The Son of God and the New Creation

Short Studies in Biblical Theology is a series edited by Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt. The purpose this series is to connect the results of research in the academic field of biblical theology with everyday believers. The ultimate aim is to mag-nify the Savior and build up his church. This first volume fulfils this expectation.

In this volume the Australian Bible scholar Graeme Golds-worthy traces the divine sonship from Adam, through the nation of Israel and king David, and ultimately to Jesus Christ. The bottom line to his study is that Jesus as Son of God is also God the Son, the eternal second person of  the Godhead. But our salvation and eternal destiny depend on his being the incarnate one who is revealed as Son of God.

Jesus, in het person and work sums up the pattern of creation. Through his redemptive work the creation reaches its final destination The consummation of this total regeneration is described in the book of Revelation as resurrection and the new heaven and earth. So we get a view of the final nature of the kingdom of God established by God the son and inherited by all the adopted sons of God.

Graeme Goldsworthy, The Son of God and the New Creation, Short Studies in Biblical Theo­logy (Wheaton: Cross-way, 2015), paperback 144 pp. $14,99 (ISBN 978-1-4335-5631-9).

Knowing Christ

Mark Jones, minister of Faith Vancouver Presbyterian (PCA) is a great knower and lover of the Puritans. We can say that they were and are for him a guide to understand the Bible better and to love Christ more. 
The Banner of Truth published in 2015 a book written by him with the title Knowing Christ. We can say its is mix of a Bible study and a treatise in the field of systematic theology focused on the person and the work Christ.

Jones deals with a great number of aspects of the person and work of Christ. As you can understand, he writs abou: the incarnation, the divinity and humanity of Christ, his names and his offices, his death, resurrection and intercession. But he also treats aspects usually not, or only marginally, treated in mono-graph in the field of systematic theology. I name Christ’s sayings, miracles, emotions.

The combination of a systematic theological approach and a Bible study in which passage after passage of the New Testa-ment is opened marks the strength of Knowing Christ. When you want a tool to know Christ better and love him more, reading this work carefully and praying for the assistance of the Holy Spirit it will greatly profit you.

Mark Jones, Knowing Christ (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth, 2015), paperback 256 pp., £8,25 (ISBN 9781848716308)

Christ Alone

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)