But for millennia, the faith of God’s people was not one that looked back or reflected like ours; it was one that strained forward in earnest expectation for the arrival of the hope of the prophets, David’s Son and David’s Lord. In Luke 10:23–24, Jesus declares privately to his disciples, “Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see, for I say to you, that many prophets and kings wished to see the things which you see, and did not see them, and to hear the things which you hear, and did not hear them.”^[1] The prophets and kings of old, like Isaiah and David, did indeed anticipate and write concerning Christ the Lord and his work (cf. John 12:41; Acts 2:29–31). In the context of Luke 10, Jesus clarifies the content of the great things which these prophets and kings longed to see and hear, things revealed “to infants.” He says, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Luke 10:22). What the prophets and kings longed to see and hear was the full revelation of the Triune God and his saving purposes which only the incarnation of the Son could bring, for no one “has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (John 1:18; cf. Matt. 13:10–17).

[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture citations will be drawn from the NASB 1995.

So how do we reconcile the biblical truths that the prophetic authors of the Old Testament genuinely foretold that which we read in the New Testament, and that only the Son can reveal the fullness of the saving knowledge of the Triune God? I believe the answer is two-fold: 1) the communicative intent of the Old Testament human authors involved an expectation of greater, eschatological revelation of what they foretold and further illumination of their own inspired writings. And 2) God’s full intention in these prophetic writings, which is only unveiled through the sending of the Son and the Spirit (i.e., the divine missions) coheres with this limited human intention to produce one literal sense through which we fully see Christ in the Old Testament.^[2]

[2] Much of the material here is directly drawn with permission from my forthcoming article, “‘And Now The Lord God Has Sent Me and His Spirit’: The Divine Missions, the Literal Sense, and Reading the Old Testament,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 68.4.

The key to a right understanding of this issue is a proper grasp on the significance of the sending of the Son and the Spirit in the Triune God’s economy of salvation and revelation. Thus, I will start here and then move to a brief discussion of this asymmetrical but unified divine and human authorial intent for a theologically rich, literal-sense reading of the Old Testament.

The Divine Missions

The divine missions (from the Latin: mittere, “to send”) are the redemptive and revelatory sending of the Son and the Holy Spirit into the world. The mission of the Son is his coming into the world through the incarnation to reveal his Father to the people he redeems (John 1:18; 6:38–39; 12:44; etc.),^[3] and the Spirit is sent at Pentecost to bear witness to the Son, to convict the world, and to be the Comforter who brings the abode of the Father and the Son into the hearts of the saints (John 14:16–20, 26; 15:26; etc.).

[3] The following is a list of the times John’s Gospel alone speaks of the Son as sent from the Father: John 4:34; 5:23, 30, 37; 6:38, 44; 7:16, 18, 28, 33; 8:16, 18, 26, 29; 9:4; 12:44, 49; 13:16, 20; 14:24; 15:21; 16:5; 20:21.

The missions are inherently revelatory because, as Thomas Aquinas rightly notes, the sending of a divine person reveals “the relation of the one sent to the sender.”^[4] In other words, that the Father sent the Son reveals the Son’s eternal relation to the Father, namely, eternal generation or begottenness. The sending of the Spirit from the Father and the Son reveals that the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds or is ‘breathed’ from the Father and the Son. Augustine insightfully stated that “just as being born means for the Son his being from the Father, so his being sent means his being known to be from him. And just as for the Holy Spirit his being the gift of God means his proceeding from the Father, so his being sent means his being known to proceed from him.”^[5] The missions are extensions of the divine life into the created world, thus revealing the eternal relations of origin in the one God without indicating any inferiority of the sent persons. Thus, while the one God has always been Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he did not fully reveal himself as such until the revelatory missions of the Son and the Spirit. Much more could be said on this matter, but it suffices for our purposes to state that the divine missions are the visible sending of the Son and the Spirit into the world to reveal the triune God and to bring eternal life to God’s people.^[6]

End Times Revelation through the Prophetic Scriptures

These biblical truths about the revelatory significance of the divine missions correspond to what we see in Romans 16:25–26, Paul’s concluding doxology, wherein he states,

Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation about Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept silent for long ages but now revealed and made known through the prophetic Scriptures, according to the command of the eternal God to advance the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles—to the only wise God through Jesus Christ—to him be the glory forever! Amen. (CSB)

A couple key insights from this passage need to be mentioned here.

First, although central to the idea of “mystery” is the full inclusion of believing Gentiles to the eschatological inheritance of God’s people,^[7] the “mystery” now revealed also is a Trinitarian and Christological mystery. This gospel proclamation is the message which God “promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures—concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” and the “Spirit of holiness” (Rom. 1:2–4, emphasis added). Remember, as we saw in our discussion of the missions of the Son and the Spirit, the full knowledge of the Triune God only comes through the sending of the Son and the Spirit. The inclusion of the Gentiles only occurs because of Spirit-wrought union with the true Israel, the God-man, the only-begotten Son of God made flesh, sent from the Father.

[7] For a book helpful on the New Testament use of mystērion, see G.K. Beale and Benjamin L. Gladd’s Hidden but Now Revealed: A Biblical Theology of Mystery (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2014). Though the structure of their book primarily follows the NT books’ contextual use of mystērion, it gives prominent featuring of the Old Testament texts and themes which demonstrate that the Old Testament’s prospective focus inherently anticipated greater revelation to come, even greater illumination of the Old Testament itself.

Second, this gospel mystery which was concealed or “kept silent” for long ages has now been revealed and made known through the prophetic Scriptures, the Old Testament. As we saw above, the authors of the Old Testament did indeed knowingly bear witness to the eschatological work of God in the Messiah (cf. John 12:41; Acts 2:29–31). Yet, full understanding of the gospel realities of which they testified awaited illumination by the revelation which came through the sending of the Son and the Spirit, which was deposited to the apostles. Some of the very things the prophets spoke and wrote of possessed meaning still yet to be illuminated, meaning which the prophets could not have been fully privy to, given their place in God’s economy of revelation and salvation.

We must realize, however, that the prophets of old knew that some elements of their writings possessed meaning which awaited further illumination, and they expected, searched, and longed for this coming illumination when God’s saving work and revelation fully arrived. This may be illustrated briefly from Jeremiah.

In Jeremiah 23:1–8, the Lord tells of his rejection of Israel’s wicked leaders (shepherds) and foretells of the future coming of the “righteous Branch” from David who will reign as king. During his days, the salvation of the Lord will come, “and this is His name by which He will be called, ‘The LORD our righteousness.’” This prophecy of God’s future work through this mysterious Branch is further developed in Jeremiah 30. The Lord tells Jeremiah, “‘Write all the words which I have spoken to you in a book. For behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel and Judah’” (Jer. 30:2–3a). The Lord will reverse the exile and raise up “David their king” (Jer. 30:8–9). “Their prince shall be one of themselves; their ruler shall come out from their midst; I will make him draw near, and he shall approach me, for who would dare of himself to approach me? declares the LORD” (Jer. 30:21, ESV). The Lord then tells of his coming wrath which “will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intentions of his mind. In the latter days you will understand this” (Jer. 30:24–31:1, ESV, emphasis added). The time in which this full understanding of Jeremiah’s oracle will come is “the latter days” (bə’aḥărîṯ hayyāmîm), a phrase consistently used to refer to the eschatological time when God will work his salvation.^[8] Further, the “you” who will understand is a reference “to the restored new covenant community in the latter days,” given the context of the new covenant which will arrive when God works this salvation and judgment (Jer. 31:1, 27–40; 32:37–40).^[9]

Thus, we see Jeremiah writing down his oracles with a view toward an eschatological illumination of the very things written by the prophet himself. This is similar to Daniel’s experience of his eschatological vision in Daniel 12:1–13. Daniel is bewildered at the mysterious vision, saying “As for me, I heard but could not understand; so I said, ‘My lord, what will be the outcome of these events?’” (Dan. 12:8). But notice the angel’s reply: “‘Go your way, Daniel, for these words are concealed and sealed up until the end time.’” (Dan. 12:9, emphasis added; cf. Dan. 12:13).^[10] The prophets followed in the footsteps of Moses who, as the author of Hebrews tells us, “was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later” (Heb. 3:5, ESV). “Christ,” however, “is faithful over God’s house as a son,” the Son through whom God “has spoken to us” in “these last days” (Heb. 3:6a; 1:2).

[10] See DeRouchie, Delighting in the Old Testament, 48–50.

I believe these kinds of Old Testament texts are examples of what the apostle Peter had in mind when he asserted, “As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look” (1 Pet. 1:10–12).

The Puritan John Owen (1616–1683), who possessed a firm grasp of the Old Testament’s Christological frame of reference and the importance of the literal sense of Scripture, wrote the following worthwhile statement about this reality which will lead us into our discussion of the literal sense and reading the Old Testament today:

[The Holy Ghost] did not, indeed, so enlighten and raise [the prophetic authors’] minds as to give them a distinct understanding and full comprehension of all the things themselves that were declared unto them; there was more in their inspirations than they could search to the bottom of. Hence, although the prophets under the Old Testament were made use of to communicate the clearest revelations and predictions concerning Jesus Christ, yet in the knowledge and understanding of the meaning of them they were all inferior to John Baptist, as he was in this matter to the meanest believer, or “least in the kingdom of heaven.” Therefore, for their own illumination and edification did they diligently inquire, by the ordinary means of prayer and meditation, into the meaning of the Spirit of God in those prophecies which themselves received by extraordinary revelation, 1 Pet. i. 10, 11.^[11]

[11] John Owen, Pneumatologia, in The Works of John Owen, ed. by William H. Goold (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1965), 3:132, emphasis added.

The Literal Sense and Asymmetrical Authorial Intention

Drawing these various threads together, the whole of the canon of Scripture presses us to affirm that while the Old Testament authors genuinely and knowingly wrote of God’s work through the coming Messiah in the last days, they also knew that their writings possessed meaning which went beyond what they themselves could fully grasp. This illumination could only come from revelatory “sendings” of the only begotten Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Son by whom the Father has given his final word commissioned his apostles to be “stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4:1), and they were active instruments by which the Spirit of Christ gave the new covenant era teaching to God’s people. The completed New Testament canon is the textual “last days” revelation of the saving work of the Triune God, accomplished by the missions of the Son and the Spirit. With the light provided from this living and active textual deposit of inspired New Covenant teaching from Christ by the Spirit, we see now the fullness of what the Old Testament authors dimly foresaw.

Both this Old Testament mystery’s initial, partial hiddenness, and subsequent, full revelation in Christ and by the Spirit coheres within a properly defined literal sense of the Old Testament. Although it is historically a much debated and diversely defined notion, I believe the literal sense of a communication is best understood as “the sum total of those illocutionary acts [i.e., the speaker’s communicative intention, whether to promise, or warn, or assert, etc.] performed by the author intentionally and with self-awareness”^[12] or, more simply, “that which the writer himself intends by his words.”^[13] Additionally, in his work, Is There a Meaning in This Text?, Vanhoozer significantly notes that the literal sense of a communication can involve an intentional open-endedness. He states, “What this means is that the literal sense—the sense of the literary act—may, at times, be indeterminate or open-ended. However—and this is crucial—the indeterminacy we are considering is intended; moreover, it is a definite feature of the meaning of the text.”^[14]

As seen above, the human prophetic authors of Scripture expected greater revelation of the salvation they themselves predicted. “Carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21) they wrote with an eschatological frame of reference, anticipating the Spirit’s full unveiling of the hidden eschatological elements they searched out (1 Pet. 1:10–12). Their intention in conveying God’s word was self-consciously open-ended toward the full revelation to come. Their communication was not meaningless or unessential for their own day, but it involved self-consciously “fore-witnessing” in a nearsighted manner to mysteries which awaited illumination and fulfillment.^[15]

To be clear, this is not to say that the human authors and the divine author possessed different referents when communicating through these words of Old Testament Scripture. Rather, they spoke of the same thing in an asymmetrical manner. Since God spoke with full knowledge of the mysteries, God’s communicative intent included the full reality which the Old Testament authors myopically strained toward. The intention and referent of the human authors was not going a different direction than the divine author’s but simply stopped short of the clarity and coherence that God’s intention included, which would be unveiled through the revelatory missions of the Son and the Spirit. Thus, once the full illumination comes, new meaning is not added to the text, but the meaning inherent in the text all along on account of this sort of special dual authorship is unveiled.

Therefore, the human authors’ communicative intentions were completely in line with and true to the divine author’s intention but not always exhaustive of the fullness of the divine author’s intended meaning. Although this asymmetrical authorial intent existed, the prophets’ intentional open-endedness toward the full revelation of God’s communicative activity makes this dual authorship produce one literal sense, fully discernible after the missions of the Son and Spirit.^[16]

[16] This literal sense may sometimes be a compound literal sense wherein types and antitypes are included (see Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave [New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 1994], 1:150–152). Van Mastricht also writes “The orthodox . . . confess that this [literal] sense is sometimes composite, as occurs in figurative and typical phrases . . . Indeed, they even call the mystical senses literal when it is certainly evident that they are intended by the Holy Spirit” (Theoretical-Practical Theology, 1:169). But even when the literal sense has this compound nature, I argue that it still involves this asymmetrical authorial intentionality where the divine author spoke in fullness (seen in the canonical context ultimately) and the human author spoke with a true but limited ultimately eschatological referent, expecting further revelation to come given the subject matter of the texts.

Conclusion

Thus, through the help of the Holy Spirit, we can now clearly see in the Old Testament the glories of our Triune God and his eschatological work concerning which the prophets of old searched and inquired diligently. We see clearly that the “son” promised in Isaiah 9:6 is Son not ultimately because of Davidic kingly lineage, but because his Father is God the Father. We see clearly the Isaianic mysteries of how Yahweh—the one who measures the water in the hollows of his hand (Isa. 40:12), who can be compared to no one (Isa. 40:18), who sits above the circle of the earth (Isa. 40:22), who does not faint or grow weary (Isa. 40:28)—could be identified with, and yet somehow distinct from, this Servant who would suffer and die as an atoning sacrifice (Isa. 9:6; 52:13, cf. 6:1; 52:13–53:12) and who would have the Spirit of Yahweh poured out upon him (Isa. 42:1; 11:1–5). We understand that the literal meaning of Isaiah 45:23–24 is that the LORD to whom “every knee will bow” and in whom alone “are righteousness and strength” is specifically the Son who is high and lifted up and through whose work many will be justified (Isa. 53:11). Clear to us now is the full beauty of the literal sense of the Spirit’s mysterious words through Zechariah who writes, “I [the LORD] will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one who mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn” (Zech. 12:10, italics added; cf. John 19:37; Rev. 1:7).

May God give us eyes to see the glory of Christ in the pages of the Old Testament both this Christmas and all our days till we see him face to face!

Of the Father’s love begotten,

Ere the worlds began to be,

He is Alpha and Omega,

He the source, the ending He,

Of the things that are, that have been,

And that future years shall see,

Evermore and evermore.

“This is he whom seers in old time

Chanted of with one accord,

Whom the voices of the prophets

Promised in their faithful word;

Now he shines, the long-expected;

Let creation praise its Lord—

[Evermore and evermore.]^[17]

[17] “Of the Father’s Love Begotten,” Hymnary.org. Accessed December 15, 2025.

So when Kevin Vanhoozer’s Mere Christian Hermeneutics appeared in 2024 to enthusiastic endorsements from Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox alike, we found ourselves asking: which kind of unity is this? Has Vanhoozer genuinely transcended our interpretive divisions with insights into basic truths all Christian interpreters embrace? We sincerely hoped so! This is a noble goal, and Kevin Vanhoozer is as qualified as anyone to pursue it. Yet we were still concerned that his ‘mere’ hermeneutics might achieve consensus by evacuating the doctrinal convictions that give each tradition its distinct identity. Peace and Christian unity are worth pursuing—but at what cost?

What is A Mere Christian Hermeneutic?

Vanhoozer’s stated goal is “to do for biblical hermeneutics what C.S. Lewis did for Christian belief in his book Mere Christianity” (xxi). That is, to sketch the ‘hallway’ of common agreement in which interpreters belonging to the various ‘rooms’ of particular denominational or interpretive Christian traditions can and should mingle. Mere Christian Hermeneutics, then, is about “what all Spirit-illumined readers have in common regardless of the differences in their particular exegetical methodologies” (17). What is it that all such readers share in common, if not a method? An orientation towards Scripture that sees it as the Word of God (divine discourse) addressed to us, in which Christ is revealed. Vanhoozer argues that despite all the disputes about how to read the Bible, all Christians agree on why to read the Bible—to hear God and to see Jesus (22).

What grounds the shared Christian perspective on why we read the Bible? Vanhoozer argues it is a forgotten element of hermeneutics: frame of reference. A frame of reference is “the interpretive assumptions that enable readers to identify what authors are speaking about” (67, emphasis original). In practice, “to read with a frame of reference is to examine the text from a particular angle, put a certain set of questions to it, and filter the readers’ perceptions of what the text is about” (68). The Christian frame of reference then, is one that sees Christ as the ultimate referent (subject of) of Scripture. How Christ is found to be Scripture’s referent (method) varies: some use allegory to see Christ as mystically present in every rock and tree, others trace the authorially-intended typological structures across redemptive history. But all believers agree that the Bible is about Jesus and for us. Training Christian Bible-readers, then, requires forming Christian reading cultures that shape believers into people who come to God’s word as humble listeners to divine speech, expectant to see the glory of Christ and be transformed into his image.

Ascending the Mountain: A Summary of Vanhoozer’s Argument^[1]

1. Mere Christian Hermeneutics largely comes as a development of ideas Kevin Vanhoozer dealt with in the 2012 article “Ascending the Mountain, Singing the Rock: Biblical Interpretation Earthed, Typed, and Transfigured” Modern Theology 28.4 (2012): 781–803.

Vanhoozer’s argument proceeds in three movements which he illustrates as the ascent up a mountain. First, he lays groundwork for the project with the assertion that what the Bible is determines how it ought to be read (6). Since Scripture is the voice of the living God, used by God for the purpose of addressing, establishing, “and preserving his covenant people,” (12), its readers are “answerable persons” (14) accountable to read rightly with humility and diligence, so that their affections might be converted to God’s communicative intentions (21).

While at base camp, Vanhoozer also surveys the various reading cultures Christians have produced from the patristic era to the present day in order to convince readers that they are “answerable subjects, responsible for hearing, doing justice, and responding to the divine address” of Scripture” (193) and that such answerability demands a certain exegetical posture, not merely a right method. Additionally, Scripture aims not only to call individuals to response, but to create a believing community sensitive to the divine address. The contemporary divide between biblical studies and theology has created two polarized reading cultures, each of which brings their own frames of reference to the text.^[2] Neither of these frames line up exactly with the church’s interpretive questions and interests, which both biblical scholars and theologians must recover. We must read Scripture with a theological frame of reference that “does not do away with the historical, but, rather, views the historical as a field of . . . divine communicative action,” (98) in the eschatological community of the church.

2. Biblical scholars typically operate with a “historical frame of reference” which privileges “the world ‘behind’ the text” whereas theologians operate with frames of reference that privilege some “world ‘in front of’ the text,” whether “ecclesial tradition or . . . the prevailing philosophies and cultural currents of the day” (97). The world behind the text is “the sociocultural context of the authors and editors who produced it,” whereas the world in front of the text is “that of its readers, who bring the world of the text into their lives, if only for a moment.” Both of these are distinguished from the world of the text, which is “made up of words and has a coherence of its own, thanks to its literary structure and plot” (87).

3. We recognize that this definition is vague. Concern over the confusing and contradictory ways Vanhoozer defines “literal sense” will feature later in this review.

4. More fully, “the sense of a word or text pertains to one’s mental concept of an object; the referent is the real-world object to which that sense or concept corresponds” (123).

Having surveyed the area, Vanhoozer begins the first ascent up the mountain to determine what Scripture means. The starting point for this task is to determine the Bible’s “literal sense” and that sense’s relationship to Jesus. The Bible’s literal sense, Vanhoozer argues, is what the author(s) of Scripture are saying: the words they use, and the meaning of those words in the context of their discourse.^[3] This is distinct from, but closely related to, the text’s referent—what or whom it is about. “The literal sense is the way words run; the literal referent is that to which the words run” (123, italics original).^[4] Every text has both a sense and a referent: that is, every text both says something and is about something. Literal interpretation then involves rightly discerning both what is said and what (or whom) it is said about.

Because any given Scripture has two authors (human and divine), many interpreters have understood Scripture to have two different senses: literal and spiritual (or figural). But Vanhoozer argues that the text’s spiritual sense is not different in sense from its literal sense. Instead, he claims that the ‘spiritual sense’ is simply the glory of the literal sense’s ultimate referent.

Whether or not one sees this referent, however, depends on one’s frame of reference. One’s frame of reference is the window through which one looks at a text and determines what the reader will pay attention to: “a frame of reference refers to all the things that influence how a reader attends to the letter of the text, and thus what the reader sees there” (124). To see what Scripture is really about (referent), we need a frame of reference that makes us attentive to what it is really about. Now that Christ has come and brought the end-time fulfillment of what the Old Testament promised (i.e., the eschaton), rightly reading it requires an eschatological frame of reference. Using Vanhoozer’s terms, recognition of Scripture’s spiritual sense, that is, its glorified literal sense requires a grammatical-eschatological frame of reference (24, 106, 180, 182) in which readers approach the text expecting to see the glory of Christ in the subject matter of the text and desiring to be transformed into his image.

Vanhoozer contends that the literal sense ought to be understood from both historical and eschatological frames of reference, such that the literal meaning is understood to include both “the events in the immediate present of the human author” and their “future fulfillment” or “eschatological realization” (358). Debates about the literal sense are largely issues of which frame of reference the literal sense belongs in (127). Against modernism, which would situate biblical discourse within an immanent frame of reference (that is, a closed naturalistic system), Vanhoozer argues for a transcendent-eschatological frame that situates biblical revelation squarely in God’s plan of revealing Himself in the face of Christ.^[5] Such an eschatological frame of reference is necessary to do justice to the letter of the text: “Literal interpretation . . . requires thick description: a reading that takes account of all relevant contexts that have a bearing on what authors mean by their words,” and so, if the fulfillment of all God’s promises in Christ is a relevant context the eschatological frame will be absolutely necessary to properly interpret the literal sense (136). This frame does not change the sense of the Old Testament (OT)’s human authors (sensus plenior); instead, it clarifies the referent of their discourse beyond what they could have known (referens plenior) (137).

5. Vanhoozer explicitly contrasts this eschatological frame with the “sacramental frame” (i.e., sacramental ontology) of Hans Boersma. Boersma makes the biblical text a “sacrament” which “participates” in the Word of God (that is, Christ). The exegete who approaches the text with a sacramental frame of reference “looks for the deeper, hidden meaning beneath the literal, or historical, meaning of the text,” that is the Christological res in which the signum of the text metaphysically participates. Vanhoozer, 131, citing Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 140). The problems with the sacramental frame are 1) the spiritual sense of the text quickly becomes unmoored from the literal meaning via allegory and 2) that it fails to capture the dynamic development of redemptive history (creation, fall, redemption, consummation).

Finally, Vanhoozer argues that what Scripture is ultimately about is “the knowledge of God in the face of Christ” (194, 358) and that the Spirit illumines believers to this eschatological Christological referent, so that they might behold him, believe him, and be transformed into his image (259, 336, 346). In this final section, Jesus’ transfiguration functions as a governing analogy: just as the transfiguration did not change Jesus’ nature but revealed the glory he always possessed, so the eschatological frame of reference that has come with the coming of Christ and the sending of the Spirit do not change the meaning of Scripture’s literal sense, but reveal the glory of that to which it always ultimately referred (266–270). In the end, Vanhoozer asks us to embrace “a transfiguration [i.e., a rethinking] . . . of what is involved in reading theologically” as well as “an interpretive process that transfigures” (359). Only in so doing will we both establish properly Christian reading cultures that cut across epochal, institutional, and disciplinary divides and do justice to the literal sense of the divine discourse that addresses us.

Singing the Rock: Positive Contributions

Vanhoozer’s book is a tour-de-force: perhaps one of its greatest strengths is its breadth. In addition to developing the book’s main thesis, Vanhoozer deals with so many issues and current conversations in hermeneutics that it is difficult to catalogue all the contributions the book makes. However, there are a few that stand out to us. Due to the sheer volume of these, we have elected to list them as bullet points:

• Against critical and sterile readings of the text, Vanhoozer reminds us that a right reading of Scripture is always spiritual. The text is never simply an object to be scientifically analyzed, but the Word of God which addresses us and makes a claim on us.
• Vanhoozer helpfully recognizes that all believers seek the same thing in the Scriptures: we all want to see Jesus. Regardless of errors some may make in method, there is common ground in that we seek the same thing.
• Despite recognizing our common aim, Vanhoozer helpfully distinguishes between “good” and “bad” figuration. This book does not fall into the trap of blurring all distinctions between Christian readers, or of making all methods of reading equal.
• To distinguish good and bad figuration, Vanhoozer turns to Scripture’s own self-presentation of the relationship between Christ and the literal sense, rather than a grid imposed on Scripture from the outside (whether by the church or anyone else).
• He therefore rightly identifies a biblical hermeneutic as one that traces redemptive historical developments across Scripture to find Christ, rather than one that adopts a Christian Platonist scheme in which Christ is mystically present in the text (130–133). In other words, the relationship between the Old Testament and Christ is horizontal (movement towards fulfillment in history) rather than vertical (mystical sacramental presence).
• Along the same lines, Vanhoozer refuses to accept the cheap dismissals of the distinction between typology and allegory which are sadly all too prevalent today. Typology aims to be sensitive to redemptive history and Scripture’s own development of its patterns, whereas allegory conforms Scripture to an outside interpretive grid.
• One reason Vanhoozer’s work here is more helpful than other recent contributions is that Vanhoozer does not limit himself to gleaning from the patristic era. While he resources^[6] much good from the fathers, Vanhoozer does not do so in such a way that eliminates the clarity and distinctions contributed by later eras of the church. He draws just as much from the Protestant Reformers and the Reformed Scholastics as he does from the fathers.
• As such, Vanhoozer does not retrieve a “lowest common denominator” hermeneutic, drawn only from points of universal agreement. Instead, he seeks to provide a “richest common denominator” that takes the best of what all Christians agree on and develops and clarifies it to its fullest extent. Vanhoozer identifies the hermeneutic of the Protestant Reformers and Reformed Scholastics as this richest common denominator (144, 180–191).
• As Christians, we cannot ignore the fact that Jesus Christ really died, rose again, ascended, and poured out his Spirit on the church in history. The Old Testament promises and covenants really have been fulfilled. Vanhoozer’s insight that this creates a new eschatological frame of reference (since we live in the eschaton the Old Testament promised) is invaluable. We cannot read as though Christ has not come.
• Yet Vanhoozer also helpfully demonstrates that an eschatological frame of reference does not distort the literal sense of the Old Testament, by reading back meanings that were never there, but rather illumines what was always there (315).
• In general, we find the distinction between sense and referent (123) that Vanhoozer employs to be helpful. However, we will address this in more detail at the end of the review.

6. This word is an intentional reference to Ressourcement, the return to patristic sources that became popular in mid-twentieth century scholarship and continues to the present day. Ressourcement is a French word meaning “return to the sources,” and it became an anthem of the nouvelle theologians who influenced Vatican II. While the recovery of patristic sources has brought many benefits, they can be weaponized to undermine clarifications and contributions made by later eras of the tradition, reducing us to a lowest common denominator kind of Christianity.

Finally, the greatest contribution of Vanhoozer’s approach is that it provides a sight of our Savior. We see Jesus in the text of Scripture, yet we see him as he was always there—in the meaning of the text. For Vanhoozer, this spiritual sight of Christ (the spiritual sense of Scripture) is not separate from the literal sense, but its glory, now illumined in light of the eschatological frame of reference in which Christ has come, accomplished his work, and poured out the Spirit upon his people.

Vanhoozer’s reading of Song of Songs (364–368) provides a clear payoff of the “mere Christian hermeneutic.” Vanhoozer resists both the temptation to read the song ‘literalistically’ as nothing more than an ode to erotic love and the temptation to read it allegorically, in which every detail maps onto Christ. Instead, Vanhoozer sees the Song as being “toward Christ” (368): the love of a husband and wife has always been meant to figuratively depict “Christ’s love for [his] church and the church’s desire for union with Christ,” both in creation and in the Song. The Song, even in its original context, is meant not only to idealize the love between husband and wife but to present that love as an image of God’s love for his people which was (in the OT) awaiting its consummation in redemption. Therefore, while Christ is not the ‘sense’ of every detail in the image, the referent towards which the whole image runs is Christ.

Fissures in the Earth: Concerns and Critique

Despite all the benefits found in Vanhoozer’s work, we both have significant concerns. One overarching concern is that the creativity of Vanhoozer’s prose frequently obscures his point. Mere Christian Hermeneutics is full of evocative imagery, but that imagery is easy to backfill with the perspective one already holds. This is especially true of the illustration that governs the book: the transfiguration. When Vanhoozer gives his argument directly, we believe he is (mostly) clear. Yet we find a great deal of ambiguity in the imagery he employs, such that on our first passes through the book, it was easy to (mis)understand Vanhoozer in several contradictory ways. It took several re-readings of key sections to nail down the argument with precision, and even in those re-readings the best strategy was often to skim past several pages worth of powerful but easily misconstrued illustrations. Additionally, Vanhoozer’s claim that the transfiguration is necessary for biblical interpretation was not convincing. While it is a powerful (and biblical) illustration for interpretation, we believe that making the transfiguration episode the hinge of the biblical canon strains the text to its breaking point. The coming of Christ may certainly be the hinge of the canon, and the transfiguration may be a clear demonstration of Christ’s identity, but it cannot bear the full weight Vanhoozer places on it.

As stated in the introduction, Vanhoozer’s aim to provide a truly mere Christian hermeneutic is laudable, yet his positive proposal inevitably precludes other popular approaches. Certainly, given the scope of what Vanhoozer covers, there is merit enough in the work for interpreters of all stripes to glean value from it. Nonetheless, Vanhoozer’s core argument is not one that all Christian interpreters can agree on—his so-called “richest common denominator” requires some sharp lines and excludes certain groups and certain methods. Apologists of allegory do not belong. Neither do those who make the church’s experience the arbiter of the Scripture’s meaning. In fact, there is one group that even Vanhoozer singles out as the best practitioners of this hermeneutic: the Protestant Reformers and their scholastic heirs (180–191). Thus, while we agree that Vanhoozer demonstrates a common aim in all Christian interpretation, we also believe he shows that not all Christian readers achieve that aim. In other words, while we think that in many ways Vanhoozer succeeds in offering a rich Christian hermeneutic, we do not believe his work ultimately can survive as a “hallway” in which interpreters of all Christian traditions can gather. Instead, Vanhoozer offers us a richly furnished room (that of the reformed tradition) with a beautiful and attractive entryway. At some point, the interpreter must decide which tradition’s doctrines enable them to consistently read Scripture in the way Vanhoozer has proposed. We argue that only those traditions whose doctrine is in accordance with the Protestant Reformation fit the bill—to practice this hermeneutic consistently, one must reject the magisterial authority that Rome and the Eastern metropolitans claim for themselves.

Finally and most significantly, we are concerned that Mere Christian Hermeneutics introduces confusion about the literal sense of Scripture and the relationship between divine and human authorial intent. Much of Vanhoozer’s career has been dedicated to defending and upholding reading Scripture both theologically and according to its literal sense. These are causes we celebrate and support. Mere Christian Hermeneutics does indeed seek to advance this cause and does succeed in various ways. Nevertheless, Vanhoozer’s work here also introduces confusion into the concepts of reading Scripture according to its literal sense.

The first way confusion regarding the literal sense is introduced is through definitional issues. In his helpful glossary, Vanhoozer provides his definition of “literal sense” which is worth quoting in full:

An oft-used term whose familiarity belies its complexity; in the history of biblical interpretation, the straightforward, surface, or nonfigural level of meaning of the textual letter; in this book, the meaning of the human-divine biblical discourse when read grammatically-eschatologically in canonical context, and the norm of theological interpretation (402).

This account presents the literal sense as the total meaning of the human-divine discourse in canonical context. For reference, the glossary definition of discourse is “what someone says/writes about something to someone at some time, in some way for some purpose” (401). An apparently different definition of “literal sense” appears, however, in Vanhoozer’s definition of “grammatical-eschatological exegesis,” which reads as follows: “a way of reading for the trans-figural sense of Scripture combining a grammatical interest in the way the words go (literal sense) with an eschatological interest in that to which they ultimately refer (Christological subject matter)” (401, emphasis ours). On the one hand, “literal sense” is here restricted to “the way the words go,” in keeping with Vanhoozer’s emphasis in this volume on the distinction between sense and referent (see 123, 137). But on the other hand, “literal sense” is also referred to as “the meaning of the divine human discourse when read in canonical context” (402, emphasis ours). This latter definition goes beyond just “sense” and encompasses “referent” as well.

In the body of his book, these unresolved definitions present confusion. In chapter 5 under the heading “The Literal Sense as Grammatical-Eschatological,” Vanhoozer presents six things to avoid when seeking a proper definition of the literal sense. The fifth and sixth points are particularly pertinent. The fifth is “we should not define the literal sense apart from the canonical context, for it is one of the relevant contexts by which we determine what the divine author was doing with his divinely inspired human discourse.” As for the sixth, he states that “we must avoid defining the literal sense apart from the eschatological frame of reference that allows the final subject matter of biblical discourse to come into focus” (177). A page earlier Vanhoozer describes the “divinely intended literal sense as the totus sensus: the whole meaning of the divine author, including the figural and trans-figural intent” (176, cf. 180). These statements seem to situate the operating definition of “literal sense” in terms of the whole human and divine discourse of Scripture in canonical context (encompassing both what is said and what it is said about). Elsewhere, however, we see “literal sense” restricted to merely “what is said.” On p.123, Vanhoozer says,

While the sense is “what someone says,” the reference is that about which that something is said. Literal meaning and interpretation involve both sense (what is said) and reference (that about which something is said). The literal sense is the way words run; the literal referent is that to which the words run (italics original).

Here Vanhoozer makes literal sense only a part of “literal meaning.” The difficulty is that Vanhoozer never presents a clear, explanatory way of reconciling these apparent differences in terminology. This affects the clarity of his overall project on a trans-figural sense or “the glory of the literal sense” (25).

Vanhoozer is right to distinguish what is said from that about which something is said. He seeks to account for how what is said remains the same even as the referent is further illuminated in the light of Christ. Trans-figural interpretation is “reading that follows the way the biblical words run across or beyond (trans-) figures to the realities those figures foreshadow and anticipate” (402).

This perplexity on the meaning of the “literal sense” seen above can be resolved, however, if we attend to the Reformed Scholastic and great synthesizer of much of the Post-Reformed Orthodox tradition, Francis Turretin. Turretin in his Institutes explains that “only one true and genuine sense belongs to the Scriptures. That sense may be twofold: either simple or compound.”^[7] He goes on to state that a simple or historical literal sense “contains the declaration of one thing without any other signification.” This sort of simple literal sense is seen in doctrinal Scriptures (i.e., epistles) and the non-typological histories of Scripture. This simple literal sense can be proper, when the words carry normal signification, or figurative, when the words are used figuratively or metaphorically. Turretin continues, “The composite or mixed sense is in prophecies as types, part of which is in the type, part in the antitype.” To avoid any confusion, Turretin explains “This does not establish two senses, but two parts of one and the same sense intended by the Holy Spirit, who with the letter considers the mystery.”^[8]

7. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave,(New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 1994), 1:150.

8. Turretin, Institutes, 1:150.

When the true and genuine sense is compound or composite, the “literal sense is sometimes taken more widely for the whole compass of the sense intended by the Holy Spirit (whether in type or antitype) and so contains within it the mystical sense [i.e., the antitype fully revealed in Christ].” He then explains the terminology sometimes employed for this compound literal sense by stating that the term “literal sense” can be “taken more strictly for that which the words immediately and proximately afford and so is distinguished from the mystical (which is signified not so much by the words as by the things which the words signify), which arises only mediately from the intention of the speaker.”^[9] Thus, when the sense or meaning is compound, the full literal sense intended by the Holy Spirit is composed of both a more narrowly construed literal sense (the type the words immediately refer to; e.g, the paschal lamb of Ex. 12:46) and the mystical sense (what the type refers to by virtue of “the intention of the speaker”; e.g., Christ the unblemished lamb).^[10]

9. Turretin, Institutes, 1:151.

10. Turretin, Institutes, 1:150.

We believe that Turretin’s distinctions between simple and compound literal senses and his accompanying definitions clarify much of the definitional obscurity we’ve noted in Vanhoozer. First, Turretin is clear that sense is not limited only to what is said, but encompasses referent, and thus, sense can be synonymous with meaning. If clearly distinguished, the word sense can perhaps be used, as Vanhoozer does, to describe what is said in a very narrow way of speaking as a description of the bare content of the words taken together apart from what gives their words actual full intended meaning. Also, in the context of biblical typology or figuration, this more limited idea of the first signification of the words (whether they be proper or figurative/metaphorical) can be spoken of as the literal sense “more strictly taken.” Yet the antitype, the mystical sense, is entirely contained within the Spirit’s intended use of the words, and thus the whole meaning is a compound yet unified literal sense.

The second way we wish Vanhoozer’s work was a bit clearer in matters related to the literal sense and interpretation is on the relation of the referent of the human authors of Scripture to the referent of the divine author. For example, on p.137 in the context of discussing the frame of reference of the Old Testament and its authors (particularly Isaiah), Vanhoozer states the following: “Christians believe that the prophets said more than they could consciously know about ‘what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ’ (1 Pet 1:11)” (emphasis original). He rephrases this statement saying, “Better: the prophets knew what they were saying, but they did not know exactly what, or whom, they were speaking about. They understood the sense of their discourse but not its ultimate referent. This way of viewing the matter explains why we still need the hard work of philology to clarify the sense of the words, and other frames of reference than Isaiah’s to understand the referent of his discourse that his words ultimately indicate” (137, emphasis original). Here, Vanhoozer appears to limit the prophetic understanding to only what they said (his literal sense). 

Many questions arise at this point. If we need frames of reference other than Isaiah’s, what was Isaiah’s frame of reference? And how does it cohere with the divine author’s frame of reference to produce one unified meaning? Was Isaiah’s frame of reference not Christological? It is indeed correct to say that they did not understand all that they referred to, but was their understanding only limited to what is said and not what is spoken about (referent)? If so, how could they produce through the leading of the Spirit discourses coherent in any way to themselves, because all discourse must have “sense” and “referent”?

Later in the book, however, Vanhoozer brings some clarifications on these questions. On p.274, Vanhoozer states, “The apostle Peter seems to take for granted that the prophets—and indeed the whole Old Testament—were speaking of the future messiah, even if they did not explicitly name him Jesus Christ.” He also affirms that the prophets knew their prophecies were future in orientation (275), and that “the Old Testament authors did not know the full meaning of what they wrote, [but] they knew part of it” (276). We believe these statements are accurate and helpful. Yet these valuable statements are obscured by his continued affirmation, repeated on p.274, that the prophets “knew the sense of their words, but not their referent.” What he apparently means by this is stated in the next sentence: “Their vision of how their words would become true in the future was blurry” (274). Yet if their vision was blurry and they knew part of the full meaning of their texts, then they must have understood not merely what they said but also some of that which they were speaking about, even if with a lack of clarity. We believe what Vanhoozer is trying to say would be best clarified if his way of relating the prophetic understanding to what was said be changed. 

That the biblical authors had some even if not complete knowledge of their eschatological referent is essential for saying that the fullness seen in the text through the light of Christ’s coming is not a different meaning than the prophet’s communicated. Otherwise, we would not be practicing literal interpretation. We believe this reality can be well expressed in the following two-fold manner: “1) the communicative intent of the Old Testament human authors involved an expectation of greater, eschatological revelation of their referent and further illumination of their own inspired writings. 2) God’s full intention in these prophetic writings which is unveiled only through the missions of the Son and the Spirit coheres with this limited human intention to produce one literal sense normative for interpretation.”^[11]

11. Michael J. Pereira, “‘And Now The Lord God Has Sent Me and His Spirit’: The Divine Missions, the Literal Sense, and Reading the Old Testament,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 68.4, forthcoming.

Conclusion

Mere Christian Hermeneutics has much to commend it. Both of us have benefitted greatly from Vanhoozer’s numerous insights. Indeed, Vanhoozer provides some level of insight into nearly every ongoing conversation about biblical interpretation, and those already engaged in these discussions will glean much from his work. We would not, however, recommend this book for audiences beginning the complex trek into the world of biblical hermeneutics. The confusion about ‘literal sense’ is a fault-line that runs through the entire book that can prevent it from being a solid starting point. Additionally, while Vanhoozer’s imagery and wordplay captivate the imagination and delight the senses, they can at times undermine the clarity of his argument, making Mere Christian Hermeneutics an even more difficult read for those not already familiar with the conversation. We recommend Vanhoozer’s earlier work, specifically First Theology and Is There a Meaning in this Text? for the more solid foundation they provide in understanding of textual meaning and the literal sense. Then we would commend Mere Christian Hermeneutics to those who already have that foundation in place but desire to dive deeper in specific aspects of hermeneutics, or to discover an even richer picture of how Christ is the referent of all of Scripture, already present in its literal sense, and now fully illumined by the Spirit in these last days brought about by the coming of Christ and the completion of his work.

1. Stephen Wellum notes, “Most correctly observe that term ‘virgin birth’ is something of a misnomer” since the Bible gives no indication the birthing process itself was miraculous (God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ [Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016], 236, n.73). We more precisely refer to the virgin conception of our Lord since it was this that was directly performed by the Spirit. However, when properly understood the term “virgin birth” is not illegitimate, because Christ was born of Mary who was a virgin when she conceived Christ and because Joseph “kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son” (Matt. 1:25). Therefore, the terms “virgin conception” and “virgin birth” will be used synonymously here.

But if someone were to ask you personally why the virgin birth is important, what would you say? Think about it. Could the Son of God have become man, and further, a sinless man who could save us from our sins even if he had a human father? Is the virgin birth not just a clearly biblical doctrine but a doctrine essential to Christian faith, such that if a person rejects it, they cannot be saved? Maybe you find yourself hesitating, unsure of how to connect your confidence that the virgin birth of Christ is true to a confident understanding of why the virgin birth is true or whether it is absolutely essential to any genuine Christian confession. Even some recent theologians who affirm the truth and importance of the virgin birth suggest that the incarnation of the Son and his sinlessness could have been achieved apart from a virginal conception.^[2]

Relatedly, if someone asked you whether we could call Mary the “Mother of God” because of the incarnation and virgin birth, what would you say? Do you immediately recoil at this notion, or do you rightly suspect that something important about our understanding of the identity of Jesus is going on here?

2. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 688–691; William Lane Craig, “Is the Virgin birth Essential?” last accessed June 17, 2025. See also Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 2nd ed (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2020), 664–66. While affirming that the Virgin birth “makes possible” the sinlessness of Christ, Grudem suggests “it probably would have been possible for God to have Jesus come into the world with two human parents, both a father and a mother, and with his full divine nature miraculously united to his human nature at some point early in his life. But then it would have been hard for us to understand how Jesus was fully God, since his origin was like ours in every way” (664). Thus, for Grudem, the Virgin birth helpfully makes evident Christ’s unique identity, but it is not essential to the Son’s incarnation as such. However, the hypothetical he presents would result in an inevitably Nestorian Christology.

So what are we to make of the doctrine of the virgin birth and, relatedly, this title of “Mother of God”? In this brief article, I will demonstrate both that 1) the virgin birth was essential for the eternal Son of God to become flesh so that he might be our Savior and 2) that the incarnation of the Son demands that Mary be rightfully called “Mother of God.”

Our Sinless Savior

After our first parents fell, God gave to them his gracious promise that salvation would come from a Redeemer, the seed or offspring of the woman (Gen. 3:15). As the story of Genesis progresses, we see that sin infected each offspring of the man and the woman until “the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence . . . for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth” (Gen. 6:11–12). Through the transgression of the one covenant head, Adam, death reigned, and condemnation came to all his natural descendants (Rom. 5:12–21). We needed a new covenant head, a sinless one who would be pure—free from the curse and sin of Adam—and who could achieve righteousness before God for us.

3. Petrus Van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, ed. Joel R. Beeke, trans. Todd M. Rester (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2019), 4:319; Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Sin and Salvation in Christ, vol. 3, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 294–95.

The virgin birth was essential for the Son to become the sinless new covenant head we desperately needed. David writes of his conception and birth, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Ps. 51:5). Jesus later says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” (John 3:6). All who are born according to the principle of natural generation seen from Genesis 4:1 onward are under the covenant headship of Adam. “Through one man death spread to all men” (Rom. 5:12)—not to human nature, per se, but to all human persons, those individualized existences of human nature produced through natural conception after Adam.^[3] Thus, those who are condemned in Adam and liable to sin are those human persons who are generated in Adam (covenantally) and by Adam (biologically).

But the Son of God did not become man by such natural generation in Adam as all other humans have, and thus, he was not under Adam’s covenantal headship. He was the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15; Isa. 7:14). The Son of God, the eternal second person of the Trinity, became man from the “outside” of Adam—not by natural descent but by miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit, taking humanity from the Virgin while not being in Adam covenantally.^[4] The Son’s human nature came from Adam (Luke 3:23–38), but Christ was not born in Adam. Though Mary herself was a sinner, the Holy Spirit’s overshadowing activity preserved from any possibility of sin the substance taken from her and formed it into the humanity assumed by the Son so that the eternally righteous One would also be pure and spotless in this human nature (Luke 1:35).^[5] Thus, for the Son to be the sinless Last Adam capable of being the covenant representative and substitute for a new humanity, the virgin birth was essential.

The Son of God Incarnate

Not only was the virgin birth necessary for a sinless Savior, but it was also essential for this Savior to be the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. The angel Gabriel spoke to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason [Greek: dio] the holy Child shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). In this passage, the virgin conception produced by the Spirit’s effective power results in this one born of Mary being the Son of God.^[6]

Herman Bavinck provides further help here in understanding why just this kind of virgin conception was essential for the Son of God to be the person, the “I” of the assumed human nature. As previously noted, the incarnate Son of God did not descend from Adam by natural generation, and thus, was not in Adam like we are, but he came from outside Adam and assumed a human nature by his own work and initiative.

Bavinck states, “Christ was an eternally existing person. He was [or existed] before He was begotten and born [as a man]. So He could not be quite passive in the moment of conception and birth as we are.”^[7] In other words, a new and merely human person (the “I” or a human subject born in Adam) is passively produced when soul and body are joined in an act of natural generation by a human father and mother. However, as Bavinck states, “[Christ] could not be procreated and brought forth by the will of a man. He was himself the acting subject who by the Holy Spirit prepared a body for himself in Mary’s body.”^[8] Like begets like (cf. John 3:6), and if human father and mother are the active principle whose generative action produces a new human person, then the Son of God could not become a man and be the “I” of a sinless human nature this way. Rather, he himself took and formed a human nature and caused it to have its existence in him.^[9] In other words, for the person of the human nature to be the Son of God, then he had to take to and for himself a human nature by his own power and activity —not receiving it from man and thus being another merely human person with a human father. Instead, entering into humanity from the outside, he remained who he always was, the eternal Son of the Father.^[10] Only the Son of God in flesh could offer himself as an infinitely sufficient sacrifice for us. Thus, as Bavinck summarizes, “The supernatural conception, therefore, is not a matter of indifference and without value. It is most intimately tied to the deity of Christ, to his eternal preexistence, his absolute sinlessness, and is therefore of great importance for the faith of the church.”^[11]

Mary as Theotokos

Since the Son of God became flesh in the virgin Mary’s womb, was nurtured therein, and was born of her in Bethlehem, we must say that Mary was the mother of the one who is God. In Luke 1:43, Elizabeth calls Mary “the mother of my Lord,” which in context is essentially the same as saying “the mother of my God.” When properly understood as originally intended by the church fathers, this title for Mary as theotokos (“God-bearer” or “mother of God”) has never been about making Mary the source of the Godhead—a blasphemous notion indeed! Rather, it is a biblical way of saying the essential truth that the one born of Mary was none other than the Son of God, who is true God.

Stephen Wellum helpfully states that “whatever may be said of Christ’s divine and human nature may be said of the person of the Son.”^[12] Thus, since the Son who is true God was born of Mary (according to his human nature), we not only can but must be able to call Mary “the mother of God.” Theotokos is not so much a Mariological statement but a Christological statement. We need not slip into idolatry of Mary by saying this. But if we are to preserve true worship of Jesus Christ, we must say this.

12. Stephen Wellum, The Person of Christ: An Introduction, Short Studies in Systematic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 183. This is part of his definition of the communicatio Idiomatum.

Not without reason is the virgin birth included among the essential Christian beliefs in the Apostle’s Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Chalcedonian Definition. This doctrine lies at the very heart of the Christian faith. Without it, we have no sinless Savior who is both God and man. Further, because the virgin birth of the Son of God is true, the designation “Mother of God” for Mary should be embraced since it is the One born of her who is worshiped by this title rather than the bearer herself.

While pondering these incredible truths, we must remember that one cannot truly confess the Christ born of a virgin without receiving him and worshiping him. The eternal Son of God, begotten of the Father before all the ages, “for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven and became flesh by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,” as the Nicene Creed states. This is not a cold, sterile doctrine that has no significance for your daily life! The virgin birth means that you have a Savior who loves you enough to humble himself by becoming man for you and your eternal salvation. Our Mediator is true man, perfectly qualified to be our covenant representative and substitute, and true God, giving his once-for-all sacrifice infinite worth and effectiveness. We can trust him. The almighty triune God, through his glorious wisdom and power, has planned and executed a salvation too wonderful for our minds to fully grasp and contrary to anything we deserve. May his glorious name be eternally praised!

“By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness:

He who was revealed in the flesh,

Was vindicated by the Spirit,

Seen by angels,

Proclaimed among the nations,

Believed on in the world,

Taken up into glory.”

– 1 Timothy 3:16