Natural Theology: its place and purpose

For those who say NT is not a 'salvation' issue.

From Bray, 2012 God is Love: A Biblical and Systematic Theology, p., 27

"Natural theology has its importance and is taken seriously in the Bible,  but it is a preparation for the gospel and not a substitute for it. It gives people enough knowledge for people to be able to respond to the message of salvation, but not enough to work it out for themselves."

Emphasis, mine.

The days of Genesis do this by placing creation and God's direct action in the history that we are in and showing that God is close, active in history, communicative, and personal. And we are connected to him by his word.

Salvation by diagram

I found this neat diagram to explain salvation to the average Joe. Only I don't like it. Penal Substitution cuts no ice with me (or the NT, more importantly). Nowhere is Christ 'punished' for our sins in a pen-sub manner. He takes the punishment that we are under, he even takes our sin. But he is not punished for it, he conquers it.

So, I redraw the otherwise excellent diagram