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The land of promise finds its realization in Jesus: not in types and shadows

See, I and the sons whom the LORD has given me are to be signs and portents in Israel, sent by the LORD of Hosts who dwells on Mount Zion. Isa. 8:18  Moses’s interpretation of redemptive history will become the normative pattern that later biblical authors embrace. Adam and the covenant of creation are prototypes, molds that shape and give meaning to the future biblical story line. As the Pentateuch develops, we find numerous “seeds” patterned after Adam , what we might call ectypes. Each ectype advances redemptive history and God’s reclamation of humanity from sin while also f alling short of total restoration , usually on account of each figure repeating an Adam-like “fall.”   Thus, each instantiation in the pattern creates further expectation of a coming fulfillment. These repeated patterns and the corresponding promises of eschatological salvation (e.g., Gen. 3:15; 5:29; 12:1–3; 17:1–8; 49:8–12; Num. 24:17–19) show that Moses sees Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Israel as prophe...

Natural Theology: The Apocalypse Now

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  “A concept which takes over where our comprehension ceases,” C. v. Orelli, D. hebr. Synonyma d. Zeit u Ewigkeit (1871), 70. I know there is nothing in the word or in the works of God that is repugnant to sound reason, but there are some things in both that are opposite to carnal reason as well as above right reason; and therefore our reason never shows itself more unreasonable than in summoning those things to its bar that transcend its sphere and capacity.  John Flavel (Elliot Ritzema and Elizabeth Vince, eds., 300 Quotations for Preachers from the Puritans, Pastorum Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2013).)  “The natural knowledge of God is imperfect mainly in two respects: (1) as regards its object, this being either altogether unknown (and here belongs the gospel, which is a mystery hidden from the ages), or not fully known (and here belongs the doctrine of the law, which man knows from natural sources only in part); (2) As regards its subject, either not recog...