Biblical Theology Core Seminar

Biblical Theology Core Seminar

Class 1: Defining the Topic

Annotated

Introduction

History is the perfection of doctrine in the earth. (Rushdoony) Systematic Theology organizes that doctrine rationally as if there were no history involved, just eternal Truths, (which of course is a dimension of Doctrine). But That is not how Truth is revealed to us in Scripture or in life. Systematic rationality is an interpretative function to which Scripture Like Science, can yield insight but is not the Scripture's nor the Physical world's primary form and offering.

Biblical Theology tells the story of Doctrine historically rather than logically. It introduces us to the developing nature of our World and God's work through His people (and directly) in it.

It shows us how God is perfecting our life and community and larger society as the Sound Doctrine of Scripture is applied to it and we enter today into that story which began long before our Day began and will continue long after our part is forgotten by men, but forever a part of the tapestry He is weaving together to bring history to its perfection.

Part of the reason God speaks in stories is to make the point that no part of the story is insignificant, nor can the end be accomplished without the many small parts that move the account forward and towards it. But above all, the story is going somewhere and you are an integral part of it. Your life has meaning.

Exegesis is the correct rendering of the text in its original context and meaning. It is as important for a rational non-historical account of Doctrine as it is for the Historical unfolding of that Doctrine. The story of Scripture us not to be confused with the many things that can be said about it, or imaginative contexts it can be given both by our experience guided reason and by our sheer creative back-story such as can be pieced together from archeological finds, or creatively supplied in the serialized Gospel account, The Chosen.

Which brings us to the final significance of Scripture itself. Final meaning first and last word defining any topic in any age. Scripture is that group of writings which have been recognized to be God's Word, from the time they came from the pen of the writers or the mouth of the story tellers and throughout history and forever after.

Those who recognized the Second Person of the Trinity, the Logos, speaking for YHWH - even though they might not be able to articulate in words or coherent thoughts What or Who they recognized - are the ones changed by this account as it unfolded over Millenia and it is they who constitute the Congregation of God. They are the Ones God agreed with to change the earth until it was filled with the glory of His knowledge as the waters cover the sea.

The words of life are the ones the people flock to hear when they grab hold of the sleeve of one of God's people and say, "Take us with you for God is with you." Zechariah 8:23 Institutions by recognizing the authority of the words of Scripture convey no authority to them. At best such a recognition, only recognizes the authority God has invested in His Word spoken by the Logos, the second person of the Trinity. There is no office granting authority to God.

By confessing Divine authorship they grant to themselves a greater credibility than they would ordinarily have. However, that recognition does not guarantee that their interpretation can be insulated from the Berean requirement of the least to the greatest among us to search the Scriptures to see if the Institution has got it right.

There is no institution or person who has office or authority to replace the Work of the Holy Spirit in the Temple of each life in whom He dwells. It is the Lord who causes each one of us to stand or fall based on His work. No! the interpretation of the least to the greatest is no more a final authority than that of the institution. This is because there is an eternal and qualitative distinction between what God says and what we say - the story God tells, and what we make of it. As soon as we grant binding authority to an institution or leader, we doom that branch of the Church to abandon Heaven's word of what we are to become and more and more refashion that word into the best the world has to offer as our only hope for the future."

That Canon of Literature, called Scripture, is in its own class judging all things. But you say, "It cannot judge anything, it must be interpreted and applied. It is always that interpretation and application that judges." It is this Truth against which the objector quibbles that is the heart of Canonical authority.

While we all must understand to the best of our ability what it says and how it applies, no matter what we conclude or do, our understanding and application is always open to comparison and correction from even the least among us as they bring their understanding of Scripture to bear on our thought and life. This work of the Holy Spirit from least to the greatest is disqualified as soon as we permanently add any interpretation or application to this canon.

It thereby loses in our company the ability to change the world into the image of heaven and instead we gradually impose our understanding of this world on heaven until we entirely lose sight of heaven and its words of life as they are steadily transformed through the finalization of our interpretations into the best which the world has to offer.

[Questions for the class in italics throughout] Let's start with a pop quiz. I'll save the right answers till the end. I'm sure this was said with an ironic smile. But with or without the irony, this is the beginning of the end of Scripture as a final authority. Scripture, not "my answer" is final.

Three questions:

1. Can someone tell me what all these things have in common? The Prosperity Gospel; Liberation Theology; Roman Catholicism.
2. What do these have in common? Christian counseling or preaching that focuses entirely on your responsibility; Christian counseling or preaching which tells you it's all your parents and society's fault; Christian counseling or preaching which emphasizes positive thinking?
3. And what about these? Characterizing the church's mission as "transforming culture"; Christian pacifism; and the church/state settlement which characterized the West from Constantine to the time of the Reformation, whereby the power of state and church ruled over one "Christian Europe."

The answer to all these three questions is, all these options are driven by bad biblical theology. Bad biblical theology is behind everything from prosperity gospel and Roman Catholicism to moralistic preaching and counseling to wrong ideas about how the church should engage culture. Honestly, Biblical theology is not an antidote to error. You can be as Screwed up in your understanding of the Story Scripture tells as you can be in anything else.

To put it positively: biblical theology (i) helps us rightly interpret the Bible, (ii) protects the church from false Christianity's, (iii) is the engine of gospel-centered exposition, (iv) is the handmaiden of biblical counseling, (v) is the foundation for proper Christian cultural engagement.

(iv) Takes hold of our lives and imagination as only a story can. And it can distort and destroy our lives and imagination as only a story can. Dispensationalism has a Biblical Theological dimension and has destroyed the life of the Church wherever it has been embraced. There is nothing about Biblical Theology, or Telling a Story that protects one from error.

Why should we study biblical theology? That's why. Those five reasons. Thank you for coming to the Biblical Theology Core Seminar.

1. 3 weeks of intro: "What is Biblical Theology"; What are the Tools; and What Role Does It Play in the Church
2. Then we will apply this in two ways:
3. for 6 weeks we'll take a look at 6 Storylines of the Bible
4. for 4 weeks we'll look specifically about Bible Texts and unpack them using the tools of Biblical Theology

Today, let's spend our time introducing the topic. First, let's define biblical theology. I. What Is Biblical Theology? Big Idea: Biblical theology is the discipline of learning how to read the Bible as one story by one divine author that culminates in the person and work of Christ, so that every part of Scripture is understood in relation to Christ.

It's a way to read the Bible. A hermeneutic. Turn to Luke 24. Jesus, after rising from the dead, met two believers on the road to Emmaus, Jesus offered a crash course Biblical Theology for them.

Verse 26: "26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." (Lk 24:26 - 27) Then look down at verse 44: "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem."

What book is he referring to in verse 44 that must be fulfilled? The Hebrew Bible, or what we call the Old Testament. He names the three parts as the Jews divided it: the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Writings (or the Psalms, for short). Then what does he do in verse 45? He opens their minds to understand them, apparently in a way they had not before.

And with opened, enlightened minds, what could they now understand that the Old Testament actually teaches? That the Christ should suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations.

What striking about the beginning of verse 46? It's those words "Thus it is written." This is what is written in the Old Testament: that the Christ should die and rise, and that will lead to the preaching of repentance and forgiveness. You can sum up what is written in the Old Testament with the 33 words that comprise the message following the word "written" in verse 46.

Let me use an illustration from the book Reverberation. Suppose you woke up one morning and looked at a newspaper and saw the headline, "Nationals Win World Series." And beneath that headline was, say, a 40 paragraph story of how they did it.

If I then called you in the next moment and said excitedly, "Hey, did you hear the news?" You could answer "Yes," whether or not you had read the 40 paragraph story because you had read the four word summary "Nationals Win World Series." The four words sum up the news or the story in those 40 paragraphs. In the same way, those 33 words in verse 46 provide us with a headline for the whole Old Testament.

In fact, they provide us with a headline for the Bible, because, just as the Old Testament points forward to this even, the New Testament Epistles point back to it.

I think this illustration of story and headline helps understand the relationship between Scriptures' use of words like "Word" and "gospel." If I refer to "God's Word," what am I referring to? Think of 1 Peter 1:23 which says, "you have been born again through the living and abiding word of God." Does that mean Peter's readers were born again from reading the whole Bible? All 39 books from the Old Testament and however many books of the New Testament that had been written at that point? No, the "word of God" is the word of the gospel, because the gospel summarizes the message of the whole thing. The words "The Christ should suffer and rise again for forgiveness" summarizes the Bible, like the headline "Nationals Win World Series."

Interestingly, 1 Corinthians 15 even uses "word" and "gospel" interchangeably: "Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you - unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures."

These verses provide us with Paul's version of Luke 24. Jesus says something very similar to the Pharisees in John 5:39: "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me." Okay, a moment ago I said that biblical theology is a way of reading the Bible. It is knowing how how to read the Bible so that every part is understood in relation to Christ. It's having our minds opened, like those two disciples on the road to Emmaus, so that we can see how it all points to Jesus.

Now, this doesn't mean we carelessly impose Jesus on every text. It means we pay close attention to each text on its own terms, but then how every text falls into one of countless subthemes, and tracing out that subthemes like following a tributary river, until pours into a larger river, and finally into the ocean, or the story of the whole Bible.

Listen to how Don Carson defines the subject of biblical theology: "Biblical Theology…seeks to uncover and articulate the unity of all the biblical texts taken together, resorting primarily to the categories of those texts themselves" (NDBT, 100). When you first open the Bible and read through it, you encounter a multitude of categories and themes and ideas: creation, law, rebellion, rule, judgment, sacrificial lamb, atonement, a special people, and so forth. Biblical theology seeks in Carson's words to "uncover and articulate the unity" of all these categories.

Or Michael Lawrence, in his book Biblical Theology in the Life of the Church (which you can find on our bookstall), simply says, biblical theology is the attempt to tell the whole story of the whole Bible as Christian Scripture. The key words here are "story" and "Christian." The whole thing is telling one story, and it's a Christian story, because it's all about Christ.

Here's one other analogy, one that might be helpful for any of you who grew up in the 1980s like I did. In the original Star Wars trilogy, what is the amazing piece of news that we discover right at the end of the second movie, Empire Strikes Back? We discover that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's Father. Wow, that changes everything. That crucial piece of information changes how you watch the first two movies, and it changes how you anticipate the third movie, as well as the significance of everything that unfolds in the third movie.

In Scripture, the identity and the work of Christ are the crucial piece of information around which everything else revolves. So what is biblical theology? It is the discipline of learning how to read the Bible as one story by one divine author that culminates in the person and work of Christ, so that every part of Scripture is understood in relation to Christ.

A quick example from Scripture itself. Suppose I am preaching about Samson from the book of Judges. You remember Samson. He tears apart a lion with his bare hands. He kills a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. He's every Sunday School boy's favorite red-blooded biblical hero.

Will teaching about Sampson killing a thousand Philistines with a jawbone really cause people to be "born again"? I mean, didn't Peter tells his readers that they had been "born again…through the living and abiding word of God." Certainly Judges is a part of God's Word. What do you think?

I think the answer to this last question is, it depends. If Samson had been preached properly, then, yes. But rightly preaching Judges takes more than extolling Samson's virile virtues as a call to be courageous or wild at heart. Your might talk about Samson as a type of Christ. You would say that he is a God-anointed judge, endued with remarkable power through the Holy Spirit, who his handed over to the enemies of God's people for the purpose of rescuing God's people (e.g. Judg. 15:14-15; 16:30).

You might ask what Samson's story teaches us about God - his patience with his people and his determination to judge sin? What does his story teach us about our need for a savior - for one who will not disappoint us like every judge or king who has ever lived, except one?

Samson's strength is striking. He fells a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. But how much more striking is the picture of Christ coming on the last day, with a sword coming out of his mouth with which to strike down the nations, treading the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty (Rev. 19:15)! Only this judge is perfectly just and good.

Samson's death is also striking. He defeats his enemies and rescues God's people through his death. Then again, Samson's folly and pride led to his death. Not so with Jesus, who deliberately went to his death in humility. Samson should indeed provoke our wonder, but wonder at Christ, not Samson.

In short, an expositional sermon on Judges 14 to 16 should be a gospel sermon, not a sermon that could be preached in a synagogue or a mosque. And the same is true of any sermon from the Bible. No matter where a text is located on the plot line, it should always be preached with the entire plotline in view. Again, each point of the plot gains significance only as it relates to the entire plot.

II. What Is the Bible (and what about the Bible makes biblical theology necessary)?

Now, there is a major presupposition or assumption I'm making in all of this: the way we read something is typically determined by the kind of literature it is. So if you pick up a newspaper, you read a news story in a certain way. And you read a news story differently than you read a novel, or a greeting card, or a direction manual for your latest piece of IKEA furniture. Each of these are different kinds of literature, and so there are different rules for how you go about reading them.

Biblical theology is crucial because of the kind of book the Bible is. What is the Bible - what kind of book is it - such that the discipline of biblical theology is crucial for how we go about reading it? Of course, not everyone reads the Bible this way. Most significantly, people who don't think the Bible is God's inspired Word don't read the Bible this way. An older generation of liberal scholars, for instance, might have used the phrase "biblical theology," but they were fascinated with just the diversity of authors from a diversity of cultures and the diversity of themes of themes that run through the 66 books of Scripture. They weren't so much interested in uncovering and articulating the unity amidst all that diversity, to use Carson's phrase.

But we do biblical theology like this because of several things we assume about how God and how he reveals himself in Scripture (adapted from Vos, Biblical Theology, pp. 5-9). A.

God's Word Was Written by Humans Think of 2 Peter 1: 19-21: "you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." Notice that the verse refers to prophets as men who spoke, and when men speak, they use human language that both creates and reflects the culture they live in.

What's more, the authors of Scripture didn't all speak the same language, live in the same place, under the same government. The Bible is an intensely human book, and to understand it, we have to understand the diversity of languages and cultures and contexts of the authors.

B. God's Word Was Written by God

There's not just diversity in Scripture, there is also unity because the Bible is a divine book. As 2 Peter 1:19-21 points out, behind the various human authors and prophets stood God. Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:16, "all Scripture is God-breathed." This is the doctrine of inspiration, a doctrine that doesn't mean God blanked out the minds and personalities of the human authors and used them like a keyboard. Rather it's the Scriptures own description of itself, as the product of the Holy Spirit working sovereignly through the human author.

The Bible is God's self-revelation. What Scripture says God says. [Hacksaw Ridge illustration] Despite the plethora of human authors, behind the text of Scripture stands a single divine author, a single mind and will. This means that we should expect to find unity and coherence to the overarching story. The human authors may not have been able to see it at the time of their writing, but the Divine author could and did see the whole story, and wrote it so that it all fits together.

C. God's Revealed Himself Progressively

Islam understands that the Koran was revealed to Mohammed all at once, miraculously lowered down from heaven. The sacred texts of Buddhism and Confucianism are confined to the lifetime of a single man. But God progressively revealed more and more of himself and his story over time. Scripture was written over two millennia, and its contents are not like pearls on a string, discreet and unrelated. Rather, each act of revelation followed on from what came before and prepared for what would come next.

D. God Revealed Himself in History

The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ are objective events in history that not only reveal information about God and redemption, they did something in history. Specifically, they accomplished redemption. The Bible therefore is not merely a story told by humans about God's salvation of them, it is a drama enacted and then explained by God about God. It is "Show-and-Tell" in History. Thus in Biblical Theology we speak of redemptive history. This isn't as opposed to real history, but rather a history that is selective and focused on the unique events that make up the narrative of God's redemption of his people.

E. God's Revelation Has an Organic Character

It doesn't simply proceed like a construction site, which moves progressively from blueprint to finished building. Attach this piece to that piece. Rather it unfolds and develops from seed-form to full-grown tree. Something starts small, but then it grows, like the idea of sacrifice:

1. First, it's just a burnt sacrifice whose aroma pleases the Lord with Noah.
2. Then it's a substitutionary sacrifice with Abraham.
3. Then it's substitutionary sacrifices that causes an angel of death to Passover with Moses.
4. Then it's a substitutionary sacrifices that brings atonement in the Levitical Law.

Do you see what I mean by organic? Ideas grow like a seeds, so that their meaning expands until the originally simple truth reveals itself as complex and rich, multilayered and profoundly beautiful.

F. God Reveals Himself in Narrative

The Bible as a whole is best understood as a narrative, or single story: a story about a King, a Kingdom, and the King's relationship with his subjects. It's a story that encompasses us today. It doesn't mean to merely inspire us; it encompasses us. We're in it, so that not only do we interpret it, it interprets us, telling us who we are, and what real reality really is.

G. God Reveals Himself in News

So the Bible presents a story, yes, but that story presents us with news! It's like the newspaper story illustration that I used above. But unlike the newspaper story of who wins the World Series, this news has dramatic implications for our lives. It's practical. Don't think that biblical theology is just for history and literature buffs. If it encompasses our lives, as I just said, it must have a word for how to live.

H. God Reveals Himself in Christ

There is a climax of the story of God's redemptive acts is the person and work of Jesus. This is the point and center of gravity of the story, as we considered above.

III. How do Biblical Theology & Systematic Theology relate to one another?

Now, when I say the phrase "biblical theology," I expect that most people don't think of biblical theology as the discipline of reading the Bible as one story which centers on Christ. Instead, they think simply of theology that's biblical - theology that has its source in the Bible. And this is what we typically refer to as systematic: theology that systematizes the truths of the Bible.

Just so that you have a sharper understanding of what biblical theology is, let me related it briefly to systematic theology.

A. What Is Systematic Theology

So what is systematic theology?

1. An Orderly and Comprehensive Summary of the Bible's Teaching by Topic

First, it is the attempt to summarize or systematize what the whole Bible has to say about any given topic in an orderly and comprehensive manner. Systematic theology isn't concerned with the story-line, so much as it's concerned with the bottom line. What does the Bible say about God, salvation, heaven and hell, sexuality, politics?

1. The Line Between Truth and Error, Orthodoxy and Heresy

Systematic theology seeks to formulate those summaries into precise and accurate doctrines which define the boundary between truth and error, between orthodoxy (right belief which builds the body) and heresy (Ideas which divide from the Body). Systematic theology seeks to make normative statements.

1. Scripture Applied

Finally, systematic theology not only summarizes, organizes and defines. Systematic theology also seeks to apply these truths to our lives today. John Frame even defines theology as the application of Scripture to our lives.

B. How Do Biblical and Systematic Theology Relate to Each Other

?

How then do systematic and biblical theology relate to each other? Biblical theology is a mediating discipline, says Don Carson, while systematic is a culminating discipline (NDBT, p. 102-3). Biblical theology culminates, leads to, systematic theology. [Weak] Or let's look at the chart in your handout to walk you through this:

Biblical Theology Systematic Theology Scripture as Authority Scripture as Authority Organizing principle: Historical, tracing the development of revelation Organizing principle: Topical, logical, hierarchical Starting point: Bible on its own terms Starting point: contemporary questions Provides: Storyline (news story) Provides: Doctrine, Worldview, Application (the headline) Connection: Bridge To ST Gives Context to ST Connection: Summarizes and Rearticulates BT

They are both helping us understand our Bibles.

1. But the organizing principle of biblical theology is historical. It traces out the development of revelation. The organizing principle of systematic theology is topical, logical and hierarchical: "How do we understand the relationship between God's three persons and one nature? What the connection between our doctrine of sin and our doctrine of salvation?"
2. Biblical theology seeks to describe the Bible's teaching in its own terms. Systematic theology tries to summarize and rearticulate the Bible's teaching in self-conscious engagement with our culture.
3. Biblical theology immerses us in the story-line of the Bible; Systematic Theology synthesizes the Bible's worldview into doctrine and ethics.
4. One's a bridge; the other summarizes and systematizes.

There is a sense in which biblical theology provides the new story - like the 40 paragraphs of our newspaper article. And systematic theology offers us the headline - like the 4 word "Nationals Win World Series."

C. Test Case: The Gospel

Consider how each of these disciplines help us answer the question: What's the gospel?

Biblical Theology: Creation->Fall->Redemption->Consummation. The coming of the Kingdom of God. It's the big overarching plan of God's for the World. But how is that good news to me? Do I have any reasons to believe that I need to be redeemed? That I will be redeemed?

Systematic Theology: God->Man->Christ->Response. Here's how the grand narrative of history envelopes me and become becomes good news for me. In view of the coming of the Kingdom of God through Christ's life, death, and resurrection (biblical theology gospel), I am either condemned or saved depending on how I respond to that good news (systematic theology gospel). For there is a message that brings me into the kingdom.

You see that both of these are related and important - to see the Big Picture of What God is Doing; but also to see the Personal Application of it for Our Lives. IV. Why Is Biblical Theology Important? Last question: why is biblical theology important. We'll think about this a lot more next week. But the short answer right now is, it helps us read the Bible rightly, so that we can engage with the world rightly. A few examples which refer back to my opening questions:

1. Suppose we turn to the Old Testament promises of a fruitful womb and fields, wealth and prosperity, for obedience to the law. Should we read those promises as applicable to us? Well, it depends on how you put the storyline together.
2. Should we treat the priest as a mediator who mediates for our sins through a re-presentation of Christ's sacrifice in the mass? Well, it depends in part on how you put the storyline together, and whether we need another mediator.
3. Should we expect history to get progressively better, such that our works of art and architecture, justice-seeking and neighbor-loving, will actually help to usher in the eschaton, the Last Days? Well, it depends on how you put the story together.
4. Finally, how should we preach and counsel? Moralistically? Therapeutically? Triumphantly? Or centered on the person and work of Jesus Christ? Again, it depends on how you put the story of the Bible together.

Biblical theology, in short, is critical for knowing how to read our Bibles, which, in turn, is critical for knowing what to believe and how to live. Let's pray.

Class 2: Biblical Theology as Guide for the Church

Mar 09, 2016 Annotated Series: Biblical Theology Category: Core Seminars, Bible Prophecy, Bible Interpretation, Biblical Theology Detail: Excerpt from Sean DeMars "A 'Gospel' that Almost Killed Me" START: I'm in a bathtub. I can't get up. I feel like I'm about to die. Mercury poisoning.

The water in the tub has grown cold…I'm floating in and out of consciousness. Whenever I can concentrate I begin to pray. "Jesus, please, save me. Please, heal me. I repent, I put my whole heart into prayer right now, and I cast out any doubt or fear. I know you can heal me. Please heal me!"

My mom's keys are rattling in the doorknob now, and I hear the door thud shut in the distance. I hear her purse sliding across the counter and her keys landing next to it. I barely recognize her figure as she tries with all of her wiry might to pull me out of the tub. I spend the next two days in the hospital. My mom wants to know why I didn't let her know, why I didn't want to go to the hospital, why I didn't do something.

"Mom, Jesus is my doctor. I'm blessed, and I know that he would have healed me." This is me trying to live out what I think is true Christianity. I had just gotten saved two months prior. I'm fresh out of jail and I'm walking around the projects where I used to stomp like a tiny teenage giant. I've got a bare back, a few tattoos, and a Bible in my hand. I'm just praying for the opportunity to share the Christ with someone.

I meet a man named Roger who invites me into his home. He buys me lunch and we spend all day talking about the Bible. This guy knows way more than me. I've never heard anyone spout off so many Scriptures in such rapid-fire succession. "This guy is legit…" I say under my breath.

Over the course of the next six months, this man indoctrinates me with the prosperity gospel. Just a few months earlier, I'd never even opened a Bible. I have no idea that I'm being given arsenic in my kool aid. I take it all. I believe it all. I know it's true. It has to be. It's all right here in Scripture. Look, she touched the hem of his garment and was healed. Look, Jesus couldn't heal them because they didn't have enough faith. Look, all throughout the Old Testament you see curses for sins, and blessings for righteousness. Prosperity for the good, pain for the bad. It's so plain. So obvious.

But stuff isn't making sense. I'm still without a job. I can't pay my rent. My mom isn't getting saved, and I keep getting cold sores. None of these things should be happening. There must be sin hidden somewhere in my heart. Now I have the flu, and I don't have any money to buy groceries. I just need to claim it. I just need to rebuke Satan and his lies, and believe that what I have proclaimed in the name of Jesus will surely come to pass. Maybe I'm not tithing enough.

Time to double up. I'll get it back one hundred-fold. Maybe more. I just need to sow in faith. END That's the introduction to Sean DeMars article on the 9Marks website entitled, "A 'Gospel' that Almost Killed Me," and the word "Gospel" is in scare quotes. What he provides is a very graphic picture of how dangerous wrongly using our Bibles can be. This friend of his named Roger, I trust, meant well. And he probably did know a lot of "Bible." But apparently, Roger didn't know how to read his Bible rightly.

And so he led Sean astray…by teaching him Bible.

Last week, I introduced that idea of biblical theology. And I said that biblical theology is the discipline of learning how to read the Bible as one story by one divine author that centers on the person and work of Christ, so that every part of Scripture is understood in relation to Christ. It's a way to read the Bible. It is a hermeneutic, to use a fancy seminary world.

So if last week answered what is biblical theology, this week we'll think about why biblical theology. And the short answer is: Biblical Theology Guards and Guides Churches, as you see in the title of today's lesson at the top of your hand out. The discipline of biblical theology is essential to guarding and guiding your church. It guards churches against false stories and wrong paths. It guides the church toward better preaching, better practices, better paths.

Biblical Theology as Church Guard

If you were here last week, you recall that I began with a pop quiz. Let's do that again. Pop quiz time. I'm going to read you a few verses. And I want you to tell me how people might apply them to their lives wrongly:

1. Listen to these two verses from Proverbs:

"And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today…all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you…Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. 5 Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl." (Deut. 28:1-5) One person gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. (Prov. 11:24-25) How might they be misinterpreted?

Prosperity gospel churches use verses like these to say you should give generously to the teacher. If you give to me, so that I can buy the nicer car or even the jet, you will be blessed. God will reward you. And if you're obedient, you will be blessed. Your crops will grow. Your cow will give milk. Your children will prosper. Your marriage will thrive.

1. Okay what about these few verses:

"Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying, 'Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain!' And God granted what he asked" (1 Chron. 4:10). Jesus: "Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven" (Matt. 18:19).

Jesus: "And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith" (Matt. 21:22). How might people wrongly interpret these verses? Again, these are some of the favorite verses of prosperity preachers. They lead to a "name it and claim it" philosophy, which views God in heaven like a vending machine in the sky. And he'll bless you with worldly healthy and wealth if you just ask with enough faith. As you may know, that verse from 1 Chronicles 4:10 was the basis for Bruce Wilkenson's book published in 2000 called The Prayer of Jabez, which sold 9 million copies.

And if we were being honest, how many of us in this room have read Jesus' words and asked ourselves, "Okay, if I just flex my faith muscles hard enough while I pray…God I do believe you will get me into Georgetown…I do believe you will get me into Georgetown…" But is this what these verses are about? What would biblical theology say?

1. Okay, here's another example:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation" (Col. 1:15). How might it be put to wrong use? Jehovah's Witnesses will use it to say that Jesus is not God and that he did not exist in eternity past. Instead, he is the first and greatest of God's creations who then created everything else, as the verses 16 and following go on to say.

We could keep going with example after example of false Christianity's or at least misguided Christianities. We could talk about theological liberalism. It recasts the narrative of salvation as God's work to overcome economic injustice or the self-centered political conscience.

Or we could talk about Roman Catholicism. As in the Old Testament, they refer not to pastors or elders, but priests. Why is that?

Could it have something to do with the fact that only the priests in the Catholic Churches are licensed to offer the sacrifice of Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist, just like only the Old Testament priests alone could offer sacrifices. [How is this any different from Protestant licensing and authorizing Ministers?] And that's what they say the Lord's Supper is, the actual body and blood of the Lord, as if he really is being sacrificed all over again.

Is that right? [Jesus called it Body and Blood 8 times. "as if He really is being sacrificed all over again." That merely explains why they think the elements turn into something that tangibly they do not seem to be. They like Protestants think that the presiding priest has some sort of special power to turn bread into whatever it is they symbolize or now are.

They dispute the material of the elements but entirely lose sight of the fact that they are both theologies of sovereign priesthood.] The problem here, in other words, isn't just about specific verses, and understanding specific verses. It's about a way of reading the Bible, and putting the Old and New Testaments together, or what we call questions of continuity and discontinuity. They bring a lot of the Old Testament into the New.

Other groups don't bring the redemptive past into the present, they bring the redemptive future into the now. Once upon a time it was the perfectionist Anabaptists who thought they could bring heaven to earth right now. The progressive liberals tried this a century ago, through the social gospel. Now it is evangelicals who talk about transforming culture that offer subtle re-narrations.

Civic religion, [Needs definition] both in this country or abroad, is often the result of bad biblical theology. The point is, imbalanced or false gospels and imbalanced or false churches are built either on "proof texts" that pay no attention to the whole storyline of Scripture, or on whole stories gone awry.

Either they 1- wrongly connect the Bible's major covenants; or 2- they have too much continuity or 3- too much discontinuity between the Old Testament or New. 4- Maybe they promise heaven on earth now; 5- maybe they disembody the spiritual life now. 6- Maybe they just take Bible verses and twist them to give people what they want. [Those are Presuppositional Questions not answered by Biblical or Systematic Theology as such.] The stories that some of these movements or churches or teachers tell may not be all wrong, but they remind me of how my daughter will retell the story her "supposed naptime".

She will speak truth, but she will also omit details, redistribute emphases, make tenuous interpretive connections so that she constructs the narrative.

In each case, bad or imbalanced biblical theologies proclaim a bad or imbalanced gospel, and such gospels build bad or imbalanced churches. So super briefly, Deuteronomy 28: "If you faithfully obey…all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you." How do we read that?

We read it knowing that it was a promise given explicitly to the people of Israel but not to us. [That is a Biblical Theological Conclusion based on Bad Biblical Theology. The prosperity promised in the Law is the original prosperity inherent in Creation itself as we take proper dominion over it. In the righteousness of God's law are the elements of the New heaven and New Earth as they are recreated in us in righteousness holiness and truth.

When people internalize not harming the innocent not breaking faith not stealing and not lying they create a society that frees each person to contribute to meeting the needs of others in a way that frees their creativity to do so. This is a Trinitarian Ethic where the morality infusing each decision and solution to needs we come up with enables them to be shared bought and sold in a way that spreads resources and maximizes each finding how they can best meet needs for each other.

This is sterilized in Supply and Demand curves. It is the foundation for explosive growth in wellbeing from each according to His ability to each according to their needs each getting from the other what maximizes their well being.] Yes, he was establishing an unbreakable link between righteousness and blessing. You must be righteous to be blessed. But at this point of redemptive history, God was teaching the people about their inability to be righteous by their own strength.

Continue reading the story and you'll find out that God would have to give his people his own righteousness in order for them to be blessed. [And so the fundamentalist cannot escape the orbit of his own dependence on law as a set of rules which merely shows what we can't do, as opposed to a vision of what God will do.] Or what about Jesus' promises in Matthew about for anything in his name, especially if we ask with faith, then he'll answer?

Well, read Matthew 18 in context, and you see it's about who speaks for Jesus - the gathered church - just like the people of Israel once spoke for God. What's more, Jesus' interest in the prayer of faith isn't about the quality of your faith, it's about whether or not you're relying on him as the object of faith. Vox populi vox Dei?

Its also about how God rules in a discipled people who need no executive replacement for God Deuteronomy 17:18-20 & I Samuel 8 And what does it mean that Jesus is the firstborn of creation? Does it mean he's not God but was the first creation of God? No, it means Jesus came as a new Adam to redeem the fallen human race.

In that phrase we find the story of the Adam's failure, Abraham's failure, Israel's failure, David's failure, and finally our failure, and then the hope that God himself has come to recreate humanity in his own image. So how hope giving, then, to hear a few verses later: "in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell" (Col. 1:19). Oh, he is fully God. And in Christ God himself is showing us what it means to be fully human.

Biblical theology is the guard of the church. "A robust biblical theology tends to safeguard Christians against the most egregious reductionisms," says D. A. Carson.

Biblical Theology as Church Guide

But biblical theology is not just a guard, it's a guide - a guide to good preaching, good counseling, good outreach and engagement, good corporate worship, even good church structures. I want to think through each of these areas A Guide to Good Preaching and Teaching Why do you think biblical theology provides a guide to good preaching?

When you sit down to study a text and prepare a sermon, biblical theology keeps you from proof texting or telling an imbalanced story of redemption. One friend of mine compared it to having "court sense" in basketball. You don't just focus on dribbling the ball to the hoop. You are aware of the location of their teammates and defenders on the court as well as the flow of play.

It places each text in the right canonical context and helps you to see what your text has to do with the person and work of Christ. It wards off moralism so that one preaches Christian sermons. It rightly relates faith and works. It ensures that every sermon is part of the big story.

How could a study of the life of Abraham make the gospel clear? Do we simply slap an evangelistic trailer onto the end of the sermon? "For our non-Christian friends here today, I'd like to end this message about Abraham's circumcision by telling you about how you can receive the free gift of eternal life. Come to Jesus!" "But he was just talking about circumcision?!"

Or suppose you are teaching a lesson on David and Goliath. Nobody in Israel's army wants to fight the giant Goliath who taunts them day after day. Then this young, naïve shepherd boy David shows up to bring his brothers food, refuses the king's armor, picks out 5 stones, nails him in the forehead with one stone, and cuts off his head. What are some of the lessons people often take from this?

Well, you have 5 stones, you see, and those stand for faith, hope, love…I got two more, uh, truth and emergency preparedness. Typically, people will talk about David: David's faith, David's courage. And, friends, you need David's faith in God to fight the Goliaths in your lives. Is that the right way to teach the passage. Well, it's a part of it. But this is not a Christian sermon. A Jewish rabbi could teach that sermon.

Next week, we're going to talk about typology as one of the tools you need for biblical theology. And the New Testament teaches us to read David as a type of Christ. Jesus and the apostles tell us in a number of places, like Mark 12 or Acts 2, that we're to watch David in order to get a somewhat dim preview of Jesus. Who is David in the Goliath story? He is the Spirit-empowered and unlikely king who has come to rescue God's people from God's enemy.

So, friend, I'm less interested in the Goliaths in your life, and more interested in whether there is a David in your life. Who is the king who will rescue you from God's greatest enemy - sin? [In our case our El Guapo is the real El Guapo a blood thirsty bandit who is trying to Kill us.] In short, if you are in the Sunday gathering, a Sunday School, or a mid-week small group, you need biblical theology to do the most important thing in a church: preach and teach God's Word.

A Guide to Good Counseling Hopefully you can see how biblical theology is a going to be a good guide to all word ministry. But let's think about one more form of word ministry: counseling. A younger Christian asks us what he should do with his life. A married friend needs encouragement because of difficulties in her marriage. A church member confesses that he struggles with an addictive behavior. Your teenage daughter is concerned about being accepted at school. All of us engage in counseling. How do you think biblical theology guides us here?

And how you respond basically depends on what you think human beings are, what their problem is, and how the Bible speaks to it. In a lot of those situations, we diagnose his problem as either wrong thinking or wrong behavior. For the cure, we turn to the Bible as an answer book to show them how to think right or act right. The result is a proof-texting approach, a sort of Christianized version of behavioral or cognitive therapy. The basic counsel is, "You simply need to learn, by the power of the Spirit, to think or act differently."

The trouble, of course, is that story of Adam and Israel should teach us that you can give people all the right thinking: Adam had God in the Garden with him telling him precisely how to think. And Israel had the prophets. And you can get people to engage in the right behavior, for a while, at least: Israel had the elaborate structure of the law. Yet how well did all that succeed?

A biblical anthropology, however, doesn't finally define us by our behavior or our thoughts. Rather, we are defined by who we worship. We are fundamentally worshipers. This is graphically and perversely illustrated with Israel's worshipping the gods of the nations.

According to Paul, real change involves moving from idolatry to the worship of the true God. How does that happen? Through the gospel, through receiving and resting on what Christ accomplished on the cross. Through repenting from sin and putting faith in the grace of God held out in Jesus Christ. The Christian caught in sinful actions, destructive beliefs, or addictive behaviors is someone who is worshiping idols, as every fallen human does, and needs the gospel.

Your friend who needs guidance: Are they stuck inside indecision because they have a wrong conception of where history is heading and where they will find ultimate joy? Your friend in a difficult marriage: is she resting hopes on her marriage that the marriage just wasn't meant to bear?

Your friend struggling with addiction: why does he think he was created? Biblical counseling refuses to hold out false and temporary goals, like an easier or more pleasant life now, or tricks and tips for a better marriage. Rather it holds out the goal of sanctification and glorification, our transformation into the very image of Christ. Its method is therefore the gospel because Christ is the goal.

A Guide to Good Outreach and Engagement Let's turn to a church's outreach and engagement with the world outside. Biblical theology rightly balances our expectations between expecting too much (over-realized eschatology, perfectionism) or demanding too little (cheap grace, easy-believism, belonging-before-believing, not preaching Scripture's commands).

Good biblical theology will not promise our best life now (whether that means health and wealth, transforming the city, winning the favor of the elite, or retaking America). But nor does it shy away from engaging culture and seeking the good of our neighbors in deed ministry for the sake of love and justice. [Really what does "engaging culture" mean? What do we hope a political candidate can do?

How would we know if a person with Jesus' ideal for leadership could even run an executive organization?] A couple of examples: A) Missions Lately there's been a lot of buzz about the need for the church to be missional. Being missional is not the same as being committed to missions, or being missions-minded. A so-called missional church says that the church doesn't go on mission, or send people out to do missions.

Rather, the church is the mission of God into the world, in order to heal the world and reconcile people to God. Just like Jesus healed and fed people. So the mission of the church is to incarnate ourselves into culture and do good to others. Bless them.

So just grab Jeremiah 29 and talk about how the Jewish exiles were to care for the city of Babylon. Or grab the verses in Matthew 5 about being salt and light. Or any passage on the incarnation. Or any passage about Jesus feeding and healing people. Maybe our mission as a church should be less about putting money into overseas missions and more into building houses for the poor? [How about moving to where the poor people live and buying into their neighborhoods and Trailer parks?

Or what about targeting a neighborhood and buying three strategic houses in it starting a Bible Study in one and as it grows splitting to two three and then 4 anmd more groups planning from the outset to be building elders and leaders from the get go. Never growing larger than everyone in the group knowing each other.] What do you think? Does that sound right?

I think there's no question that we should go and be salt and light in the world (Matt. 5:13-16). I also think there's no question that God is a missionary God. He moves into the neighborhood and finds us. But notice that the whole Bible's emphasis on the coming of Jesus to do what Adam and Israel couldn't do! Notice how the Gospels themselves emphasize first and foremost who Jesus is, and how the Epistles call us to be united to Jesus by faith. The whole Bible emphasizes the utter uniqueness of Christ.

That's what the miracles point toward. [Satan bound to being a dirt eating belly crawling loser. Noah prophesying that Japheth would enter the gates of Shem. Ezekiel and Jeremiah characterizing that day as getting a new heart to replace the desperately wicked stony one. And "In that day no one shall need to be told to know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest."

The most important thing the church can do for the world is not anything the church can do for the world. The church cannot die for the sins of the world, or heal the nations, or usher in the kingdom of God. The most important thing the church can do is point to the One who did and is doing all this. The church must give witness to the Son. It must proclaim his message. It must make disciples of him.

The very fact that all of Scripture centers on the person and work of Christ helps us to see precisely what our mission is: point to Christ, just like the Bible does. And, yes, we point to him with our deeds. But our deeds are mute, which means we must point to him most centrally with our words. This is why Jesus said he primarily came to preach, not cast out demons or heal. [HMMMM good point of discussion.

What is the relationship between the Kingship of Jesus Christ and how we want to change the culture around us.

In other words, we need more than proof texts. We need to understand the whole Bible. B) The Relationship Between Church and State Biblical theology helps us understand the relationship between church and state. There is no more vexing question in church history than the question of the relationship between the church and the state.

From medieval Christendom and the union of church and state over a single "Christian" empire, to today's culture wars with a politicized electorate divided in part along religious lines, to fears about Islam and its refusal to organize the state along secular lines, to fears that fundamentalist Christians might make a similar refusal should they ever come to power in America - the question of the relationship between political and spiritual authority continues to cause conflict and fear.

What do we do about the example of Israel? Don't we see there a union of spiritual and civil authority? And what about Christianity's all-encompassing moral worldview, which declares not only the universal Lordship of Christ, but the sacredness of human life and the moral character of the universe in which we live?

Well, we need to pay attention to the entire storyline. A Guide to Good Corporate Worship Biblical theology helps us to know what to do when we gather as a church in our corporate worship. Is David's naked ark-of-the-covenant dance normative for church gatherings? How about the incense used by Old Testament priests, or the use of instruments and choirs, or "making sacrifices" for various holidays, or the reading and explaining of the biblical text? A right biblical theology helps to answer what to bring into the new covenant era and what to leave in the old.

Much depends on one's approach to continuity and discontinuity, and one's understanding of Christ's work of fulfillment. It also depends on one's understanding of what Christ's gathered church has been authorized to do. A Guide to Good Church Structures By the same token, the storyline of Scripture requires us to pay attention to our church structures. Should we baptize babies?

Well, it depends on how much continuity you see between the Old Testament and the New. [no the basic continuity is there a covenant sign is given to covenant people no one denies that. The question is far more related to who gets the covenant sign? It goes to people of faith. Does Jesus declare the child to have faith? The Baby's praise is perfect. The child's faith receiving Jesus is the element needed by the adult regardless of the adult's reasoning and analytical capacity. What is it about that child's faith?

He trusts will all his heart soul mind and strength from infancy according to Jesus. Finally if you block the child from getting to Jesus or cause him to stumble there is a death penalty just like Moses ran into when he didn't circumcise his son on the way to Egypt and God wanted to Kill Him (or his Son).] What about pastors? Is their job description similar to the Old Testament priest? Or more like the prophet's? Or the king's?

Well, the answer depends on these questions of continuity and discontinuity, as well as how prophet, priest, and king actually point most directly not to the pastor, but to Christ. So the question really is, how to pastors relate to Christ, not the Old Testament prophets, priests, and kings. Or maybe none of the above.

"Go make Disciples" is not really like any commanad in the OT other than where He says "6Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding in the sight of the peoples, who will hear of all these statutes and say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." 7For what nation is great enough to have a god as near to them as the LORD our God is to us whenever we call on Him? Deuteronomy 4:6-7 The heart of Discipleship is that the Disciple wants to follow.

This is unlike all but a few OT stories like Jonah, The School of the Prophets Ruth etc. It is a radical reinterpretation of the Conquest of Canaan. We see its secular version in the religious neutrality of the secular state. But even there it is only despair in the living God that thinks on any playing field we need the Beast to back our religious activity.

…What about church discipline? Do you think there might be something to learn from Adam and Eve's eviction from the Garden, to Noah's ark, to the holiness laws and being placed outside the camp, to Israel's exile, to Nehemiah's wall?

Conclusion

Biblical theology as a discipline is a way of reading the Bible, a hermeneutical strategy that refuses to turn God's story into life's little answer book, but rather recognizes it as the grand story that gives our stories meaning. Bo. St. Bo to you. That story increasingly defines who we are, where we've come from, and where we're going. As a result, it guards and guides the church today.

Class 3: Defining the Tools

The first week we considered what biblical theology is. We said that is the discipline of learning how to read the Bible as one story by one divine author that culminates in the person and work of Christ, so that every part of Scripture is understood in relation to Christ. Barry Cooper, in his book Can I Really Trust the Bible?, likens the Bible to 66 different radio stations, with almost as many different styles of music (country, classic rock, pop, jazz, classical), but as you turn through them one by one, you find that they're all singing about the same thing, Jesus, each in their own way.

Last week we considered how biblical theology is a guardian and guide for the church. False "christianity's", lack a sense of biblical theology. Today we are going to ask, what tools do we need to study biblical theology? Think of today's class as getting a tour of a carpenter's workshop. There's the hammer. There's the blade saw. And what is that funny shaped thing?

In fact, we're going to rummage through two different tool boxes pull a few out one at a time, look at them, and figure out what they do. Unfortunately, we're not going to have the fun of trying out those tools today. That's for coming weeks. The goal here is safety first so that no one cuts a whole limb of the Bible off with the blade saw.

The two tool boxes are

1. Exegetical Tools: these help us to understand a text in its context and the author's original intent. In some ways the emphasis here is on the human author.
2. Storyline Tools: these help us discern where a text fits into the storyline of the whole Bible, and how it contributes to culmination of that storyline in the person and work of Jesus Christ. In some ways the emphasis here is on the divine author.

I. Tool Box # 1:

Exegetical Tools If you've ever been in to a Cracker Barrel restaurant, you've seen all the knick-knacks and funny signs for sale in the gift shop. I wonder if you've ever seen the sign that has two sentences, the first sentence of which reads, "I got a new pepperoni pizza for my wife." Now if that's all you read, what would you think the sign means?

You would think the sign is simply indicating that someone bought a pizza for his wife to eat. But in fact the whole sign read this: "I got a new pepperoni pizza for my wife. It was the best trade I ever made." I know, awful, right?

What's the moral of the story here? Context is king. Meaning is not just a property of words, it's a property of sentences. In fact, it's not just a property of sentences, it's a property of paragraphs. If you want to know the author's intended meaning, you have to pay close attention to words, sentences, and paragraphs.

And that's what we do with exegesis: we pay attention to words, sentences, and paragraphs. Exegesis is the disciplined attempt to lead out of a text the author's original intent, rather than one's own preference or experience or opinion. Jerome, an early church father put it this way: "The office of a commentator is to set forth not what he himself would prefer, but what his author says." In fact, that is what all of us do, every day, as we exegete a variety of texts, from cook books, to instruction manuals, to Sports Illustrated, to your favorite blog.

A. Tool # 1: The Grammatical-Historical Method Tool number one for this process is the grammatical-historical method - which seeks to answer the question: "What does that paragraph mean?" You start with a grammatical and structural analysis of the text:

1. How does the larger text break up into units?
2. What's the subject, the verb and the object, and how do they relate. Basic sentence diagramming!
3. How are the sentences connected?
4. What's the general flow of argument? I got a new pepperoni pizza for my wife. Notice the ambiguity of the preposition "for"?

And behind the text are a number of questions about the historical context?

1. Does the historical context (author, date, audience, and provenance), if known, throw light on your understanding of words or argument?
2. Is there a cultural context that you need to be aware of? E.g., what are Pharisees; what rights did women have in the Roman world.
3. Are there issues of geography, politics or history that throw light on the meaning? E.g., where is Tarshish in relation to Nineveh?

(Commentaries, Bible Dictionaries, Encyclopedias and Atlases are extremely helpful here.)

B. Tool # 2: Literary Form Closely related to tool 1, if not actually a part of it, is tool # 2: discerning a text's literary form - or genre. We intuitively recognize this. On the whole, poetry doesn't even look like a newspaper article. That's in part because poetry and news reporting belong to different genres, with their own unique set of internal rules. These rules and patterns have a real bearing on the meaning of the words and sentences an author writes.

There are multiple literary forms you need to take into account in Scripture: Narrative; Parable; Poetry; Wisdom; Prophecy; Epistles; Apocalyptic, and more. And the literary form will impact your approach to the author's intended meaning. The fact that the sentences about getting a pizza for one's wife belongs to the genre of "gift store junk that hangs in a guest bathroom" communicates that the author is simply trying to be funny.

Let's work through one brief example from the text: Psalm 143. Turn there. The final verse, verse 12, reads, "And in your steadfast love you will cut off my enemies, And you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul, For I am your servant."

Now, verses 1 to 11 are filled with the psalmist asking God for help: "Deliver me from my enemies…preserve my life…bring my soul out of trouble." But here he's not asking, what's he doing? He's stating his trust in the fact that God will rescue him, which we know simply by the grammar, by the indicative: "You will cut off…you will destroy…" And how can he be so assured that God will do these things? For two reasons, and the answer is found in two prepositional phrases: "In your love you will cut off." And then, "For I am your servant." That last phrase provides what we might call the ground. "You will destroy…for I am your servant." That's the ground of my assurance.

One last question about this text: what genre is it? Poetry, right. So how does this affect how we interpret the word "enemies"? Do we read that phrase in the same way we would read the word, say, if we were reading 1 and 2 Samuel, which are historical narrative? Because we're in poetry, we know that David is presumably alluding to a literal physical enemy - someone who is trying to do physical harm to him. But we suspect the term probably has broader applicability. It can be a physical enemy. It can be a spiritual enemy.

Okay, that's just scratching the surface of the text. But that's exegesis in motion. We were staring at the text in its context, and asking questions of it. The Core Seminar on How to Read the Bible goes into depth on exegesis means we don't need to spend any more time here.

We still have another whole toolbox to open…

II. Tool Box # 2:

Storyline Tools Inside this second box are all the tools we need that will help us locate a particular text within the storyline of Scripture.

Remember, in the first class, we said, every text needs to be measured and understood according to where it is with respect to the Christ event. I used the analogy of a newspaper article with the headline that read, "Nationals Win World Series." And we imagined one paragraph in that article, say, paragraph 12, which describes how a relief pitcher entered the game in the seventh inning. Now, you might exegete paragraph 12 about the relief pitcher just right.

But if you don't then take the next step and explain how paragraph 12 relates to the whole story about how the Nationals won the World Series, you have really understood the significance of paragraph 12.

Well, the headline of the whole Bible, we said last week, is the gospel. Let's say the headline of the whole Bible is "Jesus Wins!" The goal of opening up this second tool box is to figure out how any given text relates to that headline, "Jesus Wins."

So let's go back to Psalm 143:12 again:

"And in your steadfast love you will cut off my enemies, And you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul, For I am your servant."

Now King David is saying this, as the ascription at the top of the Psalm tells us. Where does this fit into the storyline of the Bible as a whole? What does that have to do with Jesus? What does that have to do with me?

A. The Key Is to Look Back and then Look Forward

The way to figure out where your text is in the storyline is fairly obvious: you look back, and then you look forward. Right now, I am re-reading the Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe. I am at the point in the story where the Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy sitting with the Beavers. Well if you were to drop into this point there is a lot you would need to know about how on earth these four English kids were sitting in a beaver dam having dinner with some Beavers. So you need to go back and learn about a place called Narnia and a wardrobe. And then you look forward and see how this connects to the end of the story, which I won't give away.

How do we look backward and forward in Scripture. Well, we do that by picking up one of several storyline tools.

1. Plot

The Bible has a plotline. It tells one story through 66 books that, under the authorship of the Holy Spirit, all arrive at the same port: the person and work of Jesus Christ. This plot is not simply a literary device, but is an historical unfolding of the progressive revelation that culminates in Christ. According to Graeme Goldsworthy,

It is the nature of biblical revelation that it tells a story rather than sets out timeless principles in abstract. [The Bible] does contain many timeless principles, but not in abstract. They are given in an historical context of progressive revelation.

God did not choose to bring his Son into the world immediately after the fall. Rather, he chose to progressively reveal himself and his plan throughout human history. The result of revealing himself over time, and through the hard and happy history of Israel, was to ensure that when his Son did come we could recognize Jesus to be the fulfillment of all God was doing in history.

This means we can authentically integrate texts in the Bible with the message of Christ by rightly seeing their place in the plotline of the Bible. Texts are not springboards or foils to get to Christ.

1. Theme

Another tool is theme. Good stories are held together by themes, and multiple, interweaving themes. And part of looking back and forward from any one location in a story is knowing how to trace the relevant themes backward and forward. When you know that Darth Vader is Luke's Father because you've seen the end of the second movie, you are going to watch the first movie differently because you're going to trace that theme. And you're going to watch for that theme throughout the third movie.

What are some of the primary themes of Psalm 143:12? God's love. The enemies of God's people. The theme of servant…Let's think just about that second one: the enemies of God's people. Standing here at Psalm 143, let's look back. Can anyone trace the theme of the enemies of God's people up to this point?

Surely the first enemy of God's people was the serpent. Close on the heals of Satan was human's own fall and then sinful nature. By Genesis 4, the story of Cain and Abel tells us that enemies include other human beings. But an interesting thing happens in Genesis 4: human divides into two lines, represented by two kinds of genealogies that are used throughout Genesis: there's the seed of the woman (Eve) and there's the seed of the serpent - God's chosen people and then all humanity.

And some belonging to general humanity often tries to attack God's people. You see it in the rivalry between Isaac and Esau. You see it highlighted most dramatically in Pharaoh in Exodus. Then with the giving of the law, and the inheritance of the land, we discover that God's chosen people are the enemy of God. So he cuts them off in exile? So what does that means about who the real enemy is?

Looking forward to Christ, I'm going to ask the question: which enemies did Jesus defeat? Each step of the way, we can see how God protects his people, his seed, from their enemies.

What are some other examples of themes? Well starting next week we are going to trace through some of those themes: They include covenant (how God relates to his people), kingdom (how God orders and rules over his people), exodus (how God saves his people), exile (how God punishes his people), and many others. These all find their fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Okay, let's pick up another tool:

1. Promise-Fulfillment

When we read our Bibles, we see that God is Promise-Making God and a Promise-Keeping God. Unlike us, he always keeps his promises. It is this conviction of the faithfulness of God that underlies so much of the Biblical authors frame of mind as they write.

We see in Scripture that the promises of God (prophecies in the broadest sense of the term) typically have multiple horizons of fulfillment. What's more, each successive fulfillment is not only later in time chronologically, but greater in significance both theologically and historically.

Let me give an example that illustrates both the multiple-horizons and the ever-greater character of God's promise-keeping. Consider God's promise to Abraham in Gen 12:1-3: The Lord had said to Abram, "Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land I will show you. "I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

God promises that childless Abraham will be the father of a great nation that will bless the nations of the earth. A few verses later he promises to give Abraham's offspring the land of Canaan. Now consider how this promise is fulfilled:

1. First, there's the miraculous birth of Isaac -> Jacob -> 12 Sons
2. By the opening of Exodus, there a multitude of people, so many Pharaoh is intimidated.
3. Joshua recounts the story of the nation conquering a land.
4. By the time of King Solomon, the nations is prospering greatly by his wisdom.
5. Of course, Jesus is the True Promised Offspring (Paul makes clear in Galatians & Romans). And by faith in Jesus, men and women from every nation are blessed, as they become children of Abraham, a spiritual nation that spreads to the very end of the earth, and yet like Abraham once again lives as aliens and strangers.
6. But wait, there's more: a New Heaven and a New Earth - a great nation of all God's People under God's rule (Hebrews 4 and Revelation 21-22).

How many times was the promise to Abraham fulfilled? I count at least 5 times, all clearly identified in Scripture. And each time greater than the one before. So when we read a passage of Scripture, we want to see where/how it's fulfilled throughout the entire Storyline of the Bible. We could do the same with Psalm 143:12 and see how the Psalmist is resting on God's promises to cut off his enemies.

Sometimes to see promise and fulfillment is the see how the New Testament authors use Old Testament texts. The gospel writers some time make it explicit "This happened so that x would be fulfilled…" One of the greatest tools in biblical theology is cross-references.

1. Typology

Now, an assumption in this pattern of Promise-Fulfillment is that God not only speaks, it is assumed that he is also the Lord of History. He providentially orders events and even individual lives so that they prefigure what is yet to come. They exist as historical analogies that correspond to future fulfillment.

The biblical language for this is types, which simple means pattern or example. Typology is our next tool. To say something is a "type" of something else in the Bible means that you are asserting God intended to teach us about a second thing by connecting it to a first thing. Some event, person, or institution is organically connected by God's intent to something else so that the first things helps us to interpret and understand the second thing.

Listen, for instance, to Romans 5:14: "Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come." Paul does not simply drawing a comparison between Adam and Christ. He's argues for a historical correspondence in which the type, Adam, points forward to and finds it's redemptive fulfillment in the antitype, Christ. The former helps us to understand and even defines for us the work and meaning of the latter: both exercise a federal headship over the human race, one bringing death, one bringing life. Christ, then, doesn't merely repeat Adam. The type points forward to something greater than itself.

Now a type is not simply allegory that makes arbitrary and mere linguistic connections between symbol and the thing symbolized. For example, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Inn is the church, the innkeeper is Paul, the oil and wine are the sacraments, and so forth. Or the five stones that David picks up to slay Goliath represent faith, hope, love, and, uh, strength and honor. No, wait, that's Russell Crowe as the Gladiator. You see the problem with allegory? Another famous example is Augustine describing the scarlet cord that Rahab lowered from Jericho that saved her as the blood of Christ dripping form his body. There's a surface resemblance between the two things, but that doesn't make is a type.

I think the safest way to establish a type is to root it in the biblical text. Nowhere does the text say that Jesus is the scarlet cord of Rahab. But the text does refer to Jesus as last Adam, Abraham's Seed, new Israel, David's greater Son.

It also describes him as the Passover Lamb, the once-for-all sacrifice, the temple, the Good Shepherd, a king, a priest, the Rock struck by Moses, the true Exodus, the vine of Israel, the Lord of the Sabbath.

So we can look back at these institutions, persons, and events, and say that they are "types" of Christ. And again, why is it important to say something is a type of Christ? It will affect how you interpret the person and work of Christ. To say he's the temple of God, for instance, tells us the Spirit dwells in him in a special way, and that he is the one through whom we draw near to God.

[Think about the text Mark is preaching on soon, what are the types in the passage? Luke seems to be using the Flood of Gen 6-7 in vv.26-27 to talk typologically about the final judgment or the coming of the Kingdom.]

Are there any types in Psalm 143:12? I think there are two: David and the servant. So you have the Davidic kingship theme, tied together in this Psalm to the servant theme, presenting with a connection that the people of Jesus' day didn't always see. David is the servant. What happens when we trace this type forward?

Well, we know the servant brings Jew and Gentile together from Isaiah 49, and that he suffers the sins of his people in Isaiah 53. And then we know that in Matthew 12, that the divine says of Jesus, "Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles."

It seems that Jesus is the servant to which Psalm 143:12 very much points. The Father loves Jesus. The Father will cut of Jesus' enemies. He will hear Jesus' prayers. This leads us to a last storyline tool:

1. Continuity and Discontinuity

But the difference between promise and fulfillment cannot simply be explained as a movement from less to greater, or a difference of degree. Despite the continuity of the story, the movement from promise to fulfillment is described in Scripture as the movement between shadow and reality (Col 2:17), between a mere copy and the genuine article (Heb 8:5), between mere symbol and the truth it represented (John 4:23; 15:1). What that means is that in addition to continuity, there is significant discontinuity as we move across the epochs from one horizon of fulfillment to another.

And this is important because it means that the seed of a type or a promise points us to the fulfillment, but that fulfillment is the point of the story all along. It's the reality, the substance.

We've already seen the continuity between Psalm 143:12 and Christ. What about discontinuity? Here's something remarkable. How does Jesus play?? the servant? The New Testament is very clear. He is the one who is cut off as an enemy. Or rather, God rescues his people from their primary enemy, sin and death, by identifying his Son and servant with that enemy on the cross, and having his servant pay the full price of that sin. And then Jesus is given all authority in heaven and earth and declared king. That is how king and servant come together in the New Testament - not exactly what David had in mind. Which is why original intent of the author is not necessarily a final issue because the Author is God.

Our basis for hope is not just in the points of continuity in the movement from promise to fulfillment; it's in the discontinuity. Jesus would bring all these themes together in the utterly unique act of his death and resurrection. And it's in him alone our hope lies, not in any of his typological predecessors. My hope is not that I can be like David. It's in Christ alone.

Conclusion

Okay, so let's sum up the tool sets we need to really understand a passage of Scripture. Biblical theology teaches us to start with the tools of exegesis. And then we move to the storyline tools of themes, covenants, promise-fulfillment, and typology, and these help us to mark off points of continuity and discontinuity.

To put it another way, we look down in our exegesis, then we look backward and forward in our biblical theology.

Ultimately, they help us read the story of a king and servant King, a Kingdom, and the King's relationship with his subjects. And see how this single story has God as both its author and primary actor, and that its center as well as its climax is the glory of God through salvation in Christ.

Class 4: The Story of Kingdom Through Covenant

Annotated [Teacher's note: questions for class placed in italics.]

Think I can summarize the storyline of the Bible in 8 words? What if I said the storyline of the Bible is all about…

God's people, in God's place, under God's rule.

That's how Graham Goldsworthy summarizes it in his excellent little book Gospel and Kingdom. Just think about it:

1. In Genesis 1-3, God ruled his people (Adam & Eve) in his place (the Garden of Eden).
2. In Genesis 6, God rules his people (Noah and family) in his place (the ark). How about ruling them in the antediluvian world of violence and evil as they lived righteously in the line of the patriarchs?
3. From Genesis 12 and all the way up to the exile, God means to rule his people (Israel) in his place (the land of Canaan) by means of his law. They rebel and he exiles them. Is he telling a story or merely categorizing rational time periods. Where is Moses in this? What is the relationship between Righteousness and the Revealed Law of God in Moses?
4. Then in Matthew's Gospel, we discover a man who perfectly lives according to God's rule. And those who are united to this man by faith look forward to a new heaven and new earth (God's place) where will live together forever under God's rule.

The story of the whole Bible in those 8 words: God's people, in God's place, under God's rule.

Welcome to week 3 of the biblical theology class. The phrase "biblical theology," we said in week 1, refers to a particular way of reading and interpreting the Bible. We read the Bible as a single story, a coherent narrative, about the redemptive acts of God in Jesus Christ. Do any of you look at Jesus as just another important figure? His name isn't mentioned in II Chronicles why should we suspect it has anything to do with Him?

Last week we walked into the carpenter's shop and had a look at a couple of tool boxes.

1. Exegetical Tools: grammatical-historical method and sensitivity to genre help us to understand the author's original intent. In particular texts. The story and the specific text must agree.
2. Storyline Tools: we look back and then forward in order to locate where we are in the storyline and to see how the text points to Christ. Specifically, we need the tools of theme, promise-fulfillment, typology, and continuity-discontinuity.

This week, we're going use these tools to trace one particular storyline in Scripture that's very similar to Goldsworthy's story: the story of kingdom through covenant.

I. Retracing the Story — Kingdom Through Covenant

The idea of "kingdom through covenant" comes from the excellent book by Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum called Kingdom Through Covenant. The idea is simple: from beginning of Scripture to the end, God establishes his kingdom through covenants. And it's these covenants which give structure to the Bible as a whole. Think of them as a steel framework which hold the whole building together. (Skeleton maybe?)

Creation and the Adamic Covenant

Turn to Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." God is creator of the universe. And as creator, he is ruler. He is king. The author has authority.

This is what we see beginning in verses 26 to 28, where God creates Adam and Eve in his image, and then in verse 28 God blesses them and then commands them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion…" God's rule is a generous and authorizing rule, to be sure, and he rules by setting the trajectory of Adam and Eve's life. He does not "rule by setting the Trajectory" His Rule defines the trajectory.

Nowhere do the first few chapters of Genesis use the language of covenant. But if something looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck…

What is a covenant? "A solemn commitment, guaranteeing promises or obligations undertaken by one or both covenanting parties, sealed with an oath" (Paul Williamson, NDBT).

This covenantal nature of their relationship becomes especially evident in chapter 2. Look at verses 15-16:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.'

God provides Adam with a list of duties and commitments, and he promises blessing for obedience and curse for disobedience. He binds them by this verbal commitment, the oath, this covenant.

To define covenant another way, "A covenant is the constitutionalization of a relationship." It involves the coming together - con-gregating - of separate parties by a morally binding pact that establishes lines of authority and the boundaries of the group of community.

How does God establish his kingdom rule on earth? Through covenants. God even calls Adam a Son. You can find the elements of a covenant there, but if you did not find it explicitly elsewhere or assume there must be covenantal continuity you would not find it there.

To what extent is a grid imposed to what extent a grid evident in the text. Look at Genesis 5:

"This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. 3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth."

Of course Adam and Eve reject God's rule in Genesis 3. They launch the original revolution. They pull out their parchment paper and quill pens and draft their own constitutions that crown themselves kings.

Does their revolution succeed? Do they place themselves outside of God's rule and kingdom?

Genesis answers with a resolute "no" in at least two ways. First, the sword remains in God's hand, even if his hand is now invisible. The genealogical tables in Genesis 5 conclude every name with "and he died." He's enacting his curse on humanity as promised.

Look at the Curse - the first 5 promises of God - they promise failure to rebellion and lawlessness. 1) the day you eat it you die; 2) You go on your belly and eat dirt. 3) you forever oppose the righteous; 4) God guarantees Eve there will be a righteous inheritance, God guarantees the rebel they will do some damage to the periphery of righteousness (of His plan) but the Righteous One crushes your head. 5) Eve only brings forth the future in pain. Adam Brings forth the future in futile frustration.

Together they are cursed to have the man ruling over the woman thus cursing any organization they attempt. Dominion is for image bearers over creation not for image bearers over each other. Dominion means the authority to turn that over which you have dominion into and object to serve you. (Take a second to apply this to any non human thing. Then apply it to people. It is a blessing over property, it is a curse when people become property.)

Second, the fact that all humanity remains under God's rule is evident with the Bible's second major covenant, the Noahic Covenant. (I'm going to turn their names into adjectives by putting "-ic" after their names: Noahic, Adamic, Abrahamic…") God's rule is evident in the 2md half of Gen 3.

Noahic Covenant

In Genesis 9, God renews his original mandate for all creation. Turn there:

Verse 1: "Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.'"

Notice it's restating the Adamic Covenant. But you see in verses 2 to 6 God makes adjustments for the fact of the Fall. So animals fear humankind, and then the charter for government is granted. This is critically important. Everyone (Literally) calls this a charter for government. It is not. It is a blue print and authorization for justice to be carried out by individuals. Government may lay claim to this authorization, and the granting of authority to turn those over whom they have authority into objects (Gen 3:16) may authorize usurpation over God's authority and each other. But government is not exclusive its possessor or executive replacement for the people, the "Ecclesia" (ἐκκλησία) and "Qahal" (קהל) as the OT, Jesus and the Apostles called God's people.

Verse 5b: "And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being." Notice, not "from each government" but each separate person for the life of any other separate person.

Then verse 8: "Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 "I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you… 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."…13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

Covenants always have a sign (symbol? Emblem? Mark? Ritual? Liturgy?). This one is God's bow of war set down. He will withhold his judgment, introducing the idea of eschatology to the Bible.

The Noahic Covenant, as I said, renews the Adamic, though he places it in a post-fall context. Noah is the new Adam. God's rule comes through him.

Consider what this means: all humanity is subject to God's rule and are accountable to his judgment, whether they acknowledge God or not. Sodom and Gomorrah learn this in Genesis 19. King Abimelech learns it in Genesis 20. Pharaoh learns it in the first half of Exodus. Nebuchadnezzer later. Jesus tells Pilate his authority comes from above.

The Psalmist sums up: "Say among the nations, 'The LORD reigns!'" and "he will judge the peoples with equity" (Ps. 96:10).

Friends, do you think the our neighbors and our colleagues and our congressmen are any less accountable to God than these biblical characters? Through the Noahic Covenant, God's kingdom, his rule, remains in effect.

Noah does little better than Adam. He gets drunk. A few chapters later we find all humanity rebelling once more through the Tower of Babel.

Abrahamic Covenant

This brings us to the Abrahamic Covenant. Turn to Genesis 12:

Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."… 7 "To your offspring I will give this land."

Then in chapter 15 - flip there - God says in verse 18: "On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give this land…"

Finally in chapter 17 - turn there - this covenant is explained even a little more fully. Verse 4:

4 "Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations…6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. 7 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you…10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised."

Father Abraham will beget not just children, but kingdoms. Verse 6: "will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you." Notice also the sign of the covenant in verse 10. Covenant sign: circumcision.

Abraham, too, was a new Adam. God's covenant with Adam and Noah we can call common covenants, because they were covenants with all humanity. Vs But beginning with Abraham we get a line of special covenants - covenants that are exclusively given to God's people. What's important for our purposes is to understand the relationship between the common covenants and the special covenants.

OK "Common" doesn't mean lower class, it means everyone. "Special" doesn't, doesn't mean privileged... or does it? Is any covenant the special preserve of the righteous? Do the wicked have any sort of covenantal claim on God?

Remember our tool of the grammatical-historical method. Listen closely to the grammar in the line texts we just read:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply…(Gen. 1:28)

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply… (9:1,7)

[God promises Abraham] And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you…(12:2-3)

I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly…I will make you exceedingly fruitful…And I will give to you and to your offspring after you…all the land of Canaan…(17:2, 6, 8)

What's the difference? The commands and curses of Genesis 1 and 9 turn into promises in Genesis 12 and following and curses overcome by blessing (see also 26:3-5, 24: 28:3; 35:11-12). God means to use the redeemed line of Abraham to fulfill his creation purposes. I gave you blanks to fill out in your handout. How shall we characterize the relationship between the common covenants and the special covenants? What the common covenants command, the special covenants give and therefore fulfill. Write in "command" and "fulfill."

God gives this, as we see in the opening chapter of Exodus: "But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them" (Ex. 1:7).

Which means, God's special people are to model what is commanded of all people. They are to be God's special kingdom, who exemplify and model and portray and image what God means for all humanity by living with righteousness and justice.

Mosaic and Davidic Covenants

Turn to Exodus 19, where we first encounter the Mosaic Covenant. Can someone try to describe for me the relationship between the Abrahamic and Mosaic and Davidic Covenants?

Both the Mosaic and Davidic Covenants are devices for implementing these Abrahamic promises (fill in the blank with "implement"). Remember our tool called promise-fulfillment? God makes a promise to Abraham. Then he uses these two covenants to say, "Now you do it!" "You do it?" Who walked through the halves of the sacrifice? Not Abraham. Yes you do it but the covenant guarantees that it will be done. "You are God's workmanship created to walk in the good works he has given you." This is the nature of covenant.

IN WHAT FOLLOWS THE TEXT WAFFLES BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN THE UNIQUENESS OF EACH INDIVIDUIAL REALTIONSHIP WITH GOD AND THE GENEERAL RELATIONSHIP THEY HAVE TO GOD AS A GROUP. This needs to be researched. Both seem to be the case with God's terminology dealing with Israeli. His People reflect the Trinity, they are One and they are individuals never their Oneness as a people erasing or absorbing their separateness and unique relationship with God as a Person relating to His Person.

The language doesn't waffle, it reflects the Trinity never reducing the individual to the group, or denying the group as necessary to the individual.

Its not a wandering back and forth it is an intentional aspect of the program.

Oneness: Israel is called a "son." They are a corporate Adam. Look at Exodus 4:22: "Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I say to you, "Let my son go that he may serve me."

After rescuing the people from Egypt, God says in verse 19:

If you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests priests not the Kingdom is a priest. The priests make it a holy nation. (Ex. 19:5 - 6) both are affirmed.

Is God talking about the Abrahamic Covenant here? No, he's talking about one he will give to all Israel through Moses. Sure enough, look at the next chapter, where you see the 10 Commandments. Covenant sign: Sabbath keeping.

I AM (singular) the Lord YOUR God (Singular and Plural) YOU (Singular) shall have no other God's before ME (singular). It's the same with the Greatest Command, YOU (singular) shall Love the Lord etc. and Your (Singular) Neighbor as yourself. These cannot be reduced to either the singular or the plural. (John 17)

Then look at chapter 24, verse 7 where this covenant is solemnized and confirmed:

Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient." 8 And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words."

It's by keeping this covenant and being obedient citizens of God's kingdom, said God back in chapter 19, that they would be a kingdom of priests. They would show the world what true human dominion looks like through keeping the Mosaic covenant. Israel's dominion was supposed to redefine righteousness and justice for a world that had perverted it, as Pharaoh had. They would do this not as holy individuals but as a holy nation (see also Deut. 6:25). This is exactly what the exegesis doesn't support. The National does not absorb the individuals. Pharaoh does not pervert dominion. He is the rational and moral end result of Dominion when it is taken by one person over another. There is no Pharaoh, Gentile King, or Chief executive or executive powers deliniated anywhere in the Law of Moses.

Jesus says, "Do not exercise authority the way Gentile Kings do." Neither He nor Moses say, "Do not abuse gentile authority the way Gentile Kings do." This is a word people insert who do not think government is possible if we do not create an accursed dominion, from the beginning.

Turn to Deuteronomy 17. The occupant of David's throne was expected to preeminently embody the values of the Mosaic Law, thereby reflecting the kingship of God (see Deut. 17:18 - 20 in your handout).

When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. 19 It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees 20 and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.

The law is the limit of the executive authorization of the King.

1. Can you think of something every Executive must do to carry out his office?
2. Create agents who replace the people in their obligation to provide for and protect the people.
3. Pay those agents, with money no executive has every had in history.
4. Steal from the people to pay for the job He must do as executive with dominion over the people.
5. Use violence to collect that money or property to support his administrative bureaucracy.
6. There are two taxes in Moses, neither of them is to support the Administration of the King. Neither of them has anyone empowered to collect them. They are voluntary, and God will judge those who do not or do pay the tithe and temple tax.

Do you begin to see how when God gives His law, he makes another pharaoh fiscally impossible.

Now stop and think as long as it takes to see the problem this poses to organizing. If we stay faithful to God's law the power of the executive is radically limited. As Jesus said it should be. "Kings of the Gentiles (covenant breakers) exercise authority but it is not to be so among you."

Before Going to II Samuel 7 read I Samuel 8 and see that the Kingship in Israel is itself a usurpation God foresaw (Deut 17) and told Samuel to establish. But he was perfectly clear, the line of Kings was a usurpation of God's authority not a legitimate Kingdom expression of it. Furthermore 1,100 years later God would take it back when Jesus entered Jerusalem in Triumph as its King and then 55 days later entered Heaven as the King of all creation.

In any case, human executive authority is the curse imposed at the fall, and the only recourse a fallen world has to rule. But Moses leaves no room for it, and Jesus directly forbids it. God's law and grace are to overcome the curse.

The terms of the Davidic Covenant are then described in 2 Samuel 7. Turn there. God says a number of things, but principally God says in verse 12, "I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom…[13] I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever."

Bro that's Jesus, not an eternal perpetuation of executive Government.

David and his offspring were to specially represent the rule of God and God's kingdom to the people of God, and he was to represent God to the people. The kingdom of God was to be made even clearer through this covenant. David, too, was to be a kind of new Adam, a special son of God, representing and imaging his heavenly father.

And the office of Adam, and Special King over the non kings, is not an eternal structure of organizing mankind, but rather the fallen order that is removed by the establishment of his Kingdom where there is only One King, One Priest. Only the judgment of God is given to us and His dominion over non image bearers is shared by us.

From Square One we are created in His Image Trinitarian and Ethical Judicial beings to exercise dominion over creation but not each other. In respect to each other we are all priests and royalty. One Body Separate individuals, in God's Trinitarian image. We advance each person's and the group's well-being by taking dominion of an aspect of creation and trading that dominion to those whose life will benefit from it to the benefit of each other. God intended organization of our group efforts to follow the path of people who see in each other a way to increase their benefit in meeting each other's needs.

The above needs a diagram

New Covenant

Sadly,? Inevitably Israel and its kings rebelled. They didn't? can't represent God's wisdom and righteousness in their corporate life, They are usurpers, they are not equipped to handle dominion over people and the vast and intricates systems of relating to each other. Then can ethically judge them, as a group they can take executive judgment or as persons ad hoc judgment (in groups of two or three) but no they did not merely mimicked the folly and idolatry of the nations instead.

The result: injustice and unrighteousness (e.g. Is. 1:23; 10:1-2; Jer. 5:28). This is the best they can do under ideal circumstances of the fall. This is they they need new hearts (Ezekiel & Jeremiah & Jesus & Hebrews) They need to be transformed, Die to self, Be raised to life, live as new born members in God's Kingdom and renounce executive authority over each other and stir up the gift of love power and self control otherwise known as the Power of the Holy Spirit.

Dominion of Kings is entirely the result of the curse. The best a cursed world has to offer.

That is the New Covenant that He outlines here.

God therefore determined to offer a new covenant, and this new covenant would establish a truly just and righteous kingdom. Turn to Jeremiah 31:33: "This is the covenant I will make," says God. And notice the terms of this covenant.

1. It gives them new, obedient, and free natures:I think this a good insight, but would you associate the left side interpretation with the right side Scripture verse "I will put my law within them." the next line is, "And they shall be my people and I will be their God." Look at John 17 for the Trinitarian unity this ethical completion creates. Individual hearts create Unified wholes where there is ethical formation.
2. The covenant establishes a community of people ruled by one ruler - a body politic: "I will be their God, and they shall be my people." That ruler is God not a human King, President, premier, Executive.
3. And it's a body politic, a kingdom, that destroys all the natural heirarchies of humankind. As long as He tells the story of the Bible he naturally says all that I've said in Red above. Whenever he shifts to the winds and the waves of human fallen society and churches and businesses he starts talking about God providing little godlings to take His place. There are no classes or castes or ethnic rivalries here. Verse 34: "No longer shall each one teach his neighbor…saying 'Know the Lord' [no one has more access to truth than others and is therefore fit to rule over others], for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest."
4. And this covenant establishes this body politic on a foundation of judicial pardon and reconciliation: "I will forgive their iniquity."
5. If you stick with Scripture, you end up with the exact opposite of Covenantal Pessmism that makes the curse our eternal structure of human order. But it also raises the question, so how do we organize?

Based on what we've just seen, how would you describe the relationship between the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant?

I give you two ways NOT to describe it. And two ways to describe it.

Moving from the Mosaic to the New Covenant is not about

1. moving from corporate to individual,
2. or from obedience-required to no-obedience-required.

Yes to both of these both corporate and individual obedience to God is always manifest. "Required" is the wrong word. And the nature of "Law" as an external guide to life is like the nature of Jiminy Cricket, all it can tell you is what the person in God's image is like. It cannot form you into that image.

It is about moving from a covenant in which Israel's obedience and kingdom life

1. depend upon their own strength to a covenant in which their obedience and political/kingdom life would depend upon God and his Spirit.
2. God commands. God fulfills. Notice, the relationship is similar to the relationship between common and special. First point is radically corrosive to many theologies. It's demonstrated in the Abrahamic Covenant. It's articulated in Ephesians 2:8-10. 8 "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

Fulfillment in Jesus: Who Is Jesus?

It's with all this in the background that we understand Jesus showing up in the Gospels and preaching the kingdom of God. It's in your handouts, but turn to Matthew 1:1. "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." We're gonna get a little nerdy here. You ready? Matthew wrote these words in Greek. And in Greek, the first two words are βίβλος γενέσεως. You see that in your handout.

What does biblos sound like? Book of. And what does genese-os sound like? Genesis.

Now, if anyone has been paying especially close attention to their handouts, where have we seen those words before? Look back at Genesis 5:1 on page one of your handout: "This is the book of the generations (biblos genese-os) of Adam…" There those same words are in the Greek version of the Old Testament, which is what Matthew and his readers would have been reading. And what do you think the name of the first book of the Greek version of the Old Testament is? Genese-os.

Very Good Okay, back to Matthew. In the very first two words of the first book of the New Testament, Matthew grabs the very language from the opening chapters of Genesis, and says, "The Book of the Genesis of Jesus Christ." Who is he saying Jesus is? A new Adam!

But not only is he a new Adam, he is…who else? The son of David.

And who else? The Son of Abraham.

But wait, there's more. Turn to 2:14: "he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Out of Egypt I called my son."

So who is Jesus now? The new Israel

So Jesus is the new Adam, come to bring a new Genesis, and he is the son of Abraham, the son of David, a new Israel! How do you think all those covenants we just talked about will get fulfilled?

Turn to chapter 4. You see at the beginning of the chapters, he is tempted by the devil after being in the wilderness for 40 days. What does the temptation by the devil remind you of? Adam.

And what does 40 days remind you of? Israel.

But of course Jesus does what neither Adam nor Israel could do: resist Satan and obey. Is this a new Adam and Israel?

Turn to chapter 5, verse 17: Jesus does what? Fulfill the prophets and the law.

God's rule is made perfectly manifest through the perfect human king, Jesus. Jesus came as the new Adam, the seed of Abraham, the true Israel, the greater David, to both fulfill everything they pointed toward, but also to do perfectly everything they could not do.

Jesus is the rule of God. He is the kingdom of God. Now paying close attention to these words, stop and ask where the room is for a legislator or a King (Executive) in Human government? Take the last page at face value. Most of us would agree thinking we are ascribing to Jesus all of those absolutes, and unique greatnesses.

Do you mean that? Do the writers of this Section mean that? Will you or they turn and make human great one's, and authorities, and endow them with the office of requiring the submission of others? Or will you or they search Scripture to find out if God has provided both in Moses and in Christ a better way.

Church The first thing any Biblical Theology should establish is the term and Concept of "Church" is not found in Old or New Testament. The word is always "Ecclesia" (ἐκκλησία) or "Qahal" (קהל) or συναγωγή "Synagōgē" or עֵדָה "Edah". The reason for this is not because the English term "Church" does not have a breadth of meaning that includes both congregation and hierarchical priestly leadership offices.

It is that the terms Ecclesia, Qahal, Synagogue and Edah specifically push the user of those words closer to the biblical concepts of congregation and assembly not toward the hierarchical office and priestly nature leaders of it take on. We see as the story develops the two key spokesmen of God's order making that hierarchical office nature of leadership on a tight leash in the case of Moses, and abolished in the case of Jesus.

But of course Jesus did more than establish God's kingdom in his own person. He gave a covenant. Turn to Matthew 26:26-28

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is my body." 27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."

What's the title of today's course? Kingdom through covenant. Jesus established his kingdom in the lives of a people through the new covenant in his blood. God's people in the New Testament therefore receive the benefits of Christ's rule ("Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven") and they pray for it to further come ("Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven").

Paul says in Galatians 6 we are the "Israel of God." And Peter now says of us. You are a chosen race [the new Adam's!], a royal priesthood [sons who rule on God's behalf], a holy nation [a new Israel], a people for his own possession. Can you find any Old or New Covenant Verses that call out a special Office of Executive other than those either associated with the Curse and Sin or those resulting from covenant breaking (the Gentiles) or Usurping (The men of Israel usurping God's Kingship)?

We are the new Adams, sons, the new Israel, Abrahamic children of the promise.

These people of the new covenant are to be the people of his kingdom who specially represent God, and model what God expects of all nations.

Yes a Christian Nation will not be organized on the power of the sword to enforce the Executive word of the Officers of the State or church. As we saw Moses, the Prophets and Jesus describe.

II. Patterns in the Storyline

Include Isaiah 9 The description of the "Government shall be on His Shoulders." That, in brief, is the story of kingdom through covenant in the Bible. It ends on the day when Christ's kingdom becomes fully visible, when "every knee will bow and every tongue confess Christ as Lord." Another reason the office cannot be shared or a type of Human Kingship.

And as I told you this story, I employed the tools of biblical theology.

Were we doing exegesis? Very quickly, yes.

In addition to covenant, what were some of the key themes in this storyline, themes that we can now see hold the story of the whole Bible together?

1. The theme of God's kingdom or God's rule;
2. The theme of covenant.
3. the theme of righteousness that God created humanity to live righteous lives together;
4. relatedly, the theme of the specialness of God's people;
5. the theme of sonship or representation and how God's special people represent what God expects of all;

Where did typology factor in? What types did we see? Adam is a type of humanity who is then developed. He's also a type of king with dominion. The garden is a type of kingdom. The flood (which we didn't talk about) is a type of judgment. All these and more are pointing to antitypes in the New Testament.

What role did promises/fulfillment play? God made certain commands through Adam and Noah, which he promised to fulfill through Abraham's offspring. Then the Mosaic and Davidic Covenants offered the people an attempt to fulfill those promises. When they failed, it became evident that God had to fulfill them.

Where do we see continuity and discontinuity? Of course, the very notion of promise and fulfillment, for instance, depends upon a dynamic of things both changing and staying the same. And the key with this tool is to notice how things gradually become more visible and significant.

1. The covenant is implicit in Genesis 1 and 2. It becomes more explicit by Genesis 12, 15, and 17.
2. God's kingdom is in seed form at first. It becomes visible in Israel living under the law, (Which it only does for the first 400 years during the Judges but abandons in the Days of Samuel when the men of Israel reject God as King over them and takes the Kingship to itself.) albeit imperfectly. It becomes perfectly visible in Christ. And it will become broadly visible in the church. The Kingship of Christ will become visible not of the rulers of the State or the Priests of the Church.

Think of a light switch with a dimmer. That's how redemptive history moves.

Finally, how does the story focus on Christ? He fulfills the covenants. As we said, he's the last Adam, the seed of Abraham, the new Israel, David's greater Son. He fulfills all God's promises. the commands and structure

To sum up, we had to use all our tools for discerning this storyline, as you see in your handout.

I don't recall how he saw Christ in all that other than generically in that last sentence "Finally, how does the story focus on Christ?"

III. Systematizing It All

Finally, we're not going to take the time to demonstrate how our biblical theology translates into systematic theology. But if we were going to, what are some themes we would want to explore?

1. God rules all things and will call all humanity to judgment. Therefore…
2. There is no such thing as spiritual neutrality, whether in public or private. There is only one standard of righteousness and justice - a biblical one.
3. God's special people exist to model (eeeyew but I'm not sure why) t is required of all humanity: a true politics. Where should we look for true justice? Among God's people. This in turn should lead to discussions about…

Ephesians 4:12 ministers of the Church are not the Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists and Teachers.

1. The witness of the church, and how its evangelism is tied to its deeds. Which in turn is tied to… Where do we find world transformation in the reach of each member?
2. The role of God's law in the life of God's people.
3. The institutional nature of the people of the new covenant, and how they should be marked off by the signs of the covenant: Lord's Supper and Baptism.
4. More broadly, the church as the regenerate people of the kingdom. That's what the new covenant promises, right?
5. The church's mission and whether we can say the kingdom extends further than the regenerating work of the New Covenant.

Often, people address theological questions like these by picking there favorite proof texts. Hopefully, you're beginning to see that you need the whole storyline of "kingdom through covenant" to really see how God would address them.

Class 5: The Story of Eden to New Jerusalem

Annotated Are we simply doing critical analysis pointing out key points of the story? Or do we need to be telling the story from the perspective of the theme. See the analogy of any literary work when it is reduced to a children's classic or Cliff Notes. Intro What makes a certain place sacred? Is there even such a thing as a sacred place? Is it the architectural structure of a building? Is it a certain location? Certain historical significance? Elvis Presley ate lunch there!

But in terms of Christianity do we have sacred places? Why do we call the church a sanctuary? Why have people made pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Rome and many other places along the Mediterranean? Why do we call it "The Holy Land" a "Sanctuary" the Bishop's Church building a "Basilica" (Kingdom Hall LOL) The idea of a sacred place, a place by its very definition that is connected with God, is an important theme of the Bible. As we will see today, the dwelling place of God is central to the Bible's storyline.

We will first take a trip through the Bible, looking at the theme of the dwelling place of God. Then we will take a look at the tools that help us understand the story. Then we will draw out some lessons for us today.

Take your Bible and open up to the last two chapters of the Book of Revelation, ch. 21.

This is the end of the book and John recounts one more vision, he introduces it by these words: "1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God." (Re 21:1 - 3) Our attention is supposed to be drawn to this holy city that comes down and fills the new earth. And the voice announces that God now dwells alongside human beings. This is vision is the end of the Bible's story. John though is using images that are similar to another part of the Bible, the very beginning. So flip with me to the very beginning: Genesis.

The Garden We learn from Gen 1-2 that God created all things, but then created Eden, the garden, as a place for man (God's creation) and God to dwell. It was God's divine residence a place for him to dwell, and to coexist with man. Gen 3:8 describes God walking and talking in the garden. [Same word used in Lev 26:12; Deut 23:14; 2 Sam 7:6-7] Gen 2:15 Ezekiel 28? talks about how God placed Adam in the garden to cultivate and keep it, in this charge he is worshipping God.

He is a priest. [Serve God's word and protect the "temple" from unclean things.] The Fall - The Defiling of Both the Temple of Eden and the Temple of the Holy Spirit Adam fails in his charge. He fails to guard the dwelling place of God and allows the serpent to defile the garden. Because Adam failed, the temple now defiled. Not only that but ultimately they have failed to worship God as the priests he created them Adam and Eve are then deprived of their priestly status and expelled from the sanctuary.

"No longer do they have immediate access to God; no longer do they live within the garden-temple. All importantly, their actions jeopardize the fulfillment of God's blueprint that the whole earth should become a garden-city." It's more than mere priesthood. It is the necessity now of Sacrifice and Alter and the loss of the Temple Creation was building for God - Adam and Eve and their children to be temples of the Holy Spirit.

We know in the following chapters of Genesis that humanity, instead of spreading to fill the earth as God's image bearers, grew in violence and wickedness. God sets about to "recreate" the ground, through the line of Noah. "The receding waters do provide a new beginning but human nature has not changed. People still have a propensity to sin and defile the earth."

But like Adam, Noah's offspring fail in their charge. And in an ironic situation in Gen 11, humanity instead of filling the earth, set about to build a city that will reach up to the heavens in order that humankind will not be dispersed throughout the earth. This is a complete reversal of God's plan. God is interested in making the whole earth his residence by filling with holy people. Babel is an attempt to access heaven and avoid filling the earth. One author put it this way: "It represents the antithesis of what God intends. In light of the original creation project, Babel is a stark reminder of how far humanity had fallen and how perverted human nature had become."

"God's original blueprint is for the whole earth to become a temple-city filled with people who have a holy or priestly status. Humankind being a temple itself is not Plan B it is the original plan. It is more fundamental that the image of the City and Garden. The Garden is merely the Temple grounds. The Outer Court. Tragically, the actions of Adam and Eve endanger the fulfillment of this project. In spite of this, God graciously and mercifully embarks on a lengthy process designed to reverse this setback and bring to completion his creation scheme."

A side thought, Is a moral universe possible without a way to deal with violation of God's order? The Cross is a necessary component of a moral universe and a God willing to endure it in order to create a people who are Good in their moral agency as the members of the Trinity need no one to make sure they act toward one another in Love. As such the Fall does not instigate plan B it is how God through History produces such a people.

The Tabernacle In Gen 12, immediately following the Babel event, God sought out Abraham. Reading on we understand that through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob promises are set in motion for God once again to dwell on the earth. Through the patriarchs God communes with them through mini-sacrificial sites or sanctuaries. Two examples of this include Mount Moriah in Gen 22 (cf. 1 Chron 3:1) and Bethel in Gen 28.

We know that the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, end up in Egypt. At the beginning of Exodus, we see that the Israelites were in part fulfilling the command God gave to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. However the people did not find favor with the King, so God sends Moses as his messenger, and then God miraculously and powerfully rescues his people. In Ex 19, God establishes a covenant to Israel. He calls them to be a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation." They were to be priest-kings, fulfilling the role God had intended for Adam and Eve. But how was God going to dwell among this people?

God commissions the building of a special tent. The whole second half of Exodus speaks in great detail to this tent. I am not going to go into all the details, but the tent was to have three distinctive areas. Here is how one author summarizes the structure of the tabernacle: "A curtained barrier formed an enclosed rectangular courtyard, with an entrance on the east side. The exit direction from Eden. Where the Cherub stood guard? Inside this courtyard stood the tabernacle, a large tent divided into two sections.

Entered from the east, the first room of the tent was the holy place. In this part stood the menorah, table of the showbread and incense altar. A pair of curtains, embroidered with cherubim separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies. The latter room was the inner sanctum wherein was placed the Ark of the Covenant. This rectangular box served a double function, being both the footstool of a throne and a chest.

Understood as a footstool, the Ark of the Covenant extends the heavenly throne to the earth; this is where the divine king's feet touch the earth. Consequently the tabernacle links heaven and earth."

[Closer you get to the footstool, more cleanliness is needed, holiness] Is it cleanness that defines holiness? The more separated you need to be to God's service and cleanliness and moral purity are part of that separation but do not constitute its sum total. Here we see pictures of Eden, and how aspects of this special tent link it to God's plans for the earth. The cherubim guard the Holy of Holies, the entrance is from the east and like Adam the Levitical priests are instructed to serve and guard.

It was to be God's dwelling place (e.g. Ex 25:9; 26:1; 27:9; 38:21; 40:9; Lev 8:10; Num 1:50-51; 3:7-8; 4:16; 5:17; 7:1; 9:15). When it is finally erected in Ex 40:34-35 ["Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle"], God's glory filled the tent and remained within it.

So through their journey in the wilderness to the Promised Land, the divine presence, which appeared as a cloud by day and fire by night (Num 9:15-17, 22), was intimately associated with the tabernacle. [Moses met with God in tent- ohel moed--tent of meeting.] The tabernacle also shows us that the God of the universe resides with one people or nation. This idea we will pick up next week.

I should make a caveat to say that I do not mean that God's presence is limited to a tent. The Ark, as I mentioned, is identified as a footstool points to a heavenly throne, indicating that God's being was not contained within the Tabernacle alone. Again, these things are the shadows cast by their reality. Meaning that if God's people were to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, then the symbolism has to make Eden (Pre Fall) the grounds that house the temple which is what Adam and Eve were to be before their lack of faith separated them from God. Then the temple went into Exile - as the tent and dessert wandering indicate.

There is so much more to dig into at this point in the story, but time presses us to move on. "The tabernacle was a small-scale model and symbolic reminder to Israel that God's glorious presence would eventually fill the whole cosmos and that cosmos would be the container for God's glory and not a mere small architectural container."

The Jerusalem Temple In Josh 8, we see that some of the tribes settle in the land God had promised them and set up the tabernacle, and so it is set up at Shiloh. In 1 Sam 2:12-17, we encounter the tragic event where God abandons the sanctuary at Shiloh. The tragic significance of this event is conveyed by the wife of Phineas when she names her soon-to-be-orphaned son 'Ichabod, saying "the glory has departed from Israel!" (1 Sam 4:21). The story carries on, the shepherd David is appointed as king of Israel.

With this event Jerusalem is captured and the Ark is taken up to the city. Here God has chosen his new earthly dwelling place in the city where the king of Israel lives. David though sees the incongruity of this situation.

In 2 Sam 7, David laments: "1 Now when the king lived in his house and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, 2 the king said to Nathan the prophet, "See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent."" (2 Sa 7:1 - 2) David recognizes that his residence should not be more grand the house of one Lord God.

Even though David desires to build God a grand house, God in a twist says that he will build a house for David [dynasty] and that David's son would build a house for God [temple].

"8 Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. 9 And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. 10 And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more.

And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, 11 from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies.

Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. 12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.

When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, 15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. 16 And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.

Your throne shall be established forever.' "" (2 Sa 7:8 - 16) It is David's son, Solomon who finally builds the temple. 1 Kings 8:10-11, describes the dedication of the completed temple, and the same language of God's glory filling the temple that we saw earlier in Exodus is used. This means that the Jerusalem temple has now superseded the tabernacle.

Since I haven't read that far I can only hope that though he missed the significance of God dwelling in our midst is the fulfillment of his Creation Plan to create Spirit Temples in which to Dwell and the Greater Son who builds the Temple is not Solomon who merely builds in wood and stone, but Jesus who builds the Transformed Human heart.... We'll see.

When this happens the temple replaces the tabernacles as God's earthly abode, and the reflections of Eden are seen in this permanent structure. According to Psalm 68 ["68 but he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loves." (Ps 78:68)] and Psalm 132:13 ["13 For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his dwelling place:" (Ps 132:13)], the Lord chooses Jerusalem as his dwelling place.

Since God's creation project is to create a temple-city that (Dog, the creation project is to create a Temple People who are an assembly of Temple Persons, like the persons of the Trinity who though irreducibly separate and unique in the holiness [means separated out to your unique purpose] are also to be One Temple and each personal temple is like a living stone [remember He turns stone hearts to living hearts?

And if the children are silent the stones will cry out>] The earth is to be a temple filled with living temples in which the God dwells. See John 17 which like Revelation 21 can't stop talking about the revelation of God's Glory in a Trinitarian People.) God's plan. [READ Psalm 48; those who dwell in Zion are blessed because of the Lord's presence.] The Psalms portray this idea in so many places. A whole section of the Psalter (120-134) are songs used by those who ascended to the temple.

For 400 years, through righteous kings and evil kings the Jerusalem temple survived. Eventually, the accumulate failure of the kings and citizens of Jerusalem leads to the destruction of the temple and the overthrow of the city by the Babylonians. Isaiah 1 highlights the big discrepancy between what the people of God were to be as a holy righteous city-temple, and what they actually looked like. But the prophecies Isaiah move from the historical city of Jerusalem to the New Jerusalem of the future. But in Isaiah 2 this future transformation is anticipated. In Isaiah 65 we see visions of a future transformed city. As Ezekiel said, they lacked a heart. As David is Described "A heart after God" and "Man after God's heart."

Other prophets as well, like Ezekiel, highlights in chapters 40-48 how even in exile is God is still committed to making the whole earth his dwelling place. He spends significant time describing this idealized temple of the future.

And in the most striking to the earlier parts of the book God renames the city: The Lord is There. (Ezek 48:35) [From Jerusalem to yhwh-salem) [Zechariah looks forward to a transformed city in which God will dwell. 8:3: This is what the Lord says: "I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem.

Then Jerusalem will be called the Faithful City, and the mountain of the Lord Almighty will be called the Holy Mountain." 8:7-8: This is what the Lord Almighty says: "I will save my people from the countries of the east and the west. I will bring them back to live in Jerusalem; they will be my people, and I will be faithful and righteous to them as their God."] And its Ezekiel who speaks of the new heart. Temple.

In Zechariah's time, under the leadership of Ezra, God's people return to Jerusalem and seek to rebuild the temple. We see in Ezra 3 that when the foundations are built some cry because they remember the glory of the old temple. But some also rejoice because they see this as another fulfillment of God's creation plan.

But further measures are needed. [Clarifications: Cyrus declaration? 2 Chron 36:23?] Jesus We see in the opening chapter of John's gospel, God was incarnate in the flesh and dwelt among us, or tabernacled among us [John 1:14], in the person of Jesus. Jesus is the temple toward which all earlier temples look and which they anticipated (cf. 2 Sam 7:12-14; Zech 6:12-13). Jesus claimed that forgiveness of sins now comes through him and no longer through the sacrificial system of the temple.

This suggests he was taking over the function of the temple, because John 2:13-17 the temple was not fulfilling its purpose it was a have or marketplace. He often refers to himself as the cornerstone of the temple (Mark 12:10; Matt 21:42; Luke 20:17). Jesus even told the Jewish leaders in John 2:18-21 that he was the temple. [Mention destruction; Luke 21].

Church In 2 Cor 6:14-18, Paul makes it clear that the church (not the building but the people) is the temple of God. When we believe in Jesus, we are united with Christ and the temple (cf. 1 Cor 3:16; 6:19) ["for we are the temple of the living God" cf. Eph 2:21-22; 1 Pet 2:5; Rev 3:12; 11-12]. Paul though seems to be pointing to something more, and sees the church as just the beginning fulfillment of the creational blueprint God intended. But what exactly is it that Paul has in mind?

Accordingly, in Heb 11 Abraham's faith is reflected in the fact looked forward "to a better land," a "heavenly one," a city with foundations, designed and built by God. [Read Heb 11:8-10,13-16] Hebrews 11:8 - 10 (ESV) 8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Hebrews 11:13 - 16 (ESV) 13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

Abraham was waiting for a city. The author of Hebrews, like Paul, is convinced that the future experience of all believers involves a city. In 12:22 he refers once more to this city, describing it as "the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem," and later he states, "For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come" (Heb 13:14). [Mention levitical "entering the temple"] New Jerusalem The Apostle John has a vision of that which is to come in Revelation.

He sees that there is yet a time to come when all that is evil and impure will be removed from this present earth. "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with Men, and he will live with them.

They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.""

Patterns in the story Promise-Fulfillment I have on the handout there is the idea of promise fulfillment. But as we have gone through the story one thing stands very clear. What God intended in the Garden finds its "literal" fulfillment in the New Jerusalem. Let me explain this with an illustration: looking at something at a distance and close-up. Both are "literal".

Beale says it fairly clearly: "…Christ not only fulfills all that the OT temple and its prophecies represent but that he is the unpacked meaning for which the temple existed all along.40 Christ's establishment of the temple at his first coming and the identification of his people with him as the temple, where God's tabernacling presence dwells, is a magnified view of the beginning form of the new creational temple, and Revelation 21 is the most ultimate highly magnified picture of the final form of the temple that we will have this side of the consummated new cosmos.

Like the distant and close-up views of the earth, such a view of the temple should not be misconceived as diminishing a literal fulfillment of the OT temple prophecies." [Quotes in own words; Mention Abraham] Typology Remember we said that typology was a historical event, person or thing that God uses in redemptive history that foreshadows a clearer, greater and fuller event, person or thing revealed later.

In our story we have a couple examples of typology: Adam is given God's word and he works out that obedience in the Garden. So then the true purpose of these items is taken up in the Patriarchs and then the priests. But the true high priest is Jesus who perfectly fulfills what God intended for Adam.

Eden => Sanctuaries of the patriarchs => Tabernacle => Jerusalem temple => Jesus Continuity/Discontinuity I think a couple examples of continuity include God's original plan to fill the earth with his glorious presence. From the very beginning God was about this, and it is something we see in Revelation that he accomplished.

One major discontinuity is the idea of a physical temple in Jerusalem to be constructed. This gets to the questions I asked at the beginning, are the sanctuaries here? Is there a temple that needs to be built in Jerusalem? The discontinuity here allows us to say that no there is no need for a physical temple.

Beale is helpful on this: "To focus only upon a yet future physical temple as the fulfillment would be to ignore that Christ at his first coming began to fulfill this prophecy and that he will completely fulfill it in the eternal new creation; so even if there is to be a yet future physical temple built in Israel, So even if? So even if God replaces his people with a building it will only point to Christ and God as the temple in the eternal new creation, pictured in Rev 21:22.

Therefore, to focus only on a future physical temple as the fulfillment is like focusing too much on the physical picture of the temple and not sufficiently on what the picture ultimately represents." [Think further about Israel] No, any talk of building a temple is to replace Christ and to Rreplace His people his ecclesia with a building. This is a denial of salvation itself being the transformation of people.

Putting it all together

1. God is a holy creator.

It becomes very clear in the opening chapters of Genesis the nature of God as creator. But it is also clear how holy he is. He cannot tolerate his temple to be defiled. That is why our story talked about the levels of holiness to be in the presence of God. He is a holy God and his holy glory will one day fill the earth. "Holy" Needs definition. It is too closely identified in our minds with morality and to distant from purpose. As if "not murdering, committing adultery, not stealing not lying" tells us anything about "We are his workmanship created to walk in the good works he has created for us." It is that separation unto our purpose that is the reason for legal holiness.

1. God dictates how humanity is to have relationship with him.

Jonathan touched on this last week, but through covenants God determines how his people will approach him. Adam had full communication, sin marred that, and then God chose to speak through a messenger, then through the prophets, now he speaks to us through his Son.

1. God intends for his glory to fill the earth.

This is a constant refrain of Scripture. The Psalms are rich with this imagery. But as we have seen the aim of God from the very beginning is that his image bearers would make God known through their obedience to his word and their holiness. Even after the sin of Adam and Eve, and the curse that was placed on all humanity, God through his temple sought to have his glory fill the earth.

1. In Christ, God dwells through the Spirit in the worldwide Church.

How do we first experience God's tabernacling presence? By believing in Christ: that he died for our sins, that he rose from the dead, and reigns as the Lord God. God's Spirit comes into use and dwells in us in a similar manner that God dwelt in the sanctuary of Eden and Israel's temple. God's presence will become increasingly manifest to us as we grow by grace in our belief in Christ and his word. PLAN B NO DOUBT?

1. Christians are the inaugurated temple, designed to expand and spread God's presence throughout the earth.

This is the part of the storyline in which the role of Christian "witness" and "missions" is to be understood. Greg Beale summarizes the church's mission well: "our task as a church is to be God's temple, so filled with his presence that we expand and fill the earth with that glorious presence until God finally accomplishes this goal completely at the end of time. This is our common unified mission. May we unify around that goal." Needs a Biblical Theology of History.

[6. & 7. The Church is the Temple (1 Cor 3; 2 Cor 6; Eph 2) - Markers around the land are the ordinaces around the people. Exercise the keys of the kingdom, here among these people dwell. Church is programmatic system.] I would think a Baptist would get the nature of the Keys of the Kingdom being the possession of every Christian - every temple dwelling of god. Also if we are a Temple, that means we are the palace of God as well. The Palace and the Temple were the same place for God. The individual is as much the center of God's government in the earth as it is the center of purpose and worship.

Conclusion

Needs a Trinitarian Summary that puts John 17 at the Center and not as a tag along after thought. That is the story of God's dwelling place and presence as told through the whole Bible. Next week we are going to look the people of God throughout the whole Bible.

Annotated Biblical Theology, Class 5: The People of God Let's see if he saved the People as Temple from Creation for this Head, Who knows what a mixed metaphor is? Can anyone give me an example? A mixed metaphor is using two different images that don't fit together in a single utterance.

You might remember Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio exclaiming, "You buttered your bread. Now sleep in it!" or the line from another movie, "It looks like the cows have come home to roost." To this day I sometimes repeat the words of Biff, the thick-headed bully from the Back to the Future movies: "Let's make like a tree and get out of here."

Yet it's not only the comedy writers who mix their metaphors. Poets do as well, though their mixtures are subtler. T. S. Elliot opens one of his poems with a line about "forgetful snow," and William Butler Yeats writes about "treading on dreams." Strictly speaking, snow cannot be forgetful, and dreams cannot be tread upon. But the unexpected pairing of metaphors in both cases allows us to see true things that we may not ordinarily see with more literal language.

In his book Church Membership, Jonathan Leeman observes that when the New Testament authors start talking about the church and its members, they push this mixing of metaphors into hyperdrive, like hitting the turbo button on a racehorse. Paul talks about being "baptized" into a "body," as if one could be immersed into a torso. Peter talks about Christians as "living stones," itself a mixed metaphor, and then he says that these "living stones are being built into a spiritual house to be a royal priesthood."

Can anyone think of other metaphors for the church in the New Testament? When you open up the Bible and read what God says about the church, you find yourself staring at one big mixed metaphor. We read that the church is like a body, a flock of sheep, branches of a vine, a bride, a temple, God's building, a people, exiles, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, salt of the earth, the Israel of God, the elect lady, and on and on. The images keep coming, one piled on top of the other. It's like flipping through a photo album of images.

The church is unlike anything on earth. It's simultaneously family-like, body-like, flock-like…you get the idea. That's a hard picture to draw, even for the best artists. The question of course is, what do we do with all these metaphors? What is the church? If you've been here in previous weeks, you know that we've been tracing different themes through the biblical canon. Biblical theology begins with the assumption that the Bible, though authored my many different human authors over thousands of years, by individuals from different cultures speaking different languages, is also the product of one divine author, who is telling one story, albeit with many subplots, about the person and work and glory of Jesus Christ.

I. WHAT IS THE STORY?

Two weeks ago we thought about the storyline of kingdom through covenant which holds this book called the Bible together. Again and again, God establishes his kingdom (or rule) through covenants. First, he establishes his kingdom? with all humanity through a covenant with Adam, which he then repeats through Noah. But then he specially establishes a special demonstration? of his kingdom through a special covenant with Abraham, the first of a special people.

He changed "administration" to "demonstration" Interesting Turn in your Bible's to Genesis 10. What do we see in chapter 10? A genealogy, or what's sometimes called a table of the nations. And notice specifically how the genealogy is laid out: Noah's three sons are listed, and then each of their sons are listed - all the brothers.

1. Verse 1: These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth…
2. Verse 2: "The sons of Japheth…
3. Verse 6: "The sons of Ham…"
4. Verse 21: "To Shem also, the father of all the children…"
5. Verse 32: "These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood."

He leaves out the Prophecy of how the nations weave together in time A descendant of Ham is permanently cursed, Skull-crushed (Gen 3:14 & Joshua) Shem-Name bears the legacy/future/Inheritance (of the saints), Japheth, the rest of the nations will in time come into thet tents of Shem and become inheritor/saints/ of the legacy/inheritance/future.

But then look at chapter 11. What's there? First, there is the story of the Tower of Babel. Verse 1: "Now the whole earth had one language and the same words." But of course they raise themselves up against God. So, verse 8, "the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth."

Then what do we get starting in verse 10? Another genealogy of Shem. That's interesting. We already had a genealogy of Shem in chapter 10. What do you think we have a second genealogy of Shem only one chapter later? The first thing to notice is the different structures of the genealogy. How are they differently structured?

He shifts back and forth between the story and how to turn it into a Sermon, how to use it to explain our lives. I tend to be reformed here and view NT prophecy as the proclamation/application/rightly-dividing of the revealed word of God. Can you do Biblical Theology for BT's sake? Same for Systematics?

Can you just let the story inform you and fill your life with glory-joy. Chapter 10's lists all the brothers. You might call it a horizontal genealogy: if we were writing it out on a piece of paper, you'd have all these horizontal lines. Chapter 11's lists only one son, and his one son, and his one son. It's like it's tracing out a special line. You might call it a vertical genealogy: father, down to son, down to son, and so forth. And chapter 11's vertical genealogy culminates in Abraham.

What you'll find in Genesis (All Scripture) is a story of two seeds.

See the first 8 promises of the bible, 1) You Eat you Die; 2) Eat you won't die; 3) Belly crawling dirt eating the only future of rebellion; 4) Future is built out of the war of the seeds; 5) Ends with crushing of seed of Serpent and injury to seed of woman; 6) Pain to how woman brings forth the future; 7) Futility Scarcity to how Men bring forth the future; 8) Frustration to how they bring forth the future together Dominion of one over the other, that violates the creation order of those who solve others' problems best lead.

The woman serves making her fit to lead, but can't; the man has dominion over her which disqualifies his leadership but he must lead. This is the fruit of rebellion to be overcome when the seed of the serpent's head is crushed. Flip back to Genesis 3:15. In cursing the serpent, God says, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring [or seed] and her offspring [or seed]." The horizontal genealogies, in a sense, trace out the seed of the serpent: all fallen humanity.

The vertical genealogies trace out the seed of the woman: God's specially called out people, through him victory over the serpent and over sin will come. With Shem, Name, we get two genealogies because, of course, he's both: seed of the serpent and the woman…as is Abram…as are we, if we are Christians: simultaneously sinful and justified. But now I'm getting ahead of myself. This is a weak way to explain it though common in Protestant circles. Shem is the seed of the woman.

There's a better was to say this but not sure what it is.

The big picture so far is this: God created humanity to image him How? What is that Image. Why wasn't ethical righteousness included in that image, merely innocence. God though innocent is more than that He is ethically righteous, that is, God's law (ethics) is the foundation of His character and being. But this was something that was developmental in Humanity, there had to come a time in which they would grow into that Ethical Maturity that their created being was designed to operate in. in the Garden of Eden. They didn't. So God calls out a special line of people who are simultaneously a part of and set against all people to accomplish his purposes in creation of imaging him. Yeah this isn't what it could be, but it still is a good way to say it. We gotta do better.

A. Called-Out Special Covenant Members: Nation, Seed, Children How does the Bible describe these called-out members of God's special covenant members? To start, he calls them a nation. Word for nation is גויים (Goyim or גוי Goy Singular) or ἔθνος (ethnos) Does not mean "nation state", but peoples united under a common culture and leadership who identify with each other even if there are different regional leaders who don't get along (War Lords for instance, or in the case of Israel, tribal judges. Look at chapter 12, verse 1: "Now the LORD said to Abraham, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation."

And of course it's Abram's seed the will comprise this nation. Verse 7: "To your offspring I will give this land." In chapter 17, we learn that the Abrahamic people, the children of Abraham, or the seed of Abraham were marked off by their circumcision. Eventually Abraham begets Isaac, who begets Jacob, whom God renamed Israel. Israel then had 12 children who became the heads of the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel.

I know its important to my hobby horse, but it is also important to a responsible reading of the text that if the word nation which in our thinking is primarily identified with the Post Enlightenment Nation State. But that is nothing like the concept in Pre modern but particularly classical and particularly ancient worlds. Therefore it is important that we distinguish it from the larger groupings of people under a political leader, yes but held together culturally more than anything the political leader does. I don't think that the author would disagree with that assessment, but would find it a largely irrelevant distinction for the story he is telling.

They are a nation, seed, children. yes B. Son of God, Son of Man, Image, King, Priest & More But hold on, let's rewind the tape. Let's make sure we didn't miss anything earlier in the story. (Speaking of metaphors, do people under 30 know what it means to "rewind the tape"?) Two weeks ago, we also saw that Adam, being created in God's image, was a kind of son of God - someone who was to look and act like his dad. And what did his dad do? His dad was a king, and so Adam was to be a kind of king.

And Luke's vertical genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3:38 concludes, "the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God." Good place to introduce the Executive King vs Gifted leader; Officer with Institutionally granted powers of Office to be submitted to by others to meet their needs "Salute the uniform" vs Gifted with the authority of actually being designed to meet needs with 8th commandment submission all that is required - that is, voluntarily submitted to.

Executive government is the Adamic Curse that reverses the Creation Order of leadership. Those best able to serve to meet needs lead in the area of their gifting and dominion applied to meeting needs. Deuteronomy 17:18-20 God's law can't be violated by leadership defined by office but the very existence of office is a violation since power flows to the officer regardless of qualification or proof of leadership i.e. meeting needs. To meet needs as designed in creation requires a voluntary submission of each side, the needy and the provider. Office requires the submission of only one side, the needy.

And we considered two weeks ago how all these titles work together: son of God, son of man, image of God. Interestingly, God then calls Israel his "son" in Exodus 4:22-23, and then David his son in 2 Samuel 7 and Psalm 2. And of course David is a king. So the image of God is the son of God who is a son of man who is the king.

We also saw two weeks ago that Adam was also a kind of priest because he was to watch over the Garden. Sure enough, Exodus 19 refers to Israel as both priestly and kingly when God says, "You shall be to me a kingdom of priests." To recap, we have the people of God described in the language of sons of God, image, king, and priest. Does it feel like image overload yet?

And these are just some of the metaphors used for the people of God in the Old Testament. We'll see in a moment a number of others. Too complicated to sort out the way he states it. But the multi ven diagrams created is not a bad confusion to bring to it. He begins with it and it's a good intro to the fact that though simple, human Kind is not merely a simple unity. It is Trinitarian as is God. And that Trinitarian structure of both God and man goes beyond the introductory one in essence and three in person to introduce the entire reality of the One and the Many into the person of God and His Image bearer.

C. Christ as the New Adam, Abraham, Israel, David, Image, King, Priest, Son of Man, Son of God, Seed of Abraham He keeps leaving out the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Now when we turn to the New Testament, it's important that we don't move straight from Israel to church. Israel's storyline is not fulfilled in the church. It's fulfilled in who?

Christ! Two weeks ago we considered the opening words of the New Testament: "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham" (Matt. 1:1). And we saw that Matthew was telling us that Jesus is the new Adam in addition to being the new David (or king) and the new Abraham (or seed of Abraham). And in Matthew 2 and 5 we saw he was the new Israel.

Throughout the Gospels we learn he's the Son of Man, the Son of God. Hebrews tells us he is our true priest. D. A New People Through Union With Christ Who then are the New Testament people of God? Look at point "D" in your handout. They are everyone who is covenantally united to Christ, who is the second Adam, seed of Abraham, new Israel, and son of David. Remember the new covenant Christ promised through his blood at the Last Supper?

What does it mean to be covenantally united to Christ? It means that all which is his becomes yours, and all which is yours becomes his, as in a marital covenant. When I married my wife, what's mine became hers, and hers mine. Union with Christ means his righteousness and standing and glory become mine, and my sin and condemnation become his.

Our union with Christ extends to both what he possess, as well as to much of the work that he does, such as the offices of priest and king. (Rom. 6:1ff; Gal. 2:20; Col. 2:20 - 3:4). Thus, the Christian shares in his life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, rule, and reign, as well as the justifying benefits that come through his atoning death and resurrection. Being "in Christ," says theologian Sinclair Ferguson, "means that all he has done for me representatively becomes mine actually."

As such, Christians, too, are called "sons" and "children." Peter calls us a "royal priesthood." We are priests and kings. And of course we are being conformed to the image of the Son, says Paul. So if we are Priests, Kings who or what do we mediate? That is to say the mediatorial representatives are every Christian representing God and mediating God royally and as priests - to whom or what? Is there a special office of kingly or priestly mediation a few of us hold in respect to each other?

That is a question that the Reformers answered unequivocally NO! until after the division was made in the Catholic Church. Then the reformation churches became "Magesterial" That is run by people with special divine authority over others. But it is worth reading classical Baptist and Reformed (two completely different streams of thought) to see that they rejected the magisterial rule until they had successfully divided the Church and then they revived the magisterium for the benefit of Those who need official authority and power to run the churches because they are incapable of generating sufficient authority on their own - who would pay attention to them?

That said, the NT has no such officers, no such magisterium, by the time our story gets there, Paul in a dispute with men from James who would not partake of the Lord's table with the uncircumcised Christians called out all who preached this false Gospel denying the unity of the Body of Christ. In Galatians 2 while telling the story, he does not even call the 123 Apostles, "Apostles". He calls them "Reputed to be pillars." Says "What they are means nothing to me."

E. Church as Israel, or Seeds of Abraham, but Through the Promise Insofar as Christ is the seed of Abraham and the new Israel, and insofar as the church is united to Christ, such that all that is his becomes ours, we, too, become Israel, we become seeds of Abraham, but we become identified with Abraham and Israel through the promise. "Yes whatever name is used to call the people of God at any time in Scripture can be used to refer to God's people at any other time. There is no salvation outside of Christ. There is no people outside of those called out by His word and blood.

Think for a moment: I am a Leeman by blood, because my parents were named Leeman. My wife, Shannon, is also a Leeman. But she's not a Leeman by blood, she's a Leeman how? Through a covenantal promise. Marriage. And when Jesus and the apostles show up, we learn that it's not really blood or biological descent that matters, it's the covenantal promise.

Look at Matthew 3:9. Jesus says to the Pharisees and Saducees, "do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham." Flip to Romans 9. Paul explains further. Verse 6 to 8: "For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." It is not the children by physical descent who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring.

Finally, turn to Galatians 3:29. Churches of Galatia, Paul says, "If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." This is in direct response to the refusal of Men from James to partake of the Lord's supper with uncircumcised Christians who were not genetically Jewish not had the Jewish covenant sign.

It's not physical descent from Abraham that finally matters, but receiving the promise that came through Abraham. Look at Galatians 6:15-16: "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule - to the Israel of God."

With the coming of Christ, the structure of the people of God changes. The people of God are no longer constituted by physical descent. The ethnic people of Israel simply served a typological, shadow-like function. Their purpose, among other things, was to demonstrate what the true people of God were to be like. Therefore they received God's presence and God's law. But of course they also needed God's Spirit. "What counts," Paul says, "is the new creation."

The movement from the Old Covenant to the New is the movement from genealogy to re-genealogy, or regeneration. (I tweeted that this morning. No, I'll never be a super popular twitterer.) F. Church as Regenerate and Baptized Notice what this means then for the composition of the church. The church, the people of God in the New Testament, are no longer held together by ethnic ties, or biology. The ethnic ties fall away since they were only meant to point to something else: a supernatural, Spirit-created family.

Our infants are not a part of the church community simply because they are our children. Instead we are a regenerate community. What's the purpose of marriage, according to Paul in Ephesians 5? It's to point to a covenantal union even greater than itself. And what's the point of family ties, particularly in the family ties in the life of Israel? To point to a family ties even greater than themselves: the family ties we are to have through regeneration in the church.

Who then should be baptized? Not babies, but repentant believers. Turn to Acts 2. In verse 36, Peter preaches, God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah." When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off - for all whom the Lord our God will call."

Again, we see that Peter is interested in a promise. And who receives the promise? Well, Presbyterians and paedo-baptists generally want to say: "Well, look, it's for us and for our children. So we should baptize ourselves and our children." The problem is, the verse keeps going: The promises is for you, your children, and for all who are far off, which is to say, both Jews and Gentiles. It's for all whom the Lord will call. It's no longer biological descent. It's for those whom the Lord calls, whether near or far, Jew or Gentile. And this is true for your children, too. Your children, too, must be called.

The people of God in the New Testament consist of baptized believers. G. Many of the Metaphors for the Church Root in the Old Testament In other words, tracing the storyline of the people of God from Old Testament to New requires us to attend carefully both to matters of continuity and discontinuity. I've just emphasized a point of discontinuity by describing the movement from genealogy to re-generation.

At the same time, we have to notice then that many of the metaphors for the church root in the Old Testament.

Like Israel, Greg Beale observes, the church is called the "beloved of God" (Deut. 32:15; 33:12; Ps. 60:5; Isa. 44:2; Jer. 11:15; Hos. 2:23; Rom. 9:25; Thes. 1:4); "church" (see LXX of Deut. 23:2-3; 31:30; 1 Sam. 17:47; 1 Chron. 28:8; Neh. 13:1); "son(s) of God" (Exod. 4:22-23; Deut. 14:1; Isa. 1:2, 4; 63:8; Hos. 1:10; 11:1; Matt. 5:9; Rom. 8:14, 19; 9:26; Gal. 3:36; 4:6); "Abraham's seed" (Gal. 3:26, 28); children of the "Jerusalem above" (Gal. 4:26, 31); "fellow citizens" with the Jewish "saints" (Eph. 2:12, 19); a "Jew…inwardly" and "the true circumcision" (Rom. 2:26-29; Phil. 3:2-3); the "temple" (1 Cor. 3:10-17; 6:19; Eph. 2:20-22); "the bride of Christ/God" (Isa. 54:5-6; Ezek. 16:32; Hos. 1:2; 2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:25-27); a "vineyard" or "cultivated field" (Is. 5:1-7; Jer. 12:10; Ezek. 19:10; Joh 15:1-11; 1 Cor. 3:5-9); an "olive tree" (Isa. 17:6; Jer. 11:16; Hos. 14:6; Rom. 11:17, 24); "sheep" (Jer. 23:1; 50:6; Ezek. 34:6f; Mic. 2:12; Matt. 10:6; 25:22-23; John 10:1f; 21:16-17; Heb. 13:20); a (special) "people" (Exod. 19:15; 23:22; Deut. 7:6; 14:2; 26:18; Tit. 2:14; 1 Peter 2:9-10); a "royal priesthood and holy nation" (Ex. 19:6; 1 Peter 2:9); a "chosen race" and "the Israel of God" (1 Peter 2:9; Gal. 6:16); the "image of God." "Church" is never the term used here.

Stick with Scripture's story and don't impose a 1611 pedophile king's word on the text. Quhal, Ecclesia, Congregation is the term used in Scripture.

Speaking of Christ's covenantal union with the church should condition how one interprets the New Testament metaphors, whether they appear in the Old Testament or not. For instance, the metaphor "body of Christ," in the history of the church, has sometimes been interpreted mystically or even ontologically as "the whole Christ" or a "continuation of the incarnation." Yet a biblical-theological reading would recommend that the language "body of Christ" is covenantal language, not mystical language. It means, he represents us, and we him. The fact that Christ is the "head of the body" means that he is the covenant mediator and the federal head of the church (1 Cor. 11:3; Eph. 1:22; 4:15; 5:23; Col. 1:18; 2:10, 19).

F. The People of God and the New Jerusalem All of this leads to the great consummation when God's people will be with Him face to face. As John saw in Revelation: "I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb" (Rev. 7:9) At the end of Revelation, John writes, "I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.'" (Rev. 21:3).

God is creating a New Nation, a Bride, who will live with Him for all eternity.

II. Biblical Theological Tools

Let's consider a few of the biblical theological tools we used. A. Covenants Clearly the people of God exist as the people of God by virtue of covenantal inclusion. This is true of both Israel and the church. B. Continuity/Discontinuity But it's critical here to recognize which covenant they belong to, which brings us to continuity and discontinuity. These are points of continuity between members of the Old Covenant and New: we just saw how all those metaphors for the church root in the Old Testament.

But there are also many points of discontinuity. There's a movement from biology or ethnicity to promise and regeneration. C. Typology I briefly referred to typology a moment ago. Adam is a type of the son of man, and a type of the Son of God. Abraham, too, is a type of Adam. Israel is a type of Son, as is David. David is also a type of king. And the antitype to all these things is Christ: the true Son, the true man, the true king, and so forth.

I barely had time to mention all the other ways the church's identity is understood through typology. For instance, you have the Old Testament temple, which is where God made his special presence known to the nation and nations. Who fulfilled the temple? Christ. Christ is the one in whom God specially dwells. But what does that mean for us who are covenantally united to Christ? We become the temple, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians. God dwells in us! "Barely had time" for the purpose of all creation?

To build Spirit-Ttemples for God to dwell in and to bodily come as a human being, a Creature who was both Creature and God? This is the centerpiece of Creation and Consumation. "The Dwelling place of God is now with men. What?! This is just because we sinned otherwise God would have stayed safely segregated in Heaven? This is in fact the foundation of Trinitarian Ethics and fellowship Trinitarian Ethics opens up that Creation itself is admitted into fellowship with the God-head because of the Incarnation.

John 17: 22 "The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me." Frankly if the Jesus had not included this in His Prayer it would be considered heresy. As it is it becomes a central pillar in the purpose and goal of Creation.

But more it is the origin of Ethics in human experience and the purpose of ethics in Creation to create a Trinitarian social world in which unity is ethical, not some sort of mystical ontology.

D. Promise/Fulfillment

The theme of promise/fulfillment is also a wonderful one to consider. All the promises and purposes given to Adam, Abraham, Moses, and David are now ours, because of Christ. The promises of blessing and a great name given to Abraham? Ours through Christ. The promises of an everlasting dominion given to David and repeated through Daniel? Ours through Christ.

Do you see? We are rich in Christ: "For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future - all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's" (1 Cor. 3:21b-23). For all the promises of God are "yes" and "amen" in Christ.

But God reciprocates. He calls himself by our name. When he calls himself the God of - - - - _ fill the blank with your name. You take His name He takes yours.

III. Systematizing It All

In order to systematize it all, we simply we want to consider, What is the church? And what implications might this have for our lives? A. The Church [Congregation of God is a Justified and Holy People. By virtue of are union with Christ, we possess his righteousness. We have been justified.

B. The Church Is a United People By virtue of our union with Christ, we are united to one another. Sure enough, Ephesians 2:1 to 10 explain forgiveness and our vertical reconciliation with God: "By grace you have been saved." Verses 11 to 20 then present the horizontal: "For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility" (v. 14).

To be converted is to be made a member of Christ's body. When mom and dad adopt you, you get new parents, but you also get a new set of brothers and sisters. Sonship comes first. But brotherhood follows. That is to say, conversion signs you up for a family photo.

C. Each one of the metaphors for the church has a job to do for describing something about our union in a church. Each metaphor teaches us something different about what a church and its members are like. To describe the church as a "family" is to speak about its relational intimacy and shared identity. To call it a "body" is to say that its members are mutually dependent but have different roles. To refer to it as the "temple of the Spirit" is to say that God specially identifies himself and dwells with these people. The language of "vine and branch" communicates the church's dependence on Jesus and his Word for its life. Do you see?

Why is it so hard to see when he is actually defining a word that does not exist in Scripture? "The Church is a body, is a relational intimacy, a shared identity a family..." etc. If He would simply say "The congregation of God, the People of God, the Gathering of God, those called out by God are called a Family, a relationally intimate. I know he doesn't disagree, this is classic individual and local Baptistic Ecclesiology. A place he is actually right.

There's nothing on earth like the local church. D. Each of these metaphors gets put into practice locally. Every biblical metaphor for the church becomes embodied - puts on a body - in the local church. The "family," the "body," the "temple," the "people" - all of these descriptions become concrete in particular places. They get put into practice locally.

But don't all Christians everywhere belong to the "family of God"? Indeed, they do, but God gives you the opportunity to act like a family with your local church; you treat them first and foremost as your sisters and brothers. I have a friend who returned to Italy and visits regularly with his father's relatives who great him and feast with him like a long lost son.

Right there at First Baptist or Second Presbyterian or St. Mark's Lutheran or Grace Community or The Journey you have the people of God. You have the temple of the Spirit. And you have the body of Christ. You don't have just an arm or an ankle of Christ's body. There was that so hard?

The universal church is present in the local church. To state this the other way around, your membership in a local body now presents a picture of your membership in his end-time body. You need a body of Christ to be the body of Christ. You need a family of God to be the family of God.

How do you fulfill Jesus' command to "love one another" (John 13:34)? How do you fulfill Paul's command to "carry each other's burdens" (Gal. 6:2)? How do you obey Peter's words, "Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others" (1 Peter 4:10).

You obey all these commands through your (membership in the) local church. OK he just slipped something in that isn't found in the Story Scripture tells. We all take it for granted. But "Through your (membership in the) local Church." What is that? Its even in parentheses. He could have said, "participation," "commitment to," "identification with." But what is "Membership?" Where is it found in the text? Yes its there in the story, but not an institutional membership. How are the two different. The word as used in Scripture is much more like a Trinitarian term, than a club term.

E. The metaphors aren't really metaphors but shadows. Really Really Really REALLY good observation In fact this whole section E is what he should have spent his time on. Not half of that other stuff. In the New heavens and new earth, the metaphor of marriage will give way to the real substance: union with Christ. Marriage the shadowy outline which points to the real reality - Christ and the church. Whoa! Make that the context for exegeting "No giving and taking in marriage" along the same lines as no animal sacrifice in the New Covenant. Two great points in a row.

The same is true, I believe, for all the biblical metaphors for the church. They are the shadows of something even greater. Think also of Paul's reference to the heavenly Father "from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name" (Eph. 3:15). God placed earthly fathers on earth so that all the world would have a shadowy outline of what our relationship with the heavenly Father is to be like.

Why do you think God has created brothers and sisters? Again, so that everyone gets a dim sense of the true reality which begins now in the local church and awaits us completely in glory. What about branches on the vine? It gives us a dim picture of our dependence on the Word of Christ.

Conclusion: There's Nothing Like It

There's nothing in the world like the local church and its members. The relationships which we share in the local church will ultimately prove more interconnected than a physical body, more safe than a father's embrace, more collegial than brotherly love, more resilient than a stone house, more holy than a priesthood, and on and on we could go. OK OK has this guy been to church lately?

This is what Jesus has prepared for us in glory, and this is what we begin to practice right now at First Baptist or Second Presbyterian or The Journey. We practice it with all those still-sinful and still-strange people who step on our toes, just like we step on theirs.

Here's the thing and its not against what he says. How is this a story that he is laying out. It's a series of sermons. How can we tell the story of the Bible in our sermons, our families, our lives?

Class 7: The Story of Sacrifice

Annotated

What did Christ's sacrifice accomplish? What was he doing on the cross? The answers to these questions are at the heart of Christianity, and so you can be sure that the doctrine of Christ's sacrificial atonement are target number one for the devil. You can be sure that all sorts of controversies will surround the meaning of this central event in Christianity.

In fact, you can be sure that many of the most compelling answers given to the question "What was Christ doing on the cross?" will be compelling and true; they just won't be the whole truth. Did Christ die to demonstrate God's love for us? Yes! But is that all?

Today, we want to look at the storyline of sacrifice in the Bible, in order to understand this central moment in biblical history rightly. Remember, the fundamental premise of this course it that that Bible is a single narrative, a story that isn't fiction, because it's the revelation of God unfolding in time and space. And we're learning how to determine what to believe according to this storyline.

Story of Sacrifice

And at the heart of the story of the Bible is the story of sacrifice. Ironically, this story begins with a colossal failure of self-denial. When Adam and Eve indulged their desire to be God's equal, they plunged themselves and the rest of us into a world under God's curse, a world in which sacrifice would now be the order of the day. As the narrative of Scripture unfolds, the need, nature, and effects of sacrifice are slowly revealed. I'm doing to divide this storyline up into six episodes:

1) Adam and Eve and their kids introduce the idea of Sacrifice in the Old Testament. In Genesis 3:21 God provides animal skins for Adam and Eve. It displays an important link that will mark sacrifice: the anticipation that death and sin are physically linked. [NOTE: who provides the sacrifice?] Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 offer sacrifices to the Lord. There's no mention of sin or blood with this sacrifice. The Bible calls it an offering, a gift, and the idea is one of tribute to a great King, and submission to his Lordship. ). We see here the beginning of another great principle of sacrifice, much emphasized by the prophets, psalmists and wisdom writers, that the inward disposition of worshippers must be right if their 'outward' gift is to be accepted.

1. The next sacrifice recorded is in Genesis 8. After the Flood, Noah offers up a variety of clean animals as whole burnt offerings. It suggests the idea of a gift, and this gift has an effect on God. The Bible tells us that when

Genesis 8:20 - 22 (ESV) 20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease."

The sin that prompted God's judgment remained in the hearts of Noah and his children. But God promises to never again destroy all humanity. Sacrifice continues throughout the patriarchal age, and altars are recorded as having been built, or sacrifice as having been offered, by Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The gift offered is a basis for prayer, for calling on the name of the Lord (Gen. 12:8; 13:4; 26:25).

1. God not only promises to never again destroy humanity, he promises to bless all nations. In particular, he promises Abraham a seed who would be a blessing to all. Then, interestingly, the Bible's next recorded sacrifice, which occurs in Genesis 22, when God speaks these shocking words concerning Abraham's seed: "'Abraham, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love… Sacrifice him.'" Incredibly, by faith Abraham obeys. Once again, the idea seems to be that of tribute and Lordship.

It all belongs to God, and he has the right to take it back. At the last second, God stops Abraham. The test of Abraham's devotion is over, but not the sacrifice. God provides a ram to be sacrificed in Isaac's place. It turns out that God will accept a substitute. What's more, he'll even provide that substitute. [NOTE: Lev 17:11 cf. Gen 3:21 "I have given it"]

1. Exodus 12 Pharaoh refuses to release the Israelites. God promises to strike down the first-born male of every creature in Egypt. But the Lord promises to spare the firstborn of Israel if they take a year-old lamb without defect, sacrifice it, and smear it's blood on the doorframe of their houses. God says that he will see the blood of the sacrifice, and pass over their homes, sparing them the judgment that Egypt faced.

What's more, God says this sacrificial meal will be a sign that sets them apart, as God makes a distinction between Israel and the rest of world, consecrating them as his special people. That very night, Israel is spared because of the sacrifice. Building on the sacrifice of the animal for clothing, the substitute for Abraham, with the Passover lamb we see how the sacrifice is a display of God's magnificent grace.

1. Now up until this point, there have been less than a dozen instances of sacrifice recorded in the Bible. It doesn't seem to be a major theme. But that changes with the giving of the Law. An entire book of the Bible, Leviticus, is largely given over to detailing all the different sacrifices that Israel is to offer God. There are fellowship offerings and whole burnt offerings. But there are more, the most important of which are sacrifices to atone for sin and guilt. Now, all the pieces that had been slowly revealed come together.
2. Only clean animals without defect can be sacrificed.
3. Every first-born Israelite, who represents the nation as whole, must be redeemed with a sacrificial substitute.
4. Prominent is the taking of life, the shedding of a blameless victim's blood.
5. Again, the idea of a substitution is prominent: There we're told that if anyone brings a sacrifice, "He is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf…" (Lev. 1:4) It's a way of saying, "This sacrifice stands for me; what's about to happen to it should happen to me, and it is taking my place."
6. These sacrifices now begin and end every single day in God's temple, presented by priests who serve as intermediaries between God and his sinful people.
7. There are additional sacrifices that mark the beginning of each week, each month, and each season.
8. And at the pinnacle of this entire system of sacrifice was the Day of Atonement. The High Priest alone who take the blood of the sacrifice into the Holy of Holies, and sprinkle blood on the mercy seat, the symbolic throne of God, to make atonement for his own sins and the sins of the people.

And that's where this theme in the Bible stops, or at least stalls. Century follows century, and nothing changes. No new sacrifices are introduced; the old ones are just endlessly repeated, day after day, week after week, year after year. And therein lies the problem. They obviously weren't getting rid of sin. In fact, they increasingly become a nauseating reminder of just how sinful the people remained. Repentance, not ritual is what God desired. But for Israel, repentance had vanished and all that remained was ritual. And so God banished the nation to exile. Without the Temple, there could be no sacrifice. If there is no sacrifice that God will accept, then God's people are as exposed to God's judgment as Egypt was on the night of the Passover, as Isaac was as he lay bound on that altar.

When God brings them back from Babylon, and the temple is rebuilt, sacrifices resume. But the people have not changed. Other things have changed, though. The Holy of Holies is empty. There is no mercy seat for the high priest to appear before and plead for forgiveness. There is just an empty room. Malachi, the last of the Old Testament prophets, declares, " 'Oh that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you,' says the Lord Almighty, 'and I will accept no offering from your hands' " (Mal. 1:10). Those are chilling words. If there is no sacrifice that God will accept, then God's people are as exposed to God's judgment as Egypt was on the night of the Passover, or as Isaac was as he lay bound on that altar.

[The practice of sacrifice in the life of Israel came under intense criticism from the prophets, beginning with the anonymous prophet of 1 Samuel 2:27 - 36, who denounced the profane behaviour of the sons of Eli. As already noted, the prophets also denounced the nation's prevalent syncretism. Samuel told Saul that sacrifice, even when offered to the Lord, is far less important than obedience, and is a mere formality without it (1 Sam. 15:22 - 23).

The other prophets speak similarly (Jer. 7:21 - 23; Hos. 6:6; Amos 5:21 - 27; Mic. 6:6 - 8). Multitudes of sacrifices, combined with a wicked life, are an abomination to the Lord, says Isaiah (1:11 - 17). The wise man says the same thing (Prov. 15:8; 21:3, 27). It is not surprising, therefore, to see in the period of the monarchy the beginning of the reinterpretation of sacrificial language in terms of attitudes and acts of devotion.

The psalmists speak of thanksgiving and contrition as acceptable sacrifices (Pss. 50:13 - 15; 51:16 - 17). Isaiah speaks of the returned exiles being brought back by their captors as an offering to the Lord (66:20)]

1. And then something incredible happens - a sixth sacrifice to point out this morning. God is true to his Word to Abraham. He will not accept a sacrifice from the hands of his sinful people, and so he provides one instead. He sends his Son, who takes on flesh, and then offers his own life, his own blood, as an acceptable sacrifice, as a substitute for his people - a people who belong to just one nation, but to all the nations.

There at Calvary, Christ fulfilled everything the OT sacrifices meant, and accomplished what they were unable to do. Through his blood, he made atonement for the sins of his people and reconciled them to God. And to demonstrate that God accepted this sacrifice, he raised Jesus from the dead. So that starting now and continuing on into eternity, whoever repents of their sins and places their faith in Christ's sacrifice, is redeemed from slavery to sin and is free to live a life of tribute and praise to God.

Patterns in the Storyline

That's the story of sacrifice. What I want to do now is briefly explore some of the patterns in the storyline. Then we'll consider how we take doctrine from the storyline. For the last several weeks, we've been saying that we don't learn what the Bible has to teach us simply by pulling out our favorite prooftexts. We don't learn simply with word studies. We learn from how the story is put together.

1. The first pattern to notice is the pattern itself - the pattern of sacrifice. The technical terminology for this is typology. There's a type of something, then another, then another. God's telling us to fix our attention on this. The shedding of blood isn't something we think much about today, but the Bible is obviously interested in it. Why? What is it saying? Also, we noticed a crescendoing trend with these types. First, with Abel, it was just the idea of thanksgiving.

Then, with Noah, it was thanksgiving and pleasing the Lord. Then, with Abraham and Isaac, it was all this, but also the expressing of utter devotion and the idea of a substitute. Then, with Passover, it was a spotless lamb, the representative role of the firstborn Son, and the distinguishing of a people. Then, in Leviticus, it was a clear emphasis on atonining for sin.

So, a pattern or type is repeated. But there's a crescendoing as well.

1. But there's not just crescendoing or continuity. There's discontinuity, especially when we get to Christ. The Levitical sacrifices were repeated endlessly, but Christ is sacrificed once. The Levitical sacrifices were for one ethnic nation. But Christ was sacrificed for all nations.
2. One other pattern for us to notice this morning is that of promise/fulfillment. There's many promises I could highlight, like his promise to Noah. Let me highlight the promise to Abraham - that his seed would be a blessing to all nations. We know that this promise was fulfilled in Christ.

First, there is a connection between God's promise to punish sin through death, God's promise to rescue his people from the serpent, and the establishment of sacrifice. Sacrifices offer a vicarious (experienced through another) fulfillment of God's promise to punish sin. But because they are vicarious, they accomplish the promised rescue, at least temporarily. Thus, sacrifice actually ties together multiple promises in Scripture.

Second, there is a connection between God's promise to Abraham - that his seed would be a blessing to all nations - and Christ's sacrifice. Christ fulfilled this promise to Abraham not just through his birth and ministry as a genealogical descendant of Abraham, but especially through his sacrifice. Therefore, the cross of Christ, and not merely his person, is a blessing to all nations and is at the heart of the good news of the gospel.

Systematizing It All

Okay, what's the purpose in pointing out these patterns? They are instrumental in helping us to understand who Jesus is, what his sacrifice accomplished, and our need for his sacrifice. All these patterns point to Jesus, and help us understand Jesus. The set the context for his coming. The give us pre-interpretation, if you will.

Over the years, some have suggested that Christ died primarily as an example for us, to inspire us to greater love for God. Others have suggested that Christ's death was merely a demonstration of God's hatred for sin. Others, a demonstration of his compassion and identification with sinners. These days, some are saying Jesus died simply to declare victory of the fallen authorities, sin, and death.

And we can point to verses in the New Testament which say all these things - that Jesus died as an example, to demonstrate God's hatred for sin, to declare victory over falleness and death. Well, all those comprise a part of why Jesus died. They comprise a part of what's wrong with you and me. We do need someone to set a good example. We do need someone to identify with us in weakness and to defeat death.

But let me try to offer a more well-rounded understanding of Christ's sacrifice based on this storyline and the patterns that we have observed.

1. The fundamental problem with the world and humanity is our sin and the guilt it incurs.

It's not death. It's not a broken relationship. It's not our need for love or an example of love. The fundamental problem is sin, guilt, and the wrath of God incurred.

I'm talking about the need for sacrifice here. Before the Fall, Adam and Eve had no need to kill an animal and offer it to God. They were in a right relationship with a good and holy God. But the moment sin entered in, Adam and Eve's lives were forfeit because of sin and guilt. Romans 6:23, echoing God's words to Adam in Genesis 2, tells us that the penalty for sin is death. Sin came first; then death.

Here is the problem that sacrifice in the Bible is designed to solve. Our need is not just an inspiring example of love. It's not just a victory over the powers of darkness. It's not just a victory over death. Rather, there is an eternal and holy God is justly angry with us for our rebellion, and we need a way to escape the penalty of his justice, because we cannot ever hope to bear that penalty ourselves. According to Scripture, what we need is a sacrifice.

1. Christ came to die as a substitute.

An effective sacrifice is a substitute. We saw God provide a ram as a substitute in the place of Isaac. We saw the Passover lamb slain in the place of the first-born. And we see it in the book of Leviticus, as the person lays his or her hand on the animal.

1. Christ came to die as a penal substitute.

The victim receives the penalty I deserved. The sacrificial victim doesn't just die; it's judicially executed in my place.

Both the Old and New Testament are clear that on the cross, Christ died as a substitute, taking the punishment that his people deserved. So the prophet Isaiah foretold. Turn to Isaiah 53. Speaking of the Messiah, Isaiah says beginning in verse 4,

"Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed…the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Jesus said in John 10, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." Jesus did not understand his own death as an example, or as a demonstration, or even as an open-ended general death with reference to nobody in particular. No Jesus laid down his life as an effective sacrifice, a penal substitute for his sheep.

Paul said in Romans 3, "God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood…he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus." This brings us to the next lesson.

1. Christ came to die as a penal substitute to propitiate the wrath of God.

Christ's sacrifice propitiates God's wrath. What do I mean by that? I mean simply that by enduring the penalty our sin deserves, an effective sacrifice actually satisfies the demands of justice, and so removes the reason for God's wrath against the sinner. If you think back to the story of sacrifice, we saw a suggestion of this in Noah's sacrifice. We also see it in the repeated reference throughout Leviticus that the aroma of a burning sacrifice was "pleasing to the Lord."

1. Christ came to die as a penal substitute to propitiate the wrath of God and make atonement for his people.

This turning aside of God's wrath leads to the other effect of sacrifice; an effective sacrifice atones for sin. We've already seen that the high point of the Jewish year was the Day of Atonement. So what exactly is atonement? The Hebrew word for atone means to "cover." The English word simply means to be "at one with," so a sacrifice, you could say, covers our sin and makes us "at one" with God. Having assuaged God's wrath, the sacrifice obtains forgiveness for the sin that caused God's wrath in the first place, and it removes the guilt that sin had incurred.

1. Christ came to die as an effective penal substitute to propitiate the wrath of God and make atonement for his people.

While the Levitical sacrifices were repeated endlessly, the book of Hebrews draws our attention to the fact that Christ was sacrificed once. So in Hebrews 7:27, "He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself." And again in 9:12, "He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption." And again in 9:26, "Now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself."

The whole sacrificial system had only been a picture, a teaching aid, designed, as Paul says in Galatians, to lead us to Christ, and to recognize him when he appeared. Now that he was here, the picture was no longer needed.

As the writer to the Hebrews says in Hebrews 10, "it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" But, he goes on to say, "we have been made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ." Jesus Christ's death on the cross turned aside God's wrath and satisfied it.

The good news of Christianity, is that on the cross, Jesus Christ accomplished salvation. He turned aside God's wrath. He made atonement for sin. The only question is, did he do this for you? Jesus said that he gave his life as a ransom for many. Are you among the many? Jesus said that he lays down his life for his sheep. Who are his sheep? They are those who listen to his voice, who respond to his call. John put it this way in John 3: "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, but God's wrath remains on him."

O friend, Jesus Christ has accomplished redemption for everyone who listens to his call to repent and believe. What are you listening to?

Which leads us to the final thing to consider today, and that's the end of sacrifice in the Bible. In a story that is so saturated with the repeated shedding of sacrificial blood, it cannot escape attention that sacrifice comes to an end at the cross. There's no further or other sacrifice to be given to pay for our sins before a holy God.

1. We're saved by faith alone.

This is why the Bible talks about the necessity of personal faith in a crucified and risen Christ for salvation. It's not that faith itself is saving. It's that faith is the way you acknowledge Christ as your substitute. Like the Old Testament Israelite who laid his hands on the victim, so faith leans on Christ and trusts that when Christ died on the cross, he was dying in your place, for you. It's not enough to be born in a Christian family, or to be baptized, or to go to church, or anything else. No, by faith you must believe that Christ was sacrificed for you.

1. We're saved by faith alone in Christ alone.

It's not just that he's the best example of a substitute - he's the only substitute, for no one else has ever lived a perfect life. It's not just that his death approximates the judgment we deserve - it's that on the cross, Christ endured the holocaust of God's wrath against our sin, and exhausted it. He is the last sacrifice, because in reality, he is the first sacrifice and the only effective sacrifice that has ever or will ever be made.

I really want you to observe the exclusivity of this sacrifice. There will be no second chances after death, no alternative means of getting to heaven. There is only one sacrifice that reconciles sinners to God, and so there is only one name under heaven by which we may be saved. O friend, you need a sacrifice, and his name is Jesus.

CONCLUSION - ONE MORE SACRIFICE?

There is, however, one more sacrifice to observe. It's not one that gains salvation or adds anything to salvation. It's one that follows salvation. When Jesus calls a person, he calls him to pick up his cross and to follow him. Paul uses similar language when he says in Romans 12 that as Christians we are to offer ourselves as "living sacrifices." What does he mean? Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were made in the image of God, their lives were a tribute, an offering of praise back to God. Ultimately, the end or purpose of Christ's sacrifice is that we might offer our lives back to God as sacrifices, not in payment for sin, but living sacrifices of praise to his glorious grace.

Christian, do you struggle with sacrifice? Do you find it hard to lay down your life in love for others, to love your enemy, to return kindness for insults, to let go of the riches of this world for the treasure of heaven? Consider that in all of this sacrifice, you are being conformed to the image of Christ as a living sacrifice.

Christian, Jesus Christ, whose death was planned by God from before the foundation of the world, will for all eternity bear in glory the marks of his sacrifice. And more than anything else, it will be those marks that are the object of our eternal wonder, and adoration, and praise, for they are the marks of our salvation. That is the image to which you are being conformed, that is the destiny to which you are heading, an eternally living sacrifice of praise to the one who alone is worthy of praise, Christ, our Passover, the Lamb who was slain, but now lives forevermore.

"saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!"" (Revelation 5:12, ESV)

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Attention has often been directed to the fact that, after our first parents sinned, God clothed them with the skins of animals (Gen. 3:21), thus underlining the link between sin and death (*cf. Gen. 2:17; 3:3, 19, 22).

1. The real reason was that Cain, unlike his brother, was an unrepentant sinner (Gen. 4:7; cf. 1 John 3:12). We see here the beginning of another great principle of sacrifice, much emphasized by the prophets, psalmists and wisdom writers, that the inward disposition of worshippers must be right if their 'outward' gift is to be accepted.
2. Once introduced, sacrifice continues throughout the patriarchal age, and altars are recorded as having been built, or sacrifice as having been offered, by Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The gift offered is a basis for prayer, for calling on the name of the Lord (Gen. 12:8; 13:4; 26:25). The link with prayer continues throughout the OT, and when the temple is dedicated, Solomon requests that it may be the place at which prayer is answered (1 Kgs. 8); Isaiah describes it as a house of prayer for all peoples (56:7).
3. The earliest communal function of sacrifice is to establish covenants between the Lord and his creatures. The covenant with Noah, which extends to humankind and animals (Gen. 8:20 - 9:17), the covenant with Abraham, which extends to his seed (Gen. 15), and the covenant of Sinai, between the Lord and Israel (Exod. 24), are all effected by sacrifice. In Genesis 15, the sacrifices are divided and the Lord passes symbolically between the pieces.

In Exodus 24, the blood of the sacrifices is sprinkled both on the altar and on the people (vv. 6 - 8), and the representatives of the people are then admitted to a sacred meal (v. 11). The principle expressed by these sacrifices is that a covenant involves death, to atone for human trespasses (Heb. 9:15 - 20). They all take place before the establishment of the tabernacle and priesthood, though the third of them only just before.

1. NT
2. The sacrifices on which it concentrates attention are not those of the temple but the atoning sacrifice of Christ and the spiritual sacrifices of Christians. In principle, the Mosaic sacrifices were now unnecessary.
3. The writer's teaching on those sacrifices has its positive side (11:4, 17 - 19, 28), but his great concern is to point out their inadequacy except as types foreshadowing the Christian realities.
4. Many of the NT references to Christ's sacrifice as a fulfilment of OT types represent him as a lamb, an animal used for various sacrifices (burnt offering, peace offering, and sin or guilt offering). He is represented as the slain lamb of God, whose precious blood takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29, 36; 1 Pet. 1:18 - 19; Rev. 5:6 - 10; 13:8).
5. His sacrifice has made true atonement; it cleanses the conscience and not just the flesh; and has introduced a new and eternal covenant.
6. It follows that his sacrifice was not a merely outward act, still less a merely ceremonial act, but was as much an act of inward devotion as the spiritual sacrifices of his followers, indeed more so, he being without sin (Heb. 4:15; 9:14).
7. It is a mistake to think of Christ's sacrifice as no more than a figurative sacrifice. To do so is to take sacrifices of the OT sort as the norm whereas, according to the NT, they were simply types of the true sacrifice to come, which fulfilled them. Before one can have a house, one needs a plan, but what matters is not the plan but the house. The OT sacrifices provide providential categories for the interpretation of Christ's sacrifice, but it everywhere transcends those categories.

For the blood of animals, we have the blood of the man Christ Jesus (Heb. 10:4). For spotlessness, we have sinlessness (Heb. 9:14; 1 Pet. 1:19). For a sweet smelling odour, we have true acceptability (Eph. 5:2). For the sprinkling of our bodies with blood, we have forgiveness (Heb. 9:13 - 14, 19 - 22; 1 Pet. 1:2). For symbolic atonement, endlessly repeated, we have real atonement, once for all (Heb. 10:1 - 10).

Class 7: The Story of Mission

Annotated Who can tell me where this line comes from: "This is your mission, should you choose to accept it?" Mission Impossible. The show, then movies, were about a team of secret government agents who would undertake missions that were…impossible.

The word mission is not in the Bible, but the word from which it emerges - "sent" - surely is. And the word mission is used simply to speak of being sent with a purpose.

If you've been here in the biblical theology class in previous weeks, you know that we've been tracing different themes through the biblical canon. The goal of this class is to trace the story of mission. What is God's mission for humanity? What is God's mission for his special people? What is his mission for the local church? What is his mission for you?

There's been a heated discussion among evangelicals of late. One group will say, "The Great Commission is the mission of the church." That's what Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert say in What Is the Mission of the Church? (see page 241). Other's, however, will say, "It's Loving God and Our Neighbor As Ourselves. The Great Commandment. So stuff like caring for the poor." Still other might say, "It's imaging God from Genesis. The Cultural Mandate."

And all this has implications for what we do as a church and how we direct the church budget? Do we direct toward staff? Missionaries? Caring for the poor? Digging water wells?

How would you guys answer: What is the mission of the church? Or your mission as a church member?

A few years ago Matt Schmucker (a former elder here who at the time was my boss at 9Marks) and I were sitting at lunch across the table from a godly brother who is a lawyer. He had thought about going into ministry, but he decided he really wanted to lawyer. Not only that, he both loved what he did and was very good at it. We were on this topic of mission and at one point he asked Matt and myself, "Do you think your work is more important than mine?" And by "your work" he was referring to the fact that Matt and I were in vocational ministry.

This brother wanted to say that Jesus is Lord over everything, and we are to do everything by faith and as an act of worship. Jesus abolishes the secular/sacred divide, at least for those of us who are Christians. And so why would you elevate one career over another? Furthermore, in that sense, everything we do we do for the sake of the mission.

I was standing in a neighbor's backyard a little while ago. He's a Lutheran minister. He and his adult son were planting a tree and his son made the remark that he was "on mission" by planting the tree.

Again, what do you think? Is it the church's mission to plant trees? To bake good bread? To be godly lawyers who pursue justice? And what about your job? What does it have to do with the mission of God and the mission of the church? What does it have to do with ministry, and is vocational ministry somehow better?

To answer these questions we - once again - want to think through the storyline of the Bible. In fact, we're going to tell two stories from the Bible. The first story is about imaging God. The second story is about getting saved. And each time we're going to quickly walk through six episodes in particular: creation, fall, Israel, Christ, church, glory.

I. Story 1: Image is Everything (kingly story)

A. Creation

First, turn to Genesis 1. God creates the plants and the animals "each according to its kind." Every apple is patterned after every other apple, and every zebra is patterned after every other zebra. But then in verse 26, we read this: "Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." Man is not patterned after another man. He is patterned after God. He uniquely mirrors, or resembles, God.

1. Being uniquely created in the image of God, humans must uniquely image God and God's glory before the rest of creation.
2. Like a son who acts like his father and follows in his father's professional footsteps (Gen. 5:1ff; Luke 3:38), man is designed to represent God's character and rule over creation: "…and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth."

B. Fall

So, step one, creation. Step two, the Fall and Genesis 3. Man decides not to represent God's rule. He revolts against God and went to work representing his own rule.

1. Verse 5: The serpent says, "God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God." That's an enticing image: me, like God. So Eve and then Adam took and ate. God therefore gave man what he asked for and banished him from his presence.

So now man is corrupt or perverted. The mirror is bent, you might say, and so a false image is portrayed, like a grotesque carnival mirror. Human rule now is abusive, oppressive, exploitative.

Okay: step 1. Man is created to image God and his rule and his character. Step 2. Man decides to image his own rule - to display his own glory.

C. Israel

Step 3. Israel. God, in his mercy, had a plan to both save and use a group of people for accomplishing his original purposes for creation - the display of his glory.

1. In Exodus 4 he even calls this nation his "son"(vv. 22-23). Why a son? Because sons look like their dads. And they follow in their father's footsteps. Sons image their fathers.

On the way to the Promised Land, he takes this son to a mountain called Sinai (turn to Exodus 20), and he says a number of things including this:

1. First, v. 3, you shall have no other Gods before me.
2. Second, v. 4, "You shall not make for yourself an idol [image] in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." Israel was to keep the first commandment - "have no other gods before me" - by displaying God's image and glory, which, naturally, precludes bowing down to some other image.

God warned that if this son, Israel, did chase after other images and failed to display God's own holy character, he would cast him out of the land. To make a long story short, the son didn't choose God's image, but others, and God cast him out of his presence and the land.

One of the main lessons of ancient Israel is that fallen human beings, left to themselves, cannot image God's character and glory.

D. Christ

Step 4. Christ. Turn to Luke 3:22. Jesus is baptized. The Holy Spirit descends on him. And then a voice comes from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."

Here is the perfect Son - capital "S" - who perfectly pleases the Father. Then notice in the rest of the chapter. There's a genealogy which ends with verse 38, "the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God."

Immediately after the genealogy, Jesus is tempted by Satan, just like Adam. But the beloved Son does what Adam didn't do, and what Israel didn't do. He perfectly images and so glorifies God, by listening to God's Word. Jesus recapitulates all of history. He redoes it.

Like Father, like Son.

No wonder the writers of the New Testament epistles look back and call him the "image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15) and "the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being" (Heb. 1:3). "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father," Jesus said (John 14:9). Adam's corruption problem - solved!

E. Church

Step 5. Church. Turn to Romans 8:29: For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

1. 1 Corinthians 15:49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
2. 2 Corinthians 3:18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
3. Colossians 3:9-10 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self1 with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

What does God call the church to do? We are to display the character and likeness and image and glory of the Son and the Father in heaven!

1. The Father's a peacemaker, so you be peacemakers, church.
2. The Father loves his enemies, so you love your enemies, church.
3. The Father and I are one, so you be one, church.
4. My Father is perfect, so you be perfect, church.
5. The Father sent me, so I'm sending you, church.

Like Father, like Son, and like sons. F. Glory Step 6. We will image him most perfectly when we see him perfectly in glory: "But we know when he appears we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3.2). Holy like him. Loving like him. United like him. This verse isn't promising that we'll be gods. It's promising that our souls will gleam brightly with his character and glory, like perfect mirrors facing toward the sun!

Did you follow the story? Here's the recap.

1. God created the world and humankind to display the image glory of who he is. That is his mission for humanity. Image is everything.
2. Adam and Eve, who were supposed to image God's character, didn't.
3. Neither did the people of Israel.
4. The Son did. In Christ, God came to display God. And in Christ, God came to save.
5. Now the church is called to image, to display, the character and glory of God to all the universe, testifying in word and action to his great wisdom and work of salvation.

In other words, God intends to use the corporate life of the local church to accomplish his creation purposes - displaying his wise, holy, and loving image for all the world to see. That is, in one sense, is the mission of the church: to display the image of God, and to do so in a way that's set apart from humanity because they only present distorted images. Our work is an image-recovery work. We are to live as the transformed humanity.

Another word or category to use for all of this is worship. When we worship something we ascribe worth to it, which you can see by thinking of the Old English word for worship: worth-skip. To consciously and deliberately image God and God's purposes and God's judgments is to ascribe worth to him. It is the heart of our worship. Justin is going to zero in more carefully on the idea of worship in a few weeks' time.

For now, we can say, very broadly, that the mission of the church is to be the true humanity. And as the true humanity, we are to set the example of God-imaging, dominion-pursuing lives for all humanity.

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. 14 "You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matt. 5:13-16).

But where does the Great Commission fit into all of this? Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert's book, which we sell on the bookstall, said "The Great Commission is the mission." I've given you a very broad answer: imaging God in everything. They have provided a narrower answer: making disciples and baptizing and teaching everything Jesus commanded.

Which of these two answers is right?

II. Storyline 2:

We Must Be Saved through a Sacrifice (the priestly story)

I'd like to tell the storyline of the Bible one more time, but this time I want to draw out a theme that was there the first time, but I want to make it a little clearer. And let's go through the same six episodes.

A. Creation

Adam and Eve walked with Garden, sinless, with the promise of eternal life.

B. The Fall

Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and earned the judgment of death. Adam doesn't just have a corruption problem, as we thought about in the previous story. He has a guilt problem. He has broken a law and earned a penalty.

Gratefully, God foreshadows the solution by sacrificing a couple of animals and giving Adam and Eve the animal skin to cover their nakedness and shame.

C. Israel

Episode 3: Israel. God calls Abraham, and then he saves Abraham's descendants out of slavery in Egypt. He brought them across the Red Sea as a great act of salvation. But first he demonstrates through the Passover sacrifice that he would Passover their sin. He also gave them his law, which would teach them that the real salvation they needed would be from themselves and their own sin. Included in that law, after all, are sin offerings, and provisions for a Day of Atonement.

Sure enough, the people sinned and were exiled. The lesson was they couldn't save themselves. They needed a Savior, a Messiah.

D. Christ

Good news: Christ came as that savior. Episode 4.

He came not only as the perfect kingly son who imaged God. He came as the Passover Lamb who would pay the price for sin by being nailed to the cross. He would solve not just Adam's corruption problem, he would pay Adam's guilt problem, too.

Colossians 2 says that, if we have repented of our sins and put our trust in Christ, God has "forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross" (Colossians 2:13-14).

Jesus perfectly ruled on the divine Father's behalf by going to the cross and paying the penalty a people so that they could be saved. Then the Father raised him from the dead, defeating sin and death, and gave him all authority. Matthew 28:18: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." And what is the first thing this one with all authority do for the people he won? He commissions them. He gives them a mission.

E. The Church

And it's here we come to episode 5: the church. And here is the mission that Jesus gives us:

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

What is the mission of the church? Well, in this narrower sense, we have to say the church's mission is to make disciples of all nations, to baptize, and to teach everything that Jesus commanded. Our job is to point the way to salvation.

And we must start here because a lesson of the Old Testament is that there is a way that seems right to a man, but that way leads to death. So we're surrounded by people who think they are walking in the right way, but they're walking toward a cliff.

You've got to tell them! "You're walking toward a cliff! You will be dashed upon the rocks. Please stop walking that way!"

It is utterly insufficient to walk up to a person who is walking toward a cliff and to love them in your heart, to hug them, to give them your clothes, to prepare a meal for them, to give them medical aid, to live as the transformed humanity without saying anything. You must must must open your mouth and say, "You are walking toward a cliff. Please repent of your direction. Turn away from direction."

Friends, at the heart of the church's mission is to speak words. To call people to repentance. To preach the gospel. To say, "Salvation this way!" If we don't, the rest of what we do really is for naught.

F. Glory

Episode 6: Glory. One day, says the book of Philippians, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. There will no longer be the need to make disciples because all will know that Jesus is Lord. And they will know that to their endless joy, or to their endless torment. We will either bow in worship, or we will bow in defeat.

In the meantime, of course, the mission of the church is to tell people this good news and to make disciples. The good news solves both the guilt problem and the corruption problem.

III. How Do We Put the Two Stories Together?

So what's the answer: is the mission of the church broad or narrow? And how do we put all this together.

Friends, as we think about the mission of the church, we need to put the two charges of proclaiming the gospel and living as the true humanity together. We need the narrow answer and we need the broad answer. We need both stories. At the center of our mission is proclaiming the gospel and making disciples. Surrounding that center is the backdrop of a transformed community.

How exactly do we put these two stories together?

Well, I think we get a little hint in the salt and light passage that I read to you earlier from Matthew 5: "You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world…let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." (Matt. 5:13-16).

Okay, so my whole life needs to be salty, or distinct. My whole life needs to be a light. But how is it that people will know to associate my life with the Father in heaven? Maybe they'll just think I'm a nice guy. But Matthew 5 poses a question for us: What connects my life to the Father in heaven? How do people know that I belong to the "we" of Christianity?

Jesus answers that question in Matthew 16 and 18 and 28, when he gives first Peter and then local churches that authority to bind on earth what's bound in heaven and loose on earth what's loosed in heaven, and then gives us the tool of baptism in order to bind and loose. It's our baptism into membership in the local church, which then associates our names with heaven.

In other words, for me to fulfill my Matthew 5, all-of-life job of displaying the image of the Father in heaven by being salt and light, I need to be formally affirmed as a disciple by being baptized into membership in a church.

The broad mission, again, depends upon fulfilling the narrow mission. You might even say the narrow mission has to come first. You have to share the gospel with someone so that they get saved, and then you have give them the Jesus nametag through baptism in order for people to know that their lives speak for Jesus. I don't know you are representing Jesus unless you have the Jesus nametag. So you have to be baptized into a church. See?

So what is the mission of the church? I want to answer that question like this:

The mission of the church as a corporate actor is the Great Commission. It's the narrow answer. It's to make disciples. It's to share the gospel, and then to baptize into membership all those who repent and believe, and then to teach them everything Jesus commanded. To the extent that we, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, all work together by raising money, by hiring pastors, by spending time together as a collective whole, our job is to make disciples and to equip one another to make disciples.

But this is only the first half of my answer to the question about the mission of the church.

The mission of the church as its individual members is Great Commandment, which is another way to speak about living as the true humanity - loving God with heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. This involves imaging God in word and deed. It involves not just teaching everything Jesus commanded, but obeying everything Jesus commanded. It doesn't involve less than the Great Commission, but it does involve more.

So:

The mission of the church

As a corporate actor  The Great Commission

As its individual members  The Great Commandment

IV. What Does This Mean for You and Your Life's Mission?

Last question: what does this mean for you as you seek to fulfill the mission God has given you in life?

There are three basic lessons I want you to take away from all of this. This is your mission, should you choose to accept it.

A. The first step of the Christian life is to be baptized into membership in a church.

Listen to the Great Commission once again: "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."

So we go and make disciples. How? By baptizing and teaching. That is, by identifying ourselves with Christ and Christ's people? And by instruction.

You see that in your handout: identification and instruction. We're baptized into the name of Father, Son, and Spirit. We get the Jesus name tag through baptism into church membership. Then we're instructed in the life of the church.

And this primary work of instruction has clear implications for what we expect to accomplish with our church budget and through staff time.

Of course if our profession and our life begin to contradict one another in unrepentant fashion, Jesus tells the church to remove us from membership in the church as an act of discipline.

Do you see then how our membership and discipline processes play a crucial role in the churches evangelizing and disciple making work?

A second make take away:

B. Acting together as a church, we prioritize preaching the gospel to those on the inside and reaching the unreached on the outside.

The most important thing we do when we gather as a church is to preach the gospel. The most important thing for the people we set aside as pastors is to preach and teach the gospel. The most important thing we do with our collected offering is pay our pastors, maintain the space in which we can meet to hear Jesus' instruction, and send out missionaries. In one sense, all of us our missionaries to our various homes and work spaces. More traditionally, we label "missionaries" those people who feel specially called to cross national and language boundaries to share the gospel with people who have never heard it. And we work together to sponsor those missionaries.

C. Your day-to-day mission as a church member is to represent King Jesus as the transformed humanity in all of your deeds.

Back to Genesis 1:28: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Does this mean we're to exploit, oppress, dominate? Not if we're going to subdue and rule like God does. God's rule creates life, not abuse and use life.

So every Christian should move into some domain to be what Adam should have been. You move into a classroom, a business manager's office, a playground, a kitchen, a canvas, an algebra problem. And you are called to subdue and rule over that domain on God's behalf by creating, bring life and order and purposes and good. You are to use your decision-making power authority to promote the lives of others. To serve.

1. Like a gardner who works to bring life from the soil, move out into the domains of architecture and engineering and science and art and commerce and law and governance and space travel, bring order, give shape, create, and in all of this, serve.
2. Plant God's flag in every domain of life as vice kings. Boldly go where no man has gone - to bring God's rule glory to that domain.

Illustration: before I felt called into vocational ministry, I worked as the managing editor for a small international economic magazine here in DC. I did a decent job at the magazine. I planned, I edited, I managed, I executed, I got the magazine out. But ask me if I have any regrets about that job? I regret that I did a good job, not a great job. I didn't do A+ work. I did B-level work. Why do I regret that - because it would help me in my career today? It wouldn't help me one lick. I'm in a completely different domain now. No, I regret it because my boss was deeply cynical toward Christianity and Christians. And so I wish I had done A+ work for him as a testimony against all his cynicism.

A third take-away lesson:

D. Your day-to-day mission as a church member is to represent King Jesus as the transformed humanity with your words.

If we only go with our deeds, you will only draw attention to yourself. To plant the flag for God's sake you must speak words about God. You must identity yourself as Christian. Apart from that, all your work is, in one sense, for nothing. Because the goal is to help people see him. Again, you're a mirror.

I love the way that one friend I know, when he began his Ph.D. at a very prestigious university, immediately introduced himself as a born-again Christian. He did that, first, to help kill his own fear of man, and the desire for others to make much of him. But he also did that to identify his life with Christ's. AS they saw this brother's good deeds, they would know whom to praise.

Friends, one way or another, we should work to share the good news about Jesus. We pray for this especially as a church on Sunday nights. We should also be praying about this throughout the week.

E. For the sake of your mission, you need your fellow church members throughout the week, and they need you.

We need one another for accountability, for encouragement, for instruction.

My wife is often able to make it through that very difficult pre-dinner hour when the kids alternate between super hyper and melting down through the help of Chesed Broggi, a member who lives across the street and several times a week shows up at 4:30 or 5. Her daughters and my daughters then get about 30 to 60 minutes of intense play off…somewhere else…and Chesed and my wife are able to refresh one another.

If we're going to live as the new humanity, we need to know how to live not just as godly, pious individuals. We need to know how to live together in peace and joy and encouragement. We need opportunities to practice patience and kindness and self-control together. As Mark Dever often says, you can't really exercise the fruit of the Spirit on a desert island. No, it's in the life of the church where we really learn to do that for one another.

What is the mission of the church? The mission of the church is to be a light among the nations by proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, living as the true humanity and a transformed community, and inviting the nations into that light and transformation.

Is that what this local church, Capitol Hill Baptist, should do? Yes. We are to proclaim the gospel and live together as the true humanity.

Class 9: The Story of Idolatry

Annotated

Introduction

Idolatry strikes the modern mind as odd or even downright incomprehensible. We tend to associate it with ancient religions and cults. Stories and mythologies. But the realities of idolatry are not far removed from our culture.

Tim Keller notes: "Our contemporary society is not fundamentally different from these ancient ones. Each culture is dominated by its own set of idols. Each has its "priesthoods," its totems and rituals. Each one has its shrines--whether office towers, spas and gyms, studios, or stadiums--where sacrifices must be made in order to procure the blessings of the good life and ward off disaster.

What are the gods of beauty, power, money, and achievement but these same things that have assumed mythic proportions in our individual lives and in our society? We may not physically kneel before the statue of Aphrodite, but many young women are driven into depression and eating disorders by an obsessive concern over their body image.

We may not actually burn incense to Artemis, but when money and career are raised to cosmic proportions, we perform a kind of child sacrifice, neglecting family and community to achieve a higher place in business and gain more wealth and prestige." (Counterfeit Gods, p.xiv)

But there are no gods who represent these things; there is only the true God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. He alone is the true God to be given praise and worship by humanity. But humanity doesn't worship him completely.

The storyline of the Bible has a lot to say about the worship of God and of misdirected worship or idolatry.

Because I want to be extremely clear about what we mean by idolatry. Idolatry is worshipping anything other than God, visible or invisible. This means idolatry can be both external and internal.

Keller puts it like this: "An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, 'If I have that, then I'll feel my life has meaning, then I'll know I have value, then I'll feel significant and secure.'"(CG, p.xx)

Or as Greg Beale puts it, idolatry is "To commit ourselves to some part of the creation more than to the Creator." (We Become What We Worship, p.307)

So let's look at the story of idolatry, and then we will unpack a little at the end what this means for us.

Isaiah's Judgment (Is 6:9-13) Take a Bible and turn with me to a well know passage in Isaiah's prophecy, Isaiah 6. This isn't the beginning of the story but is kind of the lynchpin for how we look back and forward at the story of idolatry.

Let's read a couple verses together.

8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here I am! Send me." 9 And he said, "Go, and say to this people: " 'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.' 10 Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed."

11 Then I said, "How long, O Lord?" And he said: "Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, 12 and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. 13 And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled."

The holy seed is its stump. Isaiah 6:8 - 13 (ESV)

Isaiah is being commissioned to pronouncement judgment to Israel. Why the judgment? It is because of their idolatry. Idolatry is one of Israel's major sins described in Isaiah 1-5 (e.g. 2:8; 2:18-19; 2:20). Then in chapter 6 the first couple verse we see this famous praise for God's holiness (vv.1-4); then Isaiah is declared forgiven by God (vv.5-7); then Isaiah is commissioned to deafen and blind Israel to God's word (vv.8-10); then finally the effects of this judgment (vv.11-13).

We are left wondering why God would have Isaiah do this? Why have him proclaim a message that will harden their hearts. This is certainly hard to understand. But key to understanding this is to note where we are in the biblical storyline. Israel has sinned and sinned and sinned and sinned and finally God was pronouncing a verdict of "guilty" on the nation. We know God is perfectly holy. And now he is judging Israel for their sin of idolatry.

Yeah, but idolatry is not mentioned. Yes, but the concept is there. Look at the language used: Isaiah is to preach to the people that they are to keep on hearing but not to understand. They are to keep on seeing but not perceive. This language is not new, being "blind and deaf" refer to idol worship all throughout Scripture.

Isaiah gets very specific in chapter 42: "17 They are turned back and utterly put to shame, who trust in carved idols, who say to metal images, "You are our gods." 18 Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see! 19 Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the Lord? 20 He sees many things, but does not observe them; his ears are open, but he does not hear." Isaiah 42:17 - 20 (ESV)

Or Isaiah 43:8, 10: "Bring out the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears!...Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me."

Or Isaiah 44:8-19: "8 Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any." 9 All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame. 10 Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing? 11 Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human.

Let them all assemble, let them stand forth. They shall be terrified; they shall be put to shame together. 12 The ironsmith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water and is faint. 13 The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass.

He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. 14 He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. 15 Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. 16 Half of it he burns in the fire.

Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, "Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!" 17 And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it.

He prays to it and says, "Deliver me, for you are my god!" 18 They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. 19 No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, "Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?" Isaiah 44:8 - 19 (ESV)

Isaiah is making clear a crucial point in the story: Idol worshippers do not have spiritual eyes, even though they have physical eyes. Even though they have physical ears, they do not spiritually hear. Why is this is case? Look at Psalm 115 (c.f. Psalm 135:15-18). "4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. 5 They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. 6 They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. 7 They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. 8 Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them." Psalm 115:4 - 8 (ESV)

And a key principle in the story is developing: If we worship idols, we will become like the idols, and their likeness will ruin us. This is what Isaiah is to pronounce to Israel: "Israel you like to worship idols instead of the one true holy God. Ok. Your judgment is that I will make you as spiritually inanimate and spiritually insensitive and lifeless as the idols you worship. You will have eyes but not see. You will have ears but not hear."

Greg Beale: "So in verse 9, through Isaiah, God commands the idolatrous people to become like the idols they have refused to stop loving. In verse 10, he commands Isaiah to make the people like their idols through his prophetic preaching. This is a paramount example of the lex talionis notion of the Old Testament - an eye for an eye. People are punished by means of their own sin." (Beale, p.47)

This isn't the beginning of the story though. We have plopped right in the middle. Let's roll back the game film a little bit to see how we got here. That means going to the first major idol-worshipping event in the life of Israel. Can anyone tell me what that was?

The Golden Calf - Exodus 32 The judgment of God on Israel by the prophet Isaiah didn't come out of the blue. As I mentioned, there was decades of idolatry by the people and their leaders that lead to this. In fact early on in the history of God's people, idolatry happens very quickly. Israel is fresh out of their bondage in Egypt. Chapters 1-14 tell of this great salvation event. In Chapters 19-20, God lays out for Israel what it means for them to be his people.

They are to reflect to the world his glory and who he is. To make it clear he gives them laws and the first two of these reflect that he alone is the God to be worshipped. Why? He saved them. Then to make it clearer to his people about how they are to worship him, he says that they aren't about making images or statues or other things.

It doesn't take long before they engage in the very thing God prohibited. It seems from the account that they thought they were honestly worshipping YHWH, but they were worshipping him the way they saw him. They created an idol or image out of their liking and desires. And what happened? Israel came to be described by what they worshipped. God calls them a stiff-necked people (Ex. 32:9; 33:3, 5; 34:9; Deut. 9:6, 13; 10:16; 31:27). This is an odd phrase, but it has a very ironic meaning. Stiff-necked is a phrase to describe Israel is portrayed mockingly as rebellious cattle because they were worshiping a calf and thus become like it. Just like a stubborn cow that refuses to go in the right direction, idolatrous Israel is "stiff-necked."

Beale notes: "The first generation Israelites did not literally become petrified gold calves like the golden calf they worshiped, but they are depicted as acting like out-of-control and headstrong calves apparently because they are being mocked as having become identified with the spiritually rebellious image of the calf that they had worshiped. What they had revered, they had come to resemble, and that resemblance was destroying them." (Beale, p.82)

So we started our story with a prophet of later Israel who was pronouncing judgment on the people for their idolatry. He says that they have ears but don't hear, eyes but don't see. They have become like the idol they worshipped. But as we went back to the defining event in the first generation of Israel in the Exodus, we see the pattern as well. The people revered a calf of gold, and they became a stiff-necked people.

As we know, and have seen in other theme classes, the story of Israel doesn't progress well on this point. Idolatry will be a major struggle for the nation as they move into the land, and deal with surrounding nations. Their later kings would be judged on how they worshipped God. Did the nation reflect God and his glory rightly by worshipping him in the prescribed way, free of "creaturely images?" No.

Psalm 106:19 - 20: 19 They made a calf in Horeb and worshiped a metal image. 20 They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass.

2 Kings 17:14 - 15:14 But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. 15 They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them. (cf. 1 Kings 12:25-33)

Hosea 4:7: 7 The more they increased, the more they sinned against me; I will change their glory into shame. (cf. Hosea 4:16-17)

Jeremiah 2:5, 11: 5 Thus says the Lord: "What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthlessness, and became worthless?...11 Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.

This one event, would define Israel's existence. When Israel turned to worship idols, they would become stubborn, empty vain and lifeless just like those very idols. And this was their undoing. This Golden Calf event is not the beginning of the story though. Before we go forward, let's go all the way to the beginning

Created to Reflect (Gen 1-2) I am not going to rehearse a lot here, because we have seen this again and again in previous stories. Humanity was created as reflective beings. God created us in his image, in his likeness and was to rule as God's vice-regent over his creation and multiply to spread the divine image across the earth. Humanity means that we were created to reflect His character, His attributes and His glory. That means our humanity is wrapped up in who God. To be human is to worship him, or to put it another way to be human is to reflect his glory and his image. "All humans have been created to be reflecting beings, and they will reflect whatever they are ultimately committed to, whether the true God or some of object of the created order." (Beale, p.22).

Instead of obeying the command of God in Gen 1:27ff to bring God's glory to the end of the earth, Adam chose to expand his own glory (cf. Ezekiel 28). He committed self-worship. Adam's sin in the Garden of Eden was ultimately tied to idolatry, that is, Adam became committed to something other than God: "When Adam stopped being committed to God and reflecting his image, he revered something else in place of God and resembled his new object of worship. Thus at the heart of Adam's sin was turning from God and replacing reverence for God with a new object of reverence to which Adam became conformed." (Beale, p.127)

Because he became an idolater Adam was unable to fulfill his divine mission and mandate to rule and subdue the creation: "As an image-bearer Adam was to reflect the character of God, which included mirroring the divine glory. Just as Adam's son was in Adam's 'likeness' and 'image' (Gen. 5:1-3) and was to resemble his human father in appearance and character, so Adam was a son of God who was to reflect his Father's image. This means that the command for Adam to subdue, rule and fill the earth includes uppermost that he is a king filling the earth, not merely with progeny, but image-bearing progeny who will reflect God's glory." (Beale, p.131)

And so we have at the very beginning again this idea that what you revere, you reflect and it will lead to your ruin or restoration. Adam was ruined by his worship. Israel is ruined by their worship.

Bridging the Gap I highlighted at the beginning that most people do not bow down to physical idols and worship today, as we bridge the gap from Old Testament to New Testament, what we see is a bridge as well. There certainly is still idol worship, but it takes on a new flavor.

In each of the Gospels (Mt 13:13-15; Mk 4:12; Lk 8:10; Jn 12:39-40), Jesus quotes Isaiah 6:9,10. In doing so he, like Isaiah is pronouncing a judgment on the Israel of his time. Now the Israel in Jesus time wasn't still bowing down to calves made of gold, but were bowing down to their traditions. This was their object of worship.

Tool Alert: typology helps us understand this better. The unbelief and judgment of Israel in Isaiah's day was a foreshadowing of a pattern that anticipated a greater unbelief and judgment in Jesus' day.

The pattern was being repeated, but what's at stake is so much greater. In Jesus' time, the Israelites were rejecting the Word of God in the flesh. Just as Israel then was becoming like what they worshiped, stubborn and spiritually lifeless; having eyes and not seeing, ears but not hearing. The same was happening now. They were becoming as spiritually dead as their man-made traditions and rituals. Their tradition was but whitewash. Remember these words of Jesus: 27 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Matthew 23:27 - 28

They had become what they worshipped to their ruin. And they committed the ultimate act of false worship to the false god of man-made traditions, by murdering the God-man Jesus. In revering their idols, they killed the "image of the invisible God." (Col 1:15)

[Lest you think this is all ruin. Remember at the beginning I mentioned that what you worship you become like either for ruin or restoration. In John 12, Jesus speaks of himself as light, reflecting the light of the Father. And he holds our hope of restoration for those who would believe in him. Those who believe in him will reflect him, not for ruin, but restoration!]

Paul The story doesn't stop there, because idolatry isn't just an issue for Israel. The beginning of our story shows us this. All humanity is to reflect and worship God. Paul in Romans 1:18-28, powerfully demonstrates that idolatry leads to a malfunction of one's relationship to God and this always leads to a malfunction of one's relationships with other humans.

Paul doesn't leave the Romans with just a picture of how wrong worship harms, but in his well-known verses in Chapter 12 he presents the antithesis to Romans 1. The chart in the handout displays this: Romans 1:18-28 Romans 12:1-2 Wrath Refusing to glorify or thank God Dishonoring the body Misunderstood, idolatrous service of worship Reprobate mind Rejecting the righteousness of God Mercy Sacrificing to God Offering the body Reasonable service of worship Renewed mind Approving the will of God

Paul in 1 Corinthians 10, taps into the Old Testament to tell the Corinthians the truth that we have seen in this story: idolaters will be identified with the same dead spiritual nature as the idols to which they passionately commit themselves.

Revelation Our story ends in Revelation. Here we see again that you resemble what you revere. In Revelation 13, those who worship idols are referred to as "earth dwellers" (Rev. 8:13; 13:8, 14; 14:6-9; 17:2, 8). According to Beale, the "earth dwellers" in Revelation "cannot look beyond this earth for their security, which means that they trust in some part of the creation instead of the Creator for their ultimate welfare. Thus people are called 'earth dwellers' because this expresses the object of their trust and perhaps of their very being, in that they have become part of the earthly system in which they find security - they have become like it. Because they commit themselves to some aspect of the earth, they become earthy and come to be known as 'earth dwellers.'" (Beale, p.255)

Idolaters to Glory-reflectors As we have gone through this story one thing is looming over the overarching story. If we resemble what we revere for ruin, how do we reverse this? How can people who have ears but don't hear, and eyes but don't see?

To begin to answer this we need to return to Isaiah 6. There we see Isaiah being cleansed by God, made holy and a reflector of his glory. Chapters later, though the judgment on Israel seems to be coming, there are glimpses of reversal. Isaiah 29:9 - 16, 18: 9 Astonish yourselves and be astonished; blind yourselves and be blind!

Be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not with strong drink! 10 For the Lord has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes (the prophets), and covered your heads (the seers). 11 And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed.

When men give it to one who can read, saying, "Read this," he says, "I cannot, for it is sealed." 12 And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, "Read this," he says, "I cannot read." 13 And the Lord said: "Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, 14 therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden." 15 Ah, you who hide deep from the Lord your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, "Who sees us?

Who knows us?" 16 You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, "He did not make me"; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, "He has no understanding"? …18 In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.

Isaiah 32:1, 3-4 1 Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice….3 Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will give attention. 4 The heart of the hasty will understand and know, and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak distinctly.

Isaiah 52:15:15 so shall he sprinkle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand. (cf. 52:8, 10; 66:8,14)

God would bring some out from the people of Israel and some from the nations and reverse their idolatry.

In the Gospel of Matthew we looked at, right after Jesus pronouncement of judgment on the blindness and deafness of Israel in his day, he gives hope to some, God was in the coming of his Son was opening eyes and ears. Matthew 13:16: 16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. God is the only giver of spiritual sight and spiritual hearing.

While we have seen that idolaters fail to understand like their idols, they also are blaspheming God's character in their idolatry, they are saying that he has no understanding. But God is the one who made man in his image. He is the potter, we the clay. He is the only one who can reimage those idolaters. Isaiah and Ezekiel spoke of this future reversal.

"It is in Christ that people, formerly conformed to the world's image (Rom. 1:18-32), begin to be transformed into God's image (Rom 8:28-30; 12:2; 2 Cor 3:18; 4:4)… This process of transformation into the divine image will be completed at the end of history, when Christians will be resurrected and fully reflect God's image in Christ (1 Cor 15:45-54; Phil 3:20-21). They will be resurrected by the Spirit-imparting power of the risen Christ. Since it was the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead (Rom 1:4), so the Spirit of Christ will raise Christians from the dead at the end of the age… The Spirit's work in people will enable them to be restored and revere the Lord and resemble his image, so that God will be glorified in and through them." (Beale, p.282)

So What? This is the story of idolatry, and of its reversal. Our main idea has been that you become what you worship either for ruin or restoration. We were made to be reflecting beings, look at how young children mimic their parents. Or how people desperately try to mimic a celebrity. The reality is people will either reflect God and aspects of his character, or they will reflect something else in this world. We as Christians have the message that turns idolaters into worshippers of God. We were once dead and spiritually lifeless. By the Gospel, God gives eyes and ears and hearts, ready to worship him. [Eustace Scrubb, Dawn Treader, p.108-110]

There is no neutrality in your worship of God. You either revere him or you don't. You either reflect him and his glory, or you "exchange" it for something that he has created. The question you need to ask is who are you worshipping? Beale: "All of us are imitators…We are either being conformed to an idol of the world or to God. Some might think it is possible to exist in a mode of spiritual neutrality in their Christian lives. Some Christians might think that they can go for extended periods of time not reading their Bibles or praying or attending church and having fellowship with other believers. When God's people think this way and act accordingly, in reality, they become subtly conformed to the world instead of to God."

This is why Paul's encouragement in 1 Cor 4 and 1 Cor 11 to imitate him as he imitates Christ is important. Within the local church, through our discipling, we should be imitating and imaging one another as we image and imitate Christ.

Biblical Theology Core Seminar: Session 10

Workshop #1

Annotated Worldly wisdom will always tempt us as Bible teachers and students to read and teach the Bible looking for how-tos. "Okay, I've read my daily passage, what's the take away lesson for how I live better?" Surely there is a time and place for commands and how-tos. But what we really need is a Holy Spirit-charged gospel announcement, the message, the good news. Kevin DeYoung has put it well: "The secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us."

What that means is that we should always consider how a text points us to Christ, or at least some aspect of the gospel.

This is what Jesus tells us in Luke 24:

Luke 24:44 - 47 (ESV) 44 Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

He says the same in John 5:

John 5:39 - 40 (ESV) 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

What we're going to do this morning is look at several texts and consider how they get us to Christ. With each text, we're going to ask several questions:

1. What is the point of the text?
2. Where does this text fall in the biblical storyline? We look backward in the story and we look forward. We want to figure out what covenantal administration we're under, because the answer to that helps us figure out what continuities and discontinuities exist between the text and our own time.
3. How does this text point to Christ?
4. Typology: David, temple, sacrifice. The are divinely ordained persons, institutions, or events which God intends to point us to Christ (need NT warrant to designate a type)
5. Theme: God's mercy, God's love, our sin, call to praise
6. Storyline: for example, if telling the story of exile, I'll just trace it to the return from exile, the insufficiency of that return, and then the promise of Christ.
7. God/man/Christ/response: suppose you're reading the condemnation of Israel in Jeremiah. Use these as reflections to teach us about our own sin, which we can do because we know that, aside from being God's special covenant people, Israel stands in for humanity. They are a parable for us.
8. New Testament makes the link
9. How do I read this text through Christ? In other words, what does it mean for us? How do we apply it?

Test Drive

1. The seventh commandment (Exod. 20:14)
2. What's the point? You shouldn't commit adultery.
3. Where does it fall in the biblical storyline? Under the Mosaic administration. This is the law God gave to Israel to obey him and to exemplify a true God-imaging humanity.
4. How does it point to Christ? Matthew 5:17 tells us he fulfilled the law in its entirety. That is, his life and teaching realized its full intent. Which, among other things, means He kept the laws commands. Jesus never committed adultery. His teaching also clarifies this command for us. So in Matthew 5:27, he says, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
5. What do I read this through Christ? What does it mean for us? First, Jesus never lusted, but we have. Second, we need forgiveness. Third, we need to follow in his way. See Hebrews 13:4 (ESV) 4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

And Romans 13:9 (ESV):9 For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Fourth, we need to help one another follow in his way. Galatians 6:1-2: "Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness….Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ."

1. The margin notes in your Bible should prove extremely helpful. My margin notes had several OT references, then Matt. 5:27, Heb. 13:4, and Rom. 13:9.
2. David and Goliath (1 Sam. 17)
3. What's the point? Israel needs an appointed man of God's choosing who trusted God in order to rescue them from their enemies.
4. Where does it fall in the biblical storyline? Story of Israel. After the Mosaic law and the establishing of the land. God's people were geographically bound and bound together in one nation state. Their enemies were other nations. But also look back one chapter, where we see the rejection of Saul and the anointing of David as eventual king. Read 1 Samuel 16:1 (ESV) 1 The Lord said to Samuel, "How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons."

Plus, we see David has God's Spirit on him in a special way. Read 1 Samuel 16:13 (ESV) 13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah.

1. How does it point to Christ? David is a type of Christ - an unlikely but anointed king. The New Testament tells us again and again he is the Son of David.
2. How do I read this through Christ? It's not that I need faith to defeat the Goliaths in my life. It's that I need a David to defeat the Goliath's in my life, and the good news is, I have one: Jesus.
3. Psalm 1
4. What's the point? There are two ways to live, and the way of faithfulness to God's word is the way of blessing.
5. Where does it fall in the biblical storyline? Looking backward we see that from the beginning, God's son has been called to obey God's Word and so find blessing (Gen. 2:15-17). But again and again, the son has disobeyed and therefore known God's judgment. We see this in Adam, Israel, David, and Solomon, just to name a few. Ezekiel 19:10-14 (in margin notes) compares Israel not to a tree but a vine that originally bore fruit but then withers in the desert.
6. How does it point to Christ? Jesus Christ is the one truly blessed man of Psalm 1, who meditated on God's Word day and night and so brought fruitfulness to the nations. He provides the Edenic blessings of a fruit-yielding tree (Mat 3:13-17; 17:1-13). John calls him a vine and says we must be united to him to grow and bear fruit.
7. What do I read this through Christ? What does it mean for us? There is a since in which I read this Psalm with three separate lenses simultaneously, one corresponding with "man/Christ/response."
8. Lens 1: me in my created and fallen or nature state. Blessed is the man who does these things. Yes, that is entirely true. I must aspire to such blessings. But the thing is, I know I've failed. The promise of verse 5 and judgment applies to me.
9. Lens 2: Christ has done this.
10. Lens 3: He is the vine, I am the branches, I am going to abide in him and follow after him.
11. Lens 4: We the church are the community of people who have found refuge in Christ, and who now obey God's Word and walk in the way of righteousness. We put off the old and put on the new. In that sense, this passage points to the necessity of church discipline, which excludes the unrepentant from the assembly in anticipation of the last day. As Peter says, "it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God" (1 Peter 4:17).
12. In short, recognizing that Christ is the blessed man keeps us from preaching a merely moralistic sermon on Psalm 1.

Biblical Theology Core Seminar: Session 11

Workshop # 1: Exodus, 1 Samuel, Psalms

Annotated Worldly wisdom will always tempt us as Bible teachers and students to read and teach the Bible as if it's about us, and not about Christ. But the discipline of biblical theology helps us to see that the whole Bible is about Christ.

Think about the whole book of Hebrews. I once Michael Lawrence observe,

1. Chapter 1 - the Law points to Jesus.
2. Chapter 2 - angels point to Jesus.
3. Chapter 3 - Moses points to Jesus.
4. Chapter 4 - The Promised Land points to Jesus and the Sabbath points to Jesus.
5. Chapter 5 - The high priest points to Jesus.
6. Chapter 7 - Melchizedek points to Jesus. The entire priesthood points to Jesus.
7. Chapter 8 - The Tabernacle points to Jesus.
8. Chapter 9 - The sacrifices point to Jesus.
9. And by the time you're done with chapter 11's hall of faith, you realize the entire history of Israel points to Jesus!

[Chapter 10 The unforgivable sin points to Jesus. It demonstrates the inadequacy of the Law to forgive any sin only taunt you by telling you what it is that was sin. Every sin is unforgivable by the system of atonement found in the OT because their ability to atone lay in Jesus Christ whom they pointed to.

Chapter 11 The whole point of the Hall of Faith is that none of these could have been forgiven. When you look at the child sacrifice Jephtha the Moral Disaster of Sampson and so forth you see that it is their faith as miserable as it might seem that pointed them through the sacrificial system that Chapters 1-9 have outlined to Christ. They were saved by grace through faith like everyone else. This is why there is no more sacrifice (OT) for the forgiveness of sin only sharing their faith in Jesus Christ and His Sacrifice however poorly apprehended.]

In the same way, we've been discussing in this course is that we should always consider how a text points us to Christ, or at least some aspect of the gospel.

This is what Jesus tells us in Luke 24:

Luke 24:44 - 47 (ESV) 44 Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

We tried to do that last week with passages from Exodus, 1 Samuel and the Psalms. We're going to try that again today with three more passages from the Old Testament, but different genres this time. We'll try something from Proverbs, something from Isaiah, and something from Nehemiah.

If you recall from last week, with each text, we're going to ask several questions:

1. What is the point of the text?
2. Where does this text fall in the biblical storyline? We look backward in the story and we look forward. We want to figure out what covenantal administration we're under, because the answer to that helps us figure out what continuities and discontinuities exist between the text and our own time.
3. How does this text point to Christ?
4. Typology: David, temple, sacrifice. The are divinely ordained persons, institutions, or events which God intends to point us to Christ (need NT warrant to designate a type)
5. Theme: God's mercy, God's love, our sin, call to praise
6. Storyline: for example, if telling the story of exile, I'll just trace it to the return from exile, the insufficiency of that return, and then the promise of Christ.
7. God/man/Christ/response: suppose you're reading the condemnation of Israel in Jeremiah. Use these as reflections to teach us about our own sin, which we can do because we know that, aside from being God's special covenant people, Israel stands in for humanity. They are a parable for us.
8. New Testament makes the link
9. How do I read this text through Christ? In other words, what does it mean for us? How do we apply it?

And let me take just a moment to plug the ESV Gospel Transformation Bible. It offers study notes that help you to do this throughout the Bible.

Test Drive

1. Proverbs 2:1-6 [read]
2. What's the point? If you diligently seek wisdom, God will give it.
3. What does our passage say wisdom is? The parallelism is helpful. Look at verse 6 again: "The Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding." So wisdom involves knowledge and understanding. Move back one verse to verse 5: "Then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God." Wisdom seems to be paralleled with the fear of the Lord. Chapter 1, verse 7 famously tells us the same thing. Looking at verses 1 to 3 of our chapter, we see the wisdom is found in listening to the father's "words," "commandments," and "insight."
4. Where does it fall in the biblical storyline? Chapter 1, verse 1 tells us that Solomon wrote at least the opening sections of the Proverbs. Looking back, we know that Solomon is the king of Israel and anointed son of David. God had promised Solomon wisdom. And God had promised Solomon's father David that he would establish David and David's son as a kind of special son of God, who would specially mediate God's rule to the nation, and through the nation to the nations. So in Proverbs we have God using his specially designated son the king to lead sons in the way of wisdom. Look at Proverbs 1:8: "Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching." And then notice how our passage starts: "My son…"
5. How does it point to Christ? Our passage points to him in a couple of ways. First it points to him by virtue of its authorship. Solomon, as the son of David, pointed to the true Son of David to come. Second, consider the theme of wisdom. Solomon was known for his great wisdom.
6. Look at our passage again: Verse 1: "My son, if you receive my words…verse 3: "if you call out for insight"…verse 5: then you will understand the fear of the Lord.
7. Turn to Isaiah 11:1: "There shall come forth a shot from the stump of Jesse [David's father…so someone in the line of David]…Verse 2: And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord."
8. Turn to Isaiah 50. The first few verses concern Israel's disobedience, but then it turns to a servant's obedience: "The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught…Morning by morning he awaken; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious."
9. Turn to Luke 3:40: "And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom." And verse 49: "And he said to them, 'Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house'?"
10. Turn to Matthew 12:24: Jesus observes that that the Queen of Sheba might have sought to hear Solomon's wisdom, but now one greater than Solomon was here.
11. And Matthew 13:54: When Jesus taught in the synagogue people responded, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works?"
12. Paul of course tells us that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24).

Really, the whole book of Proverbs needs to be read with the understanding that Jesus fulfills both Solomon's sonship and Solomon's wisdom. It comes through acutely in our passage because we see this pictures of the boy Jesus seeking out such wisdom.

1. How do we read this passage through Christ? What does it mean for us? Think again about how our passage starts: "My son…" Friends, Romans tells us that, if we're Christians, we're adopted sons. The whole book therefore guides us in the way of sanctification, the way of walking like our elder brother (remember, Jesus was called the first born of many brothers). Proverbs doesn't just give us practical tips for living.

It helps us to know what it means to posture our entire lives in the fear of the Lord, as Christ did, and then to walk in his way, so that we might grow in wisdom and stature and blessing. Verse 1 to 6 teach us how valuable and precious the wisdom of God is, and how we must seek it. I think it means both work really hard in school (whether you're studying math, literature, science, or Bible) and work out your salvation in fear and trembling, because all knowledge and wisdom are God's.

And to possess the heavenly Father's knowledge and wisdom are life and blessings, particularly if you know it all points to him.

1. Isaiah 13 [Read vv. 1-11, 13, 17, 19-22; read also 14:1-2]
2. What's the point? Looking just at chapter 13, the point seems to be that the day of God's judgment is coming, and he will bring judgment upon Babylon as well as all who oppose him. Verse 6: "Wail, for the day of the LORD IS near; as destruction from the Almighty will come!

Verse 11: "I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity." But if we expand our view just slightly, we recall that Isaiah is written to Judah, at a time when Assyria is threatening its borders, and Judah was tempted to look to make alliances with other kings for its safety? And then you see the promise of God's compassion in the first verses of chapter 14, and the promise that they will rule over those who oppressed them. What might we say the point is with this slightly broader view?

Don't look to Babylon or any nation of this world for your hope. They will all be judged!

1. Where does chapter 13 fall in the biblical storyline? As we already said, we're sitting in the Southern Kingdom of Judah in the late eighth century, BC. Assyria is the threat. The Assyrians will eventually exile Israel to the North, through Babylon is a threat that looms on the horizon as well.
2. Babylon is powerfully symbolic if we look backwards how? It stretches all the way back to the first chapters of the Bible, where the pomp and arrogance of humankind appears at the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. God's judgement is to scatter them, and in that sense you can almost say all nations issue forth from Babylon.
3. And if we strain our eyes all the way forward in history to its conclusion, in the book of Revelation, what do we find? We find rebellious humanity's judgment pictured as Babylon's judgment. [Read Revelation 18:1-2] You notice this picture of desolation in verse 2 is drawing on the conclusion of our chapter. The story of Babylon is the story of the nations that defy God. Eventually God does punish and destroy Babylon through the Persians.
4. How does it point to Christ? The first thing to notice in our text is that phrase "the day of the LORD" in verses 6 and 9: the day of the Lord "is near" and "comes."
5. Turn to Isaiah 61, and we find this prophesy: "The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me…to bring good news to the poor...to bind up the broken hearted…to proclaim liberty to the captives…[verse 2] to proclaim the year of the LORD'S favor, and the day of vengeance of our God." When is this fulfilled?
6. Turn to Luke 4:16: We see that Jesus "went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him." Then he reads this bit from chapter 61 that we just read. But notice where it stops - verse 19: "to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Where does it stop? Right before "and the day of vengeance of our God. Christ came the first time to proclaim God's salvation. But he will come a second time for judgment.
7. Look at verse 10 again in our passage: "For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not giver their light." Then verse 13: "I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place. Now turn to Matthew 24:29: [Read verses 29-30.]
8. Christ will usher in the day of the Lord, the book of Revelation also tells us. Revelation 19 describes the heavens opening and Christ coming on a white horse with the armies of heaven behind him. "From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winpress of the futry fo the wrath of God the Almighty" (v. 15). Jesus will be the judge over all nations, and if I'm teaching Isaiah 13, I will make this point.
9. How do we read this through Christ? If Jesus is coming as Judge, then we know we must turn to Jesus as Savior. Only the Judge can Save, as the first couple of verses of Isaiah 14 tell us. There is no salvation outside of Christ. As we watch these presidential debates during this election cycle, yes, we should care about who becomes president, but Isaiah 13 tells us not to put our trust in any president, in America, or in any nation. We know that the nations will finally be judged, and our only hope is Christ.
10. Nehemiah and the wall [Read 1:1-4, 8-9; 2:4-5; the wall is rebuilt in chapters 3-6; 12:27, 30]
11. What's the point? Nehemiah want to rebuild the wall so that God's covenant people might be restored to God the blessings of his presence, and in the ancient world a strong wall was crucial to the survival of its inhabitants. Otherwise, people would have been subject to every traveling band of robbers, every passing marauder, even every far-off king with imperial ambitions.
12. Where does it fall in the biblical storyline? Babylon, who had originally exiled Judah, has now fallen and been replaced by Persia. The last verse of chapter 1 tells us that Nehemiah was cupbearer to King Artaxerxes. Ezra and a wave of exiles have already returned. Ezra and Nehemiah are these two in-between historical books: in between the return from exile and the coming of Christ.

In general, they reaffirm some of the earlier lessons from Israel's history, but more importantly they set Israel's history up for the coming of the Messiah. Nehemiah invokes the prayer of Moses from Deuteronomy 28 (when Moses laid out the covenant blessings and curses) about a return from exile. Verse 9 again: "but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them…from there I will gather them and bring them to the place I have chosen, to make my name dwell there."

1. How does it point to Christ? To answer that, let's stop and think first about the failure of Nehemiah's wall.
2. Look at 13:10: "I also found that the portions of the Levites had not been given to them." No one was paying the priests.
3. Verse 15, 17: "In those days I saw in Judah people treading winepresses on the Sabbath…" Verse 17: I confronted the nobles of Judah and said to them, 'What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day?'"
4. Verse 23: "In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but only the language of each people…Verse 26: "Did not Solomon king of Israel sin on account of such women."

Based on these closing remarks in Nehemiah, what would you say is the problem with Nehemiah's wall? Maybe it will keep a few "bad guys" out, but it does nothing to prevent the evil from growing within. Israel's historical decline after David began with Solomon's heart being led astray by foreign wives, and now the history of the Old Testament is closing with the very same thing. It doesn't seem we've made a whole lot of progress does it. Also, the Lord's temple, where God is said to dwell, is being neglected.

So what do we do with Nehemiah's Mosaic prayer, "but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them…from there I will gather them and bring them to the place I have chosen, to make my name dwell there"? Apparently the solution was not a piece of geography with a wall around it. And sure enough we know that God would make his dwelling through Christ: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath.

Christ is the one who would be set apart from the nations and cause a people to be set apart, surrounded by a wall, as it were. 1 Peter 2 tells us that we "like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house," with Christ himself as the chief cornerstone (vv. 5-7; see also Eph. 19-22). We also anticipate the day described in the book of Revelation when the holy city, the New Jerusalem, comes down out of heaven from God (Rev. 21:2).

Then we read, "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God" (Rev. 21:3).

There's a sense in which we're given Nehemiah's wall to show us the inadequacy of the wall. What's really needed is what Jeremiah promises: "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people" (Jer. 31:33b). In that sense, Nehemiah indirectly points us not just to Christ, but to his Spirit.

1. What do I read this through Christ? What does it mean for us? The lesson here is a bit like the lesson of Isaiah 13. There God's people are told not to look to the nations for redemption. Here we're told not to look to all the things in this world that we might use to protect ourselves. We can only look to Christ and his Spirit. Walls won't do it. Gated communities won't do it. Bank accounts won't do it. Military might won't do it. Christ alone is our wall and our dwelling place. In fact, we read in Ephesians 2,

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility [between Jew and Gentile] by abolishing he law of commandments expressed in ordinances, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility (vv. 14-16).

Nehemiah's book concludes ominously with the children of Jews speaking these foreign languages because the holiness and distinctness of God's people was tied to their land and their ethnicity. But not Christ has smashed that ethnic wall, he's commissioned us to go to all nations, and in Acts 8 he even sent a persecution within Jerusalem by the Jews to spread his people far and wide.

So here we are as a church this morning, a multi-ethnic people, speaking English, not Hebrew, but God in Christ dwells with us. And what form does the "wall" around our city take? It takes the form of church membership, as represented in baptism and the Lord's Supper. And we maintain that wall through church discipline. We are not a people set apart geographically and militarily, but by our reliance on Christ.

Now stop and think: how have you often heard Nehemiah taught? It's usually taught as good moral lessons about leadership. And certainly there are lessons about leadership that we can find in Nehemiah. But if we stop there, what have we turned Nehemiah into? Something moralistic. Something all about us and not about Christ.

What Nehemiah teaches, ironically, is the utter inadequacy of any human leadership apart from Christ. Be the more powerful king or priest or governor or president or pastor and, at best, you will only accomplish something for a few short moments. Then it will pass. Christ alone can rescue us, set us apart, and keep us.

Class 12: Luke1; John 11; Colossians 1:12-14

Annotated

Introduction

Questions we want to ask of the text:

1. What is the point of the text?
2. Where does this text fall in the biblical story line? [We look backward in the story and we look forward. We want to figure out what covenantal administration we're under, because the answer to that helps us figure out what continuities and discontinuities exist between the text and our own time.]
3. How does this text point to Christ?
4. Typology: David, temple, sacrifice. They are divinely ordained persons, institutions, or events which God intends to point us to Christ (need NT warrant to designate a type)
5. Theme: God's mercy, God's love, our sin, call to praise
6. Storyline: for example, if telling the story of exile, I'll just trace it to the return from exile, the insufficiency of that return, and then the promise of Christ.
7. God/man/Christ/response: suppose you're reading the condemnation of Israel in Jeremiah. Use these as reflections to teach us about our own sin, which we can do because we know that, aside from being God's special covenant people, Israel stands in for humanity. They are a parable for us.
8. New Testament makes the link
9. How do I read this text through Christ? In other words, what does it mean for us? How do we apply it?

We are going to walk through some New Testament texts today and see if we can answer these questions. I want you to introduce yourself to the people sitting around you because they are going to be your partners.

Luke 4:1-13 The first text we are going to look at is early in the ministry of Jesus. If you have your Bibles turn to Luke 4.

1. What is the point of the text? Unlike Israel, which failed in the wilderness, Jesus has proven to be the faithful Son of God.
2. Where does this text fall in the biblical story line? We are in the New Testament. But we are at the very beginning of Jesus earthly ministry. The Old Testament ends with the people of God going up to Jerusalem from exile. But the language is point to something more. See the verse just before Luke 4.
3. How does this text point to Christ?
4. Typology: Christ is the antitype of Israel. [Unlike Israel, which failed in the wilderness, Jesus has proven to be the faithful Son of God. In Luke's narrative the story of Israel's failure continues to be documented in accounts of their refusal to respond to the gospel (cf. Acts 13:46; 18:6; 28:28), and this failure is explicitly linked with Israel's rebellious acts in the wilderness (cf. Acts 7:35 - 42, 51 - 53).

In ecclesiological terms, Jesus also "fulfills" the destiny of Israel as he accomplishes what Israel was called to perform as God's son (cf. Deut. 8:5). When the foundation story of Israel is evoked, Jesus does not simply embody Israel, but rather becomes the foundation of God's people in the eschatological era. As he did in the past, God is once again calling a "people [laon] for his name" (Acts 15:14).]

1. Theme: faithfulness to God
2. Storyline: Luke lays out the storyline for us when he calls Jesus the Son.
3. God/man/Christ/response: Too often folks identify with Jesus, but what the text is showing us is that we are more like Israel, even though they are not explicitly mentioned.
4. New Testament makes the link: Check your cross references!
5. How do I read this text through Christ? In other words, what does it mean for us? How do we apply it? Know that we have been unfaithful and disobedient like Israel. Read through Psalm 106 this afternoon. Notice the same three-fold pattern of temptation and sin that marked Israel's history: "wanton cravings" (vv. 14 - 15; cf. Exod. 16:1 - 12; Num. 11:1 - 6), idolatry (vv. 19 - 23; cf. Exod. 32:1 - 15), and the "testing" of God at Massah/Meribah (vv. 32 - 33; cf. Exod. 17:1 - 7; Num. 20:1 - 13). Are there any areas of your life where you've given in to a similar pattern of sinful craving, false worship, and testing of the Lord? Know and Love Jesus the Perfectly Faithful and Obedient Son of God!

John 11

1. What's the point? Is it to teach us to have faith? To teach us that Jesus can do everything, so ask him for what you need? No, that would be a moralistic sermon. This passage is about the identity of Jesus, and our belief in his identity. The key verses are 25-27 and 40 and 42. Lines up with 20:31.
2. Where does it fall in the biblical storyline? Well, this occurred, obviously in a time of redemption history in which God was revealing that Jesus was in fact his Son, fully God, fully man. And the purpose of signs and miracles in the book of John is to reveal who Jesus is. The purpose isn't what so many faith healers today claim it is.
3. How does it point to Christ? Again, Jesus answers that question explicitly in the passage: "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believe in me, though he die, yet shall he live." (John 11:25-26)
4. How do I read this through Christ? Lazarus gives us a foretaste of our own resurrection. It's a good opportunity to discuss hope, both for the discouraged, as well as for those who hope in the wrong thing. You can also use it to discuss the new identity we have as Christians. What should be said for the church as a whole? We are a people who aren't living for this world. Since we're not storing up treasure here on earth, knowing that everyone and everyone will die, but also knowing that we will be resurrected, we can encourage one another to be investing in different sorts of things.

Colossians 1:12-14

1. What is the point of the text? Paul wants the Colossians (and us!) to give thanks to God for our great salvation. To this end he borrows the language of the exodus to describe the new exodus that God has performed for the people of God in Christ. At first glance this seems like a complicated way of saying that God has caused the Colossians to hear and receive the gospel. That is what Paul is saying.

But, by expressing their salvation using the "grammar or vocabulary or accent" of the Exodus, Paul wants to bring to our minds a whole world of imagery related to Israel's exodus from Egypt and her entry into the promised land. Paul intentionally links these two great saving works of God (the exodus and the cross). But he does so in a way to make us see the cross of Christ as something greater. God's work in saving His people through the cross of Christ is a new and greater exodus.

This should fill our mouths with thanksgiving (not murmuring) and our hearts with praise.

1. Where does this text fall in the biblical story line? Paul is writing this after the death and resurrection of Christ. It is under the New Covenant, where God is said to be writing his law on peoples hearts. He does this through the proclamation and belief in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
2. How does this text point to Christ? Paul is clearly saying that the redemption, the forgiveness of sins, the share in the inheritance, the deliverance. All the language here was accomplished by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It is being used typologically from the Exodus and the deliverance from Babylon to its antitype, the deliverance from the death and the domain of the devil through Christ.
3. How do I read this text through Christ? In other words, what does it mean for us? How do we apply it? The one main application we should draw from this passage is to remember and give thanks for this new exodus God has worked in Christ. Why does Paul use this exodus language in the context of a prayer of thanksgiving? I think it's in part because of the way that Israel responded to what God had done for them. Instead of giving thanks to Him, they grumbled against God and forgot His saving works.

Paul's allusions to the exodus event are given in the context of beckoning the Colossians to give thanks for the new exodus they have experienced in Christ. Israel was redeemed and yet they grumbled. In Christ, we've been redeemed with a greater exodus. Will we give thanks or will we murmur and complain like Israel? Christian, how quickly we forget what God has done for us through a new a better exodus. How quickly we are prone, like Israel, to complain.

Let's repent of this and ask God to fill our mouths with thanksgiving and our tongues with praise.

Christian, are you thankful for this great salvation, for this new and greater exodus that God has worked through His Son on your behalf?

Illus: Imagine you were in Egypt just after the Exodus, just after that first Passover. If you stopped Israelites in those days and said, "Who are you and what's happening here?" what would they have said?

They would have said something like this:

"I was a slave. I was under the power of a cruel master. I was under a sentence of death. But in His mercy and graceo, God sent a deliverer. I took shelter under the blood of the lamb and I escaped that bondage, and now God lives in our midst and we are following Him to receive our inheritance in the glorious Promised Land."

Does this sound familiar, Christian? Do you recognize this language and this accent? Who are you, Christian? What has happened to you? Are these words not true of you?

"I was a slave. I was under the power of a cruel master. I was under a sentence of death. But in His mercy and grace, God sent a deliverer. I took shelter under the blood of the Lamb and I escaped that bondage, and now God lives in our midst and we are following Him to receive our inheritance in the glorious Promised Land."

What a God! What a great salvation He has worked for His people, for His glory! Amen.

Concluding remarks: At the very beginning of this course we said Biblical theology is the discipline of learning how to read the Bible as one story by one divine author that culminates in the person and work of Christ, so that every part of Scripture is understood in relation to Christ.

We also said it was important because it helps us read the Bible rightly, so that we can engage with the world rightly. Hopefully we have demonstrated in various ways (tools, themes, workshops) how to read any passage of Scripture canonically meaning within the context of the whole Bible. A few other practical recommendations for you:

1. Grab a Biblical theology. There are good ones out there. Grab something by Graeme Goldsworthy or Vaughn Roberts, they are great introductory demonstrations, similar to this class.
2. Listen to the sermons, make notes of how the preacher puts the text he is preaching on within the context of the Bible.
3. Get a reference Bible and read it. Reading the Bible just straight reading it can help you see the connections and themes. And cross-references are there to help make the connections sometimes.

If you have any questions or would like to to dig into this further always feel free to reach out.

Biblical Theology Core Seminar: Session 13

Workshop # 4

Annotated I want to begin this final class by turning the tables and asking you a few questions. Let's just make sure we've learned some things along the way. Pop quiz time.

1. What is biblical theology?

Someone could use the term to simply mean theology that's biblical (as opposed to unbiblical). And what people have in mind here is systematic theology. We have been using the term in a slightly more technical sense to refer to a way of reading the Bible (a hermeneutic) as one book, by one author, telling one story, that centers on the person and work of Jesus Christ. It helps us to focus on redemptive history and to ask how every text points to Jesus and his good news.

1. Should reading every text with a view to Christ cause us to be careless with the text in front of us?

No, we should always begin by asking what the point of the specific text in its context is. These means using the historical-grammatical method, in which we try to understand the text on its own historical and grammatical terms, as set down by the human author.

You might recall in class 3 we talked about two exegetical tools. The first was historical grammatical method. The second was literary form. There are multiple literary forms you need to take into account in Scripture: Narrative; Parable; Poetry; Wisdom; Prophecy; Epistles; Apocalyptic, and more. And the literary form will impact your approach to the author's intended meaning.

1. In addition to the exegetical tools, we listed a number of storyline tools. What were they? Let's start by listing them.
2. Themes: we want to pay attention to the Bible's main theme lines. Examples of themes include sin, redemption, sacrifice, God's grace, and so forth.
3. Covenant
4. Continuity/Discontinuity
5. Promise/Fulfillment
6. Typology
7. What's a covenant, and why are they so important for us to understand?

A covenant is "A solemn commitment, guaranteeing promises or obligations undertaken by one or both covenanting parties, sealed with an oath" (Paul Williamson, NDBT). And they're important because they provide the structure which hold the Bible together. They define the terms by which different groups of people interact with one another and with God. A key question to always ask in the task of interpretation is, which covenants are in play in this text?

1. What are the two covenants that God established in Scripture with all humanity (which we might call "common" covenants)?

The covenants with Adam and Noah.

1. What are the major covenants that God established in Scripture with a special people (what we might call the "special" covenants)?

The covenants with Abraham, Moses, David, and the new covenant.

1. What is a biblical type? Or, what do we mean by typology?

To say something is a "type" of something else in the Bible means that you are asserting God intended to teach us about a second thing by connecting it to a first thing. Some event, person, or institution is organically connected by God's intent to something else so that the first things helps us to interpret and understand the second thing.

1. What are some examples of some biblical types?

But the biblical text refers to Jesus as last Adam, Abraham's Seed, new Israel, David's greater Son. It also describes him as the Passover Lamb, the once-for-all sacrifice, the temple, the Good Shepherd, a king, a priest, the Rock struck by Moses, the true Exodus, the vine of Israel, the Lord of the Sabbath. These are all types.

1. Can we make anything a type? How do we make sure we're being responsible with our typology?

A type is not simply allegory that makes arbitrary and mere linguistic connections between symbol and the thing symbolized. For example, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Inn is the church, the innkeeper is Paul. I think the safest way to establish a type is to root it in the biblical text. Really, we're looking for the New Testament's permission to call something a type. That's not always the case, but it typically is.

1. Why is biblical theology important for the church to understand?

Most fundamentally, it's critical to reading our Bible's rightly. There are so many false churches and false believers spreading throughout the globe today because false teachers grab a Bible verse and distort it. Roman Catholics and Mormons do. Cults and prosperity gospel churches do it.

Second, biblical theology centers our churches on the power of the gospel and not on moralism. People love motivational talks. They pay for them. "Living in excellence!" "Making Your Marriage Marvelous." But moralistic and motivational talks don't give life to the dead or sight to the blind. They don't change the leopards spots. Only the gospel does all that. And a Christian sermon, no matter where it's coming from in Scripture, gets its power from the gospel.

Third, biblical theology shapes our church's mission. Biblical theology teaches us that Bible is primarily about what Jesus uniquely did. And all our actions and work as churches and church members emerges from the knowledge of what he did.

Fourth, biblical theology leads us to worship. It teaches us the Bible is about Jesus, not about us.

1. What's the story of the exodus fundamentally about?

It's fundamentally about the fact that God saves his people for his own glory. And he uses this people in the Old Testament to ultimately point us toward a greater exodus to come through the person and work of Christ?

1. What's the Old Testament law fundamentally about?

It's fundamentally about God's revelation of his own character, which must be put on display in all those who would image him. And there is only one person who has ever lived who has kept God's law perfectly - the one whom Paul calls the "image of God."

1. What's the story of David and Goliath fundamentally about?

It's a story in which God rescues his people from his enemies through an unlikely savior of God's own choosing who relies on the power of God and seeks the glory of God above all else. It's a story that prepares us for an even more unlikely Savior of God's own choosing to come, who also will rescue God's people from God's enemies.

1. When we read the psalms, should we directly apply them to ourselves? If not, how should we read them?

We should always read them through Christ. In other words, we can make praise and confess and ask and lament before the Father in heaven knowing that Jesus made a way for us to the throne of grace through his blood. Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? He with clean hands and a pure heart. Well, that's not me. But in Christ, it is.

1. What are four questions we should ask of every text for good interpretation?
2. What is the point of this text in its original context? 2) Where are we in the Bible's storyline (under what covenantal administration)? 3) How does it point to Christ? 4) How is it relevant to me, standing where I stand in relations to Christ?
3. Does the Old Testament law apply to us as Christians?

Not directly, no. Think of the Ten Commandments. They begin by saying, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." He gave the Ten Commandments to historical, ethnic Israel. And so with the rest of the Law.

At the same time, Jesus, we're told, fulfilled the law. He kept it. He embodied it. And he gives us what we need from it. And the people of Israel, Paul tells us, are meant to be "examples for us" (1 Cor. 10:6). So the law as it's articulated in the Old Testament may not directly apply to us, but, yes, it's very much relevant to us. Sure enough, nine of the Ten Commandments are repeated in the New Testament. The law teaches us about the unbreakable connection between righteousness and blessing. You must be righteous to be blessed. The law teaches us that we are not righteous, and we had better find someone who is so that we an be blessed. The law teaches us that God's people must be holy and set apart.

1. Non-Christians sometimes accuse us of applying our Bible inconsistently because they will pull random laws from the Old Testament and make the observation that we don't follow that. "Hey, do you wear two kinds of cloth at once? Do you eat shellfish? Aren't you being inconsistent?" How do we respond?

Drawing on the last answer, we simply observe that the entire Mosaic administration was given to the people of Israel and not to the church; that God was accomplishing something very specific at that time; and that work has now been fulfilled to Christ.

"In moving from an elementary school to a junior high, a student will not presume that all the classroom structures and rules remain the same simply because both schools belong to the same school district. But nor will he presume they are all different. Instead, he will ask the new principle and teachers, "How do things work now that I am in junior high?" The lesson for our purpose is this: every rule and institution in the Old Testament is indeed relevant for the Christian, because Christ fulfills all of it (see Matt. 5:17-18); yet generally only those structures and rules which Jesus and the apostles say bind us should bind us." (From Leeman, Don't Fire Your Church Members)

1. Non-Christians and Christians alike will sometimes draw out various events in redemptive history in order to accuse us or to get something. For instance, the non-Christian might point to how "Joshua and the people of Israel killed whole cities in the land of Canaan" in order to insinuate we Christians similarly aspire to a theonomic state. Or, in precisely the same way, a prosperity gospel preacher might point to the Prayer of Jabez to say that we can ask God for earthly blessing in the hear and now. How do we respond?

First, we observe that the Bible provides God's history of redemption, and, like history generally, it's filled with non-repeatable events. That is, the Bible doesn't given us all this history so that we can repeat it, but so that we can learn from the unique things God does at each point along the way.

Second, redemptive history is divided up into different covenantal administrations. The two examples listed here both come from the Old Covenant era, and God was doing something very specific in that era, namely, using a particular nation to teach all the nations of the earth that they belonged to him and were liable to his judgment. Indeed, as you keep reading after Joshua into the rest of Israel's history you see that Israel was no less liable to God's judgment than the people of Canaan.

In fact, we're just as liable as Israel and Canaan if we don't repent and believe. Do you think what happened to Canaan is unfair? You probably think the threat of judgment against you is unfair to. And that's just the problem. We're all our own gods and judges! That said, we're no longer under the old covenantal administration. It successfully taught its lesson. Now, we're under a new administration, and there's another lesson: Jesus can save us from the judgement we deserve.

Now only that, the blessing he offers is something better than what Jabez asked for: Jesus offers us the chance to be reconciled to God and to all God's people.

1. Is the Bible all about you and me? If not, who is it about?

No, it's about Jesus!

Well, I hope you feel like you've learned something in the biblical theology core seminar. I have one more textual case study we can do if we need to. But since we haven't had as much time for Q&A in this course as I would have liked, I'm happy to spend the rest of the class doing that if it would be beneficial. Questions about anything in the course?

Case Study: Acts

Let's do one last case study, this time from the book of Acts. Remember the fours questions we want to ask of every text: what is the point; where are we in the storyline; how does it point to Christ; how does it apply to us through Christ?

Turn to Acts 2, and listen as I read the first 4 verses:

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Take a couple minutes now and see if you answer our four questions with the friend next to you.

1. What is the point of this text?

What is the author trying to say or do or teach us?

1. Most fundamentally, the author is doing history here. Luke is simply recounting how the remarkable events of the day of Pentecost transpired. Look back at 1:15 and you see that church numbered around 120 people at this point. In these verses, Luke starts by saying, "There the 120 were all together when this most amazing thing happened!" Pentecost, in Greek, means the 50th day. The Jews celebrated the Feast of Weeks 50 days after the Passover at which the first fruits of the corn harvest were presents and, in later times, the giving of the law of Moses.
2. In these verses he's also preparing to say that Old Testament prophesy was been fulfilled on this day of Pentecost. A few verses later he will recount Joel's prophesy. Look at verses 16 and 17: "But this Is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: 'An in the last days is shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh…[verse 21] And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."
3. Where are we in the historical redemptive storyline?

Turn back to John 7:

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Jesus' prediction right here helps us to locate ourselves in the storyline. A moment will come when I am glorified, says Jesus, and at the moment the Spirit will be given to all who believe.

1. How does this point to Christ?

Turn back to Acts 2. Peter is preaching. He's explaining what the people see, on the one hand, as promised by Joel. But even more importantly, he explains that all of this is a result of Christ's crucifixion, Christ's resurrection, Christ's ascension, and Christ's session (or sitting) at the right hand of God, which in turn triggers the giving of the Spirit. Look at verse 23: "this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

God raised him up…" Then verses 32 and 33: "This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, have having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing."

So what we're witnessing in Acts 2 is a the remarkable, once-in-history, moment in which Jesus is exalted by being set down at the Father's right hand - just as unique in history as the redemption and the resurrection - and by the giving of his Spirit in a new and remarkable way. The gift of tongues that we witness, then, isn't the big deal. That's just a sign of what's really a big deal, namely, that Jesus himself, the man they all knew and travelled with for three years, is being seated in heaven.

So how do our four verses point to Christ. Well, in context they point to him as the one being seated in heaven who gives the gift of his Spirit to his people.

1. How does this text apply to us through Christ?

Is this a guide for speaking in tongues? Hardly. It's a remarkable assurance of the promise that all who believe will receive God's Spirit, as we read. His Spirit will come, we read elsewhere in the New Testament, as a comforter, and the firstfruits, and the downpayment of even more to be given later.

Any questions?