While Weinandy’s Roman Catholicism is evident in his treatment of the Lord’s Supper, this is a book that Protestants will otherwise find most helpful. I for one will never be able to preach the gospel narrative in quite the same way again.  

The first is Thomas Weinandy’s Jesus Becoming Jesus.  Weinandy is a Franciscantheologian who is well-known in orthodox Protestant circles for his superlative exposition and defense of classical theism, specifically immutability andimpassibility.  In this new book he starts what he intends as a multi-volume exploration of New Testament theology.  Here, he engages with the Synoptic Gospels.  He states at the start that it is not his intention to deal in any detail with current New Testament scholarship but rather to read the gospel narratives as a systematic theologian.  The result is often enchanting and frequently intellectuallychallenging, as any discussion of the mystery of the Trinity must be.  Here isWeinandy on Christ’s baptism: 

[I]n the Father declaring, in the descent of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus is his beloved Son, we gain entrance and perceive beyond the torn heaven into the very mystery of the Trinity. The Father reveals himself as Father not by saying that he is the Father, but by revealing his Son by saying in the love of the Spirit, “You are my beloved Son.” In this declaration the Father manifests himself as the loving Father of his Son. This is in keeping with who the Father is, for he is only the Father in that he fathers his Son, and so it is only proper that he reveal himself as the Son’s Father. We perceive here that the Father is metaphysically incapable of revealing himself as Father apart from his Son, for he is defined as Father only in relationship to his beloved Son. (88-89)  

The manner in which he set the life of Jesus in a Trinitarian context, demonstrating how the identity of the Son is vital to understanding his deeds and his teaching, is most welcome and will help any preacher who has ever faced the question, ‘What difference does classical Trinitarianism make to how I read the Bible?’  Far from being irrelevant, the classical Trinity lies at the core of revelation. 

While Weinandy’s Roman Catholicism is evident in his treatment of the Lord’s Supper, this is a book that Protestants will otherwise find most helpful. I for one will never be able to preach the gospel narrative in quite the same way again.   And we will be interviewing Dr Weinandy about his book, and his contributions to classical theism, on a future MoS podcast. 

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