Paul gives us the warrant for a Christian worldview/philosophy, but not one that is grounded in non-Christian thought, but ultimately rooted and grounded in Christ. For this reason, we must test all ideas, philosophies, and ideologies by the standard of Scripture, which is nothing less than Christ’s word. The question we must always ask is this: Are the claims of non-Christian philosophy, science, psychology, sociology, etc. consistent with the truth of Scripture? This is the standard by which Christians are to judge all matters and critique all thought.

As one reads the New Testament one is struck by two complementary truths about the proclamation, defense, and passing on of the gospel. First, there is the sad fact that people quickly depart from the truth and substitute it for false teaching. As fallen creatures, we seem to love and embrace error faster than we love and rejoice in the truth. Second, in light of the first reality, we are constantly exhorted to stand for the truth, which requires constant diligence and Spirit-wrought faithfulness to our triune God in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ and his word.
The Drift and the Stand
The first truth is ubiquitous throughout the New Testament. For example, think of Galatia. Paul himself is astonished at how quickly this church has turned to another gospel, which he makes very clear is “really no gospel at all” (Gal. 1:7). But Galatia is not an isolated occurrence. Think of Paul’s warnings to his young pastor-apprentice Timothy where he describes the “last days” as characterized by those who identify with the church but who are “always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth” (2 Tim. 3:7). Or, as Paul continues to remind Timothy: “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Tim. 4:3). Many more examples could be given, but the sad truth is this: the tendency is for fallen people, even those who profess Christ, to rapidly depart from the truth.
However, the second truth is also unmistakably taught. In light of the fact that people so quickly depart from the truth, Scripture exhorts us to “guard the good deposit” (2 Tim. 1:14); for leaders to “keep watch over yourselves and all the flock” (Acts 20:28); and for the entire church to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1). Scripture is clear: We must love God and the gospel by being vigilant in proclaiming it, standing against those who attempt to replace it by “another gospel,” and faithfully passing it on to the next generation.
Nothing New under The Sun
What is true in the New Testament is also true in church history. In every era, the church is in a constant battle to stand for the truth and not to substitute it or “mix” it with something else. In the Patristic era, the church battled against Gnosticism and Arianism as she faithfully proclaimed Christ and formulated Trinitarian and Christological orthodoxy rooted and grounded in Scripture. In the Reformation, the church had to correct numerous errors of Roman Catholicism and stand firm on biblical authority and the finished work of Christ resulting in our justification, as reflected by the Reformation solas—sola Scriptura, sola gratia, sola fide, solus Christus, soli Deo gloria. In the rise of the “modern” world, the church had to stand against “liberalism” which sought to “mix” the gospel with worldview thinking that stood opposed to the truth of Scripture.
Today, the church must stand against forms of secularism, naturalism, pluralism, and postmodernism as represented by critical theories, the LGBTQ+ agenda, and the false ideologies of our age. In every era of the church, syncretism—taking the Bible and correlating it to the current thought of the day—has always been a constant danger for the church to stand against. For, in the end, syncretism results in a distortion and rejection of the truth of the gospel. But sadly, within the church, the call to stand for the truth has not always been heeded. Ours is a day of untethered niceness, winsomeness, and nuance, and too often these characteristics are a cover for accommodation. But the reality is this: until Christ returns, the church is called to stand for the truth of the gospel without compromise, which often requires a “loving confrontation” (to use the words of Francis Schaeffer).
How to Spot a Heretic
In light of these two truths, it’s important to ask: how do we recognize false teaching in order to counter it? Jeremy Jackson has suggested that what unites all heresies is the denial of Christ and his work.[1] I agree with him. So how do you recognize a “false teacher” or a “false view,” whether it’s an ancient or a present-day one? We must ask the all-important question: Who do you say that the Lord Jesus Christ is? What do you think about him and what he achieved for us?
Why is Jesus so central to all heresies? The answer is quite straightforward: He is the one who takes us to the heart of who God is, as the divine Son, the second person of the Trinity. To get him right means that we get our entire doctrine of God right, who is the Creator and Lord of all. Furthermore, to get his work right means that we grasp the God of sovereign grace who alone can save us. For fallen creatures, the idea of salvation by God’s grace—involving a real incarnation, effected on a cross, publicly demonstrated in an empty tomb, and doing something we cannot do—offends us. As sinful people, we have a hard time receiving Christ and his finished work; it reminds us that we have nothing to contribute. In our sin, we think we are good enough to save ourselves. But to grasp Christ and his work reminds us that salvation is by God’s sovereign initiative and invitation, not ours. God’s solution in Christ speaks to the nature of our radical problem! We think we can contribute something, but we cannot. We want to be our own Lord and master, so we hate the idea of a sovereign God and Savior. That is why getting Christ right is central to getting the truth of the gospel right!
But if a wrong view of Christ and his work is at heart of all heresy, then the remedy to false teaching and the temptation of syncretism is a proper view of Christ and his work. This truth is taught throughout the New Testament, but specifically in Colossians 2:6–10. The church at Colossae was in danger of succumbing to syncretism. They faced what some have called the “Colossian heresy.” This heresy seemed to be the attempt to dilute the glory, sovereignty, and sufficiency of Christ with some version of Greek and Jewish thought.
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Hebrews 2:5–18 gloriously explains why the divine Son had to become human to redeem us from our sin and to restore us to the purpose of our creation. It’s no wonder that Jesus alone can save us, given our plight before God and the kind of Redeemer he is.

In the eleventh century, Anselm of Canterbury famously asked, “Why did God become man?” It is an important question to ask since it takes us into the rationale for the incarnation, and thus into the heart of the gospel. Anselm’s answer was that God the Son became man to fulfill God’s plan to save sinners by making satisfaction for their sin. No less can be said. But Scripture gives a number of reasons for why the incarnation was a necessity in the divine plan, and the most detailed text that gives us some of these reasons is Hebrews 2:5–18.
The entire book of Hebrews focuses on the supremacy and glory of the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. By expounding multiple Old Testament texts, and by a series of contrasts with various Old Testament figures, the author encourages a group of predominately Jewish Christians with the truth that Jesus has come as the Lord in the flesh to fulfill all of the promises and expectations of the Old Testament.
Beginning in Hebrews 1:1–4, the author uses a series of comparisons and contrasts to unpack his thesis that Jesus is superior to all of the Old Testament figures before him, including Moses, Joshua, and the high priests. But he begins by demonstrating that Jesus is superior to angels. First, Jesus is greater than angels who serve God because he is the divine Son (Heb. 1:5–14). In contrast to angels, the Son is identified with the Lord due to his greater name (Heb. 1:4–5), the worship he receives (Heb. 1:6), his unchanging existence as the universe’s Creator and Lord (Heb. 1:10–12), and the rule and reign he shares with his Father (Heb. 1:7–9, 13). Angels, on the other hand, are simply creatures and ministering servants (Heb. 1:7, 14); they are not God-equal with the Father. Second, Jesus is superior to angels because he has come to do the work that no angel could ever do. By assuming our humanity, the Son becomes the representative man of Psalm 8—the last Adam—who undoes the first Adam’s covenantal disobedience and ushers in the new creation by bringing all things into subjection under his rule and reign.
In Hebrews 2:5–18, the author focuses on the centrality of the incarnation to the fulfillment of God’s redemptive plan, which is his final argument for the superiority of the Son. In so doing, a four-part rationale for the purpose and necessity of the incarnation is given. Let us look at each of these glorious truths in turn in Hebrews 2:5–18:
5For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. 6It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? 7You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, 8putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 9But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
10For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12saying, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.” 13And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again, “Behold, I and the children God has given me.”
14Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. 16For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. 17Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
1. The Divine Son Became a Man to Fulfill God’s Creation Intention for Humanity (Heb. 2:5–9).
The author demonstrates this point by an appeal to Psalm 8. In its Old Testament context, Psalm 8 celebrates the majesty of God as the Creator and the exalted position humans have in creation. The Psalm reminds us of God’s creation design for humans, namely that we were created as his image-bearers to exercise dominion over the world as his vice-regents (Gen. 1–2). In fact, in transitioning from the quotation of Psalm 8:4–6 to Jesus, Hebrews stresses the honor and glory of humanity by emphasizing how God intended that all things be subjected to Adam and, by extension, to all humanity: “Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control” (Heb. 2:8b). However, as we know from Genesis 3, Adam disobeyed, and as a result, all humanity is now under God’s judgment. Hebrews makes this exact point: “At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him” (Heb 2:8c). When we look at the world, we know that God’s creation design for humans has been frustrated; we do not rule as God intended us to rule. Instead of putting the earth under our feet, we are eventually put under the earth as God’s rebellious image-bearers.
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The good news of Jesus Christ—who he is and what he accomplished by his death, resurrection, and exaltation—is simply incoherent unless certain structures are already in place. You cannot make heads or tails of the real Jesus unless you have categories for the personal/transcendent God of the Bible; the nature of human beings made in the image of God; the sheer odium of rebellion against him; the curse that our rebellion has attracted; the spiritual, personal, familial, and social effects of our transgression; the nature of salvation; the holiness and wrath and love of God. One cannot make sense of the Bible’s plot line without such basic ingredients; one cannot make sense of the Bible’s portrayal of Jesus without such blocks in place.

Introduction
Theology means diverse things to people. For some it is an academic discipline that describes various theologians and their theologies, and thus only for professors or pastors, but not for the everyday Christian. For others, theology is a speculative, esoteric discipline, which often leads us away from Scripture, and which is detrimental for a vibrant relationship with the Lord. Others think of theology, especially “systematic” theology as imposing “systems” on Scripture, thus removing it from Scripture and making it less than “biblical.”
Whatever people may think theology is, sadly, in the church, it has fallen on hard times. The evidence for this claim is not hard to find. On a biennial basis since 2014, Lifeway and Ligonier have conducted “The State of Theology” poll.[1] When basic theological questions are asked of self-identified evangelicals, it is evident that many are lacking even a rudimentary theological understanding. For example, in the 2020 poll, 96% of evangelicals agreed that “There is one true God in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.” Yet 30% of these same people affirmed that “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God,” and 65% agreed that “Jesus was the first and greatest being created by God”—a contradiction of the first statement. However we try to make sense of these paradoxical answers, it minimally reveals that our churches are lacking basic doctrinal knowledge.
However, this should not surprise us. We have privileged religious experience and pragmatics over disciplined thinking about Scripture. For many, theology is a hard “sell,” especially in the age of social media where careful thought is replaced by images and tweets. Theology has little “cash value;” what we want are instant answers to meet our felt needs. And we especially fear divisions within the church that often occur when careful theological thinking confronts false teaching.[2]
It is imperative that these “popular” misconceptions of theology are corrected by replacing them with a proper understanding of theology. As we begin our study, the purpose of this chapter is to define what systematic theology really is. We will do so by first reflecting on what systematic theology is in Scripture before identifying some of its basic elements and its relation to the other theological disciplines. Our aim is to demonstrate that systematic theology is not optional for the church; it is fundamental to our thinking rightly about God, the self, and the world. Theology is basic to Christian discipleship, and it is the culminating discipline, which leads to worldview formation. Theology is not a discretionary exercise; it is essential for the life and health of the church, and whether we realize it or not, everyone has some kind of theology. But the most significant question for us is whether our theology is true to Scripture or not. If it is not, this is serious since wrong ideas about God and Scripture result in disastrous consequences. Ultimately, what is at stake is the issue of truth and whether the church is faithful to Scripture’s command to “demolish arguments and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and [to] take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:4b-5).
Theology and Scripture
Historically, systematic theology has been viewed as the “queen of the sciences.” As the “queen,” she is the beautiful capstone and culmination of all the disciplines, especially the theological disciplines. Properly understood, theology is the “study of the triune God,” who is our Creator and Lord, and thus the source and standard of all knowledge and truth (Prov. 1:7; Isa. 46:8-10; Rom. 11:33-36). In fact, the summum bonum of knowledge is the knowledge of God. In fact, all human knowledge, whether in creation or Scripture, is grounded in God’s speech and self-disclosure. For humans to know anything, we are dependent on God’s initiative to make himself known to us.[3] For this reason, theology is not something reserved for the academic theologian, pastor, or spiritually-minded Christian. Rather it is the calling and responsibility of every human to know God as their Creator and Lord. And it is especially true for God’s redeemed people, who are re-created in Christ Jesus to know the only true God (John 17:3).
At its heart, systematic theology is the obedient task of the church to use renewed reason by reflecting faithfully on the whole of Scripture and apply its teaching to every area of life. In other words, theology is the discipline that seeks “to think God’s thoughts after him”—for the praise of his glory and the good of the church.[4] Viewed this way, theology obeys what God commands his people to do.
For example, think of our Lord’s command in the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20). Under the authority of King Jesus, we are to “make disciples of all nations,” baptizing them into the name of the triune God, and “teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.” To obey our Lord’s command requires careful biblical and theological thinking, knowing the Scripture, rightly thinking of who the Father, Son, and Spirit are, and faithfully applying all of Scripture to people’s lives. This is what theology is. Paul exhorts Timothy to “pay close attention to [his] life and [his] teaching,” which has life and death implications (1 Tim. 4:16). He is commanded to “be diligent to present [himself] to God as one approved, a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, correctly teaching the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). Titus is exhorted to hold “to the faithful message as taught, so that he will be able both to encourage with sound teaching and to refute those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9). All of these exhortations require that theology must be done. One must first understand Scripture to have correct teaching (or doctrine), and one must refute error by applying the teaching of Scripture properly. However, it is not only leaders in the church who must know sound theology; all believers must be able to be “ready at any time to give a defense (apologia) to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet. 3:15). To obey this command, all believers must first know sound teaching in order to defend it against various objections. All of this requires rigorous and sound biblical and theological instruction.
So what, then, is systematic theology? In its most basic sense, systematic theology is the orderly, comprehensive “study of the triune God” and all things in relationship to him (Gk. theos [God] + logos [words, study of]). John Webster states it this way: Christian theology is the work of renewed, biblical reasoning[5] to consider a twofold object: “first, God in himself in the unsurpassable perfection of his inner being and work as Father, Son, and Spirit and his outer operations, and, second and by derivation, all other things relative to him.”[6] B. B. Warfield defined theology in a similar way: “Theology … is that science which treats of God in himself and in his relations”[7] to humans and the world. An older term to describe systematic theology is “dogmatic theology.” In this work, we will use these terms interchangeably, although technically dogmatic theology refers to “core biblical doctrines officially established in a church’s confessional statements,”[8] and as such reflects the conclusions of a particular community or tradition’s biblical reasoning from Scripture.
If this is what systematic theology is, we can now see why there is no higher calling or study. The Westminster Shorter Catechism begins with the famous question: “What is the chief end of man?” Its answer: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” In Scripture, central to our glorifying God is the knowledge of God. In fact, the purpose of our creation is to know and love God as his image-bearers and covenant people (Matt. 22:37-40). Think of how the new covenant relationship is described between God and his people: “And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD” (Jer. 31:34a). There is no higher calling and nothing more urgent than for humans as God’s creatures, and especially God’s redeemed people in Christ, than to know our triune God in all of his majesty, beauty, and holy splendor (Ps. 89:16; Isa. 11:9; John 17:3). The life and health of the church is directly dependent on our knowledge of God, and thus the doing of theology.
In fact, as Herman Bavinck rightly reminds us, theology is really nothing but the knowledge of God, which is then applied to every area of life. Bavinck writes: “So, then, the knowledge of God is the only dogma, the exclusive content, of the entire field of dogmatics [theology]. All the doctrines treated in dogmatics—whether they concern the universe, humanity, Christ, and so forth—are but the explication of the one central dogma of the knowledge of God. All things are considered in light of God, subsumed under him, traced back to him as the starting point. Dogmatics is always called upon to ponder and describe God and God alone… It is the knowledge of him alone that dogmatics must put on display.”[9]
The assumption undergirding such a view of theology is that it is an objective discipline or science, grounded in the triune God who is truly there and who has made himself known to us. This understanding of theology stands in contrast to “liberal” theology that broadly views theology as the study of “religion” or “faith”—a “subjectivist” idea. Friedrich Schleiermacher’s understanding of theology is a good example of this. For Schleiermacher, theology is the analysis of the religious consciousness, the feeling of absolute dependence.[10] As we will note in chapters 2-3, the problem with such a view is that theology is made independent of Scripture, and its source is not directly grounded in God’s divine speech but in one’s personal experience that is mediated through the communion of saints. But personal experience, even mediated through the church, is never the final authority for the theologian. In fact, this view of theology suspends the question of objective truth. “Religion” is more about our experience of and search for the divine. But for such a view, God becomes an aspect of human experience, a view contrary to historic Christian theology. Theology is not about us finding a way to talk about God from the fabric of human experience; instead, it is about the triune God choosing to make himself known to us.
In addition, John Frame defines systematic theology as “the application of God’s Word by persons to all areas of life.”[11] The focus on “application” is important because it reiterates what people often forget about theology, namely, that theology applies to every area of our lives. If we combine the definitions of Webster and Frame, we can say that systematic theology is the study of the triune God and all things in relationship to him which involves the application of God’s Word to all areas of life.[12] Furthermore, Frame’s introduction of “application” into the definition of theology not only helps us think about what theology is but also how it is done. Although we will say more about theological method in chapter 4, at this point, working with our definition of theology, we can say that the doing of systematic theology minimally involves two steps.
First, theology requires that we apply God’s Word. This not only assumes that Scripture, as God’s Word written, is first-order and thus foundational for our theology, but also that a right reading of Scripture is central to the doing of theology. The Bible is more than a collection of isolated texts from ancient history. Instead, Scripture is God’s unfolding revelation of his eternal plan that moves from creation to the new creation, centered in the coming of Christ. Thus, a correct reading of Scripture requires that individual texts be located in relation to the Bible’s unfolding covenantal story and ultimately in light of the entire canon fulfilled in Christ. Careful attention must be given to the Bible’s own presentation of its content, categories, and teaching, which, as we will note below, involves the doing of biblical theology.
In this regard, Charles Hodge’s well-known definition of theology requires modification, along with Wayne Grudem’s definition that is dependent on Hodge. For example, Hodge defines theology as “the exhibition of the facts of Scripture in their proper order and relation, with the principles or general truths involved in the facts themselves, and which pervade and harmonize the whole.”[13] Likewise, Wayne Grudem defines theology as the study that answers the question: “‘What does the whole Bible teach us today?’ about any given topic,” which involves “collecting and understanding all the relevant passages in the Bible on various topics and then summarizing their teachings clearly so that we know what to believe about each topic.”[14]
No doubt there is truth in what Hodge and Grudem say. Systematic theology does seek to know what the entirety of Scripture teaches on any given topic, hence the term “systematic.” Yet, the problem with such definitions is that they fail to do justice to what Scripture actually is. Scripture is not a theological dictionary or a storehouse of propositions and facts, although it is thoroughly propositional. Instead, Scripture is first-order God-given language that is comprised of many literary forms that require careful interpretation, and it is an unfolding revelation given to us over time, a point we will develop in chapter 4. Theology, then, does not simply collect texts and arrange them properly as if we remove texts out of their immediate and overall canonical context. Instead, Scripture, as God’s unfolding revelation over time comes to us in a specific order and within its own interpretive framework. Texts have to be interpreted and made sense of in light of their redemptive-historical context and ultimately in terms of a closed canon. Our task is to understand individual texts in light of the entirety of Scripture and then to “put together” Scripture and all that it teaches “on its own terms.”[15]
Another way of stating this is that Scripture is a word-act revelation. It not only recounts God’s mighty actions in history; it is also God’s interpretation of his redemptive acts, through human authors, and thus true, objective, and authoritative. For this reason, Scripture’s own interpretations and descriptions are infallible and they serve as our “interpretive framework” or “spectacles” for thinking about God, the world, and ourselves.[16] Thus, to apply Scripture first entails that we interpret Scripture correctly as an entire canon.
Second, theology requires that we apply Scripture to all areas of life. This entails that theology is more than repeating Scripture; instead, theology has a “constructive” element to it. This “constructive” element not only “puts together” all that Scripture teaches; it also involves application to every area of life. For this reason, theology is foundational for worldview formation, as it seeks to integrate God’s revelation in nature and Scripture as an exercise of “faith seeking understanding.” As we take the Bible’s first-order description, we seek to understand Scripture in terms of application, logical implications, and metaphysical entailments. No doubt, we do so with help from the past, but we also seek to apply Scripture to the issues of our day in order to teach the church sound doctrine and refute the errors of both the past and present age. God has not given us his Word for only one aspect of our lives; God’s Word applies to every area of life, just as Christ’s Lordship is over everything. Abraham Kuyper captured this point well with his famous words: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”[17]
We will return to this point in subsequent chapters, but let me briefly illustrate what this second step looks like in the doing of Christology. To answer the question of who Jesus is, we first turn to the entire canon of Scripture. After we do so, we discover that the Jesus of the Bible is utterly unique; he is God the Son from eternity who, in the incarnation, added a human nature to himself (John 1:1, 14). Yet, this biblical presentation raises some legitimate theological questions that require understanding and theological construction, even the use of extra-biblical language, concepts, and judgments. For example, how should we think of the relation between Jesus as the Son and the Father and Spirit? Or, how should we understand the relationship between the Son’s deity and humanity, given the Creator-creature distinction (Phil. 2:6-11)? Or, how do we make sense of Jesus’s statement that he does not know certain things, if he is God the Son and thus omniscient (Mark 13:32)? To answer these questions, the “constructive” element of theology is done, which seeks to “understand” Scripture and “put together” the biblical teaching in such a way that accounts for all the biblical data. It is not enough to repeat Scripture, we must also “make sense” of it in order to disciple believers in the truth and to obey Scripture’s exhortation to always be ready to give a reasoned defense for what we believe.
In the end, the purpose of theology is to help God’s people understand Scripture better so that we can rightly know God’s Word, apply it to our lives, and to fulfill our calling as the church to know God and to make him known.[18] As Christians, we are called to bring all of our life, language, and thought into conformity with God’s Word. As we do, we also formulate a well-thought out biblical worldview so that we obey Scripture’s command: “Do not conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind” (Rom. 12:2).
Theology in Scripture
With this basic idea of what systematic theology is in place, let us now turn to a biblical example of theology being done before our eyes. Sometimes it is easier to grasp what theology is by seeing it practiced, and it also has the added advantage of letting Scripture serve as the paradigm for our thinking about what theology is and how it is to be done. No doubt, in Scripture there are many examples of the doing of theology, yet Paul’s Athenian address is most instructive for us today for a variety of reasons (Acts 17:16-32).[19]
First, Paul’s reasoning illustrates that theology is biblical in that it is grounded in the Bible’s unfolding story from creation to Christ. Even more: the Bible’s content, categories, and theological framework serve as the interpretive matrix by which he explains the gospel, interprets the world, diagnoses the human problem, gives its solution in Christ, and applies the truth of Scripture to his hearers. Second, building on the first point, Paul’s reasoning illustrates that theology presents a well-thought out worldview or philosophy, that is, a total perspective on life, or a grand metanarrative, which allows him to interpret and critique all other theologies or worldviews. Scripture’s own description of reality provides the “spectacles” by which Paul thinks and acts. Theology, then, is not only “constructive” in describing and explaining the Bible’s message; it is also “apologetic” by calling non-Christians to repent of their thinking and suppression of the truth and to turn to the only source of truth, the triune God of Scripture and his Word. Third, Paul’s reasoning illustrates that theology is contextual, that is, it addresses a specific context and people and it is applied to that context in precision and power. Theology is not merely interested in giving us a list of timeless propositions; it is interested in applying God’s authoritative Word to specific people and bringing God’s truth to bear on every area of life.
Each of these points is important to understand what theology is and how it is to be done. Yet, the third point links what Paul is doing in his day and encourages us to do likewise today. Why? For this reason: in many ways, our present cultural context is parallel to what Paul faced at Athens in the first century, and how he approaches the theological task is instructive for us. As we will discuss in chapter 2, our present context is pluralistic, postmodern, secular, and post-Christian. Central to the thinking of our age is a denial of objective truth, largely due to the embrace of viewpoints that cannot account for a proper ground for objective truth, in contrast to Christian theology. Specifically in the West, this has resulted in the acceptance of a multiplicity of worldviews other than Christianity and a corresponding biblical and theological illiteracy along with a rising syncretism. Our context is much more similar to what Paul faced at Athens, except for the post-Christian aspect of it. This is why Paul’s Athenian address and biblical reasoning is so instructive for us; he teaches us how to present the truth of the gospel in terms of an entire biblical-theological framework rooted in the Bible’s story, which illustrates for us the theological task.
To underscore this point, think about how Paul, in the book of Acts, proclaims the truth of the gospel—including an entire theology—depending on his audience. Normally, when Paul went to a city, he first went to the synagogue where he reasoned with the Jews and God-fearers, and his proclamation of the gospel followed a basic pattern: he reasoned from the Old Testament that Jesus is the promised Messiah, who in his life, death, resurrection, and in his sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost had ushered in the long-awaited kingdom of God and new covenant era (see Acts 13:5, 14-41, 44-45; 14:1; 17:2, 10, 17). Paul could begin this way because he and his Jewish audience had a common theology. They both believed the Old Testament, and thus, when Paul spoke about “God,” “Messiah,” “covenants,” “sin,” and so on, he spoke to people with a common worldview.
At Athens, however, Paul’s audience and context was quite different. The Athenians did not accept the Old Testament; they were steeped in idolatry, pluralistic in their outlook, and ignorant of the biblical teaching and worldview necessary to understand even the most rudimentary truths that Paul needed to communicate. Paul’s preaching of Christ and the entire biblical worldview in the midst of the Areopagus, therefore, had a different starting place and structure than his preaching in the synagogues.
In Athens, Paul’s gospel reasoning did not immediately begin with Jesus as the Messiah. Instead, he first built a biblical and theological frame of reference so that his proclamation of Christ would make sense on the Bible’s own terms and within its own categories. This does not deny that Paul and the Athenians had natural revelation in common, a point Paul makes clear in Romans 1. However, the point is that the Athenians in suppressing the truth could not fully understand Paul’s message apart from placing it within the conceptual framework of Scripture.[20] Later on, we will identify this approach as intratexual, or a “theology from above,” i.e., theology’s starting point is from the standpoint of God’s revelation to us. Paul knows that his presentation of Christ only makes sense within the Bible’s view of reality (metaphysics), grounded in a specific theory of knowledge (epistemology), which results in a specific view of moral obligation (ethics). The Athenians interpret and explain the world and themselves by an alien worldview framework due to a suppression of the truth of natural revelation, or what we will identify as an extratextual conceptual scheme.
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The standard of justice is God himself, and we know what is just due to his revelation of himself in creation and specifically Scripture. In all of God’s external works, he acts justly and righteously, consistent with his own will and nature. As the just one, God requires moral conformity of his creatures to his moral demand. God is the Lord, indeed the “Judge of the whole earth” who always does what is right (Gen. 18:25).

Our world is consumed with talk about “justice” and specifically “social justice.” Yet similar to how our world has redefined the word “love,” most discussions of “justice” lack definition and any sense of a standard of what justice actually is. In fact, just as we are told it’s “loving” for a mother to take the life of her unborn child for her own psychological health, or it’s “loving” to end a marriage so that couples can pursue their own self-actualization (which is another word for selfishness), we are also told that it is “just” to do many unjust and lawless acts.
For example, it’s “just” to steal from hard-working people to redistribute their wealth to those who do not work (although they are fully capable of doing so). Or, it’s “just” to allow men who identify as women to compete in women’s sports even though it’s completely unjust for the actual women who compete against them. Or, as we were lectured in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter riots held throughout the country, it was “just” to allow rioters to destroy private and public property and even to harm people because they were “righteously” opposing perceived racial injustices. Such actions were deemed “just” although they were lawless acts. Indeed, as with the word love, “justice” has now become a meaningless concept in much of our current discourse.
The consequences of such a situation, however, are significant. Although for many today the concept of “justice” and “social justice” has lost its meaning, the truth is that these concepts have simply been redefined. The crucial question is: According to whose definition and by what standard is “justice” redefined? That is the question this essay will answer.
A Few Preliminaries: History, Epistemology, and Method
In Western society, due to the influence of Christianity, there has been a fairly clear sense of what “justice” is because it was basically defined by biblical standards. But as the West has thrown off the Bible’s influence and moved steadily away from a Christian view of the world, one of the defining marks of our secularized, pluralistic society is a rejection of the God of the Bible as the source and standard of truth and morality. In the place of God and his word-revelation, we have substituted the idol of self and along with it a “constructivist” view of truth and morality, which at its core is naturalistic, relative, and incoherent.
What has been the result of such a substitution? Certainly not human flourishing, freedom, love, and true justice; rather, the opposite has occurred.
By rejecting the influence of Christianity on our concepts of truth and morality, we have undermined the warrant for an objective standard of truth and morality. In its place, we are left with only the finite, subjective, and fallen human “identity” constructions of various groups vying for raw political power. In fact, this “new” view of truth and morality is more indebted to naturalistic, postmodern, and Marxist categories, so that reality is now viewed solely through the lens of race, gender, and intersectionality, and people are simplistically categorized as either an “oppressor” or the “oppressed.”
In this thoroughly non-Christian view of the true, good, and the beautiful, the goal is to destroy the “traditional structures and systems deemed to be oppressive, and [redistribute] power and resources from oppressors to victims in pursuit of equality of outcome.”[1] Today, this is what our society means by “social justice.” But what is disturbing about this redefined view of justice is that the epistemological ground on which the system stands is quicksand. Even the determination of who the “oppressor” and “oppressed” is, is relative, and without an objective basis to discern truth from error and good from evil, such a view ends in totalitarianism, statism, and the destruction of human life—as history reminds us.
All of this has brought our nation and Western society to the crossroads where the future of the West is now in jeopardy. Why? For this simple reason: if nations are not grounded in an objective, universal standard of justice—which is ultimately grounded in God himself—then our future is bleak indeed. No society can flourish built upon a relative standard of truth and morality. History has taught us that either anarchy will result, or more commonly, totalitarianism will rear its ugly head. But note: this is a totalitarianism that is completely arbitrary and capricious, since it too is grounded in a philosophical and moral relativism.
For this reason, Christians must think carefully about what “justice” is, and to do so requires sound biblical and theological thinking. Unfortunately even some within our evangelical churches have confused our culture’s desire for “social” justice (which is more informed by secular-postmodern categories) with true biblical justice. But if Christians are to make headway in this discussion, we must first ask what justice is in relation to God before we speak about what justice is in the world. If we do not ground “justice” in an objective, universal standard—namely God himself—then the concept of “justice” becomes only relative, which inevitably results in a disastrous application of so-called “justice” in the world.
In this article, I want to discuss the warrant for a universal, objective basis for justice by establishing it in God himself. Any talk of “justice” must first be grounded in God and his revealed word. I will do so in three steps. First, to speak of justice in relation to God, I must say something about God’s attributes and how justice is essential to him. Second, I will describe a biblical view of justice by first unpacking what God’s justice is within himself, then in relation to his exercise of justice in the world, and I will note that we can know what justice is due to God’s word-revelation. Third, I will conclude with a final reflection.
God is Just: Thinking Rightly about God’s Attributes
God is just means that justice is one of God’s moral attributes and that it is essential to him. Let us unpack this statement by making three points.
First, an attribute is not something we “attribute” to God as if it is a “part” of God. Why? Because God is not divisible into parts; his divine nature is singular and simple meaning that his attributes are coexistent with who he is. In other words, God’s attributes are what God is, in his entire being and perfection as the one true God. Attributes are not abstract qualities that exist independently of him; God is not dependent on anything outside of himself. God is his attributes, and each attribute is identical to God’s nature. For this reason, God does not merely possess love, holiness, and justice; he is love, holy, and just. This does not mean that we cannot make distinctions between God’s attributes, but in doing so we must never think that God’s attributes are distinct parts of his nature. God is his attributes, totally self-sufficient and perfect.
Second, all of God’s attributes are essential to him, meaning that they are all necessary for God to be God, unlike creatures who are composed of essential and accidental attributes. The latter term refers to attributes that can be lost while a thing still remains what it is. For example, we could lose a leg in a car crash, or our mental abilities due to a debilitating disease, but we would still remain essentially human. But this is not true of God. God cannot “lose” or “gain” any attributes and still be God; God is who he is in the fullness of his being and life. God’s attributes are essential to him, and thus necessary to his being. This is why we must also distinguish between what God is in himself apart from the world and the exercise of his attributes in relation to the world. This is especially important as we think about God’s relation to a fallen world that he judges and to a people that he redeems by grace. God is love, holy, and just apart from the world. But in relation to the world, especially a fallen world, God displays his wrath and judgment against human sin, but wrath is not an essential attribute of God; it is the expression of God’s holiness and justice towards a fallen world. In other words, God within himself is essentially holy, love, and just; he is not wrath.
Third, divine justice is best understood as a moral attribute of God, along with holiness and goodness. These attributes remind us that God is not only the absolute standard of objective moral norms but also the one who upholds his own glory in the redemption of his people and in his judgment of all sin and evil. We may distinguish God’s moral attributes, but given divine simplicity these attributes are all aspects of one another.
For example, think of the relation between God’s holiness and justice. Holiness speaks of “consecration” or “devotion to,” which then carries over to the moral realm. To be holy unto God is to honor and love what he loves, which demands specific moral entailments. Within God himself, holiness is a way of describing God’s holy love.
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This year marks the 100th anniversary of J. Gresham Machen’s famous, and probably one of the most important theological books of the past century, Christianity and Liberalism.[1] The book’s significance cannot be overstated and its larger impact on the modernist-fundamentalist debates, along with the rise of evangelicalism in the twentieth century is incalculable. Numerous reasons could be given for the book’s importance, but I will mention only three.
Three Reasons to Remember Christianity & Liberalism
First, in Christianity and Liberalism, Machen masterfully and correctly distinguishes true, orthodox Christianity from its counterfeit known as “classic liberal theology.” Due to the cultural, philosophical, and religious impact of the Enlightenment on society and the later embrace of the Darwinian theory of macroevolution, some within the church sought to recast Christianity to “fit” and “conform” to the current thought of the day. Convinced that Christianity could not survive unless it embraced the “spirit of the age,” which meant for these people that Christian theology had to reject its own starting points and authority structure grounded in God and his revelation. Thus, instead of starting with the triune God who is there and who has spoken infallibly and authoritatively in Scripture, theological liberalism continued to use the language of Scripture but divorced from its theological grounding. The result of this attempt to correlate the Bible with contemporary thought (which functioned as the authoritative grid by which we read Scripture) was not the “saving” of Christianity or even making it “relevant” to its cultured despisers, but its ultimate destruction. Instead, of faithfully expounding and applying Scripture to the present day, classic liberalism constructed a different religion of its own making that had no resemblance to historic Christianity. They continued to use biblical language, but they hollowed out its biblical meaning and significance. No doubt, Machen was not the first to sound the alarm that theological liberalism was not Christianity, but his book was certainly one of the most significant works to remind the Church of this crucial point.
Second, in Christianity and Liberalism, Machen reminds us that God’s glory and the truth of Scripture demands a loving confrontation of the church against all error that seeks to undermine the truth of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. There comes a time when people who claim to be Christians have so departed from the truth of God’s Word that separation and division is inevitable. We ought to seek the unity of the church, but not when the truth of Scripture and the gospel is at stake. We no longer have unity when biblical truth is either redefined, undermined, or rejected. Machen knew this well. As a result of his stand against the drift towards theological liberalism within the Presbyterian church, he was instrumental in founding a new seminary (Westminster Theological Seminary) and a new denomination (the Orthodox Presbyterian Church). None of these decisions were easy for him to make, but Machen knew that in order to honor God, his Word, and glory of Christ, truth required confrontation against error, and even separation from those who identified as Christians.
For the evangelical church today, this is a lesson we must learn from Machen. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the battle was over the authority of Scripture and the objective truth of historic Christianity over against classic liberalism. Classic liberalism rejected the supernatural triune God of Scripture, the pervasive nature of human sin and depravity, and the only saving hope for humans in the finished work of the divine Son who assumed our human nature in order to perfectly obey for us in his life, and by his death pay for our sins to secure our justification before God. In contrast to the theological liberalism of his day, Machen knew that Christianity was not simply about doing good for our fellow humans and thus seeing “kingdom” progress in this world. Instead, first and foremost, Christianity is about what the true and living God has done to take the initiative to save sinners in and through Christ alone. It is about what the triune God has done to establish his church, which no doubt impacts the world. But the first things of the gospel must come first so that Christianity is not turned into a liberal social program, and not what it truly is: what God has done to save sinners from their sin.
Of course, this raises the question of our day. The specific form of theological liberalism that Machen stood against may no longer be with us, but the need to stand against error and all that opposes the truth of Scripture is perennial. On every side, the evangelical church is floundering as it accommodates to the current Zeitgeist, whether regarding the present sexual revolution that demands we change our biblical convictions, or in our redefinitions of God, humans, sin, Christ, salvation, and so on. Even the issue related to female pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention is tied to larger issues of Scripture, interpretation, and biblical authority. What Machen teaches us, therefore, is that we must recognize today where the battle rages and to lovingly confront error based on the truth of God’s Word.
Third, in Christianity and Liberalism, Machen not only speaks against the error of his day but also positively expounds and defends the truth of Scripture and Christian theology. Machen’s rejection of theological liberalism meant that he had to put historic Christianity in its place, hence his concern for theological education and the establishment of faithful churches who would join to form a new denomination. Machen knew that it was not enough to reject error; he also knew that he had to ground the church in the truth of the whole counsel of God. This too is a lesson that the evangelical church must learn today. Poll after poll reminds us that those who identify with the evangelical church know less about Scripture and sound theology.
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Of all the atonement views, only penal substitution best captures the God-centered nature of the cross. The alternatives either minimize or deny 1) that God’s holy justice is essential to him, 2) why our sin is first against God (Ps. 51:4), and 3) why Christ as our penal substitute is central to the cross. Before we can speak of the horizontal results of the cross (e.g., moral example, inter-personal reconciliation, etc.), we must first speak of the vertical: namely the triune God, in his Son, taking his own demand on himself so that we, in Christ, may be justified before him (Rom. 5:1–2). The other views miss this point. For them, the object of the cross is either our sin (forms of recapitulation), or Satan (ransom theory), or the powers (forms of Christus Victor). But what they fail to see is that the primary person we have sinned against is God, and as such, the ultimate object of the cross is God himself.

Trying to state all that our Lord Jesus achieved in his glorious work is difficult given its multi-faceted aspects. John Calvin sought to grasp the comprehensive nature of Christ’s work by the munus triplex—Christ’s threefold office as our new covenant head and mediator—prophet, priest, and king. What Calvin sought to avoid was reductionism, the “cardinal” sin of theology. Yet, although there is a danger in prioritizing one aspect of our Lord’s work, Scripture does stress the centrality of Christ’s priestly office and his sacrificial death for our sins (Matt. 1:21; 1 Cor. 15:3–4). And given the centrality of Christ’s cross, it is crucial that we explain it correctly.
However, one problem we face is that, throughout church history, there have been a number of atonement theologies. Unlike the ecumenical confessions of Nicaea and Chalcedon that established orthodox Trinitarian and Christological doctrine, there is no catholic confession regarding the cross. From this fact, some have concluded that no one view best explains what is central to the cross—a conclusion I reject. The truth is that despite an ecumenical confession, all Christians have agreed that Christ’s death “is for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3) resulting in our reconciliation with God.
While conceptual clarity of the doctrine occurred over time, similar to other doctrines, clarity and precision was achieved, as various atonement debates occurred. Specifically, it was during the Reformation and post-Reformation eras, building on the work of people like Anselm, that conceptual clarity occurred in the articulation of penal substitution as the best theological explanation for why the cross was necessary and what it achieved.
Recently, however, some have challenged the claim that penal substitution best explains what is central to Christ’s cross. We are told repeatedly that penal substitution does not account for the richness of the cross. What is needed is not one view but multiple views. Is this correct? My thesis is that it is not, and for at least two reasons. First, views other than penal substitution fail to grasp the central problem that the cross remedies, namely our sin before God. Second, from another angle, other views stress various legitimate results of the cross, but without penal substitution as the foundation, the results alone cannot explain the central problem of our sin before God. Before developing these two points, let me first describe the basic atonement views set over against penal substitution.
Atonement Views in Historical Theology
Over the centuries, five main atonement theologies have been given:
Recapitulation
First, there is the recapitulation view, often associated with Irenaeus and Athanasius. This view interprets Christ’s work primarily in terms of his identification with us through the incarnation. By becoming human, the divine Son reversed what Adam did by living our life and dying our death. Adam’s disobedience resulted in the corruption of our nature and the deprivation of Godlikeness. Christ reverses both of these results in his incarnation and entire cross-work. Especially in Christ’s resurrection, immortality and reconciliation with God is restored to us. This view captures much biblical truth. Christ’s work is presented in representational and substitutionary terms. But its central focus is on sin’s effects on us and Christ’s restorative work, not on our sin before God and the need for Christ to satisfy God’s own righteous demand against us by paying for our sin.
Christus Victor (Or Ransom)
Second, Christus Victor is another view of the cross, often associated with the ransom theory to Satan. The primary object(s) of Christ’s death is (are) the powers which he liberates us from, namely, sin, death, and Satan. Like recapitulation, this view captures a lot of biblical truth, especially Christ’s defeat of the powers (Gen. 3:15; John 12:31–33; Col. 2:13–15; Heb. 2:14–16; Rev. 12:1–12), but unlike penal substitution, God is not viewed as the primary object of the cross.
Moral Influence (or Example)
Third, the moral influence view was promoted within non-orthodox theology. It had its roots in the theology of Peter Abelard (1079–1142), but came into its own with the rise of classic liberal theology (eighteenth to nineteenth centuries). It taught that God’s love is more basic than his justice and that God can forgive our sins without Christ satisfying divine justice. God is not the primary object of the cross. Instead, Christ’s death reveals God’s love and sets an example for us.
The Governmental View
Fourth, the governmental view arose in the post-Reformation era and it is identified with Hugo Grotius, John Miley, and the Arminian tradition. Against penal substitution, this view denies that God’s justice necessitates the full payment of our sin since God’s justice is not viewed as essential to him.
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As a result of the incarnation, the divine Son lives and acts within the normal physical, mental, volitional, and psychological capacities of an unfallen, sinless human nature. As the Son, he experienced the wonder and weaknesses of a human life. He grew in wisdom and physical stature (Luke 2:52), experienced tears and joy (John 11:35; 15:11), and suffered death and a glorious resurrection for his people and their salvation (John 11:33, 35; 19:30; 1 Cor. 15:3–4).

In our final essay for “Christology at Christmas” theme, I want to offer a tenfold summary of key truths for a biblical and orthodox Christology.
1. The person or subject of the incarnation is the eternal, divine Son.
John 1:14 states this well: “The Word became flesh.” In other words, it was not the divine nature, it was the divine Son from eternity (John 1:1) who became incarnate. The Son, who has always been in eternal relation with the Father and the Spirit, and who shares the same, identical divine nature with them, freely chose to humble himself by assuming a human nature in order to redeem his people (Phil. 2:6–8), and to reverse all that Adam did by ushering in a new creation (Col. 1:18–20).
2. As the divine Son, the second person of the triune Godhead, he is the exact image and correspondence of the Father, and is thus truly God.
Along with the Father and Spirit, the Son fully and equally shares the one divine nature. As the image and exact correspondence of the Father (Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3), the Son is truly God. All of God’s perfections and attributes are his since our Lord is God the Son (Col. 2:9). As the Son, he indivisibly shares the divine rule, receives divine worship, and does all divine works as the Son (Ps 110:1; Eph 1:22; Phil 2:9–11; Col. 1:15–17; Heb. 1:2–3; Rev. 5:11–12).
3. As God the Son, he has always existed in an eternally ordered relation to the Father and the Spirit, which now is gloriously revealed in the incarnation.
It was fitting that the Son alone became incarnate and not the other divine persons (John 1:1–2, 14, 18). In the incarnation, the Son revealed his eternal divine-filial relation to the Father and always acted from the Father and by the Spirit (John 5:19–30; Mark 1:12; Luke 4:1–21). These eternally ordered relations within God are eternal and necessary.

The Father is first, has paternity due to his relation to the Son, and is the one who initiates and sends.
The Son has filiation and is eternally generated from the Father.
The Spirit has spiration and eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son.

In God’s acts, all three persons act inseparably through the one divine nature. Yet each person acts distinctly, with specific actions terminating on the divine persons according to their eternally ordered relations.
The result: every external act of God is one and undivided, yet the Father initiates and acts through the Son, the Son from the Father, and the Spirit from the Father and Son. Thus, from eternity and in the incarnation, the Son never acted independently but always acted in relation to the Father and the Spirit, and he alone became incarnate.
4. The incarnation is an act of addition, not subtraction.
From eternity, the Son, in relation to the Father and the Spirit, subsisted in the divine nature. Now, as a result of the incarnation, the Son, without change or loss of his deity, added—or to use a better term—assumed, a second nature, namely, a human nature consisting of a human body and soul (Phil. 2:6–8). As a result, the Son added a human dimension to his personal divine life and became present to us in a new mode of existence as the incarnate Son. Yet the Son’s subsistence and action in both natures is consistent with the integrity of both, without either nature ever being mutually exclusive of the other. Given the incarnation, the Son is able to act by his two natures and produce effects proper to each nature and thus accomplish our salvation as the divine Son who obeys for us in his life and death as our covenant head and substitute.
5. The human nature assumed by the divine Son is fully human and completely sinless.
Christ’s human nature was unfallen and untainted by the effects of sin. Christ’s human body and soul had all the capacities of original humanity, thus enabling the Son to experience a fully human life.
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If the church is to fulfill her calling to know and glorify God, we must return to sound theology, and this must begin with a proper understanding of who the triune God is in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ. In its most basic sense, systematic theology, or dogmatics, is the orderly, comprehensive study of the triune God and all things in relation to him. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism rightly answers the all-important question—“What is the chief end of man?”—“Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” There is nothing more urgent for humans as God’s creatures than knowing God. And especially for God’s redeemed people in Christ, there is no higher calling than delighting in our triune God in all of his majesty, beauty, and holy splendor. The life and health of the church is directly dependent on our knowledge of God, which is central to the theological task.

Whether it is in the first century or the present day, the church quickly departs from Christ and his Word and seeks to establish truth apart from divine revelation. But as Paul warns the Colossians, he warns us: divine revelation, centered in Christ, is the foundation of all knowledge. We do not have truth apart from God and his Word. Ultimately, apart from God creating the world and revealing himself in nature and Scripture, we would have no warrant for what we know. True objective knowledge requires a foundation in the triune God who is there and who speaks, which entails that we must evaluate everything we think and believe in light of Christ and Scripture.

In every era, the church needs sound biblical teaching and faithful theological instruction. Theology, rightly understood, is the lifeblood of the church and necessary for her life and health. Central to theology is the knowledge of our triune God as our Creator, Redeemer, and covenant Lord, and the application of God’s Word to our lives. For us, who are created and redeemed by God, there is no higher calling and greater privilege than to know the only true God in and through our Lord Jesus Christ (John 17:3).
Today, however, the evangelical church is largely in danger of theological drift. No doubt, since its beginning, the church has always faced the perennial threat of theological drift. This is why one of the tasks of faithful biblical teaching is to keep the church from being “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14). Theology’s task is to expound, apply, and defend the truth of Scripture so that the church continues to love and proclaim the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27) and the unsearchable riches of Christ (Col. 1:28-29). The Christian life and Christian ministry are about knowing God in truth, believing and obeying God’s Word, and being vigilant for the truth of the gospel by “destroy[ing] arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and tak[ing] every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).
Yet today, the need for sound biblical and theological instruction is great. On every side, evangelicalism is experiencing a collective identity crisis. Why? There are many reasons, but certainly one of them is due to the waning conviction that theology is vital for the spiritual health of the church, and that biblical truth not only matters but is really true and thus authoritative for our lives. As David Wells has repeatedly warned the evangelical church for nearly three decades, we have traded biblical and theological faithfulness for pragmatic success.[1] The result? Disciplined biblical and theological thinking has taken a backseat to other cultural concerns, so much so that current evangelicalism in the West is a shell of what it used to be.
In fact, if we listen to the polls (e.g., Ligonier’s The State of Theology), we discover that in many of our churches basic biblical and theological knowledge is at an all-time low. Not surprisingly, we have also succumbed to many of the pressures of our culture by modifying our theological convictions to conform to the current “spirit of the age.” This explains why some evangelicals are now flirting with the latest cultural trends: critical race theories; redefinitions of male and female roles in the marriage, the church, and society; embrace of various LGBTQ concerns; an uncritical acceptance of secular-postmodern views of “social justice” in contrast to a biblical view of justice and its outworking in our lives and the larger society; and so on.
Similar to the churches in Revelation 2–3, we, sadly, are in danger of accommodating to the mindset of our day. For example, just as the church at Laodicea began to resemble her city: self-satisfied, content with the status quo, little dependence on God, so also some evangelicals are in danger of replicating the Laodiceans’ impoverished spiritual state (Rev. 3:14–22). Or, similar to the church at Ephesus (Rev. 3:1–7), for some of us who think we are standing faithfully for truth, unbeknownst to us, we have drifted from the Lord because we have lost our first love, namely our love for Christ. We have rightly taught and emphasized sound doctrine but we have done so in such a way that we have drifted away from the Lordship of Christ in our lives, and this observation now leads me to discuss the reason for the name of this website.
What’s in a Name?
Why the name “Christ over All?” Obviously, many reasons could be given, but the main reason is due to our conviction that what the church desperately needs today is to a rock solid commitment to the authority of Scripture in all that it teaches with specific focus on Christ’s lordship over all. In our view, the great need for the evangelical church is unashamedly to retain and in many ways return to what is most central: the glory of the triune God in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ.
As we examine Scripture, we discover that its main message is about how God in his infinite wisdom, power, and grace has chosen to bring all of his purposes and plans to fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Repeatedly, Scripture reminds us that in Christ alone, all of God’s sovereign purposes find their fulfillment (Heb. 1:1–3) and that God’s eternal plan is to bring “all things,” “things in heaven and things on earth,” under Christ’s headship (Eph. 1:9–10), which has already begun in his first coming and which will be consummated in his return.
It is important to remember that to emphasize Christ’s centrality is not to diminish the persons and work of the Father and the Spirit. Instead, Scripture teaches that all the Father does centers in his Son and that the Spirit works to bear witness and bring glory to the Son. Thus, to be truly trinitarian is to be properly Christ-centered. As our Lord reminds us, “whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him” (John 5:23).
This glorious truth, however, is not merely to be confessed; it is to be lived out in every area of our lives. The church first exists to know and proclaim the glory of the triune God in the face of Christ, and a move away from this center will lead the church away from life and health. As such, we constantly need to be reminded about who is central, who is worthy, who is to be obeyed, and who is our only hope and salvation. The purpose of this website is to do this: to call the church back to know, proclaim, and live out Christ’s Lordship over every aspect of our lives.
Scripture teaches the truth about “Christ over All” in many places, but probably the most profound and succinct text is Colossians 1:15–20. Let me first explain how this text teaches the truth of Christ’s Lordship, before I make some application points from Colossians 2:6–10. By doing so, we can explain further what we are seeking to achieve by this website.
The Truth of Christ Over All (Col. 1:15–20)
This is one of the most profound Christological texts in the New Testament that unpacks Christ’s lordship. In the Patristic era, this text was used by the Arians to argue that Christ was the “firstborn,” i.e., the first created being and thus not God the Son. This interpretation continues today among Jehovah’s Witnesses, and sadly, numerous evangelicals are also confused on this point.[2] Against the Arians, however, the text unambiguously teaches the full deity of the Son, and thus Christ’s Lordship.
The text is divided into two main stanzas (vv. 15–17 and 18b–20) with a transitional stanza between the two (vv. 17–18a). In the first main and transitional stanzas, Jesus is presented as Lord because he is the eternal Son, the true image of God, the agent of creation, and the sustainer of the universe. In the second main stanza, Jesus is presented as the incarnate Son, who by his incarnation and cross-work is our only Redeemer. Jesus, then, is supreme over all because he is our Creator and Redeemer. Let’s look further at the text.

In the first of three steps, the Son’s full deity is taught in vv. 15-16 in three affirmations. (1) The Son is described as “the image of the invisible God,” which means that he possesses the very nature of God. The same thought is found in Hebrews 1:3a, where Christ is described as “the exact representation (charaktēr) of his being.” Although different expressions, they both teach that Christ is God the Son. The Son, from eternity, has perfectly reflected the Father, and now in his incarnation reveals the invisible God just as perfectly.
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