Red-letter Christians

This is part of an ongoing debate over at the blog of Peter Enns. Shepherd is a graduate of WTS, a classmate of Enns, and an OT prof. at Taylor Seminary. 

Jerry Shepherd KA Crosby • 

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K. A., of course, the problem here is that you are cherry-picking the life and teachings of Christ. The crucifixion of Christ is one very important act of self-disclosure. But according to that very same Christ, he will one day return as Judge in great power and glory with all his holy angels and put down all opposition to his reign, and that will be the ultimate disclosure. According to that very same Jesus, the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 was God's action of vengeance against for centuries of murdering the prophets, culminating in the murder of Jesus Christ himself (Matthew 24:34-36). So your suggestion is not an option for Christianity. At best, it is an option for a new version of Christianity which has decided that it will follow the teachings of Christ, but only if those teachings agree with the ideology of the new version's creators.

Jerry Shepherd KA Crosby • 

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K. A., my point here is just to show, and your reply demonstrates this, that those who protest so strenuously that Christ is going to be their hermeneutical criterion, usually don't mean that. What they mean is, "Christ is going to be my hermeneutical criterion, as long as the things he says agree with what I think." There are a whole lot of so-called "red-letter Christians" who use the "red-letter" verses in the Gospels to use as an evaluation tool for the rest of the Bible, and then, as it turns out, they actually don't like all the red-letter verses either. I am highly skeptical, therefore, of this attempt to separate "the voice of the man from the Word in scripture." It becomes way too subjective an enterprise.
Additionally, the idea of evil simply reaping its own punishment, though certainly true in a kind of proverbial sense in the Wisdom literature, is not what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 24. That passage, as well as many other passages, show God actively executing wrath against his enemies.

Jerry Shepherd Bev Mitchell • 

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Bev, while this suggestion is made from time to time, the majority of commentaries do not take Boyd's interpretive slant here. Boyd's understanding is more wishful than exegetical. The picture in Rev 19 is a wholistic scene, rather than a necessarily chronological one. The imagery which is brought forward from the OT, as well as the details in the text itself, argue against the idea that this is Christ's own blood. When you take Rev 18 and 19 together, this is nothing but the destruction of the enemies of the God and of the people of god. Babylon falls. A double portion of the atrocities she has committed are now returned upon her. God will repay her as much torture and grief as she has dished out. She will be plagued by death, mourning, and famine. Babylon is overthrown by violence. The rider on the white horse strikes down the nations. He judges and makes war. He rules over the nations with an iron scepter. Bird are invited to come and eat the flesh of the enemies he has conquered. The blood on the robe is blood of the enemies whom the rider slays as he treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God.

Crucicentrism and cruciformity are tremendously important concepts in the NT. But they do not negate the other portraits of wrath being poured out on the wicked.

Jerry Shepherd Bev Mitchell • 

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(1) Yes, Christianity must be crucicentric and cruciform at its very heart. The cross reveals who God is. At the same time, the cross does not exhaustively reveal who God is. So, for example, while on the one hand the cross is a revelation of God's love for his enemies (Luke 23:34; Romans 5:8); Jesus also indicates that the Father's response to those who spurned God's gift of his Son would not be a very pleasant one (Matt 21:33-44). Taken together with other passages such as the one I mentioned in a previous post (Matt 23:34-36), it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 was regarded by the early Christians, and prophesied by Jesus himself, to be the judgment of God on a nation that over the centuries had killed the prophets, and now had killed God's own Son. Despite Christ's prayer of forgiveness on the cross, that prayer was not answered in the affirmative for every single person, or even most persons. And God still brought judgment on the nation for what they had done to his Son. So I just note here that the discussion regarding the cross as revelation of the character of God needs additional nuancing to catch the full picture.
(2) In response to your request, I'll put my cards on the table and say that I believe the Scriptures are the infallible word of God. But they are also at each and every point humans words as well. Because they are humans words, there will be a certain level of accommodation in God's revelation of himself through those human words. I don't want to get caught up in any discussion of inerrancy with regard to all matters historical, scientific, etc. But I do insist that the revelation of God given us in inspired and holy Scripture should be regarded as theologically and morally infallible and inerrant. What God says about himself in the OT is trustworthy and true. And Jesus did not come for the purpose of correcting that revelation.

(3) I do not believe the Holy Spirit's role in exegesis is to help us understand the text, or to give us additional data that would in some way turn the light on and cause us to exclaim, "that's what it means." Rather, his role is to cause us to accept the truth of the text, to be convicted by it, and spiritually transformed by it. Some scholars would frame it this way: the Spirit's role is not cognitive but affective. The Spirit does not explain the text to us. That only comes about by hard exegetical work. But the Spirit does convict us of the truth of the text and the need to incorporate that truth into our own lives.