In a recent article, Carl Mosser argues that deification is present in the theology of John Calvin. While his thesis may have ecumenical promise, there is little evidence to support it. Rather than understanding salvation as a communication of properties from Christ's divine nature to his human nature so that through Christ's human nature we may come to share in the divine nature, Calvin's position is that believers share in what is Christ's according to his human nature. The righteousness of Christ with which we are clothed is the righteousness of his human obedience as Mediator. Far from emphasizing a communication of properties from Christ's divinity to his humanity, Calvin's concern is to guard the full integrity of both natures.

This article is an examination of the theological conception of the ‘kerygma’ and its relation to the Synoptics presentation of the preaching and deeds of Jesus, as posited by New Testament theologian Rudolf Bultmann. At issue is a query into whether, according to Bultmann, the historical words or sayings of Jesus of Nazareth occupy a place in the theological formulation of the kerygma by the early Church. As Bultmannian interpretation continues to figure in New Testament studies, the purpose of the paper is to weigh the full implications of Bultmann's theological category of ‘kerygma’ and the consequence of the person of Jesus to this category, and the question of theological warrant.

Recently, I attended a conference on the theme ‘theologies of the cross’. I gained much from it in various ways, but one feature concerned me: in reading the papers, and listening to discussions, it became rather clear that, whilst the various contributors might or might not agree, or even be sure about, what they did believe about the cross, they were all both united and certain on what they didn't believe in – the traditional Reformed and Evangelical idea of penal substitution. Now, I confess that I had no particular commitment to this idea. I knew of no exegetical or theological reason to demand that we hold on to it, or to suggest that our account of the atonement would necessarily be lacking something vital if we did not express it in this way. Penal substitution was a way of talking about the cross with which I was familiar, but to which I was not committed. Temperamentally, I had tended to avoid it: as far as I can judge, the dominant way of talking about the cross in my preaching has been in terms of combat with, and victory over, the evil powers of sin and death and hell; it is not a theme I have touched on much in my academic writing. Penal ideas are common, however, in the liturgy and (particularly) hymnody of my church tradition: ‘Bearing shame and scoffing rude/In my place condemned he stood’; ‘All our pride, all our greed, all our fallenness and shame, and the Lord has laid the punishment on him.’ I have never seen any reason to object to such songs. So, to be at a conference where there was near unanimity that, whatever else we were going to say about the cross, we would begin by dismissing this tradition, was of interest and concern to me.