Relating the Incarnation to Inspiration

Yesterday I wrote a few notes about Dr. Peter Enns and his suspension by Westminster Theological Seminary. G. K. Beale, who reviewed Dr. Enns’ book, complained that Dr. Enns is not very clear about just what in the incarnation applies.

Since I still don’t have my own copy of this book, a situation that will be remedied soon, I would like to comment myself on how the incarnation applies to inspiration in my view. Since I believe that the incarnation is central to Christian doctrine, and more specifically it is central to the way in which I think about God, it should be obvious even without my saying so that I find this doctrine central to inspiration.

Starting from the view that Jesus is 100% human and at the same time 100% divine, and that the fact that this is possible is a mystery, I would identify three key points:

1. Somehow it was possible both for Jesus to learn and grow, and at the same time be divine and sinless. Luke 2:52 would demonstrate this if nothing else.
2. Though divinity is infinite, its revelation to us in the incarnation was located in space and time.
3. Again though divinity is infinite, the amount that can be revealed to us is limited.

Briefly, what is the importance of these three points?

1. The first would suggest that revelation can grow, i.e. be progressive. I would understand from Luke 2:52 that Jesus came to greater understandings of many things than he had as a child. The scriptures parallel this process to some extent. Note that I don’t hold that revelation is progressive in the sense that every later passage is better or supersedes all preceding passages. Rather, the whole of revelation grows.
2. Jesus, though being divine and drawing on infinity, had to communicate to people in the place and time where he was revealed. Thus he gave teachings directed at Jewish people living under Roman rule mostly in Galilee. We learn from that revelation, but we don’t see it in the same way. The revelation doesn’t provide infinite knowledge to the local people. Rather, it must be contextualized within the matrices provided by their language, culture, and understanding.
3. Jesus may have had access to infinite knowledge. I don’t know. That’s part of the mystery. Just how did that work? But the people whom he taught had a finite time to learn, and so do we.

Scripture, I think, partakes of all these elements. I join with Dr. Enns in avoiding the term “error.” Rather, I think the things we would call errors from our perspective were intentional from the point of view of communicating with that culture. So while I would call the cosmology reflected in Genesis primitive or pre-scientific, I don’t think it’s in there by mistake. It’s in there because it was the best way to communicate the spiritual truths contained there to that audience.

To understand it properly, we have to recontextualize it without losing the message on the way.