Exegesis and Theology

The Blog of Brian Collins

A Reformation 500 Read: Luther’s Works, Volume 32

by

Forell, George W., ed. Career of the Reformer II. Luther’s Works. Volume 32. Edited by Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1958.

Volume 32 of Luther’s Works (along with volume 31, which includes the 95 Theses) is an ideal volume to read on 500th anniversary of the Reformation. It includes the account of Luther at the Diet of Worms, his point-by-point response to the bull, Exsurge Domine,  promulgated against Luther by Pope Leo X, and Luther’s account of the burning of Dutch reformer, Brother Henry, for the faith.

History of the English Calvinistic Baptists from John Gill to C. H. Spurgeon by Robert Oliver

by

HistEngCalBaptistsOliver, Robert. History of the English Calvinistic Baptists, 1771-1892: From John Gill to C. H. Spurgeon. Carlisle PA: Banner of Truth, 2006.

Sometimes the best way to learn doctrine is through historical studies. The historical narrative lends interest. But more than that it provides context for why certain positions were held and how they changed and developed over time. This particular volume provides a good introduction to the issues of hyper-Calvinism vs. the free offer of the gospel, antinomianism, the eternal Sonship of Christ, ad open or closed communion.

It also provides good biographical sketches not only of well-known Baptists such as Gill, the Rylands, Fuller, and Spurgeon but also of lesser known men such as Benjamin Beddome or Abraham Booth. For someone interested in reading Baptist primary sources, this book is a good place to get reading ideas.

The history here is carefully done. The book is based on the author’s dissertation. But it has the warmth one would expect from a Banner book.

Some Thoughts on the Problem of Evil

by

Unfortunately, many atheistic attacks on theistic systems for their alleged inadequacy in handling evil amount to nothing more than a rejection of the theist’s account of God, evil, or freedom. It is legitimate for an atheist to claim that that the theistic account of these items is inadequate. It is illegitimate, however, for the atheist to claim that a theist cannot solve his problem of evil on such a basis. If the theist, on his own views, can resolve he problem of evil generated by his system, then his system is internally consistent, regardless of whether the atheist or other theists like the intellectual commitments of the system.

John Feinberg, “Evil, Problem of,” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 387

We need to sharpen our sense of proportion. It would be nice to have a solution to the problem of evil, but not at any price. If the price we must pay is the very sovereignty of God, the faithful Christian must say that price is too high. After all, it of little importance whether any of us discovers the answer to the problem of evil. It is possible to live a long and happy and faithful life without an answer. But it is all-important that we worship the true God, the God of Scripture. Without him, human life is worth nothing.

John Frame, Apologetics for the Glory of God, 154.

Epistemology and the Avoidance of Deep Questions

by

Something worth thinking about:

Tocqueville cares little for ancient metaphysics, yet he cares less for its modern substitute, epistemology, which is designed to protect liberalism from dangerous involvement in deep questions.

Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, “Editor’s Introduction,” in Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. and ed. Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), xxxi.

J. Porter Harlow on How Should We Treat Detainees?

by

Harlow, J. Porter. How Should We Treat Detainees? An Examination of “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” under the Light of Scripture and the Just War Tradition.  P&R, 2016.

Harlow, who served as an attorney in the Marine Corps and as an associate professor at the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s School, wrote this book as a thesis for an M.A.R. degree from RTS.

He opens the dissertation with an account of how his views began to change on this subject. While teaching at the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s School he invited Marine Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Couch to address the class. He described Couch as “a prosecutor’s prosecutor, a strong advocate for the Government who I did not believe had ever served as a defense counsel” and as “as self-described Republican and evangelical Christian” (xvii-xviii). In this lecture Couch explained why he had refused to prosecute an al-Qaeda terrorist because his “confessions had been obtained by the U.S. Government as the result of torture” (xvii). Couch found this not only unlawful (and thus evidence “inadmissiable in a court”) but he also registered his moral objections. This prompted Harlow, an evangelical Christian, to begin to rethink his position on torture and to investigate the nature of the enhanced interrogation techniques that had been used for a time by the U.S. government.

In this work he reviews the biblical argumentation for just war theory and then applies his findings to the enhanced interrogation techniques employed early on in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He concludes that these techniques, especially when combined are torture and violate the principles of discrimination (in which only combatants are to be targeted in war) and proportionality (principles that he earlier grounded in Scripture).

One of most interesting discussions in the book has to do with the ticking time bomb scenario. It is in connection with this scenario in particular that some evangelicals have sanctioned torture. Harlow finds this fundamentally problematic because it sets aside a deontological approach to ethics (something is right or wrong because it conforms to or violates the law of God) for a utilitarian ethic (something is right or wrong depending on the potential outcome). He concludes: “Ticking time bomb scenarios have been criticized as intellectual frauds because they (1) provide for unrealistic certainty in the factual circumstances, (2) limit the leader’s options so as to only consider whether to torture or not to torture, and (3) mis-frame the entire debate over detainee treatment by developing principles based upon the most exceptional circumstances and then applying those principles to detainee treatment in general circumstances” (90).

Harlow concludes that evangelicals have not applied the Scripture to this issue with the same rigor and concern that they have to issues like abortion. Instead they have often been overly influenced by their political affiliations. He calls for evangelicals to test treatment of detainees by Scripture and to allow Scripture to shape their approach to public policy in this area.

Jason DeRouchie on OT Promises and the Christian

by

DeRouchie, Jason S. “Is Every Promise ‘Yes’? Old Testament Promises and the Christian,” Themelios 42.1 (2017): 16-45.

This is a helpful article that discusses the application of Old Testament promises to the Christian. He helpfully provides numbers of examples where Old Testament promises are repeated in the New Testament. He situates these promises in their Old Testament context and then looks at their use in the New Testament.

The examples prepare the reader to ask how Old Covenant promises relate to those in the New Covenant. DeRouchie presents “Five Foundational Principles” to answer this question.

  1. “Christians Benefit from OT Promises Only through Christ.” Here he rests emphasis on Christ as the ultimate Seed to whom the Old Covenant promises were made.”
  2. “All Old Covenant Curses Become New Covenant Curses.” Here the key text is Deuteronomy 30:6-7, an anticipation of the New Covenant, which states the God place the covenant curses on Israel’s enemies. The New Testament broadens the application to all of God’s people.
  3. As Part of the New Covenant, Christians Inherit the Old Covenant’s Original and Restoration Blessings.” Here his key text in 2 Corinthians 7:1 in which Paul applies Old Covenant promises regarding life and God’s presence from Ezekiel 37:27 and Leviticus 26:11-12 to Christians.
  4. “Through the Spirit, Some Blessings of the Christian Inheritance Are Already Enjoyed, Whereas Others Are Not Yet.”
  5. “All True Christians Will Persevere and Thus Receive Their Full Inheritance.” Here he contrasts the Old Covenant’s “do this and live” requirement with the New Covenant’s promises that the true saints will persevere.

This section is helpful, but I did find myself desiring greater clarity on what DeRouchie considered to be the Old Covenant. Is it the Mosaic Covenant, the Mosaic and Abrahamic Covenants, all the covenants prior to the New Covenant? It seems that he is using an expansive definition, but at least a footnote of justification for the choice would have been helpful.

The article closes with an unpacking of principle 1: “Christians Benefit from OT Promises Only through Christ.” Here DeRoucie presents four different ways in which OT promises are fulfilled through Christ.

  1. “OT Promises Maintained (No Extension).” He gives as examples promises of “global salvation after Israel’s exile” (Daniel 12:2) or of Isaiah 53’s promise of “the royal servant’s victory over death.”
  2. “OT Promises Maintained (with Extension).” He gives the following as an example “God promises that his servant would be a light to the nations. → Christ is this servant-light. → Faith unites us to Christ. → Union with Christ makes us servants with hm. → We join Christ as lights to the nations.” Another examples is God’s promise to walk among his people in connection with the tabernacle extended to the church which is the temple of the Spirit. “
  3. “OT Promises Completed.” The promise that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem is one example. DeRouchie also places in this category promises given to specific individuals, such as the promise to Solomon that he would receive “both wisdom and riches and honor (1 Kings 3:11-13).” He connects this to Christ by observing that all of God’s good gifts, even common grace ones, were purchased on the cross.
  4. “OT Promises Transformed.” DeRouchie explains, “By this I mean that both the promise’s makeup and audience get developed.” His primary example is the land promise to Abraham and his offspring which gets transformed from a particular land for Abraham’s physical seed to the entire new creation for all saints.

This last category, however, is problematic if “developed” means that the makeup or content of the promise and the audience or recipients change to be something other than originally promised. This kind of development would actually result in God breaking his word to the original audience to whom he made the promise. If, however, “developed” means that what was originally promised is fulfilled as promised for the original recipients while the content and recipients are expanded beyond the original promise, then it would seem that this category would revert to category 2. With regard to the specific example of land, I have a hard time know whether it fits into category 1 or 2. The land promise is extended to cover the entire world and the nations, which seem to fit category 2. But the extension begins to be spelled out in the Old Testament itself.

I think a great deal of the impasse between dispensationalists, progressive covenantalists, and covenant theologians could be broken if category 2 were recognized by more dispensationalists and if category 4 were eliminated by covenant theologians and progressive covenantalists.

Progressive Covenantalism and Land: Conclusion and Appeal

by

The preceding review of the Progressive Covenantalist view of the land has affirmed, nuanced, and then challenged various different aspects of the Progressive Covenantalist thesis.

Affirmation

The central thesis of the Progressive Covenantalist view of the land, namely, that the land promise expands to encompass all of the new creation and all of the redeemed, is affirmed. This agreement rests on a shared belief that the material creation is significant in God’s redemptive plan. In addition, Progressive Covenantalists are correct in rooting the land theme in Eden. It is also correct to posit that the origins of this theme prior to the giving of the Abrahamic covenant point to a worldwide fulfillment of the theme in the new creation. Further, there is no disagreement with Progressive Covenantalists regarding the way the rest theme in Scripture points to the fulfilment of the land theme in the entire new creation.

These are points of genuine agreement, rather than concessions. My own thoughts on the land promise expanding to encompass the entire world developed in late 2010 and through 2011, prior to the publication of works by Progressive Covenantalists, as I worked through Scripture passages that speak of Israel possessing the nations and through a study on the theme of land in Joshua.

Nuancing

Some Progressive Covenantalist arguments need nuancing. it is best to not see Eden as the primeval temple or the New Jerusalem as the entire new creation. It is possible to see the roots of Scripture’s temple theme in Eden without actually making the exegetically dubious claim that Eden was a temple. Likewise it is possible to see the temple theme fulfilled in the entire new creation without making the New Jerusalem be the entire new creation.

Progressive Covenantalists would also do well to reconsider their views regarding conditional and unconditional covenants. While they are correct that all covenants are made graciously and that all covenants have covenantal requirements, the labels conditional or unconditional refer to whether or not in some covenants God guarantees the covenant promises will come to pass even apart from the human fulfillment of the covenant. For instance, the Noahic covenant is not dependent on the obedience of its human partners for the covenant promises (no worldwide Flood until the end) to come to fruition.

More significantly, Progressive Covenantalists would do well to give more prominence to the way the kingdom promises in the Old Testament themselves expand the land promise to include the entire earth and the nations. Better recognition that their central thesis is explicitly presented in the Old Testament would alleviate some of the problems that arise when Progressive Covenantalists rest their argument primarily on typology.

Challenge

Progressive Covenantalist arguments from typology have two problems. First, it is not accurate to say that the land of Israel is a type. The land of Israel was a type at certain points in history, but not at others. Once this is realized the argument that the land promised to Abraham has no future significance because it is a type of the new creation falls apart. Second, it is problematic to claim that typology overrides specific promises made to specific people. Once it is recognized that the land of Israel was only a type at certain points in history, it becomes possible for the specific promises to Israel regarding its land be fulfilled as part of the larger fulfillment that encompasses the whole new creation. This is not a request for Progressive covenantalists to become dispensationalists. They could accept this adjustment while maintaining that Israel was a type fulfilled in Christ and while denying “that national Israel in terms of its role, vocation, calling, and identity” has “a future…role…in the plan of God” (Parker, “The Israel-Christ-Church Relationship,” Progressive Covenantalism, 52). On another occasion I would want to challenge that understanding, but it is not being challenged in this critique.

Finally, Progressive Covenantalists are being asked to take more seriously the theme of nations in Scripture and to allow this theme to come to full fruition in the biblical storyline. Their failure to reckon with the creational nature of nations and for the full development of nations within the Creation, Fall, Redemption structure of the biblical storyline is perhaps the most significant defect in the Progressive Covenantal view of the land.

Appeal

The argument here is not that Progressive Covenantalists should become dispensationalists. The way the argument has been framed, Progressive Covenantalists have not been asked to alter their view of typology or even alter their view that Israel plays no special role as a nation in the future. Since Progressive Covenantalist viewpoints on one or both of these issues are not acceptable to dispensationalists, the Progressive Covenantalists who adopted this paper’s argument would maintain their mediating position between covenant theology and dispensationalism.

All that is being asked is to recognize that promises of land to Abraham and his physical seed be fulfilled for national Israel in the new creation as part of the wider fulfillment of the land theme.

While maintaining their distinctiveness, Progressive Covenantalists would open up an area of substantial agreement with dispensationalism while maintaining substantial agreement with covenant theologians. In doing so they could pave the way for greater unity of thought about the land them among dispensationalists, covenant theologians, and those who hold to mediating positions. This would be an advance akin to the one promoted by Anthony Hoekema. Hoekema conceded that dispensationalists were correct to critique certain amillennialists for spiritualizing the Old Testament prophecies that predicted abundant fertility on the earth, long life for people, and harmony between among animal creation. Hoekema saw many of these promises fulfilled in the new creation. Disagreements remain, but the greater agreement secured is nonetheless significant.

Progressive Covenantalists have advanced the discussion of the land theme with their proposal. With some adjustments their proposal could move from being merely a distinctive for the theological position they are seeking to carve out for themselves to a widely held position across theological systems.

This is the conclusion to a series of posts on Progressive Covenantalism and the land theme in Scripture:

Progressive Covenantalism and the Land: Making Land Relevant (Part 1)

Progressive Covenantalism and the Land: Progressive Covenantalism’s View (Part 2)

The Theological Importance of the Physical World

Eden and the Land Promise

Eden, the New Jerusalem, Temples, and Land

Rest, Land, and the New Creation

Distinguishing the Kingdom Jesus Announced and the Sovereign Reign of God over All

Land and the Kingdom of God

Land, the Kingdom of God, and the Davidic Covenant

Progressive Covenantalism, Typology, and the Land Promise

Was the Promised Land a Type of the New Creation?

How Do OT Promises and Typology Relate to Each Other?

The Importance of Nations in Biblical Theology

Conditions and Covenants: Progressive Covenantalism and Covenant Conditions

Abrahamic Covenant: Conditional or Unconditional

Abrahamic Covenant: Conditional or Unconditional

by

The Making of an Unconditional Covenant

In making his covenantal promise to Abraham, God enacted a ceremony in which a smoking firepot and flaming torch passing between animals that had been divided. The fire pot and torch likely represent God. They call to mind God’s revelation of himself in fire in Exodus at the burning bush and at Sinai (McKeown, Genesis, THOTC, 93). The significance of passing through the pieces is indicated by Jeremiah 34:18: “And the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me, I will make them like the calf that they cut in two and passed between its parts” (cf., Gentry and Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant, 250-56). Notably, in Genesis 15 God placed Abram in a deep sleep. God passed through the pieces himself. This indicates a unilateral promise by God to fulfill the land promise for Abraham. Furthermore, the unilateral promise includes Abraham’s physical seed (Gen. 15:18), defined in this passage as those who sojourn in Egypt for four hundred years before returning to dispossess the inhabitants of the land (Gen. 15:13-16).

Reckoning with Conditional Statements

Complicating the unconditional cutting of the Abrahamic covenant are statements like the one found in Genesis 22:16-17: “because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you. . . .” These statements seem to introduce an element of conditionality.

The order of events in the Abraham narrative is important for making sense of the causal statements in 22:15, 18. God already made an unconditional promise that Abraham’s seed would be as numerous as the stars in the sky (15:4-5). God had alone passed between the cut animals, indicating that he alone was responsible for upholding the covenant. How can God now say that he will bring to pass covenantal blessings because of Abraham’s obedience?

Two facts are significant here. First, Abraham does enter this covenant by faith. Second, Genesis 22 outlines a test for Abraham. His faith is tested to see if he truly trusts God’s promises when God commands him to do something that would seem to put those promises in jeopardy. Abraham demonstrates his faith in God’s promises by trusting that God would raise Isaac from the dead if need be. Abraham has already entered into the covenant by faith in Genesis 15. But here his faith is shown to be a reality.

When God says he will do certain things because Abraham has obeyed, God is saying that the covenant really will be fulfilled according to God’s prior commitments because Abraham demonstrated the reality of his faith.

In this way Genesis 22 aligns well with James 2. Abraham was justified by faith much earlier, as Genesis 15:6 attests. But in the sacrifice of Isaac, his works fulfilled this faith. The narrative does not allow the conclusion that Abraham merited the promises due to obedience or even due to perfect faith. He sinned in chapter 20, in the very year that Sarah was to conceive. Nonetheless, God kept his covenant promise and Isaac was born in chapter 21.

The Abrahamic Covenant in Israel’s History

The way the covenants play out in Israel’s history confirm the unconditional nature of the Abrahamic covenant.

For instance, when God says in Hosea 1:9, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God,” he indicates a reversal of the Mosaic covenant in which God promised, “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God” (Ex. 6:7; cf. Lev. 26:12; Dt. 27:9). The latter phrase of Hosea 1:9 could be translated, “And I [will be] Not I Am to you,” a reversal of the name God revealed to the people at the time of the exodus (Ex. 3:14). The import of the language is that the people have so violated the Mosaic covenant that it is as if they are now like the Gentiles―they are not God’s people and God is not their God.

Following this word of judgment, there comes a word of promise: “Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered” (Hos. 1:10). Since this is an allusion to the Abrahamic covenant, the implication is that their violation of the Mosaic covenant which leads to them becoming “Not my People” is backstopped by the Abrahamic covenant. Because of God’s promises to Abraham, “in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it shall be said to them, ‘children of the living God.’” Violation of the Mosaic covenant could lead to them being not my people, but the promises of the Abrahamic covenant ensure that they will one day be identified as God’s children.

Notice the land aspect of the promise. It is not only that Israel will once again be identified as the children of God. This will happen in a particular place. Since the judgment was given to Israel in the land, this implies a return to the land is part of their restoration. This is confirmed in verse 11: “And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.” This interpretation is debated. Some understand verse 11 to directly indicate a return from exile (Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, AB, 209; Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, WBC, 36, 39). But, “land” in this interpretation would refer to the Gentile lands that Israel returns from. This seems to be an unlikely use of the term (Garrett, Hosea, Joel, NAC, 73).

It seems more likely that verse 11 refers to a flourishing of the people within the land. As Dearman observes:

[T]he meaning ‘go up from’ for the verb ‘ala, at least in the sense of ‘to depart,’ does not make sense in this context. The verb may be used here in an agricultural sense, however, as in ‘growing up’ or ‘increasing/flourishing’ (Deut. 29:23 [MT 22]), rather than in its more common geographical sense of departing. A positive agricultural connotation would make good sense in this context. Israel will sprout and flourish in the land. Furthermore, the use of the verb may be yet another Hosean pun. It may well imply a ‘flourishing’ for the people of an exodus-like scale. [Hosea, NICOT, 105-6; cf. Garrett, 73.]

This interpretation of Hosea 1:11 is consistent with other parts of Scripture. Leviticus 26:40-45 moves from the pronouncement of the curse of exile upon Israel for breach of the Mosaic covenant to the promise of restoration due to the Abrahamic covenant: “I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land” (Lev. 26:42). Milgrom comments, “This is to say, the essence of the covenant with the patriarchs is the promise of the land” (Leviticus, AB, 2335). Andrew Bonar observes, “Here we have, so to speak, a permanent fact, or truth, on which to rest the proof of Israel’s restoration to their own land. It is this: the covenant with their fathers contained a grant of the land” (Leviticus, 491). Hartley says, “This phrase means that he will bring the survivors back to this land of promise in order that it might again be inhabited” (Leviticus, WBC, 470).

Future restoration to the land is also predicted in Deuteronomy’s anticipation of the new covenant (30:3), and in Ezekiel’s statement of the covenant (Eze. 36:33-36). Further, these promises are stated in such a way that it is difficult to apply them to other than ethnic Israel. For instance, in Ezekiel 36 the Israelites who return to the their formerly desolate lands are distinguished from the nations who come to know that God is the Lord.

Conclusion

Progressive covenantalists are strangely averse to granting that the nation Israel will be restored to the promised land. Richard Lucas argues that though Romans 11 promises the future salvation of Israel, it does not promise additional blessing, such as land (“The Dispensational Appeal to Romans 11 and the Nature of Israel’s Future Salvation” in Progressive Covenantalism). But this fails to take into account passages such as Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 30, and Ezekiel 36 in which the nation’s repentance is tied to a restoration to the land.

It remains unclear to me why the fulfillment of an unconditional land promise cannot be fulfilled as part of a wider fulfillment of the land theme that covers the entire world and all of God’s redeemed people.

This is part of a series of posts on Progressive Covenantalism and the land theme in Scripture:

Progressive Covenantalism and the Land: Making Land Relevant (Part 1)

Progressive Covenantalism and the Land: Progressive Covenantalism’s View (Part 2)

The Theological Importance of the Physical World

Eden and the Land Promise

Eden, the New Jerusalem, Temples, and Land

Rest, Land, and the New Creation

Distinguishing the Kingdom Jesus Announced and the Sovereign Reign of God over All

Land and the Kingdom of God

Land, the Kingdom of God, and the Davidic Covenant

Progressive Covenantalism, Typology, and the Land Promise

Was the Promised Land a Type of the New Creation?

How Do OT Promises and Typology Relate to Each Other?

The Importance of Nations in Biblical Theology

Conditions and Covenants: Progressive Covenantalism and Covenant Conditions

Conditions and Covenants: Progressive Covenantalism and Covenant Conditions

by

The argument that God’s integrity is at stake if the land promise made is not fulfilled for the nation of Israel fails to resonate with Progressive Covenantalists because of their view of the covenants.

Wellum writes, “There is a sense in which we agree with Michael Horton that Israel forfeited the promise of the land because of her disobedience, hence the reason for the exile.” However, in another sense Jesus as the “greater than Israel” will bring about the land promise (in the new creation) (Kingdom through Covenant, 706).

This view is explained by the Progressive Covenantalist position that the biblical covenants are neither conditional nor unconditional but are in some sense both (Ibid., 120-21; 285-86, 609-10, 634, 705). Wellum notes, “Viewing the biblical covenants as either unconditional or conditional is not quite right.” There are both conditional and unconditional elements in all of the covenants resulting in “a deliberate tension within the covenants.” One the one hand, the covenants reveal God and his promises. “On the other hand, all the biblical covenants also demand an obedient partner” (Ibid., 609-10).

Thus:

In this sense there is a conditional or bilateral element to the covenants. This is certainly evident with Adam as he is given commands and responsibilities to fulfill, with the expectation that he will do so perfectly. . . . Furthermore, in the Noahic covenant, obedience is also demanded, which is true of Abraham, the nation of Israel, David and his sons, and in the greatest way imaginable in the coming of the Son, who obeys perfectly and completely. . . . Yet as the biblical covenants progress through redemptive-history, this tension grows, since it becomes evident that it is only the Lord himself who remains the faithful covenant partner. [Ibid., 610.]

Likewise, Ardel Caneday claims that the division of covenants into the categories of “unconditional” and “conditional” is “too stark and simplistic” (“Covenantal Life with God from Eden to Holy City,” in Progressive Covenantalism, 101).

He elaborates:

If we use unconditional, should it not refer to God’s establishment of all his covenants with humans? Was not God’s choosing of Abraham and of Isaac not Ishmael, and of Jacob not Esau, unconditional (cf. Rom 9:6-24)? As for conditional, the term refers to the covenantal stipulations placed upon humans with whom God enters covenant, and which do not jeopardize fulfillment of any of God’s covenants. God obligates humans to obey what he stipulates in his covenants, and all whom he desires to enable do obey. [Ibid., 102]

This is, to use Caneday’s words, “too stark and simplistic.” The best of those who recognize the existence of both unconditional and conditional covenants are more nuanced about precisely what these labels do and do not refer to.

For instance, Jonathan Lunde maintains the distinction between “the ‘royal grant’ or ‘unconditional’ covenant” and “a ‘conditional’ or ‘bilateral’ covenant.” But Lunde does not dispute Caneday’s point that the choosing of the covenant partner is unconditional: “[T]he covenants are always grounded and established in the context of God’s prior grace toward the people entering the covenant, even in the case of the conditional variety” (Following Jesus, the Servant King, 40).

Nor does Lunde dispute that all covenants have “covenant stipulations”: “That is not to say that there are no demands placed on people in a grant covenant. Such are always present” (Ibid., 39).

The terms conditional and unconditional relate not to the selection of the covenant partner or to the presence of stipulations, as Caneday argued. Rather, conditional and unconditional identify whether the fulfillment of the covenant depends upon the promises of God alone or upon the obedience to the covenant stipulations. The Noahic covenant is a case in point. While acknowledging the existence and importance of covenantal stipulations in the Noahic covenant, Lunde maintians that “its benefits are unconditional, grounded solely in God’s commitment to provide them” (92). If the benefits were conditional upon the obedience of the covenant partner, then we would continually be in danger of another worldwide flood.

 

This is part of a series of posts on Progressive Covenantalism and the land theme in Scripture:

Progressive Covenantalism and the Land: Making Land Relevant (Part 1)

Progressive Covenantalism and the Land: Progressive Covenantalism’s View (Part 2)

The Theological Importance of the Physical World

Eden and the Land Promise

Eden, the New Jerusalem, Temples, and Land

Rest, Land, and the New Creation

Distinguishing the Kingdom Jesus Announced and the Sovereign Reign of God over All

Land and the Kingdom of God

Land, the Kingdom of God, and the Davidic Covenant

Progressive Covenantalism, Typology, and the Land Promise

Was the Promised Land a Type of the New Creation?

How Do OT Promises and Typology Relate to Each Other?

The Importance of Nations in Biblical Theology

The Importance of Nations in Biblical Theology

by

Retracing the Argument

Typology is at the heart of Progressive Covenantalism’s position that the land promises are fulfilled in the new earth for all of God’s people with no specific fulfillment for Israel in a particular land. In this view, the land of Israel is a type. The type gives way to the reality of the new earth.

Previous posts have noted two problems with Progressive Covenantalism’s typological reasoning. First, it is not accurate to say that the land of Israel is a type. It was only a type at certain points in history. Second, God promised the land to Israel and promises entail obligations. God must fulfill his promise to Israel.

In response to this second problem, Progressive Covenantalists would likely respond that Israel itself is a type that is fulfilled in Christ. Thus the promise is not fulfilled for national Israel but for Christ. This is dubious reasoning because of the nature of a promise. If someone promised us something and then fulfilled the promise for someone else, claiming that we were merely standing in as a symbol for the other person, we would rightly claim to be wronged. Second, even if Israel does play a typological role in Scripture, that role does not eliminate Israel as an entity for which the land promise can be fulfilled. Brent Parker observes:  “[I]t is important to recognize that when a person or entity is identified as typological, this does not include every aspect of the person or entity. . . . Israel as an ethnic group is not a type” (“The Israel-Christ-Church Relationship,” in Progressive Covenantalism).

Thesis and Counter-thesis

The simple acknowledgement of that Israel as an ethnic group continues and could receive land in the eternal state is all that needs to be acknowledged for a rapprochement between my view and that of Progressive Covenantalism. We both agree that the land theme expands to encompass the entire new earth and all of God’s people. All I’m asking is for an acknowledgement that within this broader fulfillment of the theme the specific promises that God made will also be fulfilled.

Parker, however, resists this idea by rejecting the claim that national identities persist into eternity: “[A]though the language of ‘nations’ is employed in Revelation 21-22, such does not establish that separate national identities or entities will continue throughout the consummated state” (Ibid., 108).

Exegetical Response

The basis for Parker’s assertion that national identities cease in eternity is not clear. It may be that Parker is advocating the idea that the New Jerusalem is not a city but the people of God. Thus imagery of nations coming into the city indicates that the people of God is multiethnic.

If this is Parker’s line of reasoning, it is unconvincing for two reasons. First, if this is the point, why mention kings? Second, the New Jerusalem cannot be reduced to the people of God. Grant Osborne notes,

Yet while it is possible that John transformed the Jewish tradition of an end-time New Jerusalem into a symbol of the people themselves, that is not required by the text. In Deutsch’s study of the transformation of the images of this text, she concludes (1987: 124) that John chose this as a contrast to the evil city of Babylon the Great. . . . Babylon was both a people and a place, and that is the better answer here. It is a people in 21:9-10, when the angel shows John the New Jerusalem as ‘the bride, the wife of the Lamb’ and in 21:13-14, when the twelve tribes and the twelve apostles are the gates and the foundations of the city. But it is a place in 21:3 where God ‘dwells’ with his people, in 21:7-8 where the readers either ‘inherit’ it or face the lake of fire, and in 21:24, 26 where the glory of the nations are brought into it. [Revelation, BECNT, 733.]

Nations in Biblical Theology

Parker’s view also suffers from a major theological flaw. It does not allow a major theme of the Scriptures to be consummated in the biblical storyline. Christopher J. H. Wright observes,

The nations of humanity preoccupy the biblical narrative from beginning to end. . . . The obvious reason for this is that the Bible is, of course, preoccupied with the relationship between God and humanity, and humanity exists in nations. And where the Bible focuses especially on the people of God, that people necessarily lives in history in the midst of the nations. “It is clear that ‘Israel as a light to the nations’ is no peripheral theme within the canonical process. The nations are the matrix of Israel’s life, the raison d’être of her very existence. [The Mission of God, 454, citing Christensen, “Nations,” ABD, 4:1037.]

Wright argues that the nations are part of the creation order: “[T]he Bible does not imply that ethnic or national diversity is in itself sinful or the product of the Fall . . . . Rather, nations are simply ‘there’ as a given part of the human race as God created it to be” (Ibid., 455-56). Paul affirms this in Acts 17:26: “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place” (Wright holds that Paul is here drawing on Deut. 32:8; Ibid., 456). Wright concludes, “National distinctives, then, are part of the kaleidoscopic diversity of creation at the human level, analogous to the wonderful prodigality of biodiversity at every other level of God’s creation” (Ibid.).

Likewise, Daniel Strange argues the structure of Genesis 10-11 supports the claim that the diversity of nations is part of the creation order. The order of those chapters is not chronological. By placing the Babel event later, Genesis avoids the idea that the division into nations is itself a curse and confirms that the “scattering” was not merely a judgment but an enforced fulfillment of God’s command (and thus tied to blessing) (Their Rock is Not Like Our Rock, 124; cf. McKeown, Genesis, THOTC, 72; Mathews, Genesis, NAC, 1:467).

If nations are part of the creation order, it is also clear that nations have been affected by the Fall. And if nations are affected by the Fall, then they form a part of the creation order in need of redemption: “The mission of God is not merely the salvation if innumerable souls but specifically the healing of the nations” (Wright, 456). Thus in new creation one would expect to see nations, and this is what one does see in Scripture:

The inhabitants of the new creation are not portrayed as a homogenized mass or as a single global culture. Rather they will display the continuing glorious diversity of the human race through history: People of every tribe and language and people and nation will bring their wealth and their praises into the city of God (Rev 7:9; 21:24-26). The image we might prefer for the Bible’s portrait of the nations is not a melting put (in which all differences are blended together into a single alloy) but a salad bowl (in which all ingredients preserve their distinctive color, texture, and taste). The new creation will preserve the rich diversity of the original creation, but purged of the sin-laden effects of the Fall. [Ibid.]

The Abrahamic covenant itself would cause us to expect the salvation of the nations. Mathews observes,

The language of the call [of Abraham] evokes the Table of nations as the theological setting for its interpretation. In the Table’s refrain (10:5,20,31-32) are ‘lands’ (’arṣôt), ‘families’ (mišpĕḥôt), and ‘nations’ (gôyîm); also the table has the recurring verb yālad, translated ‘father of’ and ‘born; (10:8,13,15,21,24,25,26). These four terms appear in 12:1-3: ‘country’ (’ereṣ, v. 1), ‘peoples’ (mišpĕḥôt, v. 3), ‘nation’ (gôy, v. 2), and ‘people’ (mô;edet, v. 1), which is related to yālad. Although the call is directed to the individual Abraham, it is intended ultimately for the salvation of the world’s peoples. [Genesis, NAC, 2:105.]

If eternity is lived on a new earth, and if nations exist on the new earth, and if Israel is one of these nations, why would God not fulfill his specific promise to give Israel land? In fact, it would be odd for Israel to receive some other land or no land in such circumstances.

This is part of a series of posts on Progressive Covenantalism and the land theme in Scripture:

Progressive Covenantalism and the Land: Making Land Relevant (Part 1)

Progressive Covenantalism and the Land: Progressive Covenantalism’s View (Part 2)

The Theological Importance of the Physical World

Eden and the Land Promise

Eden, the New Jerusalem, Temples, and Land

Rest, Land, and the New Creation

Distinguishing the Kingdom Jesus Announced and the Sovereign Reign of God over All

Land and the Kingdom of God

Land, the Kingdom of God, and the Davidic Covenant

Progressive Covenantalism, Typology, and the Land Promise

Was the Promised Land a Type of the New Creation?

How Do OT Promises and Typology Relate to Each Other?