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Tom Wells’ book on the Sabbath: Chapter Three (III)

by | May 19, 2011 | Biblical Theology, Book Reviews, Books, Hermeneutics, New Testament, Old Testament, Systematic Theology

Tom Wells’ book on the Sabbath: Chapter Three (II)

Matthew 12:1-14  

Wells references Matt. 12:1-14 several times in chapter 3[1] but offers no exposition of the passage.[2] I will offer a brief exposition.

In Matt. 12, we are told that “Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat” (Matt. 12:1). The Pharisees replied, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!” (Matt. 12:2). Jesus then offers two examples from the OT; “…David… and those who were with him” (Matt. 12:3) and “the priests in the temple” (Matt. 12:5).[3] Concerning the priests, he says, “Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless?” (Matt. 12:5). Whatever the priests were doing, the Pharisees’ logic implied it was a violation of the Sabbath. Their logic taught that the priests, David, and Christ’s disciples were profaning the Sabbath. But Jesus says the priests “…are blameless” (Matt. 12:5). Then he quotes Hos. 6:6. He says, “But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless” (Matt. 12:7).[4] He pronounces his disciples “guiltless” by referencing two OT examples. In the next section of Matt. 12, the Pharisees ask, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” (Matt. 12:10). Jesus concludes in v. 12, “Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” This clearly teaches that healing on the Sabbath was lawful as was preserving the life of a sheep (vv. 10-12). His disciples ate because eating is necessary to sustain human life. All of these actions, according to Christ, were lawful on the Sabbath according to OT law. Jesus was correcting faulty thinking about the Sabbath by consulting prior revelation.

Someone might want to offer Matt. 12 as an example of Jesus abrogating the Sabbath (cf. Mk. 2:23-28 and Lk. 6:1-11).[5] They might claim that Jesus advocates Sabbath-breaking thereby proving that he was abolishing it. But does this text bear this out? Did Jesus, in fact, advocate Sabbath-breaking during his earthly ministry? We have just examined Matt. 12:1-14 and seen Christ justifying works of necessity and mercy and concluding in v. 12, “Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” The “good” in the context of Matt. 12 involved not only what his disciples did and what he did, but what David and those with him and the old covenant priests did. The supposed violation of the Sabbath in this passage (and others) is actually an upholding of the Sabbath and in accordance with OT revelation. Jesus never advocated Sabbath-breaking during his earthly ministry. Jesus’ teaching upholds existing Sabbath law.

Those who offer this objection may claim that when Jesus says, “But I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple” (v. 6) and “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (v. 8), Jesus is claiming authority to abolish the Sabbath as he abolished the temple. In once sense, Christ did abolish the Sabbath. He abolished it in its various functions under the old covenant. And, in one sense, Christ abolished the temple. He did not, however, abolish the temple in all senses. His church is now God’s temple, where spiritual sacrifices are offered (Eph. 2:19-22; 1 Pt. 2:4-5). What does Jesus mean, when he says, “But I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple” (Mt. 12:6) and “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Matt. 12:8; cf. Mk. 2:28)? Fairbairn offers this explanation:

The Temple, He had said, has claims of service, which it was no proper desecration of the Sabbath, but the reverse, to satisfy; and ‘a greater than the Temple was there.’ ‘The Temple yields to Christ, the Sabbath yields to the Temple, therefore the Sabbath yields to Christ’–so the sentiment is syllogistically expressed by Bengel; but yields, it must be observed, in both cases alike, only for the performance of works not antagonistic, but homogeneous, to its nature. … He is Lord of the Sabbath, and, as such, has a right to order everything concerning it, so as to make it, in the fullest sense, a day of blessing for man–a right, therefore, if He should see fit, to transfer its observance from the last day of the week to the first, that it might be associated with the consummation of His redemptive work, and to make it, in accordance with the impulsive life and energy thereby brought in, more than in the past, a day of active and hallowed employment for the good of men.[6]

Just as the temple yields to Christ and is transformed to fit the redemptive-historical circumstances brought in by his death and resurrection/exaltation, so the Sabbath yields to Christ and is transformed to fit the redemptive-historical circumstances brought in by his death and resurrection/exaltation. The new covenant has both a temple and a Sabbath. This connects Christ’s teaching on the temple and the Sabbath with subsequent revelation.

Instead of Matt. 12 proving that Christ abolished the Sabbath, it actually argues that he upheld it and sought to correct the Pharisees’ faulty interpretation of Sabbath law. Fairbairn says, “Jesus grasped, as usual, the real spirit of the institution; for we are to remember, He is explaining the law of the Sabbath as it then stood, not superseding it by another.”[7] Christ upheld the Sabbath, cleared it of Pharisaic encumbrances, and set the stage for further revelation about it.

This objection assumes that the Sabbath in all senses was temporary, ceremonial law. Ceremonial laws are temporary laws for old covenant Israel and were a shadow of things to come (Col. 2:16-17). They were all abrogated by the coming of Christ and the inauguration of the new covenant (2 Cor. 3:7-18; Gal. 3-4; Eph. 2:14-16; Col. 2:16; and Heb. 8-10 [cf. esp. 8:6-7, 13; 9:9-10, 15; 10:1, 9, 15-18]). If the Sabbath is ceremonial law in all senses, then it has been abrogated. But the Sabbath is not ceremonial law in all senses, as we have seen (cf. Gen. 2:2-3; Ex. 20:8-11; Is. 56:2, 4, 6; and Mk. 2:27). And if Jesus considered it as ceremonial only, one would think he would treat it like he did other ceremonial laws. Beckwith and Stott comment:

But if Jesus regarded the sabbath as purely ceremonial and purely temporary, it is remarkable that he gives so much attention to it in his teaching, and also that in all he teaches about it he never mentions its temporary character. This is even more remarkable when one remembers that he emphasizes the temporary character of other parts of the Old Testament ceremonial–the laws of purity in Mark 7:14-23 and Luke 11:39-41, and the temple (with its sacrifices) in Mark 13:2 and John 4:21. By contrast, …he seems…to speak of the sabbath as one of the unchanging ordinances for all mankind.[8]

Jesus neither abrogated the Sabbath in all senses in his earthly ministry nor did he predict its soon demise. He upheld it and gave evidence that it would continue under his lordship as the Son of Man (Mk. 2:27-28).

We will look at Mk. 2:27-28 in our next post.

[1] I counted 10.

[2] In fact, the book contains little exegesis. Wells cites many texts and makes many observations; but he does little exegesis or exposition of passages. There was much proof-texting surrounded by observations that put the reader in an interpretive strait-jacket. I found his theological-interpretive method not very sound.

[3] Notice that Jesus is referring to previous revelation.

[4] Here is another reference to previous revelation.

[5] I am not assuming Wells does this.

[6] Patrick Fairbairn, The Revelation of Law in Scripture (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 1996), 238.

[7] Fairbairn, Revelation of Law, 237.

[8] Roger T. Beckwith and Wilfrid Stott, This is the Day: The Biblical Doctrine of the Christian Sunday in its Jewish and Early Christian Setting (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1978), 26.

How Should the Books of the OT Be Ordered? Dr. Jim Hamilton

by | May 18, 2011 | Hermeneutics, Historical Theology, New Testament, Old Testament, Systematic Theology

Here is an interesting post by my friend Dr. Jim Hamilton. He asks and answers the question of the order of the OT in light of various, important factors. Read the post here.

The Covenant of Creation

by | May 16, 2011 | Audio/Video, Biblical Theology, Books, Eschatology, Hermeneutics, Historical Theology, New Testament, Old Testament, Systematic Theology

The guys at Reformed Forum discuss the Creation Covenant with Dr. Roland S. Ward. I highly recommend Ward’s book  God & Adam: Reformed Theology and the Creation Covenant. It is a wealth of information on this important issue.

Brief survey of the history of hermeneutics – 9. Middle Ages (II)

by | May 13, 2011 | Hermeneutics, Historical Theology

Four-fold method (quadriga): Of the many things the era of the Middle Ages is known for, one of its most important contributions to biblical interpretation came from John Cassian (circa 360-435). Cassian inherited the theory of the three senses of Scripture from his Patristic predecessors. Origen had developed the three-fold sense of Scripture – the literal (historical or somatic), the tropological (moral or pneumatic), and the allegorical (doctrinal or psychical). Cassian added a fourth – the mystical, analogical or ultimate/eschatological sense.[1] Augustine (circa 354-430) utilized a form of the four-fold method and his book On Christian Doctrine became “the volume which was to be the basic hermeneutical manual of the Middle Ages.”[2]

The medieval quadriga or fourfold pattern of meaning was comprised of the following: the literal or historical, the tropological or moral, the allegorical or doctrinal, and the anagogical or ultimate/eschatological.[3] Muller comments on the quadriga:

 

The carefully enunciated fourfold pattern of the Middle Ages was based upon the association, already made by Augustine and Gregory the Great, between the three Christian virtues, faith (fides…), hope (spes), and love (caritas…), and the meaning of the text of Scripture as it speaks to Christians. The church does not, then, disdain the sensus literalis or sensus historicus, the literal or historical meaning, but learns of it and uses it as the point of departure for searching out the relation of the text to the Christian virtues. When the literal or historical sense includes details concerning human conduct, it bears a lesson for caritas and issues forth in the sensus tropologicus, or tropological meaning. The trope, related to caritas, manifests the Christian agenda…, work to be done. Similarly, the literal sense may include details which point toward Christian faith: thus, the sensus allegoricus, or allegorical meaning, which has reference to fides and to the credenda… or things to be believed, by the church. Finally, the literal sense may point beyond the history it narrates to the future of the church. This is the sensus anagogicus, the anagogical sense, which relates to spes and teaches of speranda…, things to be hoped for. Although this fourfold pattern was subject to abuse and excess, the medieval doctors generally used it in such a way as to find all meanings of a text expressed literally somewhere in Scripture, particularly in the New Testament fulfillment of the Old Testament promises. In addition, the method did not ignore the literal meaning of the text, as sometimes alleged, but used it as the basis for each of the other meanings… The method, moreover, did not demand that all four meanings be found in each text. The quadriga was summed up in the following mnemonic couplet taught in the medieval schools: Litera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria;/moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia (“The letter teaches of deeds, allegory of what is believed;/morality of what is done, anagoge of things to come.”).[4]

Muller goes on to point out that the fourfold method, prior to the Reformation, began to be slowly put aside for a simpler method. What the Reformers and the post-Reformation Protestant (Lutheran and Reformed) orthodox both retained from the fourfold method was its “concern for the direct address of the text to the church…”[5] This is a concern shared with the New Testament itself, the Apostolic Fathers, the Patristics, and all Evangelicals today. This basic concern may be answered in diverse ways, but it follows all Christian interpreters through the ages.

[1] Bray, Biblical Interpretation, 133.

[2] Muller, Dictionary, 254.

[3] Cf. Muller, Dictionary, 254-55; Muller, PRRD, II:469ff.; and Steinmetz, “The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis,” 30ff.

[4] Muller, Dictionary, 254-55.

[5] Muller, Dictionary, 255.

The Importance of Hermeneutics

by | May 11, 2011 | Hermeneutics

The radio speaker that Sunday morning was a successful minister in one of the major Protestant denominations. His text was Acts 5. His topic was “power.” He spoke eloquently of the many ways in which most of us misuse our authority. Parents abuse their children by their negativism. Government leaders show insensitivity to the pains of those in need. We destroy by our criticism when we should build up with our praise.

As he approached the last part of his radio message, the preacher finally came to his text. In the narrative of Acts he found a dramatic example of the misuse of power. Ananias and Sapphira, weak Christians who had just given in to their temptations, were in need of reassurance and upbuilding. The apostle Peter, in an ugly display of arrogance, abused his authority and denounced their conduct with awful threats. Terror consumed each of them in turn, and they died on the spot under Peter’s unbearable invective.[1]

Hopefully all of us shook our heads in unbelief as the misuse of Acts 5 above was read. We can grant that all of us misuse our authority, but we cannot grant that the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 was put there by Luke (and God!) for preachers to expound upon the ugly reality of heavy-handedness.

But how can we be sure that the preacher above got the meaning of the text wrong? The correct answer is that we can be sure he got the text wrong because the text in its context clearly does not indicate that its purpose is to highlight the abuse of authority. In other words, interpreting the text in its context will not bring us to the conclusion of the radio preacher.

Our answer to the question above brings us into the vast world of hermeneutics. Our answer assumed that Bible texts possess meaning. It assumed that the meaning of Bible texts can be known by readers far-removed from the world of the Bible. It assumed that the English language can convey what was originally written in Greek and so on and so forth. This misuse of Acts 5 highlights the importance of hermeneutics. Many other examples could be given to drive home the point – the study of and principles for the interpretation of the Bible are of vast importance.

[1] Moises Silva, “Has the Church Misread the Bible?” in Moises Silva, editor, Foundations of Contemporary Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 17.

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