Lane Tipton’s proposal of a thoroughly christological reading of the Old Testament, in christotelic, christocentric, and christomorphic senses, properly qualified and defined, (found in his article in Confident of Better Things and his interview on Christ the Center)¹ has incurred somewhat of a backlash.² Tipton articulates his view in contradistinction from a hermeneutic which separates the Old Testament into two meanings: one flowing from a first-reading, which utilizes the grammatical-historical method, and a second reading, which takes into account the claims of the New Testament authors. Dan McCartney is the first-reading/second-reading proponent par excellence, and he is the scholar whom Tipton interacts with most in his discussion of the christomorphic nature of Old Testament typology. Most who take issue with Tipton’s approach are those who posit that only christotelism is a properly biblical-theological category, while christocentrism is a properly systematic-theological category, and christomorphism inappropriate altogether. It is this idea of christomorphism that separates the camps. There is a spectrum among those uncomfortable with the idea of christomorphism, yet it will be helpful to note how Tipton defines it to better understand why some are so uncomfortable with such a hermeneutical notion.

Tipton defines christomorphism as this organizing hermeneutical principle: “Christ is already there—objectively foresignified and redemptively present as the content of the mystery in the Scripture of the Old Testament Itself. The first reading of the Old Testament must take this central theological reality into account and develop its implications for typology.”³ That is, the Christocentric nature of Old Testament soteriology, and the pneumatological nature of its eschatology, has biblical-theological implications for the very semantics of Old Testament typology. McCartney would respond, “…the Messiah will die and rise three days later. We can only see it after the fact. A genuine ‘first reading’ of the story allows for a surprise element.”⁴

II. Summary of and Response to General Criticisms of and Alternatives to Christomorphism

Now, those who dismiss Tipton’s approach appeal to the progressive nature of revelation, arguing that, since it would have been impossible for the Old Testament authors to have been conscious of New Testament christological realities, then there is no way that we can tie those realities to the text of the Old Testament without allegorizing. However, McCartney, rather than making this a point of contention, seeks to retain a notion of grammatical-historical exegesis that precludes the tenability of christomorphism, yet in so doing deems allegory as a legitimate hermeneutical option in an attempt to retain the Christian nature of the Old Testament. We may label the view of those in McCartney’s camp, whether rigidly or loosely, as pure christotelism,⁵ as distinct from christomorphism (which exists along a differently qualified and defined notion of christotelism and christocentrism).

One New Testament text that many suspicious of Tipton’s approach often bring up is Hebrews 1:1-2. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” “Therefore,” an advocate of pure christotelism will say, “we may produce a hermetically sealed study of the prophets in a way that does not have in mind any christological realities, even if it is limited and eschatological in focus.” Another way it is sometimes put is that the “proximate” concerns of the Old Testament (i.e. military campaigns, dietary laws, material inheritance, etc.) are discernable and comprehensible on their own terms, and the “ultimate” christological significance of any given Old Testament text, although it is the most important, is not the most hermeneutically immanent in our interpretative approach to the Old Testament.

This is, from the perspective of adherents to pure christotelism, a silver bullet in the heart of christomorphism. However, the appeal to Hebrews 1:1 as the structure of progressive revelation does not penetrate the heart of the issue. The argument works only if Tipton, throughout the entire articulation of his position, has failed to take into account the fact that time happens. Revelation in history occurs progressively – at the risk of sounding like a commonsense realist, “Duh.” The issue at hand is not that the historical process of revelation is a progressive one, but the nature and function of the content of revelation’s form as it pertains to the text of the Old Testament.

Hebrews 1:1-2 must be held next to Romans 1:1-3, which says, “Paul…set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son.” Therefore, given the progressive form of revelation which Hebrews 1:1-2 delineates, which Paul grants in Romans 1:1-3, the focus of the issue is the content which is revealed through the prophets before the incarnate Son was the immediate agent of divine revelation (Heb. 1:2). The prophets, who were the agents of God’s communication in the Old Testament (Heb. 1:1), were speaking about “the gospel of God…concerning his Son, who…was declared to be the Son of God…by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 1:1-4) Even though this is made clear most intensely and climactically in “these last days,” through the advent of Christ, the content which fills the progression from “the prophets” to “his Son” (Heb. 1:1-2) is “his Son.”⁶

Therefore, the “proximate” concern of the Old Testament is “his Son,” so that the Son (and his gospel) is present at both the “ultimate” and the “proximate” semantic level of the Old Testament text. What, then, of Joshua’s entering into the land (Josh. 6:27), or the witch of En-Dor (1 Sam. 28:25), or the military debate between Hezekiah and Sennacherib (Isa. 37)? These things are, to introduce a third category, peripheral concerns whose meaning is exhausted by their particular semantic tie to the self-consciously typological system that has been progressively revealed up to that point. In other words, “If Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.” (Heb. 4:8). The author of Hebrews says later on, “They serve a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, ‘See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.’” (Heb. 8:5; citing Ex. 25:40) The heavenly things fills the copy. To put Romans 1:1-3 and Hebrews 1:1-2 together, “Long ago…God spoke to our fathers by the prophets…concerning his Son…Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Heb. 1:1; Rom. 1:3-4).

One more area of confusion in the discussion is the relationship between the divine and human meanings. It is said that the first reading is the meaning that the human intended, and the divine meaning is the meaning that God intended in light of how he knew history would play out in Christ. One could push the issue of putting too rigid a distinction between the two, but ultimately proponents of pure christotelism would admit that the human meaning is intended by the divine author, but that he has more in mind than the human does. It will therefore be helpful to push in the opposite direction: did the human author have access to the divine intention at that time? It may seem that I am simply restating the question at hand, but it is a different question entirely. Does the human author (and here we speak of all human authors of Scripture) know that he doesn’t know that the meaning of the text he is writing is greater than he can conceive? If he does know, then the human author himself rejects the enterprise of pure christotelism, insisting that the “pattern” (typos; c.f. Ex. 25:40; Acts 7:44; Rom. 5:12-21; Heb. 8:5) that contextually girds his words denotes, at the human level of Israel’s parochial setting, a heavenly significance which is neither merely ultimate, nor remote, but immanent and essential to the semantic function of all of the text of the Old Testament.

III. McCartney’s Understanding of Grammatical-Historical

Beyond the internal problems that accompany rejecting Tipton’s proposal, the matter of properly understanding the definition and role of “grammatical-historical” exegesis in the broader theological enterprise must be addressed. The term “grammatical-historical” has been taken as an interpretative axiom for biblical studies, both in definition and function, not least in McCartney’s work. It will therefore be helpful to consider McCartney’s own understanding of the definition and function of “grammatical-historical” in his hermeneutical approach, since one’s concept of both the gramme and the historia of the Old Testament determine what one allows it to say. McCartney concedes as much, for he says,

[T]ypology is not grammatical-historical exegesis. Typology is a theological construction based on a conviction that two events in history or an event in history and a (separate) event in a text are somehow actually related (not just comparable or similar, nor just literarily related) in that the meaning of the former event (or the written record of such) only becomes fully manifest in the later event. Such a construction cannot be derived purely from the events themselves. Historical meaning indeed provides a tethering point for typology, but what drives typology is the fulfillment in Christ, not the historical meaning itself.⁷

For McCartney, it seems, the very nature of grammatical-historical exegesis precludes the possibility of a kind of typology that arises from the historical meaning of a text or event because of the fact that it is a theological construction. To reword McCartney’s argument here, if an interpretation of a text is a theological construction, it cannot be the grammatical-historical meaning, which means that McCartney’s theological convictions prohibit the possibility of an eschatological typology to exist at a grammatical-historical level anywhere in history.⁸ Another aspect of the argument presented here is the rigidity of the definitions of “grammatical-historical” and “typology.” McCartney has defined the possibility of grammatical-historical typology in the Old Testament out of existence. He gives further insight into his understanding of “grammatical-historical,”

But Beale [who posits that typology arises out of a grammatical-historical approach] also concedes too much to modernism. Beale, and many others dealing with this issue, also feel the pressure of conforming to modern expectations regarding grammatical-historical meaning. In order for an interpretation to be true, it is assumed that it must be, on some level, grammatical-historical in nature.⁹

McCartney has already conceded that the grammatical-historical approach plays a role in his interpretation of Scripture, yet he has conceded here that his understanding of “grammatical-historical” is a product, at least in part, of modernism. This is how many Roman Catholics construct their epistemology; it is nature plus grace. For McCartney, it is modernistic conceptions of history plus a Christian conception of its meaning (Historie plus Christology). Again, he says, “if one thinks that all the promises of God…are yea and amen in Christ, one will be unsatisfied with grammatical-historical interpretation (unless one fudges).”¹⁰ This assumes that there is a valid understanding of history-in-general that may be evaluated in alienation from the interpretation given to it by the history of special revelation.

A Christian epistemology does not hand back to the biblical interpreters the gift of enlightenment rationality that the postmodern enterprise has stolen, in order that they may then add a Christian spin to a modernist notion of history. Rather, rejoicing with the postmodern critique of the enlightenment, the Christian position retains for itself a qualitatively unique notion of history, namely, one in which the controlling interpretive variable for all facts is the special revelation of God in word and deed. Therefore, in a consistent Christian epistemology, one does not impose enlightenment, post-enlightenment, and post-counter-enlightenment hermeneutical rules from Gadamer, Fish, Austin, and the like onto Scripture, as if it were appropriate to put Scripture under a secular conception of an axiomatic hermeneutical mechanism. Nor can the Christian draw from “common-sense” grammatical-historical “givens” which control one’s understanding of how God may or may not speak in history. Instead, a Christian notion of “grammatical-historical” begins with the system of truth laid out in the grammē and historia of Scripture by its single divine author.

The primary aspect of McCartney’s self-declaredly partially-modernist approach that is troublesome is not that his “first reading” seeks to construct an objective historical account of events, or find objective meaning in texts, but that he believes that before the interpreter arrives at the textual scene, there is an objective, self-interpreting, disembodied, non-theological semantic element which may be exegetically mined. Richard E. Burnett describes the historical-critical approach to Scripture, which resonates quite strongly with McCartney’s approach, “Instead of history being a predicate of revelation, revelation became for many a predicate of history.”¹¹ Likewise, for McCartney, there is a valid sense in which one must make an “objective” historical evaluation of the text of the Old Testament before it can be understood as part of the organic whole of this history of revelation.

Contrary to McCartney’s claim, it is the one who acknowledges the partial validity of the modernist approach to history who has conceded too much to modernism, not the one who holds his understanding of history-in-general in an open hand. This is the crux of the debate. The issue that Tipton and others take with McCartney is that he is the one who throws authority of the Old Testament to the modernist dogs by his integration of an admittedly modernist conception of “grammatical-historical.” The task at hand is not to add onto an enlightenment conception of a “grammatical-historical” approach – that is, divorced from theology – rather, the task is to change one’s conception of history altogether. More than that, the task at hand is to free one’s understanding of how the semantics of the Old Testament may function from the myth of the possibility of history qua history. That is the prescriptive imperative of the apostolic hermeneutic. McCartney’s understanding of “grammatical-historical” exegesis is therefore dissatisfying.

As well intentioned as McCartney may be to free the apostolic hermeneutic from enlightenment bonds, his integration of what he admits is a modernist agenda into his interpretative enterprise must result in a rejection of his consideration of the nature of typology wholesale. Any appeal to an unqualified notion of “grammatical-historical,” at best, stems from a naïve conception of the meaning of history-in-general, and at worst, stems from an ideological power play against the nature and function of the divine intention behind the text and types of the Old Testament. The myth of the brute heuristic potential of “objective historical data” must be extracted from a proper consideration of what “grammatical-historical” means at every point, especially in the consideration of the special revelation of Scripture, lest the redemptive-organic nature of revelation history be pruned by the enlightenment agenda. Tipton writes,

Paul would not recognize the notion of mystery McCartney advocates…in McCartney’s model the witness to Christ in the Old Testament is understood as a potential one that is actualized after and in light of the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ…Rather than finding Christ in the Old Testament only after Jesus’ resurrection by reading him back into the Old Testament using the idea of a surprise ending in a mystery novel, we must recognize that Christ is already there—objectively foresignified and redemptively present as the content of the mystery in the Scripture of the Old Testament Itself. The first reading of the Old Testament must take this central theological reality into account and develop its implications for typology.¹²

IV. Conclusion

At the end of the day, the issue of christomorphism comes down the doctrine of inerrancy. The true inerrantist must not only be able to demonstrate a lack of contradiction between the Old and New Testaments, but must take the intention of the New Testament authors at face value. Theological compatibility between the testaments does not account for an “About the Son he says” hermeneutic (Heb. 1:8). A mere knowledge of a generic messianic theme in the Old Testament is not compatible with the full-orbed christological conception of the semantics of the Old Testament, and the christomorphic nature of the proximate, typological Old testament realities (Rom. 5:12-21; 1 Cor. 15:45-55).

Paul does not claim that Christ derives his Adamic identity from being like Adam; rather, his claim is that Adam is self-consciously typological, and eschatologically-oriented in that typological constitution (Rom. 5:14). Adam does not become the first Adam when the second Adam comes; rather, à la 1 Cor. 15:45 (and in light of Rom. 5:14), the first Adam was composed as the “first man,” (ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος) having a foresignifying function from the outset regarding “the last Adam” (ὁ ἔσχατος Ἀδαμ). Tipton claims that this has prescriptive hermeneutical implications for our reading of the Old Testament, and it is difficult, with a strong commitment to a Pauline Old Testament biblical theology, to disagree.¹³

Notes

1. Lane G. Tipton, “The Gospel and Redemptive-Historical Hermeneutics,” Confident of Better Things, (ed. John R. Muether, Danny E. Olinger, Willow Grove, Pa.: The Committee for the Historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 2011); “The Gospel and Redemptive-Historical Hermeneutics,” Christ the Center, published on July 22, 2011; interview conducted by Camden Bucey.
2. It would be imprudent to name names here, but there are many who flippantly dismiss Tipton’s proposal on the basis of various misconceptions of the issue at hand, the clarification of which is a goal of the present work.
3. Tipton, “The Gospel and Redemptive-Historical Hermeneutics,” 211. Emphasis original.
4. McCartney, “Should We Employ?” 7.
5. The notion of “pure” christotelism does not preclude room for any kind of christocentrism, but it does preclude the significance of the category of christocentrism for any first-reading of the Old Testament, which is precisely what Tipton wants to move away from with his category of christomorphism.
6. One might respond to this, “In their historically conditioned context, the prophets had no noetic access to the events of Christ’s advent,” to which one may reply, “They’re prophets. Their job is to prophesy about things outside of their historically conditioned contexts.” This, of course, applies not only to those who are properly considered prophets, but to all of the authors of Scripture. However, this is a critique of Tipton’s view that has been unofficially issued, and it is worth giving some kind of response. Furthermore, if this argument is unconvincing, then one’s commitment to the doctrine of inerrancy (in light of Paul’s words in Rom. 1:1-3) and, if they claim to adhere to the Westminster Confession of Faith, their confessionalism (WCF 1:9), may be called into question.
7. McCartney, “Should We Employ?” 5.
8. It is appropriate to wonder if McCartney is here implicitly writing off the entire history of the study of Old Testament typology in the broader academy, which, excluding Beale whom he interacts with at length, includes many scholars who find a typological reading of the Old Testament as entirely appropriate. Voices in this conversation include David L. Baker, “Typology and the Christian Use of the Old Testament,” Scottish Journal of Theology 29 (1976): 137-157, P. Joseph Cahill, “Hermeneutical Implications of Typology,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 44 (April, 1982): 266-281, Davidson, Richard M. Typology in Scripture: A Study of Hermeneutical τύπος Structures (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1981), Michael A. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), W. Edward Glenny, “Typology: A Summary of the Present Evangelical Discussion,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Quarterly 40 (December 1997): 627-638, Leonard Goppelt, Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New (trans. Donald Madvig. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), and Douglas Moo, “The Problem of Sensus Plenior,” Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon, ed. D. A. Carson and John Woodbridge, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 175-211; Gerhard von Rad, “Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament,” Essays on Old Testament Hermeneutics ed. Claus Westermann (trans. James Luther Mayes, Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1971), 17-39. There is surely no consensus, but there is enough heat on both sides of the discussion to warrant an argument from McCartney which ventures beyond, to summarize, “Typology cannot be grammatical-historical because of what typology is and because of what grammatical-historical interpretation is.”
9. McCartney, “Should We Employ?” 4.
10. One might ask at this point, going along with McCartney’s enterprise, “If we are going to be consistent in our limitation of the grammatical-historical approach to the Old Testament, then in what sense is it hermeneutically appropriate to move beyond the grammatical-historical approach to the New Testament?” In other words, the if grammatical-historical exegesis should not be the only hermeneutical standard, then one must be consistent in applying it to both testaments. How would McCartney contain this opening of Pandora’s hermeneutical box? Although he cites John Walton’s “Inspired Subjectivity, Hermeneutical Objectivity,” as a point of partial agreement, he ultimately departs from Walton’s conclusion and says that they are conceivable “anti-Christian.” Therefore, McCartney himself rejects Walton’s solution as a plausible resolution to his own problem, and therefore as a plausible answer to the present question of how to be consistent with McCartney’s own method. John Walton, “Inspired Subjectivity and Hermeneutical Objectivity.”
11. Richard E. Burnett, “Historical Criticism,” Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible ed. Kevin Vanhoozer, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House Company, 2005), 291.
12. Tipton, “Redemptive-Historical Hermeneutics,” 210-211. Emphasis original.
13. It should also be noted that a first-reading/second-reading hermeneutic is not in accord with the theology of Geerhardus Vos. Drawing Vos’s two-age diagram for biblical theology on the board does not make one a Vossian any more than drawing two circles on the board makes on a Van Tilian. One cannot accept the progressive structure of Hebrews 1:1 without the hermeneutically Christocentric content of Romans 1:1-3. Vos explains, “A Biblical Theology is deeply concerned with the question of inspiration. All depends here on what we posit as the object with which our science deals. If its objects consist in the beliefs and practices of men in the past, then obviously it is of no importance whether the subject matter be considered as true in any other or higher sense than that of a reliable record of things once prevailing, no matter whether inherently true or not. A Biblical Theology thus conceived ought to classify itself with Historical Theology, not with Exegetical Theology. It professes to be a History of Doctrine for Biblical Times…Our conception of the discipline, on the other hand, considers its subject mater form the point of view of revelation from God.” Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 1948), 12-13.

This little phrase from Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. encapsulates so much of Geerhardus Vos’ eschatological program. The phrase is meant to convey the idea that God has a plan of eschatological, consummated life laid out for Adam even before the fall into sin.  The Covenant of Works was put into place with the offer of that reward.

When attempting to demonstrate this point, we often appeal to the Tree of Life and its “reappearance” in Rev 2:7 and 22:2, 14, 19.  This occurrence demonstrates the realization of the blessings offered to Adam prior to the fall. But one place we do not often consider is the book of Job.  Job 42 offers a similar perspective on the question of eschatology.

Job undergoes terrible trials and loses almost everything.  Job was blessed in 1:2-3: “here were born to him seven sons and three daughters.  He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east.”  All of this he lost at the hands of Satan who received permission from God to persecute him.  The book continues through several questioning episodes from Job’s friends who are convinced Job must have sinned in order to receive this portion.  Retributive theology is at work among his cohorts.  The LORD eventually speaks up in the face of Job’s questions.

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: “Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his? “Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor. Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud and abase him. Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low and tread down the wicked where they stand. Hide them all in the dust together; bind their faces in the world below. Then will I also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can save you. (Job 40:6-14, ESV)

Shortly thereafter, in chapter 42, Job is restored, and this is the interesting eschatological point.  Look at the details of his restoration in Job 42:12-13 “And the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. And he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. He had also seven sons and three daughters.”

His blessings are doubled [except for the sons, an interpretive issue we'll save for another day].  The inheritance is expanded to his daughters – something unheard of in Job’s contemporary culture. Moreover, his daughters are named and the sons are not.  This is perplexing, but I think is illustrative of the expansive reach of the New Covenant blessing (similar to how the covenant entrance sign of baptism is given to both men and women).

God’s plan and goal for a consummated glory was in place even before man fell into sin.  It was set out for Adam to attain.  He would have entered into eschatological, consummated life had he obeyed throughout his probation period.  But he fell and now a second Adam must come to provide a way for God’s elect to reach that original goal.

This eschatology is behind the message of Job.  Job’s “salvation” is not a return to his original blessing.  Likewise, we do not look to the Garden as our heavenly reward.  We look to the New Heavens and New Earth.  Job is a prototypical righteous one who suffers while pointing to the eschatological one who comes to suffer vicariously.  This is the Christ, the one who ushers in eschatological blessings greater than anything ever present before.

By faith [the Christian] is a member of the covenant [of grace], and that faith has a wide outlook, a comprehensive character, which not only points to justification but also to all the benefits which are in Christ.  Whereas the Lutheran tends to view faith one-sidedly – only in its connection with justification – for the Reformed Christian it is saving faith in all the magnitude of the word.  According to the Lutheran, the Holy Spirit first generates faith in the sinner who temporarily still remains outside of union with Christ; then justification follows faith and only then, in turn, does the mystical union with the Mediator take place … The covenantal (of Reformed) outlook is the reverse.  One is first united to Christ, the Mediator of the covenant, by a mystical union, which finds its conscious recognition by faith.  By this union with Christ all that is in Christ is simultaneously given.  Faith embraces all this too; it not only grasps justification, but lays hold of Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King, as his rich and full Messiah.  (Geerhardus Vos and Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. ed., “Doctrine of the Covenant in Reformed Theology” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation, 256).

Vos recognizes the structural difference between a Reformed and a Lutheran soteriology.  The principal issue is the structural positioning of union with Christ relative to justification and the other salvific benefits.  For Vos and the Reformed, the benefits flow out of union.  Union is primary.  Vos’s reason is that each of the benefits are received by faith through which believers lay hold of Christ.  This is saving faith “in all the magnitude of the word.”  Consequently, salvation is bigger than the single benefit of justification.  It is a possession and laying hold of Christ in His entire person as Prophet, Priest, and King: the full Messiah.

While I’m not qualified to speak about the accuracy of his statements regarding Westminster (CA), I think he makes an interesting and generally accurate observation.  Clearly, this kind of statement cannot be applied to the entire student body of either institution, but as far as general trends go, I believe he’s right.  If that’s the case, then we necessarily arrive at an is/ought question.  Should we necessarily place a heavier emphasis on biblical theology?  Is some other stress preferential or should we place equal emphasis on systematic, historical and biblical theology?

It is, in fact, the case that Abraham’s descendants (i.e. those who have faith in Christ, see Gal. 3) become heir’s of the “world,” in Him who overcame and received the inheritance of the world from His Father. In Christ, we too become heirs of God and of the world. This is also the explanation of our Lord’s words, “The meek shall inherit the earth,” and Peter’s reference elsewhere to the New Heavens and the New Earth. Believers will come to possess “all things,” as Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 6.

A proper understanding of the purpose of the land of Israel opens a new area of research into the significance of the Garden of Eden. Eden was a special place, a physical location (or land), in which Adam was place by God at Creation. It was the prototypical promised land. There is also identification between Eden and the Temple–the place where God is worshiped by man, and dwells with man. The presence of lilies, palm trees, and pomegranates in the very fabric of the Temple are meant to bring the minds of the people of God back to Eden. Phil Ryken notes:

[the Temple] really was like the gates of Paradise. And for many people the way of access was still denied. Unless they were priests they would never see the golden wonders inside. Only the High Priests would enter that most holy place. Yet however limited it was there was access. You see God was opening back up the way to Paradise. You might think of Solomon’s temple as a kind of spiritual portal. The paradise lost could be regained.¹

It must be firmly established in our minds that God was always, throughout the Old Testament era, moving toward the restoration of the blessing of Eden. This in turn ought to move our attention back to the Garden of Eden to find hints as to the land/world connection. This is the case if we begin at the beginning, with the creation of man.

In Genesis 2:7 we learn that God formed man “out of the dust of the ground.” The “ground” is man’s natural environment. [As an aside, there seems to be a relationship between man and the rest of creation as a direct result of his being made out of the ground. On account of man's sin and idolatry (Rom. 1) this manifests itself, in the greatest act of perversion, in man worshiping the creation (i.e. beasts, animals, tress, etc.). This explains why men now exalt the created order above the image bearer of God and above God Himself. The hippie movement of the 60's, environmentalism and all naturalized forms of religion are correct, in one sense, to draw a connection between man and the value of his environment. The fault lies in the subordination of man to the environment and, at the same time, the exaltation of the creation over the Creator Himself. The close relationship between man and beast may be argued, in part, from the fact that both are created on the same day (Gen. 1:24; 26-27), as living, moving and breathing beings. The dissimilarity is to be observed by the fact that man, who alone is made "from the ground," is alone the image bearer of God. We are told that the LORD commanded the earth to bring forth the beasts of the field, but we are not told that they are made from the "ground," nor that they bear the image of their Maker. Add to this that the Hebrew word for "ground" is [Adam]. The very name of the man is the name of the place from which he is taken. Genesis 1:24 is the first time the word [Adam] is mentioned. There it is in regard to the animals. God is said to have created ever living thing that moves “on the ground.”]

There is another reference to the “ground” found in Genesis 2:5 where we read, “…there was no man to work the ‘ground.’” The “ground” is the sphere of blessing and fruitfulness. Eden especially carries this meaning. God intended to create an image bearer who would “work the ‘ground.’” Therefore, God made man from the “dust of the ground” (Gen. 2:7). The sphere of blessing that would be the source of fruitfulness is the place that man is taken from. He is taken from the ground and he is created to work the ground. Adam is made to “be fruitful and multiply,” and to “dress and keep” the Garden. Adam is to work the ground and take the Garden out into the world. His task was to turn the world into the Garden.

Sadly, we know how quickly man forfeited his task by sinning against his Creator. In the pronouncement of judgment on man (Gen. 3:17-19) we discover that the sphere of blessing, the very place where man originated, is now cursed and turned into a thorny, barren wilderness that man will have to suffer toilsome labor in order to cultivate the once fruitful land. The “ground” is cursed on account of Adam’s sin. Adam was taken from the ground, the ground was the sphere of God’s blessing man–the environment in which blessings would be uncovered–but Adam rebelled against His Maker. God now curses the very place out of which He made man.

Adam’s sin and the depravity and corruption that he brought on all his descendants manifests itself, in the worst way, in the life of his firstborn son. Cain kills his brother, shedding Abel’s blood on the “ground” that he, incidentally, tilled. When the LORD confronts Cain He makes this astonishing statement: “The voice of your brothers’ blood cries out to Me from the ‘ground.’” Cain had sought to hid the body of his brother in the ground, but God is not limited by time and space, as fallen man wants to think about Him. The blood of Abel “cries out” to God to bring vengance and judgment on Cain.

The author of Hebrews picks up on the idea of Abel’s blood “crying out,” when he–while comparing Old Covenant and New Covenant worship–writes:

For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, ¹⁹ and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:18-24)

Abel was a type of our Lord Jesus Christ. The blood that Abel shed was on account of Christ. Abel, was a “righteous” man, putting his faith and trust in the promise of God for a Savior (Gen. 3:15). Just as Cain, the ‘seed of the serpent’ (1 John 3: ), killed Abel, the ‘seed of the woman,’ so the apostate Jews and unbelieving Romans, the ‘seed of the serpent’ (Matt. 3:7; John 8:44) killed Jesus, the Seed of the woman (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 3:23-38; and Rev. 12:1-5). The blood of Abel cried out from the “ground” for judgment on the ungodly, but the blood of Jesus “speaks better things than that of Abel,” crying out for redemption and salvation. When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, agonizing under the realization of what He would suffer, Luke tells us that “his swear became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” The blood of Jesus fell into the ground in the Garden, and it was shed into the earth at the cross. While, the most important aspect of the blood of Christ is that it is sprinkled on the mercy seat in heaven, it nevertheless, falls to the ground, the place of curse that He came into the world to turn to the sphere of blessing.

Returning again to Genesis we soon discover that God pronounces a curse on Cain, further cursing the “ground” that had once yielded its fruit for him. Cain had shed his brothers’ blood into the ground, therefore, God cursed the ground, from which man was taken, to an even greater extent than he had before.

When Lamech, a descendant of Seth, bore a son, he called him “Noah” (lit. ‘rest’), because he believed that, “This one will comfort [lit. give rest to] us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed (Gen. 5:29).” Noah is also a type of Christ. Lamech names his son “rest” because he is believing the promise of God (Gen. 3:15), that He would send a Redeemer to give rest from the burden of sin manifested in God’s curse on the “ground.” Interestingly, Noah does give “typical” rest to the ground by obeying the LORD when he is called to go into the ark with the animals and his family. Man and beast, were brought into the ark. God would actually provide rest through the judgment He brings on the earth with the flood. Rest would be provided through judgment. Likewise, Jesus, the greater than Noah, provides eternal rest through the judgment He endures as the sin-bearer. When Noah left the ark, the “rest” that he typically provided for man is seen in the fact that he is, essentially, the head of humanity on a “new earth.” All of the flood narrative is moving toward the “re-creation” of the earth that had been so polluted by sin. So Christ, does not just redeem His elect, He also purchases the “new heavens and new earth” with His blood. He provides ‘rest’ for “us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed.”

Moving backwards again to the creation account (Gen. 1-2) we learn that there is a “Sabbath,” a day of rest pointing forward to the eschatological rest that Christ would provide for us. It is interesting that Jesus healed many people on the Sabbath, giving rest from physical infirmities. In this way He was showing that He was the one who could give “rest” for the soul (see Matt. 11:25-12: 14 for support of this idea). In the OT the rest that Christ came to give is typified, first with Noah and the “ground” then with Israel and the “land.” Meredith Kline noted:

Another indication of the royal nature of God’s Sabbath rest is afforded when the Bible interprets the entrance of God’s covenant people Israel upon their royal inheritance as the securing of a Sabbath rest. Thus Israel’s occupation of the promised land is described as God’s gift of “rest” (menucah) to them (Deut. 3:20; 12:9; 1 Kings 8:56). In fact, in Hebrews 4, Israel’s dominion rest in Canaan (viewed as forfeited by the generation in the wilderness but typologically achieved through Joshua’s conquest of Canaan) is expressly interpreted in terms of the Creator’s seventh day rest…

The link here would be between typical “Sabbath rest” for Israel in the “land,” and eternal Sabbath rest for the people of God in the “new earth.” Again, the link between the promise that Abraham would be heir of the land and that he would be heir of the world is made through the relationship of Christ to the Sabbath.

The most amazing truth, unfolded in the book of Revelation, is that all the places that were representative of the sphere of God’s blessing (i.e. the Garden, Land and City) become the language of the redeemed church. Man becomes the environment of God’s dwelling, the eschatological sphere of blessing. The covenant promise that God would dwell with His people and that He would dwell in them is typified from Eden to Christ. In the New Covenant the land no longer has the typical significance it once had. Meredith Kline explained how it is that man no longer needs a typical environment for redemption:

At the consummation man leaves behind the external…he has developed through his earthly history…Glorified mankind is depicted as the city of God, the fullness of the new heaven and new earth…Scriptures identification of the eternal city with the glorified church (Rev. 21:9-10) is accompanied by its proclamation of a new heaven and new earth (Rev. 21:1) and thus intends, of course, no negation of the cosmic dimension of consummated creation…glorified mankind is encorporated into the archetypal Spirit-temple, with which…the cosmos has been intergrated. Hence…it is at once the people-temple and the cosmos-temple, together consummated in the glory temple.

It appears that this interchangeable language between the church as a Garden, Land, City and Temple is founded upon the fact that man is taken from the “earth, land or ground,” the original place of Glory and the dwelling of God with man. It is only through the shed blood of our Savior Jesus Christ that the “ground” is redeemed, and man again enjoys, this time to a much greater degree, the blessings of God on the land. The blessings of Christ on the land are really typical of His blessings on His people. It is image bearers with which God is most concerned. The environment is simply a way of showing the totality and comprehensiveness of His riches in Christ Jesus. In the truest and highest sense, “He makes His blessings flow far as the curse is found.”

]]> http://historiasalutis.com/2009/05/29/a-biblical-theological-perspective-on-the-ground/feed/ 3 http://historiasalutis.com/2009/04/18/pre-redemptive-special-revelation/ http://historiasalutis.com/2009/04/18/pre-redemptive-special-revelation/#comments Sat, 18 Apr 2009 13:52:46 +0000 Camden Bucey http://www.historiasalutis.com/?p=44 Read more→]]> When studying general and special revelation, people can tend to think of special revelation as a supplement that comes in only after the fall into sin.  Special revelation is seen as a mode of revelation that is exclusive to the post-lapsarian order since it is a specifying or corrective revelation that communicates the details of redemption.  It bears the message of the gospel to men whom have fallen into guilt and corruption.  Let me augment that view ever so slightly.  In chapter 2 of Biblical Theology, Geerhardus Vos is intent on showing that special revelation existed even prior to the fall.  Even before Adam sinned, God initiated a verbal relationship with him.  We should not think of special revelation qua special revelation as strictly redemptive or exclusively part of the post-lapsarian order.  We should rather see special revelation as interpreting or further specifying what God has revealed in general revelation whether that revelation is prior or subsequent to the Fall.

Vos has a helpful way of understanding how general and special revelation relate to each other.  He teaches that God’s Word interprets his deeds.  Throughout Scripture, God often announces his work, acts, then interprets his work again.  The interpretive Word always accompanies the deed.  We should always understand special revelation as the interpreter of general revelation.  Moreover, this is a one-way street.  General revelation does not have interpretive authority over special revelation.

Though we should affirm the existence of pre-redemptive special revelation, special revelation does take on a specifically redemptive character after the fall.  Again in chapter 2 of Biblical Theology Vos says that it ushers in a whole new world.  It is the offer of the gospel of Jesus Christ and is at the same time the offer of the eschatological life which Adam failed to obtain.  In the garden, special revelation conveyed to Adam that eschatological life could be grasped by perfect and personal obedience to the Lord.  After the fall, special revelation conveys to us that eschatological life is available by faith in the second Adam – the one who has offered a perfect, personal and perpetual obedience to the Father on behalf of his people.

The eschatological idea influencing the constitution of the theocracy becomes dependent on the interaction of the type and the antitype. The future state imposes its own stamp on the theocracy, an actual institution of Israel. The theocratic structure projects its own character into the picture of the future. Heaven reflected itself on Israel and Israel became part of the future. The type inevitably influences the conception of the antitype. The future is depicted in terms drawn from the present, earthly, material reality. There is somewhat of the shadowy, inadequate character of the prefiguration that passes over into the description of what the eschatological will be like when it comes. The antitype impresses its stamp upon the theocratic structure and imparts to it somewhat of its transcendent, absolute character. The theocracy has something ideal or unattainable about it. Its plan, as conceived by the law, hovers over the actual life of Israel. The theocracy in the idea transcends its embodiment in experience.1

In 21st Century English vernacular, Vos has explained, in the afore mentioned quote, that God worked within the theocratic structure of Israel to show the reality of the theocratic nature of heaven. The laws given to Israel were good, and were God-ordained, but they were unattainable. They were meant to show the people of God, throughout all generations, that God is Holy, and that His rule is holy. But, at the end of the day–or you might say, “At the end of the old age”–they passed away because they were the earthly type of the heavenly reality. This is confirmed constantly throughout the NT when the writer to the Hebrews draws the parallel between the earthly mountain and the heavenly mountain, between the land here and the land there, between the voice shaking the earth and the voice that now also shakes the heavens. There is an antitype for all of the typical elements of the OT, and this is no less true of the theocracy than it was for anything else.

But how does this help us understand the particular case laws given to Israel? Are we simply to dismiss them as irrelevant and unnecessary? Or are we to seek to apply them wholesale to the New Covenant economy in Gentile governments? Here, I think, Vos supplies us with the balanced answer. He noted:

“Eschatological revelation is presented in the language of the Mosaic institutions. The New Testament first transposes it into a new key. Here in the New Testament it is spiritualized. In the Old Testament it is expressed in terms of perfection of the forms of Israel’s theocracy. The holy city is center; offices, organizations, peace, abundance, etc. are there, but this all is to be eternalized in the Messainic era, and will be free of the vicissitudes of the present era. All this is the content of revelation.”2

Notice the way that Vos made use of the words “spiritualized” and “eternalized” in order to describe the theocratic forms of the Old Covenant, as they relate to the Messianic era. Certainly we find, in the book of Hebrews, a clear statement of this in regard to the ceremonial system of Old Covenant worship. It is not that the Old Covenant is supplanted by the New with no relation whatsoever. Rather, it is that the Old was the foundation of typical forms and shadows, and, as Vos noted, “heaven reflected itself on Israel” in order that these types might reflect something of the heavenly antitypes.

But, I want to point out that this is also true with regard to the civil system of theocratic Israel. How does the New Testament use the civil legislation given to Israel? In brief, it “spiritualizes” them so that they are seen to be “eternailzed in the Messianic era.” This can be demonstarted from one brief illustration–Paul’s use of Duet. 17:7; 19:19; 22:21, and 24:7. This oft repeated verse, in its theocratic setting, had reference to stoning the idolatrous, the false witness, and the fornicator.

1 Corinthians 5:13 is the New Covenant setting, in which this Old Covenant sanction now has reference to excommunicating the impenitent adulterer. The penal legislation is “spiritualized” with regard to the New Covenant church. Certainly the discipline excercised by the apostle Paul in this case had an “eternalizing” principle. Jesus Himself had told the apostles, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on Earth will be loosed in Heaven.” We know that God in His mercy and grace brought the man of 1 Corinthians 5 to repentance, so that he was restored to communion with the saints–as is evident from 2 Corinthians.  But we must take the greatest of care in understanding the spiritualizing principle of the theocratic system. God has given us examples, such as Paul’s use of Duet. 17:7 in 1 Corinthians 5:13, so that we might realize the applicability of the Old Covenant civil law, without missing its eschatological spirituality.

1. Geerhardus Vos, The Eschatology of the Old Testament (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2001) pp. 117-118

2. Ibid., p. 118

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