Category: De Graaf, S.G.

The Word is the eternal Son of God, and as such He gives us God's communion. By Him the world was made. Thus the whole world was made to serve that communion between God and man, a communion established by the Word. This communion, which was present in the covenant of God's favor, was broken by the Fall but was restored by the eternal Word in the covenant of grace. Thus the Word was life because life is nothing other than living in communion with God. This life is also the light of men. It has been shining from the beginning for there was a continuous revelation of the Word of communion. That light shone in the darkness and the darkness did not overpower it. In the covenant of God's favor before the Fall, the communion between God and man  depended both on the eternal Word and on Adam. In the covenant of grace after the Fall, however, the eternal Word, the Son of God, took it upon Himself to become Adam Himself, the second Adam. That happened when the Word became flesh. Now the communion between God and man depends solely on the Word which became flesh.

The publication of Volume III of S. G. De Graaf's Promise and Deliverance launches a new phase of this remarkable undertaking. It brings us to the New Testament, where the proclamation of the Kingdom of God's grace in His Anointed (the Messiah, the Christ) comes into full view. It is only natural for Christians to want to turn immediately to the New Testament portion of Holy Scripture. And in a work like De Graaf's, they will be eager to read what the author has to say about the New Testament. There is, of course, ample justification for this inclination. In his Introduction to the whole work De Graaf writes: "The entire Scripture is God's revelation of Himself . . ." and, "As a result of sin, there is no revelation of grace other than in the Mediator" and further, ". . . the Mediator [is] also the Head of the covenant, the second Adam" (Vol. I, pp. 21, 23). From this we see that it is in the New Testament that we find the fullest, clearest revelation of all these things. It is in this light that we are to understand Jesus' somewhat puzzling statement that the least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist...

Israel had been called to wipe out the Canaanites. The Lord had given the land of Canaan to Israel so that He alone would be served there. Thus Canaan stands for the entire earth: the Lord alone is to be served on the earth. To achieve this goal, the Lord calls His people to engage in unceasing spiritual warfare against anything and everything that opposes the honor of His name.

God's revelation of Himself. Every time you tell one of these stories, you are telling about God. And you must tell not only what God did but also how He revealed Himself through His actions, for all these things have been written to instruct and enlighten us. Don't think that such a procedure goes without saying. If we set aside no time for quiet reflection before telling the Bible story but simply follow the most natural course, we will find ourselves talking of men and their actions, of what they believed and how they sinned. God still enters the picture, of course; He intervenes now and then and offers rewards and punishments. Before we know it, we arrive at the "moral" of the story.