Jesus Christ Our Lord

Copyright © 1969 by

THE MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE

OF CHICAGO

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 70-80941

ISBN-10: 0-8024-4326-5

ISBN-13: 978-0-8024-4326-7

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CONTENTS

Preface

1. Christ in Contemporary Theology

2. Christ in Eternity Past

3. Christ in Old Testament History

4. Christ in Old Testament Typology

5. Christ in Old Testament Prophecy

6. The Incarnation of the Son of God

7. The Person of the Incarnate Christ

8. The Life of Christ on Earth

9. Christ in His Suffering and Death

10. Christ in His Resurrection

11. The Present Work of Christ

12. The Future Work of Christ

Bibliography

Subject Index

Selective Scripture Index

PREFACE

EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS AGO Bernard of Clairvaux penned the beautiful hymn:

Jesus, the very thought of Thee

With sweetness fills my breast;

But sweeter far Thy face to see,

And in Thy presence rest.

Ever since the holy Babe was laid in the manger in Bethlehem of Judea, devout souls have found in Jesus Christ One who is the worthy object of their worship, whose ineffable person compels their love and obedience. As the Word of God expressed in human form, Jesus Christ has drawn all believing souls to Himself. Although no other person is the object of more scriptural revelation, human pens falter when attempting to describe Him.

The poet, biographer, theologian and orator alike confess their inability to delineate the glories and perfections of our blessed Saviour. Charles Wesley expressed the aspiration of those conscious of their limitations when he composed this great hymn:

O for a thousand tongues to sing

My great Redeemer’s praise,

The glories of my God and King,

The triumphs of His grace.

Lewis Sperry Chafer in introducing his Christology expressed this same sense of inadequacy when he wrote,

In attempting to write of His adorable Person and His incomprehensible achievements—which achievements when completed will have perfected redemption, exercised to infinite satisfaction the divine attribute of grace, manifested the invisible God to His creatures, and subdued a rebellious universe in which sin had been permitted to demonstrate its exceeding sinfulness—the limitations of a finite mind which is weakened by a faulty perception are all too apparent.¹

The impossible task of circumscribing the glories of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ stems from the infinity of His person and the omnipotence and omniscience of all His works. From Genesis to Revelation Jesus Christ is the most important theme of the Bible and almost every page is related in some way to either His person or work. Christianity is Jesus Christ. No other subject is given more complete revelation and yet the half has not been told. No other theme is more intimately related to the creation of the natural world. For all things were made by him: and without him was not any thing made that was made (John 1:3). The glories of the natural world therefore declare the power and Godhead of Jesus Christ as the Son of God.

No other person is given more biographical attention than Jesus Christ, whose life is portrayed in the four Gospels with supplementary theological revelation in other books of the Bible. The four portraits afforded in the four Gospels give depth and perspective to the incomparable One who lived among men. Yet it is still true, as John states, that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written (John 21:25) concerning what He said and did.

The story of redemption, anticipated in the protevangelium of Genesis 3:15, is foreshadowed in every sacrifice of the Old Testament as well as detailed in anticipatory prophecy. It had its supreme revelation in those dark hours when Jesus Christ hung upon a cross on Calvary. No other man lived as Christ lived and no other man died as Christ died. Here supremely revealed was the love and righteousness of God and His redemptive purpose for man. The power of His resurrection added a new dimension to the omnipotence of God, and His ascension in glory was prophetic of His ultimate subjugation of the universe, when every knee would bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

The riches of divine revelation embodied in Jesus Christ are as measureless as the ocean and His perfections as numberless as the stars. To attempt to state in complete theological form all that should be said about Jesus Christ leaves the writer with a sense of futility. He has clipped but a cup from the ocean of infinite glory and perfections of his Lord and Saviour.

With the confession of inadequacy, however, comes the practical necessity of setting forth in systematic form, insofar as words can do, the many truths relating to the person and work of Christ. Upon this systematization the whole structure of Christian preaching and teaching must be erected, and by this means the individual faith and devotion of a believer in Christ can be immeasurably enriched by enlarging as far as possible his understanding of the scriptural revelation concerning his Saviour.

The theological presentation of the person and work of Christ must necessarily be in the form of an extended outline. Any division of Christology is capable or almost indefinite extension whether viewed biblically, historically or philosophically. In the main, the present study is concentrated on the question What saith the Scripture? with attention to the writings of men only as they cast light upon particular subjects. A student of Christology needs to be constantly reminded that while there is progress in doctrine, there is no increase in scriptural revelation. In the last analysis contemporary Christology has in many respects confused rather than clarified the extended revelation of the Word of God. It is, therefore, more important to discover what Paul or John says about Jesus Christ than to follow the latest learned theological pronouncement. When the Word of God has spoken clearly and plainly, the unbelief of men, the reasonings of the natural mind and the wisdom of the world can be safely disregarded.

The author desires to express sincere appreciation to those who have helped in the production of this work. In particular, he is indebted to Dr. S. Lewis Johnson, Jr., Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis at Dallas Theological Seminary, for his critical reading of the manuscript, and Dr. John A. Witmer, Librarian of Mosher Library, Dallas Seminary, for his bibliographical and other suggestions. The editors of Moody Press have also been most cooperative. Acknowledgment is made to publishers of works that have been quoted.

In attempting to set forth the biblical revelation concerning Jesus Christ the author has sought to glorify his Saviour by providing enrichment of the life and faith of all who read. With Edward Perronet he would say,

All hail the power of Jesus’ name!

Let angels prostrate fall;

Bring forth the royal diadem,

And crown Him Lord of all.

¹Lewis S. Chafer, Systematic Theology, V, 3.

1

CHRIST IN CONTEMPORARY THEOLOGY

CHRISTIANITY by its very name has always honored Jesus Christ as its historical and theological center. No other person has been more essential to its origination and subsequent history and no set of doctrines has been more determinative than the doctrines of the person and work of Christ. In approaching a study of Christology, one is therefore concerned with central rather than peripheral theological matters. One's faith in and understanding of Jesus Christ involve the most important theological issues anyone can face.

DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY

In the history of theological thought concerning Christ until modern times there was always a solid core of doctrine which can be equated with biblical orthodoxy. The early church Fathers, struggling with the obvious problem of the doctrine of the Trinity and how could God be Three and yet One, stated in enduring terms that while God is One numerically, He subsists in three Persons, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit who are equal in eternity, power and glory, Each possessing all the divine attributes and yet having properties which distinguish Them within the unity of the Trinity. A milestone in the statement of this important doctrine of the Trinity was reached in the Nicene Council in 325 and was matured and restated by the Protestant Reformers.

ORTHODOX DOCTRINE OF THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST

Following the delineation of the doctrine of the Trinity, the subject of the person of Christ incarnate also received major attention in the early church. Discussions concerning the relationship of the human and divine natures finally achieved a standard of orthodoxy when the person of Christ was defined as having a complete human nature and a complete divine nature united in one Person without moral complication (e.g., in the Chalcedonian Creed, 451). Although Calvinistic and Lutheran definitions of the human nature of Christ differ in some details in their doctrine of the person of Christ; a well-defined pattern emerged which can be described as orthodox.

Discussions of the person of Christ inevitably led to study of His work, especially His work in death on the cross. Here again, though definitions varied, the objective fact that Christ died for our sins and by this act of redemption achieved reconciliation of man to God forms the mainstream of orthodox conviction. Generally speaking, within orthodoxy the bodily resurrection of Christ and His bodily second coming to the earth have not been questioned.

EARLY DISSENT FROM ORTHODOXY

From the early days of the church, however, some have dissented from what might be described as the main thrust of orthodoxy. During the third century, the Alexandrian School of Theology with its attempted harmonization of Plato and Christianity tended to regard all Scripture as a revelation in symbolic or allegorical rather than literal and historical terms. An important fourth century event was the challenge by Arius to the eternity of Christ which ended in his condemnation at the Council of Nicaea. The allegorical approach to biblical revelation, which characterized the Alexandrian school, had its counterpart in the later philosophy of Hegel who regarded the biblical record as presenting concepts which belong to the Christian faith in symbolic terms. In various forms this point of view has persisted to the present day and has influenced many diverse systems of theology both conservative and liberal.

RISE OF MODERN LIBERALISM

Another major movement in the history of the doctrine of Christ can be observed in the introduction by Ritschl and Schleiermacher of the concept that the language of Scripture should be studied for its spiritual intent, namely, the ethical and theological implications rather than the explicit statements of the Bible.¹ This led to contemporary liberalism of the twentieth century which assumes that the Bible cannot be taken seriously in its historical or factual content, but considers Scripture only a means of gaining spiritual insights. Obviously this point of view often resulted in the rejection of the full deity of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, and substitutionary atonement as well as questions concerning the bodily resurrection of Christ and His bodily second coming.

The conflict between orthodoxy and modern liberalism had many causes. John S. Lawton traces it first to a shift from a priori to a posteriori method, that is, a change of acquiring and interpreting knowledge from consideration of principles to formulating knowledge by an induction based upon all the facts which could be obtained, an approach in keeping with the modern emphasis on science. A second major factor was the rise of evolution as a means of explaining complex modern life with an emphasis on God's being in the natural process. Hence God is knowable by experience in a way that a transcendent God could never be understood. This in turn laid the groundwork for the third major factor, the so-called historical approach to the Scriptures, and a naturalistic explanation of life as a whole. These approaches undermined the whole superstructure of orthodoxy including traditional approaches to Christology. An attempt to explain God and His world inductively and by a process of natural evolution left no real basis for worship of a supernatural Deity, and this opened the way for the reaction to liberalism which has been called neoorthodoxy.²

RISE OF NEOORTHODOXY

The religious insights of liberalism were so anemic and subjective that they did not provide a living faith for people and nations in crisis. Out of World War I came the new movement known as neoorthodoxy sparked by Karl Barth's The Epistle to the Romans which challenged the naturalism of liberalism and its doctrine that God is immanent or in the world, but not transcendent or greater than the world. Barthianism restored revelation to a supernatural communication of the infinite God to finite man, communication in which Jesus Christ is the principal medium.

Although Barth tended to reestablish Jesus Christ as the virgin-born Son of Mary who was in fact God and Man at the same time, his failure to be clear on the role of history in revelation and his tendency to regard real communication as suprahistorical has tended to make the main facts concerning Christ experiential. Hence, the Christ of the Scriptures is to some extent supplanted by the Christ of experience, and the resulting doctrines become subjective in contemporary theology rather than historical and revelatory in absolute terms in the Scripture.

Karl Barth is sometimes charged with Christomonism, the reduction of all theology to Christology.³ Although the charge is only partially true, Barth has emphasized the incarnation as the major act of God's self-revelation to man. The major question of theology is how to understand God's communication in the incarnation of Christ. It is through the incarnation that God speaks to man and reconciles man to Himself.

Introducing the subject of Jesus Christ in his Dogmatics in Outline, Barth writes,

The heart of the object of Christian faith is the word of the act in which God from all eternity willed to become man in Jesus Christ for our good, did become man in time for our good, and will be and remain man in eternity for our good. This work of the Son of God includes in itself the work of the Father as its presupposition and the work of the Holy Spirit as its consequence.⁴

A discussion of Barthian Christology is a major field of contemporary theology. While agreeing with most orthodox doctrines relating to Christ as illustrated in his treatment of the Apostles' Creed in Dogmatics in Outline, Barth's approach is more philosophic and experiential in that the Bible is considered a channel of experiencing Christ theologically, but Barth does not hold with orthodoxy that the Bible is factual revelation. He is, however, closer to orthodoxy than most in the neoorthodox school, and unquestionably believes in the deity of Jesus Christ, His virgin birth, and His death and resurrection, in contrast to Reinhold Niebuhr, who seems to question all of these important doctrines.⁵ All theologians classified as neoorthodox tend to emphasize contemporary experience rather than historic revelation as embodied in Scripture. The work of Emil Brunner Revelation and Reason is a classic expression of the neoorthodox concept of revelation.

RISE OF BULTMANNISM

The swing to a more supernatural God with its resulting effect upon the subject of the person and work of Christ in the period following World War II was followed by a movement back to a more liberal concept crystallized in the writings of Rudolf Bultmann. Seeking to establish the viewpoint of the early church, Bultmann adopted the approach of demythologizing Scripture and with it Formgeschichte as the main means of determining the real meaning of the New Testament and the viewpoint of the early church. Bultmann holds that the so-called social gospel as well as eschatological preaching—the idea that the kingdom of God is wholly future—are both unsatisfactory.⁶ He prefers de-mythologizing, an attempt to get behind the mythological conceptions of Scriptures to their deeper meaning.⁷ In his attempt to eliminate the supernatural and arrive at a nonmiraculous interpretation of the New Testament, Bultmann tended to dilute the facts concerning the historical Jesus in the Bible with emphasis on what he believed the early church held rather than what the Bible itself actually teaches.

Bultmann's concept of demythologization is based on a technical definition of a myth, not as a fantasy, or a mere fiction, but the sense in which it is used in comparative religion where it is a statement of man's experience. Jesus, according to Bultmann, spoke in the terms of His day, and thus taught that He had descended from heaven, that He was contending against Satan, and used the concept of a three-story universe, that is, the heavens above, the earth, and that which is below the earth. This was coupled with reference to miracles and other supernatural events. According to Bultmann, all these are ideas clothed in language which now must be stripped of its superficialities and invested with the true intent of the teaching. We must get away from the pictures to the event itself.

The return to the historical Jesus is complicated by the fact that Bultmann considers the Gospels merely a record of what the early church believed Jesus thought and did. Actually, according to Bultmann, all the facts presented in the Bible were filtered through the mind and faith of the church, and probably Jesus did not do the things and say the things which the Scripture ascribes to Him. The process of demythologizing is to get back to the experience of the early church which prompted scriptural accounts. Their experiential encounter with Christ is the kerygma, or the message which must be repeated today, even though the precise details of the Bible may be uncertain.

Bultmann opens his treatment of Theology of the New Testament with the statement

The message of Jesus is a presupposition for the theology of the New Testament rather than a part of that theology itself. … But Christian faith did not exist until there was a Christian kerygma; i.e., a kerygma proclaiming Jesus Christ—specifically Jesus Christ the Crucified and Risen One—to be God's eschatological act of salvation. He was first so proclaimed in the kerygma of the earliest Church, not in the message of the historical Jesus. … Thus, theological thinking—the theology of the New Testament—begins with the kerygma of the earliest Church and not before.⁸

Bultmann, however, acknowledges that Paul's theology shows frequent use of primitive Christian tradition. Vincent Taylor, for instance, cites numerous passages in Bultmann's Theology of the New Testament where Paul is said to rely upon earlier traditions of the church.⁹ Significantly, Bultmann by this confession relates Paul more intimately with the early church than would otherwise be the case.¹⁰

CONTEMPORARY CONFUSION

When Bultmann was overtaken by age and infirmity, his disciples tended to return to the search for the so-called historical Jesus with the implication that the Bible is not an accurate presentation of the actual Jesus of history. All varieties of divergent opinion can be observed from the relatively conservative point of view of Oscar Cullmann, who considers as fact that Jesus regarded Himself as the Messiah, to the more radical disciples of Bultmann such as Herbert Braun and Manfred Mezger, who have reduced revelation almost entirely to personal communication between God and man with corresponding neglect of Scripture.¹¹ At the beginning of the final third of the twentieth century, the pendulum seems to be swinging back again to a position more friendly to Barth, but still far from historical orthodoxy.

EMERGING FACTORS IN CONTEMPORARY CHRISTOLOGY

In surveying contemporary Christology, certain major factors emerge. First and probably most important is the fact that any Christological system can be no better than the view of Scripture on which it rests. Orthodoxy historically has assumed the accuracy, authority and the inerrancy of the Scripture record. Hence, the search for the historical Jesus as well as the theological facts concerning Him are determined under this point of view by what the Scriptures actually teach. It is significant that aside from a few cults, whose teachings are quite contradictory, students of Christology who have accepted the Bible as the inerrant and authoritative Word of God have invariably also accepted the deity of Jesus Christ and the historical accuracy of His virgin birth, sinless life, substitutionary death and bodily resurrection. Variations on these major aspects of Christology almost always stem from a denial in some form of the accuracy and authority of the Scriptures.

A second major fact in Christology has been the hermeneutics or principles of interpretation of Scripture. Those who, like the ancient school of theology at Alexandria, deny that the Bible is normally to be considered in its grammatical and historical sense and who substitute a symbolic interpretation, have also tended to question the major facts concerning Jesus Christ. If the Bible is not to be taken literally, then the virgin birth, the miracles of Christ, His death on the cross and His resurrection as well as the theological explanation of these historical facts are all left in question. The search for a true Christology which is not linked to the authoritative Scriptures is therefore endless and almost fruitless.

Modern confusion and the multiplied divergent views concerning Christ which have arisen in the twentieth century are the product of this uncertainty as to whether the Bible speaks authoritatively and in factual terms. The pendulum will, therefore, continue to swing erratically between those who take the Bible more seriously than others such as Barth and those who attempt to rewrite the Scriptures completely as does Bultmann. The fact that these theoretical interpretations have their rise and fall often within the same generation is a testimony to their lack of objective connection with the Bible and with any norm of truth which endures the scrutiny of succeeding generations.

MAJOR TRENDS IN CONTEMPORARY CHRISTOLOGY

Unquestionably, the modern world does not accept the orthodox definition of the person and work of Christ. As John Baillie wrote in the context of liberalism following World War I, In most of our communities there is to be found a surprisingly large number of men and women who are prevented from a wholehearted sympathy with the Christian teaching and a whole-hearted participation in the life of the Christian Church by the necessity of making some kind of reservation.¹² He goes on to state that the modern mind has no problem with the doctrine of God the Father, and its human need can be met by divine love and acceptance of many Christian ideals. But he states, The doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation and the Atonement have never been anything else to them than a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.¹³ The attitude of a friendly interest in Jesus Christ, but an unwillingness to accept the theological statements of the Bible concerning Him as a Member of the Trinity, as virgin-born and incarnate, and His death as a real redemption from sin, continues to grip a major section of the church today. Baillie goes on to restate in simplest form basic Christian doctrine almost totally rejected by the modern mind.¹⁴

Carl Henry has summarized the major trends of the past century in these words:

The rationalistic liberalism of Schleiermacher, Ritschl, and Troeltsch was the dominant religious force in the forepart of our century. Classic modernism, a theology of intensified divine immanence, so neglected God's transcendence in relationship to man and His universe that it left no room for miracle, special revelation, or special redemption. The Christian religion was viewed as a variety of religion in general—even if it had certain unique features, and could in some respects be viewed as higher than the others. Compatible with this basic outlook, Christian religious experience was viewed as a variety of universal religious experience. Against this speculative immanentism, Karl Barth reasserted God's transcendence and special divine initiative, His wrath against man as sinner, and the reality of miraculous revelation and miraculous redemption. So contagious was this theology of crisis that by 1930 most German theologians conceded the death of rationalistic modernism, or classic liberalism, which Barth had deplored as heresy. They proclaimed the triumph of dialectical theology over immanental philosophy.¹⁵

Although Bultmann overtook Barth in many areas and to some extent supplanted him, his supposed victory is now seen to be transitory and fading. As Henry says,

The central problem of New Testament studies today is to delineate Jesus of Nazareth without dissolving Him as the Bultmannians did, without demeaning Him as many dialectical theologians did, and without reconstructing Him as nineteenth-century historicism did, so that it becomes clear why and how He is decisive for Christian faith.¹⁶

The revolt against Bultmann is described by Henry as the Heilsgeschichte school, with more emphasis on the historical and factual character of the Bible than was allowed by Bultmann. Henry summarizes it,

The Heilsgeschichte school reflects important points of agreement with evangelical positions. First, divine revelation and redemption are acknowledged as objective historical realities. Second, the sacred events are considered as know able to historians by the methods of historical research. Third, the Old Testament is interpreted as the history of God which was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and the New Testament is interpreted as the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Fourth, the meaning of these events is held to be divinely given, not humanly postulated.¹⁷

Henry may be overly optimistic in considering this a partial return to an evangelical position, but the rising and falling of opinions concerning Christ in the Scriptures illustrates the dilemma of the modern mind attempting to avoid commitment to the factual accuracy of divinely inspired and authoritative Scripture and at the same time trying to achieve normative truth concerning Christ and the Christian faith in general.

PRINCIPLES GOVERNING A BIBLICAL CHRISTOLOGY

In the study of the person and work of Christ, the theological and hermeneutical principles assumed will dictate to some extent the resulting interpretation. A student of Christology must necessarily decide in preliminary study such important questions as to whether the Bible is an infallible and authoritative revelation concerning the facts of Jesus Christ. Historically, the view of Scripture assumed by any interpreter is almost determinative, and those who assume the infallibility and verbal inerrancy of the Bible, generally speaking, support the orthodox view of Christ.

Important in basic principle is the dictum that the Bible is factual and propositional in its presentation of truth. Neoorthodox theologians such as Barth, Brunner and Niebuhr regard Scripture as a channel of revelation rather than an objective factual record and, while attributing some authority to Scripture, do not regard it as inerrant or infallible. Bultmann and his school of thought regard Scripture as a much edited and amended record of first century teaching which cannot be taken at face value. Liberal theologians in general deny an authoritative character to the Bible and, to varying degrees, question both the facts and presentation of Scripture as truth. Obviously a Christology can be no better than the scriptural premises upon which it stands.

Within orthodoxy there are a number of problems of interpretation. The four Gospels presenting four different treatments of the life, death and resurrection of Christ are an area of specialized study. Generally orthodox scholars adopt the principle that theological and factual harmonization of these accounts can be achieved, although solutions to some problems are obscure. Although the four Gospels present four different portraits of Christ, orthodoxy assumes that the variations do not constitute contradictions, but rather different pictures of the same Person.

Any system of Christological interpretation must also rely not only on the gospel narratives but on the interpretation of facts about Christ given in Acts and the Epistles as well as the book of Revelation.

The task of the Christology student is to take the facts presented in Scripture and organize them into theological statement. Contemporary theology has erred because of premises which do not recognize the accuracy of scriptural revelation, unwillingness to take as factual scriptural pronouncements concerning the person and work of Jesus Christ, and emphasis upon experiential contemporary revelation rather than the Scriptures. The Christ of contemporary experience provides no norms, and a variety of Christological concepts resulting from this approach characterizes modern Christology. The biblical approach, while accounting for all genuine spiritual experience, relies upon the historic and theological record of Scriptures, and upon this a biblical Christology must be built.

_________________

¹Albrecht Ritschl, for instance, refers to orthodox interpretation depending on its mechanical use of Bible authority for its theological system and agrees with Schleiermacher in regarding terms like prophet, priest, and king in reference to Christ as metaphorical expressions and as typical notions (cf. A Critical History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, pp. 3-4).

²Cf. John S. Lawton, Conflict in Christology, pp. 1-23.

³Cf. Arnold B. Come, An Introduction to Barth's Dogmatics for Preachers, pp. 133 ff.

⁴Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, p. 65.

⁵Cf. Hans Hofmann, The Theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, or any of Niebuhr's many works.

⁶Cf. Rudolf K. Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology, pp. 11-18.

⁷Ibid., p. 18.

⁸Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, I, 3. For a summary of Bultmann, cf. John Lawson, Comprehensive Handbook of Christian Doctrine, pp. 35-38.

⁹Vincent Taylor, The Person of Christ, p. 36. Taylor cites Bultmann, Theology of …, I, 46-47, 50-52, 81, 98, 125, 129, 131-32.

¹⁰For a broad discussion of influences leading from Schleiermacher to Bultmann and the contemporary revolt against Bultmann, see Carl E. Braaten, History and Hermeneutics, pp. 130-59.

¹¹Cf. Carl F. H. Henry (ed.), Jesus of Nazareth: Saviour and Lord, p. 7.

¹²John Baillie, The Place of Jesus Christ in Modern Christianity, p. 1.

¹³Ibid., pp. 1-2

¹⁴Ibid., pp. 5-10.

¹⁵Henry, p. 4.

¹⁶Ibid., p. 16.

¹⁷Ibid.

2

CHRIST IN ETERNITY PAST

ONE OF THE MOST CRUCIAL PROBLEMS in approaching the study of the person and work of Christ is the question of His existence from all eternity past as the second Person of the Trinity. It was this issue which aroused the immediate antagonism of the Jews when Christ said, Before Abraham was, I am (John 8:58). His listeners immediately understood that Christ was claiming to be eternal and thereby was asserting Himself to be God. As Stauffer points out, this I am is the climax of a series of affirmations in John 8 beginning with I am the light of the world (John 8:12).¹ The Jews accordingly took up stones to stone Him, which was the prescribed penalty for blasphemy.

In the history of the church this controversy came to a head at Nicaea in A.D. 325 when the Arian heresy, which taught that Christ was the first of created spirits but not eternal, was denounced, and the eternity of the Son of God was plainly stated. In much of the religious literature of the twentieth century, while terms like deity and the Son of God are recognized as belonging to Christ, there is often lacking the solid note that He is eternal. The study of Christ in eternity past becomes therefore the key to understanding the total scriptural revelation, and the definition of His person in eternity past is for all practical purposes a statement and proof of His eternal deity.

ETERNITY OF THE SON OF GOD

The doctrine of the eternity of the Son of God is the most important doctrine of Christology as a whole because if Christ is not eternal then He is a creature who came into existence in time and lacks the quality of eternity and infinity which characterizes God Himself. If on the other hand it is held that Christ is eternal, it is immediately affirmed that He is not dependent upon another for His existence, but is in fact self-existent. To say that Christ is eternal is to affirm more than to say that He is preexistent. Arius, for instance, believed in the preexistence of Christ but, because he held that Christ was the first of created spirits, he did not believe that Christ was eternal. If Christ is eternal, of course He is also preexistent, that is, existed before His birth in Bethlehem. The arguments for His eternity and for His deity are therefore inseparable.

In general, those who accept the scriptural testimony as inerrant find ample evidence to support the conclusion that Christ is not only eternal but that He possesses all the attributes of God. The works of Christ, His titles, His majesty, and promises that are related to Him are all those of God Himself. His appearances in the Old Testament referred to as theophanies also provide historical evidence of His existence in the Old Testament period prior to His birth in Bethlehem.

The Old Testament evidence for the eternity of Christ is both direct and indirect. In Messianic prophecy Christ is spoken of as the Child to be born in Bethlehem whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting (Micah 5:2). This is one of many passages which state in effect His eternity. As A. R. Fausset has said, The terms convey the strongest assertion of infinite duration of which the Hebrew language is capable (cf. Ps. 90:2; Prov. 8:22, 23; John 1:1).²

Keil in a long discussion defends the concept of the eternity and deity of the promised Child. He states,

The announcement of the origin of this Ruler as being before all worlds unquestionably presupposes His divine nature; but this thought was not strange to the prophetic mind in Micah's time, but is expressed without ambiguity by Isaiah, when he gives the Messiah the name of the mighty God.³

Even those who do not affirm biblical inerrancy, but who accept the general reliability of the Scriptures, find ample evidence to support the doctrine of the eternity of Christ. Scholars such as Westcott and Lightfoot, and more modern scholars such as J. S. Stewart, A. M. Hunter and D. M. Baillie, would fall into this classification. Baillie, for instance, cites Barth with approval as affirming the eternity of the Trinity which involves eternity of Christ.⁴

All of the Old Testament predictions of the coming of Christ which assert His deity are also evidence for His eternity. For instance in Isaiah 9:6 Christ is declared to be not only mighty God but also everlasting Father or, better translated, Father of eternity. The name Jehovah frequently given to Christ as well as to God the Father and the Holy Spirit is another assertion of eternity, for this title is defined as referring to the eternal I AM (cf. Exodus 3:14).

The eternity of Christ is frequently asserted also in the New Testament in even more definite terms than in the Old Testament. The introduction to the gospel of John is generally considered an affirmation of the eternity of Christ in the statement In the beginning was the Word … and the Word was God (John 1:1). The phrase in the beginning (Greek, en archēi) seems to refer to a point in time in eternity past beyond which it is impossible for us to go, as I. A. Dorner interprets it.⁵ The verb is also chosen to state eternity as the word was