by Scott R. Swain “What’s in a name?” Juliet muses. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” The daughter Capulet’s sentiment is certainly true on some level. But the same cannot be said of the name applied to Jesus in John 3:16. Jesus’ identity as God’s “only Son” […]
Basics of Systematic Theology: Christology – The Person of Christ
His Only Son
“It is not we who can sustain the church…”
I begin every semester in my Church and Sacraments course with the following quotation from Martin Luther, which Karl Barth used “In Place of a Foreword” to introduce Church Dogmatics, volume 1.2. The quotation says so much about the relationship between Christology and ecclesiology in Protestant dogmatics. And it offers so much by way of encouragement […]
Gregory of Nazianzus on the crucifixion of the God-man
Some time in the autumn of 379, Gregory of Nazianzus answered the summons issued by the Synod of Antioch to take up residence in Constantinople. His job description was clear: to promote the Nicene faith in a city given over to Arianism. Gregory soon established the Church of the Resurrection and, within a year, preached […]
“Saved by his life”: reflections on Jesus’ resurrection
According to Carl Braaten, the gospel’s claim that God raised Jesus from the dead requires us to address two questions: the question of whether it happened and the question of what happened. The former question–what we might call, “the apologetic question,” is vital for if God did not raise Jesus from the dead, then our faith is futile […]
