Introduction Determinations about the constitution of human persons are notoriously difficult. Christian theologians and philosophers who investigate this issue are faced with a host of complicated biblical, theological, philosophical, historical, scientific, and practical questions. One of the most pressing of these questions concerns the precise relation between the body and the mind. Are human persons…
Introduction Among the many sticky questions about the Incarnation, the question of Jesus’ two wills can seem nitpicky and arcane to most Christians. The question seems to be one for the theologians, those who care to parse details that are practically irrelevant to daily life, much like debating how many angels can dance on the…
Introduction In recent years, a growing number of Christian theologians have devoted considerable attention to the person and work of the Holy Spirit in relation to the person and work of the Son. That is, various forms of Spirit Christology have become commonplace on the landscape of contemporary theology. The term Spirit Christology is used…
Introduction Expositions of Christ’s atoning work tend to emphasize the crucifixion and resurrection, and rightly so. Good Friday and Easter Sunday are of paramount importance in what Jesus accomplished, as the Nicene Creed puts it, “for us and for our salvation.” And yet there is more to the atonement than the cross and the empty…
The Second Letter to the Corinthians. By Mark A. Seifrid. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014. 569 pp., $50.00 hardback. Mark Seifrid is Mildred and Ernest Hogan Professor of New Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of Justification by Faith: The Origin and Development of a Central Pauline Theme and Christ,…
Resurrection Stephen J. Wellum 5 Editorial: Reflections on the Glorious Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ Mitchell L. Chase 9 “From Dust You Shall Arise:” Resurrection Hope in the Old Testament Raymond Johnson 31 Matthew 27:51-54 Revisited: A Narratological Re-Appropriation Lee Tankersley 51 Raised for Our Justification: The Resurrection and Penal Substitution A. B. Caneday …
This issue of SBJT is devoted to the theme of the resurrection and especially the glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. From a number of different angles, both Old and New Testament, our authors reflect on the biblical teaching regarding the resurrection, Christ’s resurrection, and its implication for our lives as Christians. At Easter…
Introduction At the moment of Jesus’ death on the cross, after crying out with an earth-rending voice and yielding his spirit (Matt 27:50), Matthew recounts several cataclysmic events for his readers. He includes five signs ((I use “sign” instead of “symbol” since it more helpfully connotes a referent that points the reader both backward to…
What seems to have happened is that Western theology has allowed itself to be dominated by a legalistic view of sin and a forensic model of atonement which leaves little room for resurrection. When the atonement is thought of chiefly in terms of merit and the law, the cross becomes central, but the resurrection drops…
Spring 2015
Introduction My oldest boy used to think that if he could not see the sun shining in the sky during the day, then it was not really out and shining. For him, the sun had to be visible, uncloaked by clouds. He eventually realized that the presence of the sun was evident in the light…
Introduction Long ago Rudolf Bultmann argued that Jesus’ activity as “Revealer of God” is the eschatological event, “the judgment of the world.” ((Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (vol. II; trans. Kendrick Grobel; New York: Scribners, 1955), 35. He states that resurrection and judgment take “place in the response of men to the word…
In orthodox Christology, the priesthood of Christ has been a regular feature of Jesus’ messianic portrait. In Reformed circles, the munus triplex goes back to before Calvin.
Karl Barth’s famous aversion to accepting biblical miracles as historically accessible included the resurrection of Jesus. This antipathy displayed itself in 1962 at George Washington University during a question-answer dialogue with 200 specially invited religious leaders. After Carl Henry identified himself as the editor of Christianity Today, he asked Barth: “The question, Dr. Barth, concerns…
SBJT: When one thinks of crucial and important chapters on the resurrection in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 15 immediately comes to mind. Briefly describe the significant contribution this chapter makes to our thinking about the theme of the resurrection. Stephen J. Wellum: It is certainly the case that 1 Corinthians 15 is of singular…
