It’s not every day a major new title on the Person of Christ is released, but that’s what we have with Stephen Wellum’s new book, God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ – a book I’m sure will receive wide attention.
I’m Fred Zaspel, executive editor here at Books At a Glance, and we are talking today with the author. Dr. Wellum is a friend of ours here whose works we have happily featured before, and we’re very impressed with his new book and happy to talk to him about it.
Steve, welcome – great to have you back with us!
Wellum:
Thank you, Fred; it’s a delight to be able to talk with you today and also about the subject matter book.
Zaspel:
First, tell us about the Foundations of Evangelical Theology series. And who is your intended audience?
Wellum:
The Foundation series was the brainchild of my former professor at Evangelical Divinity school John Feinberg and he goes back quite a while now. It’s taken a while for the series to see the light of day and there’s still volumes coming out. He goes back to the first volume – Bruce Demarest who wrote years ago on The Cross and Salvation. The series is intended for, certainly, seminary students, also pastors and laypeople in the church who want further in depth treatment of theology. And as the title suggests, it’s trying to bring these doctrinal areas all the way from what theology is all the way to eschatology. To bring the doctrines to today in terms of a biblical theological defense; looking at contemporary issues so that you have a contemporary evangelical restatement of the great doctrines of the Christian faith.
Zaspel:
Is this book representative of a course you teach at the seminary?
Wellum:
Yes. At Southern we have theology courses that cover the topics or loci in systematics and obviously in one of those areas, in Theology 2 we cover the Christology, both person and work of Christ. And then we also at the seminary have elective courses that zero in on each of the topics. I have a course here on the person of Christ and then a course on the work of Christ. So the book reflects much of the content I would cover in the elective course on the person of Christ. Now working from course material to a book can be quite different; but the basic course that lays out who Jesus is, the nature of the incarnation, is what the book is also trying to do with, obviously, changes made for printed communication versus classroom material.
Zaspel:
You can’t recite your whole book, of course, but can you frame it out for us? What are the major issues that must be addressed for a right understanding of the Person of Christ?
Wellum:
This was a real challenge just in terms of the organization of material because the whole series wants to give a contemporary restatement in light of church history, and light of Scripture, of who Jesus is and so what do you cover? I mean in systematics you can cover various historical people and contemporary theologians sometimes that’s the way people approach the topic, descriptively, obviously you want to look at biblical materials. So what I did, and I think it’s similar to the other books in the series, but I tried to be given the fact that who Jesus is and the nature of the incarnation especially in our day, I was trying to think of how was this doctrine understood in our day? What are the challenges that we face? The key challenge, I think, in this area is a denial of Christ’s exclusivity, a denial of Christ’s uniqueness. And so I wanted to begin to set the contemporary context of why it is that the universal proclamation and confession of the church all the way through – the post Reformation era all the way to the Enlightenment – was pretty uniform; which is that Jesus is God the son incarnate. So that uniform confession was undermined uniquely in the Enlightenment era and I tried to then say why that’s the case and that sort of building off of Francis Schaeffer’s sort of ideas having consequences, our present confusion regarding who Jesus is, is tied to a long history so that in our proclaiming and confessing Christ today we need to do so very self-consciously as the church has done dependent upon the Scriptures within a larger Christian worldview tied to the full authority of the Bible. So I was trying to lay out, initially, our contemporary context, the proclamation of the exclusivity of Christ, as well as a methodology of how to do that. So a proper theological method, a proper hermeneutic, and then from there then work through the whole Bible. So I tried to interact with the relation of biblical systematic theology by saying the whole Bible is necessary to give us who Jesus is from Old Testament to New. So laying out the storyline of Scripture; turning to the Gospels, the New Testament evidence regarding who Jesus is and then thinking through how, then, does the church take all of the diverse data of Scripture, which is now theological formulation, and put those pieces together in light of heresy, challenges where there now is the Orthodox confession of who Jesus is. Which brings us to our own day; and then I finished with how, today, we can argue for the coherency of Christology and some of the perennial issues that show up in Christology in light of some of the debates in our own day.
Zaspel:
What is the significance of your title: God the Son Incarnate? You’re making an important point, here, that you want to stress.
Wellum:
Yes, I am. A lot of times we speak about the incarnation, we speak about the God man; and of course, that is perfectly legitimate; but in the title, I’m trying to pick up, really, the thesis of the entire book. Who is Jesus of Nazareth? Well, he is God the Son. Not just God in general, because we serve and worship and know a triune God. So it’s the second person of the Godhead, the son of God from eternity who is fully God who now becomes incarnate. So, God the Son Incarnate is very, very specific. It’s the second person of the Godhead who takes on a human nature does that for our salvation and as our great mediator. So I wanted to be in the title laying out the entire thesis of the book. Jesus of Nazareth is nothing less than the Son from eternity in relation to the Father and Spirit; the triune relation, the triune God, the second person of the Godhead who has become flesh.
Zaspel:
If you could point us to just one passage to introduce us to this doctrine, what would it be?
Wellum:
Well, you need your whole Bible to give you who Jesus is, right? It’s an unfolding revelation; but, obviously, when I think of the title, God the Son Incarnate, the first passage that comes to mind of many is John 1:18. Because there, in the prologue of John’s Gospel you have, really, what the whole book is seeking to unpack, right? In the opening two to three verses you have the Word, who, in John, is the son of God, is the eternal Son. This Word who is with God, who is with the Father, who is God, so there is God the Son who is fully God, then you have him as the agent of creation, the one who has life and then, of course, John 1:14, the Word became flesh, right? So there is Incarnate – God the Son, the Word, who has become flesh. And then, of course, it’s set within the entire Bible because that passage is comparing/contrasting Christ with the son of God who comes with Moses. The law is given through Moses; grace and truth through Jesus Christ. And so you have a greater nature of who this Word is, who this Son is that comes. So in some sense, your whole Bible is being brought together in this Jesus who is from eternity, the Word, the Son, who has now become flesh. So John 1 beautifully brings all of that together, theos as a Christological title is applied to him twice in verse 1 as well as verse 18. So that verse comes to mind right off the bat.
Zaspel:
Tell us why historical theology is so important in this discussion. Historical Theology is always of value, but in this discussion it plays an especially important role – what is it? And maybe you could explain what you mean by “magisterial” vs. “ministerial” authority.
Wellum:
Yes, I mean, in the doing of systematics, right? So I view systematics, not differently than anyone else, but I can view systematics as the discipline by which its of faith seeking understanding where God gives us his revelation of himself; God takes the initiative to speak, to make himself known. All of our theologizing, all of our knowing of God, all of our knowing of Christ is based upon Scripture. That’s what I mean by magisterial authority. Really it is Sola Scriptura; it is the norm. All of our questions that we are answering in terms of who God is and who Christ is, is rooted and grounded in Scripture and there is where we are always being taken back to. All that Scripture says in terms of its entire canonical presentation. But as we do that, we take all of Scripture, and there are many pieces that Scripture even gives to us that require further reflection and Scripture doesn’t give us all these definitions that are necessary to answer various objections or heresies that arise. Think of the term homoousious, the son is of the same nature as the father; well, that’s not technically a biblical term, yet it is part of our reflection upon Scripture that is necessary to properly proclaim and think through all that Scripture says. Church history has that role of helping us do that. We are not new people who are doing theology for the first time; we live in the 21st century, there is 2000 years that have preceded us of the church, Christians, theologians, the confessions, the creeds, have all tied to historical theology that have a ministerial role. A servant role; it’s a secondary role. All of our confessional statements are secondary standards. They must be true to and correspond with all that Scripture teaches. That’s the difference between magisterial and ministerial. Yet, the confessional statements, theologians of the past as they have wrestled with the same issues that we wrestle with from Scripture are of immense help and in fact, I think, especially in the area of Christology, which then ties to the area of the doctrine of the Trinity, there has been a very uniform voice throughout the ages. That’s not to say that there are no differences, but the great Nicaean orthodoxy, the great Chalcedonian orthodoxy tied particularly to Christology has been fairly unified. And that unified voice has been picked up in all segments of the Christian world, both East and West, both Catholic and Protestant, all the way to the Enlightenment era where you see the first real challenges. And again, that’s not to say there are no nuances and differences within; yet, there is a basic pattern, a basic confession of God the Son incarnate that has come clearly to us. And as the church has wrestled with various false ways of putting the Bible together (that’s what we eventually call heresy), this doesn’t fit; this doesn’t do justice to all the biblical data. There is immense wisdom that we received from the church. We stand on their shoulders and are not listening to the church or trying to reinvent a new way of putting the pieces together will be to our peril. So we first have to say, how has the church done this? Now, if we want to tweak certain things or say there needs to be more clarity on that, precision on that, that’s fine but we first must listen to the wisdom of why they said what they said; why they put it together the way they did; and then, from there have clear understanding of if we depart from that we better be able to find a Scriptural grounding for this before we so quickly depart. In the area of Trinity and Christology, particularly because those doctrinal areas have such a consistent affirmation through the ages, they require even further care; especially if we think we should tweak them for depart from them.
Zaspel:
Back as far as the early creeds of the church it was recognized why it is so important to get this doctrine right. Talk to us about that. What is at stake here?
Wellum:
I deal with this a little bit and I think a very helpful author today who also deals with this is Richard Bauckham. He, and then I, pick up on this as well. I try to show that there has been the standard Adolph von Harnack idea that as you develop theology in terms of the Trinity and Christology, there is what he calls acute Hellenization that they’ve adopted. All of this Greek vocabulary, they’ve distorted the teaching of the Bible; they’ve created this metaphysical construction of Jesus as two natures in one person and all of that. That ultimately distorts Scripture and we need to get rid of that. Well, I try to show in the book that if we take the entire Bible seriously and all of that, you know, put the New Testament within the categories and framework and theology and teaching of all of Scripture is that yes, the creeds will use different language, right? So even the word person and nature from the Greek and Latin and homoousios and then there are other expressions that come to grasp the full teaching of who Christ is. All of those things are extrabiblical; yet, they are true to the Bible; they are in continuity with; they are–David Yeago uses this term “judgments”–they are judgments that are consistent with the Scriptural teaching. So there’s a continuity between our confessional statements. Our confessional statements are true to the Bible. And that’s a very, very important point to make even though the language is different. And underneath the confessional statements is the desire of the church, not to simply give some abstract theology or some speculative Greek notion of who the triune God is and of who the incarnate Son is, but underneath all of this is faithfulness to the word of God; and tied to that faithfulness this is the Savior that we need that this Redeemer who is God the son incarnate is absolutely necessary for our salvation. Apart from him we have no mediator; we have no Redeemer. He had to become like us in humanity. He had to become fully human. Otherwise we have no one to act on our behalf and to destroy the power of sin and death and to represent us and to save us. If he is not fully God we cannot have a Savior either because ultimately our problem before God is that of sin and we need God to save us, right? So we need to define Redeemer who is fully God and fully man so the confessional statements of the church are giving us precisely the Redeemer we need. To not have him, to go the way of false teachers that compromise some portion of either his deity or humanity or his unity as the unique son, the person of the son will ultimately leave us with no salvation. And that’s the driving concern of the church; and that’s our driving concern as well. We’re not just simply laying out these speculative notions and you know, this is enough to sort of have interesting discussion on. In the end the formulations of the church are because this is the mediator and the Redeemer we need and apart from him there is no salvation.
Zaspel:
Okay, anytime we talk about the two natures of Christ there are few questions that everyone puzzles over. We won’t take time to answer these questions now, but go ahead and mention them so curious readers can know what to expect.
Wellum:
Obviously, we are dealing with, in terms of the person of Christ, areas that we can think about and we use the full exercise of our rational faculties to try to wrestle with all the biblical data; but in the end we are left with a lot of unknowns. And that shouldn’t surprise us; I mean, scriptural revelation isn’t exhaustive. It’s true, but it’s not exhaustive. And when you come to the person of Christ, in terms of his identity, he is the son from eternity, right? One person, divine son who is fully God/fully man and he has two natures. In our experience, there is nothing like that. I mean we don’t have two natures; we are not fully God/fully man, so automatically, obviously, there are a lot of issues that show up. So what we try to wrestle with throughout the entire book and then conclude in our theological formulation is trying to make first, rational sense of this. By rational sense showing that there is no necessary contradictions in affirming that he is one person, two natures. Yes, there’s plenty of unknowns, what I will call mystery in the sense of unknowns; yet, this is coherent. So throughout the book all the way from the storyline to, then, the theological formulation there is an overall argument that this is coherent within the Bible’s presentation. If you take Christology outside of the Bible’s presentation and put it in terms of another worldview structure and teaching and unfolding of redemptive history and so on, and so on, and so on, you will eventually not be able to make sense of the coherency of the incarnation, the logic of the incarnation. We run into this often when we speak with Islam, for instance, where they will see the incarnation from the very beginning as blasphemy, “shirk,” and something that is utterly impossible. Well, part of that impossibility for them is because they have a different entire doctrine of God, a different view of human beings, they are not image bearers, God is not triune. So what is necessary to make sense of coherence in the broad area, even though there is plenty of unknowns, is then the entire framework and teaching and theology of the Bible. So that’s a crucial issue that gets discussed – the logic.
Now, as we move from there, we obviously have questions of how does this work? How do you put together, for instance, a Colossians 1:15-17, where the son from eternity is the agent of creation (Father through Son by Spirit); he is the sustainer of the universe (Father through Son by Spirit sustains) yet, the perfect tense is used there. So the Son not only sustains from the past but continues to sustain the universe even as the incarnate one. Well, how does the incarnate one sustained the universe? How does the baby Jesus in Mary’s womb sustain universe? So we have to wrestle with a proper sense of two natures , what Calvin famously called the “extra” which goes back throughout the whole history of the church. How does the Son, the person, act through a divine nature, a human nature, how does that simultaneously work? So part of our wrestling with some of these issues, then, is: how does the agency of the Son, how does the subject, right? It’s the Son who acts. The person is the acting subject, not the natures. That’s a crucial point I try to make throughout the book. The Word became flesh; not the divine nature became flesh. It’s the person who is the acting subject. How does that person, now, act through two natures? How does he act in his deity? How does he act in his humanity? How does he grow in wisdom, stature, favor with God and man, full human growth, at the same time sustain the universe? Throughout the book a proper person/nature distinction is being made; wrestling with that, making sure we are clear; wrestling, then, with biblical data regarding – the son says he doesn’t know certain things. Only the father knows. And yet, he is always fully God. He is omniscient. How does that work? Wrestling with how the church has put what is attributed to the natures, attributed to the person, what’s called the communicatio. How does he experience temptation? When does the Son act divinely and when does he act humanly? What is the rhyme and reason behind that? I try to lay out Trinitarian relations that have been always going on from eternity. The Son never acts independently of the Father or Spirit. Inseparable operations what we speak of in terms of Trinitarian theology, as well as the mission of the Son. A strong emphasis on the storyline of the Bible that the Son in the state of humiliation primarily is acting in and through the human nature to be our Redeemer; to be last Adam; to be our covenant head. Yet, he is not limited to that human nature because Colossians 1:17 he is still sustaining the universe. So those are some of the areas that always show up. Well, how does this work? How does the Son act through both natures? How does he not know certain things and yet he is omniscient? How is he finite and located in his human nature, but he is also omnipresent in his divine nature. So, working through coherence, nature, person, person/nature distinction, Trinitarian relations, mission in terms of Him as mediator, last Adam – all of that is trying to tie what’s happened to these issues. But when all is said and done… I remember finishing the book thinking I barely even touched the surface on any of this. Even after 500 pages I’m thinking this just getting going because so much is for our worship, our reflection. I think even in all eternity will never fully understand how all of it works because we are finite creatures that do not have exhaustive understanding of these things.
Zaspel:
There are any number of specific issues addressed in your book that I’d like you to address for us here – perhaps we can have a follow-up?
Wellum:
Yes, sure, no problem.
Zaspel:
Let’s end with a crisp, summary statement: Who is Jesus Christ? And why is he so important?
Wellum:
Well, we would say, Jesus the Christ, right? Christ as a messianic title. Jesus Christ is God the Son. He is the second person of the Godhead from all eternity. He is God the Son who is fully God who is now man. He is God the Son incarnate. That who he is. Why is he so important? Because of who he is. And it’s only because of who he is that he can do what he does. He is important in his person because he is God who has become man. He is the exclusive, unique, Lord and Savior, worthy of all our worship, affection, obedience. He is the one who is our mediator. Of course, out of that, His unique identity as God the Son incarnate, he alone is Lord and Savior. He alone can meet our needs. He alone can pay for our sins. He alone can act as our great high priest, our sovereign king. He alone brings all the triune God’s purposes to pass in himself. That is why he is so important. And that is why at the end of the Bible, all of heaven and all of the angels to the Lord and the Lamb, (particularly father/son relationships), all of heaven gives eternal praise to him because he is worthy in who he is and he is worthy because of what he does. And that is a summary of the Lord Jesus from Scripture.
Zaspel:
We’re talking with Dr. Stephen Wellum, author of the new book, God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ. I’ve read it, I loved it, and I highly recommend it. It’s a wonderful topic and an enormously profitable study. I’m sure it will take its place among important works on Christology.
Steve, thanks so much for talking with us today.
Wellum:
Thank you very much for having me.
