As part of his exegetical investigation of the New Testament texts, Lincoln considers the literary genre and distinctive characteristics of the birth narratives as ancient biography. Further, he delineates how changes in our views of history and biology decisively affect any traditional understanding of the significance of an actual virgin birth, and he explores what that means for the authority of Scripture and creed, along with implications for Christology and for preaching and teaching from the birth narratives.

According to the Christian faith, Jesus Christ is the ultimate revelation not only of the nature of God the Creator but also of how God the Creator relates to the created order. The New Testament explicitly relates the act of creation to the person of Jesus Christ - who is also a participant within creation, and who is said, by his acts of participation, to have secured creation's ultimate redemption from the problems which presently afflict it. Christian theology proposes that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word and Wisdom of God, the agent in whom the Spirit of God is supremely present among us, is the rationale and the telos of all things - time-space as we experience and explore it; nature and all its enigmas; matter itself. Christology is thus utterly fundamental to a theology of creation, as this is unfolded both in Scripture and in early Christian theology.

For all this, the contemporary conversation about science and faith tends, to a remarkable degree, to neglect the significance of Jesus Christ, focusing instead on a generic God of wonder or God of natural theology. Such general theism is problematic from the perspective of Christian theology on many levels and has at times led to a more or less deistic theology: the impression that God has created the world, then largely left it to itself. Such a theology is far removed from classical Christian renderings of creation, providence, redemption, and eschatology. According to these, the theology of creation is not just about remote beginnings, or the distant acts of a divine originator. Rather, the incarnate Jesus Christ is himself - remarkably - the means and the end for which creation itself exists. If we would think aright about our world, study it and live within it wisely, we must reckon centrally with his significance.

What might such a bold claim possibly mean, and why is Jesus Christ said by Christian theology to be so important for understanding God's overall relationship to the created order? What does this importance mean for science?

Christ and the Created Order addresses these questions by gathering insights from biblical scholars, theologians, historians, philosophers, and scientists. This interdisciplinary collection of essays reflects on the significance of Jesus Christ for understanding the created world, particularly as that world is observed by the natural sciences.

Contributors to Christ and the Created Order include Marilyn McCord Adams, Richard Bauckham, Deborah Haarsma, Paul Moser, Murray Rae, James K. A. Smith, Norman Wirzba, N. T. Wright, and more.

"Many good individual volumes have been written about the Christ of Scripture, His church, His cross, and His crown. Most of these, however, deal with the themes of this book in isolation from each other. In this book, I have set forth not only the major Biblical teaching on each of the themes but also the vital importance of seeing how the truths of Christ, His church, His cross, and His crown relate to each other. I have tried to show the connections between the four and how each is dependent upon the others. It is my desire that the readers will see how what one believes about any one of these marvelous biblical truths affects and reflects what one believes about each of the others. I have written with the firm conviction that it is impossible to consistently view the teaching of Scripture while viewing any one of these four in isolation from any one of the other three. This is because in Scripture they complement each other. They build on each other and need to be viewed as interrelated essential aspects of the sovereign purpose of God." -Dr. Lightner, from the foreword.

Dr. Robert P. Lightner's final work is a masterful study of the person and work of Christ, including the crucifixion, the church of which He is head, and the future Kingdom over which He will reign. The book shows the decades of study and consideration this esteemed professor, pastor, and thinker has given to these fundamental areas of theology.