The Son of God and the New Creation

Short Studies in Biblical Theology is a series edited by Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt. The purpose this series is to connect the results of research in the academic field of biblical theology with everyday believers. The ultimate aim is to mag-nify the Savior and build up his church. This first volume fulfils this expectation.

In this volume the Australian Bible scholar Graeme Golds-worthy traces the divine sonship from Adam, through the nation of Israel and king David, and ultimately to Jesus Christ. The bottom line to his study is that Jesus as Son of God is also God the Son, the eternal second person of  the Godhead. But our salvation and eternal destiny depend on his being the incarnate one who is revealed as Son of God.

Jesus, in het person and work sums up the pattern of creation. Through his redemptive work the creation reaches its final destination The consummation of this total regeneration is described in the book of Revelation as resurrection and the new heaven and earth. So we get a view of the final nature of the kingdom of God established by God the son and inherited by all the adopted sons of God.

Graeme Goldsworthy, The Son of God and the New Creation, Short Studies in Biblical Theo­logy (Wheaton: Cross-way, 2015), paperback 144 pp. $14,99 (ISBN 978-1-4335-5631-9).

From Creation to New Creation

G.K. Beale is renowned not only for his really excellent commentary on Revelation but also for his studies on the relationship between the New Testament and the Old Testament; for example how the New Testament uses the Old Testament. The writings of Beale are characterized by a keen insight in the importance of salvation history in understanding the Word of God.

Sixteen scholars contribute to an illuminating festschrift in his honor. This festschrift with the From Creation to New Creation. Biblical Theology and Exegesis reveals the immense appreciation that Beale has garnered among scholars and exegetes of several kinds. The two editors of the festschrift were both a teaching assistant of Beale.

I highlight three essays. Daniel I. Block reassess the evidence for Eden as a temple. He thinks it is much better to say that the temple-building accounts as being built on a platform of creation theology instead of the reverse. As a sort of axis mundi, the temple was a divinely revealed and authorized means whereby God in heaven could continue to communicate with men, even after the relationship had been ruptured through human rebellion.

The combination of features derived from the heavenly temple and the original earthly paradise symbolized the LORD’s grace in response to sin. The incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ rendered superfluous the temple’s role as the link between the fallen world and the heavenly court. The move-ment away from the temple as the locus of divine presence to Jesus Christ climaxes in the vision of a restored cosmos in the book of Revelation.

In his essay ‘The Power and the Glory: The rendering of Psalm 110:1 in Mark 14:62’ Richard Bauckham demonstrates that the use of ‘the Power’ in Mark 14:62 to protect the divine trans-cendence from anthropomorphism is consistent with ways of speaking of God that are well evidenced in the traditions of Jesus’ sayings elsewhere in the Gospels. Bauckham points among other to he use of the divine passive in the sayings of Jesus. This undergirds the authenticity of Mark 14:62.

In ‘From Creation to New Creation: King, Human Viceregency , and Kingdom’ Christopher A. Beetham offers a sketch of the entire biblical epic. He shows the theme of creation is inextricable interwoven with that of divine kingship and human viceregency. The divine program to renew creation is nothing less than the reassertion of rightful divine rule through restored human viceregency over the usurped kingdom of the world.

I think this is right but would that when we restrict ourselves to this aspect of revelation we overemphasize the kingly charac-ter of man as the image of God at the expense of the priestly element it also has. Man is created to have fellowship with God. When we value the relationship between the paradise and the sanctuary we understand that man’s highest privilege was not to be a viceregent over a creation but to be a son of God. Human viceregency is grounded in sonship.

To do justice to this element of the biblical message we must not only be aware of the importance of salvation history but also of application of salvation. Perhaps, there is a weakness with this respect also in the writings of Beale himself. But it remains true we can learn of lot of this gifted scholar and also of his students, friends and colleagues who contributed to his festschrift.

Daniel M. Gurtner and Bejamin L. Gladd (ed.), From Creation to New Creation. Biblical Theology and Exegesis (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2013), hardcover 339 pp., $49.95 (ISBN 9781598568370)

Theology of the New Testament

Udo Schelle, Theology of the New Testament, trans. M. Eugene Boring, Baker Academic, Grand Rapids, Michigan 2009; ISBN 978-0-8010-3604-0; hb. 910 pp.; price $59,99;

  

The study of Udo Schnelle, originally written in German and trans-lated in English, has its own defects and shortcomings, but Schnelle makes clear that in the New Testament faith is seen as a gift of God. Faith completely rest on God’s grace and that is the reason that the fountain of faith is personal election.

Especially in the gospel of John and the letters of Paul the uncon-ditional and personal nature of election is stressed. Schreiner stresses that it is impossible to see the language of election only referring to the election of the congregation and that the fact whether you are a living member, finally depends on your own perseverance and is not guaranteed by the predestination and covenant loyalty of God himself.

The study of Schnelle can be praised also for other reasons. The fact that history of Jesus and his church is not treated in a neutral way in the New Testament, does not mean that the information cannot be seen a reliable. All writing of history is selective and is done out of a certain perspective.

Schnelle underlines that Jesus himself, while he was on earth knew that he had a unique relation to God and had a unique place in the history of salvation. I would make an even stronger state-ment, but as such we can agree with Schnelle. He emphasizes the continuity between what happened before and after Eastern.

Schnelle is convinced that the resurrection of Christ is a real history and not a myth. Schnelle has no patience with the view that originally there was a low Christology and that a high Christology points to a late date in development of presentation of the person of Christ.

At the same time we must say that Schnelle has not a very high view on Scripture. He thinks that the gospel of John can only in a very small measure be accepted as a source of historical information. He thinks that the Pastoral Epistles and the epistle to the Ephesians were not written by Paul.
Schnelle's argument is not only the style in which these letters are written by also their theological content. He thinks that Paul cannot have written these letters, because both the Pastoral Epistles and the letter to the Ephesians are less charismatic than Paul’s correspondence with Corinthe.

This is a circle argument. The emphasis on the gifts of the Spirits in the two letters to Corinthe is related to the problem in the congregation of Corinth. Besides that it is perhaps no coincidence that in later letter this problem was not so acute. The extra ordinary gifts of the Spirit became more and more accidental.

The differences in style can related to differences in content. Besides that we know that Paul made use of secretaries. Perhaps he gave them more freedom in the framing of his later letters. The fact that Schnelle thinks that there a real disagreement between Paul and James, must perhaps, at least partly, related to his Lutheran background

In his view on the Scriptures we must certainly not follow Schnelle, but the remarkable things that in his New Testament theology he does much more justice to full implications of the New Testament teaching of grace defending the personal and uncon-ditional character of God’s election than quite a lot of New Testament scholars of evangelical persuasion. So finally, I think that we can learn from both of them and must at the same time read their studies with critical discernment.

 

From Eden to the New Jerusalem

Desmond T. Alexander, From Eden to the New Jerusalem: An Introduction to Biblical Theology, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 2008. Pp. 208. Paper. $19,99. ISBN 978-0-8254-2015-3.

T. Desmond Alexander, senior lecturer in biblical studies at Union Theological College, Belfast, wrote an introduction to biblical theology in which he outlines the central theme of the Bible from the viewpoint that the earth was and is destined as God’s dwelling place. God’s aim was and is that the earth will be filled with his glory.

The starting point of Alexander is the final vision of the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation. The New Jeru­salem is, as Alexander makes clear, the final and ultimate fulfilment of God’s purpose for the earth; a purpose that first became manifest in the creating of the earth and in the existence of the paradise. More than Alexander does I would underline that the final realisation of God’s purpose surpasses the situation in the paradise before the fall.

In Genesis the paradise is portrayed as a temple and man had the role as priest and king before the fall as the verbs ‘keep’ (rmv) and ‘dress/do the service’ (db[) make clear. Outside Gen. 2 these verbs only occur in close connection to each other in Num. 3 when the service of priests in the sanctuary is described.

The fall of man meant that instead that the temple of God was extended throughout the earth the earth was filled with sin and unrighteousness. Alexander takes the fall of man seriously as a historical fact. More that Alexander does I would stress that is a real amazing thing that God came with his promises to man after the fall.

The tabernacle and the theocracy of Israel must be seen as a provisional realisation of God’s ultimate purpose, namely that God will dwell with his gracious presence in the midst of man. That purpose can only become a reality when the sin of man is atoned. That was done by Jesus Christ as the fulfilment of the service of the tabernacle and temple and as the real Pass­over Lamb. The blood of Christ is not only the means of atonement but also of purifica­tion and sanctification.
In the New Jerusalem we find the final fulfilment of the promises both of the Old and New Testament. The spiritual reality of the New Jerusalem is a material reality and the material reality of the New Jerusalem is a spiritual reality. From Eden to the New Jerusalem is worth reading and gives a good insight into the great meta-story of the Scrip­tures.