This chapter articulates God’s purpose, which could be identified with the term ‘election’, but which here I break down into three themes – incarnation, creation and eschatology. If God’s character is not to change, God’s way of bringing about that purpose must be entirely consistent with the nature of that purpose. Thus the incarnation is both the means and the end of God’s purpose. God’s ultimate purpose is for us to be with God: God achieves that purpose by being with us. The incarnation is God being with us: the eschaton is us being with God. Creation is incarnational, because the purpose of creation is to be the theatre of God’s relationship with humankind, and because Jesus demonstrates what creation is and where it belongs in the story of God. The gospels portray the incarnate Jesus as the one through whom creation turns into heaven, and the flaws in existence are overwhelmed by the foretaste of essence.

Jesus of Nazareth’s future engages Christian hope and the fulfillment of creation’s purpose. Jesus’s earthly life and divine identity are inseparable. This union both constitutes and challenges perceptions of linear time and functions creatively to intertwine past, present, and future. Jesus’s transformative impact on humanity and history signifies the final reconciliation and realization of God’s kingdom, which is manifest both in his historical presence and in his eternal nature.

Isaiah was arguably the most influential book of the Hebrew Bible upon the authors of the New Testament. It was the most frequently quoted book, apart from the lengthier book of Psalms, but as David Pao points out in “Isaiah in the New Testament,” it also supplied language and structural models for significant theological themes of early Christianity. He analyzes the role of Isaiah in New Testament themes such as eschatology, Christology, obduracy, and universalism. He also looks at the way in which whole New Testament writings were shaped by Isaianic influence, including all four Gospels, Acts, Romans, and Revelation. All this illustrates why Isaiah has been called “The Fifth Gospel.”

This chapter discusses the relationship of the imagination to Christian eschatology. It gives an account of the function of eschatological imagery in the Bible, discusses the changing ways in which art and literature have engaged Christian eschatology, and concludes with an account of a distinctly eschatological imagination.

Chapter 6, continuing an analysis of Hebrews’ claim, examines the question ‘Was Jesus Perfect?’ or, perhaps better, ‘In what sense for Christians was Jesus perfect?’ It returns to separate discussions half a century ago by Eric Mascall and Karl Rahner, and eventually reaches a conclusion closer to Rahner than Mascall. This conclusion hinges on the, now more widely accepted, evidence within the Synoptic Gospels that Jesus mistakenly thought that the Parousia was imminent. The work of the Baptist George Raymond Beasley-Murray is seen as crucial here. Finally, this chapter identifies the Synoptic accounts of the Transfiguration, along with 2 Peter, as crucial to early perceptions of Jesus’ perfection.

Chapter 9 concludes this discussion of human perfection by looking at what many see as the most pressing global issue today – human environmental pollution and destruction. Viewed through the lens of the luminous television series A Perfect Planet, this chapter addresses the issues of unwarranted suffering from natural forces, religious and secular experiences of awe at biodiversity, and secular eschatological fears of ecological catastrophe. Damage to a perfect planet is viewed as a serious challenge to claims about human perfection. The Dominican theologians Herbert McCabe and Brian Davies (the latter debating with the philosopher Michael Ruse) are both used critically. Hope, however, is seen in the leadership offered by Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si and in a growing consensus among both faith and secular traditions that this damage must be addressed by effective action, based upon the moral concept of the common good, for the sake of both a perfect planet and the astonishing biodiversity (including human beings) within it.

This chapter considers how the exceptionalism of Western naturalism was given legitimacy through an appeal to narratives of progress. These narratives were indebted to a Protestant model that divided history into two periods—one in which miracles were genuine, followed by another in which they were not. The latter was associated with fraudulent Catholic miracles. Protestants also understood the Reformation as having ushered in an age of light after a period of medieval darkness. Eighteenth-century philosophes generalised and extended this argument, contending that the miracle reports from all historical periods were fraudulent. History could now be divided into an earlier period characterised by a naïve credulity in relation to miracle reports, followed by a more mature phase of history during which there was increasing recognition of the falsity of miracle reports. These same eighteenth-century thinkers also arrogated to themselves the mantle of enlightenment. The progressivist histories characteristic of the early social sciences and endorsed by advocates of scientific naturalism were doubly indebted to religious models since they also drew upon providential or eschatological notions of historical directionality. This raises the question of whether their progressivist philosophy of history is problematically dependent upon covert theistic assumptions.

150 words: The books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah contain oracles that address problems in and around ancient Judah in ways that are as incisive and critical as they are optimistic and constructive. Daniel C. Timmer’s The Theology of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah situates these books in their social and political contexts and examines the unique theology of each as it engages with imposing problems in Judah and beyond. In dialogue with recent scholarship, this study focuses on these books’ analysis and evaluation of the world as it is, focusing on both human beings and their actions and God’s commitment to purify, restore, and perfect the world. Timmer also surveys these books’ later theological use and cultural reception. Timmer also brings their theology into dialogue with concerns as varied as ecology, nationalism, and widespread injustice, highlighting the enduring significance of divine justice and grace for solid hope and effective service in our world.

50 words: This volume examines the powerful and poignant theology of the books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. Daniel C. Timmer situates these books’ theology in their ancient Near Eastern contexts and traces its multifaceted contribution to Jewish and Christian theology and to broader cultural spheres, without neglecting its contemporary significance.

20 words: This volume draws out the theology of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, attending to their ancient contexts, past use and reception, and contemporary significance.