Recapitulation

Definition and Meaning

Recapitulation translates the Greek anakephalaiōsis and the Latin recapitulatio. The term means "to gather into one" or "to bring together again under a head." In Korean it is also rendered as "comprehensive restoration" or "reintegration."

According to this teaching, Jesus Christ became truly human through the incarnation and passed through every stage of human life. In doing so, he is understood to have reversed through obedience the history of humanity that the first man, Adam, had ruined through disobedience, and to have restored the lost image of God. A sentence widely quoted from Irenaeus sums up this idea: "He became what we are, that he might make us what he is."

Biblical and Historical Background

The direct basis for the term is Ephesians 1:10. The New Korean Revised Version renders the verse as saying that things in heaven and on earth are to be "united in Christ," while the King James Version reads: "That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him." The Greek verb behind "gather together in one" is this same word. To this was added the contrast between Adam and Christ found in Romans 5:18–19 and 1 Corinthians 15:22, 45.

Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon (c. 130 – c. 202), systematized the concept in his principal work, Against Heresies. The Gnosticism of his day regarded the material world and the body as evil and separated the Creator from the Redeemer. In response, Irenaeus argued that the same God both creates and saves, and that salvation means not abandoning the body and history but restoring them. He pointed to the following correspondences:

• The disobedience of Eve and the obedience of Mary
• The tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of the cross
• The temptation of Adam and Christ's victory in the temptation in the wilderness

In the twentieth century, the Swedish theologian Gustaf Aulén presented Irenaeus as the leading representative of the so-called "classic" theory of the atonement, the view that Christ triumphs over sin and death. This brought renewed attention to recapitulation. The concept is also frequently linked with the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of deification (theosis, humanity's participation in the life of God).

Reception in Korean Churches

Recapitulation is not a term in everyday use in Korean preaching or in denominational constitutions. It is treated mainly in patristics and dogmatics courses at seminaries and in theological literature. No denominational general assembly is known to have adopted an official resolution on the subject.

Denominations differ in how they receive the concept.

• Presbyterian (Reformed): The concept has affinities with covenant theology, which views Adam and Christ as representatives of humanity. However, Reformed theologians generally locate the heart of the atonement in penal substitution and often present recapitulation as a complementary patristic tradition.
• Methodist and Holiness: These traditions tend to read the concept positively, connecting it with the restoration of the image of God and with sanctification, both emphasized in Wesleyan theology.
• Anglican: The concept tends to be discussed as part of the tradition's broader emphasis on the Church Fathers.