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Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study

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I. H. Marshall's assessment of Professor Gordon Fee's new book is much to the point. "Gordon Fee has done it again! Having given us the standard work of Paul's understanding of the Holy Spirit, he has now filled a surprising gap in Pauline studies by writing a remarkably comprehensive and detailed account of Pauline Christology." To this Paul Achtemeier adds: "Thoroughly researched, comprehensive, and wide-ranging, this solid study is arranged in such a way that it is useful not only for its impact pointing as it does to the coherence of Paul's christological thought but also for its careful exegetical studies of individual passages" (both from the dust jacket).

As for methodology, while acknowledging that a narrative approach to Paul's christology possesses some benefits, Fee opts for the combination of exegetical Analysis of passages and a theological Synthesis of the materials, the same structure as his earlier work on the Spirit in Paul. The Analysis is discernibly more technical than that of God's Empowering Presence, and for that reason it is likely to be less appealing to non-specialists in the field. Consequently, some readers anyway may want to reserve this segment of the book as a commentary on the individual passages without necessarily poring over the details in a cover to cover reading. However, the Synthesis lightens up and makes for easier sledding. Indeed, this portion of the book is not only theologically rich but devotional in tone. In any event, as a specialist in Paul I value the attention to detail, along with the various chapter appendices serving as compendia of the relevant passages, especially the wisdom texts, which are not so readily available.

The investigation yields expected results from an evangelical scholar such as Fee, who is fully supportive of Paul's "high christology." In summary: (1) Christ is the preexistent and eternal Son of God (King of Israel). (2) As "equal with God," Jesus is Lord in the "fully loaded" sense of the term (= Yahweh). (3) He is the incarnate redeemer (savior). (4) He possesses divine prerogatives and attributes, such as God's glory and faithfulness. (5) He shares in divine activities and purposes, including creation, forgiveness and resurrection. (6) He is a member of the "proto-Trinity." (7) He has now been exalted on high at God's right hand and given the name above all names. (8) To him prayer may be addressed. (9) He is an object of worship, to whom Paul is completely devoted. (10) Ultimately, every knee will bow to him and every tongue confess that he is Lord. In contending for such theologoumena, Fee is not content to fall back on orthodox assumptions regarding Christ's person, but rather the materials are examined methodically and microscopically with the aid of the best of contemporary scholarship. And the aggregate of the evidence is overwhelming: Paul had a very high christology indeed!

The only really surprising aspect of Fee's book is his categorical denial of any wisdom christology in Paul. His motivation is laudable enough: as personified wisdom, Christ is not to be reduced to a creature. With this I thoroughly agree, but it is not necessary to dispense with every potential allusion to wisdom in order to maintain this conviction. As for the Jewish materials, I would concur that Paul does not derive his conception of Christ from Wisdom of Solomon or Sirach. Rather, any pre-Pauline precedents would be provided by the wisdom materials of the Old Testament. Nevertheless, the Second Temple texts do provide important context for Paul, a context which is not to be dismissed lightly.

All in all, the bottom line is that Professor Fee's book is the most thorough and compelling account of Paul's christology to date and is nothing short of a great achievement. It is sure to remain the standard in the field for some time to come, and I am certain I will return to it repeatedly in my own research.

Dr. Fee has done it again. His scholarship is breathtaking: he examines all of the current literature, has a wide knowledge of the history of discussion on this topic, and has a nuanced understanding of the texts he examines. I was impressed by his work on Colossians, an area of my own research. For lay persons who are interested in this type of work, Dr. Fee has included English translations of the Greek and Hebrew which will make it more accessible to the non-specialist

I was sceptical about his claim about there being no major work dealing with this topic; upon further research, I am convinced.

Dr. Fee does a masterful job in demonstrating how kurios=YHWH of the Septuagint becomes kurios=Lord Jesus Christ in the Pauline corpus. His discussion of the echoes of the LXX in Paul is masterful and comprehensive.

Anyone doing work in this area will have to work with and respond to Dr. Fee. This is one of the works that every pastor as well as scholar should have on their shelves.

Gordon Fee once again fills in a gap in Pauline studies with a massive tome of Pauline Christology. Readers who anticipate a work that parallels his work on the Spirit in Paul might be a bit disappointed. The vast amount of data on Christ in Paul's letters makes such a survey much more challenging and impossible to analyze every single passage in as much depth as one would hope. My greatest disappointment is the short length of discussion on Ephesians. But this is somewhat understandable since he had already discussed Colossians at length and the similarities between the two letter great (though perhaps he could have discussed more, being that God's Empowering Presence is about 250 pages longer. This work is just over 700 pages.

Nevertheless, the book is a goldmine of information and deserves to be on every pastor's and NT scholar's shelf. Virtually every passage one could imagine gets at least a paragraph or two. He groups similar themes in individual books into sections if they are short. And his appendices at the end of each chapter are extremely helpful for those who know NT Greek.

While the book will likely be read by people in a sort of piece-meal fashion, I advise reading the introduction before examining certain passages you might be interested in. It will help give a feel for the work as a whole because in the introduction, he explains his method of going through Paul's letters and understanding a scholar's methodology is extremely important is one desires to understand his work.

Buy it, read it, use it. You won't regret it.

Fee has written a long, meaty book on Paul and Christology. It seems strange to realize it now, but about 100 years ago scholars such as Bousset, and others in the "history of religions" school, thought that early Christianity was hugely influenced by hellenistic ideas. Even by 1980, Dunn argued that Paul was the "'halfway house' between an early low Christology and the full-blown high Christology of John and Hebrews" (p 13).

Fee's very thorough and very well researched book provides a solid refutation of such arguments. In fact, from the very beginning, as Fee shows, Paul held a 'high' view of Christology.

That evidence would be 1 Thessalonians. This is the first epistle, and is dated to about 50 AD--a mere twenty years after the death of Christ. Already, Paul "breathes the perspective of Jewish monotheism..."the living God" and "the true God" reflect the language of such monotheism in Israel's long struggle against idolatry" (p 39). Paul regards Jesus as both son of God and coequal with God.


It's difficult to imagine a way to refute these arguments, given the careful textual detail Fee provides. In fact, this would be a terrific book to give to anyone questioning whether early Christianity is somehow different from the ideas held by Christians today.

Fee also has some very interesting chapters on Jesus being regarded as the Jewish Messiah from the beginning and on the development of the idea of the Trinity, which Fee argues he finds good evidence for in Paul's writings.


I became interested in earliest Christianity after reading Larry Hurtado and Martin Hengel. Fee makes use of the writings of both authors. Anyone also interested in this period will want to pick up their books as well.

If you are looking for a detailed, deep review of Paul's Christology then this book is for you. It is not a light read but it is also not so technical and erudite that the average reader would find it too difficult. Dr. Fee has presented the material in an systematic and academic fashion. I suspect that this book will become the textbook for many college classes on the subject. This book and the new book by Bowman and Komoszewski "Putting Jesus In His Place" should end the critic's claims that Jesus wasn't thought of as divine until the 3rd or 4th centuries.

If one's eye drifts across the shelves of my study, and if all the loaned books have been returned, you would probably find more volumes by Gordon Fee than any other. I am happy to add his Pauline Cristology to my collection. I am currently designing a new course on the Apostle Paul and this work is invaluable to my study of Pauline Themes.

Dr. Fee expects that this book will be most useful as a reference text and he is likely correct. This is not some 160-200 page large print book with a lot of fill material that you can read in a few days.

It is a thorough discussion (chronologically) of every Christological verse Paul wrote. It shows how Paul made frequent use of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (the SEPTUAGINT aka LXX)when he referenced our Lord Jesus in his letters.

I am only an interested layperson but I could easily follow Dr. Fee's discussions.

One of the more interesting concepts (perhaps very familiar to Bible scholars) that Fee uses is that of "echoes." An example would be how 1 Thess 4:16 (the Lord descending)is an "echo" of Psalm 46:6 (the LORD; i.e. YHWH, ascending).

Very useful for reflection and devotional reading. Buy it, its is excellent

Already the author of commentaries on The First Epistle to the Corinthians (The New International Commentary on the New Testament), Paul's Letter to the Philippians (New International Commentary on the New Testament)(both Eerdmans), Galatians (Deo), 1-2 Timothy, Titus (Hendrickson), and a massive exposition of the Holy Spirit in the letters of Paul (God's Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul, Fee is eminently qualified to comment on the Christology evident in the same letters. Eminent scholar emeritus I. H. Marshall predicts that this will be the major study on the topic. the amount of material covered is astonishing.

Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study

I really enjoyed this book and i learned allot. A must have for christians

and get Dr. Fee's audio tapes from Regent College bookstore.
I studied with Dr. Fee at Gordon-Conwell while pastoring in Cambridge, Ma. Our church supported some of Dr. Fee's mission trips around the world. His books are all great, but his lectures, especially his exegetical NT book studies, are simply unparalleled, satisfying the intellect and the spirit and leading one to experience the Holy Spirit in the Word.