Discover Afresh the Manifold Wisdom of God in His Plan of Redemption

Today, Sophie and I had a fascinating conversation about architects, engineers, and builders. It sprang from a conversation about people who are more strongly gifted verbally versus those who are more quantitative and then the (super fun!) combination of people who excel at both. We then discussed people who are artistic and really good at math and how they often work in a field of creating things … like being architects, designers, or even certain aspects of civil engineering. This discussion led us to miss our dear friend P.Mark (who lives too far away from us!) and who could do anything he’d like in civil engineering, but who excels at designing the roads that lead up to bridges. Not the roads per se. And not the bridges. The roads that lead up to bridges. When I learned this about P.Mark, his coolness factor just went up even higher in my estimation. Who even knew such experts existed? Not me! But man! Don’t we need ’em? Every time we drive a car we need ’em. And I think of P.Mark often as I zoom up or down a perfectly designed overpass.

Anyhoo … all of this discussion reminded me of a quote from Professor Dennis E. Johnson’s masterwork, The Message of Acts in the History of Redemption. (If you haven’t yet read this book, and if you have any interest in the Book of Acts, I highly commend it to you. When Dave and I published our “Acts 15 Model for Redeeming Church Conflicts,” we were thrilled when Professor Johnson endorsed our book. His is the commentary on Acts as far as we are concerned.)

 Here is the quote:

“God is a bridge builder. This metaphor could well sum up a diverse but consistent set of themes that run through the book of Acts. This study arises out of a conviction that attention to the bridges of various kinds will enrich our reception of the powerful message of Acts.

Consider, in the first place, the bridge between God’s word of promise to Israel, which Christians call the Old Testament, and his word of fulfillment to Israel and the nations in Jesus Christ, who is proclaimed by the apostles at the dawn of the New Covenant (which we also refer to as the New Testament). Although he was a Gentile concerned with the Gentiles’ inclusion among the people of God, the author of Luke-Acts nevertheless manifests marvelous understanding of the Scriptures given to Israel. He shows us the bridges by which we can walk across from the monumental redemptive events, actors, and anticipation of ancient times into the fulfilled reality of the Redeemer himself, Jesus Christ.

At the start of his two-volume work, Luke states that he is transmitting the good news that was announced by eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry (Luke 1:1-4). At the end of thta volume, he describes the way in which Jesus opened up for those eyewitnesses the true meaning of the Old Testament Scriptures: the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms (and by implication the other Writings) (Luke 24:44). Then, as he writes the second volume (Acts), he shows us the unfolding of that Old Covenant word of promise, not only through the preaching of the eyewitnesses, but also in the way in which he himself (under the Spirit’s control) frames his narrative of the church’s early years. Luke invites us again and again to walk back and forth across the bridge linking Old Covenant promise with New Covenant fulfillment in Christ—to see, compare, and discover afresh the manifold wisdom of God in his plan of redemption, glimpsed in many parts and ways in the words of the prophets, but now blazing from the glorious face of the Son.”