Prof. Mackintosh says many good things well and strongly. We have noted numerous passages where truths of importance, often truths disputed in circles with which Prof. Mackintosh manifests a certain sympathy, are stated with clearness and force. And the drift of the whole discussion is on the side of the angels. But the points of view from which Prof. Mackintosh approaches his task and the presuppositions with which he endeavors to accomplish it, gravely compromise his results, or rather, if we are to speak quite frankly, render it from the first impossible that he should succeed in reaching a satisfying solution of the problems which it offers.

Warfield, Critical Reviews, in Works, vol. 10 (Baker, rpt), 307.

What a shame it is to be without knowledge! ‘Some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame’ (1 Cor. 15:34). Men think it a shame to be ignorant of their trade, but no shame to be ignorant of God. There is no going to heaven blindfold. ‘It is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them’ (Isa. 27:11)

Watson does not divide doctrine and life:

How many knowledgeable persons are ignorant? They have illumination, but not sanctification. Their knowledge has no powerful influence upon them to make them better. If you set up a hundred torches in a garden they will not make the flowers grow, but the sun is influential.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Many in the old world knew there was an ark, but were drowned because they did not get into it. Knowledge which is not applied will only light a man to hell.

Watson, The Godly Man’s Picture, (BoT, 1666/rp. 1992), 25f.

It has been customary among a certain school of writers to speak of the Scriptures, because ‘inspired,’ as a Divine-human book, and to appeal to the analogy of Our Lord’s Divine-human personality to explain their peculiar qualities as such. The expression calls attention to an important fact, and the analogy holds good at a certain distance. There are human and divine sides to Scripture, and, as we cursorily examine it, we may perceive in it, alternately, traits which suggest now the one, now the other factor in its origin. But the analogy with Our Lord’s Divine-human personality may easily be pressed beyond reason. There is no hypostatic union between the Divine and the human in Scripture; we cannot parallel the ‘inscripturation’ of the Holy Spirit and the incarnation of the Son of God. The Scriptures are merely the product of Divine and human forces working together to produce a product in the production of which the human forces work under the initiation and prevalent direction of the Divine: the person of Our Lord unites in itself Divine and human natures, each of which retains its distinctness while operating only in relation to the other. Between such diverse things there can exist only a remote analogy; and, in point of fact, the analogy in the present instance amounts to no more than that in both cases Divine and human factors are involved, though very differently. In the one they unite to constitute a Divine-human person, in the other they coöperate to perform a Divine-human work. Even so distant an analogy may enable us, however, to recognize that as, in the case of Our Lord’s person, the human nature remains truly human while yet it can never fall into sin or error because it can never act out of relation with the Divine nature into conjunction with which it has been brought; so in the case of the production of Scripture by the conjoint action of human and Divine factors, the human factors have acted as human factors, and have left their mark on the product as such, and yet cannot have fallen into that error which we say it is human to fall into, because they have not acted apart from the Divine factors, by themselves, but only under their unerring guidance.

B. B. Warfield, "The Biblical Idea of Inspiration," in Works (OUP, 1932; reprinted, Baker, 2003), 108f.

Ezra and Nehemiah recount the restoration of a remnant of Israelites to the land. Jerusalem and the temple were rebuilt. Yet the people were caught in the same sins that led to the exile (Ezra 9; Neh. 5, 13).

Haggai and Zechariah ministered as prophets during this period. Haggai confronted the people for once again breaking the covenant and calling its curses down on their heads (Hag. 1). But he also closed the book with a note of hope for the Davidic dynasty. God told the Jeconiah, the last Davidic king, He would cast him away even if he were a signet ring on God’s right hand. Now Haggai tells Zerubabbel, Jeconiah’s grandson, that God chose him to be a like signet ring—one that God is not going to cast off.

Zechariah saw a vision of Joshua, the high priest, covered in filthy garments (Zech 3:1-3). This was a picture of Israel in her sins. [Three reasons exist for identifying Joshua as symbolic of the entire people. First, the priests represented the nation before God. Second, God responds to Satan’s accusations by saying that He has chosen Jerusalem (Zech 3:2). Third, God purposed to remove iniquity from the land (Zech 3:9).] Yet the Lord had these filthy garments replaced with clean garments. This symbolized the removal of iniquity and the gift of purity.

In this context, God told Zechariah the solution to Israel’s sin problem is found in his "servant the Branch." Other references to the Branch in the Old Testament equate this figure with the Davidic Messiah. The timing of this promised removal of iniquity is linked to "vine and fig tree" language (Zech 3:10). Micah 4:1-7 uses vine and fig tree language in connection with the rule of the Lord from Zion. The Micah passage is parallel to Isaiah 2. The prophet Isaiah identifies the Lord who rules from Zion and the Davidic Messiah.

In Zechariah 6:9-15 Joshua, the high-priest is symbolically crowned to indicate that the Branch would be “a priest on his throne” (Zech 6:13). As the book progresses Zechariah predicts a king that will come “having salvation” (Zech 9:9). He is contrasted with false shepherds (Zech 10-11). When that king comes he is found to be the Lord (Zech 14:9). Yet he is a pierced Lord (Zech 12:10) who provides a fountain of cleansing for the people’s sin and uncleanness (Zech 13:1). The Lord the king is thus able to do what the sacrifices were intended to do. In the end the whole earth will be made holy to the Lord (Zech 14:20-21).

Phil Gons has information on a free commentary offer from Logos:

In an effort to promote the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary series, Logos is giving away the Matthew, Mark volume by David L. Turner and Darrell L. Bock for free—no strings attached! Make sure to use coupon code CORNERSTONE.

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Turner has also recently written a commentary on Matthew for the Baker Exegetical set.

Long before Machen wrote Christianity and Liberalism, he studied in Germany under the Ritschlian, Wilhelm Hermann.

Machen wrote home about the experience:

The first time that I heard Herrmann may almost be described as an epoch in my life. Such an overpowering personality I think I almost never before encountered—overpowering in the sincerity of religious devotion . . . .

My chief feeling with reference to him is already one of the deepest reverence . . . . I have been thrown all into confusion by what he says—so much deeper is his devotion to Christ than anything I have known in myself in the past few years . . . . Hermann affirms very little of that which I have been accustomed to regard as essential to Christianity, yet there is no doubt in my mind that he is a Christian, and a Christian of a peculiarly earnest type.

cited in John Piper, Contending for Our All: Defending Truth and Treasuring Christ in the Lives of Athanasius, John Owen, and J. Gresham Machen (Crossway, 2006), 123.

This reveals the fallacy of equating Christianity with piety apart from doctrine. It was an error the young Machen almost succumbed to and an error about which the older Machen tried to warn the church.

Andy Naselli notes that the new Gospel Coalition site is up. Of special interest is the new Themelios.

In God’s grace several of the sermons I listened to yesterday connected with one another in providential ways. As I was getting ready yesterday morning, I began listening to Tim Keller’s sermon on Isiah’s vision of God in Isaiah 6. I finished the message at lunch and the very next message on my iPod was a sermon by Steve Hafler that that began with readings from the Scripture passages in which Ezekiel and Daniel had visions of God. The closeness in content between Keller’s sermon and the way Pastor Hafler’s sermon began was striking.

In addition to this, Pastor Hafler developed the concept of the fear of God, which is a key thought in Exodus 20:20–a verse that I’ve been studying in my devotional time.

During the morning service at church I was able to teach a neighborhood teen class. We began our class time by working on memorizing Revelation 5:9-10, and I taught on Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King. In our evening service Pastor Vincent preached from Matthew 12:6, 41, 42. He concluded the message by noting Priest, Prophet, King theme in these verses and by reading Revelation 5:9-10.

I take these “coincidencecs” as good gifts from my heavenly Father to guide my thoughts about Him on His day.

In the latest 9Marks newsletter Schreiner reviews several recent Wright books. Both reviews contain appreciation for aspects of Wright’s work (see also this post by Mark Ward), but Schreiner also includes several critiques of Wright.

His critiques of Wright’s collection of sermons, Christians at the Cross, really apply to Wright’s work as a whole and are worth noting here.

First, one of the central themes in Jesus’ preaching was the call to repentance and faith. Wright rightly offers comfort to the church, but Jesus also emphasized the sins of those in Israel (yes, even when speaking to those who were already religious). Hence, he called on Israel to repent, to take up their cross and follow him, to turn away from all other gods, and to believe in the gospel. That theme is quite muted in Wright’s sermons.

The second weakness is related to the first. Wright pays much more attention to our responsibility to further God’s work in this world than he does to the need to put one’s faith in Jesus. He agrees that the latter is necessary, but he stresses the former. Of course the Christian life is about more than “getting saved.” We have work to do in this world after we believe. Nevertheless, it would seem that Easter week sermons would be a prime occasion to call upon one’s hearers to believe in the gospel; and yet a strong call to faith is lacking from this book. Wright seems to assume that all his hearers are already Christians. Wright should emphasize conversion more and call his readers (and hearers) to repentance and faith, especially since the church in England is shrinking and evangelism is such a crying need in Britain.

Third, Wright clearly believes that Jesus bore our sins as our substitute. Still, he scarcely emphasizes the awful judgment and wrath that we deserve as sinners—a wrath that is turned away by the cross of Jesus Christ (Rom 3:25-26; 1 Thess 1:10; 5:9). Wright focuses on the love of God, but he does not say much about his holiness. Yet it is when we see God’s dazzling holiness that his love shines all the brighter.

This month’s RBL contains a review of a published dissertation supervised by D. A. Carson. The review is an interesting specimen of the reaction of a critical scholar to evangelical scholarship as the following quotes demonstrate:

Hoskins rejects conceptions of typology that do not presuppose the historicity of the events in the history of Israel seen as fulfilled in Jesus. Instead, he favors a “canonical” approach, rigidly historicist and literalist in its interpretations. Readers outside the narrow confines of conservative evangelicalism, even those willing “to believe that sometimes the anticipatory import of Old Testament events, persons, and institutions is clarified by later revelation” (26), will find this rigidity stultifying, culturally anachronistic, and methodologically obtuse.

Subsequent sections are similarly problematic, covering successive stages in the cultic history of Israel as though this were a monolithic process to be reconstructed by reading the Deuteronomistic History at face value. That Chronicles represents a different perspective is acknowledged, but justice is done neither to the complexity of the historical evidence and the tensions within the collated traditions nor to the interpretation of these traditions within Judaism of the first century C.E.

Hoskins’s exegesis is careful and his references to previous scholarship copious, even if there is a conspicuous preference for evangelical authors.

This is a complex book. Its central chapters are fundamentally sound and make a substantial contribution to scholarship. This is accomplished despite the weaknesses in the background study to which attention has been drawn. More problematic, however, are the essentially theological premises on which this work is based and which strongly shape its conclusions. The assumption of a single, linear sequence of historical events, accompanied by prophecies that, together with the events and the central characters therein, find their definitive if not their sole fulfillment in Jesus of Nazareth, is fundamentally problematic. In that it implicitly impugns the legitimacy of alternative traditions and interpretations, and in particular the continuing existence of Judaism and practice of non-Christian Jewish worship, this work espouses a particularism that critical scholarship will never accept. Scripture is read in accordance with preconceived theological agenda, which undermines not merely academic rigor but also, ironically, evangelical principles regarding the authority of the Bible.

It is worth noting how worldview disagreements are masked in the language of scholarly critique. The reviewer could simply note that he does not believe in the historicity or unity the Old Testament. Instead he uses terms like “methodologically obtuse” or “preconceived theological agenda” (as if this review has none!). The last paragraph cited, however, reveals that the main objections are primarily theological.

This reviewer really wants a denial of the Christian faith. He admits that critical scholarship “will never accept” Jesus’ words:

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.

John 5:39 (ESV)

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6 ( ESV)

In other words, critical scholarship will not accept Jesus.

This calls to mind the words of Eta Linnemann:

“Mein NEIN zur historish-kritischen Theologie entspringt dem JA zu meinem wunderbaren Herrn und Heiland Jesus Christus und zu der herrlichen Erlösung, die Er Golgatha auch für mich vollbracht hat.”

Wissenschaft oder Meinung? p. 5

My “No!” to historical-critical theology stems from my “Yes!” to my wonderful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and to the glorious redemption he accomplished for me on Golgotha.

ET: Historical Criticism of the Bible: Methodology or Ideology? p. 17