Carson on Revelation

I've been reading Carson's The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996) in preparation for 2 talks I've to give on 'God's Big Picture'. Chapters 5-7 of his book provide an excellent way of doing the talks. Instead of expounding the details of redemptive history (like what we would normally do for a bible overview talk), what Carson does instead is to tease out the implications of the major turning points of redemptive history (e.g. creation, fall, election of Israel, Christ, the church and Final Judgement and consumation) for our lives and our worldview. I'm trying to follow the same approach.

But in chapter 4, he first covers the basis of authority of revelation. His last two points in this chapter are excellent. And I quote:

6. However complex the subject, there are distinguishable paths by which a person may see the truth of the gospel and gladly come under its authority. The assumption behind all of them is revelation (my emphasis, p.182)

How true! I guess the key presupposition (if I may use such a term) in discussing this topic is that we must hold onto the idea of revelation - that is God has spoken. Now, that's hard to show or prove in today's postmodern climate, but Carson is ultimately right in saying that such a belief can only come through the power of the Spirit. He states:

"[We] require not only the Spirit's work to remove our willful incapacity to believe and recognise the truth (even when we live in a believing subculture), but necessarily for anyone in the Western culture of philosophical pluralism it also requires Spirit-empowered willingness to adopt a quite different worldview." (p.188)

With this in mind, Carson concludes the point with:

"Thus despite the best efforts we rebels can mount, God will not be gagged. We invent new ways of gagging God, of silencing him, of marginalising or dismissing his revelation. But God has spoken, and by his Spirit through the Word still speaks." (p.189)

His last point following on from this is:

7. What God has disclosed of himself in Scripture does not permit us to pick and choose (p.189)

Carson continues, "On the other hand, it mandates that we interpret what he has disclosed within the constraints that he himself has imposed - i.e., with full recognition of the developing plot-line in Scripture, and of Scripture's highly diverse literary genres." (p.189, his emphasis)

This thought is further developed and brought out beautifully in The Gospel Coalition's Theological Vision for Ministry (of which Carson is part of the team)It states:

1. Reading “along” the whole Bible. To read along the whole Bible is to discern the single basic plot–line of the Bible as God’s story of redemption (e.g., Luke 24:44) as well as the themes of the Bible (e.g., covenant, kingship, temple) that run through every stage of history and every part of the canon, climaxing in Jesus Christ. In this perspective, the gospel appears as creation, fall, redemption, restoration. It brings out the purpose of salvation, namely, a renewed creation. [...] [God] providentially brings about his eternal good purposes to redeem a people for himself and restore his fallen creation, to the praise of his glorious grace.

2. Reading “across” the whole Bible. To read across the whole Bible is to collect its declarations, summons, promises, and truth–claims into categories of thought (e.g., theology, Christology, eschatology) and arrive at a coherent understanding of what it teaches summarily (e.g., Luke 24:46–47). In this perspective, the gospel appears as God, sin, Christ, faith. It brings out the means of salvation, namely the substitutionary work of Christ and our responsibility to embrace it by faith. [...] Jesus Christ acted as our representative and substitute, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (my emphasis)

As we read the Bible in the above way, what the Bible does is that it 'provides us with a metanarrative, a comprehensive "story" that provides the framework for a comprehesive explanation, a comprehensive worldview' (GOG, p.191) - a worldview large enough to answer the six questions of everyone, "If there is a God, what is he like?"; "Where do I come from?"; "Who am I?"; "Why is there so much suffering and things are not the way it should be?"; "What is the problem, and how is it resolved?"; "Why am I here? What does the future hold?", and finally, "What time is it? Which part of this framework do I belong to?"

Hopefully, as we find our questions answered, we would want to be (by the power of the Spirit) holding on to this worldview, and find ourselves on the right side of God's metanarrative, his 'Big Picture' to us.