On Christ

One of the most popular theologies of contemporary Christianity is the theology that declares that Christ is the central revelation of the Scriptures and that all of God's Word (the Bible) must be read as leading to and from God's Word (Jesus, as John refers to Him).

I have a problem with this "all roads lead to Christ" theology. And in full recognition of the fact that I might be wrong on this, I present it here anyway, primarily because I believe that the discussion is a valuable one.

Really, I think there are numerous problems with this theology, but I don't think it's helpful to get into laundry lists. So let's start with this one: Jesus Himself did not draw everything (or almost anything) back to Himself.

Jesus was always pointing to the Father and to the Spirit, to the other two persons of the Trinity, to the One who sent Him and to the One He was sending. 

Who are we to argue?

The Trinity is one of those theologies that we've largely lost track of in modern Christianity. We affirm the three persons of the Godhead. We pray in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We understand that this is what Christianity has asked of us, that we know that there is a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit.

But we spend overwhelmingly the bulk of our time getting to know the Son and forgetting, or perhaps even neglecting, that the Son was sent to reveal the Triune nature of God, to show Himself but also the Father and the Spirit. 

There's just no way around it. As faithful as we think we are being to the Scriptures when we center them on the Christ event, we must be as faithful to Christ by listening to what He says, and what He says is that it's not all about Him. 

It's not all about Him. 

That is not in any way to diminish the Christ event or the person of Jesus. Not by any means! No, no. That's not at all what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that we cannot limit our understanding to Jesus, nor should we. To do so is to both miss and misinterpret what God has given us in the Scriptures.

So where did we get this notion of a Christ-centered theology? To what does it open our eyes and to what does it blind us? How do we work a Trinitarian theology back into the web of what is, without argument, the central event of the Scripture, given that Christ Himself took every chance to point our hearts toward both the Father and the Spirit? All good questions. Stay tuned.