The Doctrine of the Son: Trinitarian Christology for the Sake of the Gospel2024 Deere-Hester Lecture at Gateway Seminary

I was invited to give the 2024 Deere-Hester lecture at Gateway Seminary in Ontario, California. I’ve collaborated with Gateway faculty and friends on several projects over the years, and was honored to make the trip and give this talk.

I used the opportunity to sketch out an approach to Christology that takes “sonship” as its guiding category. In 45 minutes (about 7,000 words), I tried to show how the category of “Son” provides the thread that we can follow all the way from God’s own life to our experience of salvation. To indicate this long line of continuity, I also had to provide some descriptions of the major landmarks along the way, especially eternal generation, the mission of the Son, and adoption. Here’s the outline:

I. Name of the Doctrine
II. Sonship as Central Category
III. Eternal Generation
IV. Sending of the Son
V. Sonship as the Character of Christian Life
Conclusion: The Long Through-Line

These are my favorite topics, and of course I’m repeating myself a bit (“Not that Webster quote again!”). A couple of sub-sections are composed of blog posts and other fugitive bits of exposition. I won’t be publishing the full text of this lecture until around 2028, when I’ll combine it with some other academic lectures I’m scheduled to give; I designed this talk to serve as an introductory chapter to more detailed discussions of each area. In the meantime, here is the video of the talk.