[JORDAN QUINLEY]
Redeemer Catechism Series, Question 4
The Bible’s central theme—salvation by God in and through Jesus Christ—comes to us, not all at once, but over time and space, and is revealed progressively, as God develops and carries out redemption from the Fall forward.
Q4: How does the central theme of the Bible unfold from beginning to end?
A4: The central theme of the Bible is unfolded as God brings about his kingdom through covenants, ultimately installing his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the true and final King over a redeemed people, in the New Covenant.
How then is the central theme of redemption in Jesus unpacked over time and in the Word of God? The answer is that God, over time, enters into a number of variously defined relationships with mankind. Through the stipulations in these relationships, God both makes promises to the human party and lays out certain requirements for them. These relationships are called covenants. It is through the successive outworking of these covenants that the whole storyline of the Bible and of redemptive history is brought to fruition. So, the biblical covenants serve as the backbone, or the scaffolding, for all the stories and revelations in the Bible that together make up the larger story, whose main protagonist is God—and more specifically, the Son of God—and that results in the rescue of his people, who in the end live (quite literally) happily ever after in perfect fellowship with him.
That perfect fellowship experienced between God and his redeemed people is at the heart of the concept of the Kingdom of God. Kingdom implies the reign of a king over a realm. God, of course, rules over all, all people in all places, all creatures both physical and angelic. But when we speak of the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven, we mean something more specific than God’s rule as Creator over all things. The Kingdom of God refers to God’s saving reign. It refers to God in communion with his forgiven people, living in God’s place, and under his will. In the end, this will encompass the whole earth, or whole cosmos, as the saints rule with Christ in the new heavens and new earth. The inauguration of the new covenant by Christ at his first coming has initiated the first phase of this final state, in which the Kingdom of God is “not of this world (this age)”, is no longer geopolitical in nature or confined to one people group, but spiritual in its constitution and global in scope.
Creation Covenant
Students of the Bible identify five or six biblical covenants. There is some debate over whether God covenanted with Adam prior to the fall, or whether the first biblical covenant begins with Noah. I will outline all six covenants. In my view, all clues point to a covenantal relationship with man prior to the fall. All the features of a covenant exist in the garden of Eden, and our union with Adam as per Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 seems inexplicable apart from a covenant. This creation covenant sets the stage for all the rest. Here, God charges Adam and Eve with leadership over the earth, occupying, subduing, and ruling. There is more than a hint of kingdom in these mandates. The designation of Adam and Eve as those made in God’s image and likeness point to themes of sonship, and of their role as God’s representatives, or vice-regents, on earth. Further, He prohibits them from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon pain of death. Sadly, they eat from it, and that very day their death becomes a certainty (Gen. 2:17). Eternal life is lost. The rest of the Bible recounts God’s plan in motion to earn for us and restore to us righteousness and life. Adam, the first “son of God” (Lk. 3:38), has failed.
Noahic Covenant
In Noah, God chooses one righteous man and his immediate family and wipes out all other surrounding life, including all the rest of humanity. When Noah emerges from the ark, he is, in a way, a new Adam on a new earth. As in God’s covenant with Adam, He charges Noah and his sons with some familiar tasks: “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth” (Gen. 9:1, 7). This covenant is made with all the created order and includes a promise on God’s part that He will sustain the physical world despite human sin and never again destroy humanity by a flood. There are both promises and demands. Sadly, even righteous Noah almost immediately falls into sin, as does his son Ham. The “new world” is again stained.
Abrahamic Covenant
I cannot explore these covenants at length, and God’s covenant with Abraham is especially rich. God promises to Abraham seed, land, and blessing. The promises of land and blessing apply especially to Abraham’s offspring, and will include the land of Canaan.
And yet, there is more. In Genesis 17, God tells Abraham that “kings will come from you” (there is that idea of kingdom), and that this covenant is “an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you…to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.” The land of Canaan, God says, will be “an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you.” (Gen. 17:6–8). This earthly promised land, though, is only a foreshadow of the true realization of this promise. Paul expands the meaning of this promise when he says, “It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world [cosmos], but through the righteousness that comes by faith” (Rom. 4:13). And even Abraham was looking beyond this fulfillment, to “a city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10), which is the “heavenly Jerusalem”. Only the Abrahamic covenant and the New Covenant are called everlasting, and this is because the promises of the Abrahamic covenant will be carried out in greater-than-anticipated ways, through the greater Seed of Abraham, under the New Covenant.
Mosaic Covenant
The covenant mediated by Moses between God and the nation of Israel following God’s deliverance of the Jews from Egypt marks a turning point in redemptive history. God is bringing about the promises made to Abraham (see Duet. 1:8–10), and in the Mosaic covenant, God will establish a system of worship that will more directly and in more ways than ever prefigure all that the the Messiah will accomplish to bring about the redemption of God’s people. This covenant ushers in what we might call the time of the picture, which will come to an end once the time of fulfillment arrives in Jesus the Messiah. This covenant is the covenant under which the vast majority of the Old Testament (and indeed of the whole Bible) takes place. Such is its significance, that the author of Hebrews refers to it as “the first covenant” when contrasting it with the New Covenant.
Under the Mosaic covenant, Israel is to follow God’s commandments, and will in turn receive God’s many blessings and be a blessing to the peoples around them, as they showcase to the world what it means to live faithfully as under God’s rule. As with Adam, Israel is to represent God on earth (be an image bearer) and is called God’s son (Ex. 4:22, 23; Hos. 11:1). But, as before, God’s “son” is unfaithful; they incur the curses of the covenant and fail to bring blessing to the nations.
Davidic Covenant
God covenants with David saying,
The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever (2 Samuel 7:11–16, NIV).
God promises to build a “house” or dynasty for and from David that will never end. This will be accomplished through David’s seed, who will be the one to build a house for the Name of the Lord. He, David’s offspring, will be “my son”, says God. Solomon was in some ways the immediate fulfillment of parts of this promise. Solomon, David’s offspring, built the physical temple to the Lord. But it is clear that something much larger is in view here, and the theme of the Davidic King gets fleshed out and broadened by the prophets over time. The son of David whose kingdom would endure forever would be the Messiah himself. Yet again, the central theme of the Bible—which is Jesus Christ and God’s gracious salvation through him and for his glory—is teased out and strung along by means of one covenant after another, each building on the previous, until the fullness of time finally comes.
New Covenant
So, where is this all going? When will God and man fully and finally be reconciled, and by what means? In other words, when will the Kingdom of Heaven be realized? Thankfully, we know the answer, which breaks upon us in the writings of the New Testament. All the covenants find their ultimate fruition in the true Son of God, the faithful Son of God, who ushers in a new covenant in his blood. In this covenant, God’s people are truly washed of their iniquities by the blood of the true Lamb. They are united to God in fellowship by God’s Spirit. Christ Jesus himself fulfills the human end of the bargain and earns God’s favor, and his righteous standing is then credited to us when we believe in him. The last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45), the seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:16) and of David (Rom. 1:3), a Prophet powerful in word and deed (Lk. 24:19, Ac. 3:22), the great High Priest (Heb. 4:14), the King foretold (Rev. 17:14)—in Him all the promises of God find their truest fulfillment. And by means of the New Covenant those promised blessings are meted out to those whom Jesus represents. Thus the central theme of the Bible comes to its climax as God unfolds his plan of redemption through each successive covenant, at last “installing his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the true and final King over a redeemed people, in the New Covenant.” †
This article is the fourth in Jordan’s series explaining the questions and answers in the new covenant Redeemer Catechism which he has written.
- How Did God Create Humankind? - February 29, 2024
- What is God’s Work of Creation? - August 24, 2023
- What Are God’s Decrees and How Does He Carry Them Out? - June 22, 2023