jesus christ is the meaning

8/2/2019 Jesus Christ is the Meaning

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Sola Gratia…………Only By GraceSola Fide………...…Only By FaithSolo Christo…….....Only By ChristSola Scriptura……..Only By Scripture

Special Issue

Jesus Christ – the Meaning

of All Scripture, Life and History

Chapter 1: Christ and the Old Testament – page 2 Chapter 2 : The Historical Pattern of the Old Testament – page 6 Chapter 3: Christ, the Meaning of Old Testament History – page 9 Chapter 4: The Legal Pattern of the Old Testament – page 15 Chapter 5: Christ, the Meaning of Old Testament Law – page 17 Chapter 6: Christ, the Meaning of Law and Prophets – page 27

Chapter 7: Christ, the Meaning of All Life – page 32 Chapter 8: The Captivity of the Christian Church – page 39

Chapter 9: The Restoration of the Gospel – page 46

Chapter 10: The Historical Framework of the Gospel – page 51 Chapter 11: The Legal Framework of the Gospel – page 56 Chapter 12: The Eschatological Framework of the Gospel page – page 61

Chapter 13: The Gospel as Judgment – page 71



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Jesus Christ – the Meaning of All Scripture, Life and History by Robert Brinsmead

Chapter 1

Christ and the Old Testament

The apostles preached Christ from the Old Testament and out of the Old Testament background. TheOld Testament was the Bible for Jesus and the apostles. They knew no Scripture except the OldTestament, and no God except the God of the Old Testament.

For centuries the law and the prophets had nurtured a hope inIsrael. The apostles proclaimed Christ asthe fulfillment of thathope. It was as if aveil had beenremoved fromthe Old

Testament. Nowtheir eyes wereopened to seethat the entireScripture existedfor the sake of Jesus Christ(Col. 1:16).They could nowsee that Moseswrote about Him(John 5:46). "All the

prophets testify about Him" (Acts 10:43).The law and the prophets had pointed tothe gospel of God's righteousness (Rom. 1:2; 3:21). Christ died and rose again according to theScriptures (1 Cor.15:3-4).

If the New Testament gives a picture of God in the face of Jesus Christ, then we must not forget that theOld Testament provides the framework or setting for that picture. This framework is tremendouslyimportant. The gospel cannot be understood without a framework. A person with slides of his latest trip to

Africa cannot show an intelligible picture by projecting it in midair. He must have a backdrop, a screen.The screen will either enhance or distort the picture. Likewise, spirit always needs form. The soul needsthe body. And faith needs to be expressed in good works. The gospel is spiritual, but it must beexpressed in visible form. Just as God designed the human body as the form for expression of thehuman soul, so He designed the form through which He would express the gospel of His grace. Thatform was the Old Testament background.

Let us consider the long centuries of careful preparation for the staging of the "divine passion play." Thestaging was the Old Testament. The New Testament does not discard this staging, this background. Intheir preaching of Christ the apostles knew how to use this framework in presenting the divine splendor of the One by whom and for whom all things consist (Col. 1:16).

For various reasons we Christians have neglected or discarded the art of preaching Christ out of the OldTestament as the apostles did. Marcion, the great heretic of the second century, wanted to discard theOld Testament entirely. Although the church rejected Marcion, a Marcionist tendency has persisted. The



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church has not always been comfortable with the Old Testament. Christians often have not known whatto do with it. And to the extent that we have neglected the God-given framework of the gospel, we havehad to invent frameworks of our own.

Although we might not be consciously aware of it, we need a framework for our theology. Our thinkingabout God and man must move within the framework of some system of thought. We need a theologicalstructure.

The history of theology shows how different epochs and different sections of the church have developeddifferent theological systems. We are all familiar with such terms as Romanism, Calvinism anddispensationalism. They represent systems of theological thought – frameworks in which God's methodof saving men is explained. To these we could add other "isms" such as mysticism, pietism, enthusiasm,rationalism and the twentieth-century phenomenon of existentialism.

These systems of thought have developed because the human mind cannot hold spiritual truth apartfrom form. We all sense the need of a framework. God not only gave the church His gospel. He gave thatgospel in His framework. Too often His framework has appeared like "a root out of dry ground." It wasunappealing to the rationalistic Greek mind. Western Christian civilization has been permeated by thisGreek mind set. To the extent the church has lost the original gospel framework, she has devised one of her own. Some of these theological frameworks have had tremendous hold on the minds of Christians.But these frameworks have often distorted the original purity of the gospel. The Christian message hasoften been pressed into supporting exaggerated individualism or triumphalistic hierarchy, externalritualism or internal pietism.

One of the most encouraging developments in Christian scholarship today is a renewed interest in theOld Testament and its place in the proclamation of the gospel. This development is crossing all classicalboundary lines. There is a new openness for the apostolic presentation of the gospel in the thoughtforms of the Old Testament. There is a new willingness to allow these biblical thought forms to call our traditional thought forms into question. The proper place and use of the Old Testament in preaching thegospel is where the action is in Christian scholarship today. Men who have done their work in the OldTestament now find new acceptance in departments of theology in the best Christian schools. This is anexciting and challenging moment in the history of the church.

Two Outstanding Features of the Old Testament Background

The Old Testament background has two outstanding features. It is historical, and it is legal .

Historical. Anyone who reads the Old Testament books without presuppositions must be impressedwith their historical nature. They begin with an account of God making the world and of man defectingfrom God's authority. Then they trace the subsequent history of God's dealings with the human race,highlighting such events as the Flood, the creation of the Hebrew nation and its history for over athousand years.

Old Testament theology is a theology of history . This is the unique feature of biblical religion. It is the onlytruly historical religion. It is not a mystical religion. The God of the Old Testament does not reveal Himself in diffuse mystical experience nor in abstract propositions, but in concrete historical acts. As far as theOld Testament is concerned, history is the stuff of revelation. God is revealed by His mighty acts – bothin the event itself and in the interpretation given that event. For example, in the Old Testament,righteousness is the fundamental attribute of God. But when the Old Testament sets forth therighteousness of God, it does not do so with abstract propositions about God's righteousness in Himself.Hebrew literature is dynamic, concrete, and moves on a relational plane. God is righteous by what Hedoes. The emphasis of Scripture is that God is righteous in all His ways and acts (Judges 5:11; Ps.145:17).



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We have ignored this "theology of history" far too often. We have tried to theologize in an abstract,rationalistic, metaphysical and speculative framework. But this moves outside the framework of biblicaltheology. That is why most systematic theologies do not sound like the Bible. They contain good andhelpful biblical data. But the thought framework is more Grecian than biblical. The first and foremostbiblical truth is the doctrine of God Himself. But classical systematic theologies present this doctrine in arationalistic, speculative and non-historical framework.We must refuse to know any God but the revealed God. That revelation is found in the historical actsrecorded in the Bible. The Word of God is more the acts of God than the oracles of God.

Since God is known by His acts in history, the true worship of God – giving God His worth – consists in joyously recounting the actsof God. G. Ernest Wright calls the Old Testament "a theologyof recital." In his path finding essay, God Who Acts, hepoints out thatIsrael's earliestconfessions of faith were simple recitalsof how God had acted for her deliverance in the Exodus (Deut.6:20-24; 26:5-9). An examinationof Israel's worship shows that

her Sabbaths, ceremonies,harvest festivals and institutionswere all directed tocommemorating andproclaiming the redemptionof the nation in theExodus. Many of thepsalms worship God bydeclaring the acts of God in Israel's formative history.Bible writers never tire of recounting what God did at the Exodus.Psalm 66 is typical:

Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth;sing the glory of His name;give to Him glorious praise!Say to God, "How terrible are Thy deeds!So great is Thy power that Thy enemiescringe before Thee.

All the earth worships Thee;they sing praises to Thee,sing praises to Thy name.

Come and see what God has done:He is terrible in His deeds among men.He turned the sea into dry land;men passed through the river on foot.There did we rejoice in Him.

—Ps. 66:1-6 (cf. Ps. 78, 105-106).

Legal. Biblical history is special history because it is preoccupied with the salvation of God's people. Intheological circles this is called heilsgeschichte. 1 We could propose another name – covenant history. Inmany respects this would be a better designation for the history we find in the Bible.

1 From the combination of two German words that, taken together, mean "salvation history."



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The covenant is the treaty or arrangement which binds God and man together in fellowship. It is thebasis for the God-man relationship. It is so basic we could even say that God has no dealings with manoutside the covenant.

The covenant is a legal conception. It has stipulations which are legally binding on both parties. Itdecrees blessings and cursings to follow the performance or nonperformance of its stipulations.The thirty-nine Old Testament books take their name – Old Testament or Covenant – from the covenantGod made with the Hebrew nation at Mount Sinai. The words of the covenant are the

Ten Commandments (Ex. 34:27-29; Deut. 4:13). The commandments areprefaced by a statement of God's redemptive act. Then follow thestipulations, which define the response divine love calls for fromthe redeemed community.

Israel was a covenant people. God was their King. He ruledthem by His law. Fidelity to the covenant meant fidelity to thelaw. Leon Morris rightly says that the God of the OldTestament is the God of law. He can be relied upon touphold the law and to act according to its terms withundeviating fidelity. Morris points out that the men of theOld Testament never tire of depicting the relation between

God and His people in legal imagery.2

When OldTestament saints appeal to God, they appeal to Hiscovenant and for a hearing before the divine court. WhenGod has a complaint against His people, He too appeals toHis covenant and sues His people at the court of law. 3

The early Hebrew law court was basic to Hebrew life. Disputeswere arbitrated in an open-air law court at the city gate. Here the

judges, and later the kings, sat to uphold justice and judgment. God isdepicted as the great King. His chief office is Judge. As Judge He acts tocut off evildoers and to uphold justice (Ps. 72, 101). Especially does Hedeliver those whose cause is righteous. He is a God of judgment (Mal.2:17). "Justice and judgment are the habitation of Thy throne" (Ps. 89:14).

When God acts to save His people, it is always a just salvation – a salvationaccording to His covenant and true to the just requirements of His law. Assupreme King and Judge He always acts in a way which upholds theconstitution. He will never depart from the rule of His law nor alter the thingwhich has gone out of His lips. Only in this light can we understand what the Bible means when it exaltsthe power of God to defeat the enemy of His people. If the power of God simply meant the might of God,there would be no contest with Satan, Pharaoh or anybody else. God could overcome them as easily asone casts a pebble to the earth. Their destruction would not constitute a great expenditure of divineenergy. But whatever God does He must do lawfully, justly and in harmony with His holy self-consistency. The Bible everywhere teaches that man's salvation is no easy matter for God. It is a costlyaffair. God's power, therefore, is legal or lawful power.

We think of Darius, the king of Medo-Persia, laboring all night to deliver Daniel from the lions' den (Dan.5). He could not save Daniel because, as king, he had to execute the law. It was not a question of havingmilitary might to execute his wish. He could deliver Daniel or he could uphold the law. He could not doboth. But God does what neither Darius nor anyone else could do. He both saves and carries out Hislaw.

2 Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, pp.256-57.

3 Scholars have identified these legal contests as ribh controversies, from the Hebrew word meaning judge, decide (Isa. 41:1, 21; 50:8; Jer.

25:31; Micah 6:1).



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This marvelous union of salvation and justice was taught in the ancient sanctuary ritual. The covenantallaw was deposited in the ark and enshrined in the holy of holies. The broken stipulations demanded thedeath of the transgressor. The blood of the sin offering was therefore brought into the holy of holies andsprinkled upon the lid of the ark. Justice and mercy blended. The repentant sinner was saved – andsaved justly.

Thus the Old Testament is often and rightly called "the legal economy."

Conclusion

The apostles preached Jesus Christ from the Old Testament. They took the historical and legal featuresof the Old Testament and used them as the framework for the portrait of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Chapter 2 The Historical Pattern of the

Old Testament

The great acts of God in Old Testament history are stamped with characteristics which show they are thework of one Author. There is a recurring pattern of divine activity, a recapitulating history of events.

We will briefly survey this recurring historical pattern in the main events of the Old Testament – theCreation, the Flood, the Exodus and the post-Exilic deliverance.



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Features of the Creation Event

1. There is a Creation chaos (Gen. 1:2; cf. Jer. 4:23).

2. The waters cover the earth (Gen. 1:2).

3. The Spirit overshadows the earth (Gen. 1:2).

4. The waters are divided (Gen. 1:6).5. The dry land appears (Gen. 1:10).

6. The animals appear (Gen. 1:24).

7. Man is made in God's image (Gen. 1:27).

8. Man is given dominion over the creatures and the earth (Gen. 1:28-29).

9. Adam is put to sleep, and Eve is formed from a rib taken from his side (Gen. 2:21-24).

10. The pattern of the covenantal kingdom appears in this record. Here are the people of God in God'splace and under God's rule.

The intent of the Genesis record is not just to give biological or geological information. It is to also givetheological information. This pattern was not only established by Jesus Christ. As we will see, it exists for the sake of Jesus Christ (Col. 1:16).

Features of the Flood Event

1. There is a world chaos (Gen. 7:11).

2. The waters cover the earth (Gen. 7:19, 20).

3. The wind blows on the waters (Gen. 8:1).

4. The dry land appears (Gen. 8:13, 14).

5. Noah is given dominion over the creatures, and the mandate – first given to Adam – to subdue andpopulate the earth is repeated (Gen. 9:1-2).

6. The covenant is renewed (Gen. 8:20-22).

Essential features of the Creation act are repeated in the destruction of the old world and the emergenceof the new at the time of the Flood. Not all features are represented in the recurring pattern of divineactivity. But there is sufficient recurrence to establish a clear pattern.

Features of the Exodus Event

1. The Hebrew nation is created.

2. The waters of the Red Sea are divided (Ex. 14:21-22; cf. Isa. 51:9-11).

3. Israel is told to possess the promised land of Canaan, to subdue it and to exercise dominion under therule of God.

4. God enters into covenant with Israel. This exhibits the pattern of the covenantal kingdom – the peopleof God in God's place (the promised land) and under God's rule.



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The Exodus has other features which give this event special significance. Some are reminiscent of Eden.The manna in the desert reminds us of the tree of life. The serpents which bit the people remind us of theserpent which deceived Eve. Israel's testing in the wilderness reminds us of Adam's testing in Eden.There is not an exact correspondence between the two events, but the recurring pattern is evident. Newfeatures in the Exodus show us that covenantal history is not merely cyclical. Each new event not onlyrecapitulates the past. It transcends it. So covenantal history moves forward. 4

Other features of the Exodus have an important place in the recurring pattern of events:

1. Israel is called God's firstborn son (Ex. 4:22-23).

2. Moses, the deliverer, is hid from the wrath of the king and escapes the slaughter of the baby boys (Ex.1:22-2:6).

3. Israel is saved by the Passover blood (Ex. 12).

4. Israel passes through the sea (Isa. 63:11-14).

5. Israel is brought into the wilderness and is tested for forty years (Deut. 8:2-3).

6. The people murmur against God and break the covenant, yet God gives them manna from heaven,water from the rock, a pillar of fire to lead them, a symbol of his presence in the tabernacle, and healingby the brazen serpent.

7. Israel crosses the Jordan and enters the promised land.

The Exodus event dominates the skyline of Old Testament history. It towers over the consciousness of Israel for all time to come. All future history is understood in the light of that event. This deliverancebecomes the pattern for all future deliverances.

Features of the Post-Exilic Deliverance

The Old Testament presents a recurring pattern of captivity and restoration. This is a witness to theinfidelity of man and to the faithfulness of God. His undeserving people have sold themselves into

captivity. But God delivers them because He is the covenant-keeping God. The books of Judges andKings record many deliverances. Each is a mini-Exodus. And a thousand years after the Exodus fromEgypt there is another great Exodus from Babylon.

Israel's captivity and bondage to Pharaoh recapitulate Adam's captivity in Eden. Israel's rescue throughthe Red Sea recapitulates Noah's rescue from the waters of the Flood. Likewise, the captivity of the Jewsin Babylon for seventy years recapitulates the Egyptian bondage. God's act in delivering His people from

4 The non-Hebrews of the ancient world thought of times as a circle going nowhere. The recapitulating history of events in the Old Testament

should not lead us to think that the Hebrews thought of time as a circle. There is a recurring pattern. But in each recurring event the former eventis not only gathered up, but transcended. History is a straight line moving inexorably forward to God's eschatological event. This was the Hebraic(Old Testament) concept of time. Time was a straight line moving somewhere.



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Babylon recapitulates the Exodus. The prophets depict this coming deliverance from Babylon (andsometimes from Assyria) as the Exodus redivivus [metaphorically repeated / revived] (Ezek. 20:33-37;Hosea 2:14-15; cf. Isa. 4:5; 10:24-27; 11:11-12, 16; 40:3-5; 41:17-18; 42:16; 43:16-19; 44:27; 48:20-21;51:9-11; Jer. 51:36; Ezek. 16; Micah 7:15-17).

In Isaiah 40-66 the prophet uses Mosaic imagery to describe the liberation from Babylon. The Lord willagain dry up the waters, this time the river Euphrates. 5 He will redeem His people and lead them throughthe desert, providing them with food, water, light and shelter. He will renew the courtship, restore the

covenant (Jer. 31; Ezek. 16; 20:33-37; Hosea 2:14, 15) and return His people to their own land.

The prophets, especially Isaiah, show that the deliverance from Babylon will not only be the Exodusredivivus. It will be Creation redivivus. The glory of the coming deliverance is too great to describe interms of the Exodus. It demands the language of Eden. Dangerous and vicious beasts will becomedocile. The desert will blossom as the rose. And the wilderness will become like Eden (Isa. 11:6-9; 35:1,10; 55:12-13; 65:17-19).

When the decree of Cyrus released the Jews, only a feeble company returned to Palestine. In the face of great adversity they restored the sanctuary desolated by the Babylonians. But the prophets had more inmind than this event when they spoke of the glory which should attend the Exodus redivivus. As Israelremembered and celebrated the first Exodus, they began to realize that the real Exodus promised by theprophets was still to come. The past therefore became the pattern for the future. Even more, it was thesymbol and pledge of the expected future deliverance. This is the significance of the recurring divineactivity, this recapitulating history of events. The prophets inspired Israel with the hope that history wasmoving to a destined goal, a telos point, a day when God would recapitulate His saving act for His peoplein one final drama of redemption.

This is why the Old Testament is an unfinished book. The post-Exilic deliverance was not the final dramaof redemption. The marvelous resurrection of Israel (Ezek. 37) pointed forward to another "coming up outof the sea," another restoration of the sanctuary and another resurrection that would exceed all othersand bring history to its appointed end.

Chapter 3

Christ, the Meaning of Old Testament History

The recurring rhythm of Old Testament history is perfected in the Christ event. Jesus sums up andcompletes that history. In the light of His death and resurrection the Old Testament becomes clear. Thegreat acts in Old Testament history are seen as a typology of Jesus Christ.

Typology is not allegory. The Old Testament events were real events. They had historical significance for their time. What is said about them may be understood by grammatical-historical investigation. But adivine hand had arranged the pattern in the events for the sake of Jesus Christ.

We should be careful not to push typology to fanciful extremes. But we are on solid ground when we

follow where the New Testament leads us. In their witness to Jesus as the promised Messiah, theapostles generally do not follow a proof-text method. They present the account of Jesus' life, death andresurrection so that its correspondence with Old Testament history becomes apparent to anyoneacquainted with that history. We must immerse ourselves in the Old Testament if we are to grasp theforce of what the apostles say about Christ.

5 The sea and water are often used to represent trouble, persecution and oppression by Satan through ungodly powers (Isa. 8; 17:12, 13). The

unruly, turbulent waters of pre-Creation represent the place of the dragon, sometimes called leviathan or Rahab. At the Exodus the dragons isleft defeated at the bottom of the sea (Job 26; 12-13; Ps. 68:22; 74: 12-17; 89:10-11; Isa. 27:1; 44:27 ; 51:9-11; 60:5; Dan 7:1, 2; Rev. 12:6-16; 17:1, 3, 15).



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Since Creation and the Exodus are the two great events of the Old Testament, we will see how they arerecapitulated (def: retold, re-enacted) in the Christ event.

Christ, the Recapitulation of Creation

The idea that God would recapitulate Creation is not novel to the New Testament writers. This was thehope expressed by Old Testament prophets. Isaiah declared that God would act to create a new heavenand a new earth (Isa. 65:17). Daniel 7 recapitulates Genesis 1:

1. The four winds blow upon the sea (Dan. 7:2).

2. Four beasts come up out of the sea (Dan. 7:3).

3. The Son of Man stands before God (Dan. 7:13).

4. This Man is given dominion over the beasts and over the whole created order (Dan. 7:14, 27).

The rabbis believed that the "Son of Man" in Daniel's vision represented the coming Messiah or Deliverer. The apostles show that this expectation is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The New Testament recallsthe Creation in a number of remarkable ways. With words clearly reminiscent of Genesis 1:1, Johnbegins his Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1). The same Word which spoke the world

into existence became incarnate in Jesus Christ (John 1:1-14).

The angel announced to Mary, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High willovershadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). Thiscorresponds with Genesis 1:2: "The Spirit of God was moving [hovering protectively] over the face of thewaters." Jesus is God's new creation (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10). The humanity of Christ is the new creation of the Holy Spirit. This Man is also the new Adam of God's new creation (Rom. 5:12-19; 1 Cor. 15:45). Paulsays that the first Adam was a figure (Greek, tupos) of Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:14). Commenting on this,Irenaeus, the early church father, said:

Therefore Adam was said by Paul to be tupos tou mellontos [the type of Him to come], because the Word,who made all things, had formed beforehand for himself the Economy of mankind which would centre in theSon of God; God predestinating the natural man to be saved by the spiritual man.

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As the new Adam, Christ is the image of God (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3; cf. Gen. 1:27). He is theideal man, the one true specimen of humanity who is all God designed man to be. He is the man inwhom God is well pleased (Matt. 3:17). Man is only man in relationship to God, to others and to theworld. Jesus is presented in the New Testament as the ideal man because He is in ideal relationship toGod (in perfect subjection), to others (in loving service – Mark 10:45; Acts 10:38; Phil. 2:5-7) and to theworld (in exercising dominion – Heb. 2:6-9).

We see the dominion Adam had "over the fish of the sea . . . and over every living thing" (Gen. 1:28)being exercised by the new Adam. The fishermenwho became His disciples recognized that Jesus

had authority over the fish of the sea. At Hiscommand they caught so many fish that neither their nets nor their boats could hold them – andthis after the time for successful fishing hadvanished with the night. In obedience to the word of Jesus, Peter took up the coin from the fish's mouth.Jesus rode into Jerusalem on an unbroken colt, yetit was perfectly submissive to Him. The angry

waters were subject to Him. (In the light of the Old Testament waters, how full of Messianic significance

6 Cited in G. W. H. Lampe and K. J. Woollcombe, Essays on Typology , p.49.



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is Christ's act of rebuking the sea!) As the true Adam, Christ is Lord –Lord over all creation, disease, demons and even death itself. Heis the Danielic Son of Man, who receives all authority anddominion from the Father (Dan. 7:13-14; Matt. 28:18).

Christ is also the new Adam, put to death so that from Hispierced side the church is brought into existence. Thus Paullikens the church to Eve (2 Cor. 11:2-3), who was taken

from Adam's side.

In summary, we may say Jesus Christ recapitulatesCreation and Adam. He becomes all Adam was meant tobe. As the antitypical Adam, He transcends Adam the first.He passes over the ground of Adam. He not only doeswhat Adam should have done as the covenantal partner.He undoes the results of Adam's breaking the covenant.Because of Adam's sin the earth was cursed to bringforth thorns, and mankind was cursed to death (Gen.3:18, 19). But the new Head of the race bears thecrown of thorns and tastes death for every man. Adam

the first left us a legacy of condemnation and death. Adamthe second leaves us a legacy of justification and lifeeternal (Rom. 5:17-19).

Christ, the Recapitulation of the Exodus

Israel not only commemorated the Exodus. They lookedforward to its recapitulation at the end of the age. The OldTestament is an unfinished book because the real exodus was still tocome. The Old Testament is a promise. It awaits fulfillment.

Moses had said that God would raise up a prophet like himself (Deut.18:15). Glasson shows that the rabbis of the first century expected a

new Moses, another deliverer who would recapitulate the Exodus. 7 They wondered how this new Moses would feed the people with manna and do what was done under theadministration of the first Moses. The New Testament tells us that when John the Baptist and Jesusappeared, all men were in expectation (Luke 3:15).

In presenting Jesus as the Messiah, the apostles show us that Exodus typology is gathered up in His life,death and resurrection. More is said of the Christ event as the new exodus than as the new creation. TheExodus imagery is so widely used in the New Testament that it merits a separate book. 8 We will merelytrace some highlights here.

Jesus Is the New Israel. The apostles show the remarkable correspondence between Christ and Israel,not by a series of proof texts, but by weaving together a pattern of the Christ event. The book of Matthew is

an example. Matthew presents a replay of Israel's Exodus from Egypt.1. Jesus is Mary's firstborn – and God's (Matt. 1:25; cf. Col. 1:15).

2. Jesus is brought up out of Egypt (Matt. 2:15).

3. He passes through the waters – His baptism (Matt. 3:14-15).

7 T. Francis Giasson, Moses in the Fourth Gospel .

8 See D. Daube, The Exodus Pattern in the Bible, for an excellent treatment of the Exodus pattern.



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4. He is led into the wilderness and tested forty days and nights. In resisting Satan's three temptations, Jesusactually quotes the three scriptures found in the setting of Israel's testing in the wilderness (Matt. 4:4; Deut.8:3).

5. The final chapters of Matthew describe Jesus' second baptism of suffering and blood and His entranceinto the glory of the heavenly Canaan.

Jesus is therefore the new Israel of new-covenant history. As the new Israel, He passes over the same

ground as old Israel. Whereas they murmured against God, broke the covenant and failed miserably, Hetrusted God, kept the covenant and triumphed gloriously. He did what Israel should have done. And He undidthe results of their failure.

When Israel broke the covenantal stipulations, she stood exposed to the covenantal curses. In Leviticus andDeuteronomy 28-30 the curses come in handfuls. These awful threats may first appear out of all proportion tothe sins committed. But sin, as a breach of the covenant, is an affront to the covenant God. It is an insult toHis infinite majesty. The prophets invoked the covenantal curses against disobedient Israel. The cursesincluded hunger and thirst (Deut. 28:48; Isa. 65:13), desolation (Isa. 5:6; Zeph. 1:15), poverty (Deut. 28:31),the scorn of passers-by (Jer. 19:8), darkness (Isa. 13:10; Amos 5:18-20), earthquake (Isa. 13:13; Amos 1:1),being "cut off" from among the people (Ex. 12:15, 19; 31:14; Lev. 7:25; Jer. 44:7-11), death by hanging on atree (Deut. 21:23), a brass heaven (Deut. 28:23) and no help when one cries for help (Deut. 28:31; Isa. 10:3).

Christ must fulfill the stipulations of the Sinaitic covenant. He must also carry away the terrible cursespronounced in the covenantal documents. For this reason He was hungry (Matt. 4:2; 21:18). He was so poor He had nowhere to lay His head (Matt. 8:20). On the cross He cried, "I thirst!" (John 19:28). He was mockedand derided (Mark 15:19, 31) and deserted by His friends (Matt. 26:69-75). He was hanged on a tree as acursed man (Gal. 3:13) and "cut off" from His people (Isa. 53:8). As He hung on the cross, the heavens wereas brass. He was as one who cries for help and receives none (Mark 15:34). He died as the great covenantbreaker and endured the unabated fury of all the covenantal curses. The cosmic scope of these curses isportrayed in Matthew. As Christ bore the sins of the broken covenant, darkness descended over the earth(Matt. 27:45), the ground quaked, and the rocks were rent (Matt. 27:51). But by dying Jesus carried away thecurses of the covenant.

Jesus Is the New Moses. Jesus is not only the new Israel of the new Exodus. He is also the new Moses. 9

1. The prophecy of Deuteronomy 18:15 – “a prophet like me" – is often used in the New Testament to applyto Jesus (Acts 3:22-23; 7:37).

2. Jesus too is hid from the wrath of the king who kills all the male children. Jesus also returns to thehomeland after the one who sought His life is dead (Ex. 4:19; Matt. 2:20, 21).

3. Both Moses and Jesus are unrecognized by their own people as God's elect (Acts 7:27). On occasion thepeople try to stone them both (Ex. 17:4; Num. 14:10; John 10:31-33; 11:8).

4. The close communion Moses enjoyed with God is surpassed by Christ (Ex. 33:20; John 1:17, 18).

5. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount reminds us of another lawgiver on another mountain (Ex. 19; Matt. 5).

6. Jesus appoints seventy elders just as Moses did (Num. 11:16; Luke 10:1).

7. Both Jesus and Moses fasted forty days before giving the law to the people.

8. Both were glorified on a mountain.

9. Jesus fed the multitude in a desert place. This reminded the people of Moses and the bread from heaven(John 6).

9 See Glasson, Moses in the Fourth Gospel , for an excellent, detailed treatment of Moses and Jesus.



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10. Jesus said He was the water of life. This declaration was made at theFeast of Tabernacles when the people were celebrating the water fromthe smitten rock (John 7:37-39).

11. Jesus declared He was the light of the world while the peoplewere celebrating the pillar of fire which led Israel through thewilderness (John 8:12).

12. Our Lord said to Nicodemus, "And as Moses lifted up theserpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be liftedup" (John 3:14).

13. Jesus' final discourse to His disciples presents a remarkableparallel to Moses' farewell speech recorded in Deuteronomy.Some of Jesus' parting words are quoted directly fromDeuteronomy.

Jesus, of course, not only recapitulates Moses. He supersedesMoses. This is a truth taught in biblical types and antitypes. ThusJohn the evangelist not only makes parallels between Christ andMoses. He contrasts them and shows the superiority of Jesus

(John 1:17). This reveals an important argument presented byJohn. The Jews had absolutized Moses as he was represented inthe law – the Torah. The rabbis taught that the Torah was theLogos – the divine wisdom or word (cf. Prov. 8). They also said theTorah was the bread, water and light which lead to the life of theage to come. John denies these popular assumptions. He declaresthat this Logos, this bread and water and light of eternal life, areembodied in the second person of the Godhead, incarnate in Jesusof Nazareth. We too must remember that the Scriptures are only awitness to Jesus Christ. A high view of scriptural inspiration is noguarantee of life (John 5:39). Faith in an inerrant Bible is not the primafacie test of evangelical faith.

Jesus Is the New Temple. The entire Levitical priesthood andtemple ritual are summed up in Jesus. He is the new Aaron. And just asHe supersedes Moses, He supersedes Aaron. He is a priest after thebetter order of Melchizedek (Heb. 7). He is also the new temple whoseglory exceeds the former (Hag. 2:9; John 1:14). He is the restored temple,the temple rebuilt after being destroyed by the king of Babylon (Dan. 8:14;Zech. 6:13; John 2:19-21).

In short, Jesus Christ is the new exodus event. On the mount of Transfiguration Moses and Elijah "appeared in glory and spoke of Hisdeparture, which He was to accomplish at Jerusalem" (Luke 9:31, RSV). The Greek word for "departure" is

exodos. How fitting that the Moses of the first Exodus should be found communing with Christ just beforethe great exodus of the ages took place in His death and resurrection! The writer to the Hebrewsunderstands Jesus' resurrection as the replay of Moses' coming up out of the Red Sea. This is clear from acomparison of Isaiah 63:11 with Hebrews 13:20:

Then He remembered the days of old, Moses, and His people, saying, Where is He that brought them upout of the sea with the shepherd of His flock?—Isa. 63:11, KJV.

May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our LordJesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep. —Heb. 13:20.



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Conclusion

In the great acts of God in the Old Testament, there is a recurring pattern of events. This recapitulatinghistory moves forward and reaches its summary and perfection in Jesus Christ. The events of the OldTestament exist for the sake of Jesus Christ. They mirror Him and therefore find their true meaning inHim. Christ is the meaning of Old Testament history. He is God's great act of creation and redemption.

We have seen that the Old Testament is a history of captivity and restoration. Man sins and is cast away

into captivity by the God of the covenant. But man is rescued again by the God of the covenant. In theBabylonian Exile God cast His people out of His sight. But then in mercy He gathered them again. Thiswas like a judgment of death and resurrection. Hosea could write:

"Come, let us return to the Lord;for He has torn, that He may heal us;He has stricken, and He will bind us up.

After two days He will revive us;on the third day He will raise us up,that we may live before Him."

—Hosea 6:1-2.

This and other Old Testament scriptures mirror the death and resurrection of Christ. In His death He was

Adam and Israel, cast out of God's sight as the great covenant breaker. In His resurrection He was Adam(mankind) and Israel, restored to God's favor as the great covenant keeper. God spared Adam (mankind)and Israel from the full penalty of sin because behind all this covenantal history stood the Surety andMediator of the covenant. The judgments which fell on Adam and Israel were tempered with mercybecause the account was to be paid in full by Jesus Christ in the fullness of time.

As Old Testament history recapitulated, Jesus Christ is Old Testament history rewritten. There are twohistories of man: the history of the old covenant and the history of the new. The old is a history of continual failure on the part of Adam and Israel. This history stands under the judgment of God. But Godhas rewritten this history of failure in Jesus Christ. It is now a glorious, triumphant and holy history. ByHis death God buries the old history – our old history. And by His resurrection He brings forth for us anew holy history. This is the gift of His righteousness to be accepted by faith alone. Here is a history – a

righteousness – with which God is well pleased. When the church is satisfied with this holy history andrests on it as her only righteousness before God, when she stops imagining that she must write a newholy history for her justification, then this song will be sung:

"Let us rejoice and be gladand give Him glory!. . . His bride has made herself ready."

-Rev. 19:7.



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Chapter 4

The Legal Pattern of the Old Testament

It is often said that the four Gospels and the book of Actsmajor on history while the New Testament Epistles major on doctrine. It is true the Gospels show that the history of Jesus recapitulates Old Testament history. The book of

Acts also records how the early Christians traced theevents of Old Testament history and told how they reachedtheir end in the death and resurrection of Christ (Acts 2-3,7, 13). The Epistles of Romans, Galatians and Hebrews,on the other hand, show that Christ is the end or goal of Old Testament law (Rom. 10:4; Gal. 3:24; Heb. 10:1). Of course, there is history in the Epistles and law in the

Gospels and Acts. But the Epistles major on Christ'srelation to the law.

The historical and legal aspects of the Bible cannot beseparated because its history is covenantal history. Theacts of God are juridical acts. God presides over history asKing and Judge, carrying out the covenant and upholdingHis law.

There are three ways we could describe the juridical natureof the great acts of God recorded in the Old Testament:acts of the covenant, acts of righteousness and acts of

judgment.

Acts of the Covenant

In each act of history God carries out His covenantal purposes. He is the covenant-keeping God (Dan.9:4). This covenant is a union or partnership based on a legally defined arrangement or treaty. The termsor stipulations of the covenant are the Ten Commandments (Ex. 34:27-29; Deut. 4:13). Whether Godpunishes or saves – and in most of His acts He does both – He carries out the terms of the covenant withundeviating fidelity. God acts according to law. He is lawful and just when He punishes. He is lawful and

just when He saves. This is what the covenantal character of His acts means.



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Acts of Righteousness

God reveals His righteousness by what He does (Judges 5:11; 1 Sam. 12:7; Ps. 48:10; 71:16, 19, 24;Isa. 51:5-12; 56:1; Micah 6:4-5). Scholars generally agree that the word righteousness is a stronglyforensic or legal word. It is also a covenantal word. It means fidelity to the terms of the covenant. Wecould even say that righteousness means covenantal justice. Whatever God does, He upholds the lawand sees that justice prevails. The righteousness of God is displayed both in His punishing acts and inHis saving acts. When God's righteousness is revealed, it is both a time to tremble and a time to rejoice.It is a time of great wrath and a time of great mercy. We should especially notice the prominent juridicalelement in God's righteousness.

Acts of Judgment

The Lord is "the God of judgment" (Isa. 30:18, KJV; Mal. 2:17). To judge and to execute justice are thechief functions of the King (Ps. 72, 101). The Old Testament never tires of legal or juridical imagery indepicting the relation between God and His people. When God has a complaint or controversy with Hispeople or the nations, He is represented as calling them before the court of law (Isa. 41-45; Jer. 2:9, 29;12:1; Micah 6:1-2). When God acts, it is an act of judgment – whether He punishes the enemy or deliversHis people from oppression. The great acts of God generally display the two aspects of God's judgment

– wrath and saving mercy – as in the Flood, the Exodus and the termination of the Exile.

Even God's acts in dealing with sinful Israel are acts of judgment. He sends them into captivity so that Hemight judge and sift out a faithful remnant. Says Leon Morris:

Yahweh's judgment is a process which sifts men. It separates the righteous from the wicked andthus makes the 'remnant' to appear. . . . 10 'To some extent ... the remnant is created by the

judgment, for it is in the hour of crisis or judgment that men truly know and make manifest wherethey ultimately stand. Judgment is creative as well as revelatory. 11

Chapter 5 Christ, the Meaning of Old Testament Law The acts of covenant, righteousness and judgment in the Old Testament mirror or picture the death andresurrection of Christ. The Christ event is an act of covenant (Matt. 26:28; Luke 1:72), righteousness(Rom. 1:17; 3:21-26) and judgment (John 12:31; Heb. 9:27, 28).

Each of these three aspects of God's act in Christ merits a full presentation. But we can only briefly showhow this great act of God, like the typical acts of the Old Testament, is both punitive and salvific. It is amanifestation of both wrath and mercy.

Some recognize the legal and juridical metaphors in the New Testament but think they are only oneelement among many. Such scholars emphasize that the New Testament also uses pastoral, domestic,medical, horticultural and other metaphors. They say, "The legal metaphors may appeal to some people

– those unfortunate enough to have a legal mind set – but we prefer the more winsome metaphors." Of course, the New Testament does use imagery other than the legal in preaching Christ. But the legal motif is overwhelmingly central. Along with the historical element, it is the framework of New Testamenttheology. Those who wish to grapple with the New Testament message must accept the juridical element

10 Leon Morris, The Biblical Doctrine of Judgment , p.23.

11J. V. Langmead Casserley, Christian Community (London: 1960), p.12. Cited in ibid.



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of biblical theology. It is irrelevant whether or not they think it is appealing. They must heed the God-given framework of the gospel if they are to avoid misunderstanding and distorting it.

Some have said the presentation of the gospel in its historical and legal framework is too cold andimpersonal, that it leaves the heart unwarmed and untouched. But we must be careful lest we accuseGod of choosing a poor framework for the gospel as though we knew how to reach the heart better thanHe does. While the New Testament appeal may not be directly to the emotions, it may be more effectivethan more sentimental approaches in reaching man at the center of his existence. God's "root out of dry

ground" may meet man's need more than do our own inventions. Some say, "We must make the gospelrelevant today." But they often mean, "We must mold and fashion the gospel to our own taste."

There has been a stampede by theologians, pastors and people away from the legal or juridical elementsof the gospel. The effect on the church has been devastating. Preoccupation with internal trivia hasdisplaced justification by an imputed righteousness. The message of the New Testament has been soprivatized, internalized and individualized that it has become something it was never meant to be. Wemust return and listen to what the Bible says and how it says it whether we like it or not. God's Word isour medicine. And that medicine may not at first seem palatable to our perverted taste.

The Legal Framework of Pauline Theology

Paul's theology of the cross abounds with legal metaphor. His training as a lawyer and judge doubtlessqualified him in the familiar use of juridical concepts. But there is a more important reason for Paul'sforensic language. As a Jew, Paul was immersed in the Old Testament. He preached Christ from the OldTestament background. And that background is both historical and legal. Says Derrett:



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Paul is very direct. He preaches Christ crucified and glories in the cross. ... Paul blandly works out themeaning of that event in a strictly legal framework. His use of legal metaphors is not surprising since hewas in any case brought up as a jurist, and legal metaphor was good style in an age when law was theprestige-bearing discipline. . . . The appeal is not directly to the emotions, but to existing belief inrelationships known indeed to the law. . . . Christ died, he seems to say, in order to achieve realities whichcan only be expressed in terms of law, and which are fully and adequately so expressed. We, with our lackof interest in law and a long-inherited dislike of lawyers, find it hard not to regret this choice of language.

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It is not necessary to be a lawyer to appreciate Paul's thought forms. But it is necessary to see the crossagainst the same background as Paul saw it – that is, the Old Testament legal framework. Let usconsider some of the Pauline expressions used to explain the meaning of the atonement.

Redemption and Ransom (Rom. 3:24; Mark 10:45; 1 Tim. 2:5, 6). This Old Testament idea relates torelease from debt by payment of a price. While it often means deliverance, it is always deliverance at acost. If a man fell into debt, his inheritance could be taken and he himself sold into servitude. He could beredeemed, however, by his next of kin.

The breach of the covenant has put man into debt to the law of God. Sin is a debt (Matt. 6:12). Man hastherefore lost his inheritance and is sold to hostile powers. Christ took human nature and became our next of kin. By His death on the cross He redeemed us from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13) by blottingout our bill of indebtedness (Col. 2:14). By this means He also delivered us from the control of hostile

powers (Col. 2:15).13

Redemption, therefore, is a legal conception.

Reconciliation (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:18-19; Col. 1:20-22). The reconciliation Paul speaks about is notsomething done in man. The word here does not mean a change of attitude in man which enables him tosee God in a friendly light. Rather, it is something entirely objective. Reconciliation was done andfinished while we were still God's enemies. It was a covenantal transaction between God and Christ. Butit was a transaction on our behalf and in our interest. By dying Christ removed the barriers whichprevented a just God from coming to fellowship with poor, lost sinners. The barrier of sin gives man astanding of guilt before the holy law. Guilt is a legal conception. It must be removed by a legaltransaction.

Propitiation (Rom. 3:25). This word probably comes

closest to the Hebrew concept of atonement. The wordpropitiation (hilasterion) comes from the word used for themercy seat or lid of the ark in the holy of holies (Heb. 9:5).The Hebrew word for this covering of the ark is kapporeth.It can be translated "place of atonement" because the highpriest sprinkled the blood of the sin offering upon it seventimes and thereby made the atonement for the sins of Israel (Lev. 16). All this, of course, relates to the law of God because the law was deposited in the ark beneath thekapporeth. By its very nature law is penal. It demandssatisfaction for its violation. Without the shedding of blood

there could be no pardon for sin (Heb. 9:22). Luther translated kapporeth with a German word which

means mercy seat. But it would be just as correct to call it justice seat. Mercy is extended to the sinner only because justice has been done in the death of a substitutionary Victim. The Greek word hilasterion also contains the idea of placating an offended person or mollifying wrath. C. H. Dodd tried to soften thebiblical concept of God's wrath and to prove that propitiation means expiation. It became fashionable todo away with the concept of God's wrath altogether. Leon Morris, however, has proved that it is not

12 J. Duncan M. Derrett, Law in the New Testament , p.397.

13 See Gustaf Aulen, The Faith of the Christian Church, chap. 26. Aulen emphasizes that the atonement means deliverance from hostile powers

and contends this was Luther's interpretation of the meaning of the atonement. Aulen is right in what he affirms but is wrong in what he denies.Neither Aulen nor anyone else can get rid of the plain legal sense of the Calvary transaction as presented by Paul and Luther. The truth is notfound in playing the deliverance-from-hostile-powers element against the legal element. They belong together. Man's legal debt meant that hewas sold to hostile powers. In fact, the law of God binds the sinner to the control of sin (Rom. 7:1-8; 1 Cor. 15:56). Freedom from legal debtleads to freedom from enslavement to hostile powers (Col 2:14-15). The two elements are inseparable.



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possible to do away with either the plain sense of propitiation or the wrath of God. 14 The holy character of God demands that He take action against sin. The law of God is an expression of His holy self-consistency. We dare not lose the impression of God's horror and detestation against evil and evildoers.One who has no passion against the bad has no passion for the good. God is no Grecian stoic. Since Heis a God of law, we may know that His wrath is neither unpredictable nor vindictive. His actions arealways in harmony with His law. We can depend on Him to carry out His covenant with undeviatingfidelity.

We must also remember that in the work of propitiating wrath God did not punish an innocent third party.The Lawgiver Himself bore the penalty of sin and exhausted His wrath. He provided the atonement (Lev.17:11). "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself" (2 Cor. 5:19, KJV). The atonement doesnot cause God to love those whom He hated. He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins becauseHe loved us (1 John 4:10).

Most problems with propitiation stem from trying to understand the atonement apart from its juridicalrelationships. If we start with the Old Testament premise that God is a God of law and that law by its verynature is inexorable and penal, then the death of Christ must be seen as a juridical penalty for sin.

Representation and Substitution. The principle of representation is taught in those passages whereChrist is presented as the new Adam (Rom. 5:12-19; 1 Cor. 15:22). It is also implied in most of the

Pauline "in Christ" passages (e.g., Eph. 1:1-10). Representation means that Christ acts in our name andon our behalf. It is a legal concept. That is not all there is to it. But the legal character cannot be removedwithout emptying representation of its essential biblical meaning.

Substitution means that what Christ did, especially on the cross, was done for us. It was for us in thesense that it was done in our stead. Christ gave "His life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). The word"for" in this text is anti , meaning "in the place of." Paul also says Christ gave Himself "a ransom[antilutron – literally, a ransom in the place of, or substitutionary ransom] for all men" (1 Tim. 2:5). Inmany other places Paul declares that Christ died for us, was made a curse for us, etc. (1 Cor. 15:3; Gal.3:13). The word "for" in these places is from the Greek huper . Although huper does not literally mean "inthe place of," it is nevertheless impossible to remove that sense from many of the passages. The ideathat one's suffering and death could be accepted in the place of others is thoroughly juridical. This is thevery element that many have been feverishly working to abolish. It would be better if the opponents of

juridical salvation were to admit what Marcion admitted when he wanted to get rid of the book of Revelation. He simply said, "Too Jewish." An atonement conceived along juridical lines cannot beexpunged from Paul or from anywhere else in the New Testament.

Imputation. The words impute, reckon, accounted all come from the Greek word logizomai , which isused eleven times in Romans 4. The believer has righteousness imputed to him (Rom. 4:6). This is "therighteousness of One," even Christ (Rom. 5:18, KJV). Paul is not talking about the believer's experiencebut about his status in the judgment of God. Imputation of our sins to Christ (Rom. 5:19-21) and of Hisrighteousness to us deals with legal realities. Neither the imputation of sin nor of righteousness means achange of character. It means a change of legal standing. Imputation in itself does not change the moralcharacter of the object. But it does change the way the object is regarded. Surely Calvary is the proof of this!

This Pauline message of "imputed righteousness" has been derided as "imputed nonsense" and "legalfiction" by those who reject the juridical framework of biblical thought. To those who dispense with legalcategories and say moral transformation is all that matters, we answer with Luther that Christ must surelyhave labored in vain and suffered foolishly on the cross. For why did He not stay in heaven and savemen by imparting to them a moral transformation? But the atonement was a juridical transaction entirelyoutside the realm of our moral transformation.

14 Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, pp.144-213.



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The Righteousness of Christ (Rom. 5:18-19). The righteousness which God imputes to faith is therighteousness of Christ (Rom. 4:3-6; 5:18-19). This righteousness consists in His covenantal faithfulness.He perfectly obeyed the divine law on our behalf (cf. Rom. 2:6-16; 5:18). John Calvin is scriptural whenhe says: "Righteousness consists in the observance of the law." 15 "For if righteousness consists in theobservance of the law, who will deny that Christ merited favor for us when, by taking that burden uponhimself, he reconciled us to God as if we had kept the law?" 16 The righteousness of Christ, therefore,being related to law, is a legal conception.

Justification. The central theme of Romans and Galatians is justification by faith. Justification is law-court terminology. It is a word which relates to the day of judgment (Rom. 2:13-16). It means being"pronounced righteous by divine sentence" (Shrenk) or being "set right before the law" (A. H. Strong). Tobe justified does not in itself mean to be changed in character. 17 It means that one's legal status ischanged. Justification by faith is inseparable from Christ's work on the cross because it is the savingapplication of it to the believer. At Calvary Jesus was "numbered with the transgressors." This did

not make Him a sinner in character. It made Him a sinner in His legal standing. Those who deride thepurely forensic nature of justification by imputed righteousness are attacking the purely forensic nature of Christ's condemnation because of imputed sin. Justification by faith is out of date and makes no sense inmuch of the contemporary religious scene because the legal framework of biblical thought has beenabandoned. The gospel has not been allowed to lead people to love and reverence the law of God likethe man of Psalm 119 ". . . because the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so" (Rom. 8:7).

The Righteousness of God (Rom. 1:16, 17). Paul says he is not ashamed of the gospel because in itGod's righteousness or justice is revealed. The surprising thing about Paul's gospel is that it declaresthat God's justice means salvation for all who believe. There is a virile strength in the gospel when set inits biblical framework. It shows us that God is not only in the business of saving people. He is in thebusiness of saving them justly. The divine law is maintained and honored in the whole process by which

15 John Calvin, Institutes, bk. 2, chap. 7, sec. 5.

16 Ibid ., bk. 2, chap. 17, sec. 5.

17 Although a change of character will always accompany God's verdict of justification.



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the believing sinner is justified and given eternal life. God is seen to be just when He justifies the believer (Rom. 3:26). The law is not annulled but established (Rom. 3:31). 18

This reminds us again of what the Bible means by the power of God. It does not mean raw might. In thedivine administration, power is first the power of right. There are some things God cannot do. He cannotlie. He cannot be unjust. If man is to be saved, he must be saved in a way which satisfies the highestdemands of divine justice. It must also satisfy man's sense of justice, for man is made in God's image.

An unjust, unlawful and cheap forgiveness will satisfy neither heaven's court nor the court of human

conscience. God must therefore establish His right to save the sinner who believes. This is what cost theGodhead infinite self-giving.

We see an illustration of this in the affairs of any human society with a semblance of justice. Let us takethe case of Patty Hearst. Her incarceration or freedom did not depend on who could muster enoughpolice or military might. The real battle over this woman's fate was legal. This is where the Hearst familyspent its great wealth and effort. This is where the prosecution also spent its great effort. Once the rightof a certain course of action was legally established in court, confinement or freedom was a foregoneconclusion. In an organized society right does not stem from might. Might stems from right. So also, inmatters of big business and government the power to act is derived from legal procedures. When thisceases, all decent society is at an end and the "law of the jungle" – raw might – prevails.

Our eternal fate rests neither on vindictive wrath nor on impulsive love. The peace established by theblood of the cross is a just and lasting peace. We cannot dispense with the legal categories of biblicalsalvation without compromising God's righteousness and the believer's security.

Thus, a survey of Paul's major words and concepts proves that the apostle works out the meaning of theChrist event in the framework of Old Testament jurisprudence.

The Legal Framework of Johannine Theology

We now turn to the theology of a Bible writer often thought to emphasize the mystical rather than the juridical aspects of the Christian religion. We speak, of course, of John, the apostle of love.

Some scholars have recently awakened to a new appreciation of the pronounced Jewishness of John's

Gospel. Of course, the Jewishness of John's Revelation has long been recognized. That entire book is amosaic of Old Testament texts or allusions to Old Testament places, persons and institutions. TheGospel of John also reflects his Jewish, Old Testament background. We must not be surprised,therefore, to find he presents his Gospel in a legal framework.

In his brilliant essay on justification, Preiss has incisively shown that the juridical element is just asprominent in John as in Paul.

This aspect has been strangely neglected by exegetes and still more so, if that is possible, by those whohave tried to give a bird's eye view of Johannine thought: I mean the juridical aspect. It is an elementary,evident fact and so simple that I feel inclined to apologize for making of it the object of a study, that juridicalterms and arguments are notably frequent in the Gospels and Epistles – the Christ who is sent, witness,

judge, judgment, accuse, convince, Paraclete. Even terms of a rather mystical character, like light and

truth, reveal if considered from this standpoint a very marked juridical emphasis: truth is contrasted lesswith error than with falsehood, and less with falsehood in general than with false witness: and Jesus is thelight which judges, and sheds light, as we say, in this dark and sinister world. . . .

18 The comment by James Orr on this point is very apt: "It was before remarked that the Reformers were far from regarding justification as a

simple amnesty, or passing by, or forgiveness of sin, without regard to what is due to the condemnatory testimony of His law against sin.Justification was not in their view, any more than in the Apostle's, the simple setting aside of the claim of the law upon the sinner, but was thedeclaration that that claim had been satisfied, and that the law had no more any charge to bring against him. It is justification on an immutablyrighteous basis; only that the righteousness which grounds this new relation is not in the sinner himself, but in the Saviour with whom faith uniteshim."-James Orr, The Progress of Dogma, p.260.



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The only texts in which the verb 'witness' has the merely vague sense of 'solemnly declaring' are 4.44 and13.21. Everywhere else both verb and noun connote an act that is at one and the same time religious and

juridical, conceived in the framework of a contest in law.

In 8.17 allusion is made to the juridical principle of Deut. 17.6, 19.15, which requires two or threewitnesses: 'Thou bearest witness of thyself; thy witness is not true. Jesus answered and said unto them,Even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true: for I know whence I came and whither I go. Ye judgeafter the flesh; I judge no man. Yea, and if I judge, my judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I and theFather that sent me. Yea, and in your law it is written, that the witness of two men is true. I am he thatbeareth witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me . . . ' (8.13-18). Here it mightbe supposed that Jesus uses the juridical categories of witness, witnessing and judgment merely to answer the accusation of false witnessing leveled by the Pharisees. But in other connexions the Johannine Christhas resort spontaneously to these themes. In the solemn monologue which crowns the interview withNicodemus he declares that inasmuch as he is the Son of Man he is the sole eyewitness of the heavenlyworld (3.11-13) and explains later that he does not wish to be the judge which condemns, only the Son whosaves, but that being the light he provokes judgment: those who believe come to the light which revealsthat their works are good, those who do not believe evade it lest their works should be revealed. A littlefurther (3.32-33) we read that he who comes from above 'what he hath seen and heard, of that he bearethwitness; and no man receiveth his witness. He that hath received his witness hath set his seal to this(another juridical expression) that God is true. For whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God. . . .'The close connexion between witnessing and the One who is sent can be clearly perceived. The Son of Man is sent from above to be the ambassador as rabbinical law understands the term: the ambassador is

to be identified with the one who sends him; he is the witness who, because he has seen and heard theFather, has all the authority of a plenipotentiary. After having announced the judgment and the resurrectionwhich he will accomplish inasmuch as he is the Son of Man, Jesus declares (5.30): 'I can of myself donothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is righteous because I seek not mine own will but the will of him that hath sent me. If I bear witness of myself my witness is not true. It is another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true. Ye have sent unto John and he hathborne witness unto the truth. But the witness which I receive is not from man. . . But the witness which Ihave is greater than that of John: for the works . . . bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me. . . .'Then Jesus affirms that he is the sole witness who has seen and heard the Father, that the Scriptures bear witness of him (v.39), that he does not receive glory from men, that the Jews have not the Word and thelove of God in them (vv. 38, 42), that Jesus will not accuse them before the Father: that it is Moses who willaccuse them, he in whom they have set their hope (vv. 45, 46).

Thus here we have a whole series of interconnected themes: Jesus is the witness of the heavenly world; assuch he is Judge of the end. But he does not intend to be the accuser of the Jews. Their kategor – it is wellknown that the Greek juridical term passed into the juridical and religious language of the Jews at the sametime as its opposite sunegoros or parakletos – will be Moses, he whom they believe to be their defendingcounsel, who will intercede at the judgment day. Jesus returns to these themes in his last words addressedto the Jews (12.35-36, 44-50): 'I judge him not. . . For I come not to judge the world but to save the world.He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my sayings, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I spake, thesame shall judge him in the last day. For I spake not from myself; but the Father which sent me, he hathgiven me a commandment what I should say. . . .'

Is it a mere coincidence that these four groups of texts or chapters 3, 5, 8, 12, gravitate around the title of Son of Man? It is consistent with classic Jewish eschatology and with that of Jesus according to theSynoptics that the Son of Man should be the central personage of the last judgment. He will be the Judgeat the end. But he will also be the Paraclete before the Father, because he is the righteous One who died

for the sins of the world (I John 2.1). And at this very moment witnessing to the Father he exercises judgment by his Word. Like the prow of a boat cleaving the waters to right and to left, he constrains men todeclare themselves for or against him. Hence his judgment is both future and present. The process of

judgment unfolds itself both on earth and in heaven: the witness who has come from heaven, to whom Godhimself, his works, the Scriptures, and John the Baptist, bear witness – he who will become the object of the world's attack (first concealed then open), is the One who is about to be condemned by men. But hedoes not cease to bear witness to the world that its works are evil (7.7); he does not need that anyoneshould tell him what is in man: he knows himself what is in man (2.25), because he is the Judge who is lightand who sheds light (3.21). Before the court of Annas Jesus behaves as a witness (18.23) and before thatof Pilate (18.37) he affirms that he has come into the world to bear witness to the truth. The truth is that theworld is condemned and that he whom it is engaged in condemning is the sole righteous and true man. In



23

the course of this gigantic juridical contest, of which the earthly career of Jesus consists, other figuresemerge, notably John the Baptist, the eyewitness, those who have heard him (3.28) and the crowd whichbears witness to the raising of Lazarus (12.17).

After the resurrection the contest continues – in face of the hostile world, the witness par excellence will bethe Spirit. He bears witness with the water of Baptism and the blood of the crucified; and these three areone; the Spirit is, like the Son and the Father, truth itself (I John 5.6). The witnessing Spirit makes thedisciples witnesses before the world (15.26-27).

And thereupon John unfolds a whole theology of the interior and exterior witness of the Spirit which canonly have meaning when it is seen against the background of the quarrel between the world and believerswhich is developed both before the inner tribunal of the believer and the outer tribunal of the world (I John5.4-11).

But to appreciate properly this new phase of the earthly conflict and its connexion with the conflict of Jesus,we must view the drama from the celestial and cosmic plane. The Johannine kerygma is rather reserved atthis point. But what it does disclose is quite clear. At the moment when the Son of Man accepts hisglorification, that is, is willing to be buried in the darkness of condemnation and death, and when theheavenly voice says in confirmation 'I have both glorified it and will glorify it again' (12.23, 28), Jesusdeclares: 'Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I belifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me' (12.31-32).

This text alone would be sufficient to explode the current prejudice which supposes that judgment for Johnis something purely interior and immanent and spiritual, that he has interiorized the primitive eschatology of Jesus and expects of the future only the continued presence of the Spirit. In point of fact the quarrelincludes a transcendent aspect and a last judgment. But the fact is that John is very reserved about thetranscendent world as about the future. He has quite simply taken very seriously the truth that only the Sonof Man knows the life of the world to come and that he forbids apocalyptic speculation about this world of the beyond. Yet the few glimpses of the beyond which he permits suffice to show us that eschatology likeeverything else is severely concentrated on Christology. In the Son of Man, the future Judge, judgment isalready mysteriously present. At the very moment when the Son of Man accepts death, there takes place inthe presence of God the decisive event: Satan is cast out. He whose name means 'accuser' is banishedfrom the divine presence. That is the judgment of this world. The dominion of Satan is shattered. This textcould have no better commentary than that of the apocalyptic hymn (Rev. 12.10-12): 'Now is come thesalvation, and the power, and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accuseth them before our God day and night. And they overcame himbecause of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony. . . .' Can it be maintained thatbecause this event is considered as past the Apocalypse has spiritualized and interiorized eschatology?The hymn goes on to warn men that the devil has descended to the earth to vex it in anger knowing that histime is short. Similarly the Gospel of John knows that Satan will continue to work on earth. There will be atragic but provisional disjunction between the heavenly and the earthly series of events. But the quarrelwhich is to issue in the condemnation of Jesus is accompanied by that which ends in the condemnation of Satan the Accuser. And with his prophetic vision the Johannine Christ – and John too – sees transcendentand future events already contained in earthly and actual events. The Son of Man exalted on the Cross andat the same time paradoxically raised to the glory of the Father will take the place of the Accuser to reign asIntercessor, as Paraclete. Paraclete before God, he the Just, is the propitiation for the sins of the wholeworld (I John 2.1). Hence he will be able to draw all men unto him (12.32).

How will he do so? By the Spirit, until the day of final advent for the general resurrection and the last

judgment. Is it not significant that the function of the Spirit is regularly described in John more than in therest of the New Testament in juridical terms? He is the Paraclete, he bears witness; he convicts the worldof sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. He is the witness par excellence: he is the truth as opposed tofalse witness. If exegetes have not quite known what to make of the Spirit-Paraclete it is because it has notbeen realized that he has meaning only within the framework of the cosmic conflict. Even in Jewish thoughta precise juridical role is assigned to the Spirit.

19

19 Theo Preiss, Life in Christ , pp. 11, 15-20.



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Preiss also points out the way John's Gospel complements Paul's.

If he is less full than Paul on the subjective aspect of justification, on the other hand he is more precise thanPaul with regard to the cosmic conflict . . .Not all the personages of this drama of justification were still known: the accuser Satan had been forgotten.In particular the drama had become a non-temporal and personal interior affair, detached and isolated fromthe great cosmic drama of the coming of the Kingdom and its righteousness, and of the victory over Satan.Is it not significant that exegesis still fails to recognize that the parable of the Wicked Judge (Luke 18.1-8),

just as much as its twin sister concerning the Pharisee and the tax-gatherer, treats of justification, but of itsobjective aspect, of the great clash between God and his elect on the one hand and Satan and hispartisans on the other? . . .

Is not eschatology as a whole centered around God's judgment on the world? And will it not always includeas a consequence an absolutely essential juridical aspect? And will not the central personage of thisconflict between God and the prince of this world be the Judge, the Son of Man? All that Paul says about

justification is but an integral part of what one might call, for want of a better term, the cosmic conflict. Inthis connexion I can only mention apart from Luke 18.1-8 the grandiose vision of the celestial court of

justice which forms a climax to the process of justification (Rom. 8). If we wish to overcome our difficulty inappreciating the true dimensions of this doctrine we must break this age-long habit which goes backperhaps beyond the Reformation to the second century and which one-sidedly emphasizes the purelyindividual and subjective aspect of this important doctrine. But we are not here concerned to show how thisdistortion has impoverished the biblical kerygma and obscured its splendid unity. Let us simply point out

that it has unduly exaggerated the difference between Paul and John. For Johannine thought puts beforeus precisely this cosmic and objective aspect of the great conflict.

20

Now we turn to the work of Allison Trites. A large portion of his book, The New Testament Concept of Witness, deals with the Johannine literary corpus since John uses the word witness (testimony) aboutseventy times – more than any other New Testament writer. Says Trites:

The Fourth Gospel, like Isaiah 40-55, is of particular importance for it presents a sustained use of juridicalmetaphor. . . .

To begin with, the sayings of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel are often described as 'discourse', but are rather more commonly juridical debate. The discussions of Jesus with 'the Jews' sound like a lawsuit: indeed, thefirst twelve chapters have as their main theme the conflict of Jesus with the Ioudaioi , who represent theunbelieving world in its hostility to God. 'This whole section', Professor Johnston has pointed out, 'has theform of a great contest or assize.' The 'argumentativeness' which Burkitt found 'so positively repellent' is anintegral element in the Fourth Gospel, and provides just the context of contention and debate in which onewould expect to see witnesses called and evidence presented to substantiate the claims of Christ. . . .

The idea of witness in John's Gospel is both very prominent and thoroughly juridical, and is to beunderstood in terms of Old Testament legal language.

Other juridical words are notably frequent in the Fourth Gospel in the context of hostility and debate; e.g., judge, cause, judgment, accuse, convince. The use of such Greek words as krisis (eleven times), krinein (nineteen times), krima (9: 39), kategoria (18: 29), kategorein (5: 45, twice), apokrinesthai (5: 17, 19),apokrisis (1: 22; 19: 9), bema (19: 13), zetesis (3: 25), elegchein (3: 20; 8: 46; 16: 8), homologein (1: 20,twice; 9: 22; 12: 42), arneisthai (1: 20; 13: 38; 18: 25, 27), aitia (18: 38; 19: 4, 6), heuriskein (18: 38; 19: 4,6) and schisma (7: 43; 9: 16; 10: 19) suggests the idea that the work of Christ is set against a background

of opposition in which it would be natural to try to prove Christ's case when it was being questioned andchallenged.

The work of the Holy Spirit appears to be interpreted in a juridical way in the Fourth Gospel. Not only is theSpirit described by the juridical word Parakletos (14: 16, 26; 15: 26; 16: 7; cf. I Jn 2: 1), but his activity isthoroughly in keeping with such a designation.

The respect paid to the Old Testament law of evidence indicates that John has a case he is anxious toprove. Thus even Jesus' own declaration is not accepted as valid without confirmation (5: 31). Similarly,Jesus is presented as quoting the rule from the Old Testament that 'the witness of two men is true' (8: 17).

20 Ibid . pp. 27, 13-14.



25

This rule comes from Deut. 19: 15, and can be discovered in several places in John's Gospel – chapter 1has the double witness of the Baptist and the disciples; chapter 2 establishes the reality of the miracle bytwo independent witnesses; chapter 5 records the witness of the Baptist, the works of Christ and thescriptures; chapter 20 has two angels at the empty tomb where Mark has only one. John is definitelyconcerned to present legally admissible evidence.

Belief is a central concept in the Fourth Gospel; indeed, 'no other evangelist speaks so often of belief andunbelief.' Thus the verb pisteuein appears some ninety-eight times in the Gospel, usually with reference toChrist as the object of faith (e.g., 3: 16; 4: 39; 6: 29; 12: 44; 17: 20). This is not surprising in view of thetestimonial and evidential character of this Gospel (20: 31), and supports the notion that the Evangelist istrying to convince people that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. He writes, to borrow a phrase from 19:35, 'that you also may believe'. . . .

In chapters one to twelve John uses forensic language to describe a cosmic lawsuit between God and theworld, and in this respect he resembles Isaiah 40-55. In this lawsuit Christ is the representative of God andthe Jews are the representatives of the world. In their pleading the Jews base their arguments on the law,while Jesus appeals to the witness borne to him by John the Baptist, his own works and the scriptures, andrefers also to precedents in Old Testament history and fulfilled predictions. The lawsuit reaches its climax inthe proceedings before Pontius Pilate in which Christ is sentenced to death. Paradoxically, however,Christ's death is the means whereby he is glorified and draws all men to himself (12: 28, 32). By hisapparent defeat on Calvary Christ wins his case and 'overcomes the world' (cf. 16: 33, where the perfecttense of nikan is used). Instead of the cross being his judgment, it is really the judgment of the world; by it

every mouth is stopped and the whole world is found guilty before God (12: 31; cf. Rom. 3: 19). Thediabolos is active in opposing Christ (8: 44; 13: 2); as ho Satanas he makes use of Judas, ho hujos tesapoleias, in engineering the betrayal and arrest (13: 27; 17: 11; cf. 18: 2-12 and 6: 70, where Judas himself is termed a diabolos). However, the cross entails the legal defeat of Satan. The archon tou kosmou,mentioned in 12:31, 14: 30 and 16:11, is 'cast out' of the heavenly law court, so that he can no longer accuse those who follow Christ; he has been vanquished by the uplifting of the Son of Man (12: 31f., wherenote the double meaning of hupsoun; cf. Job 1: 6-12; 2: 1-6; Zech. 3: if.; Rev. 12: 9-12). The charges of theworld and of the Jews against Jesus have been proven untrue – a point suggested apocalyptically by theejection of the heavenly prosecutor (ekblethesetai , 12: 31). 'The ruler of this world is judged not to have any

just title or claim upon God's people.' Conversely, by winning the lawsuit, Jesus acquires a legal claim uponall men – an idea which becomes clear when the juridical background of helkein is understood. The firstphase of the lawsuit is completed when the first Advocate 'ascends' to the Father (20: 17), to plead,according to I John, the cause of sinful believers in the heavenly law court (I Jn 2:1; cf. Jn 17: 9ff.). The

second phase begins when the Holy Spirit comes to function as the Paraclete on earth (14: 16, 25; 16: 8-11).21

With regard to the book of Revelation, Trites cites the words of Caird:

The repeated use of the words 'witness' and 'testimony' is one of the many points of resemblance betweenthe Revelation and the Fourth Gospel. In Greek as in English these words could be treated as deadmetaphors, without any conscious reference to the law court, which was their primary setting. But boththese books use the words in their primary, forensic sense. The author of the Fourth Gospel, perhapsinspired by the example of Second Isaiah, presents his argument in the form of a law court debate, in whichone witness after another is summoned, until God's advocate, the Paraclete, has all the evidence he needsto convince the world that Jesus is the Son of God, and so win his case. In the Revelation the courtroomsetting is even more realistic; for Jesus had borne his testimony before Pilate's tribunal, and the martyrsmust face a Roman judge. What they have to remember as they give their evidence is that the evidence is

being heard in a court of more ultimate authority, where judgments which are just and true issue from thegreat white throne.

22

21 Allison A. Trites, The New Testament Concept of Witness, pp. 78-81, 112-13.

22 Ibid ., p. 154.



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Says Trites:

Under these conditions one would expect that words with forensic overtones would be given their fullweight in any message of encouragement. The use of nouns such as martus (1: 5; 2: 13; 3: 14; 11: 3; 17:6), martuija (1: 2, 9; 6: 9; 11: 7; 12: 11, 17; 19: 10; 20: 4), satanas (2: 9; 3: 9; 12: 9), diabolos (2: 10; 12: 9,12), kategor (12:10), krisis (14: 7; 16: 7; 18: 10; 19: 2), krima (17: 1; 18: 20; 20: 4), thronos (2: 13; 20: 4,11f.), hujos (tou) anthropou (1:13; 14: 14; cf. Jn 5: 27), nephele (1: 7; 11: 12; 14: 14-16; cf. Mk 14: 62 par.),biblia (used twice in 20: 12 to refer to the 'record books'; cf. Dan. 7: 10); of verbs such as 'bear witness'(marturein, 1: 2; 22: 16, 18, 20), 'confess' (homologein, 3: 5), 'deny' (arneisthai , 2:13; 3: 8), 'accuse'(kategorein, 12:10), 'judge' (krinein, 6:10; 11: 18; 16: 5; 18: 18, 20; 19: 2, 11; 20: 12f.), 'avenge' or 'vindicate' (ekdikein, 6: 10; 19: 2; cf. Lk. 18: 3, 5), 'have against' (echein with kata in 2: 4, 14, 20), 'find'(heuriskein, 3: 2); and of adjectives such aspistos (1: 5; 2:10, 13; 3:14; 17:14; 19:11; 21: 5; 22: 6) andalethinos (3: 7, 14; 6: 10; 15: 3; 16: 7; 19: 2, 9, 11; 21: 5; 22: 6) show that this is in fact the case. Metaphors

drawn from the law court are never far from the author's mind.23

Revelation 12 "presents one of his [John's] great legal scenes." 24 Satan is the accuser or prosecutor,while Michael stands as the counsel for the defense. By the blood of the cross Satan's case againstGod's people is quashed, and they emerge victorious in the court of law.

Summary

The gospel of the New Testament is not only set in the framework of Old Testament history. It is also setin the framework of Old Testament law. God's salvation act in Christ was both a historical event and alegal transaction. God acted in such a way that the redemption of the human race was legally

accomplished, the sin problem was solved, the devil was defeated, death was abolished, and everlastingrighteousness was brought in. The future is a foregone conclusion because the decisive victory hasalready taken place. Salvation is founded on the just and lawful proceedings of the court of the universe.

The objection that the juridical element of theology is cold and impersonal stems from a twofoldmisunderstanding. On one hand, it stems from misunderstanding the character of God. He is a God of law who has created a structured universe governed by inexorable law. The Bible everywhere declaresthat man is confronted with a final judgment which will judge him by law (Rom. 2:6-16). On the other

23 Ibid ., pp. 161-62.

24 Ibid ., p. 170.



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hand, man, made in God's image, is a creature of law. His own conscience testifies to the human heart'sinsatiable demand for justice. Man cannot be truly human unless he knows he is in the right – justified.

All human behavior is related to justification. Man's behavior either springs from the effort to be justifiedor from the consolation of being justified. Only a salvation historically and legally established can giveman peace of conscience and a secure basis on which to build for time and eternity. Although biblicaltruth may not appeal directly to the emotions, it strikes a man in the center of his existence. It alone canprofoundly affect his deepest feelings because it alone can reach his deepest needs.

Chapter 6

Christ, the Meaning of Law and Prophets

Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfillthem.—Matt. 5:17-18.

There are two main elements in Old Testament Scripture: law and prophets. Both elements aregathered up and reach their goal and perfection in the death and resurrection of Christ.

Prophets

God's first promise of redemption was given to Adam in Eden (Gen. 3:15). It was repeated to Abraham,Isaac, Jacob and David. This promise was the message of the prophets. Out of days of darkness andhuman tragedy, the prophets spoke of a new age. They depicted God's final act of redemption in the lightof past history and contemporary events. They promised that in the fullness of time God wouldrecapitulate Old Testament history in one glorious drama of liberation. All history is shown to be movingtoward that goal. The Old Testament points forward, crying, "Behold, the days come!" The NewTestament brings a dramatic change of tense. The promises of the Old Testament are no longer futurebut present. They are said to be fulfilled in Christ. The New Testament proclaims: "The time is fulfilled.""Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears.

Paul proclaimed this message in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia. He preached Christ out of thebackground of Old Testament history. First he recounted and recited the election of Israel, the Exodusand the promises the prophets had kept alive for centuries. Coming to the death and resurrection of Christ, he declared, "We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers He has fulfilled for us,their children, by raising Jesus from the dead" (Acts 13:32-33). In another place Paul wrote, "For all thepromises of God find their Yes in Him" (2 Cor. 1:20, RSV).

All the hopes and promises of the Old Testament find their fulfillment in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The hermeneutical question is not whether we are going to interpret the prophetic promisesof the Old Testament literally or spiritually. It is whether we are going to follow the lead of the gospel andinterpret them christologically. It is not a matter of acknowledging that some prophetic promises to Israelwere fulfilled in Christ and the rest are left to be fulfilled in another time or place. Either Jesus' death andresurrection fulfilled every jot and tittle of God's purpose for Israel, or He fulfilled none of it and is not

God's Messiah.

Jesus is God's new Israel. He is the real Israel God always had in mind. When He raised Jesus from thedead and glorified Him at His own right hand, what more could He do for Israel? Here He fulfilled Hispromises to Israel far beyond what any Old Testament saint could hope or think. By His death ("It isfinished") Christ had fulfilled all Israel's obligations to God. By His resurrection God had carried out all Hispromises to Israel. The covenantal transaction was fulfilled.Christ's glorification is of deepest interest to those who believe on Him. By the Spirit they areincorporated into Him and become part of the Israel of God (Gal. 3:27-29; 6:16). All that Christ has beengiven is for them (Dan. 7:13-14, 27) and is theirs in Him.



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With Him they have been given all things (Rom. 8:32; Eph. 1:3). And by the Spirit, through faith, they waitfor the visible realization of these things when Christ shall appear (Gal. 5:5; Col. 3:4).

What then can we say about the "evangelical" fashion of taking the Old Testament prophecies and jumping over the New Testament to postulate a carnal fulfillment in a nation now called Israel – which isnot biblical Israel? Surely this is one of the most extraordinary heresies ever to roost in the evangelicalnest! It is contrary to the whole spirit of the New Testament, which proclaims that all that the OldTestament promised Adam (mankind) and Israel has been fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus

Christ.

Law

The New Testament is just as emphatic that the entire law – both moral and ceremonial – has met itsfulfillment and reached its appointed goal in the death and resurrection of Christ (Matt. 5:17-18; Rom.10:4; Gal. 3:19-24).

Moral Law. 25 The Ten Commandments were a reflection of the righteousness of Christ. They pointed toHim because His perfect life was exactly what their rigorous moral demands required (Rom. 10:4). The

law was the gospel of His righteousness enfolded, and the gospelwas the law unfolded. Under the Mosaic administration the Ten

Words of the covenant (Deut. 4:13) were amplified byadditional statutes and judgments and were applied to suitthe historical situation of the religious cult. They served tokeep alive a sense of sin in the age of Israel's minority.By causing the community to look for a righteousnessoutside and above themselves, the elaborate legal codekept the community from reverting to a paganinsensibility.

With the coming of the gospel, however, thecovenantal community came of age (Gal. 4:1-6). They

no longer needed that multitude of cultic laws imposedon them in their minority. The gospel broke through thebounds of sectarian Judaism to become trans-cultural and auniversal world religion.

This does not mean that New Testament ethics are lessrigorous and demanding than Old Testament ethics. In HisSermon on the Mount Jesus radicalized the demands of the law.Now it is clearly seen that the law has always demanded nothingless than the perfect righteousness found in Him. But in the New

Testament we do have a new administration of the law. In the OldTestament the words of the covenant were administered by the

Torah, which literally means the instruction or teaching. In the NewTestament they are administered by the Spirit, who comes to us

clothed in the gospel of Christ (2 Cor. 3). If we look carefully at the ethicsof the Pauline Epistles, we will see that Paul always shows that the gospel demands a certain type of behavior. He, of course, is still moving within the framework of Old Testament ethics. (And all the greathistoric churches have followed the biblical tradition by including the Ten Commandments in their catechisms or articles of faith.) But instead of having the words of the covenant hedged about andexpanded by a multitude of cultic laws designed for "children," the New Testament believer lives as agrown son who can see these moral principles refracted by the gospel of Christ.

25 Although the New Testament generally makes no precise distinction between the moral and ceremonial aspects of the law, the Christian

church has always been able to assume a distinction between the two. Texts like 1 Corinthians 7:19 imply a distinction. And no one couldsuccessfully argue that Romans 7:7, 12, 22, Romans 8:7 and 1 John 3:4 are talking about Jewish ceremonies.



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When Paul uses the expression "under the law" in a pejorative sense, he means at least three things:under condemnation of the law, under a law-keeping method of salvation, or under the elaborate rulesand regulations of the religious cult (Rom. 6:14; Gal. 3:24-25; 4:1-6, 21). While the consciences of Christians today are not bound by the Old Jewish national taboos, they are often bound by peculiar denominational taboos or special evangelical taboos. We are too prone to measure piety by adherenceor non-adherence to things which have assumed a cultic religious significance. The breaking of one of these taboos is often regarded as more serious than breaking one of the Ten Commandments. Paulwould identify this as being "under the law."

Ceremonial Law. Like the historical acts of God in the Old Testament, the ritual law was a typology of Jesus Christ. It prefigured how Christ would become Israel's righteousness and take away her sin. Thetabernacle ceremonial was a typology of the gospel.

No part of the law – whether circumcision or feast days – could pass awayuntil all of it had met its fulfillment in Jesus Christ (Matt. 5:17-18).Since the law of the priesthood has been changed (Heb. 7:12) andcircumcision and Jewish feasts are no longer binding on Christians, weknow that every jot and tittle of the law have met their fulfillment in Christ

– whether Passover, Tabernacles, Jubilee, the offering of the red heifer,peace offerings, sin offerings, Day of Atonement sacrifices, or the

service of priests and the high priest.

The main emphasis in the Gospels is that the Exodus Passover wasfulfilled in the death and resurrection of Christ (Luke 9:31). But allusionsto the climactic feasts of the seventh month are also present. Derrettsays:

They [the synoptics] linked Jesus’ sufferings with the usual dramaticpreparation of the High Priest, on the Eve of the Day of Atonement. Thelatter was taken to an upper chamber , where he communed with the'elders of the priesthood', having left the custody of the 'elders of theCourt'. He was adjured , and was kept awake all night . . . During the

ceremonies the High Priest was robed and disrobed several times andhis final vestments were glorious. The gospel texts have retained thecoincidences, some of them trifling in themselves, because the role of the High Priest and the outlines of his ritual were perfectly well known,and because a succession of mere hints was enough to make thepoint that Jesus was the real High Priest and was just about to effectthe real (and everlasting) Atonement. . . . That the Day of Atonementand Passover have little in common seemed irrelevant, on the theorythat Jesus' life summed up and gave meaning to all the Torah.

26

26 J. Duncan M. Derrett, Law in the New Testament ; pp 410-11.



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On the Day of Atonement Aaron laid aside his pontifical vestments and donned the plain white robes of the common priest. In these garments he offered the Day of Atonement sacrifice and entered the holy of holies to make the atonement by sprinkling the blood upon the mercy seat. Having made full satisfactionto the claims of the law of God beneath the mercy seat, he came out of the holy of holies and laid asidehis plain linen garments. Then, re-clothing himself in his glorious vestments, he came forth and blessedthe waiting people (Lev. 16).

In His incarnation Jesus laid aside His royal robes and took the garment of frail human nature. At CalvaryHe was the sacrifice, the High Priest, and the mercy seat all in one. Veiled in the awful and impenetrabledarkness which enveloped the cross during His dying agonies, He was like Aaron making atonementbeyond the sight of any human eye. As deep silence fell over the congregation of Israel when Aaronstood before the mercy seat, so every voice was hushed when Jesus was enveloped by the thickdarkness of Calvary. The darkness and earthquake (and probably thunder and flashes of lightning) werea recapitulation of the theophany at Mount Sinai, which was a type of the day of judgment. According toJewish tradition the Day of Atonement was celebrated on the anniversary of the day their mediator Moses entered the thick cloud and ascended the mountain into the presence of God.

On the resurrection morning John and Peter ran to the tomb and found only Christ's linen garments,which He had laid aside (John 20:5-8). In choosing to record this incident, John was probably thinking of Leviticus 16. Our High Priest had made the atonement and had laid aside His common linen garments.On His resurrection day He came forth and blessed His waiting disciples (John 20:22).

The fascinating allusions in the Gospels become emphatic dogma in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The

Passover imagery is present in the mind of its author (Heb. 13:20; cf. Isa. 63:11). But his main theme isto show that the high-priestly ministration on the Day of Atonement had met its fulfillment in the Christevent.

An important feature of biblical typology in the book of Hebrews must not escape our notice. Althoughfeatures of the type are always gathered up and recapitulated in the antitype, the antitype alwayssupersedes the type. There is correspondence between type and antitype, but there is also contrast. For instance, the high priest of the old Aaronic order went into the sanctuary to make the atonement beforethe mercy seat. But according to Hebrews the High Priest of the Melchizedek order made the atonementand then went into the heavenly sanctuary.



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After He had provided purification for sins [an expression corresponding to the Old Testament wordatonement], He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.— Heb. 1:3.

He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.—Heb. 9:12.

But now He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself.—Heb. 9:26. (This act on Calvary is contrasted with Aaron's entrance into the holy of holies on theDay of Atonement.)

Again using the Day of Atonement imagery, the writer to the Hebrews says:

He had to be made like His brothers in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithfulHigh Priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people.—Heb. 2:17,NIV.

The word the New International Version translates as "atonement" is hilasterion, the same word used todesignate the mercy seat in Hebrews 9:5 (KJV). What the King James Version translates as "mercyseat," the New International Version more accurately translates as "place of atonement." (The sameword is used in Romans 3:25, 1 John 2:2 and 1 John 4:20.) From the total New Testament witness, wecan say the New Testament teaches that the cross of Calvary fulfilled the type of the high priestsprinkling the blood on the mercy seat on the Day of Atonement. On the cross Jesus Himself became our

mercy seat or place of atonement. Daniel's prophecy of the Messiah also takes several key expressionsfrom Leviticus 16 and applies their fulfillment to the Christ event (Dan. 9:24).

Summary

All Old Testament Scripture – law and prophets – is fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Christ. Allthe promises of the prophets, all the demands of the moral law and all the types of the ceremonial lawfind their end in Christ crucified and risen. Calvary gives meaning to the entire Old Testament.

Consider how great was this act of God in Jesus Christ. It was all that God had ever promised the humanrace. It was our Passover, Day of Atonement, mercy seat, Jubilee. In fact, it was the reality of allofferings and feasts in one. It was the new creation, the ark which saves from the flood of wrath, theexodus from sin and death, and the restoration of the desolate sanctuary (Dan. 8:14). All that camebefore Calvary was a picture of Calvary. It all existed for the sake of Jesus Christ (Col. 1:16).

We must not conclude that God often acted to deal with sin in Old Testament times but was unsuccessfuluntil He acted in Christ. God planned one great saving act from eternity (Rom. 16:25). As far as God isconcerned, Calvary does not come after Creation or the Flood or the Exodus or the giving of the law. Itcomes first. Before God did anything, there was Christ, the eternal Mediator, the Lamb slain from thefoundation of the world (John 1:1-4; Rev. 13:8). "He is before all things, and in Him all things holdtogether" (Col. 1:17). Calvary was God's predestined act (Acts 2:23; Eph. 3:11). So surely as there wasnever a time when God was not, so surely there was never a time when it was not the delight of theeternal Mind to manifest His grace toward us in the gift of Christ.

All the power, love and wisdom of the Godhead were manifested in the death and resurrection of Christ.

It was an act so great that the universe is small in comparison to it. God planned this one act to deal withsin. And when He did it, it was done forever (Eccl. 3:14). It was a thorough work. God gave everythingwith Christ (Rom. 8:32). There was nothing more He could do.

Calvary has become the watershed of history. It is the event of all events. All events before it pointforward to it. All events after it point back to it. The death and resurrection of Christ give meaning toeverything else. Nothing in itself has any meaning unless related to the death and resurrection of Christ."All things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together"(Col. 1:16-17).



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Chapter 7

Christ, the Meaning of All Life

We must now turn our attention to the appropriate human response to the mighty acts of God. "He hascaused His wonderful works to be remembered" (Ps. 111:4). The religion of the Old Testament saints isa religion of the great acts of God.

When we say proclamation, we do not mean reenactment . The great acts of God are unique and infinite.They cannot be duplicated. Although done for man, they are done apart from human activity. Man makesno contribution to them. They are done wholly without man's participation or cooperation. As far as thereligion of the Bible is concerned, man must abandon any arrogant pretense of reenacting the mightyworks of God (John 6:28-29). He is called to recount, recite or proclaim them (Judges 5:11). God's acts

are to be remembered in grateful celebration. This is the essence of biblical worship.

God does not leave man to devise ways of reciting His acts. He appoints the way His works are to beremembered and celebrated. For instance, when God created the world, He instituted the Sabbath.When He delivered Noah from the Flood, He appointed the rainbow as the means of remembering Hissaving act (Gen. 2:1-3; 9:13-17). When He rescued Abraham to covenantal fellowship, He gave him thesign of circumcision.

The Exodus is the great event of Israel's history. God wanted His people to recount, remember andcelebrate this event for all generations to come. Israel's entire system of worship was founded on theExodus.

You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out

thence with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keepthe Sabbath day.—Deut. 5:15.

Almost identical words are used as the reason for Israel's keeping all the feasts of the Hebrew calendar –the Passover (Ex. 12:27; 13:3-9), Unleavened Bread (Deut. 16:3), Pentecost (Deut. 16:10-12) andTabernacles (Lev. 23:41-43; Deut. 16:13). The deliverance from Egypt is also the reason why Israelbrought the firstfruits to the tabernacle (Deut. 26:1-9) and redeemed every firstborn (Ex. 13:2, 14-16).Every religious institution proclaimed one message: "You shall remember that you were a servant in theland of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out thence with a mighty hand." Israel worshiped God(gave God His worth) by reciting and recalling what He had done for them in their Exodus.



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This recital of the Exodus was not only the focal point of all Israel's sacred institutions. It was the basis of all her ethics.

"Love the sojourner therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God;you shall serve Him and cleave to Him, and by His name you shall swear. He is your praise; He is your God,who has done for you these great and terrible things which your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down toEgypt seventy persons; and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of heaven for multitude.

"You shall therefore love the Lord your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and Hiscommandments always. And consider this day (since I am not speaking to your children who have not knownor seen it), consider the discipline of the Lord your God, His greatness, His mighty hand and His outstretchedarm, His signs and His deeds which He did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land; and whatHe did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots; how He made the water of the Red Seaoverflow them as they pursued after you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day; and what He didto you in the wilderness, until you came to this place; and what He did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, son of Reuben; how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel; for your eyes have seen all the greatwork of the Lord which He did."You shall therefore keep all the commandment which I command you this day, that you may be strong, andgo in and take possession of the land which you are going over to possess."—Deut. 10:19-11:8.

"It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set His love upon you and

chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples; but it is because the Lord loves you, and is keeping theoath which He swore to your fathers, that the Lord has redeemed you from the house of bondage, from thehand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keepscovenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, to a thousandgenerations, and requites to their face those who hate Him, by destroying them; He will not be slack with himwho hates Him, He will requite him to his face. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment, andthe statutes, and the ordinances, which I command you this day. "—Deut. 7:7-11.

"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.You shall have no other gods before Me. "—Ex. 20:2-3.

Israel's ethics, therefore, were grounded on redemption, not redemption on their ethics. The deliverancefrom Egypt became the reason for all Israel's behavior. They were to live before God, before each other

and even before strangers in the spirit of grateful celebration of their redemption. Life was to be a reflectionof the Exodus. Everything Israel did – the way they kept their holy days and feast days, the way they dealtwith the poor, the way they instructed their children, the way they harvested their fields, the way theyshowed hospitality – was an act of remembering the Exodus.

We cannot overestimate the importance of Israel's continual recital of the Exodus. Many psalms aredevoted to recounting the Exodus (Ps. 66, 78, 105, 106, 111). These psalms show that to remember is tobelieve, and to forget is to disbelieve. When Israel forgot to live in grateful response to God's saving act,she forgot her fellow men and lived without justice, mercy or humility (Micah 6:1-8).

When Israel and her saints made intercession with God, their petitions held up before God His covenantalact (2 Chron. 20:5-12; Dan. 9:1-19). Recounting the Exodus was not merely a memory. When the covenantwas recounted, God remembered the covenant. This does not mean He ever forgot it. To remember is a

dynamic Hebrew concept. It means God acted to reaffirm and carry out His covenantal purpose. All thepower in the original saving act accompanies the recounting of that act. This is illustrated by Moses' strikingthe rock. God did not want Moses to reenact the striking of the rock. It was to be struck just once.Thereafter, recounting of the act would suffice to bring water from the rock (Num.20).

When, in his distress, Jehoshaphat recounted the Exodus, the power of the Exodus was revealed indelivering Judah from her enemies (2 Chron. 20). When Daniel recounted the covenant, the work of Godmoved forward. No wonder the prince of evil worked to have Daniel thrown into the den of lions! He wantedto end Daniel's intercession (Dan. 6:9-10). The power and presence of God, revealed in the Exodus, werepresent whenever the covenant was recited and recounted. Covenantal recital, therefore, is not a merememorial. It is an act of faith in which God is present to reaffirm His original covenantal act.



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Recounting the Death and Resurrection of Christ

If we have learned that recounting the Exodus was the essential nature of Israel's life and worship, we areready to look at the New Testament exodus in the same light. The principle of Christian existence is alsorecital. But the proclamation and celebration of the Christian community should be greater. The old songsof deliverance will never do because the Old Testament acts of deliverance have all been superseded bya deliverance they could only mirror. God's act in Christ is absolutely unique and unrepeatable. GodHimself cannot repeat or add anything to what He has done. Christ, the Intercessor at God's right hand,does not reenact His doing and dying. He Himself reaffirms the merits of His saving, completed act. As our

Advocate He pleads His blood and righteousness on our behalf. The Holy Spirit's work is to explicate theglories of Christ crucified and risen for us (John 16:13-14). "The Holy Spirit does not add anything. Hesimply permits us to grasp it and to live by it.” 27 If neither the Father, the Son nor the Holy Spirit canreenact the death and resurrection of Christ, it must be clear that the Christian community can onlyrecount and recite it, and keep it in memory. The believer’s eye of faith is ever “cast within the veil”.

By Preaching the Gospel. This is primary. The gospel is a continual recital of the death andresurrection of Christ. People are saved only if they keep in memory what has happened andwhat has been given to them (1 Cor. 15:1-4). Yet

this recital and proclamation is more than a

memory of Calvary. The gospel is preached withthe Holy Spirit sent down from heaven (1 Peter 1:12). By this means Christ crucified ismiraculously placarded in such a way before theeyes of those who hear that the past event is

mysteriously present (Gal. 3:1). The power of theresurrection is present in the gospel because thepower of the covenantal act is present in itsproclamation (Rom. 1:16). The Rock of our salvationonly needs to be smitten once. It yields its life-givingstream whenever the saving act is proclaimed.

The church comes to life by the preaching of the gospel. She can continue to live only by continuing tohear it. Woe to the preacher who tries to entertain or distract the flock with new inventions! Rather, hemust keep before them the scenes of Calvary by the continual reaffirmation and recital of Christ's deathand resurrection (Gal. 1:6-8).

By Signs and Seals. The new covenant hassigns and seals – visible pledges and tokens of God's promise – just as there were signs and sealsin the Old Testament. Baptism and the Supper aretwo signs and seals. The Puritans and Sabbatariansinclude the fourth commandment of the moral law asa third sign and seal of the covenant. 28 We are mindful

that baptism, the Supper and the Sabbath have been areasof fierce contention among Christians. Some Antinomiansand dispensationalists say no signs and seals are necessary.Others say one or all are absolutely necessary for salvation.Still others say they are "ordinarily necessary" – necessary innormal circumstances. Then there is the question whether Christ is really present in the sign and seal of the covenant,and if He is present, in what way. This is not the place to try to

27 Jacques de Senarciens, Heirs of the Reformation, p.189.

28 See Robert D. Brinsmead, Covenant , for a fuller discussion.



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settle all these questions. But we suggest there is much profit inthinking of the signs and seals as appointed means of proclaiming and celebrating the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Baptism, for instance, is not a reenactment of Calvary. It is a means of publiclyproclaiming it. It is not primarily the sign of the believer's dedication to theLord. It is God's pledge that the believer may now stand before Him with agood conscience for the sake of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:21). 29

In the argument over the presence of Christ in the Supper, we can saythe Supper is clearly a reproclamation of the cross ("Do this . . . inremembrance of Me"-1 Cor. 11:25). But as we have alreadypointed out, the saving reality of that unrepeatable act is presentin the covenantal proclamation. The Supper is no mere memorialservice. Christ through the Holy Spirit is especially present togive visible pledges of His covenantal promise.

In the arguments over the keeping of any holy day, let us firstpoint out that in itself any day is absolutely empty. No createdthing has any meaning or significance in itself. The nature of asign is to point away from itself to something else. Theimportant thing, therefore, is not to concentrate on the signitself, but on what it is related to.

From the Old Testament it is clear that the day of rest wasinstituted and sanctified at Creation (Gen. 2:1-3), again at theExodus (Ex. 20:8-11; 34:21; Deut. 5:14, 15), and it wasrepeated at the renewing of the covenant after the BabylonianExile (Isa. 56:1-6; 58:13-14). But these Old Testament eventswere for the sake of Jesus Christ. They pointed to Him and weremirrors of the rest which He sanctified by His own blood (Heb.4:1-10). Who could miss the correspondence between thestatement in Genesis that "the heavens and the earth were

finished" (Gen. 2:1) with Christ's triumphant cry from the cross,"It is finished"? (John 19:30). And how could we miss the factthat rest follows a finished work as it did at both Creation andCalvary? We enter Christ's rest only as we by faith rest in His deathand resurrection. We suggest the application of these principles to boththe form and spirit of the Christian's rest.

By the Practice of Christian Ethics. The believer is called to live a certain way in view of God'smercies toward him (Rom. 12:1; 2 Cor. 7:1). We saw that Israel's ethics were based on redemption. Soare the ethics of the New Testament. We are exhorted to forgive because God has forgiven us for thesake of Christ (Col. 3:13). We are to speak evil of no one because we too were foolish and disobedientuntil the kindness and love of God brought salvation to us (Titus 3:2-7). We are to be merciful because of

God's overwhelming mercy toward us. The deeds of the sinful nature are to be mortified because Godhas reckoned that we have died by our incorporation into Christ's death (Col. 3:1-3). If the imperatives of the New Testament are separated from the context of its indicatives (the gospel), ethics degenerate intomoralism. All true Christian ethics, therefore, are acts done in remembrance of Calvary. When Godremembers His covenant, He acts. When we remember His covenant, we act. This is what the dynamicbiblical concept of remembrance means. We could call it faith. Faith is not an idle opinion which flitsacross the top of the brain. It is a principle which lives out the implications of Christ's death andresurrection.

29 The word the King James Version translates as "answer" is from the Greek word eperotema, which means "pledge." Recent papyri evidence

shows it is a legal word associated with formal contracts or covenants.



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"Everything that does not come from faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23). Good works are those things done ingrateful remembrance of Calvary. Any activity unrelated to the death and resurrection of Christ is sin. Sinis the will of the creature to have meaning in himself. Sin is existence which does not reflect the deathand resurrection of Jesus. This not only includes flagrant violation of His moral law. It includes any formof piety, religion or devotion which does not point away from itself to the death and resurrection of Christ.The world should be able to look at the behavior of the Christian community and see a living epistle of the gospel of Christ. However, the life of the Christian is a reflection of Christ’s life never a reenactment or duplicate. We can reflect the Pattern, but never equal the Pattern.

In the Natural Order of Life. To live as a Christian does not mean doing spectacular things. It meansdoing ordinary things in remembrance of Christ's death and resurrection. God has ordained this life to bea continual round of eating and drinking, working and resting, sleeping and rising, sowing and reaping,living and dying. In this basic order of human existence everybody lives much the same way.

Philosophy asks, "What is the meaning of life?" When Solomon thought about the recurring rhythm of humdrum human existence, he concluded it was all empty and chasing after wind (see Ecclesiastes).The philosophers of our age have come to the same conclusion. The fact is that human life has nomeaning in itself. Nothing in the created order has any meaning in itself.

The apostle Peter declares that Christ died to liberate us from this empty human existence (1 Peter

1:18). And Paul confesses, "For to me, to live is Christ" (Phil. 1:21). Christ's death and resurrection givemeaning to all human existence. The command, "Do this in remembrance of Me," becomes a principlewhich applies not only to the Supper, but to every aspect of human life. Life becomes a sacrament, atestimony to, and celebration of, God's saving act in Jesus Christ.

When a believer eats, he should eat in remembrance of Christ's death and resurrection. He shouldacknowledge that he has food on his table because Christ died and rose again. Not one saint or sinner eats his daily bread without being a recipient of the benefit of Calvary. If Christ had not died, this earthwould have perished under God's curse. But because of Christ, God can send rain and sunshine on the

just and unjust. So for the believer every meal becomes a sacrament in which the Lord's body isacknowledged.

When the believer drinks, he remembers that Christ is that smitten Rock

from which flows the water of eternal life. When he enters the shelter of his home, he remembers that Christ is "a hiding place from the wind, acovert from the tempest" (Isa. 32:2). "The name of the Lord is a strongtower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe" (Prov. 18:10). In allhis daily needs – food and drink, shelter and clothing – the believer remembers Christ. Thus, by His sinless life, atoning death, andresurrection Christ has become the believer's living Bread, his livingWater, his Garment of righteousness and his Shelter from the wrath of God.

When we lie down to sleep, our lives end, for we live only one day at atime. It is for good reason that death is likened to sleep. At the end of

the day, therefore, we should recall the death of our Lord Jesus Christ.Let us commit our lives to God as He did on the cross, knowing thatas surely as He rose from the dead, we too shall rise again. In themorning we can then remember His resurrection. Morning by morningHis mercies are renewed unto us because He rose from the dead andnow intercedes for us at the right hand of God.

Every time a child is born in our home, we have occasion to remember the gift of God. "For to us a Childis born, to us a Son is given" (Isa. 9:6). Apart from the Christ child we would have no reason to rejoice inthe birth of our children. Apart from His death and resurrection there is no meaning to life and no futurefor our children.



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Marriage too is a time to celebrate that union which alone can give meaning and purpose to themarriage institution. The Christian wedding reminds us that "Christ loved the church and gave Himself upfor her" (Eph. 5:25). Sickness and suffering are also occasions to remember that Christ bore our

sicknesses (Isa. 53:4) and suffered for us (1 Peter 2:21). Even when called to lay down his life, theChristian has occasion to reflect the death of Christ. Because of His death the death of the believer isturned into a blessing. The old corruptible nature, tainted and defiled by evil, is deposited in the graveand shall be raised again to incorruption, fashioned like His glorious body (1 Cor. 15:50-55; Phil. 3:21).

So the death and resurrection of Christ fill all life with meaning. Nothing has significance unless it standsin relation to the One who died and rose again. Christ is the meaning of all life. To realize this makes lifea sacrament, a testimony, and a celebration of the death and resurrection of Christ. This spirit of celebration is the life of heaven. Christ Himself, by His continual intercession, recites His completed oncefor all sacrifice. The angels, the twenty-four elders and the living creatures never cease to joyouslyrecount His death and resurrection.

And they sang a new song:

"You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals,because You were slain,and with Your blood You purchased men for Godfrom every tribe and language and people and nation.You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,and they will reign on the earth."

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and tenthousand times ten thousand They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loudvoice they sang:



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"Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strengthand honor and glory and praise!"

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is inthem, singing:

"To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lambbe praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!"

—Rev. 5:9-13.

That which we call sanctification is glorification or the life of heaven begun in the here and now. To live inthe spirit of joyful remembrance, celebrating Christ's death and resurrection in all we undertake and do isthe essence of Christian sanctification.

“Worth is the Lamb who was slain! “



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Chapter 8

The Captivity of the Christian ChurchThe death and resurrection of Christ not only give meaning to history before the cross, but to all historyafter the cross. The book of Revelation is about the future, but it is a future seen in the light of the Lambthat was slain and lives again. Calvary is reflected in the history of the followers of the Lamb who weredragged before courts, condemned, and who poured out their blood at the altar. The witnesses of Revelation 11 prophesy for “three and one-half years”. They are slain in the street of the city "where alsotheir Lord was crucified" (Rev. 11:8). They are jeered at by their enemies, and then they are resurrectedand ascend to heaven. The entire prophecy is reminiscent of Christ's three and one-half year ministryand His death and resurrection.

Using the language of apocalyptic metaphor, the book of Revelation shows that the church alsorecapitulates the history of the Old Testament. There is another Egyptian bondage or, to change thefigure, another Babylonish captivity (Rev. 11:2, 3, 7; 17:1-5). Luther could see that the church hadrecapitulated the history of the Old Testament church. One of his most famous treatises was entitled The

Babylonish Captivity of the Church.

It is now our task to trace the steps which led to this new Egyptian or Babylonish captivity. Paul warnedthe church that there would be a "falling away" (2 Thess. 2:1-8). This fall obviously recapitulated the fallin Eden, when Eve was tempted to exalt herself above God (cf. Gen. 3:5 with 2 Thess. 2:4). In hisCorinthian correspondence Paul likened the church to Eve and expressed his fear that Satan wouldagain be successful in her seduction.

I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might presentyou as a pure virgin to Him. But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes toyou and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from theone you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.—2

Cor. 11:2-4.

This passage reminds us of Paul's warning to the Galatians:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and areturning to a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you intoconfusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven shouldpreach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! — Gal. 1:6-8.

The apostle's remarks about "the man of lawlessness" who "opposes and exalts himself" and "setshimself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God" (2 Thess. 2:3, 4) are obviously taken from thebook of Daniel (Dan. 7:8, 11), especially from Daniel 8:11-13. This antichrist, who pollutes the templeand becomes the object of adoration, is called "the transgression that makes desolate" or "theabomination that makes desolate" (Dan. 9:27; 11:31). We cannot possibly apply this prophecy in Daniel

to Antiochus Epiphanes and his desecration of the temple at Jerusalem about 165 B.C. Jesus appliesthis prophecy about "the abomination that causes desolation" to something future from His day (Matt.24:14-15). Old Testament figures such as Pharaoh, Sennacherib, and Nebuchadnezzar and arehistorical precursors of the antichrist. Neither can we confine "the abomination that causes desolation" tothe idolatrous standards of pagan Rome, which desecrated and finally destroyed Jerusalem and itstemple in A.D. 70. We must grasp the biblical principle of the recapitulating history of events and thenhold this history in the light of the death and resurrection of Christ.



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Let us now look at this religious desolator, this supplanter and destroyer of the gospel, through the eyesof John the Revelator. 30 John describes a trinity called the dragon, beast and false prophet (Rev. 13).(The links this passage has with Daniel 7, 8, 11, Matthew 24:15 and 2 Thessalonians 2 are obvious.)Here we are shown that Satan is trying to imitate the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The dragon gives tothe beast "his power and his throne and great authority" (Rev. 13:2). This parallels the Father's giving "allauthority in heaven and on earth" to His Son (Matt. 28:18; cf. Dan. 7:13, 14). The beast of Revelation 13is the antichrist because he tries to reenact the death and resurrection of Christ. The analogies betweenthe false prophet and the Holy Spirit are also striking. The false prophet is called "another beast" (Rev.13:11) just as Jesus called the Holy Spirit "another Counselor" (John 14:16). This beast brings downwhat appears in the sight of men to be fire from heaven. He deceives men into making an image to theantichrist and worshiping him. In all this he counterfeits the work of the Holy Spirit. Altogether, John iswarning the church about deception, false worship and a false gospel which would lead the people of God back into the slavery of Egypt or the bondage of Babylon.

We must now search out the chief characteristics of this false gospel which leads the church into thegreat captivity. As we look at the warnings of holy Scripture, we see that the false gospel has twocharacteristics. It is a "gospel" of reenactment, and it is a theology of glory.

The "Gospel" of Reenactment The most striking feature of the antichrist is his attempt to reenact the Christ event. Just as our LordJesus Christ was “wounded” for the sins of the world and was raised back to life to receive the worship of men, so the antichrist beast receives a death wound, is revived, and lives again (Rev 13:3). The revivalof beast is accomplished through the nefarious efforts of a second beast with lamb-like horns. Thislamb-like beast makes an “image” to the first beast and “breaths life into the image of the first beast” andcauses all the world to worship the resurrected beast by bowing down to the image to the beast. (Rev.13:15). Luther once remarked that the devil is God's ape. This aping of Christ is illustrated by comparingthese apocalyptic scriptures:

Christ Antichrist

... who is, and who was,and who is to

come. —Rev. 1:4.

The beast, which you saw,once was, now is not, andwill come up. —Rev. 17:8.

I am the Living One; I wasdead, and behold I am

alive.— Rev. 1:18.

. . .the beast who waswounded [slaughtered] bythe sword and yet lived.—

Rev. 13:14.

There are some who look for a future antichrist but fail to see his past and present developments withinthe Christian church. John saw antichrist at work in his day (1 John 2:18; 4:1-3). The ProtestantReformers identified the lamb-like “false prophet” of Revelation with papal Rome which opposed thegospel of Christ in their day. We need to see antichrist in his three dimensions: past, present and future.

We have seen that God's salvation act in Christ was a once-and-for-all event. The church was to live by

30 The abomination that causes desolation, or the man of lawlessness, is obviously a religious entity. Applied to the Christian era, it is that which

supplants the gospel (Dan. 8:11-13; Matt. 24:14-15)



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proclaiming that great historical event. But instead of proclaiming the gospel of recital, men began toproclaim a "gospel" of reenactment. The Roman church began to see herself as the extension of theincarnation. Instead of the Supper being a remembrance and recitation of the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ, it was construed as a reenactment and repetition of Calvary.

The theology of reenactment is perfectly exemplifiedin the Roman mass. Here the bloody sacrifice of Christ is said to be reenacted over and over again on

the Roman altar. What we need to see, however, isthat the mass is only a visible expression of Rome'sview of the gospel. In a recent article entitled "TheGospel Truth as Reenactment," Jesuit scholar Navone articulates the heart of Romanism. Thetheme of his article is that the gospel merelypresents a script to be reenacted in our experience.Instead of teaching that we are saved by faith alonein God's unrepeatable act in history, the article sayswe are saved by reenacting Jesus Christ.

Jesus prescribes that we re-enact the perfection of life that is his Father's and his own. Scripture, in this

respect, is a script that is also a prescription to be re-enacted for that healing and enlightenment that is our salvation.31

We should note that salvation is not said to be by God's act outside us in Christ, but by its reenactment inus. By this reenactment (said to be wholly by grace, of course!) man "becomes acceptable to God." 32

If the Supper is seen as a re-enactment of God's saving act, we must not be surprised that it is thenmisconstrued as a celebration of the renewal which grace has accomplished in the worshiper. Jesuitscholar Fransen says:

We celebrate, indeed, what we are. We joyfully and confidently witness to the life which is in us.... Wecelebrate the 'Kingdom of God,' which 'is within you'.

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This theology transfers the glory of our salvation from the finished work of Christ to our renewal.

Chemnitz called this blasphemy 34 (see also Rev. 13:1, 5).

In celebrating what we are, it makes no difference if we say the inward renewal of the heart is by grace. Itis still blasphemy, for it compromises the unique work of God in Christ. This work, being outside thebeliever, must focus away from the believer. God's work in Christ was so infinite that it cannot bereduced to an intra-human experience. It is also unrepeatable. God Himself cannot reenact it. The Rockof our salvation has been smitten once. He cannot be smitten again. If God and Christ and the Holy Spiritcannot reenact but can only present and portray before us what the Godhead has done, what blasphemyfor man to presume to reenact God's saving work! Here is the spirit of the first sin (Gen. 3:5), which putsman above God, in God's temple (Dan. 11:36; 2 Thess. 2:4). The church in every age is in danger of confusing the "gospel" of reenactment with the gospel of proclamation. It is easy to point an incriminatingfinger at things like the Roman mass while failing to see our own guilt.

The false gospel of reenactment springs from a failure to grasp the New Testament gospel of salvationthrough faith in what God has done in His great act in our Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel proclaims thatsalvation is by that event plus nothing. The righteousness of faith is that act of God in Christ plus nothing.But very early the teachers of the church began to confound the article of righteousness by faith with therenewal and life of new obedience which the Holy Spirit accomplishes in the believer.

31 John Navone, S.J., "The Gospel Truth As Reenactment," Scottish Journal of Theology 29, no.4 (1976): 333.

32 Ibid ., p.323.

33 Piet P. Fransen, S.J., "Sacraments As Celebrations," Irish Theological Quarterly 43, no.3 (1976): 167.

34 Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Tent, Part 1, p. 491.



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The influence of Greek Gnosticism led many to seek a knowledge of God in mystical experience rather than in the historical reality of Christ crucified. The Greek mind of the West has always had the tendencyto indulge a false spiritualization of the incarnation. There was a tendency to talk about Christ's birth inthe hearts of men. The church was seen as the extension of the incarnation, with the believer beingcrucified in a mystical act of self-renunciation. The work of Christ in history was subordinated to the workof Christ in the mystical experience of the believer. The result was to teach that men are madeacceptable to God by the reenactment of Christ's birth, life, death and resurrection in mystical experiencerather than by His objective finished work. The locus of the saving act was shifted from the Christ of history to the human heart itself. If the saving act of God occurs in the worshiper's heart, it is only logicalfor the church to use the sacraments for advertising her sanctity and for witnessing to the life in herself. The accent of the Reformers' preaching fell on God's act of redemption in Christ. But under the influenceof pietism and Christian revivalism the accent in Protestantism has increasingly shifted to the believer'sappropriation of salvation and to his life of renewal. This shift of emphasis from the objective to thesubjective has taken place in both the liberal and conservative wings of the Protestant movement.Liberalism has always tended to dehistoricize the gospel. The Enlightenment of the eighteenth centuryand the critical rationalism of the nineteenth century questioned the historicity of the Bible.Schleiermacher rested all of Christian truth on the realm of experience. Bultmann's twentieth-centurydemythologization dehistoricizes the gospel.

The heart of Bultmann's theology is found in the significance he attaches to the proclamation of thekerygma, for in the moment of proclamation Jesus becomes the Christ for the believer and the incarnationis re-enacted. . . . The Christ event cannot be made present through remembrance; it is not really 'datable'for it occurs ever again in one's own existence.

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Even the more conservative and objective neo-orthodoxy of Barth and Brunner taught that revelationtakes place in "religious encounter" rather than in historical event. Says Malcolm Muggeridge:

The Incarnation was not a historical event.... It goes on happening all the time. . . . There are examples onevery hand.... Solzhenitsyn.... Mother Theresa.

36

The popular evangelical emphasis on the new birth experience ("Let Jesus come into your heart") mightbe all right if it were presented in the context of God's redemptive act in Christ. But unfortunately, thenew birth itself often becomes the redemptive act itself. People are left hanging onto their experience asif that were the act which reconciled them to God. People think Christian testimony is witnessing to their newfound love, joy and peace instead of to the acts of God in the Christ of history.

Much pietism and enthusiasm subordinate the work of Christ for us to the work of Christ in us. Theemphasis is no longer on the fussless inclusion of all believers into the once-and-for-all death andresurrection of Christ and their living by faith in that status. Rather, "dying with Christ" and "rising withChrist" become some mystical communion with the pneumatic Christ. This is more than simple faith inHis doing and dying.

There is, of course, a true "Christian mysticism," a true Christ of experience. But the Spirit of Christalways leads our faith away from our own experience to the Christ of history. The Spirit's work is toexplicate the glory of Christ crucified and risen. He adds nothing to Christ's work but incorporates us into

it. Evidence of the Spirit's presence will be seen in preoccupation with God's act of redemptionobjectively accomplished. This preoccupation will be evidenced in preaching, writing and witnessing.

Much evangelicalism today is a "gospel" of reenactment rather than a gospel of proclamation. This too isan antichrist. It transfers the locus of the salvation event from what happened in Christ to what happensin the human heart. It leaves people looking to themselves and witnessing to their own charismaticendowments. It is a subtle exaltation of religious man above God. One of the greatest proofs that this isevil is the angry response to those who accept the reality and necessity of the new-birth experience butrefuse to put this good thing in the room of the best thing – the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

35 Review of Christ Without Myth (Schubert M. Ogden) by Daniel L. Deegan in Scottish Journal of Theology 17, no.1 (Mar.1964): 86-87.

36 Malcolm Muggeridge, "What Is the Christian Alternative?" These Times, Feb.1978, p.15.



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Protestantism is dead and Romanism lives again when therenewal the Spirit accomplishes in the believer is placed inthe room of Christ's imputed righteousness or is confusedwith the righteousness of faith.

The Theology of Glory

The "gospel" of reenactment does not lead men to bowlow before the cross and confess no other righteousnessbefore God than what Jesus has already done. Instead, itproclaims a glory of being saved by the marvelousexperience of reenacting salvation history. The gifts of Godare used for self-validation. The sacraments are used tocelebrate what men have become – by grace, of course!(For even the Pharisee could thank God that he was notlike the tax-collector.)

Did not Christ promise His people power? (Antichrist isattended by a parade of power – like fire from heaven,miracles and signs (Rev. 13:13-14.) Jesus warns us,

"Many will say to Me on that day [the last day], 'Lord, Lord,did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name driveout demons and perform many miracles?' [This is surely avery high-powered ministry.] Then I will tell them plainly, 'Inever knew you. Away from Me, you evil doers!"' (Matt.7:22-23). Yes indeed, many will ride the "glory" train toperdition. We must beware of this spirit of religioustriumphalism.

The gospel of proclamation is a theology of the cross.Christ came to glory by way of suffering, to honor by way of shame, to victory by way of apparent defeat.The power of God was veiled in weakness. Look at this bruised and bleeding Victim stumbling along the

Via Dolorosa. His hair is matted with blood and sweat, His face anointed with the spittle of His rejecters.He is so weak He staggers and falls before the jeering spectators. Who would have thought that hiddenin this spectacle of utter weakness was God's infinite power, or that veiled in this shame was the mostinfinite glory?

Calvary should at least teach us the folly of judging after the flesh. That which is despised by the flesh isglorious in the eyes of God. And "that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15, KJV).

The cross is not a medal of honor but a symbol of shame (Luke 14:26-27). The great ones of faith also"faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. . . . They went about insheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated – the world was not worthy of them.They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground" (Heb. 11:36-38). This

hardly looks like a triumphalistic procession.

According to the book of Revelation those who bear "the testimony of Jesus" are dragged before courts,their names are cast out as evil, and their blood is poured out at the altar. The followers of the Lamb arenot depicted as riding to glory on the stately chariot of honor. They are on the dung cart of shame,trundling off to the scaffold or to the stake. Their lives are a series of uninterrupted victories – not seen tobe such here, but known to be such in the great hereafter.



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The contrast between the theology of the cross and the false theology of glory is most clearlydemonstrated in Paul's Corinthian correspondence. The spirit behind the false gospel was the samespirit of self-exaltation which deceived Eve (2 Cor. 11:3-4). The false teachers with whom the church wasflirting were "super-apostles" (2 Cor. 11:5; 12:11). They paraded their super-piety intheir spiritual gifts, miracles and other signs of power. Some had evidentlyfluttered so far up to heaven that they had transcended human weakness andsinfulness to such an extent that the resurrection state was a thing of the past asfar as they were concerned (1 Cor. 15). They were not ordinary Christians stillidentified with this old eon of human weakness. They were super-Christians. Asthey compared themselves among themselves, they believed Paul was weak,unspiritual and inferior. They were leading many in the Christian community todoubt his apostleship, especially since he seemed to lack the trappings of power so evident in the experience of the super-apostles.

In his letters to the Corinthians Paul first reminds them that the cross is the"weakness" and "foolishness" of God. Then he stresses his own weakness andglories in his infirmities. “Super-apostles”?

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia.We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed,

in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but onGod, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On Him wehave set our hope that He will continue to deliver us.—2 Cor. 1:8-10.

Rather, in every way we show ourselves to be servants of God: in great endurance; in troubles, hardshipsand distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity,understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in thepower of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor,praise and blame; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet welive on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; havingnothing, and yet possessing everything.—2 Cor. 6:4-10.

For when we came into Macedonia, this body of ours had no rest, but we were harassed at every turn –conflicts on the outside, fears within. But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of

Titus.—2 Cor. 7:5, 6.

I repeat: Let no one take me for a fool. But if you do, then receive me just as you would a fool, so that I maydo a little boasting. In this self confident boasting I am not talking as the Lord would, but as a fool. Sincemany are boasting in the way the world does, I too will boast. You gladly put up with fools since you are sowise! In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or pushes himself forward or slaps you in the face. To my shame I admit that we were too weak for that!

What anyone else dares to boast about – I am speaking as a fool – I also dare to boast about. Are theyHebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's descendants? So am I. Are theyservants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been inprison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Fivetimes I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I wasstoned, three times I was ship-wrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantlyon the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my owncountrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and indanger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have knownhunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, Iface daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is ledinto sin, and I do not inwardly burn?

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.—2 Cor. 11:16-30.

I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses.—2 Cor. 12:5.



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Paul regales his readers with an account of his weakness, shame and suffering. He ends his "bragging"with an account of his undignified escape from Damascus (2 Cor. 11:32, 33). See this baldheaded,bandy-legged little scholar being let down over the wall in a basket. 37 What glorious dignity to hold upbefore these super-apostles!

Since the Christ event, the new age of the kingdom of God and the old age of sin and death overlap. Thelast things have been inaugurated but not consummated. We must therefore live in the tension of beingin the kingdom of God and having perfect righteousness by faith and yet at the same time being

identified with the old eon of sinful human flesh and death. Until the consummation we cannot whollytranscend human sinfulness. We can only press on in the face of much tribulation (Acts 14:22). When weare agonizingly conscious of our human sinfulness, we confess we are righteous. And when we aredying, we believe we have eternal life. The peace of faith is not a warm inward glow, a sort of spiritualeuphoria, nor is it freedom from the tension of our own inner self-contradictions. Our peace, like our righteousness, is objective to ourselves. It is "peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5:1)."He is our peace" because with Him is perfect peace between God and man. Our peace, therefore, is nota peace that comes by being lifted out of the agonizing struggle of the human situation. It is a peace inthe midst of conflict.

The false theology of glory despises this way of faith. It wants to transcend the agonizing struggle of Romans 7:14-25. Instead of the uninhibited confession of human weakness and sinfulness, it wants to

confess nothing but inner peace, victory and power. Many think this is consistent with faith in an all-powerful God. But when the church tries to prematurely seize the glory that shall be, she becomes aproud, arrogant, triumphalistic church which kills and takes peace from the earth (Rev. 6:1-11).

Much of the charismania we see today exemplifies the theology of glory. If it were a manifestation of thespirit of Christ, it would not lead to confessions which sound suspiciously like the strutting super-apostlesin the Corinthian church. If we may borrow some words from Barth, "How vast a gulf separates . . . [this]conquering-hero attitude to religion from that disgust of men at themselves, which is the characteristicmark of true religion!" 38

A flippant triumphalism often accompanies the claim to be saved and born again. It lacks the poignantsense of human sinfulness which men of God feel whenever they are touched by a sense of the divineglory (Isa. 6:1-8). If the unabashed showmanship of TV evangelism is representative of evangelicalism, if

the spirit of evangelical empire building is also representative of it, then we have to say that the theologyof glory is the passion of a large section of Protestantism.

The issues before the church today are not mere issues of how to interpret a few texts. There will alwaysbe interpretive differences. We should not fall into a theological perfectionism anymore than into anethical perfectionism. But we are talking about two different approaches to the Bible and Christianity.Indeed, we are talking about two different religions for which there is no hope of reconciliation. The issuetranscends denominational and sectarian boundaries.

Either we ride into perdition in the splendid chariot of glory, or we ride into glory on the dung cart of humility. The cross cannot be preached without offense, even within the Christian church. The gospeland religious triumphalism are absolutely incompatible.

37 So tradition describes him. Apparently his physical appearance was quite unimpressive (2 Cor. 10:10).

38 Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, p.263.



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Chapter 9

The Restoration of the Gospel All history bears the marks of Christ. The events of the Old Testament, with their recurring pattern of captivity and restoration, point to that ultimate act of judgment and deliverance in the death andresurrection of Christ. Salvation history reaches its end (telos) in the Christ event. It is concentrated inJesus Christ. The whole stream of Old Testament events – the Creation, the Flood, the Exodus, theBabylonian exile and deliverance – is gathered up and recapitulated in Him who is the Lord of history.

Not only does history reach its end in Jesus Christ, but it also finds its new beginning in Him. The Lambthat dies and lives again takes the scroll of human destiny (Rev. 5:1-6). All history between theresurrection and the consummation is in the hands of Christ and bears the marks of Christ. That is thetestimony of the book of Revelation. In spite of himself, even the antichrist bears witness to Christ. In thathe apes Christ (Rev. 13:1-10), he bears witness to Christ.

There could not even be an antichrist apart from Christ. 39

Those who are baptized by the Spirit into the holy history of Christ bear the marks of Christ. In their finitehistory, they share in His sufferings. The book of Revelation depicts them being condemned and treatedlike their Master. They are led to victory by the strange way of apparent defeat.

The gospel also bears the marks of Him who was the Word made flesh. The two witnesses of Revelation11 are slain "in the street of the great city... where also their Lord was crucified" (Rev. 11:8). This entirechapter bears a remarkable analogy to the death and resurrection of Christ. The gospel, like those whobear it, is trodden on, cast out and put to death. But that cannot be the end of the drama. Because Christ

39 Marxism has borrowed the thought forms of Christianity, even its eschatology, and attached its own philosophy to it. Marx had a background in

Judaism and Protestantism. Error cannot live unless it attaches itself to the cart of truth and draws its li fe from the truth. For further reading onthis point, see Hendrikus Berkhof, Christ the Meaning of History .



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is risen, the power of His resurrection works in history. The gospel is therefore resurrected. The triumphof the truth is like the appearing of the sun at noonday, and the whole earth is lightened with the glory of God (Rev. 18:1).

In our last chapter we saw how the early church recapitulated the fall of Eve (2 Cor. 11:2-4) and the fallof old Israel. The apostolic age was followed by a new Babylonian captivity (Rev. 11:2-3). But theChristian age not only recapitulates the great captivities of the Old Testament. It also recapitulatesIsrael's coming out of Egypt and Babylon. Revelation 7, for instance, reflects the Exodus. As the

Passover blood sheltered the tribes of Israel, so "the seal of the living God" will protect the new Israelfrom the coming wrath. Revelation 18:1-4, with its cry, "Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! . . . Come out[exodus] of her, My people," alludes to both the Exodus and the postexilic restoration. The book of Revelation shows us that Christian history not only bears the marks of the cross, but the marks of theresurrection. Just as the events of Old Testament history point forward to the death and resurrection of Jesus, so the events of the Christian age pointback to it.

If the apostolic gospel is to be resurrected, thisdispensation will not close with less manifestationof the power of the gospel than marked itsopening. Accompanied by the effusion of God's

Spirit, likened to the thunderous vernal rains,the everlasting gospel will lighten the earth withthe glory of God and prepare the church for thecoming of the Son of Man (Rev. 14:6; 18:1; Isa.60:1-3; Joel 2:23-28).

Daniel's Prophecy of Restoring theSanctuary

We believe that the great Christian captivity and restoration are depicted in Daniel's prophecy about thepollution and restoration of the sanctuary.

It magnified itself [cf. 2 Thess. 2:4], even up to the Prince of the host; and the continual burnt offering wastaken away from Him, and the place of His sanctuary was overthrown. And the host was given over to ittogether with the continual burnt offering through transgression; and truth was cast down to the ground,and the horn acted and prospered. Then I heard a holy one speaking; and another holy one said to the onethat spoke, "For how long is the vision concerning the continual burnt offering, the transgression that makesdesolate [cf. Matt. 24:15], and the giving over of the sanctuary and host to be trampled under foot?" And hesaid to him, "For two thousand and three hundred evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary shall berestored to its rightful state."—Dan. 8:11-14, RSV.

The Christian church will lose much if she abandons this great prophecy to those who indulge in esotericprophetic interpretations. Keen scholars have shown that this passage represents the high point of thesymbolism in the book of Daniel. Christ even refers to this passage in His Olivet discourse and exhortsus to study it (Matt. 24:15).

Daniel's prophecy about the pollution of the sanctuary and its reconsecration is the heart of covenantalhistory. Let us first consider the historical context. The Babylonians had overrun Judea and carried thechosen people into exile. Daniel was one of those captives. In his homeland the sanctuary, the verycenter of the religious cultus, lay in ruins. Yet Daniel believed that this judgment of God was not the finalend. He clung to Jeremiah's promise that God would restore the desolate places (Jer. 33:10-12). Daniel'sprophecy of the restored sanctuary parallels Isaiah's prophecy of the new exodus (Isa. 40-45), Ezekiel'sprophecy of the new temple (Ezek. 40-48) and Jeremiah's prophecy of the new covenant (Jer.31).



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But this drama of the Babylonian exile and restoration is only apiece from the fabric of salvation history. The Babylonian captivity

replays the first captivity in Eden. Daniel 8:11-14 expresses thetruth of the whole drama of salvation history from Eden lost toEden restored. When we look at the fall of Adam, we arelooking at the first captivity of the covenant people to the realking of Babylon. This was indeed a casting down and pollutionof the sanctuary. Genesis 3:15 represents the first promise thatthe captives would be delivered, holiness would be vindicatedand the true worship of God would be restored.

We see the same pattern of desolation and deliverance in theepic of the Flood. We see it again in Israel's bondage toPharaoh and her exodus from Egypt. And yet again we seethis pattern of death and resurrection in the history of theBabylonian exile. The desolating armies of Nebuchadnezzar were instruments of God's judgment. Zion was bereft of her children; yet God promised through the prophet, "They willreturn from the land of the enemy" (Jer. 31:16). (Who could notsee in such language a picture of the resurrection?) Jerusalem

lay in ruins; but Isaiah declared, "Let it be rebuilt" (Isa. 44:28).The people of God were put away like a deserted wife; butGod pledged to bring them back (Hosea 2:14-23).

Many commentators have seen in Daniel's prophecy of theprofanation and vindication of the sanctuary a picture of eventsin the time of the Maccabees about 170 B.C. AntiochusEpiphanes, the Syrian king, subjected the Jewish people to aperiod of cruel persecution. The fanatical Syrian ruler tried todestroy Judaism. He desecrated the temple by slaying a pig onthe altar and suspended the daily services. After heroic Jewish

resistance, this desolator was driven off and came to a sudden

end. Amid great rejoicing, the Jews rededicated the sanctuary inwhat became known as the Feast of Dedication – a feast stillobserved at the time of Christ. Although some commentators may seea correspondence between Daniel 8 and these events, we believethey are wrong when they suggest that Antiochus is "the appallingdesolator."

Surely it ought to be clear that Daniel, as an apocalyptic book, focuseson an eschatological event. In light of the grand historical patterns we

see in Daniel 2 and 7 depicting the successive world empires of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome, the local events of Antiochuswithin Palestine could hardly be within range of his vision. But like theOld Testament prophets, Daniel provides a typological andeschatological interpretation of history. Daniel is writing of the end of theold age and the coming of God's eternal Messianic kingdom.

The stream of history, with its recurring pattern of desolation anddeliverance, reaches its end or goal in Jesus Christ. In Him all salvationhistory is gathered up and concentrated. He was Adam and Israel and

the Temple. In His death the judgment of wrath fell on Adam, the curses of the covenant were borne byIsrael, and destruction was visited on the Temple (John 2:19). But in Christ's resurrection God's

judgment of pardon restored Adam's lost dominion, brought Israel out of the land of bondage, deliveredHis elect Servant from Babylon and restored the Temple to its rightful state. That Christ even fulfills the



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prophecy of the restored sanctuary is clear from a comparison of Daniel 8 and 9. The angel Gabriel explicitly tells Daniel that chapter 9is an explanation of Daniel 8 (cf. Dan. 8:14-16, 26, 27 with 9:20-23). And the substance of Daniel 9 is the person and work of the

Messiah.

"Seventy 'sevens' are decreed for your people and your holy city tofinish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to

bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy andto anoint the most holy."—Dan. 9:24.

There is more to the truth of the vision than manipulatingmysterious numbers and computing time. The work of the

Messiah is the substance of the prophecy. Daniel 8:14 maybe translated, "Then shall holiness be vindicated." This

took place in Christ's finished work and His resurrectionfrom the dead. Writing on the meaning of theresurrection, A. M. Hunter says:

We may start by saying that the Resurrection meant the

vindication of righteousness. For consider: if the story of Jesus ended at the Cross, it is stark, unmitigated tragedyand, what is more, the proof that there is no spiritual rhymeor reason in the universe. Here (to put it in the lowestterms) was a Man with an unclouded vision of moral truth, aMan who not only utterly trusted God but 'hazarded all at aclap' upon his faith in him. He made the final experiment,experimentum crucis. If that life went out in utter darkness,there is no 'Friend behind phenomena', as he believed, butonly, in Hardy's phrase, 'a vast Imbecility'. The NewTestament speaks far otherwise. It declares that whenJesus laid down his life on God, Nature echoed and rang tohis venture of faith. God raised him from the dead, Godvindicated his Son, and in vindicating him, vindicated hisrighteousness.

But in an even more specific way divine righteousness wasvindicated by the Resurrection. In the Bible (the Psalms, II Isa., StPaul etc.) the 'righteousness of God' is another name for thesalvation of which God is the author – it expresses the saving

The great image of Daniel 2. purpose of Him whose property it is to 'put things right' for his people.

Now the Man who made experimentum crucis was the one who uniquely embodied that purpose of God inhimself. He was the Son of man come, in God's name, to 'seek and to save the lost'. He believed that, if the'many' were to be 'ransomed', he must lay down his life as the Servant Messiah. So, embodying in himself that purpose and making himself utterly one with sinners, Jesus went down to death. Was he deluded? Onthe third day, says the tradition in its oldest form (I Cor. 15.4), God raised Jesus – and all that he

represented – from the grave. The Resurrection is the making manifest by miracle of the victory of God'ssaving purpose which took Jesus to the Cross.

40

40 A. M. Hunter, Introducing New Testament Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1957), pp.58-9.



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Treading Down the Gospel

Jesus, Paul and John did not consider that Antiochus Epiphanes had fulfilled the symbolism of the“abomination that causes desolation”. They saw this desolator as a force to be reckoned with in theChristian dispensation (Matt. 24:15; 2 Thess. 2:3-11; Rev. 13:5-7). Pharaoh, Sennacherib, andNebuchadnezzar are merely the desolator’s historical precursors. After being defeated by theresurrection of Christ, the enemy turned the weapons of his warfare against the Christian church and theholy gospel (Rev. 12:10-17). There came a falling away, and the light of the apostolic gospel waseclipsed. As Daniel says:

It took away the daily sacrifice from Him, and the place of His sanctuary was brought low.—Dan. 8:11.

[They] will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation.—Dan. 11:31.

The words translated "daily sacrifice" are from the Hebrew word tamid , which means "continual." It refersto the daily or continual temple services which, according to the writer of Hebrews, were a parable of thegospel of Christ.

The true daily is the "everlasting gospel." This is also intimated in Matthew 24:14-15, where the gospeland the abomination that causes desolation are placed in the context of two opposing entities. Thedesolator supplants the gospel with the false gospel.

The question of Daniel 8:13, "How long [shall this desolating work continue]?" is a plea often echoed inScripture. It is a plea for judgment and divine intervention. We can understand the question to mean,“How long will the gospel be trodden under the unholy feet of antichrist?” The answer, "Then shall thesanctuary be restored to its rightful state" (RSV), means that the apostolic gospel will indeed be restoredagain.

The restoration at the end of the Babylonian exile took place in several distinct stages – stages that maybe identified with the successive decrees of Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes. We suggest that thisfurnishes us with an analogy of the gospel's restoration since there has also been a Babylonian captivityin the Christian age. A great resurrection of the gospel took place in the Reformation. But when the

church of the Reformation declared itself to be the ecclesia reformata semper reformanda, it therebyconfessed that the restoration of the gospel was not completed but should be carried forward tocompletion.

The apostles preached Christ from the background of the Old Testament. It is this Old Testamentbackground which provides the historical, legal and eschatological framework for the gospel. If thegospel is to be restored to its rightful state, that framework must be restored. In the next three chapters,therefore, we shall discuss the implications of that threefold framework.

Finally, the prophecy of the restored sanctuary will reach its complete fulfillment in that consummation of salvation history described in Revelation 21 and 22:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with

them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God."—Rev.21:3.

They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads.—Rev.22:4.



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Chapter 10

The Historical Framework

of the Gospel

Christianity is a historical religion. Its gospel is the proclamation about an event which happened inPalestine during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius Caesar. Just as the confessions of Israel's faithconsisted primarily in joyfully recounting God's great acts in their history, so the Christian faith consistsprimarily in joyfully reciting God's great deed in Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:3-4). Says George Eldon Ladd:

The uniqueness and the scandal of the Christian religion rest in the mediation of revelation throughhistorical events. The Hebrew-Christian faith stands apart from the religions of its environment because it isan historical faith, whereas they were religions rooted in mythology or the cycle of nature. The God of Israelwas the God of history, or the Geschichtsgott, as German theologians so vividly put it. The Hebrew-

Christian faith did not grow out of lofty philosophical speculation or profound mystical experiences. It aroseout of the historical experiences of Israel, old and new, in which God made Himself known. This factimparts to the Christian faith a specific content and objectivity which set it apart from others.

The Bible is not primarily a collection of the religious ideas of a series of great thinkers. It is not first of all asystem of theological concepts, much less of philosophical speculations.

The recital of God's historical acts is the substance of Christian proclamation.41

41 G.E. Ladd, "The Knowledge of God: The Saving Acts of God," in Basic Christian Doctrines, ed. C. F. H. Henry (Grand Rapids: Baker Book

House, 1962), pp.7-5, 10.



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If the essence of the Christian message consisted in philosophical ideas about God, timeless truths,ethical ideals or profound religious insights, then the historical framework could be discarded withouteffecting any essential change in Christianity. But Christianity stands or falls on the veracity of the recordthat Jesus of Nazareth lived, died and rose again.

Throughout the history of the church there has been a tendency to cut the New Testament loose from theOld Testament in one way or another and thus to dehistoricize the gospel. But when the historicalelement is pushed aside, the New Testament message is seriously distorted. It becomes so

individualized, internalized, spiritualized and rationalized that it loses contact with the earth.

Liberalism

Rationalism and the so-called Enlightenment, as well as much modern criticism, undermined faith in thehistoricity of the Bible. Liberalism and neo-orthodoxy concluded that placing faith in the historicity of theBible was too risky a venture. Events such as the fall of man, the Flood, the Exodus, the virgin birth andthe bodily resurrection of Jesus were regarded as religious myths embodying timeless spiritual truths.The supremely important element was not the Christmas story but the birth of good will in the heart, notChrist's actual resurrection but men's awakening to faith through a personal religious encounter withGod. It is true that the holy history of the Bible may be used as the means to awaken a man's religiousconsciousness. But the important element in this approach was not the holy history of Jesus Christ but its

reenactment in individual experience today.

Pietism, Revivalism and Pentecostalism

It is easy for Christians of a more conservative persuasion to cast aspersion on the liberals. But the truthis that conservative movements such as pietism, revivalism and Pentecostalism have also tended tosubordinate the historical element of Christianity to personal experience. Pietism with its stress on inwardpiety, revivalism with its preoccupation with the dramatic conversion experience, and Pentecostalism withits emphasis on the inner work of the Holy Spirit have tended to internalize the essential content of theChristian message.

It would be wrong to discount the benefit of these movements, which have ministered Christ to theexperience of thousands. In many respects they have been a beneficial reaction to a dry orthodoxy andan arid intellectualism in the church. But we must question their tendency to make the gospel soundsuspiciously like the proclamation of the great acts of God "in my experience."

It is easy to think that events which occurred centuries ago are too impersonal because they are sodistant. On the other hand, something which touches us directly, like an experience of "Christ in theheart" or the ecstatic infilling of the "Spirit," can appear more real than a recital of history apparently far removed from our present situation. After all, did not the apostle James say that a mere historical belief isworthless? ("Even the demons believe . . . and shudder.") (James 2:14-16, 19.)

We do not question the importance of the Holy Spirit. His work is just as necessary for our salvation asChrist's death on the cross. The issue is the nature of the Spirit's work. He is not sent to add to the workof Jesus Christ and thereby create a tension between God's work for us and His work in us, between the

historical act of redemption and the experience of Christ in the heart. There is a true Christian"mysticism" or union with Christ. There is a new birth and baptism of the Holy Spirit without which no onecan be saved. But this experience is not independent of or even supplementary to the holy history of Jesus Christ. The Spirit is given to baptize or incorporate us into the holy history of Jesus Christ. His life,death, resurrection and ascension become ours by faith.

To take the new birth or the Spirit-filled life and give it significance apart from the holy history of JesusChrist is a positive mischief. In fact, it is unchristian. We are born again when the Spirit includes us in theholy history of Jesus in such a way that we participate in the new creation which took place in Him. Weare filled with the Spirit when we are so immersed in the holy history of Jesus that it becomes the soleobject of our glorying. We cannot write a new holy history that will make us significant in the eyes of God.



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There is only one history which counts before God, and it is the Spirit's work to graciously include us in it – just as every true Israelite was included in the Exodus even though he might have lived a thousandyears later.

This relationship between the holy history of Jesus and the Spirit is the unique aspect of the Christianreligion. It has profound and practical consequences.

1. It does away with unbiblical individualism. Every believer is baptized by the Spirit into the one holy

history (1 Cor. 12:13). Each person becomes part of the redeemed community, where all share in thedignity of one holy history. Just as no Jew could boast in his own private exodus but could only begrateful that he was included in the one Exodus shared by the entire community, so each believer shares

in that one life, one death and one resurrection which counts before God. There is no superiority or inferiority in this community. All have the one righteousness before God. The idea of one Christian

regaling other Christians with his exciting holy history while the rest enviously drool over his experienceis an offense to the gospel of Christ. The church is an assembly. It is a community which assemblesaround the holy history of Jesus as it is represented to them in gospel and sacraments. They all haveone food and one spiritual drink.

2. The Spirit does not give anyone a knowledge of God in a private experience superseding theknowledge of God given in Christ and Him crucified. God has given the full and final revelation of Himself in the holy history of His Son. Those claiming access to some additional knowledge of God throughmystical experience are denying the gospel. In the gospel, believers have equal access to the oneknowledge of God.

3. In these days when "Christ in the heart" can mean all kinds of things, we must be clear that the Jesusin our hearts is the Jesus of holy history. The only way He can be in our hearts is for us to treasure in our

hearts His life, death and resurrection. When Paul said that Christ lived in him, he explained how: "Thelife I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:20).

When Christ in the heart is divorced from the Christ of history, the believer becomes preoccupied with hisown history instead of God's saving history. Religious subjectivism can become the most crushing formof legalism. Says G. W. Bromiley:



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While we must be careful not to exaggerate, a study of much modern evangelism, piety, and hymnologyreveals how serious the influence upon Evangelicalism has been of the combined forces of Pietism,Schleiermacher, and Kant, e.g., in the emphasis upon the centrality of decision, upon the believer and hisemotional state, and even upon psychological procedures. Biblical material is used, but with an emphasisand proportion very different from those of the Bible, so that the result is very far from biblical. For atheology cannot be genuinely biblical, however sound its doctrine of Scripture or however strict its use of scriptural material, if it achieves an emphasis which is subjective and therefore anthropological rather thanobjective and therefore Christological and theological.

42

4. The New Testament gospel might be called "the objective gospel" because it announces a salvationbased upon something which has already taken place in history. The believer has no defense againstsubjective legalism unless the Spirit teaches him that his standing before God, both now and in the final

judgment, is based on that concrete historical event completely outside his own experience. This is notthe negation of Christian experience but the recognition that it is the byproduct of something morefundamental. One who makes his own experience the principal thing is like the man who pursueshappiness. The Spirit who comes to us clothed in the gospel teaches us to find our satisfaction in the lifeand work of Another. This enables us to forget ourselves into the kingdom of God. That is the essence of a good experience.

Orthodoxy

Ladd is undoubtedly correct when he says:

Orthodox theology has traditionally under-evaluated or at least underemphasized the role of the redemptiveacts of God in revelation. The classic essay by B. B. Warfield acknowledges the fact of revelation throughthe instrumentality of historical deeds, but rather completely subordinates revelation in acts to revelation inwords.

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All the great doctrines of the Bible must be set in the historical framework of the Bible. The great NewTestament words and concepts have their roots in the history of the Old Testament. To ignore thosehistorical roots and develop a New Testament theology isolated from its historical background distortsthe Christian message. This is why the classic systematic theologies are inadequate. They subordinaterevelation in acts to revelation in propositions ("propositional revelation"). They tend to abstract theologyfrom its historical setting and place it in a rationalistic framework.

The period which followed the Reformation was the period of Protestant scholasticism. The faith was setin a rationalistic framework which in many respects was a return to medieval scholasticism. Orthodoxywas as much preoccupied with metaphysics and systematization as it was with the truly historical, biblicalgospel. Its distinctive characteristic was abstract, speculative thought. It was Grecian rather thanHebraic. Brian G. Armstrong points out that in the seventeenth century, justification by faith was"certainly a secondary consideration in Reformed orthodoxy."

And in the continuing debate with Roman Catholicism all kinds of topics – transubstantiation, auricular confession, the marks of the Church, the authority of the Church, Scripture, etc. – were debated withoutend, but almost never justification. One finds literally hundreds of accounts of conferences between leadingProtestant and Catholic churchmen, but we have yet to find one in the seventeenth century which had for its topic the doctrine of justification.

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In the Reformed orthodoxy which followed Calvin, theology was developed in a rationalistic andspeculative framework rather than a historical framework. A philosophical and logical concept of predestination was moved to the center and starting point of a dogmatic system. This concept thenworked itself out through the doctrines of God, man, Christ, salvation, etc.

42 G. W. Bromiley, Sacramental Teaching and Practice in the Reformation Churches (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1957),

p.55. 43

Ladd, "Knowledge of God," p.9. 44

B. G. Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy: Protestant Scholasticism and Humanism in Seventeenth-Century France (Madison:University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), pp. 223-24.



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Calvinism slowly reverted to a religious expression more closely resembling medieval scholastic thoughtthan the thought of the early reformers....

In general we must say, however, that scholasticism, not Calvin's theology, prevailed in ReformedProtestantism.

In Beza reason and Aristotelian logic were elevated to a position equal to that of faith in theologicalepistemology.

Beza's whole theological program shows a serious departure from that of Calvin.45

Reformed Protestantism has been saddled with a doctrine of election with no roots in the holy history of the Old Testament. God is not allowed to express His sovereign freedom by His acts in holy history. Heis imprisoned within the canons of human logic – all in the interest of protecting His sovereignty! A Godwho can be contained within the canons of human logic, even good Reformed logic, is robbed of Hissovereignty and the freedom of His infinite personality. The supralapsarian decrees of Calvinistictheology were not made in heaven but in Holland.

The other major stream of Protestantism moved the Supper to the center of its theological system. It thenproceeded to defend it with a scholastic fervor which equaled the heat of the Calvinists' defense of the"horrible decree." The pet concerns of the two major branches of the Reformation overshadowed thegospel of justification to life eternal by the work of Jesus Christ. Like the Reformed doctrine of election,the scholastic doctrine of the Supper was not set in the Old Testament framework of covenantal signsand seals. Every major gospel truth has its roots in the Old Testament. Every great New Testamentexpression has an Old Testament background. When the New Testament gospel is divorced from its OldTestament background and given a scholastic background, it must suffer distortion.

Protestant orthodoxy exalted the rational element of Christianity to the level of faith. It then beganovershadowing faith. Protestant scholasticism bred rationalism, and rationalism bred liberalism.Liberalism denies the historicity of biblical religion and reduces Christianity to so-called "timeless truths"cut loose from the concrete acts of God in history.

Conclusion

In concluding this chapter, we will restate our thesis: If theapostolic gospel is to be restored, its historical frameworkmust be restored. There are encouraging signs that someChristian scholars in different sections of the church aremoving in this direction. We might mention the works of Oscar Cullmann (Christ and Time), George E. Ladd ( ATheology of the New Testament ), G. Ernest Wright (God Who Acts) and Leonard Goppelt (English trans., The Apostolic and Post Apostolic Times). A movement withinCalvinism is critically examining its own tendency to placetheology in a rationalistic framework. The Bible is beingbetter appreciated for what it is – a book written by men

who were soaked in the history of the Old Testament andwho interpreted God's act in Christ in the framework of that history.

"For two thousand and three hundred evenings and mornings:then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state." Dan 8:14

45 Ibid ., pp. 15, 37, 39.



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Chapter 11

The Legal Framework of the Gospel

To many, "legal framework" and "gospel" may sound like a contradiction of terms. In the name of grace,some have tried to strip all legal categories of thought from the message of the New Testament. Becausethey have equated legal things with legalism, they have divested the gospel of its true biblical framework.

Legalism, however, is the perversion of the law. Legalism is not really legal but illegal. The man whothinks he can satisfy the claims of the law of God by his imperfect obedience is not doing that which islegal but that which is illegal. The law condemns him, not because he has kept it, but because he has notkept it. The failure to discern the difference between what is truly legal – lawful, just, right – and legalismhas done much harm in the Christian community. It has created much disrespect for law in general.

General revelation makes it self-evident that we live in a structured universe governed by law. All must

live within the parameters of law or perish. Special revelation confronts us with a God who had so muchrespect for the rule of moral law that He shed His own blood in the person of Christ so that sinners couldbe justly forgiven.

In the Bible the relationship between God and His people is constantly presented in a juridical context.That relationship is grounded in a covenant, and covenant is a legal conception. God carries out theterms of the covenant with undeviating fidelity. Surely Calvary is proof of that.

The New Testament does not discard the legal categories of thought. Paul explains the meaning of theatonement by using numerous legal metaphors. His thought moves within the framework of OldTestament law. John's Gospel is presented in the setting of a Hebrew law court. Juridical terminologypermeates his message. Even the Holy Spirit's work is set in a juridical context. (He is called theParaclete, one who acts as a Counselor for the defense in a court.) While legal metaphors are not the

only ones used in the New Testament, they overwhelmingly predominate. Instead of joining thestampede away from the forensic categories of New Testament speech, we should come to terms withthem. Just as Luther found that God hides His mercy in wrath, His power in weakness and His kindnessin severity, we too may find that God hides the wonders of His grace in deeds which meet the strictestdemands of divine jurisprudence.

We would like to suggest several ways in which God's grace is highlighted by the legal framework of thegospel.

1. The Bible makes effective use of law and judgment to emphasize the human predicament. The sinner everywhere confronts the God who calls him to judgment and holds him accountable for his actions. ThatGod will judge the world and that the sinner cannot escape the judgment of God are fundamentalaxioms. "Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment" (Heb. 9:27). The certainties of death and the final judgment are so overwhelmingly great that their shadow falls across life's entirelandscape. Man is obsessed with the thought of death. (How else can one explain man's love for dramawhich features death so prominently?) The fear of death unconsciously pervades his whole life andinfluences all his actions (Heb. 2:15). The human conscience is the evidence of man's indestructibleconviction that he is responsible to God and shall be judged. Although they may be suppressed or repressed by various psychological mechanisms, the fear of death and dread of the judgment smolder away to dehumanize the whole personality.



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Whereas the sinner tries to suppress his sickness, the Wordof God painfully exposes it to the light. Until then the fear of

judgment may have lain buried like some dark, smolderingconviction which the sinner could not even explain to himself.But when the Word speaks to him, the judgment of Godconfronts him like a great thunderclap, arousing him to a truesense of his guilt before the moral law. Every human need pales

beside the need to be justified before the bar of God. To say justification is man's greatest need is not to belittle his need for sanctification or inner healing. But surely it is clear that unlessthe sinner is justified, he must remain crippled by the dread of nonacceptance (before God and his own conscience) at the verycenter of his existence.

2. Justification in Paul is a judgment of pardon, the acquittingverdict of the Judge on the hopelessly doomed sinner. Its meaningis thoroughly juridical. Paul's doctrine of justification is defined inthe setting of law and judgment (Rom. 2). If that setting isremoved, it is impossible to understand what Paul means by

justification. The setting determines the meaning. 46 We mayreasonably suspect that many efforts to strip away the forensicsetting and rework the doctrine of justification along more congeniallines are motivated by a deep-seated hostility to the inescapablelaw and judgment of God. Only he who preaches judgment canpreach justification by faith (cf. Rev. 14:6-7).

Many feel that the Reformers exaggerated the importance of justification by faith. But we suggest that they grasped more clearlythan we that in justification Paul deals with the fundamental realities of the universe. Martin Chemnitz, who learned the gospel at the feet of Melanchthon, said:

But it must be diligently considered why the Holy Spirit wanted to set forth the doctrine of justification bymeans of judicial terms. Worldly, secure, and Epicurean men think that the justification of the sinner issomething easy and perfunctory, therefore they are not much concerned about sin and do not sincerelyseek reconciliation with God, nor do they strive with any diligence to retain it. However, the peculiar natureof the word "justify" shows how weighty and serious an action before the judgment seat of God the

justification of a sinner is. Likewise, the human mind, inflated with a Pharisaical persuasion when it indulgesin its own private thoughts concerning righteousness, can easily conceive a high degree of confidence andtrust in its own righteousness. But when the doctrine of justification is set forth under the picture of anexamination and of the tribunal of divine judgment, by a court trial, so to say, those Pharisaical persuasionscollapse, vanish, and are cast down. Thus the true peculiar nature of the word "justify" preserves anddefends the purity of the doctrine of justification from Pharisaical leaven, and from Epicurean opinions. Andthe entire doctrine of justification cannot be understood more simply, correctly, and appropriately, andapplied to serious use in the exercises of penitence and faith, than through a true consideration of the

judicial meaning of the word "justify," as the examples of many fathers show.47

3. The Scriptures sometimes use justification and forgiveness more or less synonymously (cf. Acts13:38-39). Then why not discard legal categories and simply say that God forgives sin out of thegoodness of His heart? Everyone knows what forgiveness is. Why resort to a concept of justificationwhich, it is said, makes no sense to modern man? Doesn't cold legal language remove the personalwarmth of divine forgiveness? Many are prone to reason thus.

46 It is the tendency of the analytic Greek (Western) mind to try to understand a thing in itself. But the writers of the Bible move on another plane.

Nothing has meaning in itself – whether man, faith or any other creature. A thing is always defined and understood by its relationships. 47

M. Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent , Part 1, tr. F. Kramer (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971), pp.476-77.



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However, we will see that the Holy Spirit had good reason to use the forensic concept of justification indescribing our acceptance before God. Divine forgiveness is not mere amnesty. God does not proposeto forgive the sinner by waiving the claims of the law but by satisfying them – at infinite cost to Himself.Grace is free but also costly. "Sin is not tolerated or winked at, the law is not abolished, and therighteousness of God not violated." 48 This is what justification means.

4. A salvation not based on the satisfaction of divine justice cannot satisfy the human conscience either.The doctrine of justification by faith teaches us that when God saves, He does so justly. It thereby

provides a stable basis for the believer's security. Justification means that God has satisfied the law byHis act of grace in Christ.

This is not legalism. It is the only thing that can destroy legalism. If God has not satisfied the law, manmust try to satisfy it. Many are attempting to gain the assurance of salvation through charismaticdemonstrations because they have not been taught that justification through Christ's work is the basis of their covenantal relationship with God.

5. Forensic justification means that our salvation rests on an objective basis. As Berkouwer says:

Forensic justification has to do with what is extra nos [outside us], with the imputation of what Christ hasdone on our behalf. This was, indeed, the original disposition of the Reformation....Thus, in the forensic idea of justification the sola fide/sola gratia finds its purest incarnation.

49

The forensic justification of the Formula of Concord is not a slip into the net of a scholastic, intellectualorder of salvation; it is the end result of a desire to keep the sola fide and keep it pure.

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Is Forensic Justification As Cold As Ice?

Osiander, who broke away from the doctrine of theReformers, lampooned the message of justification by animputed righteousness as being "cold as ice." Many todayalso caricature the Reformation doctrine as a cold,external scheme of salvation.

The irony is that those who dispense with legal categoriesof thought, for want of something more warm and personal,

destroy the real springs of gladness. The moment thesubjective element of the believer's transformation is allowed tointrude into the process of justification, he is robbed of the

objective ground of acceptance because he confuses spiritualacceptance with spiritual attainments. It may then be said of himas it was said of Pusey, "The absence of joy in his religious lifewas only the inevitable effect of his conception of God's method of saving man; in parting with the Lutheran truth concerning

justification, he parted with the springs of gladness."51

Why should it be thought that legal pardon is inimical to personal joy

and even an exalted experience? See a man in court awaiting theverdict of the judge. If he is declared innocent, he is delivered from the prospect of prison and set free.More than that, he is declared the rightful owner of a great inheritance. Children, wife and friends are withhim and breathlessly await the verdict. The judge speaks: "This court returns a verdict wholly in thisman's favor." Those who think legal things are cold as ice should look at this courtroom scene. There areweeping, laughter and tears of exultant joy. What is more, this man can begin to live, act and sleep in the

48 G. C. Berkouwer, Studies in Dogmatics: Faith and Justification (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1954), p.93.

49 Ibid ., p.91.

50 Ibid ., p.55.

51 W. H. G. Thomas, The Principles of Theology: An Introduction to the Thirty-Nine Articles (London: Church Book Room Press, 1956), p.193.



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security of that juridical verdict. The legal transaction is not inimical to a goodexperience. It is the basis of it.

John Bunyan was bowed down with discouragement as he tried to grapplewith the ups and downs of his religious experience. As long as he tied hisstanding with God to his good experiences and his bad experiences, he hadno rest day or night. While he was meditating on the truth of imputedrighteousness, a voice seemed to say to him, "Your righteousness is in

heaven." This was a blessed, freeing truth, not a "cold-as-ice" doctrine.It made Bunyan so exceedingly glad that he leaped for the sheer

joy and liberating power of it. He saw that if his righteousnesswas safely in heaven, his good frame of mind could not makehis righteousness any better nor could his bad frame of mindmake his righteousness any worse. It was like a rich man'sgold and precious jewels safely deposited in his chest at home.No longer did Bunyan confuse his spiritual acceptance with hisspiritual attainment. Forensic justification gave him an objectiveground of hope and became his great spring of gladness. 52

Imputed Righteousness As Divine Love in Action

Far from being cold as ice, the concept of imputed righteousness isas warm as divine love. It is divine love in action. C. Stephen Evansrefers to the story of Don Quixote to illustrate this.

A simple country gentleman, getting on in years and down on hisluck financially, imagines himself to be Don Quixote (not his realname of course), a glorious knight-errant such as supposedlyroamed Europe several centuries earlier. The poor man has readso many tales of chivalry, full of knights of the round table andbeauteous maidens and other such stuff, that he finally takes leaveof his senses and imagines himself to be one of the characters he hasread about.

Taking with him a somewhat dim-witted local farmer as his "squire,"Don Quixote sallies forth to fulfill his knightly calling, which is of course tobe a righter of wrongs and injustices, an enemy of evil-doers and adefender of beauteous maidens, honor and the code of chivalry in general.

After an unfortunate joust with some windmills which the knight takes to begiants, Don Quixote spies a castle, which is in reality a tavern, where hethinks he might obtain a night's repose. At the tavern, among other things, DonQuixote takes a barber's shaving basin to be "the golden helmet of Mambrino," which as a glorious knight he simply must have. Such conductas this soon convinces everyone that Don Quixote is quite mad.

Living at the "castle" is an ordinary tavern slut, Aldonza, who even refers to herself as a whore. In Don Quixote's

eyes she is Dulcinea, his lady, the fairest of the fair and the purest of the pure. Aldonza is frankly puzzled by thetreatment she gets from Don Quixote. The knight is respectful, kind, even worshipful. She seems disturbed yettouched by the knight's gentility.

Meanwhile, back on the home front things are none too good. Don Quixote's friends and relatives are concernedabout his condition. Dr. Carrasco, Don Quixote's prospective son-in-law, is worried that the old man's pranks willgive the family a bad name. Carrasco epitomized the shrewd, "this worldly" person who has come to terms withreality. Not really evil, though perhaps not above cutting a few moral corners, he has nothing but contempt for starry-eyed, impractical idealists, and he feels an obligation to cure Don Quixote of his delusions.

52 J. Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, in The Works of John Bunyan, ed. J. N. Brown (Philadelphia: American Baptist

Publication Society, 1852).



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For his therapy he confronts Don Quixote in the guise of another knight, the "Knight of Mirrors." He challengesDon Quixote to combat, to which he comes armed with mirrors. The mirror does not lie. When the old man seeshimself as he really is, the truth will force him to come to terms with reality. And it does. The Knight of Mirrors(Carrasco of course) wins the joust, and Don Quixote returns home, an old, sick man.

But reality does not have the final word. Aldonza has been touched by Don Quixote's "madness." That someoneelse could actually see her as pure and noble, as someone who possesses value, changes her whole way of looking at herself. She feels she really is Dulcinea, and she must see her Don Quixote again. She goes to seehim, gains entrance to the house and rejuvenates his spirits. Together, she and Don Quixote, even as he facesdeath, dare to "dream the impossible dream." Don Quixote dies, the unvanquished idealist, seeing the world ashe wishes to see it, accepting it only on his own terms.

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This story illustrates the nature of imputed righteousness and its transforming power. The punch line isthis: "That someone else could actually see her as pure and noble, as someone who possesses value,changes her whole way of looking at herself."

We do not use this illustration to suggest that God is a heavenly Don Quixote. We use the story much asJesus used the parable of the unjust judge. If an unjust judge would avenge the cause of a poor widowbecause she kept whining at him for justice, how much more will God avenge his elect who cry unto Him!

And if the imputation of purity and goodness by a mad old man could have such a transforming effect onan unfortunate woman, what happens when the imputation of righteousness is by God Himself?

Let us contrast the way Don Quixote and the Lord impute righteousness to the unfortunate subject. DonQuixote imputed virtue to Aldonza because he was deceived about her actual condition. If he had notbeen deceived by his own imagination, he would have been morally indifferent. This is why acceptancebefore a human party has limited psychological benefit. A person can think, "He imputes virtue to me andaccepts me because he doesn't really know how bad I am. If he really knew the wretchedness of myheart, he couldn't possibly think so well of me." Or, "He accepts me because he is morally indifferent toboth good and bad. So I can't respect him or his judgment of me." Thus, acceptance either throughdeception or moral indifference cannot appease the sinner's conscience.

The sinner must find Someone (or be found of Someone) who is not deceived about his real condition –Someone who fully knows the whole story. And at the same time He must be Someone who is not

morally indifferent to wrong.This brings us to the crucial question: How can the One who fully knows the sinner and who is sothoroughly outraged by wrongdoing see nothing in the sinner but perfect righteousness? If God imputedrighteousness without proper ground, He would be a heavenly Don Quixote and worse – either deceivedor morally indifferent. But He imputes righteousness on the ground of the work of Christ to everyone whobelieves. By the atonement God shows He is not morally indifferent toward sin even though He loves thesinner. By requiring faith He also shows His love in that He will not impute righteousness to the sinner against his own volition. God's love respects the moral order of the universe and the inviolable rights of personhood.

The gospel is the proclamation that God wills to think evil of no one and wills to think the best of everyone. It is the nature of love to think no evil, to keep no score of wrongs and to think well of everyone

(1 Cor. 13:5). Imputed righteousness is divine love in action. Although it is a just love – a love which isperfectly lawful – it is at the same time the most personal and heart-gripping truth in the universe. It is thegood news that poor, wretched sinners may stand before the Almighty fully known and fully forgiven.Nothing inspires the believer to live a holy life so much as the thought that God sees him as holy. He willbend every nerve and fiber of his being to become what he is in the loving verdict of God.

In summary, the restoration of the gospel demands the restoration of its legal framework. The gospel canbe truly proclaimed only in the setting of law and judgment.

53 C. S. Evans, Despair: A Moment or a Way of Life? (Downers Grove, Ii.: Inter-varsity Press, 1971), pp.82-4.



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Chapter 12

The Eschatological Framework of the Gospel

The covenantal history of the Old Testament was bound up with eschatology, the doctrine of the last

things. Israel lived in the hope that the God who acted in the creation of the world and the Hebrew nationwould act again in the fullness of time to create all things new. It was this hope of the coming kingdom of God which inspired the entire religious outlook of Israel.

The New Testament announces the arrival of what the OldTestament had hoped for. The message of the NewTestament, therefore, is thoroughly eschatological. Jesusbegan His ministry with the stirring announcement: "The timeis fulfilled. The kingdom of God has arrived" (Mark 1:15, RSV,Phillips). A. M. Hunter says:

It was nothing else than the news that 'the one far-off Divine Event' for which they prayed, had projected itself

into history. What was formerly pure eschatology wasnow there before men's eyes, the supernatural madevisible. .

Ever since C. H. Dodd coined it, arguing that the Greekverb in Mark 1.15 (engiken) has the force of 'arrived ', alinguistic battle has raged, Dodd's critics contendingthat 'is at hand', not 'has arrived' is the true translation.We believe that Dodd is right and that engiken herehas the same force as ephthasen in Luke 11.20. Eventhose who boggle at this translation usually concedethe main point, that Jesus believed the Kingdom to bea present reality in himself and his Ministry. Indeed theevidence of the Gospels leaves us no option.

To begin with, what is the sense of saying that 'theappointed time has fully come' if in fact the Kingdom isstill round the corner? But there is a good deal more toadd.

In one passage after another Jesus declares that theKingdom of God has arrived:

'If I by the finger of God cast out demons, then the Kingdomof God has come upon you' (Luke 11.20. Q.).

'From the days of John the Baptist until now the Kingdom of heavenexercises its force' (Matt. 11.12 Cf. Luke 16.16).

'The Kingdom of God is in your midst' (Luke 17.21, L.).

'The tax collectors and harlots are going into the Kingdom of God before you' (Matt. 21.31 M.).54

There is a transparent end-time urgency in the message of Jesus. If we have generally overlooked thisurgency, it is because the delay of the Parousia has caused us to read the words of Jesus in a way thatcompromises their face value.

54 Hunter, New Testament Theology , pp. 27-8.



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The apostles also believed that the end of the ages had arrived (1 Cor. 10:11). We agree with Calvin J.Roetzel when he says: "Paul not only uses apocalyptic terminology for the communication of his Gospel.He also appropriates its eschatological framework." 55 Again he says:

Paul's eschatological language is pervasive. . . One is compelled to agree. . . with Schoeps that "we shouldmisunderstand Paul's letters as a whole, and the governing consciousness from which they spring, if wefailed to recognize that Paul only lives, writes, and preaches in the unshakable conviction that hisgeneration represents the last generation of mankind."

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This is why many of the key words and expressions of the New Testament are eschatological – "kingdomof God," "eternal life," "salvation," "glory," "justification," "judgment," "wrath" and "righteousness of God."We have often failed to grasp their original meaning because we have detached them from their eschatological setting.

The End of the World in Three Dimensions

There is one important difference between the Old Testament's view of the end and the NewTestament's view of the end. From their Old Testament perspective, the prophets saw the end as asingle event. The coming of the Messiah, the end-time effusion of God's Spirit and the greatconsummation were all seen as one event. In the New Testament, however, the end time unfolds in

three stages. New Testament eschatology is three-dimensional.

The cross, Pentecost and the Parousia represent the unfolding of the end time in three stages. As Godsees them, they are one great redemptive event. But to us who live in space and time, they are past,present and future stages of the last things.

The New Testament repeatedly declares that the cross is an end-of-the-world event.

When the time had fully come, God sent His Son.—Gal. 4:4.

In these last days He [God] has spoken to us by HisSon.—Heb. 1:2.

He [Christ] has appeared oncefor all at the end of the ages todo away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself.—Heb. 9:26.

He [Christ]... was revealed in these last times.—1 Peter 1:20.

55 C. J. Roetzel, Judgment in the Community: A Study of the Relationship between Eschatology and Ecclesiology in Paul (Leiden: E. J. Brill,

1972), p.90. 56

Ibid ., p.107.



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Pentecost is also declared to be an end-time event. Explaining the meaning of the outpouring of theSpirit, Peter referred his hearers to the prophecy of Joel, saying:

"'In the last days, God says,I will pour out My Spirit on all people.Your sons and daughters will prophesy,

your young men will see visions,your old men will dream dreams.

Even on My servants, both men and women, I will pour out My Spirit in those days,and they will prophesy.I will show wonders in the heaven above

and signs on the earth below,blood and fire and billows of smoke.

The sun will be turned to darknessand the moon to bloodbefore the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.

And everyone who callson the name of the Lord will be saved."'

—Acts 2:17-21.

The Old Testament prophets had depicted the end of the world as the time when there would be a greateffusion of God's Spirit. This would not only transform God's people, but even their environment, to theglory of Edenic perfection. But Paul declares that the present gift of the Holy Spirit is the firstfruit andbeginning of that coming glory (Rom. 8:23; Eph. 1:13-14). Pentecost is glorification or the life of the ageto come breaking in upon the present. True, it is only the down payment, but it is both the guarantee of the full payment and the sign of its imminence. No wonder the New Testament community stands ontiptoe, waiting for the Parousia!

Pentecost stands in the closest relationship to the preaching of the gospel. The Spirit of the NewTestament is a Spirit clothed in the gospel of Christ; and when He takes possession of men (men do nottake possession of Him), He uses them for the proclamation of thegospel. According to the NewTestament, Spirit-filledmen do not foolishly

describe what itfeels like to bebaptized with theHoly Spirit. Muchless do they paradetheir charismaticendowments. Theyare so clothed withthe gospel thatthey preach "thegospel... by theHoly Spirit sent from

heaven" (1 Peter 1:12).

The coming of the Spirit and theproclamation of the gospel, therefore,are inseparable. This means that thepreaching of the gospel is also an eschatological event. Thus Paul could declare that Isaiah's prophecyabout the day of salvation was being fulfilled in the preaching of the gospel (cf. Isa. 49:8 with 2 Cor. 6:1,2). James could state that the prophecy of Amos about rebuilding the tabernacle in the last days wasbeing fulfilled in the preaching of the gospel (cf. Amos 9:11-15 with Acts 15:14-18).



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It is, of course, unnecessary to prove that the Parousia is an end-time event. Thus, the end of the worldtakes place in three dimensions:

1. In the death and resurrection of Christ.

2. In Pentecost and the preaching of the gospel.

3. In the return of Christ and the great consummation.

These three stages of the end are related. The first brings the second, and the second brings the third. Itwas the dying and rising of Christ which brought Pentecost to the church and the gospel to the world(John 7:38-39; Acts 2:33). 57 And just as the Christ event brought Pentecost and the preaching of thegospel, so the preaching of the gospel brings the consummation, even as Jesus declared, "This gospelof the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end willcome" (Matt. 24:14).

The New Testament's three-dimensional view of eschatology is a framework which helps us correctlyunderstand many biblical concepts. It enables us to see that the entire Old Testament is fulfilled in Christ

– in the incarnation of Christ, in the gospel of Christ and in the Parousia of Christ. (This leaves no roomfor speculation on current events in Palestine.) Within this framework we may understand more clearlymany of the great words and concepts of the New Testament. As an eschatological word, salvation takes

place in three dimensions – past, present and future. At the cross salvation was accomplished, in thegospel it is proclaimed, and at the Parousia it is revealed (1 Peter 1:3-14). Such New Testamentconcepts as the kingdom of God, the righteousness of God and the judgment of God are set in the sameeschatological framework.

The Judgment in Three Dimensions

At the center of biblical eschatology is God's judgment of the world. If we are correct about theframework of New Testament eschatology, then God's judgment of the world takes place in threedimensions. A judgment of the world takes place first at the cross, then in the preaching of the gospel,and finally at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

The Old Testament everywhere points forward to that great day when God will judge the world. Evencurrent events like the invading armies of Assyria (depicted in Isaiah) or the great locust plague (depictedin Joel) are employed as imagery to describe the final judgment. "The great day of the Lord is near –near and coming quickly," cries the prophet Zephaniah (Zeph. 1:14). The New Testament shares thisconviction that there will be a final judgment. It repeatedly declares that this judgment will take place for all men, righteous and wicked, dead and living, at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man buildson this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is,because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of eachman's work.—1 Cor. 3:11-13.

It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes.—1 Cor. 4:4-5.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.—2 Cor. 5:10.

Christ Jesus... will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom.... —2 Tim.4:1.

Let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching. . . . "The Lord will judgeHis people.”... "He who is coming will come and will not delay." — Heb. 10:25, 30, 37 (cf. Matt. 10:15;12:36, 37; Luke 19:11-27).

57 The Spirit is not won by anything men do but by the mighty deeds of Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:10-14).



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But they will have to give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.—1 Peter 4:5.

But if the New Testament merely proclaimed that the judgment day is near, it would not proclaimanything more than did Zephaniah or the other prophets. In His discourse of John 5, Jesus declaresHimself to be the Son of Man. Scholars agree that Jesus hereby identified Himself with the Son of Man inDaniel's vision of the judgment (Dan. 7). After the breathtaking announcement that the Father hascommitted all judgment into the hands of the Son, Jesus makes the startling statement that "a time iscoming and has now come” for Him to exercise His divine prerogatives (John 5:25). The New Testament

everywhere proclaims that the events associated with the end of the world – judgment, kingdom of God,salvation, eternal life – not only will come, but have come. There is a sense in which the future hasalready arrived and the things of the last day have already become a present reality.

The Cross as the Judgment

Speaking of His approaching death, Jesus declared, "Now is the time for judgment on this world" (John12:31). The writer to the Hebrews says, "As man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,so Christ...." (Heb. 9:27-28). Calvary is judgment day. In earlier chapters we saw that those acts of Godin Old Testament history which pointed forward to the Christ event were acts of judgment. The God of the Old Testament is a God of judgment. All His ways are judgment, whether He punishes or saves. Therighteousness of God is His acts of judgment. When Paul announces that "the righteousness of God" is

now manifested (Rom. 1:17; 3:21, KJV), he is describing something thoroughly eschatological. Hemeans that in the Christ event, judgment day has dawned and God has taken action to deal with sin.

On Passover Friday God arraignedthe world to judgment in the personof its Representative. He was Adam

– which means mankind – and wewere all in Him. The human racewas there judged and found guiltybefore God. God arose in terrible

justice and took action against sin(Rom. 3:25). The cosmic signs of

judgment day were present in thegreat earthquake and the darkeningof the sun. Had not Jesus told Hisdisciples that their generation wouldnot pass until all the events of thelast day were fulfilled? And so theywere – in Him (Matt. 24:34; cf. Luke9:27-35).

Throughout the Old Testament God'sacts of judgment are not only punitive but alsosalvific. To those who call on Him, judgmentmeans deliverance (Ex. 6:6; Ps. 35:1-5; 43:1;72:2-4). With strong crying and tears did Christ,the great Believer, call upon the God of thecovenant. God heard His faithful Servant and raised Him from the dead. In the death and resurrection of Christ the righteousness of God – His act of judgment – was manifested. In Christ the old world wasdestroyed and the new world created, the old history buried and the new brought to light, Israel was sentinto captivity and returned again from the land of the enemy. Calvary, therefore, was the judgment of theworld.



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The Gospel as the Judgment

Now we come to what is surely the heart of our whole argument about the nature of the apostolic gospel.If the gospel is to be restored to its rightful state (Dan. 8:14, RSV), it must be restored to itseschatological or judgment-hour setting. The gospel is not only something which prepares men for theeschaton; it is itself part of the eschaton. We must use great plainness of speech. The gospel is not onlysomething which prepares men to stand in the judgment; it is itself a decisive stage of that judgment. Sothe apocalyptic angel who bears "the eternal gospel" declares, "The hour of His judgment has come"(Rev. 14:6, 7). 58

With the ascension of Christ the judgment which began at Calvary enters its second phase. The Lambthat was slain and rose again takes the scroll from the right hand of God the Father (Rev. 5:1-7). "TheFather judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son" (John 5:22). God has "granted Himauthority over all people" (John 17:2). After His resurrection Jesus declares to His disciples, "All authorityin heaven and on earth has been given to Me" (Matt. 28:18). These New Testament scriptures remind usof Daniel's vision of the judgment in which "authority, glory and sovereign power" were given into thehands of the Son of Man (Dan. 7:14). There is an unmistakable correspondence between Daniel 7 andthe vision of Revelation 4 and 5.

Daniel 7 Revelation 4, 5

Thrones were set in place. — v. 9. A throne was set.—4:2, KJV.

The Ancient of Days took His seat. — v. 9. Someone sitting on it.—4:2.

His throne was flaming with fire.—v. 9. the appearance of jasper and carnelian. —4:3.

Thousands upon thousands attended Him; tenthousand times ten thousand stood before Him.—v. 10.

many angels, numbering thousands uponthousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand.—5:11.

One like a Son of Man... approached the Ancientof Days.—v.13.

He..... [to the One] who sat on the throne.—5:7.

He was given authority, glory and sovereignpower—v. 14.

He came and took the scroll from the right hand of Him who sat on the throne.—5:7.

The New Testament rings with the message that Christ is Lord. Adam's lost dominion has been restoredin the One who has taken the scroll and is now seated at the right hand of God. All judgment has beencommitted into His hands. Here on earth Christ's struggling, toiling witnesses may sometimes betempted to think they are abandoned to the fate of history and to the triumph of evil powers – at leastuntil Christ returns as King to judge. But the Revelation of St. John shows that Christ is King and Judgeeven now and, as such, is the Lord of history. History not only bears the marks of Christ. It is an

58 Cf. Rev. 14:6, 7 with Mark 1:15 and John 5:25. The kingdom of God and the judgment are virtually the same In that the King's chief function is

judgment (see Ps. 72, etc.). The gospel message not only announces that the kingdom and the judgment will come, but that it has come. In acertain sense the age to come, with all its blessings and curses, has already broken into the present. To miss this point is to miss thefundamental structure of New Testament thought.



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expression of His righteous judgments in both the churches and the nations. He walks in the midst of thecandlesticks of the seven churches and removes the candlestick of those who do not repent. He holds inHis right hand the seven stars, which are the ministers of the seven churches. He fills them with light. Butif they are unfaithful, they are visited with judgment and become fallen stars. When those who arecondemned and killed for His name's sake plead to Him for judgment (Rev. 6:10), He responds with actsof judgment upon the oppressors. The trumpets of judgment bring plagues on those who turn from thegospel to worship "idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood" and who practice "their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts" (Rev. 9:20-21).

Whether the events of history are the frightful barbarian invasions of the Western Roman Empire or theMohammedan overthrow of the Eastern Roman Empire, whether the events are the French Revolution or the present Communist Revolution, all are to be seen as outworking of Christ's righteous judgments andprecursors of the final judgment. There is a coming wrath, but the wrath of God is already being revealed(Rom. 1:18) as so-called Christian societies are being given up to great epidemics of crime, immorality,corruption and violence. In all this the judgments of God are already in the land. As people watch

unfolding events with stunned bewilderment, God's people should be like modern-day prophets anddeclare that "the hour of His judgment has come." As the revelator sees war, calamities, pestilence andplagues fall on the earth, he hears voices which declare:

"Great and marvelous are Your deeds, Lord God Almighty...for Your righteous acts have been revealed." — Rev. 15:3, 4.

"You are just in these judgments . . .because You have so judged.". . .

"Yes, Lord God Almighty,true and just are Your judgments." — Rev. 16:5, 7.

"True and just are His judgments." — Rev. 19:2.

The entire book of Revelation has this juridical stamp. Judgment is one of the book's key words andconcepts. It not only depicts a coming judgment, but a judgment already in progress and leading to thefinal judgment. The present judgments may appear frightening, but to the people of God they are omensof their final deliverance. When prisoners of war hear the shells and arms of their allies, they do notdespair but shout for joy in prospect of their coming release. This is the spirit conveyed in the message of Revelation.



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But the most vital aspect in the present process of judgment is brought to view when the greatIntercessor of the temple in heaven "took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on theearth" (Rev. 8:5). This reminds us of the words of Jesus, "I have come to bring fire on the earth" (Luke12:49). John the Baptist said of Jesus: "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Hiswinnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn, but Hewill burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (Luke 3:16, 17). It was at Pentecost that the fire of the Spiritwas cast into the earth. "Tongues of fire that separated" came to rest on the disciples (Acts 2:3). All thiswas in fulfillment of what Isaiah prophesied would happen in the last days: "He will cleanse thebloodstains from Jerusalem by the Spirit of judgment and the Spirit of fire" (Isa. 4:4, margin).

We draw attention to the juridical context of the above scriptures. The Spirit's work is represented as awork of judgment and separation. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit is called the Paraclete (John 14:26; 15:26;16:7-11). This word means Advocate (1 John 2:1) and probably refers to the Old Testament Go'el , theone who pleaded another person's case in the Hebrew law court. The Holy Spirit is also called theWitness of Jesus Christ (Acts 5:32), and this again is a juridical title. From this evidence it should beclear that the Holy Spirit is vitally associated with a work of judgment. In other words, the second stage of the judgment is inaugurated as Jesus takes the scroll from the Father and then from His sanctuary caststhe fire of Pentecost into the earth.

How is this work of judgment and separation accomplished by the Holy Spirit? As the Advocate and

Witness of Jesus Christ, He does not speak on His own (John 16:13-14). He comes clothed in Christ'sgospel. It is by the gospel that this work of judgment and separation is accomplished.

In the gospel the Holy Spirit recounts before men God's great act of judgment in the death andresurrection of Christ. Apart from the Spirit there could be no gospel. We could only talk about the crossas some distant historical event. But a mere recitation of history is not preaching the gospel. In an earlier chapter we showed that biblical proclamation is more than a mere memorial. It is a re-presentation inwhich all the power and presence of God's covenantal act become present. 59 So when the cross is re-presented before men in the power of the Spirit, it is just as if Christ were being crucified before their eyes (Gal. 3:1; Rev. 5:6). Calvary is always present before God, and His Spirit makes it present before

59 Luther tried to capture this thought in his doctrine of the Supper.



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us. It is through Pentecost that the past becomes present. This is how the story of the cross becomes thegospel, "the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes" (Rom. 1:16).If Calvary was the judgment of the world, the Yom Kippur or Day of Atonement, the preaching of theapostolic gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit means that this judgment becomes present to us. As thepeople of God look upon Him whom they have pierced, they afflict their souls as Israel did when theygathered around the sanctuary on their Day of Atonement (Lev. 23:27; Joel 2:15-17; Zech. 12:9-14).

While the whole world was represented at Calvary's judgment, it is necessary that men be individuallybrought to the cross, either to be graciously included in the holy history of Jesus Christ or to refuse it. Bytheir response to the cross they are judged. Those who believe are justified. In Paul, justification is theacquitting verdict of the final judgment (Rom. 2:13) received in the now by faith on the ground that the

judgment has already been effected in Jesus Christ. ("One died for all, and therefore all died" [2 Cor.5:14].) Those who believe not are condemned. This too is a verdict of the final judgment projected intothe present historical process. John's juridical and eschatological language is unmistakable:

Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned alreadybecause he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict [Greek, krisis,meaning the decision of the judgment]: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.—John 3:18-19.

I tell you the truth, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not becondemned; he has crossed over from death to life.—John 5:24.



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Not only does the past judgment of Calvary becomepresent in the gospel, but the future judgment is alsomysteriously present. All the blessings of the future

judgment – the inheritance, eternal life, glory, justification – are made present in the gospel to beaccepted by faith. So too, all the terrors of the future

judgment – condemnation, the wrath of God, death –become present to those who believe not. To beconfronted with the gospel is as solemn as standingbefore God on the day of final judgment. In fact, thefinal judgment will only confirm the verdict passed uponus in this probationary time. The final day will be anopen disclosure of what the verdict of God and our ownconscience has already been – for the humanconscience agrees with the verdict of God.

One more thing points to the juridical nature of thegospel. The initiative in His acts of judgment is alwayswith God. God appointed the time when Christ died androse again (Acts 2:23-24). "He has set a day when He

will judge the world" (Acts 17:31). He also appoints thehour when men are brought to judgment in the power of the gospel. No one can come to Christ except it be givenhim of God (John 6:65). We do not come to the Spirit or faith. The Spirit and faith must come to us. It is a

delusion to think the sinner has free will so that he canbecome a Christian any time he chooses. A prisoner hasthe freedom to walk out of jail only when the jailer opensthe door and invites him to come out. It is written, "Thypeople shall be willing in the day of Thy power" (Ps.110:3, KJV). But unless the Spirit graciously comes to usin the gospel, we have no desire or ability to break out of

our captivity. No one arranges the propitious momentwhen he passes from death to life. No one can say, "I willnow hear the gospel and become a believer." The sinner is totally deaf and cannot hear the gospel unless the Lordis present to open his ears. He is blind to the heavenlytreasure unless the Spirit opens his eyes. He who hearsthe gospel through the gracious work of the Spirit has noassurance he will hear the gospel again if he refuses it.God is not a servant of man who can be trifled with. He isa God of judgment. The initiative in salvation is alwayswith Him.

Thus the apostolic gospel is set in the framework of theeschatological judgment. This is why the center of Paul'sgospel is justification through faith in Christ's blood. Paulsets the judgment of God before us in such a way that justification is seen to be our greatest and most urgentneed. His message of justification deals with the mostfundamental realities in the universe. But if the gospel is

removed from this eschatological setting or from its juridical setting, it ceases to be the apostolic gospel. No onecan know what the apostolic gospel is unless he has stood

before God in judgment and knows that God surely requires of him a righteousness that will endure the



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scrutiny of the Almighty. It is from God's judgment bar that a sinner is justified when by faith he lays holdof that righteousness which is unspoiled by man, a righteousness with which he can stand boldly beforeGod's face in judgment.

If we are to effectively proclaim the gospel, we should use every biblical resource at our command to setbefore men the reality of God's judgment. We should use prophecy and biblical signs to illuminate themeaning of our times. We should show that the state of the nations, our society, the church and currentevents are evidence that this is an hour of judgment. But above all, we must preach the gospel as the

judgment of God which is His prelude to the final judgment. The gospel, restored to its historical, juridicaland eschatological setting, is the essence of the pre-advent judgment. The community which is hearingthat gospel is a community which is surely being brought to judgment. For "it is time for judgment tobegin with the family of God" (1 Peter 4:17).

Chapter 13

The Gospel As JudgmentThe gospel judges not only men, but the teachings of men. To embrace the gospel means we must allowit to call all that we do and teach into serious and radical question. It is far better for the holy fire of thegospel to test whether we have placed wood or hay or gold onGod's foundation than for it to be consumed on the great dayof final judgment. We shall therefore review some aspects of Christian teaching in the light of the gospel set in its historical,legal and eschatological framework.

Bible

Our doctrine of inspiration must stand under the judgment of the gospel. As evangelicals we are generally confident thatevery other theory on the inspiration and authority of the Bible,save our own, is condemned. In our reaction to liberalism wehave often contended for "propositional revelation." But thishas saddled us with an unfortunate concept of inspiration andrevelation. It conveys the impression that truth is mediated tous in abstract propositions rather than by God's concrete actsin history. The tendency of propositional revelation is to placebiblical truth in an abstract, philosophical, rationalistic andGrecian framework. But holy history – Jesus Christ crucified

and risen – is the framework and the content of revelation.The faith of prophets and apostles is faith in Jesus, faith inGod's redemptive activity.



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In the well-meaning intention of evangelicals to make belief in an inerrant Bible the touchstone of evangelical orthodoxy, there is grave danger of our substituting a rationalistic faith in an infallible Bible for faith in Jesus Christ. 60

Such a rationalistic faith is a mere assent to the truth of Scripture. It is a faith the Pharisees possessed(John 5:39) and even devils may possess (James 2:19). This is the kind of faith the medieval churchtalked about when it said faith was insufficient for salvation. In one respect the medieval church wascorrect. Such faith is barren of salvation. It can never justify the sinner or make a Christian. Therefore, in

the name of the gospel, we must protest the claim that belief in an infallible Bible is the watershed of evangelicalism and the touchstone of true Christianity. No one will really believe that the Bible is anunerring rule of faith unless the gospel of his salvation has been sealed to his heart by the witness of theHoly Spirit. The gospel is the best apologetic for the truth of the Scriptures.

God

The gospel, set in the background of the Old Testament, must also call aspects of our doctrine of Godinto question. There has been a tendency to be more "spiritual" than the Bible. The force of too many OldTestament passages which speak of God in concrete, realistic terms has been dissipated by labelingthem as anthropomorphic figures of speech. The whole idea of saying that God is a spirit withoutobjective form needs to be called into question. It is worse when this concept of God's pure "spirituality"is combined with a philosophical, abstract and speculative view of pretemporal decrees which havedetermined everything that should come to pass (even tomorrow's football score and the price of cabbage in today's market!). We question whether this is the personal and living God whom the Spiritteaches us to address in the endearing and reverently intimate title, "Abba [Aramaic for papa, daddy; theterm of loving familiarity with which a small child addresses his father], Father" (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). Wedo not doubt that there are saints who subscribe to this doctrine of God and yet truly love Him. But wewould suggest that they love Him in spite of this doctrine, not because of it. We can be glad that thehearts of the saints are often better than their heads.

G. Ernest Wright says some challenging things about the Old Testament doctrine of God:

Man's tendency toward, and desire for, pagan 'normalcy' being what they are, it is scarcely surprising tofind that Christians have sought by a variety of means to avoid this conception and to eradicate the tension

occasioned by the dynamic and energetic Lord who will even destroy in order to build. Many Israelites triedto avoid it by saying: 'It is not he; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine'(Jer. 5.12). Men have always tried to escape from this God into deistic idolatry of one sort or another bysaying that God does not see them and does not act directly in the affairs of earth. Greek philosophy andEastern mysticism could certainly envisage no such deity, while in the ancient polytheisms the great godswere the aristocrats of the universe who for the most part were inaccessible to the common man anduninterested in him except as aristocrats are interested in the menial slaves who supply their needs.The Christian idealist of this day has been very subtle in his rejection of this basic Biblical perception of thetrue nature of God. By setting the Old Testament to one side, he is not confronted so directly with it and hecan proceed to interpret the New Testament along more congenial lines. Among other things, he exhibits adistinct tendency to interpret God in 'spiritual' terms, and 'spiritual' entities are 'spiritually' discerned. Theterm 'spirit', derived from the conception of breath and wind, is of value when applied to God solely toprevent us from assuming that anthropomorphic language can exhaust the mystery and glory of his being.The difficulty with the term and with its derived adjective, 'spiritual', is that the human perception of God's

60 Brian G. Armstrong shows that the rationalizing of faith has also taken place in Reformed orthodoxy: "Again, perhaps one of the most

overlooked changes in later Reformed theology from the theology of Calvin is the radical change having to do with the doctrine of faith. For Calvin, faith was the key to all theological knowledge, indeed, the locus under which all of theology was to be discussed and understood.Calvin's approach was basically in terms of the experience of the believer, as directed by the Word of God. But when the synthetic methodologywas introduced, faith automatically lost its overarching position in theological formulation and was relegated to the position of one of manytopics, or loci, usually one quite far down the line. Not only did faith lose its position as central and introductory to theological formulations, but,treated simply as one of many loci, it quickly lost the existential quality present in Calvin's formulations. Grundler has carefully detailed the verysignificant reorientation of this doctrine of faith in Zanchi. He has shown that the object of faith for Zanchi is simply an assent to the truth of theScriptures. 'In unequivocal terms faith, or the act of faith, is described as assent to the propositions of the entire body of Scripture as the trueWord of God.' This far-reaching position was to become the common idea in orthodox Calvinism but is a far cry from Calvin's definition, whichmakes faith founded not upon the truth of the Scriptures but 'upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds andsealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.' "-Armstrong, Calvinism, pp. 138-39.



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being immediately becomes diffuse and without objective focus. The knowledge of God is reduced to afeeling, to an 'experience'. In the Protestant churches of our time no two words are in more common usethan the terms 'spiritual' and 'experience'. And when the two are coupled together as 'spiritual experience',we have the popular conception of the sum total of religion, especially when the Golden Rule is added to it.

This represents the paganizing of the Gospel in a form that is pleasing to the cultured and sophisticated. Italso presents the Gospel in a form that is more acceptable to the pagan idealist and to the Eastern scholar with mystical tendencies. This Gospel is neither scandal nor stumbling block. Its tolerant diffuseness doesaway with the tension occasioned by the self-disclosure of the Biblical God. The reality of God's beingbecomes an immanent, inner experience which in practice, though not perhaps in theory, sets aside thewhole Biblical doctrine of God's jealousy, the Biblical conception of the definite, dynamic, energetic Beingwhose transcendent holiness and objectivity are too great to be contained in 'experience', and as well theBiblical conception of the external, objective, historical acts of God. Is it not possible to suppose that Godmay not choose to reveal himself and his true nature primarily, if at all, in 'spiritual experience'? To be sure,there is an immediate awareness of God's presence in worship, in prayer, communion and confession; butthe main emphasis of the Bible is certainly on his revelation of himself in historical acts, and in definite‘words', not in diffuse experience. There is an objectivity about Biblical faith which cannot be expressed inthe language of inner experience. For this reason Biblical religion cannot be classified among the greatmysticisms of the world. It is scarcely an accident, therefore, that the Bible contains no doctrine of God'sspirituality. It has a good deal to say about God's Spirit, or the Holy Spirit, but it does not employ metaphorsderived from breath or wind as descriptive of his essence or being.

61From beginning to end it uses the

definite and concrete metaphors derived from human society, the most spectacular of all such

anthropomorphs being the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

In other words, the Christian disuse of the Old Testament has left the Church an easy prey for theubiquitous tendencies toward pagan 'normalcy' in which God's being or essence is conceived as in someway immanent in the processes of life, or, as in the more developed intellectual forms of paganism, as anideal, a principle, a creative event, a vital urge, either within or without the evolving process. In every case,the tension created by God's Lordship, the radically serious conception of sin, and the reality of God'sobjective, historical acts of salvation are removed as the primary focus of the Christian's attention. In such asituation the distinction between the church and the world of pagan idealism is difficult to maintain, and theCross as the central symbol of the Church's faith no longer has the meaning it once had.

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God's self-disclosure in historical acts reached its culmination in the historical acts of God in JesusChrist. As far as the New Testament is concerned, nothing can surpass the knowledge of God given in

the face of the historical Christ. The apostles never pointed to the mysteries of subjective experiencewhen they wanted to encourage the church with the knowledge of God's love. They pointed to the love of God definitely revealed in a once-and-for-all act in history (Rom. 5:6-10; 1 John 4:8-10). But the churchwas soon confronted with Gnostic elements pretending to have access to a knowledge of God beyondthe knowledge of God revealed in the flesh-and-blood reality of Jesus Christ. This "advanced" and"superior" knowledge of God was found in some mystical experience or ecstatic vision.

The Gnostic heresy is perpetuated in the modern charismatic movement. It does not deny the facts of thehistorical gospel. But it tends to postulate a knowledge of God through direct experience in the Holy Spirit

– a knowledge of God in addition to Christ crucified and risen. Some charismatics seem to think thatChrist crucified and risen does not exhaust the knowledge of God. Christ crucified and risen may be awonderful place to start. But believers are urged to go on to something "more" – the baptism of the HolySpirit. If Spirit enthusiasts really believed that God gave the final and crowning revelation of Himself inthe historical Jesus (Col. 2:9; Heb. 1:1-3), how could they talk about the Holy Spirit's work as if He addedto that knowledge rather than unfolded the meaning of the Christ event to us? The Spirit is "the Spirit of Christ" (Rom. 8:9).

61 "Readers may wish to make an exception of the Johannine literature, basing the conclusion on John 4.24 ('God is spirit'). This statement must

be interpreted, however, in the light of the whole Johannine vocabulary and in relation to the other Johannine sentences, 'God is light' and 'Godis love'. When this is done, it is doubtful whether it can be used to sustain a doctrine of God's spirituality. These phrases are primarily concernedwith the nature of the Divine activity and revelation, rather than with the ontology of God in the Hellenic sense. "-G. E. Wright, God Who Acts: Biblical Theology As Recital (London: SCM Press, 1952), p.24. 62

Ibid., pp.22-4.



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The only way He comes to us is clothed in the gospel of Christ. He has no knowledge of God to impart tous except the knowledge of God in Christ crucified and risen. We must adamantly block our ears to any"knowledge" beside this or above this. As for those with the "gospel" of their exciting experiences in theSpirit, we recall that Luther told Munzer that he would not listen to him even if "he had swallowed theHoly Ghost, feathers and all." 63

Man

The gospel, set in the Old Testament's historical and legal framework, calls much of the church'santhropology into question. In the doctrine of man the "Grecianization" of Christian theology has becomemost apparent. The notion of an innately immortal soul is thoroughly Grecian, foreign to the Bible andcontrary to the gospel. The gospel brings life and immortality to us in the same way it bringsrighteousness to us – by imputing to us what is found in Jesus Christ alone. All created existencecontinues only by the will and power of God. If He stayed His hand a moment, we would cease to exist. Asoul unclothed by a body is as Grecian as rationalism's attempt to divest the gospel of the concrete factsof history. If the New Testament does not record true, concrete facts of history, there is no gospel. For there is no good news apart from this flesh-and-blood history.

What we have continuallycalled the framework of the gospel is the visible form

or body which God has given to His gospel. But the "Grecian" mind has shown contempt for this body just as it shows contempt for the human body. We also say that anyone who adheres to the Bible willconfess that the soul has no existence independent of the body. God made human life to be whole. Fromthe word whole comes its English derivations health, hale, holy . Biblically speaking, holiness of life iswholeness of life. A naked soul would be unwhole and therefore unholy in the extreme. It would certainlybe unfit for fellowship with God. The gospel not only glorifies God. It humanizes man. We need to bringall dehumanizing views on the nature of man under the judgment of the gospel. What a "cleansing of thesanctuary" the restored gospel will accomplish in the church's doctrine of man!

63 WA, 17 I, 361-62.



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Salvation

Christianity stands alone among all religions because it proclaims asalvation wrought out and accomplished in an "out there" act in history.Salvation was what God obtained for us quite independent of our moraltransformation. The historical aspect of the gospel means we cannot besaved by our religious experiences, nor need we look in that direction. Thelegal or juridical aspect of the gospel means we cannot be saved by our moral transformation although we are saved to moral transformation.

In setting salvation wholly outside us, apart from all religious experience andmoral transformation, the gospel takes us outside ourselves to look for salvationwholly in what Another has done and suffered. This is a liberating truth. Itdestroys egotism and self-preoccupation.

Whenever the historical and legal framework of the gospel is ignored or set aside, it is impossible to avoid making the human heart the locus of the saving event. This is what inevitably happens in liberalism – in"encounter theology," in Bultmann's demythologizing and in the moralinfluence theory of the atonement. But it has also happened in

conservative evangelicalism. This great branch of the church is drowned inits preoccupation with the Christian's internal life. Salvation is said to beachieved by being born again or by "letting Christ come into the heart."What connection these internal experiences are supposed to have with thehistorical events of the historical incarnation is unclear. The way this experiential"gospel" is often preached could easily give the impression that salvation could take place quiteindependently of God's great acts of salvation history. In any case, salvation history is put far in thebackground. The spotlight of attention is not on God's act in Christ. It is on His act in the human hearthere and now. This is a far cry from the New Testament gospel. This experiential gospel is in profoundharmony with the soteriology of classical Romanism. It has little in common with the gospel of theProtestant Reformation. The restored New Testament gospel must therefore call the popular evangelicalmessage of salvation into serious and radical question.

Ethics

The opponents of the Reformers forever caricatured them as opposed to good works. But they were onlyagainst putting good works in the article of righteousness by faith. They excluded good works from

justification so that, having put them in their proper place, they could give them their proper emphasis.



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We meet the same caricatures because we exclude Christian experience from the gloriousrighteousness of faith. "Oh, they're against all experience," our critics may say. But we are againstconfusing Christian experience with saving righteousness or saving grace lest people look to their subjective experience for acceptance with God rather than to the substitutionary experience of JesusChrist. To put our experience in the place of His experience for us is surely the doctrine of antichristhimself!

Jesus said we should seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then everything else would

be added – including, of course, a good and proper experience. Can we not see that experience is abyproduct of something greater, namely, the gospel of His righteousness? But when we seek thebyproduct in place of the cause of the byproduct, the pursuit is as self-defeating as the pursuit of happiness. The truth is that the gospel brings with it a glorious experience. It is an experience of forgetting ourselves because we are caught up into something far bigger than ourselves. While we arenot saved either in whole or in part by our Christian experience, we are saved to a Christian experience.The Bible calls this sanctification or holiness. Holiness means supreme concern for God's holiness. It isan intense concentration on God's point of view about everything. As G. Ernest Wright says:

He has bound his elect to himself, on the one hand, by great acts of love and grace, and, on the other hand, by a covenant in which his will is expressed. By means of these two elements of Biblicalproclamation, the good news of salvation and the requirement of obedience, God wills to bind a people tohimself by ties of love, faith and trust. Sin is no longer aberration; it is a violation of communion, a betrayalof Divine love, a revolt against God's Lordship. 64

We need to beware that we do not substitute an emotional religious flutter or glib talk about being savedby a "born-again experience" for a lifelong commitment to doing the will of our Father in heaven. Frothyreligious experience is cheap. Pride may be never so high as when it has a startling experience to relate.But a life of unspectacular yet grateful obedience to the commandments of God (1 Cor. 7:19) is worthmore than all the noise of the charismatic movement. We need to soberly reflect that on the last dayJesus will say "Away from Me" to all except those who have done the will of His Father (Matt. 7:20-23). Inthis connection it seems that the message of Matthew, with his emphasis on faith and unspectacular discipleship, may come into its own. There is evidence that Matthew wrote his version of the gospel tocounteract the early tendency to look too much to signs, miracles and charismatic endowments as theessence of Christian existence. One thing clear in Matthew (and the rest of the New Testament for that

matter) is that the ethics of the New Testament are no different from the ethics of the Old. True, the culticreligious requirements of Judaism have dropped away. But the New Testament ethic is not another religion or another ethic. The fact that there is no argument in the New Testament over the content of ethics shows that the apostolic church was moving within the framework of Old Testament ethics. Thestandards of right behavior we encounter in the Old Testament are not set aside in the New. Rather, theyare taken for granted. Indeed, they are radicalized by the glorious light of Jesus and His gospel. But thecommandments of God are not so spiritualized that they lose their concrete, objective content.

In the New Testament there is a sense in which the law is done away. And there is also a sense in whichthe law is not done away. This is a paradox. But it is no less the truth than the fact that the believer ispure and yet at the same time is exhorted to purify himself. Yet now, as never before, the church seemsunsure of herself in the matter of the believer's relation to the law of God. Because the liberals have

dehistoricized the gospel and stripped it of its juridical garments, they have an ethical system as nakedas their gospel. It is called "situation ethics." It invariably ends in the most pitiful legalism. Becausedispensationalism has also vastly separated the Old Testament from the New, it often leaves theimpression that the believer, being freed from the law of God in every sense, lives by the leading of theHoly Spirit and the love of Jesus in the heart. We are not told how to distinguish between the Spirit andthe uncertain voices of sinful human nature. But if we can be saved by a mighty internal transformation,why cannot we be guided by this "Christ within"? We need Luther's doctrine of the sinfulness of theregenerate to stop the language of the born-again experience from becoming too loud and confident.

64 Wright, God Who Acts, pp.21-2.



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If God's salvation act in Christ was a juridical transaction,if it was designed to save us by honoring the claims of the divine law, then is there not a profound harmonybetween law and grace? If the cross was the hilasterion (mercy seat, place of atonement), then does not thegospel show us how justice and mercy unite in thecross? If the gospel is preached in the framework of OldTestament jurisprudence as the apostles preached it,then there is no room for the antinomianmisunderstanding to follow Paul and Luther like a darkshadow.

The Cross reveals the love of God so profoundly anddramatically that it makes faith possible. It reveals the importance of the law and the seriousness of sinas revolt against the order and structure established by God. The Cross proclaims and preserves theholiness of God's law, while at the same time revealing his boundless and overwhelming love. Thismeans that it is impossible for those who take the Protestant faith seriously to take the sinful revolt of human beings against God lightly. The Cross makes it apparent that God cannot forgive sin as anindulgent parent may forgive an offense. Forgiveness which is merely indulgence would subvert theorder and structure of the universe.

Ignoring the structures which maintain life and make society function is not mercy or love but sheer irresponsibility. It is against this background that Protestant assertions about the Cross must beunderstood. Through the Cross the holiness of God's law is preserved. This law protects all people andmakes the life of society possible. At the same time the Cross also reveals God's boundless love. 65

A gospel shorn of its Old Testament background can only lead to a faith shorn of concrete ethicalcontent. Like the naked Greek soul, it is unwhole, unhealthy and unholy. Obedience to God's covenantalorder of life, the norm of righteousness, is the only test of genuine discipleship to Jesus Christ.Otherwise, what is to prevent a person – like the gay clergyman interviewed in The Wittenburg Door –from justifying his abominable lifestyle by appealing to his "beautiful relationship" with the Lord? 66 Thebiblical message of a final judgment according to works means that the objective law of God stands over all human experience. By its unerring standard of righteousness it will judge whether that experience isgood or evil (Rom. 2:6-16; James 2:10-12). The purpose of justification by grace is to set the believingsinner right before the law. This is implicit in the meaning of justification. It is impossible to be reconciledto God while remaining unreconciled to His law, for the law is the holy will and character of God. It is thecarnal mind which refuses to be subject to the law of God (Rom. 8:7). There is a popular "gospel" whichoozes contempt for that holy law which is to judge all men. But there is no room for antinomian cheapgrace when the gospel is placed in the framework of Old Testament history and law. God's saving actpaid the deepest respect to the law. Otherwise Christ need not have died. The biblical message of a final

judgment before the law of God and according to works is entirely consistent with such a gospel. Indeed,the final judgment is mysteriously present in the preaching of this gospel. By their attitude to the law of God, men reveal their attitude to this gospel and so pass judgment upon themselves.

Last Things The New Testament gospel proclaims that Old Testament history has been summed up and completedin Christ. God's promised salvation in the eschatological fullness of time has been realized in Him. This iswhy the New Testament declares that the Christ event is the end of the world (Heb. 1:1-2; 9:26). In Christthe old order has passed. Sin, death and the devil have been overcome by the death and resurrection of Christ. In Him the new age and the new creation have arrived.

65G. W. Forell, The Protestant Faith (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1960).

66 The Wittenburg Door , no.39 (Oct.-Nov. 1977).



The New Testament shows that eschatology is concentrated in Jesus Christ. Christ is so overwhelminglythe subject of eschatology that we should speak of the end as the Last One rather than as the lastthings. Christ is the Last One (Rev. 1:8; 2:8). All things exist for His sake (Col. 1:16). All history points toHim and finds its meaning in Him. Nothing has any meaning unless it is related to Jesus Christ. The onlylegitimate preaching of the end of the world is the preaching of Jesus Christ, the Last One. Did Godpromise Israel rest and riches and glory? The gospel proclaims that this has been achieved in Christ. DidGod promise a faithful remnant? Christ is that Remnant. (In another sense it includes all who are in Himby faith.) Did God promise Israel rest in its own land? Christ is God's Israel. The work of the faithfulServant of Yahweh is finished, and He has entered into His rest. All who are now in Him by faith are inIsrael. They are in God's own country. They have entered His rest. There is now no chosen peopleexcept Jesus Christ, the chosen One. There is no holy land except where He is. He is the reality of whichboth Jew and Palestine were only shadows. Since Christ is in heaven, there is no inheritance except theone in heaven (1 Peter 1:3-5), no promised land except the one in heaven (Heb. 11:13-16), noJerusalem except the one in heaven (Gal. 4:26), no Mount Zion except the one in heaven (Heb. 12:22)and no temple except "God's temple in heaven" (Rev. 11:19).

The gospel of an eschatology concentrated in Jesus Christ must stand in judgment over the popular eschatology concentrated in a Palestine which is now no promised land and in an Israel with no claim tobe God's Israel more than any other nation. All geographical and national boundaries which once servedas shadows of Jesus Christ have been swept aside. Now that the reality stands revealed in Jesus Christ,

there is no more need to play with childish shadows. The fact that so many evangelicals can be caughtup in this childish Palestinian eschatology shows that, for them, Christ and Him crucified has not becomeall and in all. What a mighty "cleansing of the sanctuary" is demanded by the restoration of the apostolicgospel! What a judgment must begin at the house of God!

(concluded)

jesus christ is the meaning

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