Chapter 12: the Benefits of Kline's Biblical Theology

The Eschatological Engine

We have surveyed the biblical narrative from creation to consummation. The engine that drives the biblical narrative is eschatology. Kline referred to it as God’s “kingdom of glory” in order to highlight theocentric, cosmic, and glory aspects of this eschatology. It is a “kingdom” that God is after, that is, not simply God’s reign but also the realm where he reigns, which is ultimately the entire creation. It is a kingdom of “glory” because the realm where God dwells, the cosmos, is a replica of the Glory-Spirit and has its particular focus on the glorification of man, as seen in the transfiguration and glorification of the incarnate Christ himself, first and foremost, and then of his people, who are transformed into his image by resurrection power. Kline’s biblical theology shows us how God sought to achieve this eschatological goal through the obedience of his vassal-king Adam, and how in spite of the first vassal-king’s failure, God has achieved it through his obedient incarnate Son, Christ the second Adam.

Kline’s genius is found not only in understanding the eschatological engine that drives the whole process, from creation to consummation, but in seeing how Israel fits in to the overarching narrative. The earthly kingdom of Israel is an intrusion of the eschatological kingdom of glory into the midst of common grace history. It is a prototype of heaven. After the Fall, God first promised that he would use a long-awaited Seed to bring about the eschatological plan that Adam had wrecked (Gen 3:15). That promise then gets expanded in the Abrahamic promise: “To your seed I will give this land,” where both “seed” and “land” are multivalent terms that will turn out to have two fulfillments, a first-level fulfillment and a second-level fulfillment. The earthly kingdom of Israel is a preliminary first-level fulfillment, but not the fulfillment. The eschatological kingdom of glory, inaugurated through the Seed and fulfilled at his second coming, is the true and final fulfillment at the second level. The first-level fulfillment is the type and shadow. The true fulfillment in Christ and the new creation is the antitype and reality. “The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

Kline’s unified, eschatologically-powered narrative vision is tremendously helpful because it helps us to read the Bible the way God intended us to read it.

The Christocentric Unity of the Bible

All too often Christians read the Bible in a disjointed, disunified manner. On the surface, it does seem to be rather heterogenous. It contains different genres (historical narrative, poetry, prophetic oracles, apocalyptic, epistles). The various books were written by different authors or a rather long period spanning 1500 years (from around 1400 BC to AD 100). Three different languages were used (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek). Many different topics are addressed, from the history of the patriarchs, to the kings of Israel and Judah, to the story of Jesus, his ministry, death, and resurrection. What is needed is a framework for putting all these various elements together. Kline gives us that framework by showing that there is one eschatological goal to which everything is driving, and that there is one Person (Christ) through whom God is achieving that eschatological goal. That is why Jesus could say that all the Scriptures testified to him, to his sufferings and his glory. The antidote to reading the Bible in a disjointed manner as a grab-bag of different genres and stories is to see the whole Bible as fundamentally about what God has done and is doing and will do to bring about his purpose for creation. The Bible is about “the mighty deeds of God” (Acts 2:11). It begins with God, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1), and it ends with God, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev 21:5). In between, it is God who sent forth his Son to reconcile all things to himself. God is the Creator, Redeemer, and Consummator. In all our Bible reading, then, we must continually respond with praise and worship. “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom 11:36).

Not only is the biblical narrative fundamentally about God and his mighty deeds, evoking praise and doxology from our hearts, it is also Christocentric to the core. For the peculiar glory of God that is brought forth in the eschatological drama is a soteriological glory. God accomplishes all this grand eschatology, he brings about this wonderful kingdom of glory, in and through the person and work of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, the second Adam. One might view the biblical narrative as a play, and the various sub-sections of the plot (creation, fall, promise, first-level fulfillment, second-level fulfillment, consummation) as the acts of the play. But in any play there is also the dramatis personae, a list of the key figures who have speaking roles in the play. In this drama, the most important person is Christ. His predecessor, Adam, made a ruin of things. But God promised that Adam would have a “Seed” who would undo his sin and usher in the kingdom of glory in spite of Adam’s sin. His coming is promised long before in oracles and types. But then “when the fullness of the time had come” he appeared on the stage. This is the most dramatic moment in the play. The long-awaited Seed has arrived. The second Adam is here. God’s anointed, obedient vassal-king has come. It is the turning point of the play. It is the moment when all the other lights go dark and one beaming spotlight shines upon him. “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” says the voice from heaven. This is the fulfillment of God’s promises. Therefore, in spite of all its diversity, the Bible must be read as a unified story of God’s mighty deeds centered upon Christ as the key figure or agent through whom God accomplishes his eschatological program.

Stumbling Stones

One of the biggest obstacles to reading the Bible as a unified narrative centered upon Christ is the fact that a large chunk of the Bible is occupied with matters pertaining to the Mosaic Law governing the earthly kingdom of Israel in the land. Indeed, this is arguably the focus of the whole narrative from Exodus through Malachi, with a few praise and wisdom asides in the middle. There are two main ways that evangelical Christians have historically stumbled over this massive chunk of the biblical narrative and have thereby missed the Christocentric unity of the Bible.

The first way of stumbling is to read the entire narrative concerning Israel—from the exodus and the giving of the law at Sinai to the conquest of the land and setting up of the kingdom in the land, to the kings and the exile and the return from exile—as if it were fundamentally about something other than the first promise of the gospel in Genesis 3:15. This is the error of dispensationalism. Dispensationalism seemingly takes the promises God gave to Abraham as something that drops down out of the blue, unrelated to the preceding narrative of Genesis 1-11, which is the narrative of creation, fall, and the first promise of the gospel to undo the Fall, bring humanity back to the tree of life, and fulfill the original eschatological goal of creation. In the Dispenational view, the seed of the Abrahamic promise is disconnected from the seed promised in Gen 3:15. The land of the Abrahamic promise is disconnected from the garden of Eden, indeed, the whole earth. This then makes the literal fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise, the restoration of national Israel in the literal promised land, imperative. But they say it will occur in the millennial kingdom after Christ returns. And so in this way, the unity of the Bible is ripped apart as if half of the Bible is about God’s earthly program for Israel, and the other half is about God’s spiritual program for the Gentile church. These are two parallel tracks that never meet, even in the eschatological state. But if they could recognize that the Abrahamic promise is merely an expanded form of the Genesis 3:15 promise, they would be able to see that the land promise is not something different from the cosmic eschatology imbedded in creation from the beginning, and that there are not two different seeds (Israel and the church) but one Seed, which is Christ, and all who belong to him are the seed of Abraham (Gal 3:29).

The second way of stumbling is to read the Mosaic law as if it were fundamentally about what God wants us to do rather than about what we could not do and what Christ has done in our place. This is the problem with theonomic postmillennialism. This was the same problem of the Jews in the first century. The Jews who lived at the time of Jesus and the apostles had so wedded themselves to the Mosaic Law, that they believed that they were accomplishing the righteousness required in that Law by their own obedience. Paul comes along and says, No, you’ve completely misunderstood the Mosaic covenant—you’ve taken it out of the context of redemptive history. It’s sandwiched between two covenants of grace—the Abrahamic and the Davidic—both of which are pointing to a Seed who would come, who would fulfill that Mosaic Law for you. You’ve rejected the very purpose for which the Mosaic Law was given. It was not given that you, by your own efforts, might be able to obtain righteousness through it. The Law was given in order that the Seed of Abraham and David might keep it in your place. Paul asks, “Why then the law?” and answers, “It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made” (Gal 3:19). The law was a guardian to lead us to Christ. The law was given with a Christocentric purpose from the very beginning, to provide the covenantal matrix for Christ, so that he might be “born of a woman, born under the law” (Gal 4:4) in order to redeem us from bondage to the law.

Dispensationalism and theonomy are usually thought of as antithetical systems of biblical interpretation. Dispensationalism emphasizes the discontinuity between Israel and the church, putting them on separate tracks in God’s plan. Theonomy emphasizes the continuity between Israel and the church, even seeing the civil laws of Israel as having continuing validity today to be enforced by a hoped-for revival of Christendom when the civil governments of the earth bow the knee to King Jesus. Whereas dispensationalism says all the laws in the OT have expired, unless explicitly repeated in the NT, theonomy says that all the laws in the OT are still binding, unless explicitly repealed in the NT. In a very real sense, the two systems of interpretation are polar opposites. Yet in spite of their massive differences, at root they share a common error: both fail to recognize Israel for what it was: a typal kingdom. This is the key term that Kline uses to describe the first-level fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise. Israel dwelling in God’s holy realm, the land of promise, under the authority of the Davidic king, obedient to God’s law, and focused on the cultic epicenter, the temple, sanctified by God’s presence in the Glory-Cloud. All of that, Kline says, was a typal kingdom, a type of the eschatological kingdom of glory, the new creation. That was what Adam was supposed to have achieved. That is what Christ as the second Adam has actually achieved. When we look at the story of Israel in the land we are seeing a miniature prototype of the eschatological goal. If Kline is right about seeing Israel this way, then both dispensationalism and theonomy are refuted. They may have different millennial timetables, and they may have opposite views of the law, but they both envision a time when the typal kingdom will be reestablished on earth in a non-typological, literal way. Dispensationalism thinks the whole apparatus will be set up again, complete with sacrifices in the millennium (per a literal reading of Ezekiel 40:42; 46:2; etc.). Theonomy hopes to see it set up in the Golden Age prior to the second coming, when the kings of the earth are in submission to Christ and the whole world is Christianized and the law of God is the law of the land. But if Kline is right, then both of these so-called “fulfillments” turn out to be fundamentally falsified by virtue of the fact that they are not the eschatological consummation of the eternal state after all sin has been defeated. They both take place in a non-eschatological state characterized by sin, the curse, and death. As if that could be the fulfillment that our hearts long for.

Geerhardus Vos made this point so eloquently: “No matter with what concrete elements or colors the conception of a Chiliastic [millennial] state may be filled out, to a mind thus nourished upon the firstfruits of eternal life itself, it can, for the very reason that it must fall short of eternal life, have neither significance nor attraction.”¹

Biblical Theology and Preaching

Kline’s biblical theology is of tremendous benefit to those who are called to be preachers of the word of God. His Christocentric understanding of the drama of Scripture is not only beautiful in itself, but it helps the preacher to preach any given text of Scripture in its proper redemptive-historical context. To broaden that to include the pre-fall eschatology of creation, we should rather say, it helps the preacher to preach any given text in its proper eschatological context. It is so easy for preachers to miss the forest for the trees, to have a myopic view that sees only the immediate words on the page. But it is imperative to lift our eyes beyond the immediate verse, paragraph, chapter, and even beyond the immediate book of the Bible the preacher is working through. Until the preacher can see how his particular passage fits into the larger eschatological drama fulfilled in Christ, he is not really able to understand that passage, much less preach it adequately.

The preacher must preach that passage in its relation to Christ, who is the fulfillment of all of Scripture. Jesus himself said so. When the two disciples on the road to Emmaus were despondent because they had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel (Luke 24:21), Jesus scolded them for not believing the Scriptures, which spoke of the sufferings and the glory of the Messiah. “Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Jesus didn’t say that the Scriptures contained “some” things concerning himself. He interpreted to them in “all” the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

If they do not preach Christ from every passage of Scripture, what will preachers preach? Inevitably they will end up preaching the stories of the Old Testament as moralistic tales—as bad examples to be avoided, or as good examples to follow. “Don’t be like the Israelites who turned away from the Lord to worship idols.” “Be like Daniel who stood firm in loyalty to the Lord in spite of the temptations of living in the court of the Babylonian king.” There is certainly a place for moral instruction and calling the people of God to live holy lives. The New Testament epistles are full of such instruction, and the Israelites are even sometimes used by the NT writers as examples and warnings. But is it really the case that God orchestrated the long and involved history of Israel to generate hundreds of moral tales? Was there not something deeper and more important at work? Was it not to set forth in type and shadow the original hoped-for eschatology of creation? And further, was it not to demonstrate that the eschatological kingdom of glory was utterly dependent on the work of a law-keeping vassal-king who by his righteousness would grant the inheritance to his people by grace? In other words, does not the Old Testament preach the righteousness of the law and the righteousness of faith, i.e., the law and the gospel? The preacher must preach that story before he gets to the moral application. The moral applications are there, to be sure, but not until the gospel itself is clearly proclaimed. The message that righteousness is by faith alone must be made so plain that “he may run who reads it” (Hab 2:2, noting v 4 in context). Once that message is placarded in big letters, then it becomes clear that the primary application of any sermonic text must be Christ and faith in Christ, first and foremost. And only then the obedience that flows from faith as its necessary fruit.

This is perhaps most necessary when preaching the legal portions of the Bible, such as the Mosaic Law. The Law-Gospel distinction—that is, the distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace—must always be kept in view. If it is not, then the covenant of grace will be preached as if it were a covenant of works. Those aspects of the Mosaic Law that pertain to the typological works principle will begin to bleed over into the covenant of grace and the gospel will be turned into a new law. The threats of the law, the curse of the law, the call to obedience in order to inherit the land—all these things must be preached not as if they were part of the covenant of grace, but as the guardian that showed us our inability and leads us to Christ (Gal 3:24).

Sanctification by Faith not by Law

When we recognition the Law-Gospel distinction, then we are able to preach sanctification in the right way. There are two tendencies: legalism and nomism. Legalism is when it is implied that our justification, or our assurance of acceptance before God, depends on how well we are doing in our sanctification. Nomism is a softer version that says the law is a means of grace, that is, we are sanctified by keeping the law. But the Law-Gospel contrast eliminates both errors. It eliminates legalism because we understand the law as something that only Christ can fulfill. It eliminates nomism because we see the Law not as a means of grace but as a taskmaster that leads us to Christ. Just as justification is by faith in Christ, not by doing the works of the law, so sanctification is by faith in Christ, not by doing the works of the law. “As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith” (Col 2:6-7). “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal 3:3).

The indicative/imperative dynamic is so clear in Paul. Paul does not call us to become what we are not by our own effort and works. Rather he calls us to be who we are. We are already dead to sin in union with Christ’s death and alive to God in union with Christ’s resurrection. Therefore, we are to put to death our sinful deeds and desires and live unto God. The first thing that we must do in order to grow in sanctification is to “reckon” ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin and alive to God in union with Christ (Rom 6:11). That is, to believe to be true what the gospel tells us is true, not because it is true in ourselves, but because it is true of Christ and our identity is now immersed in Christ’s. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). That is the indicative. Then, since the indicative of your identity in Christ is true, live in keeping with that. That is the imperative.

Does the law have no role to play in sanctification? Are we simply dead to the law, free from the law, and have nothing to do with it? No, the moral will of God remains and does not change. Those who are in Christ are called to conform themselves to God, to be imitators of Christ, to live in keeping with God’s moral standards. But the law no longer comes to us as a covenant of works that condemns us at the smallest infraction. It comes to us now from the hand of Christ, as the Marrow of Modern Divinity and the Marrow Men taught. One of the Marrow Men was Ralph Erskine (d. 1752), and he said it brilliantly:

The commands of the law, in the hand of Christ, have lost their old covenant-form, and are full of love. The command of the law of works is, Do, and Live; but in the hand of Christ, it is, Live, and Do: the command of the law of works, is, Do, or else be damned: but the law in the hand of Christ, is, I have delivered thee from hell, therefore do: the command of the law of works is, Do in thy own strength; but the law in the hand of Christ is, “I am thy strength; My strength shall be perfected in thy weakness,” therefore Do. The command is materially the same, but the form is different.²

Patience and Hope

Kline’s eschatologically-driven biblical theology not only has hermeneutical benefits (as an aid to interpreting and understanding the Bible) and homiletical benefits (as an aid to preaching the Bible), it also has tremendous spiritual benefits. All the Christian virtues spring from eschatology, that is, from the Christian’s heavenly hope. If Christians substitute an earthly hope in this world for their true inheritance in the next, then this will inevitably affect the way they live their lives. It will affect their attitudes and aspirations, their priorities and desires.

As Christians we walk by faith not by sight (2 Cor 5:7). The victory that Christ has achieved through his death and resurrection in principle is a final and complete victory merely awaiting his second coming to be revealed in fact. Because of this, we must live even now in the joy, optimism, and confidence that Christ has won the victory, even when things appear far different. “In putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control” (Heb 2:8). This remains a solid reality, even though “at present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.” What must we do then? By faith “we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor” (Heb 2:9). By faith we rest upon the heavenly, unseen reality that God has raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in heavenly places (Eph 2:6). For “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1 KJV). True optimism and confidence in the victory of Christ does not depend on tangible, earthly evidence of victory or success in this present age. “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor 4:16-18).

The tension of this “already/not-yet” eschatology fosters the Christian virtue of patience as we live in “this present time” (Rom 8:18). We aren’t impatient with God’s time-table. We can endure hardship and suffering. “If we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience …. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose …. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? …. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom 8:25, 28, 35, 37).

It also keeps us focused on what our true priorities ought to be: living godly lives and testifying to the gospel of Christ as we live in the midst of this lost world (Phil 2:15-16). We don’t strain to build a Christian society and civilization on earth. “Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God … !” (2 Pet 3:11-12). We are commanded to “renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:12-13). And in the midst of suffering, as we live godly lives, we are to be witnesses for Christ (1 Peter 3:15-16).

It fosters heavenly-mindedness. “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col 3:1-4). Our treasure is in heaven, not on the earth (Matt 6:19). “Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb 13:14). Let us set our hope fully on the glorious appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, knowing that the victory he was won through his death and resurrection is an assured reality. “The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18). For we have “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for” us (1 Pet 1:4).

Give Me More of That Pie!

In the 1990s, my friend Bill Baldwin and I sat under Kline’s teaching at Westminster Seminary California (Pentateuch and Prophetical Books). After we graduated from seminary, we both were ordained in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. During this time, many of the pastors and elders in the Presbytery of Southern California area had misgivings about our preaching style. We had been preaching Christ, the sufferings and the glories of Christ. We weren’t preaching moralistic sermons with long Puritan applications heavy on law. We preached the gospel. We preached Christ. We preached that our hope is to be set “fully” on the glory to be revealed when Christ returns (1 Peter 1:13). And so we were receiving many criticisms from our presbytery for our preaching. We were told that we emphasized heaven too much, rather than giving people in our congregations a more useful diet of moral instructions and practical applications and exhortations, and seeking to encourage them to live godly lives now. We were called on the carpet for telling people that the kingdom of God is not something we can bring in by political activism or engaging in the culture wars, or by trying to get abortion and same-sex marriage banned.

Kline asked these two former students how things were going in our presbytery, so we told him about these criticisms we were getting. We told him they said we were preaching “pie in the sky when you die.” And his response was, “Give me more of that pie!” And he said it with his eyes lifted up to heaven and his hands grabbing an imaginary heavenly pie and stuffing it in his mouth. He also had a bit of a twinkle in his eye and a glow on his face. I can picture it now. That is what Kline was all about. Christ, the gospel, and heaven. And he taught us to read the Bible as a unified narrative that isn’t about the law or about Israel but about the bread of heaven for the nourishment of our souls.

Kline References

“The Relevance of the Theocracy.” The Presbyterian Guardian (Feb 16, 1953): 26-27, 36.

“Comments on a New-Old Error: A Review Article.” Review of Theonomy in Christian Ethics by Greg L. Bahnsen. Westminster Theological Journal 41 (1978-79): 172-189.

Further Reading on Theonomy

Gordon, T. David. “A Critique of Theonomy: A Taxonomy.” Westminster Theological Journal 56 (1994): 23-43.

Irons, Charles Lee. “The Reformed Theocrats: A Biblical Theological Response.” http://www.upper-register.com/papers/reformed_theocrats.pdf

Further Reading on Preaching

Clowney, Edmund P. Preaching and Biblical Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961. Reprint: Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2002.

Goldsworthy, Graham. Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.

Johnson, Dennis. Him We Proclaim: Preaching Christ from All the Scriptures. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2007.

Further Reading on Law-Gospel and Sanctification

Erskine, Ralph. The Sermons and Other Practical Works of the Late Reverend and Learned Mr. Ralph Erskine. Falkirk: Patrick Mair, 1795.

Fisher, Edward. The Marrow of Modern Divinity. With Notes by Thomas Boston. Ross-Shire: Christian Heritage, 2015.

Marshall, Walter. The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification: Growing in Holiness by Living in Union with Christ. A new version, put into modern English by Bruce H. McRae. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2005.

Ridderbos, Herman. Paul: An Outline of His Theology. Translated by John Richard de Witt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975. See pp. 205-258 on the new life and the indicative/imperative.

Discussion Questions

1. How should the legal sections of the Pentateuch be preached?

2. What do premillennialism and postmillennialism have in common?

3. What do dispensationalism and theonomy have in common?

4. What is the problem with moralistic preaching?

5. Is it “pie in the sky” to preach that our heaven (the new creation) is our hope?

Endnotes

Footnotes

1. Vos, “The Pauline Eschatology and Chiliasm,” Princeton Theological Review 9 (1911): 26-60. ↩

2. The Sermons and Other Practical Works of the Late Reverend and Learned Mr. Ralph Erskine (Falkirk: Patrick Mair, 1795), 2.298-299. ↩