The Pattern of New Testament Truth

THE PATTERN OF NEW TESTAMENT TRUTH

Author GEORGE ELDON LADD

Publisher EERDMANS

ISBN 0802863280

George Eldon Ladd was an American Evangelical Scholar.  In 1968, the occasion of the first publishing of this short one hundred and ten page book, he was Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Theology and Fuller in Pasadena, California.  He passed away in 1982.  He helped to move American evangelicalism away from the prevailing dispensational emphasis that had controlled many for almost one hundred years.  This book, although short, and the work of a scholar, is readable and really very, very good.  As the title suggests he is attempting to show the dominant pattern of truth as revealed in the three apparently disparate fields of the Synoptic Gospels, the Gospel of John and the epistles of the apostle Paul.  Do they in fact contradict each other?  Did Paul disagree with John and was the Matthew, Mark and Luke accounts of the ministry and teaching of Jesus at odds with what John and Paul wrote.  On top of all this, did the truth revealed in the New Testament flow on from that of the Old.  The fact that his book is still available new from Amazon indicates that Eldon Ladd has put forth a very cogent and helpful case.  There are no contradictions, but looking at one and the same holy history of God’s dealings through the testaments and particularly in His Son.  Essentially the synoptics present Jesus and His emphasis on the Kingdom of God present in Himself and to come ultimately when He returns.  A dualistic emphasis but as this author shows, not in any way the dualism of platonism and the way that developed in gnosticism.  Paul emphasises the greatness of the Person and Coming of Jesus in His incarnation, He is the invasion of God into human history for man’s salvation and the ultimate restoration of all things promised by the prophets of old.  Christ is the man in Whom the powers of the age to come have entered history and His resurrection and ascension and the giving the Holy Spirit are the guarantee of the coming of the Lord Jesus in great glory and through Him the bringing in of the New Creation.  When this occurs heaven will come to earth and all shall be made new.  Thus Paul was not fine tuning the gnostic dualism that made the body and things of this earth inherently evil and those of heaven and of the soul immortal.   John thought in terms of the in breaking of Eternal Life into this world through the Son and the climax of His coming again.  So, in sum, we can see that the New Testament pattern comprises two parts, Jesus has come to bring to full revelation all that God promised through Moses and the prophets and even now we may enter in to that life that tastes of the powers of the life to come and we await the eschatological hope when all shall be completed in the Second coming of the Lord Jesus.  

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *