All of Scripture is Our Blueprint

When I first started studying at Moore Theological College here in Sydney, I kept hearing one phrase over and over again— “biblical theology.”

We had a “biblical theology” unit of study. We were assigned a “biblical theology” set text. Our lecturers would endlessly speak about the importance of “biblical theology”. And the young adult Dani nodded along sagely. Yes, indeed. "Biblical Theology” is just so important, isn’t it?

But here’s a secret for you: In the very early days, young adult Dani didn’t actually have a clue what “biblical theology” actually meant. What was this thing of which everyone spoke? And why was I only just now hearing about it now?

Of course, it didn’t take long for me to realise that even though the term “biblical theology” itself was new to me, the actual concept was something I was already well familiar with. Sydney Anglicanism has a long-standing—some would even say world-leading—tradition of employing biblical theology (in no small part, the legacy of Australian-born theologian, Graeme Goldsworthy). And so, as someone who had grown up attending Sydney Anglican churches, reading Scripture through a biblical theological lens was as natural to me as breathing air. Now, I knew what it was called!

In his classic text. According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible, Graeme Goldsworthy puts it like this:

“Biblical theology is concerned with God’s saving acts and his word as these occur within the history of the people of God. It follows the progress of revelation from the first word of God to man through to the unveiling of the full glory of Christ. It examines the several stages of biblical history and their relationship to one another. It thus provides the basis for understanding how texts in one part of the Bible relate to all other texts. A sound interpretation of the Bible is based upon the findings of biblical theology.”

Graeme Goldsworth, According to Plan, p. 37

(NB. I’m working from an old edition, cause, you know, I’m old. Page numbers may be different!)

In other words, biblical theology seeks to understand the full storyline of Scripture—from beginning to end—through the person and work of Jesus Christ and according to God's plans in him. It helps us understand God's nature, character, and purposes—ultimately fulfilled in Christ—and how, why and where we, as humans, are blessed to fit within those purposes.

Biblical theology doesn't just connect different parts of the Bible. It helps us to read the whole of the Bible as one unfolding revelation, with Jesus at its very centre.

I recently read an article, titled Blueprints in the Beginning, that reminded me how important it is to practice responsible biblical theology.

Before I say anything further, let me state the points on which I agree with its author (Colin Smothers). Because there are plenty of those.

• I believe the Bible teaches that God designed marriage to be between one man and one woman only (until the death of one part them)

• I believe the Bible teaches that marriage is a very good and very important part of God’s mandate for men and women to fill this earth and subdue it.

• I believe the Bible teaches that all sex outside of the marriage relationship (porneia in the language of the New Testament) is sexual immorality and, therefore, sinful.

• I believe the Bible teaches that same-sex sexual activity (in any context) is porneia.

I agree with the Smothers on all of these conclusions.

But there is something I don’t agree with him on. And it’s an important something.

Of marriage, Smothers concludes:

That’s the point of our two-ness. That’s the point of our differentiated-yet-complementary sexuality. Why are there two genders? Because of marriage!

Colin Smother - Blueprints in the Beginning

Pay careful attention to what he is saying here. He is not simply saying that creation tells us marriage is (only) meant to be between a man and a woman. He is not simply saying that marriage was part of God’s earthly intention for men and women.

No. He is saying that the reason why God made two different sexes,—“the point” of our male and femaleness—is marriage. Or, to put it in the inverse, he appears to be saying that if there was no marriage, there would be no reason for God to have created a sexually differentiated humanity.

How does he draw this conclusion? From his understanding of Matthew 19 in which he says “Jesus engages in a bit of biblical-theological ju-jitsu”:

⁴ “Haven’t you read,” [Jesus] replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ ⁵ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? ⁶ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” - Matt 19:4-6

I’m not quite clear on some aspects of Smother’s exegetical argument about this passage (and particularly how he sees the “Therefore” in v.6 operating). But since I don’t want to take us down that particular rabbit hole, I will leave you to reason that out yourselves.

But the upshot is he sees Jesus to be saying that God designed humanity as dual-sexed for the purpose of marriage. That marriage is the “point of our two-ness”. That the reason God made us male and female was “for lifelong, unitive marriage”.

Now, certainly, I believe part of God’s good creative intention for this earth was that marriage would exist amongst men and women. But that is not the same thing as saying the reason God made us men and women was so that marriage would exist. It’s not the same thing as saying the purpose for humanity’s dual-sexuality is marriage.

I think Colin Smothers is incorrect on this. And I think responsible biblical theology demonstrates why.¹

Reading the Blueprint in Full

Smothers draws his article to a conclusion with these words:

Do you want to know how things ought to be? Do you want to strive for the way it should be? Do you want a paradigm for ethical living, for human sexuality? In other words, do you want to know what it’s all for? Do you want purpose? Do you want an aim, a goal in life?

Go back to the beginning with Jesus and find out how it was so, which is how it should be. Finally, we have the principle: God created the world with a specific design and purpose, including our maleness and femaleness. Study the form, the design, the origin, and you will find the purpose. And you do that by going back to the beginning with Jesus, to Genesis 1 and 2, because from the beginning it was so…

If you want to know how something works, you read the owner’s manual and study the blueprint. Genesis 1 and 2 is our blueprint. 

Colin Smother - Blueprints in the Beginning

Friends, I have no problem with us going back to the beginning. Indeed, as responsible biblical theologians, we ought to do just that.

But as responsible biblical theologians, we should not simply stop at the beginning. We should not decide that the first two chapters of the Bible give us all we need to “know what it’s all for”. We should not think Genesis 1 and 2 alone are the blueprint of our humanity as if the case was closed in and at the beginning.

Biblical theology is a means of looking at one particular event in relation to the total picture.

Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan p. 25. (Emphasis mine)

God begins to reveal his purposes for humanity—for men and women, for marriage, indeed for all of creation—in Genesis. But he does not stop there. No. The beginning is part of a bigger story—a total picture—that we see unfolding in all the (many) pages that come after Genesis 1 and 2. That story retains its consistency and coherency. But it is not static.

Furthermore, when we read the particular and (particularly important) things that happened “in the beginning” within the context of the total picture, we discover that the ultimate goal and purpose the blueprint points towards does not entail a return to the beginning.

To put it another way, the form/design we see in the first two chapters of the Bible has a purpose/goal—a telos—that the rest of Scripture patiently leads us towards. Of course, the design is consistent with the telos. But biblical theology teaches us that the telos is the transcendent fulfilment of that design. It’s the beautiful 3D-rendered promise of the blueprint.

So, when it comes to men, women, and marriage, we need to look not only to the form/design—the genesis—but also to the purpose/goal—the telos. And the good news is that we have someone who models exactly that for us!

In Matthew 19, Jesus takes the Pharisees back to the beginning of God’s purposes for humanity and marriage. Three chapters later, in Matthew 22, he takes the Sadducees to the end of God’s purposes for them.

²⁹ Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. ³⁰ At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven - Matt 22:29-30

Smothers tells us that Genesis' account of marriage provides the blueprint for being a man and a woman. He asks, “Why are there two genders? Because of marriage!”

But… Jesus says that there will be no marriage in the resurrection age.

This is a little awkward. Because, well, this must have meaning for the purpose, the aim, the goal of God having created us as male and female, right?

If I am to follow Smothers’ thinking (i.e., that my sexuality exists because of marriage), then I guess in the resurrection age, where there is no marriage, my femaleness (and others’ maleness) will be redundant. It will be nothing more than a nostalgic remembrance. Of no more actual significance to me for all eternity than my belly button is now.

Or perhaps my femaleness (and others’ maleness) won’t exist there? Perhaps our differentiated sexuality will be collapsed into formless androgyny? We won’t be men and women. We won’t be brothers and sisters in Christ. We won’t be sons and daughters of God. We’ll just be sexless, genderless, humanoids.

No. I don’t believe any of that. My femaleness is intrinsic to my humanity, not just in this creation (Genesis 1:24) but in the creation to come. Jesus was resurrected as the “man of heaven” (1 Cor 15:48). The resurrected Dani will be a resurrected female.

If this is true (and I am convinced it is), then my sexed humanity has a new creative telos—an end—that transcends my experience and expression of it in this creation. That is, the teleological essence of my femaleness transcends marriage (and motherhood), which belongs to this life only, and not the life to come.

Don’t mishear me. Marriage is a wonderful, good, important, unique expression of what Smothers calls “two-ness” in this creation. Indeed, “two-ness” expressed in marriage is instrumental in giving us a glimpse of the relationship that will exist between Christ and the Church for eternity (Eph 5:31-32).

But, contrary to Smothers, marriage is not “the point of our two-ness”. Our “two-ness” has a far greater, far more expansive and far more enduring “point” in God’s purposes than mere marriage.

While we will only be able to truly appreciate and fully delight in that purposeful point when we enter into the life to come, we must not speak and live as if that point doesn’t have any significance in this life here and now. For, those who have already been raised with Christ are to set their hearts and minds on those transcendent things above (Col 3:1-2)

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Contra to Smothers, our blueprint is not Genesis 1 and 2. No, our blueprint is all of Scripture. It is the total picture. It is the beginning, understood in and through Christ. It is the middle, understood in and through Christ. And it is the end, understood in and through Christ. And so…

If you want to know how something works, you read the owner’s manual and study the blueprint. Genesis 1 and 2 All of Scripture is our blueprint.

1. For the record, I think responsible systematic and exegetical theological exploration of Genesis 1:24—in which God reveals he created a differentiated humanity of male and female so that they would be and bear his image—also proves it. But that’s a discussion for another time.