Editorial: Knowing, Adoring, And Proclaiming God The Son Incarnate. -- By: Stephen J. Wellum

Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 16:2 (Summer 2012)
Article: Editorial: Knowing, Adoring, And Proclaiming God The Son Incarnate.
Author: Stephen J. Wellum


Editorial: Knowing, Adoring, And Proclaiming God The Son Incarnate.

Stephen J. Wellum

Stephen J. Wellum is Professor of Christian Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

In addition to his role on the faculty, Dr. Wellum serves as editor of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. He received the Ph.D. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and he is the author of numerous essays and articles, as well as the co-author of Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical Theological Understanding of the Covenants (Crossway, 2012).

In this issue of SBJT we continue our year-long focus on the theme: Knowing our Triune God. Our attention now turns to “God the Son” with everything in some way contributing to thinking about, wrestling with, and coming to know and adore our great Redeemer more. There are many glorious truths in Christian theology but certainly the most profound one is the nature of the Incarnation and the glory of God the Son incarnate. To introduce this issue I want to make a few summary remarks to remind us about the wonder of our incarnate Lord.

The word “ incarnation” is derived from the Latin which literally means “in the flesh.” When used in theology, the term refers to the supernatural act of God, effected by the Holy Spirit, whereby the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Triune Godhead, in the fullness of time, took into union with himself a complete human nature apart from sin and thus, as a result of that action, has now become God the Son incarnate forever (John 1:1, 14; Rom 1:3-4; 8:3; Gal 4:4; Phil 2:6-11; 1 Tim 3:16; Heb 2:5-18).

The means whereby the Incarnation came about is the virgin conception—the miraculous action of the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary— so that what was conceived was nothing less than the Lord Jesus who is fully God and fully man in one person forever (Matt 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38). He did this in order to become the Redeemer of the church, our prophet, priest, and king, and thus to save his people from their sins (Matt 1:21). By becoming one with us, the Lord of Glory, is not only able to share our sorrows and burdens, but he is also able to secure our redemption by bearing our sin on the cross as our sub...

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