Exegetical Thoughts and Biblical Theology

Chapter 3: Creation Chapter three begins with human creaturehood. Allen rejects Barth’s incarnational anthropology and concludes that we should “think the doctrine canonically,” and then christologically (77). Allen then takes up the implications of “imaging of God.” He critiques four standard views of the imago dei [1] as 1) limiting the divine image to “one facet of human existence” rather than seeing that “it is the totality of the human that images God” (81), and 2) wrongly regarding “similarity between humanity and God” as the primary implication of the term image (82). Rather, the imago dei underscores the Trinity’s “intrinsically self-communicating” nature and highlights a) man’s difference from and b) man's dependence upon God (82). The implications of his view of the imago dei for “thinking sanctification” are first, creation attests to “the participatory nature of creaturely holiness” (85), and second, “all creaturely holiness is communicated holiness in the same...