On the New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament, Part 5

On the New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament, Part 5

The second installment in this series promised further development concerning types and foreshadows. Not at all unrelated to these are the issues addressed in the third and fourth installments. Nevertheless, for the sake of timeliness, the last two entries interrupted and suspended the continuation of Part 2 until now. Thus, for the sake of greater continuity it may advisable for readers to review that entry which this one now continues.

During the middle decades of the last century, how the New Testament fulfills the Old tended to dominate disagreements and discussions between Classical Dispensationalists and Covenant Theologians with arguments, counterarguments, rejoinders, and surrejoinders filling many pamphlets, journals, and books. As Vern Poythress skillfully points out, “nearly all the problems associated with the dispensationalist-nondispensationalist conflict are buried beneath the question of literal interpretation.”[1]

Classical Dispensationalists tied their understanding of Scripture to the mistaken notion of “literal interpretation.” Unfortunately, many non-Dispensationalists confounded the situation by committing the same mistake in the opposite direction by hitching their understanding of Scripture’s use of Scripture to what they called “typological interpretation” or “Christological interpretation.”[2]

In various published pieces I have shown that to counter the problematic concept of “literal interpretation” by arguing for “figurative interpretation,” “typological interpretation,” “allegorical interpretation,” or even “Christological interpretation” is to slip into the same error at a different point, however much unintended. For to reject the adjective “literal” and then replace it with another adjective, such as “Christological” or “typological” or “figurative,” is to commit the same error of imposing one’s own interpretive grid or system upon the biblical text.[3]

For example, to characterize one’s beliefs concerning the relationship between the Old and New Testaments as “typological interpretation” is to overcorrect against the inapt designation “literal interpretation.” “Typological interpretation” no less than “literal interpretation” elevates the reader over the text. If “literal interpretation” tends to flatten the symbolic and figurative features of the biblical text and to suppress recognition of how features throughout the OT typologically foreshadow fulfillments in the New, “typological interpretation” inclines interpreters to forget that types are not the property of hermeneutics but of revelation. We ought to reject “typological interpretation” as descriptive of the relationship between the OT and the NT in favor of “typological revelation,” for types are imbued by revelation not forged by interpretation. Readers recognize types that are revealed in the text; they do not generate types. For this reason, “typological interpretation” bears at least two implications that misdirect and are problematic.

First, “typological interpretation” implies that what NT writers find concerning Christ in the OT Scriptures is rooted not in the OT itself but in the axiomatically transformed perspective those writers now share, a perspective brought about by the revelation of Christ to them. Such a designation positions one not far from that of others such as Barnabas Lindars who argues that the NT writers believed that the crucified and risen Jesus was the Messiah so they ransacked the OT to prove their new found belief, using OT proof texts without regard for context as they twisted them to serve their apologetic purpose.[4]

Second, to counter “literal interpretation” with “typological interpretation” implies that types or foreshadows of Christ in the OT Scriptures are rendered foreshadows or types not by the OT text itself but by retrospect interpretation after Messiah has come, thus not adequately accounting for the fact that the foreshadows of Christ really are there to be seen in the events, persons, and institutions recorded within the OT, that they were given to function as shadows of heavenly things and of foreshadows of things to come for those to whom they were given, and they were written within the text of Scripture for the instruction of generations yet to come, albeit concealed in plain sight but capable of being recognized and understood if one’s eyes were opened. Contrary to this, some adopt the notion that OT types—persons, institutions, events—are discernible only retrospectively by observing patterns of “God’s activity in the history of his people.”[5]

Accordingly, recognizing types is not concerned with elucidating the meaning of the OT text. According to this viewpoint identifying types does not involve the work of doing exegesis of the biblical text but is simply a matter of historical retrospect, recognizing historical patterns recorded in the text, because biblical types are not revelatory foreshadows.[6]

Indeed, the panoply of types embedded throughout the OT comes into clearer focus by way of retrospect from fulfillment in Christ. Yet, to explain OT types as shaped after the fact by the coming of Christ fails to account for the phenomena of types within Scripture, how they function, and what the NT writers actually say concerning OT types. The fact of the matter is that all the types really are there in the text of the OT Scriptures because types are revelatory both in their occurrence in history and in their being recorded in Scripture. Their having been written into the OT text itself as types, not rendered types by NT historical retrospect, endues events, persons, and institutions as biblical types that actually functioned for the faith of the ancient people as copies of heavenly things (Heb. 8:5) and as foreshadows concerning things to come for the faith of God’s last days people (Heb. 9:11; 10:1). Thus, when the writer to the Hebrews extensively quotes Jeremiah 31 to make his case that the new covenant promised to the houses of Israel and of Judah has come to fruition and fulfillment in the church of Jesus Christ that consists of Gentiles and Jews together in one covenant body, he is not pulling the OT passage out of context to prove his axiomatic conviction that Jesus is the Christ and that he has established a new covenant people. Furthermore, the writer to the Hebrews is not merely engaged in retrospectively identifying patterns of God’s working in history, having made a covenant with Israel long ago he now makes a covenant with a new people. Such a notion is entirely inadequate to account for (1) how the NT writers actually handle OT types and (2) what they believe concerning God’s providential supervision of the OT types.

On these matters Paul’s discussion in 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 is greatly instructive concerning biblical types. Because English translations opt to feature the applicatory use Paul makes of Israel’s experiences they tend to obscure his uses of the noun “types” (τύποι, v. 6) and the adverb “typologically” (τυπικῶς, v. 11) by translating the words respectively “as examples” and “as an example” (e.g., KJV; ESV; NRSV; NIV). What translations obscure exposition and preaching needs to clarify.

So, after identifying several specific historical events that Israel experienced, the apostle indicates that these events “occurred as types for us that we might not desire evil as they did” (10:6) and “these things happened typologically, and they were written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages have come” (10:11). Though Paul distinguishes the events themselves from their being written down, it is manifest that he believes both the historical events and their being written down are divine revelatory acts. Israel’s experiences under the cloud, passage through the sea, eating food the Lord miraculously provided in the wilderness, and drinking water from the rock took place as types for us. Likewise, Israel’s numerous acts of unfaithfulness took place typologically and were written down for us as admonitions (vv. 7-10; cf. Ex. 32:6; Num. 25:9; 21:5, 6; 14:2, 29-37). Typological significance is embedded in the occurrence of the events and preserved prophetically in Scripture for posterity. Thus, it is evident that integral to Paul’s appeal to the Scriptures in 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 that he believes God providentially directed Israel’s historical experiences and suffused them with figurative significances to have disciplinary and instructive significance not only for the Israelites who were alive to experience those events long ago but also “for us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.”^[7]

As such, it is apparent that Paul believes that when God brought about those historical events and imbued them as earthly symbolic shadows or copies of heavenly things God also purposed that the events should function prophetically as foreshadows concerning the advent of those heavenly things in conjunction with Messiah who would come in latter days to bring redemption promised long ago, even from the beginning in semi-veiled ways (cf. Gen. 1:3; John 1:5; 2 Cor. 4:6; also Gen. 3:15). But, of course, not only did God design OT events to occur with suffused symbolic significance, he also made sure that these things were written down in order that by reading the Scriptures, Messiah’s last days people would be instructed not to follow the Israelites’ unfaithfulness that leads to perishing but instead to take heed not to fall and perish.

Short of such an understanding of the biblical types that fill the pages of the OT from beginning to end, it seems difficult to have anything resembling an adequate grasp of the OT Scriptures’ expansive richness and depth as described by Luke when he tells of Jesus’ instruction of two of his disciples when he appears to them incognito on the road to Emmaus: “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Luke reinforces the significance of this point concerning Scriptures’ rich and full foreshadowing of the Christ as he recounts how Jesus instructs his disciples when he shows himself resurrected to them: “‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:44-47).

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1 Vern S. Poythress, Understanding Dispensationalists, second ed. 1994, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1987), 78. Emphasis added. The book is available on-line here.

2 See, e.g., Hans K. LaRondelle, The Israel of God in Prophecy: Principles of Prophetic Interpretation, 35-80.

3 See my “Covenant Lineage Allegorically Prefigured: ‘Which Things Are Written Allegorically’ (Galatians 4:21-31),” SBJT 14.3 (2010), 66.

4 Barnabas Lindars, New Testament Apologetic: The Doctrinal Significance of the Old Testament Quotations (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961).

5 See, e.g., David L. Baker, Two Testaments One Bible, third ed. 2010 (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1976), 185, 179-181; idem, “Typology and the Christian Use of the Old Testament,” SJT 229 (1976): 152-153.

6 Idem, Two Testaments One Bible, 184-187.

⁷ Of course, the same must be said concerning Paul’s explicit identification of “Adam who is a type of the one to come,” namely Christ Jesus (Rom. 5:14). To be clear, this means that the apostle believes that when the Creator formed Adam from the ground and breathed the breath of life into him that he not only endowed Adam to be the head of the human race but he also imbued Adam with figurative or typological significance, for the Creator made the earthly son of God “in the image and likeness of God” as the earthly shadow of the heavenly Son of God “who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4; cf. Col. 1:15; Phil. 2:6; Heb. 1:3). This is the correspondence between earthly shadow and heavenly substance that warrants Paul’s understanding that “Adam is a type of the one to come.”

Would Paul Have Made A Good Evangelical? On the New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament (Part 4)

Would Paul Have Made A Good Evangelical? On the New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament (Part 4) (First posted here)

This blog entry is a continuation of yesterday’s “Would Paul Have Made A Good Evangelical? On the New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament (Part 3). The previous entry resumes here with repetition of the last two paragraphs.

Numerous points could be raised in response to Peter Enns’s two blog entries including the nature of progressive revelation, Scripture’s clarity (perspicuity), large biblical theological themes, the place and function of Israel in the land in relation to Christ and new creation, the relationship between the Mosaic law and Christ, the place of Gentiles within the promise covenant given to Abraham, and several other issues that Enns either ignores or runs over quite roughly. Others cited above have touched upon these in their lengthy and many responses to Enns’ earlier publications. Responses offered here to the two blog entries endeavor to keep the focus upon the theme of this series, the NT use of the OT.

Since Enns’s two blog entries tightly and rightly associate the apostle Paul’s use of the OT with what Enns calls a “high view” of Scripture, it is fitting that we ponder how Enns’s view concerning Paul’s use of the OT coheres with three passages that concern Paul’s appeal to Scripture to validate the gospel he preaches. Enns’s view does not and cannot account for these passages. Two are from Paul’s letters (1 Cor. 15:1-5; Rom. 16:25-27); the other is from the Book of Acts (Acts 17:1-12). Enns addresses none of these passages in his published materials concerning the NT use of the OT. Yet, it is quite reasonable to observe that these three passages serve as guardrails to constrain and to preserve us from positing the ideas Enns now advances concerning the NT use of the OT.

First, within the first installment in this series I touched upon Acts 17, particularly concerning the Berean Jews who distinguished themselves from those in Thessalonica because “they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (17:11). The Berean Jews, like those in Thessalonica, first heard Paul’s message in their synagogue for Luke explains, “As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and . . . he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead” (17:2-3).

Concerning Paul’s reasoning from Scripture to ground his gospel proclamation Luke sketches a scene quite different from the one Enns would have us accept. While Enns portrays Paul’s use of the OT Scriptures as “very creative,” even “manipulating scripture,” because Jesus’ coming “transformed” the OT so that the OT is “reshaped in order to conform to Jesus,” Luke describes Paul as reasoning with the Jews from Scripture (διελέξατο αὐτοῖς ἀπὸ τῶν γραφῶν), with “from Scripture” (apo graphōn) emphasizing the source of his reasoning, as though it is actually discernible from the Scriptures “that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead” and that this is not a construct superimposed upon the OT Scriptures by an adroit apostle.

Again, Luke describes the response Paul receives among Jews in Berea, “they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Luke hardly portrays these ordinary Berean Jews as though they had the ingenious skills of Jewish scholars during the Second Temple period, scholars who were adept at “manipulating scripture in the interest of supporting theological arguments.” Instead, Luke’s commendation of these quite ordinary Berean Jews underscores the plainness, clarity, and accessibility with which Paul’s message could have been proved false if he had engaged in any manipulation of Scripture in his proclamation of the gospel.

The significance of what Luke portrays must not be passed over as irrelevant to Paul’s use of the OT. What does Luke say Paul was proving from the Scriptures and which the Bereans were examining in their endeavor to be assured that what Paul was preaching was the truth? It is nothing less than this, “that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead.” If Paul creatively manipulated the OT (cf. “private interpretation,” 2 Peter 1:20), which now has to be read as “reshaped” so as “to conform to Jesus,” as he made his case from Scripture that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, how could the Bereans, regardless how diligent and inquisitive they may have been, trace the apostle’s argument and be convinced that what he proclaimed is the truth? The Bereans would have charged Paul with legerdemain, sleight of hand trickery, and would not have received his message as true.[1] If Paul’s proclamation that Messiah had to suffer death and rise again from the dead as foretold in the OT but his hearers could not trace his reasoning from Scripture or reproduce his exegesis of the biblical texts to which he appealed, then how could Jews or Gentiles be convinced that Scripture, not nimble manipulation of Scripture, leads to and warrants the apostle’s message as true?[2]

Paul’s message, as recorded in Acts 17:2-3, agrees with the message Jesus imparted to his disciples when he was with them, as when he explained to two of his disciples “what was said in all the Scriptures concerning him” (Luke 24:27) and later reminded the others, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms” (24:44; NIV). When Jesus says, “everything must be fulfilled that is written about me,” this means that what Jesus and his apostles expound from the OT Scriptures concerning the Messiah was actually written into the biblical text; it was always there in the scriptural text. It was not brought to the text of Scripture by hermeneutical cleverness, ingenuity, genius, and manipulation by the NT writers.

Second, what Luke records in Acts 17 concerning Paul’s preaching, the apostle himself affirms in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 15:1-5). Though he is not setting out to prove the resurrection of Jesus, he is reasserting the belief the Corinthians hold in common with him as the ground from which he will bring a withering response to the foolish assertion “that there is no resurrection of the dead” (15:12). As he begins his argument to rebut the claim of some “that there is no resurrection of the dead” (15:12), he is burdened to remind the Corinthians concerning “the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you were saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain” (15:1-2).

So Paul reminds the Corinthians concerning the gospel which they have believed: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas and then to the Twelve” (15:3-5). Even though Paul’s dual “according to the Scriptures” likely refers not to a single passage or to a collection of specific passages but to the whole of the OT as a unified witness, it is no insignificant assertion. That Paul does not identify individual passages but refers to the unified whole OT hardly validates the notion that he would resort to creative manipulation of the text in order to argue his case that the Scriptures are replete with testimony that the Coming One would “die for our sins” and be “buried” and be “raised on the third day.”

That we may find it difficult to marshal specific Scripture passages to verify Paul’s claim hardly leaves us to choose between two options: (1) that Paul’s claim is falsified by our paucity of undisputed Scriptural evidence; or (2) that Paul’s claim depends upon creatively manipulating Scripture in order to support his theological arguments. That we find the unified claims of Paul and Jesus that the Messiah had to die “according to the Scriptures” and had to rise from the dead “according to the Scriptures” difficult to replicate either for ourselves or for others ought to rebuke our dullness of heart (Luke 24:25) and our need to have our eyes and minds opened by Christ that we might understand (24:31, 45). For to posit that the NT writers use the OT Scriptures with inventive adroitness that entails wrenching passages out of contexts and labyrinthine arguments that only a few highly skilled initiates in Second Temple literary exegesis can trace and perhaps reproduce does not suffice when that which is at stake is nothing less than the good news as it is in Jesus.

Finally, Romans 16:25-27 is a third passage that Peter Enns nowhere accounts for in his published considerations of the NT use of the OT. This passage is highly significant because it speaks concerning mystery. Mystery as a word and concept entails the complex correlation of divine concealing and revealing, each of which entangle two dimensions, both the divine act of hiding truths in plain sight and the divine act of closing and opening human minds to the truth.

Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made know through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith—to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.

Whether the phrase, “in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past,” modifies “the proclamation of Jesus Christ” or is dependent upon “to establish you,” which would make it parallel to “in accordance with my gospel,” the phrase explains the gospel Paul proclaims.

Paul’s reference to mystery here is consistent with uses of the concept in other places (e.g. Rom. 11:25-27; 1 Cor. 2:7; 15:50-55), in order for humans to know a mystery some form of divine revelation is required at two dimensions. Here, Paul distinguishes these two revelatory dimensions by time span and by locality (i.e., where the revelation is lodged). As to time span of the mystery’s revelation, he depicts two temporal phases: (1) the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past but (2) now revealed. Given what Paul states next, this revelation entails a second dimension, the element of locality or the place where the mystery resides. Likewise, as to where the mystery is revealed, Paul depicts two situational phases: (1) God hid this mystery for long ages past in the prophetic writings, and (2) now according to the command of the eternal God this mystery is at last revealed and made known through the same prophetic writings. The obvious implication is that God first revealed the mystery by hiding it in plain sight within the OT Scriptures—the prophetic writings—but God now commands that this same mystery be revealed and made known in the preaching of the gospel, the proclamation of Jesus Christ.

Paul’s expression, “through the prophetic writings” (διά τε γραφῶν προφητικῶν), likely bears the sense “by means of the prophetic writings,” given his use of “through his prophets in the holy Scriptures” (διὰ τῶν προφητῶν αὐτοῦ ἐν γραφαῖς ἁγίαις) in Romans 1:2. Paul’s message seems unambiguous. God hid the mystery in the OT Scriptures and now, in keeping with God’s command, the same OT Scriptures give up the mystery made plain by the preaching of Jesus Christ, for “the Law and the Prophets bear witness to” the revelation of God’s righteousness in Christ Jesus.

Thus, to preach the gospel, which is to proclaim Jesus Christ, is to bring to light the mystery God hid within the OT Scriptures. God’s recent revelation of Jesus Christ now preached brings clarity to former revelation written down by the prophets of old. Former revelation concealed the mystery in plain sight within Scripture which now reaches fulfillment as the storyline of redemption comes to its climactic finale. So, now that Christ has come and God has commanded that the gospel be proclaimed to all the nations, the gospel reveals through the prophetic writings the same mystery God concealed in the prophets’ writings when he gave it by revelation.

Mystery novelists imitate God, the mystery storyteller par excellence. Thus, even though anachronistic, it is instructive to recognize that the biblical concept of mystery concealed in the OT and brought to light with the coming of Christ bears resemblance to how a well crafted mystery novel is written in order to unfold as it is read.[3] As one progressively reads the mystery’s storyline with its characters, settings, and plotted conflict, the story escalates incrementally toward its dramatic climax at which point the mystery, with its numerous and diverse hints scattered throughout the earlier chapters, is finally revealed. Embedded within characters, events, settings, and plotted conflict throughout the story line from beginning to end are hints, foreshadows, prefigurements, and harbingers that presage the unveiling of the mystery concealed within its pages. Yet, the hints strategically and masterfully placed by the mystery novelist pose as puzzling enigmas, as riddles, as conundrums that tantalize and increase anticipation that builds toward the climax. Yet, once the mystery formerly hidden throughout earlier chapters is at last revealed in the climax, the reader begins to recall hints the author had dropped along the way, and these hints of mystery begin to coalesce toward the full disclosure of the mystery.

So it is with Scripture. As characters within the Bible’s storyline receive promises their hope stirs, for renewed covenant promises embed fresh hints concerning that which is promised. Yet, arrival of a promised child, taking possession of the promised land, blessing of conquest, or realization of a promised house of worship come as tokens of reassurance not as the promise itself (cf. Heb. 11:39-40). God’s promises call for trust in him who keeps covenant, for he will not disappoint. Thus, the OT Scriptures are written with hints hidden throughout to incite anticipation of full and final resolution of the mystery eventually to be revealed with surprises that invite deep reflection.

Is this not how we are to read the Bible’s storyline as it incrementally builds toward its dramatic climax with the arrival of the Coming One who reveals himself and his kingdom mission in keeping with the mystery concealed within the OT? Does not Jesus perform his miracles, engage his parabolic teaching, and design his dramatic signs to reveal but simultaneously to conceal his identity and his mission until the fullness of time arrives for him to lay down his life as a ransom for sinners? In each of the Synoptic Gospels Jesus specifically tells the Twelve, “To you have been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to those outside everything is in parables” (Mark 4:11; cf. Matt. 13:11; Luke 8:10). Though these are the only uses of the term “mystery” (μυστήριον) in the Four Gospels, mystery permeates each Gospel, but is especially featured in Mark.[4]

Thus, the experience of the Jesus’ two disciples with whom he walked on the road to Emmaus is illustrative of the mystery’s concealment and dawning revelation in two dimensions. According to the account in Luke 24:13-25 Jesus’ act in which he revealed the Scriptures concerning the Christ accompanied an divine act that concealed his identity within plain sight by preventing their eyes from recognizing him, an act that did not exonerate their culpability for their blindness. For Jesus rebukes them for failing to believe all that the prophets have spoken concerning the Christ, that he should suffer and then enter into his glory (24:25-26). Jesus’ blessing and breaking of bread is the act that reveals his identity concealed from them until that moment. What had been hidden in plain view objectively within Scripture (24:25-27) and subjectively within their own line of vision (24:16) suddenly became revealed plainly to them (24:31), and they exclaimed to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was speaking to us on the road, as he explained the Scriptures to us?” (24:32).[5]

As indicated, Luke’s account illustrates divine concealing and revealing in two discernible dimensions: (1) the objective—divine concealing of recognition of Jesus while simultaneously revealing knowledge of the Christ made known in the Scriptures, and (2) the subjective–divine concealing of recognition of Jesus with full personal culpability for failure to recognize Jesus followed by divine revealing of Jesus’ identity as the promised Messiah. The objective constitutes the gospel mystery concealed in the OT and now revealed in Christ. The subjective constitutes the gospel mystery in Jesus veiled in plain sight in the presence of unbelief which necessitates divine revelation to impart sight that recognizes that the promised Messiah in Jesus of Nazareth.

What is now made plain is only what God hid in plain sight by way of revelation. What is now revealed in the gospel is what was always there hidden in plain sight to be seen by everyone who has eyes to see. This is the mystery of which Paul speaks in Romans 16:25-27. Mystery characterizes how the OT Scriptures testify that the Messiah is Jesus. Mystery also characterizes how Jesus reveals himself—by parables, by miracles, by dramatic signs, or by sacrificial death—as the Coming One who is bringing God’s dominion (Mark 4:10-13).

Peter Enns contends that NT writers manipulate the OT to serve their belief that the crucified and resurrected Jesus is the Christ. He believes and advocates the notion that Christ’s coming reshapes the OT Scriptures to conform to Jesus. He insists that the gospel transforms the Scriptures of the OT. None of what Enns argues concerning the NT use of the OT addresses or accounts for the prominent concept NT writers identify as mystery (μυστήριον), a concept that is functioning even where they do not use the term. That NT writers speak of the revelation of the gospel as hidden within the OT Scriptures from ages past but now revealed and made known in the gospel seems neither to give Enns pause or to prompt him to ponder that the resolution to his difficulties in tracing Paul’s uses of the OT in passages such as Romans 9 and 10 may be found in the fact that the apostle’s uses of Hosea 2:23 and Isaiah 1:9 in 9:25-27 and of Leviticus 18:5 and Deuteronomy 30:13-14 in 10:5-8 are in keeping with God’s revelatory concealing of things pertaining the gospel within the OT Scriptures, puzzling things that would for long ages await the climax of the redemptive story to be realized in the Coming One. Indeed, the apostle Paul states things that are difficult to understand (2 Pet. 3:15-16), but to attribute to him creative skills that manipulate the OT Scriptures to constrain others to embrace his belief that Jesus is the Christ, at minimum, exposes hubris that resists Scripture’s constraints and that is impatient with Evangelicals who still believe that they should embrace and uphold Paul’s “high view of Scripture.”

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1 Before he departed Westminster Theological Seminary, when he was still presenting his posture toward Scripture as evangelical, Peter Enns argued for a position similar to the one taken by Richard Longenecker in Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (214-220) as to whether we can reproduce the NT writers’ exegesis of the OT. At that time Enns adopted a much less strident position than he now holds, though it telegraphed where the trajectory of his position would likely lead him. He proposed an approach “not so much as the final word, but as a plausible, initial, attempt to remain faithful to the NT model: where we follow the NT writers is more in terms of their hermeneutical goal than in terms of their exegetical methods and interpretive traditions. The latter are a function of their cultural moment. . . . But whereas we do not share the cultural moment of the NT writers, we do share their eschatological moment, and it is here that the question of following or not following the NT writers should have its initial focus” (“Fuller Meaning, Single Goal,” 216). Enns further explains, “This means that they model for us a hermeneutical ‘attitude,’ so to speak, that is authoritative for us, even if that authority does not function as a five-step hermeneutical guide. It represents, rather, a frame of mind in which mature believers expect their reading of the OT to be ever more conformed to what the NT writers do. This is to say, we, in our interpretation of the OT, are on a pilgrimage of sorts, where our aim is to become as captured by the risen Christ as the NT authors were in their grappling with Israel’s story” (217).

2 Cf. my “Covenant Lineage Allegorically Prefigured: ‘Which Things Are Written Allegorically’ (Galatians 4:21-31),” SBJT 14.3 (2010): 54.

[3] Peter Enns independently compares reading the OT to reading a novel. In the first quotation he draws the analogy similarly to my own analogy, but my analogy focuses upon explaining the biblical use of mystery. Enns states, “As an analogy, it is helpful to think of the process of reading a good novel the first time and the second time. The two readings are not the same experience. Who of us has not said during that second reading, ‘I didn’t see that the first time,’ or ‘So that’s how the pieces fit together.’ The fact that the OT is not a novel should not diminish the value of the analogy: the first reading of the OT leaves you with hints, suggestions, trajectories, and so on, of how things will play out in the end, but it is not until you get to the end that you begin to see how the pieces fit together. And, in the second reading you also begin to see how parts of the story that seemed wholly unrelated at first now take on a much richer, deeper significance” (“Fuller Meaning, Single Goal,” (201).
In the second quotation Enns draws the analogy between reading Scripture and reading a novel to distinguish his “Christotelic” hermeneutic from a “Christocentric” approach, thus emphasizing the controlling force the climax of the biblical story (Christ’s advent) has over the OT story. Enns observes, “Revisiting our analogy of reading a novel, it is like reading a story and finally grasping the significance of the climax, and then going back and reading the story in light of the end. It is to ask, ‘How do earlier elements of the dramatic movement of this book relate to where the book as a whole is going?’” (214).
It is doubtful that Enns has jettisoned all of what he wrote concerning the NT use of the OT while he was still wanting to identify himself with “conservative Evangelicals” who hold a “high view” of Scripture, namely, Scripture’s inerrancy and authority. Nevertheless, given his recent two blog entries concerning Paul’s use of the OT, it seems reasonable to infer that reading the OT is like reading a novel is no longer a suitable analogy. For, if a novel’s conclusion “transformed” and “reshaped” the elements and features of earlier chapters in order to bring those portions into conformity with the climax, who would not criticize the novelist harshly, judge the novel as disconnected or disjointed, and discourage others from reading it?

[4] See my, “He Wrote in Parables and Riddles: Mark’s Gospel as a Literary Reproduction of Jesus’ Teaching Method,” Didaskalia 10.1 (Spring 1999): 35-67.

[5 See my “Covenant Lineage Allegorically Prefigured,” 52.

Would Paul Have Made A Good Evangelical? On the New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament (Part 3)

Would Paul Have Made A Good Evangelical? On the New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament (Part 3) (First posted here).

It is fitting to delay posting the planned next installment for this series (read Part 1 and Part 2) in order to respond to a couple of recent blog entries published by Peter Enns. In two recent blog posts Enns poses two integrated questions. First he asks, “Would Paul Have Made a Good Evangelical?” Noteworthy is the fact that his negative response to this query leads him to a second question: “Did Paul Have a High View of Scripture?”, which is the conclusion anticipated not only by his former blog entry but by his publication of Inspiration and Incarnation. Enns’s first blog entry contains the bulk of his argument that I will engage here while not ignoring the conclusion to which Enns presses his arguments.

So, why would Paul not have made a good Evangelical? Enns answers. Paul did not “treat the Bible” as Evangelicals do. He suggests that Evangelicals, some of whom he identifies—John Piper, John MacArthur, and R. C. Sproul—would not allow the apostle Paul to “lead a home Bible study” without supervision. What grounds this malapert assertion? Enns explains:

For Evangelicals, the Old Testament leads to the Gospel story. For Paul, the Old Testament is transformed by the Gospel.

For Evangelicals, the Old Testament, read pretty much at face value, anticipates Jesus. For Paul, the Old Testament is reshaped in order to conform to Jesus.

For Evangelicals, the Bible is God’s final authority. For Paul, Jesus is the final authority to which the Bible must bend.

Yet, for anyone who knows the beliefs and messages of the three named Evangelicals and also the letters of the apostle Paul, a moment’s reflection suggests that Enns has committed a couple of logical fallacies. His first and second dichotomies beg the question because with these two disjunctions he simply assumes his conclusion to be true, namely, that for Paul the gospel “transforms” the OT and the OT is “reshaped in order to conform to Jesus.” Though he asserts these claims, nowhere does he actually demonstrate the veracity of his claims. With the third dichotomy he affirms a false disjunction that Evangelicals reject. Surely, Peter Enns realizes that his disjunction does not accurately represent any of the Evangelicals he identifies or their equals, for they do not affirm Scripture’s authority as final over and against Jesus’ authority. Which of the identified Evangelicals or any of their equals, whether in the church or the academy, would not affirm that Scripture’s authority is subordinate to the Son of God since Scripture’s chief role is to testify concerning the Christ (cf. John 5:39-40)?

Thanks are due to Peter Enns for his companion blog posts, however, because here he offers greater clarity concerning his “Christotelic approach” to the NT’s use of the OT.[1] Enns distinguishes his “christotelic eschatological hermeneutic” from confusion with “christological” and “christocentric,” for the latter two describe approaches that “are susceptible to a point of view” he does not advocate. He explains, “To read the Old Testament ‘christotelically’ is to read it already knowing that Christ is somehow the end to which the Old Testament story is heading.”[2] Despite their brevity in comparison to his two published works on the NT use of the OT, his recent two blog entries bring much greater clarity to the view he advocates concerning how the NT writers use the OT. What he formerly kept somewhat ambiguous he now plainly affirms. Now he unequivocally sets his own beliefs concerning the NT’s use of the OT over against the beliefs that characterize Evangelical scholars.

Among the many issues and questions that Enns’s book raised, one is the interest of this blog entry. His “christotelic” view of the NT’s use of the OT, which prompted some to raise significant observation and concerns, becomes explicit now that Enns is neither at Westminster Theological Seminary nor has a need to present himself as a scholar who shares the high view of Scripture Evangelicals affirm. Though not alone with this observation, D. A. Carson published his concern that the view advocated by Peter Enns makes his “sound disturbingly like” the view Barnabas Lindars promotes in New Testament Apologetic: The Doctrinal Significance of the Old Testament Quotations.[3] Lindars argues that because the NT writers came to believe that the crucified and resurrected Jesus was the Messiah, they ransacked the OT for proof texts which they often lifted out of context in their zeal to validate their message. They engaged in eisegesis as they twisted passages to serve their apologetic agenda. Evidently the gospel they needed to validate was more important than the methods they employed to advance their message. Concerning the NT use of the OT, Carson acknowledges that Enns affirms and develops how recognition and belief in Jesus as Israel’s Messiah and Son of God preceded the NT writers’ understanding concerning how the OT bears witness to his identity. Nevertheless, Carson links Enns with Lindars because like Lindars, Enns fails “to see how Christian belief is genuinely warranted by Scripture.”[4] Enns’s recent blog entries confirm Carson’s concern. Hints that Enns shared in common with Lindars a diminished view of the OT Scriptures are no longer subtle but clear and obvious.

According to Peter Enns the apostle Paul did hold “a high view of scripture” [sic], but his view does not correspond to “what conservative Evangelicals insist on when they talk about a high view of scripture” [sic]. To be sure, Enns allows that Paul and conservative Evangelicals agree that Israel’s story reaches its conclusion “in the death and resurrection of Jesus and the creation of a new people of God” consisting of Jews and Gentiles without discrimination. Enns insists, however, that for the apostle Paul, this conclusion could be seen only retrospectively. Hence, Enns contends that the end of the story “transforms” and “reshapes” the Old Testament “to conform to Jesus.” The obvious implication is that the Old and New Testaments do not hold together the way Evangelicals believe and teach, with the OT discernibly leading to and anticipating fulfillment in Jesus. Instead, the two testaments correlate because the coming of Jesus, a revelatory act so compelling and independent of the OT Scriptures, that it constrains Christians to become “very creative” with how they read the OT.

According to Enns, Paul had a “monumental theological and hermeneutical” problem in his mission to bring the gospel to the Gentiles and to proclaim that they are united with believing Jews as God’s one people, Abraham’s descendants. The OT centers upon Israel’s need to obey the Mosaic law to keep covenant with God and to retain the Promised Land. Yet, the gospel Paul is called upon to preach (1) renders the Mosaic law a parenthesis, (2) treats retention of the Promised Land as irrelevant, and (3) avails Gentiles the right to claim Israel’s God as their own without submitting to circumcision. Enns claims, “Clearly something has to give. For Paul, it was the Old Testament.” The Old Testament had to adapt to the message of the gospel in Christ and become malleable in the hands of skilled exegetes trained in the hermeneutical tradition of Second Temple Jewish Bible scholars.

So, “Paul claims that Gentile inclusion without circumcision was God’s plan all along.” As Enns would have us believe, given the apostle’s conviction concerning the veracity of this proclamation, Paul had to scrounge through the OT to identify passages to which he could creatively appeal to persuade Jews and Gentiles alike. So, when Paul appeals to the OT in a “string of quotations in Romans 9,” he “cites two passages from Hosea and two from Isaiah to support his claim that Gentile inclusion is part of God’s plan.” Yet, according to Enns, it should not be surprising that there is a problem, for “all four of these passages have nothing to do with Gentile inclusion. They are all aimed at God’s mercy at restoring Israel.”

Enns leaves readers without doubt concerning the extent to which he believes Paul’s reading of the OT is inventive. “This is not a minor point” of innovation that the apostle engages. “Paul is not getting a little creative with some passages, tweaking them a bit, teasing some fresh angle out of them. He is saying that these passages support his Gentile agenda, even though a plain reading shows unequivocally that they are about Israel.” Likewise, Enns directs readers to consider Paul’s uses of the OT in Romans 10, where he cites Leviticus 18:5 and Deuteronomy 30:13-14. Admittedly, every Christian scholar acknowledges the difficulties of tracing Paul’s use of these passages in his reasoning within Romans 10, but most restrain themselves from summarily asserting, “Either Paul can’t read or something else is up.” The “something else,” according to Enns, is that Paul uses the OT as he does because (1) he follows Judaism’s “long history of manipulating scripture in the interest of supporting theological arguments,” and (2) his overriding objective is “to make the case that Jews and Gentiles are on equal footing before God. Thus, in his effort to show that the Mosaic law had this in view all along obligates Paul to “get very creative with the Old Testament.”

Enns, now assured that his belief concerning the NT writers’ use of the OT is indisputably settled, mocks Evangelical scholars who remain benighted because they have not yet come to share the view he has adopted since he has shaken himself free from the shackles of Evangelicalism. So, he sardonically wonders. How do Evangelical Bible scholars allow Paul and other NT writers to get away with this inventive hermeneutic? Enns derisively answers, “If anyone else were doing this—me, you, the Pope, Jehovah’s Witnesses, an emergent pastor, a liberal theologian, a first year seminary student—Evangelicals would call it ‘distorting the inerrant Word of God.’” Enns can think of only two possible explanations why Evangelicals permit the apostle Paul’s alleged “distorting the inerrant Word of God.” Either (1) Paul gets a free pass because he is an apostle, “and apparently it’s OK for apostles to do this”,[5] or (2) “Paul’s reading of the Old Testament is defended as being consistent with the Old Testament meaning (which leads to overly subtle and backbreaking arguments).”

In keeping with his question begging throughout his entire blog entry, Enns once more assumes the very point he set out to prove as he deals his coup de grâce upon pitiable and unenlightened Evangelicals. “Here is the great irony. Without question, as a first century Jew, Paul believed his scripture was God’s Word. He had what Evangelicals like to call a ‘high view’ of scripture.” But, convinced that he understands how Paul used the OT, Enns asserts with confidence, “It’s just that Paul’s high view and an Evangelical high view are clearly not the same. I’m just glad Evangelicals weren’t around at the time to try to stifle Paul, to keep him from landing his gig as apostle to the Gentiles. We would have missed out on a lot.”

“For Evangelicals, the Bible is God’s final authority.” Not so for the apostle Paul, Enns confidently assures. Indeed, “Paul had a high view of scripture. It just wasn’t the final word. Jesus was.” The fact that we would not know Jesus apart from the authoritative testimony of Scripture does not seem to embarrass Enns as he asserts his false disjunction to insist that, “For Paul, Jesus is the final authority to which the Bible must bend.” On this basis, then, Enns asserts that Paul’s inventive interpretation of the OT sets the “trajectory the church” is meant to follow: “the Old Testament is God’s Word that has to be re-understood, re-thought, re-read in light of Jesus.” By saying this Enns does not mean that the apostles and first followers of Jesus Christ discovered that they needed to correct their own misunderstanding, misreading, and misappropriation of the OT because of their unbelief which led to their failure to see Christ as the one to whom the whole OT was leading. To reiterate, Enns is not saying that the coming of Christ corrects our faulty interpretation or our misreading and misunderstanding of the OT Scriptures. Rather, by “re-understood, re-thought, re-read in light of Jesus,” Enns means that the gospel “transformed” the storyline of the OT Scriptures to such an extent that “the Old Testament is reshaped in order to conform to Jesus.” The gospel story, which is rather disconnected with the OT storyline recasts and alters the OT story so that to read the OT Scriptures other than the way Enns does is to misread and to mishandle the Scriptures.

Numerous points could be raised in response to Peter Enns’s two blog entries including the nature of progressive revelation, Scripture’s clarity (perspicuity), large biblical theological themes, the place and function of Israel in the land in relation to Christ and new creation, the relationship between the Mosaic law and Christ, the place of Gentiles within the promise covenant given to Abraham, and several other issues that Enns either ignores or runs over quite roughly. Others cited above have touched upon these in their lengthy and many responses to Enns’ earlier publications. Responses offered here to the two blog entries endeavor to keep the focus upon the theme of this series, the NT use of the OT.

Since Enns’s two blog entries tightly and rightly associate the apostle Paul’s use of the OT with what Enns calls a “high view” of Scripture it is fitting that we ponder how Enns’s view concerning Paul’s use of the OT coheres with three passages that concern Paul’s appeal to Scripture to validate the gospel he preaches. Two are from Paul’s letters (1 Cor. 15:1-5; Rom. 16:25-27); the other is from the Book of Acts (Acts 17:1-12). Enns addresses none of these passages in his published materials concerning the NT use of the OT. Yet, it isreasonable to observe that these three passages serve as guardrails to constrain and to preserve us from positing the ideas Enns now advances concerning the NT use of the OT.

To be continued. Tomorrow watch for: “Would Paul Have Made A Good Evangelical? On the New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament (Part 4).”

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[1] See Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 113-165; and “Fuller Meaning, Single Goal: A Christotelic Approach to the New Testament Use of the Old Testament in Its First-Century Interpretive Environment,” in Three Views of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, edited by Kenneth Berding & Jonathan Lunde (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 167-217. Enns wrote these when he was still Professor of Old Testament & Biblical Hermeneutics at Westminster Theological Seminary. Now he affirms beliefs that he strongly denied holding prior to his departure from WTS. Now that he is less restrained he makes his views concerning Scripture, including Scripture’s use of Scripture, much clearer. While at WTS Enns presented himself as evangelical in his initial response and follow-up to Greg Beale’s critique and in his response to Beale’s critique in Themelios. See also Beale’s surrejoinder and subsequent publications, such as, The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism: Responding to New Challenges to Biblical Authority (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008). See Peter Enns, review of The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism: Responding to New Challenges to Biblical Authority. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008, in Bulletin for Biblical Research 19.4 (2009): 628-631.

[2] Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, 154. In “Fuller Meaning, Single Goal,” Three Views of the NT Use of the OT, Enns explains, “A Christotelic approach is an attempt to look at the centrality of Christ for hermeneutics in a slightly different way. It asks not so much, ‘How does this OT passage, episode, figure, etc., lead to Christ?’ To read the OT ‘Christotelicly’ is to read it already knowing that Christ is somehow the end (telos) to which the OT story is heading; in other words, to read the OT in light of the exclamation point of the history of revelation, the death and resurrection of Christ” (214).

[3] Barnabas Lindars, New Testament Apologetic: The Doctrinal Significance of the Old Testament Quotations (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961). See Andrew Naselli’s instructive review of Lindars’s book.

[4] See the review of Inspiration and Incarnation by D. A. Carson, “Three Books on the Bible: A Critical Review,” available at Reformation 21 and in idem, Collected Writings on Scripture, compiled by Andrew David Naselli (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 197-235. Concerning the NT use of the OT, Carson acknowledges that Enns affirms and develops how for the NT writers their own recognition and belief in Jesus as Israel’s Messiah and Son of God came before their understanding concerning how the OT bears witness to his identity. Nevertheless, Carson criticizes Enns for failing “to see how Christian belief is genuinely warranted by Scripture” (Collected Writings on Scripture, 283).

[5] It is true that, for a time, some, perhaps many, Evangelicals followed the lead of Richard Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975). His argument that apostolic exegesis is not normative has largely disappeared from evangelical scholarly discussions of the NT’s use of the OT.

On the NT's Use of the OT, Part 2

Here is Part 2 On the NT Use of the OT on Credo Blog.

On the New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament, Part 2

I resonate with your comments that many evangelicals lack a serious and comprehensive understanding of the OT storyline. How would you recommend pastors and teachers to begin remedying this situation for their congregations?

It would seem that the most obvious way to begin to remedy the diminished understanding of how the whole storyline of the Bible holds together, especially how the Old Testament foreshadows the New and how the New Testament fulfills the Old, is to preach and to teach the Old Testament much more than is done in most churches. However, what seems most obvious may not be the best approach to rectify the situation. Many preachers, armed with belief that exposure to the Scriptures which are perspicuous, have begun with Genesis 1:1 to preach ploddingly through the whole Bible. To be sure, anyone who forebears a decade or more of trudging exposure to Scripture from Genesis to Revelation will acquire growing understanding of  the Bible’s storyline. Any preacher or teacher who trusts that mere plodding exposure to Scripture will make obvious the biblical storyline needs the axiomatic reminder Jesus offers: “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). If there is mist in the pulpit, there will be fog in the pews.


Belief in Scripture’s perspicuity is commendable, but, as the Westminster Confession 1.7 affirms, “All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all. . . .” There is an unevenness concerning Scripture’s disclosures in all its parts; from beginning to end Scripture is not equally clear. As we shall observe later, Scripture conceals much in plain sight so that the very Scriptures that formerly concealed Christ now reveal him (Rom. 16:25-27). Additionally, Scripture is not understood by everyone to the same degree, for insight and understanding are not equally apportioned to everyone (cf. Eph. 3:1-6). To whatever degree we have unimpaired eyes and clouded minds that are opened to understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:31, 45), we are obliged to be grateful to the Lord, for he alone provides understanding to some while he keeps understanding hidden from others (Matt. 11:25-27; cf. Luke 24:16).


Consequently, perhaps a better approach to correcting deficient understanding of the biblical storyline, particularly arising out of the NT’s uses of the OT, is to preach or teach through a portion of the NT, such as one of the Gospels, and at every citation of or allusion to the OT take care to demonstrate how and why the NT text uses the OT as it does, showing how Jesus Christ brings to fulfillment the full array of OT Scriptures with their foreshadows and prophecies, however subtle or explicit they may be. Why not preach ploddingly through the Gospel of Matthew, with a keen eye to expounding uses of the OT that require demonstration of warrants or justification for both Matthew’s uses of the OT and the OT’s meaning and anticipation of the Coming One now announced as fulfilled in Christ Jesus?

As one whose primary responsibility is to teach the New Testament, I routinely linger over the NT’s uses of the OT to show textual warrants in both the OT and the NT for how and why the OT Scripture citation or allusion that is under consideration is justifiably used by the NT writer as fulfilled with the coming of Messiah Jesus. Thus, a significant outcome of my teaching through the Gospel of Mark, for example, is that students come to a richer understanding of how Jesus fulfills OT prophecies and foreshadows embedded within the narratives of the Pentateuch, in  the worshipful verses of the Psalter, and within the inscribed words of the Prophets (cf. Luke 24:44-47). More than this, however, students’ understanding of Jesus himself becomes deeply enriched as it begins to dawn upon them that the OT is about the Christ, the Son of God, in that he is the climax of the unfolding drama that begins to be told in Genesis 1:1 and that Jesus came in the fullness of time (Mark 1:15) in order that he might bring into fulfilled convergence the replete and diverse array of categories with which the OT anticipated his coming. Thus, Jesus is the Light of the World. He is the Second Man, the Last Adam, the New Man. Jesus is the Lamb of God, the latter day Moses, the new Joshua, the Son of David, even the latter day David. He is the Passover Lamb, the Temple, the new Israel, and the fulfillment of other OT imageries too numerous to list.

How would I recommend that pastors and teachers address the truncated understanding of the biblical storyline that tends to focus almost exclusively upon the NT? The remedy resides within the NT itself. But it requires that pastors and teachers do the difficult and labor-intensive work of poring over every NT citation or allusion to the OT in order to be able to convey to their parishioners how and why NT writers use the OT as they do. Pastors and teachers should be inciting parishioners to become like the Berean Jews who searched the OT Scriptures to confirm that what Paul preached to them was in fact testified to by the Word of God.

There are many resources that will assist pastors and teachers in this work. Two helpful books are: G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, eds. Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), and G. K. Beale, Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, Sept. 1, 2012).

 I appreciate your presentation of the differing views one can take to this topic and its consequences for one’s theological method. However, some have suggested a kind of third way, a via media if you will, between the liberal and conservative approach to the NT use of the OT. This third way is particularly evident among Dispensational interpreters. John Feinberg has argued that OT prophecies have one sense (what is known to the original author) but multiple references (future fulfillments in time) which the Holy Spirit revealed to his NT prophets. For example, the New Covenant is promised only to “the house of Israel” but the author of Hebrews applies it to the Jewish-Gentile church. This move can only be warranted if the OT prophecy had “multiple fulfillments” as revealed later by the Holy Spirit. What’s your response to this creative approach?

I anticipate that we will have an opportunity to return to the range of views concerning the NT’s uses of the OT that I mentioned in the first installment in this series to sketch in, for instructive purposes, differences among them. One such viewpoint on the spectrum, a viewpoint with variations depending upon who represents it, is that of Classical Dispensationalism. The example you raise in your question features the interpretive understanding of Classical Dispensationalists.

Before addressing the issue of the New Covenant promised to “the house of Israel” and to “the house of Judah,” it is necessary to comment upon the concept of “multiple fulfillments.” The concept that OT prophecies may have “multiple references” or “multiple fulfillments” is not exclusively the possession of Classical Dispensationalists. Other viewpoints, particularly those that Evangelicals tend to embrace, generally accept the concept as rooted in Scripture and not as the creation of Classical Dispensationalists to fit their system of belief, though the concept takes on a distinctive form within Classical Dispensationalism.

For example, while John 19:37 quotes Zechariah 12:10—“They will look on him whom they have pierced”—as fulfilled when the Roman soldier pierced Jesus’ side, Revelation 1:7 uses the same OT passage but with reference to the second advent of Christ—“‘Look, he is coming with the clouds,’ and ‘every eye will see him, even those who pieced him,’ and all peoples on earth will mourn because of him.’ So shall it be! Amen.” Actually, this verse consists of a  collocation of two OT passages in three segments: the first portion from Daniel 7:13, the latter two segments from Zechariah 12:10. It seems readily apparent that Zechariah 12:10 finds fulfillment in both Christ’s first and second advents. This should not surprise us, for his two advents are but two inseparable though distinguishable phases of Messiah’s coming.

Since Scripture makes it manifestly clear that Messiah’s first coming does not exhaustively fulfill the OT’s anticipations of Messiah’s coming but plainly states that “he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him” (Heb. 9:28), it seems reasonable to expect that various OT prophecies may have dual references, to both Messiah’s first and second advents with the first serving as the assured promise of the second. Because the Christ has come already and will yet come again, it is readily apparent that the NT depicts fulfillment of OT expectations in terms of fulfilled both “already” and “not yet.”

Thus, resurrection unto eternal life, of which Daniel 12:2 speaks, finds fulfillment in two phases—in “an hour yet coming” and in the hour that “is now here” (John 5:25). Though Daniel 12:2 seems to refer to the Last Day, the Day of Resurrection, there is fulfillment already for everyone who hears the word of God’s Son and believes in him, for these already receive eternal life (John 5:24). Nevertheless, Jesus affirms that the present age does not exhaust Daniel’s prophecy, for he says, “Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his [the Son’s] voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28-29).

With “multiple fulfillments” clarified, now for a few comments on how the writer to the Hebrews can appeal to Jeremiah 31:31-34 and apply the promise of the New Covenant to the church, consisting of believing Jews and Gentiles, and do so without doing violence to the OT passage even though the passage clearly affirms that the Lord “will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (see Heb. 8:8-12; 10:16-17). Here is where significant difference emerges between Classical Dispensationalism and other evangelical viewpoints, including Progressive Dispensationalism, concerning the NT’s use of the OT. Lest this response get too long, I will leave the issue of these differences for another time even though I realize that the response I now offer anticipates that discussion.

Indeed, the text of Jeremiah 31 which Hebrews 8 quotes expressly states that the Lord promises the covenant to the houses of Israel and of Judah, though in Hebrews 8:10 it is simplified to the house of Israel. How, then, can the writer to the Hebrews make the claim that the new covenant promised to the house of Israel belongs to a covenant people who consist of believing Jews and Gentiles? It stands to reason, of course, that Israel, unfaithful as she was at the time the promise of the new covenant was announced by the prophet Jeremiah, served in a representative way for an Israel that would in latter days welcome and participate in the promised new covenant. Given latter day ethnic Israel’s unfaithfulness as manifest by her rejection of Messiah Jesus, it also stands to reason that the she did not receive the promised covenant.  

From of old, Israel, and everything she experienced happened typologically and these things were written down for our instruction, for us on whom the end of the ages has come (1 Cor. 10:11). Thus, here in Jeremiah 31, earthly Israel, as in Hosea 11:1, bears the imprint of the heavenly Israelite and thus functions as his earthly shadow and copy. So, Israel serves as a type, a foreshadow, of the Coming One, Jesus Christ who is Abraham’s seed (cf. Gal. 3:16). Just as the promise was spoken to Abraham and to his Seed, who is the Christ (Gal. 3:16), so the promise of the new covenant is made to latter day Israel, who is the Christ with all his children (cf. Heb. 2:10-13).

Admittedly, this is an altogether abbreviated explanation of how the new covenant promised to the house of Israel came to be inherited by a mixed ethnic body of believing Jews and Gentiles. Even though it is a longer explanation than Hebrews 8 provides with its extensive quotation from Jeremiah 31, it may be less than satisfying for some. Fuller explanation concerning types and foreshadows awaits a later installment.

What Birthed My Dissertation Topic?

It is instructive to review one's own work from time to time. I had occasion to open my dissertation, which I'm grateful I never published, and thought about what had given prompted ideas that finally gave birth to my disseration now twenty years old. For anyone interested, here's the first paragraph of the preface.

"The idea that finally gave birth to this dissertation had a lengthy gestation period, for it was conceived about ten years ago in reflective exegesis of Gal 3:22-25. The implications of Paul's antithesis between ἡ πίστις and ὁ νόμος challenged my theological construct of the law and the gospel, particularly how I read Galatians 3. The evident historical contrast betweon πρὸ τοῦ Χριστοῦ (3:23) and ἐλθούσης τῆς πίστεως (3:25) and the fact that πίστις 'Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ (3:22) is the referent of these phrases prompted reflection upon the possibility that the latter expression refers to Christ's πίστις and not to "faith in Christ." Noticing that the same phrase occurs twice in Gal 216, formulated an hypothesis that Paul's antithesis between πίστις and ἔργα νόμου (νόμος) in Gal 3:1-14 reflects an historical contrast between Christ and Torah. This hypothesis, then, is examined tlroughout the following pages" (The Curse of the Law and the Cross: Works of Law and Faith in Galatians 3:1-14, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1992, p. x).

My Theological Twin, Steve Wellum

Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants  This will be a great book to add to any library. Take look at the two part interview with the authors, Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum.

Kingdom through Covenant-Interview with Stephen Wellum, Part 1
Kingdom through Covenant-Interview with Peter J. Gentry, Part 2

Steve Wellum's response to the following question reminds me of many conversations that he and I had twenty plus years ago when he was an MDiv student and I was a PhD student at TEDS. No one else I know so closely holds my theological beliefs as does Steve Wellum. Of course, one reason for this is the mutual shaping effect we've had upon one another.

I believe one of the most striking facets of your argument is how indebted both Dispensational and covenant theology are to an inordinate focus on the Abrahamic Covenant. Could you tease out for us this common line of dependence?


As we began to think through how dispensationalism and covenant theology “put together” the biblical covenants, it was fascinating to see that both appeal to the unconditional nature of the Abrahamic covenant yet for different reasons. On the one hand, dispensational theology appeals to the “unconditional” promise of land given to Abraham, which they believe, is only fulfilled non-typologically to ethnic, national Israel in the future millennial age. Regardless of the lack of discussion in the NT on the land promise, they argue that given the unconditional nature of the Abrahamic covenant, the land promise must still be fulfilled in the future precisely because it is an unconditional promise. When covenant theology disagrees with dispensationalism on this point by viewing the land as typological of the new creation and ultimately brought to fulfillment in Christ who ushers in the new creation, dispensational theology charges covenant theology with reading the NT back on the OT without sufficiently doing justice to the unconditional OT promise. On the other hand, covenant theology appeals to the genealogical principle of the Abrahamic covenant—“to you and your children”—as unchanged throughout redemptive history, and it is on this basis that they make their covenantal argument for infant baptism. In a similar fashion to dispensationalism, regardless of the carry over between circumcision and baptism in the NT, and regardless of the fact that there is not one example of infant baptism practiced in the NT, covenant theology argues on the basis of the unconditional nature of the Abrahamic covenant that one must not read the NT back on the OT at this point. Even though dispensationalism and covenant theology differ at certain points, they both appeal to the Abrahamic covenant to make their points and follow the same hermeneutic. For us, this not only illustrates how important it is to understand properly the biblical covenants, but it also reminds us that one must not treat the Abrahamic covenant in an isolated fashion from the entire canon and particularly its fulfillment in Christ and the new covenant.