This document provides a review of Michael Horton's book "Lord and Servant: A Covenant Christology". The review has the following key points:
1) The book aims to consider biblical and systematic theology from a "covenantal" perspective, arguing this approach can revitalize theology by uniting biblical and systematic subjects.
2) While titled as a "Covenant Christology", nearly half the book covers doctrines of God and humanity before addressing questions about Jesus Christ.
3) The book admirably brings theological resources from the past to present debates, and treats other thinkers even-handedly. However, the covenantal scheme may overly constrain the biblical text at points.
Original Description:
Review Horton, Michael, Lord and Servant - A Covenant Christology
This document provides a review of Michael Horton's book "Lord and Servant: A Covenant Christology". The review has the following key points:
1) The book aims to consider biblical and systematic theology from a "covenantal" perspective, arguing this approach can revitalize theology by uniting biblical and systematic subjects.
2) While titled as a "Covenant Christology", nearly half the book covers doctrines of God and humanity before addressing questions about Jesus Christ.
3) The book admirably brings theological resources from the past to present debates, and treats other thinkers even-handedly. However, the covenantal scheme may overly constrain the biblical text at points.
This document provides a review of Michael Horton's book "Lord and Servant: A Covenant Christology". The review has the following key points:
1) The book aims to consider biblical and systematic theology from a "covenantal" perspective, arguing this approach can revitalize theology by uniting biblical and systematic subjects.
2) While titled as a "Covenant Christology", nearly half the book covers doctrines of God and humanity before addressing questions about Jesus Christ.
3) The book admirably brings theological resources from the past to present debates, and treats other thinkers even-handedly. However, the covenantal scheme may overly constrain the biblical text at points.
promises and apparent mercies attached to events at Sinai all the way from Genesis 26 to Nehemiah 9, before we get to the prophets before we can accept the sharp covenantal distinction with which Horton works. Nor does he convince on the covenant of redemption. A linguistic slip is telling, I think: Horton speaks of the unconditional oath he [God] made to the eternal Son, to Adam and Eve after the fall, to Abraham (18). However, according to his theology, it is wrong to ascribe the oath to God; it should be ascribed to the Father. The linguistic problem has arisen because of the artificiality involved in trying to construct the idea of an inner-trinitarian covenant in terms appropriated from Gods covenants with humanity. Indeed, the author is rather elusive here: To affirm the covenant of redemption is little more than affirming that the Sons self-giving and the Spirits regenerative work were the execution of the Fathers eternal plan (80). If it is little more, we do not need covenant language extrapolated from the account of the economy; if we do not need it, then it does not deserve the centrality it has in this theology, and it becomes questionable whether the author can maintain that the covenant of redemptionis as clearly revealed in Scripture as the Trinity and the eternal decree (82). So I do not think that the volume really persuades us that, while other schemes (Arminianism and hyper-Calvinism, 19) impose presuppositions upon Scripture, the authors own scheme does not. Having said that, it is only fair to say that Michael Horton shows that his reading is certainly a possible reading of the biblical data, and it would be hard for him to do much more than that within the confines of his space. Stephen N. Williams Union Theological College
EQ 80.2 (2008), 188-189
Lord and Servant: A Covenant
Christology Michael S. Horton Louisville: Westminster, John Knox Press, 2006. xiv+282 pp. pb. $29.95, ISBN 978-0-664-22863-7 This is the second of three volumes by Michael Horton, designed to consider some of the main themes of biblical and systematic theology from a covenantal perspective. The authors conviction is that the federal (covenantal) theology of the Reformation and post-Reformation eras has the resources to revitalize theology today and to unite biblical and systematic theology, subject-areas that are too often separated. If covenant is partnered by any one other theme, it is eschatology; the introduction to the present work confirms the importance of the fact that the first volume was entitled Covenant and Eschatology. Broadly speaking, the idea is that if we unify our thinking about the eternal inner-trinitarian covenant of redemption within the Godhead and the economy of Gods dealing with us in history, we can present theological themes in their proper light. Although the subtitle of this volume is A Covenant Christology, Christology proper occupies only the last of three parts of the book, accounting for under a half of its content. Previous parts deal with Lord and Servant respectively, outlining a doctrine of God and of humanity in selected respects, before taking up the traditional questions connected with the person and work of Jesus Christ. The author says that, in his volume, we walk in on a conversation in progress (178) and so what we have is a defence of traditional evangelical and Reformed positions on God, Christ and humanity, achieved by consistently tying the exposition to covenantal categories and persistently engaging in debate with a range of theo-
EQ 189
Reviews and Notices
logians, past and present. Even if this volume is not meant to introduce students to its subject, students should be alerted to its fine qualities. It is a model of theological writing on at least two counts. Firstly, it admirably brings the resources of the past to bear on the present. It forges a broadly, but significantly, promising alliance between the tradition that the author represents and contemporary theological possibilities. Secondly, it is scrupulously even-handed in its treatment of other thinkers. Michael Horton is neither for nor against interlocutors such Barth, Moltmann, Jenson or others; here he agrees, there he disagrees. From this, the reader of this review will rightly infer that the content (of which I have given little idea above) and tone (see, for example, the treatment of feminism and atonement in chapter 7) are both to be commended. Furthermore, the whole is clearly written. Nevertheless, there are difficulties with the covenant scheme of things, as presented here. When Horton mistakenly says that Adam named animals, but that God named both Adam and Eve (110; cf. Gen. 3:20), it is a sign of covenant overkill, the intrusion of a theologically schematic approach on the Scriptures. And when he surmises that human image-bearing consists chiefly in ethical response and not in ontological being, it is because he is anxious to apply covenantal as opposed to ontological categories, something that leads him to say that human existence isvery good insofar as humans answer back according to the purpose of their existence (98, but cf. Gen. 1: 31). The difficulties with the authors theological scheme emerge too in his statement of the covenant of redemption. What sense can we make of compassion marking the intra-Trinitarian communion prior to creation (58)? It is, then, a version of the old story: a
systematic scheme is constraining biblical data despite the insistence that
such is not happening. This kind of systematic bug is not easily dislodged once it has entered the body of theology through the blood-stream of a robust theological tradition. This is not necessarily to say that the tradition is mistaken, just that this statement of it is not entirely persuasive. And it is certainly not to gainsay the fact that this is a good book. Stephen N. Williams Union Theological College EQ 80.2 (2008), 189-190
Explosive Preaching: Letters
Detonating the Gospel in the 21st Century Ronald Boyd-MacMillan Carlisle: Paternoster, 2006. pb. 11.99, ISBN 978-1-84227-263-3 So what have we here a book on spiritual terrorism? Have I in my hands a manual on how to engineer Bible weapons of mass reconstruction? Am I about to be recruited into a cell of revolutionary preachers who detonate the truth on unsuspecting people? The cartoonish cover depicting a benign-looking, robed Victorian cleric may simply be a cover for some kind of subversive gospel imperialism. I open it with a mixture of curious excitement and the odd feeling that I am secretly being watched by an agency dedicated to the overthrow of writers on preaching who enthuse, entertain and communicate. Oh no, its by a journalist and what is more, a journalist preoccupied by the thrill of preaching! Can you trust journalists these days? Well, he seems confident enough, positively brimming over with practical advice on re-charging the boring, discouraged and wearied sermon practitioner. So far no sign of
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