Exegesis and Theology

The Blog of Brian Collins

Vlach, Michael. Chapter 1: “The Importance of the Kingdom,” in He Will Reign Forever

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Vlach proposes that “kingdom” is the central theme of Scripture (21). He argues this case by noting that the theme runs from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22, that much of Scripture is focused on the development of the kingdom, that the kingdom is the central theme in Jesus’s ministry (and that of his forerunner, John), and that the kingdom is the focal point of eschatology. Vlach also argues that the themes of covenant, promise and salvation all connect into the kingdom theme. Finally, Vlach acknowledges that God’s glory is the “purpose for which God does what he does,” but he wishes to distinguish this from “a theme of Scripture” (27).

I’m not committed to kingdom as the central theme of Scripture. For instance, I don’t see the need to deny that the glory of God is a theme. But I do affirm that it is right at the heart of biblical theology and that the other major theological themes all connect to it.

Having established the centrality of the kingdom theme, Vlach then turns to define kingdom.

“The concept of ‘kingdom’ includes at least three essential elements:

1. Ruler—a kingdom involves a ruler with rightful and adequate authority and power.

2. Realm—a kingdom involves a realm of subjects to be ruled.

3. Rulership—a kingdom involves the exercise of ruling.” [28]

He insists that all three parts must be present for a kingdom to be present. In the end he follows Alva McClain to define kingdom as “the rule of God over His creation” (30, quoting McClain, The Greatness of the Kingdom, 19).

There are a number of weaknesses in Vlach’s definition of kingdom.

First, realm should not be reduced to subjects. The realm of the kingdom includes land. Ultimately, the entire earth is the realm of God’s kingdom.

Second, Vlach seems to think that requiring ruler, realm, and rulership to all be present argues against a present form of the kingdom. This is clear in his characterization of Luke 19:12, where he argues “the actual kingdom reign occurs when the nobleman returns to his realm of authority.” However, Psalm 110:1–2 indicates that the Son is reigning now even before his return. I would argue that all three elements are present even in the inaugurated but not yet consummate rule of Christ.

 This definition doesn’t clearly highlight that the kingdom is God’s rule over His creation through man. The Creation Blessing and the necessity of the incarnation is left to the side in this definition. However, Vlach elsewhere roots the kingdom theme in Genesis 1:26–28. Including the through man aspect of the kingdom seems consistent with what Vlach teaches elsewhere.

Vlach, Michael. “Introducing the Kingdom.” In He Will Reign Forever.

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Michael Vlach’s large-scale biblical theological study of the kingdom begins with an outline of what Vlach calls “a new creationist perspective.”

He outlines this perspective in six points (14-16):

“1. A new creationist approach affirms the importance of the material realm in God’s purposes.

2. A new creationist approach affirms that physical promises in the Bible will be fulfilled just as the Bible writers expected.

3. A new creationist approach affirms that the coming new earth will be this present earth purged and restored.

4. A new creationist approach affirms the importance of individuals, Israel, and nations in God’s plans. God works with various groups.

5. A new creationist approach affirms the importance of particular and universal entities.

6. A new creationist approach affirms God’s kingdom will involve social, political, geographical, agricultural, architectural, artistic, technological, and animal elements.”

Vlach also opposes false dichotomies (16):

  • “The kingdom is not physical; it is spiritual.”
  • “The kingdom is no longer about nations; it is about individuals.”
  • “The kingdom is no longer about Israel; it is about Jesus.”
  • “The kingdom is no longer national; it is international.”

I agree with Vlach’s new creationist perspective, with his opposition to false dichotomies, and with his opposition to transforming or transcending the Old Testament promise and storyline.

However, in the introduction he also says that the coming of the kingdom is contingent upon “Israel’s acceptance of the Messiah.” On this point I think he is wrong. The passages he cites speak to the restoration of Israel, but none of them prevent an establishment of the kingdom before that restoration. At least at this point, Vlach is not touching countervailing biblical evidence.

Vlach, Michael J. Dispensational Hermeneutics: Interpretation Principles that Guide Dispensationalism’s Understanding of the Bible’s Storyline. Theological Studies Press, 2023.

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Insights:

I’m the first chapter Vlach surveys “Key Elements of Dispensationalism’s Storyline.” His survey includes a number of important insights.

  • Rightly sees the importance of Genesis 1:26-28 as foundational for the theology of Scripture and rightly sees the centrality of kingdom and glory to the Bible’s theology.
  • Rightly sees redemption as encompassing not only individuals but also to all of creation, including ethnicities and nations.
  • Understands the covenants as the means by which God brings about his kingdom.
  • Recognizes the spiritual aspects of God’s work coexist alongside the material aspects of God’s work. The material aspects are not merely typological but often have eschatological significance.
  • Recognizes that an emphasis on a progression from the material to the spiritual in redemptive history may be due to the influence of Platonism and other unbiblical worldviews. This viewpoint is at odds with the Bible’s high view of the importance of material creation, including that of the resurrection body.
  • Recognizes God’s role for Israel as the nation through whom God gave the Scripture, through whom the Messiah came, and through whom all the nations will be blessed.
  • Affirms the salvation of all Israel in the last day.
  • Affirms that the spiritual blessings of the covenants have been inaugurated and also affirms that the material blessings will be fulfilled in the last day. (I don’t like spiritual and material as the distinguishing terms. Spiritual in the Bible usually referrs to the Holy Spirit and his work, rather than to a material/spiritual dichotomy; furthermore, the Holy Spirit was at work in the creation of the material world and will be essential to its recreation—just as he is essential to our personal salvation, sanctification, and glorification.)
  • Sees promises in the covenants made with Israel fulfilled in the church, and he sees believing Israel in the present age as part of the church. He also sees the church and Israel as two different kinds of entities. Israel is a nation while the church is a multiethnic body of believers.
  • Affirms that Christ will return to rule all the nations.

In chapters 2-4 Vlach turns to what he identifies as the hermeneutics of dispensationalism. This section also contains a number of insights.

  • He rightly supports discerning authorial intention.
  • He rightly accepts that there are types, symbols, and analogies in the text. He denies that these require a different hermeneutic since grammatical-historical interpretation already recognizes the reality of types symbols, and analogies and seeks to discern their author-intended, contextually governed meaning.
  • He recognizes that dispensationalists and non-dispensationalists both operate with the same grammatical-historical hermeneutic. (He does say that non-dispensationalists often abandon this approach when it comes to prophecies about the restoration of Israel, which may be too sweeping a judgment.)
  • He notes that Israel came under the covenant curses and the judgment of exile just as the Mosaic covenant and the prophets predicted. He then asks why, if the covenant promises of judgment happened as written, the promises and prophecies about Israel’s future restoration and blessing should be reinterpreted as typological and fulfilled only in the church? This is an insightful point, especially since often the prophecies of restoration are textually linked to Israel’s experience of judgment. It would be most odd then for Israel to only experience the judgment and for the promised restoration to be applied only to a different corporate party that did not experience the judgment.
  • He rightly recognizes that turning a promise into a type to be fulfilled for someone other than the person to whom the promise was originally made would violate God’s integrity. “Promises also contain an ethical component. The one making a promise is ethically bound to keep the content of the promise with the audience to whom the promise was made” (40).
  • He recognizes that later revelation “does not reinterpret or change the meaning of earlier revelation” (41). I don’t take this as a denial that the NT properly interprets the OT. That denial, if made, would be a problem.
  • He affirms that the progress of revelation does not alter promises or change the recipients of the promises, though the beneficiaries of the promises may be expanded through progressive revelation.
  • The first coming of Christ did not exhaust prophetic fulfillment; some prophecies await fulfillment at the second coming.
  • The reason that some OT prophecies are only partially fulfilled at present is due to the fact that Christ comes twice. We can see this in certain prophecies where within the same passage part of the prophecy was begun to be fulfilled in the earthly ministry of Christ and another part awaits the second coming (cf. Zech. 9:9-10; Isa 61:1-2; Amos 9:11-15).
  • Jesus is the “Yes” to OT promises in a complex way:
    • Jesus “directly” fulfills some prophecies (73)
    • “Jesus is the means for the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, promises, and covenants” (73). Vlach explains: “There are predictions about a coming antichrist, temple, Israel, nations, destruction and rescue of Jerusalem, battles between nations, the Day of the Lord, kingdom, resurrection, judgment, etc. While not Jesus, these matters are significant to God’s purposes and Jesus is involved with their fulfillment. These things do not vanish or dissolve into Jesus in a metaphysical way” (p. 74).
  • Jesus is the true Israel and national Israel still exists as an entity for which promises will be fulfilled. This is a “both/and” rather than an “either/or.”
  • Vlach observes different ways in which Israel is used in Scripture. (1) “an ethnic, national, territorial, corporate entity”, (2) “to the believing remnant of Israel,” (3) “the ultimate representative of Israel.” (76).
  • Dispensationalism historically has been Christocentric and Christotelic.
    • But it is careful not to “read meanings into texts that are not there” in an effort to be Christ-centered.
    • Dispensational Christ-centered interpretation does not find Christ in the text by “adding a hermeneutical move beyond the grammatical historical” interpretation of a text (82).
    • The OT should be read from the perspective of a NT believer with the knowledge of how Jesus has fulfilled the law and the prophets.
  • Vlach agrees that there are types, but he argues that the promises of the Noahic, Abrahamic, Davidic, and new covenants are not types. He also rejects what he terms typological interpretation, which he defines as interpretations that transform covenant promises into something other than what was promised.

In chapters 5-6 Vlach turns to what he describes as the hermeneutics of non-dispensationalism.

  • He rejects NT priority. He defines this as the idea that the NT use of the OT involves a “radical reinterpretation” of OT prophecies (93, citing Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, rev. ed., 373). He is right to deny that the NT “reinterprets” the OT or changes the meaning these texts originally had. But he over-reacts when he denies that that the NT teaches interpreters how to interpret the OT (see below).
  • He rejects spiritualizing the promises regarding the physical creation.
  • He denies that covenantal promises are types
  • He denies that prophecies about events to come are types. (I would affirm this denial even while granting that these prophecies may involve people and institutions that are typological at some point in history.)
  • He denies that a typical entity or institution can cancel out the fulfillment of promises regarding those entities or institutions. He helpfully quotes Craig Blaising’s opposition to when typology is “employed to contravene, suppress, or subvert the meaning of explicit covenant promise, and even more so when the NT explicitly repeats and reaffirms the same promise as declared in the covenants of the OT” (Blaising, “A Critique of Gentry and Wellum’s, Kingdom through Covenant: A Hermeneutical-Theological Response,” 117 as cited on p. 108).
  • He objects to the use of the following terms to describe the NT’s interpretation of the OT: “redefine,” “reinterpret,” “transform,” “transcend,” “transpose” (114).
  • Vlach is correct to say, “Matters like corporate Israel, nations, land, earthly kingdom, and physical blessings are not Jesus, but they are related to Jesus. We should understand how everything relates to Jesus without assuming all things disappear or metaphysically collapse into Him” (122).

Weaknesses

  • He defines redemption and redemptive history too narrowly. Redemption encompasses the restoration of all creation and includes God’s kingdom purposes. This narrow definition of redemption is inconsistent with things Vlach says elsewhere. I think it is a place where some traditional dispensational thinking is it odds with his broader theology.
  • Vlach is correct to focus on the multidimensional nature of the covenants, but in this book he only seems to speak of the Israel aspect of the covenants. If some covenant theologians err by focusing only on the salvation aspects of the covenants, dispensationalism often errs by focusing on the Israel side of things to the neglect of other aspects.
  • He doesn’t always accurately represent covenant theology. For instance, presents the Covenant Theolgoy position as holding that the Moasic covennat was a restatement of the covenant of works, that the Mosaic covenant was a restatement of the covenant of grace, or that the Mosaic covenant was a restatement of both. But the Mosaic covenant as a republication of the covenant of works is controversial among covenant theologians. In addition, among most covenant theologians, the Mosaic covenant is not a restatement of the covenant of grace but is an administration of the covenant of grace.
  • Sometimes Vlach’s statements about what non-dispensationalists think are too sweeping. Other times non-dispensational viewpoints are stated prejudicially; that is, they are stated in ways that I don’t think proponents of those views would hold. I should note however, that this critique can also be applied to almost every single critique of dispensationalism that I’ve read from a covenant theologian. Covenant theologians are almost always critiquing either older forms of dispensationalism or they are critquing straw men. Both sides in this debate need to do better in understanding the other side before registering their critiques.
  • Vlach’s typology of the temple fails to recognize that the temple was solely and purely a symbol that would pass away. The typology of the land is different. It seems that both Vlach and the major altenatives to dispensationalism (covenant theology and progressive covenantalism) don’t recognize this difference. This causes all of these parties to err in their understading of biblical typology, though in different ways.
  • Vlach over-reacts to the misuse of typology. He has some legitimate concerns. But in response, Vlach wants to limit typology to “the Mosaic Law and its elements” (108), and he wants to deny that Israel and the land are types because they are “linked with … covenants of promise.” However, David was a type of Christ even though kingship is linked to the Davidic covenant, a covenant of promise, rather than being a provision of the Mosaic Law and its elements. Thus, Vlach is drawing the definition of typology too tightly.
    • This is how I woudl respond to the problem that Vlach is seeking to address:
    • If someone were to say: David is a type of Christ; therefore, he will not enjoy eternal life in the new creation because Christ is the reality and the type has entirely passed away, the proper response would be to note that David was a type of Christ in his life and reign in the Old Testament. His life in the new creation is not typological.
    • Likewise, Israel was a type of the church during the period of the Mosaic Covenant. Its continued existence in the new creation is not typological. The land was a type of the new creation in the period of the conquest and during Solomon’s reign, and the future fulfillment of the land promise is not typological.
    • In other words, rather than denying that David or Israel or the land are types (as Vlach does), the better solution is to understand that certain types all have a time dimension to them.
  • Vlach rejects that the NT should instruct us in how to interpret the OT. I understand his concern about approaches that re-interpret original OT meaning, but this is a problematic over-reaction that undercuts the sufficiency of Scripture for hermeneutics.
  • Too often Vlach makes assertions rather than arguments when dealing with opposing views.

Andrew Hudson, “Acts, the Church, and the Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament,” in Dispensationalism Revisited

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Andrew Hudson contributed a chapter on Acts in Dispensationalism Revisited: A Twenty-First Century Restatement, a Festschrift for Charles Hauser, Jr. published by Central Baptist Theological Seminary.  Hudson explains that this chapter was written to do four things. “First, it considers the historical setting of Acts. Second, it reviews the argument of Acts. Third, it addresses the use of the Old Testament in Acts. Fourth, it explains the transitional nature of Acts” (168).

Most of the conclusions in this chapter are not unique to dispensationalism. However, Hudson does survey different approaches to Peter’s use of Joel 2 in his Pentecost sermon, he takes the view that events of Pentecost did not fulfill the prophecy of Joel 2. Instead, he holds that what happened at Pentecost is analogous to what Joel prophesied. He provides four reasons for this interpretation. First, he notes that not all that Joel prophesied was fulfilled at Pentecost. Second, he claims that the NT often draws analogies with the OT. Third, he claims that the word “is” can be used to indicate such analogies. Thus, Peter’s statement, “this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel” need only mean “this is analogous to what was uttered through the prophet Joel.” Fourth, Joel said that the Spirit would be poured out after the eschatological day of the Lord. Since the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost preceded the eschatological day of the Lord, it cannot be a fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy.

Response

First, all interpreters acknowledge the fact of prophetic telescoping, which could account for the fulfillment of some but not all of what Joel prophesied. Further, Peter knew that he had entered the last days and the inauguration of the new covenant, but he did not know how long the last days will extend. We know that there will be thousands of years separating the fulfillment of these events, but Peter did not know this.

Second, while it is true that the NT can draws analogies to events in the OT, it is not clear that this is what Peter is doing here. The pouring out of the Spirit was a promised eschatological event. What happened at Pentecost was not merely analogous to what was promised. It was what was promised. The giving of the Spirit cannot simply be analogous to the giving of the Spirit. (And in this case, the Spirit is poured out on Jews, so the argument cannot be made that the pouring out of the Spirit on Gentiles is only analogous to the pouring out of the Spirit on Jews.)

Third, while the term is can be used to indicate analogies, no sufficient argument has been made that that is how is functions in this context.

Fourth, Hudson’s argument from the chronology of Joel 2 is his strongest argument. However, if Joel 2:18-27 is read as telescoping together the restoration of the land after the locust plague recounted in chapter 1 as well as the restoration after the final day of Yhwh judgment from the first part of chapter 2, the “afterward” in verse 28 could take place anytime after the original restoration. In fact, it must precede the eschatological restoration because some of the events in Joel 2:28-32 must take place before the eschatological restoration. To use technical theological terminology, the day of Lord/tribulation must precede the millennium and consummated new creation.

R. Bruce Compton, “The ‘Kingdom of Heaven/God’ and the Church: A Case Study in Hermeneutics and Theology” in Dispensationalism Revisited

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Bruce Compton contributed a chapter on the biblical covenants in Dispensationalism Revisited: A Twenty-First Century Restatement, a Festschrift for Charles Hauser, Jr. published by Central Baptist Theological Seminary. In this chapter Compton seeks to answer three questions. Is there a distinction between kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God? What does the phrase kingdom of heaven/God mean? How does the kingdom of heaven/God relate to the church? Dr. Compton was also interviewed about this chapter on Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary’s Theologically Driven podcast.

The Referents or Referent of Kingdom of Heaven and Kingdom of God

Compton argues that the phrases kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God have the same referent. He notes that dispensationalists of an earlier era understood the kingdom of God “to refer to God’s universal, spiritual rule over the redeemed” and the kingdom of heaven “to refer to Jesus’s future messianic kingdom” (119). Compton refutes this view by examining their usage in Matthew 19 and the synoptic parallels. He demonstrates that in Matthew 19 and in the parallel Gospel passages the phrases kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God are used in a manner that demonstrates that they have the same referent. In this Compton is certainly correct, and interpreters of all persuasions now seem to agree on this point.

The Meaning of Kingdom of Heaven/God

Compton answers the second question by arguing that kingdom of heaven/God refers to the rule of Christ on earth in the coming millennial period.

Thesis: The Old Testament Defines the meaning of Kingdom of Heaven/God

Compton observes that “the Old Testament texts consistently depict an earthly kingdom with national Israel restored to its land as the head of the nations and with the Messiah ruling from Jerusalem and exercising worldwide dominion” (122). He briefly surveys the kingdom concept in the book of Daniel to provide a concrete confirmation of this thesis. His Daniel survey is probably too brief to convince critics, who may argue that Daniel 7 presents a present reign of Christ in heaven. However, I agree with Compton’s interpretation of Daniel 7 specifically and of the Old Testament texts generally.

Compton next argues that John the Baptist and Jesus never redefined the Old Testament’s definition of the kingdom concept, which means the Old Testament understanding of the kingdom should be maintained in the New Testament’s use of the phrases kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God. This thesis Compton will now test against arguments for a present kingdom.

When speaking of a present messianic kingdom, Compton typically uses the phrase “present spiritual kingdom,” which is how some dispensationalists who hold to a present form of the kingdom speak. However, non-dispensationalists do not seem to use the language of a spiritual kingdom. For instance, George Ladd, whom Compton cites as an exemplar of the present spiritual kingdom view, does not use the language of a “spiritual kingdom.” He speaks instead of a present kingdom and an inaugurated kingdom. I’m inclined to not qualify the present reign of Christ as something “spiritual” and confined to the interior of believers.

The Gospels Do Not Teach that the Kingdom of Heaven/God Was Present in Jesus’s Earthly Ministry

Compton first surveys three passages in the Gospels that some take to mean that the kingdom was present in Jesus’s ministry: Matthew 4:17; 12:28; Luke 17:20-21. Of the first text, Compton observes that to say the kingdom “is at hand” means it is imminent rather than present. Of the second, he argues that to say the kingdom had come upon them should be understood either as metonymy or as proleptic. Of the third, Compton argues that Jesus was not saying that the kingdom had a spiritual form that was within his followers but that the kingdom in the person of the King was standing among them.

I agree with Compton’s handling of Matthew 4:17. To say the kingdom is “at hand” is not to say it is present. Further I agree with Compton that this being the dominant expression in the Gospels other texts, like Matthew 12:28 and Luke 17:20-21, should be harmonized with this expression. However, these observations do not negate a present, inaugurated kingdom. If Jesus was exalted to his kingship in the resurrection-ascension event, then demonstrating that the kingdom was not present in the Gospels does not prove enough.

I am less convinced with Compton’s treatment of Matthew 12:28. I do not think it is sufficient to say that Jesus was speaking “as if [the kingdom] were already a present reality” (126). By casting demons out by the power of the Spirit a foretaste of the coming eschatological kingdom was being experienced in the present. Thus it is not just the “expression” that is proleptic, but the experience is proleptic. For what it is worth, I think Compton could adopt the interpretation just suggested without damaging his position.

I am also largely in agreement with Compton’s interpretation of Luke 17:20-21, though with Bock (referenced by Compton in note 30), I do see this as part of the inauguration of the kingdom.

The Parables of Matthew 13 Do Not Teach the Presence of the Kingdom Before the Return of Christ

Compton next turns to the parables of Matthew 13, which he notes have been appealed to as evidence for a present form of the kingdom. While Compton concedes that that Matthew 13 would appear to provide “weighty” evidence for a present kingdom, he nonetheless maintains that the chapter need not be read to support a present form of the kingdom (128).

First, he observes that the phrase “mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 13:11) need only refer to the “specific truths being revealed” in the parables and does not necessitate a “mystery ‘form’ of the kingdom” (129). I would agree with Compton on this point, but I’d also note that the mystery that some of these parables seem to reveal is that the kingdom is not going to emerge precisely according to the Old Testament understanding. This is not to say that something other than what the Old Testament taught will be the case; it is to say that something in addition to what the Old Testament taught is the case. Namely, there would be a phase of the kingdom that precedes Christ’s triumphant rule on earth. In other words, Matthew 13, in my view, provides a challenge to Compton’s fundamental argument in this chapter.

Second, Compton critiques those who appeal to verb tenses in Matthew 13 to establish a present form of the kingdom. I agree with Compton’s critique.

Third, Compton argues that the parable of the soils does not teach a present stage of the kingdom; rather, it teaches that between the two advents people will be saved who will then enter into the kingdom at the second advent. Compton then applies this paradigm to the following parables. This understanding is just possible with the parable of the soils, since the explicit kingdom element of that parable is the seed, which is the “word of the kingdom” (Mt 13:18).

However, the other parables fit into this paradigm with greater difficulty. For instance, the parable of the weeds speaks of “sons of the kingdom” existing at present, and it teaches that the angels will “gather out of his kingdom” all of the sons of the evil one (Mt 13:38, 41). Thus, there must be an existing kingdom from which the weeds are gathered. Compton counters this argument by asking, “If the kingdom in view is the Lord’s spiritual reign in the lives of believers, as proponents of the present form of the kingdom have argued, in what sense must the Lord remove evil ones from this kingdom when he returns?” (131). In other words, the wicked cannot be part of a spiritual kingdom present in the hearts of believers. Compton further proposes reading the parable of the weeds in light of Matthew 25:31-33 in which the sheep of that parable are invited to enter the kingdom. Thus, the gathering of the wicked out of the kingdom refers to Christ “removing unbelievers from the earth just prior to the inauguration of his kingdom” (132).

Compton notes that the view just articulated was not only the view of Alva McClain but was also the view of George Ladd. Ladd “cannot have unbelievers being taken out of this kingdom if this kingdom represents the present spiritual reign of Christ in the line of believers” (132, n. 42). However, the problem for Ladd and those who follow him is in defining kingdom as a reign and minimizing the idea of a realm. I would argue that even in the present reign of Christ, the realm of his kingdom is the earth. Thus, when Christ returns, he removes the sons of the evil one from his kingdom (the earth) and invites the sons of the kingdom to the inheritance, which is the consummated kingdom. This reading fits the paradigm laid out in Psalm 110 in which at present Christ reigns “in the midst” of his enemies whereas in the future “he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.”

The other parables would confirm the concept of a present, inaugurated kingdom. The mustard seed, which represents the kingdom, grows into a great tree (drawing on Old Testament kingdom imagery). The great tree is the image of the kingdom when Christ returns, but the small seed growing is the image of the kingdom. Likewise, the leaven is an image of the kingdom as something imperceptible but real at present. It is difficult to deny that these parables teach a present aspect of the kingdom. Further, it is important that Jesus concludes his teaching on the kingdom in this chapter by indicating that he has been teaching something new as well as something old (Mt 13:52).

Compton’s thesis is that the Gospels do not adjust or expand the understanding of the kingdom presented in the Old Testament. However, I would argue that this is precisely what Jesus is doing in Matthew 13. For those who expect Christ to immediately set up a reign on earth that defeats all his enemies, Christ is teaching that there will be a phase of the kingdom in which the sons of the kingdom and the sons of the evil ones co-exist. In addition, during that period, the Christ’s kingdom will appear insignificant and even invisible—though it is truly at work.

Question about Christ’s Rule in the Lives of Old Testament and New Testament Believers

In his discussion of Matthew 13, Compton raises a probing question:

if these parables introduce a mystery form of the kingdom, defined as Jesus Christ’s present spiritual rule in the lives of believers, is this rule something that Christ did not exercise in the lives of Old Testament believers? Or if Christ rules in the lives of all true believers, whether in the Old Testament or the New, in what sense is Jesus introducing a present spiritual form of the kingdom? Jesus cannot both rule in the lives of all true believers (both Old Testament and New Testament believers) and at the same time introduce a mystery form of the kingdom involving his present spiritual rule in the lives of believers. [131]

I would answer this question in two ways. First, I would question limiting the reign of Christ to a spiritual rule in the lives of believers. Second, I would note that in the Old Testament there was no messianic king to exercise rule. The kingdom of heaven/God that Jesus announced as at hand was not the reign of God as God. That had never ceased. The kingdom announced by Jesus was the reign of God through his human vicegerent. Until the incarnation there could be no kingdom in this sense. There could be no reign of Christ prior to the incarnation, but once the incarnation occurred, the kingdom of heaven/God is at hand. At the end of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” As God, Jesus always had all authority. This must be referring to Jesus as the Davidic Messiah, and it would be an indication that he is now reigning as Davidic Messiah.

The Pauline Epistles Do Not Connect the Kingdom and the Church

Compton answers the third question (how does the kingdom relate to the church?) by looking at three Pauline texts that could be read as teaching the presence of the kingdom: Romans 14:17; 1 Corinthians 4:20; Colossians 1:13.

Compton rightly notes that most of Paul’s kingdom references to refer to the kingdom in the future.

He further argues that Romans 14:17 and 1 Corinthians 4:20 teach that Christians should live in the present age “by the conduct that will characterize God’s future kingdom” (134). This is possible, but it is not an especially likely reading of Romans 14:17. In context, Paul is discussing dispensational differences between the era of Mosaic covenant and the present age. It seems that Paul is referring to present age under the nomenclature of “kingdom of God.”

Colossians 1:13 presents a greater challenge to Compton’s view. It states that the believer has been rescued “from the domain of darkness and transferred … into the kingdom of the Son” (CSB). Compton argues that this is equivalent to Paul’s saying that believers are presently seated in the heavenlies (Eph. 2:6). It is positional and something that will be enjoyed in the future, but it is not a present reality. Further, Compton argues that the parallel, “delivered … from the domain of darkness” also refers to a future event since Satan remains the ruler of the “present world system” (135). Nonetheless, positionally, believers have been delivered.

I’m not convinced that this line of argumentation works. First, to be transferred into a kingdom seems to be an inherently positional statement, and thus it seems hard to divorce the position from the idea of a present reality. If a person’s position is that of being in the kingdom, it would seem that the kingdom would need to be a present reality. Further, the believer is no longer under the “authority of darkness” (LSB) as a believer. This too is a present reality. I’m also not sure that the appeal to Ephesians helps, as it appears that believers are currently seated in the heavenlies by virtue of their union with Christ.

I can see how Compton can get these three texts to fit his system, but I’m not seeing his system demanded by the key New Testament texts. Instead, it seems Compton is having to explain quite a number of texts that seem to contradict his position. There are additional texts in Acts that further complicate the argument against a present inauguration of the kingdom.

Theological and Practical Significance of Compton’s Position

In his conclusion, Compton draws out the significance of his position for the church today. First, he argues that his position points toward greater discontinuity between Israel and the church since the church is not now fulfilling any of the promises given to Israel in the Old Testament. Second, he argues that if there is no present form of the kingdom, the church does not have a mandate to fulfill social responsibilities. With regard to this latter point, I would simply note that there are those who hold to the presence of the kingdom who also are reticent about a social mandate for the institutional church. Since the kingdom is a broader category than the institution of the church, and since sphere sovereignty also comes into play, it is not necessary to adopt Compton’s view to keep the church on mission.

Compton’s essay is well-argued, and I can see how he can interpret texts to fit his position, but I do not find his interpretations the most natural reading of these texts, nor do I see that a theological loss for recognizing that Christ inaugurated the messianic kingdom upon his resurrection and ascension.

William D. Barrick, “Biblical Covenants and Their Fulfillment,” in Dispensationalism Revisited

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William Barrick contributed a chapter on the biblical covenants in Dispensationalism Revisited: A Twenty-First Century Restatement, a book is a Festschrift for Charles Hauser, Jr. published by Central Baptist Theological Seminary.

Barrick focuses on the six covenants that he identifies as having been made between God and Israel: “the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic (or Sinaitic) Covenant, the Priestly (or Zadokite) Covenant, the Deuteronomic (or Palestinian) Covenant, the Davidic Covenant, and the New Covenant” (103). Barrick mentions the Noahic covenant in passing, but he claims that the blessing, seed, land, nation, and kingdom themes found in the Israelite covenants are not found in the Noahic covenant.

Barrick also identifies eight dispensations to which he will relate the covenants. He understands dispensations as periods in which there are varied rules for God’s people. For instance, the dietary requirements for God’s people changed in different dispensations. Barrick is clear that man’s soteriological need, the instrument and object of faith, the work of Christ, and other elements of salvation remained constant across dispensations. His eight dispensations are as follows:

“1. The Dispensation of Innocence (Gen 1:1-3:21)

2. The Dispensation of Conscience (Gen 3:22-8:12)

3. The Dispensation of Human Government (Gen 8:13–11:32)

4. The Dispensation of Promise (Gen 12:1-Exod 18:27)

5. The Dispensation of Law (Exod 19:1-Acts 1:26)

6. The Dispensation of Grace/the Church (Acts 2:1-Rev 19:21)

7. The Dispensation of the Messianic Kingdom (Rev 20:1-15)

8. The Dispensation of the Eternal Kingdom (Rev 21:1-27; 22:1-5)” (112)

Because he is focused on the Israelite covenants, Barrick does not correlate the first three dispensations with a covenant or covenants. He correlates the Abrahamic covenant with the dispensation of promise. He correlates the Mosaic, priestly, Deuteronomic, Davidic, and new covenants with the dispensation of law. He further correlates the new covenant with the dispensations of grace/church, of the mediatorial kingdom, and of the eternal kingdom.

Complicating these correlations, he also holds that the Mosaic covenant had an initial fulfillment in the past and that it will have a future fulfillment int he millennial period during which Israel will faithfully keep the Mosaic law. In addition, though he correlates the new covenant with the dispensation of the church, he distinguishes between Israel as the nation with which the new covenant is made and Gentile Christians who receive the benefits of the new covenant through their relationship with Christ.

Barrick’s treatment reveals some standard weaknesses in dispensational treatments of the biblical covenants, which I do not think are endemic to dispensationalism. Dispensational treatments of the covenants usually focus on the covenants with Israel. For instance, both Pentecost’s Things to Come and Robert Saucy’s The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism begin with the Abrahamic covenant. Darrell Bock mentions the Noahic covenant in both Progressive Dispensationalism and in his contribution to Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies: Four Views on the Continuity of Scripture. But in his coverage in the former book is brief, and in the structure of the latter the Noahic covenant is marginalized. Further, the creation covenant is either ignored or, as in the case of Bock, denied.

However, it is important to recognize that the themes of blessing, seed, and land/kingdom all emerge from the creation covenant outlined in Genesis 1 and 2. Further, these elements which, Barrick fails to see in the Noahic covenant, are indeed there. Once the creation and Noahic covenants are given their place, the covenantal progress of Scripture becomes plain. Furthermore, there is less of a need for a complex relationship between the covenants and the dispensations. The dispensations are largely determined by the covenants. Barrick’s dispensation of innocence is the era of the unbroken creation covenant. His dispensation of conscience is the era of the broken creation covenant, an era in which the protoevangelium had been given but no new covenant yet cut. His dispensation of human government (an unfortunate label given that human government likely existed before the Flood) has its commencement at the cutting of the Noahic covenant. His correlation of the dispensation of promise with the Abrahamic covenant is an affirmation that that covenant created a dispensation, for the promise is that of the Abrahamic covenant. Likewise, with the dispensation of law, for the law in view is the Mosaic law. Finally, the cutting of the new covenant at the cross marks the beginning of the dispensation of grace. Because the new covenant is inaugurated now but only consummated later, a distinction can be made between the present era and the era of the new creation (of which I would understand the millennium to be the first stage). By relating dispensations to covenants, a rationale is provided for variation of some of God’s requirements for his people from age to age. Different covenants can have differing requirements.

If the reasoning of the previous paragraph holds, a further question is raised by the fact that the Mosaic covenant, priestly covenant, Deuteronomic covenant, and Davidic covenant are all correlated to the dispensation of law. I would argue that Barrick’s priestly covenant is subservient to the Mosaic covenant. Likewise, I would see the Deuteronomic covenant as a renewal of the Mosaic covenant.

The Davidic covenant is interesting in that I do not think it marks a distinct dispensation or age. Instead, it initially functioned under the Mosaic covenant and now continues in the age of the new covenant. Similarly, the Noahic covenant remains in force until the final judgment. Thus, while covenants mark off various eras in redemptive history, there is some complexity to how they do so.

I would also understand the new covenant’s relationship to the dispensations differently than Barrick. Barrick locates the new covenant in the dispensations of law, grace/church, mediatorial kingdom, and eternal kingdom. However, while the new covenant was announced in the Old Testament, it did not exist under the dispensation of law. The cutting of the new covenant at the cross marked the end of the Mosaic covenant with its law and the beginning of the new covenant era. For this reason, I do not see how the Mosaic law can be brought back into force during the millennial period. The new covenant, as Hebrews eloquently argues, is definitively displaced the Mosaic covenant.

Kevin T. Bauder, “Israel and the Church: Is There Really a Difference,” in Dispensationalism Revisted

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Central Baptist Theological Seminary just published Dispensationalism Revisited: A Twenty-First Century Restatement. This book is a Festschrift for Charles Hauser, Jr. that is comprised of chapters by his former colleagues and students. The first three chapters focus on the classic sine qua nons of dispensationalism. This chapter by Kevin Bauder defends the distinction between Israel and the church as a sine qua non of dispensationalism. Bauder observes that the distinction between Israel and the church is “the most basic” of the sine qua non.

Bauder adapts a typology from Markus Barth to map the options of the relation of Israel and the church:

Some suppose that the church either replaces or continues Israel as the people of God. Others see a faithful remnant of believing Israel continuing within the church, which has now become the people of God. Still others draw a contrast between Israel and the church, resulting in distinct peoples of God. Some see an analogous relationship between Israel and the church within the one people of God (71).

Bauder begins to adjudicate between these views by probing what is meant by the phrase “people of God.” He notes that people can be “plural for person” with “people of God” meaning “the sum total of all saved individuals.” However, it is another usage of people that is in play in the discussion of the church and Israel: “people groups” (72).

A brief survey of biblical data reveals these people groups to be nations, in the sense of ethnic groups. A further survey of biblical data leads Bauder to conclude, “God’s plan did not focus exclusively upon calling and saving individual believers. It also included a role for nations” (75). Thus, “A people of God is a nation that worships Jehovah, the true and living God. They are a people of God because he is their God and they are his people” (78).

Israel was a people of God that God created to be his own. According to Bauder presence in the land was essential to being a people exiled Israel was “not my people” (Hos 1:9-11). Bauder also notes the significance of the marriage metaphor for indicating that Israel was the people of God, and he posits Israel’s entrance into the Sinai covenant as the time of their entering this marriage relationship. Though God’s judgment on Israel is depicted as a divorce, that is not the last word. Israel’s purpose as people of God is to mediate the knowledge of God to the nations. The goal is for there to be many peoples of God. This goal will be realized, but “there will always be something special about Israel” (83).

The church is also called the people of God. In addition, Bauder notes that “the church is often described by referencing Old Testament descriptions of Israel as a people of God (Rom 9:22-26; Titus 2:14; 1 Pet 2:9; cf. Exod 19:5-6; Hos 2:23)” (83). Bauder then observes that these facts surface two questions: “First, how can the church be called a people if a people is fundamentally an ethnic unit? Second, how is the church related to Israel, such that descriptions of the one can be applied to the other?

Bauder answers the first question by appealing to the union with Christ passages, concluding, “All the other peoples of God are (or will be) constituted as peoples by their solidarity with a biological ancestor. The church is a people, not because of its natural genealogy but by virtue of its spiritual union with Christ. This union is what constitutes it both as a people and as a people of God” (84).” It seems that Bauder is proposing that the church is the people of God between the comings of Christ, that Israel was the people of God before the church and will be again in the Millennium, and that the redeemed nations will be the peoples of God in the Millennium as well.

After laying out this model Bauder turns to Ephesians 2:11-22 and John 10 to answer the question, “how is the church related to other peoples of God?” (85). In reflecting on Ephesians 2:11-22, Bauder proposes that in the OT there were two basic ethnic groups: Jews and Gentiles, only one of which was the people of God. In the present age, there are three basic ethnic groups, Jews, Gentiles, and the church. He points out that 1 Peter 2:9 even calls the church a nation. In John 10 Bauder sees Israel as the fold in which there were two flocks, those who were truly his people and those who were not. Jesus leads those who are his out of the fold of Israel where he unites them in one flock with other sheep that are his which were not of the fold (Gentile believers). This one new flock is the church.

This is Bauder’s conclusion: “The church is a people of God. Because it is a people of God, it is like Israel in some respects, but it is also different. Israel was a visible nation with visible descent from a common ancestor. The church is a spiritual nation with invisible union created both by Spirit baptism and by following a common Shepherd. Israel and the church are both peoples of God, but they are not the same people. They are not even the same kind of people. The element that constitutes each as a nation is different” (88-89).

This leads Bauder to consider the relationship between Israel and the Church. He enumerates elements of continuity first. The saints in both the church and Israel are saved the same way, both pursue the same “life of faith,” (90), both are “branches from a common root (Rom 11:16-25)” (90), both are part of the “same household of God even though they are distinct peoples” (Heb 3:2, 5) (90), and “both belong to the category of ‘people of God'” (90). These continuities justify 1 Peter 2’s application of Exodus 19:5-6 and Hosea 2:23 to the church.

Bauder then considers whether identifying Christians as of the true, inner circumcision means that the church is the new Israel. He concludes in the negative, noting that a distinction between inner and outer circumcision persisted throughout the Old Testament. For the Jew, having the one did not negate the necessity of the other. The fact that Gentiles have inner circumcision does not mean, however, that they are Jews (who were distinguished by outer circumcision).

Evaluation

Bauder has written a careful essay that demonstrates the variety of biblical data that must be accounted for in developing a theology of the people of God. He handles this data well, and his position accounts for the range of the data.

However, I think there is one important theological concept missing from Bauder’s treatment of the people of God. At the same time that I read Bauder’s essay, I read Rod Decker’s article on the people of God in The Dictionary of Premillennial Theology. Decker, though also a traditional dispensationalist, synthesized the biblical data somewhat differently. Decker emphasized the importance of a covenant relationship for establishing a people of God relationship.

The first uses of your people or my people (with reference to Yhwh) occurs in Exodus 5:23 and 6:7. It then recurs throughout the narrative of the conflict with Pharoah, not least in the iconic phrase “Let my people go.” It is clear in these contexts that the term people refers to an ethnic group, and that group is is God’s people due to a covenant relation with God (the Abrahamic covenant at this point). In Exodus 19:5, in a statement of the Mosaic covenant, God says that if Israel kept that covenant they would be Yhwh’s “treasured possession among all the peoples,” which is to say that Israel would be God’s special people. Throughout the rest of the Old Testament, Israel’s status as the people of God is rooted in the Mosaic covenant.

The New Testament data is more complicated. The angel told Joseph to name Mary’s Son Jesus because “he will save his people from their sins” (Mt. 1:21). Though this could be read narrowly as saying that Jesus would save the Jews from their sins (cf. Mt. 2:4, 6), it would be better to understand people in this context to refer to all those whom Jesus saves. In Matthew God’s people expands to include the Gentiles (cf. Mt. 4:15-16). Further, those whom Jesus saves from their sins includes all the redeemed from all periods of history. This points to the people of God as a comprehensive category for the redeemed.

This comprehensive usage does not negate the numerous places in the Gospels where the people are the Jewish nation (e.g., Lk 2:32; 7:16). There are also historical reference to Israel as God’s people (Acts 7:34; 13:17).

In the New Testament, the church is the people of God as believing Jews and Gentiles now both share in the new covenant. I’m not sure that the application of the people imagery to the church requires the church to be conceived of as an ethnic group, as Bauder does. To be sure, on occasion the church is singled out from Jews and Gentiles as a third race, but at other times the church is conceived of as comprised of people of various ethnicities. Thus, I am willing to see the label of people as applied to the church as figurative. The church is not an ethnic group as Israel is, but it can be described as the people of God because it is in covenant with God as Israel was.

In Romans 9:25-26 Paul takes statements from Hosea 1 that referred to Israel and applied them to converted Gentiles. Hosea revealed that the Israel which violated the Mosaic covenant were now “not my people,” but he also promised, on the basis of the Abrahamic covenant that one day they would again be called “my people.” Paul can apply these words to the Gentiles because when Israel became “not my people” they became as the Gentiles. Further the Abrahamic covenant not only guaranteed the restoration of Israel as the people of God but also promised the salvation of Gentiles. Thus Romans 9:25-26 seems to envision Jews and Gentiles in the new covenant era as part of the same people of God. In Romans 11, however, Paul can still speak of Israel in particular as “his people” (Rom. 11:1-2; see also Rom. 15:10). However, some think that the olive tree in that chapter represents a unified people of God.

Similarly, In 2 Corinthians 6:16-18 Paul applies passages that originally applied to Israel to the church at Corinth. Specifically, he applies the covenant formula, “I will be their God and they shall be my people.” This can be said of Gentiles in the church because they are included in the new covenant.

In Titus 2:14 Paul said that Christ “gave himself for us … to purify for himself a people for his own possession.” This would seem to refer to a unified people spanning both Testaments; all people comprised of all the redeemed.

In the book of Hebrews the concept of people of God is applied to Israel, to the church, and to all the redeemed throughout the ages. The author of Hebrews says, “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Heb. 4:9). In the immediate context, the people of Israel are in view, but the author is applying this teaching to all the redeemed: “let us therefore strive to enter that rest” (Heb. 4:11). Thus, “people of God” here seems to stand for all the redeemed. There are a few additional places in Hebrews where “the people” seems to be used of all the redeemed (Heb. 2:17; 13:12). Hebrews 8:10 applies the new covenant promise, “they shall be my people” to the church. Likewise, quotation of Ps 50:4; 135:14 applies a “my people” that originally referred to Israel to contemporary believers.  Note, however, that there are places in Hebrews where people does specifically refer to Israel (Heb. 5:3; 7:11, 27; 9:7, 19). The use of “people of God” in Hebrews 11:25, the people Moses chose to mistreated among would in the first place be Israel, but in this context would most likely connote believers specifically.

In 1 Peter 2:9-10 language that was used of Israel is used of the church. The church is called “a chosen race,” “a holy nation,” and “a people for his own possession.” These are all ethnic terms applied to a body made up of many ethnicities. Thus verse 10 says, “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.” I don’t think that we need to find a way to make the church literally another ethnic group. Rather, I think that we should see terms that were ethnic terms when originally applied to Israel applied to the church metaphorically, with the emphasis being that the church is now the new covenant body of people possessed by God just as Israel was the old covenant people possessed by God.

In Revelation 5:9 there are many peoples that worship the Lamb, while in Revelation 18:4  God can refer to “my people” in the singular. Revelation 21:3 has a textual variant in the covenant formula with some manuscripts reading singular people and others reading plural peoples. On balance, the plural is more likely: “God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God” (CSB). Thus in this last statement of the covenant formula the plurality of the peoples of God is emphasized. And yet, this phrase is announced from heaven at the descent of the new Jerusalem to earth. This new Jerusalem has the names of the twelve tribes of Israel inscribed on its gates and the names of the twelve apostles inscribed on its foundations, which would point to the unity of the people of God in the Old and New Testaments.

Conclusion

I think Bauder has provided a plausible synthesis of the biblical data regarding the people of God: Old Testament Israel was a people of God, the church is a people of God due to its connection to Christ, and in the future there will be many peoples of God. He also acknowledges that people can be used of all the redeemed.

However, when the category of covenant is introduced, I think a slightly different synthesis of the data comes to the fore. A group becomes a people of God by entering into covenant with God. Thus Israel was identified as the people of God primarily by virtue of its covenant relationship with God. Further, Israel as the people of God included both the redeemed and the unredeemed since the Mosaic covenant included both the redeemed and unredeemed.

When used of Israel, the term people retains its full ethnic sense. It is a people or nation in covenant with God. The church, on the other hand, is the multi-ethnic new covenant people of God. I do not think that the theologian needs to find a way to conceive of the church as an ethnic group (as Bauder does by appealing to union with Christ). Rather, I think the terminology of people, used literally of Israel as a nation in covenant with God, is applied metaphorically to the church. While in one place the category of church is placed alongside the ethnic categories of Jew and Gentile (1 Cor. 10:32), in other places it is clear that neither Jews nor Gentiles in the church give up their ethnic identities by becoming part of the church.

In addition, passages like Deuteronomy 30 indicate that the truly redeemed of all ages are those who called out by faith to receive the internal circumcision and union with Christ that the new covenant promised. Thus, the core of people who experience regeneration in both Testaments form a unity that enables one to speak of a unified people of God even as one speaks of an Old Testament people of God and a New Testament people of God.

Finally, because of the covenant lens, I’m hesitant to follow Bauder’s three-stage people of God: Israel in the Old Testament, church at present, many peoples of God in the millennium and new creation. The new covenant remains the covenant in force into the millennium and beyond. However, there are occasions when the Bible speaks of various nations as peoples of God in the new creation (Isa. 19:25; Rev. 21:3).

My conclusion would be that the Bible uses the terminology people of God in various ways. It can be used of Israel under the Mosaic covenant. It can be used of the church as the new covenant people of God. It can be used of all the redeemed throughout the ages. And it can be used of nations in the new creation. Some of these senses are limited to stages in redemptive history. For instance, Israel is a people of God under the Mosaic covenant only while the Mosaic covenant is in force. The nations are peoples of God only in the new creation because in the new creation alone are all the people in those nations redeemed. But some of these senses span ages. The sense of all the redeemed throughout the ages, clearly spans the ages.

So is there one, two, or many peoples of God? The answer is “yes” depending on the sense in view. This is a different answer than I would have given before reading Bauder’s essay. I commend the essay for compelling readers to think through the issue of the people of God with greater precision and clarity.

Thoughts on Mark Snoeberger’s “‘Received’ Laws of Language” and Dispensational Hermeneutics

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In the last couple of posts I’ve interacted with Roy Beacham’s argument for a literal hermeneutic. I indicated that while I share Beacham’s concerns about approaches to Old Testament interpretation that re-interpret the text contrary to authorial intent, I think that the approach he advocates makes it difficult to understand numerous New Testament interpretations and fulfillments of Old Testament passages.

A few years back I raised a similar concern regarding Mark Snoeberger’s contribution to Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies: Four Views.

[Traditional dispensationalists] often begin by laying out their hermeneutic as if it is axiomatic and then insist that all passages conform to this hermeneutic without having first demonstrated the validity of their hermeneutic. Here Snoeberger explicitly affirms this approach. This approach violates the sufficiency of Scripture, since Scripture’s own self-interpretation should be the foundation for any biblical hermeneutic.

Interestingly, an article in the most recent volume of the Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal responds to the concern I raised. In “‘Received’ Laws of Language: The Existence, Ground, and Preliminary Identification of a Hermeneutically Disputed Notion” and an accompanying blog post, “The Sufficiency of Scripture and Transcendental Knowledge,” Snoeberger provides a substantial defense of his approach.

In the article, Snoeberger argues for the existence of natural laws. He further argues for a Van Tillian understanding of how these laws are “received.” Finally, he argues that natural laws are not restricted to matters of morality but that they encompass matters such as linguistics. I want to agree with Snoeberger on these matters.

In the blog post, rejects the sufficiency of Scripture critique by noting, “there must exist some tentative/provisional awareness, prior to reading the Bible, of certain basic hermeneutical a prioris. Otherwise, we would be caught in a paradox: we could not access the very Bible from which we learn how to read the Bible.”

I take the point. Further, I share his concern about the resurgence of pre-modern multi-sense interpretive approaches. Appeals to the Great Tradition to defend these interpretative models often undermine the sufficiency of Scripture.

Nonetheless, I have three reservations about Snoeberger’s argument. The first is practical, and the second two are theological.

First, while one can respond to the resurgence of pre-modern multi-sense interpretations by appealing to the received laws of language, I think it would be more fruitful to make the case that the apostles themselves did not adopt the allegorical approaches that became common in the patristic and medieval periods. This seems to me a more straightforward argument than appeals to the natural laws of linguistics. For an example of this kind of argument, see chapter 6 of my dissertation.

Second, while I affirm the reality of creational norms / natural laws, and while I think Christian’s should study creation (which includes the facility humans have in language) to discern these creational norms, all efforts to determine creational norms or natural laws need to be tested against Scripture. A key test would be to see how Scripture writers in both the Old and New Testament interpreted previous Scripture passages.

Third, while it is the case that “there must exist some tentative/provisional awareness, prior to reading the Bible, of certain basic hermeneutical a prioris,” a doctrine of biblical hermeneutics needs to be grounded in Scripture because of the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. In other words, a doctrine of biblical hermeneutics needs to ground hermeneutical a prioris in the biblical text.

I should clarify that Snoeberger does in his contribution to the Four Views book and in other places seek to give an account of the New Testament’s use of the Old. For instance, in another recent post to the DBTS blog, Snoeberger argues that the New Testament often uses Old Testament language by way of analogy, metaphor, and corpus linguistics. In other words, the New Testament may be using Old Testament language without claiming to be interpreting those Old Testament texts. In particular, he claims this approach is better than seeing Old Testament types fulfilled by New Testament antitypes.

I grant the NT may well make use of the OT in the way Snoeberger describes, and I fully grant that many hymns and later Christian writings certainly do so. But I’m not convinced that analogy, metaphor, and corpus linguistics will account for all of the OT’s use of the NT.

Roy Beacham, “Literalism and the Prophets”: Case Study: Joel 2 and Acts 2

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In yesterday’s post I looked at Beacham’s chapter in defense of literal interpretation of the prophets. Despite being somewhat critical of the chapter, I should acknowledge my appreciation of Beacham’s scholarship. My engagement with it here due to the fact that I find myself challenged by his arguments and helpful to work through a response to them.

Beacham’s article commendably makes its case directly from Scripture. However, I would have appreciated some engagement with how the New Testament interprets Old Testament prophecy. In footnote 54 Beacham does give a hint of his approach.

He argues that “Joel 2 … is applied argumentatively by Peter in his sermon recorded in Acts 2.” He further claims that this application “in no way necessitates or even suggests their actual fulfillment (59, n. 54). He is especially concerned that this prophecy not be “assign[ed] … to a different time, place, people, or outcome in contradistinction to those originally stated” (59, n. 54). Given this statement, and Beacham’s article, “Joel 2, Eschatology of” in the Dictionary of Premillennial Theology, I take him to locate the events of Joel 2:18-27 to latter part of the Tribulation and beginning of the Millennium.

Beacham does not understand the “afterward” in Joel 2:28 to refer to the immediately preceding verses “because those blessings are framed in terms of unending time” (“Joel 2,” 217). Rather, he relates the “afterward” to Joel 2:11. These are events that I’ll happen after “great and very awesome” day of Yhwh. On this reading, Joel 2:12-27 “constitute a digression that bisects the first and last sections of the chapter” (“Joel 2,” 217-18).

This interpretation, however, creates a tension with Peter’s statement, “But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16). Beacham’s interpretation of Joel 2 precludes a fulfillment in Peter’s day, but it is difficult to read Peter’s “This is what was uttered through the prophet Joel” as anything other than a statement of fulfillment. Peter did not say, “This is like what Joel uttered” or “this is analogous to what Joel uttered.” He said, “this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel” (emphasis added).

Another reading of the Joel prophecy allows for a more harmonious understanding of Joel 2 and Acts 2. If 2:18-27 is read as telescoping together the restoration of the land after the locust plague recounted in chapter 1 as well as the restoration after the final day of Yhwh judgment from the first part of chapter 2, the “afterward” in verse 28 could take place anytime after the original restoration. Beacham himself provides a rationale for not tying the “afterward” to the ultimate restoration—it is never ending. The rationale for this telescoping in 2:18-27 would be that Joel 1 relates to a historic locust judgment in Joel’s day while Joel 2:1-11, as I understand it, predicts and eschatological judgment that will be fulfilled during the final Day of Yhwh. Thus the restoration section that follows telescopes both the historical and eschatological restorations.

This reading allows for a literal reading of Peter’s “But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel” and a literal reading of Joel. Peter replaced Joel’s “And it shall come to pass afterward” with “And in the last days it shall be.” As the New Testament elsewhere emphasized the last days began with the ascension of Christ. The events recounted in Acts 2:17-18 occurred in Acts just as prophesied at the beginning of these last days. The events in verses 19-20 will occur at the end of the last days. Peter, of course, did not know that this would be over 2,000 years later. Verse 21 is God’s call to people all through this time.

Roy E. Beacham, “Literalism and the Prophets: The Case for a Unified Hermeneutic,” in Dispensationalism Revisited

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Central Baptist Theological Seminary just published Dispensationalism Revisited: A Twenty-First Century Restatement. This book is a Festschrift for Charles Hauser, Jr. that is comprised of chapters by his former colleagues and students. The first three chapters focus on the classic sine qua nons of dispensationalism. This chapter by Roy Beacham defends literal interpretation as a sine qua non of dispensationalism.

Beacham’s thesis is that dispensationalists are correct to insist that “God intended all prophetic foretelling in Scripture to be understood literally and only literally” (32; cf. 36). He clarifies that literal interpretation does not negate “figures of speech” or “exaggerated” language, but he is not inclined to abandon the term (32, n. 1). Beacham’s method in this chapter is to demonstrate that what God says in Scripture about the genre of predictive prophecy requires such prophecy “to be literally and only literally understood, interpreted, and fulfilled” (33). He further clarifies that the involves rejecting “any form of other-than-literal, less-than-literal, or more-than-literal interpretation of prophetic predictions” (37).

Beacham makes his case by examining what Scripture says about the “purpose, ground, nature, function, and test of divinely appointed predicative prophecy” (37).

Beacham argues that the purpose of predictive prophecy is “apologetic”—it is designed to demonstrate that only God is the true God. In support of this thesis he cites Isaiah 41:21-24, 26; 42:8-9; 44:6-8; 45:18, 20-21; 48:3-5. From these texts Beacham concludes, “Any hermeneutical viewpoint that espouses any form of other-than-, less-than-, or more-than-literal fulfillment of God’s foretelling negates the declare purpose and evidentiary worth of this genre” (41). I see how this arguement counters “other-than” and “less-than” fulfillments, but I’m not sure it holds for “more-than.” If everything God predicted happened exactly as God said it would, but more happened in addition to what God predicted, how does the “more-than” negate this purpose for the prophecy? In fact, given the fact that no prophecy is exhausive, how does one escape “more-than” fulfillments.

Beacham argues that the ground of predictive prophecy is “God’s immutable person and efficacious speech” (42). Isaiah 45:18-19; 45:22-25 are cited since these are passages in which God swears by himself to perform what he has stated. He also appeals to Isaiah 44-48, noting that since the prophecy regarding Cyrus was fulfilled as stated God’s words about the nation Israel in this passage will also be fulfilled as stated. He concludes, “The prophecy itself gives neither the original hearers nor the ensuing readers any indication that God intended some of these sworn forecasts to be fulfilled exactly as stated, while others he intended to signify, typologize, expand, and/or spiritualize” (48). Once again, “expand” strikes me as an outlier in this list. How does expanding on a predictive prophecy undermine the fulfillment of what was predicted? In fact, what is progressive revelation but an expansion upon previous revelation. For instance, is not every subsequent revelation about the Messiah’s redemptive work an expansion of Genesis 3:15?

Beacham’s concern about expansion is detailed in note 32: “The argument seems almost ubiquitous among partial nonliteralists and  complementary heremeneuticians that people should be thankful and that God should be admired if he produces a ‘more expansive’ fulfillment than those that he originally swore. According to this innovative hermeneutical theory, God can do more than he promised, he just can’t do less…. In any case, the outworking of expanded nonliteral fulfillment usually does not result, formulaically, in the equation, ‘God promises to do x but instead he does x+,’ (something more than x). Rather, it results in the equation ‘God promises to do x but instead he does y, which, in their view is ≻ x (something greater than x). In reality, however, y us not x at all. It seems more theologically sound to assert, in every case, that if God swears on his own person and nature to do x, then God will in fact do x, nothing more and nothing less. Any other outcome, expanded or diminished, would call into question the efficacy of hiw words, not to mention the integrity of his person. No outcome can be ‘better’ than the exacting accomplishment of God’s self-sworn pronouncements all the time” (51, n. 32). I agree with Beacham that if x+ in reality means y instead of x, there is a problem. But that doesn’t really describe an “expansion” of the promises; it describes replacement under the lablel of expansion. Thus, I do not see who this argument negates expansion in principle as Beacham goes on to do. In fact, I am again left to wonder how expansion can be eliminated without predictive prophecy being exhasutive. For instance, is it not an expansion that the prophecies regarding Christ are divided into a first coming and a second coming?

Next Beacham argues that the nature of “predictive prophecy was univocal” (51). He argues that “there is no divergence of meaning between the human authors and the divine author” (52). He roots this in Deuteronomy 18:15-22, from which he concludes that “the human prophet served as no more than a mouthpiece” (55). (It is important to recognize that Beacham is here speaking specifically of prophecy.) Thus, “The prophet may have fully understood the prediction that he announced on behalf of God (1 Kgs 22:17, see 22:28) or the prophet may have found the forecast utterly perplexing (Dan 7:15-16), but neither case affected the prophecy’s meaning or intent whatever. If a true prophecy consisted of God’s words alone, and it did, then that true prophecy bore God’s meaning alone” (55). I’m not sure that this arguement advances the thesis. Those who wish to find a fuller sense find it God’s meaning. So negating the human meaning to focus on the divine meaning doesn’t really address this challenge. 

I would agree that there can be no contradiction between the divine and human authors of Scripture in terms of meaning, but as I’ve written elsewhere, “God, who knows all things, knows the whole scope of what he will reveal in Scripture along with all of the potentially correct applications. The human author is limited in what he can intend” (Scripture, Hermeneutics, and Theology, 211-12). For instance, Moses recorded the redemptive promise of Genesis 3:15. But did he understand all that God intended in that promise? Did he understand even what New Testament believers understand to day in reading that text? I am doubtful even though I also think that Old Testament believers understood more than scholars often give them credit for. Moses and God did not intend differenet things in Gensis 3:15 but God certainly intended things beyond what Moses could have known.

Beacham is also critical canonical interpretation. He is right to be concerned about appeals to canonical interpretation that negate promises like the land promises to Israel. But canonical interpretation seems to simply be the way that texts are read. If a person is reading a series of novels and one character seems ambiguous or evil in earlier volumes while a later volume reveals him to have been a secret agent working for the good side, that later information will necessarily reshape how those earlier scenes are understood. Likewise, when the seed promise of Genesis 3:15 is read in light of all the progressive revelation that develops that promise, a richer understanding of that promise is had by readers of Genesis 3. The abuse of canonical readings does not negate its proper, even inevitable, use.

To make his approach work, Beacham draws a stark line between meaning and  “implications and applications” (59). But it is not clear that the line between these is stark. E. D. Hirsh wrestled with this problem. At one point he said, “‘There is no magic land of meaning outside human consciousness.’ But Hirsch realized that humans often intend their meaning to be true in situations of which they presently have no knowledge (the distant future, for instance). Thus Hirsch was willing to broaden his statement so that principles from the original statement may be applied to new situations without violating authorial intention. But, he notes, his original statement ‘would be true if, godlike, we could oversee the whole of human consciousness, past, present, and future.'” This leads me to conclude, “One of the difficulties, where to draw the line between meaning and significance, is greatly mitigated if the Author intends all possible right applications from the beginning” (Scripture, Hermeneutics, and Theology, 210-11, citing E. D. Hirsch, Jr., “Meaning and Significance Reinterpreted,” Critical Inquiry 11, no. 2 (Dec. 1984), 202, 204).

Next, Beacham appeals to “the function of predictive prophecy” according to Deuteronomy 18:19. On the basis that the prophets were to be obeyed, he concludes that “all that they foretold, was both comprehendible and practicable by the ordinary person…. There could be no vast passing of time until the ultimate true meaning of God’s words to Israel could acquire their final significance through canonical reinterpretation and/or typological fulfillment” (61, emphasis added). I understand Beacham’s concern, expressed in footnotes 56-57, regarding interpreters who conclude that God will not do exactly as he predicted through the prophets but might actually do something other than the prophets said. I share that concern. But I’m not confident that Deuteronomy 18:19 is saying that that everything the prophet said was comprehended by the original audience. I’m not even sure that Beacham truly wants to press the point that far, since he acknowledged earlier that the prophets didn’t fully understand all that they were saying all that they were given to say. Nor do I want to diminish what the Old Testament saints could understand. I think they often understood more than modern scholars given them credit. Nevertheless, to turn again to Genesis 3:15, surely the understanding of the ultimate true meaning of God’s words has grown as God progressively revealed more about his redemptive plan in Christ. Doubtless Christians understand the meaning of Genesis 3:15 better than Adam or Moses. Or, to give another example, the Old Testament revealed much about the gospel going to the Gentiles and about Israel’s role in God’s plan in connection to this mission to the Gentiles. Surely Old Testament texts about the gospel coming to the Gentiles should be read in light of Acts and the Epistles.

Finally Beacham argues that the “test of predicative prophecy” supports his view (63, emphasis added). Deuteronomy 18:21-22; Jeremiah 28:7-9; Ezekiel 33:30-33 all affirm that the test of a true prophet is that his predictions come true. Beacham observes, “No caveat existed in God’s declared test of genuine prophecy to allow for spiritualized, typified, multi-intentioned, expanded, or canonically resignified fulfillments” (64). Once again, I would agree that interpretations in which the fulfillment of Old Testament texts are replaced with spiritual interpretations or resignified are condemned by these texts. Allegorical interpretation was something the pagans had to do to make sense of their sacred texts. It was not a method that Christians needed to or should have resorted to. But I remain puzzled about the inclusion of “multi-intentioned” and “expanded” in the list. If there are texts in which God says, “I will do X for believing Israel,” and he does X for believing Israel while also revealing later that he always intended to do the equivalent for believing Gentiles as well, how does that fall afoul of the above passages?

While the texts that Beacham adduces do rule out the spiritualizing approaches that were popular in previous centuries and some of the approaches today that reinterpret Old Testament texts, I do not think that the texts he cited contradict a complementary hermeneutic or interpretations in which the Old Testament texts retain their integrity while progressive revelation clarifies or extends the these OT texts.

In sum, while I share Beacham’s concerns about approaches to Old Testament interprertation that re-interpret the text contrary to authorial intent or which posit a “reality shift” (to borrow terminology from Craig Blaising) between the Old and New Testaments, I think that the approach he advocates makes it difficult to understand numerous New Testament interpretations and fulfillments of Old Testament passages. I want to interpret the Old Testament literally. I also want to interpret the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament literally.