By Mike Ivaska
07-20-2010
The letter to the Hebrews gives us a valuable glimpse into the interpretation and application of the Old Testament among Christians of the first century. This is of particular interest to me. I am fascinated by the ways in which the Christian community of the New Testament era understood and applied the Old Testament.
It is current among evangelicals today, particularly dispensationalists, to speak of the Old Testament’s pointing to Christ only by way of specific predictive prophecy. There is an impressive amount of these prophecies. However, the modern evangelical tends to assume that the rest of the Old Testament does not particularly point to Jesus Christ, but is simply about Israel. The first advent of Jesus and the establishment of the church are seen as a predicted but nevertheless unfortunate disaster (the cross) that leads to a grand parenthesis (the church) in God’s primary plan (Israel). While this is not a caricature that would be appreciated or accepted, in the practical terms of their biblical interpretation “their faith is shown by their works.”
In the opposite extreme was the post-apostolic church which, under the influence of Plato and Philo, looked for Christ’s place in the Old Testament via allegorical interpretation. The “real meaning” of the Hebrew Bible lay below the surface and could only be seen with “spiritual eyes.” Like those who only interpret the predictive prophecies of the Messiah in the light of Jesus (assuming the rest to be merely about Israel), the adherents of the allegorical reading of the Old Testament were not altogether wrong or unbiblical. Paul, in Galatians 4:21-26, used an allegorical reading of Scripture to make a theological point. This is not the only example in Paul, and Paul is not the only example in the New Testament.
However, because Hebrews has the character of a written sermon, it gives us a clearer sense of how the Hebrew Bible was actually interpreted by the early Christians. Other interesting examples would of course have to include Matthew and Revelation, but Hebrews is unique in that the author is actually explaining the biblical texts as he understood them, not simply using them to paint a picture or to add color and authority to a narrative. Of particular interest to me is Hebrews 3:7--4:10.
This passage begins by quoting Psalm 95:7-11. The psalm itself is an exuberant exhortation to praise and worship God. The second half of the psalm, quoted here in Hebrews, is a further exhortation to make the worship real by obeying God and heeding God’s voice. The negative example used by the psalmist is the disobedient Children of Israel under Moses who did not heed God’s promises about the land and instead feared the inhabitants of Canaan and refused to go in. God’s punishment was forty years of wandering in the wilderness until the last of that unbelieving generation was dead. There are three things about early Christian biblical exegesis which we can learn from this passage.
1. They did not ignore original context.
The author of Hebrews does not discuss original, historical contexts first, but he does not ignore them. After introducing the passage as a saying of the Holy Spirit (see point 2), and quoting the passage itself, he first encourages his audience to be on guard against unbelief. He even uses the passage’s wording that “as long as it is called ‘today’” it is the Christian’s responsibility to be leery of sin’s deceitfulness. This is reminiscent of Paul’s exhortation that “now is the day of salvation.” More of this will be brought out in point 3.
However, in all of this, the point is clearly made that a real, historical group of Israelites under the real, historical man named Moses really did disobey God through unbelief at a very real point in time. It is an example in Israel’s history that can be pointed back to and used not as an allegory but as an undeniable parallel to the Hebrews’ situation at the time of the letter.
The fact that the psalm in question was written at a later date than the events described are not ignored either. In fact, they are capitalized upon. David, much later than Moses, exhorted his hearers (or readers) to obey God and enter God’s rest. The author of Hebrews points out that David would never have said such a thing if the partially successful conquest of Canaan under Joshua constituted the fulfillment of God’s original promises. This is indeed the relevance of the passage for the author and his audience. David himself saw the promise of a perfect rest, of a land of milk and honey, as an unfulfilled promise. This will be discussed in point 3.
2. They attributed the admittedly human words of Scripture to God, particularly the Holy Spirit.
Like the difficult doctrine of Christ’s two natures, faithful Christian interpretation of the Bible always accepts and even emphasizes the “two natures” of Holy Scripture. In chapter 3 verse 7, the author introduces Psalm 95 with the words, “As the Holy Spirit says….” Again, in chapter 4 verse 7, the author writes that “he (i.e. God) says through his servant David” the words of Psalm 95. Clearly the author saw the words of Scripture written down by David as the words of God himself.
3. They found the fulfillment of the open-ended nature of the Hebrew Bible in the New Covenant of Jesus Christ.
Because the author applies the word “today” out of the psalm to his audience’s situation, the temptation befalls me to think that the early church applied the words of Scripture to themselves in much the same way Pentecostals often do today. It seems as though the historical context is ignored while the text is treated as a “rhema word” to the present congregation. As I have already pointed out, the historical context is by no means ignored. Rather, it seems that the overall tone of the letter must be applied to the author’s treatment of this passage.
The obvious theme of the letter to the Hebrews is, though it could be said in many ways, that the New Covenant of Jesus has fulfilled, surpassed and replaced the Old Covenant. This is the warp and woof of the letter: Son vs. servant, eternal sacrifice vs. yearly sacrifice, heavenly vs. earthly, etc. If we can assume that this was a conscious theme in the writer’s mind throughout the letter, then it can inform the way we understand his use of David’s word “today.”
It seems that the way the author read his Bible was to look back upon the history of God and his people in the light of Jesus Christ. The Hebrew Bible certainly predicted the coming Messiah, the “one like Moses” who was also “the suffering servant.” Indeed, if John was, prophetically speaking, Elijah (something John himself denied but Jesus and the angel Gabriel both confirmed), then whoever came after him and to whom his ministry pointed would be the Lord himself: God Almighty. This is the plain sense of Malachi 4:5 in the light of Jesus’ words in Matthew 11:14.
So the Hebrew Bible predicted Jesus and called him God, but this is not all. It predicted a change of covenant (called the New Covenant in Jeremiah). It predicted future hope and future judgment. Yet most deafeningly, the Hebrew Bible is tense with unfulfillment, and this is our clue to the author of Hebrews’ use of David’s word “today.” Where the Old Testament writhes with unfilled hope, the New Testament declares that hope has come and lacks any of that characteristic tension. For Israel, hope was coming. For the church, hope has come. There are still future events to come, but Christians do not have to wait for Zion. They have come to it (Hebrews 12:22). Even Revelation, the tensest of New Testament books, does not work out its scheme without first showing the Lamb as having already conquered.
Thus, in our present text, it seems we are forced to see the author’s view of David’s “today.” For Moses, rest did not come. For Joshua, rest did not come. Even for David, “there remain[ed] a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” Even for waffling and wavering Christians, entering this rest is something to “strive” after. However, “we who have believed enter that rest.” Amen.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
blog comments powered by Disqus
