Why Jesus? Which Jesus?

The little book Why Jesus? is part of the materials for the Alpha Course. In it, Nicky Gumbel writes:

Jesus is the only man who has ever chosen to be born, and he is one of the few who has chosen to die. He said that the entire reason for his coming was to die for us. He came ‘to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:45).

To say that Jesus is “the only man who has ever chosen to be born” is faintly ridiculous even on high christological terms. The only possible New Testament support for it is the idea expressed in Philippians 2:6 that he did not grasp at a certain type of being equal to God or a god, my views on which can be found here.

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Justification by faith (in the story of Israel and the nations)
The classic doctrine of justification is roughly that God declares righteous—and will declare righteous at the final judgment—the sinner who has faith in Jesus. There is nothing that we can do to make ourselves right with God—no works of any religious or moral “law”. The righteousness of… ( | 8 comments)
Judgment according to works: a flawed paradigm
I was hoping that at least one of the views expressed in [amazon:978-0310490333:inline], edited by Alan Stanley, would recognize that the theological problem looks very different—and frankly much less problematic—from a narrative-historical perspective… ( | 17 comments)
Some women and the story of God’s people, and a brief obituary
Elkanah had two wives. Peninnah has children, but Hannah has no children. Elkanah favours Hannah, but Peninnah “used to provoke her grievously to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb”. At the temple in Shiloh Hannah prays that the Lord of hosts will look on the affliction of his… ( | 5 comments)
John Barton on biblical criticism and reading the Old Testament
I have found John Barton’s defence of “biblical criticism” as a fundamentally semantic or literary enterprise extremely helpful in clarifying what I mean by a narrative-historical hermeneutic. The biblical text relates, on the one hand, to how things really were, and it is the task of… ( | 11 comments)
Don Carson, kingdom, ethics and individual salvation
I managed to get an internet connection on the bus between Antakya (Antioch on the Orontes) and Tarsus and followed a link from Michael Bird to a Themelios article by Don Carson on “Kingdom, Ethics, and Individual Salvation”, republished on the Gospel Coalition site. It doesn’t seem an… ( | 9 comments)
Where should a statement of faith begin?
I was asked a while back by Brad Knight what I thought of this post by Roger Olson. Olson addresses the question: When composing a Christian statement of faith, a statement of faith for a Christian church, educational institution, whatever, what or whom should the first article be about? Where… ( | 3 comments)
Rocking the boat: Noah in narrative-historical perspective
Following the brilliantly intense Christian Associates staff conference in Budapest, my wife and I are spending a couple of weeks in eastern Turkey. Yesterday we went to see the remarkable rock structure, in the hills close to the border with Iran, that is believed by some to be the petrified… ( | 11 comments)