House-Building:

By Max Strange

5/16/2011

House-building has been anticipated and can been traced throughout the entire Bible.  It tells us much about His creational pattern of victorious kingship and divine house-building, the covenant nature of the Scriptures, the incarnation and our union with Him, His divine plan for the ages, and the unity of the Scriptures. 

We begin with God’s creative work of the heavens and the earth.  God’s speaks and creates.  There it stands, a newly created Universe without form and order and in steps Word and Spirit to conquer darkness void. In a pre-redemptive way, God saves the Universe from this dark chaos.  His victory march began as soon as He spoke.  From the opening creational conquest, God then moves in to create a habitation.  He moves from triumph to house-building.  He creates a garden-temple and places man within it as His “princely gardener and priestly guardian” (54).  And when the seventh day arrived, God stepped into His own creation palace and enthroned Himself as Victor of His cosmic house with heaven as His throne and the earth as His footstool (Is. 66:1).  On planet Earth, Eden had become the first physical house-building where man could freely worship His Creator in perfect peace, joy, security, and love with heaven as the invisible house-dwelling of God.  Heaven and Earth were touching and a great kingdom plan had been launched.  God’s glory would begin in Eden and fill the Earth with those who had the divine stamp of the imago de.  This creational pattern of house-building continues on in redemptive history. 

Because of the Fall of Adam, the door was shut from this garden-house and Adam and all his descendants were evicted from the original house-building project.  Nonetheless, God began to reveal Himself and disclose that a new house-building was underway where people could come in through another “Door” and into a new House with new hearts.   

In Genesis 28, we hear of Jacob’s vision of this house-building.  In this vision, heaven and earth meet again by a curious ladder.  This awesome place is said of by Jacob as “none other than the house of God…and the gate of heaven” (v. 10-22).

            Tracing the house-building further, we notice that God gives another indication in Exodus 25:8, that a house-building sanctuary, like in Eden, was an upcoming attraction.  It tells us that it will be in a sanctuary where He would once again “dwell in their midst.” 

            Next, Moses and the Israelites make a portable sanctuary soon after the Exodus victory.  God’s glory filled this mobile home.  God’s royal residence was back in the midst of His people by way of this transportable house.  God moved back to the center of His chosen people (Ex. 40:34-38). 

            Continuing on, we find David’s desire to build a more settled home for God (1 Chron. 28:2).  Instead of a portable sanctuary, David wished to build a fixed Temple.  This grand house-building would be the citadel where God’s glory and Name would rest.  As the LORD’s servant, David completes his conquest of the enemies and expands the kingdom.  After victory, comes the desire to build a house.  In God’s sovereign plan, He had already designed to establish a house through David, and that from him would emerge an everlasting kingdom.  However, this house would not be the reality of all that God was bringing about.  The great “Solomon’s Temple” was the very apex of Israel’s history and the glory of God filled its quarters, and yet it was still only a shadow for another house-building creation.  A Greater Tabernacle would soon be fixed at the center of a people and that a kingdom of priests would bring God’s creational Word to the ends of the earth.  God’s divine house-building was soon to come (2 Sam. 7:11-16; 1 Ki. 8:1-11). 

            In John 1:14, we are told that after thousands of years of house-building in various forms, the true tabernacle had arrived in a person.  His name is Jesus Christ.  Every echo and every foreshadow found its point of reference at Jesus Christ.  He claimed that the entire Old Testament was about Him, even the temple itself (John 5; Luke 24; Jn. 2:19).  Looking back, Eden was the place where God and man met.  Like in Eden, God stepped into His creation and became, in His very nature, the place where God and man meet again.  This all happens in Jesus Christ.    

            After the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, He is enthroned in heaven as victor over sin and death.  With every triumphal conquest of the LORD, must come the house-building.  God sends the Spirit of Christ to tabernacle within the people (Acts 2).  The Spirit indwells God’s elect and brings them into a new people called the Church.  The New Testament calls it a household, built on a foundation, having a cornerstone, structured, joined together, growing into a holy temple in the Lord, built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit (Eph. 2:19-22).  Its occupants are “like living stones…” “Being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:5-9).  The people of God are called “the temple of the living God” as was promised: “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (2 Cor. 6:16).  Jesus has become the Savior King who now rules His loyal subjects.  He governs this new house with His new treaty document of the Word of the New Covenant, made effective by the indwelling Spirit. 

            This new house-building, the people of God-called the Church, are now to usher in the Kingdom of God by the gospel message.  This is done by God and through His New Covenant people until the return of Jesus Christ.  As each person is saved, He becomes a temple individually where the Spirit dwells, and is brought into the One New Man corporately.  Once again, it is a house within a house.  All of this meets full realization when heaven and earth once again merge in a new creational way.  God will live with mankind again.  Earth will not be His footstool, but His dwelling and He will be with His people forever.  No physical temple will be needed for Christ will be there.  He is the True House and the True Door and all His people from all ages will be there. 

House-building is found in the creation narrative and spills over and seeps into the Biblical accounts all the way to the end of the story, giving us strong evidence that  the Old and New Testament treaty documents have continuity.  It reveals God’s plan to incarnate Himself into the crux of His people individually and corporately.  And ultimately, it reveals the true Tabernacle-King Jesus and His Kingdom come.

The Importance of Understanding the Whole Plan of God

By Max Strange

3/16/2011

“…for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.”

Acts 20:27

Immediately, when we hear someone repeat Paul’s phrase, “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God,” our evangelical mindset tells us that the “whole counsel” of God is the entire Bible from cover to cover.  Yet, when Paul made that statement, it was given as a charge to the leaders of the Ephesian church to declare and testify to the whole gospel for the expansion of the Kingdom of God (Acts 1:8; 20:17-35).  It was Paul’s aim to ensure that the full Gospel was unloaded by teaching, testifying, proclaiming, and declaring (Acts 20:19, 21, 24-27).  Paul passed the gospel baton to the next set of Gospel runners who would face false teachers and great demonic opposition to the gospel and to the expansion of the Kingdom. 

Yet again, when we hear a similar phrase, “the whole plan of God,” many Christians are in agreement.  In a basic sense, we believe God is directing history and is moving all things toward an end when Jesus returns at His Second Coming.  However, we do not treat our Bibles with such uniformity of thought.  Often, we see two Testaments, separated and divided with a Christless interpretation.  We say the Bible is one story with numerous events, even about Jesus.  Rather, we bring a whole sack of cultural and personal baggage to the text in order to, consciously or unconsciously, preserve as fine specimens, our cherished views of Israel and our parenthetical view of the Church.  So, lets set the record straight once a for all.

The whole plan of God, if this means the entire Bible, presupposes a unity.  We clearly see direct references and allusions of the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament.  We see the pattern of promise and fulfillment.  We see that Jesus and the Apostles used the Old Testament time and time again to declare that it all, in some way or another, testified to Jesus Christ (John 5; Luke 24).

Nevertheless, there is a great allurement to shrug off any unity throughout history, but rather to see it all as chance-luck, or some quasi power struggle between unseen polar forces in the universe.  The post-modern culture urges us to create our own reality and our own personal story.  They want nothing to do with a purposefully progressing overarching storyline.  They do not want their history to have a transcendent authority or some overriding objective truth that runs like a steel rod through the cement of history, under girding and upholding it.  They fear such accountability that a looming meta-narrative would suggests.  It would sicken the postmodern person to think that they are, in some fashion, actors and actresses who make entrances on the stage of the great drama of redemption.  That on this stage, they are held accountable for every speck of fault and every gross act of corruption, and that in the end, the offended Play-write has every cause to send all into the next act of dark doom.  This they fear and so many fear it and speak no more of a whole plan of God. 

Others would have us elevate one Testament over the other and see greatness more so in the New than in the Old or have another Testament supercede the other because one has developed beyond the last.  This either-or approach still attacks the unity of the Bible and the unity of God’s unfolding storyline concerning Jesus Christ. 

The Bible tells us that God has a progressing and unified storyline concerned with salvation and the glory of God.  Genesis 3:15 tells us of a whole cosmic salvation that will arrive from the Seed of the Woman.  From that launching point, redemption shot out the gun of His promise.  That bullet flew throughout the whole Old Testament and hit its final target thousands of years away in a futuristic garden.  This means that history is proceeding and flying towards this bull’s eye.  The Old Testament types prepared the Seed, made us anticipate the Seed, gave the pattern of the Seed, and foreshadowed the Seed.  Seed was scattered everywhere in the Old Story. 

Some have seen the whole plan of God in the Testaments connected by covenants, or made sense of it by the law and grace dichotomy, and many have interpreted the whole plan under as a Jewish anthology with a church-pause squished in the middle.  But this whole plan, its connections, and its momentum are in a Person, not in systems.  Jesus is the Covenant promise.  He is the crimson thread.  He is the goal of History.  He is the Seed.  Every piece of datum and every solitary speech and act gathered together leads and finds its ultimate meaning in Jesus Christ.  The whole plan of God is held together by a Person is concerned with that Person. 

Therefore, no matter how elementary it may seem to say it, we must begin any assessment about God’s plan with Jesus Christ.  Every Old Testament promise, all passages about covenants and the Kingdom, every detail about the new creation, the new temple, redemption, God’s wisdom, are all found and fulfilled in Jesus.  All knowledge and wisdom and final rule of God dead-end at Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the redemption, He is the new creation wherein divinity and humanity merge, and He is the Seed of Genesis 3:15.  He is the Resurrection, the new Israel, the new Adam, the fulfiller of the Law, the new Temple where man and God meet, the new Nation where Jew and Gentile are found in Him, the new King, the ultimate Prophet, and the true Priest.  He is the embodiment of the Word, the only faithful One, the true witness, the true covenant partner of God, the faithful Son, the exiled One, and He is the final consummation of all things.  

Whether we speak about the whole counsel of God or the whole plan of God, we must start with Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ makes sense of the world.  He tells us that all things are about Him and that we, embedded into His story, can participate with Him in the divine life.  

  

Beginning to Study the Whole Purpose of God A Christo-Presuppositional Approach to the Entire Scriptures

By Max Strange

1/19/2011

Guiding Principles:

1. Find the preliminary meaning of the text as it was understood by the original recipients.
1. Seek to understand the message as it was first delivered to the people of God. (Kaiser)
2. This involves the structure of the text, immediate context, author and audience relationship, the speech and the act that takes place.
3. We begin to take note of the themes, repetitions, allusions, genre, and typology.
4. This involves exegesis and the historical-grammatico method
5. Immediate context is vital; however this is a starting point and not an end.
6. From the immediate context begin to think of the wider contextual range (Sentence, Paragraph, book, whole Bible).
7. At this time, resist the temptation to utilize subsequent passages to validate the meaning or to move out from the immediate context. 
8. Remembering that all exegesis must finally be a Christocentric exegesis.
2. Allow God’s message of the entire Bible to unfold Christologically.
1. Allow the Bible’s natural progress of redemption to flow forward and back again in a reciprocal relationship to understand the full significance from Old to New and from New to Old.  (Gerhard Hasel pp 184). 
2. Let the natural themes, motifs, “bi-directional” longitudinal concepts throughout the whole canon set the agenda in order to illuminate the variety of thematic perspectives and textual totality. (Gerhard Hasel pp 188)
3. Begin to use Biblical Theology to discover the full significance:
1. Biblical theology makes use of the results of exegesis (Vos)
2. Biblical Theology is essentially the examination of the individual parts to see how they fit into the big picture (Goldsworthy 68).
3. Ultimate understanding of truth and reality is through Jesus and His gospel who is the summation of all revelation and embedded in own Word (Goldsworthy 69).
4. The Old and New Testaments are intimately connected (Hasel 183)
5. Recognize the preliminary nature of the OT and the definitive word that comes in the NT.
6. The New Testament interprets the Old Testament, while the Old Testament interprets the New Testament. 
7. The ultimate boundaries of a text’s interpretation is the full Biblical canon, not the text itself (Hasel 183)
8. Biblical theology deals with texts in the totality of their final form.
9. Our goal is to unearth the fullest claims of biblical revelation within the context of Scripture. (Hasel 183, 194)
10. The OT and NT live in reciprocal and historical relationship (Hasel 184; Goldsworthy 69)
11. The New Testament elucidates the Old Testament in a refractory and reflective way (219).  
12. The original text is loaded with meaning and that meaning will be unpacked when it is opened to the full Biblical context. (Hasel 184)
13. Revelation is progressive.
14. Progressive revelation makes clearer the shadowy shapes of the Old.
15. The immediate context is never the end of the Story. 
16. Scripture interprets scripture, that is to say that God determines and controls the meaning of his own words (Bresson)
17. The whole of the Old Testament scriptures are prophetic and they find their fulfillment in the New Testament (Luke 24:44).
18. The New Testament’s use of the Old testament is a reflection of the progress of revelation in Jesus Christ (Darrell Bock 216)
19. Think like a Jew and then interpret like a Christian. 
4. Utilize the Analogy of Faith (Scripture Interprets Scripture)
1. God’s Word interprets itself.
2. Jesus is the Word who was the compliant listener and perfect (Grand) interpreter of all His Father said (John 15:15; Goldsworthy 69)
3. Use antecedent theology to find the immediate context and then use subsequent theology to find its fullest expression in reciprocate fashion (Luke 24:27, 32, 44).
4. The wider biblical context remains an extrapolation on the grammatico-historical plane, not a new projection onto the plane of allegory (Darrel Bock 214)
5. Look carefully for theological progression, allusions to prior and post events, types, shadows, realities, historical sequences, gradual unfolding, development, growing truth, direct or indirect quotations, and references to covenants in the text that assume a prior knowledge (Vos).
6. Look for Christ even if He isn’t there directly.  It is better to see Christ in a text even if He isn’t, than to miss Him where He is. 
7. Jesus and the Apostles give us our Hermeneutical Norm and so we interpret the Old Testament the way Jesus and the Apostles did.
8. Read the Old Testament like a 1^st century Jewish Christian with a developed theology of messianic expectation realized in Christ (paraphrase of Bock 217).
9. Fuller sense is not allegorical but derives its meaning from the Scriptures itself. 
5. Principles of New Testaments use of the Old Testament
1. Typology is not some open theological sesame to allegory if done under the control of Biblical Theology (countering Kaiser Pp 135). 
2.   Old Testament passages are interpreted by the NT authors (and Jesus) in light of the Christ Event.
3. The New Testament uses of the O.T. as interpretive support for its various conclusions (Bresson). 
4. The New Testament provides definitive interpretation of the Old Testament quotations (Bresson).
5. The New Testament’s use of the O.T. provides Christians an interpretive pattern (Bresson).
6. Often the OT quotation is a memory-marker for the larger Old Testament unit (Bresson).  

1. Kaiser, Walter, (1981), Theological Analysis: Chapter 6 in Towards an Exegetical Theology: Biblical Exegesis for Preaching and teaching: Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House Co; pp 131-147.
2. Hasel, F. Gerhard.  The Future of Biblical Theology: Chapter 14 pp. 179-194
3. Bock, L. Darrell, (1985) Evangelicals and the Use of the Old Testament Part 1.  pp. Bibliotheca Sacra, 209-223.
4. Goldsworthy, Graeme, (2006), Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics; InterVarsity Press, pp. 68-69. 
5. Vos, Geerhardus, (May 8, 1894), Inaugural Address; Anson D.F. Randolph & Co. New York.

Biblical and Exegetical Theology

By Max Strange

2/25/2011

            Exegetical theology and Biblical theology work side-by-side and are at the same level, not as a twin tool, but partners that constantly interact and are in persistent engagement.  And yet, Biblical Theology arises first in importance.  Biblical theology makes use of the results of exegesis. It maps out the divine form of patterns and themes that run across the whole Biblical landscape.  It traces and then describes.  Exegesis finds the particulars and Biblical theology charts the results.  Yet, after all the specifics are discovered, Biblical theology emerges and takes its preeminent place.  It must for it covers the ages and the whole span of Scripture.  It takes its supreme role because it is a science that wraps its efforts around the whole counsel of God and embraces it dearly.  It hunts for divinely arranged sequences, patterns, prototypes, developments, progressions, stages, and repetition.  Biblical theology hounds for greater disclosures of God and thematic truths that grow one out from another.  It isn’t afraid of fuller fulfillments and delights to see the transcendent nature of God’s meaning embedded in the human author’s meaning.  Like the woman who finds the lost pearl in her own home is like the one who, after doing Biblical theology, sweeps aside old presuppositions and finds Jesus in the Old Testament all along.               

            As we looked for the treasure in Scripture, we find that we do travel along a chronological timeline, but are not enslaved to that timeline.  Jesus Christ and the Apostles saw the Scripture as an expansive whole and in a kind of hermeneutical time machine, went back in time and then back to the future, drawing and pulling further meaning from New to Old and from Old to New.  In this way, they show us how not to be enslaved.  They never wanted us to view the Bible as mere history, but revelatory theologizings of God’s spokesmen.  We can pendulum back and forth across the timeline and see patterns across the whole chronology and inspect divine words and acts being communicated over the long haul of history. 

            Mr. Walter Kaiser brings a diachronic timeline approach to the Scriptures, also called Antecedent Theology, which in some ways is good.  This view adds up the data found and begins to see the development of the whole.  He wants the context to speak and this is good for the Word of God always has an immediate meaning in the immediate situation in which it was written.  This definitely protects the Word of God from false interpretation.  Kaiser is our faithful ally in this regard.  He tells us to never obscure the immediate context.  Nonetheless, Christ and His Apostles saw embedded truths in the Old Testament.  They quoted the Old Testament and saw a fuller meaning to the original, yet never changed the context.  They went to the closet, pulled out the old jacket, turned it inside out and found a brand new inner lining, ready to be revealed and better than the shell.  And they wore it all over the place.  Respectfully, Mr. Kaiser still wears the Old Jacket.  His understanding of hermeneutics misses the theologizing of God’s authors, their developing eschatological perspectives, and their typology.  If we merely see the accumulation of historical data points, Jesus will go missing from the Old Testament and like the woman at the tomb of Jesus we will sadly say, “Where have they placed my LORD?”  The Bible, I say is not so much a monochrome and flat dead-letter, but full of color and contour and life. 

            Therefore, we must consider that it is necessary for the New Testament to have priority over the Old Testament.  The New Testament is dependent upon the Old because over and over again the authors draw from its wells.  And yet, the N.T. authors give a unique meaning.  They draw out key passages that sum up entire Old Testament sections.  They say that this O.T. passage has been fulfilled and this is what was spoken and now has come to pass.  Jesus gives us the pattern to interpret Scripture this way.  He is the compliant listener and perfect interpreter of all the Father had ever said.  He taught His disciples that the dominant current of the Old Testament has always been about Him (John 5:39, 40; Luke 24:27).  Thus, in Biblical Theology, we go back from New to the Old and find Jesus where He is and lift Him out where He has always been and piece together all the patterns to behold the face of God in the person of Jesus Christ.  

A Biblical Theology of House Building

Below is a rough outline of the progress of the house building theme in the Scriptures

1.      Genesis

a.       House Pattern

                                                                          i.      Creation

1.      Repetition of “God said” and “it was so” or “God created” and “God made” (1:1-27)

2.      God “formed” and “breathed…life” into Adam (2:7)

3.      God “planted a garden” (2:8) and placed Adam in the garden (2:15)

4.      Rivers mark off the garden (2:10-14)

                                                                        ii.      Covenant

1.      God established law governing life (2:9,15-17)

                                                                      iii.      Community

1.      God created community broadly speaking and marriage specifically: Adam and Eve (2:18-24)

b.      Consequence

                                                                          i.      God curses human kind and creation for disobedience, but promises One who will defeat the enemy (3:15)

                                                                        ii.      God kills an animal and clothes Adam and Eve (3:21).  This points to the life for life penalty of sin and the need for a substitute as the Author of Hebrews says: “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb.9:22).

                                                                      iii.      God then drives them out of the garden (3:20-24)

c.       House Foreshadowed

                                                                          i.      God speaks “I am” and “I will” (28:13)

                                                                        ii.      A land, An Offspring, A people (28:13-15)

2.      Exodus

a.       Deliverance from Egypt and the “humbling” of Egypt’s gods (ch.1-13)

b.      The creation of a new people (a “living house” [1]) out of deliverance from slavery

c.       The creation of a tabernacle (a “literal house” [2]) in chapters 32-34

d.      The merging together of the two houses at the close of the book[3] (40:34-38)

3.      1 and 2 Samuel

a.       The promised raising up of a perfect, forever priest and the building of His house (1 Samuel 2:27-36)

b.      David desires to build God a temple (literal house) to replace the tabernacle a symbol of permanence

c.       God in turn promises to build David’s house a permanently established dynasty and that David’s son would build the temple (2 Samuel 7:13)

4.      1 Chronicles

a.       Solomon’s building of the first temple (chapter 28)

5.      Ezekiel

a.       The third temple plans revealed (chapter 40)

6.      Gospels – Pattern Fulfilled

a.       God in Christ dwells with His people (Mt. 1:23)

b.      Jesus is the master of the house and the people of His household (Mt. 10:25)

c.       Christ is the temple, the dwelling of God with man (John 1:14).

d.      Christ is both temple and builder (John 2:16-21).

7.      Epistles – Pattern Fulfilled

a.       In Christ, the substitute and sacrifice, God created one new man the church, the temple and dwelling of God (1 Cor. 3:16-17).

b.      In Christ God created a community of believers which he matures as a body and builds as a temple into Christ’s likeness (Eph. 2:18-22).

c.       Christ triumphed over the foe (Col. 2:15)

d.      Jesus is over God’s house in a greater way than Moses was over the house of Israel (Heb.3:2-6)

e.       God’s people, the church are his dwelling place, his temple (1 Peter 2:5)

8.      Revelation

a.       Victory

                                                                          i.      Jesus defeats the foe (chapter 12)

b.      Re-Creation – House Pattern Consummated

                                                                          i.      God makes a new heaven and earth that replace the “first earth” (21:1)

                                                                        ii.      God presents to himself a city – a bride, His redeemed people (21:2,3)

                                                                      iii.      God dwells with His people (21:3,22-26)

                                                                      iv.      God has completely dealt with the curse.  Sin, death, and pain are no more (21:4)

                                                                        v.      A river flows in the midst of the city from the throne (22:1)

                                                                      vi.      The tree of life is there (with the noticeable absence of the other tree) (22:2)

                                                                    vii.      Unhindered and ever increasing fellowship with God replaces curse (3-5)          

---

[1] Kline, Canon and Covenant Part III, p.48

[2] Ibid. p.48

[3] Ibid. p.49

The New Testament’s Use of the Old

By Max Strange

2/15/2011

 N.T.’s Use of the O.T.

            The broadcast of the Old Testament could be summed up by saying, “Make way for the King!” Then, John the Baptist unites salvation history when, on the banks of the river Jordan, he also heralds and echoes what the prophet Isaiah had said, “Make straight the way of the Lord!” (Luke 3:4-6; John 1:23).  The Old Testament was anticipatory and a forerunner, like John, announcing the coming King Jesus.  John’s ministry embodied the heralding announcement of the Old Testament prophets.  He fused the Old and the New into one unit, ensuring us that God’s Story is an interlocked progression of events, and not isolated acts done by God.  Jesus affirms this inter-connectedness by saying, “For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come” (Matthew 11:13-14). 

            Because both Jesus and John see the connection between the Old and the New Testaments, then so must we.  The New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament is very apparent.  It is most obvious that the New Testament is besieged with Old Testament quotations and that the New draws from the wells of the Old.  Directly or indirectly, the New Testament cites or alludes to the Old thousands of times (ex. “The Flood”…Gen.6-9…Ps. 124:4…Matt. 24:38-39…2 Pet. 2:5).  

Fuller Meaning –Progressive revelation:

Any discussion regarding the New Testament’s use of the Old will clearly reveal an Almighty and Sovereign God who rules history by His providence and who alone has mapped out every epoch of history.  His Story builds and never crumbles, it ever progresses and never digresses, it has growing truth and not truth at rest, it gradually unfolds and never shrivels back, it has stages, fuller realizations, and little rivers that pick up speed until they all reach into the ocean.  It is not beyond the scope of God’s colossal intellect to piece together His logical plan this way, in which one text unfolds out of the next, the latter dependent upon the previous, the children a necessary consequence of their parents.  This is progressive revelation (Acts 2-Peter Speech connected to revelation history, Acts 7 Stephen’s Speech).  The Old Testament texts seem always to point forward in some way to the future and the New Testament writers continually claim that some event or other is the fulfillment of an OT prophecy, “this is what was spoken by the prophet” (Acts 2:16).  The Old and New have connected themes such as the Genesis 3:15 Skull Crusher, the seed of the Serpent vs. the Seed of the women, Covenants, God’s people, the judges, the priests, the kings, man’s justification and redemption, the Garden, the Temple, City of God vs. city of man, the Day of the Lord, the Messiah, etc…are all mounting thematic shadows that run up and kiss the feet of Jesus.  And Jesus is the end goal of how to interpret all that the Old previewed where everything foreshadowed found it’s ‘yes’ and ‘amen’ in Him (2 Cor. 1:20).  Then in the New, the Old still speaks through the Cross with recurring themes such as the new creation, the New Covenant, a new kingdom, the new desert, the new Sinai, a new Zion, a new Israel, a new exodus, a new heavens and a new earth.  If the New builds on the Old, and the New draws out the inherent meaning already present, then this means that a fuller meaning is a reality. 

Dual Authorship:

The individual authors of the Bible understood this.  They understood in their writings that there was a divine intention that could and would grow out from their original intent.  They knew that in their writings, that God had the divine scheme always before Him and knew infinitely more than they.  So yes, there is the intention of the human author and there is also the Divine intent.  Each Old Testament writer knew in some degree that what they wrote could transcend their immediate consciousness because the final Author had a clear line of sight of the beginning and its end (Gen. 2:7; Ps. 8; 95:7-11; Isa. 7:14; Hos.11:1; Dan. 12:8-9).  They knew that God, the overarching Author, who sees history as one sequential whole, used earthly language with a heavenly thrust.  Thus, God could intend more than what they were aware of.  This is not an open sesame to allegorical interpretation or a runway to uncontrollable typology.  This method allows Biblical Theology to be done right by permitting the extended references to develop as God has intended from Old to New and back in a reciprocating fashion.     

One Message:

            Being so welded together by the Biblical authors and by Jesus, it would seem too risky and dangerous to rip apart the Old and New Testament’s one message, that one super metanarrative.  Therefore, what God has joined let no man tear apart.  Even the superiority of the New does not lessen the tremendous importance and role of the Old.  Both need each other to communicate God’s sacred history.     

Furthermore, this one message has multiple authors.  There is always some human agency and God overshadowing.  Being that each piece fits with the one prior, demonstrates the unity of the authors with the Divine Author.  There is never a squabble between authors.  There is never a contradiction, a wrangle or disagreement, inconsistencies, or warring parties between the big ‘A’ author and the little ‘a’ author.  Each author fills-up what was previously intended all along in the wits of God.  Big ‘A’ and little ‘a’ are never at odds with each other when communicating the one message.  There is complete harmony and intent concerning all salvation history. 

The Central Message of the Scripture

By Max Strange

4/9/2011

The central message of the Scriptures is Jesus Christ, the Promise-Person.  The fulfillment of all the Promises and all the Old Testament shadows converge at a Nazarene who was the summation of everything God had ever disclosed.  This first indication of Jesus is found in Genesis 3:15 when the battle of the Seeds commenced.  Throughout all of redemptive history, the Seed of Promise, the One who would eventually crush the head of the Devil, weaves throughout all of God’s word like a winding river supplying life to the whole terrain.  It is true that Christ is the Word and thus all of the Word must have Himself in it.  To slice the Author out of His own spoken Word is to deaden the word and make the doubled-edge sword into a plastic butter knife.

Saying all this then must have some personal benefit and impact and so it does. 

            First, the central message keeps my eyes, as the reader, dazzled to discover Christ in the text.   This protects my  interpretation from a Christless result.  Christ gives guardrails to the interpretation.  He is the ultimate meaning and to go beyond Him is to float away into some fairy-land of imagination, speculation and conjecture.  He is the gem that I hope to find among the context, grammar and the history. 

Second of all, the central message benefits me personally because it tells me that a Sovereign and all powerful God truly exists, resulting in worship.  If the main thesis of history is Jesus Christ, and all of God’s activity relate to Him in some fashion, then I must conclude that His self-disclosure is bound-up with Christological intentions.  All of God’s orchestration is meant to reveal His Son to the Universe.  If I can grasp the intentionality of that and the power behind all that-by God’s grace, it must enlarge my conception of God’s vast might and massive intellect and immense power.  It stretches my soul and fills me with praise that such a God exists.

Third, knowing Christ Jesus as the central message God’s Word gives me an evangelistic starting point that is grounded and rooted in history. 

Fourth, knowing Christ Jesus as the central message brings life to the Old Testament.  It saves and resurrects 3/4ths of my Bible that is often thought to be ALL about Israel.  Many read the Old Testament as a simple historical and plain chronologically.  This makes the Old Testament a dead-letter.  Jesus brings the meaning out of the tomb when He shows up in His text.  Finding Jesus simply makes sense of the Bible.  To look for Jesus in the text is innate to my new nature.  The central message helps me to know Jesus and see Jesus where ever He may be.  It keeps me Christ centered and from self-implosion.  The central message of Christ counters all my sinful tendencies towards human autonomy and free-will posture.  It keeps me from creating my own narrative and seeing myself as the center of my own Story.    

Redemptive House Building

By Jason Strange

In the beginning God sets out to build his universe as a great architect building a house. He moves from universe to earth using divine speech as his house-building instrument to construct his creation house. He sets man in a “Garden-Home” and takes up residence there to bear forth his image with the intended goal of Eden’s global expansion. Adam’s house is to be the vehicle for God’s worldwide glory and fame.

Tragically, Adam profanes his sanctuary, his house, and is evicted from his estate (Gen.3). This “Paradise House” is foreclosed till “the One” whom it is appointed is able to re-enter it again (He. 9:24). Man attempts to build a Kingdom House for himself through city Babel and God divides his house and scatters them (Gen 11).

God’s redemptive house building continues through the nation of Israel as it is seen to be preparatory and anticipatory for the One to whom the House belongs. Old Covenant House building takes shape within the tabernacle and temple, along with every altar constructed by God’s people as a marker that God was present in a particular place, at a specific time.

Through the New Covenant, the House of Moses gives way to the House of Jesus (Heb. 3:3-6).  The House of shadow makes ready the House of reality. In the fullness of time, the ancient of days, the grand architect, the originator and inventor of worlds comes, and takes up residence among men (Jn. 1:14). The Kingdom of God rips into time and space as the infant-King is born, Heaven touching the earth. He is the House of God gone mobile, the House of God made tangible. He comes forth to begin a new-Genesis and to create a new people. Manifesting himself to the world as he dwells in the hearts of those who love him and keep his word (Jn. 14:22-24)

Through new covenant construction, with a more sure and solid foundation, gospel mortar is laid and a new edifice is erected. Jesus the Master-builder constructs a new House, a Temple-House; it is the House of the eschaton. This Temple-House is an organic-network of living stones, with Christ himself as the chief cornerstone, and his apostles as foundation stones ( Eph. 2:19-22). This is his elect house comprised of old covenant and new covenant stones which he purchased with his blood.

Not only does Christ come to build, he also comes to destroy. He comes to destroy any man-made structure opposed to his Kingdom. He comes to tear down the House of the devil, which he accomplished with his victory on the cross (1 Jn 3:18; Heb 2:14). He entered into his House and bound “the strongman”, plundering him and making a public spectacle of Satan’s entire Household (Matt 12:19, Col 2:15). In the final analysis Satan’s house will be completely obliterated off the face of the earth, away from the presence of man and God. Sins power and potency are contained and it’s purveyors of destruction will be detained forever.

All this being said, at the present time, we await a new home, an eternal city, the city of God; Jesus said in my Father’s House are many rooms, and that he has gone to prepare a place for us (Jn. 14:2); this being the Great House of God, the New Jerusalem. Like Abraham, we are looking forward to the city that has foundations whose designer and builder is God. (Heb. 11:10). Though we have come to Mount Zion we await the full manifestation of God’s Kingdom House.