Biblical Themes: A Thematic Summary of Biblical Theology

By John P. Davis and Craig Biehl

In Biblical Themes John P. Davis seeks to present a overview of themes that are central to biblical theology. In Scripture God has chosen to reveal the glory of the Triune God through the person and work of Jesus Christ. The Revelation of God in and through Jesus Christ is the interpretive fulcrum for all of Scripture. This summary intends to present an example of biblical theology in which the themes of Creation, Consummation, Corruption, Covenant, and Church find their meaning and significance in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: May 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781666796773

John P. Davis

In 1970, Jesus Christ rescued John P. Davis from the dominion of sin and began a work of gospel transformation which continues to this day. John has planted and pastored churches for forty-six years in both urban and suburban settings and in mono-cultural and multi-ethnic settings. He is thankful for a good theological education, especially in his ThM studies at Westminster Theological Seminary. He has been the husband of Dawn for forty-seven years and is the father of five children and a grandfather of thirteen.

Book preview

Introduction

As a young, nineteen-year-old new believer in 1970, I had an insatiable appetite to understand the Bible. Fifty-one years later that hunger persists. I do not think I really understood biblical theology in the sense set forth by Geerhardus Vos¹ until my time at Westminster Theological Seminary beginning in 1986, especially in the course entitle Old Testament Biblical Theology, taught by Dr. Bruce Waltke. As a young Christian I had read Eric Sauer’s The Dawn of World Redemption, as well as other dispensational books, which sought to provide a coherent and unified message to the Bible. I read most of what Walter C. Kaiser had written and appreciated his focus on promise as a unifying theme, and in seminary I was introduced to Geerhardus Vos’s Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments, which ignited a deeper desire for the theology of the Bible. These samplings of biblical theology were engaging but remained peripheral in my study of the Bible, until my time at Westminster. At Westminster my eyes were opened wonderfully to the glory of Jesus Christ in all of Scripture.

The Triune God has given us the sixty-six books of Scripture to point us to the sufficiency of the person and work of Jesus Christ. Through that perfect redemptive work of Jesus, as recorded in Scripture, both sinners and the cosmos are restored from the ruinous effects of the fall. I experienced that redemption and began a process of restoration in 1970.

Jesus is the central theme of Scripture. All secondary themes find their meaning and significance in their relationship to His person and work. In this summary of biblical themes, we will see how the themes of Creation, Corruption, Covenant, Church, and Consummation each are understood in relationship to Jesus Christ, and how, because of Jesus Christ, they each relate to each other.

God’s final Word is spoken through Jesus Christ. Later in chapter three I will repeat some of what I say here about Christ being the final and fullest revelation from God. It is through the lens of that full and final revelation in Christ that we look at all of Scripture.

The words of Jesus Christ lead us to conclude that the OT is progressive, redemptive revelation. It is revelation because in it God makes himself known. It is redemptive because God reveals himself in the act of redeeming us. It is progressive because God makes himself and his purposes known by stages until the full light is revealed in Jesus Christ.²

This progressive, redemptive revelation of Jesus Christ is given through historical events, people, promises, institutions, Christophanies, etc., all of which in some way anticipate or foreshadow the final and full revelation in Jesus Christ.

Goldsworthy sums up the relationship of Jesus Christ to the OT:

The New Testament emphasizes the historic person of Christ and what he did for us, through faith, to become the friends of God. The emphasis is also on him as the one who sums up and brings to their fitting climax all the promises and expectations raised in the Old Testament. There is a priority of order here, which we must take into account if we are to understand the Bible correctly. It is the gospel event, as that which brings about faith in the people of God, that will motivate, direct, pattern, and empower the life of the Christian community. So we start from the gospel and move to an understanding of Christian living, and the final goal toward which we are moving.

Again, we start from the gospel and move back into the Old Testament to see what lies behind the person and work of Christ. The Old Testament is not completely superseded by the gospel, for that would make it irrelevant to us. It helps us understand the gospel by showing us the origins and meanings of the various ideas and special words used to describe Christ and his works in the New Testament. Yet we must also recognize that Christ is God’s fullest and final Word to mankind. As such he reveals to us the final meaning of the Old Testament.³

I hope that my summary of biblical themes will assist and encourage your journey in understanding and enjoying the Bible. Most importantly, I pray that the Spirit of God through the Word of God will enable you to see more of the superior glory of Jesus Christ.

1

. Biblical Theology, rightly defined, is nothing else than the exhibition of the organic progress of supernatural revelation in its historic continuity and multiformity (Vos, Inauguration,

1894

).

2

. Goldsworthy, According to Plan,

72

. Like slowly turning on the dimmer in your dining room as images move from darkness to outlines of objects, to shadows, to clear sight.

3

. Goldsworthy, According to Plan,

106

–

7

.

Chapter One

Introduction to Biblical Themes

(Part One)

What are Biblical Themes?

Biblical themes are those primary, theologically rich ideas of Scripture introduced early in seed form and developed progressively in the history of revelation. The discovery of these themes is arrived at through the discipline of Biblical Theology.

That raises the question: What is Biblical Theology? Here we will accept Geerhardus Vos’s definition as contained in his inaugural address at Princeton Seminary in 1894. Biblical Theology, rightly defined, is nothing else than the exhibition of the organic progress of supernatural revelation in its historic continuity and multiformity.¹

What does the study of Biblical Theology involve? The following Theses² explain the approach to studying Scripture called Biblical Theology.

1.Biblical Theology should be biblical, taking the entire canon in its entirety as its starting point and criterion.

2.Biblical Theology should be theological, aiming at making synthetic assertions about the nature, will, and plan of God in creation and redemption, as well as their corresponding implications for the nature, will, and purpose of humanity.

3.Biblical Theology should be Christological, understanding that God’s fullest and final revelation is in Jesus Christ, who then becomes the interpretive center of Scriptures.

4.Biblical Theology should be historical, contextual, and thematic in its methodology, integrating historical development, literary structures, socio-cultural factors, and theological concepts within an understanding of the history of redemption.

5.Biblical Theology should develop its theological categories inductively from the biblical text, not from a predetermined systematic framework.

6.Biblical Theology should be exegetically based, taking intertextuality as its starting point, including both the OT use of the OT and the NT use of the OT as preserved in the MT and LXX traditions.

7.Biblical Theology should be intentionally bi-testamental and unifying, so that neither the OT nor the NT are read in isolation from each other nor from the standpoint of a canon within the canon.

8.Biblical Theology should work toward a unity of the canon, going beyond the traditional disciplines of OT and NT theology and beyond providing simply descriptive accounts of the various theological emphases within its individual writings.

9.Biblical Theology should strive to incorporate the diversity of the biblical writings within the unity of theology, without sacrificing either its historical particularity or its overarching history of redemption.

10.Biblical Theology should be both descriptive and prescriptive in order to be faithful to its theological task of providing an enduring contribution to the self-understanding of