Matthew Y. Emerson - Christ and the New Creation: A Canonical Approach to the Theology of the New Testament

T he thesis of this book is that the order of the books in the NT presents a reading strategy that points the reader to its theological focus, which is that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testaments eschatological messianic hope through inaugurating the new creation in his life, death, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost and consummating it at his return.

This thesis will be supported largely through approaching the New Testament from the standpoint of canonical theology. Both the works of Brevard Childs The order of each individual corpus (Gospels, Pauline Epistles, including Hebrews, and the Catholic Epistles) will be considered, along with the placement of Acts between the Gospels and Pauline Epistles and Revelations placement at the end of the canon.

Additionally, attention to the grand narrative of Scripture, or the metanarrative of the Bible, will play a crucial role in supporting the thesis of the book. The story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and New Creation is not only one supported by the overall sweep of the biblical narrative but, as will be shown throughout this book, is also emphasized by the order of the books within the New Testament canon.

A final note about method is that this book will not seek to exhaustively describe the theology of each individual NT book. Instead, I will attempt to demonstrate the significance of the order of these books based on some of the most important theological themes in them. In other words, the reader should not consider this a book-by-book NT theology but rather an exploration of the use of a particular method, canonical theology, and its effects on understanding the primary theological thrust of the NT.

M any have been influential in the production of this book, but I want to thank first of all my wife, Alicia, for her continued support and encouragement to finish well both in my doctoral work and now in the completion of this manuscript. I cannot thank God enough for you. To my parents I also owe hearty thanks, for providing me with a solid Christian upbringing and encouraging me to pursue academic excellence. I could not have completed this project, nor even begun to understand how to approach the Bible with humility and through a Christ-centered lens, without the constant guidance of my doctoral mentor, David Hogg. Thanks also to Bruce Ashford, Heath Thomas, Keith Harper, Robert Cole, Tracy McKenzie, Steven Wade, and Greg Heisler for helping me in various ways to understand how to study Scripture. Finally, I want to give a special thank you to Christian Amondson and the publishing team at Wipf and Stock for the opportunity to publish this book and their help in completing the project. May it benefit the church through making much of Christ in the power of the Spirit to the glory of the Father.