Review: Man and the Incarnation

Wingren, Gustaf. Man and the Incarnation: A Study in the Biblical Theology of Irenaeus.


This is probably the best theology book I’ve read so far this year. Wingren’s take on Irenaeus is classic and lucid. His treatment centering on the image of God is helpful and makes the various sections of the book easy to remember. He neatly ties together Adam, hrist, and the church, showing how Christ is both foreshadowed and presupposed by Creation, and how Christ’s recapitulation and new creation both renews and expands those united to him.

The book is divided into three roughly equal sections as elucidated above. The first section on man demonstrates Irenaeus’s theological anthropology, in that since Christ is the image of the Invisible God and man was created in the image of God, man was created in and through Christ, with Christ as the archetype for man’s life. Wingren summarizes Irenaeus’s view of the fall and human sin, by which the image of God is corrupted and man is enslaved to the devil. The second section concerns itself with Christ, in particular how logos Christology and an early Trinitarianism shapes Irenaeus’s doctrine of recapitulation. The final section shows how Christ’s recapitulation and renewal of the Adamic image creates the reality of the church. This is surprisingly similar to later federal theology. Reformed would do well to integrate Irenaeus’s insights into their own theology (as many have already done.) Not an easy read, but not prone to word salad either.

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