Even as I advocate strenuously for my own reading of Barth, I must calmly admit that the Church Dogmatics is patient of multiple interpretations. Even as I stand in the so-called revisionist camp, I am obliged to admit the viability of “traditionalist” readings. The force of this obligation does not bespeak interpretative humility or charitableness on my part, nor is it symptomatic of poststructuralist convictions about textual indeterminacy. Quite the contrary: it is an obligation grounded in the belief that varied, even conflicting readings of Barth’s magnum opus are a function of the text itself, are a consequence of Barth’s distinctive approach to dogmatic work (p. 157).

I think the next question that arises from Jones’ suggestion is, “Did Barth intend his text to have this effect or was it a failure to communicate his position clearly?” I know several readers of this site will have an opinion.

You see, I’ve always gone to bed early and gotten up relatively early. I’ve had few hobbies. I was neither a mountain climber nor a photographer, nor did I lead an intense social life. So if you spend your days in a certain eremetical way of life, then you don’t need to get up very early or work late at night, and if God gives you the opportunity, you can work calm and undisturbed, and very easily do the work that I did. This has not been so tragic.¹

1. Rahner, Karl. I Remember: An Autobiographical Interview with Meinold Krauss. New York: Crossroad, 1985, p. 61.

Because revelation unfolds throughout history, we must not only take seriously what God has said, but also when he has said it. In terms of faithful exegetical and biblical-theological pursuits, I believe it is important to read any inspired word in light of its immediate historical and canonical context. By doing so, we can be faithful to the original context and reception of the text, and we can come to better grips with God’s intent in revealing this particular word at this particular point in time.

Nonetheless, the important point to maintain is the organic connectedness of revelation as it progressively unfolds. And so as Christians, we must go further than a first reading. God’s earlier revelation builds up to the climactic revelation of his son (cf. Heb 1). In other words, this revelation of Christ is the telos of all redemptive-history. Hence, Jesus Christ is present in Gen 3:15, though in seed form—not merely as an addendum tacked onto a bare prophecy. Christ is not an out-of-the-blue surprise, but the originally intended apex of what had been previously revealed. Moreover, Jesus called his hearers to account for rejecting him in spite of their apparent knowledge of the Old Testament (Matt 21:42; cf. Matt 22:29; John 3:10). Therefore, we cannot artificially divide earlier and later revelation. We certainly ought to consider revelation as it unfolds, but given the organic and unified nature of divine revelation, later and fuller meaning cannot be divorced from earlier, anticipatory revelation.

In my understanding, this was a principle concern in Lane G. Tipton’s essay, “The Gospel and Redemptive-Historical Hermeneutics” in Confident of Better Things: Essays Commemorating Seventy-Five Years of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (the subject of an episode of Christ the Center). In this essay, Tipton presents his case for a trans-testamental gospel before turning to a critical discussion of Dan McCartney’s work on hermeneutics and typology. But even as he criticizes Dan McCartney’s particular view, which many people identify more closely with first/second readings, Tipton accepts their use, properly understood. He writes,

McCartney’s concerns are laudable. He rightly recongizes that the Old Testament finds its eschatological realization in Christ. He further discerns that it is possible to engage in first and second readings of the Old Testament, one that reads the Old Testament in its original redemptive-historical and canonical context, prior to the coming of Christ, and one that reads the Old Testament in terms of its fulfillment in Christ, with the second reading yielding greater insight into the eschatological purposes of God in Christ. Moreover, McCartney properly observes that in light of texts such as Luke 24 “the Old Testament actually does speak of Christ’s death and resurrection and the resultant missionary people of God.”¹ These points, as far as they go, have some value for a proper reading of Scripture.²

I agree with Tipton’s assessment here. As we practice this type of interpretation in studying God’s unfolding revelation in history, I believe it is imperative to acknowledge that we cannot suspend our knowledge of Christ as we read the Old Testament. When we perform first and second readings, we must do so as Christians—never being satisfied to read the Old Testament in a univocally Jewish fashion. But at the same time, we must strive to see revelation in its manifold and progressively-given fullness.

Notes

1. Dan McCartney, “Should We Employ the Hermeneutics of the New Testament Writers?” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, 2003), 7.
2. Lane G. Tipton, “The Gospel and Redemptive-Historical Hermeneutics” in Confident of Better Things: Essays Commemorating Seventy-Five Years of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church edited by John R. Muether and Danny E. Olinger (Willow Grove: The Committee for the Historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 2011), 202-203.

There have been good protestants who have maintained that this faith is not the antecedent of justification, but the consequent, that we do not believe in order to be justified but we believe because we have been justified, and that the faith referred to is the faith that we have been justified. The witness of Scripture does not appear to bear out this view of the relation of faith to justification. It is true, of course, that there is a faith which is consequent to justification. We cannot believe that we have been justified until we are first justified. But there is good reason for insisting that this reflex or secondary act of faith is not the faith in view when we are said to be justified by faith and that this faith by which we are justified is the initial and primary act of faith in Jesus Christ by which in our effectual calling we are united to Christ and invested with his righteousness unto our acceptance with God and justification by him. [pp. 128-129]

Murray links justification and faith, and he argues that faith must precede justification. For it is by that very faith that believers receive the righteousness of Christ that is imputed to them. Without Christ’s righteousness, there is no ground for justification. Murray then goes on to describe the character of this faith by which believers are justified.

It is an old and time-worn objection that this doctrine ministers to licence and looseness. Only those who know not the power of the gospel will plead such misconception. Justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. Justification is not all that is embraced in the gospel of redeeming grace. Christ is a complete Saviour and it is not justification alone that the believing sinner possesses in him. And faith is not the only response in the heart of him who has entrusted himself to Christ for salvation. Faith alone justifies but a justified person with faith alone would be a monstrosity which never exists in the kingdom of grace. Faith works itself out through love (cf. Gal. 5:6). And faith without works is dead (cf. James 2:17-20). It is living faith that justifies and living faith unites to Christ both in the virtue of his death and in the power of his resurrection. No one has entrusted himself to Christ for deliverance from the guilt of sin who has not also entrusted himself to him for deliverance from the power of sin. “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” (Rom. 6:1-2) [p. 131]

These are helpful reminders of the Bible’s teaching on the gospel. Indeed, we are justified by grace alone through faith alone; yet that faith is never alone. Believers are renewed by the Spirit of God and quickened to mortify sin and live unto righteousness. Nevertheless, let us never forget or compromise that wonderful alien righteousness from Christ which alone accounts for our right standing with God.

This morning, I decided to run a few simple numbers looking at the number of per capita visitors to reformedforum.org for each U.S. state. I’ve looked at the numbers by state before, but it’s hard to know if the figures simply reflect the respective populations of those areas. The adjusted data, however, yield some interesting results. Here are the per capita rankings since January 1, 2011:

1. Pennsylvania
2. Mississippi
3. Massachusetts
4. Rhode Island
5. South Carolina
6. California
7. North Carolina
8. Washington
9. Kentucky
10. Alabama
11. Virginia
12. Tennessee
13. Georgia
14. New Jersey
15. New Mexico
16. Nebraska
17. Michigan
18. Illinois
19. Missouri
20. Maryland
21. Indiana
22. Texas
23. Maine
24. Florida
25. Oklahoma
26. Oregon
27. Iowa
28. Ohio
29. Delaware
30. Colorado
31. Kansas
32. Minnesota
33. Alaska
34. Wisconsin
35. Arizona
36. South Dakota
37. Montana
38. Louisiana
39. New York
40. Idaho
41. New Hampshire
42. Vermont
43. Arkansas
44. Wyoming
45. North Dakota
46. Nevada
47. Hawaii
48. West Virginia
49. Connecticut
50. Utah

* The District of Columbia is the number one region in the U.S., but I gather much of the web traffic is generated by people that do not actually live in D.C. Hence, the figure is not representative.

I really ought to write a new preface for this book, which is old already. But the idea I find rather unattractive. For whatever I tried to do, I would always end up trying to justify it for what it was, and reinsert it, insofar as such a thing might be possible, in what is going on today. Perhaps that would be possible, perhaps not, I might do it with varying degrees of success, but it would not be an honest course of action. And above all, that wouldn’t be in keeping with what should be, regarding a book, the preserve of the person who wrote it.

[…]

So speaks the Preface, the first act in which the monarchy of the author is established, a declaration of tyranny: my intention should be your precept; you must bend your reading, your analyses, your criticisms to what I was trying to do, and take note of my modesty: when I speak of the limits of my enterprise, I mean to set a boundary for your freedom, and if I claim that I feel I was not up to the task, it is because I don’t want to leave you the privilege of substituting my book with the fantasy of a different one, close to it, but more beautiful than the book itself. I am the monarch of the things that I have said, and I keep an eminent sovereignty over them; that of my intention, and the meaning that I wished to give to them.

Michel Foucault, History of Madness, ed. Jean Khalfa, trans. Jean Khalfa and Jonathan Murphy (London: Routledge, 2009), xxxvii, xxxviii.