Reframing Biblical Theology

Biblical theology is adequate only if wholly contextualized within the eternal natures of God, creation, and history. A more thorough awareness of God’s eternal design within creation and its history and a fuller perspective on the Messiah’s commission avoids significant discontinuities, such as universal and redemptive histories, the gospels of Jesus and his apostles, cross and kingdom of God “centers,” heaven and a new earth, and the role of sanctification in the Old and New Testaments. This study suggests that God’s eternal design for creation and its history subsumes a limited biblical theology that focuses on the solution to the sin problem at the expense of what has always been the eternal, practical, and productive objective of that solution and its current implications. The church can focus on an urgent need for the rescue at the expense of the equally urgent and eternal purpose for that rescue. A more comprehensive, practical, and productive theology of endless creation and its history contextualizes salvation and its eschatological focus by enveloping them as temporary components within God’s eternal design.

Author Biography

Daniel C. Fredericks is Professor of Biblical Studies and Provost Emeritus at Belhaven University. He has published books on Ecclesiastes and theology and contributed to numerous biblical journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries. He has served on the New Living Translation Bible translation team and on several academic boards including the Institute for Biblical Research and the International Foundation for Biblical Research.