In The Mystery of Existence: God, Hebrews, and the Unity of Scripture, Christopher R. J. Holmes champions the importance of God for Scripture’s spiritual vision.
By focusing on Hebrews, Holmes explains how God is key to unfolding the unity of the Testaments. He offers a theological reading of Hebrews, employing some modern exegetes and engaging some modern concerns, yet speaking as if the text of Hebrews were true and to be received in faith. Holmes's debts are strong in relation to Cyril, Aquinas, Calvin, Teresa of Avila, and John Owen, among others. Drawing upon them, he retrieves their insights as to how God generates a positive valuation of the Old Testament and functions as the principle of Scripture’s coherence. Hebrews rather jarringly contrasts Old and New, and so taking up the language of obsolescence, inferiority, and abrogation, Holmes advances in a resolutely constructive way the promise of God for articulating afresh how such motifs encourage rather than discourage reception of the Old as the living Word of the Lord. A proper theocentrism as motivated by Hebrews holds profound promise for retrieving Scripture’s literal sense, and for rethinking Christology’s place in receiving the Old as the Word of God.
The Mystery of Existence is intended to lead the reader to think loving about the triune God and salvation, imitating and instructing in Scripture’s own goals.
