« December 2007 | Main | June 2009 »
January 21, 2009
Bible Study Today (continued, part 2)
[This is a continuation of the immediately prior blog entry. I ran out of space.]
3. Christian Apocalyptic Theology
"Christian apocalyptic" can mean a couple things. It can refer to the fire and brimstone preaching we still hear today in fundamentalist churches across the US. Such preaching is almost wholly ignorant of Jewish theological developments prior to and contemporaneous with the time of Christ. It has many valid perspectives because it is based on a reading of the New Testament, but it is focused on getting to heaven and on canceling out personal sin by accepting Jesus as a personal savior.
What I want to discuss when using the term "Christian apocalyptic theology" is the body of ideas of 1st Century Christians which modified and restated the tenets of Jewish apocalyptic thinking. Virtually all of the earliest Christians were Jewish. They were well aware of Jewish apocalyptic theology. Christ preached and taught a message they understood as a continuation of Jewish thinking. As with Jewish thinking, the focus was on what God was doing and was about to do in this world, within the flow of history.
Matthew and Mark are the earliest of the four gospels and seem to have been written to ethnically Jewish communities. What Jesus taught, as recounted in these gospels, gets us closest to what Jesus actually taught and the perspective he actually had. In order to understand these gospels it is necessary to be have some understanding of Jewish apocalyptic theology.
a. History
The first difference between Jewish and Christian apocalyptic ideas is in the historical time line. Jews expected one cataclysmic event when God would intervene in history, with great power. Perhaps everything would happen instantly, or perhaps the messiah would take a few years to conquer all enemies, but from the long perspective of history it would be one event, over quickly, with God and His agent holding absolute power.
Jesus Christ and the writers of the gospels and epistles saw two events, the inauguration of the kingdom with Jesus' ministry then a later event when the reign of God would be established with great temporal power, in obvious domination of all the earth. This second event, which Christians call the second coming, would be very much like what the Jews expected. The initial coming of the messiah was something new, unexpected and hard to understand.
The duration of the interval between the two was also hard to understand. During his ministry the disciples expected Jesus to establish the kingdom with great temporal power at any time. The disciples then expected the kingdom to be established with great temporal power right after the resurrection (Acts 1:6). Jesus' response was that it was not for them to know the time. The early church expected Christ's return at any time. The words of the early church in the New Testament are the basis of many a sermon today asserting we are in the last days, and the Lord's return is immanent. In fact we just don't know God's schedule.
b. Implications
This two step process for establishing the reign of God in this world is key to understanding the difference between Jewish and New Testament theology.
The launch of Jesus' ministry occurs when he is baptized by John, and at the same time is anointed by the Holy Spirit, which descends on him "like a dove" (Matthew 3:13-17). This is in dramatic contrast to the Jewish expectation. The Holy Spirit was expected to descend on the whole world with fire, destruction, and great power. The power that was imparted to Jesus was used for good, to heal, to free people from spiritual oppression, and to meet their deepest needs. It was gentle and operated by persuasion rather than compulsion.
Jesus traveled around preaching about the reign of God, in an effort to persuade and enlighten people rather than overpower them. This first coming was utterly different from the Jewish apocalyptic expectation. It was about drawing people to God rather than subjugating them. The fight was not on the battlefield but in people's hearts and minds.
The spread of the rule of God would happen gradually rather than in some global war. Jesus attempted to explain this difference by many parables about the kingdom, such as analogies to mustard seeds or leaven, where the kingdom would start slowly, grow in ways hardly perceived, but eventually be very great. Evidently God wants a whole lot more people to enter His kingdom than the number of believing Jews who lived at Jesus' time. That's why it's taking so long.
The preaching, healing, miracles and exorcisms were his public ministry. But Jesus also had a personal challenge. The very first thing that happened after he was anointed by the Holy Spirit was that he was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. To understand what that's about we must go back to the garden of Eden, the starting point for any apocalyptic time line.
Chapter 1 of Genesis shows how God created an orderly world that was very good, and that had a specific hierarchy with humans at the top, exercising dominion in the image of God. Genesis chapters 2 and 3 are the story of Adam and Eve. By God's design He was at the top of the hierarchy and Adam and Eve had to obey Him. They did not and the blessings of Eden were lost.
Jesus' personal ministry / personal challenge was, as a "second Adam" or "final Adam" to live his entire life in accordance with God's original design for His creation, always placing the father's will above his own, even in the most dire circumstances. That challenge is what the crucifixion was primarily about. If Jesus could place the Father's will above his own in all circumstances - and he did - he would be righteous. God's design would be operational. Jesus would have eternal life and all authority. Just as God originally created things and Adam and Eve originally lived, Jesus would exercise power and dominion over all creation.
Since the Jewish apocalyptics taught us about the spirit dimension, we know it too is part of creation and Jesus rules over the spirit dimension as well.
Jesus fulfilled his private and public ministries. Now we who voluntarily follow him can taste this Eden-like existence, but only get a taste because of our weakness and the continued existence of forces of evil. In the future, at the second coming when Jesus utterly vanquishes evil, then we too will be able to live righteously and live in the manner God originally designed.
c. The spirit dimension
Jewish apocalyptics perceived a host of evil spirits to be active in the world, yet the Jews were focused on the visible and concrete. Spirits were often behind the evil men did, but politics, nationalism, partisanship and the establishment of a temporal kingdom were the Jews' concern. Christians accepted the Jewish perspective of a spiritual dimension to reality but regarded it as primary, the dimension where the most important battles were fought. As the Apostle Paul says, "For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil..." (Ephesians 6:12).
Following the resurrection Christians understood Jesus to be fully human and a spiritual being as well, able to function effectively in both dimensions. This is not the same thing as being both God and man; Adam and Eve, if they had never sinned, would have been quite similar. Jesus is in heaven now because God's timetable has us in this interim period with the kingdom expanding but the forces of evil still active. In heaven Jesus reigns without any opposition, as God's designee. The early Christians would have thought of Jesus as a Davidic king functioning in the spirit dimension but, for the time being, not in the temporal (except where people follow him voluntarily).
At this stage for us, the key battleground is our own heart and mind. The greatest challenge is for us to place God's will above our own and above whatever the forces of evil may try to deceive us with. This is the battle Jesus won in his first appearance on earth. Now his ultimate triumph is inevitable, and eventually we will be like him.
d. Metaphors
Like the Jews, Christians searched the scriptures for ways to describe the messiah and his work. Because the coming of Christ was sui generis, unique, they could not explicitly describe it in direct language. A number of metaphors were used, many of which but not all had already been used by the Jewish thinkers.
Christians used the idea of a prophet like Moses only greater. I don't recall direct statements in the New Testament to this effect but it is an underlying theme of the gospel of Matthew.
"Son of God" to the Jews was a reference to a (human) king of Israel descended from David. This is counter-intuitive but please see my blog entry on Mark 1:1-11 which explains the Old Testament basis. Christians used the phrase in two ways, firstly as the Jews did to refer to a Davidic king, but secondly in the literal sense that the Holy Spirit made Mary pregnant. This can be a source of confusion, for example in the first few verses of Romans (Rom 1:4) Paul says the resurrection had the effect of declaring Jesus Christ son of God with power. People sometimes ask why Paul had not heard of the nativity stories. Paul was referring to the affirmation of Jesus as a mighty king.
The kingdom metaphor was the one Jesus used in his teaching. It is consistent with Jewish apocalyptic theology. The Greek word for kingdom can also be translated reign, so while "kingdom" is a metaphor perhaps bringing to mind England with its royal family, or other earthly kings, "reign" accurately describes proper relationships, with God as supreme and Jesus as his agent. For the first (ethnically Jewish) Christians the metaphor related directly to the Davidic dynasty, but it was projected beyond the temporal to function in the spiritual dimensions (and in heaven) as well.
Son of man is another phrase with a couple of meanings. To knowledgeable Jews it was a reference to Daniel 7, where a being with the appearance of a man would come down from heaven to act as God's agent. How could the messiah be both a heavenly being and a human king? Also in the local vernacular son of man just meant a person, a human male. It was almost self-deprecating when Jesus referred to himself that way. But toward the end of his ministry Jesus told the disciples that he was the son of man prophesied in Daniel (see Mark 13:24-27). Jesus delivered the same message to the high priest at his trial (Mark 14:61-62). Here the Christian historical time line comes into play; Jesus was referring to his second coming, in the future.
A metaphor for the messiah Christians used but Jews did not (or if they ever did they stopped after Jesus) was suffering servant. Isaiah prophesied about the suffering servant in chapters 42, 49, 50, and 52-53. It is consistent with the personal ministry Jesus had at his first coming, suffering in order to prove his righteousness and his worthiness to receive power.
e. Perspective
The picture that emerges from a comparison of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic theology is interesting. God has acted to intervene in history, to restore His original design for creation, but with a two step process. According to the design vast numbers of us will (eventually) live an Eden-like existence, as part of creation, with all our needs provided, not dying, and always putting God's will above our own.
In the first step Jesus proved that he was righteous and that he was worthy. As a result he was raised from the dead, has eternal life, and he was crowned king. Jesus lives and reigns, seated at the right hand of God. He reigns in heaven but on earth only over those who voluntarily follow him. Christians have adopted the Jewish idea of a Davidic king as son of God. Jesus, the son of God, is a man. He is human, but he is Adam-like (before the Fall) in the sense that he has eternal life and power and dominion. So we worship one God and like the monotheistic Jews we regard the king as God's agent to whom allegiance is due. The difference is the king, for the time being, is seated in heaven rather than on a throne on earth.
In his earthly ministry Jesus inaugurated this kingdom by voluntarily drawing people to him, a process which continues today. Being part of the Kingdom of God is a matter of believing Jesus lives and reigns, and giving him your allegiance.
At the second coming Jesus will exercise great power, vanquish evil, and change creation so it will be Eden-like, and we will live as God originally intended.
A note of caution is needed at this point. The third approach to scripture requires us to take each book of the New Testament on its own, not assuming they all express the same theology. This "kingdom theology" was probably what Jesus was thinking, as well as the authors of Matthew and Mark. Luke and Paul knew, understood and generally agreed with it but both targeted gentiles in their ministries, so Luke focused on the peace, blessings and goodness of the kingdom, and Paul focused on Jesus as Lord. The gospel of John, written a two or three generations after the crucifixion, specifically declines to use the kingdom metaphor for its message (John 3:1-6).
Hebrews - and I'd really like to take a good course on Hebrews - appears to by written for an audience of Hellenized Jews, perhaps in Alexandria, in any event outside the Holy Land. It appears to mix Jewish cultic symbols with a platonic perspective. So the value of insights gained from an understanding of apocalyptic theology diminishes when the book you are studying is decades after Christ, or the audience differs culturally from Jews living in the Holy Land.
IV. Conclusion
20th Century developments in scholarship enable us to read the Bible with much greater understanding than before. Advances in our understanding of what is going on in the New Testament texts themselves, advances in understanding of human language and communication, a new awareness of the spirit dimension to reality, and an appreciation of the Jewish intellectual context in which Jesus preached and the New Testament books were written, all give us a fresh approach to scripture with much greater insight. We are able to get much closer to what Jesus taught and what the early church perceived.
If we wish to base our theology solely on scripture - something Protestants claim to do when they are in fact very much wedded to tradition - then we need to reevaluate our established concepts, creeds and doctrines.
Posted by rob at 08:49 AM | Comments (0)