“... that He [Jesus Christ]
might come to have first place in everything.”
—Colossians 1:18b
THE PRIMACY OF CHRIST
SUMMARIZING A CHRIST-CENTERED THEOLOGY
By David R. Leigh, M.A.
Outline
Prolegomena
God-in-Christ-ology
Grace
Jealousy
Aseity
Omnipotence
Infinity
Personality
Immutability
Omniscience
The Trinity
Revelation Today
God’s
Saving Action in Christ
Election
Atonement
Justification
Salvation
Sanctification
Glorification
The Spirit of Christ is God (Pneumatology)
Christ-in-Ecclesi-ology
The
Christ and the World
Anthropology
Harmartiology
Eschatology
Glossary
Endnotes
Prolegomena
Systematic theologies usually share some variation on
a common outline: Theology (the doctrine of God), Anthropology (the doctrine of
humanity), Harmartiology (the doctrine of sin),
Christology (the doctrine of Christ’s Person), Soteriology
(the doctrine of Salvation), Pneumatology (the
doctrine of the Holy Spirit), Ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church), Eschatology (the doctrine of the end times or last
things).
This kind of outline and approach comes to us via the
Catholic and Protestant Scholastics, who faithfully endeavored to crystallize
the teachings of their predecessors.
With little variation, this agenda also typifies most major works of
Christian theology since the Scholastic movements, regardless of how
conservative or progressive.
Ironically, even those who rightly profess to be
“non-creedal” seem unable to shake off the common addiction to these fossilized
Scholastic formulae and categories. If
one is non-creedal, why be pro-formulae? However well the Scholastic model has served
both orthodox and heterodox alike, we hold no obligation to it as an
environment for hearing from God nor for articulating
his message.
The biggest problem with the Scholastic approach is
that it is procedurally misleading. Its
format presumes and gives the message that one may speak of God truthfully
before—and therefore without—speaking of Christ. Jesus, on the other hand, says, “No one comes
to the Father, but through me.”1 While there is a general and
non-saving knowledge of God communicated in nature, in Christ alone we find the
full self-disclosure of God. In Christ
alone do we speak of God (or ourselves or the world) with depth, accuracy, and clarity. In Christ alone can we come to truly know God. For this reason Luther said, “You cannot find
God outside of Christ, even in heaven,” and “Seeking God outside of Jesus is
[the work of] the devil.” All truly
consistent Christian theology, then,
must begin with Christ and proceed from him to an understanding of God,
humanity, salvation, or anything else.
While the Old Testament chose general revelation as
its starting point (“In the beginning God created ...”), it never manages to
present Yahweh “beyond the veil.” The
New Testament, on the other hand, begins with Jesus Christ as the unique
self-revelation and personal disclosure of Yahweh, establishing Jesus therefore
as the only theological starting point for the Christ follower. The Gospels and Epistles boldly model this in
content, order and arrangement. The New
Testament model, then, flatly challenges the Scholastic approach to
“systematic” theology and resists being squeezed into its categories. The New Testament calls us, instead, to
something more organic and personal, being grounded and centered upon the
Person of Jesus the Messiah as “God With Us.”
Ordering each article of a Jesus-centered faith is
therefore no small matter. The order
divulges the faith and presuppositions behind and prior to the articles
themselves, while the arrangement of the whole flavors the content of the
parts. This is why the following
presentation summarizing my theology will take a different, distinctively Christocentric, approach.
God-in-Christ-ology
We begin with Jesus Christ, yet we do not. As Jesus said, “Whoever believes in me does
not believe in me….”2 Jesus is the only window to the Father
and he is perfectly clear; “whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”3
Jesus is not a mere reflection of the Father. He is the direct radiance of the Father. He is to the Father as the sun’s rays are to
the sun. We cannot see one without
seeing the other. They are one and yet
distinct. Jesus is “Light from Light”
and “very God from very God.”4 Therefore, “His name will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father ....”5
In Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, we see
Yahweh-God’s greatest attributes revealed.
That is, by becoming flesh, God peels away the persistent veil of the
Old Covenant. Here are a few very brief
examples:
Grace—God
acts in Christ on behalf of the world, despite the world’s rebellion. One thing Christ’s sacrifice did not do was
to gain for us God’s love. God’s love
preceded and gave impetus to Messiah’s coming.6 It always was, as Jesus always
was. Jesus is God’s grace fully revealed
in that humanity’s greatest sin, the slaughter of Christ, becomes humanity’s
only redemption. Here we see that God’s
favor depends in no way on human merit.
God’s costly grace is totally free—free to all (offered to everyone) and
free of all (dependent on no one).
Meanwhile, in the same act of sacrifice upon the cross, Christ also
reveals the full extent of God’s wrath in that by becoming sin for us, he
becomes the receptacle in which all wrath and judgment against sin, and which
stood against us, is completely poured out and exhausted.
Jealousy—The length to which Jesus went to demonstrate God’s love and
to reconcile us to Yahweh shows how zealous is our jealous God. While grace
allows God to forgive us in Christ, his zeal
compels him. God’s love is not
passive; it is jealous. He does not
simply wait; Yahweh seeks and sacrifices.
Aseity—Jesus demonstrates that God is independent and
totally self-sufficient. The ultimate
proof of this sufficiency is Yahweh’s ability in Christ to unilaterally atone
for the insufficiency of all fallen humanity and to then go on to reign
victoriously.
Omnipotence—God
demonstrates his power through weakness.
He conquers Satan, all of hell, hell’s forces, sin and the world of sin
by a show of meekness: a single, broken man on a cross. The force and power of
every wicked and righteous enemy to humanity exhausts itself in the seemingly
defeated Jesus of Nazareth. Even God’s wrath over sin is poured out and
exhausted upon Christ as he becomes sin for us.
Yet Jesus resiliently springs back as victor. When we look at the crucified carpenter who
incarnates the weakness of humanity, we see Yahweh and Yahweh’s power
incarnated and unveiled.
Infinity—Jesus
is the infinite God in finite man. We
see there is no end to God when we see the boundlessness of Christ’s wisdom,
compassion, and love.
Personality—Is
God an impersonal force? An ultimate It? Jesus
demonstrates that God is personal, for Jesus is the exact representation of
God. 7
Immutability—Does God change? We find the
answer in Jesus. For
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”8 There is a dimension to God that does
change in the sense that movement and interaction are change. These actions always are consistent with
God’s personality and character, which is what we speak of when we say God is immutable.
Omniscience—Who can hear Christ’s words and not feel completely known by
him? Even the Samaritan Woman at Jacob’s
well perceived it.9
Further investigation would demonstrate how Jesus
reveals these and all of the traditional qualities ascribed to God. Jesus reveals God’s eternality, omnipresence,
holiness, justness, goodness, truthfulness, faithfulness, and
absoluteness. We could explore God’s
volition revealed in Christ, and his sovereignty. Through Christ we could discover God as
Creator,10 Sustainer,11 and
Re-creator.12 Each of these
subjects is a fascinating and captivating study in itself. And yet all of these topics combined would
just be a beginning.
So let’s move on to what perhaps is
the most enigmatic mystery that Jesus reveals about God. For prior to his coming this truth was as
little understood as was his grace.13 That mystery is, of course, God’s triunity.
The Trinity—On the most simplistic level, we can argue from the examples
of Christ’s life and teaching that God is three and yet one. We see God’s threeness
in Jesus’ baptism, where the Father speaks from heaven, the Spirit descends,
and Jesus stands revealed as the Lamb of God.14 We further see the distinction of
Persons in the fact that Jesus prays to the Father15 and speaks of the Spirit as “another.”16 Likewise,
we see the unity of Yahweh in Jesus’ statements of oneness with the Father and
the Spirit.17
On a deeper level, we learn of the Trinity through the
self-revelation of God in Christ itself.18 For what is a self-revelation if it is
not that the Revealer, Yahweh, is also What
is Revealed? God is as much the Content
of his revelation in Christ as he is its Author and Subject.
Jesus is the objective revelation of the invisible Father.19 The
Holy Spirit is the subjective revelation of the Father in the Son.20 Because Jesus is the visible self-revelation
of the invisible God, he must be distinguished from God the Father. Because it is God the Father whom Jesus
reveals, there is a necessary unity, or identity, of essence between them.
God reveals himself not just objectively but
subjectively. For we not only learn of
God in Christ, but we are reconciled to him personally. The Holy Spirit is the subjective form of
this revelation; he is God within us and is called interchangeably the Spirit
of God, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead.21 He
too must be distinguished yet seen as one in essence with the Godhead for the
same reasons given for Christ.
Because Jesus reveals God as immutable, we know that
Yahweh always existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, even prior to Christ’s
advent. Jesus reveals what God always
was, is, and ever shall be ontologically.
The Economic (objective) Trinity reveals the Ontological Trinity (i.e.,
God as he is in himself).
We see in Jesus, then, that God, who is Person, is an
indivisible One, for Yahweh acts in Christ as one. Yet we also see the threefoldness
of the Godhead. We see the one Being
distinguished into three eternally co-existent modes of subsistence.
Revelation Today—To speak of revelation is to speak of a revealing, an unveiling, a making
immediate of what before was not known, seen, experienced. Whereas God communicated in the past through
prophets and speaks to the world through nature and in diverse ways today,
Yahweh only unveils himself in Christ.
It is only through the mediation
of Christ that Yahweh-God’s Spirit becomes immediate
to us. This is now and always has
been the case.
Jesus was “God with us,” and he remains so.22 We
find God’s self-revelation in Christ alone.
We find the Christ who sits on heaven’s throne in and through the
message of the Scriptures alone. The Old
and New Testaments are God’s authoritative witness to his primal self-revelation
in Christ. This makes them the final,
authoritative, infallible Word of God.
Every word of the Bible is, after all, God-breathed.23 The
breath (heb. ruah) of God is none other than the Spirit (ruah) who bears
witness to Christ externally in the written Word and internally in our
hearts. The first part of his twofold
witness we call inspiration, the second illumination.
The Scriptures not only come to us by commendation and
commission of Christ, who is the Word (Logos) of God, but they imitate and model Christ in that their words are completely human and completely divine.
They are completely human and yet without sin or deception. They are completely divine, yet they explain
and disclose the infinite, transcendent God through finite immanent means.
There are, of course, other ways in which God speaks
and acts in our world, providing inspiration and insight to many inside and
outside of Christ.24 Only
through Christ, though, do we obtain ultimate understanding of these
communications and the God behind them.
In the same way, it is only through Christ that we ultimately understand
the Old Testament prophecies and teachings about God, law, grace, salvation,
and so on.25
Christ Jesus is the lens through which all things become clear
and understood. He is our wisdom and the
wisdom of God in that he is the frame of reference that provides the
perspective that makes sense of all things.
When someone asks, “Does God reveal himself today?”
the answer is Yes.
But only in and through Christ is Yahweh-God fully revealed. This Christ is exclusively the Jesus Christ
found in the canon of Scripture, which is complete and therefore closed.
When someone asks, “Does God still work miracles and
give all his gifts of the Spirit to the Church?” the answer is again found in
Christ who established the New Covenant in his blood until he comes again.26 Just as the Old Covenant
was in force from Moses until Christ, so the New Covenant remains in force and
unchanged until Christ’s return. Just as
there were periods of spiritual draught and absences of spiritual signs and
wonders, and then periods of supernatural opulence during Old Testament times,
so too we should expect famines and feasts of supernatural manifestations
between Christ’s advents. As we look
toward Christ’s return, we expect to see his Spirit at work more and more as
the day draws nearer.27 We live in the end times, which Jesus
and the apostles promised would be filled with signs and wonders. Our times are also New Testament times, for
we live under the New Covenant as we will until he comes.
Meanwhile, Christ reveals God as compassionate,
merciful, and powerful. Those who come
to him will in no way be cast aside.28 We have boldness therefore to pray
expectantly to the one who bore our griefs and by
whose stripes we are healed.29
God is never obligated to show mercy.30 Nor is he obligated to answer our prayers the
way we think they should be answered.31 Jesus does teach us, however, to persist in
prayer believing, making all our requests known to God.32 His throne is the mercy seat. Therefore, miracles will happen.33
God’s Saving Action in Christ
Just as there is no proper theology outside of
Christology, so there is no soteriology outside of or
apart from Christology. Christology
rightly entails a discussion of election, atonement, justification, salvation,
sanctification, and glorification.
Election—Soteriology begins with God’s Elect, Jesus Christ, who was
foreknown from the beginning. That Jesus
was foreknown as slain before the foundation of the world34 shows
God’s perfect foreknowledge, even of humanity’s sin. That God created the world with foreknowledge
implies he predestined all he foreknew.35
With Yahweh’s provision for sin foreknown and
established at the founding of the world, God had this knowledge when he acted
in Christ on behalf of those whose names have been “written in the book of life
since the foundation of the world.”36 As Augustine put it, Christ’s death
was sufficient for the entire world but efficient only to the elect—those whom
God chose, those who believe.
The question of free will is also answered in Christ’s
human prayer: “Not my will, but yours be done.”37 Two totally free wills cannot
coexist in the same universe—sooner or later one will infringe upon the
other. Jesus demonstrates, as the human par excellence, that human beings have
wills (volition), but that however free they may be, they are limited by the
limitless, totally free will of God. It
is God’s will, therefore, which always prevails.38
Atonement—It has been suggested that this word is a picture of what
Christ purchased for us: at-one-ment. That at-one-ment
took place in Christ is true in his person as well as his action. In Christ’s Person, God and humanity are
united (reconciled). For
Jesus is at once fully God and fully human. He is the new humanity, one with God. All who are in Christ, then, share in the new
humanity, united with God, at one with him.
In his passion, death and resurrection, Jesus became
victorious over sin, death, the devil, the Law and the wrath of God. He does this as our substitute and
representative. When Jesus died, the new
humanity died. When Christ arose, the
new humanity arose.39 When Christ sat down in the heavens,
the new humanity sat in heavenly places.40
Christ’s two natures are the reason why he alone could
accomplish permanent atonement. Humanity
had sinned and needed to pay for this sin.41 Being sinful, however, humanity could
offer nothing to a holy God.42 Jesus,
being both human and sinless is able to offer on behalf of humanity the perfect
sacrifice to God as satisfaction (propitiation) for all humanity’s sin.43 Because Jesus is God in the flesh, God
meets us in Christ at the cross and demonstrates his love and forgiveness.44 There all humanity was reconciled to
God.45 It remains, however,
for individuals to enter into that reconciliation.46 This can happen only by faith.47
Justification—All who place their faith in the atoning Christ are counted righteous
by God,48 and have Christ’s
righteousness imputed to them.49
This is our only hope. No human
effort or merit could ever suffice for eternal life. All who strive on their own to earn or retain
their salvation deny the freely-given love of God in Christ.50
Salvation—Being literally rescued from hell and from a life without
God is what we call “being saved.” The
saved life consists in knowing God through Jesus Christ.51 Because Jesus is the
self-revelation of God, all who receive him encounter Yahweh, know him, and are
reconciled to their God. Because God’s
objective revelation, in Christ, does not occur without his subjective
revelation, in the Spirit,52 the work of salvation cannot be
divorced from the Spirit and the Spirit’s work.53 The subjective aspect of salvation in Christ
is called regeneration, or rebirth.54 The believer is baptized, sealed, and infused
with the Holy Spirit at conversion.55 Like good works and human merit, faith,
cleansing, and regeneration are not the cause or result of salvation; they are
the actual experience of salvation itself.
Christ’s sacrifice effected God’s reconciliation to us
while we were yet sinners and demonstrates that salvation is totally by
grace. Christ’s teaching demonstrates
that it is accessed solely by faith, which itself is also a work of God.56 Salvation, then, begins with conversion and
is a state of being, the outworking of which we call sanctification.
Sanctification—Like salvation, there is no holiness outside
of Christ. Even the holiness of the Law
is but a shadow of Christ, who is the substance and consummation of the Law.57
Like salvation, sanctification is not a human work and
cannot be judged by human standards or legalisms.58 The principle present in justification
by faith applies to the whole Christian life, not just to conversion. Sanctification is both a once-for-all act by
God in Christ whereby we are “set apart,”59 and also the practical
“working out” of salvation by God the
Spirit in and through the believer.60 In Jesus’ example we see that the
saved life is the sanctified life and that having the faith that justifies is
to have the faithfulness which obeys.
Glorification—The Christian life is a continuous process in which we become
transformed into the image of Christ, the exact representation of Yahweh. Glorification is the consummation of that
goal. This will occur at Christ’s
return.
Jesus, then, is the Creator, Redeemer and Consummator
of our existence.
The Spirit of Christ is God (Pneumatology)
We know the Holy Spirit because the Spirit of God is
the Spirit of Christ. Therefore we
confess that Yahweh is the Spirit.61 This is why the
The more we focus on the Holy Spirit, the more we
shall see, learn of, and glorify Jesus.63 The Spirit is the incorporeal presence
of Jesus and the Father in the believer, the Church, and the world today.64
This third Person of the Trinity applies the work of
Christ to the believer in his subjective revelatory work. It is he who regenerates and sanctifies,
cleanses and comforts, convicts and empowers, illumines and guides the believer
in a daily life of prayer and obedience.
He is the divine author of Scripture.
He is rightly called the Lord65 as the object of prayer and
worship, although he is also the inspiration, facilitator and intercessor in
these things.
While the Spirit of Christ seals and indwells every
believer, so that we can say Christ lives in us, he remains distinct from the
believer’s spirit, preserving our identity and his own. The Holy Spirit’s influence over the believer
is not to “take control” but to give self-control.66 He produces blessed fruit in each
believer’s life and sovereignly gives supernatural
gifts to the Church as he wills.67
Although there is one baptism in the Spirit (at
conversion), the believer may experience many special empowerings
and overflowings.68 These are not “second blessings”
required for salvation or for the completeness of sanctification. They are the normal outcome of a faithful
life with God, who commands Christ followers to walk in the Spirit and to be
filled by him.69
Christ-in-Ecclesi-ology
Although we treated the doctrine of the Scriptures
under “God-in-Christ-ology,” it also belongs under
this heading. For the words of Scripture
are at once human and divine. The
Scriptures belong to God, but they also belong to the Church, whom he entrusted
with the gospel. Because of this, the
Church is the context in which Christ is revealed.70 Christ reveals himself through the
Church because she preaches and lives out his words and truth. She does this by preaching and living out the
content of the biblical message.
For it is precisely the gospel teaching of the
apostles and prophets, who are the foundation upon which the Church is built,71 which the Scriptures preserve for us. The Bible is therefore the only prophetic and
apostolic authority that remains for the Church, which is created and preserved
by the preaching of the Word. In
preserving and proclaiming the Bible’s message, the Church participates in the
apostolic witness. The Bible message,
then, is foundational and essential to the Church’s existence.
The first responsibility of the Church is to bear
Christ, to proclaim his message, and to be the physical extension of his
presence on earth, just as the Spirit is his spiritual presence. In this sense she “incarnates” him, which is
one reason she is called Christ’s body.72 She is composed of all those dead and alive
who have sincerely called upon the name of the Lord in faith. The apostles proclaimed the need for everyone
to call upon the name of the Lord Jesus to be saved, quoting Old Testament
passages promising salvation to all who call upon the name of Yahweh. And they further referred to the believing
church community as those who had called upon the name of Jesus.73 The local church has a responsibility
to reflect this fact by baptizing and admitting to membership believers
only. She also has a responsibility to
deal graciously with Christ followers of other churches and denominations who
hold a biblical faith.
Much fuss has been made about “distinguishing the
Church from
The Ordinances—One way the Church lives out the biblical
revelation of Christ is through her use of the symbols he ordained—baptism and holy
communion. There has been a trend among
Evangelicals rooted in Zwinglian, Baptistic,
and Calvinistic theologies that needs to be noted. It rightly points out that there is nothing
magical about the ordinances, tends to refrain from using the word “sacraments”
because of undesirable connotations, and calls them “merely symbols.” While well intentioned, the phrase, “merely
symbols,” is over-reactionary and therefore a great misnomer. There is nothing “mere” about these
symbols! They are very powerful emblems
that allow us to participate in spiritual realities.75 The early church believed Christ was
made known in the breaking of bread.76
By combining a Zwinglian
view of the ordinances (rejected by Calvin and Luther) with a
post-Enlightenment cosmology, many fundamentalists today have reduced their
understanding of symbol to that of sign and implicitly reject the supernaturalistic cosmological framework of the biblical
writers. Biblically speaking, symbols by
definition participate in the reality they represent;77
while signs merely point to a greater reality.
By obediently observing Christ’s ordinances, we find
that God the Spirit, who is grace, meets us there—not in the elements, but in
their use. Communion is a blessed time
of intimate interaction with God as well as with his people. Baptism is an act of God in which he meets us
and allows us to be vicariously identified with Christ in the likeness of his
death and resurrection.
Do these symbols save us? Do they impart some “special grace” to
us? No more so than lifting a hand at a
revivalist’s invitation, or walking the aisle at an altar call can do these
things. Their use is an outward
expression of inward realities and is empty apart from faith. But when that faith is present, the God who
honors the obedience of faith meets us and blesses us.
Yahweh is revealed in Christ through the ordinances in
so far as they are faithful representations of Christ’s gospel. As words are symbols that proclaim the
biblical message and, though human, become the Word of God, so the ordinances
are Christ-appointed symbols that proclaim the same divine message and have the
same effect, as both human and divine actions.
The ordinances are commemorative, or memorial, in
nature precisely because they re-enact the Christ event, allowing the believer
to rehearse the cosmic drama of salvation history, and in so doing to become
vicariously identified with Christ.78 Because of the depth and seriousness
of these potent symbols, much care should be taken in administering them. Because they are symbolic representations of
the gospel, to compromise their symbolism in representation is to compromise
the gospel. The proclamation side of
both ordinances also illustrates the importance of celebrating them often and
openly before unbelievers, even though both are for believers only.
Church Government—The Church of Jesus Christ is built upon that rock of
apostolic confession: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”79 Her
nature is defined by her confession of Christ, for there is no ecclesiology
apart from Christology, just as there is no bride without a groom.
By confessing Christ alone as her head, the Church
commits herself to operate in organic unity with him and to renounce worldly
principles of authority. The Church is
not an army, city state, or business corporation. It ought therefore to beware of adopting
their methods, techniques or paradigms.
The Church is a body, of which Christ is the head; she is family, of
which God, and no man, is the Father; she is Christ’s bride and the household
of God.80
Jesus said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles
lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among
you must be your servant....”81 This “Not so with you” is the basis for rejecting authoritarian and
hierarchical forms of leadership, both in the church and in the Christian
family. No believer, pastor, elder,
spouse, or group of believers is given authority over another believer anywhere
in Scripture. The Lord is our Master; to
him only are we ultimately accountable.82 There is no principle of “headship”
operative between Church leaders and members.
Christ is the only head of the Church.83
Because every believer is directly accountable to God
and has direct access to God, the Church is to be a democratic or
consensus-guided society with deep egalitarian commitments. Because the only authority over the believer
is the Spirit and the Word of God, the influence of church leaders is limited
to the Word of God, whom they serve. It
is significant that of all the apostolic lists which urge Christ followers to
submit to authorities, church leaders are never included in these lists. Discussions about church leaders are always
treated separately. Their “authority” is
earned and is of a completely different sort, being earned and persuasive in
nature.84 They may command,
discipline, and instruct only what God’s Word commands, reproves, and instructs. The pastor, elder, deacon, and church board
have no divine authority by virtue of their “office.” Their authority depends
solely on whether or not they have proven themselves and stand upon
Scripture.
In fact, the idea of Church leaders holding an “office”
is foreign to the New Testament and exists in some versions only by eisegesis of the translators (compare 1Tm 3:1 NASB to NIV and to the
Greek). Instead, New Testament
leadership calls for the mature and exemplary to be recognized and set apart
(“ordained”) for certain tasks or functions.
For it is primarily by example that church leaders are to lead and teach.85 New
Testament leadership, then, is dynamic, not static. Titles are descriptive, not honorific.
There is of course a practical authority granted and
agreed upon by the local congregation that allows leaders to make a variety of
decisions without consulting the congregation.
This is imparted to the leaders from the congregation, though and is
distinguished from divinely appointed authority. For this reason the scope and roles of
leaders’ authority may vary in content from church to church.
Church leaders “watch over” the flock to ensure it
grazes upon God’s Word and to guard it from danger. They are guides and resources for individual
and corporate life in submission to the Good Shepherd, to whom the flock
belongs.86
When Christian liberty and the priesthood of all
believers are taken seriously, traditional clericalism breaks down. This is why those in baptistic
and radical reformation traditions historically recognize that the ordinances
can and should be administered by all believers, not just “clergy.” Likewise, the doctrines of Christian liberty
and the priesthood of all believers hits a shattering blow to the
hermeneutically unsound but ever-popular sexist view of leadership, causing
Paul to exclaim that in Christ there is no longer slave or free, Jew or
Gentile, male or female.87
While the New Testament offers no one model of church
government, it does discuss the following leadership roles for men and women:
elder, deacon, teacher, and prophet.88 A mature church should and will
produce and be led by all of these.
Likewise, apostles (missionaries) and evangelists may be part of a
church’s founding and are vital to the extension, outreach and growth of a
church. There appears to be no biblical
distinction between elder, pastor, bishop, or overseer. These are synonyms.89
The details of local church structure are arbitrary as
far as the New Testament is concerned.
What the New Testament stresses is the quality of leader.90
Christ and the World
Because our Messiah is the supreme and final
self-revelation of the Word of God, truly incarnated “in the likeness of sinful
flesh,”91 Christology is also the Christ follower’s basis for
anthropology, harmartiology, and eschatology. Only in and through Jesus do we see what
humanity was meant to be, what we are and are not, and what we will
become. Only in him do we have the
assurance that some day, all will be right with the world and that justice will
prevail.
Anthropology—Because Jesus is God, he alone is the full and perfect image of God.92 Although
none of us is “less than human,” Jesus alone can claim to be fully human. Because of the Fall and our own sin, we are
all less then God intended us to be.93 Jesus alone, then, is the standard of
humanity. Because Jesus is fully human
and therefore fully God’s image, he alone is fully suited to reveal God to
us. Because Jesus is fully human, he
alone is fully suited to reveal humanity to us.
Christianity then, is the only true humanism.
In Jesus alone we see what it means to be human and
how humanity was meant to relate to God.94 Christ changes not only our view of
and relationship to God, but our view of and relationship to other humans. Christology is God’s anthropology, and there
is no true anthropology apart from Christology.
Because Jesus became one of us, we know that humanity
has retained the image of God.95 Because we continue to retain this
image, even unbelievers and sinners cannot help but reflect God’s character to
greater and lesser degrees. This
character is reflected in humanity’s innate creativity, ingenuity, sense of
morality, justice, love, compassion, wisdom, knowledge (science) and in various
expressions of culture, such as art, music, and literature. That Christ came as a first-century
Aramaic-speaking Hebrew who took part in his culture and social system shows
that God does not reject or mean to abolish human culture but wants rather to
incarnate himself in it, redeem it, and work through it.96 For this reason the gospel and the
church are emptied of power unless they are contextualized for the cultures
they address.
Harmartiology—We know
that we are all less than we were created to be97 because we are all
less than Jesus in his humanity. Our
standard of righteousness is Jesus, not the Law, because Jesus is the
fulfillment, embodiment, and therefore the final interpretation of the Law. Only by seeing how far short we fall from
being like Jesus do we see how far short we fall from the glory of God, which
is the biblical definition of sin. Only
by looking to his cross do we see the ultimate judgment of God on sin. Only by looking to his victory and
resurrection do we understand our only possible emancipation from sin’s power
and its consequences.98
Eschatology—Only by looking to Jesus do we have the answer to: “What
happens to people after death?” Only in
him do we have trustworthy assurance concerning our species’ fate. In his resurrection and ascension Jesus has
become already what we yet will be when he soon returns.99 At that time there will be a
resurrection of all humanity unto judgment, starting with the household of God.100
Yahweh’s judgment will take place in human history but
also in eternity. Because eternity is a
non-temporal term, there is a sense in which judgment day has taken, and is
already taking, place (in eternity but not “yet” in time). Because Jesus is the nexus of time and
eternity, the judgment is in him.
Therefore he can say that he who believes not is judged already,101 although we all have yet to stand before his
judgment seat. The question of what
happens to a soul between death and resurrection is immediately solved when we
realize eternity is not a temporal term.
For the soul at death is transported out of time and into eternity where
there is no time. Judgment and
resurrection are, from the soul’s point of view, immediate.102
The so-called “reunion of
the soul with the body” in the resurrection will be the reunion of the soul
with time when eternity and time meet on judgment day, as they can only meet in
Christ, who is our judgment and our Judge.
Eternal life begins for the believer at conversion and
is not interrupted by death. Eternal
death and the experience of God’s wrath are a current reality for the
unbeliever103 and are not initiated nor relieved by physical death.
The Bible proclaims a new heaven and new earth in
which righteousness shall dwell.104 In this new kingdom Jesus shall reign
“forever and ever.” This historical
confession of the Church is that “His Kingdom shall have no end.”105 Both
the Old Testament and the New Testament proclaim Christ’s throne established
forever.106
As to time tables and eschatological charts, the Bible
gives us none. In fact, Jesus
discourages us from trying to discern such things.107 Instead, we are to set our hope on the
fact that Jesus may return at any moment.108
It is the responsibility and privilege of the Christ
follower to spread the gospel through evangelism and missions,109 as well as to work against contemporary
social injustice and toward societal emulation of that kingdom,110 for this is what Jesus did. Because the kingdom is both future and
present for the Church, it is for us to model kingdom principles and Christ’s
rule in every sphere of life.
Glossary
Please
note: There is no substitute for a good dictionary! The definitions below are only supplemental.
Anthropology—the
study of humanity, or human nature.
Calvin—a
Protestant reformer and father of the Reformed faith. He taught that the ordinances are a
testimony, sign and seal of the Holy Spirit and the New Covenant. See also ‘Luther’ and ‘Zwinglian.’
Christology—the
study of Christ.
Contextualize—to
express in a way that is culturally relevant, meaningful within a contemporary
context.
Ecclesiology—the
study of the Church.
Eisegesis—to read into a text meaning, rather than to extract
only what is intrinsic to the intended meaning, as in exegesis.
Eschatology—the
study of the end times.
Fundamentalist—one
(like myself) who believes in the fundamental tenets
of Christian faith as expressed in the early creeds. Unfortunately, this term like many other
great descriptors of devoted Christ followers, has been hijacked by extremists
and ought not be understood in this paper as referring
to aberrant factions that have commandeered this term.
General Revelation—also called natural revelation, refers to God’s clear but partial
disclosure of himself in nature.
Godhead—all
that is God.
Harmartiology—the study of sin.
Hermeneutic—any
method of interpreting literature.
Heterodox—one
who holds beliefs which are questionable or wrong from an orthodox perspective.
Incarnate—to
become flesh.
Luther—the father
of the Reformation. He taught that
Christ is present with the elements of the ordinances as fire is present in an
iron poker passed through a flame (consubstantiation) as opposed to the
Catholic view that the elements are changed in substance (transubstantiation).
See also ‘Calvin’ and ‘Zwinglian.’)
Non-creedal—to
be bound by no creed, but only to the content of Scripture.
Objective—pertaining
to an object, as opposed to a subject.
God in himself exists prior to the subject/object split, just as he is
prior to male/female differentiation.
Yet both aspects reveal aspects of God to us. That which is objective to us is outside
ourselves. That which is subjective is
within.
Pneumatology—the study of the Holy Spirit.
Sacrament—from
the Latin word for mystery, used by the Church to refer to things regarded as
sacred vehicles of God’s grace. (Christ
alone is the true sacrament.)
Scholastics—a
Medieval movement among Catholic theologians to systematize the thought and
writings of previous scholars and theologians, later revived among Protestants
who added to their subject matter the content and tradition of 16th century
Protestant thought and theology.
Soteriology—the study of salvation.
Subjective—
pertaining to an subject, as opposed to a object. That which is subjective is within us or from
within our own frame of reference or perspective.
Subsistence—that
which exists within and of the same essence.
Theology—the
study of God.
Yahweh—the
primary, unique, and sacred name of God in Hebrew and Aramaic, traditionally
rendered Lord in many English translations, and sometimes as
Jehovah. Many passages in the Old and
New Testament speak of the importance of hallowing this name and making it
widely known and revered among the nations.
Zwinglian—of the theology of Ulrich Zwingli, a Protestant
reformer who taught that baptism and the Lord’s Supper have no mystical or
spiritual qualities in themselves. See
also ‘Calvin’ and ‘Luther.’
Endnotes
1. Jn 14:6b
2. Jn 12:44a, note context
3. Jn 14:9
4. Heb
1:1-3f, Nicene Creed
5.
Is 9:6
6. Jn 3:16
7.
Heb 1:3
8.
Heb 13:8
9. Jn 4:19; see also Jn 7:40
10. Jn 1:3
11.
Col 1:17
12.
2Co 5:17
13.
1Tm 1:9-10
14.
Mt 3:13-4:1
15.
e.g., Jn 17:1
16.
e.g., Jn 14:16,17;
16:7,13-15
17.
e.g., Jn 10:30
18.
Heb 1:1-3
19.
Col 1:15
20. Jn 16:13-15
21. Jn 7:37-39;
22.
Mt 28:20b
23.
2Tm 3:16
24.
e.g., Ps 19:1-4: Ro 1:18-25; 10:17-18; 2Co 4:6
25. Lk 24:25-27
26.
cf. 1Co 1:7
27.
Ac 2:16-21
28. Jn 6:37
29.
Heb 4:14-16; 1Pe 2:24
30.
Ro 9:15
31.
e.g., Gn 17:18-21
32.
Mt 7:7-11; Lk 18:1 ff; Php
4:6
33. Jn 14:12; 15:7,8; Heb 4:14-16; 8:6
34.
1Pe 1:20; Rv 13:8
35.
Ro 8:28; Eph 1:11,12
36. Rv 13:8; 17:8
37. Lk 22:42
38.
Eph 1:11
39.
Ro 6:1-10
40.
Eph 2:6
41.
Ro 3:23; 6:23a
42.
Is 64:6
43.
Ro 8:3; 1Jn 2:2
44.
Ro:5:8,9
45.
2Co 5:18-19
46.
2Co 5:20
47.
Eph 2:8,9
48.
Ro 4:22-25
49.
2Co 5:21
50. Ga 5:4
51. Jn 17:3
52.
e.g., Jn 14:16-17
53.
Ti 3:4-7
54. Jn 3:3-7
55.
Ro 8:9-11; 1Co 12:13; Eph 1:13
56.
2Co 5:19-20; Jn 6:29,44; Eph
2:8,9
57.
Col 2:17; Heb 10:1; Ro 8:3
58. Ga 3:3;
59.
Heb 10:10
60. Ga 3:3; Php 2:12,13
61.
Ro 8:8,9; 2Co
62.
cf. Jn 15:5-7
63. Jn 16:14
64. Jn 14:23; 16:8
65.
2Co 3:18
66. Ga 5:22,23
67.
1Co 12:11
68. cf Acts 2:4; 4:31; Eph 4:4
69. Ga 5:16ff; Eph 5:18
70. Jn 15:8,26,27; 17:6-8,20-23,26
71.
Eph 2:19,20
72.
1Co 12:12,13
73.
Ro 10:9-13; 1Co 1:2; cf Joe 2:32
74.
Eph 2:11-16; 4:4
75.
1Co 10:16, Ro 6:3,4
76. Lk 24:30-31
77.
1Co 10:16
78.
e.g., Ro 6:3,4
79.
Mt 16:15-18
80.
Eph 5:29-30; Heb 3:6
81.
Mt
82.
Ro 14:4
83.
Col 1:18
84.
Heb 13:7,17
85.
1Pe 5:3
86.
Heb 13:17
87. Ga 3:28
88. cf: Ac 18:2,18,26; 1Co 11:7; 16:19; Ro 16:1,2,3,6,7,12,15; Php 4:2,3;
1Tm 3:11; Ti 1:5-9; 2:2-5
89.
cf. Eph 4:11; 1Tm 3:1 ff; Ti 1:5-7
90. cf 1Tm 3:1-13; Ti 1:6-9; 1Pe 5:1-4
91.
Ro 8:3
92. Gn 1:27
93. Ro
3:23
94.
2Co 5:16
95.
Jas 3:9, cf. Jn 1:14; Ro
8:3; Heb 2:14
96.
cf. Rv 21:24-27
97.
Ro 3:23
98.
Ac 4:12
99.
1 Jn 3:2
100.
1Pe 4:17
101.
Jn 3:18
102.
Heb 9:27,28
103.
Ro 1:18
104. Rv 21:1
105.
See the Constantinopolitan Creed, A.D. 381.
106.
e.g., 1Ch 17:12; Heb 1:8
107.
Ac 1:7
108.
Mt 24:36-51; 1Jn 3:2,3
109.
Mt 28:19,20
110.
Am
------------------------
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