Christology

Review: The Eternal Son

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Cover image of "The Eternal Son" by Robert Letham

The Eternal Son

The Eternal Son, Robert Letham, foreword by Ian Hamilton. P & R Publishing (ISBN: 9781629958637) 2025.

Summary: A Christology focused on Christ’s Person, his eternal sonship, and Incarnation, as clarified in councils and more recently.

Robert Letham has written extensively on the Godhead, beginning with a work on the Trinity. This work is the second of a projected three-volume series on the persons of the Godhead, the first being The Holy Spirit. Having in another work addressed the work of Christ, Letham focuses here on the Person of Christ. However, the final chapter, “For Us and our Salvation” does address aspects of Christ’s work.

Letham begins with three chapters which frame out what Christians have historically affirmed concerning the person of the Son. Firstly, he addresses the “Son in the Divine Trinity.” He summarizes developments between the New Testament and Constantinople, in 381. Discussing the Nicene-Constantinople Creed, he focuses on God’s indivisibility, three persons who are one substance, yet distinct persons. He focuses on the divine order, and the idea of the eternal generation of the Son, that from eternity without beginning, the Son is the Son of the Father. Secondly, in the following chapter, “Before The Beginning” he goes more deeply into the Son’s eternal relations with the Father. Then thirdly, in “The Word Became Flesh,” Letham discusses the biblical evidence of the Incarnation.

Chapters 4 through 8 address the controversies that arose related to the person of Christ and the conciliar decisions, post-Constantinople. One of the things that stands out in the controversies with Apollinaris and Nestorius and in the lead up to Council of Chalcedon is the singular influence of Cyril of Alexandria. Cyril defends the eternal nature of the Son, his taking on of human nature in full union, such that all his actions are of one person in two natures. One of the most interesting ideas was that the assumption of a human nature was not problematic for the Son through whom humans were created in the imago dei.

However, Chalcedon did not resolve all problems and led to new ones. Letham discusses the shortcomings of Chalcedon and the continuing challenge of Nestorians and the rise of Monophysites. Also, challenges arose around the two natures of the Incarnate Son willing and acting as one. Letham walks us through Monoenergism and Monothelitism, including a recent revival of the latter. Finally, he summarizes the consolidation of the church’s thought on Christology in both East and West. To do so, he focuses on two key figures, John of Damascus and Thomas Aquinas.

Chapters 9 and 10 then focus on the Reformation and the Post-Enlightenment. The discussion of Luther and Calvin both emphasized their contributions and how at times they could wander from Chalcedonian orthodoxy. The Post-Enlightenment discussion focuses on kenotic theories–what did it mean that Christ “emptied” himself? Letham also discusses theories of peccability. That is, was it possible for Christ, having a human nature, to sin. Letham argues that Christ’s nature was neither a fallen nature or a nature like Adam’s before the fall. “Rather, he lived in a state of humiliation, sinless and righteous but with a nature bearing the consequences of the fall in its mortality, its vulnerability, and its suffering–but not fallen.”

Finally, after his concluding chapter on Christ’s work, he includes two appendices. One has to do with recent thinkers who have resurrected the idea of the adoption of Jesus as Son, particularly as the basis for our on adoption. The second, promoted by David Moffitt, proposes that Christ’s atoning work was not on the cross but when he presented himself as a blood sacrifice in heaven. Letham refutes both ideas.

I found Letham generally clear in his explanations and discussion of different controversies and councils (he also includes a glossary to help us keep our terms straight). In particular, Letham is good at explaining what is at stake with various proposals, and what stands to be lost. He also offers a good summary, as a Reformed writer, of Reformation developments, probably worth a book in itself. Most of all, I feel Letham writes doxologically. He speaks in his introduction of the hope that we might “Behold, the Lamb!” And I found myself often stopping to do just that.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Glory of the Ascension

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Cover image of "The Glory of the Ascension" by W. Ross Hastings

The Glory of the Ascension

The Glory of the Ascension, W. Ross Hastings. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514010617) 2025

Summary: Sets forth this neglected doctrine that celebrates a completed atonement and the exalted glory of the Son.

The very best theology offers the attentive reader glimpses of glory. One cannot read without pausing in awe or breaking out in worship or humbling oneself before the Holy Triune God. This is one of those books. Often I could not read more than a paragraph without having one of these responses. Here is one of many examples I could cite:

“The ascension is beautiful also in that it is the climactic, celebrated outcome of an atonement that was fully accomplished and yet the beginning of the application of the atonement forever to the people of God in union with Christ. It is beautiful because of the symmetry of a humanity created and fallen in the first Adam with a humanity recapitulated, recreated, and glorified in the ascension of the last Adam. The ascension reflects a relation between the Son and his people, with whom he became one in the incarnation–his people who have died and risen with him and, more than that, are now seated with him in his ascended place in the heavenlies (Eph. 2:6)” (pp. 23-24).

W. Ross Hastings contends that we have neglected this magnificent doctrine. And he sets out in this book to remedy that neglect. To begin, Hastings lays out an argument as to why it matters. Specifically, he focuses on how the ascension represents the both the completion of the atoning work of Christ and the exalted glory of the Son at God’s right hand, themes to which Hastings recurs throughout the book. Then, Hastings outlines his methodology, rooted in divine revelation. He discusses both biblical and theological interpretation approaches.

Following this, Chapters 3 through 7 center on what the ascension shows us of the glory of the person and work of Christ. Chapter 3 focuses on the glory of Christ’s deity revealed in the ascension as the God-man. Then Chapter 4 follows the movement from glory concealed in Christ’s life and death on earth, and the revealing of even greater glory as risen and ascended One. He is no longer Messiah-designate but Messiah crowned.

Following this, Chapter 5 discusses his offices as Prophet, Priest, and King. We often think of atonement finished on the cross. However, the seating of Christ at God’s right hand, discussed in Chapter 6, signifies atonement fully accomplished. Not only that, as interceding high priest, we experience the application of atonement to humanity.

It is as God-MAN that Jesus ascended and is in eternal communion within the Godhead. In Chapter 7, Hastings considers the implications of this reality for humanity both now and in glory, as we share in the glory of Christ.

However, the idea of the ascension as the completion of atonement raises questions. Is the ascension itself atoning, as Douglas Farrow proposes, or the sign, the capstone of atonement completed? In dialogue with Farrow, Hastings contends for the latter in Chapter 8. Then Chapter 9 considers more fully the glory of the heavenly continuing application of the atonement through our participation in that work by the Spirit.

Ephesians 3:21 speaks of “glory in the church and in Christ Jesus.” Hastings elaborates in Chapter 10 on our experience of that through our communion with the ascended Lord in the Eucharist. Then Chapters 11-13 explore the last things: his coming again, the glory we will share with the Christ of the cosmos, and the glory of heaven.

This is theology to savor. We may ponder the many-splendored glory revealed in our Lord’s ascension. There is the incredible assurance of the completion of Christ’s atoning work. Then we might consider what it means that we are already seated with Christ in the heavenly places–what his exalted status means for our exalted status, both individually and as the church. And then there is our eternal destiny.

We are in the season of Lent looking toward Easter. The church celebrates the Feast of the Ascension on the Seventh Sunday of Easter, which in 2026 is May 14. Let’s not neglect this Feast nor this doctrine. If you get this book now, you have plenty of time to read, ponder, and prepare to celebrate this important day in the life of the church.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: God Looks Like Jesus

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Cover image of "God Looks Like Jesus" by Gregory A. Boyd and M. Scott Boren

God Looks Like Jesus

God Looks Like Jesus, Gregory A. Boyd & M. Scott Boren. Herald Press (ISBN: 9781513815510) 2025.

Summary: In the life, ministry, teaching, and crucifixion of Jesus, we see the embodiment of what God is like.

Sooner or later, many parents have to answer, first, the question of “Where is God?” and then, often, the question of “What is God like?” This latter question is one many of us grapple with all of our lives, consciously or subconsciously. How we answer that question is vitally important. It shapes not only how we worship but how we live. Some may live under a cloud of guilt while others angrily deny God’s place in their lives because they don’t like what they believe God is like. Yet, still others live in the joyful security and outward facing generosity of believing they are God’s extravagantly loved children.

Gregory A. Boyd and M. Scott Boren advance a simple but profound assertion in this book. God looks like Jesus. If you want to know what God is like, God has definitively revealed himself in his Final Word, Jesus. This Jesus, incredibly, both fully God and man, humbled himself to live under human constraints. This includes the ultimate constraint of death on the cross. Indeed, all of his life was formed by and toward the cross, to bear the sins of a lost humanity. The authors call this cruciform life the “center of the center.” This leads them to propose that we read all of scripture with “cross-tinted glasses.” Thus, they would contend that all of scripture is about an points toward Christ.

But this raises the question of how we deal with scriptures in which God sanctions violence. Part of the answer is that we see in the cross God taking upon God’s self, the Incarnate Son, the violence and evil of the world to reconcile the world to himself. But this doesn’t erase the herem passages from scripture. Commendably, the authors neither rationalize nor try to minimize the actual extent of herem. Rather, they argue that Moses misunderstood God and commanded herem in God’s name. He cites Exodus 23:28-30 and Leviticus 18:24-25 to indicate God’s intent to gradually displace the Canaanites. But God’s non-violent plans were too radical for Moses, who didn’t get it and commanded violent conquest. In the end, God in God’s humility accommodates this. Thus, the authors preserve the loving, humble God revealed in Christ.

To me, this seems a bit of fancy exegetical footwork. It dodges the plain meaning of the texts. I appreciate the effort, because these are among the most troubling texts in scripture and they seem to contradict the portrait of the loving, humble servant God we see in Jesus. Yet, I think this portrait becomes a Procrustean bed that does violence to these violent texts. I continue to wrestle with these texts personally. The best treatment I’ve found is L. Daniel Hawk’s The Violence of the Biblical God (reviewed at: https://bobonbooks.com/2019/08/05/review-the-violence-of-the-biblical-god/). Hawk accepts that God-sanctioned violence is one of the “voices” in scripture and must not be glossed over but which ultimately (as the authors of this work also argue) takes violence upon himself and thus signals its end.

The authors move on from this to discuss the kingdom Jesus proclaims, and how cruciform love shapes it. Enemies are loved and love is extended in broadly inclusionary fashion to all those society, and often the church, would marginalize. They also argue that instead of the classical notions of God’s unchanging nature, the loving God we encounter in Jesus has passions and suffers. Finally, our ultimate hope is in a renewed creation where God does right by all that moves us to exercise God’s love for it in the present.

I found much to commend in this compact book. Especially, I commend the focus on Christ and his cross as central to the gospel message and our rubric for understanding all of scripture. And to understand experientially that the Christ we encounter in scripture reveals the God we may worship joyfully in Spirit and Truth–that is a gift! While I differ in the authors’ attempt at theodicy, I affirm the courage to address the signal objection to their thesis. I would commend Hawk’s approach, not cited by the authors. But above all, for those who struggle with what they think the God they believe in is like, this book cuts through the verbiage and says “look at Jesus and you will see what God is truly like.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Writing and Rewriting the Gospels

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Cover image of "Writing and Rewriting the Gospels" by James W. Barker

Writing and Rewriting the Gospels, James W. Barker, foreword by Mark Goodacre. Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802874528) 2025.

Summary; Drawing on ancient compositional practice, argues for for a “snowballing” process of gospel writing.

We have long noticed the similarities of the first three gospels. Hence the term “synoptic” (literally “seeing together”). Yet we also notice that Matthew and Luke share a body of material in common not in Mark as well as some material being unique to each. The scholarly consensus is that Mark wrote first. Matthew and Luke used Mark as well as a second source known as Q (short for Quelle). No actual Q manuscript has ever been found but its existence is posited on the basis of shared material. Finally, John wrote much later and independently.

James W. Barker challenges this consensus, defending a hypothesis by Farrer that argues for a “snowballing” of composition. The argument is that Mark indeed wrote first, Matthew followed, drawing upon Mark. In turn Luke wrote using both Mark and Matthew. Finally, John used all three Synoptic gospels in a creative formulation. And there was no such thing as Q. The shared material of Matthew and Luke was added by Matthew and used by Luke.

Barker develops his argument in part upon recent research into ancient compositional practice. Some of this includes his own work in copying the gospels onto codices and bookrolls. He also develops evidence of that the practice of rewriting an earlier writer’s work was common practice. Moreover, it was not overly cumbersome to work with multiple sources in rewriting. He then turns to the synoptics and offers evidence for Matthews rewriting of Mark and Luke’s use of both. For example, in Mark 12:38b-39, Jesus warns about scribes, their finery, the greetings and the seats they expected. Matthew 23:2b, 5b-8a elaborates this. Luke 20:46 virtually copies Mark verbatim, but Luke 11:43 adds some of Matthew’s material.

Then Barker turns to John. Only about a quarter of the material in John is shared. He notes that the differences reflect a storytelling device known as oppositio in imitando, the imitating of a story while turning many elements inside out. Barker compares, for example, the synoptics treatment of Samaritans with Jesus encounter with the Samaritan woman. He looks at the paralysis healings, the feeding of the five thousand and taking Luke’s Lazarus character and literally raising him to life. He develops from this a case that John also “rewrote,” interacting with the prior material.

Finally, he traces Christology in Paul’s work, the synoptics, and John, as well as later works. He contends Mark and some of Paul left room for adoptionist Christologies. Matthew and Luke, with the birth accounts laid groundwork for a higher Christology. He argues that John’s high Christology anticipates the councils and contributed substantively to them.

The most attractive aspect to me of Barker’s proposal was his argument against Q. I always wondered about this shadowy source no one has ever found. He offers a plausible account to me for both the distinctive composition of each gospel and how they “snowballed” on earlier accounts. In so doing, he advances Farrer’s hypothesis of the literary relationships between the gospels. I think he makes a good case for this being at least a viable alternative to the two source explanation. And he even incorporates John in the process, although I suspect there is much more to be done to make his case fully persuasive. All told, this is an important contribution to our understanding of the relationship of the four gospels.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Scripture in Doctrinal Dispute

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Cover image of "Scripture in Doctrinal Dispute" by Frances M. Young

Scripture in Doctrinal Dispute (Doctrine and Scripture in Early Christianity, Volume 2), Frances M. Young. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802882998) 2024.

Summary: A study of how scripture was used in the doctrinal controversies concerning the Trinity and Christology.

One of the challenge early teachers in the church faced was how to articulate the evidence of the biblical text when discussing the nature of God as well as the nature of Christ as the Incarnate Son of God. These questions came to a head in the fourth and fifth centuries. The Council of Nicea in 325 AD and Constantinople in 381 AD articulated the church’s doctrine of the Trinity, of God’s singular nature subsisting in three persons. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD addressed the nature of the Incarnate Christ as the person of the divine Son, who subsisted in two natures, divine and human.

What Frances M. Young does in this second volume of her study of doctrine and scripture in early Christianity is show how the scriptures were used by the different parties to these controversies. The book begins in setting the stage with the discussions on the nature of God in the earliest centuries where the Oneness of God was affirmed but also the three persons of the Godhead. The ambiguities that remained led to further controversy.

Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the discussions of the Trinity. Chapter 2 addresses the challenge of Arius and his use of scripture and the response of Athanasius and Basil of Caesarea. Chapter 3 focuses on the Cappadocians and the decisive work of Gregory of Nyssa leading up to Constantinople. Chapters 4 and 5 turn to the unresolved questions about Christology. Chapter 4 contrasts the exegesis of Hebrews by Chrysostom and the interpretation of the Gospel of John by Cyril of Alexander. Chapter 5 centers on the polemic between Cyril and Nestorius over whether Mary was theotokos (Cyril) or christotokos (Nestorius).

Then Chapter 6 summarizes Young’s findings of the use of scripture. One was the importance of the Rule of Faith and baptismal creeds as summaries of scripture. These didn’t resolve controversy but pushed the church to articulate clearly the nature of the Godhead, Father, Son and Spirit, in whose name new converts were baptized and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ who they confessed. Young also observes how the process of “prooftexting” and the effort to express the overall teaching called for extrabiblical terms to express the mind of scripture, terms like ousia (substance) and hypostases (persons). Citing Augustine, Young notes both how doctrine informs right reading of scripture and the wrestling with the body of scripture leads to refined doctrinal understanding. She concludes that it is in worship where scripture and doctrine coinhere.

I would say in reading Young, one has to work to keep the forest in view with all the “trees” in the discussion. In addition to keeping a thumb in the detailed table of contents, it might have helped to have some summaries in tabular form. Absent these, the studious reader may want to take their own notes and outline.

Young describes a process far “messier” than many of us might like. Even after the councils, not all agree, as is the case with the Nestorians. Her discussion also underscores that everyone here treated scripture as authoritative and appealed to the Rule of Faith. As I personally consider the outcomes of the Councils, I see not a power struggle with winners and losers but a process superintended by God that led to wise formulations that guide us well to this day in articulating the sense of scripture.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Crowned with Glory and Honor

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Cover image of "Crowned with Glory and Honor" by Michael A Wilkinson.

Crowned with Glory and Honor (Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology), Michael A. Wilkinson. Lexham Academic (ISBN: 9781683597308) 2024.

Summary: Argues for a Christian anthropology based on Chalcedon’s understanding of Christ’s person-nature constitution.

There is what seems to be a stalemate in contemporary Christian circles when it comes to anthropology. Basically it is a debate between dualism in various forms versus physicalism. In Crowned with Glory and Honor, Michael A. Wilkinson argues for beginning in a different place from discussions that are largely around philosophic categories. He believes the place to begin is Jesus Christ, who as the Incarnate Son is the human, man extraordinaire. Jesus is the ultimate expression of what it means to be human. Wilkinson believes the clearest and definitive expression of the church’s understanding of who God the Incarnate Son is may be found in the definition that resulted from the Council at Chalcedon.

To begin with, Wilkinson establishes both the biblical and epistemological warrant for defining what it means to be human in light of Christ. He then traces the antecedents to the Chalcedonian ontology of Christ. Briefly, this arose from the debates over the Trinity, how God may be both one substance (ousia) subsisting in three persons (hypostases). In a sense, Chalcedon both used and flipped this language in saying the person (hypostasis) of the Son subsisted in two natures, one divine and one human. In the incarnation, the divine person of the Son acted through a human nature with a human will.

Wilkinson offers one of the clearest summaries and explanations of the councils that led to the church’s understanding of the Trinity and of Christology I have read. However, the challenge for me was in moving from Christology to anthropology. Based on his understanding of Christology, he would argue for a similar person-nature understanding of human beings. He argues that the human person is created and exists by God’s power subsisting in and acting through a body-soul human nature. At first glance, this is an interesting alternative to the stalemate between dualism and physicalism. But I found myself considering several difficulties as I weighed the proposal:

  1. Wilkinson rightly states Christ is one divine person (hypostasis) subsisting in two natures, divine and human. Yet to argue that he is man extraordinaire, but not a human person, but a divine person subsisting in a human nature, seems problematic given the analogy Wilkinson pursues. Man ordinaire seems more human than Jesus as both human in person and nature. Wilkinson acknowledges the analogy needs to be modified but his explanations did not resolve this difficulty for me.
  2. It was unclear to me how the created human person acts through the body-soul nature.
  3. Wilkinson comes down on the side of body-soul dualism but does not explain his reasons for doing so.
  4. How is the human person different from the soul? Why is a soul necessary in this anthropology?

These difficulties noted, I am nevertheless intrigued by this proposal. It has always seemed intuitively obvious that we look to Christ for what it means to be fully human. Wilkinson adds to that intuition a biblical and theological warrant and the rich formulation of Chalcedon. Wilkinson’s mentor, Stephen J. Wellum, describes this proposal as “not the final word on the subject, but it is the place to begin.” I would agree and hope Wilkinson will continue to refine this proposal as God gives more light.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.