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Category: typology

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Female Police Officers? Understanding the Typology of the Sexes in Scripture

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On June 3, 2024

In Hermeneutics, typology, Witness

To the reader:  I wrote this letter to the editor when I saw an article profiling a female police officer in the Clarion, a magazine in the Canadian Reformed Churches.  I was a pastor in the Canadian Reformed Churches until about a year ago when I was called to ministry in Fort St. John with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.

My letter was not received by the editing board of the Clarion and will not be published in the Clarion.  However, I still wanted to publish this, because the problem I am dealing with is far broader than just the Canadian Reformed Churches. It is a problem within Conservative Reformed Christianity.  Therefore, the parts that are more confrontational, ought to confront us all.  I thought it would be helpful to share this letter then, with a broader audience.  I removed some details as they are not necessary for a broader audience to be aware of.  I hope this will be helpful for the church.  It’s not exactly an article that will make me popular with certain groups, but regardless it is a necessary article.

Letter to Editor

I was disappointed to see the article “______________________” in the ___________ edition of the Clarion. There were in fact many good things to say about it: ­­­________’s witness in her life is wonderful to read about.  She obviously takes both her faith and her job seriously and does a lot of good for the community.  She is a testament to what a Christian should look like in a world that is full of evil and the hatred of God. It is wonderful to hear of her work in the prevention and response to domestic violence.

My concern is with the profession she has chosen and even more with the Clarion’s choice to highlight and therefore normalize female police officers among reformed folk.   The name Clarion suggests a desire to give clear warning against the lies of this present age.  Not only does the Clarion fail in truth and clarity here, but it aids and abets the egalitarian spirit of this age.

Scriptural types

I argue that there is enough in the patterns of scripture, and the general teaching about male and female in scripture that should at least make us very cautious about women in the role of policeman or soldier. There is enough in scripture that while we might permit it, we will not openly condone it whether explicitly or implicitly.   I am not one to draw strict lines on the question of sex and occupation, but as we go into the arena of the warrior, we ought to be very careful.  The depictions of female acts of war are exceptional in scripture.

The opening passages of scripture teach that man is primarily called to the role of guardian.  While Adam and Even are together called to take dominion, it is Adam who is called to guardianship of the garden; to care for and to keep the garden.  This is God’s description of Adam’s role before Eve is in the picture.  Genesis 2:15, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden to work it and to keep it.”  The word for keep is also to guard.  It is failure to guard against the serpent that results in the fall.  Eve assists in that guardianship, but primarily that role belongs to the man. The woman is called to work side by side the man in the work of dominion, but she is not called to guardianship.

Even that work of dominion is differentiated in the sexes. Rich Lusk gives further insight:

“The different roles assigned to the man and the woman in marriage are not arbitrary but are rooted in our creation design. Scriptures show us there are deep differences in men and women, going back to the way the man and woman were created. The man is to be the protector and provider. His wife is his glory and his helper. The man is made from the earth and is oriented to the earth and therefore to dominion over the earth. The woman is made from the man and therefore oriented toward the man and relationships.”

The big takeaway in the issue we are dealing with is that man is called to be a guardian. Police are a type of guardian.  Soldiers are a type of guardian.  Elders and Pastors are a type of guardian. Women take guardianship roles when men fail in those roles, in exceptional circumstances.  I argue, not that a woman may never take the role of guardian, but against the normalization of women as guardians.

Deuteronomy 22:5

Now of course, I hear the response ready-formed: the police officer of today is not necessarily involved in combat roles and presumably a woman can choose such a role among the police.  I will answer that in more detail in a moment, but to establish some groundwork for that response, I want to go to Deuteronomy 22:5.  God’s teaching here fills out the patterns of the Adam and Eve’s creation.  In fact, the exposition of that verse should itself be enough of a response to such a claim.

Deuteronomy 22:5 says, “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.”  There are some difficulties in interpreting these passages, but it is amid a transition in the text that moves from laws about murder to laws about sexual immorality.  Verses 6 and 7 deal with care for the survival of animals and verse 8 deals with the care of your neighbor.  These are positive applications of the sixth commandment, care for nature and care for the life of your neighbor.

This would suggest that verse 5 also has something to do the sixth commandment as well.  We may think that this is to do with the seventh commandment, cross dressing, and the attenuating evils of those actions. Certainly, that is there, but there is more going on here. 

Examining the translation is revealing.  While the translation “woman’s cloak” is good for it refers to a woman’s garment, the translation of “man’s garment is not necessarily a good translation.  The Hebrew word refers to a word, matter, or thing.  This would be a word, matter, or thing that is associated with man.  And clearly in the scriptures matters of war are associated with man. The word for man is also unique, a word that we might translate as “strong man,” again the emphasis on man as warrior. This would suggest that the things of man that a woman ought not to wear, are the gear of a warrior, the apparel of a warrior.

This is parallel to the following verse, which talks about preserving the mother bird or we can think of another verse, “do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”  These all present something similar.  Do not use the source of life as a source of death.  It is improper for a woman to take on the role, the job, the appearance of a warrior, to wear the clothing of one that is associated with death.

So how does this apply to the policeman? Police are the executive arm of the ministry of vengeance.  Even if our society wants policemen to be social workers, that is still what they are.  If God gives the sword to the civil magistrate to punish evil and protect good (Romans 13), then in our society the police are the sword. In a sense it doesn’t really matter if they do a lot of social work, their order is established as an arm to carry the sword of vengeance.  Wearing their gear is associating oneself with that calling.  So, they like the military are associated with the work of death.  To wear their uniform and their gear is to associate oneself with the sword of vengeance.

A comparison: men are exclusively called to ordained office.  They are called to use the keys of the kingdom, as the Catechism puts it, preaching and church discipline, and that is central to their authority.   Women can fulfill any number of functions that a Pastor or elder must do. She can provide counsel.  She can visit. She can encourage.  But she is not to, as Paul says, have spiritual authority over a man.  If the policeman is a physical guardian, the pastor, or elder, is a spiritual guardian.

This makes me wonder: If the reformed normalize female warriors in our streets, will the reformed eventually normalize female spiritual warriors in our pulpits?

Exceptions and Normalization

Considering other passages of scripture, such as the story of Jael and the woman who killed Abimelech, I think that God’s concern is the normalization of these attitudes.  Some women in scripture are praised for participating in acts of war.  God does not want this normalized, however, which is the very thing our society is trying to do today, and it appears that the Clarion is trying to do it as well.  While there are exceptions, the normalization of these things is an abomination.

Confirmation in the New Testament

And if we think that this is just a matter of the Old Testament, try to guess at Paul’s cultural assumptions in passages like 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, as well as 1 Timothy and Titus. Particularly, we can look at 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul assumes the good of symbolic distinctions between men and women in the church.  While I do not argue that women ought to wear head coverings, the substance of symbolic distinctions in our dress still applies.  In that passage, Paul seems to assume the very same prejudices that characterize Deuteronomy. 

Yes, we can talk about cultural differences, then versus now; too often that way of reading scripture tends to lead us to be very thin or even cultureless in any mores we have, rather than the thick culture that scripture patterns.  We tend to minimize and undermine these patterns, rather than take them seriously. In Western society, to please the cultural elite, Christians then make the exceptions the rule.

Who to Blame

Now I want to be careful here because of the confusion about gender in our society. I am not quick to condemn young women who go into the police profession. They still have responsibility in this, but God is patient with those things done in ignorance.  Neither will I suggest that my one voice is enough to break this ignorance.  Though I am convicted by scripture in this matter, the church must speak together for this ignorance to be broken. Sadly, we are far away from such a moment, but in the meantime, I must still speak the truth.  And yet, however true, I am not quick to condemn for several reasons.

 My experience suggests that these passages are not clearly taught among the Reformed, generally speaking.  In fact, it took me a while to work through this issue, since I wanted to respect contemporary work on this issue, and I didn’t want to respond in a reactionary manner without a careful grounding in scripture, reason, and tradition.

Further there is a lot of pressure from our broader society for young women to be like men. Due to this reality, in my own office, I would give counsel, and then allow for a degree of Christian freedom in this matter.  As a pastor I cannot control people so that they will not make any mistakes.   I trust that the Word will do its work.

Finally, the church body has adopted a lot of the egalitarian beliefs of our society.  Many are functionally soft complementarians: a doctrine, promoted by the words of Kathy Keller: “a women can do anything an unordained man can do.” 

It is hard to blame young woman who do this, because of the lack of careful attention to these issues in reformed churches.  And the equal lack of courage to address feminism in the churches.

Clearly then, the leadership of the reformed world bears blame for this as well. And now the Clarion.  This article simply assumes the culture of the world around us.  We live in a world where the distinctions between man and women are being erased, where any sort of boundary is broken down.  Scripture presents something different in both patterns and instruction, where there are not only differences between men and women, but also cultural distinctions, even symbolic distinctions.  In this matter, the Clarion assumes the culture of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, while continuing to write many fine articles about Christian life and doctrine.  It is a contradiction that cannot last.

Let me end with a clarion call against reformed apathy. I would warn the Clarion and its readers: you cannot culturally imitate the CBC while holding to reformed belief.  The culture of the CBC is opposed to the culture of Christ. The Clarion does a disservice to all young Christian women in its implication that there is nothing wrong in pursuing the vocation of police officer.  

In Christ,

Rev. James Zekveld

Fort St. John, BC.

Sacrifice Isaac Jean Hippolyte Flandrin

Typological readings are essential

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On January 19, 2024

In Hermeneutics, typology

We have a lot of nervousness about typological readings in the West and rightly so. Typology has been used in a way that is excessive and fanciful, proving all kinds of things that it was never meant to prove It goes to the point where people use typology to undermine the clear teaching of scripture; a deeply foolish enterprise.

However, we have no choice, but to read the Bible typologically, as the wise like to say, abusus non tollit usum. The abuse does not take away the use. The arguments from the apostles is well attested. The apostles use literary and typological readings in order to make their arguments in the New Testament scriptures.

However, it goes further than that. The typological readings of the apostles underly fundamental doctrines in the New Testament. If we leave behind the typological readings of the Apostles, we become all the more susceptible to readings of the New Testament that undermine these doctrines.

I want to briefly treat two doctrines, Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) and Paul’s teaching about the exclusion of women in preaching.

Although a lot of good work is done defending PSA atonement from the new Testament, the fundamental image that the Apostles are using is the sacrificial system. Jesus is the lamb of God, given for the sake of the world. Trusting in that lamb of God, the people of God offer themselves as living sacrifices to God in Jesus. We cannot understand that apart from the sacrificial typologies in the Old Testament. The worshipper must take hold of the animal and kill the animal, so that the animal is given in his place. Apart from this primary image, we can only rely on abstract concepts and various prepositions, that can always be bent into some other understanding of the atonement.

The other doctrine is the calling of males to the preaching ministry to the exclusion of females. We can appeal to the plain word, but in order to defend against the claims that things have changed, we need to understand typology. A case could be made that the reason the church is capitulating on this right, left, and center, is because of the rejection of typology by an overly rationalistic church. (The objection would be many traditions that rely on typology also have female preachers, but of course these traditions have already rationalistically undermined the plain truth of scripture and have reduced Biblical typology as a smorgasbord to pick and choose from.) Of course, men and woman are different, and a case can be made from that as well, in order to support Biblical teaching, but that in itself cannot fully make the case. We need the typology that Paul appeals to in 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2, in order to make our case.

Another reason to start to read the Bible as the apostles did.

Deep Literalism

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On December 11, 2018

In Applied Hermeneutics, typology

I was not excited when I opened up the video of Dr. Iain Provan’s recent lecture defending a Protestant hermeneutic of the letter.  I expected another speech the privileged grammatical-historical exegesis and only allowed for an anemic use of typology.  Nevertheless, I wanted to give it a listen in the hope that I might grow in my understanding of hermeneutics.  I was not disappointed.

Dr. Provan’s Challenge

The first hints that Dr. Provan was not defending the literal readings of the academy was when he came to a discussion of typology.  He said quite simply, “typology is literal reading.” He explained the classic distinction between typology and allegory.  Allegory brought in outside reading and outside philosophy.  Allegory lost the original text and left you with a spiritual reading that had little to do with the original meaning of the text.   But his definition of typology was quite broad.  Typology described all the various inter-connections in the text, including inter-connections between the various books of the two testaments.  With this in mind, he noted that Paul’s allegory in Galatians 4 was a fully literal reading of scripture. Dr. Provan’s sensus literalis was fully literary and recognized the unity of scripture.

The end of his speech carried even more promise.  He argued that we needed to go beyond the reformers in our literary interaction with scripture.

The latter point was filled out by his dialogue with Alastair Roberts. Alastair asked him whether the Reformers had not become overly suspicious of typological readings because of the allegorical readings that had come before.  He also noted the way academia had moved toward an increasingly anemic reading of scripture, that separated the parts from the whole and he wondered how Dr. Provan responded to that.  To my delight Dr. Provan, while defending the usefulness of academia, was fully on board with Alastair’s comments.  He agreed that the reformers lacked in working out the typologies of scripture. He also agreed that though academia had been helpful in understanding the literal nature of scripture, it had done the church and itself a disservice in its suspicion of typologies.

A False Dichotomy

The speech gave me both correction and encouragement. I had looked at the way the apostles interpreted scripture.  I knew that they were doing more in interpreting the Old Testament than merely looking at the grammatical-historical understanding.  They were looking deeper.  They looked at the literary structure of the Old Testament and in bringing that out they saw that Christ truly was the fulfillment of the Old Testament. I saw the necessity of doing more with typology than the minimalism allowed in academia today.

However, during my time at seminary, I was working within a false framework. Either I held to a pure literal understanding of the scripture or in following the apostles I was also free to develop a sensus plenior of the scriptures.  I was allowing allegory into my framework in order to preserve apostolic reading. It was a false dichotomy.

I am grateful that I always sought to ground what I imagined to be a sensus plenior in the literal sense of scripture.  This helped me avoid fanciful exegesis.  This is where Dr. Provan’s speech became so encouraging.  Rather than hanging on the thin reed of spiritual exegesis, I could boldly hold to the fact that typological exegesis is literal exegesis. Dr. Provan even claimed what I have always held: if any reading of scripture is not based in the literal sense of scripture, it should be rejected. There was no need to defend a spiritual exegesis in order to read scripture like the apostles.

Moving Forward

I should have known better.  Some of my deepest influences had always claimed the high ground here.  James Jordan had always claimed the hermeneutic of Calvin.  Peter Leithart had always claimed a “Hermeneutics of the Letter.” However, I was influenced more than I understood by my other hermeneutics textbooks.  I should have completely ignored them and worked from the framework that Leithart and Jordan had given me.

As it turns out the problem at my seminary was not that they emphasized the literal sense too much, but that they did not emphasize it enough.  They ignored the layers of typology in scripture. 

This has not been completely ignored in the history of Protestantism.  Although the reformers of the 16th and 17th century were nervous about typologies, theologians of the 18th and 19th centuries developed highly typological readings of scripture.   Particularly, in my own tradition, that of the Dutch Reformed Churches. Unfortunately, it is somewhat forgotten in our own day.

All this suggests that theologians have a task before them.  We must seek to imitate the Apostles in their reading of scripture so that we too pay attention to the types, the motifs, and the symbolism of scripture.  So far we have been poor literalists. We must embrace deep literalism.

The key distinction

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On April 9, 2018

In Libertarianism, typology

Maybe you’ve noticed all the posts on authority lately.

As I’ve worked through these issues, I want to point out a key distiction.  It is this distinction that is relevant to the question of resistance and to the question of nullification.  The key distinction is Davidic Authority vs.  magistral authority.  Christ’s authority is Davidic and so it demands each and every man’s obeisance from birth.  If Christ rightly punishes the rebellious one with death.  Nobody has the right to nullify Christ’s authority.

In the Old Testament, however, one loses Davidic authority when the one who excercises such authority fails to obey God.  Those who obey God may challenge it when those invested with it fail.

Magistral authority has a different weight.  We can see this in Samuel’s warnings against the monopolizing authority of a king in 1 Samuel 8.  This kingly authority, which will later become Davidic authority, gives the leader far more opportunity for abuse than the authority earlier judges had.

This distinction remains in-exact.  However, I believe that it is key to working out how authority works in our contemporary situation.

Also note that this Davidic authority is private in the sense  that Hans Herman Hoppe speaks of in “What must be done.”

Walk in Wisdom

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On May 27, 2017

In Hermeneutics, typology

The wisdom of Christ plays a very important role in the book of Colossians.  In fact, Paul alludes to wisdom literature a number of times throughout the book. The book of Proverbs exemplifies wisdom literature.  Solomon writes Proverbs in order to teach his son about the pursuit of wisdom.  Paul implicitly replaces the pursuit of wisdom with the pursuit of Christ.

I want to point out a couple passages in Colossians, in which Paul does this.

Colossians 1:10 is Paul’s prayer that God might fill the Colossians with wisdom and spiritual understanding.   The wisdom that Paul asks for is a wisdom, which will teach the Colossians to live well before God.  Proverbs gives the same reason for pursuing wisdom.  When a young man fears the Lord, he gains wisdom, which is the ability to make good decisions day by day.

Colossians 1: 15-20 teaches us about the source of that wisdom.  The source of that wisdom is Christ.   Christ performs a similar function to the wisdom through which the Lord created the world in Proverbs 8.  Like wisdom, Christ is the means for creating the earth.  Christ is not the same as wisdom.  Rather, he is the source of wisdom.  Proverbs 1:7 teaches the same thing about God: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

Paul confirms all this in Colossians 2:2-3.  Paul teaches that all the treasures of wisdom are hidden in Christ. Proverbs teaches us to pursue Wisdom.  Implicitly, Colossians teaches us to pursue Christ.  After all, if all the treasures of wisdom are hidden in Christ, that means we should be seeking out those treasures.

In the remainder of chapter 2, the treasures of Christ are contrasted with the elemental principles of this world.  Christ is sufficient for all knowledge and all wisdom.  This doesn’t mean you can’t have a type of wisdom without Christ.  Rather, you don’t need anything other than Christ himself in order to live well before him.

All this puts chapter 3 in a new light as well. Christ raises Christians to the heavenly places so that they dwell with the source of wisdom. Christians are now free to pursue Christ.  When they pursue Christ they begin to understand his desires for a holy life before God.

Finally, in chapter 4, Paul tells us, “walk in wisdom towards outsiders.”  The wisdom of Christ affects all areas of the Christian life. If Christ is the source of wisdom, we demonstrate Christ by walking in wisdom.

Inventing Mary

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On April 22, 2017

In Hermeneutics, Traditionalistic exegesis, typology

In 1950, the Catholic church declared the “Assumption of Mary” to be official doctrine.  This is the doctrine that Mary, at the end of her life was taken into heaven.  The Catholic Church believed it was confirming the faith of the Fathers.

The doctrine was, in part, based off a certain interpretation of Revelation 12. (I should add that this is certainly not the only passage behind this doctrine and there is also a complicated typology of Mary that has developed over the last 200o years)  At the end of Revelation 11, John tells us that the ark of the covenant appeared in heaven.  In chapter 12, a sign appears.  We see a woman who bears a child and a dragon who chases her.  It is not surprising that many identify this woman with Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Many will also identify Mary with the ark, which is found in heaven at the end of chapter 11.

We need to discern between three different issues here: whether Mary can be referred to as an ark, whether the ark in revelation 12 is meant to refer to Mary, and finally whether the argument that the ark does picture Mary is proof of the doctrine of assumption.

Is the ark of the covenant a picture of Mary?

A number of church fathers said just that in various sermons. They saw that just as the ark carried the law, some manna and the staff of Aaron.  They saw that Christ was the fulfillment of all these things and therefore they saw Mary as an ark, which carried Christ into the world.

I argue that we can picture Mary in terms of the ark. I’m not sure if this is necessarily the point of any particular scripture passage, but it is a wonderful word picture pointing to the significance of Mary. Mary is, after all, Theotokos or the God-bearer.  She is a picture of the church, which also carries Christ, by virtue of the Spirit.  When I say these things I do not intend to make her any less a sinner.  David, an adulterer and a murderer, was permitted to be a picture of Christ.  Abraham, an idolater, was given the gift of being the pre-eminent man of faith. So also Mary a woman, by nature under damnation, was, by grace, given the honor of carrying the Christ in her womb. We know from Leviticus 16 that the ark itself needed to be atoned for. So did Mary.

Is the ark Mary in Revelation 11: 19?

I’ve already tipped my hat toward my answer to this question.  I would argue that the ark is not in reference to Mary.  Let me begin by demonstrating the problem with seeing the ark as a reference to Mary internally.  I will continue by demonstrating who I think the ark does refer to. Finally, I want to show that even though I disagree with this particular interpretation, it does get some things right.

The ark of the covenant appears in heaven at the moment the 24 elders are calling upon God to reveal his wrath against the nations and his vindication of those who fear him.  When the ark appears, there is thunder and lightning suggesting that the appearance of the ark of the covenant has something to do with the coming of the wrath of God.

Then we have a scene change.  We see a woman, who is struggling with the birth of a child.  She bears the child and the child is caught up into heaven in v. 5.  The dragon tries to destroy the women, even after the child is taken up, but God protects the women.  He gives her wings to fly away from it in 12:13. Even the earth protects the woman.

There are a couple reasons why we shouldn’t see the ark as the woman in this passage.  First of all, there is a clear break between the scene of chapter 11 and chapter 12.  The two passages follow one another but they don’t necessarily have the same subject.  This means that just because the woman is close in proximity, doesn’t mean that she should be identified with the ark.  The 2nd thing to note is that the women never ascends into heaven.  Rather it is the male child who ascends into heaven.  The last thing we should wonder about is what the assumption of Mary has to do with the coming of the judgment of God?  It seems strange that the entrance of Mary into heaven would be a catalyst for God’s judgment.

(I also wonder if Mary was still the ark after she had left the womb of Christ).

It is much better to see the coming of the ark of the covenant as a picture of Christ’s ascension.  The male child (Christ) is the one that ascends into heaven in Chapter 12:5 and not the women.  But if this were the only reason for understanding the ark as Christ, it would be very weak reasoning. This is because of (as I have already noted) the obvious change of pace between chapter 11 and chapter 12.  They are telling different stories.  These are stories that do follow one another, but they are visions that have a distinct message.

However, we can strengthen our reasoning through our understanding of how Jesus Christ functions as the ark of God throughout the New Testament.

When we think about the context of the appearance of the ark, we notice both a promise of wrath and of deliverance for the saints.  Our minds are drawn to Romans 1:17, “For the righteousness of God is revealed.”  The very next verse tells us that God reveals his wrath as well. We learn later in Romans that all this is revealed in Jesus Christ.  Theologically, then, we should expect Jesus Christ to enter the room at a call for judgment and vindication. He is the one who absorbs the wrath of God for the sake of his saints and who brings judgment and the wicked.

Of course, we need to defend this with more than theology.  We need to see that the ark functions in a similar way to Jesus Christ.  On the day of the atonement, the priest sprinkled the covering of the ark with blood.  God looked upon that cleansing blood and so was able to live dwell with his people.  It is likely that John draws on that imagery in 1 John 2, when he calls Jesus a propitiation.  This is the same word that the Septuagint (the Greek OT) uses for the mercy seat upon the ark.  Just as Israel found mercy in the temple, so we find mercy in the Christ.

The book of Hebrews doesn’t use ark imagery, but it does use temple imagery for Christ.  Hebrews tell us in Chapter 10:20, that Christ’s flesh is the veil.  The veil had a similar function to the mercy seat.  It was a covering for the people of God.

We could add to this the parallels between David bringing the ark into Jerusalem and the pregnant Mary visiting her cousin.  They can be found at the end of this article. These are used in the article I referenced to defend Mary being the ark.  However, they can be used just as easily for defending Christ as the ark.

All in all, I’m not sure how the appearance of the ark after an appeal to the justice of God, can be primarily about Mary. In the overall context of Revelation, the appearance of the ark is about the coming judgment on the harlot, the beast, and the dragon.

It should be noted, however, that there is a sense in which we can speak of the ark as Mary.  We need to remember that symbols in scripture are often multivalent.  It is not just the mercy seat that appears, but the ark of the covenant.  Various authors have argued that the ark is a mini-picture of the cosmos, with the mercy seat as the throne room of God and the cosmos as the box that is underneath it.  Since it is the ark of the covenant it can be understood as the new creation of God or the church of God.  Colossians 3 tells us that our lives are hidden in the risen Messiah.  The fact that the ark of the covenant is in heaven is a confirmation to us that we too are raised with him.

In this sense then, Mary as a type of the church of Christ, is also, with all the other saints assumed into heaven with Christ.

What about the doctrine?

Let us grant for a moment that the ark might refer to Mary  in Revelation 11.  Would this provide proof for the doctrine of the assumption of Mary?  I don’t think so.  Symbols don’t work that way, particularly in the book of revelation.  The ark may symbolize Mary, but does that mean her flesh came to heaven? Perhaps we have a merely symbolic use of Mary.  The women, who we assume is Mary, never enters heaven in the following chapter.  What happened? This would suggest a symbolic use.

These stretchings of exegesis suggest that tradition has invented Mary, rather than honoring her as she is revealed in scripture.  As the Belgic confession says, they (The Roman church, but we could add the Greek church as well) dishonor the saints by giving them these strange honors.    Traditions that support such exegesis are worse than the autonomous protestant interpreter (at least you can argue with him).  They are worse because they demand that all Christians submit themselves to this irrational exegesis.

 

How do we know it’s true?

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On April 11, 2017

In Hermeneutics, The Basics, typology

I believe that we need to come to scripture as literature.  We look for patterns, we look for motifs, and we look for allusions.  In doing so, we reflect the way in which the apostles read the scripture.  When Paul responds to the Galatians he argues from one of the patterns he has found.  It is not an explicit pattern.  Rather, he sees it through discerning the patterns of the text.

We won’t go into the full argument, but Paul sees a pattern in the lives of Isaac and Ishmael, as recorded in Genesis.  Isaac is the son of freedom and promise.  Ishmael is the son of slavery.  By reading and re-reading Genesis, as well as studying the revelation of God in Christ, Paul has discerned this pattern in the scripture. We might call it a typology.

I believe this exegesis is repeatable.  We need to discern the scriptures using Paul’s hermeneutic.  This is not well received by some.  They argue that this is a hermeneutical method that has no guards.  There is no methodology.  I have to admit that to some degree that this hermeneutic is subjective.  It is inductive rather than deductive.  However, there are guards against false interpretation.

There are two types of guards: Negative guards and positive guards.  Negative guards are those which demonstrate deniability.  Because this method is inductive, the positive guards do not necessarily demonstrate absolute truth.  Instead, they demonstrate that the typology that we have seen is either strong or weak.

a. Negative guards:

  1. Demonstrate Contradiction.  The typology either contradicts another strong typology (The rock is explicitly used as an image of Yahweh or Christ. If one were to connect it to Gentiles this would be strange) or a contradiction of something that is revealed. (You could use typology to argue that Mary, mother of Christ, was sinless.  This contradicts the message of the book of Romans, where this characteristic belongs to Christ exclusively.
  2. Demonstrate a more thorough alternative:  The books of the Bible build upon one another creating a complex whole.  You could see the salvation of Christ’s blood in the scarlet thread of Rahab.  You could also demonstrate how the story of the first few chapters of Joshua mirror the story of the Passover and how Christ’s death mimics that. (This overlaps with the first rule as well, where we might have opposing or contradictory typologies)
  3. Demonstrate that an external source was used for the typology rather than an internal source: Is the interpreter using patterns from Greek philosophy or from modern science to structure his typology? There is some legitimacy to this, but we are no longer discussing meaning, but application.  The scriptures have their own internal rules for understanding itself. It needs to be understood through its own internal structures.

b. Positive guards (The more of these you have the stronger your argument is)

  1. Demonstrate patterns:  Repeated patterns in scripture reveal typologies. When they align closely they strengthen your position. Breaks in the pattern can be revealing for what the text is trying to teach us.
  2. Demonstrate repetition: When patterns are repeated often your argument is strengthened. However, repetition is not about patterns exclusively. The scriptures repeat concepts as well. For example, the idea of the Messiah is an important concept in scripture.
  3. Demonstrate verbal allusion: If there is a word or phrase that is prominent in another part of scripture, there may be a connection to that part of scripture. Jesus breathes on his disciples in John 20, alluding to the God’s breath of life upon Adam.  The same Greek word is used in the New Testament and the Old Testament.
  4. Demonstrate a conceptual allusion: This is not as strong as a verbal allusion.  If you can combine this with a verbal allusion or demonstrate a pattern, you will have a stronger argument.
  5. Relative closeness: If you discern a pattern in the same book or in another book by the same writer, you have a stronger pattern than if you draw lines from that book to a similar pattern found in a book written a thousand years later.

Telescoping?

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On December 10, 2016

In eschatology, typology

Telescoping

Telescoping is a hermeneutical tool. Purportedly, it gives us a way to interpret prophetic passages.  Prophetic passages foretell certain events in the future.  But we notice that these passages not only apply to the events that are soon to come; they also apply to events much farther in the future.  There is a double fulfillment.  Telescoping is the theory that the prophet speaks in terms of both fulfillments.

In his commentary on Matthew, Hendrikson describes telescoping (he calls it prophetic foreshortening)  in terms of a mountain range.  We are looking through a telescope at a mountain range.  We see the first mountain, which is the fulfillment, but all the mountains behind it (further fulfillments) look like part of that mountain.  The prophecy is given in terms that describe all the mountains that the prophet sees.  We might call what he sees a mash-up of different future events.  (He writes this in the context of Jesus’ prophecies about the fall of the temple in Matthew 24. He sees them as applying both to the destruction of the temple and the 2nd coming.)

This phenomenon is common in Biblical literature. Isaiah speaks of a child that will come in Isaiah 7.  In context, this could refer to the King of Judah’s son or even Isaiah’s son.  There is a bit of ambiguity.  Later Matthew applies Isaiah’s prophecy to the birth of Christ. The passage is fulfilled  a second time. Arguably, the same principle is at play in Matthew 24.  Here Jesus speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem.  He implies a second fulfillment as well: his final coming.

Prophetic Typology

Yet I would argue that this is not the best way to think about the interpretation of these passages.  I prefer what I would call “prophetic typology.”  The first fulfillment really fulfills the prophecy.   Isaiah’s prophecies about the birth of a son a fulfilled soon after he gave them. Then the same prophecy is applied to a later, greater fulfillment.  Matthew applies that same birth of a son to Christ.  It is applied typologically the 2nd time.

This allows us consistency in the way we interpret the rest of the bible and prophecy.  Prophecy is not a completely unique genre with its own set of hermeneutical rules.  To an extent it is unique; prophecy speaks of the future, not the present.  However, the New Testament uses the narratives of the Old Testament in the same way as it uses the prophecies of the Old Testament. The narrative of David’s sufferings and Moses’ teachings are applied to Christ typologically, just like the prophecy of Isaiah.

The telescoping view contains some truth.  Isaiah  likely saw that a greater fulfillment was necessary when he saw the first fulfillment.  The church always applied Matthew 24 to the 2nd coming of Christ, though he spoke of the fall of Jerusalem in that passage. Christ certainly kn ew that there would be a fuller fulfillment.  Even the idea that there is a greater fulfillment in the later type than in the earlier type is not completely wrong-headed.  Christ teaches in Luke 24 that all the Old Testament was about him.

What I don’t like is the suggestion we need to separate sections in various prophecies that apply to the first fulfillment and others that apply to later fulfillments.  Seeing prophecy as typological gives us a simpler tool for working with prophecy.  Advocating for the typological method in interpreting prophetic fulfillment does not completely rule out the idea of telescoping, but it does give consistency in the way we interpret scripture.

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