Witness of Jesus, Paul and John

I'm going to be honest with you as I have endeavered to be all along; I mostly blog for me, not for you. What I mean is that, with all the books I read and the passion I have to learn and seek after truth I was in desperate need for an outlet, and so began to blog. My hope of couse has always been that others will read my musings - however unorthodox and emotionally charged they may seem at times - and be encouraged to reflect in their own theology. That being said, this post (and others like it) will no doubt bore most people as I am simply blogging my way through a text book on theology called The Witness of Jesus, Paul and John by Larry Heyler. In doing so as a personal exercise I hope to retain some of what I read and maybe share some fascinating and/or interesting tid-bits of information by way of gleaning Heyler's book. I can no means mention every fascination I would like, so what I do bring up is simply those random "cuts" (or quotes) that interest me.

Introductory Remarks

Over the past two years or so I have been on an adventure of exploring theology without a "tour guide" as such. I have, for example, discovered Christus Victor or Open Theism or Covenantal Theology by reading authors who have written on the subject, by reading others who have written against them and – through rigorous biblical searching – have formulated certain positions of my own. For example, I am not quite ready to accept Open Theism hook line and sinker, yet I feel the force of its arguments and have not been persuaded in the least by those who have pulled out all the stops to write against it. I have fully excepted Christus Victor as the overarching scheme of the atonement, but I have not set it about as a dichotomy over against Penal Substitution as some have (Boyd); the issue isn’t either or/but both/and; with emphasis on Christus Victor. And I have fully embraced Covenantal Theology against my own dispensational heritage.

Today I do have a guide. His name is Larry Helyer. He was written a book which is designed essentially to be an Introductory Text Book on Biblical Theology for undergrad or seminary students. You could say that in exploration of theology I have jumped the gun and have had to do a lot of reverse engineering to understand terms and such. I have finished part one of Helyer’s text and find myself well aware of much of what he says and teaches, I am also leaning much and I have decided to post certain things from his book which call for special attention.

Why the BIG Picture:

In chapter one, what is biblical theology, Helyer makes a few comments which drive home well much of what I have tried to argue in my own head in recent months: the importance of not detaching individual “systems” from the overarching scheme of the Bible. He says,

Cut 1: “A merely ad hoc reading of Scripture – searching Scripture with a particular issue in mind while failing to grasp the overarching themes and ideas – obscures the essential message of the Bible. To put it another way, one loses the forest in all the trees.” [p.21]

I have tried to argue this very point in my recent discussion with Calvinism; that it is my view Calvinism is supremely guilty of this very thing – though I understand Calvinist’ like MacArthur would disagree. Yet for him, the only way for a Calvinist to read the Bible is as a Dispensationalist! I know more than a few Calvinist’ who would love to take MacArthur to task. Helyer goes on:

Cut 2: “I also deem inadequate the venerable dogmatic approach. This approach dominated during the medieval era and is characterized by the search for proof text (dicta probantia). That is, the Bible is ransacked for texts that can reasonably (and sometimes not so reasonably) support teaching (dogma) already held to be biblical by the church [or a particular group in the church]… In our own era so much more has been learned about the world in which the Scriptures were originally written that was unavailable to the church fathers and scholars of previous times. This new information throws welcome light on both familiar and obscure passages. These insights are available through the grammatical-historical method.” [p.32]

In this cut there are two elements we need to understand: 1) proof-texting is not an adequate approach to good biblical theology and 2) because we know more now and have greater resources then our predecessors we can understand better than previous generations “both familiar and obscure passages”. This means we should not venerate any previous generation or tradition and be open for our traditions to be changed in light of further biblical study utilizing the resources we have today. As he again says; cut 3: “I must have the courage of my convictions when it comes to interpreting the details of the Bible’s theology, even if that means going against my received theological tradition” [p.38, italics added]. On that note, Helyer is also wise to put forth this advice: “A completely novel interpretation or doctrine calls for caution” [p.24] – agreed.

Here’s a cut that I appreciate very much and wish all church leaders would take to heart; cut 4: “A special burden of mine is that pastors will incorporate biblical theology into their preaching and pastoral duties.” – I feel Helyer’s heart on this one. And on that note, what is biblical theology?

Cut 5: “Traditionally, theology has been divided into four major areas: exegetical theology, historical theology, practical theology and systematic theology… The culmination of exegetical theology is biblical theology.” [p.22-23]

I found this discussion to be very helpful as over the years I have been confused as to the difference between these types of theology. 1) Biblical theology summarizes the teaching of the Bible, 2) Historical theology looks at the development of doctrines and creeds throughout the history of the church, 3) Practical theology seeks to apply the truths of Christianity to everyday life, mission and maintenance of the Church, and 4) Systematic theology “has the enormous task of articulating the truths of Christianity both for the church and over against the competing worldviews and non-Christian theologies of the contemporary world. Therefore, it is both didactic (intended to teach and instruct) and apologetic (giving defense and proof)”. [p.24]

The difference between Systematic theology and biblical theology is thus: Biblical theology serves as a bridge between both systematic theology and practical theology. Good preaching should reflect the fruit of biblical theology. Helyer quotes Krister Stendahl to the effect of: “our only concern [in biblical theology] is to find out what these words meant when uttered or written by the prophet, the priest, the evangelist, or the apostle, and regardless of their meaning in later stages of religious history, our own included” [p.26]. This articulation of biblical theology lies close to my own developing theology over the past several months and is even evident in the debates between N.T. Wright who argues correctly that we must understand the use of the word when it was first used (in agreement with Krister Stendahl, Larry Helyer and D.A. Carson) verses John Piper who (perhaps in hindsight, embarrassingly so) said what really matters is not what a word meant when it was written, but the word itself (essentially tossing out good biblical theology).

The Problem of the Unity of the Bible

The second chapter of Helyer’s text focuses on the church’s historic struggle on how best to articulate the unity between the Two Testaments. There are only a few cuts that are interesting enough to draw attention to (given the space).

Under the heading “The Allegorical Method” which arose quickly within early gentile Christianity and has survived in some form to this very day, Larry Helyer takes a step back to build a context not recalled enough within Christian dialogue. The context of the Hellenistic world. I must insist that the reader keep in mind that no theology or system – not even the scriptures themselves – grew up in a bubble.

During the age of Classical Greece the philosophers philosophized by way of reasoning that there must be one deity, and that this god must be distant and impassible among other attributes. Soon this belief in one supreme impassible being became accepted among the elite of Hellenistic society but not among the common populous who continued to embrace a pantheon of gods who’s attributes are decidedly antithetical to the “god” of Plato. So how did the philosophers reconcile the two opposing belief systems so that they both may be accepted by all?

Cut 5: “Basically, the canon of Homer was read employing a two-level hermeneutic. On the surface of the text lay the literal meaning. At this level, which surely was the intention of the original writer(s), we move in the world of Greek mythology… On the other hand, so the argument went, a deeper level of meaning existed just below the surface of the text. The literal meaning contained a sort of code that, when translated, yielded a meaning in consonance with the thought of the Greek philosophers. One might cynically characterize such an approach as “having your cake and eating it too””. [p.52]

Helyer comments further down the page regarding the famous Jew, Philo, living at the same time of Jesus and Paul; “Phil drank deeply from the wells of Greek philosophy and sought to reconcile it with his revered tradition of Judaism rooted in the Hebrew Bible”. In other words, the philosophers believed in what the ancient authors wrote about the gods, but they also believed that below those words was a secret meaning about the “true” nature of god, a nature that can only be known by way of philosophy. Many Jews in the Hellenistic world embraced the philosophy of the neo-Platonism and (frankly) a great deal of the early church Father’s were neo-Platonist’s! They accepted the philosophy of the god of the Philosophers but, much in the way Paul did on Mars Hill, they proclaimed this god to be the God of the Christian and Jewish scriptures.

As good as this sounds the early Father soon ran into the same dilemma of the Classical Philosophers: how do we reconcile our philosophical idea of a distant and impassible God with what the ancient Hebrews actually wrote about Him? Their answer was much the same: while believing in what the ancient Hebrew writers wrote, beneath those words lie the secret meaning about the “true” nature of God. And it is exactly here – where my own theology has been bursting with excitement – that Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann writes, “Much classical Christian theology (of a scholastic bent or of a popular understanding of classical theology), “God” can be understood in quite settled categories that are, for the most part, inimical to the biblical tradition. The casting of the classical tradition in a more scholastic category is primarily informed by the Unmoved Mover of Hellenistic thought and affirms… a Being completely apart from and unaffected by the reality of the world” [An Unsettling God, p.1]. And in the call to throw off the restraints of nearly 2000 years of philosophical ideas imbedded deep within the Christian psyche Brueggemann writes, “such an open and thick articulation of faith may be threatening to some and may require unlearning by us all”. (I know I have run amuck on a tangent here, but only because this recognition is crucially important to understanding the scriptures! For anyone interested in learning more about how neo-Platonic thought has shaped Christianity I suggest as a primer, Why You Think the Way You Do by Glenn S. Sunshine.)

Dispensationalism at its most curious!

The historic beginnings of Dispensationalism is most certainly with John Nelson Darby in the nineteenth century. Yet despite this most obvious fact dispensationalist often try and claim historic roots by mudding the waters between Dispensation Premillennialism and Historic Premillennialism. But in Helyer’s book I have been informed of a most ambitious attempt by a dispensationalist – and mentor to Charles Ryrie – to claim the roots of this system to be none other than God himself back in the six days of creation! Who can argue with that? I add this because I think it is a funny trivia of knowledge! He writes:

Cut 6: “Arnold Ehlert and Charles Ryrie both argue that one finds dispensational elements long before the Brethren and Darby. Ryrie claims that pre-millennialism was the faith of the apostolic and postapostolic church, since he virtually equates premillennialism with Dispensationalism. Ehlert attempts an even more ambitious enterprise. He traces the roots of Dispensationalism back to Jewish Cabalists who inferred from the creation narrative of Genesis 1 that human history would last six thousand years because the letter aleph is found six times in the Hebrew text of Genesis 1:1 and aleph = 1,000 in the Hebrew language. Coupled with this is Psalm 90:4: “For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like the watch in the night.” Since the Sabbath follows the six creative days, the Sabbath in similar fashion represents a millennial era of rest and peace…. He cites D.T. Taylor, who sets out evidence that such a theory of earth history goes back to the Chaldeans, Zoroastrians, Tuscans, Egyptians, and Etruscans”. [Ever see Conspiracy Theory with Mel Gibson? Good movie.]

So if the Zoroastrians, the Tuscans and the Etruscans were dispensationals like Tim Lahey, Hal Lindsay, and Mark Hitchcock, well then it certainly must be true. ;-p

And now you know.

Derek