Creation & Noahic Covenants

Tomorrow, lunch following, so the big section is 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. tomorrow, small break, then lunch after, either technicalities. You need a handout. Raise your hand if you do not have a handout. Nobody has a handout? All right, Steve, come up here, and I'll introduce you slash interrogate you. Dr. Steve Wellum was one of my professors I think I took four in underground and three in physics. No, dear friend, appreciate your supervisor, so we work together very closely. It was actually easy to say, Ben, when you're going to Southern, please go spend time with Dr. Wellman. Fantastic, and in the classroom, I said there's two areas that he's really helpful with, especially in systematics, showing how biblical theology, how that organic structure of scripture, should inform systematic theology. That isn't always done well. And then the contemporary issues of post-modernity actually apply to systematic theology. So great systematic theologian, but how the biblical framework informs and then how it applies to our current cultural issues, those are two of the great strengths that I really benefited from. So a lot of fruit that I hope you get to enjoy that he sowed while I was a student. I'm going to interview him to see if you know a little bit about him. So how long have you been at Southern Seminary? Since 1999. And what do you primarily teach? Well, in the area of systematics, obviously that covers, it's the integrated discipline of everything, right? But you know, you do your survey classes and then your electives that cover doctoral areas, primarily Lately, right, the biblical theology to systematic theology, the relation of those two, plus the personal work of Christ is the primary, what's been done lately. What's your favorite class to teach? Well, they're all important and favorite to teach, but I mean, I would say Christology. What's the class you would like to teach that you don't teach? I don't know. That's a good question. I mean, in the surveys, you cover everything, right? So, you can always get an opportunity. I'm not sure. Well, I mean, I have taught Rubber Dukes in the past, but I haven't, I haven't done, I haven't done that as of late, but that is another crucial course too. Mary, how long? What's her name? What did she do? My dear wife is Karen, before they ruined that. I didn't even know this was a problem until my children told me. So anyway, but my wife Karen, we've been married since 1985, so it's now 36 years. And we got married very young, right out of college, and five children. Children range, most of them are, the last one is in university, Western Kentucky University. The Hilltopper, she's a senior there in the nursing program, so she's the last of them, so they're all born between 1990 and 2000. When, how did I come across? I was raised in a Christian home in Canada, so you'll pick up probably still a bit of accent, age and this type of thing. But I grew up in the Toronto area, in Canada, with wonderful Christian parents. They even switched churches to get better teaching and so on. But just because you grew up in a Christian home doesn't make you a Christian. So I was around 16 years old, I would say, when the Lord really worked in my life. came to realize that I need a savior, I'm a sinner, and it's not my parents' faith, it's ultimately I must trust Christ myself, so 16 years old. What's a theology book that helped shape you, challenge you, that you would recommend? Yeah, I would say it's not strict theology, but it was theology to sort of world you. I was really helped early on in my Christian life by Francis Schaeffer. And Francis Schaeffer died in 1984, so he's been out of the scene for a while, but he helped me see how Christian truth actually applied in the real world. And so I still think his stuff is valuable. Top two. Of him? Yeah. Of Hitler? You know, I think initially his book's on, there's a trilogy, God Who Is There, Escape From Reason, He Is There, He Is There, and He Is Not Silent. I mean, that's really helpful. Again, it's not perfect. It's going to fill in some details, but it gives you the big picture. I think it's how we should then, how we, how we should, is good. And he's got his little videos up in this well that are helpful. Excellent. Well, brother, thank you for that. We are going to put questions, if you have a clarifying question, raise your hand. We're going to do a Q&A afterwards. That's not recorded. So, Ben, would you pray for us? Sure. Father, thank you so much that we can be together tonight and think about your Word and your plan and how to fit the pieces of Scripture together. We thank you for Dr. Wellum and his willingness to come. We pray that you would give him wisdom and grace to teach with clarity and power. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, thank you for having me. Charlottesville, first time to be in this very beautiful area. It's a delight to drive through Kentucky, and then West Virginia, and then into Virginia. So I look forward to also seeing some of the area. And the university, right? You hear much about UVA, and now they've got the football game tomorrow. So take a look around, but great to be here. You do have, I think, a handout. It should be front and back. It's nothing earth-shaking, but at least gives you some idea of what we're covering and where we're going, so it gives you some sense of the content and so on. And in talking about how to title what we're doing for tonight and tomorrow, Keith, and I'm sure Ben was part of this as well, They came up with the title of how do the Old Testament and New Testament fit together, right? So how did the Old Testament and New Testament fit together and thinking of, you know, how the whole Bible then obviously fits together as a whole. And then the subtitle is a study in Galatians 3 and 4. And we will get to that tomorrow, but we'll set it up here in terms of we're going to in some sense lay the groundwork to then understand Galatians 3 and 4. So the goal would be, by the time we get to Galatians 3 and 4, after everything we've put in place, you say, ah, that makes perfect sense. That's Paul's argument there against the Judaizers in that very important book. Because in Galatians 3 and 4, he's dealing with really a potential denial of the gospel. So a very serious issue. He's dealing with the Judaizer problem, and the Judaizer problem was everywhere in the early church, right? Because at the heart of the Judaizer problem was how does the Old and New Testament fit together, right? How do the covenants fit together? How do we understand what Christ has achieved and accomplished? And then just the practical outworkings of that, right? How do we understand our relationship now Most Judaizers, right, would have been Jewish believers. But how do we then think of these Gentiles, right? Just think of yourself as a Jewish person who's lived under the Mosaic law for centuries, right? And this is God's law given to the people. And what do you do with it, right? Well, they wanted to bring the Gentiles under it. Make a lot of sense, right? Here's God's law, bring them under it. But of course, that was not correct, right? There was something wrong. in their understanding of the Mosaic law, the covenants, the fulfillment in the new covenant. And so that's a wonderful passage that not only gives you the importance of the gospel, but also gets you to think about a whole Bible. Because Paul's argument in the end goes all the way back from Genesis, and some sense works through redemptive history. to the fulfillment in Christ and all that Christ has achieved and why the Judaizers are wrong, right? But there's a lot of pieces you got to put in place to understand what he is saying. Because, you know, even in Paul's letter, Galatians 3 and 4, we call these occasional letters. And by occasional, it just simply means he's not saying everything he could. He's only writing a letter, and they're very short, to deal with a specific problem. Could Paul have said more? Of course he could have. In some sense, we're going to, I think, fill in some of that more so that when we get to the things he did say, right, we then say, oh, yeah, that's how it fits in terms of the whole Bible, right? So how do the Old Testament and New Testament fit together? A study in Galatians 3 and 4 that we'll come to, but we're going to fill the pieces in before we get there. But first on your handout, I just have, just initially, just make a few comments here so we won't spend too much time on it, right? First is why is it important to know how the Old Testament and New Testament fit together, right? So here's a study in how they fit together. Why should we even be concerned about that, right? And I give you three reasons. More could be given, and these should be fairly straightforward. Really going to focus on the second one probably more than not, but ultimately, right? I mean, the reason we should want to know how the Old Testament and New Testament fit together is because the Old Testament and New Testament give you your Bible, right? And the most important thing about the reason God gave you the Bible is that you know him. So that's why I have here, it's important to know how it fits together to know our triune God. The heart of everything is the knowledge of God. We were made for him, to know him, to glorify him. If he's given us his word, which includes the Old Testament and New Testament, we need to know how to put them together. We need to know what they are saying. We need to know its content. We need to know how it applies to know God rightly. So that's just bedrock. There's nothing more important than knowing the true and living God. Now, the second issue is, well, if we are to know God from the scripture, this is where the challenge comes in. And a study like this allows us to see how the whole Bible fits together. So I have here to know the whole counsel of God, especially The Old Testament. Now I'm sure here you're well taught, so you're reading your Old Testament and so on. But the Old Testament is a challenge to Christians. What do you do with it? It can create all kinds of apologetic challenges. What do you do with holy wars? And then you have Islamic debates and Christian debates on Joshua. You deal with various prohibitions and the covenants sexual issues, I mean all kinds of different things. There's many, many people on the what we call progressive Christian side of things who are quite willing to sort of diss the Old Testament. They really don't know what to do with it, right? Good old Andy Stanley doesn't know what to do with it, so he says we need to unhitch ourselves from it, right? Well, so we really struggle with what to do with the Old Testament, but think of 2 Timothy 3, Verses 16, 17, or so on, the very famous portion of Scripture. All Scripture is God-breathed. And it's profitable for doctrine, correction, instruction, right? That the man of God may be thoroughly finished. I mean, all of those descriptions of Scripture. Well, what's Paul referring to there? The New Testament's being written, isn't it? He's referring to the Old Testament. So the Old Testament, is God-breathed and is profitable for correct doctrine. If you don't know the Old Testament, you're not going to have correct doctrine. It's profitable for godliness and instruction and correction. Now, this is where we struggle. How do we know what the Old Testament is saying? How do we appeal to it? How do we correct people by it, right? Many, many people will say, right, the Old Testament law, the Old Covenant law, the Mosaic law has been done away with, so we don't even have to read it. going to fit well with 2 Timothy 3, is it? And this is what the church has had to wrestle with through the ages, right? Is how does the Old Testament fit now with the coming of Christ, with the dawning of the new covenant? It is scripture and it is authoritative for us. Every single, even Leviticus is authoritative for you. I don't know if you think of that, right? You need to obey Leviticus. Otherwise, you're violating 2 Timothy 3. But the question is, is how do I obey it? Now, I'm not saying you obey it by traveling to Jerusalem and picking up a lamb and going to the high priest. No, no, no, no. Properly obeyed for us now, Leviticus must be obeyed in light of Christ, doesn't it? But still, we have to think carefully how the Old Testament and New Testament fits together. So what we often do in the Old Testament is we just rip it out of context. We have our daily breads, right? And I'm not criticizing daily bread devotionals, but what do they do? They pick a verse. And you say, where did that verse come from? Someplace. And then they just go off, and you think, what's the context of this? How do I know what that verse is saying? We could do this particularly with the Old Testament, and then eventually we start spiritualizing it, allegorizing it. We come up with all kinds of interesting sermon illustrations and so on, but that's not how we're to rightly handle scripture. So a study like this helps us think through whole counsel of God, how the parts intentionally fit with the whole, how God has put it together, and how we then apply all of the Bible to our lives. And all of the Bible needs to be applied to our lives, but we have to do this correctly, right? And of course the Judaizer problem that we'll see in Galatians 3 and 4 is an incorrect application of the Old Testament. It's an application, but it's a false application. So if it's false, why is it false? And that's what we have to start to get at. And of course, thirdly, the Bible is a diverse book. There's 66 different books in our English Bibles, diverse authors, written over a long period of time, yet there's one message. And that message first and foremost centers in Christ. Why do we spend some time developing that? Maybe we will, but ultimately in the end, Jesus can say on the way to Emmaus, right? Luke 24, you know, how foolish you were not to believe all the law and the prophets, right? They all spoke of me, my death, my resurrection, and so on, right? Hebrews 1 begins the opening letter by saying, in the past God spoke many ways, diverse manners to the prophets, but in these last days, All of that revelation has come to fulfillment in Christ. So, a study like this allows us to see how Jesus is central to the whole Bible. Legitimately, you can find Jesus anywhere you want. The question is, is he doing it legitimately? Do you then just throw him in any old place or do you say, okay, we have to follow the Bible's own understanding and the Bible's own presentation? Understanding the relation of the Old and New Testament helps us know God and His Word better. We don't know God apart from His Word. We've got to know the whole thing. It helps us to be able to really handle the Old Testament rightly. The Old Testament is scripture. The Old Testament is authoritative for us. But how do we rightly apply it to our lives? And that becomes the crucial issue with the Judaizers. And we need to then know how the whole Bible leads us to Christ, right? Even in the New Testament, when you pick up Matthew 1, it doesn't come to you in a vacuum. It comes to you, even the opening verse of Matthew 1, here's the genealogy of Jesus, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Well, you'll never know who Jesus is unless you know who Abraham is, and who David is, and something of the plan of God as it's unfolded across time, right? So it's not an option to know Right? Do not know how the Old and the New Testament fit together. It's part of our, that's why we're having a discipleship. It's part of our discipleship, right? We have to rightly handle the word of truth. We have to rightly bring all of our thought captive to Christ. We have to rightly think God's thoughts after him. And that means a whole Bible thinking, right? Not just Romans, Galatians, or so on, but the whole of scripture. So, how are we going to proceed? Well, we said we're going to lay in some sense initially some groundwork that will allow us then to return back to Galatians 3 and 4. Galatians 3 and 4 is in some sense a summary of redemptive history or a summary of the whole Bible, right? But there's a few pieces we have to put in place to then see why Paul's arguing the way he's arguing, right? But before we do that, right, so we're going to lay some things and put things in pieces, we want to first just mentioned, and that's why number two on your handout is first sort of step back and as we just, you know, think of laying down those pieces that will get us to Galatians 3 and 4, just ask the question, right, is how do we properly not only approach scripture, but how do we properly read it? How do we properly interpret it, right? And there's just some areas of hermeneutics. And now what I'm going to lay out for you is exactly what Paul's doing in Galatians 3 and 4. But we'll see that when we eventually get there. So first is how do we rightly interpret scripture? That's approaching scripture on its own terms in order to understand how the Old New Testament fits together, right? There's a proper way to approach and read and interpret scripture. We don't just pull text out of context, right? We read scripture first and foremost on its own terms. And then after laying out a few thoughts on that, then we want to begin to work through creation, some aspects of creation, and particularly themes of covenants. We'll discuss why we'll understand covenants. Now as we get to Galatians 3 and 4, Paul's wrestling with the covenants. Particularly he's wrestling with the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, and he alludes to the Davidic. It's not explicit, it's implicit, and of obviously the fulfillment that comes in the New Covenant. So in some sense, Galatians 3 and 4 is dealing with the covenants, but we want to lay out some of the structures of those covenants before we eventually get to Galatians 3 and 4. So on page 1 of your handout, first just sort of stepping back, just asking the question, well, how should we rightly interpret and read scripture, right? How should we approach it? And I'm saying we approach it on its own terms, not your terms, right? You approach the Bible in terms of its own say-so, right? Now, I developed this notion of the Bible's own terms in two ways, right? And particularly the second way is the focus that we want to emphasize and layout, because this is what the Apostle Paul, I think, is doing in Galatians 3 and 4. But first, when we approach Scripture on its own terms, what are the Bible's terms? That can be answered in two ways. First, when you say, what are the Bible's terms, you are basically saying, what is Scripture? What are the Bible's terms? What does the Scripture say about itself? And then, given what Scripture is, then how do we interpret it. So the first point just lays out what is Scripture. The second point is, given what the Bible is, what Scripture is, how do we put it together? How do we read the Old Testament to the New Testament, the parts to the whole, and ultimately put a whole Bible together? Now, we won't lay out here an entire doctrine of Scripture. I just give you some of the key pieces of that. But what is Scripture? How do we approach Scripture? Well, we approach it on its own terms, but what is it? Well, if we read scripture, scripture is not an English novel, right? It's not Shakespeare. It's not some book that just some human produced, right? It's God's word written through human authors, right? That unfolds his eternal plan, right? So that's crucial. We should expect this book to be unlike any other book, right? We should expect, because it is God's word written, that there's a rhyme and reason to it. It seems pretty basic, but that's crucial, right? You have a lot of different books. If you put 46 or 40 different authors and 66 books together of just human books over a period of time, they wouldn't agree with one another, right? But when you come to scripture, right, there's a unity, there's a coherence to it. And part of our task of reading scripture is to discover its unity, to discover its coherence, right? It comes to us through human authors, that's crucial. We have to then pay very careful attention to what authors say in their books. So this gets to the notion of authorial intent. So when you read the letter to the Romans, we have to ask, what did Paul mean by this? Not what do we think he means, but what did he actually say? How does he lay that out? So that's human authors. We only know what God is saying through the authors. So there's careful We have to go back to its grammar and its literature and how it's put together and its structure, right? Just reading any kind of book, right? Scripture also is given to us over time. And we'll pick this point up just in a moment. But this is the notion of the progress of revelation. Very, very, very, very important as you read scripture. As you think of the Old Testament in relation to the New. Scripture doesn't just come down all at once. It's not the Koran, right? The Koran, right, in Muslim thought, is an eternal tablet that gets dictated by Gabriel to Muhammad and it's just there. That's not the Bible. The Bible comes to us over a period of time. God, through the prophets, speaking through the authors so that what they're written texts are his word. And scripture then builds on one another. So that you have Isaiah, who's writing at a period of time that assumes that you already know what's written previously. Or the New Testament, think of the opening of the New Testament. The New Testament assumes that you know the entire Old Testament, right? It doesn't come to you just out of the blue, right? It's already building on the instruction and the teaching and the revelation that has been previously given. So that's very, very important, right? So that God's Word comes over time. Now we'll apply this in terms of the secondary, given what Scripture is, right? Given that it comes to us over time, then it's crucial to read every book in its context. Sounds simple, again, but this has to be worked out very carefully, right? So scripture is God's word. It's written through human authors. It's written over time. It's centered in Christ. So there's a rhyme and reason to it. Now, given that, this is where I develop this notion of context, right? So a crucial mistake of reading the Bible is to read it out of context. We all know that. This will be the Judaizer problem. We'll come back to that, but this isn't just throwing something out here. This is the Judaizer problem. The Judaizers eventually read the Mosaic Covenant out of context. So what do we mean by context here? Well, when we read scripture, we need to think in terms of three contexts. Those like real estate. Three rules of real estate. Location, location, location. Three rules of Bible study. Context, context, context, right? What are these contexts? Well, context number one is the book. So you read scripture in terms of a book, right? So you pick up a whole book and you say, this is what the author is saying, what God is saying through that author, right? So you read Isaiah, you read Isaiah as a book. Don't even read Isaiah 53 outside of Isaiah, right? So you have to work hard on what the entire book is saying. Now there's complication in this, right? Some books of scripture, most books are just books, but think of the first five books of the Bible. Should you ever read Leviticus independent of Genesis and Exodus and Numbers and Deuteronomy? No, because the book of the Pentateuch, the first five books is one book. Now we fragment it, right? But we should always be reading it as one unit. It was given by Moses, it's one book. When you do that, uh-oh, then you, why does Moses begin with Genesis 1? That's important, right? Why doesn't he begin with Exodus? Why doesn't he begin with the book of Exodus? Because he's speaking to the nation of Israel coming out of Egypt. Why doesn't he just start there? Well, he front loads his book to tell them something about God and who the God is that redeemed them, right? So, I mean, this is really important in understanding the message of scripture, right? Or you think of the book of Psalms, never, ever, ever, ever, ever read the Psalms as individual Psalms. It's one book. Now, you have to read an individual Psalm. But eventually, you have to always ask, how does it fit in terms of the whole? It's never intended for you to be read individually. It's read as one book. When you do that, there's a whole message of the book of Psalms, starting with God's word, the King, and it's thoroughly messianic. How do you get the Messianic? You have to read it properly, right? You have to read it. In fact, the minor prophets never come to us as individual minor prophets. They come to you as a collection. They should all be read as a collection, right? So that's the first context is a bit complicated because certain books are holes, right? But you think of reading a book as a whole. Never read a chapter outside of the book, right? That's just the first context. That's typical. in terms of our interpretation, grammatical, historical, literary, exegesis, and so on. What kind of literature is this? That's just bedrock in terms of proper interpretation of the Bible. But the next context is crucial. The next context is picking up the idea of where is this book in the unfolding revelation, right? So it's picking up the progress of revelation, right? So that when we read Isaiah, right, context number two, context number one would be reading Isaiah as Isaiah. Context number two would be saying I can't understand Isaiah without also reading Pentateuch. And even the history that leads up to Isaiah, right? So context number two is crucial, right? Sometimes it's called the epochal horizon, right? So each book builds. So if you're gonna read the New Testament, You need an entire Old Testament, and as you read the entire Old Testament, you need to read Old Testament revelation in terms of it building on one another, right? So that's why in the prophets, the prophets all right, when I speak of the prophets, I'm speaking of the major prophets, the minor prophets, all of those prophets, very important, we'll come back to this tomorrow morning, all of those prophets, whether they are pre-exilic, exilic, post-exilic, in some sense doesn't matter, They're all post-David. You say, why is that important? Well, we'll talk about the Davidic covenant. Everything the prophets say is built off the Davidic covenant. So all of the prophets, right? So what do I do? I'm placing them in redemptive history. Now this is what Paul's gonna do in Galatians 3 and 4. He's gonna say, oh, you foolish Galatians. Don't you realize that the Mosaic law comes after Abraham? after. There's been a progress of revelation. Something builds on one another. You don't take the Mosaic Law and lift it out of God's plan and just go place it wherever you want to do that. This is the notion of reading in context. So context number two is where is the book in the unfolding revelation? No book ever comes in a vacuum. It's written in terms of an unfolding plan. Now, when we think of dividing up the Bible, the Bible divides itself in a whole number of ways. Think of Romans 5, 12 and following. The Apostle Paul steps back and says, there's two great divisions. And he divides the entire Bible in terms of two people. There's a lot of people in the Bible, but he says, All the people that are in the world and in the Bible, the two most significant are Adam and Christ. That's a way of dividing the Bible up, right? If you wanna understand how the old fits with the new, you gotta say something about Adam, and you gotta say something about Christ, right? Or think of Matthew 1, the genealogy. The genealogy is structured in a certain way, right? It starts with Abraham, and it goes to David. And then it goes from David to the exile, and the exile to Christ. That's a way of structuring history, right? Structuring God's plan. All of those points, Abraham to David, are basically unpacking the covenants. David to exile is crucial because the entire nation is destroyed. The prophets speak in the exile, right? Post-David of the future. which leads you to Christ, right? This is a way that the old and new are fitting together, right? So there's many ways that the Bible structures itself. I'm going to suggest to you, and this is what the Apostle Paul is following, is the best way of structuring things. If you're saying, where are we in the story? Where are we in the unfolding revelation? We need to tie this to covenants. There are six major covenants that run across time. There's many covenants in scripture. Marriage is a covenant, and there's covenants with Gibeonites, and there's all kinds of things. But you have six major covenants. There's a creation covenant. That's disputed. But I think there's good reason for it. There's a creation covenant. That starts with Adam. And then you have Noah. And then you have Abraham. Then you have Israel's covenant, sometimes called the Old Covenant, in light of the New, right? The Mosaic Covenant, Israel's Covenant, and so on. The Davidic Covenant. And then you have, in the Old Testament prophets, the hope of a New Covenant. And of course, Jesus comes in the New Testament, and he's the one who fulfills the New Covenant, right? Those covenants, what are they doing, right? They're walking you from creation to Christ, right? Ultimately, creation, new creation, right? The New Testament is the era, well, I mean, ultimately, in light of Christ, it's the era of the new covenant. But even in the Gospels, you're in transition times, aren't you? Jesus comes under the old, but brings the new, right? He speaks of that in the Gospels of the old wineskins and new wineskins and so on, right? So covenants are very, very important, right? Covenants aren't just simply window dressing. They are actually the backbone that unfolds God's plan, starting in creation, starting with Adam, through Noah, through Abraham, through Israel, through David, ultimately to Christ. And I give you just a note on covenants here. Covenants are relationships, right? They're sworn agreements, and particularly these covenants between God and people. God and people. Not every covenant has ratification ceremonies and so on, but normally in the covenants, right, there's promises made, right? There's obedience expected, right? And there's ultimately, usually with them, some kind of curse, right? If you disobey this, then there's ultimately curses that take place. Usually there's ratification, not always. We have no Davidic ratification. There's no Adam ratification. We have nothing like that. but other covenants have ratification. Particularly, usually the ratification in the Old Testament era was the killing of animals. You have this in Abraham, you have this with Israel, and so on, where animals were killed and there was walking between the pieces and the covenant is now ratified. So you have that, but at the heart of it, it's built on promises. And of course, in Galatians 3 and 4, the idea of the promises are very, very important, right? Particularly the Abrahamic promise. But we'll see that the Abrahamic promise isn't free-floating. It's already built off of a previous promise. So here the notion of the covenants, and these covenants unfold. Now, in Galatians 3 and 4, the Apostle Paul, as I said, deals with the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, He alludes to the Davidic covenant, and Christ now brings the new covenant. The only thing he hasn't mentioned is Adam and Noah. All the other covenants are basically spoken of there. Now, could he have spoken of Adam and Noah? Well, obviously he could have. He speaks of Adam in other places, Romans 5, 1 Corinthians 15, and so on, right? So we have to fill in a bit of detail to even get his argument. Because again, Galatians 3 and 4 is occasional, right? He's not picking up everything he could say. We're trying to then fill in some of the background. But covenants are crucial. So when we read scripture, we need to say, where are we covenantally? So when you're reading Genesis, right? You've got pre-fall, post-fall, right? Tied to Adam. You've got the Noahic situation. You have the patriarchs. You have the old covenant. The old covenant runs all the way into the coming of the New Covenant and so on. The Davidic king and what are the relationships between these covenants is crucial to understand then how the Old Testament works and then how it fits ultimately with the New Testament. And then we read third context, so a book where we covenantally, where we in terms of the plan and always now as Christians we read it in terms of the conclusion. or the fulfillment of the plan, which is now the New Testament. So the canonical context is context number three. This is reading the Old Testament in light of Christ. So as Christian readers, we never read the Old Testament without saying, how is it fulfilled in Christ? How does it come over to him? Now, as you link that together, we can talk about glue that links the Bible together. There's various plot movements, creation, fall, redemption, new creation, unfold God's plan from creation, Genesis to Revelation, right? You have various, the covenantal unfolding is another way of moving from creation to the coming of the New Testament. In the covenant unfolding, you have promise fulfillment, promises tied to covenants. So what promises are made? How are those promises now being fulfilled? That's a crucial point that Paul raises in Galatians 3 and 4. We also have what we call typological patterns. Typological patterns are often identified as various persons in God's plan have significance. They point beyond themselves. Adam is a good example of this. Adam isn't just a one-off in God's plan. He points to the last Adam. Who's the last Adam? That's Christ, right? So these typological patterns, either persons, Moses functions this way, and David functions this way, and Abraham functions this way, and Isaac functions this way, and so on. They are people that point beyond themselves to Christ, right? And you also then have various institutions will function this way as well. This is how you have the prophetic nature of scripture, right? Typology is a form of prophecy, but it's not prophecy in the sense of direct verbal prediction. So Micah 5.2, God says, out of Bethlehem is coming a ruler. That's pretty direct, right? But when you have typological patterns, they become a pattern, symbolism that points to something greater, right? And how do you know it points to something greater? Well, it gets picked up through the revelation over time, right? So think of the Exodus event. The Exodus event redeems Israel, but the Exodus event, again, is not just a one-off, right? Even in Exodus 15, Moses will say there's a kind of God will do this in the future. And then the prophets will pick up the Exodus and they will say, there's coming in the future, and usually that gets tied to the new covenant, right? There's coming in the future, a greater Exodus, right? What's the cross all about? Well, it's called an act of redemption. Where'd that come from? That's just Exodus language, right? The great act of redemption in the Old Testament was the Exodus. A greater act of redemption is the cross. Exodus points to the cross, right? I mean, this is how these points eventually come over. So you have different typological patterns. Adam, Moses, David, Israel, right? Israel is very, very important here. Israel functions in the Bible as a kind of microcosm of the world. I know, I see how that's the case. But this is how Paul can say, Israel is given commands that eventually bring death to them. And that's basically what happens to Gentiles too. How do you bring Gentiles and Jews together that way? Well, because Israel can function as a kind of microcosm of the world. And their failure ultimately is an example of all people understand, Jew and Gentile and so on. So here's how these patterns are very, very important. So think of the priesthood. tabernacle, temple, and so on. These become crucial, crucial patterns that look beyond themselves and they get picked up, typological patterns get picked up through the covenants. The covenants unfold the patterns, right? So this is why, right, as we work through scripture, we have to let scripture build on one another, right? We have to work through the covenants and saying, what is this teaching us? God is revealing something about his plan through his unfolding revelation and through the covenantal unfolding, and it's pointing to, in the end, the coming of Christ. This is what the Judaizer did not see properly, right? They saw Christ, but they didn't see how these covenants fit in to get you to Christ. They were still trying to put people under covenants that pointed beyond themselves that once Christ came, those covenants now are done, right? They didn't realize that, right? So this is why you have to read scripture in context, right? Three contexts. Book, there's complication with a few of the books, right? Because it's whole units. And then begin to say, well, what's it building upon? That's the second context. What's previous to it? What is being informed by this? And then how does it ultimately come to fulfillment in Christ, right? And we'll see this worked out in Galatians 3 and 4, where Paul says to the Judaizers, you didn't read the old covenant in context. You ripped it out of context. And by doing that, you made some huge mistakes. So much so, that ultimately, you've almost lost the gospel. So these are crucial points of reading the Bible. So it's another way of saying, you don't just Open your Bible up, pull a text out, and say, up. There's a good text for me. You have to say, where is this in the book? And where is this in the story? And where is this covenantally? And where is this now in terms of a whole Bible? And it's only after you read scripture that way that you have the right to apply it to you properly now. You can always just apply anything to you out of context. But if you're going to do a whole Bible, you've got to work through, all right, what is this saying? in terms of its immediate context and its Old Testament context and ultimately its fulfillment in terms of Christ, right? So that's just some areas of crucial, crucial points to simply say, don't read the Bible as a Ouija board or something like that, right? I mean, you've got to then think it's an unfolding revelation, it's God's revelation, there's a coherency to this, and there's a rhyme and reason to every single part of it, right? You don't make up how it fits, but you work hard on saying, what's this doing here? How does this contribute to the ultimate plan of God that now has reached its fulfillment in Christ? Now, creation. At the bottom of your page one, we'll finish with here. Now, what we're going to do is begin to fill in some of these details. Paul in Galatians 3 and 4 doesn't fill in some of these details. We know that he knows of them because he's spoken of Adam, he's spoken of the fall, he's spoken of last Adam, even Christ's presentation of last Adam is built off of creation and so on. But for the sake of understanding and walking through the covenants, we're going to go back to the beginning of the story, work through the covenants, creation, Noah, Abraham, that's what he first picks up and see what's going on here with Abraham. The Mosaic covenant, Davidic, and how all of this now leads us to Christ. And then Galatians 3 and 4 will basically be in miniature form giving us that. So let's begin with creation, the beginning of the story. I just have it broken down into sort of five areas that we'll walk through quickly here. First is why starting in creation is crucial for understanding the New Testament and the Old Testament, right? The whole counsel of God. And then just, you know, the question that often arises, is there such a thing as a covenant in creation? And some truths that are taught in creation, and what goes wrong, right? And then we'll just allude to Noahic covenant, right? The Noahic covenant is really a very reaffirmation of what we have in creation, except it's in a post-fall situation. So there's a few differences there. But Noah functions as the start of the human race again, right? He starts in terms of a new creation in that sense, right? And it's not until Abraham that the covenants are narrowed from a universal focus to one family, right? One family, one nation that brings forth Messiah, that is to bring blessing to all nations, right? So the universal focus is found in creation. It'll be narrowed through Abraham, Israel, David, but it gets expanded in the new covenant ultimately to all nations, right? All nations, people, tribes, and tongues. Well, you go from universal to universal, right? Big through the narrowing to, again, the large again, right? So why is creation so important in understanding Old Testament and New Testament, the Bible story? Well, first thing, most obvious, is that's where the Bible begins. I mentioned to you before, Moses writes the Pentateuch, to the nation of Israel in the wilderness. He could have started with their redemption from Egypt. But instead, he starts with Genesis. Why? Because you can't understand Israel without Genesis. Sounds obvious, but it's a very, very crucial point, and it's what the Judaizers are going to miss. So that you have to start at the beginning, and the Bible begins with creation. It establishes the creator-creature distinction, which is so foundational to Christian theology and a Christian worldview, right? If you deal with non-Christian views, every single non-Christian view denies the creator-creature distinction. Whether it's Eastern religions that blend everything together, or whether it's New Age thought, or whether it's naturalistic thought, or whatever, the Bible begins with the creator-creature distinction, right? It establishes the importance of Adam. Adam, according to the Apostle Paul, is the second most important person in all of human history. The most important is Christ. But you never understand Christ without Adam and Adam without Christ. First Adam, last Adam. And it establishes this, right? It establishes patterns in creation. Creation establishes norms, standard, patterns that just simply get unpacked through the entire Bible, right? form in some sense. There's all kinds of patterns there in creation that then just get worked out through the entire Bible that eventually, when you get to Revelation 21 and 22, it looks a lot like Genesis 1 and 2. So you get the bookends of the Bible. So crucial, crucial to start with where the Bible starts. We don't start in Exodus. We don't start in Genesis 12. We start in Genesis 1. There's how the Bible will move. Is there, secondly, a notion of a creation covenant? Some question this. And the reason they question it is if you have Genesis 1 and 2, you look through those chapters, there's no word for covenant. The first time you see the word covenant is in Genesis 6 with Noah. So some people have to have a word to have the concept. Normally that's the case, but it's not always the case, right? You don't always have to have one word to fit with it. You can have concepts and ideas and relationships that are there without necessarily the word. In Genesis 2, we have marriage, don't we? There's no word for covenant there, but it's a marriage covenant. How do we know that? Later scripture tells us that, doesn't it, right? So many people are saying there's no covenant here. Because there's no word here, even with the Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel 7, there's no word for covenant in that context. It's just a promise. So you don't need that. There's other reasons to then think that there is the case, right? So the context really is important, right? The whole context is of God in relation to humans, right? And particularly the role of Adam. Adam in scripture isn't just the first man He is an entire representative figure, right? You'll never understand the Bible's teaching on sin without that, right? In the first man, sin entered the world by his choice and action, right? He isn't just, you know, another guy. He represents us, right? Out of that comes our whole doctrine of sin, our whole understanding of transmission of sin, Adam is biologically the first man, but he also represents us, right? Even the language of image of God, image of God, likeness of God, in the ancient Near East is all covenantal language. It's tied to the king in relation to the gods, this kind of relationship that's there. It's called a suzerain-vassal relationship. So even the language is covenantal. And theologically, Adam and Christ frame your entire Bible, right? So it's very hard to think of no kind of covenant relationship here with Adam. Also, I think what's also definitive here in Genesis 2. Genesis 2, the names of God change from Genesis 1. Genesis 1, it's Elohim. In Genesis 2, it's Yahweh Elohim. Yahweh is God's covenant name. Moses is writing to Israel. How would Israel read Genesis 2? Yahweh Elohim makes Adam, breathes in him life, gives him a command. They would say that's the covenant God, right? That's the covenant God who created Adam, right? So the God who redeemed us from Egypt is the God who created the heavens and the earth, and the God who entered into relationship with Adam and so on. And later scripture also picks up Hosea 6-7, also picks up the reference to Adam and creation and so on, right? So I think there is an important relationship that starts here. All of God's relationships with us are covenantal, and it starts here in creation. Crucial truths that are laid out. Let me just focus on a couple of these, but there's seven of them. Seven is really helpful because it's a perfect number. I'm kidding you right there. But seven with seven truths, right? You get it all there, seven truths laid out. But crucial truths that come out of creation, that unfold story, that are picked up later, that connect Old and New Testament together and so on. The first truth that is absolutely essential is identifying who God is, right? Oh, so much could be said at this point, right? God is presented as the creator and lord of the universe. This is totally against any notion of any kind of ancient Near East paganism, right? God's not part of a scale of being. He is the eternal God, as we put all the scripture together. He is the triune God. In the beginning, God created the earth, and before that, he existed, right? So you can lay out your entire creator-creature distinction, the triune God who's always, always been. Later scripture, right? Jesus will say, you're the glory I shared with you, Father, before the foundation of the world, right? So God has always, always existed, right? And in Genesis 1, He's the God who speaks 10 times. It's not accidental. It matches the 10 words that eventually are given in the law, right? 10 times, He says, let it be, and it is, right? And He creates the universe. And he is presented as the God who has all power, all authority, but he is the God who needs nothing, right? And this becomes very, very important. Eventually, right, right, we have to wrestle with the God who doesn't need us, who is complete within himself, who is the moral standard of the universe. All these things are very, very important. Eventually, right, the Apostle Paul's gonna wrestle in Galatians 3 and 4 with the doctrine of justification. How are we justified before God? Is it by works or is it by grace through faith? Those who think it's by works ultimately have a wrong view of God. You can't say that enough, right? If you think that your works will earn you favor with God, either you have elevated yourself But most commonly, you've de-elevated God, right? Because the God of Scripture is the God who is the Creator, He is the Lord, He is personal, He's triune, He is complete within Himself, and all of that entails, right, that He's the standard. He's the moral standard, right? And our whole day we struggle with, what's the moral standard? In a Christian view, God is. And when you say, what's the law? God is the law. God has the right to make commands. God has the right to say, this is right, this is wrong. And of course, if you don't have that notion of God, then sin means nothing, right? But sin before God in the Bible means everything. How is God going to forgive my sin? That's a huge problem in the Bible. Because God doesn't grade on curves. God just doesn't have blinders. He doesn't, like a grandfather in the sky, just say, well, you know, we'll just go easy on you, type of thing. Ultimately, God, as the moral standard of the universe, cannot deny himself, right? This is all of the biblical teaching regarding God's jealousy of his name. He's not sharing his glory with any other, right? rhyme and reason to the Bible's storyline of salvation depends upon the proper view of God, and that comes from creation. God is creator, God is Lord, God has the all authority, has the right to demand from me obedience, and of course, obedience is tied to the fact that He is creator and I'm the creature. There should be losses in our society, right? If you have no creator, then you're not obeying anyone. Usually it's the state that becomes you obey, right? All non-Christian thought becomes statist. But in Christian thought, it's God who's the Lord. It's God who's king over everything, right? And He is to be obeyed and so on. And of course, that shows up in all of Scripture. That shows up in the notion of law and demand and what our sin is the breaking of law and so on. So creation establishes who God is. His demand Ultimately, from us. What does he demand from us? He demands from us that we love him. Think of the great commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, spirit. Why would he demand that? Because he's God. He's our creator. We're creatures. Now, love entails obedience, doesn't it? You can't have love without obedience. See, I love you, Lord, but I don't want to obey anything you say. In scripture, love and obedience to love God is ultimately to obey him. to trust Him, to know Him, to be fully devoted to Him, and so on. So here's where you have that established, which is very, very important. Secondly, of course, is creation establishes the importance of us. And I, you know, again, these are truths that you could develop over and over again, but to be made in God's image, to be made in God's likeness. You realize, right, in our whole day, we've totally devalued human beings because we have no Christian view of the world anymore. But in the Bible, right, humans are unbelievably great. You're greater than any angel. Angels don't rule the world. Image bearers, image bearers at their heart means you rule the world, right? You are the God's representatives. And likeness is very, very similar, but ultimately it's tied to being like God, to being sons of God, right? These concepts that are everywhere in Scripture. So humans are made after the divine image, and you have this in Genesis 1.26 and so on, let us make man in our image and so on, to rule over the earth, right? We were made to rule over creation. Our vocation was to take Eden, that garden sanctuary, and to expand it to the uttermost parts of the earth so that the whole universe, the whole world, would be filled with the glory of God. Now that happens at the end of Revelation, but it only happens because there's one person that does it, and that's called Jesus, right? Jesus is the one who actually obeys. He comes and redeems us as last Adam, and he brings a new heaven to the earth, right? But this is where in the original creation we were made to know God, to put everything under our feet, and of course, this is the third area where Adam is so important. Adam functions as, as we said, a covenant head. a covenant representative of us. And even in Adam, he is a kingly figure before there are kings. How do you have that? Well, he's to rule over, that's kingly. He is given a word from God. You have this in Genesis 2, verses 15, 16, and 17, right? God gives Adam a command, and that's very important in Scripture, right? God explicitly says to him, don't do this. All right, that's called law. He's given a command. And Adam is now given that command that he is to obey, right? He is to take God's Word and communicate it to even offspring. That's a prophet. And he is priestly, right? A priestly, a priest in Scripture, before you get to sacrifices, is a person who dwells before God. That's why eventually, right, we are all priests. the nation of Israel, as a nation. We'll see this tomorrow, Exodus 19, verse six, you are a holy nation, a royal priesthood. Now, why were they a priesthood? Because they dwelt in covenant relationship before God, right? Well, that was already there with Adam. Adam is a kind of early proto-prophet, priest, and king. And then those offices get developed through the covenants, right? So eventually you have a whole prophetic institution that Moses sort of is the head of. You have an entire priestly institution. You have an entire kingly institution and so on. And God then, the role of Adam is very, very, very important, right? And in Genesis 2, he's given the law. He's given a command. And here the violation of that command ultimately is death. Now this will show up with Israel, right? Israel's gonna be given commands. And the violation of that law, of the covenant, is ultimately curse. Eventually, in Galatians 3 and 4, the Apostle Paul will say, in some sense, one of the main purposes of the Mosaic Law was to even enhance what Adam failed to do, right? Adam was given a command in the perfect situation and he disobeyed and a curse came upon him on the entire human race. Israel, in some sense, is a microcosm of Adam. They are going to be given land, they're going to be given a covenant, they're going to be given privilege, they're going to be given laws. And what do they do? They break it, they break it, they break it, they break it. That very covenant brought death to them. And of course, the Judaizers want to go back to it. This is the problem, but eventually, right? So that law covenant would never save them and so on, right? This is where Paul will go with that. So you have God, you have humans, you have Adam, you have the goodness of creation, which of course sets you up for what goes wrong. The importance of God's rest on the seventh day is huge, right? As you track through scripture, sin brings no rest, right? And eventually salvation is conceived of as rest in the Old Testament. It's conceived of in terms of land and ultimately salvation. Think of Jesus stands in Matthew 11 and says, come to me and I'll give you rest. That's not just accidental. That's not out of nowhere. That's built off of a whole pattern that's established in creation. Even Eden as a garden sanctuary. is very, very important. Eventually that garden sanctuary is where God dwells uniquely covenantally with his people. That garden sanctuary is to be expanded, but in sin, right, they're booted out of the garden. So what do you have eventually through the covenants? You have the establishment of tabernacle, and you have the establishment of temple, and you have the establishment ultimately of the fulfillment of that in Christ who is the true tabernacle, the true temple, right? Think of John 1, Jesus, the word became flesh, and he tabernacled among us, right? And that eventually leads to the notion of a Jerusalem, and a new Jerusalem, and a new city, and so on and so on. I mean, all of these things are built into creation. Even marriage has a whole typological structure, right, that is very, very important. Ephesians 5, the apostle Paul can quote Genesis 2 and speak about Christ in the church, and you say, how does he do that? Because eventually, as you put marriage together, marriage at the human level is very, very important, but it is typological of something greater, right? It speaks of a greater relationship of God to his people, right? So creation is setting the stage. But what goes wrong, Genesis 3, what goes wrong is everything, right? In history, you have rebellion. In history, you have a world turned upside down, right? And it's very important to see if sin is before God a violation of his command, then ultimately the wages of sin, the penalty of sin, is death. And that's not just physical, that's spiritual. What is the solution? The whole created order is now turned upside down, right? Every single aspect of creation is affected, right? Our relationship with God, we are alienated, right? We are under wrath. A relationship with one another, Adam and Eve are at each other's throats and eventually their children are killing themselves, right? And eventually you go further in terms of the genealogy of Genesis 5 and everyone's dead except Enoch, right? So you have this, the effects of the entire created order. What is God going to do? Let's just focus on this and we'll finish here is in Genesis 3.15, right? There's a promise. Promise is crucial to understand Galatians 3 and 4. Now, he's going to be picking up the promise of Abraham, but the promise of Abraham is not free-floating. It's not in a vacuum. It's built off of a previous promise. And what is this promise? We only have a hint of it in Genesis 3.15, but it is so important. It runs through your entire Bible and eventually leads you to Christ, right? Genesis 3.15, in the midst of curses to the serpent, to the woman, to the man, and to entire creation, he says this. Genesis 3.15, God says, I will put enmity. Between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers, he, the seed of the woman, will crush your head. You will strike his heel. Two aspects here that are very, very crucial that run through the whole Bible, right? Who is going to ultimately bring salvation, right? God. will do something, right? I will put enmity. What is that emphasizing? God must save us, right? That runs through the entire Bible. Salvation is of God. Now, of course, if you understand who God is and what sin is, that makes perfect sense because how can we be forgiven of our sins unless God does it? God must forgive us. Remember Jesus when he heals the paralytic, right? He says, your sins are forgiven and the religious leaders say, How dare you say that? Only God can forgive sins, and they're exactly right. Only God can forgive sin. God must do something to satisfy his own moral demand against us. God must initiate, but notice he's going to do so through the provision of a human, the seed of the woman. It's a very strange language. But the seed of the woman, right? Out of the human race. And of course, in this context, it's picking up eventually what scripture will pick up, a greater Adam. The first Adam is lousy, right? He failed. But I will provide a better one. And of course, that better one ultimately is Christ, right? But as you work through the Bible, It will give you then definition as to who this person will be. Eventually it'll come through Noah, won't it? Has to come through Noah, because there's no one left. Only him and his family, right? It eventually will come through Abraham. Now that's where the Abrahamic promise will come up. But the Abrahamic promise of a seed, which you see in Isaac, and then ultimately through the nation, and then through the king, David, ultimately goes back to this first promise, right? The seed of the woman now is just being given definition, but ultimately it's going to come through a human who will crush the serpent's head, who will restore what was lost in creation, and who will bring restoration, right? And that's the whole context that is here of this initial promise. And that promise now receives definition over and over and over and over again. That's what will be picked up in the Abrahamic promise. Now, as that unfolds, then you begin to wonder, who is it? When is he coming? So that is Noah, the one whom the promise is going to be ultimately realized in. And of course, as you read the Noahic Covenant, the Noahic Covenant is in the context of a fallen world where God just wipes out everybody. He saves one family. His saving of one family is keeping his promise. Why does he save Noah and his family? Because he made a promise of Genesis 3.15, and he will not let creation fail. He will provide a seed of the woman, and he will do so now drastically through Noah, right? Everyone else is gone except Noah and his family, and except in the Noahic covenant, now God's not going to keep wiping out people. He's going to keep two sets of people, his people and the world's people, side by side until the end. but it's through Noah that that promise will come. But Noah's not the one. Even in Noah's life you can see this. At the end of his life, whatever's going on in Genesis 9 is he's not a great guy, right? He's drunk, something's going on with his sons, he's a failure, right? This will be a message that runs through the entire Bible. And then you'll eventually have it through Abraham. And you'll have it then through Israel. And then through David, right? That promise theme runs throughout. So God must save. through a seed of the woman, but notice the seed of the woman, the human in the context of Adam, what was Adam supposed to do? Adam was supposed to love God. Adam was supposed to obey God. This picks up the idea that eventually what we need is an obedient covenant keeper. And what we find in scripture is that we've got all kinds of covenant people, but they never obey properly. And the greatest example of this will be Israel. Israel is, there's no hope for the world in Israel. But out of Israel will come someone who obeys. Of course, when you come to the New Testament, obedience is everything. in terms of Christ's life, right? Why has He come? To do the will of my Father. From the beginning of His temptations, not my will, your will, all the way to Gethsemane, all the way to a cross, what is He doing? He's obeying for us, right? He's bringing a new covenant by His obedience, obedience in life and in death. What I've just given you there is justification. The doctrine of justification means we are under God's wrath, but because of Christ's work, his obedience, his obedience is now mine, imputed. Righteousness is now mine. His obedience in death that pays for my sin is now done in full. That's the issue the Judaizers don't get, right? The Judaizers, what spawns the entire discussion of Galatians 3 and 4, is are we justified by works? Or are we justified by grace through faith and the only one who can bring justification? That's Christ. And this is how eventually these pieces will begin to unfold, right? So creation, laying groundwork. We haven't said much about Noah. but it's a kind of creation covenant as well, right? Noah functions like another Adam. It's through Noah the means by which the seed of the woman will come, but he's not the one. Yet we are still, you know, in the Old Testament perspective looking to him to come, right? And that really will get picked up with Abraham and Isaac, right? The whole hope of the world will be in Isaac. That's why Genesis 22 is so important. And God says, sacrifice your son. He's beginning to think, how, what's going to, I mean, if all the hope of the world's in Isaac and he's dead, what's going to go on here, right? And, of course, that raises all kinds of issues in Genesis 22 and the threatening, in some sense, of the covenant, right? So here's the Abrahamic covenant leading to the Old Covenant and so on. And this is what we have to lay in pieces so that when we get to Galatians 3 and 4, we can say, ah, that's how the covenants work. That's how the Bible's fitting together. That's how the old is fitting with the new. That's why the Judaizers are denying the gospel, because they don't get the message of Scripture. We are not justified by our obedience to the law. We are justified by grace through faith, and the only one who can justify it, the only one who can obey for us and stand in our place, which is Christ alone. So that's how this runs. So we'll run a little bit. Questions? See, we should do it earlier in the summer so it's still light outside, but when it gets dark...