‘Behold, the Lamb of God’s
ide o amnos tou
theou
College Study
11th teaching
10.15.2012
“the Themes of Holy Scripture”
We’ve learned a lot about the Bible, but what’s in this book of books anyways? We now
know a lot about how we got it in our hands, we know how well preserved it is,
we know that it is accurate, inerrant and divine… but the most important thing
about the Bible is what the Bible is about. So what is the Bible really all
about?
Let’s think for a moment on why this is an important
question:
The Bible is ginormous. It’s huge. It’s too big to read in
one sitting the whole way through and it’s certainly so large that it
intimidates some people to even pick it up and read it. Often times, we imagine
the Bible as a book of fragmentary stories, of wise sayings and inspirational
messages. In fact, the Bible is not just any of these things. It has tremendous
unity.
So how can we provide for ourselves and for others a
comprehensive view of the Bible which serves to make it more understandable as
a whole? How can we sort of summarize the Bible?
We’re going to do that tonight by looking at the contents
of the Bible, what’s in the Bible, specifically the themes of the Bible.
A book I recommend on the subject of the Bible’s themes is:
Major Bible Themes by Lewis Sperry
Chafer. It’s written simply and briefly and covers many of the biblical themes,
backing up each theme with scripture references.
But hang on…
What is a theme, anyways? Well a theme in a literary work
is a concept which the author puts into the writing which runs throughout the
whole story. A theme is a central topic in a book. A theme could be for example
Love or Bravery or Good vs Evil. It could be a variety of things.
So when we talk about the themes of the Bible, first off,
we’re talking about a Book of books which is no mere man-made piece of
literature. But we’re talking about central topics, central concepts, themes
which run through the whole story, which God the Author put in the Bible. We
should be able to trace these themes all the way through the Bible and this
should help to give us a greater understanding of the Bible as a whole.
So first, let’s think of the Main Theme of the Bible.
Every symphony has a main theme, the foundation that ties
all the movements of the symphony together. This is the center of the symphony.
The Bible too has a main theme, the foundational topic
which ties all of the stories, all of the characters, all of the books, all of
the ages and the history and God’s dealings with man together and forms one
story. This is the center of the Bible’s message.
So what is the main theme of the Bible?
Let’s open by looking at John chapter 5.
A little context, if you please: in John’s fifth chapter,
we see Jesus in Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. Jesus meets man who had been sick
for 38 years and Jesus heals the man then commands him to take up his bed and
walk. The man unfortunately gets caught carrying his bed by the Jews. The Jews
tell the healed man that it was breaking the law to carry his bed on the
Sabbath. Long story short, the Jews desire to kill Jesus for telling a man to
break the Sabbath and then Jesus verbally confronts them.
In answering the Jews, we read in 5:31-40 what Jesus said.
Our focus is on verse
39. Jesus said the Scriptures testify, that is they talk about Him. This
means that the Bible is all about Jesus.
The main theme of the Bible is Jesus Christ and the salvation provided through Him.
Look at Hebrews
10:5-7. The volume of the book is written about Christ. It begins with
Christ and it ends with Christ.
The Bible begins with the promise of Christ’s coming. Genesis 3:14-15. The prophecy of the
serpent-crusher was a prophecy which foretold the coming of Jesus, all the way
from Adam and Eve in the beginning… Jesus who would defeat Satan at the cross.
From the very outset of sin and the very start of the human race, Jesus Christ
was promised to come.
So too, the Bible ends with the promise of Christ’s return.
Revelation 22:20 says “He who testifies of these things says
‘Surely I am coming quickly.’ Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” The second
to the last verse of the Bible is a promise of Christ’s soon return. The Bible
concludes by turning our eyes toward the future, looking for the soon return of
Jesus Christ.
*Even consider the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Together, they form to halves which point to a central core: Jesus Christ and
the salvation provided through Him.
The Old Testament looked forward to the life and death of
Christ. The Old Testament contains a couple things that looked forward to Jesus
Christ:
1. Prophecy — messianic prophecies
all over the Old Testament pointed forward in time to the coming of the Messiah
Himself. They foretold His birth, His life, His miracles and so on. Here’s a
few examples:
a. Psalm
22:12-18. The
imagery here directly points to the crucifixion of Christ. The Scriptures
prophesied that they would pierce His hands and His feet, that He would feel
thirst, that His bones would go out of joint, that enemies would surround Him
and that they would gamble for His clothing all at His death.
b. Isaiah
53:1-9. Among
other things, the prophet Isaiah foretold of Christ’s violent death, of the
healing that His death would provide, of the rejection of Jesus by the people,
of the silence of Christ before His accusers and even of Christ’s burial in a
rich man’s tomb.
2. Foreshadows and Types —
foreshadows and types form a method of studying the Bible known as typology.
Typology attempts to show how certain Old Testament characters or events formed
parallels that foreshadowed future events. Most often, the Old Testament used
types to foreshadow the life of Christ. Typology is fascinating because I think
there is so much still in here waiting to be discovered; there are all kinds of
foreshadows in the Old Testament. Here’s a few examples:
a. The
Ark — You know
the story. In Genesis 7, Noah has
built the Ark and the LORD commands that he and his family and the animals
enter the Ark to escape the judgment of the Flood. The Ark is a foreshadow, a
picture of Christ because the people found refuge and safety from judgement in
it, just as in Christ, who took our punishment for us, we escape the wrath of
God and punishment for our sins in Hell.
b. Joseph — In Genesis 37, Joseph is the favored son of Jacob but he is rejected
by his brothers who plan to kill him, even though Joseph only meant good toward
them. Joseph also came to rule over his brothers. Jesus Christ was rejected and
killed by the Jews, His brothers, though someday He will return and rule over
them.
c. The
Exodus — The
Exodus of the children of Israel took place when God delivered them from
slavery in Egypt. This is a picture of God delivering people today from slavery
to sin.
d. The
sacrifices — The
Law demanded that offerings be made for the sins of the people and animals were
sacrificed that their blood might cover the sins of the people before God. The
sacrifices point forward to the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of
God, whose blood covers us and cleanses our sins.
Now the Old Testament looks forward to Christ, but the New
Testament looks backward to Christ. The Old Testament predicted the life of
Christ. The New Testament reveals the life of Christ. The Old Testament
foreshadowed the Messiah. The New Testament explains the significance of the
Messiah.
What are some ways in which the New Testament points
backward to Jesus Christ?
1. The
words of Jesus
— the New Testament, specifically the gospels, contains the very words of Jesus
Christ. We learn who He was because we have preserved for us just what He said.
The New Testament therefore not only contains teachings on being a good person
or inspirational stories, but it contains most importantly the very words of
the Son of God.
2. The
doctrines —
the doctrines or teachings of the New Testament each find their basis in the
person of Jesus Christ, whether it’s a teaching on the Rapture or the Church or
Christian unity or holiness or heaven.
3. The
Church — the
church came into existence solely because of Jesus Christ, and the church is a
community of believers who are devoted to glorifying God, encouraging and
equipping each other, and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with unbelievers.
4. The
New Testament books
— even the books themselves point toward Jesus Christ. The book of Acts, the
gospels and the letters of the New Testament all are there because of the work
of Jesus Christ on earth.
So the whole Bible, both the Old Testament and the New
Testament have to do with the life, the death, the ministry of Jesus Christ. So
again, you want a short answer? You want a view of the Bible as a whole? You
want an easy way to explain what the Bible is about to your friends and
acquaintences? Remember the main theme: Jesus
Christ and the salvation provided through Him.
Now that’s all well and good, but let’s pause and reflect
on something that maybe escaped our notice.
Remember the scripture passage we first read, John 5? There Jesus said that the Jews
were searching the Scriptures to try to find eternal life, but Jesus said the
Scriptures testified of Him.
We realize from this passage that Jesus is the center of
the Scriptures. But what we maybe didn’t realize is that people were reading the Bible and completely missing the main
theme. The Jews were renown for being religious in Christ’s day. There were
men who devoted their lives to sacred Scripture. Jews from a very early age
memorized huge portions of Scripture. They studied it in their synagogues. They
copied it diligently onto parchment. They listened to the Rabbis explain the
Scriptures. They observed feasts and holy days and ceremonies and rituals a lot
of which were based around the Scriptures. They had Scriptures bound in little
boxes to their hands. They had Scriptures written in their homes. If anyone
knew the Scriptures, it was the Jews.
Yet they missed the whole point. And Jesus said the whole
point was Himself. They thought that reading the Scriptures would show them
eternal life, but what they didn’t realize is that eternal life was to be found
in Jesus, whom the Scriptures declare and reveal.
Therefore, there is a way in which you can read the Bible
and still miss the whole point, and not see Jesus at all.
Question: how do you
read the Bible? Do you read it and miss the whole point?
Just last night, my wife and I came across a performance of
Handel’s Messiah on Youtube. The nutty thing about it is that while the
vocalists were singing and the orchestra playing the songs A Man of Sorrows or the
Hallelujah Chorus or For Unto Us a
Child is Born… there were actors on stage acting out some bizarre drama.
Now the producers were probably trying to draw some kind of parallel between
what was being sung and what was being acted out, but it really just seemed
like they missed the point. A whole opera symphony about the life of Christ
became a muddled, confused, depressing drama with seemingly no point to it at
all.
I wanted to say to them: you’ve missed the point. That’s
not what Handel’s Messiah is about at all. Maybe you’ve read a review on a
movie or a book and wanted to say the same thing. How can someone read
something or view something and miss the whole point? The Dark Knight Rises wasn’t about polictics. It was about the Dark
Knight rising! Yet many missed the point…
And I think this is a problem for some people when they
come to read the Bible. They may be able to see the characters of the Bible,
the faith, the hope and the love in the Bible… they may focus on the prophecy
of the Bible or they might be interested in the literature, the poetry or the
history of the Bible… there have been scholars and scientists and
archaeologists and atheists who have come to the Bible and yet they might miss entirely what the whole
book is about.
The whole book is about Jesus. The main theme of the Bible
is this: Jesus Christ and the salvation
provided through Him. If you read the Bible and miss that, then you’ve
missed the whole point. Then, no doubt, the Bible becomes a confusing mess full
of little stories and inspirational tidbits.
So how do you and I read the Bible? Have we missed the
point or do we see the full picture? Is the Bible just a confusing compendium
of characters and Christianity? Or is the Bible a cohesive storyline that you
understand? Can you make sense of the whos-who and the whats-what? Can you
piece together where a story or a book belongs in the great history of God’s
story?
I hope you’re inspired and challenged to study the Bible
more. And I hope we’ve looked at a good guideline for understanding it.
*For a moment I’d like to discuss some of the minor themes
of the Bible. We know now what the main theme of the Bible is, but does it
contain other themes, other recurring concepts?
It certainly does.
One example is the grace of God. God’s grace is seen through
the Old Testament and the New Testament. Another example could be man’s
rebellion. Man rebelled in the garden of Eden, man rebelled before the Flood,
after the Flood, he rebelled against the law, he rebelled against the rule of
God and the rule of Israel’s kings, and man has rebelled against the gospel.
There are many themes we could spend some time looking at,
but there’s two which have direct bearing upon an over-all view of the Bible.
These two minor themes help to give a comprehensive view of the Bible as a
whole story.
They are Dispensations and Covenants.
The word Dispensations
refers to periods of time, specifically periods of time throughout history in
which God dealt with mankind differently. Dispensations can be thought of as
ages in history.
The word Covenants
refers to the covenants, the agreements or “contracts”, between God and man
throughout the Bible. An example of a covenant today is marriage: the marriage
covenant is between two parties (a man and a woman) and the covenant is an agreement
(an agreement to be faithful to each other) which brings the two parties
together (as husband and wife instead of just a man and woman).
Now let me make a quick note here: I understand that there
is some controversy over Dispensationalist Theology and Covenant Theology.
Apparently, you can’t be a Dispensationalist if you’re a Covenant Theologian,
and vice versa. These two theologies are opposed to each other.
I’m not sure why and I really don’t care. I think that
these both provide some insight into the biblical storyline but they are merely
systems for studying the Bible, and where they diverge from what the Bible
actually teaches, then they’re obviously wrong. So, I’m not a Dispensationalist
OR a Covenant Theologian, but I think that the Bible shows both different ages
and different covenants. To me, these two concepts help give me a clearer
picture of the whole Bible.
1. Dispensations
Most Dispensationlists break
down the Bible into seven ages of time, in which God’s relationship or dealings
with mankind were different. I’ll give you Scripture references which show when
the Dispensations or ages began and ended.
a. The Age of Innocence — Genesis 1 – 3. This is the period of
time before the Fall of Man, in which Adam and Eve enjoyed the Presence of God
in the Garden of Eden. This Age ends with the sin of Adam and Eve. Interesting
that the Age of Innocence ended because man was no longer innocent.
b. The Age of Conscience — Genesis 3 – 8. This is the period of
time from Adam’s sin to Noah’s ark. It’s between the Fall and the Flood. During
this time, men sought God but there was no specific laws from God outside of
the conscience God put in men. Interesting that the Age of Conscience ended
because man’s conscience was not strong enough to rule over their sin.
c. The Age of Government — Genesis 9 – 11. This is the period of
time from Noah’s ark to the call of Abraham. During this time, God set up the
authority of capital punishment, so that governments as a human agency could
restrain the evil of men by enacting justice. Interesting that the Age of
Government ended because man abused the power of government with the Tower of
Babel.
d. The Age of Promise — Genesis 11 – Exodus 19. This period of
time is from the call of Abraham to the Law of Moses. During this time, God
turned from broadly dealing with the nations to dealing with a man out of whom
would come a special nation. The Age of Promise ends with the giving of the Law
to the children of Israel.
e. The Age of the Law — Exodus 20 – Matthew 1. This period of
time is from the giving of the Law to Israel to the New Testament. This age is
from Moses to Christ. During this time, God’s people were under the law, which
was never a means of salvation but actually a form of governing how they were
intended to live. This age is full of constant breaking of the Law. Israel and
mankind were shown to be incapable of keeping the Law.
f. The Age of Grace (or the Church
Age) — Acts 2 – Revelation 20. This
period of time began with the formation of the church, a new community of
believers in Jesus Christ’s substitutionary death and it will end with the
Rapture and the ushering in of the Millennial Kingdom.
g. The Age of the Millennium — Revelation 20. This is a period of a
1000 years which will be a golden age on earth. During this time, Christ will
physically reign over the world. At the end of this age will come the Eternal
State, which is not considered a dispensation, since it will never end.
2.
Covenants
Throughout
the Bible, God made a series of covenants with people. These directly affected
how the people were supposed to live and how God dealt with them. Covenants,
just like Dispensations, helps to provide a comprehensive view of Scripture.
There are as many as possibly seven covenants in the Bible (also, I’ll give you
Scripture references to summarize what the covenant was about and where and
when it was made):
1. The Edenic covenant — Genesis 1:26-28. This was a covenant
made between God and Adam. The Edenic covenant contains man’s responsibility to
have dominion over the creatures and to be fruitful and multiply.
2. The Adamic covenant — Genesis 3:14-19. This covenant came into being because of
Adam’s sin. It contains the curse over man and woman and creation, which curse
will be removed during the future Millennial Kingdom. Death too, a part of the
Adamic covenant, will be removed in the Eternal State when there is no more
death.
3. The Noahic covenant — Genesis 8:20 – 9:17. In this covenant,
God promised never to destroy the world again with a flood. He also gave
permission for man to eat animals and enact capital punishment. The sign of the
Noahic covenant is the rainbow.
4. The Abrahamic covenant — Genesis 12, 15, 17. One of the most
important covenants in the Bible, the Abrahamic covenant contains God’s unconditional promises and blessings for
the people involved in the covenant, which was Abraham and his descendants, and
ultimately the church as Abraham’s spiritual descendants. The Abrahamic
covenant was unconditional, meaning, the people involved did not have to do
anything to keep the agreement, other than that God swore that He would keep
His promises in the covenant. The Abrahamic covenant breaks down into a promise
for land, for descendants and for worldwide blessing. The sign of the Abrahamic
covenant was circumcision, unfortunately for Abraham.
5. The Mosaic covenant — Exodus 20-23, Deuteronomy. The Mosaic
covenant was the agreement of the Law in which the people of Israel could
experience God’s blessing under certain conditions in the Law. However, the
Mosaic covenant and the Law were temporary. Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law. The
Law was only designed to govern Israel’s social, spiritual, moral and religious
matters. But it served as a school-teacher to point out where man was sinful (Gal 3:24). The Law is important as a
predecessor of grace, since it showed that man was indeed guilty before God and
thus in need of salvation.
6. The Davidic covenant — II Samuel 7:4-17. This was a covenant
in which God made promises to David. God promises that David’s descendants
would have a throne and a kingdom which would last forever. Ultimately, the
Davidic covenant finds its fulfillment in Jesus, the Son of David, and His
eternal reign over earth
7. The New covenant — Jeremiah 31, Matthew 26:27-28. This one
of the covenants which we currently enjoy. It applies both to Israel and to the
church. It provides for the forgiveness of sins in the substitutionary death of
Christ and a promise of eternal life and reconciliation with God. The New
covenant is based upon the finished work of the Messiah, the serpent-crusher,
the descendant of Abraham, the Son of David: Jesus Christ. For a beautiful
description of the New covenant, turn to Hebrews
8:8-12. The motto of the New covenant is that God will remember our sins
and our lawless deeds no more. This will be ultimately true for Israel when
they as a nation are spiritually restored to God.
There’s so much more to learn and to know about the Bible.
Again, I hope this challenges you to dig in deeper and inspires you to study
the Word of God.
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