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God’s Attributes (Perspectives Series 2 of 6)
God’s revelation is through analogy
The good news is that our infinite creator God has graciously adapted his revelation of himself to our finite created capabilities, by using analogies and making comparisons with things he created. Calvin describes this as a nurse talking in baby-talk to a child she’s caring for, stooping to the child’s level to be understood.
Examples include the Bible’s descriptions of God as a rock, a light, a fire, an eagle, a father, a king, a judge, a warrior, a shepherd, and many other analogies. It is good for us to understand God’s being in all these ways. So we can and should draw strong and true similarities from these comparisons and analogies God has revealed about himself.
But, in doing so, we must realize that all biblical analogies, and descriptions, and words ultimately fall short, because it’s not possible to use analogies and words drawn from God’s finite creation to fully reveal the infinite, uncreated God.
For example, it is good for you to see God as a father, but not exactly the way you think of your earthly father. God is infinitely greater than that. He is the Father who is the standard for all fatherhood (Eph. 3:14-15). And, it is good for you to see God as a judge, but God is more than that.
When you see in Scripture that God is joyful, you should know that God’s joy is beyond the realm of human joy. And when you read in the Bible that God is angry, you should not think of God’s anger being exactly the same as human anger because it’s not. And when we read in Scripture that God repents or changes his mind, we should not think of God changing his mind like we would.
God’s revelation of his knowledge, power, and presence
To gain a deeper understanding of God’s revelation of himself in Scripture, it can be helpful to focus on three of his attributes: 1) his knowledge (omniscience), 2) his power (omnipotence), and 3) his presence (omnipresence):
God’s knowledge: He is omniscient. His unlimited knowledge includes knowing everything about everything, past, present, and future, and it includes not just knowing all facts and ideas, but knowing them from every possible perspective.
God’s power: He is omnipotent. His infinite power is being constantly exerted over every area of the universe, holding everything together, from the smallest atom to the largest planet and bringing about every event.
God’s presence: He is omnipresent. His presence is not limited by space and time. He is everywhere at once in the fullness of his being, in every square inch of the entire cosmos and for every second of the temporal sequence of life.
Although it can be helpful to focus on any one of these three attributes of God, they should not be seen as separate, compartmental aspects of God’s being, but as integrated, complementary views of God as one. Each of these communicable attributes (knowledge, power, and presence) should also be seen in light of not only God’s incommunicable attributes (infinity, eternality, immutability) but also in light of each other.
For example, God’s knowledge should be seen as being not only infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, but also a lens through which we gain a deeper understanding of God’s power and presence. Practically speaking, this means that:
God’s knowledge (omniscience) also reveals God’s power (omnipotence) above everything (omnipresence),
God’s power (omnipotence) also reveals God’s knowledge (omniscience) over everything (omnipresence), and
God’s presence (omnipresence) also reveals God’s knowledge (omniscience) in everything (omnipotence).
God’s simplicity and complexity
The relationship of God’s attributes to each other reveal that he is both simple and complex. Because God reveals himself as one being, his attributes must not be understood as being parts of his nature. Instead, God’s attributes should be seen as inseparable from his nature.
For example, God’s attributes of love, mercy, justice, wisdom, and power, etc. are not parts of him that can somehow be separated from the others. It’s not possible to separate God’s mercy from his justice or any other of his attributes. This description of God is often referred to as God’s simplicity.
Even if it were possible to separate any attribute of God from him, and it’s not, he would no longer be the God of the Bible. So when the Bible tells us that “God is love” (1 John 4:8), it’s not denying that God is also merciful, just, wise, and powerful. Practically speaking, this means God’s love is a merciful love, a just love, a wise love, and a powerful love, etc. Likewise, God’s justice is a loving justice, a merciful justice, a wise justice, and a powerful justice, etc.
We can summarize this complex integration of God’s attributes by saying that all God’s attributes include all the divine attributes. Some theologians think that to speak of God’s “complexity” violates our belief in his simplicity. But Scripture frequently emphasizes the vast multiplicity of God’s thoughts (Ps. 40:5, 139:17), his works (Job 37:14-16, Ps. 104:24, 106:7), his judgments and ways (Rom. 11:36).
When we consider God’s revelation in creation, we cannot help being amazed at the vast number of objects and relationships (indeed, the “all things” of Rom. 8:28 and Eph. 1:11) that God has coordinated to work together under his direction. That all these work as one reflects God’s simplicity; but that simplicity coordinates a vast complexity.
Introduction to the Gospel in Theology Series by Dr. John M. Frame
It is hard to believe that after two thousand years the Christian church is still discussing, even debating, “What is the gospel?” The gospel, the “good news,” is the fundamental truth of our faith, what we believe and proclaim to the world. If we don’t know what the gospel is, and if it doesn’t motivate everything we think and do and say, then what’s the point in claiming to be Christian at all?
At one level, of course, it is very simple: God saves sinners. But further questions and study draw us into a world of vast complexity and mystery. From that world, it is difficult to return to ordinary life, the world in which we are trying to communicate the gospel to needy people.
This is the sort of problem for which God raised up Pathway Learning. What we are all about is helping evangelists and church planters to bring the biblical message, even the most mysterious parts of it, to those hearing it for the first time. We are trying, as Cornelius Van Til used to say, to “put the cookies on the lower shelf.” But what we place on the shelf have to be real cookies, with all the sweet ingredients. To drop the metaphor: Not dumbed-down formulae, but the real biblical teaching, in all its richness.
The job is perilous. Theological accounts of “gospel” abound in oversimplification and overcomplication. How can we formulate the essence of it without getting lost in the details? How do we avoid the temptations of either parading our own academic subtlety or boasting of our down-home earthiness?
Prayerfully, we have concluded that the doctrine of the Trinity helps us to meet such challenges. In Scripture, God is three in one. So salvation from sin is the work of the three divine persons: the Father’s eternal plan, the Son’s actions in history, and the Spirit’s work in our hearts. So it is threefold, but it is also one. Each divine person is present in the others and in the great drama of redemption. So in the end it is a simple gospel, but one that is open to the riches and mystery of the eternal God.
In the history of debate over “gospel,” especially in recent years, some have emphasized its application to individual persons, what God does for me (1 Tim. 1:15). Others have emphasized that the gospel renovates the entire cosmos (Rom. 8:18-25). Still others call attention to what redemption does for God himself: that it vindicates his sovereignty and glory (John 17:1-4).
We see these three emphases, not as rival understandings of the good news, but as aspects of the full Trinitarian gospel. When you look closely at one of them, you will see the other two lying within it. To invoke our buzzword: the three are “perspectivally related.” Each of these understandings is a perspective on the whole and on the other two. So, as the Trinity itself, the gospel is wonderfully simple, and it envelops a rich, threefold, blessing.
We do not present this approach as a novelty, to be commended for its creativity. We find this Trinitarian structure and balance within the historic creeds of the church, and in the thought of its greatest theologians, such as Augustine and Calvin. So this book seeks unity, not only between different theological intuitions, but also between theological methods: we want to bring together systematic theology, biblical theology, and historical theology.
Nevertheless, we do not perceive this work primarily as an academic exercise. We realize that in this book we are treading on holy ground. As we try to understand the gospel of Jesus, we realize that souls are at stake. So as we prepare this book we pray that God will accompany it, to plant churches and to plant his Word deep in the hearts of those who hear it.
Dr. John M. Frame
Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy Emeritus
Reformed Theological Seminary
Restorative and Christological Foundations (Foundations Series 6 of 6)
Restorative Foundation
The Scriptures tell us the Triune Lord carries out his plan of redemption in history to bring salvation to fallen humanity and creation. Therefore, the central message of the Bible is “salvation belongs to the Lord” (Jonah 2:9).
The ultimate goal of salvation is not merely to forgive and relocate believers to heaven, but to restore fallen humanity and creation so they will flourish in a new earth for eternity. The Greek word in Scripture that we translate “save” means to make whole.
The essence of salvation is the restoration of God’s original purposes in creation. What needs to be restored is humanity’s broken relationship with God, self, others, and creation because of the Fall.
Paradise Created
In the beginning, God created and ruled over everything—and it was good. God made human beings in his image to be in a healthy relationship with him as they carried out his purposes for the world. In the original creation, before the Fall, we see a glimpse of true human flourishing according to God’s creative order and design.
It was heaven on earth. There was no pain, suffering, disease, sickness, or death. The Hebrew prophets use the word “shalom” to describe this state of full peace, completeness, wholeness, and blessedness.
In this garden paradise, Adam and Eve experienced the blessedness of shalom—the fullness of happiness, love, joy, and peace. Their interwoven relationships with God, themselves, each other, and creation reflect God’s highly relational triune image. These relationships are the building blocks for all of life. When they are functioning properly we experience the fullness of life that God intended.
Paradise Lost
However, paradise didn’t last. When sin entered the world, something terrible happened—not only to people, but to all of creation. After the Fall, by God’s grace there is still a significant remnant of paradise left in our lives and world, even though things are also horribly ruined and no longer the way they are supposed to be.
In Genesis 3 we learn that, because of sin, humanity became alienated from God and under his just curse because of our guilt and moral corruption. This alienation and curse then flowed, like a polluted river, into all our other relationships. For example, our alienation from God flows into our alienation from ourselves when we experience shame and fear (Gen. 3:10). And it flows into alienation from others, resulting in a loss of transparency and intimacy in all our relationships (Gen. 3:10, 11-13).
Our alienation from God also brings about our broken relationship with creation. Our work is now cursed with toil and vanity. The curse of sin has even spread to our physical bodies, resulting in disease, sickness, and death (Gen. 3:16-19). All of creation and nature itself is now subject to decay (Rom. 8:18-25).
Creation Restored
But there is good news! God now promises to apply the riches of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ to all the broken relationships of those who truly believe in him and follow him as Savior and Lord.
First and foremost, God promises to restore our alienated relationship with him by graciously giving us a new standing and a new heart in Christ to replace our guilty standing and corrupt heart because of sin.
Our new knowledge of God in Christ brings healing to our broken relationship with ourselves, which in turn deepens our relationship with God.
Our restored relationship with God also restores our relationships with others, especially as God unites us by his Spirit in a new community, his Church. God designs this new community to be a living display of his kingdom and an instrument to carry out his purposes on earth.
Our restored relationships with God, self, and others flow into our relationship with creation as we seek to influence all our spheres of work as faithful servants of the king, in order to carry out his will on the earth.
All these restored relationships give us a foretaste of God’s kingdom that is still to come, in all its fullness, when Jesus returns to make all things new forever in a new world.
Sound theology reflects this good news of God’s saving grace that restores fallen humanity and creation to the full beauty of his original design.
Christological Foundation
The Scriptures present Jesus Christ at the center of the biblical story of salvation. They proclaim the good news that God’s kingdom has entered the world through Jesus, to redeem and restore fallen humanity and creation from all the consequences of sin.
The historical context for the biblical word “gospel” is the declaration of a news report about something big that has happened. It’s a proclamation about a set of events that God means to shape our lives–especially those events surrounding what God did in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
What is this good news about God’s kingdom? It’s that the Father’s creation, ruined by the Fall, is being redeemed by Christ and restored by God’s Spirit to become the kingdom of God on earth.
This good news includes gospel events, affirmations, promises, and demands.
The Gospel Events are what Jesus did in his birth (incarnation), life, death, resurrection, and ascension.
The Gospel Affirmations are who Jesus is (Lord and Savior), because of what he did.
The Gospel Promises are what God promises all who are in Christ, including:
forgiveness and a new standing before God
a new nature and heart by the work of the Holy Spirit
a new community of the people of God—the church
a new world when Jesus returns—the New Heaven and New Earth
The Gospel Demands are what God requires of people to be united to God in Christ and receive all the promised benefits of Jesus’ redemption. They are repentance, faith, and obedience.
The good news is that the redemption accomplished by God the Son is being applied by God the Spirit to restore all things lost in the Fall. It’s good news about God’s kingdom in the past, present, and future.
In the past, it’s the good news that God’s kingdom has already come to earth through the resurrection and ascension of Jesus—and the outpouring of God’s Spirit on his church.
In the present, it’s the good news that God’s kingdom is coming on earth today through the resurrected and ascended Lord Jesus Christ, by his Spirit and through his church.
And in the future, it’s the good news that one day God’s kingdom will come in all its fullness when Jesus returns to make all things new.
Sound theology must be Christ-centered by being grounded in this biblical understanding of the gospel.
Sound theology understands the Scriptures to be presenting Jesus Christ as at the center of God’s plan of salvation. It proclaims the good news that God’s kingdom has entered the world through him, to redeem and restore fallen humanity and creation as far as the curse is found.
Redemptive and Covenantal Foundations (Foundations Series 5 of 6)
Redemptive Foundation
Sound theology is more than biblical, missional, and centered on God as Triune Lord. Sound theology also reflects how God, as Triune Lord, enters time and accomplishes his redemptive plan for fallen humanity and creation through real historical events.
When God reveals in Scripture who he is and what he does, we see an amazing story unfold from the beginning to the end of time. This story tells of the historical progression of God’s creative and redemptive purpose for the world in Christ. It unfolds throughout the Bible like a four act dramatic play.
Act One: God’s creation of the world and humanity
Act Two: The fall of humanity and the world into sin
Act Three: God's redemption of all things lost in the Fall through the person and work of Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit
Act Four: God's final restoration of all things when Jesus returns to establish God’s kingdom on earth for eternity
This understanding of God’s Word includes a robust biblical doctrine of creation that far transcends a narrow focus on what happened at the beginning. It’s a view of redemption that reaches beyond saving souls.
The early church father Augustine (354-430 AD) describes the essence of God’s saving work in Jesus Christ as restoring all things lost in the Fall by using a series of Latin couplets that describe God as “Former and Re-Former,” “Creator and Re-Creator,” and “Maker and Re-Maker.”
Therefore, Augustine understood the essence of salvation in Christ as transformation, seeing creation as formation, the fall as deformation, and redemption as reformation.
He saw this as more than speculative doctrine to teach and defend. He recognized it as truth that is meant to lead us to worship and enjoy God for who he is and for all he has done in creating and now re-creating all things in Christ.
This is why Augustine often included these couplets in public worship and offered them as a simple prayer.
May the one who formed us reform us, the one who created us recreate us, the one who installed us restore us to perfection.
Likewise, in his theological writings from the late 19th century, Herman Bavinck concludes from Scripture that the essence of salvation is "Grace restores nature."
He shows how the goal of salvation in the Bible is not only to forgive and relocate believers to heaven, but to restore fallen humanity and creation by re-establishing God’s kingdom on earth. Consequently, human beings are restored image bearers flourishing on the earth as God intended in creation. Bavinck writes,
“Grace serves, not to take up humans into a supernatural order, but to free them from sin. Grace is opposed not to nature, only to sin … Grace restores nature and takes it to its highest pinnacle.”
Understanding who God is and what he does as Triune Lord to restore fallen humanity and creation gives us four major categories to guide our study of theology:
Creation: Knowing God the Father as Creator
Fall: Knowing the Human Race as Fallen
Redemption: Knowing God the Son as Redeemer
Restoration: Knowing God the Spirit as Restorer
As we saw earlier, the writers of the early church creeds and the writers of the Reformation, like Luther and Calvin, followed this Trinitarian-Redemptive approach to the study of theology.
But in the late 16th century, many theologians stopped following this historically ordered theology and created more speculative categories, relegating this Trinitarian-Redemptive method to a sub-category.
Instead of using the biblical narrative in the Apostles’ Creed as the overarching approach to the study of theology, they adopted a list of topics related to salvation that are most often used in contemporary systematic theology.
Bibliology: The study of the Bible
Theology proper: The study of the nature of God
Anthropology: The study of humanity
Hamartiology: The study of sin
Christology: The study of Jesus Christ
Ecclesiology: The study of the church
Pneumatology: The study of the Holy Spirit
Soteriology: The study of salvation
Eschatology: The study of the end times
Our approach in Applied Theology is to integrate the study of these topics into the Trinitarian and redemptive-historical approach.
Creation: Knowing God the Father as Creator
Bibliology: The study of the Bible
Theology proper: The study of the nature of God
Fall: Knowing the Human Race as Fallen
Anthropology: The study of humanity
Hamartiology: The study of sin
Redemption: Knowing God the Son as Redeemer
Christology: The study of Jesus Christ
Ecclesiology: The study of the church
Restoration: Knowing God the Spirit as Restorer
Pneumatology: The study of the Holy Spirit
Soteriology: The study of salvation
Eschatology: The study of the end times
Following this approach will allow us to study the traditional topics used in systematic theology without losing the redemptive-historical narrative.
Covenantal Foundation
The Scriptures teach that God, as Triune Lord, has a unique way of carrying out his plan of redemption in the unfolding eras of Creation, the Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. It’s through a series of covenants.
The biblical word for covenant is translated from the Old Testament Hebrew בְּרִית (berith) and the New Testament Greek διαθήκη (diatheke). A covenant is an oath-bound agreement between two or more parties. Marriage is an example of a covenant.
In the Scriptures, the Lord sovereignly establishes his covenant with his creatures, in which he binds himself by his own oath to keep his promises.
The Old and New Testaments describe the special relationship God has with his people as a covenant. Like the Trinity, the concept of covenant is more than a narrow point of doctrine. It also gives us a conceptual overview by which we are to understand all of Scripture.
We’ll study the biblical covenants in greater depth later in this series, but let’s start with a brief survey of the major covenants that will shape our understanding of theology.
The Eternal Covenant of Redemption
Theologians call the most foundational covenant in Scripture the Eternal Covenant of Redemption because it takes place before time among the persons of the Trinity (e.g. Titus 1:1-2). In this covenant:
The Father establishes God’s plan of salvation (Eph. 1:3-6, cf. Rev. 13:8).
The Son agrees to accomplish the plan (Eph. 1:7-12, cf. John 10:17-18).
The Spirit agrees to apply the work of the Son to fallen humanity and creation (Eph. 1:13-14, cf. Rom. 8:19-23).
The Triune God carries out his Eternal Covenant of Redemption in a series of other covenants after the world was created, starting with the covenants God made with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
The Edenic Covenants
The covenants God made with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden are often called the Covenant of Creation, the Covenant of Works, and the Covenant of Grace.
In the Covenant of Creation, God reveals his basic design for humanity and creation in a series of commands, called the creation ordinances. These include the responsibility of productive work (Gen. 1:26-28, 2:15), a Sabbath rhythm of life (Gen. 2:1-2), and the institution of marriage (Gen. 2:24).
In the Covenant of Works, God makes a covenant with Adam as the representative of all humanity and promises to bless him if he keeps the conditions of this covenant, by continuing to obey God’s will in all things. When Adam and Eve disobey by eating of the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God keeps his promise to curse them (Gen. 2:16-17, 3:14-19).
The Covenant of Grace
But God did not abandon his plan for humanity and the world. Instead, he announced his Covenant of Grace by promising a Savior, called the “seed of the woman,” (Jesus Christ) who would destroy Satan and redeem God’s people (Gen. 3:15).
Following the Flood, God reveals his Covenant of Grace in his covenant with Noah, promising to never destroy all life on earth in that same way (Gen. 8:20-9:17).
Later, God makes a covenant with Abraham and promises him a prosperous land and a great nation, through which he would bless all the families of the world (Gen. 12:2-3).
With Moses, God’s Covenant of Grace includes the more formal, written statements of God’s will and character which we call God’s law (Exod. 20, Lev. 18:5, Gal. 3:10-14). Under God’s covenant with David, God establishes his throne and kingdom on earth at a temple on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem and promises that one of his descendants would sit on his throne forever (Ps. 78:60-72).
The New Covenant
Through the Old Testament prophets, God reveals his promised blessing of a New Covenant, which is the culmination of the Covenant of Grace, through which he pledges to keep all his previous covenant promises (Jer. 31:31-34). Again, God promises a coming anointed King in the line of David, the Christ, who will be a perfect covenant-keeper on behalf of his people.
Nothing would thwart God's mission to redeem and restore fallen humanity and creation. How would God do this? Through the Christ of the covenants. Under God’s Covenant of Grace, Jesus Christ accomplishes for us what Adam failed to do in the Covenant of Works (Rom. 5:1-12, 1 Cor. 15:22).
A theology that is sound and faithful to Scripture must reflect this story of God’s unfolding covenants in history. Therefore, in this series you’ll learn that the topic of biblical covenants is not an isolated topic in theology but one that can help us understand all other theological topics.
Lordship and Trinitarian Foundations (Foundations Series 4 of 6)
Lordship Foundation
Our study of God in theology must be not only biblical and missional but also centered on the supremacy of God as Lord. The essence of God’s revelation of himself in Scripture is that he is Lord.
Throughout the Bible, one of the most significant ways God reveals his nature is by his many names. Theologians suggest many groupings and distinctions between them.
But almost all agree that God’s name Yahweh (YHWH in Hebrew, or LORD in English–often capitalized) is the most significant name of God in the Old Testament.
This English name for God, LORD, the Hebrew name Lord (Adon), and the Greek name Lord (Kurios), occur over 7000 times in the Bible. All throughout history recorded in Scripture, we learn that God works in the lives of his people so they will know he is LORD (e.g. Exod 6:7).
Therefore, the essence of theology is the study of God in Scripture to know who he is and what he does as Lord. And this fundamental confession of God’s Lordship summarizes the main message of the Bible.
When God appears to Moses in the burning bush, Moses asks God what his name is to understand who he is and what he is like. God answers Moses, saying:
“I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you. Say this to the people of Israel: ‘YHWH (LORD), the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’” (Exod 3:14-15).
In obedience to God’s command, Moses wrote this historic confession of faith: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut. 6:4-5).
God's revelation as LORD in the Old Testament continues in the New Testament when God translates his personal name YHWH as Lord (Greek kurios) and applies the name to Jesus.
When the Jewish religious leaders ask Jesus, “Who do you make yourself out to be?” he answers, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM. So they picked up stones to throw at him (John 8:53, 58-59a).” This violent response to Jesus’ “I AM” statement shows that the religious leaders understood Jesus to be saying he was equal to God, who gave himself the name “I AM” in Exodus 3.
This same confession of God’s people in the Old Testament, that “God is LORD,” continues in the New Testament and today as “Jesus is Lord!” (Rom 10:9).
The Scriptures teach that God created the world to be an eternal, utopian, cosmic display of God’s glory as he rules over everything as Lord. God created us to reflect his glory as we find our joy in him and the mission he began at creation. His mission is to fill the earth and rule over it as Lord so that the paradise of his perfect rule will extend on earth for eternity.
However, evil entered the story through a real villain, Satan, who enticed humanity to sin. We lost paradise. As a result, God allowed Satan to set up his kingdom in this fallen world and to rule over it. The Apostle John writes, “The whole world is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). This means that Satan now declares himself to be Lord and cries “Mine!” over all of God’s creation to rule over it for his evil purposes.
But the good news is that God, as Lord in Christ, is not only the Creator of all things but also the Redeemer and Restorer of all things lost in creation because of the Fall.
As our Redeemer Lord, Jesus lived the life we should have lived and died the death we deserve to die for our sin. Through his death, Paul writes, “He disarmed all rulers and authorities putting them to open shame, by triumphing over them” (Col. 2:15). Then God raised Him from the dead, proclaiming his ultimate victory over evil and inaugurating his new rule on earth as Lord.
After ascending to the right hand of God the Father, Jesus continues God’s mission on earth by redeeming and restoring all things lost in the Fall as “far as the curse is found.”[1] In Philippians 2:9-11, the Apostle Paul describes why God exalted Jesus:
“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
When Jesus returns, he will reveal God’s Lordship by crushing Satan under his feet (Rom 16:20). Paul writes: “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” (1 Cor 15:24-25).
At the return of Christ, he will reveal the full extent of God's rule and overcome all enemies of God’s Lordship and honor. This promise of God’s future rule as Lord gives us a biblical vision of Jesus’ present rule as our ascended Lord, as he is now putting all his and our enemies under his feet. So, when we battle with the enemies of God’s Lordship in our lives, we are not fighting alone.
Dutch statesman-theologian Abraham Kuyper (1880) presents this biblical vision of God's Lordship: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”
Although the study of God in Scripture should help us apply God’s Word to our lives so we can grow in our maturity in Christ, however, the end goal of theology is vertical, not horizontal.
Sound theology is about God’s Lordship over all things. It starts with God and finds its goal in God. The higher purpose of our study of God in Scripture is to know, love, serve, and honor God as Lord in all of life.
Trinitarian Foundation
Sound theology must be more than biblical, missional, and centered on the supremacy of God as Lord. It must also be Trinitarian because God has revealed himself in Scripture as the Triune Lord. Therefore, to know God as Lord means to know who God is (his attributes) and what God does (his acts) as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
So all Christian theology includes the Trinity as one of its many topics. And theologians usually teach it as a sub-category under the more major category of the doctrine of God. However, the Trinity is both a doctrine and a perspective for all other doctrines.
In the study of theology, we need a method to help us identify the topics we study and determine how to organize them into a coherent whole. In this series, instead of studying the doctrine of the Trinity only under the doctrine of God, we are learning about all the other Christian doctrines in light of the Trinity.
This is because the Bible presents all these individual, doctrinal topics as vital parts of the bigger story, the unfolding mission of the Triune Lord as Creator, Redeemer, and Restorer:
God the Father establishes his will by creating all things
God the Son accomplishes his will by redeeming all things lost in the Fall
God the Spirit applies his will by restoring all things lost in the Fall
This approach connects us back to an ancient, historic method that uses the Trinity as an organizing structure for studying theology. For example, this is the model of the most famous creed of Christianity, the Apostles’ Creed (120-250 AD).
FATHER
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth.
SON
I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended into hell
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
HOLY SPIRIT
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
Likewise, we find this Trinitarian method of studying Christian theology in other ancient creeds, like the Nicene Creed (325 AD) and in the writings of the church fathers of the past. Early on, the precedent for constructing theology in alignment with the Triune God’s work in redemptive history became well established.
Prominent theologians who follow this approach include Augustine (5th century), John of Damascus (8th century), Peter Lombard (12th century), Thomas Aquinas (13th century), Martin Luther (16th century), and John Calvin (16th century).
Therefore, when Calvin wrote his well-known Institutes of the Christian Religion (1564), considered by many to be one of the most significant and influential Protestant Systematic Theologies, he followed the Trinitarian approach to theology in the Apostles’ Creed and titled his first three books:
Book One. The Knowledge of God the Creator (Father)
Book Two. The Knowledge of God the Redeemer in Christ
Book Three. The Way in Which We Receive the Grace of Christ (Holy Spirit)
Following this biblical and historical precedent, we will study theology in this series with an intentional focus on the person and work of the Triune Lord in history.
Biblical and Missional Foundations (Foundations Series 3 of 6)
Biblical Foundation
Our definition of theology is the application of God’s revelation in Scripture to all areas of life. So the role of the Bible in developing sound theology is essential.
To apply the Bible, we need to know the Bible. And to know the Bible, we need to study it. The Apostle Paul writes to his disciple Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).
Notice how the Bible commends the people in the city of Berea who heard Paul’s teaching: “Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11).
Following the example of the Bereans, we must test everything, including the great ecumenical creeds and historical confessions of faith, by studying the Scriptures.
The Westminster Confession (1646) warns about the danger of placing more value on the confessions and creeds from church councils than on the Bible: “All synods or councils, since the apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err; and many have erred. Therefore, they are not to be made the rule of faith or practice; but to be used as a help in both.”
Martin Luther reflects this in his famous statement: “Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God.”
Likewise, Calvin echoes this sentiment: “Be this as it may, we shall never be able to distinguish between contradictory and dissenting councils, which have been many, unless we weigh them all in that balance for men and angels, I mean, the word of God.”
Any form of traditionalism that demands a total alignment with a theological tradition, divorced from a higher commitment to sola Scriptura, can lead to spiritual ruin.
However, it’s not enough to study and to understand Scripture. We must also learn how to apply it. Sola Scriptura refers not only to the authority and clarity of the Bible but also to its sufficiency and application to all of life. The Westminster Confession describes it this way:
The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture. (Italics ours)
Paul writes to Timothy about the sufficiency of Scripture: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16).
Likewise, Peter describes the fullness of God’s revelation as including “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Pet 1:3).
The doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture affirms that the Bible clearly teaches, either explicitly or implicitly, all God's truth necessary for our salvation and spiritual life.
This doesn’t mean the Bible has all truth. For example, the Scriptures don’t explain all the laws and principles of natural science such as physics, chemistry, and biology. The Bible is not a scientific textbook, but where it speaks to science, it speaks truthfully.
The doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture doesn’t discourage us from learning truth from the natural world. Instead, a biblical view of truth acknowledges all truth is God’s truth. If something is true, it’s because it is an accurate description of something God reveals or creates.
The fifth century theologian Augustine writes: “Nay, but let every good and true Christian understand that wherever truth may be found, it belongs to his Master…” Calvin agrees with this when he states: “All truth is from God; and consequently, if wicked men have said anything that is true and just, we ought not to reject it; for it has come from God.”
Therefore, we can and should recognize the riches of God’s truth revealed in his creation. But we must also affirm sola Scriptura, that the Bible alone gives us all the truth we need for our salvation and spiritual life.
Because the Bible is God’s inspired Word which includes an understandable and consistent set of truths, we can understand it on our own, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Nevertheless, affirming the sufficiency of Scripture and the work of the Holy Spirit doesn’t mean we don’t need pastors and teachers. In Ephesians 4:11-13, the Apostle Paul writes:
“It was [Christ] who gave some to be … pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all … become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
Although the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit can give us salvation and spiritual life, God gives us pastors and teachers to help us mature spiritually in ways we could not without them. The writer of Hebrews challenges his readers who failed to become mature through their teachers’ instruction:
“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food ... But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil (Heb. 5:12-14).”
Our goal in this series is to help you understand the biblical balance between the sufficiency of Scripture and the need for teachers to help you mature in Christ.
Missional Foundation
The Bible gives us more than just a consistent set of truths to help us develop our theology. It also gives us a unified, unfolding story to shape our theology. It's the story of God's mission.
Although the Bible comprises a wide variety of literature—including laws, history, prophecies, poetry, letters, and apocalyptic writings—at its core, it is one unfolding story with a beginning, middle, and end.
The Bible isn’t a hodge podge compilation of isolated facts we need to arrange into a coherent set of topics to understand it. Kevin Vanhoozer describes this traditional approach to theology when he writes, “For large swaths of the Western tradition, the task of theology consisted in mining propositional nuggets from the biblical deposit of truth.”
Similarly, Michael Goheen warns against the common danger of approaching the study of the Bible apart from understanding its overarching story:
We have fragmented the Bible into bits … moral bits, systematic-theological bits, devotional bits, narrative bits, and sermon bits. And when the Bible is broken up in this way there is no comprehensive grand narrative to withstand the power of the comprehensive humanist narrative that shapes our culture.
Therefore, it’s possible to master Christian doctrine and know all the stories in the Bible, but still miss what Edmund Clowney calls the Story in the stories:
It is possible to know Bible stories, yet miss the Bible story. The Bible is much more than William How stated: “a golden casket where gems of truth are stored.” It is more than a bewildering collection of oracles, proverbs, poems, architectural directions, annals, and prophecies. The Bible has a story line. It traces an unfolding drama ... The story is God’s story. It describes His work to rescue rebels from their folly, guilt, and ruin ... Only God’s revelation can build a story where the end is anticipated from the beginning, and where the guiding principle is not chance or fate, but a promise. Human authors may build fiction around a plot they have devised, but only God can shape history to a real and ultimate purpose.
Lesslie Newbigin was a twentieth-century British theologian and missionary to India. While in India, a Hindu leader admonished him for presenting the truths of Scripture apart from God’s unfolding mission in history:
I can’t understand why you missionaries present the Bible to us in India as a book of religion. It is not a book of religion—and anyway we have plenty of books of religion in India. We don’t need any more! I find in your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole of creation and the history of the human race. And therefore a unique interpretation of the human person as a responsible actor in history. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside it.
To understand the Bible, we must interpret it in light of God’s mission. At its heart, biblical theology is missional theology. Knowing this, we can understand how all the familiar bits and pieces fit into the grand narrative. We don't find God's mission in only a few New Testament passages. Instead, we find it throughout the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.
God means for this revelation of his mission in Scripture to shape our theology, to draw us into its plot, and to compel us to align our life purpose with his.