The Upper Register Blog

Everyone agrees that systematic theology must be rooted in Scripture. The whole point of systematic theology is to say, “This is what the whole Bible teaches about a given topic” (John Frame’s definition). Therefore, by its very nature, systematic theology must be engaged in exegesis. It is also engaged in the process of taking the results of exegesis of various passages and trying to see how they fit into a coherent pattern.

The problem is that a lot of systematic theologians are poor exegetes. Frequently, they appeal to proof-texts taken out of context to “prove” a doctrinal point which they already believe to be true.

What is needed is for systematic theologians to become better exegetes. This is where biblical theology comes in. For what are the first three rules of good exegesis?  Context, context, context. And what is the ultimate context of any given passage?  The historical unfolding of the kingdom of God, from creation, to fall, to the promises, to the fulfillment of the promises in Christ, both already and not-yet. In other words, the key to good exegesis, and therefore to good systematic theology, is biblical theology.

Furthermore, biblical theology is the key to understanding the Christological unity of Scripture. This is probably the number one difficulty that systematic theology faces. It is easy to fit passages into a preconceived logical system. It is much harder to figure out the Bible’s own system. Biblical theology helps us to see the Bible’s own system, which is not a timeless set of propositions (although it includes many), but the self-revelation of God in Christ. The Bible’s system is the unfolding drama of the kingdom of God, with the Son of God made flesh, crucified and risen, revealed in all his glory at the center of the stage.

Therefore, to be a good systematic theologian, one must be a Christ-centered biblical theologian.

For more on this, see my paper Biblical and Systematic Theology: A Digest of Reformed Opinion on Their Proper Relationship.

D. A. Carson has some very helpful insights on the necessity of interpreting the words of Jesus in light of the narrative context of the Gospels. Commenting on Red-Letter Christians (Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis, Brian McLaren, et al) Carson writes the following:

Their actual grasp of what the red letter words of Jesus are actually saying in context far too frequently leaves a great deal to be desired; more particularly, to read the words of Jesus and emphasize them apart from the narrative framework of each of the canonical gospels, in which the plot-line takes the reader to Jesus’ redeeming death and resurrection, not only has the result of down-playing Jesus’ death and resurrection, but regularly fails to see how the red-letter words of Jesus point to and unpack the significance of his impending crosswork. In other words, it is not only Paul who says that Jesus’ cross and resurrection constitute matters “of first importance” (1 Cor 15:3), and not only Paul who was resolved to know nothing among the Corinthians except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2:1–5), but the shape of the narrative in each canonical gospel says the same thing. In each case the narrative rushes toward the cross and resurrection; the cross and resurrection are the climax. So to interpret the narrative, including the red-letter words of Jesus, apart from the climax to which they are rushing, is necessarily a distortion of the canonical gospels themselves.

[In “The SBJT Forum” section of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 12 (Spring 2008)]

Carson’s words remind me of a famous quote by the German theologian Martin Kähler near the end of the 19th century. He said that the Gospel of Mark is “a passion narrative with an extended introduction,” an apt description that could be applied equally to the other three Gospels.

HT: Between Two Worlds

Doug Moo has made many of his articles available in PDF format. The following were especially influential for me in developing my view of the law (in conjunction with the covenantal insights of Meredith Kline and T. David Gordon):

“Law,” “Works of the Law” and Legalism in Paul (1983)

Jesus and the Authority of the Mosaic Law (1984)

Paul and the Law in the Last Ten Years (1987)

And especially: 

The Law of Moses and the Law of Christ (1988)

The Law of Christ as the Fulfillment of the Law of Moses (1993) - this one is from the Zondervan five views book The Law, the Gospel, and the Modern Christian - Moo’s interaction with Bahnsen is definitely instructive.

HT: Matt Morgan

First, from the progressive Catholic or Anglican world (not sure which). This is hilarious. It’s a YouTube showing some pretty bizarre liturgical innovations. The giant puppet heads are the best!

Now from the mainline Presbyterians. The PC(USA) had a recent judicial case in which their highest judicial committee ruled that the Rev. Jane Spahr committed no offence by performing multiple same-sex ceremonies. The reasoning was that the PC(USA)’s constitution defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Since these were not marriages, Spahr did not violate the constitution. Gruntled Center comments:

Suppose you brought your baby to your pastor to be baptized. Before the church and all the world, your pastor splashed your infant with water from the font and pronounced “I baptize thee in the name of Moloch, Baal, and Asherah.” The dumbfounded church brings disciplinary charges against the minister. Then, in the end, the GAPJC rules that your pastor committed no error in baptizing your baby, because baptism as defined in church law is done in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In my previous post, I said that the charges were false. It might be good to spell out what the charge was: 

The Presbytery of Southern California of The Orthodox Presbyterian Church charges you, the Rev. C. Lee Irons, with violating your ordination vows by teaching, contrary to the Scriptures and the Westminster Standards, that the Decalogue is no longer binding on believers as the standard of holy living.

I always freely admitted that I taught that “the Decalogue is no longer binding on believers as the standard of holy living.” I stated this on page 2 of my paper. The part that isn’t true is the claim that by teaching this I violated my vow of subscription to the Westminster Standards. Why not? Because I don’t believe the Westminster Standards teach that the Decalogue is the standard. It teaches that the moral law is the standard, and that the moral law is summarily comprehended in the Decalogue but not equivalent to it. The opening paragraphs of WCF XIX do come close to equating the Decalogue and the moral law, and so I take exception to that implication in the Confession, but not to the teaching of the Confession as a whole that the moral law is binding on us in Christ. For example, I fully and unreservedly endorse WCF XIX:5, which is arguably the most important paragraph in the chapter on the law of God:

The moral law doth forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that, not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator, who gave it. Neither doth Christ, in the gospel, any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation.

Now it may seem strange or shocking to say that the Decalogue per se is no longer binding. But on further reflection this shouldn’t be surprising. The Decalogue was the central, summarizing core of the Old Covenant, and therefore it cannot be the immediate standard of conduct for the New Covenant people of God. If it was, we would be required to observe the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week (as the fourth commandment teaches:  “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God” (Exod 20:9-10). 

If the Decalogue per se, as given to Israel on Mt. Sinai and recorded on tablets of stone, were the immediate standard of conduct for the New Covenant people of God, then we must all move to modern day Israel so that our obedient children can live long in the land that the LORD our God is giving us (the fifth commandment). But even if we did move to Israel, the reality of common grace and common curse suggests that, in reality, our obedient children would have the same percentages of sickness and death as the children of unbelievers.

If the Decalogue per se, as given to Israel on Mt. Sinai and recorded on tablets of stone, were the immediate standard of conduct for the New Covenant people of God, then the church is potentially under the theocratic covenant curses attached to the second and third commandments, thus putting the church under a covenant of works and denying the finality of Christ’s work of becoming a curse in our place (Gal 3:13). 

I heard some men in the OPC say, “Well, all of these changes you’re talking about, that’s just window dressing.” I beg to differ. It is no small matter whether the moral law comes to us as in an Old Covenant administration as a covenant of works or in a New Covenant adminstration as part of the covenant of grace, from the hand of Moses or from the hand of Christ. No, this is not “window dressing.” This issue gets to the heart of the New Covenant ethic, of grace-motivated living in light of the fundamental, life-changing reality of our union with the crucified and risen Christ.

The charge that the Presbytery found me guilty of states that I am in sin because I won’t affirm what they want me to affirm, namely, that the Decalogue, the Mosaic Law, is directly binding on the new covenant people of God apart from the changes that have taken place when taken up and delivered to us in the hand of Christ. Of course, I repeat, these are changes that have been made to the Decalogue, not changes to the moral law. The moral law has not changed, but the Decalogue was a particular covenantal enshrinement of the moral law given in a form suited to Israel’s theocratic context in the land.

The Presbytery (which, it should be noted, was Greg Bahnsen’s former Presbytery) ruled against the “law-in-the-hand-of-Christ” view that was taught by an earlier generation of Reformed theologians like Samuel Bolton, the Marrowmen, Thomas Boston, et al. Reformed theology has always recognized this as a legitimate strand of teaching on the third use of the law. For example, Ernest Kevan in The Grace of Law (Baker, 1965), pp. 186-87, writes:

Although the historical fact of The Marrow controversy suggests that many at that time thought that the author was an Antinomian, the perspective of later years acquits him of such a charge … Provided the pitfalls of Antinomianism on the one side and of Neonomianism on the other be avoided, the conception of the Law “in the hands of Christ” is unexceptionable. It implies no change in the demands of the Law, nor in the obligation of the believer to recognize its binding authority, but signifies a different administration of it, with a different and deeper motive than is found outside of the experience of Christ.

As Kevan says, the view that the moral law is given in the hands of Christ is “unexceptionable” and “implies no change in the demands of the Law [i.e., the moral law] … but signifies a different administration of it, with a different and deeper motive than is found outside of the experience of Christ.”

(I added the words in brackets. Obviously, if Kevan were referring to the Mosaic Law as a whole or even to the Decalogue his statement that the Marrow view implies “no change” would be incorrect.  Everyone admits that there have been changes to the Mosaic Law, e.g., the ceremonial laws are abrogated. And I would argue that in the hands of Christ, there are also important redemptive-historical changes to the Decalogue, e.g., the Sabbath has changed, possibly even abrogated as Kline argued in his last book; the promise of long life in the land of Canaan was modified by Paul in Eph 6:3; and the sanctions attached to the second and third commandments have been fulfilled by Christ’s having become a curse for us, leaving no curses to threaten us.)

On my main site, I provide full documentation about my trial if you’d like to know more.

There is a stream within the Reformed tradition which holds that the believer is not bound to the moral law as given by Moses but as taken up, renewed, and handed to us in Christ. It was for holding this view that I was disciplined by the OPC. (For more information on my judicial case, read my paper defending myself against their false charges.) I have even heard that some in the OPC still consider me to be an “unrepentant offender.” I cannot imagine ever repenting of this glorious doctrine. If I must be labeled an “unrepentant offender,” I am glad to bear the reproach of Christ.

To put it very simply, the issue is this: the Mosaic Covenant is not the covenant under which we as Christians stand. Although all (let me repeat:  all) of the moral teaching of the Old Covenant continues over into the New, it comes to believers in a new covenantal context, mediated by Christ himself. The authority has changed — not Moses but Christ. The covenantal motivation has changed — not a covenant of works, “Do this and live” (Lev 18:5), but a covenant of grace with its indicatives and imperatives. None of the moral stipulations has changed, but they have been deepened and intensified in Christ – see the Sermon on the Mount and John 13:34.

Anyway, here are some Reformed theologians who would apparently be regarded as “unrepentant offenders” by the OPC were they alive today.

Samuel Bolton, The True Bounds of Christian Freedom (Edinburgh: the Banner of Truth Trust, 1994), p. 57:

We are freed from the law, as given by Moses, and are only tied to the obedience of it, as it is given in Christ: and though … we are subject to those commands and that law which Moses gave, yet not as he gave it, but as Christ renews it, and as it comes out of His hand and from His authority: “A new commandment I give you, that ye love one another” (John 13:34).

Edward Fisher, The Marrow of Modern Divinity with notes by Thomas Boston (1645; repr., Edmonton, Canada:  Still Waters Revival Books, 1991), pp. 173-75:

Seeing that you are now in Christ, beware that you receive not the ten commandments at the hand of God out of Christ, nor yet at the hands of Moses, but only at the hands of Christ; and so shall you be sure to receive them as the law of Christ.

Thomas Boston comments at this point:

The receiving of the ten commandments at the hands of Christ, is here opposed, (1) To receiving them at the hands of God out of Christ. (2) To receiving them at the hands of Moses, namely, as our Lawgiver … The first is a receiving them immediately from God, without a Mediator; and so receiving them as the law of works … The former manner of receiving them is not agreeable to the state of real believers, since they never were, nor are given in that manner to believers in Christ … The latter is not agreeable to the state of New Testament believers, since the true Mediator is come … However, the not receiving of Moses as the lawgiver of the christian church, carries no prejudice to the honour of that faithful servant.

John Colquhoun, A Treatise on the Law and the Gospel (1819; repr., Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1999), pp. 26-27:

This law issues to true Christians from Christ, the glorious Mediator of the New Covenant, and from God their Creator, Proprietor, Benefactor, and covenant God. It proceeds immediately from Jesus Christ, the blessed Mediator between God and men. It is taken in under the covenant of grace, and, in the hand of Christ, the Mediator of that covenant, it is given to all who believe in Him, and who are justified by faith, as the only rule of their obedience. The Apostle Paul accordingly calls it ‘the law of Christ’ (Galatians 6:2).

I’m glad to join the ranks of such godly, Christ-centered men, even if it is costly to do so.

I’ve added my Greek Syntax Notes for John. Or, if you want to navigate there, click here and scroll down to “Greek New Testament” where you can also find the notes for Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 

Chad Bresson has a good post on the Law of Christ and its relationship to the Mosaic Law and the Decalogue in particular. He argues that both dispensationalists and theonomists have gotten it wrong. Dispensationalists and theonomists follow hermeneutical rules of thumb that are the mirror image of one another. Dispensationalists say, “If it’s not repeated in the NT, it’s no longer binding.” Theonomists say, “Unless it’s explicitly repealed in the NT, it’s still binding.” Both are wrong. We must trace the progress of redemptive revelation as we move from the old covenant through its fulfillment in Christ into the new covenant. As a result, there is both organic continuity and redemptive historical change, but the focus is on the centrality of Christ and our union with him. It really is all about Christ!

Going directly to the Old Testament to find out how we are supposed to live (or even understand the scriptures) without consideration of the radical nature of Christ’s intrusion into time and space and its impact on both the indicative and imperative of the OT creates all sorts of problems and is fundamental to *legalism* (Paul deals with this specifically in Gal. 3-4 and Col. 2) …

The law does not come through Christ’s fulfillment unaltered. There is a new form and new substance. Christ himself is now The New Torah, The Law applied to the hearts of New Covenant members as the Holy Spirit on hearts of flesh. ALL 10 “words” have been transformed by the One who kept the law perfectly and died to it. New Covenant members are not under the law, but under the law of Christ (the antithetical contrast drawn in 1 Corinthians 9:21.) That means the application to the New Covenant believer is not the Mosaic law, though the shadowy Mosaic law may inform the application. The application is the law of Christ (because the Law *is* Christ). The parallel in contrast between “through Moses” and “through Christ” in John 1:17 is unmistakable. Christ is the one who is presented as the New Covenant and New Torah. To be united to Christ is to be united to the law of Christ or Christ, the law. As the Holy Spirit unites us to Christ, it is also he who united us to the law of Christ or Christ, the law. Because of our union in Christ through the Spirit, the Holy Spirit *functions* as the law written on our hearts.

Thanks, Chad. (Note that he uses the following labels:  NCT = New Covenant Theology; CT = Covenant Theology, or at least its popular form as seen, e.g., in theonomy.)

It significant, I think, that none of the church fathers (Greek or Latin) interpreted “the righteousness of God” in Rom 1:17 (and parallels) in Hebraic/relational terms as if it had something to do with ”God’s covenant faithfulness.” This is not to say that the church fathers were as clear on justification by faith alone as we would have wished, or that they held what would later be known as the Reformational understanding of justification. Even the best of the church fathers (e.g., Augustine in his anti-Pelagian writings) did not make the sharp distinction between justification and sanctification that would later characterize the Reformation’s central insight. 

Nevertheless, as Ben Witherington (BW3) points out in his socio-rhetorical commentary on Romans (p. 54 note 15), “the righteousness of God” in the church fathers was never understood as a “cipher” for some grand concept like “God’s covenant faithfulness,” but was interpreted (in keeping with the context in which Paul uses the phrase) as “the basis of a believer’s right-standing and so ‘justification’ as well.” Here are three important quotes that show this:

Chrysostom, Homily # 17 on Romans (on 10:3):  “But this he calls God’s righteousness, that from faith, because it comes entirely from grace from above, and because men are justified in this case, not by labors, but by the gift of God” (NPNF, First Series, vol. 11, p. 472).

Ambrosiaster, in his commentary on Romans (on 1:17):  “Paul says this because the righteousness of God is revealed in the one who believes, whether Jew or Greek. He calls it ‘the righteousness of God’ because God freely justifies the ungodly by faith, without the works of the law, just as he says elsewhere: ‘That I may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.’ He says that this same righteousness is revealed in the gospel when God grants faith to man, through which he may be justified … The righteousness is of God because what he promised, he gave.” From Romans, ed. Gerald Bray (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture; IVP, 1998), p. 31. 

(For more on Ambrosiaster, see Bray’s article in Reading Romans Through the Centuries, ed. by Greenman and Larsen [Brazos, 2005]. Ambrosiaster was a 4th century Latin writer living in Rome, probably a presbyter, who wrote a commentary on all the epistles of Paul. His actual name is unknown, but since his works were incorrectly attributed to Ambrose, he is called “Ambrosiaster” to distinguish him from Ambrose. Bray considers him to be one of the most important, though unfortunately neglected, ecclesiastical writers of this period.)

Augustine, commenting on Rom 3:21:  “He does not say, the righteousness of man, or the righteousness of his own will, but the ‘righteousness of God,’ – not that whereby He is Himself righteous, but that with which He endows man when He justifies the ungodly” (On the Spirit and the Letter; NPNF, First Series, vol. 5, p. 89). (This is the same statement that helped Luther break out of the medieval understanding of iustitia Dei as if it were nothing other than God’s iustitia distributiva, that is, the attribute of divine righteousness in accordance with which he rewards the good and punishes the wicked.)

The Cremer/Dunn/Wright view that the phrase is actually a “cipher” (to use BW3’s term) for God’s saving covenant faithfulness is radically new. It never occurred to anyone until Cremer’s book, first published in 1899. Those who were closest to the culture, language, and worldview of Paul’s milieu, i.e., the church fathers (especially the Greek-speaking fathers like Chrysostom), readily understood his references to “the righteousness of God” in a sense that was consistent with the ordinary meanings associated with the Greek word δικαιοσύνη rather than in some esoteric Hebraic/relational sense that bears no relationship to what the word actually means in Greek.

There is a perfectly good word for “faithfulness” in Greek (pistotes) but that is not the word Paul used. He used the word δικαιοσύνη and immediately followed it up with the word δίκαιος (Rom 1:17b) as an adjective describing the believer in the Hab 2:4 quotation (”He who is righteous by faith shall live”). By this means, Paul made it clear - as the church fathers rightly understood - that the righteousness of God is a righteousness that comes from God, is bestowed on believers, and is received by faith. 

In addition to some of the thoughts in my previous post, I hope in my dissertation to address the NPP from the angle of lexical semantics. This has to do with the role of the LXX in mediating a Hebraic meaning to the ΔΙΚ-group in Paul. While I do recognize some influence, particularly in the verb δικαιόω, I’m more skeptical of the sort of argument that is expressed, for example, in the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters:

“The Hellenistic idea of righteousness as a virtue, a meeting of the norm, was replaced with the idea of meeting God’s claim in this covenant relationship … Thus the semantic range for dikaios in LXX Greek was enlarged due to the influence of the Hebrew background.” (DPL, 830)

To begin with, I doubt that such a sharp contrast can be made between the Hellenistic or Greek idea of righteousness and the Hebrew, covenantal background. I agree with James Barr’s criticism of this sort of approach which makes such a strong dichotomy between Greek and Hebrew thought, especially when used to make lexical judgments. (See also Martin Hengel on the degree to which Palestinian Judaism in the first century was Hellenized.) One of the things that has struck me as odd about Dunn and Wright is that they seem to make sweeping lexical statements about the meanings of δικαιόω and δικαιοσύνη as if Barr had never written his critique of the Cremer/Kittel approach to lexicography.

I doubt that the influence of the Hebrew on Paul’s usage of the ΔΙΚ-group is as substantial as it is often made out to be. Of course, some lexical items of Paul’s Greek vocabulary do show evidence of strong Hebraic influence, mediated by the LXX. The evidence is sufficient in some cases that we can rightly speak either of strong calques (i.e., as David Hill calls them, “Greek words with Hebrew meanings,” e.g., nomos) or soft calques (i.e., Greek words with Greek meanings but containing clear allusions to OT referents, e.g., hilasterion). But I’m not sure that the ΔΙΚ-group can be classified as either.

One criterion that contemporary scholars working in the area of LXX lexicography (e.g., John A. L. Lee, Albert Pietersma, and Cameron Boyd-Taylor) have developed recently is that a calque can only be determined to be such if it is used with a Hebrew meaning in Jewish literature composed in Greek (in other words, not merely in translation literature like the LXX). Thus, I plan to check the writings of Josephus, Philo, 2-4 Maccabees, the Wisdom of Solomon, Joseph and Aseneth, Pseudo-Phocylides, etc., to see whether the ΔΙΚ-group is used in a so-called Hebraic/relational sense. Cameron Boyd-Taylor, for example, argues that “the only unassailable evidence for a calque will come from non-translational documents” (”Calque-culations: Loanwords and the Lexicon,” BIOSCS 38 [2005]: 90). Albert Pietersma also delivered a very helpful paper at the 2007 SBL in San Diego on this issue titled “Context is King in Septuagint Lexicography - Or is It?”