The God of the Christian Scriptures
JOHN GOLDINGAY
An imprint of InterVarsity Press
Downers Grove, Illinois
P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426
©2016 by John Goldingay
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.
InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, visit intervarsity.org.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are the author’s translation.
Cover design: Cindy Kiple
Images: ©Langfactor/iStockphoto
ISBN 978-0-8308-7314-2 (digital)
ISBN 978-0-8308-5153-9 (print)
To no one has [the Lord] given power to proclaim his works,
and who can fathom his mighty deeds?
Who can measure his majestic power,
and who can go on to recount his mercies?
It is not possible to lessen or increase them,
nor is it possible to fathom the Lord’s wonders.
When human beings have finished, they are just beginning,
and when they stop, they are still at a loss.
Mystery is the lifeblood of dogmatics.
Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics 2:29
(It’s important to biblical theology, too.)
1.3 God’s Spirit, Wind and Fire
3.6 Waywardness and Its Consequences
4.4 God’s Secret Plan: Israel Expanded
5.2 Jesus’ Death: Embodying and Modeling
5.3 Jesus’ Death: Carrying Wrongdoing
5.4 Jesus’ Death: Cleansing and Making Restitution
5.5 Jesus’ Death: Freeing People for a New Service
6.4 The Congregation’s Servants
8.1 The Fulfillment of God’s Intent
8.3 Between the End and the End
When I was writing an Old Testament Theology,1 a voice in my head told me that it should be a biblical theology. To consider the theological significance of the Old Testament in isolation was an odd exercise, given that the church acknowledges the two Testaments as its Scriptures. Admittedly, it’s not as odd an exercise as treating the New Testament in isolation. The Old Testament ...
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About Biblical Theology: The God of the Christian ScripturesImagine someone who has spent a lifetime listening deeply and attentively to the full range of Scripture’s testimony. Stepping back, they now describe what they have seen and heard. What emerges is a theological cathedral, laid out on the great vectors of Scripture and fitted with biblically sourced materials. This is what John Goldingay has done. Well known for his three-volume Old Testament Theology, he has now risen to the challenge of a biblical theology. While taking the New Testament as a portal into the biblical canon, he seeks to preserve the distinct voices of Israel’s Scriptures, accepting even its irregular and sinewed pieces as features rather than problems. Goldingay does not search out a thematic core or overarching unity, but allows Scripture’s diversity and tensions to remain as manifold witnesses to the ways of God. While many interpreters interrogate Scripture under the harsh lights of late-modern questions, Goldingay engages in a dialogue keen on letting Scripture speak to us in its own voice. Throughout he asks, “What understanding of God and the world and life emerges from these two testaments?” Goldingay’s Biblical Theology is a landmark achievement—hermeneutically dexterous, biblically expansive, and nourishing to mind, soul and proclamation. |
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