Bear in mind, please, that it is always more interesting to express disagreement in a blog than agreement. So, be aware before anything else that it reads to me like Michael Horton hit it out of the park at the WTS conference from what Mark reports about his speech. Great stuff defending Protestant Orhtodoxy from the accusations of post-modernism and foundationalism and defending the doctrine of inspiration!

So, with that in mind, I do want to register a qualm about this:

The incarnation is not a paradigm that God becomes incarnate in Philadelphia. In Chalcedonian christology, the Eternal Word assumes our humanity in the universal sense, not as a certain contextualized individual human. Word mediated not by but to our cultural context.

Well, I probably am completely on board with what Mike is objecting to. But in his positive claim of God uniting with a universal humanity rather than a particular…. No. No. A thousand times: No.

Jesus was a specific historical person from a certain, time, place, and culture. There was no way to participae in “universal sense” of humanity apart from becoming a “contextualized individual human.”

That, at least, is my reaction to the summary in Mark’s notes.

And by the way, the heavens themselves are extremely concerned about the historical, cultural, context. The angels address the disciples by their regional identity: “Men of Galilee.”