HISTORY. God often has been isolated from history or too closely linked with it. Marx refused even to consider divine activity in history because history is the outcome of matter in motion. Many of the theological existentialists so link God with what they call holy history that He is uninterested in the historical events resulting from human action. Others invert Biblical ideas. Providence is replaced by progress, eternity by time and a millennium by an earthly Utopia brought about by human activity in a secular setting. The Bible, however, links the events of salvation with empirically verifiable history except for creation (Heb 11:3) and the final consummation of history (2 Pet 3).

I. The Bible and definition of history. History may be defined as events in time and space that have social significance. This was the earlier meaning of the Ger. word for history, geschichte. The Bible indicates that the coming of Christ to earth in the home of Joseph is to be linked with history (Gal 4:4; John 1:14, 18). History in this sense is absolute, occurring only once in time and space, and cannot be directly studied by the historian as the scientist can study his data.

If we follow Thucydides’ use of the word historia, from which our word “history” is indirectly derived, and consider it as the documents, remains or relics of historical action or as research upon those events through these remains, then Biblical writers think of history in this sense too. Luke in the prologue to his gospel makes the claim that he used both secondary narratives and firsthand accounts by eyewitnesses of the life of Christ (Luke 1:1, 2). In the third v. he describes how he did research upon the data to write his gospel in a manner similar to that of the modern historian. If history is defined as literary reconstruction of the past to record the events by the study of documents, Luke, in 1:4, suggests that this is his objective. The Bible seems to emphasize history as events relating the acts of God to the acts of men, but history as document, research, or reconstruction is also given consideration.

II. The Bible and the writing of history. Luke and other Biblical writers give attention to the method of the historian. Luke’s prologue is a summary of much of what one finds concerning historical methodology in the best modern manuals on that subject. He points out in v. 2 of his prologue that he used several secondary narratives of the life of Christ. His use of the word “us” in vv. 1 and 2 and “also” in v. 3 suggests that he thought these were valid documents. Like modern historians in v. 3 he emphasized his use of firsthand information of eyewitnesses. Mary’s story of the birth of Christ in Luke 1 and 2 must have been one of these eyewitness sources. He would agree also with other Biblical writers that one should have two independent witnesses to an event to guarantee truth (Deut 19:15; John 8:17; 2 Cor 13:1). His material was therefore empirical as well as revelational.

His use of the word parakolouthêo in v. 3 suggests the idea of careful personal investigation of documents and eyewitnesses to reconstruct the events. The word “accurate” also suggests his care in the testing and use of material. Paul uses the aorist historēsai in Galatians 1:18 to suggest that like Luke he carefully queried Peter to get exact information about the life and deeds of Christ. These things suggest that Biblical writers were as careful as modern writers in their methodology in writing history.

These writers recognized that, while God claims that some truth is His alone, other truth concerning historical events has been given to men (Deut 29:29; Amos 3:7). Luke, esp. in v. 4 of his prologue, believed that facts drawn from records of the events should be related in an orderly synthesis which would yield meaning, certainty or truth concerning the matter under investigation.

Biblical writers such as Paul (1 Cor 10:6, 11) and Peter (2 Pet 2:16) believed that a good historical reconstruction of past events should have moral value in helping one to avoid the mistakes and sins of the past. Paul also asserts in Romans 15:4 that written history will have a positive function. History in their opinion has a didactic moral or intellectual function in life by helping to make a man better and wiser.

III. The Bible and the meaning of history. The historian may be scientific in his method of gathering and evaluating documentary evidence concerning past events, but engages in what is philosophic work when he asks what meanings his carefully gleaned facts have. If, as it may be defined, philosophy is an attempt to find a unifying principle by which events can be integrated and related to ultimate meaning, then the Bible is also philosophic and has an underlying philosophy of history which all the writers hold in common. Both the secular and the divine history are related to the historical process.

Some writers, e.g. Oswald Spengler, think of history as cyclical, deterministic, and lacking any progress. Others in the liberal tradition of the Renaissance and Enlightenment are so sure man can make progress in history by his own efforts that they replace the treadmill or cycle of history with an escalator or spiral or upward-moving graph to picture their belief in progress by the efforts of perfectible man. Theological existentialists, who accept the universality of sin, are not so optimistic, but do have confidence that God will bring an end to history outside history. Evangelicals prefer to take their stand with the Biblical writers who were pessimistic optimists rather than pessimists or optimists in their interpretation of history.

A. The source of history. Biblical writers assert that God is the source of history because He initiates it through His sovereign creative will and acts within it. Events, such as the birth and resurrection of Christ, are as historically verifiable as those initiated by man with the exception of the creation and the consummation of history which come to us by revelation. History is neither an evolving process in which God is imprisoned, nor the result of chance. Instead it is an act of the sovereign self-sufficient God (Gen 1:1; Rom 11:36). Isaiah pictures God as the Creator of heaven and earth (Isa 40:26, 28; 42:5 and 45:12). Jeremiah (Jer 27:5) and the psalmist (Ps 8:3, 6; 19:1; 24:1, 2) as well as John (Rev 4:11) and Paul (Acts 17:25; Rom 1:19-21) agree with Isaiah.

Man as the chief actor on the earthly stage of history is also pictured by the Biblical writers as the result of divine creativity. They did not think of him as the result of a natural process (Gen 1:26-28; 2:7; Job 33:4; Ps 8:5, 6; 24:1; 139:14-16; Isa 42:5; 43:7; 45:12; Jer 27:5; Acts 17:24-26; Heb 11:3). Man’s task was to master nature for his good and the glory of God (Gen 1:28; Ps 8:6-8).

Both in the creation of the universe and man many Biblical writers reveal their belief that the preëxistent Christ was the divine agent of God the Father (John 1:4; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2, 3). Christ is neither an indifferent transcendent Creator nor enmeshed in pantheistic fashion in His creation. History is a linear process moving to a meaningful end under the divine guidance rather than a meaningless series of cycles or an evolutionary escalator to progress. God and Christ are also considered to be the source of moral values to enlighten conscience after the Fall (John 8:9; Rom 2:15).

This is not to say that the Biblical writers ignore the role in history of secondary horizontal factors, such as geography, economics, or great men. Moses and later Christ recognize the role of the economic factor in history as a secondary or contingent, but never as a final cause (Deut 8:3; Matt 4:4; 1 Thess 4:11, 12). These factors all have their proper subordinate role.

B. The scope of history. The Biblical writers, unlike Hegel who limited the divine in history to his ideal monarchical Protestant Prussian state, or Marx who looked to the chosen proletariat to achieve a workers’ Utopia, look upon history as a universal and unitary process which involved the human race rather than any chosen segment of it. All are linked with Adam as the head of the race (Acts 17:26; Rom 5:12-19).

There is, however, a clear concept of temporal dualism within history because of the entry of sin into the race by the failure of man in the garden. This affects everyone. This fall leaves man corrupt and sinful (Gen 3; Ps 51:5; Jer 13:23; 17:9; Rom 5:12-19; 1 Cor 15:22). Even nature is pictured in the Bible as affected by the failure of man to obey God (Gen 3:17; Rom 8:22, 23). This sin becomes the self-assertion of man contrary to God’s will. This dualism is developed in time as some become the willing subjects of God’s kingdom through faith in the incarnate Christ whose cross offers an opportunity for grace and the destruction of the work of Satan (John 1:14; 1 John 3:5, 8). Others reject this proffered grace to form the earthly city. This dualism in time is temporary and is to be resolved at the end of time and history by the coming of Christ.

Man is not only finite (Ps 115:16) as a created being but is also fallen and fallible. He is subjected to the pressures of Satan, the world around him and the tendency of his fleshly nature to evil (Eph 2:2, 3; 1 John 2:15, 16). This tragic flaw makes progress by man impossible except in limited areas of technical and scientific progress. Biblical realism is thus opposed to the optimistic monism of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and modern Liberalism. Modern history with its Stalins and Hitlers demonstrates that man can be demonic and defiant.

C. The scheme of history. 1. Paul considers the scheme, or course, or pattern of history to be controlled by the divine sovereignty (Rom 11:36; Eph 4:6). God is transcendent to nature but manifests His power in it as Providence. Man profits by the uniformity of nature. Whether nature is good or bad, it is sustained in its course by divine power (Job 12:10; Col 1:17; Heb 1:3). Natural calamities may come, but to Biblical writers they are the result of interim judgment of God in history to bring man to repentance (Joel 1:4; 2:23-26). Others may come because human sin violates the divine order in nature by ravishing the soil or denuding the hills of their forest cover. It is this uniformity of nature under divine Providence that provides a basis for science.

2. The Bible traces human institutions to the act of God. The family (Gen 1:28; 2:20; Deut 4:7, 9, 10; Matt 19:4-6; Eph 6:4) and human government (Gen 9:5, 6; Rom 13:1-7; 1 Pet 2:14-17) are depicted in Scripture as gifts of God to man to promote orderly society. Without them society would become hopelessly anarchic and chaotic.

God also is pictured as the sovereign controller of the events of history and particularly the affairs of the three most significant groups in Scripture, the Gentile nations, the Jews and the Church (1 Cor 10:32). Daniel links spiritual beings with historical events in the history of nations (Dan 10:13, 21; 12:1).

3. Several writers express the general principle that nations operate under the sovereignty of God even though nations may ignore Him in their domestic and diplomatic policies (Deut 32:8; Isa 40:15, 28; Jer 46:28; Dan 2:21, 37; 4:17, 32, 34, 35; 5:21; Acts 17:26; Rom 9:17, 22, 23). Special nations are said to be under divine governance. Syria and Philistia as well as Israel have been brought to their place of habitation by the act of God (Amos 9:7). Edom is punished for her treachery toward those that were tied to her by blood (Obad). Ezekiel sees Egypt suffering judgment under the hand of God (26:10; 29:6, 13, 19; 30:4, 10, 19, 26).

Isaiah believes that God had a hand in the history of empires, such as Assyria (Isa 10:5; 30:31; 37:36; 38:6) to effect His will. Jonah is forced to recognize the mercy of God to a repentant Nineveh, a great city of Assyria. Babylonian kings had to learn that God ruled over their nation and put them in office (Dan 2:21, 37; 4:18, 32, 34, 35; 5:12). They were used to punish the sinful Jewish nation and to wean her finally from the worship of idols (Jer 24:5; 25:9-12; 27:5-11; 46:13; 50:11; Dan 9:1; Hab 1:1-11). Babylon also was reminded that God would finally punish her for her sins after she had served His purpose (Jer 25; 27; Hab 2). Persia with her more tolerant policy is linked by the Biblical writers with the deliverance of the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity (Ezra 1:1-3; Isa 5:11; 13:7; 44:28; 45:1). Although human leaders have freedom to act and are responsible for their actions in history, the writers of the Bible believe that God uses nations to effect His will and judges them in history. Battles, such as those at Marathon and the naval defeat of the Spanish Armada, the rise of the Frankish nation in western Europe and the Byzantine Empire in eastern Europe to protect the western and eastern flanks of Europe in a period of weakness may also be illustrations of the same principles.

4. God’s control of events is esp. linked with the history of the Jews who are looked upon by the writers of the OT as God’s chosen people who are to reveal His will to the nations. Their continuity and persistence as a nation makes them a problem for the modern scientific historian. The nation emerged in an interlude between about 1200 and 800 b.c. when the Egyp. and Hitt. empires had fallen and the Assyrian and Babylonian empires had not yet risen. Thus Jews were not hindered in their growth to an empire under Solomon. They were said to be chosen by God (Gen 15:13-16; Deut 2:25; 4:34; 6:12; 7:6; 11:12; 15:6; 20:17, 18; Ezek 23:9), rescued from Egypt and brought to their land by Him (Amos 9:7). God was said to be in their dispersal and captivity in Babylon “for their good” (Jer 24:5; cf. 25:9-12; Dan 1:2). In the light of Isaiah 11:11 and 27:11, Jeremiah 31:33, 35-37 and Ezekiel 37 one can well presume that these prophets would have rejoiced in the modern emergence of Israel as a nation in 1948. Perhaps the Jews’ long period of being set aside as a nation in the present era (Luke 21:24; Acts 15:14; Rom 11:25, 26) is nearing the end when God will more particularly deal with them again.

5. NT writers affirm that God in the period of Jewish national eclipse is using the Church. Peter sees the Church as chosen of God and redeemed by Christ’s sacrifice (1 Pet 1:18-21). It was to proclaim Christ’s grace to all men (Matt 28:18-20; Luke 24:45-48; Acts 1:8; 2 Cor 5), to have an impact on the culture of their day (Eph 2:10; Titus 3:8), to display His wisdom to the universe (Eph 3:10) and to glorify God (Eph 3:20) until the time of Christ’s Second Advent.

6. Above all the Bible writers look upon Christ, largely ignored by classical Rom. writers, except for brief mention by Tacitus, Pliny, Suetonius and Lucian, as the source of all knowledge and wisdom (Col 2:2, 3). He becomes the center of linear history as well as the key to its fulfillment and consummation. Unlike the Greeks, whose leaders became gods, John and others see Christ as the God who became man in the fullness of time (John 1:14; Acts 2:23; 4:28; Gal 4:4; 1 Pet 1:20) in order to minister to and redeem men by His death on the cross (Mark 10:45). His resurrection was looked upon as an historic event which confirmed His divine origin and work (Acts 17:2, 3; Rom 1:4; 4:25; 1 Cor 15:3, 4). God then gave to Him all authority in time (Matt 11:27, 28; 28:18; John 3:35; 13:3). Christ will consummate history as its Judge and the Initiator of divine rule on earth subsequent to His return to earth.

D. The solution of history. God is also linked in the Scriptures with the solution of history at its end as well as with the course of events in time. God challenges pagan gods, according to Isaiah because they cannot foresee the end of history (Isa 41:22; 42:9; 46:10; 48:3; cf. 2 Pet 1:19-21). History is not deterministic cyclic recurrence lacking linear progress or a goal, nor human evolutionary progress to a human Utopia. Instead the Bible pictures history moving to linear consummation by Christ as it earlier moved toward Christ in linear centered time.

Both the OT and NT writers find the solution to the story of the Gentile nations, the Jew and the Church in the Second Coming of Christ to judge all three groups and to set up His kingdom prior to the eternal state. This coming is the hope of the Church (John 14:1-3; 1 Thess 4:13-18; 1 Pet 1:16, 19-21) which is also to be judged for reward for the work it has done for Christ (Rom 14:10; 1 Cor 3:11-15, 2 Cor 5:10). The Jewish and the Gentile nations also are depicted by the writers of the Bible as undergoing judgment at the hands of Christ to whom God has given the power to judge (John 5:28, 29; Acts 24:15). The proof of that power is the resurrection (Acts 17:31). The principle of judgment after resurrection is set forth in Genesis 18:25; Hebrews 9:27, 28 and 12:23. Judgment upon nations is specially mentioned by Matthew (25:31-46).

The prophets then picture a righteous rule of Christ in history upon earth with the Jewish nation playing an important part in this period (Isa 11; 65:17; 66:12; Dan 2:44; Acts 15:13-17; Phil 2:8-11). Even the Son will, when sin and death are conquered, return His rule to the Father who will rule over all in the eternal kingdom of God (Rom 11:36; 1 Cor 15:24-28; Rev 11:15; 21:14; 22:3).

This Biblical conception of history does not exclude the secondary horizontal factors of history, such as geography and economics, but relates them as the ultimate cause in a vertical orientation to God. It speaks also to the problem of recurrence in history raised by the Greeks and Spengler and to the problems of continuity and progress that seem to be the dream of modern man. Change and continuity are reconciled in the divine plan for history which is concerned both with secular and religious history without creating a dualism. Both the writers of the OT and NT emphasize eschatological linear direction in history rather than cyclical motion or an indefinite spiral of progress through human activity. God is for them the Creator, Controller and Consummator of history.

Bibliography R. Niebuhr, Faith and History (1949); K. Lowith, Meaning in History (1949); H. Butterfield, Christianity and History (1950); D. C. Masters, The Christian Idea of History (1962); H. T. Armerding, ed., Christianity and the World of Thought (1968), 147-164; J. W. Montgomery, Where Is History Going? (1969).