Category — Exegetical

Psalm 20
May He remember all your meal offerings
And find your burnt offering acceptable! — 3

The burnt offering was a substitutionary sacrifice. “…he shall offer it at the doorway of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the LORD. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, that it may be accepted for him to make atonement on his behalf”.— Leviticus 1:3b-4

Jesus was the acceptable substitution, the unblemished Lamb of God. By standing in the place of those condemned in Adam, Christ has propitiated the necessary wrath of God — “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins”. — 1 John 2:2. There is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

We will sing for joy over your victory,
And in the name of our God we will set up our banners.
May the LORD fulfill all your petitions. — 5

The crucifixion, seen by the devil and his seed as the victory of darkness, was instead the end of darkness, of death and slavery to sin. As the Apostle Paul wrote: “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross”. — Colossians 2:15

Now I know that the LORD saves His anointed;
He will answer him from His holy heaven
With the saving strength of His right hand. — 6

The anointed is, first, David, who is a type of the Christ who is to come. It is also, by extension, all those who are included in Christ, having been purchased with His blood.

“Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives”. — Hebrews 2:14-15

They have bowed down and fallen,
But we have risen and stood upright. — 8

The Lord was raised from the dead, and now sits at the right hand of the Father. His enemies have been vanquished. Death has been killed. “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” — 1 John 3:8

Maranatha! O’ Lord, come!

Psalm 19:2-3 contains what appears at first glance to be a contradiction.
Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words;
Their voice is not heard.

The challenge is to clear up the apparent contradiction, while still maintaining the dialectic that is built into the poem — one which some translations try and flatten out with the non-existent qualifier “where” in verse 2. The language may seem paradoxical, but it is here that something special is found.

If verse 2 is understood as the denial of a kind of speech, that is the logo-centric type, the contradictory tension is lifted. In this regard, there is silence. The kind of speech which is the creational order is understood in a naive sense, as an immediate, intuitive knowledge that transcends the νοῦς. In this regard, it does pour forth speech, but not the kind heard by the ears or understood by our analytical powers.

The content of this kind of talk is found in verse 1:

The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.

The content is the same — albeit the mode of transmission as well the receptor are different — and no less articulate and meaningful than the written Word.

“Now our very eyes and the Law of Nature teach us that God exists and that He is the Efficient and Maintaining Cause of all things: our eyes, because they fall on visible objects, and see them in beautiful stability and progress, immovably moving and revolving if I may so say; natural Law, because through these visible things and their order, it reasons back to their Author. For how could this Universe have come into being or been put together, unless God had called it into existence, and held it together? For every one who sees a beautifully made lute, and considers the skill with which it has been fitted together and arranged, or who hears its melody, would think of none but the lutemaker, or the luteplayer, and would recur to him in mind, though he might not know him by sight. And thus to us also is manifested That which made and moves and preserves all created things, even though He be not comprehended by the mind.”
— Gregory Nazianzen, The Second Theological Oration

“To me, there nothing more important in a preacher than that he should have a systematic theology, that he should know it and be well grounded in it. This systematic theology, this body of truth which is derived from the Scripture, should always be present as a background and as a controlling influence in his preaching”. — Martyn Lloyd-Jones*

“But when proper words make Scripture ambiguous, we must see in the first place that there is nothing wrong in our punctuation or pronunciation. Accordingly, if, when attention is given to the passage, it shall appear to be uncertain in what way it ought to be punctuated or pronounced, let the reader consult the rule of faith which he has gathered from the plainer passages of Scripture, and from the authority of the Church, and of which I treated at sufficient length when I was speaking in the first book about things. But if both readings, or all of them (if there are more than two), give a meaning in harmony with the faith, it remains to consult the context, both what goes before and what comes after, to see which interpretation, out of many that offer themselves, it pronounces for and permits to be dovetailed into itself”. — Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Book III, 2:2

Lloyd-Jones is silent in regards to conciliar systematics, but Augustine was not. The silence is not a denial necessarily, just an assertion of the individuality that Lloyd-Jones prized so much. I think Lloyd-Jones would admit that he was dependent on church councils, despite himself.

*Thanks to Mr. Wilson for the quote from Lloyd-Jones. All italics mine.

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. vv. 1-2

The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. v. 7

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. v. 14

The daily pattern of the created order, the written Word and the life of the reforming saint speak in harmony of the glory of God. The daily, regular pattern of “morning and evening” is a confirmation of the faithfulness of God. The law is, likewise, a perfect reflection of the character of God and His power. Only the saint must keep watch and reform, and seek to live in harmony with what is already perfect — the divine intention.

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. — Philippians 2:12-13

At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire.

The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire.
— Psalm 18:12-13

David gives clue to an understanding of historical judgment and apocalyptic literature generally. The language, if understood as the specific way in which the judgment happened, would be contrary to the historical record. There were not physical hail stones, nor coals of fire that fell on David’s enemies. Rather, the means which God used to judge the enemies of Israel were warfare, famine and political maneuvering. In the place of describing these very normal means (found in the historical books), David uses these thematic terms. This is a type of figurative trope — one in which the species of the genus has been changed. David uses poetic compaction to speak of the judgment of God. John does the same in Revelation.

Besides misconstruing the book of Revelation, perhaps we miss the judgment of God today, because we are waiting for hail stones and coals of fire.

The sorrows of those who have bartered for another god will be multiplied;
I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood,
Nor will I take their names upon my lips.

The LORD is the portion of my inheritance and my cup;
You support my lot.
The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;
Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me.
— Psalm 16:4-6

The bourgeoisie versus the aristocrats or the shop window and the sitting-room versus the throne room.

“But for the searching of the Scriptures and true knowledge of them, an honourable life is needed, and a pure soul, and that virtue which is according to Christ; so that the intellect guiding its path by it, may be able to attain what it desires, and to comprehend it, in so far as it is accessible to human nature to learn concerning the Word of God. For without a pure mind and a modelling of the life after the saints, a man could not possibly comprehend the words of the saints”.
— Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 57:1-2

“τετράμορφον εὐανγγελιον” (fourfold or four-form good news)

Irenaeus did not so much abstract a short-hand definition of the Gospel, as point to the four books— Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — as being the Gospel.

In other words, the question, “What is the Gospel?” would be answered in this way: “These four books”. So, answering the question for someone would entail sitting down and reading aloud the four accounts. How revolutionary. Just read and interact with the text.

Paul, of course, gives us many instances of the shorthand version— but these are derived from the accounts of the four.

Some initial observations and/or basic presuppositions:

1. The unity of Scripture (a single covenant).
2. Variety of literary modes: narrative, poetry, etc.
3. Historical progress and development of expression.
4. Antithesis between Creator and creature.
5. Antithesis between Adam and Christ.
6. Antithesis between C-F-R and all other ground motives within Scripture.
7. Relative dialectic between 15 modal aspects within/ without text.
8. The historical content is formative in nature, not simply the record of “what happened”. Of all events that could possibly be recorded, these were to the exclusion of all the rest. 

As an aside, I have always been uncomfortable with the designation “literal”. It is ambiguous, imprecise. “Historical” is ambiguous as well, in that not all of Scripture is narrative. I have yet to read a good definition of “literal/historical” that takes into account our historical situation. Nicholas of Lyre wrote: “The literal teaches history”. But, what of the Proverbs? There are so many variations on the same ideas, it is time for some kind of real clarification. The ante-Nicean fathers are helpful in that they were not scholastics. 

Henri De Lubac writes:

“[Besides], the main question that comes up with respect to Origen is less of knowing whether he was an intellectualist or a mystic, or in what measure he was one or the other, than of knowing whether he was fundamentally “Hellenist” or Christian. “Hellenism”, in fact, can assume a mystical as well as an intellectualist color…in reality Origen’s mysticism– if one wishes to call it that– is closely dependent upon the Christian mystery” (p. 48). 

De Lubac points out the failure in the criticisms of Origen as being based in a false antithesis regarding the Christian life- mysticism v. intellectualism. These aspects are present as correlatives in any true expression of the Christian faith, as well as any approach to exegesis. The real antithesis exists at the level of the religious ground motive: is it a Hellenic or Christian expression of either aspect? As an informed Christian, Origen possessed both a mystic bent and an intellectual one. For the rationalist, the mystical (psychical) side is the problem; for the mystic, the intellectual (analytical) aspect is. Both radical approaches are mistaken, as they both dilate a legitimate aspect of our temporal experience as the predominate feature.