God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ (Foundations of Evangelical Theology) Hardcover – November 30, 2016

I have to disagree with one of the other reviews: It says that on “Pg. 435 mid page- [Wellum states] “...the Son suffered as man while the Father and Spirit suffered as God;”I have the 2016 edition of God the Son Incarnate and I have read pages 432 to 437. I cannot find the above statement anywhere on those pages. The only thing that comes close is on page 437. There Wellum says: “As applied to the humanity of Christ enhypostasia entails that the divine Son lives as a true man with the normal physical, mental, volitional, emotional, and psychological attributes and capacities of original humanity. Jesus experiences the wonder and weaknesses of a completely human life. But we must remain clear-minded that the one who experienced this human life was the divine person of the Son. We must say, then, that God the Son grew in wisdom, grew tired, ate fish, drank wine, wept tears, suffered torture, died on a cross, gave up his spirit, and was forsaken by the Father. “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46) is not the cry of a human nature; it is the cry of a person. It is the eternal Son who bore our sin and the Father’s wrath and experienced suffering, death and forsakenness we cannot fathom, so that we would not have to fear it.”I have not been able to find any other statements on impassibility in Wellum’s book.Two portions of the book are by themselves in my opinion worth the price of the book:Wellum’s treatment Hebrews 4:15 and Christ’s Impeccability (pp. 234, 434, 459-464) is superb and avoids the misinterpretations in most modern commentaries with the exception of O’Brien and Lane. O’Brien’s commentaries on Philippians, Hebrews, Colossians, and Ephesians are in my opinion the best commentaries on these books and it is an injustice that they are no longer available new.Wellum’s treatment of Phil. 2:6 (p.p. 174-178) also is excellent and avoids the misinterpretations in most modern commentaries with the exception of O’Brien.

I've found this book on Christology by Wellum to be the best of several books on Christology which I've read (there are a couple more on the pile..).The strengths are many such as its being well structured, well written, and well argued.The structure is well done in that it starts with questions of epistemology. Here Wellum mainly seeks to answer the question „How do we know how to answer Jesus' question 'Who do you say that I am?'“ He deals specifically with epistemological changes since the Enlightenment and continues through the current postmodern period. His main point – the Bible is no longer acknowledged as a trustworthy (inerrant) Word from God. Wellum then gives a light defense of the Bible (it's not a full on apologetic treatment) and also gives a very helpful explanation of how to move from the bible to biblical theology to systematic theology. This is necessary of course for a full-blown Christology is not simply a repetition of bible verses. This requires him to also lay out his hermeneutic to show that his exegesis is in line with his systematic constructive offerings on who Jesus is.Wellum moves on to show who Jesus is by way of Jesus' implicit and explicit words and works (biblical basis of Christology) within the Bible's larger storyline.Part three is the development of Christology (historical theology). I also found this section to be quite helpful and a bit more detailed than other books focused on giving an overview on the subject matter.Part four is Wellum's interaction with kenotic Christology. (He engaged the Historical Jesus quests in an earlier section). Here is my biggest critique of the book. Although he outlines what different kenotic Christologies teach and offers a correction from a traditional point of view, Wellum does not give any prolonged treatment of kenotic Christologies critiques of the traditional view. He simply sums up their charge against traditional Christology (Chalcedone) in a few words such as „logically incoherent“ and proceeds to show why the charge is unfounded. If you want to hear the charges and weaknesses against the traditional view in complete sentences and explained in-depth, you will have to go to the footnotes, see what books Wellum quotes, and read the corresponding books.Lastly, another strength of Wellum's book which lends greatly to his arguments for a traditional view of Christologie is his integration of Trinitarian thought and doctrine. His use of pro-Nicene Trinitarian Theology really makes a strong case for accepting Traditional views on Christology. Trinitarian categories also help make sense of several difficult passages of Scripture and debated teachings such as the communicatio and extra.All in all a well-structured, well-written, and well-argued book in favor of a traditional Christology.

Excellent update on the centrality and importance of a Biblical understanding of Christ. This is one of the most important books of our times dealing with the most important topic of the ages the Lord Jesus Christ the God-man the Saviour of the world. Dr. Wellum does a wonderful job laying out the progressive nature of revelation, from Old to New Testament and then integrating this with God's gracious covenant promises all pointing to the coming of Messiah, God the Son Incarnate.

This is an epic book in every sense - breadth, depth and length - but it is unarguably worth every hour spent in it. I am a lay person with no theological training but a keen interest and a degree of patience to persevere in understanding a profound and complex topic. It has taken me a year to read this book and I am so glad to have taken that time over it. It has opened up the Bible to me in new ways and enriched my walk with Jesus. This book is very well written - the prose is readable yet intelligent and will be one I will turn to again and again as I continue to get my mind around how it is that God became man

Excellent book, easy to read for the lay person too.

Very good book