Word At Work Fall 2020

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The Word at Work The magazine of the Institute of Lutheran Theology

To Fulfill the Scripture

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Fall 2020

Letter From The Editor

5 I Believe

A number of years ago during my own seminary education, I witnessed an interaction between another student and a professor that I will never forget.

Although this situation was uncomfortable to observe, I refer often to this incident in my own teaching, for the professor communicated an important truth.

the Old Testament out of the Bible, and they carefully edited the New Testament of any reference to the Old Testament. This view, expounded by a man named Marcion, was soundly rejected, and this challenge prodded the Church to finalize the true list of books that comprise our New Testament today.

The student, who was sitting next to me, made a comment about how God often punishes people in the Old Testament. Implicit in her comment was that God’s character is somehow different between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The professor became agitated and responded angrily, “Are you trying to tell me that God doesn’t punish people in the New Testament? What about hell?”

Lutherans are most certainly not Marcionites, and yet the ghost of Marcion is alive and well today. The views of Marcion are expressed in a number of ways in contemporary Christianity, and we need to address the challenge posed by those who seek to drive a wedge between the Testaments rather than view them as a cohesive whole.

There was uncomfortable silence for a few seconds.

This professor could have and should have reacted to the student’s comment in a more respectful manner. Nevertheless, he was right. There are examples of God’s wrath in the Old Testament, but there are also examples of God’s wrath in the New Testament.

And while the New Testament reveals the love of God that has come to us in Christ Jesus, that love is also expressed in the Old Testament. After all, it is in the Old Testament that we read, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want…”

The relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament is an issue with which Christians have wrestled since the beginning of the Church.

Some Christians in the early years of the Church were repulsed by the violence and general crudity they saw in the Old Testament. They concluded that the god described there was ultimately a god of wrath, an evil god. They concluded further that the god described in the New Testament was one of pure love and that Jesus had come to reveal this god. These people cut

This issue of The Word at Work is different than previous issues in that it highlights one main article and only two smaller submissions. We are pleased to offer here an academic paper by Mark Hillmer, Professor of Biblical Theology at ILT, which addresses the issue of how the authors of the New Testament quote the Old Testament. In response to those who claim that the manner in which the New Testament authors quote the Old Testament is “laughable” or “ridiculous,” Professor Hillmer argues that although there are a variety of ways that the New Testament authors use quotations from the Old Testament, the way that they do so in all cases is faithful; their spiritual perspective provided by their faith in the incarnate Son of God provides them with the ability to use the Old Testament in service of proclaiming the work of Jesus Christ and the salvation we have through Him. Rev. Thomas E. Jacobson, Ph.D.

By Jonathan Sorum

6 A Communion Story

By Thomas Jacobson

10 The Power is in the Fulfillment

By Mark Hillmer

Editor Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Christ

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Word at Work Fall 2020

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I Believe Dr. Jonathan Sorum “I believe in the Holy Spirit.”

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e have heard that God, the Father almighty, created us and provides us with all we need, that he loved us so much that he gave us his Son to rescue us from our sin, that the Son loved us and gave himself up for us on the cross, and that the Father raised him from the dead and made him Lord of all. But if that were the whole story, we would still be lost in our sins. If I try to believe these things, then I am still in charge and still a sinner. At best, I can believe these things are true in the sense that they are facts. But I cannot believe that Jesus is my Lord, I cannot make myself die with him so that I might also live with him, I cannot deny myself, take up my cross and follow him.

Thank God, then, that God is not only God the Father and God the Son, but also God the Holy Spirit, who moves in on me in power to take me out of myself and make me holy! (“Holy” means “set apart” to belong to God alone.)

The Holy Spirit works through the promise. God doesn’t just sit there, waiting for me to shape up or somehow reach out to him and experience him. As I hear the news about the real Jesus, the Jesus who is sheer promise and gift for sinners, the Holy Spirit gives me Jesus. I rejected and killed Jesus, but he is risen from the dead and his first word to me is, “Peace be with you” (Jn. 20:19). He declares me forgiven

and free! “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). “For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him” (Acts 2:38-39). Yes, the promise is for me! As I hear the promise, it is mine. My sins are forgiven in Jesus’ name. I am reconciled to God. Nothing in all creation can separate me from the love of God, which is mine in Christ Jesus! (Rom. 8:37-39).

As I hear this news, the Holy Spirit takes me out of myself and catches me up into God’s own life. By faith in his word, I am joined to Jesus. “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3). And, as part of him, I have Jesus’ Father as my Father. “When we cry, ‘Abba!

Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God. . .” (Rom. 8:15-16). I have died to myself and am “born from above” (Jn. 3:3). I live Jesus’ life instead of my own, self-chosen life. In other words, I believe in Jesus and have life in his name.

The Holy Spirit is God succeeding in being God to us.

God the Holy Spirit makes us into a new creation, creatures who actually trust his word and receive all his gifts with thankfulness and praise. God wins! And when God wins, so do I, “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom. 5:5).

Note: This article is the eighth in a twelve-part series on the Apostles’ Creed.

Jonathan Sorum is a Professor and Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at ILT.

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A COMMUNION STORY

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Thomas E. Jacobson

his is the story of a man named Ralph.¹ Ralph was a businessman in his community.

He was a prominent figure, a “big wheel,” as they say.

In his medium-sized town of around eight thousand people in south central Wisconsin, everyone knew who Ralph was, even if he didn’t know who they were.

Ralph was the owner of a manufacturing company in town, and this big company employed a good number of people. In fact, you could say that the town depended on Ralph’s company. Without all those jobs in the community, the town would wither away to nothing in short order. So, a lot of people looked at Ralph with respect. They relied on him and his presence. They thought of him as a community leader. In addition to owning the manufacturing company, he was active on many organizational boards in town.

His name and picture appeared frequently in the town newspaper. The livelihoods of many and the well-being of the whole town depended on Ralph.

And Ralph was a church member too. There were a number of churches in town, but the biggest one by far was the local Lutheran church. It was a big brick building, and the steeple of the church towered over everything else in town. This was back in the day when being a church member in a small town was more or less expected of the public leadership.

Privately, Ralph didn’t care much about the church.

He didn’t think about Jesus very much, and he didn’t know much about the Bible. But he would go every once a while. He had a reputation to maintain, after all.

But as much as many people knew and respected Ralph, there was a minority of people who saw

another side of him. But because Ralph was such a “big wheel” in town, they were afraid of making their opinions known. This minority knew that Ralph could be a cut-throat businessman when the situation demanded it or when it was to his benefit. Ralph was mostly concerned for himself. He wasn’t afraid to terminate the employment of people if it might help his bottom line, even just a little bit. And he would look for any excuse he could find to make that happen.

Early in the summer, sales at Ralph’s company began to slow down a bit. It was far from a crisis. It had happened before. But he thought it best to be safe rather than sorry. So, he started to look for ways to cut down on expenses, and reducing personnel was one of them. He thought of ways to restructure employee responsibilities. He thought he needed to make a cut somewhere. Now all he needed was to find an excuse to get rid of someone.

There was an employee at Ralph’s company named John. John was a good worker, and he had been there for a number of years. His coworkers thought highly of him and his dedication. Ralph didn’t really know John. He knew his name is all. But Ralph decided that he would show John the door and bring in a less expensive, entry-level worker. He began to look for the right opportunity, some excuse he could use to get rid of John. For Ralph, it was all a part of a day’s work. Sometimes, difficult decisions need to be made. After all, it comes with the territory of being an “important” person in the community. That’s how Ralph justified his actions in his own mind.

Not long after that, Ralph noticed that John showed up to work a few hours late one morning.

This was his opportunity. And even better, it was a Friday. It’s always best to notify workers on a Friday that they don’t need to bother showing up next week.

He called John into his office, and John proceeded to

explain thatFall the2020 reason he showed up late is because in church with his three children, and Ralph noted that Word at Work

7 his wife became ill that morning and needed to go to the he had no wife with him. John and his children weren’t hospital, and was still there, in fact. And he explained the best-dressed people he had ever seen. One could that he did call his immediate supervisor and explained tell that they didn’t have a lot by the standards of the the situation. But Ralph wasn’t in the mood to listen. world. He remembered what John had told him, how He wanted to get the situation taken care of and put it his wife was hospitalized. He had no idea that John and behind him so that he could focus on more important his family were members of this church. When Ralph things. He had John pack up his things; his employment did come to church, he didn’t pay attention to who was had been terminated. there, because he honestly didn’t care. But that morning, he cared a great deal.

This wasn’t the first time that Ralph did this kind of thing. By that point, he’d become used to it, unpleasant As far as Ralph knew, no one in the church knew as it was. He just put it out of his mind. But that wouldn’t what had happened the Friday before except for John last long. and his family and of course himself. But as soon as he saw John and his children, Ralph felt that all eyes were The next day, Ralph realized that Sunday was on him. Normally, Ralph would like that. But this was approaching. He hadn’t been to church in couple of different. He didn’t feel that those eyes looked on him months, so he figured he should go this coming Sunday with admiration. He felt that those eyes looked on him and make his appearance. Plus, they were having with accusation. He felt shame, something he had not Communion, the Lord’s Supper. And so, it was an felt in a long time. For the first time in his life, he saw opportunity to fulfill his obligation to receive Communion the impact of his actions in a personal way. He realized at least twice a year. That was the rule to remain a that people are not just names on a piece of paper. In member in good standing in that congregation. spite of what happened to him the Friday before, John managed to come to church with his children, even with Ralph got dressed up that morning, drove to that big his sick wife absent. Faith must be important to him, brick building that housed the Lutheran church in town. he thought. He must really rely on God in his life. Even As he walked in, he could hear the organ music in the after losing his job and with his wife’s life hanging in the distance. He knew that people would greet him on his balance, it appeared that John was a wealthy man in a way to the sanctuary. People looked up to him, after all. different way. He cared about family, and most imporAnd they did greet him with smiles and handshakes. tantly, he cared about the love of God. “Good to see you,” they said with smiles on their faces.

Ralph took a bulletin from the usher, found an empty And Ralph felt the opposite about himself. By the pew, and sat down. standards of the world, Ralph had most everything anyone could want. He was a financially wealthy man. But Ralph wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary that morning, he felt an emptiness in his life. All those on that Sunday morning. He knew how things went. He years of accumulating and taking did nothing to fill it. He figured he’d make his appearance, fulfill his obligation, thought about leaving the sanctuary and going home. and then resume life as usual. There were no great expectations for that morning, certainly not for anything life changing.

But as Ralph sat there before worship began, he looked around at others who were gathering. And out of the corner of his eye, he saw something unexpected, someone familiar. It was the man John, the one he had dismissed from his job a couple of days ago. John was

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Word at Work Fall 2020

But he didn’t. There was something that kept him there. As the Sunday morning liturgy went on, it came time for the readings from the Scriptures, the Bible. And it so happened that the Gospel reading for that Sunday was from Matthew chapter 13, the story Jesus tells about wheat and weeds in the field. A man sowed wheat in his field, but his enemy came and sowed the seeds of a weed among the wheat. The wheat and the weeds grew together. The pastor explained in his sermon what Jesus meant by this. They key to understanding the story, he said, is that this particular kind of weed was known as “darnel,” and it looked a lot like wheat. You couldn’t easily weed out the darnel. You had no choice but to let them grow together until the harvest. It was a message that while we live on earth, there will hypocrites among the truly faithful. But at the end, the angels will gather the darnel and separate it from the wheat. And the darnel will be thrown into the furnace to be burned. And the wheat will be gathered into God’s kingdom. And the righteous wheat will “shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”

to his right and to his left. He was trapped. What to do? The pastor began with the Communion exhortation, explaining what it means to receive the Lord’s Supper in a worthy manner. But how could he possibly repent of all the wrong he had done in his life? Just then, the congregation began singing the ancient Christian hymn:

As the pastor talked, Ralph listened. These words came crashing down on him, hard.

Normally, he would zone out during sermons, but here his ears were perked up. He kept on hoping that the pastor would say something, anything that would make him feel better, because he knew that if there ever was an example of someone who was like darnel among the wheat, he was it. He had spent all his life pretending to be a nice guy. He would come to church and pretend to be a Christian. And as he looked over at John and his children, he knew that he, one of the weeds, had no business being among the wheat that surrounded him. And he certainly had no business coming to the Lord’s table.

Ralph was sitting close to the back of the sanctuary, but the time was coming soon when the usher would come to his pew and direct him forward. His heart rate began to rise. And the hymn continued as the organ played. He looked at those words in his hymnal:

He would have walked out of the sanctuary, but he couldn’t. By then there were people sitting

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the point. He knew he was among the weeds, the darnel. But within him, he longed to be different.

He longed to be among the wheat. He longed to shine like the sun in the kingdom of the Father.

And nothing that he brought to the table could do that.

And the hymn kept on going:

“Draw near and take the body of the Lord, and drink the holy blood for you outpoured.”

But how could he? How could he stand and then kneel with others at the altar rail? How could he stand in the sight of John and his family and perhaps in front of others that he had harmed over the years? Maybe what he did was legal, but he had spent his whole life taking things from others for himself. And for once in his life, he wasn’t going to take what didn’t belong to him.

And the hymn continued with another verse:

“With heavenly bread he makes the hungry whole, gives living water to the thirsty soul.”

If those words described anyone, they described Ralph. He knew how unworthy he was, and so he became worthy. The usher came to his pew, and Ralph got in line. He knew that eyes were upon him. But at that moment, he only cared about the eyes of God. The one who declared him to be a weed, darnel, also had given himself for him. And he trusted that his Lord could change his destiny both now and forever, to make wheat out of weeds. As he knelt, the pastor came by, and

into his trembling outstretched hand, he placed the bread with the words: “The body of Christ, given for you.”

And he ate with great hunger. ¹ This fictional story has been adapted from a sermon preached on July 19, 2020, based on Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.

Thomas E. Jacobson is Instructor of Christian History and the editor of The Word at Work magazine at ILT. He also serves as pastor of Good Shepherd Evangelical Lutheran Church of Lindy, Nebraska.

“Come forward then with faithful hearts sincere, and take the pledges of salvation here.”

“Offered was He for greatest and for least.

Himself the victim and Himself the priest.”

It was that verse that struck him in a special way. Was that really true? I guess you could say that Ralph was among the “greatest” in society, the upper class, the wealthy, the powerful. Was Jesus offered for him just as much as it was for others there? Surely, he didn’t deserve that.

But then it dawned on him. Maybe that was

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THE POWER IS IN THE FULFILLMENT

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Photo by Dennis Buchner on Unsplash

Mark Hillmer

rief statement of the problems and proposed solutions The problems I am addressing in this paper have to do with the relationship between the Testaments, specifically how the New Testament interprets the Old Testament.¹ It is an ancient problem that reaches into the very heart of Christianity.

It begins with Jesus himself. The Gospel of Luke has Jesus saying to his disciples after the resurrection, “These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled” (Lk. 24:44). (N.B. It does not say that everything in the OT was in fact written about Jesus but that everything that was written about him had to be fulfilled.) Far from Jesus giving them an exhaustive list of passages, he did not even give them a sample verse. He simply spoke of the necessity of the fulfillment of all those passages that were written about him. Elsewhere in the Gospels, however, he did offer some examples of his interpretation of the Scriptures.

I will demonstrate in this paper that the connection between the Testaments is a spiritual one, made by the Holy Spirit and understood only by those who have been

led to believe in the Incarnation. Another way of stating this is that the use the NT makes of the OT is essentially a charismatic procedure, which is at times apparent to unaided reason but most of the time requires the insight that only faith in Jesus Christ and the power of his Spirit can yield.

Problem 1: When the connection between the OT and Jesus is not evident but imposed Let us consider an example of how Jesus interpreted the Scriptures. In response to a request from certain scribes and Pharisees for a sign that would validate his ministry, Jesus answered, An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Mt. 12:39-40).² I choose this text because it illustrates most clearly that the power of interpreting lies with the NT writers who were led by the Spirit of God. Without the interpretation of Jesus, one could read the book of Jonah a thousand times and never guess that Jonah’s three-day stay in the belly of the whale is a hint of the greater sojourn of Jesus in his Friday-to-Sunday rest between his crucifixion and his resurrection. Jesus simply knew he was to be crucified and that three days later he would rise again with a newly

created spiritual body.

The problem can be stated simply, how do we get from there to here? Or, how does one move from the OT to the NT? Jesus’ answer to his critics involving Jonah is not derivable from the book of Jonah itself. Nowhere in the book of Jonah is it stated that Jonah’s experience is a type of the one who is to come. It is the story about what can happen to someone who does not do the will of the Lord but flees from his call. In other words, the connection between the Testaments in this case is not clear or obvious. It is hidden.

The context tells us that the connection between Jonah and Jesus was hidden on purpose: the request for a sign, that is a miracle,³ came from his unbelieving critics, and Jesus was not about to do a miracle in the face of unbelief. He offered them a conundrum instead.

Problem 2: When the context of the OT is violated The problem is also evident in NT statements about Jesus. The first such example is found in the first chapter of the first Gospel, and it is the biggest and most famous crux interpretum of them all, at least as far as our problem is concerned.

Immediately after the genealogy of Matthew 1:1-17, the narrative tells of how Joseph’s intention to put his divinely impregnated fiancée Mary quietly aside is met with an angelic dream in which Joseph is told to marry her because she has been chosen to bear the one who will save his people from their sins. Whereupon the evangelist says that all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel” (Mt. 1:22).

The problem with Jonah as a sign of Christ’s sojourn between Good Friday and Easter is the unexpectedness of Jesus’ interpretation. The problem here is different. It is not a dominical saying; it is Matthew’s using Isaiah 7:14 as a prediction of Jesus’ virgin birth. The problem is that Matthew is taking the verse out of context.

How can Matthew do this? If one takes things out of context, then by our understanding, Isaiah did not knowingly prophecy the virgin birth. I am now merely pointing out the problem. There are considerations that will legitimate Matthew’s use of Isaiah 7:14.

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one example, for it establishes the principle that sometimes second meanings are more important than the first meaning.

For Christians, there is no more important event in the history of the world than the Incarnation, specifically that Jesus died and rose again. What this implies for my thesis—that the power of the OT promises finding fulfillment in the NT lies with the NT writers—is that the events surrounding the Incarnation are the second meaning for every OT passage found in the NT. Practically speaking, this means that the authors of the NT, filled with the Holy Spirit as they were, saw Jesus everywhere.

Photo by Dabir Bernard on Unsplash

Problem 3: When the OT passage is mistranslated Let us take a passage in which all four evangelists offer a mistranslation of the OT. The synoptic Gospels say that John the Baptist is the voice crying in the wilderness (Mt. 3:3; Mk. 1:2; Lk. 3:4).

The Gospel of John has the Baptist making this claim for himself, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness” (Jn. 1:23).

A “voice in the wilderness” has become a household phrase, and nothing can be done about it.⁴ But Isaiah 40:3 says, “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,’” as most modern translations agree.5 The Solution So, what is the best way to describe the relationship between the OT and its NT use? I have read a German commentary on the NT, in which the author describes the NT use of the OT as lächerlich, meaning “laughable, ridiculous.”6

In his Reflections on the Psalms,⁷ C. S. Lewis illustrates his point that the second meaning is sometimes more important than the first with a reference to an event recorded in classical literature.8 He refers to a passage in Tacitus that tells of how after a battle, the Roman general Antonius “hurried to the baths to wash off the blood; and when he found fault with the temperature of the water, an answer was heard, ‘that it would soon be warm enough.’ Thus, the words of a slave brought on him the whole odium of having given the signal for firing the town.”9 Antonius wanted warmer bath water. The slave shouted, “It will soon be warmer.” The bath attendant was referring to the temperature of the water. That was the first meaning. But then the town burned down. Now people were thinking that Antonius had ordered the town to be burned down.

That would be the second meaning. While Lewis considers this second meaning to be accidental— and he gives several other examples from classical literature of less accidental, more intended second meanings (Virgil and Plato)—I am content with this

I take it as axiomatic that the consciousness of the early Christians was of such an intensity that we can only dream about and pray for. The Spirit-filled consciousness that allowed them to heal the sick and raise the dead also caused them to see events from the perspective of the Incarnation. Considering the immense spiritual power of the early church, is it any wonder that the writings they produced make us epigones born two thousand years out of due time scratch our heads at their hermeneutics? What Peter said of the old prophets is true—and then some!—also of the earliest Spirit-inundated preachers of the gospel.¹⁰ We are like the young nurse who overheard the doctors scrubbing up post-operatively. The one said to the other, “That was such a difficult delivery I could not tell you whether it was a boy or a girl.” The nurse said, “Give me the baby, I can tell.” We are like Monday morning quarterbacks criticizing misplays when we cannot play the game ourselves.

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For the remainder of this presentation, I will examine some of the major passages of the NT that interpret the OT in the light of the Incarnation and events that surrounded it.¹¹ In addition to the above three problems and their solution, I propose a “scale of rationality” using five numbers, “1” being rational-sober with “5” being non-rational (super-rational, spiritual, charismatic).¹² The words of Jesus A request for a sign refused. Matthew 12:38-40 I have above¹³ used the word of Jesus to his detractors as one of the problems of understanding the NT’s use of the OT. Having stated my solution of the problem, I now want to begin my list of the words of Jesus involving OT interpretation with that same passage.

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Mt. 12:38-40).¹⁴ Now we can understand the passage. With his knowledge of the divine scheme before him but even more by his sheer authority—for he was filled with the Holy Spirit permanently all his life, especially since his baptism in the Jordan¹⁵— Jesus utilizes the story of Jonah’s being in the belly of the whale for his being in the grave for [parts of] three days and three nights (never mind the details—it was only Friday and Saturday

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night—Jesus knows whereof he speaks).

Clear is that one cannot read the Resurrection out of the Jonah narrative; one can only read it in. One cannot arrive at the Resurrection by exegesis but only by eisegesis. This is—and should be—an offense and a stumbling block, especially for the theologically-trained mind. So be it.

Scale of rationality: 5

The Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:21, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43 You have heard that it was said to the men of old, “You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.” But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, “You fool!” shall be liable to the hell of fire (vss. 21f.).

You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already com mitted adultery with her in his heart (vss. 27f.).

It was also said, “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” But I say to you that ever one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress… (vss. 31f.).

Again you have heard that it was said to the men of old, “You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.” But I say to you, do not swear at all… (33f.).

You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also (vss.

38f.).

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love

Word at Work Fall 2020

your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (vss. 43f.).

Six times Jesus quotes from the Scriptures commenting on them. At first glance, it may appear that he is reversing the old command or suggesting a new one, but in actuality he is deepening them and doing so to such an extent that the listener may well despair, for who can control his thoughts to such a holy degree.

Precisely, for Jesus is raising the bar so high no one can jump over it. We need a savior, which is the point he is making.

Scale of rationality: 1 The testimony of Jesus concerning John. Matthew 11:7b-10 What did you go out into the wilderness to behold?

A reed shaken by the wind? Why then did you go out? To see a man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, those who wear soft raiment are in kings’ houses.

Why then did you go out? To see a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, “Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee.”

What we have here is a case of what can be called dominical imposition. The Hebrew text of Malachi 3:1 clearly, without any other textual variant, states, “Behold, I am sending my messenger and he will prepare the way before me.”¹6 This oracle represents what the prophet heard. What follows is the prophet’s application of the message: “And the Lord whom you see will suddenly come to his temple.”¹⁷ Jesus knew what he was talking about, namely that he was the Son of God sent to fulfill all prophecy and that his relative John was the fulfillment of the prophecy in Malachi 3:1, never mind the switch of the pronoun “my” to “thy.”

The power in the fulfillment is so strong that it can violate the rules of textual criticism.

Word atofWork Fall 20204 15 Scale rationality: Here Jesus utilizes the OT as would any rabbi, citing examples from their own scriptures to defend his Controversy in the grain fields on the Sabbath disciples’ actions.

All three synoptic Gospels record this event (which gives evidence that it was widely discussed in the first-generation church). One Sabbath, Jesus and his disciples were walking through a wheat or barley field.

As they grew hungry—the disciples, not Jesus, as all three evangelists agree—they picked a few heads of grain, rubbed off the chaff, and chewed on them. The ubiquitous Pharisees—if they were living today they would have their GPS trained on him—saw them doing this on a Sabbath when, according to their interpretation, no food preparation was allowed. Jesus said to them: Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him? (Mk. 2:25).

Jesus met them on their grounds: Scriptural interpretation. He cites an event found in 1 Samuel 21. The problem is that he seems to be comparing himself to David, Israel’s Abraham Lincoln. In anticipation of their charge he makes an even more audacious claim stating that he was the “Lord of the Sabbath.” The three Gospels differ on the wording.

Luke offers the barest statement: “The Son of Man” (Jesus’ favorite self-designation) is lord of the Sabbath” (Lk. 6:5). Mark repeats the same claim and adds: “Jesus said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath’” (Mk 2:27). Matthew has both Luke’s statement plus Mark’s principle and then adds another account: “Or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are guiltless,” with a (possible) reference to a passage in Numbers,¹⁸ concluding with one of Jesus’ grandiose claims: “I tell you, something greater than the temple is here” (Mt. 12:5-6).¹9

Scale of rationality: 2 A question about resurrection Some Sadducees approached Jesus in an attempt to validate their denial of the Resurrection. They posed a bizarre situation, that of a woman who was married to seven brothers in a row. “Whose wife shall she be in the resurrection?” they asked. That this story appears in all three synoptic Gospels lends weight to the importance it held in the early church.²⁰ Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.”²¹ Jesus illustrates his knowledge of the power of God by describing the state of those who are resurrected as not including marriage. Luke gives the fullest account.

And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the Resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, or they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the Resurrection” (Lk. 20:34).

1. Marriage is for this life only. Since all die, there need to be children to inherit the earth and to keep God’s experiment going.

2. Those who “are worthy to attain to that age” are no longer mortal.

3. They are angelic, and since angels do not die, the population of heaven will be static.

A powerful description by one who knows the power of God.

Photo by Alfred Shrock on Unsplash

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Photo by Nicole Wreyford on Unsplash

As to the Sadducees not knowing Scripture, Jesus quotes from the only scriptures the Sadducees accepted, namely the Torah. “And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong” (Mk. 12 26).

The Sadducees knew that passage.²² They did not know the interpretive power of the one whom they were quizzing. Jesus’ answer is ingenious. All agree that if there is a God, that God is living, indeed the source of life. If he is the God of the patriarchs, and if he does not say “I was their God” but “I am their God,” then they must be living as well.²³ Responses to Jesus’ use of the Scriptures are recorded by two of the evangelists to underscore how breathtaking his response was to those who first heard it.²⁴

The last biblical account involving Jesus’ handling the Scriptures comes from the last part of the last week of his earthly life. Not much else is recorded of his doings and sayings before his final apocalyptic discourse and the account of his Passion and Resurrection.

This time he does not wait for his opponents to question him but asks them a question which in fact poses for them a conundrum. All three synoptic Gospels record it so. Again, it must have been an oft repeated and much-loved story.²⁵

also assume that both Jesus and the Pharisees were agreed that “Lord” was Yahweh the God of Israel and that “Lord” was the Messiah. I will paraphrase the central sentences for clarity: “How then does David in the Spirit (indicated in the superscription that calls David the author of this psalm) call him (the Messiah) ‘Lord,’ saying: ‘The Lord (Yahweh) said to my Lord (the Messiah), sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool?’” “If David then calls Him ‘Lord’ how is he his Son?” Jesus knows that he is the Messiah (and so do all the Christians who hear this discussion), but the Pharisees do not. Jesus is not telling them he is the Messiah; he is simply pointing out a psalm passage that raises the question to get them thinking. Let me repeat what has taken place in this final conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees:²⁶ God’s people at the time of Jesus expected a Messiah, at times calling him the son of David.²⁷ Jesus poses a question based on Psalm 110: “If David, who wrote the psalm, calls the Messiah his lord, how can the Messiah be his son?”

It is a question that can cross a rabbi’s eyes, to borrow a phrase from “Fiddler on the Roof.” It is a question that finds its answer in the Incarnation: Jesus is both the son of David and the Son of God. It is intended to be a head-scratching question.

Scale of rationality: 4 The Gospels

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” They said to Him, “The Son of David.” He said to them, “How then does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool?” If David then calls Him “Lord,” how is He his Son? (Mt. 22:41-46 NKJV).

Scale of rationality: 4 The question about the Christ as Son of David

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Jesus is referring to the first verse of Psalm 110, but to understand his point one must include the scribal superscription, “A psalm of David.” One must

Matthew 1:18-24 and Isaiah 7:14 I return to the very first NT passage that quotes the OT, namely the passage in which Matthew 1:22 cites Isaiah 7:14²⁸ Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

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But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel (which means, God with us).” When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.

What attracted the evangelist to Isaiah 7:14 is the Greek word for virgin, παρθενος. “Behold, a παρθενος shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” In Homer and elsewhere in classical Greek, παρθενος can mean both virgin (a young woman with no sexual experience) and a young woman of marriageable age (with no reference to her sexual experience), but in the Bible it always means virgin.

It is important at this juncture to point out that the Christian belief in the virgin birth of Christ does not need this verse to maintain the doctrine. This is established by the infancy narratives in both Matthew and Luke. Matthew simply wanted to make the added point that the virgin birth of the Messiah was predicted.

The Hebrew word underlying παρθενος is ‫המלע‬ which means young woman with no reference to the status of her sexual experience.²⁹ We have literary evidence in Origen’s Hexapla to the effect that Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion translate ‫ המלע‬with νεανις (which clearly means young woman) in order to “correct” the Septuagint and its use by the church.³⁰ So Matthew, in addition to reporting on Joseph’s dream in which an angel of the Lord explained to him why it is that Mary is pregnant—which story, I repeat,

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serves in part as the biblical basis for the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus—finds a prediction of this miraculous birth in Isaiah 7:14. Besides the problem dealt with above, that Isaiah spoke of a young woman (‫ )המלע‬not a virgin (‫הלותב‬,) there is the problem of the context.

The setting of Isaiah 7, one of the three prose chapters in Isaiah (excluding Isaiah 36-39, which chapters are largely borrowed from 2 Kings), involves the Syro-Ephraimitic war of ca. 735 B.C. The small Syro-Palestinian city-states of Syria, the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the Davidic areas of Judah and Benjamin, and no doubt other political entities like the Philistine pentapolis of Ammon, Moab and Edom, though these are not mentioned in Isaiah 7, are aware of the threat posed by what we now call the Neo-Assyrian Empire founded by Tiglath-Pileser III in 745 B.C. The kings of Damascus and Samaria are convinced they and their neighbors must band together to ward off the Assyrian threat. They are in fact demanding that Ahaz join them in their anti-Assyrian coalition. Ahaz is considering the matter and realizes that his immediate concern is not with Assyria but with these very kings to his north, Rezin of Syria and Pekah of Samaria, who are threatening Judah with a regime change.

Enter Isaiah, who preaches Yahweh’s power, telling Ahaz to put his trust in the Lord and in his ability to protect his chosen city of Jerusalem and its temple (Is. 7:3-9), in which temple Isaiah had of late seen him. Isaiah goes out by revelation (v. 3) to meet up with Ahaz who is likely checking the water supply so vital to a city under siege, which water supply his son Hezekiah will later fortify with a tunnel (2 Kg. 20:20). Isaiah pleads with Ahaz to trust the true King (see Isaiah 6:5: “My eyes have seen the King”). Ahaz will have none of it. His response to the threat posed by Rezin and Pekah is to appeal in obsequious terms to Tiglath-Pileser for help (2 Kg. 16:7). The irony of it all: Rezin and Pekah demand

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Ahaz’ help against Tiglath-Pileser; Ahaz appeals to Tiglath-Pileser for help against Rezin and Pekah; Isaiah’s call for faith in the Lord goes completely unheeded.

To show that his call for trust in Yahweh is more than pious words, Isaiah is commissioned by the Lord to offer Ahaz a sign to get him to believe, but Ahaz, with false piety (“I will not put the Lord to the test”) declines the offer. In exasperation. Isaiah offers him a sign anyway.

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interested in the words παρθενος and “Immanuel.”

In line with the argument being advanced in this paper, we do not need the context any more than Matthew did because for him also, filled with the Spirit as he was,³¹ the power of the promise was in the fulfillment. Yet there is another useful consideration, namely that Matthew is employing not modern hermeneutics that demand faithfulness to the context, but an older interpretive device utilized by the rabbis.

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The rabbi does not care that the context of the Isaiah passage shows the prophet to be speaking of the final judgment. He knows his Scripture, and the verse fits his argument.³⁶ 3 That the rabbis viewed Scripture as a depository of information ready for the gleaning without regard for context is illustrated by a discussion of Exodus 15:3: “The Lord is a man of war.”³⁷

Scale of rationality: 5 And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted” (Is. 7:13-16).

Suggestions as to the identity of the young woman vary from Isaiah’s wife, Ahaz’ wife, or any young woman at the time. If Isaiah has the king’s wife in mind (my choice), then he is saying, “By the time your wife will bear you another child—and it will be a boy—you and your people will be relieved of your present anxiety that you will be able to name him Immanuel, seeing as you will at that time, that God has truly been with you. The favor of God will be made evident in that your current political difficulty will have been eliminated in a few short years.”

The sign Isaiah gave Ahaz was to find its fulfillment shortly. Isaiah was not so much predicting a Messiah as promising the resolution of an immediate problem. He was not speaking of some remote future; he was speaking of the perilous present.

Matthew was not interested in the context; he was

An Excursus on Rabbinic Interpretation A recently edited and translated midrash on Exodus datable to a century and more after Matthew offers examples of rabbinic interpretation.³² 1 “Rabbi Meir said that when the Israelites went into the sea on dry ground,³³ the tribes bickered as to who should go in first, the tribe of Benjamin jumped and fell into the waves.”

Where did the rabbi get his information? From Psalm 68:28, “There is little Benjamin who rules them.” Psalm 68 is not talking about the Exodus.

Rabbi Meir does not care. He finds the verse useful and he makes the connection, never mind the context.³⁴ 2 Commenting on Moses’ father-in-law Jethro’s advice to Moses not to take on too many chores,³⁵ Rabbi Elieser the Modiite said, “They will wear you out until you drop, like this fig tree with its leaves falling, as it says in Isaiah 34:4: ‘All their host [i.e. the stars] shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree’” (Isaiah 34:4).

Rabbi Judah states how “this verse…is rich in many ways for [Scripture] tells that He appeared to them in all types of armor.”

1. “He appeared to them in a coat of mail and a helmet, as it says in Scripture, ‘He donned victory like a coat of mail, with a helmet of triumph on His head’” (Is. 59: 17).³⁸ 2. “He appeared to them like a mighty warrior, as it says in Scripture, ‘Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one, in your glory and majesty’” (Ps. 45:3).³⁹ 3. “He appeared to them as a horseman, as it says in Scripture, ‘He rode upon a cherub’” (Ps. 18:10).

4. “He appeared to them with a bow, as it says in Scripture, ‘All bared and ready is your bow’” (Hab. 3:9).

5. “He appeared to them with a shield, as it says in Scripture, ‘His (God’s) faithfulness is a shield’” (Ps. 91:4).

6. “He appeared to them with a spear, as it says in Scripture, ‘The sun and moon stood still in their habitation at the light of thine arrows as they sped, at the flash of thy glittering spear’” (Hab. 3:11).

Let this suffice for examples—there are myriads more which can be adduced—that show the matter of context, so essential to the modern Photo by Alisa Anton on Unsplash

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mind, to have been of little importance to the rabbis. The only thing that separates Matthew’s use of Scripture from the methodology of the rabbis is Jesus and the spiritual gifts abundantly poured out on his disciples and followers today.

Matthew 2:1-5 and Micah 5:2 Let us proceed in Matthew. The second citation of the OT involves Matthew only at second hand, for it has to do with an interpretation made for Herod by the priests and scribes in Jerusalem.

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet: ‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel’” (Mt. 2:1-5).

For those looking for a smooth transition from the OT to the NT, this citation represents the best example possible: 1. Micah 5:2 is a prophecy concerning the future.

2. It speaks of a coming ruler.

3. It looks for a new David.

4. It offers no discrepancies between the Hebrew and the Greek.

5. There is no error in translation.

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The only thing that precludes Micah 5:2 from being taken as an explicit messianic promise is that the word “messiah” does not occur in the text, but that is a small matter. Many if not most OT passages quoted by the NT do not speak of a future event or person to come but speak of someone or something in the OT present or even the past. Arguably the most famous OT passage seen to be describing Christ’s suffering and death is not a prediction but a statement of the present or even of the past. I refer to Isaiah 53.

Matthew 2:13-15 and Hosea 11:1

Matthew 2:16-18 and Jeremiah 31:15

The third passage in Matthew comes a bit later in chapter two. An angel tells Joseph to flee to Egypt to avoid Herod’s murderous intent, where he, Mary, and Jesus remained until Herod died. Matthew adds, “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt have I called my son’” (2:15). The reference is to Hosea 11:1: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”

The fourth passage in the Gospels (Mt. 2:1618) offers a quotation from Jeremiah. It has to do with what is known as the “Slaughter of the Innocents.”

So smooth is the messianic fulfillment of Micah 5:2 that an examination of the last part of the verse, which is not quoted, supports its suitability to NT use. “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.”

Clearly, Hosea is not predicting. He is speaking for the Lord, who is reminiscing about Israel’s earliest days in Egypt when Israel was still a very small people, a family really. The Lord calls Israel a child and says, “I loved him,” which is the theme of the entire prophecy of Hosea: God’s love and Israel’s faithlessness. The entire Exodus narrative from Exodus 1-14 is summed up by the phrase “out of Egypt I called my son.” The remainder of Hosea 11 represents God first loving, then threatening, and finally agonizing over both his love for Israel and his concern for a justice that needs to be meted out to a faithless people.

Neither David nor any Davidic king was ever described in terms which can only be understood as more than human. The only passage that comes close to this extravagant language is another beloved messianic passage, which surprisingly is not quoted in the NT: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’” (Is.9:6).

To call the new ruler of Israel “Mighty God” and “Everlasting Father” is breathtaking for a people trained to believe that their king was human and not divine. In these passages from Isaiah and Micah, we hardly need to refer to the second meaning being greater than the first; the first meaning is quite great enough for the Christian.

What does the Matthean phrase mean, “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet”? I take it to be a primitive hermeneutical statement. A more developed hermeneutic would say that Israel is a type of Christ, for what we have here is a typological understanding of the Hosea passage: Israel is a type of Christ; Christ is the antitype of Israel. Christ is the truly beloved son who will do the Father’s will even to the obedience of the cross. Jesus was the son that Israel never could be. All these considerations are a filling out of what Matthew intended by the phrase, “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.”

Scale of rationality: 5 Scale of rationality: 4

Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, was in a furious rage, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they were no more” (Mt. 2:16-18).

What we have here is not a direct reference to the Christ but an indirect one. What we also have is a statement taken out of context. Jeremiah 30-31 is known as “The Book of Comfort,” which contains Jeremiah’s promise of a new covenant (31:31-34). Embedded into the Book of Comfort is a passage that preaches comfort concerning the Northern Kingdom: “Thus says the Lord: ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are not’” (31:15).

The Ramah referred to is one of five cities in Israel called Ramah. This one is in the territory of Benjamin and associated with Rachel (1 Sam. 10:2), who is weeping for her children taken into exile by the Assyrians in 721 B.C. Jeremiah sees this sorrow as coming to an end. “Thus says the Lord: ‘Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded, says the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future, Photo by Natsuki on Unsplash

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says the Lord, and your children shall come back to their own country’” (31:16f.). So, Matthew utilizes only the weeping part of this oracle of consolation to give a biblical setting for Herod’s crime.

Scale of rationality: 5 Acts 1:20 and Psalms 69:25 and 109:8 A passage in which the NT author similarly utilizes the OT to support a non-messianic event is found in Acts.

Brethren, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David, concerning Judas who was guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was numbered among us, and was allotted his share in this ministry. (Now this man bought a field with the reward of his wickedness; and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.

And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

For it is written in the book of Psalms, “Let his habitation become desolate, and let there be no one to live in it”; and “His office let another take” (Acts 1:16-20).

Peter is working up to the fact that someone must be chosen to take Judas’s place. He finds two Psalm passages to support the fact that in the fifty days between the crucifixion and Pentecost, Judas had invested his thirty pieces of silver in real estate.

The first citation is from Psalm 69, which is a “Lament of the Individual” and exhibits all the constituent aspects of such a lament: “May their camp be a desolation, let no one dwell in their tents (Ps. 69:25). The Acts passage reads, “Let

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his habitation become desolate, and let there be no one to live in it” (Acts 1:20a).

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cause’” (Jn. 15:25).

Scale of rationality: 3

The Hebrew (and also the Septuagint) of Psalm 69 read “their,” referring to the psalmist’s many enemies, while Peter’s sermon has “his,” speaking as he is of Judas (though there is some textual support for “their”). The discrepancy is immaterial since, for the thesis here being defended, the NT can use the OT for its own purposes and not only for Christological ends, but even for describing the fate of Jesus’ betrayer.

The second OT quote offered by Peter’s sermon is from Psalm 109, “Let another take his office (Ps. 109:8 KJV, NKJV, NAS). The book of Acts says, “His office let another take” (Acts 1: 20b). Psalm 109, the darkest of the vengeance psalms, begins by speaking of the enemies in the plural (vss. 1-5) but in 6-19 switches over to the singular. The author of Psalm 109 did not have Judas in mind and is not making a prediction of the betrayal of Jesus, but Peter’s sermon is looking for biblical warrant for finding a replacement for Judas.

2 The first half of Psalm 69:9 is cited in John 2 and has to do with Jesus: “For zeal for thy house has consumed me, and the insults of those who insult thee have fallen on me” (Ps 69:9a). John writes, “His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for thy house will consume me" (Jn. 2:17).

Scale of rationality 3 3 The second half of Psalm 69:9 is cited by Paul in Romans 15 and applied to Christ. The psalm states: “For zeal for thy house has consumed me, and the insults of those who insult thee have fallen on me” (Ps. 69:9). Paul writes: “For Christ did not please himself; but, as it is written, ‘The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me’” (Rom. 15:3).

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finished, said (to fulfill the scripture), “I thirst.”

A bowl full of vinegar stood there; so they put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished”; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (Jn. 19:28-30).

Scale of rationality: 3 5 In Romans 11, Paul utilizes Psalm 69 to support his understanding of the “hardening that has come upon part of Israel.”

May the table set before them become a snare; may it become retribution and a trap.

May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever (Ps. 69:22-23 NIV).

Let their table become a snare and a trap, a pitfall and a retribution for them; let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever (Rom. 11:9-10).

Scale of rationality: 4 Scale of rationality: 3

Scale of rationality: 3

An Excursus on Psalm 69 4 The early church must have pored over this psalm, for no other psalm is quoted as much as Psalm 69. Peter’s sermon offers the sixth and last of the quotations from Psalm 69. Let us examine the first five.

1 Psalm 69:4 is quoted in John 15 and is applied to Jesus: “More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause.” The passage in John reads, “It is to fulfill the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without a

All four evangelists report that on the cross Jesus was offered vinegar (Mt. 27:48; Mk. 15:36; Lk. 23:36; Jn. 19:28-30), but only John makes explicit the connection between Jesus’ thirst and the thirst expressed in Psalm 69:21. John alone mentions vinegar three times, and only John reports that Jesus drank of (“received,” Gk: ελαβεν) the vinegar. The psalmist writes: “They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (Ps. 69:21). John writes:

The above citations numbered one through four reveal the earliest Christian belief that the “I” of the Psalms is Christ. Luther and Bonhoeffer agree.⁴⁰ Luther may have meant that literally.

Bonhoeffer, as a modern, is more theologically nuanced. In any case, a modern Christian always asserts that the pre-Christian meaning, the first meaning, if you will, had a meaning for its day however much later interpreters would deal with it. I have scored all the connections between the NT and the OT with the number three in that given the theologoumenon that the “I” of the Psalms is the Christ, the center of the scale is fitting.

After this Jesus, knowing that all was now Photo by Ed Van Duijn on Unsplash

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The Epistles My thesis is that the NT use of the OT is essentially a charismatic procedure carried out

by Spirit-filled people. The first and second generation Christians who wrote the NT were guided by, inspired by, and filled with the same Spirit as those disciples of Jesus have in the twenty-first century while they work to understand the dynamics of interpreting their ancient texts.⁴¹ While there may be other more mundane factors involved, such as the interpretational procedures accepted in the time of the early church, the overriding factor is that when we read the NT, we are dealing with the writings of people who either saw the resurrected Lord—the majority of the twenty-seven NT writings—or by the second generation of Christians who were taught by those who had seen Jesus—the author of the book of Revelation being a possible candidate.

Underlying that thesis is the contention that we have no idea of the exaltation, the wholly-otherness of the self-consciousness of those who experienced the first outpouring of the Spirit. All we have, to use Karl Barth’s analogy, is the crater left by the explosion of the Incarnation: the NT, the most astounding set of writings this world has ever produced.

When we come to Paul’s writings, we find much more awareness of the context than we find in the Gospels, more use of a typology that is more agreeable, less eye-popping, to the modern, historically and contextually conditioned reader.

But Paul too can be breathtaking in his use of the OT. As posited at the outset of this paper, there are three neuralgic hermeneutical rules broken by the NT’s use of the OT: imposition of meaning, violation of context, and mistranslation. The first of these is the most shocking, and it with an

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example of such that I begin this foray into the hermeneutics of the epistles’ use of the OT. Ephesians 4:1-11 and Psalm 68:18 While Paul’s use of the OT is generally more sober, that is, contextual (scoring a “1” on the scale of rationality) than the evangelist’s, there are times when he exhibits the breathtaking hermeneutical freedom of his Lord. Ephesians 4:1-11 (specifically v. 8) is such a passage:

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calls to praise (“Sing to God”). Verse 18 celebrates a victory of Yahweh with the words, “Thou didst ascend the high mount, leading captives in thy train, and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the Lord God may dwell there.” As ancient rulers return from victorious battles with captives in tow and receiving gifts from other rulers as tokens of congratulations, so the Lord led captives and received gifts. That is what both the Hebrew and the Greek of the passage say.⁴³

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all.

But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it is said, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”

(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is he who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)

Paul says, “he (the Lord) gave gifts to men.”⁴⁴ One looks in vain for any textual backing for this shift.⁴⁵ Some textual support may in time emerge.

For now, we celebrate with Paul his bold imposition of meaning. Christ did not come to be served but to serve, not to receive gifts but to give them.

I have emphasized the words “gift” and “gifts to show the key word on which Paul is focusing.⁴² What is shocking about this passage is the fact that Paul takes such freedom with the OT that he changes the wording entirely.

1. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10:5).⁴⁶

Psalm 68 is so baffling to the form critics, most of whom do not even attempt to categorize it. It contains a theophany, it switches from second to third persons numerous times in speaking about or to God, it contains pleas (“Let God arise”), and

Scale of rationality: 5 Pauline Passages That Support His Hermeneutics How can Paul do this? The answer may best be given by the old joke, “Where does a five- hundred-pound gorilla sleep?” “Anywhere he wants to.” For Paul, Jesus is more than a five- hundred-pound gorilla. He is simply Lord, even of Scripture. Consider the following Pauline passages:

Paul is declaring his hermeneutical position: he will take every thought captive for his Lord— even to the reversing of the sense of an OT passage.

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2. Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Who tends a flock without getting some of the milk? Do I say this on human authority? Does not the law say the same? For it is written in the law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of a share in the crop (1 Cor. 9:8-10).

Here Paul makes another surprising hermeneutical move. Virtually all subsequent theologians of the church have insisted that the literal meaning of the Scriptural text is the basis for all proper biblical interpretation.⁴⁷ Paul, however, says of this passage that its literal meaning—proper care for the ox—is not the intent at all, whereas a more sympathetic reading of Deuteronomy supports its original “be-kind-to-your-animal” meaning.⁴⁸ All of Paul’s sympathies lie with the churches he has founded and with their communal life, specifically, in this case, that they should support their spiritual leaders in the matter of material goods.

3. These things [the divine punishment meted out to idolaters] happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come (1 Cor. 10:11).

This adds another important element in the NT’s use of the OT, namely, the conviction that the whole early church lived with: the imminent return of the Lord. Theological niceties had to yield to cataclysmic events. The raison d’etre of all the Scriptures was their usefulness as guides to those living radically changed lives in the light of Christ’s resurrection and his soon return.

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Summary and Conclusion The NT’s use of the OT is not ridiculous. When the context of an OT passage is respected, there is no problem. When the context is violated and a new meaning is imposed—and to the degree that it is—what we have is the early Christians’ Christconsciousness taking over. They are interpreting by the Spirit, a charismatic procedure.

Another way of putting it is that when the citation scores a “1” on the scale of rationality, little to no explanation is needed. The more one veers up the scale, the more one is jolted.

It is not the case that “the more non-rational the more spiritual.” As Paul says, “I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also.”⁴⁹ Both the rational praying and singing with the mind and the non-rational praying and singing with the spirit are of the Lord. It is just that the one is naturally better for edification than the other.

We have seen that some of the contextual disjunctions can be a hermeneutic common to the time. But of most importance is that a Christian reading a NT passage that quotes the OT must realize that the same enthusiasm that allowed early Christians to do miracles also permitted them to manipulate the Old Covenant with the same freedom their Lord permitted himself. The authors of the NT were most Spirit-filled. That is why their writings were canonized.

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END NOTES Mark Hillmer The Power is in the Fulfillment Pg. 10-26 ¹ Henceforth, “Old Testament” and “New Testament” will be abbreviated as “OT” and “NT,” respectively. ² Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version (RSV). ³ Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you” (Mt. 12:38). ⁴ One scholar calls phenomena like this “unmeant meanings.” Cf. Abraham Cronbach, HUC Annual, vol.

36 (1965), 99. ⁵ RSV, NRSV, NIV, NASM, NKJV. ⁶ The only thing I remember about this book is that quoted word. I have lost track of the title and the author, for good reason. ⁷ New York: Harper, Brace and World, 1958. ⁸ Pp. 100-105. Always looking to state theology in fresh ways, Lewis refers to allegory as “second meaning,” a helpful move since the Reformation learned to question allegorical interpretation in favor of the literal sense. The Reformers were about establishing doctrinal positions, and, as commonly accepted in the history of the church, doctrinal positions can be established only on the literal sense. Some contemporary Protestant scholars are arguing for a reconsideration, if not a return, to a more positive view of allegory. Cf. David C. Steinmetz, “The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis,” Theology Today, 37, no. 1 (April 1980), 27-38, who argues that the fourfold sense of Scripture is more appropriate to the nature of Scripture than the unus sensus. ⁹ Tacitus, Histories. ¹⁰ “The prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired about this salvation; they inquired what person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them when predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things which have now been announced to you by those who preached the good news to you through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven” (1 Pet. 1:10-12). ¹¹ I cannot examine all the evidence considering the limits of this paper. I count 302 OT passages quoted in the NT, not counting allusions. Novum Testamentum Graece, Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1990, 26th ed, 739-769, Loci Citati vel Allegati. ¹² By “rational-sober,” I mean the connection between the OT and NT on a given passage is understandable to the unaided reason. “Non-rational” can mean unintelligible, but I take it to mean the connection between the Testaments is unintelligible to the unaided reason, so I add the adjectives “super-rational,” “spiritual,” and “charismatic” to mean rational only to faith. Numbers 2-4 allow for degrees of rational opaqueness and spiritual comprehension. ¹³ Above pp. 1-2 ¹⁴ Mt. 16:4 and Lk. 11:29f. also refer to the sign of Jonah but do not give the interpretation as found in Mt. 12:40. ¹⁵ One thinks especially of John the Baptist’s statement, “I myself did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit’” (Jn. 1:33). ¹⁶ ‫ינפל‬ ¹⁷ Cf. Gerhard von Rad, OT Theology, vol 2, chap E, “The Prophet’s Freedom,” pp. 70-79. ¹⁸ “On the Sabbath day [the priests shall sacrifice] two male lambs a year old without blemish, and two tenths…” (Num. 28:9). ¹⁹ This is one of the many NT statements that summon C.S. Lewis’ trilemma, that Jesus was either mad, bad, or God. Cf. Mere Christianity, Bk. II, Ch. 3, “The Shocking Alternative.” ²⁰ Mt. 22:23-33; Mk. 12:18-27; Lk. 20:27-40 ²¹ Mt. 22:29; Mk. 12:24 ²² “And he [God] said [to Moses from the burning bush], “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex. 3:6. Cf. also v. 15). ²³ There is no word for “am” in the Hebrew. It is implied, and the rules of Hebrew grammar call for it to be inserted. Cf. Gesenius-Kautsch, Hebrew Grammar, (Oxford, 1957) para. 141:f-h, which deals with the noun clause in Hebrew. ²⁴ “When the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching” (Mt. 22:33). “And some of the scribes answered, ‘Teacher, you have spoken well.’ For they no longer dared to ask him any question” (Lk. 20:39f.). ²⁵ Mt. 22:41-46; Mk. 12:35-37; Lk. 20:41-44. I choose the Matthew account because it is the fullest.

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²⁶ Matthew concludes the episode with the words, “No one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did any one dare to ask him any more questions” (Mt. 22:46). ²⁷ A glance at a few of the passages in Matthew is helpful (Matthew uses the term thirteen times; Mark and Luke three times each): “Two blind men followed him, crying aloud, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David.’” (9:27). “The people were amazed [at Jesus’ healing of a blind demoniac], and said, ‘Can this be the Son of David?’ (12:23). “When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ they were indignant” (21:15). Even a non-Israelite knows him by that name: “And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon’” (15:22). 26 Cf. p. 2 above. Nowhere else does the NT quote Isaiah 7:14. There are two allusions to the verse. Luke 1:31 records the angel’s giving the name Jesus to Mary, and Revelation 12:5 speaks of “a woman” giving birth to a male child who will rule the nations. ²⁹ As the other six OT passages referring to ‫ המלע‬show (Cf. Gn. 24:43; Ex. 2:8; Prov. 30:19; Ps. 68:25; Song of Sol. 1:3, 6:8). ³⁰ Frederick Field, ed., Origenis hexaplorum quae supersunt, Clarendon: Oxford, 1875, vol 2. ³¹ Certainly the apostles and evangelists—and that includes Matthew-- whom Paul call Christ’s gifts to and for the church, were supremely gifted and filled with the Holy Spirit: “And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:11-13). ³² Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, W. David Nelson, Jewish Publication Society: Philadelphia, 2006. ³³ Commenting on Exodus 14:22: “And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.” ³⁴ Op. cit., p. 107. ³⁵ “Moses' father-in-law said to him, ‘What you are doing is not good. You and the people with you will wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you; you are not able to perform it alone’” (Ex. 18:17f.). ³⁶ Op. cit., p. 204. ³⁷ Op. cit., p. 132, which includes all the following quotations. ³⁸ I have quoted the more literal, sober, non-theological Tanak translation here. Paul uses this as a description not of God’s armor but that of the believer. Compare Ephesians 6:14: “Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness” with the more theological rendering of the RSV of Isaiah 59:17: “He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon his head.” ³⁹ Modern scholarship maintains this psalm was originally written for the king, celebrating his prowess and his marriage. Rabbi Judah took it to refer to God, as did the author of the NT letter to the Hebrews (cf. Heb. 1:8-9). ⁴⁰ On Luther, cf. Die Wittenberg Universitaetstheologie und die Anfänge der deutschen Reformation, 1929, cited in Gerhard Ebeling, “The New Hermeneutics and the Early Luther,” Theology Today, Vol. 21, No.1, April 1964. On Bonhoeffer see his Psalms: The Prayerbook of the Bible, James Burtness, trans.

Augsburg, 1974, p. 19. ⁴¹ When Paul wrote that “all Scripture is inspired by God,” (2 Tim. 3:16) he meant the OT, but the church has rightly applied it to the NT. Can we not be bold enough in the power of the Holy Spirit to claim that same θεοπνευστος condition for today’s interpreters? ⁴² The word for gift in verse seven is δωρεα but in verse eight it is δωμα, which is the word the Septuagint has in Psalm 68:18, giving indication that Paul has the Septuagint before him as he writes. I think it proper to include as gifts the gift of interpretation. Cf. 1 Corinthians 14:26, “When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation (e`rmhnei,an), from which we get our word “hermeneutics.” ⁴³ ‫ תחקל‬and ελαβες, respectively. ⁴⁴ εδωκεν ⁴⁵ Nothing in the Novum Testamentum Graece and nothing in BHS supports Paul’s reading. ⁴⁶ It may not be coincidental that the taking captive in this verse (aivcmalwti,zontej) is the same word used in the Eph 4:8 passage, “he led captivity captive” (hv|cmalw,teusen aivcmalwsi,an). ⁴⁷ Origen, however, was among the first to point out that the literal meaning of the OT often needs the spiritual sense to be understood properly. First Principles, IV, II, 2. ⁴⁸ See, for example, this evaluation: “[Deuteronomy] speaks of the blessing which Yahweh will bestow upon men, animals and fields if Israel continues to be obedient to [the] commandments.” Gerhard von Rad, “Deuteronomy,” The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. I, p. 835. ⁴⁹ 1 or 14:15

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