Over on Dave Bish's blog I've been involved in one the monthly discussions about how Christ is revealed in the OT. So often the two 'sides' seem to go round and round and I have often felt that there was more going on beneath the surface than what shows above the water. But I've never really got what.
You could say that one group just doesn't really believe that God is Trinity, or that the other is denying the newness of the incarnation. However I don't believe that is true of either group of regular commenters all of whom I have great respect for.... Which is not to say that we all don't have a great deal to learn.
However, listening to Mike Reeves on MP3 today suddenly things became a lot clearer. Commenting on reading the OT as all being about Christ he comments:
the key issue is I don't always have to talk about the incarnation, which is what we tend to mean when we say Christ. I don't always have to talk about that. When we say "do I have to go to Christ?" the kind of language we are using is using is "do I have to fast-forward through time to the event of the incarnation when Christ became flesh?" No you don't have to do that. But you have to be talking about the true and living God who is Christ. If you are not talking about him you must be talking about another God [...] That doesn't mean that as you are preaching on Hosea 11 you have to go "oh now lets jump into the New Testament". No you don't have to do that at all. But you must be talking about the same person. I suppose that's the key. So I'm not saying you always have to nip into the New Testament. You don't at all. But you must always be proclaiming Christ. You don't always have to be proclaiming the incarnation of Christ.
(34:43-> of this lecture, the whole series here)
I don't think you would find Graeme Goldsworthy saying that (correct me if I'm wrong). It may be Trinitarian hermeneutics but is it Gospel-centred hermeneutics?
Anyhow, although I am struggling to know where I should be, I think I understand enough to make some wild generalisations:
Group 1 is looking for the person
- This group is concerned about finding the second person of the Trinity. They are looking for God the Son. They tend to be thinking vertically about the relationship of God to humanity. They would stress that you cannot know God except as Trinity.
Group 2 is looking for the gospel-event
- This group is concerned about finding the Messiah. They are looking for the promised perfect human (king/priest etc). They will be thinking horizontally about the story of the bible/world. They would stress that you cannot know God apart from the death and resurrection of Christ.
I don't think I need go to the effort of pointing out the dangers on both sides. Doing one and not the other is clearly disastrous.
Yeah as wild generalisations go the horizontal/vertical language is quite helpful.
ReplyDeleteI've often felt that the Goldsworthy position is good at pointing out where we are in the horizontal story of salvation but lacking in how the participants are vertically relating to God.
I find it amusing that my blog keeps returning to this issue... in hope of progress.
ReplyDeleteYou write:”This group is concerned about finding the Messiah. They are looking for the promised perfect human (king/priest etc). They will be thinking horizontally about the story of the bible/world. They would stress that you cannot know God apart from the death and resurrection of Christ.
ReplyDelete“
(le-havdil)
1st-century C.E. Torah-teaching Pharisee Ribi, Yehoshua (ha-Mashiakh; the Messiah), is the only candidate who can ever satisfy many Scriptural criteria.
The question is how to follow the first century historical man Ribi Yehoshua (ha-Mashiakh, The Messiah) from Nazareth: A logical analysis of the historical documents and archaeology shows what he taught and how to follow him.
Learn more here : http://www.netzarim.co.il
Anders Branderud
Geir Tzedeq
Thanks for your comments folks.
ReplyDeleteThinking about it more I can see how I've made mistakes here in the past. Thank you Glen/Dave for your help in this. I'm curious though, would you say that you don't always have to go to the incarnation? I would think that you should always go to the person AND the gospel-event.
Well remember that Gen 3:15 is not known as the protochristologia but the protoevangelium. The *gospel* is known in OT not just the Person of Christ.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, it's never a nude Christ - found without His gospel promises. It's always Christ clothed in His gospel work (from Genesis onwards). It's always the Christ who would come and redeem His people from all their sins - but you don't have to go into the NT to say that. And if you always do go into the NT for that part of the sermon *that's* what can really communicate a divorce b/w Person and work and/or b/w OT and NT.
Hi Glen,
ReplyDeleteGood point. And yet:
1. The Gospel was promised in the OT but it hadn't happened.
The Gospel is fundamentally about an event. It is also about a person (Mark 1:1), but it is not the person himself apart from what he did (1 Cor 15). And vice versa.
Now Christ as God is eternal. And so in a way is the event of his death (Rev 3:8; 1 Peter 1:19-20). But Christ the God-man is not eternal, he was born in 3BC and was crucified in 30AD (or whatever). The OT saints knew Christ now, and not yet. In a way like us (we still don't fully see Christ or what he has done for us either).
Also while the Exodus is 'good news', and does correspond to our salvation, it is different. So if all the OT is looking forward, are we preaching the OT correctly if we too always don't look forward?
There are a great many passages which speak strongly of what the OT fathers really did know (e.g. John 8:56; Heb 11; 1 Pet 1:10f; Gal 3) but they are always forward looking it seems (I may be wrong).
2. The Gospel was not fully revealed in the OT
The Gospel was known about in the OT. And should have been known to quite a high level of detail if you take Jesus' admonitions to the disciples etc seriously. However, Paul can still talk about the righteousness of God being revealed and a mystery now being made known. The author of Hebrews can say that we have a greater salvation than Moses, while still acknowledging that Moses feared Christ (chap 11).
Really I want to find some way of saying that they knew Christ and the Gospel about him, and yet they didn't. Always BOTH. I don't want to say that they knew part of 'God' and part of the Gospel, but needed extra adding. The now-and-not-yet way of thinking that we are quite used to with thinking about our salvation and sanctification may also be helpful with understanding how the OT saints knew Christ and the Gospel.
I'm still thinking. Thanks for your interaction and patience!
Does that make any kind of sense?
First a point of clarification.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the case that Goldsworthy preaches the OT in terms of gospel events and then goes to the NT to fill in the Person who fulfills them. Goldsworthy preaches the OT in terms of the national destiny of Israel, the temple, sacrifices etc - and then goes into the NT to show their fulfilment both in gospel event and Person.
In a Goldsworthian sermon, before the 'bridge to the NT' you don't just have gospel events but no Person - you don't have the gospel events either.
Reeves is suggesting we preach the OT from the outset as a conscious setting forth of the Person and work of Christ but to do it from the OT Scriptures themselves. Like I say Gen 3:15 gets the ball rolling on both the Person and the work of Christ. You don't need to quote a single greek Scripture in order to proclaim Christ and Him crucified. The Hebrew Scriptures will do just fine.
At the Goldsworthy-Blackham debate, the first question from the floor was asked by Mike Reeves himself:
ReplyDelete"What exactly is faith? And what exactly is the proper object of faith? The importance of that is to do with whether it has changed or not."
Blackham answered:
"Faith is trusting, loving, knowledge of Jesus Christ. That is always the object of faith. From the beginning until the end. So Martin Luther, “All the promises of God lead back to the first promise concerning Christ of Genesis 3:15. The faith of the fathers in the Old Testament era, and our faith in the New Testament are one and the same faith in Christ Jesus… The faith of the fathers was directed at Christ… Time does not change the object of true faith, or the Holy Spirit. There has always been and always will be one mind, one impression, one faith concerning Christ among true believers whether they live in times past, now, or in times to come.” The object of faith is the person of Christ, explicitly so. A trusting knowledge of him."
Goldsworthy answered:
"How can I disagree? Faith is defined by its object. There are all kinds of faith that people have: the truckdriver has faith in his truck that it will get across the bridge; he has faith in the bridge that it will bear him up. A Christian has faith that God’s assurances in his word that what he has done in his Son Jesus is sufficient for his salvation. The point where we may disagree is that to me if God puts the person and work of Christ in the form of shadows and types and images in the OT and assures people that if they put their trust in that they are undoubtedly saved, then that is deemed to be faith in Christ. It is faith in Christ in the form in which he is given, and the work of the Spirit all through the Bible is with regard to Christ as he is presented."
It was hearing that question and those two answers (I was there!!) that tipped me decisively towards Blackham on this question.
Faith is in the Person of Christ - of course clothed with His promises, as you rightly emphasize. We mustn't present a naked Christ. But neither must we point to a pile of clothes and pretend that somehow they amount to the Person. That's what I see Goldsworthy doing.
So in According to Plan, Goldsworthy says this among the many 'problems' that a reader of the OT finds:
ReplyDelete"the prophetic view of the final saving work of God makes no specific reference to Jesus Christ and is instead directed towards the national destiny of Israel. The kingdom of God centers on the restored temple in a rebuilt Jerusalem, to which are gathered all the previously scattered Israelites." (p27)
God is apparently presenting Christ under these shadows in such a way that no-one is actually grasping hold of the Person at all, they're trusting a pile of promises and do not realize that they all hold true in the Person.
To me that's a bad reading of the OT, a bad reading of the NT and a bad reading of systematics - doctrine of God and soteriology for starters.
I'm always heartened to hear when fans of Goldsworthy come out and say that OT faith was in the Person of Christ and that all Graeme ever did was to urge caution on the degree of progress in revelation. I can happily agree that faith was in Christ and that degrees of knowledge improved. Blackham can happily agree to that.
If that was really Goldsworthy's position, I am certain Blackham would not have bothered debating him.
But Goldsworthy's position in his own words is this:
"God puts the person and work of Christ in the form of shadows and types and images in the OT and assures people that if they put their trust in that they are undoubtedly saved, then that is deemed to be faith in Christ."
It's this understanding that I object to. Christ is 'put in the form of types', the Israelites trust the types, God deems it as trust in Christ.
So then -- tangent over -- if you say that Christ or the gospel is known but unknown - I guess I just want to know in what sense?
Many people say 'known and not known' and mean - 'Yeah they hoped in the Messiah but were vague about the details.' That's absolutely wonderful. I have no desire to waste precious oxygen debating relative gradients of progressive knowledge with such people. To me such an answer falls decisively on the Blackham side of this debate - even if they had always thought of themselves as Goldsworthian. I think many people today basically identify as Goldsworthians when they've actually conceded the crucial point in Blackham's favour. Whatever though. What's in a name?
Goldsworthy's position is distinctly different to the 'vague knowledge of the Messiah' position that many today hearteningly take. He says 'known but not known' means they knew types but not the Person. This is what I object to.
Thanks Glen, you've made me think very hard. I'm not sure I get it all but here is where I'm at:
ReplyDeleteThis evening I had a listen to Blackham's 'Faith in Christ in the OT' talk. It was helpful for me to understand more. You have made me think again whether I understand either Blackham or Goldsworthy. Anyway here are my random thoughts. A lot of work has gone into them, although they have all come out a bit of a mess!
(a) Blackham's view of Goldsworthy
Both you and Blackham seem to see a disjoint between the types of the OT and Christ in Goldsworthy. So you seem to think that Goldsworthy thinks that the types are almost arbitrarily granted the status of Christ even though they are not. You think that Goldsworthy sees the types as so obscure that you CANNOT see through them to the person and work of Christ, and so they have to be 'deemed' to be a way of having a relationship with Christ. Goldsworthy thinks that Blackham sees the types as so transparent that you ALWAYS see through them to the person and work of Christ, so that actually they are no different to having a relationship with Christ.
If Goldsworthy was really saying that there was this total disconnect between the types and Christ then I think I would see your problem with him. But I don't think he really does (despite his less than brilliant language in your quote from him).
(b) Person AND work of Christ in Blackham
Part of my concern has been that I've been hearing knowledge of the person of Christ being separated from his work. Particularly his incarnation and cruxification. Now I see that Blackham (and you?) does not separate them at all. Blackham thinks the work of Christ in the OT is fully known just as Person is. And that to the extent of 'His incarnation, His life, His death, His resurrection, His ascension and His coming in Judgement'.
I'm comforted that he has not separated the person and work of Christ, but I'm baffled for a number of reasons.
He then seems to separate the person and work of Christ from the inclusion of the gentiles. To explain what is new in the NT Blackham claims that it is the mystery of the inclusion of the Gentiles (I note you also liked this post saying the same). Now of course that is the mystery revealed. But how is it revealed? Like all the NT it is a revelation based on the person and work of Christ. So if OT saints knew that, how was that unclear to them too? Nevermind the fact that the inclusion of the gentiles was clearly promised in the OT itself.
So I am satisfied that work and person of Christ are not being separated by Blackham (and you?), but I want to challenge whether work/person and his benefits are being separated in Blackham's scheme. It is by knowing Christ that we receive his benefits, but did the OT believers receive his benefits?
(c) The temple and our relationship with Christ
I think it would be helpful to just remember what the OT tells us again and again about Israel's relationship with God. The temple is one of God's main ways of doing that. The temple speaks powerfully of his closeness to them, but also his distance. He was with them, and yet he was locked away behind walls, doors and curtains. In contrast we are now bricks in God's temple. The curtain has been torn and the wall of hostility destroyed. It would be fair to say that Israel had God present with them because he built his house in the midst of them. However it would also be fair to say that they didn't have God with them at all in comparison.
...(cont)...
(d) The Holy Spirit in the OT and the NT
ReplyDeleteThe Spirit is received by hearing the gospel of the person and work of Christ with faith. God's Spirit was not unknown to Israel. He worked amongst them, but he never indwelt them. Pentecost, and Jesus' words about sending the Spirit clearly shows that something new was happening with the Holy Spirit coming to dwell with his people for the first time (see this article). Unless we separate the Spirit from the Son we have to admit not only a difference in knowledge of degree, but also of kind.
(e) The kingdom of God
Of course the Kingdom of God was preached in the OT. They knew about it, and yet in some sense they didn't. That is why Jesus can say: "The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached" (Luke 16:16). The implication is that the good news of the kingdom of God was not preached in the OT. As the kingdom of God is known through the person and work of Christ then so the person and work of Christ must not have been preached in the OT... although it also was in some sense too! So also in Luke 7:28 Jesus can say
"I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he" because he sees a qualitative shift from NT to OT in the knowledge of him and of his kingdom.
(f) 'we shall see him as he is'
I suppose I ought to try and answer your question of how I understand the OT saints to have 'known and not known' Christ. I think my comment that 'the now-and-not-yet way of thinking that we are quite used to with thinking about our salvation and sanctification may also be helpful with understanding how the OT saints knew Christ and the Gospel' really does hold promise (no pun intended). In the NT we are used to saying that we HAVE new life, that we do know Christ, that we have put to death our sinful natures. However, we also know that we HAVEN'T yet experienced these things fully. We have the down-payment. We have these things 'in Christ', by faith. Even now we have not seen 'him as he is'. And yet we have as well. 'no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him' could applies to us and our knowledge of Christ in final glory.
Could you tell me very much about what life in new creation will be like. You can tell me the most important things, but at the same time you haven't got a clear. You cannot even conceive it, and yet you already know its reality! I think the same could be said of the OT saints and the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus. There is the same quantum leap between the two, and yet they had the promise which was also the reality. Just as the Holy Spirit is both promise of final glory, and its reality.
I don't really want to talk about knowing Christ but missing out the details. I think the paradoxical way of stating things is better! Let both the positive and the negative have full weight. Of course that is easy to say apart from teaching particular texts... but I'm tired now. I'll have to stop and go to sleep.
I hope this doesn't count as feeding the monster. If it does feel free to stop banging your head against this brick wall (which annoyingly keeps on moving about). I'm sure the topic will come up again in another month or so anyway!
Nice to find someone else as OCD on this as me... ;-)
ReplyDeletea) I think GG does indeed teach a disjoint b/w Christ and types. See also the According to Plan quote. Also every Sydney minister I've talked to about this (who trained under him) says the Israelites trusted in the sacrifices and God deemed it faith in Christ. If GG didn't teach this sort of stuff (and people didn't buy it) PB would never have debated him. This is the heart of the debate for PB and the quote from GG in the debate backs this up.
Don't forget too that types are not the only way Christ is present. Christ is present and prophesied as well as foreshadowed. So, e.g. Gen 49:10f sets up the type of 'King' as explicitly a shadow of the True King. Therefore no-one should trust in those types but should be pointed through them to Christ.
GG is good at showing the broad brush-strokes, patterns and types and their fulfilment in the gospel. I enjoy reading him for this. But I find him at best sloppy on the details of the OT text and on the actual appearances and prophesies of Christ.
b) Acts 26:22-23:
"I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen— that the Christ would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would proclaim light to his own people and to the Gentiles."
Indeed the evangelization of the Gentiles was prophesized in the OT(all nations blessed in the Seed) but the administration of this mystery was not spelt out. Which is why councils in Jerusalem concerned circumcision and diet (not christology and trinity). That the Gentiles would be included as Gentiles and not have to be circumcised, keep kosher etc - was new. And it took a lot of re-education for the NT church - much of the NT concerns it.
But re-read the Acts 26 quote - it's quite something!
You also ask whether the OT saints received Christ's benefits. Well they knew the living God, they had their sins forgiven, their prayers were heard, etc, etc. Of course all of this was on the basis of a future work, but they enjoyed those things there and then. Perhaps the great systematic truth which our side is seeking to protect is that those benefits a) were enjoyed and b) come in Christ alone.
c) Don't forget that the tabernacle is explicitly set up as a copy of heavenly reality (something not only repeated by Moses but also by Stephen and Hebrews).
This is again the point that types are not the only way by which Christ was present to the Israelites. And the Israelites were not so darkened in their understanding as to mistake the shadow for the reality.
d) I can't cover this in much detail now but Pentecost is just as new as Incarnation. Not that it's the arrival of One who was previously absent but the coming of One already intimately involved to now effect the great gospel purposes of God. Pentecost is the pouring out of the Spirit on 'all flesh' (Joel 2) - Jew and Gentile. It's the equipping of the international church for its international mission. And it's a commitment of the Spirit to the 'church' en masse rather than discrete believers (the national grid rather than individual generators).
I think an unbearable amount of stress can be placed on the prepositions attached to the Spirit in order to teach disjunction. Does Scripture intend to teach a great difference between 'upon', 'with', 'in'? Can we meaningfully and accurately articulate what that might be without eisegesis?
e) There's a lot of links in this logical chain. I'm sure you yourself can see how the steps don't necessarily follow.
ReplyDeleteThe kingdom is a thoroughly OT theme. Gen 49; Psalm 2,45,72,110; 2 Sam 7 - would make an excellent OT study! And they show exactly who is the King of the kingdom.
Now of course there is something wonderfully new when David's Lord becomes David's son and actually begins to reign on David's throne. How the OT believers would have longed to have seen those days. But to infer from this that Christ must not have been known to them is backwards. *Because* they longed for Christ and His work they knew their inferiority to the NT era.
f) One thing I know about the new creation - and it's the only thing I need to know - I shall see Him face to face. And though I do not see Him now I love Him. And I hope in Him.
You're right - the analogy with the second coming is very fruitful. But I hope you'll see that it counts decisively in favour of a conscious knowledge of Christ. We don't want to say that people with vague notions of 'God' will find themselves in the new creation saying 'I never knew this Jesus bloke but I sure am glad God deemed me to have trusted Him.'
Know what I mean?
Well it may seem a bit obsessive but it is important isn't it? Just about every day I read the OT, and I when I read the NT I read it in light of the OT too. If I know God through his written word then if I am not understanding something so important about his written word you need to give some time to it.
ReplyDeleteWell basically I feel checkmated. I don't know whether it is exhaustion but I can't disagree with your central point anymore!
I do have some substantial questions which give me GRAVE doubts about whether I still have it right in my mind.
1. I am concerned because if you read the NT it seems to me that the argument for the change from the OT 'administration' to the NT one is driven by the new reality of what Jesus Christ did in history. If the OT believers knew ALL that would happen then why did they follow the OT administration.
2. I think that Israelites believed, and God taught there was more reality to the types than you seem to give. He did promise the actual Land of Canaan etc. Similarly he did say that he dwelt in the temple. I often hear people say that the temple was 'where God was said to dwell' in the OT. But God says that he did dwell there! Of course God also says that he doesn't live in a temple made by hands. Similar things could be said about sacrifices. He says that they do deal with sin. And then he says that they doen't in different places. Seemingly he contradicts himself... but seeing these things as types of Christ we see that they both things can be true.
3. I still think there is so leap in the benefits NT believers have over OT believers, and I'm not sure that this is given sufficient credit. However at this moment in time I am not quite sure how I would describe that leap myself.
4. In the past I spent quite some time reading and thinking about the New Perspective. I bought into a lot of it but found that it over-played how the inclusion of the Gentiles was the focus of much of the NT. My reading of it over time made that interpretation just not fit. However, I do think that Judaizing influences were being combated in a lot of the letters were people often play-up the pressures of Greek culture (e.g. in Colossians). I could refer again to pt 1. which was not very elloquently made, but is important I think. Curious to find that overlap BTW.
Finally, I would love you to give some time to explaining your thoughts on Pentecost. Maybe a blog post sometime? But don't feel that it is a monster you have to feed.
Anyhow, thanks again for all your interaction.