The Gospel of Christmas (Part 1)

In a recent sermon for the Christmas season, based on the genealogy of Jesus found in Matthew chapter 1, Tim Keller made a number of helpful and instructive points about the “gospel of Christmas” that deserve to be shared. Here, and in the next few posts, I’ll touch on Keller’s points, and add some elaboration of my own.

Point 1: Christmas is about good news, not good advice

Notice how Matthew’s account of his gospel starts, “The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah…” This is truly radical. In contrast to the stuff of mythology and folklore, the story of Christmas claims to be rooted in real, space-time history. It doesn’t start with, “Once upon a time.” Tales that open in such a fashion to be stories that inspire us to be better people, to do great things. There is always some moralistic kernel aimed at stirring us up to “be better.” Now, compare this to the story of Christmas. How does it inspire us? It’s about a poor family, a child born in a dirty stable, shepherds, etc. etc. How does it inspire us to be? What does it inspire us to do? I don’t know!

This is because it not about instructing us to “be better.” It’s an announcement, good news, not good advice. Matthew’s proclamation is about the faithfulness of God, despite the unfaithfulness of humanity. It’s not a warm and fuzzy, world-affirming story about general “good will toward men.” Christmas challenges us at the deepest level. We are so backward from God’s design, so loss is sin, that God had to come down to earth Himself to address the problem.

But, of course, Christmas as well highlights the over-the-top, prodigal love of God toward rebels that deserve no mercy. Christmas speaks of God’s commitment to His fallen creation, and His original design to fill the earth with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

2 Great Resources

God willing, in the future I’d like to write a book on the Kingdom of God and it’s relation to developing a Christian worldview. My blog’s name is Kingdomview, after all! The main reason I’d like to do this is because I don’t know of any work that combines these two themes in one book. But recently, I picked up (and am currently reading through) Michael Goheen and Craig Bartholomew’s Living at the Crossroad: An Introduction to Christian Worldview. This follows a book they wrote together called The Drama of Scripture. Together these books provide a service very much needed in Christian scholarship. The provide a summary of the history of salvation recorded in the Bible (in Drama), and from there develop worldview insights based on the narrative in terms of creation-fall-redemption (In Living).

I recommend these texts highly, and am very encouraged to see works consciously integrating the themes of the Kingdom of God and worldview together.

For their approach to the Kingdom of God, see:

Free John MacArthur Sermons

Just today Grace to You, the ministry of Dr. John MacArthur has made available over 20 years of sermons free! Dr. MacArthur was a significant shaping influence in my theological development, and though I have a handful of disagreements with him, on the gospel of Jesus Christ and solid verse-by-verse preaching, no one I know of is better.

Please do take advantage of this fantastic resource. I know I will!

A Wider Vision of Eschatology

Just yesterday, I finished teaching a 7 week, intensive course on Christian theology. Yesterday’s topic was on the doctrine of “last things,” otherwise known as Christian eschatology. Elsewhere, i’ve shared how in the past I’ve been extremely reluctant to “get into the mix” on these issues. What helped me to get through the fog is the very thing that I suggest to my students, and that is to expand the definition of eschatology.

Protology is the study of “first thing,” and explores what I call seedbed for a multiplicity of themes that are developed and expanded throughout the rest of the story told in the Bible. Just a few of these these would include the seed of the woman, the people of God, human dominion over the earth, sin, judgment, and the word of God, to name a few. Eschatology, in the expanded definition, is the study of where these developing themes “end up.” What’s the final goal of these themes? That’s what eschatology studies. It’s more than merely about the debates over the timing of the return of Christ (though, of course, it’s not less than these debates).

Eschatology, when properly understood, also helps to develop a biblically-informed philosophy of history and is a huge worldview shaper. Where is history going? What are the forces working behind the curtain unfolding of God’s drama? Want to know? Study the “doctrine of the last things”!

Here are some wonderful places to being:

Holistic Depravity…Illustrated

A couple of weeks ago in class, I was teaching on the doctrine of sin. More specifically, I taught on the doctrine of holistic depravity. As emphasized several times on this blog, man is created in the image of God, and this means that we were designed to reflect God in righteousness, representation and rule over the earth.

In the Fall, sin “infected”  the image of God, so that not merely a “part” of us is corrupted, but all that we are designed to image God with…and that’s every aspect of our being. So, our desires are affected, but so is our intellect, emotions, and our will. Thus, we are totally, or, more clearly, holistically corrupted by sin.  And that’s the Reader’s Digest version of it.

But, as I thought of what would be a good example or illustration of this doctrine the first thing was quite starling…because I think it makes the point so well, and so vividly. In both Ephesians 2:1, and in Col. 2, Paul categorizes these effects of sin as being “dead in sin.” Paul says that sin has taken away our vitality, our spiritual life. But he is also careful to correct the possible misunderstanding that being dead in sin means that we are spiritual passive. That may be true in regard to regeneration (we don’t assist or help God is His sovereign work of making us born again), but not in regard to our ethical hostile toward God. Hear his words afresh:

Eph. 2:1-3: And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Paul defines spiritual death as following after the ways of Satan! That’s hardly passive! In Rom. 8:7 he states that man or woman without the Spirit (i.e. the spiritually dead) are hostile to God.

So, think about this for a minute. Dead, yet hostile. Have you ever seen the film 28 Days Later (or it’s sequel, 28 Weeks Later)? If you have, you know where I’m going with this. In the film, the “infected” (modern-day zombies, if you will) are dead, they die when infected by the “rage” virus. But these zombies are not the average, run-of-the-mill slow walking, arms in front of them zombies. No, they scream, they’re angry, they chase you! They are not passive, they are hostile.

Let us thank God for His mercy. We our infected infected with the spiritual “rage” virus. We were hostile to God and His law, and to anything and everything that got in the way of goal of being our own God (of course, this manifests itself differently depending on the temperament, personalities, and upbringing of the individual. But the point is true nonetheless). 

But, in the words of the Apostle: 

God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:5-7)

Prophet, Priest, and King in Biblical History (Part 3 of 4)

In the first post of this series, we looked at how what we’ve been calling the “threefold office” of prophet, priest, and king, looking especially at how these offices were originally patterned (in Eden). In the second post, we looked at how the offices played out in the history of Old Testament Israel. Now we turn to take a look at how these offices find their ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

The most interesting aspect of unpacking how Christ fulfills these offices is realizing that Christ is actually the very one whom the offices are patterned after. To state that another way, the offices, say, of the Kingship, wasn’t something that Christ looked at and asked Himself how he would fulfill it. Instead, ever since Adam, Kings were to image God, and Christ is the fulness of the godhead in bodily form.

Prophet- Christ is the ultimate word from the Father (John 1:1). In fact, He is God’s final word of revelation (Heb. 1:1). Christ proclaimed the truth of God’s word to the people to whom He ministered, and that considered of words of consolation as well as words of judgment (cf. Matt. 23). Christ spoken with an authority that no other religious leader spoke with. Others taught, “Such-and-such said..,” but Christ proclaimed, “You have heard it said…but I say unto you…” (see the Sermon on the Mount)

Priest- John chapter 17 is a great place to see Christ, the great High Priest, at work, interceding for those “whom that Father gave” Him. Likewise, in an extended section on His priesthood, the epistle to the Hebrews explains that not only is Christ the great and final High Priest for the people of God, but, paradoxically, He is also the final sacrifice for sin! The work of Jesus on our behalf atones for the various and myriad ways in which we have failed to be faithful images of God. And finally, as Priest, Christ in the final one through whom God’s blessing is ministered to the world. As in the promise to Abraham, all the nations of the world will be blessed through Christ Jesus.

King- Jesus is indeed both the Son of David, and the Son of Man, the one in Daniel 7 given dominion over all the earth. As the faithful image of God, King Jesus righteously represented the rule of God (“If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”) Also, as King, Jesus defeated His enemies through His work on the cross (Col. 2:15, 1 Jn. 3:8, Heb. 2:14, Rev. 20:1-3). During is ministry this was demonstrated by His numerous exorcisms, essentially showing Satan and his minions “who’s boss.” Now, and forever more, Christ Jesus is the “King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.”

Prophet, Priest, and King in Biblical History (2 of 4)

After the Fall, we find the steady decline of human civilization from Genesis 4 (the murder of Abel) down till Genesis 11 (the Tower of Babel). The decisive break comes in Genesis 12 with the call of Abraham. Through Abraham’s family, deliverance from the curse will finally be realized. Unfortunately, Abraham’s seed (i.e. family) was eventually taken captive in Egypt, but that was not the final say.  400 years after their captivity, God powerfully broke the chains that bound the Israelites, and called them to be His own special possession.  Now, here in the history of national Israel, we see the reoccurring theme of the three-fold office.

Prophet- God’s sent prophets to the people to act as covenant emissaries to the leadership of Israel. Especially after the establishment of the kingship, the job of the prophet was to call the King and the people of the nation back to covenant faithfulness, or, if repentance did not come, to pronounce the curses of the covenant on the rebellious nation.

Priest- Likewise, since they we also affected by the Fall, even covenant members (the people of Israel) were still sinners and in need of atonement and reconciliation with God. Built right into the system of worship commanded by God was the provision of sacrifice. Their rebellion demanded death, but God, in His great mercy, provides a substitute. The priest, stemming from the family of Moses’ brother Aaron, were to present sacrifices to God, and pronounce forgiveness to the people (especially on the Day of Atonement, see Lev. 16)

King- Like Adam before them, the Kings of Israel were to righteously represent God’s rule. The kings were not above the law (see the role of the prophets above), but were instead the channel through which God’s rule was enforced.  When the King was godly, the people prospered, but (as we’ll see below) when the king fell into idolatry, the people followed in his sin.

Of course, these were the ideals. Sadly, the actual history of Old Testament Israel rarely resembled God’s design, and like Adam before her, Israel also experiences a corrupted form and inversion of the offices of prophet, priest, and King:

Prophet- One need also to flip through the book of Jeremiah, for example, to see that the prophetic office soon became corrupted. Instead of calling ungodly kings to covenant faithfulness, many of these so-called prophets said whatever the kings wanted to hear, blessing their every undertaking. They declared to speak for God, but in reality, these were false words, words not commanded by God.

Priest- Likewise, with the example of Aaron’s sons, and the sons of Eli the priest in 1 Samuel, we see that the priesthood was spoiled as well. Some priests took portions of the sacrifices that were for God. Likewise, some took money, and later (in Ezekiel) even worshipped pagan gods in the Temple (God’s very house!).

King- As the books of 1-2 Kings and 1-2 Chronicles present, the monarchy in Israel was far from loyal to the ways of the Lord. In fact, the nation of Israel split as a result of God’s judgment on Solomon, for his idolatry on unfaithful to covenant fidelity. but also names such as Jeroboam, Ahab, and Manassah come to mind when we think of the wicked king that lead Israel (the northern kingdom) and Judah (the southern kingdom) into idolatry.

Next we’ll take a look at how Jesus fulfills these roles…

Prophet, Priest, and King in Biblical History (1 of 4)

Today in class, I taught on the deity of Christ, and His three-fold office as prophet, priest, and king. This is all very exciting stuff, and I’m glad the class with also “into it” along with me. When discussing the 3 offices fulfilled by Christ, I thought it helpful to trace these themes through the OT in order to highlight exactly why and how Christ is the perfect prophet, priest, and king.

First, I noted that the offices start back in the Garden of Eden. Adam was supposed to excercise these function accordingly:

Prophet- Adam was to speak true words about God

Priest- He was to minister the blessings of God to God’s creation

King- As the royal image of God, and vice-regent of the universe, Adam was to rule and exercise dominion over the earth in line with God’s ultimate authority and as a righteousness reflection of God, the Great King.

Sadly, in Gen. 3 we have the account of the Fall. In this narrative, we find all 3 offices turned on their proverbial head.

Prophet- Instead of speaking true words about God, God speaks a (true) word of judgment upon humanity.

Priest- Instead of ministering the blessing of God, Adam and Eve now are in need of reconciliation with God. They now need mediation in their relationship to ther creation, whereas before the Fall they had direct access to Him.

King- Instead of acting as a righteous reflection of God’s character, Adam misrepresents God (and later blames God for his sin! Cf. “It was the woman you gave me…”)

Thus, our first parents we expelled from the place of God’s blessing. Yet, God didn’t abandon these roles (or offices), but instead these responsibilities were passed on to the nation of Israel. Next we’ll take a look at how these offices functioned in the nation’s history.

For a helpful discussion of Adam’s original role, Israel’s mandate as a nation, and its fulfillment in Christ, see

Quick Testimony

This past Saturday marked the 2 lesson I’ve taught in my ‘Bible Doctrines’ class at Nyack College, NYC campus. It’s been incredibly encouraging to see how many of the students are participating and positively interacting with the material. As I shared with them, though the course is normally taught in the standard systematic theology (ST) approach (taking themes such as God, Christ, mankind, sin, salvation, atonement, etc) and showing what the whole Bible says about them, I’m attempting to integrate the ST approach with a redemptive-historical approach (as known as the biblical-theological method, BT for short). The BT is especially helpful is tracing various Old Testament themes and showing their fulfillment in Christ, thus giving us a fuller, more robust Christology (i.e. doctrine of the person and work of Christ).

In the first lesson, on the doctrine of salvation, I started by noting that we were going to look at the theme of salvation in Scripture with a wide angle lens. Instead of defining salvation individualistically, we were going to look at salvation as the story that the Bible tells. The Bible is the inspired history of God’s deliverance of His people (and it’s an exciting story!). The second lesson was the first of 2 lessons on the doctrine of Christ. We focused on 4 OT themes that set the backdrop for the NT understanding of Christ (the promised see of the woman in Gen. 3:15, the theme of the greater son of David, the Suffering Servant of the Lord, and the Son of Man). Closing up class, we discussed the humanity of Christ, and why it was necessary for Him to become a true human being in order to redeem us.

I’m looking forward to this Saturday when we delve into the deity of Christ, and His offices as prophet, priest, and king.

Interview with Vern Poythress on Biblical Theology

 

Just today, Beginnningwithmoses has posted an interview with Vern Poythress on the theme of finding Christ in the Old Testament. Here’s the link.

*Update: Beginningwithmoses has just posted the second part of their interview with Poythress here.

Also, by Dr. Poythress is the lead article for the upcoming ESV Study Bible (released on Oct. 15) titled, Overview of the Bible: A Survey of the History of Salvation.

Here’s a sample from the article (a helpful definition of a type)

A “type,” in the language of theology, is a special example, symbol, or picture that God designed beforehand, and  that he placed in history at an earlier point in time in order to  point forward to a later, larger fulfillment.

According to Pattern: What is Typology?

The According to Pattern series I’m developing here on Kingdomview is an entry level examination of what’s commonly called by theologians typology. In the first 2 part series I cover the linked between Joseph in Genesis and Christ (part 1, 2), and the second installment I’ve touched upon the shadow of Christ in the life of Noah (part 1, 2).

The name typology comes from the Greek word tupos. In Rom. 5 Adam is explicitly said to be a type of Christ. but what does this mean? Tupos has a number of similar, overlapping meanings. Sometimes it can refer to a mold, the type that idols were made from. But most commonly it is translated ‘pattern,’ or ‘example’ (others translations of the word tupos are “imprint” and “form”). Types are what you could call historical prefigurings of either a person, place or thing.

The simplest way to break this down is that the type is found in the Old Testament and it’s fulfillment in the New. The fulfillment of the type is known as the antitype.

Graeme Goldsworthy, in his book According to Plan, contrasts a typological reading of Scripture with both the literalistic and the allegorical method. The literalistic method finds history (and especially, given the context of this post, salvation history) as self-interpreting. So, symbols and the like in the Old Testament need not later be explained and clarified, because what they mean is evident at any point in the history of redemption. So, when the Temple is spoken of by the Prophets as being rebuilt ‘in that day’, it represents exactly what you would think it means upon first reading, the literal, stone and mortar Temple in Jerusalem.

On the other hand, the allegorical method, often confused with the typological method, is nearly the opposite of the literalistic approach. If the literalistic approach states that the interpretation of salvation history is self-evident, the allegorical method holds that history is essentially unimportant. The allegorist looks ‘beyond’ the historical meaning of a biblical passage in order to get to the truly ’spiritual’ meaning. Unfortunately, this method often boils down to making loose connections between people, places or institutions of the OT with those of the NT. So, the scarlet cord held out by Rahab from her window when Joshua and his men spied on the city of Jericho is really speaking to us today about the crimson blood of Christ (the connection here being the color). So you can wind up having as many allegorical interpretations as you have allegorical interpreters! (or maybe more, depending on their creativity)

The typological method steers clear of both errors. Unlike the literalistic approach, typology recognizing that God is the ultimate interpreter of history. Redemption is His plan, and He is free to historically unfold the deeper meaning of any person, place, or institution as He wishes. As an example, this is seen in Acts 2 when Peter explains the resurrection and ascension of Christ as the fulfillment of God’s promise to David that he (David) would always have a descendent to sit on the throne. Yet, the typological approach also parts ways from allegory. Typology insists that history is important and vital, and the meaning of God’s work is found in the actual space-time events recorded in the Bible. The antitype (fulfillment) really is related to the type. Going back to the example of Peter, we see that Peter wasn’t just making this stuff up. Jesus truly was the biological and legal descendant of David (the real historical king of Israel), and was truly given David’s throne.

The difference is that Christ’s reign, while organically related to David’s, 1) fulfills what David hoped for, and 2) supersedes and elevates the original covenantal promise. Typological recognizes the importance in interpreting the BIble of progressive (i.e. historical) revelation (i.e. God reveals truth that we could not otherwise find out).

For more on typology, see:

Books on Covenant

One of my interests in Biblical studies is the theme of God’s covenant relationship with His people. In fact, viewing the entire Bible through the lens of ‘covenant’ is an extremely helpful way of thinking about the unity of the Old and New Testaments. Here are some of the most helpful books (or articles) on covenant that i’ve read.

New Biblical Theology Blog

From Jim Hamilton:

Today marks the launch of a new biblical theology blog. I’ll be collaborating with Desi Alexander, Mike Bird, and Steve Dempster. Here’s the blog’s purpose: “For the glory of God, in service to the church, this blog exists to promote the study and discussion of biblical theology’s history, methodology, aims, achievements, developments, direction, and points of contact with other approaches to the study of the Bible.”

Other contributors may be added later, but for now we’ll be posting together at Biblical Theology. In the initial post the contributors are introduced: “Posting from Ireland, Scotland (by an Australian), Canada, and the United States, we are excited about the international character of this blog, and we hope it will serve you well. We seek to know God in Christ by the power of the Spirit as revealed in the Bible.”

Many of the contributor named for this blog have written articles for this marvelous work:

What is Biblical Theology?

In this short article, leading redemptive-historical theologian, Graeme Goldsworthy explains the area of Christian study known as Biblical Theology. Personally, I have benefitted greatly from Goldsworthy’s approach to the Scripture. He finds the ‘center’ of Scripture to be the historical unfolding of the Kingdom of God, which he defines as God’s people, in God’s place, under God’s rule.

For more by Goldsworthy, see any of his works on Biblical theology, such as:

According to Pattern: Noah (part 2)

We’ve taken a quick look at some of the characteristics that defined Noah. Now we’ll sketch out how Christ’s brigs to completion those salvation-historical themes that Noah introduced.

Jesus is the final hope that the promised ’seed of the woman’ pointed to (Lk. 3:23-38). Noah’s birth pointed in his direction as well. Noah’s father thought that perhaps his son would be the final deliverer, but he wasn’t. The final champion send from God is Christ, who will ultimately reverse the curse (1 Cor. 15:50-57).

Likewise, will Noah’s name meant ‘rest, Christ Himself is the rest for the people of God (Heb. 3-4). In fact, jesus is the ultimate rest to which the sabbath pointed (Heb. 4:9-10).

Christ is not just ‘another’ Adam (like Noah), but is the final, second, and eschatological Adam (1 Cor. 15:45, 47). But he doesn’t repeat what Adam does, he corrects Adam’s failure. Adam’s sin brought death into the world, and ruined all those whom he represented (all humanity). Christ’s life and death of obedience to the Father brings life, blessing and unending grace to those whom He represents (the Church), see Rom. 5:12-21.

But while there is a difference between how Christ is another adam, and how Noah is another Adam (Jesus fixes the mess Adam plunged us all into), there are also parallels. Both Noah and Christ (as ‘Adams’) are commissioned to be fruitful and multiply. But, while Noah obeys in the short run, ultimately he fails, and we need to look to another to fulfill this creation mandate. At first it looks like the call of Abraham, and the creation of the nation of Israel (after the Exodus) will ‘fix’ this problem, but again, ultimately, they fail as well. But not so for Christ!! Listen to this text from Ephesians 1:

15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Everything that’s bolded demonstrates how the Apostle Paul understood the work of Christ in terms of fulfilling the original task given to Adam (and later given to Noah). Adam was called to multiply, and this is fulfilled by Christ in the creation of the Church of which Christ is head (meaning source and authority over). Next Adam is given dominion over the earth (a dominion that he neglected and in fact renounced by his obedience to the serpent). Christ on the other hand has “all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named,” and is the ‘head over all things.” Adam was to fill the earth, while Christ Himself is said to be (through His body the Church) the “ fullness of him who fills all in all.” Without a doubt Paul conceived of the work and ministry of Christ as the perfect fulfillment to what was originally the goal of humanity.

Lastly, in contrast from Noah, Christ is vindicated and glorified through judgment. Noah, and his family, were spared the wrath of God poured out on the Earth. Jesus, on the other hand, spares others (i.e. the Church) not by avoiding God’s judgment and wrath, but by absorbing it completely. Jesus, who never committed any sin, paid the penalty for sins of His people, so that through the redemption He provides we could be accepted as God’s children (Cf. 2 Cor. 5:21) Christ drank the cup of God’s wrath to the dregs, thus there is no one condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1)