The centrality of Jesus Christ in God's acts of creation, reconciliation, renewal and fulfilment : the views of John Calvin and Ellen G White

Abstract

In John Calvin and Ellen G White’s sense making approaches God’s act of redemption and reconciliation in and through Jesus Christ takes the centre stage in the foursome of God’s acts expressed in the biblical historical timeline as creation, reconciliation in Jesus Christ, renewal through the Holy Spirit and fulfilment at the end of time. While the 16th century Calvin emphasised God’s acts of creation and reconciliation in Christ more than God’s acts of renewal and fulfilment, the 19th century White’s emphasis was more on God’s acts of reconciliation in Christ and fulfilment at the end of time than on creation and renewal through the Spirit. With all the differences in their sense making approaches their central perspectival focus in their writings, sayings and doings is the way God and humanity, heaven and earth are closely connected in a unity without being fused and mixed in Jesus Christ. Their central christological theme of ‘God staying God’ and ‘human staying human’ in an interactional substantialist sense in Christ designates the great alternative view that differs on the one hand, from the view of the trans-substantialist option in which the human being Christ Jesus is in a sacramental-sacred way transformed into ‘a divine human being’ –, and on the other hand, the view of the consubstantialist option in which the human being Jesus is permeated and diffused by his divinity, thereby becoming ‘the human God.’ Calvin and White in their reflection operating within the realm of divine historicity that is staying within the biblical historical timeline from Genesis to Revelation were viewed by many as not theologians in the real sense of the word. Calvin and may be to a greater extent White worked and contributed to the new and emerging field of Faith Studies in which a theologian or theorist of faith cannot reflect on God, human beings or the natural cosmic world in three separate avenues as was commonly the case with speculative and scholastic theologies in history. White’s Faith Studies contribution is in the global arena of theology where the omnipresent ‘–logies’ of mainline church theologies such as Christology, Ecclesiology, Pneumatology and Eschatology hold sway.