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Basic Presuppositions Part 1 By Graeme Goldsworthy

Thank you for having me here, I'm delighted to be here and let me say straight away that I would rather this be a more interactive thing than me just talking and so I will from time to time ask you how you're going, but I'm quite happy for you to ask me how I'm going and what matter a man is this and what do you mean by that type of thing and just clarify things as we go.
The plan is that today we shall talk about some basic Christian presuppositions or assumptions about Jesus and the Old Testament and then tomorrow we will do a bit more sort of hands-on I hope you'll feel it's a bit hands-on as we look at some texts in the first book of Kings dealing with Solomon and try to think through some of the issues that we've talked about as far as how the theory actually applies to the preparation of sermons and Bible talks Greg mentioned the first book that I ever wrote which was Gosselin Kingdom and it was never a book that I set out to write I had to be badgered into it I was at the time minister of an Anglican Church on the western suburbs of Sydney and I was going up every Thursday morning and teaching biblical theology to the first year students at More College and they kept on asking me what book can you recommend and I said I can't recommend any
and then they started saying will you write and I'd say you know get real don't be stupid and finally they badgered me and we had a guy in college at the time he was actually fourth year at that time and he was part of the More College team who came to our church on mission and he was going to leave when he'd finished college to go into Christian publishing and he said look I'll help you and between the two as we moved to Brisbane but between the two of us we put Gosselin Kingdom together and then the publisher he worked for which can remain nameless
said it wasn't a goer and they wouldn't publish it
which was providential because it ended up being published by a much bigger
publishing house in England
but I only tell you that because
I never set out to write books on biblical theology
but what I wanted to do with that book was
it was really based on the course I was teaching at More College on biblical theology
but I'd spent quite a bit of time going to script union beach missions
and you know the sort of thing where people get up and make
asses of themselves on beach pulpits all dressed up in ancient clothing and so on
you know dramatized bible stories and
it had always bothered me about how you actually got from
Elijah to the Christian or from Moses to the Christian
and so when this
massive insight was fed into me by my own Old Testament lecturer
it was like a blow to the cerebral cortex that just
that I've never recovered from you know and just
well as I say when my experience since then is that
when people begin to get on the wavelength of the big picture and seeing
how the whole thing fits together they go at it like a shark and a mullet
they really do because it is such a revelation
so I wanted to
just sort of suggest to you a few things by way of starters on this that
this is a diagram I often use to
is that visible?
It needs focusing, where is the focusing? Is that it?
On the front of the box. Oh okay
all these things are different. Tell me if it's getting better.
Okay, alright.
Where do I find my pointer?
It's an interesting thing I mean most Christians will tell you that
I mean if they've got any kind of evangelical upbringing
and have a high view of the scriptures that the bible consists of one story
I think we can all handle that can't we? If I said to you
it is my firm conviction that the bible is the one word of the one God
about the one way of salvation
you could handle that couldn't you? But why is it that we have so much problem
in actually translating that into action
when it comes to dealing with the bible and so
you will find evangelical preachers and teachers all over the world
who write books and get up in front of people and talk
who treat the bible as if it was just a massive
sort of conglomeration of a whole lot of disconnected texts
You know it's sort of I find it very difficult to
to understand why that should be until I sit down and think that was the way I used to handle it
and we're all you know humanly sinful if I can put it that way
and I suspect it's one of the great you know
conspiracies of Satan to keep us from understanding the bible as it really is
I was just recollecting the other day how you know I go to a
say a home group in a local church and we sit down and we read a chapter out of the bible
and then nobody has the faintest idea what you're going to do with it next
so reading Agatha Christie or some other novel or
or the leader out of the Sydney Morning Herald or whatever
they all know how to handle it
but when it comes to the bible
they sit there and they stare at it and you try and see it and you say now
now here are four verses in which you know we were doing this just not so long ago
four verses in which Daniel is actually saying something about God
now what is it he says?
nobody will start at the top and work their way through
their eye lights on something here they like or something here they like and something here they like
and for some reason or other we have this built in perversity
when it comes to the bible
that we will not treat it the way it was written
as something that was given an overall plan and structure
and so we go
now what I've got here is just a little diagram which I often use to introduce people to the concept of the one
the one word, the one big story
starting with the creation and ending with the new creation
was somewhere at a climactic point
not necessarily temporarily midpoint
is the person and work of Jesus Christ
we might start with a text somewhere in the Old Testament that you could even do with it up here
somewhere along the biblical timeline is where we are
now I'm not a prophet nor the son of a prophet so I don't know how near the actual confirmation of all things we are
that doesn't matter
but we somehow have got to get from the text
to where we are in the 21st century
and when we're teaching or preaching or whatever we want to help people to make that transition
and what is the method which people use?
well very frequently it's something like this
you start with your text
you look and see what it says
and then you fly by the seat of your pants and somehow you hope that you'll come down here
but if we treat the structure of the Bible
with any kind of respect for its unity as well as its diversity
then we would have to say that it is something more like this
that is
there is
a progression of events
it's tied to a whole history over which God is completely sovereign
which
if we start some text in the Old Testament, let's say it's Elijah
we have to see how that relates
to the central fact of the Bible
which is the person and work of Jesus
now why is that so?
because we say we are gospel centred
you'll often see churches advertising themselves as
biblically based and Christ centred
and then you go to one of these churches and the fellow gets up and preaches a sermon on the Psalms and doesn't even mention Jesus
and that's Christ centred?
I don't think so
now
we don't want to get to the point where we find Jesus under every stone and every bush and so on
but we want to understand
legitimately how every text in the Bible
relates to the person and work of Jesus Christ
so if we really are gospel centred we need to sort of
work out what that means
in actual fact when we are dealing with the Bible
so I have a few points that I want to feed into you on that one
and then if you want to come back at me we can do that
I want to put it to you that preaching or teaching
or just reading
passages from the Old Testament
is in one sense
no different from reading passages from the New Testament
before I finished up at Moore College the principal gave me six months off to write a book
and I wanted to write this book on preaching
and I thought I wanted to write a book on preaching from the Old Testament but as I started working on it
it occurred to me why only the Old Testament
the principles of preaching from the Old Testament and the New Testament are basically the same
and there are differences obviously
but they are basically the same
and that is that if you are preaching from any part of the Bible
I take as my starting point the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 2 that I was determined to know nothing among you except Christ and him crucified
and I'm sure Paul didn't go around only saying let me tell you about Jesus and the cross
you don't have to read the New Testament to see that
and yet he was able to say and to emphasise
that what he was doing was being determined to know nothing amongst them except Christ and him crucified
so the principles of preaching from the Old Testament will be mainly the same
as preaching from the New Testament except that every text has to be looked at
or every part of the Bible has to be looked at in terms of how it does relate to Christ
now does it relate to Christ? That's the question
because if it doesn't relate to Christ then we are barking up the wrong tree
why are we so sure that it does?
Let me say that I would come from this from two angles
one is, you might say, an existential angle
that is for me, starting with your own personal self namely you
what are you doing here if you are not here because of what Jesus Christ has come to mean to you?
that is as Christians we started our Christian life by being confronted with the Gospel of Jesus Christ
now I have said in meetings like this
nobody gets converted by starting to read the Bible at Genesis 1-1
and working their way through until they finally get to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
and say, ah, that's what it's all about
and of course there is always one in every crowd
and the fellow in the front row at one meeting said, I got converted like that
so I said leave the room you and we will talk to the rest
but see
even if that's how that fellow did get converted
he didn't get converted until he got to Christ
and so
existentially
our whole
knowledge of God, our whole relationship with God
begins, continues and ends with Christ
now even that is saying something that will be disputed
if not in theory, certainly in practice
I often tell the stories when I was teaching at the Bible College in Brisbane
we had a missionary speaker come in
speakers that we used to have sort of once a week on a
Thursday morning or something and he was telling us about
how at the headquarters of his particular mission
they had received a letter from the mission seals from one of their missionaries
who said, we all know the Gospel now
so now we must go on to something more solid
and he thought this was marvelous
but nobody was of course wanting to get up and challenge him and say, you know, well
what is there more solid than the person and the work of Jesus Christ?
how can you go on to something more solid?
and I was reminded of the time that
when I was doing some graduate work in the United States
and the Dean of the seminary that I was at
was running a reading class
just a reading group on
going through Bunyan's children's progress
and I'd never actually read the thing
I thought, oh, I'll just go to this
and the thing that struck me and stuck in my mind was that
the Dean emphasized how as we went through Bunyan's pilgrims photos
that when Christian comes to the cross
and, you know, his bundle falls away
and he moves on then and goes through all the trials and tribulations
until he finally crosses the river into the
you know, the promised land sort of thing
that he never got out of sight of the cross
the point being that Bunyan understood that the Christian life is not going on
from the Gospel
but is going on with the Gospel
so, existentially, you see, that is our own experience
that we know perfectly well that it is our relationship to Christ
that is the issue
and so, that leads us then to reflect on it more theologically
that's the other side I would look at
is that the Gospel is the basis of our whole life with God
and that growing as a Christian is becoming more like Jesus
is it not?
so, why do we sometimes preach and teach as if it's becoming more like Daniel or Elijah or Moses?
and you say, well, it's both
well, if it is both, let's make sure that people know that it's both and how it is both
but don't let's, you know, preach a sermon on Daniel
and have everybody trying to imitate Daniel
or to avoid the idolatry of the pagan kings or something
and think that we've preached a Christian sermon
if it is, in fact, that the New Testament makes it clear that it is our relationship to Christ
that is the way we get started and the way we keep going
okay, so, we should, I think, reflect a bit more on what Paul is saying
when he says, I determined to know nothing among you except Christ and him crucified
so, that's my first point about Christians being Gospel-centered
now, I want to sort of spell that out a bit further now in the ensuing points of this first session
the second point I make is that the Gospel is about Jesus, the fulfiller of the Old Testament promise
that is, when we do come to the Gospel
we're not simply looking at something which is, you know, Jesus died on the cross for my sins
and, you know, you must have Jesus as your own personal saviour
as true as all that is
if that's the level at which people are at
and if that's the level we keep them at
then they're going to be very stunted Christians indeed
I often say, as sort of chuck out a bit of a challenge
that if you show me a church where the Old Testament is not preached or taught
I will show you a church that has a very wooly notion of the Gospel
and I believe that there are very good grounds for saying that
if you've got your Bibles there, would you turn up Romans 1?
there's a great four point sermon here
if you're ever stuck, you know, and you have to sort of get up and ad lib a bit
I've never really had to do that, but I've always thought, you know, if I ever did have to
if I keep this one in mind, I'll never be stuck for a sermon
four verses, four points
Romans 1, 1 to 4
it's Paul's description of the Gospel
his sort of thumbnail summary of what he is now going to unpack in the rest of the Epistle to the Romans
and his first point is that it is the Gospel of God
he says, Paul, the servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God
by the way, in case you're wondering what version I'm using, it's the NRSC
not because I think it's the greatest version
but because the RSC came out just after I was converted
and it was after struggling through Romans 7 in the King James version
it was like a great flash of light
and then the RSC and the NRSC were the texts that the Australian College of Theology used
so I've cut my teeth on it and it's the one I'm most at home in
that's the only reason for using it
I'm now ploughing my way through the ESV to see how I like that
that's just an aside
verse 1 then, Paul, servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God
that's not too difficult, you could preach a whole sermon on what it means for it to be the Gospel of God
including the fact that God invented it
I like to suggest to people that it also, when you look at the way Romans unpacks this
that it's God's Gospel because it deals with God's problem
and then of course people say, but how can God have a problem
well, I think he does have a problem because the difference between God and us is that he knew what to do about his problem
and from before all eternity he had determined how he would deal with his problem
the problem of God which is outlined in the epistle of the Romans is how can a righteous God justify the sinner
and the Gospel is God's way of dealing with that
so it's God's Gospel
the second point, verse 2, is that it is the Gospel which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures
and as you well know, for holy scriptures or scriptures in the New Testament you can substitute Old Testament and you'll mostly be right
okay
so Paul says it's the Gospel that is in the scriptures
there was no New Testament canon when he was writing this
and so therefore, if it is the Gospel of the Old Testament
why is it we have so much difficulty in linking the Old Testament with the Gospel
because Paul didn't seem to have the problem and nor did any of the other New Testament writers
and I personally believe that the New Testament gives us the definitive hermeneutic of the Old Testament
that is, it shows us how to interpret the Old Testament amongst other things
so the Gospel was promised beforehand through the prophets in the holy scriptures
therefore the prophetic word is ultimately about Jesus
and in that of course there is a whole stack of stuff about how the Old Testament text can have more than one meaning and so on
what it means for there to be an ultimate author as well as a human author who mediated the word of God
how the word of God in God's mind can mean more than the word of God as it came to the prophet in his day and so on
those are all big issues but I don't think you have to be
sort of ground under by the weight and the possibility and the potential for arguments and disputations about how that actually works out
if we recognise first of all that Paul is saying that if he was going to preach the Gospel
to preach it from the Old Testament would be the most natural thing to do
I think that's one way of putting it
I don't know about you but even though I've been a professor of Old Testament I still find preaching from the Old Testament one of the most difficult things
I was for 14 years the associate at a church in Brisbane and my portfolio is Christian education
and I used to collect, as time went by I sort of collected more and more things under that and one was the annual drawing up of the preaching plan
and it was a matter of great discipline to make sure that we devoted enough Sundays to preaching from the Old Testament
because I don't know about you I just naturally gravitate to a New Testament text it's so much easier
don't have to worry about all these questions that we're discussing now
point 3 verse 3 it is the Gospel concerning his son who was descended from David according to the flesh
that is if Paul wants to talk about the heart of the Gospel message
he makes a distinction between the son and by implication you might say the Father and the Holy Spirit
that is he
the focus of the Gospel is the historic event of a person who has a human lineage and it's a traceable one back to David
now why David? because David is at the theological heart of the Old Testament
so if you want to understand how Jesus is to be understood as the Messiah then you have to make that kind of link
and that's exactly what Matthew does in the beginning of his Gospel
when he starts off by saying this is the genealogy of Jesus Christ or the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ
who? who is Jesus Christ? the son of Abraham and the son of David
and then you get that genealogy which shows you how Matthew is thinking about the historical antecedents
and by historical it's not just a matter of you know isn't it nice to get your family history sort of right
what he's saying is that implies the theological structure that Abraham and David create for us
or God has created through them
so it's the Gospel concerning the son, now by implication if it's the Gospel concerning the son
and what you're doing is concentrating on the work of God the Father
you know say in creation or something
you are talking about something which is absolutely vital and without which the Gospel could not exist
but the doctrine of creation is not itself the Gospel
and yet I think for some people it virtually takes the place of the Gospel
or you might you know feel you want to keep talking about the Holy Spirit
and if you are you are talking about a biblical doctrine which is vital and without which there can be no Gospel
but it is not the Gospel
particularly if you're talking about the work of God through his Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian
that is not the Gospel and yet how often have you ever said it yourself?
I've heard it not you know not very long since
where people get up and with the best of intentions say we must live the Gospel
now you can't live the Gospel it's been lived for you that's the whole nature of the Gospel is you can't live it
Christ had to live it for you
so if you exhort Christians to live the Gospel they might perhaps catch on to what you mean
provided you know what you mean
but it's not a very biblical way of talking it's not a helpful way of talking in my view
so it is the Gospel concerning the Son the fourth point verse 4 is that
he was declared to be or shown to be
the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead
and of course a lot hangs on what you understand Son of God to mean there
I suspect that Paul means the same here as Luke means in Luke chapter 3
and as the word of God meant of Jesus baptism this is my Son in whom I am well pleased
the Son of God does not refer primarily to the deities Christ but to his humanity
because Luke after the baptism of Christ gives us his version of the genealogy of Jesus
if you just want to jot down Luke 3 and check it out
he says Jesus was as suppose the son of Joseph who was the son of Heli
who was the son of somebody God you know and then it goes all the way back
the son of the son of the son of the son of Adam the son of God
so the first son of God was Adam
if you want to also jot down Exodus 4 verse 22 and 23
you'll see how Moses was sent to stand before Pharaoh and say
thus says the Lord Israel is my first born son
let my first born son go or I will kill your first born son
Hosea 11 verse 1 when Israel was a child I loved him and out of Egypt have I called my son
Israel is the son of God now the whole point is that the Old Testament shows
Adam was the son of God he blew it
Israel was the son of God they blew it
here is John the Baptist putting them all through
and Jesus comes along gets baptized and you can almost see heaven sigh at last
here is a son of God in whom I am well pleased
it means Jesus is the true Israel
now I don't know about you I don't understand
why people say that the resurrection of Jesus proves that he is God
I don't know how the resurrection of a human body
shows that somebody is God what's it going to say about you and me when we are resurrected
that we are gods? no of course not
I think what Paul is saying here that Jesus was declared to be
the true and acceptable human being
the true Israel the true Adam by his resurrection
that because he was acceptable death could not hold him
and that the ascension of Jesus is the ascension of a humanity into the presence of God
which guarantees that human beings can be acceptable to God for all eternity
and that we have a man in heaven who is there for us
now all that from Paul's point of view stems from the teaching of the Old Testament
in the Corinthian Epistle he says in chapter 15
I delivered to you what I also received
how Christ died for our sins according to the Old Testament
and on the third day rose from the dead according to the Old Testament
and so it goes on
and you get all sorts of hints like that when Jesus cleansed the temple in John chapter 2
show us what authority have you got this destroy this temple and in three days I will build it up again
took 46 years to build this temple how will you build it up? no answer from Jesus
no answer
if John has given us the full story he is just silent he doesn't bother answering them
but John filled us in John gives us a little parenthesis he spoke of the resurrection of his body
so that after he was raised from the dead his disciples remembered his words and believed the scriptures
what scriptures?
Jesus talking about the temple and his resurrection and the disciples remembered the scriptures
well you could say well the whole Old Testament that's too easy I think it was probably they remembered the temple scriptures
the fact that the prophets have said that in the day of the Lord God would restore the temple
and Jesus is claiming that the day of the Lord has come
in his life, death and resurrection principally in his resurrection
and so you have a passage like Acts 13
where you have Paul preaching his first great sermon
after his conversion or the first recorded sermon we don't know if he preached others
Galatians might suggest it
in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch
and it's almost a sort of summary of biblical theology he starts way back there
he moves with Abraham he moves forward he comes to David and then he makes the big leap
not because he doesn't think anything important happened after David but he sees David
as a sort of the foundational Old Testament character
that leads us to talk about Jesus as the Messiah who is descended from David
this man's posterity God has raised up for us a saviour
a bit more talk about that and then he says
he talks about the crucifixion
he says now we bring you the good news the gospel if you like
and this is Acts 13 verse 33 or something like that
we bring you the good news that what God promised to our fathers
this is fulfilled to us the children by raising Jesus
now I don't know about you but that speaks to me of Paul saying
that all Old Testament promise and prophecy was fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus
now these four verses we looked at in Romans 1 don't mention the cross
not because Paul didn't think it was part of the gospel because it's very clear as you go on into Romans
he's very cross-centered
but simply because the resurrection in a sense encapsulates the whole box and dice
if I can put it like that
you can't have the resurrection of Jesus if he hasn't died
and you can't have him dying if he hasn't already lived
and so there's a sense in which the resurrection and ascension sums up the entire event
of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus
and Paul is saying in that first recorded sermon
all Old Testament promise and prophecy is fulfilled
in that event
now I can be a bit naughty at times
especially if I see people snoozing a bit
I like to chuck out a few bricks and get them stirred up
and particularly if I know that people might have come from a slightly different prophetic fulfillment tradition from my own
because you can see the wheels turning almost
and you can hear them thinking almost aloud
if all prophecy is fulfilled in the first coming of Christ
what about those prophecies that will be fulfilled in the second coming of Christ
well what about the workers? I never said anything about the second coming of Christ
all I said was that all prophecy and promise have been fulfilled in the first coming of Christ
now if we want to talk about the second coming of Christ I will say
all prophecy and promise will be fulfilled in the second coming of Christ
and if we still want to go on from there I will say all prophecy and promise is being fulfilled
in the presence of Christ amongst us by his Holy Spirit and the preaching of the gospel
more of that later on but think about that
so that's my second point that the gospel is about Jesus the fulfillment
or the fulfiller rather
now we just don't have time to go through but if you just start thinking you can sort of
collect passages in the New Testament which raise the point of Jesus fulfilling
Matthew and other gospel writers from time to time will say that he did this
that it might be fulfilled that which was spoken by the prophet such and such
but you have some of these blanket passages and I would say Romans 13 is a key one
it's implied for instance in Acts 7 in Stephen's Apology
before the Jews because he gives you a long
these guys are very patient if Stephen is going to give that steal of that length
before he gets to the point
but he apparently had them spellbound
but what does he do he virtually says look
he's been charged with speaking against the temple he says look
Abraham was told to move out he did
he said Moses was told to move out of Egypt he did
and then he gets the point where he quotes Isaiah 66 the most high does not dwell in a temple made with hands
now they say now's the time to move out
but you stiff neck people you always resist the Holy Spirit
and that's when they you know they get really stirred up and stoned to death
what's he saying he's saying there was a time to move out from there of the Chaldees
there was a time to move out from Egypt now is the time to move out from a temple made with hands to the true temple
who is Jesus
and so there's a biblical theology of temple in Acts chapter 7 for you
OK so I come to the third point which is that the Old Testament is a book about Jesus
see I mentioned Matthew chapter 1
the genealogy there
do I ask who's preached on Matthew chapter 1 in living memory
yeah it's a good challenge isn't it
and it's not nearly as difficult as some people might think I don't think I tried it once I preached a series of three
I don't think I did in your time did I
went up like a lead balloon did
OK thanks
but I hadn't done it before that I thought you know it's time I did that and
what I think Matthew is doing in setting out his genealogy like that
you know he divides it up as you know into
into these groups of
generations and he goes from Abraham to David that's the first group from David to the exile
and then from the exile to Jesus so he's got the two key figures
and I don't think there's any doubt that from the point of view of the New Testament writers
Abraham and David the two key Old Testament figures
and I'll work for more on those when I come to talk about the structure
how the structure of the Bible actually works and how the New Testament perceives it
why does he go from David to the exile well one suggestion that I would put
there is that the exile shows us
why that period from Abraham to David
really wasn't the coming of the kingdom of God
the exile is the demonstration that that had to come under judgment
and that the fulfillment of these things was still in the future
that's just one way of looking at it
but Matthew 1 then if I'm right about this in some way or another Matthew 1
Matthew 1 if you like is Matthew's manifesto of biblical theology
it's his way of saying look I'm going to tell you the story of Jesus
but it's not just a story with a beginning and a middle and an end sort of thing
it's a story which has a structure which is a theological structure
and it has to do with the fulfillment
of all that God has done and promised and said and so on
in the scriptures in the Old Testament
and so you ask yourself how do the other gospels begin
if Matthew begins with his genealogy we know all the gospels writers begin in a different way
Mark is interesting because he starts off
you know the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God
so he uses straight away
Old Testament terminology Jesus Messiah
Son of God I suggest to you would be understood in Old Testament terms
that Jesus Messiah is true Israel
and as it is written in the prophets
now the fact that he quotes Malachi
says Isaiah and then quotes Malachi before getting to Isaiah
I don't think matters he's saying that in the prophets
and Isaiah is the key one
this is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus
so if you want the beginning of the gospel you have to go back to the prophets
that's what Paul says in Romans does he not?
and I suppose one of the sort of
the way Mark works it comes to a climax in that first chapter where
in verses 14 and 16 he talks about how after John the Baptist was arrested
Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God or the gospel and saying
the time is fulfilled
one of my pet dislikes of the NIV is that it waters down
the Greek peperotai which is I would think
means a lot more than the time has come
I think the time has come is so incredibly weak it just misses the point
the time is fulfilled suggests that
everything that has gone before has reached a climax
and so what does it mean?
the kingdom of God has come near
so repent and believe the gospel
and that's Mark's way of doing it
when you get to Luke, Luke has a much more complicated beginning to his gospel
and when you sort of stand back a bit
so that the details of the story of Zechariah and the temple and all this sort of stuff
don't sort of weigh you down
I think you can see that what Luke wants us to understand is
that Jesus' beginning has something to do with the theology of temple and priesthood
and even the fact that he's brought to the temple
the godly old simian picks him up in his arms and says
Lord now let your servant depart in peace because my eyes have seen your salvation
and then later on in chapter 2 the boy Jesus is brought to the temple
so Luke is very temple oriented which is interesting if the commentators are right
who maintain that Luke was probably a gentile and wrote for gentiles
because if that is right
he in no wise
either in the gospel or in Acts
soft pedals the place of the old testament in understanding about Jesus
so it's not just a Jewish thing
it's a gospel thing
and if you want to get the gospel
in its proper perspective and the
various of the textures if you like of the structure of the gospel
then you have to see it in Old Testament eyes
John of course does another thing again
John takes it right back to the creation story
and so he is sort of opening things up for
amongst other things because he does a lot of other things for a doctrine of the new creation
and it's interesting how evangelicals particularly
so keen on John 3 16 and so on
that they don't see there is any connection
between the doctrine of the new birth there and the fact that Jesus is the creator
and that really what John is giving us the clue
is that if you really want to understand the doctrine of regeneration you have to get out of your own midriff
and get into the universe
and see that the doctrine of regeneration is as big as the universe
that what happens that we think of as our own personal regeneration
is a subset of the big picture
which is the coming of the new heavens and the new earth
when you start talking about new birth and regeneration in those terms
I think it puts a bit of a more biblical slant on it
there is one passage in the New Testament which is almost taking a verse out of context
I have to say that because when you look at it
Paul in the first epistle of Timothy
is talking about something else but he
he throws out a principle which I think remains valid wherever you put it
and that is in 1 Timothy 2
and verse 5
which is actually a passage where he is urging him to pray for kings and people in high places and so on
and then talks about this is right and is acceptable
in the sight of God our Saviour who desires everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth
for there is one God and there is one mediator between God and mankind
Christ Jesus himself human
now what is that saying?
what is the principle there that Paul puts into that particular context
which I believe we are at perfect liberty to extrapolate
and see if it is a principle there it is a principle everywhere
I mean how can you get more
you can't relativize a statement like there is one God
and there is one mediator between God and mankind
can't relativize that
that is an absolutist statement
now if Jesus is the one mediator
between God and us
then he must mediate the meaning of all God's word
in other words I believe we are perfectly justified to see that
as a hermeneutical or interpretive principle of all scripture
in fact I will go further than that
not just scripture
every fact in this universe
gains its ultimate meaning only through Jesus Christ
now I don't think it is too hard to see that in general terms
I don't know how it is going to work out
in the details
but all I can tell you is
that is speaking to me of the fact that there is nothing in this universe
which was not made by God
and if that is the fact if we really believe the doctrine of creation
then we must surely believe that as God created things
according to the council of his own will
God alone can interpret things
ultimately
ultimately
now there are lots of things in this world I can't interpret
I have no idea what goes behind the buttons I push in my computer
this total, total mystery to me
as to how I can suddenly connect myself with somebody in the United States through email
in a moment
in the twinkling of an eye to misquote Paul
and if I have a piece of technology that goes wrong
I don't necessarily look for a Christian to fix it
I look for somebody who understands the technology
but when it comes to ultimate questions
as to who made things like this
and where will it fit in or how does it fit into the ultimate scheme of things
only Jesus Christ can give us the answer to that
see if you really believe what the New Testament says
about the confirmation of all things
if you take the final chapters of the book of Revelation
along with the prophecies in the Old Testament about the day of the Lord
and the fulfilment of all these wonderful things
when God brings in his kingdom
all there is in the book of Revelation is the people of God
gathered around the throne of God and the Lamb
that is the heart of the universe
so everything must in the end find its meaning in there
so every fact in this universe gains its ultimate interpretation
where it fits into the scheme of things
in the light of Jesus Christ
if that is true then that must include the Bible
and if that is true about the Bible
it means that you have not got as far into the text
and I have not got as far into the text as we should
until we have got to that text in relationship to Jesus Christ
in his gospel
I firmly believe that
now you don't have to believe it just because I say so
but that's the thing I want to try to get over to you
when does this session finish?
quarter past seven
one more point and then time for a few questions
and that is the sermon is about the text in context
and its application to Christians
you know the little adage that a text without its context is a pretext
or somebody put that a text without its context is a con
and so the question I often ask is
what is the context that prevents any text in the Bible from becoming a pretext?
and you know the answer don't you?
the whole Bible
but of course you can answer that in other ways
you can say alright I'm dealing with a text in
well in our little church we have just finished a series on the book of Amos
I did share it in that series
and when I looked at I think it was Amos chapter 2 I did
I had to ask myself first of all what is this text saying?
but I'm all the time trying to understand it in the light of the whole book of Amos
but it's no good trying to think about it in the whole book of Amos
as if Amos had just sort of you know come out of the desert from nowhere
and was not linked to anything else
so even though you might take a small passage you know so like take Romans 1 to 4
in the end if you're going to do real justice for that passage
just say how does this why does Paul put that sort of summary statement at the beginning of the epistle
where is it going to lead up? how does it sort of open things up?
what's its relationship to the rest? so the context is something which just grows and grows and grows
now I'll put it in sort of what I think in practical terms
when I prepare a sermon or a Bible talk
I always have in the back of my mind the question about the big picture
that is this is what this is what the study of biblical theology has done for me
that is I can never consider a text as something which is unrelated to every other text in the Bible
even though I don't sit down and try and work out how it is necessarily every time I want to preach or teach
but at least I have in my mind that there is one big picture
and this is a part of the big picture so that I haven't really exhausted
the question about its context until I have in some sort of way linked it to the big picture
and one of the most encouraging things I have found in recent times is how
how many people are beginning to sort of catch on to this perspective
just moving around as we were able to do for five months after sort of on long service leave back in 2000
and to find clergy in the UK, in Singapore where we were
I ran a school of biblical theology on a Saturday afternoon in Bangkok
spent nine weeks in Oak Hill College in London
spent a month with a college church in Wheaton in Chicago
and everywhere I looked there were people coming around saying look at this
producing little booklets on the big picture and wow this is great
people are getting onto the big picture
now there is always a downside to these sort of things
you can become so enamoured with the big picture that you forget about the details
and one of the things I want to say to you is that
a thing that I have said and written about
I always said it to my biblical theology class at Moore College
and that is you will never be a good biblical theologian
unless you are also a good systematic theologian
and I would add to that historical theologian as well
but if all you are interested in is the big picture and then you forget some of the key theological doctrines
then you are going to be in trouble
because you can't do biblical theology without at the same time formulating doctrine in your mind
in fact you wouldn't do biblical theology if you hadn't already formulated a doctrine of the Bible that got you started
if you didn't already have some concept of God who speaks to a people made in his image
to receive his word and to understand it
and so it is always a sort of a matter of interdependence
and that simply is an expression of the doctrine of the Trinity
that is the way things are in the Trinity
you don't ever understand the Father without the Son and the Holy Spirit
or the Spirit without the Son and the Father and so on
so the sermon is about the text in context
I believe expository preaching should be the norm
I say that without any beg your pardon
I just think that is self-evident
that the purpose of the sermon is to explain the meaning of the Bible
the best way to explain the meaning of the Bible is to make expository preaching your main thrust
I say main thrust because I think there is a place
for the occasional topical sermons
the sermon that deals with one of the big steaming issues of time
where it is not possible perhaps to just take one passage
that you do have to sort of dip around a bit to get the evidence
when I was preparing 12 months ahead the program of preaching
I always made sure that I gave what I thought was sufficient time
to preaching expository sermons from the Old Testament
expository sermons from the New Testament
we always did at least one series of six or eight sermons on a biblical theology topic
because we would take one of the big themes of the Bible and just chase it through
and then we would have at least a series somewhere on burning issues
marriage and divorce, homosexuality, things like that
ethical issues around
those are the main ones
and I would also make sure that I had a series of sermons on doctrinal topics
for a number of years I would preach from being a good Anglican from the 39 articles
great preaching material, just preach through the doctrine of the articles
so that's just the way I think of that
but the norm should be the expository sermon
saying what the Bible is saying and applying it to people's lives
and we can only do this however if the expository sermon
understand or the expository sermon comes out of an understanding that
you are not simply exegeting a text as if it were a self-contained unit
no text is self-contained
every text is part of the one word of the one God about the one way of salvation
and a question that I want to explore with you a bit more
is to me the burning question that you have to ask is how does this text testify to Jesus?
before ever you ask how does this text apply to me and to my listeners
you have to ask the question how does this text apply to Jesus?
now why do I say that?
because I come back to my understanding of the New Testament
teaching about how we become Christians and how we grow as Christians
we grow as Christians by becoming more like Jesus
so if we are dealing for instance with an Old Testament text where Jesus is not mentioned specifically
if we want to learn from, if we believe this is the word of God to us
then we have to ask in what way does this help us understand Jesus?
because we can only become like Jesus by understanding who and what he is
ok well we are going to talk more about that as the day goes on
but is there any question you would like to raise now at this point?
I've got a fairly thick skin, I don't care if you haven't agreed with me
I do care, you should agree with me but if you don't agree with me I'm happy to talk about it
I think I've seen it in some younger guys where they've been to historical theology
a bit more like this because you just read the text and you get a bit more theology
a big picture of the thing that you've just done
I regret to say that I have had evidence of this
and some of you may know the journal Familios which is put out by the universities and colleges
of scholarship in England
and the present editor, a fellow called Carl Truman wrote in an issue I think the beginning of last year
on this very subject in which he was reacting to what he saw in the UK
and this very thing that a lot of guys were getting very steamed up about biblical theology
and he saw the danger that they were losing sight of the great doctrinal truth
and he put it in more theological terms that by telling the story, the way we understand God in the story
is the way God acts and speaks
and so you build up a picture of what we call the economic trinity, the activity of God
and he said by this means we often lose sight of the ontological trinity
the great truth about what God is in himself
now this is why I believe that you can't be a good biblical theologian without being a good systematician
at the same time and vice versa
because what you've seen in modern times is that
and Francis Watson in one of his books, he's at King's College in London
has made the point that
biblical scholars proceed with the text
but no, don't bother about theology, it's just the exegesis of the text sort of thing
and theologians, many modern theologians
rave on about this, that and the other and they're not interested in the bible
now from an evangelical point of view, we believe that
if you're doing biblical theology right, you will at the same time be doing your systematics
you will be seeing the relationship of this to the great doctrines
and the point I made earlier that
it's not a question of one leading to the other
I wrote an article that came out in the Reformed Theological Review at the end of last year
in which I raised this whole point
but most of the reformed and evangelical writers that I could find on the subject
were now talking about the relationship of systematics to dogmatics
systematics to biblical theology
you do your exegesis, that's the groundwork
out of that you get your biblical theology as you put the bits together and get the big picture
and then that leads on to the development of Christian doctrine
so I was constrained to say, look, it doesn't work like that
it's actually a matter of moving backwards and forwards
you only come to the bible to do your exegesis
because you already believe that there is something there for you
because you already have, you know, by whatever means
come to some understanding of God who speaks and this is an important book as his word
years and years ago now, I think it was back in the 80s, I can't remember what year it was
the faculty and my colleagues and so on who worked under Broughton Knox
put out a volume dedicated to the man
I did an essay which was called, Thus says the Lord
the dogmatic basis of biblical theology
I don't think I've improved on that, I think I just took the basic point
that if you go to do biblical theology you've already formed some sort of theology
some sort of doctrine
and what you do with your biblical theology then is that you come back to your doctrine
and say, is there anything I need adjusting, this sort of thing
so it's always the give and take
and I think Carl Truman was probably right
that you do find people, and I've had it said, if not to me, at least to people in my congregation
we don't need theology all we want to know is what the bible is teaching
why would you say that if you didn't already have a theology
why would you be interested in the bible if you didn't have a theology of the bible
so let's get it right, yeah
and of course the point about historical theology
it wasn't said if you ignore history you're condemned to repeat its mistakes
the history of theology is terribly important because it shows you how people have treated the gospel
over the centuries
anything else, Greg?
One of the things you touched on here, and I hope you check that out in the past
is the idea that on the one hand there is one unified message
and on the other hand not everything though is the gospel
yep
for instance the gospel is not a command for it
yep
those two principles actually relate to each other
yep
I suppose I remember doing years ago now
just working through with a Greek concordance in every occurrence of the word
euangelion and its cognates and just seeing how they were used
and of course in many places in the New Testament it is used without any descriptive support
but I've come to the position where I would say the gospel is what you must believe in order to be saved
and so then what is it, what are the parameters of this gospel
and essentially it focuses on the personal work of Christ
so I would make a distinction between the gospel and what you would include in a gospel talk or sermon
because in a gospel talk and sermon you would have a softening up process
you would tell people why they need the gospel
you would tell people what the implications of believing the gospel would be
you would tell people what the implications of not believing the gospel would be
and all those might go into an evangelistic sermon but they're not the gospel
it's important because the moment you move your understanding of the gospel
beyond the parameters of the conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary
and his resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God on high
you will move it into yourself
and as soon as you do that you start to undermine the nature of the gospel
as the finished work of Christ and as the basis of Christian assurance
so that as I heard once expounded to me while I was at the time an acting minister in a presbyterian church in Brisbane
it's an interesting experience being an Anglican priest and a presbyterian minister at the same time
but it can be done, it can be done, you ought to try it sometimes
one of the ladies was having trouble with a guy from a non-denominational independent church
who maintained that you had to believe in Jesus and also to be baptised under a certain method
to be saved
and I was asked to meet with this guy and he walked into this huge Bible under his arm and said
G'day, let's talk about baptism and I said no, let's talk about the gospel
and he was convinced that the gospel was what Christ has done plus our obedience in response
I said well do you respond perfectly in obedience to Christ? No, he said of course I don't
I said do you have Christian assurance then? He said yes I do
I said well how can you if you haven't responded perfectly and your response is part of the basis of your being saved
so as soon as you add, this is the Galatian heresy you see
as soon as you add anything to what Christ is and has done as the gospel
then you undermine Christian assurance for a start and you diminish Christ, it's even more important
you diminish Christ
so it is important to make that distinction, that's why I made that point about you can't live the gospel
a former colleague of mine always used to use a thing that
in a tabular form showed the distinction between the for us work of God which is the gospel and the in us work
of God which is the spirit's work in sanctification and of course it comes down to the question of the relationship
of sanctification and justification if you want to get into theological terms but it's absolutely vital
one great Scottish theologian of the 19th century James Buchanan who wrote that great book on justification by faith
said there is no more pernicious error than confusing the gracious work of God in us by his Holy Spirit
with the gracious work of God for us and yet that is around the earth like the frogs of Egypt
amongst evangelicals, this confusion between justification and sanctification
confusion between the distinctive work of the spirit and the distinctive work of Christ
so very important
anything else before we break? David
Given that what you're saying is so many true evidence that we need to apply real attention to Christ
why is it that so many what you might call musical, biblical scholars don't do it?
I've just been working on an old Testament book at the moment and the content I'm reading
and they're world renowned scholars, generally from Israel to the particular identified countries
I don't know how you can ever answer that, I can suggest what might possibly be
I think one reason is there is a terrific suspicion of finding Christ in the Old Testament
because it has been so badly misused, I'm not just thinking historically of going back to Origen
and people in the second and third century who used, borrowed from the Greeks
the Hellenistic, monastic approach of allegory in order to be able to get something which seemed to be way out of place
to fit with something else, something that looks totally earthly to fit with something which is spiritual
so you spiritualise and spiritualising is a dirty word amongst a lot of evangelicals
there is also a great deal of confusion about the distinction between typology and allegory
now I firmly believe that the way you go, and we'll be talking about this more today
the way you get from the Old Testament to Christ is by a typological method
but that's not allegory, it's not doing like, having a basis for making the link
which might be just simply linking vague ideas
I remember when I was a junior Old Testament lecturer at Moore College
and the guys used to rid me a bit and I got there one day and there on the lectern in front of me
was a tract from some American Bible broadcaster, a very famous guy
on dealing with the rebuilding of the gates of Jerusalem by Nehemiah
and the one that stuck out was, you know, they rebuilt the sheep gate
and the logic of the text went this, sheep, shepherd, John chapter 10, I am the good shepherd
then we had horse gate, horse, soldiers, put on the whole armour of God, we're into Ephesians 6
that had nothing to do with Nehemiah, we were actually getting sermons on John 6 and John 10 and so on
and that's how it went, he didn't deal with the done gate, I don't know what he had done with that one
I remember a little commentary on Exodus, talking about the making of the robes for the priest
and this was the sort of idea that if Christ is in all the scriptures then every detail must speak of Christ
and so when it came to the robes of the priest they would be embroidered with pomegranates
and pomegranates were fruit, so next thing we've got the fruit of the spirit and we were in Ephesians 5
you see, you make a circular hole in the priest's robe and a circle is a symbol of eternity
so next thing we're dealing with Christ eternity, never mind the fact that the guy had to get his head through somewhere
why couldn't it just be dealing with that?
and that's the sort of thing that has led to a lot of suspicion about making the link
and apart from that I think that we are inveterate moralisers, even evangelicals
I remember we had a student at the college in Brisbane who went off to another theological college
and I remember the communication that came back, he said we are sinking in a sea of sanctification
I think what he was responding to was, you know, Christian living, morals, ethics and so on without the gospel
so that's one reason that I can think of, or two reasons that I can think of, I don't know
I just think, be aware of it, we are all prone to do it
and you see, the other thing is, and we better stop here
getting from an Old Testament text to Jesus can sometimes present you with quite a few difficulties of seeing the links
so it's much easier then to moralise and sort of just use the Old Testament character as somebody who exhibits
certain qualities to avoid and certain qualities to emulate
but we'll talk about that some more
We're about to have a link to you, I'll let us in prayer
Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the great gospel that you promised beforehand through your prophets and the holy scriptures
we praise you that it's about your son who after his human nature was the son of David
and Father we praise you that through the resurrection that he was declared to be the great son of David, the great son of God
the Messiah, the king, and we praise you that this king has come to his throne and his death for us
Father we thank you that as we spend time having morning tea that we can praise you for this
and enjoy the fruits of it as we share together our faith
and we pray this in Jesus' name, Amen