Exegesis and Theology

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Idealist or Futurist: Which Is the Most Responsible Way to Read Revelation?

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Yesterday I posted some thoughts on Ben Gladd’s Carson center article on Reading Revelation Responsibly. In the article Gladd addresses two objections to his “symbolic approach to Revelation.” The first is that the symbols in his approach end up lacking a referent. He demurs that the symbols refer to spiritual realties. The second is that “symbolic interpretation lacks hermeneutical controls.” He counters that the Old Testament provides the control on what the symbols mean.

Old Testament Evidence Against Idealism

I would argue that allowing the Old Testament to control our understanding of Revelation’s symbols invalidates the idealist approach that Gladd is advocating and validates the futurist approach. On what grounds is the symbolism of Revelation to of spiritual realities that persist throughout the inter-advent period? This should be tested against the Old Testament. Peter Leithart notes that the idealist approach is inconsistent with how the Old Testament uses the very symbolism that Revelation is drawing on from the Old Testament (Revelation, ITC, 1:12).

  •  “Isaiah describes Jerusalem, not some generic city of man, as Sodom, and so does Ezekiel.”
  • “Daniel sees beasts coming from the sea, and the beasts are identifiable kingdoms.”
  • “Daniel sees a goat racing over the land without touching the ground. It crashes into a ram with two horns and shatters the ram’s horns (Dan. 8:5–8). That is not a generic portrait of “conquest.” It is Alexander’s conquest of the Persians.”

This doesn’t weigh as much with me, but it is worth noting that this same pattern of symbols referring to concrete historical referents holds with the intertestamental apocalypses too (see Charles, Studies in the Apocalypse, 6). In fact, as best I can tell idealism seems to have emerged as an interpretive option in the 20th century.

On the one hand, it is akin to historicism (the dominant approach to Revelation throughout much of church history) in that it understands Revelation to cover the entire inter-advent period. Unlike historicism, however, it has so abstracted the meaning of the symbolism that it can’t be falsified the way the older historicism was. On the other hand, all three of the other approaches share the same approach to symbolism that the Old Testaement does. The older historicism rightly understood Daniel to be describing the kingdoms that existed from his day until Christ’s first advent, and it concluded that Revelation was describing the period from John’s day until Christ’s second advent. It was wrong, but it was not unreasonable. Preterism shows up around the Reformation (initially as a Roman Catholic attempt to defuse claims that the pope was the antichrist). Futurism shows up very early in the fathers, and it too follows the lead of the Old Testament in interpreting the symbols with the added advantage of recognizing the presence of Day of the Lord typology coming to fulfillment in Revelation.

Hermeneutical Controls and Speculation

One of the major problems of historicism was that it was too speculative. And more importantly, it took interpreter’s eyes off of Christ. Historicists wasted time trying to figure out whether the locusts in Revelation 9 referred to the rise of the Germanic Arian tribes (Alexander Minorita), to papal teachings regarding purgatory, merits, and masses for the dead (Johann Gerhard), or to the period between the Goths and the Turks (Thomas Goodwin, Jonathan Edwards).  

Idealism sought to avoid this tangle by abstracting the symbols away from historical referents to spiritual realities. However, the idealist is still left having to figure out what the symbols means. Do the locusts symbolize temporal national judgments occurring throughout the inter-advent period (Beeke). Or do they symbolize judgments that will fall on persecutors of Christians (Fee). Or do they symbolize the “self-pity, anger, lust, jealousy and unhappiness” that God sends on some as a judgment (Schreiner). Beale is very detailed in his interpretation. The star = a fallen angel, identified as Apollyon, that is Satan, who in turn symbolizes sinful humanity under God’s judgment. The smoke signifies spiritual blindness, and the sting is “psychological suffering that will induce a desire for death, yet an unwillingness to commit suicide.”

The futurist, on the other hand, identify the locust judgment as an end-time day of the Lord judgment that is modeled on the Egyptian plagues and on the locust judgment of Joel 2 (Irenaeus, de Burgh, Ladd, Osborne, Fanning). The star is identified as an angel (Thomas, Osborne, Fanning). The smoke is either actual smoke (Thomas) or an allusion to Day of the Lord texts (Fanning). The sting refers to actual pain. Apollyon is a demon (Thomas, Fanning), and thus the locusts are in some sense demonic. There is some disagreement among futurists. Is the angel fallen or unfallen? Are the locusts demons in some kind of physical form or does that not need to be determined? But the range is narrower.

In sum, I think a futurist reading of Revelation has greater Old Testament warrant and greater historical warrant than idealism. In the end, it also ends up being less speculative and more grounded in the biblical text. I suspect that what most people are reacting to when they reject futurism in favor of idealism is not futurism at all but a kind of historicism present in pop dispensationalism.

Literal or Symbolic? Thought’s on Ben Gladd’s Article about Reading Revelation Responsibly

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Last week Ben Gladd authored an article for the Carson Center on reading revelation responsibly. As I read the article, it became clear that it involved a series of confusions. The title offered the opposition: “Literal or Symbolic?” However, an introductory paragraph offers the following opposition: “the futurist perspective and the recapitulation perspective.” And the final paragraph of the article targets a kind of historicist perspective; one that ties events in the present or near future to Revelation.

These oppositions involve Gladd in a set of confusions. The futurist interpretation does not involve arguing that the book of Revelation is to be interpreted “literally” rather than “symbolically.” Futurists recognize the prevalence of symbols in Revelation. The most recent Revelation commentary from a futurist perspective, Buist Fanning’s commentary in the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament series, includes a lengthy discussion of genre and symbolism in its introduction.

Similarly, futurism and recapitulation are not inherently opposed to one another. Both are found in some of the early patristic commentaries. I’m not personally convinced by the arguments for recapitulation; I find Richard Bauckham’s structure more persuasive. But were I convinced of a recapitulatory approach, I would not find it necessary to abandon futurism.

Finally, reading Revelation in light of CNN or Fox News is contrary to a futurist approach to Revelation. This tendency is one of the bad fruits of historicism, which spent so much energy on trying to tie the symbolism of Revelation to past and then near future events. It is of a piece with the older interpretations which debated whether the first trumpet judgment related to the heresies of the Ebionites and others who arose shortly after the time of the apostles (Johann Gerhard), to the period following the death of Constantine (Alexander Minorita), or to the period from the rise of the Goths to the spread of the Turks (Thomas Goodwin). The only difference between the older historicism and this newer historicism is the time frame in view. A true futurism recognizes that Christ could return to begin the Day of the Lord judgments described by Revelation at any time and that there are no signs which precede that Day of the Lord coming. Thus, there is no utility or validity in trying to correlate current events and Revelation.

What of Gladd’s argument regarding sēmainō? A tighter argument for the same basic point can be found in Fanning’s futurist commentary (p. 76). That said, I think Beale’s insistence on interpreting everything in Revelation symbolically leads to the same kinds of absurdity’s that one finds from the interpreter who insists on interpreting everything Revelation literally. I’ve read Beale’s NIGTC commentary in its entirety, and I was surprised to find him interpreting even the Revelation’s own interpretations of the symbols as themselves symbolic of something else!

In the end, Gladd isn’t arguing just for recognizing and interpreting symbols in Revelation; he’s arguing for the idealist approach to Revelation. That is the opposition that should have run consistently through the article.

So the question remains, which is the more responsible way to read Revelation? The idealist way or the futurist way? I’ll address that question in the next post.

Did Jesus Affirm that the Kingdom Would Be Restored to Israel: Inner-biblical Exegesis in Acts 1:6–8

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Isa 32:15until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high [LXX: ἕως ἂν ἐπέλθῃ ἐφʼ ὑμᾶς πνεῦμα ἀφʼ ὑψηλοῦ], and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.Acts 1:8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you [ἐπελθόντος τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος ἐφʼ ὑμᾶς],
Isa 43:10-12“You are my witnesses,” [LXX: γένεσθέ μοι μάρτυρες,] declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior. I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and I am God.Acts 1:8and you will be my witnesses [καὶ ἔσεσθέ μου μάρτυρες] in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Isaiah 44:8Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses [LXX: μάρτυρες ὑμεῖς ἐστε]! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.”Acts 1:8and you will be my witnesses [καὶ ἔσεσθέ μου μάρτυρες] in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Isa 49:6he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth [ἕως ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς].”Acts 1:8and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth [καὶ ἕως ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς].”

Parallels taken from Connecting Scripture New Testament, 214.

In the notes to the Connecting Scripture New Testament, Dennis Johnson, whose work on Acts (especially his The Message of Acts) I generally appreciate, says that by quoting these passages Jesus “corrected the apostle’s conception of the kingdom’s power and extent” and their “myopic focus on restoration for Israel.” If by this Johnson means that Jesus expanded their view of the restoration to include Gentiles, there is no argument. But if Johnson is indicating that Jesus was in some way denying a restoration for Israel, then I think he has erred in his understanding of Jesus’s use of the Old Testament here. In looking at the context of these Isaiah passages it becomes clear that Jesus was affirming the restoration of the kingdom for Israel and linking it Israel’s witness-bearing role to the nations.

In response to the apostle’s question, Jesus reiterated the coming of the Spirit: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” This wording aligns with the Greek translation of Isaiah 32:15. In that chapter the pouring out of the Spirit is connected to a king who would reign over Israel with justice, to a desolate land that is restored to fruitfulness, and to a people who live in peace. By evoking this passage, Jesus was reaffirming the restoration of Israel’s kingdom. But he also indicated that there will be some time between the pouring out of the Spirit and that restoration.

Jesus went on to say, “and you shall be my witnesses.” This statement alludes to Isaiah 43:10, 12. In this passage Yhwh gathers the nations and the peoples to present witnesses to their gods’ ability to exercise omniscient sovereignty as Yhwh does. The nations can produce no witnesses. Of Israel, however, Yhwh says, “You are my witnesses.” They are witnesses that Yhwh is the only God and that he is the only Savior. Here it is important to note that the apostles were all Jewish and that they were a band of twelve men (the end of Acts 1 makes a point of bringing the complement of the Apostles back to twelve). Though Acts records that many Jews rejected the Gospel, Acts also records Israel bearing witness to the Gentiles of the true God and savior.

In the remainder of Isaiah 43 God speaks of the coming Babylonian exile and of Israels redemption and return. Then in chapter 44 God speaks of pouring out his Spirit on Jacob his servant, that is on the nation of Israel. The result is that Israel will witness that there is no god besides Yhwh.

By alluding to these passages Jesus was affirming, not denying, that the kingdom would be restored to Israel. But he was also instructing the disciples that the restoration of the kingdom to Israel will happen in conjunction with Israel’s witness-bearing to the nations. God’s election of Israel was never (going all the way back to Genesis 12) for Israel’s own sake but always for the sake of God’s saving work among all peoples.

Jesus drove this point home by alluding to the Servant song in Isaiah 49.

And now, says the LORD, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him so that Israel might be gathered to him; for I am honored in the sight of the LORD, and my God is my strength— he says, “It is not enough for you to be my servant raising up the tribes of Jacob and restoring the protected ones of Israel. I will also make you a light for the nations, to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.” [Isa 49:5–6,CSB]

Note that the restoration of Israel is a key part of this Servant song: “to bring Jacob back to him so that Israel might be gathered to him.” But note also that Servant will not save Israel alone; he will be “[Yhwh’s] salvation to the ends of the earth.”

The apostles wondered if the soon pouring out of the Spirit meant the soon restoration of the kingdom to Israel. These allusions in Jesus’s answer affirms the that the kingdom will be restored to Israel, but it directs the apostles to the prior task of bearing witness to all peoples that Jesus is the only true God and Savior.

Buist Fanning on Typology

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 “(1) Typology is not just a matter of Old Testament to New Testament relationships as noted above. It occurs from one part of the Old Testament to another and from the Old Testament to later Jewish literature. This is grounded in observations about God’s consistency in working out his purposes across human history.

(2) Typology is not limited to features of Christology and soteriology, although these are common topics. For example, judgment of the ungodly, opposition to God’s ways, and human character traits are some of the patterns that appear (only negatively related to soteriology) [Note 102: “See comments on Balaam (2:14–15), Jezebel (2:20), the Euphrates (9:14; 16:12), Armageddon (16:16–18). Also Elliott, Survivors, 387–92, and various OT examples in 2 Pet and Jude.”]

(3) Typology does not necessitate a metaphysical shift from physical, geographic, or historic entities in the Old Testament type to spiritual and eternal realities in the New Testament antitype. Sometimes the typological escalation works this way, but it is not necessary for it to do so. For example, the typology of sacrifice in Hebrews and elsewhere (e.g., 1 Cor 5:7) did not mean that Christ offered himself only spiritually or only in the heavenly realms to deal with sin. He experienced real physical suffering, death, and resurrection in time and space, even though his sacrifice was God’s full and final provision for sin and provides spiritual, eternal blessings for the redeemed. [Note 103: “See comments on this issue at Rev 6:16–17; cf. Blaising, “Biblical Hermeneutics,” 85–87.”]

(4) Typology does not necessitate the abrogation of the type in favor of the antitype. Abrogation is the case in one notable example that is sometimes cited (animal sacrifices as a type of Christ’s sacrifice; Heb 9–10). But to take another instance from Hebrews, Adam’s role as God’s image bearer and ruler over creation (Gen 1; Ps 8) is not revoked for humankind but renewed and restored by Christ (Heb 2; cf. Rev 2:26–27; 20:4, 6; 22:5).[Note 104: “See Bock, “Summary Essay” [in Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond], 293–94; see also commentary on 1:6; 5:10; 7:8; 21:3.”]

(5) The future counterpart or antitype may not be limited to a single, climactic exemplar, although this is often the case. It is also possible for an Old Testament pattern to find more than one future replication on the way to its ultimate fulfillment. Either way it involves “progression toward a final goal” in God’s design for history. Beale gives the illustration of Noah (Gen 9:1–2, 7) as an intermediate antitype of Adam (Gen 1:26–28), pointing ultimately to Christ. In the same place he cites day of the Lord prophecies that have a near-term fulfillment as well as an eschatological one. [Note 106: “Beale, Handbook, 16–17; Bock, “Summary Essay” [in Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond], 294–95.”] The same can be said of the use in Revelation of Babylon (the ancient empire pointing to Rome and on to an end-time power opposed to God) or of the “beast” that exalts itself against God, desecrates the temple, and oppresses God’s people (Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Rome in AD 70, and a future antichrist).”

Buist Fanning, Revelation, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020), 47–48.

Initial Thoughts on Patrick Schreiner’s Recovery of the Quadriga

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In a recent article Patrick Schriener seeks to recover the Quadriga.

A few thoughts:

1. Schreiner seems concerned that redemptive-historical readings of a text can marginalize application to the moral life of the Christian. This is a legitimate concern. I recall this concern being raised several decades ago in the book Feed My Sheep. But the Quadriga isn’t the only or best way to ensure that both redemptive-history and personal application are included in readings of Scripture. 

2. Schreiner operates with an idiosyncratic and ahistorical definition of allegory:  “We must read according to salvation history and typology—what the Church Fathers generally called the allegorical sense.” He grants in the conclusion, “In the history of interpretation, people have strayed too far from authorial intent. Other times, an extra-textual philosophical grid was employed to conduct allegory.” But in the patristic and medieval periods these were not just occasional corruptions of the allegorical sense; these were characteristic of the allegorical sense (See: Origins of Allegorical Interpretation and Christian Theology). In the footnote, he appeals to Paul’s use of “allegory” in Galatians 4, but Paul was doing something different from the Fathers. (See: Galatians 4:21-31: An Allegory?) Thus, there is a great deal of equivocation on the term allegory. 

3. In his description of the literal sense, Schreiner says that Saul’s armor symbolizes “earthly methods of warfare” while the sling and staff represent “simple shepherd’s tools, entirely inadequate by worldly standards.” But it simply isn’t true that slings and stones were inadequate military weapons. Steinman notes, “Slings, along with bows, were the artillery of Iron Age warfare (cf. 2 Ki 3:25; 2 Chr 26:14) (1 Samuel, ConC, 341).  Steinman draws something else from this exchange: “Here another subtle contrast with Saul is brought into play. Saul, the king from Benjamin, ought to have confronted Goliath with a sling. Benjaminites were renown for their skill as slingers—they were even expert left-handed slingers (Judg 20:15–16; 1 Chr 12:2)” (Ibid., 341).

4. There is a great deal of Schreiner’s allegorical section that I would agree with as textually rooted typology. David is a type of Christ. At least some of the serpent connections are valid. What the NASB translates as “scale armor” is used of “scales” of animals in all its other uses. I can see the striking of the head and the cutting off of the head evoking Genesis 3:15. Some of the connections Schreiner makes in this section are a stretch. David being sent by his father to his brothers, bringing bread, is not, I think, typological. David as a type of the Messiah and Goliath as a seed of the serpent could be author-intended typology that was accessible to original readers. Some of the other connections Schreiner is trying to make (like the bringing of bread could not have been author-intended typology or accessible to the original readers). 

5. I’m not opposed to making moral application to individual Christians from this passage. Some of his applications are valid. For instance, the need to trust the Lord and the importance of recalling the Lord’s past faithfulness are valid applications.  But Schreiner also moves back to his flawed amor = self-reliance symbolism. Making Goliath a symbol of personal vices and the stone a symbol of “repentance, prayer, and reliance of the Spirit” do not have textual warrant. There is something that could be done with the vice of pride. That is a theme of both this narrative and the book of Samuel as a whole. But it wouldn’t be addressed the way Schreiner is doing it.

6. Given my willingness to see a typological aspect to the David and Goliath story, I’m not opposed to seeing it prefigure the final victory of Christ over Satan. Indeed, that is inherent in the typology. But again, Schreiner over-eggs the details. Many of them lack textual warrant. 

7. Schriener concludes by claiming, “But if an interpreter stays ruthlessly tied to authorial intent, literary structure, and canonical fulfillment, rather than viewing this as a type of reader-response interpretation, then many missteps can be avoided. To put this another way, a fourfold reading must be found within the text.” The problem is, this did not characterize historical practitioners of the Quadriga, and Schriener in this very post is positing readings that are not rooted in the text or ruthlessly tied to authorial intent. 

8. The Reformation opposed the Quadriga. (See The Reformation and the Fourfold Sense of Scripture). Instead of trying to repristinate the Quadriga, it would be better to insist that redemptive-historical readings of the text also be accompanied with personal application and to encourage sensitivity to authorially intended, textually rooted typology. 

See also

Notes on Leithart’s Deep Exegesis

Mitchell Chase, 40 Questions about Typology and Allegory

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 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.

Matthew Emerson, “The Role of Proverbs 8: Eternal Generation and Hermeneutics Ancient and Modern,” in Retrieving Eternal Generation

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This was a notably poor contribution. It opens and closes with contrasting depictions of ancient and modern approaches to hermeneutics (as if either are monolithic), neglects to note weaknesses in patristic hermeneutics that necessitated modifications by medieval and Reformation exegetes, and creates a straw man of evangelical interpretation, implying that it does not have a high view of canonical connections or the unity of Scripture.

Too much of the essay is taken up with beating Grudem and Ware over the head for their teaching eternal functional subordination―something tangential to the interpretation of Proverbs 8, at best. When Emerson does touch on the putative subject of this chapter, he does not give any detailed accounting of the strengths and weaknesses of the patristic interpretation. When modern views are presented, major options are omitted. For instance, the view that creational norms or the creation order is in view―see Raymond Van Leeuwen, Al Wolters, Craig Bartholomew, and Duane Garrett―is not mentioned. This view entails a high view of Scripture’s unity, pays good attention to immediate and canonical contexts, is compatible with a Christocentric approach to Scripture, and more. It is not incompatible with eternal generation, even if it does not find it in this passage.

This option may not be open to Emerson, however, since he seems to indicate that any other interpretation than the patristic one is closed to those who accept the Nicene faith: “The reading of Proverbs 8 as teaching eternal generation has been virtually codified in the Nicene Creed. To reject the Creed’s language is to implicitly reject this interpretation of Proverbs 8, and vice versa, and I for one am not comfortable with so easily dismissing either” (62). Here Emerson neglects that some of the Fathers interpret this passage as referring to the incarnation. Thus, there is no single interpretation held by all the orthodox to which evangelicals should feel themselves bound if they are to be considered orthodox.

In sum, Emerson seems to have adopted the recent bad habit of presuming that an interpretation or doctrine can be established simply by demonstrating that it was held historically by orthodox Christians. This is, to be sure, a necessary part of a sound exegetical and theological method, but it is not sufficient for arriving at either exegetical or theological conclusions.

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.