Digital Logos Edition
A Biblical Theology of the New Creation from Genesis to Revelation
In the beginning, the perfectly good God created a perfectly good universe. However, through the sin of Adam and Eve, this creation lapsed into a fallen state—yet God promised to bring restoration. In this addition to the Short Studies in Biblical Theology series, Frank Thielman traces the theme of the new creation through the Bible. Throughout the biblical story, God has pointed again and again to a new creation, inaugurated by the return of Jesus. As Christians pursue their work on earth with the love, kindness, and generosity God has shown them, they already experience this new creation, and exemplify it to a needy, watching world.
“To seek knowledge of good and evil on their own, therefore, is to seek autonomy. It is to say to God that human beings can survive very well apart from God’s provision and instruction. Eating the forbidden fruit and seeking the knowledge it supplies is a movement away from God and toward independence from him.” (Page 23)
“The man and the woman shift their trust from God to one of God’s creatures and then to their own ingenuity. In the process, they assert their independence from the Creator of all things who has so graciously provided for them.” (Page 25)
“very good’ (1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). The goodness of creation reflects the goodness of God.” (Page 18)
“to rest on the Sabbath. A third mandate is to trust in God’s goodness.” (Page 22)
“The Gospel begins and ends, therefore, with the claim that in Jesus God is once again ‘with’ his people, as he was in the garden of Eden and as he would be, according to Jeremiah and Ezekiel, in the time of Israel’s restoration (Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 37:27; cf. Lev. 26:12).” (Page 78)