For Our Salvation: Two Approaches to the Work of Christ

Central to Christianity is the work of Christ as savior of the world. In this book Geoffrey Wainwright presents the classical confession of Christ’s incarnation and atoning work in ways that allow the gospel message to engage with contemporary culture. Amid social tendencies both to disown our physical nature and to be absorbed in it, Wainwright first argues that a comprehensively biblical doctrine of the Word made flesh will help to school our bodily senses as befits earthly creatures with a spiritual destiny. The incarnation shows God reaching us through sound, sight, taste, touch, and scent and inviting us to a rounded response of intellect, affections, and action. In the second half of the book the traditional description of Christ’s saving work in terms of his prophetic, priestly, and royal offices is brought to bear on current concerns with knowledge and meaning, with power and authority, and with the pain of alienation and the possibility of redemption. Widely known and highly regarded in both the church and the academy, Wainwright here draws on his familiarity with doctrinal and liturgical history and his decades of experience in the ecumenical movement to offer two complementary accounts of Christ’s saving work that will appeal to all who are committed to the cause of evangelical and catholic Christianity.