In The 5 Solas series: What the Reformers Taught…
and Why It Still Matters published by Zondervan Stephen Wellum wrote on Christ
alone. Wellum focuses on the exclusive identity of Christ and the sufficiency of
his work. He shows that without the first we can never maintain the latter. The
exclusive identity of Christ was not a point of dispute between Rome and the
Reformers in the sixteenth century. Both adhered in it their Christology to the
New Testament message as confessed in the creeds of the Early Church.
Today, however we cannot get to the work of Christ
before first confronting the loss of sense of his exclusive identity. Orthodox Christology
is rooted in the conception that God has really revealed himself and that the
Scripture is his Word. The church today needs to defend the Trinity and the
authoritative Scrip-ture as absolutely necessary. To have the power to proclaim Christ
alone, we must submit to the Scripture as the living voice of the living God to
know Christ true identity.
With regard to the sufficiency of the work of Christ
the ways of Rome and the Reformation parted. Rome always speaks about Christ in
connection with the church as the extension of Christ’s incarnation. In her sacramental
theology Rome makes clear that the church itself has a mediating role between
God and the sinner. Actually Rome denies the sufficiency of the work of Christ.
Wellum shows the rich meaning of the work of Christ as
revealed in the New Testament. He rightly states that apart from viewing Christ’s
work as our penal substitute none of the biblical data make sense. In the light
of the work of Christ as our penal substitute we get the right view on other
aspects of his work as his victory of the devil and the renewing and transforming
nature of our union with Christ in his death and resurrection.
The author emphasizes that it is necessary for the church
to confess and proclaim Christ alone, because Christ alone in his person and work
can do what is necessary to redeem us. He writes that to capture the heartbeat
of the Reformation con-fession of solus Christus one can do no better than to meditate
deeply on the words of John Calvin: ‘We see that our whole salvation and all
its parts are comprehended in Christ. We should therefore take care not to derive
the least portion of it from anywhere else.’ (Institutes II, xvi, 19).
Christ Alone is a spiritually rich book. Is does full justice to the
biblical data of Christ’s person and work. It is a work that com-bines in a very
good way biblical theology, historical theology and systematic theology and in
this way a stimulus for medi-tation and devotion centered on Christ and his work.
I heartily recommend it.
Stephen Wellum, Christ Alone – The Uniqueness of
Jesus as Savior, The 5 Solas series: What the Reformers Taught… and Why It
Still Matters (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017), paperback 341 pp., $21,99 (ISBN
9780310515746)