Son of God: Their Empire, His Kingdom (20th Century Fox). Actors: Darwin Shaw, Sebastian Knapp, Paul Knops, and Darcie Lincoln. Directors: Christopher Spencer. Music by Hans Zimmer.

Son of God begins with John’s gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” and ends with Jesus before John on the Isle of Patmos, in Revelation 1:17 “Fear not; I am the first and the last.” What falls between is a cinematic, 138-minute encapsulation of the life of Christ.

For the unchurched, this will undoubtedly present a Jesus that is within the boundaries of creative license and tells the story of Christ with great production value, first rate acting, believable costumes and sets, a remarkable soundtrack by Hans Zimmer (Pirates of the Caribbean, Batman Begins), and some very well-executed directing. It is rated PG-13, but that can only be attributed to the violence of the crucifixion, which spares little of Rome’s brutality.

We get a glimpse into Peter, John, Judas, a hint of Thomas, and short but wonderfully poignant episode with Matthew, but nothing of the other disciples. Mary Magdalene is there as well, almost always with Jesus and the twelve, but solitary woman traveling with a rabbi and 12 men across the Israeli countryside simply is not probable.

Eight minutes is given to carry us from Adam and Eve to the wise men standing before Mary and Joseph with the newborn Jesus. It happens quickly, but anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Scripture can keep up. The film truly begins as Jesus walks toward the Sea of Galilee.

On the one hand, the film is very conscientious of the Jewish people. For instance, “Jewish” is routinely the word of choice over “Jews,” the latter considered derogatory within modern Jewish society. The details: from daily life, customs, and dress are followed, but not always. For instance, the tzit-tzit fringes of the prayer shawls of the Pharisees would most certainly have had the Torah-required tekhelet (blue) threads, but few will catch the omission.

For the churched and biblically literate, let us simply say, you will like the book better than the movie. There were few scenes I did not find some problem with its non-adherence to the Bible. There are many liberties taken from Peter fishing to almost no one there to hear the Sermon on the Mount, to name two quick examples. There are many, many more.

The Pharisees are immediately set up as Jesus’ adversaries, but curiously, it is always the same Pharisee, which hardly makes the case for the cause of all Pharisees as antagonists. That is until Nicodemus comes along. He seems to be a willing cohort or even snitch of the High Priest, Caiaphas. Granted, Nicodemus was in the Sanhedrin and Scripture refers to him as “the” teacher of Israel (John 3:10), but that he might be a co-conspirator with Caiaphas is certainly extra-biblical.

Kevin Giles, The Eternal Generation of the Son: Maintaining Orthodoxy in Trinitarian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2012), 270 pages including indices, ISBN 9780830839650.

What this reviewer sees in Kevin Giles’ The Eternal Generation of the Son is a carefully reasoned presentation of what is inherent, or implied within John 1:1 and also in Second Corinthians 5:19, and retaining what is there regarding the person of Jesus in Christian doctrine. The key phrases are “In the beginning was the Word “(John 1:1) and “namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2Corinthians 5:19). There is an implied or inherent eternality in both the Fourth Gospel and in Paul’s second letter to the Church in Corinth.

Giles first sets forth the biblical warrant for “the eternal” generation of Jesus as suggested by “in the beginning was the Word” and also the uniqueness of Jesus as the Word made flesh through whom God reconciled the world to Himself. He then recounts how succeeding Christians from the earliest apologists through the Nicene fathers, Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Nazianzus, to Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and eventually the Reformers of the 16^th century preserved the understanding of Jesus as “eternal” as well unique. This is meticulously done through copious citations from original documents relative to Justin, Athanasius, the Capadocians (Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Nazianzus), Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and other of the reformers. They are presented in opposition to Arius, Eunomius, and those who thought otherwise in successive years by maintaining that Jesus is subordinate to God the Father such as Servetus and Socinius in the sixteenth century. Giles singles out Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware as twentieth-century subordinationists.

The idea of “eternal generation” is drawn from God’s eternality and His entry within the realm of time in the person of Jesus. Giles noted how many of the 4^th century creeds used the Greek word gennao to express the eternal nature of God in His Christ, Jesus, and monogenes to express the uniqueness in Jesus. This reviewer cannot stress enough the painstaking nature of Gile’s apologetic effort in an effort to retain and maintain an orthodox understanding of Jesus relation to God as Father within the time-honored Trinitarian tradition.

Giles supports his argument for maintaining and retaining the “eternal generation” of the “Sonship” of Jesus by not only referencing citations in the Bible but also by a “roll-call” from the past to the present. He regards Athanasius as “one of the greatest theologians of all time” (p. 118). He progresses from Augustine to Aquinas to the major reformers, the Puritans John Owen and John Owen, the Swiss-Italian Francis Turretin, Moses Stuart, and Samuel Miller in America, and the later figures of William G.T. Shedd, Louis Berkhof and Herman Bavinck, Karl Barth, David Cunningham, and lastly, Robert Letham who incidentally wrote a forward to Giles.

Kingdom of Heaven, Justification:  Is There a Conflict? Something Missing?

In this review essay, Kevin Williams responds to Scot McKnight’s article that introduces a conversation among theologians.

Scot McKnight, “Jesus vs. Paul” Christianity Today (December, 2010), pages 24-29.

The December 2010 cover encapsulates the discussion:

Jesus preached almost exclusively about the kingdom of heaven. Paul highlighted justification by faith. Some say they preached different gospels. Others say Jesus and Paul both preached justification. Still others claim both focused on the kingdom. What gives?

This was a first for me, to review an article into which a series of videos had been embedded. Congratulations to Christianity Today for creating a format where the interviews do not interfere with the flow or appreciation of the text. I think CT has done an excellent job of allowing readers to access the video content without it being obtrusive to the written content.

I’ll begin with the title: “Jesus vs. Paul.” That is a teaser headline only. As soon as I read it, my mind immediately went to 1 Corinthians 1:11-13, “… that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, ‘I am of Paul,’ and ‘I of Apollos,’ and ‘I of Cephas,’ and ‘I of Christ.’ Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”

Thankfully, the debate is not really pitting Jesus against Paul in McKnight’s article, but whether there can be harmony between the doctrine of Jesus’ “gospel of the kingdom,” and Paul’s doctrine of “justification by faith.”

The article begins with McKnight’s own doctrinal journey from a Pauline-based theology to his college years, including becoming a professor, where he became enraptured with Jesus, and subsequently, his struggles when he would open up Paul’s epistles. He, like others, often finds more incongruity than harmony between the two.

Scot McKnight is Professor of New Testament at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.

But McKnight’s concern does not appear to be over the age-old equilibrium between kingdom living and justification as I first suspected. As he puts it, it is “kingdom language on steroids, pushing out justification,” or more to the point, the social-justice teachings of the “unrelenting justice voice of Jim Wallis.” Rev. Wallis, of course, is an advisor to President Barak Obama and an out spoken advocate for social justice and liberation theology, a platform of the Obama administration that has raised considerable debate among the American people.

The Camel is a book of both testimony and teaching. The author shows us that God is at work among Muslims, he also shows us some things that we can do that will help us reach for them for Christ. If you think that reaching Muslims is “mission impossible” you will be surprised when you read this book. Kevin Greeson is a church planter who works for the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. He serves as a missionary church planter in South Asia in an area that has a large Muslim population. In this book he shares how at one point in his ministry he was seeing very few results as he ministered to Muslims. During this same time he heard reports of large numbers of Muslims coming to Christ in other places. He investigated these reports and found them to be true. Muslim-background believers were leading many of their family and friends to the Lord. Greeson shares what he learned from these Muslim-background believers. He began to apply what he learned and found that their approach worked. In this book he shares the “secret of their success.” Their success was very significant; it resulted not just in individual conversions but in church planting movements. Most Christians in the West probably do not know how to begin a conversation with a Muslim about Christ, this book is a great help in this regard.

Greeson found a number of interesting things about the Muslim-background believers that were planting churches. He found that they used a different vocabulary, they did not try to use “foreign” religious language, they spoke from their Islamic heritage as long as it did not conflict with the Bible (page 34). For example, they called their pastor “imam,” this is a term used for Muslim religious leaders but it simply means “the one in front” (page 34). They also did not identify themselves as Christians; they referred to themselves as “Isahi Muslims.” This means that they are those who submit themselves to God by following Jesus. In short, what Greeson found was that the Muslim-background believers contextualized the gospel. They also used the Qur’an to witness. They did not dilute the gospel message but they presented it in a more appealing way to those from an Islamic background.

The “camel” is actually an acronym: c-a-m-e-l. It is a way to remember some of the key points found in Surah al-Imran, which is chapter three in the Qur’an. The “c” reminds us that Mary was chosen to be the mother of Jesus (Isa), “a” stands for the fact that angels made this known to her, “m” tells us that Jesus would do miracles and “el” tells us that Jesus knew the way to eternal life (pages 41-42). Muslim-background believers use this information to build bridges with their Muslims friends to lead them from the Qur’an to the New Testament. In addition to the “c-a-m-e-l” approach the book offers some other valuable information as well. It offers a more advanced evangelistic tool called “The Korbani Plan of Salvation” (pages 113-120) and it tells you how to answer a Muslim who says that you can not trust the Bible because it is corrupted (pages 139-140). There are also answers to some of the more common objections that Muslims may raise (pages 140-146).

Kevin Charles Belmonte, William Wilberforce: A Hero for Humanity (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2007).

Renewed and worthy attention has come to the eighteenth century history-making British politician William Wilberforce, through the popular film Amazing Grace. Kevin Belmonte was the historical consultant for the film and in this book has given his readers a fresh biography on Wilberforce that focuses on his advancements of social justice and on his moral and political achievements. He has divided the segments of his presentation into the major themes of Wilberforce’s lifework, following each topic chronologically to its termination, and then backing up chronologically to pick up the thread of the next topic. The reader must wait until the latter part of the book before learning about Wilberforce’s endearing relationship with his own family. While this literary segmentation assists the reader to learn of his political accomplishments, it hinders the reader from seeing the humanity of Wilberforce as he strove to integrate family and vocational passions.

There can be no question that Wilberforce lived a life that is worth emulating. He did not hold his personal wealth to himself, but seemingly gave liberally to all who asked as well as regularly supporting worthy charities. He did not cloister himself to a life of ease or debase himself with the frivolous parties of high-society, but labored relentlessly to end the human suffering of slavery; he did this with the passion of one who had received a divine mandate. His conscience was not seared from the plight of those who were out of his natural sight. Wealth did not impress him and social ambition seemingly did not tempt him.

The emphasis that Belmonte made in his biography on Wilberforce is that which is the humanitarian effort of his political record, how Christian conviction influenced his political ambition and agenda. He highlighted the ethical obligation of Christians to be politically active and to advocate legislation for social justice. While the book tends to bog down in a few places, with too much detail and too many unfamiliar names and places for the average 21^st century reader, it remains significant to its essential message. Wilberforce continues to challenge us—“I will show you my faith by what I do” (James 2:18b NIV).

Reviewed by John R. Miller