The New Creation and the Storyline of Scripture - Frank Thielman - E-Book

The New Creation and the Storyline of Scripture E-Book

Frank Thielman

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A Biblical Theology of the New Creation from Genesis to Revelation "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God." —Revelation 21:3 The Bible begins with the story of one perfectly good God creating a perfectly good universe. Forming two perfectly good human beings in his own image—Adam and Eve—was the crown jewel of his creative expression. Through humanity's sin, however, God's creation fell into a fallen state—yet he promised to bring restoration. In this book, Frank Thielman traces the theme of the new creation through the Bible, beginning in Genesis and ending in Revelation. He shows us that at every turn, God invites his people to be a "kingdom of priests" (Exodus 19:6), exemplifying the new creation to a needy and watching world until the return of Jesus.

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“Well-known author Frank Thielman succinctly unfolds the central plot of the whole Bible. He does not just retell the story; he explains it. And he does not merely explain it; he applies it so we can see the Bible’s point right now: ‘This is the great hope of the follower of Jesus in the midst of life’s many present difficulties.’ To grasp that hope, read this book! It is a delightful, deeply biblical, clear, and compelling narration and proclamation of God’s antidote to our world’s painfully visible breakdown. There’s a new world order taking shape. This book equips and invites the reader to join in right now.”

Robert W. Yarbrough, Professor of New Testament, Covenant Theological Seminary

“Careful study of the Scriptures is vital for Christian growth, and study of small portions of text pays great dividends. But if we cannot put those smaller bits into the larger storyline of Scripture, we can miss the forest for the trees. Frank Thielman provides a well-written and accurate description of that forest, the big picture of what God is doing in redemptive history.”

Douglas J. Moo, Kenneth T. Wessner Professor of New Testament, Wheaton College; Chair, Committee on Bible Translation (NIV); author, The Epistle to the Romans and AnIntroduction to the New Testament

“In this concise study, Frank Thielman helpfully explains how the Bible is framed by two acts of divine creation that are intimately connected. Moving judiciously from Genesis to Revelation, he shows how God’s blueprint of salvation for a world gone awry centers on Jesus Christ, the servant-king, who establishes God’s new society of love, justice, kindness, and peace in anticipation of a glorious new creation. For anyone wishing to understand better the overarching story of God’s plan for the whole creation, this is an excellent introduction.”

T. Desmond Alexander, Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies and Director of Postgraduate Studies, Union Theological College; author, The City of God and the Goal of Creation and From Eden to the New Jerusalem

“A succinct and brilliant study of the interlacing tapestry of biblical theology. Frank Thielman is the kind of scholar we need more of—he writes with clarity and devotion and always brings us closer to Christ.”

Timothy George, Distinguished Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University

“Frank Thielman proves to be the ideal guide for a tour of the Bible. Taking new creation as an organizing theme, he directs attention to the critical junctures in the biblical story. Without getting bogged down in excessive detail, he uses his expert knowledge to spotlight the big structure that holds the Bible together. The result is a book that is as easy to read as it is illuminating. Readers will come away with a deeper love of God and a greater sense of gratitude for his salvation.”

Sigurd Grindheim, Professor, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences

“Frank Thielman’s The New Creation and the Storyline of Scripture is a remarkable achievement. He has distilled the vast reservoir of information provided in the Bible on the subject to its essential elements, while packing his 120-page presentation with a remarkable amount of Scripture. This handy volume challenges Christ followers to live as transformed creations in this age and heightens our anticipation of life with God in the world to come.”

Daniel I. Block, Gunther H. Knoedler Professor Emeritus of Old Testament, Wheaton College; author, The Triumph of Grace and For the Glory of God

The New Creation and the Storyline of Scripture

Short Studies in Biblical Theology

Edited by Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt

The City of God and the Goal of Creation, T. Desmond Alexander (2018)

Covenant and God’s Purpose for the World, Thomas R. Schreiner (2017)

Divine Blessing and the Fullness of Life in the Presence of God, William R. Osborne (2020)

From Chaos to Cosmos: Creation to New Creation, Sidney Greidanus (2018)

The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross, Patrick Schreiner (2018)

The Lord’s Supper as the Sign and Meal of the New Covenant, Guy Prentiss Waters (2019)

Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel, Ray Ortlund (2016)

The New Creation and the Storyline of Scripture, Frank Thielman (2021)

Redemptive Reversals and the Ironic Overturning of Human Wisdom, G. K. Beale (2019)

The Royal Priesthood and the Glory of God, David S. Schrock (2022)

Sanctification as Set Apart and Growing in Christ, Marny Köstenberger (2023)

The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer, Andrew David Naselli (2020)

The Son of God and the New Creation, Graeme Goldsworthy (2015)

Work and Our Labor in the Lord, James M. Hamilton Jr. (2017)

The New Creation and the Storyline of Scripture

Frank Thielman

The New Creation and the Storyline of Scripture

Copyright © 2021 by Frank Thielman

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

First printing 2021

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry 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. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are from The New American Standard Bible®. Copyright © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NET are from The NET Bible® copyright © 2003 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. www.netbible.com. All rights reserved. Quoted by permission.

Quotations marked NETS are taken from A New English Translation of the Septuagint, ©2007 by the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, Inc. Used by permission of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-5955-6 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-5958-7 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-5956-3 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-5957-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Thielman, Frank, author.

Title: The new creation and the storyline of Scripture / Frank Thielman.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, [2021] | Series: Short studies in biblical theology | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020001164 | ISBN 9781433559556 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433559563 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433559570 (mobi) | ISBN 9781433559587 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Creation—Biblical teaching | Bible. New Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc. | Bible. New Testament—Introductions.

Classification: LCC BS651 .T4825 2021 | DDC 231.7/6—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020001164

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2020-11-24 02:08:40 PM

For Isaiah James Thielman

and for his wonderful parents, Jonathan and Emily

Contents

Series Preface

Preface

 1  A Good World Goes Awry

 2  Hints at a Solution

 3  The Great King and Humble Servant Comes

 4  The New Creation

 5  Living as God’s New Humanity Now and in the Future

For Further Reading

General Index

Scripture Index

Series Preface

Most of us tend to approach the Bible early on in our Christian lives as a vast, cavernous, and largely impenetrable book. We read the text piecemeal, finding golden nuggets of inspiration here and there, but remain unable to plug any given text meaningfully into the overarching storyline. Yet one of the great advances in evangelical biblical scholarship over the past few generations has been the recovery of biblical theology—that is, a renewed appreciation for the Bible as a theologically unified, historically rooted, progressively unfolding, and ultimately Christ-centered narrative of God’s covenantal work in our world to redeem sinful humanity.

This renaissance of biblical theology is a blessing, yet little of it has been made available to the general Christian population. The purpose of Short Studies in Biblical Theology is to connect the resurgence of biblical theology at the academic level with everyday believers. Each volume is written by a capable scholar or churchman who is consciously writing in a way that requires no prerequisite theological training of the reader. Instead, any thoughtful Christian disciple can track with and benefit from these books.

Each volume in this series takes a whole-Bible theme and traces it through Scripture. In this way readers not only learn about a given theme but also are given a model for how to read the Bible as a coherent whole.

We have launched this series because we love the Bible, we love the church, and we long for the renewal of biblical theology in the academy to enliven the hearts and minds of Christ’s disciples all around the world. As editors, we have found few discoveries more thrilling in life than that of seeing the whole Bible as a unified story of God’s gracious acts of redemption, and indeed of seeing the whole Bible as ultimately about Jesus, as he himself testified (Luke 24:27; John 5:39).

The ultimate goal of Short Studies in Biblical Theology is to magnify the Savior and to build up his church—magnifying the Savior through showing how the whole Bible points to him and his gracious rescue of helpless sinners; and building up the church by strengthening believers in their grasp of these life-giving truths.

Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt

Preface

My hope for this short book is that it serves as a basic introduction to the plotline of the Christian Scriptures. There are many interesting and valuable ways to approach the Bible. The Scripture is filled with exciting stories and heart-stirring poetry, so it is not surprising that some people turn to it for cultural enrichment. It is also a book full of historical significance, giving valuable evidence, some of it unparalleled anywhere else, for the political and cultural world of Middle Eastern antiquity. Historians find it indispensable. The Bible raises a host of moral and ethical issues, so people with questions about how life is best lived often want to know what particular passages say about this or that philosophical problem.

None of these approaches to the Bible do it a disservice, but none of them are focused on the message of the Bible itself. It is true that the Bible is a collection of texts written over a wide span of time, but it also has a basic storyline and a basic meaning. Taken together, these texts ask to be read in a particular way and claim to be saying something of great importance for all humanity and for each human individual. My hope for this book is that it functions as an introduction to this story and this message.

In describing the Bible’s message, I have focused my attention on its interest in the “new creation.” This is a phrase that appears only twice in the Christian Scriptures, but it summarizes the Bible’s plotline neatly because it takes in the sweep of the world’s history from the Bible’s perspective. To call the world a “creation” assumes that it has a Creator, and to refer to a “new creation” implies that something happened to the world that makes its renewal necessary. Within its first several pages, the Bible tells its audience who this Creator is and how his creation perfectly reflected his character. It also describes how the only part of creation that God made in his image rebelled against him and set the world on a downward spiral that is vividly reflected in the suffering that now mars the existence of every human being. Because God’s character is gracious and merciful, however, he did not leave his human creatures without forgiveness or hope but immediately began to work toward their rescue and the renewal of all that he had made.

This book is an introduction, so I have treated not every biblical text but eight parts of the Bible that move its storyline forward from creation to new creation in particularly long strides: Genesis 1–4, Isaiah, Matthew, Acts, Galatians, 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, and Revelation 21–22. Although I occasionally reproduce the texts I am discussing, readers will find it easier to follow the book’s argument if they read it with a copy of the Bible close at hand for reference. It will also be helpful to take some time to read liberally around whatever passage is under discussion. The introductory nature of the book also means that the footnotes occasionally record my indebtedness to other interpreters, but they mainly point the reader in the direction of literature that will be helpful for further study. I have provided an alphabetical list of those works in a section at the end titled “For Further Reading.” I am grateful to Miles Van Pelt, Dane Ortlund, and David Barshinger for their careful reading of this book and helpful recommendations for revision. It is a better book because of their involvement, and I deeply appreciate the time they took to help me with it.

I have dedicated this book to my sweet little grandson, Isaiah, who is so aptly named, and to his parents, Jonathan and Emily. Although Isaiah has spent a lot of time in the hospital during his first two years, he is a smiling, laughing, sociable toddler who brings joy to everyone he meets. Jonathan and Emily have simply been wonderful parents to Isaiah, and I thought constantly of their faithfulness, courage, and trust in God as I wrote on the new creation.

This book took shape during a summer that my wife, Abby, and I were able to spend with Isaiah, Jonathan, and Emily thanks to the hospitality of my brother and sister-in-law, Nathan and Margaret Thielman, and our friends Rick and Sonya Hove. I could write another book describing all that each of these wonderful friends and relatives means to me. Suffice it to say that I owe them—especially my dear wife, Abby—an enormous debt of gratitude for their Christlike example of self-giving generosity, not least in carving out time and space for me both to work on this book and to enjoy being with Isaiah.

Frank ThielmanAdvent 2019

1

A Good World Goes Awry

The Scriptures are clear that the one God, who is himself perfectly good, created a perfectly good universe, and that the crowning achievement of his creative activity was the formation of two perfectly good human beings in his own image. The Scriptures communicate this truth in the opening paragraphs of the first book in the Bible, Genesis 1:1–2:3. Unfortunately, the Scriptures also make clear that the world did not remain the way God created it, and they tell the story of what happened to God’s good world in Genesis 2:4–4:26.

A Good God and His Creation

Genesis 1:1–2:3 is an intricately crafted narrative whose form serves its message, and that message is clear. One transcendent being, God, designed the world, and his design was ordered, balanced, and good.

As students of this narrative have often observed, it is itself meticulously designed to emphasize the number seven. There are seven words in the Hebrew text of the first sentence (1:1). The narrative’s climactic concluding paragraph (2:1–3) features God himself resting on the seventh day, and it expresses this act in thirty-five Hebrew words, a word count that is equal to five times seven.1 Seven, then, is clearly the number that in some way corresponds to God.

Seven, as it turns out, is also the number that corresponds to God’s creative activity, the story of which appears sandwiched between the first sentence and the last paragraph. Seven times, God’s creative word (“Let there be light. . . . Let there be an expanse. . . . Let dry land appear. . . . Let the earth sprout vegetation. . . . Let there be lights. . . . Let the earth bring forth living creatures . . .”) or his provision (“I have given every green plant for food”) is matched with the phrase “And it was so” or, in 1:3, its equivalent (1:3, 6–7, 9, 11, 14–15, 24, 30). This pattern communicates that what God intends actually comes to pass and that both what he intends and what comes to pass in creation correspond to who he is.

Who is he? He is good, as the sevenfold repetition of the phrase “And God saw that it was good” demonstrates, especially in its more emphatic form at the end of the sixth day: “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). The goodness of creation reflects the goodness of God.

The goodness of creation also appears in the order and balance of the creation narrative. The six days of creation are neatly ordered in two groups of three, with the first, second, and third day in each group corresponding to each other. God creates light on day one and the heavenly bodies that give light (sun, moon, and stars) on day four (1:3–5, 14–19). He creates sky and sea on day two and the animals that inhabit the sky and sea (birds and fish) on day five (1:6–8, 20–23). He creates land and plants on day three and the creatures that inhabit the land and will eat the plants (animals and human beings) on day six (1:11–13, 24–31).2

There is also a balance between plants on one side and animals and human beings on the other side in the narrative. God gives instructions to be fruitful and multiply only to the animals and human beings, and only to them does he give the plants for food (1:22, 28). Human beings are to eat the plants that yield seed and the fruit of trees, whereas animals on the land and in the sky are to eat “every green plant” (1:29–30). Everything inhabits a peaceful order, and the emphasis on the provision of plants for the food of every living creature hints that there is no violence among the creatures that have “the breath of life” (1:30).3

Within this peaceful order, human beings, both male and female, inhabit the most important place. Before creating them, God summons the other transcendent beings in his presence—or perhaps the other persons in the Trinity—to join him in what he is about to do: “Let us make man,” he says, “in our image, after our likeness” (1:26).4Human beings alone, in their two genders, are made in God’s image (1:26–27). Moreover, they alone receive from God the authority to rule over all the earth and its animals, a mandate so important that the narrative mentions it twice (1:26, 28). The second mention is its fullest form:

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

Only after the final creative act of bringing a man and woman into existence and giving them this critical mandate is God’s work of creation finished. God can then pronounce all his creation not merely “good” but “very good” (1:31).

It is not the sixth day, the day of humanity’s creation, however, that is the most important day. That honor goes to the seventh day. God blesses the seventh day and sets it apart from all the other days because it is a day of rest for him after the work of creation is finished (2:1–3).5 This move implies a second mandate for human beings, and it is closely related to the first mandate. If human beings are created in God’s image, then their raising of human families and their exercise of dominion over the earth correspond naturally to God’s work in six days. God’s rest on the seventh day implies that they, too, should not work constantly because they are designed for regular periods of rest.6

According to Genesis 1:1–2:3, then, God created a world of perfect harmony and peace with human beings as the crowning achievement of his creative work. This world corresponded to God’s own peaceful and gracious character. It was ordered under the watchful care of the man and woman whom God had made in his own image and for whom he had generously provided. God in his goodness gave the man and woman the meaningful role of ruling over the animals, and he supplied the green plants as food for them all. Also in his goodness, God provided his human creation a pattern to follow in doing the work that he had given them. They were to work for six days, and then, on the seventh day, like him, they were to rest.

What Happened to God’s Good Creation?

The next major section of Genesis (2:4–4:26) describes how this perfect world became the world as all humanity experiences it—a place of hostility between humans and animals (3:15), of pain in childbearing (3:16), of difficulty in obtaining food (3:17–19a), and of death (3:19b), anger, violence, and oppression (4:1–26).7 The section begins by returning to the period before God finished his creative work and focusing in greater detail on God’s creation of and provision for human beings (2:4–25). By putting this section of God’s work under the microscope, the narrative supplies the necessary background for its description of human disobedience to God and the suffering that this fateful decision entailed.

The first part of this new section, then, describes God’s creation of the first man and of a beautiful garden within the otherwise uncultivated and largely arid land that he had previously created. God fashions the first man from the “dust” or the “clay” of the earth like a potter might make a pot on the wheel. Then, unlike any other potter, God breathes on his clay man, and he comes to life (2:7).

The rest of this first part of the story is told to emphasize the lavish way that God provided for humanity’s well-being.8 God provides a home for the man in a special enclosed area within the land of Eden. This park or garden contains “every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food” (2:9). A river flowing into the garden supplies plentiful water, and the area in which the garden is located is rich with beautiful metals, aromatic resins, and stones—gold, bdellium, onyx (2:12; cf. Ezek. 28:13). The most important provision for the man, however, is the woman God made from the man’s rib. She is a suitable helper for him (Gen. 2:20) and affords the complement necessary for humanity to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (1:28). Working together, the man and woman will “work . . . and keep” the garden (2:15) and continue to exercise dominion over the animals (1:26, 28), a project Adam started when he named them (2:19–20). The man and the woman are naked but not ashamed. Later, nakedness in the presence of others will be embarrassing, and it will be improper in the presence of God (3:7; Ex. 20:26; 28:42–43), but now, because the man and the woman are in exactly the relationship with God and others that God created them to have, there is no hint of any impropriety in their nakedness.9

This part of the story implies two further mandates for the man and the woman beyond the mandates to rule over the animal world and to rest on the Sabbath. A third mandate is to trust in God’s goodness. This mandate emerges from the command that God gives to the man after he has created him and placed him in the garden. God had created two special trees in the garden, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:9). The tree of life conferred immortality on those who ate from it (3:22). In the same way, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil must have had some real power to confer knowledge on Adam.

What is this knowledge? The text does not explicitly say, but in subsequent years, after Adam and Eve have eaten from the forbidden tree, knowledge does grow among their descendants, some of it good and some of it evil.10 Adam and Eve figure out how to cover themselves by sewing fig leaves together (3:7). They gain knowledge of evil when their son Cain kills his brother Abel and when Cain himself becomes a fugitive, far away, east of Eden (4:1–16; cf. 4:25). A descendant named Jabal becomes “the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock” (4:20). His brother Jubal becomes “the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe” (4:21). Their half-brother, Tubal-cain, develops “all instruments of bronze and iron” (4:22).