Re: new covenant theology

----- Original Message -----
From: <RFaussette@aol.com>
To: ""George Murphy"" <gmurphy@raex.com>; ""jack syme""
<drsyme@cablespeed.com>; """""ASA""""" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 12:20 PM
Subject: Re: new covenant theology

> But I would be more specific & say that _all_ of
> scripture, NT & OT, is to be read with the understanding that Christ, &
> specifically Christ crucified, is its center.
>
>
> And this is the problem George, that I have with your attempting to
> understand the OT and specifically genesis. You say I ignore you, but
> you're pretty specific here, you've said it before and I can't get you to
> address it. What mechanics permitted the OT authors to demonstrate that
> Christ crucified was the center of what they were writing? Or was it
> divine knowledge/intervention? And what gives us the license to rationally
> assume based on scientific analysis that Jesus Christ soundly rejected by
> the Jews even today is also at the "center" of the OT?

I don't recall that you addressed these specific questions to me before &
certainly don't mean to dodged them.

I said that scripture, including the OT, is to be read with the
understanding that Christ is central. I didn't say that the OT writers had
Jesus of Nazareth, the crucifixion &c in mind when they wrote. What
justifies reading the OT christologically is that the Jesus & the NT writers
do it. It's obvious that Hosea was in fact referring to the historical
Exodus & there's no reason to think that he was looking ~750 years into the
future and seeing Jesus when he wrote "Out of Egypt I called my son" (11:1).
Nevertheless, Matthew says that that verse refers to Christ. Now of course
this will carry no weight to those who don't think that the Gospel of
Matthew has any authority or is in any way inspired. Thus Jews will not be
impressed by it. Christians, who believe inter alia that the spirit of
Christ was in some way active in inspiring the witness to Christ that
Matthew give, should be.

Plenty of other examples of that sort could be given but the argument is not
restricted to individual verses. Hints of the the understanding of Passover
& Exodus as types of the death & resurrection of Christ is found in a number
of places in the NT & of course those hints get developed much more fully in
Christian understandings of baptism, Eucharist, Easter Vigil, &c.

If one believes that the Holy Spirit who inspired the NT writers is also the
one who "spake by the prophets," as the creed says, then it's consistent to
say that the Spirit inspired the OT writers in such a mean that such texts
were available to Jesus and the NT writers. As I said, that needn't mean
that the OT writers were explicitly aware of those meanings. It's true
though, that some NT texts do suggest that the OT writers at least had some
hopes that were fulfilled in Christ - e.g., Hebrews 11:26 & I Peter 1:10-12.

(The suggestion that there can be more in what a writer puts down on paper
than he or she understands at the time may seem strange to some but won't be
so surprising to writers themselves. Dorothy Sayers gives a good example
from her own experience as a novelist in _The Mind of the Maker_, though I
can't find the page right now.)

Finally, is this based on "scientific analysis"? If by that you mean the
natural sciences, of course not. As I said earlier & as you agreed, the
natural sciences cannot show that Jesus is the Son of God & lacking that,
the whole argument falls apart. But it is a coherent argument from the
standpoint of Christian theology, & in fact is pretty traditional. Note
though that I say _a_ coherent argument, not that all theologians would
accept it. But if one rejects Marcion & believes - as the NT writers
clearly did - that the OT continues to be scripture for Christians then I
think the argument is fairly strong.

But let me add again: This view does not mean that we shouldn't 1st study
OT texts on their own terms. A christological reading of the OT is not a
way of shortcircuiting exegesis of the Hebrew texts in its textual,
cultural, &c contexts. It does not mean that we are justified in trying to
read Jesus into every verse or every story of the OT.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Thu Mar 3 13:34:08 2005