Redemptive Reversals and the Ironic Overturning of Human Wisdom

“But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” 

―Matthew 19:30

The Bible is full of ironic situations in which God overturns the world’s wisdom by doing the opposite of what is expected―people are punished by their own sin, the persecution of the church is the catalyst for its growth, Paul claims to have strength through weakness, and more. In this book, biblical scholar G. K. Beale explores God’s pattern of divine irony in both judgment and salvation, finding its greatest expression in Jesus’s triumph over death through death on a cross. Unpacking this pattern throughout redemptive history, Beale shows us how God often uses what is seemingly weak and foolish to underscore his own strength and power in the lives of his people today.

• Develops the irony of judgment and salvation from the garden of Eden through Israel’s idolatry in the Old Testament to the cross of Christ
• Teaches readers to see how God uses what is weak and foolish in the world’s eyes to magnify his own power and glory
• Part of the Short Studies in Biblical Theology series, which offers readers accessible introductions to major topics in biblical theology

G. K. Beale (PhD, University of Cambridge) is professor of New Testament and biblical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. In recent years he has served as president and member of the executive committee of the Evangelical Theological Society. He has written several books and articles on biblical studies.

Miles V. Van Pelt (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the Alan Hayes Belcher, Jr. Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Languages and the director of the Summer Institute for Biblical Languages at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, where he has been serving for almost twenty-three years. He is passionate about teaching the biblical languages, biblical theology, and how the whole Bible, even the Old Testament, always points us to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Dane C. Ortlund (PhD, Wheaton College) serves as senior pastor of Naperville Presbyterian Church in Naperville, Illinois. He is the author of Gentle and Lowly and Deeper. Dane and his wife, Stacey, have five children.