The Individual Witnesses

Written by Ben Witherington III Reviewed By Guy Prentiss Waters

The Indelible Image is a two-volume work on the theology and ethics of the NT by a senior NT scholar at Asbury Theological Seminary. Ben Witherington III has the rare distinction of having published commentaries on every book of the NT. This massive two-volume work, then, is the fruit of these extensive exegetical labors. It joins the ranks of recent evangelical NT theologies by Marshall (2004), Thielman (2005), and Schreiner (2008). The Indelible Image, however, by no means duplicates those efforts. Witherington rightly recognizes both that “ethics and theology [are] intertwined throughout the New Testament” and that NT scholarship has tended to reflect upon one without giving equal attention to the other (pp. 14, 60–61). Witherington’s work attempts to redress this imbalance.

The first volume of The Indelible Image is devoted primarily to what Witherington terms an “expositional,” “exegetical,” and “descriptive” approach to the NT (pp. 16, 815). The second volume is more synthetic or thematic in character. This review will address the first volume, and a subsequent review will address the second. Volume 1 briefly overviews what Witherington understands “the grand story” of the NT to be: “God wants his moral and spiritual character (and behavior) replicated in his people” (p. 19). Specifically, believers are being conformed after “the image of God’s Son” (p. 816). Then follows a brief chapter in which Witherington takes up matters of prolegomena—questions of canon; divine revelation; hermeneutics; the relationship among biblical, systematic, and NT theology; and the quest of the historical Jesus (pp. 25–61).

The remainder of the volume consists of the distinct expositional treatments of the writings of the NT authors: Jesus himself (pp. 63–170); Paul (pp. 171–275); James, Jude, and 1 Peter (pp. 277–387); Hebrews (pp. 389–464); the Gospel and Letters of John (pp. 465–602); the Synoptic Gospels and Acts (pp. 603–723); and 2 Peter and Revelation (pp. 727–815). Appended to each treatment is a brief bibliography. The first volume concludes with a brief, thematic overview of what Witherington sees as the leading theological and ethical lines of the NT.

This volume has a number of commendable features. First, in light of Bultmann’s well-known relegation of the “message of Jesus” to the “presupposition of NT theology,” Witherington’s decision to begin his descriptive account of the NT’s theology and ethics with a lengthy exposition of Jesus’ teaching is a welcome one. Even so, one might have wished for more explicit methodological justification for devoting separate treatments to the theology and ethics of Jesus and to the theology and ethics of the Four Gospels. Second, Witherington gives attention to the portions of the NT that are often neglected in critical NT reflection—Acts, Hebrews, James, Jude, the Johannine Epistles, and the Petrine epistles, for example. His constructive engagements of these NT writings surely make for a NT theology that is truly a theology of the New Testament. Third, Witherington acknowledges the ways in which NT eschatology profoundly shapes, if not determines, NT theology and ethics. Fundamental for Paul, for instance, are five inter-related narratives, each of which is eschatological in character (pp. 182–203). Jesus and Paul are said to have “shared an eschatological worldview” (p. 203). Witherington describes Paul’s ethic as “Christological and eschatological” and bears that out by expositing Paul’s ethical statements (p. 243; see pp. 242–74). The same may also be said of Witherington’s understanding of the theology and ethics of Hebrews (p. 461), Jude (pp. 295–96), and Mark (pp. 639–40), to take but three further examples.

I wonder, however, whether conformity to the image of Christ is the most apt way to summarize the theology and ethics of the NT. Neither Witherington’s expositional chapters nor his summaries at the beginning and the end of this volume seem to me particularly to substantiate that claim. This observation is in no way to minimize the conceptual importance of the Imago Dei to the NT, and particularly to Paul. Nor is it to question the core assumption of Witherington’s project, namely, that the theology and ethics of the NT may be summarized in shorthand fashion. It is, however, to suggest that other categories are needed to accomplish this goal.

Witherington, furthermore, reserves severe criticisms for “imputed righteousness,” and concludes that this doctrine is not a Pauline teaching (pp. 223–27). In this work, Witherington more than once operates with distortions of Reformation teaching about justification as though sanctification were rendered optional or even unnecessary by the doctrine of an imputed righteousness (pp. 15, 227). This particular distortion is neither true to the Reformation nor, most importantly, to the Scripture. This point is important because in this respect Witherington’s work parts ways with the NT’s teaching about justification. But maintaining the doctrine of justification in its biblical integrity is critical to a right conception of both the theology and the ethics of the NT. This set of concerns, in other words, is not without consequence for Witherington’s project.

Taken as a whole, the first volume of The Indelible Image is sure to establish itself as a leading contemporary theology of the NT. Even when dissenting from some of Witherington’s conclusions, students, pastors, and scholars interested in reflecting constructively on the leading lines of NT theology and ethics will find much to appreciate in this work.


Guy Prentiss Waters

Guy Prentiss Waters
Reformed Theological Seminary
Jackson, Mississippi, USA

Other Articles in this Issue

Most of our readers are theological students and pastors...

Jürgen Moltmann observes that Christian theology and the Church face “a double crisis: the crisis of relevance and the crisis of identity...

In the prolegomena to his “approach to biblical theology,” Charles H...

Since the mid-twentieth century biblical scholars have increasingly accepted that the texts of the Bible must be interpreted in terms of their literary genres...

The present age tends to regard polemics, theological controversies, and all-round doctrinal fisticuffs as, at best, a necessary evil, at worst, one of the most revolting aspects of Christianity...