Book Review: The Mystery of Christ by John Behr

Book Review: The Mystery of Christ by John Behr 

John Behr, The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2006. 186pp.

Peter Lombard’s assertion in the Middle Ages that either the Father or the Spirit could have equally become incarnate is often cited by the East as a primary example of the Latin West’s deficient trinitarianism. This move, according to John Behr, appears to have begun with Augustine,

who, having inherited the results of the fourth-century debates rather than living through them, is the first to claim that the theophanies of the Old Testament could be manifestations of any of the three persons of the Trinity, or the Trinity itself, the one Lord God, or, instead, a created mediator. (174)

Unlike the apostles and early church Fathers who sought to testify concerning the mystery that was revealed in the coming of Christ, post-Nicene theologians (like Augustine) tended to view the doctrine of the Trinity, as confessed at Nicaea, as a given.

Modern expositions of trinitarian theology, according to Behr, follow suit and “begin with the results of the theological debates of the early centuries . . . but separate these theological formulas from the way in which they were in fact learned . . .” (15). The result of such a reading is that modern theology tends to read and understand Scripture in a very different manner than either the apostles or the early Church Fathers.

Yet, when the Nicene and Chalcedonian creeds are taken seriously as confessions (rather than accounts of ‘what really happened’), we are forced to “take seriously the exegetical practices of the apostles and the early Christians following in their footsteps” (16). And this ‘taking seriously’ is precisely what John Behr attempts to do in his book. Behr shows that, when Scripture is considered from a less-than-modern perspective (most clearly evinced in the endless attempts at reconstruction of the life of Jesus, among other things) and more from the perspective of the apostles and early church Fathers, one finds that “For antiquity . . . the truth of Christ is eternal, or better, timeless: the crucified and risen Lord is the one of whom scripture has always spoken” (17, emphasis added). While truth for modernity lies in the past, for the apostles and the early church, truth rested timelessly in Christ.

Behr’s project is congenial to many Reformed convictions since he recognizes that the Old Testament (which were the scriptures for the apostles and early church), is not to be understood in a modern ‘historicist’ fashion. Just as the apostles and Fathers of the church have understood, all of scripture testifies concerning Christ. This becomes clear in the gospels, as Christ is understood to be God, not through mere literal fulfillment of a checklist of prophecies, but rather, as Behr puts it,

It was only after the Passion, in their encounter with the Risen Christ, that [the disciples] finally knew him to be the Lord, as he opened the scriptures, showing that it was necessary for him to have undergone the Passion to enter into his glory, and broke bread with them (cf. Lk 24.25-32). (45)

Despite the fact that the disciples had “heard all sorts of divine teachings from [Christ],” still they “abandoned him at the time of his crucifixion” (21); yet these are the same disciples who, after the Passion and resurrection of Christ, proclaim him confidently, even to the point of martyrdom. This itself is enough to show that, for the disciples, the modern approach to scripture could only be highly insufficient.

Continuing with this sort of Christocentric re-reading of theology, Behr examines how it was primarily through the attempt to better understand the mystery of Christ that the early Church came to understand creation, salvation, Mary, and the human body. As Behr explicates these doctrines, one immediately encounters an encouragingly Christocentric reading on the one hand, as well as, at least for confessional Reformed folk, somewhat problematic doctrines. These disagreements are not unexpected since Behr comes from the Orthodox tradition (the book itself is published by St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press!) and the primary issues are located in Behr’s discussion on creation and salvation.

Quoting Irenaeus, Behr puts forward a very strong christocentrism (which is very similar to Karl Barth’s revised supralapsarianism): “Since he who saves already existed, it was necessary that he who would be saved should come into existence, that the One who saves should not exist in vain” (77). Thus, “the solution comes first,” only when we understand Christ can “we begin to understand where the problem lies” (84). What this means is that there can be no understanding of Adam and the Fall apart from the salvation already to be provided in Christ. To conceive of creation without Christ, “a creation in which, had human beings not sinned, there would have been no need for Christ” would be to displace Christ (85). For those who subscribe the Reformed confessions, this means no covenant of works and certainly no forms of infralapsarianism.

It would, however, be wrong to think that the Reformed are guilty of an un-christocentric theology merely because they affirm the covenant of works. No Reformed theologian would have denied the part that the Word had to play in creation since they all affirmed that the external works of the Trinity were indivisible; and had Adam not sinned it does not follow that the Word would have therefore been uninvolved with humanity. In other words, it is not a failure to be consistently christocentric on the part of the Reformed confessions, but a recognition that the drama of redemption necessitates that Adam, as federal head, might have obeyed. The fact that Adam fell only heightens the dramatic tension making the Redeemer’s debut on the stage that much more glorious. Since Behr’s aim is not polemical, but an attempt to understand the early church Fathers, we must note disagreement here.

In sum, the book has much to offer in terms of clarification. It is a breath of fresh air, reminding us that acceptance of the creeds of Niceaea and Chalcedon cannot be done without giving heed to the way in which the church Fathers understood the testimony of Christ. Though there are areas of substantial disagreement, the Trinity and Christ’s two natures are not among them; because of this, it would be foolish to, with much of modern theology, “forget how theology learned to speak” (180).

Joshua Lim

MAHT Candidate