Which Is Better?

 

When reading Scripture, when preaching and teaching, which is better? To ask, “Is this passage true?” Or to ask, “How is this truth manifested? How do we see this truth working out in our lives? How do we see Jesus Christ? How do we respond in obedience to this passage?”

 

The disciple of Jesus Christ receives the testimony of God, and the Holy Spirit bears witness to God’s testimony, God’s Word. We are the sons and daughters of God our Father, Jesus Christ is our brother, the Holy Spirit lives within us – the Trinity lives within us and we live within the Trinity; ought we not to learn to speak and listen and respond to the Word as partakers of the Divine Nature?

 

Do I sit in judgment on the Word of God, or do I bow before His Word?

 

If I sit in judgment on one aspect of God’s Word, then do I not sit in judgment on all aspects of His Word…and do I not teach others to do so?

 

If I seek validation of His Word from the wisdom of man, even from the wisdom of “Christian man,” in one aspect of His Testimony (such as the Resurrection), do I not seek validation from the wisdom of man for all aspects of His Testimony? Am I not modeling this way of validation for others?

 

This is not to say that we do not share our testimonies regarding our pilgrimage in His Word, our voyages of discovery, our challenges, and the transforming work of the Spirit within us; but this is not the same as asking the Church, “Is this Scripture passage true?” and then looking to testimony outside the Bible for validation.

 

To accept God’s Testimony as our ground of being is to live in the koinonia of the Holy Trinity. Accepting His Testimony we can then query, “How do we see His Word manifesting itself in our lives, in the Body of Christ, in history?” Accepting His Word, we can then teach and demonstrate how His Word is expressed within us, the Church, the world, and creation.

 

This goes to the heart of epistemology, and the essence of Biblical epistemology is supernatural (1 Cor. 1:17 – 2:16), with its ground in the Trinity (John chapters 13 – 17).

 

Do we teach our people to sit in judgment on the Word, or to sit under the Word and to respond in obedience to the Word? Do we teach our people to seek validation from the wisdom of men, whether regenerate or unregenerate men? (1 Cor. 2:5).

 

There is a vital difference between asking, “Is this Bible passage true?” and then seeking the answer outside the Testimony of God (the Bible); and receiving the Bible passage as True, as God’s Testimony, and then acknowledging the witness of others to the Truth, demonstrating how the Living Word works within others to the glory of Christ.

 

For the Christian, seeking validation of the Bible outside the Bible may be akin to, “Having begun in the Spirit, are you now seeking perfection through the flesh, the natural?”

 

 

What Do We See and How Do We See It?

 

Augustin’s Psalms is the third book I’d take with me on a desert island, the Bible and Chronicles of Narnia being the other two.

 

“Therefore here also let us perceive the Lord’s Passion, and let there speak to us Christ, Head and Body. So always, or nearly always, let us hear the words of Christ from the Psalm, as that we look not only upon that Head, the one mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus…But let us think of Christ, Head and whole Body, a sort of entire Man. For to us it is said, “But you are the Body of Christ and members,” by the Apostle Paul. If therefore He is Head, we Body; whole Christ is Head and Body. For sometimes you find words which do not suit the Head, and unless you shall have attached them to the Body, your understanding will waver; again you find words which are proper for the Body, and Christ nevertheless is speaking. In that place we must have no fear lest a man be mistaken; for quickly he proceeds to adapt to the Head, that which he sees is not proper for the Body….” Augustin, Psalm 59 (2). NPNF (Hendrickson).

 

If our epistemology is wrong, our interpretation will be be wrong or limited – we will not see the fulness of Christ. (1 Cor. 1:17 – 2:16; John 16:12 – 15).

 

The exegesis of Jesus (if we can use such a term with regard to Him) is that of seeing Himself and His Body in the Scriptures (Luke 24:25 – 27; 44 – 46; John 5:39).

 

The Old Testament exegesis of the writers of the New Testament befuddle us when we apply our natural interpretive methods to their vision of Christ and His Body, the Church, the Temple, and the Eschaton – for they are looking for Christ and doing so in the koinonia of the Trinity. Their koinonia with God is inextricably linked with understanding Scripture, and so it must be with us (1 John 1:3). To teach exegesis and Biblical interpretation apart from holy living and devotion to Christ and His People is a thing to be avoided. Who may ascend in Biblical interpretation, in seeing Christ? See Psalm 15.

 

Patristic exegesis is Christological – always looking for Christ.

 

New Testament exegesis is Christological – always looking for Christ.

 

Jesus’s exegesis (if we can speak this way) is Christological – always seeing Himself and His Body.

 

How might this challenge us?