Salvation History: The Bible’s Grand Story of Redemption

Most Christians who have grown up attending a gospel-preaching church can recount the famous stories from the Bible. They know about Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, the animals on Noah’s ark, Moses parting the Red Sea, David defeating Goliath with his sling and a stone, Daniel surviving the lions’ den, not to mention Jesus’s miracles and, of course, his crucifixion and resurrection.

However, it’s one thing to know the Bible’s stories, another to know the Bible’s story.

If we read Scripture only as a collection of isolated episodes, moral examples, or doctrinal proof texts, we can miss its essential unity around the one overarching story that God is working out in history. The Bible is an anthology of sixty-six books, but it is not a random collection of religious texts telling different stories. Like scenes in a larger epic plot, the individual stories all contribute to the one larger drama.

That story of the Bible is the story of redemption. God is working out his eternal plan of redemption in history, and the Bible details its story. It begins with creation, turns on humanity’s fall into sin, centers on God’s redeeming work in Christ, and ends in the restoration of all things.

This is what many Christians mean by redemptive history or salvation history, namely, the unfolding account of God’s saving acts and promises across time, centered in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

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How does salvation history relate to biblical theology?

The category of redemptive history is closely connected to the discipline of biblical theology.

Biblical theology asks how God’s revelation unfolds across the canon and through the stages of history. Rather than beginning with a doctrinal topic and collecting all the relevant verses, biblical theology tracks themes in their movement across the storyline of Scripture. It pays attention to promise and fulfillment, type and antitype, covenantal progression, kingdom development, and the way later revelation builds on and deepens earlier revelation. This is why biblical theology is especially concerned with the Bible’s own categories and sequence.

Redemptive history is the drama itself, whereas biblical theology is the discipline that traces and interprets that drama. The two are not identical, but they belong together. Redemptive history describes the reality of God’s saving action through time, and biblical theology studies the meaning and coherence of that unfolding action in Scripture.

Redemptive history is the drama itself, whereas biblical theology is the discipline that traces and interprets that drama.

These definitions also help distinguish biblical theology from systematic theology. Systematic theology asks, “What does the whole Bible teach about God, sin, Christ, salvation, the church, and last things?” Biblical theology asks, “How does Scripture unfold these truths across the historical and literary movement of the canon?”

The two approaches are not in competition but should work together. D. A. Carson correctly argues that biblical theology is a “bridge discipline” between exegesis and systematic theology that actually should produce doctrinal formulations that are better grounded on responsible exegesis.¹ Biblical theology helps systematic theology remain attentive to the Bible’s storyline and categories, while systematic theology helps biblical theology synthesize the Bible’s teaching into a coherent doctrinal form. The healthiest theological work utilizes both disciplines.

In the twentieth century, discussions of biblical theology often placed fresh emphasis on the historical unfolding of revelation and the unity of Scripture as a drama of God’s saving acts. Without rehearsing that complex history in detail, it is enough to say that many theologians and biblical scholars increasingly came to recognize that Christian interpretation requires attention, not only to dogmatic formulations of doctrine, but also to the Bible’s own grand narrative movement.²

What is the Bible’s grand narrative of redemption?

A common shorthand for the Bible’s metanarrative breaks it down into five parts:

1. creation,
2. fall,
3. promise,
4. redemption, and
5. restoration.

That summary is not meant to flatten the Bible’s complexities, but it does provide a helpful structural framework for the story of redemption.

1. Creation: the beginning of the story

The story of redemption begins with creation, because redemption is not an afterthought but God’s plan from before creation (Eph 1:4–5, 9–11; 2 Tim 1:9–10; Titus 1:2).

The opening chapters of Genesis establish the basic categories of the larger story that will unfold. God is the Creator–King who has made humanity in his image to live under his rule and to mediate that rule to creation (Gen 1:26–28).

Creation was made good (Gen 1:31) but not glorified. Adam was sinless yet able to sin. God placed Adam in the garden of Eden, where he enjoyed perfect fellowship with his Creator. But God also gave Adam the prohibition not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:16–17). The potential for evil was present, as well as the threat of punishment for disobedience. Conversely, God also placed the tree of life in the garden, which symbolized the promised reward that God held out for Adam’s obedience (Gen 2:9; 3:22–24; cf. Rev 2:7; 22:14). The original creation was perfect in that it was free from sin, yet it was also a probationary arrangement in that God was testing Adam.

Genesis 1–2 also shapes the rest of Scripture in crucial ways. Here, humanity’s identity as image bearers is established, and work, marriage, fruitfulness, place, and divine presence appear as original goods. Creation is shown to have purpose and order, and the salvation that will play out on the pages of Scripture in history does not abandon this creation but will finally lead to its restoration and renewal. The Bible ends, not with an ethereal existence apart from the world, but with a new heaven and a new earth where God dwells with his people (Rev 21–22).

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2. Fall: the problem that the story resolves

If Genesis 1–2 gives us the world as God intended it, Genesis 3 gives us the crisis that explains the rest of the Bible’s conflict.

Humanity rebels against God, distrusting his word and grasping for autonomy. The catastrophic results of Adam’s sin are alienation from God, guilt, shame, fractured human relationships, pain, curse, death, and exile from Eden.

Every major problem in the biblical narrative is, in one way or another, downstream from this rebellion. This is why Genesis 3 is pivotal in redemptive history. It explains why the world is not as it should be, why humanity cannot fix the problem we introduced, and why the rest of Scripture must tell the story of divine rescue.

Yet even here judgment is not God’s last word. In the midst of administering curses on his rebellious creation, God also offers a redemptive promise. The seed of the woman will bruise the serpent’s head (Gen 3:15). Christians have often seen that verse as the Bible’s first announcement of coming victory over evil and labeled it the protoevangelium. In this “first gospel” promise, God not only gives the hope of redemption but also cryptically describes the means by which it will come. The rest of Scripture unfolds this saving solution to the problem introduced during the original fall into sin.

3. Promise: the hope that drives the story

From Genesis 3 onward, the Old Testament advances the redemptive story through a series of divine acts and covenants.

After the flood, God preserves the world through Noah, ensuring that judgment will not bring history to an abrupt end (Gen 6–9).

With Abraham, the story takes a more focused shape as God promises offspring, land, and blessing (Gen 12:1–3). This blessing will come through Abraham’s seed, but the saving purposes extend to all the families of the earth. The land promised to Abraham and his offspring is also typological of the whole world (Rom 4:13).

The exodus becomes the Old Testament’s defining pattern of redemption. God hears the cries of his enslaved people, judges their oppressors, redeems them by mighty acts, and brings them into covenant fellowship with himself to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod 19:6). When God’s people are later exiled from this land as a consequence of their repeated idolatry, Israel’s prophets described the future, even greater redemption to come in terms reminiscent of the exodus (Isa 11:15–16; 43:16–19; Jer 16:14–15; Ezek 20:33–38; Hos 2:14–15).

The covenants between God and his people move this story forward and provide the contours to promised redemption.

• The Noahic covenant secures the stability of the created order to bring about the promised redemption (Gen 9:8–17).
• The Abrahamic covenant narrows the contours of the redemptive promise, clarifying that it will come about through one of Abraham’s offspring (Gen 15, 17, 22).
• The Mosaic covenant forms Israel as a redeemed people under God’s law, providing the pattern of obedience that the Messiah must fulfill to accomplish our redemption (Exod 19–24).
• The Davidic covenant focuses hope on a coming eternal royal son from David’s line who will perfectly rule God’s redemptive kingdom and bring all prior covenant promises to their intended goal (2 Sam 7:7–16; Ps 89).
• The prophets then interpret Israel’s history through this covenantal framework. They promise that final redemption will come through a new covenant which will create a new people with a new heart in a new relationship with God living in a new creation (Jer 31:31–34; Ezek 36:26–28; Isa 65:17–25).

The Old Testament story concludes while still anticipating the realization of this redemptive hope from a coming Messiah.

4. Redemption: the fulfillment of the story

The New Testament announces that Jesus is not only the fulfillment of Israel’s redemptive hopes, but also the Savior of the whole world (John 1:29).

Jesus is the ultimate offspring of Abraham (Gal 3:16), the true Israel who succeeds where the nation failed (Matt 2:15; Isa 49:3–6), David’s greater son who inherits the eternal kingdom (Luke 1:32–33; Rom 1:3–4), the true Image of God (Col 1:15; 2 Cor 4:4), and the obedient human that Adam failed to be (Rom 5:18–19; 1 Cor 15:45–49). He exercises God’s reign in his teaching, miracles, and exorcisms (Matt 4:23–24; Luke 4:18–21) and demonstrates that his ministry is the climax of redemptive history (Heb 1:1–3; 2 Cor 1:20).

This fulfillment of the Old Testament promises is why the cross stands at the center of the Bible’s metanarrative. At the cross, Jesus bears our sin (Isa 53:4–6; 1 Pet 2:24), satisfies divine justice (Rom 3:25–26), defeats the powers of evil (Col 2:14–15; Heb 2:14–15), and secures the forgiveness of sins (Col 1:13–14). The cross is not one saving event among many but the decisive turning point of the ages (Gal 4:4–5; Heb 9:26).

Yet the cross is inseparable from the resurrection and ascension because, in rising from the dead, Jesus inaugurates the new creation (1 Cor 15:20–28; 2 Cor 5:17). And in ascending and pouring out the Spirit, Jesus inaugurates the church’s participation in the life of the age to come (Acts 2:32–39; Eph 1:20–23).

The Bible’s story reaches its center in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ because there God does what no human hero, no law code, and no political kingdom could ever accomplish. The long-awaited Messiah actually redeems sinners (Mark 10:45; Titus 2:14) and begins the renewal of all things (Rom 8:19–23; Rev 21:1–5).

5. Restoration: the completion of the story

Still, the story is not finished. Christ has come (Gal 4:4–5), sin has been decisively dealt with (Heb 9:26), death has been defeated in principle (1 Cor 15:20–26), and the Spirit has been given (Acts 2:33). Yet creation still groans (Rom 8:22–23), believers still struggle against sin (Gal 5:16–17), and the nations still rage against God’s reign (Ps 2:1–3). This is what theologians mean by the already–not yet. God’s kingdom has already been inaugurated in Christ, but it has not yet been fully consummated.

The story of redemption ends where it begins, but greater.

The book of Revelation completes the story of redemption with final judgment (Rev 20:11–15), the defeat of evil (Rev 19:20; 20:10), the resurrection of the dead (Rev 20:4–6, 12–13), and the arrival of the new heaven and new earth (Rev 21:1–5). The story of redemption ends where it begins, but greater. The paradise that was lost is now restored as a garden–city (Rev 21:10–27; 22:1–5), complete with full-circle edenic references to the river of life (Rev 22:1), the tree of life (Rev 22:2, 14), the presence of God dwelling with his people (Rev 21:3, 22–23), and humanity reigning under God (Rev 22:5).

Redemption restores what sin ruined (Rom 5:12–21), but it does so through Christ in a way that surpasses the original state (Heb 8:6; Eph 1:9–10). The goal of salvation history is not a return to Eden only, but the consummated kingdom of God in a renewed creation (Matt 19:28; Acts 3:21; Rev 21:1–5).

Conclusion

The Bible is one unified story of God’s redeeming work. It begins with creation, passes through the catastrophe of the fall, advances through promise and covenant, reaches its center in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and ends in the restoration of all things. That is the story of redemption.

To read Scripture well requires learning this larger story of the Bible and not merely focusing on the individual stories contained in the Bible. When Christians learn to read the Bible in this way, we know how all of the individual pieces contribute to the larger whole.

This understanding of the Bible also clarifies our individual life stories by explaining our role in the grand narrative of history. We are the objects of this redeeming work, planned before the creation of the world (Rev 13:8), redeemed by Christ’s death on the cross (Eph 1:7), and dwelling with God forever in the restored garden–city of the new creation. It’s this message of redemption that we experience and that we proclaim (Luke 24:44–47)!

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Richard Lucas’s suggested reading

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• The Kingdom of God: The Great Unfolding Drama of Salvation
• Is Your Definition of Salvation Too Small? The Bible’s Full Teaching
• What’s Typology? Patterns of Creation in Redemptive History
• How the Great Commission Echoes the Old Testament
• The Promised Land & Beyond: How God Reclaims His Whole Creation

1. D. A. Carson, “Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology: Exploring the Unity and Diversity of Scripture, ed. D. A. Carson, Graeme Goldsworthy, T. Desmond Alexander, and Brian Rosner (InterVarsity, 2000), 89–104.
2. For significant twentieth-century works in evangelical biblical theology, see Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Eerdmans, 1948); George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1974); and Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel and Kingdom: A Christian Interpretation of the Old Testament (Paternoster, 1981).