The first two theologians treated in this chapter – Robert Jenson and Eberhard Jüngel – were conditioned by both a deep-lying attraction to revisionary metaphysics and by eschatology in their reception of Barth’s theology. This helped to uncover aspects of Barth’s dogmatics that had previously gone unnoticed. Ultimately, however, the temptation for both Jenson and Jüngel was to treat the immanent Trinity as something that is “complete” only in the eschaton. For divine kenosis, this meant that it was not an ontological precondition to incarnation but something that takes place in Jesus’ way to the cross. The third theologian treated in this chapter is Piet Schoonenberg. He shares a starting point with Jenson and Jüngel in the narrated history of Jesus of Nazareth attested in the New Testament, yet the “principles” he employs in his constructive Christology could just as easily be taken in a direction in which the second person of the Trinity is not collapsed into a human being. This chapter’s historical analysis finally raises the questions: why resist a collapse of the eternal Son into Jesus of Nazareth? Why engage in any sort of return to the received Christological dogma, however modified we might make it to be?

This chapter illustrates the theological potency of the freshly explored Pauline gospel narrative. The chapter focuses on three contemporary theological conversations: on justification and theological anthropology, on race and social imagination, and on mission and neighborhoods. Engaging a representative voice from within each of these conversations (Eberhard Jüngel, Willie Jennings, and Scott Hagley respectively), the chapter explores how the work of the exegetes discussed in this book could come alongside and enrich these theological debates. The focus is particularly on how the proposed Pauline narrative substructure identified in the previous chapter might deepen and enhance the theological proposals that are being made. The conclusion is that in each instance the proposed narrative has the potential to enhance our theological imagination and offer new avenues for exploration.