New Testament Theology

Magnifying God in Christ

Schreiner, Thomas R.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781441200600
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

In this substantial volume, Thomas Schreiner takes up the study of New Testament theology, looking for the themes that emerge from a detailed reading of the whole rather than considering the individual writings separately. Two themes in particular emerge. The first concerns redemptive history and the kingdom of God. The New Testament writers adopt the Old Testament vision of God's reign and affirm that it has come in Jesus Christ, although final fulfillment is yet to come. Second, the ultimate goal of the kingdom is God's glory. Schreiner goes on to relate these themes to the life of the believer and the community of faith. Pastors and students will find this a comprehensive and illuminating survey of the unifying themes found throughout the New Testament.

1

The Kingdom of God in the Synoptic Gospels

Introduction: A Brief Recapitulation of the Old Testament Story

We begin with the kingdom of God, which certainly is of prime importance in NT theology.[1] Goldsworthy remarks, “The idea of the rule of God over creation, over all creatures, over the kingdoms of the world, and in a unique and special way, over his chosen and redeemed people, is the very heart of the message of the Hebrew scriptures.”[2] In the pages of the NT it is made clear that God’s promises are fulfilled, the end of the ages has come (1 Cor. 10:11), the new creation has dawned, eternal life has arrived, and the new covenant is a reality. In the first part of this book we will explore these themes, for the NT continues the narrative begun in the OT. It picks up the story of salvation from the OT, where God promised to bless the whole world through Abraham and his descendants (Gen. 3:15; 12:1–3; 13:14–17; 15:4–5; 17:4–8, 19; 18:18–19; 22:17–18; 26:3–4; 28:14–15; 35:12–13).[3] In particular, the Lord promised Abraham land, seed, and universal blessing. Genesis relates the story of the seed, or descendants, pledged to Abraham. The promises were not easily fulfilled, as both Sarah and Rebecca struggled with barrenness, and it was a long road before the birth of Isaac and Jacob and Esau. Nor were the land promises fulfilled, inasmuch as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were nomads in the land of promise, and Genesis concludes with Israel in Egypt.

Still, God was slowly fulfilling his promise. Jacob had twelve sons, and the promise of countless seed begins to become a reality in the book of Exodus. Indeed, so many Israelites were born that Pharaoh began to fear for the survival of his people and power. If the promise of many descendants was slowly becoming a reality, Exodus–Joshua recounts how the Lord fulfilled his promise that Israel would possess the land of Canaan. Yahweh rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt with remarkable signs and wonders, and Moses led the nation to Sinai, where God made a covenant with them and gave them his law. Still, the nation was recalcitrant and stubborn, for they made a golden calf, tested the Lord in numerous ways, and failed to believe that he would give them victory in Canaan. The Lord judged the adults of the wilderness generation, condemning them to forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Only after the death of Moses did Joshua lead Israel into the land of Canaan, and the Lord again worked in stunning and miraculous ways to help Israel conquer their enemies and take possession of the land. Two of God’s promises were fulfilled: Israel was in the land and amply populated.

It is not enough, of course, that Israel resided in the land in large numbers. They had a mandate to live as the people of the Lord, to trust in God and do his will. We see in the period of the judges that Israel failed miserably. Instead of living as a holy and distinct people, they adopted Canaanite ways and turned against the Lord. The Lord judged his people by raising up other nations to oppress and subject them. When Israel cried to the Lord for deliverance, he raised up deliverers to save them from their oppressors. Unfortunately, the obedience of Israel was always short-lived, and hence they were caught up in a seemingly endless cycle of deliverance-defection-judgment-repentance.

Judges ends on a rather dour note. The behavior of the tribe of Dan in attacking a quiet and peaceful people and in hiring a priest to support their own agenda was a far cry from what the Lord commanded. The rape and murder of the Levite’s concubine and then the subsequent support from the tribe of Benjamin relay the depth to which Israel had fallen. The narrator remarks that Israel had no king and the people did as they pleased (Judg. 17:6; 21:25). The degradation of Israel is apparent with the opening of 1 Samuel, for Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas, represent the corruption of the priesthood. The Lord raised up Samuel as a prophet and judge, but the accession of Samuel did not constitute a long-term solution, since his sons were corrupt and the nation as a whole did not truly trust in Yahweh. Israel longed for a king so that they could be like the other nations, but such a desire demonstrated a refusal to accept God’s kingship. Israel did not live under God’s lordship as his holy people but rather longed to be like the nations that had kings leading them into battle. Nevertheless, the Lord agreed that Israel should have a king. Though Israel’s motives were stained, the king anticipated the Lord’s future reign over his people.[4] As the first king, Saul recapitulated the history of Israel. Initially he was humble and pliable in the Lord’s hands, but soon he forsook his trust in God and conducted the kingdom in his own way and in accord with his own wisdom. Therefore, God rejected Saul as king and refused to raise up a dynasty after him.

Instead the Lord appointed and exalted David as king. David became the model of a “man after God’s own heart,” showing in his refusal to avenge Saul that he trusted wholly in the Lord. Because of his reliance upon the Lord, David was granted victory by God over Israel’s enemies. For the first time Israel appeared to be the people of the Lord, living under his lordship in the land. David desired to build a temple for the Lord in Jerusalem to show his devotion to the Lord and to centralize worship in accord with Deut. 17. But God forbade David to build the temple because he had spilled blood in war. David’s successor and son, Solomon, a man of peace, would build the temple. However, God enacted a covenant with David in which he promised that his dynasty would last forever. David desired to build a house for God, but the Lord pledged that he would build a house for David that would last forever. Individual descendants of David would be punished and even rejected if they sinned, but the dynasty would never end. The covenant enacted with David would last forever (2 Sam. 7; Pss. 89; 132). It is clear, then, that the promises of blessing for the whole world and the hope that Israel would become a people truly obedient to the Lord would be realized through a king, a descendant of David. Often in the prophets the hope of a future king, an offspring of David, is featured. God’s saving promises would be realized upon the coming of the promised king.

Despite all of David’s strengths, clearly he was not the ideal king. His adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah caused Israel to spiral downward, and he came startlingly close to losing the kingship. David pointed forward to a future king, one who was more devoted to the Lord and nobler than he. The reader is poised to think that the greater king could be Solomon. He began his reign with a desire to rule Israel wisely, and as a man of peace he built the temple of the Lord. As time passed, however, Solomon strayed from the Lord, as he was enticed by his many wives to worship false gods. The peace and wisdom that Solomon seemed to promise would be realized by another king. The Lord judged Solomon for his defection, and after his death the kingdom was split into two: Israel in the north, Judah in the south.

Every king from the northern kingdom, Israel, was ungodly, worshiping at altars forbidden by the Torah. The nation experienced some political highs and lows, but the Lord’s word of judgment was inevitable. In 722 BC the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom and exiled the people. The southern kingdom, which preserved the line of David, was not nearly as bleak. Several of its kings were truly devoted to the Lord. And yet the overall trajectory was still downward, and Judah traced Israel’s steps and rebelled against the Lord’s commands. God’s word of judgment was unleashed on Judah as well, and Babylon sent Judah into exile, capturing Jerusalem and burning the temple in 586 BC.

Most of the prophetic books were written during the reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah. Any brief summary of the prophets surely would be inadequate, but we can say that the prophets proclaim both judgment and salvation—what is often identified as the day of the Lord.[5] Those who turned away from God and refused to obey his word were judged. These words of judgment were fulfilled when the exile became a reality in 722 BC and 586 BC. Nevertheless, judgment was not the final word for Israel. The prophets looked forward to a day when God’s saving promises would be fulfilled, his kingdom would come, the new covenant would be inaugurated, a new exodus from Babylon would be realized, the Spirit would be poured out on Israel, and Israel would keep God’s law. The prophets promised a new creation, a new temple, a new covenant, and a new king. The exile would be over, and the wilderness would bloom.

The great promises in the prophets, however, were not fulfilled when the exile ended in 536 BC.[6] Israel did return from Babylon and a temple was built, yet the temple was insignificant in comparison to the Solomonic temple. Nor was the nation enjoying glorious prosperity, the kind of glory envisioned in Isa. 40–66. Israel was small, struggling, and under the oppression of former powers. Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi document the low spiritual state of the nation. Nor did matters improve in the four hundred years before the coming of Jesus of Nazareth. Israel was a pawn in the struggle between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids. A brief period of freedom dawned with the Hasmoneans in the second and first centuries BC, but the interlude was brief, and soon the Romans swept in and subjugated Israel, appointing the Herodians and procurators to rule the land.[7]

This all-too-brief sketch of Israel’s history helps us understand the significance of Jesus’ claim that the kingdom of God had drawn near (Matt. 4:17; Mark 1:15).[8] Those hearing Jesus did not ask for a definition of the kingdom. They understood him to be proclaiming the dawn of a glorious new era in which Israel would be exalted and the nations made subservient to Israel’s God.[9] The Lord would reign over the whole earth, the son of David would serve as king, and the exile would be over. The new covenant would be fulfilled, God’s people would keep his law, and the promised new creation would become a reality. The Lord would pour out his Spirit on all flesh, and the promise to Abraham that all nations would be blessed, to the ends of the earth, would become a reality.

Centrality of the Kingdom of God in Jesus’ Teaching

The Synoptic Gospels make it immediately apparent that the kingdom of God is central to Jesus’ teaching. In this regard he is not to be differentiated from John the Baptist, who likewise proclaimed the coming kingdom (Matt. 3:2). John’s preaching in the desert and his baptism in the Jordan signal the promise of a new exodus for those who repent and confess their sins (Matt. 3:3–6),[10] but judgment will come for those who fail to repent (Matt. 3:7–10). The expression “kingdom of God” occurs four times in Matthew, fourteen in Mark, thirty-two in Luke, and four in John. At first glance, it might appear that Matthew does not use the phrase often, but then we notice that Matthew uses the expression “kingdom of heaven” thirty-two times.[11] Older dispensational thought distinguished between the “kingdom of God” and the “kingdom of heaven,” but today very few argue for such a distinction. The usual scholarly explanation today is that the Gospel of Matthew was addressed to Jews, and the Jews often reverentially avoided using God’s name.[12] The term “heaven,” it is argued, was a reverential substitute for “God.” It follows, on this view, that the expressions “kingdom of God” and “kingdom of heaven” refer to the same reality and should not be distinguished.

Recent work by Pennington on the term “heaven” in Matthew, however, has demonstrated the inadequacy of the scholarly consensus in Matthew.[13] It is quite unlikely that Matthew used the term “heaven” to avoid referring to God out of reverence, for he refers to God over fifty times elsewhere in the Gospel and actually uses “kingdom of God” on four occasions.[14] Moreover, Jewish evidence that the term “heaven” was used to avoid the name of God out of reverence is lacking. Hence, it is more persuasive to argue that Matthew uses the term “heaven” for a particular purpose in the narrative.

The substance of Pennington’s case is as follows. When “heaven” (ouranos) is used in the singular without the term “earth” or its equivalent nearby, it usually refers to the sky (Matt. 16:1–3; cf. 6:26; 8:20; 13:32; 14:19; 26:64).[15] The plural “heavens” (ouranoi), on the other hand, typically refers to the invisible divine realm (e.g., Matt. 3:16–17; 5:12, 16; 18:10; 19:21). When the pair “heaven and earth” is used, it may denote the entirety of the universe created by God (Matt. 5:18; 11:25; 24:35; cf. Gen. 1:1). But even more common in Matthew is the use of heaven and earth to contrast life according to God’s will and ways with life lived according to human standards. In Matt. 6:1–21 Jesus’ instructions on righteousness point to a heaven-versus-earth contrast, whether the issue is almsgiving, prayer, or fasting. The contrast between heaven and earth is illustrated by Matt. 6:19–20: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal” (cf. Matt. 5:34–35; 6:10; 11:23;[16] 21:25;[17] 28:18).

Matthew uses the plural “heavens” to speak of the Father in heaven on thirteen occasions, and “kingdom of heaven” thirty-two times to contrast the heavenly and earthly realm. The usage here confirms that the plural “heavens” refers to God, while the singular “heaven” refers to the sky.[18] In other words, Matthew intentionally uses heaven and earth to contrast God’s ways with those of human beings. The disjunction between God’s ways and ours is also evident in (1) the “heaven and earth” pairs; (2) the emphasis that the Father is in heaven (separated and exalted above human beings); and (3) the contrast between the heavenly kingdom and the kingdoms that are earthly and wicked. Hence, the expression “kingdom of heaven” focuses on the truth that God’s kingdom is from above. His kingdom is not an earthly one but rather represents his sovereignty and rule over all other kingdoms and all other so-called gods. In particular, Matthew emphasizes the inbreaking of God’s heavenly kingdom in Jesus.[19] The earthly and inhumane kingdoms described in Dan. 7 are giving way to the kingdom from above with the coming of Jesus Christ.

Matthew and the other Gospels do not speak only of the “kingdom of heaven” or the “kingdom of God,” for the word “kingdom” occurs alone eighteen times in Matthew, four times in Mark, twelve times in Luke, and twice in John. Most of these examples refer to God’s kingdom. It is very clear, then, that the kingdom of God is a central theme in the first three Gospels. John clearly moves in another direction, and we will e...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part 1: The Fulfillment of God’s Saving Promises: The Already–Not Yet
• Part 2: The God of the Promise: The Saving Work of the Father, Son, and Spirit
• Part 3: Experiencing the Promise: Believing and Obeying
• Part 4: The People of the Promise and the Future of the Promise
• Epilogue
• Appendix: Reflections on New Testament Theology
• Bibliography
• Name Index
• Scripture Index
• Subject Index
• Notes