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Jesus As the Imago Dei: Image-Of-God Christology and the Non-Linear Linearity of Theology

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Jesus As the Imago Dei: Image-Of-God Christology and the Non-Linear Linearity of Theology JETS 47/4 (December 2004) 617–28 JESUS AS THE IMAGO DEI: IMAGE-OF-GOD CHRISTOLOGY AND THE NON-LINEAR LINEARITY OF THEOLOGY stanley j. grenz* That Jesus is central to Christianity is one of the least contested asser- tions in theology today. Furthermore, nearly all evangelical theologians de- duce from the centrality of Jesus the principle that Christology must form the center of Christian theology. Evangelicals are less likely to be of one mind as to what forms the center of Christology. Yet most tend to elevate Christ’s saving work—the atonement—to center stage. Moreover, following the trajec- tory of Western theology, evangelical theologians typically present the atone- ment as God’s antidote for the predicament posed by human sin. This focus, in turn, determines both the shape and the flow of the typically evangelical delineation of systematic theology. Such depictions routinely begin by present- ing God as the Creator who fashions humankind in the divine image, which is generally understood as involving some sort of endowment, such as reason or will. Evangelical presentations then delineate the sinful human condition that resulted from the primordial fall, before describing Christ as the one who overcomes the debilitating rule of sin. Understanding the Christian message as centering on God’s work in rem- edying the human sin problem through Christ’s death is not devoid of biblical precedence. Yet it is not the whole story. Indeed, throughout church history Christians—drawing from Scripture—have devised additional ways of de- scribing God’s gracious activity on behalf of humankind, ways that evangel- icals tend either to reduce to secondary importance or to ignore completely. One such approach that dates at least to Irenaeus and has remained promi- nent in Eastern Orthodoxy speaks of God at work bringing humankind to the divinely determined goal for human existence. Like every articulation of the gospel story including the narrative that “Jesus paid it all,” this re- counting reflects a particular understanding of Christ’s role in God’s over- arching purpose. And what is the divinely-given goal for human existence that Jesus both exemplified and accomplished on our behalf? The answer to this question leads to a biblical theme that in evangelical presentations is generally discarded halfway through the anthropology section, the idea of the imago Dei, and with it, the telling of the salvation story in terms of Jesus’ role as the image of God. * Stanley Grenz is Pioneer McDonald professor of theology at Carey Theological College, 5920 Iona Dr., Vancouver, BC V6T 1J6. 618 journal of the evangelical theological society My goal in the following paragraphs is to indicate how this overlooked understanding of the purpose of Christ’s coming can occasion a more nuanced understanding of the flow of systematic theology than is generally evident in evangelical thought—an understanding, I should add, that is in keeping with certain insights arising out of the postmodern condition. To this end, I begin by outlining the imago Dei Christology of the NT. I then place this Christology within the context of the overarching biblical story of the coming to be of the image of God in humankind. Finally, I draw out the implications of the study for the overarching flow of theological construction. i. the new testament imago dei christology In his essay on the image of God published in the 1962 edition of the Inter- preter’s Dictionary of the Bible, N. W. Porteous observes, “Nothing could make clearer the tremendous impact of the revelation of God in Christ than the fact that it has almost completely obliterated the thought of man as being in the image of God and replaced it with the thought of Christ as being the image of God.”1 In this terse comment, Porteous has put his finger on a crucial but often overlooked aspect of the theological agenda of the NT. The early Christian writers set forth a Christocentric understanding of the image of God that drew from, but also transformed, the perspective found within the pages of the OT in accordance with their belief that Jesus was the fulfill- ment of what God had intended from the beginning. The Christocentric transformation of the OT’s understanding of the human vocation is evident in the NT relegation to Jesus of the status of being the glory of God, a status which the Hebrew Scriptures accorded to humankind as a whole. Thus, in Psalm 8:5 (which forms a commentary on Gen 1:28–30), the psalmist declares that God has crowned humankind with “glory and honor.” Yet when NT writers pick up the theme, they shift the focus away from humankind in general to one particular human, Jesus. In fact, we might say that the entire OT “glory”-theology gains a Christological focus in the New. Although the theme is sounded repeatedly in the NT, the link between the imago Dei and the divine glory is especially evident in the book of Hebrews, which brings the glory-Christology of the NT full circle back to the reference in Psalm 8 that formed its basis. One text in particular, He- brews 2:6–9, stands out, for it interprets the psalmist’s universal anthropol- ogy Christologically. Apparently influenced by Jesus’ designation of himself as “Son of Man” and the Son-of-Man Christology that consequently arose in the NT church2 or perhaps also by the conception of Jesus as the Second Adam,3 the author ascribes to Jesus the psalmist’s depiction of humankind 1 N. W. Porteous, “Image of God,” IDB 2.684. 2 For a helpful discussion of the Son of Man concept and this text in Hebrews, see George Wesley Buchanan, To the Hebrews (AB 36; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972) 38–51. 3 F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964) 35. One Line Short jesus as the imago dei 619 as crowned with glory and honor. Drawing this OT text together with other pictures of the king as a son that are found in the book of Psalms,4 the writer presents Jesus not only as having dominion over creation (as was God’s in- tention for humankind according to Gen 1:26 and Psalm 8) but also as the ruler of the cosmos. G. W. Buchanan rightly concludes: “The author of He- brews, like the New Testament authors generally, was no longer interested in Ps 8 in relationship to the nature of man as such, but interested only in Jesus, the Son of man, who was king and messiah, and as such was destined to rule ‘all things,’ since God has ‘established’ him ‘heir’ of all.”5 The idea of Christ as the imago Dei that is implicit throughout much of the NT is explicitly set forth in several texts. These declarations follow the lead of the translators of the Septuagint, who used the Greek term eikon to render the Hebrew selem found in Gen 1:26–27. In the NT, eikon carries the force of “what completely corresponds to the ‘prototype’ ” or the “perfect re- flection of the prototype,” to cite Porteous’s description.6 Furthermore, an eikon was not understood to be completely separate from its counterpart, but was seen as actually participating, in some sense, in the reality it de- picts. It is not surprising, therefore, that the imago Dei texts in the NT ele- vate Jesus as the one who makes manifest the reality of God. Two texts, both in the Pauline writings, are especially important in this regard—2 Cor- inthians 4:4 and Colossians 1:15. In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul links Christ as the imago Dei with the glory- Christology evident elsewhere in the NT. He declares that the message he proclaims centers on Christ’s glory as the image of God (v. 4). Christ, the imago Dei, radiates the very glory of God (v. 6). These verses ought not to be read as if Paul’s primary goal were to offer some great philosophical or spec- ulative conclusion about the ontological nature of Christ. Rather, as occurs in Colossians 1:15 as well, Paul’s declaration evidences a narrative focus. The text embodies an implicit allusion to the creation of humankind in the divine image narrated in Genesis 1:26–27 which is now understood through the lens of Christ as the Second Adam.7 Colossians 1:15–20 extols Christ’s preeminence over all things, by means of a series of affirmations that form what might be termed a “cosmology of creation” and a “cosmology of redemption.”8 Central to the whole is the dec- laration with which the hymn begins: Christ is “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15 nrsv). The key to the designation of Christ as the imago Dei, in turn, lies in the repetition of prototokos, which brings together the themes of the two strophes: the “firstborn of all creation” (v. 15 nrsv) and the “first- born from the dead” (v. 18 nrsv). This term may carry overtones of the OT 4 On this topic, see Buchanan, To the Hebrews 27–28. 5 Ibid. 28. 6 Porteous, “Image of God” 684. 7 For an explication and defense of this connection, see Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology (trans. John Richard de Witt; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975) 70–76. 8 See James D. G. Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996) 97. 620 journal of the evangelical theological society designation of the nation of Israel (Exod 4:22) or Israel’s king (especially Ps 89:27) as Yahweh’s firstborn, which texts were applied to the Messiah.9 The focal point of the hymn, however, lies in the second use of prototokos, which designates Christ as the Second Adam and provides the perspective from which to understand him as the “firstborn” in the first strophe.
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