Communicating God: Doctrine of Scripture 3
I got distracted in the last post… It’s hard not too with so many different voices demanding to be heard. The image of the mechanically inspired prophet (ear-cocked, stylus at the ready, listening for the whispers from the beyond) seems a very long way from the full-on, multi-voiced shouting match that is enacted in the pages of a prophet like Micah or Isaiah. And yet, it’s this whole conversation that is envisaged when the author of Hebrews writes: In the past God spoke to our ancestors through [by] the prophets at many times and in various ways… (Hebrews 1:1–2 NIV11).
Various Ways: God to prophet – prophet to God – God to people via prophet – prophet to people commenting on above – people to God via prophet – people to prophet commenting on above. And then all of the above performed while laying on your right side for a couple of years, cooking your food with excrement. Or doing a chicken dance.
Now the author of Hebrews adds another dimension to this choir of scriptural voices: God addresses his eternal Son in the words of Scripture.
Check out the chain of Old Testament quotations running from v.5 – v. 13. In quick succession the author gives us a list of instances when God could have (but didn’t) speak to angels in the words of Scripture: For to which of the angels did God ever say... [and repeated] To which of the angels did God ever say (Hebrews 1:5, 13 NIV11). And God certainly speaks about the angels in the words of scripture: In speaking of the angels he says… (Hebrews 1:7 NIV11) But this is just teasing. Look at the whole of verse 5 and let the implications of who God isn’t talking to really sink in:
For to which of the angels did He ever say,
“You are My Son; today I have become Your Father,”
or again,
“I will be His Father, and He will be My Son?”
When He again brings His firstborn into the world, He says,
“And all God’s angels must worship Him.”
And about the angels He says:
“He makes His angels winds, and His servants a fiery flame,”
but to the Son:
“Your throne, God, is forever and ever, and the scepter of Your kingdom is a scepter of justice. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; this is why God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of joy rather than Your companions.”
And:
“In the beginning, Lord, You established the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands; they will perish, but You remain. They will all wear out like clothing; You will roll them up like a cloak, and they will be changed like a robe. But You are the same, and Your years will never end.” (Hebrews 1:5–12 HCSB)
He isn’t talking to the angels because he is talking to his eternal Son.
The texts are presented with an extraordinary rhetorical flourish: the author seems to suggest that God is speaking these words directly to the Son at the same time as the text being read to the congregation. God speaks as the text is read. The words addressed in this letter to human ears, addressed at this moment by a human voice, are the words of the Father addressing the Son. The moment of the ascension, when the words which had been applied to the Davidic Kings find their true referent in the King of Kings, that moment is made present to those assembled to hear the Letter read. God speaks and re-speaks those words, testifying again that Jesus is Lord, Creator (v. 10), Eternal (v.11-12) and God (θεος v8).
Who speaks in Scripture? The Father speaks about the Son, to the Son, for a human audience to hear and worship.
And yet, all the quotes above, words which the author of Hebrews explicitly attributes to God, come from the book of Psalms where their original setting is clearly on the lips of a human worshipper speaking them to God in praise (for his deeds).
Comment and ShareHow to apply the Old Testament: New Testament Contexts
For any Old Testament passage a crucial interpretive context is that surrounding the advent of Jesus. This has two dimensions, it involves understanding both how the people who were reading the OT and calling on God to be faithful to his promises anticipated and reacted to the coming of Jesus; and, how Jesus himself interpreted and applied the scriptures in the context of his life, death, and resurrection. Here we have the whole Old Testament word reinterpreted and applied afresh.
We could never really responsibly undertake this task of understanding on our own. Fortunately we’re not. There has been brilliant work done, particularly in the last 50 years, on understanding the extra-biblical Jewish context into which Jesus spoke and acted. But this extra-biblical material (useful as it might be) pales alongside the remarkable treasure of the four-fold Gospel. In these strange, overlapping, dependent-yet-having-a-mind-of-their-own accounts, we get a narrative of Jesus’ life/death/resurrection/ascension that is embedded into an unsurpassed interpretation of how Jesus’ life fulfils and applies the Old Testament. Don’t miss this: each of the four Gospel writers takes the application of the Old Testament to the life-work of Jesus as a major aim of their writing. And yet they all approach the task slightly differently. There is so much to be gained in carefully reading the Gospels as an unparalleled school for the content and method of Old Testament application. Ultimately they are able to do this because the Gospels are the genuine apostolic voice, the words of those who had their minds opened to understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:44-45) by the one who himself exegetes God (John 1:18).
Check out Luke in all his sneaky goodness, using an Old Testament phrase from Isaiah to characterise the two elderly ‘waiters’ at the Temple. How do you think Luke applied Isaiah 52:9? But look at how he applies it, just slips it in there in passing… wild stuff:
There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, looking forward to Israel’s consolation, and the Holy Spirit was on him. (Luke 2:25 HCSB)
At that very moment, she [Anna] came up and began to thank God and to speak about Him to all who were looking forward to the redemptionof Jerusalem. (Luke 2:38 HCSB)
Be joyful, rejoice together, you ruins of Jerusalem! For the LORD has comforted [consoled] His people; He has redeemed Jerusalem. (Isaiah 52:9 HCSB)
But the New Testament gives us a further interpretive context for understanding the Old Testament: the life and ‘reading-together’ of the first Christians. The early church was predominately Jewish and familiar with the Old Testament. As such, it was constantly engaged in reflecting on the significance of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection for understanding the history of God’s love and purposes for Israel, and in teaching and defending this application of the Old Testament. Most of the sermons in Acts follow this model, Stephen’s martyrdom sermon being a particularly shining example. The Book of Hebrews is an extended application of the Old Testament to the work of Christ and the life of the Church. It’s a major theme of Romans, Galatians, Ephesians. It’s even there in subtle ways as Paul structures and argues his way through the Letter to the Corinthians.
The New Testament age is also the ‘age’ to which we belong. We live in the light of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection while we await the final unveiling of his reign. In theological terms, the canonical context of the New Testament churches is our context. These are applications tailor-made for us.
I realise that much more could be said about how canonical interpretive contexts shape our Old Testament applications. If you’re really desperate to know what to do with Baalam’s Ass, simply being told to read more Bible might be cold comfort. But strangely it is a comfort. Because when you read the Bible you’re not reading it alone, you’re reading it as part of a fellowship. And this fellowship is itself written into the text and invites you to join. The Bible is an inviting book. And you’re always reading with the family.
Comment and ShareThe glorious company of the Apostles : praise thee.
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets : praise thee.
The noble army of Martyrs : praise thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world :
doth acknowledge thee
How to apply the Old Testament: Canonical Contexts
The first application of any Old Testament passage is the one that the original author/speaker intended for the original readers/listeners. Each passage of the Old Testament called for a response from the people for whom it was first written. At it’s heart this is what we mean by the authority of the scriptures: that they can legitimately demand the response for which they call. We might feel like we live in a different universe to those who first heard the words of the Old Testament, but honestly, very often the response they require from us, as christian readers of the Old Covenant word, is the same response they required of their original hearers, even when this is understood and transformed by the coming of Christ. It is therefore extremely important in our study of an Old Testament passage to work out what response was required from the original hearers. This is a work of humble imagination. Imagination? Because this is the faculty we use to indwell other people’s worlds. Call it ‘empathic’ reading, whatever. Humble? Because imaginations have a tendency to get carried away, and in this case we need an imagination that is the servant of the communicative intention of the author; a faithful imagination; one that listens before acting out.
But sometimes the later history of Israel and/or the coming of Christ reveal a meaning and richness in a text that wasn’t able to be seen in the original context. As a result, the text may call for a different response in the light of these later contexts than it did in the original context. This may have come as a surprise to the original human author, but not to the divine author who always intends the application for the original hearers, and the later applications as well (I know that this view of author’s intention is controversial, sorry, don’t have time to defend it).
Now these things happened to them as examples, and they were written as a warning to us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. (1Corinthians 10:11 HCSB)
Because biblical texts have inhabited many different contexts and been read many different times within the canon itself. It is extremely helpful… no, essential, to build up our understanding of the application of a particular passage by examining how it would have been understood in the various different contexts created by God’s ongoing plan leading up to Christ. Call this: reading within the ‘canonical’ context (borrowing from Kevin Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine). The various times, places, voices, communities who have had their lives enscripturated, together make up an interpretive community within the one book, ‘Bible’. If you need examples, consider how the people of Israel read and understand the history of the Exodus in the time of Kings David and Solomon. Look at how this event is celebrated in Psalms, how it shapes the language of the Davidic covenant and the building of the Temple. But then move forward, how would the events of the Exodus been understood and applied in the time of the exile to Babylon? And how did the Davidic readings influence this? In our search for application, look at all these already-given, intra-scripture, interpreted instances of application. Every original context in the Old Testament has at least two further ‘interpretive’ canonical contexts in the New Testament, but it may also have a range of interpretive canonical contexts within the Old Testament itself. We should pay more attention to these.
Communicating God: Doctrine of Scripture 2
Ok, welcome back to the Book of Hebrews. We’re mid-way through an exploration of the question, ‘who speaks in Scripture’ focussing on the various, fluid ways that the author of Hebrews attributes the divine voice. We started by looking at the opening sentences which focus on the contrast between God’s speech through the prophets and his speech by a Son. You can check it out here.
I think most of us are pretty familiar with the idea that God speaks by Jesus, and we rely upon this claim in developing a doctrine of Scripture: that God speaks (communicates) by Jesus, therefore the words/acts/life of Jesus are the communicative act of God. Jesus then re-authorises the Old Testament, and commissions the New Testament. This leaves us clear about the fact that when Jesus speaks, God speaks, but manages to leave us fuzzy about who’s speaking in the rest of scripture when Jesus isn’t on the scene, i.e., the non-red-letter bits. Sure, the black words come with divine authority. They are divinely sanctified, truthful testimony to Christ. But whose words are they…?
You might think it’s pretty clear when you’re reading one of the classic ‘writing’ prophet, like Isaiah. Take this beautiful passage from Isaiah 1:
“Come, let us discuss this,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the LORD has spoken. (Isaiah 1:18–20 HCSB)
Most modern English translations helpfully even put God’s speech into inverted commas, so you can work out which bits belong to him. But this simplicity is deceptive: even in this relatively obvious section, the reference to ‘the mouth of the LORD’ could very probably be taken as an oblique reference to Isaiah the prophet who is acting as Yahweh’s spokesperson. If you followed this argument, you’d have a double attribution of these words: both to Yahweh, and to the spokesperson of Yahweh.
But it’s much, much more complicated than this…
If you took a little more time to zoom out and read the rest of Isaiah 1, you’d quickly realise that it’s very difficult to distinguish the moments when Yahweh is clearly speaking, from the moments when Isaiah is providing commentary or response upon the words he has spoken from Yahweh. In chapter 2:5-11 you find a remarkable passage in which Isaiah alternates between addressing God in prayer and addressing the people.
And it’s not just Isaiah who behaves like this, I’m studying through Micah at the moment with students and one of the most frequent questions I ask them is, ‘who is speaking here?’ Micah is clearly a voice responding, echoing, wailing alongside the words of God (cccasionally he reports the words of others, particularly when they tell him to shut up: Micah 2:6 ). Can God be speaking when Micah is speaking to God? Or to himself? Or just shivering in response to the judgement he has finished proclaiming?
Ok, I got completely off topic here and didn’t even manage to get to Hebrews… have to leave it for next time.
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How to apply the Old Testament
Biblical Theology is all the rage in U.S. Reformed evangelical circles at the moment. This seems odd to Australians because biblical theology feels slightly passé. We’ve benefitted greatly from a number of biblical scholars (Donald Robinson, William Dumbrell, Graeme Goldsworthy) who made major contributions toward developing a distinctly evangelical biblical theology. What was fresh and exciting to them (and their students) became standard fare as the impact of evangelical biblical theology was disseminated across university campuses by the AFES movement. Since 1997, the AFES National Training Event has incorporated training in Biblical theology as the major element of its first two training ‘strands’. This is certainly where it first made its impact on me (in 1997 co-incidentally). The experience of suddenly realising, ‘Oh, that’s how the whole bible fits together!’ occurs less often as students are trained earlier and earlier in reading the whole Bible as one canonical testimony to Christ.
It needs to be said however, that it’s to our shame if younger theologians neglect biblical theology in a rush to move on somewhere fresh (preaching to myself at this point). One of the benefits of having lived with biblical theology for a while, being past the first blush of enthusiasm, is that we can begin to see more of the strengths and weaknesses of the model we’ve adopted (I’m hoping to write something about this down the track). One of the most significant and recurring of these questions focusses on the effect of biblical theology upon our application of Old Testament scripture.
Biblical theology rests on two significant methodological assumptions: firstly, that the Bible is a progressive revelation, each part building on the next. Secondly, that the fulfilment of the all the scriptures is found in Jesus: he is the gravitational centre of the canon. The Old Testament points towards Jesus and the New Testament is about Jesus. This has led biblical theologians to claim strongly that we can’t just take an Old Testament passage and apply it directly to us. The coming of Jesus is such a significant event that it changes the way we view and understand the Old Testament. We read the Old Testament with ‘Christ’ eyes.
But does this mean that the application of every Old Testament passage is: “it’s about Jesus”? Sure, biblical theology helpfully reminds us that we don’t need a sheepskin (like Gideon) in order to decide who to marry. But how to we avoid going too far the other way and reducing all our Old Testament preaching to a series of exegetical notes with a bland gesture toward the New Testament at the end?
Here are two thoughts:
1. In applying a passage, we need to keep in mind the distinctive nature of the passage we are looking at and how it in particular relates to Jesus: his life, death, resurrection/ ascension, the last days, and the new creation. Our application will then flow out of the distinctive way in which Jesus brings it to fulfilment.
2. There’s another step in great application. Not only do we need deep knowledge of the passage and it’s biblical context, we need deep knowledge of ourselves and the people around us. As we engage in biblically informed observation we see the ways in which God’s word challenges and confronts our own lives and those of our different communities. We read our world with ‘Christ’ eyes.
Of got a bunch of thoughts about how to do this which I hope to share over the next little while…
Communicating God: Doctrine of Scripture 1
Who speaks in Scripture? I was teaching on the doctrine of Scripture recently and was struck again by the fluidity with which the Bible itself addresses this question. There is no question to my mind that the Bible is comfortable describing itself as ‘the word of God’. This is derived from the use that God makes of these particular sanctified words for his divinely effective communicative acts (2 Tim 3:15-17). But isn’t Jesus the Word of God? (John 1:1-18). What is the relation of the words of Scripture and Jesus Christ, the Word in flesh? What is the role of the Spirit? (Mk 12:36; Acts 4:25; Heb 3:7; 1 Peter 1:10,11
Over a series of posts I’m hoping to take a look at how the word/speaking of God is described in Hebrews. We’ll start with the first couple of verses:
Long ago God spoke to the fathers by the prophets at different times and in different ways. In these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son. God has appointed Him heir of all things and made the universe through Him. (Hebrews 1:1–2 HCSB)
It seems to me that the point of this passage is to emphasise the contrast in the mediation of God’s word/speaking (by a Son, rather than by the prophets) as opposed to contrasting the content of God’s word/speaking. Just as God previously exercised his communicative agency through the communicative acts of the prophets (acts of speaking and dramatising which are then transmitted and textually canonised: all of which are significant and are part of the communicative act), so he now speaks to us by his Son. The incredible set of Christological statements that follow stress the contrast in nature between these mediators, but interestingly, they don’t necessarily imply a different manner of communication. The words spoken to us by the Son aren’t necessarily different in form from those spoken by the prophets. What is emphasised is the thoroughly different person of the mediator and thus the more serious nature of failing to pay attention to the word he speaks on God’s behalf. Verse 2b-4 traces the superiority of the Son in a narrative from creation to redemption. At the centre is the claim that the Son doesn’t merely act within God’s overarching communicative agency to speak God’s word: he exactly expresses God’s nature. His being is the personal communication of God. He is the expression/representation of God’s nature/being (χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ). As such he exercises the communicative agency of God directly: he sustains all things by his powerful word. The implications of this are drawn forcefully in the opening verses of Chapter 2: We must, therefore, pay even more attention to what we have heard (Hebrews 2:1 HCSB)
But notice that the hearers/readers of Hebrews aren’t assumed to have heard/seen/interacted with Jesus directly.
…how will we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was first spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him. At the same time, God also testified by signs and wonders, various miracles, and distributions of gifts from the Holy Spirit according to His will.” (Hebrews 2:3–4 HCSB)
The form of the word of God to which they must pay careful attention is not materially different to that which the Fathers heard/read from the prophets. And the content of the word of God, while further revealed through the Son, is not categorically different from the words spoken by the prophets either. The liberal use of scripture in the following chapters testify to this. It is the person of the mediator who has changed. Or more correctly, the God who speaks has been revealed to be also personally identical to, yet distinguishable from, the person through whom he speaks. This, of course, does not leave the communicative act unchanged as a totality, i.e., in it’s definitiveness; it’s clarity; it’s authority; it’s effectiveness. But, at least in these verses, the author of Hebrews does not appear to consider that the communicative act of God through the Son (speaking, dramatising, transmission and textual canonisation) is formally different to those which God had previously employed.
Ok, stay tuned… the next bit is slightly more crazy: God talking to God in Scripture.
Update: I’ve edited this post a little for clarity. Also, Chris Swann has posted an interesting set of questions flowing out of the same passage: how it’s possible for Jesus to make God known with a depth, reality and clarity never before attained (and not since transcended). How it’s possible for him to draw us into a certain kind of relationship with this God. Check it out.
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