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1 Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible.
2 J. Hick, The Fifth Dimension: An Exploration of the Spiritual Realm (Oxford: One World, 1999), 234–36.
3 In M. J. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999), 149.
4 T. V. Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986; rpt. Wipf and Stock, 2002).
5 L. W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 135.
6 For a defense of the Son of God's preexistence (against positions taken by biblical scholars such as James D. G. Dunn), see D. McCready, He Came Down from Heaven: The Preexistence of Christ and the Christian Faith (Downers Grove, IL/Leicester, UK: InterVarsity/Apollos, 2006).
7 Taken from E. Komoszewski and R. Bowman Jr., Putting Jesus in His Place (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007).
8 C. S. Lewis, “Fern-Seed and Elephants,” in Fern-Seed and Elephants and Other Essays on Christianity, ed. Walter Hooper (London: Collins, 1975), 106–7.
9 N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 172–73. For a recent, comprehensive critique of the Jesus-legend argument, see P. R. Eddy and G. A. Boyd, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007).
10 E. K. Simpson and F. F. Bruce, The Epistles of Paul to the Ephesians and to the Colossians (New International Commentary on the New Testament, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), 194.
11 G. O'Collins, Christology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 233.
12 If humans are created or finite, did Jesus become a creature? No, He took on human nature and a human body. While both are God's creations, this doesn't mean that they are necessary to being human. Are humans necessarily finite? We can deny that both creaturehood and being finite are necessary or essential characteristics of human beings since God couldn't become something contrary to His nature. T. Senor, “The Incarnation and the Trinity,” in Reason for the Hope Within, ed. Michael J. Murray (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 247. I am also borrowing here from Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate.
13 G. Hawthorne, The Presence and the Power (Dallas: Word, 1991), 218.
14 R. T. France, “The Uniqueness of Jesus,” Evangelical Review of Theology 17 (Jan. 1993): 13.
15 G. Hawthorne, The Presence and the Power, 212, 216. R. L. Reymond writes: “There is no confusion [in the crucifixion] of the divine and human natures of Christ. It is not the divine nature as such which is crucified; it is the divine person, because he is also human, who is crucified.” “Incarnation” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. W. A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 556–57.
16 R. L. Reymond, “Incarnation” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 556–57. Cf. Acts 20:28: “The church of God which He purchased with His own blood.”
17 G. O'Collins, Interpreting Jesus (Ramsey, NJ: Paulist, 1983), 186.
18 Ibid., 185.
19 Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate, 149–50.
20 O'Collins, Christology, 271.
21 See N. T. Wright, “The Truth of the Gospel and Christian Living,” in The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, M. Borg and N. T. Wright (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1999), 214–15; see also chapter 5 in N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999).
22 On some of the issues surrounding kenotic Christology, see C. S. Evans, ed., Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
23 P. Copan, “Divine Narcissism? A Further Defense of God's Humility,” Philosophia Christi n.s. 8 (January 2006): 313–25.
24 For further elaborations on these themes, see R. Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998).
25 J. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1987), 160.