I subscribe to a magazine called Critique.  In the most recent issue (Issue II 2009) Denis Haack (the editor of Critique) wrote a brief article entitle “Understanding Scripture Correctly”, wherein he proposes that Bible readers ought to view all of Scripture through a Redemptive Historical lens (i.e. Creation, Fall, Redemption, & Restoration).  Redemptive History is an interpretive lens Scripture itself seems to present and commend.  Denis argues that the Creation, Fall, Redemption, & Restoration lens encompassing and permeating all of Scripture is:  (1) thoroughly biblical, (2) natural (points #1 & #2 essentially equate to using the context of the whole to make sense of any particular point …Scripture interprets Scripture), (3) historical, and (4) substantive (i.e. aimed at understanding the heart/primary principle of any given passage in Scripture).  Moreover, Denis claims that the C,F,R&R lens “provides us with a world & life view that is both profoundly satisfying and fully holistic.  C,F,R&R is the Story of all of Scripture (from Genesis to Revelation).  All of history, reality, culture, and life fit in this Story because it is God’s Story, the Story of how He is bringing all things to their appointed end in Christ.”  Or, as a man I knew in seminary named Bruce once put it, “History is His Story” (Luke 24:27).

Why is this important?

One reason this is important is simply because it is through the Redemptive Historical interpretation of Scripture that the believer is most coherently and comprehensively able to answer the questions that EVERY worldview MUST address.  Questions such as:

• “Where are we?  Where did we come from?  Who are we?  What is the nature of the world, life, history, and reality?  Is there a God?  If so, what is this God like?
• What is wrong with the world?  How did it come to be like this?  If the world is fundamentally flawed, how exactly is the flaw manifested?  How severe is the flaw?  What is the solution?  How extensive is the solution?  How is the solution made available?
• Will ‘The Story’ end?  Is there meaning to human history?  Is there significance to our individual lives?  What happens at death?  Will true justice prevail?  Is justice absolute?  Who sez?  Will our deepest longings/desires be fulfilled?”

Finally, it is important that we approach Scripture with the scope of the Redemptive Story in mind because it will allow us to feed on the Word more deeply.  In the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John Jesus tells us that He is the bread of life, and that the person who comes to Him will never go hungry.  The reality is that Jesus is the eternal Word of God (John 1:1-14), the Word that God chose to inscripturate in the canon of Genesis to Revelation (Heb. 4:12; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21); and the Word that, in the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4), became flesh (i.e. assumed a body), and it is the body of that God-man that we are commanded to partake (Matt. 26:26).  Simply put, it is in reading and meditating on Scripture - through the lens of Redemptive History - that we see Christ most clearly and feed upon Him most richly.   



Appendix #1

• To meditate in God’s Word is to discourse with ourselves concerning the great things contained in it, with a close application of mind, and a fixedness of thought, till we be suitably affected with those things and experience and savour the power of them in our hearts.  This we must do day and night; we must have a constant habitual regard to the Word of God as the rule of our actions and the spring of our comforts, and we must have it in our thoughts, accordingly, upon every occasion that occurs, whether night or day.

Appendix #2

• The Bible tells us that when God made this world He looked upon the physical creation an called it “good.”  He loves and cares for the material world.  The fact of Jesus’ resurrection and the promise of a new heavens and new earth show clearly that He still cares for it.  This world is not simply a theater for individual conversion narratives, to be discarded at the end when we all go to heaven.  No, the ultimate purpose of Jesus is not only individual salvation and pardon for sins but also the renewal of this world, the end of disease, poverty, injustice, violence, sufferings, and death.  The climax of history is not a higher form of disembodied consciousness but a feast.  God made the world with all its colors, tastes, lights, systems.  It is now marred, stained, and broken, and He will not rest until He has put it right.