Different Literary Genres (part 2)

Listen as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of Biblical interpretation in this address from The Gospel Coalition sermon library.

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We’ve got time for a couple of questions before moving on.

Question: Aren’t you guilty of a kind of vicious circularity in that you’re articulating a methodology to interpret Scripture, and as such, in principle, you are elevating a kind of extrabiblical absolute that is being used to filter Scripture; thus, you cannot escape a certain endless subjectivism in this whole matter?

Answer: In part I dealt with that a little last year. I don’t want to go back. The tapes are available. I deal with it a lot more in this book, Christianity and Pluralism. You see, although I would articulate … Incidentally, I have not here articulated a doctrine of the hermeneutics of Scripture, how to interpret Scripture. I really haven’t.

All I’ve done is given some practical points at one level, the nature of certain kinds of demands, but if I was articulating a whole hermeneutic, or even if I was articulating a doctrine of Scripture, supposing I articulated a doctrine of Scripture in order to try to teach Scripture’s infallibility or inerrancy or something like that and I tried to show that is what Scripture says, that is what the historical Jesus actually thought of Scripture.

I tried to make it precise, what is meant by error, and made it as accurate as I could with all the colorful footnotes in. At the end of the day, I would still want to say, “This is a doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture. It is not an inerrant doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture.” In other words, I approach the doctrine of Scripture the same way as I would approach the doctrine of Christ.

At the end of the day I want, in principle, for Christians to be able to challenge what I have articulated about my understanding of the doctrine of Christ from Scripture … from Scripture. Now if, in fact, I have worked it out carefully in line with the whole central tradition of the church and read through and been very careful, it’s unlikely at this point that somebody is going to do something absolutely devastating.

On the other hand, in principle, I want to go back to the primary documents, not least in the doctrine of my primary documents. In exactly the same way, when I start articulating a full-blown doctrine of interpretation, there are a whole lot of factors that are tied into that from Scripture itself.

I’m not saying that my hermeneutics are infallible, certainly not my 11 points. I’m saying that they ought to be correctable in principle. I’m saying that to lock yourself into a position where you can say nothing whatsoever, without being charged with solipsism, is, in fact, an intrinsically impossible position.

Three or four years ago I was teaching in what is called the Theological Consortium in Chicago which brings together graduate-level students from seminaries with different theological backgrounds to do certain courses together where people have different theological perspectives. It’s a bit of a daunting sort of environment. It’s rather interesting.

I was supposed to give my two cents’ worth on hermeneutics, on principles of interpretation, and there were evangelical students there, there were liberal students there, there were Catholic students there, they were all over the map. I rabbited on for 3 or 4 hours about cultural locatedness and deconstruction and where I thought it was right and where I thought it was wrong and all of this.

There was a PhD student, a woman who came from Seabury Western, I think it was, who got up at the end of this 3- or 4-hour presentation and said, “I don’t think you really understand the nature of the positivism into which you’ve fallen. The new hermeneutic is far more subtle than that and raises the kinds of questions that you’re raising now. Anything that you say about it is itself locked into culture so at the end of the day, you’re inevitably saying something locked into culture all the time, and you can’t escape it. You cannot produce a grid that is an infallible extrabiblical one.”

I tried to lay it out again as evenhandedly as I could, and I wasn’t getting anywhere with her. Then in a moment of sheer perversity on my part I said to her, “I think I finally understand what you are saying. You are using irony in order to affirm the objectivity of truth.” Well, she was not impressed. She said, “No, you do not understand what I’m saying. You may even be deliberately twisting it. What I am saying is …”

I listened very respectfully, and then I said, “This is fantastic! To inject real passion into your irony in order to affirm the objectivity of truth is to add something on top that is really most becoming.” She went up in smoke. When she finally came down I laid it on even thicker the third time. She hit the roof, and when she came down, I said, “But that’s how I’m interpreting you.”

In fact, it was perverse on my part because it was not how I was interpreting her. In other words, it was an act in order to make a point, but the point is still valid, even though it was an act. Namely, she expected me to interpret her words in line with her intent, and she was most put out that I was taking her words and divorcing them from authorial intent. A deconstructionist who likes a review of his or her books but fails to understand them. I simply want the same curtesy extended to Paul.

In other words, at the street level, after you’ve got all the theory from Stanley Fish and Derrida and Michel Foucault and all the rest, at the end of the day, they still want their books reviewed in a way that shows that the reviewers have understood them. Now I think you can handle their theories in such a way that you can learn something of the limitations of human knowledge rightly, and still insist in the objectivity of truth, and even to tie texts to authorial intent.

Now I’d be prepared to argue that in the open marketplace of any university. Now if this is a burning issue, I’ll come back to it the last day instead of what we’re going to do on literary forms, although my preference would be literary forms at this point.

Question: What would you say about trying to reconcile the kind of text you get in Exodus 33, “No one can see God and live,” and apparent Christophanies, theophanies, in which people do see God and, quite transparently, do live?

Answer: That’s a good question. In every case (we’ll start with the Old Testament) where someone is said to see God, there are always surrounding limitations. For example, Isaiah 6. “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.” What would Moses have thought of that?

In fact, when you look at it carefully, it says he sees the Lord high and lifted up. Here is Isaiah, in the temple, looking up, and what does he actually see filling the whole thing? Well, the King James Version has “his train filled the temple.” Monarchs in the ancient world didn’t have trains. The Hebrew word can mean either train or hem. What he is seeing is just the hem of the glory of God.

When you get the great vision of Moses, when he pleads in Exodus 33 to see God, that is the context in which God actually says, “No one can see my face and live.” So what does he do? He puts him in a cleft in the rock, and then he is permitted to peep out and see something of the afterglow of the glory of the Lord.

In the great vision of Ezekiel in the first chapter, how does it end up in verse 28? “This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.” When you get to the great vision of John in Revelation 4 and 5, the vision of a transcendent God in chapter 4 … He sees something. It’s someone seated on a throne whose appearance is like jasper and carnelian and emerald, and a rainbow is encircling things. It’s all heavily metaphorized.

I think that is what you’re getting constantly. In fact, I will argue tomorrow that even when John in the first chapter of his gospel actually says, “The Word became flesh and we have seen his glory, the glory as the only begotten, full of grace and truth,” he’s actually referring back, quoting, Exodus 33–34.

The end of that section, John 1:18, ends, “No one has seen God at any time.” But, it says, he was in the bosom of the Father … That is, Jesus, the Son of God before he became a human being. He was in the bosom of the Father, he who is at the same time God, he has now exegeted him, he has manifested him.

Even the disclosure of God in Jesus Christ in the days of his flesh is still shy of the final glory of the visio Dei, of the vision of God at the end. That is why 1 John can then say, “We do not see him yet, but we shall see him as he is, and we shall be like him.” So it seems to me that there are steps in this self-disclosure of God, and the high point, up to this point, has been God’s self-disclosure in Jesus Christ, his glorification, not least on the cross.

But ultimately we will see the glorified Christ ourselves, and we ourselves will be transformed. So I don’t think there is an inconsistency there. It seems to me that this kind of talk where it moves into the “Yes, we have seen God” language is always constrained in some ways with metaphors or the like.

Now what we’re going to do is look at a whole variety of passages, in the New Testament to begin with and then from that perspective back to the Old, in which the point of the exercise will be gradually to build up an array of passages from which we may infer some principles of New Testament interpretation of the Old and how to go about building biblical theology.

We’re going to look at a selection of passages and build up an array of information that will enable us to make a start toward biblical theology. Let’s begin with Matthew, chapter 5, verses 17 and following, part of the Sermon on the Mount. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Now the critical passage for our purpose is verses 17–18. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” What does that mean? In the light of the influence of Thomas Aquinas, to which I’ve already referred, and the threefold division of law, it has become common to read the text this way.

This is the way, for example, John Stott takes it in his generally excellent little book, Christian Counter-Culture: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount. He argues this way, “ ‘I have not come to abolish but to fulfill’ can really only apply to the moral law.” He says, “Jesus comes along and fulfills the moral law by obeying it and, in fact, intensifies it.

If the old law says, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ Jesus shows that what it’s really saying is you shall not lust. If the old law says, ‘You shall not commit murder,’ Jesus is saying, ‘Its real point, its real intent, is you shall not hate.’ Thus, he’s referring only to the moral law, and what Jesus is doing by ‘fulfilling’ it is not only keeping it, but intensifying it.”

That is more or less a staple in most Protestant interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount. With respect I have some doubts about it. I think that it is partly right. I think it gets there by leaving out a step that is rather important.

First, the text does not say, “I have to come not to abolish but to fulfill the moral law.” It says, “the Law,” the Law and the Prophets, in fact, which is a Jewish way of saying all of Scripture. Verse 18 seems to be approximately as comprehensive as you can get. “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear …” That means until the very end of the age (we haven’t gotten there yet) “… not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”

It doesn’t say, “… not the least stroke of a pen, not the smallest letter from the moral law …” In other words, on the face of it, this is an extremely comprehensive inclusion. There are two until statements. One is “until heaven and earth disappear.” (Verse 18) That is, until the very end of the age. And then there is another until. Namely, “until everything is accomplished.”

The assumption seems to be that what is in the Law and the Prophets will continue in full force until the things of which it speaks are accomplished, one by one, until the very end of the age. But that views Law and Prophets as intrinsically prophetic. That, I would want to argue, is precisely what is suggested by the verb to fulfill. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” What does to fulfill mean?

Well, if you look merely for an antithesis to abolish, then you want fulfil to mean to maintain. “I have not come to abolish the Law; I have come not to abolish but to maintain.” You’re looking for an antithesis for abolish. Or maybe even intensify, but it is not what the text says. The verb to fulfill in the New Testament usually, and in Matthew always (it is one of his more popular verbs), without exception, refers to prediction from the past that is now eschatologically fulfilled. It now comes about. There is some sort of prophecy; now there is fulfillment.

So in other words, the text is not saying, “I have not come to abolish but to maintain,” nor is it saying, “I have not come to abolish but to show the intensive meaning thereof”; it is saying, “I have not come to abolish but to be and show that to which it points, that to which it points eschatologically, that to which it points down the pike.” There is a salvation-historical element in the whole thing. Both law and prophecy is seen as announcing things, and what it announces, I am saying, is now here. “I’ve come to fulfill it.”

Now if that is correct, what difference does it make to your reading, then, of the rest of chapter 5? The so-called antitheses. “You have heard that it was said … but I say unto you.” What does it mean, then, to say that these things are fulfilled? What it means is that Jesus is insisting on a reading of the Law and the Prophets which says in effect that besides whatever legal force the law has it has a prophetic function. It is looking to the future. It is announcing something. And now Jesus says, “What it announces, what it predicts, I am bringing to fulfillment.”

Consider then, what is said about murder. Let us put it this way. Will there be signs in the new heaven and the new earth that say, “You shall not murder.” Well, it’s a slightly graphic way, a tendentious way of asking the question, but it’s a way of asking, “Will such laws be necessary in the new heaven and the new earth?”

I would want to argue, “No, they won’t.” Does that mean, then, that we will be permitted to go out and kill? No, it does not. Well, what precisely is meant? Well, in the new heaven and the new earth we’ll be so transformed that any thought of killing won’t even enter our minds. There won’t even be any hate. We’ll have reached perfection in the new heaven and the new earth. There won’t be this kind of rivalry and one-upmanship.

In a sense, therefore, God’s laws in the Old Testament are designed to announce, to look forward to, to predict, what will finally be. What will finally be is not simply a state in which there is no murder. The laws that actually say no murder anticipate, look forward to an ultimate situation in which there is no hate.

Now Jesus is saying that eschatological arrival is already dawning … now. What takes place now is that this vision of the ultimate state is already dawning. The kingdom is already coming … now. Oh, it’s not here in perfection. Jesus has not come, the consummation has not arrived, but it is all ready to start operating.

Now, if you think that is pushing the text too hard (I don’t think it is; I don’t myself see how you can Matthew’s use of verbs any other way), I would like to show you a passage in Matthew 11 where, again, I think the same sort of vision of reality is presupposed. Matthew, chapter 11. This is the famous passage in which John the Baptist is questioning whether Jesus is the promised Messiah. Let’s just run through. We’re heading for verse 13, but the context is strikingly important.

John the Baptist is in prison, and he hears what the Christ was doing … the article is there … what the Messiah was doing. Matthew is reminding his reader that, after all, the one he is questioning is none less than the Messiah. So he sends his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Jesus, in verses 4–6, replies with what Jesus is doing, but he replies using biblical language. The language describes what Jesus is doing, but it self-consciously alludes to two chapters of Isaiah, and in both cases, Jesus self-consciously leaves something out.

The first passage is Isaiah 35:5–6. “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.” But, what Jesus leaves out is, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”

The other passage that Jesus is quite clearly alluding to is from Isaiah 61. “He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor …” Do you hear that? “Release from darkness for the prisoners, freedom for the captive …”

But what he has left out is, “… and the day of vengeance of our God …” John the Baptist’s problem was that he had announced a Messiah who was to come who would not only bring in great blessings, but one who would also winnow the field. He was the one who was going to baptize his people with spirit and fire, and his winnowing fork was in his hand. He was going to thoroughly thresh the grain, separate the wheat and the chaff, and now what does he hear of Jesus?

Well, he is doing all these fine things. He is healing people and he is exorcising demons and he is preaching the gospel, but judgment? He doesn’t even judge Herod and get John the Baptist, his forerunner, out of the Macherus prison. “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”

And when Jesus replies, he says in effect, “Look, the eschatological blessings, the blessings that were announced by Isaiah, have already dawned. You can see that. The judgments, I’m not mentioning them yet, but …” Verse 6. “… blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” In other words, he is saying in effect that the blessings are dawning, the judgment is not here yet, don’t quit. Hang in there.” Now as John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus begins to ask the crowd about John.

“Do you really think that John is a quitter? What do you expect from this man?” “What did you go to the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind?” Fickle? No, no, he was a stalwart. “If not, then what did you go to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? Someone who is posh? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces.” The knife comes out. Herod is being pricked. He is the one who has him in prison. “Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.”

How is John the Baptist more than a prophet? “This is the one about whom it is written, ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ ” John the Baptist is not only a prophet, he is the one about whom certain prophecies have been articulated. He is the one who will serve as the immediate forerunner to the Messiah. He is the one who prepares the way of the Lord and actually points Jesus out, and then, Jesus says, “I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist.”

In other words, John the Baptist is greater than David. He is greater than Abraham. He is greater than Solomon. He is greater than Enoch who walked with God. He is greater than Isaiah, greater than Jeremiah. Why? In this context he is greater for one reason only: he pointed Jesus out most immediately. Oh, there’s a sense in which Jeremiah pointed him out, but 600 years in advance by some prophecies. He didn’t actually point him out and say, “There is the one.” John the Baptist did that.

Then the text says, “Yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” Ahh … For that comparison to make any sense, John the Baptist is not in the kingdom of heaven. “But the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John.” Now the logic demands, then, that if you’re in the kingdom of heaven today, you’re greater than John, and if you’re greater than John, you’re greater than David and Abraham and Isaiah and Jeremiah.

Why? It’s not just a question of privilege, because that would shatter the nature of the comparison. The comparison between John the Baptist and those who came before him must be maintained in the comparison between the John the Baptist and those who come after him. Otherwise, the comparison is moot. You’re dealing with incommensurables.

Why, then, is John the Baptist greater than the ones who came before? Because he points out Christ most immediately. We’ve seen that. That is worked out in the quotation from Malachi. Why, then, is the least in the kingdom greater than John? Because, brothers and sisters, even the least in the kingdom can point Jesus out today more clearly than John the Baptist could.

We live this side of the cross. John didn’t live long enough. We live this side of Pentecost. John didn’t live long enough. For us Christ immediately means not only conquering King but crucified servant. It means that. John never did get that one under his belt. The least in the kingdom can point Jesus out more promptly, more holistically, more richly today, the least in the kingdom. You can’t be a Christian without coming to grips with those things. So the least in the kingdom.

Moreover, that implies that our greatness on this axis turns on the immense privilege of being able to point Jesus out. Isn’t that wonderful? Now it also says something about Jesus’ self-consciousness of who he is. Supposing I got up at one of the Bible expositions that David Jackman is chairing, and he introduced me, and I got up and said, “I tell you the truth; David Jackman is the greatest man who ever lived because he introduced me.”

It’s so stupid it’s laughable, but Jesus says it with a straight face. In other words, it is not laughable in Jesus’ case if you grant that his self-consciousness is precisely that he knows who he is. He is one with God. He is the promised Messiah. Therefore, those who introduce him are on the most important plane of history, doing the most important things.

The Roman Empire may come and go. The Babylonian Empire may come and go. This is the King of Kings, and John the Baptist introduced him. Now the least in the kingdom is introducing him even more clearly than John the Baptist did. That makes you and me great. But not great in any way whereby we can afford pomposity. It is shatteringly humbling to be given the privilege of introducing Jesus more clearly than the great prophet Isaiah could, but that is what has befallen us.

Now then, all this to come to my point. Verse 12 is very difficult. I need not go through it. Then he says, “For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John.” There it is again. Not the Prophets prophesy and the Law legislates, the Prophets and the Law prophesy. There is an assumption that both Prophets and Law, the whole Scripture, exercises prophetic function.

Now you and I are already more or less familiar with that notion from the so-called ceremonial law, are we not? Do we not say that the sacrificial system of the Old Testament is prophetic of the sacrifice of Christ? Do we not say that? We read the epistle to the Hebrews and see prophetic nuances in all kinds of things, things that are said to be just a shadow of the things to come. I think Jesus is insisting something more.

The whole law, break it down how you will … moral, civil, ceremonial … has a prophetic function. It all looks forward to something in different ways. I would want to argue that we call today the ceremonial law (I’m not accepting the category except heuristically) looks forward to the final antitype, the sacrifice, par excellence. That is the whole argument of the epistle to the Hebrews. Jesus himself is the priest. Jesus himself is the temple. Jesus himself is the Most Holy Place. Jesus himself is the veil that is ripped. Do you see?

Then at the same time, the so-called civil law bound up with the nation looks forward, nevertheless, to the constitution of a new people, now not the kingdom of David but the kingdom of God. I would want to argue, too, that on front after front it is prophetic, expecting certain relationships to take place.

What we call heuristically the moral law also looks forward to something. It looks forward to the perfection of the new heaven and the new earth. That is what it looks forward to. So Jesus is not simply intensifying something at a logical level, at an abstract level. He is insisting that the antecedent revelation has an announcing function, a prophetic function, and that which it is announcing is now already arriving in him.

Now the effect is still to intensify things, but that intervening step of history, redemptive history, of announcing that the law does have this prophetic function, turns out to be extremely important in how you put your Bible together. So I want to look at that element for a few more minutes before we then turn to other matters and start to build up a biblical theology.

Turn, if you will, to Galatians, chapter 3. We won’t follow the whole passage. This is a passage that is trying to get the readers at Galatia to understand that Christians are not bound by the Mosaic covenant. In verse 6, Paul begins with Abraham. Consider him. The text is quoted from Genesis 15:6. “[He] ‘believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness.’ ”

Then we read, “Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.” That is, they are in the same line of conduct; it’s what children often means. Verse 8: “Scripture foresaw …” That is a time category: the Scripture saw in advance. Scripture standing metaphorically for God himself, God in Scripture. “… that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”

In other words, what takes place in Abraham is bound up with God’s foreseeing in Scripture what will ultimately take place in the mission to the Gentiles. Well, then the question becomes, “Why, then, is the law added?” Well, when you add together all the passages about why the law was given in the New Testament, it’s a complex subject indeed, but in this particular section, listen to the language of time again.

Verse 17: “What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God [with Abraham] and thus do away with the promise.” It doesn’t do that. Now that was written because in Paul’s day, many conservative Jews understood the law this way: The law was not only a body of written and oral tradition that you were supposed to obey; it was a hermeneutical control. That is, it controlled all of your interpretation. The devout conservative Jew in Paul’s day, in Jesus’ day, would ask questions such as these.

“How do you please God?”

“By obeying the Law.”

“How does Abraham please God?”

“Abraham must have had a private revelation of the law, because the way you please God is by obeying the law. Abraham pleased God. The text actually says he was a friend of God, so he must have had a private revelation.”

“How does Enoch please God?”

“Enoch must have had a private revelation of the law.”

Why do they have to say this? The reason they have to say this is because they believe that the only way to please God is, in fact, by conforming themselves to the law of Moses, and historically, since this came much later than either Enoch or Abraham, it was necessary to raise the law to the status of hermeneutical control. Do you see that?

What Paul does, then, is come along and says, “No. You’re interpreting your whole Bible wrongly because you are reading it at a flat level. You’re reading it at an atemporal level. You have elevated law to the point that it becomes the hermeneutical grid. It controls the whole discussion.

You start saying the only way you can please God, whether before the law was given or after the law was given or during the time the law was given or any other time, is still to obey that law. But read your Bible. It has to be read in salvation-historical sequence.” Then he says, “Before Abraham received the law, before the law was given, he walked by faith and was justified.”

So then, why was the law given? What does the law do? Well, he says a whole lot of things about that, and then he says (verse 17), “The law, introduced 430 years later, can’t set aside the covenant of promise.” It can’t do it! The promise is still good. Moreover, “For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise.”

In other words, if the inheritance of the great gospel message that comes to us in Jesus Christ finally depends on obeying the law, then it isn’t so tied to the promise. The law isn’t a promise. Now this is a similar argument to what Paul uses in Romans 4 with respect to circumcision. When is Abraham justified by faith? After he is circumcised or before he is circumcised? Do you hear the time categories of before and after?

One of the important things that Christians had to do when they were evangelizing Jews in the first century was to make sense of what we call the Old Testament. They didn’t have the New Testament in the first instance. They were just preparing it. They were just writing it. So what they had to do was to say, “Look, the reason you haven’t come to grips with who Jesus is, is in the first instance because you are improperly understanding the Old Testament Scriptures.”

One of the most fundamental categories that Christians got in at that point was this one: You are not understanding the salvation-historical categories. The law cannot be elevated to the level of hermeneutical control. Now we have misunderstood this passage sometimes in another way in Galatians 3. We make it atemporal in another way.

Many a great preacher has taken this passage and said, “In our experience, first the law comes to us and we feel the weight of our guilt and our sin and our shame, and then Jesus comes to us.” So now the text is dehistoricized and individually psychologized. Do you see? Now I would want to argue there is some truth to that, but I would base it on other passages, not this one, because this passage is not interested in the individual psychology. “The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ individually.” That is not what the text says.

The categories of the text are across centuries. It’s trying to help people to understand the historical salvation developments as God discloses himself progressively across the ages. What is the preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ? Well, there is promise with Abraham before the law comes, and then the law comes, and it has certain functions, it multiplies guilt and exposes our shame. But it also has prophetic functions. It announces certain things we’ll look at more tomorrow.

Then ultimately comes the great payoff, that which the Law and Prophets have been announcing in various ways all along: Jesus and his gospel. If you don’t see the Old Testament written that way you’re not going to see how the links are finally tied to Jesus. The links are not atemporal, merely logical. The links are bound up with models that are predictive.

Now all I’ve done so far in this discussion is introduce the categories of redemptive history, of time, of sequence and the insistence of the New Testament writers again and again and again that the proper reading of the Old Testament is utterly tied to development, to sequence, to before and after, to prophecy.

We’re going to look at some more of those tomorrow in Luke-Acts, in Hebrews, and in John, just a few of them, and then we’ll try to tie this thing together into a larger biblical theology framework that will, I hope, do two things.

First, it will answer some of the questions from the first day on how we read the Old Testament laws; but second, I would like it also to help preachers think through how to preach the Old Testament and get to Jesus legitimately, how to help Christian readers read the Old Testament and get to Jesus legitimately, not with some sort of abstract arbitrariness that is pious but historically improper and theologically undisciplined.