Scripture in History
The resurrection showed that the one resurrected has power over life and death and helped substantiate the revelation that Christ was God. Hence what was said about him by eye witnesses was revelation. More specifically, the written account of his life, was destined to be scripture because his life was the life of God incarnate. Is a qualification needed here? Of course there is. Anyone can write a so-called account of the life of Christ and that wouldn't be scripture much less revelatory (not all scripture is revelatory). So what made the gospels scripture? Do we say, "Well, the gospels were all written by Christ's apostles?" We could say that; but what about Luke? Luke's work had the stamp of approval from the apostles. So, yeah, apostolic authority still factors in. But this essay isn't about how canonicity is established, though a very worthy topic. This is about the three related events--the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection. Altogether, the three events address issues of who, what and why respectively. The incarnation=who we should believe; the crucification=what we should believe, and the resurrection= why we should believe. The incarnation allowed the world to know who God is. The crucifixion, of course, was the atonement. And the resurrection provided epistemic justification for belief about who God was and what he did. Scripture was not particularly relevant in the world outside of Israel until after these three events. But after they occurred, ...well, then...WOW! What could be more globally relevant, even today, than these scriptures which attest to their own authenticity as divine revelation by virtue of prophetically connecting ancient history with the time of Christ and the resurrection?
Of course, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Before the resurrection, there was the incarnation and crucifixion and they are all connected in necessary ways with each other and scripture. When and where, within history, the atonement occurred was affected by the fact the atonement had to occur sometime after the incarnation which, in turn, could not occur at any arbitrary place and time. God’s identity as a person who fulfilled prophetic scriptures dictated that scriptures foretelling his coming first be written. The intricacy of this design simply boggles the mind so much so as to suggest the existence of Israel or God's having created the Israelites at all was to make possible one special event on one specific day in the life of the Word become flesh.
Views: 51
Tags: apologetics, crucifixion, history, incarnation, philosophy, resurrection, scripture, theology
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Comment by Bill Wettler on February 2, 2012 at 10:25am -
Too short?
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Comment by James Robertson on February 2, 2012 at 10:31am -
Nay. Thou hast said much concisely.
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Comment by James P Richards Sr on February 2, 2012 at 5:34pm -
With your permission, I would like to copy this and share it with our Breakfast/Prayer group.
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Comment by Bill Wettler on February 2, 2012 at 8:56pm
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Permission granted with pleasure. Happy to be of service.
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Comment by Chris Cason on February 4, 2012 at 4:14pm -
Luther characterized the New Testament as "nothing else than a resurrection and revelation of the Old Testament" (Sermon on the Epiphany). He even lamented the fact that New Testament Scripture had to be written down at all! "That there was a necessity of writing books was in itself a great detriment and denotes an infirmity of the human spirit and does not arise out of the nature of the New Testament."
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Comment by Bill Wettler on February 5, 2012 at 4:38am
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Wow. I didn't know that. How fascinating! I wonder why he thought that about the New Testament but not the old? Or did he think that about the old too? I take his comment to mean that the resurrection of the OT was a good thing. So this is a little confusing. Personally, I never cared for the Old / New distinction. I wish we could all see the continuity from beginning to end. The problem with characterizing the canon as divisible into two is that people get the impression that we are talking about two different religions. While Jews, understandably insist on saying exactly that, we consider their belief to be mistaken. They should believe Christ was the messiah--that our canon is their canon. Perhaps that is what Luther was saying. What followers of Judaism today don't understand is that Paul and the other apostles were their ancestors taking their message to the world.
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Comment by James Robertson on February 5, 2012 at 5:14am
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Luke 4 illustrates the response to Jesus' message that the Old Testament is for all people.
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Comment by Bill Wettler on February 5, 2012 at 11:27am
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Hello James Robertson. Luke 4 includes the temptation, healings, exorcisms and the start of Christ's preaching ministry--the response to which was mixed. I assume you're talking about the hostility towards his message. I'm not clear about your point though. Are you saying that some Jews were too parochial to accept the idea that God cared about anyone outside of their ethnicity? We might draw that conclusion if Christ's message really was that the Old Testament is for all people. But was that really his message? How do we reach that conclusion from Luke 4 specifically? And before we answer that, I think there's a problem with the statement that "the Old Testament is for all people." I think that is too vague. Some clarification is needed there. After all, the Old Testament was given to Israel. And while we could say Israel was charged with taking their message to the world, there are two things about that which we have to keep in mind. First, I think a lot of Jews did take their message to the world. Secondly, but unfortunately, they misunderstood their own message. They brought the world their law. I don't think we want to say the Laws of Moses were for the world in the same sense that they were for the Israelites. While the nations of the world would have ideally paid homage to the God of Israel, I don't think God wanted all the nations to be Israelite. We know God didn't want to circumcise the world. My understanding is still developing, but I'm inclined to think that the "pre-gospel" revelations of God to Israel are of use to us--to the world, insofar as they affirm the monotheistic conclusions we should already be able to draw from natural theology AND when taken together with the gospel, they clarify history's trajectory--how we got like this and where we are going. One could even say they provide a theodicy which exonerates God of evil. Do you want to clarify what you're referring to in Luke 4?
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Comment by James Robertson on February 5, 2012 at 12:20pm
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John 10:16 (Scripture interprets scripture).
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