“The circle of revelation is not a school but a ‘covenant’. To speak of revelation as an ‘education’ of humanity is a rationalistic and utterly unscriptural way of speaking. All that God disclosed of Himself has come in response to the practical religious needs of His people as these emerged in the course of history.”

It has been good to be reminded this weekend of the Vosian view of Biblical Theology – that God’s record of self-revelation is progressive, historical, organic and pious. Vos says on p.8-9 of his ‘Biblical Theology’:

“The circle of revelation is not a school but a ‘covenant’. To speak of revelation as an ‘education’ of humanity is a rationalistic and utterly unscriptural way of speaking. All that God disclosed of Himself has come in response to the practical religious needs of His people as these emerged in the course of history.”

This “goal of biblical theology” is further enlarged upon by Sinclair Ferguson in his paper ‘What is Biblical Theology?’ on pp.443-446 of his recent anthology entitled ‘Some Pastors and Teachers’. Let me put his three headings before you to stoke the flame of piety:

1. The knowledge of God at the heart of biblical theology is our greatest privilege:

Our natural boasting instinct, he says, indicates we were made to be worshiping creatures, but to boast in self or stuff, turns the truth of divine devotion into error and deception. Knowing the Lord, therefore “is what we were created for” and the goal of all theological thinking,” (Jer. 9.23-24; 1 Cor 1.31).

That drives me to the conclusion that when we are doing biblical theology we should have a Bible in one hand and a Psalter (two Bibles if you must) in the other – the goal of theology is doxology! Perhaps this is why the Psalms are so full of the history of God’s organic, historic, progressive, piety-stimulating acts and accounts (or as Vos might phrase it predictive pre-accounts, acts, and interpretative post-accounts).

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