Published: September 5, 2024 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Biblical Theology 1 - The Arc of Revelation - Part 5 | Scripture: John 5:39-47
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Systematic Theology is has not been correct so if we're going to do it then there has to be some way of knowing if we're doing it correctly does that make sense okay and then the final one
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someone preach the preaching and teaching of the word is is the means by which men shall be saved Okay so so I'm I'm in favor all
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four of these and and I don't want to I guess what I was trying to show is that that gardis Voss the first professor of biblical theology stuck his
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program under one of these okay JB gabbler the guy who's kind of the fa modern father of modern biblical
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theology stuck it under this one what I'm trying to say is it doesn't under any of them it's the air that they all breathe okay does that help any I am not
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at all suggesting that we pay less attention to these what I am suggesting that is if we're going to de do these correctly we're going to do so because
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we understand the whole counsel of God if we don't understand the whole counsel of God how can we do any of these correctly
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these correctly okay does that help a do that
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at you you you might be but the church by and large does not should be oh that's what I'm saying that's the whole thing that's what I'm trying to say it should be it really should be but it's not biblical theology
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has has definitely fallen out of Vogue for the last for most of the last 1800 years and since the Reformation Systematic Theology again I've tried to
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show historically Systematic Theology has led to the development of Creeds and confessions which then become what is studied so they you're you're absolutely
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right that should be looking at the whole Council of scripture but they're not they're looking at this confession or the defense of the heidleberg catechism or whatever I
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thought one of the more helpful things you said last week in defining biblical theology was the difference between looking at the how versus the what so yes in
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yes in systematics who are going through the whole Council of scripture but it's more proof texting it's what did God say here what did God say there how do we comp
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here but you're not thinking about God ring himself to people you're not looking at Big themes
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or allegory or repetition or it's just the facts it Systematic Theology is really just the facts man it it and we've talked about that before biblical
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theology is often treated as if it were the process of gathering together proof texts to defend our doctrines that's not biblical theology that doesn't mean that proof
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texts aren't necessary but proof texts can be used to prove opposite things The Armenian has his
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proof text as does the calvinist right how do we know which set of proof texts is in fact the correct Paradigm by knowing the whole Council of
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scripture by knowing the arc the trajectory of Revelation okay by understanding the role of not only quotations but Illusions and even
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Echoes because God's revelation is one it's unified in the Canon of scripture so what I'm trying to present is that if if we don't employ and and that's why I
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think biblical or canonical theology is not one of the it's not a fifth theology I didn't put it up there as number five because it's it's not that kind of
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Theology and even the name theology has been debated because it really is more how we do the other theologies by by thinking and it's not
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just by thinking Bible verses it's by following the whole Arc of divine of divine revelation okay so
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um yeah I I don't I don't know that I'll succeed in in getting this across uh over time I I hope it will become more a part of the way we think about
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scripture not in terms of trying to defend our particular um doctrinal point of view but rather better understanding why we hold that point of view because
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of how God has revealed himself from the beginning again I I've never i' I've always struggled going through multiple degrees okay I've
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struggled with the fact that what we do with scripture is not how God gave us scripture does that does that not bother anybody else I mean at least make you
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pause and think are are we doing the right thing well I think we're doing what we have to do but that does not mean we're doing it correctly that's really what where the rub is just to say
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that we're doing Systematic Theology doesn't mean we're doing it
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the spoken at least a word of caution if not spoke against a specialized vocabulary with of of Believers I I don't like Christian ease right okay so but it seems like if if
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we're attempting to use scripture in the life of the church the way the did we would be saying things to each other
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Allah it is written Etc that would in fact give rise to a certain specialized way of speaking you speak to that open trailer
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well I I don't think that we our language I think that I I don't think
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that necess necessarily the apostles when they were talking with their churches and preaching and whatever I mean they they point out just as we still do that you know this fulfills the prophecy of Joel okay uh that's that's a
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quotation um that that's necessary for authoritative teaching to be able to to quote and reference passages in scripture when I talk about a biblic or
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a a Christian language I'm just saying we're using a language that our neighbors don't neighbors don't understand okay I I noticed that very early on because I was raised hedonistic
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Pagan so you know entering into the church was like y'all got a different language here okay you're saying things that I don't even know what the meaning of how you how you using that word is
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not how I use that word and and I don't think it's you can be denied that we do have a a different dialect and I don't think that
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think that that's I don't I don't think Paul did he says I I am all things to all men that by any means I may win some I I don't know that he spoke to other people in a
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that he had a religious Voice versus you know when he was just selling tents uh yeah I I guess I I just think there's a form of artificiality to it that I that I object to I
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possibility you're talking about going forward in a way that we're kind of practically accusing most other fellowships of not uh yes I I'm I but we've always done that we've always advocated that that you be in the word
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that You' be knowledgeable in the word and that you be able to uh ask intelligent questions and even challenge the elders that that's never been that that has always been the the
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modus sarandi of of this congregation and there are others the same way um but it it's a it's a paradigm shift for most Christians because they they have been
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essentially led to believe that church is a top- down Ministry you know that that the the man in the Pulpit is the one who's to do all the study and
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provide all the teaching and I don't think you can get that out of scripture so will there be a non-artificial language oh absolutely I think so but I think I think though that what happens
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is the word becomes so much your worldview that you can't help organizing your thoughts according to it and when you
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organize your thoughts according to the word your speech will come along because that's just the communication of your thought okay I I would just avoid AR consciously artificial language
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noticeably artificial language I I just don't I don't think that that's um
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well um I appreciate you sticking with it we'll keep going and um see where it leads so tonight we're going to be talking about the the concept of canonical theology I I want
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to go ahead and make the shift that I've mentioned before I don't know that I'll do it consistently I I even say in the notes I'm not I'm not sure this is going to stick a change in name um but I do
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think that biblical theology one of of the reasons why there are so many different views of what it means is because it's its name is so generic
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biblical theology if you if you were to go on Amazon and buy a Biblical Theology and I can actually name one um what you're going to get is a survey of the
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Bible where the the author is starting with Genesis is giving you a summary of each book of the Bible from Genesis to revelate that is not biblical theology
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that's a survey of the Bible and they're beneficial too I have several of them in my library from Seminary you know it's kind of nice to to be able to to pick it up and say okay I'm I'm about to study
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Jonah let me get an overview of it yeah that's fine but that's not biblical theology so we're going to be talking tonight that's not the good one about
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the concept of the the con the Canon um as the context of divine
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revelation so this is a shift because we've always talked about how exegetical theology needs to focus on the context of the passage and that is true that's
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we're not changing that but the exercise of exegetical historical systematic or practical theology has to reside in the context of
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the Canon okay so what we're going
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here is the idea of the Canon as context to context to start with a question how many bibles do we
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have I don't mean how many actual bound copies of the Bible that you have at home I mean do we have two Bibles or one okay is it two or
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one I think everybody's going to say one right we have one Bible although chances are if you open your Bible like mine a
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study Bible there will be quite a number of non-biblical texts between Mal and Matthew okay lots of Publishers do that to
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provide a place to put extraneous information like old ancient weights and measures and things like that and some of the these kind of interesting but it it's somewhat interesting to me that
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they do that whereas most books if you were to treat a book as a book and you wanted to put in that kind of information you would put it in the appendices at the back you wouldn't just go right in the
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middle of the story and add 50 pages of of just of just Arcana right but we do that with our Bibles and we think that's
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okay we we in fact we probably don't even think about it oh
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underneath right and then yeah right that I that I mean just understand that you're yeah it's distracting I I have it in mind um the you know most they're called study Bibles um and
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yeah you can get one without them yeah I don't really read my notes I don't think I ever have um they're there but I I don't pay attention to them it's
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really just a running commentary is what it is what you have then is a Bible with commentary um but it's not really a commentary sometimes it's commentary verse by verse other times it's um it's
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a i I know that it's Systematic Theology but what they're doing is they're they're telling you what the passage means in as you read the passage you can
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go down below and find out what it is this means um I I'm not a big fan of them but I I wouldn't say is if you recognize what you're dealing with then
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there's really no danger in it is what I would say and you may find that when you got your Bible I got my Bible um well has probably
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been 40 close to 40 years since I've had this Bible was in Oklahoma City right we know it's heretical
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um can anything good come out of Oklahoma um I don't agree with the notes that are in my Bible they're Armenian
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they're dispensational um but I didn't throw the Bible away because I got a lot of my own notes in it so I I I don't think that's quite the same because what I'm pointing out is that that we do separate the two
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Testaments we physically separate them in our Bibles and we do that and we accept that because
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practically speaking we treat them as two different two different Bibles so while our doctrinal answer will be one Bible our practical answer
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is two Bibles okay so I want to deal with that because it it really it's it's pervading even the the modern study of biblical theology so um the
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Practical answer is answer is two the Old Testament well that's the Bible of the Jews right that's the Bible of Israel and if
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you've had any experience with dispensationalism then you know that that is what it is it's the Bible the promises were made to Abraham's heirs the people the physical
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descendants of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and that's their Bible the church really cannot lay claim to the promises that were made in the Old Testament and the
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dispensationalist has a really hard time with much of the New Testament where it seems that the church does lay claim to those very those very promises so but the the the fundamental
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principle is that the Old Testament is the Bible of Bible of Israel okay and the New
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Testament is the Bible of the church now does anybody disagree that practically speaking this is largely
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true does anybody oppose that statement not oppose just I'm not sure that just personally speaking my background the Presbyterians really has this in it
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might take a little convincing that they actually treat actually treat so yes it would uh the the covenantal theology does work against that I would
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say their their their emphasis is too much on much on continuity um and so I am but I'm also coming from the position that over the past 150 years Armenian
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dispensationalism has has been the most influential um Paradigm within Evangelical Christianity so so most most Christian experience will be similar to
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what I'm saying okay um outside the reformed tradition that has its own errors um but but I'm going to also point out that within the reformed tradition the same thing is still
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happening and I'm going to give you two uh contemporary reformed Scholars who are evidencing the same d dichotomy between the Testaments though they deny
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it their their approach to biblical theology I think uh proves them their denials to be F functionally false okay
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so that that's a good point uh covenantalism does emphasize the continuity of of the Testaments but um perhaps perhaps even too
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much I think most most Believers in the 21st century would say that experience has been primarily within the New Testament in terms of teaching and preaching uh would be in the New
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Testament now obviously if you've been at Fellowship Bible Church for any length of time you know that we're somewhat of an anomaly as that goes because we do spend a fair amount of time in the Old Testament okay all right
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so um I mean what we're dealing with here is is a very early problem in the church in the second century marcion basically came out publicly and
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said we have nothing to do do with the Old Testament that is not the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ those writings are legalistic and not that do not represent Grace and therefore the
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Old Testament is is jettisoned from the church and then he went into the New Testament and basically excised any real uh obvious Jewish Tendencies um I don't
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know if marcian was an anti-semite I don't know really what it what his personal views were but what he was doing is again something that's been done repeatedly through the history of the church and that is to fully divorce
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the Christian religion from the Jewish religion so what we're what we're doing here is actually manifesting not just how many bibles we have but what we're
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saying is that we're dealing with two different religions okay so there are not only two Bibles but there are functionally two
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again that that has been massively uh propagated by the teaching of dispensationalism I mean I don't know how you can escape if you have any any knowledge at all of the dispensational
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belief system e even to the point of of saying and and I'm not making this up that God the father is the husband of Israel and Jesus the son is the husband
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of the of the church now that to me is a really weird concept do we all get in the car and go to Edisto for the weekend what this weird kind of D family Dynamic where
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then Israel is our mother some stepmother or something it's like where are you going with this but you know some of the things I I've read in um
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Dwight Pentecost who is a very popular a very odd name but he's actually not Pentecostal I guess he's truly Pentecostal um but but he he says in his
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book that if Israel had accepted Jesus as her Messiah then God would have developed a different way to save Gentiles I'm reading that in black and
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white in print okay um so you you can see that then he's 20th century so this is this is not old stuff so it's been massively influential in the way just
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your average Christian thinks then we talked about the functional biblical illiteracy so nobody's going back to the word and realizing well that's not how Paul wrote
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that's not how Peter spoke they they didn't seem to make this dichotomy oh we got a new religion now the other one wasn't working and now we're going to come up with a new one you don't you
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don't hear that at all in the New Testament and in fact what you do hear is that the the Old Testament was the Bible of the writers of the New Testament the problem is that the prach
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and even worse the congre of the dispensational churches when you very clear example your preacher is going through Revelation what which anle
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is he taking he's taking the biblical
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don't Millen what what are the churches and they meens no that's the Bible That's the Bible Well they and that's not okay the dispensational isn't the only one who
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doesn't recognize that their view is not necessarily biblical the reformed is the same way so if it if it's your view of course it's correct then it's biblical which is one of the problems with the
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name biblical theology because everybody thinks their theology is biblical uh unless you're just a Flatout heretic and admit it you know you admit you say oh you know my theology isn't
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dispensational it's just biblical because I take the literal meaning of the word the word okay um and we're going to be dealing with that kind of thing um
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but again the the two things that when you read your read your Bible should stand out with regard to how the church does its Theology and
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does its preaching and teaching the two things are I've already mentioned the one God did not reveal himself systematically and if we are the
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theology is the is the knowledge of God so if we're going to come to know God and do it entirely in a manner other than he has revealed himself what makes
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us think that we're going to get it right okay secondly we need to recognize that the New Testament authors didn't treat the Old Testament the way we do we
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don't often often we don't understand how they're treating the Old Testament isn't that not true you read it it's like I don't know how you got that from that passage and you go back to the passage
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in the Old Testament and you say well that's not what it says Ephesians 4 that he led captivity captive and he gave gifts to men that's not what the
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psalm says okay so that's just one of many examples hopefully in a couple weeks we're going to start getting down to Brass tax and dealing with specific
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examples of of these Concepts that I I want to point out but you've all experienced them but you've just you've just plowed just plowed ahead or or you've you've just gone with
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what you've been taught or what seems to make the most sense to you that's what you go with I think we're supposed to be challenged by what they're writing
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because I think they were challenged by what they had experienced they didn't abandon what they had been taught they didn't abandon the god of Israel or any of his promises
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but every everything came so quickly and so differently than what they were expecting do you think they were not confused the two men on the road the
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disciples on the road to Emmas Peter were they not was he not confused years later he's writing about Paul's letter he's still confused got to love him you know but but we we think no
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no you know they got it all right they they wrote everything that we need to know and preacher tells us what I'm supposed to believe and that's that's all and I've had people tell me that they don't want to think about
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it because it bothers them like okay I can't deal with that I mean I I can't deal with the concept of unthinking
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Christians because that means the holy spirit in you is not guiding you into all truth what's he doing does that make sense you know I'm
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not saying that everybody's going to be a scholar you know a PhD in theology nothing like that but if you if you have no desire to be challenged by the word of God how is the holy spirit living in
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you what's he doing in there really when he's promised that he will guide you into all truth and he will take from me and give to you and you
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don't want it how is that acceptable and I know that that describes probably most of the people that you know that profess to be Christian does it
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not and doesn't that bother you it should bother you again it doesn't come down to wanting to be smart it comes down to you have the Holy
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Spirit the Holy Spirit who has been sent to guide you into all truth and deepen your knowledge of God through Jesus Christ and Jesus himself said many things I have yet to teach you but
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you're not ready but I will send the comforter and he'll tell you all these things I'm sorry I don't really want to hear it this is what I've always been taught and this is what I'm going to
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believe and you know over the years I've heard that many many many times and it's a very distressing thing to hear okay um so that's why I I really hope that this
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course as we get into the nuts and bolts of it especially will help you read your Bibles better to read your Old Testament the way the New Testament writers read
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theirs because it's the same Old Testament the way they were able to draw that scriptures the New Testament
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scriptures they were able to to understand what God was now doing at the end of the ages through his son Jesus Christ and yet they do it in a way that
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is not always clear to us and I think it's because their understanding of the Old Testament was um atmospheric and ours is not so
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that's that's where we at okay we're at okay so we have this issue now as I said I agree with with Aaron that this is not so much a problem at least on overt
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problem with the um Presbyterians or the reformed as it is with the dispensationalists in fact the very uh structure of dispensation
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dispensationalism makes it a problem God starts with a Plan of Salvation in the beginning of a dispensation man fails to employ that
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scheme of scheme of Salvation and earns the wrath of God in judgment which comes at the end of that dispensation where there's judgment and then the start of a new
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dispensation so they don't have two they they have well they have seven isn't that convenient okay always be suspicious when someone comes up with seven all
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right you have to you want to go to their trash can and find out which ones they threw away to get seven okay um there used to be I think upwards of um
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well I know there were 13 13 s you can't have 13 sacraments it's an unlucky number you know no how many sacraments you got to have you got to have seven
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okay clearly the Protestants are wrong because they don't even have three they only have two okay what is that um dualism uh so yeah you got to be careful when you hear the word the number
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seven so the dispensationalist has divided the Bible up into dispensations that are hermetically sealed from one another now I think we can read our Bibles and realize that it's not
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hermetically sealed at all and our new testament is not sealed off from the Old Testament at all it it continues on and permeates there are something like 355
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direct quotations direct quotations in the New Testament of the Old Testament um that's just direct quotations that doesn't include
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illusions of which there are many and it doesn't even touch Echoes which the whole new testament is full of okay and that's what we're going we're trying to to get into um so
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I've had biblical theologies in my library for years I've I've used them in Systematic Theology um but it it's only been you know recently that I I thought about you know I think I really need to
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try to teach this particular course on biblical theology that I've pulled them off the shelf and you know put them in my my office and working with them one of the things that struck me is the
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titles two in particular um Greg Beals uh GK Beal and Thomas Shriner um they're both entitled New Testament biblical
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Testament biblical theology I have another one that is an Old Testament biblical theology that seems like an oxymoron New Testament biblical theology what are you
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saying aren't aren't you saying that the New Testament is the Bible maybe not an oxymoron maybe a contradiction of terms or something that that you're you're you're associating one part of the Bible
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with your biblical theology okay and that is common that's most common um and and and this is how the biblical theology then is done it's
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done in retrospect and I want to talk a little bit about that because that's not how I want to do it so I'm going to talk about two about two particular now putting these up here
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because these are good books I'm just dissing the titles okay I'm not dissing the books at all they're they're they're well written they have a lot of good
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material in them but I wonder why the authors are doing this and I think I I can understand their approach and it may seem to you reasonable and that's fine I
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guess I want to say that's not my Approach particularly if you are going through this and you decide you know what I want to I want to get some biblical theologies from my library I want to read well you're going to be
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surprised that what you find is going to have titles like Old Testament biblical theology or new testament biblical theology Bard Charles was probably the first in in toward the end of his life
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in the early 1990s he wrote a Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testament and while he was not he could not be considered a conservative
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Evangelical I would say at best he's he's a moderate Evangelical definitely Evangelical but influenced by the liberal wing of Christianity um he he is
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the one who kind of spearheaded the idea of we don't need to be tearing apart the pentat took pentat took into deuteronomist and yist and Priestly
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we don't need to be tearing apart Isaiah into different into different writers we need to recognize that this is the Canon that has always been the Canon for believing Jews and believing Christians throughout the Millennia
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canonical theology okay so in in looking at it that way when he when he came to write his magnum opus it was just inconceivable for him
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to divided into two different Testaments because there's only one Canon obviously that Cannon came about over Generations over Millennia but is
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still only one and therefore there can only be one biblical theology but what are these particular authors doing GK
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these authors is that they have they have hit upon they they've got a a bolt of lightning struck their brain they've had
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an epiphany they they think they have found the unifying theme of God's revelation they found part of it and what they have to say about it is
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probably pretty good but they think it's the only thing and it's like you just have to take them with a grain of theological salt all right because they're off on their little camp and they you know they're in their own own
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world and people like them there so you know be happy for them but Greg Beals is the new creation eschatology and everything is oriented around New Creation now the new creation
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is incredi important as a part of God's revelation it really is I don't know that we can say it's the unifying theme of
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scripture how you put it together yeah it and I'm I'm heading there thank you for saying that because at this point um just like I said Systematic Theology will lead towards
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scholasticism okay okay because Systematic Theology produces normative Doctrine which gets written down and becomes the the wagons circled around the camp of the church and then we begin
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to Circle other wagons around those wagons and we we start not talking about the Bible but about the confession or the CATE that's scholasticism okay so that's a natural
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path well this type of biblical theology will naturally lead toward Systematic Theology what you're doing is you're you're finding a particular theme and
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then you're or that's systematizing then you're orienting the scripture to that theme but you're approaching it with your opinion of what ties it all
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together okay so you're you have to do something with scripture to see the whole picture but you can do too much with it you we we know that the big ones
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are dispensations or covenants right well honestly Beal has done the same thing with the creation I would I love reading what he has to say about it it's biblical it's
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true it's a whole lot more exciting than dispensations because in in in his analysis God's analysis God's winning okay in dispensation you never
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know I mean he's lost every inning who's how's he going to win the game I I wondered that when I was a dispensation I this is not turning out well okay go back back to the back of
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the book and make sure the right person wins um but his idea of New Creation eschatology so that go that goes back to
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the Old Testament he spends 180 Pages talking about the Old Testament in his new testament biblical theology this why I'm dissing the title okay I recommend
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the book just take the cover off you know get a marker and write your own um yeah he he goes back but he goes goes back he takes he what he's doing is
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basically Systematic Theology through the Paradigm of the new creation and how that new creation was promised in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament and all every chapter is such
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and such as new creational eschatology even his table of contents tell you that's an easy one here's my Paradigm and this this is how I'm you know
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thinking about everything that's not really biblical theology it is a form of systematic it's just a different way of systematizing but it's still the
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same Beast okay so I I I I wouldn't even really call it a Biblical theology I think it's a it's a new creation New Testament theology is what it is and
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it's well worth reading but and then the other one was Thomas
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Shriner and his is New Testament biblical theology the king in his Beauty okay and again it's an excellent book now the main
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title is that but it is really a a very well-written Bible well-written Bible survey showing how Jesus is the unifying theme of
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scripture I I hate to say that he isn't being sounds being sounds bad um I mean clearly Jesus is Central to God's to God's revelation but can we say that the
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person and work of Jesus as revealed in the gospels in the New Testament can we say that's truly the unifying concept of the whole
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the whole Canon we can certainly see him in retrospect but can we can we actually
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unify the whole of scripture around him yes you yes you think why do you think that pardon me woman oh no I I'm not saying he's not
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there Redemptive history is what we're talking about yes but can we take that red I'm glad you said that because it is Redemptive history
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right well have you read history where a you know Nile Ferguson excellent where is he at Yale Harvard he's in one of the
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Ivy Leagues okay everything is economic history Carl Marx okay everything is economic history it that's the unifying
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theme of a history I I am not at all denying that the the seed and I've said this in Thursday night classes the seed is a is
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a theme that runs through all of scripture but so is creation there there's still that fundamental philosophical question why is there not
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nothing okay Jesus as a theme a unifying theme of all of scripture leaves out many other strands of unifying
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revelation of which he is the major I don't get me wrong he is maybe I'll put it this way and maybe this sounds corny but we talked about the warp and the Woof and I've already forget which is
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which but I think the Woof goes that way and the warp goes this way when it's all said and done and we look at the tapestry it's Jesus in that way he's
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unifying but there are so many other themes that run through the scripture that do not directly impinge on Jesus as the Redeemer that I would
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say no he's not the unifying theme of the revelation of God in
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scripture matal uh that's an interesting way of looking at it um no I think I understand where you're going with that let me try to rephrase what I'm saying to make any one theme
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the unifying theme of
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that when we breathe air we really are only using one part of it the oxygen which is only
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20% if air did not diffuse perfectly if the elements did not diffuse perfectly we would spend our entire life looking out for that 20% for our next gasp of breath but it is diffused
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perfectly and we are created to use what we need and not what we don't now I'm not saying there's anything in Scripture that we don't need but what I'm I'm trying to say is that the scripture is
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is a multifaceted revelation of the glory of glory of God the the Crown Jewel in that glory is his Revelation through his son Jesus
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Christ okay so I don't want to be misunderstood as diminishing the importance of Jesus in that Revelation but what I'm trying to say is it's it's like this is a different metaphor it's
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like a diamond it is multifaceted the light of each facet shines the glory of God but there are you know there are other aspects I mean
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you can look at the Angels they are not strictly necessary nor are they subject to Redemptive history because they're not
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redeemed but they're clearly both good and evil a theme in scripture so um I I I know that what I'm
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saying will strike some of you as as borderline heretical because you know Jesus is the most important thing yes he is but that's not the same as saying that he's the unifying theme of the
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Canon of scripture okay boy my word woo I think they just did the wave over on that side Josiah was first I just GNA say I think it makes
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sense for Christ to be utterly Central but not the unifying of that he was sent to accom the pures of
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God yeah in a sense he is everything and a sense he's part of it yes that does that help no doesn't help Aaron okay you you were next go ahead you had your hand up Bible is's
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us I is Central thing of the Bible that but the Bible Doom everything that God is okay but okay but I I I'll disagree with you that that it's not biblical to say the Bible is God's revelation to us
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because these are things even angels look into long La yes but they do they they are part of it that Angels long to look into they
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there are spectators but they to the principality it's well now listen yeah it's Revelation to the powers and principalities in the Heavenly places see yes it is it's I mean it it
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God is revealing his glory Colossians 1 I think it's 1 not 17 29 that he is revealing his glory to to the universe it's not just about our
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Redemption that is part of it that's our glorious gracious part of it but it's not the whole because he's also revealing his glory in his judgment against unbelief and
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wickedness but there's as I said there's also an entire species of being that the scripture is revelation
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to but not in a Redemptive way and I think we're going to find out that the word of God as as we know from the Psalms is also Revelation to the
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unbeliever that there will not be a separate judgment to the believer that is not revealed to them in scripture creation is revealed to us in scripture but creation itself is a
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revelation of God's power and goodness to all to all mankind Romans 1 and Psalm 19 there there is no language in which their
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voice is not heard okay so I don't think I agree that it it is that way limited I don't I think that the word of God being his
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disclosure to his creation is to all his creation but not in the same way I mean that comes out really powerfully when Paul says not all Israel
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is Israel I mean the content of that statement is really quite because how can you deny he doesn't even deny he says theirs were the oracles theirs were
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the prophets theirs was the law and yet not all Israel is Israel so I
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mean I I I really don't want want to rock anybody's boats but there's I'm trying to say that there's a lot more to God's revelation of himself and the more we know of God's revelation of himself
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the more we appreciate his Revelation through grace through faith through salvation to those of us who
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outpouring Spirit well okay that's that's a good question what do you do about the Holy Spirit and what do you do about God the Father I mean the ultimate revelation of scripture is of God everything else is subsumed even the
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revelation of Jesus Christ we read in Hebrews 1 is the revelation of the glory of God so I mean that doesn't diminish Jesus but let's not exalt Jesus and
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diminish the father or the Holy Spirit without whom we wouldn't know the revelation of Jesus the son okay okay
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um all right I touched a store store spot there we couldn't understand we could not understand any of the Old
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Testament without Jus we couldn't understand it fully but I couldn't say that the faithful Jew of whatever day before
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Christ did not understand what had been revealed they understood it to the point that it had been revealed and by faith they were saved
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were saved butt not that intent no make any sense no I but we but we can because of
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Jesus that the the Old Testament Saint was not ignorant of the of the ways of God that had been revealed up to that point and they were even somewhat
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knowledgeable through faith and Prophecy of the dimly lit future I mean there was Simeon there was Anna at the birth of Christ that there
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were those who from the Old Testament alone were able to discern that this was the promised one by the grace of
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they recognized that a redeemer a a consolation of Israel and the the glory of Israel and the consolation of the Gentiles was Gentiles was coming it was revealed to Simeon that
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the one who was coming was Jesus but that one was coming one was coming a promised one they received from the scriptures who he was in particular was
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revealed to them I think directly I think that's what you're saying yeah okay I I I I think I'm just going to have to ask you to accept that and and I hope this you know if if if you go home
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thinking that um chck doesn't believe that Jesus is the most important that's that's sad um as far as we're concerned there is you know there is no salvation without Jesus
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Christ and there is no Revelation or understanding of Revelation without Jesus Christ equally however there is no salvation without the Holy Spirit and there is no Revelation or understanding
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of Revelation without the Holy Spirit if we did not I mean if we are not born again which is an act of the Holy Spirit then Jesus is nothing to us
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Paul says that in Romans 8 if you have not the spirit of Christ you are none of his so I'm not trying to diminish Jesus I'm simply saying and I would agree with Josiah that while he is he is Central
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although I would be more elliptical in that with Jesus being one of the folai and the Holy Spirit being the other but that is true that doesn't necessarily
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make him the unifying theme of the revelation of of of God in scripture okay I think that what you you find when you when you find when you
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read Shriner okay or Luther um you will find that a lot of passages have to be made to fit that
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Paradigm we have to make everything fit a single unifying theme and I don't think it's ever been done successfully because I don't think there
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is again I do think that the tapestry is a a better analogy a better metaphor where there are numerous themes um God
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being one of them the the first one is actually in in my opinion the one we're going to deal with first is
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creation again I'm trying to look at the revelation of God as he has revealed it not as we have the I don't know I'm not going to get that into a verb not as we have done our theology around it or from
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it but how he revealed it and we read in the beginning God made the heavens and the Earth that's where he starts it's also where John
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starts thus uniting the logos with the word okay so yes Jesus is there at the beginning but what starts it all is that
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God did create there is not nothing that is in itself and that remains a theme all the way through scripture to to the very end of
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Revelation okay even in Isaiah you end the book with the creation of the new Heaven and the new Earth
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um be patient hopefully hopefully what I'm saying will come together um and and not sound as heretical as it might sound right now but um when you look at a Biblical theology
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along any along any particular unifying particular unifying theme then I think Aaron is right you're basically doing Systematic Theology you're you're working all of
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the data toward one particular system category and I don't I don't think that's profitable okay so um
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let me let me move on um see if this is helpful because this the conversation has has gotten a little
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bit tense so I don't want to um make it any more any more so um Peter stacher writes a book how to do biblical theology it's a very short
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paperback and in it he says it has become standard procedure in ex exegetical scholarship to work with the Old and New Testaments sep separately
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and to discuss the question concerning the unity of both Testaments in the one Christian Canon only on special occasions he says this development is
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understandable as it is regrettable um and that's really a summary of what I'm I'm trying to say is
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um he goes on to say later that this phenomenon encourages a perpetuation of the false impression that the Old and New Testament were united into the one Christian Canon only at a later date and
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could only be held together through the clamp of Christian doctrine now we've talked about that a few weeks ago the idea that the Canon of scripture was something that the church put together at official councils or or official
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teachers or Bishops and it has been held together simply by our state statements of Faith by our Doctrine we say if you look at any statement of faith
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they're going to say we believe in the Holy Bible 39 books of the Old Testament 27 books of the New Testament um the Roman Catholic will also add the Apocrypha but there is that there's that
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official canonization of these particular books and what sto marker is saying that that's perpetuated by a treatment of the
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separately so we're going to get into more detail as to the themes and it may upset you that I don't put Jesus as the only
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theme um you will find that he is definitely a very major one the seed of woman as Aaron noted but the the point
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that these the the way these are going this is going to be difficult as well we can't understand the New Testament I'm sorry the Old Testament without the New Testament
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that that's a given the New Testament is the light that shines on the Old Testament and gives us the understanding that we do have so in a sense what these men are doing is perfectly rational
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because what they're doing is they're they're starting in the New Testament okay then they they pick up their theme whatever they're going to do in this chapter from the New Testament
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then they go back and come through the old test Testament back to the new that's valid as I said both of these
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books are excellent to read and they have a great deal of of good stuff to to so I'm not uh negating I'm just saying this this method though is not what I
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think is biblical theology it's not canonical theology we cannot help but stand in the light of the Advent of Christ right I'm
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not saying that we don't however Canon has not always been here it was written first by Moses the first five books but Isaiah is a long
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time yet to come right and then there's still hundreds of years before Malachi and then another 400 years before we we get maybe maybe first Thessalonians
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maybe James you know the beginnings of what become the New Testament Canon so I mean it's historically undeniable that the Canon of scripture was a progressive
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Act of God okay so while we stand in the light of the finished work of
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Christ we still have before us the progressive revelation of God so to to look at where we stand in
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and not look at how it all developed is to just look at one part it's like you you stop the film and you're just looking at one set of frames you're not realizing that there's a whole real ahead of you or behind you
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I should say that all resulted in what you now you now see to go from the New Testament and then find your way back through the Old
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Testament is a form of proof test texting because you're not looking at the Old Testament in a global way you're