Exegesis and Theology

The Blog of Brian Collins

Leithart on Kings

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Peter Leithart’s contribution to the “Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible” is clearly evangelical.

By contrast, Stanley Hauerwas in his BTCB contribution interprets Matthew according to his political paradigm.

Matthew’s gopspel is about ‘the politics of Jesus,’ which entails an alternative to the power politics of reading the gospel. a right reading of the gospel requires a people who are shaped by the ‘oblation familiar to the faithful,’ that is, a community whose fundamental political act is the sacrifice of the altar—an alternative to Herodian power politics. A theological reading of Matthew, therefore, reaffirms that the church be an alternative politics to the politics of the world. [28]

Leithart, however, interprets Kings according to the evangel.

He notes that in the Hebrew canon Kings is one of the Former Prophets. According to Leithart,

The message of the prophets is not, ‘Israel has sinned; therefore, Israel needs to get its act together or it will die.’ The message is, ‘Israel has sinned; therefore, Israel must die, and its only hope is to entrust itself to God who will give it new life on the far side of death.’ Or even, ‘Israel has sinned; Israel is already dead. Cling to God who raises the dead.’ [18]

Leithart also relates Kings to the wisdom books:

After Solomon, wisdom simply disappears from 1-2 Kings. The words ‘wise’ or ‘wisdom’ occur twenty-one times in 1 Kgs. 1-11, but never again after those chapters. Never again does Israel or Judah have a philosopher-king, a sage on the throne. Royal wisdom, touted so heavily at the opening of the book, fails to deliver, showing that Israel’s hope for restoration, blessing, and life does not lie in human wisdom, no matter what heights it attains. [18f.]

And to the Torah. He notes that Joshua 1:8 promises success to the one who obeys the Torah,

Yet, the only king connected to Torah in 1-2 Kings is Josiah, and we are no sooner assured that he keeps Torah to perfection (2 Kings 23:25) than we learn that Yahweh still intends to destroy Judah" (1 Kings 23:26). "Once Israel sins, wisdom cannot save Israel and Judah; nor can Torah obedience. [20]

The Temple plays a similar role. The Temple is the place to which Israel can pray when facing the curses (1 Kings 9:3).

But no Davidic king ever prays in or toward the temple until Hezekiah is threatened by the Assyrians (19:1), and in the following generation Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh, defiles the sanctuary more than any other king of Judah when he places a sacred pole for Asherah in the temple precincts. After a history of neglect and abuse, 2 Kings ends with an account of Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of the house. [20]

Leithart then relates all of this to the gospel:

Wisdom cannot save Israel from division; Torah cannot save Judah from destruction; and the last refuge of hope, the temple, is torn apart and burned by a Babylonian king. All that made Israel Israel—king and priest, Torah and temple—is destroyed. As a prophetic narrative, 1-2 Kings makes it clear that there is no salvation for Israel within Israel. Having broken covenant, it faces the curse of the covenant: in the day you eat, you will be driven from the garden. Dying, you shall die. [20]

Against this dark backdrop Leithart turns to discuss the longsuffering of God in Kings which points to the hope of the gospel.

I would like to see the gospel developed in terms of Jesus, the king who accomplished what Solomon, Hezekiah, and Josiah could not; the prophet who faithfully declares God’s word and turns people’s hearts as Elijah could not; the priest and sacrifice who fulfilled God’s Torah; the builder and sanctifier of a temple of living stones; and the Wisdom who will instruct those who fear him how to be like him.

Providence and the Sun

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No creature has a force more wondrous or glorious than that of the sun. For besides lighting the whole earth with its brightness, how great a thing is it that by its heat it nourishes and quickens all living things! That with its rays it breathes fruitfulness into the earth! That it warms the seeds in the bosom of the earth, draws them forth with budding greenness, increases and strengthens them, nourishes them anew, until they rise up into stalks! That it feeds the plant with continual warmth, until it grows into a flower, and from flower into fruit! That then, also, with baking heat it brings the fruit to maturity! That in like manner trees and vines warmed by the sun first put forth buds and leaves, then put forth a flower, and from the flower produce fruit! Yet the Lord, to claim the whole credit for all these things, willed that, before he created the sun, light should come to be and earth be filled with all manner of herbs and fruits [Gen. 1:3, 11, 14]. Therefore a godly man will not make the sun either the principal or necessary cause of these things which existed before the creation of the sun, but merely the instrument that God uses because he so wills; for with no more difficulty he might abandon it, and act through himself. Then we read that at Joshua’s prayers the sun stood still in one degree for two days [Josh. 10:13], and that its shadow went back ten degrees for the sake of King Hezekiah [2 Kings 20:11 or Isa. 38:8], God has witnessed by those few miracles that the sun does not daily rise and set by a blind instinct of nature but that he himself, to renew our remembrance of his fatherly favor toward us governs our course.

Calvin, Institutes, 1.16.2

Ryle on Holiness 2

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True holiness does not consist merely of believing and feeling, but of doing and bearing, and a practical exhibition of active and passive grace. Our tongues, our tempers, our natural passions and inclinations—our conduct as parents and children, masters and servants, husbands and wives, rulers and subjects—our dress, our employment of time, our behaviour in business, our demeanour in sickness and health, in riches and poverty—all, all these are matters which are fully treated by inspired writers. They are not content with a general statement of what we should believe and feel, and how we are to have the roots of holiness planted in our hearts. They dig down lower. They go into particulars. They specify minutely what a holy man ought to do and be in his own family, and by his own fireside, if he abodes in Christ. I doubt whether this sort of teaching is sufficiently attended to in the movement of the present day. When people talk of having received ‘such a blessing,’ and of having found ‘the higher life,’ after hearing some earnest advocate of ‘holiness by faith and self-consecration,’ while their families and friends see no improvement and no increased sanctity in their daily tempers and behaviour, immense harm is done to the cause of Christ. True holiness, we surely ought to remember, does not consist merely of inward sensations and impressions. It is much more than tears, sighs, and bodily excitement, and a quickened pulse, and a passionate feeling of attachment to our own favourite preachers and our own religious party, and a readiness to quarrel with everyone who does not agree with us. It is something of ‘the image of Christ,’ which can be seen and observed by others in our private life, and habits, and character, and doings. (Rom. 8:29.)

J. C. Ryle, Holiness (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, n.d.), x.

Ryle on Holiness

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I have had a deep conviction for many years that practical holiness and entire self-consecration to God are not sufficiently attended to by modern Christians in this country. Politics, or controversy, or party-spirit, or worldliness, have eat out the heart of lively piety in too many of us. The subject of personal godliness has fallen sadly into the background. The standard of living has become painfully low in many quarters. The immense importance of ‘adorning the doctrine of god our Saviour’ (Titus 2:10), and making it lovely and beautiful by our daily habits and tempers, has been far too much overlooked . . . .

It is, however, of great importance that the whole subject should be placed on right foundations, and that the movement about it should not be damaged by crude, disproportioned, and one-sided statements. if such statements abound, we must not be surprised. Satan knows well the power of true holiness, and the immense injury which increased attention to it will do to his kingdom. It is his interest, therefore, to promote strife and controversy about this part of God’s truth. Just as in time past he has succeeded in mystifying and confusing men’s minds about justification, so he is labouring in the present day to make men ‘darken counsel by words without knowledge’ about sanctification. May the Lord rebuke him!

J. C. Ryle, Holiness (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, n.d.), vii-viii.

God’s Providential Care for His Creatures

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Suppose we grant that the beginning of motion is with God, but that all things, either of themselves or by chance, are borne wither inclination and nature impels. Then the alternation of days and nights, of winter and summer, will be God’s work, inasmuch as he, assigning to each one his part, has set before them a certain law; that is, if with even tenor they uninterruptedly maintain the same  way, days following after nights, months after months, and years after years. But that sometimes immoderate heat joined with dryness burns whatever crops there are, that at other times unseasonable rains damage the grain, that sudden calamity strikes from hail and storms—this will not be God’s work, unless perhaps because clouds or fair weather, cold or heat, take their origin from the conjunction of the stars and other natural causes. Yet in this way no place is left for God’s fatherly favor, nor for his judgments. If they say that God is beneficent enough to mankind because he sheds upon heaven and earth an ordinary power, by which they are supplied with food, this is too weak and profane a fiction. As if the fruitfulness of one year were not a singular blessing of God, and scarcity and famine were not his curse and vengeance! But because it would take too long to collect all the reasons, let the authority of God himself suffice. In the Law and in the Prophets he often declares that as often as he waters the earth with dews and rain [Lev. 26:3-4; Deut. 11:13-14; 28:12] he testifies to his favor; but when the heaven is hardened like iron at his command [Lev. 26:19], the grainfields consumed by blight and other harmful things [Deut. 28:22], as often as the fields are struck with hail and storms [cf. Isa. 28:2; Hag. 2:17, etc.], these are a sign of his certain and special vengeance. If we accept these things, it is certain that not one drop of rain falls without God’s sure command.

Calvin, Institutes, 1.16.5

Psalm 51:3 and Exodus 34:6

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David’s prayer of repentance in Psalm 51 draws on God’s self-description of his glory.

Exodus 34:6 וַיַּעֲבֹ֙ר יְהוָ֥ה׀ עַל־פָּנָיו֘ וַיִּקְרָא֒ יְהוָ֣ה׀ יְהוָ֔ה אֵ֥ל רַח֖וּם וְחַנּ֑וּן אֶ֥רֶךְ אַפַּ֖יִם וְרַב־חֶ֥סֶד וֶאֱמֶֽת׃

Exodus 34:6 “The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,”

Psalm 51:3 חָנֵּ֣נִי אֱלֹהִ֣ים כְּחַסְדֶּ֑ךָ כְּרֹ֥ב רַ֜חֲמֶ֗יךָ מְחֵ֣ה פְשָׁעָֽי׃

Psalm 51:1 “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.”

David’s plea for forgiveness is thus rooted in the firm foundation of God’s declaration of his glory.

The Embattled Bible: Four More Books by Robert Yarbrough

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

Well worth reading.

Matthew 7 in Context

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Matthew 7 does not, at first, glance seem to flow from what precedes. The scene shifts quickly from a discussion of wealth and provision to a section on judgment, to a section on prayer, to the Golden Rule.

Perhaps the section on judgment (Matt. 7:1-5) follows as Jesus brings the sermon to a close because those who take the high standards of the sermon seriously may be tempted to be judgmental toward those who don’t meet the Sermon’s standards. Jesus warns them to take stock first of their own condition before God.

Matthew 7:6 serves as a corrective toward any who read 7:1-5 as a rejection of all discernment.

The section on prayer (Matt. 7:7-11) is fitting toward the conclusion of a sermon that makes such high demands. Disciples will certainly need God’s aid if they are to live according to his expectations. Jesus’ words encourage his disciples that God is generous in answering his children’s requests. This kind of encouragement may be especially necessary because our progress in sanctification so often seems slow and our prayers for the mortification of sin may seem to go unanswered. Jesus assures us that if we ask, it will be given us; if we seek, we will find; if we knock it will be opened. Our heavenly Father gives good things to those who ask him.

The Golden Rule (Matt. 7:12) provides a fitting summary to the body of the Sermon. Jesus said he did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 5:17). Here he says the Law and the Prophets can be summed up in this way: “Whatever you wish that others would do for you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” What comes between are the details of how this works out in the kingdom age.

These details are somewhat different than those of the Mosaic age. But the difference is not due to the abolishing of the law and the prophets. If anything, the Sermon outlines higher standards to which the Law and the Prophets pointed. The continuity is emphasized in that those who obey Jesus’ words in this Sermon in the end fulfill the second great commandment in which the whole law is fulfilled (Gal 5:14; Matt. 7:12).