Covenant of Love

Archive for the ‘Theology’ Category

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• Do you believe “Myth” negates “Reality/Fact/History”?

• How does Wright’s Beethoven Symphony illustration play into an interpretive approach to Genesis 1-3?

• Does Wright’s approach to Genesis result in a distinguished understanding of eschatology, or can his eschatology be held even if his Genesis approach were rejected? (See Surprised by Hope)

• Wright says that “we need to lighten up about these words, and maybe find some other words”. What words would you suggest to replace ones like “myth” or “history” when discussion Genesis 1-3?

• How do you read Genesis for all it’s worth?

I have a perception of a growing (and unnecessary) tention between theology and following Jesus. Theology divides, lets just follow Jesus by loving everyone. In The Passionate Intellect Alister McGrath writes:

Theology energizes and enables the church to witness in the public square, helping it to frame its compelling intellectual, moral and spiritual vision of reality. – p.14

My commentary: Theology energizes and enables believers to action! We cannot soft peddle theology – least of all a theology of the cross – in a culture which is hostle or hell bent against God – the Christian God. And every culture is.

As is well known to casual readers of Covenant of Love, I am a fan of N.T. Wright and I do not appreciate John Piper very much. (I was a not a fan of John Piper long before these two came to clash.) At the Evangelical Theological Society’s 62nd Annual Meeting, the topic is Justification by Faith and both N.T. Wright and John Piper were invited to be plenary speakers for this event. Taking the position I do, the “dialogue” would have essentially amounted to Wright embarrising John Piper in my opinion. Even fans of Piper usually acknowledge that simply put, him and Wright are in completely separate leagues (Tom being in the Big Leagues and Piper in the Minors).

Still, I am amazed that some bloggers holdout underdog hopes with a great deal of misguided confidence that John Piper is more then up to the task, that he would somehow be able to sweep Wright aside, that it would somehow amount to little more than a walk in the park of Piper. I have no clever response to that, I simply stand in awe that someone could reasonably think such a thing.

But I saw Wright at the Wheaton Conferences. His respectability, his humility, his willingness to engage other perspectives, to think through reasonable critiques of his work by his opponents, and sometimes to consider their suggestions for further dialogue. I think the question of “who would win” or “who would lose” in a debate between John Piper and N.T. Wright is, from Wright’s perspective and probably from the perspective of Wrightians, irrelevant.

John Piper has written against Tom Wright (The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright), and Tom has written a response (Justification: God’s Plan Paul’s Vision). I think it would have been beneficial, even crucial, for these two men to have met and to get to know each other’s personalities. Who knows, maybe an unlikely friendship is lurking right around the corner.

Alas we may never know. For reasons which are unclear to me, the ETS announced:

We had previously announced that Pastor John Piper would be one of our plenary speakers at the November meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Atlanta addressing the theme of “Justification By Faith.” Unfortunately, Pastor Piper has had to withdraw from his involvement in this meeting in conjunction with an eight-month leave of absence that he will be taking from his ministry assignments. (Here)

The last time I am aware that Piper took a leave of absence from his ministry responsibilities, it was to write a book against N.T. Wright (Future of Justification, p.10). Is it possible that he has chosen to forgo an opportunity to meet the good Bishop so that he might rather write another book against him? Nah, pure conjecture. I wish to attempt to give Piper the benefit of the doubt (however difficult that may be) and believe that he has not backed out of this engagement for fear of the humble Bishop or intimidation of the Bishops godly presence and vast knowledge.

In any case, Piper has been substituted by Thomas R. Schreiner, an expert in Pauline scholarship and (by all accounts) a better match with Tom Wright. Tom and Tom will share a discussion panel and engage each other on the subject of Justification by Faith. It is my hope that this discussion panel and lectures of Tom W and Tom S will be made available via on-line in the same way that the Wheaton Conference lectures were. The ETS meeting will be held in Atlanta GA on November 17-19, 2010. Praying for a good and fruitful engagement!

The following review/overview is slightly long. In an attempt to keep it from becoming overly daunting I have added footnotes for further explanation if you’re interested. The subtitled to Inspiration and Incarnation is “Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament” (3.5 Stars).

The Old Testament Problem

I confess my sweeping tendencies. I tend to read many books by evangelical scholars who in passing talk of “second Isaiah”, they take for granted that “Deuteronomy was written after the Exile”, that the “Hebrew alphabet did not existed at the time of Moses”, “the book of Chronicles and Samuel/Kings contradict each other”[1] , “Daniel was written in the second century BC” and so on. I tend to sweep these comments aside in my head only to get the authors point. Take the good, get rid of the bad.

How could the New Testament authors simply quote “the prophet Isaiah” if the text they are quoting, Isaiah did not really write [Matt 3:3]? How could Jesus quote “the prophet Daniel”, if Daniel was written by someone else [Matt 24:15]? How can the New Testament writers speak of “the book of Moses”, if Moses did not author any books [Mark 12:26]? How can the Old Testament be inspired if Chronicles and Samuel/Kings contradict each other [cf. 2 Samuel 7:16 with 1 Chronicles 17:14]?

In Inspiration and Incarnation, Peter Enns challenges us to take these facts simply as they are. He says that traditionally evangelicals have tried to explain away these discrepancies, ignore them, or lie in wait for a future time when new evidence will render the old evidence inoperative. These are the facts, he says, and if evangelical scholarship hopes to ever be taken seriously among the broader academic world, they must approach the Bible acknowledging these facts.

But the question is raised, in what sense can we speak of the Bible being “inspired”? Enns puts forth a new paradigm:

The term I prefer is “incarnational analogy”: Christ’s incarnation is analogous to Scripture’s “incarnation.” – p.18

Just as Jesus is the “God-man” – 100% God and 100% man – so too is the written word. With this in mind, the aim of Enns book is this:

How does scriptures full humanity and full divinity affect what we should expect from the scriptures? – ibid

Working Solution to the Old Testament Problem

First we must acknowledge that the Bible is the inspired word of God. This is a non-negotiable. Following this premise, we must acknowledge that what the Bible looks like – its reliance on ANE texts, its contradictions, its lack of concern for science and so on – is exactly what it is supposed to look like (since it is inspired). “It is God’s word because it is – and this is how God did it.” [p.66.] Finally it is worthy asking, did the events and conversations recorded in the Old Testament actually (historically) happen? Enns answer is simply “I don’t know, and neither does anyone else.” [p.66]

The New Testament Problem

The first problem presented in the New Testament is the same as that presented in the Old Testament. How do evangelicals handle the fact that the New Testament writers sometimes “assumed” Second Temple non-Biblical literature into the Biblical text? Are those portions to be considered “inspired” because they are in the Bible? Does that mean their original source is also inspired?[2]

The New Testament also presents a different sort of problem, namely, how in quoting the Old, the New Testament writers seem to completely disregard standard grammatical-historical hermeneutics. We are taught that the only appropriate way to interpret the Bible (or anything else) is by paying close attention to the grammar and context of the passage in question. If this is not done then anyone can create fanciful interpretations out of anything! But that seems to be exactly what the New Testament authors (including Jesus) did. They completely disregarded the grammar and context of the Old Testament when they quoted it.[3] In short, they misquoted and misapplied the Old Testament in order to make their point.

The question becomes, if they can do this with the scriptures, can we also? Why or else why not? Another more pressing question is why it is they felt they could use the Old Testament the way they did.

Working Solution to the New Testament problem

The answer is found in the reality of the risen Christ. According to Enns, the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, that he was crucified (as was not expected) and then rose from the dead (showing that God vindicated him and proved his messiahship), forced the apostles to go back and read the Old Testament in light of this fact. For example, the fact that Jesus was the Messiah forced Matthew to go back and re-read Isaiah 40-55 – Jesus as the representative of Israel – which in turn led him to apply Hosea 11:1 (which originally applied to Israel of the exodus)  on to Christ as the true Israelite.

The question becomes, do we have the same liberty with the Old Testament? Can we read it in light of the risen Christ, even in places where the New Testament authors don’t? Enns argues that if we are truly to follow the apostles examples and teachings, then shouldn’t we also follow their hermeneutics[4] as well?

Final Reflections

Perhaps I am have difficulty escaping the fact that I am a child of my time, but I still feel that it is important for the Old Testament stories to be true in a modern historical sense. I also question how good Enns “Incarnation analogy” actually works. He compares it to Christ being fully man and fully God, but Enns analogy begins to crumble at the place of perfection: as Christ is the God-man, he was still without sin, error or mistake. But Enns suggests that the “man” part of the Old Testament may be riddled with mistakes, errors, contradictions and so on. So the analogy is not the same.

Turning to his explanation of the New Testaments hermeneutical approach to the Old, I appreciate the term “Christotelic” (See foot note 4), interpreting the Old Testament in light of the risen Christ. I also think that we today should do the same since we are living in light of this same reality. For example, I have no problem interpreting Zechariah 12-14 in light of Christ – the true Israelite – and in light of the Church made up of Jews and Gentiles who is also true Israel since they are “in Christ”. I don’t think this passage has much to do with national Israel in the end times. I also have no problem interpreting Jeremiah 23:7-8 as a reference to the Cross, deliverance from the “exile” of sin, death and separation from God – something which the historical exile pointed to.

On the whole, I found Inspiration and Incarnation to be challenging and enlightening. For those interested, G.K. Beale wrote a book responding to Enns titled Erosion of Inerrancy.

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[1] Cf. 2 Samuel 7:16 with 1 Chronicles 17:14. “The plain fact of the matter is that in Scripture we have two divergent accounts of the same event. The only question before us is how to handle this fact with integrity.” – p.65

[2] For example, Jude 14-15 cites the apocryphal book of 1 Enoch 1.9. If Jude is inspired, is Enoch inspired also?

[3] An obvious example is Hosea 6:1 quoted in Matthew 2:15. In context Hosea is talking about the nation of Israel back at the time of the exodus. He was not talking about Jesus of Nazareth and would be surprised to find his words twisted out of context. A more pressing example is in Luke 24:44 and 1 Corinthians 15:3-4. Jesus and Paul speak of the death and resurrection having been spoken about in the Old Testament, but one is left wondering what proof-text they can turn to support this?

[4] He refers to their hermeneutics as “Christotelic” combining the words “Christ” with the Greek word “telos” meaning “end”. Their approach was to read the Old Testament in light of the eschatological reality of Christ.

When a friend first told me about “Open Theology” I knew it was something I had to look into. For years I read the bible, particularly the Old Testament, and always came away with questions which remained unanswered. Open Theology offered a way to understand the nature of God which correlated well with many biblical passages. It’s not a perfect system (Calvinism and Arminianism are both far from being perfect systems also!), but for me it offered a way forward to what I perceive to be a more biblically nuanced articulation of the nature of God.

But people are afraid of what they don’t understand and they become (sometimes) vicious when they feel like their concept of God is under attack. I have experienced this first hand.

As a result Open Theology has been bemoaned as “heresy”, I have been called nothing less than a devil worshiper for considering the strengths of this system and God is often said to be “imperfect” if Open Theology is correct.

I’d like to underscore what I said a moment ago: People are afraid of what they don’t understand. I think Open Theism is misunderstood. I have read responses to Open Theism by John Piper, John Frame, Bruce Ware, Paul Helm and many others, and none of them seem to be able to accurately explain what Open Theology teaches, and if they don’t understand it, how can they accurately respond to it? This ignorance is only perpetuated when fans of these popular authors read their books.

I want to extend this warm invitation toward you to give Open Theology a fair hearing. Greg Boyd is one of the most vocal advocates of Open Theology and in the videos below he is a guest speaker in Clark Pinnock’s class (Pinnock is a Calvinists turned Open Theist).

Your comments below will intrigue me…

Yesterday I favorably reviewed a book by Pete Wilson called Plan B. The reason I gave it such a favorable review is because I believed that Plan B will help a lot of hurting people. I think Pete got many things right and I believe that what I feel he got wrong experience has taught me that most people won’t pick up on anyways. Nonetheless since Covenant of Love is about exploring theology to a great extent, I had a difficult time reading Plan B and pushing some inconsistencies and unresolved tension to the back of my mind; so today I wanted to express my minor frustration with the theology of books like Pete’s.

I’ve read other books of the same or similar vein in the past. The two that come to mind are Shattered Dreams by Lawrence Crabb and Crucified by Christians by Gene Edwards (since re-titled Exquisite Agony) – the latter is more of an extreme example (if life sucks, good, God wants what is, and if that means life must suck for you, well, praise God – that’s Edwards position)

“Plan B” is an unconventional title because we all know that there are no “Plan B’s with God” (as preachers and authors often remind us). But in choosing a title such as “Plan B” Pete (or perhaps the publisher) immediately makes a connection with the realities of the lives of every individual. This is where reality and pastoral concern clashes with old categories of biblical theology. We speak of Plan B because that is simply the reality which people experience, but in a way our theology makes deceivers out of us, because we don’t really believe in such a thing; conventional theology forbids it and Conservative Evangelicalism condemn it.

I don’t always find it very comforting that the misfortunes of many “Plan B’s” were in fact God’s intent all along. For example, when someone’s mother dies an excruciating cancerous death I have a difficulty finding comfort in attributing this to “God’s greater good”. I would rather see it as not something God wants, but something God works in and through to bring about something beautiful in spite of disasters. This unresolved tension goes further when it is suggested that the misfortune which brought about your Plan B is God’s doing because he is in absolute control, but you must turn control over to God (isn’t he in absolute control?) and you must give up your “fear, anger and disappointment”. If God is in absolute control, then what good is it to write a book telling people to give up their “fear, anger and disappointment” – Isn’t God the only person able to do that? Aren’t you asking someone to do something which they cannot do?

“Christian Living” books lose any practical application.

If “the greatest of all illusions is the illusion of control” [p. 31] then what sense is there in telling people they need to surrender?

Am I the only one who sees an inconsistency in this? I think pastors need to develop a new practical theology that is more consistent with reality, but this may require a paradigm shift. In doing so, I urge you not to be afraid of the bullies who will call you names in an effort to intimate you into remaining conformed.

It is this bloggers opinion that Kevin Vanhoozer was the most entertaining and illuminating lecturer at the Wheaton Conference (aside, perhaps, from Wright himself). It is for this reason, and also because I have received complaints about the lag time it takes to load and watch the videos, that I decided to directly re-post them here.

If you have read Wright at all you will find this video enjoyable and also challenging as Vanhoozer attempts suggest a way for Wright to improve his paradigm and find a middle road between “new perspectives” and “old reformers”.

Kevin Vanhoozer: Wrighting the Wrongs of the Reformation from Derek Ouellette on Vimeo.

(I was given permission via email from Wheaton College to re-post this video here so long as I link back to Wheaton’s site. To watch the original postings click here. Because of the volume of people watching from Wheaton’s site the lag time to download and watch this may be great.)

For those who wished they could have been there but for whatever reason were unable to attend, and for those who did attend but wish to watch their favorite sessions a second time – I have linked to the lectures on video here.

Just click on the face of the scholar you wish to listen to.

DAY 1: Jesus and the People of God

Richard Hays, Knowing Jesus and the Question of Truth

Richards father-in-law passed-away shortly before the conference and as a result was unable to stick around for the discussion panel. Its too bad, his essay was one of my favorites.

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Marianne Meye Thompson, The Gospel of John meets Jesus and the Victory of God

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N.T. Wright, Chapel Message

N.T. Wright delivered a powerful message from Ephesians. Anyone interested in sampling Wright, this is a good place to start.

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Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat, ‘Outside of a Small Circle of Friends’: Jesus and the Justice of God

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Nicholas Perrin, Jesus’ Eschatology and Kingdom Ethics: Ever the Twain Shall Meet

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Wright, Walsh, Keesmaat, Thompson, and Perrin, Panel Discussion

I am seated to the right of the cue ball (Flint) in the bottom left corner of your screen when the video begins.

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N.T. Wright, Jesus and the People of God: Whence and Whither Historical Jesus Studies and the Life of the Church

Keynote lecture on Jesus by Wright to conclude day one of the conference.

Day 2: Paul and the People of God

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Wrighting the Wrongs of the Reformation? The State of the Union with Christ in St. Paul and in Protestant Soteriology

Kevin’s lecture was probably my favorite overall aside from Wright himself. He was humorous and also offered some very compelling thoughts, particularly what he has to say about “adoption”.

Jeremy Begbie, The Shape of Things to Come? Wright Amidst Emerging Ecclesiologies

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Edith Humphrey, Glimpsing the Glory—Paul’s Gospel, Righteousness and the Beautiful Feet of N.T. Wright

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N.T. Wright, Paul and the People of God: Whence and Whither Pauline Studies and the Life of the Church

Keynote lecture on Paul by Wright to conclude day two of the conference.

It is unfortunate that, for whatever reason, the video for the discussion panel on day two has not been released. I feel that this second discussion panel challenged N.T. Wright more then the first.

If memory serves it was Edith Humphrey who brought up and challenged Wright’s interpretation of 2 Corinthians 5:21.

For N.T. Wright, if you are discussing Justification using the law-court metaphor (which has been the case since Calvin or before) it makes no sense at all to say that God’s righteousness is “imputed” on the believer. God as judge simply judges justly thus making him a “righteous Judge”. But when putting the subject of the believers Justification aside and asking the question on its own – giving full weight to the Old Testament use of “righteousness” – N.T. Wright believes that the phrase, “Gods Righteousness” is actually short hand for “the covenant faithfulness of God”. In both cases God’s righteousness is his own, it is not something he gives to anyone else.

If his interpretation is correct then what about 2 Corinthians 5:21 in which the text explicitly reads that “we have become the righteousness of God”?

N.T. Wright believes (as he says very clearly in both What Saint Paul Really Said? and in Justification) that this passage is so contextualized that we must read it as Paul talking about his own Apostolic Ministry and not about believers everywhere being imputed God’s righteousness.

Keep in mind that God’s righteousness is a reference to his faithfulness to his covenant, a faithfulness which came to fruition in the “faithful obedience of Jesus Christ on the cross” (Galatians 2:16, Philippians 2:5-11). So if the message of the Gospel – the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-5) is the message of God’s covenant faithfulness then, says Wright, when Paul and the Apostles preached that message they actually embodied that message. In that sense they literally became “the righteousness of God”. This, says Wright, is the whole context of 5:11-20 and even going back to chapter 3 and 4.

But I was not satisfied with this interpretation because it seemed to limit the scope of the biblical text. I tried to dance – ever so delicately – the line between the “old” view and the “new” (i.e. Wright’s) view believing that this passage does teach that believers “take on” God’s righteousness as it were, but through the Union With Christ (“In Him” it says) rather than “imputation”. In short, I leaned toward Edith’s understanding of this passage.

In Wright’s response to Edith Humphrey my anxieties were relieved. Wright, in explaining this text at the conference, seemed to go further with it then I think he does in his books. Keeping all of his premises in tact he expanded his interpretation of this passage to include all believers and their mission.

The righteousness of God does in fact refer to God’s faithfulness to his covenant expressed fully in the life, death and resurrection of Christ (i.e. the Gospel). Furthermore, Paul in 2 Corinthians is talking – in context – specifically about his own ministry and that of the other Apostles. But – and this I think is the touch Wright adds which he does not make clear in his previous writings – we believers have a job to do in proclaiming the Kingdom Message of the Gospel to the world and when we do that then we too become, i.e. embody, the Righteousness of God.

And that is how N.T. Wright interprets 2 Corinthians 5:21, it is an interpretation I can live with though I myself need to tease it out a bit more.

Someone might think there is not much at stake in this debate. There is. (I state that matter-of-factly.)

After reading the last post it should be obvious that the doctrine of Imputation hangs in the balance. If Wright is correct then the doctrine of Imputation is unnecessary, superfluous and even simply wrong.

J.I Packer, Michael Bird, Larry Helyer and other Reformed scholars have all said explicitly that there is no verse in the bible that teaches Imputation (neither that we have been imputed Christ’s righteousness, nor that every individual has been imputed Adam’s particular sin). It is for this reason that John Wesley rejected this doctrine for most of his career (only to accept it on the condition that “imputation” never be separated from “impartation”) and why N.T. Wright and others reject it.

But the fact that the bible does not explicitly teach imputation does not stop Packer, Bird or Helyer from embracing that doctrine. Listen to Bird’s statement here:

“I don’t think that any single text in the New Testament speaks of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to believers, but spread throughout the New Testament we find the ingredients for it when taken collectively.”

So there you have it, the “ingredients” are there. Does anyone even know what that means, the “ingredients”? A little bit of this and a little bit of that and voila: a doctrine. (Too many doctrines are made that way.) I have no problem with the idea that believers have been imputed Christ’s righteousness except that the bible does not seem to teach it and that there are other ways to accomplish what imputation seeks to do. (I do have a serious problem with the imputation of Adam’s sin on every individual. It is this reverse side of the doctrine of imputation that leads people like Jonathan Edwards to smugly declare children to be “infinitely more hateful then vipers”.)

But imputation is not the real issue for classical reformers, it is only a symptom. We could talk about their understanding of “works” or “faith” or “grace” or “justification” and so on. All of these are at stake one way or another (for the Reformers) but they are not the bottom line. The root of the problem, the real issue at stake is the Reformed Tradition. The entire Reformation was built on the foundation of Luther’s Justification by Faith Alone. Centuries of Creeds, respected scholars, heroes of the faith and even the greatest of all Reform giants, John Calvin himself, systemized, expounded, exegete, taught, preached and swore allegiance to this Great Tradition which proudly claims support from the scriptures. It would be a devastating blow to the Reformed ego if it could be shown from the Biblical text in historical context that all of this was built on a mistake.

For Piper, Sproul and others, the stakes are very high.

For Wright the stakes are equally high. If the root of the issue for Reformers is Tradition then the root of the issue for Wright is the scriptures. He says that “what is missing” in Reformed traditional scholarship is “an insistence on Scripture itself rather than tradition…” What he finds frustrating then is when he does this, when Wright insists on the scriptures, he is accused by Piper of doing away with 1500 years of tradition (does anyone else see the irony in that?). N.T. Wright believes that the traditional Reformers are more defensive of their traditions and creeds then in what the scriptures might actually reveal. To suggest that the Reformers did not get it all right the first time terrifies some of these guys.

For Wright, the stakes are nothing short of cosmic proportions. When asked what would be missing if Piper’s views were adopted, he answered:

“What’s missing is the big, Pauline picture of God’s gospel going out to redeem the whole world, all of creation, with ourselves as part of that. What’s missing is the big, Pauline view of the church, Jew and Gentile on equal footing, as the sign to the powers of the world that Jesus is Lord and they aren’t. What’s missing is the key work of the Holy Spirit in enabling the already-justified believers to live with moral energy and will so that they really do ‘please God’ as Paul says again and again (but as Reformed theology is shy of lest it smack of smuggling in works-righteousness again). What’s missing is an insistence on Scripture itself rather than tradition…”

It is my hope that you begin to get a sense of what is at stake. In the long run the stakes involve many issues including how to properly understand the relationship between faith and works, the atonement and half a dozen other issues. In the short run it is nothing short of which is supreme, Scripture or Tradition (keeping in mind that this debate is internal and has nothing to do with the Catholic Church).

Traditional Reformers can no longer get away with smugly waving off all of their opponents by claiming the biblical high ground as long as they continue to canonize the traditions of Luther and Calvin with unquestionable allegiance.

I think by now you probably have something of an idea as to why this debate matters, but as I “Post-Conservative” myself I feel pressed to write the next post anyways.

We have now seen each view summarized (post one) and we also now have a sense of what is at stake (hopefully). My views have been made crystal. I do not agree with Wright on all matters, but on this subject when he explains the scriptures I am inclined to agree. Frankly, accepting the biblical testimony in context over my own tradition has been very enlightening, invigorating, liberating, and joyful.

So next I will briefly suggest why this matters (as if this post didn’t already do that).

***Stay Tuned***