Exegesis and Theology

The Blog of Brian Collins

The Embattled Bible: Four More Books by Robert Yarbrough

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The newest issue of Themelios contains an excellent review article by Robert Yarbrough. He carefully critiques three recent proposals among some self-identified evangelicals to revise the doctrine of Scripture (Bowald, Rendering the Word in Theological Hermeneutics; McGowan, The Divine Authenticity of Scripture; Sparks, God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship). He also positively reviews Richard Gaffin’s God’s Word in Servant Form.

Well worth reading.

Oswalt on Isaiah

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Oswalt’s commentary on Isaiah is masterful. Furthermore, not only is Oswalt helpful in elucidating the text, he is also unafraid to challenge unbelieving scholarship.

On Isaiah 36:20

It is hard to understand how those who can assert that the theological function of this passage is to claim that God acts in history can then assert with equal force that God did not act in this event (cf. Clements). If they do so to demonstrate that biblical theology is self-discredited, that is one thing. But to speak of the worth of the theology while denying its evidence is very odd indeed. [1:638, n. 21]

On Isaiah 42:20

The change from second person to third in the middle of the verse has been troublesome to translators since the time of the LXX . . . But none of these stratagems seems necessary given the well-documented tendencies for this kind of shift in Hebrew writing. [2:131-32]

On Isaiah 45:18ff.

These verses show a rather profound understanding of paganism. Because paganism refuses to admit of a God who stands outside the cosmos, it must posit that the beginning of all things was matter in chaos. Out of this chaos the gods emerged. The ordering of the chaos was something of an afterthought on the part of the gods to protect themselves from the ever-present danger of its reemergence. Humans are even more of an afterthought, created primarily to take care of the gods. Since the gods have no commitment to and accept no responsibility for humans, they have no interest in communicating with them. If humans wish to divine the future, they must resort to mediums, wizards, and necromancers (cf. 8:19). To all of this Isaiah says a resounding no! Chaos did not exist before God, and God did not bring a meaningless chaos into existence. Rather, the preexistent God created the cosmos specifically for human habitation. [2:218]

On Isaiah 49:6

Some modern translations (e.g., NRSV [ESV, NASB]) render the final phrase of the verse as ‘that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’ While this is not impossible, it is not the obvious sense of the grammar. The plain sense is: ‘I appointed you . . . to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.’ The former translation obscures the point that the Servant is not merely to be the means of God’s salvation coming to the world, he is to be that salvation. All the versions confirm this understanding.” [2:294]

Machen on Doctrine and Christianity

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But, it will be said, Christianity is a life, not a doctrine. This assertion is often made, and it has the appearance of godliness. But it is radically false, and to detect its falsity one does not even need to be a Christian. For to say that ‘Christianity is a life’ is to make an assertion in the sphere of history.

. . . . . . . . . .

About the early stages of this movement [that is, Christianity] definite historical information has been preserved in the Epistles of Paul, which are regarded by all serious historians as genuine products of the first Christian generation. The writer of the Epistles had been in direct communication with those intimate friends of Jesus who had begun the Christian movement in Jerusalem, and in the Epistles he makes it abundantly plain what the fundamental character of the movement was.

But if any one fact is clear, on the basis of this evidence, it is that the Christian movement at its inception was not just a way of life in the modern sense, but a way of life founded upon a message. It was based, not upon mere feeling, not upon a mere program of work, but upon an account of facts. In other words, it was based upon doctrine.

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Eerdmans, 1923), 19, 21.

Machen on Liberalism

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Machen on why liberal concessions to naturalism were wrongheaded:

In trying to remove from Christianity everything that could possibly be objected to in the name of science, in trying to bribe off the enemy by those concessions which the enemy most desires, the apologist has really abandoned what he started out to defend.

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, (Eerdmans, 1923), 7-8

Christianity and Liberalism for $6.50

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Westminster bookstore is offering J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism for 6.50 (+S&H). This is a must read book.

Machen’s thesis is reflected in the title. Liberalism is not Christianity; it is another religion. This gets at the root of the Fundamentalist objection to ecumenical endeavors with with liberals.

For further Machen resources, see John Piper’s biographical sermon and the biographies by Hart and Nichols (Hart’s is the more detailed, but I profited more from Nichols).