The Bible is a covenantal book

This is my last post on Peter Jensen’s book The Revelation of God.  The work’s strongest point is the connection between gospel and revelation.  His basic point is this: God’s gospel in Christ is revelation and Scripture serves to give that revelation.  The most helpful thing for me was the connection between covenant and revelation.  Here are his points.

1.  The fall was a rebellion against the kingdom of God; the covenant restores that kingly relationship with his people.

2.  God’s covenant arrangements differed from time to time, depending on the developing state of his people.  The covenant with Abraham bound a family to the Lord; the covenant through Moses bound a nation to him; the covenant with David bound a kingdom to him; the covenant through Jesus binds his people to him.

3.  Well, these “covenantal people of God” have a book of the covenant (i.e Ex 24:7).  The Old and New Testament are covenantal.  There origin is in the Lord’s covenant with his people, and the book of the covenant (where his promises, blessings, hope, and judgements are recorded), is coterminous with the Scriptures since God carried the prophets and apostles along to record his covenantal dealings with his people.

4.  The covenant origin of Scripture then reveals both the authority and the nature of Scripture.  It is not a mere textbook, nor a merely a witness to the word of God.  It is a witness and a description of God’s will because it is the record of God’s promises and judgement.  So obviously the Bible read and preached gives both the message of grace and judgment.

5.  The authority of Scripture is the personal authority of the Lord over the people whom he has saved.

6.  Therefore, Scripture’s didactic function is exercised in the context of relationship with God (covenant).  The authority of Scripture is the authority of the Lord, who exercises that authority first by redeeming his people and then by placing them in covenant loyalty to himself.

This truth is helpful.  After all God is our Father, so when he talks to us it is because he is in relationship with us.  All of the above can be found on pages 155-156.

Unity of Scripture.

Great explanation on the unity of Scripture by Peter Jensen, in The Revelation of God.

"The unity of Scripture depends on its connection with God, that is, on the divine authorship....this unity is consistent with a diversity of time, place, language genre, experiences, and outlook.  The biblical unity is a unity of source (in God), of function (covenantal rule), of narrative (the fulfillment of promise), and of message (the gospel of Jesus Christ)."  Pg. 224.

This unity in regards to the message and purpose between the OT and the NT is superbly shown by F.F. Bruce in the fourth chapter of his, The Canon of Scripture.  The chapter is aptly titled, The Old Testament Becomes a New Book.  It is one the best explanations on the unity between Old and New Testaments.

Behaveing before the bible

Actual words are not the things for which they stand.  Yet they convey the reality of which they speak.  God sanctified human language to convey his reality and the reality of his promises, warnings, and gospel etc.

In breathing out his will (and all the other things he wanted his people to know), through words through the prophets and apostles he made known to us his will in words. So what his word says he says; and this should affect how we behave toward the bible.  We behave this way:  we let his word judge, encourage, redeem, and direct our obedience as God himself judges, encourages, redeems, and directs our obedience.  For indeed, through his breathed-out word he is doing these things even as these very words take us to Jesus Christ.  In his The Revelation of God, Peter Jensen wrote this poignant paragraph about how God uses the bible in our lives.

"We must note that the role of language in the divine-human relationship brought into being through the gospel is far more integral than is allowed for in modern accounts of revelation.  It simply is not possible to call the gospel, as many wish to call the Bible, a witness to revelation.  The gospel is revelation, both in that it communicates truths about God, his actions and intentions, and also in that it communicates his person.  For instance, it tells us that he has fixed a day on which he will judge the living and the dead.  This assertion is intensely personal and self-involving. It constitutes both information and promise, and is received only by faith.  It demands that we align our lives with its message.  It is not in itself the day of judgment; language is not the thing for which it stands.  But language can, and in this case does, convey the reality of which it speaks, so that we behave exactly as we should towards that reality (Heb 4:12-13).  To this extent we are judged by the very words themselves.  Likewise, we behave towards these words as we behave towards God himself.  They convey his person to us, since they are to be treated as we would treat him.  When we obey his word, we obey him; when we trust his word, we trust him; when we study his word, we study him; and yet he is, for his word is the appointed place of our relationship, and he is supremely faithful to it.  His word communicates his self to us:  'If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you' (John 15:7)."  Pg. 88

Not Another Textbook

Oh no, not another textbook!  Continuing on the topic of Scripture's authority Peter Jensen has a good point for evangelicals to remember.  Often we think of the Bible as a textbook written about us for us that a better life or relationship might come out for us in the end; rather than as God's gift revealing his promises, Person, and truth for his glory and our good in his glory.

Yes, the Bible is for us from God.  And, yes, following God's will and way as it is revealed in Scripture does help the repentant believer live a better (more godly) life.  However, the Bible is for us and guides us to the good life because it takes us to God, and then to us.  The Bible is about God, and it is about us and for us precisely because it is about God.  God 's gift of himself in Christ and the Spirit is analogous here.  God gave himself for us and to us in order to redeem and sanctify us, precisely because our redemption and sanctification are about himself.  God wants us to know him and his good life for us.

Jensen puts it like this.  "In its (the Bible) pages we have the self-revelation of God.  Without doubt, the Bible teaches us about God.  It has a key didactic function: if we are to respond to God in the area of truth, we need to be instructed in the truth.  But we also need to do justice to its covenantal nature, its function of finding us and holding us for God through its promises.  the promissory nature of Scripture means that it gives us information about the plans and purposes of God.  The Bible is God's many-sided provision for his covenant people.  The Psalms and Proverbs of the Bible, its prophetic laments, its promises and covenants, its narratives - these and its other literary forms serve to sustain and direct obedient faith."

Bible is intented to take us to Christ

Bishop Peter Jensen, gave this thought on the authority of Scripture.  I though it was helpful.  At the back of it is the gospel.

“God has used the covenant to re-establish his rule over his people through his word.  The covenant is a characteristic form of the word of God, culminating in the gospel, the word of promise and demand that centres on Jesus Christ…When we enter relationship with God on the basis of his covenant; we enter a relationship with one whose very words may be trusted completely.  It means too, that the Bible functions as both gospel and covenant in that it is intended to create and sustain our relationship with the living God on the right basis, namely on our being his covenant partners, bound to him in loyalty and obedience and relating to him thought he mediator, Jesus Christ.”  Peter Jensen.  The Revelation of God.  (Intervarsity Press, 2002).  Pg, 82.

Scripture is breathed out by God

2 Timothy 3:16 reads, "All Scripture is giving by inspiration of God."  Donald Macleod in his work, A Faith to Live By, gave some important comments on the doctrine of inspiration of Scripture as described by Paul in this text.  I've paraphrased Macleod's comments.

First, this does not mean that God breathed into the bible. It means that God breathed out the bible. Once Paul was in prison for preaching Christ. While there he wrote the Colossian letter. The letter he wrote was “breathed out by God.” We can say the same thing about Psalm 23. Now the important thing was not Paul or David, but the Scriptures! Through them God breathed out the words he wanted us to have. His message was being communicated, breathed out and written down.


Secondly, because God breathed out the bible, inspiration is completely independent of our feelings. The Bible is not inspired only when you are inspired by it. God’s word is not inspired only when you have joy, or when you are moved by it, or when it really hits home. No, even when this book, as far as our experience goes, is dry or boring to us it is still God-breathed.  Yes, because of human blindness in sin we cannot understand it apart from the grace of God’s Spirit; yet it is still God’s own God-breathed book even in human darkness. And yes, there are times we really experience Christ being revealed to us in Scripture…yet before that event, and after that event the bible is still God’s written word.

A lot of weight on a word.

Much has been written about the term logos and its use in connection with Christology and revelation.  I read this in Peter Jensen's book.  I thought it was a nice summary.

"It is understandable that logos was chosen to bear the weight that has been laid upon it in modern theology.  First, it speaks immediately of revelation, of communication.  Secondly, it gives Jesus Christ his due and proper place as the substance and norm of revelation.  Thirdly, it enables us to see the significance of creation vis-s-vis Christ: all things were created through him.  Fourthly, it relates Jesus Christ to God in a way that makes it absolutely plain that when we deal with him we deal with God himself and not some secondary deity.  Fifthly, it shows from the very start that revelation is a matter of God's drawing near to us in event, not of our seeking and finding God.  Finally, it provides us with a term we can use to relate revelation to that which mediates revelation, as Karl Barth did in speaking of 'the Word of God in its threefold form'"  (Pg.47-48).

By God we Learn God

I'm reading Peter Jensen's book, The Revelation of God.  (InterVarsity Press, 2002).  The work is substantial.  After commenting on 2 Corinthians 4:1-6, where Paul describes the significance of the gospel, Jensen made this comment.  I think it is helpful in understanding the doctrine of revelation.

"By God we learn God.  The gospel is the very means by which God prosecutes his work in the world; it is the way he applies the salvation of the atoning death of Jesus to men and women.  Since the gospel is about God's grace, the way to knowing God is a way of grace...It (the gospel) teaches us what revelation is and what it achieves." (Page.37)