Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Contents

Introduction.......................................................................ix1. A Place to Stand ... from Which to See..........................................12. Jesus Christ: Motives for Serious Learning......................................233. Jesus Christ: Guidance for Serious Learning.....................................434. The Atonement: A Theological Principle to Frame Scholarship.....................655. Christology: A Key to Understanding History.....................................756. "Come and See": A Christological Invitation for Science.........................997. Christology: The Foundation of Biblical Study...................................1258. The Way Ahead...................................................................147Postscript: How Fares the "Evangelical Mind"?......................................151Further Reading....................................................................168Acknowledgments....................................................................172Index of Names and Subjects........................................................174Index of Scripture References......................................................178

Chapter One

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Although the various forms of traditional Christianity present sometimes strikingly different versions of the faith, they also share a common inheritance in the foundational theology of the classical Christian creeds. Christian bodies that claim to follow "no creed but the Bible" put themselves at an enormous disadvantage for many purposes, not least for promoting Christian learning, because they cut themselves off from the vitally important work that has been accomplished by the numberless assemblies making up the communion of saints. That communion stretching back in time to the apostolic age and out in space to the ends of the earth is crucial for grasping the meaning of divine revelation in itself and for understanding how that revelation illuminates the world as a whole.

An unusually important place in Christian history has been occupied by the saints who lived during the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., that is, during the era when Christianity moved from being an illegal and culturally despised sect to becoming a formally recognized religion of the Roman Empire. Their challenge, in what might be called the church's first intellectual breathing space, was to summarize the faith in authoritative short statements that could specify what Christianity was, define a curriculum for new converts, provide formulas for use in worship, and build barriers against false teaching. The prime defining statements that resulted—especially the Apostles' Creed, the so-called Nicene Creed, and the Chalcedonian definition of Christ's divine-human unity—all functioned as key resources for meeting those needs. Yet beyond their historic value for worship, proclamation, catechesis, and theology, the creeds offered—and continue to offer—precisely what is needed as a grounding for Christian learning. They do so because they represent the distillation of concentrated reflection on Scripture and of hard-won wisdom time-tested by Christian experience.

The ancient creeds became authoritative in the early centuries because they were thoroughly, profoundly, comprehensively, and passionately rooted in Scripture. They retain their importance only because they remain such forceful summaries of biblical revelation. Yet because the creeds also represented the most intense effort imaginable to root the biblical realities of Jesus Christ in the reigning thought forms of the fourth and fifth centuries, they remain important for later eras because they were such superlative exercises in Christian thinking when they were first written. Perhaps most importantly, the creeds concentrate with fearsome energy on the themes that define the heart of Christianity. They remain important for Christian scholarship because they have stood the test of time as faithful summaries of biblical revelation concerning the person and work of Christ.

Examples of Biblical Revelation Summarized by the Creeds

As only the barest sample of the vast material summarized in the creeds, I would like to sketch two strands of that biblical teaching. The first concerns use of the term "glory" in both New and Old Testaments as a word describing the presence of God; the second treats images of Christ in the book of Revelation. Both strands display the diverse richness that made the Christian faith so compelling, but also so challenging, for those who summarized biblical teaching in succinct creedal statements.

Glory

In the Old Testament, God's glory was described as an ineffable splendor that displayed his holiness and marked him as distinct from the creatures; that glory also spoke of his true character that at the end of time would be manifest throughout all creation. In the story of the Israelites after the exodus from Egypt, the glory of God was an overwhelming and frightening presence: "To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain" (Exod. 24:17). Later, at a time of worship, "Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle" (Exod. 40:35). This identification of God's glory as an awe-filled presence would continue long after Moses had left the scene, as was recorded once during the reign of King Solomon: "When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple" (1 Kings 8:10-11). The fear-inspiring quality of the divine glory was reflected even in the New Testament when the shepherds in the hills above Bethlehem received a message from God on the night of Jesus' birth: "An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified" (Luke 2:9).

The clearest explanation for why such holy dread attended the presence of God's glory was recorded during the life of Moses when he asked for an unusual gift: "Then Moses said [to the Lord], 'Now show me your glory.' And the Lord said, 'I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,' he said, 'you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live'" (Exod. 33:18-20). In this strand of Old Testament revelation, the glory of God was to be honored, revered, worshiped, but also feared—and from a safe distance.

Yet, as awesome as the glory of the Lord appeared to ancient Israel—terrifying as the face of God was—so too did Israel's prophets foresee a day when that divine glory would be manifest for all to see. To the prophet Ezekiel this revelation of divine glory was construed as a sign of apocalyptic judgment: "I will display my glory among the nations, and all the nations will see the punishment I inflict and the hand I lay upon them" (Ezek. 39:21). But to the prophet Habakkuk the connotation of this eschatological revealing was more hopeful:

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters...