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Christian Theology, Volume 1: The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Christian Theology draws on major historical works of theology and contemporary scholarship to integrate biblical, historical, and systematic theology into a three-part framework of Faith and History, Christology, and Soteriology.
Part 1, Faith and History, introduces Christian Theology, explaining why it begins with Christ. It also reviews what is known about Jesus historically and the faith in which he was brought up—the faith in the God of Israel. This part concludes with an examination of the resurrection of Jesus.
Part 2, Christology: The Doctrine of the Person of Christ, begins with theology as ‘faith seeking understanding’. It is faith in the Gospel that the crucified Christ is risen from the dead, and this faith in turn issues in the confession that Jesus Christ is ‘Lord’. From here, part 2 traces the logic of the Church’s development of Christology, the doctrine of the Person of Christ, from Scripture and, specifically, from the apostolic Gospel.
Part 3, Soteriology: The Doctrine of the Work of Christ, investigates the ‘Grace’ of God seen in the doctrine of the Atonement as an aspect of Christology.
Part 1, Faith and History, introduces Christian Theology, explaining why it begins with Christ. It also reviews what is known about Jesus historically and the faith in which he was brought up—the faith in the God of Israel. This part concludes with an examination of the resurrection of Jesus.
Part 2, Christology: The Doctrine of the Person of Christ, begins with theology as ‘faith seeking understanding’. It is faith in the Gospel that the crucified Christ is risen from the dead, and this faith in turn issues in the confession that Jesus Christ is ‘Lord’. From here, part 2 traces the logic of the Church’s development of Christology, the doctrine of the Person of Christ, from Scripture and, specifically, from the apostolic Gospel.
Part 3, Soteriology: The Doctrine of the Work of Christ, investigates the ‘Grace’ of God seen in the doctrine of the Atonement as an aspect of Christology.
1056 pages, Hardcover
Published March 1, 2023
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January 15, 2024
Book 1 of Volume 1: Faith and History
Systematic Theologies are notoriously and necessarily lengthy and exhaustive. With a planned three volumes, with each volume consisting of (potentially) three books each, T.A. Noble's "Christian Theology" is no different, and perhaps lengthier and more exhaustive even than most. Though this is not uncommon when it comes to systematic theologies, it does make them prohibitive to readers.
The volumes of this work will be broken up into a consciously unique structure. Normally, systematic theologies tend to begin with a generic "God" and then moving to more specific topics, but Noble rightly begins his work with Jesus. Christians shouldn't start from an Aristotelian unmoved mover, or some pre-constructed philosophical conception of the divine, for example, and then try to fit Jesus into what we have already deduced. Rather, we should begin with Christ and construct our understanding of God based on what we see and experience of Him.
This first book in the first volume is called "Faith and History" and strangely does not actually consist of theology, per se, but rather acts as grounds clearing and prolegomena to the work as a whole. This is something Noble reminds us of at least a dozen times throughout the length of the book.
After an 85 page introduction to the work and the history of theology itself, Noble uses this first book to discuss how we know about Jesus in the first place. As far as I am aware, this too is unique in the history of systematic theologies.
We begin with the history of history, or how the historical critical method of studying history came about and where it stands today. This was a fascinating overview, and when juxtaposed with the specific history of historical Jesus studies, two things become abundantly clear:
1) The study of Jesus is what helped create the study of history itself.
2) Historians claiming to take a neutral position in their picture of Jesus are instead almost universally shaped by the philosophical zeitgeist that was en vogue at the time they wrote. Rather than painting a "neutral" picture of Jesus, they end up seeing merely their own faces reflected back at them from the bottom of a well.
Nevertheless, we do learn many things from this study, if not about Jesus, at least about how to study Jesus. Ben Witherington's work on the so-called "third quest" served as a guide for this section.
Noble then moves to the history of Old Testament theology as a background to understanding Jesus. This includes a brief history of the discipline, this time using Brueggemann and Goldingay as guides.
After this, we move to the study of Second Temple Judaism to get an idea of the setting Jesus was born and raised in. Here, Noble follows and summarizes N.T. Wright almost exclusively in his understanding of Jews at that time and place.
Noble ends the first book with a summary of the relationship between Faith and History, explaining three different ways Christians view history, with the resurrection being the point at which everything converges:
1) The 'liberal' modernist method of embracing secular history, concluding that miracles (especially the resurrection) are impossible and impossible to believe. This way conflates the rules of studying secular history with the rules that govern reality.
2) Instead, orthodox believers can use the practice of secular history to show that we will need something greater than history. Almost like using history as an apologetic for Christian faith. We can show historically that Jesus must have been raised from the dead. If the historical-critical method can't accept that, so much the worse for the historical-critical method.
3) Other orthodox believers see the resurrection is an act of new creation and thus requires study from that new creation. Secular history will not do, because it operates in the wrong world with the wrong rules. We accept the resurrection because we too live in a new world. And what we find in this new world inaugurated by Jesus and his resurrection is that only from this vantage point can we truly understand anything, including the old age, and including history itself. In other words: From the vantage point of secular history, history itself doesn't make sense. From the vantage point of the resurrection, all history makes sense.
This first book is an introduction to the work as a whole and should be understood as such.
Book 2 of Volume 1 - Christology: The Doctrine of the Person of Christ
The second book in the 1st volume continues the focus on Jesus. Whereas the first book was a mere prolegomenon to the work as a whole, focusing on Jesus' historical and cultural context and how we as readers and persons come into contact with him, the second book attempts to begin the actual theology itself. However, though this is what was promised, it isn't quite accurate. In a sense, the second book merely continues this historical introduction, this time focusing on "Christ-from-above" (although Noble would not like it characterized this way). As such, the entire second book is really a theological history of what we call "Christology" - How the doctrine concerning Christ was developed and what shape it is in today. Theology proper doesn't technically start until the very end of this second volume. Everything up to that is history, whether discussing the "historical Jesus" in the 1st book, or the "history of Christology" in the the 2nd.
Noble takes us through 2,000 years of this theological history, beginning appropriately in the text of the New Testament. From there, we go to the early fathers, starting with Irenaeus and Athanasius and up to Nicaea. Along the way, we see all the places where the doctrine lost its way through misunderstanding and heresy. Noble doesn't give us a 'liberal' picture of multiple and equal Christianities, but rather traces a distinct truth and set of boundaries of the "faith once for all delivered to the saints". The common theme he uses is the "One-in-two" of the Son of God. Wherever this thread is followed, we are on sure ground, wherever it is lost, we are lost. This is the thread which binds the entire book together.
We next go to the later fathers, from Gregory Nazianzen and Cyril of Alexandria to the Chalcedonian Symbol and the so-called "hypostatic union". A lot of time is spent here, discussing whether this was an acceptable description of the Person of Christ and whether Person is even an appropriate word to use. This seemed pedantic at the time, but later pays off in dividends.
We then travel through Augustine and Aquinas to the Reformation; through Luther and Calvin to Protestant Orthodoxy; and from the Great Awakening through its Wesleyan and Calvinistic branches. From here, we take a long detour into modernity's liberal Christianity, and lose the solid trajectory we have been tracing from the beginning as we get mired into various kulturprotestantismus. Schleiermacher, Hegel, Ritschl, Harnack, and Rauchenbusch are briefly examined and found wanting. We then look to Bultmann, Tillich, the process theology of John Cobb and the syncretism of John Hick only to find clever wordplay from clever theologians masking heresy and abandonment of the gospel.
We are forced to go back a bit historically to find the right path through Kierkegaard, Forsyth, Brunner and finally Barth. From this somewhat solid ground, we take a glance at the modern contextual christologies of Liberation, Latin American, African, Asian, Feminist, and Western psychological models. After a short discursus on whether Christ assumed a fallen or sinful nature, we are poised to make some definitive statements about Christology as it stands in the 21st century.
In the last chapter of the book, we return once again to the Chalcedonian Symbol and the Hypostatic Union. What does it mean to say Christ is God, what does it mean to say Christ is man, and what does it mean that these two natures are one person? Here, Noble summarizes the work of T.F. Torrance in a beautiful and rich descriptive answer to all of these questions in a way that will leave the reader in tears. The union of God and man in Jesus is described so beautifully and "personally", it is an unexpected blessing after a long and arduous trek through sometimes very mundane and esoteric waters. The final chapter - even though just a summary of Torrance's work - is an astounding statement of Christology and one I will probably never forget. After a quick primer on Personalism, we see that Chalcedon in context is actually speaking about the person not as an individualistic individual, but person in relationship and context. The person of Christ can in fact only be understood in context to his two relationships: His relationship with the history of Israel (and Israel as representation of humanity itself) and His relationship with the Father through the Spirit. In these personal relationships, the two (humanity and Godhood) are brought together in Christ. And through this union, we too, as persons are brought together in relationship with God. To fully experience the impact of this, the entire chapter really must be read as a whole and as the culmination of the book.
I hate to say that Noble isn't really saying anything new or even particularly Wesleyan here, but that's how the first two books have been: Summaries and histories of what others have already said. This second book reads like many other historical theologies and systematic theologies do, describing what the accepted doctrines state and how they came to be articulated. The ending however makes it all worthwhile. Although it too is a summary, it was a fitting and powerful culmination of where we've come so far. I really can't speak more highly about it.
Book 3 of Volume 1: Soteriology: The Doctrine of the Work of Christ
After exploring WHO Christ is, Noble turns to what Christ has accomplished. We start with the 'Who?' question because Jesus' work can only be done by Him. This book discusses why that is. This third book examines "atonement" and what that means by giving us a history of the doctrine.
The book is divided into three sections in which the author aligns the three (eventual) volumes of this work, with the three sections of the Chalcedonian definition, the threefold office of Christ, the three stages of the parabolic shape of the Gospel, and three historical "models" of atonement.
First Section: Jesus as King (corresponding to Jesus' exaltation, the 'deity' part of the God-man, and the Christus Victor model of the atonement)
First, we look at the origin of the idea of God's victory over the powers in the Old Testament, the redemption of His people through the New Testament, and how this idea was developed throughout Church history. Each section of this book basically follows this same structure.
This model of the atonement, coined by Aulen, illustrates what happened on the cross by saying that in Christ, God has defeated sin, death, hell, Satan, etc. How exactly this was achieved is explored by various theologians over the centuries.
Second Section: Jesus as Priest (corresponding to Jesus' humiliation, the 'humanity' part of the God-man, and the Anselmic substitutionary model of the atonement)
Again, this doctrine is examined from its origin in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, to the self-sacrificing priest who is also the Lamb of God in the New Testament. Noble then spends a couple hundred pages examining Anselm's development of the substitutionary theory in his "Cur Deus Homo?". There are several questions which are important for us, especially as Wesleyans:
For example, should we say that God's wrath was "propitiated"? Noble says that propitiation is integral to the understanding of the atonement and cannot be ignored or merely substituted with "expiation" if we are to remain faithful to the biblical witness. However, God's wrath is not propitiated in the sense that He needs a sacrifice in order to be appeased. Rather, God has always offered the sacrificial system, culminating with Christ, as a gracious way for our sin to be removed. Propitiation happens not by appeasing Him, but by making us holy and bringing us into relationship. Propitiation-through-Expiation, as Noble summarizes it.
Another big question tackled is whether we should use the word "penal" in regards to Christ's substitution. The conclusion is that idea behind "penal substitution" cannot be ignored, but we must be careful with how we say it. We should not be thinking that the Father needs to kill someone and so the Son steps in the way (we are of course talking about the same Being here, so that is a grave and willful misunderstanding). But likewise we cannot ignore that Christ really did suffer some kind of punishment for us. "Penal substitution" in the sense that Jesus receives our personal punishment so we don't have to, is an over-simplification that is apparently the required central and controlling theory of Federal Calvinism, but only because of that peculiar theological system. It's not the way the bible describes it and it's not central Gospel proclamation of the early Church or modern Wesleyans. We can and maybe even should use the idea of "punishment", depending on what we are trying to communicate, but the better biblical idea is "judgment" and it would be better to use that idea as the focus.
Third Section: Jesus as Prophet (corresponding to the union of God and Man and the exemplarist model of the atonement)
In this section, we examine the so-called Abelardian view of the atonement in which the cross merely demonstrates God's love for us (it turns out that this isn't exactly fair to Abelard). This model turns out to be insufficient because it doesn't actually accomplish anything - it just demonstrates something. It doesn't save us, defeat anything, or have any ontological correspondence.
The importance of Jesus as Prophet is that He isn't just another prophet delivering the Word of the Lord, Jesus IS the Word of the Lord. His status and accomplishment as prophet is based on who He is. Because He already IS the Word, uniting the two natures in His one person, his words and actions are efficacious for the reconciling of God and humanity.
Some interesting thoughts and conclusions from the third book:
The "actuality of the atonement" is important and essential. Something actually happened to us in the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. But what was it and why did this have the real effect it did?
The conclusion of this volume is that not any one of the theories explored is a comprehensive "theory". Noble says they all have value, but only as "models" or metaphors, illustrating aspects of the work of Christ. They explain things, but are themselves not comprehensive as an explanation of the atonement. They should not be called "theories", merely "models".
For Wesleyans, penal substitution is not the gospel. Not only for the reasons given above, but also because as it is normally understood, there is no basis in this model for our sanctification. It just takes away sin, it doesn't defeat powers, or empower us. We need to make sure sanctification is not a superfluous add-on.
Noble finally looks at two other models that are helpful for Wesleyans:
Christ as the kinsmen-redeemer, who becomes human to relate to us and to redeem us from our debts; and the Eastern idea of deification, in which Christ redeems and indwells humanity through the Incarnation.
All-in-all, Christ reconciles and redeems corporate humanity through his very being, this reconciliation becoming applied individually through our repentance and belief in Jesus. This imperative (repent and believe) however, is secondary to the Gospel: That Jesus is Lord and the humiliation-exaltation of his life, death and resurrection. This is what must be declared and preached. The call to personal evangelism only comes AFTER the gospel has been proclaimed. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself. Our response to this is important, but the proclamation of the message of Christ is foundational.
Systematic Theologies are notoriously and necessarily lengthy and exhaustive. With a planned three volumes, with each volume consisting of (potentially) three books each, T.A. Noble's "Christian Theology" is no different, and perhaps lengthier and more exhaustive even than most. Though this is not uncommon when it comes to systematic theologies, it does make them prohibitive to readers.
The volumes of this work will be broken up into a consciously unique structure. Normally, systematic theologies tend to begin with a generic "God" and then moving to more specific topics, but Noble rightly begins his work with Jesus. Christians shouldn't start from an Aristotelian unmoved mover, or some pre-constructed philosophical conception of the divine, for example, and then try to fit Jesus into what we have already deduced. Rather, we should begin with Christ and construct our understanding of God based on what we see and experience of Him.
This first book in the first volume is called "Faith and History" and strangely does not actually consist of theology, per se, but rather acts as grounds clearing and prolegomena to the work as a whole. This is something Noble reminds us of at least a dozen times throughout the length of the book.
After an 85 page introduction to the work and the history of theology itself, Noble uses this first book to discuss how we know about Jesus in the first place. As far as I am aware, this too is unique in the history of systematic theologies.
We begin with the history of history, or how the historical critical method of studying history came about and where it stands today. This was a fascinating overview, and when juxtaposed with the specific history of historical Jesus studies, two things become abundantly clear:
1) The study of Jesus is what helped create the study of history itself.
2) Historians claiming to take a neutral position in their picture of Jesus are instead almost universally shaped by the philosophical zeitgeist that was en vogue at the time they wrote. Rather than painting a "neutral" picture of Jesus, they end up seeing merely their own faces reflected back at them from the bottom of a well.
Nevertheless, we do learn many things from this study, if not about Jesus, at least about how to study Jesus. Ben Witherington's work on the so-called "third quest" served as a guide for this section.
Noble then moves to the history of Old Testament theology as a background to understanding Jesus. This includes a brief history of the discipline, this time using Brueggemann and Goldingay as guides.
After this, we move to the study of Second Temple Judaism to get an idea of the setting Jesus was born and raised in. Here, Noble follows and summarizes N.T. Wright almost exclusively in his understanding of Jews at that time and place.
Noble ends the first book with a summary of the relationship between Faith and History, explaining three different ways Christians view history, with the resurrection being the point at which everything converges:
1) The 'liberal' modernist method of embracing secular history, concluding that miracles (especially the resurrection) are impossible and impossible to believe. This way conflates the rules of studying secular history with the rules that govern reality.
2) Instead, orthodox believers can use the practice of secular history to show that we will need something greater than history. Almost like using history as an apologetic for Christian faith. We can show historically that Jesus must have been raised from the dead. If the historical-critical method can't accept that, so much the worse for the historical-critical method.
3) Other orthodox believers see the resurrection is an act of new creation and thus requires study from that new creation. Secular history will not do, because it operates in the wrong world with the wrong rules. We accept the resurrection because we too live in a new world. And what we find in this new world inaugurated by Jesus and his resurrection is that only from this vantage point can we truly understand anything, including the old age, and including history itself. In other words: From the vantage point of secular history, history itself doesn't make sense. From the vantage point of the resurrection, all history makes sense.
This first book is an introduction to the work as a whole and should be understood as such.
Book 2 of Volume 1 - Christology: The Doctrine of the Person of Christ
The second book in the 1st volume continues the focus on Jesus. Whereas the first book was a mere prolegomenon to the work as a whole, focusing on Jesus' historical and cultural context and how we as readers and persons come into contact with him, the second book attempts to begin the actual theology itself. However, though this is what was promised, it isn't quite accurate. In a sense, the second book merely continues this historical introduction, this time focusing on "Christ-from-above" (although Noble would not like it characterized this way). As such, the entire second book is really a theological history of what we call "Christology" - How the doctrine concerning Christ was developed and what shape it is in today. Theology proper doesn't technically start until the very end of this second volume. Everything up to that is history, whether discussing the "historical Jesus" in the 1st book, or the "history of Christology" in the the 2nd.
Noble takes us through 2,000 years of this theological history, beginning appropriately in the text of the New Testament. From there, we go to the early fathers, starting with Irenaeus and Athanasius and up to Nicaea. Along the way, we see all the places where the doctrine lost its way through misunderstanding and heresy. Noble doesn't give us a 'liberal' picture of multiple and equal Christianities, but rather traces a distinct truth and set of boundaries of the "faith once for all delivered to the saints". The common theme he uses is the "One-in-two" of the Son of God. Wherever this thread is followed, we are on sure ground, wherever it is lost, we are lost. This is the thread which binds the entire book together.
We next go to the later fathers, from Gregory Nazianzen and Cyril of Alexandria to the Chalcedonian Symbol and the so-called "hypostatic union". A lot of time is spent here, discussing whether this was an acceptable description of the Person of Christ and whether Person is even an appropriate word to use. This seemed pedantic at the time, but later pays off in dividends.
We then travel through Augustine and Aquinas to the Reformation; through Luther and Calvin to Protestant Orthodoxy; and from the Great Awakening through its Wesleyan and Calvinistic branches. From here, we take a long detour into modernity's liberal Christianity, and lose the solid trajectory we have been tracing from the beginning as we get mired into various kulturprotestantismus. Schleiermacher, Hegel, Ritschl, Harnack, and Rauchenbusch are briefly examined and found wanting. We then look to Bultmann, Tillich, the process theology of John Cobb and the syncretism of John Hick only to find clever wordplay from clever theologians masking heresy and abandonment of the gospel.
We are forced to go back a bit historically to find the right path through Kierkegaard, Forsyth, Brunner and finally Barth. From this somewhat solid ground, we take a glance at the modern contextual christologies of Liberation, Latin American, African, Asian, Feminist, and Western psychological models. After a short discursus on whether Christ assumed a fallen or sinful nature, we are poised to make some definitive statements about Christology as it stands in the 21st century.
In the last chapter of the book, we return once again to the Chalcedonian Symbol and the Hypostatic Union. What does it mean to say Christ is God, what does it mean to say Christ is man, and what does it mean that these two natures are one person? Here, Noble summarizes the work of T.F. Torrance in a beautiful and rich descriptive answer to all of these questions in a way that will leave the reader in tears. The union of God and man in Jesus is described so beautifully and "personally", it is an unexpected blessing after a long and arduous trek through sometimes very mundane and esoteric waters. The final chapter - even though just a summary of Torrance's work - is an astounding statement of Christology and one I will probably never forget. After a quick primer on Personalism, we see that Chalcedon in context is actually speaking about the person not as an individualistic individual, but person in relationship and context. The person of Christ can in fact only be understood in context to his two relationships: His relationship with the history of Israel (and Israel as representation of humanity itself) and His relationship with the Father through the Spirit. In these personal relationships, the two (humanity and Godhood) are brought together in Christ. And through this union, we too, as persons are brought together in relationship with God. To fully experience the impact of this, the entire chapter really must be read as a whole and as the culmination of the book.
I hate to say that Noble isn't really saying anything new or even particularly Wesleyan here, but that's how the first two books have been: Summaries and histories of what others have already said. This second book reads like many other historical theologies and systematic theologies do, describing what the accepted doctrines state and how they came to be articulated. The ending however makes it all worthwhile. Although it too is a summary, it was a fitting and powerful culmination of where we've come so far. I really can't speak more highly about it.
Book 3 of Volume 1: Soteriology: The Doctrine of the Work of Christ
After exploring WHO Christ is, Noble turns to what Christ has accomplished. We start with the 'Who?' question because Jesus' work can only be done by Him. This book discusses why that is. This third book examines "atonement" and what that means by giving us a history of the doctrine.
The book is divided into three sections in which the author aligns the three (eventual) volumes of this work, with the three sections of the Chalcedonian definition, the threefold office of Christ, the three stages of the parabolic shape of the Gospel, and three historical "models" of atonement.
First Section: Jesus as King (corresponding to Jesus' exaltation, the 'deity' part of the God-man, and the Christus Victor model of the atonement)
First, we look at the origin of the idea of God's victory over the powers in the Old Testament, the redemption of His people through the New Testament, and how this idea was developed throughout Church history. Each section of this book basically follows this same structure.
This model of the atonement, coined by Aulen, illustrates what happened on the cross by saying that in Christ, God has defeated sin, death, hell, Satan, etc. How exactly this was achieved is explored by various theologians over the centuries.
Second Section: Jesus as Priest (corresponding to Jesus' humiliation, the 'humanity' part of the God-man, and the Anselmic substitutionary model of the atonement)
Again, this doctrine is examined from its origin in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, to the self-sacrificing priest who is also the Lamb of God in the New Testament. Noble then spends a couple hundred pages examining Anselm's development of the substitutionary theory in his "Cur Deus Homo?". There are several questions which are important for us, especially as Wesleyans:
For example, should we say that God's wrath was "propitiated"? Noble says that propitiation is integral to the understanding of the atonement and cannot be ignored or merely substituted with "expiation" if we are to remain faithful to the biblical witness. However, God's wrath is not propitiated in the sense that He needs a sacrifice in order to be appeased. Rather, God has always offered the sacrificial system, culminating with Christ, as a gracious way for our sin to be removed. Propitiation happens not by appeasing Him, but by making us holy and bringing us into relationship. Propitiation-through-Expiation, as Noble summarizes it.
Another big question tackled is whether we should use the word "penal" in regards to Christ's substitution. The conclusion is that idea behind "penal substitution" cannot be ignored, but we must be careful with how we say it. We should not be thinking that the Father needs to kill someone and so the Son steps in the way (we are of course talking about the same Being here, so that is a grave and willful misunderstanding). But likewise we cannot ignore that Christ really did suffer some kind of punishment for us. "Penal substitution" in the sense that Jesus receives our personal punishment so we don't have to, is an over-simplification that is apparently the required central and controlling theory of Federal Calvinism, but only because of that peculiar theological system. It's not the way the bible describes it and it's not central Gospel proclamation of the early Church or modern Wesleyans. We can and maybe even should use the idea of "punishment", depending on what we are trying to communicate, but the better biblical idea is "judgment" and it would be better to use that idea as the focus.
Third Section: Jesus as Prophet (corresponding to the union of God and Man and the exemplarist model of the atonement)
In this section, we examine the so-called Abelardian view of the atonement in which the cross merely demonstrates God's love for us (it turns out that this isn't exactly fair to Abelard). This model turns out to be insufficient because it doesn't actually accomplish anything - it just demonstrates something. It doesn't save us, defeat anything, or have any ontological correspondence.
The importance of Jesus as Prophet is that He isn't just another prophet delivering the Word of the Lord, Jesus IS the Word of the Lord. His status and accomplishment as prophet is based on who He is. Because He already IS the Word, uniting the two natures in His one person, his words and actions are efficacious for the reconciling of God and humanity.
Some interesting thoughts and conclusions from the third book:
The "actuality of the atonement" is important and essential. Something actually happened to us in the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. But what was it and why did this have the real effect it did?
The conclusion of this volume is that not any one of the theories explored is a comprehensive "theory". Noble says they all have value, but only as "models" or metaphors, illustrating aspects of the work of Christ. They explain things, but are themselves not comprehensive as an explanation of the atonement. They should not be called "theories", merely "models".
For Wesleyans, penal substitution is not the gospel. Not only for the reasons given above, but also because as it is normally understood, there is no basis in this model for our sanctification. It just takes away sin, it doesn't defeat powers, or empower us. We need to make sure sanctification is not a superfluous add-on.
Noble finally looks at two other models that are helpful for Wesleyans:
Christ as the kinsmen-redeemer, who becomes human to relate to us and to redeem us from our debts; and the Eastern idea of deification, in which Christ redeems and indwells humanity through the Incarnation.
All-in-all, Christ reconciles and redeems corporate humanity through his very being, this reconciliation becoming applied individually through our repentance and belief in Jesus. This imperative (repent and believe) however, is secondary to the Gospel: That Jesus is Lord and the humiliation-exaltation of his life, death and resurrection. This is what must be declared and preached. The call to personal evangelism only comes AFTER the gospel has been proclaimed. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself. Our response to this is important, but the proclamation of the message of Christ is foundational.
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