Jesus is Lord: Christology Yesterday and Today

by Donald MacLeod

The Expository Times once contained a famous article by Vincent Taylor asking the question 'Does the New Testament call Jesus God?' Twenty years before Rudolf Bultmann said 'In describing Christ as God the New Testament still exercises great restraint.' Taylor's conclusion was that the only clear statement of Jesus' deity was Thomas' words 'My Lord and my God.' In a later article in Expository Times Dr Michael Austin dismissed even this. His conclusion? 'The New Testament makes no unambiguous claim to Jesus' divinity.' All this will come as a considerable surprise to ordinary readers of the New Testament! Donald Macleod is recognised as one of the leading theologians alive. He is also able to explain complex thoughts with simplicity and clarity. This is his contribution to the debate on Christology. It builds on his previous writings about the Godhead and is a new work of international academic standing that is a rigorous theological defence of Christ's deity.

Genres: Theology, Christian

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Donald MacLeod is a Scottish theologian.

Macleod studied at the University of Glasgow and the Free Church College before being ordained as a minister of the Free Church of Scotland in 1964. He served as professor of systematic theology at the Free Church College from 1978 to 2011, and as principal from 1999 to 2010.

In 1996, Macleod was cleared of allegations that he had sexually assaulted four women. The Sheriff court found that "the women had all lied in the witness box to further the ends of Professor Macleod's enemies in the Free Church of Scotland." A number of people who believed Macleod should be put on trial by the General Assembly then formed the Free Church Defence Association and ultimately a new denomination, the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing). However, Johnston McKay notes that although on the surface the split was about Donald Macleod, he believes it was about theology since Macleod belonged to the more "modernizing" wing of the Free Church.

In 2011, a Festschrift was published in Macleod's honor. The People's Theologian: Writings in Honour of Donald Macleod (ISBN 1845505840) included contributions from Richard Gaffin, Derek Thomas, and Carl Trueman.

Reviews

[James Hogan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful little book looking at the person of Christ and exploring various beliefs on the person and work of Christ throughout the past two millennia. This book is less of a focused study and more of a collection of multiple articles both positively proclaiming the orthodox view on the person of Christ while at the same time critically examining various views that do not seem to align with such. This is not a work for popular consumption – definitely written with an academic bent and at times slow reading. Still, I delighted in this! While I may not be the target audience, I appreciated the fact that each chapter stood alone and addressed a particular concept or theologian. The author clearly holds a high view of Christ (a Nicaean one) and is diligent in rooting out the inconsistences and sly ambiguities of those who deny certain attributes of Christ while paying lip service to orthodoxy. This is a good work for any who would like to understand why Christians so firmly believe Jesus to be in very substance God. While it can be a bit heady at times, I still think the brevity of this work alone (less than 200 pages!) makes this an attractive book to dig into. Some of the later chapters focused on more modern theologians and I greatly appreciated seeing how even now the person, work and purpose of Christ are still being studied as scholars and theologians seek to understand who is this Jesus who lived on this earth a little over two thousand years ago. Heartily recommend to anyone who wants to understand the orthodox Christian view of Christ and isn’t afraid to get nerdy doing so! Also? For me at least, this book was balm to my soul. Not mere scholastic study or intellectualism, this work provided encouragement for me as I meditated on Jesus Christ and who he is and what he has done and is doing for me. This is not a dead Christ I serve, but indeed very God, the Lord and Creator of the universe.

[Jacob Aitken · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am quite critical of Macleod's theology in other areas, but he has done his homework on aspects of Christology. If one wants to read about the thorny issues in Christology, see Macleod's larger work published by IVP. If one wants a case-study of Scottish Reformed christology as it responds to aberrant 19th century Christologies, then this is the work for you. One thing Macleod did was anticipate the popularity of "Kenotic" Christologies. Today we see hippie evangelicals mindlessly embracing it and the "truly Reformed" attacking even the word Kenosis (never mind St Paul's usage). Macleod maintains a balance, even if he doesn't take advantage of the discussion to note that one can maintain *a* Kenotic Christology by noting kenosis as a *way* in which God became man (see healthy doses of Sts Cyril and Athanasius--Logos did not come *in* man but *as* man).

Conclusion

It's an okay work. It's not the work for which he is popular. Get it for historical interest only.