Christocentrism can happily co-exist with orthodox trinitarianism because (1) it is only through Christ that we know of the Trinity, and (2) the Trinity itself is Christ-centered. As we view the Trinity through Christ and Christ through the Trinity, we find orthodox trinitarianism and Christocentrism not only compatible but mutually reinforcing.
The article is extremely well researched and by-and-large contains little that is particularly objectionable. It's impossible to argue with Ortlund's observations that Christ is the revelatory gateway to the Godhead and, in the NT at least, the most "glorified" member of the Trinity. Christ is also the source of our salvation, the head of the Church, and the exemplary model for the believer's sanctification.
Despite the preceding, I remain a bit unsettled about the idea of elevating any one member of the Trinity over the others. Further, I wonder whether the specific choice of Christ as the center always says good things about the state of one's religious expression. After all, there have been many "Christ-centered" figures in the history of the Church, and they are not a monolithic lot.
The following is not so much a critique of Ortlund so much as it is a cautionary supplement that suggests reasons to pause before embracing all manifestations of Christocentrism as valid.
- Theologically, Christocentrism can sometimes (though certainly not always) point to an unhealthy emphasis of God as immanent over God as transcendent. Christ is the immanent member of the Trinity--the one who discloses God, mediates between God and man, and makes us partakers of the divine nature. But there is also a great and terrible and awful God, made known most vividly in the pre-Christian era, that must not be forgotten.
- Soteriologically, Christocentrism or Crucicentrism can sometimes (though certainly not always) point to an unhealthy emphasis of redemption as the centerpiece of God's plan for the universe. While redemption certainly plays a significant role in God's plan for the universe, it is not all that God is doing.
- Anthropologically, and related to the preceding, Christocentrism can sometimes (though certainly not always) point to a latent anthropocentrism. That is, it can at times focus on what God is doing for me and for my fellow man in all of his immanence and redemptive energy to the exclusion of what God is and does irrespective of his creatures.
- Hermeneutically, Christocentrism can sometimes (though certainly not always) point to a faulty hermeneutic. Frankly speaking, the Old Testament is not about Christ. It is about God's people being rightly related to their holy God. Certainly, we find anticipation in the Old Testament period about something greater, but it is a great anachronistic leap to move from this latent anticipation to the conclusion that the Old Testament is about Christ.
My point, I again stress, is not to denounce Ortlund's article as peculiarily flawed. He makes some sage observations that are worth our attention. I'd like to think that its function in this essay is more as a catalyst for additional thought than as a whipping boy for criticism. And certainly I have no interest in diminishing Christ in any way (me genoito!). But at the same time I think that there is room for some pause before embracing every Christocentric impulse that we encounter.
MAS
3 comments:
Mark --- I was glad to read your synopsis here. As I have read through the OT it has always struck me that Christ isn't what the OT is about. The OT is about God! I could never quite square that realization with the many comments I have read (from very good fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals) about redemption being God's theme in the Bible, and about Christ and the cross being behind every OT passage.
Plus, it takes only a cursory reading of the gospels to see Christ's complete submission to God the Father's will at all times. If we were to assign a preeminant place to any member of the Trinity (and I appreciate and support your caution about doing that) I would think Christ's own words and behavior would point to God the Father as preeminant.
Hi, friends.
Just a quick word. I appreciate, Mark, that there are myriads of errors which we should avoid. However, I'd argue that the errors you've listed have less to do with Christ-centeredness than with bad theology in general. For example, a biblical Christ-centeredness will portray Him as transcendent, which I'm sure is what struck the 3 on the mount, Paul on the road, and John on the isle. I'll not pursue the other errors, but I think they can be addressed similarly.
More importantly, I think, I'm not comfortable saying that "the OT is not about Christ." The preaching in Acts argues that it is; passages such as John 1:45 and 5:29; Luke 24:47; and others argue that it is. Certainly we don't want to turn passages about David and Goliath into silly putty, resulting in strange allegorizations. I've heard such preaching and detest it. But we don't want to overreact, either. Even in saying, as you do, that the OT "is about God's people being rightly related to their holy God," you're saying it's about Christ, at least in the sense of requiring and prophesying His ministry. Their inability to be rightly related to God was precisely the point of the laws, the sacrifices, the priesthood, etc. Every command called for the only One who could obey it perfectly. Every priest, every prophet, every king called for the perfect fulfillment. Thus understood (even beyond explicit prophecies), I'd say that the OT is most certainly about Christ, not via an allegory behind every bush, but via perpetual prophecies, types, and disappointments that are meaningless if they're not driving us Christ-ward (Gal 3:24; et al).
Thoughts?
I appreciate you both...enough to disagree, or at least "prod." :)
Chris,
Thanks for your question and concern for precision. I tried to qualify my remarks, but perhaps did not do so adequately enough. You're right that there is a sense in which the OT speaks of Christ (a la John 5:39), but the devil is in the details here. As I mentioned, we do find anticipation in the OT about something greater—promises, prophecies, and the like—that is fulfilled in Christ.
But what I find in many Reformed Christocentric models mightily exceeds this description, sending believers out on a Jesus quest that finds the cross in every OT piece of wood, Christ’s blood in everything that is red, and Calvary in every OT mountain where something significant occurred. More specifically to the point in our circles, there is a tendency here to discover an explicit prophecy in the OT every time the NT writers make analogy to some OT event. The OT is not “about” Jesus in this specific and anachronistic sense.
Feeble example: If I were to have said at the beginning of the college football season, “Someone will beat Penn State this year” I don’t think you would conclude today that I was prophesying about the Penn State/Ohio State game. I made a vague prediction that found fulfillment in that game, but in normal parlance, it would be anachronistic and much too specific to say that my initial prediction was “about” the Penn State/Ohio State game.
So is the OT about Christ? In a sense, yes, but in another sense, no. The promises of the OT find fulfillment in Christ (John 5:39), but the OT is not about Christ in all the anachronistic specificity often assigned it, especially in Reformed circles.
That’s why I would continue to say that not all expressions of Christocentrism are valid. For some Christocentrism is a front for Reformed theology; for others (e.g., Barth) it is a front for existentialism; etc.
...But on the face of it, your concern for more precision is a valid one. Hopefully this satisfies that concern.
MAS
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