I finally went to the optometrist last year for a new prescription. It had been quite a few years since I bought my last pair of glasses and they were in rough shape—all scratched and banged up. Putting that fresh new pair of glasses on (with the updated prescription) was a revelation. Signs on the far wall of Costco transformed from smudges of colour to readable information! I drove home staring out the window admiring the colour and intricacy of the white pines on my drive north.

Jesus and the Undoing of Adam has this same effect, only on a theological rather than a visual level. For years we have read the story of Jesus with forensic glasses on. These glasses place the eternal God in a legal bind which pits his justice against his love. For Kruger, this perspective blurs our vision of the astounding philanthropy of the Triune God. Kruger invites us to see the story of God and humanity through the eyes of the early church fathers.

Here is the gospel according to Kruger. First, there is the Triune God. From all eternity, from before anything was created, there was Father, Son, and Spirit in perfect communion. The very fact that God chose to share his life by creating others is a remarkable act of grace. We know what happened, though. Adam and Eve believed the lie of the serpent that God was holding out on them and this lie poisoned their relationship with God and with each other.

This fall was not unforeseen by God. Rather, it was part of God’s larger plan to share his eternal life with his creation. God wasn’t content to leave the situation as it was, with humans hiding in the bushes, insulating themselves from God’s presence. He pursued them and called a people, Israel, to do the impossible: to experience the presence of God in the midst of their own fallenness. Israel, in this sense, was the womb of the Incarnation.

In the fullness of time, God became incarnate. The eternal Son of God was born into our fallen human nature and lived the contradiction of sharing in the life of the Triune God while simultaneously experiencing humanity’s estrangement. Jesus death was the final moment when humanity’s estrangement from God was killed.

The death of Jesus Christ was not punishment from the hands of an angry God; it was the Son’s ultimate identification with fallen Adam, and the supreme expression of faithfulness to his own identity as the One who lives in fellowship with the Father in the Spirit. (35)

For evangelical theology, this is often the end of the story. The significant part has happened. “It is finished.” Not for Kruger. He emphasizes the importance of Jesus’ ascension. The ascension means that right now, a human stands in the presence of the Father with the Spirit in perfect communion. Our estrangement is over—we are adopted back into our rightful family.

Kruger’s words are much more eloquent than my summary. In fact, his doxological use of adjectives is what makes this book so compelling.

While it may aggravate your Reformed friends, I would urge you to pick up this slim offering from Kruger. If you replace your sixteenth century forensic glasses with new adopted lenses, you might be surprised by how scripture comes alive.

Kruger, Baxter C. Jesus and the Undoing of Adam. Perichoresis, 2003.