Crucified and Resurrected: Restructuring the Grammar of Christology by Ingolf U.

Dalferth (review)
Mark Mattes

From: Lutheran Quarterly

Volume 30, Number 2, Summer 2016
pp. 243-245 | 10.1353/lut.2016.0049

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by
Mark Mattes
Crucified and Resurrected: Restructuring the Grammar of Christology. By Ingolf U.
Dalferth. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011. xix + 325 pp.

Originally published in German in 1994, this book, a foray into Christology by an

internationally recognized scholar, merits widespread attention. Dalferth shares many
affinities with the rich theological thinking of the Tbingen systematician, Eberhard
Jngel, with whom he had studied and whose own complex theology interweaves a
Barthian approach to God, where God is self-revealing as the triune life, a Bultmannian
approach to anthropology, where human authenticity is established through a decision
for or against God in the face of existential awareness, and a Lutheran highlighting of
cross and resurrection as the primary paradigm for understanding Christian existence.
The major shift in Dalferths Christology [End Page 243] in contrast to traditional two-
nature Chalcedonian Christology is to center Christology in Jesus resurrection and not
the incarnation. For Dalferth, this stance is more faithful both to Scripture and a
contemporary outlook as opposed to the substance metaphysics assumed in the
Chalcedonian creedal formation.

The book begins with the critique of the incarnation postulated by the 1970s Myth of
God Incarnate theologians, such as John Hick, and then moves to the motif of cross
and resurrection as the proper basis for outlining Christology, the trinity, and the nature
of Christs atoning sacrifice. Dalferth appreciates Hicks conviction that belief in the
saving efficacy of Jesus Christ is not reducible to belief in the incarnation (3), but he
discredits Hicks overall approach to Christ because it is Pelagianizing (21). In
contrast to substance metaphysics, Jesus is best understood in his role of disclosing
the nearness of God; Gods imminent advent is the field on which to recognize the
meaning of Jesus (25). Jesus entire ministry was for the sake of this mission and for it
he sacrificed his life. Even so, his resurrection shows that Gods love is stronger than
death. God, not death, has the last word in Jesus story (26). Indeed, because Jesus has
been raised to eternal life, the compassionate reign of God has dawned (26).

The saving significance of Jesus for believers is that faith in Jesus as the mediator of
Gods life-giving presence will allow them to participate in Jesus resurrection to
continuous fellowship with God (28). Theologically, Jesus resurrection discloses
Gods nature to be inexhaustible creative love (33). In the cross the Son of God
makes himself like us mortals and in so doing makes us mortals like him (42). Hence,
Gods divinity is disclosed not as omnipotent self-preservation (as the normative
Christian tradition would have us believe) but as gratuitous self-abasement (46) for
humanitys welfare.

Jesus behavior in his earthly ministry, such as his placing himself above Gods law, his
exercising eschatological functions, his controlling demons, and his forgiving sinners,
exercises rights that belong to God alone (103). Jesus is not only human but divine in
that in all he says and does he defines the reign of God (126). Dalferth finds the
substance ontology and the realist semantics of traditional two-natures Christology
problematic for the modern world (142). As an alternative, he posits God as in a process
of self-definition [End Page 244] (as love for the world) (158) in which the cross
itself is most definitive of Gods life because it indicates the risk which God will take
to reach out to rebellious, self-deifying humans (160).

Dalferth is wary of penal substitution language as the way to describe Jesus atoning
death. He notes that we must be careful not to confuse four models of atonement (which
grow out of different and not always commensurable contexts): (1) cultic, centered on
the language of sacrifice, (2) juristic, centered on covenant, (3) political, centered on
freedom from captivity, and (4) personal, centered on fellowship. In a word, Jesus
death enacts our own unavoidable death (275). Jesus death is for us in that his entire
life was one of surrender on behalf of sinners (252).

Those for whom Christology must come, part and parcel, with traditional substance
metaphysics, the historicity of miracles, or...