Читать книгу Who's Afraid of the Old Testament God? - Alden L Thompson - Страница 9

There remains yet one more major way in which the New Testament has tended to get in the way of the Old, and that has to do with the way that Christian interpreters have tended to take later usage or interpretation of a passage as the correct and only possible one. In actual practice, this approach has meant that when a New Testament writer refers to an Old Testament passage this later interpretation becomes authoritative in a way that subtly implies that the study of the original passage is really no longer necessary. Such an attitude has tended to limit greatly the study of the Old Testament, for when someone studies an original Old Testament passage he may find that the Old Testament writer has given a different emphasis from that in the New. To illustrate, we could simply refer to the interpretation of Moses’ killing of the Egyptian in Hebrews as compared with the original thrust of the story in Exodus. Inspired writers are often legitimately creative in their use of other inspired material, but to appeal to Hebrews, for example, as the source for the original as well as the final meaning of the Exodus passage is quite inappropriate. Yet Christian interpreters are strongly tempted to do just that type of thing.

Perhaps the classic example of a New Testament interpretation getting in the way of an Old Testament passage is Matthew’s use of Isaiah 7:14 as a proof text for the Virgin Birth in Matthew 1:22-23. Conservative Christians have always appealed to Matthew 1 as one of the passages that establishes the Virgin Birth. And the meaning in Matthew is clear: Jesus was born of a virgin. But the interpretation of Isaiah 7:14 is quite a different matter. If we try to read Isaiah 7 as an Old Testament someone in Isaiah’s day might have understood it, we are hard pressed to see how such a person could see in Isaiah’s words a clear prophecy of the birth of Jesus Christ. The context of Isaiah 7 would, in fact, suggest that the child Immanuel was to be a sign in Isaiah’s own day to the then reigning monarch, King Ahaz. When Matthew cites that passage he is giving a second meaning of the prophecy, one which “fulfils” the original meaning, or in other words, fills the original prophecy full of new meaning. Matthew’s use of the term “fulfil” is a matter to which I shall return later (see chapter 7), but the point we need to make here is that to find out what Matthew meant we must read Matthew; to find out what Isaiah meant we must read Isaiah.

That conservative Christians have often opposed this principle either consciously or unconsciously, is illustrated by the fact that when the Revised Standard Version of the Old Testament was first published, considerable opposition arose in connection with its treatment of Isaiah 7:14. The King James Version had used the term “virgin” in Isaiah 7:14 as well as in Matthew 1:23; thus the language of the “prophecy” and “fulfillment” matched up quite nicely. But the RSV translators rightly retained “virgin” in Matthew while choosing to use “young woman” in Isaiah, a term which more accurately reflects the Hebrew original. In fact, there is a beautiful ambiguity about the Hebrew word almah, which allows both the original application in Isaiah’s day and the secondary and more complete application to Mary the mother of Jesus. Yet the RSV translators were accused of tampering with the doctrine of the Virgin Birth by their translation of Isaiah. Irate Christians staged Bible burning parties in protest, evidence enough that feelings were strong.

This is not the place for an extensive study of the way in which the New Testament treats the Old Testament. But the examples we have cited illustrate the freedom which generally characterizes the style of the New Testament writers. I do not want to deny the biblical writers this freedom in interpreting and applying other biblical material, but I am concerned lest that freedom, originally a result of the Spirit’s movement, should become an excuse for evading our responsibility to come to God’s word, seeking a fresh knowledge of his will under the guidance of his Spirit.

When we allow all the writers to speak for themselves we have taken a significant step towards relieving some of the problems that arise out of the differences between the Old Testament and the New. Scripture is much more like the full rich harmony of an orchestra than the single monotone blast from a trumpet. The many instruments, the different tones and harmonics, can symbolize the great variety of methods that God has used to work with his children. As circumstances change, as people grow or degenerate, God molds his message to the needs of the hour. For a people long enslaved in a pagan culture, the Sinai revelation was just what was needed—a little thunder and smoke to catch their attention. But as time went on, a fresh revelation became necessary to correct certain misconceptions about God and to shed fresh light on the path of his people. The beauty of that fresh revelation of God in Jesus Christ is something very precious to all who call themselves Christians. But if we should be tempted to look only to this new revelation, we must then remind ourselves that Jesus himself made the startling claim that his Father was the God of the Old Testament, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And that was not all, for the Gospel of John suggests that Jesus himself was so bold as to claim that he was the great I AM, the God of Abraham (John 8:58). Thus there is no question that the two Testaments do belong together. But having said that, we must recognize that there are still two Testaments, each with its own particular message for us. So why should we allow the one to obscure the beauty and the truth of the other?