The Continuity of Theological Concepts: A New Covenant Reading of Old Covenant Texts

(ESV paragraph headings)

• 9:1-8 Judgment on Israel’s enemies
• 9:9-13 The Coming King of Zion
• 9:14-17 The Lord Will Save His People
• 10:1-12 The Restoration for Judah and Israel
• 11:1-17 The Flock Doomed to Slaughter
• 12:1-9 The Lord Will Give Salvation
• 12:10-13:1 Him Whom They Have Pierced
• 13:2-6 Idolatry Cut Off
• 13:7-9 The Shepherd Struck
• 14:1-21 The Coming Day of the Lord
  

Comments…

• Zech 9:1-8 literally fulfilled probaby under Alexander the Great
• Zech 9:9 Messiah comes in peace riding on the foal of a donkey. Literally fulfilled at the Triumphal Entry
• Zech 9:10-17 Not yet fulfilled. These verses are suddenly non-literal? More likely: to be fulfilled- 2^nd Advent.
• Zech 10:1 A call for prayer Zech 10:2-5 Condemnation of the shepherds and preduction of their destruction. If the preceding section refers to a spiritual Israel (i.e. the new “people of God”) does 10:2-5?
• Zech 10:6-12 Prediction of strengthening and home-bringing of “Israel.” If the preceding judgment section is literal, are we supposed to believe this section is not? Not yet fulfilled. 2^nd Advent.
• Zech 11:1-17 Predicts destruction of Israel in judgment. This has either already happened (literally) or is yet to happen (literally).
• Zech 12:1-9 Predicts a seige of Israel by multiple nations. This has either already happened (literally) or is yet to happen (literally).
• Zech 12:10-14 Predicts an outpouring of the Spirit and a national grieving over a pierced one. Though opinions vary as to when this is fulfilled, most seem to see it as literally fulfilled in reference to Christ and Israel is literally Israel.
• Zech 13:1-4 Predicts a (violent) end to idoloatry from “the land” (now not literally Israel?)
• Zech 13:7-9 Predicts death of the shepherd. There appears to be a consensus that this is literally fulfilled in the death of the Messiah.
• Zech 14:1-21 Predicts devasation and judgment followed by restored worship and blessing (now not literal?)
  

[John (article)] Do we simply rejoice because ethnic Israel is to be restored or do we rejoice because the triumph which the old covenant nation expected is the triumph that belongs to all of those who are children of God through faith in Jesus Christ?

Sounds like literal vs. non-literal to me… or at least a hint of “literal causes relevance problems that are solved by some other approach”?

On #1

I thought about starting out with the relevance question, but needed to look again at what was actually in the text first. I don’t personally find it difficult to see the relevance in a literal reading.

Several highly relevant themes from these passages:

• God keeps His promises
• God is sovereign and chooses whom He will bless with His favor
• God is holy and utterly rejects idolatry of any kind
• God alone is worthy of worship
• Salvation comes on God’s terms and not on ours
• God is merciful and forgives
• God knows the end from the beginning
• God is in control of the rise and fall of nations
• God provides righteousness through the sacrifice of Himself/”our own” righteousness can never amount to anything
• God will one day fully and permanently fix planet earth
  

On #2

There is no need to see these passages as “transfer.” The route that answers best to all the Scriptures involved sees “inclusion in,” or “points of similarity with” etc.

On #3

Apocalyptic is somewhat difficult. But “literal” means that you avoid seeing symbolism where the text itself or the analogy of Scripture doesn’t require it. My own view is that when you have a portion of Scripture that is identified as a vision, you are reading a literal description of a vision. We know visions incorporate symbolism and are intentionally mysterious in various ways (Ezek’s vision of God doesn’t precisely match Daniel’s vision or Isaiah’s vision, etc.) At the same time, when they are rich in detail, the intent isn’t that we should dismiss all that detail as unimportant and declare that—as an example—Revelation means nothing more than “God wins.”

(In preaching through Daniel recently, I couldn’t help but be struck by the emphasis on Daniel “understanding” the visions!)

But what does this have to do w/Zech.9-14? This is not apocalyptic.

On #4

It’s clear that there is some mixture of time periods. I don’t personally see any theological concepts in the passages that need transforming.

[jpdsr51] In this short paper my interest was in the relevance of passages like this to NT believers and not whether there is some kind of ‘literal’ fulfillment.

Hi John,

Aaron’s question, in my mind, goes behind yours, and without his question, your quest for application is quite possibly untethered to the text. We must arrive first at a sound interpretation before we can make responsible application.

To take an easily agreed upon case, Jesus fulfills the “riding on a donkey” prophecy of Zech. 9:9. Hopefully all agree it was a literal fulfillment.

Perhaps you would like to answer - what is the application to today’s believer? We aren’t in the passage, or, are we?

Then move to something controversial: Zech. 12:10-14 and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In guiding our people responsibly through that passage, we need to wrestle with similar “outpouring” language in the NT, but also with the limited object of the outpouring in Zech. 12:10, “the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.”

If we leave behind the matter of literalness, who is to say our application isn’t heresy (to quote Haddon Robinson)? Am I, a new covenant believer, in the house of David? Am I an inhabitant of Jerusalem? (I wish)

BTW, I did preach through Zechariah, too. And I agree, there are passages difficult to find what I call “tight” applications, i.e., those easily seen in the text, vs. “general” applications, those that are of the “trust in the sovereignty of God” variety. God has written His word such that we are forced, all of us, to seek the application, but must rely principally on sound interpretation.

I think what some are struggling with here is the difference between a literal interpretation and therefore a literal fulfillment vs. a literalistic interpretation and therefore a more rigid fulfillment that has no room for nuanced ways in which a passage can be literally fulfilled in the way it was intended to be fulfilled. Remember, NT Jews had a lot of misunderstandings about how “their” promises were to be literally fulfilled. Christ’s 1st coming gave new and fuller meaning to many of the promises made to Israel.

There’s my two sense worth.

John, I appreciate your care for and sensitivity to believers in Lebanon. Regardless of my different view of Zechariah 9, I appreciate that you took time to be with them and encourage them. Their lot is very difficult. I have known Lebanese who lost innocent family members on account of Israeli bombing. I disagree however with your interpretation. In seeking to encourage Lebanese believers, have you not robbed another nation (and ultimately all nations) to do it?

I agree with Aaron. I have preached messages on this passage many times, with the interpretation that Zech. 9:10 ff are yet to be fulfilled. Believers in three different nations (so far) have been thrilled with this truth, that God has literally fulfilled his promises and will continue to do so, namely: Jesus will return to this earth, set up His Kingdom. Jerusalem on this earth will be the exalted city. The enemies of Jesus and Israel will be literally wiped out in battle. Jesus’ Kingdom will reign from the currently existing Euphrates (“the river”) to the farthest extent of the oceans. There will be literal peace here on earth. War will be ended and weapons destroyed. And there is a clear discontinuity between Israel and other “nations” in this passage. The blessings of the world are clearly tied to God’s blessings that will come upon the nation of Israel. The fact that Israel as a whole is today unbelieving, makes the prophecy even more powerful. You can’t come away from an interpretation like that, believe it, and not expect God does great things, and thus will do great things in your life (which are rather explicitly laid out in the NT letters - we do not need to co-opt passages for ourselves which talk about something different).

Specific, literal fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies that have already taken place gives us great confidence that the Bible is truly God’s Word. Regardless of what pious thoughts are sometimes given that we do not need proof if we have God’s Word, God constructed us as beings that test for truth. One of the stipulations about prophecy laid down in the Law of Moses is that if prophecy does not have exact fulfillment, don’t listen to the prophet. When we read in Micah that the Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem, then read the Gospel story about how this literally came about, we are amazed at God’s foreknowledge, wisdom and might. It is unfortunate that our expectations of future fulfillment of God’s prophetic Word are significantly lowered by changing the meaning of prophecy to be “spiritual” or “in the Church” or whatever you want to call it (just not literal peace on earth, not national Israel, not literal Jerusalem on earth - whose dimensions in OT prophecy differ in the extreme from the heavenly Jerusalem described in Revelation 21-22).

John,

Thanks for an insightful and thoughtful treatment of a challenging passage. Your approach makes an awful lot of sense to me.

Warm regards,

Greg Barkman

[Ted Bigelow]…Then move to something controversial: Zech. 12:10-14 and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In guiding our people responsibly through that passage, we need to wrestle with similar “outpouring” language in the NT, but also with the limited object of the outpouring in Zech. 12:10, “the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.”

If we leave behind the matter of literalness, who is to say our application isn’t heresy (to quote Haddon Robinson)? Am I, a new covenant believer, in the house of David? Am I an inhabitant of Jerusalem? (I wish)…

I want to challenge this a bit. And I’m just using Ted’s words here it isn’t about him it’s a bigger issue. What John is doing is trying to do justice to the NT teaching which is quite clear on how much continuity there is between God’s people before Christ and afterward. The comments here by the opposing view center only on Zecharaiah mostly.

If we just had Jer. 31, then yes, we aren’t “new covenant believers”, to use Ted’s terms. But the New Testament tells us the new covenant has begun. Jesus said as much in his inauguration of the Lord’s Supper ceremony for the church. “And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’ ” (Luke 22:20 ESV) Paul tells us that he is a minister of the new covenant:

”Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. ” (2 Corinthians 3:5-6 ESV)

In context, the ministry of the new covenant is Paul’s ministry of spreading the gospel among the gentiles (4:1 “this ministry”… and 4:3-6 “our gospel”).

Furthermore, Hebrews says the old covenant is passing away and insufficient because the new covenant is here, see chapters 8 and 10 of Hebrews where Jeremiah 31:31-34 is quoted and applied as a current reality.

Not only are we “new covenant believers”, we are inhabitants of “Jerusalem” who is our true mother (see Gal. 4:26, Heb. 12:22) and seek a heavenly city in the same sense that OT believers sought a heavenly (not earthly) city (Heb. 13:14, cf. Heb. 11:13-16).

This NT language means something. The NT description of God’s people being a living temple is something that goes beyond OT realities. Something is happening in the NT and it will affect how we understand the OT. 1 Peter tells us that the OT authors often didn’t know what they were writing of, but were writing for our benefit (1 Pt. 1:10-12). And what happened to the OT saints is a lesson and instruction for us and was written for our encouragement (1 Cor. 10:11, Rom. 15:4).

I believe that following the lead of the NT apostles and Jesus, in how they used OT Scripture and saw that it culminated in Jesus Christ and the gospel of grace, is how best to interpret Scripture. Scripture doesn’t leave us without a hermeneutic. A redemptive-historical hermeneutic aims to follow the teaching of the Bible about itself and to understand how Christ truly sums up all things in His own ministry. He fulfills the Law.

I think John Davis’ last paragraph captures the NT age experience well. The new covenant is here but we aren’t experiencing it in all its fullness quite yet. That may mean a millennium, but it certainly means more than a millennium. Christ will reign and we will live on a restored earth for all eternity.

Well, these ideas have been debated for centuries… so it’ll take a couple more posts to settle them once and for all. :D

But am I the only one who has trouble harmonizing this…

My approach begins recognizing that the text is a small story in the grand story line of what God accomplishes for us in Christ. OT texts are part of the story and not a separate story.

With this…?

It also signals that a radical change has taken place. Where Israel had failed as a covenant-breaking nation, Jesus succeeds in his covenant faithfulness. He is now The Israelite who inherits the promises and consequently (Gal 3) so do all of those in union with him. The NT concept of people of God is changed from national and ethnic to include both Jew and Gentile without national identity.

It’s precisely because I do not see the OT as a separate story that I do not believe the NT concept of people of God erases the national dimension. There is no question that the New Cov’t is new and makes some pretty big changes. We all believe that. But the nature and extent of those changes is where the rub lies. It’s really not accurate for either side to claim “continuity” and characterize the other simply as “discontinuity.”

[jpdsr51] In the 73 NT references to Abraham there is no mention of a land promise.

Dr. Davis,

I think there actually is 1 NT reference to the land promise in conjunction with Abraham. But it fits your contention of the land being expanded.

What do you think of the following:

For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all… (Romans 4:13-16 ESV)

I contend that “the promise” in view above is the land promise. But it is expanded to include the cosmos rather than just a plot of land in Palestine. And importantly this very promise, of Abraham’s receiving the world/land as his inheritance, is “guaranteed to all his offspring”, meaning us redeemed Gentiles too. This jives with Jesus saying the meek will inherit the earth and with Paul using the land promise tacked on to the “honor your parents” commandment and applying it to the Ephesian children as well. His quoting the land promise there means that the Ephesian children were to get some kind of blessing for honoring their parents too. In light of the connection of God’s presence and the land (Numb. 5:2-3 and 35:33-34), and the concept of rest and the land being the place that rest is experienced (see Hebrews 4), I believe a spiritual blessing is promised in Ephesians 6:3.

Anyway, these thoughts about Romans 4 coupled with Gal. 3 saying the church are the offspring of Abraham, helped me to realize there is much more continuity between the OT people of God and the NT church than I had realized.

If a future en masse conversion of Israelites will happen, it won’t happen apart from their embracing Christ. And then they will be grafted back into the same olive tree that Gentiles are now included in (Rom. 11 with Eph. 2:12, 19).

Thanks again for your post. Thanks to Aaron and company at SI for publishing it.

[Aaron Blumer] Well, these ideas have been debated for centuries… so it’ll take a couple more posts to settle them once and for all. :D

You go Aaron! I am going to sit this one out. I am sure anyone who cares can probably figure out where I stand H:)

I just rejoice in knowing that Zechariah was one of the great dispensationalists of all time ;)

[jpdsr51] I agree with you Bob on the use of cosmos as an expansion or ultimate fulifllment of the land promise. I would say that Israel’s possession of land always anticipated the New Creation as did earthly Jerusalem anticipate the heavenly. Thanks for your insight.

Thanks. I also think that Eden itself was a picture of the ultimate reality of God’s presence, and it was a garden temple as G.K. Beale and others bring out. Rev. 22 brings things full circle as the new heavens and new earth are realized in primarily a single Eden-like temple-city — the New Jerusalem. The recurring theme that God is His people’s God and they are His people, and He dwells with them, finds fulfillment throughout the OT and NT experience culminating in Rev. 21.

And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. (Gen. 17:7-8 ESV)

I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. (Ex. 6:7 ESV)

I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. (Ex. 29:45 ESV)

I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. (Lev. 26:11-12 ESV)

You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I the LORD dwell in the midst of the people of Israel. (Numbers 35:34 ESV)

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jer. 31:33 ESV)

That they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. (Ezek. 11:20 ESV)

My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Ezek. 37:27 ESV)

What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.’ (2 Cor. 6:16 ESV)

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. (Rev. 21:3 ESV)

Anyway, there is so much to say on this topic. God is so good, and the Scriptures fit together so wonderfully.

[Bob Hayton] I believe that following the lead of the NT apostles and Jesus, in how they used OT Scripture and saw that it culminated in Jesus Christ and the gospel of grace, is how best to interpret Scripture. Scripture doesn’t leave us without a hermeneutic. A redemptive-historical hermeneutic aims to follow the teaching of the Bible about itself and to understand how Christ truly sums up all things in His own ministry. He fulfills the Law.

Thanks for your interaction.

I just don’t think I can presume to have found the apostle’s hermeneutic, and to be following their lead. If there is such a thing as an apostolic hermeneutic, That means Gal. 4:26, which speaks of a heavenly Jerusalem, is really what Zechariah was referring to when he wrote “Jerusalem” in Zech. 12:10. Now we just got the apostle’s lexicon entry on Jerusalem.

A.L Entry # 3564

“When you read Jerusalem in the OT, the apostles were thinking “heavenly Jerusalem.”

Pretty cool, huh?

But in so doing, we just “lost” the unique message of Zech. 12:10. And that’s a loss I just can’t take.

The biggest problem with the apostolic hermeneutic position is that it proposes that I can go back and re-read new-found meanings into OT passages, all the while presuming this is what the apostles did. But is that assumption correct? I don’t agree.

I believe the Holy Spirit gave them new applications and even new meanings for OT texts (I think I might lose the fellowship of Aaron here).

But you see, they could do that. They were apostles with special promises and ministries that I don’t have (John 16:13-15). So I’m fine to see Zech. 12:10 as referring to the house of David and inhabitants of Jerusalem, but have there be another use of that text expanded to “all the tribes of the earth” (Rev. 1:7).

To summarize: When you are saddled with the idea of an “apostolic hermeneutic,” you are compelled to arbitrarily expand “the house of David and Jerusalem inhabitants” to “all the tribes of the earth.” Thus Zech 12:10 has lost its unique meaning, and has been eclipsed by Rev. 1:7.

I believe the Holy Spirit gave them new applications and even new meanings for OT texts (I think I might lose the fellowship of Aaron here).

Yes, I’m reluctant to call them new meanings. I’m OK with “additional meaning” or “expanded meaning” in some cases though.

But I’m with Ted on being inclined to see “apostolic hermeneutic” as opening a door for lots of arbitrary re-meaning of OT texts. If “Jerusalem” in Zech.12 is not the Isrealite city, why is it the Israelite city in other passages?

This whole discussion of the land promise is a perfect example of a literal vs. literalistic interpretation of Scripture and more specifically the promises as tied to prophecy. I see Scripture as a whole teaching that there is one true people of God - the true/spiritual Israel. It is this Israel that will ultimately inherit the land promise. I think there is too much weight given to nationalistic fulfillments of the promises. Isnt that the very understanding that the Jews had that Jesus corrected? If all the promises have to be fulfilled nationalistically then isnt that a step back from the coming of Christ and not a step forward in line with the coming of Christ? In the end the people of God will inherit not just the promised land but the whole world. Again, Jesus expands their understanding of this promise. Too much weight is given to the functional differences between Israel and the church. They comprise the one redeemed people of God throughout all time. God’s people functioned differently before and after Christ came. The church dosent replace Israel, rather it expands Israel on a much greater level.

The problem with how many Dispensationalists see the fulfillment of the land promise is that it is inconsistent with the way they will see other promises (New Cov. promises specifically) fulfilled. If the “church” can receive the Spirit even thought he promise was not initially given to them then why cant they be included in the land promise? I think the problem is that if they were to concede to that then it would totally change how they view the relationship between Israel and the church and thus the people of God. An expansion of the fulfillment of the land promise needs to be made in light of how the other promises have already been fulfilled in Christ and will be in the future.

CPHurst,

Good insight on the Church receiving the promise of the Holy Spirit initially made to Israel. Is it possible that this promise was always intended for the “Israel of God,” ie. The Church?

Cordially,

Greg

[G. N. Barkman] Is it possible that this promise was always intended for the “Israel of God,” ie. The Church?

All things are possible ;)

Thanks, Ted. Perhaps we are making progress toward reconciliation?

Ted,

I believe multiple meanings is a problem for you not a help. If the inspired NT author says an OT text means something, then it always meant that in the sense the NT author is teaching.

I think many have a problem with an apostle’s hermeneutic idea because they have a problem with what they think that hermeneutic is rather than how it’s used in the redemptive historical hermeneutical approach. With “Jerusalem”, I wouldn’t say in every passage in the OT, it is referring to heavenly Jerusalem. But I need to see how and why the NT author can find “every tribe” in the text in Zecheriah.

When the Bible records hermeneutics (interpretation) being done by later authors on earlier, canonical Scripture, shouldn’t we assume that this is important? How else is Scripture to give us a hermeneutic if it isn’t through modeling how to use and interact with previous Scriptures? Could it be the real problem is such a use of previous Scripture is not done in a dispensationalist way? A dispensationalist reading of the OT doesn’t jive with the NT author’s use of that text, and so the problem is primarily one with the theological system not with the NT use of the Old?

I don’t want to downplay a difficult problem for everyone, but seeing how the New uses the Old is very instructive. Just as Jesus modeled how to interpret one parable and said if you don’t get this, you won’t know how to interpret all the parables, even so the NT use of OT paradigms, images, and stories should shape our theological understanding of the divinely intended meaning which was there all along in those texts.

I would recommend Dennis W. Johnson’s Him We Proclaim: Preaching Christ from All the Scriptures for a careful defense and illustration of how to use the redemptive historical hermeneutic. (You can read my review http://www.fundamentallyreformed.com/2009/04/17/him-we-proclaim-preachi… here ). He points out how much all of hermeneutics today has been negatively influenced by the enlightenment’s scientific rationalism. My thought of much of the original dispensationalism was a scientific figuring out of the pattern which was hidden in Scripture. Once figured out, it was systematized and diagrammed (to death, LOL). It’s as if scientific minds needed to just figure it all out anew. This method downplayed the noetic affects of the fall, and essentially can boil down to affirming that unsaved people can understand Scripture they just can’t appreciate it (in spite of 1 Cor. 2:14’s word to the contrary).

[Bob Hayton] I believe multiple meanings is a problem for you not a help. If the inspired NT author says an OT text means something, then it always meant that in the sense the NT author is teaching.

I don’t want to downplay a difficult problem for everyone, but seeing how the New uses the Old is very instructive

Bob,

My post was all about the uncritical presuppositions required for your position, not multiple meanings. When that is understood, I think you’ll better see who is captive to the enlightenment’s rationalism.

Romans 9-11 is the perfect defense that God keeps his word and will fulfill it in spite of Israel’s rebellion.

Question for you gentile christians: if God can’t keep all those promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Israel regarding the small matter of a tiny piece of real estate, how can he keep you eternally secure?

It seems as though Paul decided to answer that very thing after teaching on eternal security in Rom 8.

The retort that they have bigger and better promises doesn’t work. God isn’t into bait and switch.

The quest for relevance has marred interpretation from almost the beginning. Origen was embarrassed of the OT scripture so he used allegory to smooth over those pesky passages that he didn’t like. Sadly such a hermeneutic welcomed what became the catholic church and the dark ages. I don’t need a decoder ring to understand the OT.

The idea that dispensationalism bases itself on Enlightenment thinking is presented by George Marsden in Fundamentalism and American culture “thus the millenniarian’s view of Scripture was, in effect, modeled after the Newtonian view of the physical universe.” (p.57) I doubt it. Marsden also says in the same context, and for the same reasons, that “Inerrancy arose out of the same scientific view of the Bible.” If you question dispensational interpretation on this basis, you need to question the doctrine of inerrancy also. Marsden ties them both together. Now, it is quite true that Isaac Newton was a believer in the literal fulfillment of OT prophecy, which caused him to conclude by 1700 (very pre-dispensational) that the nation of Israel would return to the land before Jesus returned to earth and would be the exalted nation in the Kingdom age. But Newton never based this view on his Celestial Mechanics (his papers on the subject, by the way, are now preserved in Israel).

To say that dispensational interpretation is based on the views of the Voltaire, Rosseau, Hume, Diderot, et.al. and the mechanics of Newton’s Principia, and on this basis found the hidden meanings of Scripture is a real, real stretch! Most early dispensational writers in the US followed the ideas of the Hodges and Warfield on the matter of defending Scripture. Did they actually read the Enlightment philosophers? I have my doubts. Did they read Newton’s Principia? Check out the math in that volume. The Hodges and Warfield based their views on “Common Sense Realism.” Common Sense Realism was not necessarily an Enlightenment philosophy, but rather a counter-punch at it on its own terms. Common Sense Realism lost the day, by the way. Immanuel Kant’s philosophy was more convincing. Western civilization has been having problems with defining reality, morality, and Scripture ever since.

Dispensationalists based their views on prophecy upon already existing views of a literal 1000 year millennium, the return of Israel to the land, and the conversion of national Israel. Increase Mather preached all those things. Joseph Mede (d.1638) is called “the father of English Premillialism.” He taught a literal 1000 year kingdom on earth, with judgments both before and after the 1000 years (pretty close to Darby, it seems). Dispensational interpretation had far more to do with Mede’s view of things than anything the Enlightenment philosophs ever wrote.

Before any of these, you can read what Clement (AD 95), Barnabas (AD 100?), and Justin Martyr (AD 150) say about the Kingdom. For all of them it is literal, and only future. You will find no mention of a present Kingdom in their writings (I think I am correct). Premillinnialism goes way, way back, and this is the real basis of dispensationalism.

Added to all of this, there have been plenty of dispensational schemes of the Heilsgeschichte by various writers, stretching all the way back to St. Bonaventure.

So if one wants to disagree with dispensational interpretation, that is fine. But trying to prove that the basis of dispensational interpretation is Enlightenment thinking is a lost cause, I am rather sure. I doubt seriously if rigorous historical study would ever bear out that thesis. — Unless you mean, of course, the way that we all use Enlightenment thinking. None of us is unaffected.

By the way, if you want an historical explanation for the rise of the interpretation that the church is the new Israel, read Israel and the Church, by Ronald Diprose: who makes an examination of Greek, Latin, and Italian documents of the Church fathers.

I should clarify and say Johnson’s book doesn’t single out dispensationalists as being singularly influenced by rationalist thought. He is saying Bible interpreters in general believe applying scientific-sounding principles to Holy Writ will uniformly result in the single correct interpretation to be found. And while obviously modernist theology resulted from this, we all are affected by the air that Western society breathed for so many years. It is no wonder in such a system that spirtual interpretations fell on hard times. Yes there was a medieval allegorism run wild, but the answer isn’t a thorough-going naturalism.

[jpdsr51] Todd Magnum offers an interesting survey of the institutional and ecclesiastical politics involved in the rift between dispensational and covenant theology (http://ntresources.com/documents/DSG2010_Mangum_DispCovRift.pdf) — and by the way, there is a third way.

Thanks for the link, I look forward to checking it out.

…but the answer isn’t a thorough-going naturalism.

I don’t think anybody is offering a thorough-going naturalism anymore—not as a biblical hermeneutic.

I appreciate Jeff’s post. I think the whole Enlightenment thing is a smoke screen.

The distinction between premillennialism and dispensationalism doesn’t amount to much of an argument either. Though it’s true that a fully developed dispensational system that has premil as a feature comes later, much in theology has followed that pattern of development. Bits and pieces of disp. ideas are scattered all through church history. Premil. is legit. viewed as one of those pieces because the interpretational processes involved in getting to premil. have much in common w/the process that builds the rest of disp. thought.

I keep saying though that a better focus (than the antiquity question) is on the texts involved and letting them speak.

[Aaron Blumer]

…but the answer isn’t a thorough-going naturalism.

I don’t think anybody is offering a thorough-going naturalism anymore—not as a biblical hermeneutic.

I appreciate Jeff’s post. I think the whole Enlightenment thing is a smoke screen.

The distinction between premillennialism and dispensationalism doesn’t amount to much of an argument either. Though it’s true that a fully developed dispensational system that has premil as a feature comes later, much in theology has followed that pattern of development. Bits and pieces of disp. ideas are scattered all through church history. Premil. is legit. viewed as one of those pieces because the interpretational processes involved in getting to premil. have much in common w/the process that builds the rest of disp. thought.

I keep saying though that a better focus (than the antiquity question) is on the texts involved and letting them speak.

There is indeed a similarity between the interpretative processes leading to pre-millennialism generally and dispensationalism specifically, but that is true only of contemporary pre-millennialism. The “chiliasm” that occurred in certain segments of the early church bears little resemblance to modern pre-mill in form or function. Modern pre-millennialists, of whatever variety, all embrace some idea that the Abrahamic covenant demands certain things to occur regarding Israel in the future. Or, they believe that a certain level of literalness in reading Revelation demands it. The early church chiliasts clearly and repeatedly insist that the Church is the true inheritor of the promises of Abraham, and none of them appeal to grammatical-historical hermeneutics to prove their position. Some of the chiliasts held to the 6-day/6000-year model of history, in which the world ends after 6000 years, issuing in the seventh “millennium.” I put “millennium” in quotation marks because several of the chiliasts seem to have regarded the seventh day of history as eternal, and most held to a single general resurrection at the return of Christ, with no future judgment at the end of the millennium (since they don’t mention the millennium ending). Here’s a decent blog post that makes most of these points, but you can find them fairly easily in the primary source writings: http://christianityinhistory.blogspot.com/2007/11/amillennialism-of-ire…

The most significant recent investigation of early church millennialism is http://www.amazon.com/Regnum-Caelorum-Patterns-Millennial-Christianity/…] Regnum Caelorum: Patterns of Millennial Thought in Early Christianity by Charles Hill. Hill breaks new ground, not by simply counting up references to “millennium” in the writings, but showing how the millennium functioned for its advocates. Basically, general and individual eschatology were connected in the early church. Chiliasts of the Irenaeus-Tertullian type believed that the soul did not proceed immediately to God upon death. Rather, it sank down into Hades until the return of Christ. This was because it would be a demotion of sorts to step down from the heavenly beatific vision to earth, even a millennial earth. The soul must proceed gradually to the beatific vision. Several times they refer to their opponents as those who believe that souls ascend directly to heaven. A subterranean intermediate state featured in some strands of Jewish theology at the time, and the Church chiliasts relied on documents that profess that eschatology. The point is that the decline of chiliasm was not related to big, bad allegorizers or “replacement theologians,” but to the unpersuasive nature of the individual eschatology that it promoted.

I also think there’s a bit of truth to the Dispensationalism-Enlightenment connection (or Dispensationalism-inductivism), but I agree that it’s overblown and often used unfairly as a guilt by association argument.

Although this post is well written and challenging I find it insubstantial for various reasons. Much of the argumentation does not appear to come from unequivocal NT texts themselves but from assumptions about those texts, and the whole of the NT Scriptures themselves, together with assumptions about the nature of the relation of the two Testaments. For instance, if I might use the title as an example; “The Continuity of Theological Concepts: A New Covenant Reading of Old Covenant Concepts” is misleading. It needs to be understood that the “continuity” being asserted is, in the first place, a discontinuity. If I may conflate two statements:

The “holy city” of the Old Testament was physical, geographical Jerusalem; in the New Testament the holy city is the New Jerusalem….Furthermore, the New Testament even suggests that Abraham knew that the physical reality of “land and city” anticipated something more than earthly geography … The theme of “temple as the place of God’s presence” …was primarily confined to the tabernacle and temple of ancient Israel; in the New Testament, Jesus is ultimately the temple (John 2:19—destroy this temple), believers and the church are the temple (1 Cor 3:16; 6:19), and there is no need of a temple in the new order because God’s presence pervades everything (Rev 21:3, 22)… (#9): The NT concept of people of God is changed from national and ethnic to include both Jew and Gentile without national identity… The Davidic throne that Jesus sits on is in heaven. His kingdom grows mysteriously throughout the world. The temple is Jesus, the church, etc. We have arrived at a heavenly Jerusalem; Abraham looked for an eternal city; he inherited the cosmos. All of these NT transformations of OT concepts tells us that something is different.

My emphases.

I appreciate these frank assertions. For those of us attempting to understand the two Testaments as of equal interpretive priority it can be disconcerting to read those who differ but who avoid using the verbs “changed”, “replaced” etc. If something is not the same as it was it is changed or replaced. Thus, any continuity will be at the price of a direct fulfillment of what was spoken and anticipated by OT saints. This is as much conceded by John when he states,

Old Testament saints had a “two-age” view of history—the age in which they lived and the age to come. The age to come anticipated the advent of the Messiah and the Day of the Lord in which God’s people would be delivered and His enemies would be judged. The age to come was depicted in terms that related to the age in which they lived though the seed of old covenant concepts blossoms into the unforeseen beauty of new covenant realities.

So, what is being recommended is a continuity which is actually discontinuous. Why then are we given a title bespeaking continuity of theological concepts? The answer is the New Testament (e.g. the 27 books) “expands” and “transforms” the wording of the prophet(s) and gives them a turn necessitated by the coming of Christ. As well, the way NT writers apply OT concepts: “people of God” “temple” (“land” presumably), etc, to objects not envisaged from the OT perspective. Also there are other matters like “apocalyptic language”, the “transfer of some of these concepts to the church”, and a theologically driven hermeneutics which gives the NT, specially interpreted, priority over the OT text so as to arrive at new and “unforeseen” (non-literal?) theological concepts, regardless of the plain sense of the original contexts or other corroborative OT texts. In tandem with this is a canonical method wherein the analogy of faith can run riot as an agent of the interpreter, even before the text, in its context, has been heard:

My approach begins recognizing that the text is a small story in the grand story line of what God accomplishes for us in Christ. OT texts are part of the story and not a separate story. To me, the NT is clear that the first coming of Christ inaugurates the fulfillment of OT expectation.

Such a method continuously teeters on the brink of Eisegesis with its in-built temptation to conforming texts to ones theological predilections. That this latter assumption is operative is clear from John’s response to Aaron’s attempts to get him to interact with the plain sense of the Zechariah passage. In John’s response to Aaron, he simply gives a list of difficulties (real or imagined) that he has with literal fulfillment. But where did these perceived difficulties arise? That is the question. Which passages of Scripture led him to go “beyond [the] literal” (does that equate to non-literal/spiritual?) to bring about the morphing of OT texts into something other than what they speak about?

This same thing surfaces in the article itself:

As I read Zechariah 9-14 and similar texts in light of the New Testament I look for theological concepts that are continuous between the testaments and interpret them in light of the fuller and final revelation of the New Testament.

Here “continuous” takes on a meaning akin to “what I consider congruous with the NT.” Again, what this paragraph shows is a procedure wherein theology is wrought from one Testament (NT) and imposed over the other. I believe this move undermines the integrity of the OT and impeaches the clarity of the OT and its status as Word of God. The NT here is more authoritative than the Old. This situation pertains only because the John’s positions requires an exaltation of the words of the NT over those of the Old. And regarding the progress of revelation, there seems scarcely much of it worth noting if the OT texts are mutated in this fashion. But I hope I might cling on to the belief that the Bible can be understood without the need for theological expansions or transformations.

Another problem with the title of the article is that the “New Covenant” is employed in the second half as a synonym for the New Testament, while the same thing is done with the “Old Covenant” being used as a stand-in for the Old Testament. This certainly aids the person who wants to stress the sort of “discontinuous continuity” evidenced in the above quotation (and inevitable in every non-literal interpretation of prophetic texts), but it seems inadvisable, because; a. The Old Covenant referred to in 2 Cor. 3 and Heb. 8 is clearly the Mosaic Covenant (MC) and not the entire OT Canon. The Old Covenant, that is, the MC, has been replaced with the New Covenant, but this does not affect the Abrahamic Covenant (AC), as is made clear by Paul in Gal.3:15-17. Earlier the Apostle cites the part of the AC which pertains to us (Gal. 3:8) without ever hinting that the rest of the Covenant has been transformed somehow; and, b. Likewise, the “New Covenant” in either Testament is the universal and unilateral means whereby the other Biblical Covenants are realized and fulfilled. It is not the same as the NT Canon. For example, Christ’s words at the institution of the Lord’s Supper (Lk. 22:20) would have been incomprehensible to the disciples if such were the case.

I have tried to pinpoint my basic disagreements without with John without responding to everything. Thank you John. I hope you will not feel “got at.” That is not my intention.

As all admit but is sometimes forgotten, Scripture is the only touchstone whereby our formulations are tested. If we delve into the teachings of the Early Church about its understanding of eschatology we should also recall that the majority of Church Fathers held to baptismal regeneration, to divinizing of the saints, to the belief that salvation could be lost, to semi-pelagianism, to asceticism, and much more. While they may still instruct us notwithstanding, we should be careful what we come away with.

So the real and perennial question is, “is it scripturally defensible?” That is where iron sharpens iron.

Ted,

I may have been misunderstanding you. You had said “Am I, a new covenant believer, in the house of David? Am I an inhabitant of Jerusalem? (I wish)…” Are you questioning that you are a “new covenant believer”? Or are you questioning that you, being a new covenant believer, are additionally of “the house of David” and an “inhabitant of Jerusalem”? I thought you were questioning that you are a new covenant believer period in your statement. I’m sorry if I misunderstood.

Bob

John, you seem to think that the NT introduces the idea that the righteous would inherit the earth.

Psalm 37:10 (quoted by Christ)

But the humble will inherit the land (or earth) and will enjoy abundant prosperity

The righteous was always going to inherit the earth. The wicked was always going to be punished and removed from the earth. Yet at the same time, the OT also gives specific dimensions to Israel’s territory in the NC (Jer 31:31-40). The Rom 4 passage in no way contradicts anything about Israel being given a certain territory. Adjust your thinking to scripture, not the other way around.

Hebrews 11:8-10

8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and went out to a place he was going to receive as an inheritance; he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he stayed as a foreigner in the land of promise, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, co-heirs of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Where in this passage does it say anything that contradicts living on the new earth in the land? I checked with several versions and couldn’t find anything.

This text verifies that what Abraham lived in and experienced was not the ultimate fulfillment of the promises. Well, I think everyone agrees with that. You need to stop referring to this text as proof of your position. It does not mean what you think it does.

Again, if you want to help people, you must show them the truth of Scripture and let the Holy Spirit work in their hearts and minds. It isn’t your task to find relevance by practicing a bait and switch hermeneutic.

John, the Jerusalem from above is going to come down to the earth. So my whole contention remains.

[Bob Hayton] Ted,

I may have been misunderstanding you. You had said “Am I, a new covenant believer, in the house of David? Am I an inhabitant of Jerusalem? (I wish)…” Are you questioning that you are a “new covenant believer”? Or are you questioning that you, being a new covenant believer, are additionally of “the house of David” and an “inhabitant of Jerusalem”? I thought you were questioning that you are a new covenant believer period in your statement. I’m sorry if I misunderstood.

Bob

I’m a NC believer, co-opting in on the promises made to the house of Judah and the house of Israel before they, as a covenant people, get them. Thanks, Jesus.

But no, I’m not a member of the house of David. I’m just a goy. Nor am I an inhabitant of Jerusalem.

Therefore, Zech. 12:10 does not refer to me.

[jpdsr51]

[Jeff Brown] Dispensationalists based their views on prophecy upon already existing views of a literal 1000 year millennium, the return of Israel to the land, and the conversion of national Israel. Increase Mather preached all those things. Joseph Mede (d.1638) is called “the father of English Premillialism.”

Meade also projected that the end of the world would come by 1716, but that has nothing to with a defense or denial of dispensationalism. It sounds more like you are defending Premillennialism rather than dispensationalism which unquestionably is a later devleopment. Todd Magnum offers an interesting survey of the institutional and ecclesiastical politics involved in the rift between dispensational and covenant theology (http://ntresources.com/documents/DSG2010_Mangum_DispCovRift.pdf) — and by the way, there is a third way.

I think that you have misunderstood me John, or perhaps I was not clear. I was responding to Bob’s contention that dispensational interpretation arose primarily from Enlightenment thinking. In brief, I responded that it would be quite hard to prove that dispensational writers were readers of the Enlightenment philosophs. Instead their interpretation was mostly influenced by premillennialists before them. I cited Mede to show that premillennialism was well developed ahead of the Enlightenment. It does not surprise me that Mede predicted the date of Christ’s return. The number of predictors of the exact date of the return of Christ, who were also Bible believers is embarrassingly large. Johann Albrecht Bengel, to whose exegesis and textual critical methods we all are indebted, was also one of those. So, my point was not to defend premillennialsm, but to assert that premillennialism, which preceded the Enlightenment in the English language, was the main basis for Dispenastional interpretation, not the Enlightenment.

But, did you really mean that Meade predicted the end of the world would come by 1716? I know that ccel gives this in their introduction to his work, “The Key to the Apoclypse” Medee wrote quite explicitly that the Book of Revelation teaches a literal 1000 year of Christ. As Mede did not die until 1638, any prediction of the end of the world, according to his premillennial system would have to have been 2638 or later. But you have read this and I have not. It certainly would be a quite inconsistent statement for him, and I wonder where ccel gets its information?

Here is what Mede says about the 1000 year reign of Christ:

The seventh Trumpet, with the whole space of 1000 years

thereto appertaining, signifying the great Day of Judgmentent, circumscribed

within two resurrections, beginning at the Judgment

of Antichrist, as the morning of that day, and continuing during

the space of 1000 years granted to new)Jerusalem, (the. Spouse

of Christ) upon this Earth, till the universal resurrection and

judgment of all the dead, when the Wicked shall be cast into

Hell to be tormented for ever, and the Saints translatedinto

Heaven, to live with Christ for ever

[Bob Hayton] I should clarify and say Johnson’s book doesn’t single out dispensationalists as being singularly influenced by rationalist thought. He is saying Bible interpreters in general believe applying scientific-sounding principles to Holy Writ will uniformly result in the single correct interpretation to be found. And while obviously modernist theology resulted from this, we all are affected by the air that Western society breathed for so many years. It is no wonder in such a system that spirtual interpretations fell on hard times. Yes there was a medieval allegorism run wild, but the answer isn’t a thorough-going naturalism.

Bob, I have not read Johnson’s book, so I will minimize what I say in response. I am not sure I can believe that dispensationalists and liberals have ever used a similar hermeneutic with any consistency. Or that the blessed alternative to these unhappy methods is spiritual interpretation. The father of Liberal Theology (later called modernist theology), Friedrich Schleiermacher, had a hermeneutic that was dominated by Enlightenment and Romantic philosophy. If you read his The Christian Faith you will find that he explcitly states that a literal devil, literal angels, a literal history of Abraham, a literal reunion of believers with Christ at His return, etc. are intolerable ideas. The rationalist theologians prior to Schleiermacher were likewise guided by a rejection of any literal interpretation of the miraculous, etc. Thus his interpretations of what diabolos meant in the Bible are nearly as numerous as there are varieties of ketchup. Read it from Schleiermacher to Process Theology, the one consistent rule of Critical Theology’s interpretation of Scripture is “no miracles!” Dispensationalists are in a different ball park.

Ted,

How can one be a New Covenant believer and NOT an inhabitent of Jerusalem?

“which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar—for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children—but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.” (Galatians 4:24-26)

Blessings,

Greg

[G. N. Barkman] Ted,

How can one be a New Covenant believer and NOT an inhabitent of Jerusalem?

“which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar—for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children—but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.” (Galatians 4:24-26)

Blessings,

Greg

I just looked outside, and the trees are barren (literally) and my neighbors are talking English with each other (also, literally). So I’m pretty sure I’m not in Jerusalem. Oh, also, I would have remembered landing at Ben Gurion Airport. Sheesh, the security there makes the TSA look like altar boys.

But yet, tomorrow I”ll practice the Lord’s Table in a literal fashion, and fellowship around Christ’s promises (taken literally) that objectively qualify one as wretched as I to have a hope in His New Covenant accomplishments, namely, the forgiveness of sins.

Putting the two literal points together, Here I stand (OK, sit.).

Ted,

Your comment, homey and humerous as it is, does nothing to deal with the text in Galatians. It would appear that your “literal vs. figurative” blinders are so large that you may be hindered from accepting inspired NT truth.

At the risk of sounding condescending, which is not my intent, I do pray that you will be able to lay your dispensational glasses aside long enough to intersect honestly with this text.

Warm regards,

Greg

John and G.N., could either of you explain how the Galatians text does away with the promise that ethnic Jews will in fact live in the land repeatedly promised to them by God even in the explicit New Covenant OT passage? Here, let me quote it for you:

Jeremiah 31:31-40

31 “Look, the days are coming”-[this is] the Lord’s declaration-“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 [This one will] not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt-a covenant they broke even though I had married them”jj-the Lord’s declaration. 33 “Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”-the Lord’s declaration. “I will place My law within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people. 34 No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying: Know the Lord,ll for they will all know Me, from the least to the greatest of them”-the Lord’s declaration. “For I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sin.” 35 This is what the Lord says: The One who gives the sun for light by day, the fixed order of moon and stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea and makes its waves roar- the Lord of Hosts is His name: 36 If this fixed order departs from My presence- [this is] *The bracketed text has been added for clarity. the Lord’s declaration- then also Israel’s descendants will cease to be a nation before Me forever. 37 This is what the Lord says: If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below explored, I will reject all of Israel’s descendants because of all they have done- [this is] the Lord’s declaration.

38 “Look, the days are coming”-the Lord’s declaration-“when the city from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate will be rebuilt for the Lord. 39 A measuring line will once again stretch out straight to the hill of Gareb and then turn toward Goah. 40 The whole valley-the corpses, the ashes, and all the fields as far as the Kidron Valley to the corner of the Horse Gate to the east-will be holy to the Lord. It will never be uprooted or demolished again.”

That we all share in a heavenly birth, being born from above (John 3), does not change this promise. You mistakenly assume too much of this text and in turn, only bring confusion to God’s faithfulness to his unbreakable promises.

[jpdsr51] But you are seated with him in heavenly places (Eph 2:6) :)

Given the choice between a great cup of coffee with you in Philly, and enjoying Christ with you and Greg in heaven, I’ll take… hmmm, do they serve coffee in heaven?

[Greg Barkman] Your comment, homey and humerous as it is, does nothing to deal with the text in Galatians. It would appear that your “literal vs. figurative” blinders are so large that you may be hindered from accepting inspired NT truth.

At the risk of sounding condescending, which is not my intent, I do pray that you will be able to lay your dispensational glasses aside long enough to intersect honestly with this text.

Well, at least I accomplished homey, but the humor part, well… maybe not so much ;)

To answer the question, Greg, there is a literal heavenly Jerusalem, which figuratively (taking Paul’s words here in Galatians literally) is the mother of all of us who have placed our faith in Christ alone for salvation, as contrasted with a figurative Mt. Sinai. Mother is a metaphor. The Jerusalem in the heavenlies didn’t actually give birth to us, God did. We are not in the NC becasue of the heavenly Jerusalem. Its a metaphor to draw a contrast between a law-based approach to salvation vs. a faith-based approach to salvation. So I’m only “of, not in” the heavenly Jerusalem. Metaphorically speaking.

When Paul refers to Jerusalem in Gal. 4, he refers to the heavenly Jerusalem literally, but uses it to make a metaphor. When he refers to Jerusalem in Romans 15:19 he refers to the earthly Jerusalem literally too.

Care to join us for coffee?