The Old Testament in the New

Justin Taylor recently posted on Greg Beale’s question, Did the Apostles Preach the Right Doctrine from the Wrong Text?, and that prompted me to ruminate on the progress of my thinking about the use of the OT in the NT.

When I was introduced to the academic study of the Bible, the focus of those who taught me the Old Testament was definitely on the meaning of OT texts in their original, ancient near Eastern context. From time to time one of my profs would acknowledge that our interpretation can’t stop there: we have to trace things through the New Testament. The problem was that we never got around to actually doing that. We always stopped in the ancient near Eastern context of the OT. Not only did we always stop there, on plenty of occasions it was communicated in various ways that the authors of the NT were not doing the kind of exegesis that would earn “A’s” at most institutions of higher learning!

The standard line was, “The apostles did what they did with the OT because they were inspired. You are not inspired, so you are not in a position to interpret the OT the way they do.”

I’ll never forget the Sunday morning I visited a church pastored by Joe Blankenship. I don’t remember if he was preaching Luke 24 or if he just read the whole chapter (a very good thing for pastors to do in church, see 1 Tim 4:13), but when he got to Luke 24:25–27 I felt like I had been slapped! Then I got slapped again when he got to 24:44–46. I was stunned. The question ringing in my ears was, “Do my OT profs know these verses are in the Bible!?”

Why did these verses take me by surprise? Hadn’t I read them recently? Well, seminary is a very busy time. Between class and work and a new wife, I didn’t always have time to sit still and read the Bible slowly and compare what I was hearing in class to what the text said.

So I started to question the standard “the apostles were inspired but you’re not” line, but I really didn’t know of any alternative ways of approaching the issue.

Then, in the mercy of God, I went to Southern Seminary to do a Ph.D. under Tom Schreiner. I took a course from Dr. Schreiner on 1 Peter, and when we came to 1 Peter 1:10–12, something happened that was very much like the Sunday morning slap from Luke 24. There we were in class, diagramming the Greek text and tracing its argument, and Dr. Schreiner said something like, “The apostles set an example for us as to how we should interpret the OT. We should pattern our reading of the OT after theirs,” and as he went on to his next thought, I almost fell off my chair! He saw my surprise and asked me why I looked so astonished. I blubbered out something to the effect of, “Well, I guess I’ve never heard anyone legitimate say something like what you just said about how we should interpret the OT!” Dr. Schreiner is so humble, he replied, “Maybe I’m not legitimate!” We all laughed, but that incident fired my interest in this topic once again.

Thankfully, the Ph.D. program at SBTS was unlike my masters program in that I was not running from assignment to assignment, class to class, meeting to meeting. I had time to explore topics that were not assigned, time to sit still and read the Bible and meditate on it. I also read about the OT, about the OT in the New, and about the NT.

I have come to the conclusion that people who question the way that the apostles interpret the OT, for all their protestation about reading it “on its own terms” and “in its own context,” have actually failed to understand the OT itself! I agree with John Sailhamer’s argument that the OT is not the national literature of Israel, rather, it was written to sustain the messianic hopes of the messianic remnant in Israel. The whole of the OT, I would argue (following Sailhamer), is messianic.

Showing the plausibility of such a claim, to say nothing of substantiating it, will require at least a whole volume. I hope the Lord grants me time and energy and insight to eventually pull that off, but for now I can offer some initial forays into the question.

Can the thesis that the OT is messianic be sustained without recourse to “allegorical” methods of interpretation? Can we come to a book like the Song of Solomon and read it messianically without allegorizing it? A few years ago at SBL I presented a paper titled, “The Messianic Music of the Song of Songs: A Non-Allegorical Interpretation.” This essay should be published in the fall 2006 issue of the Westminster Theological Journal.

What about a text like Isaiah 7:14, which is cited in Matthew 1 as being fulfilled in the birth of Jesus? The difficulty with this is that in the context of Isaiah 7, this looks like a prophecy that applies to Ahaz’s lifetime (see esp. 7:16). Last summer at the Biblical Theology Study Group of the Tyndale Fellowship in Cambridge, I presented an essay called “The Virgin Will Conceive: Typology in Isaiah and Fulfillment in Matthew.” This essay is due to be published in a volume forthcoming from Eerdmans called Built upon the Rock: Studies in the Gospel of Matthew, edited by Dan Gurtner and John Nolland.

The thesis that the OT is messianic through and through depends, of course, on the existence of a promised deliverer from the very beginning. In other words, this thesis depends on a messianic reading of Genesis 3:15. Many conclude that the so called protoevangelium in Genesis 3:15 cannot, in fact, be a protoevangelium because they do not see it exercising wide influence in the rest of the OT, nor do they see it cited in the NT. In an essay called, “The Skull Crushing Seed of the Woman: Inner-Biblical Interpretation of Genesis 3:15,” I try to show that while there might not be explicit quotations of Genesis 3:15, imagery from Genesis 3 is used across both testaments. This essay will be published in the Summer 2006 issue of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology.

In another attempt to demonstrate the wide influence of Genesis 3:15 on the rest of the Bible, I argue that the blessings of Abraham in Genesis 12 is a direct answer to the curses of Genesis 3. This essay, “The Seed of the Woman and the Blessing of Abraham,” was presented to the Southwest Regional meeting of the Institute for Biblical Research in March 2006.

May the Lord open our eyes to see wonderful things in his law, and may we search these Scriptures that testify to Jesus (cf. John 5:39).

Thomas Cranmer and Blue Like a Passing Purple Fad

I recently finished reading Diarmaid MacCulloch's stellar biography of Thomas Cranmer. Anyone interested in the life of a great man who pushed forward the reformation in England should read this book. Cranmer is presented sympathetically in all the complexity of one who recanted under great distress only to heroically withdraw his recantations in the hour of his greatest trial. Cranmer persevered to the end. He kept the faith. He was burned at the stake, and that didn't separate him from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Cranmer is a true hero.

I love the way that MacCulloch describes Cranmer's work in his great legacy for English speaking people, the Book of Common Prayer. MacCulloch writes: "How fortunate that Cranmer did not seek to scintillate. Liturgy does not demand jokes or punchlines: purple passages which sound exciting once and then become embarrassing. The need is for words which can be polished as smooth as a pebble on a beach by repetition, to become part of the fabric of individual people in the middle of a communal act."

What MacCulloch is saying is that the Book of Common Prayer has staying power, and so does MacCulloch's biography of Cranmer. These are great books that will be read by serious people who are heeding the admonition of the sage: "Buy truth, and do not sell it; buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding" (Proverbs 23:23).

If you're not interested in books that have staying power, books that will be read by serious people for years to come, waste your mind and your life on the purple passages of the passing fads of books like Blue Like Jazz. If you don't want to waste your time with such books, check out this review by Mark Coppenger or this one by J. D. Greear.

Fundamentalists and Liberals: What Characterizes Each?

On his always stimulating blog Euangelion, Mike Bird has posted a nice summary of what characterizes both fundamentalists and liberals. These words get thrown around a lot, and Prof. Dr. Bird insightfully clarifies 12 major characteristics of each tendency. Check out Fundamentalist versus Liberal.

Southern Baptist Ghosts

Back in 1999 Timothy George wrote an insightful piece on three controversies among Southern Baptists: the Stone-Campbell movement, the Landmarkists, and the hyper-Calvinists. Dr. George gives a fascinating look into the historical development of these three problems that Southern Baptists faced. The issues provoked by these disputes are still with us, and George's essay, Southern Baptist Ghosts, can help us to understand what the issues are, what is at stake, and how we should go about dealing with these disputes. This piece is well worth a read from any Southern Baptist thinking about where the convention is and where it is headed. I agree with the desire George expresses in his concluding words: "My hope is not for the removal of conflict, but for the elevation of dialogue, for the kind of substantive historical and theological engagement that has always been central to the cultivation of a vibrant Christian orthodoxy. This is a distinctive mark of the Baptist tradition at its best."

Baptists and Elders

Someone recently asked me for evidence of a plurality of elders in SOUTHERN BAPTIST CHURCHES, and I did not have an answer for that person. I can’t remember who asked me, but the evidence is beautifully summarized in a piece by Mark Dever available at the 9 Marks site called Baptists and Elders.

In view of the evidence that Dever cites—evidence that includes an endorsement of the plurality of elders by the first president of the Southern Baptist Convention, William B. Johnson (you really should go read Baptists and Elders)—it is surprising to me that some Southern Baptists are suggesting that having a plurality of elders in a local congregation is “semi-presbyterian.”

Dever also summarizes the biblical evidence for a plurality of elders in every church in Baptists and Elders, so I won’t rehearse what I have said earlier on this blog.

If you’re looking for more on a plurality of elders, you might be interested in a new book called Elders in Congregational Life, which is also reviewed on the 9Marks site. If you do a search on the 9Marks site on elders, you’ll see that Dever has written several short pieces on this issue.

I’ll never forget hearing John Hannah say that we owe two things to everyone with whom we enter into theological dispute. We owe them understanding. We must understand what they are saying. And we owe them fairness. We must treat them as we would want to be treated.

I hope that we Baptists can dialogue about our differences on these matters in a way that reflects that we understand the position taken by those with whom we disagree, and I hope that we’ll be fair to those with whom we disagree (in other words, I think the charge that a plurality of elders is "Presbyterian" is both unfair and fails to understand those of us who take this view).