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Archive for the ‘Redemptive History’ Category

Vos on the eschatological “night” and “day”

Posted in Biblical Theology, Eschatology, Redemption Accomplished, Redemption Applied, Redemptive History on April 12, 2026| Leave a Comment »

In a couple of passages Paul seems to have colored the word “day” forming part of the phrase with the (not-purely chronological), but likewise physical-pictorial association of the element of “light.” “Light” belongs to the day as its characteristic, the opposite of the darkness that pertains to the night. Hence “the day of the Lord” can be visualized as a day of deliverance, joy and blessedness. There is perhaps no figure more pregnant in its religious associations than the figure of “light.” In the sphere of the emotions (no less than in that of the intellect for knowledge) it is made to render service as a physical analogon for spiritual rejoicing. The two main passages inviting to this, as at least a partial interpretation interwoven with the preceding usage, are Rom. 13:11–14 and 1 Thess. 5:1–8. According to the former the world-night is a time of wickedness, characterized, as the night-time in the pagan world usually is, by such things as revelling, drunkenness, chambering, wantonness, strife, jealousy, because the publicity inseparated from daylight holds these and other things under restraint, vs. 13. Moreover, for the wicked as well as the good, the night is the period of sleep, vs. 11. Of this world-night the Apostle further affirms the nearness of the end: it is far spent; the emergency, therefore, demands watchfulness (“waking out of sleep”) and abstinence from all forms of pagan immorality, through the consciousness of the imminence of the crisis: it is high time; salvation, eschatological salvation, is relatively at hand. Believers must put on the “armor of light,” vs. 12. Besides the usual warning attached to the thought of the approaching moment of the judgment, there is here an allusion to the ushering in of the future state as a state of light, and salvation, a day in the literal (not merely chronological) sense; the day has become a qualitative conception, by reason of its association with light; the word has received ethico-religious import bono sensu, it is a day and not a night. And, through its contrast with “the night which is far spent,” it has also ceased to be the mere marking of a point in the eschatological process; this day so quickly to ensue is quantitatively stretched out to a period of extended duration. As the night had a course of which a “being far spent” could be predicated, so the day has its extension and means more, to speak in terms of the same figure, than the break of day, or the morning.

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Warfield: the theocractic endowments unite upon Christ

Posted in Biblical Theology, Christ Jesus, Holy Trinity: Ontological & Economic, Old Princeton, Redemptive History on February 18, 2026| Leave a Comment »

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me”—this is the response of the Messiah to such gracious promises—”because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good-tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them a garland for ashes, the oil of gladness for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified” (Isa. lxi. 1 sq.).

No one will fail to observe in these beautiful descriptions of the endowments of the Messiah, how all the theocratic endowments which had been given separately to others unite upon Him; so that all previous organs of the Spirit appear but as partial types of Him to whom as we are told in the New Testament, God “giveth not the Spirit by measure” (John iii. 34). Here we perceive the difference between the Messiah and other recipients of the Spirit. To them the Spirit had been “meted out” (Isa. xl. 13), according to their place and function in the development of the kingdom of God; upon Him it was poured out without measure. By Him, accordingly, the kingdom of God is consummated. The descriptions of the spiritual endowments of the Messiah are descriptions also, as will no doubt have been noted, of the consummated kingdom of God. His endowment also was not for himself but for the kingdom; it, too, was official. Nevertheless, it was the source in Him of all personal graces also, the opulence and perfection of which are fully described. And thus He becomes the type not only of the theocratic work of the Spirit, but also of His work upon the individual soul, perfecting it after the image of God.

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From “The Spirit of God in the Old Testament.” Listen to the entire audio here. Or read it below (scroll to the second page):

Warfield, The Spirit of God in the Old TestamentDownload

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Wilhelmus à Brakel on the conversion of the Jews

Posted in Biblical Interpretation, Biblical Theology, Eschatology, Israel; Calling of & Mission to the Jews, Redemptive History on January 4, 2026| Leave a Comment »

“Question: Will the Jewish nation always be a rejected nation, or will the entire nation yet come to repentance, believing and confessing that the Messiah has already come, and that Jesus is the Christ?

“Answer: When speaking of the conversion of the Jews, we understand this to refer to the entire nation, and not only to Judah and Benjamin who had returned from Babylon and lived in Canaan until the destruction of Jerusalem. Rather, it also refers to the ten tribes. These tribes neither remained together nor are they hidden in an unknown corner of the world, as the Jews fabricate. Instead, they partially intermingled with the eastern nations, forsaking the Jewish religion. Another part, having dispersed themselves among the nations of the earth, continued to adhere to their religion; whereas a very large multitude also returned to Canaan and intermingled with the other Jews. Anna, the prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel from the tribe of Aser, served God at Jerusalem in the temple (Luke 2:36).

“Furthermore, very many from the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi did not return from Babylon. Among those who did return were also very many who again left their native land due to internal disturbances, and thus were dispersed throughout the entire world among various nations, still maintaining the Jewish religion. James wrote to the “twelve tribes which are scattered abroad” (James 1:1). The dispersed Jews came from all manner of nations to Jerusalem on the feast days for the purpose of worship, as is to be observed in (Acts 2:5-11). After the destruction of Jerusalem, the entire Jewish nation was dispersed and no longer has a specific residence. We are speaking here of this nation without distinction, and we believe that it will acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ—the Messiah who was promised in the Old Testament and anticipated by the fathers. This is the general sentiment of the theologians of all ages—even Lutheran and papist theologians. There are, however, also those who doubt this, and some deny it. In order to confirm this matter, we shall not now say all that can be said about it. Rather, we shall only 1 take two proofs from the New Testament and give them a place of prominence, since they are not subject to any evasive arguments of substance. After having given a clear exegesis of them, the few proofs we shall present from the Old Testament will give us more clarity and steadfastness in this matter.”

Read the rest below (pdf p. 519, doc. p. 510; source)

A Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service 4Download

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Heidegger, “On the Economy of the Covenant of Grace Under the Gospel”

Posted in Biblical Theology, Redemptive History, Reformed Orthodoxy, Revelation on January 4, 2026| Leave a Comment »

As I am about to teach a seminary course in NT Theology this coming semester in our presbytery’s theological training program, I found this chapter in Heidegger choice. Here is yet another example of how classic, orthodox Reformed theology definitely assigned a role for what later would be designated “Biblical Theology,” or as I far prefer to call it, Economic Theology. As God has “spoken at sundry times and divers manners unto the fathers by the prophets,” it is then fully appropriate to enquire how God has revealed Himself in the various economies of His one, unified, eternal plan.

Heidegger, On the Economy of the Covenant of Grace Under the GospelDownload

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Andrew Rivet, “On the Old and the New Testament”

Posted in Biblical Interpretation, Biblical Theology, Covenant Theology, Redemptive History, Uncategorized on December 21, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The difference between the old and the new economy; superiority of the new over the old, the inferiority of the old. Distinctions within biblical language to reflect the manifold character of God’s revelation to us, while fundamentally one purpose and plan of God. Within God’s economy, there is unity in diversity. Further, some of the superior qualities of the new administration consist in a relatively greater degree of spirituality and perception of spiritual things and the eternal inheritance, above the more temporal attention of the old economy.

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Moreover, they may be called the “old” and “new” testaments in a literal sense or a figurative one. And the words may be used with wide or narrow meaning. When the sense is literal, the word “old testament” stands for the Law, insofar as it was given to the Jewish people through Moses. It promised life to them on condition of perfect obedience, with the provision of a curse upon the transgressors, and it brought with it an unbearable burden of legal rituals and the yoke of a highly restrictive political order. For this reason it is called “the letter that kills,” “the dispensation of death and condemnation,” “bearing children for slavery, like Hagar” (2 Corinthians 3:6,7; Galatians 4:23, 24). Placed opposite to this is the “new testament” (in the strict sense), the teaching of spiritual grace and salvation fully revealed by the Son of God himself from the bosom of the Father and spread abroad by the apostles’ preaching. It promises righteousness without price, and life everlasting through and for the sake of Christ the testator unto all who believe in him through the grace that he will lavish on them abundantly.

(more…)

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Canaan, Eden, and the resurrection promise

Posted in Earthy Eschatology, Eschatology, Free Church of Scotland, Redemption Accomplished, Redemption Applied, Redemptive History on August 12, 2025| Leave a Comment »

“But now, to apply all this to the subject under consideration—the earthly inheritance : If that inheritance was promised in a way which, from the very first, implied a resurrection from the dead, before it could be rightly enjoyed; and if all along, even when Canaan was possessed by the seed of Abraham, the men of faith still looked forward to another inheritance, when the curse should be utterly abolished, the blessing fully received, and death finally swallowed up in victory,—then a twofold boon must have been conveyed to Abraham and his seed, under the promise of the land of Canaan; one to be realized in the natural, and the other in the resurrection state, —a mingled and temporary good before, and a complete and permanent one after, the restitution of all things by the Messiah. So that, in regard to the ultimate designs of God, the land of Canaan would serve much the same purpose as the garden of Eden, with its tree of life and cherubim of glory—the same, and yet more; for it not only presented to the eye of faith a type, but also gave in its possession an earnest, of the inheritance of a paradisiacal world. The difference, however, is not essential, and only indicates an advance in God’s revelations and purposes of grace, making what was ultimately designed for the faithful more sure to them by an instalment, through a singular train of providential arrangements, in a present inheritance of good. They thus enjoyed a real and substantial pledge of the better things to come, which were to be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”

Patrick Fairbairn, The Typology of Scripture

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