“please allow the normal, everyday use of literature (like my appeal to the story of the maniac) to take a central place in biblical hermeneutics before grasping at secret readings….That’s how God intends language to work.” - Mark Snoeberger
“Is it even possible to find Jesus where he is not? It seems to me that the answer must be yes, for otherwise there are no guardrails for interpretation. For example, is Jesus to be identified with the concubine who was cut into pieces and sent throughout Israel (Judg 20)?” - Word by Word
This post continues a series of extracts from a draft chapter in the book The Words of the Covenant: A Biblical Theology, Vol. 1 (forthcoming, d.v.). Read the series.
Isaiah 54 is a reminder to Israel that she bears a special relationship to Yahweh, who is both her Redeemer and Husband (Isa. 54:5). This role of husband has been seen already in Hosea (2:16) and will be repeated in Jeremiah (Jer. 3:14, 31:32).
This post continues a series of extracts from a draft chapter in the book The Words of the Covenant: A Biblical Theology, Vol. 1 (forthcoming, d.v.). Read the series.
Israel’s temple was a symbolic shadow pointing to the eschatological “greater and more perfect tabernacle” (Heb. 9:11) in which Christ and the church would dwell and would form a part. If so, it would seem to be the wrong approach for Christians to look in hope to the building of another temple in Jerusalem composed of earthly “bricks and mortar” as a fulfillment of the OT temple prophecies. (G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology, 634)
