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4.25 AVERAGE
4.25 AVERAGE
A truly excellent book on Christology (as you can see from the other reviews written here). Have a look through the other reviews on this book as they will explain it better than I can. I gave the book 5 stars because it is well written and gives a fine defense for a biblical Christiology. However, this is not a book to pass out to your church members. Unless you have a pretty good handle on epistemology and philosophy, or you have at least done a good bit of reading, most of this book will be difficult to take in. Because I have little training in epistemology and philosophy proper, parts one, three, and four were difficult to read.
In part two, "The Biblical Warrant for Christology Today," Wellum takes his reader through the biblical text and its storyline to present Christ as fully God and fully man. This was my favorite part, for this is the kind of reading I do. It was terrific.
What should everyone else do? Wellum's "Christ Alone" book is marvelous and easier to grasp. If you want a text that's heavy on good Christology, but not too heavy, take up and read that book first.
In part two, "The Biblical Warrant for Christology Today," Wellum takes his reader through the biblical text and its storyline to present Christ as fully God and fully man. This was my favorite part, for this is the kind of reading I do. It was terrific.
What should everyone else do? Wellum's "Christ Alone" book is marvelous and easier to grasp. If you want a text that's heavy on good Christology, but not too heavy, take up and read that book first.
This work is the more academic version of Wellum's "Christ Alone" but that doesn't mean that it is harder to understand. He explores more topics than Christ Alone did, focusing more on who Christ is than what He does. As Wellum concludes, the Doctrine of Christ is potentially the most important and fundamental Doctrine apart from. The Doctrine of God, because although we can get a lot wrong in our theology, getting Christ wrong could lead us into an entirely different religion.
There is much to appreciate here, but Wellum especially is fine at pulling from the historical theologians that excelled on this topic, such as Bavinck and Berkouwer, and gives a really full and approachable treatise on the topic.
There is much to appreciate here, but Wellum especially is fine at pulling from the historical theologians that excelled on this topic, such as Bavinck and Berkouwer, and gives a really full and approachable treatise on the topic.
Let me begin by saying something nice: Wellum has done his research. It was pleasant to see a wide range of figures, ancient and contemporary, represented in this book. And it seems to present the core of classical metaphysical Christology fairly well. However, this book was so bad on so many levels. First, its prose was unnecessarily purple, dripping with hyphenated words and obscure technical lingo. I love a good vocabulary as much as any denizen of academia, but it often obscured his points. Second, it was unnecessarily repetitive. If I have to hear about the person-nature distinction (or any of Wellum's hobby-horses) one more time, I will become St. Anthony II. Deeper into Wellum's well, there is almost no serious discussion of Christ's impact upon ethics. Christ came so that we may have new life, not just as justified before God, but also as sanctified in our daily lives in real ways. Wellum touches on this in only the barest ways, as he mentions the adoration due to Christ for Christ's sacrifice preciously few times throughout the book. A discussion of Christ that can be complete without ever touching on imitating Him is woefully inadequate. Perhaps Wellum wants to abridge his discussion to the metaphysics and not the ethics--but he does not say so. Finally, Wellum is a presuppositionalist. This makes the whole foundation of the book sorely lacking. I will not go over my critiques of presuppositionalism here--it is merely philosophically defunct, and Wellum takes that on board. Thankfully, we have more than this. Glory to Christ!
Spectacular. The best one-volume evangelical Christology. Helpful definitions and distinctions while also going very deep into questions surrounding epistemology, Scripture, tradition, and contemporary Christological movements. Highly recommended.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
medium-paced
Every time I go back to read this and re-read this I find myself feeling more and more informed on historic and contemporary issues on Christology. Great work, props to Wellum