ORLANDO, Fla. — Dr. R.C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries announce the release of The Word Made Flesh: The Ligonier Statement on Christology. A few years ago, an interviewer asked Dr. Sproul what he thought was the biggest battle that the church of today and of the next generation faces. Without blinking, he answered that it is Christology, the doctrine of the person and work of Christ.
“In our day, the most critical issue that the church faces is the issue over who Jesus is,” said the founder and chairman of Ligonier. “The residue of the full measured attack of the last two centuries on the person and work of Christ carries on today and is deeply rooted and entrenched even in the church. Now, like never before, it’s incumbent upon orthodox Christians to stand up and declare clearly what the church believes about Jesus.”
Like the Apostle Paul, we are to preach “Christ and him crucified.” With the resurgence of Islam around the world, along with the increasing number of people who claim no religious affiliation particularly in the West, the need for clarity regarding basic Christian doctrine is vital. Everyone has a view of Jesus. So who is the Christ we preach? To answer this question, Dr. Sproul, the Ligonier Teaching Fellows, and other trusted pastors and theologians have formulated The Word Made Flesh: The Ligonier Statement on Christology to be an offering to the church as a tool for understanding and defending the person and work of Christ. This is a recitable statement accompanied by twenty-five articles of affirmation and denial.
“We want this statement to be a gateway back into Scripture,” said Dr. Stephen J. Nichols, Ligonier’s chief academic officer and president of Reformation Bible College. “We want to encourage Christians to study and meditate on what Scripture teaches us about who Christ is and what He does. This is the essence of the gospel. It is really the essence of what it means to be a Christian.”
Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a Ligonier teaching fellow, added, “There is no Christianity without a full, robust biblical Christology. We are living in an age of theological reductionism. All around us are people who want to achieve a new resizing of Christianity to fit the modern mind in the modern age. And the reality is that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That is the starting point of evangelical Christology.”
This is not the first time Ligonier Ministries has produced a statement on matters of urgent theological significance. In 1973, Dr. Sproul wrote a single-paragraph statement, clearly and concisely declaring the full and unmitigated inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility of Scripture. The statement led to the formation of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, which convened a congress on Scripture and produced the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978). More than three hundred pastors, scholars, and church leaders attended and many more added their signatures to the Chicago Statement. The statement galvanized an entire generation in the defense of biblical inerrancy.
Perhaps this will be a catalyst similar to the inerrancy statement for ICBI and the Chicago Statement. We pray above all that this new ministry undertaking of The Word Made Flesh: The Ligonier Statement on Christology serves to help the church remain faithful in the proclamation of the gospel.
Visit ChristologyStatement.com for more information and to access downloads of the statement in various languages.
About Ligonier Ministries
Ligonier Ministries (www.ligonier.org) is an international Christian discipleship organization established in 1971 to equip Christians to articulate what they believe, why they believe it, how to live it, and how to share it. The ministry is home to the Renewing Your Mind with R.C. Sproul radio program, broadcast internationally; Tabletalk devotional magazine, read internationally; the Reformation Study Bible with Dr. R.C. Sproul as general editor; Reformation Trust Publishing, the publisher of new titles by Dr. Sproul and other contemporary authors and theologians; Reformation Network, twenty-four-hour Internet radio committed to the historic Christian faith; numerous teaching series; national and regional conferences; an extensive catalog with more than 3,500 unique Christian education resources available online at Ligonier.org; and the Ligonier Academy of Biblical and Theological Studies and Reformation Bible College, institutions focused on instilling rigorous biblical knowledge in their students.
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