Book Update Archives - Page 5 of 15

August 2, 2024August 3, 2024

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….

August 1, 2024August 3, 2024

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.

July 20, 2024July 18, 2024

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

July 13, 2024July 15, 2024

God Reconciles All People Objectively and Universally

Christ’s work reconciles God and humanity. This occurs both objectively and subjectively. Moreover, since each person of the Trinity is involved, reconciliation takes on a threefold movement. This threefold movement can be summarized in the distinctive realities of atonement, justification (both objective and subjective), and election.¹ The New Testament distinguishes each aspect of reconciliation from the others, although theologians have often confused them throughout Church history.

The event of atonement constitutes the first movement of reconciliation, or redemption, as already examined in the last section. The movement of atonement proceeds from the Son to the Father. Having received all things from the Father, the Son is capable of returning himself to the Father in the power of the Spirit….

Universal Objective Justification

The second movement of reconciliation is universal and objective justification.² Universal objective justification is the Father’s response to the Son’s payment for the sin of the whole world. The Father declares the whole world forgiven on the basis of the Son’s objective atoning work. Objective atonement and objective justification are therefore distinct and should not be confused with one another: “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men” (Rom. 5:18, emphasis added). And “. . . in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them [i.e., justification]” (2 Cor. 5:19, emphasis added).

July 10, 2024July 10, 2024

Gender Wars and the Threat of Subordinationalism

In the second century, biblical teaching about the Trinity very quickly degenerated into the heresy of Subordinationism. The Subordinationist heresy held that the Son and the Spirit are inferior to the Father. Ante-Nicene Fathers held this view partially due to their over reliance on contemporary Platonic metaphysics. Middle Platonists believed that held that any act of self-communication entailed tragic degeneracy. In Middle Platonism, the world of sense was an inferior copy of the forms in the eternal divine mind. Not surprisingly, Christians influenced by Middle Platonism began claiming the Son was an inferior copy of the Father.

Confusing the Economic and Immanent Trinity

Catherine LaCugna suggests that the failure of Ante-Nicene theologians to make a clear distinction between the economic and immanent Trinity might also have contributed to the rise of Subordinationism.¹ For those unfamiliar, the “immanent Trinity” refers to God in himself apart from his missions of creation and redemption. The “economic Trinity” refers to the Trinity as God acts in time in order to redeem humanity in the economy of salvation.² In the immanent Trinity, all persons are co-equal and co-eternal. There is no subordination whatsoever. Each person fully and co-equally embodies the divine substance (Jn. 1:1, Philip. 2:6, Heb. 1:2-3).

Nevertheless, in time, the Son and the Spirit voluntarily take on missions to accomplish the Father’s bidding. Jesus speaks throughout the Gospels of his obedience to the Father and his subordination to the Father (Lk. 22:42, Jn. 4:34, 8:29, 14:31). In time, the Son and the Father also send the Spirit (Lk 24:49, Jn. 14:16).³