Exegesis and Theology

The Blog of Brian Collins

Reflections on the Eternal State – Biblical Data 2

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The foundation for the hope of a physical eternity rests in the Old Testament expectation of physical, earthly kingdom of the Messiah (Ladd, 681f.). Isaiah speaks of the Spirit-empowered Davidic Messiah righteously ruling over an earth in which both animal and human aggression are put to an end. (Isa. 11-12). Amos ties the rule of the Davidic Messiah to the abundant fruitfulness of the earth (Amos 9:11-15). Joel also emphasizes the abundance of the earth, and this he ties to Yahweh ruling from Zion (Joel 3:17-18). The Psalms anticipate Zion will be the location of future salvation (Psalm 2:6; 14:7; 53:6; 110:2). Isaiah envisions Zion as the location where Yahweh will rule the world in justice (Isa. 2:1-4; cf. Mic. 4:1-7; Jer. 31:1-12). He also connects a future Jerusalem with the New Heavens and New Earth (Isa. 65:17-19).

Excursus on the Millennium: Many of the prophetic passages above have been taken by premillennialists as Millennial promises. Should they be taken as millennial, as referring to the eternal state, or as referring to both? Some passages like Zechariah 14 are clearly millennial since they include elements which cannot be the case in the eternal state. Interestingly, Isaiah 65-66 contains a mixture of elements some of which only fit the eternal state and others which only fit the Millennium. Prophetic books mix time periods in this manner. Other prophetic passages that refer to future blessing on earth centered on the Davidic Messiah ruling from Zion could well refer to both the Millennium and the New Heavens and Earth.

The future hope of an earthly kingdom ruled by the Messiah remained the expectation of the disciples. Though Christ told them they could not know the time of the visible arrival of the kingdom, he did not deny their understanding of its nature (Acts 1:6-8; see Bavinck, 718f.). The epistles also speak of resurrected believer’s ruling with Christ (2 Tim 2:12; Rom 5:17; Rom 4:13; 1 Cor. 6:2-3; see Schriener, 856).

Revelation 21:1 and 2 Peter 3:13 provide the most explicit revelation of a new heavens and new earth. Romans 8:18-25 teaches that the creation is awaiting redemption also. When our bodies are redeemed, the creation will itself be set free from its corruption. Less directly, we have the promise that the meek will inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5), that Abraham will be heir of the world (Rom. 4:13), and that humans will enjoy food and drink in the eternal state (Luke 22:16, 30) (Bavinck, 719; Schriener, 841-64).

In sum, the Old Testament clearly anticipates the future worldwide rule of the Davidic Messiah. This hope remains in the New Testament. It begins to be fulfilled in the Millennial reign of Christ, but several passages indicate that this kingdom will extend into a new earth that will last for eternity.

Bibliography

Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics: Volume 4: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation. Edited by John Bolt. Translated by John Vriend. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008.

Ladd, George Eldon. A Theology of the New Testament. Revised ed. Edited by Donald A. Hagner. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993.

Schreiner, Thomas R. New Testament Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008.

Reflections on the Eternal State – Biblical Data

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In his New Testament Theology, Donald Guthrie argues for “the absence of any materialistic conceptions of heaven” (879). Even though he acknowledges that 2 Peter 3:13 speaks of “a new heavens and earth,” Guthrie says, “This appears to be a material interpretation of the heavenly state, but it is probable that it was no more intended to be taken literally than Revelation 21:1” (884f., cf. 887). Guthrie is not clear about the motivation for interpreting the resurrection of the body in a material sense while at the same time denying that the eternal abode of these resurrected, embodied people is non-material.

In his arguments for a non-material heaven, Guthrie seems to equate eternal life and heaven. But the passages he cites nowhere connect the two (881). Similarly, he states that in heaven humans will not be married (877), but the texts cited simply say that in the resurrection humans, similar to the angels in heaven, will not marry. The texts do not say humans will be resurrected to heaven.

More favorable to Guthrie are Colossians 1:5 which says the Christian hope is “laid up . . . in heaven,” 1 Peter 1:4 which says the Christian inheritance is “in heaven” (cf. Luke 12:33), and Hebrews 11:16 which says Abraham and those like him seek a heavenly country. Nevertheless, these texts do not say heaven is the eternal destination of believers.

The Christian hope and inheritance is currently in heaven, but this does not mean that it will stay there. Revelation pictures the New Jerusalem descending from heaven. Likewise, the country sought by Abraham is heavenly, but it is not necessarily in heaven. Hebrews indicates that Abraham did not receive what was promised (Heb. 11:13). Thus we should expect that someday Abraham will receive what God promised. Genesis 17:8 promised Abraham the land of his sojourning as an eternal possession.

This raises the question of the re-creation of the earth. How can Abraham receive the land of his sojourning if God recreates the earth? Perhaps the best analogy is the resurrection body. Resurrection bodies are clearly different than the bodies Christians now have, and there is no indication that God is going to recreate these bodies using the same molecules. Nevertheless there is a clear continuity between the dead person and the resurrected person.

John 14:1-6 also may seem to support the conception that God’s people will spend eternity in heaven. Jesus said that he was going away to his Father’s house to prepare rooms for his disciples. It is clear that the Father is in heaven (cf. Matt. 5:45). Jesus will then come again and take his disciples to be with him. This seems to indicate that Christ will return to bring his disciples to heaven. This passage must be harmonized, however, with other passages that teach believers will live on earth during the eternal state. It may well be that what Jesus refers to in John 14 is coming for his people at the rapture. According the the pre-tribulation model, saints will dwell with Christ in heaven during the tribulation. At the end of the tribulation they will return to earth with him for the Millennium and the eternal state.

Bibliography

Guthrie, Donald. New Testament Theology. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1981.

Ministerial Holiness

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Ebenezer Erskine once said, “The ministers of the gospel, when dispensing the truths of God, must preach home to their own souls as well as to others; and truly it can never be expected that we should apply the truth with any warmth or liveliness to others unless we make a warm application thereof to our own souls. And if we do not feed upon these doctrines, and practices the duties which we deliver to you, though we preach to others, we ourselves are but castaways.”

Our sermons will not be dry or insipid if they are infused with the freshness of our own growing relationship with God. Let us never forget that we preach most when we live best. “Our ministry is as our heart is,” wrote Thomas Wilson. “No man rises much above the level of his own habitual godliness.” John Owen put it negatively: “If a man teach uprightly and walk crookedly, more will fall down in the night of his life than be built in the day of his doctrine.”

Perhaps Robert Murray M’Cheyne said it best: “A minister’s life is the life of his ministry . . . . . In great measure, according to the purity and perfections of the instrument will be the success. It is not great talents that God blesses so much as likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.

Joel R. Beeke, Puritan Reformed Spirituality (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2004), 254f.

Thoughts on N. T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope

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In Surprised by Hope, Wright does a good job defending the historicity of the resurrection (albeit with problematic concessions about inerrancy; e.g., the illustration of Wittgenstein’s poker, pp. 31ff). He is also correct to point out that the hope of Christians is not a disembodied soulish existence in heaven but a resurrected body on the new earth.

Wright’s main argument about the resurrection and the new creation is correct. Conservative who know they agree with Wright on these points may be surprised by how much they end up disagreeing with Wright along the way in this work.

For instance, because he’s not willing to fully challenge Darwin (83), Wright is forced to concede that death is part of the good creation of God (94-95). This puts in jeopardy the truth that bodily resurrection is the Christian hope in the face of a fallen world. That truth is close to the heart of Wright’s argument in Surprised by Hope, but this concession puts an otherwise good argument off-kilter from what the Bible is actually saying. Wright says, “Death as we now know it is the last enemy, not a good part of the good creation” (p. 99, emphasis added). This is very different from Rom 5:12 (to name just one passage).

Wright is not always quite fair when dealing with other positions. For instance, he brings up Harold Lindsell and Tim LaHaye when discussing dispensational theology, but he nowhere deals with scholarly dispensationalists like Darrell Bock, Craig Blaising, or Alva McClain who have actually made some of the points Wright is making before Wright made them. This is all the more annoying because Wright has a habit of speaking as if he has finally discovered truth that everybody else has missed when often time he seems simply to have failed to do the requisite research in historical theology.

Wright’s aberrant soteriological views also appear in Surprised by Hope. Wright either distorts or fails to mention the Reformation view of justification when presenting his own view on the matter (139f.). Those who hold to the traditional view are "overanxious" and wish to "rigorously exclude" any "mention of works." While such a person can be found, Wright ignores the concerns of a number of careful evangelical scholars who have argued his views on justification contain unbiblical deviations from what Protestants have historically accepted since the Reformation.

In getting justification wrong Wright gets the gospel wrong. In other works, Wright also foregrounds the end of the exile when it comes to the cross (JVG, 592), repentance (JVG, 247-51, 256-58), and forgiveness (JVG, 268-72). As a result the larger story of the Bible about creation, fall, and salvation from sin becomes the story of Israel about election, exile, and return from exile.

This distortion of the gospel is clear in what Surprised by Hope omits. Wright wrote an entire book about the resurrection of Jesus and bodily resurrection as the hope of Christians without actually coming around to telling his readers how they could be saved from sin and included in the resurrection of believers. Though he included a chapter about Jesus as judge, there is nothing to tell a reader how he can escape God’s judgment. Even the section on evangelism deals primarily with mistakes that evangelicals have too often made. Wright does not handle how an individual can be saved from his sin.

Though Wright is correct that salvation is more than an individual’s relationship with God, salvation is certainly not something less than an individual’s salvation from sin. The Fall was cosmic in extent, but it sprang out of the actions of individuals. Likewise, redemption is cosmic in effect, but it too centers on the rescue of individuals from sin and the restoration of fellowship with God.

In the end, Wright’s main argument about the resurrection is correct, but because Wright has so many other central things wrong, the book itself disappoints.

Reflections on the Eternal State – 19th Century-Present

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In the nineteenth century the Princtonians, despite some hyper-spiritualist statements (Hodge, 451f., 453), clearly affirmed that the eternal state would be on the new earth, though at times this is termed heaven (Hodge, 457, 460-62). Bavinck provides a much clearer defense of the new earth as the eternal home of the redeemed (page 716ff.).

Dispensationalists have long held to a re-created earth in the eternal state. Scofield and Chafer seem to have taught that Israel would dwell on earth for eternity while the church would dwell in heaven (Reimers’ Eschatology notes). Alva McClain states, “The ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ here undoubtedly refer to the physical universe. The ‘first’ or original universe passes away, and is replaced by a ‘new’ universe. This does not necessarily mean the annihilation of our present world of matter; for the Greek kainos may mean new in character rather than in substance. The same term is used of the regenerated believer: he becomes a ‘new creation’ (II Cor. 5:17, ASV) in a crisis which does not annihilate the personal entity but transforms it” (McClain, 510).

Though the popular view of the eternal state remains an eternal existence in heaven, several popular works, including Randy Alcorn’s Heaven and N. T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope, have argued for the eternal state on the recreated earth.

Bibliography

Alcorn, Randy. Heaven. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2004.

Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics: Volume 4: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation. Edited by John Bolt. Translated by John Vriend. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008.

Hodge, Archibald Alexander. Outlines of Theology. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1863.

McClain, Alva J. The Greatness of the Kingdom. Chicago: Moody, 1959.

Wright, N. T. Surprised by Hope. New York: HarperOne, 2008.

Reflections on the Eternal State – Middle Ages through the Post-Reformation

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By the time of the early Medieval period, the conception of heaven as the place of beatific vision was firmly established by authors such as Pseudo-Dionysius and Gregory the Great (Russell, 93, 96). Nonetheless, it is important to note theologians still affirmed physicality of the resurrected body (Russell, 95). In popular discourse, people still described heaven in physical terms and often as a garden or a city. With the revival of towns, heaven was more often described as a city (McDannell and Lang, 72-73). It is not clear whether these physical paradises were conceived to be located in the present world or in heaven. The latter is most likely.

As interest in astronomy grew, theologians began to locate heaven in the outermost of the heavenly spheres as a realm of pure light. Thomas Aquinas did not deny the existence of a future new earth (though he did deny that it would have any plant or animal life). Nonetheless, in Aquinas’ thought the saints will do nothing but contemplate God in the eternal state  (McDannell and Lang, 82-83, 89).

During the Renaissance the conception of heaven as a static place of contemplation gave way to a two-tiered vision of eternity. Above was the New Jerusalem as the dwelling of God and below was a garden paradise. The redeemed could move between contemplation of God above and the joys of human reunion and companionship below (McDannell and Lang, 119, 142-43).

The reformers Luther and Calvin both affirmed the restoration of earth and the access of the saints to both the restored earth and heaven. Unlike Aquinas, Luther and Calvin believed plants and animals would exist on the restored earth. The focus of the eternal state remained the worship of God (McDannell and Lang, 154f.). Diversity of views existed among the theological descendants of the Reformers. In his The Saints Everlasting Rest, the puritan Richard Baxter emphasized the delight in and knowledge of God that the saints will experience. The puritan Cotton Mather spoke of a re-created earth, but it is difficult to tell if he saw this as a millennial or eternal habitation (Smolinski, ed., 268ff.).

Bibliography

McDannell, Colleen and Bernhard Lang. Heaven: A History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.

Russell, Jeffery Burton. A History of Heaven: The Singing Silence. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.

Smolinski, Reiner, ed. The Threefold Paradise of Cotton Mather: An Edition of ‘Triparadisus.’ Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995.

Reflections on the Eternal State – Patristic Era

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Irenaeus taught that at his return, the Messiah would establish the “Kingdom of the Messiah” on the present earth and that the saints would be resurrected to enjoy a thousand years of life in which there would be agricultural abundance and peace between humans and animals. This would be followed by “the Kingdom of God the Father” of which Irenaeus said little. McDannell and Lang understand this to be a spiritualized kingdom (McDannell and Lang, 50-53). If so, this Irenaeus’ view was identical to that of Tertullian, who authored the first book about the eternal state: About Paradise (now lost). Tertullian taught the saints would be raised to live in the New Jerusalem for 1,000 years after which they would live as spirits in heaven for eternity (Russell, 67). By contrast, Origen simply taught an eternal spiritual existence in a spiritual heaven (Russell, 76).

With Ambrose’s About Paradise the emphasis turned toward a heavenly eternity alone. Though described with the earthly imagery of the garden and the city, communion with God was the centerpiece of Ambrose’s vision (Russell, 80). Augustine followed Ambrose’s vision of a spiritual heaven in which the redeemed will enjoy the beatific vision and respond in praise (McDannell and Lang, 59). In the east the Cappadocian Fathers and Chrysostom also emphasized the beatific vision (Russell, 84). These theologians rejected the earthly kingdom taught by Irenaeus and Tertullian. Their less material and more spiritual vision of heaven may be due to the rise of monasticism which devalued the physical world and valued mystical contemplation (McDannell and Lang, 58). Craig Blaising also ties the development of a “spiritual vision” approach to eternity to the influence of Platonism on early Christian theologians (168).

Bibliography

Blaising, Craig A. “Premillennialism.” In Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond. Edited by Darrell L. Bock. Counterpoints. Edited by Stanley N. Gundry. Grand Rapids: Zondervan: 1999.

McDannell, Colleen and Bernhard Lang. Heaven: A History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.

Russell, Jeffery Burton. A History of Heaven: The Singing Silence. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.

Thoughts on Dale Martin’s Pedagogy of the Bible – 2

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After establishing to his satisfaction the inevitability of a reader-oriented understanding of meaning, Martin then provides examples in which Christian interpretation of Scripture demands a reader-oriented approach.

In the first example, Martin points out that Christians read Psalm 22 in terms of the crucifixion of Jesus. Martin says that this is impossible based on a historical-critical approach. The Psalm was written by an Israelite many years before Christ (probably not by David according to most critics), and thus it cannot be interpreted by authorial intention in a Christian way.

Martin does note that many Christians have appealed to the divine authorship of Scripture, but he does not stop to consider the challenge this poses to his approach. By refusing to consider the possibility of prophecy of some sort and the role of the Divine Author, Martin fails to realize that the Bible actually demands its readers to be socialized into a particular way of reading Scripture.

By refusing to submit to the demands the Bible makes on its readers, Martin is bound to misread Scripture. This is most unfortunate, since by failing to read the Bible correctly, Martin fails to receive the meaning intended for him by the Divine Author.

Thoughts on Dale Martin’s Pedagogy of the Bible

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Martin begins chapter 2 arguing for a reader-response approach to Scripture interpretation. Martin repeatedly says that this approach is "common sense," that it is "empirically" the way things are, and that it is accepted by almost all people except a few holdout theologians. This reader interpreted these statements intertextually with the works of Shakespeare: methinks he doth protest too much.

To argue his case Martin gives several examples in which readers created meaning other than the original intention of the author: the famous Stanley Fish poem of author names, Culler’s nonsense sentence, misspoken Spanish in which the speaker meant one thing and the hearer understood another, the placement of a STOP sign in a museum (giving it a different meaning than it has on the road), and a class assignment to read a phone book as poetry.

But do these examples really demonstrate that readers (as opposed to authors or texts) create meaning? The first two examples merely demonstrate that when a professor gives misleading clues about words stripped of context, divergent understandings can be reached. They seem to say little about normal communication (see Carson, Gagging of God, 114f.). The third statement is an example of miscommunication because the speaker did not know how to ask a question in the correct Spanish idiom. Nonetheless, even in the example, the hearer was after a moment’s reflection able to comprehend the speaker’s intention, and the speaker received the answer to the question he asked. The fourth example merely demonstrates, as Martin intended, that people need to be socialized into a common understanding of symbols. But this does not necessitate an embrace of reader-response theory. Most simply it is a way of saying that people need to learn vocabulary and grammar if they are to read a language. This example also shows the importance of context. The final example shows how existing texts can be creatively reused. Many lines from Shakespeare and the King James Version of the Bible show up in a myriad of contexts, many far removed from the original contexts in which those lines appeared. There is no problem with this unless people try to import these foreign contexts back into Shakespeare or the Bible. In other words, turning the phone book into poetry may be a fine exercise, but if those engaged in this exercise fail to understand that the phone book was created to help people find others’ phone numbers and addresses, there is something wrong.

Martin is aware of objections to his approach. He focuses on the objection that if reader-response theory is correct, then people can make texts mean anything. The result of this is social chaos. Imagine if everyone read the STOP sign as he pleased. Martin replies that this is not the case because people are socialized into how to read. Thus those in a shared community of readers know how to interpret texts together. Thus drivers are socialized to know to stop their vehicles at a STOP sign. Nonetheless, Martin insists that the reader is always the one who gives meaning to the text. The reason so many readers give the same texts the same meaning is due to their common socialization on how to read that text. He intimates that to say that texts have meaning is to say "words [as "marks on the page"] magically or metaphysically have their meaning within themselves" (17).

But those who argue for authorial intention and textual meaning don’t claim that words magically or metaphysically contain meaning. They are happy to view words as signs. Nor does Martin’s talk about socialization undercut a historical-grammatical approach to reading. It simply means that to understand an author a reader must be socialized to read the text according to the norms of the author. In other words, interpreters of Shakespeare are concerned to understand if a meaning of a word has changed between his time and ours. They are concerned to know the various kind of genres in which drama was performed in the 17th century. In other words, one could say that the historical approach to interpretation means that readers should be socialized into the world of the author to understand him. If so, this makes sense of all the empirical, common sense observations made by Martin. It also relieves him of a problem with one of his examples. When he ordered breakfast in Spanish, he expected to receive breakfast. The waiter wasn’t satisfied with his misreading of Martin’s mis-spoken Spanish. Instead he tried to make sense of the authorial intention. Because the waiter did not share Martin’s approach to making sense of texts, Martin received breakfast.

Book Notes: Telford Work, Deuteronomy, BTCB

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Work, Telford.  Deuteronomy. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible Edited by R. R. Reno. Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2009.

Telford Work organized his comments on Deuteronomy in the categories, “Plain,” “Faith,” Hope,” and “Love.” These categories are meant to roughly correspond to the medieval fourfold sense: plain equals letter, allegorical equals faith (what is to be believed), tropological equals love (that is, what is to be done corresponds to the law of love), and the anagogical equals hope.

In the commentary proper, therefore, each section of text is followed by comments under the headings Plain, Faith, Hope, Love. Work purposely kept his comments on the plain sense to the minimum since, he noted, others have already provided plain sense commentaries that are better than what he could hope to produce (19). 

This does not mean, however, that Work’s commentary is heavy on allegory. His comments often amount to helpful theological meditation and application. For instance on Deuteronomy 1:2-3a, Work notes under the heading “Love” that Israel’s disobedience at Kadesh-barnea not only led to a wilderness wandering but also resulted in Israel gaining land in the transjordan. Work perceptively ties this to Romans 5:20 (26).

Other times Work addresses a theological issue that the text raises for the modern reader. Under the heading “Plain,” he notes the regulations regarding females taken in battle (21:10-14) are hardly what a woman herself would desire (he doesn’t mention potential conflict with biblical ethics elsewhere). He responds to the challenge in the next section (“Faith”) by appealing to Matthew 19:8. The law here is not laying out the ideal. It is seeking to restrain sin while nevertheless making concession for the hardness of the Israelite’s hearts (192).

Work also attempts to make Christological connections when possible. Some of these are forced. For instance, on the passage about not muzzling the threshing ox (25:4), Work ends up talking about harvest imagery used of Jesus’ ministry in the Gospels (224).

Other attempts are more insightful. A comment (under “Faith”) on the requirements regarding a rebellious son notes that this accusation was brought against Jesus (Luke 7:34) but that Jesus was shown to be a pleasing Son (and his enemies rebellious sons) by the resurrection (193).

In general, Work’s commentary provides a light treatment of Deuteronomy’s plain sense and a more detailed treatment of theological connections to the New Testament and Christian doctrine and practice. A number of these connections are insightful; others are a bit of a stretch. Though uneven, there’s enough good to be worth consulting.