The Bible’s Big Story
Without a firm grasp on the
Bible’s Big Story, its grand meta-narrative, our understanding of the
smaller stories and even the Gospel is hindered. Moreover, given how
fast our culture is moving from the Christian heritage to crass
secularization, those with whom we would share the Gospel haven’t the
necessary historical context to make the Gospel meaningful. What
follows is just one suggestion to help improve these conditions.
Systematic-Theologically Stated
In
essence, the Bible’s Big Story can be summed up in God creating and
redeeming a humanity to dwell among, so that throughout the Story we
hear the promising refrain that is finally and fully realized in Rev
21:3, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the
dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, they will
be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”
Systematically
stated, this Big Story or meta-narrative is an organic unity that
unfolds through four major divisions: (1) Creation, (2) rebellion, (3)
redemption, and (4) consummation or new creation. Thus, (1) God creates
the universe and man. Originally, the creation and humanity were “very
good” in God’s evaluation, by virtue of the entire created order,
especially man, who, as prophet, priest, and king over creation, is in a
proper relationship with the Creator God, evil being the contrary of
this “very good” relationship.
Soon, though, (2) this sweet,
loving, sustaining relationship was ruined by man’s rebellion against
God. Because God is infinitely just and cannot lie, he was true to his
word and decree, and thus brought man and his world under the judgment
and curse promised upon man’s disobedience. Thankfully, (3) God is also
infinitely merciful, and with the punishment came the Promise—the first
promise of redemption, the Gospel (Gen 3:15). The promised “Seed of
the woman,” the Coming One, “in the fullness of time” (Gal 4:4), Jesus
Christ, stepped into history and accomplished that redemption through
his incarnation, life, sacrificial-substitutionary death, resurrection
from the dead, his exaltation to the right hand of the Father, and the
sending of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (henceforth, these
historical-redemptive events of Jesus’ sojourn on earth during his first
coming will be called the Christ Event for convenience). We now live
in the daily expectation of Christ’s return, when he will bring his
redemptive work to a completion with his second coming, bring about a
general resurrection of believers and unbelievers alike, and executing
the final judgment, once for all to destroy all his enemies, Death and
Hades, and the Adversary himself, that old serpent, Satan in the lake of
fire. Only then, after the curse, evil, and death that was ushered in
by man’s fall is finally destroyed, having been “put under Christ’s
feet,” will (4) the new creation—the new heaven and new earth—be
realized.
In the present, therefore, the whole creation in
general (Rom 8:18f) and humanity in particular is living in the tension
between Christ accomplishing redemption (his first coming) and his
breaking into history to wrap up all things and bring that redemption to
its completion in judgment on the wicked and salvation on the elect
(his second coming). So “according to his promise we are waiting for
new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet 3:13).
This hope is our salvation.
Lest it seem that we have gotten
ahead of ourselves in neatly systematizing all the complex data from
Scripture in the four-fold framework above (i.e., creation, rebellion,
redemption, consummation or new creation; henceforth, CRRC), we should
observe that within the Bible itself there is a similar structuring of
the Plan of God, which also bears witness to the beautiful coherence of
the Big Story.
Biblical-Theologically Stated
A
quick caveat is in order at this point. We need to make clear what we
mean when we distinguish between systematic and biblical theology.
First, it is not as though systematic theology is unbiblical over
against the other, the biblical theology. Rather the two could be
fairly understood better as: systematic theology is deductive in drawing
its conclusions, whereas the other, biblical theology, is an inductive
process. Both, however, are biblical in the sense that each
methodology, if done with integrity and fidelity to Christ, will reach
‘biblical’ conclusions.
Therefore, when coming to the biblical
data, that is, what Scripture diachronically and organically reveals
concerning the major turning points in the Big Story, we find the same
categories, only framed a little differently.
There is a
literary device known as an inclusio. An inclusio acts as bookends for
the content of a given literary passage or even the entire work. That
is to say, an author will include his central theme or thrust of a block
of material at the beginning and a corresponding piece of the same at
the end, thus emphasizing that he intends the reader to bear this
central point in the fore of their thoughts while journeying from one
bookend to another. One explicit example of the use of an inclusio
would be John’s prologue to his gospel (1:1—18).
John’s
prologue begins thus, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God” (Jn 1:1). This last phrase univocally
states the deity of the Word, Jesus. Likewise, the prologue ends by
restating the same point(s), “No one has ever seen God; the only God
[“the Word was God,” 1:1c], who is at the Father’s side [“with God,”
1:1b, 2], he has made him known” (ESV 1:18). John therefore wants the
reader to understand clearly from the start that the One who the entire
rest of this gospel is about is none other than God himself. By means
of the inclusio, then, John emphasizes the deity of Jesus, and his
exclusive ability to reveal the Father (1:18c), which is exactly what
the rest of John’s gospel is about.
Similarly, and closer to
the context now under consideration, we also find an inclusio being used
in Genesis 1:1 and 2:4. Genesis 1:1 reads, “In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth.” Similarly, Genesis 2:4 says, “These
are the generations of the heavens and earth when they were created, in
the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.” These
bookends are intended to stress that God, as Creator and Controller, is
the absolute sovereign over everything that exists—everything. Such a
concept would have stood in sharp contrast to every other prevailing
pagan origins stories—whether they be in Moses’ day or our own! In
addition, since Genesis 2:4 also serves as the introduction to the
following section (2:4—24), they thus direct the reader toward
harmonizing the two accounts. (It’s worth mentioning that these two
examples are linked intentionally by John with the opening words: “In
the beginning...” in a creational context [John 1:1—3]. To then
discover that both introductions have a similar pattern with the rear
bookend of the inclusio also preparing the reader for what follows is a
literary jewel that shouldn’t be overlooked!)
Another strong
feature in the Bible is known as chiasm. A chiasm begins and ends with
the inclusio but also has more or less members between the bookends,
which correspond respectively. For instance, it would follow a pattern
similar to this: A-B-C-D-C’-B’-A’. Sometimes these members are
comprised of single terms; sometimes they are constructed of larger
concepts or thoughts.
With these illustrations of the inclusio
and chiasm under our belt, we’re ready to move on and examine their
function in the Big Story of creation, fall, redemption and
consummation.
Granting, then, it’s overall unity, it should not
surprise us that the Bible as a whole has this same features. The
first three chapters (Gen 1 – 3) and the final three chapters (Rev 20 –
21) of the Bible have incredible correspondence to one another; so much
so that there is sufficient reason to conclude that this pair of
triplets form the inclusio that provides the bookends or framework for
all the content between them; and the central thrust of the Big Story or
meta-narrative, in terms of which all the little stories or
micro-narratives make sense, not least the subject, object, and climax
of the Big Story—the Christ Event. The Christ Event is the center or
chi of the chiasm, making Jesus both the subject and object of all of
history. As such, grasping the import of the centrality of the meanings
of these member is essential for formulating a biblically robust
doctrine of eschatology. This framework could be expressed as follows.
(A) Genesis 1:1—2:24 The Original “Very Good” Creation; God Dwelling with His People.
(A. 1) Gen 1:1—2:3 A general description of creation; God making all things from nothing
(A. 2. i) Gen 2:4—24 A particular description of creation; the dwelling place of God is with man contingently
(A. 2. ii) Gen 2:15—17 Life with God in the garden and access to
the tree of life contingent upon trusting and
obeying God, and thus keeping his Word.
(B) Genesis 3 The Fatal Fall of Man; God Judges Rebels; Death Enters
(B to X) Gen 3:15—Malachi The War Between the Two Seeds Begins (archetypically seen in Cain vs. Able in Gen 4)
(X) Matthew thru Acts 2; The Christ Event, Redemption
Accomplished; the Inauguration of the Age to Come; the War Between
the Seeds Settled in Principle; the Holy Spirit descends on the
Church, God in flesh (Jn 1:14) and Spirit (Acts) dwelling with His
People
(X to B′) Acts 2 – Rev 19 [actually to present] –
The War Between the Two Seeds Continues (antitypically seen
between those who are “born of God/or the Seed of the woman and
those that are “of the evil one like Cain.” See esp. 1 John 3 and
Revelation)
(B′) Revelation 20:7—15 The Final Fall of Man;
General Resurrection; God Passes Final Judgment on
Rebels; Death is Destroy
(A′) Revelation 21—22:5 The New Creation; God Eternally Dwelling with His People
(A′. 1) Rev 21:1—8 A general description of the new creation; Christ recreating all things anew
(A′. 2. i) Rev 21:9—22:5 A particular description of the new creation; God’s dwelling is with men eternally
(A′. 2. ii) Rev 22:6—21 Life with God and the Lamb in the garden
and access to the tree of life are
contingent upon trusting and obeying God and the
Lamb, and thus keeping their Word.
This
is only one of many ways that the Big Story can be framed. However
this is done, though, it must capture the four elements of creation,
fall, redemption, and consummation, keeping them properly related to
each other, in order to make sense of the Bible’s Big Story. And once
this Big Story is clear in your mind, it will amaze you how much more
some of the smaller stories make sense to you.
There’s an old
axiom: “Nothing is meaningful without context.” Rapidly, our culture
and even the Church is loosing the vision of the Big Story. And without
the Big Story concretely in place, the climax of the Story, the Gospel
of Jesus scarcely makes sense. As Paul said, to the Greeks, those
without the Big Story, the “word of the cross is foolishness” (1
Corinthians 1:18).
Therefore, for both our own understanding
and our ability to make much of Jesus through sharing his Gospel with
others, we need a thorough grasp of the Big Story of the Bible.
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