Getting Our Story Straight

A Review of The Beginning & End of All Things: A Biblical Theology of Creation & New Creation by Edward W. Klink III

The Bible might be making a comeback. And from some unlikely sources. Consider Jordan Peterson, clinical psychologist turned global sensation, who has been traversing the U.S. on his “We Who Wrestle with God Tour.” Thousands of young men and women are paying to hear someone with no theological credentials or membership ties to any Christian church speak on the psychological meaning of Genesis. Drawing on Jewish and Christian tradition, Jungian archetypes, cognitive psychology, and old-fashioned common sense, Peterson has tapped into our deep longing for meaning grounded in a story bigger than ourselves.

Meanwhile, Alex O’Connor, one of today’s most well-known atheists with nearly a million YouTube subscribers, frequently engages with Christians regarding the Bible, especially Old Testament passages related to creation, the Fall, the Israelite conquest, and slavery. Sadly, many Christians struggle to provide satisfying answers to his questions.

Recovering the Integrated Whole

Alongside this apparent interest in the Bible outside the church, much of the biblical and theological literacy of professing Christians is in shambles. In such an environment it is vital that we accurately understand the Bible’s overall message and how its various parts fit together into an integrated whole.

Edward Klink’s The Beginning and End of All Things helps us do so. This is not an apologetics book. It is an introductory biblical theology of creation. Biblical theology is a sub-discipline that traces scriptural themes from Genesis to Revelation, focusing on how they unfold within the Bible itself. Here Klink traces the theme of creation, which encompasses much more than just questions of origins and the timing of how God created.

Klink is concerned that a narrow focus on such questions reveals that Christians have been “tutored more by Darwin than by Jesus,” as the word creation has been so “narrowed by the contemporary scientific debate” that the theological and discipleship significance of other aspects of creation, such as the physical body, a Christian’s life in relation to the physical world, and the cultural mandate, has either been minimized or completely ignored.

Klink shows how creation is really about telos: purpose, design, and destiny. “When the Bible speaks about creation, it is not just referring to the beginning of the world but also to the purpose of the world and, therefore, the goal of all things.” In Eden we see the pattern: fellowship between God and man. And that thread unites all Scripture. God works in the patriarchs and Israel to create a people who are connected to his presence. And ultimately Christ brings us into unity with himself, which will one day find completion as the heavenly city descends from above, and the whole renewed earth becomes the dwelling place of God and man.

A Divine Plan

The themes present in the early chapters of Genesis are intimately connected to everything else. Klink argues that Creation always anticipated the coming of Christ and the completion of God’s project in a renewed and redeemed cosmos. This view helps us avoid pitfalls so common today, such as treating Scripture as isolated stories, seeing the Old and New Testaments as opposed to one another, or spiritualizing Christianity to the point where it has no impact on one’s daily life or in the public square.

With a better vision of how Scripture’s parts fit within the flow of God’s work in history and his unfolding plan of creation, redemption, and re-creation, we can more faithfully deal with interpretations from Jordan Peterson, Alex O’Connor, or anyone else.