We think that we know the first three chapters of the Bible well Creation and the Fall, we say, knowingly. But have we ever stopped to consider that Jesus in the book of Revelation is called the l
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Dr. J. V. Fesko is an Adjunct Professor in Systematic Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Atlanta. His Ph.D. in Theology is from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. He has a MA in Theology from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, TX and a BA from Georgia State University. In addition to teaching at RTS, Dr. Fesko is the pastor at Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Marietta, Georgia
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
J. V. Fesko was born in 1970 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He attended Georgia State University and graduated with a major in Political Science and a minor in History. In 1996 he graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas, with a Master of Arts in Theology. In 1999 he graduated from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, UK, with an earned Ph.D. in theology. Dr. Fesko's interests include systematic theology, applied soteriology (union with Christ, justification and sanctification, and the ordo salutis), sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformed dogmatics, as well as the integration of biblical and systematic theology. He was the pastor of Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian church from 1998 to 2009. He is now presently the Academic Dean and an Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary California. He is also an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good work in Covenant Theology,
By A. Blake White (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Last Things First: Unlocking Genesis with the Christ of Eschatology (Paperback)
J.V. Fesko is a pastor and Adjunct Professor in Systematic Theology at RTS Atlanta. The sub-title of this book (222 pp) is 'Unlocking Genesis 1-3 with the Christ of Eschatology.' I am growing deeper and deeper in love with eschatology. A wrong tendency among Christians is to narrowly associate eschatology with the last days before Christ returns (rapture, millennium, tribulation, helicopters, etc..). I think the Left Behind series is partly blame for this mistake. I hate those movies. Anyway, the New Testament as a whole is eschatalogical. The entire Old and New Testaments are forward looking. When Christ came to earth, he ushered in new age. Fesko argues that we must read Genesis (and indeed the whole Bible) eschatalogically. Here is the layout of the book:
1. Man in the Image of God 2. The Garden-Temple of Eden 3. The Covenant of Works 4. Shadows and Types of the Second Adam 5. The Work of the Second Adam 6. The Sabbath 7. Conclusion The thesis of the book is that Genesis 1-3 not about science or world history, but about the failed work of the first Adam, a fact which points the reader to the person and work of the second or eschatalogical Adam. Fesko laments the fact that all too often, studies in Genesis focus on science and how God created, when we should instead be focusing on the entry point of the Last Adam. Throughout the book, he shows the important connections between the first and last Adam. Adam was to function as God's image-bearer as a prophet, priest, and king. He was to be a priest in Eden, which he argues convincingly (following Beale) was a Temple, not a farm. Fesko is a covenant theologian through and through (in the tradition of Vos), taking John Murray to task (or attempts anyway) in chapter 3. Fesko walks through the covenants in the OT in chapter 4 showing the continuity throughout. Chapter 5 was worth the price of the book. Chapter 6 shows that Christ is the fulfillment of the Sabbath, and we find Sabbath rest by resting in him. Overall this book was helpful. Fesko seems to ignore the Davidic Covenant throughout the book though. I am not sure why, but you just don't read much about it. He considers "the three major covenants" the Noahic, Abrahamic, and Mosaic. Also, I am not a covenant theologian. I think the terms covenant of works, and covenant of grace are unhelpful. I bought the book knowing he would be arguing for the validity of both. I still enjoyed it very much though, despite these disagreements. Quotes: "Christ will fulfill the dominion mandate--he will produce offspring that bear his image, the image of God, and fill the new creation to the ends of the earth." 177 "Eschatology, therefore, is not merely the final locus at the end of systematic theology. Rather, it is the lens through which all other loci must be understood." 200
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Protology,
By RH "Ryan" (Atlanta) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Last Things First: Unlocking Genesis with the Christ of Eschatology (Paperback)
In accordance with his introduction, Fesko's hermeneutic presupposition are applied thoroughly in "Last Things First." He examines Genesis 1-3 in the same way Christ, the prophets, and the apostles did: eschatologically. Christ defines what man ought to be: "Christology defines anthropology." Christ is the perfect prophet, priest, and king. Christ fulfilled the covenant of works. In order to gain a complete perspective of the first Adam, it is necessary to know the second Adam. In order to know the protological - the first things - it is necessary to know the eschatological - the last things.
While the whole work is very fine, the arguments he presents for Eden as a type of the temple are superb. Having listened to one of his Systematics lectures, I could tell even from that brief experience that Fesko knows his typology, and I hope to read more from him along this vein in the future.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
After Their Kind,
By
This review is from: Last Things First: Unlocking Genesis with the Christ of Eschatology (Paperback)
It was Geerhardus Vos who warned of the fixation on one word which thereby desired to set the agenda for the whole of Scripture: 'At bottom is the spirit of evolutionary philosophy, which here voices its protest against the idea of consummation, as at the other end of biblical history it protests against the idea of creation.' Religious fundamentalists as found In Six Days : Why Fifty Scientists Choose To Believe In Creation, have through a spirited effort attempted to mobilize public opinion to authenticate their own fraught account of God's announcement of creation, and have subsisted on forcing the thread of modern science through the eye of the divine needle of Genesis. John Fesko lays the framework for the debate in his introduction and the first chapter through the placement of a view garnered from the most archaic of sources, and in a timely riposte shows that there is sufficient historical precedent for the abandonment of the creation science and 7th Day Adventist purview. It will not be conceitedly claimed that the findings of science are synonymous with revelation.
Fesko is not ignorant of scientific advances, or of progressive revelation, but employs care to secure what Scripture (and that is all of Scripture - not the proof-texting of sects!) is attempting to communicate, not as a last resort, but as first recourse: Christ as Alpha and Omega. One could rightly argue, then, that through intelligently applying progressive revelation, and habitually denying textual isolation, Fesko sensibly applies the NT as the sensus plenior for the creation account. Peculiarly, there was an incompleteness about the biblical revelation given in the OT. To inform us of the immediate historical context Fesko rightly begins with the origins of man, 'Man In The Image Of God', yet, to fulfill the interpretive mandate set by Christ (Luke 24:27), Fesko wastes no time in turning our attention to the eschatological Adam, 'Christ In The Image Of God'. By the first glimpses of divine prothesis, Fesko casts christocentric light on the Authorial intent of redemption: 'those whom God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.' Rom 8:29 Adam, the first image bearer of God, failed to function as a gifted prophet, priest and king which necessitated and foreshadowed the second image bearer's coming. In 'The Garden-Temple Of Eden' Fesko recovers the ground lost to simplistic proof-texting by reacquainting us with GK Beale's authoritative findings and Gordon Wenham's 'Sanctuary Symbolism'. Connecting the dots between the Garden of Eden and the tabernacle/temple theme is uniquely made evident by a convergence of biblical language, and further used to describe the activity of God and man in both settings. Parallels, as are becoming increasingly more clear, are resplendent in Scripture that support the Garden as the archetypal temple, and Adam's priestly role of 'guarding' [Heb: samar] the sanctuary in Gen 2:15 adds a robust philological facet to the spiritual significance of his failure to do so; and Christ's ability to 'keep' the commandments of God. Here especially Fesko makes good on his promise to represent a vast array of sources that appear only to corroborate that 'the presence of the temple set the activity of man in an entirely different light.' p 75 Again, Fesko restores focus on Christ as the covenant consummator by introducing the basic elements of cutting a covenant which are clearly in attendance between God and His creation masterpiece, man. Hence, progressive revelation lends undeniable evidence of Adam's and Israel's failure to keep covenant with Yahweh. The scriptural similarities with Christ's probation are sufficient to draw attention deliberately to Jesus in His representative role as Israel, God's obedient Son (Isaiah 49:3, 5). 'What is true in the covenant arrangement with the second Adam will also have been true in the covenant with the first Adam.' Following Meredith Kline, Fesko effectively posits creation in a covenantal context and studies the scriptural continuance of this throughout the OT in 'Shadows And Types Of The Second Adam'. Chapter 5, 'The Work Of The Second Adam', also brings Fesko's labors to a fulfilling climax. Fesko's exclusive area of expertise, protology, is drawn principally from the person and work of the two Adams. The Second Adam takes up the work of the first. Fesko introduces Vos (Biblical Theology p 322) to the scene to augment the exquisite work of the superintending Holy Spirit in hovering and brooding over creation in Gen 1:1, which corresponds to the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove hovering and brooding over the new Adam, found in all four Gospels (Matt 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32). Fesko's scholarly attempt savors of Paul in crowning his argument with the antitype of them all: 'Christ according to the flesh' (Rom 9:5), which Fesko draws from the life, death and resurrection of Christ. The protological hymn of Phil 2:5-6, in alignment with Gen 1:26-27, sees the Second Adam finding divine approbation only by becoming the exemplar par excellence of self-denial. Interestingly, an ecclesiological subadditive is winsomely portrayed by Fesko as 'that the church is the helpmate of the Second Adam'. p 146 Charting the unorganized territory of symbolism, Fesko expresses with simple clarity and includes concepts such as the dominion mandate, recreation, baptism, imputation, resurrection and the cosmic temple of Revelation 21. 'The Sabbath' is highly remedial and archetypal of the eschaton. Fesko cites Professor Gaffin: 'The fulfillment of the church's hope represents nothing less than the fulfillment of the original purpose of God in creation, or more accurately, the realization of His purposes of redemption is the means to the end of realizing His purposes of creation.' The eschatological hope of rest, though still not consummated, may be taken as granted for the first Adam and his fallen progeny, when viewed in the full light of our merit being secured by 'the Man of heaven' 1 Cor 15:49. 'The promise of the protevangelium culminates in the events surrounding the crucifixion.' p 161
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
