The 7th Day Sabbath: Buried in Christ’s Grave

I’ve been reading through Joseph Pipa’s helpful book, The Lord’s Day, and I ran across this amazing quote by Geerhardus Vos.  I’ve read it before, but I forgot its depth.  While there are a handful of biblical arguments against a Christian seventh day Sabbath, I believe the argument from redemptive history is one of the most helpful ones.  Here’s Vos:

“Inasmuch as the Old Covenant was still looking forward to the performance of the Messianic work, naturally the days of labour to it come first, the day of rest falls at the end of the week. We, under the New Covenant, look back upon the accomplished work of Christ. We, therefore, first celebrate the rest in principle procured by Christ, although the Sabbath also still remains a sign looking forward to the final eschatological rest. The Old Testament people of God had to typify in their life the future developments of redemption. Consequently the precedence of labour and the consequence of rest had to find expression in their calendar.”

“The New Testament Church has no such typical function to perform, for the types have been fulfilled. But is has a great historic event to commemorate, the performance of the work of Christ and the entrance of Him and of His people through Him upon the state of never-ending rest. We do not sufficiently realize the profound sense the early Church had of the epoch-making significance of the appearance, and especially of the resurrection of the Messiah. The latter was to them nothing less than the bringing in of a new, the second, creation. And they felt that this ought to find expression in the placing of the Sabbath with reference to the other days of the week. Believers knew themselves in a measure partakers of the Sabbath-fulfillment. If the one creation required on sequence, then the other required another. It has been strikingly observed, that our Lord died on the eve of that Jewish Sabbath, at the end of one of these typical weeks of labour by which His work and its consummation were prefigured. And Christ entered upon His rest, the rest of His new, eternal life on the first day of the week, so that the Jewish Sabbath comes to lie between, was, as it were, disposed of, buried in His grave” (p. 158).

The first Adam worked towards rest (the Covenant of Works); the last Adam worked so we can rest (the Covenant of Grace).  God’s people got a new calendar after the great redemptive event of the Exodus in the Old Covenant era (Ex. 12), so God’s people have a new calendar after the great redemptive event of the New Covenant era – Christ’s death and resurrection.  Now Christians rest on the first day of the week, the day of Christ’s resurrection.  

Lord willing I’ll come back to this theme in a few days.  For now, let me recommend Vos’ book as well as Joseph Pipa’s book (both named above).

shane lems 

Jesus, Creed, Knowledge, and Faith

 Most of us understand that the phrase “No creed but Christ” is very unhelpful for two reasons: 1) it is illogical because it is creed in and of itself, and 2) one has to define “Christ,” and in so doing, the result will be something like a creedal statement.  Geerhardus Vos tackled this unhelpful anti-creedal attitude which was evidently around 100 years ago:

“Faith presupposes knowledge, because it needs a mental complex, person or thing, to be occupied about.  Therefore, the whole modern idea of preaching Jesus, but preaching him without a creed, is not only theologically, not merely scripturally, but psychologically impossible in itself.”

And more.

“The very names by means of which Jesus would have to be presented to people are nuclei of creed and doctrine.  If it were possible to eliminate this, the message would turn to pure magic, but even the magic requires some name-sound and cannot be wholly described as preaching without a creed.  The vogue which this programme has acquired is to some extent due to the unfortunate, and altogether undeserved, flavor clinging to the term ‘creed,’ as though this necessarily meant a minutely worked out theological structure of belief.  That is not meant, but belief there must be before faith can begin to function, and belief includes knowledge [Matt. 8.10, Lk. 7.9].  This knowledge may have been gathered gradually, almost imperceptibly, from countless impressions received during a brief or longer period of time, but epistemologically it does not differ from any other kind of mental act however acquired.  To be sure, mere knowledge is not equivalent to full-orbed faith, it must develop into trust, before it is entitled to that name.”

For more on this from Vos, see the context of page 389 in Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments.

shane lems

Hyper-BT (or The Exegetical Hat-Trick)

In many ways, I’m indebted to the biblical theological (a.k.a. redemptive-historical) movement of the last 75 years (give or take).  I appreciate guys like Meredith Kline and Gregory Beale, for two different examples, but I’m a bit wary of several aspects of biblical theology (see here, here, and here for a few examples).  I think many biblical theologians could use a solid dose of systematics and historical theology to balance things out.  But Carl Trueman can say this much better than I can. 

First, he says, there is the problem of mediocrity when it comes to BT preaching.  “It is one thing for a master of biblical theology to preach it week after week; quite another for a less talented follower to do so.”  Trueman says (and I agree),

“One of the problems I have with a relentless diet of biblical-theological sermons from less talented (i.e., most of us) preachers is their boring mediocrity: contrived contortions of passages which are engaged in to produce the answer ‘Jesus’ every week.  It doesn’t matter what the text is; the sermon is always the same.”

It’s true – quite a bit of BT preaching concludes the sermon by pulling Jesus out of the exegetical hat <poof!>.  Trueman also mentions a second point, connected to the first.

“Second, the triumph of the biblical-theological method in theology and preaching has come at the very high price of a neglect of the theological tradition.  The church spent nearly seventeen hundred years engaging in careful doctrinal reflections; formulating a  technical language allowing her theologians to express themselves with precision and clarity; writing creeds and confessions to allow believers over the face of the earth to express themselves with one voice….”

Trueman also states that the doctrinal conclusions in church theology were [are] by no means void of a redemptive historical point of view.  One more point – his greatest concern, he says,

“…is that it [the biblical-theology movement] places such an overwhelming emphasis upon the economy of salvation that it neglects these ontological aspects of theology.  In doing so, it will, I believe, prove ultimately self-defeating: a divine economy without a divine ontology is unstable and will collapse.”

He says a lot more in this helpful article, of course.  I agree fully with his main point: that biblical theology is a helpful tool as long as it doesn’t become the sole or dominating tool.  In simpler terms, we need to balance biblical theology with tried-and-true systematic conclusions. 

Even Geerhardus Vos (who wrote a book on BT and an ST textbook) emphatically stated that “for anything pretending to supplant Dogmatics there is no place in the circle of Christian Theology.”  I’ll end with a great line from Carl Trueman in another essay (a fictitious dialogue between his version of Sherlock Holmes and Watson).

“Doing theology by using nothing more than redemptive history is like trying to build a house from the ground up, armed only with a hammer.  Futile, old chap, utterly futile.”

Trueman’s quotes are taken from 2.4 of The Wages of Spin and the postscript of Minority Report.  I highly recommend these articles (and these books in general!).

shane lems

Spiritual Doesn’t Always Mean Immaterial

 Quite often when we say or hear ”spiritual” we might think of something invisible and immaterial (i.e. the ‘spiritual life’).  However, when it comes to the glory of the New Creation, the Kingdom of God in its fullness, the term “spiritual” doesn’t mean immaterial.  I like how Anthony Thiselton comments on Paul’s use of pneumatikos (spiritual) in 1 Cor. 15.44.  First, he gives his translation.

“It is sown an ordinary human body; it is raised a body constituted by the Spirit.  If there is a body for the human realm, there is also a body for the realm of the Spirit.”

Here are a few of his comments.

“The NRSV translation, ‘sown a physical body…raised a spiritual body…,’ is a misleading blunder in a version that is usually reliable and often excellent.  The contrast is not between physical and nonphysical.  The Greek word pneumatikos does not mean ‘composed of nonmaterial spirit.’  Paul uses the adjective in this epistle to denote that which reflects or instances the presence, power, and transforming activity of the Spirit.  The raised body is characterized by the uninterrupted, transforming power of the Holy Spirit of God.  It stands in contrast with the ordinary human body that has been open to the influence of the Holy Spirit, but in partial ways, still marred by human failure, fallibility, and self-interest.  The perfect openness to the Holy Spirit characteristic of the resurrection mode of being therefore brings together decay’s reversal, splendor, or ‘glory,’ power, and a mode of being constituted by the Spirit (vv. 42b-44).”

“Thus, similarly in v. 44b, such a ‘body’ or mode of being is one designed for the realm or sphere of the presence and resurrection action of the Holy Spirit, not merely for the realm of nonmaterial ‘spirit.’”

I haven’t read all of Thiselton’s Shorter Exegetical and Pastoral Commentary on 1 Corinthians, but the parts I have studied have been helpful.  I purchased this shorter one because it is a fraction of the cost of his work on 1 Cor. in the NIGTC series.  By the way, if you want to dig deeper into the above topic, you simply must read Geerhardus Vos’ essay called “The Eschatological Aspect of the Pauline Conception of the Spirit” in his Shorter Writings.  It may even be online somewhere.

shane lems

Goldingay’s Commentary on the Psalms: A Methodological Critique

I’ve been working with John Goldingay’s 3-volume commentary set on the Psalms for a while now.  I haven’t read every part (and I’m not overly familiar with Goldingay’s other writings, though I know he’s some stripe of an open theist, which is a whole other subject), but I have read and utilized it enough to register a concern about his hermeneutical methodology, that is, the way he interprets the psalms.

I’ll give some examples of this in a second.  The main point of my critique is that he purposely removes the messianic bent from the Psalter.  He does not read the psalms in a christological way; in fact, he tries hard not to see Jesus in the Psalms.  Goldingay’s interpretation of the Psalter is exactly opposite of what you find in Geerhardus Vos’ excellent essay, “The Eschatology of the Psalter.”  Here are some quote from Goldingay to show his methodology.

From the introduction: “…[I do not] make the NT the filter or lens through which we read the Psalms.  A modern aspect to the commentary is that I want the Psalms to speak their own message and to let them address Christian thinking, theology, and spirituality, rather than being silenced by a certain way of reading the NT that fits modern Christian preferences.”

From his “Theological Implications” section of Psalm 8:

“It is…important for us to reflect on its inherent meaning and not simply read it through NT spectacles.  It does not look forward to a new age…. It does not refer to the Messiah.”

From the same section of his comments on Psalm 18:

“Psalm 18 offers no indication that it refers to something God will do in the future; it is not eschatological…it is not messianic.  It offers no indication that it points to Jesus of Nazareth; it is not christological.”

From the same section of his comments on Psalm 22:

[The Messiah is not] “the primary referent of the text.  It is not a prophecy.  The NT use of psalm ‘wrenches out of its setting.’”

Concerning Psalm 89, Goldingay says,

“…In the psalm itself there is no indication that the understanding of Yhwh’s reign is coming to be understood eschatologically or that the understanding of the human king’s reign is coming to be understood messianically.”

Similarly, when discussing the implications of Psalm 110, he writes,

“The text’s theological implications…do not lie in its application to Jesus; that is to ignore its meaning.  Its application to Jesus is part of NT study.”  He ends this little section on the implications of Ps 110 in an odd way, almost contradicting his earlier words: “Canonical interpretation must mean letting different parts of Scripture have their say, not silencing some by others that we prefer.”

You can even see his methodological approach when you look at the scripture index in the back of the volumes – there are just a few NT passages indexed (about half of a page – sometimes less than his Qumran references).

In my opinion, this is why Goldingay’s commentary on the Psalms is flat and uninspiring.  The commentary sections often seem like a textual discussion with some application tacked on the end.  And, as is consistent with his methodology, the application jumps over the cross to today’s context.  This leaves the reader with some mundane application and even odd points of meaning for today.  I’m not sure how one can, for example, comment on and apply the faithfulness of Yahweh without mentioning the work of Christ – the messianic work we already see glimmers of in the Psalter.

While this commentary set might be useful for some things (Hebrew notes, textual variants, ANE references, etc.), overall I don’t think they’re worth the seventy some dollars I put down for them.  I may sell them and use that cash to get something better.  For me, they do not cultivate that Christ centered apostolic hermeneutic for which I strive – in fact, this commentary set hinders it.  Along the same lines, one thing that has helped me here is Carson and Beale’s (editors) fine commentary on the NT’s use of the OT, along with Vos’ work I mentioned above.

shane lems