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Q&A: Are we all apostles? What is salvation history?

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Original airdate: Saturday, January 11, 2020

(useful to remember: this is an unedited/draft of show notes; the audio is always the next and better version)

Did you know that “Israel is unique among ancient Near Eastern peoples in their belief that God entered a covenant with them?”[1]

This week I promised you some follow up on the idea of this thing called “salvation history” – and this is the theology language we use for God’s overall story, and I hope to share that with you in a way that helps you tell the story.

A couple housekeeping bits.

Hey, thanks for the notes and likes on the 1000th bible reading. And a couple of you guessed, that’s not all – add in the Advent series last month and things like this weekend edition and it’s a few more.

Today we’re all about questions. First, we’ll knock down a listener question: Are we all apostles? Then we’ll get to the main question group, What is salvation history and why should I care? What’s this got to do with covenants? And how do I tell the story?

And before I roll, a question for you…do you notice the background music as you’re listening? Is it too loud, too soft, just right? No formal poll…just shoot me a note to hello@forthehope.com. And thank you.

Are we all apostles?

This question is a perfect example of how a podcast can be conversational. Most of the time it’s me reading like we’re both sitting at the same table sharing a cup of coffee…and I make passing comments like I did in episode #995.

In Mark 3:13 Jesus chose the twelve and called them apostles, and I interjected with a definition – that ‘apostle’ means ‘sent one’ and that we are all apostles. So a listener shoots me a note quoting Paul in 1 Co 12 where Paul is talking about spiritual gifts and asks the rhetorical question, “Are all apostles? Are all teachers?” Paul’s point is that, no, not all are. We have different gifts. To be fair, this appears to be in conflict.

And I love that question. I shot him back a short answer, but also decided to research and share with you.

The short answer is found in what we call “the great commission” and, more broadly, the way that we are made in the image of a missional God. We also are called to be missional, and therefore are ‘sent ones.’ But at the same time, the word has come to mean a specific office – those specific eyewitnesses who Jesus called and commissioned.

As I did some research, I found that the biblical word had a broad lexical range, and even the early church fathers debated over the exact definition. It turns out that I could do a half hour show just on the word apostle (don’t worry, that’s not happening). To make it more confusing, there are contemporary churches who use the term apostle regularly.

Here’s what we’ll do on this program: The original sent dudes? Apostles. The rest of us? Ambassadors. Witnesses. AND remember this: We all do have different gifts and there’s a good distinction here to close on – we are not all apostles or evangelists, but we are all called to evangelize or be witnesses. There are different ways to be a witness…and while most aren’t called to an office or role as “evangelist,” that’s different than the clarity with which we are all charged with being Jesus to the situation that God has put each of us in.

What is salvation history and why should I care?

Broadly speaking, salvation history is, as D.A. Carson puts it, the story of reality in four big movements: creation, the fall, redemption, and ultimately consummation. The main characters? God, then man, then the person and work of the God-man, Jesus.

And you know how I talk a lot about the idea of “worldview” or that foundational set of beliefs that shape everything we see? Only one worldview – a biblical worldview – makes sense of everything. It doesn’t mean that we always understand everything, just like when you had a math problem in front of you…just because we can’t solve the math problem doesn’t mean that the math problem is wrong, it just means at that moment we don’t know everything. Said in the converse, every false worldview breaks down somewhere in its ability to explain ultimate reality. You should care because seeing things God’s way will help you fall more in love with Jesus and the people in His world. And that second part…the people in His world? Loving them sometimes includes telling the story.

How does salvation history relate to covenants?

Give me permission to get heavy before we go light?

We got on this topic because we’ve just spent the first week and a half of the year breezing past several of the major covenants, or promises, in the Bible. Today’s program isn’t about covenants, per se…we could spend days on just that topic. But I’m going to ask for your careful attention as I read to you some theology so that you see the relationship of covenant to the overall story. And then I’m going to give you my version of the story.

This is a segment from long passage in the Lexham Bible Dictionary. And I don’t get paid to say this, but Logos bible study software is awesome.

Divine Covenant in the Economy of Salvation History

Israel is unique among ancient Near Eastern peoples in their belief that God entered a covenant with them. While non-Israelites formed covenants with other peoples by invoking the names of their gods, only the God of Israel initiates a covenant and binds himself by oath to his people (Gen 22:16–18; Heb 6:13–19) and Israel responds by swearing a covenant by which they bound themselves to him (Exod 24:3–11). Even after violating that oath with the worship of the golden calf (Exod 32), Moses discovers how God’s “sworn mercies” take precedent over covenant curses (Exod 32:13), and so Israel’s covenant is renewed according to God’s “grace and mercy” (Exod 33:19).

A pattern of divine covenants characterizes the whole economy of salvation history, starting with creation. The climax is the sanctification of the Sabbath—the “sign of the covenant” with creation and Israel (Gen 2:1–4; Exod 31:16–17). God’s “fatherly plan” for his family advances at every stage of salvation history through a series of divine covenants with chosen mediators: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and ultimately Jesus Christ. This sequence of divine covenants may be interpreted in theological terms, as God accommodates himself to the developmental stages of the human family: marriage, household, tribe, nation, international kingdom, and ultimately the universal church of the new covenant.(1)

Before I continue, I want to point out one thing: History is our term and is a reference to time. God is timeless and unchanging, therefore His truth is unchanging. There is a critical distinction to make between revelation being progressive to us and what is ultimately, objectively true. Remember how Jesus said He didn’t come to abolish the law but to fulfill it? We won’t get to the new covenant today, per se, but it’s important to remember that biblically, the new covenant in Jesus didn’t change the eternal law, what Paul calls the “law of Christ,” in Galatians.

This is a big deal, because many, many Christians get hung up on “that’s just your interpretation” and accept as okay things that the Bible says are not okay “because those people back then didn't understand what we understand today.” To do that is false for two reasons:

  1. It would mean God contradicts Himself. And it’s not that God doesn’t, it’s that by His very nature and character as perfect that He can’t contradict Himself.

  2. And two, to make such a statement would require omniscience or elevating their opinion above how the God of the universe has chosen to reveal Himself to us for our own good.

A side note here: this is why someone saying that the Holy Spirit told them something contrary to what God’s word, the Bible, says, is false.

Alright, one more bit of theology – the bit about covenants as the relate to the part of Genesis that we’ve been through already:

Divine Covenants in Genesis (Adam, Noah, Abraham)

The first stage of the divine covenant plan is revealed in the marital covenant between Adam and Eve. Even after they violate that covenant, God’s justice is mitigated by His sworn mercies. God renews a domestic covenant with Noah and his household (Gen 6:18). God renews a tribal covenant with Abram, who is called to serve as a channel of God’s fatherly blessing to all nations (Gen 12:2–3).

This Abrahamic covenant advances in three distinct divine covenant-making episodes:

God first makes a (kinship) covenant with Abram (Gen 15:1–21), which is then renewed—with Abraham—through the covenant of circumcision (Gen 17:1–27). Finally, God rewards his servant’s loyal obedience at the Aqedah by swearing to renew the covenant with Abraham’s seed (Gen 22:15–18). These covenants are cumulative. Genesis 15 describes the initial covenant with Abram, where God upgrades His earlier promise to make of him a great nation (Gen 12:2a) into a covenant oath (Gen 15:16–21). The circumcision covenant (Gen 17) upgrades the second promise of “a great name” (Gen 12:2b) into a covenant of “kingship” over many nations (Gen 17:6). Genesis 22 describes how God swears a covenant oath to the seed of Abraham (22:15–18), following the Aqedah, to confirm the third promise (Gen 12:3)—to make him the source of God’s fatherly blessing for “all nations” (Gen 12:3). The subsequent divine covenants in salvation history are grounded in the Abrahamic covenant.[2]

Now you see why I said that the Abrahamic covenant is such a big deal. And maybe when we read New Testament passages where Abraham is referred to, you’ll have a little more context for going, “Aha! That’s what they’re talking about!”

That said, let’s close with the overall story. This isn’t perfect, but it’s me taking a stab at talking about salvation history in the big-picture sense.

How do I tell the story?

We are part of a grand story, and like any great story, there is conflict. We know there’s something that’s not right with the world, and worse, if we’re really honest, there’s evil inside of us, too. We can’t and don’t know everything, but we know enough to be searching…if there’s wrong, it’s because we also know there’s right; if we recognize evil, it’s because something in us knows and wants the good.

Why should you care? Because not only are we part of that story, but so are the hurting people around us who need to know it and, more importantly, the potentially happy ending.

Salvation history is just that – the history of salvation. There’s God, of course, and there are human beings.  So far in Genesis we see that we were created for relationship with Him, put in a cosmos filled with awesomeness, and given a purpose. We’re not God or gods, but we’re special, made in His pro-creative image. Every single one of us. Trees and animals don’t have what we have. It’s the fact that God made us in His image that gives human beings total value, worth, and purpose.

But Houston, we’ve got a problem, too. We only made it to chapter three in Genesis to see that there’s responsibility that comes with liberty, and we stepped into the biggest pile of dookie ever. Rebellion wasn’t just a breaking of relationship with King of the universe, it was moral brokenness.

Rightfully, the offended party – God – could exact justice for our covenant-breaking. Just like you’d be in the clear, biblically speaking, to divorce a spouse that cheated on you. The crazy thing is, to be perfect in justice, God does have to exact consequences – otherwise He wouldn’t be perfectly fair. And who’d want to serve a capricious, moody, unpredictable God? So in a way that is even hard to comprehend sometimes, out of God’s perfect goodness He steps into our world with a rescue mission – a rescue mission inaugurated at what we just got done celebrating at Christmas.

Here’s the thing. Jesus was flesh-and-blood human, just like us, but He is also God. And this unique God-man came to satisfy that need for justice in a way that only a unique God-man could do, taking our guilt so that we might take His innocence.

The Enemy, the father of lies, doesn’t stop fighting, though. He tells us Jesus was just a nice guy with some good moral teachings. He tells us that what Jesus really wants is social justice or to be nice to people. And just like the lie he told Adam and Eve, this is a twisting of the real truth.

God is mightily interested in us being nice to others and doing what we can to make the world a better place. But those actions – what the Bible calls “works” – aren’t what fix our relationship-with-God problem. And this is why God’s mercy, His offer of grace, His offer of a pardon for our rebellion is a rather amazing act of perfect love. This is what the Bible calls “Good News,” but it comes with a caveat.

We were all created to live forever. We each had a beginning, but we’re not going to have an end. This reconciliation and intimacy and communion and enjoying God forever is offered to everyone, but like Adam and Eve, you’ve got a choice. You don’t have to look far to see that the world is full of pain and anguish and ugliness, and it’s not getting any better. Arguably it’s getting worse. So what would eternal separation from God be like? Alternatively, we can just admit that the problem of evil starts in our own hearts, and confess that Jesus is Lord. The gift is free. Accept it or not.

Love you!

-R

ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.

Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org. 

Sources and resources:

(1) Scott Hahn, “Covenant,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).

(2) Scott Hahn, “Covenant,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).

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