The Bible is a large book that consists of many topics and themes, diverse kinds of literature, and spans centuries. Yet, the Bible, despite its diversity and being written by numerous authors and addressing various subjects, is a unified metanarrative whose central message is about what our triune God planned in eternity, executed in time, to glorify himself by the redemption of his people, the judgment of sin, and making all things new in our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 11:33–36; Eph. 1:9–10; Col. 1:15–20). From the opening verses of Genesis to the closing vision of Revelation, the Bible’s main message is first about the triune God before it’s about us, and then secondarily about how he has graciously chosen to share himself with us which results in the praise of his glorious name, sovereign grace, and our eternal good (Eph. 2:1–10).
However, to understand and comprehend the Bible’s central message, Scripture cannot be read in a piecemeal way, as if we can isolate one text from another. Instead, we must approach and interpret Scripture according to what Scripture is, or better, Scripture must be read it on its own terms, which minimally requires us to affirm three truths about Scripture.
Three Necessary Truths About Scripture
First, Scripture is God’s Word written through the agency of human authors unfolding God’s eternal, comprehensive plan (2 Tim. 3:15–17; 2 Pet. 1:20–21). Given this truth, despite Scripture’s diversity of content, there is an overall unity and coherence to it precisely because it is God’s Word. Furthermore, since Scripture is God’s Word given through human authors, we cannot know what God is saying to us apart from the writing(s) and intention of the human authors. What Scripture says, God says. And given that God has spoken through multiple authors over time, this requires a careful intertextual and canonical reading in order to understand God’s full revelation of himself. As a progressive revelation, Scripture does not come to us all at once. Instead, as God’s plan unfolds, especially his redemptive plan, more revelation is given and later revelation, building on the earlier, results in more clarity and understanding from the perspective of the later authors. As more revelation is given, God’s unfolding “mystery” is unveiled, and we discover how the individual parts fit with the whole. Even more significantly, we discover who is central to that plan, namely our Lord Jesus Christ, and how we fit in that plan as his people.
Second, Scripture is God’s Word written over time, hence the idea of progressive revelation, which is the unfolding of God’s plan in redemptive history. Revelation, alongside redemption, occurs progressively, largely demarcated by the biblical covenants located within the larger categories of creation, fall, redemption, and the dawning of the new creation in Christ. Thus, to understand the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), we must carefully trace out God’s unfolding plan as unveiled over time and specifically through the biblical covenants. This is why our exegesis of specific texts and entire books must result in a “biblical theology” that is concerned to read Scripture and “put together” the entire canon in terms of its redemptive historical unfolding. Scripture consists of many literary forms that require careful interpretation, but what unites the biblical books is God’s unfolding plan, starting in Genesis and creation, accounting for the fall, unpacking God’s redemptive promises through the covenants, and culminating with Christ’s coming and inauguration of the new creation by the ratification of a new covenant.
Third, Scripture is God’s Word centered in Christ Jesus. Although some think this statement is controversial, it is simply true to what Scripture teaches. As the New Testament opens, Jesus is presented as the fulfillment of God’s saving promises from the Old Testament (Matt. 1:1–17; Luke 1–3). All that has preceded Christ has in promise, type, and covenantal unfolding anticipated his coming. In fact, our Lord himself unambiguously teaches us this truth. In a magnificent statement, Jesus claims that he is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, meaning that the entire Old Testament not only pointed to him but that its continuing and abiding authority must be understood in light of his person and work (Matt. 5:17–20). By this claim, Jesus views himself as the eschatological goal of the Old Testament; the one the Old Testament pointed forward to and in whom all God’s plans and promises are realized.
But Jesus’ statement in Matthew 5 is not a one-off. In Matthew 11, as he teaches us about his relation to John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets, Jesus views himself as the focal point and center of all of history, the one who fulfills all of God’s plans and purposes in himself. The same truth is taught in Luke 24. As Jesus comes alongside to comfort two downcast disciples, he does so by going back to the Old Testament and rehearsing how the Law, Prophets, and Psalms properly spoke of him and anticipated the events occurring in his life, death, and resurrection (Luke 24:13–35, 44). Instead, of a crucified Messiah being something strange, it’s precisely what the Old Testament taught and anticipated. As Jesus unpacked Scripture, he powerfully explained how the Old Testament, properly interpreted, is about him, and that despite Scripture’s diversity, the entire Bible finds its center in Christ.
The author of Hebrews teaches us this same point in his opening thesis statement that governs his entire book. “In the past,” the author reminds his readers, “God spoke to our forefathers by the prophets” and he did so “at many times and in various ways.” God’s Word is given over time, and it points forward to something more to come. The phrase, “at many times and in many ways,” underscores this point. The Old Testament revelation was given by God and it is fully true and authoritative, yet it is purposely incomplete as it points beyond itself to Christ’s coming. But what the prophets looked forward to, namely “the last days” and the coming of Messiah Jesus, now, “in Son” (v. 2), is here. In other words, in Christ’s coming and work, the entirety of God’s previous revelation and redemptive purposes have now reached their fulfillment. All of this reminds us that there was no reduction of the Old Testament’s authority, but God intended the Old Testament to point beyond itself to God’s full self-disclosure in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Although these truths are plainly taught in Scripture and are crucial to remember if we are going to read and apply Scripture correctly, sadly today’s evangelical church has a difficult time making sense of these truths. We struggle over how Scripture, especially the Old Testament, is to be applied to our lives, and how it is rightly about Christ. The Old Testament has become a foreign book to many in our churches, and it is too often viewed with either disdain or embarrassment. But the problem with this attitude is that it denies what Scripture teaches. For example, it denies what Paul teaches in 2 Timothy 3:15-17. In this important text regarding the nature of Scripture, we often forget that Paul is first referring to the Old Testament as God’s breathed-out Word and thus fully authoritative for Christians. Paul assumes that the church’s doctrine and life is grounded in the Old Testament, since currently, the New Testament is still being written. For this reason, it is not only wrong but also dangerous to ignore the Old Testament since it, along with the New Testament, functions for us as the basis for how we are rightly to think about God and to live before him as his redeemed people in Christ. No doubt it is true that as Christians we are not “under the law” as a covenant now that Christ has come, and that we must carefully apply the Old Testament to us in light of Christ’s new covenant work. Yet, this does not mean that the entire Old Testament does not continue to function for us as Scripture, and thus demand our study and obedience.
Furthermore, neglect of the Old Testament undercuts the biblical and theological grounding for the New Testament, and thus seriously risks misunderstanding who Jesus is along with the entire message of the Gospel. Our Lord Jesus does not appear de novo in the New Testament. Instead, who Jesus is, what he has done for us in his redemptive work, is entirely dependent on the biblical-theological framework, content, and structures of the Old Testament, and unless we ground the Gospel first in the Old Testament, we will quickly lose the central truths of Christian theology. For this reason, ignorance of the Old Testament, let alone the New Testament, is no small matter. In truth, it’s a matter of life and death, and as such, given our lack of knowing the entire canon of Scripture, it is not surprising that the theological life and health of today’s evangelical church is in trouble.
Recovering the Bible’s Unity: Why In These Last Days Matters
Given this sober reality, I heartily recommend Graeme Goldsworthy’s In These Last Days: The Dynamics of Biblical Revelation. This book, written by one of evangelicalism’s premier biblical theologians, brings together years of study, teaching, and writing about Scripture and teaches us how to read and apply Scripture to our lives on the Bible’s own terms. Given that there is no greater need than to rightly know and love God by knowing and loving his Word, this book is a must reading if we want to take Scripture seriously and “to bring all of our thought captive to Christ.”
Although Goldsworthy reminds us that this work is not a full-blown biblical theology, it does offer the “big picture” of what Scripture is and how to read and apply it correctly for today’s church. Throughout the entire work, Goldsworthy underscores the importance of the historical nature of divine revelation, thus rightly reminding us that God’s redemptive work in history, along with his revelation of his mighty acts, is not static. This is why not all parts of Scripture relate in exactly the same way to other portions of Scripture, which in turn requires a careful reading and application of Scripture to our lives. As he persuasively demonstrates, unless we read texts in terms of their location in the progress of divine revelation, we will inevitably misunderstand and misapply those texts. Texts must be read in terms of their location in redemptive history, following the Bible’s own creation, fall, redemption, and new creation structure, and then seeing how these same texts are brought to their fulfillment in Christ. Unless we read and apply Scripture this way, we are not being faithful to God’s intent, and inevitably read Scripture in an incorrect and fragmented way.
Goldsworthy helps us see the “big picture” of Scripture in four main sections.
First, he reflects on the nature of Scripture which is foundational to reading it correctly. Here, and throughout the work, he demonstrates that biblical and systematic theology are in a symbiotic relationship so that we cannot have one without the other. Yet, he does so by staying true to the Bible’s own teaching and taking seriously that Scripture is God’s authoritative and divine speech to us, which demands that we receive it as God’s Word and read it as such.
Second, he turns to the God of Scripture, namely the triune Creator-covenant Lord, who is revealed to us across the entire canon, thus grounding Scripture in the doctrine of God, and demonstrating that Scripture’s primary message is about God and secondarily about us.
Third, Goldsworthy unpacks God’s works by developing across the entire canon crucial themes essential to reading and applying Scripture properly. Starting with the importance of creation, he moves to the fall, divine judgment, and God’s plan of redemption tied to the establishment of the kingdom through covenants, all leading us to the fulfillment of God’s plan in Christ. Throughout the entire work, he models how to follow the Bible’s own epochal structure of Old Testament history, prophetic eschatology, and fulfillment in Christ. By doing so, he repeatedly illustrates how to relate the parts of Scripture to their whole, centered in Christ, and thus how to be true to the Bible’s own presentation of itself.
Fourth, Goldsworthy finishes by showing how all of Scripture in light of its fulfillment in Christ applies to us, as those living in the new covenant era and not previous eras of redemptive history. Discussion of the gospel message and how we are to live as the church in light of Christ’s work makes this book more than simply one that traces out biblical themes across the canon; instead it is a book that carefully demonstrates how we are to live as the church today.
Given that many evangelical churches today are deficient in basic biblical and theological knowledge and literacy, this book is a must read to remedy this serious problem. For the church not to be tossed back and forth by every wind of doctrine (Eph. 4:14), the wisdom of this work is necessary. In a day where some in the evangelical world want to “retrieve” old paths that will lead us back to an allegorization of Scripture, Goldsworthy provides a Reformation alternative that is grounded in a proper understanding of sensus literalis. By reading Scripture on its own terms, as a progressive revelation that is unveiling God’s eternal plan centered in Christ, Goldsworthy offers us a proper “theological” interpretation of Scripture that recovers God’s Word for the church, and allows us to apply it rightly to our lives.
What is needed for the present hour is sound and faithful biblical and theological exposition, which this book magnificently and impressively provides. My prayer is that this book will be widely read and applied in our churches. If it is, then the evangelical church will be strengthened and fortified, and better equipped to know and glorify our triune God as we learn to proclaim anew the unsearchable riches of Christ (Col. 1:27–28) from the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27).
Editor’s Note: The above is from the foreword of Graham Goldsworthy’s book In These Last Days. It is republished here with the gracious permission of the author and publisher.
