The Incarnation as God's First Intention: Supralapsarian Christology for Faith and Practice

by Edwin Chr. Van Driel

Genres: Theology

320 pages, Paperback

Published October 21, 2025

Reviews

[Stephanie’s Ninth Suitcase]

Fully, rambly review here

[I had intended to write some notes during the reading, and these didn’t end up being as exhaustive as I intended. But I’m going to start with the one thought — a prayer, actually — that I did jot down.]

It feels like real Good News, Lord. Real Good News.

Edwin Chr. van Driel maintains that it was always God’s plan to become incarnate — regardless of sin — to be a God with us. Strongly anchored in Paul’s doxology from Colossians, The Incarnation as God’s First Intention argues that humans exist because of Jesus, rather than Jesus becoming a “Plan B” when humans messed everything up. The resulting framework offers an extremely rich lens through which to interpret Jesus’s coming and His design for intimacy with humans.

The very core of atonement is God’s refusal to let God’s intentions for creation be undermined by our constant wanderings, illusions, and sinful rejections.

Loc. 7530

Reviewing
Hmm, the last section ended up being quite long, and I shared exactly one quote. My challenge, I think, is that it’s very hard to attempt to briefly sum up what I read, considering how many pages the author used to establish his argument. Plus, I did end up skimming and just skipping over some good-sized chunks.

So, here’s my slightly more formal attempt to engage with what I read:

What to Expect
The Incarnation as God’s First Intention covers the doctrine of supralapsarian — the concept that God prioritized Jesus coming in the flesh, apart from our sin. Jesus’s incarnation wasn’t Plan B, but rather God’s first priority.

Author Edwin Chr. van Driel offers a strong expository approach to the doctrine, engaging with how supralapsarianism extends to / effects interpretations of, various other tenets of doctrine. For instance, the chapter that I found most interesting interacts with the question of whether there could be, say, other instances of God incarnating Himself in other forms in our galaxy. (While this is a speculative consideration, the author’s argument draws to a negative conclusion).

Throughout, Van Driel juxtaposes supralapsarian arguments against the opposing position: infralapsarianism, and he also explores various subsets of supralapsarian thought, often explaining where his book’s project diverges from the scholarship of extant supralapsarianism positing.

What I Liked
Because, as mentioned, I struggle to actually sum up what the author is expressing in a work that’s upward of 300 pages, I’m coming back to my personal experience of the text.

What beautiful, heart-stirring arguments: that we were created — and Jesus came to us — for the very purpose of relationship! What a sweet delight to consider His desire that we turn to Him in relationship. I think Van Driel embraces a fairly Augustinian approach with the idea that sin is a turning away from God and not being the creatures we were made to be. (I reference Augustine because this was one of the ideas that stuck out to me during my college studies. It’s another one I find both beautiful and reassuring, and I think it’s the basis of a good deal of Van Driel’s arguments).

I like that Van Driel demonstrates the biblical basis for his arguments, while also showing the deep significance of supralapsarianism in our day-to-day beliefs, as Christians. As someone who does not like reading theology, I found this book to be immensely practical, and oh so sweetly reassuring.

Content Notes
I’m dispensing with my typical format here because I didn’t read word for word, nor did I seek to deeply follow each argument cited. Therefore, I’m not endorsing every tenet of the book, but, for those who feel stirred to read… I’m happy to recommend it as a very prayerful project.

Recommendation Status
Recommended. As I’ve emphasized throughout this post, I’m not seeking to take a hard and fast position and say “this, and this belief only, is correct.” But, wow, the Lord sure used this book to bless me!

Disclosure: I received a complimentary eARC of the book from the publisher via NetGalley. Opinions expressed are my own.

[Richard Woodhouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished this good book on Supralapsarian Christology. First off, it's on a very important subject for any Christian to consider. With that said, I have always struggled with the idea of the Advent of Jesus Christ being only a rescue operation of a Creation gone wrong. Many scripture passages can be read that way, but I think that that has to be a secondary take on what happened and happens with the coming of Jesus. For one thing, it always has disturbed Me, that God's Creation has this surd or major flaw in it. Sin and evil and the underlying inference that all of this has taken the Infinite Creator by surprise. Really sad view of God in my opinion. This book argues that the Death and Resurrection of Jesus addresses the Sin/evil problem, but that it was foreseen and that the Creation was for the Sake of Jesus Christ. Mind blowing view, if you stop to consider it. We were created for Jesus' sake as friends and family for Him. A lot of theology is overly anthropomorphic. Jesus is "for" us. This can lead to some cringe worthy ideas about Jesus Christ. "I have my Jesus" and the rest of the world can go to hell. I have heard this kind of thing from some people. So as in all things ultimate, we will have to die or wait for the promised return of Jesus Christ, however one can conceive that unconceivable event, to know for sure who was closest to being right about God/Reality. Professor Driel also made a good point about the Barthian Eschatology, where we are remembered by God, our lived lives are in God, but we are dead and no longer really living or existing. Which sounds very much like a Process idea, as I am writing this. If that is all it amounts to, then we are in a pretty hopeless and bleak situation. He points out the short falls of this kind of view of the End things. Good book and worth reading.,

[E · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not the book I was hoping for. Like the author, I am a supralapsarian (believing that the decree to elect logically precedes the decree to allow the Fall), but I would not argue for it in the same manner. Van Driel approaches with a more liberal bent. He sees the purpose of election to be solely that Jesus would be with mankind (he explicitly rejects the deeper goal of God's self-glorification). He does not believe in individual election.

Later in the work he sees the crucifixion as God's proof that he will remain in love with mankind despite mankind's murdering him (he here rejects a deeper penal purpose to the cross). It is one of the weirdest accounts of the atonement that I've ever read.

I did appreciate some parts. Van Driel rejects a recent misunderstanding of Genesis 12 that sees God's calling of Abraham as merely to bless the nations--as though Israel were simply a means to the end. At the other end of redemptive history, he rejects the increasingly popular view that glorification will entail some sort of divinization (based on a misreading of 2 Peter 1--or Mormons, maybe?).

So, some good spots here, including some that made me think more deeply about what God is up to in all of this. But the author's idiosyncrasies outweighed the value of his contributions.