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.
Posted on

Christ: Your Mediating and Conquering King

As we noted in the last section, there is a taxis to the offices of Christ that express the taxis of the Trinity. Christ’s kingly office1 comes first and enables his priestly work. As the prototype of Christian freedom, Christ possesses all as king. Therefore, he is capable of giving all as priest. As heir of God’s promise of eternal kingship to David (2 Sam 7; Ps 2, 89, 110), Jesus is the true Davidic king (Matt 1:1, 9:27, 15:22, 20:30, 20:31, 21:9, 21:15; Luke 1:32, 1:69; Rom 1:3; Rev 3:7, 5:5, 22:16.). As the king of all creation, Christ is the restorer of humanity’s place within the original creation. In this, he also fulfills the Abrahamic testament and its promise of universal blessing for all humanity (Gen. 22:15-18).2 

The True Son of David

As a descendent of David, Jesus is the true inheritor of the promise of the Davidic testament. Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies make Jesus’s literal descent clear. Hence, the affirmation that Jesus is actually David’s descendent is essential to the confession of the Christian faith….

Continue reading “Christ: Your Mediating and Conquering King”
Posted on

Christ’s Offices and the Foundational Nature of Substitutionary Atonement

Christ’s work of atonement and reconciliation is threefold because His offices of king, priest, and prophet are threefold.  In his work Christus Victor, Swedish Lutheran theologian Gustaf Aulén famously outlined three major atonement motifs: Conquest, Substitution, and Moral Influence.1 The conquest, or Christus Victor, motif deals with Christ’s conquest of demonic forces (sin, death, and the Devil).2 The substitution motif deals with Christ’s payment for sins (whatever form that may take) in the place of fallen humanity.3 Finally, moral influence theories of the atonement deal with Christ being a good example or making a transformative existential gesture to humanity.4 

Throughout the history of Christian thought, theologians have often chosen one motif and excluded the others. Therefore, we should recognize that all three motifs have a valid basis in the New Testament. Moreover, each motif corresponds to an office of Christ: as king, Christ wages the Father’s apocalyptic war; as priest, Christ atones for sin; as prophet, Christ reveals the testament of the gospel to humanity, and gives humanity the Spirit. The Spirit, in turn, helps believers follow the moral example of faith and self-sacrificial love Jesus revealed on the cross.

Continue reading “Christ’s Offices and the Foundational Nature of Substitutionary Atonement”
Posted on

Eternal Election Through Temporal Word and Sacrament Ministry

Throwback Post

The divine power and sacramentality of the word of justification raises the issue of predestination. We will discuss this question in greater detail on the basis of Luther’s answer in The Bondage of the Will (1525) in a future chapter. Here it is important briefly to note how Luther deals with the issue in light of his doctrine of the sacramentality of the gospel.  

Although Luther comments on predestination somewhat infrequently, he does have a clear doctrine of predestination derived from engagement with St. Paul and St. Augustine of Hippo.1 Nevertheless, unlike Augustine, Luther describes election as executed by God in and through the preaching of the promise in Christ. In a passage in “A Sermon on Preparing for Dying” (1519) Luther writes:

Therefore fix your eyes upon the heavenly picture of Christ, who for your sake went to hell and was rejected by God as one damned to the eternal perdition, as He cried on the cross, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” Behold, in that picture your hell is overcome and your election assured, so that if you but take care and believe that it happened for you, you will certainly be saved in that faith.2

Continue reading “Eternal Election Through Temporal Word and Sacrament Ministry”
Posted on

Mystical Union by Faith: Vows Before Consummation

Throwback Post

According to Martin Luther, the believer receives all that is Christ’s , through faith in the word: “The one who has faith is a completely divine man, a son of God, the inheritor of the universe. He is victor over the world, sin, death, and the Devil.”1 The scholastics claimed that the habitus of love makes faith living. But Luther argued this was incorrect. Love is not the “form” (in the Aristotelian sense) of faith. Christ is.2 Faith holds Christ like a ring holds onto a jewel.3 

In other words, because faith takes its reality from Christ and his alien righteousness, it lives on and subjectively justifies the sinner. As Lutheran theologian Regin Prenter observed: “Faith lives completely and alone by the real presence of Christ. To the same extent that Christ is really present, faith is really present, and only to that extent.”4 Moreover, to use the terminology of later Protestantism, Luther believed the Word of God and the saving faith it creates did not simply justify believers. It sanctifies them as well. Here the Reformer echoed Jeremiah’s description of the Holy Spirit working through the proclamation of the New Covenant to write the commandments on the hearts of believers (Jer. 31:33). 

Luther’s Use of Aristotle

Luther clearly rejected the medieval Church’s belief that habits implanted in the soul sanctified the Christian. However, interestingly, he did not totally abandon the language of formation taken from Peripatetic philosophy. Nevertheless, instead of using Aristotle’s concept of ethical formation through habits (i.e., augmentation of human agency and right performance), Luther used Aristotelian epistemology’s concept of objects of consciousness imposing their form on the knower’s intellect.  

Continue reading “Mystical Union by Faith: Vows Before Consummation”
Posted on

Marriage and Sexuality: The Estate of the Family

In his Genesis Commentary, Martin Luther recognizes that there are three great estates: the family, the Church, and the state.1 God established each of these estates to channel creational goods to his creatures. Luther terms these primal and universal institutions of human life the “three estates” (status, ordines, regimina, stände). Later Lutherans, following the early-nineteenth century theologian Adolf von Harless, began calling them the “Orders of Creation” (schöpfungsordnung).2 Other modern theologians, however, divided the estates somewhat differently. When economic production split from the home during the industrial revolution, many Lutherans (including Dietrich Bonhoeffer) designated the “economy” as its own separate order.3  

For Luther, the most primal Order of Creation is the Church, since it began when God gave Adam the Word before he had created Eve.4 This being said, it could be argued that there is no real estate of the Church until Adam could preach to Eve. For this reason, we will begin with the Order of the Family.5 The discussion below will provide an opportunity to flesh out many of the issues regarding the theology of gender as well as marriage and the family.

The Purpose of Marriage

In Eden, God established marriage for the propagation of the human race in order to fulfill the mandate of creation. Bearing and raising children was part of primal humans’ priestly calling. As John Walton notes, the first couple would be able to cultivate more and more land as they had more children. Eventually, the first family could have expanded the Garden until the garden-temple enveloped the whole of creation.6  

Continue reading “Marriage and Sexuality: The Estate of the Family”