One Good Reason for Developing a Philosophical Mindset

For all you Liberty students taking PHIL201 and finding this page by googling one form or another of your second discussion board topic, if you find this post helpful, take the time to drop a comment.  I'd love to hear from you and where your going with school. KLS.

One good reason for developing a philosophical mindset is that, philosophy helps us to define and clarify what we and others believe. Moreover, I have three reasons to believe this is a sufficient cause to culture a philosophical mindset.

First, for Christians, there is eternal significance in defining and clarifying one’s beliefs. In creation, God, whose mind is the final residency of the real, rationality, unity, coherence, et cetera, created humans in his image to reflect his rationality and glory in the world and so view it aright. Adopting and engendering a view of God, the world, and ourselves as his creatures, is a fundamental step in correctly reflecting God’s image. However, since man’s fall, our natural tendency is to throw of God’s view of things and create false epistemological constructs and pseudo-realities, wherein we ourselves become the ultimate authorities in predicating the real, the right, and the reasonable. Through the redemption in Christ, we are rescued from the futility of our self-idolatry; we are renewed in true knowledge after the image of him that created him (Col 3:10), given the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16), and are thus enabled to again love the Lord our God with all our minds, thinking God’s thoughts after him (Mk 12:30). Finally, for the Christian, developing a philosophical mindset is an integral part of continually growing in the knowledge and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Pet 3:18); it is a discipline within the sanctification process.

Secondly, with respect to others, be they authors, movie producers, bloggers, or the next door neighbor, defining and clarifying the beliefs of others is critically important. Regarding beliefs and entire belief systems, there is no neutrality in one’s relation to God (Lk 16:13). Christ is the ultimate dilemma, one is either for him or against him; neutrality and middle ground are excluded (Matt 12:30). Everyone’s beliefs are therefore covenantally conditioned by their relationship to God. One will have either Christ speaking in his self-attesting word as their ultimate epistemological authority or will surrogate himself or herself as that authority. A philosophical mindset helps the Christian examine and systematize the corollaries and consequences of the innumerable non-Christian worldviews, which make up the philosophical ambiance and spirit of our age.

Third, then, is the profit of a philosophical mindset in the relation of the two antithetical views expressed in the two points above. By aiding us to define and clarify both our own and the beliefs of others, developing a philosophical mindset helps to detect and avoid the temptation of syncretism, the dangerous admixture of humanistic, materialistic, or otherwise antagonistic beliefs incompatible with Christian presuppositions. We hereby avoid the sin of “double mindedness” (James 1:8; 4:8; cf. Ps 119:113). Furthermore, on the one hand, by being enabled to define and clarify beliefs, Christians are in a much better position to defend and commend the gospel and the worldview in terms of which the gospel makes sense. On the other hand, we are better equipped to understand and deconstruct the non-Christian worldviews that are raised as strongholds against the knowledge of God in Christ (2 Cor 10:4, 5). Cultivating a philosophical mindset equips Christians to answer the folly of competing worldviews without becoming foolish themselves (Prov 26:4, 5).

The Ultimate Lex Talionic Judgment!

“The devil was conquered by his own trophy of victory. The devil jumped for joy, when he seduced the first man and cast him down to death. By seducing the first man, he slew him; by slaying the last man, he lost the first from his snare. The victory of our Lord Jesus Christ came when he rose, and ascended into heaven; then was fulfilled what you have heard when the Apocalypse was being read, ‘The Lion of the tribe of Judah has won the day’ [Rev 5:5]…The devil jumped for joy when Christ died; and by the very death of Christ the devil was overcome: he took, as it were, the bait in the mousetrap. He rejoiced at the death, thinking himself death’s commander. But that which caused his joy dangled the bait before him. The Lord’s cross was the devils’ mousetrap: the bait which caught him was the death of the Lord!”

— Augustine, Sermons, 261

Physical --> Spiritual Description of Isaac

AUTHOR’S DESCRIPTION OF ISAAC IN GEN 27

A character study of Isaac in the twilight of his life can be summed up in one word, “sense-less,” and that on all levels. Explicit in the text of Gen 27 is Moses’ description of Isaac as “old” (though Isaac lived another 43 years) and that “his eyes were dim so that he could not see” (v 1). Despite the physical infirmities that come with a goodly age, Isaac is describe as still having a strong appetite for the venison table fare produced by his eldest son, Esau (vv 3—4). As said, Isaac suffered from “sense-less-ness” on all levels, lacking both the empirical sensitivity required to distinguish between his sons’ persons and the cognitive and spiritual perception to distinguish between his two sons’ character. Isaac presented a five-fold test to Jacob, only one of which Jacob’s craftiness was unable to pass unscathed. There was the test of logic (v 20), of touch (vv 21—22), of hearing (v 22), of integrity (v 24), and of smell (v 27). Only the middle test, that ‘of hearing,’ was efficacious; this suspicion, however, was supplanted (pun intended) by the results of the second, that of touch.

AUTHOR’S INTENTION WITH HIS DESCRIPTION OF ISAAC IN GEN 27

Sailhamer suggests that Moses’ description of Isaac as old and blind is “perhaps an attempt to ease Isaac’s culpability” in the matter. Too many other factors weigh against Sailhamer’s charity, however. Isaac could not have been ignorant of Yahweh’s word to Rebekah, that “the elder shall serve the younger” (25:23c). Yet in chapter 27 Moses highlights a key factor in the blessing that, for all intents and purposes, would have made Esau “lord over [his] brothers” (27:29b; cf. vv 37, 40a). Neither could have Esau’s crassly pragmatic disregard for his birthright been a secret beyond Isaac’s knowledge (25:29—34). Finally, Moses uses parallel language to describe Jacob/Israel’s death-bed blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh (27:1 // 48:10). Jacob, in this case, was even “ill” (48:1), and actually died the moment he finished the blessing of the patriarchs (48:21; 49:33). Moses, therefore, explicitly tells the reader of Isaac’s age and optical challenges in order to lead them to implicitly perceive his spiritual infirmities. The explicit description of Isaac’s physical blindness was intended by Moses to lead the reader to perceive Isaac’s spiritual blindness.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barker, Kenneth L., John R. Kohlenberger editors, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Abridged Edition: Old Testament. Zondervan: Grand Rapids, Michigan (1994)

Davis, John J., Paradise to Prison. Sheffield Publishing Company: Salem, Wisconsin (1998)

Ellicott, Charles J., Ellicott’s Bible Commentary, One Volume. Zondervan: Grand Rapids, Michigan (1971)

Walton, John H., Genesis in The NIV Application Commentary. Zondervan: Grand Rapids (2001)

The Sad State of the Church

Change usually happens slowly in the Church. But a review of the past year's research conducted by the Barna Group provides a time-lapse portrayal of how the religious environment in the U.S. is morphing into something new.

Analyzing insights drawn from more than 5,000 non-proprietary interviews conducted over the past 11 months, George Barna indicated that the following patterns were evident in the survey findings.

1. The Christian Church is becoming less theologically literate.
What used to be basic, universally-known truths about Christianity are now unknown mysteries to a large and growing share of Americans--especially young adults. For instance, Barna Group studies in 2010 showed that while most people regard Easter as a religious holiday, only a minority of adults associate Easter with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Other examples include the finding that few adults believe that their faith is meant to be the focal point of their life or to be integrated into every aspect of their existence. Further, a growing majority believe the Holy Spirit is a symbol of God's presence or power, but not a living entity. As the two younger generations (Busters and Mosaics) ascend to numerical and positional supremacy in churches across the nation, the data suggest that biblical literacy is likely to decline significantly. The theological free-for-all that is encroaching in Protestant churches nationwide suggests the coming decade will be a time of unparalleled theological diversity and inconsistency.

Read more here…

Is Genesis 3:15 really the “Protevangelium”?

AN INTRODUCTION AND EARLY CHURCH FATHERS, “YES”

That Gen 3:15 is the Protevangelium has traditionally been the understanding of the text since the earliest days of the church. The writings of Justin Martyr provide an early example of the traditional interpretation.

For Eve, being a virgin and undefiled, conceiving the word that was from the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death; but the Virgin Mary, taking faith and joy, when the Angel told her the good tidings, that the Spirit of the Lord should ... overshadow her, and therefore the Holy One that was born of her was Son of God, answered, "Be it done to me according to Thy word.”

It was Irenaeus, however, that galvanized the concept of Gen 3:15 as the Protevangelium, that is, as the first announcement of the gospel.

Christ has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam, and trampled upon his head, as thou can perceive in Genesis that God said to the serpent, 'And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; He shall be on the watch for thy head, and thou on the watch for his heel.' For from that time, He who should be born of a woman, namely from the Virgin, after the likeness of Adam, was preached as keeping watch for the head of the serpent. This is the seed of which the apostle says in the Letter to the Galatians, 'that the law of works was established until the seed should come to whom the promise was made (Gal 3:19).' This fact is exhibited in a still clearer light in the same Epistle where he thus speaks: 'But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman (Gal 4:4).' For indeed, the enemy would not have been fairly vanquished, unless it had been a man born of a woman who conquered him. For it was by means of a woman that he got the advantage over man at first, setting himself up as man's opponent. And therefore does the Lord profess Himself to be the Son of man, comprising in Himself that original man out of whom the woman was fashioned, in order that, as our species went down to death through a vanquished man, so we may ascend to life again through a victorious one; and as through a man death received the palm of victory against us, so again by a man we may receive the palm against death.

It could be argued that the singularity of the woman’s seed—over against the collective interpretation of the noun—actually antedates the church fathers, and is likely influenced by their reading of Gen 3:15 in the LXX, which has “seed” (sperma) in 3:15 in the singular (spermatos).

AN EXAMPLE FROM THE REFORMATION PERIOD: JOHN CALVIN, “NO; BUT, YES”

Reading the woman’s seed as singular and Christological has suffered under the scrutiny of scholarship during the modern period. Calvin, for instance, initially takes the pronouncement on the serpent and the subsequent enmity between the respective seeds etiologically, and so explaining the dread of snakes in man. Calvin states, “I interpret this simply to mean that there should always be hostile strife between the human race and serpents; for, by a secret feeling of nature, man abhors them.” Although Calvin goes on to rightly read that Satan in back of the serpent and consequently the threatening curse is directed at him, he still dissents from the Christological interpretation, and thus from the traditional Protevangelium. He says, “There is, indeed, no ambiguity in the words here used by Moses; but I do not agree with others respecting their meaning; for other interpreters take the seed for Christ, without controversy; as if it were said, that some one would arise from the seed of the woman who should wound the serpent’s head.”

Calvin’s primary objection to the traditional view of the text is that it requires one to severely distort the noun “seed” (Heb. zera‛); they take it as singular when, for Calvin, it is transparently collective. “I explain, therefore, the seed to mean the posterity of the woman generally.” From the painful experience that not all the woman’s seed, “in general,” overcome the serpent, Calvin moves toward a theological conclusion on the basis of NT passages that are less than carefully handled in the text of the Genesis commentary. This conclusion rests on Calvin’s Federalism, with Christ as the Federal Head. Calvin’s position on the text and the doctrine was succinctly replicated by the even abler exegesis of Geerhardus Vos in the middle of the last century.

It appears, therefore, that for Calvin the Protevangelium cannot be the result of a careful interpretation of Gen 3:15; the Protevangelium is, however, a theological doctrine, which may be deduced by the science of dogmatics.

A CONTEMPROARY SAMPLING: JOHN WALTON, “NO; AND, NO”

Walton, like Calvin (and many others), understands the noun “seed” as collective in Gen 3:15. Walton admits that the evidence for either view is ambiguous, but believes that “If we explore the text in light of the author’s intention and the initial audience’s understanding, it is difficult to see how they would conclude that the text foretells the coming of a single person (seed) who would bring victory.” Furthermore, Walton does not believe that the text offers any hope of either side of the respective seed gaining an advantage or victory in the struggle, but that “the verse is depicting a continual, unresolved conflict between humans and the forces of evil.” So, Walton not only departs from the traditional interpretation of the singular sense of the “Seed,” but strides further from the traditional understanding in arguing that Gen 3:15 does not even contain a germ of hope for the seed’s eventual victory; the text presents only trouble for humanity, continual and unresolved trouble.

Walton observes that grammatically the noun “seed” can have a singular pronoun attached to it, e.g., “he will crush,” while still referring to a collective or corporate posterity. “Therefore, when the text says that he will crush your head, grammar cannot determine whether this is a reference to the corporate seed or one representative from among the descendants.”

Regarding the nature of the conflict, Walton argues from the root verb, šwp; and, since the action of the respective parties share this root, nothing indicates that one side or the other will gain the upper hand in the struggle. The KJV, NAS, and ESV respectably translate the verb as “bruise” in both instances, thus maintaining the Hebrew sense in the English text. The NIV, however, appears to allow the traditional interpretation to color its translation by ascribing to the serpent a “crush” to the head, and the woman’s seed a “strike” to the heel; crush clearly reflects more finality than does strike in the context. Even granting that the offensive blows are to be taken as similar or even as the same does not settle the matter. The anatomical parts mentioned, which receive the blows, must also be considered. Surely, a bruised head will fall to a bruised heel, or will it?

Walton says, No; both attacks are potentially mortal, so neither the head-strike nor the heel-strike tells us anything about the final outcome of the struggle. Rather, “both sides are exchanging potentially mortal blows of equal threat to the part of the body most vulnerable to their attack.”

Walton, therefore, directly denies the traditional interpretation that Gen 3:15 provides us with the Protevangelium. Actually, Walton’s conclusions imply that Gen 3:15 does not contain any hint of good news, only continual trouble.

ANOTHER CONTEMPORARY SAMPLING: JACK COLLINS, “YES”

A 1997 article by Jack Collins has shed some light on our question, and has ‘bruised the head’ of the collective interpretation of “seed” in Gen 3:15. Collins’ observations have obvious implications for the doctrine of the Protevangelium (Collins does recognize that these implications are beyond the purview of his note, and thus does not flesh them out).

Most who find the Messianic promise in Gen 3:15 do not deny that the grammar is ambiguous; Collins is no exception. Collins takes serious the LXX translation of the Hebrew. He believes that the use of the neuter singular sperma (“seed”), and the masculine singular pronoun autos (“he”), translating hû' is significant. The mismatch between the gender of the noun and the antecedent pronoun indicates a meaningful intention on the part of the LXX translators, one that is clearly messianic, and one that is looking forward to a singular figure. For Collins, it represents an “interpretation” of the Hebrew that is reflected in the doctrine, Protevangelium.

Collins surveys every (personal) use of zera‛ in the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon, with an eye on the syntactical patterns that surround both the collective uses of zera‛ and the instances that have a strictly singular use. He tabulates the behavior of the verb inflections, pronouns and adjectives associated with the noun. The results are that “when zera‛ denotes ‘posterity’ the pronouns (independent pronouns, object pronouns, and suffixes) are always plural.”

Contrariwise, “when zera‛ denotes a specific descendant, it appears with singular verb inflections, adjectives, and pronouns.” Collins also observes that “The pattern for the Greek translations of these passages is identical (at least in the Pentateuch and Former Prophets, where the translation is generally of higher quality, and to the extent it is possible to see a distinction).” He concludes, “from these data it becomes clear that, on the syntactical level, the singular pronoun hû' in Genesis 3:15 is quite consistent with the pattern where a single individual is in view…The evidence of the Greek translator of Genesis 3:15 meant to convey that an individual was promised; this study indicates that his interpretation is consistent with Hebrew syntax elsewhere in the Bible.”

Collins’ study does not in itself provide apodictic certainty that Gen 3:15 is the Protevangelium, but it does go a long way towards an exegetical case for the doctrine from the text of Genesis. The “seed” in Gen 3:15 is singular; and if that is the case, the text points to a particular descendant who will decisively defeat the work of the serpent, while suffering greatly in the struggle for victory.

PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE ON THE PROTEVANGELIUM

If, as Collins’ note demonstrates, we are not compelled to understand the “seed” of Gen 3:15 as a collective term denoting general posterity, then we may legitimately conclude that Moses had a singular figure in mind. Although historical theology is not the determining factor in ambiguous texts, it is, nevertheless, somewhat authoritative and something we should be in humble conversation with. The early fathers, encouraged by the LXX interpretation of the Hebrew text of Gen 3:15, as well as significant NT allusions, almost unanimously understood Genesis to be teaching the Protevangelium. Their historical and spatial proximity to the authority of the apostolic ministry cannot be overlooked, neither should it be underestimated. Therefore, as heirs of the fathers, we are to see Jesus Messiah in the promised head-stomping “Seed” of Gen 3:15.

With respect to Calvin’s commentary on the subject, we may be confident yet cautious. If Collins’ analysis is correct, then Calvin and others who take a collective sense of the noun in Gen 3:15 were overlooking significant data. Therefore, we may decline Calvin’s view that the noun is collective; rather, it is singular. We may, however, embrace the theological genius of Calvin and his careful handling and calculation of the doctrine of federal headship.

We can surely appreciate Walton’s desire for discovering the author’s and the audience’s original understanding of the meaning of Gen 3:15. Walton, however, seems to overlook the fact that Moses was writing and the original audience was reading Gen 3:15 as a post-exodus and post-Sinai people. In other words, in order to discover the original meaning of Gen 3:15 one must read it as it was written—read it in terms of the rest of the context of Genesis and the Torah. The micro-grammatical, hair-splitting exegesis that makes viable the precision analysis represented by Collins’ note is itself something foreign to the literary context of Moses; our methodology itself is largely anachronistic. While words and language were radically treasured by ancient Hebrews (that is, after all, a very important way in which Yahweh reveals himself to his people—our God speaks), their understanding of them is nuanced quite differently than ours is.

For instance, Paul, whose masterful interpretation of Torah must shape our own, understood zera‛ in Genesis as singular and meaning Christ (cf. Gal 3:16). Whose hermeneutical method has greater authority? Should we follow Paul’s typological reading or the modern-critical, post-Enlightenment methodology?

Did other ancients read a singular figure in Gen 3:15? It seems quite likely. For Stephen, and doubtless many others, understood Moses himself to be a proto-typal deliverer like the one promised in Gen 3:15, saying of him, “that God was giving them salvation (sōtēria) by his hand” (Acts 7:25). Additionally, we can get a sense of hope in the words of Eve when Cain is born (Gen 4:1). However, Cain’s murder of Abel occasioned Seth’s replacement of the “seed.” Again, Eve’s words are telling, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him” (v 25). In this verse, we find a word-play on the name of the new son, Seth. “Seth” (shêth) sounds very similar to “appointed” (shı̂yth), and Seth’s “appointment” as the replacement “offspring” (zera‛) provides the ground for his name. Finally, we should note that “appointed” in 4:25 translates the same word in the Hebrew that is behind the “put” in 3:15. “Put” is in reference to the divinely established “enmity” that Yahweh “put” (shı̂yth) between the woman’s seed and that of the serpent’s. Seth, therefore, represents a singular figure of hope in reference to the “offspring” of the woman in the earliest chapters of Genesis.

All this to say, the Bible—the whole of all the parts—is a covenantal and confessional document; it all points to Jesus Messiah as its ultimate subject and object. One committed to Jesus, therefore, cannot read Genesis (or any other book in Scripture) as though he, the Messiah, has not come at all. There is a sense in which text’s meanings morph after subsequent texts and/or events develop in their stream. This is especially true with messianic promise-fulfillment motifs. Hosea originally recounted Yahweh’s faithfulness in the then-past exodus event with the words, “Out of Egypt I called my son” (Hos 2:15). Jesus’ advent changed those words forever (cf. Matt 2:15)! So, as Paul said of the “seed” elsewhere in Genesis, in 3:15 also, the Seed…”who is Christ.” Genesis 3:15 is the Protevangelium.

What is the significance of Jesus’ resurrection for Christians?

Apart from the physical resurrection of Jesus, Christians would be the most pathetic lot of folks, whose lives would be no more significant than if Jesus never came (1 Cor 15:18—19). This question has a three-fold positive answer: (1) eschatological considerations, (2) missional impetus, and (3) soteriological consequence.

Eschatologically, and for the people of God collectively, Jesus’ resurrection is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic and Davidic promises (Acts 13:32—33). His resurrection was, in part, the terminus of hope for salvation history past, as anticipated in “the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms” (Lk 24:44; cf. vv 25—27; i.e., the traditional tripartite division of the entire OT). Jesus’ resurrection is the dawning of the long yearned-for new age (or “age to come,” not to be confused with the eastern mystical aspirations, much less those of the western New Age Movements). The new creation (e.g., Rev 21 – 22) was inaugurated in Jesus’ resurrection, thus making him the “last Adam” (1 Cor 15:45). It is the veritable proof that the Day is coming when God will judge the world in righteousness (Acts 17:31). Jesus’ resurrection also has cosmic implications, pointing to the “regeneration” of all things (Matt 19:28), something the whole cosmos eagerly awaits—the time when the curse is no more (Rom 8:18—25; cf. Rev 22:3), and when God is finally “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). Therefore, all redemptive history past looked forward to Jesus’ resurrection for the confirmation of all the OT promises; and all redemptive history future flows from the resurrection of the Son of God.

Missionally, Jesus’ resurrection was the central feature of the apostolic preaching as recorded by Dr. Luke in the book of Acts (see 1:22; 2:24, 31, 32; 3:15, 26; 4:2, 10, 33; 5:30; 10:40; 13:30, 34, 37; 17:18, 32, Rom 1:3, etc.). This should stand as an indictment for the modern church. Proportionate to the record of Acts, the resurrection of Jesus is all but vanished from our preaching and evangelism today, yet it is the center of the redemption we are proclaiming.

Soteriologically, in his resurrection, Jesus was the “firstfruits,” the anticipation of a full harvest of believers at the end of the age (1 Cor 15:40). And because of his resurrection, by faith we become and participate in the new creation (Rom 6:4—5; 2 Cor 4:6; 5:17). Jesus’ resurrection resulted in the outpouring of Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8 – 2), who, dwelling in our hearts, is the guarantee of our own resurrection. Our rebirth is bound-up in his resurrection (1 Pet 1:3), and it is the grounds for our justification, our being put to rights before God’s holiness (Rom 4:25).

Modified Idealism as the best approach to the Apocalypse

I find a dogmatic precommitment to any of the four generalized interpretive approaches to the Apocalypse to be stifling. Not one of the four—“not-literal or allegorical, preterist, historical, or futuristic”—[1]is without its serious problems. Each perspective presents objections to the others, which seem to cancel out their viability. For instance, the historicist or preterist may charge that the futurist reduces the bulk of the book (chs. 4—22) to meaninglessness for the original readers and hearers, since all is future. How, then, it may be asked, can John offer his beatific pronouncement on his first generation readers; further, what practical and liturgical purpose would the book hold for them (see 1:3)?

The futurist may respond in like fashion, though. If the preterist is correct, then another reductionism follows: Revelation is now little more than an historical documentation of some horrid happenings before and during the fall of Jerusalem in A. D. 70 (or the fall of Rome in the fifth century, depending on your tastes and historiography). This rally of objections and answers is nearly as abundant as the number of expositors and commentaries working through Revelation.

Therefore, I subscribe to what some have called “eclecticism”[2] or modified idealism. Such a view would deny any hard-line, static historical referents in the book,[3] save the final coming of the Lord Jesus in judgment, salvation and his consummating the new heavens and new earth at the end of the age. Concerning the literary structure of Revelation, I find the seven-fold progressive parallelism a helpful paradigm. Below are a few of the big-number reasons that I maintain this perspective.

First, any and all eschatological data I encounter in the Scriptures, I view through the lens of a two-age model.[4] Biblically speaking, human history, more specifically, redemptive history is divided into two ages, “this age...and the age to come.” Accordingly, Jesus’ First Advent inaugurated the age to come; the new creation has begun in his resurrection and exaltation. The new creation will be fully realized in the event of his Second Advent. We therefore live in the time of tension between these two ages or worlds. Thus, the time between Jesus’ first and second advents is the fulfillment of the OT’s “latter days.” This will become more relevant below. The modified idealism approach is most consonant with the two-age model of eschatology; and the two-age model has presuppositional priority in my overall approach to interpreting all of Scripture.

Secondly, another controlling presupposition for me is the hermeneutical maxim that Scripture interprets Scripture; and in that, the clear interprets the unclear. In short, this means that I will interpret Revelation in light of the rest of the NT. Revelation is the most symbol-laden book in Scripture and therefore must be considered in terms of the didactic sections of the gospels and epistles. I understand the latter as presenting God’s people/family as one; his plan to redeem these as one (not one for the Jews and one for the church); there will be one second return of Christ, one (physical) resurrection, one judgment, and these events are closely related in time; we are now in the “last days.” The symbolisms of Revelation will therefore be interpreted in light of these Matthew—Jude doctrines, not the other way around.

Finally, I take Rev 1:1 (w/ 1:19) to be the programmatic verse(s) for the interpretation of the book. This verse tells that the revelation of Jesus that John was given by the angel would be “signified.” Signified here is sēmainō, meaning signs, symbols, or tokens. Verse 1 is a clear allusion to Dan 2:28—29, 45. There are striking parallels in theme and phraseology between Rev 1:1, 19 and the Danielic counterpart. Furthermore, Rev 22 contains another allusion to Daniel 2, and so forming a likely inclusio that frames the entire book (see esp. vv 6, 10). Aside from the obvious discontinuities between Dan 2:28 and Rev 1:1, one is of special interest. Nebuchadnezzars’ dream was to symbolically reveal “what was to be in the latter days,” whereas John’s visions were to symbolically reveal “what must soon take place.” John, therefore, understood his and the church’s experience as the inception of the “latter days.” Something similar happens in Peter’s sermon in Acts 2. In v 16 Peter offers a “this is that” (KJV) interpretation of Joel 2, which was a prophecy of what would God would do “in the last days” (v 17). Therefore, John tells us at the start that the book is largely symbolic and is concerned with the fulfillment of the “latter days,” which is the church age.

Therefore, from an eclectic perspective, solid historical references are both recognizable and acceptable without precluding escalated future fulfillments of like kind (e.g., arche- à antitypal fulfillments). The book is also ever-relevant, since it is a strategy book for the church militant living between the two ages, promising the final victory of the Lamb and his Bride over the Beast and his Whore. Stressing the doctrinal priority of the rest of the NT helps to bring clarity to the often opaque mixed metaphors and symbols of Revelation.

[1] To use the titles ascribed by Walvoord, Revelation, 16—22
[2] E.g., Hailey, Beale.
[3] It does, however, recognize analogical historical applications throughout the church age.
[4] There is one sense in which all the “data” in Scripture is eschatological in that each datum is a part of the larger whole of God progressive plan of redemption, which moves ‘eschatologically’ from the fall toward the consummation.

Lifting up Joni Eareckson Tada

Yesterday I heard on a radio program that Joni Eareckson Tada, founder and CEO of Joni and Friends, has, on top of being a quadriplegic, breast cancer. She has had a mastectomy already and has updates of her condition at the ministry’s website. Let us remember this extraordinary woman and bright witness for Christ in our prayers and thoughts.

Creator/creature distinction in the Anthropology of Irenaeus

“People...who attribute the weakness of their nature to God are completely unreasonable. They understand neither God nor themselves; they are ungrateful and never satisfied. At the outset they refuse to be what they were made: human beings who are subject to passions. They override the law of human nature; they already want to like God the Creator before they even become human beings. They want to do away with all the differences between the uncreated God and created humans. Thus they are more unreasonable than the dumb animals.”

Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, IV:38:4

A Biblical Worldview: Growing-up the Christian Mind

Eric Rauch has a fine article on “A Biblical Worldview” over at Christian Reader. With a block quote from Harry Blamires and the use of 1 Corinthians 3, it provides some sound judgments and has a hortatative appeal, stressing the maturation of the Christian’s thinking—thinking God’s thoughts after Him!