The Incarnation and Union With Christ

Categories: Book Reviews · Incarnation8 Comments

A few weeks back I published an article on Christ’s saving work, looking at the various elements in the broader narrative arc that surround his atoning death. I’ve been continuing to reflect on how to seek out a healthy balance here, and especially as it relates to the incarnation. Is the incarnation itself saving? Is the very act by which God the Son assumed a human nature a redeeming act—or does it merely prepare for the redemptive work in his death and resurrection? I want to be careful here. On the one hand, the notion that the incarnation itself transformed…

The Incarnation and Particularity

Categories: Incarnation3 Comments

Why do anything when we cannot do everything? Why go anywhere when we cannot go everywhere? Why be something when we cannot be everything? These kinds of questions are at the heart of many postmodern people – an existential indecisiveness, a cosmic uncertainty of where to begin. Confronted with a kaleidoscope of alternative ways to live and know and be because of modern technology and education, we feel overwhelmed and become paralyzed. To say yes to one thing means to say no to an almost infinite number of alternatives. We fear planting our feet in one spot and thus missing…

Thoughts on the extra Calvinisticum

Categories: Calvin · Incarnation8 Comments

As I was reading Timothy George on Calvin he made reference to his famous extra Calvinisticum doctrine. Extra Calvinisticum is Latin for “Calvin’s doctrine of the outer/beyond.” It means that during his earthly life, the Son of God retained existence outside his earthly body. He remained infinite while becoming finite: he remained omnipresent while becoming localized. Think of it like this: was the second member of the Trinity, the eternal Word of God, God the Son – was he still “sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Heb. 1:3, cf. Col. 1:15) in the year 15 AD? Calvin (with Athanasius)…