Inter-Varsity Press

Introduction:
How to Use This Book

This guide is written for those who have not had any formal theological education. Provided you have a desire to know the Scriptures, even if you have only achieved a very basic knowledge so far, this book is designed for you. Of course, if you have been to Bible college or theological college this book could still be for you. I believe that many preachers, ministers, Scripture teachers, youth leaders and the like will benefit from studying the basics of biblical theology. So, this is a beginner’s guide in the sense that I have tried to introduce the subject without assuming much prior knowledge. I do assume, however, that you are a believer in Jesus Christ and that you have some basic understanding of what the Bible is all about.

This is also a beginner’s guide in that I have kept the discussion to the essentials of the biblical message. By keeping the chapters short and by using diagrams and frequent summary statements, I hope to lead even the timid reader step by step through the paths of biblical theology.

FOUR PARTS
The main part of the book is part three, which outlines the content of biblical theology. I have included the other three parts in order to make the book more complete in its practical use. The four parts are as follows:

Part One: Biblical Theology - WHY?
Read chapter one first. Biblical theology is not an academic exercise but an essential part of understanding the Bible. The aim is to suggest some of the practical situations and problems in understanding and applying the Bible that need knowledge of biblical theology.

Part Two: Biblical Theology - HOW?
Read chapters two through seven next only if you think you are ready to consider questions of a more theoretical nature. But don’t be too easily put off, and in any case you should read this section at some time. Here the concern is knowing how we can do biblical theology and be sure that we are dealing with the truth. You may have always assumed that the Bible is the Word of God, and that its essential message is clear, but can you give a reason for that assumption? What determines the method of biblical theology? Different people have used different methods and, for a lot of Christians, it is easier to ignore the question of method completely. It is important that we become aware of the things we have taken for granted, and that we recognize our own assumptions. But, if all that sounds too heavy, I suggest you read this section after you have read part three.

Part Three: Biblical Theology - WHAT?
Read chapters eight through twenty-five even if you read nothing else. This is the heart of the book. Remember that this book is not an exhaustive treatment of all the themes and materials found in the Bible. If some of your favourite characters or events in the Bible have not rated a mention, you may Þnd that they are not as central to the biblical message as you thought, or that they do not add any theological concepts to those already dealt with. Obviously, it is not possible to deal with every part of the Bible, but I have tried to include the most significant themes of revelation.

Part Four: Biblical Theology - WHERE?
Section four has been kept to an absolute minimum in the interests of brevity. I did not want a beginner’s guide to be so long that it would discourage beginners from acquiring and reading it. The practical application of biblical theology in the investigation of subjects vital to our Christian living really needs a separate volume of its own. But in order to show what kinds of issues can be researched profitably using the approach of biblical theology, I have included a couple of outlines which you may take up in greater detail yourself. The important thing is that you gain confidence in applying biblical theology regarding the questions that really concern you. ...

Chapter 10 - The Fall
The devil said to him, if you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. Jesus answered, it is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone' (Lk 4:3-4)
But we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin. (Heb 4:15)

OUTLINE OF BIBLICAL HISTORY, GENESIS 3
The snake persuaded Eve to disobey God and to eat the forbidden fruit. She gave some to Adam and he ate also. Then God spoke to them in judgment, and sent them out of the garden into a world that came under the same judgment.

TEMPTATION

Genesis 3 also leaves us with many unanswered questions. Why a snake as the tempter of mankind? Where did evil begin? In the book of Revelation the snake is equated with the devil (Rev 12:9; 20:2), but this does not tell us the origin of evil, and it is doubtful that the Bible ever gives us a clue to the problem. It is sometimes suggested that Isaiah 14:12-15 is about Satan’s rebellion against God in the heavenly places before his assault on Eden, but the passage is actually describing an ancient king of Babylon (verse 4). Nowhere are we told why Satan became evil or why the snake should represent him in the Garden of Eden. However, the Bible does not allow a dualism of good and evil in which the forces of good have been eternally in conflict with the forces of evil.

The conversation between the snake and the woman brilliantly portrays the process by which the human race became rebellious against the authority of the Creator. Opinions differ greatly as to the exact nature of this account. Some regard it as absolutely literal history, others see it as a symbolic account of something that actually happened in history, still others see it as a kind of myth or allegory of the ever-present problem of evil in our human condition. The temptation story, like the creation accounts, is an unusual piece of literature and unique in the Bible. How we should handle and understand this passage is by no means clear when we treat it on its own. That is why the gospel and the overall message of the Bible must guide us when we deal with it. There are certain elements of New Testament teaching which see the person and work of Jesus Christ as answering the temptation and fall of mankind as recorded in Genesis 3. In those terms the gospel makes sense only if there was a real temptation and fall which radically altered the course of human nature and the history of mankind thereafter. We must assert that there really was one man, Adam, through whom sin and death entered the world, as Paul says in Romans 5:12.

Let’s return, then, to the snake and the woman. The crafty creature begins by raising a religious question, “Did God really say . . . ?” The possibility of discussing God and the truth of his word had not occurred to the woman up to this point. The humans existed in God’s creation and depended on God’s word for the true interpretation of reality. In chapter three I have considered this question as it relates to how we can know the truth, so I will not repeat the discussion here. However, it is important to recognize that if God is the creator of everything, he is also the source of all truth. There is no truth apart from his truth, which he communicates to us by his Word. God is the final and absolute authority and, since he has chosen to communicate by his Word, his Word has absolute and final authority. The religious question has great potential for evil because it casts doubt on the authority of God’s Word.

So the snake raises the first question: “Did God really say ‚’You must not eat from any tree in the garden’? ” The snake knew, and Eve knew, that God had not said that at all. Only the fruit of one tree was forbidden. Eve corrects the statement but in so doing permits the word of God to become for her a matter of questioning. Doubt was being cast on the credentials of the word. The assumption was being formed that the word not only could be analyzed and evaluated, but probably needed to be. But on what basis could Eve evaluate God’s word? Any standard for testing the truth of God’s word would have to be the word of an even greater authority than God, which is impossible.

The next statement of the snake actually contradicts the word of God: “You will not surely die”. The challenge to the authority of God is now direct. God did not tell the truth when he said, “When you eat of it you will surely die” (Gen 2:17). It was, charges the snake, a deliberate lie: “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). Thus God is accused of being motivated by selfishness. This means that he is neither loving nor trustworthy.

The temptation:
Satan’s suggestion that God’s word could not be relied upon as the absolute authority and source of truth for mankind.

FALL
The cunning of the snake is seen again in that he presents his lies in the context of truth. Eating the forbidden fruit did indeed mean that the humans came to know good and evil (Gen 3:22). But the process by which they achieved that involved a rebellion against truth and its source. Instead of knowing good and evil by rejecting evil and remaining good, they choose rather to reject good and become evil. The most important effect of this is that God is no longer regarded as the self-evident Creator and Lord. His Word is no longer accepted as self-evident truth, but is reduced to the status of the word of the creature. Both God and his Word are seen as lesser authorities that must constantly be tested by higher authorities. Again the cunning of the snake: he does not suggest that the humans transfer their allegiance from God to himself, but only that they themselves should consider and evaluate God’s claim to truth. The final effect was the same as if they had installed Satan as Lord, but it is achieved without the humans realizing it. They rebel against God not by consciously making Satan their new final authority, but by taking that function to themselves. The truth of any proposition would from this point onward be tested by what was in humans themselves. In this sense they became as God.

So the woman does the unthinkable. She decides that God can’t be trusted. She takes some of the forbidden fruit and eats it, and then gives some to the man who likewise eats it. By what process we cannot know, but this act of disobedience results in their eyes being opened to their own nakedness.

Their first reaction is to cover their nakedness (Gen 3:7). But why? Worldly wise people today express their rebellion against God by exhibiting their nakedness and flaunting their sexuality. Fornication and adultery were not problems for Adam and Eve since they were legitimate sexual partners. Yet the sense of shame is portrayed as the first effect of sin against God. The shame is again seen as Adam expresses his nakedness as a cause for fear before God (Gen 3:10). Is this the first stirring of conscience, the conflict between the harmony of God’s image and the discord of sin? Is it that rebellion against the Creator means a denial of creatureliness in which sexuality is the reminder that we cannot create but only procreate? Just as the presence of God in the garden displays the very thing they denied, their limited existence and being, so sexuality reminds them of their interdependence and challenges their assumptions of independence and God-likeness. Clumsily they try to cover up, but they will learn that conscience cannot be so easily dulled. Nor is the all-seeing eye of God deceived.

The fall was a giant leap upward that went horribly wrong because it simply could not succeed. Dissatisfied with their humanness, the couple reached for godhood. In lusting after a throne that was not theirs they lost the privileges they already had. They degraded themselves by trying to become what they could never be. The result was not the “humanness” to which mankind has always appealed in order to excuse its lesser sins. It was rather a condition that is less than human because it no longer consists primarily in a relationship with God that is characterized by love and trust.

The fall:
The rebellion of the whole human race against God through the historic act of our first parents. Their disobedience was a failed attempt to become as God.