The Vossed World

The Suffering Servant died in order to be a Covenant for His people

2008-07-19T11:41:00.005-04:00

Rick Watts, in his contribution on Mark in Carson & Beale’s “Commentary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament” sees Christ’s invocation of “covenant” in the Upper Room as a connection back to Isaiah 42:6, and in doing so, ties together Exodus 24, the Isaiah passage, and the Upper Room:

“Exodus 24 functioned primarily in two ways. First, it provided an interpretive framework for the blood of circumcision. On Mark’s reading, circumcision as a mark of entry into covenant must now be related to Jesus. Second, and more commonly, Exodus 24 necessarily meant Torah-obedience (24:7) – understandably so, as this was Israel’s fundamental covenant obligation… That Mark’s succinct account mentions no stipulations needs to be balanced with Jesus’ eminent concern for Torah throughout and the fact that Mark begins his story (Mark 1:2-3, in which Mark quotes from Isaiah 40:3 as well as Malachi 3:1; crb) with Malachi’s messenger of the covenant. Consequently, Israel’s “kingdom of priests” vocation, expressed in terms of Isaiah 40-66’s vision of including Gentiles (see Isaiah 42:6; crb) and hence “the many” (from Isaiah 56:7 in Mark 11:17; crb)…, can be fulfilled only in relation to Jesus and an equally exclusive commitment to him and his “cross-bearing” Torah.

“Finally, we should note that even if Mark does not explicitly say so, this converges with the work of the servant whom Yahweh twice declares is appointed as a “covenant for the people,” which probably means for the faithful within Israel and the survivors of the nations who turn to him (Isaiah 42:6; 49:6-8).” – Rick Watts, in Carson & Beale, “Commentary on New Testament Use of the Old Testament”, p. 231

So... the flow of covenant/blood of the covenant in redemptive history, as Watts understands it, looks like this: Exodus 24 -> Isaiah 42/49 -> Mark 14:24. This is why Isaiah 53 is important in understanding the nature of the covenant in Isaiah 42/49 and 54/55/56/59. The Suffering Servant who has been called to be a Covenant for the people (42/49) must die (53) in order to be an Everlasting Covenant of peace (54/55/56) administered by the Spirit to the people (59). Side note: when we think of “covenant of peace” what is called to mind again is Isaiah 9:6... this government is ruled by the Covenant-Prince of Peace.

"The Word of God is a Person"

2008-07-17T22:57:00.002-04:00

"In our time, living under the law may assume the form of biblicism. Many suppose that the evangelical faith stands or falls on the matter of biblical inerrancy meaning that the very letter of Holy Scripture is without any error in everything it affirms, including theology, history, ethics, geography, biology and chronology.

"The great danger of biblicism is that, instead of being used solely in the service of the gospel, the Bible becomes a book of rules about many other issues. Christians may become enslaved to the Bible just as the Jews became enslaved to the Torah their Holy Scripture (John 10:34,35). Just as the Jews barricaded themselves behind the letter of the Torah to oppose Jesus, so we may easily barricade ourselves behind the letter of a supposedly inerrant Scripture to oppose the gospel's festival of freedom.

"There can be a false faith in the bible. In the proper spiritual sense faith is an act of real worship which should be rendered solely to the Creator (John 9:35-38). Saving faith is not faith in the Bible (for even the Christ-denying Pharisees trusted in the Bible John 5:39) but faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:22-26). While Catholics have been particularly susceptible to ecclesiology -- the worship of the church -- Protestants have been disposed toward bibliolatry -- the worship of the Bible.

"The purpose of all Scripture is to bear witness to Christ (John 5:39; 20:31). The Bible in itself is not the Word of God. The Word of God is a person (John 1:1). Neither does the Bible have life, power or light in itself any more than did the Jewish Torah. These attributes may be ascribed to the Bible only by virtue of its relationship to Him who is Word, Life, Power and Light. Life is not in the book, as the Pharisees supposed, but only in the Man of the book (John 5:39).

"The Bible is therefore to be valued because of its testimony to Jesus Christ. The Bible is absolutely trustworthy and reliable for the purpose it was given. It is designed to make us "wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 3:15), not wise on such subjects as science, history and geography, which it is our responsibility to learn through general revelation.

"That which makes the Bible the Bible is the gospel. That which makes the Bible the Word of God is its witness to Christ. When the Spirit bears witness to our hearts of the truth of the Bible, this is an internal witness concerning the truth of the gospel. We need to be apprehended by the Spirit, who lives in the gospel, and then judge all things by that Spirit even the letter of Scripture.

"...Christian biblicism is no different from Jewish legalism. It is the old way of the letter, not the new way of the Spirit (Rom. 7:6). Jesus and Paul declare that apart from the Spirit we cannot understand the truth (John 16:13; I Cor. 2:14). This means that unless we are caught up in the Spirit of the gospel, we cannot understand or use the Bible correctly. Apart from the gospel the Bible is letter (gramma), not Spirit (pneuma). "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (II Cor. 3:6,17)." -- Robert Brinsmead, "A Freedom from Biblicism"

Christian radio... a "faith vending machine"

2008-07-17T21:59:00.002-04:00

Some of us have been saying these things about our own industry for years, only to be mocked by insiders. But it's interesting to hear this come from a listener who posts to Christianity Today's "Out of Ur":

"I’ve noticed Christian radio becoming, for me, a sort of faith vending machine. Need some encouragement? Just push a button! I suspect that too frequent exposure to otherwise fine music hackneys that music and causes spiritual satisfaction to become one more commodity in my life. This makes real corporate worship feel like an imitation of the canned radio versions of the songs. Plus, it keeps me from developing truly nourishing habits. After all, who needs real corporate worship and challenging formative disciplines when I can just tune my radio dial and get a quick God fix?

"Most importantly, I detect Christian radio has succumbed to consumerism. An on-air promo for one station’s Friends and Family Music Cruise pushed me over the edge. Here’s an excerpt from their website:

This year, besides reserving the entire cruise for [our] listener family, everything’s bigger and better—the ship, the exclusive music concerts, the comedy shows, the speakers, and the endless opportunities for having fun! Did someone say swim and spa? That’s right, you’ll have it all!

"Is it just me, or are “bigger,” “better,” and “having it all” actually not congruent with the One who made Himself nothing and was obedient unto death? Plus, the station boasts that you can finance the cruise on your credit card. I’m a fun loving guy, but encouraging indebtedness for an experience that appeals to and promotes selfishness—under the guise of being a godly experience—is nothing to laugh at." -- Chad Hall, "Tuning Out Christian Radio"

One of the best lines in the comments section: Christianity isn't safe.

The rhythm of interpreting redemptive history in the NT: What was promised has been revealed and we now proclaim it

2008-07-12T18:46:00.002-04:00

When Christ came, The WORD incarnated The Word. The Person incarnated the text. This personification/incarnation of abstracts is fundamental to understanding *how* Paul and the rest of the apostles understood redemptive history and their own proclamation of it. It is central to their hermeneutic. Paul was constantly talking about this "mystery" of promise and fulfillment. The promise, inseparable from revelation and covenant in the OT/OC, has been revealed and fulfilled in a Person, the Supreme Act of God on the world history stage.

There is a hymn that appears in 1 Timothy 3:16 and this hymn is the hinge point for the whole book. The hymn represents the content of the "mystery" in vs. 15 and "truth" in vs. 14. Paul nuances this promise/fulfillment "mystery" thought throughout the entire book... it's called the "mystery of the faith" in vs. 9, "the faith" in 4:1, 4:6, and 3:13, and "the teaching" in 4:16. In fact, the way Paul frames the mystery here has a rhythm which frames his understanding of redemptive history: what was promised and hidden in the past has now been revealed in the Christ event (his birth, ministry, death, resurrection, ascension) and is being proclaimed by Paul and the apostles. The same thought occurs in Romans 16:25-26, Titus 1:2-3, 2:11, and 3:4, Eph. 1:7-9, Eph. 3:4-6,9, Eph. 5:32, and Col. 1:26-28 and 2:2. Even John picks up on this redemptive historical pattern in 1 John 1:1-4. The hymn then represents the content of the apostles' proclamation... it has a lot of similarities to the content of the sermons throughout the book of Acts. It is *how* they understood redemptive history... so much so, that the "rhythm" is our hermeneutical template for not only understanding redemptive history but the scriptures that chronicle and explain redemptive history. Understand and study that hymn in light of Paul's theology and you have a hermeneutical grid for understanding all of scripture.

But that's not all... this hymn in 1 Tim. 3:16 isn't merely a Christological promise-fulfillment hermeneutic. Paul doesn't just leave this Personification of revelation at the theological level. He refers to this "mystery", this content of the proclamation, as a "mystery of godliness." What has occurred in real time and real space in a Person *creates* and *effects* in His people "godliness". The historical reality (Christ) *causes* the personal reality. This redemptive historical rhythm, what was promised and hidden has been revealed and is now proclaimed, has everything to do with the church's transformation and conformity to the image of Christ through the Spirit. It is the Spirit applying the redemptive-historical pattern to the life of the believer (Eph. 1:11-13, see 1:7-9) that *effects* the personal reality. The church's godliness is the product of the Promise-Fulfillment mystery that has been Incarnated by Christ and applied by the Spirit to the bride. -- crb

Christ "constitutes the New Torah"

2008-07-12T16:54:00.003-04:00

"Although Paul regards the words of Jesus as the basis of a kind of Christian halakah, it is Christ Himself in His person, not only or chiefly in His words, who constitutes the New Torah: and so too in the Fourth Gospel the New Torah is not only epitomized in the commandment of agape which finds its norm in the love of Christ for His own and in the love of God for Christ, but it is realized also in the Person of Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, i.e., the personalized Torah who is set over against Moses... those in the early church who saw their Torah in Jesus Himself, as well as in His words, found not only that any possible expectations of a New Torah that Judaism may have cherished were fulfilled in Him, but that they also were transcended." -- W. D. Davies, "Torah in the Messianic Age and/or the Age to Come"

Horton: "Jesus in his ascension does not abandon history but redefines all that has preceded it"

2008-07-09T09:14:00.001-04:00

"The resurrection and ascension of Jesus generate a remarkable paradox. Right at the place where the Suffering Servant has been exalted as conquering Lord, the first fruit of a new creation, and the head of a body, he disappears. Then, precisely in that place that is vacated by the one who has ascended, a church emerges.

"The most direct ascension account comes from Luke (Luke 24:13-27; 24:50-53). Acts 1 reprises this episode in its opening verses (Ac 1:6-11). Thus the ascension (and parousia) became part of the gospel itself. Not only was Jesus crucified and raised according to the prophets, but the Messiah will be sent again. Jesus, says Peter, "must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets" (Ac 3:20-21, emphasis added by MSH).

"As they were taught by Jesus in the Olivet and Upper Room discourses and on the road to Emmaus (Matt. 24-25; John 14-16; Luke 24:13ff), the apostolic preaching in Acts follows the familiar pattern of descent-ascent-return, justifying the confession in the eucharistic liturgy, "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again." Jesus’ departure is as real and decisive as his incarnation, and he "will come [again] in the same way as you saw him go into heaven" (Ac 1:11)—that is, in the flesh. In the meantime, he is absent in the flesh.

"One problem in the history of interpretation, however, has been to treat the ascension as little more than a dazzling exclamation point for the resurrection rather than as a new event in its own right. The ascension of Jesus in the flesh opens up an interim within history that keeps us looking forward to the return of the same Jesus. Nothing can replace Jesus in the flesh.

"As the first fruits of the new creation, Jesus in his ascension does not abandon history but redefines all that has preceded it as the old age of sin and death, subjecting it to judgment. The history of human misery and pomp, autonomy and strife, which can only yield the fruit of condemnation, is now passing away. It’s becoming obsolete. Even now the "age to come" is reconfiguring reality around its glorified head. The time that the church thus occupies because of the ascension is defined neither by full presence nor full absence, but by a eucharistic tension between "this age" and "the age to come." The church is lodged in that precarious place of ambiguity and tension between these two ages, and it must live there until Jesus returns, relying only on the Word and Spirit.

"...Why this excursus on the ascension? Because there is so much dangerous talk these days about the church as the continuing incarnation of Christ, the active agent of redemption, who completes the work that Christ came to accomplish. In short, the church is substituted for Christ. Both Protestant and Roman Catholic followers of German idealism have made this move, and the trail leads all the way to Pope Benedict XVI, Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson, Baptist theologian Stanley Grenz, and the circle of brilliant writers known as Radical Orthodoxy.

"Graham Ward, a representative of Radical Orthodoxy, has recently written, 'We have no access to the body of the gendered Jew…It is pointless because the Church is now the body of Christ, so to understand the body of Jesus we can only examine what the Church is and what it has to say concerning the nature of that body as scripture attests it...As Gregory of Nyssa points out, in his thirteenth sermon on Song of Songs, ‘he who sees the Church looks directly at Christ.’"

"I realize that most evangelicals bristle at such grandiose claims for the institutional church, much less the pope, but do we not regularly encounter the claim that Christians are called to save Western civilization, transform the culture, and build the kingdom of God as the extension of Christ's redeeming mission in the world?

"...In fact, "incarnational" is becoming a dominant adjective in evangelical circles, often depriving Christ’s person and work of its specificity and uniqueness. Christ’s person and work easily becomes a "model" or "vision" for ecclesial action (imitatio Christi), rather than a completed event to which the church offers its witness. We increasingly hear about "incarnational ministry," as if Christ's unique personal history could be repeated or imitated. The church, whether conceived in "high church" or "low church" terms, rushes in to fill the void, as the substitute for its ascended Lord. In its train, the sacramental cosmos returns. As Christ and his work is assimilated to the church and its work, similar conflations emerge between the gospel and culture; between the word of God and the experience of our particular group; and between the church’s commission and the transformation of the kingdoms of this age into the kingdom of Christ.

"It is this recurring temptation to look away from Christ’s absence—toward a false presence, often substituting itself as an extension of Christ’s incarnation and reconciling work—that distracts it from directing the world’s attention to Christ’s parousia in the future. Yet a church that does not acknowledge Christ’s absence is no longer focused on Christ; instead, it’s tempted to idolatrous substitutions in the attempt to seize Canaan prematurely." -- Michael Horton, Transforming Culture with a Messiah Complex - 9Marks

"One final shot" for skinthemboys: "those left behind still will have the opportunity for salvation"

2008-06-08T13:34:00.004-04:00

Christianpost.com is reporting on a new website that will let evangelicals email their friends after the rapture. Christian Post says "The website...dispatches the e-mails when at least three staff members fail to log in for six consecutive days. Its main purpose is to give Christians one final shot at evangelism."

A poster named "skinthemboys" loves the opportunity for that one last chance provided by YouveBeenLeftBehind.com: "...those left behind still will have the opportunity for salvation which is the message I would want to get across..." He made the comment on a forum for Washington Redskins fans. I wonder what message he's giving to those Dallas Cowboys fans who are "pre-believers"? :-)

Of course, evangelism isn't YouveBeenLeftBehind.com's only concern. Christian Post reports: "The services offered by the site cost $40 a year." I wonder if $40 a year guarantees the website will be up and running after the rapture? What if a plane crashes (thanks to Christian pilots who've been raptured) into the infrastructure of the internet causing a worldwideweb outage?

I have a better chance of being a Cowboys fan than the first email being sent after the "rapture".

Who dey!

The Suffering Servant satisfied the terms of the Old Covenant and in doing so became a Covenant Himself

2008-06-07T23:55:00.000-04:00

I spent most of the week @ Camp Cherith near Hunt, New York participating in "The Future of NCT: A Think Tank", which was sponsored by Buffalo's New Covenant Baptist Fellowship and put together by good friend Joe Krygier. The following is an excerpt from a presentation I gave entitled "Christ, Our Covenant":

The Suffering Servant (of Isaiah 42) is a Messianic King-Ruler who is yet to come in Israel’s future, and not just a Messianic figure, but the ultimate Christophany -- God come in human form to accomplish his own purposes on His people’s behalf. The torch and the firepot (of Genesis 15) will take on flesh, not only walking through the carcasses as a covenant keeper, but suffering the fate of the carcasses as a covenant breaker.

There are several observations to be made about this Suffering Servant who will be made a covenant for the people (Isaiah 42:6). There has also been a lot of discussion about whether or not this is a covenant personified and what “for the people” actually means. Again, while some commentators are ambivalent about what it means for a person to be made a covenant, many others, some of whom have been quoted on this blog in the past are convinced (rightly so) that this is nothing other than a covenant that takes on flesh.

1. The covenant promised here is a person, none other than the Suffering Servant of verse 1 in this passage. The Suffering Servant, promised in 42:1, is going to embody a covenant (vs. 6).

2. The Servant-Covenant will be “given”. YAHWEH, speaking to the suffering servant, says "I will *give* you as a covenant..." There are echoes here of an earlier prophecy in Isaiah, “unto us a Son is given” (9:6). This is a covenant that will come from outside of Israel and outside of "the people". It is an example of a unilateral action on the part of YAHWEH.

3. The Servant-Covenant will be commissioned by YAHWEH. "I have called you" speaks to a divine ordination of the Servant (vs. 1), much like Isaiah himself has been called (Isaiah 6 and 40). Not only is the Suffering Servant to have an effect on the people (one that brings salvation), He is divinely ordained for this specific purpose.

4. This Servant-Covenant brings justice. Justice is mentioned 3 times in the first 4 verses. Here in this passage the divine commissioning is itself characterized by righteousness. Justice and its corresponding righteousness are inseparable from the nature of this Covenant and its effects.

5. This Servant-Covenant will be a light. In fact, these two phrase “covenant for the people” and “light for the nations” are so connected that one could say that this Suffering Servant will be a Covenant Light. IOW, this is a Covenant from which light proceeds. This Light shines not just on Israel, but to the ends of the earth, blazing forth God's salvation to a blind people groping in darkness. This is a Covenant from whom no one can hide. Where there is the Light of justice, there too is a Light of salvation.

6. This Servant-Covenant acts on behalf of the people. “For the people” suggests not only recipients, but those who are the beneficiaries of the giving of this New Covenant. There is a cause and effect relationship between the Covenant and the people. And in fact, given the contextual language of creation (vs. 5), this Covenant actually "creates" the people, a new humanity on whom its blessings rest (see #3 below).

This then is the profile of the Suffering Servant who is to be a covenant for the people. There is coming a day in Israel in which a Suffering Servant will be embody a New Covenant for His people. This Servant-Covenant will be a light to those whom he is given. As this covenant shines forth he brings justice to His people, a people that is broader than mere Israel.
And that leads us to consider a few other dynamics at work in this passage (though much more could be said).

1. The first is that this “people” is not just Israel. Verse 2 says the Suffering Servant will bring forth justice to the nations. Verse 5 says God gives breath to the people on the earth. Verse 6 places these two words side by side… the covenant for the people is going to be a light to the nations. The benefits of this Servant-Covenant extend beyond Israel to the ends of the earth… including Gentiles. The reach of this covenant isn’t limited to the nation of Israel, but is for all people groups.

2. The Servant-Covenant is Spirit empowered. Verse 2: I have put my Spirit upon Him. The same Spirit that has breathed life into creation (vs. 5) breathes life into the nations through this Servant-covenant for the people. The covenant-light is going to be a life source.

3. The Servant-Covenant effects a new creation. Verse 5 places the context of this Servant-Covenant in verse 6 in the original creation. Verse 5 is the language of Genesis 1:2, with the Spirit hovering over the waters in the creation of the heavens and the earth and Genesis 2:7 in which he is the life breath of God into man, or the original “generation”. Here the language of the garden is employed leading into verse 6 because what is needed is a new generation, or re-generation. And that’s precisely the effects of this Servant-Covenant in verse 7: opening the eyes of the blind, releasing prisoners from the dungeons, and giving light to those in darkness. This is the language of a new creation. And indeed, verse 9 says as much: these are “new things”, an idea Isaiah continues in chapter 43 verse 19: Behold I am doing a “new thing”. The new creation has a Servant-Covenant bringing life to the nations.

4. The Servant-covenant is inseparable from a new law. Verse 4: “the coastlands are waiting for His law”, a law that will in and of itself effect justice.

5. The Servant-covenant is set over against the false idols of the people. Verse 17 of chapter 42: it is the Servant-covenant that is going to render the idols of the unbelieving Israelites useless. The covenant will shame any and all comers who attempt to usurp the divine right of the King-Covenant.

So, how does this fit in with the rest of Isaiah? Israel has broken covenant. They have played the infidel. The Assyrians have threatened and YAHWEH in his mercy gave Judah reprieve. But the Babylonians, a rising power to the east, are coming. They will execute judgment as the curses of Deuteronomy rain down on unrepentant and unbelieving Israel. As he has already done with the northern 10 tribes, God is going to pour out his wrath on the covenant-breaking nation. Darkness will cover the land…Covenant-breaking Israel is in need of a new covenant and a new law that effects justice in its recipients. It is this Suffering Servant-Covenant that will satisfy God’s wrath (Isaiah 53). He will satisfy the terms, the blessing and curses, of the broken covenant and in so doing become a covenant himself.

This Suffering Servant-Covenant will “lead the blind in a way that they do not know…” This Suffering Servant-Covenant will “turn the darkness before them into light”. “When the poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst”, this Suffering Servant-Covenant will not forsake them, but indeed will feed them and give them drink. This Suffering Servant-Covenant is none other than the King of heaven whose train fills the temple. This King is Himself a Covenant… He not only sets the terms of his rulership of His new people, He *is* the terms of His rulership of His people, a rulership that is empowered by the Spirit who breathes life into a new nation, a new humanity, made up of all nations. God’s people, as they await judgment from a law that has condemned them, are in need of salvation. Salvation for covenant-breakers comes in the form of a covenant keeper who becomes a covenant for them. Their kingdom will be destroyed. But the Suffering Servant-Covenant will bring a new kingdom:

(Isaiah 9:1-7) But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. 2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined. 3 You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil. 4 For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. 5 For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. 6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. -- crb

Hamilton: "...the Old Testament is a messianic document, written from a messianic perspective"

2008-05-31T07:52:00.004-04:00

"For various reasons, the way the authors of the New Testament understand the Old is not always clear to us as we read the New Testament today. Because of this, some interpreters of the Bible suggest that only the inspiration of the Holy Spirit enables the New Testament authors to make the claims they do about the Old Testament being fulfilled in Christ and the church. These interpreters hold that if the Old Testament were interpreted correctly (read: the way that they themselves do) it would not lead to the claims made by the New Testament authors.
But since the New Testament authors are inspired, they can make these claims, even though these claims really make no sense. This line of argumentation is then customarily followed with the admonition that since we are not inspired by the Holy Spirit, we have no business reading the Old Testament the way the authors of the New Testament do.

"I would humbly suggest that perhaps those who make these kinds of assertions have not fully understood the Old Testament, the New Testament or the methods of interpretation used in both Testaments. I do not mean to imply that these interpreters lack sincere piety, intelligence, training or academic rigor. The issue seems to be one of perspective.

"If one adopts the perspective that the Bible should be read like any other book, or that it should be read the same way that any other piece of ancient Near Eastern propaganda would be read, this perspective is going to determine the boundaries of interpretive possibilities. If, on the other hand, one adopts the perspective that the Bible tells the true story of the world, that beginning from Genesis 3:15 God announces his plan for a seed of the woman to break the back of evil by crushing the head of the serpent, that the word “seed” can refer to both individuals and groups, that the Old and New Testaments are full of typological interpretation that highlights the historical correspondence between and the escalation of the significance of divinely intended patterns of events, then the interpretations of the Old Testament seen not only in the New Testament but also in the Old Testament itself begin to make more and more sense.

"The less sense these things make to us, the more time and patience we must give to the careful study of these texts. We must not prematurely conclude that the internal logic of these texts is fallacious — the authors of the Bible wrote to persuade their contemporaries. Some think that human intelligence has evolved such that modern man finds the logic of ancient man to be utter nonsense. This is nothing more than what C. S. Lewis dubbed “chronological snobbery,” and it owes more to a Darwinist than to a biblical worldview. If we will take the time to understand the biblical authors, the internal coherence of their claims will be vindicated.

"Jesus modeled the interpretation of the Old Testament pursued by the apostles and others who wrote the books of the New Testament. In other words, the authors of the New Testament
learned to read the Old Testament from Jesus. These interpretive methods, however, were not new to Jesus, but may also be seen in, for instance, the way that Isaiah interprets Deuteronomy.

"If a modern scholar suggests that Jesus’ interpretation of the Old Testament is somehow illegitimate, stick with Jesus and His interpretation. After all, as Christians we believe that He is God! Not only did the New Testament authors learn how to interpret the Old Testament from
Jesus; the Holy Spirit inspired them as they wrote. Jesus promised His followers that the Spirit would teach them all things (John 14:26) and lead them into all truth (16:13). If a modern scholar suggests that an interpretation learned from Jesus and inspired by the Holy Spirit is somehow illegitimate, stick with the inspired guys.

"This does not mean that we automatically understand the Old Testament, nor does it mean that we automatically understand how Jesus interpreted the Old Testament. It does mean that we will commit ourselves to reading and re-reading both the Old Testament and the New Testament’s interpretation of the Old. This reading and re-reading is best pursued under the assumption that there is an internal coherence to the New Testament’s understanding of the Old Testament, an internal coherence that we might not yet see but that is nevertheless there. We must read and re-read until, rather than understanding the Bible in terms of our world and our experience, we understand our experience and world in terms of what the Bible says. The closer we get to that end, the more we will see that the Old Testament is a messianic document, written from a messianic perspective in order to provoke and sustain messianic hope, and the New Testament claims that these hopes are fulfilled in Jesus and the church. Indeed, all the promises of God are yes and amen in Jesus." -- James M. Hamilton Jr., "New Testament: Christ Revealed"

Russell Moore: "Every text of Scripture--Old or New Testaments--is...about Jesus"

2008-05-29T10:00:00.003-04:00

"There's plenty of Veggie Tales preaching out there, and it's not all for children. As a matter of fact, the way we teach children the Bible grows from what we believe the Bible is about--what's really important in the Christian life. There's also such a thing as Veggie Tales discipleship, Veggie Tales evangelism, even erudite and complicated Veggie Tales theology and biblical scholarship.

"Whenever we approach the Bible without focusing in on what the Bible is about--Christ Jesus and His Gospel--we are going to wind up with a kind of golden-rule Christianity that doesn't last a generation, indeed rarely lasts an hour after it is delivered. Preaching Christ doesn't simply mean giving a gospel invitation at the end of a sermon--although it certainly does entail that. It means seeing all of reality as being summed up in Christ, and showing believers how to find themselves in the story of Jesus, a story that is Alpha and Omega, from the spoken Word that calls the universe together to the Last Man who governs the universe as its heir and King.

"I have never seen the film, The Sixth Sense, and I doubt I ever will. It's not only because my movie picks don't typically extend to horror pictures (although that's true). It is also because the movie's been ruined for me. Long ago, a friend explained to me the premise of the film. A detective, played by Bruce Willis, investigates a young boy who 'sees dead people,' ghosts who can only be seen by him. At the end of the move--at least according to my friend--the Bruce Willis character is himself seen to be a 'dead person,' a ghost, who can only be seen by the troubled little boy. 'When you see the movie the second time, you'll notice that Bruce Willis is never seen interacting with anyone of the other characters,' my friend said." "He is just shown talking directly to the boy." If I were to see the movie now, I would see the same film that everyone else saw at its release, but I would be seeing it with the mystery decoded. I would notice patterns and themes. I would see where the story was going.

"The same is true of the storyline of Scripture. The apostles announce that a great mystery has been revealed in the gospel of Christ Jesus--a mystery that explains the "whys" of everything from the creation itself to the existence of the nation of Israel to the one-flesh union of marriage. What God has been doing in His universe for all these millennia, Paul tells the church at Ephesus is not accidental or haphazard. It is part of a blueprint, a purpose "which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Eph 1:10). Paul tells the church at Colossae of Jesus that "all things were created through Him and for Him" and that "in Him all things hold together" (Col 1:16-17).

"Every text of Scripture--Old or New Testaments--is thus about Jesus, precisely because, at the end of the day, everything in reality is about Jesus. Why is there something instead of nothing? Why are human beings religious? Why do people want food and water and sex and community? Why are there galaxies and quasars and blue whales and local churches? God is creating all that is for His heir, for the glory of Jesus Christ. When you see through Jesus, you see the interpretive grid through which all of reality makes sense.

"With this in mind, the Scripture tells us that all of Scripture tells us the story of Jesus. The Gospel writers show us how Jesus fulfills the Scripture, but, interestingly enough, He doesn't simply fulfill direct and obvious messianic prophecies. He also relives the story of Israel itself--exiled in Egypt, crossing the Jordan, being tempted with food and power in the wilderness during a forty-day sojourn there. Jesus applies to Himself language previously applied to Israel and its story--He is the vine of God, the temple, the tabernacle, the Spirit-anointed kingship, the wisdom of God Himself." -- Russell D. Moore, The Henry Institute: Commentary: "Beyond a Veggie Tales Gospel: Why We Must Preach Christ from Every Text"

Irons: the Son of God is "center stage" in the Bible's unfolding drama

2008-05-16T07:31:00.004-04:00

"...what are the first three rules of good exegesis? Context, context, context. And what is the ultimate context of any given passage? The historical unfolding of the kingdom of God, from creation, to fall, to the promises, to the fulfillment of the promises in Christ, both already and not-yet. In other words, the key to good exegesis, and therefore to good systematic theology, is biblical theology.

"Furthermore, biblical theology is the key to understanding the Christological unity of Scripture. This is probably the number one difficulty that systematic theology faces. It is easy to fit passages into a preconceived logical system. It is much harder to figure out the Bible’s own system. Biblical theology helps us to see the Bible’s own system, which is not a timeless set of propositions (although it includes many), but the self-revelation of God in Christ. The Bible’s system is the unfolding drama of the kingdom of God, with the Son of God made flesh, crucified and risen, revealed in all his glory at the center of the stage." -- Lee Irons, Biblical & Systematic Theology

Dirty garments no more

2008-05-10T11:45:00.007-04:00

Here is the worksheet for Zechariah 3 that I presented at the Simeon Trust Workshops on Biblical Exposition:

Text: Zechariah 3:1-10 "Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?” 3 Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. 4 And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.” 5 And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord was standing by. 6 And the angel of the Lord solemnly assured Joshua, 7 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: If you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here. 8 Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign: behold, I will bring my servant the Branch. 9 For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. 10 In that day, declares the Lord of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree.”

Title: A temporary fix and a permanent solution

Theme: Before there can be a new temple, the representative and redeemed priest must be defended, transformed, and coronated.

Aim for the hearers: The Servant Branch has defended the church against her accuser, removed her guilt, given her a righteousness not of her making, and has coronated her as priest kings in his temple. This Branch, the High Priest, has born the guilt of the church and clothed her, making her acceptable before the Lord. Access to the king’s banquet table requires an exchange of “garments”, an exchange of unrighteousness for a righteousness not of our own making.

Immediate Context: The repentant exiles, a remnant, have returned to Jerusalem. God also returns to Jerusalem in mercy and announces his intentions of again making Jerusalem the city and garden of God and building a temple. Jerusalem is to be God’s dwelling. God’s jealousy for his people (1:14) is juxtaposed over against his anger (which was once poured out against his people, 1:2) for the nations (1:15). There is an expectation of covenant renewal as God says he will again dwell in the midst of his people (2:10) and his people will no longer dwell in Babylon (2:7); where God is among his people, there his glory resides (2:5). Once again, he will be their God, and they will be his people (2:11). The escape from Zion is pictured as another exodus from Egypt in which Israel again upon her departure plunders the nation that plundered her (2:9). The difference between the first and second exoduses is that this time, “many nations” will be joining Israel, and they too, will be God’s people (2:11). There is movement from God’s dwelling in heaven (2:13) to God’s dwelling among his people on earth (2:10).

Message of the book: God intends to dwell among his people in Jerusalem and in his temple, foreshadowing the day when he will permanently dwell among his people in a far superior temple ruled by a Davidic branch. Before the building of the temple can begin, Israel’s sin must be dealt with and the priesthood must be restored. However, there is more… the book begins with God and Israel outside of Jerusalem and the temple. The book ends not only with the imminent re-inhabiting of Jerusalem and rebuilding of the temple, but the boundaries of Jerusalem and the temple pushed to the farthest corners of the earth.

Outline: 3: 1-2: God defends Joshua; Satan accuses, God rebukes

3: 3-5: God transforms Joshua; The dirty clothes are removed, Clean clothes and a turban are given

3: 6-7: God coronates Joshua

3: 8-10: God promises a servant branch

The fourth vision of Zechariah begins where chapter 2 left off: God’s dwelling place (2:13). The setting is God’s dwelling place in the heavens, the center of the cosmos in which God is enthroned among angels. Here in the Holy of Holies is where court is being held (“standing before the Lord” is courtroom language; standing is mentioned 6 times). The cast of characters is extensive and notorious: God, Satan, the Angel of the Lord, attending angels, and the rest of a heavenly council. But this convening of court is not completely heavenly… it is also earthly, because Joshua, the earthly representative of God’s people in the earthly copy, the Holy of Holies, is here (3:1).

God has chosen Jerusalem to again be his dwelling place among his people (note the “chosen” vs. “choose” in 1:17 and 2:12) and he plans to symbolize that dwelling with a temple to be built. But there is spiritual opposition to such a plan. Satan doesn’t like it. Here we have images of the garden in Gen. 3: a man, a serpent, and God in council is now Joshua, Satan, and God in council. And here, like we find in Job, Satan stands before the Lord accusing God’s people.

God has said he will be their God and they will be his people, but Satan accuses Joshua and Israel of being “not-my-people” (Edmund, the white witch, and Aslan); they are dirty covenant breakers under condemnation. God cannot re-inhabit Jerusalem and cannot build his temple because they are “not my people”. There is a kernel of truth to Satan’s accusation. But the Angel does not vindicate Satan. The Angel of the Lord steps forward as an Advocate for Joshua and His people. He rebukes Satan… he vanquishes Satan by emphatically stating that he has redeemed for himself a people (the brand plucked from the fire, vs. 3). With the accusing Satan silenced, the Advocate spends the rest of the chapter making remedy for the dilemma alluded to by Satan.

The Advocate now becomes Judge (vs. 3ff). Shockingly, Joshua is in the Holy of Holies bearing the dirty garments of Israel’s covenant breaking guilt. A judicial pronouncement is made by the Judge: remove the dirty garments. This is an acknowledgement that indeed Joshua and Israel are guilty of breaking the Sinaitic covenant. However, all is still not well. Removing the dirty garment is not enough to make Joshua “right” before God. It is not enough for the sins to be removed. The Judge makes a second pronouncement: Indeed the sins will be removed, but Joshua will be given pure vestments. Joshua and Israel must be given a positive righteousness that is from outside of themselves (Matt. 22:11-12; Rev.7:9, 19:8). Thus, a very real exchange takes place: the dirty for the pure.

The Judge, then, makes a third pronouncement: Joshua is to be coronated with the High Priest’s turban… this is Joshua’s coronating consecration or ordination (Exodus 29). This turban will be outfitted with the medallion stone (vs. 9) that marked God’s people as sanctified, holy to the Lord (see Ex. 28:36-38).

Once coronated, the terms of the covenant are reestablished with Joshua and Israel (“if you walk and keep, I will...”, vs. 7). Noteworthy is that no longer are the covenant terms tied to the land as they were before the exile (comp. vs. 7 w/ Deut. 8:6 and Deut. 5:33). Now – after the exile, those covenant terms are tied to the temple. Joshua is promised a rule, a charge, and a right of access into God’s throne room where heaven and earth meet: the Holy of Holies.

The chapter ends with a sign (vs. 8): Joshua is a sign of something bigger and better to come. And this sign comes with 2 pronouncements. As glorious as this coronation is, it isn’t good enough. It is still temporary. The covenant reestablished can be broken again. Those garments will be dirty again. A permanent remedy is promised in the first pronouncement: the Servant-Branch, which is the Angel of the Lord himself (“I” will remove – the pronoun used in vs. 4 and vs. 9 is an indication that the Angel of the Lord will be that Servant-Branch).

The second pronouncement (vs. 9) provides the two-pronged means of the remedy: there will be a permanent stone-plague placed on the turban of the Servant-Branch, a stone-plaque that is sealed by the seven-eyed Spirit of God. And there will be a once for all removal of the iniquity of God’s people. This sin-bearing atonement provided by the Angel of the Lord, the priest who is himself the sacrifice, will result in the peace and prosperity of God’s covenant blessings on His people (vs. 10). It is the Judge-Advocate, the Angel of the Lord, who will Himself atone for the guilt of His people and give them peace. Noteworthy is use of “that day” indicating that the peace and prosperity will be the lot of God’s people over against the judgment of sin and Satan, a judgment inherent to the atonement provided by the Branch – an atonement which guarantees the final judgment on sin and Satan. The atonement made sure that never again, will the garments of God’s king-priests be dirty. -- crb

Simeon Trust Workshops on Biblical Exposition 2008 - Wheaton

2008-05-10T09:03:00.012-04:00

Many have asked just what are the Simeon Trust Workshops on Biblical Exposition which I attended this week (and have attended now for the past 3 years). To put it simply, the workshops provide training on how to better one's study and explanation of the Scriptures. This year's featured speaker was Beeson's Paul House (he was excellent), and the topic was the Minor Prophets (which most of us knew very little about). The workshops themselves are roundtables of about 8, one of whom is a workshop leader (ours was Tim Tinlsey). In the weeks leading up to the workshops in Wheaton, all of us had been given two texts from the Minor Prophets... and the main question is this: How would we organize and preach those texts? In the 4 workshops, we present the texts we had been assigned (there were 8 different texts that had been assigned to various participants so not all of us were assigned the same texts). The rest of the group then responds to the presentation providing helpful critique, especially in light of the instruction being received from the featured speaker, in this instance, Paul House.

It is a humbling yet rewarding experience to submit to the peer review (in real time, no less) of one's exegetical work. The overall purpose of the workshops is to train us to make sure that our treatment of any given passage stays close to the text and is what the text is saying, both to the original audience and our contemporary audience. And of course there is always immense value in the discussions that occur both in the workshops and outside of the workshops on the various passages and theological issues that relate to those passages as well as discussing the lessons being given by the featured speaker. By the end of the workshops, there is a sense of accomplishment as well as a pastoral kinship and camaradarie with the others in the workshops.

The two passages I presented were Habakkuk 2:2-5 and Zechariah 3:1-10. Here's the presentation for Habakkuk 2.

Text: Habakkuk 2:2-5: "And the Lord answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. 3 For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. 4 “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith. 5 “Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples.”

Title: Salvation through silent faith

Theme: Over against Habakkuk’s arrogant claims that the righteous will not die with the wicked and that Israel is more righteous than the Chaldeans, and over against Habakkuk’s appeal to the law to save him, God corrects Habakkuk: none are righteous and the righteous live by faith (not the law).

Aim for the hearers: It is very tempting for us to appeal to some Puritanical sense of wholesomeness in seeing ourselves as better than the pagans, when the reality is that without the humility of saving faith in the Only Righteous Christ, all of us face God’s judgment. None are righteous. When the world is burning down around us, and we are stripped of all external pretense and tempted to find relief or satisfaction in something or someone else, our satisfaction must be in the One who bore the woes on our behalf.

Immediate Context: Habakkuk sits with crossed arms waiting in his watchtower for God to answer his protest.

Habakkuk has appealed to the law as if the law will save him and Israel (1:4): the law needs to be unparalyzed, justice needs to go forth unperverted as God’s salvation from the violence that characterizes Judah (1:2).

Habakkuk refuses to *look* as God *looks* (1:5): he twice accuses God of “idly looking” (1:3,13) and then says he will stand in his watchtower to “look out to see” instead of “looking among the nations” as he has been told (2:1).

Habakkuk has directly contradicted God: we, the righteous will not die (1:12); Israel’s violence is bad (1:2), but it is not *that* bad (1:13). In fact, even if the wicked come to destroy the wicked, those who are righteous will still have their law and still have their land (1:12).

Habakkuk is full of self-righteousness: he falsely believes that he and Israel are more righteous than the Babylonians (1:13).

Into this kind of worldview God speaks and he speaks for the last time (in Hab. 2:2-20); it’s net effect is “Habakkuk, shut up” (Hab. 2:20). God contradicts and corrects Habakkuk (2:2-5); contra the claim made by Habakkuk in Hab. 1:13, God is not silent at the wicked’s injustice and in fact it is Habakkuk who needs to be silent (Hab. 2:20).

Message of the book: God moves Habakkuk from self-righteous faith in the law and the land (Hab. 1:1-4) to a humble faith that is satisfied in God’s purposes for his own glory in spite of the law or the land (Hab. 3:16-19; see Gal. 3:23-26: this movement from unbelief or immature faith to faith in Habakkuk is a prophetic summary of the movement of redemptive history from the Old Covenant to the New).

Outline: vs. 2-3: Write the vision
vs. 4: None are righteous; the just will live by faith
vs. 5: An arrogant man

When God gives his final answer he runs right to Habakkuk’s “look” problem: write the *vision* (2:2). No longer is God telling Habakkuk to look, he is telling him to write down this vision of judgment that he knows Habakkuk can see. And he begins to lay a finger on Habakkuk’s “law” problem: write down the vision of Judah’s impending doom, on “tablets” (see Deut. 27:8), a visual cue that the law not only will not save them, but it is the law that is their condemnation.

Habakkuk has accused God of standing idly by, but God tells Habakkuk not to mistake the lack of activity for delay; it only “seems slow” (2:3). What’s interesting here is that this “vision” being written on tablets is beginning to take on animate characteristics: it *awaits* (2:3); it *hastens* (2:3); it *seems slow* (2:3); it *will come* (2:3); it *will not delay* (2:3). God is not idle; he is actively orchestrating the events that will bring about the death of a covenant-breaking Israel.

In verse 4, God lands the heart of his critique against Habakkuk’s appeal to the law and Habakkuk’s self-righteousness (1:13). The law will not and cannot save Habakkuk. In fact, it is on the basis of the law that Habakkuk cannot and should not claim that he or Israel is any more righteous than the Chaldean. God emphatically states “there is nothing righteous” in the puffed up soul of Habakkuk or the Chaldeans (2:4a). The kind of salvation that Habakkuk is looking for when he cries “Violence” (1:2) cannot come from the law (1:4; see Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38); it must be by faith (2:4). When judgment comes to Israel, salvation is only through faith because it is the law that has brought about the condemnation (see Romans 1:17).

In verse 5 (and on through 20), God begins to show Habakkuk what this unrighteous soul (of 2:4a) looks like. Habakkuk in his self-righteousness has been self-deceptively lulled into a fatal incognizance of the status of his (and Judah’s collective) heart. The death of verse 5 is juxtaposed against the life of verse 4 because self-righteousness, appealing to the law for salvation, and violating the law ALL only lead to death. Contra Habakkuk’s claim in 1:13, Israel *will* die, but those who place their hope and trust in God and his promises will “live” (life everlasting).

Subsequently, woes (2:6ff) are pronounced on all three parties in the book’s purview: the wicked Chaldeans, covenant-breaking Israel, and those who are self-righteous. In the end, Habakkuk, with the rest of the earth, has been reduced to silence.

In the end, Habakkuk “gets it”. He is transformed from looking to an unparalyzed law to save him to rest in God’s salvation. Israel is about to experience the *doom* of Sinai for breaking the covenant (3:3-15; see Exodus 19:16-17, 20:18, 24:17, Deut. 4:11). In the face of a holy wrath poured out against covenant breakers, Habakkuk feels “rottenness in his bones” over his own sin (see Isaiah’s “undoneness” when confronted with the same display of holiness in terrifying glory in Isaiah 6:4-5). Habakkuk's transformation is complete: even if Israel were to be stripped of all of its covenant blessings, and external obedience to the law becomes impossible (3:17), his satisfaction is in the God of his salvation (3:18,19). -- crb

The Law of Christ: believe and love

2008-04-23T09:35:00.009-04:00

My, my… when the cat’s away the mice will make like Paris and Lindsay. :-) Rather than contribute to any already long comments section, here’s a reply to a couple of questions posed last week.

Brian:
>NCT teaches that nine of the ten commandments are repeated (although not as OC law but >rather something else) in the NT.

*Some* NCT teaches this… NCT is a catch-all for those who aren’t either CT or dispy; at present, some of us have identified 3 different streams of NCT. The most prominent stream (because it has done more blogging and publishing than the others) is In-Depth Studies (Steve Lehrer and Geoff Volker). The hermeneutic that focuses on "the nine out of ten" is dispensationalist in different clothing, IMHO.

>Do you agree with this?

Nope. :-)

There are three ways this principle historically has been expressed, all of which, IMHO are problematic and should be avoided. The positive expression of the principle is this: "if it is repeated in the new, it is necessarily valid." Both CT and some NCTers *generally* affirm this principle. But dispensationalists and some NCTers have gone further than the above in the negative expression of the above: "if it is not repeated in the new, it is necessarily invalid" (it is on this point that I believe some NCT is nothing more than warmed over dispensationalism because they are sharing virtually the same hermeneutic). Covenant theology denies the second expression, but adds to the first, saying "if it is not rescinded in the new, it is still valid" (and this is equally problematic). And it is this addition that has been the identity for CT, especially as it manifests itself in paedobaptism.

All three expressions are problematic in that, more often than not, the implications of the impact on ethics of the Christ event, i.e. the intrusion of heaven into time and space via the incarnation, is either understated or ignored. The first and third expressions presume the Decalogue itself has not been altered. The second denies the organic progression of revelation and redemptive history. We must account for the abrogation of the entire law AND the organic continuity and progression of revelation and redemptive history.

>If so, what is substantively different in the NT application of these imperatives from the OT >law?

I think Steve F. has answered this a bit. We have to remember that the OT commands were not just functioning as *law*, but also as *revelation*. IMHO, *law as revelation* is a fundamental consideration that both Covenant Theology and many NCTers either ignore or deny. CT affirms law as revelation, but because the law keeps its enforcement characteristics as eternally binding, law as revelation is all but eclipsed. Revelation changes through the course of redemptive history, increasingly adding to what was known previously. So much more is now known about The Standard for holiness in our lives. In running back to Moses for sanctification, CT settles for what is not only a primitive standard, but one that was a shadow.

But some in NCT also ignore this “law as revelation” reality… they are so focused on making sure the law has been abrogated, it forgets that the law was telling us something about God’s unchanging character. NCT, IMHO, has not done very well in accounting for the fact that the law was divine revelation even as it functioned as a national constitution. It does not follow that because the law was primarily a national constitution, that the divine revelation inherent to it was limited to that national constitution. The codified law was both shadow and type of the law/covenant that was to come: Christ himself.

While CT is wrong to confuse the Decalogue with what they call the "moral law", CT is attempting to account for the reality that lays behind the law giving rise to it... a reality that transcends codification. I agree with that “accounting”, but CT trips up on reading the "eternalness" of the "law" found in various passages as if it is the decalogue itself. It is true that there are elements of the law that transcend law itself... which is why our CT brethren set themselves up to stumble. In an effort to account for those things that transcend the law, they create hard and fast categories that are not always hard and fast, and as a result pull shadow into the NC.

While CT makes the mistake of equating God’s eternal attributes with the temporal form in which it manifested itself to Israel, some in NCT fail to acknowledge the temporal form was manifesting God’s eternal attributes, eternal attributes that impose themselves on the creature (1 John 1:5). It’s in this area that some formulations of NCT tend to be functionally dispy, IMHO.

So… even as the New Testament is revealing to us the ethic of the New Covenant, those Old Covenant commands that reflect God’s character are informing the ethic. We must keep in mind that Augustine’s “Old Concealed, New Revealed” hermeneutic. Just as the Old Testament shadows provide us with a fuller, greater, and richer picture of Christ and His work on our behalf (don’t think for a moment the Passover lamb doesn’t inform our understanding of *what* Christ’s atonement accomplished), so too the law – as a shadow – provides us with a fuller and richer picture of the *why’s* and *wherefore’s* of the New Testament ethic.

IMHO, looking for which commandments are repeated misses the point of the redemptive historical trajectory of the Old Covenant, including the law. The question is backwards. Rather than looking for repetition, we should be looking for fulfillment… where in the New Covenant do I find the radical fulfillment and transformation of these shadow laws? To what (or whom) did they point? Reading the law is no different than reading a narrative passage in Genesis or Exodus. When we read narrative with the understanding that Christ is the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament, we should always read with an eye to fulfillment in the New Testament… i.e. how is this passage treated in the NT? Where are the quotes or allusions? What did the NT authors understand this OT passage to be saying and how are they interpreting this passage in light of the Christ event?

Going directly to the Old Testament to find out how we are supposed to live (or even understand the scriptures) without consideration of the radical nature of Christ’s intrusion into time and space and its impact on both the indicative and imperative of the OT creates all sorts of problems and is fundamental to *legalism* (Paul deals with this specifically in Gal. 3-4 and Col. 2). This is why CT’s so-called “third use of the law” – the law as binding on believers – must be rejected. Some of CTers would argue that they do account for the cross and resurrection because they affirm it is now possible for the covenant member to obey the law, whereas before the coming of the Spirit, obedience was impossible. This is what I’ve called here “enablement theology” with the difference between the law in the OC and the NC is that the NC member has now been “enabled” to obey it. Nevermind “enablement theology” fails to account for Paul’s suggestion in Romans 7 that the law negatively works on believers that place themselves under it, the point here is that they misunderstand the eschatological *change*, not just to obedience, but to the law itself. The law is a type of Christ, and like everything else in the OT, there has been a typological fulfillment in Christ that radically alters the relationship between the law and covenant members.

Russ Kennedy, Pastor of Preaching and Spiritual Formation at Clearcreek Chapel, has created a graphic to help illustrate this hermeneutical problem. I used it in my sermon on baptism. I’m pasting it here, but if it doesn’t come through (if you don’t use html in your email), here’s the link... look for the section entitled “Flow: Old and New Covenants”:
Notice the dotted line between the Old Testament types and New Testament realities... that is the invalid way of understanding the law in the New Covenant. The most obvious “invalidities” in this regard are patriarchy and theonomy. But this is also what happens when Decaloguians attempt to go back to the OT and apply commands directly in the New Covenant with no regard to the Christ event. They are interpreting the OT without consideration that the NC has changed how those precepts function, if not done away entirely.

This doesn’t mean that the law has absolutely nothing to say to us now. The green arrow doesn’t stop at Christ, but moves through him. The law does not come through Christ’s fulfillment unaltered. There is a new form and new substance. Christ himself is now The New Torah, The Law applied to the hearts of New Covenant members as the Holy Spirit on hearts of flesh. ALL 10 “words” have been transformed by the One who kept the law perfectly and died to it. New Covenant members are not under the law, but under the law of Christ (the antithetical contrast drawn in 1 Corinthians 9:21.) That means the application to the New Covenant believer is not the Mosaic law, though the shadowy Mosaic law may inform the application. The application is the law of Christ (because the Law *is* Christ). The parallel in contrast between "through Moses" and "through Christ" in John 1:17 is unmistakable. Christ is the one who is presented as the New Covenant and New Torah. To be united to Christ is to be united to the law of Christ or Christ, the law. As the Holy Spirit unites us to Christ, it is also he who united us to the law of Christ or Christ, the law. Because of our union in Christ through the Spirit, the Holy Spirit *functions* as the law written on our hearts.

Which leads into Brian’s next question…

Brian:
>Also, it appears the law of Christ is to love and serve one another, if I'm understanding your >reply correctly. Is that a fair summary?

Generally speaking, I think that is a fair summary, though John in 1 John adds something that I think is often overlooked, but certainly comports with Hebrews 11:6 in terms of what it is that pleases God. 1 John repeats John 13:34-35’s mandate but then adds this: “believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ”. That added element places John 6:29 and John 20:31 squarely within the purview of the Law of Christ. The law of Christ is 1. to believe in him and 2. to love each other as He has loved us. “Bearing one another’s burdens” is a Pauline paraphrase of #2.

Of course I realize that CTers will jump on those two elements as the two greatest commandments, which also are summaries of the two tables, in modified language. But that’s precisely the point… modification has taken place. There’s a reason that “believe” and “love” don’t show up in the Decalogue: it was a Covenant of Works. Now that the Covenant of Works has been fulfilled in Christ, we are no longer under the Decalogue, we are under Christ and His grace. In removing the curse of the law, the law itself is removed (one cannot have one without the other). Christ now stands in the Law’s stead. The Law is now resident in a Person. Our subjection is to Him, a subjection that is characterized by “believe” and “love”. That kind of change is radical.

This notion that there is a one-to-one correlation between the “law of Christ” and the “Decalogue” cannot be justified by the text. In all of the passages I cited, nowhere is the law of Christ equated with the Decalogue, even in the language used. And even in the passage where the law of Christ is mentioned in close proximity to the Decalogue (James 1:25 and 2:12), the royal law or law of liberty is juxtaposed over against the Decalogue. The “Law of Christ” is not a new an improved version of the Decalogue. The Law *is* Christ. His Law, then, has its own reality, its own characteristics, and its own “demands”. Again, that's a radical change from the Old to the New. The text simply won't allow us to move from the Decalogue to "believe" and "love"... to do so does violence to how the NT authors understood the nature and the function of the law of Christ in the New Covenant.

One caveat... this "newness" of the law of Christ doesn’t mean that the “law of Christ” is brand new. It just means the fulfillment of what was old and is now gone has radically transformed the nature of law, lawkeepers, and lawkeeping. -- crb

In Galatians, "Paul is not saying that only 2/3 of the law has passed."

2008-04-14T07:30:00.006-04:00

Chris Poteet has some valuable thoughts concerning the Law in the New Covenant in a paper found on the "Beginning with Moses" biblical theology briefings website. I do not agree with everything in his paper or with all that he says here. For instance, the law could have given life if Israel had been able to keep it, the soteriological and eschatological import of "do this and live"(Leviticus 18:5; Luke 10:28; Romans 2:13; 10:5; Galatians 3:12; see also Genesis 42:18, the BT "precursor" passage).

Secondly, I also believe that Paul speaks negatively of the Old Covenant to the point where his own personal salvation experience is parallel to Israel's in the Old Covenant -- Gal. 3:22-24. IOW, the pre-Christ era, including the Old Covenant, is equivalent to being in an unregenerate state. The Old Testament era did not merely constitute an immature son, but an unbelieving son. Poteet doesn't say whether or not he believes the 'we' of Gal. 3:23 is only Jews as others who hold his position do; I'm in the camp that believes the 'we' is Jew and Gentile.

Third, I (like Moo who is cited here) do not necessarily deny that the law can be understood with threefold distinction. Chris seems to deny it can be understood that way in any sense, and I probably wouldn't go that far. There certainly are transcendent commands that flow out of God's holy character so that "murder" and "adultery" are not necessarily equivalent to touching a dead body or mixing the types of thread in our clothing. I even disagree with some of my NCT colleagues who believe the Sabbath isn't moral.... its inclusion in the Decalogue tells us that "rest" is inherent to God's personal and holy character, so that like the other commandments, "rest" has a transcendent aspect to it. However, also like Moo, I believe that the NT authors nowhere speak of the threefold treatment, especially when they are speaking of the law's relationship to the New Covenant. As Moo (and Schreiner) says, these authors speak of the law as a "unit".

However, Poteet nicely captures the gist of what is happening in Galatians 3 and 4, at least in the eschatological trajectory of the law and its temporal nature. I also find it interesting that he cites James 2:10 as a passage that explicitly asserts the law cannot be piecemealed. Poteet cites Vos, and I myself would not agree with Vos's understanding of "third use" (by "third use" I mean the classically reformed understanding of the third use of the law as eternally binding on the New Covenant member and as instrumental in the sanctification of the New Covenant member). However, I would agree with Vos in the sense that the law does inform our New Covenant (i.e. Christian) ethic... which is the role the law is playing in Ephesians 6:2 (the subject of our discussions over a couple of recent posts: here and here).

Chris, taking a Van Tillian cue in noting presuppositions, rightly understands that there is a presupposition in play in these discussions that colors the conversation; and its a presupposition that is not necessarily a presupposition of the text of scripture:

“The reformed tradition has, for the most part, viewed the Mosaic Law as having a three fold distinction (moral, civil, ceremonial). There are two camps who espouse this position among reformed theologians. The first are theonomists who believe that the only law that has been abolished in the New Covenant is the "ceremonial law" of sacrifices and Old Covenant worship. The second, more widely espoused position is that the "moral law" (which is the Decalogue according to this interpretation) has passed into the New Covenant. Even though theonomy is in much larger error than the former…they both rest largely on the same theological presuppositions.

“…(The) argument for seeing only the "moral" law as succeeding into the New Covenant rises and falls upon one presupposition and that is the threefold division of the law. In contrast to these reformed scholars, I believe that no writer of Scripture sees or uses a threefold division of the law. The Mosaic Law was always talked about in sum total (cf. Jam 2:10). I believe this position is based more on presuppositional reading than true exegesis. [[Douglas Moo states: "I agree that we cannot reject the distinction between moral law and other kinds of simply because the Bible nowhere states it. But I would insist again, as I do repeatedly in this volume, that one must find clear implications of such a division in the Bible if we are to accept it...it must be pointed out that we have plenty of evidence from that time [first-century] and before that Jews viewed the torah as an essential unity" (“The Law of Christ”, pg. 223-4). And Schreiner says: “[D]oes [Paul] distinguish between the so-called ceremonial and moral law? The use of does not indicate that he does. Indeed, texts like Galatians 5:3 show that Paul considered the law to be a unity […] that came into existence at a certain point in history” (The Law, pg. 40).]]

“… the eternal moral law of God is expressed in natural law (Rom 2:14-15), Mosaic Law, and the Law of Christ. The eternal moral law of God is more fluid than simply the Decalogue. The Decalogue served a redemptive-historical purpose as a summary statement of the Old Covenant (and that is the reason for its position in the Ark of the Covenant, cf. Exo 25:16), but with the passing of a covenant so too does its stipulations. It should be noted that I am stating that the Decalogue is not supra-covenantal. It is true that nine of the ten commands in the Decalogue are repeated in the New Testament, but they serve a different function in the New Covenant.

“The redemptive-historical view on this passage is, I believe, the true summation of Paul's lesson on the role of the Mosaic Law against the Judaizers who sought to bind the Galatian Christians. Paul is not saying that only 2/3 of the law has passed, and he is also not saying that the Mosaic Law leads every person to Christ throughout God's economies. In contrast to these two positions, this view sees Paul as explaining a redemptive-historical shift in terms of law. [[By stating that I hold a “redemptive-historical view” does not exclude other opinions on the issue from maintaining such a contrast. Most notably is Geerhardus Vos in his monumental work Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (7th ed.; Carlisle: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975). Regarding the permanence of the Decalogue he says: “If we may apply the term ‘Christian’ thus retrospectively to the Decalogue, we should say, what it contains is not general but Christian ethics” (pg. 132).]]

“Paul starts by saying that righteousness was never meant to be conferred through the Mosaic Law (3:21), and that the Law (Scripture) shut up everyone under sin while looking forward to the promised Messiah (3:22). He then extrapolates on that last passage by stating that before this "faith" came that "we" or the Israelites were kept in custody until the faith was to be revealed which is the Messiah (3:23). The Mosaic Law then become a tutor to lead Old Covenant Israel to Christ, and this lesson was imparted so that they may be justified by faith (3:24). In other words, the Mosaic Law had an eschatological focus that has now been realized and fulfilled in Christ. This is the very teaching that Jesus espouses in Matthew 5 when He claims He came "not to abolish the Law but to fulfill" (Mat 5:17) The word translated “tutor” παιδαγωγός is a slave-attendant whose duties including seeing a child until their time of maturity. F.F. Bruce extrapolates:

“As the slave-attendant kept the boy under his control until he came of age, so the law kept the people of God in leading-strings until, with the coming of faith, they attained their spiritual majority in Christ.”

“The translation provided by the NASB: “Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ” is misleading (the italicized text being inferred). The preferable rendering of the passage ημων γεγονεν εις χριστον is more properly rendered by the ESV as: “until Christ came” with the “until” having the meaning of a temporal force. The focus of Paul’s analysis is that the time of the law was temporary to show old covenant Israel her need for justification.

“The next verse is important to understand Paul's redemptive-historical analysis of the Mosaic Law. After saying that the Mosaic Law led Israel to Christ, then what became of the Law you Galatian Christians? Paul's lesson is that the Judaizers want them to subscribe to something that's purpose has passed! Paul says, “But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor." (3:25). The appearing of the Messiah in the "fullness of time" (4:4) has rendered the Mosaic Law's purpose in redemptive-historical culminated and released. That is why Paul can finish the chapter with a startling lesson in God's soteriological plan for all nations: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise. (3:28-29)

“Paul's argument throughout this chapter is that to be a child of Abraham all one has to do, is not be circumcised and subscribe to the Mosaic Law, but only believe in the Messiah. The Law served only a temporary, pedagogical role in God's redemptive history. The Galatian Christians needed to understand that if they were to subject themselves to the yoke of the Mosaic Law that they would, in fact, be going backwards in redemptive history! The Mosaic Law is presented by Paul as a parenthetical time between the Abrahamic and New Covenants." -- Chris Poteet, "Why the Law Then? A Biblical Theology of Law in Galatians"