The Self-Donation of God. Jack D. Kilcrease

to which the Reformed take strong exception. Also in contention is the genus majestaticum, the Lutheran belief that the human nature shares in all of the divine attributes. Since Christ is not two persons, but one divine person, the human nature is anhypostasis, that is, the man Jesus does not have a separate personality. This doctrine takes on meaning in the face of the critical biblical studies in their quests for the historical Jesus that ignore his claims to deity. Christ’s full possession of who and what God is including his righteousness does not allow for either the Catholic and or the Reformed concepts of grace as a substance that can be quantitatively distributed. In hearing and listening to the narrative, believers are given all of what Christ is and has done. Grace, like justification, is declared. Kilcrease understands the role of Jesus as prophet, priest, and king as reflecting God’s Trinitarian existence, an item not previously found in theology.

      Since Christian theology is Christology, ideally any Christian dogmatics, especially one that offers itself as Lutheran, also should be thoroughly christological. In engaging Catholic and especially Reformed dogmatics, and adopting their outlines, Lutheran dogmatics has tended to deviate from their christological content and goal. Kilcrease works to overcome christological deficits in theology by presenting a truly biblical theology that is thoroughly christological. This is rarely done. He has done it and in so doing set a standard in showing how biblical and systematical theology should be one theology—Christology.

      David P. Scaer

      Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology

      Concordia Theological Seminary

      Fort Wayne, Indiana

      Acknowledgments

      I would like to thank a number of people and institutions for contributing to the publication of this book. I would like to thank John Pless and Mark Mattes for reading and endorsing this manuscript. I would like to thank David Scaer for agreeing to write the foreword of this work. Troy Neujahr also deserves special mention for having helped me with editing the work. I would also like to thank my wife and other family members for their encouragement and support that made it possible for me to write this book. Lastly, I would like to thank Luther Seminary and Calvin College library for providing me with the research materials necessary for the completion of this book.

      Abbreviations

      AE Luther, Martin. American Edition of Luther’s Works. 55 vols. Edited by Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut Lehmann. Philadelphia and St. Louis: Fortress and Concordia, 1957–86.

      ANF Ante-Nicene Fathers. 10 vols. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004.

      Ap Apology to the Augsburg Confession

      BF Summa Theologiae. 60 vols. Blackfriars Edition. New York and London: McGraw-Hill, 1964–1973.

      CA Unaltered Augsburg Confession

      CD Church Dogmatics. Karl Barth. 4 vols. Translated by G. T. Thomason et al. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936–77.

      CT Concordia Triglotta: The Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, German-Latin-English. Translated and Edited by W. H. T. Dau et al. St. Louis: Concordia, 1921.

      Ep Epitome of the Formula of Concord

      FC Formula of Concord

      ICR Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559) of John Calvin.

      LC Large Catechism of Martin Luther

      NPNFa Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. 14 vols. Edited by Philip Schaff. First Series. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004.

      NPNFb Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. 14 vols. Edited by Philip Schaff and William Wace. Second Series. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004.

      SA Smalcald Articles of Martin Luther

      SC Small Catechism of Martin Luther

      SD Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord

      ST Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas

      TR D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesammtausgabe. Tischrede. Weimar: Hermann Böhlau and H. Böhlaus Nachfolg, 1883–2009.

      WA D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesammtausgabe. Martin Luther. 120 vols. Weimar: Hermann Böhlau and H. Böhlaus Nachfolg, 1883–2009.

       Chapter 1: Mediation in the Old Testament, Part 1

      Approach to Scripture, Prophetic Mediation

      Approach to Scripture

The Bible is the Word of God (Rom 3:2; 2 Tim 3:16; 1 Pet 1:11; 2 Pet 1:21, v. 25).1 It is absolutely truthful because of its inspiration by God the Holy Spirit.2 For this reason, the orthodox Lutheran dogmaticians rightly called the prophets and apostles “amanuenses of the Spirit.”3 By proceeding in this manner, we stand firmly with one of the foundational documents of the Lutheran Reformation, the Formula of Concord in its affirmation that “We believe, teach, and confess that the sole rule and standard to which all dogmas together with all teachers should be estimated and judged are the prophetic and apostolic scriptures of the Old and New Testament.”4 Indeed, we can have no other starting point. Through God’s election of Israel, he has chosen to make its life and traditions the medium of his law and promise. Just as Jesus Christ is the true and perfect Word of God from all eternity, so too he is present and active communicating himself infallibly to the people of God through the Word of the prophets and apostles. Indeed, the “testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev 19:10).5

In light of the fact that scripture centers on the promise of the gospel, we must insist on the reality of its truthful historicity. Although “literal religion” is frequently maligned as childish by our culture, the truth of the gospel presupposes the truthful historicity of the Bible. The “nonliteral” and therefore more “mature” reading of the Bible insisted upon by much of contemporary culture in fact denigrates Christianity into an incipit religion of the law. It is infrequently acknowledged that Liberal Protestantism’s legalism automatically follows from its antiliteralism. If the Bible only presents us with fanciful allegorical stories, then these narratives are capable of doing nothing other than giving us general moral truths. But, if scripture centers on God’s promises which culminate in Christ, it must be the case that God has literally been faithful to his promises in the actual history of the world. To suggest that God’s activities of promise making and fulfillment in scripture are mere allegories or legendary “sagas”6 makes such promises about some other realm and not about the real, literal, historical world. If the scriptural world is not the real, literal, historical world, then what freedom can it give to sinners living in the real historical world? This means that the gospel-centered message of the Bible is inherently tied up with the truth of its history in which God makes his trustworthiness known.

Similarly, to admit that scripture could be untruthful in historical matters would also be to suggest that God’s ultimate promise in the gospel could be an error. Even if we have considerable evidence of the central events of the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ, admitting that scripture can error downgrades the certainty of these events to the level of “probable.” Saying that the biblical documents can be untruthful is to say that their historical claims are to be believed with the same degrees of greater and lesser probability that all secular history possesses. Nevertheless, if we have full assurance of our salvation (as scripture tells us we do, Heb 10:19–20), then the events that underline those promises cannot merely be probable, but absolutely true. Indeed the nature of the faith does not allow Christians to confess that Christ “probably” died for their sins and “probably” rose for their justification.