The Mission of God and the Witness of the Church

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The theme of missions is a key to understanding the Bible. Justin Schell enables us to see this afresh in this book. This is not just a rehashing of previous books on missions, and it is certainly more than an academic book. It is a God-centered call to the church to see the vital place that its Christ-representing witness has in the mission of God. It brings us a message we all need to hear!

Conrad Mbewe, Pastor, Kabwata Baptist Church, Lusaka, Zambia; Founding Chancellor, African Christian University

Justin Schell provides an excellent overview of mission through the storyline of Scripture. His work reminds us of our identity as a community of witnesses to the work of God in the gospel and gives us a better glimpse of the God whose self-revelation is oriented toward restoring a relationship with his image bearers.

Trevin Wax, Vice President of Research and Resource Development, North American Mission Board; Visiting Professor, Cedarville University; author, The Thrill of Orthodoxy; Rethink Your Self; and This Is Our Time

I am excited to recommend this book. Today there are roughly seven thousand people groups on the planet with little to no access to the gospel. That’s more than three billion people. Justin Schell helps the church see the glorious God of mission, his gracious purposes in the world, and our role in that larger work. The reader gets to watch God’s mission unfold from the garden of Eden to the new Jerusalem. It’s a breathtaking story, and it’s our story. We are his witnesses. This book is a wonderful addition to an excellent series.

Michael Oh, CEO, Lausanne Movement

From Genesis to Revelation, Justin Schell shows us God’s relentless pursuit of a bride for his Son. This book will do more than shape your view of mission or of Scripture. It will refresh and refocus your view of our great missionary God.

Glen Scrivener, evangelist; author, The Air We Breathe and How to See Life: A Guide in 321; coauthor, Come and See: A History and Theology of Mission

This is a thoroughly readable and well-informed account of God’s mission in the world, in which we, as disciples of Christ, are privileged to share. Justin Schell carefully follows the redemptive-historical approach of this series, from the garden to the garden city. Beginning with God’s missional activity in creation and its continuation, despite Adam’s failure, we see God’s purposes unfold through Abraham and the nation of Israel, culminating in the coming of Jesus, God’s incarnate missioner, who empowers his people to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins to all people. A feast of biblical insights to enrich our understanding and equip us to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Glenn N. Davies, former Archbishop of Sydney

"Justin Schell carefully traces the theme of mission along the narrative arc of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. Theologically rich and insightful, this engaging book invites the reader into the drama of Scripture as God reveals, redeems, and restores his creation. Emphasis on communion with the triune God as the aim of mission displays the coherence of the biblical narrative and rightly calls attention to the relational dimension of the missio Dei. Refreshing, like the wind of the Spirit, Schell’s book draws the contemporary church into the central theme of Scripture and the vital witness of the church."

Carol Kaminski, Senior Professor of Old Testament, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

"God made us for communion with himself, so we should care about his mission in the world. In The Mission of God and the Witness of the Church, Justin Schell helps us see how God’s mission emerges from the story that Scripture tells. Through God’s power in judgment and salvation, God is displaying his glory in the world he loves. Schell guides us through the panorama of Scripture as he takes us from Eden to the church’s Great Commission. We bear witness to the redemptive work of the triune God, and we long for the consummation of his mission."

Mitchell L. Chase, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Preaching Pastor, Kosmosdale Baptist Church, Louisville, Kentucky

The Mission of God and the Witness of the Church

Short Studies in Biblical Theology

Edited by Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt

The City of God and the Goal of Creation, T. Desmond Alexander (2018)

Covenant and God’s Purpose for the World, Thomas R. Schreiner (2017)

Divine Blessing and the Fullness of Life in the Presence of God, William R. Osborne (2020)

From Chaos to Cosmos: Creation to New Creation, Sidney Greidanus (2018)

The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross, Patrick Schreiner (2018)

The Lord’s Supper as the Sign and Meal of the New Covenant, Guy Prentiss Waters (2019)

Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel, Ray Ortlund (2016)

The Mission of God and the Witness of the Church, Justin A. Schell (2024)

The New Creation and the Storyline of Scripture, Frank Thielman (2021)

Redemptive Reversals and the Ironic Overturning of Human Wisdom, G. K. Beale (2019)

Resurrection Hope and the Death of Death, Mitchell L. Chase (2022)

The Royal Priesthood and the Glory of God, David S. Schrock (2022)

The Sabbath as Rest and Hope for the People of God, Guy Prentiss Waters (2022)

Sanctification as Set Apart and Growing in Christ, Marny Köstenberger (2023)

The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer, Andrew David Naselli (2020)

The Son of God and the New Creation, Graeme Goldsworthy (2015)

Work and Our Labor in the Lord, James M. Hamilton Jr. (2017)

The Mission of God and the Witness of the Church

Justin A. Schell

The Mission of God and the Witness of the Church

© 2024 by Justin A. Schell

Published by Crossway

1300 Crescent Street

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

First printing 2024

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated into any other language.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-8158-8

ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-8161-8

PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-8159-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Schell, Justin A., 1980– author.

Title: The mission of God and the witness of the church / Justin A. Schell.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2024. | Series: Short studies in biblical theology | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023032986 (print) | LCCN 2023032987 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433581588 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433581595 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433581618 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Mission of the Church—Biblical teaching. | Redemption—Biblical teaching.

Classification: LCC BS2545.M54 S34 2024 (print) | LCC BS2545.M54 (ebook) | DDC 266—dc23/eng/20240126

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023032986

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023032987

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2024-04-29 10:34:18 AM

To

the mission mobilizers

who remind us that the harvest is plentiful

but the laborers are few

Contents

Series Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction: The Mission of God

1  The God of Mission

2  Mission in the Garden

3  Father of All Nations

4  Yahweh Saves

5  Land and Exile

6  The Great Commission

7  The Church on Mission

8  Mission and Consummation

For Further Reading

General Index

Scripture Index

Series Preface

Most of us tend to approach the Bible early on in our Christian lives as a vast, cavernous, and largely impenetrable book. We read the text piecemeal, finding golden nuggets of inspiration here and there, but remain unable to plug any given text meaningfully into the overarching storyline. Yet one of the great advances in evangelical biblical scholarship over the past few generations has been the recovery of biblical theology—that is, a renewed appreciation for the Bible as a theologically unified, historically rooted, progressively unfolding, and ultimately Christ-centered narrative of God’s covenantal work in our world to redeem sinful humanity.

This renaissance of biblical theology is a blessing, yet little of it has been made available to the general Christian population. The purpose of Short Studies in Biblical Theology is to connect the resurgence of biblical theology at the academic level with everyday believers. Each volume is written by a capable scholar or churchman who is consciously writing in a way that requires no prerequisite theological training of the reader. Instead, any thoughtful Christian disciple can track with and benefit from these books.

Each volume in this series takes a whole-Bible theme and traces it through Scripture. In this way readers not only learn about a given theme but also are given a model for how to read the Bible as a coherent whole.

We have launched this series because we love the Bible, we love the church, and we long for the renewal of biblical theology in the academy to enliven the hearts and minds of Christ’s disciples all around the world. As editors, we have found few discoveries more thrilling in life than that of seeing the whole Bible as a unified story of God’s gracious acts of redemption, and indeed of seeing the whole Bible as ultimately about Jesus, as he himself testified (Luke 24:27; John 5:39).

The ultimate goal of Short Studies in Biblical Theology is to magnify the Savior and to build up his church—magnifying the Savior through showing how the whole Bible points to him and his gracious rescue of helpless sinners; and building up the church by strengthening believers in their grasp of these life-giving truths.

Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt

Abbreviations

BECNT  Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament

EBC  The Expositor’s Biblical Commentary

NAC  The New American Commentary

NICNT  The New International Commentary on the New Testament

NIGTC  The New International Greek Testament Commentary

NSBT  New Studies in Biblical Theology

NTC  New Testament Commentary

PNTC  The Pillar New Testament Commentary

TOTC  Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries

WBC  Word Biblical Commentary

ZECNT  Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament

Introduction

The Mission of God

There is a renaissance of scholarship and teaching on the mission of God today. Popular authors and speakers are attempting to help Christians live on mission. Mission agencies and church planting networks are training new gospel ministers to start missional churches. Missiologists and biblical scholars are exploring missional readings of the Bible along with the concept of the