Richard Bauckham. Eerdmans. 1999. 89 pages
God Crucified is an incredibly helpful short book for those who want to show that Trinitarian orthodoxy is consistent with the teaching of the Bible. Like me, many of you will have met members of anti-trinitarian sects or Christians who are sceptical of their own theological heritage, who reject the doctrine of the Triune God that is held by the three major branches of the historical universal church. The assumption held by these people is that the trinitarian theology expressed by the Nicene Creed was cooked up around the time of Emperor Constantine and drawn from unbiblical Greek philosophy. It is thought to be a long way off from the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles in the New Testament.
Such scepticism might be well-intended, but Richard Bauckham shows that it is unfounded. As he himself explains in the introduction of his book, the Christology developed by third- and fourth-century theologians was not so much created by them as it was picked up from the New Testament and then transposed onto a conceptual framework that differs from that given by the New Testament: that of the prevailing Greek philosophy with its key categories of “essence” and “nature”. Bauckham insists that the NT authors instead had defined Jesus within the category of “divine identity”. As he explains, “they did so by including Jesus within the unique identity of the on God of Israel.”
Bauckham’s case is laid out in three stages.
First, he describes and explains the nature of monotheism as understood by Jews around the time of the New Testament. Bauckham demonstrates the uncontentious view that the monotheistic nature of God in Jewish thought was deliberately held, particularly defined, and exclusively and necessarily worshipped. Exalted intermediary figures such as angels were clearly excluded from this, while entities such as God’s “word” or “wisdom” were seen simply as personifications of God’s intrinsic identity rather than separate if mysterious beings separate from him.
Second, Bauckham shows how New Testament authors understood Jesus as sharing in the unique identity of the one God of Israel. Specifically, he contends that since this understanding was shared by all NT authors, it must have existed prior to them. Bauckham points to the role of Psalm 110:1 (the most cited OT verse in the NT, at 21x quotations or allusions) as well as to the conviction that a pre-existent Christ participated in activities reserved for God alone, namely the creation and rulership of the cosmos.
Third, he develops his case more specifically by showing three instances of Christ-oriented interpretation of the OT in the NT. Bauckham focuses on Isaiah 40–55, which is a high point of OT monotheistic thought. Looking at key sections of these chapters, he shows how the NT describes Jesus in the same way God is described: the “exalted”, “lifted up”, “glorified” “Lord” who shares in God’s divine Name. Three key readings are offered: Philippians 2:5–11; sections of Revelation, and themes from the Gospel of John. Furthermore, Bauckham pushes the reader to recognise that the very acts of Jesus’ humiliation and shame in his incarnation, suffering, and death have in Jesus been revealed as intrinsic to the divine identity of the One God of Israel: “in Christ God both demonstrates his deity to the world as the same unique God his people Israel had always known, also, in doing so, identifies himself afresh” (§ 3.6).
There is thus both “novelty and consistency” between monotheism as presented by the Old Testament and monotheism as presented by the New. Bauckham concludes with some reflections on the relationship between NT Christology and Nicene Trinitarianism. He thinks it is inadequate to see the latter as a full development of what is “embryonic” or only emerging in the former. Likewise, he rebuts the idea that the Creed and council of Nicaea “represents the triumph of Greek philosophy in Christian doctrine”—this he sees as “virtually the opposite of the truth” since it was Greek categories of thought that made Arianism so attractive (§ 3.7). Instead, Nicene orthodoxy represents the restating of a New Testament doctrine in language more current to the context and culture of the fourth-century world—even if it was not entirely successful in bringing across the fullness of that doctrine.
I invite sceptics of Trinitarian theology to read and engage thoughtfully with Bauckham’s argument. At around 80 pages, the book is not long. For a doctrine so critical, so widely held, and so long-held, dissidents to the Great Tradition of Christian Christology are certainly obliged to give a careful and robust alternative.
God Crucified is available in paperback and Kindle e-book editions from Amazon.
Chris Northcott 