Transcription
But I start out with a quote from Graham Goldsworthy. You know his work. He's written a lot on biblical theology. He says, "People learn how to use the Bible, mm-hmm, mostly from their teachers in church. So preachers have a better opportunity than anyone else to teach good biblical theology and to model a hermeneutic, a sound use of the Bible."
I totally believe that. I believe pastors. So, I think I'm a seminary professor. I believe in what I do. I also pastored for 17 years. But I think the greatest influence on people, it's the way God designed it, as churches, right? And so pastors have such a massive influence on on congregations because, because you walk with them through birth, life, death, everything that goes on in life. And you're constantly applying Scripture. I think it's kind of hot in here. I'm gonna take this off. You're constantly applying Scripture to two life situations. So, what, what a great opportunity you have. As some of you are already doing it, but you're, you're forming and shaping people. The greatest theologians in the history of the church have been pastors, right? You think of Augustine and Luther and Calvin. And even the people who are having influence today, right? Right here, John MacArthur, John Piper, Tim Keller. I'm not saying academic people don't have influence. They do. But, but there's, there's something unique about pastoral ministry. So, I hope that encourages you as you think about your ministry to think about the influence you can have. Even, even though people, you know, listen, read other books, well, at least I used to read other books, maybe they still do. Mmm. Even though they listen online, that the local church pastor, I still think, has the most influence on the congregation.
So, our task here, you know, I've, I've, one of my favorite books to write was this book, "The King in His Beauty." It just, it was, it was such, such a delight to try to think about how to put the whole Bible together. And that, that's a great task. We're all in process. When you, when you talk about putting a whole Bible together, clearly you're going to see differences, right? Between, between people more clearly. Because that's, that's a very difficult task to put the whole Bible together. So, you're gonna have different perspectives on how to do it amongst people who believe that God's Word is inerrant and authoritative and entirely true. So, you, I mean, you know, you know, we have different systems how to do that in terms of systematics. But the different systemic systems, dispensationalism, covenant theology, new covenant theology, they're veils. They also come from biblical theology, don't they? So, you know, our focus in this class is to trace that storyline. And we're all working at it. We're all at different places. That, and, and that's fine, isn't it? So, as we work through it, we want to, we want to talk to one another, learn from one another.
So, my argument is that there's no one center to Scripture, but that of a very helpful theme, a very central theme is the kingdom of God, which I just call CoG here. The kingdom of God is God's rule over his people through his covenants. So, I'm, if some of you have read the book "Kingdom Through Covenant," written by two of my colleagues, [unintelligible] and Peter Gentry, I'm in substantial agreement with them. The biblical storyline is such that God's kingdom as displayed in Scripture, and that kingdom is unpacked through the biblical covenants. The covenants are the backbone of that story. I agree with that. So, in the kingdom of God, we have God, God's rule, and God over. Is God's rule over his people? God's kingdom is related, is presence, and in his love, of course. It also is related in judgment. But I'm thinking of the, of the king of the people of God right now. Those who belong to him. How do we experience God's kingly presence? We experience it as, as his love for his people. And that's, of course, that's the consummation, isn't it? We will be in God's presence forever and ever. We will see his face. That's how the story ends. God's kingdom also relates to a place, from the garden where Adam and Eve were, to Canaan, the land of Canaan, and then to the new creation, ultimately. So, we, we can talk about the Millennium at some point. We're not going to talk about it now. You know, people are always very interested in the Millennium. They're interested in it. So, you're interested in it here. That's good. That's fine. But we're not gonna talk about the Millennium now. Here's, here's a comment I want to make. Whatever your view on the Millennium, the Millennium lasts forever. I fit, very, it struck me very much over the years how many Christians are more excited about talking about the Millennium than the new creation. Whatever your view is, the Millennium, though it's temporary, the new creation lasts forever and ever and ever. So, what's more important? It's sort of like, in my experience, some Christians are much more excited about rewards instead of eternal life. But something's askew there. What's the most important thing? Whether you have eternal life. The most important thing isn't the rewards. Why do people think that way about rewards? Because they take eternal life for granted. Oh, of course. Yes. Say, yes, yes, yes. Nice, nice, nice. But what about the rewards? So, that's off center. So, I want to say from the beginning, talking about our future, it's off center to focus so much on the Millennium, then we forget about the new creation. Now, the Millennium is important. It's taught in Scripture, and we ought to think about it. But where we're gonna be forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever, that matters more, doesn't it? That's the most important thing. So, I just say that at the beginning, just, you know, to get our bearings. Because I'm, I live in an evangelical subculture. And our evangelical subculture, and it's not just true of pastors, it's true everywhere. Our evangelical subculture tends to talk about the Millennium more than the new creation. Kind of a strange thing. But that's the way subcultures work.
So, when we think of, when we think of the biblical storyline, of course, we begin with God being the creator. Very, very simple. Incredibly profound at the same time, isn't it? So, of course, we begin with Genesis 1 and 2. That's right there. But I mean, we, I have some other texts. "The heavens were made by the word of the Lord, and all the stars by the breath of his mouth." That's so, that's a very fascinating verse. I want to argue that we ought to read Scripture. We ought to read Scripture in terms of its historical context. We also want to read Scripture in light of its whole canonical context. And I therefore, I think it's right to read this verse as a Trinitarian verse. The heavens were made by the word of the Lord. But the word of the Lord is Jesus. Finally, I'm not saying the author of the psalm was thinking of Jesus. I don't think he was. I think he's thinking of God's Word, God's speech, right? And, and he made all the stars by the breath of his mouth. So, I think he's thinking again of his word. But I think it's right for us to think canonically. So, this is a hermeneutical decision. You may disagree with it. That's okay. If you do, I think we ought to think of this in terms of the Father, the Son, the Word, and the Spirit is the breath, right? The rock that worked for breath is also the word, spirit. The world was created by the Father, through the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So, our biblical theology begins rightly when we look at the whole, right? When we're doing biblical theology, we're looking not just at the pieces, at the whole. Our biblical theology, because this is Trinitarian from the beginning. "God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. God created the world by his word. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This one was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and apart from him, not one thing came into being that has come into being. All things were created, what? By His Word." That's what this text says. I think in John 1:1, John is meditating on Genesis, don't you? Of course. "In the beginning was the Word." In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And God created the heavens and the earth by his word. And the Word is Jesus Christ himself. "And the Spirit was hovering over the waters. He created it by the breath of his mouth." Verse 2. So, we have indications in Genesis. I don't think the first readers of Genesis understood the Trinity. I don't think they should necessarily should have. But I think it's there ultimately, and canonically, we see the fullness and the riches of what's there.
God, since God is the creator of all things, you know, I've already gotten ahead of myself a little bit here, right? But she's God is the creator of all things. He has no rivals. Psalm 96, verse 5: "For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens." The, the, the, the, the world is filled with idols, right? And in ancient times, and really still today in many parts of the world. But the idols of the world, their fantasies, aren't they? They don't exist. They're not, they're not ultimately real. Satan, I mean, Satan is not equal to God. There's not an ontological dualism, is there? There's a historical dualism. There's a conflict between God and Satan. But it's not ontological. Satan doesn't have the same greatness as God. He's not a rival to God in that sense. All creation exists for the glory of God, reflecting his beauty. So, you know, some, Psalm 19:1, which is a great text that you know well. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands." So, every day, the, the world tells us God is glorious and God is great. You know, sometimes people say, well, you know, I don't, I don't think there's sufficient evidence to believe in God. Well, it's everywhere, right? It's, it just reflects the blindness of human beings because of sin. Because every day you wake up, there's a new revelation of his glory, of his beauty.
I already talked about the Trinitarian text. I see that this is very controversial, right? Genesis 1:26. Well, my good friend Peter Gentry teaches Old Testament with us. He disagrees with me on this verse. He doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't think the "let us" is an indication of the Trinity. So, you know, Peter could be right. I could be wrong. But I tend to think for reasons I already told you, that that that "let us" ought to be interpreted canonically and does refer, has a Trinitarian reference. Some people think, right, it's a plural of majesty. You've probably heard that interpretation. Some people take it a reference to even the heavenly host, the angels playing some role. But I, but I think the most likely reading is to read it as a Trinitarian statement. So, God, it's the world, the Creator. The Creator, by definition, is sovereign. By the way, I go a little slower at the beginning, the way this works. And then on the seventh day, he rests. He rests on the seventh day. The seventh day is not called the Sabbath, by the way. It's called the seventh day. But he does rest. You know, that's how many of you in here know Hebrew? Yeah. Whenever I ask who knows the languages, people raise their hands. Vain. I'm not gonna call on you. Don't worry. So, I think it's a lot, kind of hard for me to tell how many raised their hands. But I'm looking, a lot of you did. But anyway, so, you know, you have the word Shabbat, right? To rest. It's, but, but, but we don't have to. Now, that it's the Sabbath, it's the seventh day. And, and, and I think the seventh day signifies God's reign. On the seventh day, God is reigning and ruling for the good of its people. So, it's, it's a day of refreshment and joy. But it's a day that's keeps going, right? Well, in the day of creation, then, and of course, so when we're doing biblical theology, it's, it points us forward to Hebrews chapter 4, doesn't it? Hebrews picks up on that. That the, the, the seventh day signifies a Sabbath rest for the people of God. And where is that Sabbath rest, according to Hebrews? It's in the new creation, right? Yeah. It's in the, it's in the heavenly city. Well, that's what we'd expect. Finally, the, where's the story going? Where do we finally find our rest? And, and, and we can think of another verse. Wait a minute. What did I just do there? But, uh, Revelation 14, verse 13. "Then I heard a voice from heaven saying, 'Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.' 'Yes,' says the Spirit, 'they will rest from their labors, since their works follow them.'" Now, of course, Revelation is very disputed, isn't it? But I, I think that verse is true of all Christians, all through history. The rest, the rest that Scripture is talking about, that ultimately is coming to us after our death. So, we'll pick this up again when we talk about Hebrews. But that's, that's where we are now. And somehow I ended up in Matthew there. Don't want to go. We don't want to go way back here.
So, God is the creator. He created human beings in His image. Of course, human beings are the crown of creation. God, God made human beings to rule the world for Him, making them in His image. Now, there's a lot of, a lot of discussion on the image of God. You talk about that in systematics, and I think the image of God has a wide, a wide understanding. It's, it's not a limited understanding. But I think the focus, that's what I want to talk about, what's the focus? And the text, that in the image of God is such that human beings will be God's vice-regent. Like a vice president. Made the vice president rules for the sake of the president. He serves the president. So, human beings are God's vice-regents. We serve for God's sake. In the ancient world, you know this, probably. The image of rulers, kings were set up to indicate the extent to their rule. So, you know, I mean, in, in, the one way to signify that today, I suppose, it's not as personal, but her flags. You notice how it's interesting when somebody from another culture comes to the United States. And we had a friend from Australia. He stayed with us. And we just said, "Hey, what do you think about the United States?" And one of the things that struck me, he goes, "There's so many flags around here." Yeah, I know. I didn't even notice it growing up here. He goes, "You have American flags everywhere." No, it's kind of interesting, kind of signifying, "What? This is our country, right? Where the flag is." Well, it's just an analogy, not a perfect one. Human beings that are to rule for God, and there to be a blessing to the world, right? So, I, I agree with those who say Adam, Adam early on, is a king and a priest in the garden. Because he's a king, because he's ruling for God. He's a priest because he's mediating. He's to mediate blessing. That's what priests do. Priests mediate blessing. So, I think God is doing both. And it's very interesting that Adam has told to work and to keep the garden. And we have this very same verb, verbs in Numbers 3:7 and 8, who are priests in their work in the Tabernacle. Are to work and keep the temple. So, so you, you, you, you have the idea. And here, I think Greg Beale is right. You have the idea from the beginning of kind of a garden temple. I think the garden, the garden is like a temple. It's where God dwells, right? And, and what Adam and Eve are called to do is to spread God's blessing, God's presence, over the entire world. I'm quoting somebody here, and I quote him in my books. Maybe I don't know who this is that I'm quoting. Maybe it's Desi Alexander. "To perform duties for him in the entire community before the Tent of Meeting by attending to the service of the Tabernacle." No, this is quoting the Bible. Yeah, sorry. That is blasphemy to give that to Desi Alexander. So, they are to take care of all the furnishings of the tent of meeting and perform duties for the Israelites by attending to the service of the Tabernacle. So, that's what Adam and Eve are to do in the garden as well. So, I talked about the garden as a sanctuary where humans meet with God. And so, here's some parallels, right? God walks in the garden. God dwells in the temple. Of course, God walks in the garden. His anthropomorphic, isn't it? It is just a way of talking about having fellowship with God. I don't think God was literally walking in the garden. You enter the garden from the east, and it's guarded by the cherubim. And the temple is entered from the east, and the ark is overshadowed by a cherubim. So, very interesting parallel. The cherubim, again and again, guard God's presence. In case we don't get there, you know, in Revelation chapter 4, anyway, the cherubim in chapter 4 of Revelation, the great throne room vision, who's there? The cherubim, right? When you have the four living creatures, well, the four living creatures saw the cherubim. So, it's fascinating. The traces two cherubim through Scripture, always very closely associated with God's reign, God's rule, God's, God's, God's throne. So, the cherubim guard the sacred space. Perhaps the menorah in the temple Tabernacle symbolizes the Tree of Life, and the river from Eden anticipates the river in Ezekiel 47. Now, there's no river in the temple Tabernacle, right? And in Exodus, and, and in 2nd Samuel. But when we get to Ezekiel, so fascinating, isn't it? When we get to Ezekiel chapter 47, there is a river. And it's a most unusual river because it's a river without any tributaries. And yet the river grows. That's unheard of. That doesn't happen with rivers. You don't start with a trickle, and then the river gets bigger and bigger. But that's what happens here. So, I mean, you know, there's lots of, lots of issues in Ezekiel 40 through 48. And we can talk about those later. But here, I just want us to see the parallel. The river coming from the temple, the river coming, the rivers coming from the garden. In fact, many people have argued that what we have, probably since the rivers are going down, that the garden was kind of a mountain, a mountain sanctuary. And, of course, the temple is a Temple Mount is on a mountain as well. So, you see another, another, another connection here. Yeah. I wasn't very clear on that. I think, I think they mediate the presence outside the garden to the whole world. Yeah. How they were to do it. I mean, I think God entrusted it to the wisdom and discernment and abilities he given how Adam and Eve. I don't think he gave him a preset formula. But I'll say something more about that in a second.
So, there's a test for Adam and Eve. We all know this, right? You're there to rule the garden for God, but you're to rule it under His Lordship. The rule and in subjection to His authority. He's the Lord. And of course, they fail, don't they? Okay. They, they don't do it that way. So, you know, here, here I agree with Greg Beale. One way that would manifest itself, one way that would manifest itself is that Adam, when the serpent came in the garden, Adam, Adam should have evicted the serpent. Adam should have told the serpent, "Get out of here." Instead, every indication we have in Genesis chapter 3, Adam sat passively by while Eve was being tempted. And then of course, he gave in himself. So, instead of exercising leadership and dominion and rule, he just collapsed in that situation and didn't do what God called them to do. God fundamentally calls upon us as human beings to submit to His authority, to, to do what He says, in humble trust, of course. And that's, they did not do that. Adam and Eve sinned. Adam and Eve sinned. We read the sin in Genesis 6. They sinned by, they sinned by wanting to be like God. Then they, what it's said and say, "You'll be like God, knowing good and evil." So, that's the heart of sin, isn't it? The hardest sin is the displacement of God. So, we know as Christians, we know from our own hearts, but we know that every person we see in the world who's not a believer, they are worshipping themselves. And if you said to an ordinary non-Christian, "You know, your problem is you are the god of your own life. You're an, you're an idolatry, and your God is yourself." Most, most of them would say, "You're crazy. That's not true." Me. But, but we know that's true. They don't understand themselves because of their sin.
The created world, there were consequences for the created world when Adam and Eve fell. Creation fell as well, didn't it? There's thorns and thistles in the garden. I was in a class in university many, many years ago. It was even a different century. I can say that. So, and I went to a secular school. So, it was a small little class. And a person was complaining about Christianity there. And he said, "Look at the natural world. Look at all the terrible things that are happening. And what kind of God is that?" And, you know, it was the 1970s. You could say anything. But very politically correct world today. But I just raised my hand and I said, "That's a misunderstanding of Scripture. Because Scripture says when human beings fell, so did the natural world. The natural world is the way it is in part because of sin." And, and of course, that's what Genesis teaches, right? The thorns and thistles weren't there from the beginning. They came because of Adam and Eve's sin. And Romans 8:2, "creation groans along with us." There's also going to be a redemption in the new creation, right? Of the created order. So, the, so, so sin, sin has affected. You know, the world is beautiful, isn't it? I mean, I, I lived in Southern California for six years, 1980 to 1986. I always love coming back here to the warm weather. Well, it's raining today, but it's still warm. You know, and it's, it's beautiful. But you have mudslides and fires and, you know, earthquakes. And, you know, other parts have hurricanes. And, and, and yet there's a beauty in the world. But the world has fallen as well.
Adam and Eve are exiled from God's presence when they sin, cast out of the garden. That forecast, right? What's hell? Hell is an eternal exile, isn't it? Ultimately. So, we see from the very beginning, the whole story. Some people are going to be exiled forever. Some people are going to be restored. And they're, they're moved away from God's Tabernacles. Psalm 15: "Who may sojourn in your tabernacle? Who shall dwell in your holy mountain?" Maybe a hint there that the garden and the garden is a mountain. It's a tabernacle, right? And it's a garden. But, but here, this is the most important question I might write. "Who can live? Who can live in God's presence? Who?" You know, we want to say that to our people every Sunday when we preach. "Who can live with God forever? Who can live in His presence? Who can live in His Tabernacle? Who can dwell with Him on the holy mountain?" And of course, we know the answer. Finally, only those have been forgiven of their sins through Jesus Christ's death and resurrection. We see it again in Psalm 24, verse 3. "Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord? Where the Lord dwells, right? As the exalted King. Who shall stand in His holy place?" Same question, right?
So, by the way, I don't have to say much about this here. But of course, many people today are doubting the historical Adam, which is a disastrous decision, isn't it? And there's a very nice book out, maybe you've already seen it, titled "Theistic Evolution," just out from Crossway. Have you seen it? Big, fat book there, edited by Wayne Grudem and several others, Stephen Meyer, and so forth and so on. But I think that's a very helpful resource for you in a world where this is very contested. So, Crossway just put that out. And, and, helpful, helpful exposition of these matters with scientific, biblical essays, and all kinds of information in it. So, that's quite a contribution. Some, you know, many Old Testament scholars say that in the Old Testament, there's no clear teaching about Adam's sin affecting the rest of the human race, such as we find in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. But my colleague Jim Hamilton has written, by the way, an essay on this in some book. I forget which book it's in. You can find it. Google it. Whatever. It's there somewhere. You know, as the author of Hebrews says somewhere, it says somewhere Jim Hamilton wrote this. But Jim, Jim has written a very good essay on this, which I commend to you. And he shows that the impact of Adam's sin is quite remarkable. And, and, and we see it. I'm just giving you one piece of evidence. In Genesis 5, you have this genealogy, and every, every person ends up by saying, "And then he died." There's a, what I call a roll call of death, right? So, you see the impact of Adam's sin as person after person dies.
So, like I said, you know, you think, "Man, are we ever gonna get out of Genesis?" We're not even. But, you know, we'll move faster. Well, we go slower at the beginning because the beginning is such, so important to the story, isn't it? Everything shaped by the beginning of a story. That's true in novels as well, isn't it? They did, everything set up at the beginning. You know, it's like that's true in every class. When I was a sophomore in high school, I took geometry. And, dot, it was right after lunch. And every day after lunch, well, virtually every day, I'd fall asleep in class. And so I didn't get the axioms at the beginning. It was a disaster of a year for me, right? You don't get the beginning of geometry, you're in huge trouble. Not a good idea to fall asleep. But the teacher was very, very boring. Anyway.
So, Genesis 3:15 is programmatic, isn't it? For our story. "I will put hostility." He's speaking to the serpent. God is speaking of the serpent, right? "I will put hostility." Now, by the way, this is the Christian Standard Bible. So, I, this is time for a commercial. Commercials are good, right? You need a break to have commercials in class. I was the co-chair of this Bible. So, it's a revision of Holman Christian Standard Bible. As I was discovered working on this, I realized that all previous English Bibles that were being worked on are horrible, right? This is the only good Bible to have. And I don't even know how anybody gets anything out of those other Bibles. I'm just kidding, of course. I actually think that there are many good English Bibles out there. I think the ESV is a very fine translation. I think the NIV is a good translation. It takes a few more liberties than I'd like to take. I don't like it turning that third singulars all in the third plurals. But overall, it's a good translation, very clear and well done. But, and because I have to, my preference is the CSB. You know, no, seriously, I like it. But people choose different things. Some people don't know about this, but I would use all your influence, the lobby here, that this be the only version that's used. Sam. Anyway, again, I'm kidding. The commercial is over. And you can, you can all go out and buy this today if you don't have one.
But I will put. So, back to the text, right? "I will put hostility between you." That's that's Satan, right? To the serpent. We're told in Revelation, by the way, we're told in Revelation that the serpent is Satan. Currently, I'm, I taught for three years at Azusa Pacific. In another lifetime, it was my first job. And I, that's an amazing story how I got a job at Azusa Pacific because theologically, they're not at the same place as I am. And there was an Old Testament professor there. And just, it was a great guy in many ways. I think he was a believer. But, you know, I said to him one time, "You know, the serpent is Satan." He goes, "No, no, that's not true." I come, "Well, that's what Revelation says." Yeah. "I didn't read the Bible canonically." He's like, "No, no, no, no." So, what, well, you know, what kind of view of the Bible is that? Where do you, the Bible interprets itself, doesn't it? I mean, what's our authority there? Am I gonna accept his interpretation, or am I gonna accept John? Well, I'm going with John, you know. Anyway, I overheard a hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring, that's Satan's offspring, and her offspring. "He will strike your head, and you'll strike his heel." So, he'll crush your head, finally, right? The offspring of the woman will destroy the Serpent and the Serpent's offspring. There's the promise. And, you know, again, many Old Testament scholars argue that just that first just means human beings and snakes don't like each other. That's all they see in that verse. I mean, come on. That's all that verse is saying. We don't like snakes. Snakes don't like us. Actually, there's some people do like snakes. You know, you see them walking around with snakes wrapped around. That's not my cup of tea. But I, Jim Hamilton again, you can Google this again. Jim has written an article on this, by the way. Jim has written his own "Biblical Theology of God's Salvation Through Judgment," which is a very nice work. But I think Jim has written that outstanding article on the use of Genesis 3:15 in in Scripture. I don't know if you've seen that. But I highly recommend it. It is a fantastic, great article on that text and how, and I'll try to show you some examples of this as we go, how it's woven through the Old Testament.