I’m going to comment on several posts, beginning here:
As interesting as his post about “The Meaning of Meaning” is (btw, note the unavoidable equivocation: “meaning” in the first instance must be tacitly understood by the reader, but “meaning” in the second instance is in question. This is one ‘restriction’ of language), it is an unnecessary rabbit-trail.
To isolate and identify the locus of meaning is hardly a rabbit trail when Henebury hangs his position on the “plain sense” or “face value” meaning of the text.
As it is, I agree with nearly all of the post but I think it avoids the real issue, which, remember, is “Does the NT Reinterpret the New?” All I have from Steve thus far is “No, it ‘recapitulates’ it.”
I haven’t said the NT recapitulates the OT. Rather, I’ve documented examples of recapitulation within the OT.
Doesn’t this strongly imply that the OT was not really for them, but for us?” I want to avoid this. I am uneasy, therefore, when Steve Hays says (my underlining):
For prophecies and promises have future referents. We must therefore distinguish between the meaning of the prophecy/promise and the future rewards or events to which they refer.
Henenbury’s reaction suggest to me that he failed to register the Fregean distinction between sense and reference, even though I explained that.
I believe that “the meaning of the prophecy” must be derived from the words and grammar employed in the situation in which they are used (just as in this correspondence or in any normal communication.
In that event, if a prophecy is situated in ancient warfare, then the future event which realizes the prophecy must revert to ancient military technology.
If he advocates a typology then how does that line up according to this statement? (my emphasis):
That’s only a problem if Henebury assumes that the original audience couldn’t grasp typology.
This is doubly true when an oath is involved (see Jer. 34-35). My purpose in citing Psa. 105, Jer. 33 (cf. Ezek. 36-37; 40-48; Zech. 6 & 14) was to show how a covenant made earlier was interpreted at face-value by later authors (and by God Himself).
Henebury needs to avoid resorting to hermeneutical shortcuts like “face-valuing” meaning. Grammatico-historical exegesis isn’t equivalent to “face-value” meaning.
In the context of his remark (4. Audiencial Meaning, viii) Steve is referring to Deut. 28 which is very appropriate, since the blessings as well as the cursings in that chapter were aimed at the Israelites present and Israelites thereafter. There is no typology. Was the Church in view? No! The Church is not in danger of cursing.
I didn’t use that to illustrate typology. Rather, I used that to illustrate the importance of audiencial meaning.
One of his passages was Isa. 11:12-16. Verse 15 says,
And the LORD will utterly destroy
the tongue of the Sea of Egypt,
and will wave his hand over the River
with his scorching breath,
and strike it into seven channels,
and he will lead people across in sandals.
This reads like a future coming out of Egypt to me!
i) Really? Does Henebury think that in the future, the Jews will once more be slaves in Egypt? Will God repeat the plagues? Parting the red sea? Lead them through the wilderness?
ii) In context, the oppressor is Assyrian rather than Egyptian. At this time in her history (during the reign of Ahaz), Israel was under the yoke of Assyria rather than Egypt (e.g. Isa 10:5,24; 11:16). That’s what she will be delivered from.
Moving along:
Plain to anyone not wanting convert a temple blueprint into the Body of Christ! Here I might quote from I. Duguid’s Commentary on Ezekiel, where he admits that a competent architect could build Ezekiel’s Temple, though he would need “a consecrated imagination to supply the many details that are lacking, most notably the height dimensions and construction materials”, and there would need to be radical topographical changes in the land also (479). Any reader of Zechariah 6 and 14 will have no trouble with dismissing Duguid’s objections.
i) A floor plan is not a blueprint.
ii) Appealing to Zech 6 & 14 merely relocates the same issue. Zechariah is a book full of obscure symbolism. So obscure that Zechariah needs angelic commentators to interpret the symbolism. So there’s no presumption that we should take the imagery in Zech 6 & 14 at “face-value.”
They didn’t see the Church in their Hebrew Testament, but they did know that Ezekiel’s Temple would be rebuilt when Messiah came to bless Israel.
That simply pushes the question back a step. When did they think Messiah would come? At the end of the church age? Or would they construe exilic oracles as having their fulfillment in the postexilic period?
As I have said, they believed these events would occur with the coming of the Messiah. They still do. The emphasis on Messiah in the OT is not His first coming (crucial as that was), but on His coming in power to set up His earthly kingdom reign in Jerusalem. Dispensationalists have always agreed with the basic correctness of ancient Jewish expectations about the rebuilding of the temple and the kingdom restored to Israel. I don’t see the problem here.
Steve goes on in this vein but I don’t see the matter of time lapse as an interpretative problem.
The time lapse is a problem internal to Henebury’s own hermeneutic when you compare this statement with his criteria for plain-sense meaning:
My main concern in the “40 Reasons” was God’s intention. Second to that is the inspired author. As both are benign communicators, the assumption is that they wanted their first hearers to grasp their intentions. If that were not the case we could not say “truth” was being aimed at. Therefore, there could be no meaning. Of course, if they needed the NT…..
What I was trying to get across was; if the NT is needed to decipher the OT; or if Hays’s example of the land-promise was a type of something or other, then the meaning of the communication was not aimed at the original hearers of the prophet.
i) If Henebury indexes meaning to what it meant to the first hearers or original audience, then their expectations are, by his own definition, highly relevant to the correct interpretation. If they understood the fulfillment as taking place when Jews returned to Israel after the Babylonian exile–or even before the exile (depending on the date of a given oracle), then that’s at odds with postponing the fulfillment to the end of the church age.
ii) Of course, if we think the land-promises are inherently emblematic, then that’s not a problem.
Moving along:
First, if the church is specific to the NT, but there is one people of God in both Testaments, then we cannot call that one people of God by the name “church.” That puts paid to common appeals to Acts 7 and the church being in the OT.
Henebury is committing the word-concept fallacy. The presence of a concept doesn’t depend on a technical term (the “church”) to denote said concept.
Second, if we cannot call the one people of God by the name “church” what shall we call it?
I already answered that question: the covenant community.
Third, if the church is a NT phenomenon (as I believe it is) then those saved in the OT are not in the church…
He’s trading on the same semantic fallacy. The “church” is a NT phenomenon in the sense that the new covenant community has certain new covenantal distinctives, in contrast to the old covenant community.
…and are thus separate from it (creating two peoples of God).
The one people of God under different covenants. For instance, Gentiles could convert to Judaism in OT times. They weren’t ethnic Jews, yet they belonged to the old covenant community.
If not, then surely it is okay to call the one people of God “the church.”
I don’t mind calling the old covenant community the “OT church” or members of the "church," depending on how we define our terms.
Finally, the Westminster Larger Catechism does speak of “the church in all ages” (Answer to Q. 43), and makes it clear by referencing Jn. 1:1, 4 and 2 Pet. 1:21 that the term refers to OT saints.
i) That’s fine if you’re using “church” as a synonym for covenant community.
ii) Catechisms engage in prooftextual shortcuts. But we need to make allowance for the limitations of the genre. It’s a statement of faith, not a defense of the stated faith. A catechism gives theological conclusions without much supporting argument. It can’t do the work of Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology.
First century Jewish proselytes were not considered full Jews, and I’m sure Cornelius would not have considered himself an Israelite. When he was saved he became a Gentile Christian, not a Jewish Christian. But this is beside the point.
Henebury is seizing on the noun (“Jewish”) while disregarding my adjective “(religious).” I said “religiously Jewish.” Why does Henebury ignore my qualified usage?
Cornelius was a worshipper of the true God–the God of Israel. Cornelius believed in the OT scriptures.
But are we living in the time of the fulfillment of, say, Jer. 30-33, or Isa. 61:2bff., or Ezek. 36-48, or Zech. 12-14? I do not think so. Although I cannot stop to demonstrate it further, these passages all hinge on the Second Advent. Steve believes he is “living in the time of fulfillment” because of the way he is interpreting the NT and reading typological “fulfillment” back into the Old.
Several problems:
i) It’s difficult to have a constructive conversation with a conspiracy theorist. Henebury constantly suspects that I’m really reinterpreting the OT through the lens of the NT. No amount of correction or explanation on my part disabuses him of his suspicions. It gets to be a bit paranoid.
ii) There are OT and NT prophecies which remain outstanding.
iii) However, that hardly means the first coming of Christ doesn’t count as a fulfillment of many OT themes. This is not all-or-nothing.
What we have, rather, is inaugurated eschatology.
iv) A promise, threat, or prophecy involves a relation between past and future. In the nature of the case, those living in or after the fulfillment are in a better position to recognize the referent than those living before the fulfillment.
That’s not reinterpreting the promise, threat, or prophecy.
v) Henebury’s objection may also go back to his failure to absorb the Fregean distinction between sense and reference.
An event is not a word or image (or set of words). An event is an extratextual referent. The event exists outside the text. The text doesn’t give us the referent qua event. The text can only give us a verbal descriptor. Only time can give us the referent qua event.
But the covenants were made with Israel, not with a recapitulation of Israel in another form. Yes, Israel is a faithless son. That is why they need grace!
I’m alluding to things like the Exodus typology in Mt 2-4, where the life of Christ recapitulates the life of Israel–but with some crucial differences. And that’s consistent with a type/antitype relation, where the antitype is superior to the type.
Perhaps Hays will clarify. It might help if he told me if the redeemed of OT Israel were/are “in Christ”?
Elect OT Jews were “in Christ.”
I have had cause to cite Richard Hess’s words about Jewish expectations for Ezekiel’s Temple before. Here it is again:
“In terms of the future and the Messiah, Routledge views things from an amillennial context. Everything prophecied in the future was symbolized and fulfilled in Jesus.
i) Amillennialism is hardly equivalent to preterism.
ii) It also depends on how you gloss the notion of fulfilled “in Christ.” For instance, if a covenant theologian is using the rubric of union with Christ, then what’s fulfilled in Christ isn’t confined to Christ. Rather, those in union with Christ (e.g. elect Jews and Gentiles) are the beneficiaries.
But it is the same place! It is not somewhere else. The land “changed” over the two millennia from Abraham to Christ, but it was still the same place.
But that’s equivocal. Suppose a realtor had inside knowledge that a river valley was going to be dammed. He sold scenic, riverfront properties at top dollar.
Of course, once the dam is built, the properties will be permanently submerged. The river will back up behind the dam, forming a lake.
Are the riverfront properties the same place? They have the same address, but they ceased to be on the riverbank. They are now under water. Worthless. Wouldn’t the realtor be guilty of fraud?
Further, according to Zech. 14:4f., there will be massive topographical changes in the land when Christ returns, but it will still be Israel!
On Henebury’s dispensational interpretation. Others demur.
Moving along:
The redemption of Israel will take place at the Second Coming (Zech. 12:10 – please pay attention to the repetition of the phrase “in that day” in Zech. 12-14).
This is a perfect instance of how Henebury suddenly abandons his own hermeneutical principles:
i) Zech 12:10 doesn’t distinguish between Messiah’s First Coming and his Second Coming. Henebury didn’t get that from the “plain sense” or “face-valuing” meaning of the verse.
ii) That’s not how the “first hearers” heard the text. The postexilic community was in no position to distinguish between Messiah’s First Coming and his Second Coming, or assign Zech 12:10 to the Second Coming.
The reason for the Edenic portrayal is because it will actually occur. Why should we believe otherwise? Do we not have clear covenant predictions of this very thing elsewhere?
i) Eden was located somewhere in Mesopotamia (Gen 2:10-14), not Palestine. When, therefore, the Promised Land is depicted as a new Eden, that’s a different territorial referent.
ii) There’s also the question of how the original audience would understand passages like Isa 65-66. Would the first hearers really hear it the way Henebury does? Or would they view that as an idealized description of the postexilic return to Israel?
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