Per Caritatem

In the Gospel of St. Luke 17.11-19, we read of Jesus’ healing of ten lepers.  Of the ten lepers, only one took the time to thank Jesus for his healing.  In fact, the text says that this man expressed his gratitude vocally and bodily.  “[O]ne of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan” (Luke 17.15-16).  Notice that we are told that the man was a Samaritan.  During Jesus’ day, the Samaritans were more or less considered Gentiles, which of course means that they were despised by Jews.  Samaritans claimed that the focal place of worship was Gerizim rather than Jerusalem (cf. John 4.20) and that the holy books consisted of the Pentateuch alone.  In light of these significant religious differences, one can readily see that relations between Jews and Samaritans, whom the Jews considered “half-breeds,” were strained and at times hostile and violent.  St. Luke takes particular interest in the Samaritans—the others, the foreigners, the social outcasts.  His Gospel account, as well as the theological history he crafts in Acts, highlights several stories in which Samaritan others are central figures or topics of discussion (Luke 9:51–56; 10:30–37; 17:11–19; Ac. 1:8; 8:1–25; 9:31; 15:3).   Though Jesus commanded his disciples to proclaim the kingdom of heaven and engage in works of healing among the “lost sheep of the house of Israel,” forbidding them to enter the “way of the Gentiles” and “any city of the Samaritans” (Matt 10.5), when He Himself encountered Gentiles and Samaritans, He neither turned them away nor refused to heal them.   Rather, he treated them with respect (see John 4 and the exchange with the Samaritan woman), which often involved transgressing established social and religious norms and customs.  In Luke 17.18-19, Jesus praises the Samaritan leper’s response—a faith response marked by gratitude and thanksgiving. “‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner [ἀλλογενής]?’  Then he said to him, ‘Get up [ἀναστὰς] and go on your way; your faith has made you well [σέσωκεν].’”  As N.T. Wright observes, the Greek word, ἀναστὰς (translated here as, “get up”) is the same word which is translated as “resurrection” in other contexts.    Early Christians would not have missed this connection with resurrection, nor should we.

The famous parable of the Good Samaritan is also worth considering.  Here Jesus, in response to a lawyer’s question, “who is my neighbor,” replies with a parable which presents a Samaritan as the moral hero (in contrast to the villains—a priest and a Levite).

Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.  Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.  So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.  But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.  He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.  The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’  Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise’” (NRSV, Lk 10:30-37).

It is highly likely that the man who fell into the hands of robbers was a Jew.  He was after all, “going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.”  So the Samaritan is not only helping some stranger in need, he is showing mercy to an “enemy.”  The priest and the Levite in order to avoid becoming unclean choose to ignore the man in need.  As N.T. Wright puts it, “it was better that they remain aloof, preserving their purity at the cost of obedience to God’s law of love”—a law which was, by the way, an OT law and not simply something that emerged with the NT (Luke for Everyone, p. 127).

The lawyer in the story is disingenuous and poses his question in order to test Jesus.  The lawyer wants to know whom he should consider as his neighbor.  Again, Wright offers helpful commentary on the exchange.  Pointing out that the lawyer’s question and Jesus’ answer don’t exactly correspond, Wright goes on to say,

For him [the lawyer], God is the  God of Israel, and neighbours are Jewish neighbours.  For Jesus (and for Luke, who highlights this theme), Israel’s God is the God of grace for the whole world, and a neighbour is anybody in need.  Jesus’ telling question at the end isn’t asking who the Samaritan regarded as his neighbour.  He asked, instead, who turned out to be the neighbour of the half-dead Jew lying in the road.  Underneath the apparently straightforward moral lesson […], we find a much sterner challenge, exactly fitting in with the emphasis of Luke’s story so far.  Can you recognize the hated Samaritan as your neighbour? (Ibid., pp. 127-28).

I suppose the question to ask is, can you, can I, can we recognize ____________ as our neighbor/s?

In Romans 2:14-15, St. Paul speaks of, “Gentiles, who do not possess the law,” yet, who do “what the law requires.” Even though they, unlike Israel, do not possess the Torah,[1] they “are a law to themselves.  They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness” (NRSV).  So who are these Gentiles?   Are they the so-called “righteous” pagans in the line of Vergil or Socrates, or Aristotle?  According to Wright (and I find his argument compelling exegetically), the people in view in Rom 2:14-15 are Christian Gentiles.  As Wright explains,

Paul’s view, to anticipate the later argument, is that those who are in Christ, who are indwelt by the Spirit, do in fact ‘do the law,’ even though, in the case of Gentiles, they have never heard it.  The law, in Paul’s view, pointed to that fullness of life and obedience to God which comes about in the Messiah; those who attain that fullness of life and obedience are therefore ‘doing the Torah’ in the senses that, to Paul, really matter (p. 441).[2]

Though on the surface it has a paradoxical ring, Paul’s view carefully avoids, on the one hand, implying that the Torah was something bad and thus to be discarded-rather he upholds the holiness of the Torah-and, on the other, suggesting that “Gentile Christians are second-class citizens in the kingdom of the Messiah.”  In effect, Paul has his cake and eats it too:  Gentiles Christians “are not under the Torah, but at the same time they are essentially doing what the Torah really wanted” (p. 441).

Wright’s exegesis takes into account the important cultural-historical (not to mention theological) issue of the early Church:  what is the relationship between Judaism and Christianity, and are uncircumcised, non Torah-trained Gentiles to be received as full members of the Church?  Paul’s emphatic answer is, “yes, because in Christ circumcision is no longer the badge marking out God’s people; rather, faith in the faithful obedience of God’s Messiah is the indicator of God’s people.”

Wright also spends some time dealing with objections to his position.  The primary objection centers on the word, φύσει, physei, both in terms of its meaning and grammatical function.   Some scholars see physei functioning adverbially and modifying the verb “do.”  However, as Wright points out, physei is found in the middle of the clause, ὅταν γὰρ ἔθνη τὰ μὴ νόμον ἔχοντα φύσει τὰ τοῦ νόμου ποιῶσιν; consequently, physei, could modify either “do” or “having the law” (pp. 441-42).  Wright opts for the latter, as it makes sense of the present passage, harmonizes well with the larger section through 5:21, and is in agreement with Paul’s usage of physei in 2:27.  In other words, physei in Rom 2:14 refers to “origin” or “parentage.”  “Gentiles do not, by nature-that is, by origin or parentage-possess the Torah.”  Likewise, in Rom 2:27, ἡ ἐκ φύσεως ἀκροβυστία τὸν νόμον τελοῦσα, φύσεως (”the by-nature uncircumcision that fulfills the Torah”) “cannot here refer to something that is common, innate, to all humans.  Jews, too, are born uncircumcised; that is, in that sense, the ‘natural’ state.  It must refer to Gentile humanity as opposed to Jewish (cf. Gal 2:15)” (p. 442).

Additional support for Wright’s interpretation is found in 2:15a, where we read, “[t]hey show that what the law requires is written on their hearts” (NRSV).  This language of the law “written on the heart” is New Covenant language, of which Jeremiah (Jer 31:33) and Ezekiel (Ezek 36:26, cf. the “new heart”) speak.  “Paul clearly believed, and elaborated this at various points, that the covenant had been renewed, according to this promise, through Jesus, and that this renewal was being implemented by the Spirit in those who were ‘in Christ’” (p. 442).

Notes

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[1] “Though not having the law, they are a law to themselves” (Rom 2:14b, NRSV).

[2] N.T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans,” in Vol. X of The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002): 395-770.

In chapter one of his book, The Challenge of Jesus:  Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is, written for a lay audience, N.T. Wright enumerates four reasons for the need to continue to wrestle with the historical question of Jesus.  His second reason for engaging in historical study of Jesus is, as he says, “out of loyalty to Scripture” (p. 17).  Wright then notes that ironically to some (theological) liberals as well as conservatives, such a reason seems out of place.  For some, whom I would call “extreme” liberal scholars, Scripture has no authoritative role, and in no way presents us with a Jesus who performed miracles and called individuals to die to self and live for God.  Thus, for these scholars, Wright’s desire to be loyal to Scripture seems archaic and even absurd.  However, Wright also points out that the conservative response to the extreme liberal position on these issues is equally misguided, and I would add arrogant and short-sighted.  As Wright explains,

The proper answer to that [extreme liberal] approach is not simply to reassert that because we believe in the Bible we do not need to ask fresh questions about Jesus.  As with God so with the Bible; just because our tradition tells us that the Bible says and means one thing or another, that does not excuse us from the challenging task of studying it afresh in the light of the best knowledge we have about its world and context, to see whether these things are indeed so.  For me the dynamic of a commitment to Scripture is not “we believe the Bible, so there is nothing more to be learned” [hence, the arrogance mentioned above], but rather “we believe the Bible, so we had better discover all the things in it to which our traditions … , which have supposed themselves to be “biblical” but are sometimes demonstrably not, have made us blind (p. 17).

Personally, I find Wright’s balanced approach quite refreshing.  He is one of the few cutting-edge biblical scholars who is able to stand firmly for and articulate well an orthodox Christian position all the while genuinely appreciating the scholarly contributions of those with whom he disagrees (whether extreme liberal or ultra conservative scholars).  Moreover, Wright is willing and able to criticize those within his own camp for their complacency, arrogance and reactionary posture.  Though it was of course necessary for orthodox Christians to speak out against the modernist, reductionist portrayal of Jesus as just one of many “failed Jewish revolutionaries” and a man really no different from other radical religious types, we must also be aware of tendencies in the opposite direction, tendencies which in effect negate Jesus’s genuine humanity and which portray Him as a kind of “demigod, not really human at all, striding through the world as a divine, heroic figure, untroubled by human questions … aware of himself as someone outside the whole system, telling people how they might escape the wicked world and live forever in a different realm altogether” (p. 24).  Wright continues by pointing out that large segments falling within the orthodox camp (evangelicals and conservatives across denominational boundaries) have embraced this demigod, superhero version of Jesus, have undervalued and given little attention to the created order (which is seen as a kind of a sinking ship that must be abandoned anyway so why care for it now), and have paid little attention to the humanity of the Scriptures (a clear reactionary stance to the errors of extreme liberalism).  Paradoxically, both liberal and conservative extremes continue to instantiate Enlightenment-inspired dualisms, refusing to allow the tensions of human-and-divine (not human or divine) to coexist.  At the risk of employing a somewhat hackneyed and over-applied phrase, I find Wright’s closing words “prophetic” and hope that God will give us ears to hear.  “Woe betide us if, in our commitment to winning yesterday’s battles against reductionist versions of Christianity, we fail to engage in tomorrow’s, which might be quite different” (p. 25).  If Christianity hopes to make an impact, for example, on the universities to which we are sending our children, we’d better follow Wright’s example and support those within the Church who are called to the hard, rigorous, spiritually challenging work of academic study. Otherwise, we have no right to complain about those “liberal” ideas being taught to our young people.  Likewise, perhaps we ought to expect to learn a thing or two from those with whom we vehemently disagree and be prepared to modify and expand our own position given that the “subject matter,” viz., Jesus, cannot be exhausted.

In chapter 4 of N.T. Wright’s book, Simply Christian, he presents a wonderful illustration of the incomplete beauty that we encounter in our world in its present state.  He describes a collector who was rummaging through an attic in a small Austrian town and happened to come across what seemed to be an unknown score of Mozart.  Elated, the collector informed his friends and soon someone was sitting at a piano and attempting to play the piece.  As it turns out, the work was indeed Mozart, however, there were numerous places that were left blank and some that were impossible to make out.  What they had found was simply one part (the piano part) to a larger work.  “What they are looking at is indeed by Mozart.  It is indeed beautiful.  But it’s the piano part of a piece that involves another instrument, or perhaps other instruments.  By itself it is frustratingly incomplete.  A further search of the attic reveals nothing else that would provide a clue.  The piano music is all there is, a signpost to something that was there once and might still turn up one day.  [...] This is the position we are in when confronted by beauty.  The world is full of beauty, but the beauty is incomplete.  Our puzzlement about what beauty is, what it means, and what (if anything) it is there for is the inevitable result of looking at one part of a larger whole.  Beauty, in other words, is another echo of a voice-a voice which (from the evidence before us) might be saying one of several different things, but which, were we to hear it in all its fullness, would make sense of what we presently see and hear and know and love and call ‘beautiful.’” (p. 40).

I find it interesting that in I.vi.1 of the Institutes, Calvin, after having spent several paragraphs discussing the ways in which the creation proclaims the knowledge of God, then states that something further is needed so that we might read the “text” of creation aright.

For as the aged, or those whose sight is defective, when any books however fair, is set before them, though they perceive that there is something written are scarcely able to make out two consecutive words, but, when aided by glasses, begin to read distinctly, so Scripture, gathering together the impressions of Deity, which, till then, lay confused in our minds, dissipates the darkness, and shows us the true God clearly. God therefore bestows a gift of singular value, when, for the instruction of the Church, he [...] opens his own sacred mouth; when he not only proclaims that some God must be worshipped, but at the same time declares that He is the God to whom worship is due; when he not only teaches his elect to have respect to God, but manifests himself as the God to whom this respect should be paid.

The course which God followed towards his Church from the very first, was to supplement these common proofs [which Calvin discussed in a previous section] by the addition of his Word, as a surer and more direct means of discovering himself. And there can be no doubt that it was by this help, Adam, Noah, Abraham, and the other patriarchs, attained to that familiar knowledge which, in a manner, distinguished them from unbelievers. I am not now speaking of the peculiar doctrines of faith by which they were elevated to the hope of eternal blessedness. It was necessary, in passing from death unto life, that they should know God, not only as a Creator, but as a Redeemer also; and both kinds of knowledge they certainly did obtain from the Word. In point of order, however, the knowledge first given was that which made them acquainted with the God by whom the world was made and is governed. To this first knowledge was afterwards added the more intimate knowledge which alone quickens dead souls, and by which God is known not only as the Creator of the worlds and the sole author and disposer of all events, but also as a Redeemer, in the person of the Mediator.”

It seems to me that Wright’s idea of beauty encountered in the created order as an echo of another voice might be brought into fruitful conversation with what Calvin says in the passage above.  What do you think?

Dr. Bruce McCormack,  Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, has written an essay focused on the Christology of the recent Historical Theological Field Committee Report issued by Westminster seminary.  Here is a excerpt to pique your interest:  (The full essay is found here).

The issue for the writers of the Historical and Theological Field Committee Report [hereafter HTFC] does not seem to lie in the use of a Christological analogy for assessing the relation of divine and human “causality” in the production of Holy Scripture; the writers are quite willing to argue for their own version of the analogy in question.  The real issue is: which Christology counts as “orthodox” for Reformed Christians?  The presumption throughout is that a simple and straightforward equation can be made between the Chalcedonian Formula and Reformed Christology.  But can it?  I will state my conclusion at the outset and then seek to explain how I arrived at it.  My conclusion is that the Christology of the writers of HTFC is certainly “orthodox” in the ecumenical sense of the word, but – ironically, given the current situation at WTS – it is not Reformed.

For Reformed Christians, it is not simply Chalcedon which defines “orthodoxy” within the realm of Christological reflection; it is Chalcedon as interpreted by the Reformed Confessions.  Or, in the case of denominations like the OPC and PCA, it is Chalcedon as interpreted by the Westminster standards.  Westminster’s Christology stands, however, at the end of a long history of confessional reflection on the person of Jesus Christ and cannot be rightly understood without careful attention to that history.

Dr. Joel Garver offers a helpful analysis and commentary on the recently released WTS documents in relation to the suspension of Dr. Peter Enns.   If you are following this situation, Joel’s post is worth reading, as are the WTS documents.

Historic Christianity, in line with the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, rejects both Nestorianism, which includes the idea that with the God-Man we have two persons, one of divine nature and one of human nature, and Eutychianism, viz., the idea that the divine nature absorbs the human nature in the Incarnation.  Thomas Aquinas, e.g., following Chalcedon, emphasizes a theandric acting of Christ, a God-Man acting.  Chalcedon is clear that the Incarnation involves not one nature, nor two persons in two natures, but one hypostasis, one Person, the Person of the Word, subsisting in two natures, divine and human.  I see no reason why the use of the Incarnational analogy as a way to understand the nature of Scripture has to be incompatible with Chalcedonian teaching.  In fact, it seems to me that such an analogy is an extremely helpful way to assist us in developing a doctrine of Scripture that steers clear of these ancient heresies.  For example, a strict dictation theory would be a kind of Eutychianism applied to Scripture (see Dr. Joel Garver’s comments regarding the ways that the incarnational analogy speaks to possible dictational elements of Scripture), whereas what we see in certain expressions of liberal theology is an exaltation of the human side of Scripture that more or less cancels out the divinity of Scripture. 

Why some Reformed thinkers are in such an uproar about the incarnational analogy applied to Scripture still baffles me.  Theologians within the Reformed tradition itself refer to ideas along these lines.  I recall reading an article by B.B. Warfield (”The Divine and the Human in the Bible”) in my student days at Westminster.  In the article Warfield says,  ”[o]f every word in the Bible it is asserted that it has been conceived in a human mind and written by a human hand” and “of every word in the Bible it is asserted that it is inspired by God and has been written under the direct and immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit.” (p. 57).  Again, I see no reason why the authoritative claim of the word of God in light of its divinity has to be diminished by our acknowledgement that it is simultaneously the word of human beings given in human language, by human beings, and as Dei Verbum says, “in human fashion” (III.12).   The broader Catholic tradition has no problem with this kind of approach as an aid or model for our understanding the nature of Scripture.  Again, in Dei Verbum, we read,

The fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression. Hence the exegete must look for that meaning which the sacred writers, in given situations and granted the circumstances of their time and culture, intended to express and did in fact express through the medium of a contemporary literary form [Cf. St. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, III, 18, 26].  Rightly to understand what the sacred authors wanted to affirm in their work, due attention must be paid both to the customary and characteristic patterns of perception, speech and narrative which prevailed in their time, and to the conventions which people then observed in their dealings with one another (DV, III.12, italics added).[1] 

The document then states that Scripture must also   be read and interpreted with its divine authorship in mind” and that equal attention must be given to the unity of Scripture as a whole, which involves of course a Christocentric understanding of all of Scripture, and “taking into account the tradition of the entire church and the analogy of faith” (DV, III.12). 

This, I take it, is not some version of Scriptural Nestorianism where we have two persons and two natures with no metaphysical or logical priority given to the divine, but rather is very similar to the trajectory of Enns’ work (perhaps minus a specifically Roman Catholic understanding of the two things mentioned in the final quote).  Yet, given Enns area of expertise, he wants to apply the analogy to the various issues and objections leveled at Scripture that he has encountered in his particular context of Old Testament studies.  At least one of the goals that Enns’ has in mind with the incarnational analogy is to, on the one hand, (1) avoid an inappropriate elevation of the human features of Scripture (as is often the case in extreme liberal theology), as well as to (2) resist so emphasizing the divinity of Scripture that we lose sight of the fact that the Bible was (a) written in an historical context and (b) communicated in various (human) languages, with the divine Author being quite cognizant of speaking into the cultural and socio-political practices of the day (and yet not limited to these cultural boundaries).  With regard to (2), Enns utilizes the incarnational analogy as a way to faith-fully understand the similarities between, e.g., Israel’s religious practices and those of the Ancient Near East.  That is, rather than simply denying these similarities or being threatened or embarrassed by them, we can appeal to the incarnational analogy of Scripture as affirming the degree to which God condescends to reveal himself via the cultural thought patterns and with a view to the religious and political practices of the day.  Yet, Enns is also quick to point out the differences between Ancient Near Eastern practices and views and those found in Scripture.  For example, God’s people in the Old Testament were announcing YHWH as the God and proclaiming all other putative “gods” to be false, mute, dead idols.  As a Christian philosopher, I see this as something akin to what I do in my study of various philosophers in the Western tradition.  That is, as I study Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Gadamer and others, I encounter numerous similarities and continuities with Christianity.  However, with St. Augustine, what I do not find in the (non-Christian) thinkers of the Western tradition is a God-made-flesh sacrificed for me. 

In closing, while I readily acknowledge that one’s application and explication of the analogy can always be refined and improved, I still see no reason why the incarnational analogy as a way to understand the nature of Scripture is unorthodox.  If the problem is with the particular way that Enns’ has formulated it or perhaps with the way that he applies it, then why not discuss those particulars and attempt to make adjustments.  Unfortunately, so many of Enn’s detractors fail to interact with Enns’ writings in a way that demonstrates that they have actually given the book a thorough read and are competent to summarize his claims such that Enns would say, “Yes, that is an accurate version of my position” (e.g., see the following reviews, here, and here, and Enns’ responses, here and here).  If Enns’ use or formation of the incarnational analogy is so heterodox that he, as a tenured professor, should be suspended or even dismissed, then it would seem only fair (not to mention charitable) to (1) at least present Enns and the rest of the faculty with a clear explication of Enns’ position, which Enns’ would recognize as his own, and (2) to give an equally clear and detailed analysis of that which is considered heterodox in Enns’ work.  From what I understand of the situation, neither of these has occurred. 

The one substantive objection that has somewhat frequently surfaced is that Enns’ analogy denies the supremacy of the divine nature of Christ in the Incarnation. Let’s call this the “SOSF” (i.e., the Standard Objection So Far). Even if the divine nature has a supremacy (which is, it seems true, provided we are careful about what we mean by that), that is irrelevant to Enns’ point – all it takes for his point to follow is that there is a human element present in Scripture and capable of influencing the form in which Scripture expresses itself. So far as I understand it, Enns’ position is not contingent upon assigning that human element any particular priority relative to the divine nature. If this is the case, then the SOSF is a kind of detractor that doesn’t really touch the issues that Enns is trying to address in his book and use of the analogy.

As a former student of WTS and one who benefited from Prof. Enns’ instruction, I am saddened by the current situation, and our family has asked that our names be removed from alumni mailing lists.  As I watch this drama enfold, I can’t help but to ask myself, “What happened to the Westminster that considered it part of our calling to engage the broader culture, including the academic culture, (particularly in light of the fact that we have so many “in vogue” atheists today churning out books to show the silliness and violence of the Christian tradition)?” 

Notes

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[1] Cf. also, “Hence, in sacred scripture, without prejudice to God’s truth and holiness, the marvelous ‘condescension’ of eternal wisdom is plain to be seen, ‘that we may come to know the ineffable loving-kindness of God and see for ourselves the thought and care he has given to accommodating his language to our nature’ [Cf. St. John Chrysostom, In Gen 3, 8 (homily 17, 1)]. Indeed the words of God, expressed in human language, are in every way like human speech, just as the Word of the eternal Father, when he took on himself the weak flesh of human beings, became like them” (Dei Verbum, III.13). 

Given that we are in process of being confirmed in the Anglican Church and have been out of the narrowly defined Reformed world for a few years now (which by the way does not mean that we have abandoned our Reformed beliefs–just read the 39 Articles, which of course resound with Reformed teaching; the Anglican world just has more room for diversity–and yes, of course, it has its messes too and big ones), I am hesitant to post anything on more Reformed in-house fighting. Nonetheless, because I know Prof. Enns personally and have sat under his teaching and greatly benefitted from his courses, I’ve decided to post a short piece voicing some of my thoughts regarding the recent events at Westminster. In case you haven’t heard, Prof. Peter Enns, a tenured professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, was suspended for supposed heterodox teachings espoused in his book Inspiration and Incarnation. Strangely, Enns’ suspension went through even though a majority of the seminary faculty voted in favor of Enns’ orthodoxy. Apparently, the board has the power to override a faculty vote (there were of course those on the board who gave dissenting votes).

From what I can gather at least one of the concerns centers on Enns’ use of an “incarnational analogy” to speak of the nature of Scripture and whether or not this falls within the bounds of the Westminster Confession of faith. (I imagine that there are also concerns as to whether or not Enns’ engagment with higher criticism is “in bounds”; however, I haven’t heard the details on that).

Enns of course is not the first person in the history of Christianity to employ the incarnational analogy. For example, in Mary Healy’s article, “Biblical Inspiration and the Christological Analogy,” Healy discusses what she calls the “Christological analogy” and its hermeneutical implications in order to move us beyond the “false dichotomy between critical exegesis and Christian faith, so that the biblical text will once again be illumined as a means of access into the mystery of the God who revealed himself in time and space” (p. 193). Healy begins by presenting a basic definition of the doctrine of inspiration, viz., “the conviction that God himself is the primary author of the sacred books” (p. 190). In other words, God himself speaks through the biblical authors. Granting this, we must then take into account both the human and the divine authorship of Scripture. As Healy explains, the Christological analogy-comparing Scripture with the hypostatic union of two natures in Christ-was employed by the Second Vatican Council and has roots in patristic sources (e.g., Chrysostom). The SVC version reads, “For the words of God, expressed in human language, have been made like human discourse, just as of old the Word of the eternal Father, when he took to himself the weak flesh of humanity became like other men.” Here we see the sacramental character of Scripture corresponding to the sacramentality of Christ’s humanity. Moreover, just as Christ was fully human and fully divine, so too we must affirm Scripture as fully human and fully divine-neither elevating one over the other or seeing the two in tension. The human and divine aspects of Scripture form a unity and (contra modern critical practices) given this unity, we cannot presume to discern which passages are “divine” and which are merely “human” (p. 191).

Continuing with the Christological analogy, just as there heretical Christologies, so too are their imbalanced doctrines of Scripture and inspiration. One might, e.g., fall into a kind of “Monophysite” exegesis in which the human dimension of the text is severely downplayed. An extreme version of this would be a “dictation” theory. A second imbalanced approach would move in a direction in which the human aspects are unduly exalted and the divine (if attended to at all) serves as a kind of afterthought. Given our desire to avoid both of these extremes, Healy suggests that we consider a “‘Chalcedonian’ form of exegesis, which does full justice to the human and the divine aspects of Scripture in the integral unity, [...] one which takes seriously the human authorial processes and rigorously investigates the relevant manuscripts, languages, literary genres, historical contexts, cultural settings and so on-but [is] open from the beginning to the interior and vertical dimension. The logical priority of the human dimension is at the service of the teleological priority of the divine: interpretation is for the sake of the knowledge of God in Christ” (p. 192). Clearly, employing the Christological analogy as our hermeneutical key does not mean that we write off completely historical-critical methods. Yet, we do recognize that such “tools” are not neutral and are informed by our own convictions. For example, whether or not we believe that God acts in history will no doubt influence our interpretation. Though we all bring presuppositions to the table and begin with a certain perspective, “[t]he only perspective that is adequate to the realities mediated by Scripture is that which is open to the living God: that is, the perspective of faith. Faith is here understood not merely as assent to confessional doctrines but as a prophetic, that is, divinely bestowed, interpretation of all reality. Its absence-whether real or by artificial abstraction-will close off the most significant dimensions of reality from the perception of the interpreter” (p. 193). To illustrate her point, Healy gives the following excellent analogy taken from Farkasfalvy, “[e]xcluding the experience of faith from the exegetical process … is like subjecting a musical piece to the judgment of a jury whose members must be deaf, so that their aesthetic experience would not interfere with the unbiased objectivity of their judgment” (Farkasfalvy, “In Search of a ‘Post-Critical’ Method of Biblical Interpretation,” p. 303; as cited in Healy, p. 193).

If the current interpretation of the Westminster Confession finds the incarnational analogy heterodox, so much the worse for the Confession. (If there is more to it than this, someone please fill me in).

For more details on Enns’ suspension and his book, see the following blogs/websites:

Sacra doctrina (Dr. Joel Garver)

A review of Inspiration and Incarnation by Susan Wise Bauer

Brandon Withrow

Under the Sun

Christianity Today

*Healy’s article was published in Behind the Text: History and Biblical Interpretation. Edited by Craig Bartholomew, C. Stephen Evans, Mary Healy, and Murray Rae (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), pp. 181-195.

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.  For “God  has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all (1 Corinthians 1:20-28, ESV). 

Below are selected moments from Tom Wright’s commentary on this passage. 

“The resurrection of Jesus was the moment when the one true God appointed the man through whom the whole cosmos would be brought back into its proper order.  A human being had got it into this mess; a human being would get it out again.  The story of Genesis 1-3-the strange, haunting tale of a wonderful world spoiled by the rebellion of God’s image-bearing creatures-is in Paul’s mind throughout this long chapter” (Paul for Everyone:  1 Corinthians, p. 212).  After rehearsing a kind of mini redemptive-historical narrative, St. Paul begins to discuss the coming of God’s kingdom.  Many Jews of St. Paul’s longed for the coming of God’s kingdom-for the day when “God would become king over the whole world, restoring Israel to glory, defeating the nations that had oppressed God’s people for so long, and raising all the righteous dead to share in the new world” (p. 212).   For St. Paul, with the resurrection of Christ, this day had in a very real sense been inaugurated, yet, in a way that took him totally by surprise.  “Instead of all God’s people being raised at the end of history, one person had been raised in the middle of history.  That was the shocking, totally unexpected thing.  But this meant that the coming of God’s kingdom was happening in two phases” (p. 213).  When St. Paul speaks of each occurring “in his own order,” he has in mind both the order of events and God’s final ordering (p. 213).  The former, viz., the order of events, speaks of Jesus’ present reign as the risen Lord and King.  Yet, the “purpose of this reign-to defeat all the enemies that have defaced, oppressed and spoiled God’s magnificent world, and his human creatures in particular-has not yet been accomplished.  One day this task will be complete:  the final enemy, death itself, will be defeated (verse 26), and God will be ‘all in all’ (verse 28)” (p. 213). 

Then we move to the final ordering where we have a picture of a world “put back to rights.”  Here St. Paul appeals to two psalms, and weaves together a Messianic mosaic manifesting to us what we as <i>imago Dei</i> were created to be and do.  “Psalm 110, quoted in verse 25, is about the king whom God will place at his right hand until all his enemies are brought into subjection.  This, Paul declares, is now being fulfilled in Jesus.  Psalm 8, quoted in verse 27, belongs closely with this, speaking of God ‘putting all things into order under his feet’ [Wright's translation].  But instead of talking about the Messiah, as Psalm 110 does, Psalm 8 talks about the human being.  This role, of being under God and over the world, is not just the task of the Messiah; it’s what God had in mind from the very start when he created human beings in his own image.  This is how Paul ties the passage tightly together:  the achievement of the Messiah, and his present reign in which he is bringing the world back to order, is the fulfillment of what God intended humans to do (see verse 21).  The story told in Genesis is completed by the story told in the Psalms” (p. 214). Our enemy, death, of course plays a crucial role in this story; however, death does not have the final word.  Rather, the Final Word has the final word and death is silenced.  He is Risen!

I recently finished reading the book of Job, and came across a few surprising verses in the last chapter.  For example, at the end of Job, we read that part of Job’s restoration included ten more children-seven sons and three daughters-and that Job “named the first [daughter] Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch.” The text goes on to say that Job “gave them an inheritance along with their brothers” (Job 42:13-15). First of all, it struck me as very unusual, particularly in an Old Testament book, to find a listing of the daughters’ names and not the sons’ names. Likewise, I wondered whether, in light of the cultural practices of the day, it was significant that the text highlighted the fact that the daughters also received an inheritance from their father.  Lastly, it seemed that a number of redemptive historical connections that might be drawn from these “clues.”  So I ran these questions/thoughts by a friend of mine who happens to be an Old Testament scholar, Professor Douglas J. Green (Ph.D. Yale University).  Below is a summary of what he said:

(1)  It is indeed unusual that the daughters are named and the sons are not.

(2)  It is also surprising that the daughters along with the sons receive an inheritance, as this instance in Job is unlike some cases that we find in the OT where daughters receive an inheritance because there are no male siblings. 

(3)  If we read the end of Job as a metaphorical return from exile, i.e., as a proleptic view of what things will be like (or at least will begin to be like) in the age to come (i.e., our present age), then a number of interesting possibilities present themselves. 

In other words, the end of Job can be understood as a proto-resurrection story and, as mentioned above, as a foretaste of kingdom life in which both sons and daughters receive an inheritance from the Father, and male and female are given an equal status in the Resurrected One (Gal 3:28) to whom Job’s proto-resurrection points!

I haven’t done justice to Green’s insights on Job-trust me he has significantly more to say than what I’ve summarized briefly above.  Perhaps he will publish the detailed version of his reading of Job sometime in the near future, until then, I’ll leave you with a lengthy quote from Green from one of his lectures on the topic.

Allowing for a reading that transcends (strict) authorial intention, Green suggests that there are a number of connections to be made between Job and righteous Israel’s suffering in exile, and that even if some readers refuse to listen to these clues because they have been overly influenced by modernist hermeneutical assumptions, such was not the case for readers of the late or post-exillic period.  As Green explains,

perhaps readers in the late Exilic or post-Exilic period, readers familiar with Deuteronomy and the Prophets, readers struggling with questions about the suffering of righteous Israel similar to the ones that Second Isaiah is trying to answer, might read Job very differently. The language of Job as Yahweh’s servant, the apparent “echoes” of Second Isaiah in Job 16-19 (or are they echoes of Job in Isaiah?) and the use of Deuteronomic-prophetic “return from captivity” language to describe Job’s reversal of fortunes – all this may have provided more than adequate grounds for these ancient readers to pull Job into the orbit of the Suffering Servant of Second Isaiah and even to (metaphorically) identify the two.

If this is what happened – and yes, it is speculative but in the light of some hints in later exegesis, not entirely so  – then this might explain why Job eventually found its way into that body of literature that Israel eventually labeled as “Scripture.” My contention is that Job came to be read, not as the story of the suffering of “Any Man.” Rather, later readers have pulled Job into the metanarrative of redemptive history, interpreting and valuing the book as another creative commentary – like Second Isaiah – on the meaning of one of the great conundrums of the Exile: the inexplicable suffering/exile of the righteous remnant of Israel. 

In suggesting that Israelite readers made this connection, I realize that I am pulling both the question of Job’s meaning and the question of its canonicity out of the realm of authorial intention and into the realm of reader-response.  Not wild reader response. Not deconstruction or ideological criticism. A reader response that has its roots at least in the text’s connotations if not its denotations. There are enough “hooks” in the text – again, whether they are authorially deliberate or accidental is of no consequence at this point – to invite and encourage, or at least make Job susceptible to, a reading that connects the story to the metanarrative of redemptive history. A reading that makes Job a parable (extended metaphor) of the Exile and Restoration of righteous. A reading that turns it into an additional commentary (besides Second Isaiah) and theological reflection not merely on the generic problem of the suffering of the righteous, but the very specific problem of the God’s apparent violation of the (Mosaic/Deuteronomic) covenant when he brought the covenant curse of Exile/Captivity (Deut 28) on the covenant-keeping remnant of Israel.

Whether I am right my speculations about the reasons behind Job’s canonicity matters little.  What I am arguing for here is a way of reading Job – as an intertext to the story of Isaiah’s Suffering Servant.  I am not suggesting that this is the only right way of reading Job, only that it is a good reading – a good midrash! – (that is, a profitable interpretation that creatively reads with rather than against “grain” of the text, and a reading that will conform to the shape of the Gospel once it is fully revealed to us).  

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been preparing for an upcoming conference on Christian friendship and have been contemplating the possible ways in which Christian friendship and claims specific to Christianity are superior to claims found in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.

Below is a new possibility that I am considering addressing in my paper.

As John 15 declares, Christ informs his disciples of a radical change in their relationship with Him, viz., they are no longer called servants, but are now called friends because they have been brought into the circle of intertrinitarian love.  With this claim, we encounter a concept of vertical and horizontal friendship that is not possible on Aristotle’s view.  Not only has a way been opened up for the most intimate communion between God and human beings-a relationship in which Aristotle’s god (noesis noeseos) has no interest-but also on the horizontal level, those who accept the Trinitarian God’s invitation of friendship are proclaimed both as equals with reference to one another ontologically speaking and with regard to their status before God.  If we compare St. Paul’s claim in Galatians 3:28[1] with Aristotle’s view of the moral superiority of men over women in book VIII of the Nicomachean Ethics, the contrast is striking.  According to St. Paul,  “[t]here is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28, ESV).”[2]  Whereas Aristotle, although placing the husband/wife relationship under a type of virtuous friendship, he nonetheless further qualifies this relationship as unequal because the male is taken to be the superior partner, who confers a greater benefit on the female, and therefore, ought to be loved more than he loves (1158b13-29).[3]  As John M. Cooper explains,

Aristotle’s idea seems to be that men as such are morally superior to women, so that a friendship between the absolutely best man and the absolutely best woman, each recognized as such, would be an unequal friendship.  In such a friendship the disparity in goodness does not imply any deficiency on the side of the lesser person with respect to her own appropriate excellences; she will be perfect of her kind, but the kind in question is inherently lower (emphasis added).[4]

In other words, for Aristotle, female qua female is in some way inherently deficient and the assumed human standard of perfection is the male.  On St. Paul’s view to assert that either a male or a female believer is somehow intrinsically lacking or that one is superior in nature to the other would involve serious soteriological, anthropological, and Christological problems.  After all, the Christian claim is that fellowship with the Father comes only through union with the Son by way of the Spirit.  To suggest, for example, that female Christians are deficient because they are of an intrinsically lower kind would be in some significant way to downgrade their status as human beings, and consequently, to deny that both male and female are created in God’s image.  Such a position seems to entail at least the following rather unpleasant theological consequences.  For example, being less than human, how could women fully partake in the redemption effected by Christ who became everything that human beings are excepting sin?  In addition, such a degraded view of women would no doubt have serious ramifications in connection with a proper understanding of the importance of Mary’s role in the history of redemption.

Up to this point, I have only addressed the equality between genders with relation to friendships among Christians.  As one would expect, this exclusivity naturally raises the question of how or whether this equality translates to non-Christian females.  Although an honest Christian would have to admit that the Church has been inconsistent and has often failed to recognize that by virtue of their creation imago Dei, which is essential to human beings qua human beings, all men and women (whether Christian or not) are created equal in nature and possess an intrinsic value.  From a Christian perspective, one would also have to affirm that male/female friendships between Christians and non-Christians, though genuine and often long-lasting are in a significant sense incomplete because the two do not share faith in Christ.  However, that which is found wanting in such friendships has nothing to do with a putative gender deficiency, but everything to do with whether or not one has by grace through Christ entered into intimate fellowship with the Triune God.  And as St. Paul makes emphatically clear, entrance into such a relationship with God is not the result of any intellectual, moral, or other alleged superiority on the part of the Christian (Eph 2:8-9; 1 Cor 1:20-31).[5]

Notes

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[1] N.T. Wright argues that it is significant that Paul in Gal 3:28 says, “no male and female,” rather than the common mistranslation, “neither male nor female,” because he is actually quoting Gen 1:27.  With this Wright is emphatically not suggesting that Paul is advocating an undoing of the creation order, or that we adopt of a kind of gnostic perspective so as to deal with gender differences, or that we have moved into a kind of enlightened, sexless, genderless view of humanity.  Rather, Wright’s argument “is that Paul’s main point in this passage is that God has one family, not two, and that this family consists of all those who believe in Jesus, that this is the family God promised to Abraham, and that nothing in the Torah can stand in the way of this unity which is now revealed through the faithfulness of the Messiah” (p. 5).  Wright goes on to say that Paul “is controverting in particular those who wanted to enforce Jewish regulations, and indeed Jewish ethnicity, upon Gentile converts. Remember the synagogue prayer in which the man who prays thanks God that he has not made him a Gentile, a slave, or a woman. I think Paul is deliberately marking out the family of Abraham reformed in the Messiah as a people who cannot pray that prayer, since within this family these distinctions are now irrelevant.The presenting issue in Galatians is male circumcision. We sometimes think of circumcision as a painful obstacle for con­verts, as indeed in some ways it was; but for those who embraced circumcision, it was a matter of pride and privilege. It not only distinguished Jews from Gentiles; it also distinguished them in a way that automatically privileged males. By contrast, imagine the thrill of equality brought about by baptism, the identical rite for Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female. And that’s not all. Though this is somewhat more speculative, the story of Abraham’s family did of course privilege the male line of descent: Isaac, Jacob, and so on. What we find in Paul, both in Galatians 4 and in Romans 9, is careful attention-rather like Matthew 1, in fact, though from a different angle-to the women in the story. If those in Christ are the true family of Abraham, which is the point of the whole story, then the manner of this identity and unity takes a quantum leap beyond the way in which first-century Judaism construed them, bringing male and female together as surely and as equally as Jew and Gentile. What Paul seems to do in this passage, then, is rule out any attempt to per­petuate male privilege in Abraham’s family by an appeal to Gen­esis 1, as though someone were to say, ‘But of course the male line is what matters, and of course male circumcision is what counts, because God made male and female.’ No, says Paul, none of that counts when it comes to membership in the renewed people of Abraham” (p. 6).  N.T. Wright, “The Biblical Basis for Women’s Service in the Church,” Priscilla Papers Vol. 20, no. 4 (Autumn 2006): 5-10.  (This article is available online at: http://www.cbeinternational.org/new/pdf_files/wright_biblical_basis.pdf).

[2] This is not to suggest that maleness and femaleness are eradicated and that what remains is a kind of genderless individual.  One possible way that a Christian might begin to successfully navigate the commonness and difference between males and females is to proffer a Trinitarian analogy.  That is, just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are equal in nature, they exhibit different functions.[3] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (VIII.7), p. 152.

[4] Cooper, “Aristotle on Friendship,” p. 307, as found in Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics. 

[5] “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8-9, ESV).  “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.  For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Cor 1:20-31, ESV).

In part I, we discussed John 6:22-51 in order to better understand the context of the famous bread of life discourse. We now come to the concluding section of the passage, viz., verses 52-58. In verse 52, we again have echoes of the Israelites’ grumblings during the exodus, as the Jews in the current dialogue dispute among themselves in their attempt to grasp the meaning of Jesus’ words. In typical fashion, Jesus does not directly answer their question, but begins His response in verse 53, saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Here Jesus refers to Himself as the “Son of Man,” which in Johannine theology denotes “both Jesus’ heavenly origin and destination [cf. e.g., 1:51; 3:13; 6:62] … and his ‘lifting up’ (substitutionary sacrifice) on the cross (3:14; 8:28; 12:34; cf. 6:53; 12:23; 13:31)” [Ibid., p. 86]. Köstenberger goes on to argue that here Jesus “speaks of the surrender of his ‘flesh and blood’—a Hebrew idiom referring to the whole person (cf. Matt. 16:17; 1 Cor. 15:50; Eph. 6:12; … Heb. 2:14)—unto death and of believers ‘eating and drinking’ of it as the bread that came down from heaven by which alone a human being can live” (Ibid., p. 216). Calvin adds that when Jesus emphatically accents, “the flesh of the Son of man,” He is addressing the Jews’ unbelief of Jesus’ heavenly origin, given that He resembled other men in the flesh. In other words, Calvin explains the meaning of verse 53 as, “[d]espise me as much as you please, on account of the mean and despicable appearance of my flesh, still that despicable flesh contains life; and if you are destitute of it, you will nowhere else find any thing else to quicken you” (Calvin’s Commentary on John, p. 265).

Verse 54 is yet again in no way an excessive use of repetition given our inclination to seek life outside of Christ. “Accordingly, as he lately testified that nothing but death remains for all who seek life anywhere else than in his flesh, so now he excites all believers to cherish good hope, while he promises to them life in the same flesh” (Ibid., pp. 265-266). Then in the last part of verse 54, we find an important connection between the one who feeds on Christ and the one who is resurrected “on the last day.” Calvin, appealing to St. Augustine, writes, “[i]t ought to be observed, that Christ so frequently connects the resurrection with eternal life, because our salvation will be hidden till that day. No man, therefore, can perceive what Christ bestows on us, unless, rising above the world, he places before his eyes the last resurrection. From these words, it plainly appears that the whole of this passage is improperly explained, as applied to the Lord’s Supper. For if it were true that all who present themselves at the holy table of the Lord are made partakers of his flesh and blood, all will, in like manner, obtain life; but we know that there are many who partake of it to their condemnation. And indeed it would have been foolish and unreasonable to discourse about the Lord’s Supper, before he had instituted it. It is certain, then, that he now speaks of the perpetual and ordinary manner of eating the flesh of Christ, which is done by faith only. And yet, at the same time, I acknowledge that there is nothing said here that is not figuratively represented, and actually bestowed on believers, in the Lord’s Supper; and Christ even intended that the holy Supper should be, as it were, a seal and confirmation of this sermon. This is also the reason why the Evangelist John makes no mention of the Lord’s Supper; and therefore Augustine follows the natural order, when, in explaining this chapter, he does not touch on the Lord’s Supper till he comes to the conclusion; and then he shows that this mystery is symbolically represented, whenever the Churches celebrate the Lord’s Supper, in some places daily, and in other places only on the Lord’s day” (Ibid., p. 266; emphasis added).

When Jesus explains that His flesh (sarx) is true flesh and that His blood is true drink (σάρξ μου ἀληθής ἐστιν βρῶσις, καὶ τὸ αἷμα μου ἀληθής ἐστιν πόσις, v. 55 ), He draws attention to Himself as “the eschatological, typology fulfillment in relation to OT precursors” (Johnp. 216). Yet, there is more, as Calvin so beautifully explains, “when he declares that his flesh is truly food, he means that souls are famished, if they want [lack] that food. Then only wilt thou find life in Christ, when thou shalt seek the nourishment of life in his flesh. Thus we ought to boast, with Paul, that we reckon nothing to be excellent but Christ crucified; because, as soon as we have departed from the sacrifice of his death, we meet with nothing but death; nor is there any other road that conducts us to a perception of his Divine power than through his death and resurrection. Embrace Christ, therefore, as the Servant of the Father, (Isaiah 42:1, ) that he may show himself to thee to be the Prince of life, (Acts 3:15.) For when he emptied himself , (Philippians 2:7, ) in this manner we were enriched with abundance of all blessings; his humiliation and descent into hell raised us to heaven; and, by enduring the curse of his cross, he erected the banner of our righteousness as a splendid memorial of his victory. Consequently, they are false expounders of the mystery of the Lord’s Supper, who draw away souls from the flesh of Christ” (Ibid., pp. 266-267). Here we should keep in mind that Calvin is not saying that this passage speaks directly of the Lord’s Supper, as the Lord’s Supper had not even been instituted at this point in the Johannine narrative. Yet, Calvin neither denies that what is said in John 6 is symbolically “represented, and actually bestowed on believers, in the Lord’s Supper” nor does he rule out a depth to the text that would allow for multiple dimensions to be brought forth at a later time in redemptive history. For example, Calvin is neither ignorant of nor does he condemn St. Paul’s interpretation of the manna in 1 Cor 10:1-5 [1]. Regarding these two seemingly opposed interpretations, Calvin repeatedly highlights the fact that Christ and St. Paul are dealing with different audiences and must speak accommodatingly to those audiences and with regard to the specific problems at hand. For example, in St. John’s gospel, Christ is dealing with unbelief and with those who were concerned only with satisfying physical needs. Hence, Christ in his comparison of the present unbelief of the Jews with the Israelites of old emphasizes how both groups because of their lack of faith were only able to see according to their own preconceived notions. St. Paul, however, is dealing with a different issue in 1 Corinthians. The Corinthians had become arrogant and were testing God with their candidly sinful behavior. Consequently, St. Paul appeals to certain aspects of the Israelites’ story to urge the Corinthians to repent. As Calvin acknowledges, in 1 Cor 10:1-5 St. Paul presents a correspondence between the eating and drinking in the wilderness wanderings and the sacraments of the Lord’s Supper. In addition, without denying the temporal advantages of the blessings of food and drink given by God to sustain his people, St. Paul speaks of a (hidden) spiritual dimension in relation to these outward signs. Though these spiritual dimensions, viz., the spiritual eating and drinking, are not found explicitly in the OT text, St. Paul, given his status as an apostle and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, re-interprets (that is, gives a new meaning to) these events in light of the progress of redemptive history. Here we have what we might call an exclusive hermeneutical apostolic (and divine) privilege [2].

Returning to our discussion of the immediate text (in John 6), the first part of verse 56 reads, “[w]hoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood,” is as Calvin says, “another confirmation; for while he alone has life in himself, he shows how we may enjoy it, that is, by eating his flesh; as if he had affirmed that there is no other way in which he can become ours, than by our faith being directed to his flesh. For no one will ever come to Christ as God, who despises him as man; and, therefore, if you wish to have any interest in Christ, you must take care, above all things, that you do not disdain his flesh” (Ibid., pp. 267-268). Then in the last part of verse 56, we encounter the language of abiding, viz., our abiding in Christ and his abiding in us. This mutual indwelling mentioned here foreshadows what will be discussed at length in John 15 regarding the believer’s union with Christ. Then in verse 57 we read, “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.” Here the intimacy of Jesus’ union with the Father is presented as the archetypal image of our union with Christ from whom and through whom we obtain eternal life. Calvin adds that in this verse Christ “now comes to speak of the principal cause, for the first source of life is in the Father. But he meets an objection, for it might be thought that he took away from God what belonged to him, when he made himself the cause of life. He makes himself, therefore, to be the Author of life, in such a manner, as to acknowledge that there was another who gave him what he administers to others. Let us observe, that this discourse also is accommodated to the capacity of those to whom Christ was speaking; for it is only with respect to his flesh that he compares himself to the Father. For though the Father is the beginning of life, yet the eternal Word himself is strictly life. But the eternal Divinity of Christ is not the present subject; for he exhibits himself such as he was manifested to the world, clothed with our flesh.” Calvin goes on to state regarding the words, “I live because of the Father,” that “[t]his does not apply to his [Christ’s] Divinity simply, nor does it apply to his human nature simply and by itself, but it is a description of the Son of God manifested in the flesh. Besides, we know that it is not unusual with Christ to ascribe to the Father every thing Divine which he had in himself. It must be observed, however, that he points out here three degrees of life. In the first rank is the living Father, who is the source, but remote and hidden. Next follows the Son, who is exhibited to us as an open fountain, and by whom life flows to us. The third is, the life which we draw from him. We now perceive what is stated to amount to this, that God the Father, in whom life dwells, is at a great distance from us, and that Christ, placed between us, is the second cause of life, in order that what would otherwise be concealed in God may proceed from him to us” (Ibid., pp. 268-269).

Ridderbos sums up the thrust of this passage (vs. 53-58) well when he describes St. John’s focus as highlighting “the offense of Jesus’ death on the cross,” the intimate union between Jesus and believers, and “the reality of the incarnation; in other words, in all this we are dealing not with the mystery of the sacrament but with the mystery of christology” (The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary, p. 237).

Notes

[1] Calvin acknowledges that St. Paul’s interpretation of the manna and the rock cannot be obtained from what we might call a strict grammatico-historical reading the OT text. He then gives a similar example of this kind of (re)interpretation as exhibited by Christ himself in his explanation of the brazen serpent as a “spiritual sacrament (John 3:14) and yet not a word has come down to us as to this thing, but the Lord revealed to believers of that age, in the manner he thought fit, the secret, which would otherwise have remained hid” (Calvin’s Commentary on 1 Corinthians, p. 315).

[2] A second paper would be required in order to give a detailed exegetical explanation for this passage (1 Cor 10:1-5). Suffice it say that Calvin’s view is “that the reality of the things signified was exhibited in connection with the ancient sacraments. As, therefore, they were emblems of Christ, it follows, that Christ was connected with them, not locally, nor by a natural or substantial union, but sacramentally. […] Regarding St. Paul’s words that the Israelites of old “ate the same spiritual food” and “drank the same spiritual drink” which was Christ (1 Cor 10:4), Calvin says that though this clearly predates Christ’s incarnation, nonetheless, those who ate in faith ate true spiritual food and were nourished, as ultimately, “their salvation depended on the benefit of his [Christ’s] death and resurrection. Hence, they required to receive the flesh and the blood of Christ, that they might participate in the benefit of redemption. This reception of it was the secret work of the Holy Spirit, who wrought in them in such a manner, that Christ’s flesh, though not yet created, was made efficacious in them. He [St. Paul] means, however, that they ate in their own way, which was different from ours, and this is what I have previously stated, that Christ is now presented to us more fully, according to the measure of the revelation. For, in the present day, the eating is substantial, which it could not have been then — that is, Christ feeds us with his flesh, which has been sacrificed for us, and appointed as our food, and from this we derive life.” Perhaps Calvin’s explanation here gives evidence that his Eucharistic understanding (contra D. Farrow) does in fact include eschatological dimensions that transcend time—in this particular instance, as it were, extending backward. Regarding the natural question of how we are to understand an unbeliever’s participation in the sacraments of old, Calvin states that those Israelites who did not eat with faith invalidated the possibility of an effectual partaking because the instrument by which Christ is received, viz., faith, was absent. As Calvin explains, “the manna, in relation to God, was spiritual meat even to unbelievers, but because the mouth of unbelievers was but carnal, they did not eat what was given them”(Calvin’s Commentary on 1 Corinthians, p. 319-320).

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:20-28, ESV).

Below are selected moments from Tom Wright’s commentary on this passage.

“The resurrection of Jesus was the moment when the one true God appointed the man through whom the whole cosmos would be brought back into its proper order. A human being had got it into this mess; a human being would get it out again. The story of Genesis 1-3—the strange, haunting tale of a wonderful world spoiled by the rebellion of God’s image-bearing creatures—is in Paul’s mind throughout this long chapter” (Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians, p. 212). After rehearsing a kind of mini redemptive-historical narrative, St. Paul begins to discuss the coming of God’s kingdom. Many Jews of St. Paul’s longed for the coming of God’s kingdom—for the day when “God would become king over the whole world, restoring Israel to glory, defeating the nations that had oppressed God’s people for so long, and raising all the righteous dead to share in the new world” (p. 212). For St. Paul, with the resurrection of Christ, this day had in a very real sense been inaugurated, yet, in a way that took him totally by surprise. “Instead of all God’s people being raised at the end of history, one person had been raised in the middle of history. That was the shocking, totally unexpected thing. But this meant that the coming of God’s kingdom was happening in two phases” (p. 213). When St. Paul speaks of each occurring “in his own order,” he has in mind both the order of events and God’s final ordering (p. 213). The former, viz., the order of events, speaks of Jesus’ present reign as the risen Lord and King. Yet, the “purpose of this reign—to defeat all the enemies that have defaced, oppressed and spoiled God’s magnificent world, and his human creatures in particular—has not yet been accomplished. One day this task will be complete: the final enemy, death itself, will be defeated (verse 26), and God will be ‘all in all’ (verse 28)” (p. 213).

Then we move to the final ordering where we have a picture of a world “put back to rights.” Here St. Paul appeals to two psalms, and weaves together a Messianic mosaic manifesting to us what we as imago Dei were created to be and do. “Psalm 110, quoted in verse 25, is about the king whom God will place at his right hand until all his enemies are brought into subjection. This, Paul declares, is now being fulfilled in Jesus. Psalm 8, quoted in verse 27, belongs closely with this, speaking of God ‘putting all things into order under his feet’ [Wright’s translation]. But instead of talking about the Messiah, as Psalm 110 does, Psalm 8 talks about the human being. This role, of being under God and over the world, is not just the task of the Messiah; it’s what God had in mind from the very start when he created human beings in his own image. This is how Paul ties the passage tightly together: the achievement of the Messiah, and his present reign in which he is bringing the world back to order, is the fulfillment of what God intended humans to do (see verse 21). The story told in Genesis is completed by the story told in the Psalms” (p. 214). Our enemy, death, of course plays a crucial role in this story; however, death does not have the final word. Rather, the Final Word has the final word and death is silenced. He is Risen!

“Over the last generation in Western culture, truth has been like the rope in a tug-of-war contest. On the one hand, some want to reduce all truth to ‘facts,’ things which can be proved in the way you can prove that oil is lighter than water, or even that two and two make four. On the other hand, some believe that all truth is relative, and that all claims to truth are merely coded claims to power. Ordinary mortals, dimly aware of this tug-of-war, and its social, cultural, and political spin-offs, may well feel some uncertainty about what truth is, while still knowing that it matters.

The sort of thing we could and should mean by ‘truth’ will vary according to what we’re talking about. If I want to go into town, it matters whether the person who has told me to take the number 53 bus is speaking the truth or not. But by no means all truth is of that kind, or testable in the same way. If there’s any truth lying behind the quest for justice, it is that the world isn’t meant to be morally chaotic; but what do we mean by ‘meant,’ and how would we know? If there’s any truth in the thirst for spirituality, it could be simply that humans find satisfaction in exploring a ‘spiritual’ dimension to their lives, or it could be that we are made for relationship with another Being who can only be known that way. And, talking of relationships, the ‘truth’ of a relationship is in the relationship itself, in being ‘true to’ one another, which is considerably more than (though presumably it includes) telling each other the truth about the number 53 bus. As for beauty, we cannot collapse ‘truth’ into ‘beauty’ without running the risk of deconstructing truth by pointing out, as we did earlier, the fragility and ambiguity of the beauty we know here and now.

What we mean by ‘know’ is likewise in need of further investigation. To ‘know’ the deeper kinds of truth we have been hinting at is much more like ‘knowing’ a person—something which takes a long time, a lot of trust, and a good deal of trial and error—and less like ‘knowing’ about the right bus to take into town. It’s a kind of knowing in which the subject and the object are intertwined, so that you could never say that is was either purely subjective or purely objective.

One good word for this deeper and richer kind of knowing, the kind that goes with the deeper and richer kind of truth, is ‘love’” (Simply Christian, pp. 50-51).

In chapter 4 of N.T. Wright’s book, Simply Christian, he presents a nice illustration of the incomplete beauty that we encounter in our world in its present state. He describes a collector who was rummaging through an attic in a small Austrian town and happened to come across what seemed to be an unknown score of Mozart. Elated, the collector informed his friends and soon someone was sitting at a piano and attempting to play the piece. As it turns out, the work was indeed Mozart, however, there were numerous places that were left blank and some that were impossible to make out. What they had found was simply one part (the piano part) to a larger work. “What they are looking at is indeed by Mozart. It is indeed beautiful. But it’s the piano part of a piece that involves another instrument, or perhaps other instruments. By itself it is frustratingly incomplete. A further search of the attic reveals nothing else that would provide a clue. The piano music is all there is, a signpost to something that was there once and might still turn up one day. […] This is the position we are in when confronted by beauty. The world is full of beauty, but the beauty is incomplete. Our puzzlement about what beauty is, what it means, and what (if anything) it is there for is the inevitable result of looking at one part of a larger whole. Beauty, in other words, is another echo of a voice—a voice which (from the evidence before us) might be saying one of several different things, but which, were we to hear it in all its fullness, would make sense of what we presently see and hear and know and love and call ‘beautiful.’” (p. 40).

In John 8:19 Jesus pointedly answers the Jews’ unbelieving question “Where is your Father?” with, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” As Ridderbos explains, the Jews’ question was not a case of simply needing more information, rather “[i]n raising the question they are assuming a formal legal position: if a person appeals to the testimony of a witness, that person should be able to produce the witness! Again, […] they are presenting a demand for legitimation and an indirect challenge: if the Father is going to be your witness, bring him forward!” (The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary, p. 297). This demand for legitimation is actually an indication of their failure to acknowledge Jesus’ own self-testimony as Lord (as St. Paul would say, a “suppressing of the truth in unrighteousness”), which is in turn a rejection of the Father’s self-testimony. “That is, they are inwardly strangers to and outside the fellowship of both Jesus and his Father. And the two are inseparable. If they really knew Jesus and if his words did not sound strange and presumptuous in their ears, they would not ask, ‘Where is your Father?’ They would know that what he says is of God and that the Father is his witness” (Ibid., p. 297).

Jesus has repeated made the claim throughout this pericope that He and the Father are one, but now He says it in such a way to press what some Reformed theologians call the “antithesis,” i.e., the divide between believer and unbeliever in which the ultimate question becomes: will you acknowledge and embrace Jesus’ claims and place yourself on the side of covenant-keepers or will you reject his claims, demand further “legitimation” (to what higher authority could one appeal?), and align yourself with covenant-breakers who suppress the truth? Though, of course, at this point, the wisdom of the world cries, “circularity, circularity, circularity.” That is, the “person will say that Jesus’ ‘evidence’ consists precisely in what needs to be proved: that the Father is with him as the great ‘witness’ of what he says and does. This short circuit is inherent in the issue itself. God’s revelation does not subject itself to human control and cannot be required to legitimate itself by human standards. It can only be ‘known’ and assented to by those who ‘know’ him, that is, by those who, as children of God, are born not of flesh and blood but of God (1:13; 3:3ff.). But this a priori is not a demand for blind faith in the one sent by God. It is a ‘knowing’ in the light of Jesus’ words and works. If, therefore, Jesus bears witness to himself as the light of the world, this does not call for ‘unknowing’ acceptance (cf. 6:69). Rather, it is a coming to know, by the content of Jesus’ words and the power of his deeds, the claim and irrefutability of the love of God extended to the world in him. It is to that decision of faith that all these dialogues lead and in the confrontation with which they all find their conclusion and climax” (Ibid., p. 298). In sum, Ridderbos seems to be saying that not all circles are vicious (though some are) and indeed some circles are necessary. I tend to agree.

Below is a summary with added comments here and there of a lecture given by Dr. Peter Enns of Westminster Theological seminary on Chronicles and intrabiblical interpretation.

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When we look at the Bible itself, we see evidence of intrabiblical interpretation. The book of Chronicles is an excellent example of intrabiblical interpretation. Though our (Protestant) canonical order follows the LXX, in the Hebrew Bible the book of Chronicles is last. Chronicles is not simply the “extra stuff” that the Samuel/Kings books failed to use, rather it is a theological statement, a theology. In some respects, Chronicles is a theology of the OT, and that is precisely why it is placed last. In fact, Chronicles something different about the same event. When you compare 2 Samuel 7:16 with 1 Chronicles 17:14, the natural question to ask is, “Whose house/kingdom is in view? Is it David’s or God’s?” Harmonization is a common approach used by many evangelicals to “solve” this “problem.” (Here we might ask as to whether the ancients would even see a problem?) Instead of the harmonization approach, Enns suggests that we should look for theological reasons for why these apparent discrepancies are found. To be sure, it is logically possible for one event to be told from various points of view, yet without contradiction. So instead of harmonization, we might consider exploring the ancient way. Chronicles is a post-exillic book, i.e., it is written after the return from exile. Samuel/Kings is a pre-exillic text. The pre-exillic Israelite world had confidence in David’s everlasting reign. In contrast, the post-exillics came back to a land that God had said that they would have forever—a land now with no king, no temple, no sacrifice, no forgiveness etc. So, as you would imagine, one of the first things they did was to rebuild the temple. Being without a temple in the ancient world was something of a crisis and caused God’s people great confusion and dismay. Given the seriousness of the exile for God’s people, it is rather strange that it is often so quickly dismissed. I Chronicles 17 transfers the ultimate fulfillment of 2 Samuel from the earthly transitory realm and locates it in the unchanging heavenly realm. This is an extremely significant theological point, viz. the emphasis is that God is on the throne. The Israelites have come back after the exile and they are asking, “Are we still the people of God? Is the God of the past still the God of the present even though we do not have what we used to have?” The reason why Chronicles is last in the canon is that it is a statement of Israel’s self-identity in view of their circumstances. This is why it begins with a genealogy, and the first name in the genealogy is Adam. Why Adam? The people want to emphasize that their identity goes back to the very beginning—they are God’s people and have always been God’s people.

Chronicles (and the Scriptures in general) also help us to see that God’s revelation progressed through history. The ultimate basis of hope is based in heaven with the kingdom of God, not with the kingdom of man. In Jesus, the two dimensions are fused such that the kingdom has come with Christ. The “spin” that Chronicles puts on the earlier texts is that we now have to understand our past in light of present circumstances. This is why it is inadequate to look at these texts (Samuel and Chronicles) and ask, “Which is right?” (Interestingly, this is the question of both the modern critic and the fundamentalist). Instead, the biblical question is, “Why are these different accounts given to us?” As Enns points out, Chronicles is one of the most Messianic books in the OT. That is, Messianic in that we are looking for a future that will restore the glories of the past—where a king is on the throne, a priesthood is established, Jerusalem is a safe haven, boundaries are extended, there no threats from the outside, and so on,. This is the Messianic hope of the OT. Christ comes and fills that hope and much, much more.Lastly, Chronicles raises the issue of the relationship between text and event. The whole issue of the relationship between text and event brings us into dialogue with modern biblical scholarship. For example, instead of asking, “What did x actually say, or which of the gospels gets it right,” perhaps a better question is “What is this gospel trying to say?” In other words, we want to consider what each corpus of material is attempting to say. Then we can begin to look at the various points of view and see how they relate. Enns closed the lecture by reminding us that we should also ask, “What does this tell us about what God is like?” Given God’s comfort with history and all its vicissitudes, not to mention that the Bible that we have is that one that God has chosen to give us, we must continually strive to have a doctrine of Scripture that Scripture itself can actually support. All to often we instead find ourselves ardently defending a doctrine of Scripture that fits more comfortably with our modern presuppositions and that in the end that forces us into explaining away what Scripture is actually doing.

Commenting on John 5:36, “but the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the father has sent me,” Ridderbos says the following in regard to the self-legitimation of Jesus’ greater testimony:

“Jesus bases himself on the ‘works’ that the Father ‘granted’ him ‘to accomplish’ […] this term [works, τα εργα] refers to the content of Jesus’ entire mission, his miracles and his words; for the words, Jesus’ speaking with the authority of God’s Son ‘to make alive’ and ‘to judge,’ also belong to that which the Father has ‘granted’ Jesus (cf. vss. 22, 26, 27). Implied in this, however, is that Jesus’ legitimation does not consist only in something outside his own actions, or in some additional verification from without, as the Jews desired (cf. Mt. 12:28ff.; 16:1ff.; 1 Co. 1:22), something that would furnish to everyone an ‘objective’ proof of his heavenly origin. No person who cannot recognize the work, voice, and revelation of God in Jesus’ work itself will be persuaded of it by some other independent means” (The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary, p. 203; bold added).

This seems to me to be the same point that Calvin and other Dutch Reformed apologists have made in regard to the self-attesting nature of Scripture (though I don’t think that Ridderbos advocates the latter). The self-attestation of Christ and of Scripture seem to go hand in hand and any attempt to appeal to some external authority or additional verification seems to place that thing or person or group of people above the canon or above the God of the canon. Some circles do seem necessary, but not all of them are vicious.

Commenting on John 5:24, “Truly, truly I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life,” Ridderbos writes the following:

“for the one who hears his word and believes God who sent him eternal life has already begun, the judgment of God has lost its fearsomeness, and death has been superseded. What makes this pronouncement special is, of course, that the final decision that determines the life and future of human beings and that is spoken of here and in what follows in eschatological language is transferred from the future to the present, in accordance with the word that Jesus speaks as the one sent by the Father and with the answer people give to it. The distinction between present and future is not thereby canceled out […], but eternal life does begin qualitatively in the present. Death also gains a different content than what it usually has for humans: already in this life it is experienced as a passage to true eternal life and thus loses its all-threatening, ultimately critical character for the future. It is no longer ahead of a person but behind him or her” (The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary,p. 197, emphasis added).

Then in the next verse we read, “Truly, truly I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now hear when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (John 5:25). Here Ridderbos says that verse 25, though seemingly paradoxical concretizes verse 24, and being “an expression of Jesus’ messianic consciousness, it may perhaps be considered the most powerful pronouncement in John’s Gospel” (Ibid. , p. 197). The dead spoken of here is not a reference only to the future dead, “for the voice of the Son of God that calls the dead to life resounds now. Those who hear his voice will not just live in the future, therefore, but now already they will ‘pass out of death into life,’ delivered from the power of death by the voice that calls them to rise” (cf. 1 Jn 3:14; p. 198; emphases added).

Слава Богу!

Below are selected passages (with minimal commentary here and there) from Peter Enns’ article, “Apostolic Hermeneutics and an Evangelical Doctrine of Scripture: Moving beyond a Modernist Impasse.” (The article originally appeared in the Fall 2003 issue of the Westminster Theological Journal).

Personally, I found the article extremely helpful and would recommend it, as well as Enns’ book, Inspiration And Incarnation: Evangelicals And The Problem Of The Old Testament, to those interested in engaging hermeneutical issues from a distinctively Christian point of view. (Because I am citing the passages from an electronic copy of the article, there are no “page numbers” to cite. My copy of the original article as published in the WTJ is packed in a box, as we are preparing to move into our first home this week!) Lastly, if anyone wants an electronic copy of the article in its entirety, email me and I’ll be happy to send it your way.*******
In his article, Enns argues that “the Apostles’ hermeneutical goal (or agenda), the centrality of the death and resurrection of Christ, must be also ours by virtue of the fact that we share the same eschatological moment. This is why we must follow them precisely with respect to their Christotelic hermeneutic.” Consequently, if we employ a Christotelic hermeneutic, we cannot simply treat the OT primarily literally (a “first reading”), as this does not lead to a Christotelic reading (a “second reading”).

Rather, “a Christian understanding of the OT should begin with what God revealed to the Apostles and what they model for us: the centrality of the death and resurrection of Christ for OT interpretation. We, too, are living at the end of the story; we are engaged in the second reading by virtue of our eschatological moment, which is now as it was for the Apostles the last days, the inauguration of the eschaton. We bring the death and resurrection of Christ to bear on the OT. Again, this is not a call to flatten out the OT, so that every psalm or proverb speaks directly and explicitly of Jesus. It is, however, to ask oneself, ‘What difference does the death and resurrection of Christ make for how I understand this proverb?’ It is the recognition of our privileged status to be living in the post-resurrection cosmos that must be reflected in our understanding of the OT. Therefore, if what claims to be Christian proclamation of the OT simply remains in the pre-eschatological moment—simply reads the OT ‘on its own terms’—such is not a Christian proclamation in the apostolic sense.”

Enns then asks, “Just how far do we follow the exegetical methods used by the Apostles?” Given that we did not live in the Second Temple period, we cannot follow the Apostles in toto, i.e., we do not have the authority to omit, add or change words as the Apostles often freely did. However, this is not to endorse a strict grammatico-historical approach (GH), because that approach will not yield a Christotelic reading. So is a Christotelic approach just a better “method” than the GH orientation? Here Enns is instructive and asks, “what if ‘method,’ so understood, is not as central a concept as we might think? What if biblical interpretation is not guided so much by method but by an intuitive, Spirit-led engagement of Scripture with the anchor being not what the author intended but by how Christ gives the OT its final coherence?” It is not “method” per se that serves as the impetus of apostolic hermeneutics, rather the arrival of Christ necessitates new exegetical horizons. Thus, speaking in terms of Apostolic exegetical “methods,” is likely to lead us astray.

Enns goes on to say that this is in part why he has been attracted to Biblical Theology (BT) of the Vosian flavor. By BT, Enns has in mind the sense in which Vos used the term, viz., as the “self-revelation of God” as recorded in the Bible. [1]. Further explicating Vos’ notion, Enns writes, “Inherent in Vos’s conception of Biblical Theology are such notions as the progress of redemption culminating in the person and work of Christ in whom Scripture coheres, while also showing a respect for theological diversity as a function of the historical situatedness of revelation. Both of these dimensions of Biblical Theology are central to the thoughts I have outlined here. Such an approach to biblical interpretation is not a “method” that assures a stable exegetical result, but a spiritual exercise wherein a Christian looks at Scripture from the point of view of what she/he knows to be true—Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again—and reads the OT with the expectation that it somehow coheres in that fact. Perhaps Biblical Theology is as much about where one starts as it is about where one finishes. From a more explicitly ‘methodological’ point of view, I have tended to focus on such things as links (both on the lexical and larger syntactical levels) between various portions of Scripture as well as larger OT themes that either explicitly or subvocally come to completion in Christ. But these ‘methods’ do not determine the Christotelic conclusion. Rather, they are employed with the end result already in mind. This is also true for those portions of the OT that have been resistant (and for good reason) to typology, namely, Wisdom Literature. And again, this is why I find the term “Christocentric” unhelpful. Christ is not the ‘center’ of Proverbs or Ecclesiastes, but he is the ‘end.’ As in-Christ beings participating in the last days, we are obliged to think of how that status impinges upon what a proverb or Ecclesiastes ‘means.’ And the ‘method’ by which these horizons are bridged is a creative, intentional, purposeful exploration that moves back and forth between the words on the page and the eschatological context that we share with the Apostles but that the OT authors did not.”

 

Notes
[1] Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), 5.