Salvation History: In View of Creation and Fall

By Sungku Kang

Salvation history can be thought of as twofold: one is that God Himself personally takes action and the other is God has humans act. An example of the latter is Exodus in which God had Moses lead the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan. The skin garment that God made with slain animals for the fallen Adam is an example of the former. Adam's fall is the very starting point of God's saving acts in human history. In His saving acts, God utilized his sin as the means of salvation. However, God's plan on saving human beings began far ahead of the creation of Adam, for omniscient God already knew of Adam's fall before the world had begun. As Apostle Peter confirms, God's will to save lost sinners was planned from the very beginning and Jesus Christ was chosen before the creation of the world as our Savior. In His saving plan, Almighty God reversed all the negatives that would arise from Adam's fall into positives, triumphing over them by the cross. We need to be clothed in the robe of righteousness, the garments of salvation through Jesus Christ. The fig leaf coverings sewn by human efforts cannot cover our nakedness. In essence, the grace of salvation originates from God, not from fallible humans. Current human history has been heading towards a thorough restoration of God's image. When the full and perfect restoration of God's image is accomplished, salvation history will finally be complete. Although heavily infected by sin, we have constantly been advancing towards the perfect restoration of God's image and likeness. When Jesus Christ returns to us, our defiled image of God will be transformed into His perfect likeness. On the day when He appears, as Apostle John says, we shall be like Him. That day will be the very end of human history. On that very day, at long last, God's redemptive plan will be completed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781643001647

Book preview

9781643001647_cover.jpg

Salvation History

SUNGKU KANG

ISBN 978-1-64300-163-0 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64300-164-7 (Digital)

Copyright © 2018 Sungku Kang

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Preface

Not long after I had started to work on this book, I was surprisingly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Accordingly, I underwent a major surgery that cut off some organs between stomach and intestines in order to remove the cancer. I was substantially recovered after the surgery and a five-week course of anti-cancer treatment such as chemotherapy and radiation. However, in two years, I was told that the cancer had returned, and accordingly, the anti-cancer treatments resumed. The second treatment was much more aggressive than the first and lasted a long time. During this period, I had to live through very painful days. It was not the fear or horror of death that caused difficulties but the unendurable physical pain and agony. Amidst suffering and tribulations, nonetheless, depending upon Immanuel Lord, I continued to write little by little as far as my condition allowed me to because this is my last book, which I would like to leave a place in history.

I give my utmost grateful thanks to Professor J. W. Rogerson of Sheffield University, England, under whose supervision I wrote my theses for MPhil and PhD at Sheffield University. These two theses contributed to providing the basis of this book.

Lastly, I owe thanks to my beloved wife Eunsik for her boundless sacrifice and support. Even though she is busy working as a public employee, she has spared no pains in encouraging and helping me, not to mention typing and proofreading the draft. Without her assistance, the manuscript would never have been ready in time.

On completing this manuscript, I am planning to go to a place where I can live the last part of my life in prayer and meditation. There, I am going to make my last preparations for the eternal home.

The author Reverend Sungku Kang, who used to say that he would prepare for the eternal home when he finishes his book, returned there with the calling of the Lord when the book was not yet fully completed. What is grateful, however, is that the book had almost been completed: starting with introduction, all the main chapters, epilogue, and even preface were written by the writer himself. When he left for the heaven on August 3, 2008, he had been in the middle of revising the manuscript.

Eunsik Kang

Wife

Abbreviations

Introduction

A German theologian F. Hesse wrote a book titled Farewell to the History of Salvation (Abschied von der Heilsgeschichte). In this book, he wholly denies the history of salvation. Even more radical criticism comes from Maag.¹ He claims that those who make use of the concept of salvation history are pious liars. In so far as God is not history, God would not be understood in a historical category.

In contrast to these scholars, a German scholar of salvation history, von Hofmann² says that the Old Testament is an interpretation of the history of Israel, which is composed of God’s saving events and therefore is the objective history of salvation. A biblical archaeologist and theologian Unger³ also holds that all the Old Testament, not to speak of Books of History or Prophets, is a highly specialized history of redemption although it contains all types of literature of varying character and teaching. He emphasizes that the Old Testament in its precise character is Messiah-centered history wedded to Messiah-centered prophecy. Ehlen⁴ moves a step forward and articulates that God of both Old and New Testament is directly concerned with the world of His creation and particularly with man, and conversely the world of man is directly affected by God’s will and words and actions.

After all, as a British Old Testament scholar John Bright⁵ mentions in his distinguished book, A History of Israel, the Old Testament history is, for Christians, a part of a redemptive drama leading on to its conclusion in Christ. To put it the other way, Christ and His Gospel are the destination of Old Testament history and theology. What is more, not only the Old Testament but also the New Testament, namely all parts of the Bible are truly synthesized into one, the history of salvation focusing on the Messiah prophecy.

In German, there are two terms in relation to history: "Historie and Geschichte." To put them in adjective forms, they are historisch and geschichtlich, respectively. At the end of the nineteenth century, a German theologian M. Kaehler wrote a book, The so-called historical Jesus and historic, biblical Christ (Der sogennante historische Jesus und der geschichtliche biblische Christus). When the book was translated from German to English, historisch was put historical and geschichtlich historic. M. Kaehler’s book gave an impact on wording those two complicated terms, consequently, since then historical and historic have been used for the German historisch and geschichtlich.

Then, what is the difference between Historie and Geschichte? Historie is the history of what really happened, whereas Geschichte is the interpreted history of happened events. Historie is the objective history that can be proved while Geschichte is the subjective history that is selected with specific purpose in mind by the author. It does not connect the happened events chronologically like a string of beads but arrange them creatively. In other words, some parts of history are hard to be proved, although they are built upon actual events. There is mutual connection between the event and its interpretation but the emphasis is always placed on the interpretation.⁶

The German term "Heilsgeschichte is a compound noun made up of two words: Heil and Geschichte." Heil is salvation or redemption in English, and accordingly, Heilsgeschichte is often translated to salvation history or redemptive history. It is said, however, that the English word salvation history is unable to imply the full meanings that the German word Heilsgeschichte signifies. Etymologically and ultimately, salvation history can be defined as the synthesis of God’s saving acts in history and the interpretations about them by historians.

In general, the notion of salvation history is said to have historically been introduced in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. However, some scholars think that the idea of salvation history formed much earlier. Ehlen⁷ even mentions that the conception of salvation history begins with the Bible’s own understanding of history, for the basics to the witness of both Old and New Testament are the conviction that God has taken a direct hand in earthly human affairs and His Son enters our human history and transforms it.

Oscar Cullmann,⁸ one of the prominent salvation history scholars of our period, thinks that the origin of the theory of salvation history may be traced to St. Irenaeus of early second century, a Greek father of the early church. St. Irenaeus develops the so-called theory of recapitulation. According to this theory, the purpose of history is to restore what was at the beginning. What had been lost by Adam’s sin would be restored through Christ’s work. Thus, the history of salvation is for Irenaeus the history of recapitulation. After Irenaeus, about two centuries later, St. Augustine develops the idea of salvation history in The City of God in terms of the struggle between the city of God and the city of the earth and the resultant victory of God’s city.

After St. Augustine several centuries later, in the seventeenth century, Cocceius appears and exerts a lasting impact upon the development of the idea of salvation history by means of emphasizing on biblical historicity and an understanding of the Bible in light of the whole. Then, in the nineteenth century Bengel, influenced by Cocceius, picks up and makes further development in the idea of salvation history. At last, the study of salvation history climaxes with von Hofmann, a prominent Erlangen faculty in Germany, but after him, it generally cools a little down. In the twentieth century, the eminent scholars of this field are the following: G. von Rad in the Old Testament, O. Cullmann in the New Testament, and W. Pannenberg in the systematic theology.

Salvation history emphasizes the God who acts and carries out His will in human history. In his book, Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek, Boman⁹ says that the Hebrew word hayah (חיה) at Yahweh’s self-revelation, I AM WHO I AM (Ex. 3:14), usually translated with to be, actually means to become or to effect rather than to be. The "hayah" is frequently associated with the hand of Yahweh, that is, God’s miraculous leading and help. This hayah indicates that Yahweh is a dynamic, energetic, effective, and personal being who carries out His will and achieves His purpose, and who thereby advances the salvation of His people.¹⁰ Therefore, hayah is to be understood in the sense of being present, being there, and more precisely in the sense of relative and efficacious being—I will be there (for you).¹¹ Just as he is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Mk. 12:26), so is he the God who comes into contact with me and directly touches my affairs. In a word, he is the God of salvation history.¹²

The history of salvation supposes human sin and guilt. In other words, the emergence of sin precedes the advent of redemption, for on account of man’s sin God’s salvation process is necessary. To use Oscar Cullmann’s¹³ description, the entire redemptive history is intelligible only on the basis of the consciousness of sin and Jesus Christ stands in the mid-point of salvation history as the redeemer. In consequence, as Hengstenberg¹⁴ emphasizes, we must not consider Adam’s transgression apart from the redemption. God, who viewed the fall in connection with the redemption, uses Adam’s sin as the very starting point of His saving acts in human history.

This book, Salvation History: In view of Creation and Fall, unfolds concentrated on Genesis 1–3. These three beginning chapters of Genesis disclose the creation, the fall, and salvation history. As the terminology original sin is not found in the Bible, so is not salvation history. But the ideas or concepts that construct the frame of salvation history are scattered all over the Bible. In the beginning, God creates the universe, which is beautiful, blissful, and harmonious, but soon after the creation sin comes into the world. The first sin brings about disastrous consequences not only to themselves, but also to all their descendants. However, the fall does not end in the fall and the subsequent God’s punishment alone. God’s mercy is still present with the fallen, and in the end, the sin of man is led to a new way toward salvation. God’s salvation plan through Jesus Christ unfolds.

It is therefore evident that it is nothing but the Scripture that God’s revelations and His salvation acts in history are recorded. And Jesus Christ—His life, death, and resurrection—is, in essence, the very climax of salvation history. Without analogy, Genesis 1–3 is not only the very core of the Bible but also the Gospel of gospels. It can also be said that the sixty-six books of the Bible are no more than an interpretative expansion of what Genesis 1–3 has said.

Especially, Genesis 2–3 is said a commentary on salvation history in view of the whole of Scripture. These two chapters are not such mystically oriented stories as frequently regarded but have biblical foundations built on the roots of Yahweh faith.¹⁵ In addition, according to Haag,¹⁶ in respect of the idea of paradise, Genesis 2–3 is closely linked to 1 Sam. 4–6, 2 Sam. 6:1–5 and 6:17–19, which record the process that King David brought back the Ark of God captured by the Philistines to Jerusalem, the City of David. There is a surprising parallel to the paradise description between the two in connection with salvation history. Genesis 2–3 depicts the Garden of Eden, which is a delightful place God made for man; 1 and 2 Samuel speak of Jerusalem, the Kingdom of David to where the Ark of God finally returns after the captivity by the Philistines and long wanderings. Both the Garden of Eden and Jerusalem described in Genesis 2–3, 1 and 2 Samuel are types of the eternal Kingdom of God, which will arrive when God’s salvation plan is finally completed.

Even though this book focuses on Genesis 1–3, yet the other parts of the Bible are not excluded. In regard to salvation history not only the Old Testament but also the New Testament is encompassed, for as Eichrodt¹⁷points out rightly, as far as biblical interpretation is concerned, there is a current of life flowing in the reverse direction from the New Testament to the Old Testament. By means of this reverse direction the Old Testament thought is to be better understood. Also, it is often toward the end of Scripture that clear explanations of earlier parts are given. Furthermore, in the Hebrew and Christian view of history, there is a close relationship between the past and the future: the past is a promise to the future. The past demonstrates a meaningful preparation for the future. Consequently, the interpretation of the past becomes a prophecy in reverse.¹⁸ Taken all together, it is absolutely necessary to study our concern in the holistic view of the Scripture.

Lastly, it is to be hoped that this book will contribute to a deeper understanding of the salvation history of God.

Part I

The Creation

---

¹. V. Maag, Historische oder Ausserhistorische Begruendung Alttestamentlicher Theologie? in Schweizerische Theologische Umschau #29 (1959), p. 13.

². J. C. K. von Hofmann, Theologische Ethik, Noerdlingen 1878, p. 21ff.

³. M. F. Unger, Archaeology and the Old Testament, Michigan 1954, p. 13–14.

⁴. A. J. Ehlen, Old Testament Theology as Heilsgeschite, in Concordia Theological Monthly #35 (Oct. 1964), p. 517.

⁵. J. Bright, A History of Israel, London 1972, p. 463, 467.

⁶. Of course the biblical history is conceptually different from the real secular history we often suppose. Thus, some scholars like Howard Jr. disagree with the interpretive method of Geschichte. "Geschichte ignores the element of facticity. In the case of Old Testament, it deals with what Israel believed happened, not what actually may have happened." D. Howard, Jr., An Introduction to the Old Testament Historical Books, Chicago 1993, p. 41.

⁷. A. J. Ehlen, ibid, p. 517, 544.

⁸. O. Cullmann, Salvation in History, tr. by S. G. Sowers, London 1967, p. 28.

⁹. T. Boman, Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek, tr. by J. L. Moreau, London 1960, p. 47–49.

¹⁰. T. Boman, ibid, p. 49.

¹¹. G. von Rad, Old Testament Theology, Vol. 1, tr. by D. M. G. Stalker, London 1975, p. 180.

¹². O. Cullmann, ibid, p. 236.

¹³. O. Cullman, Christ and Time, tr. by F. V. Filson, SCM 1951, p. 219.

¹⁴. E. W. Hengstenberg, Christology of the Old Testament, Michigan 1970, p. 21.

¹⁵. E. Haag, Der Mensch am Anfang: Die alttestamentliche Paradies-Vorstellung nach Gn. 2-3, in Trierer Theologische Studien, Bd. #24 (1970), p. 2.

¹⁶. E. Haag, ibid, p. 116.

¹⁷. W. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, Vol. 1, tr. by J. Baker, London 1961, p. 26.

¹⁸. K. Loewith, Meaning in History, Chicago 1949, p. 6.

I

The Purpose of Creation and its Climax: Man

Genesis 1:1 says, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.¹⁹ God said, Let there be light, and there was light. Words immediately became events. The Scripture knows only creationism and is ignorant of evolutionism; rather the Bible emphasizes that God created all things from the very beginning according to their kinds (1:11, 12, 21, 24, 25).

What is more, God created the universe out of nothing.²⁰ Even