Tripp: "The Bible is not an encyclopedia, but a story of God's plan to rescue hopeless and helpless humanity."

We read this quote from Paul Tripp in last week's Biblical Theology Study Center. Amazingly, part of the quote was used again the following evening during testimony time from someone not in our class...someone who resonated with the quote in the midst of personal crisis. For those who are involved in biblical counseling, it can be really easy (and tempting) for the Bible to become little more than a 12-verse system designed to fix a life. Tripp reminds us that the Bible isn't a how-to manual, but a place where we find hope in a Person.

"As sinners, we have a natural bent to turn away from the Creator to serve the creation. We turn away from hope in a Person to hope in systems, ideas, people or possessions. Real Hope stares us in the face, but we do not see him. Instead we dig into the mound of human ideas to extract a tiny shard of insight. We tell ourselves that we have finally found the key, the thing that will make a difference. We act on the insight and embrace the delusion of lasting personal change. But before long, disappointment returns. The change was temporary and cosmetic, failing to penetrate the heart of the problem. So, we go back to the mound again, determined this time to dig in the right place. Eureka! We find another shard of insight, seemingly more profound than before. We take it home, study it, and put it into practice. But we always end up in the same place.

"The good news confronts us with the reality that heart-changing help will never be found in the mound. It will only be found in the Man, Christ Jesus. We must not offer people a system of redemption, a set of insights and principles. We offer people a Redeemer. In his power, we find the hope and help we need to defeat the most powerful enemies. Hope rests in the grace of the Redeemer, the only real means of lasting change.

"This is what separates believers from our culture's psychology. Because it has fundamentally turned its back on the Lord, the world can only offer people some kind of system. It reduces hope to a set of observations, a collection of insights, or steps in a process. We, on the other hand, meet people as the desperately dig and lovingly ask for their shovels. We gently turn them away from the mound, and joyfully turn them to the Man, Jesus Christ. This is the essence of personal ministry.

"But our inclination to replace the King with a thing does not die easily. It rears its ugly head even when we search for answers in Scripture. We approach the Bible with a "where can I find a verse on __________ " mentality. We forget that the only hope the principles offer rests on the Person, Jesus Christ. And we forget that the Bible is not an encyclopedia, but a story of God's plan to rescue hopeless and helpless humanity. It's a story about people who are rescued from their own self-sufficiency and wisdom and transported to a kingdom where Jesus is central and true hope is alive.

"We cannot treat the Bible as a collection of therapeutic insights. To do so distorts its message and will not lead to lasting change. If a system could give us what we need, Jesus would never have come. But he came because what was wrong with us could not fixed any other way. He is the only answer, so we must never offer a message that is less than the good news. We don't offer people a system; we point them to a Redeemer. He is hope." -- Paul David Tripp, "Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands", pp. 8-9

DeYoung's Reformed survey on sanctification: Monergistic or synergistic?

Over at the Gospel Coalition, Kevin DeYoung has posted some interesting and challenging thoughts on the question of monergism vs. synergism in sanctification. He sets the discussion up this way: "what should we say about sanctification? On the one hand, Reformed Christians are loathe to use the word synergistic. We certainly don’t want to suggest that God’s grace is somehow negligible in sanctification. Nor do we want to suggest that the hard work of growing in godliness is not a supernatural gift from God. On the other hand, we are on dangerous ground if we imply that we are passive in sanctification in the same way we are passive in regeneration. We don’t want to suggest God is the only active agent in our progressive sanctification. So which is it: is sanctification monergistic or synergistic?"

While DeYoung places the backdrop for this blog post within his church body, certainly he has in his purview the ongoing debate with Tullian Tchividjian over the gospel in sanctification. There are many places where the discussion of monergism/syngergism in sanctification intersects with the role of the gospel in sanctification. In both discussions, there are accusations from one side to the other emphasizing one aspect of sanctification (the gospel) over another aspect (the ethics of sanctification).

And DeYoung rightly says that Reformed Christians do not want to say that we are passive in the ongoing transformation of our lives into Christ's image by the Spirit. So how are we to think about monergism vs. syngergism?

I agree with DeYoung, in a sense. We can use the language of both in describing certain aspects of sanctification. While it is both, it's what he doesn't address that sets DeYoung apart from someone like Tchividjian (in the ongoing debate over the gospel in sanctification), who would find little to disagree with in the article. Three come to mind: 1. the relationship between justification and sanctification, 2. the place (if any) of sanctification in the ordo salutis, and 3. the relationship between definitive/positional sanctification and progressive sanctification (that discussion is more than time allows in this particular post).

IOW, per the second point, what is the place of sanctification in "I have been saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved"? It's these kinds of questions that have some of us very loathe to use the word "co-operation" even as we affirm that we are not passive in our ongoing transformation into Christ's image... Because at some point, if the idea of progressive sanctification includes our ongoing salvation (we are being saved), even use of the term "cooperation" muddies the waters that DeYoung wants to clear up.

There's another way to describe the difference between DeYoung and those who emphasize monergism in sanctification. DeYoung (and Sproul... who is the classic "syngergist" in sanctification) would say: We work as He works. The mongergist would say: We work *because* He works (1 John 4:19). Again, I agree the terms can be confusing. But the question in sanctification is this: what or *who* is the causal agent in sanctification. Some syngergists talk as those we are equally *causal*. Even as DeYoung employs Reformed giants of the faith, I hear at least some of them saying that while we do work and are not passive, the causal agent is the Holy Spirit (just as he is in regeneration).

In the end DeYoung is helpful in showing us the drawbacks of using certain terminology to describe what the Bible teaches us about the role of the Spirit and our participation in our transformation into Christ's image. We are participants in salvation history. Language is not always precise in delineating the inner machinations of how that participation comes to be. It's easy to see the downward slopes off the deep end in both directions. And DeYoung, like others who may disagree on certain points, wants to avoid the deep ends.

Old: "If we are truly to understand Christian preaching, we must see Jesus Christ as its center."

"If we are truly to understand Christian preaching, we must see Jesus Christ as its center. First, we must see Jesus as the fulfillment of generations of preaching and teaching that went before him, and second, we must see Jesus as the type, or perhaps prototype, of generations of preaching that have followed him. He is both the pattern of preaching and the gospel to be preached.

"We preachers make sense only when we are understood as continuing the ministry of our Master. We have done our job only when we have borne witness to Christ, when we have taught all things that he has commanded us.

"It is the gospel of salvation in Christ that the preacher is commissioned to preach. Nothing the preacher does can be understood except in relation to this, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel. That is the touchstone of the preacher's ministry." -- Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, p. 8

Tripp: "Every passage imparts to us insight that is vital for a proper understanding of the passages that directly address marriage..."

The following is a window into how proper interpretation of Scripture impacts everything in life, including the way we think about our marriages. Remove marriage in the following paragraphs and plug in any other issue in life, and the way to rightly understand that issue through the lens of Scripture is helpfully explained by Tripp:

"We mistakenly treat the Bible as if it (was) arranged by topic-you know, the world's best compendium of human problems and divine solutions. So when we're thinking about marriage, we run to all the marriage passages. But the Bible isn't an encyclopedia; it is a story, the great origin-to-destiny story of redemption. In fact, it is more than a story. It is a theologically annotated story. It is a story with God's notes. This means that we cannot understand what the Bible has to say about marriage by looking only at the marriage passages, because there is a vast amount of biblical information about marriage not found in the marriage passages.

In fact, we could argue, to the degree that every portion of the Bible tells us things about God, about ourselves, about life in this present world, and about the nature of the human struggle and the divine solution, to that degree every passage in the Bible is a marriage passage. Every passage imparts to us insight that is vital for a proper understanding of the passages that directly address marriage, and every passage tells us what we should expect as we deal with the comprehensive relationship of marriage. One of our problems is that we have not used the Bible biblically, and this has set us up for surprises we shouldn’t have had (due to unrealistic expectations in the marriage; crb)." -- Paul Tripp, What Did You Expect?, pp. 16-17

I would add that every portion doesn't simply tell us things about God and ourselves, but more specifically is telling us something about Jesus and something related to his redemption of a people for himself. Tripp is dead on with the relationship between how we read our Bibles and life issues that confront us. And as Tripp is pointing out, few life issues are more "right here and right now" than marriage. Few life issues have been more "moralized" in the text than marriage, including those who've attempted to ground in the Bible what they teach about marriage. The Bible was never intended to be simply a handbook. Ephesians 5:21ff, as important as it is, isn't a bullet-pointed powerpoint presentation on the marriage. Ephesians 5:21ff (and other passages like it) is connected to the storyline of the Bible (and, in fact, is providing interpretation of that storyline).

We cannot rightly understand what the Bible says about marriage unless we understand marriage as part of the storyline of the Bible. Before it is a handbook, it is a story in which I find my own redemptive-historical drama played out in front of my eyes, interpreting my circumstances through an Event that placed me in the storyline. My sin, my epic fails in my marriage (and thus, its Christ-centered resolutions) are not simply explained to me and for me, but “storied” for me in the revelation of the Divine Drama. I’m in the story because I am in Christ, the Story Maker and Story Keeper. Christ is all over the text bringing my story (our story) to life, giving that story its fullest meaning.

Built into the NCT ThinkTank is a willingness to allow for the presenters views to be openly examined and respectfully critiqued

Over at Grace in the Triad, Dustin Segers muses on the recently concluded NCT Think Tank 2011 in Canandaigua, New York: "This was hands-down, the best conference I've ever been to. The reasons were as follows:

1. Like-minded fellowship with people who obviously love Jesus.
2. Excellent theology.
3. Built into the NCT ThinkTank is a willingness to allow for the presenters views to be openly examined and respectfully critiqued by the other conference participants in light of Scripture. This promotes further refining of our views so that they conform to Scripture.

Our meeting was held from July 25-28, and we covered a variety of topics related to coming to a further understanding of biblical theology through the hermeneutic of the New Covenant – Jesus Christ our Lord, following the redemptive-historical view of Scripture." -- Dustin Segers, Grace in the Triad: NCT ThinkTank 2011 Conference Videos

It is so encouraging to see point #3. It cannot be understated how important #3 is to both a good think tank and the continued development of theology in the New Covenant Theology movement's participants. John Reisinger impressed on me a long time ago the importance of the necessary humility of not allowing one's personal theology to calcify. #3 as a habitual practice, both in the local church and like-minded gatherings such as the NCT Think Tank, fosters an environment of mutual growth in theology and hermeneutics. As a result, many communities of believers become the beneficiaries of mutual edification via "theology in the round". As one who has been a participant and has taken some stiff critique (even at this recent NCT Think Tank), there is so much comfort in the kind of a safe environment that allows one to put an idea or thought forward from the text, and have it affirmed or shot down by people who love you. Would that more churches and church groups foster such an environment.

The Incarnation of the Abstract: New Covenant Theology and the Enfleshment of the Law

This week's Think Tank presentation is a work in progress....

At the center of what we hold to be true about the glory of the New Covenant as it is found in and revealed by Jesus Christ is the Incarnation. Without the Incarnation, Christ's death and resurrection and exaltation have no discernible and lasting impact on humanity. It is the Incarnation that makes Christ's death effective for His People. And it is inseparable from those great questions for which New Covenant Theology has been providing answers. The New Testament's interpretation of the Old, the Obsolescence of the Mosaic Covenant and its Law, the priority of Jesus in our orthodoxy and orthopraxy, the rhythm of promise and fulfillment in redemptive history, the temporarity and eternality of the great covenants of the Scriptures -- all those things that distinguish New Covenant theology -- are grounded in what we believe to be true about the Second Person of the Godhead robing himself in human flesh. The fountainhead of New Covenant Theology springs from an eschatological Christology which asserts the priority of the Promised Messiah who is God become Man. The question that arises from this seminal thought of NCT's is this: what does the Priority of Jesus have to do with New Covenant ethics?

5 implications:

1.      That the Law is a Person means the Law of the New Covenant is not encoded in external imperatives or principles.

2.      The Law Incarnate has placed a Person, the Holy Spirit, within the believer as the law written on the heart. That’s the upshot of 2 Corinthians 3’s understanding of Jeremiah 31. The law written on the heart should not be identified in its typical form, but its Antitypical… a Person, living and breathing life into and through the New Covenant member. The entire law “category”, as it moves from Old Testament to New, lands on a person. The trajectory of the fulfillment of the law does not land on a new set of rules or principles, or even a summarized list of the law of Christ. The Law as a type has its end in Christ. The law as a type fades away into oblivion because all types do… it has become a person

3.      Abrogation of the law and a denial of third use is a given. The law, like any other type of the Old Testament, has fulfilled its prophetic and revelatory role and is gone and done now that the AntiType has filled up its intended meaning to the fullest.

4.      Imperatives have a role to play in the New Covenant, but they cannot eclipse the Indicative, a Person, from whence they come. It’s not a matter of balance, as some have suggested. The New Testament doesn’t not speak of, explicitly or implicitly, a so-called balance between the Indicative and imperative. In fact, seeing the New Testament as having a heavy emphasis on the imperatives says more about the presuppositions of the interpreter than it does about proper hermeneutics.

5.      An Incarnate Law does not mean that commands in the New Covenant are not important. It does not mean that obedience is not important. It simply means the grounds for the discussion have changed. Obedience to commands is the manifestation of the inward obedience-causing law written on the heart.

Taken from "The Incarnation of the Abstract: New Covenant Theology and the Enfleshment of the Law" 

Beale: The so-called Great Commission is "a renewal of the Genesis 1:26-28 commission to Adam"

"The New Testament pictures Christ and the church as finally having done what Adam, Noah, and Israel had failed to do in extending the temple of God's presence throughout the world. Luke 2:32 and Acts 26:23 picture Christ as fulfilling this commission to be a 'light' to the end of the earth (an allusion to the Servant Israel's commission in Isaiah 49:6). This is why Matthew 28:18 portrays Jesus as the Son of Man saying, 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.' This is an allusion to the prophecy of daniel 7:13-14, where it is said of the the 'Son of Man', 'authority was given to him, and all the nations of the earth...were serving him' (so LXX). On the basis of this authority, Jesus then gives the well-known commission 'therefore, as you go, disciple all the nations, baptizing them....teaching them to keep all things whichsoever I commanded you; and behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the age'. Notice that Christ uses the same accompaniment formula as God used with the commissioning of his people in the Old Testament to subdue and rule over the earth. His presence will enable them to fulfill 'the great commission' to rule over and fill the earth with God's presence, which Adam, Noah, and Israel had failed to carry out...

"The reason that Jesus reflects both the Old Testament figures of Adam and Israel is because...Israel and her patriarchs were given the same commission as Adam in Genesis 1:26-28. Consequently, it is not an overstatement to understand Israel as a corporate Adam who had failed in their 'Garden of Eden', in much the same way as their primal father had failed in the first garden... Jesus' claim that 'all authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth' (Matthew 28:18) alludes to Daniel 7:13-14, which prophesied that the 'son of man' would be 'given authority, glory, and sovereignty' for ever. Then...he immediately gives the disciples the so-called 'Great Commission': 'Go therefore and make disciples of all nations...teaching them...and lo, I am with you always' (Matt. 28:19-20). This edict not only continues the allusion to the Daniel 7 prophecy (v. 14, 'that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him'), but is itself a renewal of the Genesis 1:26-28 commission to Adam...

"Even the divine accompaniment formula ('I am with you') occurs in Matthew 28:20 to indicate how the disciples will be empowered to carry out the commission, just as..in the later applications of Adam's commission to the patriarchs and Israel. In fact, the reference to 'all the nations' (panta ta ethne) is an echo of Genesis 22:18 (likewise, Genesis 18:18), which is one of the inchoate sanctuary-building narratives. The reminiscence of the Abrahamic promise returns to the theme found in the first verse of Matthew's Gospel (1:1): 'that the blessing promised to Abraham and through him to all peoples of the earth (Gen. 12:3) are now to be fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah'. Thus, Christ is the Son of Adam, or 'the Son of Man', who has begun to do what the first Adam should have done and to inherit what the first Adam should have, including the glory reflected in God's image." G.K. Beale, "The Temple and the Church's Mission" pp.169, 174, 175

NCT Think Tank 2011, Canandaigua, NY

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What is New Covenant Theology?

Here's an update to an ongoing work in progress. The recently concluded 2011 John Bunyan Conference in Lewisburg, PA was a good place to think about these things, and an update to this project was a necessary outcome. Again, I am indebted to John Reisinger, Gary Long, Fred Zaspel, Steve West, and Blake White for some of the verbiage contained herein.

What is New Covenant Theology?

Friday, May 06, 2011

11:38 AM

Interpretation of the Bible

1. New Covenant Theology insists on the priority of Jesus Christ over all things, including history, revelation, and redemption.  New Covenant Theology presumes a Christocentricity to the understanding and meaning of all reality.
2. Jesus Christ, who reigns in heaven, has not only reached the goal of history and its reality, he Himself is the goal of history and reality, giving meaning to all that has occurred in human history and will occur in human history. Since it is Christ who gives meaning to human history, he is the One who interprets all of the deeds and acts of God in history.
3. Special revelation, comprised of the 66 books that we call the Sacred Scriptures, not only informs us about God, but redeems us and makes God present to us, focusing on the person and work of Jesus.
4. New Covenant Theology interprets Scripture after the manner of Christ's and the New Testament writers' use of the Old Testament. Jesus and the inspired New Testament writers, by their use of the Old Testament Scriptures, have left us a pattern by which to interpret not only the Old Testament prophecies, but its history and poetry.
5. The way that Jesus, the Apostles, and the prophets used the Old Testament is normative for this age.
6. All of the Old Testament scriptures are inherently prophetic in that the entire Old Testament, the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, point forward to and anticipate the WORD Incarnate, Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:1-2). New Covenant Theology presumes that Jesus Christ, in his person and his saving acts, is the hermeneutic center of the Bible.
7. A careful study of the way Jesus and the New Testament writers understand and write about the Old Testament shows that the Old Testament's anticipated Messiah (and His work) is revealed in the types and shadows of the revelation of the Old Testament, both in God's speech-revelation and God's acts.
8. The Old Testament Scriptures are God’s revelation of Himself as the eventual Messiah in Word and Deed, or in Speech and Act. In the Old Testament, divine activity accompanies divine speech, and vise versa, prophetically foreshadowing the activity and work of the coming Messiah. In the revelation of God’s word and deeds, the Old Testament provides the eschatological and salvation context for the person and work of Jesus.
9. Because the Word and its accompanying events are anticipating the coming of the seed of the Woman, Messiah, the Old Testament is thoroughly typological. Old Testament events, persons, and institutions have a typological relationship to Jesus, the antitype. Jesus Christ, the antitype, is the final, climactic expression of all God ideally intended through the types in the Old Testament.
10. The Old Testament, including its types, Israel’s history, and revelation, betrays an organic progress of history moving toward its end in Christ. Old Testament history is God’s revelation of the history of salvation proceeding toward its full realization in Jesus Christ. Each era of the Old Testament is both interconnected with and builds on the era preceding it, with all of the eras and their metanarrative finding their culmination in the Christ era, the end of days, the age to come. As history and revelation progress through the Old Testament toward their goal in Christ, there is increasing intensity in the types and increasing illumination of the nature and work of the Messiah.
11. All of the Old Testament authors are writing from a Messianic consciousness. The Old Testament Scriptures are thoroughly Messianic, and therefore interpretation of the Old Testament is comprehensively Christocentric and Christological. Jesus provides the fullest and final meaning to the Old Testament scriptures because all of the Old Testament Scriptures are about Jesus. Christ is the endpoint for the types and the shadows because those types and shadows in their original form were ultimately about Him. All of God’s activities and works recorded in the Old Testament revelation are ultimately saying something about the Person and Work of Jesus Christ. This does not mean every verse is about Jesus, but it does mean that Christ and the Christ event are the context for every passage in the Old Testament.
12. The Old Covenant scriptures, what we call The Old Testament, are to be interpreted in the light of their new covenant fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Jesus is not only the interpretive key to understanding the Old Testament, the terminology of the Old Testament must be understood through and defined in light of Christ's fulfillment. The New Testament scriptures bear witness to the Christ event (Christ’s life, death, resurrection, exaltation) and interpret the Old Testament through the lens of that Christ event.
13. The Old Testament scriptures, its words, and its deeds are thoroughly and intentionally eschatological. The end of all things in Christ is always imposing itself into the present, and this is true of the Old Testament age and its revelation.
14. The New Testament scriptures provide a definitive interpretation of the Old Testament. The end and goal of all things in Christ gives meaning to and provides interpretation for all that precedes it. The New Testament use of the Old Testament presumes the hermeneutical and eschatological priority of the Christ event in interpreting the Old Testament. The New Testament use of the Old Testament shows that the New Testament authors are interpreting the Old Testament in a way that the Old Testament events, persons, institutions, and Scriptures have found their fulfillment and final goal in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ.
15. New Covenant Theology is based upon a redemptive-historical approach to interpreting the Bible, understanding the fulfillment of all of God's promises in Jesus Christ as they are progressively unfolding from Genesis to Revelation.
16. The rhythm of the redemptive history and revelation of the Old Testament scriptures occurs in the form of Promise and Fulfillment. Just as the Word accompanies and interprets God’s salvific events in the Old Testament, so too Promise is consistently and faithfully followed by fulfillment. This divinely orchestrated pattern that threads together the events and revelation of the Old Testament becomes, for the New Testament authors, the pattern by which he has interpreted the Person and Work and Word of Jesus Christ, the Promised Messiah – the Yes and Amen -- who fulfills, or fills up, the meaning of all of the Old Testament promises.
17. The New Covenant, Jesus Christ, has inaugurated the New Covenant age which is the hermeneutical context for the New Testament scriptures. The New Testament authors are operating with a presumption that they are living in the New Covenant age. New Testament writers bear witness to the Christ and the Christ event with a belief that the old covenants of the Old Testament have given way to a new and better Covenant, Who fulfills (fills up) their meaning to its fullest.
18. Obsolescence is a fundamental hermeneutical principle in interpreting the Old Testament through the New Covenant lens of the New Testament. The obsolescence of the Old Testament types and shadows, including the covenants, is grounded in the emergence and inauguration of the New Covenant in Christ.
19. New Covenant Theology presumes that the “now-not yet” principle of interpretation is essential to understand the teaching of the NT.
20. The organic historical connection, and the Christocentric unity that exists between the Old and New Covenants, guarantees the usefulness of the Old Testament for the church.
21. In the term New Covenant Theology we declare that God, for his own delight, has revealed himself and manifested his glory ultimately in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ and his complete and perfect work on the Cross through which he has established a New Covenant in his blood. (Heb. 7:22; 8:6; 9:11; 10:14)
22. The pinnacle of God’s unfolding revelation comes to us in the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ himself, by the New Testament Scriptures.
23. The two testaments proclaim the same Christocentric message, but from differing standpoints.
24. The New Covenant documents, interpretive of and informed by the Old Covenant documents, are binding for the new people of God until the end of this age.

Covenants

25. God’s plan to glorify himself in Jesus Christ through the redemption of his people is revealed and administered through the unfolding of biblical covenants in the flow of redemptive history.
26. God's promise of the New Covenant was that the Messiah would be Himself the embodiment of an everlasting covenant with His people. This promise, typified in the covenants, is fulfilled in Christ. (Is. 42:6-9; 43:19; 45:21-25; 46:9-13).
27. The Old and New Covenants are two different covenants in terms of both form and function.  The one is an administration of death, and the other is an administration of life (2 Cor. 3:6-8).
28. The New Covenant is distinct from, while typified by, previous covenants in the Old Testament. The New Covenant, personified by and having put on flesh and blood in Christ, fulfills all previous covenants making them obsolete, including the Abrahamic and Sinaitic Covenants.
29. Christ has fulfilled the Adamic, Noaic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants in his life, death, resurrection, and exaltation. While he has completely fulfilled them, they yet will be consummated in him in the New Heavens and New Earth.
30. The New Covenant is a new covenant in its own right.  The New Covenant is not the Abrahamic Covenant or a recapitulation of the Abrahamic Covenant. The New Covenant is not a new administration of the Mosaic Covenant.
31. The New Covenant is not like the covenant made with the people through Moses.  Embodied and personified in Christ, the New Covenant brought into existence through the life and cross work of Christ is made with his redeemed people through grace. God's people do not enter the New Covenant by works, but by grace through faith; it is radically internal, not external; everlasting, not temporary.
32. The tearing in two of the veil in the temple was a decisive, supernatural act that visibly demonstrated the end of the Old Covenant and the establishment of the New. This end of the Old Covenant was consummated in the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.
33. As the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises of a New Covenant, Jesus Christ personifies, embodies, and incarnates the New Covenant. Thus, he Himself is the New Covenant (Isaiah 42:6, 49:8, Luke 22:20).
34. All of Scripture is to be read, understood, and interpreted in light of the New Covenant, established in Jesus Christ (Matt. 5:17; Luke 10:23-24; 24:27, 44; John 5:46; 8:56; Heb. 10:7). The New Covenant has become the interpretive paradigm for understanding the church's existence in temporal and redemptive history.
35. True biblical theology of the New Covenant is the recognition of God’s purpose, unfolding and weaving its way from Genesis to Revelation on the timeline of redemptive history, culminating in Jesus Christ.
36. Christ’s inauguration of the New Covenant brings in things that are both qualitatively and quantatively “newer,” expressed in developing the theological significance of such basic concepts as new wineskins, new teaching, new commandment, new creation, new man, new name, new song, new Jerusalem and all things new (Rev. 21:5).

The Law

37. The Law of Moses (as a totality) was connected to a particular covenant people. It was codified after a specific act of redemption, the Exodus.
38. In the ultimate purpose of God, this Mosaic economy was temporary, destined to exist "until the time of reformation" (Heb.9:10) when God would speak in a final way in His Son in the last days (Heb.1:1-2).
39. Everything going on in Israel, including the covenants and the law, was of a typical nature, and was fulfilled in the person and work of Christ (Heb.3:5; 8:5; 9:8-9) who is the New Israel of God (Matthew 2:15).
40. The Ten Commandments are not “eternal moral law” first written in the heart of man at creation and forever binding upon all mankind.
41. The Decalogue is not "transcovenantal".
42. The Decalogue is specifically tied to the Mosaic covenant and is a covenantal expression of the two greatest commandments, loving God and loving neighbor (Deuteronomy 6:5, Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 22:37-40).
43. The church no longer has to do with the law in any other way than in Christ, being onnomos Christou (in-lawed to Christ). The Old Covenant law, including the Decalogue, has been completely fulfilled in Jesus Christ which it typified in shadow and stone.
44. New Covenant believers are in-lawed to Christ through their union with Christ, and in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; they are not under the OC law of Moses.
45. Because the Old Covenant law, including the Decalogue, has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, New Covenant Theology denies that the Old Covenant law, including the Decalogue and its so-called “moral law”, is binding on New Covenant believers today.  Yet, as the special revelation of God as fulfilled in Christ, the Old Covenant law, including the Decalogue, continues to inform behavior in the New Covenant.
46. New Covenant believers, no longer under the law but in-lawed to Christ, are under the grace personified by, expressed in, and given through Jesus Christ. This means that New Covenant believers are no longer under the covenant of Moses and its terms. Since New Covenant believers are no longer under the covenant of Moses, they are no longer under its covenantal law.
47. All behavioral norms, including those detailed in the Decalogue, are ultimately defined by and expressed in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
48. While at times it may be helpful to distinguish between the ceremonial, civil, and moral aspects of Old Testament law, all laws of the Old Covenant were moral since right relationship with the God of the covenant was at stake in the keeping or breaking of those laws.
49. While at times it may be helpful to distinguish between the ceremonial, civil, and moral aspects of Old Testament law, the New Testament treats the law as a singular unit and does not distinguish between these aspects.
50. Just as the law cannot justify, the law cannot sanctify. Just as it is impossible to be justified by the law, one cannot be sanctified by the law. The background problem being addressed by Paul in 2 Corinthians 3, Galatians 3-5, and Romans 7 (albeit in 3 different church situations) is the attempt to be sanctified by the law.
51. Regeneration does not change the inability of the law to transform.  "Walking" in or by the law is the antithesis of "walking" in or by the Spirit (Galatians 5).
52. God's Old Covenant law is fulfilled in Christ Himself and obeyed by those who, in Christ, fulfill the greatest commandments to love God and their neighbor.
53. New Covenant Theology insists that the law of Christ is not to be equated with the Decalogue, nor is it to be equated with that work of the law which was on the heart of Adam and all natural men. The work of the law on all men (Romans 2:14-16) causes all men to perceive God’s power and divine nature (Romans 1:20) so that the natural man’s conscience does what the law requires (Romans 2:14) and he is without excuse.
54. The New Covenant law is called the law of Christ which is distinguished -- both in substance and in form -- from the Mosaic law.
55. Christ is the Law of the New Covenant, incarnating the new standard of judgment as to what "has had its day" in the law and what has abiding validity (Col. 2:17). The Holy Spirit is the indwelling Law of Christ, causing New Covenant members to obey Christ the Law in conformity to His image.
56. God also promised that each New Covenant member would have His law written on their hearts.  This promise, typified by circumcision, is fulfilled by the Holy Spirit who dwells in believers to guide their steps and conform them to Christ.
57. Just as the Old Covenant community was structured by written revelation which centered in Moses, so the New Covenant community is ordered by the "law of Christ" as personified and incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ, applied by the Holy Spirit,  and given in the writing of the Apostles and prophets (Eph.2:20).
58. The indwelling Holy Spirit, the law written on the heart, is the norm for Christian living.
59. New Covenant Theology emphasizes that it is the Spirit, the indwelling "law" who both causes (Ezekiel 36:27) and enables the Christian to be conformed to and transformed into Christ's image, Who is the Imago Dei, the perfect image of God.
60. “Do this and live” (Leviticus 18:5, Ezekiel 20:11,13,21, Luke 10:28, Romans 10:5, and Galatians 3:12; also Matthew 5:48 via Leviticus 19:2) is the fundamental principle of obedience to the law, expressing both Israel’s obligation to the law of God as well as all men (Romans 3:19-23). Because his people could not fulfill the fundamental principle of obedience to the law, Christ obeyed the law on behalf of his people in order to fulfill the obligations of the law and release his people from the condemnation of the law (Romans 5:1, Romans 8:1-2).
61. Christ’s perfect obedience to the law and fulfillment of the obligations is the necessary grounds for the righteousness imputed to his people, without which there is no right standing with God.
62. Because Christ has obeyed the law on behalf of his people and has become a law for his people, unlike the external Mosaic law, the Law of Christ as the Spirit applied to the redeemed is able to effect and enable the obedience and love that is in accord with Christ's obedience and love.
63. For the New Covenant church, the law of God is no longer an external standard that demands compliance with the will of God.  The Law of Christ as the indwelling Spirit is now an internal person who causes and inclines us to obey God from the heart.
64. The New Commandment of the New Covenant, the Law of Christ, expresses the indwelling of the Spirit through belief in Christ and love for one another (John 13:34, Galatians 6:2, 1 John 3:23). The work of the Spirit as the new covenant law applied to the heart of the believer (Jeremiah 31:31-34, Ezekiel 36:27) is manifest in love for God and one another, in following the examples set by Christ and his apostles, and in living out an ethic informed by the whole of the canon. Love is central to the law of Christ.
65. The New Testament and New Covenant Theology do not teach that the Ten Commandments are the objective standard for evaluating the Christian life. Christ is now the objective standard by which all holiness in the Christian life is measured.
66. The progression of history to a final New Covenant guarantees the "law of Christ", as personified and incarnated by Jesus Christ, and applied by the Spirit who is written on the heart, to be sufficient for the church.

The Sabbath

67. The Old Covenant Sabbath day was the divinely ordained sign of the Mosaic Covenant. With the rest of the Mosaic Covenant, the Old Covenant Sabbath commandment has passed into obsolescence in the inauguration of the New Covenant in Christ. The Old Covenant Sabbath has been typologically and eschatologically fulfilled by Christ for the people of God who rest in Him by faith (Romans 14:5; Colossians 2:16,17; Heb. 4:9-10).
68. New Covenant Theology denies that Sunday is a Christian Sabbath after the manner of the Old Covenant. New Covenant Theology denies that the Sabbath principle of physical rest in the Old Testament has been transferred to the first day of the week. New Covenant Theology also denies the so-called “floating day” principle, or one day in seven, since the Sabbath principle has passed into obsolescence with the rest of the Mosaic Covenant and its so-called “moral law”. New Covenant Theology denies that the physical principle of Sabbath-keeping can be transferred to the first day of the week, or any other day, without doing violence to the so-called moral aspect of the Sinaitic Covenant’s Sabbath commandment.
69. New Covenant Theology affirms that every Christian is a Sabbath-keeper because every Christian has entered in a rest from works in Christ the Sabbath Rest (Hebrews 4). Sabbath Rest for the New Covenant believer consists of resting or ceasing from works of the law or works of sin and resting by faith in Christ. Christ is our Sabbath Rest because having finished his work on our behalf he now sits at the right hand of the Father. Because Jesus Christ has become Sabbath Rest for his people, every moment of every day is Sabbath for the New Covenant believer.

The church

70. The dominion of Christ over His Kingdom (the church, Matt. 16:19, 18:17,18), typified and foreshadowed in Israel's Old Testament theocracy, has been inaugurated in the New Covenant, is expressed in the New Testament, and is effectively carried out in the life of the local assembly, the visible New Covenant church.
71. The visible and local New Covenant church is the primary means by which the invisible church is expressed and manifested in the New Covenant.
72. The church on earth is located in the local church.  New Covenant Theology recognizes that Christ exercises his Lordship in and through the local church.
73. The New Covenant church is a local, visible colony of the universal gathering in heaven. The universal gathering of God's redeemed people has begun on earth in the form and expression of the local church. Thus by intent and design, the local church as a gathering of New Covenant people who participate in faith, mirrors the universal gathering of the redeemed.
74. It is through the New Covenant church that God's wisdom for the ages and his purposes throughout revelation and history -- having been fulfilled in Jesus -- are most visibly expressed.
75. New Covenant Theology posits that the Church, which is the body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23; Col. 1:18), first came into visible existence in history when the Spirit descended and was poured out at Pentecost, not in past history under the Old Covenant.  There is only one redemptive purpose for the people of God, which is the Church, the good olive tree (Rom. 11), the body of Christ (Eph. 2:13-22; 3:1-12), the visible expression of which is the local church.

Israel

76. The New Covenant is now in force and finds its fulfillment in Jesus, the antitypical New Israel.
77. New Covenant Theology sees in Christ a fulfillment of promises that, in their Old Testament context, seemed to be addressed to Israel as a nation. It is in Christ, the New Israel, that the church enjoys the blessings of the promises that seemed to be addressed to Israel as a nation in the Old Testament Scriptures.
78. New Covenant Theology denies that there is a one to one correlation between Israel and the New Covenant church. Israel was not the church in the Old Covenant, which consisted of an admixture of those who participated in faith and those who did not. In Christ, the New Israel, the church is not an admixture of believer and unbeliever, but is entirely by faith.
79. Under the Old Covenant, Israel was the people of God. Under the New Covenant, the church is the people of God anticipated in and foreshadowed by national Israel in the Old Testament scriptures.
80. In the Old Covenant, Israel, the second Adam, was a demonstration and proclamation of Jesus as a type. Israel typified the New Israel and His redeemed New Covenant people of God. That which was true of Israel, in type, is now true of Jesus as the federal head of His new covenant people in fulfillment. Thus, the supreme covenantal formula promised to Israel is now true of the church: Jehovah is our God, and we are His people. Christ, the New Covenant, now dwells among His people.

Fazekas: "A gospel theme runs like a silver thread throughout the Bible"

"The story of mankind's redemption is 'monergistic'; that is, it beings with God alone as the 'Prime Mover.' Genesis 3:15 gives the first prophetic promise, an account of the coming struggle between 'the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent,' whose outcome is never in question. Couched within the conflict is the divine declaration of promise and fulfillment. God pledges to send 'The Coming One,' a Savior, who would crush the head of Satan to redeem a fallen race. Then he fulfills His promise when Christ appears in the flesh.

"The Old Testament is filled with types and shadows, prophetic indicators announcing through the ancient nation of Israel a Redeemer who would come to deliver His people. Unmistakably, a gospel theme runs like a silver thread throughout the Bible, joining promise to fulfillment." -- Steve Fazekas, "Salvation Before the Cross", Answers Magazine, April-June 2011, p. 29

Goldsworthy: "The gospel achieves noetic salvation for us through the perfect mind of Christ our Savior."

"It stands to reason that, if the fall involved an epistemological disaster, then salvation must include epistemological redemption. Sinful thinking is 'snake-think', the kind of noetic rebellion proposed by the serpent in Eden. It is diametrically opposed to the mind renewed by the gospel. The godless presuppositions underlying the temptation and fall in Genesis 3 include the following:​

1. If God is there, he does not communicate the truth.
2. We do not need God to reveal the rational framework for understanding reality.
3. Human reason is autonomous, and the ultimate arbiter of truth and falsity, right and wrong.​

"...This noetic fall must be addressed by the gospel if the salvation of fallen humans is to be complete. The gospel achieves noetic salvation for us through the perfect mind of Christ our Savior. This is part of his righteous make-up as the perfect human being. His is the human mind in perfect relationship with the mind of God. To be justified includes our noetic justification. In this sense all believers have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). Our noetic sanctification is the fruit of our justification in Christ. It is the gradual formation within us of what we have in Christ through faith. the renewal of the mind is an ongoing process by which our thinking is conformed more and more to the truth as it is in Jesus."

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"...Christ is designated as the 'wisdom of God' (1 Corinthians 1:24) and also 'our wisdom' (1 Cor. 1:30). He is the difference between the world's wisdom, which in reality is foolishness, and the wisdom of God, which the world perversely assesses as foolishness. The epistemological framework that corresponds with reality is the gospel itself." - Graham Goldsworthy, Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics, pp. 60-61

Goldsworthy: "Jesus' mediatorial role is the guarantee of real communication between God and people"

The Derived Presuppositions of Christian Theism​

1. God has revealed himself as rational, and as communicator, as well as sovereign Lord and Creator
2. Human beings are rational receivers of God's communication, because that is how he has made us.
3. Sin consists in, among other things, a willful refusal of truth and the substitution of human reason as autonomous in the place of God's self-attesting revelation.
4. Redemptive revelation and the work of the Holy Spirit are necessary to restore humans to a state where they can receive ultimate, but not exhaustive, truth.
5. The mediatorial role of Jesus of Nazareth is the guarantee of real communication between God and people. The gospel of Jesus Christ reveals him as the Word of God who is the truth. Jesus as the divine communicator, the saving message and the human receiver demonstrates where the heart of true hermeneutics lies. The gospel is the power of God for salvation, which includes hermeneutical salvation.

"...we must resist all attempts to remove the sovereignty of the Creator-Word from our thinking about meaning and communication. Consistent evangelical hermeneutics must begin with God as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ." -- Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics, pp. 53-54

Goldsworthy: "Jesus' mediatorial role is the guarantee of real communication between God and people"

The Derived Presuppositions of Christian Theism​

1. God has revealed himself as rational, and as communicator, as well as sovereign Lord and Creator
2. Human beings are rational receivers of God's communication, because that is how he has made us.
3. Sin consists in, among other things, a willful refusal of truth and the substitution of human reason as autonomous in the place of God's self-attesting revelation.
4. Redemptive revelation and the work of the Holy Spirit are necessary to restore humans to a state where they can receive ultimate, but not exhaustive, truth.
5. The mediatorial role of Jesus of Nazareth is the guarantee of real communication between God and people. The gospel of Jesus Christ reveals him as the Word of God who is the truth. Jesus as the divine communicator, the saving message and the human receiver demonstrates where the heart of true hermeneutics lies. The gospel is the power of God for salvation, which includes hermeneutical salvation.

"...we must resist all attempts to remove the sovereignty of the Creator-Word from our thinking about meaning and communication. Consistent evangelical hermeneutics must begin with God as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ." -- Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics, pp. 53-54

Goldsworthy: "Christ interprets all facts"

"(The biblical) story tells of events from creation to new creation in a narrative that takes us throught the fall, the call of Abraham, the Redemption of Israel, the fortunes of the nation and the prophetic promises and expectations for the fulfillment of the original covenant promises.  At the climax of the story is the event of the incarnation of the Christ, his life, death, resurrection and ascension to glory. The purposes of God in this story are expressed in such a way as to show that the destiny of all the peoples of the world and of the whole universe is tied to the work of God in Christ...

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"If the biblical story is true, Christ is the only savior for humankind and there is room for no other way to God. If the story is true, Jesus Christ is the interpretative key to every fact in the universe and, of course, the Bible is one such fact. He is thus the hermeneutic principle that applies first to the Bible as the ground for understanding, and also to the whole of reality. Interpreting reality correctly is a by-product of salvation. Thus, we must assert that the person and work of Jesus Christ are foundational for evangelical hermeneutics...Christ interprets all facts, since all things were created in him, through him, and for him (Col. 1:16). As the one mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5), Christ mediates the ultimate truth of God about all things and thus about the meaning of the Bible.

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The principle of Christ alone points us to the soteriological and hermeneutical priority of the gospel of Christ." - Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel-centered Hermeneutics, p. 48

Horton: We are in a better position than Moses in redemptive history

"​...the communication of divine action (is) divinely authorized analogical discourse within the context of a covenant that plays itself out in a world-historical drama... the sensus plenior relates not only to the biblical writers, for whom the ultimate fulfillment of their prophecies was not necessarily comprehended fully, but to us as contemporary readers.

"We are in a better position than Moses in redemptive history, viewing the future from a higher vista in that progress of salvation, but we are still in a less direct line of sight than those who have passed from the theology of pilgrims to the theology of glorified saints, or those who will be witnesses of 'the end of the age'." Michael Horton, Covenant and Eschatology, p. 103

Vos on Biblical exegetes and hermeneuticizers: "dependent and receptive"

"...The beginning of our Theology consists in the appropriation of that supernatural process by which God has made Himself the object of our knowledge. We are not left to our own choice here, as to where we shall begin our theological study. The very nature of Theology requires us to begin with those branches which relate to the revelation-basis of our science.

"Our attitude from the outset must be a dependent and receptive one. To let the image of God's self-revelation in the Scriptures mirror itself as fully and clearly as possible in his mind, is the first and most important duty of every theologian." Biblical Theology, by Geerhardus Vos

Greg Beale on New Testament Biblical Theology - audio

Dr. Greg Beale provides an audio preview of his upcoming "New Testament Biblical Theology" to be published by Baker later this year. See 11-2-10 and 11-3-10 from the Sizemore Lectures at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary - Audio Resource Podcast - powered by FeedBurner

Vos: "In his sinful condition...man... is absolutely dependent on the self-disclosure of God"

"In his sinful condition, while retaining some knowledge of God, man for all pure and adequate information in divine things is absolutely dependent on that new self-disclosure of God which we call supernatural revelation. 

1. By the new birth and the illumination of the mind darkened through sin, a new subject is created.

2. By the objective self-manifestation of God as the Redeemer, a new order of things is called into being.

3. And by the depositing of the truth concerning this new order of things in the Holy Scriptures, the human mind is enabled to obtain that new knowledge which is but the reflection in the regenerate consciousness of an objective world of divine acts and words." -- Geerhardus Vos, Inaugural Address, The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Discipline