Bullinger and Irenaeus II

I was able to meet up recently with Denis Minns, an Australia, who is an Irenaeus scholar and was at Oxford for many years.

Minns has a book titled Irenaeus: An Introduction (London: T & T Clark, 2010). Here is a quote from page 127 on a section on “Adoption”

“Gentile Christians may have displaced the Jewish people as heirs to the promises made to Abraham, they are still wanderers. Thus Irenaeus will not present the Church as the fulfillment of the Old Testament, but as the last, and relatively short, stage in the pilgrimage of faith. Christ is the goal of human history, but he will not have fully revealed himself as the image and likeness of God (AH IV.37.7). However, salvation history will reach its climax not in the Church, but in the Kingdom of the Son. It is there that the promises made to Abraham will finally be fulfilled, and in order to enjoy them one must be adopted to sonship not only of Abraham, but of God himself (AH V.32.2). This adoption to sonship of God is achieved by incorporation into Christ as the second Adam, for it is not as individuals that human beings are fashioned in the image and likeness of God, but precisely as members of the Church, members of that body of which Christ is the head.”

Interesting to see some similarities with Bullinger’s thought!?