The idea here is that there are layers to Christ's fullness and when the biblical authors present Christ to us they might only explicitly refer to one layer but as they do that the underlying layers are also implied. or to put it another way, the glory of the underlying layers shine through the layer that is presented to us. That might sound strange, abstract and not particularly helpful but let me try to explain. The incarnation implies the pre-existent Word In the beginning was the Word. The Word took flesh. When John identifies "Jesus Christ has come in the flesh" as the key test of orthodoxy, Augustine asks (Homily 6 on 1 John) how can this be when so many heretics happily affirm the humanity of Jesus but deny his deity? Augustine then asks us to dig a bit deeper and consider: From whence did he come? "Was he not God?" Simon Gathercole demonstrated (in his 2006 book, The Pre-existent Son ) that Jesus' phrase in the synoptic gospels, "I have come...
Living and preaching at the foot of the Cross