The Old and New Testaments as Pointing to Christ

Here’s a neat quote from Barth on how the Old and New Testaments relate:

As regards handling of Old Testament texts, we maintain that for us the Old Testament is valid only in relation to the New. If the church as declared itself to be the lawful successor of the synagogue, this means that the Old Testament is witness to Christ, before Christ but not without Christ. Each sentence in the Old Testament must be seen in this context. Historical exegesis can and must be done, but at the same time we have to ask whether this exegesis does justice to the context in which the Old and New Testaments stand. Even in a sermon on Judges 6:3 it is possible both insist on the literal sense and also to set one’s sights on Christ. As a wholly Jewish book, the Old Testament is a pointer to Christ. As regards the justification of allegory, we have again to refer to the relation between the Old Testament and the New. In the Old Testament the natural sense is the issue. Preaching must bring out what the Old Testament passage actually says, but in a way that affirms the basic premise on which the church adopted the Old Testament. This does not mean that we will give the passage a second sense — just as we are not to oppose historical and Christian exposition to one another. Instead, we will see that this passage in its immanence points beyond itself. It is a signpost that gives us direction. The Old Testament points forwards, the New Testament points backward, and both point to Christ.
- Karl Barth, Homiletics Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley and Donald E. Daniels (Louisville, KY: WJK, 1991) 80-81.

The Basic Meaning of Holy Scripture

A neat quote from Athanasius that gives an idea of how the Church Fathers held two testaments (i.e., the ‘double account’) together. The two were neither confused nor separated but distinguished and were kept together by the common subject matter to which they both pointed, namely, Christ:

What is the basic meaning and purport of Holy Scripture? It contains, as we have often said, a double account of the Savior. It says that he has always been God and is the Son, because he is the Logos and radiance and Wisdom of the Father. Furthermore, it says that in the end he became a human being, he took flesh for our sakes from the Virgin Mary, the God-bearer.

One can find this teaching indicated throughout Holy Scripture, as the Lord himself has said, “Search the Scriptures, for it is they which bear witness concerning me” [John 5:39]
- Athanasius, Orations Against the Arians, in The Christological Controversy trans. & ed. Richard A. Norris, Jr. (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1980), 87.

Childs on the Servant of the Lord’s Vicarious Suffering

Childs on Isaiah 53 and the vicarious suffering of the servant:

Yet the point of the Isaianic text is that God himself took the initiative in accepting the servant’s life as the means of Israel’s forgiveness. In the first divine speech (52:13), the “success” of the servant is promised because of what God had done. This proimse was hidden, never before told (v. 15), but Israel finally understood it as a revelation from “the arm of the LORD.” The role of the servant resulted in Israel’s forgiveness because of God’s acceptance of the servant’s obedient suffering. Israel not only recognized the freedom that the servant had won for it, but in the experience of encountering the hidden plan of God, was itself transformed into the new Israel, which shared in the coming redemptive age. Aleady the scene for Israel’s restoration was set as God designated the servant as the embodiment of Israel (49:3), through whom God would be glorified and the nation would be gathered again to him. When seen in the light of the unfolding drama of God’s plan to redeem Israel in chapters 40-55, the vicarious role of the servant lies at the very heart of the prophetic message and its removal can only result in losing the exegetical key that unlocks the awesome mystery of these chapters.
- Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 418.

The Prophet Isaiah, John the Baptist, and the Substance of Christian Scripture

Consistent with his conviction that the Old and New Testaments should not simply be conflated (so that either the NT ends up being just a form of midrash, or the OT is read as though it were merely an “earthly” version of the NT), Childs advocates finding the unity of the two testaments in the subject matter (res) which they point to, namely, Christ. Here’s a concrete example of what that looks like:

When John the Baptist linked the appearance of Jesus with the prophet’s call to “prepare the way of the Lord,” he was not making a mechanical connection with an ancient prediction of Isaiah. Rather, the reality of God’s salvation was manifest in Jesus Christ in such a way that his advent provided a perfect morphological fit according to its redemptive substance with the Old Testament promise. In a word, the salvific significance of Jesus Christ was understood in the light of Old Testament prophecy, while, conversely, the Old Testament promise gained its true meaning from the revelation of the Christ in the fullness of God’s time.
- Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 303.

The Maker of Heaven and Earth

In a chapter entitled, “Our Help Is in the Name of the LORD,” Christopher Seitz explores the phrase “the maker of heaven and earth” in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. He explains that the “Creed is more than putting out theological brushfires. It is letting scripture come to its natural, two-testament expression.” (178) In light of this, Seitz considers the fact that the creed begins with a confession of God the Father. This demonstrates that “It is not possible to speak of Jesus as this savior without speaking of God who sent him” (186). He continues, “There is no Jesus Christ apart from the prior electing, creating ‘maker of the heavens and earth.’” In this sense, then, the Old Testament’s per se voice, which witnesses to the same subject matter as the New Testament (i.e., Christ), must be appreciated and understood in order to properly hear and understand the voice of the New Testament witness. What Seitz doesn’t want is a reading of the Old Testament that ignores the fact that the two testaments are distinct books–the New Testament is not a ’spiritualized’ Old Testament. On the other hand, however, Seitz also warns that “the insistence on the rootedness of the description of God in the Old Testament must guard against another tendency”:

. . . The God of the Old Testament has fully identified himself with Jesus Christ. He does not continue to exercise some separate, untameable, unpredictable rule prior to, and perduring after, what he has made clear in Jesus. The New Testament does ont introduce a great parenthesis outside which God retains an unruly and undomesticated authority. The mystery and sovereignty of God the maker of heaven and earth are guarded precisely as these attributes are true of Christ, who raises the dead and walks on water, and of the Holy Spirit, who blows as he will–not over against them. The creed does not seek to isolate the Father to ensure his majesty. It points us to the God of Israel and asks us to see in his life with the world as shown there, that which comes to expression in complete terms in his Son. To speak of the Old Testament as Christian scripture, and not as Hebrew Bible, is not an offense to Judaism, which takes this selfsame literature and hears it through the testimony of tradition, just as Christians hear it in conjunction with the testimony of a second testament. Stressing the Jewishness of God, by reinstating his name or enumerating his Israel-specific life untouched by his condescension in his Son, makes sense for neither Jew nor Christian.
- Christopher R. Seitz, Figured Out: Typology and Providence in Christian Scripture (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 188-89.

Comprehending the Historical Jesus

Christopher Seitz concludes an interesting chapter on the canonical function of John 21:25. Seitz asks what “the concern of his Gospel–what has been called its perlocutionary force–is to do with the theology of history itself? That is, John is considering whether historiography reaches its aporia in Jesus Christ.” Here’s his conclusion:

. . . There is no access to Jesus to be called “historical” that seeks to interpret the real Jesus in any form but the one given. Any effort to get below or behind the record encounters a different kind of difficulty referred to in John.

Historical proximity, if that is what we should call it, actually breaks apart the very form of the testimony required for comprehension in the first place. To get behind the Gospel record would be to ignore the pivotal role of Israel’s scriptures in showing who Jesus is, on the one hand (see John 19:35-37). On the other hand, to get behind the literary record of the “we” who broker to us the Gospel is to enter a realm where Jesus can be veiled to eyes that lack in the very quest meant to find him as a historical datum that very strange gift: the testimony of the Holy Spirit at work through the testimony of the fourfold Gospel witness. It is a truism that the Holy Spirit’s sending is a function of the Gospels having reached the form in which we now find the record to Jesus the Advocate intends to work with.

In other words, John has in mind a twofold illumination of a sufficient canonical record, a record whose literary limits and form he deems fully competent to compel belief and give life. The chief form of illumination is the sending of the Advocate, but in addition to this, John reckons the witness of Israel’s scriptures also essential in testifying to who Jesus is for those who seek him truly. Insofar as quests for something called a historical Jesus must stand outside these parameters, in order to do their work, they will fail to comprehend Jesus on the terms the Gospels insist are nonnegotiable for encountering him. This encounter deserves to be called historical, because the fourfold apostolic witness to Jesus is witness to reality and truth. The burden remains with those who seek something else under the label of historical questing to clarify how their use of the term “historical” can be correlated with the parameters for comprehending Jesus set by the record to him.
- Christopher R. Seitz, Figured Out: Typology and Providence in Christian Scripture (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 100-01.

A More Nuanced Theory of Historical Referentiality

In a short chapter entitled, “The Canonical Approach and the ‘New Yale Theology,’” Childs briefly reviews how his canonical approach might benefit from the cultural-linguistic approach of his colleague, George Lindbeck. While he commends much in Lindbeck’s book, The Nature of Doctrine, Childs still finds a few points of disagreement. I found his second point helpful as it relates to an issue that I have been wrestling with in Hans Frei’s book, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative. Specifically bothersome to me is Frei’s complete rejection of the biblical text’s having any ostensive historical reference. Thankfully, Childs disagrees with Frei and Lindbeck at this particular juncture:

. . . in agreement with the recent emphasis on ‘narrative theology’, Lindbeck stresses the ‘intratextuality’ of meaning. Indeed, the term has provided a much needed service in checking the abuses of a crude theory of historical referentiality which has dominated biblical studies since the Enlightenment (cf. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative). Nevertheless, the concept is not without serious problems when used as a positive formulation of the Bible’s relation to the external world. Above all, the New Testament bears witness to realities outside itself. The prophets and apostles spoke of things which they saw and events which they experienced as testimonies to what God was doing in the world. It is far too limiting to restrict the function of the Bible to that of rendering an agent or an identity. Rather, the nature of the biblical referent must be determined by the text itself which points referringly both to the Creator and the creation in a wide variety of different ways. To recognize that the Bible offers a faith-construal is not to deny that it bears witness to realities outside the text. Christians have always understood that we are saved, not by the biblical text, but by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ who entered the world of time and space.
- Brevard S. Childs, The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction (United Kingdom: First Fortress Press, 1985), 545.

Frei’s book is definitely helpful in pointing out the development of a ‘crude theory of historical referentiality’ in response to Enlightment/post-Enlightenment threats, but as Childs points out, it doesn’t do much in positively formulating a theory of historical referentiality. Childs’ canonical approach offers a via media wherein the biblical referent is determined by the text itself.

Turning the Canon on Its Head

Is the historical determinative of the canonical or vice versa? Childs finds fault with critical scholars for seeking to first “construct a profile of the ‘historical Paul’”, and only then determine “to what extent one can or cannot include Ephesians within Pauline theology.” Similar assumptions are axiomatic among so-called conservative scholars as well. The belief that the ‘historical Paul’ must first be reconstructed in order to determine what the canonical Paul is really saying (or whether he is even speaking!) is, according to Childs, to turn “the purpose of the New Testament canon on its head and badly misconstrues its theological function”:

The primary issue is not whether or not Ephesians is Pauline. The canonical process has already incorporated it within the Pauline corpus. Rather, the exegetical issue is to determine the effect which the inclusion of the letter has on its shape and on the understanding of the corpus. The canonical decision has rendered a theological judgment as to what constitutes the ‘canonical Paul’. Although it remains a valid and important question to consider the relation between ‘canonical’ and the ‘historical’ Paul, the two entities cannot be identified, nor can the latter determination establish the parameters of the former.  The function of canon is to establish the shape of the vehicle through which the true Pauline witness to the gospel is made.
- Brevard S. Childs, The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction (United Kingdom: First Fortress Press, 1985), 323.

By giving priority to the final canonical form, Childs does not neglect or ignore the importance of historical criticism. Childs readily acknowledges that historical-critical research illuminates and aids our understanding of the earlier stages/development of the canon. However, to allow historical criticism to have the final say in determining the meaning of a given text is to mute the canonical witness entirely.

Giving Attention to Canonical Form and Context

After examining the book of Lamentations via the canonical approach, Robin Parry concludes by responding to a hypothetical criticism. Parry asks, “does this theological hermeneutic rob the text of its power?” (413) He agrees that among the many voices in the book Yahweh’s is conspicuous by its absence and that “Once Lamentations is read through Christian theological lenses, we insert Yahweh’s voice back into the text.” In response to this, the criticism is raised, “this domesticates the book and emasculates its ability to address the bleakest of human situations.”

Parry responds:

. . . crucial to an adequate response is the need for Christian readers to appreciate both the canonical form of the text and the canonical context. It is the canonical context which allows us to read the book in the light of the cross and resurrection of Christ but it is the canonical form which preserves the voices of the sufferers as uttered on their Holy Saturday. The canonisation of the book in this form requires that we find a way to respect the integrity of that pain without allowing it to be lost in the canonical context. On the other hand, it needs to be acknowledged that respecting only canonical form but not the canonical context fails to read the text as Scripture. The resurrection generates a hermeneutic of hope that can transform the darkness of Lamentations and infuse it with a light not found in the book itself. But, and this is important, it does not make the pain of Lamentations less dreadful and dark. It does not explain why the pain was as it was. It is not a theodicy that seeks to justify God. It does not trivialise the suffering any more than the resurrection trivialises the cross. So, while a canonical interpretation of Lamentations will not allow destruction and death to have the last word, it can allow them a penultimate word. The book of Lamentations speaks during its Holy Saturday experience and is then silent and the Bible preserves it in that form. We have to wait for Isaiah 40-55 to hear the build up to the Easter Sunday deliverance. The canon allows a pause between these two and does not seek to prematurely collapse them. [. . .] A Christian theological reading of the book can bracket out for a moment the resurrection hope and allow the shock of the pain to have its full force. [. . .] The Christian simply cannot forget the resurrection and, once it is factored in, hope will enter the equation again. The world cannot be the same after Easter and sufferings cannot be seen as our final destiny.
- Robin Parry, Prolegomena to Christian Theological Interpretations of Lamentations, in Canon and Biblical Interpretation (SHS 7; ed. Craig Bartholomew et al.; Carlisle: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 413-14.

Reckoning with the Canon’s Shape

Gordon McConville writes an excellent essay in Canon and Biblical Interpretation, where he demonstrates the sort of difficulties in Scripture that the canonical approach seeks to wrestle with. As an example, he brings up the Old Testament slave laws from Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 15 which are extremely hard (even nearing impossible, according to McConville) to reconcile. Here’s his conclusion:

The specifically canonical aspect of this hermeneutical point is that the canon’s inclusion of texts that seem awkward or alien to central themes compel us to reckon with them rather than neglect them on those grounds. As Rowland puts it: ‘Even what appear to some of us to be the Bible’s more difficult passages may help us understand something of our own prejudices as we glimpse something of the compromises in the texts of the past;’ and indeed ‘what appear to us to be the most reactionary texts may surprise us by offering what [Frederic Jameson] calls a “utopian impulse”". It is the diversity of the canon that illustrates the nature of biblical interpretation in practice: not the imagined abstraction of permanently valid principles, but in many and diverse encounters with the word of God illuminating our own world and lives in unexpected ways.
- Gordon McConville, Old Testament Laws and Canonical Intentionality, in Canon and Biblical Interpretation (SHS 7; ed. Craig Bartholomew et al.; Carlisle: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 278.

In the essay that immediately follows, Christopher J.H. Wright responds to some statements that McConville (perhaps overstating the discrepancy between Deuteronomy 15 and Exodus 21) made in his essay and arrives at this balanced conclusion:

As McConville rightly and helpfully points out, they [empirical collectors, editors and compilers] did not see it as any part of their intention to smooth over the rough textures and awkward crossgrains of the texts they inherited — either by excluding some and leaving only later ‘final revisions’, nor by attempting to harmonize everything. They do indeed, therefore, invite the reader to read widely and as a whole, and to engage in warranted discernment within and between all that they pass on to us as Scripture [. . . ] If, then, we come to these texts with the confessional commitment that the canon actually has both theological and conceptual coherence as well as a revelatory and didactic intention, it seems to me that we are certainly committed both to wrestle with the kind of diversity that McConville well illustrates, and to search for the mind of the canonical constructors in preserving it in all its puzzling inner conflicts, and thereby, through both processes, to discern the voice of God both in the particular and in the whole.
- Christohper J.H. Wright, Response to Gordon McConville, 289.