Friday, December 28, 2018

Maybe your idea of history is wrong…

The incarnation is not merely an idea or event to which Scripture points; it is the key to the meaning of history itself. When the Fathers read Scripture in light of the center of history, Christ, they believed it to be a historical reading because the incarnation is the definitive moment in history. The unfolding of God’s historical action narrated in the Old Testament thus takes on meaning that would have been inaccessible to the original human writers. What was thought to be history apart from Christ is shown to be what it really is—a “shadow” waiting for fulfillment in Christ. But since Scripture points to Christ as its final end, it is pointing to a mystery that will not be exhausted this side of eternity. Thus, a historical reading of Scripture is necessarily an eschatological one as well, for the church reads Scripture in light of its own union with Christ, which has not yet reached its fulfillment.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, page 122

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