A Different Way Forward

Today, my friend Matt Foreman posted a response to my latest blog article called "Clearing the Fog," wherein I attempted to bring some of my own clarity to a couple of points concerning the Angel of the LORD as it regards the incarnation and the hypostatic union of the eternal Son of God in the New Testament. Matt offers a different approach than I have been taking and its one that I think makes a whole lot of sense. I agree with him that the paragraph I wrote (nearly a dozen years ago and which I've sought to bring my own clarification) could have been clearer. I think he has succeeded exceptionally well.

He also did it by using Reformed theologians to express old ideas that when I read them I said, "Yes, that's what I've been trying to say all along!" Vos, Bavinck, and Owen all express the key disputes in ways that are different and in some ways even better than how I'm saying it. I’m sorry if I sometimes live in my own exegetical bunker and throw out phrases that have read to some as a heresy hammer before they finish the paragraph. Perhaps if people read Matt's article, they will see that I fully agree with the way they put it and have no need to add my own nuances. Here's to hoping that in affirming his paper, some men might come to recognize that I don't believe what they are saying I believe. Never have. Matt, thank you for taking the time to write this. I’ll be chewing on this for a few days and may have a short follow-up once it all settles, but for now your piece stands as the clearest public statement of where I actually land on the disputed points. You've done the church a service, and (more importantly right now) you’ve probably saved me from having to write another ten clarifications that nobody would read anyway.