must take the Bible’s descriptions of life in the redeemed state as metaphorical or analogical language. 

Nevertheless, with regard to the resurrected body, we have a concrete example of what it will be like in the person of Jesus. Following the resurrection, Jesus displayed his glorified body and its capacities to the disciples, who then recorded these encounters in the Gospels. These accounts show that although the glorified body will remain physical, it will be mysteriously physical. Resurrected bodies will transcend the normal limitations of earthly bodies (1 Cor. 15:49). 

Annihilationism?

Since the time of Luther, Lutheran theologians have disagreed about the nature continuity between the old and new creations. Some believed the new heavens and new earth would be the result of the destruction of the old creation and its replacement by a new creation. Others believed renewal of the original creation would form the new heavens and new earth would be. 

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God’s Humbling Hiddenness and Revelation by Faith

Luther will guide our biblical explication of the God of the Gospel as both hidden and revealed.  As we observed in an earlier section, both the pre-modern Greek and Latin theological traditions relied on a dialectic of “negation” (apophatic theology, via negativa) and affirmation (kataphatic theology, via positiva).  Lowell Green has noted that Luther in his doctrine of God also relies on a form of affirmation and negation, albeit a radically different one.1  Luther’s affirmation is God hidden (negation) and God revealed (affirmation).  As we will also see, one could also add God’s appearance under the law as negation, and gospel as affirmation.  

It should be recognized that Luther’s concept of divine hiddenness is not just a matter of affirming that God is incomprehensible.  Of course, all orthodox Christian theologians have claimed this one way or another. Rather, following the biblical data (Isa. 45:15), Luther is clear that God actively hides from his people.2  Why and how this is the case is something we will explore below. 

Luther on Divine Hiddenness

How Luther talks about divine hiddenness is quite complicated because he applies the principle differently in different contexts.  The British historian of Christian doctrine B.A. Gerrish has thematized these disparate statements of Luther into two kinds of hiddenness: Hiddenness 1, where God is hidden in his revelation, notably in Christ.  Hiddenness 2, where God is hidden above and apart from revelation.3

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