The Incarnate Christ and His Critics

Book excerpt: A current, comprehensive, and clear defense of the deity of Christ. The central theological claim of Christianity, that Jesus is God incarnate, finds eager detractors across a wide spectrum--from scholars who interpret Jesus as a prophet, angel, or guru to adherents of progressive Christianity and non-Christian religions and philosophies. Yet thorough biblical scholarship strongly supports the historic Christian teaching on the deity of Christ. Authors Robert M. Bowman Jr. and J. Ed Komoszewski follow the approach of their landmark 2007 study on the same topic, Putting Jesus in His Place. They focus on five pillars of New Testament teaching, using the acronym HANDS, and demonstrate what both Jesus and the earliest believers recognized, namely, that Jesus shares in the - Honors that are due God - Attributes of God - Names of God - Deeds that God does - Seat of God's eternal throne The Incarnate Christ and His Critics engages objections to the divine identity of Jesus from Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, progressive Christians, Muslims, Unitarians, and others. Bowman and Komoszewski show how biblical scholarship cannot reasonably ignore the enduring, wide-ranging, and positive case for the deity of Christ.