I’ll say it up front. I love Biblical Theology. The understanding that Scripture has a complete, discernible and continuous story line is essential to understanding God’s work to restore creation and redeem a people for himself.
One recent BT book I enjoyed reading and continue to reference is James Hamilton’s God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: a Biblical Theology.
This snippet summarizes the preservation of a remnant through their return from exile — a return that leaves them understanding that something, Someone, else is yet to come.
The story line of the prophets is straightforward. The people of Israel enter the land promised them by God. In doing so, they are like a new Adam in a new Eden. Their task is to rule over the earth and subdue it, but they fare no better than Adam did. The initial conquest under Joshua is subverted by the Canaanization of Israel in Judges, and then the nation rejects Yahweh for a king like all the other nations. Having removed Saul, Yahweh mercifully raises up David and promises that his seed will rule. Solomon builds the temple, but then he worships the gods of his many wives. The nation is rent ausnder. Israel falls to Assyria, Judah to Babylon.
Along the way, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve call the kings, priests and people to repentance. They also prophesy that Yahweh will redeem his people after the exile. Just as he brought his people out of Egypt, he will bring them back from all the lands in which he scattered them. Just as he shook heaven and earth at Sinai, he will once again shake heavens and earth, and once again enter into a covenant with Israel, and the people will know Yahweh. … Through the judgment of exile, Yahweh will purge his people, bring them to final salvation and his glory will be the centerpiece of praise, as it is the center of biblical theology.
Hamilton, James M. God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: a Biblical Theology. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010. Print. p. 267
