Vaughan Roberts God's Big Picture
This is not only a book in Paperback and Kindle format. There is a course of 9 units with a series of videos. There are also excellent diagrams and illustrative graphics.
Vaughan Roberts sees a unity across the whole of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and he traces this in this book. He traces the theme of 'God's kingdom' from Genesis to Revelation and identifies three aspects of this theme.
God's People in God Place under God's Rule and Blessing
The following table provides an overview of the scope of this book.
The Pattern of the Kingdom | Genesis 1:1 - 2:25 |
The Perished Kingdom | Genesis 3 |
The Promised Kingdom | Genesis 12:1-3; Genesis 17:1-8; Galatians 3:6-14 |
The Partial Kingdom | God's People: Genesis 12 - Exodus 18; God's rule and blessing: Exodus 19:1-13; Exodus 20:1-17; God's place, God's king: 2 Samuel 7:1-17 |
The Prophesied Kingdom | Hosea 1 - 3 |
The Present Kingdom | Luke 1:39-80; Luke 2:25-32 |
The Proclaimed Kingdom | 2 Corinthians 4 |
The Perfected Kingdom | Revelation 21:1-8; Revelation 21:22 - 22;5 |
When I first read this book, I was puzzled by the references to 'kingdom' in the early chapters of Genesis, for example. But Vaughan Roberts makes a statement which resonated with me.
"The Bible must be understood and read as one book with one ultimate author, God, and one ultimate subject, God's plan of salvation through his Son Jesus." So Vaughan Roberts sees the overarching theme of the Bible to be "The kingdom of God: God's people in God's place under God's rule and blessing." And he traces the development of God's kingdom from Genesis to Revelation.
When I was reading this book for the first time several years ago, I had been studying the whole notion of dispensationalism. I had decided to spend considerable time reading an old book by E. W. Bullinger. He was at the opposite end of the theological spectrum from Vaughan Roberts. Bullinger did not see a unity across the whole Bible. He coined a word 'dispensations' for which he tried to find Scriptural backing but failed to convince me that he was using the word in the sense it was used in the New Testament. Here is how Bullinger divided up the word of God into rigid 'dispensations.'
A. The Edenic State (Innocence)
B. Mankind as a whole (Patriarchal)
C. Israel (under Law)
D. The Church of God. The Secret. The Dispensation of Grace.
C. Israel (Judicial)
B. Mankind as a whole (Millennial)
A. The Eternal State (Glory)
You will notice that Bullinger has the church isolated in the middle in section D. He has labelled his first dispensation as A which he couples with the seventh dispensation. He couples the second dispensation with the sixth and the third with the fifth. At the heart of this division of Scripture, is Bullinger's desire to see the history of the nation of Israel as a completely distinct feature in God's plan. He has compartmentalised the Bible. I was fascinated by the title of Bullinger's book, 'Enjoy your Bible.' For me, this rigid demarcation is destructive and restrictive. When I was in my teens and beginning to read my Bible and was reading in the Gospels, one Christian brother warned me that the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels did not apply to this present dispensation. That positively discouraged me from enjoying my Bible. By contrast, Vaughan Roberts does not break up the continuity of the Bible message.
If I was asked to choose between these two approaches to studying the Word of God, I would most definitely choose Vaughan Roberts. He might not satisfy some of us who have been taught a particular line of interpretation. He would not satisfy those readers who are arguing that Genesis 12 provides the title deeds for Israel's occupation of Palestine. His interpretation of Revelation might be controversial and the amillennial arguments have not been given due consideration among some evangelicals and they have been misconstrued and stigmatised in some churches. Anyone who has read my blogs, will have detected that I have a leaning towards this approach to the study of Revelation. I would ask that you approach this work with an open mind.
Here is the first of Vaughan Robert's videos.
Comments