How to Read the Bible through the Jesus Lens by Michael Williams

How to Read the Bible through the Jesus Lens by Michael Williams. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012. Pp. 267. $18.99 paper.

With his new book, Michael Williams, Professor of Old Testament at Calvin Theological Seminary, has given the church a wonderful tool to facilitate her following Jesus’s command: “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20 ESV).

With refreshing simplicity, Williams’s Jesus Lens takes seriously Jesus’s own interpretation of the Bible’s ultimate unity: the Scriptures testify of me (John 5:39). Thus he aims to teach Christians how to read the Bible as Jesus did—not as a discombobulated collection of random stories but as a single story whose climax and scope is Jesus Christ. “Reading the Bible through the Jesus lens is reading it the way it was intended. It keeps our reading, understanding, teaching, and preaching properly focused on God’s grand redemptive program that centers on his own Son” (p. 9).

“The goal of this book,” continues Williams, “is parallel to that of Christ for the disciples he joined up with on the road to Emmaus” (p. 10): “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27 ESV). This is why this book is a wonderful gift to the church: it facilitates a basic understanding of the Bible’s overarching story line in every book of the Bible, and it does so in a clear, concise, and non-technical way.

For example, in treating Genesis, Williams highlights God’s activity of separating throughout the book. This separation culminates in the call of Abraham, which, when viewed through the Jesus lens, ties in directly to Jesus’s fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise (see, e.g., Galatians 3:7–8). “Jesus is the one to whom all God’s separating was always meant to lead, and Jesu is separate from all others in his ability to bring the promised divine blessing to the nations” (p. 15; see Acts 4:12). God continues his work of separating in his church today (2 Corinthians 5:18–20), and he calls us to pass on the Abrahamic blessing we have received in Christ (pp. 15–16).

Because this book is written for normal readers (not scholars), it can be used in many ways. You can give it to a non-Christian who wants to know what the Bible is all about. You can give it to a new Christian who is seeking to grow in understanding God’s Word. You can use it to teach a Sunday School class. Additionally, if you want to attend a class on this book, you can take an online class taught by the author himself.

Related Media

• Read Contents and Ch. 1: Genesis of Jesus Lens
• See Zondervan’s accompanying blog tour
• Watch Williams describe what his book is and why he wrote it:

• Read one of Professor Williams’s other books:

   

Free Book Friday No. 2: Planting, Watering, and Growing

Planting, Watering, and Growing: Planting Confessionally Reformed Churches in the 21st Century — eds. Danny Hyde and Shane Lems

Pardon my posting only a partial free book once again. (Lots of full free books are on the way, I promise–stay tuned!) Nevertheless, I have a good excuse for another partial: the free downloadable portion includes an excellent essay by my pastor, Rev. Brian Vos of Trinity URC: ”The Fruitful Grain of Wheat.” He argues that, according to the Apostle John, clearly discerning the interrelationship between Christ’s humiliation and exaltation is the vital root by which a church plant receives its spiritual life and power.

Also included in the free download are:

• “Forward: Was the Reformation Mission-Minded?,” by Michael Horton,
• and “Introduction,” by Daniel Hyde and Shane Lems.

The confessional approach to church planting is an historically significant voice that deserves a serious hearing in contemporary Protestant discussions about what a church is and how to start one properly. Planting, Watering, and Growing is a timely collection of essays by Reformed pastors and theologians who themselves are on the front lines of church planting, practicing what they preach.

Van Til on Prelapsarian Grace

The Protestants therefore argued for the necessity of Scripture because man, the creature, has sinned against God. He has broken the covenant. Salvation is an ethical matter. Man was created perfect. He needed no grace as a creature. To be sure, he needed and received God’s favor. Sometimes Reformed theologians have called this grace. But then the word is used in a broader sense. So Bavinck speaks of it. Then too, man as a creature, though perfect, needed supernatural revelation. God’s revelation to him in nature was supplemented by God with his supernatural word communication. This was to tell man of his destiny and to make him self-conscious as a covenant being. But all this betokens no defect in the creature as such. The ideas of creation and covenant are supplemental one to another.

– Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969), 163.

Books by Van Til

John Owen on the consilium Dei-pactum salutis interrelationship

Paper title: Pactum Salutis est Modum Consilii Dei: An Analysis of John Owen’s Formulation of the Divine Counsel in Relation to the Covenant of Redemption

Summary: In a previous paper on the Holy Spirit’s role in Owen’s formulation of the pactum salutis I made the following subsidiary discovery: whereas Owen’s pactum formulation is comprised of two steps (i.e., consilium Dei then pactum salutis), nearly all scholarship on Owen presents his pactum formulation without mentioning the consilium-pactum interrelationship. I noted this odd omission but did not elaborate on it since my main question was regarding the Holy Spirit’s role in the pactum.

This past Spring semester I had the opportunity to take up the consilium Dei topic again. This go-around my main questions were as follows: What is the basic structure of the consilium in Owen’s thought? How does Owen relate the consilium to the pactum? I argue that Owen follows the common Reformed orthodox formulation (e.g., David Dickson) of equating the consilium and the pactum per essentia while distinguishing them per forma (i.e., in Owen’s case, per modus).

Download PDF (33pp; 254Kb)

The Covenant of Works as Guardian of Religious Vitality

One can certainly raise the objection against the doctrine of the covenant as it has been developed in Reformed theology, that it was overly detailed and treated too scholastically. Although later theologians still defended the doctrine, they no longer felt its significance and its theological and religious importance. Since it had lost its vitality, it was easy to combat it. But the doctrine of the covenant of works is based on Scripture and is eminently valuable.

– Herman Bavinck, God and Creation, vol. 2 of Reformed Dogmatics, 4 vols., ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 568.

Bavinck Books

Christ’s Fecund Obedience

[...] Christ not only acquired what Adam lost but also what Adam, in the way of obedience, would have gained.

– Herman Bavinck, God and Creation, vol. 2 of Reformed Dogmatics, 4 vols., ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 543.

Bavinck Books