This special edition of Themelios is dedicated to D. A. Carson for his work in the field of biblical theology. While several tributes have been written to honor Carson, we wanted to honor him for his critical role in shaping biblical theology within evangelicalism. We invited authors who contributed to the New Studies in Biblical Theology (NSBT) series to participate, and they heartily agreed. Carson has wisely edited this esteemed series for the last thirty years. The articles in this Themelios issue either develop a point of their existing NSBT volume or build upon it. We would like to thank Inter-Varsity Press UK and B&H Academic for cosponsoring this issue and for their vital role in distributing the NSBT series. The goal of this editorial is to appreciate D. A. Carson’s understanding and vision of biblical theology and to offer a few suggestions for the future of the discipline.

What Is Biblical Theology?

Before we discuss Carson’s influence on biblical theology, we must first take a moment to discuss what it is. That may sound easy enough, but it is not. As Carson himself states, “The history of ‘biblical theology’ is extraordinarily diverse. Everyone does that which is right in his or her own eyes, and calls it biblical theology.”¹D. A. Carson, “Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 102. There is no lack of resources that chart the history of this enterprise, so we need only to mention the high points. Scholars often point to Johan Philipp Gabler’s 1787 address at the University of Altdorf as a watershed moment.²John Sandys-Wunsch and Laurence Eldredge, “J. P. Gabler and the distinction between biblical and dogmatic theology: Translation, commentary and discussion of his originality,” SJT 33 (1980): 133–58. Gabler famously argued for the distinction between biblical and systematic theology. And while Gabler’s approach has considerable issues, such as his commitment to the Enlightenment and rationalism, his approach is far reaching and, in a sense, continues even to this day.³See Matthew Barrett, Canon, Covenant and Christology: Rethinking Jesus and the Scriptures of Israel, NSBT 51 (London: Apollos, 2020), 17–18.

Geerhardus Vos’s definition is still one of the best: “Biblical Theology, rightly defined, is nothing else than the exhibition of the organic progress of supernatural revelation in its historic continuity and multiformity.”⁴Geerhardus Vos, “The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and a Theological Discipline,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1980), 15 (emphasis original). Biblical theology is, therefore, supremely biblical and traces the unfolding nature of God’s plan of redemption across the two Testaments.

The State of Biblical Theology in North America

Since the 1990s, biblical theology has flourished in North America. While scholars in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia have made significant contributions to the field of biblical theology, scholars in North America have produced and continue to produce biblical-theological resources at an incredible rate. Why is this the case? What factors led to this surge?

There are many reasons, but two come to mind. The rise of evangelical colleges and seminaries in the 1980s and 1990s certainly played no small role. Evangelical higher education during this time was generally marked by a commitment to inerrancy and the integrity of Scripture. Providentially, at this time, literary criticism began to gain traction in the wider academy, and evangelicals became increasingly interested in reading texts as a whole. The various criticisms of the New Testament guild—such as source, redaction, form, and so on that dominated the landscape for over a hundred years—were beginning to wane. The time had come to read texts not in piecemeal, or as the product of long development, or the interests of purported communities, but as a whole.

With a commitment to inerrancy and an interest in reading holistically, evangelicals became increasingly impassioned to study how Scripture works—not simply how Scripture relates to the world around us but how it works internally. Evangelicals began to look afresh at how Scripture relates to itself and how the two Testaments relate to one another. At this time, authors and publishers came to recognize a growing hunger for biblical theology, a way of reading the Bible that remains attuned to the themes that run across both Testaments and to the storyline of Scripture.

Publishers released several seminal projects on biblical theology around this time. For example, Graeme Goldsworthy’s three books, Gospel and Kingdom, The Gospel in Revelation, and Gospel and Wisdom, were widely read and later published as a trilogy.⁵Graeme Goldsworthy, The Goldsworthy Trilogy (Carlisle, PA: Paternoster, 2000). Inter-Varsity Press UK approached D. A. Carson in the early 1990s to start a new series devoted to exploring the Bible’s unfolding storyline—the New Studies in Biblical Theology series. Little did anyone know at the time that the series would publish its sixty-fifth volume some thirty years later. Other series took a similar approach, such as Zondervan’s Studies in Old Testament Biblical Theology. By the early 2000s, the field of biblical theology was taking shape. For example, the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, edited by T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner, left an indelible mark.

By the 2010s, biblical theology reached a new phase. The time had come for biblical theology to work its way into the soil of the local church. Crossway green lit the Short Studies in Biblical Theology series and InterVarsity Press (US) started the Essential Studies in Biblical Theology series. Scholars also started examining how individual books or corpora were biblical-theological in nature, as Zondervan began producing their Biblical Theology of the New Testament series, and B&H Academic started a full-blown commentary series, the Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary (now Lexham).

By the mid 2020s, interest in biblical theology shows few signs of abating. Students and pastors are excited about learning and preaching the storyline of the Bible. If evangelicals continue to dig deep into the Scriptures and unearth precious biblical-theological insights, then the next few decades should yield an abundance of publications.

D. A. Carson’s Understanding of Biblical Theology

Now that we’ve canvassed a brief history of biblical theology in the last few decades, the goal of this section is to trace Carson’s seminal thoughts on what biblical theology is and isn’t. In his 1997 essay “New Testament Theology,” Carson approvingly cites Vos’s definition of biblical theology (see above) and then states, “The critical expressions [of biblical theology] are progress, process, and historical continuity and multiformity.”⁶Carson, “New Testament Theology” in Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments, ed. Ralph P. Martin and Peter H. Davids (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 807; see also Andrew David Naselli, “D. A. Carson’s Theological Method” in The Gospel and the Modern World: A Theological Vision for the Church, ed. Brian J. Tabb (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), 11–50.

One of the best places to learn about what he thinks about the nature of biblical theology is his fine essay “Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, which was published in 2000.⁷Carson, “Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology,” 89–104. He defines biblical theology as follows: “Ideally, biblical theology, as its name implies, even as it works inductively from the diverse texts of the Bible, seeks to uncover and articulate the unity of all the biblical texts taken together, resorting primarily to the categories of those texts themselves.” He then states in the next paragraph, “The discipline as a whole must strive toward the elucidation of the biblical documents along the axis of redemptive history.”⁸Carson, “Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology,” 100 (emphasis original). Carson’s definition of biblical theology is, therefore, principled yet broad.

The process begins with exegesis, moves into the realm of biblical theology (BT), and then traces throughout the history of the church (HT). After considering historical theology, the subject matter is then synthesized using the categories of systematic theology (ST). Finally, and often overlooked, the process ends with a pastoral concern (PT): how should these insights be applied to Christian living and worked out in the local church? But Carson argues that this movement from exegesis to BT through HT to ST and PT isn’t linear. It contains a series of “feedback loops.” These loops “go back and reshape how one does any exegesis or theology.”⁹D. A. Carson, “The Bible and Theology,” in NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, ed. D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015), 2321–2324. See also Naselli, “D. A. Carson’s Theological Method,” 32–33. Nevertheless, these loops must be checked against Scripture. He avers, “The line of final control is the straight line from exegesis right through BT and HT to ST and PT. The final authority is the Bible and the Bible alone.”¹⁰Carson, “The Bible and Theology,” 2323.

D. A. Carson’s Contribution to Biblical Theology

Having sketched Carson’s understanding of biblical theology, we now turn to his general contribution to the field. It’s difficult to summarize the significance of Carson’s work as it relates to biblical theology, since his work has always had a steady eye on the field of biblical theology. Nevertheless, we will isolate two dimensions that have shaped his writings.

The first is Carson’s robust view of Scripture. He unabashedly argues for an evangelical view of Scripture—the cornerstone of his entire career.¹¹See especially D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge, eds., Scripture and Truth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983); D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge, eds., Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986); D. A. Carson, “Approaching the Bible,” in New Bible Dictionary, ed. D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, and G. J. Wenham, 4th ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 1–19; D. A. Carson, ed., The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016). He notes that the doctrine of inerrancy, properly understood, wasn’t a modern-day invention but a long-held tradition. Scripture is without error in whatever it affirms, properly taking into account the text’s genre, linguistic expressions, and so on.

The second is a consequence of the first: the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Because the Bible is authoritative, inerrant, and clear, we should take seriously how the apostles read and apply Israel’s Scriptures. He argues that the apostles use the Old Testament in a number of different hermeneutical ways. One of Carson’s chief insights in this regard lies in the apostles’ use of the technical term “mystery.” Having taught a doctoral course over the years on “mystery,” Carson perceives that students of Scripture who are interested in studying the relationship between the Testaments must, at some point, reckon with the notion of mystery.

Why is mystery so important to the study of the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament and biblical theology at large? The biblical conception of mystery finds its point of origin in the book of Daniel, where it refers to God’s end-time revelation that was previously hidden but has now been revealed (see Dan 2:31–35, 36–45). This hidden-but-now-revealed framework is found in Second Temple Judaism and continues into the New Testament. The apostles often weave mystery into their discussions of exceedingly important topics such as the nature of the kingdom, the cross, the resurrection, the relationship between Jews and Gentiles, and the gospel itself. Herein lies Carson’s contribution: “Paul thinks of the gospel he preaches as simultaneously something that has been predicted in times past, with those predictions now fulfilled, and something that has been hidden in times past, now revealed.”¹²D. A. Carson, “Mystery and Fulfillment,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism, Volume 2: The Paradoxes of Paul, ed. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 425.

Carson then applies this hidden-but-now-revealed schema to Paul’s typology of the Passover lamb. Carson states, “Paul certainly does not insist that when the stipulations regarding the Passover lamb were first written down, both writer and readers understood that they were pointing to the ultimate ‘lamb,’ the Messiah himself. So it would be fair to say that such notions were still hidden—hidden in plain view, so to speak, because [they are] genuinely there in the text (once one perceives the trajectory of the typology), but not yet revealed.”¹³Carson, “Mystery and Fulfillment,” 427. Carson, in other words, argues that the ultimate meaning of the Passover lamb is genuinely “there” in the Old Testament. This meaning was hidden for a time and then revealed to the apostles with the coming of Christ.

Carson then delivers what I think is one of his most significant insights on Paul’s (and the apostles’) use of the Old Testament:

And that, perhaps, is why a “mystery” must be revealed, but also why it may be revealed through the prophetic writings. In other words, Paul feels no tension between these two stances because, as he understands them, there isn’t any. And this is why the gospel itself, not to say some of its chief elements, can be simultaneously seen as something that has been (typologically) predicted and now fulfilled, and as something that has been hidden and has now been revealed. What starts off as almost intolerable paradox emerges as a coherent and interlocking web.¹⁴Carson, “Mystery and Fulfillment,” 427 (italics original).

Instead of minimizing one or the other, Carson holds continuity and discontinuity together. And this finely tuned approach has considerable hermeneutical pay off. There have been a few evangelical attempts in recent years that explore this line of thinking,¹⁵See e.g., G. K. Beale and Benjamin L. Gladd, Hidden but Now Revealed: A Biblical Theology of Mystery (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2014), 329–38. Kevin J. Vanhoozer has recently and generally advocated for this approach, though he doesn’t use the framework of “mystery” (Mere Christian Hermeneutics: Transfiguring What It Means to Read the Bible Theologically [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2024]). but much work remains.

The Future of Biblical Theology

Now that we’ve looked to the past and present, we are in a better position to look to the future. In his influential essay “Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology,” Carson argues for the presence of “countless quotations from, allusions to, and echoes of the OT found in the NT.” He then mentions the apostles’ diverse use of Psalm 2:7 in Acts 13:32–33, Hebrews 1:5, and 5:5. Instead of arguing for the apostles’ irresponsible hermeneutical use of Psalm 2:7 (à la Barnabas Lindars) or their special, charismatic insight (à la Richard Longenecker), Carson thinks it’s wise to examine these three uses of Psalm 2:7 at a deeper level. The goal is to determine if these three texts contain “interlocking typologies having to do with David, the temple, the priesthood, and other subjects.”¹⁶Carson, “Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology,” 98.

In typical Carson fashion, he then gives one of the most succinct insights on the future of biblical theology: “They [evangelical approaches to Scripture] have an enormous bearing on how one should properly read the Bible. Moreover, they are the very stuff of biblical theology that seeks to track the Bible’s storyline and explore the significance of the canon.”¹⁷Carson, “Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology,” 98 (emphasis mine). His point is that inner-biblical connections are the foundation of responsible biblical theology.

Above we discussed the current state of biblical theology and the incredible number of biblical-theological resources. One legitimate critique of what’s happening now in the vast field of biblical theology is an overemphasis on themes that stretch from Genesis to Revelation. Of course, the Bible invites us to trace these themes, and we should continue to tease out these dimensions, but inevitably the field will become crowded with these types of thematically driven projects. The time has come for us to lean into inner-biblical connections.¹⁸For projects that pursue this endeavor, see, for example, G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, eds., Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007); G. K. Beale, D. A. Carson, Benjamin L. Gladd, and Andrew David Naselli, eds., Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2023); and G. K. Beale and Benjamin L. Gladd, eds., Connecting Scripture New Testament (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2025).

With hundreds of books on biblical theology already published, how does the church go about producing more robust biblical-theological resources? Three ideas spring to mind: First, we need to discover more of these inner-biblical connections. Evangelical publishers are now producing more advanced cross-referencing systems, and this is much needed. A word of caution, though: these references need to be verified, one by one. Exegesis is a science and an art, so linguistic parallels can only go so far. That said, a great deal of biblical theology has yet to be harvested using the category of allusions and echoes.

New Testament scholars have spent much time focused on Old Testament quotations and not enough time teasing out the significance of Old Testament allusions. There are, after all, about three hundred and fifty Old Testament quotations in the New Testament, and two thousand to four thousand Old Testament allusions in the New Testament. For example, if one were to open to a robust New Testament commentary that was sensitive to the apostle’s use of the Old Testament, one would find lengthy discussions of Old Testament quotations but barely a comment on Old Testament allusions.

Second, evangelicals must explore the use of the Old Testament in the Old Testament. Evangelicals have sometimes been reluctant to work on the use of the Old in the Old, because they are forced to take a stand on issues of authorship and dating. But the time has come for evangelicals to jump in with both feet and study how Old Testament authors often weave antecedent revelation into their material. We should be encouraged by a recent spate of evangelical resources in this field,¹⁹E.g., Gary Edward Schnittjer, Old Testament Use of Old Testament: A Book-by-Book Guide (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2021); Matthew E. Swale, Scripture’s Use of Scripture in the Old Testament: Three Instincts for Identifying Allusions (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2025). but a great deal of work remains.

Third, the church must continue to wrestle with the nature of fulfillment. One thing that evangelicals and the wider academy generally agree upon is the pervasiveness of inaugurated eschatology in the New Testament. But, within this framework of the already/not-yet, much more work remains on precisely how the apostles relate mystery to particular themes. Some biblical theology today tends to flatten the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Scholars often trace individual themes throughout the Old Testament, but when they arrive in the New Testament, they often overlook how that particular theme takes on generally unexpected dimensions. Rarely does a theme move across the canon without any modification or development in light of Christ’s work.

Conclusion

D. A. Carson has taught us that to do biblical theology—to do it well—depends on a high view of Scripture. This is why evangelicals have been at the forefront of the field and why each succeeding generation must reaffirm the authority and inerrancy of Scripture. Carson has also laid a foundation for responsibly tracing connections between the Testaments. We must embrace a hermeneutical model of reading the New Testament that upholds continuity and discontinuity. To tilt the scale too much in one direction creates an imbalance that fails to do justice with the text. As evangelical scholars consider what projects they should write in the future, it would be wise to tease out the continuity and discontinuity of Scripture.

Carson demonstrated a keen ability to convene other scholars and work alongside them. This is one of the reasons that there are so many NSBT volumes and that he has edited a breathtaking number of projects. He was always on the lookout for new developments and insights that unearthed the truth of the Bible; he saw gaps in the literature and was intent on filling them. If evangelicals are to continue the legacy of Carson, they must do so as a team. We are, after all, “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor 4:1).

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