I just got my hands on a copy of Logos Bible Software’s electronic edition of Berkower’s Works. Regular readers will not be surprised that I went straight to the book on the atonement. If this couple of paragraphs from the introduction are anything to go by, I’m in for a treat as I dip into this from time-to-time during my studies of the Scriptures:
“It is not difficult to point out this one-sidedness in various expositions, which always results in impoverishment of the Christ conception. For example: frequently the attempt has been made to bring the work of Christ under one theme, e.g., that he is our example. It cannot be denied that Scripture does mention this, even in connection with a very concrete and central act of Christ, namely, the washing of the disciples’ feet: “For I have given you an example” (John 13:15; cf. 1 Peter 2:21). But others, opposing this isolation of certain aspects of Christ’s work, have mistakenly neglected his exemplary function, as if his cause could be served by combating one-sidedness with neglect! Again, some have placed their whole emphasis on Christ’s obedience. Christ’s obedience certainly is essential in the actuality of his work, for the Church confesses his active and passive obedience. But frequently this obedience has been emphasized while Christ’s deity was attacked, and thus his obedience became a kind of conscientiousness belonging to the man, Jesus of Nazareth, making him more and more an object of God’s favor. The portrait thus created was nothing but the distorted Christ-idea of liberal Christology.
And, finally, we mention the one-sided ideas concerning the love of Christ. Indeed, Scripture is overflowing with this love, and Paul prays that the Church may fully comprehend it, but frequently this love was so over-emphasized that it violated God’s righteousness and so could no longer be a correct description of the work of Christ. The entire representation became so distorted that finally God’s wrath was pushed entirely into the background; it was said that God’s wrath is only a misconception on our part, from which Jesus Christ came to deliver us by his message that this love was God.”
G. C. Berkouwer, The Work of Christ (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1965), 12.
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