Benjamin L. Gladd

Summary: A study of the theme of the people of God, tracing this theme throughout scripture in Eden, in Israel, in Christ, and in the church.

This is the inaugural volume of a new series looking at essential themes in the story line of scripture. This work is written by series editor Benjamin L. Gladd and traces the idea of the people of God through scripture. For many, particularly in the dispensationalist stream, this is defined by covenant with a sharp demarcation between Israel and the church.

Gladd uses a different lens, focusing on the people of God as created in the image of God, expressed in terms of the functions of king, priest, and prophet. Kings control the environment, keeping it holy. Priests both worship holy God and discern between holy and unclean. Prophets speak truth on behalf of God. Gladd also develops a three level understanding of the world that mirrors the heavenly temple with the Holy of Holies (Eden), the Holy Place (the Garden) and the outer courts (the outer world).

Gladd traces this from Eden, where Adam and Eve allow the unholy serpent into the Holy of Holies, yielding control of the environment, and shade and then disobey rather than speak the truth. He then shows how this image of God as king, priest, and prophet was reflected in the creation and fall of Israel, at Sinai, in the Tabernacle and Temple, and the nation's decline into idolatry with unfaithful kings, apostasy with unfaithful priests, and prophets bringing the word of God competing with those who were false. Ultimately, in Nebuchadnezzar they experience what they've embraced in the anti-king, anti-priest, and anti-prophet. The prophets point to Israel's restoration, centered in a person who would embody king, priest and prophet.

Jesus embodies restored Israel in his person as the ideal king who succeeds where Adam and Israel fail, and gives himself for his people as great high priest, who is also the temple, the Holy of Holies, and speaks with authority the word of God that constitutes the people of God. These people, the church are the Israel of God, displaying the image of God who rule by standing and suffering with the king, to be vindicated by God, who are priests built as a temple for God to dwell on earth and who bear prophetic witness to the world and the cosmos and stand guard against the evil one's wiles.

Perhaps most bracing is the author's thoughts about how kingship, priesthood, and prophets works out in the new creation:

"Perhaps another dimension of imaging God in the new creation will be the development of technology and science. Will we invent the wheel again? Will we learn how to start a fire once more? What about basic human knowledge such as math, language, music, and so on? I suspect that we will not start from scratch. One could possibly argue that we, being perfected in God's image, will develop what we have learned in the past. The knowledge that humanity has acquired and is acquiring through observing the world around us may not only inform us about God's creative power, but it may also prepare us for life in the new creation."

The author speaks of the wedge between Israel and the church and the church as the true Israel, the people of God who image God, in continuity with ethnic Israel. I wish the author might have said more specifically about the Jews, and about how Romans 11 might be fulfilled in this people of God. The author allows for a "remnant of Christian Jews" saved through history (p. 128-129), which seems far from explaining how "all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26). He contends that the church does not replace Israel, yet he calls the church the true Israel of God. Granted that how these things shall be is unclear for any of us, this presentation seems to be murky at best.

That said, Gladd paints a picture of the people of God throughout history, a people who images God in the world, and in our own day is called to be kings who rule without exploiting, who worship God alone and commend his excellence over all worldly idols, and who prize the truth in our lives and words. We pursue these in faithfulness to the great high king, high priest and ultimate prophet, Jesus. This is not insipid pablum but strong and substantive food for the follower of Jesus. I look forward to seeing what successive volumes in this series do to enlarge on the biblical story line.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.… (mais)

Hidden But Now Revealed, G. K. Beale and Benjamin L. Gladd. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014.

Summary: A study of the word mystery in scripture, particularly considering its use in the Old Testament book of Daniel, and how nearly all New Testament usages connect back to this book, and show the once hidden but now revealed realities surrounding the person of Christ, his kingdom, and the inclusion of the Gentiles.

"Mystery" means quite a number of different things, and often, when we read passages in the Bible that refer in some way to mystery, we read those into the text. In other instances, it is the practice to read into the New Testament usage of mystery the uses of this term in the pagan religions of surrounding cultures.

Beale and Gladd in this book understand mystery as something that was once hidden but had now been revealed, or will be revealed. What they do in this book is study all the instances where the word occurs in scripture, primarily in Daniel in the Old Testament, some in inter-testamental Judaism, and in the canonical New Testament books of Matthew, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, and Revelation. They devote a chapter to each of these, exegeting the text, and in the case of the New Testament books, showing the echoes or connections back to Daniel in almost every use--often in parallels in word usage and meaning, as well as in the elaboration or fuller development of that meaning. Each chapter includes conclusions that summarize the biblical theology of mystery in that book. Many of the chapters also have excurses on special issues related to the text of a particular book.

The final chapters consider the theme of mystery in the New Testament even where the word does not occur, the contrast between the esoteric character of pagan mystery religions and the open character of the biblical proclamation of the mysteries revealed in Christ. A conclusion then ties together the theology of mystery found throughout scripture, showing how so much was revealed in the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection and cosmic rule of the Son of God. There is the mystery of the already-not yet kingdom and the inclusion of the Gentiles. Most of all is the mystery of the cruciform work of Christ, how the victory of Christ and salvation and the conquest of Satan occurred through the death of Jesus.

One of the bonuses of this book was the concluding appendix on "The Cognitive Peripheral Vision of the Biblical Authors." Have you ever noticed how some of the passages cited as prophecies of Christ, seem to mean something very different in their Old Testament context? It seems that the New Testament authors interpret these to mean something very different from what they meant in their original context. Beale and Gladd argue that this reflects a type of "peripheral vision." The contextual meaning in the Old Testament is the equivalent of the focal point in one's vision. They would contend, and show evidence from different shadings of meaning within the same Old Testament books, that authors may mean and comprehend more than their explicit intention in a particular passage, such that the appropriation of these passages by New Testament writers falls within their "cognitive peripheral vision." I'm not sure I buy it yet, but it is an intriguing idea to explore further.

Overall, I thought this was an example of doing biblical theology at its best from a conviction that one may trace both continuity and discontinuity between the testaments but can look for coherence in the whole. They work from exegesis, to summary of the theology of mystery in each book of scripture, to a synthesis of the theology of mystery found in scripture as a whole. Their close, careful study requires the reader's full attention, but if followed leaves one with a new sense of the wonder of what has been revealed in the coming of Christ, as well as the glories we may yet anticipate.… (mais)