“Few books the student of Scripture might read in the coming days will be

as challenging and thought-provoking as John Harrigan’s contribution you

now have in hand. John treats the cross of Jesus as a sacrifice for our sins in
the context of an early Christian, first-century Jewish apocalyptic
viewpoint. Most will perhaps find chapter 6 alone to be worth the price of
the whole book, for rarely has there been a more courageous discussion of
what the kingdom of God means in terms of the second advent and the
eschatological events in that day by our Lord without simultaneously
buying into supersessionism or a ‘New Israel’ thesis. I would anticipate an
exciting future for this book and a wide-ranging distribution, for its careful
exegetical discussions are not often seen in such works.”
—WALTER C. KAISER JR.
President Emeritus, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

“Although this is a heavy theological book that takes on some of the most
highly debated topics among biblical scholars, it is written in an easy-to-
read style that any common Christian may both understand and enjoy.
There are really only a few Christian books that qualify as being on my
‘must-read’ list. The Gospel of Christ Crucified is truly at the very top of
that list. This book has deeply influenced my own theology and
understanding of the gospel unlike few others. I trust it will be an equal
blessing to anyone who reads it.”
—JOEL RICHARDSON
New York Times best-selling author, filmmaker, and teacher

“John Harrigan has written a book with deeply impacting content,

inspiration, and focus on foundational truths that transform us. While I
don’t agree on the issue of the kingdom, and do believe that the kingdom
has an already-not-yet stage, Mr. Harrigan’s book presses us to see
that Christ’s return and the coming of the kingdom in fullness is really our
deepest heart’s desire. Our hearts are set on his death and resurrection,
ascension, and second coming.”
 —DANIEL C. JUSTER
Founder and Director, Tikkun International Ministries

“John Harrigan has written something unique. The Gospel of Christ

Crucified is a lucid and original work of theology, a fresh wind of
scholarship that seeks to return us to a first-century Jewish apocalyptic
ethos for interpreting Scripture. He defines his own view as ‘chiliastic
cruciform apocalypticism.’ If this seems dense, his writing style brings this
whole discussion to life. It has profound implications for the worldwide
church in the twenty-first century. This book is a must-read for anyone
concerned about the theological foundations and the ‘last days’ preparations
of the church of Jesus Christ. Be prepared to be challenged, not just
theologically but personally.”
—DAVID G. CASHIN
Professor of Intercultural Studies, Columbia International University

“It is without hyperbole or exaggeration to say that John Harrigan has

written one of the most important books of our generation. As we approach
the return of the Lord and all that must come first, the message of The
Gospel of Christ Crucified is lifting the chin of the global body to see our
Blessed Hope more clearly to love him more deeply. It is a profound work
and a gift to the church. My prayer is that what John has written would
spread far and wide to stir a united ‘Maranatha’ cry among the nations until
heaven can receive him no more (Acts 3:21).”
—DALTON THOMAS
Founder and President, Frontier Alliance International

“After years of theological training and mission work, God used John
Harrigan to bring me much-needed clarity on the message of the Scriptures
and the mission of God. John has the ability to bring both passionate focus
and simplicity of vision for the overarching message of the Bible. This book
is deeply committed to the message of the cross while establishing the
believer in the proper Jewish apocalyptic hope of the Scriptures! It is for
this reason that we use this book in our training schools in South Asia. We
are excited for this second edition of The Gospel of Christ Crucified.”
—JACOB STONE
Founder and Director, Eduth Yeshua
The Gospel of Christ Crucified: A Theology of Suffering before Glory
Copyright © 2015, 2019 by John P. Harrigan
Published by Paroikos Publishing
PO Box 11011
Fayetteville, AR 72703
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-9964955-3-0
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9964955-4-7
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-9964955-5-4
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic,
mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without written
permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations have been taken from
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (ESV). Copyright © 2001, 2007,
2011, 2016 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used
by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian
Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American
Standard Bible. Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975,
1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights
reserved.
Scripture quotations marked NET are taken from The Holy Bible: New
English Translation. The NET Bible®. Copyright © 2006 by Biblical
Studies Press. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible: New
International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica Inc.
Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved
worldwide.
Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from The Holy Bible: New
King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson,
Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from The Holy Bible: New
Living Translation. Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House
Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised
Standard Version Bible. Copyright © 1989 by National Council of the
Churches of Christ. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the 1769 Blayney Edition
of the 1611 King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations marked AT are the author’s translation. Italics in
biblical quotations indicate emphasis added. Transliteration of Hebrew
words follows the SBL general-purpose style. Transliteration of Greek
words follows standard practice.
Cover art and design: Tyson Ranes and Studio Gearbox
Interior design and typeset: Katherine Lloyd, The DESK
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019913918
To all those who love his appearing.
Maranatha!
 CONTENTS

Preface
Foreword
Abbreviations
Introduction

Chapter One APPROACHING THE SCRIPTURES

Chapter Two THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH

Chapter Three THE DAY OF THE LORD

Chapter Four THE SPIRIT OF THE RESURRECTION

Chapter Five THE HOPE OF THE CHRIST

Chapter Six THE GLORY OF THE KINGDOM

Chapter Seven THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE CHRIST

Chapter Eight THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

Chapter Nine THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH

Appendix An Analysis of Passages Commonly Associated with

Realized Eschatology
Notes
Bibliography
Subject Index
Scripture
Index
 PREFACE

This book developed out of various classes and seminars that I have taught
over the years. Generally written at a popular level, the body of the book is
designed for students and pastors, while the endnotes are given for further
study. My prayer is that it will bring clarity to the gospel and strengthen the
church in its mission to glorify God among the nations.
No particular theological tradition is represented here, though I lean
toward historical scholarship. My desire is simply to recapitulate the
apostolic witness faithfully. Having been raised completely outside of the
church, I hold little regard for denomination or tradition. Over the years, I
have found this to be both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing in that
there is freedom to receive truth from various traditions without being
obligated to adhere to the dogma of any one in particular. It is a curse in that
most traditions demand a great loyalty to both their message and their
method, which can create a lonely road for the sojourning soul. As this age
quickens to its end, however, I believe such sectarianism will become
increasingly irrelevant (as it presently is in many areas of the world where
the church commonly experiences persecution and martyrdom).
I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the many who have supported
my family through prayers and finance during the years of writing this
book. Through all of our traveling and transitions, their kindness,
faithfulness, and love have been a well of strength that I am sure they will
never know. A debt of gratitude is also due to Peter Hartgerink for his years
of friendship, theological honing, and editorial work. Thanks to Katherine
Lloyd for managing the publishing process and for interior design and
typesetting. Thanks to Andy Sloan for his professional editorial services.
He was truly a delight to work with. Appreciation is also due to Donna
Huisjen for providing a subject index and Scripture index.
Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to my wife, Lydia, whose love,
support, and encouragement have been a consistent means of God’s grace to
me—not only in this work, but in all of life.
 FOREWORD

We are missionaries and missionary-minded because we long to go home.

This world is not our home; we are pilgrims and aliens and strangers on this
earth—we don’t belong here. We belong in the glorious and weighty
presence of Jesus, an eternal and joyful state unmitigated by sin. How we
long for that glorious day! How we long for the trumpet to sound, the Lord
to descend, corruption to put on incorruption, to be changed in a moment, in
a twinkling of an eye, that we might forever be with the Lord.
We agree with Paul that to be with Christ is gain; it is indeed far better.
But the problem is that there is no easy way to be with him—suffering must
precede glory. The promise of this book is the counsel it offers on
understanding and embracing the uneasy path to eternal life. Jesus carried
his cross, not ours; we yet have a cross to lift and carry before the glorious
day of his appearing.
Jesus clearly told us, in Matthew 24:14, that the gospel of the kingdom
must be preached in all the world, as a witness, to every people group—and
then the end will come. In a time of clouded vision, John Harrigan brings an
eagle-eyed focus to all the critical components of Christ’s words and
message. This book clearly defines the gospel. This book clearly defines the
kingdom. This book clearly defines what it will cost us to be a witness for
Christ among all peoples. This book clearly defines both the first and the
last day, the great and terrifying day of the Lord.
What I love about John Harrigan is his elegant theological simplicity.
John has been a beloved colleague of ours in Egypt; yet for all his
brilliance, he is at heart a man with a single eye and simple loves. John
loves the Christ; John loves the glory of God among all peoples; John loves
the fact that Jesus is coming soon. If you are a person of simple loves—the
cross, the blood of Jesus, the resurrection, the gospel, the kingdom, the
missionary call to all peoples, the day of the Lord, eternal life—then you
will love this book, and it will give you the theological and scholarly grist
for what you believe. If you have lost your passion for (or become confused
about) these elemental aspects of Christian faith, then this book will either
revive or revolt you—it will not leave you neutral nor unmoved.
Simplicity is strong, and this is a robust book that has been used by God
to challenge, renew, and refresh my passion for him and his purposes across
time. John articulates the essential components of our faith with no apology,
frankly debunking what is un-gospel and backing up every declarative
assertion with copious references to Scripture.
We truly live in the last days. We truly live in an age in which the
church is befuddled and the essential truths of the Bible have been diluted.
We truly live in a time in which the glories of Christ are diminished and his
church seeks his ends while denying his means. We truly live in a time of
the greatest opportunity and responsibility to reach unreached peoples. Yes,
our destiny is glory—but we are not greater than our Christ. We must get to
his glory by his means. His path to glory demanded crucifixion, and so will
ours. We, like him, must die for the salvation of the nations. Men and
women who long for life with God forever have no other way to get there
than the path of the God who condescended to be with man—for us, as for
him, crucifixion precedes resurrection and suffering precedes glory.

Dick Brogden
Cofounder of the Live Dead Movement
September 2019, Saudi Arabia
 ABBREVIATIONS

AB Anchor Bible
ABD The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David N. Freedman, 6 vols.
(Doubleday, 1992).
ANF The Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers Down to
A.D. 325, ed. A. Roberts, J. Donaldson, and A. C. Coxe, 10
vols. (CLC, 1885–87; reprint Hendrickson, 1994).
APOT The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, ed.
R. H. Charles, 2 vols. (Clarendon, 1913).
BA Biblical Archaeologist
BBR Bulletin for Biblical Research
BDAG W. Bauer, F. W. Danker, W. Arndt, and F. W. Gingrich, A
Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early
Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Univ. Chicago, 2001).
BECNT Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament
BNTC Black’s New Testament Commentary
BSac Bibliotheca Sacra
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CC Continental Commentaries
CTJ Calvin Theological Journal
DJG Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. Joel B. Green and Scot
McKnight (InterVarsity, 1992).
DP The Dialogues of Plato, trans. Benjamin Jowett, 3rd ed., 5 vols.
(Clarendon, 1892)
EBC Expositor’s Bible Commentary
EDNT Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. H. R. Balz and
G. Schneider, 3 vols. (Eerdmans, 1990).
Gk. Greek
HALOT The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, L.
Koehler, W. Baumgartner, and J. J. Stamm, 3rd ed., 4 vols. (E. J.
 Brill, 1994–99).
Heb. Hebrew
HTR Harvard Theological Review
HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual
ICC International Critical Commentary
ISBE The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed. Geoffrey W.
Bromiley, rev. ed., 4 vols. (Eerdmans, 1979–88).
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JE The Jewish Encyclopedia, ed. Isidore Singer, 12 vols. (Funk &
Wagnalls, 1901–06).
JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
JPSTC The JPS Torah Commentary
JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament
JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
JSP Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
Lat. Latin
LSJ H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones, and R. McKenzie, A
Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. (Oxford, 1996).
LW Luther’s Works, American Edition, ed. J. Pelikan and H. T.
Lehman, 55 vols. (Muehlenberg, Fortress, and Concordia,
1955–86).
LXX Septuagint (Old Testament in Greek, third century BC)
NAC New American Commentary
NBD New Bible Dictionary, ed. D. R. W. Wood and I. Howard
Marshall, 3rd ed. (InterVarsity, 1996).
NHLE The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. James M. Robinson,
4th ed. (E. J. Brill, 1996).
NIB The New Interpreter’s Bible
NICNT New International Commentary on the New Testament
NICOT New International Commentary on the Old Testament
NIDNTT New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed.
Colin Brown, 4 vols. (Zondervan, 1986).
NIDOTTE New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and
Exegesis, ed. Willem A. VanGemeren, 5 vols. (Zondervan,
 1997).
NIGTC New International Greek Testament Commentary
NIVAC NIV Application Commentary
NovT Novum Testamentum
NPNF1 A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the
Christian Church, First Series, ed. Philip Schaff, 14 vols. (CLC,
1886–89; reprint Hendrickson, 1994).
NPNF2 A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the
Christian Church, Second Series, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry
Wace, 14 vols. (CLC, 1890–1900; reprint Hendrickson, 1994).
NPP New Perspective on Paul
NT New Testament
NSBT New Studies in Biblical Theology
NTS New Testament Studies
OTP The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth,
2 vols. (Doubleday, 1983–85).
OT Old Testament
par. (and) parallel passage(s)
PNTC Pillar New Testament Commentary
PTR Princeton Theological Review
SBJT The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
SBL Society of Biblical Literature
SJT Scottish Journal of Theology
TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel and
G. Friedrich, 10 vols. (Eerdmans, 1964–76).
TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, ed. G. J.
Botterweck and H. Ringgren, 15 vols. (Eerdmans, 1974–2006).
TWOT Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, ed. R. L. Harris,
G. L. Archer Jr., and B. K. Waltke, 2 vols. (Moody, 1980).
TynBul Tyndale Bulletin
TNTC Tyndale New Testament Commentary
TOTC Tyndale Old Testament Commentary
WBC Word Biblical Commentary
WTJ Westminster Theological Journal
ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
ZECNT Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament
 INTRODUCTION

What is the gospel?

During a public presentation some years ago, I witnessed a seasoned
missionary fumble around in response to this question. The incident left
quite an impression on me because it seemed to exemplify the struggles I
had seen throughout the church, at both a popular and academic level.
Being the very lifeblood of the church, our understanding of the gospel is of
utmost importance.
The intent of this book is to impart a concise yet holistic explanation of
the Bible’s good news. I believe this explanation is found not in the
minutiae of theological detail commonly found in so many biblical and
systematic theologies, but rather in the outlining of redemptive history as a
whole and in the emphasizing of its major redemptive events (creation,
covenants, cross, consummation, etc.). Indeed, we must engage in some
theological arguments, but only for the sake of greater clarity and simplicity
concerning the redemptive narrative and the gospel found therein.
I believe the gospel is essentially twofold: Christ died for our sins (1
Cor. 15:3; Gal. 1:4), so that we can live forever (Rom. 6:23; Titus 3:7).
Rather than homogenizing the gospel into one abstract principle or
generalized idea, the writers of the New Testament assumed the gospel to
consist of two distinct realities: the cross and the return of Jesus. The two
comings of Jesus thus constitute the two irreducible halves of the whole
gospel. To understand the meaning of these two events, however, we must
understand how Jews in the first century understood both atonement and
eternal life. The core thesis of this book is that the apostles understood the
death of Jesus sacrificially, as the means of inheriting an unaltered first-
century Jewish hope of eternal life. Broadly speaking, the first six chapters
seek to reconstruct, from a biblical perspective, the view of eternal life most
commonly held by first-century Jews, while the remaining chapters seek to
interpret the cross sacrificially from within that framework.
 Chapter 1 begins with an abstract introduction to the nature of truth and
the concept of worldview. How we interpret the Bible (i.e., hermeneutics),
and how we understand life in general, is conditioned by our worldview—
and vice versa. Our search for truth is caught up in the antiphonal
hermeneutical voices of the Bible and our own worldview. Back and forth
we continually reform and regenerate our minds in accordance with either
the eternal word of God (cf. Rom. 12:2; Eph. 1:18) or the systems of
thought produced by the world. Thus it is helpful (though some may find it
a bit tedious) to examine the concept of worldview and its different
components.
All worldviews (i.e., belief systems) have the same basic elements,
which give context and meaning to our lives as they answer the primal
questions of existence—questions such as Who am I? Where did I come
from? And where am I going? As with most games we play, we seek to
know the field of play, the players on the field, the rules of the game, the
history of the game, and the goal of the game. Similarly, our worldview
tells us the field of existence, the main players of existence, the laws of
existence, the history of existence, and the future of existence.
Chapter 2 examines the framework of the Judeo-Christian worldview—
its field of play, so to speak—which is summarized in the Bible’s first
verse: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1).
Throughout the Scriptures, the heavens are understood as plural, physical,
and continuous. That is, there are multiple heavens above the earth, which
is below; and they are substantial and real, not immaterial and ethereal.
Moreover, they are continuous, meaning there are no clear lines of
delineation between the heavens. Thus movement between the heavens and
the earth is relatively easy and smooth. Throughout the Scriptures, both
angels and humans ascend and descend through the heavens. This view of
the universe stands in stark contrast to the common Western view of a
singular “heaven,” which is immaterial and discontinuous with the
materiality of earth.
Within this unified framework of the heavens and the earth, God is
presented as dwelling within creation (cf. 1 Kings 8:43; Ps. 102:19; Isa.
63:15; etc.). He stretches out the heavens as a tent, so to speak (cf. Isa.
40:22; Ps. 104:2), dwelling at the height of the heavens within a paradisal
temple (cf. Ps. 11:4; Mic. 1:2; Heb. 8:5; Rev. 11:19). Likewise, humanity is
created in an earthly paradise, resembling the divine heavenly dwelling,
with angels mediating between the two. In this way, the playing field of life,
with its initial players, is set out in the opening chapters of Genesis. Though
normal in the ancient world, such ideas may seem strange to the modern
ear.
Chapter 3 outlines the biblical hope for a restored creation. There will
be a new heavens and new earth (cf. Isa. 65:17; 2 Peter 3:13). As it was in
the beginning, so it will be in the end—“the time of the restoration of all
things” (Acts 3:21, CSB). This renewal of the heavens and the earth is the
basic thrust of the Bible’s vision for the future (cf. Matt. 19:28; Rev. 21:1).
However, this rejuvenation cannot be accomplished by the strength or
ingenuity of mankind. Rather, God alone will carry out this great vision.
The event whereby God creates a new heavens and earth is described
throughout the Scriptures as the “day of the Lord” (Isa. 13:6; Zech. 14:1;
Mal. 4:5; Acts 2:20; 1 Cor. 5:5; 1 Thess. 5:2; 2 Peter 3:10). God will come
suddenly with his angels to purge the heavens and earth of ungodliness and
unrighteousness. It will be a day that is cataclysmic and apocalyptic beyond
all imagination or description. It will be a day of divine wrath, judgment,
and recompense. The sins of humanity will finally be rectified, and God
will finally be vindicated in his wise governance over creation.
The day of the Lord is the predominant theme of the Scriptures.
Moreover, it is the event that ultimately unifies the Christian and Jewish
Scriptures, for all hold to the ultimate divine end that God “has fixed a day
on which he will judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17:31).
Furthermore, the day of the Lord is so dynamic and extraordinary that it
creates a fundamental delineation of time: “this age” before the day and
“the age to come” after the day (cf. Matt. 12:32; Eph. 1:21; Heb. 6:5).
Human sin and depravity will progress until the end of this age when God
judges humanity on the last day, rewarding the righteous with eternal life
and punishing the wicked with eternal fire. Through the day of the Lord,
God will initiate the age to come, which will go on in righteousness, peace,
and joy for unending ages (i.e., “eternity”).
Because the day of the Lord and the age to come are markedly punitive
in nature, this age is broadly defined by divine mercy. Everything that
happens before the last day must be understood as a restraint of divine
wrath and judgment upon sin. This age is this age because the day of
judgment has not yet arrived. Indeed, God is patient, not wanting any to
perish but all to repent and be saved (2 Peter 3:9). As such, the event of the
cross exemplifies all divine activity during this age. God has ultimately
shown humanity his mercy and love by offering his Son in order that we
might be saved from the wrath to come (cf. John 3:16; Rom. 5:8–9; Titus
3:4–7). This age, therefore, can broadly be described as “cruciform” (i.e.,
shaped like the cross), while the age to come is generally “apocalyptic”
(i.e., established by the day of the Lord). If we seek to describe biblical
theology as a whole, it is best summarized as cruciform apocalypticism.
Chapter 4 focuses on the role of God’s Spirit in creation. The Spirit was
the agent of life in the beginning (Gen. 2:7; Ps. 33:6), and the Spirit will be
the agent of life in the end (Rom. 8:11; 2 Cor. 3:6). By means of the Holy
Spirit, the dead will be raised to life on the day of the Lord and judged
according to their deeds. Thus all activity of the Holy Spirit in this age is
understood in light of the activity of the Spirit in both the beginning and the
end. This is why the New Testament describes the Holy Spirit as a
“firstfruits” or “guarantee” of the resurrection (Rom. 8:23; 2 Cor. 5:5; Eph.
1:14). What we have received in a small measure in this age is an assurance
of what we will receive in full in the age to come.
Chapter 5 introduces the concept of the Christ, or Messiah, and tracks
the development of messianic expectation throughout the Scriptures. God
could have chosen to restore creation through his Spirit without any
external involvement or mediation. He has chosen, however, to execute the
day of the Lord by means of someone else: a human being whom he will
appoint. In this way, the Christ/Messiah is simply God’s agent, “anointed”
to act on his behalf. Thus the day of the Lord will be “the day of Christ”
(Phil. 1:10; 2:16), when the Messiah comes and, by the Spirit of God, raises
the dead, punishes the wicked, and creates the new heavens and new earth.
Though this messianic expectation could have been stated outright from
the beginning, God chose to reveal it progressively. After the initial sin of
Adam and Eve, God promised that an offspring of Eve would be born who
would crush Satan’s head (Gen. 3:15). This same promise of an anointed
offspring is reiterated to both Abraham (Gen. 12:3; 17:7; 22:18) and David
(2 Sam. 7:12; 1 Chron. 17:11). Hence God’s agent would be born “the son
of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1). Such messianic expectation was
commonly assumed when Jesus was “called Christ” (Matt. 1:16; John
4:25). Thus the apostolic witness emphasized the messianic character of
Jesus (Acts 2:36; 5:42; 8:5; 9:22; etc.), because “he is the one appointed by
God to be judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42). The events of the
cross and subsequent resurrection of Jesus did not change any of the
previously held messianic hopes, but rather confirmed and intensified them.
Chapter 6 details the kingdom that the Messiah will establish when he
comes (i.e., “the kingdom of God”). The new earth will have a definite form
and structure, as the resurrection and eternal life will be administrated by
means of the messianic kingdom. The Messiah will rule from Jerusalem,
over Israel, and to the ends of the earth. The messianic kingdom, therefore,
will be fundamentally “Israelocentric,” for Jesus will return to “redeem
Israel” (Luke 24:21), “restore the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6), and rule
forever as “king of the Jews” (Matt. 2:2). In this way, eternal life will be
administrated “first for the Jew, then for the Gentile” (Rom. 2:10, NIV).
The New Testament clearly repudiates any idea that God no longer
relates to humanity on the basis of ethnicity (though, of course, he does not
show favoritism according to ethnicity). He is still the “God of Israel,” and
he has not rejected the Jewish people—even in their unbelief (cf. Rom.
11:1, 11)—“For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Rom.
11:29). The idea that Jesus somehow changed, reinterpreted, or spiritually
realized the hope of the Jewish messianic kingdom is a grave
misunderstanding. Along with the day of the Lord, the resurrection of the
dead, and messianic expectations, the cross did not change the hope of the
kingdom of God. Rather, it only amplified the first-century Jewish
apocalyptic expectations. Concerning our “entrance into the eternal
kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:11), “we have the
prophetic word more fully confirmed” (v. 19).
Some may question why Jewish election (a topic so central to the
Scriptures) is not addressed until chapter 6. My answer is that the choosing
of the Jewish people is predicated on a number of eschatological concepts
that are often overlooked in modern presentations of the gospel. Thus
chapters 1 through 5 seek to lay a foundation, generally addressing Genesis
1–11 and extrapolating the main themes therein (i.e., worldview, human
depravity, divine judgment, eternal life, messianic expectation, etc.) to their
eschatological conclusions. Chapter 6 picks up in Genesis 12 and extends
God’s choice of the Jewish people in light of the apocalyptic framework
previously laid out. In this way, biblical theology is more pointedly
summarized as cruciform Jewish apocalypticism.
In light of this Jewish eschatological hope, chapter 7 embarks on an
explanation of the crucifixion and death of the Messiah. Why would God
allow his Anointed One to suffer and die? Moreover, how and where was
this prophesied in the Scriptures? These questions are the substance of the
Emmaus Road encounter (Luke 24:13–27), where Jesus explains his
rhetorical question, “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer
these things and then enter into his glory?” (v. 26, NRSV). The redemption of
Israel (v. 21) and the eschatological glory would indeed come. God deemed
it necessary, however, that his Christ should suffer first.
Over the centuries, many have sought to identify the content of Jesus’
exposition on the road to Emmaus. Assuming the New Testament is a
faithful representation of what Jesus revealed to his apostles during his forty
days of post-resurrection teaching (Acts 1:3), we can identify four broad
areas of explanation concerning a suffering Messiah. First, Jesus would
have pointed to direct prophecies concerning the suffering of God’s Servant
(cf. Isa. 53; Ps. 22; Zech. 12:10; etc.). Second, because of the fallen nature
of this age, the wicked generally prosper, while the righteous generally
suffer (cf. Mal. 3:15; Heb. 11). Moreover, the wicked have always
persecuted the righteous (cf. Matt. 5:10–12; Acts 7:51–52). If God has
allowed all of the righteous to suffer, why would he spare the Righteous
One? Third, in light of his crucifixion during the Passover festival, Jesus
undoubtedly would have interpreted the Jewish calendar typologically,
pointing to redemptive history as a whole (cf. Luke 22:16; 1 Cor. 5:7).
Fourth, and most importantly, Jesus would have interpreted the sacrificial
system typologically, pointing to the necessity of a vicarious, sin-bearing
sacrifice that holistically reconciles the enmity between God and humanity
(cf. Eph. 5:2; Heb. 8–10).
Chapter 8 unpacks the sacrificial interpretation of the Messiah’s death.
The apostolic declaration of the “forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31; 10:43;
13:38; 26:18) assumes this sacrificial understanding, because “without the
shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb. 9:22). God
accounts the Messiah’s death as a “sin offering” (Rom. 8:3, CSB) by which
depraved humans are “declared righteous” (Rom. 2:13; 3:20, NIV) in his
sight. Such sacrificial shedding of the Messiah’s “blood” is referenced
throughout the New Testament (cf. 1 Cor. 10:16; Eph. 1:7; Heb. 9:14; 1
Peter 1:19), for by his blood propitiation is made (cf. Rom. 3:25; 1 John
4:10), justification is accomplished (cf. Rom. 5:9; Titus 3:7), and
redemption is achieved (cf. Eph. 1:7; Heb. 9:15).
 Rather than negating or reinterpreting the Jewish apocalyptic
framework, these reconciliatory realities (cf. 2 Cor. 5:19; Col. 1:20) actually
reinforce it. Thus the day of the Lord and the restoration of the kingdom to
Israel are never questioned when speaking of the ways in which God relates
to the death of his Messiah. God has simply provided propitiation in light of
the day of wrath, justification in light of the day of judgment, and
redemption in light of the day of recompense. In this way, God has worked
reconciliation between himself and humanity, granting eternal life to those
who repent and believe—both Jew and Gentile.
Though rather simple and straightforward, these divine workings create
a great challenge of faith. Modern sensibilities militate against both the
apocalyptic realities of Jewish eschatology and the substitutional realities of
sacrificial atonement. Nevertheless, these must be received by faith, which
is the means by which God has ordained our participation in both Christ
crucified and Christ glorified. If we live this life by faith in his sacrifice (cf.
Rom. 6:5; Gal. 2:20), then we will be found in him on the last day
according to that faith, inheriting with him eternal glory (cf. Rom. 8:17;
Phil. 3:9–11). Regrettably, those who lack faith—that is, those who put their
faith in the ways of the world and the strength of the flesh (cf. Phil. 3:19;
Col. 2:8; 1 Tim. 6:5)—will suffer condemnation. Thus we are called to
persevere in the cruciform-apocalyptic faith handed down to us, which
depends not on human strength but casts itself continually upon God’s
mercy in the cross unto the day of Christ Jesus.
Chapter 9 concludes the book with a summary of the characteristic
elements of the apostolic witness. In light of the great eschatological
courtroom where all of humanity will be charged with their sins (i.e., the
day of judgment), Jesus commissioned the apostles to be his “witnesses”
(Luke 24:48; Acts 1:8; cf. Matt. 28:19). The legal connotations were
evident to all. The apostles sought to testify faithfully to the acts of God
throughout redemptive history, particularly his workings in the Messiah
being sent the first time as a sacrifice and the second time as a judge (cf.
Acts 3:19–26; 10:42–43; Heb. 9:28). For the sake of this testimony, God
gave believers the gifts of the Holy Spirit to embolden and empower the
proclamation of the truth, both in word and deed, even unto martyrdom.
I believe that we find, in the apostolic witness, a faithful proclamation
of the gospel in its fullness. When we consider the testimony of the apostles
as a whole, we see that it was rather unsophisticated (in contrast to much
modern theological exposition). The apostles sought to communicate a
simple, linear view of history (see figure 0.1), which begins with creation
(cf. Rom. 5:12; 1 Cor. 15:21); incorporates faithfulness to the covenants,
particularly those with Abraham, Moses, and David (cf. Acts 1:6; Rom. 9–
11); highlights the atoning implications of the cross (cf. Rom. 3:21–26; Col.
1:20–23); emphasizes the empowerment of the Spirit (cf. Rom. 8:23; 2 Cor.
5:5); and strives toward the day of the Lord (cf. Rom. 13:12; 1 Cor. 1:8;
Phil. 1:6). In this way, the apostolic witness can be holistically described as
creational, covenantal, sacrificial, charismatic, and apocalyptic.

Figure 0.1 – Primary Elements of the Apostolic Witness

In stark contrast, much of the modern church’s proclamation scoffs at

the historicity of Genesis, flagrantly rejects God’s covenantal dealings with
the Jews, sets aside a substitutionary-sacrificial understanding of the cross,
scorns the gifts of the Spirit, and ignores the return of Jesus. Though
various movements and traditions seek to emphasize one or two of these
elements (often to the detriment of other elements), few of them seem to
seek a proclamation that holds them in tandem. Yet it is the holistic
proclamation of redemptive history, from beginning to end, that comprises
the gospel and characterizes the faithful witness.
If we investigate the reasons why and how the apostolic witness has
been distorted, the answers appear to be quite complex. Much has happened
in the last two thousand years, and millions of human beings have devoted
incalculable time and energy to expounding the Bible. (Anyone who has
been to seminary can testify to the mountains of literature.) Nevertheless,
for the sake of clarity here are a few generalities concerning the primary
distortions of the apostolic witness.
 First, the earliest and most prominent distortion derives from Platonism.
The common idea found throughout church history of an amorphous
heavenly destiny, in which we float on a cloud forever playing a harp, is
directly traceable to Platonic and Neoplatonic influences on the early
church. Second, roughly from the time of Constantine, “realized
eschatology” has sought to reinterpret the Jewish eschatological hope and
actualize it in this age by setting up a utopian order through the strength of
the flesh. Third, since the Enlightenment, evolutionism has relentlessly
sought to invalidate the historical account of Genesis, without which there
is no vision or direction for the restoration of creation. Broadly speaking,
the ideologies of Platonism, realized eschatology, and evolutionism—and
their myriad of theological derivatives—are the source of most historical
corruptions of the apostolic witness (see figure 0.2).

Figure 0.2 – Primary Distortions of the Apostolic Witness

Although each of these aberrant ideologies can function independently,

they are often combined (e.g., modern liberalism often incorporates both
evolutionism and realized eschatology). And although each of these
ideologies warps the biblical timeline in its own way, the combination of
these ideologies (and the multitude of their theological offspring) results in
exponential confusion and theological disarray. Therefore, in an effort to
clarify issues and bring some relevance to modern thought, each chapter
ends with a broad summary of the historical impact of these distortions
upon biblical thought (though a sustained critique of evolutionism is
beyond the scope of this work). The appendix focuses solely on realized
eschatology and the Scripture passages commonly referenced for its
support.
 Chapter One

APPROACHING THE
SCRIPTURES

What is truth? This was not only the question Pilate posed to Jesus in John
18:38, but it is the fundamental question of humanity.
Dictionaries generally define truth as that which accords with and
conforms to reality. The biblical terms express the same.1 Truth conveys
reality, and thus the search for truth is mankind’s primal quest. Who am I?
Why do I exist? What is the meaning of life? Truth is that which explains
and gives meaning to our existence, because truth is that which corresponds
to how things actually are.
Truth tells us what does and does not exist. It tells us whether something
is important or irrelevant. It conveys value, which in turn instills morality. It
explains to us the meaning of history: its origin and its destiny. It tells us
how things ought to be, while simultaneously condemning our falsehood. It
informs hope and dashes delusion. Though universally attainable, it is
strangely elusive. It transcends intellect and knowledge—the simpleton
often submits to it while the intelligent person “conceives mischief and
brings forth falsehood” (Ps. 7:14, NASB). Though we long to walk in truth,
we all sense a universal bondage to deception.
Pilate’s question about truth was in response to Jesus’ declaration, “For
this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth” (John
18:37). As Christians, we believe that the Scriptures, canonized in the Old
and New Testaments (or perhaps better labeled Tanakh and New Covenant
Scriptures2), contain the truth.3 Jesus witnessed to the truth contained in the
Tanakh, and those Scriptures witnessed to him (John 5:39). The life, death,
and resurrection of Jesus verified that those Scriptures tell us what reality
actually is. They tell us who God is and who we are—where we came from
and where we are going. They tell us the purpose and meaning of life. They
tell us the truth.
In our pluralistic world, however, there are many sacred writings that
claim to speak the truth—Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, naturalistic (in a
practical sense), etc. Whose account is actually correct? Whose perspective
is reliable? Which sacred books are trustworthy? As fallen human beings,
we really have no way of knowing. Adherents of every religion claim their
texts are divinely inspired. However, Judeo-Christianity asserts that it has
proof that its Scriptures tell us the truth.4 Its proof does not rest on its
superior arguments or the accurate transmission of its holy documents
(though we heartily affirm these), but rather on the claim that a man has
actually overcome the prime existential ill: death.
Such an a posteriori argument was the primary approach used by the
early church in its proclamation. Only one presentation of truth has
produced a resurrected human being, and thus the Jewish Scriptures are true
and “more fully confirmed” (2 Peter 1:19). Paul demonstrates this clearly as
he summarizes redemptive history to the Athenians: “The God who made
the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not
dwell in temples made with hands. . . . He has fixed a day in which He will
judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed,
having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts
17:24–31, NASB).
Paul explained the nature of the relationship between God and
humankind, recounting their history from beginning to end, and then he
justified his belief in God’s future judgment with the assertion that Jesus
was raised from the dead. The declaration of Jesus’ resurrection was the
primary means of convincing people that God had indeed inspired the
prophets and their Scriptures, which ultimately communicate the coming
day of judgment. If we deny the historical and bodily resurrection of Jesus,5
then we have no proof of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures—and their
message of the day of the Lord, the resurrection, the new heavens and new
earth, etc.—over and against any other holy texts (the reasons may be
persuasive, but not certain). As Paul said, “If Christ has not been raised,
then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:14).
Those who affirm that the Judeo-Christian Scriptures proclaim the truth
exclusively are generally known as “evangelicals.” This label roughly
derives from Martin Luther’s identification of the “evangelical church,”
which believed in sola scriptura (Latin for “by Scripture alone”), versus the
Roman Catholic Church, which was viewed as tainted by its tradition.6
Though historically difficult to define, evangelicalism is ultimately an
approach to truth based upon the exclusivity of the Scriptures, for the
evangelical “seeks to construct his theology on the teaching of the Bible,
the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible.”7 From the Reformers to the
Puritans to the Pietists to the revivalists to the fundamentalists to the neo-
evangelicals, common theological themes follow this “high view” of the
Scriptures.8
Unlike Luther’s singular struggle with Catholic tradition, modern
evangelicals struggle with many challenges to their source of truth. Whether
those challenges are represented by various forms of higher biblical
criticism, naturalistic empiricism, pluralistic relativism, or neo-charismatic
prophecy, the evangelical spirit seeks truth from the Scriptures alone. Based
upon the resurrection of Jesus, we have assurance that this approach will
prove true in the end.

HERMENEUTICS AND WORLDVIEW

Though evangelicals agree that the Bible is the sole source of truth, there is
much disagreement about the content and meaning of that truth. What
happens when two (or twenty or two hundred) people equally committed to
the authority of the Scriptures read the same words and come away with
different meanings? Whose interpretation is correct? Who actually
understands the truth of the Bible?
These are the questions of hermeneutics—“the discipline that deals with
principles of interpretation.”9 How we interpret the Bible dictates the
outcome of our inheritance of truth. We may desire truth, and we may come
to the Bible alone to find it, but our actual receiving of the truth is
dependent upon our hermeneutics.
 Unfortunately, hermeneutics and biblical interpretation have become
exceedingly complicated in modern times. Those who venture into this
boggy marsh seldom come back unscathed. However, the ancient biblical
writers (e.g., David, Amos, Peter), though often “uneducated, common
men” (Acts 4:13), showed no signs of confusion or hesitancy in their
proclamation of the truth. How do we approach the Scriptures so that we
come out with the same interpretation and proclamation as those within
them? How do we know, for example, what Paul meant by “my gospel”
(Rom. 2:16; 16:25; 2 Tim. 2:8)? What did he intend for his hearers to
understand? Likewise, what did David or Daniel or John desire their hearers
to hear?
This issue of “authorial intent” is further complicated by the presence of
the Holy Spirit.10 As evangelicals, we believe the Scriptures are inspired by
the Spirit of God, as Peter clearly declared: “No prophecy of Scripture
comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever
produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried
along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:20–21). Here lies the great chasm
between conservatives and liberals. Generally, liberals view the authorial
intent of the Scriptures primarily from the human side, while conservatives
view it more from the divine perspective.11
When we ask, What does the book of Isaiah mean? we must first ask,
What did the Spirit of God intend to say through Isaiah? Then we can move
on to how Isaiah might have understood the words uttered through him.
Though the writers are fallen, the message spoken through them by the
Holy Spirit remains infallible.12 Thus we are left with something of a
hermeneutical Great Commandment: seek first God and his intent for the
text, and secondly seek the intent of the human author, a person like
yourself.13
In the quest to understand divine and human authorial intent,
scholarship since the time of Luther has developed the “grammatico-
historical method,” which asks the question, What do the words themselves
mean in their historical context?14 To understand what the Bible is actually
saying, we must understand basic linguistic issues (English word meanings
and syntax often do not correspond to the original Greek and Hebrew), and
we must understand basic differences in literary genre (e.g., narrative,
poetic, wisdom, prophetic, epistolary, and apocalyptic literature). Simply
put, people say things in different ways. Moreover, people say things in
specific historical contexts, which involve cultural, geographical, and
political issues. All of this is necessary to understand the occasion and
purpose of the biblical writings. Though the Holy Spirit transcends history
and the human condition, he has chosen to dwell within it, and thus all
interpreters of the Bible are to some degree historians.
While engaging in grammatico-historical interpretation, however, a
modern Westerner quickly realizes there are many assumptions and
presuppositions held by the biblical writers that are totally foreign to us
today. Furthermore, we often recognize that ancient peoples held
fundamentally different pretheoretical intuitions—that is, what intuitively
seemed normal, real, and right to them might seem the opposite to us.15
Such differences of intuitions and presuppositions lead, in turn, to different
methodologies of interpretation (i.e., hermeneutics) that likewise often seem
strange and awkward to the modern reader. Similarly, when we read
someone from within a particular historical tradition—e.g., Francis of
Assisi, Martin Luther, or John Wesley—we encounter yet another layer of
intuitions and presuppositions, which in turn dictates other methodologies
of interpretation. Weeding through the endless list of conflicting ideas,
linguistics, and cultural phenomena can quickly become overwhelming.
What then lies behind and dictates the presuppositions of the biblical
writers? The answer to this question unlocks many of the confusing aspects
of biblical hermeneutics. That answer I believe is worldview, which is
generally defined as “an interpretive framework through which or by which
one makes sense out of the data of life and the world.”16 Though
“worldview” has become somewhat of an overused term in modern
discussions, it remains the best word to describe our broad existential
framework. And it is the difference between our framework and that of the
biblical writers that creates much of the tension we encounter while reading
the Scriptures.
One’s worldview, as N. T. Wright aptly describes, “embraces all deep-
level human perceptions of reality,”17 and as such it creates our intuitions
and presuppositions about life, which in turn dictate our broad
methodologies of interpretation. Unfortunately, the complexities of
worldview are further compounded when we read someone else with
another worldview (e.g., the medieval worldview of Thomas Aquinas or
Anselm of Canterbury) commenting on the already foreign worldview of
the biblical writers. Again, overwhelming.
In addition, we must ask the greater question: What is the worldview of
the Holy Spirit? Since God is a person, how does he view life? What
intuitively seems true to him? What are his assumptions? How does he
interpret existence? Surely, as it really is. And this is the purpose of the
Scriptures he has given us: to tell us the truth concerning how life really
is.18 Thus, we ultimately seek to know (1) the mind of God, while taking
into consideration (2) the mind and worldview of the biblical writers and
(3) the mind and worldview of those within the various traditions of
interpretation (see figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 – Historical Interaction between Hermeneutics and Worldview

The individual worldviews of the biblical authors may have indeed been
flawed. Men such as Moses, David, and Paul were obviously fallen and
broken—their sins are plain to see (e.g., Ex. 2:12; 2 Sam. 11; Acts 9:1). As
believers, however, we fundamentally hold that the oracles transcend the
stewards, even at a worldview level, and as such the Scriptures deliver to us
the divine worldview itself.19
Isaiah, for example, may not have understood the ultimate nature of
reality, yet the words he spoke, in and of themselves, convey it. This tension
is seen in Peter’s reference about “the prophets who prophesied about the
grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully” (1 Peter 1:10).
Though many find such an idea rather archaic and naïve, we must approach
the oracle and the prophet on their own terms and in right relation. In this
way, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth (John
16:13; 1 John 2:20), we seek to know ourselves, the world, and God as they
really are.

COMPONENTS OF WORLDVIEW
Since differing worldviews produce differing intuitions and
presuppositions, which in turn create differing methods of interpretation,
the task of biblical hermeneutics must begin by addressing the nature and
function of worldview. Though the study of worldview is a relatively recent
one, David Naugle points out that “conceiving of Christianity as a
worldview has been one of the most significant developments in the recent
history of the church.”20 Derived from the German Weltanschauung, the
term “worldview” has a complex history plagued by vague definitions.21
Most simply default to a common dictionary definition, such as “a
particular philosophy of life or conception of the world.”22
In recent times, however, evangelicals have produced a wealth of
literature studying various aspects of worldview and its wide usage.23 The
Christian faith has been elaborately articulated within a worldview
framework, especially within the Reformed tradition of the twentieth
century.24 Though having been analyzed from a multitude of angles, it
seems most helpful for the purposes of this study to break down the concept
of worldview into its most basic components: metaphysics (structure of
existence), protology (study of origins), eschatology (study of final things),
and soteriology (study of salvation).25 Each of these will be explained and
contrasted within the major worldviews modernly held (i.e., Hinduism,
Buddhism, naturalism, Islam, and Judeo-Christianity). These basic
components of worldview then provide human beings, within their various
traditions, a conceptual framework for existence that answers the most basic
questions of life concerning identity, purpose, origin, destiny, etc.26
Moreover, the study of worldview gives us an interpretive window into the
ancient mind.
Consider life as a game. Most games have rules, goals, players, and
fields upon which to play. In the game of life, one’s worldview assumes a
cosmology, ultimate reality, or “metaphysics,” which is much like the field
of play.27 It is often taken for granted, and in the larger scheme of the game
it is usually considered of less import. Yet, playing soccer on a basketball
court raises significant challenges. Often the field of play inherently shapes
the understanding of the rules and purpose of the game itself. Most people
rarely think about their construct of reality. They are simply on it.
James Sire addresses this in his first two worldview questions: “1. What
is prime reality—the really real? . . . 2. What is the nature of external
reality, that is, the world around us?”28 The most basic component of our
worldview is our metaphysical construct—that is, the sum total of that
which we understand to exist. Geisler and Watkins aptly describe it as our
“macro-model . . . that attempts to explain all of reality.”29 Whatever we
know to comprise “everything” defines the parameters of our worldview.
For example, Hindus understand ultimate reality to be Brahman, an all-
encompassing divine matrix of existence from which all things emerge and
into which all things are reabsorbed, only to be reincarnated once more.
Brahman is then structurally divided into various levels of heavens
(svargam) above the earth and hells (narakam) beneath.30 Buddhists
generally assume the Brahmanic makeup of reality, but divide it into “three
realms” (tri-dhatu):31 the highest realm of “formlessness” (arupa-dhatu), the
middle realm of “pure form” (rupa-dhatu), and the lower realm of “sense”
or “desire” (kama-dhatu).32 Taoists see a basic progression from the tao (the
flow of the universe), which differentiates into the yin and yang (cosmic
principles of opposite), which in turn produce the wanwu (the “ten thousand
things” of the manifest cosmos).33 Naturalism simply believes that “nature
is all there is, and all basic truths are truths of nature.”34 Ancient Hellenism
(which later informed both the Christian and Islamic traditions) viewed
reality dualistically: material versus immaterial (later termed “natural”
versus “supernatural”). Conversely, ancient Judeo-Christianity viewed the
universe as integrated and vertical: “the heavens and the earth” (Gen.
1:1).35 All of these are different articulations of what makes up the sum
total of reality. They are different frameworks, or metaphysical constructs,
for understanding our existence (see figure 1.2).

Figure 1.2 – The Metaphysical Construct of Worldview

There are also various “players” on the playing field of worldview: for
example, God, gods, avatars, spirits, ghosts, humans, animals, etc. Where
the players are situated on their respective fields greatly determines their
identity, their purpose, and how they interact with each other. Some fields
are highly integrated and interactive, while others are sharply divided,
creating distance and detachment—the Athenians’ “unknown god” (Acts
17:23) comes to mind.
Though the field and the players on it are important, they do not
constitute the substance of a game itself, the bulk of which is found in its
movement played out in time. Because time dictates so many aspects of our
existence, worldviews broadly facilitate an explanation of history. These
histories generally involve three things: (1) when things began (protology);
(2) where things are ultimately going (eschatology); and (3) how things
became wrong and, conversely, how they will ultimately be made right
(soteriology). In other words, within the sum total of reality, worldviews
attempt to explain the origin, remediation, and conclusion of existence (see
figure 1.3).36
 Figure 1.3 – Primary Universal Components of Worldview

In this way, worldviews are generally characterized by stories. These

stories explain how things were, which gives context to how things are,
which in turn tells us how things are going to play out.37 By giving us an
explanation of the past, present, and future, worldviews seek to answer the
“basic questions” of life, as N. T. Wright observes: “Who are we, where are
we, what is wrong, and what is the solution?”38 Our worldview provides
answers for the multitude of existential questions concerning our identity,
origin, destiny, purpose, ethics, and so on.39 As such, they become the
“controlling stories” to which we unconsciously conform our own story.40
David Naugle summarizes well the relationship between narrative,
worldview, and interpretation:

Such stories are considered sacred, and they provide the adhesive
that unites those who believe in them into a society characterized
by shared perspectives and a common way of life. They also
provide a tenacious grid by which competing narratives and
alternate claims to truth are judged. . . . Thus the bulk of human
praxis does seem to be under the jurisdiction of a worldview,
including the significant activities of reasoning, interpreting, and
knowing.41

Though space prohibits a detailed exposition of all the major

worldviews, let us look briefly at the basic stories of a few to get a feel for
what these universal components look like within different belief systems.
Within Hinduism (a worldview notoriously difficult to generalize and/or
harmonize), there are three primary players/gods created protologically out
of the existential matrix of Brahman—Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva (the
Trimurti)—who are responsible for creating, maintaining, and destroying
the world, respectively. As these players and their functions are defined
protologically, so a Hindu eschatology of perpetual cosmic birth,
maintenance, destruction, and rebirth is easily deduced.42 The fall of man
destroyed the “Golden Age” (Satya Yuga) established by Brahma and
ushered in the darkness of samsara (the cycle of birth and death within the
cosmos) driven by karma (the deeds of the cosmos) based on dharma (the
law of the cosmos). Vishnu (among other gods/devas) now maintains this
cycle, and he has various avatars (“incarnations”): for example, Rama,
Krishna, Narasimha, and Kalki. The goal is to escape the cycle of samsara
and attain moksha (“freedom, liberation”) by detachment of self unto the
realization of ultimate nonexistence through oneness with Brahman. This
was the original design of humanity by Brahma, and Shiva will
eschatologically cleanse the universe so that Brahma can re-create it in
perfect union with Brahman, ushering in a new Golden Age (see figure
1.4).43

Figure 1.4 – Hindu Worldview with Its Primary Existential Components

 Akin to Hinduism, naturalism holds to a broadly monistic construction
of the universe, with nature functioning as its existential matrix (often
personified as “Mother”). Its protology is found in the “big bang,” and its
players are strictly materialistic. Nature’s existence holds intrinsic energy
and patterns of functioning, which are generally articulated as “laws.” As
nature is materialistic and purely random, “survival” constitutes its highest
purpose.44 Though ultimately meaningless, the purpose of life boils down to
fitness and reproduction, by any means. Naturalistic soteriology is simply
“progress,” which is accomplished by death and the weeding out of the
unfit (i.e., “natural selection”). Naturalistic eschatology is thus assumed to
be perpetual fitness and progress (see figure 1.5).

Figure 1.5 – Naturalistic Worldview with Its Primary Existential

Components

The Judeo-Christian worldview frames reality within “the heavens and

the earth” (Gen. 1:1), which are integrated, continuous, and dynamic (see
chapter 2). The protology of this worldview involves a sinless creation
without death and suffering (Rom. 5; 1 Cor. 15), and its eschatology seeks
“the renewal of all things” (Matt. 19:28, CSB), or “the restoration of all
things” (Acts 3:21, CSB).45 There will be “new heavens and a new earth”
(Isa. 65:17; cf. Rev. 21:1), which will be inaugurated by the “day of the
Lord” (Isa. 13:6; Mal. 4:5; 2 Peter 3:10). This salvation is carried out by
Jesus Christ, “judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42; cf. 2 Tim. 4:1;
1 Peter 4:5), who also suffered sacrificially for the forgiveness of sins (Eph.
5:2; Heb. 10:12). This messianic suffering before eschatological glory (cf.
Luke 24:26; Heb. 9:28; 1 Peter 1:11) defines the essential story line of the
Judeo-Christian worldview (see figure 1.6).46

Figure 1.6 – Judeo-Christian Worldview with Its Primary Existential

Components

The worldview of Plato (c. 427–347 BC) is particularly important

because, as Alfred Whitehead is known for saying, “The safest general
characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of
a series of footnotes to Plato.”47 Plato’s universe was fundamentally
dualistic: the immaterial “intelligible” world versus the material
“perceptual” world. The former is eternal, consisting of ideal “forms,”
while the latter was created, comprised of corrupt “copies.”48 Platonic
protology involves the eternal ideal state and a debased material creation,
which sets up its eschatological return to immateriality.49 Salvation is thus
found in transcending materiality by enlightenment and/or death (see figure
1.7).50 Those who have enlightenment of the greater metaphysical reality
(i.e., the philosophers) should then rule over the earth so as to help liberate
the unlearned.51
 Figure 1.7 – Platonic Worldview with Its Primary Existential Components

This dualistic world of material versus immaterial (later termed

“natural” versus “supernatural”) slowly became the playing field upon
which Judeo-Christianity was played.52 Thus “Christoplatonism” was
born.53 Instead of a story line that ended in the restoration of all things and
the resurrection of the body, the church began to look forward to the eternal
existence of the soul in an immaterial heaven. Princeton professor J.
Christiaan Beker described this shift as “a fall from the apocalyptic world
of early Christianity to Platonic categories of thought.”54 By the fourth and
fifth centuries such Christoplatonic thought became the norm.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the Hellenistic (i.e., Greek) dualistic
worldview remained little changed, and though the Reformation restored to
Christianity the centrality of the cross and substitutionary atonement (see
chapter 8), it did little to restore a biblical playing field, so to speak.55
Historical studies in the twentieth century, however, initiated a radical
upheaval of such thought.

BIBLICAL PROTOLOGY AND

ESCHATOLOGY
Modern biblical scholarship has been broadly characterized by its grappling
with the Bible’s protology and eschatology. On the one hand, studies in
ancient Near Eastern and Hebraic thought have provoked heated
discussions concerning Genesis and the nature of the biblical cosmology.56
On the other hand, research concerning apocalypticism and Jewish
eschatology has systematically dismantled Platonic notions of floating on a
cloud forever playing a harp.57 As N. T. Wright is known for arguing,

As good creational monotheists, mainline Jews were not hoping to

escape from the present universe into some Platonic realm of
eternal bliss enjoyed by disembodied souls after the end of the
space-time universe. If they died in the fight for the restoration of
Israel, they hoped not to “go to heaven,” or at least not
permanently, but to be raised to new bodies when the kingdom
came, since they would of course need new bodies to enjoy the
very much this-worldly shalom, peace and prosperity that was in
store.58

In addition, the rise of Jewish scholarship in the twentieth century

propelled studies concerning Jewish context of early Christianity.59
Unfortunately, all of these areas of study were mostly dominated by liberal
and secular scholars who ultimately framed their conclusions within a
naturalistic box—that is, the Bible and its human authors were simply the
product of a primitive and obsolete worldview, which tells a generally
irrelevant story to modern man.60
Because conservatives receive the Scriptures as the word of God
concerning the truth of existence, their wrestling with the implications of
Jewish eschatology and protology has been more difficult. The liberal can
speak more freely about the worldview and message of the Bible because in
the end he/she is under no obligation to actually believe or obey it.61 The
conservative, however, is forced to grapple with such things because of
his/her personal convictions that the Bible is authoritative and normative.
Thus, due to the stigma and “embarrassment”62 of the biblical worldview,
its Jewish leanings, and its apocalyptic conclusions—“like a renegade
relative in attendance at a family reunion”63—many simply avoid the
straightforward message of the Scriptures.64
 The Bible’s protology and eschatology are quite simple and
unambiguous. The Scriptures as a whole speak of a literal creation and an
apocalyptic restoration of creation on the day of the Lord by means of the
king of the Jews. This is taken for granted by conservative orthodox Jews,
but its acceptance by the Christian academy has been exceedingly slow and
arduous. Unfortunately, the reckless approach of various popular
movements—particularly the creationist movement65 and the Bible
prophecy movement66—have resulted in a common disdain for biblical
protology and eschatology. Though these movements have manifold
problems in both content and methodology, they do interpret the Scriptures
at face value in a literalistic manner, as would a common first-century
Jew.67
Though popular distortions abound, biblical protology must be taken
seriously. Naturalistic explanations for the infinite complexities of life are
radically deficient.68 Many of the building blocks of life are “irreducibly
complex,”69 and the probability of their evolution by chance is “essentially
zero.”70 The “icons” of evolution have been shown to be heavily slanted in
their presentation (e.g., Darwin’s finches, the Miller-Urey experiment, and
vertebrate homology), or outright fraudulent (e.g., peppered moths and
Haeckel’s embryos).71 Even radiometric dating has been shown to have
serious flaws.72 No evolutionist can even begin to adequately explain
gigantism in the fossil record,73 especially concerning the sauropods
(dwarfing the largest modern land animals by a factor of ten or more)—
How on this earth did they ever exist?74 And the handful of questionable
transitional fossils will never cover up the glaring lack of missing chains in
the fossil record.75
Moreover, the utter lack of any signs of erosion in the geologic column
argues for the rapid deposition of sedimentary layers in a global deluge,76
which is also a superior explanation for the earth’s uniform stratification
and fossilization.77 The discovery of ancient unfossilized DNA, bacteria,
and soft tissue—even T. rex blood78—also argues forcefully for recent
fossilization.79 Other age-limiting factors, such as the recession of the
moon,80 the “faint young sun paradox,”81 and the earth’s decaying magnetic
field,82 will not be resolved by evolutionists, because they simply cannot be
resolved. Furthermore, the plate tectonic theory is hopelessly flawed—
Where is the rubble in the trenches (among a host of other questions)?83
Though evolutionists may respond with vindictive condescension,84
only a nonuniformitarian history of the earth (i.e., one with a radical
geological catastrophe like the Noahic flood) can account for all of the
earth’s major features.85 It seems that only scientists outside the Christian
academy are bold enough to state the plain realities of evolutionism, while
theologians are too afraid to question the naturalistic status quo.86

CONCLUSION
The historicity of biblical protology is important because it reveals the
playing field, the players, and the subsequent story of our worldview, which
in turn fundamentally informs our identity, our understanding of life, and
our interpretation of the Bible. Many receive Genesis theologically or
doctrinally, but when push comes to shove they reject it existentially. It is
little more than an ancient myth, which bears little upon modern society and
its dealings. This is not the case with the biblical writers, who clearly
interpreted Genesis plainly and literally (cf. Ex. 20:11; 31:17; Ps. 8:3–8;
Matt. 19:4; 1 Tim. 2:13–14).
Moreover, the historicity of biblical protology is the foundation upon
which the Bible’s eschatology is built, for creation will be restored to its
original historical glory (cf. Matt. 19:28; Acts 3:21; Rom. 8:21). Sin and
death entered creation at a historical point in the past through Adam (cf.
Rom. 5:12–19; 1 Cor. 15:21–22), and they will be judged and eradicated at
a historical point in the future through Jesus Christ (Acts 17:31; 2 Cor. 5:1–
10). To undermine the historicity of Genesis is to subvert the very heart of
the biblical message.
Most secular historians and liberal theologians simply dismiss the
Bible’s protology and eschatology as delusional concepts generated by a
primitive and outdated worldview. Many conservative and evangelical
theologians find these concepts to be such an embarrassment that they avoid
talking about them altogether, or they neutralize them through various
techniques of theological reinterpretation.87 However, the word of God does
not need our mitigation. It simply calls for us to accept its incisive message
at face value.
 Furthermore, in light of its glorious protology we must hold together its
apocalyptic eschatology with its cruciform center (as we will see in chapter
3). To break the cohesion of such a timeline is to break the biblical story as
a whole. One cannot drive a car without wheels, nor one lacking an engine.
All the parts must hold together. So it is with a biblical worldview. Within
the framework of the heavens and the earth, all the parts, from beginning to
end, must work together for it to work at all.
 Chapter Two

THE HEAVENS AND THE

EARTH

Before looking at the Bible’s theology in detail, we must establish the

parameters of its worldview—its field of play, so to speak. The
understanding of one’s worldview is a difficult task because we are all
confined within the world we are trying to comprehend. Because no one is
able to transcend their existence, our worldview is inescapably an internal-
view.
The human situation is thus something of a “fishbowl conundrum.” Ask
ten fish to define the fishbowl within which they live, and you will get ten
different “fishbowl-views.” Moreover, the task of understanding the
fishbowl is complicated by the issues of mortality—the fish are mostly
deaf, dumb, and blind, while the water is murky green, “subjected to
futility” (Rom. 8:20), awaiting a radical cleansing (cf. 2 Thess. 1:8; 2 Peter
3:7; Rev. 21:5).
Like fish trying to understand their fishbowl, humans throughout history
have tried to understand the nature of their existence. Some set out on a
quest to test the limits of their own half-deaf-dumb-and-blind sensibilities.
Others sit around endlessly philosophizing and deconstructing the realities
of their fishy existence. Others seek knowledge from sources that transcend
their bowl. Unfortunately, various sources give conflicting accounts, since
not all masters are truthful in their relations with fish. Strangely, the
“sensible” fish often ridicule the “religious” fish because of their
“superstitions” and “presuppositions.” They argue that the fishbowl consists
of only that which we can understand, observe, measure, and test—a very
ichthus-centric approach indeed!
This fishbowl parable gives us a picture of the true condition of
humanity. Like fish in a bowl, humans construct various worldviews in an
attempt to explain the nature and function of their existence. Based on a
belief in the inspiration of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, we will seek to
understand our existence by studying the worldview set forth in the Bible.
This foundation, I believe, will then sustain a biblical theology and,
consequently, a biblical praxis.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
HEAVENS AND THE EARTH
The Bible describes the totality of existence in its first verse: “In the
beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). The heavens
and the earth, and all therein, are understood to make up “all things” (Isa.
44:24; John 1:3; Acts 3:21; 1 Cor. 15:28; Eph. 1:10; 3:9; Col. 1:16; Heb.
1:2; 2:10; 2 Peter 3:4; Rev. 4:11; 21:5), and they are referenced throughout
the Scriptures as the basic playing field upon which God, humans, angels,
demons, plants, and animals function. The delineation of the heavens and
the earth, however, does not imply a metaphysical split between the two,
but rather a functional and governmental categorization. As the psalmist
summarizes, “The heavens are the LORD’s heavens, but the earth he has
given to the children of man” (Ps. 115:16).
The verses following Genesis 1:1 describe how the heavens and the
earth were formed. On day one, the Spirit of God hovered over the “waters”
(Heb. mayim), and light was created (vv. 2–5), presumably within the
waters.1 On day two, God created “an expanse in the midst of the waters”
(v. 6). Despite the attempts of modernists to circumvent the text, this
“expanse” (Heb. raqia) is simply equated with the “heavens” (v. 8, AT).2 In
this way, it seems the heavens (Heb. shamayim) were created in the midst
of the waters (Heb. mayim). Far from a solid “dome over the earth,”3 the
expanse/heavens are simply the cosmic “space amidst the waters”4—that is,
the space between the eternal cosmic waters and the waters of the earth
(commonly referred to as “the water planet”).5 Thus, not only is the earth
“formed out of water and through water” (2 Peter 3:5), but also the entire
cosmos is understood to be forged and encapsulated by water.6
The process of separating the waters above the “expanse” from the
waters below and calling it “heavens” (Gen. 1:6–8) is elsewhere described
as “stretching out the heavens” (Ps. 104:2; cf. Job 9:8; Isa. 42:5; 44:24;
45:12; 51:13; Jer. 10:12; 51:15; Zech. 12:1). Consider the following verses:

I made the earth

and created man on it;
it was my hands that stretched out the heavens,
and I commanded all their host.
(Isa. 45:12)

It is he who made the earth by his power,

who established the world by his wisdom,
and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.
(Jer. 10:12)

Thus declares the LORD, who stretched out the heavens and
founded the earth and formed the spirit of man within him . . .
(Zech. 12:1)

In this light, it seems the intended meaning of the raqia/shamayim

(expanse/heavens) is the stretched space in the midst of the cosmic waters.
Hence we see in the first three days of creation a general cosmological
progression (see figure 2.1).7
 Figure 2.1 – Cosmological Progression of Genesis 1:12–13

As seen in this diagram, the heavens are described as plural throughout

the Scriptures. The Hebrew word for heavens (shamayim) is used over four
hundred times in the Tanakh, and it is always in the plural form. Moreover,
the plural is sometimes used in tandem (shameh h’shamayim), “heavens of
heavens” (Deut. 10:14; 1 Kings 8:27; 2 Chron. 2:6; 6:18; Neh. 9:6; Ps.
148:4), which is often translated “height of the heavens” or “highest
heavens” (NASB, NIV, NLT), referring to the region(s) of God’s dwelling. The
translation of shamayim into the singular by various English translations is
generally arbitrary.8 The Bible clearly portrays a plurality of heavens.9
Though the exact number of heavens is not stated explicitly in the
Scriptures, Jewish tradition varies from three to ten.10 As color
classifications of a rainbow vary, so also might the delineation of the
heavenly realms. A threefold arrangement of lower, middle, and upper
heavens preserves plurality while allowing for the possibility of further
dissection.
Within this plural framework, the heavens are also described in the
Scriptures as continuous, meaning there are no hard delineations between
them. They are the abode of birds (Gen. 1:20; 2:19; Dan. 2:38); of clouds,
rain, and thunder (Gen. 8:2; Job 38:29; Isa. 55:10); of sun, moon, and stars
(Gen. 1:14–18; Deut. 4:19; Ps. 8:3); of idols, spirits, and powers (Ex. 20:4;
Deut. 3:24; Isa. 24:21); and of God himself (Deut. 26:15; 1 Kings 8:30; Ps.
2:4). All of these things function together in the heavens, and there are no
clear lines of distinction between them. There are delineations between
different areas of the heavens, as Paul distinguishes the “third heaven” (2
Cor. 12:2), but there is not a substantial change of existence between these
regions.
This continuity between the heavens allows for ease of movement
within the heavens and between the heavens and the earth. Thus God often
“came down” to meet with people or evaluate their affairs (Gen. 11:5; cf.
Gen. 18:21; Ex. 19:11; etc.). Likewise, individuals such as Enoch (Gen.
5:24; cf. Heb. 11:5) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11) were “taken up” into the
heavens. Conversely, it was commonly expected that Elijah would come
back down before the day of the Lord (Mal. 4:5; cf. Matt. 17:11). Paul
likewise was “caught up,” either in the body or out of the body (2 Cor.
12:2–3). And after Jesus was “taken up” before the disciples (Acts 1:2), two
angels declared, “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will
come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (v. 11). This was not
completely abnormal to the disciples, since movement between the heavens
and the earth was both familiar and logical (though of course not
common).11
The heavens are also assumed to be inherently physical in nature. In
contrast to the later Neoplatonic concept of a singular, ethereal heaven, the
Scriptures describe the heavens as tangible, substantial, and concrete. There
are audible sounds, voices, and songs (Isa. 6:3; 2 Cor. 12:4; Rev. 4–5).
There are physical objects, such as thrones, altars, and thresholds (1 Kings
22:19–23; Isa. 6:1–7; Ezek. 1:25–28; Dan. 7:9–10). Furthermore, time
exists in the various regions of the heavens (Rev. 8:1), and this time
generally coincides with time on earth (cf. 1 Kings 22:19–23; Dan. 7:9–12;
Rev. 11:18–19). The heavens are therefore clearly dynamic in nature, rather
than static, as in Hellenistic thought. This perspective leads to the
conclusion that the physicality seen in the heavens is roughly analogous
(though not equivalent) to the physicality known on earth.12
These plural, continuous, and physical heavens were universally
understood as real locations, not metaphorical “states of being.”13 In
addition, their relationship to the earth was positional. The heavens are
“above” and the earth is “below” (cf. Gen. 6:17; Deut. 4:39; 1 Kings 8:23;
Ps. 50:4; etc.).14 Accordingly, God “looks down” from the heavens upon his
creation (Ps. 33:13; 53:2; cf. Deut. 26:15; Ps. 80:14; 102:19)—“Look down
from heaven and see, from your holy and beautiful habitation” (Isa. 63:15).
God’s habitation is understood to be at the height of the heavens (Job 25:2;
Ps. 148:1; Isa. 14:13)—“Is not God high in the heavens?” (Job 22:12).15
The primary implication of God’s governance of creation from the
heights of the heavens is his dwelling within creation. Though relatively
foreign to the modern mind, the Scriptures universally declare that God
dwells within what he has made (e.g., 1 Kings 8:43; Ps. 102:19; Isa. 57:15;
etc.).16 He does not dwell in the “great beyond” (as is common language in
modern theological circles), nor does he dwell beyond the cosmic waters
(as is common in reconstructions of ancient Near Eastern thought). He
dwells within the heavens, as Isaiah described:

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood since the earth was founded?
He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
He brings princes to naught
and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
(Isa. 40:21–23, NIV)

God dwells within creation as a human being dwells within a tent. But
why does this matter? Proximity evokes pathos. What would my children
think if I lived in a different house or different city than them? How would
they feel? What would they think of my heart and of my leadership? Would
they trust me? Probably not. More than likely they would grow up with a
deep sense of separation and abandonment. So the modern church, under
lingering Hellenistic influence, suffers from a “cosmic loneliness,” so to
speak, which pervades much of its theology and practice. The Scriptures,
however, reveal to us a God whose habitation is within creation, because he
loves what he has made, and it is very good in his sight.
Some may question if this cohabitation compromises God’s sovereignty.
Does my living within a house mean my house limits me or rules over me?
Of course not. God is completely independent of and transcendent over his
creation, yet his greatness in sovereignty is only magnified by his nearness
of presence. As Isaiah says, “For this is what the high and exalted One says
—he who lives forever, whose name is holy: ‘I live in a high and holy
place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit’” (Isa. 57:15,
NIV).
In regard to his sovereignty, God also rules from a real throne. As the
heavens are concrete and tangible, so also is the throne of God (cf. Isa. 6:1;
Ezek. 1:26; Rev. 4:2–6). Biblical writers universally speak of the divine
throne as they would the throne of an earthly king. The throne of God is not
a metaphor, intended only to refer to a figurative “reign of God.” Rather, it
is a real seat in a real place in real time from which God rules over a real
domain.
The Bible means quite literally that God is the “great King” (Ps. 47:2;
95:3; Jer. 10:10; Mal. 1:14) and the “everlasting King” (Jer. 10:10), for his
dominion includes all of creation. Not only is he the “Most High” (Isa.
14:14; Dan. 7:18; Luke 6:35), but he is also God “Almighty” (Rev. 4:8;
16:7; Gk. pantokratōr)—that is, “the ruler over all things.”17 Hence the
eternal declaration around the heavenly throne, “Holy, holy, holy, is the
Lord God Almighty [Gk. pantokratōr], who was and is and is to come!”
(Rev. 4:6–8).
God’s domain is the whole of creation—that is, the heavens and the
earth (cf. Deut. 10:14; 1 Chron. 29:11; Ps. 24:1)—which is his “universal
kingdom,” so to speak (cf. Ps. 103:19; 145:13; Dan. 4:34).18 As David said,
“The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules
over all” (Ps. 103:19). So also, at the end of his life, David said, “Yours, O
LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the
majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the
kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all” (1 Chron. 29:11).
God’s throne in the height of the heavens is also set within a real temple
(cf. Ps. 11:4; 18:6; 29:9; 150:1; Isa. 6:1; Jonah 2:7; Mic. 1:2; Hab. 2:20;
Rev. 11:19; 14:15–18; 15:5–8; 16:1). Like the divine throne, God’s
heavenly “sanctuary” (Ps. 28:2; 96:6; cf. Ps. 102:19; Heb. 8:2, 5; 9:24) is
not a metaphor for an ethereal holy nature. God is indeed holy, but he is
holy within a real temple.19 Consider the following texts:

The LORD is in his holy temple;

the LORD is on his heavenly throne.
He observes everyone on earth;
his eyes examine them.
(Ps. 11:4, NIV)

Praise the LORD!

Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens!
Praise him for his mighty deeds;
praise him according to his excellent greatness!
(Ps. 150:1–2)

Hear, you peoples, all of you;

pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it,
and let the Lord GOD be a witness against you,
the Lord from his holy temple.
For behold, the LORD is coming out of his place,
and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.
(Mic. 1:2–3)

Thus we have a context for the opening of the heavenly temple in the
book of Revelation: “Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark
of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning,
rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail” (Rev. 11:19). It
is from his heavenly dwelling that God rules over all of creation,
administrating all things in the heavens and the earth. Thus, the heavenly
temple is the locus of creation. It is the reference point for all divine,
angelic, demonic, and human activity. It is the “command center,” so to
speak, of the universe. The earthly tabernacle was simply “patterned” after
the heavenly one (cf. Ex. 25:40; Acts 7:44; Heb. 8:5; 9:24).20 It was
designed to inherently witness and testify to God’s governance over all of
creation.21
 From protological creation (cf. Gen. 2:2–3; Isa. 40:21–23) to
eschatological consummation (cf. Rev. 11:19; 14:15; 15:5; 16:1), the
heavenly temple is the reference point for all divine redemptive activity. So
when someone saw the earthly tabernacle/temple, the “footstool” (1 Chron.
28:2; Ps. 99:5; 132:7; Lam. 2:1), it was meant to point them to the throne
above, and subsequently to the execution of that sovereignty in the
judgment to come. All of this would have seemed intuitive to a believer
living in the ancient world.22
The clearest demonstration of this belief in a real heavenly temple is
found in Hebrews 8–10. The “throne of the Majesty” (8:1) is within “the
true tabernacle that was set up by the Lord and not man” (8:2, CSB). The
“earthly sanctuary” (9:1, CSB) that Moses erected was simply “according to
the pattern” (8:5) of the heavenly tabernacle (cf. Ex. 25:9, 40; 26:30; 27:8).
It was “a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one”
(9:24, NRSV). Moreover, not only was the structure itself “a copy and
shadow of the heavenly things” (8:5), but the ministry of the priests (8:3–5;
9:6–7, 21–22; 10:1–2, 11) was also a “shadow of the good things to come”
(10:1) found in the ministry of Christ.
As the earthly sanctuary and its “copies of the heavenly things” were
purified with the blood of sacrifices, so also were “the heavenly things
themselves” purified by the blood of Christ (9:23). He entered the heavenly
sanctuary “to offer himself” (9:25) and “to bear the sins of many” (9:28).
And after he had “offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down
at the right hand of God” (10:12), and since that time “he waits for his
enemies to be made his footstool” (10:13, NIV) on the day of God (cf. Ps.
110:1; Acts 2:35).23
Within a biblical worldview, this is all quite straightforward. There is no
“mystical” language or “spiritual” rhetoric. It is simply an interpretive
narration of historical events that have taken place within the biblical
cosmos. What is more, Christ’s ascension into substantial heavens and into
a real temple, offering his own blood on a literal altar on behalf of depraved
humanity, is the actual substitutionary mechanism of atonement in the sight
of God.24 Without a tangible sacrificial offering in a real heavenly temple,
the messianic atonement (to be discussed further in chapter 8) breaks down
into figurative abstraction—which, unfortunately, has been the norm
throughout much of the history of atonement theory.
 Not only does God “build his upper chambers in the heavens” (Amos
9:6), but the chambers of his temple are also surrounded by gardens, or “the
paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7; cf. Ezek. 28:13, LXX).25 So Paul references the
heavenly paradise: “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was
caught up to the third heaven. . . . I know that this man was caught up into
paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God
knows—and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter”
(2 Cor. 12:2–4).
Paul’s third-heaven experience was not unfamiliar in his day, and by no
means would anyone have questioned the reality of a paradise in the height
of the heavens.26 It was common knowledge, since deities were understood
to dwell in “garden-temples.”27 Most of the ancient world believed the gods
dwelled in some sort of idyllic paradise above.28 The polytheism is clearly
errant, but the metaphysical construct is an aspect of truth that I believe
people today have foolishly cast aside as mythical.29
This basic framework of a plural, continuous, and physical heavens,
within which God rules from a paradisal-temple, ultimately informs the
context and meaning of the statement, “Let us make man in our image,
according to our likeness. They will rule . . . the whole earth” (Gen. 1:26,
CSB). As humanity was created in the image of God to rule, so also Eden
was viewed as a garden-temple in the likeness of God’s garden-temple in
the height of the heavens (see figure 2.2).30
 Figure 2.2 – Biblical Protological Cosmology

Though man’s kingship is apparent in the Genesis creation account

(1:26–28; cf. Ps. 8:4–8), his priesthood is less so. However, the priesthood
of humanity and the Edenic garden-temple are clearly inferred from
eschatological texts that describe the end as a restoration of the beginning
(cf. Matt. 19:28; Acts 3:21; Rev. 21:3). Echoing the creation of humankind,
the redeemed are declared to be “a kingdom and priests to our God, and
they shall reign on the earth” (Rev. 5:10). This dual kingly and priestly
function is the broad theme of the book of Revelation from beginning (1:6)
to end (22:5). When Jesus returns and sets up his throne upon the earth, the
redeemed “will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with
him” (Rev. 20:6). Thus the protological reality of humanity’s kingly
priesthood before God is deduced from the eschatological reality.
There are, however, explicit references in the Scriptures to the
protological priesthood of mankind. Ezekiel 28 speaks of Eden as an idyllic
“sanctuary” (v. 18),31 which was then desecrated.32 Psalm 36:7–9 also
compares the temple to Eden, since the Hebrew word (eden) means “luxury,
delight, pleasure.”33 Furthermore, many scholars have listed the various
similarities between the garden of Eden and the tabernacle and/or Jerusalem
temple.34 A partial list follows:

• God “walked” (Heb. halak) in both, representing his unique presence

(Gen. 3:8; Lev. 26:12; Deut. 23:14; 2 Sam. 7:6–7).
• Human beings are commanded to “serve/work” (Heb. abad) and
“keep/guard” (Heb. shamar) both, representing their priestly role and
function (Gen. 2:15; Num. 3:7–8; 8:25–26; 18:5–6; 1 Chron. 23:32).
• The structure of both is threefold, with an entrance facing east (Gen.
2:8; 3:24; Ezek. 8:16; 40:6). See figure 2.3 for illustration.
• Both are situated on a mountain (Gen. 2:10; 2 Chron. 3:1; Isa. 2:2;
Ezek. 28:13–16), and both are guarded by cherubim (Gen. 3:24; Ex.
25:18–22; 26:31; 1 Kings 6:23–35; Ezek. 28:14).
• Rivers flow out of both Eden (Gen. 2:10) and the eschatological
temple in Jerusalem (Ezek. 47:1–12; Rev. 22:1–2).
• Precious metals and stones are used in and adorn both (Gen. 2:11–
12; Ex. 25:7–31; Ezek. 28:13).
• Trees filled the garden (Gen. 2:9), and arboreal decorations adorned
the temple (1 Kings 6:18–35; 7:18–20). Moreover, the tree of life
and the tree of knowledge (Gen. 2:9) seem to be symbolized in the
sanctuary lampstand and law, respectively.35
 Figure 2.3 – Comparison of Temple Structure and Edenic Geography

Later Jewish tradition also depicts Adam as a priestly minister in the

Edenic temple.36 The combination of Genesis, Revelation, and the prophets
all paint a picture that I believe was clear in the minds of the New
Testament writers (cf. Luke 24:51; 2 Cor. 12:2; Heb. 8–10; Rev. 15; etc.)—
that God ruled over creation from a paradisal-temple in the height of the
heavens, and humans were created in his image as kingly priests to rule
over the earth from the paradisal-temple of Eden. The heavens and the earth
were created to enhance the glory of God as reflected in the creation of
mankind, and consequently the two realities organically correspond to one
another.37
Within this patterned arrangement there is also a divine hierarchy under
the governance of God, by which he holds together all things with absolute
power, authority, and dominion (cf. Eph. 1:20–21; Col. 1:16–17).38 There
are “powers” (Rom. 8:38; Eph. 6:12), “rulers” (Eph. 3:10; Col. 1:16), and
“authorities” (Col. 2:15; 1 Peter 3:22; cf. Isa. 24:21; 34:4) in the
“midheaven” (Rev. 8:13; 14:6; 19:17, NASB). Note Paul’s descriptions of the
heavenly hierarchy:

For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on
earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers
or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for
 Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
(Col. 1:16–17, NASB)

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand
against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against
flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities,
against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the
spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Eph. 6:11–12)

Such powers and rulers seem to be angelic and/or demonic entities,

since they dwell in “heavenly places” (Eph. 3:10; 6:12; cf. 1 Peter 3:22).
Some are “ministering spirits” (Heb. 1:14; cf. Ps. 104:4) who “do his
bidding” (Ps. 103:20, NRSV) and “patrol the earth” (Zech. 1:10; 6:7). Others
“did not stay within their own position of authority” (Jude 6), and now,
following Satan, go “to and fro on the earth” (Job 1:7; 2:2) like a lion
“seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). In addition, there is often
conflict between the two (cf. Dan. 10:20; Rev. 12:7), which presumably
also takes place in the mid-heavens. Such conflict, however, will come to an
end eschatologically, as Isaiah describes: “In that day the LORD will punish
the powers in the heavens above and the kings on the earth below. They will
be herded together like prisoners bound in a dungeon; they will be shut up
in prison and be punished after many days” (Isa. 24:21–22, NIV).
The powers in the heavens are described in the Scriptures as divine
intermediaries between God and humans (cf. Ps. 91:11; Dan. 7:10; Acts
7:53; Gal. 3:19; Heb. 1:14). These powers and principalities—that is, the
“host of heaven” (1 Kings 22:19; Dan. 4:35; cf. Ps. 103:21; Luke 2:13),
“sons of God” (Deut. 32:8; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7), or “heavenly beings” (Ps.
8:5; 29:1; 89:6)—were understood to be part of the divine council, which
exists to “administer the affairs of the cosmos.”39 In this way, “God has
taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds
judgment” (Ps. 82:1). This is how Micaiah would have understood “the
LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him
on his right hand and on his left” (1 Kings 22:19). Likewise, the psalmist
declares,

Let the heavens praise your wonders, O LORD,

your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones!
 For who in the skies can be compared to the LORD?
Who among the heavenly beings is like the LORD,
a God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones,
and awesome above all who are around him?
(Ps. 89:5–7)

According to this arrangement, it is assumed that in the beginning

angels ministered to God by ascending and descending (cf. Gen. 28:12;
John 1:51) between the heavenly and Edenic temples, administrating the
glory of God throughout creation.40 And even though many powers and
principalities have forsaken their positions of authority, God Most High still
remains completely sovereign over his creation (cf. Jer. 27:5; Zeph. 2:11;
Rev. 4:8). The heavens and the earth still “belong” to the Lord (cf. Deut.
10:14; Ps. 24:1; 50:12). He still “does as he pleases with the powers of
heaven and the peoples of the earth” (Dan. 4:35, NIV; cf. Ps. 115:3; 135:6).
They are still “under authority” (Matt. 8:9), and even demons are forced to
beg (Matt. 8:31). Thus rebellious powers encounter a divine “hedge” (Job.
1:10; Isa. 5:5) and have no liberty to wreak havoc beyond their ordained
limits (cf. Job 2:6; 1 Cor. 10:13; James 4:7). Moreover, demons are even
sometimes used by God to execute divine wrath (cf. 1 Kings 22:22; Judg.
9:23; Rev. 17:17) and to test people’s hearts (cf. 1 Sam. 16:14; Luke 22:31;
2 Thess. 2:11).
Like the powers in the heavens, all the treasonous kingdoms of men are
like the “grass” that withers (Ps. 37:2; 90:5; 92:7; 103:15), like “flowers”
that fade (Job 14:2; Isa. 40:7; James 1:10)—like “grasshoppers” (Isa.
40:22), “a worm” (Job 25:6), or “a drop from a bucket” (Isa. 40:15)—“they
are nothing; together they are only a breath” (Ps. 62:9, NIV). The Lord
simply “laughs” at them and “scoffs” at their games (cf. Ps. 2:4; 37:13;
59:8). And often, unbeknown to them, he orchestrates their rise and fall (cf.
Ex. 9:16; Jer. 27:6; John 19:11; Acts 17:26). Effortlessly, “He removes
kings and sets up kings” (Dan. 2:21). The idea that God is “at war” is
myopic at best.41
Therefore, “for the Lord’s sake” (1 Peter 2:13) we are commanded to be
“submissive to rulers” (Titus 3:1) and “subject to the governing authorities”
(Rom. 13:1), since God is ultimately responsible for their positions. So
Jesus said to Pilate, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it
had been given you from above” (John 19:11). Likewise, Jesus was given
all authority by the Father (cf. Matt. 28:18; John 5:22; Heb. 2:8), for God
“subjected everything under his feet, and appointed him as head over
everything” (Eph. 1:22, CSB). By this divine delegation of authority, Christ
is “the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. . . .
To him be honor and eternal dominion” (1 Tim. 6:15–16). In this way, God
is truly the Almighty (Gk. pantokratōr), for “from him and through him and
to him are all things” (Rom. 11:36).
Our understanding of God’s kingship and governance is dramatically
affected by how we view the cosmos. Divine sovereignty simply “fits”
better within a biblical view of the heavens and the earth as plural,
continuous, physical, and dynamic.42

MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF THE

BIBLICAL COSMOS
The worldview of the Bible and the interpretation of “the heavens and the
earth” have become quite contentious in modern times.43 Since around the
turn of the twentieth century, scholars have sought to reconstruct the
biblical view of the cosmos based upon the mythical worldviews of the
ancient Near East.44 At first it was primarily Babylonian and Persian
mythologies that were accommodated, but then studies were generalized to
include Assyrian, Hittite, Canaanite, and Egyptian myths also. Today it is
widely assumed that the Israelites held to the same “cosmic geography” as
their neighbors.45
Such an idea is not inherently problematic. Most scholars, though, take
the next step and say that the Bible itself teaches an ancient Near Eastern
view of the cosmos, assuming the Scriptures arose out of human culture and
understanding. For the evangelical, this is no small error, since we believe
the Bible is a recorded oracle, ultimately produced by the Holy Spirit (cf. 2
Peter 1:21; 2 Tim. 3:16) and thus transcending the human steward. Though
an ancient Israelite—the prophet Isaiah, for example—may have held the
same worldview as his cultural neighbors, we cannot say that the oracles
delivered through him teach such things. The Holy Spirit would stand just
as critical of Isaiah’s ancient Near Eastern worldview as he does of our
modern anthropocentric worldview, which dichotomizes between natural
and supernatural.
For this reason, I believe the Bible uses what James P. Holding calls
“equivocal language,” meaning God chose to minimize the use and
definition of language concerning the nature of the cosmos so that it would
be equally open to interpretation throughout time and across cultures.46
This was a loving decision on the part of God, considering the reality of
human mortality. How would you describe the creation and properties of
glass to a mostly deaf, dumb, and blind fish when referencing its fishbowl?
You would probably limit the use and definition of words so as to be
universally understood and received by a variety of fish.
How then has modern scholarship reconstructed the worldview(s) of
ancient Near Eastern peoples? The general consensus is summarized by the
phrase “three-storied universe,”47 which involves (1) the heavens, (2) the
earth, and (3) the underworld. Such a view assumes the earth to be flat and
surrounded by water, with a large metallic dome covering it. The sun,
moon, and stars float across this dome like lily pads, and cosmic oceans
surround everything. Finally, beneath the earth is Sheol/Hades; and beyond
the cosmic waters is the heavenly dwelling of God. Figure 2.4 shows an
early pictorial rendition that has become commonplace in modern
academia.48
 Figure 2.4 – George Robinson’s “Ancient Hebrew Conception of the
Universe”

The initial problem with this common rendering is that not all ancient
Near Eastern peoples saw the world this way—that is, there is no “uniform
primitive view.”49 In fact, it is devilishly hard to find any sources that
present this picture in a straightforward manner (most cosmologies have to
be gleaned from far-fetched and fantastical mythology).50 But the
commonalities that do exist, particularly a manifold vertical universe,51
ought to be interpreted as the remnants of true cosmology rather than as the
imaginations of “primitive” peoples. Similar reasoning ought to be applied
to the more than two hundred flood myths derived from the ancient world.52
The commonalities between the stories do not mean the Bible co-opted its
flood narrative. Instead, the flood actually happened, and the hundreds of
flood myths are simply corrupted accounts of the real event—so too
concerning the parallels between the Bible and ancient cosmologies.
 The second problem with the modern rendering of the biblical
worldview is the portrayal of the raqia (Gen. 1:6–8) as a metal dome, or
“vault,” over the earth. Many scholars and modern translations do translate
raqia generically as an “expanse,” which provides room for interpretation.53
Critical solid-dome advocates, however, prefer the antiquated “firmament,”
which is a transliteration of the Latin firmamentum used to translate the
Greek stereōma (both of which imply a firm or solid structure).54 But since
the Hebrew noun raqia has limited use in the Tanakh, its meaning is
generally derived etymologically. Scholars typically argue that since raqia is
derived from the verb raqa, meaning to “flatten,” “beat out,” or “spread
out,” then the raqia must be solid, akin to the object (e.g., a metal plate)
being beaten out. However, the emphasis carried over from the verb is the
action of spreading or stretching, not the substance which is beaten out.55
This is clearly demonstrated by the many instances of prophetic
commentary describing the Lord “stretching out” the heavens (cf. Job 9:8;
Ps. 104:2; Isa. 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; 51:13; Jer. 10:12; 51:15; Zech. 12:1). The
act of stretching out, not the substance being stretched, is clearly the point
being made by Scripture’s use of raqia.
It seems reasonable that the substance of the raqia is the “space-time
fabric” within which creation functions.56 Solid-domers would say this
amounts to “concordism”—the mantric cry of modern critics of the Bible.57
Nevertheless, a view of the raqia/shamayim as a stretched atmospheric
expanse is the model that best corresponds to the Bible’s own description of
birds flying across it (Gen. 1:20; Deut. 4:17), powers and principalities
dwelling in it (Duet. 3:24; Isa. 24:21), people ascending and descending
through it (2 Kings 2:11; John 3:13), and the Lord sitting enthroned at the
height of it (Ps. 2:4; 103:19), executing his judgments in the midst of it (Isa.
11:4; 34:5; Joel 2:30).
Ultimately, those who argue for a solid raqia avoid the obvious: Genesis
1:8 equates the expanse with the heavens. So also do Psalm 19:1 and 150:1,
which incorporate Hebrew parallelism, a poetic means of repetition
designed to reinforce the same idea.58 Raqia equals shamayim—all
etymological arguments for a solid raqia fail in light of this fact. Attempts
by solid-domers to substantiate a difference between the raqia and the
shamayim are groundless.59
 The third major problem with the common reconstruction of the biblical
worldview involves the divorce of the heavens (shamayim) from the
heavens of heavens (shameh h’shamayim). With the intrusion of a solid
raqia, God’s dwelling in the “upper heavens” above the dome must be
separated from the “lower heavens” under the dome.60 This, however, is
another baseless assumption. Nowhere in the Scriptures is there a division
between the heavens and the heavens of heavens, and nowhere are the
heavens of heavens depicted as being beyond the cosmic waters.61 The
heavens and the highest heavens are always part and parcel with one
another (cf. Deut. 10:14; 1 Kings 8:27; 2 Chron. 2:6; 6:18; Neh. 9:6; Ps.
148:4).
Beginning with the pagan derivation of the Scriptures, critics project a
reductionistic metal-dome interpretation upon the raqia, which forces them
to delineate between the raqia and the shamayim, which in turn forces them
to divide the shamayim from the shameh h’shamayim, thus placing God’s
dwelling beyond creation. Such a hermeneutical approach to the “primitive
cosmology” of the “scientifically naïve” is obviously prejudiced by a
naturalistic bias.62 No wonder the Bible’s worldview has become the very
source of skepticism for many in the last century, requiring either disbelief
or a sacrificium intellectus.63

THE HELLENISTIC WORLDVIEW

On the playing field of life, the average Westerner views reality in a simple,
dualistic manner involving two worlds: one material, the other immaterial.
Generally labeled “natural” versus “supernatural,” this structure has a long
and complicated history of development. Its general ancestry, though, traces
back to Hellenism and Greek philosophy.64
Unfortunately, there is no single “Greek worldview,” but rather a
conglomeration of different beliefs that molded a common way of thinking.
Akin to Darwin’s relationship to modern evolutionism, the primary
bellwether of ancient Greek thought was Plato (c. 427–347 BC), who was a
self-proclaimed disciple and mouthpiece of Socrates (c. 470–399 BC). Plato
established the Academy (c. 387 BC) on the north side of Athens, and there
schooled a young man named Aristotle (384–322 BC).65 In turn, Aristotle
mentored a number of young noblemen, including three future kings:
Ptolemy, Cassander, and Alexander III of Macedon.
These three men, particularly Alexander, made it their life ambition to
civilize and enlighten the entire known world of their time. And in a
stunning display of zeal and ambition, Alexander conquered kingdoms from
the Ionian Sea to the Himalayas in only ten years (333–323 BC), creating the
largest empire in the ancient world at his time. Founding nearly twenty
cities that bore his own name, Alexander settled Greek colonists
everywhere he went and ushered in what is known in history books as the
“Hellenistic Age” (323–30 BC).66 From this point it was only a matter of
time before the ardent zeal of Hellenism would consume the ancient world,
laying the historical foundation for the development of Western society.
Such philosophical “good news” was ultimately derived from the
worldview within which it was framed. Plato’s understanding of the
universe involved two basic parts: the “intelligible” world and the
“perceptual” world. The intelligible world is comprised of perfect “forms,”
which then produce corrupt “copies” in the perceptual world (see figure
2.5). The form, or “idea,” of something is its true essence, while the copy is
its debased manifestation.67
 Figure 2.5 – The Platonic Worldview

Forms are universal realities, such as “chair-ness” or “red-ness.” Copies

are particular expressions of those forms that we are able to perceive or
sense, such as the red rocking chair in the corner of the living room.
Though immaterial, the intelligible world is actually more “real” than the
material perceptual world because it is the eternal source of existence.68
Those who seek reality in materiality by their senses are thus “barbarians”
who live without divine inspiration.69 Hence, those who seek to see with
their eyes are actually blind.70
The Platonic worldview is technically termed “metaphysical dualism”—
that is, reality is composed of two substantially and qualitatively different
parts.71 However, the qualities and their distinction from one another are
ultimately determined by human perception. The perceptual, or “sensible,”
world refers to the perception and senses of humanity. Thus,
anthropocentrism, or “human-centeredness,” is the defining characteristic of
the entire system of thought. The starting point of Hellenistic philosophy
and all subsequent Western tradition is this: The parameters of reality are
defined by human perception. Though no one in the modern world actually
believes in forms and copies, this broad approach to interpreting reality was
passed on to later generations.72
Such metaphysical wranglings may seem unimportant to many.
Nevertheless, anthropocentrism lies at the very heart of original sin. Pride
and moral autonomy are derived from the exaltation of self, which is based
upon an orientation to self. To bind reality at a worldview level to human
perception provides the ultimate greenhouse for humanism—the floodgates
of which broke during the Enlightenment and continue to inundate to this
day. Though many regard Greek philosophy as benign (or even beneficial)
to the Christian faith, it should be remembered that Socrates was widely
believed in his day to be demonized, a fact greatly mitigated or completely
ignored by modern historians.73 Unfortunately, many early Christians also
disregarded this testimony.
In the centuries following Alexander’s conquests, one of the cities he
named after himself—Alexandria, Egypt—became a hub of Hellenistic
teaching and propagation, and the home of the largest library in the ancient
world. It was here that a catechetical school was established which, under
the leadership of Clement (c. 150–215) and Origen (c. 182–251), sought to
assimilate Christianity and Greek philosophy.74 The progeny was neither
Platonism nor Christianity but “Christoplatonism,” a mongrel child that
continues to grow to this day both in size and stature.75
Akin to its heretical Gnostic cousins (note especially Basilides and
Valentinus, both educated in Alexandria), Christoplatonism gained
momentum throughout the third and fourth centuries with the rise of
Egyptian monasticism and the Catechetical School of Alexandria, both of
which found liberty under the Alexandrian Patriarchate.76 The impact of the
Alexandrian school of thought, especially through the spread of desert
monasticism,77 is difficult to overstate.78 The incorporation of Hellenistic
ideologies, however, seems to lead in only one direction: away from the
apostolic witness. As Tertullian (c. 155–240) is known for decrying,

Indeed heresies are themselves instigated by philosophy. From this

source came the Aeons, and I know not what infinite forms, and the
trinity of man in the system of Valentinus, who was of Plato’s
school. From the same source came Marcion’s better god, with all
 his tranquility; he came of the Stoics. Then, again, the opinion that
the soul dies is held by the Epicureans; while the denial of the
restoration of the body is taken from the aggregate school of all the
philosophers. . . . What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?
What concord is there between the Academy and the Church?
What between heretics and Christians? Our instruction comes from
“the porch of Solomon” [cf. Acts 3:11], who had himself taught
that “the Lord should be sought in simplicity of heart.” Away with
all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic,
and dialectic composition! 79

Though it has become common today to downplay the differences

between Greek and Hebrew thought, Tertullian clearly presents a chasm of
thinking between Athens and Jerusalem.80 I believe it can be confidently
asserted that the dominant source of heresy in the early church was
Hellenistic philosophy and mythology, which were diametrically opposed to
the faith and tradition of Judaism in the second-temple period. These are
indeed two different ways of thinking, or “patterns” of thought.81
Moreover, beyond the symptomatic concerns of Greek versus Hebrew
thought (e.g., abstract versus concrete, stoic versus emotive, secular versus
sacred, individualistic versus communal)82 lies the fountainhead of
divergent worldviews—that is, the “Greek view” of the universe (material
and immaterial) versus the “Hebrew view” of the universe (heavens and
earth).83 As the biblical heavens were consolidated and relegated to ideal
immateriality (and the earth was conversely relegated to evil materiality),
the prime eschatological doctrines of the apostolic church—that is, the day
of the Lord, the resurrection of the dead, and the messianic kingdom (cf. 1
Cor. 15:19–26; 2 Tim. 4:1; 1 Peter 1:13; etc.)—were abandoned.84 The
biblical heavens were transformed into the distant, detached, and ethereal
realm of “heaven” so common to Western tradition, and the hope of the
return of Jesus and a new creation slowly became marginalized amid the
multitude of polemical Christoplatonist controversies during the fourth and
fifth centuries.
 Figure 2.6 – Contrast of Biblical vs. Hellenistic Metaphysical
Characteristics

The distortion of the first verse of the Bible is thus a source of distortion
throughout the rest of the Scriptures. Instead of beginning with plural,
continuous, physical, and dynamic heavens, we start with a singular,
discontinuous, nonphysical, and static “heaven,” which in turn becomes the
field upon which the rest of redemptive history is played out (see figure
2.6).
The whole “spiritual” hermeneutic of the School of Alexandria, which
in turn largely informed the Western theological tradition, operated upon the
basis of this distortion.85 As Origen articulated,

And again [Paul] says, “We shall be caught up in the clouds to meet
Christ in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” We are
therefore to suppose that the saints will remain there [in their
progress to ideal immateriality] until they recognize the twofold
mode of government in those things which are performed in the air.
. . . If anyone indeed be pure in heart, and holy in mind, and more
practiced in perception, he will, by making more rapid progress,
quickly ascend to a place in the air, and reach the kingdom of
heaven, through those mansions, so to speak, in the various places
which the Greeks have termed spheres, i.e., globes, but which holy
Scripture has called heavens; in each of which he will first see
clearly what is done there, and in the second place, will discover
 the reason why things are so done: and thus he will in order pass
through all gradations, following Him who hath passed into the
heavens, Jesus the Son of God, who said, “I will that where I am,
these may be also.”86

In like manner, many modern believers reinterpret what “holy Scripture

has called heavens.” Rather than opening their Bible and reading, “In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” they intuit, In the
beginning God created the natural (material) and the supernatural
(immaterial).87 But the words natural and supernatural simply do not exist
in the Bible.88 The continued use of them is both unhelpful and destructive
—not to mention untruthful. Biblical terminology (such as “divine,”
“miraculous,” “heavenly,” etc.) is much more appropriate and profitable.
Non-biblical terminology confounds the issues and makes the quest for true
correspondence with the Scriptures all the more difficult.89
When trying to identify the lack of correspondence between the
Scriptures and modern presentations of the gospel, we must begin with the
issues of cosmology and worldview. Otherwise we are doomed to perpetual
theological dissonance, akin to placing a soccer team on a basketball court
and exhorting them, “Score!” So it is when you try to place biblical entities
on a Hellenistic playing field. Once you change the field of play, all the
rules and roles of the game get confounded.
As discussed previously, I believe one’s worldview is the ultimate
determining factor of one’s hermeneutics. Once the first verse is changed,
then the interpretation of the rest of the Bible is changed. From Genesis to
Revelation—the creation, the fall, the covenants, the prophets, the cross, the
church, the day of the Lord, and the new heavens and new earth—
everything takes on a different meaning. And it is this meaning, the
theology and “good news” of the Bible, which is ultimately at stake in the
enterprise of articulating and clarifying a biblical worldview.
 Chapter Three

THE DAY OF THE LORD

The Bible’s field of play sets the stage for the development of its players
and game (theology, salvation, eschatology). Within the framework of the
heavens and the earth, humanity is created in an idyllic environment for the
infinite growth of life, love, and general well-being (Gen. 1–2). However,
this primal condition is tested by means of choice, and humanity is found
wanting (Gen. 3). This cluster of protological events sets in motion the
wheels of salvation and eschatology, which work out the tension between
divine holiness and human depravity—the remediation of the alienation
between God and mankind.
The Scriptures unfold the answer to the predicament raised by Adam
and Eve. God will vindicate his own righteousness and judge the sins of
humanity. He will fix what we have broken, and he will correct what we
have corrupted. The deep longing for creation to be made right is the
driving force behind the Scriptures. The Bible is thus essentially prophetic
in nature, “declaring the end from the beginning” (Isa. 46:10), looking
forward to the denouement of what went wrong in the garden.

THE BIBLE AS A PROGRESSIVELY

APOCALYPTIC REVELATION
If the Scriptures reveal the players and playing field of existence, how does
it describe the game of existence? What are the rules? What are the goals?
What are the strategies involved? Though some may reject the Scriptures as
primitive and mythological, I believe they give us clear answers. Unlike
most other sacred texts, which are generally uniform and homogenous in
nature, the Bible is a complicated assortment of writings of various genres
written over a millennia and a half by various authors in various contexts.
From a human perspective it may seem like a hodgepodge of dissimilar and
discordant books with little overarching meaning (except, as assumed by
critical scholars, the record of the historical evolution of human beliefs).
Assuming, however, that the Scriptures are of divine origin, I believe we
must approach them as a progressive revelation from God concerning his
relations with humanity (cf. Rom. 16:25–26; 1 Cor. 2:7; Eph. 3:3–5).
Furthermore, this progression of revelation (in both the Tanakh and the
New Testament) generally seems to be increasingly apocalyptic—meaning
God is progressively revealing himself in relation to the ultimate end of
history, and this end is both climactic and cataclysmic.1 For this reason the
intertestamental Jewish apocalyptic tradition is based on both the Prophets
and the Writings, as they exposited the Torah.2 Moreover, the New
Testament is an extension of this tradition, culminating in the book of
Revelation.3 In this way all of the apocalyptic themes (outlined in chapters
3–6) develop organically from the Torah through the Prophets and the
Writings.4 From beginning to end, the Bible is thus a progressively
apocalyptic revelation, depicting the narrative of God (in his holiness) and
humanity (in its depravity) playing out to their ultimate end.5

The Centrality of the Day of the Lord

The primary element of apocalyptic thought is what the Bible calls “the day
of the Lord” (Isa. 13:6, 9; Ezek. 30:3; Joel 1:15; 2:1, 11, 31; 3:14; Amos
5:18; Obad. 15; Zeph. 1:7, 14; Zech. 14:1; Mal. 4:5; Acts 2:20; 1 Cor. 5:5; 1
Thess. 5:2; 2 Thess. 2:2; 2 Peter 3:10).6 Spoken of first in the early
prophetic literature, the day of YHWH becomes the focal point of prophetic
declaration since “similar terms, particularly ‘that day,’ ‘the day of,’ and
‘the day when,’ appear nearly 200 times in the prophets.”7
The idea of the day of the Lord is traced to the Torah and theophany—
the revelation of God which carried with it expectations of divine
judgment.8 Though glimpses of the day of the Lord are foreshadowed in
God’s appearance in the garden (cf. Gen. 3:8),9 the origin of the concept
seems to be Mount Sinai where God revealed himself with “thunders and
lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast”
(Ex. 19:16)—all elements later picked up in the prophetic tradition and
projected eschatologically.
These expectations that God will reveal himself and set right that which
humanity has made wrong through sin lie at the heart of the day of the Lord
concept developed in the prophetic literature. In one of its earliest
occurrences, Isaiah declares, “For the LORD of hosts has a day against all
that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up—and it shall be brought
low. . . . The haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of
men shall be brought low, and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day”
(2:12, 17).10 This humbling of humanity’s sin and pride is spoken in the
context of God’s coming judgment of Israel and the nations, with cosmic
ramifications. In a passage that later became prominent in Jewish tradition,
Isaiah declares concerning Babylon:

Wail, for the day of the LORD is near;

it will come like destruction from the Almighty! . . .
See, the day of the LORD comes,
cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,
to make the earth a desolation,
and to destroy its sinners from it.
For the stars of the heavens and their constellations
will not give their light;
the sun will be dark at its rising,
and the moon will not shed its light.
I will punish the world for its evil,
and the wicked for their iniquity;
I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant,
and lay low the insolence of tyrants.
(Isa. 13:6–11, NRSV)

As divine revelation unfolds (and consequently the prophetic tradition

develops), these historical declarations are projected to their ultimate
eschatological end, and the day of YHWH becomes increasingly universal
and apocalyptic.11 So Zephaniah describes, “Neither their silver nor their
gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the LORD. In
the fire of his jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed; for a full and
sudden end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth” (1:18).
Finally, after the exile the day of the Lord is revealed in mature
apocalyptic manner, as Zechariah foresees:

Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.
On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost. And there shall be
a unique day, which is known to the LORD, neither day nor night,
but at evening time there shall be light. . . . And the LORD will be
king over all the earth. On that day the LORD will be one and his
name one. (14:5–9)

History is thus portrayed as moving toward a unique and climactic

end.12 Though mankind continues to exalt itself with ever-increasing zeal
and ambition, “a day is coming for the LORD” (Zech. 14:1), when God alone
will be glorified and honored—for “all mankind will come to bow down
before Me, says the LORD” (Isa. 66:23, NASB). Though our literature and
history books write endlessly about the glory of mankind—our progression,
our knowledge, our civilization—God will come and suddenly reverse the
current of history.
In this way, the future day of God is intuitively contrasted with the
present “days of man,” so to speak (see figure 3.1).13 Blind to the horror of
sin, deaf to the cry of the prophets, and ignorant of the impending
judgment, humanity presses on in pride and arrogance toward “the great
and terrible day of the LORD” (Mal. 4:5, CSB). History is thus moving
unidirectionally, like a giant arrow, toward the judgment of the day of
God.14 Developed intertestamentally,15 this approach to history is carried
into and assumed throughout the New Testament, which makes explicit
reference to the eschatological “day” some sixty-four times.16 Hence, I
believe Ernst Käsemann was quite right when he famously stated,
“Apocalyptic was the mother of all Christian theology.”17
 Figure 3.1 – The Apocalyptic Nature of Redemptive History

The day of the Lord lies at the heart of apocalyptic thought in the New
Testament.18 While the phrase “day of the Lord” is often used in full (Acts
2:20; 1 Cor. 5:5; 1 Thess. 5:2; 2 Thess. 2:2; 2 Peter 3:10), its reality is
expressed through a variety of phrases: “the day of God” (2 Peter 3:12),
“the great day” (Jude 6), “the day of eternity” (2 Peter 3:18), “the day of
redemption” (Eph. 4:30), “the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12), “the last
day” (John 6:39–40, 44, 54; 11:24; 12:48), “the great and magnificent day”
(Acts 2:20), “the great day of God the Almighty” (Rev. 16:14)—“the day
when the Son of Man is revealed” (Luke 17:30).
Because “the Christ” is God’s agent or viceroy, so to speak, the day of
the Lord is understood to be “the day of Christ” (Phil. 1:10; 2:16).19 Thus
God will bring his work “to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil.
1:6). He will sustain us “to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus
Christ” (1 Cor. 1:8); and we will boast in him “on the day of our Lord
Jesus” (2 Cor. 1:14). Because it is assumed that Jesus will initiate the day of
the Lord, his “coming” (1 Cor. 15:23; 1 Thess. 3:13; 2 Thess. 2:1),
“revealing” (1 Cor. 1:7; cf. 2 Thess. 1:7; 1 Peter 1:5), and “appearing” (1
Tim. 6:14; 2 Tim. 4:8; Titus 2:13) are the anchor of all New Testament
“hope” (Rom. 5:2; Eph. 1:18; Col. 1:5).20 It is the centrality of the day of
the Lord in first-century Jewish thought that sets the framework for the
centrality of the return of Jesus in the New Testament.21
The day of the Lord is so intrinsic to New Testament thought that it is
simply referred to as “the day” or “that day.”22 Accordingly, Jesus said, “On
that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, . . . ’” (Matt. 7:22); “I tell you I
will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it
new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matt. 26:29); “I tell you, it will be
more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town” (Luke 10:12);
“But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation
and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you
suddenly like a trap” (Luke 21:34).
The day of the Lord is similarly referenced throughout the Epistles:

Each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it,
because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of
work each one has done. (1 Cor. 3:13)

This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets
through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. (Rom. 2:16, NIV)

For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will
come like a thief in the night. . . . But you are not in darkness,
brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. (1 Thess. 5:2–4)

When he comes on that day, he will receive glory from his holy
people—praise from all who believe. (2 Thess. 1:10, NLT)

Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come,
unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is
revealed. (2 Thess. 2:3)

I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has

been entrusted to me. (2 Tim. 1:12)
 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day,
and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2
Tim. 4:8)

Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works .
. . all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Heb. 10:24–25)

Moreover, the day of the Lord was understood as redemptive history’s

ultimate “appointed time” (Gk. kairos): “Therefore judge nothing before the
appointed time; wait till the Lord comes” (1 Cor. 4:5, NIV).23 So the demons
shouted, “Have you come here to torment us before the time?” (Matt. 8:29).
We are called to be watchful, for “you do not know when the time will
come” (Mark 13:33).24 We are thus to keep the good confession “without
stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He
will bring about at the proper time” (1 Tim. 6:14–15, NASB). So we are
being guarded by God’s power “for a salvation ready to be revealed in the
last time” (1 Peter 1:5). Thus, concerning Jesus’ “coming soon” (Rev.
22:12), “the time is near” (v. 10).

The Restoration of Creation

As the theophanic revelation of God brought with it expectations of divine
judgment, so also did it bring hopes of divine restoration.25 Though the day
of the Lord will be “a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and
devastation, a day of darkness and gloom” (Zeph. 1:15), it will finally
overturn the order of sin and ungodliness ushered in by Adam and Eve. A
new order—an order of righteousness—will prevail, both in the heavens
and on the earth, as Isaiah prophesied:

In that day the LORD will punish

the powers in the heavens above
and the kings on the earth below.
They will be herded together
like prisoners bound in a dungeon;
they will be shut up in prison
and be punished after many days.
 The moon will be abashed,
the sun ashamed;
for the LORD Almighty will reign
on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
and before its elders—with great glory.
(Isa. 24:21–23, NIV)

This eschatological event will cleanse creation and usher in “the new
heavens and the new earth” (Isa. 66:22). The former sin, corruption, and
wickedness that plagued creation will be forgotten—“For behold, I create
new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be
remembered or come into mind” (Isa. 65:17). New Testament scholar
George Ladd well described, “The evil that curses the world must be judged
and cleansed (Isa. 51:6; 13:13; 34:4), and a new order of righteousness and
blessedness created (Isa. 35:1–10; 11:6–9; Amos 9:13–15). This new order
can be brought about only by the coming of God—a glorious theophany.”26
This sudden and radical transformation of creation ushered in by the day
of the Lord is likewise carried into and assumed throughout the New
Testament. Unlike the naturalistic, postapocalyptic wastelands often
imagined in modern media, the Bible looks forward to a glorious
postapocalyptic scenario—“new heavens and a new earth in which
righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13). So the Scriptures conclude with the
apostle John’s summary vision:

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven
and the first earth had passed away. . . . And I heard a loud voice
from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among
the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people,
and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe
every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or
mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed
away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making
everything new!” (Rev. 21:1–5, NIV)

It is this “making everything new” that constitutes the ultimate purpose

of the day of the Lord: the restoration of original glory—a new creation
without sin and death.27 The purpose of divine judgment is to correct the
error of sin and make right that which went so grievously wrong.
Consequently, Peter summarizes with the phrase, “the restoration of all
things,” the events of the return of Jesus and the day of the Lord:
“Therefore repent . . . that he may send Jesus, who has been appointed for
you as the Messiah. Heaven must receive him until the time of the
restoration of all things, which God spoke about through his holy prophets
from the beginning” (Acts 3:19–21, CSB).28 “All things” here references the
heavens and the earth (cf. Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:3), for in the end
God will restore the heavens and the earth to their original state of glory.
Peter understands this restoration, which happens at the appointed
eschatological time (day of the Lord), to be the substantive message of all
the holy prophets “from the beginning.”
Jesus describes the future in similar fashion: “Truly I tell you, in the
renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you
who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve
tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19:28, CSB). Again, “all things” here refers to the
present heavens and earth that will be “renewed” or “regenerated” (Gk.
paliggenesia) to something akin to their original state of perfection.29 In
contrast to the common Hellenistic tradition held throughout much of
church history, Craig Blaising has termed this approach to the Scriptures
“the new creation model.”30 As such, biblical theology can safely be
summarized as eschatologically restored protology (see figure 3.2).31 In
fact, “in the beginning” categorically anticipates “in the end.”32 Or as
Sandra Richter aptly states, “God’s original intent is his final intent.”33
 Figure 3.2 – Biblical Theology of Restored Creation

Consequently, the new heavens and new earth will be a restored

paradise. As Eden was paradisal in the beginning, so the earth will once
again be paradisal (cf. Isa. 51:3; Ezek. 36:35; Rev. 2:7). When God at long
last appears in resplendent majesty, when the heavens open wide with
cleansing fire and warring hosts, then will creation be restored to its primal
paradisal glory—on earth as it is in heaven, in the end as it was in the
beginning.
Peering through a glass darkly, Isaiah foresaw the day of God and the
radical transformation of creation:

He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;

with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt,
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them. . . .
 They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.
(Isa. 11:4–9, NIV)

The covering of the earth with the knowledge of the Lord (cf. also Ps.
72:19; Hab. 2:14) is something “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the
heart of man imagined” (1 Cor. 2:9; cf. Isa. 64:4). No longer will we
struggle against the hegemony of entropy (cf. “moth and rust destroy,”
Matt. 6.19); no longer will pride and oppression prevail (cf. “whoever
exalts himself will be humbled,” Matt. 23:12); no longer will anxiety, fear,
and shame blanket our existence (cf. “no longer will there be anything
accursed,” Rev. 22:3).34 For from Jerusalem will flow “the river of the
water of life” (Rev. 22:1; cf. Gen. 2:10), and “everything will live where the
river goes” (Ezek. 47:9). It will be gloriously arboreal (cf. Ezek. 47:7–12),
for the restored tree of life will bring “the healing of the nations” (Rev.
22:2). In this way eternal life will be restored, for creation itself will breathe
life—perpetual and progressive regeneration—life, which gives birth to life,
which gives birth to life, ad infinitum.
The order of death under which humanity now languishes will be
dramatically overthrown in an event inaugurated by the day of the Lord
called “the resurrection of the dead” (Matt. 22:31; Acts 23:6; 1 Cor. 15:21,
42; Heb. 6:2). Lying at the heart of the new creation model, this event will
be the ultimate creative miracle of God—“in a moment, in the twinkling of
an eye, at the last trumpet” (1 Cor. 15:52)—instantaneously reversing
mankind’s existential train wreck. Indeed, “When the perishable puts on the
imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass
the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’” (1 Cor.
15:54). Death is neither normal nor natural.35 The heart of the Jewish
apocalyptic hope is a new heavens and new earth, inaugurated by the day of
God, when death itself is overcome and “swallowed up.”36
In this light, the Scriptures are a progressively apocalyptic revelation
from God concerning the culmination of history in the day of the Lord,
which exorcises sin and death from the heavens and from the earth,
restoring to creation its original glory.37 As such, the Bible is also
theologically symmetrical—as it begins in Genesis, so it concludes in
Revelation.38 In the beginning there is the creation of all things by the hand
of God, the planting of the garden of Eden with the tree of life, the marriage
of Adam and Eve, the victory of Satan through human sin, and the
subsequent entrance of death and suffering. In the end, however, there is the
new creation of God, the restoration of Eden and the tree of life, the
marriage of Jesus (the “last Adam”) and his bride (the redeemed), the
overcoming of Satan through the final judgment upon human sin, and the
subsequent eradication of death and suffering.39 The Judeo-Christian faith
is set within this broad structure. Protology and eschatology are not parts or
aspects of biblical theology; they are, rather, the framework within which
all theology is understood.40

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DAY OF

THE LORD
In the apostolic witness, the day of the Lord is understood to be the
principal event prophesied in the Scriptures. Peter thus associates “the
words previously spoken by the holy prophets” (2 Peter 3:2, CSB) with “the
day of judgment” (v. 7)—that is, “the day of the Lord” (v. 10). It is
ultimately concerning “the time for restoring all the things” that God “spoke
by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago” (Acts 3:21). The event to
which “all the prophets bear witness” (Acts 10:43) is the day when Jesus is
“appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead” (v. 42).
To appreciate the centrality of the day of the Lord in the Scriptures, we
must do a cursory survey of its appearances and characteristics. The Bible
goes into great detail concerning the day of the Lord. This day is described
along royal, judicial, and economic lines, in accordance with the nature,
character, and function of God’s governance over the heavens and the earth.

The Day of Wrath

The day of the Lord is first and foremost characteristically royal, because
God is “a great king over all the earth” (Ps. 47:2), “the living God and the
everlasting King” (Jer. 10:10). He sits “enthroned as king forever” (Ps.
29:10), “a great King above all gods” (Ps. 95:3). The common usage of
royal language describing God throughout the Scriptures (“lord,” “master,”
“throne,” “dominion,” “rule,” etc.) is not metaphorical but literal. God
really is a king, who truly sits enthroned over creation, with everything
actually reporting to him—“For I am a great King, says the LORD of hosts,
and my name will be feared among the nations” (Mal. 1:14). He rules, as do
earthly kings (being created in his image); yet he rules, unlike earthly kings,
in righteousness and integrity (cf. Ps. 89:14; 97:2; 145:17).
Because God is the great King, his day is ultimately concerned with
“the glory due his name” (Ps. 29:2; 96:8). He is a real king who demands
real honor and respect: “If I am a master, where is my fear?” (Mal. 1:6).
Moreover, he seeks the absolute allegiance and loyalty of the nations: “To
me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance” (Isa. 45:23).
His name alone is to be exalted: “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be
exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” (Ps. 46:10).
Hence, service to other gods is considered utterly treasonous, and
accordingly service to God Most High is the first commandment (Ex. 20:3;
Deut. 5:7). To violate this order breaks down the very fabric of the cosmic
governmental hierarchy that ensures the well-being of creation.
The violation of God’s royal honor is thus the ultimate source of divine
anger and wrath. Being created in God’s image, we humans likewise get
angry as a result of dishonor and disrespect. If someone, for example,
rejects my authority in the workplace or curses me in front of others, I
become angry because my dignity, honor, and value have been violated and
disregarded. Similarly, God is quite displeased with the treachery of
humanity’s egotism and rebellion. We have broken his commands and
“stirred him to jealousy with strange gods” (Deut. 32:16; cf. Ps. 78:58; Jer.
44:8). Though many refuse to accept it, the plain fact is that the “wrath,”
“fury,” and “anger” of God pervade the Scriptures.41 Indeed, “The LORD is
avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and
keeps wrath for his enemies” (Nah. 1:2). Thus God says, “I will satisfy my
fury” (Ezek. 21:17); and “My anger will be spent and I will satisfy My
wrath on them, and I will be appeased” (Ezek. 5:13, NASB).
Taken to its eschatological conclusion, the day of the Lord is therefore
understood as the ultimate satisfaction of divine anger. It will be “the day of
wrath” (Zeph. 1:15, 18), or “the day of his wrath” (Ps. 110:5). It will be “the
day of the anger of the LORD” (Zeph. 2:2; cf. Lam. 2:22)—“the day of his
fierce anger” (Isa. 13:13; cf. Lam. 1:12).42 “Behold, the day of the LORD
comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger” (Isa. 13:9). So the day of the
Lord is understood in its royal context (see figure 3.3).

Figure 3.3 – The Royal Nature of the Day of the Lord

When the day of the Lord comes, God will “shatter kings on the day of
his wrath” (Ps. 110:5). He will “speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them
in his fury” (Ps. 2:5), for “the LORD is enraged against all the nations, and
furious against all their host; he has devoted them to destruction” (Isa.
34:2). As the prophet Habakkuk foresaw, “You marched through the earth
in fury; you threshed the nations in anger” (3:12). Jeremiah adds, “Behold,
the storm of the LORD! Wrath has gone forth. . . . The anger of the LORD
will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his
heart. In the latter days you will understand it clearly” (23:19–20). And God
declares through Micah, “In anger and wrath I will execute vengeance on
the nations that did not obey” (5:15).
The book of Isaiah is particularly descriptive: “I crushed nations in my
anger; I made them drunk with my wrath and poured out their blood on the
ground” (63:6, CSB). “So he will repay according to their deeds: fury to his
enemies, retribution to his foes” (59:18, CSB). “For behold, the LORD will
come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to render his anger in fury,
and his rebuke with flames of fire” (66:15). “Behold, the name of the LORD
comes from afar, burning with his anger. . . . And the LORD will cause his
majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in
furious anger and a flame of devouring fire” (30:27–30).
Indeed, the Lord holds “the cup of his wrath” (Isa. 51:17), and he will
make all the nations drink “this cup of the wine of wrath” (Jer. 25:15). So
the psalmist cries, “Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know
you, and on the kingdoms that do not call upon your name!” (Ps. 79:6). And
David: “Do not let them escape; in your anger, God, bring the nations
down” (Ps. 56:7, NIV). Likewise, “Your hand will find out all your enemies.
. . . You will make them as a blazing oven when you appear. The LORD will
swallow them up in his wrath, and fire will consume them” (Ps. 21:8–9).
Though “the nations rage” (Ps. 2:1; 46:6), “The LORD laughs at the wicked,
for he sees that their day is coming” (Ps. 37:13, NRSV).
 When the day of the Lord comes, the proclamation will go out, “Say
among the nations, ‘The LORD reigns!’” (Ps. 96:10; cf. Ps. 93:1; 97:1; 99:1).
And all the ends of the earth will “fear him” (Ps. 67:7), for righteous fear is
the product of genuine honor. So the base command: “It is the LORD your
God you shall fear” (Deut. 6:13). Thus, “Nations will fear the name of the
LORD, and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory” (Ps. 102:15). In
this way the kingship that God instituted at creation will be restored on the
day of the Lord, and God will be rightly feared and honored.
The New Testament carries over these royal characteristics of the day of
the Lord. It is “the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be
revealed” (Rom. 2:5); “for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the
truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury” (v. 8). The
wicked will cry out, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is
seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of
their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Rev. 6:17).
As such, the day of the Lord was commonly understood as the final
context for “the wrath of God” (John 3:36; Rom. 1:18; 5:9; 12:19; Eph. 5:6;
Col. 3:6; Rev. 14:19; 15:1; 19:15). For that reason, John the Baptist
threatened the crowds, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from
the wrath to come?” (Matt. 3:7). For all people are “by nature children of
wrath” (Eph. 2:3), destined “to suffer wrath” (1 Thess. 5:9, NIV), assumedly
on the last day when God will “inflict wrath on us” (Rom. 3:5). On account
of our sins, “the wrath of God is coming” (Col. 3:6). Nevertheless, Jesus
“delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10). “Since, therefore, we
have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him
from the wrath of God” (Rom. 5:9). All of this was understood in its
eschatological and apocalyptic context.

The Day of Judgment

The day of the Lord in the Scriptures is also characteristically judicial. Not
only is God Most High a king, but “God is a righteous judge, and a God
who feels indignation every day” (Ps. 7:11; cf. Ps. 50:6; 75:7). God is not
an ethereal principle or metaphor of justice, but rather a real judge. A real
person rules over the heavens and the earth, and he actually executes
judgments. Moreover, he is really going to punish humanity’s
unrighteousness: “At the time I have planned, I will bring justice against the
wicked” (Ps. 75:2, NLT).
 At its core, judgment is simply the establishment of a standard of
righteousness. In this way the divine Judge establishes righteousness upon
the earth: “When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the
world learn righteousness” (Isa. 26:9, NIV). And God will ultimately be
vindicated in his gubernatorial role, for “he has established his throne for
judgment” (Ps. 9:7, CSB). The Psalms are replete with similar declarations:
“He will judge the world with righteousness” (Ps. 98:9); “He will judge the
peoples with equity” (Ps. 96:10); “He will execute judgment among the
nations” (Ps. 110:6), “for he comes to judge the earth” (Ps. 96:13)—leading
to the cry, “Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the
nations!” (Ps. 82:8). Thus, projecting eschatologically, Isaiah declares: “The
LORD will execute judgment on all people with his fiery sword” (Isa. 66:16,
CSB).
Judgment is also inherently based upon the transgression of a law, for
laws are the standard by which judgment is executed. God is thus a real
lawgiver: “For the LORD is our judge; the LORD is our lawgiver; the LORD is
our king” (Isa. 33:22; cf. James 4:12). He has a real law with real rules,
precepts, and statutes by which he judges the heavens and the earth. This
divine law was expressed in the Mosaic law as an accommodation to human
depravity in historical context (cf. Rom. 5:13; Gal. 3:19; 1 Tim. 1:9), and it
will be expressed anew as the standard of eschatological judgment which
will go forth from Jerusalem on the new earth (cf. Isa. 2:3; 42:4; 51:4; Mic.
4:2). In this way, “Every one of your righteous rules endures forever” (Ps.
119:160; cf. Matt. 5:18; Luke 16:17).
Redemptive history thus has an undeniably penal aspect. The day of the
Lord will be the ultimate “day of punishment” (Isa. 10:3). It will be the
climax of the “divine lawsuit” (Heb. rib) against sinful humanity (cf. Isa.
3:13; Jer. 2:9; Hos. 4:1; Mic. 6:2).43 As Jeremiah prophesied, “The tumult
will resound to the ends of the earth, for the LORD will bring charges [Heb.
rib] against the nations; he will bring judgment on all mankind” (Jer. 25:31,
NIV). The day of the Lord is thus presented as a great apocalyptic courtroom
in which the divine judge will charge and punish the sins of humanity,
restoring righteousness and establishing justice upon the earth (see figure
3.4).
 Figure 3.4 – The Judicial Nature of the Day of the Lord

So David prayed, “Rouse yourself to punish all the nations; spare none
of those who treacherously plot evil” (Ps. 59:5)—“Charge them with crime
upon crime; do not let them share in your salvation” (Ps. 69:27, NIV). Hence
the punishment of wickedness is one of central facets of the day of the
Lord, as Isaiah summarizes: “On that day the LORD will punish the host of
heaven, in heaven, and the kings of the earth, on the earth. They will be
gathered together as prisoners in a pit; they will be shut up in a prison, and
after many days they will be punished” (Isa. 24:21–22).
The New Testament carries forward this punitive emphasis. Thus, “the
judgment of God” (Rom. 2:2–3; 2 Thess. 1:5) was believed to be ultimately
expressed at “the day of judgment” (Matt. 10:15; 11:22, 24; 12:36; 2 Peter
2:9; 3:7; 1 John 4:17). It is “the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6), for
God “has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by
the man he has appointed” (Acts 17:31, CSB). This concept was so
commonly assumed that it was simply referred to as “the judgment” (Matt.
12:41–42; Luke 10:14; 11:31–32; Heb. 9:27; 2 Peter 2:4). Moreover, this
judgment assumed God to be literal judge with a literal “judicial bench”
(Gk. bēma):44 “For we will all stand before the judgment seat [Gk. bēma] of
God” (Rom. 14:10). Or assuming Christ to be the agent of divine judgment:
“We must all appear before the judgment seat [Gk. bēma] of Christ, so that
each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether
good or evil” (2 Cor. 5:10).
History is moving unidirectionally toward a climactic cosmic
courtroom, within which “the coming judgment” (Acts 24:25), or “eternal
judgment” (Heb. 6:2), will take place—“on the day when God judges
people’s secrets through Jesus Christ” (Rom. 2:16, NIV). It will be “the
righteous judgment of God” (2 Thess. 1:5), when “the Lord Jesus is
revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting
vengeance on those who do not know God. . . . They will suffer the
punishment of eternal destruction” (vv. 7–9). For the wicked are kept “unto
the day of judgment to be punished” (2 Peter 2:9, KJV), and they will inherit
“eternal punishment” (Matt. 25:46)—namely, “the punishment of eternal
fire” (Jude 7).
The Day of Recompense
Not only is the day of the Lord royal and judicial, but it is also
characteristically economic. Humanity has done real damage to real things
which have real value, and we owe our Creator for it. The day of the Lord
will dispense damages according to damages done. As such, the judgment
of the divine King is essentially retributive in nature (see figure 3.5).45 It
will be a day of recompense and retribution: “For the LORD is a God of
recompense, He will fully repay” (Jer. 51:56, NASB). Therefore, “Woe to the
wicked! Disaster is upon them! They will be paid back for what their hands
have done” (Isa. 3:11, NIV). “For you repay to all according to their work”
(Ps. 62:12, NRSV). Projected eschatologically, the earth will hear “the sound
of the LORD, rendering recompense to his enemies!” (Isa. 66:6). Or as
Obadiah declared, “The day of the LORD is near upon all the nations. As
you have done, it shall be done to you; your deeds shall return on your own
head” (v. 15).

Figure 3.5 – The Economic Nature of the Day of the Lord

Considering that recompense is based upon judgment, the day of the

Lord will be an eschatological application of the vengeful aspects of the
law: “You shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand,
foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (Ex. 21:23–
24). In other words, “As he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for
fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person
shall be given to him” (Lev. 24:19–20). Hence the psalmist cries, “O God of
vengeance, shine forth! Rise up, O judge of the earth; repay to the proud
what they deserve!” (Ps. 94:1–2).
Consequently the day of the Lord will be “the day of vengeance of our
God” (Isa. 61:2). “For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of
recompense for the cause of Zion” (Isa. 34:8). “Behold, your God will come
with vengeance, with the recompense of God” (Isa. 35:4). Wearing
“garments of vengeance for clothing” (Isa. 59:17), God will “repay
according to their deeds: fury to his enemies, retribution to his foes” (v. 18,
CSB). Thus the fearful Isaian oracle:
 I stomped on them in my anger;
I trampled them down in my rage. . . .
For I looked forward to the day of vengeance,
and then payback time arrived.
I looked, but there was no one to help;
I was shocked because there was no one offering support.
So my right arm accomplished deliverance;
my raging anger drove me on. I trampled nations in my anger,
I made them drunk in my rage,
I splashed their blood on the ground.
(Isa. 63:3–6, NET)

In the New Testament, the judgment of God likewise ends in

recompense: “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me,
to repay each one for what he has done” (Rev. 22:12). “For the Son of Man
is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will
repay each person according to what he has done” (Matt. 16:27). The
righteous will receive their wages in eternal life, for “each will receive his
wages according to his labor” (1 Cor. 3:8). Jesus thus analogizes the day of
the Lord: “Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the
last, up to the first” (Matt. 20:8). The wicked, on the other hand, receive
“the wages of sin” (Rom. 6:23), their recompense of eternal death,
destruction, and punishment (cf. Matt. 25:46; 2 Thess. 1:9; Heb. 10:27)
—“Their destruction is their reward for the harm they have done” (2 Peter
2:13, NLT). “For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those
who afflict you . . . dealing out retribution to those who do not know God
and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thess. 1:6–8,
NASB).
Thus God will take vengeance on his enemies (cf. Rom. 12:19; Heb.
10:30), for “on the day of wrath . . . he will repay according to each one’s
deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and
immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking
and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury
(Rom. 2:5–8, NRSV). From the unrepentant, God will demand restitution for
damages done, which of course cannot be paid (cf. Matt. 18:25). Thus the
resurrection of the wicked (John 5:29; Acts 24:15) is designed to pay
eternally the infinite debt owed.
 This threefold classification of the day of the Lord (royal, judicial, and
economic) is in simple accord with the nature of creation. Again, if
someone smashes my car with a sledgehammer, I get angry because that
person disrespected me and my bestowed right to own property. Then I
press charges against him because we live in a land with laws to protect the
dignity of life. And if I win the case, then he repays me according to the
damages done to my car. So it is with God. He is angry concerning
mankind’s rebellion and the damages done to his creation. Therefore he is
pressing charges against humanity for their crimes, and in the end he will
make them pay, even with their very lives.
The day of the Lord is generally revealed in regard to human depravity,
and as such it is highly negative in tone (one reason for its neglect in the
theological tradition).46 However, for the righteous, whose sins are atoned
for, this day is a positive hope (as outlined above). It will be the final
deliverance from the evils of this age. Yet this new creation hope must
always be set in context of the gravity of human sinfulness and the
substantial negativity associated with the day of the Lord. Thus Paul’s
exhortation, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling . . .
holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud
that I did not run in vain or labor in vain” (Phil. 2:12–16).

The Day of the Lord and the Unity of the Scriptures

The centrality of the day of the Lord in the Scriptures is evident not only by
the plethora of references, but more importantly by the place it holds as a
theological concept. It is literally the end of all biblical thought. The day of
the Lord is that toward which everything is moving, and it is that to which
everything is building.
The most striking illustration of this belief is the use of the Greek
alphabet as a metaphor describing redemptive history as a whole (cf. Rev.
1:8; 21:6; 22:13). Creation is portrayed as the first letter of the alphabet,
alpha (α), while the day of the Lord and the restored creation is thought of
as the last letter, omega (ω). The Scriptures close with Jesus identifying
himself as “the Alpha and the Omega” (Rev. 21:6; 22:13), because he is the
primary agent anointed by the Father to restore the heavens and earth when
he returns to initiate the day of the Lord.
It is therefore “the beginning and the end” (Rev. 21:6; 22:13) that define
biblical history and biblical theology.47 In the analogy of the alphabet, all of
the letters ultimately find their meaning and significance in relation to the α
and ω. How do you understand the λ, μ, and ν, apart from the α and ω? To
marginalize the α and the ω as alphabetically secondary to the “central
alphabetical letters,” so to speak, throws the whole arrangement into a
shambles. It is the beginning and the end that ultimately inform the whole
of our existence, without which we are doomed to be “tossed to and fro by
the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14). This is
why the Bible is so protologically based and eschatologically oriented.
This framework gives us context for “the basic principles of the oracles
of God” (Heb. 5:12), or an “elementary” theological foundation (Heb. 6:1).
Returning to a soccer analogy, it is imperative to establish the players on a
grass field (cf. the heavens and the earth), with soccer goals (cf. the new
heavens and new earth), playing in the right direction (cf. the day of the
Lord). Such things are exceedingly elementary, but error concerning these
most basic concepts leads to much confusion and grievous errors in the heat
of the game.48
As the ultimate subject of the oracles of Scriptures and the defining
event of redemptive history, the day of the Lord is thus the theological
linchpin for interpreting all other biblical events and their redemptive
implications (see figure 3.6).49 All theologies have a center, or linchpin,
whether stated explicitly or implicitly.50 Unfortunately, when the day of the
Lord is removed or decentralized from its ultimate position, great
theological disorder and disarray ensues.51

Figure 3.6 – The Day of the Lord as the Primary Theological Linchpin

In this way, the day of the Lord is also the primary unifying reality of
the Scriptures. The Tanakh and New Testament speak the same message
because they end in the same event. Consequently they hold to “the same
hope” (Acts 24:15, NIV). They look forward to the same “new heavens and
new earth.” They believe in the same “resurrection of the dead.” They
expect the same “glory,” the same “salvation,” the same “inheritance,” the
same “kingdom,” etc. The New Testament simply asserts that the Messiah
had to suffer before entering his eschatological glory (cf. Luke 24:26; Acts
17:3; 1 Peter 1:11), bearing sin before bringing salvation (cf. Acts 3:18–21;
Heb. 9:28), being set forward as a propitiation before the day of wrath (cf.
Rom. 3:25; 1 John 2:2), providing justification in anticipation of the day of
judgment (cf. Rom. 5:9; Titus 3:7), and offering redemption in light of the
day of recompense (cf. Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14).52
We can also observe a simple continuity with the testimony of the Law
and Prophets (cf. Luke 24:27; Acts 10:43; Rom. 3:21), which foretold not
only “the prize” of eternal life (1 Cor. 9:24; Phil. 3:14) but also the means
of receiving that prize—the superior sacrifice and atonement of the new
covenant, “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28;
cf. Acts 13:39). It is this “righteousness from God” (Phil. 3:9; cf. Rom.
10:3) that is discontinuous and sets the old covenant apart from the new
(detailed in chapter 8). The eschatological hope which is “attained” by the
new covenant is the same (cf. Rom. 9:30–33; Phil. 3:8–11; Heb. 9:15). The
idea that the eschatology of the Tanakh was somehow spiritually fulfilled,
actualized, or “realized” at the first coming finds little real evidence in the
Scriptures.53

THE DAY OF THE LORD AND THE

TWO AGES
The reality of the day of the Lord inherently creates a dichotomy of ages.
Because the day of the Lord is such an all-encompassing transformative
event, it outweighs all other historical events in terms of importance and
significance. History is thus filtered according to everything before the day
of the Lord—“this age” (Matt. 12:32; Luke 20:34; 1 Cor. 1:20; 2:6, 8; 3:18;
Eph. 1:21)—and everything after the day of the Lord—“the age to come”
(Matt. 12:32; Mark 10:30; Luke 18:30; Heb. 6:5).
The relationship between the day of the Lord and the two ages is seen,
for example, in Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees: “Whoever speaks a
word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against
the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
. . . I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every
careless word they speak” (Matt. 12:32–36). It is “the day of judgment” that
makes it necessary to speak of two ages. This division of history into only
two parts seems generally foreign to the modern mind, and its radical
implications seem to be rarely appreciated.
Time and Eternity
The two-age reality delineated by the day of the Lord assumes a simple
linear view of history.54 This age and the age to come lie on the same
temporal continuum (see figure 3.7). The same word is used in the New
Testament (Gk. aiōn) concerning both this “age” and “eternity,”55 which
finds its root in the Tanakh (Heb. olam) and is based upon creation’s
perpetuity (cf. Gen. 3:22; Ps. 78:69; 148:6; Ecc. 1:4; etc.).56 Thus “eternity”
and “forever” simply assume the plural form of “age,” and as such they are
equivalent to “the coming ages” (Eph. 2:7).

Figure 3.7 – Linear History Delineated by the Day of the Lord

Unlike the Hellenistic view of timeless eternity, we look forward to “an

endless succession of ages.”57 The ungodliness of this age will soon come
to an end, and God will establish righteousness, both in the heavens and on
the earth, “forever and ever” (Gal. 1:5; Eph. 3:21; Phil. 4:20; 1 Tim. 1:17; 2
Tim. 4:18; Heb. 13:21; 1 Peter 4:11; 5:11; Rev. 1:6; 14:11; 15:7; 19:3;
20:10; 22:5)—literally, “to the ages of the ages” (Gk. eis tous aiōnas tōn
aiōnōn). Hence we long for the day when “the kingdom of the world has
become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign
forever and ever” (Rev. 11:15).
This view of history is, above all, simple and straightforward. There is
no hidden meaning or agenda, perceptible only to the intellectual or
spiritual elite. The biblical presentation of time and history is meant to be
taken at face value, for God is “patient with you, not wanting any to perish
but all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9, CSB). Consequently, the
Scriptures—the fundamental means by which God communicates this
message—must be understood easily by peasant and philosopher alike.
Though the particular elements of redemptive history (the cross,
resurrection, holiness of God, depravity of man, etc.) may hold infinite
depth, complexity, and mystery, redemptive history itself must remain
universally apprehensible, or the very character of God in his governance is
compromised. What judge would seek to punish lawlessness throughout the
land and yet speak of the coming judgment only to university professors
and the political elite? This, of course, would be ridiculous. Similarly, the
Scriptures assume a universally apprehensible, linear view of history—from
creation to consummation—warning sinners of coming divine judgment
and promising eternal life to the penitent.58

Linguistic Dichotomies
In light of the coming day, the New Testament develops a host of other
phrases. The “present time” (Rom. 8:18), “present age” (1 Tim. 6:17; Titus
2:12; Heb. 9:9), and “present evil age” (Gal. 1:4) are all contrasted with the
time and age of righteousness after the day of the Lord. Moreover, “this
life” (Luke 21:34; 1 Cor. 6:3; 15:19), “the present life” (1 Tim. 4:8), “this
body” (Rom. 7:24; 2 Peter 1:13), “our lowly body” (Phil. 3:21), and “this
perishable . . . mortal body” (1 Cor. 15:53) are contrasted with eternal life
and the resurrected body given on the day of the Lord. Likewise, “this
world” (Luke 16:8; John 18:36; Rom. 12:2; 1 Cor. 3:19; 5:10; 7:31; 2 Cor.
4:4; Eph. 2:2; 1 John 4:17) and “this present world” (2 Tim. 4:10) are
understood in light of “the world to come” (Heb. 2:5) inaugurated by the
day of the Lord.59 Hence the implied timeline behind Jesus’ injunction:
“Whoever loves his life [in this age] loses it [in the age to come], and
whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:25;
cf. Luke 9:24 and par.).
Similarly, the prominence of the day of Lord and the twofold
chronological view of history gave birth to a wide range of linguistic
dichotomies in the New Testament associated with this age versus the age to
come: evil versus righteous (cf. Acts 2:40; Gal. 1:4; 2 Peter 3:13), night
versus day (cf. Luke 16:8; Rom. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:2–8), death versus life
(cf. Rom. 5:17; 1 Cor. 15:21–22; Phil. 3:10), mortality versus immortality
(cf. Rom. 2:7; 1 Cor. 15:53; 2 Cor. 5:4), perishable versus imperishable (cf.
1 Cor. 9:25; 15:42; 1 Peter 1:23), suffering versus glory (cf. Rom. 8:18; 2
Cor. 4:17; 1 Peter 4:13), not seeing versus appearing (cf. 2 Cor. 4:18; 1
Peter 1:7; 1 John 3:2), waiting versus judging (cf. Acts 2:34–35; 1 Cor. 4:5;
Heb. 10:13), sojourning versus ruling (cf. 1 Cor. 6:2; Heb. 11:13; 1 Peter
1:17), the world versus the kingdom (cf. John 18:36; James 2:5; Rev.
11:15), things of the flesh versus things of the Spirit (cf. Rom. 8:5; 1 Cor.
3:1; Gal. 6:8), and treasures on earth versus treasures in heaven (cf. Matt.
6:19; 19:21; Luke 16:11). All of these dichotomies are based upon the
apocalyptic two-age approach to history.
 In this way, there are more references, direct and indirect, to the two-age
reality after the cross, resurrection, and ascension than before. Such a wide
range of temporally dualistic descriptions argues strongly for the apostolic
retention of an unaltered Jewish apocalyptic approach to redemptive history.
Because of such pervasive apocalyptic language, I doubt the apostles would
have even considered that the Jewish eschatological realities were somehow
being presently fulfilled or realized (as is commonly argued in many
modern theological circles).60

The End of This Age

The two-age reality is also expressed in the phraseology of “the end of the
age,” referencing the end of this age. Consequently Jesus’ disciples
questioned, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of
your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matt. 24:3). So also Jesus
concludes their commissioning, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end
of the age” (Matt. 28:20).61 In explaining the parable of the weeds, Jesus
likewise summarizes the close of this age, the day of the Lord, and the
initiation of the age to come: “Just as the weeds are gathered and burned
with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his
angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-
breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace” (Matt. 13:40–42).
So commonly understood was the apocalyptic framework of redemptive
history that the end of this age was simply referred to as “the end.” Thus
Jesus answers his disciples’ question concerning the timing of “the end of
the age” (Matt. 24:3): “This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed
throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end
will come” (v. 14). For “the one who endures to the end will be saved” (v.
13; cf. Matt. 10:22). Hence Paul exhorts the Corinthians to seek the gifts of
the Spirit, “as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will
sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor.
1:7–8). So also Peter: “The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-
controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers” (1 Peter 4:7).
And the writer of Hebrews: “For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed
we hold our original confidence firm to the end” (3:14). Thus the risen
Christ states, “The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the
end, to him I will give authority over the nations” (Rev. 2:26). In all of
these instances, “the end” simply assumes the coming of the day of God
and the inauguration of the age to come.

The Eschatological Fire

The apocalyptic nature of the Scriptures is further exemplified in the use of
fire as the means of ending this age. As everything was created in the
beginning “out of water and by means of water” (2 Peter 3:5, NRSV), so also
will everything be cleansed at the end of this age “by a spirit of judgment
and by a spirit of burning” (Isa. 4:4), for “His wrath is poured out like fire”
(Nah. 1:6).62 Water is the medium of creation, but fire is the medium of
destruction: “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all
the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall
set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts” (Mal. 4:1). So David foresaw,
“Your hand will capture all your enemies; your right hand will seize those
who hate you. You will make them burn like a fiery furnace when you
appear; the LORD will engulf them in his wrath, and fire will devour them”
(Ps. 21:8–9, CSB).
The day of the Lord will be executed with fire because God himself is a
“consuming fire” (Deut. 4:24; 9:3; Isa. 33:14; Heb. 12:29). Accordingly the
Lord will descend from heaven “in furious anger and a flame of devouring
fire” (Isa. 30:30), for “fire goes before him and burns up his adversaries all
around” (Ps. 97:3; cf. Ps. 50:3). Though humanity labors to build great
empires in this age, “the people’s labor is only fuel for the fire” (Hab. 2:13,
NIV). “They are like stubble; the fire consumes them” (Isa. 47:14), for “on
the day of the LORD’S wrath . . . all the earth will be devoured in the fire of
His jealousy” (Zeph. 1:18, NASB). Thus Isaiah envisioned:

For behold, the LORD will come in fire,

and his chariots like the whirlwind,
to render his anger in fury,
and his rebuke with flames of fire.
For by fire will the LORD enter into judgment,
and by his sword, with all flesh;
and those slain by the LORD shall be many.
(Isa. 66:15–16)
 Rather than mitigating the apocalyptic tone, the New Testament actually
amplifies the idea that God will conclude this age with fire. The Gospels
introduce John the Baptist warning the people of Israel about “the wrath to
come” (Luke 3:7), with the unrepentant being “thrown into the fire” (v. 9)
and the Messiah coming to “burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (v.
17, NASB; cf. Isa. 66:24).63 Jesus likewise warns the crowds concerning
“that day” (Matt. 7:22): “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut
down and thrown into the fire” (v. 19). And later he declares, “Just as the
weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age”
(Matt. 13:40). Similarly, Jesus uses the metaphor of a vine and branches to
communicate the fearful apocalyptic reality: “If anyone does not abide in
me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are
gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned” (John 15:6).
Peter likewise proclaims, “The heavens and earth that now exist are
stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of
the ungodly” (2 Peter 3:7).64 And Paul adds, “Each one’s work will become
manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and
the fire will test what sort of work each one has done” (1 Cor. 3:13). Indeed,
this age will end when Jesus appears “in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance
on those who do not know God” (2 Thess. 1:8). The unrepentant have “only
a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the
enemies of God” (Heb. 10:27, NIV). Evangelism is thus pictured as
“snatching [people] out of the fire” (Jude 23).

The Fire of God Perpetuated in Gehenna

The judgment of the wicked by eschatological fire is more than a one-time
event. The fire of God is inaugurated at the day of the Lord and carries on
perpetually in a place called “Gehenna,” Gk. gehenna (Matt. 5:22, 29, 30;
10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5). Gehenna is simply
the first-century Jewish notion of hell, commonly associated with the literal
“Valley of Hinnom” (Heb. gay hinnom; see Josh. 15:8; 18:16; 2 Kings
23:10; 2 Chron. 28:3; 33:6; Neh. 11:30; Jer. 7:31–32; 19:2, 6; 32:35), a
valley running S-SW of Jerusalem.
Because Israel sacrificed children there to the Ammonite god Molech (2
Kings 23:10), Isaiah prophesied it would be filled with fire and sulfur
(30:33), and Jeremiah declared it would become “the Valley of Slaughter”
(7:32; 19:6). When these prophecies did not find fulfillment during the
exile, the Jews began projecting them eschatologically during
intertestamental times.65 By the time of the New Testament, it was
commonly understood that the Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna) was to be the
actual location and embodiment of God’s final judgment. God would fill it
with fire, hence turning it into a “lake of fire” (Rev. 19:20; 20:10, 14;
21:8).66 Thus tradition holds that the valley became a trash dump for
Jerusalem, kept ever burning as a sign of the age to come.67
Gehenna is thus an integral part of Jewish apocalyptic thought, and as
such in the New Testament it is “always in the background, even when the
word is not actually present.”68 Gehenna is also set in sharp contrast to
Hades (Gk. hadēs), which translates the Hebrew sheol in the Septuagint.69
Hades/Sheol is a temporal reality that exists under the earth as a holding
place awaiting the day of judgment (cf. Job 21:13; Ps. 9:17; Acts 2:31; 2
Peter 2:4; Rev. 20:13).70 Gehenna is an eternal reality that exists upon the
earth after the day of the Lord (see figure 3.8).71 Hence Gehenna is only
presented in the Scriptures as an eschatological-eternal reality, and
conversely Hades is only seen as a present-temporal reality.72 In the end,
Hades itself will be “thrown into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:14; cf. 2 Peter
2:4; Jude 6).

Figure 3.8 – The Conclusion of Divine Judgment in Gehenna

Therefore Jesus sets Gehenna opposite other Jewish eschatological

realities like the day of judgment, the kingdom of God, and eternal life:

And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to
enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell [Gk. gehenna].
. . . And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you
to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be
thrown into hell [Gk. gehenna], “where their worm does not die
and the fire is not quenched.” (Mark 9:43–48)

The quotation at the end of this passage is a reference to the well-known

final chapter of the book of Isaiah, which had come to be commonly
associated with Gehenna. When God judges humanity with fire (Isa. 66:16)
and makes a new heavens and new earth (v. 22), then will the righteous go
outside the new Jerusalem to gaze upon the wicked, for “their worm shall
not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to
all flesh” (v. 24).
In this way, Gehenna is set in contrast to the brilliant glory of Jerusalem
in the age to come (cf. Isa. 54, 60; Rev. 21:23–26), which is understood as
the backdrop to “the outer darkness” (Matt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30; cf. 2 Peter
2:17; Jude 13). For the righteous will “enter the city by the gates” (Rev.
22:14), but “outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral
and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices
falsehood” (v. 15). The day of the Lord will thus come with fire—a fire that
consumes the heavens and the earth and continues on eternally outside of
the new Jerusalem in Gehenna. This is the “literal view” of hell in the first
century.73 In this way, God will finally “destroy those who destroy the
earth” (Rev. 11:18, NASB)—infinite recompense dispensed for infinite
damages done.
The eschatological fire of God perpetuated in Gehenna will also be a
“fiery furnace” (Matt. 13:42, 50), drawing from the furnace/oven imagery
of the prophets (Isa. 31:9; Mal. 4:1; cf. Ps. 21:9). Moreover, the fires of this
furnace will go on forever. As Jesus declared, “Depart from me, you cursed,
into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Matt. 25:41; cf.
Matt. 18:8). Jude similarly understood Sodom and Gomorrah to be “an
example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire” (v. 7, NIV). So
the eternal fire will be in accord with eternal punishment (Matt. 25:46),
eternal judgment (Heb. 6:2), eternal destruction (2 Thess. 1:9), and eternal
torment (Rev. 14:11).74 Though experiencing a “second death” (Rev. 2:11;
20:6, 14; 21:8), unbelievers will never cease to exist, for with the devil
“they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev. 20:10).75
This torment will be endured eternally because the wicked, like the
righteous, will be given resurrected bodies that never die. It will be “a
resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked” (Acts 24:15, NASB)—that
is, “the resurrection of life” and “the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:29;
cf. Dan. 12:2). The wicked will suffer eternal death in a resurrected body,
while the righteous will enjoy eternal life in a resurrected body. In this way,
the pain, suffering, and condemnation of the wrath of God will be
experienced to its fullest. Thus the fearful injunction of Jesus: “Do not fear
those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can
destroy both soul and body in hell [Gk. gehenna]” (Matt. 10:28).76
Such a corporeal torment is far more terrible than common Hellenistic
notions of incorporeal, ethereal fire. It is bad news of the highest order,
which consequently heightens the impact of the “good news” of salvation.
The greatness of God’s severity in Gehenna is the backdrop which
heightens the greatness of God’s kindness in the cross. Modern views
concerning the severity of divine punishment can be depicted on a
spectrum, with unhappiness in this life on one end and eternal bodily
torment on the other—with annihilationism, transitional purgatory, and
eternal spiritual punishment lying in between (see figure 3.9). I believe that
only eternal conscious corporeal punishment does justice to both human
depravity and the biblical gospel.

Figure 3.9 – Scale of Severity Concerning Divine Judgment

Gehenna is thus the ultimate outworking of the day of the Lord. You
cannot hold to a theology of new creation without the day of the Lord and
Gehenna as its practical mechanisms. Using bodily cleansing as an analogy,
we could say that it is impossible to attain to the reality of cleanliness (cf.
new heavens and earth) without real defecation (cf. day of the Lord) and an
actual toilet (cf. Gehenna). Distortion at any of these three points ends in
malodor, which unfortunately often permeates the halls of the modern
church.
Those who complain about the severity of the wrath of God seem to
misunderstand the gravity of human sin. In the beginning, creation was
deemed “very good” in the sight of God (Gen. 1:31). Human beings
brought in every kind of death, pain, suffering, corruption, and perversion.
Human beings have done infinite damage to what God created—not only
environmentally, but also to the very image of God. As the pinnacle of
creation, human beings are of greater worth in the sight of God than
anything else (cf. Matt. 6:26; 12:12). Therefore, to sin against and pervert
the image of God by theft, murder, fornication, etc., is of infinite
consequence in the sight of God.
 Consider two identical cars. One was built on an assembly line in
China; the other was built by my own hands in my own garage. Which has
more value? To a third-party observer, they are equal. But, in my eyes, there
is no comparison. The one I built, pouring my heart and soul into it, is of
incomparable worth. Likewise, humanity is fundamentally delusional about
the gravity of sin because it lacks a divine perspective of the value of
human life.77 Because we are not the ones who poured our very being into
creation, designing its apex in our own “image,” we have no appreciation
for the incomparable worth of a human being in the sight of God and the
immeasurable damage done by our sin. It is literally infinite.
So God has chosen eternal proportionate retribution as the means of
righting the wrong of human sin—damage for damage, pain for pain,
suffering for suffering. Though horrifying beyond imagination, Gehenna,
for the righteous, is ultimately a source of rejoicing. Akin to a prison being
established next to a secondary school to lock up all the drug pushers,
thugs, and pedophiles, so will the righteous rejoice in the cleansing of the
earth and the establishment of Gehenna next to the New Jerusalem (cf. Isa.
35:8; Joel 3:17; Rev. 19:1–7; 21:27). Moreover, God will be eternally
vindicated, and all of redeemed humanity will echo the praise of the angel
in charge of the waters: “Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for
you brought these judgments. For they have shed the blood of saints and
prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve!”
(Rev. 16:5–6).

The Intermediate State

Out of this discussion, the question of temporal destiny immediately arises
—Where do we go when we die in this age?78 The answer is contingent
upon whether the person asking the question is righteous or unrighteous.
Clearly there are unrighteous souls presently held in Hades, since they are
raised up from there and judged in the future (cf. 2 Peter 2:9; Jude 6; Rev.
20:13).79 In the Tanakh, the righteous are also clearly held in Hades (cf.
Gen. 37:35; 1 Sam. 28:13–15; 1 Kings 2:2; Ps. 16:10; 49:15).80 In the New
Testament, however, it seems the righteous are kept in the presence of the
Lord (cf. 2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23; Rev. 6:9), where Jesus sits at the right hand
of the Father in the height of the heavens until his descension, at which time
the righteous will inherit eternal life in the resurrection (cf. 1 Cor. 15:51; 1
Thess. 4:16).
What then accounts for the change between the Tanakh and New
Testament? It seems to be precisely the new covenant, which is enacted
through the mediation of Jesus in the heavenly sanctuary (cf. Heb. 8:1–6;
9:10–12, 23–26; 10:12–14). This made it possible for the righteous to tarry
with the Lord until the resurrection. As the offering of blood by the priests
under the Mosaic covenant made it possible for sinful humans to dwell in
the presence of the Lord in the earthly sanctuary, so also did the offering of
the blood of the new covenant make it possible for sinful humans to dwell
in the presence of the Lord in the heavenly sanctuary.
Though somewhat speculative, this helps explain numerous New
Testament oddities, such as when Jesus “descended into the lower parts of
the earth” (Eph. 4:9, NASB), where he “proclaimed to the spirits in prison”
(1 Peter 3:19), and where “the gospel was preached even to those who are
dead” (1 Peter 4:6). Moreover, in his ascension “he led a host of captives”
(Eph. 4:8), who also seem to have gone “into the holy city and appeared to
many” (Matt. 27:53). Thus, it seems that after the cross believers will rest
with the Lord in the third heaven while they await the resurrection, but
unbelievers will be held in Hades until the day of judgment.

THE NATURE AND CHARACTER OF

THIS AGE
The events of the day of the Lord so radically change the nature and
character of redemptive history that the apocalyptic language of “this age”
versus “the age to come” is necessary to describe life before and after the
day. The age to come is essentially characterized as a reversal of this age.
This age involves a fallen order of unrighteousness—wickedness,
corruption, and evil—and all of its miserable repercussions: suffering,
sickness, and death. The age to come involves a new order of righteousness
—justice, integrity, and goodness—and all of its glorious consequences:
happiness, health, and life. Ultimately, this radical reversal is based upon
God’s own prerogative—divine patience, forbearance, and kindness define
this age, while the age to come involves “the day of wrath when God’s
righteous judgment will be revealed” (Rom. 2:5).
This Age and Divine Mercy
Such a stark dichotomy of ages ultimately derives from the radical
dissimilarity between the nature of God in loving holiness and the nature of
humanity in selfish depravity. These contrasting characteristics create the
framework for how God relates to humanity in this age. As such, the
primary theme of this age is divine mercy (see figure 3.10).81 This age is an
age of mercy because God himself is “merciful and gracious” (Ex. 34:6; Ps.
86:15; 103:8)—“For the LORD your God is a merciful God” (Deut. 4:31; cf.
Isa. 30:18; Dan. 9:9).

Figure 3.10 – Divine Mercy as the Defining Feature of This Age

If we ask why the day of the Lord has not yet come, then the answer at
its base must be divine mercy. Thus Peter answers the scoffing accusation
concerning the delay of the coming of the day of judgment: “The Lord is
not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward
you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach
repentance. But the day of the Lord will come . . .” (2 Peter 3:9–10).
Paul also described his own life within an apocalyptic context of divine
mercy in this age and eternal life in the age to come: “But I received mercy
for this reason, that in me, as the foremost [of sinners], Jesus Christ might
display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in
him for eternal life” (1 Tim. 1:16). In other words, it is God’s “forbearance
and patience” (Rom. 2:4)—in light of “the day of wrath” (v. 5)—that
essentially defines the nature of this age. Note Paul’s similar twofold
apocalyptic approach in his letter to Titus:

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior
appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in
righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of
regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out
on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified
by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of
eternal life. (3:4–7)
 This restraint of divine justice also ultimately informs the life and
ministry of Jesus. Chastising the Pharisees, who seem to have lost touch
with this ultimate divine agenda, Jesus said: “Go and learn what this means,
‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but
sinners” (Matt. 9:13). As such, Jesus embodied the purpose of God in this
age: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).
And, similarly, Jesus exhorted his disciples to love their enemies, because
God himself is “kind to the ungrateful and the evil” (Luke 6:35)—therefore,
“Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (v. 36).
Because God is merciful, he has orchestrated redemptive history
according to mercy, as Paul outlines in relation to both Jews and Gentiles:
“For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received
mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been
disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now
receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have
mercy on all” (Rom. 11:30–32). Unless we have such a “view of the
mercies of God” (Rom. 12:1, CSB), we are doomed to be “conformed to this
age” (v. 2, CSB). The renewing of our minds rests upon an apocalyptic
understanding of redemptive history in which the kindness of God is
ultimately expressed through the cross, followed by the severity of God
ultimately expressed at the day of the Lord and in Gehenna eternally.

This Age Epitomized by the Cross

The event of the cross is understood as the supreme demonstration of divine
love and mercy. It is the epitome of God’s dealings with humanity in this
age. Thus John describes, “God’s love was revealed among us in this way:
God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through
him” (1 John 4:9, CSB). The cross is the ultimate means by which God
expresses his love and mercy to humanity.
Since the cross typifies the acts of God in this age, we might describe
this age as “cruciform,” meaning “shaped like a cross.”82 The cross
substantially represents how God relates to humanity, from the sin of Adam
until the day of the Lord. In this way, the theology of the Bible is best
summarized as cruciform-apocalypticism (see figure 3.11). In anticipation
of the cataclysmic day of the Lord, God is relating to humanity in this age
according to mercy, as exemplified by the cross. Though some argue that
apocalypticism is not a suitable theological environment for the cross,83 I
believe just the opposite to be true. The cross finds its cruciality in the
context of the day of the Lord.84 (The interpretation of the cross in
sacrificial and atonemental terms will be discussed in detail in chapters 7
and 8.) Moreover, the hope of the cross for righteousness and the day of the
Lord for salvation exemplify faith in God alone, rejecting as anathema all
forms of “confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3).85 God will right the wrongs
of humanity, without regard to the strength of human beings.

Figure 3.11 – Biblical Theology Summarized as “Cruciform-

Apocalypticism”

This twofold approach, I believe, best reflects the Scriptures as a whole.

The gospel relates to both the first and second coming, as seen in Luther’s
“gospel in a nutshell”: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”
(John 3:16).86 Paul similarly emphasizes God’s mercy shown to sinners
before the great day of his wrath: “God shows his love for us in that while
we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been
justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath
of God” (Rom. 5:8–9).
Throughout the Epistles, the gospel is essentially twofold concerning a
sacrificial understanding of the first coming in light of an apocalyptic
understanding of Jesus’ return (e.g., cf. Rom. 5:18–21; 1 Cor. 1:17–18;
15:1–3; 2 Cor. 5:10–14; Eph. 1:7–10; Phil. 3:8–11; 2 Thess. 1:5–10; Titus
3:5–7). In other words, the gospel is simply this: Christ died for us, so that
we could inherit eternal life. Or as the writer of Hebrews formulates within
an apocalyptic framework: “And just as it is appointed for man to die once,
and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear
the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save
those who are eagerly waiting for him” (9:27–28).
If we ask, What is God ultimately doing in this age? then we must
answer: He is showing love and offering mercy to his enemies in light of his
coming severity and eternal recompense. Redemptive history is cruciform-
apocalyptic, and consequently the mission of the church is to “proclaim the
Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26).
Temporal versus Eternal Recompense
If this age is so clearly characterized by the restraint of divine justice, then
how do we interpret the activity of God before the day of the Lord? There
are clearly blessings and punishments in this age that are personally
administrated by God. Indeed, God does presently punish the wicked (e.g.,
Ex. 34:7; Deut. 28:15–68; Hos. 8:13)—“God is a righteous judge, and a
God who feels indignation every day” (Ps. 7:11). Conversely, God also
blesses the righteous in this age (cf. Deut. 28:1–14; Ps. 84:11; 115:13)
—“For you bless the righteous, O LORD; you cover him with favor as with a
shield” (Ps. 5:12).
We might describe divine blessings and judgments in this age as
“temporal,” in contrast to the “eternal” judgment and blessing of the age to
come. However, no gift of God in this age compares to the ultimate blessing
of the resurrection, and no discipline of God in this age compares to the
ultimate judgment of Gehenna. In this way, God’s temporal blessings and
judgments are designed to point us to the ultimate blessing and judgment of
God in the age to come (see figure 3.12).

Figure 3.12 – The Relationship between Temporal and Eternal Divine

Recompense

Temporal blessings are easily understood as divine mercy—“Every

good gift and every perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17). Temporal
judgments, however, are more difficult to receive as divine mercy. The
reason for this seems to be a general lack of appreciation concerning the
magnitude of human sin. If it is true that everyone deserves proportionate
retribution for their sins—an eternal, corporeal lake of fire—then the only
game being played in this age is divine mercy. Those who suffer disasters,
trials, and difficulties are actually fortunate not to be in a lake of fire. Those
who recognize this situation can interpret such troubles in this life as divine
“discipline” (cf. Heb. 12:7; Rev. 3:19), leading them to repentance in light
of the wrath to come (cf. Rom. 2:4–5). Those who do not understand
redemptive history as such respond only with cursing and hatred of God (cf.
Rev. 9:20; 16:9–11).
 In Luke 13:1–5, Jesus illustrates vividly the relationship between
temporal hardships, repentance, and eternal judgment:

About this time Jesus was informed that Pilate had murdered some
people from Galilee as they were offering sacrifices at the Temple.
“Do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than all the other
people from Galilee?” Jesus asked. “Is that why they suffered? Not
at all! And you will perish, too, unless you repent of your sins and
turn to God. And what about the eighteen people who died when
the tower in Siloam fell on them? Were they the worst sinners in
Jerusalem? No, and I tell you again that unless you repent, you will
perish, too.” (NLT)87

When we approach the sovereignty of God in this age as both prophetic

(pointing to the future) and merciful (explaining why the future apocalypse
has not yet arrived), it saves us from a great deal of confusion,
disillusionment, and despair. We can thus receive all blessings and
judgments in this age as divine mercy to encourage us in perseverance unto
the day of the Lord. God can give and take away according to his own
prerogative, and we can “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18),
finding “godliness with contentment” (1 Tim. 6:6) because we have “a
better and enduring possession” (Heb. 10:34, CSB). Whether the righteous
are blessed, or not—whether the wicked are punished, or not—we can
rejoice, while entrusting our souls to him who judges justly (cf. 1 Peter
2:23), knowing that in the end God will work out all of the things of this
age for the good of those who love him (cf. Rom. 8:28). Without a
cruciform-apocalyptic perspective, our hearts become vulnerable to being
“weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life”
(Luke 21:34).

POST-APOSTOLIC THEOLOGICAL
DEVELOPMENTS
Because of the fall of Jerusalem (AD 70), growing Gentile demographics
within the church, and increasing polemics between second-century
apologists and rabbis, the Christian theological tradition began to part ways
with the Jewish apocalyptic narrative.88 Though specific ideas and
theologies are innumerable, the Hellenistic trajectory of the Christian
theological tradition has resulted in four major patterns of thought: (1)
escapist Christoplatonism, (2) dominionistic Constantinianism, (3) dualistic
dispensationalism, and (4) conflationary inaugurationalism.
The first two patterns dominated throughout much of the history of the
church. Instead of a simple futurist apocalyptic hope, the church set its hope
on an escapist heavenly destiny or a dominionistic actualization of divine
sovereignty. So Princeton professor J. Christiaan Beker broadly
summarized:

By and large the future apocalyptic dimension of Paul’s thought

has been misinterpreted in the history of the church. The
interpretation of futurist eschatology in the church has been one
long process of its transposition into a different key. Especially
under the influence of Origen and Augustine future eschatology
was made to refer either to the spiritual journey of the believer or to
the church as the kingdom of God on earth.89

The dispensational pattern was a novel innovation during the nineteenth

and twentieth centuries, seeking to restore the Jewish apocalyptic realities
while also retaining the Hellenistic heavenly destiny hope, thus bifurcating
the plan of salvation. The inaugurational pattern developed in the twentieth
century as a melding of the futurist apocalyptic hope with the previous
dominionistic ideas. This historical categorization roughly corresponds to
Benedict Viviano’s well-articulated fourfold categorization in The Kingdom
of God in History (though he overlooks the entire dispensational movement,
which has had a substantial impact on the non-Western church).90 Let us
look at each of these in more detail.

Escapist Christoplatonism
By examining Plato’s redemptive narrative, we can see many of the themes
that were later accommodated by Christian theologians. On the playing
field of materiality versus immateriality, the material world is a “prison-
house” from which the immaterial soul seeks to escape, and thus the
ultimate goal is “the journey upwards”—that is, “the ascent of the soul into
the intellectual world.”91 Moreover, for Plato the visible world is a fallen
“timeful” copy of the timeless intelligible world, the eternal static state in
which the soul ultimately finds rest.92 Within such a framework, salvation is
essentially understood as the escape of the soul, which is accomplished
temporally through enlightenment and eternally through death (see figure
3.13).93

Figure 3.13 – The Redemptive Framework of Platonism

As Hellenistic thought was accommodated into the early church,

primarily through the Alexandrian school, the simple linear view of history
was forsaken.94 The hope of the future was transformed into a hope for the
immaterial “great beyond,” and the resurrection of the body was exchanged
for the eternal existence of the soul.95 Origen (c. 182–251) thus details “an
incorporeal existence” as “the end of all things”:

Having sketched, then, so far as we could understand, these three

opinions regarding the end of all things, and the supreme
blessedness . . . we must suppose that an incorporeal existence is
possible, after all things have become subject to Christ, and
through Christ to God the Father, when God will be all and in all . .
. then the bodily substance itself also being united to most pure and
excellent spirits, and being changed into an ethereal condition in
proportion to the quality or merits of those who assume it
(according to the apostle’s words, “We also shall be changed”), will
shine forth in splendour; or at least that when the fashion of those
things which are seen passes away, and all corruption has been
shaken off and cleansed away, and when the whole of the space
occupied by this world, in which the spheres of the planets are said
to be, has been left behind and beneath, then is reached the fixed
abode of the pious and the good situated above that sphere, which
is called non-wandering (απλανής), as in a good land, in a land of
the living, which will be inherited by the meek and gentle . . .
which is called truly and chiefly “heaven,” in which heaven and
 earth, the end and perfection of all things, may be safely and most
confidently placed.96

This idea of immaterial heaven as “the end and perfection of all things”
and “the fixed abode of the pious” became the normative view of the church
in the centuries following.97 The prize of eternal life was understood in
terms of an immaterial heavenly destiny, due in part to “eternity” being
equated with a realm of immateriality rather than futuristic unending time.98
As such, timeless immateriality was naturally assumed to be the “heavenly
home” of the immaterial soul, which is ultimately achieved through death.99
So Douglas Davies summarizes,

Though earliest Christianity may have conceived of the eternal

future in terms of a restored earth, a second Eden, over the
following centuries the Christian afterlife was, largely, interpreted
in terms of a heavenly domain. Christian theology, iconography,
patterns of worship, the very existence of Easter and its religious
celebration, and funerary rites came to speak of human life as a
journey through life to the heavenly city. This journey beyond has
dominated Christian cultures ever since.100

Moreover, a negative view of materiality was also accommodated. The

apocalyptic vision of the day of the Lord was changed from the restoration
of all things to the annihilation of materiality.101 The penal aspects of the
day of the Lord were also extracted and universalized upon death.102 Rather
than being held for judgment until the day of the Lord (the righteous in the
third heaven and the wicked in Hades), all experience judgment upon death
(see figure 3.14).103 Furthermore, the return of Jesus lost its centrality in
day-to-day thought, because it became functionally equivalent to death—
that is, both end in an immaterial heavenly destiny.

Figure 3.14 – The Redemptive Framework of Christoplatonism

 Because human beings inherently live according to their perceived
destiny, monasticism grew organically out of the seeds of escapist
Christoplatonic theology.104 If materiality is bad, then asceticism and self-
discipline are the means by which we separate our souls from the material
body and disassociate from the material world. So Anthony, the father of
monasticism, gave context to “the discipline”:

Whenever, therefore, we live full fourscore years, or even a

hundred in the discipline, not for a hundred years only shall we
reign, but instead of a hundred we shall reign for ever and ever.
And though we fought on earth, we shall not receive our
inheritance on earth, but we have the promises in heaven; and
having put off the body which is corrupt, we shall receive it
incorrupt. . . .
Nor let us think, as we look at the world, that we have
renounced anything of much consequence, for the whole earth is
very small compared with all the heaven. Wherefore if it even
chanced that we were lords of all the earth and gave it all up, it
would be nought worthy of comparison with the kingdom of
heaven. . . .
Wherefore, children, let us hold fast our discipline, and let us
not be careless. . . . To avoid being heedless, it is good to consider
the word of the Apostle, “I die daily.” For if we too live as though
dying daily, we shall not sin.105

Throughout the Middle Ages, monks and nuns were known as “athletes
of Christ,” for they were the elites in the race to heaven. Though Luther
deemed all such “perverted monkery”106 to be antithetical to a “theology of
the cross” (Lat. theologia crucis),107 the Reformation did little to change the
overarching heavenly destiny belief.108

Dominionistic Constantinianism
It is hard to overstate the impact of the Roman emperor Constantine (c.
272–337) on the Christian theological tradition.109 Broadly speaking, if
Plato led to the Hellenization of the gospel, then Constantine led to its
Romanization. Though Constantine is widely known for wedding the
church with political power, his greater legacy lies in the theological
conclusions that were reached by those who followed him. Eusebius of
Caesarea (c. 260–339), Constantine’s court historian, thus theologized
concerning the rule of Constantine:

And thus, by the express appointment of the same God, two roots
of blessing, the Roman empire, and the doctrine of Christian piety,
sprang up together for the benefit of men. . . .
Our Saviour’s mighty power destroyed at once the many
governments and the many gods of the powers of darkness, and
proclaimed to all men, both rude and civilized, to the extremities of
the earth, the sole sovereignty of God himself . . . its object being
to unite all nations in one harmonious whole; an object in great
measure already secured, and destined to be still more perfectly
attained, even to the final conquest of the ends of the habitable
world. . . .
In short, the ancient oracles and predictions of the prophets
were fulfilled, more numerous than we can at present cite, and
those especially which speak as follows concerning the saving
Word. “He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river
to the ends of the earth.” And again, “In his days shall
righteousness spring up; and abundance of peace.” “And they shall
beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into sickles:
and nation shall not take up sword against nation, neither shall they
learn to war any more.” These words, predicted ages before in the
Hebrew tongue, have received in our own day a visible fulfillment,
by which the testimonies of the ancient oracles are clearly
confirmed.110

In this description, we see the primary theological element that helped

form and sustain Christendom for the next millennia and a half: the
fulfillment of Jewish eschatology through the actualization of divine
sovereignty (see figure 3.15).111 As the fulfillment of “the ancient oracles,”
the dominionistic realization of divine sovereignty through a Christianized
empire, “even to the final conquest of the ends of the habitable world,”
became its own hope and end (i.e., eschatology).
 Figure 3.15 – The Redemptive Framework of Constantinianism

Rather than the apocalyptic-eschatological “kingdom of God” as

portrayed in the Scriptures (to be discussed further in chapter 6), or the
immaterial heavenly kingdom of God as in Origenistic Christoplatonism,
the kingdom of God was understood as the actualization of divine
sovereignty through Christianized political and ecclesiastical structures.
Such an “eschatology of dominion”112 has persisted throughout the history
of the church—intertwined with worldly ambitions—from Constantine to
Charlemagne, from the Ottonian Saxon emperors to the Eastern Orthodox
tsars, from the Fifth Monarchy Men to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom,
from Bismarck’s Second Reich to Hitler’s Third Reich.113 Because the
Jewish apocalyptic hope is fundamentally political (cf. Matt. 19:28; Luke
22:30), its presumed realization in this age through fallen men always tends
toward death and destruction.
After the Enlightenment, realized-sovereignty theology took on a new
form within liberalism, wherein the spiritual rule of God produces good
moral principles that transform society and hence build the kingdom of God
on earth.114 The functional end of this “social gospel” was similar to its
Christendom ancestor, though less belligerent in its mission.115 But the
twentieth century saw the rise of more aggressive forms of dominionistic
theology, which openly sought the takeover of government and society.116
Until God incarnate sets up his eternal throne on his day, depraved men will
continue to reap devastation from this ideology.
As the Roman Empire began to crumble, Constantinianism was forced
to modify, and the realization of divine sovereignty was transferred to the
church, with the pope functioning as “the Vicar of Christ,”117 extending the
rod of divine rule. As the writings of Augustine (354–430) became
normative, it was generally accepted that “the Church even now is the
kingdom of Christ, and the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly, even now His
saints reign with Him.”118 Nevertheless, with Augustine we have something
of a mediating position between Eusebius and Origen—the “church
militant,” seeking to establish the actualized-sovereignty kingdom in this
life, and the “church triumphant,” achieving the heavenly destiny kingdom
in the afterlife.119 Thus escapist Christoplatonism (see figure 3.14) and
dominionistic Constantinianism (see figure 3.15) were awkwardly
harmonized (see figure 3.16). This view dominated throughout the Middle
Ages and the Reformation, persisting to the present day in many popular
circles of the church.120

Figure 3.16 – The Augustinian Synthesis of Christoplatonism and

Constantinianism

Throughout the history of the church these two aspects of the

Augustinian synthesis—Christoplatonism (immaterial heavenly destiny)
and Constantinianism (actualized divine sovereignty)—have been the
primary distortions of the simple cruciform-apocalyptic view found in the
Scriptures. Moreover, these two patterns of thought compete with the
Scriptures, co-opting the language of the Bible (e.g., “gospel,” “kingdom,”
“life,” “glory,” etc.) into a foreign context and meaning. For example, Paul
says, “If a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would
indeed be by the law” (Gal. 3:21). Given the broader context of Galatians
and of Pauline theology, he is simply referring to the age to come and
“eternal life” (Gal. 6:8; cf. Rom. 2:7; 5:21)—that is, “the resurrection from
the dead” (Phil. 3:11; cf. Rom. 6:5; 1 Cor. 15:12). Within an Augustinian
framework, however, such a “life” would be associated on the one hand
with the eternal sing-along-in-the-sky (church triumphant), or on the other
hand with the church’s perpetual prosperity and growth (church militant).121
Furthermore, these two axes of Augustinianism have produced, broadly
speaking, the deviant expressions of praxis found in monasticism and
Christendom. We naturally seek to be “imitators of God” (Eph. 5:1). If the
mission of God is ultimately to escape from materiality, then we will
conform our lives to this end, and monasticism is the most logical response.
Taking up the cross (cf. Luke 9:23 and par.) within Christoplatonism is thus
assumed to be asceticism in its various forms,122 and Simeon Stylites (c.
390–459), who spent nearly forty years atop a desert pillar, would be the
exemplar heavenly destiny disciple. Conversely, bearing the cross,
according to Christendom, is understood in terms of denying yourself for
the cause of extending the sovereignty of God over the earth, as exemplified
in the Crusades when banners displaying the cross led the Christian armies
in holy war against the infidels. Dominionists to this day continue to receive
the same false vision of Constantine concerning the cross: “In this sign,
conquer!” (in Latin, In hoc signo vinces).123 I believe both of these
distortions are at odds with the cruciform-apocalyptic mission of God, and
they militate against a true expression of the cross, in both word and deed,
regarding the present mercy of God in light of the coming severity of
God.124

Dualistic Dispensationalism
Throughout most of the church’s history, the Augustinian framework of
redemptive history dominated. During the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, however, a new system of interpretation arose in Britain
and America known as “dispensationalism.”125 It offered a novel solution to
the age-old Platonic problem: two simultaneous plans of salvation, one for
materiality relating to Israel and the Jews and another for immateriality
relating to the church and the Gentiles (see figure 3.17).

Figure 3.17 – The Redemptive Framework of Dispensationalism

Though variously characterized, it is this soteriological dualism that

essentially defined dispensationalism as a new theological system.126 As the
first to systematize its theology, Lewis Chafer articulated the eternal
metaphysical dualism at the heart of the schema:

The dispensationalist believes that throughout the ages God is

pursuing two distinct purposes: one related to the earth with earthly
people and earthly objectives involved, while the other is related to
heaven with heavenly people and heavenly objectives involved.
Why should this belief be deemed so incredible in the light of the
facts that there is a present distinction between earth and heaven
which is preserved even after both are made new; when the
Scriptures so designate an earthly people who go on as such into
eternity; and an heavenly people who also abide in their heavenly
calling forever? Over against this, the partial dispensationalist,
though dimly observing a few obvious distinctions, bases his
 interpretation on the supposition that God is doing but one thing,
namely, the general separation of the good from the bad, and, in
spite of all the confusion this limited theory creates, contends that
the earthly people merge into the heavenly people; that the earthly
program must be given a spiritual interpretation or disregarded
altogether; and that there is nothing in eternity but heaven and hell.
The advocates of this interpretation oppose every earthly feature of
the divine program. They disregard or ignore the earthly covenants
and promises; they spiritualize or vaporize the vast body of
Scripture bearing on the Davidic Throne and Kingdom; they
present no specific reason as to why Christ was born as the Son of
David; and they recognize no earthly glory or purpose in His
second advent. According to their system, Christ comes again to
end the world, but, unfortunately for these conceptions, the world
does not end then or ever.127

As seen in Chafer’s summary, dispensationalists sought to restore to

biblical interpretation many of the carnal realities of Jewish apocalypticism.
Unfortunately, instead of simply scrapping the whole Hellenistic idea of
salvation, they sought to accommodate it, and in doing so they doubly
confounded the theological issues. Not only do the Gentiles inherit a
heavenly destiny, but Israel experiences an actualization of divine
sovereignty, generally termed “theocracy,” meaning “a manifestation of the
supernatural.”128 The manifestation of divine rule is roughly understood as
beginning at Sinai, ending at the exile, and resuming (after a Gentile
“intercalation”) at the return of Jesus.129 According to the two plans of
salvation, therefore, we generally see dual references applied to the biblical
terminology: two “kingdoms,” two “inheritances,” two “glories,” etc.
Being mostly a grassroots and popular-level movement,
dispensationalism received little criticism until the mid-twentieth century.
At that time, criticism from Reformed circles began to mount,130 especially
concerning the dualistic interpretation of the new covenant—“a defenseless
position.”131 Thus, the classical model was modified,132 but “revised
dispensationalism” sought to keep the two plans of salvation during the
millennium while consolidating them into one plan for eternity.133 By the
late twentieth century, dispensational scholars began to abandon their
dualistic foundations in favor of more mainstream ideas concerning
“inaugurated eschatology.”134

Conflationary Inaugurationalism
By the turn of the twentieth century, some in European scholarship had
come to the conclusion that Jesus and the apostles were thoroughly Jewish
in their views of the kingdom, resurrection, salvation, etc.—as reflected in
their continued use of apocalyptic language, such as the day of the Lord, the
two ages, and the like.135 This approach came to be known as “consistent
eschatology,” as it conformed to the Jewish thought patterns of the time.136
However, these scholars’ skepticism and lack of cruciform theology led
them to conclude that Jesus was a misguided and deluded prophet, whom
the early church deified and memorialized by shifting the apocalyptic
categories to his return.137
In an attempt to save Jesus from such embarrassment, more moderate
scholars responded by saying that Jesus spiritually “realized” the Jewish
apocalyptic expectations within himself—and later through the ministry of
the church. In contrast to consistent eschatology, this approach was labeled
“realized eschatology.”138 The nature of this “realization,” however, was
very much akin to the actualized-sovereignty pattern of Constantinian
thought which preceded it.139
During the mid-twentieth century, a number of scholars took a
“mediating position,”140 incorporating both consistent and realized
eschatology—that is, “an eschatology that is in process of realization.”141
Other European scholars developed this idea,142 “modifying” the Jewish
apocalyptic view of history to accommodate realized eschatology.143 This
approach was later termed “inaugurated eschatology,”144 reflecting the
“already fulfilled” realized eschatology and the “not yet completed”
consistent eschatology.145 Of course, only the Jewish eschatological
realities were “realized” (e.g., the land, temple, Davidic throne, etc.), never
the universal eschatological realities (e.g., day of the Lord, resurrection of
the dead, new heavens and earth, etc.).146 In this way, inaugurationalism
can roughly be described as the amalgamation of Jewish apocalypticism
and recapitulated Constantinianism.147
 The primary assumptions of the inaugurational schema are that (1) the
overarching purpose of God in redemptive history is the actualization of
divine sovereignty and (2) God was doing the same thing at the first coming
of the Christ as he will do at the second coming of the Christ. So George
Ladd, the evangelical systematizer of inaugurationalism,148 explained:

The “history” of the kingdom of God is therefore the history of

redemption, viewed from the aspect of God’s sovereign and kingly
power. Before the final and perfect establishment of God’s reign
there could be a number of mediatorial stages in which the
manifestation of God’s sovereignty is realized in varying degrees.
God’s reign may be realized less perfectly, partially, but none-the-
less really in various realms during the course of this age and
before the perfect fulfillment in the age to come. The character of
these several mediatorial manifestations of God’s kingdom can be
determined only by careful exegesis of the Scriptural language.149

Though inaugurationalists vary in their ideas and emphases, there seems

to be a common understanding concerning the ultimate purpose behind the
manifestation of divine sovereignty: the conflation of a dualistic cosmos. As
N. T. Wright puts it, “Final redemption will be the moment when heaven
and earth are joined together at last.”150 In other words, “An integrated
vision of new creation in which ‘heaven’ and ‘earth,’ the twin halves of
created reality, are at last united.”151 Or, as George Ladd describes, “In the
Age to Come, heaven descends to earth and lifts historical existence to a
new level of redeemed life (Rev. 21:2–3).”152 The inaugurational schema
thus consists of “a semi-eschatological expression incorporating the
heavenly realm both in the present and future.”153
In this way, God began bringing the natural and supernatural worlds
together at the first coming of Christ; and upon his return, God will
consummate “the final amalgamation of the earthly and heavenly
spheres.”154 Inaugurationalism thus seems to assume a conflationary
soteriology: the material world will be fully “supernaturalized,” or
“heavenized,” so to speak, by the manifestation of divine sovereignty in the
age to come, which then becomes the referent for its partial
supernaturalization/heavenization in this age (see figure 3.18).155
Consequently, redemptive history is understood as a continual process of
“the inbreaking of the eternal into the temporal,”156 or put in military terms,
“a theology of the invasion of history by the God of heaven.”157

Figure 3.18 – The Redemptive Framework of Inaugurationalism

Here then we must say clearly that to speak of the age to come being
inaugurated at the first coming is substantially equivalent to saying that “the
day of the Lord has come” (2 Thess. 2:2) and “the resurrection has already
happened” (2 Tim. 2:18). Few seem as bold as C. H. Dodd, so as to state the
obvious: “That the Christian is ‘risen from the dead’ follows from the
‘realized eschatology’ of the Gospels. The Kingdom of God has come; the
‘Age to Come’ has come; the ‘life of the Age to Come’ is realized.”158
Inaugurationalism is thus bound to its ancient Gnostic roots when it argues
for a spiritual realization of the kingdom, resurrection, and the age to
come.159 In the final evaluation, we must conclude that God is not “beyond
history,” nor does he “break into time,” nor is he engaged in an “invasion,”
nor a “manifestation” of sovereignty—much less an “incision,” “incursion,”
or “realization” of the age to come. All such language is a blatant
imposition upon the Scriptures.160
 Moreover, like its Constantinian predecessor, inaugurationalism mars
the nature and character of both God and redemptive history.161 By
inaugurating the age to come, the cross is set aside as the normative reality
of this age, and the purpose of God is interpreted as an ever-increasing
actualization of divine sovereignty by means of fallen men. Furthermore, by
spiritually realizing the Jewish apocalyptic realities, inaugurationalism
mitigates the severity of God and the coming day of the Lord. As a result,
the divine agenda of both advents is truncated, and as such those who
embrace inaugurationalism generally avoid apocalypticism and abandon an
overt theology of the cross.162
Contrary to the inaugurational assumption that the first and second
comings of Christ are of the same purpose, I would argue that the two
comings of Christ are fundamentally heterogeneous in nature. The first
coming was sacrificial, motivated by divine mercy, while the second
coming will be apocalyptic, driven by divine judgment. Thus I believe
Hebrews 9:27–28 represents well how the apostolic tradition understood the
cross within an unchanged Jewish apocalyptic worldview: “And just as it is
appointed for man to die once [this age], and after that comes judgment
[age to come], so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many
[this age], will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those
who are eagerly waiting for him [age to come].”
As God has ordained the death of every human being in this age before
the day of judgment, so also did he ordain the death of his Son for the
forgiveness of sins before the Jewish apocalyptic consummation of
salvation. In contrast to the various Gentile theologies championed
throughout the history of the church, this twofold cruciform-apocalyptic
emphasis seems to be the real thrust of the apostolic witness (cf. Rom. 5:9;
8:17; 2 Cor. 4:17; Phil. 3:9–11; 2 Thess. 1:5–10; 1 Peter 1:4–7; 4:13; Rev.
6:10–11).
 Chapter Four

THE SPIRIT OF THE

RESURRECTION

The Scriptures open with the declaration that the universe has an absolute
and definite “beginning.”1 As such, all things are wholly dependent upon
the Creator: “For from him and through him and to him are all things”
(Rom. 11:36). Creation lives from, to, and through the Creator, and it is his
“spirit/breath” (Heb. ruach) that animates creation.2 Moreover, the Spirit, or
“breath,” of God is the substance of the word of God, which in turn
becomes the creative power of God in the beginning. So the psalmist
describes creation: “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and
by the breath [Heb. ruach] of his mouth all their host. . . . For he spoke, and
it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Ps. 33:6–9).
In this way, the Spirit of God is intimately related to the word of God,
which proceeds from the mouth of God. Thus God’s Spirit is synonymous
with the general term for “breath” (Heb. neshamah), as Elihu says, “The
Spirit [Heb. ruach] of God has made me, and the breath [Heb. neshamah] of
the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33:4). This understanding undergirds the
creation account when God “formed the man of dust from the ground and
breathed into his nostrils the breath [Heb. neshamah] of life” (Gen. 2:7).
The Spirit/breath/word of God is thus the practical agent of life and
creation, and in this way, “The universe was created by the word of God”
(Heb. 11:3).3
 Not only does the Spirit of God animate creation, but it also sustains
creation. So Elihu continues, “If [God] put his mind to it and withdrew the
spirit [Heb. ruach] and breath [Heb. neshamah] he gave, every living thing
would perish together and mankind would return to the dust” (Job 34:14–
15, CSB). Likewise, Psalm 104 describes the giving and taking of life by the
Spirit: “When you take away their breath [Heb. ruach], they die and return
to their dust. When you send forth your Spirit [Heb. ruach], they are
created, and you renew the face of the ground” (vv. 29–30).
Such a spiritual renewal is therefore the basis of the eschatological
understanding of the new heavens and the new earth (cf. Isa. 65:17; 66:22;
Rev. 21:5). As God created the heavens and the earth by his Spirit through
his word, so also will he renew and re-create them in the age to come.4 As a
result, those who have “shared in the Holy Spirit” (Heb. 6:4) in this age
have a palpable knowledge of “the powers of the age to come” (v. 5). As
such, all the workings of the Spirit in this age—miracles, signs, wonders,
gifts, etc.—are understood in the context of protological creation and
eschatological consummation (see figure 4.1).5 In other words, the Spirit of
God testifies to the work of God—past, present, and future. Thus the Holy
Spirit is understood in a historical manner within an apocalyptic framework.
 Figure 4.1 – The Apocalyptic Framework of the Activity of God’s Spirit

As the Spirit of God gave life to Adam in the beginning, so also will the
Spirit of God give life to his righteous descendants in the end. Paul speaks
explicitly of this agency of the Spirit in the resurrection in relation to the
resurrection of Jesus: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead
dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life
to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11).
Therefore, on the day of the Lord the word will once again be spoken, and
“the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God. . . . All who are in the
tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the
resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of
judgment” (John 5:25–29).
In this way, the Scriptures assume the Spirit of God to be “the Spirit of
the resurrection,” as Jürgen Moltmann describes:

The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ, and is as such the Spirit of
the resurrection of the dead. The Spirit of the Father and the Son is
the divine quickening power of the new creation of all things, the
power empowering the rebirth of everything that lives. . . . The
 Spirit does not draw the soul away from the body, nor does it make
the soul hasten towards heaven, leaving this earth behind. It places
the whole earthly and bodily person in the daybreak colours of the
new earth.6

THE SIGNS OF THE RESURRECTION

Approaching the Holy Spirit in a historical manner within an apocalyptic
framework makes sense of his multifaceted activities. The Holy Spirit is
ultimately given as a sign of “the great and glorious day of the Lord” (Acts
2:20). Working in conjunction with the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit
testifies to the consummation of history in both word and deed. This
testimony is chiefly expressed through: (1) miraculous signs, (2) the
resurrection of Jesus, (3) the deposit of the Spirit, and (4) the gifts of the
Spirit.

The Miracles of the Resurrection

Because of the Holy Spirit’s agency in both protological creation and
eschatological re-creation, all of his activity is by nature a “sign” (Gk.
sēmeion) pointing to the age to come, which will be a restoration of original
glory.7 Indeed all miracles point to the ultimate miracle of “the renewal of
all things” (Matt. 19:28, CSB). An example of this presupposition is seen
when Jesus commissions his disciples:

Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does
not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany
those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will
speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands;
and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will
lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover. (Mark 16:15–18)8

As the disciples went out and preached, the Lord “confirmed the
message by accompanying signs” (v. 20). The gospel message—concerning
the day of the Lord, the salvation of the righteous, and the condemnation of
the wicked—was thus accredited and confirmed by signs and wonders.
 The list given in Mark’s “Great Commission” is typical of the primary
signs given by God in this age to testify to the age to come. Exorcisms
accompany the proclamation of the coming kingdom (cf. Matt. 10:7–8;
Luke 9:1–2), because Satan and all demons will be driven off the earth in
the age to come (cf. Isa. 24:22; Rev. 20:2). So the demonized men of the
Gadarenes cried out, “What do you want with us, Son of God? . . . Have
you come here to torture us before the appointed time?” (Matt. 8:29, NIV).
Similarly, the demons, “Legion,” begged not to be thrown “into the abyss”
(Luke 8:31), where they would assumedly be “kept until the judgment” (2
Peter 2:4).
Healings also accompany the proclamation of the gospel (cf. Matt. 4:23;
Luke 10:9), because sickness and death will be completely overturned in
the resurrection. Therefore when the apostles were “proclaiming in Jesus
the resurrection from the dead” (Acts 4:2), the healing of the crippled
beggar in Jesus’ name (Acts 3:7) was understood to be a simple
demonstration of this message. Likewise, the raising of Lazarus (John
11:44) inherently reinforced the message of “the resurrection on the last
day” (v. 24), causing many Jews to believe in Jesus as the Christ (v. 45).9
So also the healing of the paralytic reinforced the reality of the day of
judgment and the Son of Man’s “authority on earth to forgive sins” (Luke
5:24). But to those who did not repent at the performance of miracles, Jesus
said, “It will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of
Sodom than for you” (Matt. 11:24).
Akin to healings and exorcisms, many other signs also testify to the age
to come. The transfiguration of Jesus’ body in appearance “like the sun”
(Matt. 17:2) testifies to the glory of the resurrection, when the saints will
inherit bodies that “shine like the brightness of the heavens” (Dan. 12:3,
NIV; cf. Matt. 13:43; 1 Cor. 15:41). Jesus’ calming of the storm (Matt. 8:23–
27 and par.) and walking on the lake resulted in the confession, “Truly you
are the Son of God” (Matt. 14:33), for it was assumed that the Messiah
would subjugate and tame the wildness of the earth in the age to come (cf.
Isa. 11:6–9; 55:12–13; 66:25). Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand led the
people to respond, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the
world” (John 6:14), for he would feed and care for the poor of the earth (cf.
Ps. 72:4; Isa. 11:4; Jer. 22:16). The changing of water into aged wine
“revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him” (John 2:11, CSB),
because on Mount Zion in the age to come “the LORD of hosts will make for
all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full
of marrow, of aged wine well refined” (Isa. 25:6).
All of the biblical miracles function in the same historical manner as
signs, pointing to the eschatological consummation based upon the
protological creation.10 So Peter (quoting Joel as the prophet spoke for
God) summarizes the outpouring of the Spirit: “I will show wonders in the
heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of
smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before
the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come
to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”
(Acts 2:19–21). In this way, the Spirit of God prepares the earth for the
coming of the day of God and confirms the message of salvation.

The Firstborn of the Resurrection

The resurrection of the dead typifies the renewal of all things because
mankind was originally appointed by God to be the apex of creation. Thus
the resurrection of Jesus as “the firstborn from the dead” (Col. 1:18; cf.
Rev. 1:5) was a particularly defining sign for the early church. If God raised
Jesus from the dead by his Spirit, then will he most certainly raise all from
the dead by his Spirit and restore creation as promised.11 Moreover, as
believers in his resurrection, God promises that we will “be conformed to
the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many
brothers” (Rom. 8:29). By this Paul means, “We await a Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious
body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself”
(Phil. 3:20–21). As younger sons (cf. Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:5), we will be
raised from the dead by the same Spirit that raised Christ, the firstborn,
from the dead.
The resurrection of Jesus by the Spirit was similarly understood by the
apostles as a “firstfruits” (1 Cor. 15:20, 23) of the final resurrection
“harvest” (Matt. 13:39; Mark 4:29). Just as worshipers in the Tanakh
brought firstfruits of their flocks and fields as an offering to the Lord (cf.
Deut. 18:4; 26:2; Neh. 10:35–37), so Jesus was offered and raised as a
firstfruits unto the Lord in advance of the final harvest.12 So Paul outlines,
“Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have
fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the
resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be
made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his
coming those who belong to Christ” (1 Cor. 15:20–23).
Instead of reinterpreting, spiritualizing, or realizing the Jewish
apocalyptic framework, this emphasis on Christ’s individual resurrection in
anticipation of the future general resurrection actually reinforces and
confirms the eschatological hope. Because Christ has been raised from the
dead, we have an assurance of the general resurrection, and thus our faith is
not “futile” (1 Cor. 15:17).13 The day of the Lord will actually come, and
the dead will actually be raised. Hence the relevance of Christ’s resurrection
bears daily upon the struggle and grind of mortality, which slowly breaks
down the human psyche with its ruthless accusation that things will forever
go on as they are.14
Because Jesus alone has been “made alive by the Spirit” (1 Peter 3:18,
CSB), he is understood to hold unique divine approval. So Paul reasoned
with the Athenians that God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the
world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has
given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). All other
progeny of Adam are proven to be unrighteous, because they returned to the
dust and stayed there. This one was raised from the dead so as to
demonstrate that he alone is righteous. Accordingly, only the “Righteous
One” (Isa. 24:16; 53:11; Acts 3:14; 7:52; 22:14) deserves to judge the
unrighteous.15 So Paul concludes that Jesus is “the firstborn from the dead,
that in everything he might be preeminent” (Col. 1:18), or as John puts it,
“the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth” (Rev. 1:5).
Thus the bodily resurrection of Jesus pervades apostolic witness (cf.
Acts 2:24, 32; 3:15, 26; 4:10; 5:30; 10:40; 13:30, 33–35; 17:3, 31; 23:6;
24:21; 25:19; 26:8, 23).16 It held prominence in the early church as well, for
the resurrection of Jesus proved the apocalyptic nature of divine
revelation.17 All differing opinions concerning the future (e.g., Sadducean,
Zealot, Essene, Gnostic, etc.) were silenced in light of Jesus’ resurrection
and future coming.18 The early church galvanized its apocalyptic
understanding of the Scriptures around the resurrection of Jesus and the gift
of the Holy Spirit.
The hope of the Scriptures became “a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). The hope of the
resurrection had been confirmed, for a son of Adam had actually come out
of the grave. Consequently, “We have the prophetic word more fully
confirmed” (2 Peter 1:19). We know Jesus will come again, and we will
“attain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:11). Therefore, we “press on
toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (v.
14, AT).19

The Deposit of the Resurrection

As Jesus was a firstfruits of the resurrection to come, so also God has given
us “the firstfruits of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:23)—an initial gift of the Spirit
who will raise us from the dead on the day of Christ Jesus. Similarly, the
Holy Spirit is described as a “deposit,” or “down payment” (Gk. arrabōn),
guaranteeing our future resurrection (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:14; cf. 1 Tim.
6:20; 2 Tim. 1:14). In this way Pentecost (Acts 2) was understood as “the
first installment” of the resurrection to come—that is, “a payment that
obligates the contracting party to make further payments.”20 So, too, all the
gifts of the Holy Spirit are meant to be an “assurance of salvation,” so to
speak. Paul thus describes the confirmation of the apostolic witness: “The
testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not
lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord
Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:6–8, NASB).
The Holy Spirit is meant to confirm the gospel, strengthening believers
in their faith in the cross unto salvation on the day of the Lord. Therefore
the initial Jewish Christians knew that the Gentiles would inherit the
resurrection, apart from circumcision, because “God, who knows the heart,
showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he
did to us” (Acts 15:8, NIV; cf. Acts 10:45; 11:17). Conversely, the lack of
the Holy Spirit assures future condemnation, since “Anyone who does not
have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Rom. 8:9). Unbelievers
inevitably become “scoffers, following their own passions” (Jude 18),
because they are “worldly people, devoid of the Spirit” (v. 19). Conversely,
the Spirit directs the minds of believers toward the return of Jesus and the
hope of eternal life (cf. John 16:13; 2 Peter 1:19–21; 1 John 2:25–27).
In this way we are “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the
guarantee [Gk. arrabōn] of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it”
(Eph. 1:14). For God has “put his seal on us and given us the Spirit in our
hearts as a down payment [Gk. arrabōn]” (2 Cor. 1:22, CSB). In 2
Corinthians 5:1–5, Paul summarizes the relationship between our present
body, the Holy Spirit, and our resurrected body:

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed,
we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal
in the heavens. . . . For while we are still in this tent, we groan,
being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we
would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed
up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who
has given us the Spirit as a guarantee [Gk. arrabōn].

The resurrected body is also “a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44)—that is,

“the new body, animated by the Spirit of God.”21 With this body, we will be
“like angels . . . being sons of the resurrection” (Luke 20:36, NASB). This
spiritual body is in no way referring to a heavenly destiny, but rather a
heavenly origin and heavenly quality.22 As the Messiah will rule upon the
earth in heavenly glory (cf. Isa. 4:2; 11:10; Matt. 19:28; 25:31), so also will
we receive bodies that radiate heavenly glory, as “star differs from star in
glory” (1 Cor. 15:41).

The Gifts of the Resurrection

All the gifts of the Spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 12:7–11) are thus designed as a deposit
and assurance “for the edification of the church” (1 Cor. 14:12, NASB). The
“utterance of wisdom” and the “utterance of knowledge” (1 Cor. 12:8) point
to the time when we will no longer walk in fallen ways of foolishness and
folly, nor will we fumble around in the darkness of depraved reason and
understanding (cf. Ps. 14:1–3; Isa. 11:1–4; 32:1–6).
The gifts of “faith,” “healing,” and “the working of miracles” (1 Cor.
12:9–10) point to the boldness and courage we will have when we see God
face to face, no longer consumed by the fear, insecurity, and despair
wrought upon our souls by mortality and a body of death. Consequently, the
apostolic church prayed, “Grant to your servants to continue to speak your
word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs
and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus”
(Acts 4:29–30). And after praying, “They were all filled with the Holy
Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness” (v. 31). So
Paul concludes, “Since we have such a hope, we are very bold” (2 Cor.
3:12).
“Prophecy” and the “distinguishing of spirits” (1 Cor. 12:10, NASB)
point to the day when God will judge everything, both in the heavens and
on the earth, and there will be a distinction between the righteous and the
wicked (cf. Mal. 3:18; Matt. 13:30; Rev. 21:6–8). No longer will there be
wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matt. 7:15; cf. Acts 20:29), and no longer will
demons disguise themselves as angels of light (2 Cor. 11:14; cf. Gal. 1:8).
The light of the day will expose all darkness.
Similarly, the speaking of “various kinds of tongues” and “the
interpretation of tongues” (1 Cor. 12:10; cf. Acts 2:4) points to the time
when the pride of mankind and the confounding of languages will be no
more (cf. Isa. 2:3; Rev. 21:24–27).23 Ironically, the gift of tongues has
become a source of pride and contention in modern times, largely due, I
believe, to the lack of an eschatological orientation and a protological
anchor.
As there will be no more need for hope and encouragement of faith in
the age to come (cf. Rom. 8:24–26), so the gifts of the Holy Spirit will
“cease” and “pass away” (1 Cor. 13:8), for they will find consummation in
the resurrection—“when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away” (v.
10).24 Indeed they are to God “childish ways” (v. 11), which he will put
away when the immaturity of this age comes to an end. The gifts of the
Spirit are simply temporal helps to keep faith and hope strong to the end (cf.
1 Cor. 1:8; Jude 20–21).
In this way, the Holy Spirit is also referred to as the “Helper” (John
14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7; cf. 1 John 2:1). The Spirit helps the saints in their
attainment of eternal life. Moreover, the Spirit protects the saints, as Peter
encourages in regard to the eternal inheritance “kept in heaven for you, who
by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be
revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:4–5). Thus we are “kept” and
“guarded” (John 17:12) from the evil one in this age, for “he who was born
of God protects him” (1 John 5:18). We are not left “as orphans” (John
14:18). Jesus is with us to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20), and the Holy
Spirit intercedes for us while we hope for future glory (Rom. 8:25–27).
Hence the exhortation and benediction of Jude 20–25:
 But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith
and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God,
waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal
life. . . . Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to
present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great
joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be
glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now
and forever. Amen.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE

RESURRECTION
As the Spirit of God is both the agent and sustainer of creation, so also the
Spirit of God is the inspirer of the word of God, which sets out the hope of
restored creation. The Scriptures progressively reveal a number of themes
that function symbiotically within the divine testimony. Particularly, the
language of life, salvation, blessing, and glory build together unto their
consummation on the day of the Lord and in the age to come.

The Life of the Resurrection

The Scriptures as a whole develop, within an apocalyptic framework, a
theology of life actuated by the Spirit of God. In the beginning, it was the
spoken word of God that created “every living thing” (Gen. 1:28), and it
was “the breath of life” that made Adam into “a living creature” (Gen. 2:7).
Moreover, it was the “tree of life” (Gen. 2:9) that promised perpetual
regeneration, for the deprivation of this tree meant death, as evidenced in
the divine declaration regarding Adam’s expulsion from the garden: “lest he
reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever”
(Gen. 3:22).25
This protological vision of living forever is recapitulated in the end with
the “book of life” (Rev. 20:15; 21:27), the “water of life” (Rev. 21:6; 22:1),
and the restored “tree of life” (Rev. 22:2, 14, 19), which is granted “for the
healing of the nations” (Rev. 22:2). Moreover, the curse of futility and death
upon the earth is lifted (Rev. 22:3; cf. Rom. 8:20), and the saints “will reign
forever and ever” (Rev. 22:5). Thus the Scriptures present a holistic vision
of “everlasting life” (Dan. 12:2), established protologically and projected
eschatologically.26
Akin to the day of the Lord, restored creation, and Gehenna (chapter 3),
a theology of life culminating in the resurrection of the dead is
progressively revealed and developed throughout the Scriptures.27 Though
in this age the dead are universally condemned to Sheol/Hades (cf. Ps.
89:48; Eccl. 9:10), God holds power over both death and Sheol—“The
LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up” (1
Sam. 2:6; cf. Rev. 1:18).28 This is evident not only in the lives of Enoch and
Elijah (cf. Gen. 5:24; 2 Kings 2:11), but also in the deaths of Korah and his
followers, who “went down alive into Sheol” (Num. 16:33; cf. Ps. 55:15;
Prov. 1:12). Moreover, death and Sheol “lie open before the LORD” (Prov.
15:11; cf. Ps. 139:8; Amos 9:2). Hence it is the Lord alone who grants
deliverance from Sheol, as David anticipates, “You will not abandon my
soul to Sheol” (Ps. 16:10), and rehearses, “You have brought up my soul
from Sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the
pit” (Ps. 30:3; cf. 56:13; 86:12–13).
Consequently it is the Lord alone “who redeems your life from the pit”
(Ps. 103:4), as God questions, “Shall I ransom them from the power of
Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death?” (Hos. 13:14). Indeed, God alone
can ransom a person’s soul, “that he should live on forever and never see
the pit” (Ps. 49:9). So the psalmist declares, “God will ransom my soul
from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me” (v. 15). In this way, the
righteous will be raised up and delivered from the realm of the dead and
restored to the earth—that is, “the land of the living” (Job 28:13; Ps. 27:13;
Isa. 53:8; Ezek. 26:20). “For you have delivered my soul from death, my
eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling; I will walk before the LORD in the
land of the living” (Ps. 116:8–9).
This raising up and deliverance from Sheol is the theological framework
within which the language of resurrection is developed.29 As Revelation
concludes, “Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they
were judged” (20:13). So Isaiah prophesies, “Your dead shall live; their
bodies shall rise. . . . The earth will give birth to the dead” (26:19). And
Ezekiel: “Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves,
O my people” (37:12).30 And finally Daniel: “Many of those who sleep in
the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to
shame and everlasting contempt” (12:2).31 The Bible’s theology of life and
resurrection thus develops around the Lord delivering the dead from Sheol
by raising them up to live forever on a restored Edenic earth.
In this light, the New Testament strives toward the singular goal of
“eternal life” (Matt. 19:16, 29; 25:46; Mark 10:17, 30; Luke 10:25; 18:18,
30; John 3:15–16, 36; 4:14, 36; 5:24, 39; 6:27, 40, 47, 54, 68; 10:28; 12:25,
50; 17:2–3; Acts 13:46, 48; Rom. 2:7; 5:21; 6:22–23; Gal. 6:8; 1 Tim. 1:16;
6:12; Titus 1:2; 3:7; 1 John 1:2; 2:25; 3:15; 5:11, 13, 20; Jude 21). The
sheer number of references to this phrase is indicative of its prominence in
the consciousness of the apostolic church. It is the ultimate “prize” (1 Cor.
9:24; Phil. 3:14) associated with the day of God and the restoration of all
things.
As other terminology was shortened (e.g., “the judgment” for “the day
of judgment”), so also eternal life was spoken of simply as “life”—“It is
better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the
unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:43). Likewise, “The gate is narrow and the way
is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matt. 7:14). So
everyone would have understood Jesus’ declaration, “I am the bread of life”
(John 6:35), for “whoever believes has eternal life” (v. 47). Similarly, “I am
the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25) is in the context of “the
resurrection on the last day” (v. 24).
As such, Jesus is understood to be “the Author of life” (Acts 3:15),
since God “has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (John 5:26).
Accordingly, “We will also live with him” (Rom. 6:8; 2 Tim. 2:11). For by
believing we “have life in his name” (John 20:31). It is “the life of God”
(Eph. 4:18)—that is, “the life to come” (1 Tim. 4:8), which is “the gracious
gift of life” (1 Peter 3:7, NRSV). It is “the promise of life” (2 Tim. 1:1) and
“the word of life” (Phil. 2:16), to which we hold fast, knowing that we will
“reign in life” (Rom. 5:17). Indeed, it will be “life from the dead” (Rom.
11:15)—that is, “life and immortality” (2 Tim. 1:10), because mortality
itself will be “swallowed up by life” (2 Cor. 5:4; cf. 1 Cor. 15:54). Hence
we have been equipped with “all things that pertain to life” (2 Peter 1:3)
that we may “take hold of the eternal life” (1 Tim. 6:12). All of this
represents the common language of life in the early church, apocalyptically
understood, which pointed to the return of Christ Jesus, the day of the Lord,
and the resurrection of the dead.
 Therefore, in no way did the early church believe the resurrection and
eternal life had already begun. In fact, those who say that “the resurrection
has already happened” (2 Tim. 2:18) actually destroy people’s faith, for
“Who hopes for what he sees?” (Rom. 8:24).32 This is a gnostic
reinterpretation of the gift of the Holy Spirit that tries to extrapolate the
individual experience to redemptive history as a whole, thus overturning its
fundamentally apocalyptic (two-age) nature (cf. 1 Cor. 15:12; 2 Thess. 2:2).
Though signs, wonders, and physical healings were common signs of the
resurrection, no one mistook them for the resurrection itself. Though
paralytics were healed (Luke 5:25; Acts 3:7) and dead men were raised
(John 11:44; Acts 20:9–12), they were still “destined to die once, and after
that to face judgment” (Heb. 9:27, NIV).33 So life and death in this age
simply point to the life of the resurrection and the second death of Gehenna
in the age to come, which are the final consequence of the protological life
and death of creation and the fall (see figure 4.2).

Figure 4.2 – The Apocalyptic Framework of Life and Death

 The apocalyptic framework of history and the hope of eternal life is the
practical means by which the sting of death is overcome (cf. 1 Cor. 15:55–
57), for we know we have “a better and enduring possession” (Heb. 10:34).
This life is readily forsaken, so that we might “attain to that age and to the
resurrection from the dead” (Luke 20:35). We are able to embrace suffering,
persecution, and martyrdom, loving not our lives unto death (Rev. 12:11).
Moreover, without such an approach to life and death, one simply cannot be
a disciple of Jesus: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life
will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:23–
24; cf. Matt. 10:39; John 12:25).

The Salvation of the Resurrection

Divine salvation is also revealed in a progressively apocalyptic manner in
the Scriptures. The terminology of “salvation” carries the basic connotation
of “deliverance from factors which constrain and confine.”34 Though
finding temporal applications (cf. Ex. 14:13; Judg. 3:9; 1 Chron. 14:11;
etc.), salvation is ultimately understood in relation to the restrictive nature
of sin and death. Our condition of mortality was instituted by God because
of the sin of Adam and Eve: “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return”
(Gen. 3:19). Death and all of its derivatives are the result of divine
condemnation of human sin (cf. Rom. 5:12–18; 1 Cor. 15:21–22). God is
ultimately responsible for mortality’s introduction, and in the end he is also
responsible for its removal: “‘Death shall be no more, neither shall there be
mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed
away.’ And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all
things new’” (Rev. 21:4–5).
Thus it is accepted that “creation was subjected to futility” (Rom. 8:20),
by divine design, in order to curb and humiliate the pride of humanity. The
limitations of mortality are understood to be a type of captivity (see Rom.
7:23), an enslavement from which only God can deliver. So humans are by
nature “prisoners of sin” (Gal. 3:22, NLT) and “slaves to sin” (Rom. 6:16,
20, NIV; cf. John 8:34). All are “dead in trespasses” (Eph. 2:5, CSB), and thus
“under sin” (Rom. 3:9; 7:14), for “God has consigned all to disobedience,
that he may have mercy on all” (Rom. 11:32).
Human pride inherently rebels against such an institution. The corporate
consciousness of mankind cries out continually, “We are bound by nothing!
We have no limits! We are free!” Unfortunately, this very proclamation
embodies the sin which binds us for condemnation on the last day. Rather
than throwing ourselves in the dust and crying, “God, be merciful to me, a
sinner!” (Luke 18:13),35 we harden our calloused hearts to the reality of
both our own depravity and the coming wrath of God. In other words, those
who do not believe they are in need of liberation will not be liberated in the
end.
Because sin and death are humanity’s greatest captivity, salvation is
inherently a resurrection concept. Hence Paul summarizes,

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because
of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set
free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the
glory of the children of God. . . . We ourselves, who have the
firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for
adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we
were saved. (Rom. 8:20–24)

Note that the Spirit is given as an assurance of our future liberation.

And it is the Spirit who helps us and intercedes for us according to that for
which we hope—that is, our salvation and resurrection. So Paul continues,

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know
what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for
us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts
knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes
for the saints according to the will of God. (vv. 25–27)

The intercession of the Holy Spirit is in the context of the “futility” and
“bondage” of mortality in this life (vv. 20–21). Moreover, it is mortality’s
“weakness” (Gk. astheneia, v. 26)—that is, the “experience of limitation”
and “state of debilitating illness”36—which the Spirit mitigates while we are
in the womb of this age awaiting our birth in the resurrection.37 Therefore
Paul concludes: “We know that for those who love God all things work
together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For
those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image
of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers”
(vv. 28–29).
In this way, the activity of the Spirit in this age is designed to help us in
the weakness of our mortality until the coming of the Messiah, when the
Spirit will liberate our souls from the tyranny of a body of death (cf. Rom.
7:23–25).38 Moreover, God is working out our struggles with mortality in
this age for the good of our resurrection (Rom. 8:28), when we will be
conformed to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:29) “in a resurrection like his”
(Rom. 6:5).
Our struggle with mortality in concert with the intercession of the Spirit
gives context to the mechanics of faith, so to speak. The captivity of
mortality in this age is designed to drive us to dependence upon God, who
is the only one able to deliver and save us unto immortality. So God works
small deliverances throughout our lives to make us believe in the big
deliverance to come, and conversely he allows (and sometimes orchestrates
—e.g., Deut. 4:27; Dan. 11:33; Luke 22:31; 2 Cor. 12:7) small captivities in
our lives to make us come to terms with our big captivity to sin and death.39
This causes us to cry out to him by the groaning of the Spirit within us; and
so on and so forth—all of which God works out for our good in the age to
come. In this way, temporal captivity and deliverance (i.e., salvation) point
to their protological introduction and eschatological conclusion (see figure
4.3).
 Figure 4.3 – The Apocalyptic Framework of Divine Salvation

Within such an apocalyptic framework, the New Testament assumes

salvation to involve a new heavens and new earth, with a resurrection of the
righteous and the wicked, inaugurated at the day of the Lord.40 So an
overview of redemptive history can be simply stated: “[Christ] will appear a
second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting
for him” (Heb. 9:28, CSB). It is “a salvation ready to be revealed in the last
time” (1 Peter 1:5), which is reserved for “those who are to inherit
salvation” (Heb. 1:14). As the first to rise from the dead, Christ Jesus is “the
pioneer of their salvation” (Heb. 2:10, NRSV); and being perfected in his
own resurrection, “he became the source of eternal salvation to all who
obey him” (Heb. 5:9).
The righteous will “obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with
eternal glory” (2 Tim. 2:10; cf. 1 Thess. 5:9), for “there is salvation in no
one else” (Acts 4:12). “For God did not send his Son into the world to
condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through
him” (John 3:17). Indeed, “How much more then, since we have now been
declared righteous by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath!”
(Rom. 5:9, CSB). This is “the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation”
(Eph. 1:13). However, only “the one who endures to the end will be saved”
(Matt. 10:22; 24:13). “But we are not those who draw back and are
destroyed, but those who have faith and are saved” (Heb. 10:39, CSB). In
this we greatly rejoice, “for salvation is nearer to us now than when we first
believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand” (Rom. 13:11–12).41

The Blessing of the Resurrection

The Scriptures also frame divine blessing within an apocalyptic framework.
By the word of the Lord, everything with the breath of life was blessed by
the Creator in the beginning: “And God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful
and multiply . . . ’” (Gen. 1:22). This same divine blessing is reiterated in
the new heavens and new earth in the end: “Blessed are those who wash
their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life” (Rev. 22:14).
Conversely, divine cursing is declared in the beginning (Gen. 3:14, 17) so
as to frustrate creation (Rom. 8:20) and bring about repentance (cf. Ps.
73:3–17; Hos. 5:14–15; Rev. 9:20–21; etc.). This divine cursing culminates
in the end with the judgment of the wicked—“Depart from me, you cursed,
into the eternal fire” (Matt. 25:41)—while the blessing of God culminates
in the resurrection: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34).
In relation to divine sovereignty, blessing and cursing is roughly
equivalent to divine favor and disfavor within a governmental context.42
Therefore God is favorable to Adam and Eve and delegates governance of
the earth by blessing (Gen. 1:26–28). The righteous will likewise be blessed
in the age to come when God delegates to them the kingdom on the new
earth (cf. Matt. 19:28; Luke 22:30; Rev. 22:5). It is within this broad
framework that we are to understand temporal divine blessing and cursing
(cf. Deut. 28; Prov. 12:2; Rev. 2:20–23; etc.)—“For those blessed by the
LORD shall inherit the land, but those cursed by him shall be cut off” (Ps.
37:22).43 Temporal blessing and cursing thus point to their eschatological
conclusion based upon their protological introduction (see figure 4.4).
 Figure 4.4 – The Apocalyptic Framework of Divine Blessing and Cursing

As such, the blessings and curses of the covenants (cf. Gen. 12:1–3;
Deut. 27–28; 2 Sam. 7:11–16) are ultimately extrapolated to their
apocalyptic end.44 Throughout the New Testament, the language of blessing
is used in relation to “our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our
great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). Thus James encourages
perseverance: “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for
when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life” (James 1:12).
So also Jesus promises the faithful: “You will be blessed . . . for you will be
repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (Luke 14:14, CSB). Moreover, the
Beatitudes assume an eschatological context: “Blessed are the meek, for
they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5). And concerning the martyrs:
“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on . . . for their deeds
follow them!” (Rev. 14:13). Indeed, “Blessed are those who are invited to
the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:9).

The Glory of the Resurrection

Related to eternal life, salvation, and divine blessing in the Scriptures is the
subject of divine glory. God himself is described as “the God of glory” (Ps.
29:3; Acts 7:2), “the king of glory” (Ps. 24:7, 10), “the Lord of glory” (1
Cor. 2:8; James 2:1), and “the Majestic Glory” (2 Peter 1:17). Indeed, “the
glory of God” (Ps. 19:1; 106:20; John 11:4; Acts 7:55; Rom. 3:23; 2 Cor.
4:6; Rev. 21:23) is a pervasive concept throughout the Scriptures. But what
is the ultimate context of divine glory? Why does it appear? How and when
is it expressed?
Because God himself is glorious, so also is everything he does.
Accordingly, creation—with humanity at its apex—was created in divine
glory. So Psalm 8: “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the
earth! You have displayed your glory in the heavens above. . . . What is man
that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? You
have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him
with glory and honor” (vv. 1–5, AT).45 As creation was adorned in divine
glory in the beginning, so also will it radiate the glory of God in the end, as
seen in the book of Revelation:

And [the angel] carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high

mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down
out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like
a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. . . .
And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the
glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light
will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their
glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will
be no night there. (21:10–11, 23–25)

Within such an apocalyptic framework, temporal revelations of divine

glory (cf. Ex. 24:16; 33:22; Num. 14:10) inherently prophesy that “all the
earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD” (Num. 14:21). The filling of
the tabernacle (Ex. 40:34) and the temple (1 Kings 8:11; 2 Chron. 5:14)
anticipate the day when the messianic temple will be filled with glory
(Ezek. 43:2–7; Hag. 2:7–9; Mal. 3:1–2), and when “the glory of the LORD
shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together” (Isa. 40:5).46
The Psalms and the Prophets build in anticipation of the glory of God
and its eschatological fulfillment. As the psalmist declares, “The nations
will fear the name of the LORD, and all the kings of the earth your glory, for
the LORD will rebuild Zion; he will appear in his glory” (Ps. 102:15–16,
CSB). Hence the Davidic prayer: “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!
Let your glory be over all the earth!” (Ps. 57:11; cf. Ps. 108:5). Likewise,
“Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things.
Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his
glory!” (Ps. 72:18–19).
The eschatological vision of divine glory is further clarified in the
writings of the prophets. The messianic “son of man” (Dan. 7:13) will be
“given dominion and glory and a kingdom” (v. 14), and in this way “the
LORD Almighty will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before its
elders—with great glory” (Isa. 24:23, NIV). “In that day the branch of the
LORD shall be beautiful and glorious” (Isa. 4:2), and therefore the nations
“will fear the name of the LORD, and from the rising of the sun, they will
revere his glory” (Isa. 59:19, NIV). “In that day the root of Jesse will stand
as a banner for the peoples. The nations will look to him for guidance, and
his resting place will be glorious” (Isa. 11:10, CSB). When the glory of God
rises upon Jerusalem (Isa. 60:1–3), the nations will gather to see it (Isa.
35:2; 62:2; 66:18), and so “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the
glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14).
Because the Lord dwells in heavenly glory (cf. Ps. 26:8; 63:2), the day
of the Lord will involve the opening of the heavens and the descent of God
in divine glory. Hence Isaiah’s prayer: “Oh that you would rend the heavens
and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence . . . that
the nations might tremble at your presence!” (Isa. 64:1–2). Likewise, David
prayed: “Bow your heavens, O LORD, and come down! Touch the
mountains so that they smoke!” (Ps. 144:5; cf. Ps. 18:9). In this way, the
glory of God will be revealed, and the darkness of humanity will be
exposed.47
This apocalyptic scenario of divine glory is often assumed in the New
Testament.48 For example, in response to Nathaniel’s messianic declaration
—“You are the King of Israel!” (John 1:49)—Jesus declares, “Truly, truly, I
say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending
and descending on the Son of Man” (v. 51). Angels are understood as divine
administrators (cf. Ps. 91:11; 103:20–21; Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19; Heb. 1:14),
and as such they will mediate the glory of God in the age to come. The
opening of the heavens at Jesus’ baptism (Matt. 3:16), the Mount of
Transfiguration (Matt. 17:5), and Stephen’s stoning (Acts 7:56) would have
been interpreted apocalyptically in anticipation of the day of the Lord. Thus
Revelation 19:11: “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse!
The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he
judges and makes war.”
Though the heavens are closed in this age, so to speak, they will be
opened in the age to come; and the darkness of sinful humanity will be
exposed and overcome by the glory of God.49 As with other aspects of
divine sovereignty, historical revelations of divine glory point to their
eschatological conclusion, based upon their protological introduction (see
figure 4.5).50 Consequently, the gift of the Spirit, and the glory therein (cf. 2
Cor. 3:17–18; 4:4–7), gives us a faint glimpse, as “in a mirror dimly” (1
Cor. 13:12), into the age to come.

Figure 4.5 – The Apocalyptic Framework of Divine Glory

As German scholar Klaus Koch noted, the term glory developed into a
“catchword” during second-temple Judaism, representing the totality of
apocalyptic expectations.51 This eschatological orientation is seen
throughout the New Testament, most evidently in Jesus’ own descriptions
of the day of God and the age to come: “When the Son of Man comes in his
glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne”
(Matt. 25:31; cf. 13:43; 19:28). Thus Jesus’ disciples asked, “Grant us to sit,
one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory” (Mark 10:37), but
they didn’t understand that “the Messiah should suffer these things and then
enter into his glory” (Luke 24:26, NRSV). Nevertheless, the nations will
indeed “see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power
and great glory” (Matt. 24:30), for “the Son of Man is going to come with
his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person
according to what he has done” (Matt. 16:27; cf. Luke 9:26).
Divine glory is similarly understood throughout the Epistles. Though
“all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), those who
are justified freely by faith in Christ’s sacrificial death will be presented
blameless “before the presence of his glory with great joy” (Jude 24). They
will “obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Tim.
2:10), for they have been called “to his eternal glory in Christ” (1 Peter
5:10)—that is, “into his own kingdom and glory” (1 Thess. 2:12). This
glory is “the hope of His calling . . . the riches of the glory of His
inheritance in the saints” (Eph. 1:18, NASB), for Christ will come “on that
day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have
believed” (2 Thess. 1:10).
Though our present bodies are “sown in dishonor,” they will be “raised
in glory” (1 Cor. 15:43), for Jesus “will transform our lowly body to be like
his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). “When Christ who is your life appears, then
you also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:4). Likewise, our “light
momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond
all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17). If we “share Christ’s sufferings,” then we
will also “rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:13).
“And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading
crown of glory” (1 Peter 5:4). Truly, the present sufferings “are not worth
comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18)—“the
freedom of the glory of the children of God” (v. 21).
All such references to divine glory as eschatological and apocalyptic are
exegetically sound and align with their historical context. Humanity was
created in divine glory, and on the last day the heavens will open and the
righteous will be raised to life by the Spirit, clothed with bodies of glory,
and blessed anew by the Creator. Such glory is the singular prize which the
righteous now seek (cf. 1 Cor. 9:22–25; Phil. 3:11–14)—the blessing of
eternal life in divine glory—that is, “our blessed hope, the appearing of the
glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).

THE CRUCIFORM-APOCALYPTIC
TESTIMONY OF THE SPIRIT
Assuming an apocalyptic approach to redemptive history, the apostles
believed that Jesus of Nazareth was sent by God and crucified according to
divine foreknowledge (cf. Acts 2:23; 3:18; 4:28). After being raised by the
Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 6:14), he taught about the kingdom of God
for forty days before being taken up into heaven (Acts 1:3–9). Paul
describes this period of time in 1 Corinthians 15:3–8, insisting that a
sacrificial interpretation of the cross (i.e., “Christ died for our sins,” v. 3)
lay at the core of what Jesus imparted to the apostles (Paul thus considered
himself late to the apostolic commissioning, “as to one untimely born,” v.
8). This sacrificial interpretation (to be discussed further in chapters 7 and
8) was assumedly understood within an unchanged Jewish apocalyptic hope
concerning the resurrection of the dead (cf. 1 Cor. 15:12–55).
Similarly, Paul argues in Galatians 1 that a sacrificial interpretation of
the cross, by which we are justified before God, was passed on to him
directly: “I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I
received it by revelation from Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:12, NIV).52 Paul
continues, “I did not immediately consult with anyone; nor did I go up to
Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me” (vv. 16–17). In other
words, contrary to much modern theological opinion, the understanding of
Jesus’ death being accounted by God as an atoning sacrifice in the stead of
humanity’s sins was not something the apostles formulated or figured out.
Rather, it came directly from Jesus, being received by the apostles during
the forty days of post-resurrection teaching.53 In this way, justification by
faith in anticipation of the day of judgment is the golden kernel of apostolic
revelation, so to speak—planted by Jesus for forty days and galvanized by
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. Since depraved humanity
naturally puts “confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3) to right all of its wrongs,
the gift of the Holy Spirit was deemed necessary by God to confirm the
revelation of the cross. Accordingly, Paul’s exhortation to the Galatians is
typical of how the apostles understood Pentecost:

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very
eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to
learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the
works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so
foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying
to finish by means of the flesh? . . . Does God give you his Spirit
and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your
believing what you heard? (Gal. 3:1–5, NIV)

The Spirit was therefore understood as a unique gift from God given to
confirm the testimony of Christ crucified in light of the day of the Lord (see
figure 4.6). This pattern is seen throughout the book of Acts,54 and it
defines the broad approach of the apostolic witness as a whole.55 Before
Jesus was taken up, he commissioned his disciples as witnesses and
promised that they would be clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:48–
49; Acts 1:8). This commissioning is then plainly recounted by Peter to
Cornelius and his household: “He commanded us to preach to the people
and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living
and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who
believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:42–
43). The charismatic nature of the apostolic witness is subservient to its
cruciform-apocalyptic message, for “while Peter was still saying these
things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word” (v. 44).
 Figure 4.6 – The Cruciform-Apocalyptic Testimony of the Holy Spirit

Likewise, Paul prays for the Corinthian church, “I give thanks to my

God always for you . . . even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed
among you—so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the
revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless
in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:4–8). Such a witness, derived
from Jesus himself and fundamentally represented in the epistles of the
New Testament, comprised “the apostles’ teaching” (Acts 2:42), to which
the early church devoted itself.
The message of the cross in light of the day of the Lord is “the standard
of teaching” (Rom. 6:17), or “the pattern of sound teaching” (2 Tim. 1:13,
CSB), which the apostles sought to pass on to others as they had received it
from the risen Christ. So Paul exhorts Timothy, “What you have heard from
me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be
able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2).56 Such a pattern was thus confirmed
by the gift of the Holy Spirit, as Hebrews 2 outlines: “How will we escape
if we neglect such a great salvation? This salvation had its beginning when
it was spoken of by the Lord [cf. Acts 1:3], and it was confirmed to us by
those who heard him [cf. 1 Cor. 15:3–7]. At the same time, God also
testified by signs and wonders, various miracles, and distributions of gifts
from the Holy Spirit according to his will [cf. Acts 2; 1 Cor. 12:4–11; Gal.
3:1–5; etc.]” (vv. 3–4, CSB).

POST-APOSTOLIC RESURRECTION
With the accommodation of Hellenistic philosophy, the fundamental
Christian hope of the resurrection of the body by the Spirit of God was
replaced with the eternal existence of the soul in an immaterial heaven.
Though the language of resurrection was incorporated, its reality was
denied. So Jürgen Moltmann summarizes:

In the degree to which Christianity cut itself off from its Hebrew
roots and acquired Hellenistic and Roman form, it lost its
eschatological hope and surrendered its apocalyptic alternative to
“this world” of violence and death. It merged into late antiquity’s
gnostic religion of redemption. From Justin onwards, most of the
Fathers revered Plato as a “Christian before Christ” and extolled
his feeling for the divine transcendence and for the values of the
spiritual world. God’s eternity now took the place of God’s future,
heaven replaced the coming kingdom, the spirit that redeems the
soul from the body supplanted the Spirit as “the well of life,” the
immortality of the soul displaced the resurrection of the body, and
the yearning for another world became a substitute for changing
this one.57

Within this Christoplatonic framework, all of the biblical language

associated with the resurrection was reinterpreted along escapist lines.58
“Salvation” became deliverance from materiality unto the liberating “glory”
of immateriality. Eternal “life” became the true “blessing” of God that
releases us from our bodies (in the Greek tradition of sōma sēma—i.e., “the
body is a tomb”).59 Therefore immateriality became “the kingdom of
heaven,” which is our “inheritance,” “destiny,” “calling,” etc. All of this
was understood in terms of a “spiritual” resurrection, as Origen argued with
ironic condescension:
 We now turn our attention to some of our own believers, who,
either from feebleness of intellect or want of proper instruction,
adopt a very low and abject view of the resurrection of the body.
We ask these persons in what manner they understand that an
animal body is to be changed by the grace of the resurrection, and
to become a spiritual one. . . . Because if they believe the apostle,
that a body which arises in glory, and power, and incorruptibility,
has already become spiritual, it appears absurd and contrary to his
meaning to say that it can again be entangled with the passions of
flesh and blood. . . . And so also to those who shall deserve to
obtain an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, that germ of the
body’s restoration, which we have before mentioned, by God’s
command restores out of the earthly and animal body a spiritual
one, capable of inhabiting the heavens.60

The lack of a vibrant theology of the resurrection of the body has had a
crippling effect on the church throughout its history. Though immaterial
heaven does hold out some hope for an existence without death, crying, or
pain, it lacks an organic connection to this life. Because humanity was
constitutionally designed for existence on the earth, any hope that does not
involve an idyllic carnal existence is constitutionally impossible either to
understand or relate to.61 As the message of the cross and the age to come is
often compared to food (cf. Matt. 24:45; 1 Cor. 3:2; Heb. 5:12), the
heavenly destiny gospel is a dry and withered hope that starves believers—
gnawing on it as they may—leaving them malnourished and weak in an
often debilitating struggle with sin, death, and mortality.
Conversely, the dominionistic Constantinian hope—which promises the
kingdom now, the glory now, eternal life now, etc.—is something of a
fermented and rotten theological food that makes people drunk for a season,
but in the end it leaves them nauseated and diseased. Though propagated at
a popular level in modern times as “health and wealth,”62 this radical
sickness has plagued the church throughout its history. Seen in the New
Testament in proto-gnostic form (cf. 1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 2:18; 2 Thess.
2:2), it is a devilish doctrine that took root in Constantinian Christendom
and continues strong to the present day.63
 Figure 4.7 – Distortion of the Holy Spirit’s Function in Augustinianism

These two distorted hopes, amalgamated by Augustine, became the

norm for much of the church’s history. Unfortunately, within this worldview
the Holy Spirit plays no significant role protologically or eschatologically,64
and thus he is relegated to a subsidiary function in the attainment of escapist
and/or dominionistic ends (see figure 4.7). For this reason, I believe an
emphasis upon and study of the Holy Spirit (technically termed
pneumatology) has generally been neglected in the history of theological
reflection.65 It seems that without the concrete historical events of creation
and the resurrection to supply meaning and context, the gift of the Holy
Spirit gets marginalized as a “second blessing,” or “second work of grace,”
given only to the spiritually elite.66
Within dispensationalism, generally speaking, the relationship between
the Holy Spirit and the resurrection has been somewhat tenuous.67 Being
relegated mostly to the production of prophecy, the Spirit here also plays a
secondary role in redemptive history. Thus dispensationalism has lacked a
viable theology and practice of the Spirit, with some going so far as to
embrace cessationism, the belief that God retracted the miraculous gifts of
the Spirit when the apostolic witness ended.68
 Though an emphasis on the Holy Spirit has been revived in modern
times, due in part to the advent of the Pentecostal and charismatic
movements of the twentieth century,69 the basic functions of the Holy Spirit
in relation to creation and the resurrection are still largely overlooked and
disconnected.70 As inaugurationalism has worked through the ranks,
however, many have embraced it as an essential framework for a theology
of the Spirit.71 Pentecostal theologian Gordon Fee summarizes the
inaugurational approach:

Through the death and resurrection of his Son Jesus, our Lord, a
gracious and loving God has effected eschatological salvation for
his new covenant people, the church, who now, as they await
Christ’s coming, live the life of the future by the power of the
Spirit. . . .
Salvation is “eschatological” in the sense that final salvation,
which still awaits the believer, is already a present reality through
Christ and the Spirit. It is “in Christ” in the sense that what
originated in God was effected historically by the death and
resurrection of Christ, and is appropriated experientially by God’s
people through the work of the Holy Spirit—who is also the key to
Christian life “between the times,” until the final consummation at
Christ’s parousia.72

The Spirit is hence understood as the evidence of realized

eschatology.73 In this way the Spirit not only has an eschatological referent,
which informs its meaning and purpose, but it also becomes its own end.
More than simply “the powers of the age to come” (Heb. 6:5), the
outpouring of the Spirit is the age to come in itself.74
Unfortunately, such an approach almost always assumes a radical
transformation of the Jewish apocalyptic narrative. As Fee declares, “The
Spirit is the evidence that the eschatological promises of Paul’s Jewish
heritage have been fulfilled.”75 Echoing previous Constantinian ideas, few
seem to appreciate the far-reaching and negative impact such statements
have on Jewish election and biblical theology as a whole (to be discussed
further in chapters 6 and 7). Moreover, inaugurationalism inevitably
supplants the cross as the ultimate standard of this age. Instead of God
confirming by the Spirit the extension of the mercy of the cross in light of
the apocalyptic judgment to come, we are simply left with an ever-
increasing extension of divine sovereignty by means of the Spirit. Instead of
the cross being the normative pattern for discipleship within the church, it
becomes little more than a perfunctory mechanism for ushering in the new
age of Spirit actualization.
If Jesus truly inaugurated the new creation, wherein sin and the curse
are overturned, then we foremost ought to campaign for the deposing of
wicked leaders, for total social equality, for environmental restoration, etc.
(as indeed many inaugurationalists have done).76 If our inheritance and
resurrection has already begun, then where is the impetus to take up our
cross in this life and endure martyrdom (Luke 9:23; 14:27)? Why should we
follow in the footsteps of our Master (1 Peter 2:21), enduring hardships
“while suffering unjustly” (v. 19)? Why are we called to hate our lives in
this age (Luke 14:26; John 12:25), laying down our lives as Jesus did (John
15:13; 1 John 3:16)? Why should we rejoice in persecution (Matt. 5:12;
Acts 5:41)? What is the purpose of being the scum of the earth in this age,
paraded around like those condemned to die in the arena (1 Cor. 4:9–13)?
Why should we love our lives not unto death (Rev. 12:11)? Why should we
be those “always carrying in the body the death of Jesus . . . always being
given over to death for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor. 4:10–11)? And why should we
“share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings” (2 Cor. 1:5), being “united with
him in a death like his” (Rom. 6:5), rejoicing “insofar as you share Christ’s
sufferings” (1 Peter 4:13), “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions”
(Col. 1:24), “becoming like him in his death” (Phil. 3:10)? Why should we
sell our possessions and give to the needy (Luke 12:33; Acts 2:45), joyfully
accepting the confiscation of our property (Heb. 10:34)? Why should we
soberly prepare our minds for grievous trials, setting our hope fully on the
grace to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:6–13)?
If our inheritance has already been inaugurated, why then should we heed
Paul’s radical exhortation to forsake living for this age in every area of life:

This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very
short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they
had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning,
and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those
who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the
 world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form
of this world is passing away. (1 Cor. 7:29–31)77

All of this is the cruciform response to the apocalyptic day. If we do not

embrace the cross in this age, then we are, in the sight of God, “illegitimate
children” (Heb. 12:8), and we will be “disowned” before the Father on the
last day (Matt. 10:33).78 However, if we serve and follow our Lord in this
age (John 12:26), then we will be fellow heirs with him in the age to come,
“provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with
him” (Rom. 8:17).
In this light, inaugurationalism seems to be an insidious denial of the
cross, a faithless disowning of Christ crucified, which ultimately leaves the
church ill-prepared for its hour of suffering. Conversely, a cruciform
understanding of God within an unchanged Jewish apocalyptic worldview
makes sense of the Holy Spirit in this age and equips the church to “rejoice
insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be
glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:13).
 Chapter Five

THE HOPE OF THE CHRIST

In light of the coming day of God, the resurrection, Gehenna, and a new
heavens and new earth, the Scriptures develop a clear messianic hope,
which also lies at the heart of the apostolic witness.1 The question of Jesus’
messianic identity likewise pervades the Gospels.2 Such extensive usage in
the New Testament, with a relative lack of internal debate, communicates a
common understanding and expectation of the role and function of the
Messiah within redemptive history.3 He was “the Expected One” (Matt.
11:3; Luke 7:19, NASB), but what did this expectation generally entail?
The terms “Messiah” (Heb. mashiach) and “Christ” (Gk. christos)
simply mean “anointed one” or “consecrated one.”4 In the Hebrew Bible,
various “messiahs” or “christs” were anointed (usually with oil) for
different roles and functions—for example, prophets (1 Kings 19:16; Ps.
105:15), priests (Ex. 29:7; Lev. 4:3–5; 5:16), and kings (1 Sam. 10:1; 1
Kings 1:39; 2 Kings 9:6). People were ordained to positions of leadership
and then anointed to carry out their responsibilities. In this way there is an
overlap of meaning between “appointing” and “anointing” (cf. Num. 1:50;
3:10; 27:16; 1 Sam. 8:1; Ps. 89:27; etc.).
Projected to its eschatological culmination, the Messiah/Christ is the
one appointed and anointed by God to execute the day of the Lord, raise the
dead, judge the wicked, reward the righteous, etc.5 Thus Peter summarizes
the apostolic commissioning: “[God] commanded us to preach to the people
and to testify that [Jesus] is the one appointed by God to be judge of the
living and the dead” (Acts 10:42). Paul likewise concludes redemptive
history in his preaching to the Athenians: “[God] has set a day when he is
going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed”
(Acts 17:31, CSB).
In this way, the Messiah is understood to be the divine agent.
Representing and working on behalf of God, he is the ultimate mediator of
redemptive history.6 Though God could have chosen to open the heavens
and descend upon humanity directly, in an unmediated fashion, he decided
according to his own wise counsel to administrate salvation through
another. Divine agency is hence the core idea of messianic expectation (or
“messianism”), which is seen in all aspects of biblical theology. As God
will save his people, so the Messiah is the Savior (cf. Luke 2:11; Phil. 3:20;
1 John 4:14). As God will judge the earth, so the Messiah is the Judge (cf.
Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:8; James 5:9). As God will redeem creation, so the
Messiah is the Redeemer (cf. Gal. 3:13; Titus 2:14; Heb. 9:15).
This synergy between God and the Messiah is seen throughout the New
Testament, especially in relation to the day of the Lord, thus producing the
phraseology of “the day of Christ” (Phil. 1:10; 2:16), “the day of Jesus
Christ” (Phil. 1:6), and “the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:8).
Likewise, divine judgment, as in “the judgment seat of God” (Rom. 14:10),
is understood to be administrated through the Messiah—that is, “the
judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:10).7 The age to come, therefore, will be
a seamless colaboring to establish “the kingdom of Christ and God” (Eph.
5:5), for “the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants
will worship him” (Rev. 22:3). In this way the Messiah/Christ is the divine
agent in the mediation of redemptive history apocalyptically understood
(see figure 5.1).8
 Figure 5.1 – The Messiah as the Divine Agent of Redemptive History

Since God and Messiah are united in their work, the “Spirit of God” and
the “Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9) are one and the same (cf. Eph. 4:3–5).
Those who know Messiah, know God, and vice versa (cf. John 8:19; 12:44–
50; 14:7–11). And those who follow Messiah, follow God, and vice versa
(cf. Matt. 10:32–33; 16:23–27). So those who become disciples by
repenting at the preaching of the day of the Lord (cf. Matt. 28:18) are
commanded to be baptized “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit” (v. 19)—the Father will judge and restore creation through
his Son by the power of his Spirit.9
Messianic agency thus culminates within an apocalyptic framework in
which God entrusts the ultimate redemptive tasks to his Messiah on the last
day. In this light, Jesus quipped after being persecuted for breaking the
Sabbath: “My Father is working until now, and I am working” (John
5:17),10 ultimately justifying himself by detailing the eschatological
conclusion of such agency: “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has
granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority
to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this,
for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and
come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those
who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment” (vv. 26–29).11 God
could have simply come in power and restored creation without mediation,
but he chose to delegate his power and authority to “the Christ of God, his
Chosen One” (Luke 23:35).

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MESSIANIC

HOPE
As with the other apocalyptic themes, messianic expectation grows
organically throughout the Scriptures.12 Originating in the covenants
(particularly with Adam, Abraham, and David),13 messianic hope develops
through the wisdom and prophetic literature, culminating in the apocalyptic
expectations. The process of this development is broadly approached along
two lines: the evolution of human understanding,14 versus the progress of
divine revelation.15 Though the two are, of course, intimately related,
liberal and critical commentators generally emphasize the former while
conservatives usually stress the latter.16 Assuming the divine inspiration of
the Scriptures, I will argue for the development of messianic expectation in
light of and in accordance with the progress of divine revelation.17

The Adamic Messianic Hope

Assuming both the historicity of Genesis and the intentionally messianic
orientation of the Hebrew Bible as a whole,18 we find the first revelation of
messianic mediation following the sin of Adam and Eve. Speaking to the
serpent in the garden, commonly identified as the vessel of Satan,19 God
says,

Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of
your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and
between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you
will strike his heel. (Gen. 3:14–15, NIV)
 This passage is often referred to as the “mother promise” from which all
future messianic promises proceed,20 for God here makes an indirect
promise to Adam and Eve, and their progeny, concerning the crushing of
Satan’s head. It is also called the “protoevangelium,” or “first gospel,” since
it is the first reference of good news to humanity in its fallen state.21
Specifically, the singular, masculine pronoun “he” is used to describe
the “seed” (Heb. zera), or “offspring,” of the woman.22 This seed of the
woman will crush the serpent’s “head” (Heb. rosh), which is symbolic of
both life and authority.23 In this way we have the birth of the basic
messianic reality—a human being will be born who will mediate God’s
punishment of Satan and his offspring, or spiritual progeny.24 The
messianic hope is thus fundamentally genealogical in nature, which creates
a baseline of expectation for future covenants and prophetic oracles.
The relationship of the satanic “head” to the messianic “heel” further
portrays the imagery of military conquest commonly used in the Tanakh (cf.
Josh. 10:24; Ps. 47:3; 89:23), as David declared: “I pursued my enemies
and crushed them. . . . I crushed them completely, and they could not rise;
they fell beneath my feet” (2 Sam. 22:38–39, NIV).25 Hence we have the
protological elements employed in the eschatological vision of Satan and
his rebellion being brought militantly into submission.26
With a clear reference to “that ancient serpent” (Rev. 12:9; 20:2), the
Scriptures conclude with the eschatological fulfillment of Genesis 3:15 in
an apocalyptic manner. As the “Christ” (Rev. 20:4, 6), Jesus will bring
Satan into forceful submission by binding him in Hades for a thousand
years and then throwing him, with the wicked, into Gehenna forever (cf.
Rev. 20:10, 14; 21:8; 22:15).27 Moreover, Jesus identifies himself
protologically as the “Alpha” (Rev. 22:6, 13), who will “repay each one for
what he has done” (v. 12). Thus we see the “living seed” of Genesis 3:15
(as Jewish theologian Adolph Saphir described it)28 finding full fruition in
the day of the Lord, Gehenna, and the resurrection. In this way the
messianic seed of Adam is understood to be the arbiter of God’s apocalyptic
end (see figure 5.2).29
Figure 5.2 – The Son of Adam as the Divine Agent of Redemptive History

The Tanakh is rife with messianic imagery that references and builds
upon Genesis 3:15. David prophesies a messianic “Lord” at the right hand
of God (Ps. 110:1) who will “crush kings on the day of his anger” (v. 5,
CSB); indeed, “He will crush leaders over the entire world” (v. 6, CSB). So
the Messiah will be the means by which “God will crush the heads of his
enemies, the hairy crowns of those who go on in their sins” (Ps. 68:21, NIV).
As Jeremiah warns, “Behold, the storm of the LORD! Wrath has gone forth,
a whirling tempest; it will burst upon the head of the wicked” (Jer. 23:19).
And Habakkuk prophesies, “You went out for the salvation of your people,
for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the house of the
wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck” (Hab. 3:13).
The cursing of Genesis 3:14 (“dust you shall eat”) is also seen
throughout the Scriptures. So Solomon speaks of “the royal son” (Ps. 72:1):
“May he rule from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.
May the desert tribes bow before him and his enemies lick the dust” (vv. 8–
9, NIV). The Edenic imagery is reiterated as well in Isaiah’s vision of the
new heavens and new earth in 65:17–25: “The wolf and the lamb shall
graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the
serpent’s food” (v. 25). Micah too prophesies concerning the last days: “The
earth will be desolate because of its inhabitants. . . . [The nations] shall lick
the dust like a serpent, like the crawling things of the earth” (Mic. 7:13, 17).
Moreover, the heel-to-head imagery is seen when the Messiah treads the
“winepress” of the nations on “the day of vengeance” (Isa. 63:4), saying,
“In my anger I have trampled my enemies as if they were grapes. In my
fury I have trampled my foes” (v. 3, NLT). Similarly, the messianic “sun of
righteousness” (Mal. 4:2) will usher in the coming day, “burning like an
oven” (v. 1); and the Lord declares to the righteous, “You will tread upon
the wicked as if they were dust under your feet” (v. 3, NLT).
The New Testament similarly abounds with references and allusions to
Genesis 3:15. Jesus tells his disciples, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from
heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and
scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:18–19). And no
one would have missed the implications of John’s imprecatory preaching:
“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
(Matt. 3:7; Luke 3:7). Jesus reiterates this accusation against the Pharisees
(cf. Matt. 12:34) and relates their common destiny with the devil in
Gehenna: “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being
sentenced to hell?” (Matt. 23:33). Moreover, the Pharisees are implicated as
“sons of the evil one” (Matt. 13:38; cf. 1 John 3:10), whom Jesus exposes
as descendants of the lying serpent in the garden: “You are of your father
the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer
from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth . . . for he is a liar and
the father of lies” (John 8:44).
Paul also makes frequent references to Genesis 3. For example, he
exhorts the Roman church to resist wicked deceivers, whose “smooth talk
and flattery” (Rom. 16:18) is akin to that of Satan in the garden. Then he
admonishes them “to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is
evil” (v. 19), an obvious reference to the forbidden tree, for “the God of
peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (v. 20). By “soon” he has in
mind the coming of Christ and the day of the Lord (cf. Rom. 2:5; 3:6; 4:17;
5:9; 6:5; 8:18–23; 10:9; 11:25–27; 13:12; 14:10–12), and the “God of
peace” (16:20) is understood in light of the messianic passages wherein
peace is proclaimed and established upon the earth under the Messiah’s rule
(cf. Isa. 9:7; 66:12; Hag. 2:9; Zech. 9:10).
 In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul asserts that by Adam “came death” (v. 21), but
“in Christ shall all be made alive” (v. 22). The resurrection of the dead will
initiate the destruction of all satanic “authority and power” (v. 24), as Christ
will reign “until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (v. 25). In light of
the discussion of Adam and the entrance of sin, this seems to be a clear
reference to the messianic heel of Genesis 3:15. Paul then goes on to
loosely quote Psalm 8:6: “God has put all things in subjection under his
feet” (v. 27). Paul understands the poetic commentary of Genesis 1 to find
ultimate fulfillment in the age to come, when the seed of Adam, “the last
Adam” (v. 45), brings all things into forceful submission to God as it was in
the beginning.30
Paul also quotes Psalm 8 (and thus references Genesis 3:15) in
Ephesians 1: “[God] exercised this power in Christ by raising him from the
dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens. . . . And he subjected
everything under his feet and appointed him as head over everything for the
church” (vv. 20–22, CSB). This declaration of preeminence is understood in
its apocalyptic context, which Paul articulates in verses 9–10:

[God] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his

kind intention that he purposed in Christ, that in the administration
of the fulfillment of times, to bring together again under the
headship of Christ all things in the heavens and on the earth. (AT)31

The household “administration” (Gk. oikonomia) is in reference to God

the Father (being the agent in vv. 3–8) ruling over the heavens and the
earth, which are elsewhere inferred as God’s “house” (cf. 1 Kings 8:27; 2
Chron. 2:6; Isa. 66:1; Acts 7:48).32 The fulfillment of “times” (Gk. kairos)
is understood in terms of the “appointed times” of redemptive history,
climaxing in the day of the Lord (cf. Dan. 8:19; Hab. 2:3; Acts 1:7; 1 Thess.
5:1). The “all things” in the heavens and on the earth is a direct reference to
creation, within which the “bringing together under the headship” of Christ
(Gk. anakephalaioō, derived from kephalē, i.e., “head”)33 invokes the
imagery of Genesis 3:15, since the world in this age is under the rebellious
headship of Satan, so to speak (cf. Luke 4:6; Eph. 2:2; 1 John 5:19).
Such references to Psalm 8 also provide a simple protological context
for the common New Testament phrase “Son of Man,” which is applied
messianically by Jesus some eighty times in the Gospels.34 In Psalm 8:4,
“son of man” (Heb. ben-adam) refers to the progeny of Adam, since the
Hebrew word for “man” and “Adam” are the same. In this way, the “Son of
Man” is simply the ultimate “Son of Adam,”35 an approach to the messianic
title that cuts through much debate and confusion.36
The phrase is commonly used in relation to eschatological judgment
—“He has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son
of Man” (John 5:27; cf. Matt. 9:6; 12:32; 13:41; 16:27; 24:30; 25:31; Luke
17:24–26).37 Likewise it is used in relation to protological restoration—“in
the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne”
(Matt. 19:28, CSB; cf. Matt. 12:8; John 1:51). Thus it is the righteous seed of
Adam—that is, the “Second Adam” (cf. 1 Cor. 15:47)38—who is
“appointed the heir of all things” (Heb. 1:2), meaning all that was originally
allotted to Adam.39 As such he will be anointed judge of all of Adam’s
progeny—“the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1; 1 Peter 4:5).40
Moreover, this genealogical approach to “Son of Man” falls in line with the
other messianic titles of “son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1; cf. Luke 19:9; Gal.
3:16) and “son of David” (Matt. 1:1; 9:27; 12:23; etc.).41

The Abrahamic Messianic Hope

The genealogical orientation of Genesis 4–11 seems self-evident. Instead of
a story with genealogies in it, it is more of a genealogy with stories
intermingled. The hope of Adam and Eve rests in the birth of a righteous
child. Immediately after the curse of death (Gen. 3:19), therefore, Adam
names his wife “Eve” (meaning “life”) in faith that she would become “the
mother of all living” (v. 20), so reversing the effects of the serpent’s
deceit.42
Likewise, when Cain is found unrighteous in murdering his brother, the
hope is transferred to Seth, for “God has appointed for me another offspring
instead of Abel” (Gen. 4:25). The subsequent genealogy is a reflection of
their hope in the imminent childbearing, which would reverse the Edenic
curse.43 So Lamech names his son “Noah,” saying, “This one will bring us
relief from the agonizing labor of our hands, caused by the ground the LORD
has cursed” (Gen. 5:29, CSB). Seth and Noah are the only children in the
genealogy whose naming is given commentary, and this commentary is
most clearly and simply understood in messianic terms.44

Figure 5.3 – The Son of Abraham as the Divine Agent of Redemptive

History

Following the “family records” (Gen. 10:1; 11:10, CSB) from Noah to
Abram, the biblical narrative centers around the calling of Abram in
Genesis 12–25. While the nations gave birth to continued wickedness unto
divine condemnation (cf. 11:3–9), God called Abram to faith in the birth of
the Seed, which would lead to the divine blessing of all the nations—“In
your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 22:18, NASB;
cf. Gen. 12:3; 17:7; 18:18). The messianic hope is therefore centered in the
Abrahamic covenant, for God will create “a great nation” (Gen. 12:2), and
through that nation he will bring forth One to mediate his blessing and
cursing to all the nations (see figure 5.3).45 For this reason, God self-
identifies, according to the covenant, as “the God of Israel” over three
hundred times in the Scriptures (including variants “God of Abraham,”
“God of your fathers,” etc.).46
 Circumcision as the “sign” of the covenant (cf. Gen. 17:9–14) was
likewise understood genealogically.47 Circumcision was instituted after
“Abram” was renamed “Abraham,” prophesying his becoming “the father
of a multitude of nations” (17:5), thus calling “the things that do not yet
exist as though they already do” (Rom. 4:17, NET), as Paul put it.
Circumcision was the consecration of the biological means of the messianic
birth through the severing of the foreskin, hence constituting the “sign of
the covenant” (Gen. 17:11). How prophetically apropos. Far more than an
ethnic marker or cultural ritual, circumcision was an act of faith by which
the Seed was expected to come forth, and through which the promise was
indeed carried on (cf. Gen. 21:2; 26:4; 28:14; 35:11), since the Seed was
literally “in the loins of his ancestor” (Heb. 7:10).
Messianic expectation in the Abrahamic covenant is also tied to the
promise of land—“I will give to you and to your offspring after you the
land of your sojournings” (Gen. 17:8; cf. Gen. 12:7; 13:15).48 Specifically,
this land stretched “from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river
Euphrates” (Gen. 15:18). God later detailed these borders “from the Red
Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates
River” (Ex. 23:31). These borders were established during the time of
Solomon (cf. 1 Kings 4:21–24) and become the covenantal baseline upon
which the Psalms and Prophets expound.
Thus, the ultimate “royal son” (Ps. 72:1) will have “dominion from sea
to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth” (v. 8); and in this way,
“All nations will be blessed through him, and they will call him blessed” (v.
17, NIV). Similarly, God declares, “I will set his hand on the sea and his
right hand on the rivers. . . . I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the
kings of the earth” (Ps. 89:25–27). And Zechariah proclaims, “Behold, your
king is coming to you . . . and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule
shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth” (9:9–
10). The hope of the coming Messiah is thus projected out of the covenant
to its eschatological end. He will rule over the nation of Israel, from the Red
Sea to the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River, administrating divine
blessing and glory to all the nations of the earth.
In such a light, the New Testament assumes Jesus to be “the son of
Abraham” (Matt. 1:1; cf. Luke 3:34), and all the ethno-geographic
characteristics of the Abrahamic covenant are simply assumed as part of
Jesus’ messianic identity. His incarnational birth (Luke 1:31–32) was taken
by Mary to mean, “He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his
mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever”
(vv. 54–55). The crowds “glorified the God of Israel” (Matt. 15:31) when
they saw Jesus’ miracles. And Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on a colt was
plainly understood in light of Zechariah’s messianic oracle (cf. Zech. 9:9),
resulting in the declaration, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of
the Lord!” (Luke 19:38). This Messiah is “the King of the Jews” (Matt. 2:2;
27:11; Mark 15:26; Luke 23:37; John 19:3)—that is, “the King of Israel”
(Matt. 27:42; Mark 15:32; John 1:49; 12:13)—and thus divorcing Jesus
from “the hope of Israel” (Acts 28:20) is senseless.
Consequently, Peter relates “the Christ appointed for you” (Acts 3:20),
who will execute “the restoration of all things” (v. 21, CSB), with “the
covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in
your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed’” (v. 25). And
Paul simply assumes the Abrahamic covenant to involve “the promise to
Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world” (Rom. 4:13).
For in the end the “God of Abraham” (Gen. 28:13; Ex. 3:6; Ps. 47:9) will
anoint the Son of Abraham with power and glory, and the nations will
rejoice (cf. Rom. 15:9–12; Ps. 97:1; Isa. 24:14–16)—singing “Blessed be
his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory!”
(Ps. 72:19).

The Davidic Messianic Hope

Though the genealogical-messianic expectation continues throughout the
biblical narrative, from Abraham to David (cf. Gen. 46:8–24; Ruth 4:18–22;
1 Chron. 1–2), later prophetic exposition tends to focus on these two
covenants.49 Furthermore, though much time and space within the narrative
is devoted to Sinai and the Law, these happened “for the sake of
transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise was made would come”
(Gal. 3:19, CSB).50 Because the story gets right into the thick of the trees, so
to speak, some think the larger messianic forest-view gets lost, which is
simply not the case. The larger redemptive narrative remains in the
background of consciousness, giving context and meaning to the
stewardship of the Law, land, monarchy, temple, etc.51
The Davidic covenant forms the prophetic pathway upon which the rest
of the Scriptures run. Though not initially referenced as a “covenant,” the
interaction between God, Nathan, and David is later termed as such by
David himself (2 Sam. 23:5); by Ethan, the Solomonic temple musician (Ps.
89:3); and by the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 33:21). Following Genesis 3 and
Genesis 12, 2 Samuel 7 is arguably the most important chapter in the
Scriptures concerning messianic expectation.52 So God prophesied to David
through Nathan:

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I
will raise up your offspring [Heb. zera, “seed,” KJV, NKJV] after you,
who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne
of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to
me a son. (2 Sam. 7:12–14)

Psalm 89 provides the most direct and comprehensive commentary

concerning how the words of 2 Samuel 7 were understood in the
generations following David:

I have made a covenant with My chosen;

I have sworn to David My servant,
I will establish your seed forever
And build up your throne to all generations. . . .
But I shall crush his adversaries before him,
And strike those who hate him.
My faithfulness and My lovingkindness will be with him,
And in My name his horn will be exalted.
I shall also set his hand on the sea
And his right hand on the rivers.
He will cry to Me, “You are my Father,
My God, and the rock of my salvation.”
I also shall make him My firstborn,
The highest of the kings of the earth.
(Ps. 89:3–4, 23–27, NASB)

The imagery of Genesis 3 is naturally evoked in the references to a seed

and the crushing of his adversaries. Likewise, the handling of the sea and
rivers would be understood in Abrahamic terms. Beyond these, the Davidic
Offspring will be anointed as “the highest of the kings of the earth,” thus
assuming supreme administration of the age to come.
The prophetic literature extends this eschatological trajectory, declaring
the ultimate destiny of the child to be born of Davidic descent: “Of the
increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne
of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice
and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore” (Isa. 9:7; cf.
16:5).53 Jeremiah likewise declares, “I will raise up for David a righteous
Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice
and righteousness in the land” (23:5; cf. 33:15).54 This language of the
messianic “Branch” also reflects the organic and progressive nature of
messianic revelation. In its full apocalyptic growth, the messianic Offspring
will ultimately be anointed by the Spirit of God, executing the judgment of
God and ushering in a new heavens and new earth. As Isaiah foresaw:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. . . .
And he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat. . . .
They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.
(Isa. 11:1–9)

Isaiah then concludes concerning the glorious kingdom of this Davidic

King: “On that day the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples.
The nations will look to him for guidance, and his resting place will be
glorious” (v. 10, CSB). This glory assumedly comes as a result of the Spirit
of the Lord resting upon him (v. 2), a theme that is seen elsewhere in Isaiah
(cf. 42:1; 61:1). In this way, the Holy Spirit is the ultimate causative agent
of the day of the Lord, the new heavens and new earth, the resurrection, and
the messianic institution and administration—all of which is assumed in
light of the Spirit’s original agency in creation (see figure 5.4). Such a
messianic interpretation of the anointing of the Spirit is undoubtedly the
context within which Jesus’ baptism was understood, when “the Holy Spirit
descended on him in bodily form, like a dove” (Luke 3:22).

Figure 5.4 – The Son of David as the Divine Agent of Redemptive History

At the heart of the Davidic covenant is also the concept of the Messiah’s
divine sonship. Note the centrality and repetition of the Messiah being
called God’s “son”:

• “I will be his father, and he will be my son.” (2 Sam. 7:14, CSB)

• “The LORD said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten
you.’” (Ps. 2:7)
• “He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God.’” (Ps. 89:26)
 The Davidic association of divine sonship is likewise seen in the angelic
declaration concerning Jesus’ birth: “He will be great and will be called the
Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his
father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his
kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32–33). Hence the messianic title
“Son of God” is primarily derived from the Davidic covenant.55 He is the
descendant of David, whom God approves and deems righteous to rule as
his vicar over the earth.56
As such, the phrase “Son of God” is essentially a messianic title
associated with the Davidic King, rather than an ontological phrase
concerned with divinity versus humanity.57 Of course, there is
overwhelming evidence for the divinity of Jesus and his ontological
identification with God Almighty.58 This is not the main point of the phrase,
however, nor is it what people thought of when the heavens opened at
Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit descended, and the voice spoke, “This is my Son,
whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17, NIV). The same
declaration is repeated on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:5), which
was later rehearsed by Peter (2 Peter 1:16–18) and interpreted as “We have
the prophetic word more fully confirmed” (v. 19). The prophetic oracles are
primarily concerned with redemptive history, and so also are the messianic
titles “Son of God,” “Son of Man,” “Son of David,” etc.
Thus we see the linguistic equation of the titles “Messiah” and “Son of
God” in Peter’s declaration, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living
God” (Matt. 16:16, CSB), likewise echoed by Martha: “I believe you are the
Messiah, the Son of God” (John 11:27, CSB). The high priest also charged
Jesus, “Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God” (Matt. 26:63, CSB).
Demons even came out of people shouting, “You are the Son of God,”
because “they knew he was the Messiah” (Luke 4:41, NLT). The Gospels
themselves were indeed written “so that you may believe that Jesus is the
Messiah, the Son of God” (John 20:31, CSB), and are designed to
communicate “the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God”
(Mark 1:1, NLT). So too Paul uses the phrase “Son of God” functionally, in
tandem with “Messiah” (cf. Rom. 1:4; 2 Cor. 1:19; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 4:13).
Moreover, the consistent use of “Messiah,” “Son of God,” and “Son of
Man” together in the same passage (cf. Matt. 16:13–17; 26:63–64; John
1:49–51; 3:14–18; 5:22–27) argues strongly for a simple, commonly
assumed messianic expectation that incorporated various linguistic
expressions—including, for example, “Son of David” (Matt. 9:27; 21:9),
“Root of David” (Rev. 5:5; 22:16), “Root of Jesse” (Rom. 15:12; cf. Isa.
11:10), “Morning Star” (2 Peter 1:19; Rev. 22:16), “Expected One” (Matt.
11:3; Luke 7:19, NASB), “Firstborn” (Ps. 89:27; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:6),
“Prophet” (Deut. 18:15; John 6:14; 7:40), “Shepherd” (Ezek. 34:23; John
10:11; 1 Peter 2:24), “Teacher” (Isa. 30:20; Matt. 23:10; John 13:13), “Arm
of the Lord” (Isa. 51:9; 53:1; John 12:38), “Savior” (Luke 2:11; Phil. 3:20;
1 John 4:14), “Judge” (cf. Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:8; James 5:9), “Lord” (Luke
2:11; Acts 2:36; Jude 14), “Chosen One” (Isa. 42:1; Luke 9:35; 23:35),
“Servant” (Isa. 42:1; 52:13; Matt. 12:18), “Holy One” (Ps. 16:10; Mark
1:24; John 6:69; Acts 2:27), and “Righteous One” (Isa. 53:11; Acts 3:14;
7:52; 22:14).59 All of these messianic titles draw from the oracles of the
Tanakh, which also include other titles not mentioned in the New Testament
—for example, “Shiloh” (Gen. 49:10), “Star” (Num. 24:17), and “Branch”
(Isa. 4:2; 11:1; Zech. 6:12).60
The abundance of messianic descriptions is based on the simple
underlying genealogical expectation of an Offspring from the line of Adam,
Abraham, and David who would mediate God’s apocalyptic salvation (see
figure 5.5). The many messianic titles are not mysterious, disconnected
revelations, but rather simple descriptors of a simple genealogically based
messianic expectation in light of the conclusion of redemptive history.
 Figure 5.5 – Apocalyptic Context of Messianic Titles throughout the
Scriptures

THE CRUCIFORM-APOCALYPTIC
MESSIANIC HOPE
The New Testament begins with “the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the
son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1, NASB). Jesus of Nazareth was
“called Christ” (v. 16) by those who followed him, and as such many “put
their faith in him” (John 7:31; 8:3; 11:45). As discussed above, this faith
involved mediation of the basic tenets of Jewish apocalypticism: the day of
the Lord, the resurrection of the dead, Gehenna, etc. What then is to be
made of the crucifixion of the Messiah? Does such an event reinterpret or
even overturn the previous messianic expectations?
The New Testament seems to make the most sense if we assume that
Jesus and his disciples neither rejected nor rescinded any of the major
elements of their second-temple Jewish worldview. Jesus’ death and
resurrection were simply understood as additional elements of messianic
function, which were somewhat uncommon to first-century expectation.61
Thus Jesus had to open the minds of his disciples “to understand the
Scriptures” (Luke 24:45), explaining to them “everything written about me
in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms” (v. 44). Jesus was
simply adding to the disciples’ expectation that “the Christ should suffer
and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness
of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (vv. 46–47). Such
repentance and forgiveness of sins was assumedly understood in light of the
apocalyptic tradition concerning the Messiah being “judge of the living and
the dead” (Acts 10:42; cf. 2 Tim. 4:1; 1 Peter 4:5).
Similarly, on the road to Emmaus Jesus reprimanded his followers for
being “slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken” (Luke
24:25). That which was missing was the expectation that “the Messiah
would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory” (v. 26, NLT).
In the context of the disciples’ discussion concerning the redemption of
Israel (v. 21), I doubt the eschatological nature of the Messiah’s glory
would have come into question.62 In second-temple Judaism, “glory” was
the common apocalyptic catchword encapsulating the hope of the age to
come.63 Rather than redefining or realizing the commonly expected glory of
Israel’s redemption, Jesus was simply expounding upon the necessity of
messianic suffering.
In this way the divine program involves the messianic mediation of both
divine mercy and divine judgment. God will have mercy on humanity
through his Messiah, and he will judge humanity through his Messiah. So
the apostolic tradition is summarized in Hebrews 9:28: “Christ, having been
offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal
with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”64 Through
Christ God mediated mercy and atonement, and through Christ God will
mediate judgment and salvation. Therefore, “He is the mediator of a new
covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal
inheritance” (Heb. 9:15).65 The new covenant was thus understood to be the
means of inheriting the presupposed hope of eternal life.
Far from reinterpreting or repurposing Jewish eschatology, the new
covenant was simply designed “for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28)
and was essentially understood in sacrificial terms (cf. “in my blood,” Luke
22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25). Superseding the sacrificial aspects of the Mosaic
covenant (to be discussed further in chapters 7 and 8), this new covenant in
no way changes “the covenants of promise” (Eph. 2:12). It simply provides
atonement and righteousness for that which the Mosaic covenant could not:
“Through this man forgiveness of sins is being proclaimed to you. Everyone
who believes is justified through him from everything that you could not be
justified from through the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38–39, CSB; cf. Heb.
9:13–14).
Furthermore, the gift of the Holy Spirit was understood in light of
expectations concerning the Messiah’s divine anointing (cf. Isa. 11:1–3;
42:1; 61:1). So Peter declared at Pentecost, “Exalted at the right hand of
God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he
has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing” (Acts 2:33).
The gift of the Spirit was given to confirm the mediation of divine mercy in
the cross before the mediation of divine judgment at “the great and glorious
day of the Lord” (v. 20, CSB). Accordingly, Peter concludes, “Repent and be
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of
your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (v. 38). In other
words, the Holy Spirit was poured out as a confirmation of the forgiveness
of sins in light of the coming day of the Lord (see figure 5.6).
 Figure 5.6 – The Holy Spirit within Cruciform-Apocalyptic Messianic
Hope

Since the Jewish apocalyptic vision of eternal life remained unchanged

by the sacrificial interpretation of the death of the Messiah, the apostolic
witness remained tenable within first-century Judaism. The simplicity and
continuity of the apostolic method and message are demonstrated, for
example, by Paul in Thessalonica: “As usual, Paul went into the synagogue,
and on three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures,
explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and
rise from the dead: ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah.’
Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas” (Acts 17:2–4,
CSB; cf. 5:42; 9:22; 18:5). The fact that the apostolic witness was readily
received by so many Orthodox Jews (cf. Acts 2:41; 4:4; 5:14; 6:7; 11:19;
13:43; 14:1; 17:4; 18:8; 19:10; 21:20; 24:24; 28:24) argues strongly for an
unaltered Jewish-apocalyptic context for the cruciform-messianic message.

POST-APOSTOLIC CHRISTOLOGY
As previously mentioned, the term “Christ” is little more than Jesus’ proper
name in much of the popular mind.66 In the early church, however, one’s
identity as a believer was dictated by his or her faith and confession that
Jesus was “the Christ.” As John says, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is
the Christ has been born of God” (1 John 5:1). Put bluntly, the distortion of
messianic expectation robs people of their identity as children of God.
Moreover, it robs people of their boldness in bearing the Christian name—
as Peter exhorts, “If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed
but let him glorify God in having that name” (1 Peter 4:16, CSB). The name
that we bear as followers of Jesus inherently confesses our messianic
hope.67
Though in modern times the term “Christ” has been generally
marginalized to Christian jargon, this does not mean Christians have lost all
sense of messianic expectation. Rather, their hopes have simply become
distorted and misplaced. As Christianity accommodated Hellenistic thought
in the centuries following the New Testament, its messianic expectation
began to conform to the hopes of salvation within Greek mythology and
philosophy. Since salvation in Hellenism is generally defined as escaping
materiality unto eternal immateriality, Jesus became a functional agent of
escapism. Christ was understood as the divine means of achieving
incorporeality, which is the defining mark of Gnosticism. New Testament
scholar George Ladd outlined well the relationship between Platonism and
gnostic Christology:

The view found in Plato and in later thinkers, influenced by him, is

essentially the same cosmological dualism as is found in later
Gnosticism. Like Gnosticism, Platonism is a dualism of two
worlds, one the visible world and the other an invisible “spiritual”
world. As in Gnosticism, man stands between these two worlds,
related to both. Like Gnosticism, Platonism sees the origin of
man’s truest self (his soul) in the invisible world, whence his soul
has fallen into the visible world of matter. Like Gnosticism, it sees
the physical body as a hindrance, a burden, sometimes even as a
tomb of the soul. Like Gnosticism, it conceives of salvation as the
freeing of the soul from its entanglement in the physical world that
it may wing its way back to the heavenly world. Two further
elements found in Gnosticism do not appear in the Platonic
 philosophers: that matter is ipso facto the source of evil, and that
redemption is accomplished by a heavenly redeemer who descends
to the earth to deliver the fallen souls and lead them back to
heaven.68

Though Gnosticism was infantile during New Testament times, its

emergence was met with severe opposition. At the end of his life, Paul
wrote Timothy: “Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is
falsely called ‘knowledge’ [Gk. gnōsis], for by professing it some have
swerved from the faith” (1 Tim. 6:20–21; cf. 2 Tim. 2:18). Concerning its
application to Christology, John calls such anti-corporeal thought “the spirit
of the antichrist” (1 John 4:3)—warning, “Every spirit that confesses that
Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does
not confess Jesus is not from God” (vv. 2–3).
Because of its destructive impact on the faith, identity, and behavior of
the believer, Jesus himself gives the gravest condemnation of Gnostics
when addressing the Nicolaitans (Rev. 2:6, 15).69 Jesus declares that he
“hates” both their “works” and “teachings,” threatening, “I will come to you
soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth” (v. 16). According
to Irenaeus (c. 130–200), the early church’s authority on Gnosticism, the
Nicolaitans were followers of Nicolas of Antioch (cf. Acts 6:5),70 who
strayed from the faith and became “an offset of that ‘knowledge’ falsely so
called.”71 The church in Thya-tira is also generally believed to have
harbored Gnostics,72 having “followed this false teaching (‘deeper truths,’
as they call them—depths of Satan, actually)” (Rev. 2:24, NLT).73 I believe it
is this gnostic “deeper-revelatory” approach to the Scriptures, later
mitigated and propagated en masse by the Alexandrian school of thought,
that corrupted the simple Jewish messianic faith in Jesus for centuries
ensuing.74 Though Gnostics genuinely believe they hold a superior truth,
their faith has actually been ruined (cf. 1 Cor. 15:33; 2 Tim. 2:14), and for
this reason Jesus and those who follow him despise it.
Though gnostic Christology is enticing on the front end, its end is
painfully predictable. As the divine agent of escapism, “Christ Escapist”
takes believers to immaterial heaven through death and finalizes redemptive
history at his return by annihilating materiality. Moreover, he calls his
followers to “gnostic martyrdom” by forsaking “the world” (i.e., materiality
and the body) unto death. So Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215), the first
to equate asceticism and martyrdom, declared:

Whence, as is reasonable, the [true Christian] gnostic, when Called,

obeys easily, and gives up his body to him who asks; and,
previously divesting himself of the affections of this carcase. . . .
He, in truth, bears witness to himself that he is faithful and loyal
towards God. . . .
If the confession to God is martyrdom, each soul which has
lived purely in the knowledge of God, which has obeyed the
commandments, is a witness both by life and word, in whatever
way it may be released from the body—shedding faith as blood
along its whole life till its departure. . . . He is blessed; not
indicating simple martyrdom, but the gnostic martyrdom, as of the
man who has conducted himself according to the rule of the
Gospel, in love to the Lord (for the knowledge of the Name and the
understanding of the Gospel point out the gnosis, but not the bare
appellation), so as to leave his worldly kindred, and wealth, and
every possession, in order to lead a life free from passion. . . .
In living, then, living well is secured. And he who in the body
has devoted himself to a good life, is being sent on to the state of
immortality.75

This gnostic call, derived from gnostic Christology, largely inspired the
monastic movement in the deserts of Egypt, which later spread throughout
the church, dominated its life for over a thousand years, and continues to
entice people to this very day. Though, of course, not wholly errant (the
Spirit and the Scriptures are inherently sanctifying and much good has been
accomplished by many monastic individuals throughout church history),
monasticism does represent a substantial distortion of the gospel and of a
theology of the cross, which calls men and women to embrace the goodness
of creation, to hope for its apocalyptic restoration, and to lay down their
lives in love in the midst of an ungodly world for the salvation of the lost.
On the other hand, as Constantinianism developed, Jesus became a
functional agent of dominionism. As “Christ Dominionist,” he calls his
followers to become agents of divine sovereignty upon the earth. Thus the
church is the “kingdom of God,” and its leaders are “little christs,” who
function as auxiliary agents of dominionistic salvation.76 Jürgen Moltmann
describes the development of such Christology:

Nicaea (325) was the church’s first Ecumenical or General Council.

It was convened by the Emperor Constantine, who was greeted by
the bishops as “the thirteenth apostle.” . . . In its christology, Christ
was not merely the head of the church. He was also the king of
heaven and the pantocrator, thereby legitimating the Christian
imperator and his empire. As “the anointed of the Lord,” the
Orthodox emperor had a messianic charge to spread the kingdom
of God on earth. For in the Christian empire God’s plan in history
was fulfilled. . . .
In this way, theology aligned both the Christian church and the
Christian state towards the kingdom of God; and in this respect it
was “an imperial theology,” whether it is viewed in its
transcendental or its eschatological configuration. Parallel to the
church, the emperor was accepted as sacred representative of God’s
rule over the world.77

It seems absurd, for many reasons, to imagine the twelve apostles in a

room welcoming Constantine as “the thirteenth apostle,” but the main
reason would probably be that they held fundamentally different
worldviews and narratives of redemptive history.78 By the end of the third
century, however, the church had drifted so far from its Jewish apocalyptic
moorings that it allowed such a bizarre relationship to form between the
church and state.79
As discussed in previous chapters, Augustine sought to synthesize the
worldviews of Christoplatonism and Constantinianism. Within such a
synthesis, the Messiah is both the agent of dominionism relating to the
church militant and the agent of escapism relating to the church triumphant
(see figure 5.7). Though often conflicted in practical application, this
twofold messianic function, expressed tangibly through “popery and
monkery” (as Luther put it), varied little over the next millennium.80
 Figure 5.7 – The Distorted Messianism of Augustinianism

Though the dispensationalist movement restored to Christology a

Jewish eschatological emphasis, it retained the Hellenistic idea of a
heavenly destiny. Jesus’ mission as “king of the Jews” is generally
unrelated to his heavenly Gentile mission. Therefore we have a bifurcated
messianic mission: Christos tōn ethnōn (Christ of the Gentiles) vs. Christos
tōn Ioudaiōn (Christ of the Jews). For this reason dispensationalists have
held to the inane idea of a pretribulational rapture.81 The Messiah comes
twice at the end of the age according to his two messianic roles—secretly
the first time to take the Gentilic church to immaterial heaven and openly
the second time to rule over the Jewish kingdom on earth. So Lewis Sperry
Chafer delineated:

A clear distinction should be observed between the Scriptures

which announce the coming of Christ into the air to receive His
Bride, the Church, unto Himself thus to end her pilgrim journey in
the world and those Scriptures which announce the coming of
Christ to the earth in power and great glory, to judge Israel and the
nations and to reign on David’s throne from Jerusalem. The first
 event is in no way whatsoever a part of the second event; it is
Christ’s way of delivering His people from the cosmos world
before the divine judgments fall upon it.82

Thus Chafer concluded “that in the first event the movement is upward
from earth to heaven, as in 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17 . . . and that in the
second advent the movement is downward from heaven to earth, as in
Revelation 19:11–16.”83 So we see dualistic messianic functions according
to the dualistic plans of salvation (see figure 5.8).84

Figure 5.8 – The Dualistic Messianism of Dispensationalism

Messianic expectation within inaugurationalism is quite similar to its

dominionistic predecessor, except with reference to its eschatological
conclusion. Within Christendom, Christ’s dominionistic mission finds
complete fulfillment through the church in this age. Within
inaugurationalism, Christ’s dominionistic mission finds partial fulfillment
through the church in this age and ultimate fulfillment at the second
coming.85 George Ladd, the father of evangelical inaugurationalism,
describes this Christological “already/not yet” tension:

This is why the Second Coming of Christ is necessary—to

complete the work begun in his Incarnation. There are, in other
words, two great events in God’s conquest of the powers of evil,
two invasions of God into history: the Incarnation and the Second
Coming. One scholar has illustrated this by an analogy from World
War II. There were two steps in the victory over Nazi Germany: D-
Day and V-Day. Once the allies had launched a successful invasion
upon the continent and the allied armies had secured a foothold and
started their drive across France, the tide of battle turned. The allies
were advancing, Germany was in retreat. But there remained much
bitter fighting, which lasted until the complete capitulation of the
enemy—V-Day. Then the fighting ceased; peace reigned.86

Though a forceful analogy, it poorly represents New Testament

Christology, which ubiquitously distinguishes different motives and
agendas for the first and second comings of Christ. The first is
fundamentally to bear sin (cf. John 12:47; 1 Peter 3:18), while the second is
ultimately to bring salvation (cf. 1 Thess. 1:10; Heb. 9:28). Indeed, Christ
has been given all authority in this age (cf. Matt. 28:18; Eph. 1:21), sitting
at God’s right hand (cf. Acts 2:33; 1 Peter 3:22), but he rules over creation
in this age in mercy (cf. Rom. 2:4–5; Eph. 2:4–7), waiting to make his
enemies his footstool (cf. Acts 3:19–21; Heb. 10:13). Inaugurationalism
perverts and conflates the agenda of the Messiah into one homogenous-
dominionistic mission (see figure 5.9). Within the inaugurationalist system,
the Messiah came the first time to inaugurate the divine takeover, and he
will appear the second time to finish it. Such messianic homogeny
fundamentally undermines the basic nature of the gospel in the New
Testament, leaving the church with a proclamation that is neither cruciform
nor apocalyptic.
 Figure 5.9 – The Homogenous Messianism of Inaugurationalism

In conclusion, our faith in Christ Jesus and his return is the very source
of our hope—“the blessed hope” (Titus 2:13) which fuels the church in its
race of faith unto the day of Christ. Furthermore, living in the midst of a
depraved world, “without hope and without God” (Eph. 2:12, CSB), the
church is in desperate need of a restoration of biblical hope. Those who get
consumed by various worldly distortions are left with a tawdry hope, often
resorting to the strength of depraved human beings who walk in the
delusion of a self-imposed messianic complex. Yet even this hope wanes in
light of the last century’s two world wars, its host of diabolical dictators,
various genocides, and rampant multinational-corporate greed (forgetting
not the criminal usury of its financiers)—compounded by the threat of
famine, overpopulation, terrorism, and nuclear war—not to mention the
myriad of energy crises, financial crises, health crises, ecological crises, and
the burgeoning global breakdown of the family unit.
Having lost our true messianic hope, we have no real answers for a
world wallowing in confusion and despair. Moreover, having put our hope
in this life, we have thrown in our lot with a pie-eyed world and have fallen
under the curse of the apostle Paul: “If anyone has no love for the Lord, let
him be accursed. Our Lord, come!” (1 Cor. 16:22).87 In other words, love
for Christ is fundamentally expressed in messianic longing and hope,
Maranatha! Let us then conclude as Paul did: “There is laid up for me the
crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to
me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his
appearing” (2 Tim. 4:8).88
 Chapter Six

THE GLORY OF THE

KINGDOM

Inextricably bound to messianic hope in the New Testament is the kingdom

that the Messiah will establish. This kingdom, commonly referred to as “the
kingdom of God,”1 is the climactic theme of Jewish expectations in the late
second-temple period. Like other apocalyptic themes (e.g., day of the Lord,
resurrection of the dead, Gehenna, etc.), the kingdom of God is a concept
that develops progressively in accordance with divine revelation. Rooted in
the covenants, the expectation of a Jewish king and his glorious kingdom
grows throughout the prophetic literature and comes to fruition in
apocalyptic thought: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom
of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever” (Rev.
11:15).
Though theological discussion concerning the kingdom of God has
devolved in recent times into an endless web of polemical arguments,
Christ’s kingdom is a simple concept that fits well within a first-century
Jewish apocalyptic worldview.2 Unfortunately, many modern scholars find
Jewish election and apocalypticism to be both untenable and embarrassing.
Thus George Buchanan’s oft-quoted characterization of modern scholarship
concerning the kingdom of God is painfully true: “Scholars have
internalized, de-temporalized, de-historicized, cosmologized, spiritualized,
allegorized, mysticized, psychologized, philosophized, and sociologized the
concept of the kingdom of God. This has all been done for the purpose of
denationalizing it.”3
Far from a “complex background” of expectations concerning the
kingdom of God, the New Testament shows almost no signs of confusion
concerning its basic nature.4 No one questioned what kingdom John the
Baptist was preaching in the wilderness, nor did they question Jesus when
he was “teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the
kingdom” (Matt. 4:23). None of the disciples asked Jesus what the kingdom
entailed when he sent them out preaching, “The kingdom of heaven is at
hand” (Matt. 10:7), because it was commonly assumed to coincide with
“the day of judgment” (v. 15), salvation (v. 22), the coming of the Messiah
(v. 23), Gehenna (v. 28), and eternal life (v. 39).5
Moreover, the stunning lack of commentary in the New Testament
concerning the nature of the kingdom argues strongly for an unaltered
Jewish apocalyptic view of the kingdom.6 Though the meaning of the
kingdom is an endless source of contention today, the New Testament is
generally unconcerned with its definition (focusing rather on the
righteousness necessary to inherit the presupposed kingdom). The nature of
the kingdom receives little exegetical attention, and when it does it
generally falls in line with the popular views of contemporary Judaism (cf.
1 Cor. 15:20–55; 2 Tim. 4:1–18; 2 Peter 1:10–21).7 If the kingdom, which
was the greatest hope of the Jewish mind and heart, had now been
“inaugurated,” “realized,” or “spiritually fulfilled” in some way, would not
this grand event be the center of all thought and exhortation? Where is the
fanfare? Where is the hoopla? If the kingdom had finally come, then it
seems like a strangely inverted case of “little ado about much.”8
Rather, the “kingdom of God” is simply the messianic kingdom, to
which the Jews commonly looked (as they do today) and to which the
church sets its hope in the return of Jesus (cf. 1 Cor. 15:50; 2 Tim. 4:1; 2
Peter 2:11).9 If Jesus or the apostles were seeking to change the
expectations and understanding of the kingdom of God as held by
contemporary Jews, it would have taken a massive effort of redefining and
reteaching a concept that was absolutely monolithic and concrete in the
popular Jewish mind. To say the “kingdom of God” was really just a
spiritual principle of divine sovereignty (not bound to a particular time or
ethnic people) is like saying “the Pyramids” are really just a spiritual
principle of triangularity (not tied to a particular time or ethnic people, since
pyramids were built throughout the ancient world). It takes a lot more than
a few obtuse and highly debatable verses strung together to convince
anyone with a reasonable and unbiased historical mind that such a massive
redefinition was indeed attempted.10
The debate in modern scholarship largely revolves around the fact that
the phrase “kingdom of God” (Gk. basileia tou theou) is only found in the
New Testament. Most historical scholars over the last century have thus
treated it as an apocalyptic phrase developed out of the apocalyptic
literature of the second-temple period (akin to “resurrection of the dead,”
“last day,” “age to come,” etc.), simply signifying the eschatological
messianic kingdom (cf. Isa. 9:7; Dan. 2:44; 7:14, 27; Mic. 4:7).11 Many
moderate and evangelical scholars, however, look to the general use of
“kingdom” (Heb. malkuth) in the Tanakh, which refers to God’s governance
over creation as a whole (cf. 1 Chron. 29:11; Ps. 103:19; 145:13; Dan. 4:3,
34). Therefore, the “kingdom of God” spoken of in the New Testament is
assumed to be a phrase likewise referring to general divine sovereignty.
These differing approaches and differing uses of “kingdom” then result
in a variety of seemingly contradictory linguistic dualisms, which have
become commonplace in the debate over the nature of the kingdom of God.
Scholars argue whether the kingdom involves “rule” versus “realm,” or
whether it is “abstract” versus “concrete,” or “present” versus “future,” or
“eternal” versus “temporal,” or “universal” versus “local”; whether it
relates to God versus the Messiah; whether its locus is in heaven versus on
earth; and so on and so forth.12 To sort out the confusion, it is helpful to
delineate between God’s universal “kingdom,” which rules eternally over
all of creation, and the messianic “kingdom of God,” which will rule
eschatologically upon the earth.13 This kind of distinction is often made to
help distinguish between general divine sovereignty and eschatological
messianic governance.14
 Figure 6.1 – Eternal Universal Kingdom vs. Eschatological Messianic
Kingdom

This kind of delineation is ultimately derived from the distinction made

in the Scriptures between the heavens and the earth, and the two thrones
therein. God rules from the heavens (Ps. 2:4; 113:5; Isa. 40:22), while man
rules upon the earth (cf. Gen. 1:28; Deut. 32:8; Ps. 8:6). In other words,
“The heavens are the LORD’s, but the earth he has given to the human race”
(Ps. 115:16, CSB). In the beginning God sat enthroned in the height of the
heavens (Gen. 2:2; Isa. 40:22), while enthroning Adam upon the earth (Gen.
1:28; Ps. 8:6). And in like manner he will enthrone the Messiah at the end
of the age when he restores all things (cf. Matt. 19:28; 25:31). God’s
kingdom rules from the highest heaven over all of creation for all time,
while the Messiah’s kingdom is initiated at the day of the Lord and
established upon the earth with its locus in Jerusalem.15 Such delineations
can be applied to the who, what, when, and where of the kingdom—all of
which are clarified by a universal versus messianic distinction (see figure
6.1).
Thus both are true: “The LORD has established his throne in the heavens,
and his kingdom rules over all” (Ps. 103:19), and “Of the increase of his
government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and
over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with
righteousness from this time forth and forevermore” (Isa. 9:7).16 Of course,
the divine and messianic thrones are in no way disconnected or
autonomous. As God ruled over Eden before the fall, and as he rules over
all of humanity’s rebellious kingdoms now—though they may not recognize
or appreciate it (cf. Dan. 4:32; John 19:11; Rom. 13:1)—so also will he rule
over the Messiah’s kingdom in the age to come.17 The two are intimately
and organically related—indeed they are functionally “one,” as we might
say a husband and wife are “one”—but we cannot conflate them into a
single homogenous reality, wherein the two lose their individual
identities.18
So the hope of creation lies in the governance of the Godhead and its
distinctive oneness, whereby the Father will anoint the Son in the power of
the Spirit to execute judgment upon the nations of the earth, restoring it to
its original glory.19 It is this “heavenly kingdom” (2 Tim. 4:18), which is
both the “Father’s kingdom” (Matt. 26:29) and the “kingdom of Christ”
(Eph. 5:5), that constitutes “the gospel of the kingdom” (Matt. 4:23; 9:35;
24:14). For here is expressed finally the nature and character of God, the
inheritance of Christ Jesus, the glory of the Holy Spirit, the destiny of
humanity, and the restoration of all creation.

CHRIST’S KINGDOM: THE GLORY OF

THE NATIONS
This glorious eschatological kingdom will be ethnically diverse because the
messianic Seed of Adam will incorporate the righteous from all of Adam’s
progeny. Moreover, the messianic kingdom will involve the redemption of
humanity as it is at the time of eschatological deliverance, which will entail
many “nations/ethnicities” (Heb. goyim, Gk. ethnē). Thus it will be a
multiethnic, transnational kingdom (see figure 6.2). Had the day of the Lord
come before the Tower of Babel, as Enoch presumably expected (cf. Jude
14–15), then the kingdom would have been singular in its ethnicity. In the
age to come, however, the Messiah’s kingdom will include “a great
multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and
peoples and languages” (Rev. 7:9). For Jesus will return to glorify
Jerusalem, and “By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth
will bring their glory into it” (Rev. 21:24).

Figure 6.2 – The Adamic, Transnational Messianic Kingdom

The transnational nature of the kingdom is self-evident in most of the

common messianic passages. In the last days, the Messiah “shall judge
between the nations,” and thus “nation shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isa. 2:4). In the day that he
strikes the earth “with the rod of his mouth” (Isa. 11:4), “the root of Jesse,
who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations
inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious” (v. 10). For “The LORD will
lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the
earth will see the salvation of our God” (Isa. 52:10, NIV). Indeed, “Nations
shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising” (Isa.
60:3).20 After the suffering of the Messiah, “All the ends of the earth shall
remember and turn to the LORD; and all the families of the nations shall
worship before him” (Ps. 22:27, NRSV). For God has eternally decreed, “My
name will be great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts” (Mal. 1:11).
 Moreover, the Messiah is seen in Davidic terms as “the head of the
nations” (Ps. 18:43), “a leader and commander for the peoples” (Isa. 55:4).
Thus when establishing the kingdom, God speaks to the Messiah, “Ask of
me, and I will make the nations your inheritance and the ends of the earth
your possession” (Ps. 2:8, CSB). In this way, “Many nations shall join
themselves to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people” (Zech. 2:11).
As the agent of God Almighty, the Messiah and his kingdom will be the
means by which “the LORD will be king over all the earth” (Zech. 14:9).
And through the Messiah, God will receive the promised praise of the
nations: “Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy.
For the LORD Most High is awesome, the great King over all the earth!” (Ps.
47:1–2, NIV; cf. Ps. 67:3–7; 96:1–10; 98:2–9; 117:1–2).
As the most defining Old Testament passages concerning the messianic
kingdom, Daniel 2 and 7 also portray the Messiah’s global reign.21 In
Daniel 7, four kingdoms are presented (vv. 1–8), the last of which incurs
divine judgment (vv. 9–14) and is “completely destroyed forever” (v. 26,
CSB). In this context, “one like a son of man” (v. 13) is given “dominion and
glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve
him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed” (v. 14). As coheirs with
the Messiah, “The dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the
whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High;
their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall
serve and obey them” (v. 27).22
Similarly, Daniel 2 presents a series of transnational kingdoms (vv. 31–
33), which incur divine judgment (v. 34) and which result in the
establishment of an eternal messianic kingdom that fills and rules over “the
whole earth” (v. 35). At the end of this age, “The God of heaven will set up
a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to
another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to
an end, and it shall stand forever” (v. 44). Moreover, as Nebuchadnezzar
was in his day “the king of kings” (v. 37), ruling over a multiethnic
kingdom, so also the Messiah will be hailed “the King of kings and Lord of
lords” (1 Tim. 6:15; Rev. 19:16), ruling over a benevolent global empire.
Therefore the Scriptures present the messianic kingdom as ethnically
diverse and transnational rather than as an indiscriminate homogeneous
assemblage, as is often the case in the various Hellenistic distortions. It will
be a real kingdom with a real king on a real earth ruling over real nations
with real ethnicities. As its source, God takes ethnicity seriously; and
indeed he will redeem it, because he is “the God of the whole earth” (Isa.
54:5), “the Lord of the whole earth” (Mic. 4:13; Zech. 4:14), and “the Lord
of all the earth” (Ps. 97:5; Zech. 6:5).
Ethnic distinctions in the age to come are based upon the nature of God
himself, his design, and his ordained destiny. Thus Jesus concludes his
eschatological discourse,

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with
him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be
gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from
another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. . . . Then
the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed
by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world.” (Matt. 25:31–34)23

CHRIST’S KINGDOM: THE GLORY OF

ISRAEL
Not only will the messianic kingdom be universal and multiethnic in scope,
but it will also make a functional distinction between ethnicities based upon
the Abrahamic covenant (cf. Gen. 12:1–3; 15:18–21; 17:3–21; 22:16–18).
As the Seed of Abraham, the Christ will rule over one nation—Israel—
which in turn will mediate the glory of God to the rest of the nations. God
has bound himself ethnically in the unfolding of redemptive history.
Though God is indeed “the King of all the earth” (Ps. 47:7), he has
overwhelmingly revealed himself as “the God of Israel.”24 Hence, the
messianic Seed will be “the King of Israel” (Matt. 27:42; Mark 15:32; John
1:49; 12:13)—that is, “the King of the Jews” (Matt. 2:2; 27:11; Mark 15:26;
Luke 23:37; John 19:3)—whose rule will be essentially Israelitic, extending
to the ends of the earth (see figure 6.3). In this way redemptive history is
“Israelocentric,”25 for “salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22).
 Figure 6.3 – The Abrahamic, Israelitic Messianic Kingdom

Because Abraham was promised that he would inherit the land “from
the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates” (Gen. 15:18), so
then his Seed will rule “from the River to the ends of the earth” (Ps. 72:8;
Zech. 9:10). Such a geographical demarcation between the Euphrates and
the ends of the earth confirms the geopolitical demarcation of the kingdom
of God in the age to come.26 Hence the land of Canaan itself is a prophetic
oracle, of sorts, inherently prophesying the age to come, and the Jews were
and are stewards of that oracle (cf. Matt. 21:33; Rom. 3:2).
The Messiah will be the King of Israel because God himself is “the
King of Israel” (Isa. 44:6; Zeph. 3:15). Indeed, the Creator of the universe is
“the Creator of Israel” (Isa. 43:15). The point that God created the nations
and God created Israel is often overlooked. Why? Was it a benign
consequence of the debacle of Babel? No. Was it a temporal necessity for
the novelty of the incarnation? No. It was by divine foreknowledge and
wisdom with eternal repercussions, which brings us to the crux of the issue
—the very point of contention and offense: God is an ethnicist. The Being
who created the universe has unequivocally identified himself with a
particular ethnic group in his administration of redemptive history. Of
course, in regard to sin and righteousness he shows no favoritism or
partiality toward any nation or ethnicity (though one could actually argue
that God has been harder on the Jews than the Gentiles, as a father might
hold his oldest son to a higher standard). However, he has chosen to
orchestrate redemptive history in this age (i.e., in the giving and stewarding
of the oracles) according to the Jews, and he will administrate redemptive
history in the age to come (i.e., in the giving and administrating of eternal
life) according to the Jews. Though commonly rejected, ignored, or
overlooked, this is a plain fact of the Bible, and the de-ethnicization of the
Scriptures borders on hermeneutical schizophrenia.27
To most Gentiles, the binding of salvation to Jewish ethnicity is
incredibly offensive, since we Irish (as a personal example) fancy ourselves
as the “saviors of civilization.”28 But so also do the Koreans, the Arabs, and
the French—and likewise historically the Romans, Mongols, and Germans.
Indeed, it is the divine choice concerning one ethnos that offends every
other ethnos. Furthermore, it is the divine choice concerning one man, Jesus
of Nazareth, that offends every other human being. Why not me? Why not
you? Why not the Irish? Why not the Chinese? Because God chose. The
sovereignty of God simply cannot be overruled on this point.

The Jewish Birthright

In such a light, it is commonly assumed in the Scriptures that the messianic
kingdom will be an Israelitic kingdom that will benevolently govern the
world to come,29 an idea which has been called “Jewish restoration
eschatology.”30 But we must consider the basis of this governance and
administration. Many scholars have commented on Israel’s “special
relation” to God and “special function in history,”31 or “the priority of Israel
in salvation-history.”32 However, such generality is ambiguous and
ultimately unhelpful.
The theological driver behind the uniqueness of the Jews is their ethnic
“firstborn” position—that is, their “birthright” (Heb. bekorah, Gk.
prōtotokia), which was commonly understood as the “inheritance rights as
the oldest son” (Heb. 12:16, NIV).33 In technical terms, this is known as
primogeniture, the legal right and role (usually of the oldest son) for
administrating the inheritance of the family estate.34 I believe that the
practice has been common throughout time and across cultures because its
origin is in the Godhead itself. We delineate between sons in the
distribution of our inheritance because God has ordained a delineation
between sons in the distribution of his inheritance.
Though in modern times we infer little more than birth order to the term
“firstborn,” its application in the Scriptures clearly implies primogeniture,
which in relation to Israel has received little appreciation or attention
historically.35 Yet the Scriptures declare, “Thus says the LORD, Israel is my
firstborn son” (Ex. 4:22), and “I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my
firstborn” (Jer. 31:9).36 The idea of Jewish sonship (cf. Deut. 14:1; Isa. 1:2;
Hos. 1:10; Mal. 1:6) assumes a theology of birthright, since the Israelites
were the first people to be given the privilege of calling the Creator of the
heavens and earth “Father” (cf. Deut. 32:6; Isa. 64:8; Mal. 2:10). As God
said, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my
son” (Hos. 11:1).37 And so Israel prayed, “You, O LORD, are our Father, our
Redeemer from of old is your name” (Isa. 63:16).
Intertestamental literature also echoes this view (cf. Sirach 36:17;
Psalms of Solomon 13:9; 18:4), as Ezra supposedly prayed, “O Lord, these
nations, which are reputed to be as nothing, domineer over us and devour
us. But we your people, whom you have called your firstborn, only
begotten, zealous for you, and most dear, have been given into their hands.
If the world has indeed been created for us, why do we not possess our
world as an inheritance? How long will this be so?” (2 Esdras 6:57–59,
NRSV).
As Israel is the firstborn among the nations, so also the Messiah is “the
firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth” (Ps. 89:27). As the firstborn
of all humanity and the ultimate “executor of the estate,” so to speak, the
Christ will rule over all of the earth and administrate the glory of the age to
come. Thus the New Testament identifies Jesus as “the firstborn of all
creation” (Col. 1:15), and as such he is “appointed the heir of all things”
(Heb. 1:2). Moreover, he is “the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the
kings of the earth” (Rev. 1:5, CSB), so that “in everything he might be
preeminent” (Col. 1:18).
Though all the redeemed are “sons of God,” and thus “heirs of God and
fellow heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:17), the supreme role of the
administration of the divine inheritance will be upon the shoulders of this
one man (cf. Isa. 9:6; Ps. 2:8; 72:17). Hence we seek to be found “in
Christ,” for, “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel
of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy
Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession
of it, to the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:13–14). The language of
inheritance, both here and elsewhere (cf. Matt. 19:29; 25:34; 1 Cor. 6:9;
Gal. 5:21; Col. 1:12; Heb. 9:15; 1 Peter 1:4), assumes the reality of
primogeniture.
In this way, the Messiah, as “the King of Israel,” will administrate the
glory of God to all the nations through the firstborn nation (see figure 6.4).
It was God himself who determined the lands in which the different
ethnicities settled in this age (cf. Gen. 10; Deut. 32:8; Acts 17:26), and so
too will he determine them in the age to come, according to the mantric
promise of the Jewish inheritance of Canaan as “an everlasting possession”
(Gen. 17:8; cf. 12:7; 13:5; 26:3; 28:13; 48:4; Ex. 33:1; Num. 32:11; Deut.
1:8; 6:10; 30:20; Ps. 105:10).38 As a royal psalm that was commonly
referenced and interpreted in an increasingly apocalyptic manner,39 Psalm
72 exemplifies this arrangement of messianic and Jewish primogeniture:

Endow the king with your justice, O God,

the royal son with your righteousness. . . .
May he rule from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth. . . .
May all kings bow down to him
and all nations serve him. . . .
May his name endure forever;
may it continue as long as the sun.
Then all nations will be blessed through him,
and they will call him blessed.
Praise be to the LORD God, the God of Israel,
who alone does marvelous deeds.
Praise be to his glorious name forever;
may the whole earth be filled with his glory.
(Ps. 72:1–19, NIV)
 Figure 6.4 – Messianic, Israelitic Primogeniture in the Age to Come

Gentiles often disregard or conflate ethnicity when studying redemptive

history because they feel somehow slighted, as though they are less loved
by God or will not receive equitably from God in the inheritance to come.40
Indeed, in their depravity, Jew and Gentile alike have exacerbated this lie
from both sides. However, primogeniture is simply a governmental and
legal administrative mechanism, devoid of partiality or favoritism.41 Being
the oldest son, I administrated the inheritance of my father’s estate when he
passed away some years ago, and I can personally testify that the birthright
is as much a burden as it is a privilege. Not once did my sister ever think to
herself, I wish I could deal with all of that! Moreover, though our roles were
different, she shared equally in the inheritance. I was honored to do the
work, and she was grateful to be served.
Likewise, no Gentile will envy the role of the Jews in the age to come,
for they will serve the nations under their King, who will be revered as “the
servant of rulers” (Isa. 49:7; cf. “the one who serves,” Luke 22:27). Though
it will be a great honor to be “the chief of the nations” (Jer. 31:7) and thus
to “judge between the nations” (Isa. 2:4), the result will be universal
gratitude to the “Lord of all” (Acts 10:36; Rom. 10:12). In this way, God
has ordained between Jew and Gentile an “economy of mutual blessing,” as
R. Kendall Soulen describes it, which will ultimately overflow to the glory
of God.42

New Testament Affirmation

At this point we must question whether or not the New Testament seeks to
rescind or revoke this Jewish birthright.43 To say it clearly: I do not believe
Jesus or his early followers would have ever dreamed that the God of Israel
would change his relationship with the people of Israel (a conclusion that
ought to be somewhat self-evident). So Jesus assured his disciples, “Truly I
tell you, in the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his
glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones,
judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19:28, CSB).44 It was taken for
granted that the Messiah would sit on his glorious throne, administrating the
renewal of all things through the restored people of Israel represented by
twelve literal thrones.45 This was their assumed hope of “eternal life” (vv.
16, 29). The idea, prevalent in many commentaries, that Jesus’ reference to
“twelve thrones” was symbolic of the eschatological judgment of the Jews
or of a universalized, nonethnic “new Israel” borders on the absurd.46
Moreover, Jesus’ calling and sending of “the twelve” (Mark 3:16; John
6:70; 1 Cor. 15:5) is most clearly understood as a sign of his ministry to
“the house of Israel” (Matt. 10:6; 15:24) in light of its expected
restoration.47 In other words, Jesus chose twelve disciples because everyone
knew there would be twelve literal thrones to fill in the age to come.
Similarly, during the Last Supper Jesus promised his disciples, “You are
those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign to you, as my
Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in
my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke
22:28–30).48 Here again the eschatological and Israelocentric coming of the
kingdom of God was the assumed end (vv. 16–18). The issue is never the
kind of kingdom to be inherited, but rather the kind of people who would
inherit the kingdom.49 Unfortunately, many of the Jewish heirs loved this
life more than eternal life (cf. Matt. 6:2; 23:25; Luke 16:14), which made
them act more like the Gentiles (cf. Matt. 6:31–33; Luke 22:24–26) rather
than true children of God (cf. Matt. 3:9; Luke 6:35).
For this reason Jesus rebuked his disciples concerning their argument
over who would sit at Jesus’ right and left in his kingdom (cf. Matt. 20:21;
Mark 10:37). The reality of the governmental positions (assuming twelve
thrones) is never brought into question, only who would assign them (the
Father) and who would receive them: “But whoever would be great among
you must be your servant” (Matt. 20:26; Mark 10:43). Again, the greatness
referred to here is presumably the first and second of the twelve thrones.
Jesus corrects the disciples’ pride and hubris, not their expectations.
Similarly, Jesus warned his followers, “Many will come from east and
west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of
heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer
darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:11–
12, NRSV). Here again the Israelitic nature of the kingdom is taken for
granted; it is the final expression of the patriarchal covenants. The warning
simply concerns the threat of expulsion from the presupposed messianic
feast (Isa. 25:6–9; cf. Matt. 22:1–14; Luke 14:15–24).50
At another time Jesus even goes so far as to refer to the Jews as
“children” and the Gentiles as “dogs” (Matt. 15:26; Mark 7:27), thus
emphasizing Jewish preeminence at the divine table of redemptive history.
The affirmative response of the Canaanite woman—“Yes, Lord, yet even
the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table” (Matt. 15:27)—
then evokes Jesus’ declaration: “O woman, great is your faith!” (v. 28). Few
are the Gentiles today, it seems, who would respond like this Canaanite
woman!51
No evidence, however, seems more conclusive concerning the
continuance of Jewish election than Jesus’ own post-resurrection teachings.
For forty days he appeared to his disciples, “speaking about the kingdom of
God” (Acts 1:3). Surely the apostles would have had many questions after
such in-depth teaching, yet the singular question that gets recorded is “Lord,
will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (v. 6). If Jesus was
introducing a universalized and spiritualized kingdom, it seems he was a
fairly obtuse teacher.52 If it cannot be said clearly in forty days, then it
probably ought not to be said.53 But Jesus did say it, and he confirmed it by
saying, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed
by his own authority” (v. 7).54 The Israelitic messianic kingdom would
come, for its timing was “fixed,” or “set” (Gk. tithēmi), by the Father (note
also the same phraseology of “times and seasons” in 1 Thess. 5:1 in
reference to the day of the Lord). Before that day, however, the disciples
would receive power from the Holy Spirit to be “witnesses in Jerusalem and
in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (v. 8).55 Jesus thus
affirms the expectation but corrects the timing.
In this light, the proclamation of the kingdom in the early church is
assumedly Israelitic (Acts 8:12; 14:22; 20:25; 28:31)—that is, “the same
hope” (24:15, NLT) as unbelieving Jews (cf. also 26:7), only followers of
Jesus sought to attain that Israelitic hope by faith in a sacrificial and
atonemental interpretation of Jesus’ death (cf. Rom. 9:30—10:4; Gal. 3:21–
29; Phil. 3:8–11). For this reason, the kingdom is never defined in the
epistolary materials, but only referenced in a manner interchangeable with
other Jewish eschatological concepts like the day of the Lord, eternal life,
resurrection of the dead, etc. (see further discussion in the appendix).
Paul thus maintains Jewish preeminence in the administration of “the
day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Rom. 2:5).
For “There will be trouble and calamity for everyone who keeps on doing
what is evil—for the Jew first and also for the Gentile. But there will be
glory and honor and peace from God for all who do good—for the Jew first
and also for the Gentile” (vv. 9–10, NLT). Paul never would have entertained
the repudiation of Jewish election. Rather, being sent to the Gentiles, he
simply questioned, “Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of
Gentiles also?” (Rom. 3:29–30). Moreover, in light of Jewish election,
priority was given in the preaching and administration of the gospel itself:
“first to the Jew, then to the Gentile” (Rom. 1:16, NIV). This approach is
seen throughout Acts (cf. 13:5; 14:1; 17:1; 18:4, 19; 19:8; 28:17) and is
exemplified by Paul’s declaration to the Jews in Pisidian Antioch: “It was
necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it
aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning
to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46). Such a missiological pattern was not adopted
for reasons of efficiency or pragmatism, but rather on the grounds of
covenantal obligation.56 Since the older brother will receive first in the
divine inheritance, he ought also to receive first in the good news of the
sacrificial means which guarantees the promised eternal inheritance.
Furthermore, in Romans 9–11 Paul settles any and all debate concerning
the possible abrogation of the Jewish birthright. Concerning “my kinsmen
according to the flesh, who are Israelites” (9:3–4, NASB), Paul emphatically
declares, “As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as
regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the
gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (11:28–29). It is this
“irrevocable calling,”57 according to the covenants made with the
forefathers, which Paul has in mind when he asks, “Has God rejected his
people?” (11:1). To which he clearly answers, “By no means! . . . God has
not rejected his people whom he foreknew” (vv. 1–2).58 Though they
rejected their Messiah, this was by divine foreknowledge, so that “through
their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel
jealous” (v. 11). Yet this “stumble” is by no means a “fall” (v. 11), for the
“mystery” (v. 25a) in all of this is not a rejection of Jewish primogeniture
but a simple chronological “partial hardening” of the Jews “until the
fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (v. 25b). Then, indeed, “all Israel will
be saved” (v. 26a); and in plain fulfillment of Isaiah 59:20ff., “The
Deliverer will come from Zion” (v. 26b).59
So “the myth of an undifferentiated humanity,”60 both in this age and in
the age to come, should be soundly dismissed.61 As Barry Horner puts it,
“God does have a distinctive, ongoing, covenantal regard for Israel after the
flesh as beloved enemies (Rom. 11:28).”62 And thus Horner concludes
concerning the Bible’s vision of the future, “This universal kingdom on a
glorified earth will incorporate a blessed unity with diversity, that is, the
regenerate nation of Israel will inhabit the fruitful promised land under the
reign of Jesus Christ from Jerusalem surrounded by regenerate Gentile
nations. In this setting of heaven come to earth, Israel and the Jewish people
will be fulfilled (Rom. 11:12), not superseded, and the Gentile nations will
happily submit to this divine order as engrafted wild olive branches.”63

Gentile Inclusion and Unity

If redemptive history is indeed differentiated on the basis of ethnicity, how
then do we understand Paul when he says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek,
there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28)? Or elsewhere—“Here there is not Greek
and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free;
but Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:11)? Many take such verses as proof of
the revocation of Jewish election, that God no longer substantially regards
ethnicity.64 Paul was not saying this, however. He was simply commenting
on the commensurate quality of salvation and the subsequent unity of
faith.65 Jew and Gentile alike will enjoy the glory of the new earth and will
be richly blessed in the resurrection by their common Lord and Father.
Therefore Paul summarizes in Romans 10:12–13: “For there is no
distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all,
bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For ‘everyone who calls on the
name of the Lord will be saved.’”
Though Jew and Gentile are “fellow heirs, members of the same body,
and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 3:6), the divine
inheritance will still delineate different roles of salvation.66 Different
children can be fellow heirs and members of the same house, yet hold
different roles according to birthright and parental commission. So too
within the church. Jew and Gentile alike are “fellow citizens” (Eph. 2:19),
yet their citizenship is still in relation to “the commonwealth of Israel” (v.
12). Paul is simply battling against the alienation and “hostility” (v. 14) that
had grown between Jew and Gentile (as an older and younger sibling might
become antagonistic toward one another).
Such animosity between Jew and Gentile was part of a larger trend
within late second-temple Judaism. In an attempt to guarantee that Israel
would not become apostate (and thus receive another exilic-type
punishment), Jews sought an ever-stricter adherence to the law—which,
combined with growing Roman provocation, expressed itself in a
progressive condemnation of and separation from the Gentiles.67 Different
groups within Judaism (cf. Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes) held
different positions concerning the Gentiles, but the stricter of the Pharisees
(i.e., the House of Shammai)68 seemingly rejected the idea that the Gentiles
would participate in salvation at all.69 They believed that Gentiles would
only be blessed in Abraham (Gen. 12:3 et al.) if they “became Jews” (Est.
8:17, NASB) and thereby “join themselves to the LORD” (Isa. 56:6; cf. Deut.
23:8; Jer. 50:5; Zech. 2:11).70
Those who became Jews were known as “proselytes” (Matt. 23:15; Acts
2:11; 6:5; 13:43),71 and their conversion was confirmed by “circumcision,
baptism, and the offering of a sacrifice in the temple.”72 Those who forsook
their pagan idolatry but refrained from becoming Jews were known as
“God-fearers” (cf. Acts 10:22; 13:26; 17:4). Such Gentiles were expected to
follow the universal laws of God,73 which were later termed “the Noahide
Laws.”74 There was debate within Judaism at the time, though, as to
whether or not God-fearing Gentiles would inherit eternal life or be
condemned to Gehenna.75
The book of Acts seems to indicate that the general sentiment of the
early apostolic church was that God-fearers would not be saved.76 Thus the
scandal of Acts 10 is understood: Cornelius was a “God-fearing man” (v.
22), yet “The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were
astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the
Gentiles” (v. 45, NRSV). Similarly, when Peter returned to Jerusalem, “The
circumcised believers criticized him” for eating with “uncircumcised men”
(11:2–3, NRSV). However, when Peter explained his vision and the granting
of the gift of the Holy Spirit, they praised God, saying, “Then to the
Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life” (11:18).
The Jerusalem council (Acts 15) is best understood, I believe, in the
same light of conflicting opinions concerning the destiny of repentant
Gentiles on the day of judgment (see figure 6.5).77 Some of the stricter
Pharisaical believers were adamant: “Unless you are circumcised according
to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved” (v. 1). But Peter countered,
“God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy
Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them,
having cleansed their hearts by faith” (vv. 8–9). Thus the Gentiles were
shown to be sealed for eternal life apart from becoming Jews, which was
deemed to agree (Gk. sumphōneō)78 with the prophets (vv. 15–17, cf. Amos
9:11–12)—Gentiles would inherit eternal life as Gentiles. In other words,
Gentiles do not have to become Jews in order to worship the God of Israel
and inherit the Jewish apocalyptic hope.79 Or as historical scholar Paula
Fredriksen summarizes, “Gentiles do not have to become Jews in order to
participate in Israel’s salvation.”80 A supersessionist reading of this passage
according to realized eschatology seems particularly inane.81
As such, it was deemed that the Gentiles would continue to be Gentiles,
observing some form of proto-Noahide laws (vv. 19–21), and the Jews
would continue to be Jews, observing the Torah.82 This straightforward
approach to the Jerusalem council (and the issue of Jew and Gentile at large
in the New Testament) is further reinforced in Acts 21, where Paul is
accused of encouraging Jews to forsake Torah observance (v. 21). Paul
silences such criticism, proving his own “observance of the law” (v. 24) and
reinforcing the dissimilar standard for Gentiles (v. 25). Hence Paul
concludes in his first letter to the Corinthians, “Let each one live his life in
the situation the Lord assigned when God called him. This is what I
command in all the churches. Was anyone already circumcised when he was
called? He should not undo his circumcision. Was anyone called while
uncircumcised? He should not get circumcised” (7:17–18, CSB).83

Figure 6.5 – Conflicting Views of the Fate of the Gentiles in Acts 15

Jew and Gentile alike will be saved from the wrath to come on the basis
of faith in Christ crucified (cf. Rom. 3:30; 4:9–12; 9:30–32). However,
Jews should “bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matt. 3:8; cf. Phil.
2:12) according to the Torah, while Gentiles should do likewise according
to some form of universal Noahide laws. Since the former is an expansion
of the latter,84 both are perfected in love and humility (cf. Rom. 13:8–10;
Gal. 5:14), and accordingly both have the same broad pattern of
discipleship (cf. Rom. 15:5–9; Eph. 4:1–6; Phil. 2:1–13).85 Paul was
generally contending against pride, which approached works of the Torah as
the basis of eschatological salvation (cf. Rom. 4:2; 11:6; Eph. 2:9). This
same pride could also corrupt Gentiles (cf. Rom. 11:20; 1 Cor. 1:29),
seeking justification on the basis of the Noahide laws or some other Gentile
ecclesiological standard or monastic rule (to be further discussed in chapter
8). Rather, “God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of
faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith” (Rom. 3:30, NRSV).

CHRIST’S KINGDOM: THE GLORY OF

JERUSALEM
Not only did Jesus’ followers believe that he would “restore the kingdom to
Israel” (Acts 1:6), but they also expected him to inaugurate a specific kind
of Israelitic kingdom: “the coming kingdom of our father David” (Mark
11:10). Since the Messiah is the “son of David” (Matt. 1:1; 22:42), God will
give him “the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of
Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32–33).
Thus the kingdom of God was expected to be a Davidic, Israelitic messianic
kingdom.
This expectation was simply derived from the Davidic covenant, in
which God promised, “I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall
come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. . . . I will establish
the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Sam. 7:12–13). As discussed in the
last chapter, Psalm 89 reiterates the surety and eternality of this covenant: “I
have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn to David my
servant: ‘I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all
generations. . . . I will not lie to David. His offspring shall endure forever,
his throne as long as the sun before me’” (vv. 3–4, 35–36).
Similarly, Isaiah prophesied, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is
given. . . . Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no
end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to
uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and
forevermore” (Isa. 9:6–7). And again, “In love a throne will be established;
in faithfulness a man will sit on it—one from the house of David—one who
in judging seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness” (Isa. 16:5,
NIV). So too Jeremiah: “In those days and at that time I will cause a
righteous Branch of David to spring forth; and He shall execute justice and
righteousness on the earth. . . . For thus says the LORD, ‘David shall never
lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel’” (Jer. 33:15–17, NASB;
cf. Ezek. 34:23–24; 37:24–25).
The Scriptures therefore assume continuity between the historical
Davidic kingdom and the eschatological Davidic kingdom: “The former
dominion will be restored to you; kingship will come to Daughter
Jerusalem” (Mic. 4:8, NIV). So Amos prophesied: “In that day I will restore
the fallen house of David. I will repair its damaged walls. From the ruins I
will rebuild it and restore its former glory. And Israel will possess what is
left of Edom and all the nations I have called to be mine” (9:11–12, NLT).
The Messiah will thus sit on a restored and glorified Davidic throne. He
will not sit on Nebuchadnezzar’s throne—nor Alexander’s, nor Augustus’s,
nor Charlemagne’s, nor Suleiman’s, nor James’s, nor Washington’s.
Establishing this simple idea in the mind of a modern Gentile is tantamount
to casting a mountain into the sea (cf. Matt. 21:21). Yet such is the
condition of our depravity that it seems to take a miracle from God wrought
by the power of the Holy Spirit to break apart the stronghold of
ethnocentrism (i.e., “gentile-centrism”).
The centrality of the Davidic throne in the prophetic literature also
corresponds with the centrality of Jerusalem.86 Because God led David to
establish his throne in Jerusalem (2 Sam. 5:6–12; 1 Chron. 11:4–9), the
Messiah will take up his throne there, for it is “the city of our God . . . the
city of the great King” (Ps. 48:1–2), which Jesus himself reaffirms (cf.
Matt. 5:35). Therefore, in accord with the Davidic covenant, God will make
new heavens, a new earth, and a new Jerusalem, as Isaiah declares:

For behold, I create new heavens

and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered
or come into mind.
 But be glad and rejoice forever
in that which I create;
for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,
and her people to be a gladness.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem
and be glad in my people;
no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping
and the cry of distress.
(Isa. 65:17–19)

God will reign through the Messiah on the very mount within Jerusalem
where David built his palace, “the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of
David” (2 Sam. 5:7; 1 Chron. 11:5). “Mount Zion” is a literal hill in the
southeast of Jerusalem.87 And it is here that God declares, “I have set my
King on Zion, my holy hill” (Ps. 2:6).88 It is “the mount that God desired
for his abode, yes, where the LORD will dwell forever” (Ps. 68:16). “For the
LORD has chosen Zion, he has desired it for his dwelling, saying, ‘This is
my resting place for ever and ever; here I will sit enthroned, for I have
desired it. . . . Here I will make a horn grow for David and set up a lamp for
my anointed one’” (Ps. 132:13–17, NIV). Indeed, “The LORD Almighty will
reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before its elders—with great
glory” (Isa. 24:23, NIV). And “He will swallow up on this mountain the
covering that is cast over all peoples. . . . He will swallow up death forever”
(Isa. 25:7–8). Hence the relationship between Israel and the nations in the
age to come is further specified by its locus in Jerusalem:

And many nations shall come, and say:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between many peoples,
and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away.
(Mic. 4:2–3)
 In this way, the messianic kingdom will not only be Israelocentric, but it
will also be “Jerusalocentric.” That is, the center of the new earth will be
the New Jerusalem.89 God will administrate the restoration of all things
through the Messiah reigning on Mount Zion as King of Israel, reigning
over all the nations. Thus the Son of David will rule a Jerusalemic kingdom
in the age to come (see figure 6.6)—“The LORD will extend your powerful
kingdom from Jerusalem; you will rule over your enemies” (Ps. 110:2, NLT).

Figure 6.6 – The Davidic, Jerusalemic Messianic Kingdom

Within this covenantal arrangement, the prophets ring in chordal fashion

concerning Jerusalem and its future. As Isaiah says, “On that day the
Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious. . . . Then the LORD will
create a cloud of smoke by day and a glowing flame of fire by night over
the entire site of Mount Zion and over its assemblies” (Isa. 4:2–5, CSB).
Likewise, Micah concludes, “The LORD will reign over them in Mount Zion
from this time forth and forevermore” (Mic. 4:7). And Jeremiah: “At that
time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the LORD, and all nations shall
gather to it, to the presence of the LORD in Jerusalem, and they shall no
more stubbornly follow their own evil heart” (Jer. 3:17). And Joel: “The
LORD roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens
and the earth quake. . . . So you shall know that I am the LORD your God,
who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain” (Joel 3:16–17). And Zechariah:
“Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in
Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the LORD” (Zech. 8:22). Moreover,
“On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to
the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. . . . And the LORD will
be king over all the earth” (Zech. 14:8–9).
The restoration of the Davidic throne (cf. Amos 9:11; Mic. 4:8)
therefore involves the restoration of Jerusalem. As the psalmist declares,
“Then the nations will fear the name of the LORD, and all the kings of the
earth your glory, for the LORD will rebuild Zion; he will appear in his glory”
(Ps. 102:15–16, CSB). Similarly, Isaiah describes the “good news” (52:7) of
Jerusalem’s redemption:

The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice;

together they sing for joy;
for eye to eye they see
the return of the LORD to Zion.
Break forth together into singing,
you waste places of Jerusalem,
for the LORD has comforted his people;
he has redeemed Jerusalem.
The LORD has bared his holy arm
before the eyes of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth shall see
the salvation of our God.
(Isa. 52:8–10)

Thus David cries, “Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of
Zion!” (Ps. 14:7; 53:6), in accordance with the divine decree: “Out of Zion,
the perfection of beauty, God shines forth” (Ps. 50:2). For God has
promised, “I will put salvation in Zion, my splendor in Israel” (Isa. 46:13,
CSB). And he has prophesied, “Awake, awake, Zion, clothe yourself with
strength! . . . Shake off your dust; rise up, sit enthroned, Jerusalem” (Isa.
52:1–2, NIV). So Isaiah intercedes, “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes
forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch. The nations shall
see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory” (62:1–2). God will
always “set watchmen,” both Jews and Gentiles, who will “give him no rest
until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth” (vv. 6–7).
For it is in the establishment of Jerusalem by the hand of God that all things
will be made new.
Therefore we “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Ps. 122:6), for “there
thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David” (v. 5).
Jerusalem’s destiny in the age to come informs our prayers in this age. For
this reason we long for the day when “the ransomed of the LORD shall
return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their
heads” (Isa. 35:10; cf. 51:11). Jerusalem may be a “barren woman” in this
age, but she will “break forth into singing” (Isa. 54:1) when she gives birth
to the righteous in the age to come. At that time she will be adorned by God
in glory like a bride:

For your Maker is your husband—

the LORD Almighty is his name—
the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
he is called the God of all the earth.
The LORD will call you back
as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit. . . .
Afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted,
I will rebuild you with stones of turquoise,
your foundations with lapis lazuli.
I will make your battlements of rubies,
your gates of sparkling jewels,
and all your walls of precious stones.
(Isa. 54:5–6, 11–12, NIV)

Such prophetic descriptions were engrained in Jews by the first

century,90 and they inform the context of the New Testament, especially in
relation to Revelation 21–22.91 God will establish “the holy city, new
Jerusalem” (Rev. 21:2; cf. Isa. 52:1; Dan. 9:24), “prepared as a bride
adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2; cf. Isa. 54:5–6; 62:4–5). It will be “the
dwelling place of God” (Rev. 21:3; cf. Ps. 132:13; Ezek. 37:27), where he
will “wipe away every tear” (Rev. 21:4a; cf. Isa. 25:8) and where “grief,
crying, and pain will be no more” (Rev. 21:4b, CSB; cf. Isa. 65:18). It will be
adorned with jewels and precious metals (Rev. 21:11–21; cf. Isa. 54:11–12;
62:3), and the glory of God will cover it (Rev. 21:23–27; cf. Isa. 4; 60;
62:2). In it will be “the river of the water of life” and “the tree of life,”
which will be for “the healing of the nations” (Rev. 22:1–2; cf. Ezek. 47:1–
12; Zech. 14:8). To a Jewish believer in the early church, John’s vision
would have aligned perfectly with the New Jerusalem described by the
aggregate of prophetic oracles. No one would have spiritually reinterpreted
the Tanakh and its straightforward prophecies in light of such a vision.
Rather, the vision with its figurative language and symbolic elements would
have simply reinforced the covenants and their derivative prophecies.92
Jerusalem was commonly understood to be “the city of the great King”
(Matt. 5:35; cf. Ps. 48:2). Hence believing Jews welcomed Jesus by faith
into the city with palm branches (a sign of victory and nationalism),93
saying, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord—the King of
Israel!” (John 12:13, CSB). And when the Pharisees demanded that Jesus
rebuke his adulating followers, he declared, “I tell you, if these were silent,
the very stones would cry out” (Luke 19:40). If Jesus was secretly trying to
spiritualize or reinterpret the prophetic significance of Jerusalem, his
response would be appallingly duplicitous.
Moreover, evoking the pastoral imagery of the Messiah (cf. Jer. 23:4–6;
Ezek. 34:23; 37:24; Mic. 5:4), Jesus cried out, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the
city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often
would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood
under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matt. 23:37). This cry was
then followed by two prophecies: the destruction of the temple (“Your
house is left to you desolate,” v. 38), and thereafter the ultimate fulfillment
of the messianic coronation psalm hailed at the triumphal entry: “I tell you,
you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord’” (v. 39; cf. Ps. 118:26). Thus Jesus assumes that Israel
will see him again; they will acknowledge his messiahship; and Jerusalem
will be gathered under his wing, so to speak. Likewise, Jesus prophesied, in
accord with common Jewish apocalyptic expectations concerning the
eschatological “messianic woes” (cf. Ezek. 39:23; Dan. 7:25; Zech. 14:2):
“Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the
Gentiles are fulfilled” (Luke 21:24), implying the messianic rebuilding of
Jerusalem after the Son of Man returns (vv. 25–28).94
 In light of such a glorious destiny, how should believers relate to
Jerusalem and the land of Israel in this age? Why did God bring the Jews
into the land of Canaan? Why did David conquer Jerusalem? Why did
Solomon build the temple? Why not just wait for the day of the Lord and
the coming of the Messiah while living among the nations? Why not tarry
in dispersion? These questions probe to the heart of Jewish election and
calling, and they apply equally to historical as well as modern Israel. The
common Augustinian answer is that Israel entering and occupying Canaan
and Jerusalem was merely typological,95 illustrating 1) the greater
metaphysical entrance and occupation of the immaterial land and heavenly
Jerusalem, or conversely, 2) the greater expression of manifest sovereignty
through Christendom and her various centers of power.
Neither of these answers reflects the biblical description of Israel’s
calling in this age, which is at its heart a stewardship of the oracles of God
(see Rom. 3:2; cf. Deut. 4:8–10; Ps. 147:19–20; Mal. 4:4–6). Israel is called
to keep the words of the Law and Prophets until their ultimate conclusion
and administration on the last day. A theology of stewardship is inherent in
the biblical narrative as a whole, and it is summarized as such in the New
Testament (cf. “steward/manager” [Gk. oikonomos], Luke 12:42; 16:1–8; 1
Cor. 4:1–2; 1 Peter 4:10; etc.). Human beings were created to manage the
earth (cf. Gen. 1:26–28; 2:15), and we will give an account on the day of
judgment for our management. If humanity’s dominion had ever been lost
or lifted (as is often argued in various dominionistic theologies), then there
would be no reason for judgment. Rather, people are held to account on the
day of judgment for how they steward their lives in this age (cf. Rom.
14:10; 2 Cor. 5:10).
Since stewardship was commonly understood as fundamental to
mankind’s constitution, an application of that theology would have
naturally carried over to the land of Canaan, the city of Jerusalem, the
throne of David, and the temple of the Lord in light of the day of the Lord
(see figure 6.7).96 These things were not only ends in themselves, but also
tarrying mechanisms, designed to strengthen hope and faith in God for the
future.
 Figure 6.7 – Israelocentric Stewardship in Light of the Day of Judgment

The steward/tenant relationship between God and Israel concerning the

land of Canaan is initiated and stated explicitly in Leviticus 25: “The land
shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but
aliens and tenants” (v. 23, NRSV). This idea of divine ownership of the land
(and human management) lies behind all of the land laws of Leviticus 25,
and it extends throughout the prophetic literature. Because God has chosen
Canaan as “his land” (Joel 2:18), it is destined for his glory, and it is this
land where he will “gather all the nations and . . . enter into judgment with
them there” (Joel 3:2). Though he has repeatedly disciplined his tenants,
even removing them from the land altogether, “the LORD will again comfort
Zion and again choose Jerusalem” (Zech. 1:17).
Akin to the land, the Davidic dynasty was considered a stewardship
from the Lord. God himself “set up the throne of David over Israel” (2 Sam.
3:10); and because one of David’s own descendants would one day sit upon
that very throne (cf. 2 Sam. 7:16; Ps. 89:4; Isa. 9:7; Luke 1:32), the Davidic
dynasty was essentially “proleptic”—that is, anticipating a future messianic
coronation.97 Thus historical Davidic kings were the “anointed” of the Lord
(2 Sam. 22:51; 2 Chron. 6:42; Ps. 18:50; 28:8; 89:38), who, like Solomon,
“sat on the throne of the LORD as king in place of David his father” (1
Chron. 29:23; cf. 1 Kings 2:12).
The throne of the Lord, however, was ultimately designed to
accommodate the final “Anointed One” (Ps. 2:2–6; 89:20–37; 132:17; Dan.
9:25), who would establish the Israelitic kingdom in true righteousness and
justice (cf. Ps. 72:2; Isa. 9:7; 16:5; Jer. 23:5). Accordingly, David prayed at
the end of his life: “We are sojourners before You, and tenants, as all our
fathers were” (1 Chron. 29:15, NASB). In this way the historical Davidic
kingdom was understood as “the kingdom of the LORD” (1 Chron. 28:5; 2
Chron. 13:8), which was to be kept and stewarded until the coming of the
Messiah and the establishment of the eternal kingdom.98
Such a mindset of stewardship is most clearly expressed in Jesus’
parable of the tenants (Matt. 21:33–44 and par.), which follows his
triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his cleansing of the temple. The land of
Israel, God, and the Jews are like a vineyard planted by a master and leased
to tenants (v. 33). The master sent servants (prophets) and his son (the
Messiah) to collect the land’s fruit (repentance in light of coming judgment;
cf. Matt. 3:8; Acts 26:20). The tenants killed them, however, for an
illegitimate inheritance (reward in this age; cf. Matt. 6:2; 23:5–7). The
primary question is then, “When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes,
what will he do to those tenants?” (v. 40). Indeed, he will “put those
wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants” (v.
41). Though the parable was intensely convicting, no one questioned its
overall framework. The Jews are indeed called to be tenants, stewarding the
land, law, and temple in light of the final judgment.
Similarly, Paul affirmed the gamut of Jewish stewardship, saying, “They
are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the
giving of the law, the worship, and the promises” (Rom. 9:4). Though
interpreting such a list is difficult,99 its most straightforward reading implies
that Jews are entrusted with a unique birthright established by the covenants
unto an apocalyptic glory.100 Moreover, their calling in this age involves the
stewardship of the oracles (“promises”), which include the land, law, and
temple (“worship”).101
Though some Jews indeed lack faith in their appointed Messiah, Paul
never questions the underlying covenantal relationship. Hence messianic
Jews in the New Testament continued their identification and fidelity with
Israel corporately because they continued to believe in “the promise made
by God to our fathers, to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they
earnestly worship night and day” (Acts 26:6–7), which also gives context to
James’s statement about “how many thousands of Jews there are who have
believed, and they are all zealous for the law” (Acts 21:20). Messianic Jews
in the New Testament simply assumed Jesus would return to Jerusalem,
build his father’s house, and rule from Zion, etc. And as such they
continued to keep and steward the land, law, and temple, alongside non-
messianic Jews.102
Such a theology of Jewish election and stewardship weighs heavily in
the discussion of the role of the Jews in the land of Israel today. Many argue
vehemently that the Jews no longer have a role or calling in the land.103
Others say that the Jews retain a unique calling to keep the land.104 We
must heartily affirm the latter. Though many in the land today are indeed
apostate, that too was the case before the exile (cf. Isa. 3:9; Jer. 2:19) and
before the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem (cf. Acts 7:51; Rom. 11:25).
Though the Jews have always fallen short (as have all Gentiles!), ought we
not support their divine right to promulgate the oracles, of which the land
itself stands at the forefront (cf. Ps. 72:8; 89:25; Zech. 9:10)?
Moreover, just because the Jews cannot steward all of the oracles (e.g.,
the Davidic dynasty, temple service, etc.), should they not steward as many
as possible? Modern Israel engages in many objectionable practices, of
course, but should we not support and encourage righteous stewardship
rather than the rejection of Jewish election altogether?105 If God chooses to
discipline his stewards yet again and remove them from the land (as seems
anticipated in Daniel 12:7, Joel 3:2, Zechariah 14:2, etc.), so be it.106 But
woe to those who presume upon divine mercy and election.

CHRIST’S KINGDOM: THE GLORY OF

THE TEMPLE
Not only will the Messiah be the King of Israel ruling from Mount Zion in
Jerusalem, but he will also build and rule from the temple of the Lord. At
the heart of the Davidic covenant is the building of a house, or “temple,” for
God. David’s decision to build a temple for the ark of the Lord itself
provided the context for the pronouncement of the Davidic covenant (2
Sam. 7:2; 1 Chron. 17:1). Thus the Lord spoke concerning the Davidic
Offspring, “He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the
throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Sam. 7:13; cf. 1 Chron. 17:12).
The prominence of the Jerusalemic temple in the Scriptures cannot be
overstated. Because it was the culmination of prophetic history, the “house
of the LORD,”107 or the “house of God,”108 was the nucleus of Israel’s life. It
was also understood to be God’s “footstool” (1 Chron. 28:2; Ps. 99:5; Lam.
2:1; cf. “the place of my feet,” Isa. 60:13). And as such it was the sign of
his present sovereignty and governance over creation, pointing to his future
execution of divine judgment through his appointed Messiah. As Psalm 132
vividly portrays,

Let us go to his dwelling place,

let us worship at his footstool, saying,
“Arise, LORD, and come to your resting place,
you and the ark of your might.” . . .
The LORD swore an oath to David,
a sure oath he will not revoke:
“One of your own descendants
I will place on your throne.” . . .
For the LORD has chosen Zion,
he has desired it for his dwelling, saying,
“This is my resting place for ever and ever;
here I will sit enthroned, for I have desired it.”
(Ps. 132:7–14, NIV)

The temple was understood as God’s eternal “dwelling place” (2 Chron.

36:15; Ezek. 37:27) and “resting place” (cf. 2 Chron. 6:41; Isa. 11:10), the
place where he would ultimately come and take up residence forever
through his Messiah. The prophetic writings assume the primacy of
Jerusalem and Mount Zion, because the eschatological house of the Lord
will be built there. For example, the well-known Isaianic vision: “In the last
days the mountain of the LORD’s house will be established at the top of the
mountains and will be raised above the hills. All nations will stream to it . .
.” (2:2, CSB). In this way Zion and the temple are understood to be the
redemptive epicenter of the new earth in the age to come, wherein God will
administrate the nations through the Messiah, the king of Israel (see figure
6.8).109 Thus Isaiah declares, “The sound of an uproar from the city! A
sound from the temple! The sound of the LORD, rendering recompense to
his enemies!” (Isa. 66:6). Most references to Jerusalem and Zion in the
prophetic literature generally assume the presence of the house of the Lord
—for example, Joel: “The LORD roars from Zion, and utters his voice from
Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth quake” (Joel 3:16).

Figure 6.8 – The Messianic Administration of Divine Glory in the Age to

Come

Like the land and the monarchy, the temple was also assumed to be a
stewardship unto the coming of the Messiah and the day of the Lord. So
Daniel summarizes that the Anointed One will come “to bring in everlasting
righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy
place” (Dan. 9:24, CSB). Zechariah similarly prophesies the coming
messianic “Branch” (6:12): “It is he who shall build the temple of the LORD
and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne” (v. 13). Or
as Isaiah foretells, “The Redeemer will come to Zion” (Isa. 59:20, CSB),
which will result in the glory of the Lord rising upon it (60:1–2) and the
nations coming to its light (60:3–6); and their offerings “shall come up with
acceptance on my altar, and I will beautify my beautiful house” (60:7).
Furthermore, the gates of the New Jerusalem will be open continually so
that “people may bring to you the wealth of the nations . . . to beautify the
place of my sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet glorious”
(60:11–13; cf. Rev. 21:23–26).
Likewise, Ezekiel ties the resurrection of the dead (37:1–14) and the
restoration of Israel (vv. 15–23) to the installation of the Davidic King (vv.
24–25) and the establishment of the eternal divine sanctuary: “David my
servant shall be their prince forever. . . . And I will set them in their land
and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore.
My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they
shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD who
sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore” (vv. 25–
28).
Ezekiel goes on to describe the glory of this sanctuary in chapters 40–
47, wherein the continuity between the temple in this age and the temple in
the age to come is accentuated.110 Just as “the glory of the LORD filled the
house of the LORD” (1 Kings 8:10) at its dedication, so also in Ezekiel’s
vision “the glory of the LORD filled the temple” (Ezek. 43:5). Moreover, as
the temple is God’s “footstool” in this age (1 Chron. 28:2; Ps. 99:5; Lam.
2:1), so also in the age to come God says, “This is the place of my throne
and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the
people of Israel forever” (Ezek. 43:7). Rather than undermining the hope of
a future messianic temple, the many similarities between the historical and
eschatological temples ought to simply reinforce the stewardship role of the
historical temple in preparation for its eschatological glory.111
In this regard, the postexilic prophets were chiefly concerned with the
establishment and righteous stewardship of the temple. The book of Haggai
recounts the prophetic call to rebuild the house of the Lord (chap. 1), and
the prophetic declaration: “I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of
all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory. . . . The latter
glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts”
(2:7–9). Thus Haggai envisioned three temples: the former Solomonic, the
present postexilic, and the eschatological messianic—the present being
stewarded unto its eschatological filling. The “latter glory” is presumably
within the common expectation of the day of the Lord (cf. “on that day,” v.
23), in which God will “shake the heavens and the earth” (v. 21) and
“overthrow the throne of kingdoms” (v. 22).
 Similarly, the book of Malachi represents a strong prophetic rebuke
concerning poor stewardship of the temple. The priests showed contempt
for the Lord by bringing sick and lame offerings (chap. 1), violating the
covenant with Levi (2:8) and profaning the sanctuary of the Lord (2:11).
Their faithlessness was rooted in unbelief (2:17), to which God answered:
“The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the
messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says
the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can
stand when he appears?” (3:1–2). From the temple this messianic Lord will
refine and purify the Levites (3:3–4) and judge the wicked of the land
(3:5).112 This wickedness is ultimately expressed in a lack of temple
stewardship (3:7–12), which is also rooted in unbelief: “It is vain to serve
God” (3:14). But God reassures, “Once more you shall see the distinction
between the righteous and the wicked. . . . For behold, the day is coming,
burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be
stubble” (3:18—4:1). Consequently we have a holistic view of the
relationship between the temple in this age, the coming of the Messiah, and
the execution of “the great and awesome day of the LORD” (4:5).
As discussed in chapter 2, the temple was heavily associated with Eden,
and Jews during the second-temple period interpreted Eden as a garden
sanctuary.113 Humanity was designed with a priestly nature in the
beginning, which will find fulfillment in the age to come (cf. Rev. 3:12;
5:10; 7:15; 20:6).114 Thus, being the “last Adam” (1 Cor. 15:45; cf. Rom.
5:14), the Messiah will build the final temple on Mount Zion and
righteously reestablish humanity’s eternal priesthood (see figure 6.9), which
is in full accord with the Jewish expectations environing the New
Testament.115
The absolute centrality of the temple in Jesus’ day is generally
accepted.116 Anything that takes “forty-six years to build” (John 2:20)
implies a great deal of value, meaning, and ambition. Such meaning was
simply derived from the Tanakh and its development of messianic
expectation, and that without question or pretense. Unfortunately, many
assume that Jesus and the apostles taught “a complete repudiation of the
whole temple-idea.”117 However, there is simply little scriptural evidence
for such a claim.118 The vast majority of references and interactions with
the temple in the New Testament are positive, reinforcing its divinely
ordained place in redemptive history.

Figure 6.9 – The Jewish Apocalyptic View of the Temple/Tabernacle

It was in the temple that Zechariah saw his forerunner vision (Luke
1:22) while performing his priestly duty (v. 8). Likewise, Mary and Joseph
took Jesus to the temple “to present him to the Lord” (Luke 2:22). There
Simeon, who was “waiting for the consolation of Israel” (v. 25), was led by
the Spirit into the temple to prophesy Jesus’ messianic destiny (v. 34). So
too, Anna, who “did not depart from the temple” (v. 37), blessed Jesus and
spoke of him to all “who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem” (v.
38). And when Jesus as a boy was found in the temple, he simply
responded, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (v.
49). Surely there was no divine guise involved in the temple being the
context of all of these early interactions, which held such strong messianic
overtones.
Similarly, after Jesus’ baptism, Satan questioned his messiahship three
times, culminating in the Lukan account (4:3–12) with the quoting of Psalm
91:11–12 at the pinnacle of the temple. Never in question were the temple
itself, the coming of angels for trampling the serpent underfoot, the
inheriting of all the kingdoms of the earth, or the transformation of the
earth’s stony ecology (all of which were commonly associated with
messianic function within Jewish apocalyptic thought). It was only the
timing and presumption of messianic anointing that was at stake.
While cleansing the temple, Jesus referred to it, without the slightest
pretense or equivocation, as “my house” (Matt. 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke
19:46) and “my Father’s house” (John 2:16). Jesus was actually zealous for
the temple (John 2:17), not against it. He cleansed it because he cared about
it, not because he disparaged it. In fact, toward nothing else in the Gospel
accounts does Jesus express such zeal (a point that ought to be considered
deeply). Moreover, his reference to the resurrection of “the temple of his
body” (John 2:21) ought only to reinforce the expectation of his
establishing an eschatological temple, for it was in response to the question,
“What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” (v. 18,
NIV). Therefore Jesus’ resurrection simply proved his authority to sit on his
glorious throne in the eschatological Jerusalemic temple (cf. also Matt.
21:23 and par.).
Similarly, when Jesus said, “Something greater than the temple is here”
(Matt. 12:6), he did not mean that the temple, “the house of God” (v. 4), had
been existentially superseded. He was simply referring to his own authority
and exalted position before God (akin to being “above the law,” so to
speak), which deemed him “guiltless” (v. 7), just as David and the priests
were guiltless due to their exalted position (vv. 3–5).
In Jesus’ teaching “day after day in the temple” (Luke 22:53; cf. 20:1;
21:37), there is never any record of condescension or controversion toward
the temple itself, but only toward those who officiated it (cf. Matt. 23:16–
22; Luke 20:19). If Jesus was teaching a new supersessionist, self-realized
temple, surely this would have been explicitly recorded somewhere! Yet we
read nothing of the sort. Furthermore, when the children were “crying out in
the temple, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’” (Matt. 21:15), Jesus only
affirmed their declaration by quoting Psalm 8 (commonly interpreted in
messianic terms, cf. 1 Cor. 15:27; Heb. 2:6–8).
What is more, the Olivet Discourse took place “opposite the temple”
(Mark 13:3), implying that the temple is the ultimate referent for the entire
eschatological drama. Thus the “throwing down” of the stones of the temple
(cf. Matt. 24:2 and par.) does not imply its abrogation or annulment.119
Akin to the wilderness wanderings or the exile of Israel, the AD 70
destruction of the temple (and assumedly its eschatological destruction)
only reflects temporal discipline upon rebellion and hardness of heart. The
Jews were not disinherited because of their idolatry and murdering of the
prophets, nor was the temple abrogated because of its corruption and
spiritual prostitution.120
Another substantial evidence of continued messianic expectation in
relation to the temple is the response of the disciples to Jesus’ ascension.
When the angels appeared and told them Jesus would return “in the same
way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11), they returned to Jerusalem
and “stayed continually at the temple, praising God” (Luke 24:53). In
addition, “Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the
temple” (Acts 2:46, CSB), assumedly observing the traditional hours of
prayer (cf. Acts 3:1).
Similarly, it was without any sense of guise or subversion that Peter
obeyed the angel of the Lord who commanded him, “Go stand in the temple
and speak to the people all the words of this Life” (Acts 5:20). This was the
common practice of the apostles, for “every day, in the temple and from
house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the
Christ” (5:42). Nowhere does this messianic preaching undermine the
existence of the temple, though this was the charge brought against them
(e.g., “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place”; 6:13,
cf. 21:28; 24:6). Unfortunately, the church went on in the centuries
following to become guilty of this very accusation.
Like the other Jewish apostles, Paul revered the temple. After his
conversion, he immediately “returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the
temple” (Acts 22:17), where he fell into a trance and received his call to the
Gentiles (v. 21). Again, there is never any sense of renunciation of the
temple in his mission to the Gentiles, but rather it was the locus of all such
ministry.121 Moreover, Paul clearly refuted the accusations of temple and
Torah abrogation when for seven days “he purified himself along with them
and went into the temple, giving notice when the days of purification would
be fulfilled and the offering presented for each one of them” (Acts 21:26).
The fact that Paul did this without pretense is evident in his later defense
before Felix: “I went up to worship in Jerusalem. . . . I came to bring alms
to my nation and to present offerings. While I was doing this, they found
me purified in the temple, without any crowd or tumult” (24:11, 17–18).
Likewise, Paul tells Festus, “Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against
the temple, nor against Caesar have I committed any offense” (25:8). Surely
Paul’s testimony is both honest and sincere.
Paul’s emphasis on the cross and justification by faith is framed within
the commonly assumed Jewish apocalyptic program (to be further discussed
in chapter 8). His references to “the temple service” (1 Cor. 9:13; cf. Rom.
9:4) and the Antichrist taking his seat “in the temple of God” (2 Thess. 2:4)
are evidences of this assumption. Furthermore, his references to the
individual believer (cf. 1 Cor. 3:17; 6:19) and to the church as a whole (cf.
Eph. 2:21) as a temple is simply analogous, since both contain the Holy
Spirit (cf. 2 Cor. 6:16).122 If Paul was making a radical supersessionist
reinterpretation of that which stood at the heart of the Jewish apocalyptic
worldview, then one would assume he would devote to it more than a few
sporadic verses. The present filling of the believer with the Holy Spirit was
simply understood as a “down payment” (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5, CSB), “the
guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (Eph. 1:14).
Thus the filling of the individual believer does not annul or minimize the
importance of the temple, but rather confirms the future glory which will
envelop the Messiah, his people, his temple, and the whole earth in the
resurrection.123 Paula Fredriksen summarizes well:

NT scholars will sometimes point to these verses [1 Cor. 3:16;

6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16] by way of arguing that, for Paul, Jerusalem’s
temple has been superseded by this new, spiritual “temple” of the
Christian community. I argue the opposite: Paul praises the new
community by likening it to something that he values supremely. If
he valued the temple less, he would not use it as his touchstone.
This is not an either/or situation: for Paul, God’s spirit dwells both
in Jerusalem’s temple and in the “new temple” of the believer and
of the community (Rom 9.4; cf. Matt 23.21).124

Moreover, the culmination of sacrifice in the new covenant (cf. Heb.

8:13; 9:23; 10:1) also does not annul the purpose of the temple. The temple
is not a husk carrying the kernel of sacrifice, so to speak. It is essentially a
“footstool” (1 Chron. 28:2; Ps. 99:5; Lam. 2:1)—that is, an earthly throne
room. Though the presence of God demands sacrifice in this age for the
remission of sin, the ultimate royal design of the temple endures eternally
(cf. Ps. 132:7–18; Isa. 60:13; Ezek. 43:7).125
Such logic, in light of Christ’s other royal-eschatological
encouragements to the churches in Revelation (cf. 2:7, 11, 26; 3:5, 21),
drives the promise to the Philadelphian church: “The one who conquers, I
will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it,
and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my
God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven,
and my own new name” (Rev. 3:12). These promises concerning the
messianic temple (like those in the prophetic literature) have nothing to do
with sacrifice, but rather the royal administration of the age to come.
In summary, we find the New Testament in basic conformity with the
common Jewish apocalyptic expectations of the day concerning a future
messianic temple. The assumption that Christ and the church have realized
and superseded the Jerusalemic temple is unfounded. The idea that Jesus
was essentially leading a “counter-Temple movement” seems particularly
ill-conceived.126 Jesus will return as the prophets have plainly spoken,
executing the day of the Lord, punishing the wicked, rewarding the
righteous, raising up Mount Zion, sitting on his glorious throne in the house
of the Lord, and ruling over Israel and the nations.

CHRIST’S KINGDOM: THE GLORY OF

THE MILLENNIUM
So far we have presented a basic Jewish apocalyptic view of the Scriptures
—a linear approach to history within an integrated creation (i.e., heavens
and earth), wherein this age is delineated from the age to come by the day
of the Lord. This day will bring about the judgment of the heavens and
earth by fire, restoring it to its original state of perfection and righteousness.
This judgment will be executed by God’s agent of salvation, the Messiah,
who will raise the dead corporeally, punish the wicked with everlasting
torment (i.e., Gehenna), and bless the righteous with everlasting life. This
blessing will be worked out by means of the messianic kingdom (i.e., the
kingdom of God), which is the practical framework within which the age to
come and the new earth are administrated—an Israelocentric kingdom
executed upon the basis of primogeniture. Moreover, the Christ will rule in
heavenly glory from his throne within the Jerusalemic temple raised up on
Mount Zion. It is in this way that the glory of the Lord will cover the earth
as it was in the beginning (cf. Ps. 72:19; Isa. 11:9; Hab. 2:14).127
Even among those who readily accept this basic redemptive framework,
there remains the sticky issue of chiliasm (belief in a thousand-year
messianic reign, derived from the Gk. chilias, meaning “thousand”). Indeed,
the question of whether or not there will be a transitional aspect to the age
to come demands an answer. When Jesus returns, will he immediately
inaugurate the final state of redemption, or will he progressively make his
enemies a footstool for his feet? This is the underlying issue of the
“millennial controversy”128 (“millennialism” is essentially a synonym for
chiliasm, since it derives from the Latin mille and annus, meaning
“thousand years”).
It is generally agreed that the early church was chiliastic, believing that
Jesus would inaugurate a transitional kingdom which would rule from
Jerusalem for a thousand years before the final restoration of creation. Such
an approach was most often deduced from a plain reading of Revelation
20:1–6: “They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years” (v.
4). Moreover, such a view was buttressed by kingdom passages with a
progressive aspect (e.g., Isa. 2:3; 9:7; Dan. 2:35; etc.), in which the
culmination of human rebellion is brought increasingly under messianic
submission in the age to come, as Paul seems to describe:

Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the
Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
The last enemy to be destroyed is death. . . . When all things are
subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him
who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in
all. (1 Cor. 15:24–28)129

In this light we see a progressive transitional time after the Lord comes
and before the final overturning of death—the day when all things will be
brought into perfect submission to God. Chiliasm with its idea of a
transitional kingdom was a minority belief in first-century Judaism.130 The
Revelation given to the apostle John, however, was understood to confirm
its truth, just as the resurrection of Jesus had confirmed the apocalyptic
hope in general.131

Cosmic Week Theory

Though Revelation 20:1–6 has been shown to stand on its own
exegetically,132 this was not the real basis of chiliasm in the early church.
Millennial thought at the time was ultimately based upon the “cosmic
week” or “creation-day world-age” theory, in which each day of creation
represented an era of one thousand years of redemptive history.133 Hence
there would be six days (i.e., six thousand years) of divine work before the
final day (i.e., one thousand years) of divine rest (see figure 6.10). In this
way, “The seventh day is a sign of the resurrection, the rest of the coming
age” (Life of Adam and Eve 51.2).134 And after seven thousand years of
existence, then comes the “eighth day” (2 Enoch 33.1) and the final new
creation.135 Consequently God has given “seven days of ages for
repentance” (Sibylline Oracles 8.357) before the conclusion of redemptive
history.136

Figure 6.10 – Chiliasm and the “Cosmic Week”

 This chronological formula may sound quaint to the modern ear, but it
was based upon substantial biblical exposition, primarily concerning
Genesis 2:17: “For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Since
Adam ate and died short of one thousand years, then “the day” assumedly
meant one thousand years by God’s reckoning. Thus the pseudepigraphic
Jubilees:

And at the end of the nineteenth jubilee in the seventh week, in the
sixth year, Adam died. And all of his children buried him in the
land of his creation. And he was the first who was buried in the
earth. And he lacked seventy years from one thousand years, for a
thousand years are like one day in the testimony of heaven and
therefore it was written concerning the tree of knowledge, “In the
day you eat from it you will die.” Therefore he did not complete
the years of this day because he died in it. (4.29–30)137

It was in this light that Psalm 90, the “prayer of Moses,” was commonly
understood: “You return mankind to the dust, saying, ‘Return, descendants
of Adam.’ [cf. Gen. 2:17; 3:19] For in your sight a thousand years are like
yesterday that passes by, like a few hours of the night. You end their lives;
they sleep” (Ps. 90:3–5, CSB). Peter thus quotes verse 4 in reference to the
coming of God and “the day of judgment” (2 Peter 3:7–8).138 Moreover, the
use of “[Sabbath] rest” in Hebrews 3–4 fits comfortably within the cosmic-
week framework.139
Belief in the cosmic week was common in the early church.140 The
works of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Commodianus, Hippolytus, Methodius,
and Lactantius all clearly reflect a chiliastic understanding of redemptive
history based upon the creation-day world-age idea,141 and that often
resting upon a chiliastic interpretation of Genesis 2:17.142 Thus the
kingdom of God in the early church was understood apocalyptically,
messianically, Israelitically, and chiliastically—as Irenaeus concluded:

But when this Antichrist shall have devastated all things in this
world, he will reign for three years and six months, and sit in the
temple at Jerusalem; and then the Lord will come from heaven in
the clouds, in the glory of the Father, sending this man and those
 who follow him into the lake of fire; but bringing in for the
righteous the times of the kingdom, that is, the rest, the hallowed
seventh day; and restoring to Abraham the promised inheritance, in
which kingdom the Lord declared, that “many coming from the
east and from the west should sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob.”143

Such millennial hope suffered greatly during the Constantinian

revolution of the fourth century, and Augustine’s reinterpretation of
Revelation 20 nearly ended all expectation that Jesus would reign upon the
earth in the future.144 So Stanley Grenz summarizes, “By the time of
Augustine’s death, the nonmillenarian theology of Alexandria and Rome
had engulfed the millennialism of Antioch and Ephesus. As a result, at the
Council of Ephesus A.D. 431 the church condemned as superstition the
belief in a literal, future thousand-year reign on the earth.”145
Though the Middle Ages were dominated by Augustinian theology, a
number of marginal monastic sects, as well as a few Orthodox theologians,
sustained the chiliastic heritage.146 Most of the Protestant Reformers held
the Augustinian line, though various Anabaptists, Huguenots, Bohemian
Brethren, and English Puritans returned to millennialism.147 During the
Enlightenment, many German Pietists as well as English evangelicals were
chiliastic.148 Though dominionistic zeal overtook and nearly choked out
millennial hope during the nineteenth century, dispensationalists spread a
novel form of chiliasm in England and America, which took root by the
turn of the twentieth century.149 Since that time the dispensational bias has
been progressively purged, restoring to the modern church its apostolic
foundation, such that “[millennialism] is today stronger and more widely
spread than at any time in history.”150

Millennial Classification System

During the early twentieth century, dispensationalists and Reformed
theologians sought to distinguish their respective theologies by use of three
labels: pre-, post-, and a-millennialism.151 “Premillennialists” sought to
define themselves according to a “literal” interpretation of the Bible,
resulting in an earthly Jewish hope, in contrast to a Reformed
“spiritualized” interpretation, resulting in the hopes of heavenly destiny
(amillennialism) and/or Christendom (postmillennialism).152
Though such a trajectory of theological discussion continues today,
belief in the millennium does not represent well one’s belief system as a
whole.153 Chiliasm is a somewhat independent doctrine, which may or may
not precede a final heavenly destiny, follow an age of Christendom, or
pattern an inaugurational realization.154 Even dispensationalism (in both its
classical and progressive forms) could function with or without a millennial
transition into the eternal state. There are, however, similarities and overlap
between the common millennial labels and the historical patterns of
theology in the church. Postmillennialists have generally been theologically
dominionistic,155 while amillennialists have generally been escapist156 and
premillennialists have generally been new-creationist.157
Such a characterization, however, is increasingly inaccurate, since a
consensus has begun to form concerning the hope of a new creation.158
Hence the millennial classification system lacks the ability to describe the
basic structure and theological end of various belief systems. The issue of
realized eschatology is generally ignored, and issues of worldview are
simply collapsed onto a flat timeline.159 As such, I find the whole
millennial classification system to be painfully inadequate and in need of
retirement.
Concerning chiliasm in general, I heartily affirm the millennial hope of
the early church. However, since the Scriptures say relatively little about it,
I would refrain from a dogmatic declaration. I do believe that chiliasm was
a minority belief within second-temple Judaism, which was then confirmed
as true by the Revelation given to the apostle John (cf. Rev. 20:1–6). Thus I
hold to what might be described as chiliastic cruciform-apocalypticism.
Such a description seems to represent more accurately the “historic” view
of the apostles and much of the early church.160 As Justin Martyr, the
second-century Christian apologist, asserted: “I and others, who are right-
minded Christians on all points, are assured that there will be a resurrection
of the dead, and a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be built,
adorned, and enlarged, as the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and others
declare.”161
 POST-APOSTOLIC KINGDOM OF GOD
As Christianity lost its Jewish apocalyptic moorings during the third and
fourth centuries, the “kingdom of God” became increasingly associated
with immaterial heaven. With Origen, “the inheritance of the kingdom of
heaven” is equated with “the departure of the saints from that earth to those
heavens,”162 wherein the pure in heart will “quickly ascend to a place in the
air, and reach the kingdom of heaven.”163 Thus Jacob Neusner and Bruce
Chilton summarize Origen’s theological impact:

Origen clearly represents and develops a construction of the

Christian faith in which eschatology has been swallowed up in an
emphasis upon transcendence. The only time which truly matters is
that time until one’s death, which determines one’s experience in
paradise and in the resurrection. “Heaven” as cosmographic place
now occupies the central position once occupied by the
eschatological kingdom of God in Jesus’ teaching. That, too,
occurs on the authority of progressive dialectics, the refinement of
Pauline metaphysics.164

Though a “new creation model” has always persisted,165 this spiritual

escapist vision has been the dominant understanding of the kingdom
throughout the majority of the church’s history. The kingdom is where we
go when we die, the immaterial world. On the other hand, the Constantinian
dominionist view of actualized divine sovereignty has also held great sway
—resulting in the assumption that whether God uses kings or popes, he
incrementally establishes his kingdom in this age through (Gentile) political
powers.
The progress from Origen to Augustine is well documented,166 and it
was Augustine’s teachings on the kingdom of God that “formed the center
of the official teaching of the church on the matter through the Middle
Ages.”167 The kingdom is both the church triumphant and the church
militant—“The Church even now is the kingdom of Christ, and the
kingdom of heaven,”168 but ultimately God will “confer on the human body
a property which shall enable it to pass into heaven and dwell there.”169
Though the means of attaining the kingdom (i.e., justification by faith)
found great renewal during the Reformation, the distorted hope of the
kingdom itself changed little.170 Thus, for the majority of church history the
interpretation of the kingdom of God has been twofold according to its
respective Augustinian expectations: materialized sovereignty now and
immaterial heaven upon death (see figure 6.11).

Figure 6.11 – The Distorted Messianic Kingdom of Augustinianism

As discussed in chapter 4, the idea of an immaterial heavenly kingdom

is difficult to relate to since it has no practical connection to our earthly
existence. Though immateriality retains a hope for existence without sin,
death, pain, etc., it leaves believers without a concrete hope. Humans were
made to rule righteously upon the earth, not in immaterial heaven.
Moreover, all ethnic distinctions are erased in the context of immateriality,
thus abrogating the basic covenantal framework of the Scriptures.
On the other hand, the dominionistic kingdom idea has led to
incalculable damage and disillusionment.171 Indeed it constitutes an earthly
hope, yet it is bound by mankind’s depravity. Moreover, Christendom erases
the Israelocentric focus of the Bible, replacing it with an ethnocentrism of
whichever nation or people happens to hold the money, land, and power of
their day.172 Dominionistic theology also robs believers of the sharp edge of
their witness concerning the return of Jesus (cf. Acts 3:21; 10:42; 17:31;
etc.).173 Alva McClain articulated well the inevitable consequences:

The identification of the Kingdom with the Church has led

historically to ecclesiastical policies and programs which, even
when not positively evil, have been far removed from the original
simplicity of the New Testament ekklēsia. It is easy to claim that in
the “present kingdom of grace” the rule of the saints is wholly
“spiritual,” exerted only through moral principles and influence.
But practically, once the Church becomes the Kingdom in any
realistic theological sense, it is impossible to draw any clear line
between principles and their implementation through political and
social devises. For the logical implications of a present
ecclesiastical kingdom are unmistakable, and historically have
always led in only one direction, i.e., political control of the state
by the Church. The distances down this road traveled by various
religious movements, and the forms of control which were
developed, have been widely different. The difference is very great
between the Roman Catholic system and modern Protestant efforts
to control the state; also between the ecclesiastical rule of Calvin in
Geneva and the fanaticism of Münster and the English “fifth-
monarchy.” But the basic assumption is always the same: The
Church in some sense is the Kingdom, and therefore has a divine
right to rule; or it is the business of the Church to “establish” fully
the Kingdom of God among men. Thus the Church loses its
“pilgrim” character and the sharp edge of its divinely
commissioned “witness” is blunted.174

With the advent of dispensationalism, the messianic kingdom took on a

dualistic nature, according to the dispensational schema of two redemptive
plans. The “kingdom of heaven” relates to the earthly Jewish kingdom
(spoken of only in Matthew’s Gospel), while the “kingdom of God” relates
to the heavenly Gentile kingdom.175 The kingdom of heaven substantially
existed in Israel until the exile.176 Jesus “offered” the kingdom to the Jews,
but they rejected it, which resulted in the kingdom being “postponed.”177
This postponement set into motion a Gentile “intercalation,” which will
continue until the second coming (pretribulational rapture), at which time
the Jewish program will recommence and the kingdom will be reestablished
after the final tribulation (see figure 6.12). The complexities of this schema
are manifold.178
As inaugurationalism gradually engulfed the academy during the
twentieth century, discussions concerning the kingdom of God became
increasingly dominionistic in tone (as opposed to previous socio-liberal or
escapist approaches). This trend is due to the fact that the inaugurationalist
kingdom is quite similar to its Christendom ancestor, except it finds its
referent in the spiritual realization of the Jewish eschatological kingdom.
Ultimately, the difference is minor, and I believe history will prove that its
application is the same.

Figure 6.12 – The Dualistic Messianic Kingdom of Dispensationalism

At Christ’s first coming, heaven began to invade earth, and the

conflation of the two will conclude at Christ’s second coming (except for
those inaugurationalists who still hold to chiliasm, which demands an extra
phase of conflict). This “already/not yet” tension of the kingdom was
articulated by Oscar Cullmann, an early inaugurationalist:

Just as this lordship has a beginning, so it has also an end.

According to the New Testament, the end cannot be described in
terms of a date, but it can be described in terms of an event, the
return of Christ. The lordship of Christ began with his ascension
and will end with his return. . . .
This final act recapitulates in a concentrated and definitive form
everything which has already happened before and everything that
is taking place in the present—above all the victory over Satan and
the “powers.” . . .
The period of the Church coincides perfectly with the period of
Christ’s lordship—also in terms of the characteristic tension
between present and future and in terms of what we have said
about the invasion of the new aeon.179

Though the church is the obvious vehicle of this spiritual invasion,

inaugurationalists continually try to distance themselves from such
conclusions, for obvious reasons. If the messianic missions of the first and
second comings are homogenous, then so is the mission of the messianic
kingdom (see figure 6.13). A simple deduction leads to the same mission
for the church, which only ever leads in one direction—as McClain noted,
to “political control of the state by the Church.”
Figure 6.13 – The Conflationary Messianic Kingdom of Inaugurationalism

The attempt to argue for a purely “spiritual” kingdom in this age, in

contrast to a “visibly manifest” kingdom in the age to come,180 is patently
Platonic. There is no immaterial world seeking to manifest itself in
materiality. Rather, Jesus sits enthroned over the heavens and earth, waiting
in mercy to judge the living and the dead. This age remains this age (Gal.
1:4; Titus 2:12), essentially characterized by the cross (Luke 24:47; Acts
3:19–21); and the age to come remains the age to come (cf. Eph. 1:21; Heb.
2:5), essentially characterized by judgment (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1). Where
in the Scriptures does the messianic kingdom ever precede the day of
judgment?181 Rather, divine judgment always initiates the kingdom (cf. Ps.
2; Isa. 24; Dan. 7; Hab. 2–3; Zeph. 2–3; Zech. 12–14; Mal. 3–4).
The day of the Lord is no insignificant or peripheral event that can be
easily spiritualized. As discussed in chapter 3, it is the defining and
crowning event of redemptive history. The holy trinity of Jewish
eschatology, so to speak, was the day of the Lord, the resurrection of the
dead, and the messianic kingdom. No observant first-century Jew would
dare to sunder what God had so prophetically joined together! Yet this is
exactly the effect of realized eschatology: Jesus and the apostles
inaugurated the kingdom and the resurrection before the divine judgment of
the last day.
So prominent has inaugurationalism become in the academy that
deviation from it is nigh to heresy, as Craig Blomberg insinuates: “One
might observe that if a theological perspective is held jointly by such a
diverse but impressive array of scholars as Trilling, Kümmel, Jeremias,
Ladd, Marshall, Beasley-Murray, Saucy and Blaising, it must almost
certainly be true.”182 However, the nearly universal adoption of a
theological system does not guarantee correspondence with the truth.
Liberalism dominated the academy one hundred years ago, Reformed
dogmatics two hundred years before that, and medieval empiricism three
hundred years before that.
Though inaugurationalism has received relatively little mainstream
criticism, many remain skeptical. Not only are many dispensationalists
unconvinced,183 but many historical scholars (unbiased by the pressures of
tradition) judge the inaugurational schema “a hermeneutical castle built
upon exegetical quicksand.”184 As Christopher Rowland describes,
“Supporters of the view that Jesus thought of the kingdom as present as
well as future point to Luke 16.16 but particularly to sayings like Matthew
11.5f. and to Luke 11.20 and 17.21b. Despite the fact that the consensus of
New Testament scholarship accepts that Jesus believed that the kingdom of
God had already in some sense arrived in Jesus’ words and deeds, the fact
has to be faced that the evidence in support of such an assumption is not
very substantial.”185
One historical scholar, Dale Allison, deems the realization of the
kingdom—akin to a spiritual redefinition of “the Pyramids”—to be a form
of hermeneutical trickery,186 driven by a desire to deliver Jesus and the
apostles from the embarrassment of Jewish apocalypticism, intentionally
avoiding an “at-face-value interpretation” of their words.187 Concerning
realized eschatology, I must agree. Yet I find no embarrassment concerning
the Jewish apocalyptic hope, for in it is the fount of immortality. Such
scholars simply have no faith (generally due to their naturalistic bias), and
without faith they will be consumed on the day of his appearing (cf. Heb.
10:37–39).188
Not only do dispensationalists and historians question the
inaugurational dogma, but Jewish scholars also find it offensive. The idea
that Jesus realized the hope of the Tanakh without actually doing it is
simply ludicrous. All such hermeneutical gymnastics are both unbiblical
and unrealistic.189 Tell any orthodox Jew that the kingdom of God has been
inaugurated, and he/she will laugh at you and point to the temple mount as
proof of your Gentile ignorance. The world is obviously as broken and
depraved as ever. Truly, it takes a mountain of inaugurational indoctrination
to believe that the new heavens and new earth are already happening.
Indeed, the question of realized eschatology has fundamentally divided
Jews and Christians historically, as Jewish theologian Martin Buber said:

The church rests on its faith that the Christ has come, and that this
is the redemption which God has bestowed on mankind. We, Israel,
are not able to believe this. . . . We know more deeply, more truly,
that world history has not been turned upside down to its very
foundations—that the world is not yet redeemed. We sense its
unredeemedness. The church can, or indeed must, understand this
sense of ours as the awareness that we are not redeemed. But we
know that that is not it. The redemption of the world is for us
indivisibly one with the perfecting of creation, with the
establishment of the unity which nothing more prevents, the unity
which is no longer controverted, and which is realized in all the
protean variety of the world. Redemption is one with the kingdom
of God in its fulfilment. An anticipation of any single part of the
completed redemption of the world—for example the redemption
beforehand of the soul—is something we cannot grasp, although
even for us in our mortal hours redeeming and redemption are
heralded.190

Of course the New Testament never says that such a redemption of the
world has come—only that a greater sacrifice has been made before
eschatological salvation (Heb. 9:28), that messianic suffering has come
before messianic glory (Luke 24:26), that a propitiation has been put
forward before the wrath to come (Rom. 3:25; 1 John 4:10), that
justification has been secured in anticipation of the final judgment (Rom.
5:9; Titus 3:7), that a ransom has been offered before the day of redemption
(Eph. 4:30; 1 Tim. 2:6). Such a message, devoid of realized eschatology,
was readily received by multitudes of first-century Jews. The same cannot
be said after the church rejected the Jewish apocalyptic hope in place of an
ersatz Hellenistic gospel.
Common logic that corresponds to both reality and the Scriptures argues
for an unaltered Jewish apocalyptic view which culminates in the day of the
Lord, the resurrection of the dead, and the Jewish messianic kingdom. This
was the primal expectation of the early church, as patristic scholar Everett
Ferguson summarizes: “The characteristic second-century understanding of
the kingdom of God was no threat to Rome because it was heavenly,
angelic, and altogether future.”191 Moreover, “The overwhelming usage of
‘kingdom’ in second-century Christian literature is eschatological. . . . The
kingdom is almost uniformly future, heavenly, and eternal.”192 Even George
Ladd himself acknowledged, “For Christians of the first three centuries, the
Kingdom was altogether eschatological.”193 Unfortunately, he goes on to
argue that they were simply ignorant of their new inaugurated status as “a
new people of God who are to take the place of Israel.”194 This logic is
absurd. If the early church never spoke of realized eschatology, then why do
we speak it back into the New Testament?
The theological gravity of the messianic expectation of the early church,
especially during the second century, is rarely appreciated. As seen in the
Muratorian Fragment, it was the second-century church that primarily
formulated the canon of the New Testament.195 If those who stewarded
what we regard as the very oracles of God believed the kingdom to be
“altogether future” and “altogether eschatological,” then it seems
completely inappropriate (and possibly arrogant) to interpret such oracles as
portraying an inaugurated kingdom. These men handed to us the very
apostolic fountain of truth from which we drink. If they were stewarding the
apostolic witness, and believing in the kingdom as such, should we assume
their hope to be naïve and their hermeneutic primitive? God forbid! Rather,
the second-century witness was simply in accord with the first-century
witness, to which we vigorously hold.
The New Testament seeks no new revelation of the kingdom of God,
but rather preserves the concrete hopes of Jewish apocalypticism. The
apostles were primarily concerned with the means of attaining the kingdom
and eternal life (cf. Acts 26:7; Rom. 9:30; Phil. 3:11; etc.). The new
covenant is simply concerned with the sacrifice of the cross, in contrast to
the sacrifices of the old Mosaic covenant (cf. Rom. 3:25; Heb. 8–10; 1 Peter
3:18; etc.). The gift of the Holy Spirit was given to confirm, on the one
hand, the sacrificial testimony of the cross (cf. 1 Cor. 1:6; Gal. 3:2), and on
the other hand, the return of Jesus and the hope of the resurrection (cf. 2
Cor. 5:5; Eph. 1:14). The “promised eternal inheritance” (Heb. 9:15) of the
kingdom is never in question (cf. 1 Cor. 15:50; 2 Tim. 4:1; 2 Peter 1:11;
etc.). In this way, the New Testament presents a straightforward account of
the suffering of the Messiah as an atonement for the forgiveness of sins
before the coming of the Messiah in glory for the establishment of his
Israelitic kingdom (cf. Luke 24:26; Heb. 9:28; 1 Peter 1:11).
 Chapter Seven

THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE

CHRIST

In light of Jesus’ bold and anointed proclamation of the coming kingdom,

messianic expectation surrounding his life and ministry rose to a fever
pitch. He had been shown to be the Messiah, “attested to you by God with
miracles, wonders, and signs” (Acts 2:22, CSB). These “deeds of the Christ”
(Matt. 11:2) had become commonly known “throughout all Judea” (Acts
10:37), and “great crowds followed him” (Matt. 4:25; 8:1; cf. 12:15; 19:2;
20:29). They were expecting “that the kingdom of God was to appear
immediately” (Luke 19:11), and thus they welcomed him into Jerusalem,
shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” (Mark 11:9–10).
Likewise, the children cried out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of
David!” (Matt. 21:15)—expectations that Jesus clearly affirmed in his
response to his detractors: “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones
would cry out” (Luke 19:40).
This anticipation and excitement, however, ended in dismay and
confusion when the Messiah was brutally crucified. Though Jesus had
expressly and repeatedly warned his disciples that this would happen (cf.
Matt. 16:21; 17:22; 20:18; par.), it seems there was a common sentiment
that to the Messiah “this shall never happen” (Matt. 16:22). The people had
hoped “that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21), but God had not
delivered him (cf. Matt. 27:43). Beyond the public humiliation of Roman
crucifixion,1 Jesus seemed to have been openly “forsaken” by God himself
(Matt. 27:46).2
Questions immediately arose concerning why God would allow the
suffering and death of the king of Israel. These questions are exemplified in
the interaction between Jesus and his disciples on the road to Emmaus
(Luke 24:13–27). As they were discussing “all these things that had
happened” (v. 14), with faces “looking sad” (v. 17), Jesus declared to them,
“Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the
prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer
these things and then enter into his glory?” (vv. 25–26, NRSV).
Luke goes on to tell us that “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets,
he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself”
(v. 27). I think it can be safely assumed that “the things concerning himself”
primarily referred to the suffering of the Messiah rather than the glory of
the Messiah, for this was the question at hand.3 Moreover, everyone
understood what the messianic glory entailed, since “glory” was the
common catchword for the age to come in Jewish apocalyptic thought.4
And all of this was in light of the previous statement concerning the
redemption of Israel (v. 21).5
In this light, I believe Jesus’ exposition on the road to Emmaus involved
a straightforward explanation of messianic suffering, which assumed the
common apocalyptic expectations of messianic glory. This approach is
expressed prima facie throughout the rest of the New Testament,
particularly when we see the phraseology of “suffering” and “glory” used
together (cf. Rom. 8:17–18; Heb. 2:8–10; 1 Peter 1:11; 4:13; 5:1).6 The
apostolic interpretation of the crucifixion of the Messiah fits most
comfortably within the framework of Jewish apocalypticism (see figure
7.1).
 Figure 7.1 – Messianic Suffering before Glory within Jewish
Apocalypticism

Within such a worldview, the New Testament writers often quoted or

alluded to Psalm 110 to justify the delay of messianic glory (cf. Acts 2:34–
35; 5:31; Rom. 8:34; 1 Cor. 15:25; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3; 8:1;
10:12–13; 12:2; 1 Peter 3:22).7 Contrary to the common inaugurational
interpretation, the apostles were simply stating that the first part of the
psalm had been fulfilled, which “more fully confirmed” (2 Peter 1:19) the
following verses of the psalm.8 The same approach is seen in the quotations
of Isaiah 61 (cf. Luke 4:18–19); Zechariah 9 (cf. Matt. 21:5; John 12:15);
Joel 2 (cf. Acts 2:17–21; Rom. 10:13); and Psalm 2 (cf. Acts 13:33; Heb.
1:5).
The first verse of Psalm 110 was thus fulfilled in Jesus’ resurrection and
ascension (“Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your
footstool”). However, I believe it is assumed by the apostles that verses 2–7
are still yet future (i.e., “He will shatter kings on the day of his wrath,” v.
5).9 This makes the most sense of the psalm’s quotation at Pentecost (Acts
2:33–34), since its contextual referent is “the great and glorious day of the
Lord” (v. 20, CSB), from which we seek to be “saved” (v. 21, cf. vv. 37, 40).
In similar fashion, Hebrews 10:12–13 summarizes: “When Christ had
offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand
of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool
for his feet.”10 The idea that Jesus is somehow presently “footstooling” his
enemies, so to speak, is a “serious mistake,”11 because it violates the basic
nature and purpose of divine mercy in this age. If we inquire as to what God
is doing in the present era “until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26), we must
ultimately conclude that he is waiting to make his enemies his footstool,
“not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9,
CSB).12

THE EMMAUS ROAD EXPOSITION

As Jesus walked with two of his followers (Cleopas and another unnamed)
on the road to Emmaus, he “interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the
things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). After this he appeared to the
Eleven in Jerusalem and “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures”
(v. 45)—that is, “everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the
Prophets and the Psalms” (v. 44). But what specifically did Jesus talk about
on these two occasions? Based upon later themes in the New Testament, we
can infer four areas of discussion concerning the suffering of the Messiah:
(1) direct prophecies, (2) righteous-suffering typology, (3) calendrical
typology, and (4) sacrificial typology. The last of these receives the most
attention in the apostolic witness and will be unpacked in the next chapter.
Concerning direct prophecies of messianic suffering in the Tanakh,
Isaiah 53 is clearly the most referenced prophecy in the New Testament (cf.
Matt. 8:17; Mark 9:12; Luke 22:37; John 12:38; Acts 8:32–35; Rom. 10:16;
15:21; 1 Peter 2:22–25).13 During the Last Supper, Jesus foretold his own
death according to Isaiah 53:12: “I tell you that this Scripture must be
fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’” (Luke
22:37). Earlier, he told his disciples, “The Son of Man must suffer many
things and be rejected” (Luke 9:22)—echoing Isaiah 53:3: “He was
despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering” (CSB). Putting this
suffering and rejection in the context of messianic glory, he also told them,
“As the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so
will the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must suffer many things and
be rejected by this generation” (Luke 17:24–25).14
Similarly, when John the Baptist referred to Jesus as “the lamb of God,
who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29, cf. v. 36), Isaiah 53:6–7
would have been readily apparent: “The LORD has laid on him the iniquity
of us all . . . like a lamb that is led to the slaughter.” So also Jesus
“remained silent” (Mark 14:61) before his accusers and “said nothing”
(Mark 15:5, NLT), recalling Isaiah 53:7: “Like a sheep that before its
shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.” These circumstances
surrounding Jesus’ innocent and humiliating death, in light of Isaiah 53,
became the primary framework for the early church’s witness that “God
fulfilled what he had predicted through all the prophets—that his Messiah
would suffer” (Acts 3:18, CSB). So Philip interprets the Ethiopian eunuch’s
reading of Isaiah 53:7–8:

Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this:
“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter
and like a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he opens not his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.” . . .
Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he
told him the good news about Jesus. (Acts 8:32–35)

Isaiah 53 speaks more clearly than any other prophetic oracle

concerning the suffering of the Messiah in anticipation of his glory, as the
passage concludes: “After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and
be satisfied” (v. 11, NIV).15 Moreover, the glory of his personal resurrection
is followed by the glory of Zion as a whole in Isaiah 54 (one of the most
referenced passages in Revelation 21). In light of its centrality in the New
Testament, no wonder Isaiah 53 has been the center of debate for
centuries.16
Other passages quite probably mentioned in the Emmaus road
discussion are referenced in the Gospels themselves. Psalm 22, a lament of
David, is best interpreted messianically, since it ends in divine vindication
and world redemption (vv. 24–31). Thus Jesus quotes verse 1 from the
cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).
Those who passed by Jesus “hurled insults at him, shaking their heads”
(Matt. 27:39), an allusion to Psalm 22:7: “All who see me mock me; they
hurl insults, shaking their heads” (NIV). Moreover, in mocking him they
quote Psalm 22:8: “He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him
rescue him, for he delights in him!” (cf. Matt. 27:43). The Gospels also
allude to Psalm 22:18 in recounting that the soldiers “divided his garments
among them by casting lots” (Matt. 27:35). And, of course, no one would
have missed Psalm 22:16: “They have pierced my hands and feet” (cf. John
19:34; 20:25).
On the way to Gethsemane, Jesus also identified himself as “the
shepherd” of Zechariah 13:7, saying, “You will all fall away because of me
this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the
flock will be scattered ’” (Matt. 26:31). Jesus had told his disciples earlier,
“You will be scattered . . . and will leave me alone” (John 16:32), which
found fulfillment during his arrest when “all the disciples left him and fled”
(Matt. 26:56). Zechariah 11–13 broadly portrays this “shepherd” as being
rejected (chap. 11), pierced (chap. 12), and struck (chap. 13) before the final
vindication of the day of the Lord (chap. 14). So John quotes Zechariah
12:10 concerning the crucifixion: “These things took place that the
Scripture might be fulfilled: . . . ‘They will look on him whom they have
pierced’” (John 19:36–37).17 As with Isaiah 53, Zechariah 11–13 also leads
up to a prophecy of eschatological glory in chapter 14.18 Therefore
Zechariah 12:10 is rightly quoted in light of the return of Jesus: “Look, he is
coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced
him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him. So it is to be.
Amen” (Rev. 1:7, CSB).
Considering the prevalence of the book of Daniel during the first
century, Daniel 9 probably also came up for discussion on the road to
Emmaus. Verse 24 summarizes redemptive history: “Seventy weeks are
decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to
put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting
righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy
place.”19 This verse has “three negatives” followed by “three positives,”
which naturally fit a chronology of suffering before glory.20 The
transgression, sin, and iniquity of humankind must first be dealt with before
the eschatological restoration of righteousness, fulfillment of prophecy, and
anointing of the messianic temple.21
Verses 25–27 simply elaborate on verse 24. The “anointed one” will
come (v. 25), but he “shall be cut off and shall have nothing” (v. 26a). The
Hebrew word for “cut off” (karath) was commonly associated with sacrifice
in the making of a covenant—literally, “cutting a covenant” (cf. Gen. 15:18;
Deut. 5:2; Ezra 10:3).22 The concept of covenant is yoked to karath, for it is
sealed by blood and sacrifice—that is, the “blood of the covenant” (Ex.
24:8; Zech. 9:11; Matt. 26:28; Heb. 9:20). Thus the cutting off of the
Anointed One intimates his death unto the cutting of a new covenant by
God (cf. Isa. 55:3; Jer. 31:31; Luke 22:20). After this the city and sanctuary
will be destroyed (Dan. 9:26b), and war and desolations will be decreed “to
the end” (v. 26c). Furthermore, preceding the eschatological glory, the
temple will be desecrated by “an abomination that desolates” (v. 27, NRSV;
cf. 11:31; 12:11), an event of which the New Testament writers were well
aware (cf. Matt. 24:15; 2 Thess. 2:4; Rev. 13:6).23
Though Jesus likely shared these and other direct predictions on the
Emmaus road, the larger part of the discussion probably revolved around
typological interpretations of various persons, events, and institutions in the
Tanakh. As professor Duane Garrett notes, the Scriptures commonly
“couched prophecy in typological patterns in which the works of God
proceed along identifiable themes.”24 Thus God worked in the Messiah as
he had worked previously in redemptive history.

BIBLICAL TYPOLOGY
Though the subject of biblical typology received a fair amount of attention
in the twentieth century,25 throughout church history it has been “one of the
most neglected departments of theological science.”26 Though typology is
not overall the “predominant” method of interpretation in the New
Testament (especially concerning messianic glory),27 I believe it does play
an important role in interpreting the suffering of the Messiah.
Typology is inherently historical, since people, events, and institutions
in the past provide a “pattern, example, or type” (Gk. tupos) for future
people, events, and institutions.28 So Adam was “a type of the one who was
to come” (Rom. 5:14), for “as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be
made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). Similarly, Noah’s ark and the flood
“prefigured” baptism and the deposit of the Spirit (1 Peter 3:21, NRSV), and
the Israelites’ wanderings took place “as examples for us” (1 Cor. 10:6).29
Though varied in its specific application, typology is used and understood
in the New Testament within the greater Jewish apocalyptic framework of
redemptive history (see figure 7.2).30

Figure 7.2 – The Jewish Apocalyptic Framework of Biblical Typology

In this way, the cataclysm of the flood anticipated the eschatological

day of judgment (2 Peter 3:6–7), for “as were the days of Noah, so will be
the coming of the Son of Man” (Matt. 24:37). The destruction of Sodom
and Gomorrah gave us “an example of what is going to happen to the
ungodly” (2 Peter 2:6)—that is, “a punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 7). The
exodus of Israel finds ultimate fulfillment in the deliverance of humanity
from sin and tyranny (cf. Ex. 12:27; Rom. 8:20–21; 1 Thess. 1:10). The
conquest of the land under Joshua (Heb. yehoshua or yeshua) prefigured the
greater Yeshua and the messianic conquest of the earth (cf. Josh. 11:16–23;
1 Cor. 15:24–25; Rev. 19:11–16). The occupation of the land, settlement of
Jerusalem, and building of the Davidic throne (i.e., “Davidic typology”)31
likewise point to the messianic kingdom in the age to come (cf. Ps. 132:11–
18; Luke 1:33; 22:30; Acts 1:6). The exile and return of Israel anticipates
the final regathering in the resurrection (cf. Isa. 11:10–12; Matt. 24:31; 1
Thess. 4:17). And as discussed in the last chapter, creation week was
understood typologically, representing redemptive history as a whole
chiliastically—“with the Lord one day is as a thousand years” (2 Peter 3:8;
cf. Ps. 90:4).32
Even temporally limited prefigurations—such as the faithfulness of
Moses over the tabernacle patterning the faithfulness of Jesus over the
church in this age (Heb. 3:3–6), or the celebration of the Passover
patterning pure relations within the church in this age (1 Cor. 5:6–8), or the
veil of Moses patterning the blindness of unbelieving Jews in this age (2
Cor. 3:13–16)—find their redemptive end in the age to come, since these
temporal realities exist for the sake of their eternal destiny. Typology is thus
made both safe and sane within the bounds of a redemptive history
anchored in the day of the Lord.33 Within such an apocalyptic framework,
we approach the typology that underlies the suffering of the Messiah.

THE FULFILLMENT OF RIGHTEOUS

SUFFERING
We find, in the lives of righteous individuals throughout the Bible, a pattern
of suffering which prefigures the suffering of the Messiah. For example,
Jesus twice calls the life of Jonah a “sign” (Matt. 12:39; 16:4; par.): “For
just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish,
so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the
earth” (Matt. 12:40). Being one “greater than Jonah” (v. 41), Jesus here uses
typology to prophesy his own suffering and death.
Similarly, the prophets of old were types of the messianic suffering, for
all the prophets were “persecuted for righteousness’ sake” (Matt. 5:10).
Indeed, the wicked “persecuted the prophets” (Matt. 5:12) and “murdered
the prophets” (Matt. 23:31; cf. Luke 13:34). So Stephen concluded before
his martyrdom, “Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And
they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous
One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered” (Acts 7:52). Therefore
the Messiah suffers, as Oscar Cullman noted, “because suffering is the
inevitable fate of the prophet.”34
Not only have all the prophets suffered, but righteous saints in general
suffer, which provides a typological pattern for the suffering of “the
Righteous One” (Isa. 24:16; 53:11; Acts 3:14; 7:52). Because of the order
of this age, the righteous commonly suffer, while the wicked commonly
prosper. Because God in his great mercy is restraining his wrath and
delaying the day of justice, “The wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers
flourish” (Ps. 92:7). They are “always at ease, they increase in riches” (Ps.
73:12). “Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they
escape” (Mal. 3:15). “Why does the way of the wicked prosper?” (Jer.
12:1). “Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?”
(Job 21:7). Because God is full of “kindness and forbearance and patience”
(Rom. 2:4), “not wishing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9). Indeed, in
this age the earth is not a home of life and righteousness (cf. 2 Peter 3:13),
and because of this the righteous inevitably suffer.
Though a theology of righteous suffering is plainly drawn from the
historical figures of the Tanakh (cf. Heb. 11:35–37; 2 Peter 2:5–7)—
particularly Job (cf. Job 2:13; 9:16–24; 30:17–23)—it is developed
extensively in the Psalms (cf. esp. Pss. 9; 22; 31; 69; 118).35 The righteous
are “stricken” (cf. Ps. 73:5, 14; 109:22), “attacked” (cf. Ps. 56:2; 62:3; 69:4;
109:3), “hated” (cf. Ps. 9:13; 18:17; 25:19; 34:21; 35:19; 38:19; 41:7; 44:7;
69:4; 86:17; 118:7; 129:5), “afflicted” (cf. Ps. 9:12; 10:12; 22:24; 31:7;
34:19; 44:24; 69:29; 82:3; 94:5; 116:10; 129:2; 140:12), and “oppressed”
(cf. Ps. 9:9; 10:18; 42:9; 43:2; 55:3; 56:1; 72:14; 73:8; 103:6; 119:122;
146:7). Because of the depraved nature of this age, this is the normal
experience of the righteous.
Would the righteous throughout history suffer, yet the Anointed One be
spared? No. Rather, “It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom
all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer
of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (Heb. 2:10, NRSV).
The idea of righteous suffering in the Tanakh carries over into the
apocalyptic framework of the New Testament, as Paul summarized: “It is
necessary to go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God”
(Acts 14:22, CSB). For “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus
will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12). Believers should not be “disturbed” or
“surprised” by their afflictions, “as though something strange were
happening” (1 Peter 4:12), because “we are destined for this” (1 Thess. 3:3).
As Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33). But we
know that if we “suffer for righteousness’ sake” (1 Peter 3:14), then we will
be “blessed” and “considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which
[we] are also suffering” (2 Thess. 1:5).
This “sober-minded” approach to this age (2 Tim. 4:5; 1 Peter 1:13)
helps believers stand firm in their faith, “knowing that the same kinds of
suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world”
(1 Peter 5:9). For “it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you
should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake” (Phil. 1:29).
Consequently, the suffering of the righteous is the divinely ordained
pattern of this age, which the Messiah fulfilled perfectly and which the
church seeks to emulate. As Paul put it, “I rejoice in my sufferings for you,
and I am completing in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for
his body, that is, the church” (Col. 1:24, CSB). Indeed, the body of Christ is
called to “share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings” (2 Cor. 1:5), “always
being given over to death for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor. 4:11). Far from being a
morbid or masochistic approach to life, this is a faith-based approach,
whereby we find our identity and joy in the apocalyptic hope of eternal life
which is set before us (cf. Heb. 12:2; 1 Peter 1:8).
In light of this hope, the cruciform message is pictured as “the aroma of
Christ” (2 Cor. 2:15), which the regenerate breathe deeply as “a fragrance
from life to life,” while the unregenerate choke upon it as “a fragrance from
death to death” (v. 16). He who “hates his life” (John 12:25; cf. Luke 14:26)
for the sake of eternal life is not ashamed of the crucified Messiah (cf. Matt.
10:33; Luke 9:26), for in him is typified the divine pattern of righteous
suffering: “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he
suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who
judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23). Thus the church is left with “an example, so
that you might follow in his steps” (v. 21).36

THE FULFILLMENT OF THE

CALENDAR
The second area of typological fulfillment that Jesus probably referenced on
the road to Emmaus revolved around the Jewish “calendar of sacred
time.”37 Paul summed up the Jewish calendar as “festivals, new moons, or
sabbaths” (Col. 2:16, NRSV). This threefold reference to the calendar is
common in the Tanakh (cf. 1 Chron. 23:31; 2 Chron. 31:3; Neh. 10:33; Isa.
1:13; Ezek. 45:17; Hos. 2:11), representing the weekly, monthly, and yearly
patterns of devotion (cf. Gal. 4:10: “You observe days and months and
seasons and years”).38
The Sabbath was the weekly observance of creation (cf. Ex. 20:11;
31:17),39 which in turn anticipated “the renewal of all things” (Matt. 19:28,
CSB; cf. Isa. 56:6–7; 58:13–14).40 Hence it became, as German theologian
Berndt Schaller describes, “a symbol of the time of salvation . . . an
anticipation of the joyous eschatological age.”41 Likewise, the “new moon”
celebration (Num. 10:10; 29:6; cf. Ezra 3:5; Ps. 81:3), often referenced in
conjunction with the Sabbath (cf. 2 Kings 4:23; Ezek. 46:1; Amos 8:5), was
a monthly reminder of the coming new age:

For as the new heavens and the new earth

that I make
shall remain before me, says the LORD,
so shall your offspring and your name remain.
From new moon to new moon,
and from Sabbath to Sabbath,
all flesh shall come to worship before me,
declares the LORD.
(Isa. 66:22–23)

In addition, the Jewish calendar also included three annual festivals:

Pesach (Passover/Unleavened Bread), Shavuot (Pentecost/Weeks/Harvest),
and Sukkot (Tabernacles/Booths/Ingathering):

Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. You shall keep
the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat
unleavened bread for seven days. . . . You shall keep the Feast of
Harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the
field. You shall keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year,
 when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. (Ex.
23:14–16)

Three times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD
your God at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of
Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of
Booths. (Deut. 16:16)

These festivals coincided with the harvests of the agricultural cycle:

spring (barley), early summer (winter wheat), and autumn (fruit).42
Passover was celebrated in the spring (approximately early April), fifty
days before Pentecost, which celebrated “the firstfruits of wheat harvest”
(Ex. 34:22), while Tabernacles was celebrated in the fall (approximately
early October), “at the end of the [Jewish] year” (Ex. 23:16). Therefore the
annual festivals were generally divided between spring and fall. The other
festivals and days of commemoration revolved around and interrelated the
three major festivals.43
Jewish tradition relates this calendar to redemptive history as a whole,
since God created and instituted the reality of time itself.44 So Paul refers to
the calendar in Colossians 2:16 and says, “These are a shadow of the things
to come, but the substance belongs to Christ” (v. 17). In this way
redemptive history (executed by Christ) is the true calendar, which is seen
typologically in the Jewish calendar. Jesus thus interprets the Passover: “I
tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God”
(Luke 22:16, CSB).45 Likewise, the outpouring of the Spirit, recorded in
Acts 2, is understood as “the firstfruits of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:23), a clear
allusion to the Festival of Pentecost/Weeks (cf. Ex. 23:16; Lev. 23:17; Num.
28:26).
If Passover and Pentecost were typologically fulfilled in redemptive
history, then surely Tabernacles, “the preeminent annual festival”46—that
is, “the Temple festival par excellence”47—will be typologically fulfilled
“at the year’s end” (Ex. 34:22; cf. Zech. 14:16) with the great
eschatological “ingathering” of Israel and the nations (cf. Ps. 102:22; Isa.
11:12; 66:18; Jer. 23:3; Ezek. 37:21; Mic. 4:6; Zeph. 3:18–20; Matt. 24:31;
2 Thess. 2:1). The feast thus represents “the eschatological expectation of
God’s final tabernacling with his people forever.”48
 Consequently, I believe Jesus and the apostles understood the festival
calendar to be typologically fulfilled within their first-century Jewish
apocalyptic framework (see figure 7.3). Because the Messiah is God’s agent
in executing redemptive history and because the calendar is interpreted
typologically according to that timeline, it is logical that the Messiah would
suffer in fulfillment of Passover before entering his glory in fulfillment of
Tabernacles.49 I believe this ideological framework lies behind Jesus’
discussion of Passover and the kingdom of God during and after the Last
Supper (cf. Luke 22:16; 24:30; Acts 1:3; etc.).

Figure 7.3 – The Typological Fulfillment of the Jewish Calendar

Beyond the calendar as a whole, the Passover event itself anticipates a

messianic suffering before glory. Many interpreters only see in Passover a
type of messianic suffering—as the lambs were sacrificed at twilight and
their blood spread on the doorposts (Ex. 12:6–7), so also “Christ, our
Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). Indeed, this is true.
However, a clear eschatological tradition of messianic glory and
deliverance surrounding Passover had developed by the first century.50 As
Joachim Jeremias summarizes,

The Jewish passover celebration at the time of Jesus is both

retrospect and prospect. At this festival the people of God
remember the merciful immunity granted to the houses marked
with the blood of the paschal lamb and the deliverance from the
Egyptian servitude. But that is only one aspect. At the same time
the passover is a looking forward to the coming deliverance of
which the deliverance from Egypt is the prototype. This typology is
a concept which “most comprehensively determined already in
early times, as no other did, the form that the doctrine of final
salvation took.” . . . So the night of the Passover is called the “sign”
through which God guarantees the coming of the Messiah. The
passover traditions variously reflect the vitality of this Messianic
hope, just as do the revolts against Rome which repeatedly took
place at the passover.51

The night of Passover became a night of commemoration in expectation

of the messianic deliverance. Because the exodus happened on the night of
Passover—“a night of watching by the LORD” (Ex. 12:42a)—so the
Israelites obeyed the command, “This same night is a night of watching
kept to the LORD by all the people of Israel throughout their generations”
(Ex. 12:42b). Jesus affirmed this tradition by concluding the Olivet
Discourse, “Therefore keep watch” (Matt. 24:42, NIV; cf. 25:13), an allusion
no one would have missed with Passover only “two days away” (26:2).52
The serving of wine, bread, and bitter herbs (Ex. 12:8; Num. 9:11) also
held eschatological significance, which Jesus affirmed: “I will not drink
again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in
my Father’s kingdom” (Matt. 26:29). Similarly, he parallels the Passover
meal with the eschatological feast—“that you may eat and drink at my table
in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke
22:30).53 Moreover, Jesus’ command, “Do this in remembrance of me” (v.
19; cf. 1 Cor. 11:24), was spoken in light of the messianic tradition of God
remembering the Messiah, Jerusalem, and the people of Israel (cf. 2 Chron.
6:42; Ps. 74:2; 132:1).54
 Thus Passover is by nature an “eschatological banquet,”55 a tradition
which the early church carried on in Communion (Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7, 11; 1
Cor. 10:16; 11:20–25).56 This weekly celebration is also thereby an
intercession by which we remember Jesus and his death, calling upon God
the Father to likewise remember his Son, “that he may send the Christ”
(Acts 3:20) at the appointed time which the Father has “fixed by his own
authority” (Acts 1:7; cf. 1 Tim. 6:15). So in our remembrance of Jesus we
call upon God to remember the covenants and bring to completion that
which he has spoken by the prophets; and in this way, “As often as you eat
this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes”
(1 Cor. 11:26).
Furthermore, the singing of a “hymn” (Matt. 26:30; Mark 14:26) refers
to the conclusion of the Passover meal, which involved the antiphonal
singing of the second half of the Hallel (i.e., Psalms 113–118).57 In Jewish
tradition, the Hallel was assumed to be the “Hallelujah Chorus” that the
saints would sing to welcome the Messiah into Jerusalem.58 This messianic
interpretation is plainly seen at the triumphal entry when the climax of the
Hallel (Ps. 118:25–26) is jubilantly declared: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who
comes in the name of the Lord!” (Mark 11:9; cf. Matt. 23:39).59
In such apocalyptic light, Jesus explained his own death as a typological
fulfillment of the Passover festival (Luke 22:15–20 and par.). Thus John
points out that Jesus was delivered over to be crucified on “the day of
Preparation of the Passover” (John 19:14). Moreover, the Roman soldiers
“did not break his legs” (v. 33) in order to hasten his death, which took
place to fulfill the Passover pattern: “These things took place that the
Scripture might be fulfilled: ‘Not one of his bones will be broken’” (v. 36;
cf. Ex. 12:46; Num. 9:12).60 As the Passover lamb was sacrificed at dusk
before the midnight judgment (Ex. 12:3–13), so also the Messiah was
sacrificed before the eschatological judgment and great messianic
deliverance (see figure 7.4).
 Figure 7.4 – The Typological Fulfillment of the Passover Event

For this reason, Paul rather casually states (as if it was common
knowledge), “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7).61
As such, the church is now called to “celebrate the festival, not with the old
leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of
sincerity and truth” (v. 8). And in this way we are to put out of our
fellowship anyone who lacks sobriety concerning the coming judgment (cf.
vv. 9–11)—“that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord” (v. 5). Such
an exhortation assumes a common typological interpretation of the death of
Jesus before the day of the Lord in accord with the Passover pattern.

THE FULFILLMENT OF SACRIFICE

The final and greatest typological pattern that would have been referenced
on the road to Emmaus was that of sacrifice. Intimately related to the
calendar, the sacrificial system was at the heart of Jewish life.62 Israel’s
inception as a nation was based upon a ratification sacrifice (cf. Ex. 24:4–
8), and its maintenance in righteousness was contingent upon its
faithfulness to the sacrificial cultus (cf. Ex. 29:38–42; Lev. 1–7; Num. 28–
29). Sacrifices were offered “day by day” (Ex. 29:38; Num. 28:3; cf. Dan.
12:11; Heb. 7:27; 10:11), “morning and evening” (1 Chron. 16:40; 2 Chron.
13:11; Ezra 3:3), on the Sabbath (Lev. 23:38; Num. 28:9–10; Ezek. 46:4),
on new moons (Num. 10:10; 28:11–15; 2 Chron. 31:3), and at all the yearly
festivals (Ex. 23:18; 34:25; Lev. 23:37; Num. 29:39). Sacrifices were thus
couched within the calendar as a whole, as seen in the Tanakh’s later
narratives (cf. 1 Chron. 23:31; 2 Chron. 2:4; 8:13; 31:3; Ezra 3:5; Neh.
10:33) and in the prophets (cf. Isa. 1:13; Ezek. 45:17):

And they [the Levites] were to stand every morning, thanking and
praising the LORD, and likewise at evening, and whenever burnt
offerings were offered to the LORD on Sabbaths, new moons, and
feast days, according to the number required of them, regularly
before the LORD. (1 Chron. 23:30–31)

Behold, I [Solomon] am about to build a house for the name of the

LORD my God . . . for burnt offerings morning and evening, on the
Sabbaths and the new moons and the appointed feasts of the LORD
our God, as ordained forever for Israel. (2 Chron. 2:4)

The calendar and sacrifices were thus two sides of the same devotional
coin, so to speak, and all of these culminated on the Day of Atonement, or
Yom Kippur (Heb. yom hakippurim; cf. Ex. 30:10; Lev. 16:29–34; 23:26–
32; Num. 29:7–11). The Day of Atonement is the tenth and final day of the
“high holy days,” which follows the celebration of the New Year, or Rosh
Hashanah (Heb. rosh hashana; cf. Lev. 23:24; Num. 29:1; Ezek. 40:1).63
The Day of Atonement was “the most important day in the religious
calendar of Israel,”64 and it remains to date the highest of holy days in
Judaism.65 Referred to simply as “the day” or “the great day” from the late
second-temple period,66 Yom Kippur is “the cultic climax” of Israel’s
year.67 It demands such reverence because it epitomizes all the sacrifices
made throughout the year “to make atonement for the Israelites once a year
because of all their sins” (Lev. 16:34, CSB).68
Therefore the New Year, in accord with the Sabbath and the festivals, is
understood both protologically and eschatologically. As Jewish historian
Evan Zuesse describes, “Rosh Hashanah also prefigures the end of days, the
Last Judgment, when all souls shall appear before God.”69 Jewish tradition
holds that in the beginning, God created Adam and Eve on Rosh Hashanah;
in ancient Israel, the kings were coronated on Rosh Hashanah; and in the
end, God will crown the Messiah and judge humanity on Rosh Hashanah.70
The New Year was celebrated with the blowing of a horn, or trumpet (Heb.
shophar, cf. Lev. 23:24; Num. 29:1), a tradition also projected
eschatologically (cf. Isa. 27:13; Matt. 24:31; 1 Cor. 15:52; 1 Thess. 4:16;
Rev. 11:15).
Furthermore, according to Jewish tradition God will come on Rosh
Hashanah to judge the living and the dead, consummating atonement for his
people on Yom Kippur, and thereby inaugurating the Feast of Tabernacles
and the eternal dwelling of God with mankind.71 Thus we have a broad
typological pattern of sacrifices throughout the year culminating in Rosh
Hashanah and the Day of Atonement, which prefigures the ultimate
sacrifice of the Messiah before the consummation of the day of judgment
and the age to come (see figure 7.5).

Figure 7.5 – The Typological Fulfillment of the Sacrificial System

 This typological approach to the sacrificial system, within a first-
century Jewish apocalyptic framework, is seen throughout the New
Testament. Blood signifies sacrifice, and thus every reference to “the blood
of Christ” (1 Cor. 10:16; Eph. 2:13; Heb. 9:14; 1 Peter 1:19; cf. 1 Cor.
11:27; Heb. 10:19; 1 John 1:7; Rev. 7:14; 12:11), or “his blood” (Rom.
3:25; 5:9; Eph. 1:7; Heb. 9:12; 13:12; 1 Peter 1:2; Rev. 1:5; cf. Col. 1:20;
Rev. 5:9), is a sacrificial reference. It is “the blood of the covenant” (Matt.
26:28; Heb. 10:29; 13:20; cf. 1 Cor. 11:25) that “purifies” and “cleanses” us
from sin (cf. Acts 15:9; Eph. 5:26; Titus 2:14; Heb. 9:14; 10:2; 1 Peter 1:22;
1 John 1:7–9).
The apostolic preaching of the “forgiveness of sins” in Jesus (cf. Acts
2:38; 5:31; 10:43; 13:38; 26:18) assumes a sacrificial understanding, for
“without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb. 9:22).
John the Baptist was thus understood when he declared, “Behold, the Lamb
of God, who takes away the sins of the world!” (John 1:29; cf. v. 36).72
“For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7), “a
fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:2). Therefore, “When Christ
had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right
hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a
footstool for his feet” (Heb. 10:12–13; cf. Heb. 7:27; 9:26).
In this way the sacrificial system was understood to be “a shadow of the
good things to come” (Heb. 10:1). The earthly sanctuary and its
accompanying sacrifices served as a “pattern” (Heb. 8:5), or type (Gk.
tupos), of the heavenly sanctuary (8:1–5; 9:1–5), from which would come a
greater messianic priest (8:6; 9:11, 24) who would make a new covenant
(8:8, 13; 9:15) by providing a better sacrifice (8:6; 9:12, 26), “thus securing
an eternal redemption” (9:12). Though animal sacrifices purified the flesh,
“how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit
offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead
works to serve the living God. Therefore he is the mediator of a new
covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal
inheritance” (9:14–15). Hence the priestly sanctuary, duties, and sacrifices
were understood typologically, finding their fulfillment in the suffering of
the Messiah sacrificially before the glorifying of the Messiah
eschatologically—“So also Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins
of many, will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to
those who are waiting for him” (9:28, CSB). It is the sacrificial death of the
Messiah that attains the eternal inheritance—that is, the Jewish apocalyptic
hope of salvation.
Assuming that the epistles of the New Testament basically represent
what Jesus taught his disciples during the forty days following his
resurrection (cf. Luke 24:44–48; Acts 1:3), we can essentially deduce that
the justification for messianic suffering before glory, as expounded on the
road to Emmaus (Luke 24:25–27), was based upon direct prophecies and a
typological understanding of righteous suffering, the calendar, and the
sacrificial system.73 The various aspects and implications of the messianic
sacrifice (e.g., righteousness, reconciliation, propitiation, justification,
redemption, etc.) will be discussed in the next chapter.

POST-APOSTOLIC TYPOLOGY
Throughout the history of the church, the Emmaus road encounter has been
understood in accordance with the presupposed theological tradition of the
interpreter. These traditions have generally fallen within the two primary
eschatological categories of Augustinianism: immaterial-heavenly destiny
(church triumphant) and material-manifest sovereignty (church militant),
each of which fundamentally redefines the eschatological and Israelitic
“glory” of the Messiah. One of the main hermeneutical tools used to justify
this reinterpretation has been typology. At typology’s core, as Leonhard
Goppelt states, we see “the struggle to properly interpret the OT that can be
traced to the beginnings of the church.”74 Simply put, we interpret the
Tanakh according to our theological endgame, and then we apply typology
to it.
Origen exemplifies the Christoplatonic corruption of typology (in an
exposition of Passover, no less): “We ought not to suppose that historical
events are types of other historical events, and material things of other
material things; rather material things are types of spiritual things and
historical events of intelligible realities.”75 Accordingly, Adam and Eden
are types of an immaterial existence in an immaterial paradise; Abraham
and Canaan are types of our heavenly calling and the spiritual promised
land; Moses and the exodus are types of our freedom from the tyranny of
materiality; and so on and so forth. According to Constantinianism, on the
other hand, Adam and paradise are typical of the church militant (the
manifestation of Jesus’ resurrected glory); Abraham is a type of the
consummated promised land of Christendom (Jesus’ inheritance of the
nations); Moses is a type of the emperor and/or the pope, Jesus’ vicar upon
the earth (freeing the world from pagan idolatry); and so on and so forth.76
Within the Augustinian synthesis, these ends work in tandem—the
Scriptures typologically prophesy the church militant in this life unto the
church triumphant in the next life (see figure 7.6).77 This twofold sequential
glory (a realized kingdom unto a heavenly destiny) in turn justified the
aberrant practices of monasticism and Christendom throughout the Middle
Ages.78 Once typology drifts from its Jewish apocalyptic moorings, its
flights of fancy know no end.79 Moreover, the distortion of typology
promoted the increased use of allegory, following the Alexandrian school of
thought.80 As typified by Origen,81 bizarre interpretations of the Scriptures
spread throughout the church under the guise of spiritual “revelation.”82
The bottom line of these distortions is the eradication of a simple Jewish
eschatological hope. The Tanakh is partially or wholly dismissed as
typologically/allegorically fulfilled and superseded by Christ’s first coming.
Rather than a fulfillment of suffering at the first coming before a fulfillment
of glory at the second coming, we find the oxymoronic fulfillment of both
at the first coming, thus practically negating any eschatological hope. As
Origen scholar Jean Daniélou expresses, “The Old Testament had at one
time a function to fulfil, but that function was to prefigure and prepare for
the New. Once the New Testament was in force, the Old Testament lapsed
as far as its literal meaning was concerned but kept its value as a figure.”83
 Figure 7.6 – The Ultimate Ends of Typology within Augustinianism

This hermeneutical approach of the Alexandrian school of thought

dominated the church for more than a millennium, as Goppelt summarizes:
“In the West, Hilary, Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome were influenced by
Alexandria. Their very arbitrary exegesis, which made use of both
allegorical and typological interpretation, was the authoritative model for
the Middle Ages.”84 Though Luther and the Reformers drew back from the
use of allegory and typology, their interpretation concerning the ultimate
eschatological realities changed little (though their renewed emphasis on
the cross is more than commendable).
Not until the rise of dispensationalism in the late nineteenth century do
we find a fundamentally different theological framework and corresponding
use of typology. Its dualistic soteriology results in suffering before a
twofold concurrent glory—the immaterial Gentile glory of the heavenly
redemptive plan and the material Jewish glory of the earthly redemptive
plan.85 Dispensationalists have historically avoided typology because of its
potential infringement upon a “literal hermeneutic,”86 a fact that non-
dispensationalists have exploited.87 If typology were logically applied
within dispensationalism, however, we would see the same twofold result as
seen in the dualistic interpretation of the new covenant.88 The incorporation
of typology into dispensationalism would only exacerbate its manifold
complexity.89
With the rise of inaugurationalism in the twentieth century, we have yet
another approach to interpreting the sufferings of Christ before his entrance
into glory—“a semi-eschatological expression incorporating the heavenly
realm both in the present and future.”90 This “realized” eschatology (again,
a term with duplicitous meanings) involves a messianic glory in this age
(expressed in Jesus’ resurrection and ascension) and a messianic glory
consummated at his return.91 Typology is thus interpreted within this
theological schema. Persons, events, and institutions in the Tanakh find
their end both in this age and the supernaturalized age to come.92
Within inaugurationalism, however, the present fulfillment of
typological realities is not primarily related to messianic suffering and a
sacrificial understanding of the cross but rather to the present spiritual
realization of Jewish eschatology. God is establishing a non-apocalyptic,
non-Jewish kingdom now, in part, which will be fully manifest in the age to
come. In this way modern inaugurationalism is quite akin to its
Christendom ancestor, since the cruciform nature and purpose of this age is
similarly obscured and neglected. The obvious conclusion cannot be
escaped: God is extending the inquisitional rod, so to speak, to his enemies
both now and in the age to come.93

Figure 7.7 – Spectrum of Realization within Inaugurationalism

 Moreover, the so-called “realization” of Jewish eschatology is not a
straightforward fulfillment of the messianic hope. Rather, Jewish
eschatology is “rethought,” “redefined,” “reworked,” and “reimagined.”94
Furthermore, it is the Jewish elements that consistently get redefined
(Davidic throne, land, temple, etc.), whereas the universal elements
(resurrection of the dead, new earth, day of the Lord, etc.) are retained.95
The more Jewish it is; the more it gets typologically fulfilled (see figure
7.7). The Bible, however, casts universalistic events within the
particularistic framework of Jewish election (cf. Isa. 65; Ezek. 37; Joel 3;
etc.). Thus inaugurationalists seem driven toward a systematic campaign of
theological ethnic cleansing.96 Yet the God of Israel does not change.
In this way realized eschatology drives an unnecessary and detrimental
wedge between Judaism and Christianity, as Jewish theologian David Ariel
articulates:

What is it, after all, that marks the difference between Christians
and Jews? . . . Jews believe in the eventual fulfillment of an elusive
dream of a perfect world. Christians believe that the world has
already been saved by the crucifixion and resurrection of the
Messiah Jesus. The difference between the belief in future
redemption and realized redemption is the chasm that separates
Jewish from Christian thinking.97

Indeed, “realized redemption” does create a chasm of thought between

us and the Scriptures, yet the apostles knew nothing of the sort. Their hope
remained thoroughly Jewish apocalyptic, as Acts 1:3–11 plainly reveals.
The division between Jews and the Jesus-following “sect” (Acts 24:5, 14;
28:22) of the New Testament simply concerned the sacrificial interpretation
of the cross, not a spiritual realization of Jewish eschatology.
Unfortunately, confusion immediately arises in the comparison of
Jewish “future redemption” and Christian “realized redemption,” because
the two are fundamentally different in nature. The former is Israelitic and
Jerusalemic, while the latter is Gentilic and quite Romish. Realized
eschatology does not actually inaugurate the Jewish apocalyptic hope, but
rather it redefines and transforms it.98 N. T. Wright claims, for example,
that Jesus “had not come to rehabilitate the symbol of holy land, but to
subsume it within a different fulfilment of the kingdom, which would
embrace the whole creation.”99 This redefined fulfillment has dramatic
consequences for our interpretation of the Tanakh, however, because the
new definition inherently negates the old definition.
This negation is called “supersessionism,” which is variously termed
“replacement theology” or “displacement theology.”100 R. Kendall Soulen
outlines its basic tenets:

For most of the past two millennia, the church’s posture toward the
Jewish people has come to expression in the teaching known as
supersessionism, also known as the theology of displacement.
According to this teaching, God chose the Jewish people after the
fall of Adam in order to prepare the world for the coming of Jesus
Christ, the Savior. After Christ came, however, the special role of
the Jewish people came to an end and its place was taken by the
church, the new Israel.101

Such language of the church as “the new Israel” is ubiquitous in modern

inaugurationalist writings, because realized eschatology necessarily results
in supersessionism (see figure 7.8).102 If the Tanakh envisions an Israelitic
eschatology, and Jesus and the apostles redefine and fulfill that eschatology,
then supersessionism is the result.103 The old reality is replaced with a new
and substantially different reality.
 Figure 7.8 – Typology and Supersessionism within Inaugurationalism

With examples too many to cite, inaugurationalists always come to the

same conclusion: “National Israel is nothing other than the empty shell
from which the pearl has been removed and which has lost its function in
the history of redemption.”104 Indeed, it is “the hard fact that national Israel
and its law have been permanently replaced by the church and the New
Covenant.”105 The church is “a new people of God who are to take the
place of Israel,”106 for “the concern of the New Testament is a relationship
with Jesus Christ, not a restoration of the types of the Old Testament.”107 If,
in the first coming, “Israel’s history had reached its intended fulfillment,”
then the church can rightly claim to be “the continuation of Israel in a new
situation.”108
Based on these ideas, Israel committed (and consequently continues to
commit) the “meta-sin” of carnal ethnocentric nationalism.109 Though not
as flagrant and abusive as Origen,110 or Luther,111 modern supersessionists
continue to do violence to the covenants by rifling them of their
fundamentally ethnic nature, based upon the interpretive logic that “the
coming of the kingdom of God through Jesus the Messiah has transformed
and reinterpreted all the promises and prophecies in the Old Testament.”112
Indeed, “The implication is that the Jewish nation has no longer a place as
the special people of God; that place has been taken by the Christian
community, and in them God’s purposes for Israel are to be fulfilled.”113
I doubt that any of these supersessionists would be so bold if they were
speaking face to face with a modern orthodox Jew, who would probably spit
in their face—not for the offense of Jewish nationalism, but for the offense
of the nature of God and the Scriptures themselves. Such ideas are
repugnant to modern Jews,114 and indeed they are inherently contradictory
to the biblical hope. It is one thing, as is often done in the New Testament,
to criticize individual Jews for their arrogance and self-righteousness (an
issue common to Jew and Gentile alike; cf. Romans 11:17–32). It is quite
another to call their hope, explicitly or implicitly, archaic and carnal.115 In
the New Testament, what divided Jews who believed in Jesus from Jews
who did not was the atonemental suffering of the Messiah, not differing
views of Jewish election, the kingdom, the temple, Jerusalem, etc. The
spiritual realization, transformation, and supersession of these things are
simply baseless.116
The various Gentilic eschatologies held throughout the church’s history
inherently contradict the Tanakh’s unequivocal vision of the future:
apocalyptic, messianic, and Israelitic.117 Conversely, the New Testament
affirms the hope of the Scriptures, arguing simply that God sent his Messiah
first as a sacrifice for the sins of humanity before sending him again to
execute judgment upon the sins of humanity (cf. Acts 3:18–26; Rom. 5:1–9;
Heb. 10:12–13). Therefore Jew and Gentile alike must repent of their sins,
accept God’s predetermined atonement as the means of escaping divine
wrath, and thus together inherit the glory of eternal life. Though lacking the
theological sophistication of the modern academy and its inaugurational
refinement, I find this to be the commonsense approach to the Scriptures
that most reasonably corresponds to the apostolic witness in its first-century
Jewish context.
 Chapter Eight

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF
GOD

Peter’s response to the declaration of the death of the Messiah is probably

characteristic of much first-century messianic expectation—“Far be it from
you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (Matt. 16:22).1 God’s Messiah
would come with divine glory, establish a throne in Jerusalem, raise the
dead, and judge the nations. Yet God chose “according to the counsel of his
will” (Eph. 1:11) to hand him over to death. His crucifixion was
“predestined to take place” (Acts 4:28), “determined” (Luke 22:22) by God,
for it was “foretold by the mouth of all the prophets” (Acts 3:18). He was
“delivered up according to God’s determined plan and foreknowledge”
(Acts 2:23, CSB), because “it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause
him to suffer” (Isa. 53:10, NIV).
I believe the answer to the question of why the Messiah was handed
over by God constitutes the essential center of thought and meditation in the
epistles of the New Testament.2 In light of the apocalyptic hope of the day
of the Lord, the resurrection of the dead, and the kingdom of God, why was
it “necessary for the Christ to suffer” (Acts 17:3)? What did the death of the
Messiah mean, and why was his death different than the death of any other
human being? Many prophets had been martyred in the past, yet God
deemed—in his own system of accounting—that this martyrdom was quite
different and absolutely necessary.3
 Based upon Paul’s descriptions of divine revelation (cf. 1 Cor. 15:3–8;
Gal. 1:12), we can assume that Jesus interpreted to his disciples his own
death in detail during the forty days of post-resurrection teaching (Acts
1:3). I believe this teaching concerning the divine interpretation of
messianic suffering is substantially represented in the Epistles. The death of
the Messiah was understood sacrificially: atoning for human sin,
propitiating the wrath of God, justifying the sinner, and redeeming that
which was primordially lost—all of which was understood within a
presupposed Jewish apocalyptic context.

THE SACRIFICIAL NATURE OF THE

MESSIAH’S DEATH
As discussed in the previous chapter, the suffering of the Messiah was
understood by the apostles in sacrificial terms, typologically fulfilling the
sacrificial system. The ultimate purpose of the sacrifices and offerings was
to “make atonement on your behalf for your sin” (Lev. 5:6, NRSV; cf. Lev.
4:20, 26, 31, 35; 5:10, 13, 16, 18; 6:7; 8:34; 9:7; 10:17; 12:7; 14:18–20, 29–
31; 15:15, 30; 16:6, 11, 16–18, 32–34; 19:22; 23:28; Num. 6:11; 8:12, 19;
15:25, 28; 16:46; 28:22, 30; 29:5). Here we note the inherently vicarious
and substitutional nature of sacrifice, which is made “on your behalf.” Such
substitutionality is clearly portrayed by the laying on of hands (cf. Lev. 1:4;
3:2, 8, 13; 4:4, 15, 24, 29, 33; 8:14, 22; 16:21; Num. 8:12) and the
confession of sins—especially on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:21; cf.
Lev. 5:5; 26:40; Num. 5:7)—symbolizing the transference of iniquity onto
the head of the animal.4 Those who transgress the law will “bear [their]
iniquity” (Lev. 5:1, 17; 7:18; 17:16; 19:8; 20:17, 19; 22:16; Num. 5:31;
14:34; 18:1; 30:15) and “bear [their] sin” (Lev. 20:20; 22:9; 24:15; Num.
9:13; 18:22). But for those who repent, confess their sins, and offer the
ordained sacrifice, the animal “shall bear all their iniquities” (Lev. 16:22; cf.
Lev. 10:17). Thus by sacrifice a person’s sins are borne away, “and he shall
be forgiven” (Lev. 4:26, 31, 35; 5:10, 13, 16, 18; 6:7; 19:22; Num. 15:28).
Here is established the fundamental biblical relationship between sacrifice
and divine forgiveness.5
Moreover, we see that God, by his own initiative and mercy, instituted
the reality of sacrifice for atonement and forgiveness: “I have given it for
you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that
makes atonement by the life” (Lev. 17:11; cf. Lev. 4:2; 6:7; etc.). In this
way God ultimately provides deliverance from sin, a theme common
throughout the Scriptures (e.g., Gen. 22:14; Deut. 32:36; Ps. 22:4; Matt.
1:21). Accordingly, it is God who offered his Messiah as a sacrifice for the
forgiveness of sins (cf. 1 Cor. 5:7; Eph. 5:2; Heb. 9:28). With over twenty
references to the “blood” of Christ (as noted in the previous chapter), the
Epistles are rife with sacrificial assumptions.
Akin to the language of blood, the vicarious and substitutional language
of the New Testament also assumes a sacrificial framework. As the sacrifice
was offered in lieu of the worshiper, so also the Messiah died “for” (Gk.
anti), or “on behalf of” (Gk. huper), sinners.6 Indeed, it is “of first
importance,” Paul said, “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the
Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3).7 Similarly, Peter declared, “Christ also suffered
once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to
God” (1 Peter 3:18). And John stated that Christ “laid down his life for us”
(1 John 3:16) and that God “sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our
sins” (1 John 4:10, NRSV). The apostolic witness is saturated with such
vicarious-sacrificial declarations concerning the death of the Messiah.8
Moreover, Jesus used the same language concerning his own death: “This is
my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness
of sins” (Matt. 26:28; cf. 20:28).
Jesus’ declaration during the Last Supper exemplifies the sacrificial
presuppositions of the New Testament: (1) The blood of the Messiah was
shed; (2) on behalf of many; (3) for the forgiveness of sins.9 Divine
forgiveness is predicated on the sacrificial shedding of blood (Lev. 17:11;
Heb. 9:22), and consequently the apostolic proclamation of the forgiveness
of sins through faith in Jesus (cf. Acts 2:38; 5:31; 10:43; 13:38; 26:18) also
assumed a sacrificial interpretation. The idea that the earliest apostolic
church, as revealed in the book of Acts, lacked a developed theology of
atonement is groundless.10 In light of the temple and the sacrificial cult,
which was still operational at the time, the apostolic declaration concerning
the forgiveness of sins would have been commonly understood in sacrificial
terms.
The forgiveness of sins and a sacrificial interpretation of the cross were
also based upon belief in the depravity of mankind in light of the holiness
of God. Following the sin of Adam, “all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). For “sin came into the world through one man”
and “all sinned” (Rom. 5:12), which “led to condemnation for all men” (v.
18). Thus “by a man came death” (1 Cor. 15:21), and “in Adam all die” (v.
22).11 Being “ungodly” (Rom. 4:5; 5:6; Jude 15) and “sinners” (Rom. 5:19;
Gal. 2:17; 1 Tim. 1:15), all humans—Jew and Gentile alike—are “by nature
children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3) and “sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2).12
Because all are “alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds” (Col.
1:21), the Scriptures declare all to be “prisoners of sin” (Gal. 3:22, NLT) and
“slaves to sin” (Rom. 6:20; cf. John 8:34). Thus Paul summarizes, “God has
consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all” (Rom.
11:32).
Such a depraved condition necessarily results in alienation and
estrangement from our Creator, “the Holy One” (Ps. 89:18; Isa. 40:25; Hos.
11:9). Holiness and sinfulness cannot coexist. Therefore all are considered
to be “under sin” (Rom. 3:9; 7:14) and “under condemnation” (James 5:12;
cf. Rom. 5:16–19). Apart from God, we are metaphorically “dead in our
trespasses” (Eph. 2:5; cf. 1 Tim. 5:6), and hence “alienated from the life of
God” (Eph. 4:18). Because all are by nature “hostile to God” (Rom. 8:7), all
are deemed “God’s enemies” (Rom. 5:10, NIV).
However, the basic apostolic claim is that by faith in the sacrificial
death of the Messiah our sins are forgiven and we can be reconciled to God.
Such reconciliation (Gk. katallagē) can also be translated “atonement,”
which means “to bring together in mutual agreement,” for it was originally
broken into two words: “at onement.”13 To make at-one-ment is to make
reconciliation—as British theologian Thomas Hughes posited, “In the New
Testament the basic idea of the Atonement is that of reconciliation.”14
Various modern translations have sought to incorporate the word
atonement, so as to emphasize this idea (cf. Rom. 3:25; 5:11; Heb. 2:17;
9:5; 1 John 2:2; 4:10).15 Throughout the New Testament, this reconciliation
was understood within the preexisting Jewish apocalyptic framework. Thus,
in light of the day of the Lord, the apostles proclaimed that sinful humans
could be reconciled to their holy Creator by means of faith in the sacrificial
death of the Messiah (see figure 8.1).16
 Figure 8.1 – God and Man Reconciled by the Messianic Sacrifice

For example, in the context of the Jewish eschatological “judgment seat

of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:10), Paul declares, “The love of Christ controls us,
because we have concluded this: that one has died for all. . . . In Christ God
was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against
them” (vv. 14, 19). Similarly, the apostle says, “You, who once were
alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his
body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and
above reproach before him” (Col. 1:21–22). So also, in Romans, Paul
summarizes the sacrificial death of the Messiah unto our reconciliation with
God and salvation from the coming wrath:

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ
died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his
blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the
death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we
be saved by his life. (Rom. 5:8–10)
 Though humanity seeks reconciliation with the divine in a multitude of
ways, God has determined that there is only one way to assuage the
hostility: through faith in the sacrificial death of his Messiah. In this way,
Christ Jesus stands between the sin of humanity and the holiness of God:
“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the
man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the
testimony given at the proper time” (1 Tim. 2:5–6).
Though the idea of sacrifice is often revolting to modern ears (no one
offers their animals to appease the gods), it was the foundational reality by
which the death of the Messiah was understood. Those with a naturalistic
bias deem sacrificial ideas to be fundamentally “primitive.” And all
attempts to “spiritualize,” “christologize,” or otherwise change the basic
understanding of sacrifice, carried over from the Tanakh, are baseless.17
Moreover, the marginalization of sacrificial realities as linguistic
“metaphors,” “motifs,” or “figures of speech” does violence to the apostolic
witness.18 The Messiah’s death was constitutionally sacrificial, and thereby
vicarious and sin-bearing.19 Either Christ Jesus bears our sins before God
on the last day, or we bear our own sins eternally.20
The messianic sacrifice is thus understood as the only means of
escaping divine wrath and inheriting eternal life (cf. Rom. 8:1–24; Eph.
1:3–14; 2 Tim. 1:8–12; Titus 3:4–7; 1 Peter 1:13–21; 1 John 4:7–18; etc.). It
is the means of attaining the long-awaited Jewish eschatological hope (cf.
Acts 26:7; Rom. 9:30–32; Phil. 3:7–11). The apostolic writers (especially
Paul) therefore refer to the Messiah’s sacrificial death in a shorthand style
as “the gospel” (cf. Rom. 1:16; Gal. 1:11; Col. 1:23; 1 Tim. 1:11), since it is
“the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first
and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16).

GOD’S RIGHTEOUSNESS AND

SACRIFICIAL ATONEMENT
The language of “righteousness” (Gk. dikaiosunē) in the New Testament
rests upon sacrificial realities. Righteousness is a moral standing before
God, the result of forgiveness, which assumes the shedding of blood (Lev.
17:11; Heb. 9:22).21 Modern theological trends that separate righteousness
from moral, judicial, and sacrificial realities would be baffling to the
apostles.22 Israel’s history and theology developed around the sacrificial
system, and first-century Judaism revolved around the temple and its
sacrificial cult.23 This system was established and carried out on the basis
of, and for the purpose of, rectifying sin and making worshipers morally
acceptable in the sight of God.
This remediation was accomplished by the transference of sin from the
worshiper to the animal (cf. Lev. 5:6; 10:17; 16:22), while the innocence of
the animal was “credited to him” (Lev. 7:18). The animal was “accepted on
his behalf” (Lev. 1:4, CSB) if the worshiper offered it in faith and with
repentance (note the cry of the prophets concerning sacrifices without
repentance, cf. Isa. 1:11–20; Amos 5:21–27; Mic. 6:6–8). In this way the
worshiper was united with the animal, which functioned vicariously and
substitutionally—bearing his sin—while he himself was accounted “before
the LORD” (Lev. 10:17; 16:30; 19:22) according to the innocence of the
animal. Thus the conclusion, “He will be forgiven for anything he may have
done to incur guilt” (Lev. 6:7, CSB). Moral standing (concerning guilt and
innocence), forgiveness, and righteousness were inextricably bound to
sacrifice.
In such a light, the death of the Messiah was understood sacrificially in
the New Testament as a “sin offering” (Rom. 8:3, CSB).24 Those who put
their faith in him as a sacrifice will be justified, or “declared righteous”
(Rom. 2:13; 3:20, NIV; 5:1, 9, CSB), in God’s sight. Based upon the
mechanism of the transference of sin in God’s accounting, we are “counted
as righteousness” (Rom. 4:5), and on the last day we will be qualified to
inherit eternal life. This divine transference is “counted as a gift” (Rom.
4:4)—that is, not of our own doing but “the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8), also
summarized as “the free gift of righteousness” (Rom. 5:17).25 In this way
we have received “the righteousness that comes from God” (Rom. 10:3,
NRSV, NET).26 So Paul stated his emphatic desire to “be found in him, not
having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which
comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on
faith” (Phil. 3:8–9).
Such reckoning and crediting of righteousness (or “imputing,” as in the
older English), derives directly from the sacrificial system, which was the
commonly understood framework for the death of the Messiah. Thus the
revelation of “the righteousness of God” (Rom. 1:17; 3:21; 10:3) was
simply the revelation of God’s sacrificial offering of the Messiah which
established the innocence and forgiveness of the worshiper (see figure
8.2).27 In light of “the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:10), Paul
summarized, “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so
that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (v. 21).28 As the
sacrificial animal was “made to be sin,” so to speak, on behalf of the
worshiper, so also the Messiah was made to be sin on behalf of sinners that
we might be declared righteous before God and therefore be “guiltless in
the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:8). Paul had one desire for the
church: that by faith in the sacrificial death of Jesus it would be presented
“blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23; cf. Phil.
1:10; Col. 1:22; 1 Thess. 3:13).

Figure 8.2 – God’s Righteousness Reckoned through Faith in the Messianic

Sacrifice

Paul thus speaks in Romans 3:21–25 of “the righteousness of God” (vv.

21, 22) that is attained “by his blood” (v. 25). In light of the eschatological
day (cf. 2:5, 16; 3:5, 6, 19), Paul understands the messianic sacrifice to
accomplish righteousness in three ways: propitiation, justification, and
redemption. Note the integration of these realities within a sacrificial
framework:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from
the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the
righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who
believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a
propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. (Rom. 3:21–25)

As we will see, these three words roughly represent the royal, judicial,
and economic realities found in the character of God, which play out in
redemptive history. However, these three words are all built upon vicarious
sacrifice, accomplishing in each of these areas a righteous status before
God. By his blood propitiation is made (Rom. 3:25; cf. 1 John 1:7; 2:2;
4:10). By his blood we are justified (Rom. 5:9; cf. Titus 3:7). By his blood
redemption is achieved (Eph. 1:7; Heb. 9:14–15; 1 Peter 1:18–19). By his
blood we are reconciled to God (Col. 1:20; cf. 2 Cor. 5:19; Eph. 2:13). The
cumulative force of these passages cannot be overstated. Again, all
atonement realities build upon the foundation of substitutional sacrifice.29
Moreover, it is the sacrificial blood that enables and enacts all of the other
aspects of the atonement, which establishes human beings as righteous in
the sight of God.30

Propitiation
The term “propitiation” (the placation of anger) is almost completely absent
from modern culture. No one uses propitiatory language in everyday
conversation. It has become Bible rhetoric with little meaning to the
common believer. In fact, at the very mention of the word most people
disengage, their eyes glazing over. Nevertheless, propitiation lies at the
heart of biblical faith and thought.
Propitiation, more than any other atonemental term, is associated with
sacrifice. Though relatively rare in the New Testament (found only in Luke
18:13; Rom. 3:25; Heb. 2:17; 9:5; 1 John 2:2; 4:10), the Greek word
(hilasmos) and its cognates are used extensively in the Septuagint (some
150 times) to translate the Hebrew terms for atonement (kippur/kaphar).
Though commonly translated “make atonement,” verses like Leviticus 6:7
literally read, “The priest shall make propitiation for him before the
LORD.”31 Likewise, the sacrificial calendar culminated with the Day of
Atonement (Lev. 16), or “Day of Propitiation,” wherein the wrath of God
toward the sin of Israel was assuaged.32 This relationship is seen in the New
Testament, where hilasmos is alternatively translated “atoning sacrifice” (1
John 2:2; 4:10, NRSV, NIV, CSB) and “sacrifice of atonement” (Rom. 3:25,
NRSV, NIV).
The term “propitiation,” inside and outside the Scriptures, simply means
“an appeasement of anger.”33 Inherent to the term are royal connotations,
for God is angry in his gubernatorial role (cf. Ps. 21:9; 110:5; Matt. 22:7;
Rev. 6:16).34 Because he is so disrespected among the nations (cf. Ps. 2:1;
46:6; Rev. 11:18) and because his righteous ways are disregarded (cf. Ezek.
22:26; 2 Peter 2:2), the nations are “storing up wrath for [themselves] on
the day of wrath” (Rom. 2:5).
The language of appeasement assumes the reality of divine wrath, an
idea inherently offensive to many.35 However, God is not like fallen angry
humans,36 nor like the pagan gods they worship.37 He is not a “pitiless
ogre” who lashes out arbitrarily.38 Rather, he is holy in his anger, which is
driven by love for that which he created and for that over which he rules.
As Australian theologian Leon Morris describes, “It is the combination of
God’s deep love for the sinner with His uncompromising reaction against
sin which brings about what the Bible calls propitiation.”39
By analogy, if my son beats his siblings, I should rightly get angry,
because I love his siblings and desire their well-being. This idea is
commonly termed “righteous anger”—that is, “a burning zeal for the right
coupled with a perfect hatred for everything that is evil.”40 So the
Scriptures portray God: “The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the
LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his
adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies” (Nah. 1:2; cf. Deut. 4:24;
6:15). Or as Paul summarily states, “The wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Rom. 1:18).
 For this reason the wrath of God “pervades the entire corpus” of the
Tanakh.41 Its references are too numerous to cite.42 God hates sin, and
therefore he is in “total opposition to every form of sin.”43 Even in the New
Testament, God is clearly angry with the sins of humanity (cf. Rom. 2:5;
3:5; 5:9; 12:19; 13:4; Eph. 5:6; Col. 3:6; 1 Thess. 2:16; Heb. 10:27; Rev.
6:16; 19:15). Moreover, the anger and wrath of God lie as a backdrop to the
drama of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus (cf. Matt. 3:7; 18:34;
22:7; Luke 14:21; John 3:36). Jesus understood the “cup” he was drinking
(Matt. 26:39 and par.)—that is, “the cup of [God’s] wrath” (Isa. 51:17; cf.
Ps. 75:8; Jer. 25:15; 49:12; Rev. 14:10; 16:19).
The death of the Messiah was thus understood as a propitiatory sacrifice
to assuage the wrath of God, which was to be ultimately expressed
eschatologically (see figure 8.3). Though God’s anger has been appeased
presently toward those in Christ—that is, “We have peace with God” (Rom.
5:1; cf. Eph. 2:13; Col. 1:20)—this present experience of peace with God is
in anticipation of being saved “from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10; cf.
Rom. 5:9). So John declares that God “loved us and sent his Son to be the
propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10); and as a result we have “confidence
for the day of judgment” (v. 17).
Humanity carries a universal cry for propitiation, as the tax collector
literally prayed, “O God, be propitiated for me, the sinner” (Luke 18:13).44
Deep within every human being is a longing that our Creator, in whose
image we are made, would be pleased with us. He is pleased, however, with
only one man—Jesus of Nazareth (cf. Matt. 3:17; 17:5)—and God has
shown this to be so by raising him, and only him, from the dead (cf. Acts
17:31; Rom. 1:4). The fact that all human beings remain in the grave proves
the divine disapproval of their lives. This is a depressing fact only for those
who refuse to acknowledge their condition, turn, and bind themselves by
faith to Christ crucified. For God has answered our cry for divine approval
by putting forward his Son “as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by
faith” (Rom. 3:25).
 Figure 8.3 – The Propitiative Nature of the Messianic Sacrifice

Justification
Unlike “propitiation,” the term “justification” is quite common in modern
English. We say things like “He was justified in what he did” and “How do
you justify that?” Though ideas of necessity, reasonableness, and generic
ethicality are assumed in the Scriptures, the biblical terms (Heb. tsadeq and
Gk. dikaios, and their cognates) carry a fundamental legal sense.45
Moreover, these words produce two different English word groups
—“justified” and “righteous”—to which we often assign different
meanings.46 This delineation is foreign to both Greek and Hebrew.47 If you
are “righteous,” then you are legally just; and if you are “justified,” then
you are legally in-the-right (i.e., “innocent”), rather than legally in-the-
wrong (i.e., “guilty”).48 Thus the “righteousness of God” would be
generally synonymous with the “justification of God” in a first-century
Jewish context.49
The concepts of justice and righteousness are therefore bound up
inextricably with legal and judicial concepts such as law, ordinances,
charges, judgment, guilt, etc. Justice is the effect of judgment based upon
law, which results in righteousness. And righteousness is thus understood as
conformity to law. So, throughout the Scriptures, righteousness and
judgment are used in tandem, too many times to quote.50 God is a
“righteous Judge” (Ps. 7:11; 2 Tim. 4:8), and he will indeed “judge the
world with righteousness” (Ps. 98:9; cf. Ps. 9:8; 67:4; 72:2; 96:13). When
applied to the greater apocalyptic narrative of the Scriptures, we see that
God has “fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by
a man whom he has appointed” (Acts 17:31)—that is, “the day of wrath
when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Rom. 2:5; cf. 2 Thess.
1:5).51 Thus we know that the earth is headed for “the day of judgment” (2
Peter 3:7), which will result in “new heavens and a new earth in which
righteousness dwells” (v. 13).
In this way, the closest biblical synonym of “righteousness” is
“justice.”52 The legal and judicial sense of biblical righteousness cannot be
ignored or brushed aside.53 So pervasive is the legal reality that God can
rightly be spoken of as “a God of law,”54 for “God works by the way of
law.”55 Not only is creation itself administrated by divine law (cf. Jer.
31:35; 33:25; Ps. 74:16), but redemptive history is ordered around it as a
means of coming to the knowledge of God (cf. Deut. 6; Ps. 78:5–8; 1 Tim.
1:8–11). Moreover, sacrifice is framed legally for the purpose of pardoning
transgression and iniquity (cf. Ex. 23:21; 34:9; Num. 14:19; Deut. 29:20;
Job 7:21; Ps. 25:11; Isa. 40:2; 55:7; Mic. 7:18). In this way worshipers are
absolved of “guilt” (Heb. asham), another pervasive legal concept in the
Scriptures.56
Those who are forgiven are thus “acquitted” (cf. Ex. 23:7; Deut. 25:1;
Ps. 69:27; Isa. 5:23; Mic. 6:11), the same word in both Greek and Hebrew
for “justify/declare righteous”—now applied to the sinner. To “justify” the
guilty is to “acquit” them, which means they are “declared righteous.” First-
century believers would have understood “justification” along such lines: a
legal term indicating the verdict of acquittal read by a judge, announcing
the innocence of the accused. These are the judicial categories into which
the apostles placed the sacrificial death of the Messiah in relation to the
apocalyptic day of judgment (see figure 8.4).57
 Figure 8.4 – The Justificative Nature of the Messianic Sacrifice

When we understand justification in the sense of legal acquittal, as Paul

clearly does in 1 Corinthians 4:4,58 many New Testament passages become
much more straightforward (as seen by the addition of the bracketed
language of acquittal in the following Scripture quotations). Since “we have
now been justified [acquitted] by his blood, much more shall we be saved
by him from the wrath of God” (Rom. 5:9). It is God who “justifies
[acquits] the ungodly” (Rom. 4:5), “so that being justified [acquitted] by his
grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus
3:7). “Therefore, since we have been justified [acquitted] by faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). In light of the
day of judgment, justification is a simple legal term, which is synonymous
with acquittal when applied to the guilty. So Paul explains, in light of the
various eschatological themes of Romans 8 (cf. vv. 11, 18, 23, 29):

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his
own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him
graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against
God’s elect? It is God who justifies [acquits]. Who is to condemn?
 Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised
—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
(Rom. 8:31–34)

Here the Messiah is understood as a legal advocate in a trial interceding

for a defendant who is accused and condemned—that is, declared guilty.
Because of Christ’s death, we have been acquitted of the charges against us,
thus averting the judgment and punishment due us on the last day.
This reality is universal for Jew and Gentile alike. As a result of Adam’s
“transgression” (i.e., breaking of a law), “death reigned” (Rom. 5:14). “For
the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift
following many trespasses brought justification [acquittal]” (Rom. 5:16).
Thus Paul concludes, “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for
all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification [acquittal] and life
for all men (Rom. 5:18).59 Paul understands this life in apocalyptic terms—
that is, “eternal life” (v. 21), which is achieved through the justification of
God at the cross. This is the legal terminology into which the death of the
Messiah is placed. By the sinful act of one protological man all are declared
sinners. By the righteous act of one eschatological man all who have faith
are declared righteous and acquitted of their sins, that on the day of Christ
they might inherit eternal life and the kingdom of God.60
So we find ourselves at the heart of Paul’s argument: On what basis, in
the sight of God, are we acquitted of our sins—by our righteous acts or by
the Messiah’s righteous act in the cross? This is the context of the polemical
debate between Paul and his adversaries concerning the “works of the law”
(Rom. 3:20, 28; Gal. 2:16; 3:2, 5, 10).61 These works of the law refer
simply to “works of righteousness” (Titus 3:5, CSB)—that is, generic
obedience to the commands of the Mosaic Law, especially the Decalogue
(cf. Rom. 2:17–23; 4:2–4; 7:7–12; 9:11; Gal. 3:10; 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5;
James 2:14–26; etc.).62
On what basis will we be acquitted and forgiven of the charges against
us on the day of judgment—upon our obedience to the divine statutes or
upon faith in the obedience of the Messiah? The apostle’s assertion is that
“a person is not justified [acquitted] by works of the law but through faith
in Jesus Christ” (Gal. 2:16), for “it is no longer on the basis of works;
otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (Rom. 11:6). Since the whole
world will be “held accountable to God” (Rom. 3:19), Paul says, “By works
of the law no human being will be justified [acquitted] in his sight” (v.
20).63 So Paul reasons: “For all who rely on works of the law are under a
curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all
things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’ Now it is evident that
no one is justified [acquitted] before God by the law” (Gal. 3:10–11).
Reliance of the heart, either upon self or upon God, is Paul’s contention. On
the last day when God “God judges the secrets of men” (Rom. 2:16), those
who rely on the mercy of God in the cross will be acquitted, while those
who boast in their own works of righteousness will not be acquitted.
Paul’s basic thrust is that justification and acquittal cannot happen on
the basis of righteous deeds, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God” (Rom. 3:23). According to our sins alone will we give an account
—What murderer stands before a judge and argues his charity?64 Because
of mankind’s universal condemnation and certainty of eternal judgment,
God has graciously provided a means of justification/acquittal by the
vicarious sacrificial death of the Messiah, which results in our being
“justified [acquitted] by his grace as a gift” (Rom. 3:24). This is the
commonsense approach and interpretation of Romans 3:21–26, one of the
most debated passages in church history.65 Paul’s point is simply that God’s
justification (of the sinner, cf. v. 20) has been “manifested apart from the
law” (v. 21), for God’s justification is “through faith in Jesus Christ” (v. 22).
This approach to Romans 3 is confirmed in Romans 4, which is Paul’s
point when he introduces the passage: “What then shall we say that
Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter?”
(Rom. 4:1, NIV). As Abraham “believed God” and it was “counted to him as
righteousness” (v. 3), so also “to the one who does not work but believes in
him who justifies [acquits] the ungodly, his faith is counted as
righteousness” (v. 5). This “counting” (Gk. logizomai), or “crediting”
(NASB, CSB, NIV), or “reckoning” (NRSV), is applied in anticipation of the day
of judgment, when those with faith will be considered righteous in the eyes
of the Judge, and declared as such before his court.66 Hence we will be
acquitted of our sins and “declared righteous in God’s sight” (Rom. 3:20,
NIV).
Much debate and lack of theological clarity concerning the idea of
justification is due to a lack of understanding (or recognition) of how first-
century Jews understood redemptive history. They were above all
apocalyptic: this age will end in a real day of judgment, which will take
place in a real courtroom with a real Judge and a real judgment bench (cf.
Rom. 14:10; 2 Cor. 5:10). For this reason justification and acquittal before
God were of paramount importance. Modern theological tendencies to
avoid legal and judicial realities (combined with the embarrassment of
apocalypticism) have resulted in widespread theological disarray. The death
of Jesus was understood as a substitutional sacrifice that secured our
acquittal/justification on the day of judgment.

Redemption
Like justification, “redemption” is an English word that is still in relatively
common usage. In the financial realm, we seek the redemption of bonds,
vouchers, or coupons. We might ask, “Can we redeem this situation?” We
speak of honor being redeemed or tell “stories of redemption.” Though the
word has a marginal secular usage, for many Christians redemption remains
almost entirely a religious concept. “Redemption” is viewed as just another
Bible word representing the whole of the Christian life and experience in a
generic sense. When a deeper meaning is applied, it is usually seen as little
more than a synonym for “deliverance.”67 While deliverance and
redemption in the Scriptures are related concepts (cf. Ex. 6:6; Job 6:23; Isa.
50:2; Jer. 15:21), deliverance is the implication of redemption, not its
equivalent. The release from bondage is accomplished by redemption.
“Redemption” (Gk. lutrōsis) and “to redeem” (Gk. lutroō) are based
upon the idea of “ransom” (Gk. lutron)—that is, a payment price for the
release of something.68 Though the term “redemption” is sometimes used in
the Scriptures without direct reference to a ransom payment (e.g., Luke
21:28; Rom. 8:23; Eph. 4:30), the fact that a ransom has been paid is
implied and assumed.69 Redemption is inherently an economic idea,
wherein payment is made or a debt is repaid.70 This was commonly
understood both inside and outside the Scriptures.71
In the Tanakh, redemption is variously associated with the buying back
of family property and/or slaves by the payment of money (cf. Lev. 25:29–
34, 47–55; Jer. 32:7–12), the receiving of firstborns by the payment of
sacrifice and offerings (cf. Ex. 13:11–16; Lev. 27:26–27; Num. 18:15–17),
and the purchasing of Israel by the payment and cost of God’s exertion of
power and effort (cf. Ex. 6:6; Deut. 7:8; Ps. 77:14–15). Much theological
wrangling surrounds these passages, but as Leon Morris states clearly:
“Redemption consistently signifies deliverance by payment of price. . . . As
a stubborn substratum in every case there is the basic price-paying
conception.”72
In apocalyptic thought this price-paying conception of redemption is
ultimately applied to the broad redemptive narrative. Humanity has rebelled
against God and broken his laws, which has caused objective, measurable
damages to creation. In response, God has handed human beings over to the
slavery of their sin until their debt should be repaid. This payment will
ultimately take place on the day of the Lord, when all people are judged
according to their deeds and either make restitution for their wrongs or pay
the debt with their very lives—that is, in Gehenna.73
This narrative is assumed in the New Testament and applied to the death
of Jesus. God attributes value to the sacrifice of the Messiah, which is then
counted toward the debt of humanity to purchase and liberate them from
their bondage and slavery.74 When seen through the apocalyptic lens, the
redemption passages of the New Testament become clearer (see figure 8.5).
For those who put their faith in Christ crucified, the day of recompense will
become “the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30), because “in him we have
redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according
to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7).
 Figure 8.5 – The Redemptive Nature of the Messianic Sacrifice

As with justification and propitiation, the present redemptive payment

of our debt has been made in anticipation of our future deliverance. Thus
Peter describes, “If you call on him as Father who judges impartially
according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the
time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways
inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or
gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without
blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:17–19). Here we see the sacrificial “blood of
Christ” being counted by God as “precious,” and hence applied in
anticipation of the judgment to come toward the debt of our “futile ways.”
Likewise Paul says, “There is one God, and there is one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom
for all” (1 Tim. 2:5–6).75 Such a mediation is assumed to be within the
apocalyptic context of “those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1
Tim. 1:16). Thus we wait for “our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory
of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to
redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his
own possession” (Titus 2:13–14).
 This apostolic interpretation is derived from Jesus’ own declaration that
“the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a
ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Jesus clearly understood his death in terms
of a payment for the transgressions of “the many” (cf. Isa. 53:11–12). The
eschatological orientation of redemption is also seen when Jesus references
“the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (Luke
21:27), saying, “When these things begin to take place, straighten up and
raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (v. 28).76
Likewise Paul speaks of “the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18),
which is our “adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (v. 23). Thus
by the sacrifice of Christ we have “obtained eternal redemption” (Heb.
9:12, CSB), for “he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are
called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has
occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the
first covenant” (v. 15). This all corresponds with the heavenly song:
“Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain,
and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and
language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and
priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth” (Rev. 5:9–10).77
Our being “bought with a price” (1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23)78 and “purchased
with his own blood” (Acts 20:28, CSB) gives context to Romans 3:24–25:
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his
grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God
put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” So the
three atonemental realities are interrelated and cooperative.79 The
redemptive payment of the blood of Jesus justifies/acquits us of our sins
and propitiates/assuages the wrath of God toward us. As sin creates the
threefold progression of God’s emotive anger unto penal charges unto fiscal
retribution, so the substitutional sacrifice satisfies our debt to the Creator,
exonerating the charges of the Judge, and thus resolving the wrath of the
King. In this way the substitutional nature of the death of the Messiah is
multifaceted (see figure 8.6).80
Figure 8.6 – The Threefold Substitutional Nature of the Messianic Sacrifice

As stated above, the various royal, judicial, and economic aspects of the
cross are based upon the foundational interpretation of the death of the
Messiah as a vicarious and substitutional sacrifice. Moreover, the different
aspects of the cross are based upon the apocalyptic realities of the day of
the Lord. They are not mere metaphors, images, or figures of speech. They
are different aspects of real history, based upon real events, involving real
persons, culminating in a real day.81 At two points in redemptive history are
the wrath, judgment, and retribution of God satisfied: the cross and the day
of the Lord. Righteousness is fulfilled only at Calvary and in Gehenna.
Where humanity will be found on that day is the great choice facing each
individual.

THE CHALLENGE OF FAITH

Nothing has been more challenging to the modern mind than the Jewish
apocalyptic nature of Jesus’ second coming (discussed in chapters 3–6) and
the sacrificial nature of his first coming (discussed in chapters 7–8). Both
have been deemed “embarrassing,” the product of “primitive” religion.
These two defining characteristics of the apostolic witness have been either
avoided or ridiculed by most within the modern academy. Through
spiritualization, realized eschatology, supersessionism, a naturalistic
approach to the Tanakh, and the rejection of sacrificial/substitutional
atonement, the modern church continues to drift from its apostolic
moorings.
Though human depravity surely plays a role, God has intentionally
made the gospel challenging to confront human strength and pride. For this
reason, the New Testament proclaims the death of the Messiah as a sin-
bearing sacrifice in light of the judgment to come as a reality to be received
“by faith” (Rom. 3:25; 5:1; 9:30–32; Gal. 2:16; 3:8, 22–26). Unfortunately,
“faith” is another word often misunderstood in modern times. It is
commonly associated with abstract “belief” (the same Greek word
translates both), which in turn is assumed to be little more than mental
assent to cognitive categories that have little impact on everyday life.82 This
could not be further from the biblical understanding of faith.
In the Scriptures, faith (Gk. pistis, Heb. aman) involves a heart-level
commitment that expresses itself in faithfulness to the One to whom it is
committed.83 Because the day of the Lord will begin with a revealing of
people’s hearts (cf. Rom. 2:16; 1 Cor. 4:5) and proceed to a judgment of
their words (cf. Matt. 12:36; Jude 15) and deeds (cf. Rom. 2:6; 2 Cor. 5:10),
issues of the heart demand the utmost attention. Indeed, sin begins within
the heart in the form of pride (cf. Isa. 14:13; 1 Tim. 3:6), diversifying to
other forms of iniquity (cf. James 1:15; 4:2), proceeding from the mouth
into every area of life (cf. Matt. 15:18–19; James 3:6). Because our lives
generate from the heart, so the reckoning of our lives in the eyes of God,
and the accounting of our sins, will begin with the heart. Likewise, the
accounting of the divine provision of sacrifice unto atonement will be based
upon the heart response: “For with the heart one believes and is justified,
and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Rom. 10:10).
Because of its “heart-felt” nature, biblical faith carries the connotation
of “trust” and “reliance.”84 So Paul argues concerning the faith of Abraham:
“To the one who does not work but trusts [Gk. pisteuō] him who justifies
the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom. 4:5). The force of
Romans 4:1–8 is hard to overstate. Those who trust their very selves to
divine mercy are the ones “to whom God counts righteousness” (v. 6).
Those who trust God’s provision of sacrifice are “those whose lawless
deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered” (v. 7), for “the Lord will
not count [their] sin” (v. 8). It is only the wholehearted entrusting of oneself
to the cross that will result in pardon on the day of judgment.
This kind of faith is quite confrontational, because it requires a heart
response. Comparing faith in Christ’s sacrifice to those participating in the
sacrificial system of the Tanakh, it took faith to actually believe that God
accounted one’s sin to the animal. Imagine standing over a young bull with
a repentant heart concerning sins common to mankind. After laying your
hands upon the animal and killing it, what has changed? The memory of the
sin still remains. The effect upon family, friends, and society still remains.
Faith was demanded of the worshiper to trust and believe that God truly
accounted the sins forgiven.
The same applies to every atonemental circumstance in the Scriptures.
Judgment is coming at midnight (Ex. 12:12)—Will God really pass over us
on account of a little blood on the door? Snakes are biting, and people are
actually dying (Num. 21:6)—Will God really heal us if we look at the snake
on the pole? The same dynamics apply to the greater redemptive narrative
(cf. Luke 22:15–16; John 3:14–15). Paul thus relates the hope of salvation
to our faith in the sacrifice: “Therefore, since we have been declared
righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which
we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:1–2,
CSB).

Participation
Inherent to atonemental faith is identification and participation. The
worshiper must identify with the object of atonement and participate with it
by faith. This is the intent of Communion, a regular “remembrance” for the
purpose of identification and participation in the event of the cross. So Paul
states explicitly, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation
in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in
the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16). Because it is a participation in the death
of Jesus, “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an
unworthy manner will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the
Lord” (1 Cor. 11:27, CSB). Thus that person “eats and drinks judgment on
himself” (v. 29).
 Such participatory language ultimately derives from the sacrificial
system. Those who offered sacrifices were united with the sacrifice in the
accountancy of God by their faith. The animal experienced death on behalf
of the worshiper, and the worshiper died with the animal, so to speak. So
Paul, in light of the sacrificial death of the Messiah (cf. Rom. 5:6–21)
declares:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ
Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with
him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised
from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in
newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like
his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
(Rom. 6:3–5)

Paul is not here spiritualizing or reinterpreting the realities of the cross

and resurrection, but rather relating to them according to faith. Such
participatory thought defines much of the language of atonement in the
New Testament. Thus Paul continues in Romans 6, “If we have died with
Christ, we believe that we will also live with him” (v. 8). Likewise, he tells
the Colossians, “You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in
glory” (Col. 3:3–4).
As one offering a sacrifice sought to be found in the animal before the
eyes of God, so Paul sought to be “found in [Christ], not having a
righteousness of my own” (Phil. 3:9). Therefore he sought to “know
Christ,” to become “like him in his death,” so as to “attain the resurrection
from the dead” (vv. 10–11). The drive to live this life by atonemental faith,
so as to inherit eternal life, thus lies behind the apostle’s classic declaration:
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who
lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of
God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). So participation
in the sacrifice by faith in this age was understood as the means of
participation in the resurrection in the age to come.
Real events evoke real participatory faith. Unfortunately, various
delusions throughout history (particularly Hellenistic and naturalistic) have
robbed people of the reality of redemptive history. When our narrative of
life is distorted, the gravity of sin is lifted. When faith is uprooted from its
historical context and bound in an unholy union to theological and
ideological abstractions, the human heart quickly disengages. Rather, God
calls us to truly trust him in light of a real history of human sin, its real
consequences, and the real day when humanity will be judged. In life’s
volatile situations, we call to others, “Trust me, and I will lead you through
this!” Similarly, our faith and trust are in God, who calls to us, “Trust me,
that when my Son comes and consumes the heavens and earth in fire, I will
pass over you on the basis of faith in his blood!” We have real historical
events—creation, the covenants, the cross, and the day of the Lord—in
which our hearts can trust and engage.
Moreover, these real events are every bit as challenging as they are
encouraging. In a time and culture in which personal accountability is
diminished by relativistic thinking, the message of the day of the Lord
smacks of brash primitivism. Just like every generation before us, we
question, “Where is the God of justice?” (Mal. 2:17). We live in a wicked
culture that renounces God and says in its heart, “You will not call to
account” (Ps. 10:13). We are like those complacent people “who say in their
hearts, ‘The LORD will not do good, nor will he do ill’” (Zeph. 1:12).
Indeed, we are the scoffers to come in the last days who say, “Where is the
promise of his coming?” (2 Peter 3:4). In the midst of the grinding “cares of
this life” (Luke 21:34), true belief and faith in the coming day of judgment
is certainly “difficult” (Mark 10:24).85
Even more difficult to believe is that the judgment of God on that day
will be determined by faith. Maybe God will judge the wicked; surely
people who commit heinous sins, like Adolf Hitler or Jeffrey Dahmer,
deserve his judgment! As seen in the common reaction to Dahmer’s
conversion, however, many say to themselves, How can God not judge
people like Jeffrey Dahmer?86 How can God forgive upon the basis of
faith? To the broken and repentant, this is wonderful news. But to the
haughty and self-righteous, this is impossible to accept. Thus, the twofold
confrontation of faith concerning the cross and the day of the Lord faces
every human being (see figure 8.7). The whole world is under sin (Rom.
3:9; Gal. 3:22); Jesus will judge the living and the dead (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim.
4:1); but those who put their faith in Christ crucified will find mercy (Rom.
3:24; Gal. 2:16). Those who “set aside the grace of God” (Gal. 2:21, CSB),
on the other hand, “will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction” (2
Thess. 1:9).

Figure 8.7 – The Twofold Confrontation of Faith Concerning the Cross and
the Day of the Lord

Perseverance
This tension of faith concerning the imputed righteousness of the cross in
anticipation of the judgment of the day of the Lord defined the life and
functioning of the apostolic church. Thus perseverance in justification by
faith unto the inheritance of eternal life lies at the heart of apostolic
exhortation (cf. 1 Cor. 1:8; Gal. 4:19; Phil. 1:6), and it defines many of the
New Testament’s controversies (cf. Gal. 1:6; 2 Cor. 11:4; 2 Tim. 4:4).
Paul describes life lived by faith in Christ’s sacrifice as being analogous
to a “race” (cf. 1 Cor. 9:24; Gal. 5:7; 2 Tim. 4:7), wherein conversion is the
starting line and the day of the Lord is the finish line. How you start is not
as important as how you finish, though obviously you cannot finish without
starting. Who puts blood on their door at dusk, but then goes down to frolic
in the Nile before midnight? Who looks at the snake on the pole once, but
then goes about tending to his wounds? The dead man does. The atonement
only applies if faith is held unto the time of judgment. The Scriptures leave
no room for the popular notion of “once saved, always saved.”87
Paul thus views the day of the Lord as the completion point for the
“good work” of faith in Christ crucified: “I am sure of this, that he who
began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus
Christ” (Phil. 1:6).88 Likewise, Paul labored for the gifts of the Holy Spirit
to strengthen the church in the way of the cross unto eternal life: “I give
thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was
given you in Christ Jesus . . . even as the testimony about Christ was
confirmed among you—so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait
for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end,
guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:4–8). Paul’s driving
ambition for the church was the perseverance of the testimony of Christ
crucified unto the day of Christ.
Similarly, Paul declares to the Colossians that “You, who once were
alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, [Christ] has now reconciled
in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless
and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable
and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard” (Col.
1:22–23). The only guarantee of salvation is persevering atonemental faith,
which depends not on human strength but casts itself continually upon
God’s mercy unto the day of Lord.
In this way, New Testament discipleship is also understood to be
cruciform, for our whole life is meant to be conformed to the cross. Those
who embark upon the journey of faith in Christ crucified endure its
complexities. In the cross is revealed God’s righteousness and man’s
depravity. Why did God deem it necessary to crush his Servant? Because of
the punishment that was due us. As Paul encapsulates, “Here is a
trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst” (1 Tim. 1:15, NIV). This
“trustworthy saying” is meant to serve as a theological summation. The
crucifixion happened in order to save sinners from the eschatological wrath
of God.
Before receiving a revelation of the cross, all human beings assume they
possess a general righteousness and a lack of need for atonement. Ask
someone on the street, “Will you go to heaven when you die?” (or some
question concerning eternal life and acceptability in the sight of God), and
you will usually get a confident “Yes.” The assumption is a basic
correspondence between the righteousness of God and the righteousness of
humanity. It is conversion that brings the revelation of sin, depravity, and
the need for divine mercy. God is understood as holy, while we are wicked
—the cross being the solution. However, this is not a one-time revelation. It
is a progressive disclosure of the holiness of God and the depraved state
into which we have all been born. Knowledge of the gap between the
depravity of mankind and the holiness of God ought to only grow larger,
while the glory of the cross and mercy of God ought to only grow greater.89
Thus we have a pattern for understanding growth and perseverance in
faith and discipleship. This pattern is exemplified by the apostle Paul, who
before conversion was “a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees” (Acts 23:6)—“the
strictest party of our religion” (Acts 26:5)—and “as to righteousness under
the law, blameless” (Phil. 3:6). The cross, however, exposed the ambitions
of his heart, and thus he recounts the truth of his condition: “We ourselves
were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and
pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating
one another” (Titus 3:3). So Paul can declare at the end of his life, “I was
shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display
his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him
and receive eternal life” (1 Tim. 1:16).

Disqualification
Though salvation is “the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8; cf. Rom. 5:17), we face the
perennial threat of disqualification (Gk. adokimos) in our discipleship race
unto the day of the Lord (cf. 2 Cor. 13:5–7; 2 Tim. 3:8; Titus 1:16). So Paul
relates his life of consecration to the gospel:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only
one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete
exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a
perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run
aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my
body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I
myself should be disqualified [Gk. adokimos]. (1 Cor. 9:24–27)
 This idea of disqualification, or becoming “reprobate” (KJV), is again
rooted in the sacrificial system. Throughout the Scriptures, those who walk
in known sin are disqualified in the eyes of God because there is no
sacrifice for intentional sin.90 The only sin that is atoned for is
“unintentional sin” (cf. Lev. 4:2; 5:15; Num. 15:24; Heb. 9:7). Intentional
sins—such as idolatry, adultery, murder, rebellion, and the like—resulted in
being “cut off” from the people of Israel (Lev. 7:20; 17:4; 18:29; etc.)
and/or death (Lev. 20; 24:14–23; Deut. 17:1–7).91
Similarly, excommunication (Matt. 18:17; 1 Cor. 5:2) and/or divine
judgment (1 Cor. 11:29; Rev. 2:23) is the New Testament standard. Paul
thus threatens believers who continue willfully in their sin: “Do you not
know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?” (1 Cor.
6:9; cf. Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5).92 So he quotes from the Law: “Purge the evil
person from among you” (1 Cor. 5:13; cf. Deut. 13:5; 17:7; 21:21; 22:21–
24). Because those who willfully sin will be disqualified in the end, Paul’s
injunction is considered merciful: “You are to deliver this man to Satan for
the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the
Lord” (1 Cor. 5:5).
The very purpose of this age is to bring to light the gravity of human
sin. Therefore when we “realize our guilt” (cf. Lev. 4:13, 22, 27; 5:2; 6:4)
and repent of our sin, God forgives according to the sacrifice. Intentional
sin becomes to us, and to God, unintentional—we hate it and intend not to
do it again. So God forgives and relents from impending judgment, a
common theme throughout the Scriptures (cf. 1 Kings 21:29; Ps. 106:45;
Jer. 18:8; Jonah 3:10; 1 John 1:9). However, “If we go on sinning
deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer
remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a
fury of fire that will consume the adversaries” (Heb. 10:26–27). So “no one
who abides in [Christ] keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has
either seen him or known him” (1 John 3:6; cf. 1 John 5:18). The call of
God is thus a continually repentant heart before God unto the day of Christ
Jesus (cf. Phil. 1:6; Heb. 12:1–4; 2 Peter 1:10)—or, as Paul exhorts: “Work
out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12).
Hence there is no place among believers for the all-too-common
Western phenomenon of “Sunday Christianity.” Those who think they can
deliberately sin throughout the week and go to church on the weekend to
find forgiveness will find their guilt remaining on the day of judgment.
Hear the fearful indictment of Hebrews 6:

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been

enlightened . . . and then have fallen away [Gk. parapipto, “to fail
to follow through on a commitment”93], to restore them again to
repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to
their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has
drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to
those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.
But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless [Gk. adokimos]
and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. (vv. 4–8)

Though we do indeed wrestle continually with a body of death in this

age (cf. Rom. 7:7–25), the answer is not to give in and resign to
compromise. Rather, we must continually cast our sin upon God and his sin
offering (cf. Rom. 8:1–4). Though we sin against God a thousand times, he
will yet forgive us, if we repent at a heart level (cf. Matt. 18:22; Col. 3:13).
If we continually sin and do not repent, it will result in disqualification in
the end. Therefore, “Examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Test
yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed
you are disqualified [Gk. adokimos]” (2 Cor. 13:5, AT).94 Let us then
continue to run the race faithfully unto the day of Christ Jesus.

The Circumcision Party

It was commonly assumed in the New Testament that the openly
unrepentant and disobedient would not inherit eternal life (cf. 1 Cor. 6:9;
Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5). Less obvious, however, was the disqualification of
many who were outwardly obedient and righteous yet inwardly
unrepentant. This was the plague that consumed the Pharisaical movement
(cf. Matt. 23:25–28; Luke 16:15). Those who lack inward repentance are
also excluded from atonement and acquittal in the sight of God.
This plague entered into the early church, unfortunately, primarily
through a distinct group called “the circumcision party” (Acts 11:2; Gal.
2:12; Titus 1:10). So Paul describes them: “For there are many rebellious
people, full of empty talk and deception, especially those from the
circumcision party” (Titus 1:10, CSB). Moreover, “Both their minds and
their consciences are defiled” (v. 15), for though they “profess to know
God,” they are “detestable, disobedient, unfit [Gk. adokimos] for any good
work” (v. 16). Though their good works give the outward “appearance of
godliness” (2 Tim. 3:5), they are, literally, “disqualified with reference to
any good deed.”95
Whether referenced directly (Acts 11:2; Gal. 2:12; Eph. 2:11; Titus
1:10) or indirectly (Acts 15:5; 21:20; Rom. 2:17–29; 3:8; 16:17; Gal. 6:12;
Phil. 3:2; Col. 2:11–19; 1 Tim. 1:3–7; 2 Tim. 3:5), the circumcision party
seems to be the primary human enemy of the gospel in the New Testament
(the Gnostics were only a budding movement at the time). Though holding
to the Jewish apocalyptic tradition, they distorted the apostolic message of
the cross. Though calling themselves followers of Christ, Paul thus declared
that they were in truth “severed from Christ” (Gal. 5:4), having “lost
connection with the head” (Col. 2:19, NIV). They “belonged to the party of
the Pharisees” (Acts 15:5) and demanded of Gentile believers, “Unless you
are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved”
(Acts 15:1).96 They were influential enough that both Peter and Barnabas
were “led astray” (Gal. 2:13). Pictured in Acts 15 as a minority sect within
the larger Jewish Christian church,97 it appears (according to Paul’s
descriptions) that most of them contradicted the core message of the gospel
(justification by faith) and hence were “enemies of the cross of Christ”
(Phil. 3:18).
Based in Jerusalem (cf. Gal. 2:1–12) and closely connected to the party
of the Pharisees (cf. Acts 6:7; 15:5; 21:20), it seems those within the
circumcision party were afraid to tell the religious leaders in Jerusalem that
they were destined for Gehenna apart from faith in Christ crucified.
Persecution concerning the message of the cross was an ever-present threat
(cf. Acts 5:18; 8:1; 1 Thess. 2:14). Thus Paul summarizes their motivations
in Galatians 6:12: “It is those who want to make a good showing in the
flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they
may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ.”98 This desire to avoid
persecution revolved around the “offense of the cross” (Gal. 5:11), which
essentially involved how we are acquitted on the day of judgment.99 And
their desire to “make a good showing in the flesh” was based on their desire
to “boast in your flesh” (v. 13). This reality of “boasting” reveals issues of
pride and self-exaltation at the heart level, a seemingly pervasive problem
in first-century Judaism.100 In the end, those within the circumcision party
boasted in their own righteousness (cf. 2 Cor. 5:12; 11:18), while Paul
boasted in the cross (cf. Rom. 3:27; 4:2; Eph. 2:8–11): “Far be it from me to
boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 6:14; cf. 1 Cor.
2:2).101
Though the circumcision party self-identified as followers of Jesus, Paul
places them in the same category as the unbelieving Jews (though maybe
even worse since they claimed to have knowledge of Christ). They are
“false brothers” (Gal. 2:4), “deceitful workmen” (2 Cor. 11:13), “dogs” and
“evildoers” (Phil. 3:2). They are “empty talkers and deceivers” (Titus 1:10),
who want to be “teachers of the law,” but not understanding “the things
about which they make confident assertions” (1 Tim. 1:7). They “proclaim
Christ out of selfish ambition” (Phil. 1:17). They “disqualify” others from
the prize, because they have an “unspiritual mind” that “delights in false
humility” (Col. 2:18, NIV).102 They have “minds set on earthly things” (Phil.
3:19), flattering with words as a “pretext for greed” (1 Thess. 2:5).103 They
are “peddlers of God’s word” (2 Cor. 2:17), “teaching for shameful gain”
(Titus 1:11; cf. 2 Cor. 11:20). They “practice cunning” and “tamper with
God’s word,” employing “disgraceful, underhanded ways” (2 Cor. 4:2).
They practice hypocrisy (Gal. 2:13), enslaving people (2 Cor. 11:20; Gal.
2:4), throwing them into confusion (Gal. 1:7; 5:10), and causing divisions
(Rom. 16:17; 1 Tim. 1:4). Because their god is their “appetite,” their future
is “destruction” (Phil. 3:19, NASB).104 Since they try to “pervert the gospel
of Christ,” Paul declares that they will be “condemned to hell!” (Gal. 1:8,
NET). “Their end will correspond to their deeds” (2 Cor. 11:15).105
Such aggressive language would scarcely be tolerated, much less
received, by modern hearers, but it reflects Paul’s zeal concerning the cross
and the severity of divine judgment on human pride. The circumcision party
was the primary threat to Paul’s proclamation of justification by faith and
the death of the Messiah as the necessary vicarious sacrifice for human sin.
The rejection of this belief was the effective nullification of the grace of
God, for “if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no
purpose” (Gal. 2:21). Those who are full of pride and self-righteousness see
no need for a justifying sacrifice. They are inwardly unrepentant, and thus
disregard the grace of God. In this way, there are two groups of people
associated with the name of Christ who will be disqualified on the last day:
those who presume upon the sacrifice and those who set aside the sacrifice.
This then is the challenge of faith—that we run our race by faith in Christ
crucified, with a singular focus on the day of God and without getting
disqualified for willful sin or prideful self-righteousness.

POST-APOSTOLIC RIGHTEOUSNESS
As Paul contended, pride and self-righteousness are universal to humanity
(cf. Rom. 1:30; 2 Tim. 3:2), deriving from our forefather Adam (cf. Rom.
5:12; 1 Cor. 15:21) and affecting every generation (cf. Rom. 3:23; Gal.
3:22). It was a problem for both Jew and Gentile in the first century, and it
is a problem for both Jew and Gentile today. One’s eschatology may
encourage or deter pride and self-righteousness, but the two can function
somewhat independently. Many throughout history have held a highly
distorted Hellenistic hope, yet remained markedly repentant and humble.
Others have held more closely to the biblical revelation when it comes to
eschatology, yet reeked of self-exaltation (the Pharisees serving as the
model).
That being said, one’s view of redemptive history inevitably affects the
response of the heart. When judgment and reward are distorted, or
altogether removed from the picture, issues of righteousness are affected.
Given our fallen state, we will always tend toward self-exaltation, self-
justification, self-righteousness, etc. But the day of the Lord and the
severity of God are meant to curb such tendencies. By analogy, every parent
knows that without the ever-present persuasion of reward for good behavior
and punishment for bad behavior, children will tend to run wild.
So also does the history of Christianity unfold. As the biblical view of
the day of the Lord was transformed into a spiritualized, universalized, or
realized eschatology, both the severity and kindness of God were mitigated,
and the church generally lost its spiritual fervor and focus. Both the reward
of eternal life and the punishment of eternal fire are designed to awaken the
human heart to the realities of sin, judgment, and righteousness. Thus self-
righteousness latent in the human heart went unchecked in the church as it
progressively broke from its Jewish apocalyptic moorings. So Leon Morris
describes,
 Even in the early church it was not long before some people began
to speak of Christianity as “the new law” and to subject themselves
to a legalism every bit as trying as that of which the New
Testament writers complained in Judaism. And this has continued
in the history of the church. Again and again it is not liberty in
Christ which has characterized believers, but strict conformity to
some new rule they have made or found. This may involve a
rigorous asceticism or the firm conviction that the way forward is
by observance of some sacramental discipline or the like. . . .
Mankind has a fiendish ingenuity in discovering ways of bringing
itself into bondage. Paul’s words are far from being out of date.106

In both its monastic and Christendom expressions, Greco-Roman

Christianity increasingly suffered from self-justification. Monasticism
generally sought self-justification by asceticism and its corollary “righteous
deeds,” while Christendom self-justified its worldly power and wealth (for
the glory of God, of course) based upon that age-old principle, “might is
right.”107
Over time monasticism became the dominant expression of what
righteousness was understood to mean in the Western church. As it
developed and spread from the Egyptian deserts to the European
countryside, it began to codify its way of life. This codification took the
form of a “rule” of religious life. The most influential rule was that of Saint
Benedict (Lat. Regula Benedicti), written about 540. Radical self-discipline
was the foundation of all monastic rules, unto the production of personal
and corporate holiness. The stated goal of this holiness was the attaining of
eternal life, as the Rule of Saint Benedict makes clear in its closing lines:

Now, we have written this Rule that, observing it in monasteries,

we may show that we have acquired at least some moral
righteousness, or a beginning of the monastic life. . . . Thou,
therefore, who hastenest to the heavenly home, with the help of
Christ fulfil this least rule written for a beginning; and then thou
shalt with God’s help attain at last to the greater heights of
knowledge and virtue which we have mentioned above.108
 Throughout the Middle Ages, monasticism generally sought the
attainment of moral righteousness in this life unto entrance into immaterial
heaven at death. The former often rose to fever pitch, and it was against
such abuses of monastic self-righteousness that the Augustinian monk
Martin Luther primarily reacted.109 After fifteen years of ardent moral
pursuit, Luther found himself crushed by legalism and plagued by a guilty
conscience, crying out, “How may I find a gracious God?”110 The answer
came by a “theological breakthrough” (c. 1515) concerning “the
righteousness of God.”111 Luther realized that when Paul spoke of the
righteousness of God (e.g., Rom. 1:17; 3:21; 10:3; Phil. 3:9), he meant “a
righteousness which is a gift from God, rather than a righteousness which
belongs to God.”112 The judgmental righteousness of God spoken of
throughout the Scriptures (e.g., Ps. 50:6; 98:9; Isa. 5:16; 51:5) was bad
news for the sinner, but the atonemental righteousness of God spoken of by
Paul was good news for the repentant. Though still couched within a
redemptive framework of heavenly destiny, Luther found peace with God
and recovered the essential substitutional heart of the gospel. People are
acquitted of their sins and saved from the wrath of God by faith in Christ’s
sacrifice.
Of course, not all Catholics during the time of the Reformation were
self-righteous and legalistic, just as there were believers within the
Pharisaical movement during Paul’s day (cf. Acts 21:20; Col. 4:11).113
However, the general spiritual culture of Catholicism during the time of the
Reformation had clearly degenerated into a meritorious system of works-
righteousness (technically faith plus works), which had crippled the gospel
and the church’s witness.114 Within such an arid spiritual climate, Luther’s
theology of the cross spread like wildfire, disrupting the structures of the
Catholic Church and the very fabric of European society.115
Over time, the theology of the Reformation was codified and
dogmatized many times over in various forms, providing a defined platform
for Protestant missions and evangelism for the next four hundred years. As
historical and archaeological evidence began to mount in the early twentieth
century, however, Protestants began to grapple with the Jewish background
of the gospel. With the rediscovery of apocalyptic eschatology (Schweitzer
et al.) and the proposal of its “realization” at the first coming of Jesus
(Dodd et al.), the centrality of the cross began to veer.116 As
inaugurationalism (whether full or partial) came into vogue, many of the
traditional categories for interpreting the cross began to be redefined.
Since Paul is the most prominent interpreter of the cross in the New
Testament, this redefinition centered on his writings and came to be known
as “the new perspective on Paul” (or NPP).117 This so-called New
Perspective found its roots in the Jewish studies of the early twentieth
century,118 and it developed in the wake of the Holocaust.119 Though
concerning itself with every area of theology and history, the New
Perspective focused its attention on Martin Luther’s supposed anachronistic
misreading of Paul.120 It is said that Paul did not have an “introspective
conscience,” as did Luther, characteristic of “late medieval piety and
theology.”121 Instead, he had a robust conscience, fundamentally in line
with his previous Pharisaical life.122 In fact, Judaism as a whole had been
misconstrued by Luther as a legalistic religion of works-righteousness,
rather than as a religion of grace with provisions for sin.123 Moreover, Paul
was not primarily concerned, as was Luther, with issues of personal
salvation (i.e., soteriology and eschatology), but rather he was concerned
with “the place of the Gentiles in the Church” (i.e., sociology and
ecclesiology).124
Within this framework, Paul’s references to “justification by faith” are
reinterpreted to answer the question, “On what grounds can Gentiles
participate in the people of God in the last days?”125 Furthermore, the
“works of the law” (i.e., circumcision, Sabbath observance, and food laws)
are understood to be simply Jewish “identity markers” or “ethnic badges,”
which kept the Gentiles excluded from the covenant community.126
According to this view, Paul never really experienced a “conversion,” as
such, but was simply called as an apostle to take the gospel beyond the
Jewish confines.127 Additionally, since Paul is not primarily concerned with
issues of salvation, there is no need to read into his writings a substitutional
righteousness. Instead, the “righteousness of God” is simply “God’s
faithfulness” to his covenants, thus speaking of the qualities that God
possesses rather than the status that he imputes as a gift to sinners.128 In this
way Luther’s fundamental “theological breakthrough” is overturned.
Such a radical dismissal of traditional Lutheran and Reformed theology
obviously created a firestorm of controversy, drawing heavy criticism at
both the academic level129 and the popular level.130 Other scholars argued
that the New Perspective actually failed to place Paul within first-century
Judaism.131 Though recent debate has degenerated into something of a
“quagmire,”132 one thing is for certain: The New Perspective has been
greatly “overstated.”133 Some aspects of the New Perspective are helpful,
but Paul’s primary emphasis is soteriological, not sociological.134
Moreover, Judaism, like Christianity, is a religion of grace, yet the ideal is
easily distorted in both by the same prideful self-righteousness derived from
the fall.135
The New Perspective has two major problems. First, in line with its
liberal leanings, it generally rejects a sacrificial interpretation of the cross,
and thus any reference to substitutional atonement is anathema. Second, it
generally holds to a highly inaugurational approach to Jewish
eschatology.136 Therefore both the cross and the day of the Lord are
distorted, resulting in the same old liberal conclusion: Salvation and the
kingdom are established now through the church and social justice. In this
way, the New Perspective is generally the logical consequence of
inaugurationalism; and to the degree that it is embraced, sociological and
ecclesiological issues become prominent (see figure 8.8). Thus extreme
inaugurationalism produces extremely sociologically oriented
interpretations.137 Since the majority of Paul’s discussions concerning the
cross assume an eschatological context, those who embrace the realization
of eschatology in this age logically place Paul’s thought in the context of
ecclesiology in this age.138 Those who hold more closely to a future
realization/judgment tend to interpret Paul’s thought along more traditional
lines.139
 Figure 8.8 – The Inaugurational Framework behind the New Perspective

Though Luther’s theology lacked an apocalyptic framework for

redemptive history, culminating in the day of the Lord and the resurrection
of the body, his fundamental “theological breakthrough” of substitutional
righteousness based upon sacrificial atonement remains sound.140 On the
last day, when God opens the books of history and charges each and every
human being with the crimes they committed while in the body, only those
whose names are written in the book of life (by faith in God’s sacrifice on
their behalf) will be acquitted. Those without faith in Christ crucified will
bear their own sin, and thus they will be thrown into the lake of fire. Then
the acquitted will inherit eternal life and will be rewarded according to their
righteous deeds. But all of the righteous deeds of the guilty will be for
naught, since they will be disqualified.
 Chapter Nine

THE WITNESS OF THE

CHURCH

The explanation of the death of the Messiah as a sacrifice for the

forgiveness of sins in light of eschatological judgment most certainly
predominated the forty days of apostolic teaching recorded in Acts 1:3. At
the end of this time, the apostles asked about the close of this age and the
restoration of the kingdom to Israel (v. 6). Jesus confirmed the Father’s set
time for the coming of the kingdom (v. 7), but then he commissioned them
to the task of this age: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all
Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (v. 8). The apostolic church
consistently understood itself in terms of its commission to “testify” or
“bear witness” (Gk. marturia, martureō).1
In order to be a faithful witness, we must understand both the content of
the message and the means of communicating that message.2 Concerning
the content, the clearest reference and explanation of Jesus’ commission in
Acts 1:8 is given by Peter when he addresses Cornelius:

You know the message God sent to the people of Israel,

announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is
Lord of all. . . . He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses
whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him
after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the
 people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as
judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him
that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins
through his name. (Acts 10:36–43, NIV)

This passage clarifies the basic twofold thrust of the church’s witness:
(1) testimony of the coming judgment by Jesus, and (2) testimony of the
means of forgiveness through Jesus. God has given Jesus all authority and
power to judge the earth on the day of the Lord, and God has ordained the
sacrificial death of Jesus as the means of escaping divine judgment on the
day of the Lord. These two events—the first coming and the second coming
of the Messiah—are the two primary elements of the apostolic witness.
Thus Peter summarizes the message: “the good news of peace through Jesus
Christ, who is Lord of all” (v. 36).
These two theological keystones are also inherent in what is commonly
known as “the Great Commission.”3 Before the ascension, Matthew
records:

Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth
has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have
commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of
the age.” (28:18–20)

Jesus’ declaration of being endowed with all authority references the

day of judgment, while the command to baptize references the forgiveness
and cleansing of sins (based on the purification rites of the law), which is to
be carried on until the end of the age (an inherent reference to the day of
judgment).4 The other accounts of Jesus’ commission (cf. Mark 16:15–16;
Luke 24:45–49) similarly make the most sense within an unaltered Jewish
apocalyptic worldview.5
Considering the apostolic witness as a whole, it holds this same focus
upon the cross and the day of the Lord. Thus, it can be broadly
characterized as both sacrificial and apocalyptic. This twofold emphasis on
the first and second comings of the Messiah rests upon (and to some degree
developed out of) a creational understanding. God created the heavens and
the earth without sin and death, while Adam and his progeny are to blame
for its fallen state. Via the cross God has worked for our reconciliation,
which he will consummate when he makes the new heavens and new earth
(cf. Rom. 5; 1 Cor. 15; 2 Peter 3).
Moreover, this universal restoration assumes a covenantal framework.
Both this age and the age to come are Israelocentric in their administration
of the grace of God (cf. Rom. 1:16; 2:9; 3:5; 9:4–5), and the covenants with
the Jewish forbearers will never be revoked (cf. Rom. 11:11–29).
Concerning these realities, God gave the gift of the Holy Spirit to confirm
his message (cf. Acts 2:33; 3:16; 4:30; etc.). Thus the apostolic witness is
inherently charismatic. Without the active working of the Spirit of God, the
church’s proclamation lacks substantive confirmation. So we see the
characteristic elements of the apostolic witness (creational, covenantal,
sacrificial, charismatic, and apocalyptic) anchored primarily in the two
comings of Christ (see figure 9.1).6

Figure 9.1 – The Characteristic Elements of the Apostolic Witness

The apostolic witness holds these elements together organically and

holistically. Though involving infinite depth and mystery, they were easily
apprehended and proclaimed by even the least educated. This gospel may
have been hard to accept, but it was not hard to understand. Hence the
apostolic witness bears no resemblance to the abstract speculations of the
Gnostics (1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 2:16) or the endless arguings of the
philosophers (Acts 17:21). Rather, in light of the judgment to come (Acts
2:35; 10:42; 17:31; 24:25), the thrust of their message was ardently moral:
“Repent!” (Acts 2:38; 3:19; 5:31; 11:18; 17:30; 20:21; 26:20). Those who
repent of their sins and believe in Christ crucified will be saved from the
wrath to come and will be rewarded in the resurrection in accordance with
their deeds. Those who reject the message of Christ crucified will find their
names blotted out of the book of life, and all their righteous deeds will be
forfeited.
Unfortunately, throughout the history of the church various movements
and traditions have distorted and/or failed to hold together the primary
elements of the apostolic witness. As previously discussed, such distortions
have Greco-Roman roots. Rather than a simple historical witness from
creation to consummation, the Christoplatonic witness tends to become
metaphysical in nature—that is, a testimony concerning the interplay
between the material and immaterial. Thus it etherealizes into “five
principles” of this, or “three keys” to that—a particularizing of ideals before
death and our release from the tyranny of the body. Conversely, the
Constantinian witness degenerates the historical narrative into types and
prefigurations of manifest sovereignty, unto the gratification of a temporal
inheritance (see figure 9.2).7
 Figure 9.2 – The Distorted Witnesses of Constantinianism and
Christoplatonism

Instead, the biblical witness shows us how we come to know God—not

by the gnostic revelation of an esoteric circle (whether cultic or academic),
nor by the arm of the flesh in amassing power and wealth in the name of
God. We come to know God, rather, by simply hearing and believing in his
historical acts which will culminate on his day. Paul demonstrates this most
clearly when preaching to the pagans in Athens who worshiped an
“unknown god” (Acts 17:23). That which was unknown to these Gentiles
Paul makes known by proclaiming creation (v. 24), Gentile history (vv. 25–
28), Gentile depravity (v. 29), divine mercy (v. 30), and eschatological
judgment (v. 31). Every recorded apostolic proclamation assumes such a
timeline.8 In regard to this timeline—with its beginning, middle, and end
points (creation, covenants, cross, and consummation)—the apostles
repeatedly declared, “We are witnesses” (Acts 2:32; 3:15; 5:32; 10:39).

THE FAITHFUL VERSUS FALSE

WITNESS
Though being a witness in the New Testament involves the straightforward
proclamation of historical facts and events, there is also an underlying and
assumed legal reality, which is based both upon the Tanakh and the
common secular usage of “witness/testimony.”9 Before the pronouncement
of a verdict, human trials demanded the testimony of two or three witnesses
(Num. 35:30; Deut. 17:6; 19:15), a practice assumed throughout the New
Testament (Matt. 18:16; John 8:17; 2 Cor. 13:1; 1 Tim. 5:19; Heb. 10:28).
When a second witness was unavailable, other things were used—for
example, seven lambs (Gen. 21:30) or a heap of stones (Gen. 31:48). God
used a song (Deut. 31:19), the Book of the Law (Deut. 31:26), and even the
heavens and the earth (Deut. 4:26; 30:19; 31:28) to testify against the deeds
of Israel. Often it was God alone who testified against their sin (cf. Jer.
42:5; Mic. 1:2; Mal. 2:14; 3:5)—“I am the one who knows, and I am
witness, declares the LORD” (Jer. 29:23). Similarly, Israel was called to be a
witness against the idolatry of the nations (Isa. 43:10; 44:8), and so also the
prophetic tradition took up the theme of being a witness on behalf of God
(cf. Isa. 6:8; Jer. 1:7; Ezek. 2:3).10 Thus the prophetic explanation of the
exile:

But the LORD, the God of their ancestors sent word against them by
the hand of his messengers, sending them time and time again, for
he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But
they kept ridiculing God’s messengers, despising his words, and
scoffing at his prophets, until the LORD’s wrath was so stirred up
against his people that there was no remedy. (2 Chron. 36:15–16,
CSB)

In this way the word of the Lord came to the prophets again and again
as a testimony concerning sin, righteousness, and divine judgment (cf. Isa.
1:1; Jer. 2:1; Ezek. 7:1; etc.). Similarly, the word of the Lord came to John
the Baptist, calling Israel to repentance in light of the apocalyptic wrath to
come (Luke 3:2–9), a theme often reiterated by Jesus (cf. Matt. 4:17; 11:20;
23:13) and summarized as “bearing witness” (cf. John 1:7; 3:11, 32; 5:36;
8:14; 18:37).11 The whole of their ministries was understood as a witness
bringing forth testimonial evidence within the greater narrative of God’s
eschatological lawsuit.
 On the day of judgment, not only will the words of Jesus and the
prophets bear witness (John 12:48), but also Moses himself will bear
witness (John 5:45); careless words will bear witness (Matt. 12:36–37; cf.
Luke 19:22); dust shaken in protest will bear witness (Luke 9:5; cf. Matt.
10:14–15); one’s own conscience (Rom. 2:15–16) and judgmental
pronouncements (Matt. 7:2) will bear witness; the blood of the righteous
will bear witness (Matt. 23:35–36); even the people of Nineveh and the
queen of the South will bear witness (Matt. 12:41–42). And the acquitted
will inherit eternal life, while the guilty will be “sentenced to hell” (Matt.
23:33), substantiated by the testimony of multiple witnesses. God is
building his case, so to speak, in light of a literal eschatological verdict,
since such a “condemnation” (Gk. krima) fundamentally assumes a law-
court context (cf. Luke 24:20; Rom. 5:16).12
Jesus is thus the ultimate and “faithful witness” (Rev. 1:5; 3:14)
concerning the righteousness of God, the depravity of humanity, the coming
judgment, eternal life, etc. “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose
I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37). The
antithesis of the faithful and true witness, however, is the false witness who
gives untrue and inaccurate testimony based upon unrighteous motivations
(cf. Phil. 1:15; 2 Peter 2:1).13 God has appointed Jesus as Judge in the
eschatological lawsuit against humanity, and Jesus has called his disciples
to testify as true witnesses in anticipation of that day—“He commanded us
to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to
be judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42).14 So New Testament
scholar Allison A. Trites incisively summarizes, “Jesus has a lawsuit with
the world. His witnesses include John the Baptist, the Scriptures, the words
and works of Christ, and later the witness of the apostles and the Holy
Spirit.”15
The dichotomy between true and false witnesses in the New Testament
is stark. Not only are there some who distort the reality of the judgment to
come—that is, the Gnostics (cf. 1 Cor. 15:12; 2 Thess. 2:2; 1 Tim. 6:20; 2
Tim. 2:18), but there are also those who distort the means of forgiveness in
the judgment to come—that is, the circumcision party (cf. Acts 11:2; Gal.
2:12; Eph. 2:11; Titus 1:10). The former say the day of the Lord and the
resurrection have already been spiritually realized. The latter set aside the
grace of God by boasting in the flesh. Both are equally false witnesses
because they delude their hearers concerning the reality of who God is, who
we are, and how the future will play out.16 The apostolic message radically
condemns all forms of false witness (cf. Gal. 1:8; 2 Tim. 2:16–19; 1 John
4:1), because the eternal destiny of human beings is at stake.17
The conflict between the true and false witness will culminate at the end
of the age when God’s restraint of human wickedness is removed (cf. Zech.
5:8; 2 Thess. 2:7). The Antichrist will come forth (Dan. 7:20; 2 Thess. 2:3),
and the testimony of God’s holiness, humanity’s sin, coming judgment, and
present mercy will come to a climax.18 Though the divine testimony will be
clearer and louder than at any other point in human history, people will still
refuse to repent of their wickedness (Rev. 9:20; 16:9–11). Thus God will
finish building his case against the progeny of Adam, which will then be
presented before all on the last day.
The eschatological climax of the divine witness spoken through his
saints and prophets is outlined in the Olivet Discourse (esp. Matt. 24:9–14
and par.). In accord with Daniel 7:21–25, the saints will be handed over and
“hated by all nations” (Matt. 24:9). The ultimate reason for this persecution,
however, will be “to bear witness before them” (Mark 13:9) so that “this
gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a
testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14). Though
commonly interpreted as a positive testimony,19 context suggests that this
testimony is a negative indictment upon the nations who are hating and
persecuting the saints (v. 9).20 Understood in this light, “many false
prophets will arise and lead many astray” (v. 11) because of their desire to
placate the nations by mitigating the message of eschatological judgment.
This indicting witness is expounded upon throughout the book of
Revelation.21 As the ultimate “revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:1), it is given
to John, “who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of
Jesus Christ” (1:2). The book of Revelation accords with a predominantly
negative interpretation of Matthew 24:9–14. The testimony of the saints,
accompanied by temporal divine judgments, will escalate in anticipation of
the day of the Lord. Hence the persecution and martyrdom of the saints is
one of the dominant themes of the book (cf. 2:9, 13; 3:9; 6:9; 7:14; 11:7, 18;
12:11, 17; 13:7; 14:12, 16; 15:2; 16:6; 17:6; 18:20; 19:2; 20:4)—primarily
the result of the witness and testimony they bear (cf. 6:9; 11:7; 12:17;
19:10; 20:4).22 Like Antipas, who died as a “faithful witness” (2:13), the
church is called to testify with “patient endurance” (1:9; cf. 2:2, 19; 3:10;
13:10; 14:12). Thus God will conclude his case against humanity by
speaking through his saints and prophets, “who hold to the testimony of
Jesus” (19:10a)—“For the essence of prophecy is to give a clear witness for
Jesus” (19:10b, NLT). This is the witness that Jesus initiated (Acts 1:8), and
when it is finished he will descend from heaven to judge the living and the
dead.

THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH IN

BOTH WORD AND DEED
Though God seeks to warn the world of impending judgment, his ultimate
desire is to communicate his love for mankind (cf. John 3:16; Rom. 5:8;
Eph. 2:4). The true testimony of the church always involves both the
judgment of God and the love of God—that is, “the kindness and the
severity of God” (Rom. 11:22). But in order to be understood rightly these
must be placed on the timeline of redemptive history, typified in the cross
and the day of the Lord. Otherwise they tend to become theological
abstractions, detached from reality and irrelevant to human experience. God
showed real mercy to human beings in the cross in order to save them from
real wrath and judgment due them on the day of the Lord.
The apostolic church consecrated itself wholeheartedly to this simple
witness. Many liberals and academicians view such evangelical zeal as
naïve—and indeed the apostolic witness was markedly unsophisticated. Yet
as Jesus said, “Wisdom is justified by her deeds” (Matt. 11:19). Of course,
when Jesus said this he had in mind “the day of judgment” (v. 22), and it is
precisely this evangelical conviction that drove the apostolic church: That
which will matter most on the day of judgment is the salvation of human
beings from the wrath of God through faith in the crucified Christ. To this
end God has commissioned the church (cf. Acts 10:42–43; 1 Tim. 1:15–16;
2 Peter 3:9), and those who reject such a commission reject God and the
totality of his purpose for this age.
In such light, the primary means of this evangelical witness is the
proclamation of truth by words. As seen throughout the Gospels and the
book of Acts, public preaching and teaching was the engine behind the
apostolic witness.23 Therefore, after relating to the salvation of both Jew
and Gentile in Romans 10:10–13, Paul questions, “But how are they to call
on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in
him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without
someone preaching?” (v. 14). It is the preaching of the word of God that is
presumed to be the principal medium by which individuals are informed of
redemptive history.24
Paul fully consecrated his life to this end, likening his life to an athletic
race (cf. 1 Cor. 9:24–27) and seeking to “become all things to all people,
that by all means I might save some” (v. 22). Paul’s apostleship was
inherently tied to preaching (cf. Acts 26:16–18; 1 Tim. 2:7; 2 Tim. 1:11), so
that rejection of the latter implied rejection of the former: “Woe to me if I
do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor. 9:16). Thus his apostolic calling was to
be “set apart for the gospel of God” (Rom. 1:1), which involved his
wholehearted service “in preaching the gospel of his Son” (v. 9, NIV). Paul’s
ministry reflects the heart of the apostolic church, signified in Peter and
John’s declaration, “We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard”
(Acts 4:20).
To empower the ministry of public proclamation God promised the gift
of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4), unto the commissioning: “You will receive
power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my
witnesses” (v. 8). The relationship between preaching and the Holy Spirit is
most evident in Jesus’ commission recorded in Luke:

This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the
dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins
will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my
Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been
clothed with power from on high. (24:46–49, NIV)

The event of Pentecost was then understood as the divine seal upon the
public proclamation of Christ crucified, symbolically represented in the
loosing of the tongue for divine utterance (Acts 2:4) and tangibly
represented in Peter’s proclamation of repentance and forgiveness (v. 38) in
light of the day of the Lord (v. 20). Thus the early church prayed: “Grant to
your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness” (Acts 4:29).
And so God answered: “When they had prayed, the place in which they
were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy
Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness (Acts 4:31).
Put simply, the Holy Spirit is given to embolden the proclamation of the
gospel, a pattern seen throughout the book of Acts (cf. 4:13; 9:27; 13:46;
14:3; 18:26; 19:8; 26:26; 28:31).25
Unfortunately, the misuse of the gift of the Holy Spirit for purposes
other than the proclamation of the gospel is a universal and all-too-common
phenomenon. As often found in modern charismatic and Pentecostal
movements, the apostolic church also encountered gross perversions of the
gifts of the Holy Spirit. Simon sought to buy the gift with money (Acts
8:20). Unbelieving itinerant Jewish exorcists tried to cast out demons in
Jesus’ name (Acts 19:13–14). Some in the circumcision party boasted of
angelic visitations (Gal. 1:8; Col. 2:18), while others preached the gospel
out of selfish ambition (Phil. 1:15–17), peddling the word of God for profit
(2 Cor. 2:17). And it was not uncommon for miracles to be used for selfish
ends (cf. Matt. 7:22; 1 Cor. 13:2). This is the very point of the false prophet
(cf. Deut. 13:1–5)—his/her miracles are real, yet in the end they lead to
destruction (cf. Matt. 24:24; 2 Thess. 2:9; Rev. 2:20).
Thus the words of the gospel, even right words anointed by the Holy
Spirit, must be substantiated and demonstrated by righteous deeds derived
from holy intentions. Those who proclaim the hope of the age to come must
actually live for the age to come. Believers are repeatedly exhorted to “walk
in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (Eph. 4:1;
cf. Phil. 1:27; Col. 1:10; 1 Thess. 2:12). If we proclaim that the saints will
rule the earth in the age to come, then what happens when unbelievers see
us squabbling over the trivial things of this age (cf. 1 Cor. 6:1–6)? When we
proclaim that the age to come will be full of righteousness, peace, and love,
and yet we tear one another down with our words, then we “grieve the Holy
Spirit of God, by whom [we] were sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph.
4:30). When we tell people that Jesus is the Messiah—that “God has highly
exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name” (Phil.
2:9)—and yet we follow after human personalities (cf. 1 Cor. 1:12; 3:4),
what becomes of our witness? When we condemn greed yet show
favoritism to the rich, we deceive ourselves (James 1:22), for “has not God
chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the
kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?” (James 2:5).
Those who say they live for the age to come yet actually live for this age
“bring the way of truth into disrepute” (2 Peter 2:2, NIV). In the end, they
will be assigned a place with the unbelievers and the hypocrites (cf. Matt.
24:51; Luke 12:46).
Similarly, those who proclaim the cross must actually live out the cross.
To preach the cross without actually taking up your cross (cf. Luke 9:23 and
par.) results in the message of the cross being “emptied of its power” (1
Cor. 1:17). Those who say they follow Christ crucified yet lord it over those
they lead (cf. Luke 22:25; 1 Peter 5:3), masquerading as kings (1 Cor. 4:8),
will be revealed by fire, “for the Day will disclose it” (1 Cor. 3:13). What
becomes of the message of the cross if we set aside the grace of God (Gal.
2:21) and impose a harsh asceticism on others (Col. 2:16–23)? Instead of
“one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread,”26 we become
bankers passing by beggars, scolding them for their lack of a work ethic.
Rather, our words must be demonstrated by our lives.27 In this way the
church witnesses to Christ Jesus, concerning both his first and second
coming, by word and deed.

THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH

TYPIFIED IN MARTYRDOM
One of the defining features of the early church was its embracing of
martyrdom.28 According to tradition, all of the apostles, except John, were
martyred.29 As Tertullian is known for saying, “The blood of Christians is
the seed of the Church.”30 Even unbelievers today recognize the centrality
of martyrdom in the rise of early Christianity, for as sociologist Rodney
Stark observes, “By voluntarily accepting torture and death rather than
defecting, a person sets the highest imaginable value upon a religion and
communicates that value to others.”31 Though true, this is not the biblical
reasoning behind martyrdom.
The Greek terms for “martyr” and “witness” are one and the same (Gk.
martus). The martyr is simply one who witnesses unto death. Jesus’
commissioning of his disciples as “witnesses” would have hence carried the
edge of death, especially in light of his previous statements concerning
martyrdom: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take
up his cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24; cf. Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23). And
even more categorically: “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come
after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27).
Unfortunately, the “cross,” at a popular level, has come to mean
anything that is unpleasant in a believer’s life.32 Jesus’ hearers, however,
would have understood the cross to refer to crucifixion, the Roman means
of execution—which, in the post-Maccabean era, signified Jewish
martyrdom.33 Jesus’ call to take up the cross is a simple and bald command
to embrace martyrdom.34 Accordingly it follows: “Whoever would save his
life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt.
16:25). This call to martyrdom is seen throughout Jesus’ ministry. He taught
his disciples that the suffering of the prophets—which included martyrdom
—was an example to be followed (cf. Matt. 5:12; Luke 6:23). The prophets
had been beaten and stoned (Matt. 21:35 and par.); they had been mistreated
and killed (Matt. 22:6); they had been rejected and murdered (Matt. 23:31,
37); and all of this for the witness they maintained (cf. Luke 11:49; Acts
7:52).
Likewise, Jesus repeatedly told his disciples that he would suffer
persecution and be killed (cf. Mark 8:31; 9:12, 31; 10:33). He accepted a
bloody “cup” and a “baptism” of death (Mark 10:38; Luke 12:50), which in
turn he extended to his disciples: “The cup that I drink you will drink, and
with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized” (Mark
10:39). Thus he sent his disciples out to preach “as sheep in the midst of
wolves” (Matt. 10:16), warning them, “It is enough for the disciple to be
like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the
master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of
his household. . . . Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the
soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. . . .
Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (vv.
25–38). The reasoning is straightforward: If the master embraces
martyrdom, how much more the servant?
Martyrdom was thus the clear implication of what it meant to be a
follower and witness of Jesus.35 Those who want to be “like their teacher”
will relinquish their life in this age, while those who seek to keep their life
will lose it in the resurrection. So Jesus made clear elsewhere: “Whoever
loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it
for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am,
there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor
him” (John 12:25–26). In this way Jesus equates service to God with hating
life in this age and being led unto martyrdom—these the Father will honor
with eternal life.
Hence the relationship between witnessing and martyrdom is simply
this: Those who would follow Jesus and proclaim him as judge of the living
and the dead must be prepared to die for their faith. Not all will die as
martyrs, of course, but all must embrace martyrdom at a heart level.36 This
is the “cost” of being a disciple, as Jesus outlines in Luke 14:25–35
(arguably the most demanding passage in the New Testament). The
completion of the tower (v. 28) and the winning of the war (v. 31) are
analogous to the inheriting of eternal life (cf. vv. 14–24). Unless you “count
the cost” (v. 28) of martyrdom on the front end, you will fail to accomplish
your goal of eternal life. Thus the conclusion: “Any one of you who does
not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (v. 33). At the heart of
all Christian discipleship lies this forsaking of all for the sake of following
and witnessing to Jesus unto death.

Motivations for Martyrdom

At this point it should be clear that Jesus called his disciples to martyrdom.
But why? Did Jesus simply seek to test the fidelity of his followers? Did he
seek to expose the futility of temporal hopes? Or was there a greater
meaning to be conveyed through martyrdom? Before Jesus, the Maccabees
had bravely faced martyrdom, seeking “to die nobly” (2 Maccabees 7:5,
NRSV)—But unto what? A cursory reading of 2 Maccabees 7 (a passage
instrumental in the development of martyrdom in Jewish tradition)37 reveals
the message being conveyed: God will vindicate the righteous in the
resurrection and punish his enemies eternally. Thus the fourth of the seven
martyred sons (known as the “Holy Maccabean Martyrs” in the Catholic
and Orthodox traditions) declared to Antiochus IV Epiphanes at his last
breath: “One cannot but choose to die at the hands of mortals and to cherish
the hope God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there will be
no resurrection to life!” (v. 14, NRSV).38
Such a declaration is indeed true. It is spoken throughout the New
Testament (cf. Matt. 25:31–46; Rom. 2:5–11; 2 Thess. 1:6–10; 2 Peter
2:9),39 and it is a valid motivation for martyrdom in itself.40 The cause of
justice and the hope of eternal life, however, are not what Jesus ultimately
wanted to communicate through his own martyrdom and that of his
disciples. Jesus’ martyrdom was meant to convey the love and mercy of
God toward his enemies. Thus Jesus, in marked contrast to the Maccabeans,
prayed before his death: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do” (Luke 23:34).
Jesus had previously taught his disciples, “Love your enemies and pray
for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44), and “Bless those who curse you,
pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:28). In line with such teachings,
Jesus himself did not seek to call down fire from heaven (Luke 9:54), nor
did he call upon the twelve legions of angels at his disposal (Matt. 26:53).
Rather, “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered,
he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges
justly” (1 Peter 2:23). All of this was done to demonstrate his love for the
world (cf. Eph. 2:4–7), his kindness toward sinners (cf. Rom. 5:8–11), and
his mercy to his enemies (cf. Col. 1:20–22).
Stephen, the first Christian “martyr” (Acts 22:20, KJV, NIV), took up the
call to be “like his master” (Matt. 10:25). When facing death, he mimicked
his Lord: “Falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not
hold this sin against them’” (Acts 7:60). This heart to see the forgiveness
and salvation of the enemies of God sets Christian martyrdom apart from
every other kind of martyrdom. It is death for the sake of love that makes a
disciple like Jesus. Without love martyrdom loses its eternal significance, as
Paul declared: “If I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I
gain nothing” (1 Cor. 13:3). Martyrdom is only Christian if it communicates
the love and mercy of God in the cross.
God has chosen martyrdom as the ultimate means of demonstrating his
love for the world—“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
Son” (John 3:16). God has ordained voluntary self-sacrifice for the sake of
others as the greatest proof of divine intentions—“God proves his own love
for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8,
CSB). Moreover, there is no greater vehicle for such communication
—“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his
friends” (John 15:13; cf. 10:11). Because of the character of God, this is
how he has chosen to make himself known (cf. 1 John 3:16; 4:8–10). Those
who have not embraced the cross simply do not know God, and they cannot
truly make him known.
 For this reason, Jesus commissioned his disciples as “martyr-witnesses,”
so to speak (redundant in Greek, but a necessary phrase in English). They
were sent for the same purpose that he was sent, and they were sent in the
same manner that he was sent—“As the Father has sent me, even so I am
sending you” (John 20:21). Similarly, Jesus prayed, “As you sent me into
the world, so I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18). As the Father
handed over his Son out of mercy, so also has he chosen to hand over the
saints as a testimony of his love and mercy (see figure 9.3).

Figure 9.3 – The Biblical Witness Typified in Martyrdom

As the church seeks to testify to the mercy of God in light of the

judgment to come, its words and actions must align, and the ultimate action
that demonstrates the message of mercy is loving martyrdom: “For it has
been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe
in him but also suffer for his sake” (Phil. 1:29). It is for the sake of a
witness to Christ Jesus and to the cross that we welcome “the sharing of his
sufferings by becoming like him in his death” (Phil. 3:10, NRSV). Indeed, we
“share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings” (2 Cor. 1:5), “always carrying in
the body the death of Jesus” (2 Cor. 4:10). So we should not be “surprised
at the fiery trial” (1 Peter 4:12), but rather “rejoice insofar as [we] share
Christ’s sufferings” (v. 13).
As Jesus suffered “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10), so also
the church embraces suffering as it seeks the salvation of the lost. We seek
to honor Christ Jesus and his cross so that as many people as possible might
come to know him and be found in him at the judgment. Thus Paul
summarized his apostolic commissioning:

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am

filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his
body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to
the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make
the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and
generations but now revealed to his saints. (Col. 1:24–26)

In his preaching of the gospel, Paul accepted and even rejoiced in his
afflictions, because they were for the sake of Christ and his body, the
church. Paul’s “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” is by the
command of the Father, who is “filling up” the divine testimony, so to
speak, through the self-sacrifice of both his Son and his church.41 By
imitating Christ, Paul is thus the prototypical martyr-witness. In his desire
to follow Jesus and “make the word of God fully known,” he offers his very
life for the sake of those to whom he preaches.
Such self-sacrifice defined Paul’s apostolic ministry. He would give his
own life for the sake of others, that they might be saved from the coming
wrath—“Therefore I endure everything [cf. “suffering, bound with chains,”
v. 9] for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is
in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Tim. 2:10). He would even take upon
himself the divine wrath to see others saved—“For I could wish that I
myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers,
my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom. 9:3; cf. 10:1). Such “unceasing
anguish” (Rom. 9:2) over the salvation of others is only created by the Holy
Spirit, who imparts to us the love of Christ, which in turn compels us to lay
down our lives for the gospel and for those to whom we preach (cf. 2 Cor.
5:14–20). Paul provides a shining example of someone who takes up his or
her cross daily; that is, he daily consecrated himself to God and the divine
mission—making the gospel of Christ Jesus, his cross, and his return known
to the ends of the earth unto death. “And as for us, why do we endanger
ourselves every hour? I die every day—I mean that, brothers—just as surely
as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord” (1 Cor. 15:30–31).

The Fullness of Martyrdom

As noted earlier, the divine witness will culminate at the end of this age,
which will also be in accord with a culmination of martyrdom. God will
make his final plea with humanity, and the church will have a final
opportunity to display Christ crucified to the world. As God handed over
his Son to death to prove his great love for his enemies, so also will he hand
over his church as a faithful witness of his mercy. As wicked men were
given authority from above (cf. John 19:11) to deliver up Jesus “according
to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23), so also will the
Antichrist be given authority (cf. Dan. 7:21; Rev. 13:7), and the saints will
be delivered over to him (cf. Dan. 7:25; Matt. 24:9). As Jesus endured the
cross (Heb. 12:2), so also must the saints patiently endure (Rev. 1:9; 3:10;
13:10; 14:12). As the blood of Jesus was shed (Matt. 26:28), so too will the
blood of the saints be spilled (Rev. 16:6; 17:6; 18:24). As Jesus was offered
as a sacrifice (Heb. 9:12; 10:12), the saints are likewise pictured as a slain
offering under the heavenly altar (Rev. 6:9; cf. Rom. 12:1; Phil. 2:17; 2
Tim. 4:6).42 The similarities are striking, because God designed them both
to be part of a greater testimony concerning his mercy preceding his
judgment.
Being the ultimate expression of this testimony, martyrdom is one of the
main themes—if not the primary theme—of the book of Revelation.43
Because this age will conclude when the testimony of God is complete, the
culmination of martyrdom will be the primary timing indicator for its
conclusion. This is stated explicitly in God’s interaction with the slain souls
under the altar:

I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the
word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out
with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long
before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on
the earth?” Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest
a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their
 brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they
themselves had been. (Rev. 6:9–11)

Of course, martyrdom is not the only timing indicator. God will testify
of himself by many other means (e.g., signs, wonders, wars, calamities,
skepticism, anti-Semitism, etc.), which will likewise culminate
eschatologically. Martyrdom, however, seems to be the primary sign. The
saints will be handed over for “time, times, and half a time” (Dan. 7:25;
12:7; cf. Rev. 11:2; 12:14; 13:5), and when this time is complete they will
receive the kingdom (Dan. 7:27; Rev. 20:4). God will testify about himself
through his saints and through their treatment. They are mistreated in this
age, while the wicked prosper—because God is mercifully refraining from
righteous judgment, desiring all to be saved. In such light he has chosen his
saints to display his merciful, kind, and patient character through
martyrdom.
Not only is martyrdom a timing indicator, but it is also the primary
mechanism for the culmination of God’s activity at the end of the age. As
his saints are persecuted (cf. Rev. 7:14; 13:7; 16:6; 17:6), temporal
judgments escalate (cf. Rev. 8:5; 14:7; 16:7; 18:2). The progression of the
book of Revelation can be seen in the climax of the declaration of fallen
Babylon: “Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and
prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her!” (18:20).
More specifically, it is the intercession of the saints in tribulation that
causes God to pour out his judgments—a theme seen throughout the
Scriptures (e.g., Gen. 18:20; Ex. 3:7; Ps. 9:12; Isa. 5:7). This is vividly
portrayed when the angel stands at the altar with a golden censer (Rev. 8:3),
which is then filled with incense and the prayers of the saints (assumedly
both the saints under the same altar and those who have come out of the
great tribulation; cf. 6:9; 7:14). The incense and prayers rise before God
(8:4), and then they are filled with fire and hurled upon the earth (8:5). This
same pattern of intercession resulting in temporal judgment is seen
throughout the book (cf. 6:10–14; 11:15–19; 15:2–8; 16:7–9; 19:1–16).
God will avenge all unrighteousness, but the greatest evil is the
murdering of the saints. The image of God is of the highest value in all
creation, and the destroying of the righteous image will incur the greatest of
divine wrath. Even their blood cries out from the ground (cf. Gen. 4:10;
Matt. 23:35). Therefore the intercession of the martyrs triggers the temporal
judgments, which are themselves a sign of the ultimate punishment of the
wicked on the last day. Martyrdom, intercession, and temporal judgments
all come to a crescendo in the opening of the heavens and the descent of
Jesus, who “judges and makes war” (Rev. 19:11).

Theology of Martyrdom
Since human history is progressing toward this end, one would think
martyrdom would be foremost in the modern church’s consciousness and
seen as its highest honor—as it was in the early church,44 which had a
clearly developed “theology of martyrdom.”45 However, discussions about
martyrdom are almost nonexistent in the church today (except in some
frontier-missions circles, but even then its theological significance is rarely
considered). A theology of martyrdom is difficult to come by, and when it is
presented it is usually marred by realized eschatology.46 The age to come
and the new creation were not inaugurated by the suffering and death of
Jesus, nor are they furthered by the pacifistic suffering of the church.47
Such theology is painfully counterproductive.
The church must recover an apocalyptic approach to martyrdom. It must
have a future eternal weight of glory in order to embrace a present light and
momentary affliction (2 Cor. 4:17).48 Moreover, it must have a theology of
the cross that dictates its self-sacrificial mission in this age. Our practice of
taking up the cross must be driven by a theology that tells us that this is
what God is doing. Jesus is presently enthroned at the right hand of God
extending the cross—that is, preaching repentance and forgiveness of sins
in light of the coming day of God (Luke 24:47; Acts 2:38; 3:19; etc.). In
other words, the theology and practice of the church needs to be both
cruciform and apocalyptic. Otherwise its sharp witness is blunted, and its
holy ambition is compromised.
When the mission of God in this age (and thereby the mission of the
church) becomes the inauguration of the kingdom and the age to come, the
cross ceases to be the standard of this age. Instead it serves only a
subsidiary role unto the saints’ present inheritance. In such a light, is there
any reason to wonder why martyrdom is so overlooked in the contemporary
church? At best, inaugurationalism views martyrdom as a waste; more
realistically, it views martyrdom as a failure.
 I would argue that there is a direct correlation between the rise of
inaugurationalism in the modern church and its neglect of martyrdom,
because the former inherently militates against the latter (of course,
martyrdom originally fell out of favor under Constantinianism, the spiritual
progenitor of inaugurationalism). In real life, those who are already
inheriting the hope of the kingdom and the age to come will never
voluntarily lay down their lives. A theology of present glory will always be
justification for rejecting anything negative in this life. In this way,
martyrdom is the great measuring rod of theological truth. In the days to
come inaugurationalism will be tested, and it will be found wanting. And
here lies the catastrophe of today’s theology: In its greatest hour of need, on
the eve of global persecution and martyrdom, it has robbed the church of its
most necessary theological training. The prospect of martyrdom is the first
thing the Chinese church teaches its disciples,49 and it is “the issue of
utmost importance” for any church under persecution.50
The measure of the church throughout history is its production of true
and faithful martyrs.51 The Christian witness is a martyr-witness, and the
Christian church is a martyr-church. To this church God has given the Holy
Spirit (Acts 1:8). But those who will not receive martyrdom as a distinct
possibility of God’s will and leadership over their lives cannot be Jesus’
disciples (Luke 14:33; John 12:26), and thus they are not part of the true
church which will inherit eternal life. It does not matter if we think we are
Christians. Jesus only considers someone his disciple if that person is
willing to lay down his or her life for the same reason he laid down his own
life. Saving people from the wrath to come is worth dying for. Jesus is fully
committed to it. Are we?
 Appendix

AN ANALYSIS OF PASSAGES
COMMONLY ASSOCIATED WITH
REALIZED ESCHATOLOGY

From its earliest origins in the New Testament (cf. 2 Thess. 2:2; 1 Tim.
6:20; 2 Tim. 2:18), the idea of realized eschatology has persisted throughout
the history of the church. It has seen a significant resurgence in modern
times, however, becoming the standard of much theological exposition
across a wide spectrum of denominations and theological camps. This
resurgence is largely due to the writings of C. H. Dodd1 and those who have
accommodated his ideas.2
Dodd’s desire was to counter the rising tide of ultracritical scholars
(Schweitzer et al.) who said that Jesus was simply human, a deluded first-
century Jew who believed and hoped in the common Jewish eschatology of
his day. Being unbelievers, these scholars contended that Jesus was
evidently mistaken, and so his delusions came to a crashing end when the
Romans crucified him. (Of course, the early church resurrected his
delusions to cover over his failure.) Thus Dodd, to his credit, sought a noble
end by restoring to Jesus a sense of divine identity and mission.
Realized eschatology was the tool Dodd used to save Jesus from the
embarrassment of his failed Jewish dreams. Though Jesus was well aware
of the eschatology of his day, he was supposedly unique in that he believed
he was spiritually realizing those hopes within himself and his own
ministry.3 As noted previously, Dodd’s belief in this realization was based
largely on a semi-Platonic framework in which the “wholly other”
transcendental order is manifested into material time and space.4 This belief
in a present manifestation was justified by selective quotations of particular
verses (Mark 1:15; Matt. 12:28; Luke 17:21; etc.) and a radical dismissal of
the majority of Jesus’ apocalyptic sayings.5
Dodd’s critical method of writing off so many blatantly apocalyptic
passages was untenable, and therefore few followed him wholeheartedly.6
However, a mediating position, which sought to hold both Jewish
apocalypticism and realized eschatology in tandem (i.e., inaugurated
eschatology), began to take hold in Europe after World War II.7 This
inaugurationalist approach eventually made its way into American
evangelicalism (G. E. Ladd et al.), and from there it has spread to the ends
of the earth.
Unfortunately, the only people who have questioned the
inaugurationalist dogma hold either a critical or dispensational bias. I firmly
reject both, holding to the divine inspiration of the Scriptures and the divine
identity of Jesus, while also holding to a single redemptive plan involving
both Jew and Gentile. I find no embarrassment in Jesus’ apocalyptic
worldview, but rather embrace it wholeheartedly, for in it we find the
fullness of truth and life. God ordained the cross as the sacrificial means of
attaining the glorious hope of the resurrection—to the Jew first and then to
the Gentile.
Multitudes who have followed in Dodd’s footsteps, however, have
rejected such Jewish eschatology (note also Dodd’s notorious rejection of
propitiatory atonement).8 And, like Dodd, they use the exact same verses to
justify their rejection (Mark 1:15; Matt. 12:28; Luke 17:21; etc.).9 Of
course, as critical scholar Johannes Weiss noted in his day, liberal
scholarship of the nineteenth century used the same verses to prove a
present moralistic kingdom.10 This appendix will examine these verses in
context, along with some of Jesus’ parables and Paul’s sayings that I believe
are also quoted out of context. The goal of this study is to demonstrate that,
far from indicating a belief in the realization of Jewish eschatology, these
verses are actually potent reinforcements of the Jewish apocalyptic
worldview.

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS

At the heart of all controversy concerning realized eschatology are Jesus
and his sayings. Did he affirm the commonly held apocalyptic hope, or was
he the Lone Ranger of second-temple Judaism who proclaimed the present
spiritual fulfillment of the kingdom?11 Because of his consistent reference
to the kingdom without definition, it seems common sense would suggest
the former. Since the inception of realized eschatology, however, a number
of sayings have consistently been cited as proof that Jesus was the pioneer
in proclaiming the spiritual realization of Jewish eschatology.
Johannes Weiss identified the classic strongholds of Matthew 12:28
(“The kingdom of God has come upon you”) and Luke 17:21 (“The
kingdom of God is within you,” KJV).12 C. H. Dodd embraced these
wholeheartedly, as well as Mark 1:15 (“The kingdom of God is at hand”)
and Matthew 11:12 (“The kingdom of heaven has suffered violence”).13
Moreover, Dodd confidently declared that Jesus’ parables reinforced the
“mystery” (Mark 4:11, KJV) of realized eschatology contained in these
sayings.14 Unfortunately, multitudes have blindly followed Dodd’s
“hermeneutical castle built upon exegetical quicksand,”15 parroting nearly
verbatim his supposed evidences for realized eschatology. A plain reading
of the Gospels reveals that the vast majority of Jesus’ sayings about the
kingdom of God fall in line with the common Jewish apocalyptic
expectations of his day.16 Only a relatively few are debatable, yet these are
the sayings that are consistently used to argue for a radical redefinition of
the kingdom.

The Greek Verb

Before examining the sayings of both Jesus and Paul, a word must be said
about the relationship between realized eschatology and Greek verbs.
Historically, the entire edifice of realized eschatology has been primarily
built upon the use of eschatological concepts (especially the kingdom of
God) with “present-tense” or “past-tense” Greek verbs. However,
something of a revolution has happened in recent New Testament linguistic
studies concerning the Greek verb.17 Rather than communicating time (past,
present, and future), Greek verbs primarily communicate aspect (perfective,
imperfective, and stative).18 Akin to Hebrew verbs, Greek verbs generally
do not communicate the time of the action, but rather describe “the way the
user of the verb subjectively views the action.”19 The time of the action is
chiefly determined by its context, including adverbs, genre, and historical
references.20
This approach to Greek verbs solves the historical problem of so many
supposed “present-tense” verbs referring to realities both in the past
(“historic present”) and in the future (“futuristic present”), and of so many
supposed “past-tense” verbs referring to realities both in the present
(“dramatic aorist”) and in the future (“proleptic aorist”).21 When Greek
verbs are approached as aspectual, all the complicated terminology and
elaborate systems of exceptions can be done away with, and translations of
tense/time can be made according to appropriate context. The bottom line,
theologically, is that supposed present-tense and past-tense verbs can no
longer be used as proof of realized eschatology.22

The Kingdom Is at Hand

The initial proclamation of both John the Baptist and Jesus was “Repent, for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2; 4:17).23 Following Dodd,
many believe this to be a statement declaring the spiritual inauguration (i.e.,
reinterpretation) of the Jewish messianic kingdom.24 The context of this
statement, however, is clearly apocalyptic. It involves “the wrath to come”
(3:7), bad trees being axed and “thrown into the fire” (v. 10), and chaff
being burned “with unquenchable fire” (v. 12). All of these references were
borne out of the Prophets and understood apocalyptically. Moreover, no one
would have mistaken the quotation of Isaiah 40 as anything but the day of
the Lord.25
Jesus and John the Baptist were simply reiterating the heart of the
prophetic declaration: “The day of the LORD is at hand” (Isa. 13:6; Joel
1:15; Zeph. 1:7, KJV; cf. Ezek. 30:3; Obad. 15; Mal. 4:5). Everyone
understood that the day of the Lord and the kingdom of God were
functionally synonymous, because the day initiated the kingdom. Thus
Jesus warned his disciples when he sent them out to preach the coming
kingdom:

Proclaim as you go, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” . .

. And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake
off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.
Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment
 [“on that day,” Luke 10:12] for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah
than for that town. (Matt. 10:7-15)

Moreover, Jesus similarly concludes his eschatological discourse: “Now

when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads,
because your redemption is drawing near. . . . When you see these things
taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near” (Luke 21:28–31).
The same message of the temporal nearness of the day of the Lord and
kingdom of God is likewise reiterated throughout the New Testament. Peter
declares, “The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and
sober-minded” (1 Peter 4:7). James says, “Establish your hearts, for the
coming of the Lord is at hand” (James 5:8). Paul states, “Salvation is nearer
to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at
hand” (Rom. 13:11–12). In light of the Lord’s coming (Phil. 3:20), our
resurrection (3:21), and the “book of life” (4:3), Paul also exhorts, “The
Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything” (4:5–6). Likewise, the
writer of Hebrews urges corporate meetings and encouragement—“all the
more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb. 10:25). And the entire book
of Revelation is given on the premise that “the time is near” (1:3; 22:10),
for Jesus Christ “is coming with the clouds” (1:7; cf. 22:20).
In light of the prior language of the prophetic literature and its
continued use throughout the New Testament, it is clear that Jesus was not
changing the commonly understood Jewish eschatology of his day when he
declared the nearness of the kingdom. He was simply urging repentance and
a devout, wholehearted response to that kingdom.26 This same urgency for
repentance in light of the day of the Lord is mirrored throughout the
apostolic witness (cf. Acts 2:38; 3:19; 5:31; etc.).
What then is to be said about the much-debated “delay” of Jesus’
return? Because Jesus and the apostles declared the imminence of the
kingdom, does it mean they were mistaken (as the critical scholars say)? By
no means! Was Isaiah mistaken when he declared the imminence of the day
of the Lord over seven centuries prior to Jesus and the apostles? Or
Zephaniah a century later? Or Malachi two centuries after that? Of course
not. They were simply functioning in their prophetic role and speaking the
message they had received from God.
Why then would the prophets, Jesus, and the apostles uniformly declare
the nearness of the day of the Lord when its coming was actually thousands
of years in the future? Because time is relative to God, and thus the oracles
prove true in relation to their Author. This is the explanation given by Peter
concerning the delay of the Parousia (about thirty years at that time). Peter
states the core question of the scoffers: “Where is the promise of his
coming?” (2 Peter 3:4).27 Then he responds, declaring that they overlook
the simple fact “that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a
thousand years as one day” (v. 8). In other words, time is relative to God,
and likewise to his oracles. Therefore, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his
promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you. . . . But the day
of the Lord will come like a thief” (vv. 9–10).
Though humans may count the delay in God’s coming as slowness, God
counts it as imminence because of his transcendence of time. In this way,
the oracles remain true regardless of the time or means of their delivery.
Those who speak on behalf of God have always had, and always will have,
one driving message: Repent, for the day of the Lord is at hand.

The Kingdom Will Certainly Come upon You

If one of Jesus’ sayings has become the “hermeneutical cornerstone” for
realized eschatology, it would be Matthew 12:28 (cf. Luke 11:20),28 where
Jesus states, “If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the
kingdom of God has come upon you.”29 Based upon a rigid tense
translation of the Greek verb ephthasen (“has come”), inaugurationalists
claim incontrovertible proof of the spiritual realization of the kingdom.30
When we look at the passage as a whole and interpret the verb according to
aspect, however, we actually find a forceful affirmation of the commonly
understood Jewish messianic kingdom.
This saying was spoken in the context of Jesus healing a demon-
oppressed man (Matt. 12:22). Everyone was amazed and asked, “Can this
be the Son of David?” (v. 23). Clearly they took this exorcism to mean that
the restored Davidic kingdom was in view. The Pharisees rejected Jesus’
messiahship and accused him of driving out the demon by the power of
Satan (v. 24). Jesus’ response to this accusation (vv. 25–37) was threefold:
(1) it was illogical; (2) it was immoral; and (3) it was the basis of their
eternal judgment.
This third point is the main point Jesus was making in verse 28—
judgment on the last day will be determined by one’s words in this age. The
passage as a whole (vv. 25–37) is simply arguing that the Pharisees’ present
accusation makes certain their eternal damnation. Thus Jesus concludes, “I
tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless
word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words
you will be condemned” (vv. 36–37).31 If the exorcisms happened by the
Spirit of God, then Jesus is actually the Jewish Messiah (i.e., the Son of
David); and if he is the Messiah, then the careless accusation of the
Pharisees blasphemes the Holy Spirit (v. 31–32) and secures their eternal
judgment.32
This certainty lies behind the perfective aspect (traditionally aorist/past
tense) of the verb ephthasen. Jesus is simply communicating the completed
and finalized reality of their judgment based upon their careless words.33 A
better translation of verse 28 would thus be: “If I cast out demons by the
Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God will certainly come upon you!”34
Though some have previously acknowledged the possibility of a “proleptic
aorist,”35 I find the context of the passage to be most obviously
eschatological.36 As such, “the Son of David” (v. 23), “the kingdom of
God” (v. 28), “the age to come” (v. 32), and “the day of judgment” (v. 36)
all refer to the same Jewish apocalyptic reality. Hence the perfective aspect
of ephthasen simply communicates the certainty of this future reality.
This commonsense approach coincides with the fearful and negative use
of the same phraseology throughout the Tanakh.37 Based upon violations of
the law, “all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you” (Deut.
28:15). The prophets regularly rehearsed the same language, as Jeremiah
declared: “Because you sinned against the LORD and did not obey his voice,
this thing has come upon you” (40:3). Or as Daniel prayed: “As it is written
in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not
entreated the favor of the LORD our God” (9:13). Or as Zephaniah exhorted:
“Gather together, yes, gather, O shameless nation, before the decree takes
effect—before the day passes away like chaff—before there comes upon
you the burning anger of the LORD, before there comes upon you the day of
the anger of the LORD” (2:1–2).
The idea of divine judgment coming upon the wicked is similarly seen
throughout the New Testament. So Jesus warns: “But watch yourselves lest
your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of
this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come
upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth” (Luke 21:34–35).
Likewise, the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day will be “sentenced to hell”
(Matt. 23:33), for “all these things will come upon this generation” (v. 36).
Therefore, “the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience” (Eph.
5:6). For “sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come
upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape” (1 Thess. 5:3). Thus the
rich should “weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you”
(James 5:1). Yet, for the righteous, “I will protect you from the great time of
testing that will come upon the whole world to test those who belong to this
world” (Rev. 3:10, NLT).
In such light, 1 Thessalonians 2:16—“God’s wrath has come upon them
at last”—stands out as particularly important, since it most closely
corresponds grammatically to Matthew 12:28 (i.e., both have an aorist
ephthasen with the preposition epi). Moreover, Jesus’ situation and Paul’s
situation are quite similar. Both are being persecuted by unbelieving Jews,
and both are declaring that the present actions of those Jews are securing
their future damnation. Some claim that Paul’s use of the aorist within such
a clear eschatological context (cf. 1 Thess. 1:10; 2:19; 3:13; 4:15–17; 5:1–
9) makes this verse “one of the more problematic passages in the entire
Pauline corpus.”38 Of course, it is only problematic if ephthasen is
translated as past tense rather than as perfective aspect. A better translation
(quite akin to Matt. 12:28) would thus be: “God’s wrath will certainly come
upon them in the end!”39
In this way both Jesus and Paul use the perfective form of ephthasen to
forcefully affirm the Jewish apocalyptic end of their enemies. Far from
being proof of realized eschatology, they speak in the perfective (like the
Hebrew prophets) to communicate the complete surety of the future
reality.40 Furthermore, the cumulative effect of the “come upon”
phraseology throughout the prophetic witness would have created a
compounded negative emotional response within the hearer. The mere
mention of the kingdom coming upon someone, in light of the day of
judgment, was meant to instill fear and trembling, leading to repentance. If
the kingdom comes upon you (Matt. 12:28), that means you have been cut
off from divine forgiveness (v. 32); and at the day of judgment (v. 36), “you
will be condemned” (v. 37).

The Kingdom Will Come into Your Midst

Perhaps no other saying of Jesus has been more misunderstood and
distorted throughout the church’s history than Luke 17:21: “Behold, the
kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” Assumedly derived from the
Gnostic tradition,41 Anthony42 and Origen43 propagated a spiritualistic
interpretation of this saying that continues to this day, supported by some
English translations (e.g., “The kingdom of God is within you,” KJV, NKJV).
Modern commentaries offer a multitude of interpretive options,44 yet the
most commonsense approach (Jewish apocalypticism) is astonishingly
absent.
In this passage (Luke 17:20–37), Jesus is simply correcting Jewish
zealotry and its distorted expectations of how the messianic kingdom will
be ushered in.45 Within first-century Pharisaism (especially within the
House of Shammai) there was sympathy with the Jewish insurgent
movements,46 which distorted their interpretation of the Law and the
Prophets.47 Instead of a radically apocalyptic expectation of the kingdom
(cf. Isa. 65; Dan. 7; Zech. 14; etc.), a synergistic hope was introduced that
incorporated the strength of the flesh with the coming of God. Patterned
after the Maccabean revolt,48 it was supposed that God would anoint a
descendant of David, who would gather an army and come forth from the
wilderness (and/or inner rooms) and progressively grow in power, with
heaven approving and the angels attending.49 Such insurgent movements
were relatively common at the time (cf. Acts 5:36–37; 21:38).50
When asked when the kingdom of God would come (Luke 17:20), Jesus
responded, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed”
(NASB).51 There is much dispute concerning the nature of these “signs,” but
Jesus makes clear that he is speaking about Jewish insurgencies by
qualifying, “Nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’” (v. 21,
NASB). The Matthean parallel elaborates: “So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he
is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner
rooms,’ do not believe it” (24:26). Such an insurgent hope, which organized
itself in the wilderness or in the inner rooms, is countered in both Gospel
accounts with Jesus’ declaration, “As the lightning flashes and lights up the
sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day” (Luke
17:24; cf. Matt. 24:27). Simply put, the Pharisees’ vision for the day of the
Lord had become polluted. It was not apocalyptic enough.
 We would therefore interpret this passage, as well as the entire Olivet
Discourse, as a polemic against zealotry. The strength of the flesh is corrupt
beyond measure, and as such it will play no part in the redemption of the
earth. Conversely, it only degenerates an already miserable situation, adding
fuel to the coming fire. The kingdom of God will not come progressively by
the strength of the flesh, but rather suddenly by the power of God, “as the
lightning flashes” (v. 24), “as it was in the days of Noah” (v. 26), and “as it
was in the days of Lot” (v. 28). Moreover, that day will not require
observation; it will be obvious to all, just as the existence of a corpse is
obvious when vultures circle overhead (v. 37).
What then is to be said about the statement in verse 21 that “the
kingdom of God is [Gk. eimi] in the midst of you”? Unfortunately, modern
debate has focused on the tense of the verbs in verses 20–21. Rather than
the “present tense,” the imperfective aspect is used throughout to highlight
the dramatic actions unfolding. To resolve the awkwardness created by a
strict tense translation, some have suggested a “futuristic present tense” for
all of the verbs, since the thrust of the original question concerns the future
(thus, “The kingdom of God will be in the midst of you”).52 Most of this
debate, however, seems to be generally tangential, since neither Jesus nor
the Pharisees would have questioned the futurity of the kingdom. Rather,
the contention concerned how that futurity would unfold. The Pharisees saw
it coming progressively from men out of the wilderness or inner courts,
while Jesus saw it coming suddenly from God out of the heavens.
Consequently, the ultimate contention regards the origin of the kingdom
(God vs. man), which in turn determines the timing of the kingdom
(suddenly vs. progressively). As such, the translation of verse 21 should
turn on the alternative meaning of eimi: “to have a point of derivation or
origin, be/come from somewhere.”53 As eimi is elsewhere translated
“come” when used in relation to a point of origin (cf. Matt. 21:25; John
1:46; 7:27–29; 1 Cor. 11:8) and taken in its commonly understood futuristic
context, we would thus translate Luke 17:21b: “Behold, the kingdom of
God will come into your midst.”54
In this way, Jesus’ statement naturally leads into verses 22–37, for the
kingdom will come into their midst just as it happened during the days of
Noah and Lot.55 The strength of the flesh played no part in the execution of
divine judgment then, and the strength of the flesh (as embodied in Jewish
insurgent movements) will play no part in the coming enthronement of the
Son of Man on the last day. Far from being a pronouncement of realized
eschatology (and/or some sort of internal spiritualistic kingdom), Jesus’
statement in Luke 17:21 is actually a radical indictment of all
nonapocalyptic eschatology. The Jewish messianic kingdom will come
suddenly with divine power and glory.

The Kingdom Has Suffered Violence

The great irony of realized eschatology is that it relies on texts which in
truth perfectly contradict its message. Realized eschatology argues that the
texts above communicate (1) a good thing of divine blessing, (2) aimed at
believers, (3) individually, (4) in the present. However, the kingdom being
at hand, coming upon you, and coming into your midst is very much (1) a
bad thing of divine judgment, (2) aimed at unbelievers, (3) corporately, (4)
in the future.56 Realized eschatology actually turns Jesus’ message on its
head and robs it of its strength and conviction. Instead of inducing fear and
trembling, leading to repentance and conversion, it deludes its hearers into
believing a lie.57 In the end, those who do not work out their salvation with
fear and trembling will not inherit eternal life.
Similarly, realized eschatology has inverted Matthew 11:12—“From the
days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered
violence, and the violent take it by force.” Though the tone of the entire
passage is quite negative (vv. 7–19), followed by declarations of woe (vv.
20–24), many interpret this verse as something positive. It is often asserted
that Jesus is declaring the spiritual realization of Jewish eschatology, which
is attained by a spiritually aggressive (i.e., “violent”) way of life.58
Though Dodd admitted that the meaning of this passage was
“exceedingly difficult to determine,”59 he nonetheless maintained (leaning
on the questionable parallel in Luke 16:16)60 that it clearly reveals that
Jesus “proclaimed that the Kingdom of God, the hope of many generations,
had at last come.”61 Concerning such a radical declaration, should we not
take a more prudent approach? If the meaning of a passage is “exceedingly
difficult to determine,” should we not err on the more conservative and
traditional side? The burden of proof rests on realized eschatology to
evidence its revolutionary claims, and if Jesus did indeed proclaim such a
radical reinterpretation of the Law and Prophets, then we should expect an
elaborate exposition. Without such an expounding, we should assume—by
default—the Jewish apocalyptic understanding of the kingdom.
Though this passage does contain many difficulties, it is not too difficult
to determine its basic meaning: Before the day of the Lord, the righteous
will suffer and be persecuted (as was the common apocalyptic
expectation).62 In the context of the previous warning about the coming
persecution (Matt. 10:16–39) and the current imprisonment of John the
Baptist (11:2), Jesus affirms his own messianic identity (vv. 2–6). Then he
turns to the crowds and exalts the greatness of John’s prophetic identity (vv.
7–11). And just like all the prophets before them, both Jesus and John are
suffering persecution at the hands of violent men (v. 12), for John fully
embodied the prophetic calling (vv. 13–15). Moreover, just as in previous
generations, the generation of Jesus and John is hostile because of its
rebellious attitudes, akin to “childish brats” in the marketplace (vv. 16–
19).63 Therefore the basic meaning of the passage concerns the relationship
between Jesus and John and their shared persecution.
When we focus on verses 11–12, we are confronted with a number of
issues. There are two variables for interpretation in verse 11 (kingdom now
vs. future and the identity of least vs. greater), and there are two variables in
verse 12 (positive vs. negative violence statement and positive vs. negative
violence response). Thus there are four options of interpretation for each
verse (a mind-boggling sixteen interpretive possibilities in all!).64 It is no
wonder that interpretation of this passage commonly devolves into
confusion and conflict.
Concerning verse 11, I believe Benedict Viviano is right to identify “the
one who is least in the kingdom of heaven” as Jesus himself.65 Assumedly
based on Daniel 4:17 (“The Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives
it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men”), Jesus elsewhere
identifies himself as the least in this world, sent as the servant of all (cf.
Matt. 20:28; Luke 22:27; John 13:13–15). Thus he often exhorts his
disciples, “He who is least among you all is the one who is great” (Luke
9:48; cf. Matt. 18:4; 20:27; 23:11). Such logic is based upon the apocalyptic
understanding of history which assumes a radical reversal of the earth’s
hierarchies: the least/last will become the greatest/first, and vice versa (cf.
Matt. 19:30; 20:16; Luke 13:30).
Therefore, in Matthew 11:11 Jesus is simply saying that John the Baptist
is indeed the greatest born among women (i.e., the greatest of the prophets
and the culmination of the prophetic witness; cf. vv. 13–15),66 yet Jesus is
even greater than John, because Jesus humbled himself like a child (i.e.,
became least) even more than did John.67 Thus Oscar Cullmann
summarizes, “In agreement with Franz Dibelius and the older Church
Fathers, and in grammatical accordance with the text itself, I translate Matt.
11.11: ‘He who is least (i.e., Jesus as a disciple of John) is greater than he
(i.e., John) in the kingdom of heaven.’”68 Conversely, the common
inaugurational interpretation of this verse is nonsensical,69 since the
beginning of a spiritually realized kingdom is impossible to determine, and
John the Baptist would be logically excluded from the kingdom, or
denigrated at best.70
Concerning verse 12, there are four options in regard to the kingdom of
heaven and the realities of “inflicting violence” (Gk. biazō), “violent
[men]” (Gk. biastēs), and “attacking or seizing” (Gk. harpazō).71 Either
both parts of the verse are positive, both are negative (NIV), the first is
negative and the second is positive (KJV, NASB, CSB, NRSV, ESV), or vice versa
(NLT).72 Since the idea of “violence” is almost universally negative in the
Scriptures (cf. Gen. 6:11; Ps. 58:2; 140:1–5; Ezek. 22:26; etc.), I interpret
the verse as a double negative, wherein the second part of the verse
explicates the first: “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent
people are attacking it” (AT).73 In this we see a simple statement concerning
the apocalyptic proclamation of John and Jesus and the violent response of
their enemies.74
In a similar fashion, I interpret the parable of the children in the
marketplace (vv. 16–19).75 Those who see verse 12 as a positive statement
generally interpret the singing children as John and Jesus, while those who
view verse 12 negatively generally associate the children with “this
generation” (v. 16). The latter is clearly what Jesus meant, for it is the
accusations of this generation which are highlighted in verses 18–19.
Moreover, statements concerning “this generation” are elsewhere in
Matthew generally negative (cf. 12:39–45; 16:4; 17:17; 23:36). Thus the
parable falls in line with the preceding passage concerning the persecution
of John and Jesus and sets up the following passage concerning the
condemnation of unrepentant cities (vv. 20–24). Far from a proclamation of
realized eschatology, the kingdom suffering violence is simply a declaration
concerning persecution of John and Jesus, assuming the apocalyptic
destruction of their enemies “on the day of judgment” (vv. 22, 24). In this
way, Jesus’ saying accords with the common Jewish apocalyptic
expectation that the righteous will suffer before the day of the Lord.76

The Parables of the Kingdom

If realized eschatology were pictured as a tent, its poles would be the
individual sayings of Jesus (discussed above), and its covering would be
Jesus’ parables. According to Dodd and those who have followed him, the
revealing of realized eschatology is the primary purpose of the parables.
Hence the core element of “the secret” (Gk. mystērion; “mystery,” KJV) of
the kingdom of God (cf. Matt. 13:11; Mark 4:11; Luke 8:10) is believed to
be realized eschatology.77 As Dodd summarized:

This is the “mystery of the Kingdom of God”; not only that the
eschaton, that which belongs properly to the realm of the “wholly
other,” is now a matter of actual experience, but that it is
experienced in the paradoxical form of the suffering and death of
God’s representative.78

Therefore the Jewish messianic kingdom is transformed into a nebulous

spiritualistic reality somehow expressed through the crucifixion of the
Messiah.79 Moreover, the implication is that the Jews of Jesus’ day had a
false hope in the commonly hoped-for messianic kingdom, and as such
Jesus had to tell them rudimentary parables to help them see the
spiritualistic nature of the kingdom. In light of a commonsense reading of
the parables, however, I find this approach both absurd and offensive.
The foreign interpolation of realized eschatology into Jesus’ parables
confounds their basic purpose: the exposing of pride and hypocrisy among
the unrepentant. The parables are not primarily meant to reveal some kind
of new truth, but rather to convict the ungodly of the plain truth. Jesus thus
explains the context of the mystery/secret of the kingdom: “And he said to
them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for
those outside everything is in parables’” (Mark 4:11–12). Again, though
Jesus speaks to his disciples plainly (cf. Matt. 5–7; 10:5–42; 18:1–9; etc.),
he speaks to the unrepentant in parables—“This is why I speak to them in
parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor
do they understand” (Matt. 13:13; cf. Isa. 6:9–10).
In this way, the parables are not designed to impart new knowledge to
believers concerning God and redemptive history. Rather, they are spoken
polemically against unbelievers as a condemnation of their sin, pride, and
pretense. Of course, believers can receive instruction and encouragement
from the parables, but we must not lose sight of their overall orientation
(something that happens quite often, especially in relation to the disputed
parables). Most of the parables make a simple contrast of good versus bad
responses to God, and as such we must always be mindful that Jesus
primarily spoke the parables as an indictment of the bad response.
For example, the first major parable found in the Gospels is the wise
versus foolish builders (Matt. 7:24–27). This parable certainly includes an
encouragement to believers to build their metaphorical houses upon the
rock. But the overall orientation and purpose of the parable is toward
unbelieving Jews and their leaders, who are repeatedly highlighted in the
previous chapters (cf. 5:20; 6:2, 5, 16; 7:5, 15). Consequently, “on that day”
(7:22)—that is, the day of the Lord—divine judgment will come upon the
world like a storm. Those who have lived out their repentance will endure
the day, while those who have lived for the age to come in pretense (cf.
“Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name . . .”; v. 22) will fall “with a
great crash” (v. 27, CSB). The parable of the builders is thus spoken
primarily as an indictment of foolish builders and secondarily as an
encouragement to wise builders.
Similarly, the major parables of Matthew 13 (the shorter, debatable
parables will be discussed at the end of this section) are aimed at “this
wicked generation” (12:45), especially “the Pharisees and teachers of the
law” (12:38), who “plotted how they might kill Jesus” (12:14). The parable
of the sower and the seeds (13:3–9) is primarily aimed at those who hear
the message of the kingdom (i.e., eternal life) yet reject it or receive it
halfheartedly, choosing to live mostly for “this age” (v. 22, CSB). The
parable of the wheat and tares (vv. 24–30) is similarly aimed at “the sons of
the evil one” (v. 38), those who will be “gathered and burned with fire . . .
at the end of the age” (v. 40). Likewise, the parable of the good and bad fish
(vv. 47–50) is meant to be a warning to “the evil people” (v. 49, CSB), who
are in danger of being thrown into “the fiery furnace” (v. 50) at the end of
the age. Again, the parables were spoken “to them” (v. 13), because “they
look, but they don’t really see” (v. 13, NLT). The parables concern people’s
response to the message of the age to come, not a realization of it.
The parables of the unforgiving servant (Matt. 18:23–35), the vineyard
workers (Matt. 20:1–16), the two sons (Matt. 21:28–32), the wicked tenants
(Matt. 21:33–41), and the wedding banquet (Matt. 22:1–14) were all
similarly spoken publicly, so as to highlight and delineate righteous versus
wicked behavior in light of the final judgment.80 Far from communicating
any kind of realized eschatology, the aim of these parables is simply to
communicate that “many who are first will be last, and the last first” (19:30;
cf. 20:16; 23:12). That is to say, many who were commonly thought to be
righteous (thus inheriting a first place of glory in the age to come) were
actually wicked (thus inheriting a last place of punishment with the pagans),
while many who were commonly thought to be wicked (i.e., the sinners and
tax collectors; cf. 9:11; 11:19) would actually inherit the greatest glory in
the coming kingdom (cf. “The tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the
kingdom of God before you”; 21:31, NASB).81
Those parables which involve or highlight only one thing, person, or
group (often righteous) are no less designed “for those outside.” The
parable of the persistent widow (Luke 18:1–8) is spoken in light of the
Pharisees, who had become sympathetic to the Zealots (cf. 17:20–37), and
as such they had stopped praying and lost heart in the day of the Lord
(18:1). The parable of the shrewd manager (Luke 16:1–13) is designed to
mock the Pharisees, “who were lovers of money” (v. 14), because “the sons
of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of
light” (v. 8, NASB). In light of the coming judgment, unbelievers often use
their wealth to love people more than those who supposedly live for eternal
life! Similarly, the parables of the lost sheep (Luke 15:3–7) and the lost coin
(vv. 8–10) are aimed at the lack of compassion and joy on the part of the
Pharisees and teachers of the law, who “muttered” (v. 2) about Jesus’
welcoming of the tax collectors and sinners. The parable of the lost son (vv.
11–32) delineates multiple players, but communicates the same thing.
These parables about the kindness and mercy of God were primarily spoken
by Jesus to expose the judgmental arrogance of the Jewish leaders who
were criticizing him.82
The more controversial parables of Matthew 13 should also be
understood in this light. Akin to the parables of the lost sheep and lost coin
(Luke 15:3–10), the parables of the hidden treasure and pearl (Matt. 13:44–
46) were meant to expose the greedy and unwise way of life created by the
Jewish leaders of the time (cf. Matt. 6:1–18; 23:5–28). Though outwardly
they appeared to be living for the age to come, inwardly they were actually
“full of greed and self-indulgence” (Matt. 23:25). Though the parables of
the hidden treasure and pearl exemplify righteousness, they are still
ultimately aimed at the unrepentant, and never for a moment would they
have been understood as realizing or overturning the common apocalyptic
expectations concerning the inheritance of eternal life.
Likewise, the parables of the mustard seed and leaven (Matt. 13:31–33)
would have been understood negatively, spoken “to them” (v. 13) and
interpreted apocalyptically, in light of “the end of the age” (v. 40). These
two terse parables are simply negative teaching devices with a single player,
akin to the parables of the rich fool (Luke 12:16–21), the barren fig tree
(Luke 13:6–9), and the counting of the costs (Luke 14:28–33). Leaven was
commonly understood as a bad thing (cf. Ex. 12:15–20; 34:25; Lev. 2:11;
Matt. 16:6, 11–12; 1 Cor. 5:6–8; Gal. 5:9), and the allusion to
Nebuchadnezzar concerning the mustard seed (Matt. 13:32; cf. Dan. 4:12)
probably evoked highly negative emotions in Jesus’ hearers. Thus the
leaven and the mustard seed most likely would have been associated with
the preceding and following “weeds” (vv. 25, 38), which were destined to
be “burned” (vv. 30, 40)—especially since the mustard seed and leaven
parables are given no explanation (a point rarely appreciated). In this way,
they simply communicate that God, in his great mercy, will allow
wickedness to grow to its full measure (an idea seen throughout the
Scriptures; cf. Gen. 15:16; Dan. 8:23; Zech. 5:5; Matt. 23:32; 1 Thess. 2:16)
until the judgment at the end of the age. Again, if the mustard seed and
leaven parables are bookended by a parable concerning God allowing evil
to continue to maturity, then should we not assume the unexplained
parables in the middle to communicate the same message?
To justify interpreting the mustard seed and leaven as positive parables
elaborating a realized eschatology, you have to (1) go against the prevailing
Jewish understanding; (2) go against the common apocalyptic theme of
Jesus’ preaching; (3) go against the overall context of the chapter; (4) go
against the immediately adjacent verses; and (5) go against the passages and
elements that are referenced in the parables themselves.83 Of course, this
never seems to stop proponents of realized eschatology, who treat the
sayings addressed above in like manner.84 The interpretation of Jesus’
parables in a nonapocalyptic manner, exalting the strength of the flesh (and
ultimately justifying some form of Constantinian Christianity), is
completely anathema to the message and ministry of Jesus and the apostles.

THE SAYINGS OF PAUL

Inaugurationalists look to Paul as the primary successor of Jesus’ teachings
on realized eschatology. If Jesus was the Lone Ranger of second-temple
Judaism, then surely Paul was his Tonto. A systematic study of Paul’s
writings, though, reveals a consistent apocalyptic emphasis.85 Conversely,
Dodd and his followers maintain that Paul and the apostles “reflected upon”
the outpouring of the Spirit and progressively preached the realization of
Jewish eschatology.86 In this way, the church, composed of both Jews and
Gentiles, became the new and true Israel, realizing the blessings foretold by
the prophets in “the supernatural life here and now.”87
Some look to Paul’s relative lack of reference to “kingdom” and his
emphasis on “righteousness” and the Spirit as a sign that “God’s
eschatological rule was already being manifested in the present.”88
Nonsense. If Paul was redefining the kingdom and Jewish eschatology, then
he would have focused his language on the Jewish eschatological terms and
clearly expounded upon them, so as to fill them with new meaning. Again,
if you intend on redefining “the Pyramids,” then you have to do more than
make a few passing references to principles of triangularity. More sensibly,
Paul simply assumed the common Jewish eschatology of his day and
focused on the means of inheriting the kingdom (righteousness before God
by faith in Christ’s sacrifice) and the confirmation of that means (in the
deposit of the Spirit).
Paul’s lack of emphasis on the kingdom is compensated by his
consistent emphasis on the day of the Lord (cf. Acts 17:31; Rom. 2:5; 1
Cor. 3:13; Phil. 1:10; 1 Thess. 5:2; 2 Tim. 4:8), the resurrection (cf. Rom.
6:5; 1 Cor. 15:42; 2 Cor. 5:4; Phil. 3:11), and the return of Jesus (cf. 1 Cor.
15:23; Col. 3:4; 1 Thess. 3:13; 2 Thess. 2:1; 2 Tim. 4:1; Titus 2:13).
Moreover, most of his references to the kingdom are clearly eschatological
(cf. 1 Cor. 6:9, 10; 15:24, 50; Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5; Col. 4:11; 1 Thess. 2:12;
2 Thess. 1:5; 2 Tim. 4:1, 18). Only a few references—namely Romans
14:17, 1 Corinthians 4:20, and Colossians 1:13—are debatable, and we will
examine them next.89 On the whole, Paul’s message is simple and clear: Put
faith in Christ crucified, so as to be accounted righteous before God on the
last day, thus inheriting the kingdom, resurrection, and eternal life. The
difficulty of this message is not understanding it, but rather coming to terms
with it.

The Judgment Seat of God Is Not a Matter of Eating and Drinking

Concerning the supposed apostolic belief in realized eschatology, Romans
14:17 is commonly quoted as the clearest example: “For the kingdom of
God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace
and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Outlining the history of modern interpretation
subsequent to Schweitzer and Dodd, George Ladd concluded emphatically,
“The Word of God does say that the Kingdom of God is a present spiritual
reality. ‘For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking but
righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit’ (Rom. 14:17).
Righteousness and peace and joy are fruits of the Spirit which God bestows
now upon those who yield their lives to the rule of the Spirit. They have to
do with the deepest springs of the spiritual life, and this, says the inspired
apostle, is the Kingdom of God.”90
Many modern interpreters would agree with Ladd, but is this really
Paul’s point in Romans 14? I think not. Nothing about Romans 14:17
inherently communicates the timing of the kingdom. The verb (eimi) is
simply referring to the Jewish messianic kingdom, which is understood as a
future reality (as evidenced by the numerous eschatological references
surrounding the verse).91 We often do the same thing today when we speak
of a future reality: “Your inheritance is a serious matter,” or “The future is
unknown,” or “His death is imminent.” Paul is speaking the same way in
Romans 14:17, using the verb “to be” to describe the future Jewish
kingdom, rather than describing a present spiritualized reality.
To understand Romans 14, we need to approach it in light of Romans
13:8–14. Paul commands the Roman believers (Jew and Gentile) to “love
each other” (v. 8), since “love is the fulfilling of the law” (v. 10). Paul adds
depth to this exhortation by declaring that our salvation is nearer now than
when we first believed (v. 11), for the night of this age is almost over; “the
day is at hand” (v. 12). How then should we live, and what holds eternal
significance? Paul answers,
 So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor
of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and
drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in
quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make
no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. (vv. 12–14)

Romans 14 is simply an exposition and application of this idea of

discipleship: to “walk properly as in the daytime.” The age to come will not
involve drunkenness, immorality, or strife. Thus we should not engage in
those things, because we are not destined for those things. Moreover, we
were not designed for those things in the beginning. Sinful behaviors are
counter to both our design and our destiny. They are fruitless and hold no
eternal value.
Similarly, arguments between Jewish and Gentile believers concerning
dietary laws (14:2–4, 14–16, 20–21) and calendar observance (vv. 5–9) are
fruitless and hold no value when we all “stand before the judgment seat of
God” (v. 10). Though we may “pass judgment” (vv. 3, 4, 10, 13, 22) on
each other in this age concerning these things, they will hold little weight
on the last day, when “each of us will give an account of himself to God” (v.
12).
In this light, “the kingdom of God” (v. 17) and “the judgment seat of
God” (v. 10) are functionally synonymous.92 What we eat and drink in this
age will be of little consequence on the day of the Lord and in the kingdom
of God. The age to come will consist of righteousness, peace, and joy in the
Holy Spirit, and the judgment seat of God will not be a matter of eating and
drinking. Therefore, in this age “let us pursue what makes for peace and for
mutual upbuilding” (v. 19). In this way, “strong” believers will not be
dragged into the meaningless toils of “weak” believers, who in turn will not
divide the body of Christ by their vain judgments.
As such, Romans 14 could be recapitulated: Let us walk properly as in
the daytime, not quarrelling over opinions which hold little eternal
significance, since the age to come is not a matter of eating and drinking but
of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Far from redefining
the common Jewish eschatology, Paul is simply describing its future reality,
hence reinforcing the sobriety and eternal perspective inherent in Jewish
apocalypticism. This futurist approach squares with both the passage as a
whole and with common expectations of the kingdom.93 Interposing
realized eschatology into Romans 14 is both illogical and counterproductive
to Paul’s argument that eschatology (cf. “salvation,” “the day,” “judgment
seat,” “kingdom”) is the primary driver of Christian discipleship.94

Divine Judgment Is Not a Matter of Talk but of Power

Similar to Romans 14:17, Paul also describes the coming kingdom in 1
Corinthians 4:20: “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of
power” (CSB).95 Many interpreters understand this statement to be a clear
declaration of realized eschatology. As with Romans 14, however, the
context does not even come close to supporting this interpretation.
Eschatological references abound, both preceding (cf. 1:8, 29; 2:6; 3:13;
4:5) and following (cf. 5:5; 6:2–3, 14; 7:29; etc.) the statement. Moreover,
Paul’s use of “kingdom of God” elsewhere in the letter is clearly
eschatological (cf. 6:9, 10; 15:24, 50). His “very casual” use of the phrase
also indicates that it was a commonly understood term to both Paul and his
readers.96 If realized eschatology had become so commonly associated with
the phrase, where is the evidence (i.e., long discourses and elaborations)
that its meaning had been so radically redefined and commonly accepted?
Rather, Paul had in mind the Jewish messianic kingdom, and the
coming of this kingdom does not consist of talk but of power. As I once
heard it preached, “Jesus will not cleanse the earth of wickedness by
striking it with footnotes!” He will come, instead, with a rod (cf. Ps. 2:9;
Isa. 11:4; Rev. 19:15) and punish the wicked for their evil words and deeds.
This is the kind of “power” Paul is speaking of in reference to the kingdom
(cf. 1 Cor. 3:13; 4:5; 5:13; 6:9–10). Similarly, Paul threatens to execute a
temporal judgment by coming “with a rod” (4:21). As such, Paul
understands that temporal judgments within the church are meant to bring
sobriety concerning God’s eternal judgment.
This pattern is repeated in the following verses concerning the
excommunication of the sexually immoral man, to be done with the hope
“that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord” (5:5). Thus Paul
justifies, “For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those
inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. ‘Purge
the evil person from among you’” (vv. 12–13). Paul reiterates this approach
again in relation to lawsuits among believers (6:1–8). Because believers
will “judge the world” (v. 2) in the age to come, they ought to be able to
judge within the church in matters “pertaining to this life” (v. 3). Moreover,
the Lord’s Supper (11:17–34) is also designed to maintain repentance “until
he comes” (v. 26). Anyone who partakes of Communion without repentance
“eats and drinks judgment on himself” (v. 29). Such temporal judgments
(e.g., being “weak and ill”; v. 30) are meant to shake us, “so that we may
not be condemned along with the world” (v. 32).
This pattern of temporal judgment awaking the unrepentant to eternal
judgment is what Paul has in mind when he says that “the kingdom of God
does not consist in talk but in power” (4:20). Consequently, Paul follows
with the question, “What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or
with love in a spirit of gentleness?” (v. 21). Paul thus implicitly contrasts
God’s gentleness in this age with his severity at the day of the Lord.
Paul’s reference to the eschatological kingdom coming in power (and
the implied divine judgment therein) makes much more sense than a present
realized kingdom.97 (If that were the case, it seems Paul would refer to
handing the sexually immoral man over to a present realization of the day
of the Lord in 5:5 and to believers exercising a present judgment of the
world and the angels in 6:2–3!) Thus, the reading of realized eschatology
into Paul’s reference to the kingdom of God in 4:20 is completely out of
line with 1) commonly held expectations of the kingdom; 2) the rest of
Paul’s uses of “kingdom” in the letter; and 3) the immediate context of
chapters 4–6, which highlight temporal judgment in light of eternal
judgment.98

We Have Been Turned Toward the Kingdom of His Beloved Son

The last of the verses commonly quoted as proof of Paul’s belief in a
realized eschatology is Colossians 1:13: “He has rescued us from the power
of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son”
(NRSV).99 Unfortunately, we have here another example of simplistic
reliance upon a tense-based translation of the Greek verbs (“deliver/rescue”
and “transfer/turn away”) to prove realized eschatology.100 Some even go
so far as to claim that Paul has no future reality in mind at all!101
The surrounding context of Paul’s thought, however, is clearly
eschatological, for in the previous verse the Colossians have been qualified
“to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.” Everywhere else in Paul’s
letters the inheritance of the saints is understood as eschatological (cf. 1
Cor. 6:9–10; 15:50; Gal. 3:18; 5:21; Eph. 1:11, 14, 18; 5:5; Col. 3:24).102
Moreover, Paul’s use of “light” (v. 12) and “darkness” (v. 13) is elsewhere
in line with the Jewish apocalyptic understanding of this age and the age to
come (cf. Rom. 13:12; 1 Cor. 4:5; Eph. 5:8; Phil. 2:15; 1 Thess. 5:5).103
Thus Paul would understand our deliverance and “the forgiveness of sins”
(v. 14) within an apocalyptic context (cf. Gal. 1:4; 1 Cor. 15:3; Titus 3:7).
Moreover, throughout the New Testament, “into the kingdom” is commonly
associated with entrance into eschatological glory.104
Another difficulty with Colossians 1:13 is the translation of the verb
methistēmi (“transfer, remove, turn away”).105 Since methistēmi is nowhere
else in the New Testament translated “transfer,” Acts 19:26 seems to be the
most relevant comparison: “This Paul has persuaded and turned away
[methistēmi] a great many people.” Because of this issue and the striking
similarity of language, Acts 26:15–18 is also helpful when discussing
Colossians 1:9–14.106 In Acts 26, Paul explains to King Agrippa his
encounter with Jesus and his subsequent commissioning:

I have appeared to you for this purpose . . . delivering you from

your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to
open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and
from the power [Gk. exousia] of Satan to God, that they may
receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are
sanctified by faith in me. (Acts 26:16–18)

Compare this description with Paul’s prayer in Colossians 1:9–14:

We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will
in all wisdom and spiritual understanding . . . being strengthened
with all power, according to his glorious might, so that you may
have great endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the
Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in
the light. He has rescued us from the domain [Gk. exousia] of
darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.
In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (CSB)
 Both passages contain the same basic elements: (1) spiritual
revelation/opening of eyes, (2) the turning from darkness to light and from
the power of Satan to God, (3) the expectation of a future place/inheritance,
and (4) forgiveness of sins in him. Few would read realized eschatology
into Acts 26, yet it is universally interposed (with confidence and force!)
into Colossians 1. It seems to me that Paul’s point in Colossians 1:12–14 is
simply that of Acts 26:16–18. Because of the sacrifice of Christ, we have
been qualified to share in the eternal inheritance, delivered from the power
of Satan, and turned toward the kingdom and Parousia of the Son (cf. 1 Cor.
1:7; Phil. 3:20; 1 Thess. 1:10).107
This eschatological approach accords with the rest of the letter (cf. 1:5,
22, 27; 3:4, 6, 24) and the rest of Paul’s writings. The interposing of
realized eschatology into Colossians 1:13 runs perfectly counter to Paul’s
thought and his later exhortation: “Set your minds on things that are above,
not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden
with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also
will appear with him in glory” (3:2–4).

CONCLUSION
The vast majority of eschatological references in the New Testament fit
comfortably within a first-century Jewish apocalyptic worldview. The few
verses discussed above are commonly cited as proof that Jesus and the
apostles reinterpreted and transformed that worldview. But as we have seen,
these verses—read in the context of their surrounding passages—are
actually forceful affirmations of the Jewish eschatological hope. If realized
eschatology (i.e., the “already” of inaugurationalism) is nonexistent in the
New Testament, what then are we left with? Precisely—Jewish
apocalypticism, which must be augmented with a cruciform theology. Such
a worldview lies behind Jesus’ rhetorical question: “Was it not necessary
that the Messiah [Jewish] should suffer these things [cruciform] and then
enter into his glory [apocalyptic]?” (Luke 24:26, NRSV).
Why then speak so forcefully against realized eschatology? It is often
claimed that believers will not engage the world and its culture apart from
the motivation of realized eschatology. However, I find this logic to be both
flawed and lethal. It is flawed in that motivation is driven by convictions of
truth and falsehood, love and hate, reward and punishment, etc. Such
convictions can apply equally to things of this age (realized eschatology) or
things of the age to come (apocalyptic eschatology). I believe motivation
derived from eternal realities tends to foster holy ambition, whereas
motivation derived from temporal realties tends to create vain ambition. An
eternal inheritance is actually a better motivator than a temporal inheritance
(or at least it ought to be!).
As such, realized eschatology is also lethal, primarily for three reasons.
First, it destroys believers’ joy in the blessed hope by setting their minds
and hearts on an inheritance in this age, while simultaneously mitigating
their urgency concerning the imminence of the day of the Lord. This
approach erodes an eternal perspective and creates a fundamental
worldliness within the church, as evidenced throughout the church’s
Constantinian history.
Second, realized eschatology tends to disqualify believers from the
eternal inheritance by changing the standard of discipleship in this age from
the cross to a spiritually realized kingdom (i.e., the cross is no longer the
embodiment of the will of God in this age but rather a simple historical
event which only enabled the present kingdom). This approach seems to
inevitably lead to believers laying down their crosses, so to speak, and
rejecting a theology of suffering.
Third, realized eschatology deludes believers into supersessionist
beliefs concerning the spiritualization of Israel and the jettisoning of the
unique calling of the Jews in redemptive history. The church becomes the
“new Israel,” and Jews are too often held in contempt. Again, realized
eschatology irreparably damages the biblical timeline, particularly
concerning (1) the day of the Lord, (2) the cross, and (3) Jewish election.
Thus, at every turn realized eschatology contradicts the Jewish cruciform-
apocalyptic testimony of the Scriptures.
For this reason, I resonate with Paul’s description of the realized
eschatology of his day as “irreverent babble” (1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 2:16). It
is babble because it usually goes on and on, with little or no correspondence
with reality. For centuries Orthodox Jews have consistently pointed out that
Gentile Christians are fundamentally out of touch with reality: The wicked
still rule the earth, the nations still surround Israel with raging hatred,
Jerusalem has not been glorified, the messianic temple has not been built,
the Messiah is not sitting on the Davidic throne, the light of God’s day has
not dawned, the dead have not been raised, Gehenna is not blazing, the
earth has not been restored, and so on and so forth. Nor does such a realized
vision line up with the Tanakh. Where do we find such a spiritualization of
these things in the Law and the Prophets? Common sense (the basic ability
of reason and deduction given by God) should lead us to the simple
conclusion that the resurrection, kingdom, and day of the Lord are future
realities anchored in the Parousia of Christ.
Moreover, realized eschatology is irreverent because it treats trivially
that which God deems most holy. God spoke and revealed himself to the
prophets, and as such his self-revelation is bound to his vision for the
future. His mantric self-declaration as “the God of Israel” is likewise
inextricably tied to “the hope of Israel” (Jer. 17:13; Acts 28:20). The
restoration of Israel (Acts 1:6), the redemption of Jerusalem (Luke 2:38),
the coming Davidic kingdom (Mark 11:10)—these are not small things to
be reimagined, reinterpreted, minimized, and marginalized. Rather, Jesus
taught his disciples to pray with a holy fear: “Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as
it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9–10). The Jewish messianic kingdom is God’s
kingdom. It is God’s will. It is holy. Realized eschatology is the product of
Gentile arrogance (Rom. 11:17–25). It disrespects and dishonors the God of
Israel. It is unholy. For this reason, Paul likens such irreverent babble to
“gangrene” (2 Tim. 2:17), which quite literally “overturns” (Gk. anatrepō)
people’s faith (v. 18). Thus I conclude with Paul: “Let everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord turn away from wickedness” (v. 19, CSB).
 NOTES

Chapter One
1. See G. W. Bromiley, “Truth,” ISBE, 4:926–28; cf. Roger Nicole, “The
Biblical Concept of Truth,” in Scripture and Truth, ed. D. A. Carson
and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 287–98.
2. Tanakh is a Hebrew acronym for the Law (Torah), the Prophets
(Nevi’im), and the Writings (Ketuvim); see Tanakh: The Holy
Scriptures: The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional
Hebrew Text (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985).
Orthodox Jews have always resented the label “Old Testament”
(employed from the late second century), and modern Messianic Jews
have sought new labels: “The Messianic Jewish canon consists of the
Tanakh and the B’rit Chadashah (the New Testament)” (Carl Kinbar,
“Messianic Jews and Scripture,” in Introduction to Messianic Judaism:
Its Ecclesial Context and Biblical Foundations, ed. David Rudolph and
Joel Willitts [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013], 69).
3. Concerning the apocryphal writings, T. W. Davies notes, “The Jews in
the early Christian centuries had really two Bibles: (1) There was the
Hebrew Bible which does not include the Apocrypha, and which
circulated in Palestine and Babylon; (2) there was the Greek version
(LXX [which did include the Apocrypha]) used by Greek-speaking
Jews everywhere” (“Apocrypha,” ISBE, 1:163). Since the apostolic
church relied on the latter, this work will reference apocryphal books
in more of a deuterocanonical (“second canon”) sense, lying
somewhere between protocanonical (OT and NT) and noncanonical
(e.g., pseudepigrapha); see also David A. deSilva, Introducing the
Apocrypha: Message, Context, and Significance (Grand Rapids:
Baker, 2002).
4. I refer to “Judeo-Christianity” because early Christianity never sought
to part ways with Judaism, but was only regarded as a Jewish “sect”
 (Acts 24:5, 14; 28:22). Thus, Judeo-Christianity was originally “a
territory without border lines” (Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The
Partition of Judaeo-Christianity [Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2004], 1).
5. As typified by the Jesus Seminar (e.g., J. D. Crossan, R. Funk, M. J.
Borg, S. L. Harris, B. Mack, etc.), the modern liberal tradition has
largely rejected the bodily resurrection of Jesus. See rebuttals by
Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland, eds., Jesus Under Fire: Modern
Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1995); and Craig A. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars
Distort the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006).
6. John H. Gerstner observes,
Despite the dominant usage of euangellismos in the New
Testament, its derivative, evangelical, was not widely or
controversially employed until the Reformation period. Then it
came into prominence with Martin Luther precisely because he
reasserted Paul’s teaching on the euangellismos as the
indispensable message of salvation. Its light, he argued, was
hidden under a bushel of ecclesiastical authority, tradition, and
liturgy. The essence of the saving message for Luther was
justification by faith alone, the article by which not only the
church stands or falls but each individual as well. Erasmus,
Thomas More, and Johannes Eck denigrated those who
accepted this view and referred to them as “evangelicals.” (“The
Theological Boundaries of Evangelical Faith,” in The
Evangelicals: What They Believe, Who They Are, Where They
Are Changing, ed. David F. Wells and John D. Woodbridge
[Nashville: Abingdon, 1975], 23)
7. Kenneth S. Kantzer, “Unity and Diversity in Evangelical Faith,” in
The Evangelicals, 52.
8. For a well-articulated history of Protestant evangelicalism, see Stanley
J. Grenz, “Nurturing the Soul, Informing the Mind: The Genesis of the
Evangelical Scripture Principle,” in Evangelicals and Scripture:
Tradition, Authority, and Hermeneutics, ed. V. Bacote, L. C. Miguélez,
and D. L. Okholm (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 19–41.
9. Moisés Silva, “Who Needs Hermeneutics Anyway?” in Introduction to
Biblical Hermeneutics: The Search for Meaning, ed. Walter C. Kaiser
Jr. and Moisés Silva (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 17.
10. Paul Feinberg describes the hermeneutical difficulties:
Scripture is the product of dual authorship. Which author’s
intention, man’s or God’s, is determinative? If it is the human
author’s intention, then the interpreter is dealing with a finite
mind in a historical and cultural context. Here the author’s
intention can be determined. On the other hand, if it is the
divine author’s intention, then, since God is infinite and
omniscient, it would appear that the meaning could go beyond
the concrete, historical understanding of the text. He could
mean things that human interpreters would miss. It would seem
that almost any statement, no matter how simple, might have
nuances that we would miss. In sum, if you limit meaning to the
human author’s intention, then you are faced with his ignorance
and possible error. While, on the other hand, if meaning is
expanded to the divine author’s intention, you are up against our
ignorance and the superiority of God’s ways to ours.
(“Hermeneutics of Discontinuity,” in Continuity and
Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the
Old and New Testaments, ed. J. S. Feinberg [Westchester, IL:
Crossway, 1988], 112–13)
11. See J. I. Packer, “Infallible Scripture and the Role of Hermeneutics,”
in Scripture and Truth, 325–56.
12. Thus I agree with the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy
(published in C. F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, vol. 4
[Waco, TX: Word, 1979], 211–19) that the Scriptures are both inerrant
and infallible: “Infallible signifies the quality of neither misleading nor
being misled and so safeguards in categorical terms the truth that Holy
Scripture is a sure, safe, and reliable rule and guide in all matters.
Similarly, inerrant signifies the quality of being free from all falsehood
or mistake and so safeguards the truth that Holy Scripture is entirely
true and trustworthy in all its assertions” (p. 217).
13. Here we must acknowledge some form of sensus plenior (literally, “the
fuller sense”), as clearly evidenced in passages such as Dan. 12:6–9,
 John 11:49–52, Eph. 5:29–33, and 1 Peter 1:10–12; see an introduction
in R. E. Brown, “The History and Development of the Theory of a
Sensus Plenior,” CBQ 15 (1953): 141–62; and W. S. LaSor,
“Prophecy, Inspiration, and Sensus Plenior,” TynBul 29, no. 1 (1978):
48–60.
14. See a concise history of development by F. F. Bruce and J. J. Scott Jr.,
“Interpretation of the Bible,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology,
2nd ed., ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 611–15.
15. Concerning pretheoretical and presuppositional aspects of worldview,
see James W. Sire, Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a Concept
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 75–86.
16. Norman L. Geisler and William D. Watkins, Worlds Apart: A
Handbook on World Views, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 11.
17. N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (London:
SPCK, 1992), 123.
18. So Francis Schaeffer concluded, “There is one worldview which can
explain the existence of the universe, its form, and the uniqueness of
people—the worldview given to us in the Bible” (Francis A. Schaeffer,
The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview
[Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1982], 5:357).
19. Though we affirm a general confluence between the human authors
and divine author, especially concerning historical/gospel narratives
and pastoral/poetical writings, the transcendence of the divine author
must be maintained, especially in the prophetic/apocalyptic writings.
See a summary of evangelical approaches in W. Edward Glenny, “The
Divine Meaning of Scripture: Explanations and Limitations,” JETS 38,
no. 4 (December 1995): 481–500.
20. David K. Naugle, Worldview: The History of a Concept (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 4.
21. “The word is used in a great many areas, ranging from the natural
sciences to philosophy to theology. Authors who use it often do so
without concern for proper definition, and even when definitions are
given they tend to be far from precise” (Sander Griffioen, “The
Worldview Approach to Social Theory: Hazards and Benefits,” in
Stained Glass: Worldviews and Social Science, ed. Paul A. Marshall,
 Sander Griffioen, and Richard J. Mouw [Lanham, MD: University
Press of America, 1989], 83; quoted in Sire, Naming the Elephant, 23).
22. Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., s.v. “world view.”
23. See the definitive study of the term’s history and usage in Naugle’s
Worldview, which covers Protestant evangelicalism (chap. 1), Roman
Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy (chap. 2), philological history
(chap. 3), philosophical history (chaps. 4–6), and the various scientific
disciplinary histories (chaps. 7–8). Naugle concludes that “in the entire
history of ‘worldview,’ no single philosophic school or religious
community has given more sustained attention to or taken more
advantage of this concept than Protestant evangelicals” (p. 31).
24. The two primary Reformed headwaters of worldview thinking (with
much overlap, even from the beginning) are James Orr, The Christian
View of God and the World (Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot, 1893); and
Abraham Kuyper, Calvinism (New York: Revell, 1899). From Orr
have generally flowed the major works of Carl F. H. Henry, Arthur
Holmes, and Ronald Nash. From the Kuyperian tradition we have the
works of Herman Dooyeweerd, Cornelius Van Til, Francis Schaeffer,
James Olthius, and Albert Wolters. All modern discussion of
worldview owes greatly to the Reformed tradition (see esp. Naugle,
Worldview, 4–32).
25. Often protology and metaphysics are combined in cosmogony, “the
theory and lore concerning the origin and structure of the universe”
(Robert A. Oden Jr., “Cosmogony, Cosmology,” ABD, 1:1162).
26. Note also the contributions of Protestant missiologists: Paul G.
Hiebert, Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological
Understanding of How People Change (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008);
Charles H. Kraft, Christianity in Culture: A Study in Dynamic Biblical
Theologizing in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis,
1979); and David J. Hesselgrave, Communicating Christ Cross-
Culturally (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978), esp. 190–285.
27. Thus, Corliss Lamont (1902–1995), the leading humanist spokesman
of the twentieth century, entitled chap. 4 of The Philosophy of
Humanism “Humanism’s Theory of the Universe,” explaining,
 Any complete philosophy of existence requires a carefully
worked out theory of the universe, in technical terms a
metaphysics, an ontology, or a world-view. As we have already
seen, Humanism believes that Nature itself constitutes the sum
total of reality, that matter-energy and not mind is the
foundation stuff of the universe, and that supernatural entities
simply do not exist. This nonreality of the supernatural means,
on the human level, that human beings do not possess
supernatural and immortal souls; and, on the level of the
universe as a whole, that our cosmos does not possess a
supernatural and eternal God. (Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy
of Humanism, 8th ed. [Amherst, NY: Humanist Press, 1997],
126)
28. James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog,
5th ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 22.
29. Geisler and Watkins, Worlds Apart, 14.
30. Acknowledging that all worldviews—especially Hinduism—have a
great internal diversity of thought and practice, we will proceed with
broad generalizations that roughly represent the majority. For an
introduction to Hinduism’s Brahman, see R. C. Zaehner, Hinduism,
2nd ed., OPUS Series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), 36–
56. For an overview of the origin and construction of the cosmos, as
defined by the later Puranic tradition, see Cornelia Dimmitt and J. A.
B. van Buitenen, eds., Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the
Sanskrit Purānas (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978), 32–
54.
31. Edward Conze observes, “In their views on the structure and evolution
of the universe, the Buddhists were, however, content to borrow from
the traditions of contemporary Hinduism” (Buddhism: Its Essence and
Development [Oxford: Bruno Cassirer, 1951], 34).
According to Akira Sadakata, these “three worlds” are drawn from
Brahmanistic sources and are mirrored in the early Vedic tripartite
universe of bhur (earth), bhuva (moon), and svar (sun), which
composed the lower, middle, and upper regions of the Brahmanic
universe, respectively. By their sacrifices, the gods had attained to the
upper regions of svar, which humans too could reach through their
 sacrifices. This in turn defined the practice of early Brahminic
tradition. Later Vedic and Puranic tradition developed this construct
into many heavens and hells, but retained the same vertical universe.
See Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins,
trans. Gaynor Sekimori (Tokyo: Kōsei Publishing, 1997), 25–47.
32. Buddhist cosmology is exceedingly complex; see an excellent
overview by Rupert Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism, OPUS
series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 112–32.
33. The full progression is outlined in chap. 42 of the classical text Tao Te
Ching: “The Tao gives birth to One [chi, the primordial manifestation
of cosmic energy]. One gives birth to Two [yin/yang, complementary
existential principles]. Two gives birth to Three [sanqing, the “Three
Pure Ones,” the three highest deities in the Taoist pantheon]. Three
gives birth to all things [wanwu]” (Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching: A New
English Version, trans. Stephen Mitchell [New York: Harper & Row,
1988], 42; information in brackets added).
“This passage describes the cosmogonic process as moving from
Nonbeing or the Dao to Oneness; the One then spontaneously divides
into the two complementary principles (yin/yang) which in turn
generate the ‘ten thousand things’ (wanwu) or the manifest cosmos”
(Fabrizio Pregadio and Lowell Skar, “Inner Alchemy (Neidan),” in
Daoism Handbook, ed. Livia Kohn [Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2000],
483).
34. “Naturalism,” The Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Supplement, ed.
Donald M. Borchert (New York: MacMillan, 1996), 372. However, the
definition of “nature,” or the oft-referred to “physical realm,” is
something of a philosophical quandary, since its parameters are
assumedly defined by human sensibility—that is, what we can
observe, measure, test, etc.
35. Of course it is “God” (Gen. 1:1a) who is truly the ultimate reality,
from which the heavens and earth are then created (see Sire’s
discussion in chap. 3 of Naming the Elephant). For the purposes of
understanding the nature and function of worldview, we will limit our
metaphysical discussion to creation.
36. Thus the common tradition cataloged by Mircea Eliade, Cosmos and
History: The Myth of the Eternal Return, trans. W. R. Trask (New
 York: Harper & Row, 1959).
37. So N. T. Wright points out, “Worldviews provide the stories through
which human beings view reality. Narrative is the most characteristic
expression of worldview, going deeper than the isolated observation or
fragmented remark” (New Testament and the People of God, 123).
38. Ibid. Wright slightly modified these questions from Brian J. Walsh and
J. Richard Middleton in The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian
World View (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1984), 35.
39. See also Sire’s list of existential questions in The Universe Next Door,
22–23.
40. Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 42.
41. Naugle, Worldview, 303.
42. Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty articulates the perpetual cycle of
perfection, sin, destruction, and re-creation:
The myth of the Fall, or the loss of the Golden Age, entails
three presuppositions: there was a beginning of human action, a
first wicked act, and a previous period in which God had created
everything in perfection. But how can this be used to qualify the
cycle of rebirth, which has no beginning? . . . The Indian answer
to this paradox is simple, and brilliant: the Fall itself is cyclical;
it happens again and again, over and over, within the cycle of
rebirth. . . .
The world begins over and over again; each time, it is
created out of water, and the Golden Age takes place. This Age
degenerates until finally the fourth Age is reached, the present
Kali Age, which is destroyed by fire and flood; all is once again
water, out of which the world is created anew. (The Origins of
Evil in Hindu Mythology [Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1976], 17–18)
43. Gautama Buddha (c. 563–483 BC) assumedly accepted the Hindu
framework for reality (though this is greatly debated in modern times).
He clearly assumed the soteriological cycle of samsara and the goal of
moksha, which attains nirvana—that is, the extinction of desire,
suffering, and self-consciousness (see Gethin, Foundations of
Buddhism, chaps. 3 and 5). The primary difference between the two
 worldviews lies in the Buddhist response and praxis. The emphasis is
more upon the practicing of holiness that leads to enlightenment (i.e.,
the “Noble Eightfold Path”), rather than speculating about the nature
of reality. Gethin concludes, “Buddhism regards itself as presenting a
system of training in conduct, meditation, and understanding that
constitutes a path leading to the cessation of suffering. Everything is to
be subordinated to this goal. And in this connection the Buddha’s
teachings suggest that preoccupation with certain beliefs and ideas
about the ultimate nature of the world and our destiny in fact hinders
our progress along the path rather than helping it” (Foundations of
Buddhism, 65–66). In this way, the role of the gods is greatly
subordinated to Buddha’s example and “teachings” (the Dharma,
distinguished from the lower-case cosmic law dharma). Along with the
Satigha (“assembly, community”), these become the tri-ratna (“three
jewels”) by which one is distinguished as a Buddhist, saying upon
conversion, “To the Buddha I go for refuge; to the Dharma I go for
refuge; to the Satigha I go for refuge” (ibid., 34).
44. As Richard Dawkins is known for saying, “In a universe of electrons
and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some
people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and
you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe
that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there
is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but
pitiless indifference” (“God’s Utility Function,” Scientific American
[November 1995]: 85).
45. On the direct relationship between biblical protology and eschatology,
“the old and new creations,” see Warren A. Gage, The Gospel of
Genesis: Studies in Protology and Eschatology (Winona Lake, IN:
Eisenbrauns, 1984).
46. Historical and modern rabbinic Judaism hold the same basic
framework and timeline, yet reject a suffering Messiah (see chaps. 7
and 8).
47. Alfred N. Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology,
ed. David R. Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne, corrected ed.
(originally published in 1929; New York: Free Press, 1979), 39.
48. The Demiurge (“Artisan/Craftsman”) was the intermediary who used
the forms to create materiality. Plato’s theory of the forms is found
scattered throughout his dialogues; cf. Timaeus, 27–52; Phaedo, 73–
80; Republic, 3:402–3; 5:472–83; Cratylus, 389–90, 439–40;
Phaedrus, 248–50; Theaetetus, 184–86; Sophist, 246–59.
49. As portrayed by Plato’s parable of the cave:
This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon,
to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight,
the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend
me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the
soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief,
which, at your desire, I have expressed—whether rightly or
wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is
that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of
all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also
inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and
right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world,
and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual;
and that this is the power upon which he who would act
rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.
(Plato, The Republic, 7:517 [DP, 3:217]; italics added)
50. As exemplified by the death of Socrates (see Plato’s Phaedo), who on
his last day expounded upon the immortality of the soul and embraced
death with peace and joy. On the contrast between Socrates and Jesus,
see Oscar Cullmann, Immortality of the Soul or the Resurrection of the
Dead? The Witness of the New Testament (London: Epworth Press,
1958), 19–27.
51. “Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world
have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and
wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either
to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will
never have rest from their evils—no, nor the human race, as I believe
—and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold
the light of day” (Plato, The Republic, 5:473 [DP, 3:170–71]).
52. The crystallized concept of “nature” as a materialistic metaphysical
whole developed out of the resurgence of Aristotelian thought in late
 medieval scholasticism (c. 1250–1350); see “Nature” and “Physical”
in The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, ed. C. T. Onions
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), 604 and 677, respectively.
The immaterial contrast of “supernatural” developed in tandem, esp.
during the Renaissance; see “Supernatural,” Chambers Dictionary of
Etymology, ed. Robert K. Barnhart (Edinburgh: Chambers, 1988),
1093.
53. Though “Christian Platonist” has long been used to describe a
Platonist who wears a Christian mask, “Christoplatonism” is a term
popularized by Randy Alcorn (see Heaven [Wheaton: Tyndale, 2004],
52, 110, 459–66).
54. J. Christiaan Beker, Paul’s Apocalyptic Gospel: The Coming Triumph
of God (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 108.
55. J. Christiaan Beker describes well:
It must be pointed out that the interpretation of the future
eschatological dimension of the hope has been largely a stream
of misinterpretation in the history of the church. To be sure,
both Albert Schweitzer and Martin Werner have drawn attention
to the de-eschatologizing of the early Christian message in the
history of the church. However, their basic insights have until
recently been neglected by systematic theology and biblical
scholarship alike. The history of futurist eschatology in the
church has been one long process of spiritualization and/or
ecclesiologizing or institutionalizing, especially under the
influence of Origen and Augustine. From the condemnation of
Montanism in the second century and the exclusion of chiliastic
apocalypticism at the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431) through its
condemnation by the reformers (in the Augsburg Confession)
and until today, future eschatology was pushed out of the
mainstream of church life and thus pushed into heretical
aberrations. The impact of this spiritualizing process and the
distaste for apocalyptic speculations made by sectarian groups
have no doubt contributed to the overwhelmingly negative
estimate of apocalyptic by biblical and theological scholarship
since the Enlightenment. (Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of
 God in Life and Thought [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980], 138–
39)
56. See an introduction in John H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought
and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the
Hebrew Bible, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2018), 19–46.
57. See a survey of the rise of apocalyptic research in Klaus Koch, The
Rediscovery of Apocalyptic, trans. M. Kohl (London: SCM Press,
1972).
58. Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 286. Though I
generally agree with Wright’s description of second-temple Judaism, I
disagree with his consistent thesis that Jesus, Paul, and the early
disciples reinterpreted, reimagined, and realized the Jewish
apocalyptic hope.
59. For example, David Flusser, Jesus (New York: Herder and Herder,
1969); and Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the
Gospels (London: Collins, 1973). See an early summary of the
movement by Donald A. Hagner, The Jewish Reclamation of Jesus:
An Analysis and Critique of Modern Jewish Study of Jesus (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1984). The characteristic element of the so-called
“third quest” for the historical Jesus has concerned his Jewish
background; see esp. Ben Witherington III, The Jesus Quest: The
Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 1997).
60. The inherent conflict between naturalism and the Bible’s “primitive”
apocalyptic elements led many scholars in the twentieth century to
“demythologize” the Scriptures (an approach now seen as somewhat
passé), following the lead of Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) and
Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976)—and to an extent Paul Tillich (1886–
1965). Thus Bultmann declared,
It is entirely possible that in a past mythical world picture truths
may be rediscovered that were lost during a period of
enlightenment; and theology has every reason to ask whether
this may be possible in the case of the world picture of the New
Testament. But it is impossible to repristinate a past world
picture by sheer resolve, especially a mythical world picture,
now that all of our thinking is irrevocably formed by science. A
 blind acceptance of New Testament mythology would be simply
arbitrariness; to make such acceptance a demand of faith would
be to reduce faith to a work. . . . Any satisfaction of the demand
would be a forced sacrificium intellectus, and any of us who
would make it would be peculiarly split and untruthful. (New
Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings, ed. and
trans. S. M. Ogden [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984], 3–4)
61. Following in the footsteps of Albert Schweitzer—for example,
“Theological science has in fact been dominated by the desire to
minimise as much as possible the element of Jewish Apocalyptic in
Jesus and Paul, and so far as possible to represent the Hellenisation of
the Gospel as having been prepared for by them. It thinks it has gained
something when in formulating the problem it has done its best to
soften down the antitheses to the utmost with a view to providing
every facility for conceiving the transition of the Gospel from one
world of thought to the other” (Paul and His Interpreters: A Critical
History, trans. W. Montgomery [London: A. & C. Black, 1912], ix).
62. The embarrassment of the apocalyptic was highlighted by Klaus Koch,
Ratlos vor der Apokalyptik (Gütersloh, Germany: Mohn, 1970),
roughly translated “At a Loss over Apocalyptic,” published in English
as The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic.
63. Clayton Sullivan, Rethinking Realized Eschatology (Macon, GA:
Mercer University Press, 1988), 4.
64. So Beker writes,
Indeed, although scholars usually concede that apocalyptic
terminology is an important building block in Paul’s theology,
its future-imminent aspect represents an obstacle to our modern
mentality, to the extent that it is either demythologized in an
existentialist fashion or neutralized.
Here, if anywhere, the interpretive tension between “what it
meant” and “what it means” is obvious. The so-called primitive
world view of apocalyptic and the delay of the parousia are, for
most interpreters, such an overwhelming problem, and the
utopian distortions and delusions of apocalyptic fanatics such an
embarrassment, that Paul’s emphasis on the imminent parousia
is for all practical purposes either treated as peripheral, or
 existentially reinterpreted, or subjected to developmental
theories. (Paul’s Apocalyptic Gospel, 45)
65. See a comprehensive history of the movement by Ronald L. Numbers,
The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1992). The expanded edition (Harvard University
Press, 2006) addresses the intelligent-design movement.
66. See Hal Lindsey et al.; cf. Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet
of the New Millennium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 3–
19. But as Beker points out, “Legitimate criticism, however, should
not make us complacent or blind to the sad fact that respectable
theologies of the established church have continuously dismissed
apocalyptic from their own theological agenda and are thus indirectly
responsible for the distortions of neo-apocalypticism among us. For
the apocalyptic silence of the established church certainly left the
vacuum that this movement now fills” (Paul’s Apocalyptic Gospel,
28).
67. As Dale C. Allison acknowledges, “In like fashion, when the Jesus
tradition envisions the Son of man coming on the clouds or foretells
the general resurrection, we should, even if this puts us in the
disagreeable company of modern fundamentalists, think of the
redeemer literally flying upon the clouds and of the redeemed literally
coming forth from their graves—and also of all that those events
represent: the vindication of Jesus, the triumph of believers, the
judgment of the wicked, the fulfillment of prophecy, etc. The literal
and the symbolic need not be sundered” (Jesus of Nazareth:
Millenarian Prophet [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998], 164; italics added).
Moreover, Allison asserts:
Beginning with Origen, most of the church fathers disparaged
chiliasm and literal eschatological expectations as “judaizing.”
They were right—not to disparage, but to make the association
with Judaism. For the literal interpretation corresponds to the
original intention of the texts, which were forged within the
Jewish tradition, a tradition that so often anticipated a literal
messianic kingdom in Jerusalem. In other words, the prophecies
of a millennium or golden age were originally taken at more or
less face value, and this continued to be the case through much
 of the second century. But as Christianity became an almost
wholly Gentile phenomenon and the elapse of the years saw the
fires of eschatological enthusiasm die down, things changed.
Eventually the fathers, like the rationalist Maimonides after
them, and like some New Testament scholars today, came to
regard eschatological prophecy as “merely a parable and a
figure of speech” (Mishneh Torah 14). (Ibid., 169)
68. See the mounting criticisms by Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory
in Crisis (Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler, 1985); Phillip E. Johnson,
Darwin on Trial (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1991); William A.
Dembski, ed., Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism
Unconvincing (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2004); and the
particularly incisive David Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism
and Its Scientific Pretensions (New York: Crown Forum, 2008).
69. See Michael J. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical
Challenge to Evolution (New York: The Free Press, 1996).
70. “To claim that life evolved is to demand a miracle. The simplest
conceivable form of single-celled life should have at least 600
different protein molecules. The mathematical probability that even
one typical protein could form by chance arrangements of amino acid
sequences is essentially zero—far less than 1 in 10450. To appreciate
the magnitude of 10450, realize that the visible universe is about 1028
inches in diameter” (Walt Brown, In the Beginning: Compelling
Evidence for Creation and the Flood, 8th ed. [Phoenix: Center for
Scientific Creation, 2008], 17).
71. See Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution: Why Much of What We Teach
About Evolution Is Wrong (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing,
2000).
72. Radiometric dating is based upon three assumptions: (1) the original
amount of both parent and daughter elements is known, (2) the decay
rate has remained constant, and (3) the sample has remained in a
closed system (i.e., no leaching, diffusion, and/or metamorphism). See
a summary in John Morris, The Young Earth, rev. ed. (Green Forest,
AR: Master Books, 2007), 48–70. All three assumptions have
problems. See Larry Vardiman, Andrew A. Snelling, and Eugene F.
Chaffin, eds., Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: A Young-Earth
 Creationist Research Initiative, 2 vols. (El Cajon, CA: Institute for
Creation Research; St. Joseph, MO: Creation Research Society, 2000,
2005); archived at http://www.icr.org/rate. See a summary in Donald
DeYoung, Thousands . . . Not Billions: Challenging an Icon of
Evolution, Questioning the Age of the Earth (Green Forest, AR:
Master Books, 2005).
73. Average dinosaur body size is exceedingly difficult to calculate.
However, based on 63 dinosaur genera, Nicholas Hotton estimated an
average generic mass in excess of 850 kg and a median generic mass
of nearly two tons. This contrasts sharply with extant mammals (788
genera), whose average generic mass is 863 grams, with a median
mass of 631 grams; see Nicholas H. Hotton, “An Alternative to
Dinosaur Endothermy: The Happy Wanderers,” in A Cold Look at the
Warm Blooded Dinosaurs, eds. R. D. K. Thomas and E. C. Olson
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1980), 311–50. Though this estimate
has been disputed (see Robert Bakker in the same volume, pp. 351–
462), it generally represents the massive difference between ancient
and modern animals. For a survey, see Gregory S. Paul, The Princeton
Field Guide to Dinosaurs (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2010).
74. Though explanations have been attempted (e.g., P. Martin Sander et
al., “Biology of the Sauropod Dinosaurs: The Evolution of
Gigantism,” Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical
Society 86, no. 1 [February 2011]: 117–55), there remains the glaring
ecological problem of limited land mass. Only an earth with far greater
habitable land mass could sustain such animals (see Brown, In the
Beginning, 117–31).
75. As Brown explains,
If evolution happened, the fossil record should show continuous
and gradual changes from the bottom to the top layers. Actually,
many gaps or discontinuities appear throughout the fossil
record. At the most fundamental level, a big gap exists between
forms of life whose cells have nuclei (eukaryotes, such as
plants, animals, and fungi) and those that don’t (prokaryotes,
such as bacteria and blue-green algae). Fossil links are also
missing between large groupings of plants, between single-
 celled forms of life and invertebrates (animals without
backbones), among insects, between invertebrates and
vertebrates (animals with backbones), between fish and
amphibians, between amphibians and reptiles, between reptiles
and mammals, between reptiles and birds, between primates and
other mammals, and between apes and other primates. In fact,
chains are missing, not links. The fossil record has been studied
so thoroughly that it is safe to conclude that these gaps are real;
they will never be filled. (In the Beginning, 11–12)
76. “If the sedimentary deposits around the world formed over hundreds
of millions of years, we would expect to find evidence of erosion over
time, resulting in the periodical creation of irregular surfaces. But
many times when sedimentary layers are exposed, such as in road
highway cuttings, beach cliffs, and river canyons, there is very little
evidence of erosion between the layers. . . . If the millions of years had
actually occurred, why are the tops of the under layers not highly
irregular like the present topography that we now observe?” (John F.
Ashton, Evolution Impossible: 12 Reasons Why Evolution Cannot
Explain the Origin of Life on Earth [Green Forest, AR: Master Books,
2012], 102). See also Ariel A. Roth, “‘Flat Gaps’ in Sedimentary Rock
Layers Challenge Long Geologic Ages,” Journal of Creation 23, no. 2
(August 2009): 76–81.
77. See Brown’s discussion on liquefaction as the means of stratification
and fossilization (In the Beginning, 169–81); cf. Guy Berthault,
“Experiments on Lamination of Sediments,” Journal of Creation 3, no.
1 (April 1988): 25–29. Also notable is the formation of polystrate
fossils, which are found all over the world and indicate rapid burial
(see Tas Walker, “Polystrate Fossils: Evidence for a Young Earth,”
Creation 29, no. 3 [June 2007]: 54–55). Evolutionists argue that these
and other rapid burial fossils (e.g., fossilized jellyfish, worms, eggs,
scales, and fins) are caused by local catastrophes such as landslides,
river floods, volcanic ash, or blown sand dunes (cf.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC363.html). However, the
size of many of these fossils (e.g., whales and sauropods), their
complete remains, their contorted positions (sometimes in mass
graves), and their global placement indicate a large-scale, global event
(cf. Michael Oard, “Dead Whales: Telling Tales?” Creation 26, no. 4
 [September 2004]: 10–14). See a summary in Morris, The Young
Earth, 96–119.
78. See M. Schweitzer and T. Staedter, “The Real Jurassic Park,” Earth
(June 1997): 55–57; and M. H. Schweitzer, J. L. Wittmeyer, J. R.
Horner, and J. K. Toporski, “Soft-tissue Vessels and Cellular
Preservation in Tyrannosaurus Rex,” Science 207 (2005): 1952–55.
See a critical analysis in Carl Wieland, “Sensational Dinosaur Blood
Report!” Creation 19, no. 4 (September 1997): 42–43; and Carl
Wieland and David Menton, “Answering Objections to Creationist
‘Dinosaur Soft Tissue’ Age,” Journal of Creation 19, no. 3 (December
2005): 54–59.
79. Such materials, known to break down rapidly under common
conditions, require special pleadings to sustain an old earth timescale.
See Shaun Doyle, “The Real ‘Jurassic Park’?” Creation 30, no. 3 (June
2008): 12–15; and Carl Wieland, “Ancient DNA and the Young
Earth,” Journal of Creation 8, no. 1 (1994): 7–10; cf. Brown’s detailed
list (In the Beginning, 35–36).
80. See Don DeYoung, “Is the Moon Really Old?” Creation 14, no. 4
(September 1992): 43; and Jonathan Sarfati, “The Moon: The Light
That Rules the Night,” Creation 20, no. 4 (September 1998): 36–39.
81. Michael J. Oard observes,
It was discovered about 40 years ago that in the evolutionary
origin of the solar system the sun would have been significantly
less luminous with the earth receiving about 20 to 30% less
sunlight than today. . . . On this basis, the earth should have
been totally glaciated from near its beginning, after it cooled
down from its initially hot state within evolutionary scenarios. .
..
This glaciation should have continued indefinitely to this day
with no possible biological evolution, unless something drastic
occurred to warm the earth. . . . Evolutionary scientists need the
earth relatively warm for the evolution of life, which would be
impossible within their paradigm if the earth is totally frozen
over. (“Is the Faint Young Sun Paradox Solved?” Journal of
Creation 25, no. 2 [August 2011]: 17–19; cf. Danny R.
Faulkner, “The Young Faint Sun Paradox and the Age of the
 Solar System,” Journal of Creation 15, no. 2 [August 2001]: 3–
4)
82. See D. Russell Humphreys, “Can Evolutionists Now Explain the
Earth’s Magnetic Field?” Creation Research Society Quarterly 33, no.
3 (December 1996): 184–85; and Humphreys, “The Earth’s Magnetic
Field Is Still Losing Energy,” Creation Research Society Quarterly 39,
no. 1 (June 2002): 3–13.
83. See Brown, In the Beginning, 148–61.
84. From its infantile beginnings in Tim M. Berra, Evolution and the Myth
of Creationism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), to its
mature development in Mark Isaak, The Counter-Creationism
Handbook (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), which is a
published form of The TalkOrigins Archive, available at
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/. See a systematic response by
CreationWiki, available at
http://creationwiki.org/index_to_creationist_claims.
85. See Brown’s overview of the earth’s twenty-five major features (esp.
oceanic ridges, mountain ranges, earthquakes, plateaus, and
overthrusts) that are better explained by flood geology (In the
Beginning, 105–41).
86. See John F. Ashton, ed., In Six Days: Why Fifty Scientists Choose to
Believe in Creation (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2000). John
Morris recounts, “Recently, a group of professors from a major,
conservative evangelical seminary met with scientists from ICR. Every
one of them had abandoned the recent creation position, usually in
favor of the framework hypothesis. . . . The theologians admitted they
held to an old earth in spite of the obvious sense of Scripture and
would adopt a young-earth belief only if the consensus view of secular
scientists shifted to recent creation” (The Young Earth, 125). Of
course, scientists who do question the Darwinian dogma face stiff
consequences; see Jerry Bergman, Slaughter of the Dissidents: The
Shocking Truth about Killing the Careers of Darwin Doubters, 2nd ed.
(Southworth, WA: Leafcutter Press, 2011).
87. As exemplified by Bruce K. Waltke’s essay, “Kingdom Promises as
Spiritual,” in Continuity and Discontinuity, 260–87.
Chapter Two
1. The association of the “waters” (Heb. mayim) with the “deep” (Heb.
tehom) in Gen. 1:2 seems straightforward. Tehom is used some thirty-
six times in the Hebrew Bible, and most of the references clearly refer
to waters in the form of oceans, seas, lakes, and fountains (cf. Gen.
7:11; 8:2; Ex. 15:5, 8; Deut. 8:7; Job 28:14; 38:16, 30; Ps. 33:7; 42:7;
77:16; 78:15; 104:6; 106:9; 107:26; 135:6; Prov. 3:20; 8:24; Isa.
51:10; 63:13; Ezek. 26:19; 31:4, 15; Jonah 2:5; Hab. 3:10).
2. Though most English translations (e.g., KJV, NKJV, NASB, ESV) translate
here the plural shamayim into the singular (“heaven”), this is purely
arbitrary. The same word is generally translated as plural (“heavens”)
in vv. 1, 9, 14, 15, etc. The translation of shamayim in v. 8 as “sky”
(NRSV, NIV, NLT) does not fit with the cosmological nature of the passage
as introduced in v. 1. Moreover, other references to God creating and
stretching out the shamayim (e.g., Ps. 104:2; Isa. 42:5; Zech. 12:1) are
nearly universally translated “heavens.”
3. Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, WBC (Dallas: Word, 1998), 20.
4. Though the etymology of shamayim is claimed to be “obscure” (G.
von Rad, “οὐρανός,” TDNT, 5:502), its derivation from the compound
sha and mayim—i.e., “the space in the waters” or “the place of the
waters” (NIDOTTE, 4:160)—is contextually sound.
5. Though the earth has an infinitesimally small amount of water relative
to the cosmic waters, the point being made is the centrality of water to
the life created in the following verses, though water in and of itself is
rather unique and wonderful; see Lyall Watson and Jerry Derbyshire,
The Water Planet: A Celebration of the Wonder of Water (New York:
Crown Publishers, 1988).
6. Though speculative, note the cosmological interpretation of Gen. 1:3–
8 in D. Russell Humphreys, Starlight and Time: Solving the Puzzle of
Distant Starlight in a Young Universe (Green Forest, AR: Master
Books, 1994), 31–38; cf. John Hartnett, “A Creationist Cosmology in
a Galactocentric Universe,” Journal of Creation 19, no. 1 (April 2005):
73–81.
7. Fully aware of the limitations of a two-dimensional diagram,
especially its circular nature, we must simply acknowledge the
limitations of mortality. Though the biblical language of the heavens
being “up” or “above” is seemingly incompatible with a spherical
earth, there may be an issue of dimensionality at work, akin to how a
three-dimensional coordinate would relate to a two-dimensional
coordinate. The diagram is simply an attempt to portray faithfully the
primary aspects of the nature and relations of the heavens and the
earth, which ultimately find meaning and import in their theological
extrapolation (see chapter 3)—i.e., “new heavens and new earth” (Isa.
65:17; cf. 2 Peter 3:13; Rev. 21:1).
8. The justification for the singular translation is the Hebrew use of the
plural as superlative—e.g., “It probably does not mean a number of
different heavens but is an expression for the superlative” (“ ,”
HALOT, 4:1521). However, the commonly held view of the plurality
of the heavens, both in the Scriptures and Jewish intertestamental texts
(see n. 10 below), nullifies this statement. The judgment of when a
word is superlative becomes quite arbitrary, as is seen between the
various translations (cf. Gen. 1:1; 11:4; Deut. 10:14; 1 Kings 8:27; Job
22:12; 38:29; etc.).
9. The Greek word for heaven(s), ouranos, is used almost three hundred
times in the NT, approximately one-third in the plural and two-thirds
in the singular. This is not because the writers were sloppy or because
they had converted to a Hellenistic understanding of the universe. The
singular use is simply referencing one heaven of the heavens (usually
God’s dwelling place) or the heavens as a “collective singular”—i.e.,
referring to all that is above. The distinction is clear when both noun
forms are used together (e.g., Matt. 6:9–10; 24:29; 2 Cor. 5:1–2). For
example, in the Lord’s Prayer, “our Father” is in “the heavens”
(plural), while the hope of the kingdom is that the will of God would
be done on earth as it is in “heaven” (singular)—that is, the heaven of
heavens where God sits enthroned, since the will of the Lord is not
fully obeyed presently in other parts of the heavens.
10. Specifically, three (Testament of Levi 2–3), five (3 Baruch 11–17),
seven (Apocalypse of Abraham 10:8; 19:4; Ascension of Isaiah 7–10;
Life of Adam and Eve 35:2), and ten (2 Enoch 20–22). See also
 discussions in Christopher Rowland, The Open Heaven: A Study of
Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (London: SPCK, 1982),
78–93; and Adela Yarbro Collins, Cosmology and Eschatology in
Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill
Academic, 1996), 21–54.
11. For intertestamental background, see Martha Himmelfarb, Ascent to
Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1993), esp. 29–71.
12. Because of the Hellenistic distortion, it is commonly assumed in
modern times that heaven is not designed to host human bodies, but
this assumption is neither historically accurate nor supported by the
Scriptures. Jesus clearly sits enthroned in heaven with a resurrected
body. Enoch and Elijah went up in their bodies. And Paul might have
been caught up in his body—“whether in the body or out of the body I
do not know” (2 Cor. 12:2). Corporeal ascension was neither foreign
nor implausible.
13. The naturalistic critic finds the biblical language insufferable. For
example, Rudolf Bultmann wrote, “These mythological conceptions of
heaven and hell are no longer acceptable for modern men since for
scientific thinking to speak of ‘above’ and ‘below’ in the universe has
lost all meaning, but the idea of the transcendence of God and of evil
is still significant” (Jesus Christ and Mythology [New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1958], 20). Though Bultmann calls this significance
the “deeper meaning” (p. 18), one finds the transcendence of God
magnified within a straightforward reading of the biblical texts.
14. A fuller list would include Gen. 6:17; 7:19; 11:4; 28:12; Ex. 20:4;
Deut. 4:39; 5:8; 11:21; 30:12; Josh. 2:11; 1 Kings 8:23; 2 Chron. 7:1;
Job 28:24; Ps. 50:4; 85:11; 113:6; Isa. 14:12; 24:21; 44:23; 51:6; Jer.
10:11; Matt. 3:16; 28:2; John 1:51; 3:13; 6:33ff.; Acts 1:9ff.; 2:19;
7:55f.; 10:11ff.; Eph. 4:8ff.; 1 Thess. 4:16; Rev. 12:10ff.; 18:1; 21:2.
15. The supposed naïveté of popular conception will surely be vindicated
in the end. For example, D. L. Moody recounted,
Soon after I was converted, an infidel asked me one day why I
looked up when I prayed. He said that heaven was no more
above us than below us; that heaven was everywhere. Well, I
was greatly bewildered, and the next time I prayed, it seemed
 almost as if I was praying into the air. Since then I have become
better acquainted with the Bible, and I have come to see that
heaven is above us; that it is upward, and not downward. The
Spirit of God is everywhere, but God is in heaven, and heaven is
above our heads. It does not matter what part of the globe we
may stand upon, heaven is above us. (Heaven: Where It Is, Its
Inhabitants, and How to Get There, rev. ed. [Chicago: Revell,
1884], 15–16)
16. A fuller list would include Gen. 28:12f.; Deut. 26:15; 1 Kings 8:30,
39, 43, 49; 1 Chron. 16:31; 21:26; 2 Chron. 2:6; 6:18–39; 30:27; Neh.
9:27; Job 22:12, 14; Ps. 2:4; 11:4; 20:6; 29:9f.; 33:13; 68:5; 102:19;
103:19; 104:2f.; 113:5; 123:1; 135:6; Eccl. 5:2; Isa. 40:22; 57:15;
63:15; 66:1; Jer. 23:24; 25:30; Lam. 3:41, 50; Dan. 4:35; 5:23; Zech.
2:13; Matt. 6:9; 23:9; Acts 2:33; 3:21; 7:49, 55; Rom. 8:34; Eph. 1:20;
Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3; 10:12; Rev. 4:2; 20:11; 22:3.
17. W. Michaelis, “παντοκράτωρ,” TDNT, 3:914; cf. Hab. 2:13; Zeph.
2:10; Zech. 1:3 in the LXX.
18. This will be discussed further in chap. 6 and distinguished from the
eschatological messianic kingdom—the restored kingdom of Adam
upon the earth (cf. “son of Man,” “last Adam,” etc.)—referred to in the
NT as the “kingdom of God” (cf. Mark 9:47; 10:23–25; 14:25; etc.).
19. For a survey of the heavenly temple in intertestamental literature, see
Martha Himmelfarb, “Apocalyptic Ascent and the Heavenly Temple,”
Society for Biblical Literature 1987 Seminar Papers, ed. Kent H.
Richards (Atlanta: Scholars, 1987), 210–17.
20. Concerning this tradition in intertestamental literature, see Wisdom of
Solomon 9:8; 2 Baruch 4:3ff.; and Testament of Levi 5:1; cf. Leonhard
Goppelt, “τύπος as the Heavenly Original according to Exodus 25:40,”
TDNT, 8:256–57.
21. See the discussion on the reality of the heavenly temple and its earthly
pattern (Heb. tabnith) in Allen P. Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory:
Biblical Worship from the Garden to the New Creation (Grand Rapids:
Kregel, 2006), 187–90.
22. Though I believe John H. Walton is errant concerning his rejection of
creation ex nihilo (see chap. 4, n. 1), his point concerning temple
 functionality in ancient Near Eastern thought is well put:
In the traditional view that Genesis 1 is an account of material
origins, day seven is mystifying. It appears to be nothing more
than an afterthought with theological concerns about Israelites
observing the Sabbath—an appendix, a postscript, a tack on. In
contrast, a reader from the ancient world would know
immediately what was going on and recognize the role of day
seven. Without hesitation the ancient reader would conclude
that this is a temple text and that day seven is the most
important of the seven days. . . .
How could reactions be so different? The difference is the
piece of information that everyone knew in the ancient world
and to which most modern readers are totally oblivious: Deity
rests in a temple, and only in a temple. This is what temples
were built for. We might even say that this is what a temple is—
a place for divine rest. (The Lost World of Genesis One:
Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate [Downers Grove,
IL: InterVarsity Academic, 2009], 71)
23. Thus we see vividly the two axes of apocalyptic thought: heavenly
revelation and eschatological consummation. See the formative article
by John J. Collins, “Introduction: Towards the Morphology of a
Genre,” in Apocalypse: The Morphology of a Genre, ed. John J.
Collins (Semeia 14; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979), 1–20; cf.
Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1998).
24. This presentation of the heavenly sanctuary is in no way in agreement
with the novel and unfounded views of the Adventists. Though
strumming a sound close to the Bible, they are completely out of tune.
Adventists believe that the failed prophecy of Jesus’ return in 1844, as
prophesied by William Miller and others, was simply a
misinterpretation of Daniel 8:14. Instead of cleansing the earthly
sanctuary after 2,300 symbolic “days” (i.e., years), Jesus actually
began the final phase of his “atoning ministry” by moving from the
heavenly Holy Place to the Most Holy Place and cleansing the
heavenly sanctuary through “sin transfer” (in fulfillment of the
antitypic “Day of Atonement”). This action also inaugurated a time of
 “investigative judgment” against the Babylonian, non-Adventist
church. This time will come to fulfillment at the end of the age when
the Babylonian church will fall away and only the “remnant” of
Adventists will be saved. See General Conference of Seventh-day
Adventists, Beliefs, “24. Christ’s Ministry in the Heavenly Sanctuary”;
available at http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/. For more on the
Adventist doctrine of the “heavenly sanctuary,” see Marc Rasell,
Exploring the Heavenly Sanctuary: Understanding Seventh-day
Adventist Theology (Milton Keynes, England: AuthorHouse, 2009).
25. “In Re 2.7 έν τῷ παραδείσω τοῦ θεοῦ ‘in the paradise of God,’ the
reference may reflect somewhat more closely the historical
background of this term, which is derived from an Old Persian word
meaning ‘enclosure,’ and thus was applied to a ‘garden’ or ‘park.’ For
that reason, a number of commentators have believed that in Re 2.7, it
is appropriate to translate ‘the garden of God,’ especially since in the
context the reference is to the fruit of the tree of life” (“1.14
παράδεισος,” Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on
Semantic Domains, ed. J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, 2nd ed., vol. 1
[New York: United Bible Societies, 1988], 5).
26. See J. Jeremias, “παράδεισος,” TDNT, 5:765–73; esp. 770. Note 2
Enoch 8:1: “And those men took me from there, and they brought me
up to the third heaven, and set me down there. Then I looked
downward, and I saw Paradise. And that place is inconceivably
pleasant” (OTP, 1:114). And 2 Enoch 42:3: “And I ascended to the
east, into the paradise of Edem [sic], where rest is prepared for the
righteous. And it is open as far as the 3rd heaven; but it is closed off
from this world” (OTP, 1:168).
27. See Gregory K. Beale’s overall discussion of the garden of Eden, the
third heaven, and the new heavens and new earth as a “paradisal city-
temple” in The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology
of the Dwelling Place of God, NSBT 17 (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 2004), 23–80. Beale summarizes his argument in “Eden,
the Temple, and the Church’s Mission in the New Creation,” JETS 48,
no. 1 (2005): 5–31.
28. See Ioan Petru Colianu, “Ascension,” in Encyclopedia of Religion, ed.
Mircea Eliade, vol. 1 (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 435–41; and
 Mircea Eliade, Shamanism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1964), 259–87.
29. Following in the footsteps of Rudolf Bultmann, who wrote,
The cosmology of the New Testament is essentially mythical in
character. The world is viewed as a three-storied structure, with
the earth in the centre, the heaven above, and the underworld
beneath. Heaven is the abode of God and of celestial beings—
the angels. The underworld is hell, the place of torment. . . . All
this is the language of mythology, and the origin of the various
themes can be easily traced in the contemporary mythology of
Jewish Apocalyptic. . . .
Can Christian preaching expect modern man to accept the
mythical view of the world as true? To do so would be both
senseless and impossible. It would be senseless, because there is
nothing specifically Christian in the mythical view of the world
as such. It is simply the cosmology of a pre-scientific age.
Again, it would be impossible, because no man can adopt a
view of the world by his own volition—it is already determined
for him by his place in history. (“New Testament and
Mythology,” in Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed.
H. W. Bartsch [London: SPCK, 1953], 1–3; italics in the
original)
30. So John H. Walton articulates, “We must first recognize that the
garden of Eden was not, strictly speaking, a garden for man, but was
the garden of God (Isa. 51:3; Ezek. 28:13). ‘The garden of Eden is not
viewed by the author of Genesis simply as a piece of Mesopotamian
farmland, but as an archetypical sanctuary, that is, a place where God
dwells and where man should worship him. Many of the features of
the garden may also be found in later sanctuaries, particularly the
tabernacle or Jerusalem temple. These parallels suggest that the garden
itself is understood as a sort of sanctuary’” (Ancient Near Eastern
Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of
the Hebrew Bible, 2nd ed. [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018], 84;
quoting Gordon J. Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of
Eden Story,” in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish
Studies [Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1986], 19).
31. The plural usage of sanctuary in Ezekiel 28:18 is found elsewhere in
reference to the tabernacle (Lev. 21:23) and temple (Jer. 51:51; Ezek.
7:24), as Beale explains: “The plural reference to the one temple
probably arose because of the multiple sacred spaces or ‘sanctuaries’
within the temple complex (e.g., courtyard, Holy Place, Holy of
Holies)” (“Eden, the Temple, and the Church’s Mission,” 10).
32. Some scholars argue that the glorious being who had “fallen” in
Ezekiel 28 is Adam, based on the Septuagint’s rendering of being
anointed with (v. 14) and being banished by (v. 16) the guardian
cherub (see Norman C. Habel, “Ezekiel 28 and the Fall of the First
Man,” Concordia Theological Monthly 38 [1967]: 516–24). This
would picture Adam in all of his priestly wisdom (v. 12) and
blamelessness (v. 15), ordained on the Edenic mount of God (v. 14),
and adorned with the same precious stones (v. 13) that later priests
wore (cf. Ex. 28:17–20; 39:10–13); see also Beale, Temple and the
Church’s Mission, 75–76.
33. “The river of your delight and spring of life (cf. Ps. 46:4; Ezekiel 47)
refer to mythological conceptions of the temple as the new garden of
Eden and the mythological conception of a river issuing from the
throne of God (Rev. 22:1)” (Rolf A. Jacobson and Beth Tanner, “Book
One of the Psalter: Psalms 1–41,” in The Book of Psalms, NICOT
[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014], 344).
34. See Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism,” 19–25; Beale, Temple and the
Church’s Mission, 66–80; Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory, 81–108;
T. Desmond Alexander, From Eden to the New Jerusalem: An
Introduction to Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2009), 20–
24; and J. V. Fesko, Last Things First: Unlocking Genesis 1–3 with the
Christ of Eschatology (Fearn, Scotland: Mentor, 2007), 57–75.
35. On the “arboreal lampstand” representing light and life, see Carol L.
Meyers, The Tabernacle Menorah: A Synthetic Study of a Symbol
from the Biblical Cult (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2003). On the
law representing wisdom and death to those who touch it, see Beale,
Temple and the Church’s Mission, 73–74.
36. Robert Hayward explains, “Both ben Sira and Jubilees, in their
different ways, bring Adam into direct association with the Temple
understood as Eden. According to Jubilees, the first ritual act of
 worship was offered by Adam immediately after his expulsion from
the garden. . . . Adam is thereby constituted the first priest in a
succession which will lead to Levi, and then to Aaron and his sons”
(C. T. R. Hayward, The Jewish Temple: A Non-Biblical Sourcebook
[London: Routledge, 1996], 90). Testament of Levi 18:6–14 and 1
Enoch 24–27 also closely relate the temple and the garden of Eden
(see Beale, Temple and the Church’s Mission, 77–79). For further
study, see also Margaret Barker, The Gate of Heaven: History and
Symbolism of the Temple in Jerusalem (London: SPCK Publishing,
1991), esp. 68–72.
37. Leonhard Goppelt summarizes, “Behind Ex. 25 stands the ancient
oriental idea of a mythical analogical relation between the two worlds,
the heavenly and the earthly, the macrocosm and the microcosm, so
that lands, rivers, cities and esp. temples have their heavenly originals”
(“Τύπος,” TDNT, 8:256–57). The astute reader will here recognize the
apparent similarity to Platonism (as Goppelt and others have pointed
out; see esp. Leonhard Goppelt, Typos: The Typological Interpretation
of the Old Testament in the New [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982],
42–60). However, Platonism is simply a distortion. The Bible teaches
earthly “images” (Heb. tselem, i.e., “representation”; see “ ,”
HALOT, 1028–29) of heavenly originals, both qualitatively real and
metaphysically substantial. Platonism teaches earthly “copies” of
heavenly “forms,” differing qualitatively and metaphysically.
Ironically, modern supernaturalism views materiality as more
substantial, whereas Platonism viewed materiality as the dreamlike
state from which we awake into the more “real” ideal world (though
the latter is portrayed in the modern allegory by C. S. Lewis, The
Great Divorce: A Dream [New York: HarperCollins, 1946]).
38. On such powers in the heavens, see esp. Calvin R. Schoonhoven, The
Wrath of Heaven (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966).
39. “The term divine council is used by Hebrew and Semitic scholars to
refer to the heavenly host, the pantheon of divine beings who
administer the affairs of the cosmos. All ancient Mediterranean
cultures had some conception of a divine council. The divine council
of Israelite religion, known primarily through the psalms, was distinct
in important ways” (Michael S. Heiser, “Divine Council,” in
 Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings, ed.
Tremper Longman III and Peter Enns [Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 2008], 112). See also E. Theodore Mullen, The Assembly
of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew
Literature, Harvard Semitic Monographs 24 (Chico, CA: Scholars
Press, 1980); and Mullen, “Divine Assembly,” ABD, 2:214–17.
40. Note the pseudepigraphic 2 Enoch 31:1–2: “And I created a garden in
Edem [sic], in the east, so that he might keep the agreement and
preserve the commandment. And I created for him an open heaven, so
that he might look upon the angels, singing the triumphal song. And
the light which is never darkened was perpetually in paradise” (OTP,
1:154).
41. Cf. Gregory A. Boyd, God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1997); and Boyd, Satan and the
Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theology
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2001).
42. The Hellenistic intrusion distorts divine sovereignty by relegating it to
a static state within the material/immaterial construct. Thus, instead of
a dynamic governance, it is framed as an abstract existential
“providence,” an unbiblical concept which implies a mechanistic
relationship between God and creation (see a history of Hellenistic
development in John M. Dillon, “Providence,” ABD, 5:520–21). The
overlaying of sovereignty upon the material realm (dynamic and
timely) versus the immaterial realm (static and timeless) creates the
problem of “causation,” which in turn devolves into the endless debate
concerning divine predestination and foreknowledge—that is,
causative (Calvinist) versus historical (Arminian). The rejection of
divine foreknowledge by the open theists (cf. C. Pinnock, G. Boyd, J.
Sanders, W. Hasker, etc.) only exacerbates the situation and denigrates
the truth of divine sovereignty (see John Piper, J. Taylor, and P. K.
Helseth, eds., Beyond the Bounds: Open Theism and the Undermining
of Biblical Christianity [Wheaton: Crossway, 2003]; and Thomas R.
Schreiner and B. A. Ware, eds., Still Sovereign: Contemporary
Perspectives on Election, Foreknowledge, and Grace [Grand Rapids:
Baker, 2000]). Note that I agree with the open theists concerning
Augustine’s systematization of sovereignty within a Neoplatonic
 framework. I disagree, however, regarding their solution of rejecting a
straightforward understanding of divine foreknowledge.
43. See M. W. Chavalas, “Assyriology and Biblical Studies: A Century of
Tension,” in Mesopotamia and the Bible, ed. M. W. Chavalas and K.
L. Younger Jr. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 21–67.
44. Beginning with the publication of the Babylonian creation account
found in the Enuma elish tablets (see George Smith, The Chaldean
Account of Genesis [London: Thomas Scott, 1876]), many OT
scholars followed suit, and soon it was the general consensus of
critical opinion that the Hebrew creation story depended on a
Babylonian original (cf. Hermann Gunkel, The Legends of Genesis
[Chicago: Open Court, 1901]; and John Skinner, Genesis, ICC [New
York: Scribner, 1910]).
45. See Luis I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World
(Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1970); Richard J. Clifford,
Creation Accounts in the Near East and in the Bible (Washington, DC:
Catholic Biblical Association, 1994); and Wayne Horowitz,
Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns,
1998). Evangelical scholars have likewise conceded to this approach
to the Scriptures; cf. John Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology
(Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011), esp. 159–61.
46. See James P. Holding, “Is the Raqiya‘ (‘Firmament’) a Solid Dome?
Equivocal Language in the Cosmology of Genesis 1 and the Old
Testament: A Response to Paul H. Seely,” Journal of Creation 13, no.
2 (November 1999): 44–51; and Holding, “Is the ’Erets (Earth) Flat?
Equivocal Language in the Geography of Genesis 1 and the Old
Testament: A Response to Paul H. Seely,” Journal of Creation 14, no.
3 (December 2000): 51–54.
47. This phrase seems to have been coined first by T. H. Gaster,
“Cosmogony,” in Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 1
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1962), 702.
48. George L. Robinson, Leaders of Israel: A Brief History of the
Hebrews from the Earliest Times to the Downfall of Jerusalem, A.D.
70 (New York: YMCA Press, 1907), 2. See similar diagrams, for
example, in Denis O. Lamoureux, Evolutionary Creation: A Christian
Approach to Evolution (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2008), 108; and
 Sandra L. Richter, The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old
Testament (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 101.
49. See esp. Noel K. Weeks, “Cosmology in Historical Context,” WTJ 68,
no. 2 (Fall 2006): 283–93; in contrast, see Paul H. Seely, “The
Firmament and the Water Above, Part 1,” WTJ 53, no. 2 (Fall 1991):
227–40; Seely, “The Firmament and the Water Above, Part 2,” WTJ
54, no. 1 (Spring 1992): 31–46; and Seely, “The Geographical
Meaning of ‘Earth’ and ‘Seas’ in Genesis 1:10,” WTJ 59, no. 2 (Fall
1997): 240–46.
50. See a survey of ancient Near Eastern creation myths in James B.
Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and
Pictures, 3rd ed. with supplement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1969), 1–155. See a survey of specifically Mesopotamian myths
in Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography.
51. See the introductory diagram in Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic
Geography, xii.
52. H. F. Vos, “Flood,” ISBE, 2:319–21. For a listing of flood legends, see
Byron C. Nelson, The Deluge Story in Stone, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis:
Bethany, 1968), 165–76; and James B. Frazer, Folk-lore in the Old
Testament, vol. 1 (London: Macmillan, 1918), 107–331 (though Frazer
is highly critical).
53. See R. Laird Harris, “The Bible and Cosmology,” Bulletin of the
Evangelical Theological Society 5, no. 1 (March 1962): 11–17. “It is
modern Bible students who have travestied the Biblical picture,
paralleled it to Babylonian nonsense, then informed a secular public
that the Bible is not believable by a modern mind. . . . Destructive
criticism has sold the world a shabby substitute for the Biblical
cosmology. We need to re-emphasize the Biblical teaching. The foolish
notions of a three-storied universe or a flat square earth or a geo-
centric universe are not Biblical. And we need to say so as loudly as
possible” (pp. 11–12).
54. Walter C. Kaiser Jr. argues that the use of stereōma in the Septuagint
simply reflects the Greek view of the heavens at the time the
translators did their work; see “The Literary Form of Genesis 1–11,” in
New Perspectives on the Old Testament, ed. J. Barton Payne (Waco,
TX: Word, 1970), 48–65.
55. H. J. Austel writes:
The heavens are frequently described in figurative language as
having windows (Gen 7:11; II Kgs 7:2; Mal 3:10 . . .), gates
(Gen 28:7), doors (Ps 78:23), pillars (Job 26:11), and
foundations (II Sam 22:8). They are stretched out and spread
out like a tent or a curtain (Isa 40:22).
The use of such figurative language no more necessitates the
adoption of a pagan cosmology than does the modern use of the
term “sunrise” imply astronomical ignorance. The imagery is
often phenomenological, and is both convenient and vividly
forceful. Thus a disobedient Israel would find the heavens to be
like iron (Lev 26:19) or like bronze (Deut 28:23), not yielding
the much-needed rain. Note that if the heavens were conceived
of as a metallic vault, as is commonly suggested from Gen 1:8,
14 etc., the above passages would be meaningless, since the
skies would already be metal. The word raqia (q.v.) comes from
the verb meaning “to hammer out” and “stretch (a piece of
metal) out” as an overlay. It is the idea of spreading out that
carries over to the noun, not the idea of a metallic substance.
“Expanse” is an acceptable translation. (“2407a
(shamayim),” TWOT, 935)
56. Einstein recapitulated Newtonian physics within the framework of
“space-time”—space relating to Newton’s three-dimensional
calculations and time being the fourth dimension based on the speed of
light. The theory of general relativity explained the mechanism of
gravity (space-time curvature), which Newton lacked, with time and
space functioning like a flexible “fabric” upon which objects of mass
lie. For an introduction, see Steve Adams, Relativity: An Introduction
to Space-Time Physics (London: Taylor & Francis, 1997).
57. Concordism is the belief that there is “a correspondence or alignment
between Scripture and science” (Lamoureux, Evolutionary Creation,
xv.) The accusation of concordism has become the means of
invalidating the work of anyone who would suggest that God might
communicate through the Bible any post-Enlightenment knowledge. It
also seems to have become the rallying cry of those bent on
“reinterpreting” biblical inerrancy. Those who reject concordism argue
 that God “accommodated” the ignorance of the ancient Hebrews by
speaking to them according to the false science of their time, because
the Bible is supposedly designed to give redemptive truth rather than
scientific truth. As Paul Seely made clear early in his career, “The
Bible assumes that the universe is three-storied; but, we do not believe
that Christians are bound to give assent to such a cosmology, since the
purpose of the Bible is to give redemptive, not scientific truth. The
relationship of science to Scripture is this: The Bible gives redemptive
truth through the scientific thoughts of the times without ever
intending that those scientific thoughts should be believed as inerrant”
(“The Three-Storied Universe,” Journal of the American Scientific
Affiliation 21, no. 1 [1969]: 18).
58. Total occurrences of raqia are as follows: Gen. 1:6–8, 14f., 17, 20; Ps.
19:1; 150:1; Ezek. 1:22f., 25f.; 10:1; Dan. 12:3. Its use in Ezekiel is
irrelevant, since the vision does not concern the cosmos as a whole. Its
use in Daniel is clearly equated with the heavens (note that the LXX
translates raqia with ouranos).
59. According to Seely, “The fact that it was named ‘heaven(s)’ in Gen 1:8
and birds fly in the heaven(s) (Deut 4:17) seems to imply the raqia‘
was not solid. But the word samayim (heaven[s]) is broader in
meaning than raqia‘. It encompasses not only the raqia‘ (v. 8; Ps 19:6;
148:4) but the space above the raqia‘ (Ps 2:4; 11:4; 139:8) as well as
the space below (Ps 8:8; 79:2)” (“The Firmament and the Water
Above, Part I,” 237). There is a reason Seely only cites these verses
and does not quote them. None of them say anything about the
heavens being distinct from or extending beyond the firmament, and
the firmament itself is not mentioned in any of them. Thus James
Holding summarizes, “The claim that shamayim is ‘broader in
meaning’ than raqiya‘ in Genesis is simply groundless—the result of
circular reasoning” (“Is the Raqiya‘, [‘Firmament’] a Solid Dome,”
46).
60. See Lamoureux, Evolutionary Creation, 129–31. This framework is
also assumed by M. J. Kline, “Space and Time in the Genesis
Cosmogony,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 48, no. 1
(March 1996): 2–15.
61. Psalm 104 and Psalm 29 are often quoted as evidence that God dwells
above the cosmic waters, pitching his tent “on the waters” (104:3) and
sitting enthroned “over the engulfing waters” (29:11, NET). However,
the heavens as a whole are referenced as a “tent” in 104:2, and the
“chambers” of verse 3 are the Heb. aliyah, which speaks of the “roof-
room.” For this reason the NASB, NKJV, and NIV translate it “upper
chambers,” and thus the “beams” (Heb. qarah) of those chambers
would logically be the ceiling “rafters” (NLT) set “in the waters” (NASB,
KJV, NKJV), rather than the floor joists set “on the waters” (ESV, NRSV,
NIV). Psalm 29 is cosmologically irrelevant, since it primarily speaks
of the sovereignty of God over creation, particularly in times of
judgment. The Lord “thundering over the waters” (v. 3) is paralleled
by breaking the cedars of Lebanon (v. 5), striking with flashes of
lightning (v. 7), shaking the desert of Kadesh (v. 8), and stripping the
forest bare (v. 9). These judgments are concluded by God’s
sovereignty over the historical flood (v. 10; Heb. mabbul), which is
used elsewhere only in reference to the flood of Noah (cf. Gen. 6:17;
7:6–7, 10, 17; 9:11, 15, 28; 10:1, 32; 11:10).
62. Seely, “The Firmament and the Water Above, Part I,” 235; cf. 228,
230, 231, 234.
63. This was Bultmann’s cherished phrase, though he believed
demythologization to be a third option:
It is, of course, true that de-mythologizing takes the modern
world-view as a criterion. To de-mythologize is to reject not
Scripture or the Christian message as a whole, but the world-
view of Scripture, which is the world-view of a past epoch,
which all too often is retained in Christian dogmatics and in the
preaching of the Church. To de-mythologize is to deny that the
message of Scripture and of the Church is bound to an ancient
world-view which is obsolete.
The attempt to de-mythologize begins with this important
insight: Christian preaching, in so far as it is preaching of the
Word of God by God’s command and in His name, does not
offer a doctrine which can be accepted either by reason or by a
sacrificium intellectus. Christian preaching is kerygma, that is, a
 proclamation addressed not to the theoretical reason, but to the
hearer as a self. (Jesus Christ and Mythology, 35–36)
64. For a primer, see Colin Brown, Christianity and Western Thought: A
History of Philosophers, Ideas and Movements (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 1990).
65. Though Plato and Aristotle agreed on a dualistic split between material
and immaterial, Aristotle disagreed with his teacher concerning the
relationship between the two. Aristotle argued that the universals
(“forms”) did not produce the particulars (“copies”), but rather the
universals were present in the particulars (see esp. Metaphysics, Book
VII)—i.e., materiality is real in and of itself without the need of a
separate metaphysical pattern.
66. Many attribute Alexander’s superhuman ambition to egotism, power
hunger, or madness. Akin to Hitler, however, his intentionality and
calculated approach seem to argue for ideology and philosophy as his
primary motivation. He conquered the world so that he could
Hellenize, civilize, and enlighten the world.
67. See chap. 1, n. 48. For example, Plato described:
And having been created in this way, the world has been framed
in the likeness of that which is apprehended by reason and mind
and is unchangeable, and must therefore of necessity, if this is
admitted, be a copy of something. Now it is all-important that
the beginning of everything should be according to nature. And
in speaking of the copy and the original we may assume that
words are akin to the matter which they describe; when they
relate to the lasting and permanent and intelligible, they ought
to be lasting and unalterable, and, as far as their nature allows,
irrefutable and immovable—nothing less. But when they
express only the copy or likeness and not the eternal things
themselves, they need only be likely and analogous to the real
words. (Timaeus, 29; DP, 3:449)
68. As such, a better pictorial representation (cf. figure 2.5) would entail
dotted lines for the perceptual world and solid lines for the intelligible
world. However, for consistency of communication, as related to its
later accommodation into Judeo-Christian thought (cf. figures 3.13,
 3.14, etc.), lines representing a simple material versus immaterial
framework are retained.
69. Theaetetus, 156 (DP, 4:210).
70. This view is most famously portrayed in the “Allegory of the Cave”
(Republic, 7.514a–520a), which is related to the “Metaphor of the
Sun” (6.507b–509c) and the “Analogy of the Divided Line” (6.509d–
513e), both of which immediately precede it at the end of Book 6. The
common theme in these parables is the “sun,” a metaphor for the
source of illumination, which Plato held to be the “Form of the Good,”
generally interpreted as his notion of God.
71. See John M. Dillon, “Platonism,” ABD, 5:378–81.
72. As Alfred Whitehead articulates in his famous statement, “The safest
general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that
it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the
systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully
extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas
scattered through them” (Process and Reality: An Essay in
Cosmology, ed. David R. Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne, corrected
ed. [New York: Free Press, 1979; originally published 1929,], 39;
italics added).
73. Tertullian (c. 155–240) speaks of the demonization of Socrates as
though it were widely known and commonly understood: “Socrates, as
none can doubt, was actuated by a different spirit. For they say that a
demon clave to him from his boyhood” (A Treatise on the Soul, chap.
1; ANF, 3:181–82). This no doubt refers to the “inner voice” that
Socrates frequently relied upon, which he referred to as the
“Daimonion” but has been modernly equated with the conscience.
Socrates, however, claimed divine inspiration from the Daimonion
(Phaedrus, 242) and related to it as a “monitor” assigned uniquely to
him among humanity (Republic, 496). Having never heard of the
Daimonion, Socrates’s fellow Athenians regarded it as a new divinity,
and Xenophon equated it to divination (Memorabilia, 4.3.12).
Generalizing some passages in Xenophon and Plato, where Daimonion
is employed metaphorically, as a symbolic expression for the inner
conviction, “The attempt has been made to deliver Socrates from an
embarrassing and, for a wise man and pattern of virtue, unworthy
 eccentricity by explaining the Daimonion as a figure of speech”
(Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets, vol. 2 [New York: Harper, 1971],
591).
74. Note Philip Schaff’s concise and timeless description:
The Alexandrian theology aims at a reconciliation of
Christianity with philosophy, or, subjectively speaking, of pistis
with gnosis; but it seeks this union upon the basis of the Bible,
and the doctrine of the church. . . . Clement came from the
Hellenic philosophy to the Christian faith; Origen, conversely,
was led by faith to speculation. The former was an aphoristic
thinker, the latter a systematic. The one borrowed ideas from
various systems; the other followed more the track of Platonism.
But both were Christian philosophers and churchly gnostics. As
Philo, long before them, in the same city, had combined
Judaism with Grecian culture, so now they carried the Grecian
culture into Christianity. (History of the Christian Church, vol. 2
[New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910], 779)
75. See chap. 1, n. 53.
76. See the timeless and comprehensive treatments by Charles Biggs, The
Christian Platonists of Alexandria: Eight Lectures (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1886); and Edwin Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and
Usages upon the Christian Church, 6th ed. (London: Williams and
Norgate, 1897).
77. See John Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of
the Desert Fathers and Mothers, revised ed. (Bloomington, IN: World
Wisdom, 2008). Beyond their direct influence on medieval
monasticism, the “desert fathers” substantially influenced many
modern movements, including the German evangelicals, the
Pennsylvania Pietists, and the Methodist revival in England (see
Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the
Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism [Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1993], 7–9).
78. Patristic scholar, Thomas C. Oden, summarizes, “The common
misperception is directly the opposite—that intellectual leadership
typically moved from the north to the south, from Europe to Africa.
But in Christian history, contrary to this common assumption, the flow
 of intellectual leadership demonstrably moved largely from Africa to
Europe—south to north” (How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind:
Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity [Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2007], 29).
79. Tertullian, “Pagan Philosophy the Parent of Heresies,” Prescription
Against Heretics, chap. 7 (ANF, 3:246–47); italics added.
80. See Thorlief Boman, Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek
(London: SCM Press, 1960). After Boman’s idiosyncratic work
(though we might say that many of his conclusions were true despite
his faulty linguistic approach), many have followed the pendular lead
of James Barr: The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1961); and Old and New in Interpretation: A Study
of the Two Testaments (London: SCM Press, 1966).
81. See G. E. Ladd, The Pattern of New Testament Truth (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1968), esp. 9–40.
82. See, for example, Marvin R. Wilson, Our Father Abraham: Jewish
Roots of the Christian Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 135–92.
83. Ladd, The Pattern of New Testament Truth, 40.
For our present purpose, the important thing to note is the
difference between the Hebrew and the Greek views of reality.
For the Greek, the world, nature, human history—in sum, the
sphere of the visible—formed the realm of flux and change, of
becoming, of the transient. Reality belonged to the realm of the
invisible, the good, the unchanging, which could be
apprehended only by the mind of the soul transcending the
visible. Thus salvation was found in the flight of the soul from
the world to the invisible world of God.
For the Hebrew, reality was found in God who makes
himself known in the ebb and flow of both nature and historical
events by his acts and by his words. God comes to men in their
earthly experience. Thus the final redemption is not flight from
this world to another world; it may be described as the descent
of the other world—God’s world—resulting in a transformation
of this world. (Ibid., 36–37)
84. “Origen clearly represents and develops a construction of the Christian
faith in which eschatology has been swallowed up in an emphasis
upon transcendence. The only time which truly matters is that time
until one’s death, which determines one’s experience in paradise and in
the resurrection. ‘Heaven’ as cosmographic place now occupies the
central position once occupied by the eschatological kingdom of God
in Jesus’ teaching. That, too, occurs on the authority of progressive
dialectics, the refinement of Pauline metaphysics” (Jacob Neusner and
Bruce Chilton, Jewish and Christian Doctrines: The Classics
Compared [New York: Routledge, 2000], 183).
85. See a history of the “spiritual vision model” by Craig A. Blaising,
“Premillennialism,” in Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond,
ed. Darrell L. Bock (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 160–74.
86. Origen, On First Principles, 2.11.5–6 (ANF, 4:299); italics and
bracketed portions added.
87. Modern theologians likewise drift into such categories—e.g., Jürgen
Moltmann: “Finally, compared with the invisible heaven in which the
glory of God dwells, the earth means the whole visible and temporal
world in which God does not dwell—or not as yet. In this symbolic
sense, the earth is not merely this planet. It is the whole material world
of which this planet is a part” (God in Creation: A New Theology of
Creation and the Spirit of God, trans. M. Kohl [London: SCM Press,
1985], 160). Moltmann continues, “Heaven is, as it were, the preparing
and making available of the potentialities and potencies of the world’s
creation, redemption and glorification” (p. 166); “That is the essential
reason why the Greek Fathers of the church took over the Platonic
doctrine of Ideas, appropriating them for Christian theology. The
archetypes for all created realities are also prepared in the kingdom of
the Creator’s potentialities” (p. 167; italics in the original).
88. The Bible is completely devoid of the metaphysical concepts of
“natural” and “supernatural.” There is no word in the Hebrew
language that can be translated as “nature” or “natural”; and the Greek
phusis/phusikos, sometimes translated “nature/natural,” universally
refers to something’s inherent quality or makeup (cf. Rom. 1:26f.;
2:14; 11:21ff.; 1 Cor. 11:14; Gal. 2:15; 4:8; Eph. 2:3; James 3:7; 2
Peter 2:12), thus carrying no metaphysical connotations. Moreover, the
 term supernatural, which is so commonly used to describe the heavens
and all therein, is never used in the Bible. How can a word that is so
unbiblical, both conceptually and linguistically, find such consistent
use in the modern church? I believe its use is highly symptomatic and
reveals the Hellenistic bedrock of our modern Western worldview.
89. Craig Keener articulates the linguistic struggle: “I felt I had to use the
category of supernatural because, to address the questions as they exist
in our culture, I needed to articulate it in terms that were at hand. But
the category of supernatural really isn’t a biblical perspective. It’s
using Hume’s paradigm. If we believe that God is the Creator and is
sovereign, then he is at work in the whole world around us” (“It’s
Okay to Expect a Miracle,” Christianity Today, December 9, 2011,
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/december/okay-to-expect-
miracle.html). See also Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New
Testament Accounts, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011).
Chapter Three
1. In academic terms, “apocalyptic” can refer to both theology, a type of
thought involving climactic and devastating eschatology, and
literature, a genre of writings during second-temple Judaism and early
Christianity. Hence the consensus definition: “a genre of revelatory
literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is
mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a
transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages
eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another,
supernatural world” (John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination:
An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, 2nd ed. [Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998], 5; cf. Collins, “Introduction: Towards the
Morphology of a Genre,” in Apocalypse: The Morphology of a Genre,
ed. John J. Collins (Semeia 14; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979),
1–20).
2. Most scholars trace apocalyptic thought primarily to the prophetic
literature (cf. D. S. Russell, The Method and Message of Jewish
Apocalyptic: 200 BC–AD 100 [Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1964]), while some trace it primarily to the wisdom literature (cf.
Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, trans. D. M. G. Stalker, 2
vols. [New York: Harper & Row, 1962, 1965]). Critical scholars often
trace it to non-biblical origins like Persia, Babylon, and the Greco-
Roman milieu (see David Hellholm, ed., Apocalypticism in the
Mediterranean World and the Near East [Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck,
1983]); or from even older Mesopotamian, Akkadian, and Canaanite
mythology (see Frank M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic
[Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973]; and Lester L.
Grabbe and Robert D. Haak, eds., Knowing the End from the
Beginning: The Prophetic, the Apocalyptic and their Relationships
[New York: T & T Clark, 2003]).
3. On the book of Revelation within a Jewish apocalyptic framework, see
Daniel F. Stramara, God’s Timetable: The Book of Revelation and the
Feast of Seven Weeks (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2011).
4. This approach is akin to Walter Kaiser’s “epigenetic” approach:
 The unity that Scripture exhibited was not static—a flat-Bible
type of uniformity; it had an organic or epigenetical aspect to it
that defied an easy categorization or simplification. Even in its
earliest OT statements, that divine word . . . had within it
seminal ideas that only later amplifications would unfold from
the germs of thought that were just barely visible when first
announced. That is why the metaphor from biology is an apt
one: prophetic truth had an organic, epigenetical nature. The
fixed core of ideas connected with the promise-plan of God and
the representative of that promise remained constant. But as
time went on, the content of that given word of blessing,
promise, or judgment grew in accordance with seed thoughts
that were contained within its earliest statements, much as a
seed is uniquely related to the plant that it will become if it has
life at all. (Walter C. Kaiser Jr., The Messiah in the Old
Testament [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995], 27)
Note Kaiser’s earlier articulation of revelatory “epigenetic growth”:
“There was a growth of the record of events, meanings, and teachings
as time went on around a fixed core that contributed life to the whole
emerging mass. Whether the event, meaning, or teaching was viewed
as a seedling, trunk, branch, root, or leaf, it all participated in the
vitality of the whole organism” (Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Toward an Old
Testament Theology [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978], 8; cf. 14, 22,
34). Thus, “The central idea matures as revelation progresses into the
NT era” (ibid., 22). Though this approach has received relatively little
attention, I believe it explains well the progress of divine revelation
concerning the various apocalyptic themes of the day of the Lord, the
resurrection of the dead, Gehenna, messianic expectation, and the
kingdom of God.
5. See an introduction to apocalypticism in Greg Carey, Ultimate Things:
An Introduction to Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic Literature (St.
Louis: Chalice Press, 2005); and Frederick J. Murphy, Apocalypticism
in the Bible and Its World: A Comprehensive Introduction (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2012).
6. For an evangelical introduction, see Craig Blaising, “The Day of the
Lord: Theme and Pattern in Biblical Theology, BSac 169, no. 1
 (2012): 3-19. For a historical-critical approach, see Kevin Cathcart,
“The Day of Yahweh,” ABD, 2:84–85. For a literary-canonical
perspective, see James D. Nogalski, “The Day(s) of YHWH in the
Book of the Twelve,” in Thematic Threads in the Book of the Twelve,
ed. Paul L. Redditt and Aaron Schart (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003), 192–
213. For an orthodox Jewish reading, see Shimon Bakon, “The Day of
the Lord,” Jewish Bible Quarterly 38, no. 3 (2010): 149–56.
7. Richard H. Hiers, “Day of the Lord,” ABD, 2:82.
8. See Meir Weiss, “The Origin of the ‘Day of the Lord’—
Reconsidered,” HUCA 37 (1966): 29–63; contra its origin in Israel’s
holy war tradition, cf. Gerhard von Rad, “The Origin of the Concept of
the Day of Yahweh,” Journal of Semitic Studies 4 (1959): 97–108.
9. See Meredith G. Kline, “Primal Parousia,” WTJ 40, no. 2 (1978): 245–
80.
10. Amos 5:18–20 is generally assumed to be the earliest reference to yom
yhwh: “Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD. . . . It is darkness,
and not light” (v. 18). This declaration seems to suggest a commonly
held positive expectation for the day of the Lord, which has led to
much debate concerning the origins of this expectation; see Yair
Hoffmann, “The Day of the Lord as a Concept and a Term in the
Prophetic Literature,” ZAW 93 (1981): 37–50.
11. In this way the categorizing of day of the Lord passages into
“historical” and “eschatological” (e.g., Blaising, “The Day of the
Lord,” 17) seems misdirected, since the historical reality becomes the
pattern for the later apocalyptic expectation.
12. Although Klaus Koch describes eight common features of apocalyptic
thought (The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic, trans. M. Kohl [London:
SCM Press, 1972], 28–33), the day of the Lord is nearly absent in his
discussion, a strangely pervasive phenomenon in modern discussions
concerning Jewish apocalypticism.
13. This would be “an eschatological contemplation of history,” as Jürgen
Moltmann described apocalyptic thought: “The apocalyptic picture of
history is rooted in the historic thinking of Israel and bound up with
the prophetic eschatology. . . . In place of a historic theology we have a
theology of history and in place of a historic eschatology comes an
 eschatological contemplation of history” (Theology of Hope: On the
Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology, trans. M.
Kohl [London: SCM Press, 1967], 134–35).
14. Kenneth Bailey well describes apocalyptic thought: “Sections of both
the Old and New Testaments, known as apocalyptical writings, offer a
third view of history. This perspective views history to be like an
arrow that moves toward a target called ‘the day of the LORD’ (Amos
5:18) or ‘the kingdom of God’ (Mark 1:15). In this view, history has
direction and meaning. Caught up in the struggles of the present age,
the faithful may not always be able to ‘see the big picture,’ but there is
one” (Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the
Gospels [Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008], 114).
15. See 2 Esdras 7:38f., 102–13; 12:34; Judith 16:17; Wisdom of Solomon
3:18; 1 Enoch 10:12; 16:1; 19:1; 22:4–13; 27:4; 54:6; 81:4; 84:4; 94:9;
97:3; 98:10; 99:15; 100:4; 102:5; 104:5; 2 Enoch 51:3; 65:6ff.; 2
Baruch 59:9; 4 Ezra 7:38f., 102ff.; 12:34; Book of Jubilees 4:19; 5:13;
9:15; 10:17, 22; 22:21; 24:33; Apocalypse of Moses 12:1; 26:4;
Testament of Levi 3:2f.
16. See Matt. 7:22; 10:15; 11:22, 24; 12:36; 24:36, 42, 50; 25:13; 26:29;
Mark 13:32; 14:25; Luke 10:12; 12:46; 17:24, 26, 30, 31; 21:22, 34;
John 6:39, 40, 44, 54; 11:24; 12:48; Acts 2:20; 17:31; Rom. 2:5, 16;
13:12; 1 Cor. 1:8; 3:13; 5:5; 2 Cor. 1:14; Eph. 4:30; Phil. 1:6, 10; 2:16;
1 Thess. 5:2, 4, 5, 8; 2 Thess. 1:10; 2:2, 3; 2 Tim. 1:12, 18; 4:8; Heb.
10:25; James 5:5; 1 Peter 2:12; 2 Peter 1:19; 2:9; 3:7, 10, 12, 18; 1
John 4:17; Jude 6; Rev. 6:17; 16:14; 18:8.
17. Ernst Käsemann, New Testament Questions of Today, trans. W. J.
Montague (London: SCM Press, 1969), 102. Besides his naturalistic
bias (as a disciple of Bultmann), it seems Käsemann generally lacked a
sacrificial theology of the cross to balance his emphasis on Jewish
apocalypticism.
18. Recent studies (following the lead of J. Louis Martyn) have sought to
redefine apocalypticism generically around revelation instead of
eschatology (cf. Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, Jason Maston,
eds., Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination [Minneapolis: Fortress,
2016]; and Benjamin E. Reynolds and Loren T. Stuckenbruck, eds.,
The Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition and the Shaping of New Testament
 Thought [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017]). Unfortunately, this
redefinition generally ends with a neglect of the Jewish eschatological
realities, esp. the day of the Lord (as exemplified by Douglas A.
Campbell, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of
Justification in Paul [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009]).
19. Unfounded is the dispensationalists’ attempt to distinguish between
the “day of the Lord” and the “day of Christ” (akin to their delineation
between the “kingdom and God” and the “kingdom of heaven”),
finding in them “two separate [salvific] programs” (J. Dwight
Pentecost, Things to Come: A Study in Biblical Eschatology [Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1965], 232).
20. See esp. Joseph Plevnik, Paul and the Parousia: An Exegetical and
Theological Investigation (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997).
21. Craig Blaising thus concludes, “By means of common motifs, shared
imagery, and historical typology, the day of the Lord—whether
conceptualized simply, holistically, as a catastrophic judgment event,
or visualized in complex narrative fashion as unfolding disaster—
emerges as a primary theme in prophetic Scripture. Most importantly,
it is taken up in the New Testament together with the tribulational
pattern revealed in Daniel to become the setting for the future return of
Jesus” (“The Day of the Lord,” 19).
22. “Sometimes it is called ‘that day’ (Matt. 7:22; 1 Thess. 5:4; 2 Tim.
4:8), and again it is called ‘the day’ without any qualification
whatever, as if it were the only day worth counting in all the history of
the world and of the race (1 Cor. 3:13). . . . All Pauline literature is
especially suffused with this longing for the Parousia, the day of
Christ’s glorious manifestation. The entire conception of that day
centers therefore in Christ and points to the everlasting establishment
of the kingdom of heaven, from which sin will be forever eliminated”
(H. E. Dosker, “Day of the Lord,” ISBE, 1:879).
23. “In spite of the attempts of OT prophets (1 Pt. 1:11), Christians cannot
calculate these times (Mk. 13:33; 1 Th. 5:1f.; Ac. 1:7). God Himself
will put them in an absolute schedule in accordance with the
requirements of salvation history, and a prior fixing of the year or the
day would be opposed to the divine sovereignty (Ac. 1:7). καιρός then
 becomes a technical term for the last judgment or the end” (Gerhard
Delling, “καιρός,” TDNT, 3:461).
24. Similarly, Jesus told his disciples, “It is not for you to know times or
seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts 1:7). Paul
relates “the times and the seasons” (1 Thess. 5:1) directly to “the day
of the Lord” (v. 2). In Acts 1:7, Jesus was correcting the timing, not
the expectation itself.
25. Note their relationship in the apocalyptic tradition (cf. also 2 Esdras
7:75; 2 Baruch 32:6; Book of Jubilees 1:29): “That is the fountain of
Abraham and his generation, and the coming of his son, and the son of
his son, and of those who are like them. For at that time the unwritten
law was in force among them, and the works of the commandments
were accomplished at that time, and the belief in the coming judgment
was brought about, and the hope of the world which will be renewed
was built at that time, and the promise of the life that will come later
was planted” (2 Baruch 57:1–2; OTP, 1:641).
26. G. E. Ladd, “Eschatology,” ISBE, 2:132.
27. Again George Ladd describes, “The Old Testament nowhere holds
forth the hope of a bodiless, nonmaterial, purely ‘spiritual’ redemption
as did Greek thought. The earth is the divinely ordained scene of
human existence. Furthermore, the earth has been involved in the evils
which sin has incurred. There is an interrelation of nature with the
moral life of man; therefore the earth must also share in God’s final
redemption. . . . A new universe is to be created which will replace the
old. This is no new thought but is the summation of a whole aspect of
prophetic theology” (The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of
Biblical Realism [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974], 59–60).
28. The Greek apokatastasis, “restoration,” in its lone usage here in Acts
3:21, derives from apokathistēmi, meaning “to restore to an earlier
state” (BDAG, 111). Thus apokatastasis—“restoring everything to
perfection” (BDAG, 112)—seemingly refers to the former state of
mankind in Eden.
29. The Greek paliggenesia is a compound of palin, “anew, again,” and
genesis, “source, origin” (see BDAG, 752). Thus, God is going to
“again-Genesis,” so to speak, at the day of the Lord. Jürgen Moltmann
sets paliggenesia in context:
 The word παλιγγενεσία derives from oriental cosmology, which
was introduced into the ancient world by the Pythagoreans. . . .
In Jewish apocalyptic, however, this concept was refashioned
eschatologically. There it meant the unique and final “rebirth”
for the eternal kingdom of the creation which had become old,
transient and mortal. . . . We meet this cosmic, apocalyptic
interpretation of “rebirth” in Matt. 19:28: “In the rebirth
(παλιγγενεσία; RSV: ‘new world’), when the Son of man shall
sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also
sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” The
Son of man who suffers here will there be exalted; the Son of
man who is judged here will there himself be the judge, the Son
of man put to death here will there live eternally. His followers
will be drawn into his humiliation here and his exaltation there.
(The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, trans. M. Kohl
[Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001], 145)
30. Craig Blaising describes,
The new creation model of eternal life draws on biblical texts
that speak of a future everlasting kingdom, of a new earth and
the renewal of life on it, of bodily resurrection (especially of the
physical nature of Christ’s resurrection body), of social and
even political concourse among the redeemed. The new creation
model expects that the ontological order and scope of eternal
life is essentially continuous with that of present earthly life
except for the absence of sin and death. Eternal life for
redeemed human beings will be an embodied life on earth
(whether the present earth or a wholly new earth), set within a
cosmic structure such as we have presently. It is not a timeless,
static existence but rather an unending sequence of life and
lived experiences. It does not reject physicality or materiality,
but affirms them as essential both to a holistic anthropology and
to the biblical idea of a redeemed creation. (“Premillennialism,”
in Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond, ed. Darrell L.
Bock [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999], 162)
31. So Jürgen Moltmann describes, “This horizon embraces on the one
hand ‘creation in the beginning’ and, on the other, ‘the creation of the
 End-time.’ It takes its definition from the creation of the heavens and
the earth ‘in the beginning’ (Gen. 1:1), and from the creation of ‘the
new heavens and the new earth’ (Isa. 65:17) at the end. But this means
that Israel did not merely develop a protological understanding of
creation; in the process of so doing it also arrived at an eschatological
view of creation. Both dimensions are necessarily present in ‘the
soteriological understanding of creation’” (God in Creation: A New
Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God, trans. M. Kohl [London:
SCM Press, 1985], 54; italics in the original).
32. In his commentary on Genesis, John H. Sailhamer notes, “By
commencing his history with a ‘beginning’ (rēʾšît), a word often
paired with ‘the end’ (ʾaḥarît), the author also prepares the way for the
consummation of that history at ‘the end of time.’ . . . The growing
focus within the biblical canon on the ‘last days’ (ʾaḥarît hayyāmîm) is
an appropriate extension of the ‘end’ (ʾaḥarît) already anticipated in
the ‘beginning’ (rēʾšît) of Genesis 1:1. The fundamental principle
reflected in 1:1 and the prophetic vision of the future times of the ‘end’
in the rest of Scripture is that the ‘last things will be like the first
things’” (“Genesis,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Genesis–
Leviticus, rev. ed., ed. Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland,
vol. 1 [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008], 51).
33. Sandra L. Richter, The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old
Testament (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 129.
34. Although the terminology of “nature” poorly corresponds to the
biblical concept of “creation,” T. Desmond Alexander rightly
comments, “All of these passages describing a transformed
environment look forward to a time when nature and humanity will be
in harmony as God originally intended. When this happens, the earth
will be very different, for God’s disfavor and curses will be removed”
(From Eden to the New Jerusalem: An Introduction to Biblical
Theology [Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2009], 163).
35. Oscar Cullmann incisively stated: “The belief in the resurrection
presupposes the Jewish connexion between death and sin. Death is not
something natural, willed by God, as in the thought of the Greek
philosophers; it is rather something unnatural, abnormal, opposed by
God. . . . The Greek doctrine of immortality and the Christian hope in
 the resurrection differ so radically because Greek thought has such an
entirely different interpretation of creation” (Immortality of the Soul or
the Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament
[London: Epworth Press, 1958], 28–29).
36. This vision of the future is perhaps nowhere better expressed than in
Rom. 8:18–24, the quintessential apocalyptic passage. The stark
dichotomy of the two ages (v. 18) is punctuated by “the glory that is to
be revealed [lit. “apocalypsed,” Gk. apokaluptō] to us. For the creation
waits with eager longing for the revealing [Gk. apokalupsis, lit.
“apocalypsing”] of the sons of God” (vv. 18–19)—referring to the
resurrection of the dead, i.e., our “adoption as sons, the redemption of
our bodies” (v. 23). Present suffering in light of future glory was
common in second-temple Judaism (see a summary in James D. G.
Dunn, Romans 1–8, WBC [Dallas: Word, 1998], 468–69). For
example, “And the Lord answered and said to me . . . With regard to
the righteous ones, those whom you said the world has come on their
account, yes, also that which is coming is on their account. For this
world is to them a struggle and an effort with much trouble. And that
accordingly which will come, a crown with great glory” (2 Baruch
15.7–8; OTP, 1:626). Such a crown of eschatological glory is assumed
by all the NT authors (cf. 1 Cor. 9:25; 2 Tim. 4:8; James 1:12; 1 Peter
5:4; Rev. 2:10), giving context to present suffering.
37. Anthony Hoekema summarizes: “The New Testament believer,
therefore, is aware that history is moving toward the goal of this final
consummation. This consummation of history, as he sees it, includes
such events as the Second Coming of Christ, the general resurrection,
the Day of Judgment, and the new heavens and new earth. Since the
new heavens and new earth will be the culmination of history, we may
say that all history is moving toward this goal” (The Bible and the
Future [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979], 32).
38. “So the time of the world as a whole takes the form of the circulatio,
the circle. If the end corresponds to the beginning, and if this
beginning returns again in the end, then the time of the world has a
splendid symmetrical conformation. What happens at the end can then
only be the ‘restoration’ of the beginning” (Jürgen Moltmann, The
 Coming of God: Christian Eschatology, trans. M. Kohl [Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2004], 263).
39. See similar themes in Warren Austin Gage, The Gospel of Genesis:
Studies in Protology and Eschatology (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns,
1984).
40. Moltmann well articulates: “From first to last, and not merely in the
epilogue, Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and
forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming
the present. The eschatological is not one element of Christianity, but
it is the medium of Christian faith as such, the key in which everything
in it is set, the glow that suffuses everything here in the dawn of an
expected new day. . . . A proper theology would therefore have to be
constructed in the light of its future goal. Eschatology should not be its
end, but its beginning” (Theology of Hope, 16).
41. For example, “fury” (Ex. 15:7; Lev. 26:28; Deut. 29:28; Ps. 2:5; 7:6;
Isa. 10:5, 25; 26:20; 30:27; 66:15; Jer. 21:5; Lam. 2:4; Ezek. 5:13, 15;
6:12; 19:12; 21:17; 23:25; 24:13; Hab. 3:12; Rom. 2:8; Heb. 10:27;
Rev. 16:19; 19:15); “wrath” (Ex. 22:24; 32:10f.; Lev. 10:6; Num. 1:53;
16:46; 18:5; 25:11; Deut. 9:7f., 22; 29:23, 28; Josh. 22:20; 1 Sam.
28:18; 2 Kings 22:13, 17; 23:26; 1 Chron. 27:24; 2 Chron. 12:7, 12;
19:2, 10; 24:18; 28:11, 13; 29:8; 32:25f.; 34:21, 25; 36:16; Ezra 7:23;
8:22; 10:14; Neh. 13:18; Job 14:13; 16:19; 19:11; 20:28; 21:20, 30; Ps.
2:5, 12; 6:1; 21:9; 38:1; 56:7; 59:13; 78:21, 38, 49, 59, 62; 85:3; 88:7,
16; 89:38, 46; 90:7, 9, 11; 106:23; 110:5; Prov. 11:4, 23; Isa. 9:19;
10:6; 13:9, 13; 51:17, 20, 22; 59:18; 60:10; 63:3–6; Jer. 4:4; 6:11;
7:20, 29; 10:10; 21:12; 23:19; 25:15; 30:23; 32:31, 37; 33:5; 36:7;
42:18; 44:6; 50:13, 25; Lam. 2:2; 3:1; 4:11; Ezek. 7:8, 12, 14, 19;
8:18; 9:8; 13:13, 15; 14:19; 16:38, 42; 20:8, 13, 21, 33f.; 21:31;
22:20–22, 31; 25:14; 30:15; 36:6, 18; 38:18f.; Dan. 9:16; Hos. 5:10;
11:9; 13:11; Mic. 5:15; Nah. 1:2, 6; Hab. 2:15; 3:2, 8; Zeph. 1:15, 18;
Zech. 8:2, 14; Matt. 3:7; Luke 3:7; 21:23; John 3:36; Rom. 1:18; Rom.
2:5, 8; 3:5; 4:15; 5:9; 9:22; 12:19; 13:4f.; Eph. 2:3; 5:6; Col. 3:6; 1
Thess. 1:10; 2:16; 5:9; Heb. 3:11; 4:3; Rev. 6:16f.; 11:18; 14:10, 19;
15:1, 7; 16:1, 19; 19:15); “anger/angry” (Gen. 18:30, 32; Ex. 4:14;
32:12; 34:6; Num. 11:1, 10, 33; 12:9; 14:18; 22:22; 25:3f.; 32:10, 13f.;
Deut. 1:37; 3:26; 4:21, 25; 6:15; 7:4; 9:8, 18–20; 11:17; 13:17; 29:20,
 23f., 27f.; 31:17, 29; 32:16, 21f.; Josh. 7:1, 26; 22:18; 23:16; Judg.
2:12, 14, 20; 3:8; 6:39; 10:7; 14:19; 2 Sam. 6:7; 22:8; 24:1; 1 Kings
8:46; 11:9; 14:9, 15; 15:30; 16:2, 7, 13, 26, 33; 21:22; 22:53; 2 Kings
13:3, 19; 17:11, 17f.; 21:6, 15; 22:17; 23:19, 26; 24:20; 1 Chron.
13:10; 2 Chron. 6:36; 25:15; 28:9, 25; 29:10; 30:8; 33:6; 34:25; Ezra
9:14; Neh. 4:5; 9:17; Job 4:9; 9:5, 13; 20:23; 21:17; 35:15; 40:11;
42:7; Ps. 6:1; 7:6; 18:7; 27:9; 30:5; 38:1; 60:1; 69:24; 74:1; 76:7; 77:9;
78:21, 31, 38, 49f., 58; 79:5f.; 80:4; 85:3, 5; 86:15; 90:7, 11; 102:10;
103:8f.; 106:29, 40; 145:8; Prov. 22:14; 24:18; Eccl. 5:6; Isa. 5:25;
9:12, 17, 21; 10:4f., 25; 12:1; 13:3, 9, 13; 30:27, 30; 42:25; 47:6; 48:9;
54:8f.; 57:16f.; 63:3, 6; 64:5, 9; 66:15; Jer. 2:35; 3:5, 12; 4:8, 26; 7:18,
20; 8:19; 10:24; 11:17; 12:13; 15:14; 17:4; 18:23; 21:5; 23:20; 25:6f.,
37f.; 30:24; 32:29–32, 37; 33:5; 36:7; 42:18; 44:3, 6, 8; 49:37; 51:45;
52:3; Lam. 1:12; 2:1, 3, 21f.; 3:43, 66; 4:11; 5:22; Ezek. 5:13, 15; 7:3,
8; 8:17; 13:13; 16:26, 42; 20:8, 21; 22:20; 25:14; 35:11; 38:18; 43:8;
Dan. 9:16; Hos. 8:5; 11:9; 13:11; 14:4; Joel 2:13; Jonah 3:9; 4:2; Mic.
5:15; 7:18; Nah. 1:3, 6; Hab. 3:8, 12; Zeph. 2:2f.; 3:8; Zech. 1:2, 12,
15; 7:12; 10:3; Mal. 1:4; Matt. 18:34; 22:7; Mark 3:5; Luke 14:21;
Rev. 14:10).
42. Again, because of the temporal and progressive nature of scriptural
revelation, historical events organically “point” to their protological
introduction and eschatological conclusion. Thus historical judgments
upon human sin inherently prophesy the eschatological judgment. In
this way, much of the prophetic language and imagery concerning the
day of the Lord is developed (cf. Jer. 46:21; Ezek. 21:29; Hos. 5:9;
Amos 3:14; Mic. 7:4; Zeph. 1:9).
43. “ ,” HALOT, 1226; cf. John M. Bracke, “ (rîb I),” NIDOTTE,
3:1105–6.
44. See “βῆμα,” BDAG, 134.
45. Note the usage of Heb. gemul/gamal (“recompense/to recompense”)
(Ps. 28:4; 94:2; 103:10; 116:12; 137:8; Isa. 3:11; 35:4; 59:18; 66:6; Jer.
51:6; Lam. 3:64; Joel 3:7; Obad. 15); see J. P. Lewis, “360
(gāmal),” TWOT, 166–67.
46. Richard Hiers describes, “Little scholarly attention has been devoted
to this topic, in contrast, for example, to closely related topics like the
coming of the Son of Man and the kingdom of God. One suspects that
 modern scholars prefer to deal with more congenial subjects. . . . Only
those willing to acknowledge as significant the eschatological
orientation within apocalyptic Judaism, Jesus’ teaching, and the NT
churches are prepared to recognize the nature and importance of their
beliefs and expectations concerning the coming time or day of
judgment” (“Day of Judgment,” ABD, 2:81).
47. Though rejecting a literal interpretation of Genesis 1–3, J. V. Fesko
well articulates, “The categories of the beginning are embedded in
eschatology, the creation of the heavens and earth become the new
heavens and earth (Isa. 65:17; 66:22) and the garden of Eden reappears
in the book of Revelation (2:7; cf. Isa. 51:3; Zech. 1:17). The broader
category of protology enables one to consider matters of ontology, or
systematic theology, but also redemptive history, or biblical theology.
Under this broader rubric of protology one can see the connections
between anthropology and christology, the first and second Adams,
and protology and eschatology, Genesis and Revelation, the beginning
and the end, the alpha and omega” (Last Things First: Unlocking
Genesis 1–3 with the Christ of Eschatology [Fearn, Scotland: Mentor,
2007], 33–34).
48. H. H. Rowley describes well the spiritual fortitude derived from the
apocalyptic worldview: “The apocalypticists believed in God, and
believed that He had some purpose for the world He had made, and
that His power was equal to its achievement. Their faith goes beyond
the faith in the divine control of history, indeed. It is a faith in the
divine initiative in history for the attainment of its final goal. Such a
belief is fundamental to the Christian view of God and the world” (The
Relevance of Apocalyptic: A Study of Jewish and Christian
Apocalypses from Daniel to the Revelation, rev. ed. [New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1946], 152).
49. Though I disagree with their incorporation of “realized eschatology”
(see the introduction; to be discussed further at the end of this chap.), I
am indebted to Clifford and Johnson for the “linchpin” phraseology
(see Ross Clifford and Philip Johnson, The Cross Is Not Enough:
Living as Witnesses to the Resurrection [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012],
chap. 1).
50. On the “center” of biblical theology, see chap. 8, n. 2.
51. Thus the spiritual realization of the day of the Lord and the
resurrection of the dead incurs such harsh apostolic condemnation (see
esp. 2 Thess. 2:2 and 2 Tim. 2:18; cf. 1 Cor. 15:12ff.). Realized
eschatology breaks the basic apocalyptic framework of redemptive
history.
52. Though realized eschatology is often argued to be the unifying reality
between the Old and New Testaments, I would argue that its
incorporation actually breaks the unity of the Scriptures because the
supposed present “fulfillment” (i.e., realization) of Jewish eschatology
is fundamentally different from what is prophesied in the Tanakh—cf.
Daniel P. Fuller, The Unity of the Bible: Unfolding God’s Plan for
Humanity (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992); Walter C. Kaiser Jr.,
Recovering the Unity of the Bible: One Continuous Story, Plan, and
Purpose (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009); and G. K. Beale, A New
Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in
the New (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011).
53. Passages commonly associated with realized eschatology (e.g., Matt.
12:28; Luke 17:21; etc.) are addressed in the appendix.
54. See Oscar Cullmann, Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian
Conception of Time and History, trans. Floyd V. Filson (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1950); and Cullmann, Salvation in History, trans. S. G.
Sowers (New York: Harper & Row, 1967). Though I applaud
Cullmann’s emphasis on the Jewish, linear view of history (along with
his spirited condemnation of Platonism), I reject his distortion of that
timeline through realized eschatology (see esp. Christ and Time, 81–
93; and Salvation in History, 166–85).
55. “The word used to express eternity, αἰών (‘age’), is the same word that
is also applied to a limited division of time; otherwise expressed,
between what we call eternity and what we call time, that is, between
everlasting continuing time and limited time, the New Testament
makes absolutely no difference in terminology. Eternity is the endless
succession of the ages (αἰώνες)” (Cullmann, Christ and Time, 62).
56. “The LXX generally translates ʿōlām by aiōn which has essentially the
same range of meaning. That neither the Hebrew nor the Greek word
in itself contains the idea of endlessness is shown both by the fact that
they sometimes refer to events or conditions that occurred at a definite
 point in the past, and also by the fact that sometimes it is thought
desirable to repeat the word, not merely saying ‘forever,’ but ‘forever
and ever’” (Allan A. Macrae, “1631a [ʿôlām],” TWOT, 673).
57. As Calvin Schoonhoven points out,
In Platonic and Hellenistic thought eternity was often conceived
of as timelessness. According to this tradition man’s final goal
is to seek to escape from time into timelessness, i.e., into
eternity (cf. Plato Phaedo 79, 106e–108a; Symposium 208a;
Republic 611a–b; Timaeus 27d–28a). . . .
From the biblical perspective such a dualism, which posits an
exclusive and qualitative difference between time and eternity,
is false. In the understanding of the writers of the OT and NT,
eternity is not timelessness but endless time. . . .
The NT, like the LXX, used Gk aiōn (translated ‘age’) for
eternity. This same word is used for a long but limited duration
of time. The use of identical terms for both everlastingly
continuing time and limited time emphasizes the notion of
eternity as an endless succession of ages. Time is not demeaned
in the NT, but rather exalted. (“Eternity,” ISBE, 2:162–63)
58. This simplicity (in contrast to the ambiguities created by existentialism
and realized eschatology) is one of the reasons J. Christiaan Beker
preferred the term apocalyptic: “The reader may well ask: Why use the
term apocalyptic at all? My reasons for using ‘apocalyptic’ are
twofold: first of all, the term ‘apocalyptic’ guards against the
multivalent and often chaotic use of the concept of ‘eschatology’ in
modern times. . . . The use of the term apocalyptic clarifies the future-
temporal character of Paul’s gospel. Second, apocalyptic denotes an
end-time occurrence that is both cosmic-universal and definitive. . . .
The term ‘apocalyptic’ refers more clearly than the general term
‘eschatology’ to the specificity and extent of the end-time occurrence”
(Paul’s Apocalyptic Gospel: The Coming Triumph of God
[Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982], 14).
59. There has been extensive theological debate over the interpretation and
translation of “age” (Gk. aiōn) and “world” (Gk. kosmos). The reason
for the linguistic and theological overlap between aiōn and kosmos (cf.
esp. Matt. 13:22; Luke 16:8; Rom. 12:2; 1 Cor. 2:6; 2 Cor. 4:4; 1 Tim.
 6:17; 2 Tim. 4:10; Heb. 1:2; 11:3) is due to the fact that “this world”
and “this age” hold historical continuity with “the world to come” and
“the age to come,” and thus they hold many assumed commonalities.
The introduction of metaphysical dualism (i.e., “this world” versus
“the world beyond”) breaks the continuum and confounds the
commonalities.
60. More realistically, the early church simply assumed and carried over
the main Jewish apocalyptic themes, as patristic scholar Brian E.
Daley summarizes:
Risky though it always is to speak of a consensus among
theologians, one may at least discern the outlines of a common
eschatological doctrine, as well as these common axioms or
presuppositions, emerging in the writings we have studied,
despite many variations of interpretation and emphasis on the
part of individual writers.
(a) Central, for instance, to the early Christian theological
tradition is what has been called a “linear” view of history: the
conviction that history has an origin and an end, both rooted in
the plan and the power of God. . . .
(b) Equally central to Patristic eschatological thought is the
insistence that the fulfillment of human history must include the
resurrection of the body. . . .
(c) Following the expectations of both the Jewish Scriptures
and the New Testament, early Christian writers also agreed on
the prospect of God’s universal judgment. . . . And it is Christ,
God’s Word made flesh, who will embody and execute that
judgment by coming to be visibly present again at the end of its
history. (The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of
Patristic Eschatology [New York: Cambridge University Press,
1991], 219–20; italics in the original)
61. This conclusion informs the apocalyptic context to Jesus’ declaration,
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt.
28:18). I believe Jesus is simply saying that he has been entrusted with
judging the living and the dead on the last day (cf. John 5:22–27; Acts
10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1). Until that day, his followers are called to disciple
the Gentiles into the Jewish narrative (Matt. 28:19a), warning them of
 the impending day of judgment and baptizing them as a confirmation
of their forgiveness and salvation from the wrath to come (Matt.
28:19b). The complete lack of reference to the day of the Lord in
modern commentaries concerning Matt. 28:18 is simply astonishing—
cf. France (NICNT), Hagner (WBC), Turner (BECNT), Carson (EBC),
Nolland (NIGTC), Davies and Allison (ICC), Albright and Mann
(AB), Luz (Hermeneia), Wilkins (NIVAC), Blomberg (NAC), Morris
(PNTC), etc. Such is the product of realized eschatology (see chap. 9,
n. 4).
62. Note the pseudepigraphic Life of Adam and Eve: “Indeed, six days
after Adam died, Eve, aware that she would die, gathered all her sons
and daughters, Seth with thirty brothers and thirty sisters, and Eve said
to (them) all, ‘Listen to me, my children, and I will tell you that I and
your father transgressed the command of God, and the archangel
Michael said to us, “Because of your collusion, our LORD will bring
over your race the wrath of his judgment, first by water and then by
fire; by these two the LORD will judge the whole human race”’” (49.1–
3; OTP, 2:292).
63. Note the metaphor of “chaff,” which is also used extensively in the
Tanakh to refer to the wicked in relation to divine judgment and the
day of the Lord (Ps. 1:4; 35:5; 83:13; Isa. 17:13; 29:5; 33:11; 40:24;
41:15; Jer. 13:24; Dan. 2:35; Hos. 13:3; Zeph. 2:2; Mal. 4:1). The
scriptural context of John’s imprecation upon the Pharisees and
teachers of the law would have been clear to everyone.
64. Many assume that 2 Peter 3 speaks of the annihilation of materiality
unto a heavenly destiny. However, the “destruction,” Gk.
apoleia/apollumi (vv. 6, 7, 9), described concerns sin and
unrighteousness, both in the heavens and upon the earth. Just as the
earth was destroyed by water in the flood (v. 6), so also will the
heavens and earth be destroyed by fire on the day of the Lord (v. 7).
The earth was not annihilated in the flood, but rather cleansed. The
passing away (Gk. parerchomai, v. 10a) of the heavens and the burning
with intense heat (Gk. kausoō, v. 10b) of the earth and its works are
simply summarized in v. 11 as “all things are to be destroyed” (NASB)
—the “all things” being evil entities in the heavens and upon the earth
(cf. Rom. 11:36; 1 Cor. 8:6; Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:16–18), which make
 them a “home of unrighteousness,” so to speak. The “elements” (Gk.
stoicheion) of the earth (v. 10) and of the heavens (v. 12) are generally
understood in the NT as “sinful ways” or “principles” (cf. Gal. 4:3, 9;
Col. 2:8, 20; Heb. 5:12). It is the base depravity of demonic powers in
the heavens and demonized human beings upon the earth that will be
destroyed on the day of the Lord. The heavens and the earth will
endure this destruction and become “a world filled with God’s
righteousness” (v. 13, NLT), just as the earth endured the destruction of
ungodly people during the flood.
65. See 4 Ezra 7:35ff.; Assumption of Moses 10:10, 19; 2 Baruch 59:10; 1
Enoch 27:1ff.; 48:9; 54:1ff.; 56:3f; 90:26f.; 103:8. See a summary of
intertestamental thought in Dale C. Allison, Resurrecting Jesus: The
Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters (New York: T & T
Clark, 2005), 81–82.
66. “The imagery is drawn from the fires in the valley of Hinnom outside
of Jerusalem and perhaps the stream of fire issuing from God’s throne
(Is 30:33; Dn 7:10; cf. Is 34:9, 10). The picture was known to Jewish
as well as Christian writers (Assumption of Moses 10:10; 2 Esdras
7:36). Whatever the image or name, they all point to a place of eternal
torment and separation from God where the unrepentant will suffer
forever” (Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Lake of Fire,” Baker
Encyclopedia of the Bible [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988], 1299).
67. Rabbi David Kimhi referenced this common tradition in his
commentary on Psalm 27 (c. 1200): “Gehenna is a repugnant place,
into which filth and cadavers are thrown, and in which fires
perpetually burn in order to consume the filth and bones; on which
account, by analogy, the judgment of the wicked is called ‘Gehenna’”
(quoted in Lloyd R. Bailey, “Gehenna: The Topography of Hell,”
Biblical Archaeologist 49 [September 1986]: 188). See also Joachim
Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, trans. F. H. and C. H. Cave
(London: SCM Press, 1969), 16–17. Modern scholarship, however,
increasingly rejects this testimony (see D. F. Watson, “Gehenna,”
ABD, 2:926–28; and Bailey, “Gehenna,” 189).
68. Otto Böcher, “γέεννα,” EDNT, 1:240.
69. Unfortunately, historical English translations use the same word,
“hell,” to translate both. If we are going to continue to use the term
 “hell,” then it must be reserved for either hadēs or gehenna. I prefer
the latter for evangelical consistency (most modern translations have
followed this path by transliterating sheol and hadēs). Translating
gehenna as “hell” is fine as long as we actually associate “hell” with a
future reality upon the earth. However, the Old English and Germanic
roots (hel, helle, hölle, holja) almost universally refer to the present
“underworld” or “nether world,” which corresponds to sheol/hadēs
(see “Hell,” The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, ed. C. T.
Onions [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966], 435).
70. See Gen. 37:35; 42:38; 44:29, 31; Num. 16:30, 33; Deut. 32:22; 1
Sam. 2:6; 1 Kings 2:6, 9, 34; Ps. 6:5; 9:17; 16:10; 18:5; 30:3; 31:17;
49:15f.; 55:15; 86:13; 88:3; 89:48; 139:8; 141:7; Prov. 1:12; 2:18; 5:5;
7:27; 9:18; 14:12; 15:11, 24; 27:20; 30:16; Eccl. 9:10; Isa. 5:14; 14:9,
11, 15, 19; 28:15, 18; 38:10, 18; 57:9; Ezek. 31:15–17; 32:27; Hos.
13:14; Amos 9:2; Jonah 2:3; Hab. 2:5; Matt. 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15;
16:23; Acts 2:27, 31; Rev. 1:18; 6:8; 20:13f. Though not authoritative,
firsthand accounts of near-death survivors who testify of the wicked
being held within the earth do seem to accord with the testimony of the
Scriptures (see Bill Wiese, 23 Minutes in Hell [Lake Mary, FL:
Charisma House, 2006]; Mary K. Baxter, A Divine Revelation of Hell
[New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1993]; and Maurice S.
Rawlings, To Hell and Back: Life After Death–Startling New
Evidence [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1993]).
71. So Joachim Jeremias explains,
Fundamental for an understanding of the γέεννα passages in the
NT, which occur only in the Synoptists and John, is the sharp
distinction made by the NT between ᾅδης and γέεννα. This
distinction is a. that Hades receives the ungodly only for the
intervening period between death and resurrection, whereas
Gehenna is their place of punishment in the last judgment; the
judgment of the former is thus provisional but the torment of the
latter eternal (Mk. 9:43 and par.; 9:48). It is then b. that the
souls of the ungodly are outside the body in Hades, whereas in
Gehenna both body and soul, reunited at the resurrection, are
destroyed by eternal fire (Mk. 9:43 and par., 45, 47 and par., 48;
Mt. 10:28 and par.). (“γέεννα,” TDNT, 1:658)
72. Besides its many references as the abode of the dead, Hades is also
described as “under the earth” (Gk. hupokatō tēs gēs, cf. Rev. 5:3, 13)
—i.e., the “lower parts of the earth” (Gk. katōteros/katōtatos tēs gēs,
cf. Ps. 63:9; 86:13; 88:6; 139:15; Eph. 4:9) or “subterranean” (Gk.
katachthonios, cf. Phil. 2:10). It is also a “destruction, corruption pit”
(Gk. diaphthora, cf. Job 33:28; Ps. 16:10; 55:23; Acts 2:27, 31; 13:34–
36), and it is the “death [place]” (Gk. thanatos, cf. Ps. 18:4–5; 116:3;
Acts 2:24; Rev. 1:18; 20:13). And it is the “deep” or “depths” (Gk.
bathos/bothros, cf. Ps. 69:15; 130:1; Isa. 7:11; Ezek. 26:20; 31:14;
32:21–23; Rom. 8:39). It is so deep that it is depicted as bottomless,
and thus it is referred to as an “abyss” (Gk. abussos, e.g., Ps. 71:20;
135:6; Ezek. 31:15; Luke 8:31; Rom. 10:7; Rev. 9:1; 20:1–3), and its
lowest levels (Gk. tartaros, cf. 2 Peter 2:4) are reserved for Satan and
his angels (see “ταρταρόω,” BDAG, 991).
73. See John F. Walvoord, “The Literal View,” in Four Views on Hell
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 11–28. Though Walvoord argues
for eternal punishment by real fire, his presentation lacks the historical
context of Jewish apocalypticism and thus the substantiality of a real
place.
74. A plain reading of these texts contradicts the annihilationist arguments
of Edward W. Fudge, The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and
Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment, 3rd ed. (Eugene,
OR: Cascade Books, 2011); Clark H. Pinnock, “The Destruction of the
Finally Impenitent,” Criswell Theological Review 4 (Spring 1990):
243–59; and Pinnock, “The Conditional View,” in Four Views on Hell,
135–66. Why would the fire remain forever yet its purposes pass
away? Why are eternal life and eternal judgment consistently
contrasted (cf. Matt. 13:42–43; 25:46; John 3:16; 5:29; Rom. 2:7–8) if
they are not functional and existential opposites? Similarly, how can
aionios (eternal) refer to one thing in relation to zoē (life) and
something completely different in relation to kolasis (punishment),
olethros (destruction), and krima (judgment)? Moreover, to deny
infinite divine punishment because of human finitude (thus assuming
finite consequences of human sin) is illogical, since God is the
referent. For a thorough criticism of annihilationism, see Robert
Peterson, Hell on Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment
(Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1995); and Christopher
 Morgan and Robert Peterson, eds., Hell Under Fire: Modern
Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
2004).
75. Note also the clear references to eternal conscious torment in the
Apocrypha (Judith 16:17; Sirach 7:17; 2 Esdras 2:29; 7:38; 4
Maccabees 9:9; 10:10–15; 12:12; 13:15), the pseudepigrapha (1 Enoch
10.13; 18.9–16; 26–27; 48.8–10; 54.1–6; 56.1–4; 90.24–27; 100.7–9;
103.7–8; 108.4–7; 2 Enoch 10.1–3; 40.12–13; 63.4; 2 Baruch 30.4–5;
44.12–15; 51.6; 59.2; 64.7–10; 83.8; 85.12–13; Assumption of Moses
10:10; Jubilees 36.9–11; Sibylline Oracles 1.100–103, 349–50; 2.283–
312; 4.179–91), and the apostolic fathers (2 Clement 6:7; 17:7;
Martyrdom of Polycarp 2:3; 11:2; Epistle to Diognetus 10:7–8;
Ignatius, Ephesians 16:2; Apocalypse of Peter 20–33).
76. Daley continues his summary of patristic thought: “With judgment
comes also retribution. Following the Jewish apocalyptic tradition, as
reflected in the New Testament, early Christian writers almost
universally assumed that the final state of human existence, after
God’s judgment, will be permanent and perfect happiness for the good,
and permanent, all-consuming misery for the wicked. Apocalyptic
imagery continued to dominate the conception of both these states
throughout the Patristic period, especially in the portraits drawn of the
suffering of the damned” (Hope of the Early Church, 220–21).
77. Naturalism is the most devaluing of belief systems, for human beings
are understood to be no more than a sophisticated sack of protoplasm
—as Ernst Haeckel understood the first cell, or “Monera,” to evolve
from nonlife: “a shapeless, mobile, little lump of mucus or slime,
consisting of albuminous combination of carbon” (The History of
Creation: Or the Development of the Earth and Its Inhabitants by the
Action of Natural Causes, vol. 1 [New York: D. Appelton, 1876], 184).
In practicality, this view of the constitution of life is commonly
assumed within the Western secular mind.
78. Helpful discussions on the intermediate state are found in Hoekema,
The Bible and the Future, 92–108; George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of
the New Testament, ed. Donald A. Hagner, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1993), 597–99; and Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology:
 An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1994), 810–27.
79. The doctrine of “soul sleep,” as held by Jehovah’s Witnesses and
Seventh Day Adventists, deviates from the Scriptures. Jehovah’s
Witnesses teach the annihilation of the soul at death and its re-creation
at the resurrection, while the Adventists teach that the soul is simply
inert, residing in the “memory of God.” The poetic language of
Ecclesiastes (cf. 9:5; 12:7) is not a reliable theological base for either
of these beliefs. Human souls are clearly conscious in the intermediate
state, both in Hades (cf. 1 Sam. 28:15; Isa. 14:9; Luke 16:23) as well
as heaven (cf. 2 Cor. 5:8; Rev. 6:9; 20:4). Moreover, the killing of the
body but not the soul (cf. Matt. 10:28, par.) argues for the continuance
of the soul after the death of the body. The description of death as
“sleep” (1 Cor. 15:16; 1 Thess. 4:13; etc.) is simply figurative, as Ladd
explains: “Sleep was a common term for death both in Greek and
Hebrew literature and need not carry any theological significance”
(Theology of the New Testament, 599).
80. Though a separation between the wicked and righteous within
Sheol/Hades may be assumed in the Tanakh (Why would God
command the separation of the righteous from the wicked on earth, but
not in Sheol/Hades?), it is clearly articulated intertestamentally (cf. 2
Esdras 7:75–101; 4 Maccabees 13:17; 1 Enoch 22; Apocalypse of
Zephaniah 9–12; Testament of Abraham 20:14). This gives reasonable
context to Jesus’ teaching on Lazarus and the rich man in Hades (Luke
16:19–31). Though the eschatological judgment is not immediately
referenced, it is assumed by apocalyptic references in the surrounding
context—i.e., “give an account” (16:2), “eternal dwellings” (16:9),
“the kingdom of God” (16:16), “heaven and earth to pass away”
(16:17).
81. “The tracing of the concept of mercy in the Eng. Bible is complicated
by the fact that ‘mercy’, ‘merciful’ and ‘have mercy upon’ are
translations of several different Heb. and Gk. roots, which are also
variously rendered in other occurrences by other synonyms, such as
‘kindness,’ ‘grace,’ ‘favour’ (and cognate verbs)” (J. W. L. Hoad,
“Mercy, Merciful,” NBD, 751).
82. “Cruciform” is here applied theologically to redemptive history,
apocalyptically understood, in contrast to the non-apocalyptic,
participationist application of “cruciformity” in Michael J. Gorman,
Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2001); cf. Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis,
Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009).
83. Take Leon Morris, for example: “It may be doubted whether
apocalyptic is a very good vehicle for the expression of the
characteristic Christian message. Christianity puts its emphasis on the
cross. . . . In the apocalyptic literature, on the other hand, the emphasis
is always on the last judgment and the events associated with it. . . .
We cannot have it both ways. Granted that both the incarnation and the
End are important, both cannot be the really significant thing. For the
apocalypses there is the concentration on the future. In Christianity
there is the recognition that the incarnation, with the atonement as its
high point, is the most important event of all time” (Apocalyptic, 2nd
ed. [London: InterVarsity, 1973], 96–97). In contrast, I believe both
comings are “the really significant thing,” and thus we can indeed
“have it both ways.”
84. Though excelling in a theology of the cross and atonement, Morris
exemplifies the bias against apocalypticism so prevalent in Reformed
theology:
Apocalyptic is not a good medium for expressing “the cruciality
of the cross” and in fact it does not express it. Where the New
Testament writers are concerned with the last things and final
judgment they can use apocalyptic vividly and forcefully. But
where they deal with Christ’s saving work they use categories
like justification by faith, reconciliation, the new covenant
sealed with Christ’s blood, and others. Here apocalyptic is not
helpful. The New Testament writers do not use it and we can
see why. Apocalyptic is simply not suitable as a way of bringing
out such truths. And since Christ’s atoning work is the central
doctrine of New Testament Christianity, apocalyptic fails us at
the heart of the faith. (Ibid., 100)
85. As Paul rejected the humanistic approach of the circumcision group in
regard to atonement (cf. Gal. 2:12ff.; Eph. 2:11ff.; Titus 1:10ff.), so
Jesus rejected the humanistic approach of the zealots (and those
Pharisees sympathetic to them) in regard to salvation (cf. Matt.
16:22ff.; Luke 17:20ff.; John 3:3ff.). As Johannes Weiss well
articulated, “How can one expect even the slightest inclination on
Jesus’ part towards any kind of revolutionary act? By force and
insurrection men might establish a Davidic monarchy, perhaps even as
glorious a kingdom as David’s had been; but God will establish the
Kingdom of God without human hands, horse, or rider, with only his
angels and celestial powers. . . . This is not to say that he did not
believe in any kind of political restoration; but that only God should
bring it about” (Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God, trans. R.
H. Hiers and D. L. Holland [German original, 1892; Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1971], 102–3).
86. See Martin Luther, “A Brief Instruction on What to Look for and
Expect in the Gospels (1521),” LW, 35:113–24.
87. Note how Jesus follows this account with the parable of the barren fig
tree (vv. 6–9), insinuating that trials are designed to be divine fertilizer
(v. 8), resulting in repentance and spiritual fruitfulness.
88. See Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-
Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).
89. Beker, Paul’s Apocalyptic Gospel, 61.
90. Benedict T. Viviano, The Kingdom of God in History (Wilmington,
DE: Michael Glazier, 1988). Viviano’s four categories (eschatological,
spiritual-mystical, political, and ecclesial) are here condensed into
three (eschatological, escapist, and dominionistic), since “the political
stream” (pp. 45–51) and “the ecclesial stream” (pp. 51–56) seem to
derive from the same theology/ideology. Generally, the same streams
played out in the Middle Ages (pp. 57–80) and the “early modern
period” (pp. 81–122). Only in the twentieth century (pp. 123–48) was
the Jewish apocalyptic vision resurrected, and so Viviano traces “the
recovery or retrieval of the original eschatological kingdom
proclamation of Jesus” (p. 123).
91. The Republic, 7:517 (DP, 3:217).
92. As Plato described,
Now the nature of the ideal being was everlasting, but to bestow
this attribute in its fulness upon a creature was impossible.
Wherefore he [“the creator”] resolved to have a moving image
of eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he made this
image eternal but moving according to number, while eternity
itself rests in unity; and this image we call time. For there were
no days and nights and months and years before the heaven was
created, but when he constructed the heaven he created them
also. They are all parts of time, and the past and future are
created species of time, which we unconsciously but wrongly
transfer to the eternal essence. . . . These are the forms of time,
which imitates eternity and revolves according to a law of
number. (Timaeus, 37–38 [DP, 3:456]; information in brackets
added)
93. George E. Ladd summarizes,
The Greeks—at least many of them who followed in the
philosophical tradition of Plato—believed in a cosmic dualism.
There were two worlds—the seen and the unseen, the visible
and the invisible, the phenomenal and the noumenal. The visible
world was a realm of ebb and flow, flux and change, instability,
having only the appearance of reality. The unseen world was the
world of permanence, of ultimate reality. In the same way man
was a dualism of body and soul. The body belongs to the
phenomenal world, the soul to the noumenal world. . . .
“Salvation”—a biblical, not a Greek concept—meant that at
death the soul would be liberated from the body and take its
flight to the noumenal world. (The Last Things [Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1978], 29–30)
94. “For Plato, eternity is not endlessly extended time, but something quite
different; it is timelessness. Time in Plato’s view is only the copy of
eternity thus understood. How much the thinking of our days roots in
Hellenism, and how little in Biblical Christianity, becomes clear to us
when we confirm the fact that far and wide the Christian Church and
Christian theology distinguish time and eternity in the Platonic-Greek
manner. This then has important consequences, and when the New
 Testament perspective of redemptive history is thereby affected, it
leads to a radical transformation of the Primitive Christian preaching”
(Cullmann, Christ and Time, 61–62).
95. Moltmann describes the transition: “The first reduction of heaven to
something quite different was made in the Christian church itself. As
the realistic eschatology of the kingdom of God receded, heaven was
increasingly—and to the same degree—declared to be the place of
salvation for the soul. The prayer for the coming of the kingdom ‘on
earth as it is in heaven’ was replaced by the longing ‘to go to heaven’
oneself. The kingdom of God’s glory and the salvation of the whole
creation was reduced to heaven; and heaven was reduced to the
salvation of the soul” (God in Creation, 181).
96. Origen, On First Principles, 2.3.7 (ANF, 4:274–75). Therefore, “It is
simply assumed that the word heaven is the appropriate term for the
ultimate destination, the final home, and that the language of
resurrection, and of the new earth as well as the new heavens, must
somehow be fitted into that” (N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope:
Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
[New York: HarperOne, 2008], 19).
97. See an account in Blaising, Three Views on the Millennium, 160–74.
98. Concerning Origen, Hans Bietenhard also observed, “The whole hope
of the Christian is therefore a hope of heaven: the earth is not worthy
of a Christian’s hope. But this meant a complete abandonment of the
Christian conception of time. A Greek dualism of above and below
replaced the NT contrast between this world and the world to come”
(“The Millennial Hope in the Early Church,” SJT 6, no. 1 [1953]: 21).
99. As rehearsed in Alister E. McGrath, A Brief History of Heaven
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2003); and Peter Stanford, Heaven: A Guide to
the Undiscovered Country (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
100. Douglas J. Davies, A Brief History of Death (Oxford: Blackwell,
2005), 7.
101. Such a view naturally leads to the denigration of all things earthly,
including the Jewish narrative—as we see in Origen: “For which
reason, now, we may also see of a truth that all the doctrines of the
Jews of the present day are mere trifles and fables, since they have not
 the light that proceeds from the knowledge of the Scriptures; whereas
those of the Christians are the truth, having power to raise and elevate
the soul and understanding of man, and to persuade him to seek a
citizenship, not like the earthly Jews here below, but in heaven”
(Against Celsus, 2.5 [ANF, 4:431–32]).
102. So Daley notes, “From the end of the second century (Tertullian),
Patristic writers begin also to suggest the prospect of a judgment
pronounced by God at the end of each individual’s life. . . . From
Tertullian on . . . most Greek and Latin Patristic authors confidently
accept Platonic philosophical arguments that the soul, as the conscious
and self-determining core of the human person, is indestructible, and
so anticipates its eternal fate, through a preliminary personal judgment,
from the moment of death” (Hope of the Early Church, 220; italics in
the original).
103. Within this view, Gehenna and Hades are melded into one
homogenous, static, and immaterial reality, which exists eternally and
is experienced by the wicked universally upon death. Unfortunately,
damages done in the body lose their proportionate retribution in an
incorporeal hell. Why would God punish us for destroying that which
he is ultimately going to destroy? By analogy, if I have a rusty antique
car in my backyard that I am planning to restore to mint condition, and
someone comes and destroys it with a sledgehammer, then I would
seek restitution in accord with its perceived value, both inherent and
potential. However, if I am planning on towing the car to the junkyard
in a couple of months to have it crushed, then why should I seek
vengeance if it is wrecked? The same logic applies to redemptive
history. God created something beautiful and valuable; human beings
wrecked it, and God will be vindicated when he makes them pay
corporeally for damages done.
104. For a detailed history of monastic thought and practice, see Bernard
McGinn, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian
Mysticism, 5 vols. (New York: Crossroad, 1991–2012).
105. Athanasius of Alexandria, Life of Anthony 16–19 (NPNF2, 4:200–
201).
106. Martin Luther, “The Judgment of Martin Luther on Monastic Vows
(1521),” LW, 44:265; cf. also Luther, “Avoiding the Doctrines of Men
 (1522),” LW, 35:125–53.
107. As most clearly articulated in the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518; see
Gerhard O. Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on
Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1995).
108. For example, Luther describes,
The outward life of the Turks [Muslims] is said to be marked by
a semblance of piety. They pray, fast, give alms, establish
charitable institutions, and build churches. They are ready to
help others. And with this appearance of holiness they deceive
many people. Thus the pope also duped us. At the time we did
not know better, but we believed that monastic orders and
monkeries were the proper and correct way to heaven. Anyone
who is not well armed with this article of faith and has not
pressed it deep into his heart falls easy prey to the shining
external gleam of holiness as well as to the prominent names of
prophets and teachers. But because they have devised such a
variety of ways to heaven, we will tell them: “We will stick to
the one Way to heaven and adhere to Him who descended and
simultaneously remained above.” (LW, 22:335; italics added)
109. See esp. Viviano, The Kingdom of God in History, 45–56.
110. Eusebius of Caesarea, Oration in Praise of Constantine, 16.4–8
(NPNF2, 1:606–7).
111. G. F. Chesnut thus describes the worldview of Eusebius:
As a radical Origenist, he rejected the apocalyptic idea of a
future millennial kingdom of Christ on earth in favor of a more
Platonic concept of immortal life in some supercosmic realm.
But he also believed that this present cosmos would come to a
cataclysmic end at some point several generations (or at most
several centuries) after his own time. In a kind of “expanded
eschatology” the events of the apocalyptic end times were
spread out over hundreds of years. The Pax Romana which
began under the emperor Augustus was identified by Eusebius
with the eschatological kingdom of peace (Isa 2:1–4; Mic 4:1–
4), while the emperor Constantine and his descendants were
 “the saints of the Most High” (Dan 7:18), the eschatological
rulers who were to govern Rome, the fourth kingdom (Dan
2:31–45), until the final tribulation, when the world would be
destroyed and the last judgment held. (“Eusebius of Caesarea,”
ABD, 2:675)
112. See David Chilton, “Appendix A. The Eschatology of Dominion: A
Summary,” in Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion
(Tyler, TX: Dominion Press, 1985), 223–35. Modern dominionists
thus often look to Constantine as the exemplar of the faith and the first
major breakthrough of the dominionistic “kingdom of God.”
113. “Thus in 1933, Adolf Hitler, a romantic Austrian political dreamer
before he acquired power, announced the Third Reich, that is, the
Third embodiment of the Holy Roman Empire, which, in Eusebian
terms, is the kingdom of God on earth! This lithesome project ended in
flames in 1945” (Viviano, Kingdom of God in History, 49).
114. As articulated by Albrecht Ritschl (1822–89) and his disciple Adolf
von Harnack (1851–1930); see esp. Ritschl, The Christian Doctrine of
Justification and Reconciliation (1900); and Harnack, What Is
Christianity? (1901).
115. The social gospel movement of the early twentieth century was
generally a practical application of liberal kingdom theology,
spearheaded in America by Washington Gladden (1836–1918) and
Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918); see esp. Gladden, Social
Salvation (1902); and Rauschenbusch, A Theology for the Social
Gospel (1917). Rauschenbusch’s work, in particular, outlines in the
plainest of terms the complete realization of Jewish apocalyptic
thought in the New Testament.
116. Modern dominionistic theologies include “Christian
reconstructionism,” “theonomy,” “Kingdom Now,” “dominion
theology,” “kingdom theology,” etc. These movements are split
distinctly into two groups: Reformed and charismatic (see the complex
interrelationships in Bruce Barron, Heaven on Earth? The Social and
Political Agendas of Dominion Theology [Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1992]). The former includes R. J. Rushdoony, G. Bahnsen, G. North,
K. Gentry, R. Sutton, and G. DeMar. The latter includes K. Hagin, K.
Copeland, B. Mumford, J. Hayford, and C. P. Wagner. Foremost
 dominionist practitioner C. P. Wagner estimated that by 2025 “almost
50 percent” of the church worldwide will be dominionistic in their
theology and practice (C. Peter Wagner, Dominion! How Kingdom
Action Can Change the World [Grand Rapids: Chosen, 2008], 73)—an
exaggerated claim, but frightening nonetheless.
117. “Ecclesiastically the term applies to Christ’s earthly representatives. In
the Roman Church it means the pope, who (as the ‘Vicar of Christ’)
claims universal jurisdiction from Christ’s words to Peter (John
21:16ff.), and until the ninth century it referred also to emperors” (C.
G. Thorne Jr., “Vicar,” New International Dictionary of the Christian
Church, ed. J. D. Douglas, Earle E. Cairns, and James E. Ruark [Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1978], 1016).
118. Augustine, City of God, 20.9.1 (NPNF1, 2:430). The impact of City of
God is difficult to calculate, as its theology became ubiquitous to
Catholics and Protestants alike; see an excellent analysis in Dan
Gruber, The Church and the Jews: The Biblical Relationship (Hanover,
NH: Elijah Publishing, 1997), 213–32.
119. “The Middle Ages on the whole did not understand well the this-
worldly future dimension of the kingdom of God. This was so due to
three factors: a widespread ignorance of the apocalyptic Jewish
background of this expectation, together with an acute Platonizing
longing for the eternal, for a place outside of time and history. This is
the first factor. To it we must add the Augustinian transformation of
the kingdom into the church militant and triumphant, and lastly the
imperial ideology of the Christian empire as the kingdom of God on
earth” (Viviano, Kingdom of God in History, 57).
120. See ibid., 57–99. Note Viviano’s description of the tensions of
Augustine’s theology: “Augustine was attracted to the spiritual
interpretation of the kingdom we have already seen in Origen. Indeed,
ultimately, for Augustine, the kingdom of God consists in eternal life
with God in heaven. That is the civitas dei, the city of God, as opposed
to the civitas terrena. That is his basic view. But, unlike Origen, he
lived in the Christian empire. He could not ignore its claims to
theological attention. Again, unlike Origen, he was a Roman who
shared the Latin outlook of practical administration. . . . He had to take
the church seriously as an institution” (pp. 52–53).
121. In this way, the modern “prosperity gospel” seems to be a popular
recapitulation of Augustinianism, in which the two axes of
Christoplatonism and Constantinianism simply work in tandem; see
David W. Jones and Russell S. Woodbridge, Health, Wealth &
Happiness: Has the Prosperity Gospel Overshadowed the Gospel of
Christ? (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2011); and Simon Coleman, The
Globalisation of Charismatic Christianity: Spreading the Gospel of
Prosperity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
122. The Bible indeed calls for meaningful asceticism (cf. Matt. 6:17; 1
Cor. 9:27; Col. 3:5; 1 Peter 2:11), but not as a denial of materiality or
means of salvation. Akin to the snake on the pole (cf. Num. 21:9; John
3:14), I believe asceticism is designed to crucify the flesh in order to
keep our hope set fully on the return of Jesus and the resurrection of
the dead (cf. Rom. 13:11–14; 1 Peter 1:13–17), while walking out this
life according to the example of the cross (cf. Gal. 2:20; Phil. 3:9; 1
Peter 2:21).
123. Eusebius relates that while marching with his army Constantine looked
up into the sky and saw “a cross of light in the heavens” with the
Greek words “εν τούτῳ νίκα,” which renders the common Latin
phrase. The following night he had a dream. “In his sleep the Christ of
God appeared to him with the same sign which he had seen in the
heavens, and commanded him to make a likeness of that sign which he
had seen in the heavens, and to use it as a safeguard in all engagements
with his enemies” (Life of Constantine 1.29; NPNF2, 1:490).
Constantine’s sign of Chi-Rho atop a cross, the “labarum,” has been
used throughout history in various mottos, seals, and coats of arms to
invoke militant imagery.
124. In his customary brash style, Martin Luther referred to Christendom
and monasticism as “popery and monkery” (“On the Councils and the
Church,” LW, 41:85), deeming them to be “the true, erring, apostate,
shameless whore of the devil” (ibid., 215).
125. See esp. works by John N. Darby, Cyrus I. Scofield, Lewis S. Chafer,
and Arno C. Gaebelein.
126. Dispensationalist historian Larry Crutchfield summarizes: “There are
three essential factors—the sine qua non of the system—in
determining who is and is not a dispensationalist. First, a
 dispensationalist makes a sharp distinction between Israel and the
church. It is the dispensationalist’s belief that throughout history, God
has purposed two distinct purposes. One program involves the earthly
people—Israel (Judaism), while the other involves a heavenly people
—the church (Christianity). According to Ryrie, this distinction
between Israel and the church ‘is probably the most basic theological
test of whether or not a man is a dispensationalist, and it is
undoubtedly the most practical and conclusive’” (The Origins of
Dispensationalism: The Darby Factor [Lanham, MD: University Press
of America, 1992], 29).
127. Lewis S. Chafer, “Dispensationalism,” BSac 93 (1936): 448; italics
added; article reprinted as Dispensationalism (Dallas: Dallas Seminary
Press, 1936). Chafer also wrote, “The distinction between the purpose
for Israel and the purpose for the Church is about as important as that
which exists between the two Testaments. Every covenant, promise,
and provision for Israel is earthly, and they continue as a nation with
the earth when it is created new. Every covenant or promise for the
church is for a heavenly reality, and she continues in heavenly
citizenship when the heavens are recreated” (Systematic Theology,
vol. 4 [Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1993], 47).
128. George N. H. Peters, The Theocratic Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus, the
Christ, vol. 1 (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1884), 88. Peters
articulates the metaphysical framework for the theocratic kingdom:
“The Word begins with the supernatural (the presence of God) and the
natural in harmony. It shows how an antagonism was produced,
causing the withdrawal of the supernatural from the sight of man, and
yet how in mercy it at times exhibited itself to man, in and through and
for man, especially in giving revelations of its will. . . . Now the
kingdom being designed to restore and manifest the original concord
once existing between the natural and supernatural, the Bible closes
with that kingdom in such accordance” (ibid., 80; italics in the
original).
129. So Chafer states,
In fact, the new, hitherto unrevealed purpose of God in the
outcalling of a heavenly people from Jews and Gentiles is so
divergent with respect to the divine purpose toward Israel,
 which purpose preceded it and will yet follow it, that the term
parenthetical, commonly employed to describe the new age-
purpose, is inaccurate. A parenthetical portion sustains some
direct or indirect relation to that which goes before or that
which follows; but the present age-purpose is not thus related
and therefore is more properly termed an intercalation. The
appropriateness of this word will be seen in the fact that, as an
interpolation is formed by inserting a word or phrase into a
context, so an intercalation is formed by introducing a day or a
period of time into the calendar. The present age of the Church
is an intercalation into the revealed calendar or program of God
as that program was foreseen by the prophets of old. Such,
indeed, is the precise character of the present age. (Systematic
Theology, 4:41; italics in the original)
130. See Oswald T. Allis, Prophecy and the Church (Philadelphia:
Presbyterian and Reformed, 1945).
131. Bruce A. Ware, “The New Covenant and the People(s) of God,” in
Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church: The Search for Definition,
ed. Craig A. Blaising and Darrell L. Bock (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1992), 91; cf. also Craig A. Blaising, “Development of
Dispensationalism by Contemporary Dispensationalists,” BSac 145
(1988): 278.
132. See esp. Charles C. Ryrie, John F. Walvoord, Alva J. McClain, and J.
Dwight Pentecost. For a history of dispensationalism and its three
phases—classical, revised, and progressive—with excellent diagrams,
see Craig A. Blaising and Darrell L. Bock, Progressive
Dispensationalism (Wheaton: Victor, 1993), 21–56; cf. also Blaising,
“Dispensationalism: The Search for Definition,” in Dispensationalism,
Israel and the Church, 13–34.
133. Thus the common emphasis on the “millennial kingdom” (cf. esp.
John F. Walvoord, The Millennial Kingdom [Findlay, OH: Dunham,
1959]), though there was disagreement as to where eternity would play
out—Ryrie argued for “heaven” (Dispensationalism Today [Chicago:
Moody, 1965], 147), while Pentecost argued for a “new earth” (Things
to Come, 561–62).
134. On “progressive dispensationalism,” see Blaising and Bock,
Progressive Dispensationalism; Blaising and Bock, Dispensationalism,
Israel and the Church; and Robert L. Saucy, The Case for Progressive
Dispensationalism: The Interface between Dispensational & Non-
Dispensational Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993). Bruce K.
Waltke summarizes the movement as a “restructuring of
dispensationalism within the framework of inaugurated eschatology”
(“A Response,” in Blaising and Bock, Dispensationalism, Israel and
the Church, 347).
135. See Weiss, Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God; Albert
Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, trans. W. Montgomery,
2nd ed. (London: A. & C. Black, 1911); and Schweitzer, The Mystery
of the Kingdom of God, trans. W. Lowrie (London: A. & C. Black,
1914).
136. This approach is fundamentally rearticulated in Dale C. Allison, Jesus
of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998); Bart
D. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); and Paula Fredriksen, Jesus
of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of
Christianity (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999).
137. Unfortunately, like so many before him, Schweitzer ultimately
concluded by redefining the Jewish apocalyptic hope:
The Baptist appears, and cries: “Repent, for the Kingdom of
Heaven is at hand.” Soon after that comes Jesus, and in the
knowledge that He is the coming Son of Man lays hold of the
wheel of the world to set it moving on that last revolution which
is to bring all ordinary history to a close. It refuses to turn, and
He throws Himself upon it. Then it does turn; and crushes Him.
Instead of bringing in the eschatological conditions, He has
destroyed them. The wheel rolls onward, and the mangled body
of the one immeasurably great Man, who was strong enough to
think of Himself as the spiritual ruler of mankind and to bend
history to His purpose, is hanging upon it still. That is His
victory and His reign. (Quest of the Historical Jesus, 368–69)
In the final analysis, Schweitzer simply recapitulated the former
liberal dogma. Concerning the commonality between Schweitzer and
 the liberalism he so vehemently criticized, Paul Schubert observed,
“Both drop Jesus’ faith in the future consummation to the bottom of
the ocean of outdated mythology, while they sail on the smooth but
treacherous surface of this ocean in the same boat of Jesus’ social
ethics toward the promised land of a Christian civilization” (“The
Synoptic Gospels and Eschatology,” Journal of Bible and Religion 14,
no. 3 [1946]: 155).
138. C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom, 3rd ed. (London: Nisbet,
1936); cf. Gustaf Dalman, The Words of Jesus, trans. D. M. Kay
(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1902).
139. Dodd’s work leaned heavily on Dalman, who generally rejected the
Jewish apocalyptic hope in place of a generic and transcendental
“sovereignty of heaven” (Words of Jesus, 92). Though it is often said
that “Dodd’s thought is more platonic than biblical” (Ladd, Theology
of the New Testament, 56), I believe his thought is more accurately
recapitulated Augustinianism (see esp. the conclusion of Parables of
the Kingdom, pp. 206–10). His ideas about the consummation of the
kingdom in “the transcendent order beyond space and time” (Parables
of the Kingdom, 56) resemble the stark metaphysical dualism of
Christoplatonism, while his beliefs in the present realization of the
divine sovereignty resemble Constantinian theology. Dodd assigned
the Jewish apocalyptic language to the former, while justifying the
latter with the parables and specific verses, such as Matt. 12:28; Mark
1:15; Luke 17:21; etc. (see the appendix for a rebuttal).
140. C. K. Barrett, “New Testament Eschatology,” SJT 6, no. 2 (June
1953): 155.
141. Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, trans. S. H. Hooke, rev. ed.
(New York: Scribner’s, 1963), 230; cf. W. G. Kümmel, Promise and
Fulfillment, trans. D. M. Barton (London: SCM Press, 1957); and
Norman Perrin, The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963).
142. See Oscar Cullmann, Christ and Time, trans. F. V. Filson
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1950); and Herman Ridderbos, The
Coming of the Kingdom, trans. H. de Jongste (Philadelphia:
Presbyterian and Reformed, 1962); cf. similar lines of thought in
 Geerhardus Vos, The Pauline Eschatology (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1930).
143. Note the contrasting timelines in Vos (Pauline Eschatology, 38) and
Culmann (Christ and Time, 82), upon which Ladd built (Theology of
the New Testament, 66–67).
144. See a discussion concerning the phrase in Hoekema, The Bible and the
Future, 1–22; and Thomas R. Schreiner, New Testament Theology:
Magnifying God in Christ (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 41–116.
145. Phrases that Oscar Cullmann coined: “The new element in the New
Testament is not eschatology, but what I call the tension between the
decisive ‘already fulfilled’ and the ‘not yet completed,’ between
present and future” (Salvation in History, 172). Cullmann illustrated
this view with his World War II D-day, V-day analogy: “The present
period of the Church is the time between the decisive battle, which has
already occurred, and the ‘Victory Day’” (Christ and Time, 145; cf. p.
84, where the analogy is laid out in full).
146. Thus N. T. Wright articulates his inaugurationalism (more honestly
than most) as the “rethinking and reworking of traditional Jewish
theology,” “redefinition of Jewish eschatology,” “reworking of the
central Jewish doctrines,” and “reimagining of Jewish eschatology”
(Paul: Fresh Perspectives [London: SPCK, 2005], 130, 136, 150, and
151, respectively).
147. Note the many similarities with how early Christian theologians
realized Jewish eschatology; cf. R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel
and Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 25–56.
148. See the fascinating background of Ladd’s life (raised a Baptist
dispensationalist) in John A. D’Elia, A Place at the Table: George
Eldon Ladd and the Rehabilitation of Evangelical Scholarship in
America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
149. George E. Ladd, Crucial Questions About the Kingdom of God (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952), 84–85. Of course, this “careful exegesis” is
based upon a mistaken realized interpretation of Matt. 11:12; 12:28;
Luke 17:21; etc. (cf. ibid., 85–94). See the appendix for a rebuttal.
150. Wright, Surprised by Hope, 123.
151. N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (London: SPCK,
2003), 470.
152. Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 67. Of course, heaven itself
does not descend to the earth, but rather the New Jerusalem descends
“out of heaven from God” (Rev. 21:2). The heavens and the earth
endure eternally, only in a righteous state (cf. Isa. 24:21; 2 Peter 3:13).
153. Bruce K. Waltke, “Kingdom Promises as Spiritual,” in Continuity and
Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and
New Testaments, ed. John S. Feinberg (Wheaton: Crossway, 1988),
275.
154. Koch, Rediscovery of Apocalyptic, 32.
155. Though worldview issues are poorly articulated, Ladd’s well-known
diagram (upon which this diagram is based) with its two merging lines
in a chronological manner seems to be the clearest representation of
the inaugurational schema (see Theology of the New Testament, 67).
156. “C. H. Dodd made a new kind of interpretation with his ‘realized
eschatology.’ He accepted the sayings of the present as the most
meaningful and interpreted eschatological language as symbolizing the
inbreaking of the eternal into the temporal, the wholly other into the
historical” (G. E. Ladd, “Kingdom of God,” ISBE, 3:24). Though
common in the academy, Ladd greatly furthered the language of
“inbreaking” in evangelicalism (cf. The Presence of the Future, 7–9,
26, 55, 89, 101, 125, 131, esp. 180–90, 256, 271, 284, 317–19, 335–
37).
157. “The theology of the kingdom of God is a theology of the invasion of
history by the God of heaven in the person of Jesus of Nazareth to
bring history to its consummation in the age to come beyond history.
The age to come may be spoken of as ‘beyond history’ because heaven
has invaded history and raised it to a higher level in the redeemed
order” (G. E. Ladd, Pattern of New Testament Truth [Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1968], 57).
158. Dodd, Parables of the Kingdom, 157, n. 2.
159. For example, N. T. Wright: “God had acted in Jesus the Messiah to
usher in the new age, to inaugurate the new covenant, to plant the
seeds of new creation. The preaching of the gospel was the means
 whereby the Spirit worked in the hearts and minds of both Jews and
Gentiles not just to give them a new religious experience, not even just
to bring them salvation, but to make them the people in whom the new
age, the Age to Come of Jewish eschatological expectation, had come
to birth” (Paul: Fresh Perspectives, 147). Or as Ladd speaks summarily
of “a present spiritual resurrection and a future bodily resurrection”
(“Historic Premillennialism,” The Meaning of the Millennium: Four
Views, ed. Robert Clouse [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1977],
32). See a systematic presentation in Beale, New Testament Biblical
Theology.
160. The relatively few Scriptures that are superficially interpreted in an
inaugurational manner (e.g., Matt. 12:28; Luke 17:21; Rom. 14:17) are
addressed in the appendix.
161. Inaugurationalists talk out of both sides of their mouth when they
insist (in an attempt to distance themselves from the atrocities of
historical Christendom) that the kingdom is not equivalent to the
church. However, if the kingdom is the rule of God in the hearts of
believers, and the church is comprised of believers, how then can the
kingdom not be equated with the church? As dispensationalist scholar
Alva J. McClain warned, “Once the Church becomes the Kingdom in
any realistic theological sense, it is impossible to draw any clear line
between principles and their implementation through political and
social devises. For the logical implications of a present ecclesiastical
kingdom are unmistakable, and historically have always led in only
one direction, i.e., political control of the state by the Church” (The
Greatness of the Kingdom: An Inductive Study of the Kingdom of
God [Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books, 1959], 438).
162. As reflected in The Presence of the Future—Ladd’s “magnum opus”
(D’Elia, A Place at the Table, 121)—which makes no substantial
reference to the cross.
Chapter Four
1. Contrary to the rising trend of creatio ex material (cf. H. Gunkel, S. R.
Driver, G. von Rad, C. Westermann, V. P. Hamilton, B. K. Waltke, and
J. H. Walton), a view commonly held in ancient Near East
cosmogonies. See the traditional view (creatio ex nihilo) defended in
Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, WBC (Dallas: Word, 1998), 12–15;
and K. A. Mathews, Genesis 1–11:26, NAC (Nashville: Broadman &
Holman, 1996), 137–44.
2. See J. Barton Payne, “2131a (rûaḥ),” TWOT, 836–37.
3. Thus John’s equating of Jesus with the Word would have been
understood (cf. John 1:1ff.), as Jürgen Moltmann summarizes, “As
Christians understand it, creation is a trinitarian process: God the
Father creates through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. So all
things are created ‘by God,’ are formed ‘through God’ and exist ‘in
God’” (The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life,
trans. M. Kohl [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997], 115).
4. Though distorted by a natural/supernatural lens, Geerhardus Vos well
articulates, “On the one hand the Spirit is the resurrection-source, on
the other He appears as the substratum of the resurrection-life, the
element, as it were, in which, as in its circumambient atmosphere the
life of the coming aeon shall be lived. He produces the event and in
continuance underlies the state which is the result of it. He is Creator
and Sustainer at once, the Creator Spiritus and the Sustainer of the
supernatural state of the future life in one” (The Pauline Eschatology
[Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1930], 163). See also Vos’s
earlier article, “The Eschatological Aspect of the Pauline Conception
of the Spirit,” in Biblical and Theological Studies (New York:
Scribner’s Sons, 1912), 209–59.
5. So Wolfhart Pannenberg: “The Spirit is at work already in creation as
God’s mighty breath, the origin of all movement and all life, and only
against this background of his activity as the Creator of all life can we
rightly understand on the one hand his work in the ecstatics of human
conscious life, and on the other hand his role in the bringing forth of
 the new life of the resurrection of the dead” (Systematic Theology,
trans. G. W. Bromiley, vol. 3 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998], 1).
6. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, trans.
M. Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 94–95; italics in the original;
cf. also pp. 9, 88, 94, 152f., 189, 192, and 270.
7. See “σημεῖον,” BDAG, 920–21.
8. Though modern textual scholarship is virtually unanimous in its
verdict that the so-called longer ending of Mark (16:9–20) is spurious,
I am quoting it here as a representative conflation of apostolic themes
found in the Gospels and Acts (see a comparison of these themes in
Craig A. Evans, Mark 8:27–16:20, WBC [Dallas: Word, 2001], 546).
9. Christology and messianic expectation is likewise associated with
miraculous signs. The Messiah was expected to come with signs
demonstrating the approval of God and the certainty of prophesied
future events (cf. Matt. 12:38; 1 Cor. 1:22). Thus the crowds
questioned, “When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this
man has done?” (John 7:31). Jesus had plainly answered such a
question previously: “The works that the Father has given me to
accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me
that the Father has sent me” (John 5:36). And when John the Baptist
sent disciples to inquire if Jesus was “the Expected One” (Matt. 11:3,
NASB), Jesus responded with the common signs of the resurrection:
“The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed
and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good
news preached to them” (Matt. 11:5; cf. Isa. 35:4ff.; 61:1ff.). As such,
Peter declared to his fellow Israelites, “Jesus of Nazareth was a man
accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God
did among you through him, as you yourselves know” (Acts 2:22,
NIV).
10. In his monumental treatment of the age to come, George N. H. Peters
summarizes,
The miracles then are assurances vouchsafed that the kingdom
will come as it is predicted. . . . Indeed there is scarcely a
feature of this kingdom foretold which is to be formed by the
special work of the Divine, that is not also confirmed to us by
 some glimpses of the Power that shall bring them forth. The
kingdom—the end—is designed to remove the curse from man
and nature, and to impart the most extraordinary blessings to
renewed man and nature, but all this is to be done through One
who, it is said, shall exert supernatural power to perform it. It is
therefore reasonable to expect that as part of the developing of
the plan itself, that when He first comes, through whom man
and nature are to be regenerated, a manifestation of power—
more abundant and superior to everything preceding—over man
and nature should be exhibited, to confirm our faith in Him and
in His kingdom. This is done, and an appeal is made to it. We
are confident that the best, most logical defense of the miracles
of Christ and of the Bible is in the line here stated, viz.,
regarding them as indicative and corroborative of God’s
promises relating to the future destiny of the Church and world.
The miracles are thus found to be essential, to answer a divine
purpose, to supply a requisite evidence; and hence in the
Scriptures they are called “signs” (σημεὶα) of something else
intended; signs that the Word shall be fulfilled in the exertion of
power. (The Theocratic Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus, the Christ,
vol. 1 [New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1884], 89–90; italics in the
original)
Unfortunately, the unbiblical concepts of “natural” and
“supernatural” are the foundation for Peters’s entire concept of
“theocracy”: “The Word begins with the supernatural (the presence of
God) and the natural in harmony. It shows how an antagonism was
produced, causing the withdrawal of the supernatural from the sight of
man. . . . Now the kingdom being designed to restore and manifest the
original concord once existing between the natural and supernatural,
the Bible closes with that kingdom in such accordance” (p. 80). It is
not a “theocratic kingdom” that will conquer nature and manifest
divine sovereignty, but rather it is the Jewish-apocalyptic, messianic
kingdom that will punish rebellion and restore humanity to its original
glory (see further discussion in chap. 6).
11. As Moltmann poetically writes,
 With the rebirth of Christ from death to eternal life we also
expect the rebirth of the whole cosmos. Nothing that God has
created is lost. Everything returns in transfigured form. So we
expect that the Spirit of the new creation of all things will
vanquish human violence and cosmic chaos. More than that: we
expect that the power of time and the power of death will be
vanquished, too. Finally, we expect eternal consolation when
“the tears are wiped away” from our eyes. We expect eternal joy
in the dance of fellowship with all created being and with the
triune God. (Source of Life, 123)
12. Likewise, the gift of the Spirit to the believer in this age is understood
as a “firstfruits” (Rom. 8:23) of the final gift of the Spirit in the
resurrection. However, instead of humans giving a firstfruits to God, it
is God giving a firstfruits to humans: “In Rom. 8:23 the relationship of
giver and recipient is reversed and ἀπαρχή is the first-fruits of God to
man (cf. 2 Cor. 5:5). The gift of the pneuma is only provisional. It is
only the beginning which will ultimately be followed by υἱοθεσία, by
the gift of the σῶμα πνευματικόν” (Gerhard Delling, “ἀπαρχή,”
TDNT, 1:486).
13. Note that Paul explains the resurrection in this way as a polemic
against realized eschatology. In 1 Cor. 15:12, he asks, “How can some
of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” These believers
had not become Epicureans, for Paul’s reference in v. 32 is simply a
mocking of the functional similarity of their conclusions with that of
the world. Rather, “Some Corinthians, influenced by an ‘over-realized
eschatology,’ believed that they had already experienced resurrection
(cf. 2 Tim. 2:16–18). They understood Jesus’ being raised as exaltation
to heaven, not as bodily resurrection, and concluded that they were
exalted with Jesus through the sacraments (cf. Rom. 6:4). These
Corinthians would be the theological forerunners of the second-
century gnostics who appear to adapt and rebut Pauline statements”
(David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians, BECNT [Grand Rapids: Baker,
2003], 699). Of course, I would argue that realized eschatology, much
less “over-realized eschatology,” was generally anathema to the
apostles (see 2 Tim. 2:18; 2 Thess. 2:2; cf. 1 Cor. 4:8).
14. So Rudolf Bultmann foundered, “The mythical eschatology is
untenable for the simple reason that the parousia of Christ never took
place as the New Testament expected. History did not come to an end,
and, as every schoolboy knows, it will continue to run its course”
(“New Testament and Mythology,” in Kerygma and Myth: A
Theological Debate, ed. H. W. Bartsch [London: SPCK, 1953], 5;
italics in the original). Translating “sane person” for “schoolboy,”
Jürgen Moltmann counters, “Today the notion that world history will
continue to run its course is nothing more than wishful thinking.
‘Every sane person’ is aware of the nuclear, ecological and economic
catastrophes that threaten the modern world. The apocalyptic
eschatology which Bultmann considered ‘mythical’ is more realistic
than his faith in the inexorable onward course of world history. The
belief that things will ‘always go on’ and that no end is in sight—at
least not for us—is one of the fairytales of ‘the modern world,’ the
fairytale of its endlessness and its lack of an alternative. That is
secularized millenarianism” (The Coming of God: Christian
Eschatology, trans. M. Kohl [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004], 135).
15. Here it becomes evident that mortality is the result of divine
condemnation. If mortality is the result of the devil or of human error,
or if it is just inherent to creation, then the logic of divine approval in
the overcoming of mortality by resurrection breaks down.
16. Though assuming realized eschatology and lacking a cruciform
balance, Joel B. Green encapsulates: “The resurrection of Jesus by
God is the central affirmation of the Christian message in the Acts of
the Apostles” (“‘Witnesses of His Resurrection’: Resurrection,
Salvation, Discipleship, and Mission,” in Life in the Face of Death:
The Resurrection Message of the New Testament, ed. Richard N.
Longenecker [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998], 227). See also Kevin
L. Anderson, “But God Raised Him from the Dead”: The Theology of
Jesus’ Resurrection in Luke-Acts (Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster,
2006).
17. For a survey of the doctrine of the resurrection in the early church, see
N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (London: SPCK,
2003), 480–552.
18. N. T. Wright describes,
 Within early Christianity there is virtually no spectrum of belief
about life beyond death. . . . Whereas the early Christians were
drawn from many strands of Judaism and from widely differing
backgrounds within paganism, and hence from circles that must
have held very different beliefs about life beyond death, they all
modified that belief to focus on one point on the spectrum.
Christianity looks, to this extent, like a variety of Pharisaic
Judaism. There is no trace of Sadducean view or of that of
Philo. . . .
We have plenty of evidence of debates about all sorts of
things, and the virtual unanimity on resurrection stands out.
Only in the late second century, a good 150 years after the time
of Jesus, do we find people using the word resurrection to mean
something quite different from what is meant in Judaism and
early Christianity, namely, a spiritual experience in the present
leading to a disembodied hope in the future. For almost all of
the first two centuries, resurrection in the traditional sense holds
not just center stage but the whole stage. (Surprised by Hope:
Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the
Church [New York: HarperOne, 2008], 41–42)
19. “Called me heavenward” (NIV), “heavenly prize” (NLT), and “heavenly
call” (NRSV, CSB) seem to be Platonic distortions of the simple
translation of avō, meaning “above, up, high” (see BDAG, 92). The
only use of “heaven(s)” (Gk. ouranos) in Philippians is found in 3:20,
which simply references the residence of our Lord and our resurrected
body, which we will receive at Jesus’ coming (v. 21). It is clear that
Paul has in mind attaining the resurrection of the dead (v. 11). Thus the
“upward call” (NASB, ESV, NKJV, NET) is a fair translation, but “high
calling” (KJV) is preferred.
20. See “ἀρραβών,” BDAG, 134.
21. “Spiritual does not describe a higher aspect of man’s life; the noun
spirit (πνεῦμα) on which it is based refers to the Spirit of God, and the
spiritual body is the new body, animated by the Spirit of God, with
which the same man will be clothed and equipped in the age to come,
which he reaches (supposing him to die before the parusia) by way of
 resurrection” (C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians,
BNTC [London: Continuum, 1968], 372–73).
22. As N. T. Wright explains,
Heaven is the place where God’s purposes for the future are
stored up. It isn’t where they are meant to stay so that one
would need to go to heaven to enjoy them; it is where they are
kept safe against the day when they will become a reality on
earth. If I say to a friend, “I’ve kept some beer in the fridge for
you,” that doesn’t mean that he has to climb into the fridge in
order to drink the beer. God’s future inheritance, the
incorruptible new world and the new bodies that are to inhabit
that world, are already kept safe, waiting for us, not so that we
can go to heaven and put them on there but so that they can be
brought to birth in this world or rather in the new heavens and
new earth. (Surprised by Hope, 151–52; italics in the original)
23. Few things have caused more division and difficulty upon the earth
than the Tower of Babel. Those who have lived their entire lives in a
monolingual culture are often unable to appreciate this reality, and
therefore an authentic connection between Genesis 11 and Acts 2 is
lacking. This disconnect is often reinforced by a naturalistic bias that
negates the historicity of Babel. The lack of any real evidence for the
evolution of language, however, argues strongly for its reality. As
Philip E. Ross observes, “It was Charles Darwin who first linked the
evolution of languages to biology. In The Descent of Man (1871), he
wrote, ‘the formation of different languages and of distinct species,
and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual
process, are curiously parallel.’ But linguists cringe at the idea that
evolution might transform simple languages into complex ones. Today
it is believed that no language is, in any basic way, ‘prior’ to any other,
living or dead. Language alters even as we speak it, but it neither
improves nor degenerates” (“Hard Words,” Scientific American 264
[April 1991]: 144; quoted in Brown, In the Beginning, 58).
24. First Corinthians 13:8–12 is not speaking of the completion of the
New Testament canon, as cessationists claim. It is referring to the day
of the Lord and the age to come, which is the theme to which Paul
refers both before and after this passage. The gifts of the Holy Spirit
 are to be earnestly desired (12:31; 14:1) for the common good and
strengthening of the church (12:7; 14:3, 26). See Jon M. Ruthven, On
the Cessation of the Charismata: The Protestant Polemic on Post-
biblical Miracles, rev. ed. (Tulsa: Word & Spirit, 2011), esp. 107–67.
25. Here the naturalistic bias is seen in full glory, as the lack of
commentary on (“and live forever”) is appalling. Of the major
modern commentaries, few even reference the phrase, and those who
do view it as an interpolation derived from Babylonian sources (cf.
Claus Westermann, Genesis 1–11, CC [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994],
272–73).
26. As Alister E. McGrath describes, “Deep within the human soul there
nestles a sense that something is wrong with the world as we know it.
The world we know is somehow not quite what it ought to be. It seems
to cry out for restoration or renewal. . . . The history of human culture
demonstrates a ‘repeated attempt to re-establish the paradisal situation
lost at the dawn of time’ (Eliade). This is often expressed in terms of
the interplay of two eras—the paradise that was lost in the early mists
of time, and to which we shall one day be restored” (A Brief History
of Heaven [London: Blackwell, 2003], 40–41).
27. Here again we see an “epigenetical” growth of expectation in tandem
with divine progressive revelation (see chap. 3, n. 4).
28. The phrase “gathered to his people” (Gen. 25:8, 17; 35:29; 49:33;
Num. 20:24, 26; Deut. 32:50), or “go to your fathers” (Gen. 15:15; cf.
Gen. 47:30; Judg. 2:10), refers to the dead in Sheol, as seen in the
channeled testimony of Samuel: “Tomorrow you and your sons shall
be with me” (1 Sam. 28:19) (see Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of
Genesis, Chapters 18–50, NICOT [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995],
168). Nahum Sarna also explains:
It is not the same as burial in an ancestral grave, because it is
employed of Abraham, Aaron, and Moses, none of whom was
buried with his forefathers. It is also not identical with interment
in general because the report of burial follows this phrase, and
the difference between the two is especially blatant in the case
of Jacob, who was interred quite a while after being “gathered
to his kin.” It would seem, therefore, that the existence of this
idiom, as of the corresponding figure “to lie down with one’s
 fathers,” testifies to a belief that, despite his mortality and
perishability, man possesses an immortal element that survives
the loss of life. Death is looked upon as a transition to an
afterlife where one is united with one’s ancestors. This
interpretation contradicts the widespread, but apparently
erroneous, view that such a notion is unknown in Israel until
later times. (Genesis, JPSTC [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication
Society, 1989], 174)
29. So R. A. Muller: “The OT provides the context of belief from which
the idea of resurrection comes and according to which it must be
understood. The roots of the concept are there, both positively and
negatively, although the terminological apparatus is not”
(“Resurrection,” ISBE, 4:145). Contrary to the common liberal
sentiment that the OT holds no theology of resurrection, cf. G. W. E.
Nickelsburg, “Resurrection,” ABD, 5:680–91; and Nickelsburg,
Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental
Judaism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972).
30. The national resurrection of Israel (cf. Ezek. 37:1–14; Hos. 6:1–3)
naturally presumes upon the knowledge of individual resurrection, for
where else would meaning be derived? Though the individual precedes
the national, the two are bound together (to be discussed further in
chap. 6).
31. Likewise, a theology of resurrection develops in the intertestamental
literature; see esp. 2 Maccabees 7, 14; 4 Ezra 7; 1 Enoch 22, 46, 51,
62, 67, 90, 92; Testament of Benjamin 10; Apocalypse of Baruch
49ff.; and Sibylline Oracles 4:176–92.
32. Unlike the Hellenistic tradition, which generally interprets “seen” and
“unseen” in metaphysical terms (material vs. immaterial), the NT
primarily refers to “seen” and “unseen” in historical and apocalyptic
terms (this age vs. the age to come). Such an approach is based upon
the day of the Lord and the “appearing” of God (cf. Ps. 21:9; 102:16;
Zech. 9:14; Mal. 3:2), when humanity will see him in his glory (cf. Ps.
97:6; Isa. 33:17; 52:8). Such language is assumed in the NT and
applied to Jesus’ own “appearing” (Col. 3:4; 1 Tim. 6:14; Titus 2:13; 1
Peter 5:4; 1 John 2:28). Thus, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped
for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). In this age we see
 sin, suffering, and trials; but we hope for what we do not see—that is,
righteousness, peace, and joy—in the age to come. So Paul describes,
“Our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely
incomparable eternal weight of glory. So we do not focus on what is
seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is
unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:17–18, CSB). Thus, in light of “the
judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:10) and our resurrected body (vv. 1–
5), Paul exhorts us to “walk by faith, not by sight” (v. 7).
33. And although debate rages in the academy concerning the spiritual
realization of other eschatological concepts in the NT (Messiah,
kingdom of God, messianic woes, etc.), one generally accepted point
is that the resurrection remains wholly apocalyptic: “Thus far he
[Jesus] is exactly on the map of first-century Jewish belief. Unlike his
redefining of kingdom and messiahship, on the question of
resurrection he seems to have little or nothing new to say” (Wright,
Surprised by Hope, 38). Though Wright argues well against much
historical criticism through a “disciplined historical imagination”
(ibid., 50), I believe the same historical approach would render his
“redefining of kingdom and messiahship” to be equally misguided.
34. G. Walters and B. A. Milne, “Salvation,” NBD, 1047.
35. The self-identification of “sinner” in the NT draws from a wealth of
usage in the Scriptures, particularly in the Psalms (cf. Gen. 13:13;
Num. 27:3; 32:14; Deut. 29:18; 1 Kings 1:21; 2 Chron. 19:2; Ps. 1:1,
5; 3:8; 7:10; 9:17f.; 11:2, 6; 28:3; 32:10; 34:21–22; 36:12; 37:10, 12,
14, 16f., 20f., 32, 34, 40; 39:1–2; 50:16; 55:3; 58:4, 11; 68:2; 71:4;
73:3, 12; 75:8, 10; 82:2, 4; 84:10; 90:8; 91:8; 94:3, 13; 97:10; 101:8;
104:35; 106:18; 109:2, 6; 112:10; 119:53, 61, 95, 110, 119, 155; 125:3;
129:3–4; 139:19; 140:5, 9; 141:5, 10; 145:20; 146:9; 147:6; Prov.
11:31; 12:13; 23:17; 24:19; Isa. 1:4, 28, 31; 13:9; 14:5; 65:20; Ezek.
33:8, 19; Dan. 12:10; Amos 9:8, 10).
36. “ἀσθένεια,” BDAG, 142.
37. Note the same analogy used in the apocryphal book, 2 Esdras, given in
response to Ezra’s question concerning the end of the age: “In Hades
the chambers of the souls are like the womb. For just as a woman who
is in labor makes haste to escape the pangs of birth, so also do these
places hasten to give back those things that were committed to them
 from the beginning. Then the things that you desire to see will be
disclosed to you” (4:41–43, NRSV).
38. The deliverance of our souls from bodies of death is the assumed
meaning behind “the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:9)—i.e., “an
inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in
heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith
for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (vv. 4–5).
39. Note Paul’s logic in 2 Cor. 1:8–10: “For we do not want you to be
ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we
were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life
itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But
that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the
dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us.
On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.”
40. Note the increasingly eschatological and apocalyptic testimony of
salvation in the Psalms (3:7f.; 7:10; 9:14ff.; 14:7; 18:46–50; 20:5f.;
21:5–9; 24:5; 28:8f.; 37:39; 40:10f.; 50:23; 51:12; 53:6; 65:2–5; 67:2;
68:19ff.; 69:29; 72:13; 76:9; 79:9f.; 85:7ff.; 91:16; 96:2; 98:1ff.;
116:13; 118:14–26; 132:16; 140:7; 145:19; 146:3; 149:4) and Prophets
(Isa. 12:2f.; 25:9; 26:1; 33:6; 45:17; 46:13; 49:6ff.; 51:5–8; 52:7–10;
56:1; 59:11–18; 60:18; 61:10; 62:1, 11; 63:5; Jer. 3:23; Lam. 3:26;
Jonah 2:9; Mic. 7:7; Hab. 3:13; Zech. 9:9; 12:7).
41. Present and past tense usage of salvation in the NT (cf. Acts 2:47;
Rom. 8:24; 1 Cor. 1:18; 15:2; 2 Cor. 2:15; Eph. 2:5, 8; 2 Tim. 1:9;
Titus 2:11; 3:5) simply assumes the clause “from the wrath to come,”
as evidenced by the surrounding context in each usage (note also the
discussion on verbal aspect in the appendix). Commenting on the
“aorist tense” in Rom. 8:24, Douglas Moo says, “It is somewhat
unusual for Paul to use the σῴζω word group of a past experience
(although see Eph. 2:5, 8; 2 Tim. 1:9; Tit. 3:5), but there is nothing
inconsistent in his doing so. While final salvation from God’s wrath
will not take place until the last day (see 5:9, 10), deliverance in
principle from that wrath has already taken place when we were
justified by faith” (The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT [Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1996], 521, n. 71).
42. See John N. Oswalt, “285 (bārak),” TWOT, 132–33.
43. On blessing and cursing in the Psalms in an eschatological light, see
1:1ff.; 2:12; 21:6; 37:10–22; 45:2ff.; 67:7; 72:17; 84:5; 112:1ff.;
115:12–18; 118:26; 132:15ff.; 133:3; 144:15; 146:5. For an
eschatological introduction to the Psalter, see esp. David C. Mitchell,
The Message of the Psalter: An Eschatological Programme in the
Book of Psalms (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic, 1997). See also
the classic article by Geerhardus Vos, “Eschatology of the Psalter,”
The Princeton Theological Review 18 (1920): 1–43 (later published as
an appendix in Pauline Eschatology, 321–65).
44. The Abrahamic blessing of all the peoples of the earth (cf. Gen. 12:3;
18:18; 22:18), for example, is understood by Peter in context to the
restoration of all things (Acts 3:25). Similarly, Paul took for granted
that the Abrahamic covenant involved “the promise that he would be
heir of the world” (Rom. 4:13, NIV).
45. The heavens here parallel the earth, both of which reflect the glory of
God. Thus the NET reads, “You reveal your majesty in the heavens
above!” So Hans-Joachim Kraus: “Corresponding to ‘the world’ ( ),
in which the glory of the name radiates, there are (in the parallelism)
, the heavens, on which the brightness of God is reflected. For the
interpretation of these statements of choral verse, cf. Pss. 104:1f. and
19:1” (A Continental Commentary: Psalms 1–59 [Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1993], 181). Note the quotations of Ps. 8 in eschatological
context (1 Cor. 15:27; Heb. 2:6–8). As creation was set in divine order
under the feet of Adam in the beginning, so will it be restored under
the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45). As such, the new heavens and new earth
will express the glory of God in fullness.
46. Thus the assumption underlying the declaration of perpetuity by
Solomon: “I have indeed built you an exalted house, a place for you to
dwell in forever” (1 Kings 8:13). Likewise, the divine response of
perpetuity: “I have consecrated this house that you have built, by
putting my name there forever” (1 Kings 9:3). So the worshipers sang:
“For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever” (2 Chron.
5:13).
47. In this way, the language of light is also associated with divine glory.
For example, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of
the LORD has risen upon you” (Isa. 60:1). And in response to the vision
 of Isa. 2:2–4: “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the
LORD” (v. 5). Thus the apostolic exhortation: “For you yourselves are
fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
. . . But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you
like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We
are not of the night or of the darkness” (1 Thess. 5:2–5; cf. Rom.
13:11–14; Eph. 5:5–10).
48. Note the description in pseudepigraphic Testament of Levi 18:4–11:
This one will shine forth like the sun in the earth; he shall take
away all darkness from under heaven, and there shall be peace
in all the earth. The heavens shall greatly rejoice in his day and
the earth shall be glad; the clouds will be filled with joy and the
knowledge of the Lord will be poured out on the earth like the
water of the seas. And the angels of glory of the Lord’s presence
will be made glad by him. The heavens will be opened, and
from the temple of glory sanctification will come upon him,
with a fatherly voice, as from Abraham to Isaac. . . . In his
priesthood sin shall cease and lawless men shall rest from their
evil deeds, and righteous men shall find rest in him. And he
shall open the gates of paradise; he shall remove the sword that
has threatened since Adam, and he will grant to the saints to eat
of the tree of life. The spirit of holiness shall be upon them.
(OTP, 1:794–95; italics added; cf. also Testament of Judah
24:1–6)
49. Though concluding inaugurationally, Jürgen Moltmann comments,
Ever since the story of the Fall, the symbol of “the closed
heaven” has been an emblem of the divine judgment and the
exile into which human beings have been cast out. “The closed
heaven” is a sign that God hides his face. “The darkened
heaven” is ultimately a portent of the last, apocalyptic
judgment. Against this background, “the opened heaven” means
that the era of grace is beginning, that God is turning his face
towards men and women in kindness, that the alienation from
true life has been overcome, and that “the gateway” to the
paradise of an achieved and harmonious life has now been
opened. (God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the
 Spirit of God, trans. M. Kohl [London: SCM Press, 1985], 170–
71)
50. Note the creation account in pseudepigraphic 2 Enoch: “I created a
garden in Edem [sic], in the east, so that he might keep the agreement
and preserve the commandment. And I created for him an open
heaven, so that he might look upon the angels, singing the triumphal
song. And the light which is never darkened was perpetually in
paradise” (31:1–2; OTP, 1:152). Elsewhere, Eden is described as
“open as far as the 3rd heaven” (42:3; OTP, 1:168).
51. “The catchword glory is used wherever the final state of affairs is set
apart from the present and whenever a final amalgamation of the
earthly and heavenly spheres is prophesied. Glory is the portion of
those who have been raised from the dead, who will thus become as
the angels or the stars of heaven (Dan. 12.3; I Enoch 50.1; 51.4). Glory
is then the mark not only of man, however, but also of conditions, the
‘state’ in which they live, the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev. 21.1ff.; II Bar.
32.4), or of the eschatological ruler (II Bar. 30.1)” (Klaus Koch, The
Rediscovery of Apocalyptic, trans. M. Kohl [London: SCM Press,
1972], 32).
52. Here the genitive of origin, “from Jesus Christ” (NIV, NLT), seems
particularly necessary to communicate Paul’s point that the origin and
source of justification by faith was not human (see also chap. 8, n. 27).
53. Contrary to the common idea that Paul, in regard to a theology of
atonement, was the founder of Christianity; see esp. William Wrede,
Paul, trans. E. Lummis (London: Philip Green, 1907); and Joseph
Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, trans. W. F. Stinespring (New York:
Macmillan, 1943); Gerd Ludemann, Paul: The Founder of Christianity
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002). See an introduction in
David Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity?
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995).
54. See Acts 1:6–11; 2:17–40; 3:12–26; 4:8–12; 5:29–32; 8:5–13; 10:34–
46; 13:16–48; 15:7–11; 17:22–31; 20:18–35; 24:14–25; 26:4–23;
28:23–31.
55. The fact that the apostolic witness was readily received by so many
orthodox Jews argues strongly for an unaltered Jewish apocalyptic
 background to the cruciform message (see Acts 2:41; 4:4; 5:14; 6:7;
11:19; 13:43; 14:1; 17:4; 18:8; 19:10; 21:20; 24:24f.; 28:24).
56. Paul here has in mind “the promise of life” (2 Tim. 1:1, NRSV), i.e.,
“life and immortality” (1:10), which we receive “not because of our
works but because of his own purpose and grace” (1:9)—a clear
reference to the cross (cf. Rom. 4:5; 11:6; Gal. 2:16; Eph. 2:9; Titus
3:5)—all of which is consummated “on that Day” (2 Tim. 1:18).
57. Moltmann, Spirit of Life, 89.
58. To this day escapist Christoplatonism remains the dominant hope of
the church at a popular level, as Oscar Cullmann lamented: “If we
were to ask an ordinary Christian today (whether well-read Protestant
or Catholic, or not) what he conceived to be the New Testament
teaching concerning the fate of man after death, with few exceptions
we should get the answer: ‘The immortality of the soul.’ Yet this
widely-accepted idea is one of the greatest misunderstandings of
Christianity. There is no point in attempting to hide this fact, or to veil
it by reinterpreting the Christian faith. This is something that should be
discussed quite candidly” (Immortality of the Soul or the Resurrection
of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament [London: Epworth
Press, 1958], 15).
59. “Greek thought, and in consequence many Hellenizing Jewish and
Christian sages, regarded the body as a prison-house of the soul: sōma
sēma ‘the body is a tomb.’ The aim of the sage was to achieve
deliverance from all that is bodily and thus liberate the soul” (M. H.
Cressey, “Dualism,” NBD, 284).
60. Origen, On First Principles, 2.10.3 (ANF, 4:294).
61. Note Randy Alcorn’s forceful analogy: “We do not desire to eat gravel.
Why? Because God did not design us to eat gravel. Trying to develop
an appetite for a disembodied existence in a non-physical Heaven is
like trying to develop an appetite for gravel. No matter how sincere we
are, and no matter how hard we try, it’s not going to work. Nor should
it. What God made us to desire, and therefore what we do desire if we
admit it, is exactly what he promises to those who follow Jesus Christ:
a resurrected life in a resurrected body, with the resurrected Christ on a
resurrected Earth” (Heaven [Wheaton: Tyndale, 2004], 7).
62. See Gordon D. Fee, The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels
(Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1985).
63. Convincing people trapped in this delusion that they are alienated from
Christ crucified is quite difficult. For a systematic approach, see David
W. Jones and Russell S. Woodbridge, Health, Wealth & Happiness:
Has the Prosperity Gospel Overshadowed the Gospel of Christ?
(Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2010). Note the fascinating firsthand account
of disillusioned dominionist Colonel V. Doner in Christian Jihad: Neo-
Fundamentalists and the Polarization of America (Littleton, CO:
Samizdat Creative, 2012).
64. Moltmann makes a valiant attempt at incorporating the Spirit
protologically (see God in Creation), though his view of “heaven and
earth” (chap. 7) is still markedly Platonic.
65. So Moltmann summarizes, “After the West committed itself to the
filioque in the Nicene Creed by separating itself from the Eastern
church in 1054, and after the persecution of the so-called Enthusiasts
by both the Protestant and the Catholic churches at the time of the
Reformation, the experience and theology of the Spirit of God ceased
to play much of a part in our churches” (Jürgen Moltmann, The
Church in the Power of the Spirit: A Contribution to Messianic
Ecclesiology, trans. M. Kohl [London: SCM Press, 1977], xv).
66. As commonly seen in the traditions of early Methodism, nineteenth-
century Holiness movements, early twentieth-century Pentecostalism,
and modern charismatic movements. See John Wesley, A Plain
Account of Christian Perfection (1766); Charles Finney, “Christian
Perfection,” in Lectures to Professing Christians (1837); Andrew
Murray, The Two Covenants and the Second Blessing (1899); Dennis
Bennett, Nine O’clock in the Morning (1970); etc. See an introduction
in James D. G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit: A Re-examination of
the New Testament on the Gift of the Spirit (London: SCM Press,
1970).
67. As reflected in Robert L. Saucy, “An Open But Cautious View,” in Are
Miraculous Gifts for Today? Four Views, ed. Wayne A. Grudem
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 97–155.
68. For example, John MacArthur, Charismatic Chaos (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1992). Cessationism is generally found in Reformed
 circles; cf. B. B. Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles (New York: Charles
Scribner’s, 1918); Anthony Hoekema, What About Tongues
Speaking? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966); and Richard B. Gaffin Jr.,
Perspectives on Pentecost: Studies in New Testament Teaching on the
Gifts of the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979).
69. See Stanley M. Burgess and Eduard M. van der Maas, eds., New
International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements,
rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002).
70. Cf. William W. Menzies and Stanley M. Horton, Bible Doctrines: A
Pentecostal Perspective (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House,
1971); and J. Rodman Williams, Renewal Theology: Systematic
Theology from a Charismatic Perspective, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1988–92).
71. C. H. Dodd worked out his realized eschatology concerning the Spirit
and Paul’s theology in The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments
(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1936). Many have since mitigated and
accommodated a realized eschatological approach to the Spirit; see
esp. Neill Q. Hamilton, The Holy Spirit and Eschatology in Paul
(Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1957); James D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the
Spirit (London: SCM Press, 1975); Gordon D. Fee, God’s
Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994); and Moltmann, Spirit of Life.
72. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 13.
73. “The gift of the out-poured Spirit meant that the messianic age had
already arrived. The Spirit is thus the central element in this altered
perspective, the key to which is Paul’s firm conviction that the Spirit
was both the certain evidence that the future had dawned, and the
absolute guarantee of its final consummation” (ibid., 806; italics in the
original).
74. See, for example, Gordon Fee’s diagram (which overlooks the
metaphysical issues) in Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 50.
75. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 808; italics in the original.
76. For this reason Jürgen Moltmann was a vocal proponent of liberation,
ecologist, and feminist theologies, criticizing the
 Pentecostal/charismatic movements for not applying the gift of the
Spirit to social, political, and ecological concerns:
Some theologians have discovered a new love for the
charismatic movements; but this can also be an escape, a flight
from the politics and ecology of the Spirit in the world of today.
What is behind this trend, which must undoubtedly be termed
purely individualistic? One reason is certainly the continuing
Platonization of Christianity. Even today this still puts its mark
on what is termed “spirituality” in the church and religious
groups. It takes the form of a kind of hostility to the body, a
kind of remoteness from the world, and a preference for the
inner experiences of the soul rather than the sensory experiences
of sociality and nature. (Spirit of Life, 8)
The answer to the “continuing Platonization of Christianity” is not
inaugurationalism, but rather cruciform Jewish apocalypticism.
77. Modern commentators debate whether Paul has in mind here Jewish
apocalypticism, Stoicism, or some kind of inaugurationalism. The
former seems most appropriate in light of the eschatological references
in 1 Corinthians passim. Moreover, “Paul sets out from the
eschatological picture he has already indicated in vv 26 and 28: in v
29a and again to round off the passage at the close of v 31. Within this
bracket, eschatology is an immediate exposition of existence. The
picture is that the time (scil. of the world) is short” (Hans Conzelmann,
1 Corinthians, Hermeneia [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975], 133). Note
esp. the correspondence of language in 2 Esdras 16:35–50 concerning
the imminent eschatological calamities: “Let the one who sells be like
one who will flee; let the one who buys be like one who will lose; let
the one who does business be like one who will not make a profit; and
let the one who builds a house be like one who will not live in it . . .
those who marry, like those who will have no children; and those who
do not marry, like those who are widowed” (vv. 41–44).
78. Thus the NIV translates arneomai in Matt. 10:33—i.e., “to disclaim
association with a person or event” (BDAG, 132). The reference to
“Father” seems to favor this translation, and the context favors being
found in the likeness of God, enduring persecution and martyrdom as
he does (cf. vv. 14–28), for “a disciple is not above his teacher, nor a
servant above his master” (v. 24).
Chapter Five
1. As is evident in Paul’s conversion and immediate preaching in the
synagogues “that Jesus was the Christ” (Acts 9:22). Likewise in
Thessalonica—“This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ”
(17:3)—for in general he was “testifying to the Jews that the Christ
was Jesus” (18:5). The messianic identity of Jesus is a prominent
theme in the apostolic witness (cf. Acts 2:36; 3:20; 8:5; 10:36; etc.),
for “every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not
cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus” (Acts 5:42).
2. Note the copious references to Jesus as “the Christ” (Matt. 1:17; 2:4;
11:2; 16:16, 20; 22:42; 23:10; 24:5, 23; 26:63; Mark 8:29; 12:35;
13:21; 14:61; 15:32; Luke 3:15; 4:41; 9:20; 20:41; 22:67; 23:35, 39;
24:26, 46; John 1:20, 25; 3:28; 4:29; 7:26f., 31, 41f.; 10:24; 11:27;
12:34; 20:31), i.e., the one “who is called Christ” (Matt. 1:16; 27:17,
22; John 4:25). Moreover, messianic recognition is regarded as one of
the central purposes of the recorded Gospels, as John declares, “These
are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John
20:31).
3. Approaching first-century Judaism as theologically diverse, leading to
a variegation of messianic expectations, see Jacob Neusner, William S.
Green, and Ernest Frerichs, eds., Judaisms and Their Messiahs at the
Turn of the Christian Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987). For a critique of this approach, in favor of a more unified first-
century “common Judaism,” see E. P. Sanders, Comparing Judaism
and Christianity: Common Judaism, Paul, and the Inner and the Outer
in Ancient Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016), esp. 31–50.
4. See V. P. Hamilton, “1255 (māšaḥ),” TWOT, 530–32; and
“Χριστός,” BDAG, 1091.
5. Unfortunately, at a popular level the term “Christ” often means little
more than a sort of last name for Jesus. His proper name was “Jesus
son of Joseph from Nazareth” (John 1:45, NRSV; cf. Matt. 26:71; Luke
24:19; John 19:19). When his followers ascribed to him the name
“Jesus Christ,” or “Jesus the Messiah” (Matt. 1:1, 18; Mark 1:1, NLT),
 they had in mind a whole host of ideas that are often absent from the
consciousness of the modern church. This phenomenon, however, is
not new: “Although we cannot be sure, it seems that Christos became a
proper name when the gospel of Jesus as the Messiah first moved into
the Gentile world that did not understand the Jewish background of
anointing and for whom therefore ‘the anointed one’ was a
meaningless term. This is suggested by the fact that disciples were first
called ‘Christians’ (Christianoi) in Antioch (Acts 11:26); and this word
designates partisans of a certain group” (George Eldon Ladd, A
Theology of the New Testament, 2nd ed., ed. Donald A. Hagner
[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993; first published 1974 by Eerdmans],
133–34).
6. Concerning Christology (study of messianism) and “salvation history”
(German Heilsgeschichte), Oscar Cullmann summarizes, “We have
seen that it is characteristic of New Testament Christology that Christ
is connected with the total history of revelation and salvation,
beginning with creation. There can be no Heilsgeschichte without
Christology; no Christology without a Heilsgeschichte which unfolds
in time. Christology is the doctrine of an ‘event,’ not a doctrine of
natures” (The Christology of the New Testament, trans. S. C. Guthrie
and C. A. M. Hall, rev. ed. [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963], 9).
7. Being anchored in the Parousia of Jesus, the faith and hope of the
apostolic church was thus “irreducibly eschatological” (John T.
Carroll, The Return of Jesus in Early Christianity [Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 2000], 4).
8. Protological messianic agency would have thus been understood: “He
was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him,
and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:2–3).
Paul speaks even more explicitly: “There is one God, the Father, from
whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus
Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1
Cor. 8:6). Likewise, when Paul said, “By him all things were created”
(Col. 1:16), he meant “thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities,”
which were delegated according to messianic function, “that in
everything he might be preeminent” (v. 18). Similarly, Heb. 1:2: “In
 these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the
heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.”
9. Though divinity is clearly implied, the messianic connotations of the
Trinitarian formula are often overlooked. The Trinitarian doctrine is
inextricably bound to the eschatological denouement (cf. Rom. 8:15ff.;
Phil. 2:9ff.; 1 Thess. 1:10), for the end comes when the Son “delivers
the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every
authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies
under his feet” (1 Cor. 15:24–25). See esp. Jürgen Moltmann, The
Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God, trans. M. Kohl
(London: SCM Press, 1981).
10. Throughout the Scriptures, creation and redemptive history are
described as the “work(s)” of God (cf. Gen. 2:2f.; Ex. 34:10; Deut.
11:7; Judg. 2:7; 1 Sam. 14:6; Ps. 19:1; 28:5; 33:4; 92:4; 102:25;
145:4f.; Prov. 8:21; Isa. 5:12; 10:12; 19:25; 28:1; 45:11; 64:8; Jer.
50:25; 51:10; Dan. 4:37; 9:14; Hab. 1:5; 3:2; Matt. 11:20ff.; John 4:34;
5:17, 36; 9:3f.; 10:37f.; 14:10; Rom. 14:20; Phil. 2:13; Col. 2:12; Heb.
4:3f.; 13:21). Hence the Messiah is the agent of divine work who
accomplishes the will of God (cf. John 5:17–37; 6:30–40; 10:25–38;
14:8–14; 15:23f.; 17:4). Similarly, a man would “strip for work” in the
ancient world by taking off his outer garment (cf. John 21:7), thus
“baring his arms,” so to speak (cf. Isa. 52:10; Ezek. 4:7). Since God is
the archetypal Worker, his Messiah, as a functional extension, is
pictured as the revealed “arm of the LORD” (Isa. 53:1; cf. Isa. 30:30;
40:10; 59:16; 63:5). Consequently, Jesus is identified as the messianic
conduit of divine activity: “Though he had done so many signs before
them, they still did not believe in him, so that the word spoken by the
prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: ‘Lord, who has believed what he
heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’”
(John 12:37–38). Jesus responds by affirming his messianic agency:
“Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me.
And whoever sees me sees him who sent me” (vv. 44–45).
11. Similarly, Jesus presented himself to Martha as the agent of the
resurrection: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in
me, though he die, yet shall he live. . . . Do you believe this?” (John
11:25–26). To which Martha simply affirms, “Yes, Lord; I believe that
 you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world” (v.
27). In like manner, Jesus declared to Thomas, “I am the way, and the
truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”
(John 14:6). Thus Jesus concludes, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:13)—a
declaration based upon the arbitration of divine recompense: “Behold,
I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each
one for what he has done” (v. 12).
12. See chap. 3, n. 4.
13. Though the Scriptures do not expressly state that God made a covenant
with Adam, many (especially within the Reformed tradition) have
identified such a covenant in light of contrasts made in Hos. 6:7, Rom.
5:14, and 1 Cor. 15:22 (cf. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology
[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1938], 211–18; and Westminster
Confession of Faith [1647], chap. 7). Moreover, God’s relationship
with Adam falls under the broader “covenant with creation,” so to
speak (cf. Jer. 33:20–25; Ps. 89:11; 104:5; 119:90; etc.).
14. For example, W. O. E. Oesterley, The Evolution of The Messianic
Idea: A Study in Comparative Religion (London: Pitman & Sons,
1908); Sigmund Mowinckel, He That Cometh: The Messiah Concept
in the Old Testament and Later Judaism, trans. G. W. Anderson
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1954); Joseph Klausner, The Messianic Idea in
Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Completion of the Mishnah, trans.
W. F. Stinespring (New York: Macmillan, 1955); Joachim Becker,
Messianic Expectation in the Old Testament, trans. D. E. Green
(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1980); J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The
Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992); and Antti Laato, A Star Is Rising: The
Historical Development of the Old Testament Royal Ideology and the
Rise of the Jewish Messianic Expectations (Atlanta: Scholars Press,
1997).
15. For example, Alfred Edersheim, Prophecy and History in Relation to
the Messiah (London: Longmans, 1885); Franz Delitzsch, Messianic
Prophecies in Historical Succession, trans. S. I. Curtiss (New York:
Scribner’s Sons, 1891); Willis J. Beecher, The Prophets and the
Promise (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1905); J. Barton Payne,
 Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy: The Complete Guide to Scriptural
Predictions and Their Fulfillment (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1973); Gerard
van Groningen, Messianic Revelation in the Old Testament (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1990); Walter C. Kaiser Jr., The Messiah in the Old
Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995); and Michael Rydelnik,
The Messianic Hope: Is the Hebrew Bible Really Messianic?
(Nashville: B&H Academic, 2010).
16. See an introductory survey in Ronald E. Clements, “Messianic
Prophecy or Messianic History?” Horizons of Biblical Theology 1
(1979): 87–104; and Clements, “The Messianic Hope in the Old
Testament,” JSOT 43 (1989): 3–19.
17. Most modern critical scholars believe Jewish messianism arose as a
response to social oppression during the exile and postexilic milieu,
hoping for the restoration of the former glory of the Davidic kingdom.
The Scriptures, however, are ultimately of divine origin, and as such
“Messianic prophecy was thus not a product of a human yearning for a
better life, but the result of a ‘supernatural’ revelation” (John H.
Sailhamer, “The Messiah and the Hebrew Bible,” JETS 44, no. 1
[March 2001]: 6). Moreover, Sailhamer adds, “I believe the messianic
thrust of the OT was the whole reason the books of the Hebrew Bible
were written. In other words, the Hebrew Bible was not written as the
national literature of Israel. It probably also was not written to the
nation of Israel as such. It was rather written, in my opinion, as the
expression of the deep-seated messianic hope of a small group of
faithful prophets and their followers” (p. 23).
18. See an introduction in Rydelnik, Messianic Hope, 65–82; and
Sailhamer, “Messiah and the Hebrew Bible,” 5–23.
19. As in the NT (cf. 2 Cor. 11:14; Rev. 12:9; 20:2), intertestamental
literature identifies the Edenic serpent as Satan (cf. 4 Maccabees 18:8;
Jubilees 3:17ff.; Psalms of Solomon 4:11), and Apocalypse of Moses
16:4–5 specifically relates the serpent as the “vessel” of Satan: “The
devil said to him [the serpent], ‘Do not fear; only become my vessel,
and I will speak a word through your mouth by which you will be able
to deceive him [Adam]’” (OTP, 2:277).
20. See Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1979), 5.
21. The referencing of Genesis 3:15 as the protoevangelium is attributed
to Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 135–202), Against Heresies, 3.23.7 and
5.21.1. However, a messianic reading of Gen. 3:15 is seen in the
translation of the LXX (see R. A. Martin, “The Earliest Messianic
Interpretation of Gen 3:15,” JBL 84 [1965]: 425–27) and the earliest
Aramaic translations of Genesis. Compare Jewish Targums of Pseudo-
Jonathan, Neofiti, and Fragmentary (see John Skinner, “The
‘Protevangelium,’” Genesis, ICC [New York: Scribner, 1910], 80–88),
where Satan is defeated in the age of the messianic kingdom (see also
M. B. Shepherd, “Targums, the New Testament, and Biblical Theology
of the Messiah,” JETS 51, no. 1 [March 2008]: 45–58). These early
readings suggest a common messianic orientation of the Hebrew Bible
stemming from Genesis 3.
22. Since zera is always in singular form in the Tanakh, Gen. 3:15 also
introduces us to the idea of “corporate solidarity,” that is, “The one
who represents the group and the many who are represented are
equally a part of the same single meaning intended by the author”
(Kaiser, Messiah in the Old Testament, 25). In other words, many
offspring can be represented by the single offspring of Adam and Eve,
which is then carried through the rest of the covenants (cf. Gen. 17:7;
2 Sam. 7:12; Gal. 3:16, 29). Thus the English word “offspring,” being
a collective singular noun, is an adequate translation for zera (contrary
to “descendant[s]”). Unfortunately, the Greek genos is also used as a
messianic title, “Offspring of David” (Rev. 22:16, NIV, KJV, NKJV). So it
seems the translation of Heb. zera [Gk. sperma, LXX] is best left as
“seed,” which also carries protological associations (cf. Gen. 1:11, 12,
29) commonly assumed in the mind of the ancient reader.
23. The Hebrew language has no specific word for “head,” but rather rosh
refers to the “upper part,” e.g., the “heads” of the mountains (Gen.
8:5), the “head” of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:4), the “heads” of the
clans of Israel (Num. 1:16), the “head” of the tribes of Israel (1 Sam.
15:17), etc. (see W. White, “2097 [rōʾš],” TWOT, 825–26).
Consequently, the “head” of the serpent could naturally be interpreted
governmentally.
24. Contrary to the non-messianic interpretation of John Skinner (ICC),
Claus Westermann (CC), Ephraim Speiser (AB), and John Walton
 (NIVAC). See John Sailhamer’s insightful discussion of this passage in
The Pentateuch as Narrative (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 106–9.
25. See also the fuller discussion of OT language that references Gen. 3:15
—including “head crushing,” “broken enemies,” “stricken serpents,”
and those who “lick the dust” and are “trampled underfoot”—in James
Hamilton, “The Skull Crushing Seed of the Woman: Inner-Biblical
Interpretation of Genesis 3:15,” SBJT 10, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 30–
54.
26. For more on the hermeneutical issues surrounding Gen. 3:15, see T. D.
Alexander, “Messianic Ideology in the Book of Genesis,” in The
Lord’s Anointed: Interpretation of the Old Testament Messianic Texts,
ed. P. E. Satterthwaite, R. S. Hess, and G. J. Wenham (Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1995), 19–39.
27. Revelation 12–13 also seems to be an apocalyptic recapitulation of the
Adamic promise, with a “woman” giving birth (12:2) to a “male child”
(12:5), and a “great dragon” (12:3)—that is, “that ancient serpent, who
is called the devil and Satan” (12:9)—seeking to devour the child
(12:4). However, the “beast” (13:1) who is given authority by the
dragon/serpent (13:4) receives a “fatal head wound” (13:3) as a sign of
the ultimate and final head crushing of Gehenna. So the vision
concludes, “If anyone worships the beast and its image . . . he will be
tormented with fire and sulfur. . . . And the smoke of their torment
goes up forever and ever” (14:9–11). Note also that the “worship” of
the dragon (13:4), and vicarious worship of the beast (13:4, 8, 12, 15;
14:9, 11), is the culmination of sin, which accords with the account of
the original satanic sin in the pseudepigraphic Life of Adam and Eve,
12–16.
28. Note his forceful articulation:
The Protoevangelion; the first promise is justly so called,
because it contains the Gospel in germ. Scripture, or rather the
Revelation, of which it is a record, is an organic growth; not an
aggregate of successive teaching, added in a mechanical way,
but a development of “living seed.” Known unto God are all his
works from the beginning of the world; especially His central
work of Redemption. Hence every part of God’s revelation is
complete, containing the seed. . . . And so far from our having
 fully comprehended it, only the end will explain the beginning;
only the Millennial age will disclose Genesis. When Satan is
finally bruised under our feet we shall understand the
Protoevangelion. (Adolph Saphir, Christ Crucified: Lectures on
I Corinthians II [London: James Nisbet, 1873], 2–3)
29. See also the timeless exposition of Gen. 3:15 by E. W. Hengstenberg,
Christology of the Old Testament, trans. T. Meyer and J. Martin, vol. 1
(orig. 1872; Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1956), 14–29.
30. Psalm 8:4–6 is also quoted messianically in Heb. 2:6–8. It is clear that
“putting everything in subjection under his feet” (v. 8) references
God’s subjection of “the world to come” (v. 5) by means of the
Messiah. The “bringing many sons to glory” (v. 10) and the forceful
submission of Satan under the heel of Christ will surely come to pass,
even though “at present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to
him” (v. 8).
31. On the history and difficulties of translating this passage, see Frank
Thielman, Ephesians, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010), 63–70.
My translation roughly accommodates the NASB (oikonomia =
“administration,” cf. BDAG, 697–98) and the NET (anakephalaioō =
“to head up,” cf. BDAG, 65). On the latter, see esp. Clinton Arnold’s
translation of 1:10b: “to bring everything under the headship of Christ,
everything in heaven and everything on earth, in Christ” (Ephesians,
ZECNT [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010], 88).
32. “In the Greek world οἰκονομία was regularly used for God’s ordering
and administration of the universe. Here in 1:10 it also appears to have
that active force (cf. also 3:9)” (Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, WBC
[Dallas: Word, 1990], 31–32). Note a similar logic in Eph. 3:14–15:
“For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named” (KJV).
33. Though the translation of this phrase has a long and contentious
history (see H. Schlier, “ἀνακεφαλαιόομαι,” TDNT, 3:681–82), I
believe its meaning is fairly straightforward within a biblical
worldview and a cruciform-apocalyptic theology. The first part of the
passage (Eph. 1:3–8) primarily references the work of the cross, while
the second part (vv. 9–14) speaks primarily of the day of the Lord—
 both of which are “according to the purpose of his will” (v. 5), i.e.,
“the mystery of his will, according to his purpose” (v. 9).
34. The protological context also explains its varied usage in the OT, both
messianic (cf. Dan. 7:13; Ps. 80:17; 144:3) and non-messianic (cf.
Num. 23:19; Job 25:6; Dan. 8:17; and some ninety references in
Ezek.). Just as the OT prophet is a “son of Adam,” so also the Messiah
is the “Son of Adam.”
35. “The phrase benʾādām can be understood not only as ‘a human being’
but also as ‘son of Adam’” (D. E. Aune, “Son of Man,” ISBE, 4:578).
36. The origin and meaning of this phrase “Son of Man” goes part and
parcel with the contentious debate over Christology in general; see,
e.g., Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 143–57; and C. Colpe, “ὁ
υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου,” TDNT 8:400–477.
37. This resolves the seeming contradiction of usage between Old and
New Testaments, as Ladd expressed: “We have already seen that ‘son
of man’ is not an uncommon idiom in the Old Testament, simply
designating humanity. This usage has frequently been appealed to, to
explain some of the gospel idioms. . . . However, this quite fails to
explain the eschatological use of ‘Son of Man’ in the Gospels”
(Theology of the New Testament, 145–46).
38. See Leonhard Goppelt, Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the
Old Testament in the New, trans. D. Madvig (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1982), 90–100, esp. the “typological substratum of the Son
of Man sayings,” which is rooted in Christ as the “Second Adam” (p.
97).
39. See also Cullmann’s discussion on Paul’s contrast of Adam and Christ
as related to the son of man concept in Judaism (Christology of the
New Testament, 166–81). For example, “His whole theology and
Christology is so completely embedded in eschatology that he calls the
‘Second Adam’ the ‘Last Adam’ (ὁ ἔσχατος Ἀδὰμ, 1 Cor. 15.45) or
the ‘coming Adam’ (ὁ μέλλων, Rom. 5.14). Even if Paul does not
directly refer to Dan. 7 in connection with statements about the ‘Man,’
he does share the view that Christ will come on the clouds of heaven. .
. . This expectation must go back to Daniel’s picture of the Son of Man
‘coming on the clouds’” (p. 166). See also the little known but useful
 commentary (though debatable concerning his approach to original
sin) of Karl Barth, Christ and Adam: Man and Humanity in Romans 5,
trans. T. A. Smail (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1956).
40. Conversely, we see in Gen. 3:15 a protological foundation for a
theology of the Antichrist, the satanic “seed” and the huios tēs
apōleias, “son of destruction” (2 Thess. 2:3)—a phrase akin to “son of
man,” being also applied to historical antichrists (cf. Judas in John
17:12) as well as the eschatological culmination. They are all children
of destruction because the devil and his seed are destined to “go to
destruction” (Rev. 17:8) on the day of destruction (cf. Isa. 13:9; 2
Thess. 1:9; 2 Peter 3:7)—thus, “It is the last hour, and as you have
heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come” (1
John 2:18). Without a protological base of expectation for the “Christ,”
we have no broad framework for the culmination of sin in
“Antichrist,” i.e., the “man of sin” (2 Thess. 2:3, KJV), who typifies the
Edenic deception.
41. The rendering of “son of Adam” in light of protological messianic
expectation is further reinforced by the functional equation of “son”
and “seed” in the Scriptures (e.g., Gen. 4:25; 21:13; 1 Chron. 17:11;
Isa. 57:3; Dan. 9:1). Therefore the use of “son of Abraham” (Matt.
1:1) would logically be closely associated with the promised “seed” of
Abraham (cf. Gen. 17:7f.; Rom. 4:13; Gal. 3:29), and the “son of
David” (Matt. 1:1; 12:23; par.) would be seen in light of the
covenanted “seed” of David (cf. 2 Sam. 7:12; Ps. 89:4; John 7:42;
Rom. 1:3). Likewise the “son of Man” would have been understood
primarily in the context of the promised “seed” of humanity’s parents.
The NT genealogies (Matt. 1:1–17; Luke 3:21–38), which are by
nature designed to prove messianic descent, further confirm this (note
the same Greek phrase, biblos geneseōs, used in Matt. 1:1, Gen. 2:4,
and Gen. 5:1, LXX).
42. “Thus should be understood as the first echo of the penalty, in which
the woman is given a personal name by Adam. For the first words
after the divine judgment are words of hope. Adam names his wife
‘Eve,’ ‘for she is the mother of all the living’ (Gen. 3:20). . . . In the
context it shows Adam reclaiming dominion in faith through naming
his wife the mother, which cannot help but allude to the more specific
 role she will have as the one who will provide a seed who will strike
the serpent” (Stephen G. Dempster, Dominion and Dynasty: A Biblical
Theology of the Hebrew Bible [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity,
2003], 69).
43. See T. D. Alexander, From Paradise to the Promised Land: An
Introduction to the Pentateuch, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002),
101–13. Though non-messianic, see the helpful socio-historical,
linguistic study by Richard S. Hess, Studies in the Personal Names of
Genesis 1–11 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1993).
44. The inclusion of such genealogies must at least be understood as
messianically motivated at a canonical level. The general lack of any
messianic reference in most commentaries concerning these
genealogies is regrettable; cf. Robert R. Wilson, “Genealogy,
Genealogies,” ABD, 2:929–32; and R. K. Harrison, “Genealogy,”
ISBE, 2:424–28.
45. “This promissory call is the first recorded speech since God’s word of
judgment at the Tower of Babel, resulting in the creation of the nations
(11:5–6, 9). This new word to Abram counters the old since it provides
for the redemptive plan of ‘all peoples’ (v. 3). By making his
descendants a ‘great nation’ (v. 2) who will be a ‘blessing’ (v. 2), the
Lord will bring salvation to the scattered nations” (K. A. Mathews,
Genesis 11:27–50:26, NAC [Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2005],
105).
46. See “God of Israel” (Ex. 5:1; 24:10; 32:27; 34:23; Num. 16:9; Josh.
7:13, 19f.; 8:30; 9:18f.; 10:40, 42; 13:14, 33; 14:14; 22:16, 24; 24:2,
23; Judg. 4:6; 5:3, 5; 6:8; 11:21, 23; 21:3; Ruth 2:12; 1 Sam. 1:17;
2:30; 5:7f., 10f.; 6:3, 5; 10:18; 14:41; 20:12; 23:10f.; 25:32, 34; 2 Sam.
7:27; 12:7; 23:3; 1 Kings 1:30, 48; 8:15, 17, 20, 23, 25f.; 11:9, 31;
14:7, 13; 15:30; 16:13, 26, 33; 17:1, 14; 22:53; 2 Kings 9:6; 10:31;
14:25; 18:5; 19:15, 20; 21:12; 22:15, 18; 1 Chron. 4:10; 5:26; 15:12,
14; 16:4, 36; 17:24; 22:6; 23:25; 24:19; 28:4; 29:10; 2 Chron. 2:12;
6:4, 7, 10, 14, 16f.; 11:16; 13:5; 15:4, 13; 20:19; 29:7, 10; 30:1, 5;
32:17; 33:16, 18; 34:23, 26; 36:13; Ezra 1:3; 3:2; 4:1, 3; 5:1; 6:14,
21f.; 7:6, 15; 8:35; 9:4, 15; Ps. 41:13; 59:5; 68:8, 35; 69:6; 72:18;
106:48; Isa. 17:6; 21:10, 17; 24:15; 29:23; 37:16, 21; 41:17; 45:3, 15;
48:1f.; 52:12; Jer. 7:3, 21; 9:15; 11:3; 13:12; 16:9; 19:3, 15; 21:4; 23:2;
 24:5; 25:15, 27; 27:4, 21; 28:2, 14; 29:4, 8, 21, 25; 30:2; 31:23;
32:14f., 36; 33:4; 34:2, 13; 35:13, 17ff.; 37:7; 38:17; 39:16; 42:9, 15,
18; 43:10; 44:2, 7, 11, 25; 45:2; 46:25; 48:1; 50:18; 51:33; Ezek. 8:4;
9:3; 10:19f.; 11:22; 43:2; 44:2; Zeph. 2:9; Mal. 2:16; Matt. 15:31;
Luke 1:68); “God of Abraham” (Gen. 24:12, 27, 42, 48; 26:24; 28:13;
31:42, 53; Ex. 3:6, 15f.; 4:5; 1 Kings 18:36; 1 Chron. 29:18; 2 Chron.
30:6; Ps. 47:9; Matt. 22:32; Mark 12:26; Luke 20:37; Acts 3:13; 7:32),
“God of Isaac” (Gen. 28:13; 32:9; 46:1; Ex. 3:6, 15; 4:5; Matt. 22:32;
Mark 12:26; Luke 20:37; Acts 3:13); “God of Jacob” (Ex. 3:6, 15; 4:5;
2 Sam. 23:1; Ps. 20:1; 24:6; 46:7, 11; 75:9; 76:6; 81:1, 4; 84:8; 94:7;
114:7; 146:5; Isa. 2:3; Mic. 4:2; Matt. 22:32; Mark 12:26; Luke 20:37;
Acts 3:13; 7:46); “God of your fathers(s)” (Gen. 31:29; 43:23; 46:3;
49:25; 50:17; Ex. 3:6, 13, 15f.; Deut. 1:11, 21; 4:1; 6:3; 12:1; 27:3;
Josh. 18:3; 1 Chron. 28:9; 2 Chron. 13:12; 28:9; 29:5; Ezra 8:28;
10:11; Acts 7:32); “God of their father(s)” (Gen. 31:53; Ex. 4:5; Deut.
29:25; Judg. 2:12; 1 Chron. 5:25; 29:20; 2 Chron. 7:22; 11:16; 13:18;
14:4; 15:12; 19:4; 20:33; 24:18, 24; 28:6; 30:7, 22; 34:32f.; 36:15);
“God of my father(s)” (Gen. 31:5, 42; 32:9; Ex. 18:4; Dan. 2:23); and
“God of the Hebrews” (Ex. 3:18; 5:3; 7:16; 9:1, 13; 10:3).
47. See the “Excursus on Circumcision” in Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis
16–50, WBC (Dallas: Word, 1998), 23–24.
48. Concerning Paul’s quotation of these texts in Gal. 3:16, many accuse
him of “creative exegesis.” However, C. John Collins has made a
strong case that Paul is not stretching the text and its messianic
orientation, since verb inflections, adjectives, and pronouns are used
differently in reference to zera being interpreted as singular versus
collective. See “Galatians 3:16: What Kind of an Exegete Was Paul?”
TynBul 54, no. 1 (2003): 75–86; and Collins, “A Syntactical Note
(Genesis 3:15): Is the Woman’s Seed Singular or Plural?” TynBul 48,
no. 1 (1997): 139–48. See also T. D. Alexander, “Further Observations
on the Term ‘Seed’ in Genesis,” TynBul 48, no. 2 (1997): 363–67.
49. For commentary on the commonly referenced messianic predictions
between Abraham and David—e.g., the “Judaic Prediction” (Gen.
49:8–12), “Balaamic Prediction” (Num. 24:15–19), “Mosaic
Prediction” (Deut. 18:15–18), and “Hannaic Prediction” (1 Sam. 2:1–
10)—see Hengstenberg, Christology of the Old Testament, 1:57–130;
 Delitzsch, Messianic Prophecies in Historical Succession, 47–79; and
Kaiser, Messiah in the Old Testament, 50–76.
50. Though Moses himself created a prophetic pattern of deliverance,
reinforced by prophecy (cf. Deut. 18:15–18). As Klausner describes,
“It was also inevitable that the people should feel compelled to accord
the very greatest glory and honor to the exalted and grandiose
personality of the first deliverer. This was the man Moses, this the
great deliverer, who not only ransomed Israel from all its material
troubles and from political servitude, but also redeemed it from its
ignorance and its spiritual bondage. . . . The exalted picture of Moses
necessarily, therefore, impressed itself upon the spirit of the nation and
became a symbol of the redeemer in general” (Messianic Idea in
Israel, 16; italics in the original). Note also the prevalent rabbinic
tradition of Moses as a messianic prototype (ibid., 17–18).
51. The nature and purpose of these will be discussed further in chap. 6.
52. “Third in importance only to the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15 and
the Abrahamic promise of Genesis 12:2–3 is 2 Samuel 7 (see also 1 Ch
17; Ps 89), God’s promise to David. This chapter sets the tone for the
promise-plan of God throughout the rest of the OT” (Kaiser, Messiah
in the Old Testament, 78).
53. Since the Davidic covenant is genealogically based, subsequent
prophecies often refer to David and his Seed as one—e.g., “My
servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one
shepherd. . . . They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant
Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their
children’s children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant
shall be their prince forever” (Ezek. 37:24–25; cf. Ps. 18:49f.; Isa.
55:3ff.; Jer. 30:9; Hos. 3:5). Though David himself may indeed rule
over Israel forever in the resurrection—as Abraham himself will
indeed inherit the land of Canaan (cf. Gen. 13:15; 15:8; 17:8)—it will
be under the universal governance of his own Seed.
54. Note that the parallel saying in Jer. 33:15 is followed by a reference to
the overarching “covenant” with creation, securing the hope of a new
heaven and earth under the governance of the Davidic Messiah: “Thus
says the LORD: If I have not established my covenant with day and
night and the fixed order of heaven and earth, then I will reject the
 offspring of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of
his offspring to rule over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
For I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them” (vv. 25–
26).
55. “The idea of the messianic Son of God goes back to the promise to
David with reference to his descendants who should succeed him on
the throne of Israel, and it looks beyond the immediate descendants of
David to that greater descendant who should be the messianic Son of
God in the fullest sense of the word” (Ladd, Theology of the New
Testament, 160).
56. Note the correspondence with the apocryphal 2 Esdras, the only
intertestamental work that uses “son” in reference to the Messiah
(7:28f.; 13:32, 37, 52; 14:9): “The days are coming when the Most
High will deliver those who are on the earth. And bewilderment of
mind shall come over those who inhabit the earth. They shall plan to
make war against one another, city against city, place against place,
people against people, and kingdom against kingdom. When these
things take place and the signs occur that I showed you before, then
my Son will be revealed” (13:29–32, NRSV). Continuing, God says,
“And Zion shall come and be made manifest to all people, prepared
and built, as you saw the mountain carved out without hands. Then he,
my Son, will reprove the assembled nations for their ungodliness. . . .
Just as no one can explore or know what is in the depths of the sea, so
no one on earth can see my Son or those who are with him, except in
the time of his day” (vv. 36–37, 52, NRSV).
57. See Ladd, “The Son of God,” Theology of the New Testament, 158–
69. Note that in second-temple Judaism the phrase “Son of Man”
would have communicated divinity more than “Son of God” (see
Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ
[New York: New Press, 2012], 25–101).
58. Of the many lines of evidence, there are (1) the self-declaration of
Jesus, identifying with the divine name: “Before Abraham was, I am”
(John 8:58; cf. Ex. 3:14); (2) the declaration of the Jews: “You, being a
man, make yourself God” (John 10:33), in response to Jesus saying, “I
and the Father are one” (10:30; cf. John 14:6–9); (3) the declaration of
Thomas directed to Jesus: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28); (4)
 Jesus’ common acceptance of worship (cf. Matt. 14:33; 28:9, 17; Luke
24:52; John 5:23; 9:38; 20:28); note the radical devotion of the early
church as to the divine (e.g., 1 Cor. 1:1–3; 1 Thess. 1:1–3; Titus 1:1–
4); so Pliny the Younger wrote to the emperor Trajan that Christians
“sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god” (Letters 10.96,
Loeb ed.); (5) “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7; Luke
5:21); (6) “I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior” (Isa.
43:11; cf. Isa. 45:21), cf. “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we
await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20; cf. Luke 2:11; 1
John 4:14); (7) the invocation of the divine name in healings and
exorcisms (cf. Matt. 7:22; Acts 3:6; 16:18; 19:13); (8) the Pauline
reference to the shema: “There is no God but one” (1 Cor. 8:4; cf.
Deut. 6:4), followed by “There is one God, the Father, from whom are
all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through
whom are all things and through whom we exist” (v. 6; cf. Isa. 42:5);
(9) the Pauline declaration of Jesus being “in the form of God” (Phil.
2:6), followed by “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” (v. 10;
cf. Isa. 45:23) and “every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to
the glory of the Father” (v. 11; cf. Isa. 42:8); and (10) the identification
of “wisdom” as the divine consort (cf. Prov. 3:19; 8:22ff.; Wisdom of
Solomon 6:12; 7:25f.; 9:10f.) with Jesus in John 1:1–18; see also the
equivalence of “word” and “wisdom” in intertestamental Jewish
“Wisdom Tradition,” cf. “By the word of the LORD the heavens were
made” (Ps. 33:6).
See discussions of divinity and Christology in Richard Bauckham,
God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999); Bauckham, Jesus and the God of
Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s
Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008); and
Larry W. Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Historical
Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2005).
59. Note also those titles which are developed in relation to the “Servant”
(Isa. 42:1; 49:6f.) who suffers (Isa. 52:13ff.): i.e., “High Priest” (Heb.
3:1; 4:14f.; etc.; cf. Ps. 110:4; Zech. 6:13), “Mediator” (1 Tim. 2:5; cf.
Isa. 59:16; Ezek. 22:30), and “Lamb of God” (John 1:29, 36; cf. Isa.
53:7; 1 Peter 1:19; Rev. 5:6).
60. See n. 49 above.
61. Though not entirely unusual (cf. esp. 4 Maccabees 6:28; 17:21–22), as
Joachim Jeremias made clear:
The oft-repeated assertion that it is inconceivable that Jesus
should have ascribed atoning power to his death, that such
statements belong rather to the “dogmatic” of the Early Church
or of the apostle Paul, is astonishing to anyone who knows the
Palestinian sources. Conceptions of the atoning power of death
play a large part in the thought of Jesus’ contemporaries. Every
death has atoning power—even that of a criminal if he dies
penitent. An innocent death offered to God has vicarious power
of atonement for others. The sources compel the conclusion that
it is inconceivable that Jesus should not have thought of the
atoning power of his death. (The Eucharistic Words of Jesus,
trans. Norman Perrin [London: SCM Press, 1966], 231; italics
in the original)
62. Note the development of eschatological/apocalyptic glory throughout
the prophets (cf. Isa. 11:10; 24:23; 35:2; 40:5; 60:1ff.; 66:18f.; Jer.
33:9; Ezek. 43:5; Dan. 7:14; Hab. 2:14) and its reiteration throughout
the New Testament (cf. Rom. 5:2; 8:18; 1 Cor. 15:40ff.; 2 Cor. 4:17;
Eph. 1:18; Phil. 3:21; Col. 3:4; 2 Thess. 1:10; 2 Tim. 2:10; Titus 2:13;
1 Peter 4:13; 5:1; Jude 24; Rev. 21:11).
63. See chap. 4, n. 51.
64. Note the logic of the author in Heb. 9:27–28: Just as there is a twofold
apocalyptic “appointment” (Gk. apokeimai) for sinful man (death and
judgment), so also is there a corresponding twofold apocalyptic
“appointment” for the Righteous Man (sacrifice and salvation).
Moreover, both appointments are emphasized juxtapositionally, the
first appointment being in reference to bearing sin and the second
appointment being “without reference to sin” (v. 28, NASB).
65. Note how Paul similarly summarizes messianic mediation: “For there
is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the
testimony given at the proper time” (1 Tim. 2:5–6). This mediation of
divine mercy in the cross was understood in light of the eschatological
hope of being “saved” (v. 4) and inheriting “eternal life” (1:16). In this
 way God has chosen one mediator between God and men for both
atonement and resurrection.
66. See n. 5 above.
67. Analogous to “Rothschild” descendants who know nothing of their
financier heritage, Christians often associate their name as an
insignificant religious designation. The nobility and confidence in our
heritage as “Christians” is rooted in our apocalyptic understanding of
Jesus as “the Christ” (cf. 2 Thess. 1:4–12; 1 Peter 4:12–16).
68. George E. Ladd, The Pattern of New Testament Truth (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1968), 13–14.
69. The destructive nature of Gnosticism expresses itself in two seemingly
contradictory ways: extreme asceticism and extreme indulgence. They
are congruent, however, in their devaluation of the body and
materiality in general. Thus deeds done in the body are ultimately
meaningless; see A. M. Renwick, “Gnosticism,” ISBE, 2:484–90.
70. Against Heresies, 1.26.3 (ANF, 1:352).
71. Ibid., 3.11.1 (ANF, 1:426). The same testimony is corroborated by
Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 7.24 (ANF, 5:115); and
Eusebius, Church History, 3.29 (NPNF2, 1:161).
72. “Since in the message to Thyatira the prophetess Jezebel, who teaches
within the community (2:20), is accused of teaching the same vices,
viz., eating meat offered to idols and practicing fornication, it is
generally assumed that she and her friends and followers belong to the
same group as the Nicolaitans. But whereas the false apostles, who
spread the teaching of the Nicolaitans in Ephesus were migrant
missionaries, Jezebel and the adherents to the teaching of Balaam
belong to the communities of Thyatira and Pergamum. Thus the
Nicolaitans seem to be an integral part of these churches” (E.
Schüssler Fiorenza, “Apocalyptic and Gnosis in the Book of
Revelation and Paul,” JBL 92, no. 4 [December 1973]: 568). See also
D. F. Watson, “Nicolaitans,” ABD, 4:1106–7.
73. Though helpful in its delineation between the genitive of Satan and the
naming of “the depths” (Gk. bathos), what is lacking in the NLT is the
emphasis on “learning” (Gk. ginōskō) these deep truths.
74. So Jewish scholar Joseph Klausner commented, “[Greeks] taught that
salvation from the evil in this world is to be sought and found in
salvation from the world itself, that is, in flight from the storms and
passions of this world. Christianity, which was compounded of
Judaism and Greek philosophy, has a redeemer of the world, but along
with this there are also ascetics who are saved from the evil in the
world by flight from the world to desert places and monasteries.
Judaism, seeking redemption from the personal evil in this world,
found it in improvement of the world by a personal Messiah alone”
(Messianic Idea in Israel, 24; italics in the original). However,
apostolic Christianity was not “compounded of Judaism and Greek
philosophy,” but rather it understood itself within first-century
Judaism, believing simply in the necessity of a messianic atonement.
75. Stromata, 4.4 (ANF, 2:411–12); italics added. See also Origen’s
“secret martyrdom” in Exhortation to Martyrdom, 21.
76. Note how Eusebius functionally merged God and Constantine:
Thus he whose character shone with all the virtues of piety, the
emperor VICTOR, for he had himself adopted this name as a most
fitting appellation to express the victory which God had granted
him over all who hated or opposed him . . . as he was the first to
proclaim to all the sole sovereignty of God, so he himself, as
sole sovereign of the Roman world, extended his authority over
the whole human race. Every apprehension of those evils under
the pressure of which all had suffered was now removed; men
whose heads had drooped in sorrow now regarded each other
with smiling countenances, and looks expressive of their inward
joy. With processions and hymns of praise they first of all, as
they were told, ascribed the supreme sovereignty to God, as in
truth the King of kings; and then with continued acclamations
rendered honor to the victorious Emperor.” (Life of Constantine,
2.19 [NPNF2, 1:505]; see a similar presentation of Constantine
as divine salvific agent in 1.5–6; 1.24; esp. 1.43; 1.46; 2.12 [as
Mosaic type]; 2.28; and 2.42)
77. Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic
Dimensions, trans. M. Kohl (London: SCM Press, 1990), 53–54.
78. Moltmann describes the effect of Constantinianism on the church’s
messianic hope:
Very early on, renunciation of hope for the parousia was the
price paid for Christianity’s integration into the Roman empire.
In their worship and their persecutions, the first Christian
congregations prayed passionately: “Maranatha, come Lord
Jesus, come soon” (1 Cor. 16:22; Rev. 22:20). But the
Constantinian imperial church began to pray pro mora finis—
that the end might be delayed—hoping thereby to recommend
itself as a religion that supported the state and preserved the
world. People who are trying to fit into the world and to gain its
recognition are bound to dispense with hope for the messianic
kingdom which will change and renew everything. (Ibid., 313)
79. This point is well demonstrated by Timothy D. Barnes, Constantine
and Eusebius (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 191–
207.
80. So Luther chided, “But one should do to them [papists and monks] as
they do to our people and demand that they recant their abominations
and prove it by casting off all the abuses that have prevailed against
faith and good works in their churches. . . . Otherwise, one cannot
believe their mere words and gestures, that is, their sheepskins. Arius,
too, should have recanted in the same way, confessed his error, and
actually attacked his former doctrine and conduct, as St. Augustine did
his Manichaeism, as many people are now doing with their former
popery and monkery” (“On the Councils and the Church [1539],” LW,
41:85).
81. See a rebuttal to the notion of a pretribulational rapture in George E.
Ladd, The Blessed Hope: A Biblical Study of the Second Advent and
the Rapture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956); and Robert H. Gundry,
The Church and the Tribulation: A Biblical Examination of
Posttribulationism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973).
82. Systematic Theology, vol. 5 (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1993), 288.
83. Ibid., though with qualification: “These events, though not always
clearly distinguished in every Scripture, are naturally classified by the
character of the conditions and incidents accompanying them.” Chafer
 goes on to awkwardly classify each of the major messianic passages
according to their respective plans of salvation (pp. 289–310).
84. Accordingly, the cruciform aspects of messianic function are equally
divided. The Messiah comes to make two new covenants, one with the
Gentilic church at the cross (which is substantially embodied in the
pretribulational rapture—i.e., saving believers from the wrath of God)
and the other with the Israelitic kingdom at the second advent; see
Chafer, Systematic Theology, 4:310–44, esp. 325; John F. Walvoord,
“The New Covenant with Israel,” BSac 103 (1946): 16–27; and
Charles C. Ryrie, The Basis of the Premillennial Faith (Neptune, NJ:
Loizeaux Brothers, 1953), 105–24. See a history of dispensational
interpretation of the new covenant in Rodney J. Decker, “The Church’s
Relationship to the New Covenant,” BSac 152 (1995): 431–56.
85. Note Oscar Cullmann’s diagram in Christ and Time (trans. Floyd V.
Filson [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1950], 188) of concentric circles
with the “reign of Christ” equaling the combined circles of the
“church” and the “world”—the obvious conclusion (though skillfully
evaded) would be that Jesus’ mission in this age is to expand the
church circle so as to include the world circle, which is likewise the
mission of the second advent.
86. George E. Ladd, The Last Things (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978),
47. The scholar Ladd refers to is Oscar Cullmann; see the illustration
in Christ and Time, 84 and 145.
87. It is assumed Paul is here referencing those who embraced realized
eschatology (cf. 1 Cor. 4:8; see A. C. Thiselton, “Realized Eschatology
at Corinth,” NTS 24 [1978]: 510–26) and rejected a literal resurrection
of the dead (cf. 1 Cor. 15:12ff., 32ff.), which rests upon an apocalyptic
messianic hope (cf. 15:20ff., 45ff.). Thus it is implied that those who
do not love the Lord do not cry, Maranatha! Akin to the close of the
New Testament (i.e., “Come, Lord Jesus,” Rev. 22:20), the Aramaic
expression references longing for the age to come. Note Didache 10.6:
“May grace come, and may this world pass away. Hosanna to the God
of David. If anyone is holy, let him come; if anyone is not, let him
repent. Maranatha! Amen” (Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Apostolic
Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, updated ed. [Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1999], 263).
88. Anthony Hoekema concludes well:
This same lively expectation of Christ’s return should mark the
church of Jesus Christ today. If this expectation is no longer
present, there is something radically wrong. It is the unfaithful
servant in Jesus’ parable who says in his heart, “My lord delays
his coming” (Luke 12:45). There may be various reasons for the
loss of this sense of expectation. . . . Whatever the reasons may
be, the loss of a lively, vital anticipation of the Second Coming
of Christ is a sign of a most serious spiritual malady in the
church. Though there may be differences between us on various
aspects of eschatology, all Christians should eagerly look
forward to Christ’s return, and should live in the light of that
expectation every day anew. (Bible and the Future, 110–11)
Chapter Six
1. Matthew’s “kingdom of heaven” is synonymous with the “kingdom of
God,” since “heaven” was often a Jewish circumlocution for “God”
(see C. C. Caragounis, “Kingdom of God/Kingdom of Heaven,” DJG,
417).
2. As originally postulated by Johannes Weiss, Jesus’ Proclamation of the
Kingdom of God, trans. R. H. Hiers and D. L. Holland (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1971; German orig. 1892). Weiss’s main thesis remains true:
“The Kingdom of God as Jesus thought of it is never something
subjective, inward, or spiritual, but is always the objective messianic
Kingdom, which usually is pictured as a territory into which one
enters, or as a land in which one has a share, or as a treasure which
comes down from heaven” (p. 133).
3. George W. Buchanan, The Consequences of the Covenant (Leiden,
Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1970), 55.
4. Contra D. C. Duling, “Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven,” ABD,
4:49–56; and Michael Lattke, “On the Jewish Background of the
Synoptic Concept, ‘Kingdom of God,’” in The Kingdom of God in the
Teaching of Jesus, ed. Bruce Chilton (London: SPCK, 1984), 72–91.
See a more reasonable survey in G. E. Ladd, “The Kingdom of God in
the Jewish Apocryphal Literature: Parts 1–3,” BSac 109 (January
1952): 55–62; (April 1952): 164–74; (October 1952): 318–31.
5. As George Ladd acknowledged early in his career, “It is true that Jesus
never defined what he meant by kingdom of God or kingdom of
heaven, and we can only assume that the announcement that the
kingdom of God was near was full of meaning to his hearers. There is
no evidence that they reacted with any measure of surprise to the
announcement of either John or Jesus. The Old Testament frequently
promised the coming of a time when the kingdom would be restored to
Israel; and it is undoubtedly true that this is the meaning which the
Jews attributed to Jesus’ proclamation” (Crucial Questions About the
Kingdom of God [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952], 112).
6. As George N. H. Peters observed, “To comprehend the subject of the
kingdom, it is necessary to notice the belief and the expectations of the
 more pious portion of the Jews. . . . It is universally admitted by
writers of prominence (e.g. Neander, Hagenbach, Schaff, Kurtz, etc.),
whatever their respective views concerning the Kingdom itself, that
the Jews, including the pious, held to a personal coming of the
Messiah, the literal restoration of the Davidic throne and kingdom, the
personal reign of Messiah on David’s throne, the resultant exaltation of
Jerusalem and the Jewish nation, and the fulfillment of the Millennial
descriptions in that reign” (The Theocratic Kingdom of Our Lord
Jesus, the Christ, vol. 1 [Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1952; first published
1884 by Funk & Wagnalls], 183; italics in the original). Though dated,
the integrity of Peters’s argument remains sound.
7. “Although the term ‘kingdom of God’ is rare in Judaism, the idea is
almost ubiquitous, either explicitly as the kingdom of the Messiah or
implicitly in descriptions of the messianic age” (C. C. Caragounis,
“Kingdom of God/Kingdom of Heaven,” DJG, 418). See also
Kaufmann Kohler, “Kingdom of God,” JE, 7:502–3; and G. R.
Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1986), 46–51.
8. Those who argue for a realized kingdom generally string together a
number of verses pulled severely out of context (see the appendix). If
the kingdom had finally come, we ought to see paragraph after
paragraph, chapter after chapter, of triumphant jubilation in the spirit
of Rev. 19:1–9. As Paul condemned a realized resurrection (2 Tim.
2:18) and a realized day of the Lord (2 Thess. 2:2), it would stand to
reason that he would condemn a realized kingdom (though 1 Cor. 4:8
would imply as much; cf. A. C. Thiselton, “Realized Eschatology at
Corinth,” NTS 24 [1978]: 510–26).
9. William V. Crockett uses the same logic (contra annihilationism)
concerning eternal conscious torment in Gehenna (an apocalyptic
theme parallel to the kingdom of God; cf. Mark 9:45–47; Matt. 25:34–
41): “The important thing in interpreting any ancient text is to give
proper weight to the meaning of words in the time period in which
they are used. . . . So our task is to determine the everyday perspective
concerning the fate of the wicked during the first century” (“The
Metaphorical View,” in Four Views of Hell [Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1996], 70). It is this “everyday perspective” of a common
 first-century Jew that ultimately justifies a simple apocalyptic
interpretation of the “kingdom of God.”
10. Again, as George Peters articulated,
On the face of the opening pages of the New Test. it is taken for
granted that the Kingdom was something well known, already
the object of faith and hope. Theologians generally, either
unable to reconcile this with their church theories, or deeming it
unimportant while acknowledging the fact, pass it by in silence,
or give us some apologetics to account for it, which are
derogatory to the age, to the believers then living, and to the
Word. The destructive critics, seeing here a point of leverage
insist upon it that this was evidence of the prevalence of
“Jewish forms,” and scoff at it as a decided indication of
weakness and failure. By us—for we make no apology, needing
none—it is regarded as prerequisite and essential to the
truthfulness and unity of our doctrine. (Theocratic Kingdom,
1:181; italics in the original)
11. Following Albert Schweitzer, e.g., E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985); Dale C. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth:
Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998); Bart D. Ehrman,
Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999); and Paula Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, King
of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999).
12. See a summary in G. E. Ladd, “Kingdom of God,” ISBE, 3:23–29.
13. As E. R. Craven originally stated,
The phrases “Kingdom of God,” “Kingdom of Heaven,” do not
indeed occur in exact form in the Old Testament; cognate
expressions, however, appear, which may be divided into two
classes—(1) Those which refer to the natural Kingdom of God
over the universe, Dan. 4:3, 34, 6:26; Ps. 145:12, 13; (LXX Dan.
3:33, 4:31, 6:27; Ps. 144:12, 13). (2) Those in which the then
future Basileia of the Messiah was predicted, Dan. 2:44, 7:14,
27, (LXX as Heb.); allied to the prophecies from which these
citations are made, are Isa. 11, 32, 59:20—66:24; Ps. 2, 72, etc.
There can be no doubt that the Basileia foretold in the latter
 class was the one contemplated by Jesus, especially in view of
the distinct reference to the prophecies of Daniel, and the
quotations therefrom, in His great eschatological discourse on
the Mount of Olives. (“Excursus on the Basileia,” in J. P. Lange,
A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Revelation, trans. E.
Moore, ed. E. R. Craven [New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1874],
97–98)
14. Though dispensationally motivated, see a well-articulated delineation
in Alva J. McClain, The Greatness of the Kingdom: An Inductive
Study of the Kingdom of God (Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books, 1959),
19–21.
15. Unfortunately, this distinction was obfuscated by the early
dispensationalists who adopted a dualistic soteriology, delineating
between the “kingdom of heaven” and the “kingdom of God” (cf.
Scofield Reference Bible [New York: Oxford University Press, 1909],
996, 1003, 1226; Lewis Chafer, Systematic Theology, vol. 7 [Grand
Rapids: Kregel, 1993], 223–24; Feinberg, Premillennialism or
Amillennialism, 194; J. Dwight Pentecost, Things to Come: A Study
in Biblical Eschatology [Findlay, OH: Dunham Publishing, 1958],
144). Thus the universal kingdom was relegated to the immaterial
Gentile plan of salvation, while the messianic kingdom was relegated
to the material Jewish plan of salvation. There are not two plans of
salvation, but rather two primary thrones within creation.
16. “The NT combines this emphasis on God’s universal kingship with
another no less important OT theme, that of the Messiah of the house
of David, the Son of Man, the Savior-King who is to come in the
eschatological future. God’s transcendent supremacy is thereby linked
with the prophetic expectation that God’s rule will be established in
this world under the Messiah-King” (Carl F. H. Henry, “Reflections on
the Kingdom of God,” JETS 35, no. 1 [March 1992]: 40).
17. So Paul describes the interaction between the divine and messianic
thrones in the age to come: “Then comes the end, when he delivers the
kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every
authority and power. . . . When all things are subjected to him, then the
Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in
subjection under him, that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:24–28).
 The phrase “all in all” (Gk. panta en pasin) means “all things in every
way” (Eph. 1:23, CSB), referencing the heavens and the earth and all
the goings-on therein. Through his Messiah, God will bring the
rebellion of Adam to an end, and in this way the disharmony between
the throne of God and the thrones of fallen human beings will finally
be resolved. Thus God the Father will be honored as the ultimate
source of life, sustenance, and salvation from everlasting to everlasting
—he will be all in all. So Jürgen Moltmann concludes, “The whole
Christian eschatology ends in this inner-trinitarian process, through
which the kingdom passes from the Son to the Father. Eschatology
accordingly is not simply what takes place in the Last Days in heaven
and on earth; it is what takes place in God’s essential nature” (The
Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God, trans. M. Kohl
[London: SCM Press, 1981], 92).
18. So the inaugurational schema proves inadequate by consolidating the
two into one semi-Platonic system of “manifestation” or “realization,”
involving spiritual/abstract vs. physical/concrete divine sovereignty.
For example, George Ladd:
Although God is now King, other references speak of a day
when he shall become King and shall rule over his people (Isa.
24:23; 33:22; 52:7; Zeph. 3:15; Zech. 14:9ff.). This leads to the
conclusion that while God is the King, he must also become
King, i.e., he must manifest his kingship in the world of human
beings and nations. . . . While there is considerable diversity in
the description of the Kingdom in the Old Testament, it always
involves an inbreaking of God into history when God’s
redemptive purpose is fully realized. . . .
This is important for the interpretation of Jesus’ message, for
one of the major problems is that of how the Kingdom of God
can be both future and present. If the Kingdom is primarily the
eschaton—the eschatological era of salvation—it is difficult to
see how this future realm can also be present. However, we
have seen that both in the Old Testament and in rabbinic
Judaism, God’s Kingdom—his reign—can have more than one
meaning. God is now the King, but he must also become King.
This is the key to the solution of the problem in the Gospels. (A
 Theology of the New Testament, 2nd ed., ed. Donald A. Hagner
[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993], 58, 61)
The “key to the solution of the problem” of present versus future
sovereignty is not a two-stage inaugurational system. The solution lies
in recognizing a twofold governance—a righteous universal kingdom
presently ruling over wicked human kingdoms, which will usher in a
righteous messianic kingdom upon the earth eschatologically (as it
was protologically).
19. “The kingdom of glory must be understood as the consummation of
the Father’s creation, as the universal establishment of the Son’s
liberation, and as the fulfilment of the Spirit’s indwelling. Creation is
the material promise of glory, being full of the cyphers and signs of the
beauty to come. . . . The trinitarian doctrine of the kingdom therefore
sums up ‘the works of the Trinity’ (creation, liberation, glorification)
and points them towards the home of the triune God. The kingdom of
glory is the goal—enduring and uninterrupted—for all God’s works
and ways in history” (Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 212).
20. Isaiah 60 expounds upon the covenant God makes with Israel (59:21)
in context to a messianic “Redeemer” who comes to Zion (59:20).
Thus “your” (60:1ff.) seems to refer concentrically to (1) all Israel, (2)
centered in Zion, (3) ruled over by the Redeemer.
21. Note the centrality of the book of Daniel (esp. chap. 7) during NT
times; see Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the
Jewish Christ (New York: New Press, 2012); Gregory K. Beale, The
Use of Daniel in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature and in the Revelation
of St. John (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), 12–
153; and Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God, 26–35.
22. In such a light, Paul takes for granted that Jesus will return “with all
his saints” (1 Thess. 3:13) and that in the age to come “the saints will
judge the world” (1 Cor. 6:2), and conversely, “The unrighteous will
not inherit the kingdom of God” (v. 9). For as the Messiah destroys
“every rule and every authority and power” (1 Cor. 15:24) and reigns
“until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (v. 25), so too will he
give to the saints “authority over the nations” (Rev. 2:26)—i.e., “the
authority to judge” (Rev. 20:4)—because they have been made “a
 kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth”
(Rev. 5:10).
23. Some mistake this passage as parabolic (often referred to as “the
parable of the sheep and the goats”). However, as R. T. France points
out, “The pericope as a whole is not therefore a ‘parable’ like those of
24:45–51; 25:1–13 and 25:14–30. Its genre is closer to the majestic
visions of divine judgment in the book of Revelation than to synoptic
parables” (The Gospel of Matthew, NICNT [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2007], 960). It is the simple conclusion of Jesus’ chronological
presentation of eschatological events in 24:4–31. The Messiah will
come on the clouds of heaven (24:30), send out his angels to gather the
elect (v. 31), and then “he will sit on his glorious throne” (25:31) and
gather all the nations for judgment (vv. 32ff.).
24. See chap. 5, n. 46.
25. A term seemingly coined by Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope: On
the Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology, trans. M.
Kohl (London: SCM Press, 1967), 130. See also Moltmann, The Way
of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions, trans. M. Kohl
(London: SCM Press, 1990), 16—though it seems Moltmann would
ultimately reject the role of ethnicity in the eschatological context.
26. As Leslie C. Allen notes,
It is probably not insignificant that the traditional form of
Nathan’s oracle to David promises Israel that, as a consequence
of his rule, God “will plant them and they will remain where
they are, never to be disturbed again.” This ideal, sadly
frustrated up to now, would be realized in the powerful reign of
the coming one, whose renown was to spread throughout the
world. Indeed the usage of the phrase “the ends of the earth” in
the Judean royal ideology implies a universal empire. A motif
of ancient Near Eastern royal claims, it is employed in the royal
psalms to indicate high hopes for the Davidic king. (The Books
of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, NICOT [Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1976], 347)
27. An underlying element in the de-ethnicization of the Bible also seems
to be the Enlightenment ideal of universalism over and against
particularism; cf. Joel S. Kaminsky, Yet I Loved Jacob: Reclaiming the
 Biblical Concept of Election (Nashville: Abingdon, 2007), 1–12.
Kaminsky’s treatment of Jewish election is unique in that he projects
the sibling rivalries found in Genesis throughout the Pentateuch, the
Prophets, and even the New Testament.
28. See Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold
Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of
Medieval Europe (New York: Doubleday, 1995).
29. See n. 11 above.
30. “The same main themes—the redemption of Israel (whether politically
or in a new world), a new or renewed temple, repentance, judgment,
admission of the Gentiles—crop up in numerous places in Jewish
literature and in the New Testament. . . . Thus the existence of ‘Jewish
restoration eschatology’ is supported by the New Testament, and Jesus
fits believably into that world-view” (Sanders, Jesus and Judaism,
335).
31. C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The
Epistle to the Romans, ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1979), 581–82.
Cranfield is to be commended for his acknowledgement of “the ugly
and unscriptural notion that God has cast off His people Israel and
simply replaced it by the Christian Church,” for “These three chapters
[Rom. 9–11] emphatically forbid us to speak of the Church as having
once and for all taken the place of the Jewish people” (ibid., 448).
32. J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and
Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 90.
33. “Birthright” (Gen. 25:31ff.; 27:36; 43:33; 1 Chron. 5:1f.; Heb. 12:16)
is simply “the right of the firstborn” (Deut. 21:17), derived from
“firstborn” (Heb. bekor, Gk. prōtotokos); see John N. Oswalt, “244
(bākar),” TWOT, 108–10; and “πρωτοτόκια, πρωτότοκος,”
BDAG, 894.
34. For an overview of the practice of primogeniture in the Bible, see J.
M. Wilson and R. K. Harrison, “Birthright,” ISBE, 1:515–16; and
Anne K. Davis, “Israel’s Inheritance: Birthright of the Firstborn Son,”
Chafer Theological Seminary Journal 13, no. 1 (2008): 79–94.
35. Though lacking primogeniture language, see the substance of a Jewish
birthright theology in R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and
 Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), esp. 109–55.
36. “Israel is called the Lord’s firstborn (Ex 4:22; cf. Jer 31:9) to show that
though it was the youngest of the nations, it occupied the position of
leadership and privilege over them” (Oswalt, “bākar,” TWOT, 109).
Note the glaring lack of commentary concerning Jewish birthright in
most of the major modern commentaries on Ex. 4:22 and Jer. 31:9.
37. The messianic recapitulation of this verse in Matt. 2:15 ought only to
reinforce Jewish primogeniture, since the Messiah is the king of the
Jews (cf. figure 6.4)—contrary to the common supersessionist claim to
a “new exodus,” realizing the Jewish eschatological hope. Barry E.
Horner rightly argues as such in Future Israel: Why Christian Anti-
Judaism Must Be Challenged (Nashville: Broadman and Holman,
2007), 197–98.
38. All attempts to reinterpret or mitigate this most basic of Abrahamic
promises are baseless. For example, “Christified holy space” (W. D.
Davies, The Gospel and the Land: Early Christianity and Jewish
Territorial Doctrine [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974],
368); similarly Gary M. Burge, Jesus and the Land: How the New
Testament Transformed “Holy Land” Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker,
2010); and G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology: The
Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids: Baker,
2011), 750–72.
39. See David C. Mitchell, The Message of the Psalter: An Eschatological
Programme in the Book of Psalms (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield
Academic, 1997), 15–33, 243–71.
40. For an overview of Jewish election and God’s fair treatment of the
unchosen Gentile “other,” see Joel N. Lohr, Chosen and Unchosen:
Conceptions of Election in the Pentateuch and Jewish-Christian
Interpretation (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009).
41. “The purpose of primogeniture then was the systematic and orderly
transference of social, legal, and religious authority within the family
structure. The firstborn male was made the principal heir and was
given a sizeable portion of the estate because it was he who was to
perpetuate the family name and lineage and who was to bear the chief
burden for the continuance and welfare of the family” (Barry J.
Beitzel, “The Right of the Firstborn [Pî Shnayim] in the Old Testament
 [Deut. 21:15–17],” in A Tribute to Gleason Archer, ed. W. C. Kaiser
Jr. and R. F. Youngblood [Chicago: Moody, 1986], 180; quoted in
Davis, “Israel’s Inheritance,” 85). Thus the “double portion,” so often
associated with primogeniture (cf. Deut. 21:17; Isa. 61:7), is given to
assist the older son in performing his responsibility of leadership for
the welfare of the whole. In such a light, Israel will receive “the wealth
of the nations” (Isa. 60:5, 11; 61:6) in the age to come.
42. See Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology, esp. 109–40.
“God’s peace with Israel comes not at the nations’ expense, but to their
benefit. . . . God’s history with Israel and the nations is ordered from
the outset toward a final reign of shalom in which the distinction
between Israel and the nations is not abrogated and overcome but
affirmed within a single economy of mutual blessing. . . . God’s
historical fidelity toward Israel is the ‘narrow gate’ that opens on the
new creation. There is no shortcut to the eschaton that bypasses or
overrides God’s fidelity toward the Jewish flesh and the permanent
historical distinction between Jew and Gentile” (pp. 132–33; italics in
the original).
43. In technical terms, this is known as “supersessionism” or “replacement
theology” (to be discussed further in chap. 7); see Ronald E. Diprose,
Israel and the Church: The Origin and Effects of Replacement
Theology (Waynesboro, GA: Authentic, 2004); Michael J. Vlach, Has
the Church Replaced Israel? A Theological Evaluation (Nashville:
B&H Publishing, 2010); and Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian
Theology.
44. On Matt. 19:28, see esp. Barry E. Horner, Eternal Israel: Biblical,
Theological, and Historical Studies that Uphold the Eternal,
Distinctive Destiny of Israel (Nashville: Wordsearch, 2018), 17–33.
45. The restoration of Israel and its twelve tribes was a common
expectation in the late second-temple period (cf. Tobit 14:5; Wisdom
of Solomon 3:7–8; Baruch 4:37; 5:5; 1 Enoch 57:1; Psalms of
Solomon 11:2; 17:26; Testament of Judah 25:1–2; and Testament of
Benjamin 10:7). On the Son of Man and his glorious throne, see esp. 1
Enoch 62:5; 69:29. Thus G. B. Caird concluded, “Jesus did not intend
to found a new religious organization, nor even a new religious
community. He intended to bring into existence the restored nation of
 Israel, promised in the Old Testament prophecies. It was to this end
that he accepted baptism at the hands of John, to this end that he
appointed the Twelve to be his intimate associates, instructing them
that their number was a symbol of their relation to the twelve tribes of
Israel” (Jesus and the Jewish Nation [London: Athlone Press, 1965],
16).
46. “The restoration of the lost tribes was a great eschatological hope,
beginning with the OT itself. It was to be a proof of God’s power and
faithfulness, a joyful miracle of reunion. One wonders whether
Matthew’s text can really be so far from Judaism that its connotations
are exactly the opposite—especially as our Gospel nowhere directs
polemic against Jews in the diaspora. . . . We conclude: 19:28
envisages the twelve disciples entering ‘into God’s kingly power by
themselves becoming rulers.’ Israel has a future” (W. D. Davies and
Dale C. Allison Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the
Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 3, ICC [New York: T&T
Clark, 2004], 56).
47. See Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 61–119.
48. Therefore, “The gospel and the table fellowship it founds confirms
rather than annuls the difference and mutual dependence of Israel and
the nations” (Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology, 169).
Unfortunately, “What began in Jesus’ name as Israel’s hospitality
toward Gentiles as Gentiles, ended as the Gentiles’ inhospitality
toward Jews as Jews” (ibid.).
49. The driving message of both Jesus and John the Baptist was “Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2; 4:17), echoing the
prophets’ proclamation that “the day of the LORD is at hand” (Isa. 13:6,
KJV; cf. Ezek. 30:3; Joel 1:15; 2:1; 3:14; Obad. 15; Zeph. 1:7, 14).
Such phraseology was tremendously fearful, since the day of the Lord
was understood to initiate the kingdom of God (cf. Matt. 10:14f.; Luke
10:11f.). Thus many came out to receive John’s “baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:3). The question was
never about the nature of the kingdom, but rather about who would be
“considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from
the dead” (Luke 20:35). Such was the general tenor of Jesus’
 preaching (cf. Matt. 5–7; 10:5–40; 11:7–30; 12:25–45; 15:3–20;
16:23–28; 18:3–35; 21:28–44; 23:1–39; 24:4—25:46).
50. “The presence of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lifts this above any
ordinary meal; Jewish tradition not surprisingly gave them a leading
role at the messianic banquet (b. Pesaḥ. 119b; Exod. Rab. 25:8). The
imagery of the messianic banquet derives from Isa 25:6 (cf. 65:13–14)
and was elaborated in Jewish literature both in the apocalyptic and the
rabbinic traditions” (R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, NICNT
[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007], 317).
51. Various other incidents also affirm Jewish peculiarity and election in
the Gospels—for example, Zechariah understood the miraculous birth
of his son as a reaffirmation of God’s “holy covenant, the oath that he
swore to our father Abraham” (Luke 1:72–73); Simeon “was righteous
and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25); and
Jesus’ followers walking on the road to Emmaus “had hoped that he
was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). Note also “the times of
the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24) before the day of the Lord and the Son of
Man coming in glory and power (vv. 25–28), which only holds
meaning if there are “times of the Jews,” so to speak, which follow (cf.
v. 31); see Darrell L. Bock, Luke 9:51–24:53, BECNT (Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1996), 1680–82.
52. By contrast, Bruce K. Waltke: “To be sure, prior to Pentecost the
unenlightened apostles were still asking when the Lord would restore
the national kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:7). The church, however, must
not be guided by ignorance. . . . Christ’s answer is consistent with the
Lukan emphasis that Christ must pass through earthly Jerusalem and
its cross on his way to inheriting in heaven David’s throne, from which
he builds his church through the Spirit while dismantling earthly
Jerusalem” (“Kingdom Promises as Spiritual,” in Continuity and
Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and
New Testaments, ed. John S. Feinberg [Westchester, IL: Crossway,
1988], 273). Here the scholar apparently condescends to the apostles.
53. “Now, if ever there was a time for him to plainly invalidate Israel’s
ethnicity, nationality, and territory according to supersessionist beliefs,
this was it! Yet he specifically declined! . . . This new age would be a
dispensation of gospel proclamation, enlivened by the outpoured Holy
 Spirit, which would involve reaching ‘the ends of the earth’ (v. 8) for a
considerable period of time. Hence, in effect, Jesus says, though with
subtle restraint, ‘Focus your attention on this momentous, ongoing
gospel ministry. The restored kingdom of Israel will eventually come
about, but leave the timing here to my Father’” (Horner, Eternal Israel,
19–20).
54. See esp. Darrell L. Bock, Acts, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007),
62–67. “Jesus’s reply in verses 7–8 does not reject the premise of the
question, that the kingdom will one day be restored to Israel” (p. 62).
55. Note the concentric parallel between the “witness of mercy” in this age
(“in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the
earth”) and the execution of divine justice through the Israelitic
kingdom in the age to come (cf. Isa. 2:3; Jer. 3:17; Mic. 4:2; Zech.
9:10; 14:8–9; Rev. 21:23–26).
56. Contrary to the pragmatic approach of most Gentiles—e.g., Roland
Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours (London: R. Scott,
1912); and Donald A. McGavran, Bridges of God: A Study in the
Strategy of Missions (New York: Friendship Press, 1955)—though
David Bosch sought to correct this error, cf. Transforming Mission:
Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, 1991), 94–95.
57. For a cogent introduction, see Daniel C. Juster, The Irrevocable
Calling: Israel’s Role as a Light to the Nations, 2nd ed. (Clarksville,
MD: Messianic Jewish Publishers, 2007); see also Horner, Future
Israel, 253–309.
58. “As Biblical scholarship makes ever more clear that Jesus and Paul
taught a future for national Israel in the eschatological plan of God, the
legitimacy of a supersessionist reading of Scripture grows ever more
dim to the point of vanishing altogether” (Craig A. Blaising, “The
Future of Israel as a Theological Question,” JETS 44, no. 3
[September 2001]: 439).
59. According to the analogy of tree grafting (vv. 17–24), Gentiles have
been “grafted in” (vv. 17, 19) to the Jewish olive tree, while
unbelieving Jews have been “broken off” (v. 17). However, God is
faithful to his promise to the forefathers, and they will one day “be
grafted back into their own olive tree” (v. 24). Such unbelieving Jews
 are who Paul has in mind when he says, “Not all who are descended
from Israel belong to Israel” (Rom. 9:6), and similarly, “No one is a
Jew who is merely one outwardly” (Rom. 2:28). Paul simply has in
mind that God accounts as heirs of salvation those who are Jewish,
both according to the flesh and according to faith (see figure 6.5).
Those who “walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham
had” (Rom. 4:12; cf. John 1:47) are the “Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16).
Paul nowhere entertains a nonethnic “spiritual Israel,” so commonly
held in the church today (see Horner, Future Israel, 253–90).
60. Blaising, “Future of Israel,” 444.
61. Contrary to the common supersessionist conclusion—e.g., F. F. Bruce:
“In all that Paul says about the restoration of Israel to God, he says
nothing about the restoration of an earthly Davidic kingdom. Without
trying to construct an argument from this silence, we may insist that
what Paul envisaged for his people was something far better”
(Romans, TNTC [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1985], 217). Why
is an ethnically undifferentiated kingdom “far better” than a
differentiated one?
62. Future Israel, 68.
63. Ibid., 252.
64. Such a literalistic reading would likewise lead us to conclude that men
and women have essentially become androgynous in God’s sight. As
Ronald Y. K. Fung observes, “The statement that there is no ‘male and
female’ in Christ does not mean, as was believed in later Gnosticism,
that in the new era mankind is restored to the pristine androgynous
state; nor does it mean that all male-female distinctions have been
obliterated in Christ, any more than that there is no racial difference
between the Christian Jew and the Christian Gentile. ‘In Christ Jesus’
emphasizes that Paul views the elimination of these antitheses from
the standpoint of redemption in Christ, while the context clearly shows
that the primary emphasis of the verse is on unity in Christ rather than
on equality” (The Epistle to the Galatians, NICNT [Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1988], 175–76).
65. Such unity between Jew and Gentile is similarly likened to different
appendages of “the same body” (Eph. 3:6; cf. 2:16; 4:4), and to
siblings with the same father in “the household of God” (Eph. 2:19; cf.
 3:15; 4:6), and to different branches grafted into one “olive tree”
(Rom. 11:17).
66. So Michael J. Vlach concludes, “If one recognizes that there are
nations in eternity with specific roles and identities, why would there
not be a special role and identity for the nation Israel ? . . . The concept
of nations in eternity does not contradict passages that speak of unity
among God’s people (see Rev 5:9–10). Nations can coexist in
harmony with the equality of salvation and spiritual blessings of which
all believers partake. In regard to salvation, there is one people of God,
but this concept does not rule out all ethnic, geographical, or gender
distinctions” (Has the Church Replaced Israel, 175–76; italics in the
original).
67. This animosity came to a head in the violent enactment (with the aid of
the Zealots) of “the restrictive propositions of the Shammaites, known
in the Talmud as ‘The Eighteen Articles’” (Samuel Mendelsohn, “Bet
Hillel and Bet Shammai,” JE, 3:116). These ordinances (c. AD 20) are
never listed in the rabbinical sources, but it is assumed they are the
basis of the stringent separation between Jews and Gentiles referenced
in the NT (cf. Acts 10:28; 11:3; Gal. 2:12).
68. Hillel and Shammai (c. 60 BC–AD 20) were the last of the Zugot
(“pairs” of scholars), the forefathers of the Tannaim (“teachers,” c. AD
10–220), who produced the Mishnah and much of the Talmudic
literature. See an introduction in Mendelsohn, “Bet Hillel and Bet
Shammai,” JE, 3:115–16; and Craig A. Evans, “Hillel, House of,” and
“Shammai, House of,” in Dictionary of New Testament Background,
ed. Stanley E. Porter and Craig A. Evans (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 2000), 496–98 and 1106–7. See also Jacob Neusner, The
Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70, 3 vols. (Leiden,
Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1971); and J. H. Charlesworth and L. L. Johns,
eds., Hillel and Jesus: Comparisons of Two Major Religious Leaders
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997).
69. “The rabbis had mixed feelings toward proselytes. Some, like Hillel,
were disposed to welcome proselytes and were even inclined to relax
the requirements a bit at the outset so that the newcomer could
perceive the true spirit of Judaism (Mish Aboth i.12; TB Shabbath
31a). On the other hand, Shammai viewed proselytes with some
 suspicion and demanded that they be thoroughly examined before
admittance. . . . Indeed, some rabbis argued that proselytes were like a
scab that adhered to the Jewish people (TB Yebamoth 47b, 109b;
Kiddushin 70b)” (T. R. Schreiner, “Proselyte,” ISBE, 3:1008).
70. Jewish theologian Michael Wyschogrod describes how a Gentile
becomes a Jew according to the flesh in God’s sight:
We must start with the insight that conversion to Judaism should
not be possible. . . . And yet, conversion to Judaism is possible.
How? By means of a miracle. A gentile who converts to
Judaism miraculously becomes part of the body of Israel. This
is far more than merely sharing Jewish beliefs and practices. To
become a Jew, a gentile must become seed of the patriarchs and
matriarchs and that is what she becomes, quasi-physically,
miraculously.
The Talmud speaks of the convert as being born, or reborn,
as a Jew. . . . A gentile mother and her son or a brother and a
sister who convert to Judaism and then marry each other do not
violate the biblical prohibition against incest. This is so because,
in the process of conversion, they were reborn and are therefore
no longer mother and son or brother and sister. Fortunately, such
marriages are rabbinically forbidden. . . . This does not, of
course, imply that the biological miracle that accompanies a
conversion can be observed under the microscope as changes in
the DNA of the convert. It is a theological-biological miracle. . .
.
This has to be so because being a Jew requires descent from
Abraham and Sarah, and if conversion to Judaism is to be
possible, then the convert must become a descendant of
Abraham and Sarah. Only a miracle can accomplish this feat.
(The Body of Faith: God and the People Israel, 2nd ed.
[Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1996], xviii–xix; italics in the
original)
71. Though there is much debate concerning the Heb. ger in the OT—i.e.,
the “sojourner” (Ex. 12:19; 20:10; Lev. 17:15; Deut. 16:11; 29:11; etc.)
or “stranger” (Ex. 12:48f.; Lev. 16:29; 19:33f.; Num. 9:14; etc.)—it
was generally understood by NT times that they were proselytes, since
 they were circumcised (Ex. 12:44, 48; Josh. 5:5; cf. Gen. 17:12f.), as
reflected in the LXX translation of Heb. ger with Gk. prosēlytos; see E.
G. Hirsch, “proselyte,” JE, 10:220–24; and K. G. Kuhn,
“προσήλυτος,”TDNT, 6:728–31.
72. K. G. Kuhn notes, “The rite [for the reception of proselytes] consists
of three parts: circumcision, baptism, and the offering of a sacrifice in
the temple. . . . As the Israelites in the wilderness had to fulfil three
conditions before the conclusion of the covenant, namely, circumcision
(cf. Ex. 12:48), sprinkling with water (Ex. 19:10) and an offering (Ex.
24:5), so proselytes must fulfil the same three conditions on entering
the covenant. . . . The non-Jew received thus into Judaism was
regarded after conversion ‘in every respect as a Jew,’ b. Jeb., 47b”
(“προσήλυτος,”TDNT, 6:738–39).
73. The earliest attestation to such proto-Noahide laws is found in Jubilees
7:20–21: “And in the twenty-eighth jubilee Noah began to command
his grandsons with ordinances and commandments and all of the
judgments which he knew. And he bore witness to his sons so that they
might do justice and cover the shame of their flesh and bless the one
who created them and honor father and mother, and each one love his
neighbor and preserve themselves from fornication and pollution and
from all injustice. For on account of these three the Flood came upon
the earth” (OTP, 2:69–70).
74. Formulated in later rabbinic tradition as seven commandments
(derived from Gen. 9:1–7) that are binding on all of humanity (the
“children of Noah”): “The prohibitions against (1) idolatry, (2)
blasphemy, (3) bloodshed, (4) incest and adultery, and (5) robbery; (6)
the injunction to establish courts of law; and (7) the prohibition against
eating flesh cut from a living animal” (Nahum M. Sarna, “Excursus 3:
The Noachide Commandments,” in Genesis, JPSTC [Philadelphia:
Jewish Publication Society, 1989], 377). See also the definitive study
by David Novak, The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism: The Idea of
Noahide Law, 2nd ed., ed. Matthew LaGrone (Oxford: Littman
Library of Jewish Civilization, 2011).
75. See an introduction to both inclusive and exclusive views in Paula
Fredriksen, “Judaism, the Circumcision of Gentiles, and Apocalyptic
Hope: Another Look at Galatians 1 and 2,” JTS 42, no. 2 (October
 1991): 532–64; cf. Terence L. Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles:
Jewish Patterns of Universalism (to 135 CE) (Waco, TX: Baylor
University Press, 2007).
76. Thus representing the exclusivist view: “The attitude of the primitive
Palestinian community to σεβόμενοι τὸν θεόν was based on that of
Palestinian Judaism. The only non-Jew to have a part in the salvation
effected in Jesus was the one who had first become a member of the
Jewish people by the acceptance of circumcision and of the obligation
to keep the whole Jewish Torah. Otherwise the non-Jew remained a
Gentile and as such he would fall victim to God’s wrath in the Last
Judgment” (Kuhn, “προσήλυτος,”TDNT, 6:743).
77. For an introduction concerning the issues surrounding the apostolic
“consultation,” see Bock, Acts, 486–93. See a congruous diagram in
Dan Gruber, The Church and the Jews: The Biblical Relationship
(Hanover, NH: Elijah Publishing, 1997), 131.
78. In no way does Gentile faith fulfill (Gk. plēroō) the hope of the
restored Davidic kingdom—contrary to the common Reformed
sentiment; e.g., Oswald T. Allis, Prophecy and the Church
(Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1945), 145–50; and
Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1979), 209–10.
79. Note a similar conclusion in David H. Stern, Messianic Judaism: A
Modern Movement with an Ancient Past (Clarksville, MD: Messianic
Jewish Publishers, 2007), 154–57.
80. Paula Fredriksen, “Ultimate Reality in Ancient Christianity: Christ and
Redemption” in Ultimate Realities: A Volume in the Comparative
Religious Ideas Project, ed. Robert C. Neville (Albany, NY: SUNY
Press, 2001), 63. Or as she describes elsewhere, “Both in the older
Jewish apocalyptic traditions and in their newer Christian refraction,
the nations join with Israel, but they do not join Israel. To phrase this
point in Christian theological vocabulary, you do not need to be Jewish
to be saved. At the End, the human population of God’s kingdom
reflects quotidian demography: Israel and the nations together worship
Israel’s god” (Paula Fredriksen, “Judaizing the Nations: The Ritual
Demands of Paul’s Gospel,” NTS 56 [April 2010]: 243).
81. For example, Kim Riddlebarger finds this passage exemplary of the
supposed apostolic “reinterpretation” of the Tanakh: “James saw the
prophecy as fulfilled in Christ’s resurrection and exaltation and in the
reconstitution of his disciples as the new Israel. The presence of both
Jew and Gentile in the church was proof that the prophecy of Amos
had been fulfilled. David’s fallen tent had been rebuilt by Christ” (A
Case for Amillennialism: Understanding the End Times, 2nd ed.
[Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013], 53).
82. As Soulen states, “This view of the church underlies the decision of
the so-called Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:1–21; Gal. 2:1–10). Those
present take it for granted that Jewish followers of Jesus remain
obligated to the Torah; at the same time they rule that Gentile
followers of Jesus are obligated to observe only the Noachide law. In
back of this decision is the belief that what God has done in Jesus
engages Jews as Jews and Gentiles as Gentiles” (The God of Israel and
Christian Theology, 170).
83. Messianic Jewish theologian Mark S. Kinzer calls this approach
“bilateral ecclesiology”—“an ekklesia that consists of two distinct but
united corporate bodies—a Jewish and a Gentile ekklesia”
(Postmissionary Messianic Judaism: Redefining Christian Engagement
with the Jewish People [Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005], 23; cf.
also Stuart Dauermann, Converging Destinies: Jews, Christians, and
the Mission of God [Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017], 187–207).
84. See Menachem Elon, Jewish Law: History, Sources, Principles, trans.
Bernard Auerbach and Melvin J. Sykes, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Jewish
Publication Society, 1994), 190–207.
85. Paul generally seeks unity of faith amid diversity of election.
Consequently he exhorts believers in Rome, both Jew and Gentile:
“May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in
such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that
together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 15:5–6; cf. 1:16; 2:9f.; 3:29f.; 4:11f.; 6:15;
9:30f.; 10:12; 11:13f.; 14:5; 15:1). This exhortation is based upon the
reality that “Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s
truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs,
and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy” (vv. 8–
 9). The distinction between Jew and Gentile (and their respective
callings) is here plainly assumed, and Paul goes on to quote Ps. 18:49;
Deut. 32:43; Ps. 117:1; and Isa. 11:10—all of which prophesy Jew and
Gentile worshiping together under a common messianic Lord in the
age to come (cf. Isa. 2:2–4; Dan. 7:14; Rev. 21:24), thus substantiating
the present exhortation to unity amid diversity.
86. Jerusalem thus becomes “the center of Old Testament eschatology”;
see Donald E. Gowan, Eschatology in the Old Testament, 2nd ed.
(London: T & T Clark, 2000), esp. 4–20.
87. Though its exact location is disputed and has varied historically; see J.
D. Levenson, “Zion Traditions,” ABD, 6:1098–1102; and Bargil
Pixner, Paths of the Messiah and Sites of the Early Church from
Galilee to Jerusalem, ed. Rainer Riesner (San Francisco: Ignatius
Press, 2010), 320–22.
88. This is in fact the general tenor of the Psalms, as summarized in Psalm
2: “It is worthwhile to re-emphasize that this psalm appears to have
been set together with Psalm 1 as an introduction to the entire Psalter.
As a result the theme of how Yhwh’s mashiah will conquer all
opposition and rule the world from Zion must be considered as one of
the broad, overarching themes of the Psalms, in whose light all the
ensuing lyrics, including the royal psalms, should be interpreted”
(Mitchell, The Message of the Psalter, 245).
89. So McClain notes, “Certainly, if there is ever to be a Kingdom of God
on earth, no more appropriate place for its world center could be found
than the place hallowed by the sacred memories of the One who there
suffered and died for the sins of the world. Furthermore, in this ancient
city we have literally the crossroads of the world, joining the three
great continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe. Ezekiel speaks
appropriately of the location as the ‘navel of the earth’ (38:12, ASV
margin)” (Greatness of the Kingdom, 230).
90. On the intertestamental view of the New Jerusalem, see esp. Tobit
13:7–18; 14:5; 2 Esdras 8:52; 10:27–59; 1 Enoch 90:28–29; 2 Baruch
4:2–4; 32:2–4.
91. The book of Revelation makes most sense within an unchanged Jewish
apocalyptic world-view; see Daniel F. Stramara Jr., God’s Timetable:
The Book of Revelation and the Feast of Seven Weeks (Eugene, OR:
 Pickwick, 2011). For a historical approach within a Jewish apocalyptic
(zealot) context, see John W. Marshall, Parables of War: Reading
John’s Jewish Apocalypse (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University
Press, 2001).
92. Gregory Beale rightly reasons concerning the “new” heavens and
earth: “The allusions to Isaiah . . . in 21:1, 4–5 probably understand
Isaiah as prophesying the transformation of the old creation rather than
an outright new creation ex nihilo. . . . Indeed, καινός (‘new’), as we
have seen, refers predominantly to a change in quality or essence
rather than something new that has never previously been in existence.
This usage of καινός is especially found in NT contexts describing
eschatological or redemptive-historical transitions” (The Book of
Revelation, NIGTC [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], 1040). The
same logic should apply to the “new” Jerusalem, though Beale
strangely rejects this: “The image of the city is probably figurative,
representing the fellowship of God with his people in an actual new
creation” (ibid., 1045).
93. See 1 Maccabees 13:51; 2 Maccabees 10:7; 14:4; cf. W. R. Farmer,
“The Palm Branches in John 12:13,” JTS 3 (1952): 62–66.
94. The near universal agreement among commentators (even
dispensationalists!) that “the times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24) refers
to a period following the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem finds little
support exegetically. Rather, the phrase seems most at home within an
unchanged Jewish apocalyptic context—“the times” (Gk. kairos) refer
to the Danielic-eschatological “time, times, and half a time [Gk.
kairos, LXX]” (7:25; 12:7), while “the Gentiles” refer to the
eschatological Gentile domination commonly associated with the
“messianic woes” (cf. Ezek. 39:23; Dan. 7:23; 8:13; 9:26; Zech. 12:3;
14:2; 1 Maccabees 3:45, 51; 4:60; 2 Maccabees 8:2; Psalms of
Solomon 2.19; 17.22). In this way, “the times of the Gentiles” is, for
example, shorthand for Dan. 7:24–25, which also accords with the
parallel passages in Matt. 24:15–22 and Mark 13:14–20, and with the
eschatological focus both preceding and following Luke 21:20–24 (cf.
also the eschatological orientation of “days of vengeance,” v. 22, and
“great distress,” v. 23). Moreover, the same Danielic timeframe is
assumed in Rev. 11:2: “Do not measure the court outside the temple;
 leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample
the holy city for forty-two months.” On the Olivet Discourse, see Joel
Richardson, When a Jew Rules the World: What the Bible Really Says
about Israel in the Plan of God (Washington, DC: WND Books, 2015),
219–35.
95. The nature and purpose of biblical typology will be discussed further
in chap. 7.
96. The Jewish stewardship of the oracles (cf. Acts 7:38; Rom. 3:2) also
seems to be the background of the apostolic “stewardship” of the
gospel (1 Cor. 9:17; Col. 1:25), which is entrusted to Jew and Gentile
alike—that is, “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of
God” (1 Cor. 4:1), “approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel”
(1 Thess. 2:4; cf. 2 Cor. 5:19; 1 Tim. 6:20; Titus 1:3).
97. Thus the Davidic coronation banquet is also a “proleptic enjoyment of
the eschatological banquet in the afterlife,” i.e., the messianic banquet:
“This tradition is reflected in the description of the victory/coronation
banquet of David in 1 Chr 12:38–40, a passage with strong messianic
overtones. Here, the warriors gather and celebrate with their new king,
the prototype of the Messiah. The nations come bearing gifts in tribute,
and ‘there was joy in Israel’ (v 40). This description reflects the form
of the banquet of the end time, which is given a classic description in
Isa 25:6–8” (Dennis E. Smith, “Messianic Banquet,” ABD, 4:789). In
like manner, “This suggests that one of the ways in which early
Christians interpreted their communal meals (both Eucharist and
agape) was as a messianic banquet being celebrated proleptically in
the presence of the risen Lord” (ibid., 790).
98. Here it is important to point out that although the Davidic kingdom
was of the same substance as the age to come, so to speak (cf. Heb.
2:4; 6:5), it was not the age to come, nor was it in itself the messianic
kingdom. The equation of the two, so critical to the dispensational
schema, sees the church age as an “intercalation” between the OT
kingdom of God and the eschatological kingdom of God. It is believed
that the kingdom of God existed substantially in Israel (though the
timing of its inauguration is disputed) until the time of the exile and
would be restored eschatologically; see Peters, Theocratic Kingdom,
 1:207–49; Feinberg, Premillennialism or Amillennialism, 33–58; and
McClain, Greatness of the Kingdom, 41–129.
99. For an overview of the complexities of this passage (Rom. 9:1–5), see
Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1996), 555–68.
100. The bottom line is that “Temple and Torah stand behind Romans
9[:4]” (Fredriksen, “Ultimate Reality,” 67; see also Fredriksen, Paul:
The Pagans’ Apostle [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017],
145–54).
101. “It is worth pausing to note that in the last four words Paul has
summed up the four most distinctive features of first-century Judaism,
as perceived and noted both by Jews themselves and by non-Jews:
monotheism (‘the glory,’ that is of ‘the God’; Deut 6:4, etc.); Israel as
God’s covenant people; the law of Moses as the charter for the
covenant people; the temple with its cult ensuring atonement and
forgiveness” (James D. G. Dunn, Romans 9–16, WBC [Dallas: Word,
1998], 528).
102. Of course, such election and calling was never assumed to be
ultimately salvific, for Jew and Gentile alike would be saved from the
wrath to come on the basis of faith in the sacrificial death of the
Messiah (cf. Acts 15; Rom. 10; Gal. 2). “For there is no other name
under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts
4:12). On the necessity of continued Jewish evangelism, see Horner,
Eternal Israel, 71–109.
103. See Colin Chapman, Whose Promised Land? The Continuing Crisis
over Israel and Palestine (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002); Stephen Sizer,
Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon? (Leicester, England:
InterVarsity, 2004); and Gary M. Burge, Whose Land? Whose
Promise? What Christians Are Not Being Told about Israel and the
Palestinians, 2nd ed. (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2013).
104. See Horner, Future Israel; Horner, Eternal Israel; and Vlach, Has the
Church Replaced Israel?
105. Contrary to Burge’s supersessionist conclusions after his vitriolic
itemization of Israel’s sins in Whose Land?, 135–64 (see also
Chapman, Whose Promised Land?, 141–238).
106. See Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob’s
Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People
(Tauranga, New Zealand: Maskilim Publishing, 2011).
107. 1 Kings 3:1; 6:1, 37; 7:12, 40, 45, 48, 51; 8:10f., 63f.; 9:1, 10, 15;
10:5, 12; 14:26, 28; 15:15, 18; 2 Kings 11:3f., 7, 10, 13, 15, 18f.; 12:4,
9ff., 16, 18; 14:14; 15:35; 16:8, 14, 18; 18:15; 19:1, 14; 20:5, 8; 21:4f.;
22:3ff., 8f.; 23:2, 6f., 11f., 24; 24:13; 25:9, 13, 16; 1 Chron. 6:31f.;
9:23; 22:1, 11, 14; 23:4, 24, 28, 32; 24:19; 25:6; 26:12, 22, 27; 28:12f.,
20; 29:8; 2 Chron. 3:1; 4:16; 5:1, 13; 7:2, 7, 11; 8:1, 16; 9:4, 11; 12:9,
11; 15:8; 16:2; 20:5, 28; 23:5f., 12, 14, 18ff.; 24:4, 7f., 12, 14, 18, 21;
26:19, 21; 27:3; 28:21, 24; 29:3, 5, 15ff., 20, 25, 31, 35; 30:1, 15;
31:10f., 16; 33:4f., 15; 34:8, 10, 14f., 17, 30; 35:2; 36:7, 10, 14, 18;
Ezra 1:3, 5, 7; 2:68; 3:8, 11; 7:27; 8:29; Neh. 10:35; Ps. 23:6; 27:4;
92:13; 116:19; 118:26; 122:1, 9; 134:1; 135:2; Isa. 2:2; 37:1, 14;
38:20, 22; 66:20; Jer. 17:26; 20:1f.; 26:2, 7, 9f.; 27:18, 21; 28:1, 5f.;
29:26; 33:11; 35:2, 4; 36:5, 10; 52:13, 17, 20; Lam. 2:7; Ezek. 8:14,
16; 10:19; 11:1; Hos. 8:1; 9:4; Joel 1:9, 14; 3:18; Mic. 4:1; Hag. 1:2,
14; Zech. 7:3; 8:9; 11:13; 14:20f. Note also the Mosaic tabernacle (Ex.
23:19; 34:26; Deut. 23:18; Josh. 6:24; Judg. 19:18; 1 Sam. 1:7, 24;
3:15; 2 Sam. 12:20).
108. 1 Chron. 22:2; 23:28; 25:6; 26:20; 28:12, 21; 29:7; 2 Chron. 3:3; 4:11,
19; 5:1, 14; 7:5; 15:18; 22:12; 23:3, 9; 24:7, 13, 27; 25:24; 28:24;
31:13, 21; 33:7; 34:9; 35:8; 36:18f.; Ezra 1:4; 2:68; 3:8f.; 4:24; 5:2,
13ff.; 6:3, 5, 7f., 12, 16f., 22; 7:24; 8:36; 10:1, 6, 9; Neh. 6:10; 8:16;
11:11, 16, 22; 12:40; 13:7, 9, 11; Ps. 42:4; 52:8; Eccl. 5:1; Dan. 1:2;
5:3; Matt. 12:4; Mark 2:26; Luke 6:4. Likewise, in reference to the
Mosaic tabernacle (Judg. 18:31; 1 Chron. 6:48; 9:11, 13, 26f.).
109. Similarly, the apocryphal book of Sirach says, “Have mercy, O Lord,
on the people called by your name, on Israel, whom you have named
your firstborn. Have pity on the city of your sanctuary, Jerusalem, the
place of your dwelling. Fill Zion with your majesty, and your temple
with your glory. Bear witness to those whom you created in the
beginning, and fulfill the prophecies spoken in your name” (36:17–20,
NRSV).
And again the apocryphal book of Tobit: “But God will again have
mercy on them, and God will bring them back into the land of Israel;
 and they will rebuild the temple of God, but not like the first one until
the period when the times of fulfillment shall come. After this they all
will return from their exile and will rebuild Jerusalem in splendor; and
in it the temple of God will be rebuilt, just as the prophets of Israel
have said concerning it. Then the nations in the whole world will all
be converted and worship God in truth” (14:5–6, NRSV).
110. See John W. Schmitt and J. Carl Laney, Messiah’s Coming Temple:
Ezekiel’s Prophetic Vision of the Future Temple, 2nd ed. (Grand
Rapids: Kregel, 2014).
111. The issue of sacrifices in the age to come (cf. Ezek. 40:42; 43:18–27;
44:11; 45:15–25; 46:2–20) has a long history of contentious debate,
with proponents viewing them as a “memorial” (cf. John L. Mitchell,
“The Question of Millennial Sacrifices, Part 1,” BSac 110, no. 439
[July 1953]: 248–67; Mitchell, “The Question of Millennial Sacrifices,
Part 2,” BSac 110, no. 440 [October 1953]: 342–61; and Pentecost,
Things to Come, 517–31) and critics dismissing them as typologically
obsolete (cf. Allis, Prophecy and the Church; and Curtis Crenshaw,
Dispensationalism Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow [Memphis:
Footstool, 1989]). At the heart of the debate is the efficacy of the
atonement (cf. Ezek. 45:15, 17, 20). Those who reject a sacrificial
system in the age to come do so based upon a typological
interpretation of OT sacrifices, which places them in a difficult
hermeneutical position concerning the actual efficacy of OT sacrifices
(cf. Lev. 1:4; 4:20; etc.). The answer seems to lie in delineating
between the purification of the flesh vs. purification of the conscience
(cf. Acts 13:39; Heb. 9:13ff.) in the context of a transitional millennial
age wherein death and sin still exist (see Jerry M. Hullinger, “The
Problem of Animal Sacrifices in Ezekiel 40–48,” BSac 152, no. 607
[July 1995]: 279–89).
112. Similar to the issue of sacrifices in the age to come is the continuance
of the Levitical priesthood, which seems inextricably bound to the
Davidic monarchy: “David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne
of the house of Israel, and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man
in my presence. . . . If you can break my covenant with the day and my
covenant with the night . . . then also my covenant with David my
servant may be broken, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his
 throne, and my covenant with the Levitical priests my ministers” (Jer.
33:17–21).
113. See chap. 2, n. 37.
114. When John “saw no temple [Gk. naos] in the city, for its temple [Gk.
naos] is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (Rev. 21:22), I
believe he was simply referencing the lack of a functional inner
sanctuary, echoing Jer. 3:16–17: “In those days, declares the LORD,
they shall no more say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the LORD.’ It shall
not come to mind or be remembered or missed; it shall not be made
again. At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the LORD,
and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the LORD in
Jerusalem, and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil
heart.” In contrast to the temple complex as a whole (Gk. hieron), naos
was commonly associated with the inner sanctuary (see “ναός,”
BDAG, 665–66; and “Temple,” NIDNTT, 3:781–94).
115. Though ultimately arguing for a realization of the Jewish hope,
Michael F. Bird summarizes well the Jerusalocentric tenor of
expectations during the late second-temple Judaism: “Generally
speaking, the basic contours of Jewish restoration eschatology
included the re-establishment of the twelve-tribes, the advent of a
messianic figure (or figures) to defeat Israel’s enemies and reign in
righteousness, a new or purified temple, the establishment of pure
worship and righteous people, the return of Yahweh to Zion, abundant
prosperity, a renewed covenant and the subjugation or admission of the
Gentiles” (Jesus and the Origins of the Gentile Mission [London: T &
T Clark, 2007], 27).
116. See esp. E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE–66 CE
(Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1992), chaps. 5–8; and
Oskar Skarsaune, In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish Influences on
Early Christianity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002). As N. T.
Wright summarizes,
The Temple was the focal point of every aspect of Jewish
national life. Local synagogues and schools of Torah in other
parts of Palestine, and in the Diaspora, in no way replaced it,
but gained their significance from their implicit relation to it. . .
.
 But the Temple was not simply the “religious” centre of
Israel. . . . The Temple combined in itself the functions of all
three—religion, national figurehead and government—and also
included what we think of as the City, the financial and
economic world. . . . When we study the city-plan of ancient
Jerusalem, the significance of the Temple stands out at once,
since it occupies a phenomenally large proportion (about 25%)
of the entire city. Jerusalem was not, like Corinth for example, a
large city with lots of little temples dotted here and there. It was
not so much a city with a temple in it; more like a temple with a
small city round it. (The New Testament and the People of God
[London: SPCK, 1992], 224–25)
117. G. E. Wright, “The Significance of the Temple in the Ancient Near
East,” BA 7, no. 3 (September 1944): 43. G. Schrenk refers to “the
general apostolic conception that the new temple is the new
community” (“τὸ ἱερόν,” TDNT, 3:244), concluding: “The temple is
here an image of the community which through Jesus becomes the
temple after the destruction of the earthly sanctuary” (p. 247). The
same basic logic drives Beale, New Testament Biblical Theology,
chaps. 18–19; Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 169–393;
N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996),
489–528; Michael Bird, Jesus and the Origins of the Gentile Mission,
125–77; T. Desmond Alexander, From Eden to the New Jerusalem,
138–92; and T. Desmond Alexander and Simon Gathercole, eds.,
Heaven on Earth: The Temple in Biblical Theology (Carlisle, UK:
Paternoster, 2004), chaps. 7ff.
118. Though relegating the temple to a secondary Jewish plan of salvation,
the dispensationalists at least preserve a place for a messianic temple
in the age to come (e.g., Walvoord, Millennial Kingdom, 309–15;
Pentecost, Things to Come, 512–31; and McClain, Greatness of the
Kingdom, 247–54).
119. So Sanders argues, “On what conceivable grounds could Jesus have
undertaken to attack—and symbolize the destruction of—what was
ordained by God? The obvious answer is that destruction, in turn,
looks towards restoration. . . . Thus we conclude that Jesus publicly
predicted or threatened the destruction of the temple, that the statement
 was shaped by his expectation of the arrival of the eschaton, that he
probably also expected a new temple to be given by God from heaven,
and that he made a demonstration which prophetically symbolized the
coming event” (Jesus and Judaism, 71, 75). Though Sanders’s use of
form criticism is gratuitous and his conclusions are often
Schweitzerian (“Jesus was a visionary who was mistaken about the
immediately future course of events,” p. 327), he does argue
convincingly for the centrality of the temple to first-century Judaic life
and the common expectation for an eschatological-messianic temple
(cf. pp. 61–90).
120. This rests upon the larger assumption that Israel’s calling by God has
not been superseded in the NT. In spite of the clear apostolic
declaration that “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable”
(Rom. 11:29), many hold to the idea that one generation’s rebellion
abrogates the entire covenantal framework of the Tanakh. Take Ladd,
for example: “The rejection of the Kingdom meant judgment for Israel
as a nation in history. . . . The temple would be forsaken by God (Matt.
23:38 = Luke 13:35), razed to the ground (Mark 13:2), the city
destroyed (Luke 21:20–24). Because Israel rejected the Kingdom, God
has rejected the nation and will choose others to be the people of his
vineyard (Mark 12:9). In view of the fact that Jesus saw his disciples
as the true Israel, the secondary Matthean saying that God will take the
Kingdom from Israel and give it to another people (Matt. 21:43) is a
correct interpretation” (George E. Ladd, The Presence of the Future:
The Eschatology of Biblical Realism [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans],
1974, 321–22; italics in the original).
121. Note how Paul ultimately relates his ministry to the Gentiles in Rome
unto the greater Jewish narrative: “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles.
Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my
ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus
save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of
the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?”
(Rom. 11:13–15). Such Jewish centricity thus lies behind Paul’s
application in 15:26–27: “Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to
make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem.
For they were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if
the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought
 also to be of service to them in material blessings.” These examples
seem to indicate that the Jewish apocalyptic narrative, with the temple
at its center, remained true and unchanged in Paul’s mind.
122. Likewise Peter, “the apostle to the Jews” (Gal. 2:8, NLT), was not
supplanting the temple when he referred to Jewish believers (cf. 1
Peter 1:1) being “built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood,
to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1
Peter 2:5). He was simply referencing the ultimate purpose of the
temple, i.e., “that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who
called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (v. 9). To read
supersessionism into these verses is akin to reading Jesus’ rejection of
the Decalogue into his command not to hate, lust, covet, etc. (cf. Matt.
5:17–42).
123. Contrary to Beale’s conclusion: “This expectation of a nonliteral
temple is, for the most part, a break with Judaism, which consistently
affirmed the hope of a final, material temple structure on a scale
greater than any before. . . . These [Qumranic] Jewish precursors are
parallel to the early Christian hope, which went further and saw God
and the Messiah as definitively replacing the temple” (Revelation,
NIGTC, 1091–92).
124. Fredriksen, “Judaizing the Nations,” 248; information in brackets
added.
125. Contrary to G. E. Ladd: “While the New Testament clearly affirms the
salvation of literal Israel, it does not give any details about the day of
salvation. . . . As we have already pointed out, New Testament
exegesis (Hebrews 8) makes it difficult to believe that the Old
Testament prophecies about the ‘millennial temple’ will be fulfilled
literally. They are fulfilled in the New Covenant established in the
blood of Jesus. . . . So a nondispensational eschatology simply affirms
the future salvation of Israel and remains open to God’s future as to the
details” (“Historic Premillennialism,” in The Meaning of the
Millennium, ed. Robert Clouse [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity,
1977], 28). Cannot a “nondispensational eschatology” (i.e., non-
dualistic soteriology) hold to “the salvation of literal Israel” without
jettisoning the very heart of Jewish apocalyptic expectation?
126. “Put together all the symbols we have outlined so far, and what do we
get? We get Jesus feasting with his motley group of followers, as a
sign of their healing and forgiveness; Jesus implying that those with
him are the true Israel; Jesus enacting the real return from exile, the
new exodus; Jesus marking his people out with a new praxis which did
for them what Torah did for the pre-eschatological Israel; and Jesus
forming a counter-Temple movement around himself” (N. T. Wright,
Jesus and the Victory of God [London: SPCK, 1996], 437).
127. As N. T. Wright summarizes, “‘Day of YHWH,’ ‘Kingdom of God,’
victory over evil and pagan rulers, rescue of Israel, end of exile, the
coming of the Messiah, the new Exodus, and the return of YHWH
himself; and, in and through all of this, the resurrection of the dead.
This is the combination of themes which characterizes the first-century
Jewish expectation of the future” (Paul: Fresh Perspectives [London:
SPCK, 2005], 135; cf. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 615–31).
Unfortunately, Wright goes on to “rethink,” “rework,” “redefine,” and
“reimagine” this eschatology as spiritually fulfilled/realized in the first
coming (Paul, 135–50; cf. Jesus and the Victory of God, 631–53). This
is all much akin to Albert Schweitzer’s original conclusion: “The
Messianic secret of Jesus is the basis of Christianity, since it involves
the de-nationalising and the spiritualisation of Jewish eschatology”
(Quest of the Historical Jesus, 283).
128. Referencing the “Asiatic theory” concerning the locus of chiliasm in
the early church (Asia Minor being a stronghold of chiliasm against
the spiritualizing tendencies of the Alexandrian school); see Martin
Erdmann, The Millennial Controversy in the Early Church (Eugene,
OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2005).
129. For a comprehensive analysis of this passage from a chiliastic point of
view, see Wilber B. Wallis, “The Problem of an Intermediate Kingdom
in I Corinthians 15:20–28,” JETS 18, no. 4 (Fall 1975): 229–42.
130. See a survey in D. S. Russell, The Method and Message of Jewish
Apocalyptic: 200 BC–AD 100 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964),
285–97.
131. See chap. 4, n. 18.
132. See G. E. Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation of John (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), 259–74; Ladd, Crucial Questions about the
 Kingdom of God, 133–50; and Jack S. Deere, “Premillennialism in
Revelation 20:4–6,” BSac 135, no. 537 (January 1978): 58–74. The
oft-quoted words of Henry Alford deserve repeating: “If, in a passage
where two resurrections are mentioned, where certain psychai ezēsan
[“souls came to life”] at the first, and the rest of the nekroi ezēsan
[“dead came to life”] only at the end of a specified period after that
first,—if in such a passage the first resurrection may be understood to
mean spiritual rising with Christ, while the second means literal rising
from the grave;—then there is an end of all significance in language,
and Scripture is wiped out as a definite testimony to anything” (The
Greek Testament, vol. 4 [Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1872], 732).
133. See E. Lohse, “χιλιάς, χίλιοι,” TDNT, 9:466–71; cf. Lohse, “The
Cosmic Week and Cosmic Sabbath,” TDNT, 7:19–20); and Jean
Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity: The Development of
Christian Doctrine before the Council of Nicea (London: Darton,
Longman & Todd, 1964), 396–404.
134. So ends Life of Adam and Eve: “After this [the death of Eve], all her
children buried her with great weeping. Then, when they had mourned
for four days, the archangel Michael appeared to them and said to
Seth, ‘Man of God, do not prolong mourning your dead more than six
days, because the seventh day is a sign of the resurrection, the rest of
the coming age, and on the seventh day the LORD rested from all his
works.’ Then Seth made the tablets” (51.1–3 [OTP, 2:294]).
135. OTP, 1:154.
136. OTP, 1:426. Note also the conflation of the messianic banquet and
chiliasm in the references to the “millennial banquet” in Testament of
Isaac 6.13, 22; 8.10 (OTP, 1:910–11); cf. Matt. 8:11; 22:2; Luke
14:24; Rev. 19:9.
137. OTP, 2:63–64; italics added.
138. Whether Peter was quoting this as a timing indicator or just as a
generic justification for God’s delaying of the day of the Lord is
debatable. The early church worked off the chronology of the LXX
(though variations exist between manuscripts), which is approx. 1500
years ahead of the Masoretic Text (MT). Thus the first-century church
would have seen Christ’s birth c. 5500 AM (Lat. Anno Mundi, “in the
year of the world”) based on the LXX, versus c. 4000 AM in the MT
 (cf. M. Cogan, “Chronology: Hebrew Bible,” ABD, 1:1002–10; and J.
N. Oswalt, “Chronology of the OT,” ISBE, 673–85). For example,
Hippolytus: “Since, then, in six days God made all things, it follows
that 6,000 years must be fulfilled. And they are not yet fulfilled, as
John says: ‘five are fallen; one is,’ that is, the sixth; ‘the other is not
yet come.’ In mentioning the ‘other,’ moreover, he specifies the
seventh, in which there is rest. But someone may be ready to say, How
will you prove to me that the Saviour was born in the year 5500? . . .
From the birth of Christ, then, we must reckon the 500 years that
remain to make up the 6000” (Commentary on Daniel, 2.4–6 [ANF,
5:179]).
Hence, “The Christians had believed firmly that Jesus Christ would
rise again soon after the world entered the sabbatical millennium. The
larger the age of the world, the sooner appeared the New Age.
Christian chronographers, therefore, beginning with Clement of
Alexandria, Judas, Julius Africanus, Hippolytus, and Eusebius,
accepted the Septuagint version as authentic” (Ben Zion Wacholder,
“Biblical Chronology in the Hellenistic World Chronicles,” HTR 61,
no. 3 [July 1968]: 453). By the time the MT was adopted and used in
Jerome’s translation of the Latin Vulgate (c. 405), chiliasm had been
largely abandoned. On second-temple chronography, see Wacholder,
“The Calendar of Sabbatical Cycles During the Second Temple and
the Early Rabbinic Period,” HUCA 44 (1973): 53–196; and
Wacholder, “Chronomessianism: The Timing of Messianic
Movements and the Calendar of Sabbatical Cycles,” HUCA 46
(1975): 201–18. For a general introduction to biblical chronography,
see Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology: Principles of
Time Reckoning in the Ancient World and Problems of Chronology in
the Bible, rev. ed. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998).
139. “An eschatological understanding of ‘my rest’ in Ps 95:11 is
presupposed in [Heb. 4] v 1 and is fundamental to the exhortation to
diligence to enter God’s rest in 4:1–11. It is possible that the hearers
were already familiar with this concept through their past association
with the hellenistic Jewish synagogue. The principle that unbelief
invited exclusion from God’s rest (3:19) remains valid in the present
and assumes profound significance when rest is understood in this
 eschatological sense” (William L. Lane, Hebrews 1–8, WBC [Dallas:
Word, 1998], 98).
140. For an excellent overview of the progression of chiliastic thought in
the early church, see Hans Bietenhard, “The Millennial Hope in the
Early Church,” SJT 6, no. 1 (1953): 12–30; cf. also Dietrich H.
Kromminga, The Millennium in the Church: Studies in the History of
Christian Chiliasm (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1945), 17–113.
141. See Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, chap. 81; Irenaeus, Against
Heresies, 5.28.3; Commodianus, Instructions, chap. 35; Hippolytus,
Commentary on Daniel, 2.4; Methodius, Extracts from the Work on
Things Created, 9; Lactantius, Epitome of the Divine Institutes, chap.
70. Note also The Epistle of Barnabas, chap. 15. Though Augustine
“once held this opinion,” he argues against the chiliastic position in
City of God, 20.7.1.
142. For example, Irenaeus: “And there are some, again, who relegate the
death of Adam to the thousandth year; for since ‘a day of the Lord is
as a thousand years,’ he did not overstep the thousand years, but died
within them, thus bearing out the sentence of his sin” (Against
Heresies, 5.23.2 [ANF, 1:551]).
143. Against Heresies, 5.30.4 (ANF, 1:560). Note also, “These rewards for
the righteous are to take place in the times of the kingdom, that is,
upon the seventh day, which has been sanctified, in which God rested
from all the works which He created, which is the true Sabbath of the
righteous” (ibid., 5.33.2 [ANF, 1:562]).
144. It has been increasingly argued that chiliasm was not the dominant
view of the early church (e.g., Charles E. Hill, Regnum Caelorum:
Patterns of Future Hope in Early Christianity, 2nd ed. [Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2001]). However, the basic thesis that chiliasm appeared
during the second century defies reason in light of so many NT and
second-temple Jewish references and allusions.
145. Stanley J. Grenz, The Millennial Maze: Sorting Out Evangelical
Opinions (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1992), 44.
146. On the interpretation of Revelation and the millennium during the
Middle Ages, see Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn, eds.,
The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (New York: Cornell University
 Press, 1992), 3–158; and Richard K. Emmerson, Antichrist in the
Middle Ages: A Study of Medieval Apocalypticism, Art, and
Literature (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981).
147. See Peter Toon, ed., Puritans, the Millennium and the Future of Israel:
Puritan Eschatology, 1600 to 1660 (Cambridge: James Clarke, 1970).
See also the insightful overview of Puritan millenarianism by Richard
W. Cogley, “The fall of the Ottoman Empire and the restoration of
Israel in the ‘Judeo-centric’ strand of Puritan millenarianism,” Church
History 72, no. 2 (June 2003): 304–32.
148. See a summary in “Millenarianism,” The Oxford Dictionary of the
Christian Church, ed. F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, 3rd rev. ed.
(Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 1093–94. See
also the fascinating populist account by J. F. C. Harrison, The Second
Coming: Popular Millenarianism 1780–1850 (New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 1979).
149. See Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and
American Millenarianism 1880–1930 (Chicago: University of
Chicago, 1970); and T. P. Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second
Coming: American Premillenialism 1875–1982, 2nd ed. (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1983).
150. So concludes Robert K. Whalen, “Premillennialism,” The
Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements, ed.
Richard A. Landes (New York: Routledge, 2000), 588.
151. This threefold classification is an early twentieth-century invention, as
is evident by the lack of definitions in the final edition of the
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Eerdmans, 1939) and the
testimony of Louis Berkhof: “The name [amillennialism] is new
indeed, but the view to which it is applied is as old as Christianity. . . .
It has ever since [the early church fathers] been the view most widely
accepted, is the only view that is either expressed or implied in the
great historical Confessions of the Church, and has always been the
prevalent view in Reformed circles” (Systematic Theology [Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1938], 708).
152. See esp. the instrumental work of Charles L. Feinberg,
Premillennialism or Amillennialism? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1936).
153. As seen in George Ladd’s further delineation between “dispensational
premillennialism” and “historic premillennialism” (cf. The Meaning of
the Millennium: Four Views, ed. Robert Clouse [Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 1977], 17–114). Ladd’s view is simply chiliastic
inaugurationalism.
154. Thus two inaugurationalists may be virtually identical in all
theological convictions yet differ in relation to a millennial transition
into the age to come, as was the case with Anthony Hoekema and
George Ladd (see Hoekema, “An Amillennial Response,” in Meaning
of the Millennium, 55–59).
155. See Loraine Boettner, The Millennium (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian
and Reformed, 1957); Marcellus J. Kik, An Eschatology of Victory
(Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1974); David Chilton,
Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion (Tyler, TX:
Dominion Press, 1985); and Kenneth L. Gentry Jr., He Shall Have
Dominion: A Postmillennial Eschatology (Tyler, TX: Institute for
Christian Economics, 1992).
156. Since amillennialists and postmillennialists hold the same figurative
view of the millennium, the terms “optimillennialism” and
“pessimillennialism” have been coined to distinguish the broader
framework of thought (see Gary North, Millennialism and Social
Theory [Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1991], 136–37;
David Chilton, “Optimistic Amillennialism,” The Geneva Review 20
[July 1985]: 5–6; and Richard B. Gaffin Jr., “Theonomy and
Eschatology: Reflections on Postmillennialism,” in Theonomy: A
Reformed Critique, ed. William S. Barker and W. Robert Godfrey
[Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990], 197–224).
157. Though new-creationism persisted in the margins throughout the
history of the church, it was generally assimilated into the
dispensational movement in America and Britain in the early twentieth
century; see a history of the “new creation model” in Craig A.
Blaising, “Premillennialism,” in Three Views on the Millennium and
Beyond, ed. Darrell L. Bock (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 164–
92.
158. So Kenneth L. Gentry Jr., “Although Blaising associates the arising of
the spiritual model of eternity with the birth of amillennialism and
 postmillennialism, both of these nonpremillennial eschatologies now
strongly affirm a new creation model. . . . Indeed, amillennialist
Hoekema provides a thorough presentation of the new creation model
in his 1979 book, The Bible and the Future” (“A Postmillennial
Response to Craig A. Blaising,” in Three Views on the Millennium,
231).
159. Cf. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical
Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 1109–13.
160. In contrast to “dispensational premillennialism” and “historic
premillennialism” (i.e., chiliastic inaugurationalism). George Ladd’s
use of “historic” is both presumptive and nondescriptive.
161. Dialogue with Trypho, 80 (ANF, 1:239).
162. On First Principles, 2.3.7 (ANF, 4:275).
163. Ibid., 2.11.6 (ANF, 4:299).
164. Jacob Neusner and Bruce Chilton, Jewish and Christian Doctrines:
The Classics Compared (New York: Routledge, 2000), 183.
165. See n. 157 above.
166. See György Heidl, The Influence of Origen on the Young Augustine:
A Chapter of the History of Origenism, 2nd ed. (Piscataway, NJ:
Gorgias Press, 2009). The great historian Norman Cohn summarized:
The third century saw the first attempt to discredit
millenarianism, when Origen, perhaps the most influential of all
the theologians of the ancient Church, began to present the
Kingdom as an event which would take place not in space or
time but only in the souls of believers. For a collective,
millenarian eschatology Origen substituted an eschatology of
the individual soul. What stirred his profoundly Hellenic
imagination was the prospect of spiritual progress begun in this
world and continued in the next; and to this theme theologians
were henceforth to give increasing attention. . . . When in the
fourth century Christianity attained a position of supremacy in
the Mediterranean world and became the official religion of the
Empire, ecclesiastical disapproval of millenarianism became
emphatic. The Catholic Church was now a powerful and
prosperous institution, functioning according to a well-
 established routine; and the men responsible for governing it
had no wish to see Christians clinging to out-dated and
inappropriate dreams of a new earthly Paradise. Early in the
fifth century St Augustine propounded the doctrine which the
new conditions demanded. According to The City of God the
Book of Revelation was to be understood as a spiritual allegory;
as for the Millennium, that had begun with the birth of
Christianity and was fully realized in the Church. This at once
became orthodox doctrine. (The Pursuit of the Millennium:
Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the
Middle Ages, 3rd ed. [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970],
29)
167. Grenz, Millennial Maze, 44.
168. City of God, 20.9.1 (NPNF1, 2:430).
169. Ibid., 22.11.1 (NPNF1, 2:492).
170. See a history of Reformed theology and its strict adherence to
Augustinian eschatology in Horner, Future Israel, esp. 147–78.
171. For a highly critical yet comprehensive history of ecclesiastical abuse,
see Karlheinz Deschner, Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums
[Christianity’s Criminal History, no English trans.], 10 vols. (Reinbek,
Germany: Rowohlt Verlag, 1986–2013).
172. “It is a fact of history that the Augustinian concept of a Christian
theocracy is closely linked with the anti-Semitic attitudes of the
medieval church and unbelievably harsh treatment of the Jewish
people. Thus it is not surprising that the traditional claim of
Christendom to embody the promised messianic kingdom is an
embarrassment to Christians involved in dialogue with Jewish people”
(Diprose, Israel and the Church, 168).
173. For example, dominionist David Chilton concludes by resting the
burden of restoration upon the church: “This world has tens of
thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years of increasing
godliness ahead of it, before the Second Coming of Christ. . . . He has
placed us into the great war for world history, with the absolute
guarantee that we will win. Even if He has to make the whole universe
stand still for us (Josh. 10:12–13), the day will last long enough for us
 to achieve victory. Time is on our side. The Kingdom has come, and
the world has begun again. Now: Get to work” (Paradise Restored: A
Biblical Theology of Dominion [Tyler, TX: Dominion Press, 1985],
221–22). Though mitigated, inaugurationalists assume the same
theological conclusion and ecclesiological application.
174. McClain, Greatness of the Kingdom, 438–39.
175. See Scofield Reference Bible (1909), 996, 1003, 1226; Chafer,
Systematic Theology, 7:223–25; and Pentecost, Things to Come, 144.
176. See Peters, Theocratic Kingdom, 1:207–49; Feinberg,
Premillennialism or Amillennialism, 33–58; and McClain, Greatness
of the Kingdom, 41–129.
177. See Peters, Theocratic Kingdom, 1:375–91; Chafer, Systematic
Theology, 4:265–67, 5:333–58; and McClain, Greatness of the
Kingdom, 304–84.
178. To add to the confusion, between Pentecost and the second advent
Christendom is also understood as the “mystery form” of theocracy
and dominionistic sovereignty; see Chafer, Systematic Theology, 1:45
and 5:352; Scofield Reference Bible (1909), 1014; and J. Dwight
Pentecost, Thy Kingdom Come: Tracing God’s Kingdom Program and
Covenant Promises Throughout History (Wheaton: Victor, 1990), esp.
chaps. 19 and 20. So Chafer concludes, “The present conditions in
Christendom are a mystery form of the kingdom. Since the kingdom of
heaven is no other than the rule of God on the earth, He must now be
ruling to the extent of full realization of those things which are termed
‘the mysteries’ in the New Testament and which really constitute the
new message of the New Testament” (Systematic Theology, 7:224).
179. Oscar Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, trans. S. C.
Guthrie and C. A. M. Hall, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963),
225–26.
180. As Ladd often does; for example: “The Second Coming of Christ will
mean nothing less than the disclosure to the world of the sovereignty
and lordship which is already his. He is now the Lord; he is now
reigning at the right hand of God. However, his present reign is seen
only by the eye of faith. It is unseen and unrecognized by the world”
(“Historic Premillennialism,” in The Meaning of the Millennium, 32).
 On the contrary, we find throughout the NT that Jesus is reigning in
mercy in this age (cf. Rom. 5:9; 1 Tim. 1:16; 2 Peter 3:9), while
establishing his kingdom at the Parousia (cf. Matt. 13:43; Luke
22:29f.; Acts 1:6; 1 Cor. 15:50; Eph. 5:5; 2 Tim. 4:1; 2 Peter 1:11;
Rev. 11:15).
181. A point originally made by Johannes Weiss (Jesus’ Proclamation of
the Kingdom, 96–97), and reiterated by Stanley Toussaint: “If the
kingdom began in the ministry of Christ, where is the prophesied
judgment in the Gospels? Were the Old Testament prophets and John
incorrect in their message? . . . After the prophesied judgment, the
kingdom will come” (“Israel and the Church of a Traditional
Dispensationalist,” in Three Central Issues in Contemporary
Dispensationalism: A Comparison of Traditional and Progressive
Views, ed. Herbert W. Bateman IV [Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1999],
231–32). Instead of embracing Jewish apocalypticism, Toussaint
unfortunately regresses to the old dispensational conclusions
concerning a postponed kingdom and ecclesial parentheses.
182. Craig L. Blomberg, “A Response to G. R. Beasley-Murray on the
Kingdom,” JETS 35, no. 1 (March 1992): 32. Indeed, an even wider
array might be included in the academic “consensus,” e.g., Cullmann,
Ridderbos, Hoekema, Waltke, Poythress, Bock, Fee, Carson,
Schreiner, Beker, Dunn, Wright, etc. See also Ladd’s baronial list in
Presence of the Future, 38–39, n. 161.
183. See Elliott Johnson, Stanley Toussaint, Mike Stallard, Michael Vlach,
Thomas Ice, Arnold Fruchtenbaum, etc.
184. Clayton Sullivan, Rethinking Realized Eschatology (Macon, GA:
Mercer University Press, 1988), 65. See Sullivan’s list of prominent
historians who “believe the theory that accords best with New
Testament evidence is the hypothesis that ‘Kingdom of God’ was
Jesus’ distinctive way of referring to this Golden Age for which first-
century Jews were expectantly waiting” (p. 61).
185. Christopher Rowland, Christian Origins: An Account of the Setting
and Character of the Most Important Messianic Sect of Judaism, 2nd
ed. (London: SPCK, 2002), 133. See also Allison, Jesus of Nazareth,
152–69.
186. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth, 169, n. 279; arguing against N. T. Wright.
Clayton Sullivan describes the spiritual realization and redefinition of
the kingdom of God as an unethical theological “bait-and-switch
maneuver” between two fundamentally different definitions: one
Jewish and apocalyptic, the other universal and non-apocalyptic (see
Rethinking Realized Eschatology [Macon, GA: Mercer University
Press, 1988], 46–48).
187. Sullivan, Rethinking Realized Eschatology, 60. See also Ehrman,
Jesus, 141–62; and chap. 1, n. 67.
188. So McClain declared concerning Schweitzer, who typifies the modern
historical tradition: “It should go without saying that in no Biblical
sense can Dr. Schweitzer be called a Christian, and his conclusion
regarding our Lord and His Kingdom is an appalling thing” (Greatness
of the Kingdom, 13). Moreover, historical scholars have a chronic lack
of cruciform theology. Assuming that Paul was the primary inventor of
an atonemental interpretation of the cross, they grossly misunderstand
the apostolic tradition.
189. See the discussion in Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 1–37.
190. Martin Buber, Der Jude und sein Judentum (The Jew and His
Jewishness, no English trans., Cologne, Germany: J. Melzer, 1963),
562; quoted and translated in Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 28–
29; italics in the original. Note also the pointed declaration of Jewish
scholar Schalom Ben-Chorin, “The Jew is profoundly aware of the
unredeemed character of the world, and he perceives and recognizes
no enclave of redemption in the midst of its unredeemedness. The
concept of the redeemed soul in the midst of an unredeemed world is
alien to the Jew, profoundly alien, inaccessible from the primal ground
of his existence. This is the innermost reason for Israel’s rejection of
Jesus, not a merely external, merely national conception of
messianism. In Jewish eyes, redemption means redemption from all
evil. Evil of body and soul, evil in creation and civilization” (ibid., 29).
191. Everett Ferguson, “The Terminology of Kingdom in the Second
Century,” in Studia Patristica, ed. E. A. Livingstone, vol. XVII
(Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1982), 670.
192. Ibid.
193. Presence of the Future, 243; cf. also Benedict T. Viviano, The
Kingdom of God in History (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1988),
32–38.
194. Ibid., 245.
195. Traditionally dated to about 170, the Muratorian Fragment lists the
four Gospels, Acts, thirteen epistles of Paul, Jude, two epistles of John,
the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Johannine Apocalypse as divinely
authoritative, thus revealing the formative nature of the second century
to the NT canon. See F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1988), chap. 12; and Bruce M. Metzger, The
Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Significance, and
Development (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 191–201.
Chapter Seven
1. See the classic survey of crucifixion in the ancient world by Martin
Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message
of the Cross, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977).
2. John Stott notes,
Crucifixion seems to have been invented by “barbarians” on the
edge of the known world, and taken over from them by both
Greeks and Romans. It is probably the most cruel method of
execution ever practised, for it deliberately delayed death until
maximum torture had been inflicted. The victim could suffer for
days before dying. When the Romans adopted it, they reserved
it for criminals convicted of murder, rebellion or armed robbery,
provided that they were also slaves, foreigners or other non-
persons. . . .
So then, whether their background was Roman or Jewish or
both, the early enemies of Christianity lost no opportunity to
ridicule the claim that God’s anointed and man’s Savior ended
his life on a cross. The idea was crazy. (The Cross of Christ
[Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1986], 23–24)
3. So the suffering and glory of the Christ cannot be conflated; contra, for
example, Joel Green: “Which texts does Jesus exegete for his
companions? We are not told, but the implication with which Luke
leaves us is that it does not matter. The pattern exemplified by Moses
and the prophets is consummated in a Messiah who suffers. Likewise,
all of the Scriptures have their fulfillment in a Messiah who suffers”
(The Gospel of Luke, NICNT [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997], 848).
4. Klaus Koch, The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic, trans. M. Kohl
(London: SCM Press, 1972), 32. Again, such glory would have been
understood eschatologically in light of the prophetic literature (cf. Isa.
11:10; 24:23; 35:2; 40:5; 60:1ff.; 66:18f.; Jer. 33:9; Ezek. 43:5; Dan.
7:14; Hab. 2:14), as reiterated throughout the NT (cf. Rom. 5:2; 8:18;
1 Cor. 15:40ff.; 2 Cor. 4:17; Eph. 1:18; Phil. 3:21; Col. 3:4; 2 Thess.
1:10; 2 Tim. 2:10; Titus 2:13; 1 Peter 4:13; 5:1; Jude 24; Rev. 21:11).
5. Unfortunately, this basic eschatological assumption is generally
overlooked or disregarded—cf. Green, Luke, NICNT, 848–49; John
Nolland, Luke 18:35–24:53, WBC (Dallas: Word, 1998), 1204–5; I.
Howard Marshall, Gospel of Luke, NIGTC (Exeter, England:
Paternoster, 1978), 896–97; Leon Morris, Luke, TNTC (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1988), 357–58; François Bovon, Luke 3:
Commentary on 19:28–24:53, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress,
2012), 374; and Joseph Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke X–
XXIV, AB (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 1565–66.
6. “The comparison of the suffering of the righteous with the glorious
vindication which will be theirs is well established in Jewish thought
prior to the time of Paul (see particularly Dan 7:17–27; Wisd Sol 2–5;
2 Macc 7; 1 Enoch 102–4). . . . And the elements of it are all here—
inheritance (= coming kingdom), suffering as a necessary preliminary,
and assurance of coming glory which will eclipse all the preceding
anguish” (J. D. G. Dunn, Romans 1–8, WBC [Dallas: Word, 1998],
468–69).
7. “These two sentences in Ps 110 (vss 1 and 4) are among the Jewish
scriptural texts most often quoted or alluded to by early Christian
writers. Thirty-three quotations and allusions are scattered through the
NT, and seven more may be found in other Christian writings
produced before the middle of the second century” (David M. Hay,
Glory at the Right Hand: Psalm 110 in Early Christianity [Nashville:
Abingdon, 1973], 15). See esp. the listing in Hay’s appendix (pp. 163–
66).
8. See a similar analysis of Psalm 110 in the NT by Robert L. Saucy, The
Case for Progressive Dispensationalism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1993), 69–76.
9. The Messiah’s restraint from divine judgment is also related to his
priestly ministry in Ps. 110:4: “You are a priest forever after the order
of Melchizedek.” Thus, he is “at the right hand of God . . . interceding
for us” (Rom. 8:34), because he “lives to make intercession” (Heb.
7:25) for those who draw near to God. This intercessory function is
naturally understood in light of the day of wrath in Ps. 110:5.
10. “Ἐκδεχόμενος brings out the meaning of ἕως. It implies, not passive
waiting, but eager expectation of the kind which the author
 recommends to his readers (cf. 11:10; ἀπεκδέχομαι, 7:28); already the
transition from teaching to paraenesis (vv. 19ff.) is anticipated” (Paul
Ellingworth, The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Greek
Text, NIGTC [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993], 510). Note also the
connotations of “from that time” (Gk. tὸ λοιπόν)—i.e., “remaining
time” (BDAG, 602)—referencing the time until the day of the Lord
and the subjection of the enemies of God (cf. 9:27–28; and 10:25–31).
11. “Col 3.1–4 stresses the hiddenness of Christ’s glory at present; and Mk
14.62 = Mt 26.64; Acts 7.55–56; and Heg [Hegesippus] (EH
[Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History] 2.23.13) imply that his glory will
remain concealed until his return. It is, therefore, a serious mistake to
claim that early Christian references to Ps 110.1b regularly express
convictions about Christ reigning as a royal lord in the present era”
(Hay, Glory at the Right Hand, 91).
12. Of course, this is not a passive waiting, but an active waiting,
involving the dynamic pursuit of sinners by the Holy Spirit unto
repentance. Indeed, all authority in heaven and on earth has been
presently given to Christ (cf. Matt. 28:18; Eph. 1:21; 1 Peter 3:22), but
this authority is being administered in an “amnestic” manner, so to
speak (i.e., according to divine amnesty preceding the day of
judgment). Thus the delineation between “this age” and the “age to
come” is maintained, for we yet await “the day of wrath when God’s
righteous judgment will be revealed” (Rom. 2:5; cf. Acts 10:42; 1 Cor.
4:5; 2 Tim. 4:1; Rev. 11:18).
13. See Stott, Cross of Christ, 145–49; Oscar Cullmann, The Christology
of the New Testament, trans. S. C. Guthrie and C. A. M. Hall
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), 51–82; and Joachim Jeremias, The
Eucharistic Words of Jesus, trans. Norman Perrin (London: SCM
Press, 1966), 226–31. On the sacrificial connotations of Isaiah 53, see
chap. 8, n. 5.
14. Rabbinic tradition characterized the sufferings of the Messiah in light
of the sufferings of Joseph (thus calling him “Messiah ben Joseph,” in
contrast to the glories of “Messiah ben David”); see David C. Mitchell,
“Rabbi Dosa and the Rabbis Differ: Messiah ben Joseph in the
Babylonian Talmud,” Review of Rabbinic Judaism 8 (2005): 77–90.
On the relationship between Isaiah 53 and Messiah ben Joseph, see
 Mitchell, “Messiah ben Joseph: A Sacrifice of Atonement for Israel,”
Review of Rabbinic Judaism 10 (2007): 77–94. On Messiah ben
Joseph as a second-temple reality (rather than post–Bar Kokhba), see
Mitchell, “Firstborn Shor and Rem: A Sacrificial Josephite Messiah in
1 Enoch 90.37–38 and Deuteronomy 33.17,” JSP 15 (2006): 211–28;
and Mitchell, “A Dying and Rising Josephite Messiah in 4Q372,” JSP
18 (2009): 181–205.
15. Ps. 16:10–11 is similarly referenced by the apostles (Acts 2:27–28;
13:35), whose commentary was probably derived from Jesus’ forty
days of exposition upon the Scriptures (Acts 1:3). The presence of the
Holy One in “the Pit” (Ps. 16:10, NRSV) clearly speaks of his suffering
before the revelation of “the path of life” (v. 11). The possibility of
“abandonment” to Sheol (v. 10) presupposed death before the
enjoyment of “pleasures forevermore” at the right hand of God (v. 11).
16. “No other passage from the Old Testament was as important to the
Church as Isa. 53, and for this reason no other passage has suffered as
much from Jewish polemics” (Jeremias, Eucharistic Words of Jesus,
228).
17. On Zech. 12:10, see esp. David C. Mitchell, “Messiah bar Ephraim in
the Targums,” Aramaic Studies 4, no. 2 (2006): 221–41.
18. The parallels to Isa. 53 in these passages are striking and were no
doubt derived from there (see Gary V. Smith, Isaiah 40–66, NAC
[Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2009], 466). Critical scholars similarly
attribute the apocalyptic visions of both Zech. 9–14 and Trito-Isaiah to
the ancestry of Deutero-Isaiah (see Paul D. Hanson, The Dawn of
Apocalyptic: The Historical and Sociological Roots of Jewish
Apocalyptic Eschatology [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975], 404–7).
19. On this verse as a summary of redemptive history, see Joyce G.
Baldwin, Daniel: An Introduction and Commentary, TOTC (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1978), 168–69; and Stephen R. Miller, Daniel,
NAC (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 1994), 259–62.
20. See John E. Goldingay, Daniel, WBC (Dallas: Word, 1998), 258–59;
though in contradiction to Goldingay’s presupposition of v. 24: “It
does not have a worldwide perspective; it is not speaking of the end of
all history, or of the sin of the whole world” (p. 258). So also in
contradiction to his conclusion: “There is no reason to refer it
 exegetically to the first or second coming of Christ” (p. 260). True,
“The concern of v 24 is thus Israel and Jerusalem” (p. 258), but Jewish
apocalypticism associated the universals of God’s governance of the
whole world (even the whole cosmos) through the particulars of his
dealings with Israel and Jerusalem.
21. Note that all other occurrences of Heb. qodesh h’qodashim (“most
holy”) reference the tabernacle or temple, and things associated with it
(cf. Ex. 26:33f.; 29:37; 30:10, 29; 40:10; Lev. 2:3, 10; 7:1, 6; 10:12,
17; 14:13; 24:9; Num. 4:4, 19; 18:9–10; 1 Kings 7:50; Ezra 2:63;
Ezek. 42:13; 43:12; 44:13).
22. A fuller list would include Gen. 15:18; 21:27; 31:44; Ex. 23:32; 24:8;
Deut. 5:2; 7:2; 29:1; Josh. 9:6, 15; 2 Sam. 3:12; 1 Kings 8:9; 2 Chron.
5:10; 34:31; Ezra 10:3; Neh. 9:8; Job 41:4; Ps. 50:5; 89:3; Isa. 55:3;
61:8; Jer. 31:31–33; 34:8; Ezek. 34:25; 37:26; Hos. 2:18; 12:1.
23. Though exegesis of this passage can easily break down into a “Dismal
Swamp,” as James Montgomery is known for saying (A Critical and
Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Daniel, ICC [Edinburgh: T &
T Clark, 1927], 400), an apocalyptic approach culminating in the day
of the Lord is assumed in the NT (cf. Matt. 24:4–31 and par.; 2 Thess.
2:1–8) and provides the surest exegetical footing. See also the ten
“principle ingredients” of the passage in Kenneth L. Barker,
“Premillennialism in the Book of Daniel,” The Master’s Seminary
Journal 4, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 35–37.
24. Duane A. Garrett, Hosea, Joel, NAC (Nashville: B&H Publishing,
1997), 159.
25. See Leonhard Goppelt, Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the
Old Testament in the New, trans. Donald Madvig (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1982); Richard M. Davidson, Typology in Scripture: A
Study of Hermeneutical Typos Structures (Berrien Springs, MI:
Andrews University Press, 1981). See a liberal discussion in Claus
Westermann, ed., Essays on Old Testament Hermeneutics (Richmond:
John Knox Press, 1963); and a conservative discussion in John S.
Feinberg, ed., Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the
Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments (Wheaton:
Crossway, 1988). See also the Catholic works by A. J. Maas, Christ in
Type and Prophecy, 2 vols. (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1893–95);
 and Jean Daniélou, From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical
Typology of the Fathers, trans. Dom Wulstan Hibberd (London: Burns
& Oates, 1960). For a summary of typology in modern evangelicalism,
see W. Edward Glenny, “Typology: A Summary of the Present
Evangelical Discussion,” JETS 40, no. 4 (December 1997): 627–38.
26. So Patrick Fairbairn begins his two-volume classic on the subject:
“The Typology of Scripture has been one of the most neglected
departments of theological science. It has never altogether escaped
from the region of doubt and uncertainty; and some still regard it as a
field incapable, from its very nature, of being satisfactorily explored,
or cultivated so as to yield any sure and appreciable results. Hence it is
not unusual to find those who otherwise are agreed in their views of
divine truth, and in the general principles of biblical interpretation,
differing materially in the estimate they have formed of the Typology
of Scripture” (The Typology of Scripture: Viewed in Connection with
the Whole Series of the Divine Dispensations, 6th ed., vol. 1
[Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1876], 17). Of course, I must reject
Fairbairn’s radically supersessionist conclusions.
27. Goppelt overstates: “Typology is the method of interpreting Scripture
that is predominant in the NT and characteristic of it” (Typos, 198).
This ignores the multitude of literal references to the messianic
suffering and eschatological glory.
28. See “τύπος,” BDAG, 1020. Thus J. E. Alsup defines typology as “that
form of biblical interpretation which deals with the correspondence
between traditions concerning divinely appointed persons, events, and
institutions, within the framework of salvation history” (“Typology,”
ABD, 6:682).
29. Apart from discussions of redemptive history, typology is also used in
the NT simply to convey an example or pattern. So Paul is a tupos for
discipleship throughout the church (cf. Phil. 3:17; 2 Thess. 3:9); the
Thessalonians are a tupos “to all the believers in Macedonia and in
Achaia” (1 Thess. 1:7); and elders are to be a tupos “to the flock” (1
Peter 5:3). Similarly, the church has also received a tupos of good
teaching, which should be universally imitated and replicated (cf.
Rom. 6:17; 1 Tim. 4:12; 2 Tim. 1:13; Titus 2:7). Moreover, the earthly
tabernacle was a “pattern” (tupos) of the heavenly tabernacle (Heb.
 8:5, cf. Acts 7:44; 9:24), since the “heavenly archetype” had “its
derivative construct on earth” (J. E. Alsup, “Typology,” ABD, 6:683).
30. Though lacking an apocalyptic framework (endemic in evangelical
scholarship), Grant Osborne describes well the historical nature of
typology: “Events in the past are linked to those in the present, so that
God’s mighty deeds like the exodus or the return from exile
foreshadow the experiences of God’s present community, the church.
This does not see a direct prophetic link but rather a correspondence in
history, in which the current experience relives the past. God is
immutable or consistent and acts today just as he did in the past, so
typology seeks to identify the theological correspondence between
those salvific actions in past and present” (Grant R. Osborne, The
Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical
Interpretation, 2nd ed. [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006], 328).
31. A theme commonly assumed in the NT; see G. K. Beale and D. A.
Carson, eds., Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old
Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 74, 416, 487, 503.
Unfortunately, Beale and Carson et al., generally use typology to
abandon the Jewish apocalyptic narrative rather than reinforce it.
32. Likewise were Adam and Eden understood in second-temple Judaism:
“The original paradisiacal condition of creation is used extensively as
a pattern for depicting the blessed conditions in the messianic kingdom
and the second aeon” (Goppelt, Typos, 33).
33. In this way allegorical interpretation can be useful, so long as it
remains within an apocalyptic framework. The only explicit use of
allegory (Gk. allēgoreō) in the NT is Gal. 4:24, whereby the two
women who bore children to Abraham represent two covenants, which
in turn relate to two cities—the “present Jerusalem” (v. 25) and the
eschatological “Jerusalem above” (v. 26), which will descend giving
birth to us (as “our mother”) in the resurrection (cf. 4 Ezra 7:26; 9:38–
10:59; 2 Enoch 55:2; 2 Baruch 4:2–6). Being based upon symbolism
and metaphor, allegory is one step removed from redemptive history,
whereas typology is based upon similar characteristics of similar
entities within redemptive history. Both of these are subject to direct
prophecy, which orchestrates redemptive history itself.
34. Cullmann, Christology of the New Testament, 56.
35. In this regard, see the excellent commentary by Raymond E. Brown,
The Death of the Messiah, from Gethsemane to the Grave: A
Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels, vol. 2
(New York: Doubleday, 1994), 1453–55.
36. Here we find the unraveling of a multitude of Gentile games revolving
around realized eschatology. If the age to come has been realized, then
the cross is no longer the standard of this age, and the sufferings of
Christ are to be avoided. The logic is straightforward. Yet the apostolic
witness cries out against such folly: “Already you have all you want!
Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings!
And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with
you! . . . We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We
are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in
disrepute” (1 Cor. 4:8–10). Paul thus refutes an early form of realized
eschatology (cf. A. C. Thiselton, “Realized Eschatology at Corinth,”
NTS 24 [1978]: 510–26) by the example of apostolic suffering.
37. See Baruch A. Levine, Leviticus, JPSTC (Philadelphia: Jewish
Publication Society, 1989), 153–64.
38. By “years” it is assumed Paul is referencing the Sabbath year and
Jubilee year. Every seventh year (Sabbath year), Israelite slaves were
to be released (Ex. 21:2–6; Deut. 15:12–18), land was to lie fallow
(Ex. 23:10–11; Lev. 25:1–7), and the debts of Israelites were to be
suspended or cancelled (Deut. 15:1–6). In every fiftieth year (Jubilee
year), property was to return to its original owner, Israelite slaves were
to be freed, and the land was to lie fallow (Lev. 25:8–17, 23–55).
39. On a theology of Sabbath, see esp. Abraham J. Heschel, The Sabbath:
Its Meaning for Modern Man (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
1951).
40. Jürgen Moltmann summarizes, “The goal and completion of every
Jewish and every Christian doctrine of creation must be the doctrine of
the sabbath; for on the sabbath and through the sabbath God
‘completed’ his creation, and on the sabbath and through it, men and
women perceive as God’s creation the reality in which they live and
which they themselves are. The sabbath opens creation for its true
future. On the sabbath the redemption of the world is celebrated in
anticipation. The sabbath is itself the presence of eternity in time, and
 a foretaste of the world to come” (God in Creation: A New Theology
of Creation and the Spirit of God, trans. M. Kohl [London: SCM
Press, 1985], 276).
41. Berndt Schaller, “Sabbath,” The Encyclopedia of Christianity, ed. E.
Fahlbusch and G. W. Bromiley, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2005), 790.
42. Before the destruction of the temple, these festivals were celebrated by
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and thus are often termed “pilgrimage
festivals.” Because most people went up to Jerusalem on foot, they
also became known as the Shalosh Regalim (lit., “three feet”). See
Ronald L. Eisenberg, “Pilgrimage Festivals,” The JPS Guide to Jewish
Traditions (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2004), 155–57.
43. See further, Evan Zuesse, “Calendar of Judaism,” The Encyclopedia of
Judaism, ed. J. Neusner, A. J. Avery-Peck, and W. S. Green, vol. 1
(Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2000), 32–50.
44. Zuesse describes, “It thus is possible to see the annual festivals as
moving in a three-fold spiral of temporal reference. . . . The third spiral
pictures the events of the future and of final things, with the meanings
of each festival contributing in logical sequence to the ultimate events:
the coming of Elijah (suggested in Passover’s cup of Elijah), which
spurs a period of unification culminating in a renewal of Jewish faith
(Shavuot), a time of apocalyptic woes and confusion . . . the final day
of judgment (High Holidays), and the millennial blessings that follow”
(“Calendar of Judaism,” 40).
45. Likewise the Messiah will fulfill the whole calendar which builds
upon the Sabbath, as Moltmann describes (though of course he
concludes inaugurationally instead of apocalyptically): “It is only this
messianic sabbath that will be ‘a sabbath without end’ (Jub. 2:19–24).
The new covenant is everlasting; and this sabbath will be everlasting
too. In this sense the messianic sabbath of the world is the End-time
correspondence of the original sabbath of God’s creation. . . . Sabbath
day, sabbath year and Year of Jubilee point in time beyond the time of
history, out into the messianic time. It is only the sabbath at the end of
history that will be ‘a feast without end’” (God in Creation, 290).
46. “The preeminent annual festival, called ‘the feast of God’ (Lev. 23:39;
Judg. 21:19) or ‘the feast’ (1 Kings 8:2, 65; 12:32; Isa. 30:29; Ezek.
 45:23, 25; Neh. 8:14; 2 Chron. 5:3, 7–8; John 7:10; cf. John 7:2), it
was the occasion of the dedication of Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 8),
the public reading of the Torah (every seven years, Deut. 31:10–11),
and the future ingathering of all nations to Jerusalem to worship God
(Zech. 14:16)” (Jeremiah Unterman, “Tabernacles, Festival of,”
Harper’s Bible Dictionary, ed. P. J. Achtemeier [San Francisco: Harper
& Row, 1985], 1014).
47. Daniel K. Falk, “Festivals and Holy Days,” The Eerdmans Dictionary
of Early Judaism, ed. John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 640.
48. John Nolland, Luke 9:21–18:34, WBC (Dallas: Word, 1998), 491.
49. Contrary to Jeremias: “Rather oddly, the Church took over only two of
the great feasts in the Jewish calendar, namely, the Passover and
Pentecost, but not Tabernacles” (“πάσχα,” TDNT, 5:901).
50. The concept of “deliverance” (Gk. rhuomai) was commonly associated
with the Passover, for in the exodus is found the great historical type
of eschatological redemption: “It is the sacrifice of the LORD’S
passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in
Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered [Gk. rhuomai,
LXX] our house” (Ex. 12:27, KJV; cf. 14:30). As Moses was “sent as a
ruler and a deliverer” (Acts 7:35, CSB), so also “the Deliverer will
come from Zion” (Rom. 11:26; cf. Isa. 59:20). Since the Passover was
commonly interpreted eschatologically, it provided gripping imagery
for redemptive history as a whole and deliverance from divine wrath,
i.e., “Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10; cf.
Matt. 6:13; Luke 1:74; Rom. 7:24; 11:26; 2 Cor. 1:10; Col. 1:13; 2
Tim. 4:18; 2 Peter 2:9).
51. Jeremias, Eucharistic Words of Jesus, 205–7; italics in the original;
quoting Hermann Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen
Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch [no English trans.], vol. 1
(Munich: C. H. Beck, 1922), 85. See also Jeremias, Eucharistic Words
of Jesus, 59, 217f., 251f.
52. The command to “keep watch” (Matt. 24:42) is in contrast to the
ungodliness of the world (cf. vv. 37–41), which sets its hopes and
desires upon this age, cf. “eating and drinking” (v. 38; cf. Ex. 32:4; Isa.
56:12; Luke 12:19; 1 Cor. 10:7; 15:32). The command is thus unto
 sobriety concerning messianic expectation, akin to Peter’s exhortation:
“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded,
set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the
revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13).
53. For a reconstruction of the Passover meal and its adaptation in the
Eucharist meal of the early church, see Oskar Skarsaune’s chap.,
“Passover & Eucharist,” in In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish
Influences on Early Christianity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity,
2002), 399–422.
54. So the Haggadah (lit., “the telling,” a Jewish guide to the Passover,
supposedly first composed c. AD 300, with innumerable editions) also
confirms: “Our God and God of our fathers, on this day of the Festival
of Matzoth [Unleavened Bread] may there come before You the
remembrance of us and our fathers, of Jerusalem Your holy city, of the
Messiah son of David Your servant, and of all Your people of the
house of Israel” (Rabbi Nathan Goldberg, Passover Haggadah: A New
English Translation and Instructions for the Seder [New York: Ktav
Publishing House, 1990], 30; italics added).
Jeremias comments,
In this very common prayer, which is also used on other festival
days, God is petitioned at every passover concerning “the
remembrance of the Messiah,” i.e. concerning the appearance of
the Messiah, which means the bringing about of the parousia.
We shall see how very strongly this petition that God may
“remember” the Messiah has influenced and even determined
the whole passover festival: every passover celebration
concluded with the jubilant antiphonal choir which one day
would greet the Messiah at his entry into Jerusalem.
Consequently the command for repetition may be understood
as: “This do, that God may remember me”: God remembers the
Messiah in that he causes the kingdom to break in by the
parousia. . . .
This means that the command to repeat the rite is not a
summons to the disciples to preserve the memory of Jesus and
be vigilant (“repeat the breaking of bread so that you may not
forget me”), but it is an eschatologically oriented instruction:
 “Keep joining yourselves together as the redeemed community
by the table rite, that in this way God may be daily implored to
bring about the consummation in the parousia.” (Eucharistic
Words of Jesus, 252, 255; italics in the original)
55. Jeremias, “πάσχα,” TDNT, 5:897. Contrary to this idea is C. H. Dodd’s
characterization of the Eucharist as “a sacrament of realized
eschatology” (Parables of the Kingdom, 3rd rev. ed. [London: Nisbet,
1936], 203). I would rather describe it as “a sacrament of cruciform
Jewish apocalypticism.”
56. The Didache (lit. “Teaching,” also known as The Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles), generally dated in the late first or early second
century, is a Christian handbook of ethical, ecclesiastical, and
eschatological admonitions. Note how it relates the Eucharist to the
eschatological kingdom in 9.1–4: “Now concerning the Eucharist, give
thanks as follows. . . . We give you thanks, our Father, for the life and
knowledge which you have made known to us through Jesus, your
servant; to you be the glory forever. Just as this broken bread was
scattered upon the mountains and then was gathered together and
became one, so may your church be gathered together from the ends of
the earth into your kingdom; for yours is the glory and the power
through Jesus Christ forever” (Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic
Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, updated ed. [Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1999], 261).
57. See Steven R. Swanson, “Hallel,” ABD, 3:30; cf. Joseph Tabory, JPS
Commentary on the Haggadah: Historical Introduction, Translation,
and Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2008),
111–16.
58. See Jeremias, Eucharistic Words of Jesus, 256–62.
59. “The use of Ps. 118:26 is typological in originally depicting the king
leading pilgrims to the temple and receiving a greeting of welcome
from the priests at the temple, probably on the occasion of some major
victory. This greeting/blessing recognized that the king and his
entourage came with the Lord’s approval. . . . As it was then, so it
should be in Jesus’ time. He should be welcomed as a leader and agent
of God. The association of Ps. 118 with eschatological hope and the
Feast of Tabernacles also heightens the sense of nearness of
 eschatological fulfillment” (Darrell L. Bock, Luke 9:51–24:53,
BECNT [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996], 1558).
60. John 6:53–58 has also traditionally been read according to the
Eucharist, and thereby the Passover (cf. 6:4: “Now the Passover, the
feast of the Jews, was at hand”), for “neither the Evangelist nor the
Christian readers could have written or read the saying without
conscious reference to the Eucharist” (G. R. Beasley-Murray, John,
WBC [Dallas: Word, 2002], 95). If so, then Jesus is declaring in v. 54
the Passover’s typological (cf. “real”) fulfillment in himself, for “In
Johannine parlance, ‘real’ also carries the connotations of
eschatological, typological fulfillment in relation to OT precursors”
(Andreas J. Köstenberger, John, BECNT [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004],
216).
61. Thus Jeremias: “The casual way in which Paul says: τὸ πάσχα ἡμῶν
ἐτύθη Χριστός, 1 C. 5:7, suggests that this comparison was already
familiar to the Corinthian church. It is indeed common in the NT (1 Pt.
1:19; Jn. 1:29, 36; cf. Rev. 5:6, 9, 12; 12:11) and probably goes back to
Jesus Himself. . . . Jesus was comparing Himself with the paschal
lamb, and calling His death a sacrifice. This comparison is the core of
a rich Passover typology in the primitive Church” (“πάσχα,” TDNT,
5:900).
62. As reflected in the centrality of the temple (see chap. 6, n. 116); see
also sacrifice in the second-temple period in E. P. Sanders, Judaism:
Practice and Belief, 63 BCE–66 CE (Philadelphia: Trinity Press
International, 1992), chap. 7.
63. See Eisenberg, “High Holy Days,” JPS Guide to Jewish Traditions,
171–226.
64. Charles L. Feinberg, “Atonement, Day of,” Baker Encyclopedia of the
Bible, ed. Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel (Grand Rapids: Baker,
1988), 233.
65. See Reuven Hammer, Entering the High Holy Days: A Guide to the
Origins, Themes, and Prayers (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication
Society, 1998), chaps. 7–9. “Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, has
long been considered the most sacred day in the Jewish year” (p. 106).
66. See John E. Hartley, Leviticus, WBC (Dallas: Word, 1998), 219–20.
67. Bernd Janowski, “Atonement,” Encyclopedia of Christianity, 1:153.
68. So we have the primary elements of the Jewish calendar tied together
by sacrifice: “The cycle of appointed times in the sacred calendar of
the Torah includes New Moon feasts, three pilgrimage festivals
(Passover/Unleavened Bread, Weeks, and Booths), a festival of
trumpet blasts, and the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 23; Numbers 28–
29). During the Second Temple period, the Temple celebration of these
was lavish” (Falk, “Festivals and Holy Days,” 636).
69. Zuesse, “Calendar of Judaism,” 45.
70. See Hammer, Entering the High Holy Days, 2–6. “Three principles,
the creation of the world on the New Year, the manifestation of God’s
kingship over the world on the New Year, and the judgment of the
world by God on the New Year . . . are already proclaimed together in
a series of liturgical psalms which form a distinct group marked by a
close affinity of tone, of language and of thought. These are the joyous
and triumphant songs contained in Psalms 95–100. . . . The constantly
recurring thoughts in these beautiful songs are God as creator, God as
King, God as judge” (ibid., 4–5; quoting Moshe Segal, “The Religion
of Israel Before Sinai,” Jewish Quarterly Review 52 [1963]: 242).
71. “It is believed that ‘On Rosh Hashanah all the inhabitants of the world
pass before God like a flock of sheep’ (M. R.H. 1:2). All are judged on
Rosh Hashanah, and the verdict is sealed on Yom Kippur [T. Rosh
Hashanah 1.13]. The worthy are written into the Book of Life, the
unworthy blotted out (cf., Exod. 32:32–33) or entered into a Book of
Death” (Zuesse, “Calendar of Judaism,” 45).
72. Whether “lamb” here and elsewhere in the NT is in reference to the
“Passover lamb” (Mark 14:12; Luke 22:7; 1 Cor. 5:7) or the general
sacrifice of lambs in the sacrificial system (cf. Ex. 29:38–42; Lev. 3:7–
11; 4:32–35; 5:6f.; Num. 28:3–8) is inconsequential, since the calendar
was inextricably bound to the sacrificial system and both related to
redemptive history as a whole.
73. Though an emphasis on typology may initially seem strange, it was by
God’s set foreknowledge that the first coming of the Messiah would be
somewhat “mysterious” (cf. Luke 8:10 and par.; Rom. 16:25; Eph. 1:9;
1 Tim. 3:16), so as to confuse the wise and make the haughty stumble
(cf. Rom. 9:30–33; 1 Cor. 1:18–25). Those who recognize their own
 depravity, casting themselves upon the mercy of God, readily receive
the veiled prophetic unfolding of divine kindness before the plainly
revealed apocalyptic culmination of divine severity. Thus, “slow of
heart to believe” (Luke 24:25) is an issue of pride and repentance
rather than unenlightenment and gnostic revelation.
74. Goppelt, Typos, 3.
75. Commentary on John, 10.18; translated by M. F. Wiles, “Origen as
Biblical Scholar,” in The Cambridge History of the Bible, ed. P. R.
Ackroyd and C. F. Evans, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1970), 484.
76. For an overview of typology in the early church (sympathetic to the
Alexandrian school of thought), see Daniélou, From Shadows to
Reality.
77. “The Christian life, then, appears as the realization of Paradise. . . . But
this realization of Paradise is brought about in three different stages.
Baptism is the entry into Paradise (Cyril of Jerusalem, Procatechesis;
P.G. XXXIII, 357A). Through the mystical life we enter more deeply
into Paradise (Ambrose, de Paradiso, 1, 1); finally the Martyrs are led
into Paradise through their death (Passio Perpet. I; P.L. III, 28A). It is
rather remarkable that we should find these three stages of Christian
life described in terms of Paradise” (Daniélou, From Shadows to
Reality, 25).
78. Again, the grace of God was at work within the various monastic
traditions and ecclesiastical structures (esp. concerning the
preservation of the Scriptures and societal order), yet the fundamental
discordance between these and the apostolic witness must be
maintained.
79. For example, Zeno of Verona (fourth-century bishop in northern Italy)
exemplifies the reckless use of typology:
As the devil by his plausibility had found a way into the ear of
Eve, inflicting a deadly wound, so Christ, entering the ear of
Mary, brushes away all the heart’s vices and heals the woman
by being born of a Virgin. Adam is circumcised on the Lord’s
cross, and as it was through a woman who had alone touched
the deadly tree, that the two sexes had found death, inversely by
 this man hung on a tree the whole human race is redeemed. Lest
the beginning should not appear as completely restored in its
former condition, man is first offered on the cross, and during
that blessed sleep his side is pierced by a lance, yet it is not a rib
which is removed, but by the water and blood, signifying
Baptism and martyrdom, the spiritual body of the spiritual
woman springs forth in such wise that Adam is renewed in
Christ, Eve by the Church. (Tractatus, 1.13; quoted in Daniélou,
From Shadows to Reality, 55)
80. In his commentary on the Song of Songs, Origen expresses the heart of
his allegorical method: “So, as we said at the beginning, all the things
in the visible category can be related to the invisible, the corporeal to
the incorporeal, and the manifest to those that are hidden; so that the
creation of the world itself, fashioned in this wise as it is, can be
understood through the divine wisdom, which from actual things and
copies teaches us things unseen by means of those that are seen, and
carries us over from earthly things to heavenly” (Origen, The Song of
Songs: Commentary and Homilies, trans. R. P. Lawson, Ancient
Christian Writers, vol. 26 [Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1957],
223). Commenting on this passage, Daniel Boyarin connects Origen’s
hermeneutics to his worldview: “Origen’s text describes a perfect
correspondence between the ontology of the world and that of the text.
In both there is an outer shell and an inner meaning. We see
accordingly the metaphysical grounding of the allegorical method used
by Origen, and indeed by Philo as well. In order for the Scripture to
have an ‘inner meaning,’ there must be an ontological structure that
allows for inner meaning. Allegoresis is thus explicitly founded in a
Platonic universe” (“The Eye in the Torah: Ocular Desire in Midrashic
Hermeneutic,” Critical Inquiry 16 [1990]: 548).
81. For a sympathetic overview of Origen and his influence, see Jean
Daniélou, Origen, trans. Walter Mitchell (London: Sheed and Ward,
1955). For a critical assessment, see R. P. C. Hanson, Allegory and
Event: A Study of the Sources and Significance of Origen’s
Interpretation of Scripture (London: SCM Press, 1959).
82. See Charles J. Scalise, “Allegorical Flights of Fancy: The Problem of
Origen’s Exegesis,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 32, no. 1
 (Spring 1987): 69–88. Some of the most extreme instances are found
in Origen’s commentaries on the Pentateuch; for example:
Concerning these things [sacrifices], as best we were able, we
showed in the preceding how the calf offered by the high priest
either in the offering or “for sin” had his form. But the “fatty
parts,” which were offered in the offering and were “hidden
inwardly” and held together with the kidneys, can be understood
as that holy soul of he who indeed is “inward.” That is, it was
covering the secrets of his divinity. But he was held together
“with the kidneys,” that is, with bodily matter which he had
assumed in purity from us. . . . The four “horns of the altar,”
which are anointed “with the blood,” point to the passion of
Christ as related by the four gospels. The lobe of the liver that is
sacrificed—wrath is killed in the liver—in this lobe the swift
and provoked power of rage is shown. (Origen, Homilies on
Leviticus: 1–16, trans. Gary W. Barkley [Washington, DC:
Catholic University of America Press, 1990], 62).
83. Daniélou, Origen, 141.
84. Goppelt, Typos, 6.
85. Concerning the distinction between Israel and the church—the sine
qua non of dispensationalism (Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism
Today [Chicago: Moody, 1965], 43–47)—their dichotomy is false,
since the former refers to ethnicity and the latter refers to
righteousness. Thus it is Israel versus the nations, and the church
versus the wicked. Though Jew and Gentile are “fellow citizens” (Eph.
2:19) and “fellow heirs” (Eph. 3:6), their witness is expressed
differently in relation to the land, temple, law, etc. This is self-evident
in passages such as Acts 15:19–21 and 21:20–26. The church is simply
the continued assembly of the righteous, Old Testament and New, now
composed of both Jew and Gentile, stewarding the oracles of God and
witnessing to the day of God in their respective manners.
86. Though typology is readily employed to prove the suffering of the
Christ (cf. Lewis Chafer, Systematic Theology, vol. 5 [Grand Rapids:
Kregel, 1993], 42–44, 177–81). Having abandoned their dualistic
foundation, progressive dispensationalists have sought to incorporate
typology in an inaugurational fashion (e.g., Craig A. Blaising and
 Darrell L. Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism [Wheaton: Victor,
1993], 52–53).
87. As Oswald Allis is known for saying: “The primary aim has been to
show that Dispensationalism has its source in a faulty and unscriptural
literalism which, in the important field of prophecy, ignores the typical
and preparatory character of the Old Testament dispensation”
(Prophecy and the Church [Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed,
1945], 256).
88. See chap. 3, n. 131.
89. Especially if typology were applied to the third divine program
concerning the “mystery form” of the kingdom in this age, i.e.,
Christendom (see chap. 6, n. 178).
90. Bruce K. Waltke, “Kingdom Promises as Spiritual,” in Continuity and
Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and
New Testaments, ed. John S. Feinberg (Wheaton: Crossway, 1988),
275.
91. So Darrell Bock comments on Luke 24:26: “Jesus is not only alive, he
rules. He has entered (εἰσελθεῖν, eiselthein; Acts 14:22) into his glory,
which means that he has been raised to reign next to God, just as he
promised at his trial (Luke 22:69; 23:42–43). As such the background
of the remark is Ps. 110 and Dan. 7:14. The great manifestation of that
glory is yet to come (Luke 21:27), but Jesus has now emerged from the
dark night of his suffering” (Luke 9:51–24:53, 1917).
92. “Typology as a New Testament hermeneutical endeavor is the study of
the Old Testament salvation historical realities or ‘types’ (persons,
events, and institutions) which God has specifically designed to
correspond to, and predictively prefigure, their intensified antitypical
fulfillment aspects (inaugurated and consummated) in the New
Testament salvation history” (Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum,
Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of
the Covenants [Wheaton: Crossway, 2012], 103).
93. The logical inference and application of inaugurationalism cannot be
avoided: “The ultimate objective is the accomplishment of God’s
Kingdom, i.e., the realization of God’s perfect reign in all the universe.
This is accomplished by the defeat of his enemies. Christ must reign
 until He has put all His enemies under His feet. . . . The Kingdom of
God therefore is the reign of God through Christ destroying the
enemies of God’s reign” (George E. Ladd, The Gospel of the
Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God [Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1959], 43).
94. Cf. N. T. Wright, Paul: Fresh Perspectives (London: SPCK, 2005),
130–53. Of course, inaugurationalists vary in the degree to which they
reinterpret the Jewish apocalyptic hope, but this is the general trend.
95. So Waltke states, “The apostles taught that the type of national Israel
and its law as a means of governing the nation were done away finally
and permanently. The typological approach of the NT is grounded in
an understanding that the new age in Christ fulfills the salvation
toward which the old is reaching. . . . Although the semi-
eschatological nature of the kingdom of God and of ‘the world to
come’ entail a more solid form of the kingdom in the new earth (cf.
Heb 2:5; 11:10; 13:14), typology in the NT focuses on its
comprehensive fulfillment in the Christ and his church” (“Kingdom
Promises as Spiritual,” 279).
96. As clearly articulated by Barry E. Horner, Future Israel: Why Christian
Anti-Judaism Must Be Challenged (Nashville: Broadman and Holman,
2007).
97. David S. Ariel, What Do Jews Believe? The Spiritual Foundations of
Judaism (New York: Schocken Books, 1995), 232.
98. Here I am reminded of Albert Schweitzer, who argued for a Jewish
eschatological approach to the Scriptures but yet concluded in a
thoroughly Gentilic manner: “This Jesus is far greater than the one
conceived in modern terms: he is really a superhuman personality.
With his death he destroyed the form of his ‘Weltanschauung
[worldview],’ rendering his own eschatology impossible. Thereby he
gives to all peoples and to all times the right to apprehend him in terms
of their thoughts and conceptions, in order that his spirit may pervade
their ‘Weltanschauung’ as it quickened and transfigured the Jewish
eschatology” (The Mystery of the Kingdom of God, trans. W. Lowrie
[London: A. & C. Black, 1914], 251).
99. N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996),
446.
100. See Ronald E. Diprose, Israel and the Church: The Origin and Effects
of Replacement Theology (Waynesboro, GA: Authentic, 2004); and
Michael J. Vlach, Has the Church Replaced Israel? A Theological
Evaluation (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2010).
101. The God of Israel and Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress,
1996), 1–2. Soulen continues, “The church, unlike the Jewish people,
is a spiritual community in which the carnal distinction between Jew
and Gentile is overcome. Accordingly, the church holds that the
preservation of Jewish identity within the new Israel is a matter of
theological indifference at best, and a mortal sin at worst. Yet the Jews
themselves failed to recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah and
refused to enter the new spiritual Israel. God therefore rejected the
Jews and scattered them over the earth” (ibid., 2). Of course, such
ideas provided a greenhouse for the Holocaust and other similar events
throughout the church’s imperialistic history; see James Carroll,
Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews, A History (New York:
Houghton Mifflin, 2001).
102. This becomes almost self-evident when seen in a systematic
presentation, e.g., G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology:
The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids: Baker,
2011), 650–773. Though Soulen repeatedly demonstrates in The God
of Israel and Christian Theology that supersessionist theologians
throughout history have found the OT hope fulfilled in the church (see
chaps. 2–4), he seems oblivious to the idea of realized eschatology and
its causal agency in supersessionism. The same can be said of Horner,
Future Israel.
103. Gentry and Wellum, for example, exemplify the relationship between
inaugurationalism, supersessionism, and typology:
In this important way, then, we view the new covenant as
superseding the previous covenants. How? By fulfilling them,
i.e., by bringing to pass what those previous covenants revealed,
anticipated, and even predicted through various patterns, types,
and instruction. That is why our Lord is presented as the new
covenant head, who in his person and work is greater than
Adam by undoing what Adam did and thus winning for us the
new creation; as the true seed and offspring of Abraham, who
 brings blessings to the nations by his cross work; as the true
Israel, fulfilling all that she failed to be; and as David’s greater
son, who rules the nations and the entire creation as King of
kings and Lord of lords. (Kingdom through Covenant, 604;
italics in the original)
104. Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology, trans. J. R. De
Witt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 344–45.
105. Waltke, “Kingdom Promises as Spiritual,” 274.
106. George Eldon Ladd, The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of
Biblical Realism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 245. Ladd makes
this off-handed comment in light of his previous chapter on “The
Mystery of the Kingdom” (pp. 218–42), whereby the parables are used
as justification that “the Kingdom has come into history in the person
and mission of Jesus; and in the same way, the Kingdom will continue
to work in the world until the hour of its eschatological manifestation”
(p. 242).
107. Bruce K. Waltke, “A Response,” in Dispensationalism, Israel and the
Church: The Search for Definition, ed. Craig A. Blaising and Darrell
L. Bock (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 359.
108. N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 457.
109. N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in
Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 147, cf. 240, 243,
261.
110. Being “abandoned because of their sins,” the Jews “committed a crime
of the most unhallowed kind, in conspiring against the Saviour of the
human race in that city where they offered up to God a worship
containing the symbols of mighty mysteries. It accordingly behooved
that city where Jesus underwent these sufferings to perish utterly, and
the Jewish nation to be overthrown, and the invitation to happiness
offered them by God to pass to others,—the Christians, I mean, to
whom has come the doctrine of a pure and holy worship, and who
have obtained new laws, in harmony with the established constitution
in all countries” (Origen, Against Celsus, 4.22 [ANF, 4:506]).
111. See esp. Luther’s well-known On the Jews and Their Lies (1543) in
LW, 47:121–306. For example, “‘Listen, Jew, are you aware that
Jerusalem and your sovereignty, together with your temple and
priesthood, have been destroyed for over 1,460 years?’ . . . For such
ruthless wrath of God is sufficient evidence that they assuredly have
erred and gone astray. . . . Therefore this work of wrath is proof that
the Jews, surely rejected by God, are no longer his people, and neither
is he any longer their God” (pp. 138–39).
112. Colin Chapman, Whose Promised Land? The Continuing Crisis Over
Israel and Palestine (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 285.
113. R. T. France, Jesus and the Old Testament: His Application of Old
Testament Passages to Himself and His Mission (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 1971), 67.
114. “The essence of theological anti-Judaism lies in Christian replacement
theology, quite literally Christians’ understanding of themselves as
replacing Judaism in the affections of God, the Holy One” (Padraic
O’Hare, The Enduring Covenant: The Education of Christians and the
End of Antisemitism [Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International,
1997], 6). See also Jules Isaac, Has Anti-Semitism Roots in
Christianity?, trans. D. Parkes and J. Parkes (New York: National
Conference of Christians and Jews, 1961).
115. So Waltke concludes his critique of Jewish literalism with the
following analogy: “If God promised the fathers $5 and he rewards
them with $5,000, is he unfaithful?” (“A Response,” 359). Why is an
ethnically undifferentiated humanity on a new earth so much more
valuable than a differentiated one?
116. Dual-covenant theology, beginning in the latter half of the twentieth
century as a response to the Holocaust, has attempted to assuage the
pain of supersessionism which runs rampant in the modern
inaugurationalist academy (see a historical overview in Jews and
Christians: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future, ed. James H.
Charlesworth [New York: Crossroad, 1990]). It teaches that God
relates equally to Jews and Christians based upon separate covenants
(thus no need for Jewish evangelism). However, NT exclusivity, esp.
concerning Israel (cf. Acts 4:10ff.; 5:31; 13:38), invalidates dual-
covenant pluralism (see David E. Holwerda, Jesus & Israel: One
 Covenant or Two? [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995]; though of course
I reject Holwerda’s supersessionist conclusions).
117. Craig Blaising hits at the root of supersessionism: “To put Israel in the
eschaton on the basis of a historical-grammatical-literary reading of
Scripture is to put the context of future Israel there as well. And what
that means is a new creation rather than a spiritual-vision eschatology”
(“The Future of Israel as a Theological Question,” JETS 44, no. 3
[September 2001]: 448). Unfortunately, Blaising falls short of
providing a truly Israelitic vision for the age to come, involving both
framework and mechanism, beyond the general description of being
“differentiated in ethnic and communal dimensions” (p. 449). See also
Blaising, “Premillennialism,” in Three Views of the Millennium and
Beyond, ed. Darrell L. Bock (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 155–
227.
Chapter Eight
1. The offense of crucifixion was such that it was madness (Gk. mania)
to associate it with God, as Justin (c. 100–165 AD) is known for
describing: “Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who also was
born for this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate. . . . For
they proclaim our madness to consist in this, that we give to a
crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the
Creator of all; for they do not discern the mystery that is herein, to
which, as we make it plain to you, we pray you to give heed” (First
Apology, 13 [ANF, 1:166–67]; italics added). See a description in
Martin Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the
Message of the Cross, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress,
1977), 1–10. “A crucified messiah, son of God or God must have
seemed a contradiction in terms to anyone, Jew, Greek, Roman or
barbarian, asked to believe such a claim, and it will certainly have
been thought offensive and foolish” (p. 10).
2. Though many theologians in the twentieth century sought to move the
“center” of NT theology toward eschatology, whether “realized” or not
(cf. A. Schweitzer, C. H. Dodd, W. G. Kümmel, K. Stendahl, J. D. G.
Dunn, etc.), the Reformation’s anchor in the cross still holds (cf. E.
Käsemann, C. E. B. Cranfield, L. Morris, J. I. Packer, etc.). The
disputation between Stendahl and Käsemann is well known in the
academy and typifies the tension (see Don N. Howell Jr., “The Center
of Pauline Theology,” BSac 151, no. 1 [1994]: 50–70). Of course,
technically there is no center to a timeline, since the beginning,
middle, and end are all of vital necessity (cf. James M. Hamilton Jr.,
“The Glory of God in Salvation through Judgment: The Centre of
Biblical Theology?” TynBul 57, no. 1 [2006]: 57–84). Paul seems to
primarily emphasize the cross and justification by faith in light of
creation and eschatological judgment (cf. Rom. 5:9; 1 Cor. 2:2; Gal.
2:20; 1 Tim. 1:15; etc.).
3. P. T. Forsyth noted well, “Christ, I repeat, is to us just what His cross
is. You do not understand Christ till you understand His cross. . . . It is
only by understanding it that it becomes anything else than a
martyrdom, that it becomes the saving act of God. It is only by
 understanding it that we escape from religion with no mind, and from
religion which is all mind, from pietism with its lack of critical
judgment, and from rationalism with its lack of everything else” (The
Cruciality of the Cross [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1909], 45–46).
4. “It is not easy to see what the laying on of hands means if there is no
symbolic transfer to the animal which was to die of the sins being
confessed” (Leon Morris, The Atonement: Its Meaning and
Significance [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1983], 47).
5. In light of this God-ordained, atonemental system, and its centrality
within ancient Judaic life, the prophecy of Isaiah 53 concerning a
substitutional messianic sacrifice was readily understood and received
(cf. Matt. 8:17; Mark 9:12; Luke 22:37; John 12:38; Acts 8:32–35;
Rom. 10:16; 15:21; 1 Peter 2:22–25). Like the sacrificial animal, “He
was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities”
(v. 5), for “the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (v. 6).
Indeed, he is “like a lamb that is led to the slaughter” (v. 7), “stricken
for the transgression of my people” (v. 8). His life would be “an
offering for sin” (v. 10), and hence “he shall bear their iniquities” (v.
11). So the chapter concludes that he was “numbered with the
transgressors” and “bore the sin of many” (v. 12). The sacrificial
language of this oracle is unmistakable, and in such light the NT
writers interpreted the death of the Messiah.
6. Though controversy surrounds the substitutionality of the preposition
ἀντί in a few instances, it “characteristically has the meaning ‘in the
place of,’ ‘instead of,’ whether in the classics or in the χοινή” (Leon
Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 3rd ed. [London:
Tyndale, 1965], 34). See also “ἀντί,” BDAG, 87–88; and “ἀντί,”
NIDNTT, 3:1179–80. Likewise, ὑπέρ commonly conveys “a
substitutionary thought” (Morris, Apostolic Preaching, 62) and is often
identical to ἀντί (cf. Mark 10:45; 1 Tim. 2:6).
7. See Simon Gathercole, Defending Substitution: An Essay on
Atonement in Paul (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015).
8. For example: Christ “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the
present evil age” (Gal. 1:4). It is Christ Jesus “who died for us” (1
Thess. 5:10), “who gave himself for us” (Titus 2:14). Indeed, “One has
died for all” (2 Cor. 5:14), “as a ransom for all” (1 Tim. 2:6). “Christ
 loved us and gave himself up for us” (Eph. 5:2). “Christ died for the
ungodly” (Rom. 5:6), i.e., “Christ died for us” (v. 8). He was
“delivered up for our trespasses” (Rom. 4:25), “becoming a curse for
us” (Gal. 3:13). “He is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:2). God
“made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf” (2 Cor. 5:21,
NASB); as Caiaphas inadvertently prophesied: “It was expedient for one
man to die on behalf of the people” (John 18:14, NASB; cf. John 11:49).
So Paul believed Jesus to be “the Son of God, who loved me and gave
himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). Indeed, “Christ loved the church and gave
himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). So we should not sin against “the
brother for whom Christ died (1 Cor. 8:11); cf. “the one for whom
Christ died” (Rom. 14:15).
9. See chap. 5, n. 61. Note 4 Maccabees 17:21–22: “The tyrant was
punished, and the homeland purified—they having become, as it were,
a ransom for the sin of our nation. And through the blood of those
devout ones and their death as an atoning sacrifice, divine Providence
preserved Israel that previously had been mistreated” (NRSV). And 4
Maccabees 6:28: “Be merciful to your people, and let our punishment
suffice for them. Make my blood their purification, and take my life in
exchange for theirs” (NRSV).
10. This idea has a long history, deriving primarily from C. H. Dodd, The
Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments (London: Hodder &
Stoughton, 1936); and Hans Conzelmann, The Theology of St. Luke
(London: Faber, 1960). A Lucan vicarious atonement, more in line
with Isa. 53 and OT sacrifice, is seen in Darrell L. Bock, Proclamation
from Prophecy and Pattern: Lucan Old Testament Christology
(Sheffield, England: Sheffield Press, 1987).
11. The assertion that “all sinned” (Rom. 5:12) and “in Adam all die” (1
Cor. 15:22) assumes the passing on of a sinful disposition (cf. Gen.
6:5; 8:21; etc.) to the progeny of Adam. So Leon Morris describes,
“Men have always found the pursuit of virtue strenuous. It does not
come to us naturally to do good, whereas sin is much easier. We can
drift into sin, but we cannot drift into virtue. It is this which points us
to the important truth that sin is part of our nature, and not simply the
result of our environment. Basically we sin because we are the kind of
people we are, and not simply because we see others sinning. The idea
 of original sin must be retained, for it corresponds both to the teaching
of St. Paul, and to the facts of life” (The Cross in the New Testament
[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965], 188).
12. So Paul in Rom. 3:10–18 draws from the Psalms (written to the Jews)
to emphasize the reality of universal depravity (not only Gentile
depravity), backing his claim “that all, both Jews and Greeks, are
under sin” (v. 9), and his conclusion “that every mouth may be
stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God” (v.
19).
13. G. W. Bromiley notes, “To atone is to bring together in mutual
agreement, with the added idea, in theology, of reconciliation through
the vicarious suffering of one on behalf of another. The English word
‘atonement’ traces its origin to the 16th century. The New Oxford
Dictionary indicates that in the first instance it appeared as two
separate words ‘at onement’ (cf. Acts 7:26, AV; Gk eis eirḗnēn), but it
soon became a quasi-technical theological term. . . . In the Bible the
idea of atonement occurs much more widely than the actual use of
either kāpar or katallagḗ would seem to indicate” (“Atone,
Atonement,” ISBE, 1:352).
14. Thomas Hywel Hughes, The Atonement: Modern Theories of the
Doctrine (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1949), 312; quoted in
Morris, Apostolic Preaching, 214.
15. The NRSV, NIV, and CSB also pick up the tradition of interpreting the
Gk. hilastērion word group (“propitiate, propitiation”), used
throughout the LXX to translate Heb. kaphar (“cover, covering”), as
“atone, atonement.” Thus, for example, the various translations of
Heb. 2:17: “to make propitiation” (ESV, NASB, NKJV), “to make
atonement” (NRSV, NIV, CSB), “to make reconciliation” (KJV).
16. John Stott articulates well the relationship between the holiness of
God, the depravity of man, and the messianic atonement:
All inadequate doctrines of the atonement are due to inadequate
doctrines of God and man. If we bring God down to our level
and raise ourselves to his, then of course we see no need for a
radical salvation, let alone for a radical atonement to secure it.
When, on the other hand, we have glimpsed the blinding glory
 of the holiness of God, and have been so convicted of our sin by
the Holy Spirit that we tremble before God and acknowledge
what we are, namely “hell-deserving sinners,” then and only
then does the necessity of the cross appear so obvious that we
are astonished we never saw it before. (The Cross of Christ
[Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1986], 109)
17. For example: “Equally, the favorite notion that sacrifice was
‘spiritualized’ (Wenschkewitz 1932:6–10) does not really fit the bill. It
would be better to speak of its being ‘christologized’ and
‘pneumatized.’ Jesus’ saving death gives an entirely new meaning to
sacrifice as a consequence of his resurrection and the sending of the
Holy Spirit. He opened up a new dimension of reality. As a result
sacrifice is reduced to its personal core from which ethical
consequences can be drawn for Christian faith and life” (Hans-Josef
Klauck, “Sacrifice and Sacrificial Offerings: New Testament,” ABD,
5:891).
18. See Joel B. Green and Mark D. Baker, Recovering the Scandal of the
Cross: Atonement in the New Testament and Contemporary Contexts
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000), 47–50; Stephen J. Patterson,
Beyond the Passion: Rethinking the Death and Life of Jesus
(Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2004), 69–101; and J. Denny
Weaver, The Nonviolent Atonement, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2011), 69–82. “The sacrificial system of ancient Israel is
another biblical motif frequently assumed to supply the model for
satisfaction atonement. This section challenges that assumption and
demonstrates that the correlation is more linguistic than substantial”
(Weaver, Nonviolent Atonement, 69).
19. The attempt by some in the liberal tradition to strip the word vicarious
of its substitutionary meaning is also unfounded—contrary to, e.g.,
Weaver, Nonviolent Atonement; Vincent Taylor, The Atonement in
New Testament Teaching (London: Epworth, 1940); and Horace
Bushnell, The Vicarious Sacrifice, Grounded in Principles of
Universal Obligation (New York: Charles Scribner, 1866).
20. Though lacking a clear sacrificial focus, rightly, J. I. Packer and Mark
Dever, eds., In My Place Condemned He Stood: Celebrating the Glory
of the Atonement (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008).
21. Righteousness is simply a moral uprightness, in contrast to the
immoral transgression of (1) Satan et al., (2) Adam, and (3) all his
progeny (cf. Rom. 3:9ff.; 5:14ff.). OT (Heb. tsedeq) and NT (Gk.
dikaiosunē) “righteousness” is a moral/legal correctness, in contrast to
“sin[ners]” (Ps. 1:5; Dan. 9:16; Matt. 9:13, par.; John 16:8; Rom. 3:25;
5:19ff.; 6:13–20; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24; 3:18; 1 John 2:1);
“iniquity” (Isa. 53:11; 64:6; Lam. 4:13; Ezek. 18:20; Dan. 4:27; 9:16;
2 Tim. 2:19–22); “wickedness” (Deut. 9:4f.; Job 35:8; Ps. 45:7; Ezek.
18:20; 33:12; Heb. 1:9); “condemnation” (1 Kings 8:32; Job 34:17; Ps.
34:21; Prov. 17:15; Rom. 5:18; 2 Cor. 3:9); etc. See H. G. Stigers,
“1879 (ṣādēq),” TWOT, 752–55; and “δίκαιος-δικαίωσις,”
BDAG, 246–50.
22. Since the publication of E. P. Sanders’s Paul and Palestinian Judaism:
A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977),
the “righteousness of God” (Gk. dikaiosunē theou) has been the source
of much controversy. Instead of a sacrificial reality with judicial
implications (referencing moral standing), many have interpreted the
phrase in an abstract relational manner, referencing “covenant
faithfulness” (see Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 523–42; cf.
James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1–8, WBC [Dallas: Word, 1991], 41–44;
N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the
Real Founder of Christianity? [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997], 118–
33; Wright, Paul: Fresh Perspectives [London: SPCK, 2005], 25–32).
Thus it is argued that the righteousness of God is primarily
“membership language” (Wright, What Paul Really Said, 124) relating
to ecclesiology in this age, rather than forensic language relating
primarily to soteriology and eschatology—an approach which has
come to be known as the “new perspective on Paul” (or NPP, see the
discussion later in this chap.).
However, “covenant faithfulness” is an implication of moral
righteousness, not the denotation of it. Paul often refers to God’s
“faithfulness” (cf. Rom. 3:3; 1 Cor. 1:9; 10:13; 2 Cor. 1:8), but he
rarely associates “righteousness” and “faithfulness” (cf. Rom. 3:3–5),
because the former relates to judicial categories while the latter is
inherently promissory. Moreover, Paul speaks relatively little of
“covenant” (Gk. diathēkē), except in relation to “promise” (cf. Rom.
9:4; Gal. 3:17; Eph. 2:12), and never in association with
 “righteousness.” So Stephen Westerholm concludes, “‘Righteousness’
itself does not mean ‘covenant faithfulness.’ And—botheration!—
when Paul speaks of God’s promises he never speaks of God’s
righteousness, and when he speaks of God’s righteousness he never
speaks of God’s promises” (Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The
“Lutheran” Paul and His Critics [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004],
292). Though, of course, “There is no reason to drive a wedge between
covenantal and forensic connotations of righteousness” (Michael F.
Bird, The Saving Righteousness of God: Studies on Paul, Justification
and the New Perspective [Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers,
2007], 37).
23. See chap. 7, n. 62.
24. The phrase περὶ ἁμαρτίας refers to a “sin offering” in forty-four of its
fifty-four LXX occurrences, as it does in Heb. 10:6, 8; 13:11 (see chap.
11 of N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in
Pauline Theology [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992], 220–25). Note also
the sacrificial implications on 2 Cor. 5:21; cf. Isa. 53:10 (see Ralph P.
Martin, 2 Corinthians, WBC [Dallas: Word, 1998], 157; and David E.
Garland, 2 Corinthians, NAC [Nashville: B&H Publishing, 1999],
300–302).
25. “Unsurprisingly in both the Jewish Scriptures and in second-temple
literature righteousness can be bestowed upon persons as a gift [Pss.
35.27–28; 106.31; Isa. 61.10; Jer. 23.5–6; 33.16; Bar. 5.2, 9; Wis. Sol.
12.16; Ep. Arist. 280; Jub. 1.16; 16.26; 1QH 4.17–23; 14.1–17]” (Bird,
Saving Righteousness of God, 33).
26. Thus Christ as the “end” (Gk. telos) of the law in v. 4 refers simply to
his sacrifice as the attained goal in humanity’s pursuit of righteousness
(cf. 9:30–32). There has been great dispute over the meaning of Rom.
10:4 (see Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT [Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996], 636–43), but the context of the argument
favors the simple fulfillment of a guiltless moral state in light of
eschatological judgment (cf. Thomas R. Schreiner, “Paul’s View of the
Law in Romans 10:4–5,” WTJ 55, no. 1 [Spring 1993]: 113–35). “Paul
is speaking experientially in this text, so that his point is that Christ is
the end of using the law to establish one’s own righteousness. . . . Paul
is countering here a form of works-righteousness in which the Jews
 thought that they could attain right standing with God by their works.
This is the most natural way of understanding the statement that ‘they
were seeking to establish their own righteousness’” (pp. 121–22).
27. Despite the rancorous objections of proponents of the NPP, a genitive
of origin (“righteousness from God”), rather than a genitive of
possession (“righteousness of God”), fits well within Paul’s argument
as a whole (cf. especially Rom. 4:1–5) and coincides with the clear
genitive of origin in the parallel usage of Phil. 3:9. The genitive of
origin is further warranted in light of the synonymous relationship
between “justification” and “righteousness” in both Greek and Hebrew
(see n. 46 below). Thus, “righteousness from/of God” is synonymous
with “justification from/of God” (cf. John Piper, The Justification of
God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1–23, 2nd ed.
[Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993]).
28. “To be rejected is N. T. Wright, ‘Righteousness of God,’ 206, who
identifies ‘we’ as the covenant minister, Paul himself” (Paul Barnett,
The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT [Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1997], 315, n. 69. See N. T. Wright, “On Becoming the
Righteousness of God,” in Pauline Theology, ed. David M. Hay
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 200–208. From the early church on, this
verse has been understood substitutionally; see Thomas C. Oden, The
Word of Life: Systematic Theology, vol. 2 (San Francisco:
HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 384. Paul’s statement in 2 Cor. 5:21 is
somewhat formulaic and “creedal” because he is summarily justifying
his plea for reconciliation in vv. 11–20 (see Barnett, 2 Corinthians,
312–15).
29. “My contention is that ‘substitution’ is not a further ‘theory’ or
‘image’ to be set alongside the others, but rather the foundation of
them all, without which each lacks cogency. If God in Christ did not
die in our place, there could be neither propitiation, nor redemption,
nor justification, nor reconciliation” (Stott, Cross of Christ, 168).
30. Analogous to a car, wherein the engine (cf. sacrifice) enacts the
functionality of the transmission, chassis, and suspension (cf.
propitiation, justification, and redemption), unto the purpose of
transportation (cf. reconciliation). This transportation, of course, finds
 its apocalyptic destination in the day of the Lord, resurrection, and age
to come.
31. See Morris, Apostolic Preaching, 155–74.
32. “Heb yôm hakkippurîm—lit ‘day of the covering over,’ i.e., ‘day of
appeasement.’ . . . Yom Kippur was the day above all others on which
Israel, as a nation, sought the propitiation of the God against whom
they had sinned, together with the consequent blessing of His
forgiveness and of reconciliation to Him” (W. Möller and J. B. Payne,
“Atonement, Day of,” ISBE, 1:360).
33. See “ἱλασμός,” BDAG, 474; and “ἱλᾰσμός,” LSJ, 828.
34. Propitiation is commonly associated with temple and cultic sacrifice,
rather than regal office. However, “Though ἱλάσκεσθαι is for the most
part a cultic action, it can sometimes be applied to men and . . . can
denote the placating of the emperor or his anger” (F. Büchsel,
“ἱλάσκομαι,” TDNT, 3:314). The term is used in both contexts
because of the assumption that the gods rule over creation from
temples. So the Jerusalem temple was understood as God’s royal
“footstool” (cf. 1 Chron. 28:2; Ps. 99:5; 132:7; Lam. 2:1), and the
sacrifices offered there were made to appease the Great King (Ps. 47:2;
95:3; Mal. 1:14).
35. C. H. Dodd is well known for his disdain toward the concept of
propitiation, preferring the more impersonal term “expiation.” Many
modern exegetes have carried on this attitude, caricaturing divine
wrath and propitiation as “divine child abuse” in sympathy to
feminists (Weaver, Nonviolent Atonement, 155–305), laden with
images of “sacred violence” (Stephen Finlan, Problems with
Atonement: The Origins of, and Controversy about, the Atonement
Doctrine [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005], 18), which should
be taken metaphorically since “wrath is not a divine property or
essential attribute of God” (Green and Baker, Recovering the Scandal,
54). As Morris said, “Such citations could be multiplied almost
indefinitely, for there are many modern writers to whom the concept of
the wrath of God is anathema” (Apostolic Preaching, 208).
36. See Matt. 5:21–26; Gal. 5:20; Eph. 4:31; Col. 3:8.
37. As Morris notes, “Among the heathen, propitiation was thought of as
an activity whereby the worshiper was able himself to provide that
which would induce a change of mind in the deity. In plain language
he bribed his god to be favourable to him. When the term was taken
over into the Bible these unworthy and crude ideas were abandoned,
and only the central truth expressed by the term was retained, namely
that propitiation signifies the averting of wrath by the offering of a
gift. But in both Testaments the thought is plain that the gift which
secures the propitiation is from God Himself” (Apostolic Preaching,
210–11). Rather than the idea of propitiation being “taken over into the
Bible,” it seems that the pagan practices were fallen corruptions of the
protological biblical reality (cf. Gen. 4:4f.; 8:20f.).
38. See Stott, Cross of Christ, 150.
39. Morris, Apostolic Preaching, 210.
40. Ibid., 209. Morris continues,
It may be that wrath is not a perfect word to describe such an
attitude, but no better has been suggested, and we must refuse to
accept alternatives which do not give expression to the truth in
question. Perhaps there is a certain anthropomorphism involved
in the use of the term wrath, but it must not be forgotten that, “A
false anthropomorphism is to be laid to the charge not of those
who maintain that there is in the Biblical sense of the word,
such a thing as the wrath of God. It is rather to be laid to the
charge of those who encourage the idea that God is like an easy,
good-natured, benevolent man.” (ibid., quoting Leighton Pullan,
The Atonement [London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1907],
194)
41. Ibid., 174.
42. See chap. 3, n. 41.
43. Morris, Cross in the New Testament, 192. Furthermore, contrary to the
impersonal idea of wrath, “It is impossible to think that God is
anything other than vigorously active in such a process as that
described in Romans 2:5ff. . . . The words describe a positive
revulsion. Moreover they speak of God’s activity in the day of
judgment. That is to say, His personal, vigorous opposition is not
 exhausted in His present judgments on our sins. It continues to the
very end of time and beyond” (ibid., 188–89).
44. Morris, Apostolic Preaching, 144; italics added.
45. See H. G. Stigers, “1879 (ṣādēq),” TWOT, 752–55; G. Schrenk,
“δίκαιος,” TDNT, 2:182–225; and “δίκαιος-δικαίωσις,” BDAG, 246–
50.
46. The same word group is translated “So one act of righteousness [Gk.
dikaiōma] leads to justification [Gk. dikaiōsis] and life for all men”
(Rom. 5:18; cf. Rom. 4:5), or “It is not the hearers of the law who are
righteous [Gk. dikaios] before God, but the doers of the law who will
be justified [Gk. dikaioō]” (Rom. 2:13; cf. Gal. 3:11). Thus “justified”
can be translated “declared righteous” (Rom. 2:13; 3:20, NIV), and
adikia in Rom. 9:14 can be translated “unrighteousness” (KJV, NKJV) or
“injustice” (ESV, NRSV, NASB, CSB).
47. “The position is complicated by the fact that, where in English we
have two word-groups to express the concepts of ‘justice’ and
‘righteousness’ (which seem to us quite different ideas), in Hebrew
and in Greek and for that matter in a number of other languages the
one word does duty for both concepts” (Morris, Atonement, 177).
48. Generally “justify” is used because we do not have an English verb for
“make/declare right.” Some have suggested the Old English “to
rightwise” (Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 439, 481, 526), or
the British “to set to rights” (N. T. Wright, Justification: God’s Plan &
Paul’s Vision [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009], 88), but these
have not caught on widely.
49. See n. 27 above.
50. Cf. Gen. 18:19; Deut. 32:4; 1 Kings 10:9; 2 Chron. 9:8; Ps. 9:4; 33:5;
50:6; 72:1; 89:14; 97:2; 99:4; 103:6; 106:3; 119:121; Prov. 2:9; 8:20;
21:3; Eccl. 5:8; Isa. 5:16; 9:7; 11:4; 16:5; 26:9; 28:17; 32:1; 33:5;
51:5; 56:1; 58:2; Jer. 4:2; 9:24; 22:3; 23:5; 33:15; Ezek. 18:5; 45:9;
Amos 5:24.
51. Note the Gk. term dikaiokrisia, “righteous judgment” (Rom. 2:5),
which literally combines the two concepts (see G. Schrenk,
“δικαιοκρισία,” TDNT, 2:224–25) and is echoed in the
 intertestamental literature (cf. 2 Maccabees 12:41; Sibylline Oracles
3.704; Testament of Levi 3:2; 15:2).
52. The synonym of righteousness is not “faithfulness,” per se, as is
evident by the relative lack of association in the LXX (cf. Deut. 32:4; 1
Sam. 26:23; Ps. 110:7; Prov. 12:17; Isa. 1:21, 26; Jer. 49:5; Hab. 2:4).
The NT also reflects this lack of association (a point well made by
Mark A. Seifrid, Christ, Our Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of
Justification, NSBT 9, [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000], 38–
45); contrary to Richard B. Hays, “Justification,” ABD, 3:1129–33.
53. One of the problems of interpreting “justification” is the sheer volume
of passages that must be addressed, which reflects the centrality of the
judicial aspects of the day of the Lord (over the royal and economic
aspects). So Morris, “We have noted that propitiation, although an
important conception, is used with reference to the atonement only
four times in all in the New Testament. Similarly reconciliation, in
which some modern scholars are inclined to see the essential New
Testament teaching with regard to the atonement, occurs in only five
passages, all of them Pauline. By contrast, he who would expound
justification is confronted with eighty-one occurrences of the adjective
δίκαιος, ninety-two of the noun δικαιοσύνη, two of the noun
δικαίωσις, thirty-nine of the verb δικαιόω, ten of the noun δικαίωμα,
and five of the adverb δικαίως”(Apostolic Preaching, 251).
54. Ibid., 253, 293.
55. Morris, Atonement, 180.
56. See G. H. Livingston, “180 (āšam),” TWOT, 78–80; and J. C.
Moyer, “Guilt,” ISBE, 2:580–81.
57. Contrary to the tendencies of the NPP, Bird concludes: “It is wrong to
think that the verdict rendered in justification can be reduced to
sociological descriptions of group-identity and self-definition. That
would evacuate the language of righteousness of its apocalyptic and
juridical sense” (Saving Righteousness of God, 33).
58. So Paul places his own life in the divine courtroom in anticipation of
the day of judgment: “But with me it is a very small thing that I should
be judged by you or by any human court [Gk. hupo anthrōpinēs
hēmeras, lit., “by any human day”]. In fact, I do not even judge
 myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not
thereby acquitted [Gk. dikaioō; “justified,” KJV, NKJV, CSB]. It is the
Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the
time, before the Lord comes” (1 Cor. 4:3–5).
59. Note that in 2 Cor. 3:9 Paul similarly contrasts “the ministry of
righteousness” with “the ministry of condemnation.” Contrary to the
assumptions of the NPP, the antonym of righteousness/justification is
guilt/condemnation (see n. 22 above).
60. In this passage (Rom. 5:12–21) we see a clear example of the forensic
and imputed nature of justification. “The basis of our justification
before God is a divine righteousness that comes to us in a way
analogous to the way Adam’s sin came to us. As we were in him and
share in his sin, so we are in Christ and share in his righteousness. In
this historic way of understanding the text, the parallel that Paul wants
us to see and rejoice in is that just as Adam’s sin is imputed to us
because we were in him, so Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us
because we are in him” (John Piper, Counted Righteous in Christ:
Should We Abandon the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness?
[Wheaton: Crossway, 2002], 93–94).
61. Those who hold to the NPP claim that “the works of the law” are
simply the “badges of Jewish membership” (N. T. Wright, The New
Testament and the People of God [Minneapolis: Fortress; London:
SPCK, 1992], 237; cf. 207, 335, 368; Wright, Justification, 76, 134,
138, 246)—i.e., observance of circumcision, Sabbath, and kosher
dietary laws (cf. James D. G. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, rev.
ed. [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008], 108–20; Dunn, Romans 1–8,
lxxi–lxxvii). This has been vigorously refuted; see C. E. B. Cranfield,
“The Works of the Law in the Epistle to the Romans,” JSNT 43
(1991): 89–101; and Moisés Silva, “Faith Versus Works of Law in
Galatians,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism, Volume 2: The
Paradoxes of Paul, ed. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A.
Seifrid (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 217–48. See a summary of the
issues involved in Moo, Romans, 206–17.
Of course, these so-called “ethnic boundary markers” were
included in the consideration of both moral righteousness and
eschatological judgment. So Seifrid summarizes: “We may think of
 ‘works of the law’ in general terms as including adherence to the
prohibitions against murder, adultery, theft, idolatry and the like, along
with circumcision, Sabbath-keeping and food laws (cf. Rom. 2:17–
24). . . . It was by ‘works’ that Israel vainly sought to establish its
righteousness before God (Rom. 9:30—10:3). Clearly, then, Paul
rejects these works as markers of ‘religio-national’ identity, i.e. as
signs of the people who are righteous, and not merely as signs of
national privilege” (Christ, Our Righteousness, 100–101).
62. Concerning James 2:14–26, in particular, Stephen Westerholm states
incisively, “It suggests that by the first-century critics, as by
Augustine, Luther, and many others, Paul was deemed to have
dismissed any role for (good) works in answering the perennial
religious question of how a human being can be found acceptable by
God. It makes very clear that an insistence that salvation is by faith
and grace, not (good) works, was anything but self-evident and
uncontroversial in Paul’s day. And it underlines the novelty of the new
perspective that would limit his concerns to issues deemed more
pressing by the modern mind: ethnocentricism, racism, and
nationalistic pride” (Perspectives Old and New, 407).
63. Commenting on Rom. 3:20, Moo states,
“Works of the law,” then, as most interpreters have recognized,
refers simply to “things that are done in obedience to the law.”
Paul uses the phrase “works of the law” instead of the simple
“works” because he is particularly concerned in this context to
deny to Jews an escape from the general sentence pronounced in
v. 19. But, since “works of the law” are simply what we might
call “good works” defined in Jewish terms, the principle
enunciated here has universal application; nothing a person
does, whatever the object of obedience or the motivation of that
obedience, can bring him or her into favor with God. (Romans,
209)
64. The concept of “more good than bad” means nothing on the day of
judgment. Our hypothetical 5 percent of bad (i.e., misdeeds in this age)
will comprise 100 percent of the trial at the judgment seat of God. As a
man who loved and served the poor his whole life merits nothing when
he stands before the judge for a single murder, so also when humanity
 stands before its Maker on the last day. In this way “all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
65. Regarding this passage, I am in basic agreement with Moo, Romans,
218–43; and Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, BECNT (Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1998), 178–99; though both seem to lack an adequate emphasis
on the day of the Lord and the Jewish apocalyptic framework, which
gives ultimate context to the passage.
66. Note the definition of logizomai: “1. to determine by mathematical
process . . . 2. to give careful thought to a matter . . . 3. to hold a view
about something” (BDAG, 597). The popular concept of imparted
righteousness, common in much of Protestantism, has little to do with
the biblical concept of imputed righteousness. God imputes (Gk.
logizomai) righteousness by declaring, accounting, and reckoning the
guilty innocent. He does not, as N. T. Wright is known for saying,
transfer righteousness as a moral quality like “a substance or a gas
which can be passed across the courtroom” (What Saint Paul Really
Said, 98). So Stott summarizes: “God has imputed Christ’s
righteousness to us. Many are offended by this concept, considering it
both artificial and unjust on God’s part to arrange such a transfer. Yet
the objection is due to a misunderstanding. . . . What was transferred to
Christ was not moral qualities but legal consequences: he voluntarily
accepted liability for our sins. That is what the expressions ‘made sin’
and ‘made a curse’ mean. Similarly, ‘the righteousness of God’ which
we become when we are ‘in Christ’ is not here righteousness of
character and conduct . . . but rather a righteous standing before God”
(Cross of Christ, 148–49).
67. This truncated view of redemption is the result of the trickling down of
liberally minded scholarship that rejects the objectivity of economic
payment and exchange (inherent to the word group) in favor of the
generic idea of deliverance. For example: “The original,
etymologically grounded sense is thus watered down in biblical usage,
and only a very general sense remains. The true rendering, then, is
‘redemption’ or ‘liberation,’ not ‘ransom.’ ‘Release’ is also possible in
Hb. 11:35 and ‘remission’ in Hb. 9:15. In primitive Christianity the
word was used to express a religious content, and it thus took on a
special sense which is not found elsewhere” (F. Büchsel,
 “ἀπολύτρωσις,” TDNT, 4:355). All of this, of course, is ridiculous,
since Paul would never “take a word with a known significance, give it
a new meaning all his own, and use it occasionally in the new sense
without explanation” (Morris, Apostolic Preaching, 51).
68. See “λύτρον-λύτρωσις,” BDAG, 605–6.
69. See Morris, Apostolic Preaching, 11–64; and Morris, Atonement, 106–
31.
70. See L. Morris, “Ransom,” ISBE, 4:44–45; and W. Mundle and C.
Brown, “λύτρον,” NIDNTT, 3:189–200.
71. “The idea of the payment of a price (the ‘ransom’) is basic to all the
redemption words. . . . There is always the thought of deliverance at
cost. Sometimes it is deliverance from slavery and sometimes from a
sentence of death. But both inside and outside the Bible that is the
usage. . . . The idea of the payment of a price is fundamental to
redemption” (Morris, Atonement, 118).
72. Apostolic Preaching, 26; contrary to, e.g., C. M. Tuckett, “Atonement
in the NT,” ABD, 1:520–21.
73. Since Origen there has been debate concerning the recipient of the
ransom—esp. God versus Satan (cf. Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor: An
Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement,
trans. A. G. Hebert [New York: Macmillan, 1969], 47–55). It is often
charged that for God to receive payment from himself (in Christ) is an
illogical transaction. Why take money out of one pocket and put it in
the other? However, was not God the source of the offering in the
Tanakh (Lev. 17:11), which he then received as a ransom for sin?
When everything belongs to God (cf. Ps. 24:1; 50:12; 89:11)—i.e.
“from him and through him and to him are all things” (Rom. 11:36)—
how else is restitution to be made?
74. On the cost of the messianic sacrifice, see esp. Stott, Cross of Christ,
179–82.
75. Here we see the only use of antilutron in the Scriptures: “a strong
compound meaning ‘substitute-ransom’” (L. L. Morris, “Atonement,”
NBD, 103). Combined with huper pantōn, “on behalf of all,” we have
a radical declaration of substitutionality spoken somewhat
formulaically (lodged between a petition for peaceful ecclesiology [1
 Tim. 2:1–4] and the assertion of apostolic appointment [v. 7]), as
though it were common knowledge. Such formulae are indicative of
the common hermeneutical culture in the early church (see chap. 7, n.
61).
76. Note 2 Clement 17:4: “For the Lord said, ‘I am coming to gather
together all the nations, tribes, and languages.’ Now by this he means
the day of his appearing, when he will come and redeem us, each
according to his deeds” (Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers:
Greek Texts and English Translations, updated ed. [Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1999], 125).
77. Of course, such redemption, inheritance, and salvation is understood in
light of the Israelo-centric vision of the Tanakh, therefore
corresponding to “the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38; cf. Isa.
52:3), wherein Jesus is “the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21; cf.
Acts 1:6). Those who disintegrate redemption by separating the
redemption of creation and the body from the redemption of Israel and
the nations fall into no small error. Jesus will indeed “restore
everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets” (Acts
3:21, NIV).
78. The association of the lutrōsis word group with the agorazō word
group in the NT (cf. 1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23; Gal. 3:13; 4:5; 2 Peter 2:1; Rev.
5:9; 14:4), i.e., “buy in the market” (LSJ, 13), further reinforces the
economic ideas inherent to redemption.
79. Emil Brunner rightly highlights two of the dominant themes of
atonement (though lacking concerning the redemptive theme): the
legal one with Christ’s death as penalty and the cultic one with Christ
as sacrifice (The Mediator: A Study of the Central Doctrine of the
Christian Faith, trans. O. Wyon [London: Lutterworth Press, 1934],
435–535).
80. Though the cross was more than just penal, see the classic defense of
substitutionary atonement by James I. Packer, “What Did the Cross
Achieve: The Logic of Penal Substitution,” TynBul 25 (1974): 3–45;
cf. also Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach, Pierced for
Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution
(Wheaton: Crossway, 2007).
81. Without Jewish apocalypticism and the day of the Lord as a reference
point, discussion of the atonement often devolves into a
“kaleidoscopic” miscellany of different ideas that ultimately speak of
nothing; cf. Joel B. Green, “Kaleidoscopic View,” in The Nature of the
Atonement: Four Views, ed. James Beilby and Paul R. Eddy (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006), 157–85; and Green and Baker,
Recovering the Scandal, 35–115.
82. James tenaciously combated this tendency in the early church (cf.
2:14–26). Some, like Luther (cf. Preface to the Epistles of St. James
and St. Jude, in LW, 35:395–96), pit James and Paul against each other
in the struggle over justification by faith. However, Paul never says we
are justified by faith alone. This phraseology is used only by James
(2:24). Though Paul was accused of promoting such antinomian
distortions (Rom. 3:8), he clearly fought against them (cf. Rom. 6:1f.,
15; Gal. 2:17; 5:13; Titus 1:16). In response to such accusation, Paul
preached that Jew and Gentile alike “should repent and turn to God,
performing deeds in keeping with their repentance” (Acts 26:20), a
statement functionally identical to James 2:22 (cf. Rom. 13:9f.; 1 Cor.
13:2; 2 Cor. 9:8; Gal. 5:6; Eph. 2:10; 2 Thess. 1:11). “For Paul,
ultimately the issue is not works versus faith, but law-works (whereby
one tries to gain or retain God’s approval) versus faith-works (which
flow out of an already extant approval in Christ; Gal. 5:6)” (Dan G.
McCartney, James, BECNT [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009], 161, n. 16).
For a comprehensive introduction to the issues involved, see ibid.,
161–71 and 272–79.
83. See “πίστις,” BDAG, 818–20; and J. B. Scott, “116 (āman),”
TWOT, 51–53.
84. See G. W. Bromiley, “Faith,” ISBE, 2:270–73; and O. Michel,
“πίστις,” NIDNTT, 1:593–605.
85. Thus most theologians reinterpret the literalistic eschatology of the
Scriptures, as typified by Rudolf Bultmann: “It is not easy in the
twentieth century to imagine an imminent end of the world at which
angels fly down with trumpet blasts from heaven, while the sun is
darkened and the stars cease to shine. Consequently many theologians
felt it to be a liberation when Bultmann showed the presence of a quite
different eschatology in the New Testament—an individual, wholly
 personal eschatology, bound up with the moment of truth—the
eschatology of detachment from the world; and when Bultmann
expounded this as being the real eschatology meant by Paul and John
and the others” (Klaus Koch, The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic, trans.
M. Kohl [London: SCM Press, 1972], 67).
86. See Roy Ratcliff, Dark Journey Deep Grace: Jeffrey Dahmer’s Story
of Faith (Abilene, TX: Leafwood Publishers, 2006).
87. For popular rebuttals of the doctrine, see David Pawson, Once Saved,
Always Saved? A Study in Perseverance and Inheritance (London:
Hodder & Stoughton, 1996); and Daniel D. Corner, The Believer’s
Conditional Security: Eternal Security Refuted, 3rd ed. (Washington,
PA: Evangelical Outreach, 2000).
88. Thus being found in Christ, “not having a righteousness of my own”
(Phil. 3:9), was the “one thing” that Paul sought to obtain: “Not that I
have already obtained it [atonemental faith, cf. vv. 7–11] or have
already become perfect [in atonemental faith], but I press on so that I
may lay hold of that [faith in the cross] for which also I was laid hold
of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold
of it [faith in the cross] yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies
behind [self-righteous faith, vv. 4–6] and reaching forward to what lies
ahead [being found in Christ in the resurrection, vv. 9–11], I press on
toward the goal, for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ
Jesus” (Phil. 3:12–14, NASB).
89. This idea is well illustrated in the popular diagram by Robert H. Thune
and Will Walker, The Gospel-Centered Life: Study Guide with
Leader’s Notes (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2011), 13.
90. So Baruch A. Levine in his commentary on Leviticus:
It should be emphasized here, as the workings of the sacrificial
system are introduced to the reader, that the laws of the Torah
did not permit Israelites to expiate intentional or premeditated
offenses by means of sacrifice. . . . The entire expiatory system
ordained in the Torah must be understood in this light. Ritual
expiation was restricted to situations where a reasonable doubt
existed as to the willfulness of the offense. Even then,
restitution was always required where loss or injury to another
person had occurred. The mistaken notion that ritual worship
 could atone for criminality or intentional religious desecration
was persistently attacked by the prophets of Israel, who
considered it a major threat to the entire covenantal relationship
between Israel and God. (Leviticus, JPS Torah Commentary
[Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989], 2–3)
91. The difference between unintentional and intentional sin is most
clearly defined in Num. 15:27–31:
If one person sins unintentionally, he shall offer a female goat a
year old for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement
before the LORD for the person who makes a mistake, when he
sins unintentionally, to make atonement for him, and he shall be
forgiven. . . . But the person who does anything with a high
hand [“acts defiantly,” CSB, NET; “sins defiantly,” NIV], whether
he is native or a sojourner, reviles the LORD, and that person
shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised
the word of the LORD and has broken his commandment, that
person shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be on him.
92. The common accusation that forensic justification promotes
licentiousness, or that it cannot account for verses such as these,
generally fails to account for intentionality in sacrifice and atonement.
93. BDAG, 770.
94. This translation follows the NKJV, while other translations adopt some
form of “fail the test” (cf. BDAG, 21).
95. Literal translation of Titus 1:16b by Philip H. Towner, The Letters to
Timothy and Titus, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 711;
italics added.
96. The common reference in commentaries to the circumcision party as
“Judaizers” (“Judaizer” being derived from the Gk. verb ioudaizō, “to
live as Jews,” found only in Gal. 2:14) seems misleading, since
Judaism itself is not an enemy of the cross. It is only the distortion of
Judaism that Paul rejected, for “we know that the law is good if one
uses it properly” (1 Tim. 1:8, NIV).
97. The tension between Paul and the church in Jerusalem is evident from
passages such as Gal. 2 and Acts 21. The heart of the issue lies in how
many members of the church in Jerusalem were considered to be part
 of the circumcision party. If it was a small portion, as Acts 15:5 might
indicate, then we have a marginal tension affecting a relative few. If it
was a large portion, as Gal. 2 and Acts 21 seem to indicate, then we
have a greater tension affecting the whole of the early church (of
course, the proportions could have changed over time). See an
introduction to the debate in Richard N. Longenecker, “The Identity of
the Opponents,” Galatians, WBC (Dallas: Word, 1998), lxxxix–xcvi.
98. Paul’s emphasis on their avoidance of persecution as the “sole” or
“only” (Gk. monon) motivation should not be taken literally, but it
should be appreciated as their defining social feature.
99. See esp. Simon J. Gathercole, Where Is Boasting? Early Jewish
Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1–5 (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2002), 197–215.
100. An issue to which the NPP (esp. E. P. Sanders) seems generally
oblivious; cf. Gathercole, Where Is Boasting, 37–194. This tendency is
evident in Jesus’ interactions with Jewish leaders concerning “sinners”
(cf. Luke 7:36–50; 15:1–2), his direct condemnations of self-exaltation
(cf. Matt. 23:2–12; Luke 14:7–11), and his parable concerning “some
who trusted in themselves that they were righteous” (Luke 18:9).
101. Paul thus understood walking by the Spirit as synonymous with
boasting in Christ crucified: “We are the circumcision, the ones who
worship by the Spirit of God, boast in Christ Jesus, and do not put
confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3, CSB). Because the Spirit was given
to reveal the cross (cf. 1 Cor. 2:10–16) and confirm the message of the
cross (cf. Gal. 3:1–5), walking according to the Spirit is understood as
walking according to the cross and justification by faith (cf. Rom. 8:3–
5). The opposite for Paul is walking according to the flesh and reliance
upon works of the law (cf. Gal. 3:5; Phil. 3:3).
102. There is also great dispute (and complexity) concerning the nature of
the “Colossian heresy” addressed in Col. 2 (see Peter O’Brien,
Colossians, Philemon, WBC [Dallas: Word, 1998], xxx–xxxviii).
However, the references to “elemental spirits” (v. 8, 20; cf. Gal. 4:3,
9), “circumcision made without hands” (v. 11; cf. Eph. 2:11), the
passing of judgment “in questions of food and drink” (v. 16; cf. Gal.
2:12) and “with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath” (v.
 16; cf. Gal. 4:10), and “not holding fast to the Head” (v. 19; cf. Gal.
5:4) seem to most sensibly refer to the circumcision party.
103. The language of 1 Thess. 2:1–12 seems to indicate that Paul is
contrasting the motivations of his ministry with that of the
circumcision party (cf. 2 Cor. 5:20; 11:7–21; 12:14–19; Phil. 1:15–18).
Of course, his reference to unbelieving Jews (vv. 2 and 14–16; cf. Acts
17:5) would not be unrelated in Paul’s mind. Contrary to this is the
idea of Greek itinerant “heathen missionaries” (F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2
Thessalonians, WBC [Dallas: Word, 1998], 26; cf. A. J. Malherbe,
“‘Gentle as a Nurse’: The Cynic Background to 1 Thess. 2,” NovT 12,
no. 2 [1970]: 203–17).
104. Phil. 3:2–21 makes most sense as a single, cohesive argument against
the circumcision party. The crude translation of Gk. koilia (v. 19) as
“belly” (KJV, NKJV, NRSV, ESV) or “stomach” (NIV, CSB) makes no sense in
context (except maybe as a reference to Jewish food laws). It is the
same koilia as in Rom. 16:18, which is often translated “appetites” or
“personal interests” (NLT). The offense of the cross ultimately derives
from a corrupt “inward life, of feelings and desires” (“κοιλία,” BDAG,
550).
105. All such language is reminiscent of the early church fathers’
condemnation of the Ebionites. Though there may be a relationship
between the two (see Daniel H. King, “Paul and the Tannaim: A Study
in Galatians,” WTJ 45, no. 2 [Fall 1983]: 340–70), there is no clear
evidence (see S. Goranson, “Ebionites,” ABD, 2:260–61).
106. Morris, Atonement, 126.
107. As seen in Plato’s characters Thrasymachus (Republic, 336–54) and
Callicles (Gorgias).
108. The Holy Rule of Our Most Holy Father Benedict: With Declarations
and Constitution of the American-Cassinese Congregation, trans.
Boniface F. Verheyen, (Atchison, KS: Abbey Student Press, 1949),
chap. 73; italics added; available online at
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/benedict/rule.
109. Theological historian Alister E. McGrath observes, “Luther relates
how he tried with all his might to do what was necessary to achieve
salvation, but found himself more and more convinced that he could
 not be saved. If ever a monk could get to heaven through monastic
discipline, Luther remarked, he was that monk. Yet he kept doubting. .
. . It seemed to Luther that he simply could not meet the precondition
for salvation. He did not have the resources needed to be saved. There
was no way that God could justly reward him with salvation—only
with condemnation” (Reformation Thought: An Introduction, 4th ed.
[Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012], 119).
110. Ibid. Ecclesiastical abuses (as seen in Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses)
were understood to be products of the church’s theological abuses, so
this question (which drove his theological conclusions) was “the
central question on his personal agenda” (ibid.).
111. See Alister E. McGrath, Luther’s Theology of the Cross: Martin
Luther’s Theological Breakthrough, 2nd ed. (Chichester, UK: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2011), esp. 127–60.
112. Ibid., 155; italics in the original.
113. Luther, however, was generally vitriolic in his critique of the pope:
“You see how woefully those err who try to escape eternal damnation
by means of their monkeries, cowls, and tonsures. Moreover, such
people even offer their supererogatory works for sale and transfer them
to others. This, I regret to say, is how we lived in the papacy. You
young people, be grateful to God for your better insight, and learn
these words well. For death and the devil are in league with the pope
and with the Turks’ Koran to delude the people into relying on their
foul works for salvation” (LW, 22:360–61).
114. Especially in light of the common practice of selling indulgences (a
major source of papal revenue) for justification and the forgiveness of
sins—that is, “The eternal penalties resulting from sinful actions could
be reduced, if not eliminated, by payment of an appropriate sum of
money to the appropriate ecclesiastical figure” (McGrath, Reformation
Thought, 123). So, “Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith, with its
associated doctrine of the ‘priesthood of all believers,’ thus assumed
an importance which far transcended the sphere of academic theology.
. . . No payment of any kind was required to receive divine
forgiveness” (ibid., 124).
115. Concerning monasticism as a whole, Luther believed it to be
antithetical to justification by faith (cf. “The Judgment of Martin
 Luther on Monastic Vows [1521],” LW, 44:243–400; and “Avoiding
the Doctrines of Men [1522],” LW, 35:125–53)—even saying, “Would
to God that all monks and nuns could hear this sermon and properly
understand this matter and would all forsake the cloisters, and thus all
the cloisters in the world would cease to exist; this is what I would
wish” (“Third Sermon, March 11, 1522, Tuesday after Invocavit,” LW,
51:80). Therefore, “In modern history, monasticism suffered a
substantial diminution at the time of the Protestant Reformation.
Generally, the leaders of the Reformation believed that monastics did
not in fact conform to a simple gospel rule of life, that their repetitive
prayers, fasts, and ceremonies were meaningless, and that they had no
real value to society. In Protestant thought, the pious family tended to
replace the monastery as the ideal style of Christian life. Wherever the
Reformation was triumphant, the monasteries were disestablished” (C.
T. Marshall, “Monasticism,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology:
Second Edition, ed. Walter A. Elwell [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001],
786).
116. As Schweitzer is known for saying, “The doctrine of righteousness by
faith is therefore a subsidiary crater, which has formed within the rim
of the main crater—the mystical doctrine of redemption through the
being-in-Christ” (The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, trans. W.
Montgomery [London: A. & C. Black, 1931], 225). Such
marginalization of the doctrine of justification has been taken up by
many following Schweitzer, including E. P. Sanders, who prefers
“participationist” language instead of mystical union (cf. Paul and
Palestinian Judaism, 434–42).
117. The phrase “new perspective” in relation to Pauline studies was
originally used by N. T. Wright (“The Paul of History and the Apostle
of Faith,” TynBul 29 [1978]: 61–88), but J. D. G. Dunn popularized
the well-known phrase (“The New Perspective on Paul,” in Jesus, Paul
and the Law [London: SPCK, 1990; orig. pub. 1983])—both owing to
E. P. Sanders and his book Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1977). These make up “the three musketeers of the so-called
‘New Perspective’” (Gathercole, Where Is Boasting, 16). Though
holding many commonalities, Wright describes the internal reality:
“There is no such thing as the new perspective. . . . There is only a
disparate family of perspectives, some with more, some with less
 family likeness, and with fierce squabbles and sibling rivalries going
on inside” (Justification, 28).
118. See esp. G. F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian
Era: The Age of the Tannaim, 3 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1927–30).
119. See H. J. Schoeps, Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of
Jewish Religious History (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961); cf.
Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New, 101–200.
120. Originally and most incisively stated by Krister Stendahl, “The
Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” HTR 56
(1963): 199–215; reprinted in Krister Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and
Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 78–96. All of the major lines
of New Perspective thought are found in this article.
121. Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles, 82.
122. As per Dodd’s pupil, W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some
Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology, 2nd ed. (London: SPCK,
1955).
123. Broadly labeled by E. P. Sanders as “covenantal nomism” (from Gk.
nomos, i.e., “law”): “Briefly put, covenantal nomism is the view that
one’s place in God’s plan is established on the basis of the covenant
and that the covenant requires as the proper response of man his
obedience to its commandments, while providing means of atonement
for transgression” (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 75). Thus the
implication is that “election and ultimately salvation are considered to
be by God’s mercy rather than human achievement” (ibid., 422). “In
short, this is what Paul finds wrong with Judaism: it is not
Christianity” (ibid., 552). This assessment ignores Jesus’
condemnations of Pharisaical pride (cf. Matt. 23:12; Luke 16:15; 18:9)
and Paul’s characterizations of first-century Jewish pride (cf. Rom.
2:17–24; 11:17–24).
124. Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles, 84.
125. “Paul’s discussion [concerning ‘righteousness by faith’] cannot be
understood unless we know the topic that he and his opponents were
debating. The subject matter is not ‘how can the individual be
righteous in God’s sight?’, but rather, ‘on what grounds can Gentiles
 participate in the people of God in the last days?’” (E. P. Sanders,
Paul: A Very Short Introduction [New York: Oxford University Press,
2001], 58).
126. See n. 61 above.
127. “There is not—as we usually think—first a conversion, and then a call
to apostleship; there is only the call to the work among the Gentiles”
(Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles, 84–85). See a rebuttal by
Seyoon Kim, Paul and the New Perspective: Second Thoughts on the
Origin of Paul’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002).
128. For example, James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 334–89; Dunn, New Perspective on
Paul, 193–212, 367–80; Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 118–33;
and Wright, Paul: Fresh Perspectives, 110–22.
129. See A. Andrew Das, Paul, the Law, and the Covenant (Grand Rapids:
Baker, 2000); Seifrid, Christ, Our Righteousness; Westerholm,
Perspectives Old and New; and D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and
Mark A. Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, 2 vols.
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001, 2004).
130. See John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T.
Wright (Wheaton: Crossway, 2007); cf. Wright’s response in
Justification.
131. A position often referred to as “Paul within Judaism”; cf. John G.
Gager, Reinventing Paul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000);
Pamela Eisenbaum, Paul Was Not a Christian: The Original Message
of a Misunderstood Apostle (New York: HarperOne, 2009); Mark D.
Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm, eds., Paul within Judaism: Restoring
the First-Century Context to the Apostle (Minneapolis: Fortress,
2015); and Paula Fredriksen, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 2017).
132. Bird, Saving Righteousness of God, 89.
133. See G. K. Beale’s review of Justification and Variegated Nomism in
“The Overstated ‘New’ Perspective?” BBR 19, no. 1 (2009): 85–94.
134. Mediating voices between the new and old perspectives include Bird,
Saving Righteousness of God; Gathercole, Where Is Boasting; and
 Francis Watson, Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles: Beyond the New
Perspective, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007).
135. So Moisés Silva concludes, “It would be folly to deny that
(exclusivistic) national and sociological commitments on the part of
Paul’s Jewish contemporaries were an integral part of the attitudes the
apostle was combating. It is no less ill-advised, however, to deduce
that first-century Judaism was free from the universal human tendency
to rely on one’s own resources rather than on God’s power. Why
should it be thought that ethnic pride and (personal) self-confidence
are mutually exclusive factors? The attempt to work for, or at least
contribute to, one’s own salvation by means of good deeds was hardly
absent in the Jewish communities with which Paul interacted” (“Faith
Versus Works of Law,” 246).
136. N. T. Wright, being the most articulate and readable of those within the
NPP, summarizes his inaugurational concept of covenant: “The
‘covenant,’ in my shorthand, is not something other than God’s
determination to deal with evil once and for all and so put the whole
creation (and humankind with it) right at last. When will it become
clear to the geocentrists [condescending reference to traditional
Lutheran and Reformed thinkers]? Dealing with sin, saving humans
from it, giving them grace, forgiveness, justification, glorification—all
this was the purpose of the single covenant from the beginning, now
fulfilled in Jesus Christ” (Wright, Justification, 95; italics in the
original; information in brackets added).
137. For example, John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed, In Search
of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s
Kingdom (New York: HarperCollins, 2004); and Neil Elliott,
Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005).
138. Thus one will notice at a broad level very little enduring eschatological
emphasis in Sanders, some in Dunn, and yet more in Wright. However,
“Both Wright and Dunn recognize the relationship of justification to
the final judgment; the problem is that they minimize this aspect and
subordinate it beneath the application of justification to covenantal
membership” (Bird, Saving Righteousness of God, 101).
139. See Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New, 352–407; cf.
Westerholm’s concise (and satiric) article, “Justification by Faith is the
Answer: What is the Question?” Concordia Theological Quarterly 70
(2006): 197–217.
140. “It is high time that we eschew false dichotomies. The NT does reflect
certain sociological concerns not fully appreciated by the Reformers,
but it hardly follows from this fact that other elements they saw in the
text are false. Again, we may readily agree that Protestantism has often
caricatured rabbinic Judaism and that, in the process, it has failed to
provide a complete picture of Paul’s thought. None of that means,
however, that the traditional doctrine of justification by faith is in need
of overhauling” (Silva, “Faith Versus Works of Law,” 247).
Chapter Nine
1. Cf. Acts 1:22; 2:32, 40; 3:15; 4:33; 5:32; 8:25; 10:39, 41ff.; 13:31;
14:3; 18:5; 20:21–26; 22:15–20; 23:11; 26:16, 22; 28:23; Rom. 2:15f.;
3:21; 8:16; 9:1; 1 Cor. 1:6; 2:1; 15:15; 2 Cor. 1:12; Gal. 5:3; Eph. 4:17;
2 Thess. 1:10; 1 Tim. 2:6; 6:13; 2 Tim. 1:8; Heb. 2:4; 3:5; 12:1; 1 Peter
5:1; 1 John 1:2; 4:14; 5:6–11; Rev. 1:2, 9; 2:13; 6:9; 11:3, 7; 12:11, 17;
19:10; 20:4; 22:20. See an overview by Hermann Strathmann,
“μάρτυς,” TDNT, 4:474–508.
2. “It will be all in vain for us to seek to emulate the apostolic methods in
our day if we have lost the apostolic message. Evangelism without
words, without a message, is a contradiction. Evangelism without
words, without a message, is a contradiction. Yet there are those in our
day who use the term ‘evangelism’ for anything and everything save
preaching the Gospel” (Samuel M. Zwemer, Into All the World: The
Great Commission: A Vindication and an Interpretation [Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1943], 185).
3. On the relatively recent labeling of this passage, see Robbie F.
Castlemann, “The Last Word: The Great Commission: Ecclesiology,”
Themelios 32, no. 3 (May 2007): 68–70. For an in-depth study, see
Benjamin J. Hubbard, The Matthean Redaction of a Primitive
Apostolic Commissioning: An Exegesis of Matthew 28:16–20
(Missoula, MT: SBL and Scholars, 1974).
4. The discipleship of the Gentiles thus fundamentally involves warning
of the coming judgment (since they are without divine revelation and
generally ignorant of the future, cf. Matt. 6:32; Luke 12:30). The
opposite of “disciple” is “teacher” (cf. Matt. 9:11; 10:24–25; 22:16),
and thus the commission assumes “teach all nations” (v. 19, KJV) the
Scriptures (Tanakh) and the narrative therein (on the disciple-teacher
relationship, see Cleon Rogers, “The Great Commission,” BSac 130,
no. 519 [July 1973]: 258–67). Thus the trajectory of such discipleship
is assumed to be into the Jewish apocalyptic narrative rather than out
of it (the idea that the Great Commission marks the excommunication
of the Jews from redemptive history is particularly grievous, cf.
Douglas R. A. Hare and Daniel J. Harrington, “‘Make Disciples of All
the Gentiles’ (Mt 28:19),” CBQ 37 [1975]: 359–69). The general lack
 of reference in most modern commentaries to the apocalyptic
framework of this passage is astonishing (see chap. 3, n. 61).
5. The Gospel of Mark concludes: “Go into all the world and proclaim
the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized
will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned”
(16:15–16). Again, baptism was understood in light of the purification
rites of the law (unto forgiveness of sins), and the day of the Lord
would have been the assumed context for salvation and condemnation
(concerning the disputed ending of Mark, see chap. 4, n. 8). Similarly,
Jesus declares in Luke, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer
and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and
forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations,
beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things” (24:46–
48). The sufferings of Christ and the witness to the nations were
understood in light of the redemption of Israel (v. 21) and the glory to
come (v. 26).
6. We could also say the apostles were monistic in their
cosmology/worldview of the heavens and the earth and chiliastic in
their approach to eschatology and the day of the Lord. However, these
must be considered secondary in focus and emphasis. Chiliasm
received much greater emphasis in the second century after the
Revelation given to John.
7. The inaugurational witness simply mitigates the dominionist approach
with a temporal inheritance now unto an eternal, semi-supernaturalized
inheritance to come. The dispensational witness (classical and revised)
complicates things doubly: an escapist inheritance for Gentiles and an
earthly one for Jews (often of the zealot rather than apocalyptic
flavor). Both witnesses (like their historical predecessors) substantially
undermine, in theology and practice, the church’s conformity to the
cross in this age.
8. Cf. Acts 2:17–36; 3:17–26; 4:24–30; 5:30–32; 7:2–53; 10:34–43;
13:16–41, 46–48; 14:15–17; 15:7–11; 16:31; 17:3; 20:25–35; 24:14–
15, 25; 26:19–23.
9. See the common usage in Roman courts of law in Allison A. Trites,
The New Testament Concept of Witness (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1977), 4–15.
10. Though inaugurational in assumption (rather than cruciform-
apocalyptic), Lesslie Newbigin articulates well the relationship
between God and his witnesses:
When Israel is told “You are my witnesses” (e.g., Is. 44:8), it is
plain that Israel is not being summoned to help God to cope
with the otherwise unmanageable powers of the pagan empires,
or to organize a movement which will carry out God’s purposes
in contradistinction to the godless purposes of these empires.
They are but a little thing in God’s hands. He raises them up and
casts them down as he will. Israel’s role is to be—precisely—
witness of his purpose to these pagan nations to whom it would
be otherwise unintelligible. Israel knows what God is doing—or
ought to know; the others do not. The revelation of his nature
and will which God has given to Israel equips her to understand
the meaning of what he is doing.
The New Testament carries the same teaching. Christians are
not called upon to organize a movement to counter the powers
of paganism. They are called upon to be witnesses to him who
is sovereign over history, whose character and will have been
revealed and who—in Christ—has done the deed which
precipitates the final issue for all mankind. They are called upon
to recognize the signs of the times—that is to say the signs of
the last days which follow the coming of Jesus and point to his
coming again. . . . The whole of human history, after the coming
of Christ until his coming again, is the pressing of this choice to
the final issue. And the Church is the body which understands
this, which is called to bear witness among the nations to the
real meaning of the events amid which we live, and thereby to
present to all men and nations the concrete alternatives of
acceptance or rejection. (Trinitarian Faith and Today’s Mission
[Richmond: John Knox, 1964], 24–25)
11. Note esp. the language of prophetic witness in John’s Gospel: “The
Fourth Gospel presents a controversy very similar to the one found in
Isaiah 40–55. There the controversy between Yahweh and the false
gods turns out to be a lawsuit between God and the world. God is
represented by Israel and the world by the pagan nations. Similarly, in
the Fourth Gospel God incarnate has a lawsuit with the world. His
 witnesses include John the Baptist, the scriptures, the words and works
of Christ, and later the witness of the apostles and the Holy Spirit. . . .
The idea of witness in John’s Gospel is both very prominent and
thoroughly juridical” (Trites, New Testament Concept of Witness, 79–
80).
12. See “κρίμα,” BDAG, 567.
13. In the Tanakh, false witnesses destroyed the integrity of the law (cf.
Ex. 23:1–7; Deut. 19:16–21), and false prophets spoke lies that
deluded their hearers (cf. Isa. 9:15–16; Jer. 14:14; 23:14; Ezek. 22:28).
Thus the indictment upon false apostles (cf. 2 Cor. 11:13; Rev. 2:2)
and false prophets (cf. Matt. 7:15; 24:11; 2 Peter 2:1; 1 John 4:1) in the
NT.
14. Therefore, the apostolic witness is received as “the testimony of God”
(1 Cor. 2:1)—that is, “the testimony about Christ” (1 Cor. 1:6; cf. 2
Tim. 1:8). Note the common theme of “testifying to the kingdom of
God” (Acts 28:23), “testifying to the good news of God’s grace” (Acts
20:24, NIV), “testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus” (Acts
18:5), “giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus”
(Acts 4:33), “the testimony given at the proper time” (1 Tim. 2:6), etc.
15. A. A. Trites, “Witness, Testimony,” NIDNTT, 3:1048.
16. “Witnesses are held accountable for the truthfulness of their testimony.
Perjury was, and still is, a serious offense punishable by heavy
penalties. This solemn sense of being responsible under God for
speaking truthfully appears in Paul, who four times declares, ‘God is
my witness.’ Applied to preachers, this means that they are driven
back to the Scriptures as the standard whereby their witness is to be
judged” (ibid., 3:1049–50).
17. Accordingly, Paul understood his calling as “a teacher of the Gentiles
in faith and truth (1 Tim. 2:7). As a faithful teacher, apostle, and
witness, he thus emphasized “sound teaching” (2 Tim. 4:3) and “sound
doctrine” (1 Tim. 1:10; Titus 1:9; 2:1)—“What you have heard from
me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will
be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2). Paul’s desire was neither
ideological domination nor theological perfectionism, but rather he
simply sought to be faithful concerning the realities of God, humanity,
and the coming judgment—“Knowing the fear of the Lord, we
 persuade others” (2 Cor. 5:11). Paul sought to be a “faithful minister”
(Eph. 6:21; Col. 1:7; 4:7), because ultimately “it is required of
stewards that they be found faithful” (1 Cor. 4:2).
18. On the Antichrist, see esp. Joel Richardson, The Islamic Antichrist
(Los Angeles: WND Books, 2009); and Richardson, Mideast Beast
(Washington, DC: WND Books, 2012).
19. For example, R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, NICNT (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 907–10; and Donald A. Hagner, Matthew
14–28, WBC (Dallas: Word, 1998), 695–96.
20. Mark places the proclamation of “the gospel” (13:10) in the middle of
testifying before governors and kings (v. 9) and being brought to trial
(v. 11). Furthermore, the passage is closely paralleled in Matt. 10:16–
23, which is similarly incriminatory in tone. Craig Blomberg
articulates clearly the negative context of Matt. 24:14 (though
strangely concluding with a positive interpretation): “Separated from
the previous eight negative signs that do not herald the end is the
promise of yet one more preliminary event: (9) the extensive
preaching of the gospel (v. 14). Here is the fulfillment of the Great
Commission Jesus will give in 28:18–20. Probably it is separated from
the other eight items because it is a more positive development”
(Matthew, NAC [Nashville: B&H Publishing, 1992], 356). This
“separation” is imposed (nonexistent in Mark) and does not align with
the verses preceding and following.
21. Note the law-court images throughout (cf. Trites, New Testament
Concept of Witness, 154–74).
22. The multitude of martyrs “who come out of the great tribulation”
(7:14, NASB) are those “who had been slain for the word of God and
for the witness they had borne” (6:9). The “two witnesses” (11:3)
typify the church as a whole, for “when they have finished their
testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war
on them and conquer them and kill them” (11:7). Indeed the dragon
makes war “on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to
the testimony of Jesus” (12:17). Yet “they have conquered him by the
blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved
not their lives even unto death” (12:11). Those who are killed “for the
testimony of Jesus and for the word of God” (20:4)—even all who
 suffer “on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus”
(1:9)—will receive their reward in the age to come.
23. On preaching and teaching in the early church, see esp. Michael
Green, Evangelism in the Early Church, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2004), 300–17.
24. “How, then, should evangelism be defined? The New Testament
answer is very simple. According to the New Testament, evangelism is
just preaching the gospel, the evangel. It is a work of communication
in which Christians make themselves mouthpieces for God’s message
of mercy to sinners. Anyone who faithfully delivers that message,
under whatever circumstances, in a large meeting, in a small meeting,
from a pulpit, or in a private conversation, is evangelizing” (J. I.
Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God [Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 1961], 41).
25. Similarly, throughout the history of the church (e.g., the Irish
peregrini, the Franciscan mendicants, the Wesleyan revivalists, etc.),
the word of God bears upon societal consciousness by sustained,
zealous public proclamation; cf. David L. Larsen, The Evangelism
Mandate: Recovering the Centrality of Gospel Preaching (Grand
Rapids: Kregel, 1992), 45–66. See a modern example in Vincent J.
Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered: An Epistle from the Masai
(London: SCM Press, 2001).
26. A well-known statement made by Sri Lankan missiologist D. T. Niles,
cited in Ashish Amos, The Preaching of Daniel Thambirajah Niles:
Homiletical Criticism (Delhi: ISPCK, 2009), 57.
27. A truth incisively spoken by Arthur Katz and Paul Volk, The Spirit of
Truth (Charlotte: Morningstar, 1992).
28. See a compilation of early accounts in Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of
the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972).
29. See Mark Water, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Christian Martyrs
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 22–44; cf. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical
History, 3.1–2 (NPNF2, 1:132–33).
30. See ANF, 3:36, n. 1. Tertullian thus concludes his Apology: “The
oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the
blood of Christians is seed. Many of your writers exhort to the
 courageous bearing of pain and death . . . and yet their words do not
find so many disciples as Christians do, teachers not by words, but by
their deeds. That very obstinacy you rail against is the preceptress. For
who that contemplates it, is not excited to inquire what is at the bottom
of it? Who, after inquiry, does not embrace our doctrines?” (Chap. 50
[ANF, 3:55]; italics in the original).
31. Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders
History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 174.
32. Or asceticism, as distorted in early monasticism; see Edward E.
Malone, The Monk and the Martyr: The Monk as the Successor of the
Martyr (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press,
1950).
33. On the intertestamental background of martyrdom, see W. H. C. Frend,
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church: A Study of a Conflict
from the Maccabees to Donatus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981); and
Josef Ton, Suffering, Martyrdom, and Rewards in Heaven (Lanham,
MD: University Press of America, 1997), 47–61. See esp. 1
Maccabees 2:37f., 50ff.; 2 Maccabees and 4 Maccabees passim;
Wisdom of Solomon 2:19f.; 3:1ff.; 1 Enoch 47.1ff.; Martyrdom of
Isaiah 5.10ff. (cf. Heb. 11:37); and Josephus, Wars of the Jews 2.151ff.
34. Those who spiritualize this passage fail at every level hermeneutically;
see Ton, Suffering, Martyrdom, and Rewards, 81–83.
35. “One of the repeated emphases of the entire New Testament is that it is
the very nature of the church to be a martyr people. When Jesus taught
that a man to be his disciple must deny himself and take up his cross
(Matt. 10:38; 16:24), he was not speaking of self-denial or the bearing
of heavy burdens; he was speaking of willingness to suffer martyrdom.
The cross is nothing else than an instrument of death. Every disciple of
Jesus is in essence a martyr” (G. E. Ladd, A Commentary on the
Revelation of John [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972], 104).
36. “Martyrdom is not a special calling for a select few, but the
commitment of every Christian and the responsibility of every church.
Even though not every individual Christian will be killed, there is no
way to distinguish those who will be killed from those who will not.
Even though not every Christian will be remembered as a martyr,
every church that locates its identity in the cross is obligated to
 cultivate the virtues necessary to enable all of its members to die for
the cause of Christ. Every Christian is a member of a martyr-church”
(Craig Hovey, To Share in the Body: A Theology of Martyrdom for
Today’s Church [Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2008], 60).
37. See J. W. van Henten, The Maccabean Martyrs as Saviours of the
Jewish People: A Study of 2 and 4 Maccabees (Leiden, Netherlands:
Brill, 1997).
38. Similar declarations are made by the other sons (cf. vv. 2, 9, 11, 16–17,
18–19, 30–38); see an introduction in Robert Doran, 2 Maccabees: A
Critical Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 148–
66.
39. Cf. also J. W. van Henten, “The Maccabean Martyrs as Models in
Early Christian Writings,” in The Jew as Legitimation: Jewish-Gentile
Relations Beyond Antisemitism and Philosemitism (Cham,
Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 17–32.
40. “The making of a Christian preceded the making of a martyr, for the
latter needed a strong sense of his or her Christian identity, of the
exclusive distinctiveness of the Christian people to which he or she
belonged, of the priority of loyalty to Christ over all other calls on his
or her fidelity—to parents, for example, or to children—and a strong
faith in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come. .
. . For martyrdom stood for nothing so much as the other-worldly,
future-worldly orientation of early Christianity” (David Wright, “The
Testimony of Blood: The Charisma of Martyrdom,” BSac 160 [2003]:
397).
41. Reflecting on this passage, John Piper writes:
The most amazing thing about Colossians 1:24 is how Paul fills
up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. He says that it is his
own sufferings that fill up Christ’s afflictions. “I rejoice in my
sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is
lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” This means, then, that Paul
exhibits the sufferings of Christ by suffering himself for those
he is trying to win. In his sufferings they see Christ’s sufferings.
Here is the astounding upshot: God intends for the afflictions of
Christ to be presented to the world through the afflictions of his
people. God really means for the body of Christ, the church, to
 experience some of the suffering he experienced so that when
we proclaim the cross as the way to life, people will see the
marks of the cross in us and feel the love of the cross from us.
Our calling is to make the afflictions of Christ real for people by
the afflictions we experience in bringing them the message of
salvation. (Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist,
3rd ed. [Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2003], 269–70; italics in the
original)
42. “The fact that John saw the souls of the martyrs under the altar has
nothing to do with the state of the dead or their situation in the
intermediate state; it is merely a vivid way of picturing the fact that
they had been martyred in the name of their God. In the Old Testament
ritual blood of sacrificial victims was poured out at the base of the
altar (Lev. 4:7). The souls of martyrs are seen under the altar as though
they had been sacrificed upon the altar and their blood poured out at its
base” (Ladd, Revelation, 103).
43. Note the persecution of the churches (2:9, 13; 3:9), the slain souls
under the altar (6:9), the great multitude of martyrs from every nation
(7:14), the two witnesses (11:7), the judgment of the wicked who
destroyed the righteous (11:18), those who “loved not their lives even
unto death” (12:11), the dragon making war upon those who hold to
the testimony of Jesus (12:17), the beast being “allowed to make war
on the saints and to conquer them” (13:7), the patient endurance and
blessing of the saints in light of the image and mark of the beast
(14:11ff.), the harvesting of the earth’s righteous (14:16), those beside
the sea of glass “who had conquered the beast and its image” (15:2),
the shedding of the blood of the saints causing the bowls of wrath to
be poured out (16:6), the Harlot Babylon being drunk with the blood
of the saints (17:6), the judgment of Harlot Babylon to avenge the
blood of the saints (18:20), the rejoicing of the multitude in heaven for
the avenging of the saints (19:2), and the vindication of the martyrs in
the millennium (20:4).
44. See Ton, Suffering, Martyrdom, and Rewards, 325–78.
45. As German theologian Ethelbert Stauffer noted,
The early church meditated upon these thoughts further. The
first Clemens epistle contains a martyrs’ summary in the style of
 the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The
Shepherd of Hermas looks at martyrdom as the most powerful
testimony to the hostility between God and the “world,” and for
that reason it is the fulfillment of the Christian life. Next, the
idea of the “imitation of Christ” [Mimesis] becomes dominant
in the martyr book of Polycarp (d. 155): the passion of Christ
becomes the prototype for the path of suffering of all loyal
disciples, even to the smallest detail. And thus teach all those
early books of the developing Christianity. The church of the
first centuries interpreted the work of Christ by means of the
concept of the “Theology of Martyrdom,” and vice versa
understood the fate of the martyrs through the fate of the
Master. (“The Anabaptist Theology of Martyrdom,” Mennonite
Quarterly Review 19, no. 3 [1945]: 181; cf. Stauffer, New
Testament Theology, trans. John Marsh [London: SCM Press,
1955], 185–88 and 331–34)
46. For example, Craig Hovey: “Those who bear crosses do so in the
confidence that a new world has been created in which, despite
appearances, the peace of Christ is a more sure reality than the
violence of human agonism. . . . The church, therefore, does not
simply witness to facts but displays the new life made possible by life
in a new world set in motion by Christ himself. Its offer to the old
world is animated only by its promise to persuade without coercion, in
which martyrdom signals just how new the new world is” (To Share in
the Body, 62). Hovey continues, “I have stressed repeatedly that the
cross is the height of glory. Rather than dashing hopes for the coming
kingdom, the cross is already itself the kingdom to come” (p. 99).
47. As seen generally in the Anabaptist tradition (cf. Stauffer, “Anabaptist
Theology of Martyrdom”).
48. Although etherealizing the future reward and sometimes realizing the
new creation through present suffering, this is substantially
accomplished by Josef Ton in Suffering, Martyrdom, and Rewards in
Heaven.
49. Brother Yun describes the practice of believers in China: “Each Back
to Jerusalem missionary receives training in several main subjects.
These include: 1. How to suffer and die for the Lord. . . . 2. How to
 witness for the Lord. . . . 3. How to escape for the Lord. . . . If you ever
visit one of the places where we are training our Back to Jerusalem
missionaries, you will see how serious we are to fulfill our destiny in
God. You may see people with their hands handcuffed behind their
backs, leaping from second-story windows!” (Brother Yun and Paul
Hattaway, The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese
Christian Brother Yun [Grand Rapids: Monarch Books, 2002], 290).
50. Ton, Suffering, Martyrdom, and Rewards, xii.
51. As William Bramley-Moore wrote in his introduction to Foxe’s Book
of Martyrs, “The history of Christian martyrdom is, in fact, the history
of Christianity itself; for it is in the arena, at the stake, and in the
dungeon that the religion of Christ has won its most glorious
triumphs” (quoted in Water, New Encyclopedia of Christian Martyrs,
viii–ix).
Appendix
1. See esp. The Parables of the Kingdom, 3rd ed. (London: Nisbet,
1936); and The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments (London:
Hodder & Stoughton, 1936).
2. See Clayton Sullivan’s historical review of the widespread embrace of
Dodd’s ideas in Rethinking Realized Eschatology (Macon, GA:
Mercer University Press, 1988), 4–11. For example, Oscar Cullmann,
Christ and Time, trans. F. V. Filson (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1950);
W. G. Kümmel, Promise and Fulfillment, trans. D. M. Barton
(London: SCM Press, 1957); Herman Ridderbos, The Coming of the
Kingdom, trans. H. de Jongste (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and
Reformed, 1962); G. E. Ladd, The Presence of the Future: The
Eschatology of Biblical Realism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974);
Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1979); Bruce Chilton, ed., The Kingdom of God in the
Teaching of Jesus (London: SPCK, 1984); Craig A. Blaising and
Darrell L. Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism (Wheaton: Victor,
1993); N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who
Jesus Was and Is (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999); Arthur F.
Glasser et al., Announcing the Kingdom: The Story of God’s Mission
in the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003); and G. K. Beale, A New
Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in
the New (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011).
Some may protest the equation of Dodd’s realized eschatology
(which was quite Platonic) with subsequent inaugurationalism (which
is less so). However, the common denominator of both is (1) the
material “realization” of divine sovereignty and (2) the present
“realization” of Jewish eschatology (note again the duplicity of
language). Inaugurated eschatology is simply mitigated realized
eschatology (see esp. Sullivan, Rethinking Realized Eschatology, 65–
99). If realized eschatology was to be removed from inaugurated
eschatology (and somehow its effects reversed), we would be left
simply with Jewish apocalypticism.
3. For example, “We conclude that on the historical plane there is no
‘eschatology of bliss’ in the sayings of Jesus. He gave no promise that
 the future would bring with it any such perfection of human society as
some Jewish thinkers had predicted under the form of a restored
kingdom of David. He declared that the Kingdom of God had come.
When He spoke of it in terms of the future, His words suggest, not any
readjustment of conditions on this earth, but the glories of a world
beyond this” (Dodd, Parables of the Kingdom, 74). Going beyond the
common stereotypes, we see in Dodd’s works (see esp. the conclusion
of Parables of the Kingdom, pp. 206–10) that his thought would better
be understood as a recapitulation of Augustinianism: a manifest
kingdom now (cf. church militant) unto a transcendent kingdom after
death in the “great beyond” (cf. church triumphant). Dodd assigned the
Jewish apocalyptic language to the latter, while justifying the former
with the parables and specific verses, such as Mark 1:15; Matt. 12:28;
Luke 17:21; etc.
4. For example, “Jesus declares that this ultimate, the Kingdom of God,
has come into history, and He takes upon Himself the ‘eschatological’
role of ‘Son of Man.’ The absolute, the ‘wholly other,’ has entered into
time and space. And as the Kingdom of God has come and the Son of
Man has come, so also judgment and blessedness have come into
human experience. The ancient images of the heavenly feast, of
Doomsday, of the Son of Man at the right hand of power, are not only
symbols of supra-sensible, supra-historical realities; they have also
their corresponding actuality within history” (Parables of the
Kingdom, 107).
5. See esp. Parables of the Kingdom, chap. 5; and Apostolic Preaching,
chap. 2.
6. Anything that contradicted his theory was generally written off as an
interpolation of the early church, which reverted to its Jewish roots
because it was under “crisis” for a season but then came to its senses
and fell in line with the revolutionary teachings of Jesus: “In the
course of time the better minds of the Church, under the guidance of
such teachers as Paul and the author of the Fourth Gospel, arrived at
an interpretation which did justice to the deeper meaning of the
teaching of Jesus. But meanwhile those who took his words literally
built up a new Christian eschatology on the lines of the Jewish
apocalyptic tradition. It is that which we have in outline in the ‘Little
 Apocalypse’ of Mark xiii, elaborated in Matthew, and it is brought to
its completion in the Revelation of John” (Parables of the Kingdom,
133).
In this way Dodd believed the final book of the Bible to be the
ultimate Anti-Revelation of Jesus Christ(!): “The God of the
Apocalypse can hardly be recognized as the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, nor has the fierce Messiah, whose warriors ride in blood up to
their horses’ bridles, many traits that could recall Him of whom the
primitive kerygma proclaimed that He went about doing good and
healing all who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with
Him. This line of development led into a blind alley. In the second
century its stream of thought ran out into the barren sands of
millenarianism, which in the end was disavowed by the Church”
(Apostolic Preaching, 41).
7. Note the irony of Dodd’s anti-Jewish rhetoric on the eve of the war:
The hope of Israel had been that the temple should, on “the Day
of the Lord” (when the Kingdom of God should be revealed),
stand upon its lofty hill as the religious centre of the whole
world. Jesus says, on the contrary, that, now that the Kingdom
of God has come, the temple has no further place; it will be
sunk, hill and all, into the sea. The “faith” by which this comes
about is the acknowledgment that the Kingdom of God is here. .
. . It is the fig-tree that is to be cast into the sea. The fig-tree, we
know, was a symbol of the people of God. Whether it is the
temple, or the Jewish community, the meaning is much the
same. And here we probably have a clue to the episode of the
blasted fig-tree (Mk. xi. 12–14, 20) which introduces the
Marcan saying about the mountain. The “fig-tree” is Israel, now
doomed to perpetual sterility. (Parables of the Kingdom, 63, n.
1)
Of course, the assumption behind such casting into the sea and
“perpetual sterility” is that the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem—and all
subsequent Jewish calamities—are the fulfillments of realized divine
retribution upon “the Jewish community.” Such punitive preterism is
simply the negative side (and logical consequence) of realized
eschatology. How can such ideas not lead to the justification of Jewish
 persecution within Christendom? (Cf. James Carroll, Constantine’s
Sword: The Church and the Jews, A History [New York: Houghton
Mifflin, 2001].)
8. See a rebuttal in Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross,
3rd ed. (London: Tyndale, 1965), 144–213.
9. These verses are repeated, in the most literal sense, like a mantra—a
sacred utterance quoted ad infinitum, seemingly as prayer, that one day
it will inspire a movement that will finally establish the longed-for
Christian utopia. Yet it is God himself who has ordained the
apocalyptic framework of human history (cf. Heb. 9:27), which no
amount of wishful theologizing can overturn.
10. See Johannes Weiss, Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God,
trans. R. H. Hiers and D. L. Holland (German orig. 1892; Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1971), 67–74.
11. Seeking to discredit Jesus, Jewish theologian David Flusser thus
stated, “This, then, is the ‘realized eschatology’ of Jesus. He is the
only Jew of ancient times known to us who preached not only that
people were on the threshold of the end of time, but that the new age
of salvation had already begun” (David Flusser and R. Steven Notley,
Jesus [Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2001], 110).
Of course, Flusser justified this statement by citing Luke 11:20, 16:16,
and 17:21.
12. “Certainly the two principal passages, Matt. 12:28 and Luke 17:21, are
spoken in rejoinder to opponents who dismiss its presence” (Weiss,
Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom, 74).
13. See Parables of the Kingdom, 43–48.
14. Ibid., 33.
15. Sullivan, Rethinking Realized Eschatology, 65.
16. See a complete listing in the appendix of N. T. Wright, Jesus and the
Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996), 663–67; see also the appendix
in Sullivan, Rethinking Realized Eschatology, 119–26.
17. See the initial works by Stanley E. Porter, Verbal Aspect in the Greek
of the New Testament, with Reference to Tense and Mood (New York:
Peter Lang, 1989); Buist M. Fanning, Verbal Aspect in New Testament
 Greek (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990); and K. L. McKay, A New
Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek (New York: Peter Lang,
1994); cf. also Stanley E. Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament,
2nd ed. (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic, 1999); Constantine
R. Campbell, Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 2008); and Campbell, Advances in the Study of
Greek: New Insights for Reading the New Testament (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2015). See a summary article by Robert E. Picirilli, “The
Meaning of the Tenses in New Testament Greek: Where Are We?”
JETS 48, no. 3 (September 2005): 533–55. Picirilli’s opening
statement is indeed true: “The world of scholarship about the Greek
verb is in ferment, and the outcome promises to have a significant
effect for all of us who interpret the NT.”
18. See Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament, chap. 1. Porter uses
the analogy of a parade to demonstrate the perfective (traditionally, the
aorist tense), the imperfective (traditionally, the present and imperfect
tenses), and the stative (traditionally, the perfect and pluperfect
tenses):
If I am a television correspondent in a helicopter flying over the
parade, I view the parade in its immediacy from a vantage
outside the action as “perfective”; that is, in its entirety as a
single and complete whole. If I am a spectator standing with
others along the side of the road watching the parade pass by in
front of me, I view the action immersed within it as
“imperfective”; that is, as an event in progress. And if I am the
parade manager in corporate headquarters considering all of the
conditions in existence at this parade, including not only all the
arrangements that are coming to fruition but all the
accompanying events that allow the parade to operate, I view
the process not in its particulars or its immediacy but as
“stative”; that is, as a complex condition or state of affairs in
existence. (Idioms of the Greek New Testament, 24)
19. Picirilli, “Meaning of the Tenses,” 535.
20. Scholars across the board, even those who hold to a more traditional
view that time is still encoded in the tense forms (e.g., Daniel Wallace
and William Mounce), are at least in agreement that aspect is primary
 and that the time element can be suppressed by context: “While those
of this persuasion agree that verbal aspect is the primary meaning of
the Greek tenses, they hold that there is a secondary meaning in the
indicative (and relatively in participles) of time involved” (Picirilli,
“Meaning of the Tenses,” 537).
21. See examples in Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament, 29–39.
The “future tense” is grammatically derived from the subjunctive, and
as such communicates possibility and expectation. Hence it is often
used with future realities, though not exclusively: “Rather than
temporal values, the future form grammaticalizes the semantic
(meaning) feature of expectation” (ibid., 44; italics in the original).
22. The Greek verb continues to be one of the primary justifications for
realized eschatology, as G. K. Beale demonstrates: “The aorist passive
verb refers to the past inaugurated kingdom, and the future passive to
the not-yet-consummated kingdom” (A New Testament Biblical
Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New [Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2011], 430). An example of how this plays out in
theological debate is seen when John Meier castigates E. P. Sanders for
his skepticism concerning realized eschatology in Luke 11:20: “Such
an appeal to a prophetic or proleptic aorist cannot help but look like
special pleading, geared to avoiding an unwelcome theological
conclusion about the presence of the kingdom of God in Jesus’
ministry—at least according to plain sense of this Greek verb in this
Greek text” (John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, Rethinking the Historical
Jesus: Volume Two, Mentor, Message, and Miracles [New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1994], 412).
23. Realized eschatology forces a delineation between the messages of
John and Jesus. Though identical terminology is used, it is often
claimed that John proclaimed the imminence of the messianic
kingdom while Jesus proclaimed its spiritual fulfillment (e.g., Ladd,
Presence of the Future, 110–11). In light of the multitude of later
apocalyptic references, I would contend that this delineation is
unjustified. Rather, “Matthew wished to make the words of John in 3:2
and those of Jesus in 4:17 identical: the two heralds preach the same
kingdom” (W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison Jr., A Critical and
 Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew,
ICC [London: T & T Clark, 2004], 387–88).
24. Dodd argued that ēngiken in Matt. 4:17 was synonymous with
ephthasen in Matt. 12:28, thus concluding, “Both imply the ‘arrival’ of
the Kingdom. With an eye on the presumed Aramaic original, we
should translate both: ‘The Kingdom of God has come’” (Parables of
the Kingdom, 44). This awkward conflation has since been universally
dismissed.
25. The wrath of God was associated with the day of the Lord (cf. Ps.
110:5; Isa. 13:9–13; Zeph. 1:15–18), as was the fire of God (cf. Ps.
21:9; Isa. 30:30; 66:15; Zeph. 1:18) and the burning of the wicked like
“chaff” (cf. Ps. 1:4; Isa. 40:24; Dan. 2:35; Zeph. 2:2; Mal. 4:1).
26. Contrary to N. T. Wright’s conclusion concerning the debate over
ēngiken: “Jesus spent his whole ministry redefining what the kingdom
meant. He refused to give up the symbolic language of the kingdom,
but filled it with such new content that, as we have seen, he powerfully
subverted Jewish expectations. . . . Israel’s god was becoming king in
and through the work of Jesus; this kingdom would reach its climax in
the battle which he was going to Jerusalem to fight; within a
generation there would be an event which would show that Jesus was
right to claim all this” (Jesus and the Victory of God [London: SPCK,
1996], 471–72). To say the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 was the
vindication of realized eschatology constitutes the height of Gentile
arrogance (cf. Rom. 11:17–25).
27. The scoffers here are assumedly those spoken of throughout chap. 2.
They are “false teachers” and “false prophets” who introduce
“destructive heresies” (2:1). Though claiming to be Christians, they
“turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them” (2:21).
Since the tone of both of Peter’s letters is so apocalyptic, it would
seem these false believers are of a gnostic tendency (note the use of
ginōskontes in 3:3), akin to those elsewhere described by Paul (cf. 2
Thess. 2:2; 1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 2:16). As such, the proto-Gnostics of
the New Testament are akin to our modern expressions of realized
eschatology, which have similarly produced a mocking spirit
concerning apocalypticism.
28. Sullivan, Rethinking Realized Eschatology, 67. This passage was C.
H. Dodd’s “golden nugget,” as Krister Stendahl put it (ibid., 75). Yet
Sullivan rightly reasons,
An obscure verse should not determine the meaning of
unambiguous verses. Matthew 12:28 ‖ Luke 11:20 is an
obscure, puzzling statement—Jesus’ rejoinder to hostile critics
who were accusing him of working in league with Beelzebul.
Should problematic Matthew 12:28 ‖ Luke 11:20 be the
hermeneutical cornerstone for interpreting the Kingdom? This
question becomes acute when one notes that there are more than
a hundred statements concerning the Kingdom of God in the
Synoptics. The majority of these statements (see “Appendix I”)
present the Kingdom as a place, not an exorcistic power. The
majority of these statements present the Kingdom as future
hope, not a present reality. . . .
When this wider interpretive task is undertaken, when all the
evidence is considered, hermeneutical weight would have to be
assigned to the scores of synoptic statements portraying the
Kingdom as a future realm, rather than to Matthew 12:28 ‖
Luke 11:20 (which—according to Dodd—portrays the Kingdom
as a curative power). Realized eschatologists reverse this
procedure. They assign hermeneutical weight to problematic
Matthew 12:28 ‖ Luke 11:20 and ignore the scores of
statements portraying the Kingdom as a future realm. (Ibid., 81–
82)
29. Thus Ladd asserts, “C. H. Dodd is right in affirming that the most
characteristic and distinctive of the gospel sayings are those which
speak of a present coming of the Kingdom. . . . Throughout the
Synoptic Gospels, Jesus’ mission is repeatedly understood as the
fulfillment of the Old Testament promises. The sayings about the
Kingdom of God as a present reality must be interpreted against this
background. The strongest statement is Matthew 12:28: ‘But if it is by
the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the Kingdom of God has
come upon you’” (A Theology of the New Testament, 2nd ed., ed.
Donald A. Hagner [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993], 63).
30. Usually the argumentation goes something like this: “Jesus himself
claims that he exorcises by the power of the Holy Spirit, who
descended on him at his baptism, marking the inauguration of God’s
reign, and who permanently empowers all disciples for ministry in the
messianic age. Verse 28 is arguably the single most important teaching
of Jesus on realized eschatology—the present aspect of the kingdom”
(Craig Blomberg, Matthew, NAC [Nashville: Broadman & Holman,
1992], 202).
Of course, this begs the question, What about the previous Jewish
exorcisms mentioned in verse 27? Exorcism was a commonly
accepted phenomenon among both Jews and Gentiles at that time. Did
those exorcisms also mark the realization of the kingdom? And if so,
when was the kingdom truly inaugurated? So Sullivan reasons, “If
demon exorcism signified that the Kingdom had come, could it be
argued that the Kingdom also arrived when Tobias expelled a demon
with smoke from the heart and liver of a fish [cf. Tobit 8:1ff.]? In other
words, if Jesus’ exorcisms ‘meant’ the Kingdom had arrived, why did
not exorcisms by the Jewish exorcists also ‘mean’ the Kingdom had
arrived?” (Rethinking Realized Eschatology, 80).
31. The day of judgment is also the assumed context of v. 27: “And if I
cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out?
Therefore they will be your judges.” Such eschatological testimony is
often referenced in the Gospels (cf. Matt. 7:2; 12:41–42; Luke 9:5;
19:22; John 5:45; 12:48); cf. Allison A. Trites, The New Testament
Concept of Witness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977),
66–127.
32. The parabolic saying about binding the strong man (v. 29) is
temporally irrelevant, as it can apply equally to a realized or
apocalyptic kingdom. Assuming an apocalyptic context, Jesus is
simply saying that his exorcising/binding the demon proves his power
and authority over Satan (ultimately executed eschatologically), while
the plundering of his house references the gathering of the righteous
into the eschatological kingdom (cf. 3:12; 13:30; 24:31)—“Jewish
tradition tended to think of Satan’s defeat as an eschatological event
(cf. Jub. 23:29; 1 En. 10:4–7; 54:4–6; T. Zeb 9:8)” (Davies and
Allison, Matthew, 342, n. 44).
33. Unfortunately, Weiss mistook this statement (as well as Matt. 1:15 and
Luke 17:21) to be an overzealous declaration of the imminent arrival
of the kingdom: “These are moments of sublime prophetic enthusiasm,
when an awareness of victory comes over him” (Jesus’ Proclamation
of the Kingdom, 78). Thus he relates the following analogy: “When
storm clouds gather and the lightning flashes on the horizon, one may
say: ‘A thunder storm is coming.’ But one can also say, proleptically:
‘It is storming.’ Or, again, when the sun shines warm and brightly for
the first time, and the first buds begin to swell, one will usually say:
‘Spring is near.’ But who will restrain his feeling of yearning when it
joyfully welcomes in these first signs the whole springtime, as if it
were already there with all its splendor?” (p. 41).
34. Tim Miller first suggested this translation to me; cf. Timothy Miller,
Poised for Harvest, Braced for Backlash: Birthing New Testament
Movements When Jesus Disrupts the Systems (Maitland, FL: Xulon
Press, 2009).
35. See Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An
Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1996), 564.
36. Note also the identification of “futuristic aorists” in the New
Testament and beyond by Chrys C. Caragounis, “Kingdom of God,
Son of Man, and Jesus’ Self-Understanding, Part I,” TynBul 40, no. 1
(1989): 20–23.
37. For example, Deut. 28:15, 45; 30:1; 31:17, 21; Josh. 22:20; Judg.
20:41; 1 Sam. 16:16; 2 Sam. 19:7; 24:13; 2 Chron. 20:9; 32:26; Neh.
9:32; Job 2:11; 3:25; 5:14; 20:22; 21:17; 27:9; Ps. 69:24; 119:143;
Prov. 1:26; 3:25; 6:15; 10:14; Eccl. 11:2; Isa. 26:9; 47:9, 11; 51:19;
Jer. 6:26; 22:23; 44:23; 51:60; Lam. 1:14; Ezek. 7:2, 7; 30:4; Dan.
9:13; Hos. 13:7; Amos 4:2; 5:9; 9:10; Jonah 1:7f., 12; Mic. 2:6; 3:11;
Zeph. 1:6; 2:2; 3:7.
38. Gordon D. Fee, The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians,
NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 101.
39. Therefore I agree with the century-old conclusion of James E. Frame:
“In view of the eschatological bearing of ἡ ὀργη, the reference in
ἔφθασε (= ἦλθε), not withstanding ἡ ὀργή ἡ ἐρχομέν (1:10), cannot
 be to a series of punishments in the past . . . but must be simply to the
day of judgment which is near at hand. ἔφθασε is accordingly
proleptic. Instead of speaking of that day as coming upon the sons of
disobedience (Eph. 5:6), he speaks of it as at last arrived. Such a
proleptic use of the aorist is natural in a prophetic passage and has its
analogy in the LXX” (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the
Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, ICC [New York: Scribner’s
Sons, 1912], 113–14).
40. It has long been understood that Hebrew verbs are in the main
aspectual. Thus the “prophetic perfect” is commonly used by the
prophets (cf. Num. 24:17; Isa. 5:14; 9:2; 42:1; Hos. 10:15; Amos 5:2)
to communicate the surety of accomplishment of the oracle being
spoken. “The perfect is used to express actions which a lively
imagination conceives as completed, but for which the future is more
usual in English. . . . It often happens, especially in the higher style,
that in the midst of descriptions of the future the imagination suddenly
conceives the act as accomplished, and interjects a perfect amidst a
number of imperfects. Job 5:20, 23 hath redeemed (4:10); Hos. 5:5
Judah is fallen. This usage receives an extension among the prophets,
whose imagination so vividly projects before them the event or scene
which they predict that it appears realised” (A. B. Davidson,
Introductory Hebrew Grammar Hebrew Syntax, 3rd ed. [Edinburgh: T
& T Clark, 1902], 61–62).
41. Note Gospel of Thomas 3: “Jesus said, ‘If those who lead you say to
you, “See, the kingdom is in the sky,” then the birds of the sky will
precede you. If they say to you, “It is in the sea,” then the fish will
precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of
you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become
known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living
father’” (NHLE, 126). See similar statements in Gospel of Thomas
113 (NHLE, 138) and Gospel of Mary 8 (NHLE, 525).
42. “That they may get knowledge, the Greeks live abroad and cross the
sea, but we have no need to depart from home for the sake of the
kingdom of heaven, nor to cross the sea for the sake of virtue. For the
Lord aforetime hath said, ‘The kingdom of heaven is within you.’
 Wherefore virtue hath need at our hands of willingness alone, since it
is in us and is formed from us” (Life of Antony 20; NPNF2, 4:201).
43. “Moreover, that all men are not without communion with God, is
taught in the Gospel thus, by the Saviour’s words: ‘The kingdom of
God cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, Lo here! or,
lo there! but the kingdom of God is within you.’ But here we must see
whether this does not bear the same meaning with the expression in
Genesis: ‘And He breathed into his face the breath of life, and man
became a living soul.’ For if this be understood as applying generally
to all men, then all men have a share in God” (On First Principles
1.3.6; ANF, 4.254).
44. None are more thorough in their analysis of this passage, and its
various interpretations, than Darrell L. Bock, Luke 9:51–24:53,
BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 1408–19.
45. Note the interesting comment by Jewish scholar Kaufmann Kohler:
“Jesus preached the same Kingdom of God (Matthew has preserved in
‘Kingdom of Heaven’ the rabbinical expression ‘Malkut Shamayim’),
and when he said, ‘the kingdom of God cometh not by observation
[that is, calculation] . . . for, behold, the kingdom of God is among [not
within] you’ (Luke 17:21, Syriac version), he meant, ‘It does not come
through rebellion or by force’” (“Kingdom of God,” JE, 7:503;
brackets in the original).
46. See chap. 6, n. 68. Zealotry and Pharisaism were intertwined, because
zealotry supposedly began in AD 6 with Judas of Galilee and Zadok the
Pharisee (see Josephus, Antiquities 18.1.1). Jewish scholar Samuel
Mendelsohn outlines their relationship:
About this time the malcontents held the ascendency. Under the
guidance of Judas the Gaulonite (or Galilean) and of Zadok, a
Shammaite (Tosef., ‘Eduy. ii. 2; Yeb. 15b), a political league
was called into existence, whose object was to oppose by all
means the practise of the Roman laws. Adopting as their
organic principle the exhortation of the father of the Maccabees
(1 Macc. 2:50), “Be ye zealous for the law, and give your lives
for the covenant of your fathers,” these patriots called
themselves “Ḳanna’im,” Zealots (Josephus, “B.J.” iv. 3. § 9, and
vii. 8, § 1: Raphall, “Post-Biblical History,” ii. 364); and the
 Shammaites, whose principles were akin to those of the Zealots,
found support among them. Their religious austerity, combined
with their hatred of the heathen Romans, naturally aroused the
sympathies of the fanatic league, and as the Hillelites became
powerless to stem the public indignation, the Shammaites
gained the upper hand in all disputes affecting their country’s
oppressors. (“Bet Hillel and Bet Shammai,” JE, 3:115–16)
47. Though much dispute surrounds the nature and effects of Josephus’s
“fourth philosophic sect” (Antiquities 18.1.1), it was more or less an
insurgent ideology that produced many different insurgent groups,
including the “bandits” (Gk. lēstēs, cf. Jn. 18:40), the “Sicarri,” the
“Idumeans,” and the “Zealots” (see T. L. Donaldson, “Zealot,” ISBE,
4:1177–78). Referring to the fourth philosophy as “the Zealots” (in
tandem with the Pharisees, Sadducess, and Essenes) is an inaccurate
identification handed down by nineteenth-century scholarship, since
the Zealots were only one insurgent group that was formed (AD 67–68)
at the beginning of the First Jewish Revolt (AD 66–73).
48. Cf. 1 Maccabees 2:27–48; and Josephus, Antiquities 12.6.2. See a
detailed relationship in W. R. Farmer, Maccabees, Zealots, and
Josephus: An Inquiry into Jewish Nationalism in the Greco-Roman
Period (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956).
49. According to Horsley and Hanson, this zealot philosophy contained
four essential and interrelated concepts: (1) paying taxes to Rome was
considered the same as slavery, (2) they said, “God is to be their only
Ruler and Lord” (Josephus, Antiquities 18.1.6), and thus all other
foreign rule was idolatrous, (3) if the faithful would stand against such
idolatry, God would work synergistically through them, and (4) this
synergism would result in the idyllic restoration of the Davidic
kingdom (see R. A. Horsley and J. S. Hanson, Bandits, Prophets and
Messiahs: Popular Movements in the Time of Jesus [Harrisburg, PA:
Trinity Press International, 1999], 190–243).
50. Cf. Josephus, Wars 2.13.4–5, 6.6.3, 7.11.1; and Antiquities 20.5.1,
20.8.6–10.
51. Bock summarizes the four common interpretations of “signs to be
observed” (Gk. paratērēsis), yet with no reference to signs of
insurgency (see Luke 9:51–24:53, 1412–14). Ironically, the majority of
 interpreters argue that Jesus was referring to “general apocalyptic
signs” (ibid., 1413), and as such he was supposedly correcting the
Pharisees for their overly apocalyptic hope(!). This approach
completely misses the point and turns the entire interaction on its head.
52. See a defense of this position in John Nolland, Luke 9:21–18:34, WBC
(Dallas: Word, 1998), 849–54: “The final view to be considered is that
of Bultmann (History, 121–22) and others that the reference is to a
future sudden arrival of the kingdom of God. . . . This assumes that
ἐστιν, ‘is,’ should be taken futuristically, but, in the absence of the
second negation, this is a natural reading after the obviously futurist
force of the present tense ἔρχεται (lit. ‘comes’). . . . It is, nevertheless,
the view that does best justice to the content of v 21, and the one view
that easily makes room for vv 22–37 and does justice as well to Luke’s
evident concern to link the two sections” (pp. 853–54).
53. BDAG, 285.
54. The question naturally arises: Why did Jesus change verbs (from
erchomai in v. 20 to eimi in v. 21) to describe the apocalyptic
“coming” of the kingdom? Why not just use erchomai throughout?
Bock argues that this change of verbs is the decisive evidence for
Jesus’ introduction of realized eschatology (Luke 9:51–24:53, 1417). I
would argue, however, the change of verbs is simply designed to
emphasize: (1) the association of the coming kingdom with God alone
and (2) the all-encompassing reality of the coming kingdom. Jesus’
ultimate point is that the kingdom’s origin is God, the “I am” (John
8:58; cf. Ex. 3:14, LXX). Moreover, the kingdom will not “come”
progressively like human kingdoms; it will be suddenly and
panoptically. This translation (“will come into your midst”) also seems
to provide a more natural integration of the preposition entos (see
BDAG, 340–41), used in the NT only here and in Matt. 23:26 (“clean
the inside of the cup”). Jesus is thus emphasizing the penetrating
nature of the eschatological judgment; salvation comes into Israel’s
midst, rather than coming out of it.
55. Rightly, Nolland: “Perhaps best is to see the statement [v. 21] as
insisting that when the kingdom of God is due to come it will just be
there, right in our midst, with no advance warning and no localized
 beginning. This understanding fits best with vv 22–37 to come” (Luke
9:21–18:34, 854).
56. The “corporate” quality comes from the use of a plural “you” (Matt.
3:7; 12:28; Luke 17:21). Rather than an individual blessing from God,
it is a corporate condemnation of a whole lot—involving unbelievers
(Luke 12:46) and hypocrites (Matt. 24:51)—who will be thrown into
the fiery furnace (Matt. 13:42) where there will be “weeping and
gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:12; 13:42; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30).
57. Note how Paul in 2 Thess. 2 seems to equate realized eschatology (v.
2) with “a strong delusion” (v. 11), sent by God to those who “refused
to love the truth” (v. 10). This delusion is bookended by v. 2 (“a
spoken word, a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day
of the Lord has come”) and v. 15 (“stand firm and hold to the
traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by
our letter”). Thus v. 11 is assumed to be a corruption of the apostolic
witness, identified in v. 2 as the realization of apocalyptic eschatology
—i.e., tō pseudei (“what is false,” or “the lie,” NIV, CSB, NKJV).
Moreover, the refusal to love “the truth” (vv. 10, 12) echoes other
Pauline references to proto-gnostic realized eschatology (cf. 1 Tim.
4:3; 6:21; 2 Tim. 2:15–18; 4:4).
58. As argued by Beale, New Testament Biblical Theology, 433–35;
following Ladd, Presence of the Future, 158–64. See also D. A.
Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew
and Mark, vol. 9, rev. ed., ed. Tremper Longman III and David E.
Garland (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 309–10.
59. Parables of the Kingdom, 48.
60. Note the preferable rendering of Luke 16:16 in the CSB: “The Law and
the Prophets were until John; since then, the good news of the
kingdom of God has been proclaimed, and everyone is urgently invited
to enter it.” Thus there is correspondence with the Lukan parallel,
though the saying is applied in a different context for different reasons.
61. Ibid., 49.
62. This expectation, based upon the prophetic literature (cf. Isa. 13:6–8;
26:16–19; Jer. 13:21; Mic. 5:2–4; 7:1–6), involved what later Jewish
tradition called the “messianic woes”—“The Synoptic eschatological
 discourse (Matt. 24; Mark 13; Luke 21) offers a striking NT parallel to
the Jewish notion of messianic woes (cf. the ‘beginning of birth
pangs,’ Matt. 24:8; Mark 13:8), as do the visions of the seven seals,
trumpets, and bowls (Rev. 6–16). Numerous other NT texts may also
share this same background (e.g., Matt. 10:17–23, 34–36; Rom. 8:17–
18; 2 Cor. 4:16–17; 1 Thess. 3:3–5)” (Mark Dubis, “Messianic Woes,”
Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000],
890).
63. David L. Turner, Matthew, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 296.
64. An entire monograph has been written on the four options in v. 12
alone; see Peter S. Cameron, Violence and the Kingdom: The
Interpretation of Matthew 11:12 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1984).
65. See B. T. Viviano, “The Least in the Kingdom: Matthew 11:11, Its
Parallel in Luke 7:28 (Q), and Daniel 4:14,” CBQ 62 (2000): 41–54.
Note that this position was the common patristic view.
66. “Born of women” is a Hebraic idiom (cf. Job 14:1; 15:14; 25:4) and
simply refers to the common descendants of Adam.
67. “The Jewish background of the question for the great or little one
could support this interpretation. The texts distinguish between this
and the future world (Midr. Ruth 1.17 [128a]; b. B. Mes. 85b; Pesiq.
R. 83 [198b] in Str-B 1.598)” (Ulrich Luz, Matthew, Hermeneia
[Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001], 139, n. 33).
68. Oscar Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, trans. S. C.
Guthrie and C. A. M. Hall (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), 32.
69. And quite gnostic, cf. Gospel of Thomas 46: “Jesus said, ‘Among
those born of women, from Adam until John the Baptist, there is no
one so superior to John the Baptist that his eyes should not be lowered
(before him). Yet I have said, whichever one of you comes to be a
child will be acquainted with the kingdom and will become superior to
John’” (NHLE, 131).
70. For example, “In effect, so glorious is the new reality dawning through
the ministry of Jesus that the greatest of the era preceding him is yet
inferior to the least in the new order of the kingdom” (Donald A.
Hagner, Matthew 1–13, WBC [Dallas: Word, 1993], 306).
71. See BDAG, 134 and 175–76.
72. Hagner explains:
Those who take both clauses positively (e.g., Zahn; Ladd,
Presence) thus find here a statement about the forceful coming
of the kingdom in the ministry of Jesus and a coordinate
description of the hard way of discipleship. Those who take
both clauses negatively (e.g., Hill, Fenton, Green, Schweizer,
Patte, Gundry, Gaechter, Maier, France, Mounce, Luz, Davies-
Allison) understand the verse to refer to the persecution and
difficulty faced by those who represent the kingdom. The
violent people who plunder the kingdom are regarded variously
as the Pharisees, Zealots, evil spirits, or even Herod Antipas.
Among those who divide the clauses, the majority favor
understanding the first negatively (the kingdom suffers
violence) and the second positively (e.g., Dahl, Schlatter,
Schniewind). A few argue for the first to be understood
positively (the kingdom comes forcefully) and the second
negatively (e.g., Carson, Pamment). (Matthew 1–13, 307)
73. “This combination of translations would then lead the verse to be
rendered something like ‘from the days of John the Baptist until now,
the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent people attack it’”
(Blomberg, Matthew, 187–88).
74. Some argue for realized eschatology based on the kingdom being the
subject of the violence in v. 12. However, the future reality is simply
being spoken of as being directly affected by present events. Similarly,
Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you
shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter
yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in” (Matt. 23:13).
Jesus clearly had in mind a future reality, as is evidenced by the
surrounding eschatological references (vv. 12, 15). Jesus spoke this
way because all present actions will be rehearsed on the day of
judgment (i.e., the books will be opened). Hence present actions
directly affect people’s outcomes on the last day, and in this way the
future kingdom (composed of saints) suffers violence by present acts
of violence against the saints.
75. See an adept handling of this parable in Davies and Allison, Matthew,
259–65.
76. “To sum up, then: for Jesus and for Matthew, as for the apocalyptic
literature in general, the great redemption must be preceded by a
conflict between the forces of good and the forces of evil (cf. 1 En.
91:5–6). Further, this conflict has already been joined, from the days
of John the Baptist until now” (Davies and Allison, Matthew, 256).
77. So Ladd introduced his magnum opus: “The distinctive characteristic
about Jesus’ teaching is that in some real sense, the Kingdom of God
has come in his person and mission (Matt. 12:28). The mystery of the
Kingdom (Mark 4:11) is the secret of its unexpected irruption in
history” (Presence of the Future, xi). Also, “The very core of his
message about the kingdom of God is that the powers of the future
eschatological reign have entered into history in advance of their
apocalyptic manifestation and are at work now in the world in a
hidden form within and among men. This is the ‘mystery of the
kingdom’” (G. E. Ladd, “Why Not Prophetic-Apocalyptic?” JBL 76,
no. 3 [1957]: 199).
78. Parables of the Kingdom, 79–80. Relying heavily on Ladd’s work,
Beale likewise associates the “mystery” with realized eschatology (see
New Testament Biblical Theology, 430–33).
79. See a recapitulation in N. T. Wright, How God Became King: The
Forgotten Story of the Gospels (New York: HarperOne, 2012); and
Wright, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of
Jesus’s Crucifixion (New York: HarperOne, 2012).
80. Though the Olivet parables (Matt. 24:42—25:30) were spoken
privately, they are obviously apocalyptic, and their purpose is to instill
the fear of God concerning the coming judgment. In this way, they
were spoken to the disciples as would-be apostates (in light of Judas’s
betrayal). They were in very real danger of becoming the wicked
servant (23:48), the foolish virgin (25:3), and the lazy manager
(25:18). Thus, they were warned: “Stay awake, for you do not know
on what day your Lord is coming” (24:42). Dodd’s attempt to
marginalize these parables as an invention of the early church is
farcical (cf. Parables of the Kingdom, 154–74).
81. Built on a tense-based translation of the verb “go before” (Gk.
proagō), this verse is often cited as evidence of realized eschatology
(cf. Ladd, Presence of the Future, 123, 174, 197–98; and Donald A.
 Hagner, Matthew 14–28, WBC [Dallas: Word, 1995], 614). Osborne
summarizes, “προάγουσιν could be a durative present (‘are entering,’
thus an inaugurated eschatology) or a futuristic present (‘are going to
enter,’ thus a final eschatology)” (Matthew, 781, n. 9). However, the
use of proagō is not meant to communicate time, but rather
imperfective aspect, highlighting the dramatic unfolding of the tax
collectors and prostitutes entering into eternal life on the last day
before the Pharisees and teachers of the law. The context of this saying
is clearly eschatological (cf. vv. 9, 15, 34, 40); and in Matthew’s other
uses, entry into the kingdom is always future (5:20; 7:21; 18:3; 19:23,
24). Therefore, “The imagery here would seem to be best taken as of
being well along the path that leads into the kingdom rather than of
having already entered the kingdom” (John Nolland, The Gospel of
Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC [Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2005], 863).
82. A similar design is seen in the parables of the two debtors (Luke 7:41–
43), the wedding host (Luke 14:7–14), the dutiful servant (Luke 17:7–
10), and the Pharisee and tax collector (Luke 18:10–14). All of these
were spoken against the prideful, entitlement attitude of the Jewish
leaders.
83. Though Dodd recognized this, he forcefully rejected reason:
“Leaven” is, in general, a symbol for evil influences carrying
infection. In this sense Jesus used it when He spoke of the
leaven of the Pharisees (Mk. viii. 15 and parallels). By analogy,
it should be used here as a symbol for a wholesome influence,
propagating itself similarly by a kind of infection. In that case
we should be obliged to suppose that when the Kingdom of God
is compared to leaven, the suggestion is that the ministry of
Jesus is itself such an influence. . . . The picture, I think, is true
to history. The ministry of Jesus was like that. There was in it
no element of external coercion, but in it the power of God’s
Kingdom worked from within, mightily permeating the dead
lump of religious Judaism in His time. (Parables of the
Kingdom, 192–93)
84. Unfortunately Dodd’s basic idea has been generally embraced by those
in the modern academy: “C. H. Dodd so emphasized the crisis nature
 of Jesus’ own ministry that he interpreted judgment Day to be present
whenever people responded to Jesus. Traditional Christianity has often
gone to the other extreme and linked judgment exclusively with the
Second Coming of Christ. Probably both poles need to be embraced”
(Craig Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables [Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 1990], 301). Neither Jesus nor the apostles ever made
reference to the judgment prior to the day of the Lord. The statement
above expresses the true sentiment of modern scholarship: that the day
of the Lord has indeed come (spiritually, of course), which is in clear
opposition to the apostolic declaration in 2 Thess. 2:2. “Traditional
Christianity” (though often clouded by Platonism) has linked judgment
to the second coming of Christ based on a commonsense reading of
the Scriptures. Though inaugurationalism has sought to mitigate
Dodd’s insanity, it still insists that the day of the Lord has already
come.
85. J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and
Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980); and Beker, Paul’s Apocalyptic
Gospel: The Coming Triumph of God (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982).
86. “The primitive Church, while it enjoyed the fellowship of the Holy
Spirit, and appealed to the manifest work of the Spirit (somewhat
naïvely conceived) as evidence of the dawn of the new Age, did not
reflect upon it. Nor did it embody any clear doctrine of the fellowship
in its preaching. Such a doctrine first appears in the epistles of Paul”
(Dodd, Apostolic Preaching, 59).
87. Dodd continues,
It is noteworthy that as his interest in the speedy advent of
Christ declines, as it demonstrably does after the time when he
wrote 1 Corinthians, the “futurist eschatology” of his earlier
phase is replaced by this “Christ-mysticism.” The hope of glory
yet to come remains as a background of thought, but the
foreground is more and more occupied by the contemplation of
all the riches of divine grace enjoyed here and now by those
who are in Christ Jesus. . . .
This was the true solution of the problem presented to the
Church by the disappointment of its naïve expectation that the
Lord would immediately appear; not the restless and impatient
 straining after signs of His coming which turned faith into
fantasy and enthusiasm into fanaticism; but a fuller realization
of all the depths and heights of the supernatural life here and
now. (Ibid., 63)
88. James D. G. Dunn, Romans 9–16, WBC (Dallas: Word, 1998), 822.
See esp. Dunn’s chart on Jesus’ and Paul’s use of βασιλεία,
δικαιοσύνη, and πνεῦμα (ibid.).
89. Beyond broad theological deductions based on the new covenant or
the gift of the Holy Spirit, these three verses are quoted almost
exclusively as proof of Pauline realized eschatology. Few are bold
enough to say Paul interjected realized eschatology into the other
eschatological phrases, such as “resurrection,” “day of the Lord,”
“appearing,” “wrath of God,” etc.
90. The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959), 16–17.
91. The verb (eimi) is also aspectually vague, as Porter explains: “A very
small number of verbs in Greek (all verbs of the -μι conjugation) never
developed a full set of tense-forms, and hence do not participate in the
aspectual system. . . . The result is that these verbs offer no meaningful
choice between one aspect and another. These verbs, of which εἰμί is
the primary example, are called aspectually vague. Aspectually vague
verbs may be used in any verbal context since they do not carry the
semantic weight of perfective, imperfective or stative verbal aspect.
Consequently, one must be cautious in giving interpretative
significance to use of one of these verbs” (Idioms of the Greek New
Testament, 24–25; italics in the original).
92. The connection between v. 10 and v. 17 seems universally lacking; cf.
Cranfield (ICC), Dunn (WBC), Wright (NIB), Moo (NICNT),
Schreiner (BECNT), Fitzmyer (AB), Jewett (Hermeneia), Mounce
(NAC), Harrison and Hagner (EBC), Bruce (TNTC), etc. Ben
Witherington’s translation of βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ as “Dominion of
God” (reflecting his realized eschatology) seems particularly
inappropriate (Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical
Commentary [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004], 340).
93. Concerning Rom. 14:17, Heinrich A. W. Meyer comments well:
 And so [the kingdom of God] is not here, anything else than the
Messiah’s kingdom, the erection of which begins with the
Parousia, belonging not to the αἰὼν οὗτος, but to the αἰὼν
μέλλων (1 Cor. 6:9, 10, 15:24, 50; Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5; Col.
4:11; 1 Thess. 2:12; 2 Thess. 1:5); not therefore the (invisible)
church, the regnum gratiae, or the earthly ethical kingdom of
God (Reiche, de Wette, Philippi, Lipsius, following older
expositors), res Christiana (Baumgarten-Crusius), and the like.
“The Messianic kingdom is not eating and drinking;” i.e., the
essential characteristic of this kingdom does not consist in the
principle that a man, in order to become a member of it, should
eat and drink this or that or everything without distinction, but
in the principle that one should be upright, etc. (Critical and
Exegetical Handbook to the Epistle to the Romans, vol. 2, ed.
William P. Dickson, trans. John C. Moore and Edwin Johnson
[Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1874], 316; italics in the original)
94. Paul similarly reasons in 1 Cor. 6:1–3 and Eph. 5:4–10, since
discipleship is inherently bound to destiny—“Walk in a manner
worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory” (1
Thess. 2:12; cf. Eph. 4:1; Col. 1:10). Peter likewise exhorts: “Since
everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought
you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward
to the day of God and speed its coming” (2 Peter 3:11–12, NIV; cf. 1
Peter 1:13–16).
95. The verbal similarities between the two verses are also commonly
referenced (e.g., Dunn, Romans 9–16, 822).
96. Though Gordon Fee strangely comes to the opposite conclusion:
What Paul is concerned about is “the kingdom of God.” This is
one of the rare occurrences in Paul of this term that dominates
the ministry and teaching of Jesus. But the very casual way in
which it here appears indicates that it was a regular part of his
own understanding of the gospel. In most instances in Paul the
term refers to the consummation of the kingdom at the coming
of Christ (cf., e.g., 6:9–10; 15:50); but this passage, along with
one in Romans (14:17), makes it certain that for him the
kingdom was “now” as well as “not yet.” (The First Epistle to
 the Corinthians, rev. ed., NICNT [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2014], 208–9)
97. Robert L. Saucy notes well, “The apostle has just chided the
Corinthians for their boasting as if they had already attained the
kingdom and were reigning as kings (cf. 4:8). He would hardly talk of
a present kingdom just a few verses later” (The Case for Progressive
Dispensationalism [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993], 107).
98. Again, Heinrich A. W. Meyer is notably reasonable in his approach to
this passage: “The βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ, again, is not here, as it never is
elsewhere (see on Matt. 3:2, 6:10), and in particular never in Paul’s
writings (neither in this passage nor in Rom. 14:7; Col. 1:13, 4:11; see
on these verses), the church, or the kingdom of God in the ethical
sense (Neander: ‘the fellowship of the divine life, which is brought
about by fellowship with the Redeemer’), but the Messianic kingdom,
in which, at its expected (speedy) manifestation, those only can
become members who are truly believing and truly sanctified (Col. 3:3
f.; Phil. 4:18–21; Eph. 5:5, al.)” (Critical and Exegetical Handbook to
the Epistles to the Corinthians, vol. 1, ed. William P. Dickson, trans. D.
Douglas Bannerman [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1879], 135).
99. As F. F. Bruce so boldly declared, “In the affirmation that believers
have already been brought into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son we
have an example of truly realized eschatology” (The Epistles to the
Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, NICNT [Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1984], 52).
100. “The aorist tenses point to an eschatology that is truly realized (i.e.,
God had already qualified [ἱκανώσαντι] the Colossians to share in the
inheritance, he had already delivered [ἐρρύσατο] them from this alien
power and had already transferred [μετέστησεν] them to his Son’s
kingdom), while by contrast, the present tense of verse 14, ‘we have’
(ἔχομεν), stresses the continued results of the redemption wrought in
the past” (Peter T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon, WBC [Dallas:
Word, 1998], 26).
101. “The aorist forms ἐρρύσατο (delivered) and μετέστησεν (transferred)
point to baptism as the event through which the change from one
dominion to another has taken place, in that we have been wrested
from the power of darkness and placed in the ‘kingdom’ of the
 beloved Son of God. . . . There is no mention of an enthusiastic
anticipation of the consummation. Rather, just as darkness designates
those who are lost, light characterizes the rule of Christ, which here
and now shapes the life and conduct of those who are baptized”
(Eduard Lohse, Colossians and Philemon, Hermeneia [Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1971], 38). Of course, Lohse does not believe Paul wrote
Colossians, because “Wherever Paul mentions the ‘rule of God’
(βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ) in his letters, the futuristic meaning of the
concept is presupposed, just as throughout primitive Christian
proclamation” (pp. 37–38). “Therefore, Paul cannot be considered to
be the direct or indirect author of Colossians” (p. 181). If realized
eschatology is not present in the letter to the Colossians, then the
theological differences are insubstantial, and the differences of
expression can be simply attributed to Paul’s maturation and “specific
circumstances” (p. 180).
102. So James Dunn argues against common sense:
The note of realized eschatology becomes even stronger in the
next two clauses, for what is described here would elsewhere be
thought of as reserved for the end of history/time. . . . More
striking still is the fact that elsewhere in the Pauline corpus talk
of full sharing in the kingdom of God is always future (1 Thes.
2:12; 2 Thes. 1:5; 2 Tim. 4:1, 18; the formulaic phrase “inherit
the kingdom of God” in 1 Cor. 6:9–10; 15:50; Gal. 5:21; cf.
Eph. 5:5). There is nothing quite like this claim that believers in
Christ Jesus have already (aorist tense) been transferred into the
kingdom. (The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon: A
Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC [Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1996], 77)
103. Assumedly derived from the Prophets (cf. Isa. 9:1–2; 42:6–7, 16;
58:8–10; 60:1–3; Amos 5:18–20; cf. 1 Enoch 92:4–5; 108:11–14; 2
Baruch 18:1–2). Some seem to give too much weight to the influence
of Qumran (cf. Lohse, Colossians and Philemon, 36–38) and/or the
exodus motif (cf. N. T. Wright, Colossians and Philemon, TNTC
[Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1986], 64–66).
104. See the accusative phrase (εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν) in Matt. 5:20; 7:21;
18:3; 19:23f.; 21:31; Mark 9:47; 10:23–25; Luke 18:24f.; 23:42; John
 3:5; Acts 14:22; Col. 1:13; 4:11; 1 Thess. 2:12; 2 Tim. 4:18; 2 Peter
1:11.
105. See BDAG, 625. Occurring only five times in the NT (Luke 16:4; Acts
13:22; 19:26; 1 Cor. 13:2; Col. 1:13), the other three instances mean
“remove” (Luke 16:4; Acts 13:22; 1 Cor. 13:2). Justification for
“transferred” in Col. 1:13 is primarily extrabiblical (i.e., Josephus).
106. Note the same comparison (though opposite conclusion) by Douglas J.
Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, PNTC (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 104.
107. Note the use of εἰς with an accusative: “(1) extension involving a goal
or place, into, in, toward, to (a) into, toward, to after verbs of going, or
those that include motion toward a place” (BDAG, 288). We have
been turned away from darkness and toward the place of the coming
kingdom.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

The bibliography is roughly organized according to the progression of the

book.

WORLDVIEW AND HERMENEUTICS

Bacote, Vincent E., Laura C. Miguelez, and Dennis L. Okholm, eds.
Evangelicals and Scripture: Tradition, Authority, and Hermeneutics.
Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004.
Berlinski, David. The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific
Pretensions. New York: Crown Forum, 2008.
Boman, Thorlief. Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek. Translated by
Jules L. Moreau. London: SCM Press, 1960.
Boyarin, Daniel. Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
Boyd, Gregory A. God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict. Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1997.
Brown, Walt. In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the
Flood. 8th ed. Phoenix: Center for Scientific Creation, 2008.
Bultmann, Rudolf. Jesus Christ and Mythology. New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1958.
———. New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings. Edited
and translated by Schubert M. Ogden. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984.
Carson, D. A., and John D. Woodbridge, eds. Scripture and Truth. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1992.
Clifford, Richard J. Creation Accounts in the Near East and in the Bible.
Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1994.
Collins, Adela Yarbro. Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian
Apocalypticism. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1996.
Conze, Edward. Buddhism: Its Essence and Development. Oxford: Bruno
Cassirer, 1951.
Corley, Bruce, Steve W. Lemke, and Grant I. Lovejoy, eds. Biblical
Hermeneutics: A Comprehensive Introduction to Interpreting Scripture.
2nd ed. Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2002.
Dembski, William A., ed. Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find
Darwinism Unconvincing. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2004.
Eliade, Mircea. Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return.
Translated by Willard R. Trask. New York: Harper & Row, 1959.
Geisler, Norman L., and William D. Watkins. Worlds Apart: A Handbook
on Worldviews. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989.
Gethin, Rupert. The Foundations of Buddhism. OPUS Series. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1998.
Hesselgrave, David J. Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1978.
Hiebert, Paul G. Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological
Understanding of How People Change. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008.
Himmelfarb, Martha. Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian
Apocalypses. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
———. Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian
Literature. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1985.
Holding, James P. “Is the ’Erets (Earth) Flat? Equivocal Language in the
Geography of Genesis 1 and the Old Testament: A Response to Paul H.
Seely,” Journal of Creation 14, no. 3 (December 2000): 51–54.
———. “Is the Raqiya‘ (‘Firmament’) a Solid Dome? Equivocal Language
in the Cosmology of Genesis 1 and the Old Testament: A Response to
Paul H. Seely.” Journal of Creation 13, no. 2 (November 1999): 44–51.
Holmes, Arthur F. Contours of a World View. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1983.
Horowitz, Wayne. Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography. Winona Lake, IN:
Eisenbrauns, 1998.
Humphreys, D. Russell. Starlight and Time: Solving the Puzzle of Distant
Starlight in a Young Universe. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1994.
Johnson, Phillip E. Darwin on Trial. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1991.
Jordan, James B. Creation in Six Days: A Defense of the Traditional
Reading of Genesis One. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1999.
Kaiser, Walter C., Jr., and Moisés Silva, eds. Introduction to Biblical
Hermeneutics: The Search for Meaning. Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
 2007.
Kline, Meredith G. Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a
Covenantal Worldview. Overland Park, KS: Two Age Press, 2000.
———. “Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony.” Perspectives on
Science and Christian Faith 48, no. 1 (March 1996): 2–15.
Kohn, Livia, ed. Daoism Handbook. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
Kraft, Charles H. Christianity in Culture: A Study in Dynamic Biblical
Theologizing in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis,
1979.
Kuyper, Abraham. Calvinism: Six Lectures Delivered in the Theological
Seminary at Princeton. New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1899.
Ladd, George Eldon. The Pattern of New Testament Truth. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1968.
Lamont, Corliss. The Philosophy of Humanism. 8th ed. Amherst, NY:
Humanist Press, 1997.
Lamoureux, Denis O. Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to
Evolution. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2008.
Marshall, Paul A., Sander Griffioen, and Richard J. Mouw, eds. Stained
Glass: Worldviews and Social Science. Christian Studies Today.
Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989.
Moody, D. L. Heaven: Where It Is, Its Inhabitants, and How to Get There.
Rev. ed. Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1884.
Mullen, E. Theodore. The Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in
Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature. Harvard Semitic Monographs
24. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980.
Nash, Ronald H. Worldviews in Conflict: Choosing Christianity in a World
of Ideas. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.
Naugle, David K. Worldview: The History of a Concept. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2002.
Newbigin, Lesslie. Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western
Culture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986.
Numbers, Ronald L. The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific
Creationism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.
O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.
Orr, James. The Christian View of God and the World as Centering in the
Incarnation. Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot, 1893.
Osborne, Grant R. The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive
Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. Rev. ed. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 2006.
Payne, J. Barton, ed. New Perspectives on the Old Testament. Waco, TX:
Word, 1970.
Rasell, Marc. Exploring the Heavenly Sanctuary: Understanding Seventh-
day Adventist Theology. Milton Keynes, England: AuthorHouse, 2009.
Rowland, Christopher. The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in
Judaism and Early Christianity. London: SPCK, 1982.
Sadakata, Akira. Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins. Translated
by Gaynor Sekimori. Tokyo: Kōsei Publishing, 1997.
Schaeffer, Francis A. The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A
Christian Worldview. 5 vols. Wheaton: Crossway, 1982.
Schoonhoven, Calvin R. The Wrath of Heaven. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1966.
Seely, Paul H. “The Firmament and the Water Above, Part 1.” Westminster
Theological Journal 53, no. 2 (Fall 1991): 227–40.
———. “The Firmament and the Water Above, Part 2.” Westminster
Theological Journal 54, no. 1 (Spring 1992): 31–46.
———. “The Geographical Meaning of ‘Earth’ and ‘Seas’ in Genesis
1:10.” Westminster Theological Journal 59, no. 2 (Fall 1997): 240–46.
Sire, James W. Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a Concept. Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004.
———. The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog. 5th ed.
Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009.
Stadelmann, Luis I. J. The Hebrew Conception of the World: A Philological
and Literary Study. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1970.
Walsh, Brian J., and J. Richard Middleton. The Transforming Vision:
Shaping a Christian World View. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity,
1984.
Walton, John H. Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament:
Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible. 2nd ed. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2018.
———. Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns,
2011.
———. The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the
Origins Debate. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009.
Weeks, Noel K. “Cosmology in Historical Context.” Westminster
Theological Journal 68, no. 2 (Fall 2006): 283–93.
Wells, David F., and John D. Woodbridge, eds. The Evangelicals: What
They Believe, Who They Are, Where They Are Changing. Nashville:
Abingdon, 1975.
Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology.
Corrected ed. Edited by David R. Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne.
New York: Free Press, 1979.
Wolters, Albert M. Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational
Worldview. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005.
Wright, N. T. The New Testament and the People of God. Vol. 1 of
Christian Origins and the Question of God. Minneapolis: Fortress;
London: SPCK, 1992.
Zaehner, R. C. Hinduism. 2nd ed. OPUS Series. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1966.

APOCALYPTICISM AND ETERNAL LIFE

Alcorn, Randy. Heaven. Wheaton: Tyndale, 2004.
Alexander, T. Desmond. From Eden to the New Jerusalem: An Introduction
to Biblical Theology. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2009.
Allis, Oswald T. Prophecy and the Church. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and
Reformed, 1945.
Anderson, Kevin L. “But God Raised Him from the Dead”: The Theology
of Jesus’ Resurrection in Luke-Acts. Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster,
2006.
Barr, James. The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality.
Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993.
Beale, Gregory K. “Eden, the Temple, and the Church’s Mission in the New
Creation.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48, no. 1
(March 2005): 5–31.
———. The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the
Dwelling Place of God. Vol. 17 of New Studies in Biblical Theology.
Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004.
Beker, J. Christiaan. Paul’s Apocalyptic Gospel: The Coming Triumph of
God. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982.
———. Suffering and Hope: The Biblical Vision and the Human
Predicament. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994.
Blackwell, Ben C., John K. Goodrich, and Jason Maston, eds. Paul and the
Apocalyptic Imagination. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016.
Brunner, Emil. Eternal Hope. Translated by Harold Knight. Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1954.
Campbell, Douglas A. The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading
of Justification in Paul. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009.
Chafer, Lewis S. Dispensationalism. Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1936.
Chilton, David. Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion.
Tyler, TX: Dominion Press, 1985.
Clifford, Ross, and Philip Johnson. The Cross Is Not Enough: Living as
Witnesses to the Resurrection. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012.
Crutchfield, Larry. The Origins of Dispensationalism: The Darby Factor.
Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1992.
Cullmann, Oscar. Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception of
Time and History. Translated by Floyd V. Filson. Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1950.
———. Immortality of the Soul or the Resurrection of the Dead? The
Witness of the New Testament. London: Epworth Press, 1958.
———. Salvation in History. Translated by S. G. Sowers. New York:
Harper & Row, 1967.
Daley, Brian E. The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic
Eschatology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Dalman, Gustaf. The Words of Jesus. Translated by D. M. Kay. Edinburgh:
T & T Clark, 1902.
Davies, Douglas J. A Brief History of Death. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
Dempster, Stephen G. Dominion and Dynasty: A Biblical Theology of the
Hebrew Bible. Vol. 15 of New Studies in Biblical Theology. Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003.
Dumbrell, William J. Covenant and Creation: A Theology of the Old
Testament Covenants. Nashville: Nelson, 1984.
Dunn, James D. G. Baptism in the Holy Spirit: A Re-examination of the
New Testament on the Gift of the Spirit. London: SCM Press, 1970.
———. Jesus and the Spirit: A Study of the Religious and Charismatic
Experience of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflected in the New
Testament. London: SCM Press, 1975.
Fee, Gordon D. God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters
of Paul. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994.
———. Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God. Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 1996.
Fesko, John V. Last Things First: Unlocking Genesis 1–3 with the Christ of
Eschatology. Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2007.
Fudge, Edward W. The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical
Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment. 3rd ed. Eugene, OR:
Cascade Books, 2011.
Fuller, Daniel P. The Unity of the Bible: Unfolding God’s Plan for
Humanity. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.
Gaffin, Richard B., Jr. Perspectives on Pentecost: Studies in New Testament
Teaching on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979.
Gage, Warren Austin. The Gospel of Genesis: Studies in Protology and
Eschatology. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1984.
Gentry, Kenneth L., Jr. He Shall Have Dominion: A Postmillennial
Eschatology. Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1992.
Gentry, Peter J., and Stephen J. Wellum. Kingdom through Covenant: A
Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants. Wheaton:
Crossway, 2012.
Glasser, Arthur F., Charles E. Van Engen, Dean S. Gilliland, and Shawn B.
Redford. Announcing the Kingdom: The Story of God’s Mission in the
Bible. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003.
Grabbe, Lester L., and Robert D. Haak, eds. Knowing the End from the
Beginning: The Prophetic, the Apocalyptic and their Relationships.
New York: T & T Clark, 2003.
Grudem, Wayne A., ed. Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? Four Views.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.
Hamilton, James M., Jr. God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A
Biblical Theology. Wheaton: Crossway, 2010.
Hamilton, Neill Q. The Holy Spirit and Eschatology in Paul. Edinburgh:
Oliver & Boyd, 1957.
Hanson, Paul D. The Dawn of Apocalyptic: The Historical and Sociological
Roots of Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975.
Hoekema, Anthony A. The Bible and the Future. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1979.
———. What About Tongues Speaking? Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966.
Kaiser, Walter C., Jr. The Promise-Plan of God: A Biblical Theology of the
Old and New Testaments. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008.
———. Recovering the Unity of the Bible: One Continuous Story, Plan,
and Purpose. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.
Kik, Marcellus J. An Eschatology of Victory. Philadelphia: Presbyterian
and Reformed, 1974.
Kline, Meredith G. “Primal Parousia.” Westminster Theological Journal 40,
no. 2 (1978): 245–80.
Koch, Klaus. The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic. Translated by Margaret
Kohl. London: SCM Press, 1972.
Ladd, George Eldon. The Last Things: An Eschatology for Laymen. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978.
———. The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism.
Rev. version of Jesus and the Kingdom (Harper and Row, 1964). Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974.
———. “Why Not Prophetic-Apocalyptic?” Journal of Biblical Literature
76, no. 3 (1957): 192–200.
Longenecker, Richard N., ed. Life in the Face of Death: The Resurrection
Message of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.
McGrath, Alister E. A Brief History of Heaven. London: Wiley-Blackwell,
2003.
Moltmann, Jürgen. God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the
Spirit of God. Translated by Margaret Kohl. London: SCM Press, 1985.
———. The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life.
Translated by Margaret Kohl. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997.
———. The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation. Translated by
Margaret Kohl. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001.
———. Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of a
Christian Eschatology. Translated by Margaret Kohl. London: SCM
Press, 1967.
Morgan, Christopher, and Robert Peterson, eds. Hell Under Fire: Modern
Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment. Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
2004.
Morris, Leon. Apocalyptic. 2nd ed. London: InterVarsity, 1973.
Nickelsburg, George W. E. Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in
Intertestamental Judaism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1972.
Pentecost, J. Dwight. Things to Come: A Study in Biblical Eschatology.
Findlay, OH: Dunham Publishing, 1958.
Peterson, Robert. Hell on Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment.
Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1995.
Plevnik, Joseph. Paul and the Parousia: An Exegetical and Theological
Investigation. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997.
Polkinghorne, John. The God of Hope and the End of the World. New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
Reynolds, Benjamin E., and Loren T. Stuckenbruck, eds. The Jewish
Apocalyptic Tradition and the Shaping of New Testament Thought.
Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017.
Richter, Sandra L. The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old
Testament. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008.
Ridderbos, Herman N. Redemptive History and the New Testament
Scriptures. Translated by H. de Jongste. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and
Reformed, 1968.
Ross, Allen. Recalling the Hope of Glory: Biblical Worship from the
Garden to the New Creation. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006.
Russell, D. S. The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic: 200 BC–
AD 100. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964.
Ruthven, Jon M. On the Cessation of the Charismata: The Protestant
Polemic on Post-biblical Miracles. Rev. ed. Tulsa: Word & Spirit, 2011.
Ryrie, Charles C. Dispensationalism Today. Chicago: Moody, 1965.
Saphir, Adolph. The Divine Unity of Scripture. London: Hodder &
Stoughton, 1892.
Sauer, Erich. The Dawn of World Redemption: A Survey of Historical
Revelation in the Old Testament. Translated by G. H. Lang. London:
Paternoster, 1951.
———. The Triumph of the Crucified: A Survey of Historical Revelation
in the New Testament. Translated by G. H. Lang. London: Paternoster,
1951.
Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of
Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede. Translated by W. Montgomery.
London: Adam and Charles Black, 1910.
Stanford, Peter. Heaven: A Guide to the Undiscovered Country. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Vos, Geerhardus. The Pauline Eschatology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1930.
Wagner, C. Peter. Dominion! How Kingdom Action Can Change the World.
Grand Rapids: Chosen, 2008.
Walvoord, John F., William V. Crockett, Zachary J. Hayes, and Clark H.
Pinnock. Four Views on Hell. Edited by William V. Crockett. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.
Wright, Christopher J. H. The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand
Narrative. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006.
Wright, N. T. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Vol. 3 of Christian
Origins and the Question of God. Minneapolis: Fortress; London:
SPCK, 2003.
———. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the
Mission of the Church. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008.

MESSIANISM AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Allison, Dale C. Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet. Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1998.
Barker, Kenneth L. “Premillennialism in the Book of Daniel.” The Master’s
Seminary Journal 4, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 25–43.
Barth, Karl. Christ and Adam: Man and Humanity in Romans 5. Translated
by T. A. Smail. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1956.
Bauckham, Richard. God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the
New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.
———. Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on
the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2008.
Beasley-Murray, G. R. Jesus and the Kingdom of God. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1986.
Becker, Joachim. Messianic Expectation in the Old Testament. Translated
by D. E. Green. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1980.
Beecher, Willis J. The Prophets and the Promise. New York: Thomas Y.
Crowell, 1905.
Berkhof, Louis. The Kingdom of God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951.
———. The Second Coming of Christ. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953.
Bietenhard, Hans. “The Millennial Hope in the Early Church.” Scottish
Journal of Theology 6, no. 1 (March 1953): 12–30.
Blaising, Craig A. “The Future of Israel as a Theological Question.” Journal
of the Evangelical Theological Society 44, no. 3 (September 2001):
435–50.
Blaising, Craig A., and Darrell L. Bock, eds. Dispensationalism, Israel and
the Church: The Search for Definition. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.
Blaising, Craig A., and Darrell L. Bock. Progressive Dispensationalism.
Wheaton: Victor, 1993.
Blaising, Craig A., Kenneth L. Gentry Jr., and Robert B. Strimple. Three
Views on the Millennium and Beyond. Edited by Darrell L. Bock.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999.
Blomberg, Craig L., and Sung Wook Chung, eds. A Case for Historic
Premillennialism: An Alternative to “Left Behind” Eschatology. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2009.
Boettner, Loraine. The Millennium. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and
Reformed, 1957.
Boyarin, Daniel. The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ. New
York: The New Press, 2012.
Burge, Gary M. Jesus and the Land: How the New Testament Transformed
“Holy Land” Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010.
———. Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians Are Not Being
Told about Israel and the Palestinians. 2nd ed. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press,
2013.
Caird, G. B. Jesus and the Jewish Nation. London: Athlone Press, 1965.
Carroll, John T. The Return of Jesus in Early Christianity. Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 2000.
Chapman, Colin. Whose Promised Land? The Continuing Crisis over Israel
and Palestine. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002.
Charlesworth, J. H., ed. The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism
and Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992.
Chilton, Bruce, ed. The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus. Vol. 5 of
Issues in Religion and Theology. London: SPCK, 1984.
Clements, Ronald E. “The Messianic Hope in the Old Testament.” Journal
for the Study of the Old Testament 43 (1989): 3–19.
Clouse, Robert G., ed. The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views.
Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1977.
Cullmann, Oscar. The Christology of the New Testament. Rev. ed.
Translated by S. C. Guthrie and C. A. M. Hall. Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1963.
Dauermann, Stuart. Converging Destinies: Jews, Christians, and the
Mission of God. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017.
Davies, W. D. The Gospel and the Land: Early Christianity and Jewish
Territorial Doctrine. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.
Davis, Anne K. “Israel’s Inheritance: Birthright of the Firstborn Son.”
Chafer Theological Seminary Journal 13, no. 1 (2008): 79–94.
De Graaf, S. G. Promise and Deliverance. 4 vols. Translated by H. E.
Runner and E. W. Runner. St. Catharines, ON: Paideia Press, 1977–79.
Deere, Jack S. “Premillennialism in Revelation 20:4–6.” Bibliotheca Sacra
135, no. 537 (January 1978): 58–74.
Delitzsch, Franz. Messianic Prophecies in Historical Succession. Translated
by Samuel I. Curtiss. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891.
Diprose, Ronald E. Israel and the Church: The Origin and Effects of
Replacement Theology. Waynesboro, GA: Authentic, 2004.
Dodd, C. H. The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments. London:
Hodder & Stoughton, 1936.
———. The Parables of the Kingdom. 3rd ed. London: Nisbet & Co., 1936.
Edersheim, Alfred. Prophecy and History in Relation to the Messiah.
London: Longmans, 1885.
Ehrman, Bart D. Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Erdmann, Martin. The Millennial Controversy in the Early Church. Eugene,
OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2005.
Feinberg, Charles L. Premillennialism or Amillennialism? Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1936.
Fredriksen, Paula. Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and
the Emergence of Christianity. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.
Froom, Le Roy Edwin. The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers: The Historical
Development of Prophetic Interpretation. 4 vols. Washington, DC:
Review and Herald, 1946–54.
Frost, Henry W. The Second Coming of Christ. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1934.
Gowan, Donald E. Eschatology in the Old Testament. 2nd ed. London: T &
T Clark, 2000.
Grenz, Stanley J. The Millennial Maze: Sorting Out Evangelical Opinions.
Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1992.
Gruber, Dan. The Church and the Jews: The Biblical Relationship. Hanover,
NH: Elijah Publishing, 1997.
Gundry, Robert H. The Church and the Tribulation: A Biblical Examination
of Posttribulationism. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973.
Hamilton, James. “The Skull Crushing Seed of the Woman: Inner-Biblical
Interpretation of Genesis 3:15.” The Southern Baptist Journal of
Theology 10, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 30–54.
Hay, David M. Glory at the Right Hand: Psalm 110 in Early Christianity.
Nashville: Abingdon, 1973.
Hengstenberg, Ernst W. The Christology of the Old Testament. 4 vols.
Translated by T. Meyer and J. Martin. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1854–
58.
Henry, Carl F. H. “Reflections on the Kingdom of God.” Journal of the
Evangelical Theological Society 35, no. 1 (March 1992): 39–49.
Holwerda, David E. Jesus and Israel: One Covenant or Two? Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1995.
Horner, Barry E. Eternal Israel: Biblical, Theological, and Historical
Studies that Uphold the Eternal, Distinctive Destiny of Israel. Nashville:
Wordsearch, 2018.
———. Future Israel: Why Christian Anti-Judaism Must Be Challenged.
Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2007.
Juster, Daniel C. The Irrevocable Calling: Israel’s Role as a Light to the
Nations. 2nd ed. Clarksville, MD: Messianic Jewish Publishers, 2007.
Kaiser, Walter C., Jr. The Messiah in the Old Testament. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1995.
Kaminsky, Joel S. Yet I Loved Jacob: Reclaiming the Biblical Concept of
Election. Nashville: Abingdon, 2007.
Klausner, Joseph. The Messianic Idea in Israel: From Its Beginnings to the
Completion of the Mishnah. Translated by W. F. Stinespring. New York:
The Macmillan Company, 1955.
Kromminga, Dietrich H. The Millennium in the Church: Studies in the
History of Christian Chiliasm. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1945.
Kümmel, Werner Georg. Promise and Fulfillment: The Eschatological
Message of Jesus. Translated by Dorothea M. Barton. Vol. 23 of Studies
in Biblical Theology. London: SCM Press, 1957.
Laato, Antti. A Star Is Rising: The Historical Development of the Old
Testament Royal Ideology and the Rise of the Jewish Messianic
Expectations. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997.
Ladd, George Eldon. The Blessed Hope: A Biblical Study of the Second
Advent and the Rapture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956.
———. Crucial Questions about the Kingdom of God. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1952.
———. The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of
God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959.
Lohr, Joel N. Chosen and Unchosen: Conceptions of Election in the
Pentateuch and Jewish-Christian Interpretation. Winona Lake, IN:
Eisenbrauns, 2009.
Longenecker, Richard N. The Christology of Early Jewish Christianity.
London: SCM Press, 1970.
Martin, R. A. “The Earliest Messianic Interpretation of Gen 3:15.” Journal
of Biblical Literature 84 (1965): 425–27.
McClain, Alva J. The Greatness of the Kingdom: An Inductive Study of the
Kingdom of God. Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books, 1959.
McKnight, Scot. A New Vision for Israel: The Teachings of Jesus in a
National Context. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.
Moltmann, Jürgen. The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology. Translated
by Margaret Kohl. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996.
———. The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God. Translated by
Margaret Kohl. London: SCM Press, 1981.
———. The Way of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions.
Translated by Margaret Kohl. London: SCM Press, 1990.
Moore, Russell D. The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical
Perspective. Wheaton: Crossway, 2004.
Mowinckel, Sigmund. He That Cometh: The Messiah Concept in the Old
Testament and Later Judaism. Translated by G. W. Anderson. Nashville:
Abingdon, 1954.
Neusner, Jacob, William Green, and Ernest Frerichs, eds. Judaisms and
Their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1987.
Oesterley, W. O. E. The Evolution of The Messianic Idea: A Study in
Comparative Religion. London: Pitman & Sons, 1908.
Pawson, David. When Jesus Returns. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995.
Payne, J. Barton. Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy: The Complete Guide
to Scriptural Predictions and Their Fulfillment. Grand Rapids: Baker,
1973.
Pentecost, J. Dwight. Thy Kingdom Come: Tracing God’s Kingdom
Program and Covenant Promises Throughout History. Wheaton: Victor,
1990.
Perrin, Norman. The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus.
Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963.
Peters, George N. H. The Theocratic Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus, the
Christ. 3 vols. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1952. First published 1884 by
Funk & Wagnalls.
Richardson, Joel. When a Jew Rules the World: What the Bible Really Says
about Israel in the Plan of God. Washington, DC: WND Books, 2015.
Ridderbos, Herman N. The Coming of the Kingdom. Translated by H. de
Jongste. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1962.
Riddlebarger, Kim. A Case for Amillennialism: Understanding the End
Times. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013.
Rydelnik, Michael. The Messianic Hope: Is the Hebrew Bible Really
Messianic? Nashville: B&H Academic, 2010.
Ryrie, Charles C. The Basis of the Premillennial Faith. Neptune, NJ:
Loizeaux Brothers, 1953.
Sailhamer, John H. “The Messiah and the Hebrew Bible.” Journal of the
Evangelical Theological Society 44, no. 1 (March 2001): 5–23.
Sanders, E. P. Jesus and Judaism. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985.
Satterthwaite, P. E., R. S. Hess, and G. J. Wenham, eds. The Lord’s
Anointed: Interpretation of the Old Testament Messianic Texts. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1995.
Saucy, Robert L. The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism: The
Interface between Dispensational & Non-Dispensational Theology.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993.
Sauer, Erich. From Eternity to Eternity: An Outline of the Divine Purposes.
Translated by G. H. Lang. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954.
Schmitt, John W., and J. Carl Laney. Messiah’s Coming Temple: Ezekiel’s
Prophetic Vision of the Future Temple. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Kregel,
2014.
Schweitzer, Albert. The Mystery of the Kingdom of God: The Secret of
Jesus’ Messiahship and Passion. Translated by W. Lowrie. London:
Adam and Charles Black, 1914.
Shepherd, M. B. “Targums, the New Testament, and Biblical Theology of
the Messiah.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 51, no. 1
(March 2008): 45–58.
Sizer, Stephen. Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon? Leicester,
England: InterVarsity, 2004.
Skarsaune, Oskar. In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish Influences on Early
Christianity. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002.
Soulen, R. Kendall. The God of Israel and Christian Theology.
Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996.
Sullivan, Clayton. Rethinking Realized Eschatology. Macon, GA: Mercer
University Press, 1988.
Van Groningen, Gerard. Messianic Revelation in the Old Testament. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1990.
Verbrugge, Verlyn D. “The Heavenly Army on the Fields of Bethlehem
(Luke 2:13–14).” Calvin Theological Journal 43, no. 2 (November
2008): 301–11.
Viviano, Benedict T. The Kingdom of God in History. Wilmington, DE:
Michael Glazier, 1988.
Vlach, Michael J. Has the Church Replaced Israel? A Theological
Evaluation. Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2010.
Wallis, Wilber B. “The Problem of an Intermediate Kingdom in I
Corinthians 15:20–28.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
18, no. 4 (Fall 1975): 229–42.
Walvoord, John F. The Millennial Kingdom. Findlay, OH: Dunham
Publishing, 1959.
Weiss, Johannes. Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God. First
published 1892 in Germany. Translated by R. H. Hiers and D. L.
Holland. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971.
Wright, N. T. The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and
Is. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999.
———. Jesus and the Victory of God. Vol. 2 of Christian Origins and the
Question of God. London: SPCK, 1996.

ATONEMENT AND THE CROSS

Aulén, Gustaf. Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main
Types of the Idea of Atonement. Translated by A. G. Hebert. New York:
Macmillan, 1969.
Beale, G. K. “The Overstated ‘New’ Perspective?” Bulletin for Biblical
Research 19, no. 1 (2009): 85–94.
Beilby, James, and Paul R. Eddy, eds. The Nature of the Atonement: Four
Views. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006.
Beker, J. Christiaan. Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and
Thought. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980.
Bird, Michael F. The Saving Righteousness of God: Studies on Paul,
Justification and the New Perspective. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock
Publishers, 2007.
Brown, Raymond E. The Death of the Messiah, from Gethsemane to the
Grave: A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels. 2
vols. New York: Doubleday, 1994.
Brunner, Emil. The Mediator: A Study of the Central Doctrine of the
Christian Faith. Translated by Olive Wyon. London: The Lutterworth
Press, 1934.
Bushnell, Horace. The Vicarious Sacrifice, Grounded in Principles of
Universal Obligation. New York: Charles Scribner, 1866.
Carson, D. A., Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid, eds. Justification and
Variegated Nomism. 2 vols. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001, 2004.
Corner, Daniel D. The Believer’s Conditional Security: Eternal Security
Refuted. 3rd ed. Washington, PA: Evangelical Outreach, 2000.
Crossan, John Dominic, and Jonathan L. Reed. In Search of Paul: How
Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom. New
York: HarperCollins, 2004.
Daniélou, Jean. From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology
of the Fathers. Translated by Dom Wulstan Hibberd. London: Burns &
Oates, 1960.
Das, A. Andrew. Paul, the Law, and the Covenant. Grand Rapids: Baker,
2000.
Davidson, Richard M. Typology in Scripture: A Study of Hermeneutical
Typos Structures. Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1981.
Davies, W. D. Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in
Pauline Theology. 2nd ed. London: SPCK, 1955.
Dunn, James D. G. Jesus, Paul, and the Law: Studies in Mark and
Galatians. London: SPCK, 1990.
———. The New Perspective on Paul. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2008.
———. The Theology of the Apostle Paul. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998.
Eisenbaum, Pamela. Paul Was Not a Christian: The Original Message of a
Misunderstood Apostle. New York: HarperOne, 2009.
Fairbairn, Patrick. The Typology of Scripture: Viewed in Connection with
the Whole Series of the Divine Dispensations. 6th ed. 2 vols.
Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1876.
Forde, Gerhard O. On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on
Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.
Forsyth, P. T. The Cruciality of the Cross. London: Hodder & Stoughton,
1909.
———. The Work of Christ. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910.
Fredriksen, Paula. “Judaism, the Circumcision of Gentiles, and Apocalyptic
Hope: Another Look at Galatians 1 and 2.” Journal of Theological
Studies 42, no. 2 (October 1991): 532–64.
———. Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
2017.
Gager, John G. Reinventing Paul. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Gathercole, Simon J. Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in
Paul. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2015.
———. Where Is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response
in Romans 1–5. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.
Glenny, W. Edward. “Typology: A Summary of the Present Evangelical
Discussion.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 40, no. 4
(December 1997): 627–38.
Goppelt, Leonhard. Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old
Testament in the New. Translated by Donald Madvig. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1982.
Gorman, Michael J. Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.
———. Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis
in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009.
Green, Joel B., and Mark D. Baker. Recovering the Scandal of the Cross:
Atonement in the New Testament and Contemporary Contexts.
Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000.
Hanson, R. P. C. Allegory and Event: A Study of the Sources and
Significance of Origen’s Interpretation of Scripture. London: SCM
Press, 1959.
Hengel, Martin. The Atonement: The Origin of the Doctrine in the New
Testament. Translated by John Bowden. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981.
———. Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of
the Cross. Translated by John Bowden. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977.
Hill, Charles E., and Frank A. James III, eds. The Glory of the Atonement:
Biblical, Historical & Practical Perspectives. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 2004.
Hughes, Thomas Hywel. The Atonement: Modern Theories of the Doctrine.
London: George Allen and Unwin, 1949.
Jeffery, Steve, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach. Pierced for Our
Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution.
Wheaton: Crossway, 2007.
Jeremias, Joachim. The Eucharistic Words of Jesus. Translated from the 3rd
German ed. by Norman Perrin. London: SCM Press, 1966.
Kim, Seyoon. Paul and the New Perspective: Second Thoughts on the
Origin of Paul’s Gospel. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.
King, Daniel H. “Paul and the Tannaim: A Study in Galatians.”
Westminster Theological Journal 45, no. 2 (Fall 1983): 340–70.
Klausner, Joseph. From Jesus to Paul. Translated by W. F. Stinespring. New
York: Macmillan, 1943.
Ludemann, Gerd. Paul: The Founder of Christianity. Amherst, NY:
Prometheus Books, 2002.
Maas, A. J. Christ in Type and Prophecy. 2 vols. New York: Benziger,
1893–95.
McGrath, Alister E. Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of
Justification. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
———. Luther’s Theology of the Cross: Martin Luther’s Theological
Breakthrough. 2nd ed. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
———. Reformation Thought: An Introduction. 4th ed. Chichester, UK:
Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
Mitchell, David C. “Firstborn Shor and Rem: A Sacrificial Josephite
Messiah in 1 Enoch 90.37–38 and Deuteronomy 33.17.” Journal for the
Study of the Pseudepigrapha 15 (2006): 211–28.
———. “Messiah bar Ephraim in the Targums.” Aramaic Studies 4, no. 2
(2006): 221–41.
———. “Messiah ben Joseph: A Sacrifice of Atonement for Israel.”
Review of Rabbinic Judaism 10 (2007): 77–94.
———. “Rabbi Dosa and the Rabbis Differ: Messiah ben Joseph in the
Babylonian Talmud.” Review of Rabbinic Judaism 8 (2005): 77–90.
Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. 3rd ed. London:
Tyndale, 1965.
———. The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance. Downers Grove,
IL: InterVarsity, 1983.
———. The Cross in the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965.
Nanos, Mark D., and Magnus Zetterholm, eds. Paul within Judaism:
Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle. Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2015.
Packer, James I. “What Did the Cross Achieve: The Logic of Penal
Substitution.” Tyndale Bulletin 25 (1974): 3–45.
Packer, James I., and Mark Dever, eds. In My Place Condemned He Stood:
Celebrating the Glory of the Atonement. Wheaton: Crossway, 2008.
Patterson, Stephen J. Beyond the Passion: Rethinking the Death and Life of
Jesus. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2004.
Pawson, David. Once Saved, Always Saved? A Study in Perseverance and
Inheritance. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1996.
Piper, John. Counted Righteous in Christ: Should We Abandon the
Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness? Wheaton: Crossway, 2002.
———. The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright. Wheaton:
Crossway, 2007.
———. The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of
Romans 9:1–23. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993.
Pullan, Leighton. The Atonement. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.,
1907.
Ridderbos, Herman N. Paul: An Outline of His Theology. Translated by J.
R. De Witt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975.
Sanders, E. P. Paul: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2001.
———. Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of
Religion. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977.
Saphir, Adolph. Christ Crucified: Lectures on 1 Corinthians 2. London:
James Nisbet, 1873.
Schoeps, H. J. Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of Jewish
Religious History. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961.
Schweitzer, Albert. The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle. Translated by W.
Montgomery. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1931.
———. Paul and His Interpreters: A Critical History. Translated by W.
Montgomery. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1912.
Seifrid, Mark A. Christ, Our Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of
Justification. Vol. 9 of New Studies in Biblical Theology. Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000.
Stendahl, Krister. “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of
the West.” Harvard Theological Review 56, no. 3 (1963): 199–215.
———. Paul Among Jews and Gentiles and Other Essays. Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1976.
Stott, John R. W. The Cross of Christ. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity,
1986.
Taylor, Vincent. The Atonement in New Testament Teaching. London:
Epworth, 1940.
Thune, Robert H., and Will Walker. The Gospel-Centered Life: Study
Guide with Leader’s Notes. Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2011.
Watson, Francis. Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles: Beyond the New
Perspective. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007.
Weaver, J. Denny. The Nonviolent Atonement. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2011.
Wenham, David. Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.
Westerholm, Stephen. “Justification by Faith Is the Answer: What Is the
Question?” Concordia Theological Quarterly 70 (2006): 197–217.
———. Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The “Lutheran” Paul and His
Critics. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004.
Wrede, William. Paul. Translated by Edward Lummis. London: Philip
Green, 1907.
Wright, N. T. The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline
Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992.
———. Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 2009.
———. Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Vol. 4 of Christian Origins and
the Question of God. Minneapolis: Fortress; London: SPCK, 2013.
———. Paul: Fresh Perspectives. London: SPCK, 2005.
———. “The Paul of History and the Apostle of Faith.” Tyndale Bulletin
29 (1978): 61–88.
———. What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder
of Christianity? Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.

WITNESS AND MARTYRDOM

Allen, Roland. Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? London: R. Scott,
1912.
Bosch, David J. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of
Mission. Mary-knoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991.
Donovan, Vincent J. Christianity Rediscovered: An Epistle from the Masai.
London: SCM Press, 2001.
Frend, W. H. C. Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church: A Study
of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus. Grand Rapids: Baker,
1981.
Green, Michael. Evangelism in the Early Church. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2004.
Hare, Douglas R. A., and Daniel J. Harrington. “‘Make Disciples of All the
Gentiles’ (Mt 28:19).” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 37 (1975): 359–69.
Hovey, Craig. To Share in the Body: A Theology of Martyrdom for Today’s
Church. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2008.
Hubbard, Benjamin J. The Matthean Redaction of a Primitive Apostolic
Commissioning: An Exegesis of Matthew 28:16–20. Missoula, MT:
Society of Biblical Literature and Scholars Press, 1974.
Katz, Arthur, and Paul Volk. The Spirit of Truth. Charlotte: Morningstar,
1992.
Larsen, David L. The Evangelism Mandate: Recovering the Centrality of
Gospel Preaching. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1992.
Malone, Edward E. The Monk and the Martyr: The Monk as the Successor
of the Martyr. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press,
1950.
McGavran, Donald A. Bridges of God: A Study in the Strategy of Missions.
New York: Friendship Press, 1955.
Miller, Timothy. Poised for Harvest, Braced for Backlash: Birthing New
Testament Movements When Jesus Disrupts the Systems. Maitland, FL:
Xulon Press, 2009.
Moltmann, Jürgen. The Church in the Power of the Spirit: A Contribution to
Messianic Ecclesiology. Translated by Margaret Kohl. London: SCM
Press, 1977.
Musurillo, Herbert. The Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1972.
Newbigin, Lesslie. Trinitarian Faith and Today’s Mission. Richmond: John
Knox, 1964.
Packer, J. I. Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 1961.
Piper, John. Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist. 3rd ed.
Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2003.
Rogers, Cleon. “The Great Commission.” Bibliotheca Sacra 130, no. 519
(July 1973): 258–67.
Stauffer, Ethelbert. “The Anabaptist Theology of Martyrdom.” Mennonite
Quarterly Review 19, no. 3 (1945): 179–214.
Ton, Josef. Suffering, Martyrdom, and Rewards in Heaven. Lanham, MD:
University Press of America, 1997.
Trites, Allison A. The New Testament Concept of Witness. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1977.
———. New Testament Witness in Today’s World. Valley Forge, PA:
Judson Press, 1983.
Van Henten, Jan Willem. The Maccabean Martyrs as Saviours of the Jewish
People: A Study of 2 and 4 Maccabees (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill,
1997).
Wright, David. “The Testimony of Blood: The Charisma of Martyrdom.”
Bibliotheca Sacra 160, no. 640 (October 2003): 387–97.
Yun, Brother, and Paul Hattaway. The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable
True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun. Grand Rapids: Monarch
Books, 2002.
Zwemer, Samuel M. Into All the World: The Great Commission: A
Vindication and an Interpretation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1943.

GENERAL STUDIES AND COMMENTARIES

Alexander, T. Desmond. From Paradise to the Promised Land: An
Introduction to the Pentateuch. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002.
Alexander, T. Desmond, and Simon Gathercole, eds. Heaven on Earth: The
Temple in Biblical Theology. Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 2004.
Allison, Dale C. Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its
Interpreters. New York: T & T Clark, 2005.
Ariel, David S. What Do Jews Believe? The Spiritual Foundations of
Judaism. New York: Schocken Books, 1995.
Bailey, Kenneth E. Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in
the Gospels. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2008.
Barker, Margaret. The Gate of Heaven: History and Symbolism of the
Temple in Jerusalem. London: SPCK Publishing, 1991.
Barnes, Timothy D. Constantine and Eusebius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1981.
Barron, Bruce. Heaven on Earth? The Social and Political Agendas of
Dominion Theology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.
Bateman, Herbert W., IV, ed. Three Central Issues in Contemporary
Dispensationalism: A Comparison of Traditional and Progressive
Views. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1999.
Beale, Gregory K. A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of
the Old Testament in the New. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011.
———. The Use of Daniel in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature and in the
Revelation of St. John. Lanham, MD: University Press of America,
1984.
Beale, G. K., and D. A. Carson, eds. Commentary on the New Testament
Use of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007.
Biggs, Charles. The Christian Platonists of Alexandria: Eight Lectures.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886.
Bird, Michael F. Jesus and the Origins of the Gentile Mission. London: T &
T Clark, 2007.
Blomberg, Craig L. Interpreting the Parables. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 1990.
Bock, Darrell L. Proclamation from Prophecy and Pattern: Lucan Old
Testament Christology. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Press, 1987.
Brown, Colin. Christianity and Western Thought: A History of
Philosophers, Ideas and Movements. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity,
1990.
Bruce, F. F. The Canon of Scripture. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1988.
Buchanan, George W. The Consequences of the Covenant. Leiden,
Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1970.
Cameron, Peter S. Violence and the Kingdom: The Interpretation of
Matthew 11:12. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1984.
Campbell, Constantine R. Advances in the Study of Greek: New Insights
for Reading the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015.
———. Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2008.
Carey, Greg. Ultimate Things: An Introduction to Jewish and Christian
Apocalyptic Literature. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2005.
Carroll, James. Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews, A History.
New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
Charlesworth, J. H. Jews and Christians: Exploring the Past, Present, and
Future. New York: Crossroad, 1990.
Charlesworth, J. H., and L. L. Johns, eds. Hillel and Jesus: Comparisons of
Two Major Religious Leaders. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997.
Cohn, Norman. The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians
and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1970.
Coleman, Simon. The Globalisation of Charismatic Christianity: Spreading
the Gospel of Prosperity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2000.
Collins, John J., ed. Apocalypse: The Morphology of a Genre. Semeia 14.
Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979.
Collins, John J. The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish
Apocalyptic Literature. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.
Crenshaw, Curtis. Dispensationalism Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow.
Memphis: Footstool, 1989.
Cross, Frank M. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1973.
Crossan, John Dominic. The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean
Jewish Peasant. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991.
Daniélou, Jean. Origen. Translated by Walter Mitchell. London: Sheed and
Ward, 1955.
———. The Theology of Jewish Christianity: The Development of
Christian Doctrine before the Council of Nicea. London: Darton,
Longman & Todd, 1964.
DeSilva, David A. Introducing the Apocrypha: Message, Context, and
Significance. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002.
Dodd, C. H. The Founder of Christianity. London: Macmillan, 1971.
Donaldson, Terence L. Judaism and the Gentiles: Jewish Patterns of
Universalism (to 135 CE). Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007.
Doner, Colonel V. Christian Jihad: Neo-Fundamentalists and the
Polarization of America. Littleton, CO: Samizdat Creative, 2012.
Eisenberg, Ronald L. The JPS Guide to Jewish Traditions. Philadelphia:
Jewish Publication Society, 2004.
Elon, Menachem. Jewish Law: History, Sources, Principles. 4 vols.
Translated by Bernard Auerbach and Melvin J. Sykes. Philadelphia:
Jewish Publication Society, 1994.
Emmerson, Richard K. Antichrist in the Middle Ages: A Study of Medieval
Apocalypticism, Art, and Literature. Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1981.
Emmerson, Richard K., and Bernard McGinn, eds. The Apocalypse in the
Middle Ages. New York: Cornell University Press, 1992.
Fanning, Buist M. Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1990.
Farmer, W. R. Maccabees, Zealots, and Josephus: An Inquiry into Jewish
Nationalism in the Greco-Roman Period. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1956.
Fee, Gordon D. The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels. Vancouver:
Regent College Publishing, 1985.
Feinberg, John S., ed. Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the
Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments. Westchester, IL:
Crossway, 1988.
Finegan, Jack. Handbook of Biblical Chronology: Principles of Time
Reckoning in the Ancient World and Problems of Chronology in the
Bible. Rev. ed. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998.
Fiorenza, E. Schüssler. “Apocalyptic and Gnosis in the Book of Revelation
and Paul.” Journal of Biblical Literature 92, no. 4 (December 1973):
565–81.
Flusser, David. Jewish Sources in Early Christianity. Tel Aviv: MOD
Books, 1989.
Flusser, David, and R. Steven Notley. Jesus. Jerusalem: The Hebrew
University Magnes Press, 2001.
France, R. T. Jesus and the Old Testament: His Application of Old
Testament Passages to Himself and His Mission. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 1971.
Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical
Doctrine. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994.
Hagner, Donald A. The Jewish Reclamation of Jesus: An Analysis and
Critique of the Modern Jewish Study of Jesus. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1984.
Hammer, Reuven. Entering the High Holy Days: A Guide to the Origins,
Themes, and Prayers. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1998.
Harnack, Adolf von. Marcion: The Gospel of the Alien God. First published
1924 in Germany. Translated by John E. Steely and Lyle D. Bierma.
Jamestown, NY: Labyrinth Press, 1990.
Harrison, J. F. C. The Second Coming: Popular Millenarianism 1780–1850.
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1979.
Hatch, Edwin. The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian
Church. 6th ed. London: Williams and Norgate, 1897.
Hayward, C. T. R. The Jewish Temple: A Non-Biblical Sourcebook.
London: Routledge, 1996.
Heidl, György. The Influence of Origen on the Young Augustine: A Chapter
of the History of Origenism. 2nd ed. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press,
2009.
Hellholm, David, ed. Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the
Near East. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr-Siebeck, 1983.
Hengel, Martin. Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in
Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period. 2 vols. Translated by J.
Bowden. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974.
Henry, Carl F. H. God, Revelation and Authority. 6 vols. Waco, TX: Word,
1976–83.
Heschel, Abraham. The Prophets. New York: Harper & Row, 1962.
———. The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man. New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 1951.
Hess, Richard S. Studies in the Personal Names of Genesis 1–11. Winona
Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1993.
Hill, Charles E. Regnum Caelorum: Patterns of Future Hope in Early
Christianity. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001.
Horsley, R. A., and J. S. Hanson. Bandits, Prophets and Messiahs: Popular
Movements in the Time of Jesus. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press
International, 1999.
Hullinger, Jerry M. “The Problem of Animal Sacrifices in Ezekiel 40–48.”
Bibliotheca Sacra 152, no. 607 (July 1995): 279–89.
Hurtado, Larry W. How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Historical
Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2005.
———. Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003.
Isaac, Jules. Has Anti-Semitism Roots in Christianity? Translated by D.
Parkes and J. Parkes. New York: National Conference of Christians and
Jews, 1961.
Jeremias, Joachim. Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus. Translated from the 3rd
German ed. by F. H. Cave and C. H. Cave. London: SCM Press, 1969.
———. The Parables of Jesus. Translated by S. H. Hooke. Rev. ed. New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1963.
Jones, David W., and Russell S. Woodbridge. Health, Wealth & Happiness:
Has the Prosperity Gospel Overshadowed the Gospel of Christ? Grand
Rapids: Kregel, 2011.
Kaiser, Walter C., Jr. Toward an Old Testament Theology. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1978.
Käsemann, Ernst. New Testament Questions of Today. Translated by W. J.
Montague. London: SCM Press, 1969.
Keener, Craig. Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts. 2
vols. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011.
Kinzer, Mark S. Postmissionary Messianic Judaism: Redefining Christian
Engagement with the Jewish People. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005.
Ladd, George Eldon. A Commentary on the Revelation of John. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.
———. A Theology of the New Testament. 2nd ed. Edited by Donald A.
Hagner. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993. First published 1974 by
Eerdmans.
Lifsey, Dalton. The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob’s Trouble:
The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People. Tauranga, New
Zealand: Maskilim Publishing, 2011.
MacArthur, John. Charismatic Chaos. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.
Marshall, John W. Parables of War: Reading John’s Jewish Apocalypse.
Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001.
McGinn, Bernard. The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian
Mysticism. 5 vols. New York: Crossroad, 1991–2012.
McKay, K. L. A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek. New
York: Peter Lang, 1994.
Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. 4 vols.
New York: Doubleday, 1991–2009.
Menzies, William W., and Stanley M. Horton. Bible Doctrines: A
Pentecostal Perspective. Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House,
1971.
Metzger, Bruce M. The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin,
Significance, and Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Meyers, Carol L. The Tabernacle Menorah: A Synthetic Study of a Symbol
from the Biblical Cult, Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2003.
Mitchell, David C. The Message of the Psalter: An Eschatological
Programme in the Book of Psalms. Sheffield, England: Sheffield
Academic, 1997.
Mitchell, John L. “The Question of Millennial Sacrifices, Part 1.”
Bibliotheca Sacra 110, no. 439 (July 1953): 248–67.
———. “The Question of Millennial Sacrifices, Part 2.” Bibliotheca Sacra
110, no. 440 (October 1953): 342–61.
Moore, G. F. Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of
the Tannaim. 3 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927–
30.
Murphy, Frederick J. Apocalypticism in the Bible and Its World: A
Comprehensive Introduction. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012.
Neusner, Jacob. The Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70. 3
vols. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1971.
Neusner, Jacob, and Bruce Chilton. Jewish and Christian Doctrines: The
Classics Compared. New York: Routledge, 2000.
Novak, David. The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism: The Idea of Noahide
Law. 2nd ed. Edited by Matthew LaGrone. Oxford: Littman Library of
Jewish Civilization, 2011.
Numbers, Ronald L. The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific
Creationism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.
Oden, Thomas C. How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering
the African Seedbed of Western Christianity. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 2007.
O’Hare, Padraic. The Enduring Covenant: The Education of Christians and
the End of Antisemitism. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International,
1997.
Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Systematic Theology. Translated by G. W. Bromiley.
3 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991–98.
Picirilli, Robert E. “The Meaning of the Tenses in New Testament Greek:
Where Are We?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48, no.
3 (September 2005): 533–55.
Pixner, Bargil. Paths of the Messiah and Sites of the Early Church from
Galilee to Jerusalem: Jesus and Jewish Christianity in Light of
Archaeological Discoveries. Edited by Rainer Riesner. San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 2010.
Porter, Stanley E. Idioms of the Greek New Testament. 2nd ed. Sheffield,
England: Sheffield Academic, 1999.
———. Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the New Testament, with Reference
to Tense and Mood. New York: Peter Lang, 1989.
Pritchard, James B., ed. The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and
Pictures. 3rd ed. with supplement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1969.
Rad, Gerhard von. Old Testament Theology. Translated by D. M. G.
Stalker. 2 vols. New York: Harper & Row, 1962, 1965.
Richardson, Joel. The Islamic Antichrist: The Shocking Truth about the
Real Nature of the Beast. Los Angeles: WND Books, 2009.
———. Mideast Beast: The Scriptural Case for an Islamic Antichrist.
Washington, DC: WND Books, 2012.
Rowland, Christopher. Christian Origins: The Setting and Character of the
Most Impor-tant Messianic Sect of Judaism. 2nd ed. London: SPCK,
2002.
Rowley, H. H. The Relevance of Apocalyptic: A Study of Jewish and
Christian Apocalypses from Daniel to the Revelation. Rev. ed. New
York: Harper & Brothers, 1946.
Rudolph, David, and Joel Willitts, eds. Introduction to Messianic Judaism:
Its Ecclesial Context and Biblical Foundations. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2013.
Sailhamer, John H. The Pentateuch as Narrative: A Biblical-Theological
Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.
Sandeen, Ernest R. The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American
Millenarianism 1880–1930. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1970.
Sanders, E. P. Comparing Judaism and Christianity: Common Judaism,
Paul, and the Inner and the Outer in Ancient Religion. Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2016.
———. Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE–66 CE. Philadelphia: Trinity
Press International, 1992.
Scalise, Charles J. “Allegorical Flights of Fancy: The Problem of Origen’s
Exegesis.” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 32, no. 1 (Spring
1987): 69–88.
Schreiner, Thomas R. New Testament Theology: Magnifying God in Christ.
Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008.
Stark, Rodney. The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.
Stauffer, Ethelbert. New Testament Theology. Translated by John Marsh.
London: SCM Press, 1955.
Stern, David H. Messianic Judaism: A Modern Movement with an Ancient
Past. Clarksville, MD: Messianic Jewish Publishers, 2007.
Stramara, Daniel F., Jr. God’s Timetable: The Book of Revelation and the
Feast of Seven Weeks. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011.
Tabory, Joseph. JPS Commentary on the Haggadah: Historical Introduction,
Translation, and Commentary. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society,
2008.
Thiselton, Anthony C. “Realized Eschatology at Corinth.” New Testament
Studies 24 (1978): 510–26.
Toon, Peter, ed. Puritans, the Millennium and the Future of Israel: Puritan
Eschatology, 1600 to 1660. Cambridge: James Clarke, 1970.
Vermes, Geza. Jesus in His Jewish Context. Rev. version of Jesus and the
World of Judaism (SCM Press, 1983). Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003.
———. Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels. London:
William Collins Sons, 1973.
Viviano, B. T. “The Least in the Kingdom: Matthew 11:11, Its Parallel in
Luke 7:28 (Q), and Daniel 4:14.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 62 (2000):
41–54.
Vos, Geerhardus. Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948.
Wacholder, Ben Zion. “Biblical Chronology in the Hellenistic World
Chronicles.” Harvard Theological Review 61, no. 3 (July 1968): 451–
81.
———. “The Calendar of Sabbatical Cycles During the Second Temple and
the Early Rabbinic Period.” Hebrew Union College Annual 44 (1973):
53–196.
———. “Chronomessianism: The Timing of Messianic Movements and the
Calendar of Sabbatical Cycles.” Hebrew Union College Annual 46
(1975): 201–18.
Weber, T. P. Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American
Premillenialism 1875–1982. Enlarged ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1983.
Westermann, Claus, ed. Essays on Old Testament Hermeneutics. Richmond:
John Knox, 1963.
Williams, J. Rodman. Renewal Theology: Systematic Theology from a
Charismatic Perspective. 3 vols. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988–92.
Wilson, Marvin R. Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian
Faith. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989.
Witherington, Ben, III. The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of
Nazareth. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1997.
Wyschogrod, Michael. The Body of Faith: God and the People Israel. 2nd
ed. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1996.
 SUBJECT INDEX

Abrahamic covenant, 128–30, 151

Academy (Plato’s), 38
Adam, as priestly minister in Edenic temple, 31–32; protological type, 53,
94, 127
Adamic covenant, 123–28
Age to come, 64–67; characterized by fire, 67–69; ethnic distinctions in,
150; supposedly inaugurated at Christ’s first coming, 89–91, 117, 187,
210; miracles as a sign of, 95–97; versus God’s purpose of mercy in the
present age, 73–77
Agent of salvation, messianic, 122, 179; “Agent of Dominionism,” 140–41;
“Agent of Escapism,” 138–39
Alexander III of Macedon, 38–40, 163
Alexandrian school of thought, 42, 81, 139; nonmillenarian theology of,
181; typology of, 208–9
Amillennialism, 182
Angels, 24, 34, 67, 111, 176, 258, 272, 283; and conflict with demonic
entities, 34; as intermediaries between God and humans (see also
“council” under “divine”), 34, 110
Anthony, 82, 271
Anthropocentrism, 39, 40
Antichrist, 138, 177, 181, 252, 261
Apocalyptic/apocalypticism, 20–21, 45–48, 66–67, 145; apostolic retention
of, 66; as divine revelation, 45–46, 53, 104; divine courtroom, 58;
cruciform, 6, 76–77, 86, 91, 112–14; 135–37, 183, 286; embarrassment
of, 21, 22, 88, 188, 266; eschatology, 22, 243, 273, 285; framework of
redemptive history, 67, 75, 94, 196; futurist hope, 79, 80; Jewish
expectations, 5, 84, 151–78, 192; literature, 12, 146; moorings, 140,
183, 208, 242
Apostolic witness (see also “witness of the church”), 7, 247–49; based on
creational understanding, 7, 248; charismatic nature subservient to
 cruciform-apocalyptic message, 7, 99, 113, 137, 248; cruciform-
apocalyptic, 7, 91, 137, 213, 248; ridiculed in modern academy, 7, 232
Ariel, David, 211
Aristotle, 38
Ascension, Christ’s, 30, 66, 73, 176, 193, 210, 248
Asceticism (see also “monastic/monasticism”), 82, 86, 256; and martyrdom,
139; and self-justification, 242
Assisi, Francis of, 12
Atonement, 20, 30, 64, 136, 190, 205–6, 213, 216–19, 222, 232;
substitutionary, 20, 30, 232
Augustine, 79, 85, 116, 140, 181, 183
Augustinianism, 86, 116, 141, 184, 208, 209
Authorial intent (of biblical writers), 11; of Holy Spirit, 12
Authority of Scripture, 11

Baptism, 160, 196; Jesus’, 110, 132, 133

Beker, J. Christiaan, 20, 79
Bible, as progressive revelation, 45–46; exclusivity of Scripture, 10;
prophecy movement, 21; supposed pagan derivation of, 38
Biblical, history, 62; protology and eschatology, 20–22; theology, 45–54 (as
eschatologically restored protology, 52, 54); typology, 196–207 (tupos,
196, 207); worldview, 21, 22, 30, 37, 38, 43
Blessing, 129, 179, 273; economy of mutual, 156; of the resurrection, 107–
8; temporal versus eternal, 77–79
Blomberg, Craig, 187
Blood, Christ’s, 6, 30, 57, 77, 107, 136, 206–7, 216–22, 233; martyrs’, 72,
251, 256, 261–62; of the covenant, 73, 196, 206, 217
Boasting, 240, 252
Book of life, 101, 245, 249, 268
Brahman, 15, 17
“Breath” of God, and the Holy Spirit, 93–94
Buber, Martin, 188
Buchanan, George, 145
Buddhism, 14

Cassander, 38
Catholic Church, 10, 243
Cessationism, 117
Chafer, Lewis Sperry, 87–88, 141–42
Chiliasm/chiliastic (see also “millennium”), 178–83, 186, 197; cruciform-
apocalypticism, 183
Chilton, Bruce, 183
Christ (see also “Christ’s,” “Jesus,” “Messiah,” “messianic”), administrator
of divine inheritance, 153–54; administrator of divine judgment, 123;
appointed and anointed by God, 121; “Christ Dominionist,” 140;
“Christ Escapist,” 139; firstborn of the resurrection, 97–98; definition
of, 121; hope of, 123–34; judgement seat of, 59, 122, 218, 220;
mediator, 122, 136, 219, 230
Christendom, 83–86, 116, 142, 168, 182, 184–85, 208, 210, 242
Christoplatonism/Christoplatonic, Christology, 139–40; definition of, 20,
40; immaterial heavenly destiny, 80–82; kingdom (see
“Christoplatonic” under “kingdom of God”); Origenistic, 84, 115, 183;
resurrection, 115–16; righteousness (see also “monastic/monasticism”),
241–43; theology, 80–82; typology, 208–9; worldview (see also
“Plato/Platonic/Platonism”), 20, 38–42
Christ’s (see also “Christ,” “Jesus’”), ascension, 30, 66, 73, 176, 193, 248;
atonement (see “atonement”); blood, 6, 30, 206–7, 216–22, 261;
crucifixion (see “crucifixion of Christ”); death (see “of Jesus Christ,
meaning and purpose” under “death,” and “sacrificial”); first coming,
64, 77, 89, 186, 208, 231, 243; first and second comings, distinctions in
motives and agendas, 91, 143, 186, 248, 256; global reign (see “global
reign of the” under “Messiah”); kingdom (see also “Gentile[s],” “glory,”
“kingdom of God”), 145–83; resurrection (see “resurrection”);
return/second coming, 91, 103, 231, 269; righteousness (see
“righteousness” under “divine”); sonship, 133–34; suffering, 135–37,
191–96, 198–200
Church, militant, 85–86, 141, 183, 208, 242; triumphant, 85–86, 141, 183,
208
Church’s witness (see “apostolic witness,” “witness of the church”)
Circumcision, 99, 129, 160; party, 239–41
Clement (of Alexandria), 40, 139
Commissioning, apostolic (see also “Great Commission”), 67, 112, 121,
254, 260
Commodianus, 181
Communion, 203, 233, 283; as anticipation of “eschatological banquet,”
203; as remembrance of the cross, 233
Concordism, 37
Consistent eschatology, 88–89
Constantine, 8, 83–86, 140; as “thirteenth apostle,” 140
Constantinianism (see “dominionistic Constantinianism”)
Conversion, 235–37, 244, 273; of proselytes, 160, of Paul, 177, 237
Cosmic, courtroom, 59; geography, 35; hierarchy, 55; loneliness, 27;
powers, 33; waters, 24–25, 27, 36, 38; week theory, 180–82
Cosmology (see also “worldview”), 14, 20, 31, 37, 38, 42
Council, God’s (see also “council” under “divine”), 33–34, Jerusalem, 160–
61, of Ephesus, 181
Covenant(s), 7, 43, 145, 158, 170, 203, 234, 248; Adamic (see “Adamic
covenant”); Abrahamic (see “Abrahamic covenant”); blessings of, 108;
Mosaic (see “Mosaic covenant”); Davidic (see “covenant” under
“Davidic”); new (see “covenant” under “new”)
Creation-day world-age theory, 180–81
Creationist movement, 21
Cross, Christian’s (see also “martyrdom”), 256–64; Jesus’ (see also
“suffering” under “Christ’s”), 135–37, 191–96, 198–200; theology of
the, 91, 140, 263 (Luther’s, 83, 243)
Crucifixion, of Christ (see also “cross,” “cruciform,” “martyrdom”), 5, 135,
147, 192; 215, 237, 276; Roman, 191, 256
Cruciform, definition of, 3, 76
Cruciform-apocalyptic (see also “cruciform,” “apocalyptic”), 6, 91, 286;
chiliastic, 183; messianic hope, 135–37; testimony of the Spirit, 112–14;
view of redemptive history, 76–77
Crusades, 86
Cullmann, Oscar, 186, 275
Curse(s), 107–8; early biblical hopes for reversal of, 124–28; Edenic, 128;
of apostle Paul, 144; of death, 128

Dahmer, Jeffrey, 235

Daniélou, Jean, 209
Davidic, concept of Messiah’s divine sonship, 133–34; covenant, 130–34,
162–78; dynasty as stewardship from the Lord, 168–71; messianic hope,
130–35
Davies, Douglas, 81
Day of Atonement (see also “festivals and sacred days” under “Jewish”),
205, 206, 216, 222; or Day of Propitiation, 222
Day of judgment, 3, 10, 57–59, 74, 91, 103, 146, 169, 187, 197, 206, 224–
28, 240, 248, 254, 270, 275
Day of the Lord, 46–50, 54–64 (described along royal lines, 54–57; judicial
lines, 57–59; and economic lines, 59–62); apocalyptic revelation of, 45–
48; as means of restoration of creation, 50–54; at the heart of
apocalyptic thought, 46, 48; centrality to biblical thought, 46–50;
defining event of redemptive history, 187; severity of, 71–72;
theological lynchpin, 63; unifying reality of Scriptures, 62–64
Day of wrath, 6, 54–57, 61, 63, 74, 75, 158, 222, 225
Death (see also “of death” under “curse(s),” “martyrdom,” and “from
death” under “salvation”), as prime existential ill, 10; as result of
deprivation of tree of life, 101; eradication of, 54; initiated by God to
humiliate sin and pride to bring repentance, 78, 105–7; naturalistic view
of, 18; neither normal nor natural, 53; of Jesus Christ, meaning and
purpose (see also “sacrificial”), 204, 221, 228, 248; old order to be
overturned, 51, 53, 96; swallowing up of, 53, 103, 164; under God’s
power, 102
Demons, 24, 29, 33, 50, 100, 134; and exorcism, 96, 255, 269; executing
divine wrath, 34; testing human hearts, 34
Devil, the (see “Satan”)
Dichotomies/dichotomy, linguistic 66–67; material versus immaterial (see
“material versus immaterial”); natural versus supernatural (see “natural
versus supernatural”); of ages, 64, 74
Discipleship, 257; according to destiny, 281, 282; pictured as a race, 237;
cruciform nature of, 118, 236, 285; of Jew and Gentile, 162
Displacement theology (see “supersessionism”)
Dispensationalism/dispensational, 79, 80, 86–88; concerning the Holy
Spirit, 117; criticism of inaugurationalism, 188, 266; dualistic nature of
kingdom, 185–186; intercalation, 88, 185; millennial classification, 88,
182; pretribulation rapture, 141, 185; Reformed criticism of, 88; revised
model, 88; twentieth century resurgence of, 182; typology, 209–10
Disqualification (see “disqualification from” under “salvation”)
Divine (see also “God”), agency, 122, 125, 128, 133; atonement (see
“atonement”); blessings and curses, 107–8; council, 33–34; faithfulness,
 52, 131, 244; forgiveness (see “repentance and forgiveness of” under
“sin”); foreknowledge (of Antichrist, 261; of death of Messiah, 112,
158, 215; of Jewish election, 152); glory, 109–12, 172, 215; hierarchy,
33; honor, 55; image (see “humans as image bearers,” “image of God”);
inspiration (see also “inspiration of” under “Holy Spirit, the”), 10, 39,
123, 266; interpretation of messianic suffering (see “suffering” under
“Christ’s”); judgment, 57–59, 77–79 (as proportionate retribution, 72,
78; initiates the kingdom of God, 187, 268; purpose of, 51, 78); justice,
57–58, 224–25 (restraint of, 75, 77); kingdom (see “kingdom” under
“Christ’s,” “kingdom of God”); mercy, 3, 74–79, 91, 136, 171, 193,
232; nature and character, 91, 148; perspective of the value of human
life, 72; presence, 28, 32, 73, 178; recompense, 59–62, 77–78;
righteousness, 215–31 (and sacrificial atonement, 219–22); sovereignty,
35, 84, 110, 147; transcendence, 12, 28 (of oracle over steward, 14, 35;
over time, 269); wrath against sin, 54–57, 222–24 (reality of, 222;
righteous anger driven by love, 222–23)
Dodd, C. H., 90, 243, 265–67, 274, 276, 279, 280
Dominionistic Constantinianism, 79, 83–86, 89, 116, 140–41, 184, 208, 263

Earth, as part of “three-storied universe,” 36; below heavens, 27; made new,
50–54
Eden, garden of, 31, 53, 148, 160, 174; expulsion from, 101; in likeness of
heavenly garden-temple, 30–31; restoration of, 53, 81, 102; similarities
with tabernacle/temple, 31–33; typology, 208
Emmaus road exposition, 136, 193–96, 200, 204, 207
End of this age, 67
Enlightenment, 19, 80; age of, 8, 40, 85, 182
Equivocal language, 35
Escapist Christoplatonism, 79, 80–83, 85
Eschatology, 14, 16, 20–22, 54; as restored protology, 52; consistent, 88,
89; definition of, 14; futurist, 79; inaugurated (see “inaugurationalism,”
“inaugurated eschatology”); Jewish, 6, 20, 84, 136, 187, 210, 265, 266
(“holy trinity of,” 187; versus Christian “realized redemption,” 211);
Jewish restoration, 153; new-creation (see “new creation” under
“theology”); of dominion, 84; realized (see “realized eschatology”)
Eternal, life (see also “life,” “everlasting life”), 6, 53, 70, 101–4 (Jewish
apocalyptic vision of, 137, 156; perseverance in faith unto, 235–37;
 viewed as immaterial heavenly destiny, 81)
Eternity, as futuristic unending time, 3, 64–65; as realm of immateriality, 81
Ethnocentrism, 163, 184
Eusebius of Caesarea, 83, 85
Evangelical/evangelicalism, 10–11, 14, 22, 35, 146, 182, 253, 254; witness
(see “witness of the church”)
Eve, 4, 45, 50, 53, 104, 107, 124, 128, 205
Everlasting life (see also “life,” “eternal life”), 101, 102, 179
Evolution/evolutionism, 8, 21–22, 38
Excommunication (see also “disqualification from” under “salvation”), 238,
282
Exorcism(s), 269, 270; as signs, 96
Expanse (raqia), 24–25, 37–38; as “stretched out” space-time fabric, 37;
identical to shamayim (see also “heavens”), 24–25, 37–38; solid dome
advocates, 37–38

Faith, 231–41; challenging nature of, 231–33; identification and

participation required, 233–35; in God alone, 76; includes trust and
reliance, 232; perseverance in (see “perseverance in faith in Christ”)
Faithful versus false witness (see “witness of the church”)
Faithfulness, God’s (see “faithfulness” under “divine”)
Feast of Tabernacles, 200, 201, 206
Ferguson, Everett, 189
Fire, in relation to day of the Lord, 67–69
Firmamentum, 37
First coming of Christ (see “first coming” under “Christ’s”)
Firstborn of the resurrection, 97–98
Firstfruits, Jesus, of the resurrection, 97–98; of the Holy Spirit, 98, 201
Flood, biblical, 22, 37, 196, 197; myths, 37
Forgiveness, God’s (see “repentance and forgiveness of” under “sin”)
Forms and copies (in Platonic worldview), 19, 39–40
Fulfillment, of Jewish calendar (see also “typology” under “biblical”), 200–
4; of righteous suffering, 198–200; of sacrificial system, 204–7

Garden, of Eden (see “Eden, garden of”); temple, 30–31

Gehenna, 69–72, 75, 77, 101, 103, 121, 124, 135, 146, 160, 179, 229, 231,
240, 286; versus Hades (see also “Sheol/Hades”), 69–70; within new
 creation theology, 72
Genesis, historicity of, 7, 22, 123; interpretation of, 22
Gentile(s), God-fearers, 160; proselytes, 160; unity and inclusion in
kingdom, 159–62
Global deluge (see also “flood”), 21
Glory, as apocalyptic “catchword,” 111, 136, 192; God’s (see “glory” under
“divine”); language of, 109–12; of age to come, 70, 109–12, 153, 172;
of Israel, 151–59; of Jerusalem, 162–68; of kingdom, 145–82; of
millennium, 178–82; of nations, 148–51; of resurrection, 109–12; of
messianic temple (see also “messianic” under “temple”), 171–78;
restoration of original, 51–53, 95, 148; versus suffering, 18, 66, 192–93
Gnostic/Gnosticism (see also “Nicolaitans”), 40, 90, 98, 103, 115, 138–40,
239, 249, 252, 271; Christology, 138–40; proto-, 116; revelation, 250
God (see also “divine”), as creator, 93, 107, 153, 223, 231 (of Israel, 152,
153); as judge, 57, 122, 228, 231; as king, 28, 54, 231 (delegation of
authority to earthly rulers, 34–35; deserving of honor and loyalty, 54–
55; kingship language literal, not metaphorical, 28, 54; pantokratōr, 28;
ruling from a real throne, 28); dwelling within creation, 27
God-fearers (see “Gentile[s]”)
Goppelt, Leonhard, 208, 209
Gospel of the kingdom (see also “kingdom of God”), 67, 146, 148
Grammatico-historical method, 12
Great Commission (see also “apostolic witness,” “witness of the church”),
96, 248
Greek, mythology, 41, 138; philosophy, 38–41, 115, 138; verbs,
communicating aspect not time, 267
Grenz, Stanley, 181

Hades (see “Sheol/Hades”)

Healings, as signs of the resurrection, 96, 103; as confirmation of message
of the cross, 113–14, 248
Health and wealth gospel, 116
Heaven (see also “heavens”), viewed as singular and immaterial, 41–42, 87
Heavenly destiny (see also “triumphant” under “church,” and “immaterial
heavenly destiny” under “Christoplatonism/Christoplatonic”), belief,
83; disciple, 86; gospel, 116; kingdom, 85; theology of, 79–83
Heavens, and the earth, 15, 18, 23–35 (as “all things,” 24, 51, 127); as part
of “three-storied universe,” 36; concrete, 26, 41; continuous, 18, 26, 42;
dynamic, 18, 26, 42; heavens of, 25, 38; lower, middle, and upper, 26;
physical, 26–27, 42; plural, 25–26, 42; shamayim, 24–26, 37–38;
substantial, 2, 26; tangible, 26, 28
Heirs, of the kingdom (see also “inheritance of the saints in the” under
“kingdom of God”), 157, 255
Hell (see also “Gehenna”), 69–72; literal view of, 69
Hellenism/Hellenistic, 38, 39, 138; age, 39; philosophy, 39, 41, 115; view
of eternal existence of the soul, 20, 81, 115
Heresy, 41, 187
Hermeneutics, 1, 11–14, 43; and worldview (see “and hermeneutics” under
“worldview”)
High view of Scripture, 11
Hinduism, 14, 17, 18; worldview construct of, 17
Hippolytus, 181
History, apocalyptic, 48, 53, 66; biblical, 62; ultimate end of, 46; linear
view of, 7, 59, 64–67, 75, 81; of existence, 2, 62; nonuniformitarian, 22;
origin of, 9, 20–22; redemptive (see “redemptive history”); simple view
of, 64, 65, 81
Holocaust, 244
Holy Spirit, agent of creation and resurrection, 93–95; and spiritual
renewal, 94; as confirmation of the gospel, 95–99, 113–14, 137, 248,
280; as deposit, 98–99; as helper, 100; as intercessor, 101, 105, 106;
cruciform-apocalyptic testimony of, 112–14, 136–37; gift of, 98, 114,
117, 136, 160, 190, 248, 254 (as assurance of salvation, 98–99, 105;
misuse of, 116, 255); gifts of, 98–101, 236; inspiration of, 11–12, 35;
relationship to “word” of God, 93; theology of (pneumatology), 117
(inaugurational view, 117–19)
Honor, God’s (see “honor” under “divine”)
Hope, of Christ/messianic, 121–37 (cruciform-apocalyptic, 135–37;
development of covenantal, 123–35; genealogical in nature, 124, 128–
30; or “messianism,” 122); Jewish apocalyptic, 53, 84, 112, 160, 188,
207, 211; of new creation, 50–54, 101; of resurrection of the body (see
also “resurrection”), 97–101, 105
Horner, Barry, 158
Humanism, 40
Humans as image bearers (see also “image of God”), 30, 33, 54; dignity,
honor, and value, 55, 72

Image of God (see also “humans as image bearers”), 30, 72, 262; and the
murder of the saints (martyrdom), 262; created to rule, 30; perversion
of, 72
Immorality, 281
Immortality, 53, 61, 66, 103, 106, 115, 140, 188
In hoc signo vinces (“In this sign, conquer!”), 86
Inaugurated eschatology (see also “inaugurationalism”), 88, 89, 266
Inaugurationalism (see also “inaugurated eschatology”), 79, 88–91, 117–19,
142–44, 185–88, 210–13, 243–45, 263, 285; and neglect of martyrdom,
263; bound to ancient Gnostic roots, 90; conflationary soteriology, 90
(concerning messianic mission, 142–43); cross set aside, 91, 118, 285;
severity of God mitigated, 91, 285; typology of, 210–13
Infallibility of Scripture, 12
Inspiration (see also “divine,” “Holy Spirit”), of Scripture, 24, 123, 266
Intelligible world, 19, 39, 80; as eternal source of existence, 39; more real
than perceptual, 39
Intercalation (dispensational), 88, 185
Intermediate State, the (see also “destiny” under “temporal”), 73
Interpretive framework (see “worldview”)
Intuitions, of Bible readers, 12–14
Irenaeus, 139, 181
Islam/Islamic, 10, 14, 15
Israel, calling of (see “birthright” and “election” under “Jewish”); glory of
(see “of Israel” under “glory”); in dispensational thought, 88, 185
Israelocentric, 4, 151, 156, 164, 179, 184, 248

Jerusalem (see also “Mount Zion,” “Zion”), 162–66; and restoration of

Davidic throne, 165; centrality of, in prophetic oracles, 163; council,
160–61; destiny of, in age to come, 166; glory of (see “of Jerusalem”
under “glory”); New, 163, 164, 167
Jerusalocentric (see “Jerusalocentric” under “kingdom of God”)
Jesus (see also “Christ”), as firstborn from the dead, 97–98; holds unique
divine approval, 98; mediator of atonement and resurrection, 136–37
Jesus’ (see also “Christ’s”), ascension, 30, 73, 176; authority, 35, 123, 143,
176, 248; cleansing of the temple, 170, 175; commissioning of his
disciples, 67, 113, 247–48; cross, atonemental interpretation of (see
“Jesus’” under “cross”); resurrection (see “resurrection”); suffering (see
“suffering” under “Christ’s”); triumphal entry into Jerusalem, 168, 170,
203
Jewish, adoption, 170; apocalypticism, 5, 89, 135, 188, 192, 266; birthright,
152–56, 170 (affirmed in the New Testament, 156–59); election, 157–
59, 170, 211, 286; eschatology (see “Jewish” under “eschatology”);
festivals and sacred days, 200–4; nationalism, 213; context of early
Christianity, 20; stewardship of the oracles of God, 168–74 (including
land, law, and temple, 131, 170, 173); zealotry, 271–73
Jews, ethnic firstborn position, 153–54; God’s choice to administrate
redemptive history, 152–56
Judeo-Christianity, 10, 15, 20; worldview construct of, 18–19
Judgment, God’s (see “judgment” under “divine”)
Justice (see “justice” under “divine”)
Justification, 224–28; by faith as golden kernel of apostolic revelation, 113;
legal acquittal, 225–28; self-, 241–42
Justin Martyr, 181, 183

Kingdom of God (see also “kingdom” under “Christ’s”), 145–83; as

understood in early church, 157, 179, 183, 189; Christoplatonic, 84,
183–84; Christ’s, and the glory of Jerusalem (see “of Jerusalem” under
“glory”); common linguistic dualisms over its nature, 147;
Constantinian, 184–85; distorted view through much of church history,
183–85; expected by Jews to be Davidic-Israelitic, 162; glory of (see
“of kingdom” under “glory”); gospel of the (see “gospel of the
kingdom”); initiated by divine judgment, 187, 268; Jerusalocentric, 164;
Jesus’ sayings about, 266–79; kingdom of God and Jewish messianic
kingdom synonymous, 146–48; multiethnic, transnational, 148; Paul’s
sayings about, 279–84; understood as materialization of divine
sovereignty, 84–85, 89–91, 185–87
Kingdom of heaven, as differentiated from kingdom of God (see
“dispensational/dispensationalism”)
Kingship, God’s, 28, 33–35, 55; mankind’s, 31–33
Ladd, George, 51, 89, 138, 142, 188, 189, 266, 280
Land of Canaan, 152, 168, 169; typology of, 208
Law and (the) Prophets, the, 63, 168, 221, 272, 274, 286
Law(s), 18, 61, 176, 224, 242; divine, 57, 58, 160, 225, 229; Noahide (see
“Noahide laws”); of existence, 2; Sinaitic, 32, 57, 60, 130, 159, 170,
216, 227, 238, 251
Liberal/liberalism, Christian, 8, 11, 19, 85, 188, 244, 253; social gospel, 85;
theology, 22, 85, 266
Life, eternal, 53, 61, 101–4; everlasting, 101, 179; dignity, honor, and value
of human life, 72; theology of, 101, 102
Linguistics and scriptural interpretation, 12
Literal creation, 21, 22; and its apocalyptic/eschatological restoration, 21,
22
Literary genres and scriptural interpretation, 12
Lord’s Supper, the (see “Communion”)
Luther, Martin, 10, 12, 76, 83, 141, 209, 212, 243–44

Maccabean, Martyrs, 258; revolt, 272

Manifest (realized/actualized), sovereignty theology, 83–86, 168, 208, 250
Manifold vertical universe, 37
Martyrdom, 256–64; a primary theme of Revelation, 261; Christian only if
it communicates the love and mercy of God, 258–59; Christians must
embrace at a heart level, 257; equated with asceticism in
Christoplatonism, 139; meaning of Jesus’, 258; Paul as prototypical
martyr-witness, 260; Stephen’s, 258
Materiality, backdrop of monasticism (see “monastic/monasticism”);
negative view of, 39, 82, 115; versus immateriality, 2, 15, 20, 38, 41, 80,
86, 115, 139, 187, 208, 249
McClain, Alva J., 184, 187
Mediator (see “mediator” under “Christ”)
Mercy, God’s (see “mercy” under “divine,” “mediation of divine mercy and
judgment” under “messianic,” and “characterized by divine mercy and
the cross” under “present age”)
Messiah (see also “Christ,” “messianic”); as “firstborn,” 134, 153–54;
definition of, 121; distortion in Christendom and monasticism, 139–41;
Edenic imagery of, 123–28, 131; global reign of, 150
Messianic, expectation (see “of Christ/messianic” under “hope” and
“messianic hope” under “cruciform-apocalyptic”); kingdom (see
“kingdom of God”); mediation of divine mercy and judgment, 136–37;
titles, 134–35; titles, 134; woes (see also “tribulation”), 168
Metaphysical/metaphysics (see also “worldview”), 15–20; dualism, 39, 87
Methodius, 181
Methodologies of biblical interpretation, 12–13
Middle Ages, 20, 83, 85, 181, 183, 209, 243; monasticism in (see also
“monastic/monasticism”), 208, 243
Military conquest imagery in the Tanakh, 124
Millennial controversy, 179
Millennium (see also “Chiliasm/chiliastic,” and “of millennium” under
“glory”), 178–83, 209; a-, post-, and pre-millennialism, 182
Miracles (see “signs”)
Moltmann, Jürgen, 95, 115, 140
Monastic/monasticism, 40, 82, 86, 140, 208, 242; and asceticism, 82, 86,
139, 242; and escapist Christoplatonic theology, 82; in Christendom and
Middle Ages, 208, 243; rule of religious life, 162, 242
Morality, 9
Mortality, 23, 35, 66, 98, 100, 103–6, 116
Morris, Leon, 223, 229, 242
Mosaic covenant, 73, 136, 190
“Mother promise” (see also “protoevangelium”), 124
Mount Zion (see also “Jerusalem,” “Zion”), 164
Muratorian Fragment, 190
Mythology/mythological, 37; Greek/Hellenistic, 41, 138; Bible viewed as,
35, 45

Nations, the (see “Gentile(s),” and “of nations” under “glory”)

Natural versus supernatural, 15, 20, 35, 38, 42
Naturalism/naturalistic, 10, 14, 15, 18; bias, 38, 188, 219; worldview
construct of, 18
Naugle, David, 14, 16
Neoplatonism/Neoplatonic (see also “Plato/Platonic/Platonism”), 8, 26
Neusner, Jacob, 183
New, covenant, 64, 73, 136, 178, 190, 207; creation model, 52, 53, 183;
creation theology (see “new creation” under “theology”); heavens and
 new earth, 18, 50–53, 63, 72, 94, 107, 132, 163, 200, 225, 248 (restored
paradise, 52; without sin or death, 51); Jerusalem (see “New” under
“Jerusalem”)
New Perspective on Paul (NPP), 243–45
Nicolaitans (see also “Gnostic/Gnosticism”), 139
Noahide laws, the, 160–62

Origen, 40, 42, 79, 81, 85, 115, 183, 208, 209, 212, 271; typology of, 208–9
Original sin (see “sin”)
Origins, study of (see “protology”)

Parables, 266, 276–79; intended to expose the unrepentant, 276

Paradise, earthly, 2, 30, 52, 183, 208; heavenly, 30; immaterial, 208
Parallelism, Hebrew, 37
Parousia, 117, 269, 284, 286
Pentecost, 98, 113, 136, 193, 200, 254
Pentecostal and charismatic movements, 117, 255
Perceptual/sensible world (see also “Plato/Platonic/Platonism”), 19, 39
Persecution (see “cross,” “martyrdom,” and “suffering”)
Perseverance, 79, 108, 235–37
Pilate, 9, 35, 78
Plato/Platonic/Platonism (see also “Neoplatonism/Neoplatonic,”
“Christoplatonism/Christoplatonic”), 8, 19, 20, 38–41, 80, 86, 115, 138,
187, 265; anthropocentrism of, 39–40; forms and copies, 19, 39–40;
intelligible and perceptual worlds, 19, 39, 80; metaphysical dualism (see
“dualism” under “metaphysical/metaphysics”); worldview construct of,
19, 39, 80
Pluralism/pluralistic, 10, 11
Pneumatology (see also “theology of” under “Holy Spirit”), 117
Polytheism, 30
Pope(s), 85, 141, 183, 208; as “vicar of Christ,” 85
Postapocalyptic, 51
Postmillennialism, 182; generally dominionistic, 182
Premillennialism, 182; generally new-creationist and/or dispensationalist,
182
Presence, God’s (see “presence” under “divine”)
Present age, aspects of, versus age to come, 64–67, 73–79; characterized by
divine mercy and the cross, 74–79, 143, 187, 193, 198; cruciform,
epitomized by the cross, 75–77; culmination of divine witness and
martyrdom at end of, 261; end of this, 67, 150, 261; nature and
character of, 73–79; order of, 198; temporal and eternal recompense,
77–79; time and eternity, 64–66
Presuppositions, 12–14, 23, 95, 217; of Bible readers, 13–14; of biblical
writers, 12–13
Priesthood, humanity’s eternal, 31–33, 174
Pretribulational rapture, 141, 185
Primogeniture, 153–55, 158, 179
Proleptic, 169; aorist, 267, 270
Proof, of Judeo-Christian Scriptures, 10; of Gentile ignorance, 188
Propitiation, 6, 63, 189, 221–23, 230
Proportionate retribution, 72, 78
Proselytes (see “Gentile[s]”)
Protoevangelium (see also “mother promise”), 124
Protology, 14, 16, 20–22, 52; definition of, 14; eschatologically restored,
52; historicity of biblical, 20–22
Ptolemy, 38

Ransom (see “redemption”)

Rapture, pretribulation (see “pretribulation rapture”)
Reality, 9, 14–16; in Platonic cosmology, 39; ultimate, study of, 14–16
Realized eschatology, 8, 89–91, 117, 182, 186–89, 210–12, 242, 262, 265–
86 (supposedly in sayings of Jesus, 266–79; and Paul, 279–84)
Rebellion, of humanity, 55, 61, 179, 238; of Satan, 124
Reconciliation, of humanity with God, 6, 207, 218–19, 248
Redemption, day of, 48, 189, 229, 255; of humanity, 6, 148, 179, 195, 228–
31; of Israel, 5, 136, 192; “realized,” 189, 211
Redemptive history, 7, 10, 43, 50, 63, 77, 107, 121, 134, 151, 174, 196,
201, 228, 253, 276, 285; calendar of sacred time, 201; chiliastic view of,
180–81; culminating in the day of the Lord, 50, 127, 231; day of the
Lord the defining event of, 63, 198; Israelocentric unfolding of, 151–59;
holistic proclamation of, 7; Jewish (cruciform) apocalyptic approach to,
66–67, 73, 75, 77, 107, 112; penal aspect of, 58; proclaimed by spoken
word, 254; temple’s role in, 174
Reformation, 20, 83, 85, 184, 243; and Catholicism, 243
Reformers, 11, 182, 209; typology of, 209
Regula Benedicti, 242
Reincarnation, Hindu belief in, 15
Repentance (see “repentance and forgiveness of” under “sin”)
Replacement theology (see “supersessionism”)
Reprobation (see “disqualification from” under “salvation”)
Resurrection, blessing of the, 107–8; Christ’s bodily, 10, 98; Christ’s,
anticipating future, 97–98; Christoplatonic (escapist) view, 115–16;
Constantinian (dominionist) view, 116; deposit of the, 98–99; firstborn
of the (see “firstborn of the resurrection”); gifts of the, 99–101; glory of
the (see “of resurrection” under “glory”); inaugurational view, 117;
language of the, 101–12; life of the, 101–4; miracles of the, 95–97;
salvation of the, 104–7; spirit of the, 95; theology of the, 116
Return of Christ (see “return/second coming” under “Christ’s”)
Righteous anger, 223
Righteousness (see also “righteousness” under “divine”), 219–22; reckoned
and credited (imputed), 220
Roman Empire, 83, 85; emperor seen as fulfillment of prophecy, 83–84,
208
Rosh Hashanah, 205–6
Rowland, Christopher, 188

Sabbath, fulfilled chiliastically (see also “week theory” under “cosmic”),

180–81; theology of, 200
Sacrifice, believer united by faith, 233–34; nature of, 204–7, 216–22
(inherently vicarious and substitutional, 216; reckoning and crediting of
righteousness, 220); signified by blood (see also “blood” under
“Christ’s”), 206, 216
Sacrificial (see also “of Jesus Christ, meaning and purpose” under “death”);
atonement (see “atonement”); calendar, 204–7, 222; interpretation of
Christ’s death, 1, 18, 77, 112, 136, 157, 207, 211, 216, 221, 244; means
of attaining Jewish eschatological hope, 190, 219, 266; system, 204–7,
216, 220, 233, 238
Sacrificium intellectus, 38
Saint Benedict, 242
Salvation, in the resurrection, 104–7; definition of, 104; disqualification
from, 237–39; from death, 104–7; in dualistic dispensationalism, 86–88;
in escapist Christoplatonism, 80; interpreted apocalyptically in
Scripture, 104–7; quality of versus roles of, for Jews and Gentiles, 159
Satan, 4, 33, 53, 96, 124, 126, 139, 175, 238, 269, 284
School of Alexandria, 40, 42
Scriptures (see “Bible”)
Second coming (see “return/second coming” under “Christ’s”)
Septuagint, 69, 222
Sheol/Hades (see also “versus Hades” under “Gehenna”), 36, 69–70, 102
Signs, 95–101; accompanying gospel proclamation, 96; exorcisms, 96, 100;
healings, 96, 100; others, including Jesus’ transfiguration and biblical
miracles, 95–97
Simeon Stylites, 86
Sin, 3, 40, 50; as anthropocentrism, 40; begins in the heart in the form of
pride, 232; divine wrath against (see “wrath against sin” under
“divine”); gravity of, 72, 78, 234; humanity’s slavery to, 105, 217;
intentional and unintentional, 238; of first parents, 4, 50, 124; offering,
6, 220, 239; repentance and forgiveness of, 135, 255, 263
Sinai, 46, 88, 130
Social gospel, 85
Socrates, 38, 40
Sola scriptura, 10
Son of God, 133–34
Son of man, 127–28, 134
Sonship of Christ (see “sonship” under “Christ’s”)
Soteriology, 14, 16, 244; (dispensational, 86, 209; inaugurational, 90;
naturalistic, 18)
Soulen, R. Kendall, 156, 211
Sovereignty, God’s (see “sovereignty” under “divine”)
Spirit of Christ, 95, 99, 123
Spiritual body, 99
Spiritual renewal (see “and spiritual renewal” under “Holy Spirit”)
Stewardship, Jewish (see “stewardship of the oracles of God” under
“Jewish”)
Submission to rulers, 34–35
Substitutionary atonement (see “substitutionary” under “atonement”)
Suffering, of the righteous, 198–200; as Christians, 118, 199, 256–57; as
typological pattern for the suffering of Christ, 199; divinely ordained
pattern of the present age, 199; rejoicing in, 199, 260; Jesus’ (see
“suffering” under “Christ’s”)
Sunday Christianity, 238
Supersessionism, 211–12, 232

Taoism, 15
Temple, earthly, 31, 171 (AD 70 destruction of, 171, 176; Jewish
stewardship in this age, 173–74; not superseded by Christ and the
church, 175–78; nucleus of Israel’s life, 171, 174; paradisal in Eden,
32–33; patterned after heavenly, 29–30; prophecy of destruction of,
167); heavenly, 28–31 (locus of creation, 29; paradisal, 2, 30, 32; real,
28–30); messianic, 171–78 (redemptive epicenter of the age to come,
172)
Temporal, destiny (see also “intermediate state”), 73; versus eternal
recompense, 77–79
Tertullian, 40, 41, 256
Theologia crucis, 83
Theology, biblical (as cruciform apocalyptic, 76, 112, 135, 183; as
eschatologically restored protology, 52; overview of 45–54);
Christoplatonic (see “Christoplatonism/Christoplatonic”); manifest-
sovereignty (see “manifest-sovereignty theology”); new creation, 41,
52, 72; of birthright (see “birthright” under “Jewish”); of cross, the, 83,
91, 140, 243, 263; of life, 101–2; of martyrdom, 262–64; of resurrection
of the body, the, 116; of righteous suffering, 198–200; of stewardship,
168–71
Third heaven (see also “heavens”), 26, 30, 73
Three-storied universe, 36
Time, and eternity, 64–66; in heavens coinciding with time on earth, 26;
relative from God’s perspective, explaining “delay” in second coming,
269
Topheth (see “Gehenna”)
Torah, for Jews versus Noahide laws for Gentiles, 160–62
Tower of Babel, 149, 152
Transcendence, God’s (see “transcendence” under “divine”)
Tree of knowledge, 32, 181
Tree of life, 32, 53, 101, 107, 167; promise of perpetual regeneration, 101;
restored, 53
Tribulation (see also “woes” under “messianic”), final, 185; great, 262
Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva), 17
Trinity, the (exemplified), 122–23, 147–48
Triumphal entry, 168, 170, 203
Truth, 9–11; content and meaning of, 11
Typology (see “typology” under both “biblical” and
“Christoplatonism/Christoplatonic”)

Underworld (see also “Sheol/Hades”), as part of “three-storied universe,”

36
Utopian order, 8

Valley of Hinnom, 69
Value of human life, 72
Viviano, Benedict, 80, 274

Wanwu, 15
Water(s), and fire, 67–68; cosmic, 24–25; planet, the, 24
Weiss, Johannes, 266
Weltanschauung, 14
Wesley, John, 12
Whitehead, Alfred, 19
Witness of the church (see also “apostolic witness,” and “witness” under
“Christoplatonism/Christoplatonic”), 247–64; culmination of, at end of
present age, 261–62; faithful versus false, 250–53; in word and deed,
253–56; by preaching and teaching, 254; typified in martyrdom (see
also “martyrdom”), 256–57
Worldview, 11–20; and hermeneutics, 11–14; anthropocentric, 35, 39, 40; as
determining factor in one’s hermeneutics, 43; as explanation of
existence, 14–15; as “field of play,” 2, 14, 15, 23, 42, 45; as internal
view, 23; as “macro-model” of reality, 15; basic existential questions
answered by, 14–16; biblical, 18–19, 23–35 (modern misconceptions of,
35–38; characterized by stories, 16); Christoplatonic (see
“Christoplatonism/Christoplatonic”); components of, 14–20;
cosmology, 14, 20, 31, 37, 38, 42; definition of, 14; differences between
 Greek and Hebrew, 20, 41, 82; evangelicals and, 14; explanation of
history (see “worldview explanation of” under “history”); German
derivation of word (see Weltanschauung); Hellenistic, 38–41; Judeo-
Christian (see “worldview construct of” under “Judeo-Christianity”);
lack of uniform ancient, 36; metaphysical constructs of various
religions, 15–20; mythological, 45; naturalistic (see “worldview
construct of” under “naturalism/naturalistic”); of ancient Near East, 35,
36; of biblical authors, 13, 35; of Holy Spirit/God, 13–14; parameters
of, 15, 23, 39; primitive, 20, 22, 36–38, 45, 190, 219, 232; Plato’s, 19,
39, 80
World War II, 143, 266
Wright, N. T., 13, 16, 20, 89, 211

Yin and yang, 15

Yom Kippur (see also “festivals and sacred days” under “Jewish”), 205–6

Zealot(s)/zealotry, 98, 159, 271, 272, 278

Zion (see also “Jerusalem,” “Mount Zion”), 162–66
Zuesse, Evan, 205
 SCRIPTURE INDEX

HEBREW BIBLE

Genesis
1–11 5
1–2 45
1 126
1:1 2, 15, 18, 24
1:2 25
1:2–5 24
1:3–5 25
1:6 24
1:6–8 24, 25, 37
1:8 24, 37
1:9–13 25
1:12–13 25
1:14–18 26
1:20 26, 37
1:22 107
1:26 30
1:26–28 31, 108, 168
1:28 101, 147, 148
1:31 72
2:2 148
2:2–3 29
2:7 3, 93, 101
2:8 32
2:9 32, 101
2:10 32, 53
2:11–12 32
2:15 32, 168
2:17 180, 181
3 45, 126, 131
3:8 32, 46
3:14 125
3:14, 17 107
3:14–15 124
3:15 4, 124, 125, 126, 127
3:19 104, 128, 181
3:20 128
3:22 64, 101
3:24 32
4–11 128
4:10 262
4:25 128
5:24 26, 102
5:29 128
6:11 275
6:16 27
8:2 26
10 154
10:1 129
11:5 26
11:1–3 108
11:3–9 129
11:10 129
12 5, 131
12:1–3 150
12:2 129
12:3 4, 129, 160
12:7 129, 154
13:5 154
13:15 129
15–25 129
15:16 279
15:18 129, 152, 196
15:18–21 151
17:3–21 151
17:5 129
17:7 4, 129
17:8 129, 154
17:9–14 129
17:11 129
18:18 129
18:20 262
18:21 26
21:2 129
21:30 251
22:14 216
22:16–18 151
22:18 4, 129
26:3 154
26:4 129
28:12 34
28:13 130, 154
28:14 129
31:48 251
35:11 129
46:8–24 130
48:4 154
49:10 134

Exodus
2:12 13
3:6 130
3:7 262
4:22 153
6:6 228, 229
9:16 34
12:3–13 204
12:6–7 202
12:8 203
12:12 233
12:15–20 278
12:27 197
12:42 203
12:46 204
13:11–16 228
14:13 104
19:11 26
19:16 46
20:3 55
20:4 26
20:11 22, 200
21:23–24 60
23:7 223
23:14–16 201
23:16 201
23:18 205
23:21 225
23:31 129
24:4–8 204
24:8 196
24:16 109
25:7–31 32
25:9, 40 29
25:18–20 32
25:40 29
26:30 29
26:31 32
27:8 29
29:7 121
29:38 205
29:38–42 205
30:10 205
31:17 22, 200
33:1 154
33:22 109
34:6 74
34:7 77
34:9 225
34:22 201
34:25 205, 278
37:35 73
40:22 148
40:34 109

Leviticus
1–7 205
1:4 216, 220
2:11 278
3:2, 8, 13 216
4:2 216, 238
4:3–5 121
4:4, 15, 24, 29, 33 216
4:13, 22, 27 238
4:20, 26, 31, 35 216
4:26, 31, 35 216
5:1, 17 216
5:2 238
5:5 216
5:6 216, 220
5:10, 13, 16, 18 216
5:15 238
5:16 121
6:4 238
6:7 216, 220
7:18 216, 220
7:20 238
8:14, 22 216
8:34 216
9:7 216
10:17 216, 220
12:7 216
14:18–20, 29–31 216
15:15, 30 216
16 222
16:6, 11 216
16:16–18, 32–34 216
16:21 216
16:22 216, 220
16:29–34 205
16:30 220
16:34 205
17:4 238
17:11 216, 217, 219
17:16 216
17:26–27 228
18:29 238
19:8 216
19:22 216, 220
20 238
20:17, 19 216
20:20 216
22:9 216
22:16 216
23:17 201
23:24 205, 206
23:26–32 205
23:28 216
23:37 205
23:38 205
24:14–23 238
24:15 216
24:19–20 60
25 169
25:23 169
25:29–34, 47–55 228
26:12 32
26:40 216

Numbers
1:50 121
3:7–8 32
3:10 121
5:7 216
5:31 216
6:11 216
8:12 216
8:12, 19 216
8:25–26 32
9:11 203
9:12 204
9:13 216
10:10 200, 205
14:10 109
14:19 225
14:34 216
15:24 238
15:25, 28 216
15:28 216
16:23 102
16:46 216
18:1 216
18:5–6 32
18:15–17 228
18:22 216
21:6 233
24:17 134
27:16 121
28–29 205
28:3 205
28:9–10 205
28:11–15 205
28:22, 30 216
28:26 201
29:1 205, 206
29:5 216
29:6 200
29:7–11 205
29:39 205
30:15 216
32:11 154
35:30 251

Deuteronomy
1:8 154
3:24 26, 37
4:8–10 168
4:17 37
4:19 26
4:24 68, 223
4:26 251
4:27 106
4:31 74
4:39 27
5:2 196
5:7 55
6 225
6:10 154
6:13 56
6:15 223
7:8 229
10:14 25, 28, 34, 38
13:1–5 255
13:5 238
14:1 153
16:16 201
17:1–7 238
17:6 251
17:7 238
18:4 97
18:15 134
19:15 251
21:21 238
22:21–24 238
23:8 160
23:14 32
25:1 225
26:2 97
26:15 26, 27
27–28 108
28 108
28:1–14 77
28:15 270
28:15–68 77
29:20 225
30:19 251
30:20 154
31:19 251
31:26 251
31:28 251
32:6 153
32:8 33, 154
32:16 55
32:36 216

Joshua
10:24 124
11:16–23 197
15:8 69
18:16 69

Judges
3:9 104
9:23 34

Ruth
4:18–22 130

1 Samuel
2:6 12
8:1 121
10:1 121
16:14 34
28:13–15 73

2 Samuel
3:10 169
5:6–12 163
5:7 164
7 131
7:2 171
7:6–7 32
7:11–16 108
7:12 4
7:12–13 162
7:12–14 131
7:13 171
7:14 133
7:16 169
11 13
22:38–39 124
22:51 169
23:5 131

1 Kings
1:39 121
2:2 73
2:12 169
4:21–24 129
6:18–39 32
6:23–35 32
7:18–20 32
8:10 109, 173
8:23 27
8:27 25, 38, 127
8:30 26
8:43 2, 27
19:16 121
21:29 238
22:19 33, 34
22:19–23 26
22:22 34

2 Kings
2:11 26, 37, 102
9:6 121
23:10 69
41:3 200
1 Chronicles
1–2 130
11:4–9 163
11:5 164
14:11 104
16:40 205
17:1 171
17:11 4
17:12 171
23:30–31 205
23:31 200, 205
23:32 32
28:2 29, 171, 173, 178
28:5 170
29:11 28, 147
29:15 170
29:23 169

2 Chronicles
2:4 205
2:6 25, 38, 127
3:1 32
5:14 109
6:18 25, 38
6:41 172
6:42 169, 203
8:13 205
13:8 170
13:11 205
28:3 69
31:3 200, 205
33:6 69
36:15 172
36:15–16 251
Ezra
3:3 205
3:5 200, 205
10:3 196

Nehemiah
9:6 25, 38
10:33 200, 205
10:35–37 97
11:30 69

Esther
8:17 160

Job
1:6 33
1:7 33
1:10 34
2:1 33
2:2 33
2:6 34
2:13 198
6:23 228
7:21 225
9:8 24
9:16–24 198
14:2 34, 37
21:7 198
21:13 69
22:12 27
25:2 27
25:6 34
28:13 102
30:17–23 198
33:4 93
34:14–15 93
38:7 33
38:29 26

Psalms
2 187, 193
2:1 56, 222
2:2–6 169
2:4 26, 34, 37, 147
2:5 56
2:6 164
2:7 133
2:8 150, 154
2:9 282
5:12 77
7:11 57, 77, 224
7:14 9
8 127, 176
8:1–5 109
8:3 26
8:3–8 22
8:4 127
8:4–8 31
8:5 33
8:6 126, 147, 148
9 198
9:7 57
9:8 224
9:9 199
9:12 199, 262
9:13 199
9:17 69
10:12 199
10:13 234
10:18 199
11:4 2, 28
14:1–3 100
14:10 166
16:10 73, 102, 134
17:8 152
18:6 28
18:9 110
18:17 199
18:43 149
18:50 169
19:1 37, 109
21:8–9 56, 68
21:9 70, 222
22 5, 195, 198
22:4 216
22:7 195
22:8 195
22:16 195
22:18 195
22:24 199
22:24–31 195
24:1 28, 34
24:7, 10 109
25:11 225
25:19 199
26:8 110
27:13 102
27:27 149
28:2 28
28:8 169
29:1 33
29:2 54
29:3 109
29:9 27
29:10 54
30:3 102
31 198
31:7 199
32:7–14 172
33:6 3
33:6–9 93
33:13 27
34:19 199
34:21 199
35:19 199
36:7–9 31
37:2 34
37:13 34, 56
37:22 108
38:19 199
41:7 199
42:9 199
43:2 199
44:7 199
44:24 199
46:6 56, 222
46:10 54
47:1–2 150
47:2 28, 54
47:3 124
47:7 151
47:9 130
48:1–2 163
48:2 167
49:9 102
49:15 73, 102
50:2 166
50:3 68
50:4 27
50:6 57, 243
50:12 34
53:2 27
53:6 166
55:3 199
55:15 102
56:1 199
56:2 199
56:7 56
56:13 102
57:11 109
58:2 275
59:5 58
59:8 34
62:3 198
62:9 34
62:12 59
63:2 110
67:3–10 150
67:4 224
67:7 56
68:16 164
68:21 125
69 198
69:4 199
69:27 58, 225
69:29 199
72:1 125, 129
72:1–19 154
72:2 169, 224
72:4 96
72:8 129, 152, 171
72:8–9 125
72:14 199
72:17 129, 154
72:18–19 109
72:19 53, 130, 179
73:3–17 107
73:5, 14 198
73:8 199
73:12 198
74:2 203
74:16 225
75:2 57
75:7 57
75:8 223
77:14–15 229
78:5–8 225
78:58 55
78:69 64
79:6 56
80:14 27
81:3 200
82:1 34
82:3 199
82:8 57
84:11 77
86:12–13 102
86:15 74
86:17 199
89 131
89:3 131
89:3–4 131, 162
89:4 169
89:5–7 34
89:6 33
89:14 54
89:18 217
89:20–37 169
89:23 124
89:23–27 131
89:25 171
89:25–27 129
89:26 133
89:27 110, 134, 153
89:35–36 162
89:38 169
89:48 102
90 181
90:3–5 181
90:4 197
90:5 34
91:11 33, 110
91:11–12 175
92:7 34, 198
93:1 56
94:1–2 60
94:5 199
95:3 28, 54
96:1–10 150
96:6 28
96:8 54
96:10 56, 57
96:13 57, 224
97:1 56, 130
97:2 54
97:3 68
97:5 150
98:2–9 150
98:9 57, 224, 243
99:1 56
99:5 29, 171, 173, 178
102:15 56
102:15–16 109, 165
102:19 2, 27
102:22 201
103:4 102
103:6 199
103:8 74
103:15 34
103:19 28, 37, 147, 148
103:20 33
103:20–21 110
103:21 33
104:2 2, 24, 37
104:4 33
104:29–30 94
105:10 154
105:15 121
106:20 109
106:45 238
108:5 109
109:3 199
109:22 199
110 193
110:1 30, 125
110:2 164
110:2–7 193
110:5 55, 56, 125, 193, 222
110:6 57, 125
113–118 203
113:5 147
115:3 34
115:13 77
115:16 148
115:26 24
116:8–9 102
116:10 199
117:1–2 150
118 198
118:7 199
118:25–26 203
118:26 168
119:122 199
119:160 58
122:5 166
122:6 166
129:2 199
129:5 199
132:1 203
132:7 29, 169
132:7–8 178
132:11–18 197
132:13 167
132:13–17 164
135:6 34
139:8 102
140:12 199
144:5 110
145:13 28, 147
145:17 54
146:7 199
147:19–20 168
148:1 27
148:4 25, 38
148:6 64
150:1 28, 37
150:1–2 29
Proverbs
1:12 102
12:2 108

Ecclesiastes
1:4 64
9:10 102

Isaiah
1:1 251
1:2 153
1:11–20 220
1:13 200, 205
2:2 32, 172
2:3 58, 100, 179
2:4 149, 155
2:12, 17 47
3:9 171
3:11 59
3:13 58
4 167
4:2 99, 110, 134
4:2–5 165
4:4 67
5:5 34
5:7 262
5:16 243
5:23 225
6:1 28
6:1–7 26
6:3 26
9:6 154
9:6–7 163
9:7 126, 132, 146, 148, 169, 179
6:8 251
6:9–10 276
10:3 58
11:1 134
11:1–3 136
11:1–4 100
11:1–9 132
11:2 132
11:4 37, 96, 149, 282
11:4–9 52
11:6–9 51, 96
11:9 179
11:10 99, 110, 132, 134, 149, 172
11:10–12 197
11:12 201
13:6 3, 268
13:6, 9 46
13:6–11 47
13:9 55
13:13 51, 55
14:13 27, 232
16:5 132, 163, 169
24 188
24:14–16 130
24:16 98, 198
24:21 26, 33, 37
24:21–22 33, 59
24:21–23 50
24:22 96
24:23 110, 164
25:6 96
25:6–9 157
25:7–8 164
25:8 167
26:9 57
26:19 102
27:13 206
30:18 74
30:20 134
30:27–30 56
30:30 68
30:33 69
31:9 70
32:1–6 100
33:14 68
33:22 57
34:2 56
34:4 33, 51
34:5 37
34:8 60
35:1–10 51
35:2 110
35:4 60
35:8 72
35:10 166
40:2 225
40:5 109
40:7 34
40:15 34
40:21–23 27, 29
40:22 2, 34, 147
40:25 217
42:1 132, 134, 136
42:4 58
42:5 24, 37
43:10 251
43:15 152
44:6 152
44:8 251
44:24 24, 37
45:12 24, 37
45:23 54
46:10 45
46:13 166
49:7 155
50:2 228
51:3 52
51:4 58
51:5 243
51:6 51
51:9 134
51:11 166
51:13 24, 37
51:17 56, 223
52:1 167
52:1–2 166
52:7 165
52:8–10 166
52:10 149
53 5, 194, 195
53:1 134
53:3 194
53:6–7 194
53:7 194
53:7–8 194
53:8 102
53:10 215
53:11 97, 134, 194, 198
53:11–12 230
53:12 194
54 194
54, 60 70
54:1 166
54:5 150
54:5–6 167
54:5–6, 11–12 167
54:11–12 167
55:3 196
55:4 149
55:7 222
55:10 26
55:12–13 96
56:6 160
56:6–7 200
56:15–16 68
57:15 27, 28
58:13–14 200
59:17 60
59:18 56, 60
59:19 110
59:20 158, 173
60 167
60:1–2 173
60:3 149
60:3–6 173
60:7 173
60:11–13 173
60:13 171, 178
61 193
61:1 132, 136
61:2 60
62:1–2 166
62:2 110, 167
62:3 167
62:4–5 167
62:6–7 166
63:3 126
63:3–6 61
63:4 126
63:6 56
63:15 2, 27
63:16 153
64:1–2 110
64:4 53
64:8 153
65 211, 272
65:17 2, 28, 51, 93
65:17–19 164
65:17–25 125
65:18 167
65:25 125
66:1 127
66:6 59, 172
66:12 126
66:15 56
66:16 57, 70, 110
66:18 201
66:22 50, 70, 93
66:22–23 200
66:23 47
66:24 68, 70
66:25 96

Jeremiah
1:7 251
2:1 251
2:9 58
2:19 171
3:16–17 165
3:17 165
7:31–32 69
7:32 69
10:10 28, 54
10:12 24, 25, 37
12:1 198
15:21 228
17:13 286
18:8 238
19:2, 6 69
19:6 69
22:16 96
23:3 201
23:4–6 167
23:5 132, 169
23:19 125
23:19–20 56
25:15 56, 223
25:31 58
27:5 34
27:6 34
29:23 251
31:7 155
31:9 153
31:31 196
31:35 225
32:7–12 228
33:15 132
33:15–17 163
33:21 131
33:25 225
40:3 270
42:5 251
44:8 55
49:12 223
50:5 160
51:15 24, 37
51:56 59

Lamentations
1:12 55
2:1 29, 171, 173, 178
2:22 55

Ezekiel
1:26 28
2:3 251
2:25–28 26
5:13 55
7:1 251
8:16 32
21:17 55
22:26 222, 275
26:20 102
28:13 30, 32
28:13–16 32
28:14 32
28:18 31
30:3 46, 268
34:23 134, 167
34:23–24 163
36:35 52
37 211
37:1–14 173
37:12 102
37:15–23 173
37:21 201
37:24 167
37:24–25 163, 173
37:25–28 173
37:27 167, 172
39:23 168
40–47 173
40:1 205
40:6 32
43:2–7 109
43:5 173
43:7 173, 178
45:17 200, 205
46:1 200
46:4 205
47:1–12 32, 167
47:7–12 53
47:9 53

Daniel
2 150
2:21 34
2:35 179
2:38 25
2:44 146
4:3, 34 147
4:12 278
4:17 274
4:32 148
4:34 28
4:35 33, 34
7 150, 187, 272
7:1–8 150
7:9–10 26
7:9–14 150
7:9–25 252
7:10 33
7:13 110, 150
7:14 110, 150
7:14, 27 146
7:18 28
7:20 252
7:21 261
7:25 168, 261, 262
7:26 150
7:27 150, 262
7:31–33 150
7:34 150
7:35 150
7:37 150
7:44 150
8:19 127
8:23 279
9 195
9:9 74
9:13 270
9:24 167, 173, 195, 196
9:25 169, 196
9:25–27 196
9:26 196
9:27 196
10:20 33
11:31 196
11:33 106
12:2 71, 101, 102
12:3 96
12:7 171, 262
12:11 196, 205

Hosea
1:10 153
2:11 200
4:1 58
5:14–15 107
8:13 77
11:1 153
11:9 217
13:14 102

Joel
1:15 46, 268
2 193
2:1, 11, 31 46
2:18 169
2:30 37
3 211
3:2 169, 171
3:14 46
3:16 172
3:17 72

Amos
5:18 46
5:21–27 220
8:5 200
9:2 102
9:6 30
9:11 165
9:11–12 160, 163
9:13–15 51

Obadiah
15 46, 59, 268

Jonah
2:7 28
3:10 238
Micah
1:2 2, 28, 251
1:2–3 29
4:2 58
4:2–3 164
4:6 201
4:7 146, 165
4:8 163, 165
4:13 150
5:4 167
5:15 56
6:2 58
6:6–8 220
6:11 225
7:13, 17 125
7:18 225

Nahum
1:2 55, 223
1:6 67

Habakkuk
2–3 187
2:3 127
2:13 68
2:14 53, 110, 179
2:20 28
3:12 56
3:13 125

Zephaniah
1:7 268
1:7, 14 46
1:12 235
1:15 50
1:15, 18 55
1:18 47, 68
2–3 187
2:1–2 270
2:2 55
2:11 34
3:15 152
3:18–20 201

Haggai
2:7–9 109, 173
2:9 126
2:21 174
2:22 174
2:23 174

Zechariah
1:10 33
1:17 169
2:11 150, 160
4:14 150
5:5 279
5:8 252
6:5 150
6:7 33
6:12 134, 173
6:13 173
8:22 165
9 193
9:9 130
9:9–10 130
9:10 126, 152, 171
9:11 196
11–13 195
11 195
12–14 187
12 195
12:1 24, 25, 37
12:10 5, 195
13 195
13:7 195
14 195, 272
14:1 3, 46, 47
14:2 168, 171
14:5–9 47
14:8 167
14:8–9 165
14:9 150
14:16 201

Malachi
1:6 54, 153
1:11 149
1:14 54
2:8 174
2:10 153
2:11 174
2:14 251
2:17 174, 234
3–4 187
3:1–2 109, 174
3:3–4 174
3:5 174, 251
3:7–12 174
3:14 174
3:15 5, 18, 198
3:18 100
3:18—4:1 174
4:1 68, 70, 126
4:2 126
4:3 126
4:4–6 168
4:5 3, 26, 46, 48, 174, 268

APOCRYPHA

2 Esdras
6:57–59 153

2 Maccabees
7 258
7:5 258
7:14 258

Sirach
36:17 153

NEW TESTAMENT

Matthew
1:1 4, 128, 130, 135, 162
1:9 253
1:16 4, 135
1:21 216
2:2 4, 130, 151
2:2, 19 253
2:9, 13 253
2:13 253
3:2 267
3:7 57, 126, 223, 268
3:8 162, 170
3:9 156, 253
3:10 253, 268
3:12 268
3:16 110
3:17 133, 223
4:17 267
4:18 251
4:23 96, 146, 148
4:25 181
5:5 108
5:7 276
5:10 198
5:10–12 5
5:12 118, 198, 257
5:18 58
5:20 277
5:22, 29, 30 69
5:35 167
5:41 118
5:44 258
6:1–18 278
6:2 156, 170
6:2, 5, 16 277
6:9 253
6:9–10 286
6:19 53, 66
6:26 72
6:31–33 156
7:2 251
7:5, 15 277
7:14 103, 253
7:15 100
7:19 68
7:22 49, 68, 255, 277
7:24–27 277
7:27 277
8:1 191
8:11–12 157
8:12 70
8:17 193
8:23–27 96
8:29 50, 96
8:31 34
9:6 127
9:11 278
9:13 75
9:27 128, 134
9:35 148
10:5–42 276
10:6 156
10:7 146
10:7–8 96
10:7–15 268
10:8 69
10:14–15 251
10:15 59, 146
10:16 257
10:16–39 274
10:22 67, 107, 146
10:23 146
10:25 258
10:25–38 257
10:28 71, 146
10:32–33 123
10:33 119, 199
10:39 104, 146
11:2 191, 274
11:2–6 274
11:3 121, 134
11:5 188
11:7 253
11:7–11 274
11:7, 18 253
11:7–19 273
11:11 274, 275
11:11–12 274
11:12 267, 273, 274, 275
11:13–15 274, 275
11:16 275
11:16–19 274, 275
11:18–19 275
11:19 254, 278
11:20 251
11:20–24 273, 275
11:22 254
11:22, 24 59, 275
11:24 96
12:3–5 176
12:4 176
12:6 176
12:7 176
12:8 127
12:11, 17 253
12:12 72
12:15 191
12:17 253
12:18 134
12:22 269
12:23 128, 269, 270
12:25–37 269, 270
12:28 265, 266, 269, 270, 271
12:31–32 270
12:32 3, 64, 127, 270, 271, 278
12:32–36 64
12:33 126
12:34 126
12:36 59, 232, 270, 271
12:36–37 251, 270
12:37 271
12:39 198
12:39–45 275
12:40 198
12:41 198
12:41–42 59, 251
13 278
13:3–9 277
13:7 253
13:10 253
13:11 276
13:13 276, 277, 278
13:22 277
13:24, 30 277
13:25, 38 279
13:30 100
13:30, 40 279
13:31–33 278
13:32 278
13:38 126, 270, 277
13:39 97
13:40 68, 277, 278
13:40–42 67
13:41 127
13:42, 50 70
13:43 96, 111
13:44–46 278
13:47–50 277
13:49 277
13:50 277
14:12 253
14:12, 16 253
14:33 96
15:2 253
15:18–19 232
15:24 156
15:26 157
15:27 157
15:28 157
15:31 130
16:4 198, 275
16:6, 11–12 253, 278
16:13–17 134
16:16 134
16:21 191
16:22 191, 215
16:23–27 123
16:24 256
16:25 256
16:27 61, 111, 127
17:5 110, 134, 223
17:6 253
17:11 26
17:12 96
17:17 275
17:22 191
18:1–9 276
18:4 275
18:8 71
18:9 69
18:16 251
18:17 238
18:20 253
18:22 239
18:23–35 277
18:25 61
18:34 223
19:2 191, 253
19:4 22
19:10 253
19:16 102, 156
19:21 66
19:28 2, 18, 22, 31, 51, 84, 95, 99, 108, 111, 127, 148, 156,
200
19:29 154, 156
19:30 275, 277
20:1–16 277
20:4 253
20:8 61
20:16 275, 277
20:18 191
20:21 156
20:26 156
20:28 275, 374
20:29 191
21:5 193
21:9 134
21:13 175
21:15 176, 191
21:21 163
21:23 176
21:25 273
21:31 278
21:33 152, 170
21:33–34 170
21:35 257
22:1–14 157, 277
22:7 222, 223
22:13 70
22:31 53
22:42 162
23:5 278
23:5–7 170
23:5–28 278
23:10 134
23:11 275
23:12 53, 277
23:13 251
23:15 160
23:15, 33 69
23:16–22 176
23:21 178
23:23, 25 155
23:25 156
23:25–28 239
23:31 198
23:31, 37 257
23:32 279
23:33 251, 270
23:35 262
23:35–36 251
23:36 270, 275
23:37 167
23:38 168
23:39 168, 203
23:40 170
23:41 170
24:2 176
24:3 67, 107
24:9 252, 253, 261
24:9–14 252, 253
24:11 253
24:13 67
24:14 67, 148, 253
24:15 196
24:20–21 272
24:21 272, 273
24:24 255, 272
24:26 272
24:27 272
24:28 272
24:30 111, 127
24:31 197, 201, 206
24:37 197, 272
24:42 203
24:45 116
25:13 203
25:30 70
25:31 99, 111, 127, 148
25:31–34 151
25:31–46 258
25:34 107, 154
25:41 71, 107, 256
25:46 59, 61, 71, 102
26:2 203
26:28 64, 136, 196, 206, 217, 261
26:29 49, 148, 203
26:30 203
26:31 195
26:39 223
26:53 258
26:56 195
26:63 134
26:63–64 134
27:11 130, 151
27:35 195
27:42 130, 151
27:43 195
27:46 191, 195
27:53 73
28:18 35, 123, 143
28:18–20 248
28:19 6
28:20 67, 101

Mark
1:1 134
1:15 265, 266, 267
1:24 134
3:2–9 251
3:16 156
4:11 267, 276
4:11–12 276
4:29 97
7:27 157
8:31 257
8:34 256
9:12 194
9:12, 31 257
9:43 103
9:43, 45, 47 69
9:43–48 70
10:17 102
10:24 235
10:30 64
10:33 257
10:37 111, 156
10:38 257
10:39 257
10:43 156
10:45 230
11:9 203
11:9–10 191
11:10 162, 286
11:17 175
13:3 176
13:9 252
14:26 203
14:61 194
15:5 194
15:26 130, 151
15:32 130, 151
16:15–16 248
16:15–18 95
16:20 95

Luke
1:8 175
1:22 175
1:31–32 130
1:32 169
1:32–33 133, 162
1:33 197
1:54–55 130
2:11 122, 134
2:13 33
2:22 175
2:25 175
2:34 175
2:37 175
2:38 175, 286
2:49 175
3:7 68, 126
3:9 68
3:17 68
3:22 132
3:34 130
4:3–12 175
4:6 127
4:18–19 193
4:41 134
5:24 96
5:25 103
6:28 258
6:35 28, 75, 156
6:36 75
7:19 121, 134
8:10 276
8:31 96
9:1–2 96
9:5 251
9:22 194
9:23 86, 116, 256, 257
9:23–24 104
9:24 66
9:26 111, 200
9:48 275
9:54 258
10:9 96
10:12 49, 268
10:14 59
10:18–19 126
10:25 102
11:20 188, 269
11:31–32 59
11:49 257
12:5 69
12:16–21 278
12:33 118
12:42 168
12:46 256
12:50 257
13:1–5 78
13:6–9 278
13:30 275
13:33 50
13:34 198
14:14 108
14:15–24 157
14:21 223
14:24 257
14:25–35 257
14:26 118, 199
14:27 116, 256
14:28 257
14:28–33 278
14:31 257
14:33 257, 264
15:2 278
15:3–7 278
15:3–10 278
15:8–10 278
15:11–32 278
16:1–13 278
16:1–8 168
16:7 58
16:8 66, 278
16:11 66
16:14 156, 278
16:15 239
16:16 188, 274
17:20 272
17:20–37 271, 278
17:21 265, 266, 271, 272, 273
17:21b 188, 273
17:22–37 273
17:24 272
17:24–25 194
17:24–26 127
17:30 48
18:1 278
18:1–8 278
18:13 105, 222, 223
18:18, 30 102
18:30 64
19:9 128
19:10 75, 260
19:11 191
19:22 251
19:38 130
19:40 167, 191
19:46 175
20:1 176
20:19 176
20:34 64
20:35 104
20:36 99
21:24 168
21:25–28 168
21:27 230
21:28 228, 230
21:28–31 268
21:34 49, 66, 79, 235
21:34–35 270
21:37 176
22:15–16 233
22:15–20 203
22:16 52, 201, 202
22:16–18 156
22:19 203
22:20 136, 196
22:22 215
22:24–26 156
22:25 256
22:27 155,274
22:28–30 156
22:30 84, 108, 197, 203
22:31 34, 106
22:37 194
22:53 176
23:34 258
23:35 123
23:37 130, 151
24:13–27 5, 192
24:14 192
24:17 192
24:20 251
24:21 4, 5, 136, 191, 192
24:25 136
24:25–26 192
24:25–27 207
24:26 5, 63, 111, 136, 189, 190, 285
24:27 63, 192, 193
24:30 202
24:44 135, 193
24:44–48 207
24:45 135, 193
24:45–49 248
24:46–47 135
24:46–49 254
24:47 187, 263
24:48 6
24:48–49 113
24:51 32
24:53 176

John
1:3 24
1:7 251
1:29 194, 207
1:36 194, 207
1:46 273
1:49 110, 130, 151
1:49–51 134
1:51 34, 110, 127
2:11 96
2:17 176
2:18 176
2:21 176
3:7 126
3:11, 32 251
3:13 37
3:14–15 233
3:14–18 134
3:15–16 102
3:16 3, 77, 253, 259
3:17 107
3:36 57, 223
4:14, 36 102
4:22 151
4:25 4
5:17 123
5:22 35
5:22–27 134
5:24, 39 102
5:25–29 95
5:26 103
5:26–27 123
5:27 127
5:29 61, 71
5:36 251
5:39 9
5:45 251
6:14 96, 134
6:27, 40, 47, 54 102
6:35 103
6:39–40, 44, 54 48
6:69 134
6:70 156
7:27–29 273
7:31 135
7:40 134
8:3 135
8:14 251
8:17 251
8:19 122
8:34 217
8:44 126
10:11 134, 259
10:28 102
11:4 109
11:24 48, 96, 103
11:25 103
11:27 134
11:44 96, 103
11:45 96, 135
12:13 130, 151, 167
12:15 193
12:25 104, 118, 199
12:25–26 257
12:25, 50 66, 102
12:26 119, 264
12:38 134, 194
12:44–50 123
12:47 143
12:48 48, 251
13:13 134
14:7–11 123
14:16, 26 100
14:18 101
15:6 68
15:13 118, 259
15:26 100
16:7 100
16:13 14, 99
16:32 195
16:33 199
17:2–3 102
17:12 100
17:18 259
18:36 66
18:37 9, 251, 252
18:39 9
19:3 130, 151
19:11 34, 35, 148, 261
19:14 203
19:33 203
19:34 195
19:36 204
19:36–37 195
20:21 259
20:25 195
20:31 134
Acts
1:2 26
1:3 5, 157, 202, 207, 215, 247
1:3–9 112
1:3–11 211
1:4 254
1:6 4, 7, 157, 162, 197, 247, 286
1:7 127, 157, 203, 247
1:8 6, 113, 247, 253, 254, 264
1:11 26, 176
2 98, 113, 114
2:4 100, 255
2:11 160
2:16–21 193
2:19–21 97
2:20 3, 46, 48, 95, 174, 193, 255
2:21 193
2:22 191
2:23 112, 215, 248, 261
2:24, 32 98
2:27 134
2:30 136
2:31 69
2:32 250
2:33 136, 143
2:33–34 193
2:34–35 66, 193
2:35 30, 249
2:36 4, 134
2:38 207, 217, 249, 255, 263, 268
2:40 66
2:41 137
2:42 114
2:42, 46 203
2:45 118
2:46 176
3:1 176
3:7 96, 103
3:11 41
3:14 98, 134, 198
3:15 103, 250
3:15, 26 98
3:16 248
3:18 112, 194, 215
3:18–21 63
3:18–26 213
3:19 249, 268
3:19–21 143, 187
3:19–26 6
3:20 130, 203
3:21 6, 18, 22, 24, 31, 54, 130, 184
3:25 130
4:2 96
4:4 137
4:10 98
4:12 107
4:13 11, 255
4:20 254
4:28 112, 215
4:29 255
4:29–30 100
4:30 248
4:31 100
5:14 137
5:18 240
5:20 177
5:30 98
5:31 6, 193, 207, 249, 254, 268
5:32 250
5:36–37 272
5:42 4, 137, 177
6:5 139, 160
6:7 137, 240
6:13 177
7:2 109
7:17–18 162
7:44 29
7:48 127
7:51 171
7:51–52 5
7:52 98, 134, 198, 257
7:53 33, 110
7:55 109
7:56 110
7:60 258
8:1 240
8:5 4
8:12 157
8:20 255
8:32–35 194
9:1 13
9:22 4, 137
9:27 255
10:22 160
10:34 6
10:36 155, 248
10:36–40 247
10:37 191
10:39 250
10:40 98
10:42 3, 18, 121, 122, 128, 134, 136, 184, 187, 235, 249,
252, 254
10:42–43 6, 113
10:43 54, 63, 207, 217
10:44 113
10:45 99, 160
11:2 239, 252
11:2–3 160
11:17 99
11:18 160, 249
11:19 137
13:5 158
13:26 160
13:30, 33–25 98
13:33 193
13:38 6, 207, 217
13:38–39 136
13:39 64
13:43 137, 160
13:46 158, 255
13:46, 48 102
14:1 137, 158
14:3 255
14:22 157, 199
15 160, 240
15:1 160, 240
15:5 239, 240
15:8 99
15:8–9 160
15:9 207
15:15–17 160
15:19–21 160
17:1 158
17:2–4 137
17:3 63, 215
17:3, 31 98
17:4 137, 160
17:21 249
17:23 16, 250
17:24 250
17:24–31 10
17:25–28 250
17:26 34, 154
17:29 250
17:30 249, 250
17:31 3, 22, 59, 98, 121, 184, 223, 224, 249, 250, 280
18:4, 19 158
18:5 137
18:8 137
18:26 255
19:8 158, 255
19:10 137
19:13–14 255
19:26 284
20:7, 11 203
20:9–12 103
20:21 249
20:25 157
20:28 230
20:29 100
21:20 137, 170, 240, 243
21:21 161
21:24 162
21:25 162
21:26 177
21:28 177
21:38 272
22:14 98, 134
22:17 177
22:20 258
22:21 177
23:6 53, 98, 237
24:5, 14 211
24:6 177
24:11, 17–18 177
24:15 61, 63, 71, 157
24:21 98
24:24 137
24:25 59, 249
25:8 177
25:19 98
26 284
26:5 237
26:6–7 170
26:7 157, 190, 219
26:8, 23 98
26:15–18 284
26:16–18 254, 284
26:18 6, 207, 217
26:20 170, 249
26:26 255
28:17 158
28:20 130, 286
28:22 211
28:24 137
28:31 157, 255

Romans
1:1 254
1:4 134, 223
1:8, 29 282
1:9 254
1:16 158, 219, 248
1:17 220, 243
1:18 57, 223
1:30 241
2:2–3 59
2:4 75, 198
2:4–5 78, 143
2:5 56, 74, 75, 126, 158, 222, 223, 225, 280
2:5–8 61
2:5–11 258
2:5–16 221
2:6 232, 282
2:7 86, 102
2:8 57
2:9 248
2:9–10 158
2:10 4
2:13 6, 220
2:16 11, 49, 59, 227, 232
2:17–23 227
2:17–29 239
3 227
3:2 152, 168
3:5 57, 223, 248
3:5, 6, 19 221
3:6 126
3:8 239
3:9 105, 235
13:12 283
3:13 282
3:19 227
3:19–21 51
3:20 227, 228
3:20, 28 6, 227
3:21 63, 220, 227, 243
3:21–22 221
3:21–25 221
3:21–26 7, 227
3:22 227
3:23 109, 111, 217, 227, 241
3:24 227, 235
3:24–25 230
3:25 6, 63, 189, 190, 206, 218, 221, 222, 223, 232
3:27 240
3:30 162
4 227
4:1–8 232
4:1 227
4:2 162
4:2–4 227
4:3 227
4:4 220
4:5 217, 220, 226, 227, 232, 282
4:6 232
4:7 232
4:8 232
4:9–12 162
4:13 130
4:17 126, 129
5 18, 248
5:1 223, 226, 232
5:1–2 233
5:1, 9 220
5:1–9 213
5:2 49
5:5 282
5:6 217
5:6–21 233
5:8 253, 259
5:8–9 3, 77
5:8–10 219, 258
5:9 57, 63, 91, 107, 126, 189, 206, 222, 223, 226
5:10 218
5:11 218
5:12 7, 217, 241
5:12–18 104
5:12–19 22
5:13 58
5:14 174, 196, 226
5:16 226, 251
5:16–19 217
5:17 66, 103, 220, 237
5:18 217, 226
5:18–21 77
5:19 217
5:21 86, 102, 226
6:2–3, 14 282
6:3, 5 234
6:5 6, 86, 106, 118, 126, 280
6:8 103, 234
6:9, 10 282
6:16, 20 105
6:17 114
6:20 217
6:22–23 102
6:23 1, 61
7:7–12 227
7:7–25 239
7:14 105
7:23 105
7:23–25 106
7:24 66
7:29 282
8:1–4 239
8:1–24 219
8:3 6, 220
8:5 66
8:9 99, 123
8:11 3, 94, 112, 226
8:13 33
8:15 97
8:17 6, 91, 119, 154
8:17–18 192
8:18 66, 112, 226, 230
8:18–23 126
8:20 23, 101, 105, 107
8:20–21 197
8:20–24 105
8:21 22, 112
8:23 3, 7, 98, 201, 226, 228, 230
8:24 103
8:24–26 100
8:25–27 101, 105
8:26 105
8:28 79, 106
8:28–29 106
8:29 97, 106, 226
8:31–34 226
8:34 193
8:38 33
9–11 7, 158
9:2 260
9:3 260
9:3–4 158
9:4 170, 177, 178
9:4–5 248
9:11 227
9:30 190
9:30–32 162, 219, 232
9:30–33 64
9:30—10:4 157
10:1 260
10:3 64, 220, 243
10:9 126
10:10 232
10:10–13 254
10:12 155
10:12–13 159
10:13 193
10:14 254
10:16 194
11:1 158
11:1, 11 4
11:1–2 158
11:6 162
11:11 158
11:11–29 248
11:12 159
11:15 103
11:17–25 286
11:17–32 213
11:20 162
11:22 253
11:25 158, 171
11:25–27 126
11:26 158
11:28 158
11:28–29 158
11:29 4
11:30–32 75
11:32 105, 217
11:36 35, 93
12:1 75, 261
12:2 2, 66, 75
12:19 57, 61, 223
13:1 34, 148
13:4 223
13:8 281
13:8–10 162
13:8–14 281
13:10 281
13:11 281
13:11–12 268
13:12 8, 66, 126, 281, 282
13:12–14 281
14 281, 281, 282
14:2–4, 14–16 281
14:3, 4, 10, 13 281
14:5–9 281
14:6 33
14:10 59, 122, 168, 228, 281
14:10–12 126
14:12 281
14:17 280, 281, 282
14:19 281
15:5–9 162
15:12 134
15:9–12 130
15:21 194
15:24, 50 282
16:17 239, 241
16:18 126
16:19 126
16:20 126
15:24, 50 281
16:25 11
16:25–26 45

1 Corinthians
1:4–8 114, 236
1:6 190
1:6–7 99
1:7 49, 284
1:7–8 67
1:8 7, 49, 100, 122, 221, 236, 236
1:12 255
1:17 256
1:17–18 77
1:20 64
1:29 162
2:2 240
2:6, 8 24
2:7 46
2:8 109
2:9 53
3:1 66
3:2 116
3:4 255
3:8 61
3:13 49, 69, 256, 280, 282
3:16 178
3:17 177
3:18 64
3:19 66
4–6 283
4:1–2 168
4:4 226
4:5 50, 232, 282, 283
4:8 256
4:9–13 118
4:20 280, 282, 283
4:21 282, 284
5:2 238
5:5 3, 46, 48, 204, 238, 282, 283
5:6–8 197, 278
5:7 5, 202, 204, 207, 216
5:8 204
5:9–11 204
5:10 66
5:12–13 282
5:13 238, 282
6:1–6 255
6:1–8 282
6:2 66, 282
6:2–3 283
6:3 66, 282
6:9, 10 154, 238, 239, 280
6:9–10 282, 283
6:14 112
6:19 177, 178
6:20 230
7:23 230
7:29–31 119
7:31 66
9:13 177
9:16 254
9:22 254
9:22–25 112
9:24 64, 103, 236
9:24–27 237, 254
9:25 66
10:6 196
10:13 34
10:16 6, 203, 206, 233
11:8 273
11:17–34 282
11:20–25 203
11:24 203
11:25 136, 207
11:26 7, 193, 203, 283
11:27 206, 233
11:29 233, 238, 283
11:30 283
11:32 283
12:4–11 114
12:8 100
12:9–10 100
12:10 100
13:2 255
13:3 259
13:5–7 238
13:8 100
13:10 100
13:11 100
13:12 110
14:12 99
15 18, 248
15:1–3 77, 217
15:3 1, 112, 283
15:3–7 114
15:3–8 112, 215
15:5 156
15:8 112
15:12 86, 103, 252
15:12–55 112
15:14 10
15:17 97
15:19 66
15:19–26 41
15:20, 23 97
15:20–23 97
15:20–55 146
15:21 7, 126, 217, 241
15:21–22 22
15:21, 42 53
15:22 126, 196, 217
15:23 49, 280
15:24, 50 126, 280
14:24–25 197
15:24–28 179
15:25 126, 193
15:27 126, 176
15:28 24
15:30–31 261
15:33 139
15:41 96, 99
15:42 66, 280
15:43 112
15:44 99
15:45 174
15:47 127
15:50 146, 190, 283
15:51 73
15:52 53, 206
15:53 66
15:54 53, 103
15:55–57 104
16:22 144

2 Corinthians
1:5 118, 199, 260
1:14 49
1:19 134
1:22 98, 99, 177
2:7 106
2:15 199
2:16 199
2:17 240, 255
3:6 3
3:12 100
3:13–16 197
3:17–18 110
3:19 110
4:2 241
4:4 66
4:4–7 110
4:6 109
4:10 260
4:10–11 118
4:11 199
4:17 66, 91, 112, 263
4:18 66
5:1–5 99
5:1–10 22
5:4 66, 103
5:5 3, 7, 98, 177, 190
5:8 73
5:10 59, 122, 168, 218, 220, 228, 232
5:10–14 77
5:12 240
5:14, 19 218
5:14–20 261
5:19 6
5:21 220
6:16 177, 178
11:4 236
11:13 240
11:14 100
11:15 241
11:18 240
11:20 240, 241
12:2 26, 32
12:2–3 26
12:2–4 30
12:4 26
13:1 251
13:5 239

Galatians
1:4 1, 66, 187, 283
1:5 65
1:6 236
1:7 241
1:8 100, 241, 252, 255
1:11 219
1:12 112, 215
1:16–17 112
2:1–12 240
2:4 240, 241
2:12 239, 252
2:13 240, 241
2:16 227, 232, 235
2:17 217
2:20 6, 134, 234
2:21 235, 241, 256
3:1–5 113, 114
3:2 190
3:2, 5, 10 227
3:3–4 114
3:8, 22–26 232
3:10–11 227
3:13 122
3:16 128
3:18 283
3:19 33, 58, 130
3:21 86
3:21–29 157
3:22 105, 217, 235, 241
3:28 159
4:5 97
4:10 200
4:19 236
5:4 240
5:7 236
5:9 278
5:10 241
5:11 240
5:13 240
5:14 162
5:21 154, 238, 239, 280, 283
6:8 66, 86, 102
6:12 239, 240
6:14 240

Ephesians
1:3–14 219
1:7 6, 63, 222, 229
1:7–10 77
1:9–10 127
1:10 24, 51
1:11 215
1:11, 14, 18 283
1:13 107
1:13–14 154, 219
1:14 3, 98, 99, 177, 190
1:18 2, 49, 111
1:20 193
1:20–21 33
1:20–22 127
1:21 3, 64, 143, 187
1:22 35
2:2 66, 127, 217
2:3 57, 217
2:4 253
2:4–7 143, 258
2:5 105, 217
2:7 64
2:8 220, 237
2:8–11 240
2:9 162
2:11 239, 252
2:12 136, 144, 159
2:13 206, 222, 223
2:14 159
2:19 159
2:21 177
3:3–5 46
3:6 159
3:9 24
3:10 33
3:21 65
4:1 255
4:1–6 162
4:3–5 123
4:8 73, 218
4:9 73
4:13 134
4:14 62
4:18 103
4:30 48, 189, 228, 229, 255
5:1 86
5:2 5, 18, 207, 216
5:5 122, 148, 238, 239, 280, 283
5:6 57, 223, 270
5:8 283
5:26 207
6:11–12 33
6:12 33

Philippians
1:6 8, 49, 236, 238
1:10 4, 49, 122, 221, 280
1:15 252
1:15–17 255
1:17 240
1:23 733
1:27 255
1:29 199, 260
2:1–13 162
2:9 255
2:12 162, 238
2:12–16 62
2:15 283
2:16 4, 49, 103, 122
2:17 261
3:2 239, 240
3:3 76, 113
3:6 237
3:7–11 219
3:8–9 220
3:8–11 64, 77, 157
3:9 64, 234, 243
3:9–10 6
3:9–11 91
3:10 118, 260
3:10–11 234
3:11 86, 98, 190
3:11–14 112
3:14 64, 98, 103
3:18 240
3:19 6, 240, 241
3:20 122, 134, 268, 284
3:20–21 97
3:21 66, 112, 268
4:3 268
4:5–6 268
4:20 65

Colossians
1:3 283
1:5 49
1:5, 22, 27 284
1:9–14 284
1:10 255
1:12 154, 283
1:12–14 284
1:13 280, 284
1:14 63, 283
1:15 134, 153
1:16 24, 33, 51
1:16–17 33
1:18 97, 98, 154
1:20 6, 222, 223
1:20–22 258
1:20–23 7
1:21 217
1:21–22 219
1:22 221
1:22–23 236
1:23 219
1:24 118, 199
1:24–26 260
2:8 6
2:11–19 239
2:15 33
2:16 200, 201
2:16–23 256
2:17 201
2:18 240, 255
2:19 240
3:1 193
3:2–4 284
3:3–4 234
3:4 112, 280
3:4, 6, 24 284
3:6 57, 223
3:11 159
3:13 239
3:24 283
4:11 243

1 Thessalonians
1:10 57, 143, 197, 223, 271, 284
2:5 140
2:9 255
2:12 111, 255, 280
2:14 240
2:16 223, 271, 279
2:19 271
3:3 199
3:13 49, 221, 271, 280
4:15–17 271
4:16 73, 206
4:16–17 142
4:17 197
5:1 127, 157
5:1–9 271
5:2 3, 46, 48, 280
5:2–4 49
5:2–8 66
5:3 271
5:5 283
5:9 57, 107
5:18 79
5:23 221

2 Thessalonians
1:5 59, 199, 225, 280
1:5–10 77, 91
1:6–8 61
1:6–10 258
1:7 49
1:7–9 59
1:8 23, 69
1:9 61, 71, 235
1:10 49, 112
2:1 49, 201, 280
2:2 46, 48, 90, 103, 116, 252, 265
2:3 49, 252
2:4 177, 196
2:7 252
2:11 34

1 Timothy
1:3–7 239
1:4 241
1:7 240
1:8–11 225
1:9 58
1:11 219
1:15 217, 236
1:15–16 254
1:16 75, 102, 230, 237
1:17 65
2:5–6 219, 230
2:6 189
2:7 254
2:13–14 22
3:6 232
4:1 128
4:8 103
5:6 217
5:19 251
6:5 6
6:6 79
6:12 102, 103
6:14 49
6:14–15 50
6:15 150, 203
6:15–16 35
6:17 66
6:20 98, 116, 249, 252, 265, 286
6:20–21 138

2 Timothy
1:1 103
1:8–12 219
1:9 227
1:10 103
1:11 254
1:12 49
1:13 114
1:14 98
2:2 114
2:8 11
2:10 107, 111, 260
2:11 103
2:14 139
2:16 249, 286
2:16–19 252
2:17 286
2:18 90, 103, 116, 138, 252, 265, 286
2:19 286
3:2 241
3:5 239
3:8 237
3:12 199
3:16 35
4:1 18, 41, 136, 146, 187, 190, 235, 280
4:1, 18 280
4:1–8 146
4:4 236
4:5 199
4:6 261
4:7 236
4:8 49, 122, 134, 144, 224, 280
4:10 66
4:18 65, 148

Titus
1:2 102
1:10 239, 240, 252
1:11 240
1:15 239
1:16 237, 239
2:12 66, 187
2:13 49, 108, 112, 144, 280
2:13–14 230
2:14 122, 207
3:1 34
3:3 237
3:4–7 3, 75, 219
3:5 227
3:5–7 77
3:7 1, 63, 102, 189, 222, 226, 283

Hebrews
1:2 24, 127, 154
1:3 50, 193
1:5 193
1:6 134
1:14 33, 107, 110
2 114
2:5 66, 187
2:6–8 176
2:8 35
2:8–10 192
2:10 24, 107, 199
2:17 218, 222
3–4 181
3:3–6 197
3:14 67
5:9 107
5:12 62, 116
6:1 62
6:2 53, 59, 71
6:4 94
6:4–8 239
6:5 3, 64, 94, 117
7:10 129
7:27 205, 207
8–10 5, 29, 32, 190
8:1 29, 193
8:1–5 207
8:1–6 73
8:2, 5 28
8:2 29
8:3–5 30
8:5 2, 29, 207
8:6 207
8:13 178
9:1 29
9:1–5 207
9:5 218, 222
9:6–7, 21–22 30
9:7 238
9:9 66
9:10–12, 23–26 73
9:12 207, 230, 261
9:12, 26 207
9:13–14 136
9:14 6, 206, 207
9:14–15 207, 222
9:15 6, 64, 122, 136, 154, 190, 230
9:20 196
9:22 6, 207, 217, 220
9:23 30, 178
9:24 28, 29
9:25 30
9:26 207
9:27 59, 103
9:27–28 77, 91
9:28 6, 30, 63, 107, 136, 143, 189, 190, 207, 216
10:1 30, 178, 207
10:1–2, 11 30
10:7 69
10:11 205
10:12 18, 30, 261
10:12–13 193, 207, 213
10:12–14 73
10:13 30, 66, 143
10:19 206
10:24–25 50
10:25 268
10:26–27 238
10:27 61, 223
10:28 251
10:29 206
10:30 61
10:34 79, 104, 118
10:37–39 188
10:39 107
11:3 93
11:5 26
11:13 66
11:35–37 198
12:1–4 238
12:2 193, 199, 261
12:7 78
12:8 119
12:16 153
12:29 68
13:11–12 107
13:20 206
13:21 65
James
1:10 34
1:12 108
1:15 232
1:17 78
1:22 255
2:1 109
2:5 255
2:14–26 227
3:6 232
4:2 232
4:7 34
5:1 271
5:8 268
5:9 122, 134
5:12 217

1 Peter
1:3 98, 103
1:4 154
1:4–5 100
1:4–7 91
1:5 49, 50, 107
1:6–13 118
1:7 66
1:8 199
1:10 14
1:11 18, 63, 190, 192
1:13 41, 66, 199
1:13–21 219
1:17 66
1:17–19 230
1:18–19 222
1:19 6, 206
1:22 207
1:23 66
2:5 66
2:13 34
2:21 117, 200
2:22–25 194
2:23 79, 200, 258
2:24 134
3:7 103
3:13 66
3:14 199
3:18 98, 143, 190, 217
3:19 73
3:21 196
3:22 33, 143, 193
4:5 18, 128
4:6 73, 136
4:7 67, 268
4:10 168
4:11 65
4:12 57, 199, 260
4:13 66, 91, 112, 118, 119, 192, 260
4:16 138
5:1 192
5:3 256
5:4 112
5:8 33
5:9 199
5:10 111
5:11 65

2 Peter
1:10 238
1:10–21 146
1:11 5, 190
1:16–18 134
1:17 109
1:19 5, 10, 98, 134, 193
1:19–21 99
1:20–21 11
1:21 35
2:1 252
2:2 222, 255
2:4 59, 69, 96
2:5–7 198
2:6 197
2:9 59, 73, 258
2:11 146
2:12 48
2:13 61
2:17 70
3 248
3:2 54
3:4 24, 235, 269
3:5 24, 67
3:7 23, 54, 68, 225
3:6–7 197
3:7–8 181
3:8 197, 269
3:9 3, 65, 193, 198, 254
3:9–10 74, 269
3:10 3, 18, 46, 48, 54
3:12 48,
3:13 2, 51, 198, 225
3:18 48

1 John
1:2 102
1:7 206, 222
1:7–9 207
1:9 238
2:1 100
2:2 63, 218, 222
2:20 14
2:25 102
2:25–27 99
3:2 66
3:6 238
3:10 126
3:15 102
3:16 118, 217
4:1 252, 259
4:2–3 139
4:3 139
4:7 59
4:7–18 219
4:8–10 259
4:9 76
4:10 6, 189, 217, 218, 222, 223
4:14 122, 134
4:17 66, 223
5:1 138
5:11, 13, 20 102
5:18 101, 238
5:19 127

Jude
6 33, 48, 59, 69, 73
7 59, 71, 197
13 70
14 134
14–15 149
15 217, 232
18 99
19 99
20–21 100
20–25 101
21 102
23 69
24 111

Revelation
1:1 253
1:2 253
1:3 268
1:5 97, 98, 154, 252
1:6 42, 65
1:7 195, 268
1:8 62
1:9 261
1:18 102
2:6, 15 139
2:7 30, 52
2:7, 11, 26 178
2:11 71
2:16 139
2:20 255
2:20–23 108
2:23 238
2:24 139
2:26 67
3:5, 21 178
3:10 161, 271
3:12 174, 178
3:14 252
3:19 78
4–5 26
4:2–6 28
4:6–8 28
4:8 28, 34
4:11 24
5:5 134
5:9–10 230
5:10 31, 174
6:9 73, 261, 262
6:9–11 261
6:10–11 91
6:10–14 262
6:16 222, 223
6:17 57
7:9 149
7:14 206, 262
7:15 174
8:1 26
8:3 262
8:4 262
8:5 262
8:13 33
9:20 78, 252
9:20–21 107
11:2 262
11:15 65, 66, 145, 206
11:15–19 262
11:18 71, 222
11:18–19 26
11:19 2, 28, 29
12:7 33
12:9 124
12:11 103, 118, 206
12:14 262
13:5 262
13:6 196
13:7 261, 262
13:10 261
14:6 33
14:7 262
14:10 223
14:11 65, 71
14:12 261
14:13 108
14:15 29
14:15–18 28
14:19 57
15 32
15:1 57
15:2–8 262
15:5 29
15:5–8 28
15:7 65
16:1 28, 29
16:5–6 72
16:6 261, 262
16:7 28, 262
16:7–9 262
16:9–11 78, 252
16:14 48
16:19 223
17:6 261, 262
17:17 34
18:2 262
18:20 262
18:24 261
19:1–7 72
19:1–16 262
19:3 65
19:9 108
19:11 110, 262
19:11–16 142, 197
19:15 57, 223, 282
19:16 150
19:17 33
19:20 69
20 181
20:1–6 179, 180
20:2 96, 124
20:4 179, 262
20:4, 6 124
20:6 31, 71, 174
20:10 65, 71
20:10, 14 69, 124
20:13 69, 73, 102
20:14 69, 71
20:15 101
21–22 167
21:1 2, 18
21:1–5 51
21:2 167
21:2–3 90
21:3 31, 167
21:4 167
21:4–5 105
21:5 23, 24, 94
21:6 62, 101
21:6–8 100
21:8 69, 71, 124
21:10–11, 23–25 109
21:11–21 167
21:23 109
21:23–26 70, 173
21:23–27 167
21:24 149
21:24–27 100
21:27 72, 101
22:1 53, 101
22:1–2 32, 167
22:2 53, 101
22:2, 14, 19 101
22:3 53, 101, 122
22:5 31, 65, 101, 108
22:6, 13 124
22:10 50, 268
22:12 50, 61, 124
22:13 62
22:14 70, 107
22:15 70, 124
22:16 134
22:20 268