May we organize our preaching through the tried and true categories of a biblically sound Reformed systematic theology, which is firmly grounded in the God-given account of redemptive history. As we have seen, the doctrinal dots are everywhere and good preaching will connect them. Keeping the redemptive-historical box-top before us, helps us tell God’s story as he does.

This is an edited version of my den Dulk Lectures given at Westminster Seminary California in April, 2021. The content of the lecture has been edited for publication here.

Lecture One — Preaching and Apologetics

Lecture Two — Preaching and Dogmatics

In our third and final lecture, I will discuss the benefit of placing the “box-top” of redemptive history before a congregation in order to provide the “big picture” categories needed to interpret the Bible correctly.  Teaching these big picture categories to our hearers will better enable them to resist the pull toward the subjective turn associated with contemporary American spirituality, a turn which renders the Bible irrelevant, pulls biblical passages out of context, or which understands the Bible as something other than revelation from God.  Reading and understanding the Bible through the lens of a well thought-out biblical theology goes a long way toward helping us draw proper conclusions about what the kind of book the Bible is, as well as guiding us to the proper application we ought to draw from those doctrinal dots we have connected together. 

The Panorama of Redemptive History

Building upon the previous lectures, I will focus upon an interpretive framework developed along the lines Dr. Michael Horton describes as the internal architecture of Scripture–God’s covenants.[1]  God’s story as revealed in his word is tied to specific historical events which make up that story.  As such, this story is true and comes to us in words and sentences with subjects, verbs, and objects, thereby summoning us to listen and look outside ourselves, not turn within.  Telling God’s story challenges all personal and subjective mythologies, and is actually far more interesting than anything we can dream up.   

The panorama of the redemptive drama flows out of this covenant history taking us from the moment of creation, to Eden, to Adam’s creation and fall, to the person and work of a second Adam, Jesus, including his death, resurrection, and ascension, to a new creation when our fallen universe becomes the home of everlasting righteousness.  This panoramic view provides the “big picture categories” (the box-top of a many-pieced puzzle), the importance of which we will discuss in the balance of our time.

As we turn to the relationship between preaching and biblical theology, again, we are reminded of the connection between the facts of God’s redemptive word and deeds and essential Christian doctrines connected to them.  The father of Reformed biblical theology, Geerhardus Vos, writes,

If we can show that revealed religion is inseparably linked to a system of supernatural historical facts at its culminating epoch in Christ–as we think can be done, we can see that the faith of the Apostles and the faith of the Apostolic Church revolved around the great redemptive facts in which they found the interpretation of the inner meaning of the Savior’s life.  To the earliest Christian consciousness doctrine and fact were wedded at the outset.[2] 

The key event in the Bible–Jesus’s messianic mission–takes place in a specific context, one foretold throughout the Old Testament in the words of Moses and the prophets.  Promise becomes fulfillment because God’s self-revelation is inseparable from historical events.  There is a definite and discernible progress in the biblical narrative toward a final and ultimate goal–the renewal of the cosmos and the redemption of God’s people.

In our first lecture I addressed the importance of preaching apologetically–grounding our preaching in the fact that Christianity is at its heart a truth claim, a claim tied to specific historical events.  When looking at the box-top we see a succession of such events–the period before and after Noah, the age of the patriarchs, the Exodus, the Conquest, the exile and return, Christ’s life and messianic mission, his death and resurrection, Pentecost, and the Ascension, all pointing ahead to our Lord’s return and the final consummation. 

In our second lecture, we discussed the importance of preaching from the biblical text through the lens of a system of theology.  This enables us to lay out the dots, so to speak, and then connect them for those in our congregations who otherwise might not make the connections.  A biblically based systematic theology provides the proper theological categories through which to understand the Bible as the revelation of God’s story in history.  Doing so exposes the futility of the turn toward subjective and self-referential epistemologies typical of contemporary American spirituality.  Pushing our hearers to consider “what God said and did” is a powerful antidote to focusing upon subjective “feelings,” self-justifying opinions or that misguided question we hear far too often, “what does this verse mean to you?”

The “Big Picture” Categories

In this lecture, we continue to consider “big picture categories,” but this time from the perspective of their historical development in Scripture (the historica salutis).  We are looking at categories as they develop throughout the course of redemptive history (a line) not topically as in systematic theology (a circle).  We already know many of the proof-tests for our doctrines, so the challenge is to look to see how these doctrines extend throughout the whole of Scripture and which challenge those who have taken the subjective turn.

So, we will survey a couple of big picture themes we discussed last time–the doctrine of creation (now considering the flip side of the Creator-creation distinction) and what it means to be a divine image bearer–the high point of the creation account.  Then, we will survey the covenants (redemption, works and grace), before considering the work of the second Adam and the hope of the final consummation.  By laying out the big picture categories in our preaching through the biblical text, we will see the unity of the story of redemption, as well as its factual and objective character.  This external word anchored in specific redemptive events directs our attention to the God who reveals himself in Jesus Christ, and warns us not to dive into the subjective morass of contemporary American spirituality.

Creation

The Christian doctrine of God (the Creator) demands a corresponding Christian doctrine of creation.  To this end there are three points to consider when we reflect upon the created order, including things seen and things unseen.  First, Scripture affirms that God created all things.  Nothing which now exists, does so apart from the fact that God created it.  All created things exist through God’s eternal decree.  Second, God created all things and is therefore distinct from all created things (the Creator-creature distinction).  Creation is not divine (pantheism), nor does it exist within the being of God (panentheism).  The Creator-creature distinction stands over those pantheistic impulses which drive so much of contemporary American spirituality.  Third, God pronounced all things he created as “good,” a refrain which is repeated throughout the days of creation (Genesis 1).  These three points constitute a distinct Christian doctrine of creation which should inform all of our preaching from Genesis to Revelation.

The Christian doctrine of creation precludes any notion that God formed our universe out of eternal matter, or that there was a realm of eternal and ideal forms in which matter is inherently deficient in contrast to the spiritual realm (i.e., Plato).  The doctrine of creation insists that before all things came into being, God was, completely free and independent.  God created all things from nothing (creation ex nihilo) through his creative word (Hebrews 11:3).  “God said” and it was so (Genesis 1).  From the sun, moon, and stars, to the sea, land, and sky, to the various creatures which fill these created realms, all things were created by God who spoke them into existence.  “All things” include that which we can see (i.e., the visible world in which we live and for which we have been created), as well as things we cannot see (i.e., the angels and the invisible world).  

This has significant ramifications.  The Christian view of creation directly challenges the basic presuppositions of contemporary American spirituality.  There are no pre-existent eternal human souls.  No migration of eternal souls–reincarnation.  We are not “divine” in any sense.  The Creator is to be distinguished from all created things, and any supposed dualism between spirit and matter is a platonic fiction.  Matter is not inherently evil, nor flawed.  God created all things from nothing and pronounced them “good.”

Divine Image-Bearers

With the language of the eighth Psalm in mind (“you have made [man] a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor” v. 5), Cornelius Van Til once stated that Adam was created to be like God in every way in which a creature can be like God.  These words may sound shocking when we first hear them.  Yet, as Van Til qualifies, because Adam is a creature, humans can never be divine.  Adam’s progeny will always be creatures, although created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26), through a direct act of God in which Adam’s body was formed from the dust of the earth, and his soul was created by God’s act of breathing life into both Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:4-24).  To be human is to be male or female and to bear God’s image in both body and soul, which exist as a personal unity of the spiritual (the soul) and the material (the body).

Because all people are divine image-bearers, we are truly like God in that we possess all of the so-called communicable attributes of God–albeit in a creaturely form and measure (ectypally and by analogy).  This constitutes us as “human” beings, distinct from the animal kingdom and vastly superior in moral and rational capabilities.  The creation of the image-bearers marks the high point of the creation account (Genesis 1:28-31), as God pronounced Adam to be “very good.”  Reformed theologians have long argued that our bodies are fit “organs” of the soul.  It is especially through the body-soul unity that communicable attributes are manifest.

The ramifications of being created as divine image bearers are profound given the current intellectual and cultural disruption.  Adam’s task was to build the temple garden of God on earth in Eden, and to rule and subdue the earth in the name of his creator.  Adam was created as fit for that task in every possible way.  Adam is also the biological and federal head of the human race.  All humans are his biological descendants.  Any evolutionary developments are post-creation and not the basis of the imago–we do not become image bearers, we are image-bearers.  This speaks directly to the unity of our race in the midst of the current intersectionality scrum.  Despite our different skin colors and physical appearances, all people bear God’s image and are equal in dignity before our creator.  The Imago is upstream of all racial distinctions and cultural expressions.  As image-bearers, there is a unity to our race which transcends all human differences–even though our racial and cultural differences are exacerbated by the Fall.

As the federal head of the race, Adam acted on behalf of all his descendants during a time of probation in Eden.  Adam was commanded not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  What Adam did in Eden, he did as our representative–as though each of us were there acting in him (in corporate solidarity).  Adam was created in righteousness, holiness, and possessed true knowledge of God (cf. Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10).  Adam was not merely innocent before God, but personally holy and morally upright, possessing the natural ability to obey all of God’s commands and to fulfill the cultural mandate (Genesis 1:28)–the latter is the origin of human culture and the institutions of society (government).  Adam was given dominion over all of creation as God’s vice-regent.  God assigned to him the role of ruling over the world and naming all of its creatures.  He was given plants and animals for food.  This reflects the Psalmist’s point that humans are but a little lower than the angels (Psalm 8:5).

Adam’s spiritual nature (the soul lives on after the death of the body) reflects essential human nature.  Our souls are invisible, indivisible, and immortal.  We are created as rational beings with great intellectual abilities, and the moral ability to determine right from wrong is hardwired within us (Romans 2:12-16).  We are also capable of receiving the revelation which God gives through the created order (general revelation) and through his word (special revelation).  The subjective turn, however, denies even the possibility of such revelation, instead seeking to identify fallen human nature and vain imagination with the divine.  To quote Paul, “professing ourselves wise, we become fools” (Romans 1:22).

The Fall of Adam–The Context for Redemption

We speak of redemptive-history because we assume that people are in need of redemption from sin.  The entire course of the biblical narrative post-Eden assumes the reality of human sin, guilt, and the curse–which is death.  The Bible begins with the account of Adam being created in a covenant of works/creation, which remains in effect after his fall.  Had he obeyed, he would have been glorified, the consummation would occur, and the temple garden in Eden completed.  God would dwell with his people.  But, we know by looking at the box-top what happened and how this impacts the entire course of human history.

Those who have taken the subjective turn, often operate on the misguided assumption that deep down inside, people are basically good if not a chip off the divine block.  When we compare ourselves to others, we might measure up pretty well.  Sure, there are some who we might begrudgingly admit are better people than we are, we still do pretty well in most of our self-comparison tests against others.

Assuming that people are basically good, as do most Americans, ignores the fact that ours is a fallen race, under the just condemnation from God, awaiting the sentence of death and eternal punishment.  The reality is that God is not going to compare me to someone else, who is also a fallen sinner.  Instead, God will measure me against the standard of his law, which is holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12).  Like everyone else descended from Adam, I am not holy, righteous, and good.  I am a sinner.  I am under the sentence of death.  If I take the subjective turn what will I find?  That I am divine, that I possess an inner light?  No, I find a blackness which should frighten me.  I stand condemned before God.  I am guilty.  This guilt before God is the basis for human angst, loneliness, our self-centered perspective on life, our dissatisfaction with our possessions, and our fractured relationships throughout the course of our lives.

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