A Peculiar Glory in Biblical Theology
Reflecting on the apologetic value of innerbiblical connections
How do we know the Bible is trustworthy and authoritative?
Good books exist making important arguments. You can learn about manuscript transmission, the historicity of biblical characters and events, and archaeological confirmations of biblical places and practices. You can read about eyewitness testimony in the Gospels and the solid evidence for the empty tomb and resurrection of Jesus. You can study the fulfillment of biblical prophecies.
Apologetic arguments are many, and they are strong. Hallelujah! Let’s consider a different angle. Could the practice of biblical theology itself be an apologetic for the truthfulness and authority of Scripture? It can.
The presence of constant, deliberate, and beautiful innerbiblical connections across the canon has been as much an apologetic to me for the truthfulness and divine authority of Scripture as the best arguments aiming to demonstrate those same things.
A Peculiar Glory
In 2016, Crossway published John Piper’s excellent book A Peculiar Glory: How the Christian Scriptures Reveal Their Complete Truthfulness. He writes, “In and through the Scriptures we see the glory of God.”1 Another way to put it: “My argument is that the glory of God in and through the Scriptures is a real, objective, self-authenticating reality.”2
I want to take this notion of Scripture’s peculiar glory and apply it to the task of biblical theology. In a previous article, I suggested that we are doing biblical theology when we attentively read and understand a biblical passage or theme in light of the progressive revelation, redemptive-historical trajectory, and canonical context of Holy Scripture.
The profound innerbiblical connections across the canon do not suggest a merely human work. They suggest something much more—something divine, something from a transcendent Author.
Lewis and Rowling
There are beloved series which illustrate the point I’m making. If you’ve read C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, or J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, you have witnessed the brilliance of how an author can tell an Epic Story across many books and over a long period of time. As the reader, you might not realize the first time through how important a particular character is or how impactful a certain event is to the overall plot. But by the end, your awareness has increased, and your grasp of the overall story has deepened. Then, if you re-read the books, your appreciation of the big story is greater because your understanding has been enriched. The unfolding and interconnected content comes from the mind of an author transcending the text.
The biblical books were written by more than forty different authors, in multiple languages, on multiple continents, over approximately fifteen-hundred years. What explains the coherence, unity, and profundity of Scripture? Its divine authorship. The Bible is not like any other book.
As we give attention to the nuances of biblical texts, and as we notice the ways later authors use earlier Scripture, we might come to see that something shines. The glory of the Bible’s truthfulness and authority shines through the many innerbiblical connections, quotations, allusions, and echoes from Genesis to Revelation.
John Calvin wrote, “Indeed, Scripture exhibits fully as clear evidence of its own truth as white and black things do of their color, or sweet and bitter things do of their taste.”3
Shining Through Study
While the truthfulness and authority of Scripture are self-authenticating, readers might still look at Scripture and not see what shines. The problem is not in the glory of God’s Word but in the eyes of the reader. A blind person cannot see the sun, but that’s different from the same person insisting there is no sun.
The gracious work of the Spirit helps us to see. The careful, prayerful, persevering study of Scripture helps us to see. As believers read the words of God, the testimony of the Holy Spirit within us strengthens our confidence in those words. Calvin wrote, “The testimony of the Spirit is more excellent than all reason. For as God alone is a fit witness of himself in his word, the Word will not find acceptance in men’s hearts before it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit.”4
The task of biblical theology will be especially helpful and assuring to the faith of the saints. The use of the Old Testament in the Old Testament, and the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament, is worthy of our focus and prolonged study. Don’t you want to read the Bible and see what shines? Don’t you want to rejoice in the glory of God made known through his inspired words?
I submit to you that Scripture’s countless innerbiblical connections are a compelling apologetic for the truthfulness and authority of God’s Word.
John Piper, A Peculiar Glory: How the Christian Scriptures Reveal Their Complete Truthfulness (Wheaton: Crossway, 2016), 13.
Piper, A Peculiar Glory, 15.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. F. L. Battles, ed. J. T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), I, vvii, 2.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.7.4.