Finals Results

Geoff!

***

“Blessed are you, O LORD, the God of Israel our father, for ever and ever. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.” – 1 Chronicles 30.10-13

Are we in danger of becoming Dispensationalists?

Caveat: this is not a thorough exegesis or consideration of all the pertinent writings, Biblical or otherwise!

Is the Law in its entirety to be the normative rule of life for the Christian? We affirm against the Dispensationalists. Are Christians to keep all the principles in exactly the same way as OT Israel? We deny against the Theonomists.

Here are some brief reflections:

1. Jesus’ testimony

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. [Jesus shows what he means by 'fulfilment' in this instance by taking OT law as it had become employed by his time and then explained how it ought to be applied - vv. 21-48] For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” – Matthew 5.17-18

“And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” – Matthew 22.37-40

By teaching these two commandments, does not Jesus therefore endorse ‘all the Law and Prophets’ which these two prophets summarize?

2. Paul’s teaching

“For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one. He will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” – Romans 3.28-31

“So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” – Romans 7.12

“Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” – Romans 13.8-10

Does not Paul exhort his readers to love one another because that fulfils the law, thus affirming that adherence to the law is normative for Christian living? Surely Paul’s citation of some of the commandments shows that he thinks that they should be kept by the Christian?

“To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.” – 1 Corinthians 9.21

3. Jesus’ example

Jesus was perfectly obedient to the Law for us. As Christians, we are to imitate Christ, which therefore means that we, too, must look at the Law as it is revealed in the Old Testament and live in obedience to it.

4. The nature of Word and Spirit

“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” – Jeremiah 31.33

Under the New Covenant, the law is still there. What is different is that God guarantees that this law will be internalized in the covenant members. However, we must not divorce Word and Spirit – surely the Spirit’s work of writing God’s law on our hearts takes place through the means of the revealed law, i.e. the OT.

5. The nature of progressive revelation

At Sinai, Moses received instructions for tabernacle building and the worship that was to take place there. When the Temple came to be built, the Law was still held to be normative for Israel. The application of the Law was, however, adjusted in light of new revelation in the new circumstances.

Likewise, as Christians we do not keep the commandments in exactly the same way as Israel did when she received the Law at Sinai (contra the teaching of the Theonomists). We have to careful apply the Law in the light of the revelation we have received in Christ. For example, adultery is still wrong, but is not punishable by execution now, but rather excommunication. There is one covenant of grace under various administrations. There is a fundamental unity throughout the Old and New Testaments, although there is an organic development. Richard Pratt puts it well:

“Unlike Dispensationalists, we are not looking for a few branches from Old Testament faith to graft onto a different Christian tree. We find shade under the same tree as Old Testament believers; the tree is simply more mature.” Pratt, He gave us stories, pp. 344-345

6. The implications for Old Testament narrative

If the law is not normative for the Christian, then it is hard to see how the Old Testament is all relevant for the Christian. Richard Pratt observes:

“In its more extreme expressions, Dispensationalism has reject the authority of Mosaic standards for Christians. As L. S. Chafer put it:

‘Since law and grace are opposed to each other at every point, it is impossible for them to co-exist, either as the ground of acceptance before God or as the rule of life. Of necessity, therefore, the Scriptures of the New Testament which present the facts and scope of grace, both assume and directly teach that the law is done away. Consequently it is not in force in the present age in any sense whatsoever. This present nullification of the law applies not only to the legal code of the Mosaic system and the law of the kingdom, but to every possible application of the principle of law.’

“This outlook strikes at the heart of Old Testament narratives. As we have seen, all Old Testament writers presupposed the validity of Mosaic Law. If Mosaic standards have no authority over New Testament believers, it is difficult to imagine how Old Testament stories can apply to our lives.” Pratt, He gave us stories, pp. 342-343

7. The position of the Reformers

Article VII, ‘Of the Old Testament’ reads:

“Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching Ceremonies and Rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the Civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral.”

The Reformers receive a lot of stick for their seemingly artificial division of the Law into “Moral”, “Ceremonial” and “Civil”. However, could it not be argued that this is not dividing the Law in ways that the Bible does not warrant, but rather is the practical outworking of a view of the continuing authority of the law as a whole but considering its application in light of the revelation we have in Christ, with the “Ceremonial” and “Civil” aspects belonging to that epoch of the theocracy before Christ the antitype of the ceremonies and when it was a single geopolitical entity, rather than a subculture spread throughout the world?

Discuss!

Throwing out the baby with the bath water

In THIS POST Sam Allberry reports the late Tony Wilmot as saying :

“The Bible is not about good people for us to copy, but about bad people to whom God was good.”

This must surely be right, and it is a necessary safeguard for every generation of evangelicals for this to be repeated and repeated and repeated. So often, people think that because a particular course of action is recorded, it must be an example for us to follow. “Laying down a fleece” (cf. Judges 6) becomes an integral part of Christian decision-making. I have even heard it suggested, in an OICCU group study on Daniel 2 that in a crisis, prayer shouldn’t be our first course of action, but rather than we should first have a word with those involved. (Some readers of this ‘blog might not classify those with a hermeneutical approach such as this as “Evangelical” in the first place!)

But have we thrown the baby out with the bath water? THIS BOOK has been a corrective to me in a number of ways, not least in this area. Pratt sees a very positive (but not uncontrolled) place for exemplarism in interpreting and applying the OT. Below are some extracts:

“Exemplary approaches sometimes go to extremes. For instance, there is the obvious temptation to psychologize characters beyond the limits of the text. We must be wary of such abuses. Yet we must not entirely reject the exemplary approach because of these errors. Old Testament narratives offer many examples of what to do and not to do. We should be ready to appropriate these aspects of the texts.

“Good exemplary thematic analysis may be found in several popular treatments of Nehemiah as a model of leadership. The major concern of the writer of Ezra-Nehemiah is the continuation of Nehemiah’s reforms. Nevertheless, Nehemiah did exhibit expert leadership. He laid careful plans, delegated responsibility, managed conflict, and showed courage and persistence. Although these features of Nehemiah’s life are secondary to the main purpose of the book, we may draw attention to them through exemplary thematic analysis.

“Many different questions can be answered through exemplarism. “What was the struggle this character faced?” “How did he or she overcome the problem?” “What can I learn from this example?” These matters may not be central to the stories, but they may still be important to us.” (p. 91)

“Many times OT writers met the needs of their audiences by providing them with examples from the past. Some of these examples were to be imitated; others were to be avoided. Sometimes this connection was a relatively minor aspect of a passage. While an episode or section of a book may have anticipated the audience more by establishing or adumbrating their lives, it may still have offered the audience a model.

“For example, the story of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the garden (Genesis 2:4-3:24) had the overarching purpose of establishing why the image of God suffers pain and futility. Our first parents’ violation cast the human race into sin and death. Moses composed this story to explain the origins of suffering and trouble.

“Within this larger purpose, Adam and Eve served as negative models for the audience. Why should the readers take to heart the commandments of God in their day? Why is obedience to the Law so important? One answer lies in the paradigm of Adam and Eve. When the first humans violated the Law of God, consequences were severe; the same would be true for the people of Moses’ audience who violated God’s requirements.

“The writer of Kings also reported the reign of Manasseh primarily to establish an historical basis for the exile (2 Kings 21:1-18). Mannasseh’s [sic] sins sealed the fate of Judah. As the prophet said, God was “going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle” (21:12). But this was not the only way in which this story was helpful for the lives of the readers. Manasseh’s life served as a negative example to the exiles. Only as they avoided Manasseh’s syncretism and rebellion could they look forward to the possibility of return…

“Sometimes modeling [sic] was a more central concern. Some stories connected the past and present primarily by offering examples. For instance, throughout the first chapter of Daniel, young Israelite men are set forth as paragons of faith. They do nothing wrong; they serve faithfully in the kingdom of Babylon, but they never compromise their devotion to the God of Israel. The story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Daniel 3:1-30) presents these young men as examples of pious living in exile. Their acts of faith in the face of certain death demonstrated the kind of piety expected of all who served God outside the land. What is the result of their fidelity? God blesses them and brings glory to Himself. The connection with the original audience is plain. What were they to do when tempted to worship other gods? How could they serve a foreign power and still maintain loyalty to the God of Israel? The writer of Daniel answered these questions in the examples of these three men.

“The story of the golden calf (Exodus 32:1-33:6) offers another example of modeling [sic]. This episode appears after God gave regulations of tabernacle worship on Mount Sinai, but before their actual application among the tribes. In this intervening passage, Moses reported God’s horrifying judgment against Israel’s corrupt worship. What did this account have to do with Moses’ audience? How did it envisage their situation? Moses reported this account to give his readers a model of what hapens to those who neglect the regulations of the cult. If the audience turned away from the purity of God-ordained worship, it would incite God’s wrath just as it had at the food of Sinai.

“Anticipation through modeling [sic] also extends to large sections and whole books. The Chronicler’s idealized presentation of David and Solomon provided the post-exilic audience with representative illustrations for their lives. Esther’s behaviour taught by precedent how the Israelites were to serve the interests of their own people outside the land.

“Throughout the Old Testament, we find stories that provided models for the original audience. Several questions help us identify this connection. First, did a character fail or succeed at a critical juncture and experience significant results from his or her actions? Second, did the actions of the character relate to choices that the audience had to make in their day? Third, what results could the audience have expected to see in their time if they imitated or avoided the character’s actions? As we ask these kinds of questions, we will see the modeling [sic] function of many Old Testament narratives.” (pp. 266-268)

“When applying Old Testament narratives to our world, we must also look for ways in which they provide models for our lives. Old Testament writers frequently wrote their stories to show a pattern of choice and consequence that would guide their readers in their own moral decisions. this modeling [sic] function was based on significant analogies between the circumstances of the characters in the text and the situation of the original audience.

“Modern interpreters will find significant analogies between our lives and the situations addressed by Old Testament writers. We must beware illegitimate moralizing, but as long as we base contemporary modeling [sic] on original modeling [sic] function, application of this sort is valuable.

“When modeling [getting fed up with 'sic' now] is a prominent motif in an Old Testament story, the passage can offer an example for contemporary believers as well. For instance, the Chronicler designed Hezekiah’s reign as an example for his audience. He downplayed the king’s pride and failure (compare 2 Kings 20:1-21 and 2 Chronicles 32:24-33) and emphasized his cultic reforms. In his grand Passover celebration, Hezekiah successfully reunited a remnant from the Northern Kingdom with the Southern Kingdom through intercessory prayer (2 Chronicles 30:17-20). This event established Judah as the representative of the entire nation during the exile and restoration, but Hezekiah’s prayer on behalf of the ailing Northerners also depicted him as a model for the post-exilic community. The Chronicler offered an example of proper attitudes and actions towards the North as his readers faced the trials of the post-exilic situation.

“Contemporary believers should emulate Hezekiah in responding to divisions and separations among the people of God today. What can we do to build the unity of Christ’s kingdom?

“Even when modeling is not central to the original meaning of a passage, we may find a connection with our lives. For example, the account of Nathan’s rebuke of David (2 Samuel 12:1-14) was originally designed to explain why David’s house suffered under God’s judgment but remained the legitimate ruling family of Israel. Nathan said that God would severely punish David but would not utterly reject him. While this establishing function may have been central in the purposes of the writer, David’s repentance also served as a model. David did not resist Nathan’s rebuke; he humbly submitted to the words of judgment. The readers of Samuel had many opportunities to hear words of prophetic judgment and follow David’s example. This passage is a model worthy of imitation today. David’s broken spirit and willing acceptance of God’s judgment serve as a portrait of repentance for our lives as well.

“As we apply Old Testament narratives to the contemporary world, we must not only look for ways in which they establish the background of present realities. We must also ask, “Does this passage offer us a model to follow or avoid?” (pp. 316-317)

He gave us stories

I’ve just finished reading He gave us stories by Richard Pratt (P&R 1990, ISBN 087552379X). It’s an excellent book on interpreting and applying Old Testament narratives but which deals with many issues transferable to other genres of Biblical texts.

Coming perhaps as something of a rebuke to me, Pratt affirms the validity of systematic, historical and literary analysis, reflecting our own interests and concerns, acting as windows to historical events, and communicating through form and content together. He of course acknowledges the interdependency of these approaches. Pratt divides thematic analysis into systematic theology, exemplarism and pastoral interests, and defends the highlighting of apparently minor themes in narratives by appealing to Biblical writers who practised this themselves (e.g. the Chronicler’s focus on the positive side of David’s reign and his underplaying of his flaws).

Pratt affirms the univalency of Scripture: a text has only one meaning – that which was intended by the original human author. However, he guards against the tendency to think along the lines of: “The passage meant what I have said. The passage has only one meaning, so it cannot mean anything else.” (Again, mea culpa!) He points out that this will cause us to stop exploring the passage and rule out further investigation because we think we have arrived at the only legitimate interpretation, whereas there is, in reality, always more to be unearthed. Pratt acknowledges that original meaning is normative for all other interpretive work, but that this does not exhaust a text’s full value. We must also consider Biblical elaborations – how the Bible expounds on narratives, as well as many legitimate applications. He urges us to remember that there is one original meaning, but there are many legitimate summaries of that one meaning, depending on what was said, how it was arranged, and why what was said was said.

In examining the content of OT narratives, Pratt considers characterisation – God, supernatural creatures and human beings, the latter group, we are reminded, forming the primary focus of OT stories, as important as the other groups are. Pratt comments that evangelicals have overlooked the human focus of OT stories and says that the Biblical authors, while teaching profound theological truths, did so by focusing on the ways human beings lived. He considers techniques for characterisation, including appearance and social status, overt actions, direct speech and thought and descriptive comments, as well as the depth of exposure of different characters and their “arrangement” – protagonistic/antagonistic/ambivalent. He concludes this section with a discussion of the purpose of characterisation in highlighting writers’ central concerns, and in eliciting sympathetic, antipathetic and mixed reactions. Scene depiction is also considered in some depth, suggesting the principle of dividing narratives into scenes, giving clues for how to do so, how space and time are used in narratives, and the employment of imagery.

Pratt moves on to consider plot development in Scripture and narrative structure, including the problem-turning point-resolution paradigm, with or without corresponding rising and falling actions. He then looks at larger narrative structures, considering the arrangement of narratives, emphasising chronological dominance but also topical concerns. Our friends the inclusion (or inclusio if you are Dr. Stott) and the chiasm make an appearance.

He concludes his section on interpreting narratives by considering authorial intent. He gives clues for identifying writers and their audiences and the intentions of authors in writing, for example, characterisation, scene depiction, structure, repetition, allusion, irony and direct discourse. Pratt then explores the dimensions of a writer’s intentions, namely observation of the past (factual, moral and emotional), anticipation of the present in the past (through establishment of factors in the readers’ lives, offering models to the readers and adumbrating the readers’ lives) and the intended implications for the readers, informative, directive and affective. This part ends with a very helpful overview of OT narratives and their function and message for the original readers.

The final section of the book deals with directions for application. He again deals with the categories of observation (for our day), anticipation (establishment, modelling and adumbration) and implications (informative, directive and affective). He recognizes the need for epochal, cultural and personal adjustments that must be made in modern application, which he then develops in the last chapters. The chapter on epochal adjustments is excellent, noting the different stages in redemptive history and steering a safe course between overemphasising the differences in epochs (dispensationalism) or overemphasising the similarities. He considers how Christ can be the centre of our applications, looking at how OT stories anticipate Christ’s three offices of prophet, priest and king. There is a very helpful discussion of the OT theocracy and how the narrrative concerns for the Kingdom of God in national Israel can be adjusted to the so-called Christian theocracy in its inauguration with the first advent of Christ and Pentecost, its continuation in the church in its “already but not yet character”, as a “disenfranchised theocratic remnant, a subculture scatering throughout the nations of the earth”, and its consummation in the return of Christ. This is followed by a slightly more specific discussion of how adjustments may be made to particular parts of OT narrative – the Mosaic, Deuteronomic and Chronistic histories – for application to the Christian theocracy. The final two chapters, on cultural adjustment and personal adjustment are also good, with a stress in the latter of making particular application to particular groups of people, not merely leaving it at the level of general epochal and cultural adjustments. Again, the categories of conceptual, behavioral and emotional application are employed.

I warmly recommend this book. It is highly accessible and very readable. Pratt could have shown slightly more explicitly how characterisation, scene depiction and narrative structure help us to discern a text’s intention in the examples he cites without much more effort. While his summaries at the end of each section and chapter are helpful if you have to keep putting down and picking up the book, it can feel slightly laboured at times, an effect which is not helped by his obligatory homely illustrations at the beginning of each chapter/section/page. He perhaps takes slightly too long to get to the application section of his book, although of course the key to right application is good interpretation. These are, however, minor quibbles, and stylistic ones at that. Buy it, read it, and allow it to transform your reading and preaching not only of the OT, but also the whole Bible.

Thinking ‘aloud’ about Jeremiah 25

The title should make it clear that I am not issuing dogma, I am merely throwing some thoughts “out there”, wherever “there” may be, for the purposes of discussion.

In Jeremiah 25, we read of the “cup of the wine of wrath”, which is taken to Jerusalem in Judah, the surrounding nations, and at last Babylon, as God exacts his judgment upon them. While the primary chronological reference seems to be the conquest of many nations by Babylon, followed by the conquest of Babylon, it seems as though God’s judgment is ultimately wider then this, extending to all nations on the earth (vv. 29-33).

In Gethsemane, Jesus prays that a cup be taken away from him (e.g Luke 22.42) and with the OT background, we can at least say that what Jesus is about to undergo on the cross is to face the punishment of God for sins, because that’s the way this cup language is used in the Bible.

Can we go further than this, though? Could we actually say that Jesus is drinking the cup that has been taken to Jerusalem and the nations to drink? May we conclude from this that he is facing their judgment vicariously? That would seem consistent with the way the NT writers see Jesus’ ministry as the true end of Israel’s exile (cf. Luke 3.4-6), an exile which was God’s judgment upon them. This could also then be the basis of Jesus’ commission to his apostles to preach the good news of his salvation “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth”. Jeremiah 25 does after all refer to the clamour resounding “to the ends of the earth” (v. 31) and those pierced by the Lord extending “from one end of the earth to the other” (v.33). I’ve just noticed the “piercing” element – there might be some mileage in that, too – Jesus being pierced in the place of Jerusalem and the nations (e.g. Ps. 22.16, Zech. 12.10 , John 19.34, 37, Rev. 1.7).

Thoughts, please!

Welcome!

http://www.allberry.blogspot.com/

Going Down

This afternoon, I went down for my last time as an undergraduate at Oxford. Now I’m at home, I’m not going to have constant, high speed access to the Inter Web so I’m not going to be posting as frequently or regularly on this page, nor, sadly, will I be able to comment as frequently on the ‘blogs that I read. The upshot, of course, is that I will actually think about what I write, rather than spout whatever has just popped into my head…

Another striking resemblance

The Bishop of Rome

Benny Hinn

A sharp observation

Reading this ‘blog, I came across the following…

Quoting Peter Jensen (on Cranmer’s liturgy):

“Generations of Anglican Christians have been nurtured on the psalms of David in a way that has not been true of other denominations.”

The author then adds:

“And which, sadly, is increasingly rare even among Anglicans, particularly evangelical Anglicans, as the Psalms of David give way to the Songs of Graham.”

Hmmm…

Perhaps THIS would be a helpful antidote? Or maybe THIS?

In Defence of Anglican Evangelicals

Thanks to David Tomkins for alerting me to Damien Thompson’s Comment in the Daily Telegraph on the possible collapse of the Anglican Communion. I should have responded to it sooner but now, assuming the Moderators even permit its publication, my reply will be at the bottom of a long list of posts at the very end of the day so unprompted readership is likely to be nil.

Read the article and all comments HERE.

An interesting evening

Pleasant company, good food, and most importantly, a discussion of theology – Roman and Catholic .

Conversation covered divers matters including the mass, Mary and regeneration, but most of the focus was on election, free will and the status of man after the Fall. David may at this point reprove me for seemingly ignoring his statement that my “primary aim is not to get him to assent to the five points of Calvinism (or other Protestant doctrine — even if true) but to repent of his sins and believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ”. Admittedly, I probably did allow myself to be led away from discussing matters directly pertaining to salvation, but on reflection this was a helpful discussion to have for two reasons:

1. Importantly in its own right, it deals with the issue of whether we are all able to respond to God’s grace in our natural state, or whether we co-operate with God’s grace in salvation.

2. It was very telling when the discussion got the point where my friend could say that he saw how what I was saying came from the text in its context, but that it wasn’t consistent with the wider context of how the Church interprets the Scripture. It’s not as if he’s ignoring the Bible. He was quoting lots of Scripture – most of it horribly out of context, but that’s all right because it’s consistent with what the Church teaches.

(Also, it’s not as if he will never have heard the pure gospel before – apparently he had quite a heated discussion with Father Greg Downes from St. Aldate’s on the Ch. Ch. OICCU group punting trip.)

We parted on genial terms (we have other common ground – Cyprus, Pro-Life etc) and he seems quite willing to come to BNC for Formal Hall next term (poor lad!) so hopefully we can continue to talk. If progress is to be made (humanly speaking), I think I probably should be encouraging my friend to read the Bible on its own terms. We both are both committed to the authority of Scripture – the issue is how we do theology. To be honest, I’m quite keen to fight church tradition with church tradition – the semi-Pelagian heresy which Rome is teaching on the whole issue of free will, election and human ability seems to have been condemned quite well HERE. Moreover, a superficial reading seems to indicate that Augustine has done superb job in refuting it HERE. And it was, of course, Bertram’s treatise of the ninth century persuaded one Nicholas Ridley that a literal change in the elements of the Lord’s Supper was an innovation. I’m not making the Fathers authoritative, in case any one thinks they can lay that charge against me. My intention is to show that the present tradition of the church directly contradicts the ancient tradition of the church, so that (a) it is clear that it cannot be relied upon and therefore (b) we have to keep returning to the Bible and reforming our theology in the light of it rather than allowing our theology to distort the Scriptures.

Does anyone have any recommendations of Patristic works that would be a good introduction to their writings? I confess to having read nothing in this area (neither has my friend, as it happens). I am quite old-fashioned and would like to have books to read, rather than reading a computer screen. Books are also more portable.

I dislike having to keep qualifying myself on subjects about which my opinion should be evident, but someone’s bound to say something: of course I don’t believe that we interpret the Scriptures in a vacuum and that we don’t have a framework that we use when we come to a text. However, while we exegete our texts in light of our framework so that we do not “so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another”, our framework must be built and honed through the exegesis of texts-in-context.

The Errors of the Church of Rome

Tomorrow evening, I shall be dining at Christ Church with a rather convinced gentleman papist who stopped and chatted when a group of us were preaching the gospel on Cornmarket Street just over a week ago. I gave him my details – I didn’t have any paper on which to write them down, however, so I rather naughtily gave him a copy of Me, a Christian? by John Chapman (which is better than Two Ways to Live: the Choice We All Face, not least because it doesn’t try to make visual representations of God!) and which had my name and e-mail address written thereon. I received an e-mail today.

If anyone can give me a brief run-down of current Romish thought, I would greatly appreciate it. I have some idea, but it’s probably not very nuanced.

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Who is the Son of Man?

I never thought I’d be making this complaint on my ‘blog, but is there a tendency among Evangelicals when they read the Old Testament to see fulfilment in Christ too quickly? (Usually I find myself groaning that people see themselves in the text, too much, and don’t see fulfilment in Christ!) The vision of the Son of Man in Daniel 7 is a case in point. We studied it in our OICCU group at BNC on Wednesday evening.Now I’m not denying that it is ultimately fulfilled in the Lord Jesus. But what I am saying is that there isn’t quite a straight line connecting this vision with Jesus. The text interprets itself. Daniel sees four beasts coming out of the sea, the Ancient of Days sitting in judgment and then this:

“With the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed.”

(vv. 13, 14)

Daniel was very wise and asked one of those in the vision what it all meant and this was what was told to him:

“These four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever, forever and ever.”

(vv. 17, 18)

Despite what the text very clearly says, I had a very hard job persuading people, from the text, that the immediate referent of the phrase “son of man” is the saints. Obviously we have to interpret any text within a framework, but are we in danger of allowing our framework to tell us what a passage is saying and stubbornly holding on to that, even closing our ears to what the text (and therefore God) is actually saying? Once we have concluded that the “son of man” is the saints (i.e. Israel), then we learn so much more about the Lord Jesus. In being the “Son of Man”, we thus see that Jesus is the fulfilment of what it means to be Israel and we also see how we can appropriate this promise to the saints for ourselves: by being in Christ, we shall reign forever with him.

What do other people think? Who do you think the Son of Man is in Daniel 7?

Daniel Newman Audio Ministries, Inc.

Below are links to two sermons I’ve given this year in BNC Chapel – feedback appreciated!

Romans 8.23, Michaelmas 2005 (10.1MB)
2 Peter 3.11-18, Trinity 2006 (3.17MB)

Comments along the lines of “boring” or “the content’s very exciting” are not allowed any more. Well, you can write such comments if you wish, but only if you haven’t told me already and it’s what you genuinely think I need to hear to develop!

Another hymn (revised)

Inspired by our OICCU Group meeting last night – that might explain why it’s a little esoteric!

88.88

I suggest it is sung to Song 34 (Gibbons)

Based on Daniel 7

POWERS STRONG ARISE, KINGS DREADFUL RAGE,
Their war upon God’s saints to wage,
And for a season they prevail,
But at the last are doomed to fail.

Ancient of Days, God takes his throne,
Hair pure as wool and clothes like snow,
From him come streams of holy fire,
While thousands serve him without tire.

The glorious court its judgment makes,
And from God’s foes dominion takes,
But to the Son of Man is giv’n,
All rule and kingdom under heav’n.

This hope for all God’s saints we see
Fulfilled in Jesus perfectly.
He with the clouds shall come again:
In him we will forever reign.

Doxology (optional):

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise him all creatures here below,
Praise him above you heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.