Acts 17:11 tells us that the Bereans “examined the scriptures every day” to see if what Paul said about Jesus was true. The Bereans were engaged in theology — studying to know God. The English word “theology” comes from two Greek words, theos and logia — meaning “God” and “knowledge.” As Christian believers, we involve ourselves in “God knowledge” or “God study,” seeking to know God as much as we can. Theology is simply the study of God. It should be based on God’s witness to himself in Scripture.
The idea of studying theology, or even thinking about theology, can be frightening to many people. But everyone has a theology, whether they know it or not. Even atheists have a theology. A student once told the college chaplain that she did not believe in God. The chaplain was curious, so he asked: “What sort of god is it that you don’t believe in?” She described an old man in the sky, someone who is just looking for people to do something wrong so he can zap them. The chaplain replied, “If that’s what you mean by the word god, then I’d be an atheist, too. I don’t believe in that kind of god, either.”
A person’s theology is their beliefs about God. Some people think that God is an angry judge; others believe that he is like a grandfather who means well but can’t do much. Others see him as a cosmic servant who exists to give us our every wish. Some people think of God as far off and unknowable; others think of him as near and accessible. Some people think God never changes his mind; others think that he is always changing in response to the prayers of his people. How people view God affects how they read and interpret the Bible.
When Paul tells us that Adam brought condemnation on everyone, and that Jesus brought justification for everyone, then we have to think about what those words mean about humanity and about Jesus and about salvation. When Paul says that we were baptized into Christ’s death, or when Jesus says, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father,” we need to think about what that means — and that’s theology. The Bible forces us to think about theology.
A more formal study of theology helps us put all our various doctrines or beliefs or teachings together, to see if they are consistent with one another, or if they seem to contradict one another. But we don’t do theology just according to what sounds good to us. We are not the authority — God is. If he didn’t reveal himself to us, then we wouldn’t know anything for sure about him. But he has revealed himself to us, and in two ways — in Scripture, and in Jesus — and we know Jesus through Scripture as well. So Scripture should provide our foundation for theological thought.
Jesus the lens through which we read the Bible
A person’s theology, or their perspective on who God is and how he relates to humanity and how humanity relates to him, is like a lens though which people interpret what they read in the Bible. Theology needs to come from God’s own witness to himself in Scripture, and his primary witness is Jesus Christ. “Whoever has seen me,” Jesus said, “has seen the Father” (John 14:9). In Jesus, God revealed himself to humanity.
Karl Barth once said that humans can’t really do theology. If theology is the study of God, the knowledge of God, how can the human mind ever study God? Well, there is a way — as he pointed out — God fully revealed himself in Jesus Christ.
God is known by faith. We know God not merely as we hear about him through the Scriptures, but as we actually put our trust in him. In that obedient life, the Spirit engages us to think about and reflect on what God reveals about himself. That is why a Christ-centered theology is important, so we have the right starting place for our journey of growing in the grace and knowledge of God.
Our theology gives structure to our beliefs, helps hold them together, and establishes priority for our doctrines. It developed over the years as we worked through various doctrinal issues, being careful to maintain a Bible-based understanding of who God is and how he relates to humanity. As our theology developed, we found the writings of Thomas and James Torrance and Karl Barth to be especially helpful because of their focus on the biblical revelation of God through Jesus Christ.
We have a Christ-centered, Trinitarian theology. Not only do we accept the doctrine of the Trinity, but this doctrine lies at the heart of all other doctrines. The central Bible truth that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, that he and the Father with the Spirit are one God, forms the basis for how we understand everything we read in Scripture.
In John 14, the apostle Philip asked Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father.” Jesus replied, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father … I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:9-10). Jesus reveals to us what the Father is like. Jesus shows us a God who is love, compassion, patience, kindness, faithfulness, and goodness. God is like that all the time.
Some people imagine that the Father is angry at humanity and wants to punish everyone, but the Son intervened for us and paid the price to save us from his Father’s wrath. That’s quite confused, because the Bible says that the Father is just like Jesus. The Father loved the world so much that he sent his Son to save the world. It’s not like Jesus was working behind his Father’s back — no, it’s just the opposite: the Father was working in and through Jesus. The Father is just as eager to save humanity as Jesus is.
When Jesus was born, he was Immanuel, which means “God with us.” (Matthew 1:23). When the Word became a human being (John 1:14), he showed us that God is with humanity, and he is working for humanity. We are his creations, and he doesn’t want to let us go to ruin.
When God came in human flesh, he was able to do what other humans had not been able to do. As the perfect human, Jesus offered God perfect worship, and a perfect sacrifice, and God accepted this worship that was offered on behalf of the human race. Just as in Adam we are all condemned, so also in Christ we are all acquitted, and accepted, and welcomed into the love and fellowship of the Trinity (Romans 5:12-17, 18-21).
As we study Jesus, we see God and his relationship with us. We view the Scriptures through that lens, just as many others have done before us. People such as Athanasius and Karl Barth looked through this same lens, and we have learned from great Christian thinkers from ages past. We learn of God’s love for humanity, and his desire to adopt us as children in his family. God wants to share his life with us because he is a God of love — a God who gives, a God who shares.
Thomas Torrance was one of the best theologians of the 20th century. He was awarded the Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion in 1978, and his book Theological Science received the first “Collins Award” in Britain for the best work in theology, ethics, and sociology relevant to Christianity for 1967-69. Torrance started the Scottish Journal of Theology and served as moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1976-77. He served for more than 25 years as chair of Christian Dogmatics at the University of Edinburgh, and is author of more than 30 books and hundreds of articles.
Torrance, following in the theological tradition of Athanasius and Gregory of Nazianzus, is a leading proponent of what is called Trinitarian theology: theology rooted in God’s own revelation of himself through the Scriptures in the person of Jesus Christ. Human life and death find their meaning only in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He brought humanity into the eternal joyous fellowship of the Father, Son and Spirit. Because Christ has done in our place and on our behalf everything needed for our salvation, all that remains for us is to repent and believe in him as our Lord and Savior.
Is it universalism?
When we talk about the breadth and width of God’s gracious reconciling work in Jesus Christ, some people respond with, “You’re teaching universalism.” Colossians 1:19-20 says, “through him [Christ] God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.” We take that seriously.
Barth, responding to accusations that he was teaching universalism, said, “There is no theological justification for setting any limits on our side to the friendliness of God towards humanity which appeared in Jesus Christ.” We make no apologies for how gracious God is.
Paul also wrote, in 1 Timothy 2:4, that God “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” As Barth pointed out, God declares an eternal “No” to sin, and God’s “No” is the power of God by which evil is overthrown, and its power and future denied. God opposes all opposition to himself, and yet in Jesus Christ, all humanity is chosen and reconciled, as Colossians says.
But kingdom life is a life of faith in Jesus, not a life of unbelief. Even though all humanity is chosen in Christ, those who don’t yet believe are not living a kingdom life; they are not living in the joy of fellowship with the Father, Son and Spirit. People enter the life of the kingdom only after repentance, which is turning to God, and faith in Jesus Christ. “This is eternal life,” Jesus said in a prayer to the Father, “that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). There is no salvation outside of a life of faith in Jesus Christ.
That’s what hell is — life outside the fellowship of the Father, Son and Spirit — life, if you can call it that, in the dark. It’s life outside the king’s banquet, being left to the miserable fruit of one’s own self-centeredness and self-determination. Fire, outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth — the Bible uses several metaphors to describe the existence of those who refuse God’s grace and love, that amazing grace and love God has even for his enemies.
The Bible presents us with a wonderful, amazing, reconciliation in Christ that is so broad as to include not only all things on earth, but even all things in heaven, Colossians tells us. God calls on humanity to accept that the grace he so generously gives to humanity in Jesus Christ. For those who refuse it, who persist in their rebellion and in their rejection of God’s grace, hell is what remains for them. As Robert Capon puts it, God will not allow them to spoil the party for everyone else.
God can do whatever he wants
Ancient Greek philosophers thought that since God is perfect, he cannot change, because if he ever changed, then that would mean that he wasn’t perfect before the change. So they thought of God as an “unmoved mover” who made everything happen, but who could not ever change course, because to do so would call his perfection and his power into question. This kind of God would never dirty himself by getting involved with people and their problems. He was far off, watching, but not directly and personally involved. This concept of God has often affected how Christians think about God.
But the Bible reveals a different sort of God — one who is not boxed in by a philosopher’s logic. God is completely sovereign — he can do whatever he wants to do — and he is not limited by any external rules or ideas or human logic. If he wants the eternal Word to become a human being, then he does it, even though it constitutes a change. The God of the Bible is free to be whoever he wants to be — free to become what he was not before: the Creator; and free to create human beings who would be free, who could go astray, and God is even free to become one of those human beings in order to rescue humanity from its rebellion and alienation.
In this theological thinking, it is not our logic that is in charge — God is the one in charge, and our task, our desire, is to try to understand God not the way that we might reason him out to be by our logic, but rather to seek to understand God the way that he has revealed himself through the Bible in Jesus Christ.
Throughout church history, people have defined theology as “faith seeking understanding.” We believe, and now we want to understand as much as we can about what we believe. It’s like we’ve fallen in love with someone, and we want to find out as much as we can about that person. Theology is based on faith, trying to understand more about the God who loves us. We must seek that understanding in God’s own revelation of himself as Father, Son and Spirit revealed to us perfectly in Jesus, the Son of God made flesh for our sakes.
Theology centered in Jesus Christ
When it comes to theologies, it is not so much a matter of a particular theological perspective being totally “right” or totally “wrong.” It is more a case of how adequate a particular theology is in addressing believers’ biblical understanding of God and how God relates to humanity. Of all major approaches to Christian theology, Trinitarian theology reflects and follows most faithfully and carefully to what God reveals about himself and humanity in the Bible.
Theology is a journey, not a destination. We will always be seeking as clear and adequate a theological vision as we can, in order to transmit the biblical vision and understanding God has given us. Theology includes the task of seeking adequate thought-forms to communicate doctrinal truths in a rapidly changing world.
Many people today, even believers, are afraid of their standing with God, worried that they’re not measuring up, that they’re not doing enough, worried that their sins and failures have cut them off from God’s love. Theologies that start from holiness or judgment can lead to that. Instead of taking confidence in Jesus, and knowing that Jesus has already done for them everything God requires of them, instead of knowing that Jesus is their perfection, they suffer under a burden of guilt and anxiety.
When we know that it isn’t our righteousness but Jesus’ righteousness that has already put us in good standing with God, then we are freed from ourselves and our sinfulness to trust in Jesus and to take up our cross and follow Jesus as we could never be free to do when we’re afraid that God is mad at us. A sound, biblically rooted theology will always start with and be centered in Christology, because in Scripture we are presented with a God who chooses to be God in Jesus, with Jesus and for Jesus. If we let the Bible form our theology, we cannot look outside of Jesus to understand who God is, or to define God.
In Jesus we meet God as God really is, the way God has revealed himself to be, as the God who is for us, because he is for Jesus. We find that the Father loves us unconditionally, that he sent Jesus not out of anger and a need to punish someone, but out of his immeasurable love and his unbending commitment to our salvation. The love we see in Jesus is the love of the Father, because the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father and they are one. That means that when we know Jesus Christ, we know God the Father.
In Jesus, God reveals himself as our Creator and our Judge, and also as our Reconciler and Redeemer. The God who made us and whom we stand under as our Judge is also the one who reconciles and redeems us. That means we can believe him and trust him instead of being afraid of him and hiding from him. In Jesus, we are free for obedience and faith because we aren’t relying on our own obedience and faith, but on his. That takes our minds off ourselves and rests them in Jesus.
In Trinitarian theology, which is centered on Jesus as God’s perfect revelation of himself, we see that 1) God can be with us and for us in the fullness of his divine love and power, and 2) humanity can be with God and for God, secure in his grace shown in Jesus. That is because Jesus is both the fullness of God and the fullness of humanity.
The Christian life is a response to God’s grace. It is letting God’s grace work in us, change us, and shine through us. Paul said, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). His grace works in us, and as we are united to Christ, we have a new life. We walk in newness of life, in a new way — a way that is being transformed by Christ in us.
We are not working our way into salvation, or trying to obey Jesus in order to be a child of God. No, by grace God has already said that we are his children. That is who we are, and that does not change. God says to us, “You belong to me. Now, I want you to live a new way, a better way, a way that gives meaning and purpose to life. I urge you to join and enjoy the life of love — the way that has worked for all eternity. I invite you to the banquet, to the party, to the never-ending fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
Every doctrine is now viewed through the lens of Jesus Christ. We are coming into a fuller understanding of the implications of this theology, of God as Trinity and as God fully revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, as humans adopted into the family of God through union with Christ.
The articles and Statement of Beliefs posted on our website express the doctrines of our fellowship and our theological vision. It is important that our preaching and teaching reflect good theology, and that it remain rooted in the good news, the biblical revelation of Jesus Christ as the incarnate Son of God in whom we live and move and have our being.
A Christ-centered Trinitarian theology originates as far back as the early Church Fathers with Irenaeus, Athanasius and the Cappadocian Fathers. Some of the greatest theologians in modern history have devoted their life’s work to explaining the relationship between God’s triune nature and his redemptive work on behalf of humanity.
Theologians whose work has been of special help to us in understanding and articulating a sound, Bible-based theology include Karl Barth, Thomas and James Torrance, Michael Jinkins, Ray Anderson, Colin Gunton, Robert Capon, Gary Deddo, C. Baxter Kruger, Donald Bloesch, Thomas Oden, and others. We have also found the writings of C.S. Lewis of particular value, although Lewis was not a theologian by profession.
Although it is not likely that we would necessarily agree with every single statement in any particular book, we are able to recommend a number of books on theology that we believe provide a generally sound and faithful reflection of biblical doctrine. These include such books as:
Invitation to Theology, by Michael Jinkins
The Mediation of Christ, by Thomas Torrance
Dogmatics in Outline, by Karl Barth
Worship, Community and The Triune God of Grace, by James Torrance
The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons, by T.F. Torrance
The Trinitarian Faith, by Thomas Torrance
Theology, Death and Dying, by Ray Anderson
On the Incarnation, by St. Athanasius
The Christian Foundations Series by Donald Bloesch
The Parables of Judgment, The Parables of Grace, and The Parables of the Kingdom, by Robert Capon
The One, the Three, and the Many, by Colin Gunton
Across All Worlds, by Baxter Kruger
The Great Dance, by Baxter Kruger
The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, by Elmer Colyer
How to Read Thomas F. Torrance, by Elmer Colyer
The Humanity of God, by Karl Barth
Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis
The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis
This is not a complete list, but it’s a good start. Most pastors will find Michael Jinkins’ Invitation to Theology especially helpful as a one-volume, easy-to-read, basic theology text.
Thanks to all of you who labor in the gospel for your faithful work. We appreciate your service in Christ to his people. May God bless and keep you always in his faithful embrace.