The Doctrine of Jesus Christ

by Thomas F. Torrance

Publisher:

Wipf and Stock

, 2002

Overview

These lectures were presented in 1939 at Auburn Seminary where Torrance was a professor. This event happened immediately after his stint in Basel, Switzerland when he studied with Karl Barth. Readers will find Torrance’s teaching on Christ imminently helpful and filled with clear doctrinal points.

Contents

Top Highlights

“The question at issue is, simply put, thus: Either in Jesus Christ we are confronted by God himself and therefore by One whose Person is himself of the utmost importance, or we have in Jesus Christ a Teacher about God, albeit a religious genius, indeed the greatest genius who has ever lived, and but one whose person nevertheless is only of relative importance and who will succumb like all other persons to oblivion before the importance of timeless and eternal truth.” (Pages 3–4)

“Christ is himself the content of the Christian Faith, not simply its Author and Founder; nor is he simply the Mediator of a new day or a new relation to God. He is himself very God of very God, the belief which forms the centrum of the whole of Christian faith, life, and practice.” (Page 1)

“Christ or Messiah means the personal fulfilment of that to which the whole Old Testament points” (Page 5)

“If then we are to approach a study of the Person of Christ it can be only with the witness to Christ which we have in the New Testament. There, we discover, that what we have is not just a historical presentation of Jesus, but a faith presentation of a Redeemer. Thus the data with which the theologian is first confronted is a presentation of Christ as Saviour and God, that is a view of Christ that is already dogmatic. It is a presentation of Christ from within the belief in the Resurrection.” (Page 14)

“We must be humble before the Incarnation; and as we look up into the face of the Lord Jesus Christ in honesty we shall humbly know that there is no other face which reflects God’s Face and his Grace: that here in Christ Jesus, the Word of God become flesh, we have a revelation of God which was not possible otherwise; that here we have a revelation of God, a knowledge, which no philosopher, however clever as a philosopher, could possibly attain.” (Page 97)

Product Details

• Title: The Doctrine of Jesus Christ
• Author: Thomas F. Torrance
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Print Publication Date: 2002
• Logos Release Date: 2018
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Jesus Christ › History of doctrines; Jesus Christ › Person and offices; Bible. N.T. › Theology
• ISBNs: 9781579107284, 1579107281, 9781498246866, 1498246869
• Resource ID: LLS:DCTRNJSSCHRST
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T23:14:04Z

About Thomas F. Torrance

Thomas F. Torrance (August 30,1913–December 2, 2007) was a Protestant Christian theologian and professor of Christian dogmatics for 27 years at the University of Edinburgh. Torrance was influential in the dialogue between science and theology.

He began studying in Edinburgh in 1931, focusing on classics and philosophy. At that time his own realist views of philosophy, theology, and morality started to develop, and they continued to do so as he moved to the study of theology at the Faculty of Divinity in 1934. From 1939 to 1940 Torrance studied at Oriel College, Oxford. He was ordained as minister on March 20, 1940.

He has authored several works, including Divine and Contingent Order, Ground and Grammar of Theology, and The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons. Besides writing many books and articles, Torrance also translated several hundred theological writings into English from other languages, including the thirteen-volume, six-million-word Church Dogmatics of the Swiss theologian Karl Barth (co-edited with G.W. Bromiley).