Exegesis and Theology

The Blog of Brian Collins

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.

Public Policy and Deuteronomic Curses

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Our era imagines social policy to be determinative for a people’s future: if disaster strikes, policy is how we address it. However, the social act that leads any policy in Israel to succeed is obeying YHWH’s voice. No other change—political reform, economic development, social revolution, not even the many policies in Duet. 12-26—can counter the covenant’s curses on rebels; only repentance and restoration to fruitful obedience can accomplish it.

Telford Work, Deuteronomy, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible, ed. R. R. Reno (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2009), 246.

Book Notes: Radner, Leviticus, BTCB

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Radner, Ephraim  Leviticus. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. Edited by R. R. Reno. Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2008.

Ephraim Radner recognizes the primary problem with a commentary on Leviticus is the relevance of the book to Christians today. He clearly states in the introduction to the commentary his dissatisfaction with critical and even Reformation approaches to the book of Leviticus.

Historical-critical approaches end up providing an account of the state of Israel’s religion at a certain period. At best, they may comment about the function of the book as a tutor that would lead God’s people into greater (and less opaque) spiritual truth in the future.

Radner criticizes Reformation approaches for being too repetitious. They are right, as far as they go, to make connections between the sacrificial system and Christ. But one can only make this point so often before growing tedious. Radner prefers the approaches of Origen and of medieval Jewish commentators.

In practice, Radner comments very little on the details of the sacrificial regulations but instead launches directly into figural interpretations that range from connections to Cain and Abel to Christological interpretations grounded in Hebrews.

In other sections, however, Radner’s comments are more traditional. In chapter 18, for instance, he addresses the modern questions raised by this passage’s treatment of homosexual behavior before moving to his figural interpretation of the passage as relating to the church as a family.

Overall Radner’s comments seemed distant enough from the actual text that I didn’t come away with a better understanding of Leviticus. In making his commentary relevant for Christians today, Radner seemed to leave Leviticus in the shadows.