The Crux of Abrahamic FaithJ. Luis Dizon

In the world today, three world religions claim to be “Abrahamic Faiths,” because they profess to be the faith of the patriarch Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Each claims to present of the fullness of the big picture story of what God is doing to relate to humanity. But does each of these faiths do justice to the big-picture story? It is worth looking at how each of these religions stands in relation to the redemptive history as it is given to us in the Bible.

Judaism: An Incomplete Picture“Judaism” is the word used for the faith of the people who are

descended from Jacob, whom God renamed “Israel” (Genesis 32:28). Of course, this is a misnomer, as the faith of the Jewish people has evolved over the centuries. The Judaism of the Hebrew Bible is not exactly the same as the Judaism of the Second Temple Period, and neither are exactly the same as modern Judaism. Yet all these permutations of Judaism are united in the belief that there is one God, and that He has revealed Himself in a special way to the Jewish people.

The great Jewish rabbi Moshe b. Maimon (1135-1204), better known to the world as Maimonides, enunciated thirteen articles of faith, which serve as the foundation for Judaism. These are:

1. The existence of God;2. His unity;3. His spirituality;4. His eternity;5. God alone the object of worship;6. Revelation through his prophets;7. The pre-eminence of Moses among the Prophets;8. God's law given on Mount Sinai;9. The immutability of the Torah as God's Law;10. God's foreknowledge of men's actions;11. Retribution;12. The coming of the Messiah;13. Resurrection.1

1 “Jewish Concepts: Articles of Faith,” Jewish Virtual Library (Accessed 25 February 2015), http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/articles_of_faith.html

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Note the thematic grouping of these articles. 1-5 are an affirmation of monotheism. 6-9 are an affirmation of divine revelation and its perfection. 10-11 affirm the sovereignty of God, and 12-13 affirm the reality of an Eschaton, or end of days, when history will be consummated.

Of particular interest is article 12. Maimonides stressed the necessity of believing in this article, saying “I believe with a full heart in the coming of the Messiah, and even though he may tarry I will still wait for him.” It is so important that for many of the Jews who were killed in the Holocaust, these were the last words they ever uttered.2 Judaism teaches that this Messsiah will come at the end of the age to bring about a golden age of peace and prosperity.

By contrast, Christianity teaches that the Messiah already came in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who inaugurated His Kingdom in His death and resurrection, and will return at the end of the age when His enemies are made into His footstool (Hebrews 10:12-13, quoting Psalm 110:1). Judaism rejects Jesus as a false Messiah. And yet, if He truly was the Messiah, this means that the Jews have failed to see the implications of their own scriptures and have missed the boat when it comes to waiting for their own Messsiah.

But how do we know which interpretation of the Messiah is correct? The only way to answer this is via the one authority which Jews and Christians both hold to: The Hebrew Bible. Therein are abundant references to the Messiah’s person and role. For example, in Genesis 49:10 it reads: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.”3 The Targums of Onkelos,4 Pseudo-Jonathan5 and Yerushalmi6 all identify this figure as the Messiah. We see here that the Messiah’s kingship extends not only over Israel but all the nations.

Another such passage, which is confirmed to be Messianic in Targum Jonathan,7 is Micah 5:2. It reads: “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.” Two

2 “Moses Maimonides (Rambam),” Jewish Virtual Library (Accessed 25 February 2015), http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Maimonides.html

3 Biblical references are from the English Standard Version, with a few verses modified slightly to better reflect the original text.

4 Samson H Levey, The Messiah: an Aramaic Interpretation; the Messianic Exegesis of the Targum (Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion, 1974), 7.

5 Ibid., 8.6 Ibid., 11.7 Ibid., 92.

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things stand out immediately in this verse: 1) The Messiah is born in Bethlehem, and 2) his origins are from ancient days, which indicates pre-existence. A high Christology is readily apparent here.

Reinforcing this high Christology is Isaiah 9:6, which states: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor (Pele Yoetz), Mighty God (El-Gibbor), Possessor of Eternity (Avi-Ad), Prince of Peace (Sar-Shalom).” It is telling that the figure being prophesied here is called “Mighty God” and “Possessor of Eternity, which points to divinity. Jews object to this interpretation by arguing that “El-Gibbor” is best understood as “mighty warrior.” However, this interpretation is made untenable by the fact that the title (which only appears in Isaiah) is only used of Yahweh. For example, Isaiah 10:20-21 states: “In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.” Whoever this figure must be, then, He must be regarded as no less than God.

But perhaps the most important Messianic passage is Isaiah 53. This passage speaks of a Suffering Servant who is rejected by his own people, and who eventually is killed, but his death becomes the means by which the transgressions of his people are paid for. Most Jews today, following Rabbi Shlomo b. Yitzhak (1040-1105), interpret the Suffering Servant as the nation of Israel. However, virtually all Jewish sources prior to him identified this Suffering Servant as the Messiah, and many rabbis continue to affirm this even after Rashi’s interpretation. Consider, for example, the Babylonian Talmud, which states: “The Messiah—what is his name?…The Rabbis say, the leprous one; those of the house of Rabbi say, the sick one, as it is said, ‘Surely he hath borne our sicknesses’” (Tractate Sanhedrin 98b).8 Thus, the passage is interpreted in an explicitly Messianic light.

It is true that the word “servant,” in Isaiah sometimes appears to refer to Israel. For example, in Isaiah 49:3, God says: “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” However, this identification needs to be qualified, because in verse 5, the Servant says, “he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him.” How can the Servant bring Israel back to God if the Servant is himself Israel? The best way to understand this is to see the

8 See this and other similar quotations by numerous other Jewish authorities in Rachmiel Frydland’s article, “The Rabbis' Dilemma: A Look at Isaiah 53,” Jews for Jesus (Accessed 25 February 2015), http://www.jewsforjesus.org/publications/issues/v02-n05/isaiah53

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Servant as an individual who represents the nation of Israel, the same way a king or president would represent the nation he is head of.9

This understanding carries over to Isaiah 53. Pay close attention to the description of the servant as it appears in verses 4-8:

Surely he has borne our griefs    and carried our sorrows;yet we esteemed him stricken,    smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions;    he was crushed for our iniquities;upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,    and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray;    we have turned—every one—to his own way;and the LORD has laid on him    the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,    yet he opened not his mouth;like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,    and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,    so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away;    and as for his generation, who consideredthat he was cut off out of the land of the living,    stricken for the transgression of my people?

Immediately, we notice three things about the Suffering Servant:

1. He experiences death, something which cannot be said of the people of Israel, who have survived every affliction that has come upon them;

2. His death is redemptive in character. Of course, no ordinary human can redeem another person by their suffering, to say nothing of an entire nation’s suffering; and

3. The redemption is for his people, which would be odd if Israel was in view, as the “people” would also be interpreted as Israel,

9 I am indebted to Dr. Peter G. Gentry of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for this insight.

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which leads to the nonsense interpretation that Israel’s sins are transferred onto Israel.

We are left with the conclusion that an individual is in view—one who comes out of the nation of Israel, but is distinguished by his faithfulness, in contrast with the nation’s unbelief and rejection of him. This individual is none other than the Messiah—as both Rabbinic sources and the New Testament attest—and the only person in history who matches the description of the Messiah therein is Jesus of Nazareth.10

If Jesus is the Messiah—and we certainly see the Hebrew Bible pointing that direction—then the implication is that Judaism, in its rejection of Jesus, has missed the boat. Its picture of redemptive history is incomplete, at best. Despite its high regard for the Bible, it fails to see the trajectory of the Biblical story and the One to whom it points, which echoes what Jesus said to the Pharisees 2,000 years ago: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39-40).

Islam: A Blurred PictureIf Judaism errs in presenting an incomplete picture of redemptive

history, Islam errs in blurring the picture that was received prior to it. One must Islam in light of the Biblical traditions that preceded it. Countless volumes have been written on this subject.11 Dr. Samir states that “there is no need to demonstrate that there was a Christian influence on the Qur’an, in as much as this is apparent from the evidence of a number of narratives.”12

10 If one is in doubt regarding this, try this simple experiment: Write down Isaiah 53 on a sheet of paper without writing down the reference, and then show random people the passage and ask them who they think it is referring to. In doing this, I have found that people—Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, etc.—almost universally recognize that Jesus is being described therein.

11 Two very important books on this topic are worth mentioning. First is Gabriel Said Reynold’s The Qur’an in its Biblical Subtext (New York: Routledge, 2010). The second book, edited by the same author, is The Qur’an in Its Historical Context (New York: Routledge, 2008). Both are part of the Routledge Studies in the Qur’an (ed. Andrew Rippin).

12 Samir Khalil Samir, “The Theological Christian Influence on the Qur’an: A Reflection,” The Qur’an in Its Historical Context, ed. Gabriel Said Reynolds (New York: Routledge, 2008), 161. Samir recognizes that such an assertion is controversial amongst Orthodox Muslims, noting that “the very concept of influence is generally rejected by all of traditional Islam. The Qur’an cannot be subject to influences, since it comes directly from God and is in no way a human work. If it were a work attributable to Muhammad himself, it

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To explain this, we must speak of Islam’s articles of faith. Orthodox Islam has five articles, which are:

1. Belief in one God Who has absolutely no associate with Him in His divinity;

2. Belief in God’s Angels;3. Belief in God’s Books, and in the Holy Qur’an as His Last Book4. Belief in God’s Prophets, and in Muhammad as His Last and

Final Messenger; and5. Belief in life after death.13

Articles 4 and 5 are of particular interest. Islam professes to be the faith of all the prophets, including those of the Jewish and Christian traditions. Muslims acknowledge as divinely revealed the Torah (Tawrat), the Psalms (Zabur) and the Gospel (Injil). In addition, they hold that Muhammad was the seal of the prophets, and the Qur’an (which God revealed through Muhammad) to be His final revelation. This is reflected in the Qur’an’s own assessment of itself:

He has sent down upon you, the Book in truth, confirming what was before it [lit. “What is between his hands”]. And He revealed the Torah and the Gospel before, as guidance for the people. And He revealed the Qur'an. Indeed, those who disbelieve in the verses of Allah will have a severe punishment, and Allah is exalted in Might, the Owner of Retribution (Q 3:3-4)14

By placing the Qur’an in the same status as the Torah and Gospel, it is argued that Muhammad belongs to that prophetic continuity, and that the prophets’ message finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Qur’an.

This is where it gets problematic. Many of the core teachings of the Qur’an do not match those of the Bible. For example, the Bible teaches the divine sonship of Christ. Islam vehemently denies such a relationship and regards it as blasphemous:

could be subject to influences. However, being a divine message brought down upon Muhammad, there is no other influence but that of God. By this fact alone the very question that we raise is already excluded by traditional Islamic thought” (Ibid., 141).

13 Sayyid Abu’l Ala Mawdudi, Towards Understanding Islam (U.K.I.M. Dawah Centre, 1960), 70. Some sources include a sixth article: Belief in Divine Predestination (Qadr). However, the nature of predestination tends to be a source of disagreement between Muslim groups, especially between Sunni and Shi’i Islam.

14 Qur’anic references are from the Sahih International translation.

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And they say, “The Most Merciful has taken a son.” You have done an atrocious thing. The heavens almost rupture therefrom and the earth splits open and the mountains collapse in devastation that they attribute to the Most Merciful a son. And it is not appropriate for the Most Merciful that He should take a son. (Q 19:88-92).

The contrast is clearer elsewhere: If we take the words in Q 112:3 that “He neither begets nor is born” (Lam yalid wa lam yulad), we find that they are the mirror opposite of Isaiah 9:6, “to us a child is born” (Ki yeled yulad lanu). The Qur’an even threatens Christians with God’s destruction for calling Jesus the Son of God (Q 5:72-73 and 9:30). Contrast this with Jesus blessing Peter for affirming the same (Matthew 16:17). The antithesis could not be any clearer.

Another main area of contrast is in the area of vicarious atonement. The Torah clearly teaches the necessity of atonement through the description of the Yom Kippur festival (Leviticus 16). The next chapter states that “the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life” (Leviticus 17:11). Moreover, the prophets declared that the Messiah would make atonement for sin (see above discussion of Isaiah 53), which Jesus affirmed when He said that “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Islam denies all this, arguing that Jesus did not even die on the cross (Q 4:157).15

The problem for Muslims is how to reconcile the Qur’an with the previous scriptures. The classical argument of Islamic polemicists is that the previous scriptures were corrupted by the People of the Book. Most of these books no longer exist, while some (such as the aforementioned three)

15 As Lawson points out, there is no unanimity among Muslim commentators on the interpretation of this passage. In fact, there are conflicting interpretations even until now. He states regarding 4:157: “Muslim teaching... on the life and ministry of Jesus is by no means consistent or monolithic.... there are numerous forces at work in various levels of the Islamic learned tradition that impinge upon the hermeneutic culture out of which doctrine may be thought to have arisen and endured.... any number of readers—Muslim or not—could read and have read the same verse without coming to this conclusion.” See Todd Lawson, The Crucifixion and the Qur’an: A Study in the History of Muslim Thought (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2009), 1-2.

According to Lawson, the most likely interpretation is that Jesus did indeed die physically, but not spiritually. He states that “the semantic constitution of such a statement strongly points to a reading that would go well beyond the mundane realms of murder and physical death” (Ibid., 41.). Support for this interpretation comes from cross-referencing Q 4:157 with Q 2:154 and 3:169. This view is held today by the Isma’ili sect of Shi’ism.

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remain extant in a corrupted form. Abu’l Ala Mawdudi summarizes the popular Muslim viewpoint as such:

The real death of a Prophet consists not in his physical demise but in the ending of the influence of his teachings. The earlier Prophets have died because their followers have adulterated their teachings, distorted their instructions, and besmirched their life-examples by attaching fictitious events to them. Not one of the earlier books - Torah, Zabur (Psalms of David), Injil (Gospel of Jesus), for example - exists today in its original text and even the adherents of these books confess that they do not possess the original books. The life-histories of the earlier Prophets have been so mixed up with fiction that an accurate and authentic account of their lives has become impossible. Their lives have become tales and legends and no trustworthy record is available anywhere. It cannot even be said with certainty when and where a certain Prophet was born, how he lived and what code of morality he gave to mankind.16

Muslim polemicists claim that the teaching that the Bible has been corrupted is based on Qur’anic texts that teach Tahrif (alteration). One such text is Q 2:79: “Woe to those who write the scripture with their own hands, then say, ‘This is from Allah,’ in order to exchange it for a small price. Woe to them for what their hands have written and woe to them for what they earn.”

There are three problems with interpreting this passage this way. First, the verse is describing an isolated incident. Q 2:75 states that only one party of Jews is being described, and that this is not universal. We know from history that the Jews were generally very careful in preserving their text (eg. the Masoretes), so this incident must be regarded as an exception rather than the rule. Also, the verse says nothing about Christians being involved.17

Second, this verse is ambiguous on what “book” the Jews are writing with their own hands. While Muslim polemicists identify this as the Torah, it could just as easily be referring to secondary Jewish writings such as the

16 Mawdudi, Towards Understanding Islam, 42-43.17 We can also ask our hypothetical Muslim apologist why the Jews left such problematic

passages as Psalm 22 or Isaiah 53 as they are. Given their value to Christianity, one would expect them to be scrubbed, if the Jews were in fact interested in corrupting the text to suit their ideas.

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Talmud (which Orthodox Jews regard as being as authoritative as the Bible) rather than the Torah.

Third, in Islamic theology, there are two types of Tahrif: Tahrif al-Nass (corruption of the actual text), and Tahrif al-Mana (corruption of the meaning only). All Qur’an verses that teach tahrif only teach the latter—the interpretation is wrong but the text is still intact. Furthermore, the earliest Muslims historically held to Tahrif al-Mana, but later generations began to argue against Jews and Christians on the basis of Tahrif al-Nass. For example, Ibn Kathir, in his commentary on Q 3:78, cites earlier commentators Ibn Abbas and Ibn Munabbih (both from the 8th century), to the effect that nothing in the Bible has been changed:

Al-Bukhari reported that Ibn ‘Abbas said that the Ayah means they alter and add although none among Allah's creation can remove the Words of Allah from His Books, they alter and distort their apparent meanings. Wahb bin Munabbih said, “The Tawrah and the Injil remain as Allah revealed them, and no letter in them was removed. However, the people misguide others by addition and false interpretation, relying on books that they wrote themselves.”18

It is unclear when the shift from claiming Tahrif al-Mana to Tahrif al-Nass occurred. Dr. Nickel suggests that this viewpoint came into vogue in the 11th century, when Ibn Hazm popularized it for polemical purposes. Prior to him, the textual integrity of the Bible was taken for granted by most Muslims.19 Nickel writes,

[E]xegetes from the formative period of Qur’anic commentary did not in the first instance understand the words of the Qur’an to mean that the Jews and Christians had falsified their scriptures. ... They have little good to say about the communities to whom God entrusted his revelations in the distant past, and even less good to relate about those who did not accept the claims of the messenger of Islam. But the negative evaluations of the “People of the Book”

18 Isma’il b. Kathir, “The Jews Alter Allah’s Words,” Quran Tafsir Ibn Kathir (Accessed 25 February 2015), http://www.qtafsir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=525&Itemid=46#1

19 Gordon Nickel, Narratives of Tampering in the Earliest Commentaries on the Qur’an (London: Brill Academic, 2011), 23.

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in the commentaries do not generally attach to the revealed books themselves.20

Even after Ibn Hazm, many Muslims continued to reject Tahrif al-Nass. For instance, Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) cites stories from the Jewish scriptures in his Muqaddimah, and then goes on to defend the general authenticity of those scriptures:

Someone might come out against this tradition with the argument that it occurs only in the Torah which, as is well known, was altered by the Jews. The reply to this argument would be that the statement concerning the alteration of the Torah by the Jews is unacceptable to thorough scholars and cannot be understood in its plain meaning, since custom prevents people who have a revealed religion from dealing with the divine scriptures in such a manner.21

More recently, Muslim scholar Mahmoud Ayoub wrote concerning the charge that the previous scriptures were corrupted:

Contrary to the general Islamic view, the Qur'an does not accuse Jews and Christians of altering the text of their scriptures, but rather of altering the truth which those scriptures contain. The people do this by concealing some of the sacred texts, by misapplying their precepts, or by “altering words from their right position” (4:26; 5:13, 41; see also 2:75). However, this refers more to interpretation than to actual addition or deletion of words from the sacred books. The problem of alteration (tahrif) needs further study.22

Besides, the Qur’an states that it has come to confirm “what is between his hands” (Q 3:3 and 5:48). This would not make sense if the text at that time had been altered, since then the Qur’an would be confirming a corrupted text. The Qur’an also states that God made Jesus’ disciples superior to the unbelievers until the day of Resurrection (Q 3:52-55 and 61:14). It would not make sense if their writings were corrupted or if unbelievers

20 Ibid., 13.21 Abu Zayd b. Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, vol. I, trans. Franz

Rosenthal (Princeton University Press, 1967), 20.22 Mahmoud Ayoub, “Uzayr in the Qur'an and Muslim Tradition,” Studies in Islamic and

Judaic Traditions, eds. W. M. Brenner and S. D. Rick. (The University of Denver, 1986), 5.

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successfully passed on their own writings as those of Jesus’ disciples, since that means the unbelievers triumphed over them. Finally, the ahadith state that Muhammad treated the Torah reverently. One hadith records the following anecdote:

A group of Jews came and invited the Apostle of Allah to Quff. So he visited them in their school. They said: Abul Qasim, one of our men has committed fornication with a woman; so pronounce judgment upon them. They placed a cushion for the Apostle of Allah who sat on it and said: Bring the Torah. It was then brought. He then withdrew the cushion from beneath him and placed the Torah on it saying: I believe in thee and in Him who revealed thee (Abu-Dawud 4434).23

Another hadith confirms that Muhammad took the punishments prescribed in the Torah as binding upon the Jews:

A Jew and a Jewess were brought to Allah's Apostle on a charge of committing illegal sexual intercourse. The Prophet asked them. “What is the legal punishment in your Book?” They replied, “Our priests have innovated the punishment of blackening the faces with charcoal and Tajbiya.” ‘Abdullah bin Salam said, “O Allah's Apostle, tell them to bring the Torah.” The Torah was brought, and then one of the Jews put his hand over the Divine Verse of the Rajam (stoning to death) and started reading what preceded and what followed it. On that, Ibn Salam said to the Jew, “Lift up your hand.” Behold! The Divine Verse of the Rajam was under his hand. So Allah's Apostle ordered that the two be stoned to death, and so they were stoned (Bukhari 8:809).

These narrations show that the charge of corruption cannot be sustained against the Bible. This charge comes from later medieval Muslim polemics against Jews and Christians, and cannot be substantiated from the Qur’an or early Islamic sources.

Thus, Islam has within it a fatal contradiction: It affirms the divine origin of the Bible, yet denies essential teachings from the Bible. The only conclusion one could draw is that Islam’s claim to be in continuity with

23 Hadith quotations are from “Sunnah and Hadith,” University of Southern California (Accessed 26 February 2015), http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/hadith

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God’s redemptive story is invalid, which also invalidates Muhammad’s prophethood and the Qur’an’s status as divine revelation.

Christianity: The Full PictureHaving seen the flaws in Judaism and Islam, we are left with one

remaining Abrahamic Faith: Christianity. The Christian faith sees the story of the Bible as Redemptive History,24 where God works to bring an estranged humanity back to a right relationship with Himself. This Redemptive History can be seen as a succession of covenants, beginning with the Edenic Covenant and culminating in the New Covenant. Between Adam and Christ, there are four other covenants, which God made with Noah, Abraham, Moses and David, respectively.

Each covenant builds upon each other, clarifying each covenant that came before it and sometimes fulfilling their provisions. For example, the Mosaic covenant contains provisions for a monarchy, yet there was no monarchy in Israel for another 400 years (Deut. 17:14-20). When a monarchy is established, God takes the house of David and promises to establish their throne forever (2 Samuel 7). This is finally fulfilled in the New Covenant, with Christ as the eternal king.

The following scheme can be used to remember the basic thrust of each covenant:

1. Adam: The covenant of commencement2. Noah: The covenant of preservation3. Abraham: The covenant of promise4. Moses: The covenant of law5. David: The covenant of the kingdom6. Christ: The covenant of consummation25

Underlying all the covenants is a grand narrative that connects them together. Robertson notes: “Diversity indeed exists in the various administrations of God’s covenants. This diversity enriches the wonder of

24 The on “Redemptive History” in Theopedia states: “Redemptive history is a general term to describe the study of God's acts of redemption from creation to the present. Although a broad field of study, all of redemptive history can be said to climax and culminate in the Cross, encompassing Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.” (Accessed 26 February 2015), http://www.theopedia.com/Redemptive_history

25 This scheme is provided by O. Palmer Robertson in The Christ of the Covenants (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1980), 61.

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God’s plan for his people. But the diversity ultimately merges into a single purpose overarching the ages.”26

Different theologians have different ways of explaining this grand narrative. In classical Protestant thought, the unifying theme of the covenants is called the “Covenant of Grace.” All the biblical-historical covenants are administrations within this Covenant of Grace. It is so-called because its main factor is God’s grace. All His dealings with man under the Covenant of Grace involve His gracious condescension to us to save us and redeem us despite our incapability to merit His favour. This redemptive plan finds its fullest expression in what Saint Paul calls “the fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4), with the coming of Jesus Christ, whose life, death and resurrection form the lynchpin of Redemptive History.

Much more can be said on this matter, but I leave it to the reader to explore the Biblical story for themselves. To better understand its narrative, I refer the reader to “The Grand Narrative of History,” which summarizes the story of the Bible.27

26 Ibid.27 J. Luis Dizon, “The Grand Narrative of History,” Evangelium and Apologia Ministries,

http://eamcanada.org/2014/10/28/the-grand-narrative-of-history

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Islamic and Judaic Traditions (eds. W. M. Brenner and S. D. Rick). The University of Denver, 1986.

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Reynolds, Gabriel Said. The Qur’an and its Biblical Subtext (Routledge Studies in the Qur’an, ed. Andrew Rippin). New York: Routledge, 2010.

Reynolds, Gabriel Said (ed.). The Qur’an in Its Historical Context (Routledge Studies in the Qur’an, ed. Andrew Rippin). New York: Routledge, 2008.

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