The Content and Central Concern of the Pentateuch

The central concern of the Pentateuch is God’s relationship with the people of Israel. The Pentateuch is basically a story about the establishment of a covenant relationship between God and Israel. The covenant in question is the Mosaic covenant. The term the Mosaic covenant (also known in the Bible as the old covenant) is used as a shorthand way of referring to two covenants: the Sinaitic covenant and the Deuteronomic covenant (see “Mosaic Covenant or Covenants?”). The Sinaitic covenant, as its name suggests, is the legal agreement that God and the people of Israel entered into with each other at Mount Sinai (Exod 24:1–11), whereas the Deuteronomic covenant is effectively a confirmation and expansion of the substance of the Sinaitic covenant in a manner appropriate for Israel’s life in the promised land (Deut 29:1). The account of the establishment of the Deuteronomic covenant is recorded in Deut 29–32. This covenant was established by God with the people of Israel in the desert of Moab, opposite the promised land.

Apart from the traditional division into five books, the Pentateuch can be divided into six main sections (as per D. A. Hubbard, “Pentateuch,” NBD2): the origin of the world and the nations (Gen 1–11); the patriarchal age (Gen 12–50); the exodus from Egypt (Exod 1–18); the Sinaitic legislation (Exod 19:1–Num 10:10); the wandering in the wilderness (Num 10:11–36:13); and the final speeches and death of Moses (Deut 1–34).

The climax of the Pentateuch is Israel’s encounter with God at Mount Sinai (Exod 19–24). Leading up to this point, the Pentateuch describes the circumstances and reasons that led to the establishment of the covenant relationship between God and Israel at Sinai. Having recorded the establishment of this relationship at Sinai, the Pentateuch is concerned to explore the nature of this relationship in more detail and the beginnings of the historical outworking of this relationship for Israel. Standing at the heart of this relationship were the promises of God. God’s promises are referred to in the Pentateuch under the terms blessing and curse (e.g., Deut 28:2, 15; 30:1). The term blessing describes the positive benefits that would accrue to Israel if the nation as a whole was committed to the covenant relationship with God, whereas the term curse denotes the negative consequences of disobedience. The terms or stipulations of the covenant spelled out God’s promise to Israel, and Israel’s obligation to respond in covenant faith, i.e., faithfulness. God promised to bless Israel on the condition of obedience (i.e., faithfulness) to the stipulations of the covenant revealed in the law of Moses (Exod 19:5–6; 23:22; Deut 28:1–14). But God also promised to punish Israel on the condition of disobedience (Exod 23:20–21; Deut 28:15–68). In a nutshell, God promised that if the people of Israel would obey his commandments (i.e., be faithful to the covenant), then they would live in his presence, and experience blessing in close communion with him in the promised land.

The concern of the Pentateuch with tracing the historical background, the establishment, and the initial stages in the subsequent outworking in history of the covenant relationship between God and Israel means that the backbone and dominant genre of the Pentateuch is historical narrative. Interspersed within this narrative structure, we also find the genres of law, prophecy, and poetry. The genre of law is particularly significant. Within the Pentateuch, this genre relates especially to the stipulations of the covenant, and highlights the significance of the concepts of covenant and obedience in Israel’s relationship with God.

The Meaning of Pentateuch

The word Pentateuch denotes the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The word Pentateuch has come into English from Greek via Latin. It is an uncommon yet appropriate word to use of the five books of Moses, because the etymological meaning of the word is five books.

According to Jewish tradition, the Hebrew Bible (i.e., the Christian Old Testament) is divided into three main parts: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. The Pentateuch corresponds, therefore, to the Jewish canonical division of the Law, also known as the Torah. The Law is considered in Jewish tradition to be the foundational and most important part of the Hebrew Scriptures.

God, Jonah, and the Great City of Nineveh

The book of Jonah describes the city of Nineveh as “a great city.” The phrase a great city occurs once in the book (Jon 3:3), and the phrase the great city three times (Jon 1:2; 3:2; 4:11).

Archaeological research has shown that Nineveh was indeed a great city comparatively speaking. The city enclosed by its walls was roughly rectangular in shape. The four lengths of the city walls were around 2 km, 5 km, 1 km, and 5 km, giving an area of about 8 square km inside the walls. There is also strong evidence of settlement occuring outside of the city walls. The walls included fifteen monumental gates, and inside the city were magnificent temples and a royal palace. Nineveh was definitely a very large city in the timeframe of the eighth century B.C. when Jonah was sent by God to warn the city of his intention to destroy it (2 Kgs 14:25; Jon 3:4).

The size of the city is significant in the narratorial world of the book of Jonah. A narratorial aside at the end of Jon 3:3 tells us that “Nineveh was an extremely large city (עיר־גדולה לאלהים), a journey of three days.” It is interesting that the translations of Jon 3:3 have generally taken the phrase לאלהים as an adverbial intensifier, even though the phrase literally means to God.

So should עיר־גדולה לאלהים be translated as an extremely great city or as a city great in the sight of God? We need to keep in mind at this point that Hebrew is a very contextual language. A lot of exegetical decisions in the Hebrew Bible are decided by context. The focus of the disjunctive clause in Jon 3:3 is on the size of the city. The immediate context suggests, therefore, that it makes sense to translate לאלהים as an adverbial intensifier: Nineveh was “an almighty great city” to put it in more colloquial terms, where the word almighty also captures something of the etymological connotation of strength or importance that the אלהּ root possibly communicates.

But at the same time, the immediate context needs to be viewed in the light of wider contextual considerations, where it is to be noted that the three instances of the phrase the great city in Jonah all occur on the lips of … God! It is also clear from Jon 4:11 that the 120,000 person population of Nineveh, and its many animals, were a key component of the greatness of the city from God’s perspective. The wider context, therefore, pushes us in the direction of the LXX translation: that Nineveh was a great city to (i.e., in the sight of) God.

So how is this to be resolved? I take it that the ideal reader of the text (an orthodox Israelite with an intimate knowledge of ancient Hebrew culture and language) would understand the phrase לאלהים in Jon 3:3 as being a case of double entendre. Nineveh was almighty big, and big to the Almighty! Its large human and animal population meant that God was rightfully concerned about the fate of the city, and that it should rightly experience God’s pity upon the condition of repentance. After all, those people and animals were created by God in the first place (note the logic of God’s argument in Jon 4:10–11).

The effect of the double entendre is to help us to realize that the almighty large cities of our world are important to the Almighty.

The Theme of Flooding in the Old Testament

In considering the theme of flooding in the Old Testament, it is best to view the initial period that the earth was covered by water after God created the world as being the first instance of flooding recorded in the Bible (Gen 1:2). God dealt with the “problem” of the formlessness and emptiness of the intial creation by creating form and filling the domains so delineated. God did this through the power of his word. As part of this, God spoke such that the waters upon the earth might be gathered to one place, in order that dry land might appear (Gen 1:9). In this way, God divided the land from the seas (Gen 1:10). The original flooded state of the world could not continue on if animal and human forms of life were to exist and flourish.

The work of God separating the dry land from the seas at the time of creation established a dichotomy between the dry land and the sea, a dichotomy that is reflected in a number of places in the Old Testament (e.g., Exod 14:16, 22, 29; Neh 9:11; Ps 66:6; 95:5; Jon 1:9, 13; Hag 2:6). Proverbs 8:29 describes this work of separation as involving a divine command, reflecting divine wisdom, by means of which God assigned a limit to the sea, a command that the sea could not ordinarily “transgress.” Just as Gen 1 implies, it is God who controls the boundary between the land and the waters of the rivers and the seas. Thus, the psalmist could say that God “puts the deeps in storehouses” (Ps 33:7).

Yet ever since this first separation, the waters have always threatened to overcome the land; nevertheless the word of God has maintained the boundary between the land and the sea, preventing the flooding of the land by the waters on a worldwide scale, apart from the time of the great flood of Noah (see “The Theme of Flooding in the Bible: Noah’s Flood”). The role of the word of God in this matter is important. If it was the word of God that brought order out of chaos in the beginning, then without the word of God the world would revert to its default state with the waters overcoming the land. This is what happened at the time of Noah: “all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened” (Gen 7:11). Through that event, God showed the human race the consequences of disobedience. Human disobedience results in a reversion to the default state, which is chaos.

The theme of flooding also occurs in the account of the exodus. The water of the Reed Sea stood as a symbol of the impending death of Israel at the hands of the pursuing army. But God “divided the sea, and let [Israel] pass through it … he made the waters stand like a heap” (Ps 78:13). Or as the Song of Moses puts it: “At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up; the floods stood up in a heap; the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea” (Exod 15:8). Conversely, the destruction of the Egyptian army was as a result of flooding. As the Song of Moses celebrated: “The floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone” (Exod 15:5). See also Ps 106:9–11.

The relationship between water, chaos, and death on the one side, and dry land, salvation, and life on the other, as developed in Gen 1, the Noah narrative, and the incident of the Reed Sea, provides the conceptual framework for the biblical metaphor of being overcome by water as an image of death, and also for the related metaphor of being rescued through or from water as an image of salvation from death.

In Psalm 18, for example, David pictures the threat of death from the opposition of enemies as being like a torrential flood dragging him down to Sheol (Ps 18:4–5). But in response to the psalmist’s cry for salvation, God acted to “lay bare” “the channels of the sea” through his word of rebuke (Ps 18:15). “He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters … He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me” (Ps 18:16, 19).

Psalm 69 is another example:

Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me … Deliver me from sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters. Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me (Ps 69:1–2, 14–15).

Flood imagery also appears in Ps 88:

You have put me in the depths of the pit, in the regions dark and deep. Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves … Your wrath has swept over me; your dreadful assaults destroy me. They surround me like a flood all day long; they close in on me together (Ps 88:6–7, 16–17).

Similarly Ps 124:

If it had not been Yahweh who was on our side when people rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; then over us would have gone the raging waters (Ps 124:2–5).

Flood imagery also occurs in Ps 32:6; 42:7; and Jonah describes his experience in the stormy sea in terms of flooding (Jon 2:3, 5–6).

Finally, it should be noted that the power of floodwaters is also used as an image of the power of God. The floodwaters surge and roar, but “mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, Yahweh on high is mighty!” (Ps 93:3–4). “Yahweh sits enthroned over the flood; Yahweh sits enthroned as king forever!” (Ps 29:10).

The Theme of Flooding in the Bible: Noah's Flood

The tragedy of the widescale flooding in Queensland and other parts of Australia recently has prompted me to consider the theme of flooding in the Bible.

The most famous flood in the Bible is, of course, Noah’s flood. As a response to the growing wickedness of humanity (Gen 6:5–7), God “brought a flood of water upon the earth” with the intention of “destroying all flesh” with the exception of Noah and his family and a remnant of the land animals and birds (Gen 6:17–19). This was achieved by the unleashing of torrential rain over a period of forty days and forty nights (Gen 7:11–12). The floodwaters were so great that “all the high mountains that were under all of heaven” were covered by up to seven meters of water (Gen 7:20).

The effect of the flood was catastrophic:

“all flesh that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all of humanity, died. Everything in whose nostrils was the breath of life from all that was on the dry ground died. [God] exterminated every living thing that was on the face of the ground: human beings, and animals, and creeping things, and the birds of the sky. They were exterminated from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark” (Gen 7:21–23).

The floodwaters “prevailed upon the earth” for five months (Gen 7:24)! On the seventeenth day of the seventh month (around seven days after what would later on become the Day of Atonement, during the period of the Feast of Tabernacles) the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat, and the floodwaters began to abate (Gen 8:3–4). It was not until some two and a half months later that the tops of the mountains were seen (Gen 8:5), and another three months until the floodwaters had dried up completely! In the meantime, the olive leaf in the mouth of the dove was a sign to Noah that the waters had begun to abate, a sign that new life had emerged out of the destructive waters of the flood. The day that the floodwater had dried up completely was the first day of the first month (Gen 8:13), a new beginning for the human race. Even then, Noah had to wait another 57 days until the ground was dry (Gen 8:14). Altogether, the floodwaters ravaged the earth for around 315 days, while Noah was in the ark for around 378 days. This was an enormous flood.

Yet God’s purposes for the world would continue. The repetition of the creation mandate of Gen 1:28 to Noah in Gen 9:1–2, 7 signaled that the work of extending the kingdom of God on earth (a privileged task that God had assigned to the human race back in the beginning) was to continue.

The theme of flooding in the rest of the Old Testament will be explored in my next post; but it should be noted that, because Noah’s flood is the paradigmatic flood in the Bible, it provides the referential point for the metaphor of being encompassed by floodwater and the related metaphor of being rescued from floodwater, which occur at various points thoughout the Old Testament.

An SIL Biblical Hebrew Keyboard for Linux Operating Systems

One of the advantages of Linux is the ability to customize your computer’s operating system. In this regard, Linux seems to be a lot more flexible than Microsoft Windows. Like when it comes to designing your own Hebrew keyboard; all it basically requires is the editing of a single file! Vern Poythress has some helpful information on the “Keyboard Entry of Polytonic Greek and Biblical Hebrew in GNU/Linux” on his website. Poythress shows you how to edit the xkb keymap so that you can customize your Hebrew keyboard according to the way you like it. For Poythress (and me), this is a keyboard that is similar to the SIL Biblical Hebrew keyboard that was designed by SIL International and built by John Hudson (who also designed the SBL Hebrew font).

But there is another way of mapping your own Hebrew keyboard using IBus, the Intelligent Input Bus, which is now the default input method for Ubuntu and some other Linux systems. This involves editing the he-kbd.mim file in the ibus-m17n software package. I have edited this file to develop a Hebrew input method that substantially simulates the SIL Biblical Hebrew keyboard. The result is an input method that replicates the keystrokes of the SIL Biblical Hebrew keyboard for all numbers and English punctuation marks, all Hebrew consonants, all common Hebrew vowel points, plus the maqef, dagesh, meteg, atnakh, rafe, and sof pasuq. The accent ole is also included as it can be used as a general marker of syllabic stress in non-accented texts. Departing a little from the SIL Biblical Hebrew keyboard, the backslash key inputs a backslash rather than the paseq. The layout also uses CTRL+ALT for the third and fourth keyboard levels rather than ALTGR.

For anyone interested in typing Hebrew on a Linux system using a keymap similar to the SIL Biblical Hebrew keyboard using IBus, the necessary steps are as follows (in Ubuntu 10.04; 10.10; and 11.04):

1) Make sure you have the ibus software package installed, and download and install the ibus-m17n package;

2) Backup the original /usr/share/m17n/he-kbd.mim file somewhere safe;

3) Download my version of the file he-kbd.mim—if the link is down, a copy of the content of the file can be found at Vos Linux—and copy it into your /usr/share/m17n/ folder; or

4) If you prefer to design your own Hebrew keyboard, then edit the he-kbd.mim file—you need to edit the file yourself particularly if you want the full range of Hebrew accents to be available;

5) Configure General IBus Preferences (in Keyboard Input Methods in the System Preferences Menu in GNOME 2.32) by defining the keyboard shortcuts and language bar behavior;

6) Configure Input Method IBus Preferences by clicking on Select an input method to select your desired language and input method, then press add for it to be listed;

7) Reboot;

8) Run the ibus-daemon (if this is not automatically run by the system), and use your IBus Preferences keyboard shortcut in a text editor, word processor, or input window, to enable the IBus language bar;

9) Toggle to select א kbd on the language bar by using the appropriate keyboard shortcut (if necessary);

10) Start typing Hebrew SIL style!

If for some reason the ibus-daemon does not run automatically at startup, you can create an ibus-daemon.desktop file in the /etc/xdg/autostart/ folder with content as follows:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=IBus Daemon
Comment=The IBus input method daemon
Exec=ibus-daemon -d
OnlyShowIn=GNOME;LXDE;XFCE;

Recommended fonts to use for typing Hebrew are the stylish SBL Hebrew font, and the more traditional Ezra SIL font. If you intend to use the SBL Hebrew font exclusively, then the entries for the key sequences "f=", "f+", "j=", and "j+" can be removed from the he-kbd.mim file. These key sequences allow the dagesh to be entered with the letters sin and shin when using the Ezra SIL font (and others).

Please note that SBL Hebrew is a trademark of the Society of Biblical Literature.

Using Linux Operating Systems for Bible Research

I have had fun experimenting over the last year or so with Linux computer operating systems. Many of these operating systems are available for free download. I am particularly impressed with the Ubuntu distribution;

Ubuntu 10.04 Gnome Desktop

and the lightweight derivative Lubuntu has extended the life of my favorite 2005 year model laptop, probably for several years into the future.

The Linux operating systems are an amazing resource, and I can’t help to think of the potential for the use of Linux systems to promote biblical research in less developed parts of the world. There are also Bible software programs freely available for use on Linux systems. My favorite among these is Xiphos.

Xiphos 3.1.3 Showing the Open Scriptures Morphological Hebrew Bible

I will be a very happy man when the Open Scriptures Morphological Hebrew Bible finally has Hebrew morphology attached. At the moment it has been tagged with Strong’s numbers, but it is still a great resource.

The Worth of a Child according to Scientific Atheism Compared to Christianity

How valuable is the life of a child? What value would you place of the life of a child?

What value would you place on the life of this child?

Is she precious? I may be biased, but I reckon she looks rather cute.

Well, how about this one? What value do you place on the life of this little boy?

As you look at the two of these children, can you honestly say that one is more precious than the other? Yet according to the majority opinion in many societies in the world, one of these children—the little boy—should have been destroyed in the womb. One of these children, to quote the obstetrician, “has so many problems it won’t last long.” This particular doctor said three times that the normal thing to do in this situation is to terminate the pregnancy. Because the child was not “normal” or “perfect,” it no longer had the right to live.

Suffering from the effects of spina bifida (such as being unable to walk), this child may have more difficulties to face than others, and even though I cannot say that he is more precious than the little girl, perhaps the child that your heart goes out to more is the child who through no fault on his own will have more challenges to face in life than many of us able-bodied types.

But why should you pity him? In fact, why should we pity any child? Do you pity the child destroyed in the womb? Do you pity the newborn child abandoned by its mother, left to die in a shoe box, or left to drown in a toilet? If the existence of this universe and life on our planet is merely the product of chance, if we human beings are merely the result of a random process of evolution, then why pity anyone? If there is no God, if we exist here as a result of some random fluke, then life is merely the survival of the fittest.

Western civilisation is currently in the middle of a battle between two philosophical systems: a battle between Christianity and so-called scientific atheism. Some of us might think that we do not need to make a choice between these two systems, but to sit on the fence is not an option. Either God exists, or he doesn’t.

According to the latest theories of scientific atheism, our universe somehow—without any cause but simply by chance—began with the big bang some 13.75 billion years ago. They say that life on this planet is simply the result of 3.5 billion year process of random mutation and natural selection.

But what do you think? The universe is actually so big that the scientists say that it is effectively infinite. The observable universe has a diameter of 93 billion light years. In terms of kilometers, that’s virtually a 9 followed by 26 zeros. And they reckon that this observable universe is filled 100 billion galaxies, and contains at least sextillion stars (that’s 10 to the power of 21 stars), although a recent study has suggested that this figure is out by a factor of 300 (that makes it 3 times 10 to the power of 23). The maximum possible number of stars the average person can see on a dark night in the countryside is about 45,000, but typically it’s only about 5,000 or so. The figures are simply mind-blowing. If this is just random, we have to conclude that it is amazingly productive randomness.

And I am yet to mention the abundance of life on the planet that we call Earth. Have a guess how many species of life exist on this planet! I can’t give you a definite number, because the scientists themselves can’t. Their best guess is that the total number of species on earth is anything from 7–100 million. This includes anything from 5–100 million species of bacteria (possibly many more); around 100,000 kinds of fungi (which includes around 14,000 different kinds of mushroom); and around 300,000 plant species. When it comes to animals, there are over a million different species, most of them insects. Altogether there are around 950,000 different species of insect (including 4,500 different species of cockroach); over 30,000 species of fish; over 6,000 different kinds of amphibian (mainly frogs); over 8,000 species of reptile (mainly lizards and snakes); around 10,000 species of bird; and around 5,400 kinds of mammal. Millions of different species, and this all the result of of 3.5 billion years of random mutation?

Honestly, what is easier to believe? That all of this variety—the billion upon billions of stars, and the millions of different species that inhabit our planet—is just a fluke; or that there is some amazingly powerful, creative designer behind the universe? Which view requires the biggest leap of faith? What odds do you give everything coming from absolutely nothing? What odds of a new species randomly developing on earth on average every 35 years (assuming there are 100 million different species)? Yet scientific atheism laughs at Christianity for believing in miracles!

But putting aside the incredulous nature of the kind of faith demanded by scientific atheism, the biggest problem with scientific atheism is the consequences of this worldview for morality. If this is all some big fluke, if the existence of the universe and life on earth is simply the result of chance and the survival of the fittest, then whoever has the biggest gun wins, and you have no right to complain about it when you lose. Scientific atheists have no real right to speak of love, of justice, and what’s fair and what’s not. Why are you fighting for the rights of workers when they are just random blobs of genetic material? Why cry for the poor children of Africa? Why care for the sick, or the aged, or the young? If it’s all just chance, then why not be honest with yourself, and admit that you have no sound philosophical basis for any non-arbitrary moral code in life? Scientific atheism is logically amoral.

Scientific atheism is about the survival of the fittest, the converse of which is the elimination of the weak; and that is why in many societies today it is considered the norm for children diagnosed with spina bifida to be destroyed within the womb. I have been told by a doctor specializing in spina bifida that the rate of termination in Australia is heading toward 75%. This is particularly tragic when you consider that most kids with spina bifida are children of average intelligence with nice personalities and the ability to speak. The one pictured above has a wonderful sense of humor, an infectious laugh, and is a budding cricketer. So what if they can’t walk, or if they need a shunt in their head to deal with hydrocephalus? They don’t deserve to live or to be protected and nurtured like any other child? Eliminating such children before they travel through the birth canal is consistent with the scientific atheistic worldview, which promotes the idea that the history of the world is structured on the principle of natural selection, where the stronger random blobs of genetic material subjugate or terminate the weaker random blobs of genetic material.

But this is not the Christian understanding of reality. Christianity says that this universe was made by a powerful Creator. It also says, as the story of the incarnation of Christ clearly reveals, that the Creator of this universe values his creation so much that he was willing to enter into his creation, to take his place within it. Many religions believe in God, but Christianity is the only religion radical enough to say that the Creator values his creation, and human beings in particular, so much that the powerful Creator himself was willing to become one of us, to come down to our level in order to take us up to his. The story of the incarnation of God is not a story about the survival of the fittest. It is a story about the strongest becoming weak in order that the weak might become strong. The incarnation of God is God affirming the value of human life. The incarnation of God honors the human race, and places great value on every individual human being. And to think that Christianity says that the Creator of this universe became incarnate with a view to dying on the cross for humanity! Surely this is one of the most radical ideas that has ever been proposed in the history of religion and philosophy. The incarnation is the Creator saying that you are so valuable as to be worth the Creator of the universe dying for. In this way Christianity gives a sound moral basis for the ideals of love, justice, and human rights. God the Creator becoming a child means that every child is more than just a random blob of genetic material, and that every child (no matter their ability or disability, whether born or unborn) deserves to live and to grow to his or her full potential.

So which philosophical system affirms the value of humanity, and the precious worth of every child? Scientific atheism or Christianity? Philosophically I think the answer is obvious.

A Summary of the New Covenant Paradigm

My current doctoral thesis is concerned to develop something of the bigger biblical-theological flow of salvation history in the Bible under the rubric of justification. I have called the resulting model the new covenant paradigm. The model can be summarized under 15 main theses as follows:

1) The condition of justification inside the garden of Eden was perfect (holistic) faith;

2) The condition of justification outside the garden of Eden is imperfect (holistic) faith;

3) The primary dispensational distinction in the Bible is that between the old covenant and the new covenant;

4) The condition of justification for Israel under the old covenant was not perfect faith but imperfect faith, as the presence of a system of sacrificial atonement within the law proves;

5) Under the old covenant, the condition of faith, being holistic, was characteristically described in terms of doing torah;

6) Hence, a legitimate doctrine of justification by the works of the law existed under the old covenant;

7) The old covenant is, therefore, a covenant of grace; but Israel's continuation in grace was conditional upon Israel continuing in imperfect (holistic) faith (i.e., doing torah);

8) But Israel as a nation broke the covenant by not doing torah;

9) Therefore, the Mosaic covenant of grace functioned historically primarily as a covenant of condemnation and death, compounding the original transgression of Adam;

10) The failure of the old covenant was part of God’s plan to highlight the supreme expression of the grace of God to be revealed under the new covenant in Christ;

11) Because the new covenant solves the problem of the failure of the old covenant, and is the fulfillment of the old covenant, the new covenant exhibits the same relational dynamics as the old covenant;

12) Therefore, justification under the new covenant is also justification by imperfect faith;

13) But with the coming of a new revelation in Christ, the content of faith has been redefined in terms of this new revelation (the gospel), which can be contrasted with the previous revelation that came via Moses (the law);

14) The new covenant definition of faith can be contrasted, therefore, with the definition of faith that was understood to apply under the old covenant, hence the covenantal distinction between justification by faith in Christ under the new covenant and justification by the works of the law (i.e., Mosaic faith) under the old;

15) Under the new covenant (like under the old), perseverance in faith is necessary in order to experience the fullness of salvation at the time of the consummation of the new covenant.

In other words, what I am suggesting is that, outside of the garden, justification has always been by (imperfect) faith. But because faith is typically viewed in the Old Testament in a holistic manner, justification by faith under the old covenant was typically thought of as being by way of obedience to the stipulations of the Mosaic covenant in the context of grace, what came to be known in Jewish parlance as justification by the works of the law. The New Testament works of the law versus faith in Christ distinction, therefore, is primarily a terminological distinction that expresses pragmatically the element of discontinuity between the covenants on the level of the mediator and content of revelation. In sum, if you wanted to be right with God under the old covenant, you had to follow the revelation that had been given to Israel via Moses (Deut 6:25; Rom 10:5); but if you want to be right with God under the new covenant, you need to follow the revelation that has been given to the world in Christ (John 8:31–32; Rom 10:8–13).

A Balanced Protestant Biblical Hermeneutic on Law and Gospel

Understanding the teaching of the Apostle Paul regarding law and gospel in the light of Old Testament theology and prophecy suggests that Protestant exegetes of Paul have frequently overemphasized the condemnatory power of the law, resulting in an overly-rigid law versus gospel hermeneutic.

Here are some quotes from my essay “Paul and the New Covenant Paradigm” in the book An Everlasting Covenant: Biblical and Theological Essays in Honour of William J. Dumbrell from the sub-section that discusses the need for a balanced biblical hermeneutic on law and gospel in Paul:

“Traditional Protestant exegesis has exhibited a strong tendency to understand the righteousness terminology of the Bible, and of Paul in particular, in absolute terms, which in turn means that the condemnatory function of the law is emphasized with no place left for the justifying and vivifying function of the law when written on the human heart by the Holy Spirit” (pp. 141–2);

“A more balanced biblical hermeneutic on law and gospel would ... pay attention to the Old Testament teaching on the gospel as including the concept of the Holy Spirit writing God’s law on the hearts of his people. The biblical position is that where the Spirit is present writing divine law on human hearts, law is effectively gospel, and gospel effectively law” (p. 143);

“the Old Testament view of the gospel, which speaks of the triumph of the justifying and vivifying function of (eschatological) torah over the condemnatory and mortifying function of (Mosaic) torah, is the correct perspective to bring to our reading of Paul in Galatians and Romans” (p. 143).

My view is that Paul’s law versus gospel distinction should to be understood as being Paul’s way of distinguishing old covenant revelation from new covenant revelation. In other words, Paul’s law versus gospel distinction is primarily a salvation-historical distinction rather than being a distinction of linguistic form wherein command is strictly opposed to promise.

The Apostle Paul’s Teaching on the Law

The Apostle Paul’s teaching on the law is derived from, and fully consistent with, the teaching of the Old Testament concerning Mosaic law and eschatological law. Understanding the Old Testament teaching on torah is the key to understanding Paul on the law.

Here are some quotes from my essay “Paul and the New Covenant Paradigm” in the book An Everlasting Covenant: Biblical and Theological Essays in Honour of William J. Dumbrell from the sub-section that discusses Paul’s teaching on the law:

“When Paul’s teaching on the law is examined in the light of the Old Testament teaching on torah, it comes as no surprise to discover that his view of the law is both positive and negative, corresponding to the dual function that the law exhibited under the old covenant. Positively, the Mosaic law offers the possibility of life (Rom 7:10) … In and of itself the Mosaic law is “holy and righteous and good” (Rom 7:12). Paul’s positive description of the Mosaic law in Rom 7:12 reflects the language of those parts of the Old Testament which praise the utility of the law for the believer, such as Ps 19:7-11; 119:1-2, 24, 72, 92-93, 98-100, 105, 130, 165, 175. Paul also speaks of the law as being “spiritual” (Rom 7:14), by which he means that the Mosaic law is a product of the Spirit, implying that there is no fundamental opposition between the Mosaic law and the Holy Spirit. Negatively, however, the Mosaic law was an instrument used by sin that led to the condemnation, enslavement, and death of the carnal majority in Israel, and indeed the nation as a whole (Rom 7:8-11, 13-24; 9:31; 2 Cor 3:6-7, 9)” (pp. 136–7).

“having come to understand the concept of the death of Israel through the instrumentality of the Mosaic law (which climaxed with the rejection of Christ), this is precisely where Paul saw the new covenant work of Christ and his Spirit entering the salvation historical equation. The Mosaic law was an instrument of condemnation and death to those among Israel who were “fleshly” (Rom 7:14), i.e., to those who did not have the Spirit writing the law on their hearts. But this former human unresponsiveness to God had now begun to change. Paul had come to understand that the new covenant had already commenced with the resurrection of Jesus. The new covenant work of spiritual regeneration had already begun and was being mediated through the proclamation of the gospel of the resurrection and lordship of Jesus (Acts 2:33, 36, 38; 10:44-45; Gal 3:2, 14) … Since faith is about submission to Jesus as Lord (Rom 10:9), Christian faith is equated in Paul’s thinking with the eschatological teshuvah of Israel (and the nations). Hence, Paul equates the eschatological law that is written on the heart with the gospel that is received into the heart through faith. It is through the preaching of the gospel and our submission to Jesus as Lord that the law in its eschatological form becomes written on our hearts. The benefit of this for those who have the Spirit of God dwelling in them, i.e., for those who are walking in the Spirit, is that we can now fulfill our covenantal obligations, and thus the law proves to be the way of life (Rom 8:2, 4, 6-8) as God had always intended (e.g., Deut 30:15-20)” (p. 139).

Paul's Understanding of the Gospel as the Fulfillment of the Prophetic Hope of the Old Testament

In my essay “Paul and the New Covenant Paradigm” in the book An Everlasting Covenant: Biblical and Theological Essays in Honour of William J. Dumbrell, after establishing Paul’s Old Testament theological context (see the posts entitled “The Apostle Paul’s Understanding of the Old Testament View of the Law” and “The Apostle Paul’s Understanding of the Old Testament View of the Gospel”), and after providing some key observations regarding the nature of Paul’s Jewish opponents (see “The Identity and Theology of Paul’s Jewish Opponents”), I turn to consider how we should understand the teaching of the Apostle Paul in Galatians and Romans.

As I state in the introduction to the third section of my essay, which is entitled “Understanding Paul in his Historical Context,” I believe that “an understanding of the Old Testament’s teaching about the new covenant is crucial to understanding Paul’s teaching on grace and the law” (p. 134).

Here is a quote from the sub-section that discusses Paul’s understanding of the Christian gospel as the fulfillment of the Old Testament hope:

“Paul understood Jesus’ work and the outpouring of the Spirit in direct continuity with the Old Testament prophetic hope. Paul was convinced that the coming of Jesus and the eschatological outpouring of the Spirit was the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies of the restoration of Israel. As part of this work of restoration, Paul saw the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ as God’s main instrument in the new covenant age for bringing people, both Jew and Gentile, into a state of righteousness before God. In contrast to the old covenant age where covenant righteousness was defined in terms of commitment to the Mosaic law, Paul understood that the determining factor in the new covenant age is not a person’s commitment to the Mosaic law (i.e., the works of the law) but a person’s commitment to Jesus, the Lord of the new covenant, and to the gospel which proclaims his lordship (i.e., faith). In the new covenant age, where (according to God’s plan) righteousness is opened up to the nations, righteousness is no longer defined in terms of the Mosaic law, which was by definition mono-ethnic in its operation. The Mosaic law was a fence that divided Jew from Gentile (Eph 2:14-15). Applying to only one nation (Exod 19:5-6), the Mosaic law can no longer be used, therefore, as the determining factor of righteousness before God, for the age of the new covenant is a time when Gentiles will be included within the people of God. Therefore … the determining factor of righteousness in the new covenant age is whether a person has accepted the gospel and submitted to the lordship of Jesus in his role as Messiah” (p. 135).

My suggestion at this point to the world of Pauline scholarship is, therefore, that Paul’s concern lay not so much with defending Christ as the ground of absolute justification—the atoning value of the death of Christ was common ground between Paul and the Judaizers—but with defending faith as the instrument of justification on the level of the covenant. The dispute between Paul and his Jewish opponents centered around how covenant righteousness was to be defined (now that the new covenant in Christ had come). The Jews thought in covenantal categories. To interpret Paul and his opponents correctly, we need to do so too.

The Identity and Theology of Paul's Jewish Opponents

In my previous posts entitled “The Apostle Paul’s Understanding of the Old Testament View of the Law” and “The Apostle Paul’s Understanding of the Old Testament View of the Gospel” I have presented some thoughts regarding the first aspect of the Jewish context of the theology of the Apostle Paul, namely, the theological context of the Hebrew Scriptures (i.e., the Old Testament) in which the Apostle Paul operated. The second aspect of Paul’s Jewish context is the identity of his Jewish opponents.

Here are some quotes from my essay “Paul and the New Covenant Paradigm” in the book An Everlasting Covenant: Biblical and Theological Essays in Honour of William J. Dumbrell from the sub-section that discusses the identity of Paul’s Jewish opponents:

“Paul’s Jewish opponents in general were not ignorant of the Old Testament doctrines of grace, sin, or faith. Their key characteristic was that they were fierce advocates of Mosaic covenant theology. They believed that this system of theology (which was based on the Old Testament) was still normative. Paul, however, no longer viewed Mosaic covenant theology as normative in the way that it had been previously. Since his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus, he had come to view Mosaic covenant theology in effect as old covenant theology (2 Cor 3:6-14). That is to say, the system of Mosaic covenant theology, which had been valid during the old covenant age, had now been rendered obsolete through the coming of Christ and the establishment of the new covenant, a situation that had been foreshadowed in the Mosaic law itself. Paul’s Jewish opponents had more or less correctly understood the way that things were under the old covenant, but they had failed to see how the old covenant would be surpassed or exceeded (2 Cor 3:9-10) by the new covenant in Christ. The fundamental issue for Paul, therefore, was upholding, in the face of opposition from the advocates of traditional Mosaic covenant theology, God’s new covenant arrangement in Messiah Jesus” (p. 133).

“The non-Christian Jews of Paul’s day rejected Jesus and the Christian gospel primarily in the name of faithfulness to Moses and traditional Jewish teaching (see John 5:16, 18; 7:14-24, 45-52; 9:16; 16:2; Acts 22:3; Rom 10:2), while the Christian Judaizers sought to change the universal Christian gospel (which offered salvation to Gentiles on equal footing with Jews) into a Jewish gospel, where conversion to Judaism and keeping the law of Moses were viewed as being necessary for salvation (Acts 15:1, 5). In this way, the Judaizers were attempting to make Christianity fit snugly into the framework of the Mosaic covenant” (p. 133).

In other words, I agree here with William Dumbrell’s assessment of the Antiochene Judaizers as being Jews who “probably endeavoured to fit Jesus into the Sinai compact, which they saw as continuing … By their demand for the imposition of the Mosaic Law on Christian converts, they were in fact making demands for Christian incorporation into the Mosaic and Sinaitic structure” (William J. Dumbrell, Galatians: A New Covenant Commentary [Blackwood: New Covenant, 2006], 38–39).

“The dispute between Paul and his Jewish opponents, therefore, fundamentally revolved around the proper interpretation of the Mosaic covenant in God’s plan of salvation. At stake between Paul and his Jewish opponents was the proper interpretation of the Old Testament” (Coxhead, “Paul and the New Covenant Paradigm,” 134).

In general, Paul’s Jewish opponents were advocates of orthodox Mosaic covenant theology, which defined righteousness in terms of obedience (i.e., commitment or faithfulness) to the Mosaic covenant and its stipulations (i.e., the law of Moses) in accordance with the teaching of Deut 6:25. The Jewish nature of the theology of Paul’s Jewish opponents needs to be understood correctly before we can truly understand the significance of the Christian doctrine of justification by faith apart from the works of the law, which Paul strongly defended in his epistles to the Galatians and Romans.

The Apostle Paul's Understanding of the Old Testament View of the Gospel

I make the point again: the key to understanding Paul’s teaching on law and gospel is found in the Old Testament. Paul makes the claim in Rom 1:1–2 that his gospel was “the gospel of God that [God] promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures.” As far as Paul was concerned, his gospel was nothing other than the gospel proclaimed by the Old Testament prophets. But what exactly did the Old Testament prophets prophesy concerning the gospel?

Here are some quotes from my essay “Paul and the New Covenant Paradigm” in the book An Everlasting Covenant: Biblical and Theological Essays in Honour of William J. Dumbrell from the sub-section that discusses the Old Testament view of the gospel:

“[T]he failure of Israel to keep her covenantal obligation before God led to the emergence of the Old Testament prophetic hope, which looked forward to the time when Israel would finally be enabled by God to keep her side of the covenant arrangement, in order that the promised covenant blessing of eternal life might finally be realized. Thus, in the light of the historic failure of Israel under the Mosaic covenant, the Old Testament prophets looked forward to the time of the new covenant, when God would transform and circumcise the hearts of his people (Deut 30:6; Ezek 36:26) and place his law within (Jer 31:33), thereby enabling his people to keep covenant with him (Jer 31:31-32) through obedience to the law (Deut 30:6, 8, 10-14; Ezek 36:27), in order that they might finally receive the fullness of the covenant blessing that God had promised to the righteous of Israel back in the beginning (Lev 26:3-13) and to those among the nations who would be blessed through Abraham (Gen 12:3) by coming in submission to Israel’s Messiah (Ps 2:10-12)” (p. 129).

In other words, the gospel according to the Old Testament centers on the idea that God would enable Israel and the nations (through the work of Christ and the Spirit) to return in covenant obedience to himself.

“If the gospel according to the Old Testament speaks of God enabling the covenant obedience of his people such that they will keep covenant with him and receive the blessing of the covenant as a result, then surely it is wrong to interpret Paul in such a way that he is made to contradict this Old Testament understanding of the gospel” (p. 129).

“To teach or to give the impression that the gospel is only about the imputation of the righteousness of Christ as if there no longer remains any place for the covenant righteousness of the believer in the process of justification under the new covenant is actually a simplification and distortion of the gospel as ‘promised beforehand’ in the Old Testament” (p. 130).

In other words, the Old Testament prophets looked forward to the time when the law would be written on the hearts of the chosen from Israel and the nations, in order that they might be obedient to God, and consequently receive justification on the level of the covenant through the divine judicial declaration (to be proclaimed in a public way ultimately on the day of judgment but preempted today in the gospel ministry of the church) that believers have fulfilled their covenant obligations of faithful service to God (in the context of divine grace) through their submission to the Messiah Jesus (which the early church called faith). Those who are righteous on the level of the covenant have the privilege of sharing in the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice, their sins being covered by his perfection.

The law may have been primarily negative for old covenant Israel, but the Old Testament prophets viewed new covenant law as gospel! That is to say, for the Old Testament prophets, the function of torah in the new covenant age is primarily positive. Therefore, to interpret Paul through a black-and-white law versus gospel theological grid makes Paul not only contradict the Old Testament prophets, but also his own claim in Rom 1:1–2 that his gospel was “the gospel of God that he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures.” Law and gospel are not rightly divided by keeping them apart; they are rightly divided by proclaiming their unity in Christ. As the eternal Word of God, Christ is the embodiment of evangelical torah.

The Apostle Paul's Understanding of the Old Testament View of the Law

I believe that the key to understanding Paul’s teaching on law and gospel is actually found in the Old Testament. In particular, what does the Old Testament say about the role of old covenant law, eschatological law, and the gospel? Sadly, these questions have not been asked by the majority of those who have sought to interpret Paul’s teaching in Galatians and Romans. The key to understanding the debate concerning justification by the works of the law in the early church actually lies in understanding that the Mosaic covenant was a gracious covenant in which present and future grace was conditional upon works, i.e., upon obedience to the covenant performed in the context of grace. In other words, the Mosaic covenant is at one and the same time a covenant of grace and a covenant of works.

Here are some quotes from my essay “Paul and the New Covenant Paradigm” in the book An Everlasting Covenant: Biblical and Theological Essays in Honour of William J. Dumbrell from the sub-section that discusses the Old Testament view of the law:

“While it is definitely true that Christ is the only person who has kept God’s law perfectly and that his perfect righteousness must cover a person’s iniquity in order that he or she might be able to live in the presence of the most holy God, it is to overlook the gracious nature of the Mosaic law to keep on talking of the Mosaic law as if it required the absolute perfection of the people of Israel per se and to ignore the Old Testament concept of covenant righteousness. Rather, the truth of the matter is that it is precisely because no ordinary Israelite could keep God’s requirements absolutely that God in his grace provided a means of atonement for the people through the sacrificial system, which was an integral part of the Mosaic law. Significantly, the fact that the grace of the forgiveness of sins was built into the Mosaic law is the very thing that made it possible for some Israelites to keep the Mosaic law in the divinely intended covenantal sense” (p. 124).

“Understanding the gracious nature of the Mosaic law and how this establishes a valid doctrine of justification by the works of the Mosaic law is also the key to understanding the dual function that the Mosaic law had under the old covenant. To summarize this dual function, the Mosaic law had, on the one hand, a justifying and vivifying function, and on the other hand, a condemnatory and mortifying function. The law justified and vivified those who covenantally kept the law (Deut 6:25; 30:15-16, 19-20; Ps 19:7; 119:93, 156), but it condemned and mortified those who did not keep it in the required covenantal sense (Deut 30:15, 18-19)” (pp. 125–6).

“It will be argued below that Paul understood this dual function of covenant law in the Old Testament, and that his teaching in Galatians and Romans reflects this dual function of torah. Paul’s teaching in these epistles should not be interpreted in a way that makes him contradict the Old Testament teaching on the justifying and vivifying function of the Mosaic law for those among old covenant Israel who had the law of God written on their hearts by his Spirit” (p. 126).

It is to be noted that I am arguing in a manner consistent with orthodox Judaism that justification by covenantal obedience to the Mosaic law (what Paul and his Jewish opponents called justification by the works of the law) is a legitimate Mosaic (or Old Testament) doctrine as Deut 6:25 clearly posits:

“and righteousness will be ours, if we observe to do all this commandment before Yahweh our God, as he has commanded us” (Deut 6:25).

To quote from John Davies’s study on Deut 6: “It is inescapable from a reading of Deuteronomy 6 that central to God’s covenant with Israel is the call to love him unreservedly, with all that this entails. Without such love, Israel cannot expect to be ‘right’ with God, or to enjoy any of the previously promised blessings. To put it bluntly, salvation necessitates loving obedience as its sine qua non” (John Davies, “Love for God—A Neglected Theological Locus,” in An Everlasting Covenant: Biblical and Theological Essays in Honour of William J. Dumbrell [Reformed Theological Review Supplement Series 4; eds. John A. Davies and Allan Harman; Doncaster: Reformed Theological Review, 2010], 151).

In the light of Deut 6:25, the question is: does the Old Testament record anyone as having kept torah, and in particular the torah of Moses?

“The Old Testament speaks of God’s torah as something that was indeed kept, albeit by only a small number of people in the Old Testament age. This fact needs to be acknowledged and integrated into our Protestant systematic theologies. Abraham, for example, is described by God as being a person who ‘obeyed [Yahweh’s] voice and kept [his] charge, [his] commandments … statutes … and … laws’ (Gen 26:5). David is also acknowledged by God in 1 Kings 14:8 as being someone ‘who kept my commandments and followed me with all his heart, doing only that which was right in my eyes.’ From the Old Testament perspective, therefore, torah is doable. Both Abraham and David were keepers of torah” (Coxhead, "Paul and the New Covenant Paradigm," 123), although it should be noted that the torah kept by Abraham was not the torah of Moses.

But the fact that Mosaic torah was doable means that the Mosaic covenant was a gracious covenant. Furthermore, if Mosaic torah is actually doable, then it logically follows that justification by the works of the law is a legitimate Old Testament concept. But it was legitimate only for a time. As Paul will argue, justification by the works of the Mosaic law is a doctrine (1) that excludes the Gentiles, (2) that “failed” (according to God’s plan) to bring justification to Israel as a whole, and (3) that does not apply in the new covenant age.

The Jewish Context of the Theology of the Apostle Paul

In section one of my essay “Paul and the New Covenant Paradigm” in the book An Everlasting Covenant: Biblical and Theological Essays in Honour of William J. Dumbrell I look at the Jewish context of Paul’s theology in Galatians and Romans.

The Jewish context of Paul’s theology is very important for understanding the nature of the problem that Paul was addressing in Galatians and Romans, but overall this dimension is something that has frequently been mishandled or overlooked in the history of the interpretation of these epistles.

“The Jewish context of Paul’s theology has two main aspects: firstly, the theological context of the Old Testament; and secondly, the nature of the Jewish opposition that Paul had to face during his ministry” (p. 121).

“When it comes to the theological context in which Paul operated, the most important element is the Hebrew Scriptures (i.e., the Old Testament) and the theological ideas communicated therein. There are two important aspects to the Old Testament that impact upon Paul’s theology: the Old Testament view of the law, and the Old Testament view of the gospel” (p. 121).

“The second aspect of Paul’s Jewish context is the identity of Paul’s Jewish opponents” (p. 130).

In my next post I will provide some quotes from the sub-section that deals with the Old Testament view of the law.

Paul and the New Covenant Paradigm

I thought that I should give you a brief taste of the content of my essay “Paul and the New Covenant Paradigm” in the book An Everlasting Covenant: Biblical and Theological Essays in Honour of William J. Dumbrell.

"Paul and the New Covenant Paradigm" has the following sections:

1. Introduction;
2. The Jewish Context of Paul’s Theology;
   i. Paul’s Old Testament Theological Context;
     a. The Old Testament View of the Law;
     b. The Old Testament View of the Gospel;
   ii. Paul’s Jewish Opponents;
3. Understanding Paul in His Historical Context;
   i. The Christian Gospel as the Fulfilment of the of the Old Testament Hope;
   ii. Paul’s Teaching on the Law;
4. A Balanced Protestant Biblical Hermeneutic on Law and Gospel;
5. Conclusion.

Now for some quotes from the Introduction:

“The task of building a new covenant paradigm is predicated on the idea that one of the greatest aids in understanding the theology of Paul is nothing other than the Old Testament Scriptures. It is regrettable that the Old Testament’s teaching on the new covenant has often been overlooked in scholarly discussions on Paul’s theology of grace and law” (p. 119);

The content of 2 Tim 3:15 and Rom 1:1–2 “means that to understand the Pauline gospel, the Old Testament Scriptures and Old Testament prophecy must not be left out of the picture” (p. 120);

“Consistent with Dumbrell’s basic approach, I will argue in this essay that the Old Testament prophetic perspective on the new covenant was important to Paul and provided the basic paradigm for his understanding of God’s work as revealed through Christ Jesus” (p. 120).

I will give you a taste of the remaining sections over the next few posts.

For anyone who is interested, the book An Everlasting Covenant: Biblical and Theological Essays in Honour of William J. Dumbrell is available from:

Reformed Theological Review
PO Box 635
Doncaster
VIC 3108
Australia.

The cost is AU$35 plus AU$3 postage within Australia, AU$8.80 to Asia, and AU$13 to elsewhere.

Festschrift for William J. Dumbrell

Last Friday I was present at a dinner organized by the Reformed Theological Review for the purpose of presenting a Festschrift of essays written in honor of Dr William Dumbrell (on the left in the photo above), entitled An Everlasting Covenant: Biblical and Theological Essays in Honour of William J. Dumbrell, edited by John A. Davies and Allan M. Harman, and published by the Reformed Theological Review.

Bill is the author of Covenant and Creation: A Theology of the Old Testament Covenants and The Faith of Israel: A Theological Survey of the Old Testament, and many other books and articles. John Davies has written this about Bill in the Introduction to the book: “Bill has a fertile and creative mind, able from his vast reading to evaluate and take on board the best of traditional and contemporary scholarship, while being prepared to rock the boat somewhat with ideas that go against the grain of some cherished notions.” I would also like to put on the public record here my appreciation for Bill’s support for me personally and also for his encouragement for me to continue my involvement in the work of theological education in whatever capacity possible.

As one of the contributors to the Festschrift, I am probably a little biased when I say that this book is packed full with interesting and thought-provoking essays interacting with aspects of the theme of covenant in Scripture, but I think that that description is not too wide of the mark. Here's an outline of the contents:

“Fathers and Sons in the Books of Samuel” by Gregory Goswell, pp. 1-28;

“For the Sins of the Fathers: Generational Recompense in the Old Covenant and Its Implication for Infants in the New Covenant” by Mark Glanville, pp. 29-51;

“Psalm 2” by Bruce Waltke, pp. 53-81;

“The Abrahamic Covenant in the Psalter” by Allan M. Harman, pp. 83-99;

“Jesus and His Disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane” by Don West, pp. 101-117;

“Paul and the New Covenant Paradigm” by Steven Coxhead, pp. 119-44;

“Love for God—A Neglected Theological Locus” by John Davies, pp. 145-64;

“Of Covenant and Creation: A Conversation between Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology” by John McClean, pp. 165-99;

and “The One and Eternal Covenant of God” by Joe Mock (which looks at the theme of covenant in Bullinger), pp. 201-233.

The Festschrift is available from:

Reformed Theological Review
PO Box 635
Doncaster
VIC 3108
Australia.

It costs AU$35 plus $3 postage within Australia, $8.80 to Asia, and $13 to elsewhere.

The Theme of Judgment in the Gospel of John

The theme of judgment is a theme of medium priority in John’s Gospel overall, but the amount of space devoted to the theme of judgment is surprisingly large all the same. Of greatest polemical significance is the idea that Jesus has a special role to play in God’s work of judgment. Even though the Father is both King and Judge, he has “given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22). This corresponds to Paul’s teaching that on the day of judgment each person will be called to stand before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account of what they have done (2 Cor 5:10).

According to John 5:27, Jesus has received this “authority to execute judgment” from the Father, because he is the Son of Man in fulfillment of Dan 7:13–14. This judging function would not, however, be taken up in earnest until the day of judgment. Before this time, Jesus’ role is to bring salvation more than judgment per se. Thus, John’s Gospel teaches that “God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:18). Jesus himself teaches that he “did not come to judge the world but to save the world” (John 12:47). Even though Jesus’ primary purpose for coming into the world was not that of judgment, nevertheless Jesus also taught that he had come into the world “for judgment … that those who do not see may see and that those who see may become blind” (John 9:39). In other words, even though Jesus primary purpose in his first coming was that of salvation rather than judgment, because judgment is the flipside of salvation, we can say that Jesus also came “for judgment.” Jesus denied that he would judge the person who heard his sayings yet did not keep them, but at the same time this person will be judged “on the last day” in relation to the words of revelation that Jesus had spoken while in the world (John 12:47–48). Jesus also taught that through his death and glorification “the judgment of this world” had already come (John 12:31).

Also of polemical significance in the historical context of John’s day is the idea presented forcefully in the Gospel that a person’s faith in Jesus determines whether or not he or she will be condemned in the day of judgment. The person “who believes in [Jesus] is not condemned,” but “he who does not believe is condemned already” (John 3:18). Those who reject Jesus will be judged for loving darkness rather than the light of Christ (John 3:19). Jesus taught that “he who he hears my word and believes him who sent me … does not come into judgment but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24). Such people will participate in “the resurrection of life” rather than “the resurrection of judgment” that is reserved for “those who have done evil” rather than “good” (John 5:29).

The theme of judgment also applies in John’s Gospel to the issue of Jesus’ identity, which was a matter of serious debate between Jesus and his Jewish opponents. Jesus occasionally talked of his witness about himself as being his “judgment” (John 5:30). Jesus made the claim that “[his] judgment is just” in his opinion about himself, for he was only following his Father’s will in so judging (John 5:30). Jesus said to the Pharisees that he had “much to say about [them] and much to judge” (John 8:26). On another occasion, when debating with the Pharisees, Jesus said that he “judge[s] no one” (John 8:15). At the same time, however, Jesus’ judgment is not his alone but also the judgment of the Father who sent him (John 8:16). Thus, Jesus’ judgment or opinion about himself is not ultimately his but his Father’s.

John’s Gospel is also concerned with the issue of right judgment. Jesus accused his opponents of judging “by appearances” (John 7:24) and “according to the flesh” (John 8:15) rather than “with right judgment” (John 7:24). Jesus was judged by the Jews according to the Mosaic law but unfairly so (John 7:51; 18:31). Pilate adjudged Jesus to be innocent of crime (John 18:38; 19:4, 6), but he nevertheless delivered Jesus over to be crucified (John 19:16).

John’s Gospel also speaks of a role for the Holy Spirit in the work of judgment. The Spirit would “convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8). This is best understood as a kind of argument based on the order of events in salvation history. The coming of the Spirit upon Jesus’ disciples at Pentecost implies the fact of Jesus’ ascension, which in turn proves the truthfulness of Jesus’ claims about himself. This argument is similar to Peter’s salvation-historical logic in Acts 2 (see especially Acts 2:32–33, 36). In this way, the coming of the Spirit would convict the world of the sinfulness of rejecting Jesus Christ (John 16:9), vindicate Christ by proving his righteousness in all that he said and did (John 16:10), and prove that through Jesus’ death and resurrection “the ruler of this world has been judged” (John 16:11) and “cast out” (John 12:31–32).

The Eucharist in the Gospel of John

Even though John’s Gospel provides an account of the Last Supper in chs. 13–14, it is somewhat surprising that there is no account of the actual institution of the Lord’s Supper in John’s Gospel, unlike the situation that is found in the Synoptics. This detail has led some scholars to speculate that John’s Gospel was written in part to de-emphasize a sacramental theology in the early church that had elevated the sacraments to a point where the reality of Christ behind the sacramental signs was in danger of being obscured.

It has also been argued that Jesus’ teaching in John 6 that he is the bread of life also functions to de-emphasize such an overly elevated view of the eucharist. It is argued from John 6:35 in particular that the language of eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking Jesus’ blood is merely to be understood as a combined metaphor for coming to Jesus and believing in him. In addition to this, the teaching in John 6:63 that “it is the Spirit who gives life” and that “the flesh is of no avail” has been taken as a possible critique of the view which emphasizes the physical dimension of the eucharist to the detriment of the spiritual reality to which the physical signs are supposed to point.

Opposing this view of an anti-sacramental theology in John’s Gospel, the majority of modern day scholarship has seen a positive link between John 6 and the Lord’s Supper. Raymond Brown is of the opinion that there are “secondary, eucharistic undertones” in John 6:35–50, and an explicit allusion to the Lord’s Supper in vv. 51–58 (Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John I-XII: Introduction, Translation, and Notes [AB 29; Wimbledon: Geoffrey Chapman, 1971], 274). Rudolf Bultmann commenting on John 6:27–59 says that the concepts of eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood “refer without any doubt to the sacramental meal of the Eucharist” (Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary [Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1971], 218).

C. K. Barrett also sees an allusion to the eucharist in John 6:51–58. He takes the addition of the words “drink his blood” in John 6:53 as pointing “unmistakably … to the eucharist” (C. K. Barrett, The Gospel according to St John: An Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text [2nd ed.; London: SPCK, 1978], 299). At the same time, however, he makes the point that an allusion to the eucharist “does not in itself determine what John’s eucharistic theology was” (ibid., 297). He disputes that John 6:51–58 presents “the bread and wine to be a kind of medicine, conferring immortality by quasi-magical means” (ibid.). The “removal of the eucharistic allusion from the last supper” to the narrative in John 6 shows that John’s “intention” was “to set the eucharist in the context of the work of Jesus as a whole and to give it a strictly personal interpretation” (ibid.). Somewhat similar to Barrett, Leon Morris prefers the view that takes the teaching of Jesus in John 6:27–58 as being “primarily ... about spiritual realities” (Leon Morris, The Gospel according to John [Rev. ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995], 313). At the same time, however, he “does not deny that there may be a secondary reference to the sacrament” (ibid.).

In all of this discussion, we should keep in mind that the immediate significance of the metaphors of eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood in the context of Jesus’ dialogue with the crowd is definitely related to the need to become united with Jesus through faith so as to participate in the life-giving power of his sacrificial death. That is, the metaphors used by Jesus at this point speak of the need for faith in Jesus as the condition for eternal life. This is also the primary significance of the teaching in John 6:25–59 for readers of John’s Gospel today. Nevertheless, given that the New Testament testifies that the early church regularly participated in the Lord’s Supper whenever they met together (Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7; 1 Cor 11:33), and that participation in the Lord’s Supper is itself a pledge of personal faith in the context of a covenant renewal ceremony—participation in the Lord’s Supper is meant to be viewed as involving a public confession of faith confirming the confession of faith made at baptism—it is reasonable to assume that Jesus’ knew and intended that these provocative metaphors would allow links to be drawn in the minds of the early Christians between his teaching in John 6 with the familiar practice of the Lord’s Supper. If this is true, then John 6:25–58 also speaks in a secondary way of the significance of what we do when we participate in the Lord’s Supper. When we come to Jesus in the Lord’s Supper with faith in our hearts, we are assured that the power of his lifeblood is at work in us. Given the anti-Baptist and particularly anti-Judaistic orientation of John’s Gospel, it is also reasonable to assume that the function of John 6:25–58 in the polemical contect of the day would have implied an assertion of the efficacy and necessity of the Lord’s Supper (by which the gospel is formally sealed to believers) over against the rites of the communities with which the John’s Christian community was in competition (i.e., the followers of John the Baptist, and the orthodox Jewish community).

Attention has also been drawn to John 15:1–11 as being another allusion to the eucharist. Given that John 15:1–16:33 seems to record the teaching that Jesus gave to his disciples on the way to the Kidron Valley just after the conclusion of the Last Supper, we are obviously meant to understand Jesus’ teaching in John 15:1–11 in the context of the Passover meal that had just been celebrated. Furthermore, given that this Passover meal provided the model for the Lord’s Supper, it seems that Jesus’ teaching in John 15:1–11 also functions as a reflection on the deeper significance of the Lord’s Supper. As we participate in the Lord’s Supper, we renew our faith union with Jesus, and commit ourselves to his service to bear fruit for him, and to the bond of love which Jesus would have us maintain with our Christian brothers and sisters. It is quite possible that the tradition of calling the Lord’s Supper a “love feast” (Jude 12) stems from this teaching of the Lord. Participation in the Lord’s Supper is not only meant to be a communion in the death and life of the Lord Jesus, but also a communion of love of Christians with one another.