We were on our honeymoon. Theological questions were not high on our agenda as we toured Ireland. We drove innocently into Sneem, a village on the ring of Kerry, identified as the ‘tidy town of Ireland’ in 1988. It was certainly that. The houses that surrounded the central square were as immaculate as they were colorful.

Women who pray with Paul, ‘I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me’ (Gal 2:20), as surely as we men are ‘imagines Christi’, in the analogous way in which we usually understand this. ‘For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son’ (Rom 8:29; cf. 1 Cor 15:49). But how can we affirm this without denying the theological relevance of Jesus' sex and gender identity? Saying that sex and gender is purely contingent and accidental (in the technical, ‘scholastic’ sense) seems, while true, somehow inadequate.

Our concern in this paper will be with the traditional Christian claim that Jesus of Nazareth was ‘tempted in all respects as we are, yet without sin.’ (Heb.4:15) In its dogmatic, as opposed to its biblical, version, this claim can be identified in two distinct forms. First there is what we may denote the weaker form, in which it is claimed simply that in actual fact Jesus committed no sin: and second there is the stronger form according to which he was actually and in principle quite incapable of committing sin. Put differently, in terms of the distinctions of scholastic theology, we may either confess of the Incarnate posse non peccare or non posse peccare.

Baptism is a subject which finds considerable attention in the writings of John Calvin. It features more generally in chapter 14 of the 1559 Institute, on Sacraments, and specifically in chapters 15 and 16. It features in the Instruction in Faith and the later Genevan Catechism, and throughout his commentaries both with reference to passages where baptism is explicit, as well as where Calvin believed it to be implicit. Other references occur in sermons and his occasional writings. Yet in contrast with his eucharistic teaching, there have been far fewer studies on his theology of baptism. Amongst the contributions of English speaking scholars, the studies of R. S. Wallace, Calvin's Doctrine of the Word and Sacraments, 1953 and T. F. Torrance's discussion in the 1957 Church of Scotland report on baptism remain invaluable. Both Wallace and Torrance present a systematic survey of the Reformer's baptismal theology as it is found in the 1559 Institute, the commentaries and sermons, pinpointing his important emphases. In an article in 1962 E. Grislis gave a comprehensive summary of the teaching on baptism in the 1559 Institute, drawing attention to a tension between election and instrumentality. More recently still Jill Rait examined the teaching on infant baptism in the 1559 Institute, suggesting that it needs to be understood in the light of three inter-related principles, viz:

Brevard Childs, reflecting on the significance of Exodus 3 In the history of theology, comments:

In the history of Christian theology most of the major theological problems have entered into the discussion of Exodus 3. In the early and medieval periods the interest focused on the issue of ontology and divine reality; in recent years on revelation as history or history as revelation. The amazing fact is how seminal this one passage continues to be for each new generation.