glorycloud's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the new-creational kingdom It is 1:12 PM Thursday afternoon. I am down in our basement feeling tired. I laid down for awhile, but woke up because of intense dream activity. Now I am writing once again in my blogs. I will quote something I read last night in the book "A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding Of The Old Testament In The New" by G. K. Beale. "The "new exodus" is a major theme in portions of the NT (esp. the Gospels, Pauline Epistles, and Revelation), but this is another metaphor for the new-creational kingdom. The plagues on Egypt that begin the process of the exodus are designed to indicate a de-creation and situation of chaos from which Israel can emerge through the division of water and earth as a new humanity on the other side of the Red Sea. The notion of Israel being part of a new creation is also suggested by Deut. 32:10-11, which describes the exodus as God finding Israel in an "empty" desert and describes his rescue like an eagle "hovering" over its young; both terms also occur in the initial creation narrative of Gen. 1:2 with reference to the "empty" earth with the Spirit "hovering" over it. Just as Israel was a corporate Adam, as discussed earlier, so Israel's inheritance of the promised land was to be none other than what God had promised to Adam if he had obeyed: full possession of the garden of Eden and, by extension, the ends of the earth. This is why the land promised to Israel is also referred to as the garden of Eden (Isa. 51:3; Ezek. 36:35; Joel 2:3; cf. Isa. 65:1-13 LXX). Likewise, if the of Israel had obyed as a corporate Adam, they would have inherited their own paradisal garden and, ultimately, the whole earth. But they disobeyed and, like Adam, were disinherited. The episode of the golden calf was the event that recapitulated the fall of Adam. All this is recapitulated in Israel's history of exile. which is compared to a state of creational chaos, and in the promises of the people's return from exile, which is compared by Isaiah to another exodus. And although the promise of restoration seems to begin fulfillment in the return from Babylonian exile, the significant features of the fulfillment are delayed, since (1) only a remnant and not the whole nation returns, and even this remnant is not faithful; (2) the rebuilt temple does not meet the expectations of the one promised in Ezek. 40-48 (because it is smaller and likely because the divine presence is absent from it); (3) Israel is still under foreign domination, which extends on into the first century AD; (4) there is no new creation in which the land is renovated, nor is there a renewed Zion with a king into which the redeemed return from among the gentiles, nor is there peace between Jew and gentile. The major irreversible features of the restoration promises begin fulfillment in Christ's coming, which is apparent from both Jesus's and Paul's appeals to OT restoration promises beginning fulfillment in their midst. And because the promised restoration were coined in language of a new exodus, Jesus is seen as launching the realization of those prophecies, and because new exodus is nothing more than initial reinstatement of the primal creation, the NT can also refer to the fulfillment of the promises of restoration from captivity as the fulfillment of new creation." pg. 172, 173 Bealed "A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding Of The Old Testament In The New" 1:38 p.m. - 2011-12-15 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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