The Narrative Arc of Christ’s Saving Work

Categories: Atonement · Christ's Ascension · Christ's Resurrection3 Comments

Early on in his masterful book The Cross of Christ John Stott quotes Emil Brunner’s statement: “The Cross is the sign of the Christian faith, of the Christian church, of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ…. He who understands the Cross aright—this is the opinion of the Reformers—understand the Bible, he understands Jesus Christ” (44). To my mind, this emphasis on the primacy of the cross is healthy and biblical. The cross is the center of our salvation and the heart of our faith. There is always, however, the danger of centrality morphing into exclusivity, such that the periphery…

Charnock on Christ’s Exaltation and Triplex Munus

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I’ve recently written an article on how Christ’s resurrection intersects with his messianic offices of prophet, priest, and king, so I found this statement by Stephen Charnock interesting, which I came across at Fuller Seminary’s library last week while working on a new project on Christ’s intercession: “Had not Christ been glorified, the offices conferred upon him by his Father could not have been executed; his prophetical, priestly, and royal functions could not have been exercised, to which he was chosen by God, and without which he could not have been a Savior to us.  He had been a sacrifice,…

Torrance on the Ascension

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Torrance’s section on the ascension in Atonement is very interesting. He discusses the extra-Calvinisticum at length and how particular understandings of space-time have hindered people from accepting it. But then he connects the incarnation and the ascension together in Christ’s redeeming work, calling the ascension “the reverse of the incarnation.” I tried to trace this same trajectory of thought in this post by drawing a connection between Christ’s assuming a body in the incarnation to his retaining that body in heaven in the ascension. Torrance makes the same point: “as in the incarnation we have to think of God the…

Owen on Christ’s Glorified Humanity

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I came across this passage in John Owen’s The Glory of Christ (p. 65 of the Puritan Paperbacks edition) which touches upon my previous post, A Body in Heaven?: “That very nature itself which Christ took on him in this world is exalted into glory. Some deny that he has either flesh or blood in heaven, even though they are changed, purified, and glorified. The great foundation of the church and all gospel faith is that he was made flesh, he partook of flesh and blood. It would be a heresy to say that he has now forsaken that flesh…

A body in heaven?

Categories: Christ's Ascension4 Comments

A question that arises from my last post is: where is this resurrected body now? If its physical, where is it in relation to the physical universe? According to the New Testament, Jesus Christ ascended to heaven and is now seated at the right hand of God. But isn’t heaven an immaterial, spiritual realm? After all, “God is spirit” (John 4:24). So how can a body go there? Indeed, some evangelicals deny that a material body can be in heaven. Murray Harris, for example, as best as I understand him, affirms that while the resurrected body of Jesus was physical,…