by Richard Barcellos | May 27, 2011 | Hermeneutics, Historical Theology
The Renaissance: The Renaissance was a very complex humanist movement within Europe during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Two of the most important contributions it gave to the Reformation were a return to critical scholarship and philology. What the Renaissance gave to the Reformation, then, was an academic climate of questioning the status quo and seeking to arrive at conclusions based on primary documents. Pelikan comments:
The insistence of humanistic scholars on an understanding of the biblical text based on a fresh reading of the Hebrew and Greek originals …acted as a catalyst in the reconsideration of the doctrine of authority during the age of the Reformation.[1]
This insistence led to the study of Hebrew and Greek grammar, the study of Augustine, and most importantly, the study of Paul and the Bible.
The Reformation: The Reformation was both a break with the negative elements of the past (especially the late medieval doctrine of ecclesiastical authority and the system of human merit theology) and a continuation of the discussion that had been taking place from the beginning. The Bible took center stage at the Reformation due, in part, to the influence of the Renaissance. With this came a renewed interest in Bible interpretation and historical theology, both from primary sources. The maxim ad fontes[2] produced intensified study in the original sources of the Christian tradition – the Bible first and foremost and, secondarily, the Apostolic Fathers, Patristics, and Augustine.
Neither Luther nor Calvin invented or discovered doctrines that had never been discussed before.[3] Luther’s discovery of the gospel of justification sola fide was, first and foremost, a biblical doctrine and a doctrine that all true Christians had believed from the beginning. It had been eclipsed by a system of human merit theology and sacerdotalism, but this does not mean that it never existed prior to Luther.
Calvin was no innovator himself. He built his system of theology on his understanding of Christian Scripture controlled by “the rule of faith.” He produced commentaries that are still influential in our day. The Reformers saw themselves as part of a long line of Christian interpreters, utilizing what they could from previous generations and repudiating, sometimes viciously, what they could not. Though Calvin sought to be a corrector of what he viewed as wrong with elements of the past, on the main, he assumed into his interpretive method the method handed down to him by his university professors – the scholastic method, in distinction from scholastic theology (more on this below).
Mention has been made of how some view the history of Christian interpretation in a mostly negative light. This assessment is, primarily, a post-Enlightenment phenomenon. David Steinmetz, in his book Calvin in Context, discusses Calvin’s interpretation of Isaiah 6:1ff. in the light of the history of interpretation prior to Calvin.[4] Prior to his discussion of the history of interpretation and Isaiah’s text, he notes this about F. W. Farrar.
In 1885 Frederic W. Farrar, chaplain to Queen Victoria and later Dean of Canterbury, delivered the Bampton Lecutres at Oxford on the subject of the history of interpretation. The book is a triumph of what the late Sir Herbert Butterfield of Cambridge called “Whig” historiography. Farrar admired about the past precisely those elements in it most like the present and regarded the present, indeed, as the inevitable culmination of all that was best in the past. The history of exegesis became for Farrar the history of “more or less untenable” conceptions of the Bible, “a history of false suppositions slowly and progressively corrected.” Not surprisingly, Farrar admired Antioch over Alexandria, Luther over Thomas Aquinas, Calvin over Luther, and the moderns [Enlightenment/post-Enlightenment interpreters] over all. Farrar catalogued with obvious delight every strained allegory, every factual inaccuracy, every philological howler committed by precritical exegetes in the name of biblical interpretation. While he admitted that ancient commentaries are full of practical instruction aimed at moral and spiritual edification and that much of this instruction is “of the highest intrinsic value,” he nevertheless warned that frequently such material “has but a slender connexion with the text on which it is founded.”[5]
Steinmetz goes on to show that Calvin’s exegesis of the Isaiah pericope is very similar to the history of interpretation on this text and even goes so far as to say, “While the precritical exegesis of Isaiah 6 is not an exegesis we can simply adopt, it is still not accurate to regard it as arbitrary and strained, of value only for its homiletical asides.”[6] Steinmetz interacts with Farrar after his discussion of Calvin on Isaiah 6 and the history of precritical interpretation on this text:
It is difficult to recognize the exegesis of Isaiah 6 we have just examined in the general description of the history of exegesis which Farrar offered. To be sure, it is true that the older consensus on the historical-critical setting of Isaiah 6 would find few supporters among modern commentators, but the older discussion of these questions does not seem arbitrary or strained, even by modern standards. The judgment of Christian commentators that Isaiah saw the glory of Christ was an exegetical conclusion forced on the commentators by the New Testament itself, though there was a tendency on the part of some commentators–including Calvin–to soften the hard edges of that exegesis.[7]
Farrar assumed critical, Enlightenment categories while interpreting the history of interpretation. This gave his history a slant or bias in a certain direction and explains his overly negative assessment of most of what took place prior to the modern era. Steinmetz concludes:
It is no answer to Farrar to point out that there is a good deal in ancient commentaries which is surprisingly modern even from a historical-critical or philological viewpoint, or to argue that the modern reader can find insight into the “literal” sense of the text in precritical commentaries. That is to admit his principle that precritical exegesis is good in the proportion that it anticipates or agrees with modern exegesis. Nor is it an answer to reply with a tu quoque [Latin, “thou also”] and to list the exegetical atrocities which have been committed from time to time in the name of the historical-critical method, though such a list is disquietingly easy to compile.
The principal value of precritical exegesis is that it is not modern exegesis; it is alien, strange, sometimes even, from our perspective, comic and fantastical. Precisely because it is strange, it provides a constant stimulus to interpreters, offering exegetical suggestions they would never think of or find in any modern book, forcing them again and again to a rereading and reevaluation of the text. But if they immerse themselves not only in the text but also in these alien approaches to the text, they may learn in time to see with eyes not their own sights they could scarcely have imagined and may learn to hear with ears not their own voices too soft for their own ears to detect.[8]
Not only has this modern, Enlightenment mindset infected Farrar it has infected others who look down upon, not only the Reformers, but the post-Reformation Reformed orthodox, as we shall see next.
[1] Jaroslav Pelikan, Reformation of Church and Dogma (Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1985), 8.
[2] Latin for to the sources.
[3] Cf. David C. Steinmetz, Luther in Context (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1995) and David C. Steinmetz, Calvin in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
[4] Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 95-109.
[5] Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 95. Steinmetz is quoting from Fredric W. Farrar, History of Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979).
[6] Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 107.
[7] Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 107.
[8] Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 107.
Dr. Richard Barcellos is associate professor of New Testament Studies. He received a B.S. from California State University, Fresno, an M.Div. from The Master’s Seminary, and a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary. Dr. Barcellos is pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Palmdale, CA. He is author of Trinity & Creation, The Covenant of Works, and Getting the Garden Right. He has contributed articles to various journals and is a member of ETS.
Courses taught for CBTS: New Testament Introduction, Biblical Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology I, Biblical Theology II.
by Sam Waldron | May 27, 2011 | Current Events, Eschatology
The third thing that must be considered regarding Matthew 24:36 is …
III. Its Contextual Confirmation
False teachers have always quoted Scripture. 2 Peter 3:15-16 says: “and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.” The problem with the heretic’s use of Scripture is that they always quote it out of context. One of the marks of false teaching is that it quotes Scripture but without regard to its context.
This is also true of the perversion of Scripture that we are now considering. It quotes and interprets Matt. 24:36 without regard to its biblical context. It is, therefore, my purpose to show you very carefully what this verse means within its context. We will look at the immediately preceding context, the immediately succeeding context, and the broader New Testament context.
A. The Immediately Preceding Context
The significant thing that we learn about verse 36 when we read the preceding context is that it is a part of a contrast.
Matthew 24:34-36 “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.”
What is the contrast here? It is between the “all these things” of v. 34 and “that day and hour” of v. 36. If “that day and hour” refers, as we have seen, to the second coming of Christ, to what does the phrase, “all these things,” refer? To answer this question look at Matt. 24:1-3. Their questions show that the disciples were in danger of confusing two distinct events: the destruction of Jerusalem and the second coming of Christ. The contrast of vv. 34-36 is intended to clear up this confusion for them. “All these things”, therefore, refers to all those events associated with the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem. “That day and hour” refers to the events associated with the second coming of Christ proper.
Here we come to the crucial point for our purposes. How does Christ contrast these two events? He gives a time-sign for the destruction of Jerusalem. He gives no time-sign for the second coming of Christ. Notice: “This generation will not pass away until all these things take place … but of that day and hour no one knows…” Do you see the contrast Jesus makes in these verses? He contrasts the giving of a time-sign for the destruction of Jerusalem with the giving of no time-sign for His Second Coming. He gives a very broad time-sign for the destruction of Jerusalem—this generation. The destruction of Jerusalem, he says, will occur sometime in the next forty years, but I give you no time-sign at all for my own coming.
What does this mean for our interpretation of Matt. 24:36? Is Jesus saying, what the date-setters assert, that we cannot know the day or hour, but we can know the week, month, or year? Obviously not! The contrast is not between the day and the month or between knowing week, but not the hour. It is between a broad time-sign encompassing a period of forty years and no time-sign at all. Jesus determined the date of the destruction of Jerusalem to within forty years, but He gives no time-sign for His coming at all. What nonsense this makes of the claims of the date-setters to know even the year of Christ’s coming! Far from knowing the week, month, or year, we do not even know the generation of Christ’s coming!
B. The Immediately Succeeding Context
In the following context Jesus calls upon his disciples to be constantly alert for His return (Matt. 24:42-44, 50; 25:13). These commands to be alert for His coming assume that even then the timing of His coming was completely unknown. If the week and month of Christ’s return could be known, as the date-setters suggest, then the early disciples would not have had to be constantly alert. Clearly, then, when Jesus says that you do not know the day or hour of my return, He means to say that its timing is completely unknown, therefore you must be always ready.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
by Sam Waldron | May 26, 2011 | Current Events, Eschatology
The second heading which must be considered with regard to Matthew 24:36 is …
II. Its Foolish Perversion
One of the surprising things about what Camping’s prediction is that he actually named a specific day. This seems to contradict his own comments on Matthew 24:36. Camping and other “date-setters” often argue that, though we cannot know the day or hour of Christ’s return, we can know the week, month or year. Speaking of Matt. 24:36 one date-setter (Whisenant in his 88 Reasons Why Christ Will Come in `88) has said, “However, this does not preclude or prevent the faithful from knowing the year, the month, and the week of the Lord’s return”. Camping in his previous book 1994? Said, “Not surprisingly, when we have completed our study we will know much about God’s timetable for the history of the world. But we will not know the day and hour of the actual end of the world when Christ is to come the second time”. Having said this he concludes that the last day and return of Christ would be, if his calculations are correct, between Sept. 15 and Sept. 27, 1994.
Such distorting of Scripture would be laughable, if they did not open the door to such serious error. Can we read this passage of God’s Word and conclude that Christ actually means to say that we cannot know the day or hour, but we can know the year, month, and week of Christ’s return? Nevertheless, for the sake of answering this objection and displaying the decisive, biblical evidence against giving a timetable for Christ’s return, the time must be taken to further confirm the meaning of this text. The context of Jesus’ statement makes abundantly evident the folly of such interpretation of Scripture.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
by Sam Waldron | May 25, 2011 | Current Events, Eschatology
Matthew 24:36 is the classic biblical rebuttal of the tendency of calculating the time of Christ’s return. I intend to expound this text under three headings. The first is this:
I. Its Brief Exposition
Matthew 24:36 reads as follows: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” By way of a brief or preliminary exposition of this passage, I want to say two things.
First, when Christ refers to “that day and hour“, he is referring to the day and hour or time of His second coming. The entire context puts this beyond doubt. Jesus has been speaking of His second coming in the preceding context (24:27, 30, 31). He goes on to speak of this event in the immediately succeeding context (24:37). He uses this exact language to speak of His second coming in the following context (24:42, 44, 50).
Second, Christ asserts here that knowledge of the time of His second coming is hidden from every intelligent creature. Of the time of His coming, Christ says, “No one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” Now this statement is from one viewpoint quite perplexing. It raises the question, If Christ is God and, therefore, omniscient or all-knowing, how can there be anything he does not know? The simple answer to this question is suggested by our Confession. Chapter 8, paragraph 2, echoes the historic, orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ. There the Confession states that the Son of God possessed a “whole, perfect, and distinct” human nature. Because of this, the Bible speaks of Him as a man physically or bodily. He was hungry, thirsty, and grew tired. The Scripture also speaks of him as a man spiritually or mentally. He grew and matured intellectually (Luke 2:40, 52; Heb. 5:8). Therefore, when we come to Matt. 24:36 there should be nothing surprising to us in Christ’s assertion that there were some things He did not know. If we are not stumbled when we hear the Son of God say, “I thirst” (even though as God He was never thirsty), there is no reason why we should be stumbled when we hear Him say that there is something He does not know. If we are not stumbled when the Scripture says that he grew in wisdom (even though as God He could not grow in wisdom because He always knew everything), then there is no reason for us to be stumbled when the Scripture declares that not even the Son knows the time of His second coming. Jesus is speaking here as a man. He is not declaring to us the contents of the divine mind, but of His human intellect.
Christ here asserts that neither He, nor any other man, nor even the angels of heaven knew the time of His second coming. Think about the implications of that statement. Who were the human instruments of divine revelation? Men, angels, and Jesus himself! Jesus’ statement implies that God had not revealed the date of the end of the world to any of the men or angels by which God communicated to men in the Old Testament. It also implies that He had not revealed it to the Son by which He brought that revelation to conclusion in the New Testament (Hebrews 1:1-2). Jesus is, thus, plainly teaching that the time of His coming is not a part of the revelation God chose to give men in the Word of God. Therefore, no amount of scholarship or genius, not even a whole life-time of study dedicated to the study of typology, numerology, or prophecy will ever find in Scripture some secret, figurative, mysterious revelation of the time-period of Christ’s return. It has not been put in the Scriptures and no amount of searching will find it there.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
by Richard Barcellos | May 24, 2011 | Biblical Theology, Book Reviews, Hermeneutics, New Testament, Old Testament, Systematic Theology
Tom Wells’ book on the Sabbath: Chapter Three (III)
Mark 2:27-28
Wells discusses Mk. 2:27-28 (48-57). He claims, and rightly so, “There is no command in these verses…” (49). He continues, “…but an argument for Sabbath keeping has been drawn from each of them” (49). He states the argument this way:
The argument is twofold. First, if God at creation made the Sabbath a blessing for mankind, He certainly did not do so only to abolish it later. Second, when the Lord Jesus announces Himself as Lord of the Sabbath, it seems unlikely to suppose that He intended to exercise His Lordship over it by doing away with it. (49)
Dealing with this twofold argument, Wells assumes “that God commanded man to keep the Sabbath at the time of creation” (49), though he does not believe that to be the case. Discussing the first argument, he says:
The first argument implies the impossibility of God later abolishing anything that He made for mankind’s benefit at the creation. But is this sound reasoning? It may be true or it may be false, but it is certainly not obvious. Where is it written that if God once made something a blessing for mankind at large that He would never suspend it? (49)
He then gives examples of many things God has made for man’s benefit that he subsequently takes from man (i.e., the Garden of Eden, many wonderful fruits, extinct birds and animals, the benefits of family life for some believers in Christ, etc. [49-50]). What shall we say to this?
Wells asserts, without citing anyone, that “The first argument implies the impossibility of God later abolishing anything that He made for mankind’s benefit at the creation” (49; emphasis mine). Does the first argument imply this? Is this the way those Wells is arguing against state their position? I think the answer to both questions is a resounding, “No!” Do those who believe that God instituted some things for mankind’s good at creation also believe in “the impossibility of God later abolishing” those things? Again, Wells cites no one. In fact, he over-states his case. Claiming that God instituted some things for man’s good at creation does not necessarily imply the impossibility of God later abolishing those things. The Garden of Eden is a case in point, as Wells says.
The argument Wells set up (i.e., that “God at creation made the Sabbath a blessing for mankind”) needs additional elements to necessarily imply what he claims. Those who argue this would need to state that it is impossible for God to institute anything for man’s benefit at creation and then abolish it later. I don’t know of anyone who would argue this way, though someone who does may exist.
But there is another problem with Wells’ response. The examples he uses of things instituted by God at creation for the benefit of man and later abolished are not identified as creation ordinances by those he is combating. Creation ordinances are not co-extensive with everything instituted by God for man in the Garden of Eden. Wells himself identifies what those who hold to creation ordinances identify as such. He says, “Often three are cited: marriage, labor and Sabbath” (26). In other words, for example, the Garden of Eden is not a creation ordinance in the minds of Wells’ opponents. Even though it appears that Wells does not adhere to the doctrine of creation ordinances, he is disagreeing with those who do and should have seen the problem with arguing the way he did. In effect, he put words in the mouths of those he is critiquing and then shows those words to be impossible to square with Scripture. I found Wells’ argument unconvincing and his method of argumentation, at this point, very sloppy.[1]
After extensive discussion, Wells denies that this verse teaches any sort of Sabbath perpetuity under the lordship of Christ as Son of Man. However, is it that simple? Let’s consider these verses in context in our next post.
[1] I am sure I have been guilty of the same thing.
Dr. Richard Barcellos is associate professor of New Testament Studies. He received a B.S. from California State University, Fresno, an M.Div. from The Master’s Seminary, and a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary. Dr. Barcellos is pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Palmdale, CA. He is author of Trinity & Creation, The Covenant of Works, and Getting the Garden Right. He has contributed articles to various journals and is a member of ETS.
Courses taught for CBTS: New Testament Introduction, Biblical Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology I, Biblical Theology II.
