Here’s an interesting blog from a friend of First Lutheran Church. Dr. Jack Kilcrease has just authored The Self Donation of God, A Contemporary Lutheran approach to Christ and His Benefits .
Jack is maintaining a blog to accompany his book, making large parts of it available on a regular basis.
Many in the congregation will remember Jack Kilcrease both for his excellent contributions to the adult Christian education hour a few years ago. Jack is also the husband of Dr. Bethany Kilcrease, a friend and longtime member of First Lutheran Church while a PhD student at Boston College. The pair are both teaching at Aquinas College in Michigan.
Here’s a quote about the book from the Rev. Mark Mattes of Grand View University
In this study, Jack Kilcrease offers a masterful, panoramic approach to Christology, thoroughly grounded in the Scriptures and in constant debate with the christological reflection of fellow Lutherans, the wider Catholic tradition, and modern and contemporary voices. All in all, this book testifies to the gospel as God’s triumph of grace in the world.”
And here’s a description of the book from the back cover, going into a bit more depth about the theological approach.
In The Self-Donation of God, Jack Kilcrease argues that the speech-act of promise is always an act of self-donation. A person who unilaterally promises to another is bound to take a particular series of actions to fulfill that promise. Being that creation is grounded in God’s promising speech, the divine-human relationship is fundamentally one of divine self-donation and human receptivity. Sin disrupts this relationship and therefore redemption is constituted by a reassertion of divine promise of salvation in the face of the condemnation of the law (Gen 3:15). As a new and effective word of grace, the promise of a savior begins the process of redemption within which God speaks forth a new narrative of creation. In this new narrative, God gives himself in an even deeper manner to humanity. By donating himself through a promise, first to the protological humanity and then to Israel, he binds himself to them. At the end of this history of self-binding, God in Christ enters into the condemnation of the law, neutralizes it in the cross, and brings about a new creation through his omnipotent word of promise actualized in the resurrection.
 by Jack Kilcrease){kind=link}
http://www.mbird.com/2013/05/big-foot-called-my-unicorn-an-antinomian-the-double-bind-of-the-law-jady-koch/#comment-131708
Mark – thanks for keeping us in the loop on this spririted theological discussion of the Law and Gospel among other things. The timing is good as our congregation is studying this topic and it’s interesting to see this topic discussed elsewhere in Christianity circles. Feel free to peruse some of the resources here http://flc-boston.org/law-and-gospel-study which include some Concordia Seminary lectures.