The concept that “fullness” is to be found in Jesus Christ has been invoked to support the uniqueness of Jesus, including in the context of world religions. Yet the metaphorical sense of fullness is amenable to a variety of interpretations. Is this uniqueness the logical consequence of Christian faith, or an over-reliance on what amounts to a spatial metaphor? Are the uniqueness and primacy of ...

As an examiner for colleges participating in the Australian College of Theology I set a question asking students to explain the importance of the distinction between the active and passive obedience of Christ. To my surprise of the eighty or so students who sat the exam only one tried to answer the question, and he or she had misunderstood it completely. Why would this be the case among student...

oundational to Baptist Christology is the superiority of Christ over all created beings, and foundational to Baptist ecclesiology is the headship of Christ over the church. Among the strongest biblical passages arguing for the superiority of Christ over all created beings and particularly the Levitical priesthood is Hebrews 1-10. In Hebrews 7, Jesus is described as a priest after the order of M...

Jesus of Nazareth underwent Jewish and Roman trials, was flogged, and was sentenced to death by crucifixion. The scourging produced deep stripelike lacerations and appreciable blood loss, and it probably set the stage for hypovolemic shock, as evidenced by the fact that Jesus was too weakened to carry the crossbar (patibulum) to Golgotha. At the site of crucifixion, his wrists were nailed to th...

In his brief, On the Four Wills in Christ, Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141) offers a carefully nuanced depiction of Jesus’ human nature that showcases his human capacity for compassion. Hugh is keen, however, not only to underscore Jesus’ human capacity for compassion but also to identify such fellow-feeling as the signature attribute of ideal human nature. Accordingly, one finds throughout the Vic...

Asteady debate over the meaning of the death of Jesus in Luke-Acts runs through the heart of scholarly attention to Lukan theology. Alongside the growing recognition of Luke as a theologian in his own right, the uniqueness of his interpretation of the cross over against other biblical authors has been regularly emphasized. In this regard, it has become commonplace to affirm Luke attaches no dir...

The article discusses the central issue of the relationship between the “Historical Jesus” and the “Christ of Faith” and especially the question whether there is a continuity between the Jesus of history and later theological views, in Paul, the Gospels, and the creed of the church. Initially, the author traces the origins of the question in enlightenment thought (Reimarus, Lessing) and explain...

As a religion based on the teaching of Jesus Christ, from the outset Christianity has developed a completely different attitude toward health and illness than the Old Testament. Health and illness are now viewed through the eyes of Jesus Christ the redeemer, who accepted each and every man. The history of Christianity has had its episodes of masochistic attitude toward illness, but today it cle...

The event of Peter’s denials of Christ is a frequent subject of Sunday sermons. The prediction and outplaying of the denials, as recorded in the four Gospels, is a powerful reflection of a condition of our relationship with Christ—that our faith is more vulnerable than we care to admit.1 But a small thorny issue surrounds the Gospel accounts of this event, one that is a nagging distraction to s...