By Vic Reasoner and Cricket Albertson
“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” A. W. Tozer continued, “The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.” Such contemplation is transformational. Old thoughts and unworthy concepts that hold us back are broken as the illumination of the Holy Spirit renews our mind.
In the first years of the twenty-first century, Dr. Dennis Kinlaw reported to his colleagues concerning his own research and reflections:
As I have read and faced the affirmations of our historic creeds that dealt with the nature of God as triune, the biblical bases for these affirmations, and the nature of Christ as both divine and human, the thought has repeatedly forced itself upon me. If Jesus is the place to start to find out what God is like, is he not also the place to start to find out what it should mean to be fully human? Paul tells us in Colossians that in Christ “all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form” (Col. 2:9). But he also tells us in the same epistle that Christ is “the image of the invisible God, the first born over all creation” (Col. 1:15). In 2 Corinthians 3:18 he adds that we who believe “are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” I also remembered that John said that when we see him, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is (1 John 3:2). Is it in Jesus that we can see a human as God planned a human to be? Should we begin with Genesis 1–2 or the Fall or the natural science of anthropology to develop our own Christian anthropology or should we begin with Jesus, “the last Adam” as Paul calls him (1 Cor 15:45). Perhaps the title of our anthropology should be LET’S START WITH JESUS: And Find Out Who We Are!
By 2005 Dr. Kinlaw’s magnus opus was published: Let’s Start with Jesus: A New Way of Doing Theology. He unpacked how Jesus defines God and humanity. Jesus Christ impacts every doctrine of systematic theology. Dr. Kinlaw wrote about our concept of God. He explains that the first great intellectual revolution was the oneness of God. This idea separated monotheism from all pantheistic and polytheistic religions. However, while Islam and Judaism stop here, Christiantiy represents the second great intellectual revolution—that within the Godhead there is diversity in oneness. The world’s problem with Christianity is Jesus. Yet he is the image of the invisible God. Within the holy Trinity there exists both Father and Son. Neither person can be ignored nor completely separated.
In this book Dr. Kinlaw next explained how Jesus helps us understand ourselves. Jesus connects God to his creation. The works of his hands are objects of his love because he is love. God is wed to his own creation. God’s purpose for us is illustrated in three metaphors: forensic, familial, and nuptial. Our identity is defined politically, through family, and through marriage.
Then Dr. Kinlaw dealt with sin. Writing in the generation after the apostles, Irenaeus declared, “The glory of God is man fully alive.” But the old glory of humanity faded away when man sinned. How could a world so good fall so far? Eve believed that something could be good in itself, apart from God. In our first parents we turned our faces away from him, becoming less than he intended. Sin was a deliberate reorientation, a turning of our faces away from God and making ourselves the ultimate point of reference. If sin is understood from a relational perspective, it is much easier to grasp that they way of salvation is a journey. Sin began with doubt. The road back is the reverse—a journey of faith.
This new lens also helps us see more clearly the plan of salvation. Sin is a perversion of our personal relationship with God. “The flesh” describes human life outside of the will of God. How can God be true to himself and also save us? If the problem is personal, the solution must be personal. Salvation is provided through the counterpart to Adam—a second Adam, Jesus. The only possibility for human salvation is for God’s holy love to enter into a human person. The offended one takes the offense unto himself to save the one who offends. Jesus becomes the arm of the Lord. The divine Physician assumes the very disease of the ones he has come to heal. The eternal Judge sentences himself to bear the very judgment that should be imposed on the lawbreaker.
Only Christianity among the religions of the world is a religion of atonement. In every other religion we must save ourselves. This is because there is no other religion with a triune God and a corresponding understanding of personhood. The gospel is the road back to a personal relationship with God as Adam and Eve had before the Fall. But the gospel is bigger and better than we have often thought. This requires metaphors besides the royal/legal metaphor. We need more than another chance; we need a radical change in our nature. We need an infusion of holy love. There is nothing higher than agape love because God offers himself to any who will receive him.
Certainly, salvation involves reconciliation. We can know the assurance of forgiveness. But we can also know that we are adopted into God’s family. The new life through agape love establishes a new point of reference. The process of sanctification has begun.
However, we also need the illumination of the marriage metaphor. The purpose of the Spirit in the life of the new believer is to bring the person as part of the bride of Christ to a devotion to Christ that fulfills the demands implicit within the nuptial metaphor. The relationship sought is one of total self-giving love. We can offer ourselves as living sacrifices, which restores the agape love of God without rival. Our union with Christ can be one of total self-giving love. The result is an undivided heart. This can be a present reality through the power of the Spirit. It is a gift to be received by faith. Such a relationship does not automatically come when salvation is begun in justification and new birth because, at that time, we are not aware of this deeper need. The reality is that we will not trust God to do something for us if we do not feel the need. As we walk with him and expose ourselves to the Scriptures and to the constraints of the Holy Spirit, we begin to sense the inner division in the depths of our being.
The New Testament pattern for the believer is the Spirit-filled, Spirit-led, Spirit-permeated, Spirit-controlled, and thus other-oriented person. This produces freedom. Paul taught that we are free only when we can live for one beyond ourselves, and this is possible only through the Spirit. The Holy Spirit, through the blood of Christ can “perfect our hearts in love” so that we can love Christ with all our hearts. Unbroken, unobstructed communion is the answer to the divided heart.
C. S. Lewis observed, “For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books.” We encourage you to bite off something big to chew on. This book by Dr. Kinlaw can help you escape the ruts you have fallen into mentally. It can launch a new quest for you to know God through Christ. This pursuit of truth and wholeness is not restricted to those in PhD studies. In our daily responsibilities, we can contemplate who Jesus is and what he taught us. In the process we can be elevated from the mundane to the sacred and be conformed to Christlikeness.
Let’s Start with Jesus
By Dennis F. Kinlaw
$15.95 (Paperback; 176 pages)
So often, we begin the process of theological formulation not with the person of Jesus, but rather, with philosophical arguments about God’s existence and logical constructions to determine God’s nature. How would our understanding be affected if we instead took Jesus as our starting point for theology? The distilled wisdom of one of this generation’s greatest thinkers, Let’s Start with Jesus leads you deep into the inner sanctuary of the Holy Trinity and shows you three distinct persons relating to each other in pure reciprocal love.